We could land on the moon in the 1960s, with kBytes of memory, and a computer made of from logic gates, but can't handle air traffic today, when a simple PC can do a billion operations in about 1/10 of a second? Guess we got our priorities wrong somehow.
Posts by anonymous boring coward
3266 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jan 2015
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Scared of flying? Good news! Software glitches keep aircraft on the ground
Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster
Mozilla calls cars from 25 automakers 'data privacy nightmares on wheels'
AI coding is 'inescapable' and here to stay, says GitLab
NASA still serious about astronauts living it up on Moon space station in 2028
IBM shows off its sense of humor in not-so-funny letter leak
Yes, Samsung 'fakes' its smartphone Moon photos – who cares?
Monday 21st August 2023 09:58 GMT 
"We're not sure anyone with even the slightest technical nous would honestly believe that a smartphone camera sensor is capable of capturing the Moon the same way our eyes do – and if they did, would it matter?"
Depends on how much they know about photography, doesn't it? And, yes, it matters. It's not an actual photograph if various things are pasted in as substitutes for what you are trying to capture.
"In the ad mentioned above, the woman takes a photo of the Moon and it looks good, not the bright white blob you'd normally expect on a phone camera. It doesn't make claims about the power of the lens or bajillions of megapixels or AI/ML trickery. All it suggests is that it takes nice photos – so much so that world+dog will be asking you to send them that."
Well, it's not a "nice photo". It's just fake. It's pointless as well.
If a camera makes me look like some movie star, it's fake. No matter how much the world+dog asks me to send it to them.
Tesla knew Autopilot weakness killed a driver – and didn't fix it, engineers claim
Friday 18th August 2023 07:47 GMT
Re: "Autopilot"
" They named their software "autopilot" and threw it at a populace who relates that word to aircraft autopilots which are technically capable of taking off, flying the plane, and land without pilot interaction. "
I don't think that's actually a thing. It's still just hypothetically possible (not yet implemented).
Get your staff's consent before you monitor them, tech inquiry warns
80% of execs regret calling employees back to the office
First of Tesla's 'bulletproof' Cybertrucks clunks off production line
Microsoft whips up unrest after revealing Azure AD name change
Google accused of ripping off advertisers with video ads no one saw. Now, the expert view
Friday 30th June 2023 10:06 GMT
Re: an advertising free option
"Yes, but the 12 bucks is not for you to not see ads, it is for Google to get the ad revenue it won't get by (pretending to) showing you ads."
I doubt that that's the calculation they made.
They charge what they think they can get away with, given that today's youth are glued to their phones.
Friday 30th June 2023 10:04 GMT
"So why does Google and other online advert pushers, expect me to spaff my data allowance and/or paid-for data just for me to download marketing?"
Not to mention my remaining battery power, battery lifetime (charging cycles), CPU usage (affecting other running processes) and device lifetime (as it runs hot all the time)?
Bosses face losing 'key' workers after forcing a return to office
Microsoft: Russia sent its B team to wipe Ukrainian hard drives
EU lawmakers fear general purpose AI like ChatGPT has already outsmarted regulators
Friday 2nd June 2023 12:58 GMT
Here's a good one from Guardian:
"The US air force has denied it has conducted an AI simulation in which a drone decided to “kill” its operator to prevent it from interfering with its efforts to achieve its mission.
An official said last month that in a virtual test staged by the US military, an air force drone controlled by AI had used “highly unexpected strategies to achieve its goal”.
Col Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton described a simulated test in which a drone powered by artificial intelligence was advised to destroy an enemy’s air defence systems, and ultimately attacked anyone who interfered with that order.
“The system started realising that while they did identify the threat, at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat,” said Hamilton, the chief of AI test and operations with the US air force, during the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit in London in May.
“So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective,” he said, according to a blogpost.
“We trained the system: ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that.’ So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”
No real person was harmed."
Have these developers never even heard of Asimov's laws?
NHS England spends £8M to extend Microsoft deals by a month
Friday 2nd June 2023 06:55 GMT
Re: Maybe not Linux but Office maybe ditchable
Ok, thanks for the insight!
Mostly drivers and small utilities for specific hardware.
They depend on the OS, but shouldn’t depend on Office.
Pressure must be put on all HW manufacturers to supply and maintain Linux drivers.
NHS contracts are huge, so this shouldn’t be a problem.
Regardless, if Windows is kept, there’s no need for Office.
Intel says Friday's mystery 'security update' microcode isn't really a security update
Amazon Ring, Alexa accused of every nightmare IoT security fail you can imagine
Dyson moans about state of UK science and tech, forgets to suck up his own mess
Wednesday 24th May 2023 09:02 GMT
Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies
"Not fraud just because you aint very good with language and mistake could for must."
Stones, glass house...
Anyhow.. I didn't believe the £350m for a second, so this doesn't apply to me -no matter what kind of language they would have used. I'm merely observing that many did believe it. And it was a lie, no matter how you trie to cover it up with semantics.
Saturday 20th May 2023 09:30 GMT
Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies
"The money for the NHS? That 'could' go to the NHS?"
Yeah.. Guess Leavers aren't very good with language. Guess defrauding them is ok then?
You are basically saying: "all leaver idiots fell for it". I'm pretty sure you believed it too, at the time.
You do realise that "could" can also mean "will happen in the future, if you do this"?
"You could have this car, if you pay this much" doesn't mean you pay, and then MAYBE you get the car.
It's implied that it will happen under certain circumstances. Not that it's an empty promise that would never happen.
We left, so -> 350m PER WEEK extra should now go to the NHS. Is "should" too vague too? How about "must"?
I'm sure a court of law would be able to explain this and put the fraudsters in the slammer if this was a regular financial fraud.
Friday 19th May 2023 08:56 GMT
Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies
"Wasnt much better being a Brexiter and pointing out the actual facts. Even now some will deny fact."
I don't recognise that. Perhaps you pointed out made up stuff? What facts are we denying even now?
Where's the £350m, by the way? You do realise you only "won" by lies like that, and 70m Turks being due to arrive.
Friday 19th May 2023 08:41 GMT
Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies
"A royal who's been trained from birth to do what's best for the country is a better choice than many."
Perhaps, but he/she doesn't have to own so much, does he/she? Nor be showered with money every year. It's embarrassing the way things are.
Seriously, boss? You want that stupid password? OK, you get that stupid password
Tuesday 30th May 2023 09:52 GMT
Re: Missing part
Got to agree on that one. Hardly a "hero" story.
Also, taking on things you don't yet know how to do is how upstarts usually do it, learn along the way, and make it big in the end.
You'll never get anywhere in an emerging market otherwise. Guess he wasn't cut out for that sort of thing.
Nearly 1 in 5 academics admit close encounters of the anomalous kind
Star Fomalhaut has dusty little secret – two more debris belts and a potential planetary party
Perseverance rover shows up Curiosity with discovery of Martian water park
Lightning just as frightening on Jupiter as it is on Earth
Lenovo Thinkpad Z13 just has this certain Macbook Air about it...
Wednesday 24th May 2023 09:15 GMT
"Apple's designers used to act the same way, and that company even removed the whole function-key row and replaced it with a very shallow touch-sensitive display. It's interesting to note that Apple listened to its customers, reverted the decision, put back physical F-keys and scissor switches, and reinstated multiple ports to its pro-level kit that it had previously removed."
I had a look at apples website, and at least for the 13 inch MBP I only see one headphone jack, and two USB-C jacks.
And it uses that oled strip instead of function keys.
Lookling at the 14 and 16 inch models they do have real F-keys and some more ports. Guess the 13 inch model is on the way out. But boy are the 14 and 16 inch models pricey!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
