Posts by Dr. G. Freeman

Claims of AI sentience branded 'pure clickbait'

Re: generally agree...

Somehow printers can smell fear, and act accordingly.

James Webb, Halley's Comet may be set for cosmic dust-up

Shouldn't be too difficult to get there, it's not rocket science.

James Webb Space Telescope looks closer to home with Jupiter snaps

Re: Very disappointed

In all seriousness, why not use it to take pictures of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, etc ?

Or is it they're too far away to get anything decent (like the Hubble Pluto picture ?)

NYC issues super upbeat PSA for surviving the nuclear apocalypse

Having a wry smile at the link to Nukemap, while talking about vaporising New York, as the guy who developed it, Alex, is based out of Stevens Tech in Hoboken (Go Ducks !!, spent a great year there as an undergrad) which if the bomb drops on Manhattan, is within the fireball.

No comment on the Stevens cafeteria food being better after nuclear fallout.

China says it has photographed all of Mars from orbit

If we ask nicely, could they find Beagle for us ?

Chinese boffins suggest launching nuclear Neptune orbiter in 2030

You're about 12 years too late

'Red-rated' legacy IT gets refresh in UK as US battles theirs with bills

Will they be replacing the BBC Micro that runs the Jobseeker's Allowance system ?

The one where it takes three working days to do anything.

Voyager 1 space probe producing ‘anomalous telemetry data’

Re: "Thats odd"

*boink*

It hits the side of the fish bowl.

NASA's InSight doomed as Mars dust coats solar panels

We need to send somebody up there with a water bottle and a squeegee.

Or a big feather duster.

Do all the martian probes, get the research really going.

BOFH: You'll have to really trust me on this team-building exercise

Re: Even more disappointed!

https://youtu.be/KeMMow_Itqw

Shouldn't have googled it, tune's stuck in my head now.

Capgemini wins contract to look after legacy HMRC Aspire tech

Because Crapgemini can't tell it apart from its

Endeavour Logistics Beyond Ownership Workfow.

Boys outnumber girls 6 to 1 in UK compsci classes

From what I've found doing "get kids interested in science" outreach over the years is, they both male and female, love doing the hands on, messy stuff, but hate the read chapter six and do the problems side of teaching.

So my thought is, maybe Comp Sci is going up against other subjects in the timetable that let you do fun stuff, with less reading, so those with only a passing interest go "well, could do that, but techy drawing* is less homework, so I'll do that instead"

know when it was my time to Choose standard grades (equivalent to English O levels) back thirty years ago- it was a choice of Chemistry, Computing or Geology as they were timetabled at the same time- Chemistry won, due to, well, a girl called Amanda....

* don't know what it's called now, was rebranded as Graphic Communication when my nephew failed it.

BOFH: Gaming rig for your home office? Yeah right

Re: Poacher turned gamekeeper?

No, just a case of why does this (L)user get a better rig than I've got, and get to play games on it at work ? That's my job.

Plans for UK rival to Silicon Valley ditched

I remember getting a call from a recruiter early turn of the century (2004-5) for a job in Cambridge, was told it was commuting distance from Scotland (they were based in Nodnol), so wouldn't get relocating money.

UK science stuck in 'holding pattern' on EU funding by Brexit, says minister

Re: Funding

You'd be surprised at the amount of stuff spoken in English at CERN over pints. Some of it is even science-related at times.

Re: Funding

[Note not the G. Freeman mentioned in the article]

Yes, that's what's happened.

Back in the day, got EU funding to work at CERN on particle physics.

Then Brexit, plodded on until money ran out, wrote up research. Applied for UK funding to carry on- they hadn't set anything up yet, six months after we left.

As not in EU, can't apply for co-funding with EU projects, so most people moved away.

Then Plague happened, everything now Plague related funded apparently, if not just ignored (sent funding application May'20, still waiting for acknowledgement).

Also, CERN still working out things regarding visiting UK people- if working for CERN directly OK, but no word yet about collaborating staff.

Photon fantastic: James Webb Space Telescope spies its first starlight

Re: What’s in a name?

Saving the name Carl Sagan for something/bigger cooler

Like the Observatory we build on Mars.

UK government told to tighten purse strings or public will have to foot the bill for nuclear decommissioning

Re: Transportation of fuel to Sellafield

The problem with that is all the fuel would end up at their main depot for weeks on end before being "lost", turning that site into a uninhabitable radioactive cesspool, dangerous to life.

Hang on it's already in Leeds, nevermind.

Dutch nuclear authority bans anti-5G pendants that could hurt their owners via – you guessed it – radiation

That reminds me, have to check my unicorn trap at work before I go off for the holidays. Keeps them away from the machine, you see...

Humanity has officially touched the Sun (or, at least, one of its probes has)

I think I'll lower the tone here, on this brilliant achievement.

Now that the heat of the sun has killed off anything on the probe, will it now be doing the 1-ply experiment and touching the 7th Planet ?

BOFH: Time to put the Pretty Dumb F in PDF reader

Re: What's the catch?

Playing with his prey before destroying it.

Boss thinks he's got away with it, Will do something else stupid and then the BOFH will hurt him twice as much, or something even more creative.

My money's on the EMBA being from the BoFH University ltd, and as the course goes on more humiliation awaits for the Boss, at his own expense.

China's Yutu rover spots 'mysterious hut' on far side of the Moon

Couldn't it be one of the Russian/Soviet Lunokhod rovers ?

They were rather large and shed-like.

UK intel chief says MI6 must outsource innovation – and James Bond's in-house 'Q' is nonsense

according to wiki;

During World War I, British secret services were divided into numbered sections named Military Intelligence, department number x, abbreviated to MIx, such as MI1 for information management.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directorate_of_Military_Intelligence_(United_Kingdom)

Wonder if MI16 is still going ?

UK Space Agency wants primary school kids to design a logo for first Brit launches

Re: Cash has been lobbed Cornwall's way to support a horizontal launch by Virgin Orbit

Given the science knowledge of the government, probably thinking it'll fly off the edge of the earth into space

Seaberry carrier board turns a Raspberry Pi into a desktop PC with 11 PCIe slots

One of my Pi3's is my day-to-day Work computer, has been for a number of years.

Does everything I need to do work-wise (read pdfs, check webmail/ wikipedia/ el Reg, libre office for when I do something) with no complaints from either of us- Pi or me.

Leaves plenty of desk space to play with things.

Rolls-Royce set for funding fillip to build nuclear power stations based on small modular reactor technology

Re: Some submarine!

" you don't get that much spare change in space difference between HMS Astute and a football pitch!"

So, $(football manager of choice) won't be bringing on a sub ?

It's the lead lined one, thanks -->

Get ready for full holograms and 6G while living in the metaverse, says Samsung

Holograms ? Cool been looking for ages for a way to make those green and black ones I had on toys as a kid in the 80s.

'We will not rest until the periodic table is exhausted' says Intel CEO on quest to keep Moore's Law alive

Wonder if they'll work with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to make new elements to fit with what they want if they can't find it on the table ?

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair: British home computer trailblazer dies aged 81

Bugger.

Like everyone of my generation in Dundee, had a factory second ZX Speccy, designed by the great man, at home.

For some of us, the computer games led to careers fixing computers, designing games, or a myriad of jobs in the great IT.

Me, it led to wondering what it was made of, what the metal inside was made of, and what was inside of the metal was made of.

Sir Clive, I thank you.

GOTO Valhalla

END

UK's NHS hands Accenture another £5m for Test and Trace system for another year

So we're Tracking, isolating, Tracing for Suspected Unprecedented Pathogen (TITSUP for short) for another year.

Thought all this malarkey would be over by now.

Judge dismisses objections to spaceport in Scotland from billionaire who also wants to build spaceport in Scotland

From what I know of the Shetland Space Centre, they're using the old infrastructure of Saxa Vord, so it's not really construction, more "weeding and power washing the concrete", and the damage has already been done ecologically in that regard.

As for big rockets going boom and spilling fuel et.al all over the place, the land around there has been getting regular spills since the 60s on and off. I remember a small weather monitoring thing being launched into low-Earth orbit there in the early 90s, and it managed the sum total of 10 feet off the ground, taking out a seagull when it fell back down with a rather loud bang.

Apple extends live-at-work to at least January 2022

I think they should have a massive fancy party when they come back to the office.

An iBall as it were.

Live, die, copy-paste, repeat: Everything is recycled now, including ideas

Know, how you feel, went back to the ancestral hometown last weekend for a look around, and introduce the youngling to family there.

The house I was born in, knocked down so they could widen the road to the 14th century abbey.

The one I grew up in (after moving) is now the site of said Abbey's car park.

Luckily, the house my parents had when I was at high school (third council house) is still there, so as my brother said "At least there's somewhere to put [my brother's] blue plaque".

That many changes to the old place, including renaming of school, you'd think I never lived there.

Boots on Moon in 2024? NASA OIG says you better moonwalk away from that date, because suits ain't ready

Why can't they fabricate some new suits using the Apollo designs? Or are they lost too, like the Saturn V paperwork ?

Could use them as a base for more modern suits, instead of working from scratch.

Ecuador shreds Julian Assange's citizenship

Re: I apologise unreservedly …

Thought we stopped sending criminals to Australia years ago ?

BOFH: But soft! What light through yonder filing cabinet breaks?

Re: Pretty sure...

I think the cleaner, George, owns the building ? (from reading old BoFHs)

So, probably on a percentage of their schemes for his retirement fund.

UK urged to choo-choo-choose hydrogen-powered trains in pursuit of carbon-neutral economic growth

Re: Rural...

https://www.railfuturescotland.org.uk/img/Scotland-rail-decarbonisation-proposals-to-2035.png

The Scottish Government are talking about electrifying the lines up to Inverness and Aberdeen sometime between 2030 and 2045, (link above is the most optimistic) depending on who you talk to, with the line between them getting done...., well, early 22nd Century is the best guess.

Seeing as we've got these new 125 Trains going round now, don't expect a change for a while.

I was hoping by now we'd have those cool Maglev trains or something

What job title would YOU want carved on your gravestone? 'Beloved father, Slayer of Dragons, Register of Domains'

Gordon Douglas Freeman (1981- ...)

If found please return here.

What Microsoft's Windows 11 will probably look like

Come back windows 3.1, all is forgiven.

Perseverance Mars rover sets off on its first mission, to boldly drill and return samples as no rover has drilled before

Hope they both get interesting results, which means more probes, landers, and hopefully humans finally getting there.

Hate to break it to you, but football's not coming home if this AI pundit is to be believed

Can we just cut out all the hassle and just have the AI predict the whole season, and take its answers as the results ?

Might mean my team (Forres Mechanics FC) win a game for a change.

Royal Yacht Britannia's successor to cost about 1 North of England NHS IT consultancy framework

Re: Global warming

Finally a use for all the MPs, political advisors, researchers etc.

Give them an oar each.

There's your green technology.

Be careful, 007. It’s just had a new coat of paint: Today is D-day for would-be Qs to apply to MI6

Thought Q was short for Quartermaster ?

As in find stuff, make stuff and give (grudgingly) out stuff, a job I'd be perfect for as a bodger, tinkerer, and miserable git who hates sharing things.

From the job description sound more like the computer hacker Alan Cumming in Goldeneye's PHB.

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

Will all this faffing about with the iPlayer mean that there'll be decent things to watch on it, or am I just getting my hopes up again ?

Lambda School, a coding bootcamp that takes a cut of your next tech salary, now takes a 30% cut in staff

Re: Identured Servitude Agreement

"I can't wait to see what Slavery will be modernized euphemistically into by these clowns."

Through the Jobcentre (UK), they're called "workplace trials"- where you work 40 hrs for an employer for no wages (or even travel costs) to see if you are good enough to work for them.

Had three of the things before- one at a major grocery chain, one at a major high street discount retailer, and another at another retailer masquerading as a charity shop- each time just brought in as staff to cover shifts, then released after then 40 hours for someone else's turn.

China claims it has stolen a march on 6G with colossal patent portfolio

So how many Gs to go until we get to H ?

Technoking of comedy? Elon Musk to host Saturday Night Live

Re: Musical Guest

Thought she was still on maternity leave with [keyboard mash] ?

Lego's Space Shuttle Discovery: No trouble with Hubble, but the stickers will drive a grown man to insanity

Re: Welcome back

Green ?

What luxury-

Mine was red, yellow, blue, black, white and grey- green was just coming in as a colour, for the forest men figures (who were re stickered as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles) as I was growing out of Lego for the first time.

Now, back into Lego again, surprised at the range of colours, but still miss my old sets.

Mine's the one with the Lego spacemen in the pocket.

Average convicted British computer criminal is young, male, not highly skilled, researcher finds

They're low in the proportion that get caught.

Therefore, female hackers are the better ones.