Posts by David M

Still alive

I still use my Palm T|X. And sync it to linux with pilot-xfer.

Sweating assets

My 1982 HP-11C is still working fine.

Oh dear

I recently acquired a newish VW, and I'm already fed up with the amount of unnecessary technology in it, complete with very poorly-designed user interfaces, and so-called 'assistance' features that don't work properly and just end up being distracting, which is the last thing you want when you're driving. I don't want to think about how much worse the driving experience would be with an AI assistant trying to 'help'. It's tempting to say that I'll never buy another VW, but I fear that by the time I need another car, all manufacturers will have gone the same way.

Charger power rating

Quick calculation - EVs seem to get around 6..7km to the kWh, so 400km would require at least 60kWh of charge. To get that in 10 minutes would mean a charge rate of 360kW. Even the fastest chargers don't currently get anywhere near that. And I believe the highest charging voltage currently in use is 800V, at which 360kW translates to 450A, which would need a rather hefty cable and connectors. None of this is insurmountable, but it's going to need a lot of infrastructure improvements to make this new battery technology viable.

BBC investigation

The BBC radio series about this (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j/episodes/guide) is very well-researched and informative. And horrifying.

YES and NO

I was impressed (in a bad way) by the Amazon checkout dialogue box that said "Would you like a free trial of Prime?" with big YES and and NO buttons. On the 'NO' button in tiny text it said "NO, I don't want to miss the opportunity to try Prime!" So effectively it was another YES button. I eventually found the real 'no' option, which was even tinier, and lurking in the corner of the screen.

Reduced gravity

I wonder how this would affect those in reduced (but not micro) gravity, e.g. in a Lunar colony at one-sixth g.

Market not working well

"...concerns that the market might not be working well."

I confess I don't understand much about economics, but it seems to me that if you have a single monopoly supplier for an essential emergency service, that's not a market at all, and it's hardly surprising that the customer is in a poor bargaining position.

Surely Airwave should just have been a set of open protocols, plus a compatibility testing regime. Then multiple suppliers of the actual equipment could have been appointed, giving some opportunity for a competitive market to operate. Or am I being naïve?

Numbers

"The number of H-1B visas available annually is capped at 65,000..."

It so should be 65536.

Unique error

The speed with which Cruise analysed and rectified the problem is impressive.

But I wonder how many other 'unique' situations these vehicles are going to encounter. I reckon that pretty much every time I go for a drive, I see some weird event that I've never encountered before. Some random recent examples:

(1) When joining a large motorway-junction roundabout, met a vehicle that was reversing back round the roundabout.

(2) Had to slow down to let a peacock cross in front of me.

(3) Had to go the wrong way round a traffic island because someone had parked in such a stupid place that I couldn't get through on my side.

(4) Had to disobey a red light at some roadworks, as it became obvious that the lights were stuck on red in both directions.

Really not sure how a self-driving vehicle would have handled any of those. And they're just a few examples.

Weapons hot

I notice it said that "firing weapons" was one of the things the pilot would still do. It's only a matter of time, though...

Full duplex

Education is a two-way process - real students ask questions, whereas the current crop of AIs don't, and you can tell a lot from what questions they ask. Perhaps this could be the basis of an AI-proof exam, where the question doesn't provide all the necessary information, and the student is expected to ask for it.

Will it help to fine the bank?

I'm not clear how taking £48.6 million away from the bank is going to help them to improve. Won't this just impact their customers, in reduced services and/or lower investment returns? It seems to me that we should be directly punishing those responsible, rather than the bank. A year of community service for whoever made the decisions and/or ignored the warnings might make those in a similar position in other organisations sit up and think.

Progress of car security

When my friend's Vauxhall Viva was stolen around 1980, the police found it abandoned and managed to get into it with a Ford Cortina key. Pretty much any small flat piece of metal would unlock it. On top of which, it was possible to open the Viva's bonnet from the outside, and under the bonnet was a button labelled 'push to start engine'. Since then car security has steadily improved, with proper keys, alarms, deadlocks, immobilisers and so on. Until recently, that is, when technology seems to be returning us to the 'push to start engine' stage.

Seems reasonable

I can't really see a problem with this. Surely better to get people to moderate their speed, even if by mild subterfuge, than to fine them and/or put points on their licence.

Boats

Asking "can a computer think?" is like asking "can a boat swim?" In other words, no it can't, it merely mimics certain aspects of that behaviour in a possibly-useful way.

Still use mine

I still use my seven-year-old TomTom GO. It works pretty well, it still gets map and firmware updates, it has a much better windscreen mount than any phone bracket I've been able to find, and it doesn't constantly report my location to Google or Apple. If it broke, I might even consider buying another.

Déjà vu

I'm sure I remember Josephson junctions being 'the next big thing' back in the ... 90s, or 80s, was it? It's nice to see them back again. But I'm now wondering how big your supercomputer has to be for the energy saving of this new technology to outweigh the energy cost of the substantial cryogenic cooling plant that would be needed to get everything down to 4.2K. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Don't blame the messenger

I've used Facebook for 12 years or so, and have never seen a "tidal wave of hate". A couple of overly-heated discussions, but that's about it. But then I choose my FB friends carefully. All that's needed is a bit of education in how to use the platform and guard against abuse. Take care over sharing settings. Unfollow or unfriend people if necessary. Problem largely solved.

Just another compiler

Isn't this just a new sort of compiler? We used to write assembler, but now a compiler does that for us, based on some input in a high-level language. This AI is doing much the same, translating an even-higher-level description into something that can be swallowed by a traditional compiler. If this catches on, the programmer's job will become the writing of that natural-language description, in a sufficiently precise way that the AI can understand and solve it.

One area where this might get interesting is in software testing. If the AI 'understands' the problem, it should also be able to generate suitable test cases. But would you trust a system where the code and the tests were derived from the same source? Or do we assume that the AI's code is always correct, and therefore doesn't need testing?

Sinclair Cambridge

I still use my Sinclair Cambridge calculator. The power switch is a bit dodgy, so it has a tendency to cut out mid-calculation, but that just adds to the excitement.

Simple solution

Make it opt-IN. That way only people who have heard about it and are happy to have their data shared will be affected. It would then be up to NHS Digital to convince everyone that it's a good idea, and that their data will be kept safe and not be misused.

Some things that would help the situation

Some things that would help the situation:

1. Standardised cables/connectors so any EV can charge from any charger.

2. No 'account' or special card needed, so you can just turn up, charge and pay, just like with petrol.

3. Breakdown services (AA, RAC, etc.) have a mobile recharging service, so that if you do run out, you can call them out and get given enough charge to make it to the nearest charging point (or, alternatively, just get towed there).

Privacy assurance cannot be trusted

"Every government, everywhere, that offers a check-in app must agree — in law — that our freely provided data can only be used for public health."

No such assurance can ever be trusted, as the government can always change the law later on.

Opt-In

If the data sharing is so great, make it opt-in. Problem solved.

Red tape

...Kwasi Kwarteng said Aria would accelerate innovation by "stripping back unnecessary red tape..."

I bet there are already armies of bureaucrats preparing thick manuals and lengthy forms to implement this stripping back of red tape.

Would this work?

If manufacturers won't make products repairable because it costs too much, one option would be to price-in the repairability. If the repairability score is R=1..10, say, charge VAT at 10*(10-R)%, so it's 90% for the least repairable item and 0% for the most repairable. That way there would be a significant financial incentive to make (and to buy) more repairable products.