01 October 2024

What’s the problem with kids and smartphones?

 

When children first started getting smartphones a decade ago, there was no research about their impact. Now there is, and it’s overwhelming. Exposing children to things their brains aren’t yet developed enough to deal with can cause a whole host of problems, from triggering anxiety and eating disorders, to opening the door to cyberbullying or sexual predators, according to the latest research. 

When we give our children access to the whole world in their pocket, we give the whole world access to our children. READ MORE...

www.smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk


25 September 2024

Calli is 10 years old (ish) today!

 

Our precious pup Calli (Callista) is 10ish years old today! When you adopt or rescue a dog, often the true date of birth is often unknown - so it's an estimate. Calli is the dearest dog, so gentle & loving. Generally perfect health. Gets on well with everyone. We are truly blessed to have her in our family.

People often ask Kim & me what breed is Calli, and where did we get her from? Calli is a "Bitzer", from Zakynthos, Greece and was rescued by Sue & her team while still very young. Please consider supporting Healing Paws Animal Rescue.

If you are considering bringing a furry friend into your home & family, PLEASE consider rehoming / adoptingThank you!


Data Centres are sucking up huge amounts of power - so what's the solution?...

In a remarkable topical twofer, not only is Microsoft turning to nuclear power to run its data centres, it's commissioned the restarting of the infamous Three Mile Island station – the site of the worst commercial nuclear accident in US history.

These power-hungry servers and databases were already becoming a drain on the electrical grid, but the explosion of AI has compounded the problem, with estimates data centres in the United States will suck as much as 35 GW of electricity by 2030, or almost twice the amount in 2022. 

That might not seem like much, but that would equate to about 9% of the projected average power draw of the entire US in 2030. Since a lot of energy and environmental planning is based on estimated power consumption, a lot of sums will need to be redone. Worse, the current policy in many parts of the developed world relies heavily on conversion to renewable sources like wind and solar, which are intermittent, while these data centres must run 24/7 without interruption. READ MORE...

www.newatlas.com


Car software patches are over 20% of recalls, study finds

 

Software fixes are now responsible for more than 1 in 5 automotive recalls. That's the key finding from a decade's worth of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall data, according to an analysis from the law firm DeMayo Law. While that's a sign of growing inconvenience for drivers, the silver lining is that a software patch is usually a much quicker fix than something requiring hardware replacement.

"Our analysis suggests we're witnessing a shift in how automotive recalls are handled. The growing number of software-related recalls, coupled with the ability to address issues remotely, could revolutionize the recall process for both manufacturers and vehicle owners," said a spokesperson for DeMayo Law.

In 2014, 34 of 277 automotive recalls were software fixes. The percentage of software recalls floated around 12–13 percent (apart from a spike in 2015) before growing steadily from 2020. In 2021, 16 percent of automotive recalls (61 out of 380) were for software. In 2022, almost 22 percent of recalls were software fixes (76 out of 348), and last year topped 23 percent (82 out of 356).

Come back olden days - when a car repair involved a chap with a bag of spanners. As an IT Consultant - I really do not want all this tech in my bike or car. These computer systems get baked in the summer, frozen / damp in the winter, ratted to death by potholes, etc... Then we rely on these electronic "get out of jail cards" to save our bacon, and wonder why they often fail...

www.arstechnica.com


24 September 2024

"Self Driving" cars - or are they?...

You may be surprised to learn that "self-driving" cars don't always drive themselves.

Because these systems are far from infallible, companies like Amazon's robotaxi service Zoox often depend on a behind-the-scenes team of human technicians to remotely control their cars when they struggle to pilot themselves.

Today this facet of self-driving operations is more of an open — but closely-guarded — secret. But as The New York Times reports, for years these companies avoided mentioning that their supposedly autonomous vehicles were occasionally controlled by humans at all.

It's only been relatively recently, following several high profile debacles in the autonomous driving industry, that industry leaders, like Waymo this May, have acknowledged the role of human technicians.

And according to the NYT, none of these companies have shared just how many of these remote-technicians they employ, or how often they depend on them. In short, we don't know how deep this practice goes — and it's possible that the smoothest "self-driving" experiences out there are substantially undergirded by hidden human drivers.

General Motors' Cruise division effectively embarrassed the entire industry when one of its robotaxis injured a pedestrian last October, leading to a federal investigation into just how widespread these accidents were — and eventually the pulling of all 400 hundred of its vehicles off the streets.

To some degree, we can probably blame that blunder for the small degree of insight we're now afforded into the robotaxi industry's reliance on human intervention.

According to the NYT's sources, Cruise staffed about 1.5 workers per vehicle, including remote assistant techs. Zoox staffs at least one team of around three dozen people overseeing its handful of fully driverless robotaxis.

That seemingly undermines one of the economic selling points of robotaxi services compared to ride-hailing services like Uber: that they don't need humans behind the wheel.

"It may be cheaper just to pay a driver to sit in the car and drive it," Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Collective Intelligence, told the NYT.

www.futurism.com


17 September 2024

A few days off for our Wedding Anniversary


Kim & I have taken a few day off for our wedding anniversary. We're enjoying what is probably the last of the summer :0).

A few days off: with friends & family, gym, motorcycling, cycling, eating out, shopping, BBQ, playing with dear Calli. Just goes to show you don't always need a "holiday" as such. A change is as good as a rest!


Hope you too can enjoy some time away from the bustle of day to day living.

With Blessings, DKC x


Reading for today: on the reconciliation of our problems


Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.