Posts by Charlie Clark

Re: Active users?

Yes, pretty much the same here, but we're part of the horde of users. I know a few people who like Teams and I've had better audio conferences on it than MS Lync/Skype but basically these IRC clones don't do it for me. And whatever GUI kit MS (some bastard child of Silverlight, no doubt) is using these days doesn't help: that font anti-aliasing is just awful.

Re: HireRight

Pay has to be broadly inline with what you can expect in the private sector, otherwise you can only expect people to apply who can't find anything better. There are, of course, other reasons for taking a job with a regulator, but the pay does matter.

That said, particularly the bonus at around 10% looks reasonable and the b-i-k positively miserly: lots of these jobs are given very fat performance/attendance bonuses. Coming out of the state system, you'd expect the pension contribution also to be higher than in the private sector.

Re: Autonomous driving is months, years, or decades away

Actuarial statistics, and assuming the numbers do favour autonomous vehicles (good reasons to think this will be the case, but this is a pure numbers game), then the risk-weighting will change so that remaining meatsacks will become riskier and riskier in comparison to the computers (there will be fewer accidents but an increasing propotion of them will be down to human error), and will hence be asked to pay more, even to the point of being squeezed out of the market if this means fewer overall payouts. Imagine, for example, that there are currently 10 accidents per million km and computers can be shown to have less than 1 per 100 million km, then the insurance companies will have a big incentive (their profit is highest when there are no payouts) to have more computers doing the driving. The telemetry the cars gather will, presumably, also be useful in establishing liability.

There is, in Europe at least, already a bias against humans due to the ECJ banning different premiums for men and women even though the evidence shows that women have more accidents than men, even though these tend to be less serious than the ones men have. As a result of the judgement premiums for men were increased.

But this is just a hypothesis. There are plenty of reasons to expect, er, bumps in the road to a computer-driven approach: just as they can all be expected to get better over time, they're also likely to make the same mistakes. They will also, no doubt, be the target for hackers and criminals.

Re: 110 Software Engineers on the wall...

The usage changed years ago from one in ten, to a lot. After all, it was designed to be a severe and exemplary punishment.

Re: Autonomous driving is months, years, or decades away

I recently had two near misses with idiots both in the big Teslas, which are rare here and, as such, real virtue statements.

But I reckom that if you made anyone drive in rush-hour in a big city they're not familiar with for a couple of hours they'd be begging to stop. The problems and cognitive overload are not that dissimilar to putting a computer-driven car in a new environment, with the distinction that the computer can benefit from the experience of its peers.

Re: Autonomous driving is months, years, or decades away

You don't seem to understand the legal situation very much.

Firstly, if you kill somone in a car accident you could be even be charged with murder: several cases working their way through the German court system like this already and other countries looking on interestingly. However, as to whether the current system is an effective deterrent, I'd be beg to differ. We have more RTAs than ever before but fewer fatalities due to the improved safety features of modern cars.

At least in the US, the principle of unlimited liability and potential class action suits hang over any company offering these services. Which is why they're so keen to get the telemetry to demonstate that their cars are safer. They're also looking for test cases.

It doesn't happen often but companies do occasionally go bankrupt when they put the safety of the customers on the line.

But regulation is also crucial: only idiots will let their cars drive in situations which are not expressly approved, as regulatory approval is their best weapon in a court case. Insurers will also weigh in relying on the data they've been collecting for years to set insurance premiums for computer-driven cars in regulated areas. If the numbers go the righr way. it could soon become prohibitively expensive to insure yourself as a driver.

Your own assessment of your own behaviour and extrapolation for others is a clear case of bias (Kahnemann). We all tend to think we're good drivers when we're only average. My own take is that an awful lot of drivers are already overtaxed by many road situations and increasingly rely on other drivers doing the thinking for them. This is why computer-driven cars are programmed to drive defensively: they know that the other driver is an idiot. Taking a drive in another country, whether it's Italy or Afghanistan, can be a real eye-opener.

The comparison with the Boeing 737 Max also fails here because, as others have explained, Boeing developed a system for the new plane to make it handle as much like the old plane as possible, despite it being mechanically and aerodynamically a completely different beast. The aim was to avoid expensive and lengthy full certification. And now they're grounded and won't get a fasttrack FAA certfication for the rest of the world.

Now, there will no doubt be companies that are prepared to cut corners, sometimes literally, in order to get to market first or cut costs or whatever and there will be casualties as a result. But, at the end of the day, the decision will be about whether there are fewer casualties with self-driving cars as there would have been otherwise because cars stlll kill far too many people.

Re: 110 Software Engineers on the wall...

It's poorly phrased but it does seem to mean that half of the developers working on the self-drivingn have left.

Re: Autonomous driving is months, years, or decades away

Computer-driven cars only have to be shown to be at least as safe as human drivers to be successful. As you imply, this could be staggered by regulators, with low-hanging fruit becoming licensed by regulators/insurers first and more tricky stuff later.

But then again, for non-natives, rural Italy, India or Africa, are extremely dangerous and the accident rates correlate with traffic density. I seem to remember reading about appalling casualty rates in Kabul's traffic, so that regulators may also choose to prevent some of the worst drivers from getting the behing the wheel.

I think that, while there's plenty to admire with Musk — Tesla has kickstarted electric vehicle and Space X shaken up satellite launching — not all that glisters is gold.

Re: Perhaps they should have ....

Kourou is closer to the equator and generally has better weather than Canaveral which also has to reserve capacity for US military launches. This is why Ariane handles so many commercial launches.

Re: They expected Google to keep it after it was deleted?

It's quite possible that there are compliance aspects to consider inasmuch as it Google may well be obliged to delete all data, with a reasonable period, when such an account is closed. If so, I'd expect this to be in the contract or the T&C's. If it is, then I wouldn't reckon much for their chances.

Just shows how effective Musk's PR is. And it needs to be with orders continuing to decline.

Re: Trivial to mitigate

but how can you protect against that

One of the standard setting for any webserver is that its user cannot write to any of its files so that it exists in an effectively read-only file-system. This should be standard practice as it was the goto exploit in the days of CGI.

But that itself is not the reason for the size of the fine. There was systematic failure across the line, including on how the data was stored.

For multinationals there is almost always a way. VW would have gone bankrupt by now otherwise.

No need: the fine can be declared as cost and, hence, offset against tax. Someone goes for early retirement and then it's G&T's in the C-Suite later.

More important, however, will be the precedent set by the ruling.

Re: Hmm

It's negligence: British Airways failed to protect customers' personal data correctly.

GDPR makes it quite clear that companies that can demonstrate that they have followed the recommendations of the data protection regulators have little to fear. In essence, GDPR limits their exposure to cases brought as a result of their behaviour, as courts can point the settlement and say: dealt with.

By contrast look at some of the settlements across the pond. Boeing has set aside $ 100 million as compensation for the US victims of two plane crashes and Equifax is subject of at least one class action.

However, at the end of the day, the fine sounds worse than it actually is, because it is a charge that can be offset against tax.

Re: "Windows 1 was indeed sorry"

At the time Microsoft was completely overfaced with OS/2. Having to work on a real operating system was what encouraged them to think about whether couldn't make more money from DOS by pretending to add real features. This led to the era of "this version may be shit, but the next one will be great", ie. copying the competition just enough, with inertia doing the rest, to keep customers from jumping ship to, say, DR-DOS + GEM

Am I right in thinking that the Amiga could at least depend upon a dedicated graphics chip whereas PC's couldn't?

Windows 1 was indeed sorry but it probably did enough at the time to stop people jumping wholesale to GEM or some other potential API that Microsoft wouldn't be able to control.

Re: It's BeOS, it's the OS

Thanks for the note, though my information (from someone who went on to work at ARM) was that x86 was a lot slower than other archictectures. Be did move the networking code into the kernel for performance reasons and Haiku has it there as well.

I'm trying to think of the first OS that touted capabilities…

Re: A new OS from Google

News just in: the GPL means having to ask the lawyers again and again. This is why the GPL lost.

If they have proprietary stuff that they develop then they don't have to make it open source no matter what. MySQL did this with its own commercial add-ons to the "database" of that name.

Re: A new OS from Google

Why on earth would they want to put telemetry into the kernel? I'd expect to see it in some kind of locked-down hardware that they control completely and is required for certain functions, say hardware acceleration. Wasn't there something along these lines in one of their phones?

But even then, do they really need more data than they're already getting? How many people switch browsers, phones, etc. because they're really worried about privacy?

Re: It's BeOS, it's the OS

I'm not batting for Google but I don't agree. Seeing as I've been using AOSP on my phones for several years, don't use Chrome, except for testing and have never used GMail. I think Google's use open source is interesting. There is certainly an argument to be had for the secret source approach, which is certainly true with Android and with stuff in the data centres. But Google does release stuff to the world early and does, in my experience, generally engage with developers more seriously than other companies do. I think they understand that making some stuff free and open source can effectively stifle the competition while suiting the service-based model. It can also encourage adoptive addiction (TensorFlow).

But they do engage constructively in a large number of projects. Even with the current shitstorm about Chrome extensions, their stewardship of Chromium is far more open than, say, Oracle's of Java. Their work on WHATWG and things like Polymer have definitely improved things for web developers and users. As has their work on video codecs (for which of course Widevine is the locked down, secret source). Enlightened self-interest runs through all of this but doesn't mean the projects aren't interesting or useful or always require their permission. And their is merit in this OS.

Re: A new OS from Google

He does, but it's from the Virtuous Banking Corporation™

Re: It's BeOS, it's the OS

one of the least trustworthy companies on the planet

Really? I can think of hundreds of companies (starting with Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, etc.) that are a lot less trustworthy. Yes, Google does collect and, horrible world, monetise personal user data. (And who doesn't? — I've just been reviewing a proposal for some pretty invasive user-tracking). But, in order to abe to collect the data. it has to produce products and services that people want to use and this means getting at least some of the stuff right.

Google's engagement with open source is also interesting, in that it is often proactice in making source available, as with Fuchsia. While this probably stems from a position of enlightened self-interest it's still a damn sight more open than most tech companies.

But by reducing the debate to goodies versis baddies, you effectively exclude yourself from it. If you are worried about privacy and data protection, and we should all be, then pushing for the effective enforcement of good legislation is a better use of your time.

Or, for short term political gain, another unenforceable law will be passed. IIRC North Carolina did for a time make it an offence to mention climate change in official documents. While ideology might have played a part, the real estate industry also has a vested industry in not scaring off potentials mugs customers from sea-front properties in an area that is expected to see higher than average rises in sea level. Having no official docmentation mention the potential risks gave them plausible deniablilty.

But on a more practical level this could be used to incriminate just about anyone and lock them up while you look for something more substantial. US law enforcement agencies are already frequently overstepping the legal boundaries and though occasionally slapped down by the courts, are always on the lookout for more other reasons to detain people.

Re: Am I the only one who...

No, you're not the only one. However, it's become fashionable for techies to demonstrate how liberal we all are and shocked that stuff we develop could be used for teenage kicks.

Personally, apart from the fact that a lot of clothing is designed to stimulate the imagination of the viewer, I reckon I'd get pretty bored of a toy like this pretty quickly. A bigger problem is probably the unrealistic expectations that kids may have of themselves and others due to all the cosmetic surgery: gravity defying breasts, dicks that horses could be proud of but with the staying power of a fox, and the kind of athleticism that should only be expected from Olympic gymnasts.

Sex is an act but not a performance.

Re: If only

It's one of the reasons why Google changed things in Android 8 and 9 so that they can push most security updates without waiting for the manufacturers or networks. Would be interesting to see some data on how well this is going.