Interesting Links for 17-01-2014

[andrewducker]

• What's expected of us (a neat short story on determinism)
  (tags: short_story scifi determinism FreeWill timetravel )
• The Independent seeks a buyer
  (tags: news media uk )
• Meet the Man Google Hired to Make AI a Reality
  (tags: google ai )
• Dutch scheme aims to reintegrate alcoholics by giving them beer
  (tags: alcohol netherlands )
• I'm fairly sure that

Comments

What's expected of us (a neat short story on determinism)

[cartesiandaemon]

Oh wow, I didn't know Chiang had written anything new. His short stories are amazing.

Partly I'm annoyed that people are still arguing about free-will vs determinism. I feel like we know the answer, even if we disagree about whether to call that "free-will" or not.

But admittedly, that's easy if we don't have any *way* of knowing the future. We still don't know what it would be like knowing something we might do is predestined and trying to wrestle with it

[simont]

The Predictor story: I remember seeing that some years ago, because I recognised the allusion to it in Ken Macleod's The Night Sessions. However, I'd assumed it was written by Macleod and he was referring to his own previous work, so I'm now startled to find it's by someone else!

Re: What's expected of us (a neat short story on determinism)

[andrewducker]

The story is from 2005...

And if you like Chiang then you should really read some Greg Egan.

I particularly recommend the short story collection "Axiomatic" and the novel Permutation City.

Re: What's expected of us (a neat short story on determinism)

[cartesiandaemon]

Huh. Apparently it just didn't get into his large collection.

And yes, I've read all the Greg Egan I can find. I don't *always* agree with him, but it seems he's almost the only person writing what I could comfortably call "hard science fiction". And once, "hard mathematics", which I hadn't thought would exist :)

[gonzo21]

I can only really comment on the Royal Navy component of the British Armed Forces thing

[drdoug]

Our entire naval procurement strategy is mired in Cold War philosophy still.

Yes - people criticise military types for "fighting the last war" but much of this smacks of "fighting the last war but ten or so".

The other day I saw a hilarious conversation online somewhere where someone (now there's an impressive citation)* was trying to argue that UK armed forces were just as capable as they had been, say, five or ten years ago. They were doing a sterling job of batting on a sticky wicket until the question of aircraft carrier capacity came up. I can't do their argument justice, but it came close to implying that the Queen Elizabeth class carriers will be so amazingly better than the Invincible class carriers - if when they eventually turn up - that they will fill in the gap in cover with sheer back-projected awesomeness.

* Now I think about it I can't be sure that it wasn't in fact Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State for Defence.

[gonzo21]

I think at heart the Navy hasn't really come to terms with the fact that as things stand today, Navies are fairly redundant. Unless you have a carrier battlegroup at your disposal and can truly project power.

(And the jury is out on that too, because I rather suspect the Chinese have figured out a way to render the CBG obsolete.)

So the RN decisions sort of vaguely make sense if they're imagining the creation of an EU Navy, and putting together a Carrier group from all the European nation's navies... But that would seem contrary to any sort of political will.

These Queen Elizabeth carriers are just going to look more and more of an embaressment the closer they get. I fully expect one if not both to wind up getting sold very soon after they are commissioned to India for significantly less than they cost to build.

And the problem is the rest of the Navy has been absolutely gutted in order to find the funds for these two turkeys. So they've thrown away what little capability our Navy still had, for reasons that still escape me?

[nojay]

There's a number of other carrier aircraft the Lizzies could embark other than the F35-B but they'd need catapult upgrades. The deck's big enough for Hornets, Mirages and the like, they're not shortarse hulls like the Invisible was or the US LHDs or the new Japanese Akagi^WIzumo helicarriers.

The F35-B might eventually crawl out of its hole, the US Marines want them bad as the Harriers they bought off us will be wearing out just as their new America LHDs are coming into service and the USMC really want to have a strike capability with USMC pilots flying USMC aircraft off USMC-purposed decks instead of relying on a USN Ford-class suuuupercarrier and pissy Naval aviators who really don't like the idea of flying low and slow to support front-line operations. The Marines were the saviours of the V22 after all.

To see a Korean view of the F-35B saga (and a trenchant metaphor of world military aviation represented as Japanese schoolgirls IKYN) see Anyan's excellent Flight High School comics.Reply

Michael Gove or Dolores Umbridge? (Hint: Umbridge is better written)

[cartesiandaemon]

I did worse than chance...

95% of ATMs are running Windows XP

[cartesiandaemon]

I'm sort of terrified that any ATMs were ever running XP. I guess it must be easier to manufacture them that way, and not actually a terrible idea.

I'm fighting the urge to say "at least they're not running Vista" :) (I'm not sure, but I think Vista was just inconvenient, but probably more secure?)

Re: 95% of ATMs are running Windows XP

[andrewducker]

So long as you don't have physical access to the box there's not _much_ you can do.

Re: 95% of ATMs are running Windows XP

[cartesiandaemon]

physical access to the box

You mean, like, if they were standing about on dodgy street corners? :)

Sorry, I know what you mean; it's certainly not the same sort of problem on a dedicated box with no internet connection and no USB drive, as with a corporate PC. But experience says banks are good at some sorts of security, but not always the "make sure they took the USB drive out of the design" sort :)

Re: 95% of ATMs are running Windows XP

[andrewducker]

I believe they use the USB sticks to load OS updates onto them. However, they're inside nice solid boxes, so what are the odds that anyone could get to them?

Oh.

[momentsmusicaux]

Why on earth was a dektop OS considered a good idea for ATMs that pretty much do only one thing, and that on a small screen?

[andrewducker]

Because Desktop OS are good at UIs, and an ATM is basically a UI attached to a dispenser.

They could have done it in Linux, but then someone would have had to write the UI in GTK or something like that, and OW THE PAIN.

[momentsmusicaux]

Is GTK that bad? I suppose 10 years ago it probably was...

I tried to write a UI in something or other on Linux ages ago and it wasn't that bad :)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, you have to bear in mind that they started doing this back in 2001/2002, when "Linux on the Desktop" was barely even a joke.

I'm sure it's much nicer now!