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User: tomxor

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  1. +1 generalised troubleshooting, -1 for no research on Putting a MacBook Pro In the Oven To Fix It · · Score: 1

    While Apple are known for custom cooling designs they are also known for building their notebooks very close to the limit when it comes to dissipating heat. So when nVidia twists the truth about the operating temperature of a prospective GPU for their macbook it can have bad consequences. This combined with the well known faults caused by the bad solder bumps on nVidia GPU die has caused the relatively large proportion of early GPU failure rates in various macbook models. Apple and nVidia have tried to mitigate this by effectively under clocking various models through a firmware update to delay the inevitable failure.

    Being an owner of such a model I can tell you it's pretty easy to get the fans whiring when using the more powerful GPU and that's even after the under clocking firmware update. Considering how common this is, i'd say it's likely that the heat pipe is fine, the failure rate is accelerated enough with the other two problems..

  2. SMTP != distributed on Gmail Access Starts To Come Back In China, State-Run Paper Blames Google · · Score: 1

    "SMTP has been designed so that it has no single point of failure"

    From SMTP:

    "An e-mail client needs to know the IP address of its initial SMTP server and this has to be given as part of its configuration (usually given as a DNS name). This server will deliver outgoing messages on behalf of the user."

    ...how?

  3. Re:Not obese != healthy on Being Colder May Be Good For Your Health · · Score: 1

    That depends on your definition of a healthy life, you are arguing that health is equal to longevity. Other people myself included, would define a healthy life as a disease free one that does not necessarily maximise longevity... but i will forgive you as you correctly used a falsy comparator :P

  4. I hope they do... on Sony Leaks Reveal Hollywood Is Trying To Break DNS · · Score: 1

    The internet needs a big threatening stick to cut the legacy cord of DNS and start the evolution to a decentralised system.

    There are enough existing protocols to draw upon that contain conceptual components of a distributed DNS: Zero config DNS, Bittorrent etc.

  5. Re:Hitchhiking does have it's downsides on Ralph H. Baer, a Father of Video Gaming, Dies At 92 · · Score: 1

    Who the fuck modded this off topic... is it not obvious enough that uber is basically hitch-hiking with a smart phone while making money. Do i have to spell out everything?

  6. Rules && Defence on Heathrow Plane In Near Miss With Drone · · Score: 1

    This made me think... everyone always discusses the rules and laws for drones and their co-existence with larger aircraft... which is fine. However that's not going to stop anyone who doesn't mind breaking the rules (intentionally or otherwise), drones are relatively cheap, no license is required to get one, and there's pretty much nothing physically enforcing the use of drones.

    So what about enforcing those rules when it comes to the larger non military manned aircraft... Perhaps they should have some kind of basic defence against small unmanned craft in their flight path. I wonder what kind of "airline" level weaponry would be acceptable to take out drones while not posing a risk to military aircraft. For starters an on-board radar and tracking system would be needed to pick up drones that are too small to be visible to ground based radar... It could even make the occasional encounter with bird shaped projectiles a little less dangerous.

    The only problem with shooting a drone out of the sky is of course falling bits of drone... so i guess avoidance would be preferable given a sophisticated enough on board radar.

  7. Hitchhiking does have it's downsides on Ralph H. Baer, a Father of Video Gaming, Dies At 92 · · Score: 0

    Just because it's monetised doesn't make hitching any safer :P ... classic

  8. Re:great name on UK Announces 'Google Tax' · · Score: 1

    Google is actually based in the United States and the law doesn't affect Google in any way

    Perhaps you should check out google's own map. Not to mention this CCTLD. Still sure a particular countries law could not possibly apply to an international company operating in that country?

  9. Contribute to Elimination? on Study: HIV Becoming Less Deadly, Less Infectious · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "The virus is slowing down in its ability to cause disease and that will help contribute to elimination."

    Not sure if this is incorrectly phrased or i'm incorrect in my understanding of viral evolution... The virus has evolved to slow down the process of causing disease, surely this is because it is advantageous to the continuation of this virus, if the host dies too quickly they are less likely to pass on the virus. So how does this contribute to eliminating the virus? is it not the opposite? Longer infected lifespan == Greater chance of transmission.

  10. Don't add more mirrors. on Jackie Chan Discs Help Boost Solar Panel Efficiency · · Score: 1

    Adding another layer of material will decrease transmission of light in the opposite way that surface patterns work to increase the transmission of light: Any medium with a refractive index different to air will reflect some percentage of incident rays that are not perpendicular to the surface, surface patterns can help avoid this by effectively changing the angle of incidence to be closer to the surface normal or redirecting some of the reflected rays.

    It would be better if the surface doubled as the protective layer. Provided the pattern is small enough or better yet if a pattern was chosen which is also poor at allowing particular sized molecules (i.e water) to settle on it's surface in the same way that hydrophobic surfaces work... then it should be perfectly suitable as a protective layer also.

  11. Eye Hacks! on Samsung Shows 'Eye Mouse' For People With Disabilities · · Score: 1

    All i could think when seeing this, how will online FPS games detect this? :P And i thought ear hacks were good...

  12. Re:Emergent Intelligence? on Alva Noe: Don't Worry About the Singularity, We Can't Even Copy an Amoeba · · Score: 1

    Let's say, however, you built a virtual world at a reasonably fine-grain (doesn't have to be too fine, just good enough), a second virtual world that was much coarser-grain and which used lossy encoding in a way that preserved some information from all prior states, a crude set of genetic algorithms that mapped outer virtual world to inner virtual world, and finally an independent set of genetic algorithms that decide what to do (but not how), a set for examining the internal virtual world for past examples of how, a set for generating an alternative method for how without recourse for memory, and a final set for picking the method that sounds best and implementing it, and an extensive set that initially starts off with reconciling differences between what was expected and what happened.

    That should be sufficient for Emergent Intelligence of some sort to evolve.

    Perhaps, but there is still quite a lot of pre-defined structure there. Although i've no doubt that some pre-defined structure is far more pragmatic and likely to yield useful results than what i'm thinking of (and i have given this some thought previously). It's difficult to know what an environment with emergent properties suited to a digital medium should look like, because it's so different from the vastly more complex environment that biology emerged from. Which could perhaps be summed up in three parts:

    • The rules of the fundamental building blocks (resources and state): Chemical interactions.
    • The rules which determine the possibility of those building blocks from being able to interact with each other: Spatial dimensions and position.
    • The rules of probability, this is debatable but a deterministic model seems unlikely to have the desired effect: I'll just chalk this up to quantum theory.

    Finding a reasonable equivalent to spacial dimensions seem simple enough, and probability is already the basis of most genetic algorithms, but the building blocks... the rules of resources and state are massive and complex as chemical reactions. I think finding a simpler mathematical equivalent to those structures that also has the necessary emergent properties is fundamental to creating an emergent AI.

  13. Emergent Intelligence? on Alva Noe: Don't Worry About the Singularity, We Can't Even Copy an Amoeba · · Score: 1

    It's not enough to emulate the properties of intelligence, you have to emulate the reason for there needing to be intelligence in the first place.

    This difference was clear to me when reading up on existing AI and machine learning methods.

    AI in it's current form feels more like engineering than an exploration in nature, science and math. Slightly dangerously with my limited knowledge in AI i would describe AI today as an extremely useful and insightful set of tools inspired by nature, but which are not themselves nature. They are just yet another thing that we have learnt to re-implement as a fruit of biology. Actually cellular automata feel more like nature than AI.

    Methods such as neural networks are pre-evolved static solutions, the information flowing through them may evolve, but the method which determines their flow does not itself evolve, they are therefore selective and static imitations of the a brain much the same as an animatronic manikin is an imitation of the body at an evolutionary static point in time.

    It's conceivable that with enough detailed imitation an intelligent implementation of a whole brain (not even human) could be achieved... but it seems highly unlikely and impractical. However implementing the basis or conditions to give emergent and undirected development in a "synthetic" medium would be nature at work or "life" in my view. Imagine an AI that had the freedom and incentive to create it's own methods dynamically, that kind of creative freedom must be a pretty good fit for true "Artificial Life", so shouldn't it be called "Emergent Intelligence"... The opposite to "Imitated Intelligence".

  14. Re:Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations1 on UK Hotel Adds Hefty Charge For Bad Reviews Online · · Score: 1

    Tony and Jan Jenkinson have not been told whether they will get the £100 charge refunded, following the withdrawal of the charge

    Good that the trade regulators stepped in however it seems like the family are still owed their £100. The point is not that it's a massive amount of money, more that they should never have charged them at all, so they should give it back.

  15. Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations1999 on UK Hotel Adds Hefty Charge For Bad Reviews Online · · Score: 1

    In UK contract law Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 in conjunction with Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 Which apply to standard consumer contracts regardless of custom and explicit terms Imply this should not be enforceable:

    In the UK, these 1999 Regulations work to render ineffective terms that benefit seller or suppliers against the interests of consumers.

    This term effectively misleads consumers and is clearly against their interest. Implied law is no sure win, but in my amateur opinion it looks like there is a strong case to contest this. Not that it'd be worth it for £100...

  16. They're called legs on Low Cost Ground Robot Chassis That Can Traverse Challenging Obstacles · · Score: 1

    Although the general prediction is that future robots will not look like humans because other forms are easier to create... If the robot needs to not have debilitated dalek-like transport then legs are so far the most versatile way a being can move itself around and scale things if you include arms. I'm interested in simpler alternatives but caterpillar tracks are no comparison.

  17. Time to put that button to good use: on Cameron Says People Radicalized By Free Speech; UK ISPs Agree To Censor Button · · Score: 1
  18. Potential Efficiency on Enzymes Make Electricity From Jet Fuel Without Ignition · · Score: 1

    The process of refining the efficiency of a device or process is not the same as evaluating it's potential efficiency.

    The maximum potential efficiency of a given chemical process is knowable in the same way that the maximum potential efficiency of a given type of solid state solar panel.

  19. Walking Straw Man on Study Shows Direct Brain Interface Between Humans · · Score: 1

    What the article describes is more accurately "Brain - Body", or "Brain - Nervous System" communication.

    The Direct-ness of communication between a naturally separate body and brain can be determined because there is an existing Direct scenario to compare with (a naturally connected brain and body). There is however no natural existing scenario of "Direct" in the context of transportation, it's meaning is entirely relative, it is not a good analogy.

    If this technology allows one brain to manipulate the limb of another body without a layer of abstraction like speech then using the existing definition for comparison - it is Direct, regardless of how complex, expensive and impractical it may be, the explicit level of communication is maintained.

  20. Cars Aid Terrorsist on New GCHQ Chief Says Social Media Aids Terrorists · · Score: 2

    Sandwiches Aid Terrorists

    Toothpaste Aid Terrorists

    HD TVs Aid Terrorists

    Sleep Aids Terrorists

    Coffee Aids Terrorists

    Money Aids Terrorists

    ...Another fact we all now know: Robert Hannigan is a fuckwit... and you can probably find a reason that he in some way also aids terrorists.

  21. Contradiction? on Disney Patents a Piracy Free Search Engine · · Score: 1

    ...Disney believes that current search engines are using the wrong approach as they rely on a website's "popularity."...

    ... but what the typical user will want to see is a more authentic page...

  22. Re:10Mbit ? i wish on Will Fiber-To-the-Home Create a New Digital Divide? · · Score: 1

    no difference same exchange, different price, the issue is everyone shares one exchange it's really far away and sucks essentially it's all BTs anyway.

  23. 10Mbit ? i wish on Will Fiber-To-the-Home Create a New Digital Divide? · · Score: 1

    I don't live on top of a mountain 200 miles from civilisation, i live in a city in england... at home the fastest option for internet is a 3Mbit ADSL line. At work i have fibre, the difference is ridiculous, browsing at home is painful because many web developers seem to assume that everyone on earth has access to a 100Mbit connection... on top of that ISPs here seem to like throttling ssh traffic which makes it even more painful to do work at home, also occasionally the exchange fucks up and has given me ping times of well over 2000ms consistently for days which some protocols just can't deal with...

    my ISP is talk talk they are the only LLC everything else here sucks also, the infrastructure and the capacity. I can easily see it making a divide if an assumption like "10Mbit" is made by content creators. It's easy to assume some minimum if you've never experienced less.

  24. Re:Distasteful stuff, but should not be illegal on Manga Images Depicting Children Lead to Conviction in UK · · Score: 1

    The laws against child pornography should be aimed at protecting children from exploitation, not in making morality statements. Cartoon drawings of children engaging in sex acts certainly indicate people with pretty sick imaginations, but no children are hurt in their creation or consumption. I have seen worse on walls in public washrooms.

    The laws against child pornography should be aimed at protecting children from exploitation, not in making morality statements. Cartoon drawings of children engaging in sex acts certainly indicate people with pretty sick imaginations, but no children are hurt in their creation or consumption. I have seen worse on walls in public washrooms.

    Further more... "sick" is subjective.

    One persons fantasy is sure to be sick to another person somewhere.

    Rather than futilely attempting to determine what sexual fantasies are morally acceptable by majority vote on such a diverse range of sexual tastes... perhaps society should stick to the clear line that was simply: involvement of minors in sexual acts and pornography... and by minors i mean real people.

    It's not that dissimilar to the violent video game argument, the people who can't separate reality from fiction are the issue not fiction itself.

  25. Heady Stuff Indeed! on First Teleportation of Multiple Quantum Properties of a Single Photon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you can teleport something as large as a virus then you can probably also fiddle with the data in between and are probably a substantial way toward arbitrarily assembling various forms of matter (i.e. molecular assembly), at which point you basically have a 3D printer from start treck.