Posts by Tom 7

NASA experts looked through 800 UFO sightings and found essentially nothing

Re: re. every man.woman and child in the Western Hemisphere has had access to a digital camera 24/7

So you're saying the aliens we can see are the shit ones and not the ones we really want to see but cant.

Electric two-wheelers are set to scoot past EVs in road race

Re: Lesson from history

At least with rain you have a chance of hearing them coming. The death rate from these things will make the IoM TT look like a picnic!

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

Re: Some hardware doesn´t like USB3

Is it the hardware that is the problem or the software driver? If the thing talks to a hub ok but not another device it suggest to me they just couldnt be arsed to test the driver properly at apple.USB3 is meant to be backwards compatible.

Modular finds its Mojo, a Python superset with C-level speed

Re: I'm undecided.

Check out ROOT (from CERN) C++ interpreter.

Having said that I tend not to worry about what language I'm writing in if I want speed as that tends to come from the routines I'm calling and what they run on ( a couple of graphics cards if I need some speed) Writing a new language is always a tricky thing when you can RTFM of pretty much any computing language and find a solution to the problem you naively think you are the first to come across!

Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks this weekend, and will be one for the ages

Re: Aye, right !

Got woken by the rain at 4 am ish. Came downstairs to watch some shit on tv/netfix and glances at phone and AuroraWatch informed me there was a chance of seeing Aurora anywhere in the UK.

If only I was 30,000 feet tall!

I've seen things you wouldn't believe, like an atom about to photosynthesize

I dont believe anyone has seen an atom about to photosynthesize.

Take part in perhaps but never on its own.

Fed up with Python setup and packaging? Try a shot of Rye

Re: No mention of pip and venv?

The work but they're not really a solution or simple, just a sticking plaster. Cant believe how many copies of python I have on my system.

CERN celebrates 30 years since releasing the web to the public domain

Re: 1994 was a big year for file formats.

PDF - what the web would be if designed by a monopolistic printer manufacturer.

WWW is a subset of the internet. email is a subset of the internet etc etc. IRC was a subset of the internet. Nothing ever said WWW couldnt access email or IRC. It was just there were programs that people were familiar with that held sway for quite a while, even though the clients were easily re-written to work in the browser, well until MS and others decided to make it difficult,

Re: it changed software development

We could have had the end of programming years ago. But now we have to reprogram everything in the new languages that solve the problem of not RTFMing other languages.

Re: it changed software development

Then the Internet came, and we got to do everything all over again.

Then smartphones came, and we got to do everything all over again even though we didnt have to.

Then web services and the cloud came, and we got to do everything over again because we didnt realise we'd done most of it already.

Nobody you knew was predicting this in 1975 - we'd have needed the web for that.

Re: Mirage of democracy

You're blaming HTML for humans?

How Sandia hopes to accelerate US hypersonic weapons development

They'd get about 10 meters from the 'barrel' before vaporising. if they hadnt already before leaving it. Now if you froze them first...

Shocks from a hairy jumper crashed a PC, but the boss wouldn't believe it

Re: Just one question

Most likely regular short discharges rather than massive bolts Didnt take much to wipe out early chips.

Re: Electrostatic bracer... err watch

When ferreting about inside PC cases even today I keep my forearms bare and touch one or other to the bare metal of the case and keep it there before diving in. Never trusted leads as deliberately open circuit ones where left around the labs by Mr Funny in one place I worked. Except of course when training in which case the avo came out to check.

Boffins think they've decoded mysterious 819-day Mayan calendar

I'm guessing this 'discovery' cycles round too

I'm sure this has been known for a long time - perhaps its not on the web though.

Student requested access to research data. And waited. And waited. And then hacked to get root

I used to use a bit of code that crashed

leaving me at a much higher security level than I had as a user. We used a VAX 8600 with VMS and originally we only had a couple of dozen engineers using it and then someone decided to put 120 secretaries doing word processing on it. This meant that during the day jobs that used to run in just a few minutes could now take hours. There was a program on the system that crashed almost as soon as it was run and one day I'd discovered that it left me in some kind of admin level so I could raise my job priority to near max and the job would whizz along and finish in seconds before anyone could complain or seemingly track what I was doing. I didnt do it very often - generally when I needed to finish the job before a meeting or pub o'clock on a Friday but it saved me many an hour of finger drumming.

Virgin Obit: Launch company files for bankruptcy in US

Scone wars.

One scone jam first, one cream first. If you're still hungry involve butter for 6 more permutations to try.

I am intrigued by the cornish idea that the jam will slide the cream off which shows they've not testes the idea since jam became conserve and wont even stick to a knife let alone slide clotted cream off. My next door neighbour makes clotted cream for their neighbours at xmas and despite my lactose intolerance its so good I can cope with some cramps and near terminal flatulence to consume it. However straight from the fridge there is no jam that will shift it, indeed a nice scone is under threat from it if you try a large lump without some softening of the cream first.

Royal Mail wins worst April Fools' joke 2023

But the inefficiency and waste in the NHS is because the private companies parasatising it make money doing just that. Evidence is rarely on the side of private enterprise in public services. I say rarely just in case.

Parts of UK booted offline as Virgin Media suffers massive broadband outage

Re: We have multiple redundant gigabit fibre connections...

I've got 4G via EE. Did manage 70+Mb/s, now lucky to get 8 Mb/s. Cant really understand why as in a scattered rural community. Every fault seems to result in a 3 to 5 hr support call which gets a new SIM and a random large charge.

Lawyers cough up $200k after health data stolen in Microsoft Exchange pillaging

Re: 200K for a law firm is peanuts

Sounds like 'the wine bill' on a pre-xmas lunch stress-test.

Boffins find 'missing link' between interstellar ice and what comes out of the tap

Re: Nobel Prize Winning Stuff

What evidence? That its the same composition as comets. Now there is a surprise. As for planets being hot then I guess the massive reservoirs of water found in the hot sub crust of the earth dont exist? The water that came from comets would have evaporated - the stuff a 100m or so under the surface would not have.

Re: Nobel Prize Winning Stuff

I do wonder if the planets could at least start to form before the star lights up and then supposedly blasts the water off to the outer solar system to then come back and seed the planet with water - possibly when a gas giant goes rogue and legs it from the inner solar system. Seems a lot easier for it to end up on the planet and the star to light up a bit later. I'll call the reasoning behind this Occams Shaving Mug as you need the water first to make the razor work more easily.

Great Graph Database Debate: Abandoning the relational model is 'reinventing the wheel'

Most of my experience with DBs

suggest this may be a new way to obfuscate the customers data in ways that sql didnt allow.

Microsoft to snatch Visio app away from iOS users this summer

Re: Choices

I thought the thing about Visio was the code you could add to the components. Does Inkscape do this?

Atomic energy body proposes fusion framework to manage British energy grids

Re: Nice

Only if your deliberately making your grid unsuitable for the renewables that could be providing us with more electricity than Hinkley C will ever produce for a lot less.

Re: Nice

The lead time for nuclear is basically the reason why nuclear can never be called the answer. Its more of an excuse not to allow renewables to produce a far cheaper solution, and to allow the fossil fuel generators another 10 or 15 years of making things worse.

Chinese defence boffins ponder microwaving Starlink satellites to stop surveillance

Re: actually....

A bit like saying I will be jumping a red light at such and such a time. Telling people when you get to fuck around downgrading other peoples experience is not really any part of a co-operative arranmgement.

PC tech turns doctor to diagnose PC's constant crashes as a case of arthritis

Re: South don't work in the North

Had one for seemed like for ever and gave it away when we moved house but it seemed as good as the day it was bought. The programs were shitter mind.

Re: Don't get me started...

Sorting the wheat from the badly spelt p'raps?

By order of Canonical: Official Ubuntu flavors must stop including Flatpak by default

Re: future of apt on Ubuntu?

Or how about a package that includes the software and a list of packages that may need installing and calls apt to do that. I reckon I've got about 30Gbytes of duplicate packages in various Snap crap and another 50Gbytes or so for various Python VMs. Its getting back to the good old days like brexit does.

America: AI artwork is not authored by humans, so can't be protected by copyright

As a slight aside.

Interesting hover over on SMBC this morning. "Have you noticed this thing where people say AI will never be as good as Shakespeare, but then nobody mentions that none of us are as good as Shakespeare?

Titanic mass grave site to be pillaged for NFTs

There's a joke about that but some might find it offensive. Snowflakes!

Not 100% sure but does it count as a grave when the human remains have long since been eaten or dissolved into the sea?

Light from a long time ago reaches James Webb Space Telescope

Re: That's funny...

I do wonder sometimes about the hunt for quantum gravity. Electric charges are quantum, electromagnetic fields are continuous. Mass comes in quanta, gravity* is continuous. Shouldn't we be looking for quantum mass theory to unify everything?

*is the dark energy field orthogonal to gravity.

This app could block text-to-image AI models from ripping off artists

You've obviously not spoken to artist about their work creation. They frequently cant explain it either.

Learn the art of malicious compliance: doing exactly what you were asked, even when it's wrong

My mum used to intervene and do my ironing. Fortunately someone invented non-iron shirts and I dont have to hope to play that game again.

LibreOffice 7.5 update: A great time to jump on this FOSS productivity suite

Re: Time to toss them a few more bucks for a software suite I use on Linux, Mac and PC.

Have they updated the Base wizard which was written in Java and, when I last reported a bug, was told no-one had a clue how it worked.

Generative AI is out of control: Nothing, Forever is a Seinfeld spoof about nothing... forever

Re: "It's... actually kind of funny, though"

I always thought someone was having a laugh when they called Seinfeld comedy. They'll be saying the same about Friends next!

Fossil brain undoes 350 million years of scientific understanding

evaginated forebrain

naaaaa. Just fell over pissed orrificor

Renewables are cheaper than coal in all but one US location

Re: So in conclusion

More importantly the AGW inspired instabilities have enable wind to produce record amounts of power this winter.

AI cannot be credited as authors in papers, top academic journals rule

A bit like the output from an MBA

or privately educated person going into industry. Vast reams of documents to show they're busy and important but when you actually have time to read them....

I've often wondered if the purpose of learning to write essays and papers is to hide lack of knowledge.

Re: Gobbels Engine

It's ability to distinguish Science from rubbish like Creationism or Witchcraft is zero. So like most of the USA!

Techies ask PM to 'prepare UK chip strategy as a matter of urgency'

Asking this government for a plan for your industry?

Is this some insurance scam?

SpaceX tells astronomers: Fine, we'll try to stop Starlink spoiling stargazing sessions

Bastards!

There's fucking starlink satellites wandering around on Stellarium now. The fuckers can even piss me off on a cloudy night!

I hope this is Musks Twitter moment!

Up to 18,000 Amazon workers in firing line as it chops cost

Re: "finding a way to do more for customers at a lower cost"

But the customers are ultimately being fucked over. The service is getting worse and worse and overnight delivery to a nearby back garden is not good enough. I dont think they are very far from a tipping point they'll have difficulty recovering from. Just a few more cost savings...

Re: "job for life" died at the end of the 1980s,

Yup, We're now in a world where no-one, absolutely no-one knows more than their small broom cupboard in the company and wondering why things are going to hell in a handcart while those who cause this flit from company to company causing the same damage and yet getting paid handsomely for doing ugly.

As Arm plays chicken with Qualcomm, both have a lot to lose

Re: Mature

How can proprietary designs be included in the OPEN RISK V standards?

$20m SAP ECC replacement project delayed because UK university unsure what it wants

Square peg

round hole behind which is the SAP financial vacuum of such minuscule Hg that the physics dept is really jelaous!

It does seem to be a lot of money for things that me and a few others managed to achieve in house when the IT staff were embedded enough to actually know what the various depts wanted.

CEO told to die in a car crash after firing engineers who had two full-time jobs

Re: Judge on results, not appearances

I've always worked with the expectation that from time to time extra hours will be required and TOIL or extra money will be provided for work above and beyond the normal hours. I think it would be dumb to risk the possibility of both jobs requiring those extra hours simultaneously causing massive problems for you and your employers.

Having said that I think the idea of basically turning yourself into a zero hour contractor will only result in further collapse in management capabilities and hence your dreams of big money,