Re: ""Premium haggis in a tin" seems like the very definition of an oxymoron."
Is there a Feegle in the house?
Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson
4255 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007
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Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Haggis pakora v huevos rancheros
NASA was WRONG on arsenic-gobbling aliens, claim boffins
Burnt Samsung Galaxy S III singed by external source, probe reveals
My dad found the Higgs boson! Reminiscences of a CERN kid
So, that vast IT disaster you may have caused? Come in, sit down
Friday 6th July 2012 08:35 GMT 
Re: My line with the boss...
I never had to work in the financial sector, but I did work at the University hospital. Whenever one particular senior staff member (non-computer science) tried to meddle in my work and ask what was going on (with an implication that things weren't going fast enough), I tended to explain in detail what I was doing, with as much mathematical jargon as I could muster (which is a lot when you are doing image analysis), in a friendly, fellow-scientist-to-fellow-scientist tone (i.e., I do not have to explain every concept in detail, do I).
The first mention of "fast Fourier transform" or "optimal convolution kernel" was generally enough to make them run for cover.
Computer error triggers mass rocket launch
Rifle-waving Yank's premature detonation ruins city's big bang
Disappearing space dust belt baffles boffins
The touchscreens that push back, thanks to Brit hi-fi boffinry
War On Standby: Do the figures actually stack up?
First lady taikonaut and pals plunge into the dirt after space mating
Exotic proto-mineral 'panguite' from before the planets found in meteor
Multimillion-pound hoard of 50BC GOLD PIECES found in Jersey
Microsoft loses appeal against EU antitrust smackdown
Raspberry Pi to skipper microship across Atlantic
Bletchley Park gets £7.4m to tart up WWII code-breaking huts
I'm the world's fastest! No, I am! And I'm staggering, too!
NASA counts down to nuclear tank invasion of Mars
Net publishing happens in the server AND the eyeball, says EU Bot
Tuesday 26th June 2012 10:06 GMT
Is it me, or is the opinion really an assessment of what current law exists on the subject, not so much what he thought was best (that is not for him to decide). In the absence of laws dealing explicitly with all the complications brought by the internet (and Bot discusses this to some extent), it is then useful to see what existing laws might apply. Broadcast and database use are reasonable areas to look. If the consequences of applying the existing law to the internet case are problematic (as pointed out by the other posters), new laws should be formulated.
Stephen Hawking to demonstrate speech via brain scan
Stonehenge WASN'T built by ALIENS - Boffins' shock claim
Monday 25th June 2012 13:24 GMT
"Ritual significance"
It is a catch phrase (probably often correct, maybe wrong as often).
I once had a tour of the "Cave of the Shaman" in southern France. It is named after a VERY male figure scratched in the rock, complete with a huge erection. There were also scratched drawings of women with exaggerated "features". There was a lengthy explanation of fertility rites etc. My suggestion these might simply be stone-age variants of scribbles found on doors of modern day toilets frequented by adolescent males of all ages did not go down well.
Screen idols: higher resolution means better laptops
Monday 25th June 2012 09:19 GMT 
Would dearly like one of those displays
Both for general use and better 3D display of visualization of MRI/CT scans and the like. OK, so chugging out more pixels requires more processor grunt, and that does affect battery life, but I want a powerful nVidia card anyway to chug through the CUDA stuff we do, so I am used to having to charge the laptop more often.
'We've got $6m and we will use it to REVOLUTIONISE storage'
Monday 25th June 2012 08:07 GMT
Re: Not sure if they're doing this right.
Who are investors going to back:
Start-up A says: We will put existing technology in a shiny box, and add a huge markup.
Start-up A does: Put existing technology in a shiny box, and add a huge markup
or
Start-up B says: We are going to REVOLUTIONIZE storage
Start-up B does: Put existing technology in a shiny box, and add a huge markup
The first gets full marks for honesty, the second gets the investment, I would bet.
Me, cynical?
Assange: Australian neglect made me flee to Ecuador embassy
Vatican subtly shifts its position on The Blues Brothers
Gigapixel camera heralds new world of snoopery
Top US Senator to Apple, Google: 'Curb your spy planes'
When buying an air ticket on your mobe - what makes you give up?
Wednesday 20th June 2012 08:10 GMT
For long haul flights I tend first to check which airline is cheapest through budgetair/cheaptickets/any other comparison site. Once found I check out the websites of the two cheapest airlines found, often to find they have an even cheaper offer if you order directly from them.
Cheapskate, perhaps, but hey, it works.
UV 2: RETURN of the 'Big Brain'. This time, it's affordable
IBM US nuke-lab beast 'Sequoia' is top of the flops (petaflops, that is)
America's X-37B top-secret spaceplane returns to Earth
PFY vs Bearded 80s Netscape Bore: BOFH
Apple 13in MacBook Pro to fall into line this autumn
Friday 15th June 2012 09:57 GMT
A 13" notebook with retina display would be great
I do not care who makes it, but if I can get my hands on a good 13" notebook with hi-res display, and nVidia GPU (recent one (for CUDA)) I will be very happy indeed (especially as the boss should pay). A machine like that is really great as a portable workstation and demo machine for hi-res image processing. I know our code runs on OS-X, so I am completely agnostic about the manufacturer. I do suspect that the usual suspects (ASUS, please make one) will follow suit, and produce competitors. Then it will be all about price/performance and build quality.
Apple adds gay and lesbian icons to iOS 6 messaging
Girl Geek Dinner lady: The IT Crowd is putting schoolgirls off tech
Thursday 14th June 2012 09:17 GMT
Re: Not At All
Mileage varies, as ever. Don't forget, even if all the men treat the women with the respect they deserve, women may still be put off by a very much "male" atmosphere if you are one of very few women in an otherwise all male organization.
We have some outstanding female students (but far too few), and the general attitude of our male students is one of respect (though quite a percentage shows signs of the usual nerdy awkward behaviour towards the opposite sex, but that is par for the course). Strikingly, most of our female students are from abroad. This shows that not all women (by quite a long way) aren't interested in IT. In international conferences in image processing I would guess that about 25-30% of delegates are female (mainly Asian). It seems to be a thing in western culture to keep women out of technology (a long-standing tradition, as women were banned from most guilds in the distant past). I do see a gentle upward trend in the number of Dutch girls enrolling in our course, but we have a long way to go.
Thursday 14th June 2012 08:07 GMT
I call it the snobbery of indifference: it's cool to be cool in the sense of not really caring about anything, and certainly not about learning. I am not sure it is a world-wide thing, I see many more people in the east doing computer science (or indeed any science or engineering course), and that includes a lot of women. I have seen a similar pattern in Uganda, where many girls do Computer Science. I think people in many non-western countries have way more respect of science and engineering, because they are all too aware of the huge benefits they bring. Many westerners are all too complacent in that respect. Many kids just want to get rich quick or be famous (often willing to debase themselves on TV for such purposes).
Teach them the fun and excitement of science and technology early on (before puberty) and you stand a much better chance of winning them over.
Kogan 'taxes' IE7 users
Asus Transformer Pad TF300
Raspberry Pi IN THE SKY: Wallet-sized PC is disaster drone brain
Volkswagen Up!
Wednesday 13th June 2012 08:23 GMT
Re: Very tempted
"He said he was 5'11" (aka 1.83m - or more correctly 13.1 linguine)."
More precisely 180.3338 cm (1.8033m) or 12.881 linguine courtesy of the Reg Online Standards Converter
World smart TV sales surge
Windows is the OS of the cloud, says Microsoft
Thief open-sources Richard Stallman's laptop, passport, visa
Tuesday 12th June 2012 13:49 GMT
Rotten thing to happen.
I have not been to Buenos Aires, but I have been to other places so riddled with pickpockets that I was tempted to put a live mousetrap in my coat pockets or bag. In one place whenever some little kid asked me the time, I told them whilst swiping my hand over my back pocket rapidly. I always connected.
They didn't get anything (except a slap on the wrist).
NASA's Curiosity rover will try risky landing near Mount Sharp
Tuesday 12th June 2012 11:20 GMT
"Curiosity is not as life-limited as the approximate 90-day missions ..."
I bet they feel smug at NASA (and with good reason!) whenever they mention the 90 expected survival of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars, especially with Opportunity rolling again after 8 years on Mars.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for Curiosity.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
