* Posts by Charlie van Becelaere

487 publicly visible posts • joined 3 May 2007

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Astroboffins agog after spotting the first repeating fast radio burst that pings every 16 days from another galaxy

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Aliens? Or something more prosaic? We're hoping for aliens

It's probably a faux traffic jam.

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Carefull

Sorry about my upvote - it took you to 43. I should have left well enough alone.

Yahoo! hack! payout! nearly! approved! and! the! question! is! how! to! spend! 60! cents!?

Charlie van Becelaere
Happy

Re: "Yeah, we're using vague as a verb."

"Verbing weirds language."

And languaging weirds verbs and gerunds.

Star wreck: There's a 1 in 20 chance a NASA telescope and US military satellite will smash into each other today

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Recycling

> vCue Steptoe & Son theme.

Perhaps Quark? A 1970s series following a space garbage scow (or so I remember it) with great hilarity meant to ensue.

We need to make it even easier for UK terror cops to rummage about in folks' phones, says govt lawyer

Charlie van Becelaere
Trollface

Re: WAR ON TERROR

"Americanisation of British Economic Democracy."

Properly, I believe that would be the Americanization of British Economic Democracy. Might as well just go all the way and honor <sic> the correct spelling.

How a Kaggle Grandmaster cheated in $25,000 AI contest with hidden code – and was fired from dream SV job

Charlie van Becelaere

Yes, they did "upgrade" it by adding footnotes explaining many of the cultural references which no longer resonate.

I found it a bit depressing to realise that most of the "humour" in that book now required footnotes. (At any rate, most of the character names did.)

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

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Learnings

Indeed.

I generally vet my comments with a recent copy of "How to Speak Well English."

Eggheads have crunched the numbers and the results are in: It's not just your dignity you lose with e-scooters, life and limb are in peril, too

Charlie van Becelaere

Drunk or High

All in all, you'd have to be a damn idiot to ride on those things drunk or high, without a helmet.

There, fixed that for you.

It's always DNS, especially when you're on holiday with nothing but a phone on GPRS

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: No Service

I managed to find one spot in the Taquhamenon Falls State Park campground where there was a mobile signal. If I moved a metre or so in any direction - nothing at all. Checked my work email (I know, foolish move) only to find a global "reply all" incident running rampant. Filled my poor Blackberry (yes, this was some time ago) with idiotic messages such as "please remove me from this thread" also replied to all.

Still, some of the best camping, hiking, sight-seeing I've done in a long time.

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

Charlie van Becelaere
Thumb Up

Kudos

for the mixing of franchises!

No doubt it will cause great angst and pain much as the below-referenced shirt:

https://www.computergear.com/1a023-r2d2-dalek-loved-star-trek-t-shirt.html

Valuable personal info leaks from Facebook – not Zuck selling it, unencrypted hard drives of staff data stolen

Charlie van Becelaere
Facepalm

"This theft impacts current and former Facebook employees only and no Facebook user data was involved."

It's good to know that no Facebook employees are Facebook users - makes one feel all the more secure knowing they eat their own dog food as it were.

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

Charlie van Becelaere
Boffin

Re: Scientific error

Ah, but the clever boffins actually weighed the cans to determine the loss of "beer" rather than measuring the volume. [One assumes they assiduously wiped/dried the outside of each can before weighing, as some (most?) of the lost liquid might well have clung to the can.]

One also wonders how damp the lab coats of said boffins were by the end of this procedure.

You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: A quirky investigation into why AI does not always work

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: It's when they're at cat level

I really don't need an AI to knock the things off my tables.

Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: No oxygen

Professor Quatermass, I presume?

Questions hang over Gatwick Airport after low level drone near-miss report

Charlie van Becelaere
Facepalm

Re: My first thought?

I think I found the footage in an open AWS bucket.

I'm still not that Gary, says US email mixup bloke who hasn't even seen Dartford Crossing

Charlie van Becelaere
Facepalm

Re: you still have turnpikes in England?

More pertinent, at least to Gary, is the fact that they still have turnpikes in New Jersey:

https://www.njta.com/

Robotics mastermind admits: I pushed over my 1-year-old daughter to understand balance

Charlie van Becelaere
Pint

Re: The automated pushover

Thumbs up and a beer on me for the Firesign Theatre reference~

Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: The problem with discrete Object detection

"I don't expect self driving vehicles around these parts for a very long time."

As a drive-on-the-right-side-of-the-road driver recently driving in Devon I totally concur with your expectation here.

I was about to head up a road much like the one you describe but decided that discretion would be the better part of valour and turned around and found a different route. Perhaps we'll get a bit of Robin Hood v. Little John action when two autonomous vehicles meet on a single lane?

Cambridge boffins and Google unveil open-source OpenTitan chip – because you never know who you can trust

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: I don't know

You know, we need a turtle icon for our comments.

It's comments all the way down, after all.

Antarctic researchers send an SOS to the world: Who wrote this message in a bottle?

Charlie van Becelaere
Alien

Re: Quite a trip!

Also note: "Sorry, your search appears to be outside our current coverage area for driving. "

No luck getting directions to the Mountains of Madness either.

Astroboffins rethink black hole theory after spotting tiny example with its own star buddy

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Which would suggest "gravity" as TWO separate strengths.

" isn't the bottom line still we haven't the faintest idea what gravity really is ?"

There is no bottom line. It's turtles all the way down.

Microsoft explains self-serve Power platform's bypassing of Office 365 admins to cries of 'are you completely insane?'

Charlie van Becelaere
Unhappy

Re: Desperate attempt at generating revenue

"Congratulations, you completed Word Town!

Next stop, Excelville!

Don't want to wait? Purchase a Fast Travel for $2.99!"

- Office 365 Saga

Oh, sorry, you just died of dysentery.

Time to check who left their database open and leaked 7.5m customer records: Hi there, Adobe Creative Cloud!

Charlie van Becelaere
Thumb Up

Re: Only amateurs use cloud editing software

Thumbs up for the Stargate reference!

Slow down, ice-on-Mars fans: Those 'streams' on Red Planet may be caused by landslides

Charlie van Becelaere
Boffin

Re: Pah

Could be Therns, eh?

Remember the 1980s? Oversized shoulder pads, Metal Mickey and... sticky keyboards?

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: ties

I had a coworker get his tie caught in the document shredder, but he managed to kill the power before it went full Fargo on him.

Charlie van Becelaere
Facepalm

Re: Tobacco smoke

"BAT HQ?

I once had the misfortune of visiting BAT HQ by Temple Tube, in London, back in the day."

I hope I was not the only one expecting a tale of cleaning bat guano from a keyboard.

One shudders to imagine, yet cannot help but do so.

Hey, I wrote this neat little program for you guys called the IMAC User Notification Tool

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Automatic User Name Creation

Said list needs to be shared with the wider readership here ... for research puposes, of course.

When the satellite network has literally gone glacial, it's vital you snow your enemy

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Ah, those laser links....

Or a military coop...

macOS? More like mac-woe-ess: Google Chrome slip-up trips up SIP-less Apple Macs

Charlie van Becelaere
Pint

Re: SIPping

""can't see why everything needs an acronym though."

SENACA - Surely Everything Needs A Clever Acronym."

Right you are, Dave. They all need some TLA - Three Letter Acronyms.

Imagine if Facebook could read your mind: Er, I have some bad news for you...

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: EMF sensitivity could be real.

"You are describing some of the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Get the gas equipment checked."

Or even a simple gas leak. It's possible the smart meter was improperly installed, and when it was replaced the new meter's connections were sealed well.

Or it could just be a ghost trying to get rid of the smart meter.

Charlie van Becelaere
Headmaster

Re: Do you have something to tell us?

Might I suggest that the phrase "baffled Starbucks baristas" is redundant?

Are you who you say you are, sir? You are? That's all fine then

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: No one mentioned..

Furthermore -

We always need to listen carefully to the menu as the selections have recently changed.

It's no wonder we all press "0" as soon as possible!

Vulture Central team welcomed to our new nest by crashed Ubuntu that's 3 years out of date

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Unwanted

Right you are, and it's been out there for ages.

Even this bizarro-world blog had it a long time ago:

http://iheardacouplethings.blogspot.com/2011/07/h2o-and-usb.html

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Charlie van Becelaere
Devil

"They should have changed the name to GID - Gimp In Disguise."

Or perhaps GIMP - GIMP Is My Predecessor?

My MacBook Woe: I got up close and personal with city's snatch'n'dash crooks (aka some bastard stole my laptop)

Charlie van Becelaere
Mushroom

Re: Distance trigger

I didn't know anyone else had seen that film.

'Deeply concerned' UK privacy watchdog thrusts probe into King's Cross face-recognizing snoop cam brouhaha

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Given that politicians are all crooks, by definition ...

No. It's saying they correctly matched Californian politicians with their image in the criminal database 80% of the time. It's just they also got it wrong 20% of the time.

Or is it the old 80/20 rule - 20% of the legislators are doing 80% of the crime?

Transport for London Oyster system pulled offline after credential-stuffing crooks board customers' accounts

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Oyster Accounts Shucked

vinegar in the wound?

I prefer a bit of mignonette myself.

Dutch cheesed off at Microsoft, call for Rexit from Office Online, Mobile apps over Redmond data slurping

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: "Cloggies"

"Cloggies"

Really?

Agreed. (though I'm not a cloggy/cloggie, I have been mistaken for one at times.)

GM Cruise holds off on self-driving taxis for this year, says it needs more testing time to be safe

Charlie van Becelaere

Quelle surprise

Quelle surprise indeed.

Still, I'm very pleased with their decision.

Just add water: Efficient Energy’s HFC-free chillers arrive in the UK

Charlie van Becelaere

Upvote

partly for the confusion and partly for the name.

Good luck deleting someone's private info from a trained neural network – it's likely to bork the whole thing

Charlie van Becelaere

Good luck with that. I agree there ought to be such an audit trail to any AI training, but I don't think the folks involved really know enough about what's going on inside their processes to manage anything remotely useful.

Black boxes seem to be equally opaque to all concerned.

'Is this Microsoft trying to be cool? Want to go to the Apple Store?' We checked out London's new retail extravaganza

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: a shop, er, "retail experience", built to fit around a corner.

"innovative smooth radii"

They're not merely innovative - I believe they're covered by a design patent!

RTFM: Wireless Broadband Alliance squeezes out 40-page ode to the joy of Wi-Fi 6

Charlie van Becelaere
Coat

RTFM: Wireless Broadband Alliance squeezes out 40-page ode to the joy of Wi-Fi 6

Please tell me I'm not the only one who read this as:

RoTFM and worried how much worse our coming robot overlords were about to become.

Charlie van Becelaere
Boffin

Re: Wi-Fi 6 represents the end of the idea of wiring desks for Ethernet

"Where's the spec for Power over WiFi again?"

Paging Mr Tesla....

The dread sound of the squeaking caster in the humming data centre

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Stan, Sid, let's make it simple, okay ?

Bruce FTW.

Box shifting on the Moon? Lunar payloads on Amazon Prime

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: "you no longer depend on local authorities, or local entrenched competitors"

"Moreover satellite TV requires only a few geostationary satellites - and can be soon replaced by streaming over speedier fibre cables."

Upvote for first paragraph, but I think we're still far from being able to run fibre out to rural areas - the main reason satellite TV is still a thing, at least in the States.

Heathrow Airport drops £50m on CT scanners to help smooth passage through security checks

Charlie van Becelaere

Re: Lipstick on a pig

so now you fly through Gatwick?

She's just a Cosmic Girl but UK.gov is dangling £20m to have Beardy Branson's 747 launch satellites from Cornwall

Charlie van Becelaere
Pirate

Re: Bah!

Them as be already landed be the lucky ones … aaarrrggghh. (or however one spells that).

Amazon Alexa: 'Pre-wakeword' patent application suggests plans to process more of your speech

Charlie van Becelaere
Childcatcher

Another relevant XKCD

https://xkcd.com/1807/

Tasty!

NASA boffins may just carve your name on a chip and send it to Mars if you ask nicely

Charlie van Becelaere
Thumb Up

AC FTW!

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