Modern technology which is shït.

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Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

Unless you know what that leap is its entirely speculative. Lots of cliches here though: globalised world, quantum leap.

Technology does not go backwards, only forwards. e.g. Quantum processing exists now in it's infancy, it simply didn't exist decades ago. A globalised world speeds things up greatly, Think it was a Chinese dude at ManUni that discovered Graphene, the entire world quickly became aware shortly after.

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

The coming waves is also speculative and another cliche. Industrial robots don’t need to be that smart, they do need to be precisely engineered which they have been for years.

The 'current' robots at your local Amazon warehouse do need to be smart to detect and avoid any (rare) human that gets in the way, it 'self-learns' an alternative route based on recognition and provides a predictive lossless solution so it can work around them. Self-learning simply didn't exist before recent times.

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

Computers are nowhere near becoming self aware and certainly not in the next ten years. A theory of mind isn’t a software problem, it’s a philosophical and perhaps biological one. The problem of consciousness is not being worked on in software because we don’t really understand it.

Mid-2030s onwards. Biological interfacing will indeed be a factor and reality.
Only last month a blind chap has vision somewhat restored via a wireless chip/electrodes implant directly to the brain's visual cortex.
Paradigm shift of sorts for neurotechnology, no?

limnam

CoBo55 wrote: »

Try a bedside lamp...

What you doing communicating on this here Internets?



Reply via morse code please.

The high horse brigade

CoBo55 wrote: »

Try a bedside lamp...

I have a hue bulb in a bedside lamp and a Google home on my locker so I can just shout from under the covers while I fondle the missis, I have better things to be doing

cnocbui

Luciana Obnoxious Composer wrote: »

Technology does not go backwards, only forwards.

Concorde - you lose.

Wibbs

Zelda Flabby Manicure wrote: »

Trying to compare location services on devices to “human rights” is just an impossible leap, honestly it’s even beyond tin foil hat level.

Jesus, it's like you have the horn for gadgets to the exclusion of any negatives that may come from it. Do you sell this stuff for a living or something?

Just because you seem blissfully ignorant of how such things work doesn't mean it's "tin foil hat" territory. I noted you left out the part of my post about the Chinese government driven social credit system of oversight. Does this exist? Yes. Is it being upgraded on a regular basis? Yes. OK, then how do you think someone's social score will fare if they start talking about Chinese governmental human rights abuses that are actually going on? Do you think another Tiananmen Square demonstration against the Chinese government could occur now? Not a hope. It would be smothered in the crib before it got near to that. It probably has been and more than once.

Dissent is being specifically monitored. And not just in China, though they're don't give a feck obvious about the level of social control they're after. In the West we are freer and it's more about "anti terrorism" stuff, which is understandable, but all dissent gets caught up in that net and all dissent isn't all bad. Read your history. Like I said before every single right you hold today came from a position of dissent.

The high horse brigade

cnocbui wrote: »

Concorde - you lose.

Should never have been taken out of the air, should be still flying, was never anything wrong with them

Wibbs

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Should never have been taken out of the air, should be still flying, was never anything wrong with them

Economics was a massive part of it. Spare parts another and there wasn't the will or it seems need to retool, or refit them to keep them flying. It got some refitting after the one accident, but... There was also a large dollop of politics involved with the French wanting any excuse to be shot of it, the Brits would likely have soldiered on for longer with it. Then again it was mired in politics from the get go. IIRC Richard Branson offered to take a few with what spares were left, but was turned down? Even things like Skype had an effect. Speed was the thing, now it's all about cost and bulk numbers.

cnocbui

The US did everything in it's power to stop Concorde being a success due to the sever embarrassment it caused. If Concorde had been a Boeing product, the US would have employed it's usual gunboat diplomacy to ensure that it had a free run in all international air corridors with no restrictions.

Note that it was a US plane that conveniently killed off Concorde... /j

The high horse brigade

This link just came up in my feeds for all you out there that think Apple is more secure than Android
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2019/08/10/apple-iphone-ipad-security-warning-ios-12-ios13-iphone-xs-max-xr/

Skylinehead

Zelda Flabby Manicure wrote: »

Why do you think they aren’t secure and what exactly are you afraid of happening?

It’s definite scaremongering.

IoT devices are notoriously insecure, they've f all security. Better hope your home network is up to scratch because the devices themselves certainly aren't.

elfy4eva

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Those Amazon Alexa speakers and the like. Paying a company money to buy a device that they use to listen in on what you say. What you get in return is to be able to ask for your bland 90’s indie hits playlist on Spotify.

My mother has MS and has limited mobility and hand functions, she receives care assistance at home and she is often put to bed by 8PM. We got her an Amazon Echo Dot, so as she can control a few things like her lamp and her television from bed, use it to play radio stations from bed as well as use it to "Drop in" on my dads alexa in his room as a supplement to her panic button if she needs him for anything (non-emergency assistance etc.)

Not my cup of tea for my house personally but it would be folly to say they aren't extremely useful pieces of kit.

Paddy Cow

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Totally get where you’re coming from, recently got a new condenser tumble dryer and I thought it was because it was a condenser dryer that the clothes and sheets still came out damp. Nah, what was happening was if I put too much in, it wasn’t getting a chance to throw the stuff around a bit, or else a sheet would envelop the rest of the stuff and I’d have a dry ball on the outside, damp clothes on the inside. Now when I do sheets I just check on them every so often and give them a shakeout. Everything dries perfect.

As for the beeping, has to be a setting for that PC? Mine would do the same only there’s a button with “Buzzer” on it, switch that and head off to sleep with no beeping sounds driving you nuts (it did the first few times I ran it, no more ).

For the love of the flying spaghetti monster how did I not know this! Just checked and yes, there's a Buzzer Cancel button This has been driving me mad for two years. Thanks

the_pen_turner

elfy4eva wrote: »

My mother has MS and has limited mobility and hand functions, she receives care assistance at home and she is often put to bed by 8PM. We got her an Amazon Echo Dot, so as she can control a few things like her lamp and her television from bed, use it to play radio stations from bed as well as use it to "Drop in" on my dads alexa in his room as a supplement to her panic button if she needs him for anything (non-emergency assistance etc.)

Not my cup of tea for my house personally but it would be folly to say they aren't extremely useful pieces of kit.

wow. ots amazing that something so small could bring such normality to such a situation. im sure it brings her a sence of being somewhat independant

elfy4eva

the_pen_turner wrote: »

wow. ots amazing that something so small could bring such normality to such a situation. im sure it brings her a sence of being somewhat independant

Thanks for the kind words, it gives her some control over small things we would take for granted that she massively struggled with before. In her situation you take whatever small improvements you can get.

Capt'n Midnight

Luciana Obnoxious Composer wrote: »

Technology does not go backwards, only forwards.

What about the 1955 Citroen DS ?

Headlights followed the steering wheel which helped going around corners.

And hydropneumatic suspension.


Today it's a race to the bottom.

Chineseum : noun Metal-like substance used in the forming of trade goods in the shape of common hand tools.

Ubbquittious

Didn't NASA forget how to make the rockets that took them to the moon?

appledrop

tmabr wrote: »

Stupid self service tills. Grrrr. I don’t remember applying for a job in tesco

+1 and especially the ones in Tesco. FFS they cannot cope with a Brennan's slice pan. Fix the bloody thing so they recognise a slice pan in baggage area!

Rant over

El_Duderino 09

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

What about the 1955 Citroen DS ?

Headlights followed the steering wheel which helped going around corners.

And hydropneumatic suspension.


Today it's a race to the bottom.

Chineseum : noun Metal-like substance used in the forming of trade goods in the shape of common hand tools.

We'll, be fair. Technology didn't go backwards. The products companies choose to sell, went backwards

Technology has Marched merrily on from the 1955 Citroën DS. Citroën has chosen to sell the cars it sells because it's more profitable, needs more repairs which are more difficult to carry out unless you pay the dealer and will have a successor model in 3 years with upgrades and a stylish new dashboard.

This is like the poi t I made earlier about how you can't expect capitalism to fix climate change, nor can you expect it to bring forward technologies. Capitalism's job isn't to do those things. Its job is to sell units and make money.

El_Duderino 09

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Didn't NASA forget how to make the rockets that took them to the moon?

No. But it was expensive and there isn't a lot to do on the moon.

The space programme was a proxy war with Russia. The cost of the space programme was comparable to the bank bailout a decade ago. Back then the prize was beating the Russians. Now the prize would be very little by Comparison because the moon isn't that interesting.

d8491prj5boyvg

astrofool wrote: »

I always laugh at this, any phone from the last 2 decades will have multiple microphones picking up everything you say and do, and are usually much closer to a person than Alexa/Google Home ever are (and they often have multiple cameras).

Laptops and computers also usually have built in mic's, if you really wanted to spy on someone, any available speaker can be turned into a low grade mic.

I'm guessing it's the very visible nature of the smart home devices that makes people say stuff like the above, the reality is that the horse bolted many years ago, and if you're going to have hundreds of mic's lying around, might as well make them do something useful.

No. All devices record what you say if you let it. I don't use facebook messenger for this reason. Alexa, by design, records what you say.

Also, I don't care what others know about me personally. It's unlikely to be used against me in any way. It's the trends they can pick up. Data that can be used for standard statistical analysis to figure out how best to manipulate me into buying the latest shyte or behaving in a way that is beneficial to them. Facebook, boards, all social media already know a lot about me. GPS co-ordinates and conversation in the home is a piece that would make that a hell of a lot more useful so I'll keep that to myself.

Wibbs

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Didn't NASA forget how to make the rockets that took them to the moon?

Nope. As El Dude notes it was horribly expensive and they won the race. In 1969 Stanley Kubrick directed 2001 and space odyssey, the most expensive science fiction film ever made up to that point and as he noted it cost 10 million dollars(in 60's money) to make the entire thing over nearly a year, NASA were spending that per day.


They were also concerned about losing the crew on a mission, which they figured they would if they had kept going to the original Apollo 20(they stopped at 17). They had some close shaves already. Apollo 13 the obvious one and even then they were lucky because if that failure had happened at any other time in the mission they would have been killed. Apollo 12 had issues just after launch, Apollo 13 had an engine shutdown on the second stage, the Apollo 1 crew were killed by a fire in thier command module on the ground during a test.

During the 70's some of the original plans and gear were simply lost or just dumped as scrap. Plus a new generation of engineers had largely taken over and many of the skills of the original guys were lost. When in recent years current engineers looked at the Saturn V F1 engines they were shocked to see the complexity, how handmade they were and how each individual engine was ever so slightly different to the next.

Overall though we could go again tomorrow if the will was there and do it more quickly and more efficiently, but the will isn't there at the moment. Likely won;t be unless privately or semi privately funded and followed through. As well as the "space race" being a factor another huge factor was the politics. Kennedy being assassinated actually helped. The project took on a memorial as well as a goal feel to it and his vice president and later president Johnson was very supportive of it. The joke is Kennedy had been getting cold feet about the whole endeavour just before he died, he saw the massive costs involved might be a hard sell politically(and it was and continued to be throughout the 1960's). He even made an offer to the USSR for more joint missions. When Nixon got into the White House he was happy with the first landing but pretty quickly tired of the whole thing from a political standpoint.

So for the Americans to do it again they'd need a president and government willing to start it and a president that got two runs at the office and the next administration hanging on until it was done. That happened in teh 60's but I can't see it happening again any time soon. Maybe if the Chinese got serious about it. They might. Though they've only got to earth orbit. That's "easy" by comparison to going to the Moon.

Kyson Rough Train

Kyson Rough Train wrote: »

No. All devices record what you say if you let it. I don't use facebook messenger for this reason. Alexa, by design, records what you say.
.

But only after you tell it to start listening by saying “Alexa”. What you can do with recordings of me telling Alexa to turn on and off lights, play a radio station, set a timer or tell the weather is not going to be anything to worry about.

Capt'n Midnight

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Didn't NASA forget how to make the rockets that took them to the moon?

No.

The plans for the Saturn V didn't go missing.

Yes lots of companies and people involved aren't around anymore.


The big factor was that each Apollo mission cost more than our annual GDP at the time.


It's only recently that Space X have improved on performance of the best of the Soviet era engines.

And don't get started on SLS

Wibbs

Funny enough and kinda speaking of Concorde: The Lockheed SR71 Blackbird spy plane, the fastest(that we know of) jet engined aircraft to fly. Well Lockheed had wanted to make a fighter bomber with the Blackbird as a base and the Air Force was all exited about that, but the American government ordered the tooling and plans to be destroyed in the late 60's. Destroying the tooling alone would have meant making new aircraft impossibly expensive. The reason was mostly because of a dick waving exercise by the US secretary of defence of the time Robert McNamara, because he thought his authority wasn't being respected enough and Lockheed had bypassed him by approaching the Air Force directly. It's one reason why they were finally mothballed, rather than be upgraded like the U2 spy plane which is older than it and slower and flies at a lower altitude, but is still flying today*.





*Spy satellites played a part, but spy planes still have a role or the U2 wouldn't be still in use.

coffee_cake

Kyson Rough Train wrote: »

No. All devices record what you say if you let it. I don't use facebook messenger for this reason. Alexa, by design, records what you say.

Also, I don't care what others know about me personally. It's unlikely to be used against me in any way. It's the trends they can pick up. Data that can be used for standard statistical analysis to figure out how best to manipulate me into buying the latest shyte or behaving in a way that is beneficial to them. Facebook, boards, all social media already know a lot about me. GPS co-ordinates and conversation in the home is a piece that would make that a hell of a lot more useful so I'll keep that to myself.

my understanding is that it has a very limited chip that only picks up wake words or not , then when that gets activated and it is a wake word, it starts listening then and using the main processing whateveritis

d8491prj5boyvg

Zelda Flabby Manicure wrote: »

I would see this as paranoia on a level that would be borderline needing to talk to someone about it. If nothing else I simply couldn’t be bothered going to the effort of disabling any of this stuff but aside from that you use a lot of usefulness in many apps.

Ignorance is bliss.

d8491prj5boyvg

Zelda Flabby Manicure wrote: »

But only after you tell it to start listening by saying “Alexa”. What you can do with recordings of me telling Alexa to turn on and off lights, play a radio station, set a timer or tell the weather is not going to be anything to worry about.

And how does Alexa know you are calling her name?

Beechwoodspark

Wibbs wrote: »

Funny enough and kinda speaking of Concorde: The Lockheed SR71 Blackbird spy plane, the fastest(that we know of) jet engined aircraft to fly. Well Lockheed had wanted to make a fighter bomber with the Blackbird as a base and the Air Force was all exited about that, but the American government ordered the tooling and plans to be destroyed in the late 60's. Destroying the tooling alone would have meant making new aircraft impossibly expensive. The reason was mostly because of a dick waving exercise by the US secretary of defence of the time Robert McNamara, because he thought his authority wasn't being respected enough and Lockheed had bypassed him by approaching the Air Force directly. It's one reason why they were finally mothballed, rather than be upgraded like the U2 spy plane which is older than it and slower and flies at a lower altitude, but is still flying today*.





*Spy satellites played a part, but spy planes still have a role or the U2 wouldn't be still in use.

The sr72 was faster

Beechwoodspark

And faster than them all was the x-15

Google is your friend

wexandproud

mrcheez wrote: »

... or control your lights
... or control your TV
... or control your central heating
... or read out latest weather forecast
... or read out news headlines
... or add reminders

****ing best invention in past 10 years imo

I have herself to do some of those things . She's always controlling the tv , central heating and god knows she's always reminding me of stuff i was supposed to do