Posts by RosslynDad

CompSci teacher sets lab task: Accidentally breaking the university

Momentary Lapse of Reason

Loved the Pink Floyd references, Simon.

Ireland's AI minister has never used ChatGPT but swears she'll learn fast

Relievedly

Not a word one sees often enough in daily perusal of the Web. Well done Richard.

BTW, as for teaching your child the 8 times table: tape a couple of their fingers back and give a parental lecture on the wonders of octal. Job done. They'll thank you in later life.

AI can improve on code it writes, but you have to know how to ask

Await Fix

As an experiment with Ollama I asked it to write a .NET task-based multi-threaded web download method in C# (as you do). It came up with something plausible that used the C# await keyword, however it hadn't marked the method as async. I said I thought the async was needed and it responded with something akin to "Yes, you're right. Here's the proper version." Which included the async keyword. So it can correct it generated output, but why give me erroneous code in the first place?

By 2030, software developers will be using AI to cut their workload 'in half'

Re: From

So glad ICL has this programmer support before they started the Horizon system for the Post Office

Computer sprinkled with exotic chemicals produced super-problems, not super-powers

Be Prepared

In my first proper job I was given the task of looking afer the departmental VAX11/750. Clearly my talents were recognised. First task was to go to stores and get a large plastic sheet (nothing dribbling onto MY computer from the kitchen above) and a pick-axe handle ("To quell civil unrest" - seriously!)

It's been 25 years since NASA astronaut John Glenn's geriatric jaunt around Earth

Call-sign

Apparently Bill Nelson's call-sign on this mission was "Baggage". Ouch.

Tesla goons will buy anything – including these $150 beers

Belgian beer indeed does go down very well. I remember an enjoyable evening in Brussells sampling the local monk-produced beer (somewhere around the 13% level). Then I tried to walk. Total Inability To Stand Upright Personally. And all for a very small fraction of what the Musk Beer Emporium is charging.

Cat accused of wiping US Veteran Affairs server info after jumping on keyboard

Re: "their cat jumped on the keyboard"

My old cat Minstrel sat on my keyboard, reprogrammed my Visual Studio shortcuts so she could surround my dodgy code with a try/catch block by using the shortcut 'cat' that she could invoke with a twitch of her tail. So, yes, she wrote better code than me. Her code reviews were brutal but fair: "sign this off and it's sardine time..."

Bermuda, your data, Google's gonna take your US data

Re: Estimating the bandwidth

That is _my_ theory.

And what is more, it is mine.

Have you ever suspected your colleague doesn't hope this email finds you well?*

Attention span of a goldfish

I need a few bits of information. I send them an email with requests split into numbered list. They answer just the first. They clearly have the attention span of a goldfish. Oxygen pirates.

Add "auto-reply then block" rule to (crap) email tool: respond "Happy to go with your suggestion" for this luser.

Voyager mission's project scientist retires after 50 years of service

The Interstellar Age

I recommend you read "The Interstellar Age" by Jim Bell about the Voyager missions. A great read and it makes pretty clear that Ed Stone is revered within the team.

Catch of the day... for Google, anyway: Transatlantic Cornwall cable hauled ashore

Cable Nerd Map

If you are reading these comments then the following website https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ is probably of interest. (I probably got on El reg to start with).

Having trouble getting your mitts on that Raspberry Pi? You aren't alone

Re: Pi Zero W

I had problems finding a Zero W to use as a Pi Hole server. So I decided to try putting it on one I already had that's working as a clock* fully expecting this to bring it to its knees. Nope! Totally happy running both. Just an amazing bit of kit for a tenner. My only grumble was that I needed a reboot which killed my uptime score of 205 days.

* OK the clock is driving a 60 LED colour display and talks to three web services for local weather, tides, sun/moon times.

Jeff Bezos names the fourth person for the first New Shepard flight: Wally Funk

Re: Good for Wally

Sue Nelson, who I believe is the "BBC Journalist" you refer to has been a trenchant advocate for women in space and raves about Wally. She's going to go nuts on hearing this!

Do yourselves a favour and catch Sue's (and Richard's) monthly "Space Boffins" excellent podcast which covers space from a British perspective.

You want me to do WHAT in that prepaid envelope?

So, I'm a pedantic git

OK, I'll bite. Surely you meant your "sixth decade" ? And after spending several minutes picking the appropriate icon for this essential post I noticed the tooltip on the Sherlock Holmes one and decison made. I remember geting my first poo-in-the-bag invite: it arrived exactly on my birthday - unlike the "humorous" cards from my relatives. And now back to reading about Perseverance - seriously good software!

Patch Tuesday brings bug fixes for OpenSSL, IBM, SAP, Kubernetes, Adobe, and Red Hat. And Microsoft, of course

Every Day is a Schoolday

Thanks for introducing me to "glommed " - I'll be dropping that into casual conversation.

Chuck Yeager, sound barrier pioneer pilot, dies at 97

Don't Forget his Acting Career

Obviously it is time to re-watch The Right Stuff. I particularly like the work of the bar-tender in Panchos's bar...

Is today's AI yesterday's software routines with better PR? We argued over it, you voted on it. And the winner is...

More Please

This was a good addition to El Reg's stable and I hope it becomes a regular thing. It's always good having contributors who know their arse from their elbow doing the talking, even if it isn't something you agree with. Nice to be challenged and maybe reconsider one's stance.

NASA mulls restoring Saturn V to service as SLS delays and costs mount

Nice Try Richard

Looking forward to your coverage of the AF-1 mission!

Enjoyed your history of Mars Express, BTW!

Google's second stab at preserving both privacy and ad revenue draws fire

All valid points but...

I can't get over the picture being of a Collared Dove.

Sorry, I'll get my cagoule

Houston, we've had a legend: Boffin behind NASA Mission Control signs off for final time

Essential Reading

Make sure you read "Flight" - his autobiography. Huge insight to what happened behind the scenes and Mr Kraft isn't afraid to say things as he thought them, both good and bad. One of the best space books. It must have been inspiring and frightening to have worked with him. The word "Legend" is greatly over-used: but not about him. Wherever he is going you know it will be run a bit better from now on.

Qualcomm lifts lid on 7nm Arm-based octo-core Snapdragon 855 chip for next year's expensive 5G Androids

Important Reflectivity Data

"This relies a library of pretty much every known material on Earth, and details on how light scatters when it hits their surfaces."

Clearly the Commentards are interested in the world's most important materials' reflection properties: beer and, the $Deity's personal favo(u)rite: red wine. I'd be happy to validate their models - please send a case of Chateau Lafite 1961.

UK.gov told data-sharing plans need vendor buy-in

Porcine Aviation

Thanks for pointing out some new career options here. While joining this "think tank" sounds like fun (and they probably give out free crayons), I'm more interested in the Government Chief Data Officer position. In the absence of the BOFH this made for some fun reading. Thanks.

F-35 flight tests are being delayed by onboard software snafus

C++?

The sidebar mentions that the software is mostly written in C++. Back in the day we were told that Ada was the language of choice for the military. Could someone who knows what they are talking about please give me an update on where Ada is these days and why C++ is now the language of choice? Thanks.

Drone crashes after operator failed to spot extra building site crane

North Atlantic Drift

The waters around Benbecula are not "icy" as the North Atlantic Drift comes here and results in wonderfully warm water with huge palm trees along the coast (according to VisitScotland). For a proper Scottish water temperature scale may I recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01KVj8kEjMo

Scotland, now is your time… to launch Brexit Britain into SPAAAACE!

Re: Prestwick??

You're right if they were targeting an equatorial orbit but I would expect they'd be going for a polar orbit which would have only sparsely populated areas under it during the fiery phase. It's a bit like Vandenberg in California compared to Kennedy.

Equifax fooled again! Blundering credit biz directs hack attack victims to parody site

Re: Lost for words

"Singularity of Stupid" is a phrase I intend to use everyday from now on.

Samsung's bantam SSD makes WD's 'passport' drive look passé

Re: Deflation

OK, I'll bite. In my first job I had to buy a DEC hard drive for a VAX 11/750. It cost £14K (and that's when £ bought stuff) and gave 600MB (yes that's an M). Size of a washing machine. It also came with a DEC engineer to install it, and after it was setup I was left with 400MB and change. So lesson learned that day: never believe the quoted storage capacity.

Tesla 'API crashes' after update, angry rich bods complain

Both cars?

I'm surprised about the chap 'Made in CA' having problems with BOTH his cars. Surely you do it first in the Test car and only rolling it out to production after you've checked? I know I do that with my fleet of Teslas.

Grand App Auto: Tesla smartphone hack can track, locate, unlock, and start cars

That's a lot of code

I read the line saying that a modern car has over 200 million lines of code. That struck me as being an awful lot. Does anyone who knows about these things care to confirm (and tell me where it all goes)? Thanks.

Taxi for NASA! SpaceX to fly astronauts to space station

Re: ah, come on !

You're right Herbert, but if my dog is going too then the ONLY way I'm flying is in a spacesuit with its own air supply - otherwise being unable to open a window to deal with her gaseous emissions would seriously impact my awe of the whole event.

Cash injection fuels SABRE spaceplane engine

Cool Cooling

The engineering involved in the cooling part is way, erm, cool. Now, with a bit of technology transfer funding I'm happy to investigate the rapid cooling of other stuff, let's call it beer (for UK funding) or white wine (European), on a massive scale. Just doing my bit...

GCHQ to pore over blueprints of Chinese built Brit nuke plants

Blueprint?

I really need to brush up my software development skills: is there a course I can go on to learn how to "pore over software blueprints"?

NHS site defaced with screed protesting Syrian conflict

"Theocrats" - thanks for that addition to my vocabulary. Now my rants will be more articulate.

SNAFU: Blighty's judges not trustworthy, says their own website

Re: Doesn't surprise me.

After you've paid your 200 Guineas

iPhone case uses phone's OWN SIGNAL to charge it (forever, presumably)

Asymptotic

This helps reverse that worrying decline in articles that don't use the word "asymptotic". Well done Ed. More please.

Upper house of Parliament joins the drone debate

2050 You Say?

"could reach 150,000 by the year 2050"

This coming from the bunch who don't know what is going to happen on 8 May 2015 (the day after UK elections for our non-UK friends)

At the third beep, the Atomic Clock will be 60 ... imprecisely

Re: nice, as a primer...

Look, the man talked about prodding atoms with pointed sticks: how much more technical do you need? I think it is time to "release the tiger".

Personally, I thought this article hit the mark nicely and, as other commentards have said, should be required reading at the sharp end of school Physics classes.

BEHOLD the magnificent lunar backside in our MOON VIDEO

Wrong Units

"roughly the size of Northern and Southern Ireland combined"

How did this get past the El Reg subbies? What is this in standard Wales units?

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: The Red Dwarf chilli chutney egg sarnie

Re: Encona?

Total agreement on two counts: Encona is merely ketchup. Dave's Insanity Sauce on the other hand is best described as a munition. In case you haven't done so, have a read of the label - something about being useful for stripping concrete. It's the sort of stuff you see getting transported in ex-Sellafield nuclear waste wagons. A real coder's condiment.

Govt spaffs £170k to develop the INTERNET OF SHEEP

What Exactly Are the Commercial Possibilities of Ovine Computation?

A fair question, and one that in recent weeks has been much on my mind.

This idea didn't so much fly, as plummet.

There's nothing worse than a clever sheep.

Hat-tip to Monty Python.

Siri: Helpful personal assistant or SERIAL APP KILLER?

Re: "OK. Book the 9pm one and hire a Hertz car at Charles De Gaulle airport for my arrival"

It gets worse. I want this pair wrapped in a transaction so that if/when the flight booking fails I don't want a hire car sitting waiting for me having fun with my credit card. At least with apps I can rollback the lot when one part fails. I managed to take the wind out the sails of a web services evangelist a decade or so ago with this same scenario. Still no solution.

Google hit by Monday morning blues: Talk, Hangouts, Sheets crash

Re: With such vital services and heavily used down...

I agree on its use as the spousal-conduit. Indeed I believe my wife is responsible for the outage: she tried to get a full history of our conversation (probably to get proof of my wrongness in some regard) and down it went. As we operate a "you touched it last" policy I think the blame is clear (however, she's got nothing to do with the other services - that must be someone else's missus)

Google adds Large Hadron Collider tunnel to Street View

Time for a Bit of National Stereotyping

The article says that some parts of the tunnel were a bit grubby. Given the tunnel is under Swiss and French territory is the "grubbiness" restricted to a particular country? Having visited both countries I have to say that "grubby" isn't a word I'd associate with the Swiss (in any of their languages).

On International Woman's Day we remember Grace Hopper

Who said that?

Interesting article. I liked the caption on the Reagan/Hopper photo: who said the words?

Psst: Heard the one about the National Pupil Database? Thought not

Not All Blighty, Thank Goodness

Minor but important point for those of us in Caledonia: your comment about "children across Blighty" doesn't apply - Mr Gove doesn't get to play here, and we have our own information protection.

EE 4G LTE review

Nice Metaphorical Twist

Loved the "sourcing Type O Rhesus Negative from a block of granite".

SpaceX Dragon chokes at the last second

Re: To quote Top Gear... How Hard Can It Be™

There was a great anecdote in the Murray&Cox "Apollo" book about how von Braun settled on five-9 reliability (99.999%) for the Saturn booster. He asked his five German rocket colleagues "Any reason why this won't work?" and the replies: "Nein", Nein", Nein", Nein", Nein". "There you are: five-9s."

Boffins tout solar efficiency boost

Re: "As the crow flies"

Is that an African or European swallow?

Revealed: Full specs on Mars rover's nuclear laser heat ray

Nice use of the word "Puissance" but are you really expecting Curiosity to jump large hurdles? I know the gravity is much smaller than Earth but this is surely beyond the original design spec!