Posts by I ain't Spartacus

Re: Even in the extremely unlikely event that fully autonomous vehicles ever become viable

Ledswinger,

I suspect you're right. Which makes autonomous cars even further away. They'll start off very expensive, and possibly hard to insure. But if you own a fleet of thousands, then you can self-insure.

But this will give an inferior service to ownership, at least in some ways, and so will have to be cheaper. Which means utilisation will have to be high, in order to cover costs. Or it'll have to be a loss leader to attract customers, and hope to make profits later, once volume brings the price down.

Re: We had crashes because the autopilot disengaged without the pilots noticing...

Alan Johnson,

I disagree. Obviously the biggest cause of the crash was that pilot losing situational awareness and stalling the plane.

Training and discipline also broke down - given that both pilots had hands on the controls. Not helped by that model having side-sticks, so it's much harder to notice what the other pilot is doing.

But the controls of the plane are also badly designed. Because averaging the inputs is completely fucking pointless. The plane can't know which of those two inputs is correct, so what it should be doing is complaining about it, locking the controls and doing neither - or just doing one - and disabling the other stick. Or you have connected yokes, so it's obvious. Silently averaging them means that nobody now knows what's happening - and if one pilot is correct you've turned a 50/50 chance of him getting control and saving the day into a 100% chance of failure.

Obviously it's also a problem that we've trained pilots for fly-by-wire that won't let them cause stalls - and not trained them enough on the failure modes of fly-by-wire where that's no longer the case.

So it also seems to me that sidesticks are possibly a bad idea - and you want a physical yoke - because that way you can physically see and feel what the aircraft controls are doing - and that means the non-flying pilot has a better chance to work the problem. Interfaces need to be as simple as possible, as yet anther warning alarm will get ignored under the consistently running stall alarm, which I seem to recall alternated with an overspeed alarm.

Re: Even in the extremely unlikely event that fully autonomous vehicles ever become viable

SonofRojBlake,

We shall see. First, the self-driving cars have to be reliable enough to get approved. Given the story is that Uber's could only manage an average of 13 miles autonomous driving, before requiring human intervention, that's got a while to go.

OK, Google seem to do much better. But then their car is using lots of very expensive lidar and radar sensors. So the next hurdle to achieve is affordability. They can get away with being more expensive, and leased, seeing as they can wander off and work for other people while we're not using them. Some sort of cross between taxi and car share seems viable. But that's probably still a way off.

I'm not sure I buy the self-driving car hype quite yet. Like a lot of current news about AI and Big Data - there's a lot of truth, a bit of theory and quite a lot of wishful thinking and marketing bullshit. Computers won't replace all the lawyers, accountants and office workers in ten years time and self-driving cars won't have taken over by then either.

Re: I know that military aircraft...

SkippyBing,

You just can't expect the same levels of training from private pilots as military and commercial ones get. It's not practical. Commercial pilots do regular simulator drills on common emergencies - so that when those warning alarms start going off they're prepared for them and know what to do. Those kind of realistic simulators cost an absolute fortune, and time on them is limited and expensive. And you need to refresh that kind of practice regularly.

Even if a pilot knows what to do in theory, it's another thing entirely to actually do it right when the brown stuff hits the rotating air-movement device. That's why professional pilots have to drill.

Re: Designs of aircraft control systems have been, at times, cringe-worthy

I heard a really clever company on a Radio 4 documentary several years ago. They'd decided that private pilots struggle far more with warnings than commercial ones (with the advantage of regular simulator practise for emergencies). And colleagues to help manage the crisis - and split the work.

Their idea was that once you've got more than one electronic warning device going off, you're just not going to be able to take the information in fast enough. So they updated private plane's flight controls with non-electronic warning voices. In this case it was the pilot's wife. On the theory (backed up by testing) that his brain was wired to react to info coming from a real person that he knew.

Of course, if you're used to arguing over the satnav in the car - or just saying, "whatever you say darling" - then in this case you're probably going to die. So choose your recorded voice carefully.

Also, a bit odd/disturbing for the wife. Who's going to have to record messages like, "Warning terrain!" and "Pull up!" and "Stall!".

Re: Designs of aircraft control systems have been, at times, cringe-worthy

To be fair, there's not enough common sense in the world to go round. There are a lot of basic decisions you have to make when designing that control interface. And they've got a lot of them right. But then you come to designing the more unusual cases. And there's often a dilemma, in that you may have more than one problem to try and correct for.

Another factor is that in military design - you may choose to train the pilots to not do some particularly dangerous thing, because that's cheaper than fixing the problem on the aircraft. Or fixing that aerodynamic problem may reduce the performance of the aircraft in other ways, and so not be desirable.

Similarly with commercial pilots being so highly trained, they're expected to handle a lot more than private ones.

I'm often amazed when watching those reconstructions of air crashes - just how much information the system is trying to get into the pilot at the same time. And I just don't believe that even the best trained pilot can take it all in - while still having time to think what the warnings mean - and of course time to fly the bloody plane.

For example there was that Qantas Airbus, where the computer went bonkers and was pushing out master alarms and computer warnings so fast that the messages were just disappearing off the screen faster than the copilot could read them - or press the master alarm cancel button. The crew didn't panic in that case and did their diagnostics well, but I could well imagine that just becoming overwhelming and causing an otherwise airworthy plane to crash. As the computers confused the pilots on Air France 447 - and by the time the captain had got to the cockpit and worked out what was really happening, it was too late.

Re: I know that military aircraft...

Surely the autopilot needs to clearly say what it's doing. Something like "autopilot disengaging, unexpected control inputs, pilot has manual control." Or whatever.

Or if it's deemed safer to correct for unexpected use of controls, on the grounds that most times this is accidental - then equally it needs to pipe up and say "error - unexpected control inputs."

But to silently counter what the pilot is doing seems like a really stupid way to design a system. What if the pilot has just noticed another aircraft, or a mountain. They're not trained, and so may panic and just reach for the controls without disabling the autopilot. Then you've designed failure into the system.

Re: We had crashes because the autopilot disengaged without the pilots noticing...

That confirms what I was about to ask then. Which was that I thought pushing the yoke would disable the autopilot and give the pilot control. After all, there might be times when you see another plane late, and want to be moving the stick quickly, without having to reach for the off switch first. I didn't realise small planes operated differently.

This is a bit like the Air France flight 447 crash. Where the aircraft was "averaging" the inputs of the two pilots - whose cockpit discipline had broken down and were both trying to fly the plane at once. This is a situation that can't be allowed - and the automation shouldn't allow. Only one person (computer) can be flying at once - and even if they're doing it wrong, it's still unlikely to help if there are two simultaneous sets of inputs. Then nobody knows what's happening. And because of that, it becomes much harder (to impossible) to correct that intial error.

Re: How to solve a problem

That really pisses me off. People who change the defaults of non-techy's (well anyone's) pooters. Suddenly Chrome has appeared on the machine and become default browser - and all music is automatically playing through whatever their prefered program is, rather than iTunes. Where I put it, because the person who owns the damned computer uses iTunes, so it was logical.

The office is now nice though. Everyone is now on a PC set up from new by me. Which means they're all set up more-or-less identically. We all use the same stuff. So any time there's a problem, I can just sit down, and know where everything is. I've offered changes to my set-up to everyone, but they're all happy and don't know how to change stuff themselves. We outsource everything but basic IT, as it's not my job - but in small companies you do a bit of everything.

Re: Tech is not elderly-friendly

My reading glasses are 5x magnification. And focus at about 8 inches from my head. I can read either the screen or the keyboard, but not both. Which is fine - I can touch type.

Until I come to use a fucking laptop, with the fucking trackpad that's 2mm from the fucking spacebar and has all the fucking keys in the wrong fucking positions so the fucking cursor runs away every time you fucking hit space and randomly types the end of words in the wrong box.

And breathe...

Can you tell I was fixing someone's laptop today? Me I like desktops. or well designed laptops with well placed trackpads. Or, in an ideal world, my old HP laptop that had a big blue button that turned the trackpad off, and then turned red so you knew you'd done it. Then plug a mouse in.

Squiffy eyesight it may be for misreading RESET as rest. However, I bet that's because it was etched/embossed onto a beige (now black) PC case with no attempt to bother with contrasting colours. Or any reasonable font size.

Got asked by HP the other day for the serial number of our duff printer. God Bless smartphones! Could just shove that down the back and take a photo, then enlarge it - and get something readable. It used to be a torch, a magnifying glass and lots of swearing sorting the cables out to pull the unit far enough out that you could get even some access.

Re: RESULT!

This is another, unsung, reason why smartphones are great. If the PC dies mid crucial email, I can just grab the phone (or tablet) and finish it on that. It's not as easy to work, but it's fast enough to get the job done.

Re: Walls can be useful

My brother's a professional IT bod - though has gone to the dark side and become a programmer. But he took the precaution of moving to London. I can walk to Mum's in 15 minutes - so that means I get to do the tech support.

Although last time, that also meant I got roast lamb, strawberries and cream and a piece of fruit cake to take home. So it's not all bad.

But iPads are great. Mum has a laptop, I think it gets used weekly. Everything else can be done on the iPad, sat on the sofa.

The only problem is, my brother gave her his old Macbook Air. Which gives as many trouble as her old PC, with the additional advantage that I have to work out how to use it, before I can fix it. Just having the window controls on the wrong side of the screen annoys me every time.

Re: My Dad...

was because it wasn't a touchscreen - unlike the Surface Pro he'd treated himself to and got entirely used to.

I've tried to scroll the text up the page of my book, while tired, when reading before bed. Which is how used to reading on my iPad I've become. So am in no position to comment...

Tablets are brilliant though. We got Mum an iPad, and I've barely had to touch it. Saved me a bit of walking, but cost me a few free dinners. I still have to do stuff like transfering stuff across when she got a new one - but most of that's just because she's forgotten her gmail and/or itunes passwords.

But I'm grateful, because helping Mum is far worse than Dad was. She'll say things like, "that can't be what's wrong with it." To which the only answer is, fix it yourself then. Which I'm too nice and fluffy to say. Although it's close sometimes...

That's why even 2 or 3 year old children can just grab a tablet and start using it. Pretty soon they can find the icons of the games they like and use the thing with minimal supervision. Whereas with a PC they've got to get the hang of keyboard/mouse input doing stuff on the screen that's over there.

With tablet it's see shiny thing, point at shiny thing, shiny thing does something.

Adults have the intelligence and experience to think this out of course. But that doesn't come automatically, so they have to stop and think a lot. And also, when being shown something on the computer they switch off brain and just half listen and robotically do as they're told. Plus the odd random mouse click, to screw things up.

Which is why I now do explaining in a two step process. Step one with me sat at PC. Slowly showing them how to do stuff, and telling them to take notes for stuff they won't remember. Step two is making them sit at PC, and not telling them how do do things, only what to do. If they can't remember, ro didn't write it down, then I explain, get them to do it, and then suggest they add it to their notes this time, as they clearly didn't remember it last time.

This mostly works. As most times they don't take a note of anything when I show them - but realise that they'd forgotten it just 30 seconds later, and so do the second time. Which then also means they've got notes in a language we've agreed between us. Also many (if not most) people remember something for longer just by the act of writing it down.

And if, while watching the twin rockets landing on pillars of fire, you didn't have the Thunderbirds music ringing in your head - then you've no soul. Or are too young/old to have watched Super-Marionnation, or can't remember music.

Now where's my nuclear powered airliner!

Re: Ok so high level thinking is needed to start us off

Will the beer transportation platform not also require armaments? In order to repel thirsty denizens of said shared space, employed by other companies?

Re: Acronym needed

OK. Challenge accepted! A barcronym for LESTER

Life Enhancing Sustenance Transportation Embracing Robotics

Re: Reverse the polarity!

I'm planning to go on the comedy circuit.

Re: A solution

Chainmail is rather expensive. Tinfoil will do nicely.

Mousing left-handed is surprisingly easy. Compared with trying to write with the wrong hand. Or taking a left-handed shot in pool.

It's not quite as comfortable as doing it right-handed, but the few times I've had to do it for a few minutes have been fine. I hate laptop track pads with either hand, far more than mousing with the wrong one.

Re: "And bluetooth with Win10 is an iffy affair"

Surely you mean "And bluetooth with Win<x> is an iffy affair"?

No, I think what you both mean is: "And bluetooth is an iffy affair."

Re: A solution

Erm, what if my chakra is already so polished that my chi keeps sliding off it?

Other than that, your service sounds excellent!

We were told Saddam could get to us within 45 minutes, and that turned out to be total horseshit.

No we weren't. The dossier said that Saddam could reach Cyprus, there was even a map with range circles drawn on it. Which was well within range of the SCUDs that he still had (in breach of UN resolutions and the 1991 ceasefire). And we know he had those, Iraq fired some of them in 2003.

The intelligence that was wrong, was that he had remaining useable chemical weapons stocks and the warheads to use SCUDs to launch them. The document said that we had intel suggesting this, which according to a documentary I saw on the BBC actually came from German intelligence. The original MI6 submission to the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee) stated that there was uncorroborated evidence to sugges this, or some other such wording with caveats. The caveats got dropped for the dossier.

Nobody who'd looked at the 1990s history of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq seriously believe Iraq didn't still have some chemical weapons kicking around. The inspectors got kicked out in around 97 and hadn't yet destroyed all the stocks they knew existed. Iraq also had the scientific know-how to rebuild the program, as it was pretty much entirely home-grown. The only question was, were those stockpiles in a usable condition and were they a threat.

Re: Taking sci-fi seriously..

Quatermass I'll give you. I didn't enjoy it that much, and don't think it's that good, but it's interesting.

But I'm sorry, the Prisoner is rubbish. I watched a few episodes last year, and I think I watched it all when I was a student 25 years ago, as a friend is a fan and had it on tape. Most of it makes no sense. I've never really liked the Avengers, though it does have some good bits. I don't think it's anything special though.

I don't remember much of the magic roundabout. But there's some great kids TV that stands the test of time, which I hadn't even thought about. Most of the Hanna-Barbera stuff for example. Mutley! Do something!

Re: meanwhile, back at the film

Maybe I'll give it a go. I've seen some of the second one, and it was pants. So never bothered with the threequel.

Re: When you don't understand something (because it's utterly lame)...

It depends what you want in a film? Films are art, and you can enjoy different aspects of them. I think 2001 is over-long and if I'm honest I only enjoyed the middle bit of the film. I'm not really interested in the grunting australopithecus or the alien contact at the end. But while I'm watching the stuff in space it's amazing. And incredibly well realised. And I like the film for that.

A bit like Blade Runner. I've never bought into the hype on that, and I think it's a very flawed film. It's taken Scott several bites at the cherry, with director's cuts to come to the film he thinks is best. But I'm still not sure it isn't better shorter and with a narrator, as a sort of post-apocalyptic Phillip Marlowe. I personally think Blade Runner 2049 is a much better written film - and much better at asking the questions about the difference between a human and a replicant (if any), than the original is.

However you can't deny the massive achievement of the visuals of both Blade Runner and 2001. Or the huge effect they had on so much films (and general culture) that followed.

Re: Still Waiting...

No Stainless Steel Rat?

I'm not sure I want to see the big epic stuff on the big screen. Sure, if it works then I'd be happy as anything. But it's always more worrying that they'll spend all their time on the special effects and forget the plot and/or character. Ender's Game made me sad, for example - I can't imagine why anyone would try to film that.

So I'd like to see a bit of lighter sci-fi, that's now possible on normal film budgets, as special effects have got so much cheaper.

I'd love to see someone have a go at CJ Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe, and depress everybody properly. Mallory of Norway ought to make a nicely flawed lead character. Or Finity's End, which has got some great ideas about a generation born to war having to adjust to peace and the different lives of people born on ships, compared to those who live in one place.

Re: Taking sci-fi seriously..

Was Star Trek really that well written? I have gone back and watched some of the original episodes now that they've been remastered. I particularly like how many bongos you can now hear in the soundtrack.

And I've revised my opinion of it all being rubbish. My abiding memory of watching it as a kid was always Spock mind melding with a silicon-based lifeform that looked like a rather thick pizza and hamming up the awesome dialogue, "The pain! The pain!" But going back there are a lot more thoughtful episodes than I remember.

But still, most episodes seem to be, crew meet bumpy headed aliens / female aliens in skimpy outfits, get captured / taken over / threatened, spend a bit of time thinking about it / flirting / trying to fix the ship, then do some handwaving about diverting auxilliary power or persuade the aliens to be nice.

I suppose I'm judging it harshly. There's no much TV from the 60s that stands up to modern stuff. And I'm not complaining about special effects now. So much of it is just plain badly written. I'm sure I've forgotten stuff, but Mash and the first 3 seasons of The Sweeney are the oldest TV shows that I can think of that still stand up today.

Re: meanwhile, back at the film

I'm not sure Starship Troopers needs the political theory. I was perfectly happy with the way the Verhoeven film parodied that, and I'd be equally happy with a film that cut it out entirely.

It was the military stuff that he got wrong. They're supposed to be a tiny force of elite troops using technology as a force multiplier. But the film has them as pretty rubbish troops using numbers to defeat the bugs - but just having fewer numbers. Given how crap their guns are, and how long it takes them to kill any bug shown in close-up, they should probably lose every engagement within the first few minutes. Surely the future could at least manage explosive bullets, even if it doesn't give them lasers?

Now special effects can keep up, I'd like to see the film done properly. Squads of 10 mobile infantry in powered suits. Everybody drops, everybody fights. And if you don't like the politics, you can just do it as a military story, which it works perfectly well as. Must dig my copy out and read it again.

I'm not sure I totally buy that comment from the author. There have been plenty of long, mainstream films. Mainstream high-grossing films have been getting longer in recent years, not shorter.

I just looked it up, and Blade Runner 2049 is pretty much exactly the same length as 2001. 2 hours 40-something. Did very well at the cinema - and with the critics. OK, it's a film with more action - but you could still easily edit out 30 or more minutes of that film without losing any action or dialogue, because it spends quite a lot of time immersing you in its future vision. In a way that works really well.

Whereas I'd argue that 2001 could do with a bit of a trim. The immersing you in the whole space travel thing is brilliant, and I'd keep it. But did we really need all that time of australopithecus hitting each other with clubs and making funny noises? Could we not just have a quick montage and a voiceover/explanation to tell us that the monolith was assessing/training them? And get it over with in a minute or two?

Perhaps I'm not ingesting the right substances while watching it? Last time I saw it, was under the influence of tea and chocolate. And I spent the ape-time, making the tea. Although I admit that was years ago, so perhaps I should re-watch it before judging.