Posts by DavCrav 3894 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007
"Palpy, in all seriousness, we all know that there's a big fat nothing behind this whole "Russian collusion" farce."
You have to ask yourself why Trump fired the guy investigating him just as a grand jury has been convened and subpoenas are starting to land. Last person to do this: Richard Nixon. Another guy who absolutely did nothing wrong while in office.
"Thanks, but that's not answering my question. I wanted to know "why can't an AI explain how it came to a particular decision?". Not "was that a good or bad decision?"."
The answer is usually 'I was trained on this dataset and the model that fits this best looks like this. So I am using that.'
"Every single one of these events happens because the photographer is a dick when approached by a copper. Fuck them. Answer the question, it takes a minute to say you are a professional photographer, here's my card and feel free to look at my photos."
This person wasn't a cop. So, what's your excuse now?
"Technically speaking your "plastic plob" was correct. If you were obstructing the highway (which includes access to it) the fact that it was your own access you were obstructing is neither here nor there. There is limited public interest in prosecution but it does happen occasionally."
No, no, no. Access to the highway is important, yes. So if someone is parked on a driveway and you drive behind them, without their permission, and block them in, you have committed a civil offence. (Although in Birmingham when this happened recently, the police didn't want to know.) If the driveway is unoccupied however, no offence has been committed, even if the property owner cannot enter their own driveway.
I got done for this once, and paid the penalty because I was 17 and a dick for parking where I did. But I was technically innocent, and if I'd have known the law then I could have appealed.
"you just fired off a random invoice to me for something you didn't provide. Let's say I pay it, what was illegal?"
I think you need to look up the definition of the word 'fraud'. Don't know about the US, but in the UK it is definitely illegal. It used to be called 'obtaining money by deception', but now it is rolled into general fraud.
"Webb explains that OpenSignal is confident if just 100 app users are gathering data. The firm derives its confidence intervals using CLT (Central Limit Theory) “which argues that the mean of any collection of random variables (subject to minor technical constraints our data can readily be shown to satisfy) will tend toward a Gaussian distribution,” the firm explains. “Further it says that the variance of this mean will equal the variance of the underlying population divided by the sample size. Hence, if the CLT holds, we can derive the variance of our mean from the variance of the underlying data set. It is important then to show that the CLT holds for our data and for the sampling sizes we normally use.”"
You cannot use the Central Limit Theorem if your underlying sample is biased. That's the end of that whole paragraph's chuntering. And it tends towards a normal distribution, not a Gaussian distribution. Muppet.
"At last a report which doesn't blame the companies themselves, but places the blame squarely at the foot of the government for not closing the loopholes in the first place."
So if there's a loophole in the murder law that let's me kill you, and I did, that would be the Government's fault as well? It#s the Government's fault for not closing the loopholes and it's these companies' fault for being absolute bastards. It's not a legal requirement for firms to be twats, the whole maximize profit law thing is a lie, as in it doesn't exist.
"Back to the story, clearly if it is proven his formula is better and more accurate the state will be open to litigation on previous tickets issued which is probably why they have taken the stance they have."
What? To fine him for talking about maths? I would have thought that was obviously unconstitutional, but what do I know?
"Really? We switched to base-60 and I haven't noticed till now?
Our counting system was actually invented by Indians, i.e., in the Commonwealth for all practical purposes... A few centuries before Islam came about, actually. So perfectly consistent with values, way of life, etc."
Not really. Babylonians used base 10, they then grouped the tens into 60s. So some hybrid of the two.
"The deception isn't perfect. The voice samples provided sound processed and often the phrasing sounds off."
This is true, but if you go to the demo page from Lyrebird and scroll down, there are a set of clips of Donald Trump 'saying' "I am not a robot, my intonation is always different." Each time the computer makes the clip, it uses a different intonation, some of which sound wrong. Just make it ten times and use the best intonation, if you are trying to fool people.
"If all 6,500 Vegas remaining from the orignal 10,500 toal were sold direct to the public, the sum due for donation would be £64,350."
That's assuming £9.90 per console. So we are assuming that Amazon don't take a slice of the cash then? If they take 30% say, then we get about £7 instead, which brings us to the same sort of range as the other estimates.
"Actually, yes, that one could be infected with malware strictly by downloading a bunch of compressed but otherwise inert data* to be interpreted as sound or pictures is indeed very much news to me. I DON'T mean clicking on the "use our shiny automatic 'downloader' instead!" button roughly four times as large as the actual link, mind you. Nor downloading something called BlockbusterActionMovie.mp4.rar.docx.bat.exe and just double-clicking it blindly as a bat either. Nor browsing a malicious download page with a browser full of holes and enabled scripting. Just the media file itself - how exactly does that "infect" anyone, again...?"
Could be a drive-by download on the website itself? I know, I know, NoScript, AdBlock, etc., but if you are running those you probably know about malware on warez sites. (Does anyone call it warez any more?)
"But of course I'm sure they've thought of that."
Yes, they have. Because they know what they are doing, and have decades of experience with this thing. Some of them will have produced the factoid you are quoting.
"A neutrino, or in this case an antineutrino, has a 50% chance of making it through half a light-year of solid lead."
But there's loads of them.
"No part of the payment of any fine levied for an offence of this kind should be accepted until complete restitution is first made to the victim. Because a criminal should never be able to pay a fine with his victim's money, and what is owed for vandalism should be treated exactly like stolen property."
What? In what sense is this lenient? He has to do both. If he goes bankrupt because of it, somebody doesn't get the full due, and you can just decide which one later. But, quite clearly stated in the article, he has to pay compo to the company.
"How can you drive so fast, while turning left at an intersection, that the freaking Volvo you hit rolls over!? Was the woman driving a tank?"
You can be doing zero, if the Volvo hits you at the right speed and angle to career off and hit something else and flip. Since the other person was turning left at an intersection, they won't have been going very fast, let's be honest. And 38 at a blind intersection is insane.
"For values of "a while" that equate to "not yet" even after nearly four decades for Billy bookcases, and at least three for Ivar racks."
Billy bookcases might have the same name, but they have changed. Current Billy bookcase shelf supports are not backwards compatible. I found that one out last year.
""It isn't however, an excuse to pay less tax."
Yes it is. They have a higher risk than a permanent employee..."
Go do one. That's the reason to get paid more, not the reason to let old people die on the street. You seem to be mixing up the company and the Government. One of these is the place that pays you, and the other taxes people to provide hospitals, schools, roads, defence, and so on. You being at higher risk of being made redundant does not mean that you shouldn't pay for the school your child goes to, or the care your parents need, or for the roads you drive on.
Contractors making themselves 'tax efficient' might be legal, but austerity is your fault: you and Amazon and Starbucks and every other tax cheat.
"You kind of contradicted your own argument there. If a contractor gets paid the same as a permie but then has fund his own holiday pay, sick pay and pensions why should he pay the same tax?"
I must have missed the bit where the UK Government pays for people's holiday and sick pay. That's nothing to do with taxes, and is why contractors get paid more. They should still pay the same *rate* of tax as other people, as the precariousness premium should already be on their wage bill, not taken out of the schools budget.
"Kieren McCarthy opined "Even the polarizing newspaper the Daily Mail"
Only a Corbynist would say the Daily Mail is polarizing. Many of us think the Guardian is polarizing."
Oh behave. The Daily Mail is simultaneously one of the (used to be the, not sure now) most viewed news websites in the world, while at the same time reviled by many millions in the UK. It has ran more sickening stories than any other newspaper in the UK, while at the same time (according to a journalist friend of mine) employing some of the best investigative journalists in the business.
So yes, polarizing.
"You're clearly too drunk to read the article properly: with "moderate" defined as around three pints of beer a day for men, and two glasses of wine for women (as recently as the 1960s, official health advice suggested that a bottle of wine a day was fine)."
Depends on the article. The original BMJ article seems to say it's 3 units per day, approximate 1-1.5 pints.
"Wherever you work, how many of your fellow employees do you trust not to abuse private information they have access to in the course of their jobs?
If the answer is no more than 98%, that suggests police are no more corrupt than the average."
Garbage. This shows that 2% were misusing and got caught.
"If I balls this up I can totally fuck up your career.
PS you as the person trying to get the job have no access to the code or the rules that determine weather [sic] you are selected or rejected."
So how do we know you haven't ballsed it up? This sounds like a totally unaccountable, closed-source system that has real-life consequences with no oversight whatsoever. If we don't know your criteria then we cannot be certain you aren't breaking the law with regards discrimination. And you probably are, since you are apparently writing algorithms to decide whether someone is interviewed based on their personal information.
"There is a very significant difference between evasion/avoidance [sic].
Since using so loosely the terms [sic] you sound like not knowing [sic] the difference."
Actually, you sound like you don't know the difference between tax avoidance and aggressive tax avoidance, which is an offence in the UK, just as evasion is.
Pro tip: when trying to correct someone, make sure you are right.
""One that has been debunked* many times". *For value debunked, substitute attempts have been made to discredit using circular logic and post hoc/faulty causality. Actual derived data supports the opposite. Facts. They're a thing."
Fine, I'll bite. The 'gender pay gap' (in the UK) is:
1) negative for part-time work;
2) negative for under-30s;
3) positive for over 30s if you look at the so-called undifferentiated wage rate, i.e., not taking into account what the person does, but negligible (around 2-3% IIRC, which is statistically significant, but in light of 2) is likely a legacy issue) when differentiated.
(1) and 2) above were undifferentiated.)
Facts. They're a thing.
"He has invaded far fewer countries than the previous Republican president."
Fake News! In the first 50 days in office, Trump invaded Yemen. I don't think Bush invaded anyone in the first 50 days in office.
You have to give Trump time, he's only just got his feet under the desk. Then we'll see how many countries he can invade...
Disclaimer: I do represent logic and reasoning. (I'm a mathematician.)
"There are multiple ways to peel an orange as there will be multiple ways of securing data."
Q: Does the person get the e-mail address in plain text?
If so, it cannot be secured. If not, you won't be able to send e-mail to the person.
"we do understand that there is going to be a need for educating the market on its merits."
It's not the merits I have an issue with. It's the possibility of its existence. If you want to secure the data, the person you are securing it from, which appears to be the user in this case, can never get it in unencrypted form.
"How this is in principle any different from giving people a database of encrypted rows, and providing a way for them to get the key to unlock certain rows? This is probably a little simpler, and you can post the blockchain publicly, but they appear to be making claims about its security that they can't deliver on."
I agree. It sounds like rubbish to me. I don't see how you can, after giving someone the e-mail address of a third party, stop them using it any way they want with 'the cloud', 'blockchain', or any other word off the Bullshit Bingo card.
"That if blockchains are compute and network intensive that as more data is added it becomes uneconomical to continue to hold onto the data? Especially if the data is rapidly changing as well as increasing in size (I thought that was one of the limitations of bitcoin that it was of a finite size for the initial data that the blockchain revolves around?) Surely then if it's in a constant state of flux and increasing in size the overheads would become exponential?"
Pretty much, yes. The computing time required to record the transactions becomes more and more onerous. At the moment the people recording this information are rewarded with Bitcoins. Let's see what happens if that is no longer the case.
"This release puts egg on their face and makes them look incompetent in managing their own information security, so I can hardly see how it benefits them."
Maybe very competent people want to be seen to be incompetent? Maybe people now think they are safe from the CIA because their device wasn't on this list? And so on.
I doubt this, but it's easy to find reasoning for this.
"Actually, Trump doesn't need the defense. The news broke two days ago that Obama issued a FISA order to wiretap all communications through Trump Tower one month before the election. Obama's Attorney General Lynch signed off on the FISA order."
What you meant to say, in stead of 'the news broke', was 'some bloke in a bar said', as it has about that level of reliability.
"or their social structure is much more insect like than ours so they wouldn't consider resources to be wasted if their descendants won't benefit from them for a few hundred generations."
I think you underestimate humans in this respect. It's the only way to explain investments in Twitter and Snapchat.
"One way around it is to use the netflix model and open the market up to many countries, including of course the US. Then it'll be probably more like the £10 a month that netflix charges, saving £40 a year for households that want it. But then it won't be British-orientated so much."
Nice idea, probably can't be done. The BBC rarely holds worldwide rights for the programmes it shows. Something like iPlayer might work, if all of the licences can be acquired, but for the actual channels it would be more or less impossible to negotiate the licences.
"We've had 7 years of this bullshit in one form or another. 7 years of "tackling the deficit". That deficit continues to sit there, it doesn't go down. "
Nobody has actually challenged this. The deficit has reduced significantly over the last seven years. Look at this chart for proof.
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