hghid

I think the minute a big lab is found to be liable, the whole edifice along with trillions of dollars of investment and VC comes tumbling down. I think that is part of the reason the labs are pushing for more regulation. They can say "We're not liable, we complied with all of the regulations". The actions of multi-billion parameter models trained on data harvested from millions of Internet users over the years can never really be understood - if a business is found to be liable for that, then nobody would ever operate in that space.

It is a disaster for Farage. He looks like ridiculous with almost every outcome. Last by-election he (Reform UK) won with about 45% of the vote. This is a big win in UK elections as there are typically about 4 parties with a decent number of votes - MPs often win with a lot lower figure than that. This was in the context of a General Election with huge publicity and was probably at the peak of Reform's popularity (they have slipped a fair way since then). Even then, almost 55% of the people didn't vote for him. That leaves a huge number of voters swilling around with nobody to vote for. Maybe they won't bother voting, but on the other hand, maybe they will. Recent elections have shown a lot of tactical voting (i.e. people voting for the party most likely to beat an unwanted candidate) - if people are motivated enough to do that, then they may well be motivated enough to vote for a Bin. There's a lot of publicity and the election is taking place August when all sorts of random things can happen (it's referred to as the Silly Season because there's a typically a bit of a new vacuum). That said, Farage will probably win, but unless he wins by an absolutely overwhelming marging (i.e. Binface only gets a few hundred votes) he is hugely diminished.

That's also before you consider who Binface actually is - he graduated in Classics from Oxford University, has been a script writer for the Thick of It and Have I got News for You (both popular political satires) and has a Podcast that gets some big names on it. Every interview he does, he comes across as extremely smart, sharp and articulate. If there is ever a face-to-face discussion between him and Farage, it will generate endless clips of Farage's humiliation.

Policital affiliation aside, it is good to see somebody arogant and entitled brought down to size.

Even though you could question the whole Artemis concept, it's still extremely exciting watching the countdown with my son. I just missed the original Apollo flights and had assumed I would never see a moon landing in my lifetime. We may well not have a landing for quite some time yet, but it's still cool to see a Moon bound rocket standing on the launchpad...

It's the blind assumption that if a UI was developed in the last year it is "Modern" and therefore automatically better. I guess there will be a phase of AI infused UI design to drag things further downhill. The equiavalent of a car saying: "We've noticed that you mainly use the Gas pedal, so we've made it bigger and put it right in the middle for you. Enjoy!". I am, of course, old and stuck in my ways ;-)

There may also be a side business selling skin products to protect people who may be exposed to the radiation from this new reactor. Possibly people may even choose to vacation in areas of elevated radation, as it is likely to be warmer. Interesting...

Also worth a trip to:

https://www.beamish.org.uk/

To see a lot of Industrial Revolution tech actually working.

There are plenty of things that I like to think I could probably turn my hand to and make a passable job of if I had to, but Illustration is not one of them. I would love to have to ability to visualise something and make it appear on paper like that, but no matter how hard I try I never will. The character and expression put into something that was probably a 30 minute sketch is quite amazing!

I'm not sure I agree with "universally", I bet there are a awful lot of people who can't stand that level of service and find it quite uncomfortable. I get that I could order ahead etc, but that makes an impulse purchase into a multi-step process. I'm sure the multi-trillion dollar company felt that pain when I still bought their product only from a different place. Oh wait... ;-)

That is true, but I'm sometimes I'm frankly far too impatient to wait for delivery.

Slightly tangential rant, but is anybody else becoming frustrated with the process of buying Apple products in Apple stores? For me, it started with the Apple Watch - I knew which one I wanted and was ready just to head down and buy one, but I was forced to sit through an entire "fitting" with patronising explanation on how to use the knob on the the side. Recently, I wanted to buy a new Phone. Again, I knew the one I wanted and was ready to part with cash and walk out with a box as quickly as possible - I approached a sales assistant, said: "Hi, I'd like to buy a new phone please" (or words to that effect) to be informed that if I didn't have an appointment, it would take half an hour or so to get somebody over. A random store nearby that also sold phones had no issue selling me one.

The whole experience of visiting an Apple store has changed from being something I looked forward to just another shopping chore. The VR headset is a case in point - if I want to be guided through the process, then I will ask for that. Otherwise, just sell me the damn product! I guess maybe I'm just not their target audience any more.

Nice idea, but at some point GPT + "generate code to implement this patent", may develop plausible enough code to satisfy most Patent Examiners. I don't see this fixing the issue in the longer term - maybe a "use it or lost it" rule + much shorter enforcement period for software patents is what is needed?

Haha - that summed up my day perfectly!

According to the car, the stability control system wasn't working. Cause? Obviously a broken fuel injector. The stability control system talks to the engine ECU to control the torque if there is a lack of traction - it is notified of this by the ABS computer. Broken Injector=No ability to manage torque, hence traction control warning. Sitting here now, that makes perfect sense. In horizontal Scottish rain - less so!

Same here - I have owned an old petrol Vauxhall for years as my runaround car and it's so much easier to deal with. The big issue I have with newer cars is that the computers mask any developing issues until they get to a point when they just give up. A less sophicsticated car starts to just feel different a long time before it outright fails.

I'm all for improvements to pod startup times etc, but the general idea of putting more software into cars is not that appealing. I recently broke down in the highlands of Scotland in a fairly new car with the family - it was a horrible experience. It was made worse by the fact that there was nobody close that had a clue what to do with the car. The breakdown service arrived promptly, plugged the diagnostic tool into the car, proclaimed it broken, called a tow truck and left - two days later we arrived home. Had I been in a less complex car, a local garage could most likely have fixed the problem and sent us on our way. The sophistication and gadgets in modern cars are great until something goes wrong then they fail hard. Small local garages that used to be a life saver are next to useless now as they don't have the tools and knowledge to fix a mobile data centre.

Visual Basic was an incredible leap forward in programming in that it made programming accessible to much wider range of people. People that just wanted to make a computer perform a task without necessarily writing a commercial product or changing the world. Being a child of the 70's/80's, I was fortunate enough to learn by just diving in and writing Basic on a BBC Model B. I think the problem people have with BASIC is the 'B' for Beginner. It created a lot of snobbery. I remember being amazed when Windows came out because it brought a level of consistency to everyday software which meant that by and large you could get the basics of a piece of software without a manual. Before VB, there was a huge barrier to programming in Windows because for a long time it was C which, for all it's power, is not a language many people should be using. I suspect a lot of people here won't have experienced starting with an empty Window, dropping a Button on it, double clicking the Button and being dropped straight into the event handler code. It was a revelation. Especially when you realised that you got access to all of the other Windows goodies like printing, database access etc just by dropping a control onto a Form. Software development now is a long way away from the ease of access that VB gave us and is probably poorer for it.