Posts by John Smith 19

Let me note

Correlation <> causation

Models with (hidden) positive feedback will drive an outcome to an extreme endpoint.

But is "predictive policing" the cause or the effect?

Cause my gut reckons quite a lot of this is due to something like this

Data fetishism

It's not a sane policy. It's a personality disorder

They want all data all the time. Forever

They don't really know why. They just do.

And they probably are a PPE graduate (but not always).

Copyright's a good idea *if* it's easily enforcable by individuals

Then it can create more independence for creators.

As for this BS about copyright for 70+ years.

Stop Disney f**king up the legislative process.

For them it's all about the rat.

No that's not "Upcycling"

That's out and out fraud.

It's like low rent "waste disposal" companies that will get rid of your very complex chemical sludge for cents on the $.

How did you think they do it?

Even better than Google.

They charge the product for their service first

You can tell this is a real 21st century internet company alright.

The only place this guy knows the word ethics from is a dictionary.

Can you get much more "personal" (and sensitive) data than your DNA?

One more time.....

Correlation is not causation.

And if you can't even duplicate the results....

As an old IT proverb has it "You can write FORTRAN in any language."

I always smell astroturfing when someone posts AC.

Just saying.

Because they've got to get that Govt ID card scheme populated somehow.

And clean data for such a very large DB is very hard to come by.

The very thin end of a very long wedge.

I'd say "F**k right off" but that would also be a recording of my voice.

"it's not any sane version of any of the originally-agreed models for Brexit. "

You mean there was an actual sane version of Brexit where the UK gets an even better deal with the rest of the EU than the one it's already got (which from the PoV of the other 27 is pretty f**king cushy) and yet stays inside the free market?

And people actually thought the rest of the EU would sign up to that?

Here's my rule.

When bad s**t happens and keeps on happening follow the money.

For those who know "The Night Manager" ask yourself "Who is the real Richard Roper?"

One of those things you need to consider if you want to be really global

I sometimes wonder how many databases and bespoke software systems would be easier to use to support international customers if their developers had actually checked what the ISO/UN standards on things like telephone numbers (mobile or landline) are.

2 and 3 letter abbreviations are available, as is telephone number length and IIRC standards for name lengths as well. as opposed to using roll your own homebrew versions.

"It's not a cyber attack"

They've just exceeded the row limit in the Access database running this PoS.*

*AFAIK the repeated efforts to bring the UK courts system into the 1990's has been ongoing for most of the last 2 decades.

So "Eagle Eye" was a documentary

That does not inspire confidence.

Security

Yes it does need to be for everything.

Yes it does need to be baked in from the start

No it's difficult to retro fit it later.

Remember it's always "You're hysterical scare mongering"

Until it happens.

It's 2018 and people still can't right protocol handlers properly.*

Under what circumstances should a mal formed message ever attempt to be processed rather than discarded?

Another classic failure of a SW development pattern.

*Hint. If the protocol can be expressed in a state diagram design the core of the handler in an FSA design tool and have it write the actual code.

Just how many message protocols are so complex they need a Turing complete language to handle all the possibilities?

Money is not the issue.

No one knows how to build a quantum computer that's actually a computer in the sense people hear understand the term, IE whose functionality can be changed by changing its programming.

I'm starting to think finite automata may be the way forward. MIT were leading this in the early 00's with their CAM 8 machine, then someone trashed all the data after 1998 (which seems rather strange to put it mildly).

FSA can make very small tiles on an ASIC and have very high density. Their function is governed by a look up table (LUT) much like a single cell in an FPGA but with the proviso it's an SIMD. Like a RISC, it's all down to how good a compiler can compile the task into the LUT, and how often it has to trigger a LUT reload.

If the name means "Furthest object"

Will it have to be renamed when NH has an encounter with something further away, because it no longer will be.

I'm thinking of the two competitive laboratories where one gave a lecture on "High Vacuum" and the Director of the other asked "Can be give a lecture on 'Higher Vacuums'? "

"Borman was jettisoning his lunch from both ends"

That certainly evokes a certain image. Not a fun experience inside multiple layers of pressure suit.

Whose feeling in zero g I cannot imagine.

"Harmony" ? Are you f**king kidding me?

It's 2018 and mfg are still fitting "hidden" API's to their hardware.

Either the system needs these calls to run properly (so why are they hidden?) or they don't, so why was any effort spent in writing them in the first place?

Or was it they didn't mind writing them, but they did mind doing the security testing for them (and then the re-writes if they failed)?

Possibly a late entrant for the worst named consumer product of 2018.

"the insurer appeared to be attempting to include "costs incurred in reliance upon a counter-party"

Sounds like the bean counters are trying to include potential profits to be generated by the (expected) increase in performance of the system.

Rather like when a certain gambling den investment bank had it's whole currency dealing operation taken off line when someone had dropped a spanner across two phases of the buildings 3ph supply. They were moved in first (to a small office block) that was being refurbished because the poor darlings didn't like to have their routines disrupted. Sueballs flew through the air that day.

It'll also be interesting to know if this would have fixed the (alleged) bug in the car insurance quote generation system that let salesman magically move prospects from some crime ridden inner city hell hole to rural Perthshire (or some equally safe place to park your vehicle) and which (allegedly) lead to the phasing out of many (all?) of their direct sales staff. No doubt this alleged bug was unknown to senior sales staff of the time.

If you want to know what the term "Data fetishist" means....

See article.

It really is a personality disorder.

And it's one the C-suite of most large tech companies are prone to.