* Posts by Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch

794 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Mar 2022

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Engineers pave the way for building lunar roads with Moon dust

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Re: And how long before

BMXers will make a very functional half-pipe out of some of the smaller craters one day. And so much more time in the air before you land, too

Workload written by student made millions, ran on unsupported hardware, with zero maintenance

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Is that the Looney Tunes episode where the sheep and the coyote clock on at the machine stuck to a tree at the beginning then clock off again at the end of the day? Sounds like that's where the fire list system is getting its data from.

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No, how the surgeons behave is called ethics.

Excel recruitment time bomb makes top trainee doctors 'unappointable'

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Re: "The NHS suffers from a chronic shortage of anesthetists"

You can't even talk to the Rottweilers without listening to the voice on hold telling you, "If this is an emergency, dial 000 and ask for an ambulance, or proceed to your nearest emergency department."

So then you have the paradox of the underinformed and sometimes misinformed, seeking information, being told to use their own judgement about whether or not what is happening to them is an emergency.

Speaking as one who runs an ED and fields the phone calls to hospitals, I get very used to saying "I can't tell how serious things are over the phone, so if you're worried come in and we'll check it out."

If they're worried enough to call, it deserves at least that much careful consideration. It can take some time and effort to work out if it is an emergency or not, even once you get to see a doctor. Trying to explain the 4-hour waiting times is a whole other story.

New information physics theory is evidence 'we're living in a simulation,' says author

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Karl Popper says

The full expansion of this story is:

Observation has failed to refute the hypothesis that we are living in a simulation. If this hypothesis is true, however, the design of the simulation has thus far failed to give the game away by demonstrating a repeatable programming error that manifests as a hard contradiction, rather than a weird quirk of existence. No one has yet worked out how one might tell these two apart.

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Re: RE: what are we a simulation of?

Just go the Flying Spaghetti Monster route: the creator wasn't young, old, or bored, but hung over. It's a great explanation for all the mistakes in reality.

SBF on trial: The Python code that allegedly let Alameda hedge fund spend people's FTX deposits

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If the defense's claim is accurate, there'll be an else: clause making sure that these transactions are duly handled according to their special status as farting around with stablecoins or whatever this week's crypto bro buzzword indicates. Otherwise the flag is a get into jail free.

AI girlfriend encouraged man to attempt crossbow assassination of Queen

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Re: In Other News ...

Or just cut out the middle-man - I was thinking of We Can Get Them For You Wholesale by Neil Gaiman. (tl;dr - bloke negotiating a bulk discount with contract killers)

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Re: In Other News ...

What you say is literally correct, as crime is, by definition, a breach of law.

However, if you define or suppose law as not existing, what you are left with is injustice, which can and will exist in a society however it is structured and on whatever philosophical basis it founds its law. Not everyone has the same idea of what justice is.

So we compromise, and bring into existence laws, and thus bring into existence crimes, torts, breaches of contract, all the other ideas that lawyers love. Yes, it is a compromise of universal freedom. The benefit we gain is that injustice is addressed by talking and a person in a wig and not by someone being hit over the head with a club.

As others have pointed out here, a lawless society is, literally and by definition, anarchy. Just as an observation, anarchists seem to be solitary creatures who either live sullen angry lives in the midst of people they can at best tolerate, or go off into the scrub and sometimes turn into the Unabomber.

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Re: In Other News ...

Which raises the question: what was Replika trained to do? Because at least ChatGPT has accuracy as its goal. I suspect Replika exists to make users feel listened-to and validated in their emotions - so if their emotions are criminally homicidal, this is the sort of result we see.

Blockchain biz goes nuclear: Standard Power wants to use NuScale reactors for DCs

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Maybe we should just outsource it to some bloke in Florida.</sarc>

Apple antique aficionados can boot to the future with OpenCore Legacy Patcher

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Mushroom

Planned obsolescence

Apple have found innovative ways to force you to upgrade.

I powered up a 2011 iMac for the first time in about 18 months last night. Pop! The voltage regulator on the graphics card exploded.

Cat accused of wiping US Veteran Affairs server info after jumping on keyboard

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A story for Who, Meow?

Beta driver turned heads in the hospital

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Re: Only 2.5 years in the NHS ....

Yeah, because when the CTG shows variable decels, what you really need is someone from IT.

Nuclear-powered datacenters: What could go wrong?

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Hope you feel beta soon.

Bermuda, your data, Google's gonna take your US data

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Angel

For the subtle Beach Boys reference, vultures

Have an upvote.

Doom developer John Carmack thinks artificial general intelligence is doable by 2030

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Priorities

My guess would be: As soon as we get cheap clean reliable and abundant energy, fusion or otherwise, the rest will follow. And if we don't get it, they never will

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Re: Bard says...

Now prove you're not a Velociraptor.

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Re: AGI says no

Imagine if they develop AGI and it just does nothing but throwing a tantrum at every occasion or gets itself busy watching Tik Toks.

Substitute Tik Toks for Fox News and you could have it elected President of the USA. Doesn't mean it would do a good job of it.

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"I gave the world the first-person shooter. Now let me give the world AGI."

Forgive me if I'm not an enthusiastic yes.

Teardown reveals iPhone 15 to be series of questionable design decisions

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Re: Other side of the same coin

You need to be careful to distinguish recto-cranial inversion from its close relative, olecrano-rectal agnosia.

Hickham's dictum (the opposite of Ockham's razor) also applies here: they can have as many diseases as they damn well please.

No, no, no! Disco joke hit bum note in the rehab center

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The Nokia tune is an excerpt from a symphony by Sibelius. Quite disconcerting (ha!) to hear the original, now that they've done that to it, and us.

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Re: "If he downloaded Hallelujah, the problems would have been much worse"

Jeff Buckley's haunting guitar intro alone is worth the price of the album. And then he sings as well.

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Re: poor taste

Radiohead - No Surprises

Starts off sounding like a ring tone

Then you listen to the lyrics

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If he downloaded Hallelujah, the problems would have been much worse. The lyrics Leonard Cohen wrote for that were 15 pages long by the time he was done.

Mixin suspends deposits and withdrawals after $200m cryptocurrency heist

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They're backed by at least intent and a promise, and the stability of the national government who holds the intent and makes the promise.

The stability of the USD rests on the stability of the US government - which isn't as reassuring as it was 10 years ago.

Microsoft hiring a nuclear power program manager, because AI needs lots of 'leccy

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Re: BSOD...

Burnt shadow on desktop

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

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Re: Dirt

It wasn't just the lab supervisor that hit the roof.

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Re: There was nothing to do but clean it up

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

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Re: A 1980s minicomputer at the bottom of a mine ?

As first witness for the prosecution, I call Mr R. Chimedes.

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Re: Computer Bugs

Could have be worse. They might have been camels.

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Re: Dirt

My favourite micro story involves the day the lid on the kitchen blender used to... er... emulsify the faecal specimens failed.

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Why weren't they vacuuming up the titanium dust to fuse back into titanium blocks worth more than a Cadillac?

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All correctly beamed and propped?

J'uk, ydtruz-t'rud-eztuza, hudr'zd dezek drez'huk, huzu-kruk't b'tduz g'ke'k me'ek b'tduz t' be'tk kce'drutk ke'hkt'd. aaDb'thuk?

95% of NFTs now totally worthless, say researchers

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Full disclosure please

As well as the fraction now valued at zero, can we also have an estimate on the difference between first / peak sale price and estimated current resale value of the ones that are not valued at zero?

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Re: “Now”?

Such an exercise in the distortion of meaning has become normal in anything crypto-prefixed.

For example, translate crypto to English:

while the NFT space has introduced a revolutionary new model for ownership and the monetization of digital assets, it remains a highly speculative and volatile market.

Translates to

NFTs were a pump-and-dump confidence scam from the outset.

Lawsuit claims Google Maps led dad of two over collapsed bridge to his death

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Re: So answer this.

Paved roads might be cheaper to maintain, but only if you keep doing maintenance.

A large network of country roads engineered to statewide 100km/h limits had its maintenance funding cut drastically about 25y ago. Now the potholes are so bad entire roads need to be rebuilt from scratch. The approved solution is not to rebuild the roads, but downgrade the speed limits.

Welcome to Australia, home of Highway 1, the longest road in the world.

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Re: Were there no signs indicating that the Bridge was out?

Lawsuits are often about money. It can be used for, for example, paying the cost of raising kids orphaned by preventable accidents.

'Small monthly payment' only thing that stands between X and bot chaos, says Musk

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Re: Sure

Well he said it himself: "The single most important reason that we're moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it's the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots."

Someone with his level of genius is clearly clever enough to think of firing most of the people who might have been clever and creative enough to think up a way to combat bots without setting the subscription mosquitoes on to his customers to drain them a nanolitre at a time. I mean, combatting bots and hate speech was only their job description, but $44b or however much of debt will do that to you. Well, that and a healthy sense of free speech absolutism.

Uncle Sam names three Amazon execs as Prime suspects in subscription ripoff case

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Not only has it gone international, it has become standard business practice. There's probably a course unit about it in MBA curricula.

I could only cancel my subscription TV service (whose CEO just retired) by phone, and in the end only succeeded by escalating to a manager, immediately asking the manager to record the call, and saying something like "any and all authority I may have given for you or your affiliates to charge my accounts for any service is hereby revoked and any further such charges will referred to the police as fraudulent. Such authority will not be renewed without my explicit written consent." Asked if they understood then hung up, probably saving a further half hour of being questioned, begged and threatened.

I took up a 2 month broadband internet connection with a small independent ISP while working away from home on contract. Great service but needed 28 days' advance notice to disconnect. Fair enough. 28 days before moving out, go to cancel the service - nothing on the user admin page at all: no FAQ, no phone number, certainly no link. Google "how do I cancel my (ISP) subscription?": Specific instructions come up as first link showing a link from the user admin page which has been obliterated - wouldn't have been surprised to find an empty space where the link used to be. Fixed that one by calling their sign-up hotline, pretended to be interested in taking up a new subscription, then told them why I'd really called. But there was literally no part of their user interface, web or phone, that comprehended the idea that someone might want to cancel.

Data breach reveals distressing info: People who order pineapple on pizza

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Plenty of cheesed-off customers, I bet.

GNU turns 40: Stallman's baby still not ready for prime time, but hey, there's cake

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Re: 1991

Rare to find a version 0.01 of anything that boots, so he was ahead of the curve there...

If anyone finds an $80M F-35 stealth fighter, please call the Pentagon

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Reminds me of how Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe met in North Africa.

After an artillery piece which Milligan's gun crew was fired, it went rolling off down the sand dune for want of being properly emplaced.

Followed by Milligan, who, running down the hill after it, asked the first potential witnesses in Eccles voice, "Anybody seen a gun?"

Scientists trace tiny moonquakes to Apollo 17 lander – left over from 1972

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Re: Freight train

Real football is played on an oval field.

Scared of flying? Good news! Software glitches keep aircraft on the ground

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It got easier when LHR-PER direct flights started.

Norway court upholds miniscule fine against Meta for flouting privacy rules

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Re: The Final Sanction

Fiat iustitia ruat caelum.

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Faecebook tried to make an example of Australia when it introduced laws making them pay news sites to link to content. That attempt lasted about a day and a half, because it didn't make the laws unpopular, it made Faecebook unpopular.

The likes of Zuckerberg have influence, but legislatures have power. Courage to use power in the face of influence, though...

Arm wrestles assembly language guru's domains away citing trademark issues

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Re: Another baseless, stupid lawsuit

Don't overlook the significance of the well-regulated militia claws.

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Re: "given my previous relationship with Arm"

Which might result in customers employing an arm minimisation strategy.

Bombshell biography: Fearing nuclear war, Musk blocked Starlink to stymie Ukraine attack on Russia

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Probably reminded him of Starfish Prime, just to illustrate the point.

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