Tag: Technology

Headache

Good Stuff, Numbers & Statistics

Just when I thought I’d figured it all out, comes shit like this:

‘They are the sort of equations that arise when you try to study something that evolves in time but also depends on space.
‘For example, like the wind in a wind tunnel you want to model the flow of air then that of course depends on time because it changes over time but it also depends on space – the velocity of the air is different at different points in the wind tunnel.
‘So if you have a system like this which furthermore evolves under the influence of randomness.
‘So if you have randomness that enters the game then that’s described by stochastic partial differential equation.’

I used to work with people like this when designing predictive algorithms, and I would place bets with myself as to how long (measured in seconds) it would take before I lost track of the conversation completely and the speech became unintelligible.  Usually, it was about twenty seconds.

It gets worse.  The reason I used “20 seconds” in the above sentence is because I actually kept count, over the year’s worth of discussions and meetings, of the times.  Then I created a distribution chart — bell-shaped, of course, with the most common incidence around 20.

Yeah, I was a fucking geek, too.  Just a much more limited one.

By the way, if you read the article — and you should — there’s a glaring (but non-mathematical) error.  Call it the Obama Fallacy, and see if you can spot it.

No Big Deal

Drive Time, Sports

Still on sports:  I see that the Le Mans 24-hour race is going to be run with empty stands because Chinkvirus.

Can’t see why that would be a big deal, unless you’re one of those masochists  keen fans who endures 24 hours of noise and discomfort, at least half of which are spent in driving rain — it always rains at Le Mans — and 10 hours of which are spent in total darkness anyway.  Not even I watch the race in full — and I’m a huge Le Mans fan.

Nope;  a two-hour highlight program is pretty much all I care for.  (And I prefer still more an actual documentary — Truth in 24  and Truth in 24 II  are excellent albeit dated shows, as I’ve said before.)

And even if you’re one of those ghouls who only wants to go to Le Mans for the crashes, just remember that most of the crashes happen in the woods or at least far from where most spectators are sitting — with one notable exception [hem hem]  where the spectators were very much part of the action, so to speak.

Certainly, spectators at Le Mans have no effect on the race participants — crowd noise is pretty much a nothingburger, unlike say at a football match.

And to the surprise of absolutely no one, let it be said that I prefer Le Mans as it was raced in the old days, where the cars at least looked like the same cars you’d see driving around the countryside:

…and not the bizarre, shapeless and electronic doodad-filled crap that looks like it was done by some CAD intern.

But that’s a rant for another time.

Risky Bidness

Disaster, Health, Science!

Apparently, some “experts” (standard warning applies) over in Britishland (same warning) have come up with a list of activities that carry a risk of catching Chinkvirus cooties, ranked according to risk level:

All FYI — as much of what is listed is pretty much commonsense.  I do wonder, though, how “protest march”, “rioting” and “looting” (some overlap) did not make the list.

Fair Warning

Drive Time, Technology

Via Insty. I see the following announcement:

Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia are going to build a new software-defined computing architecture for automated vehicles based on the Nvidia DRIVE platform that will be installed across the fleet of next-generation Mercedes-Benz vehicles, starting in 2024.
“The entire fleet, every car from the entry A-classes to the S-classes, will have the highest-performance Nvidia AI supercomputer on board.”
Shapiro said that each of these new Mercedes vehicles will come with the full surround sensor suite installed and then, similar to how Tesla does things today, it will be up to owners to decide if they want to activate features, either when they purchase the car or after the fact with an over-the-air update. “There will be different business models, subscription service possibilities or one-time fees or things like that, depending on the region, that potentially turns the car into a fully upgradable, perpetually upgradable device, and there potentially could be be a Mercedes App Store,” he said.

Emphasis mine because Mercedes, being German, will make that particular feature disappear just as Porsche decided that drivers shouldn’t be allowed to change gears manually in their (Porsche’s) precious little Nazi pocket rockets.

My take on the above, therefore, rewords their announcement thus:

If you’re going to buy a Mercedes, buy one before the 2024 model year comes to market. 

Me being me, I’d rather buy a still-older (but rebuilt) Mercedes, like this one (for about the same end-price of a comparably-sized new Merc):

 

…or even this Mercedes (which has had all the rebuilding done — see the pic gallery):

No silly tech doodads that cause your car to stop because some sub-system software failed, or because some AI algorithm decided that you’d done enough driving for the day, or that would require the entire IT Department at Daimler-Benz to fix it.

Just good, honest driving pleasure in a car with proven reliability.  What Mercedes used to be renowned for.

My simple belief is this:  we wouldn’t accept this kind of software built into our guns, so why should we allow it in our cars?

Fair Warning

General

At over six years old (240 years in computer age, apparently), my laptop is showing signs of age — it’s slower than I am, more reluctant to work than the average Minneapolis looter, and falls over more often than the late Ted Kennedy at an open bar function.

Ditto, incidentally, my Logitech mouse, which is of the same vintage, and has developed the annoying habit of occasionally double-clicking when only one click is requested.

Tech Support II just clucked his tongue sorrowfully at my tale of woe, and metaphorically speaking adopted the tones of a doctor talking about a terminally-ill patient.  Clearly, there is Nothing To Be Done.

So at some point today, I’m going over to Ye Olde Compooter Shoppe, and will buy replacements for both the above appliances, something I’ve been putting off for over a year because poverty. Now, like the man forced to choose between death by drowning or by a long fall to the concrete, I have no real choice left.

There may be only one post tomorrow while I grapple with the tiresome details of transferring all my stuff from the old hard drive to the new one, while deleting the megatons of unnecessary garbage which seems to infest all new PCs these days.

Bear with me in this trying time.  I hate this shit.

All contributions to help defray said expense will be gratefully received (see the PayPal link over on the right hand side of the page, or paper to the Sooper-Seekrit mailing address).

Update:  it appears as though my laptop’s memory chip has fallen over, and this particular Dell model doesn’t seem to allow for easy replacement thereof — assuming that’s indeed the problem.  Anyway, I ordered a new laptop — and many MANY thanks for all your contributions to the cause.  It should only get here in a week’s time, so posting will be light until then.

Please bear with me in these trying times.