Posts by Muscleguy

Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, muaha... Boffins build laser-eyed intelligent cam that sorta sees around corners

Re: "the researchers believe their technique is promising"

Since their model assumes the wave nature of light to work then it can be used for any other wavelength such as microwaves or radar or lidar or whatever similar sort of system vehicles are equipped with.

This is a proof of principle which means the deep learning system can be used with non laser wavelengths.

I’m a mere ‘stamp collector’ but as a scientist I can also see this from designing and analysis other experiments. Us Biologists use model systems from slime molds to mammals to gain insights into how our cells, tissues, organs and bodies function using the same proof of principle.

You have to be careful of it though. For eg just because you can get cells in tissue culture (immortalised cell lines are in effect cancer cells) to do something is not a priori evidence that normal cells in bodies do it. So whenever I see such papers I reserve judgement unless and until it is proven to happen in vivo (I’m an organismal biologist so to me in vivo means in an animal, biochemists and molecular biologists have different definitions).

Help! I'm trapped on Schrodinger's runaway train! Or am I..?

When my wife and I first visited Paris the Louvre staff were no strike. Many tourists thought that meant the place was shut but the strike consisted of the staff turning up for work and not taking entrance fees. So we got an almost empty Louvre for free. There was no queue for the Mona Lisa and I got to stand the ideal distance from a Monet where if I moved my head forward it was a lot of dots but if I moved it back it snapped into a fantastic painting. Only works with the original is it relies on the 3D paint.

Forget where we found out it was still open but we did and very glad we did too. The Musee D’Orsay was more crowded than the Louvre that day.

Unlocking news: We decrypt those cryptic headlines about Scottish cops bypassing smartphone encryption

Re: IndyRef2

Transphobia? you’re havin’ a laff. The SNP are gung-ho for GRA in the teeth of society opposition. Admittedly they are in competition with the Greens for the most pro Trans party. Which leaves us sensible minded Yes voters with nowhere to vote for unless the Rev Stu comes good with the Wings party in 2021.

Anyway not wanting to vote Yes because police Scotland has to be one of the most witless reasons I’ve heard and I’ve chapped more doors than I can remember. At Wed Dundee RIC meeting it was revealed we chapped 20,000 doors in indyref1. I’ve trod some of the supposedly meanest streets and closes in Dundee on my tod in the dark armed only with Yes badges and a clipboard and never met no bother.

Once Independence has been won you are free to vote for whichever Libertarian party floats your boat. If you think being yoked to hard right Tory Westminster is going to give you civil liberties I must ask what substances you have been smoking/snorting/injecting/ingesting.

APEX predator? Chinese phone-flinger Vivo teases upcoming concept phone

Re: Except for the fragility issue...

Indeed, was sitting behind a young woman on the bus one morning recently who was finishing up her makeup using the front camera as a mirror.

World's richest bloke battles Oz catastro-fire with incredible AU$1m donation (aka load of cheap greenwashing)

Re: The problem with small-scale private philanthropy by the wealthiest is that it achieves little

The other problem is if everyone waits until ALL the supposedly relevant rich persons have donated to something to see if they need to donate then we enter a dangerous situation.

Which is why rich citizens usually don't fund all of local fundraising targets for a new medical widget for the children's hospital even they can and they want to, it would lead to the community relying on them to step forward for everything.

I often wonder if Andrew Carnegie, the Besos of his day, ever regretted starting to endow libraries. He ended up funding quite a few. He could afford it but it demonstrates the slippery slope. Here in Scotland many of those buildings are still there, still solid, still hosting libraries. Here in Dundee none of the network of suburban libraries have closed. The central facility continues to be very good. Because our politics are diferent and ScotGov cares about such things. Oh and we have had an SNP controlled council for quite a long time now.

Those silly enough to elect Tory councils might have different results. More shamefully in several places up here Labour has formed coalitions with the Tories despite the SNP being the largest party simply to stop the SNP. The group in Aberdeen even got suspended by the party, but only because they didn't seek central office (Scotland branch office) sanction for the details of the deal. So even if the SNP are returned as the biggest party as it is in many places default Unionism takes over despite Labour and SNP policies being highly compatible.

There is even a name for this: the Bain Principle after Willie Bain who first articulated it. Thou shalt never back an SNP measure even when it is in your manifesto and you support it 100% and have campaigned for it for decades.

Note the UK Labour party has been promising to abolish/reform the HoL since its inception. Up here it has resurrected the Federalism Fairy once again. This entity looks a lot like Gordon Broon only more moth eaten and less credible.

Privacy activists beg Google to ban un-removable bloatware from Android

It isn't just Google apps though, is it? Buy a Moto phone and get Motorola apps and ditto for other manufacturers. Though the Google apps can be a pain. My phone used to slow to ultra glacial when browsing. I realised whenever a page with any sort of even possible video was loaded the phone invoked the YouTube app and would not stop. So I was forced to disable it but am unable to remove this large app from my phone.

ICANN finally reveals who’s behind purchase of .org: It’s ███████ and ██████ – you don't need to know any more

Except the local webs will be handed over to the most enthusiastic person who will then treat it as their personal baby and you will have to keep this person in treats if you want ANYTHING done and either they die suddenly with no record of passwords/logins and no inducted deputy or they pull something like this under the cover of ‘corporate sponsorship’ which consists of a purchase deal.

Then said corporate then proceeds to hoover up all the other small nets and we will be back where we started.

Short of a major improvement in peer to peer networking leaving the current infrastructure redundant I don’t see a good way out of this unless the new owners get an attack of conscience and put .org into charity ownership. Sorry, dropped off there and started dreaming.

From Soviet to science fiction icon, the weird life of Isaac Asimov 100 years on

Re: Meh! From Asimov to Zelazny

Indeed, the 7 year gap also suggests an interregnum in the studies. I took 5 years, huge project and had to write it part time while earning money as a Teaching Fellow. My thesis is a real tome. I nearly bound it in two parts to make a point but one of my external examiners kindly made it for me. I was put off by the extra cost.

Google and IBM square off in Schrodinger’s catfight over quantum supremacy

Re: Conventional supercomputer?

it MIGHT be useful in applications such as trying to determine protein structures based on the sequence alone. Don't know if it's still running but you used to be able to dedicate your box's off time to do this a la SETI at home.

The other application which suggests is drawing likelihood species relatedness trees. What happens at the moment is the papers give you al the highest likelihood trees then let you choose which one you think best fits while they defend their choice.

Re: Seems my post still hasn't made it yet

Nah, 'isopope' is a new international standard for Popes.

As in 'meet the new pope, same as the last pope'.

Flying taxis? That'll be AFTER you've launched light sabres and anti-gravity skateboards

You forget Make you login on a browser since it has been 'too long since you last used this app'. As happened to me last week due to the interregnum of Xmas and New Year. Since time was of the essence I declined so my old tickets weren't there but I was going to buy a day pass anyway. But the point remains. This is apparently for 'security reasons'. Even though I never save my card details (phones being very insecure things) so whose security is being protected is a bit obtuse.

BOFH: You brought nothing to the party but a six-pack of regret

Re: 'You brought nothing to the party but a six pack of regret?'

It's a reference to an old folk remedy against rabies. You have to consume a hair of the dog which bit you. A sort of sympathetic magin thing. The homeopaths are into that and there is doubtless a 1000C tincture of hair of the dog available as a tonic to ease your attachment to a former loved one (dogs being very faithful). That's how the 'logic' works.

Re: Just the morale boost I needed

It brought to my mind Arthur Dent lying in front of the bulldozer.

Tea tipplers are more likely to live longer, healthier lives than you triple venti pumpkin-syrup soy-milk latte-swilling fiends

That final caveat is the killer, confounders to the left of 'em, confounders to the right of 'em.

I suspect it's a trojan. When I'm sedentary I want to drink more coffee. When I'm active (distance running) my tastes change and I want tea. Black with lemon, preferably Russian Caravan tea. I happen to have a mug of it beside me right now.

There's a cling-on off the starboard bow... Small moon spotted orbiting asteroid NASA's Lucy will visit in 2027

Re: We have seen so little of our Universe

Hopefully, clangers and the moon turns out to be the soup dragon.

Love T-shirts, but can't be bothered to wash them? We've seen just the thing!

Re: Wool

Nope and it isn't new either. I've been wearing them for over a decade as well. They are technical t-shirts made with nylon fibres so smooth at the nano level that bacteria cannot cling to them. It's the bacteria working on your sweat which causes the smell.

The technical thing wicks your sweat away without the bacteria and evaporates it. I run in these, Helly Hansen long sleeve tops with the stripes down the sleeves are like that. I have some Under Armour Black t-shirts I wear as undershirts (bought cheap as remaineders online).

I reckon I can go for two sweaty runs in the HH tops before they need a wash, not because of pong but salt build up. But I can wear the UA ones for a week in normal wear quite happily.

Someone in a marketing dept either in ignorance or chutzpah is punting yet another version of them. Perhaps these can be printed with no diminution of the properties or something.

We live so fast I can't even finish this sent...

Re: Now you know what 2020 is going to look like

Back in NZ it's Sour cream and chive which I feel is a closer description of the trope. They are thickish crinkle cut as well and very moreish. Though the bags you can buy online here in the UK tend to be too well travelled and full of crumbs when you want something you can dip.

De rigeur in NZ is onion dip. Take one packet Maggi onion soup, add reduced cream and 1tsp vinegar, mix and refrigerate for at least an hour to firm up. Even if there are more sophisticated salsa type dips there will ALWAYS be an onion dip.

BOFH: The case of the Boss's hidden USB inkjet printer

Re: Feels like X-mas

There was a case back in my old alma mater, after I'd finally left where a jilted lover allegedly injected a radioactive substance into her former paramour and boss's office chair. He was subsequently diagnosed with a groinal cancer (can't remember which one), an investigation was launched and she was arraigned on charges. But despite motive and opportunity she could not be totally fingered for it.

I was once rather painfully injected in a foot vein with a radioactive tracer substance by a clearly over nervous young medic seemingly scared of the lead encased syringe. I had been inducted into the mysteries of the lab hot room and had a personal finger monitor turned in regularly for counting.

I don't think the tracer would have borked it subsequently. Designed to be cleared quickly. It was a bone scan and functioned to rule out a generalised problem.

Two missing digits? How about two missing employees in today's story of Y2K

Re: Underbilling oops

Back in the ‘80s in New Zealand the Telecom Co would let you charge the cost of your call on another number WITHOUT Checking. Every time you got a phone bill you had to scrutinise it carefully and periodically ring up and deny the cost and get it rectified.

People would just give out some number they made up and often use one then iterate it. The process was not personal, just dickheads being cheapskates. People with more money than sense wouldn’t bother but we were married students with spawn so every cent counted.

When challenged the cost was rebounded to the original number. Since back then any call outside the local area was classed as a toll call so calling your Mum up in Auckland was a toll call.

In the summer we were apart before we got married I was in Auckland she was in Invercargill right at the bottom of the South Island. I would call her once a week and write snailmail letters. My father came to me with the bill in some dudgeon. I calmly asked if he would accept a cheque or needed cash. I think he realised it was serious at that point.

Y2K? It was all just a big bun-fight, according to one Reg reader

Re: 1am 2nd Jan 2000

A PhD means learning all there is to know about ONE thing or process. You might pick up other skills along the way but programming is unlikely to be one of them. I have a Biology PhD, I have programmed in BASIC and various macro languages. My wife had a BSc in CompSci so I knew that all the languages were slightly different apart from those which are very different. I kind of get what JAVA is haven’t engaged with it. Our youngest has a double major in CompSci and Biochem and she has made me a couple of Java apps.

But ask me to check Cobol code and I will ask for Cobol programming for dummies and expect to have a steep and frustrating learning curve. I expect I could do it, eventually. But better to hire someone who knows it innately and all the tricks.

One thing a PhD teaches you is to respect and value the expertise of others. Don’t assume all of us don’t value or appreciate what you do. I care about what you can do and know and not the qualifications you have. Most of my scientific skills have been gained on the job. Just like you.

And for the burglars and ne’re-do-wells would have to have known and been able to detect which 20% that was which is probably beyond 90% of them. So I doubt much security was compromised as a result.

I’m not at the point where I need to install a dummy box to avoid standing out. Full double glazed security windows have reduced burglaries around here to pretty much zero other than from unsecured sheds and garages. Mine are secured.

Modern pressurised double glazing goes off like a LOUD gunshot if broken or cut so that route is now out. They can also be locked cracked open in the summer. The doors are metal frame multilocking so even the polis don’t ram the lock any more, they ram the centre panels instead. But your burglar isn’t going to do that.

So the only way in is to pick the standards compliant locks. It can be done but in full view and hearing of the neighbours (next door’s front door is right beside mine, I would hear theirs being picked). I have watched lots of the Lockpicking Lawyer’s site on YouTube so I know the skillset required to pick locks like that and very few can do it and even fewer can do it quickly and quietly.

Someone did enter our backyard recently, they left the gate open, but found nothing to take or way of entering. The yard is overlooked by the windows of several of the neighbours. So again someone crouching at the back door picking the lock stands a good chance of being seen. The shed door could probably be picked but it’s an old, rusty, heavy lock and would likely break most modern lockpicks. They might away with my garden tools (none expensive) and my wallpaper steamer and lots of bags of home compost.

If this unseasonably warm weather continues I shall have to start queen wasp patrol in there early this year. Can’t keep them out and the inside of a dry, sheltered WOODEN building is too much to resist. In the summer you can hear the wasps rasping at the fence posts from several feet away.

Re: Hmmm,

I’ll only be 72 and fully expect to still be running, though not like a headless chook.

When I was a teenager in NZ there was a guy in his 70s who would jog the 1km from his retirement unit to the club on a Saturday afternoon, go for a pack run with the slow pack then jog the 1km home again.

I decided I would try my best to be like him and I’m doing fine. The thing is as you age you have to work and tone EVERY MUSCLE regularly. If something hurts it is telling you it needs to be made stronger. The ‘net is full of sites giving appropriate exercises. I do this once a week.

Age gracefully? Disgracefully and energetically is much more fun.

To all the women out there, I am in FULL working order.

Re: you mean by hand?

There’s a vatted* Scotch malt whisky called Sheep Dip. It was so named so that farmers could order it without it causing comment by their accountants/wives.

*The Scotch Mal Whisky Association in its wisdom is trying to merge vatted and blended into one class but this is wrong headed. For the uninitiated a vatted whisky is a blend of single malt whiskies with NO grain whisky. A blended whisky contains cheaper grain whisky which reduces the mouthfeel (many fewer longchain alcohols) and adds spiritiness. The more expensive blends have higher proportions of single malts and lower of grain as you go down the price range the ratio changes.

The whiskies on the bottom shelf in the supermarket have not much single malt in them of not much age and probably caramel to make it brown enough to hide the lack of age.

A vatted whisky then is a better product than most blends. I’ve tasted Sheep Dip and it is a fine and complex whisky.

BTW there is a single grain whisky out there produced from the big plant above Kirkcaldy in Fife. It is aged in proper barrels for a goodly time though and is not bad at all. Something different. Definitely a Lowland whisky though.

I suppose a rowie could be described relative to a croissant. but it is of itself and also known as an Aberdeen buttery.

My eldest’s other half is a chef and when doing full Scottish menus he does ‘Aberdeen butteries’ for breakfast instead of croissants.

BTW my father (born in Hull) always referred to Eccles cakes as ‘fly cemeteries’.

Re: The Year 2038 problem is less than two decades away...

The Chinese have not forgotten like we have how to think properly long term and doubtless thought Allied Telesyn should have foreseen the issue.

And we wonder why the Chinese decided to build their own tech . . .

A user's magnetic charm makes for a special call-out for our hapless hero

Re: Ah, degaussing

Indeed, I expect the shielded apron was to stop the user’s keys etc trying to exit their clothing and stuff like that. Either that or someone got their wires crossed in the H&S dept.

I used to get proper irked by the H&S busybodies in the Bio lab who at best had a Masters degree trying to tell us experienced PhD scientists when we were expected to wear lab coats and gloves instead of leaving us to decide based on the actual hazards present from our samples or us to our samples.

For eg during one multi day procedure you removed your glove to do buffer washes. Both because it was entirely safe to do so and because rnases drip from our fingers* and this reduced the background signal when the samples were colour reacted.

However, when making and labelling and handling the rna probes we used on the samples EVERY precaution was taken to protect THEM from the environment including by us wearing gloves.

*Thought to be a first line defence against rna viruses. The procedure used to include adding an rnase enzyme. Presumably someone forgot but left their gloves off at that stage and had no background problems so everyone stopped adding it and just left their gloves off for those washes. But try explaining that to the busybodies.

I caught Disco Elysium fever. No, not the Saturday Night kind. I was really quite poorly

Look on the bright side, at least it isn’t a resource management game. I never understood how my wife could manage all day in her job then play resource management games in the evening, weekends and often the middle of the night (without any reddening of the screen light (Insomnia be thy name).

I run away screaming from any RPG with a resource management element. Politics I can handle, but spare me management.

Re: proof reading

Spellcheckers can be borked by the user clicking ‘learn’ without the aid of a dictionary. It is annoying when it knows the singular of a word but refuses to recognise a simple ‘add an s’ plural though. Surely that could be coded?

/rant

LibreOffice 6.4 nearly done as open-source office software project prepares for 10th anniversary

Re: "Has Excel succeeded?..." at charting?

The big problem with Excel to my mind is people using it as a database, because it isn’t one. Databases scale properly and the linkages between fields in a record is absolute which is not true in Excel (unless you make it so but how well does that scale?).

People who let their Excel spreadsheets get too big instead of moving to a database system should be taken out, put against the wall and shot. But instead their products get put on pedestals and just get bigger and bigger and become TOO BIG TO FAIL and everyone gets the vapours about even thinking about exporting the data.

I’ve seen some horrors but then few people sit down at the start of things and ask ‘how should the data be organised?’ or understand what a relational database is. I have and do and have designed and built the latter for myself and others.

One system kept track of every mouse used or bred which had to be reported accurately under the Home Office Animal Experimentation Act. Every year we opened the search screen designed for the purpose, put in the new dates and pressed enter and those numbers could be reliably remitted to the HO without issue or legal sanction. And yes, it scaled, modestly. Doing it Excel would have given me the collywobbles and I would not have been confident of the numbers reported.

I built one which generated barcodes for another lab I was in. It handled the samples for a population level pharmacogenetic trial. I’m a control datapoint on that trial, the needle went through the vein and my lower arm filled with blood. I could do muscle anatomy without removing the skin. It itched.

Beware the three-finger-salute, or 'How I Got The Keys To The Kingdom'

Re: French company

I used to work at the NIMR in Mill Hill before it moved to central London and became The Crick Institute. It had an onsite bar which opened at 5pm weekdays. The seminar room was just beyond it and seminars where on Friday afternoons so you repaired to the bar just outside to continue matters if matters needed continuing.

I first made the acquaintance of Czech Bud there, they did bottles before most places did.

Re: Back in the day...

But what about software reconfiguration of keyboards? I can configure this one on my laptop to behave like a French keyboard or a New Zealand one or even simplified Pinyin. Without a relevant overlay that could cause someone else some problems.

El Reg presents: Your one-step guide on where not to store electronic mail

Re: Deleted

Yup, I used to be the guy in the lab with the Norton Utilities folder and the knowledge to use it and would occasionally have to try and resurrect deleted files for people who should have known better.

Later I had charge of two image grabbing systems (microscope, CCD Camera, computer, software) and instituted draconian rules: backup your files to your own system over the net, they are liable to be deleted to make space without notice and files left anywhere than in the designated place WOULD be deleted (the software was set to default to the designated space).

They continued to run under those rules after I left. That software company pretty much owes me for getting their system. First in the building and they sold lots afterwards. People came to look at ours. I should have negotiated a retainer.

How do you ascertain user acceptability if you keep killing off the users?

Re: ObXKCD

Actually THE best way to cook sprouts is to hot, hot, hot stir fry them. You need a smoking hot wok and tailed and halved sprouts, fry until well browned even slightly charred. I like to add a sprinkling of a resinous dried herb such as thyme or rosemary YMMV. Takes less than 5 minutes and they go all nutty, seriously, nutty sprouts. But your wok has to be HOT and no underdoing them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Scot living in Scotland so deep frying in bacon fat is in my dna but sprouts need the Eastern touch.

Mrs Muscleguy used to warm them through like that with chestnuts at Xmas. But she never did them hot enough or realise that vacuum packed chestnuts just need heating through so add them at the end or they dry out. Anyway I did them properly one year and the result was very much better.

I buy sprouts at times other than xmas just to stir fry them. When you get them home packed in plastic though take them out and put them in those string bags Sainsbury’s sell for 30p in the veg section. Stuff lasts longer than in plastic and slightly dried veg is better than slimy and rotten veg.

A sprinkling of Star Wars and a dash of Jedi equals a slightly underbaked Rise Of Skywalker

Re: No surprise there then

Indeed, in our house he was known as He, he, he Harrison so enamoured of him was the eldest daughter. She could certainly see what Callista saw/sees in him. Though she is no waif the eldest, too curvy by far so I fear not Mr Harrison’s taste.

How do we stop filling the oceans with Lego? By being a BaaS-tard, toy maker suggests

Re: Lego is heirloom material

I have a 3 bed semi in an estate here in Dundee which is as old as I am, built in 1965 by Betts. The Room In Roof trusses are ours except the cross strut is lower. Comes up to my chin and I'm 6'. But not an issue for a rugrat.

I have boarded it out with attic boards between the uprights (don't ask) and the footing is excellent. It gets lower at the chimney end as it has to fit a header tank for the HW system but that's an add-on. I have no recollections of banging my head when moving about in it.

When I come to sell if it goes to a rail obsessed person it would be an excellent place for a layout. I had the luxury of my layout just outside my bedroom door in our house in Auckland. Downstairs (it went down the hill) there was a large 'rumpus room' with bar at one end and my layout filling in the other end. The track, rolling stock etc went to my nephews who made full use of it. The eldest is now a journalist with one of the rail industry papers.

Judge to interview Assange over claims Spanish security firm snooped on him during Ecuador embassy stint

Re: Employing the fox the guard the hens

That will not stop the extradition. Laws and due process are being bent if not broken in the Assange case and it seems they would be happy if he dies in Belmarsh. A group of 60 doctors including international ones have written to the Home Office with grave concerns over his treatment or lack of it and urging his transfer to hospital so he can be properly assessed and treated.

Despite such international medical scrutiny this has not happened. Again the reputation of the UK is in tatters internationally and we are still doing the damage ourselves. I strongly suspect that after Brexit the UK will find it hard to extradite people from some countries and the treatment of Assange will be cited as to why. Crims fleeing to the Costas might be reality again.

Re: A Pox On All Their Houses

Mustard is a better partner for ham than pineapple. We are getting to the stage that you cannot order ham in an eatery WITHOUT it coming with an unwanted circle of the stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I do not dislike pineapple and I glaze baked hams with sweet/sour things like marmalade. The problem with pineapple is it has no sour notes. It's a pairing for an 8yo, not for adults who grew out of kids' food.

And besides pizzas with ham and pineapple are and should be labelled as 'Hawaiian' so those of us who are not 8 can avoid them. The gluten free pepperoni pizzas with ham strips I occasionally get from the supermarket don't have pineapple on them. I radially arranged the contents of a tin of anchovies over the last one half way through cooking. Delicious.

Cheque out my mad metal frisbee skillz... oops. Lights out!

Re: move one probe to a different socket to measure current

That would be a technological solution in search of a friend, relative or significant other. When checking the lights on my wife's car she consented to come out and press the brake pedals. All the rest I could do myself. I have long limbs, but not that long.

Re: Cheques still relevant... at leastt for someone

My cheque book is so old I have to cross out the 19 in the date field and write 20 and initial the change if I want to write a cheque.

This isn't Boeing very well... Faulty timer knackers Starliner cargo capsule on its way to International Space Station

Obviouisly Boeing didn't adequately train the dummy on board to deal with this situation. Par for the course then.

It's cool for Brit snoops to break the law, says secretive spy court. Just hold on while we pull off some legal jujitsu to let MI5 off the hook...

Re: 007 ... license to kill

Dirt not required just a sense of 'public duty' meaning 'support the Establishment at all times and especially when absolutely necessary'. See the appalling legal abuse Assange has suffered and is suffering. Due legal process has been and is being suspended for him.

After ruling that he was subject to a European Arrest Warrant despite not being charged Parliament changed the law ensuring you and I could never be estradited under it for mere questioning.

Even apart from Brexit the reputation of Britain abroad is full of holes and looking very seedy indeed and we only have ourselves to blame. Well if you are in England. Scotland has done as is doing rather better. We have and are protecting Prof Carla Ponsatti from being extradited by the Spanish for being Catalan. Scottish judges saw throught he last one as politically motivated. The Spanish are trying again but it won't work. Spain cannae have her. She is safe in St Andrews.

Want to live long and prosper? Avoid pirated, malware-laden Star Wars free vid streams – and pay to watch instead

If you wait it will end up in your local charity shop. Some nice folks buy the DVD/BR then rip them and then donate the disc to their favourite charity. People donate absolutely new stuff, get an unwanted present? donate it. Too embarrassed to send something back or don't want the hassle/aggro? donate it.

I volunteer in a BHF charity shop so I know. Don't wait too long though, it isn't clear how long it will be before it isn't worth stocking DVD's, old games and CD's any more. Though some hip youngsters will go through the CD's looking for interesting old stuff they don't know about.

iFixit surgeons dissect Apple's pricey Mac Pro: Industry standard sockets? Repair diagrams? Who are you and what have you done to Apple?

I expect they will still run TimeMachine. Apple make it ridiculously easy to schedule backups. Even over Wifi. An external in a case wired to a cheap Mac Mini will suffice.

Deadly 737 Max jets no longer a Boeing concern – for now: Production suspended after biz runs out of parking space

Re: Rebranding exercise

They separated us from our teenaged children. We were all lined up on the airbridge, the kids just in front of us. The line moved off they did, we were stopped by the functionary. ‘Those are our kids’ I said to her as the youngest looked back anxiously. To no avail whatsoever.

Attention! Very important science: Tapping a can of fizzy beer does... absolutely nothing

Previously

As a Muscle Biologist I was aware of a group in Hawai’i who worked on the jaw closing muscle of the lobster. Just the jaw closing muscle you understand*. Leaving the meat, I mean muscle in the claws and tail available as comestibles. Nice work if you can get it.

Closest we came during my PhD was when the Chinese postgrad looking at deer velvet brought some in, sliced, for the lab postdoc when he learned he had been married for 5 years without any children. Apparently one stir fries it and it’s regarded as an aphrodisiac and general sexual tonic. Since as a mere PhD student and married with two offspring I didn’t rate any of it.

If anyone were wondering BTW there’s enough meat on a rat to make it worth eating but not on a mouse. I have never indulged, but you never know when the needs must.

100 mysterious blinking lights in the night sky could be evidence of alien life... or something weird, say boffins

Certainly here in Scotland. The lone incumbent in Edinburgh Sth is so far to the right he deserves the title of Red Tory. Just like the late unlamented Jo Swinson who during the Coalition years voted with the Conservatives more often than most of the Tory party is a yellow Tory.

Scotland decided it wasnae interested in Corbyn ages ago, his campaign events up here featured the same lot of bussed in activists and media tight cropping. Thank goodness for online sources who soon provided wide field views showing a few tightly clustered in large empty fields. Image comparisons soon found the same faces in disparate such events and even their bus was fingered.

During our wee IndyRef Labour was reduced to bussing in English wannabees. Their battle bus came to Dundee and us in Dundee RIC held a rally in a nearby square at the same time. Then we formed up behind the piper and marched down to and around them and proceeded to be much more vital and engaging and took their audience away. They were all very preppy boys in tight haircuts, slacks and neat jerseys. They might just as easily have been Young Tories to us in the Yes City they looked like it.

BTW on Thursday last both Dundee seats were retained by the SNP in excess of 50% of the cast votes. This is still the Yes City.

Careful with that Axe, Eugene: Excessive use of body spray causes school bus evacuation

Aaaaaaah Eeeeeeeehhhhhh

Yay! Pink Floyd headlines resurrected. Let joy be unconfined.

Brewing in spaaaaace: SpaceX sends a malting kit to the International Space Station

I would have thought that it would be easier in that environment and having to contain everything to keep extraneous organisms out. Also if they keep the beer away from bright lights it won't turn skunky.

I cringe every time I see a clear glass bottle of whisky sitting in a shop window. Since it starts out brewed whisky is subject to skunkiness as well. Why so many single malts come in boxes. I keep mine in the boxes in a closed cabinet not subject to sunlight except around midsummer when it can come through the skylight and down the stairwell.

Simple take the container, place the part where you want the head to form and place it on the outside then spin the container fast thus creating centrifugal force aka artificial gravity. But make sure you are securely anchored before beginning the spinning action.

Glad to help.

BTW I have experience in designing for zero gravity. The eldest some years ago won a place at Space Camp from here in Scotland and had to design something to make the astronaut's lives easier. We came up with a coffee brewer based on a heat source and one way valves.

I'm not entirely sure how the Italian made machine which was sent up works. Maybe we should have applied for a patent . . .

With a warehouse of unsold AR goggles, Magic Leap has a brainwave… let’s rebadge ‘em and sell to business!

Run for it

All I want is a pair of light glasses, I wear them when I run (except when it rains) which gives me a headsup display of the info from my running watch which gives me elapsed time, pace, HR that kind of stuff. Also it should work in the dark. Looking at the watch while wearing a head torch doesn't work. Too many reflections.

I would like this soon and at an accessible price and will connect via Bluetooth with my running watch as the HR monitor and footpod (distance/speed) do. I use Polar gear. Get cracking.