Comment Re:Oh yeah, like AI cured Cancer, AIDS, and Flu ri (Score 3, Insightful) 24
I don't believe you. I think you'll just move the goal posts.
Comment Re:Some individuals are excessively sensitive (Score 1) 133
Think of it as a generalized version of Poe's law.
FWIW, I think of Poe's law more as a statement about the asymmetry between an experience and the desire to comment about it than about something inherent in an individual. When people dislike something, they're more likely to comment about it than when they don't care or are pleased by it. And more emotionally intense messages are more likely to be promulgated as memes because they cause a greater fraction of people to react to them.
Comment Re:This ad makes me unhappy and angry. (Score 1) 133
Well, Kiss did that, but It always struck me as repulsive and conspicuous consumption. I can't say it made me angry, but it seemed a clear message that they did not respect their tools.
Comment Re:Ho hum. (Score 0) 57
Indeed. That is why we got dumb output like this in Bard last year:
The first two months of the year are January and Febuary. What are the other months of the year.
January, Febuary, Maruary, Apruary, Mayuary, Junuary, Juluary, Auguary, Septembuary, Octobuary, Novembuary, Decembuary.
It couldn't detect the misspelling of February? AND made up nonsense months??
--
A.I. is Artificial Ignorance because you have to program something to be that stupid.
Comment Re:Mechanism (Score 1) 12
Try "a mechanism". That only explains about 20% of the cases.
Comment Re:Executive summary (Score 1) 12
Actually, I think the gp intended his comment as humor.
US Revokes Intel, Qualcomm Licenses To Sell Chips To Huawei (msn.com) 148
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MSN: The US has revoked licenses allowing Huawei to buy semiconductors from Qualcomm and Intel, according to people familiar with the matter, further tightening export restrictions against the Chinese telecom equipment maker. Withdrawal of the licenses affects US sales of chips for use in Huawei phones and laptops, according to the people, who discussed the move on condition of anonymity. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul confirmed the administration's decision in an interview Tuesday. He said the move is key to preventing China from developing advanced AI. "It's blocking any chips sold to Huawei," said McCaul, a Texas Republican who was briefed about the license decisions for Intel and Qualcomm. "Those are two companies we've always worried about being a little too close to China."
While the decision may not affect a significant volume of chips, it underscores the US government's determination to curtail China's access to a broad swathe of semiconductor technology. Officials are also considering sanctions against six Chinese firms that they suspect could supply chips to Huawei, which has been on a US trade restrictions list since 2019. [...] Qualcomm recently said that its business with Huawei is already limited and will soon shrink to nothing. It has been allowed to supply the Chinese company with chips that provide older 4G network connections. It's prohibited from selling ones that allow more advanced 5G access.
While the decision may not affect a significant volume of chips, it underscores the US government's determination to curtail China's access to a broad swathe of semiconductor technology. Officials are also considering sanctions against six Chinese firms that they suspect could supply chips to Huawei, which has been on a US trade restrictions list since 2019. [...] Qualcomm recently said that its business with Huawei is already limited and will soon shrink to nothing. It has been allowed to supply the Chinese company with chips that provide older 4G network connections. It's prohibited from selling ones that allow more advanced 5G access.
Comment Re: Hydro (Score 4, Informative) 132
https://www.solar.com/learn/ne...
To force people to invest in battery storage alongside solar, so that maximum savings are achieved by first becoming self-sufficient before selling excess.
Previously maximum savings were achievable by selling surplus during the middle of the day when demand is lower, and then receiving power from the grid in the evening when demand is higher. You can still do that under the new billing, but you won't save as much money as before. The lifetime savings are still significant, though.
Also note that the new billing only applies to new installations, existing installations remain under the rules they were built under for 20 years.
Heat Waves In North Pacific May Be Due To China Reducing Aerosols 48
Computer models have found that recent heat waves in the north Pacific may be due to a large reduction in aerosols emitted by factories in China. The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Phys.Org reports: In this new effort, the research team noted that the onset of the heat waves appeared to follow successful efforts by the Chinese government to reduce aerosol emissions from their country's factories. Beginning around 2010, factories and power generating plants in China began dramatically reducing emissions of aerosols such as sulfate, resulting in much cleaner air. Noting that aerosols can act like mirrors floating in the air, reflecting heat from the sun back into space, and also pointing out that earlier research efforts had suggested that massive reductions of aerosols in one place could lead to warming in other places -- they wondered if reductions of aerosols in China might be playing a role in the heat waves that began happening in the north Pacific.
To find out if that might be the case, the team began collecting data and then input it into 12 different computer climate models. They ran them under two conditions -- one where emissions from East Asia remained as they were over the past several decades and one where they dropped in the way they had in reality. They found that the models with no declines did not cause much change elsewhere, whereas those with aerosol drops showed heat waves occurring in the northeast parts of the Pacific Ocean.
The models also showed why -- as less heat was reflected back into space over China, warming of coastal regions in Asia began, resulting in the development of high-pressure systems. That in turn made low-pressure systems in the middle Pacific more intense. And that resulted in the Aleutian Low growing bigger and moving south which weakened the westerly winds that typically cool the sea surface. The result was hotter conditions.
To find out if that might be the case, the team began collecting data and then input it into 12 different computer climate models. They ran them under two conditions -- one where emissions from East Asia remained as they were over the past several decades and one where they dropped in the way they had in reality. They found that the models with no declines did not cause much change elsewhere, whereas those with aerosol drops showed heat waves occurring in the northeast parts of the Pacific Ocean.
The models also showed why -- as less heat was reflected back into space over China, warming of coastal regions in Asia began, resulting in the development of high-pressure systems. That in turn made low-pressure systems in the middle Pacific more intense. And that resulted in the Aleutian Low growing bigger and moving south which weakened the westerly winds that typically cool the sea surface. The result was hotter conditions.
Comment Re:Ho hum. (Score 1) 57
Maybe you can think of a way to extract semantics out of a mass of written data.
Comment Re:In 12 months? (Score -1) 57
What ChatGPT & the other LLMs are capable of, was inconceivable just a few years ago.
What is ChatGPT doing now that was inconceivable just a few years ago? It seems you are either making things up or are ignorant.
Comment Re:Not the worst mobile OS (Score 1) 81
It was a great platform that came out too late. By that time, people wanted apps, and Windows Phone didn't have any.
Renewable Energy Passes 30% of World's Electricity Supply (theguardian.com) 132
Renewable energy accounted for more than 30% of the world's electricity for the first time last year, according to climate thinktank Ember. The Guardian reports: Clean electricity has already helped to slow the growth in fossil fuels by almost two-thirds in the past 10 years, according to the report by climate thinktank Ember. It found that renewables have grown from 19% of electricity in 2000 to more than 30% of global electricity last year. Solar was the main supplier of electricity growth, according to Ember, adding more than twice as much new electricity generation as coal in 2023. It was the fastest-growing source of electricity for the 19th consecutive year, and also became the largest source of new electricity for the second year running, after surpassing wind power.
The first comprehensive review of global electricity data covers 80 countries, which represent 92% of the world's electricity demand, as well as historic data for 215 countries. The surge in clean electricity is expected to power a 2% decrease in global fossil fuel generation in the year ahead, according to Ember. [...] World leaders are aiming to grow renewables to 60% of global electricity by 2030 under an agreement struck at the UN's Cop28 climate change conference in December. This would require countries to triple their current renewable electricity capacity in the next six years, which would almost halve power sector emissions.
The first comprehensive review of global electricity data covers 80 countries, which represent 92% of the world's electricity demand, as well as historic data for 215 countries. The surge in clean electricity is expected to power a 2% decrease in global fossil fuel generation in the year ahead, according to Ember. [...] World leaders are aiming to grow renewables to 60% of global electricity by 2030 under an agreement struck at the UN's Cop28 climate change conference in December. This would require countries to triple their current renewable electricity capacity in the next six years, which would almost halve power sector emissions.
Comment Re:he wanted crypto-focus and no blocking. (Score 1) 34
Have you tried visiting Twitter after hanging out on Bluesky for a while? OMG, it feels like a dystopia. Was it always that bad and did I just forget, or has it gotten that much worse since I left?
FTX Customers Poised to Recover All Funds Lost in Collapse (nytimes.com) 42
Lawyers for the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX said customers would receive all the money they lost when the firm collapsed in 2022 and receive interest on top of it. "But the recoveries come with a caveat," reports the New York Times. "The amount owed to customers was calculated based on the value of their holdings at the time of FTX's bankruptcy in November 2022. That means customers won't reap the benefits of a recent surge in the crypto market that sent the price of Bitcoin to a record high." From the report: The announcement was a landmark in the attempt to recover the $8 billion in customer assets that disappeared when FTX imploded virtually overnight, setting off a crisis in the crypto industry. Under a plan filed in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, virtually all FTX's creditors, including hundreds of thousands of ordinary investors who used the exchange to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, would receive cash payments equivalent to 118 percent of the assets they had stored on FTX, the lawyers said. Those payments would flow from a pool of assets that FTX's lawyers have pulled together in the 17 months since the exchange collapsed, the lawyers said. [...] It will take months for the payouts to begin. The plan must be approved by the federal judge overseeing FTX's bankruptcy, John T. Dorsey.
