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rickdeckard

4,641 karma · joined January 4, 2017

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rickdeckard··on How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth (2008)
Don't know why you are downvoted, that's how the whole article still can be interpreted.

The only change I can read from it, is that they don't need to apply a renaming from Day#1

rickdeckard··on How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth (2008)
> "In the situation with the Gulf, it's unambiguously true that the "primary, common, local" name used in the US"

And that's my point. It depends on how "primary" or "common" is defined, the article has no definition of it. Who gets to decide that, Google?

The easy (and predictable) cop-out is to follow a governments definition of what is "the expected primary and common name", and then show that name in brackets.

The only restriction this "definition" seems to set is that your country needs to be adjacent to the landmark to define its name, so "a ruler" cannot decide to rename e.g. Australia unless he is either "the ruler" of Australia or of a country adjacent to it.

And we're back to square one.

--

EDIT: Yes, I also read this sentence: "By saying "common", we mean to include names which are in widespread daily use, rather than giving immediate recognition to any arbitrary governmental re-naming.".

The question remains how to quantify "widespread daily use".

It creates room to justify against an immediate change of a name, but doesn't define when this criteria is reached.

And from all I see, all this doesn't seem to matter anyway, because a new local naming will anyway be added in brackets (see Gulf of Mexico). What am I missing?

rickdeckard··on How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth (2008)
> "show lake america, gulf of america, ocean america, asian america, european america and african america if Trump makes it official, but only for the US IP"

I would maybe even welcome that approach at this stage, just to demonstrate the absurdity of those decisions.

They could actively encourage also other countries to rename all foreign landmarks as they please, to fast-track a separate "international naming" convention so people can again communicate across borders...

rickdeckard··on How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth (2008)
It seems their actual policy is "the policy of Primary Local Usage":

"Under this policy, the English Google Earth client displays the primary, common, local name(s) given to a body of water by the sovereign nations that border it. If all bordering countries agree on the name, then the common single name is displayed (e.g. "Caribbean Sea" in English, "Mar Caribe" in Spanish, etc.). But if different countries dispute the proper name for a body of water, our policy is to display both names, with each label placed closer to the country or countries that use it."

Which basically means "multiple names until all bordering countries agree on the same name", if I'm not mistaken

rickdeckard··on How Google determines the names for bodies of water in Google Earth (2008)
I guess the "Maps" Team follows a different policy than the "Earth" team...

Although there is also no definition of "common usage". A new name might already qualify if the local government adjacent to this landmark announces to only use this new name from now on.

Reading the article, I assume this would cause the new name to be immediately shown in brackets next to the old name, or am I missing something?

rickdeckard··on Zero click, silent, remote Android DoS
yes, valid guess, I should have extended the quote.

The page describes that this part is resolved by putting the SIM into a non-Android device to receive the queued messages and acknowledge to the network.

To then recover the device it only vaguely mentions "adb commands" and "factory reset", but I can't find a description what actually needs to be done on the device.

I guess the specific question is: The message database that is corrupted due to this issue, is this DB owned by (and stored as part of) com.android.phone?

rickdeckard··on Zero click, silent, remote Android DoS
> "A remote attacker can cut a phone off from Triple Zero"

Disclaimer for non-aussies (like me): That's not the newest hacker slang for something, 000 is the phone number of Australian's emergency services...

Replace with "can cut you off from 911" or 112, 999, etc. as needed (optionally wear sunglasses and add hand-gestures to amplify the effect)

...or just call it "emergency services"

rickdeckard··on Zero click, silent, remote Android DoS
The page mentions that an adb command is required to recover the device, but I can't find details on what exact adb this is.

Overall a bit frustrating to have such a fancy webpage with a dedicated address, but then no description on how to actually #1 identify and #2 recover an affected device...

> "Once the database is corrupt, com.android.phone no longer needs a fresh message to fail: it crashes immediately on every boot as it reads the damaged store [..] a factory reset only helps temporarily"

Can't I delete the storage of com.android.phone instead of a full factory-reset?

rickdeckard··on The 'else' keyword is probably a literal translation from German (2020)
Nice article.

Funny enough, even though I know if/then/else by heart for decades now, I also spent a few seconds comprehending that 1960 arrow diagram of ALGOL60...

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
The same trajectory, yes. But here they are taking the next step.

So far they didn't dare to announce an AI-generated competitor of e.g. Photoshop, inviting Adobe to get honorable mention in a press-release.

Or create a mafia movie and invite Martin Scorcese to join the press-release.

They could easily create final products already instead of providing their tools as a service to those industries. But they are aware of the backlash, so they wait.

Research seems to be a good field to test the waters...

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
> "I don't really see how this is significantly different from them scraping the entire human knowledge, distilling it into weights and then selling the results."

Well, so far those companies offered this distilled human knowledge as part of a service, with all the (unresolved) criticism associated with scraping of other peoples properties.

In this instance they did the next step, created a combined output and are celebrating themselves for the result, inviting others to join.

It's the difference of scraping all books to build a language model from it for sale to others, and outright announcing a new Harry Potter book after extending an offer to JK Rowling to join the press-release.

(and I guess I need to clarify: I don't compare scientific research to writing a novel, I compare the handling of both scenarios)

rickdeckard··on New 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M6
"Nano-texture glass" and "Nano-texture display" should refer to the same: A microscopic etching into the display glass.

"Nano-texture finish" on iPhone Duo refers to an additional layer they put on top of the display panel. It's basically a sticker with a similar (same?) surface structure (they can't put it on the display glass itself because it's too thin)

rickdeckard··on New 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M6
The unbearable burden of consumerism.

"You didn't even finish your M2 yet and already want to refill your plate?"

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
As per OP, you're inferring a "healthy competition" between the cyclist and his bike. How would you expect cycling as a whole to evolve under such circumstances?

But I think you're talking about something entirely different, I leave it to someone else to answer.

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
> "This stuff reads as cope by scientists who spent their entire careers chasing these problems."

This seems to be really hard for some people to understand:

The gripe is not how AI has "cheated" and wasn't "embracing the race", everyone agrees that it's the result that counts.

The problem is that researchers use AI as a tool, and the company owning the tool siphoned all data from the sum of all researchers, combined it and completed the research. Okay, result is reached, still arguably good.

But the company owning the tool now takes credit for the entire research.

"Inviting" selected researchers to be mentioned in the press-release is not fixing that, the entire body of work is actually based on what the sum of researchers did, even those who failed in their research and didn't publish anything.

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
OP here. I compared it to a bicycle because a bicycle is a tool.

I could also compare it to a car, but a considered a bicycle more appropriate (maybe because of the "bicycle for the mind" analogy for computers by Steve Jobs).

But comparing it to "Automotive technology" doesn't make sense, because "fuel efficiency" and "safety" are not tools but the properties of a tool.

Scientists are working with tools, and now one of those tools has silently turned this into a race for publication with all the users of the tool.

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
OpenAI (as others) has a Researcher Access Program [0] which grants ChatGPT credits for research institutions and individuals.

They review applications beforehand to assess the "relevance of the research proposal" and check if it fits "the objectives and research priorities for this program".

There is no statement whatsoever that the data provided will not be used for training (so there would not be an "lying" required), but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

In essence, they have a process in place to grade and classify the type of information coming from each of those accounts prior to their enablement. I see no issue for them to feed that data back into training, even explicitly weighted for the field the research-access was given to.

Honestly, it's a perfect process: "Physics-research grants are reaching critical mass. Let's put priority on more physics field grants and boost the compute-resources for the physics model. Let's aim for some press-releases end of next quarter."

[0] https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10139500-researcher-acce...

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
> " They're announcing their achievement in bicycle racing, achieved on a private track that nobody can audit, using supposedly a bike that nobody has seen before."

To be fair, the metaphor breaks down here.

In research the private track and the bike used are not relevant, the result is what's relevant to be opened for review and scrutiny (which OpenAI does).

(If someone provably solved cold-fusion, the achievement won't be disqualified because it was solved with "private tools")

My point is rather that the achievement was reached by presenting yourself as an "assistant" to other researchers in the field, and then exploiting their "good faith" by combining all their notes with multi-million dollar resources to publish faster than they can.

They could also supply those multi-million dollar resources to the researchers directly, but they chose not to. And this is what they should be condemned for.

rickdeckard··on Three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics
> "We are announcing three new discoveries in mathematics, computer science, and physics about harmonic analysis, complexity theory, and quantum field theory."

I'm still not fond of the bicycle manufacturer announcing its achievements in bicycle racing, even if it selects the 5 top cyclists to support the orchestration of the announcement.

From past incidences it's already known that their model is very likely trained on input gathered from scientists which use OpenAI as a tool for their research. Suddenly the research community is in a race with the provider of its tool, and can hope for the grace of being selected to judge the output and have an honorable mention in the press-release.

The situation would be different if they would collaborate with scientists during the research, and let them publish the results with reference to OpenAI being a supporter/sponsor.

But this approach of "thanks to your continuous input we now have a bicycle which even our employees can use to beat you, we invite you to be mentioned in our press-release" doesn't sit well with me...

rickdeckard··on Run full iOS 16.5 firmware on Android Devices
Yes, I got that.

And I'm saying that it's not trivial to run an OS on any hardware. Android is designed for this and well-documented, which makes it look easier. iOS is neither of those.

rickdeckard··on Run full iOS 16.5 firmware on Android Devices
Even if this takes off in some way, the most meaningful result for an end-user would still be to recreate the experience on Android, instead of trying to keep iOS running on foreign hardware.

Reason: Android is a OS designed to run on as much hardware as possible, iOS is designed to support only a VERY limited set of components, and is increasingly wrapped into a per-component security architecture.

rickdeckard··on Run full iOS 16.5 firmware on Android Devices
> "[..] if someone can create a near perfect replica with all the software keys needed and then clone a known serial number or range of serial numbers [..]"

I think you would need to hack and emulate the whole security enclave, which contains quite a bit of factory-provisioned data IIRC.

rickdeckard··on Meta ordered to pay $25B penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case
Ah, so again a solution was found which continues to allow future crimes to be planned like a business case with basic cost/benefit math.

Why wasn't this prosecuted with jail-sentences like Dieselgate?

rickdeckard··on Apple broke an essential presentation feature of iPads
How about just starting AirPlay in the control center to take over the Airplay session from the presentation?

I'm trying to find a flaw, so far it sounds logical to me:

There's only one AirPlay session, and whichever App requests it suspends the previous one. This way you can also go back from "live demo" to presentation by switching back to the presentation app and selecting AirPlay in that context again...

rickdeckard··on AfD Leak: What 421,179 Hacked Emails Show about the German Far Right
> "To deny the existence of an ethnic group and culture which has existed for thousands of years."

Noone is denying the existence of Germans in Germany. Germans are a product of their current culture.

Ethnocide is describing the erasure of culture, not the organic evolution of it.

I don't wear the same clothes as my grandparents did, I don't eat the same food, don't do the same work, don't have the same social life.

This is my culture, I am a product of it, my grandchildren will have a different culture. It is arrogant to assume my culture is the "peak" of my countries' culture (or "ethnicity"), just as it is not the place of my parents or grandparents to claim as such.

What is propagated here is that Germany (or whatever nation) needs to proactively reject the coexistence of other cultures within its borders for the fear of any kind of impact on itself in the future, taking effort to (depending on the age of who you ask) preserve or reverse its current state. THIS is genocidal language.

rickdeckard··on AfD Leak: What 421,179 Hacked Emails Show about the German Far Right
> "Ultimately, you can’t ban ideas in a democracy, unfortunately even the idea to abolish it."

What you can do though, is destroy the foundation of democracy by being tolerant towards discrimination, for the sake of not "banning ideas"

--> "Why not turn people who are not able to work anymore into a nutricious paste for others? It was just a question! You can't silence me, this is a democracy!!"

rickdeckard··on AfD Leak: What 421,179 Hacked Emails Show about the German Far Right
Who "wants to see the civilisation destroyed", the left-wing or the right-wing?
rickdeckard··on AfD Leak: What 421,179 Hacked Emails Show about the German Far Right
If you read it again you may notice that I didn't put them into the same category.

CDU/CSU will try to take the same topics the AfD used to enrage its voter-base and will present itself as the "rational, conservative and experienced" alternative to the "concerns of the voter".

This is the process which will cause CDU/CSU to not publicly condemn the AfD and its narratives, will make the CDU/CSU to "sacrifice" themselves as the coalition partner who will "control" the AfD, secretly hoping to convert their voters into CDU/CSU voters while AfD destroys itself due to its lack of skills to actually deliver in government.

In the end the AfD MAY or MAY NOT actually collapse if they are forced to deliver on their unrealistic promises. But it won't matter, because #1 the party will not die because it will present itself as the victim, and #2 the whole exercise will do such a substantial damage to political discourse and democracy that it will take decades to recover from it.

Again, one can hope that THIS TIME it will be different...

rickdeckard··on AfD Leak: What 421,179 Hacked Emails Show about the German Far Right
> "Usually what happens is the opposite: a right-wing party will pretend to be right-wing to win the election and then when in power it will do whatever the left-wing party does."

That's a fascinating perspective. Do you think they "do whatever the left-wing party does" because

1. they are secretly not right-wing?

2. they rallied on matters which were anyway already worked on by the existing government, and reality is not as simple as they claim it is?

3. they had no clue how to actually achieve anything they promised on the required scale, just said anything to enrage people and get their vote and now have to work in the same system as everyone else?

rickdeckard··on AfD Leak: What 421,179 Hacked Emails Show about the German Far Right
To be able to browse by category and summary instead of just persons and dates, to then review the original documents: https://www.hexane.cc/

Quote from the website:

"This is an index. The original messages — full headers, bodies, attachments, byte for byte — are in the torrent, inside standard .mbox files. Download the archive, open those files in any mail client, and you have exactly what the party's servers held.

Nothing on this site replaces that, and nothing on this site should be cited as a primary source."

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