Posts by genghis_uk

Re: Is the point of a personal interest that you persue it?

We are currently on a downward trend so yes, the numbers could be out but they are likely to be lower... I accept that asyptomatic spreaders are about and the numbers have a degree of inaccuracy but the trend is still falling.

However, that was not my point. It was that people are generally really bad at assessing risk - actually you sort of did prove my point:

"the consequences of infection can include death, severe illness, and, of course, passing it on to anyone you meet"

It can include all of the nasties above but we are talking about risk (not consequence) which is all about measuring probabilities. What is the probability of someone passing it on? What is the probability of getting a bad dose or long term illness? These are all non-zero but my point was that the probability of dying or gettiing long covid are not as high in some parts of the country as in other parts. Cities are far more likely to be problem areas - rural areas not so much. This is shown in the gov map data. Travelling from a very low risk area to another very low risk area is not zero risk but eventually you have to say on balance, it is not likely (and £200 is worth it?)

You don't (generally) catch Covid-19 from walking past people in the street you need a level of virus for it to take - again this is working on probabilities of proximity and duration. NHS staff have caught covid due to prolonged exposure at close proximity - more exposure increases the risk and PPE is not 100%. Even at 99.999% a person with enough exposure would eventually contract the virus but the quantity, duration and number of staff would have to be very high.

Another unpopular view - I know... Sorry! (it's the one on the right...) \/

Re: Who's the audience?

I'm not quite sure that Rowling's unpopular view really equates to those held by Hitler - does this get the Godwin award?

(removed lots of stuff about cancelling, over loud minority groups and twitter amplification in the media)

Re: SN10

I was thinking it is a bit brave to have both rockets on their launch pads at the same time.

Even with a large gap, if the tracking went slightly astray, they could have an even more expensive clean up operation - and very little scientific data from SN10

Re: Copycat coup?

Absolutely agree but just as every autocrat now follows the US 'War on terror' and claims 'terrorism' to introduce draconian measures, every coup will claim 'election fraud' to justify their actions.

Re: @Jimbo Smith The duopoly needs to learn the hard way!

<quote> Parler could easily appeal or motion for the judge to reconsider because of section 230 protections as well as show that AWS is not enforcing their policies equally </quote>

Amazon's rebuttal states:

Parler’s interference and antitrust claims also fail under Section 230(c)(2) of the Communications Decency Act. Under that statute, the provider of an “interactive computer service” is immune for acting in good faith to restrict access to material that is excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.

In this case they are using sub-section 2 to say they have no requirement to host Parler's "excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" material.

Parler cannot really use s230 against AWS, it is really the other way round.

Crying it's not fair does not work either. This is an anti-trust lawsuit basically saying AWS are being unfair to Parler but that does not actually break any laws. They can be as unfair as they want. Parler is free to find another host but the problem is that no-one else wants them either (although I think a Russian outfit may be offering to help)

Re: Right of way

COLLREGS are a bit more involved than just power gives way to sail (41 rules in 6 sections). http://www.collisionregs.com/Collregs.html if anyone is interested.

A vessel constrained by its draught has right of way over everything - even an opti - although, in the Solent I regularly see idiots taking on large ships in yachts despite a moving exclusion zone of 1km to the front. This one cost the skipper £100k: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxdp8UfqbK8

There are interesting parallels with this though. The first bit of the regulation says that it is the responsibility of everyone to avoid a collision. It does not matter if you technically have right of way, if you could have altered speed or course and failed to do so you are also in the wrong.

Rule 5 says you should have a proper lookout at all times - this is exactly the same as a drone pilot. If you are flying by FPV camera, you should have a lookout to see if anything is approaching - and you should fly within sight of the lookout. From experience they become a small dot very quickly but it is down to the pilot to ensure the lookout can see what is going on. Drones do not own the sky below 400ft and it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure safety.

If there had been less self-centred idiots flying drones in the early days maybe the regs would not have been quite so draconian but the 'I own the sky' crowd messed it up.

(Full disclosure, I have several friends who used to race drones in a local multi-storey car park after hours - awesome to watch and requires a lot of skill but it was contained and no-one got hurt. When flying outside there was always at least 1 spotter, usually 2)

We need a Godwin's law for Section 230.

All that stuff you don't like about 230? 99.999% of it is the first amendment.

Without social media anyone could create a website and put up:

"all forms of libel, fraud, calls for violence, hate, insurrection, calls for lynch parties, organizing terrorist attacks with no liability" and it would all be protected speech

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but repealing s230 will have no impact other than to increase the amount of objectionable speech as social media sites are very likely to stop all moderation so they are not liable.

One side wants to get rid of it because they feel they should be able to post their bigotry anywhere and the other wants to get rid of it because there is not enough moderation. Neither appear to understand what s230 does and don't seem to want to

Re: Hmmm

Funny, I just came here to update that Parler may not be the best example - what a difference a weekend makes!

Gab is still operational at the time of writing - maybe he could go there instead. There is also FOX news, OAN, The Blaze and any number of other right-wing outlets he can use to preach to his congregation

Re: Too little too late

Twitter has at least tried to fact check Trump over the last 9 month or so. That does not excuse the last 5 or 6 years of Trump BS but shows it they realised the effect his lies were having during a pandemic.

Facebook on the other hand, has actively tried to find reasons not to censure (note, not censor!) Trump at all. I was very surprised when they locked his account

Feeling a bit like a stuck record here but... Moderation is not Censorship!!!

o Moderation - where a site removes a post for not adhering to the site rules (they own the site so they set the rules, even if you do not agree with them). Feel free to post the same thing on a different site though

o Censorship - where a Government makes it illegal to post something anywhere

It is not even a small distinction but for some reason, people do not seem to get it

Or in the case of the US - own the state!

Verizon, AT&T, Comcast etc. lobbyists write their own rules and are actively pushing the 'Big Tech Bad' narrative while Big Telco reap the rewards.

Re: The Institute for Government, a bunch of non-scientists

Absolutely this - we are an island and we could have done what other islands did (Taiwan, Australia, Greece (rather, Greek Islands)) and shut our borders early. This would have contained the virus and allowed track and trace to work.

My thoughts about dealing with this are already on record (and still just as unpopular) but we can all agree that we got here because we never isolated ourselves. What was the point of a lockdown if our borders were still open?

Self-isolation without enforced quarantine for those coming back into the country was sheer stupidity. Back in September, 80% of the cases in the North were linked to a Spanish strain of the virus - an enforced quarantine would potentially have prevented the large spike that created the tier system and ultimately, the second lockdown.

Re: Can’t see the data for the trees...

The data will probably be hardware filtered in the same way that CERN reduces the petabyte of data per second from the LHC. They have banks of FPGAs that bring the data rate down to something acceptable.

Just because you can generate 8.8TB/s, does not mean that is what you have to operate with. Change the filter to change the dataset so you have a 'lower amount of quality based data' but you can change the focus.

Re: A priest...

I must apologise as this is the Mail but the idea is already mainstream:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8808531/Paula-Vennells-lose-CBE-postmasters-wrongly-convicted-scandal-MPs-say.html

Re: DoH Security - Not revoking user access != Hacking

I don't know what legitimate evidence they think they may find but she says the computer holds details of leaks and her sources still working in government. It will be interesting if there is a subtle purge of some people who have helped over the last 6 months.

Re: Headline-whoring

The old RISC vs. CISC wars of the 80's...

Tech types will always find something to be evangelical about! (guilty as charged!)

Re: re: <title is too long>

I didn't say I agree with it (I really don't!) but does the image go against Twitter rules?

If it does then they should remove it right away, if not then it should stay up - the point of free speech is that some people post stuff you don't like but they are free to say it - even lies (the last 4 years have shown that) and potentially offensive posts. Defamation needs to be proven in court but could be a reason for a take down.

There is a lot of offensive stuff out there but if it is not illegal and not against the community rules then the court of public opinion should not make it disappear. You end up with moral police that way.

I will probably get roasted for this but, while I agree it is offensive, I cannot agree that outrage (moral or otherwise) ought to be the deciding factor. Just my opinion and you are free to disagree - because that is how it works

Re: "SMIC’s foundries are now capable of producing 14nm devices"

Bleeding edge technology may be at 5nm but a vast majority of devices are not.

Sub 10nm process accounts for less than 10% of global wafer capacity (source: IC Insights) so they are not badly placed in the overall field.

Re: Section 230 is tricky

This site is a publisher for the articles that is publishes.

The Forum comments are not part of that and would be covered under s230 - much as Fox News' online comments section is, also Parler, Gab etc...

S230 is not that difficult:

a) It removes liability for the speech of others i.e. the site is not liable for the content of the comments on it - note: this is all sites not just the big ones.

b) It removes liability for moderation decisions - i.e. if the site does not want your comment to be published, you cannot sue them for removing it.

The problem is that a lot of people think they know what it does and try to make it fit. Most of Trump's rants are actually about the 1st Amendment but he thinks it is s230... Biggly sad!

Re: People turning to nonsense

Not sure where you live but that goes against the stats and reporting (ok, this is from August)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/all-children-who-died-of-covid-19-were-already-seriously-ill-jlxr8mkxq I can't find any reports of babies dying from Covid without an underlying problem. 1 was uncertain...

However, with 55+million of us there are likely to be out-lyers and the chances of a baby dying from Covid is still less than of someone dying by lightening strike. It is the risk level that never gets mentioned... Will you only accept a 0% chance of dying from Covid? We deal with risk every day but accept that there will be a non 0 chance of something happening.

For months we have been presented with ever increasing figures for deaths and cases but no-on has been pushing the risk factor - largely because people will see very small numbers and are less likely to take the anti-spread measures seriously.

P = Chance of getting the virus (very small) x Chance of getting a bad reaction (small) x Chance of dying (age related but extremely small for < 30's increasing to high for > 75's)

Now we don't want the very small chance of getting it to increase too much but the OP is technically correct when they said under 43 you have a very low risk of dying. (Note not 0 but less than a lot of things). You still have a chance of passing it on but with 60's+ vaccinated, the younger population could continue largely unaffected. Some countries only allow OAPs out for a small number of hours a day - being a bit mercenary, you could say that isolating the elderly and letting the rest get on with it is a valid response. You may not agree with it or like it but it would undeniably keep the death rate down

I was quite disappointed to find out there is no red button - it is actually a biscuit that allows the President to launch....

That aside, Trump does have overriding authority to request a pre-emptive launch - it would be interesting to know if anyone would follow through with it though. Given that he has lost the election and are in a transition period (even if he is in denial), a retaliation would be no problem but would the chiefs respond as well to a tantrum now?

Re: tp

...For your bunghole??

Cornholio, is that you?

I was saying only this morning that Bernie Sanders would be considered a centrist at worst in Europe.

Biden is centre-right in the rest of the world but considered a leftist/socialist in the US...

What the election showed is that 20-30% of the US would prefer a Fascist dictatorship - or if not prefer, then they certainly open to the possibility. Trump ran the US as a CEO not a president for the people, replacing dissenters (even scientists) with loyal 'yes' men.

Replacing corrupt politicians with corrupt businessmen does not improve the situation - politicians have to compromise* and generally, at least start out with good intentions, businessmen are only in it for themselves.

*with a few notable exceptions, Sen. McConnell, looking at you