Re: I am conflicted...
"What sort of IT qualifications can you get at her majestys? ..."
MCSE?
(Master Criminal Solutions Expert)
runs for cover
Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson
4257 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007
Page:
Banged-up Brit hacker hacks into his OWN PRISON'S 'MAINFRAME'
Belgian boffins find colossal meteorite
Seagate takes 7.2k notebook drives out back - and shoots them
New Japanese craze: Knickers for iPhones' nether regions
SpaceX rocket reaches orbit but Dragon fails to spit fire
Spies in the sky: The leaps and bounds from balloons to spook sats
Friday 1st March 2013 09:31 GMT 
It is one thing to take the pictures (essential first step), but it does not end there. What is easily as important is automating the analysis. With the glut of data available, manual analysis is often unacceptably slow. This is one reason we are working together with European partners on massively parallel analysis of huge image data sets. This would allow rapid analysis of damage in the aftermath of disasters, among other applications.
Cambridge boffins reveal prehistoric prawn monster
Strategic SIEGE ROBOTS defeated by 'heavily intoxicated' man, 62
Hey, software snobs: Hardware love can set your code free
Wednesday 27th February 2013 20:14 GMT
Re: There is a reason for Software Smugness
@ the spectacularly refined chap
My statement is indeed a bit broad (and to generalize is to be an idiot). I was talking about when there is a bottleneck. If there is no bottleneck, there is no need to throw resources at it, hardware or software. The examples I gave are cases with severe bottlenecks.
In your example of the one-off job you are actually also thinking in terms of algorithmics: which one is simpler to implement (and therefore easier to get right). That is why for one-off jobs or experiments I like to use scripting languages (MatLab most of all for my work). Only when heavy lifting is needed (and we have established firmly what we want to compute) do I go for C(++).
You are of course right that there is always a balance to be had between implementation time and total CPU time used. In the very old days CPU time was costly, software development and maintenance time was comparatively low, because code was comparatively compact. Now CPU time is cheap as chips, but code development and maintenance is not, what with the dramatically increased complexity and interconnectedness.
Wednesday 27th February 2013 15:49 GMT 
There is a reason for Software Smugness
You haven't heard of the reverse boast "only by throwing software at it" because of a very simple fact: If I can get more performance out of the same hardware, by designing an O(N) algorithm to replace an O(N^2) I am being smart. Throwing more hardware at a problem when a better algorithmic solution exists is stupid.
I have seen people use weeks of wall-clock time on a 512 core segment of a big machine, simply because their code was bad. My colleague coded the thing properly in C++ and had the code running on his desktop and finishing in a few minutes (O(2^N) vs O(N log N) if I recall correctly). Only throwing hardware at a problem is often wrong. Thinking about better algorithms is never a bad idea.
Once you have really thought about the algorithmics, then you can start throwing more hardware at it (and once you do that, you must rethink the algorithmics again, especially when doing parallel stuff). So in our massive image processing stuff (Gpixel and Tpixel), we first minimize communication and disk-access overhead, and then move to SSD or Fusion-IO stuff.
Brit biz stops coked-up moist pocketstrokers ruining your pub lunch
Wednesday 27th February 2013 12:25 GMT
Ye cannae change the laws of physics Capt'n!!
"The coating is "invisible" and it can be applied to screens and lenses without causing an optical effect."
That is a curious claim (I am being politic about things, just this once), unless the coating has an index of refraction of 1.0 (unlikely) and/or the coating is thinner than a very small fraction of the wavelength of light (some tens of nanometers at most I would guess). I suppose it could be integrated into the design of an anti-reflection coating, but just spraying it on afterwards will change the anti-reflection properties of the coating in general.
Microwaves thrash fibre on speed... if you like two-nines uptime
Wednesday 27th February 2013 09:58 GMT
Going Postal
When people "explain" finance to me, I always refer to Going Postal. At the end of that book, financiers enter the fray. There is a brilliant passage which reads (approximately):
And they saved the city with gold more easily than any hero could have with steel. .... But it was not so much gold, or even the promise of gold, but more the dream that gold would be there at the end of the rainbow. Provided you did not go and look, of course. And that is called Finance.
You are a wise man, Terry Pratchett.
New social network is for DEAD PEOPLE
Microsoft's own code should prevent an Azure SSL fail: So what went wrong?
Look out! Peak wind is coming, warns top Harvard physicist
Tuesday 26th February 2013 16:19 GMT
One question I have always asked myself
If the flapping of the proverbial butterfly wing has an impact of the weather, how come scientists could claim with a straight face that extracting several tera-Watts of power from the climate system will have no effect?
This scientist seems to be asking that self-same question.
This does not mean I am against wind power, I just think we should not blithely assume it does not impact climate in some way.
And of course, as Mustrum Ridcully would say, lets find those bloody butterflies that are causing all these storms
Trekkies detect Spock's Vulcan homeworld ORBITING PLUTO
Climate scientists link global warming to extreme weather
Tuesday 26th February 2013 12:28 GMT 
All I want
is for the clouds to sod off and let me see the comet C/2011 L4 PanStarrs in March (and comet C/2012 S1 ISON in November and December).
I do not know why I have had such a dismal run of lousy weather preventing me from spending more than a single night per month watching the stars (or indeed whether this is exceptional), I just want some clear skies!!
Xyratex thrusts a Lustre cluster knuckleduster at Intel's bluster
North Korean citizens told: Socialist haircuts are a thing... go get some
Razzie voters drive stake through Twilight
Quantum computer one step closer after ‘true’ quantum calculation
BOFH: Climb the corp ladder - and use your boss as a bullet shield
Playmobil punts bank-heist set to wide-eyed kiddies
Curiosity raises mighty robotic fist, punches hole in Mars
Bit9 hacked after it forgot to install ITS OWN security product
Dead Steve Jobs 'made Tim Cook sue Samsung' from beyond the grave
Review: HP Spectre XT TouchSmart
Curiosity photographs mysterious metal object on Martian rock
El Reg contemplates the ultimate cuppa
Friday 8th February 2013 14:35 GMT
My versions
Basic work version:
1. Take one wire-mesh tea-strainer spoon, and insert one good teaspoon of Keemun Black tea (Twinings Prince of Wales at a pinch).
2. Nuke water in big mug in industrial-strength microwave oven until it really boils
3. Add tea-strainer spoon.
4. Infuse as long as desired, or alternatively forget about it whilst coding and drink arbitrarily strong
4b) add milk and sugar if you must
Keemun black tea is very dark by nature, and never turns bitter, so forgetting to remove the tea only makes it stronger, but never renders it undrinkable.
On the road version:
replace tea strainer egg by Twinings Prince of Wales tea bags
Working in region with hard water:
Replace Keemun Black by good quality Assam and keep infusion time down. Assam takes hard water better than most
Now UK must look out for crappy SPACE weather - engineers
Earth-like planets abound in red dwarf systems
GNOME project picks JavaScript as sole app dev language
Tuesday 5th February 2013 10:58 GMT
Re: I love programmer snobbery.
I have written well-structured programmes in assembler.
Likewise, it is possible to write good code in Javascript (no doubt, I have not written any)
Whether either of the above is what I would want to do is another matter entirely. This is not a matter of snobbery, it is a matter of practicality. Scripting-based languages are very valuable for quick prototyping, or for portability, when top performance is not required (and JIT compilers go quite a long way to address performance issues). However, C and C++ are still my preferred tools, for development of high-performance code and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Euro boffins plan supercomputer to SIMULATE HUMAN BRAIN
Sick software nasty uses child abuse pics to extort infected victims
How to destroy a brand-new Samsung laptop: Boot Linux on it
'Gaia' Lovelock: Wind turbines 'may become like Easter Island statues'
You thought watching cat videos was harmless fun? Think AGAIN
Wednesday 30th January 2013 15:00 GMT
Sounds a bit too much like model data being presented as facts, not that I doubt that (feral and domestic) cats cause a lot of damage.
In my own modelling of (microbial) ecosystems I always was suspicious if my algorithm gave surprising results. Almost always I had found something new. In most cases it was a new bug in the code. In rare cases there was something interesting to report. In all those cases I went and checked the literature to corroborate my findings with observational data (or failing that, suggest how biologists could falsify my findings)
Revealing new pics of galactic princess Andromeda
Always wanted a robot: why not DIY?
Yay for iOS 6.1, grey Wi-Fi iPhone bug is fix- AWW, SNAP
Huddled immigrant masses face 'British values' quiz
Tuesday 29th January 2013 08:26 GMT 
Answer me these questions three, before your passport you will see!
1. What is your name?
2. What is your quest?
3. What is your favourite colour?
OR
3. What is the capitol of Assyria
OR
3. What is the average airspeed of an unladen swallow?
I know, I know! The one with Monty's Encylopythonia in the pocket, please
Biting the hand that feeds IT
