* Posts by Poor Coco

327 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Oct 2009

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Surplus astronaut right-sizing imminent at NASA?

Poor Coco
Boffin

It's Canada's turn!

Now we can poach their astro-talent, the same way the States poached all our design talent after the cancellation of the Avro Arrow!

SourceForge reverses ban on US foes

Poor Coco
Thumb Up

Excellent.

That is indeed a solid compromise. Well done SourceForge!

Google doppelgänger casts riddle over interwebs

Poor Coco
Boffin

Do these guys know what they yammer about?

"Sean verbally suggested the word 'googolplex' [a one followed by a googol zeros], and Larry responded verbally with the shortened form, 'googol'..."

'Googol' is not a shortened form of 'googolplex'. A googol is 1 with 100 zeros after it while a googolplex is 1 with a googol zeros after it. (It's also a multiplex movie theatre in Springfield, on the Simpsons.)

Apache terminates 'outdated' web server

Poor Coco
Grenade

Actually, software does rot.

While the code running an old application may not change, its environment does. New types of security threats emerge from sources and vectors unknown at the time the code was created, for example.

Your organic metaphor is quite apt, in fact. The ecosystem of the Internet is of greater complexity than any one person or group can predict; that is precisely why the Internet is such a fascinating thing to study... and so is biology, and the Universe itself.

When systems reach a certain level of complexity, subtle interactions between members of the set begin to make significant effects. For example, in a vat of chemicals with an energy source, a small proportion of species will interact in a catalytic fashion, creating new species. Some of these will react in a new way with other species; and in this way complexity grows exponentially. Ultimately you have seemingly transcendental phenomena like life appearing; but it's not magic, it's chaos with power input.

Software systems behave analogously to chemicals in the soup. The code is genetic material; the power input is our intellectual work in crafting software and systems; mutations are code bugs; and catalytic reactions are un-designed behaviour in software resulting from unforeseen conditions and a changing environment and infrastructure.

Software that is used in a changing environment without developer input is moribund. This is analogous to a species in an evolutionary dead-end. A changing environment will increase predation, while it is unable to change to compete. Decline and extinction, or, as you put it, "rot", are inevitable.

Facebook re-write takes PHP to an enterprise past

Poor Coco
WTF?

OS X?

Um, no, that's Objective-C.

Google reveals nonexistent Chrome tablet

Poor Coco
Joke

A name suggestion....

Since Apple has the trademark lock-in on i.*, and Google is planning an iPad-like on-the-spot-wherever-you-may-be device, perhaps they should call it the gSpot?

Steve Jobs dubs Google's 'don't be evil' motto 'bulls**t'

Poor Coco

Apple vs. Apple Corps

"Apple Computers didn't sell music. Did they promise that they never would?"

Yes, they did. But it didn't stop them for long; under OS 8 they had a beep sound called "Sosumi", as in "Well, yeah, we promised to stay away from music... Sosumi." Of course, a beep sound is nowhere nearly as egregious a violation as, say, ITMS, right?

Adobe sounds off on iPad's Flash slap

Poor Coco
Thumb Up

Quote of the year

"AND IT SOUNDS LIKE A F**KING TAMPON!"

Mini-asteroid sneaks up on Earth

Poor Coco
Boffin

There's this effect called "time."

The meteorites that reach the ground might well be smaller than 25m in diameter, AFTER they have passed the atmosphere.

Apple sits on critical Mac bug for 7 months (and counting)

Poor Coco
Linux

Well, yes, and no.

Of course it is not *only* Apple's fault. Sony has sucked eggs here too. But Apple has orders of magnitude more systems in active use in many more sectors than Sony PS3s. And Apple lives on a high-horse of perceived invincibility, while Sony sells rootkits on their own CDs. So, in this case, Apple gets the kneecapping they have well and truly earned. Well done, Vulture Central.

Oh, before people go bonkers and call me a Wintard or something like that, I have been using Macs for over 25 years, and am writing this on my Mini. They're nice computers; Apple makes good products, mostly; but Apple can fail along with any other company and this is a beautiful example.

Tux, because Puffy The Buffer Slayer is not an available icon option.

25kg of cocaine hits Spanish supermarket shelves

Poor Coco
Happy

Hallucinogenic banana skins

That is actually true, although whether they affect people is doubtful. I can assure you that my cockatoo and a few of my budgies were hooked stone-cold on banana skins; I had to keep the bananas locked in a cupboard to keep the birds away from them.

Can anyone explain the chunnel fiasco?

Poor Coco

@ AC 11:36

The tracks are 32 miles each, that's just over 50 km, so sixty blocks would be 860 metres long or so. Sounds like about 1 km to me..... and hardly a 'daft' figure.

IT first to abandon Tiger Woods sponsorship

Poor Coco
Joke

Apropos....

What's the difference between Tiger Woods and Santa Claus?

Santa stops after three "ho"s.

IBM chums with Swiss to build 3D brain-density processors

Poor Coco
Pint

The problem with that...

...would be directing the flow. As the refrigerant approached the hottest parts of the chip (or should we call it a "block" for 3D?) it would boil off and fail to cool it, which would lead to a runaway heating problem. As for why water as opposed to Freon, probably for environmental reasons. Leakage would be inevitable, and I for one would rather have the odd water molecule leak out instead of the odd Freon molecule. The conductivity of the water wouldn't be a problem; you'd need absolutely pure distilled water to avoid gumming up the coolant paths, and pure water is nonconductive.

<pedant>I object to the use of "brain density computation" for this: you state there is one transisitor in the same volume as a neuron in a human brain. Neurons exhibit much more complex behaviour than FETs!</pedant>

Beer, because that's the liquid that keeps my brain running nice and cool.

GSHP: The green tech even carbon sceptics will like

Poor Coco
Flame

Whoa, hang on here...

You rather breathlessy charge off from mentioning that GSHP is a good means for regulating home temperatures (which is true) into running freezers and ovens (which is not true). The problem is the Second Law of Thermodynamics; while there is a fairly small temperature difference between dwelling space and the heat source/sink underground, there is a much bigger difference between an oven or freezer and that same heat pipe. That means the efficiency of the system will drop off dramatically for these applications since the quality of the thermal energy is low compared to the magnitude of the temperature difference at the 'business end'.

Flames because, well, you know.

Video surfaces of alleged Apple tablet

Poor Coco

It's not bluescreen, you tools.

If it was a bluescreen, you'd see traces of it in a halo around the edges of objects on all sides; and this blue light is entirely on the right-facing side of objects. Do you guys think the right-hand side of the guy's hand is transparent? The bluish light is from this amazing high-tech thing you apparently don't have in Britain, called A WINDOW. Not to be mistaken for the M$ type. The blue cast is skylight.

UK jails schizophrenic for refusal to decrypt files

Poor Coco
Flame

Explosives?!?! MODEL ROCKETS?!?!

"with the exception of the throwdowns [devil bangers] and model rocket they all appeared to have other non-explosive uses."

(a) Model rocket black-powder engines, the type Estes makes, are not explosive. They are not even flammable; using a concentrated blowtorch flame at the side or even the nozzle will NOT set them off.

(b) The one he was arrested with did not even have an engine. Therefore, a list of the "explosive" devices contained therein: a paper body tube and engine mount; a plastic nose cone and maybe fin unit; alternately, a sheet of balsa wood to make fins; a rubber band (shock-cord) and a parachute. And an instruction sheet. I know this very well; I have built about 100 of them personally.

WHERE ARE THE EXPLOSIVES THERE? Do they mean the balsa, the polystyrene or the cardboard?!?!?

Channel 4 raises Bing word-extinction alarm

Poor Coco
Dead Vulture

Oh, sure, language is dead.

That's why I communicate with everyone using flash-cards and not those obsolete old words!

Microsoft feeds Excel to supercomputer

Poor Coco
Boffin

"Spreadsheetards"

Ha ha! That is the precise reason why, in the engineering economics class I am taking, I wrote a Python module to run the financial calculations. I don't even use Excel for spreadsheeting!

Apple seeks OS-jacking advert patent

Poor Coco
Jobs Horns

Oh, FOAD, Steve!!!!!

I've been using Macs for 25 years now.

This would spell, "SAYONARA."

Fail, fail, fail, fail FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!1!1!!!

Parking spot flies to International Space Station

Poor Coco

Re: pounds in space

I noticed that too.... and, what's worse, pounds are units of force, not mass! That 3600kg of MASS has a WEIGHT of exactly ZERO POUNDS now.

I'm going back to sleep.

Boffins find new way to spot stars which have planets

Poor Coco
Boffin

I know why!

Stars without planets are lonely, which over a period of billions of years makes them go bipolar. The lithium stabilizes their moods!

WarMouse pushes gamers' buttons with OOMouse

Poor Coco
Thumb Down

Oy vay!

That is the most ridiculous device I have ever seen... including Doug Engelbart's five-key "chorded" keyboard replacement idea from ca. 1972, which worked by typing binary ASCII codes — and which was downright simple-looking compared to that monstrosity!

"Let's see... to do function X I need to upper-centre-right-double-click".... why do I already have a migraine?

Blind gamer sues Sony

Poor Coco
Megaphone

I WILL HELP THE REG

BY MAKING MY COMMENT SUITABLE FOR THE HARD OF HEARING!!!!!!! CAN YOU ALL HEAR ME IN THE BACK?!!?!?1/!11/

Volcanic African 'unzipping' could see continent divided

Poor Coco
Boffin

@Bassey

No, the opening of the rift to the ocean will not affect global ocean levels at all; that's because the space opened within the Rift Valley will be compensated for by the expanding borders of the African continent. Otherwise, it would imply that the Earth’s getting larger due to continental drift, which would imply the centre of the Earth is hollow, which would, in turn, imply we have a VERY VERY bad earthquake on the way.

Lost bits of Africa can be found very, very, very far from The Dark Continent; in fact, the entire Eastern Seaboard of the USA, and the easternmost parts of Canada, are in fact chunks of the African continent. The ancient North American shore was crushed up into the Appalacian Mountains a few hundred million years ago. And what's even wackier, in Newfoundland you can actually see a piece of the BOTTOM of oceanic crust and some upper mantle rock, lying at the surface and split vertically in glorious cross-section.

Europe plots black boxes for cars

Poor Coco
Alert

I wouldn't mind this at all...

...especially after my last brand-new car was T-boned at the ripe old age of three weeks old, by a woman who was too busy yelling at her kinds in the back seat to watch the road in front of her. I also calculated, based on simple physics, that she was traveling at least 10 km/h over the limit when she slammed on the brakes, moments prior to almost killing my pregnant wife.

Oh yeah, then she tried to sue ME for soft-tissue injuries. Beeyotch!

Ubuntu's Karmic Koala bares fangs at Windows 7

Poor Coco

Alliterative Ansanity

What will they do when they reach the end of the alliterative alphabet? Why, they'll start again, but with THREE alliterated names! Wheee, what fun! Um, or not.

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