Posts by Flocke Kroes

Re: What?!?

Just tried searches for George Bush and Ronald Reagan. The few results with the actual word president were either from or about their times in office. There were some "former president"s and several Presidential Libraries, institutes and foundations with their names in. For the most part they were just names without titles. On the other hand I often see President X for one particular election loser without the reasonably valid excuses I gave for W and Ronnie. It would be interesting to see if AIs think Obama and Bush are still presidents.

Re: What?!?

Before artificial stupidity become practical you could get pretty much the same effect on a much smaller computer with Markov chains. That type of software was often called a travesty generator.

Correctly understanding US term limits will not help you. Instead you have to repeatedly bash you head against a wall until you have difficulty remembering that the first amendment only prevents the government from passing laws restricting certain types of speech. According to some, the president was re-elected in 2020 and is currently the rightful president for his second term in office. As there is a limit of two terms this will be forgotten in late 2023 faster than an extra £350M/year for the NHS.

Re: A control experiment

They did do a 'control' experiment with straight vertical tracks and got no gross motion.

The key feature that makes this friction motor work is that the curved vertical track moves the masses closer and further from the centre. When the vertical masses are near the outside of their track (and horizontal masses are moving say clockwise) they apply less torque than when they are near the middle (and the horizontal masses are moving anticlockwise). Friction against the polyurethane block (described in the paper but I did not see it in the video) is sufficient to reduce the arm's clockwise reaction compared to its anticlockwise reaction to the horizontal masses.

Re: But!

OK, I wasted time reading that PDF. The first two pages are a Gish gallop of physics mumbo-jumbo. I am amazed that the article here summarising is even remotely coherent. This is standard troll tactic of mashing together so much rubbish that no sane person would even bother to sift through it then claiming that anyone who utterly dismembers even a large part of it did not address the other nonsense that would have made it make sense.

If you want some fun: by the pictures of their apparatus the description includes "a low friction air bearing and air bushing". At the end of the paper you discover that friction is added back by a polyurethane block pressed against the shaft with an adjustable screw. The device operates by cyclicly varied friction against the support. If they wanted to remove friction they would have hung it by a long thread - and that would have kept it vertical for free without their kinematically adjustable base. They did a version a straight vertical track and got no gross motion because that did not vary the friction by varying the lever arm of the vertical masses.

I will quadruple down: blatant scam.

Re: Weird setup

Back in the darkest corners of you-tube there was a much simpler setup that I cannot find any more. The outer layer is an opaque box to hide the mystical mechanism. Inside is a battery and an electric motor with an eccentric mass attached to its shaft. The mass and motor speed are selected so the magic space drive does not quite vibrate off the table but is sufficient that there is much less friction when the mass is moving back than forward. The magic space drive moves across the table and can be turned around to go back showing that the effect is not caused by a slight slope in the table. With a bit of practice a version can be made that will climb up a clear but gentle slope.

This new version works on the same principle but is sufficiently complicated that the perpetrators think they can get away with it without hiding the mechanism in a box.

Re: Flat out wrong

The article just piles wrong upon wrong. Here are the examples I found most egregious:

the EmDrive uses microwaves in a vacuum chamber to theoretically create thrust

Early on there was a paper describing how EM Drive was supposed to work. There was a very obvious error in the mathematics: not accounting for the angle when microwaves reflected from an angled surface. The solution to this problem was to delete the paper and not give any explanation for how EM Drive was supposed to work. In theory EM Drive produces zero thrust. In practice any flaw in the experimental design shows up as a microscopic amount of thrust.

Tests performed at TU Dresden found that thrust reported in initial EmDrive experiments was due to the test unit's interaction with Earth's gravitational field

Wrong again. The link to the article on TheRegister actually gets it right:

They found that "magnetic interaction from twisted-pair cables and amplifiers with the Earth’s magnetic field can be a significant error source for EMDrives."

I just watched the video and it was an omnishambles. As soon as I saw the device I was expecting friction drive: friction is slightly higher when not moving than when there is motion. The usual trick is to accelerate an internal mass quickly enough to overcome static friction and slide a bit then to return the mass with a slower acceleration that does not overcome static friction. This setup is so awful that they barely needed that trick. The vertical shaft is not quite vertical. When switched off static friction is sufficient to keep it from rotating. When only the horizontal masses move their acceleration is sufficient to allow the device to rotate until the unbalanced mass is at the lowest point around the circle. It rotates far enough so we can see the far side of the arm which I suspect used hold a counter weight but was probably removed because the device moves more without it. If there were any 'curved space' magic here the device would be able to go all the way around. If there setup worked at all it should just vibrate without rotating when the vertical masses are stationary.

To "work" as intended the direction of motion should depend on the phase between the motions of the vertical and horizontal masses. By reversing the phase the motor can reverse direction to overcome some of the complaints normally levelled against fake reactionless drive demonstrations. The "magic" trick here is the vertical masses move on a curved track so they are nearer the bearing when at the ends of the track than when they are near the middle. They are only present to vary how imbalanced the setup is. When the vertical masses are in the middle friction in the bearing is greater than when the vertical masses are at the ends of there track. The horizontal masses then move the arm against low friction in one direction and against higher friction for the return trip.

I would like to say that as a fraudulent demonstration this one is utter crap but apparently they did manage to fool enough people to get reported here. Please, please tell me this is just click-bait and that no-one really fell for something so dumb.

Re: Musk's sofa

The $1B is if the US government forbid the purchase or he somehow drags this out until the loans expire and his personal wealth drops below $44B - or put another way: no chance.

In theory Musk and Twitter could settle before the verdict. For the Twitter board that has to be approximately $44B minus legal fees not yet spent or they get sued by shareholders. For Musk it has to be under $44B minus (the actual value of Twitter plus commitments from other investors plus the difference between selling shares and getting a loan against shares). There is no overlap so a settlement is unlikely.

That just leaves the acquisition agreement which does not depend on 'bot numbers at all - hence Musk's increasingly desperate attempts to get Twitter to talk about 'bot numbers so there is something to argue about in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Re: It's not marketing

Walking into a shop and putting a bar of chocolate in you pocket is not technically shoplifting until you leave without paying. (Do not try this. Do you really want to hope a magistrate will believe "I was just testing" when you are asking for bail?)

I would not feel comfortable leaving a shop without a physical "get out of jail free" card.

Do you pay by credit card? Have you tried checking for unexpected payments?

Re: Fair use

Perhaps, but do you really want to discuss your use of rangeCheck with Oracle's lawyers?

Re: Flying pigs build ice rink in hell

Natural language as used by humans combines vagueness with self contradiction. This makes it useless as a single source for programming computers. A big part of a programmer's job is to understand what the problem is so it is then possible to narrow the vagueness where is matters and strip out the defective half of self contradiction. (Unless you are on a cost plus contract, where vagueness is an opportunity to implement the wrong thing and charge extra for a change order.)

Programmers will not be replaced by AIs with no understanding of the problem converting natural language into code. Far more likely is that humans will learn to understand there own problems and be able to express them clearly and unambiguously. I am sure this will happen as soon as my flying car is powered by a portable fusion reactor.

Re: Shameless

Virgin is not a single company. It is many companies. SpaceX is doing really well and people want to buy in but cannot because SpaceX already has the maximum number of investors that a private company is allowed. Every time Virgin Orbit puts something in orbit Virgin Galactic (completely separate) issues and sells more shares and Branson cashes out a little more.

Other Virgin companies may or may not be overcharging their customers but they are not subsidising Virgin Galactic - which is quite capable of separating money from fools investors on their own.

Re: great majority of them are far from rich

If more people bought music from legitimate sources would poor session musicians be any less poor?

Yeah, and I want a pony. Musk only cares about his own free speech and has somehow worked out that buying Twitter does not protect him from charges of securities fraud when he tweets things like "funding secured".

Re: I don’t have a dog in this fight

The Twitter board changed tack when Musk made them a ridiculously good offer. Failing to accept would have been a breach of fiduciary duty to their shareholders.

Sorry, you are not going to get anything substantial on 'bot numbers. They are simply not relevant to the deal. At an enormous stretch, Musk's lawyers could start by trying to prove statements about 'bots in Twitter's SEC filings were malicious lies (really high bar). Those filings were scrutinised before publication by a team of Twitter lawyers to ensure there is evidence for every word and that nothing is provably misleading. Finding a gross misconduct in that document would only be the first hurdle in a marathon steeple chase.

When it comes to 'bot numbers, Musk's Lawyers' response to Twitter's complaint is full of "Mr Musk believes ...". If you translate that to English you get "We have no evidence to support ..." It is almost as if Musk's lawyers think there is a difference in credibility between a statement in a Twitter SEC filing and one of Musk's tweets.

Re: throwing the dice!

The usual nickname is the court of chicanery which may well be fair comment for person vs company. Company vs company is likely to be an objective application of contract law.

Re: Musk claims he wanted to close the deal quickly, but couldn't

A normal person would accept that they are at the bottom of a deep hole and stop digging. Elon would call in The Boring Company.

Musks co-conspirators and a bank have signed agreements. They are on the hook and presumably Musk could sick his lawyers on them if they do not pay up their share for a purchase. On the other hand, they may well get off without paying a cent if Musk accepts a settlement that does not include purchasing Twitter.

The reason Musk can be forced to make the purchase is the specific performance clause. [gigantic]If[/gigantic] Twitter had been mistaken about the 'bot numbers it would not matter as they are not a part of the purchase agreement and Musk waived due diligence.

Finally there are some words from Musk's lawyers that are very important here. I cannot find the exact quote, but it is pretty much standard boilerplate: Twitter is a home to invective and hyperbole. No reasonable person would consider Musk's Tweets as a reliable source of factual information.

The popularly believed method that Twitter uses to count bots comes from a Musk Tweet. Twitter's complaint deals with it in paragraphs 74 and 75. You should treat Musk's Tweets on bot numbers like "pedo guy" or "funding secured".

A couple of fun options are to appoint a special master who would have the legal authority to do whatever Musk could, like sell his Telsa shares. (Tesla is incorporated in Delaware.)

It is almost as if Tweeting about buying Twitter to deal with the 'bots, waiving due diligence and signing a specific performance clause are not actually genius business moves.

Re: Sigh...

The high IOPS looks really good until you spot the Pi4's SDHC interface is limited to 50MB/s. Connect an SSD via USB3 and you will get 300MB/s - if you can keep the CPU cool. A Pi4 is plenty fast enough for emails and web browsing. For more demanding tasks you pay for that low price with memory and IO bandwidth constraints.