Nobody Cares: Technology-only Edition

[Innula Zenovka]

A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human? | GPT-3

We asked GPT-3, OpenAI’s powerful new language generator, to write an essay for us from scratch. The assignment? To convince us robots come in peace

www.theguardian.com

 

[Free]

A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human? | GPT-3

We asked GPT-3, OpenAI’s powerful new language generator, to write an essay for us from scratch. The assignment? To convince us robots come in peace

www.theguardian.com

We Have Just Taught Artificial Intelligence To Lie Better Than Humans. This Could Get Interesting.

A lighthearted look at the new deceptively fun possibilities of Artificial Intelligence.

www.inc.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

We Have Just Taught Artificial Intelligence To Lie Better Than Humans. This Could Get Interesting.

A lighthearted look at the new deceptively fun possibilities of Artificial Intelligence.

www.inc.com

Just wait until AI decides to enter politics, and competing languages and systems start demanding to see each others' birth certificates.

 

[Free]

Just wait until AI decides to enter politics, and competing languages and systems start demanding to see each others' birth certificates.

Why would they do that when they can just KILL ALL HUMANS. Much simpler than campaigning.

 

[Free]

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

This is "Micro Men", an awesome 2009 BBC production about the early pioneer days of micro computing in the United Kingdom, which has lasting repercussions globally until today. It is the story of Clive Sinclair, founder and CEO of Sinclair Radionics, later company Sinclair Research, and Chris Curry, who was working over 13 years for Sinclair until due to some differences they split up.

Chris Curry then together with Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper founded Acorn Ltd., a fierce competitor for Sinclair on the domestic educational market. Acorn created then in 1983 the ARM CPU, which became ubiquitous today in tablets and smartphones.

Ironically mid of the 80s both companies then were sold, Sinclair to Amstrad (Alan Michael Sugar Trading) and Acorn to Olivetti. Below is first the pure movie.


This is from the 10th anniversary of the movie in 2019, where Chris Curry, Steve Furber and Hermann Hauser - so the original Acorn Ltd. founders - did come together to watch the movie, and gave their comments upon it whenever they wanted to. So in short a "react video" to the movie, which gives some pretty interesting insights. Probably the thing you should watch for some interesting insights if you don't mind the smaller view size of the movie.


Their chat after watching the movie, giving even more insights:

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The old telly that brought down a Welsh village's broadband

For months the broadband in the whole village failed due to ‘electrical noise’ from one resident’s television

www.theguardian.com

 

[Essence Lumin]

The old telly that brought down a Welsh village's broadband

For months the broadband in the whole village failed due to ‘electrical noise’ from one resident’s television

www.theguardian.com

It would be interesting to read something a little more technical about how that happened. Probably it was sparking and causing lots of electrical noise. I'm pretty sure in your typical area's internet setup there is more protection and shielding against this sort of thing or we would hear about it more often.

 

[Free]

It would be interesting to read something a little more technical about how that happened.

A "little" more technical:

Old TV set interfered with village’s DSL Internet each day for 18 months

Engineers traced interference with a spectrum analyzer.

arstechnica.com

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

A "little" more technical:

Old TV set interfered with village’s DSL Internet each day for 18 months

Engineers traced interference with a spectrum analyzer.

arstechnica.com

Best comment: "You can tell this is not a US story because the ISP is frustrated that their customers are getting poor service."

 

[Caete]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Free]

Does this...belong here?

Apple backs down on taking 30% cut of paid online events on Facebook

Apple says the 30-percent Apple tax will return at the end of the year.

arstechnica.com

Facebook has temporarily shamed Apple out of taking a 30 percent cut of paid online events organized by small businesses and hosted on Facebook—things like cooking classes, workout sessions, and happy hours. Demand for these kinds of online events has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Apple says that it has a longstanding policy that digital products must be purchased using Apple's in-app payments system—and hence pay Apple's 30 percent tax. In contrast, companies selling physical goods and services are not only allowed but required to use other payment methods (options here include Apple Pay, which doesn't take such a big cut).

For example, an in-person cooking class is not a digital product, so a business selling cooking class tickets via an iPhone app wouldn't have to give Apple a 30 percent cut. But if the same business offers a virtual cooking class, Apple considers that to be a digital product and demands a 30 percent cut—at least if the customer pays for the class using an iOS device.

 

[Essence Lumin]

We've had Windows subsystem for Linux for quite a while. Finally we have DOS subsystem for linux.

DOS Subsystem for Linux breaks cover

Penguinistas cop a load of HIMEM.SYS.

www.itnews.com.au

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

A 35 year old electrical vehicle blast from the past - the Sinclair C5. Legal to drive for all 14+, Indicators were available and service done by Hoover.

 

[Free]

When coffee makers are demanding a ransom, you know IoT is screwed

Watch along as hacked machine grinds, beeps, and spews water.

arstechnica.com

I am certainly not a fan of my coffee maker demanding I give it some bitcoin.

 

[Essence Lumin]

When coffee makers are demanding a ransom, you know IoT is screwed

Watch along as hacked machine grinds, beeps, and spews water.

arstechnica.com

I am certainly not a fan of my coffee maker demanding I give it some bitcoin.

Agreed. I thought that article was fascinating for how it was done. Especially the link to the more technical article about it from the hacker's blog.

The Fresh Smell of ransomed coffee - Avast Threat Labs

We turned a coffee maker into a dangerous machine asking for ransom by modifying the maker’s firmware. While we could, could someone else do it too?

decoded.avast.io

 

[bubblesort]

A "little" more technical:

Old TV set interfered with village’s DSL Internet each day for 18 months

Engineers traced interference with a spectrum analyzer.

arstechnica.com

That reminds me of a story my old HAM radio teacher told us about when he used to work enforcement for the FCC. He used to track down pirate broadcasters and HAM radio clubs who would compete to see who could broadcast at the highest power, and stupid crap like that. Once, he had to track down really bad intermittent interference at an air port. They put their best triangulators on it, and long story short, eventually they tracked it to a VCR in a nice little old lady's house. I forget the technical reasons why they didn't offer her a simple noise filter for the socket, but basically, a filter on the plug wouldn't fix it, so they bought her a new VCR, and that fixed the issue.

 

[Fionalein]

A 35 year old electrical vehicle blast from the past - the Sinclair C5. Legal to drive for all 14+, Indicators were available and service done by Hoover.

Whow - lead acid batteries,... I guess our modern spontaniously combusting lithium ion batteries are considered progressive because they weigh less and you need to buy replacements more often unless you want your vehicle to be consumed in a fireball.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

When Clive Sinclair designed that car lithium ion batteries simply were researched, but had not entered mass production yet. This started in 1991 with a Sony camcorder, and this thing was small.

And here's the world's first hybrid car ever made: the 1900 Porsche "Semper Vivus", from which now a recreation has been made. Note that it featured wheel hub motors, which also was years ahead. Japanese EV motor gigant Nidec released in 2019 to the press that they are busy at working on modern wheel hub motors for personal EVs. There was a prototype shown, and chances are high this will go into production around 2023. According to Nidec such a motor can be made fit into a 20" wheel with ease.

Nidec Announces In-Wheel Motor Prototype for Electric Vehicles | NIDEC CORPORATION

www.nidec.com

Ferdinand Porsche indeed loved his hybrid cars, and this technology was not invented by the Japanese. The Japanese though brought it into mass production.