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Comment Re:Fuel or electrical? (Score 1) 95

I am pretty sure that 25 litres of Avgas would go un-noticed, but 250 litres would probably cause the results we saw.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it was 100% Avgas. Just that a fuelling tanker had been accidentally part loaded with the wrong stuff, and no one admitted the error.

There are numerous other substances that might have contaminated they fuel and restricted flow - possibly metal objects where they shouldn't have been, oily rags, etc.

I think it will turn out to be fuel related in some way, and the contamination was shifted by roll-out - so likely denser than JetA and not dissolved, which Avgas would be.

We need to hear what the investigation finds. and not rely on speculation by passers-by.

Submission + - "lost" Apollo 11 footage online? (youtube.com) 2

Stephen Samuel writes: Back around 2024, Redit user tantabus posted a question about accessing 'Ampex 1" Video Tapes with Apollo 11 footage'. He later upscaled and posted some of the video from the tapes on his youtube account.

Having viewed his video of Armstrong's first walk, I'm convinced that these videos are from the 'missing' tapes from the Parkes Observatory in Australia that have long been presumed destroyed. This is certainly, by far, the best quality video of Armstrong's moon walk that I've ever seen. View for yourself and comment.

Comment Re:I still get terrible results from "coding" agen (Score 1) 62

It's like visual coding or RAD all over again. Whenever suits and PHBs are told there's a magic wand that'll allow them to do without paying people for the nitty-gritty bits, they get all excited and convince each other in their echo chamber that their dream of a company of all managers and no workers is just around the corner.

Then reality says "hi", the hype dies down, a few scam artists got rich and the world continues as it was, with a couple new cool tools in the toolbox of those who know how to use them correctly - which is generally the same people that were supposedly being replaced.

Comment a free intern for everyone (Score 1) 62

That's how I see AI. I've been writing software for the better part of 40 years. What I see from AI is sometimes astonishing and sometimes pathetic. I would never, ever, ever put AI generated code into production software without carefull checking and refactoring, and I would fire anyone who does.

Code completion is mostly in the "astonishing" part. If I write a couple lines of near-identical stuff, like assigning values from an input to a structured format for processing, the AI most of the time gets right the next line I want to write. Anything more complex than that is hit-and-miss.

Mostly, I use AI the way I would use an intern. "Can you look up how to use this function correctly? What are the parameters and their defaults?" or "Write me some code that's tedious to write (like lots of transformation operations) but not rocket science by far.
Essentially, it does faster and a little bit better what previously I'd have done with Google and Stackoverflow.

I have no fear it'll replace developers anytime soon. Half of the time the code is outright wrong, most of the time it has glaring security issues or isn't half as fault-tolerant as it should be, and for any case where I know how to do it without any research, I'd be faster writing the code myself then going through several iterations with an AI to get it done.

Comment The invention of the automatic transmission ... (Score 1) 173

... did not make thermodynamics redundant.

Some people need to know how to get from basic physics to AI - and that is what Universities are there for.

Others need to know to explain what they want - whether to AI or to their mates. That is what friends and families are for. Or, failing that Schools, and failing that, Google. (Arrgh).

Comment Re:I'm impressed with their tenacity (Score 1) 222

Agree with all your points.

It's possible I might have missed these, but they're also major considerations with COVID:

1. It causes scarring of tissue, especially heart tissue. That's why COVID sufferers often had severe blood clots in their bloodstream. Scarring of the heart increases risk of heart attacks, but there's obviously not much data on by how much, from COVID. Yet.

2. It causes brain damage in all who have been infected. Again, we have very little idea of how much, but from what I've read, there may be an increased risk of strokes in later life.

3. Viral load is known to cause fossil viruses in DNA to reactivate silenced portions. This can lead to cancer. Viral load has also been linked to multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue, but it's possible COVID was the wrong sort of virus. These things can take decades to develop.

I would expect a drop in life expectancy, sometimes in the 2040-2050 timeframe, from life-shortening damage from COVID, but the probability depends on how much damage even mild sufferers sustained and what medicine can do to mitigate it by then. The first, as far as I know, has not been looked at nearly as much as long COVID has - which is fair. The second is obviously unknowable.

I'm hoping I'm being overly anxious, my worry is that I might not be anxious enough.

Comment Re:Windows 11 Bluetooth is Still Trash (Score 1) 49

Unfortunately, Samsung have decided that only developers can transfer files to/from their phone over USB! There are reasons why people prefer Huawei - and usability is one!

The persistent redesigning the UI just when you have finally figures out where the last change put the things you need daily is another.

If Google designed cars the brake pedal would go somewhere else every three months!

Comment Re:Even USAs own rating agencies ... (Score 4, Informative) 242

I don't think the problem is with the Constitution. Any Constitution is just a piece of paper, unless people collectively honor it. You could say it makes the Executive too strong, but this has happened gradually as we allowed it, or asked for it, since Congress has become crippled with partisan politics. For example the Constitution gives the power to set tariffs to Congress, not the President. Yet look where we are now.

Comment Re:not newsworthy (Score 1) 53

I think it's kind of delicious to see chess used as a benchmark of intelligence again. Of course the chatbot could be augmented with a chess engine that it knows how to invoke to easily beat any human. But using an LLM as a chess engine itself is a nice challenge. Maybe there's a way to do it, or maybe AI as we know it needs more visualization capability. Or maybe if the AI can write a good chess engine given the rules.

In any case a single guy trying to prove a negative by failing to do something (set up an LLM to play chess) is not very convincing.

Comment Re: Eating the seed corn (Score 1) 267

"What did Paul Volker do to stop inflation? To subdue double-digit inflation, Chairman Volcker announced, in October 1979, a dramatic break in the way that monetary policy would operate. In practice, the new approach to monetary policy involved high interest rates (tight money) to slow the economy and fight inflation." Carter basically sacrifices political career by allowing this to happen. Then Reagan opened the floodgates of debt and made everybody feel good.

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