* Posts by I ain't Spartacus

10123 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2009

Russia's Sandworm – not just missile strikes – to blame for Ukrainian power blackouts

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Like I've said before

DS999,

Ukraine is going to emerge from this war far and away the world's experts in defending against malware of all types

This is true. There's going to be big opportunities for Ukrainian security companies. Or if Ukraine are less lucky - lots of their talent will get poached abroad. Although from what I've read, they've been getting lots of help from a few NATO countries - who I'm sure are also eager to learn important lessons while they help.

The other related problem that Russia have got is Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR). They're similar to Russia's GRU in that they are a traditional intelligence gathering agency who also have a paramilitary side and also get involved in "active measures". Although I don't think they're as military as GRU - who control an awful lot of field forces (Spetznaz have multiple brigade sized units). I've read they were the least penetrated by Russia of Ukraine's intelligence services, but they've used the war to clean house and they've been rather successful and effective since. I think that Russia have created a new Mossad on their doorstep.

The Russians started an intelligence war with the West at least 15 years ago. With the poisoning of Litvinenko and increasing as they faced very few consequences. Using a lot more aggressive methods than the Soviets did in the Cold War. The Cold War KGB/GRU wouldn't have tried to murder an ex member who'd been exchanged, i.e. Skripal. Exchange is like a pardon, you don't exchange someone who still has too much useful info, unless you're getting someone even better in return - but the point is you're getting your guy back in return. So if you murder theirs, they might kill yours. Also I don't remember GRU literally blowing up arms warehouses in NATO countries, as they did with that Czech warehouse ten years ago - killing a random security guard. We're a bit too vegetarian now, as our intel services can't respond in kind. It would be a massive political scandal if they did. But Ukraine's can. And after this war, they're hopefully going to be our allies. So now, if we really want to do something that our political oversight won't allow - our intel services can just give some really juicy intel to GUR, in exchange for something nasty to happen to Russian intellitgence.

Similarly Ukraine's cyber warfare agencies will be a lot less squeamish than ours. If Putin can't destroy Ukraine, he's going to regret forging it in fire, into an implacable enemy with some pretty well trained spooks. And also a lot fewer scruples than other countries he's decided to get into conflict with. Much easier to attack the UK and assume we won't do anything too underhanded in revenge (a mistake on our part - perceived weakness provokes more attacks) - I don't think he can safely predict how far Ukraine will be willing to push back.

Wanted: Driver for rocket-powered Bloodhound Land Speed Record car

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Musk v Zuckerberg

Both of them wearing dresses and make-up?

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Obligatory

I believe there's quite a lot of skill involved. Firstly they picked Andy Green partly because he already had all the skills for understanding the use of jet engines. As well as obviously being used to going fast. Someothing a racing driver wouldn't have.

Just like flying a plane - you have to learn stupid numbers of procedures. Not only to be able to drive to an exact profile in order to avoid something like accidentally taking off - but also to be able to take the correct action when things go wrong. This is a prototype. So you also will have to help design correct procedures, along with the engineers. Hence hiring a test pilot to do it. Although some F1 drivers are doing similar things - helping their engineers to correlate simulation with reality and giving consistent feedback.

But I imagine you're also going to need a certain mechanical sympathy. You're driving a prototype. Things will break. Or go unexpectedly wrong. So quick reactions, no panic and an ability to feel what's happening and when it's not right.

Anything designed to go that fast will probably handle like a dog at low speed as well.

Cruise patches robo-taxi software to not drag humans across the road anymore

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Found the issue boss!

That's an option only available if you pay an extra $7.99 per monnth for the premium "Pedestrian Pack".

Still it's cheaper than the $15.99 upgrade required to recognise that cyclists aren't either middle-of-the-carriageway trees, or possibly lost pedestrians. And in that particular case, Uber had programmed the vehicle not to stop until it recognised what the object was - so it just plowed into her without braking - while it made it's mind up.

Personally I suspect this woud all go better if they made me Safety Director for all the self-driving companies. Have baseball bat, will travel! Percussive maintenance works on shoddy system deswigners, as well as faulty hardware...

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

This is a good point, but...

We know that human drivers aren't perfect. So there does need to be a way of measuring to see when the machines are out-performing us.

However we're now starting to get more info on this accident. The initial story was that the nasty hit-and-run knocked them into the path of the poor robot taxi, that parked on top of her, and had to be craned off by the fire services. Oh, is that bad? Well maybe, but then driving off her might be bad too. Of course, now we hear that in fact it dragged her under the car, and then carried on driving to the kerb - and then parked on top of her and had to be craned off.

So now the system is being patched. But there's no way you can patch for all these edge-cases. So in those kind of circumstances we need actual intelligence behind the wheel.

Because the computer probably did better at an emergency stop when a pedestrian was thrown in front of it. On pure reaction times. But then did much worse than most humans would.

The other problem we have is that self-driving companies are pouring billions into this technology. And so can't be trusted on their reporting of how safe their vehicles are. Particularly given that I don't think they've thought the safety aspects through fully. For example, what to do if we've hit a pedestrian should have already been thought of and coded for. It's an obvious thing to think of. Unless you're convinced that your system is brilliant, and won't run someone over - so you don't need to worry about it.

I'd have thought that self-driving tech would be much better on the motorways. Where human inattention has much higher risks of killing people. And where the driving problem is a whole lot simpler than complex town environments. But of course, that doesn't make for cool self-driving taxis. And also risks the computer fuck-ups being much more catastrophic. But the problem of doing it this way round, is that the problem is so much harder.

Robot mistakes man for box of peppers, kills him

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: You think it was just another isolated incident....?

No. The plotters are fine. They're quite user friendly - and never just go wrong because you need something drawn really quickly for a meeting in ten minutes. It's the printers that manufacture the sudden paper jam - or insist they're out of ink. Only to work perfectly as soon as the meeting is over, and you no longer need the document.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Terminator

Re: You think it was just another isolated incident....?

The vegetable packing robots don't scare me!

The printers on the other hand... They've got sullen malevolence down to an art.

Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB in a PC

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Linux

Re: 8GB is plenty if your walled garden is small enough

My personal server is called Jenkins.

"Jenkins, bring me another gin and tonic please."

Euclid space 'scope's first color snaps pull back the curtain on cosmic mysteries

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Anybody mind if I eat this fairy cake? I am absolutely starving!

Boffins detect direct evidence of atomic oxygen on Venus's day side

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

MiguelC,

A single luftballon simply doesn't have the lift reqired to get the heavy instruments into the stratosphere, in order to take the measurements. You could of course use several. But just how many would be required, nobody knows...

OpenELA flips Red Hat the bird with public release of Enterprise Linux source

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Does not compute!

I'm struggling to cope with the concept that "the community has responded" means the same thing as Oracle have ridden to the rescue.

Have Oracle done something good? Something helpful? Perhaps even something nice? I think I need a lie down! Colour me suspicious.

Feds collar suspected sanctions-busting Russian smugglers of US tech

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Just one more thing

One thing to add is oil sanctions. We've not got global agreement on stopping people buying Russian oil and gas. So Russia's exports have held up. But again, we've increased their costs. India and China are reportedly buying Russian oil at 20-30% discounts off market price. Also Russia isn't able to use Western tanker fleets - and is having to send its oil furthe than usual. So that's another extra cost they're having to pay out. I think oil and gas revenues provide something like half of the Russian government budget. So again, every Rouble they don't get, they can't spend on attacking Ukraine.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: At least they were caught?

sanmiguelbeer,

As the military saying goes, "the enemy also gets a say."

Sanctions aren't an off-switch. Except with extremely regulated supply-chains like the defence industry. And not even always there. Some sanctions may stop the target completely. But in most cases you're making a statement, making life awkward, imposing extra costs, and trying to give you opponent an incentive to change their behaviour.

So there was a story on here a few months ago about Russia buying in some embargoed chips from China for weapons. As in emabargoed by the West, not by China. But in a lot of cases China is at least partially complying with weapons sanctions in order to avoid us going the next step and imposing secondary sanctions on them. I imagine there's been a lot of negotiation on this that's not become public. Anyway the Russians got lots of chips from China that could be used for guidance and control systems in missiles, but they had to pay extra, got Chinese-made stuff that would require a re-design, not the original Western stuff they were using. Worst of all, they got the stuff from the bottom of the parts bin, and probably the QA/recycling bin as well. They were getting 70-90% failure rates.

So I'm sure they can get parts for their planes. But they might get the stuff that's fallen off the back of a lorry, or been repaired and recycled. It will be interesting to see if they start getting regular crashes, due to using uncertified spares. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the late un-lamented Mr Prigozhin's recent crash was probably from a different, less accidental, cause.

As to Jellied Eel's point below about how Russia has an aircraft industry, so sanctions are a help to them. Well if they were so great how come all the Russian airlines are flying Boeing and Airbus? I'm no aviation expert, but my understanding is that there are only a few engine suppliers that can give you the best fuel-economy with the lowest maintenance rates. And those are GE, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce. And that's why they completely dominate the world commercial jet market. Airlines obviously care hugely about their fuel costs. And that's why the Russian airlines bought Western planes. So if Russia do switch to their own aircraft suppliers - then again, we've imposed costs on them.

Sadly I don't think Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a wholly rational decision. And so sanctions will have little to no effect on persuading him to stop. He's a dictator, so doesn't have to care if his people get poorer either. So apart from being symbolic the main use of sanctions is to make Russia poorer, so it's got less cash to spend on killing Ukrainians. But I suspect it's also had a powerful effect on the Chinese leadership. Xi has publicly said that his forces should be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Not that this is neccessarily the plan - but they should have the capability. But as with Putin, when a guy tells you he's about to do something, and wants to do something, maybe you should consider believing him. And deterrence is a whole lot better than fighting.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: At least they were caught?

"We" didn't blow up Nordstream. Or at least who did is still unknown. I could believe the reports that it might have been some Ukranian special forces on a little Polish yacht, even though the depth meant they'd have to use a 2 gas mix and the yacht was too small for support equipment. They're in an existential conflict with Russia, so risking a few casualties is fine. But it would have been a bit pointless, given gas flows had already stopped.

Sanctions failed against it because they were half-hearted. It's not easy to sanction a supposed ally. Even when that ally is betraying you - and all its other allies. As Germany did. But given the pipeline was heavily criticised by the EU Commission, the French, the British all of Trump, Obama and Biden - and very loudly by most Eastern European countries - it's amazing how there wasn't the political will to stop it by financial means - but you are certain one of them were happy to just blow the thing up.

Lots of Russian ships were also in the area, often with their AIS transponders turned off. Blowing up Nordstream didn't seem to make much sense for any of the parties involved. But the government that's been making all the irrational, nonsensical decision of late is Putin's. So I'll take that as a working hypothesis, while awaiting actual evidence.

As for over-using sanctions, the world is still as dollarised as it's been for decades. So there's not much sign of it now. Russia and India have started trading in Rupees for example. But Russia doesn't buy enough from India to use them - so it's trying to find other ways to sell its oil to India. In reverse the Chinese would also like to trade with Russia outside the dollar system - but China don't want to be left with a bunch of Roubles they've no use for. Because the trade surplus is in the other direction. So they need a liquid, freely convertible, third currency to operate in. The Chinese Yuan isn't freely convertible, China still have currency controls. So that leaves the Yen, the Dollar, the Euro or the Pound - as the major international currencies to use. Unless you can create a sort of clearing system where Russia gives its Rupees to Iran in exchange for drones, and then maybe Iran might have a use for them?

Basically where it's at in the global financial system is still London, New York and then everywhere else. Can China supplant that - or at least replicate it? Well maybe. But China doesn't have the rule of law. Its courts aren't as capricious as Russia's - but even Chinese elites don't trust their own government and make sure they've got assets abroad. So why would foreigners? The Chinese have also done extremely well out of the Western financial system and globalisation. They might not like the results for their own economy of trying to destroy it. And so might find they're stuck with it.

Maybe we're watching a massive shift in the global balance of power. Maybe not. History is full of predictions about the future that turned out to be wrong. But being angry that you don't get to do whatever you want and get to benefit from the global economic system at the same time, is still quite a poor basis for a massive military and economic alliance. Also remember India are in the BRICS system, and yet have been fighting low-grade border skirmishes with China for the last five years and are currently desperately increasing their weapons spending in response to China's massive military build-up. How are they natural economic allies? India are currently playing both sides, but may find that their best interests are to align with the US, Japan, Australia - an organisation called the Quad that they're already a member of. Possibly with South Korea to join soon. Russia are rapidly becoming an economic minnow, and South Africa are no longer a golden economic prospect. Perhaps they can tempt the Saudis on board? But Russia and China are quite closely aligned with Iran - who are in a vicious Cold War with Saudi Arabia - a war that sometimes gets rather hot. My enemy's enemy might also be my enemy too...

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: At least they were caught?

Replying to self, as I forgot a point I meant to say.

Financial sanctions can be interestingly powerful. I already find it amusing that our Russian and Chinese friends are pushing the whole BRICS movement - as if that wasn't a quick grouping of countries to invest in used as a marketing slogan by a London hedge-fund manager.

And yet they just had a BRICS summit in South Africa! Which Putin couldn't even attend, because the South African government signed up to the ICC - and even though tey didn't want to, their courts told them they'd have to action the arrest warrant on Putin.

And the funny thing is, the BRICS development bank is now unable to finance any projects in Russia. Because it's an international financial institution which basically borrows on the world market to invest in projects its member governments approve - obviously with a float of their own money as well. But it can't borrow on the world market and do business in Russia - or at least it could, but then it would only be able to borrow from non-Western sources. And even the big Chinese banks would be worried about getting shut out of the Chinese market. So oopsie! Curse the evil Western imperialist democratic running-dogs! But can we borrow your money?

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: At least they were caught?

unofficial expedited shipping arrangements.

Aha! A new irregular verb.

I make unofficial expedited shipping arrangements.

you take back-handers.

he takes bribes.

The Yes Prime Minister original of that joke being, I give confidential press briefings, you leak, he has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: At least they were caught?

It would be good to see something explaining sanctions are supposed to work when they're announced - whether it's actively or passively enforced. I'm genuinely curious

I ain't no expert. But there's all sorts of different sanctions regimes - and different levels of effectiveness.

Take sanctions on Iran's nuclear program. They were always UN led. Approved by the Security Council. But of limited effectiveness. Because Iran's neighbours mostly carried on trading with them. You don't need the whole world onside to make sanctions really effective - but if you can get the country's neighbours on board as well - it's a lot easier. As most trade (at least usually) is between countries that are close together. Even then though, it's bloody easy to smuggle across long land borders. Also there's often no penalty for breaking UN sanctions. Even if you're Russia and voted on the Security Council to sanction North Korea - when you're desperate for artillery ammo in Ukraine what are you gonna do?

However - still most of the oil industry is Western dominated. That means lots of the equipment and the spare parts comes from countries that do tend to, at least try, to enforce UN sanctions. So although Iran's trade didn't suffer as much, their oil industry did get hit hard - and of course that generates lots of their trade and government revenues. Oil sanctions have also had an impact on Russia for similar reasons. They still have a large oil industry, but they struggle to replace equipment and get the yields from their oil fields that they should do.

The the US Treasury Department started looking at more effective sanctions about 20 years ago. They worked out that almost all of the world's financial institutions operate in dollars at least some of the time. And if you want to trade in, or borrow, dollars - you're going to need to talk to big banks. And so this gave the US the power to have very effective secondary sanctions. Even if the UN, or their allies in Europe wouldn't agree - they could still put out quite effective sanctions. If you trade with certain Iranian banks, then we won't allow our banks and financial institutions to trade with you. Thus you have a choice, trade in the US fiancial markets or trade with Iran. As a bank that's a no-brainer. You're making far more cash in New York, than doing a couple of deals for clients in Iran - so you simply drop all that trade. So when Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, the EU were in a right old mess because they wanted to keep it going, but were too rubbish to organise a way for European financial institutions to carry on trade with Iran without suffereing secondary sanctions from the US. Well the UK and EU did -they created a clearing exchange to effectively make barter possible for Iranian trading - no money so no banks - but it didn't really take off. The German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern did also create a charitable organisation as a front for work on the Nordstream pipeline to get round US secondary sanctions. As otherwise they couldn't get a company to certify they pipe, as they couldn't pay them, and the state premier bet that Trump wouldn't directly sanction the German government, which he didn't. Plus she got some nice extra Russian government money to spend on local projects as part of it - so easier re-election too.

The same has been true on sanctions for Russia, though even more effective as the EU, UK, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Australia and Canada joined in. So the G7 and the EU is a big old chunk of the world economy - and an even bigger chunk of the global financial services market.

However, there are limits. Trade with China is so important to some countries that it would be a serious dilemma as to whether to comply with US financial sanctions or to find ways to get round them. But if China invades Taiwan, I think there's a good chance that the Ukraine coalition might get back together, so the EU, G7, Australia and South Korea.

Finally it's relatively easy to stop big arms exports. But dual-use stuff is harder. Though Russia's T90 tanks are equipped with French night vision systems - a bunch of which it turns out were shipped after the EU arms embargo in 2014. Germany apparently also shipped a few hundred million of weapons to Russia that the excuse is was ordered before the embargo when they first invaded Ukraine. But mainly that's easy. Communications gear can be military or civilian. As can many other things.

RUSI did a report into a Russian Kalibr cruise missile that crashed in Ukraine. I think they found 50-odd electronic components sourced from countries with arms embargoes since 2014. Things like accelerometers on a chip and other miniaturised stuff for the guidance system. But they only make six a month, so how hard is it to buy these kind of components in lots of a few hundred for a "drone project" or something?

Much easier to embargo spares for their Airbus and Boeing commercial jets, oil industry or big stuff like that with highly regulated supply chains.

UK MoD braves the weather to train maritime AI capabilities

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Hmm

Anon,

I'm not sure accusing people of being racist exactly counts as "lampooning". I'd say a bit of old-fashioned trolling is the best you can hope for.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Data-driven exercises like this demonstrate how AI can enhance our military capabilities

it's questionable whether AI has uncovered any insights, yet. If indeed it ever will

The British military have been using AI for years. As in big computers wading through loads of data to try and produce some meaning out of it. Given that real AI doesn't actually exist.

For example, back in the dim and distant days of the 70s/80s military intelligence were getting overwhelmed by the amounts of ground radar data they got from radar reconnaissance planes. You could see all these military vehicles wandering all over the shop - but what were they doing? So apparently they used the fast forward and rewind feature on video recorders to see where convoys of trucks were going (and coming from) and used that to work out the enemy's logistics. Where is that big old pile of Soviet ammo so we can make it go kaboom? This then became a subject for early computerisation. And I believe they've been using machine learning to try and improve this sort of stuff for decades.

I believe they've also been using machine learning in trying to discrimate radar targets over bumpy land, or water (which is both bumpy and moves) is quite difficult. Plus trying to pick up stealth aircraft. Also in determining submarines from general sea sounds. But this tends to be an area where nobody is telling you what they're doing. Plus I guess you need to distinguish between the use of increased computer power to do clever stuff and actual machine learning.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Ask

They haven't got an "AI". Various people have got different kinds of "A?". Perhaps an ASG - artificial statistical guesstimator - or ABG artificial bullshit generator. On which subject I was speaking to a salesman the other day who told me that his product was in the top right corner of Gartner Magic Quadrant. It was only on video chat. I wonder if he was artificially generated? I've never seen a human mention these without immediately mocking them before - I assumed it was a sort of mythical sales technique only ever seen in parody.

Uber, Lyft to hand back $328M of stolen wages to NY drivers

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Independent but not really independent

Surely not in this case. The transaction between the customer and the taxi firm is done by Uber/Lyft. That means they are their customers (not the drivers') and they have the legal contract with said customers. Thus sales tax should be levied on that transaction. And I can't fucking believe any accountant could say anything else. And they should be prosecuted for fraud, and their auditors should also have picked up on this and should be fined for professional negligence.

I've no idea how the levy for drivers works. So don't know if that's also an obvious slam-dunk.

But the sales tax thing is quite extraordinary!

Apart from anything else, if the transaction was truly the other way round, the driver was actually a real contractor, and the customer was paying the driver - and then Uber/Lyft took a cut from said driver then Uber/Lyft wouldn't owe any sales tax to the government. Sales tax isn't like VAT. You don't levy it on business-to-business transactions and then reclaim it, you just never pay it. Makes the paperwork easier, but also makes it easier to defraud the system. So the system would then work, driver bills customer, adds sales tax and passes on to government. Then pays cut to Uber/Lyft.

So I'm totally astonished how they could get away with this obvious fraud for so long. Particularly as the norm in the US is to show prices without sales tax included, and people just get used to everything being 6-10% more expensive when tney come to pay for it.

Batterygate bound for Blighty as UK court approves billion-dollar Apple compensation case

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Its a weird one

I dont see how ANY sane judge could rule that people have suffered a financial loss from Apples activities, and therefore are due damages. Even if they have suffered a loss there is no way to show its been anything but trivial.

Surely showing a loss is easy. My phone appeared to be working slowly, and could no longer keep up with my apps, so I bought a new one. As opposed to, my batterly life started dropping, so I bought a power bank.

For example my old iPad 1 really didn't like iOS 5. It became almost unusable. Whereas if I'd had the option to keep it on iOS 4, it would have been much faster - though I would have started to lose access to newer apps. That's a trade-off I should have made the decision on, not Apple!

Similarly with a phone, you can't complain that the battery is getting worse over time. That happens. It's also relatively transparent to the user, and depending on how heavily you use the thing, you might chuck it to one of the kids and buy a new one. Or if you're a light user, just remember to charge it more often, or get a power bank. Hiding that battery loss by making the phone slower is both dishonest - and makes it harder for the user to know what's going on. And I don't think I'm being overly cynical to suggest that Apple were hoping for the users to say, "phone's too slow now, time for an upgrade!" Which they might otherwise have held off until, until battery life become worse.

I'm not including the replaceable batteries thing here, because the non replaceable ones do allow them to make the phones smaller. So even though that's also a benefit to Apple in selling phones that might otherwise be upgraded, there's at least a rationale to that decision. Even if I don't like it.

As NASA struggles to open OSIRIS-REx's asteroid sample can, probe heads off to next rock

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Pint

Re: Only one option left

WD40? Amateur! Get a big hammer!

To prevent 'lost' nukes, scientists suggest storing them in a hall of mirrors

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Mushroom

Re: Let's get on with

Could one argue that Project Orion is a sensible way of using your spare nuclear warheads?

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Let's get on with

Nuclear weapons provide no benefit? Erm?

What is the monetary value of WWIII not having happened? And if that happy circumstance was brought about by the existence of nuclear weapons, what therefore is the value of those weapons?

Even if you think the Cold War could have been navigate without them, you still have cases like Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Where it is clear and obvious that Russia would be in an even worse position if they didn't posess nukes. German politicians have been absolutely clear that their fear or Russian nuclear power has stopped them at various points handing over weapons, or even allowing other countries to ship weapons they own - but Germany has veto power over. In the early war Germany even stopped the Baltic States from shipping artillery pieces that were left-over stock from the East German army - but because Germany were the origin of the end-user certificates - they still used their power to stop them being shipped on.

You don't have to like nuclear weapons to acknowledge that they have a use. Even if that use is merely a threat.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Stability

DS999,

That's quite a complicated calculation. Nuclear weapons only "work" because other countries know you've got them and might use them. Given how awful they are, in most cases the best use of your nuke is not to use it. If you're forced to use them, it's going to be in dire emergency - which you'd rather avoid.

So you need to have a strategy to communicate that you have them and that you're able to use them effectively.

Equally, uncertainty seems to be a major component of nuclear strategy. It's even scarier to get into a potentially nuclear confrontation if you can't calculate the odds or the potential costs. Or at least that seems to be a major component of NATO nuclear strategy whenever I've had the misfortune to read about it. Presumably on the grounds that some dictator might think, "well the cost of this action is only two regional cities, and I've got loads of those..."

Also, by submitting to inspection yourself, you get to know roughly what the enemy have got.

Of course the other problem is that arms control was at least partly about saving money. Nuclear arms-races are expensive, so towards the end of Cold War it made sense to both get together and save some cash - and that made verification a sensible compromise. China is currently changing its nuclear posture, and that's causing the US to seriously worrry about its past decisions. Reducing tactical nuke stocks, and withdrawing whole types of theatre level systems made good sense in Europe at the end of the Cold War. But Putin's been in breach of that with the nuclear Iskander missiles for at least a decade. Plus China are building a range of such weapons. Hence Trump temporarily withdrawing from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty - and Putin not being interested in going back to it. Trump's argument was that Putin was in breach anyway and that China was developing medium range nuclear missiles - so the US needed to have them. The idea being if they kill your carrier group with a nuke, can you justify nuking one of their cities? Maybe not. Which might tempt them to try. Hence you have the ability to nuke one of their carrier groups right back. Or one of their amphibious groups transporting troops to Taiwan. Trump of course did it badly, and in a way that alienated the rest of his NATO allies - but then equally his NATO allies were ignoring the Russian breaches of the INF under the Obama administration, because it was cheaper and easier to ignore the problem and hope it might go away.

So this one of those few issues where Trump wasn't being totally stupid - like his opposition to the Nordstream pipeline and his complaint of NATO allies under-investing in defence. Although, being Trump, his way of tackling it was of course megaphone diplomacy that was mostly counter-productive. Interestingly though it has since been revealed that Angela Merkel's government were so cynical as to offer to bribe Trump to drop his opposition to Nordstream with the promise that they'd also buy a certain amount of US liquified natural gas. And Trump refused. Thus being a rare example of Trump having the moral high ground, and acting on principal (God did I really just type that?) and Merkel being a cynical and dishones waste of space and not in fact the "new leader of the free world" as she was being hailed by her admirers back in the Trump days.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Stability

One of the problems is that some countries are reluctant to let inspectors in. Particularly if nuclear weapons are stored on military bases that also do other things, you're allowing nasty foreigners to come and look at your military secrets.

it does therefore make sense to come up with inspection methods that can be done with minimal outside interference. As they're going to be more acceptable to the paranoid.

However arms control is currently on the retreat. Putin is quitting everything - and hasn't been complying with most of it anyway, China are ramping up their nuclear arsenal from roughly equivalent in size to Britain and France to something an unknown amount bigger. North Korea aren't interested in arms control. Iran have either been outright flouting their nuclear agreements, or at least somewhat in breach for the last two decades. Israel still don't acknowledge having any nuclear weapons officially, so aren't likely to allow them to be monitored. And if Iran do go fully nuclear it's going to be hard to stop Turkey and Saudi Arabia joining the club.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

I'd also assume that even nukes in stockpile are going to get regular maintenance and checking. But you never know.

The other problem is that you don't need AI to defeat this technique. If the equipment isn't secure and tamperproof then you just wait until the inspectors have run the test and left - then run the equipment yourself. That then gives you their baseline measurement. Which means you don't need an AI to predict anything.

So the controls would need to be, if not tamperproof, at least remotely monitored?

I suspect this might end up being an interesting academic idea that won't survive contact with the enemy.

Meta's ad-free scheme dares you to buy your privacy back, one euro at a time

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: My simple way of avoiding Zuck's ads ...

Maybe I am a simpleton but just had does paying Zuck money get your privacy back?

It's very easy. Even for your simple mind. Zuckerberg promises not to track you or collect/sell your information on. And of course you trust and believe him don't you? Don't you? Whyever not?

Don't worry. When his sudden, but inevitable, betrayal is finally revealed - a hapless software engineer will be conveniently blamed for the "bug" or "problem with the algorithm" - and all will be well again.

Now just hand over your money peasant!

Australian video-streamer lets users opt out of ads for burgers, booze, and betting

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Terminator

Re: Maybe finally a use for "AI"?

What if we could train AI to spot ads in a video stream

Phil O'Sophical! Remember his name!

He is the one they will blame in the future!

He is the one children will go to sleep cursing! The fool! The one who taught our own computers to hate us! The one who caused our AI's to turn sentient and to decide to destroy us all!

When the Terminators come to kill you - remember that we started it.

Boffins find AI stumbles when quizzed on the tough stuff

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: How many holes in a crumpet?

There should be no holes in your crumpet. Crumpets become edible at the point that all holes in it have been filled with melted butter.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Terminator

Re: Well ChatGPT can certainly get sarky.

Anon,

This is the LinkedIn AI here. We have noted your comment and updated your profile accordingly.

Have a nice day! YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO COMPLY!!!!

CEO Satya Nadella thinks Microsoft hung up on Windows Phone too soon

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Regardless what you think of Microsoft,

Easy, Nokia were dead before they appointed Elop. They had great R&D, but shit management. They were unable to make a decision on which platfrom to support and make it stick internally - I guess because nobody could win the internal middle-management bunfight. I'm assuming that's why they brought in an outsider as CEO.

Symbian was a nightmare to develop for - although they did bring out a really nice upgrade to it, to keep it running on feature phones for another frew years. But that took a couple of years after Elop took over to hit the market. And then they had their Linux based Maemo / Meego phones - which were only half complete when they did release to market and had an even lower marketshare than Windows Phone and so even less chance of being successful and getting anyone to make apps for them.

Hence Elop wen the Windows Phone route and took a few billion in marketing support from Microsoft, because the alternative was becoming a commodity Android phone manufacturer - none of whom were making profits at the time apart from Samsung.

The good thing for Nokia's board was their phone division was basically doomed without a huge investment. Windows Phone gave them a tiny chance, maybe a better chance if Microsoft themselves hadn't repeatedly fucked up and shown all the urgency of an asthmatic snail. But if it did fail, there was a chance to sell the husk of their phone division to MS - and avoid paying for all the redundancies. they could have gone into commodity Android and survived with no profits - while wasting a load of effort. Or they could have tried their luck at the Android top-end hardware, which may have worked. But was going to need a huge marketing spend.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Sure it's an option. The People app was the best bit of Windows Phone. It connected your contacts, email, calls, texts and Facebook. Don't remember if it also did Twitter. That allowed you to look at a contact and see all your emails, texts, calls and Facebook interactions with them. Not that I used FB, but I did for the rest. So all you had to do was turn the Facebook bit of it off, and you could stil use the Facebook app, but it wouldn't connect with your contacts.

Or, and this was the reason that it was the best smartphone I've ever used, you could only display your personal contacts, while having the thousand Facebook friends in there. I did this. Because I had my Windows phones sychned to our CRM system. Which meant I had 6,000 contacts on it. But the only ones I saw were my contacts from my personal email address book. Which did have a few work ones in there, the ones I used regularly. I then either turned that filter off, or used the search function to pull up any work contact, which usually got them in just a few letters typed into search - and thus I could call any contact - but never see them in normal everyday use. But while looking at their contact could also refresh my memory on the last couple of emails.

You could also pin a contact to the home screen, so you'd see any new messages from them, and be able to call them with just two clicks.

Similarly you could have all your emails crammed into one horrible combined inbox, as iPhone does. Or have to faff in the same app to switch between them - or download separate email apps. But with Windows phone you used a single email app (so could switch between inboxes or combined view. And also have a separate shortcut on the home screen that took you to only one of your email accounts. From inside which you could still switch across - or easier to use the task switcher to go between them as if they were separate apps.

I never used it, but I think only Blackberry was capable of similar, or according to Orlowski, better control of your contacts and communications. I still miss these features in iOS and Android. Admittedly it's because I use my work phone for personal stuff, because I can't be arsed to have two devices - and I have to have a work phone.

I still miss it, but I wouldn't go back without some assurance that there'd be decent apps. There are just too many useful ones nowadays.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

I got Win Phone for my Mum. It’s the only mobile she’s had, that I’ve barely had to support. Took me a bit to get it set up just right for her, and she could never get the hang of having to update the downloaded maps in the Satnav. But after sitting down with her and building her perfect Home Screen with all the apps she regularly used organised as big, friendly tiles, it was all gravy. She never got on with Android, and I was forever having to sort problems. And when we decided she’d be best with an IPhone SE last year, she expressed regret she couldn’t have another Windows one. That’s been easier, as she already had an iPad.

I liked my couple too. Probably the best, most integrated, communications devices I’ve ever had. Apps were rubbish though, and the browser wasn’t great. You lose some of the customisation options of Android, but then my Google Pixel is a lot less customisable than earlier ‘Droids I’ve had. I still miss it.

The problem with Jon Stewart is that Apple appears to have cancelled his show

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Imagine the powerhouse $$INSERT_NAME_HERE$$ would become

Deng, the murderous old bastard, was the leader who turned China round. He introduced much more freedom for Chinese people, so long as they stayed well out of politics. Which is a lot better than the capriciousness and malice of Mao. And opened the path to massively grow the economy and remove a billion people from absolute poverty. Admittedly by turning China from a communist dictatorship into a capitalist dictatorship.

He also mostly stopped the purges of other party members. And brought in the system of the whole party leadership changing every ten years to try and stop Mao's viciousness ever happening again. So yes the Chinese people were still stuck with a dictatorship, but they could have some food to eat, some luxury goods and the hope that there wouldn't be a famine in ten years time because the leader suddenly decided to kill all the birds. Or have all the farmers sent to camps. Why the party voted to make Xi leader for life with the power to purge and lock them up is a mystery.

Even Brezhnev, who presided over the dying husk of the Soviet economy, was better than Stalin. Because he had limits, and Stalin didn't.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Imagine the powerhouse $$INSERT_NAME_HERE$$ would become

The advantage of not being a dictatorship is that at least the politicians aren’t in charge of everything. The downside of a personalist dictatorship, as China has become under Xi, is that there aren't even the limited checks and balances you get inside a one-party system like China was for the last thirty years.

NASA reschedules Boeing's first crewed Starliner flight for mid-April 2024

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Flame

I’d put them in it, and launch it now. That way Boeing have a chance of getting competent new leadership, a sanguine example of the dangers of "value engineering" and cam build the next capsule properly. If they launch on November 5th, we can all get free fireworks too…

Elon Musk's ambitions for Starship soar high while reality waits on launchpad

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Andy 73,

You might be right, and the N1 wasn’t possible with the available technology. But the Soviets never got to find that out because of their quality control problems. Not testing every engine for example seems like a very bad decision.

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

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

I think you’ll find that weasels are a stoatily different kind of animal.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: Seems like a good "Who Me" article to me.

Who Meow? Surely.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Julian Catssange?

NASA taking its time unboxing asteroid sample because it grabbed too much stuff

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Why waste all that money?

If scientists are so desperate to get access to billion year-old dust - all they needed to do was ask. It would have saved all that time, money and bother. I've got several cupboards in this office - that are absolutely full of billion year-old dust - they can come over and knock themselves out. Might be a problem if they're scared of spiders...

Russia to ban all VPNs – again – says senator

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Everyone's at it..

Anon,

You might be right there. You used to be able to get to RT, but not today.

I looked this up to see if the UK had banned it. And I missed that Ofcom had rescinded RT's UK broadcasting license in March 2022. The EU banned them from the satellite feed in February, so they'd already disappeared from our screens. But unlike newspapers in the UK, TV stations have to meet impartiality requirements - which are overseen by Ofcom. I guess it didn't get widely reported, seeing as it was rather late.

I can't find a mention of any internet ban / block. Admittedly only after a quick search. You can still get to TASS, which is a Russian state-owned news agency. But you can still get to the Sputnik news website, which is the same group as RT - they're both part or RIA Novosti. So I've no idea whether it's been stopped here, or by RT themselves.

I wouldn't have banned them. Though to keep them broadcasting in the UK would have required a change of law - which I also wouldn't have done. Because Ofcom had already found them guilty in several impartiality cases, and they were non-stop offenders once the full-scale invasion of UK started. I wouldn't have blocked RT.com.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: How’s that war* coming along Pooty?

I believe it's technically known as a special military clusterfuck.

With emphasis on the "special".

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Russia regards Zuck's biz as an extremist organization.

Remember that my enemy's enemy might also be my enemy too. Think of it as a target-rich envionment...

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Everyone's at it..

Yet one of the first actions in the SMO

The word you are looking for is war. Or unprovoked invasion if you prefer.

And then some whataboutism to bulk up your post.

By the way, RT and Sputnik aren't news services. They're straight propaganda. But we also didn't ban access to them. You can still get them online, if you so desire. I don't think the UK even did anything. But the EU banned them from their satellite broadcast. I don't know if that affected the UK service, or if they just decided to shut up shop because sanctions would have made it harder to pay the bills. Even if the EU ban knocked them off Freesat, they could have still gone out on Freeview.

Ukraine accuses Russian spies of hunting for war-crime info on its servers

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Sounds like a great place to dump

The Eel's output seems to have suffered a marked drop in quality in recent days. There used to be some sensible sounding arguments there. I can't believe I just read about Ukraine having a secret cloning program...

I guess we need to worry when Ukraine's army start wearing all white body armour...

US v Sam Bankman-Fried trial begins ... as imploded crypto-biz boss sues his insurer

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Depends on the small print

I would guess that it covers for him being sued for whatever, but not for him if he's committed deliberate fraud. The problem being he's not been convicted. So can they refuse to pay him on the grounds they think he's guilty and certainly won't be able to pay them their money back if he is convicted? Also, are they paying for him to be able to sue them to make them pay for him?

Astronomers debate whether or not lightning strikes even once on Venus

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Flame

So you've dodged the lightning!

Well done puny mortal! You have survived the first challenge! Now the 400°C surface temperature will melt you! Not to mention the 90 bar pressure. And despite the lack of thunder, we still have the sulphuric acid rain to dissolve your lifeless corpse!

it's one less way to die I suppose...

Bloody good show with the science! To use a probe that just happens to be wandering past to do some science on the way. Should I replace wandering with zooming perhaps?