Posts by gillburt

Abstract, theoretical computing qualifications are turning teens off

It’s not difficult

In secondary school, the application of software, such as word processors, spreadsheets, video editing, image manipulation should be within other subjects, such as English, maths, art, geography, history and so on. computer science should be about programming, software design, apps, databases, hardware design and control all very close, but not quite, aligned with design technology. I would expect a small class size. Having been, albeit briefly, a CS teacher, those with the best aptitude are massively held back by the curriculum, and those with the least aptitude have no clue what they are doing or motivation to develop, as it’s just not for them.

NASA wants ideas on how to haul injured moonwalkers

Re: Giant Steps Are What You Take?

Bathroom suite or living room suite? Bidet? Futon? I didn’t think DFS delivered more than 20m from the kerbside.

Openreach reveals latest locations facing the copper chop

Missing the point

All this talk of battery backups, and what happens to the vulnerable when the power goes out, is missing the point.

Even if you could phone the emergency services, the ambulances won’t get there for 8 hours, the police will be too busy on other more serious crimes and the fire services won’t be needed as there’s no risk of fires starting anyway, as no power for electrical faults, no power for electric cookers/microwaves/ovens/toasters tc., and no power for lighting to find your matches to light a ciggie. With regards panic alarms, again no point, as the risk assessments by social services will mean their staff cannot go out during a power cut.

(Ironic post, btw, for the hard of humour)

School gets an F for using facial recognition on kids in canteen

fingerprinting

What about fingerprint scanning? Majority of schools I know use fingerprint biometrics for canteen payments.

How is using a fingerprint less of an issue that facial recognition?

Cold comfort to teachers who got paid late, but ERP software rollout had 'unrealistic' timeline

Amazing how th elikes of McDonalds can produce SOPs for cooking burgers etc, in nearly 40,000 restaurants globally, even allowing for local menus and so forth, delivered through a predominantly franchisee based business model, yet in the UK we can't get just over 160 district councils to standardise how they attach a wheelie bin to a truck. The excuse "we have our procedures and ways of doing things round here" isn't the excuse, it's the problem.

Councils always struck me as needing to be the ultimate franchisee business model.... with elections every four years to award the new contract.

'Wobbly spacetime' is latest stab at unifying physics

TBBT

Asymmetrical symmetry anyone?

Voyager 2 found! Deep Space Network hears it chattering in space

Re: This is truly amazing

I suspect the 1970s tech keeps working because of its simplicity... technology today would have failed because VGERs cloud subscription account was full, or such like.

I can't help feeling there's a Who? Me? or On Call article (or both!) needing to be written about this

UK's dream of fusion power by 2040s will need GPUs

Meanwhile...

...Inside a top secret FUSION research team finance meeting:

Project Sponsor: Right team, we need to find a way of getting more money out of government, so we can keep up with our research jamboree, er I mean, scientific experiment

Project Manager: Good thinking. If we get this right, we could be securing our selves gainful employment until we retire

Chair: That's right. We're looking for at least another 25 years.

Worker #1: But won't they realise we've got nothing to show from the billions we've spent already?

PM: Apart from an enormously upscaled metal ringed doughnut and a very small lightening bolt.

W#1: Yeah

PM: No chance. We;ll just tell them it's really complicated, use the word "quantum" a lot.

W#2: We did that last time.

PM: Did we?

W#1: Yeah, and we even threw in some virtual reality terminology

PM: Blimey. Hmm, OK any ideas?

W#3: How about Artificial Intelligence

PM: Not sure, could use it a bit, but we don't want politicians to think that Terminator will be in charge of the national grid one day

Chair: Good point. Also, if we do go AI, it might work out the problem for us, then we'll be out of jobs before retirement.

W#1: Why don't we talk about simulation models. Then we'll need an enormous spend to replicate everything we've done so far, but this time as a model inside a computer.

W#2: yeah, and then because we'll need thousands of GPUs, what with the global chip shortage, we will legitimately not be able to make any progress at all

PM: Genius! We'll get paid for achieving bugger all for years to come!

Virgin Media email customers enter third day of inbox infuriation

perhaps the problem was VM had been sending out regular updates by email?

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Nothing changes

I think when many of us first started out in industry we didn't understand what a lot of manglement were talking about - it was called "a lack of experience". Now we have that experience we understand that manglement don't know what they are talking about, but that's an important lesson to learn.

Hot DRAM, Micron promises $100B for 'largest chip fab in US history'

Re: 40 football fields?

Yes, but is that an Imperial or Metric Texas

UK's largest water company investigates datacenters' use as drought hits

I understand that Datacenters would need to use water.... but I would have thought a mostly "closed loop" type approach would employed.... if anyone can explain or point to decent papers/articles I'd love to learn more.

Australian wasps threaten another passenger plane, with help from COVID-19

There's a simpler solution....

Get rid of the hole altogether.

Issues ropes with knots tied in them every 14.3 meters.

Pilot simply opens his window, throws out the "log", counts the knots let out for 28 seconds.

Job done.

Admittedly, might need to count very quickly.

What could possible go wrong?

Engineers on the brink of extinction threaten entire tech ecosystems

We seem to have reached the point where the people whose skills actually create wealth, I.e. those that make and invent stuff, get paid less than those whose jobs exist solely to support the corporate edifices that grew up as a result of the aforementioned workers skills and intellect. I read today that partners at pwc are expecting an average bonus payment of £1m+ each. The world has gone mad when it pays more to audit the success of someone else, than to create the success itself.

Microsoft's Dublin datacenter to help take pressure off Ireland's renewable energy

I read it more like we have this life insurance so why don't we kill ourselves to take advantage of it, and just hope in the meantime we don't need actually need it.... oh.

AI's most convincing conversations are not what they seem

True story, and I think it might prove Turing was right, but not in the way he anticipated.

So, I had the misfortune to chat to google’s support team on a couple of occasions recently. They were actual humans, but it took me a good ten minutes of chatting to them each time to discern this.

However, rather than seeing this at the time as an amazing advancement in AI, I felt it was more a reflection of the education system and google’s view of small customers.

Re: The real issue

Which is the stupidity of the whole media circus - most of the human race spends its life trying to get turned on.