Posts by Sam 15

Atomic clocks are so last epoch, it's time someone nailed down the nuclear clock

Re: A graduate student

"Not a professor, oh no. A student.

Methinks this one is going to have a bright career."

Because he managed to somehow publish this without a professor sticking _his_ name on the paper?

NASA plasma propulsion project promises Mars in a flash

Re: "manned missions to Mars to be completed within a mere two months"

"but let's just watch the history of traveling improve if we can eventually get up to light speed then we might start to visit the universe."

Quite. We should ignore trivial details like accelerating up to light speed... and decelerating when approaching the destination.

Of course, getting close to the speed of light is a weighty issue.

Italy's military mulling space-based supercomputing cloud

Re: Free solar power ?

""That way they can have lasers as well."

So, military units of 2 soldiers and a shark??"

I'm pretty sure Italian space lasers are intended to change votes in US elections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italygate

Moving to Windows 11 is so easy! You just need to buy a PC that supports it!

Re: very little use for AI

"AI is, sadly, seen as a lazy cheat, and people are jumping in with both feet. Never you mind the outcome, all they're seeing is "Easy!" and they're more than happy to buy into the hype cycle."

There will always be lots of people with rusty snakes.

Tesla power steering probe upgraded after thousands more incidents reported

Re: At Least This Time...

"Pumping the brakes is only needed if you want to steer. Otherwise locking the wheels will brake more effectively (on tarmac and snow)."

Pumping the brakes is only needed if you don't care about steering.

With all wheels locked, the car is able to rotate around whichever tyre has the most grip. Hence you might meet some stationary object sideways on - or whichever aspect the car chooses to present to said object.

Google Groups ditches links to Usenet, the OG social network

Re: The spam was coming from inside the house

Hmm.

1. Spam coming from/via Google Groups ramps up to massive proportions (swamping many groups).

2. Google decides to axe Groups, leading to many people to say "Good Riddance!".

Was that spam flood like a artillery barrage to soften up the battlefield?

Elon is the bakery owner swearing in the street about Yelp critics canceling him

Yep. He's a Schrödinger's billionaire.

Until you collapse the wavefunction we have no idea what he is really worth - and "collapse" might be the operative term here.

Musk in hot water with SEC for failure to comply with subpoena

Enough is never enough

If a mere mortal did any of this, I agree that an orange jumpsuit would be in their near future.

However, that somehow doesn't apply if you are really really rich - or convince a lot of people that you are really really rich.

I wish it were not so, but...

The most bizarre online replacement items in your delivered shopping?

Re: Ingenious

Supermarket pickers can always find the shelves empty when they reach for an item, because a customer took the last one off of the shelf just a moment earlier.

What I cannot understand is why Ocado - where there are no customers taking things from the shelves - can suddenly find they are out of stock?

"Some cats will eat dog food. A cat I had as a child didn't complain when we spilled some extra dog food and she got to snack on it."

I think you're missing the point.

A cat will eat almost anything - IF - they are stealing it.

Offer them the same thing in their own food bowl, and watch their lips curl with disdain.

Vessels claiming to be Chinese warships are messing with passenger planes

Re: Peak China?

"Unsurprising, as it is instability that is not in the Chinese economy's interest. They already have a problem with a property bubble that they've had to address. "

Err. They have, after a fashion, 'addressed' it, but only to apply a sticking plaster over the whole mess.

The bubble is still there and they have done nothing to fix it.

Elon Musk starts poll with one question: Should I step down as head of Twitter?

Re: Confused.com

"But Musk is spreading himself too thin with all his ventures."

If he's having some difficulty with that, I'm sure someone with an old-fashioned (non-electric) steam roller could help.

"Back up and do it again."

Google, YouTube ban election trolls ahead of US midterms

Re: Try a little critical thinking

"Presidents can seemingly declassify documents without following any procedure at all. If a president wants a document to stop being classified then it just stops being. I agree with you that this is stupid but so are a lot of rules that apply to politicians."

Well no they can't.

They do indeed have the power to have something declassified, but it must still go through the laid down procedures - and that does not include waving a fairy-wand.

Indeed, for some highly sensitive material it has to go back to the originating department for them to sign off on the change.

In much the same way, Presidents can give pardons to anyone they like - no matter how venal or self-serving that might be - but they still have to go through the procedure.

Trump could not now say:

"Bye the way, I pardoned everyone involved in Jan 6th - including myself."

(Or rather he could, since that sounds just like some of his other claims.)

Re: Try a little critical thinking

"She had state secrets on a public mail server under her personal control. Which got hacked, and some leaked. I'd suggest having uncontrolled access to controlled documents is actually quite uncommon. But no prosecutions for mishandling classified data."

Well, if she had taken a large van-load of highly sensitive documents with her when she left office.

Refused to return them when asked

Only returned a small quantity when faced with a subpoena - but claimed, in a written submission, that everything had been returned.

Then had her place raided, with a further large number of highly sensitive documents being found - despite the previous claims....

etc. etc. etc.

Well yes. I suppose she would have been facing some serious charges.

Odd that you didn't mention those aspects.

Start your engines: Windows 11 ready for broad deployment

"It's the way things work nowadays"

True... but, just because that's the way things are doesn't mean it's the way things should be.

If Spartacus had a Microsoft account...

Would that work?

US judge dismisses Republican efforts to block release of Salesforce emails

Re: There is a lesson here...

"sure you could operate your own email server and then explain to the supena brandishing SWAT team that you 'accidentally' erased all the emails about the share fraud/sanction busting/plan to kill the president"

No problem. Put your server on an Italian spy satellite where the SWAT team can't reach it.

Bouncing cheques or a bouncy landing? All in a day's work for the expert pilot

Re: Serial to VGA? All you need is an adapter!

An elephant can mate with a duck - all you need is an adapter.

Good Grief! Ransomware gang has only gone and pwned the NRA – or so it claims

Re: Plays into the hand of ...

The NRA can fundraise from this.

"Help us develop cyber-guns and on-line ammo!"

Anyway, it must have been Antifa who dun it, not the Russians.

British naval food doesn't look half bad... so we're going to try it out for ourselves

Disco Tartan plaid [1] ???

How about the Dazzle camouflage actually used in WW!?

(Just stick "dazzle camouflage" into your preferred search engine)

[1] Tautology Shirley?

Beyond video to interactive, personalised content: BBC is experimenting with rebuilding its iPlayer in WebAssembly

Re: WOT??

"It's a shame that they felt the need to obscure what sounds like an interesting project behind that initial layer of spaff."

Writing that kind of spaff is a highly prized artform within the BBC (and other organisations too numerous to mention in this margin). It's a bit like a Han dynasty Chinese civil servant getting promotion for penning a particularly neat haiku.

We regret to inform you the professor teaching your online course is already dead

An Art History Lecturer dies

Let's assume that most of the artists mentioned in these lectures are dead.

If their work is still valid and worth talking about, why should the lecturers words on the subject suddenly become worthless?

Robot wars! Scandi automation biz AutoStore slings patent sueball, claims it owns Ocado warehouse tech

Re: If only Ocado

Ocado are pretty good at packing stuff upside down

England's COVID-tracking app finally goes live after 6 months of work – including backpedal on how to handle data

Re: Ups and downs...

Quote

"As waves are defined by ups and downs it's safe to say that the first wave is defined by the first up and down. Which are clearly over as we are unfortunately at the start of the next up.

Defining the start of the second wave."

/ End Quote.

<Looks at "COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)" - United Kingdom - graph for Daily Cases>

Mate. This had better not just be the start of the second wave since we've just hit the highest number to date.

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?'

"hair of the dog"

That's a typo.

It should read "Heir of the dog" - which is cognate with that other phrase "Son of a bitch".

Ah, this military GPS system looks shoddy but expensive. Shall we try to break it?

Re: Well, I didn't *waste* money

"Unfortunately the Soviet Union, with its surplus of mathematicians and physicists, apparently did a much better job of sub tracking, and using inferior radar at that. "

I assume "radar" is a typo for "sonar"?

Re: "Electronics not destroyed by a sledgehammer"

"I had a discussion with a high up Navy man on a vessel."

I regret to inform you that the Royal Navy abandoned the use of Crows Nests quite some time ago.

Or was this on HMS Victory?

Devon County Council techies: WE KNOW IT WASN'T YOU!

Wrong kind of excuse

Since this is Education, what's wrong with the traditional excuse?

"Please Sir! A big boy done it and ran away!"

UK web grocer Ocado takes £500k hit after robo-warehouse tech splurge

Nice Pic Reg

Ocado's USP is the fact that it doesn't have supermarkets - it's all done on-line.

Well done for illustrating the story with a pic of a punter - in a supermarket.

Nunes FBI memo: Yep, it's every bit as terrible as you imagined

Re: How to get rid of fleas on your dog

"Indictments, so far, number zero (0). Directly-related indictments, that is. Collusion -- so far -- has not even been demonstrated. "

What!

You've been pregnant for over six months!

Common now, where's the baby then huh?

Fake News!

Japan finds long, deep tunnel on the Moon

Shame there's no Atmosphere

This would make a really spiffing didgeridoo.

Indian call centre scammers are targeting BT customers

Conmen at work

So,

BT suggest that scammers in Indian (or some other far away country) call centres are going through bins in the UK to get their info - thus making it "Not BT's fault".

Yep. Definitely conmen at work.

Paris nightclub red-faced after booze-for-boobs offer exposed

Re: Not unusual

"I can remember a bar in down town San Diego which hung bras (given by drunken patrons) from the ceiling."

Shoddy construction work.

The ceiling shouldn't have needed that extra support.

HMS Windows XP: Britain's newest warship running Swiss Cheese OS

Operational? or Test Software?

Given the present state of play on that ship, I imagine there's more test software on board than operational stuff.

If test s/w is running on XP I don't see what the fuss is about.

Cabinet Office minister Gummer loses seat as Tory gamble backfires

Amber Rudd scraped home

"A pity that Home Secretary Amber Rudd scraped home by 346 votes."

Is it too late to ask for a few recounts?

If we ask the same question again and again. we might eventually get the Right Answer.

Cuffing Assange a 'priority' for the USA says attorney-general

AC/DC blasting Out

"Still, looking forward to hearing AC/DC blasted out at maximum volume outside the Ecuadorian Embassy until they hand over Assange."

It's right next to Harrods!

I rather think the neighbours might object.

You're Donald Trump's sysadmin. You've got data leaks coming out the *ss. What to do

"All the "checking people's phones and computers" and setting up data protection procedures are useless in such cases."

They do serve to p1ss off more people, and thus generate even more leaking and random acts of (un)kindness.

Trumping free trade: Say 'King of Bankruptcy' Ross does end up in charge of US commerce

Re: Alternate Facts

"Is there anyone else getting the impression the The Trump is a little unhinged. He seems to live in an alternate reality. He seems to have lost his grip on the real world. Is he going mad?

If so just what is the constitutional process for removing him from office."

No problem.

Trump will simply define his mental state as "sane" - and have critics banged up in a sanatorium somewhere (costs of 'treatment' not covered by the ACA obviously).

We've been Trumped! China's Alibaba is a 'notorious' knock-offs souk, says US watchdog

Re: The USTR's witch hunt

"Sadly the USTR is not particularly interested in what's fair or even legal, as long as it protects American interests (i.e. money).

As for who's actually entitled to what, America is one of the world's most notorious rip-off artists. Just look at Disney and Apple, as two of the more prominent examples, or frankly anything in America's vast portfolio of laughable patents, or any of the supposed "create works" coming out of Hollywood or the American music industry."

I was startled to read that Waltzing Matilda is an American song.

It was Copyrighted in the US in 1941, so those criminals in Oz have been stealing this American creative product - ever since 1896.

Sort 'em out Trump!

Latest loon for Trump's cabinet: Young-blood-loving, kidney-market advocate Jim O'Neill

Re: Your bias?

(Maffski) "And global warming, if you hadn't noticed it's already solved. "

You live in one of those states where marijuana is legal now, right?

Don't go overboard with that stuff.

Tech Trump: Silicon Valley steps into the valley of unhappiness

Re: One other thing that is a big concern...

" Many of Trump's policies are absolutely at odds with the agenda of his own party in Congress"

and

"Republicans may have a unified government at the moment, but they don't have a unified party."

Since no-one really knows exactly what Trump will actually do in office (his campaign rhetoric was all over the map) it may turn out to be misleading to describe Trump as a Republican.

AI, AI, captain: Royal Navy warships to set sail with computer officers

Wrong Ship

You illustrated this article with a stock picture of HMS Belfast.

Belfast isn't a navy ship since she was decommissioned in 1963.

What you really need is a picture of a modern navy ship which is still in commission.

HMS Victory for example.

Google has unleashed Factivism to smite the untruthy

Re: Facts are irrelevant in this campaign

"I don't care. I'm not voting for Trump because of facts of any sort. I'm voting for him because it's the political equivalent of pulling the pin and tossing the grenade in the china shop."

It's the political equivalent of pulling the pin and hugging that grenade closely to your chest.

An anniversary to remember: The world's only air-to-air nuke was fired on 19 July, 1957

Re: WOPR got it right

"Nuclear brinkmanship was a lose-lose game."

ITYM

"THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY."

Others might describe this as taking a tambourine to a gun fight.

They're alive! Galileo sats 9 and 10 sending valid signals

Re: The answer to that question

"The answer to that question

Is probably the same as to "do you intend to keep the same phone for the next 12 years".

<Checks date of manufacture of phone - 2003>

Hmm.

Not sure.

Sony Xperia M4 Aqua 4G: The Android smartie that can take its drink

Really?

<squints at picture>

Are you quite sure that it's beer in that glass?

Hardcore creationist finds 60-million-year-old fossils in backyard ... 'No, it hasn’t changed my mind about the Bible'

Re: Evidence.

" If a modern human went back in time to the time these legends were written, if they were able to communicate and if they didn't give everybody some modern-day pathogen that's lethal to the lot of them, how are you going to communicate the size of just our solar system to anybody from that era in any functional way? You'd almost have to introduce some hackneyed number like 5,000 years for it to be understandable."

Agreed. In order to grasp both the size and time aspects of the universe would require advanced mathematical understanding.

However, even today journalists are advised to avoid statements like

"30% of the population" and instead say

"three people out of ten"

Depressing isn't it?

Attack of the dinky drones! US military creates ROBOTIC CARRIER PIGEON

(Air)Ships of the Desert

Disinformation innit.

All those who fear the drones will nip off sharpish to the nearest desert where they will stand out like a thing which stands out as an easy target.

The real enemy of these drones is Wisteria.

Hurry shipmates - the black hats have hacked our fire control system

A neat trick if you can do it

Hacking into a Selsyn/Synchro?

You might need a boarding axe.

Landlines: The tech that just won't die

Re: Same Costs

"Let's face it, companies like Plusnet wouldn't be able to offer Broadband at £2.50 per month if you weren't paying line rental. "

£2.50 per month to start, but do look out for the 400% increase after 12 months.

Latest menace to internet economy: Gators EATING all the PUSSIES

"Oddly enough, due to the much-abused law allowing the seizure of assets purported to be used in a crime, there are quite a few cases in the US that have names along the lines of US Government v a huge pile of cash."

Dangerous precedent.

Suppose the pile of cash should win?

(Some might suppose this has already happened)