I sense a little student project with webcam and computer vision software coming on. Detect hat + coat = crash system.
Hat and coat please!
Deary me, the computer cra...
Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson
4257 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007
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Fancy knocking off early? Just run our fake computer crash 'virus', say admen
Asus Transformer Book T100: Xbox One? PS4? Nah, get a cute convertible for Christmas
'Schrödinger's Comet' ISON LIVES (or DOESN'T) after Thanksgiving solar roast
RIP Comet ISON: ???-2013. We hardly knew ye
Friday 29th November 2013 07:53 GMT 
There does seem to be some remnant there, but it is unlikely to give us a spectacular show. Pity for those living in parts of the world not covered in solid clouds for the next week or two.
I am happy I took the time to spot it in the morning sky (and was lucky enough to have two whole clear mornings this whole autumn),
I ATEN'T DEAD?
Friday 29th November 2013 08:52 GMT 
I ATEN'T DEAD?
Latest SOHO image suggest ISON is lighting up again. Now all I need is a clear patch of sky
ftp://sohoftp.nascom.nasa.gov/incoming/lasco/rtmovie_jpg24/20131129_0818_c3.jpg
Anglo-Australian cricket brawl spills over into coding clash
Mass Effect: Ten lightweight laptops that won’t bust your back
Thursday 28th November 2013 10:43 GMT
No nVidia = no CUDA = No deal
For me at least, though for many others it is no problem.
My battered old VAIO SZ series machine came with an nVidia card, and weighed in at onl 1.67 kg. I seriously need to replace it, but this crop of machines does not fit the bill. Pity, because there are some nice screens out there that finally push beyond the poor 1366x768 that plagued so many 13.X" screens (and beyond).
Thai man reportedly dies clutching his scorched iPhone 4S
Wednesday 27th November 2013 14:31 GMT
@ Stoneshop Re: The wonders of having a metal phone body
You are right: the filter is the main culprit. Possibly the reduced distance between mains and low-voltage ends of the small transformer (compared to the beefier old ones) increases risk, but that distance is not smaller that the distances typically found in optical couplers (and they are safe, as a rule).
Wednesday 27th November 2013 10:32 GMT
Re: The wonders of having a metal phone body
As the charger is only designed to deliver a few volts, and almost any plug you think of has the zero/earth on the outer shell of the plug, a metal casing should be perfectly safe. An old-fashioned charger with transformer would insulate the low voltage circuit completely from mains, and is therefore the safer option. However, with copper prices the way they are, and the weight and bulk of a transformer, most supplies are now switching power supplies, in which there is a potential conductive path from mains to low voltage. Properly designed, there should be fail-safes that should prevent accidents happening. In cheap replacements, these can apparently fail. So while I can understand why phone designers can get metal casings approved, a plastic case would provide an extra fail-safe. Not buying dodgy chargers is another.
Sysadmin job ad: 'If you don’t mind really bad work-life balance, this is for you'
Wednesday 27th November 2013 09:42 GMT
They clear studied C. Northcote Parkinson
This ad is a page out of The Short List. The aim is to frame the ad in such a way that you only get one candidate,
China: 'JADE RABBIT' will be FOUND ON MOON
Our Sun menaces comet 'of the century' ISON with FIERY DESTRUCTION
Revealed: How Microsoft DNS went titsup globally on Xbox One launch day
Tuesday 26th November 2013 08:35 GMT
Re: Translation from MS BOFH speak to English...
A BOFH would have issued some non-maskable interrupts to the groinal area of those responsible. Next time (and I do not doubt there will be a next time) Azure and Office 365 fail be on the look-out for heads of IT or beancounters showing signs of discomfort in said area
Vintage wine laid down in 1600 BC was 'psychotropic'
BOFH: Resistance is futile - we're missing BEER O'CLOCK
Google deletes Maps satellite photos of 14-year-old's unsolved murder
Tuesday 19th November 2013 09:54 GMT
Re: @SeeingMole
Good points. I do satellite image analysis as part of my research, and most satellite data are used (panchromatic) at 1m resolution (these are often down-sampled to 2m to reduce the compute and storage load by a factor of four). To process the entire land surface of the world (150 Tpixel at 1m, give or take) in a week is quite a challenge, logistically and computationally. The new generation of satellites can give 30cm resolution, so roughly ten times more data: 1.5 Exapixel (ouch). Recognizing anybody at 30 cm resolution is impossible. Better resolution may be available in military satellites, but normally higher resolution work is done by aerial imaging.
What I do not understand in Google's reaction is why they do not apply some simple morphological filters to the image patch to remove the details. This is quite easy and fast. Using simple area-open-close, or levelling from markers you could remove the small features on the road without affecting the rest. Alternatively, edit out the data manually, and use image inpainting to stitch up the hole.
Apple MacBook 13in with Retina display
Tuesday 19th November 2013 09:18 GMT
The lack of upgrade option is slightly ironic
Given that the original Apple II was a runaway success precisely because it could be upgraded and extended so easily.
Having said that, I have never yet upgraded my laptop. My desktop is another matter. That has had its guts removed frequently, and between complete rebuilds has had many graphics card, memory, and disk upgrades. Most people expect to replace laptops every 2 or 3 years, which is why they wonder why I still use my battered old VAIO SZ (8.5 years old). The reason is probably that I am cheap and/or too lazy to get another one.
Autopilot guides Texan plane home from a dizzying 30,000m
LOOK UP! Comet ISON could EXPLODE in our skies – astronomers
Tuesday 19th November 2013 08:13 GMT
Darn
I have spotted ISON a week or so ago, not much to look at through my 15x70 binoculars, but nice to have seen. Solid grey cloud ever since, so any brightening or fragmentation well hidden here in the Netherlands. I did spot comet Lovejoy in Leo, and it is very nice indeed through binoculars. Comet C/2012 X1 was visible too, but only just in my big binoculars,but alas I missed Encke. Still three out of four reasonably bright comets in one (early) morning session is great.
Now we hear Comet Nevski (also in Leo) has brightened and should be visible in small telescopes or big binoculars, but of course, clouds block the view (the Netherlands is every bit as bad as the UK).
Who’s Who: a Reg quest to find the BEST DOCTOR
WHO was it that TAMED the WOLF? Heel, Rex! No! Aarrghh!
Goodbye cruel world: Robot 'commits suicide' in KITCHEN FIREBALL
Coroner suggests cars should block mobile phones
Friday 15th November 2013 12:52 GMT
Re; Yes well... + Statistics 101
"4: Fix the roads. 80% of deaths on country roads occur on bends because 80% of country roads is made up of bends."
If 80% of deaths occur on 80% of the roads, that strongly suggests the remaining 20% has 20% of the deaths, and therefore are no safer that the 80% referred to previously.
Bends are likely to be more dangerous, but the "statistics" cited don't show it
Just my tuppence
Tales from an expert witness: Lasers, guns and singing Santas
BOFH: One flew over the PFY's nest
Forget invisible kittens, now TANKS draped in INVISIBILITY CLOAK
Look at how many ways we ruin your life, Redmond boasts
Thursday 14th November 2013 08:12 GMT
A modest proposal for correction
Perhaps the sentence
"47 per cent have worked while on vacation (either they or their employers have an inadequate grasp of the definition of “vacation”. Hint: “if you call me about work on December 25, I will hang up”)."
Should be amended to
"47 per cent have worked while on vacation (either they or their employers have an inadequate grasp of the definition of “vacation”. Hint: “if you call me about work on December 25, I will hang you from the highest gallows”)."
Stephen Hawking: 'Boring' Higgs Boson discovery cost me $100
Ricoh Theta 360˚ camera: Point and click immersive imaging
Oracle pours hot, steaming Java into heterogeneous heaven
Wednesday 13th November 2013 14:44 GMT
Mixed feelings
It is good to see movement towards better tooling to deal with the complexity of coding on complex platforms such as GP-GPU/CPU hybrids/clusters you name it. At the same time I sometimes doubt that I will always get an efficient solution if hardware details are hidden from the coder. Some code optimizers to a sterling job on a variety of tasks, but sometimes you need to tailor your approach to the underlying architecture. Of course, if a tool works well in a large percentage of cases that is still a bonus, so long as the tools do not get in the way of people needing to access the machine at a lower level of abstraction, for those instances not properly covered by the tools.
One real fear is that people will assume that the code optimizer (or smart virtual machine in the case of Java) will do the work for them, and solve all their problems. I do not so much fear that real coders of parallel systems will walk blindly into that trap, but things might be different in higher management layers of an organization. I can just hear them say "Why do we need these expensive experts, when the code optimizer can automatically parallelize your code?"
Boffins boggled by ORB-shaped electrons
HUMANITY STUNNED - Apple Retina iPad Mini arrives. A solemn moment
RETRO-GASM: The Fuze electronics kit for the Raspberry Pi
Monday 11th November 2013 12:43 GMT
Re: Really really basic computers
It is important that we still teach machine coding at some level. I have included coding very simple programs on a simulated microprocessor in our course "Introduction to Computing Science". It helps people understand what goes on "under the hood" when coding in C (in the course "Imperative Programming" running in parallel). These simulators can run on the Pi or Arduino controllers, I suppose. In particular, simulators can show what is going on graphically, and that helps understanding as well.
BOFH: GOATSE? No, I said goat fetis... you know what, forget it
OK, maths wonks: PRIME TIME has arrived
Planet hopper: The Earthly destinations of Doctor Who
ZOMBIE apocalypse! The 'LIVING DEAD' are HERE – Fox News confirmed it
Vulture 2 spaceplane STRIPPED to the bone
Galaxy is CRAMMED with EARTH-LIKE WORLDS – also ALIENS (probably)
IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE! Google's secretive Omega tech just like LIVING thing
Facebook fans fuel faggots firestorm
BETHLEHEM-grade SUPERNOVA possible 'within 50 years'
BOFH: Is WHAT 'running slow'!? GOD
Friday 1st November 2013 15:20 GMT
Re: Installers
I do not usually get installer questions during installation of Windows, except when it does not recognize hardware. One case I remember is Windows 2000 refusing to talk to a bog-standard S3-based super VGA card from Diamond, just a year old, so hardly obsolete. It did like the older Matrox Millennium board I had lying around. On most bog-standard machines you do not have trouble, but if you have anything remotely fancy, the Windows installer can throw a fit.
The same Windows 2000 install refused to boot the moment I attached a Quantum Viking II UW-SCSI disk to the Adaptec 2942 UW controller (which it did recognize). Attach a disk -> no boot; remove disk, all hunky-dory! AARGH! As the main disk was a mere 20GB, I really liked the idea of having a second 9GB disk available, especially because all the old data was on it. It was not to be. Put the thing in an external case and attach as external SCSI drive? That did work. Why? To this day I do not know.
A Linux install on the same machine was WAY faster.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
