* Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson

4248 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007

Man convicted of murder gets retrial after virus eats transcripts

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Facepalm

New excuse for kids: the virus ate my homework!

So they did not back up properly, and they did not have adequate anti-virus protection. Methinks Ms Cowart is not the only one who might be fired.

Monumental cock-up indeed.

PayPal dispute ends in 'violin destruction'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

inimitable, that man!

Microsoft celebrates the death of IE6

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Good riddance!

We had a website for a conference we were organizing, when people mentioned they could not read certain bits. We checked and rechecked our HTML (which we had run through various validators etc). We then asked what browser they were using: answer IE6. I forget which W3C standard made IE6 bork, but we could not be arsed to change it.

We simply added a statement stating that our site was optimized for Firefox/Opera/Safari/IE7 and left it at that. As it was a conference for computer scientists, we assumed they would be able to install a decent browser.

Whale versus shark in KIWI DEATH MATCH!

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

What the sharks really want is

FRIKKIN' LASERS!!!

Humans, insects set to OBLITERATE frankincense supply

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

I'm incensed!!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I am actually allergic to the smoke of frankincense (a good reason to avoid certain churches and temples), but that does not mean I would like to see it disappear.

Ofcom maps out what 'psychics' are allowed to do on TV

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

@Chris Miller

If you can afford that kind of kit, fine! Still, seeing a supernova with my own eyes beats googling for images of it (making your own images is a thrill, I know).

Alternatively, you move to southern France, where skies are clearer and frost is rarer (a man can dream).

A good remark I heard on stargazerslounge.com:

"There are people whose sleeping patterns are profoundly disturbed by the positions of moon and planets. Such people are called astronomers."

LOL

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Wishing on a star is astronomically stupid!

Lovely reading from the ofcom PDF:

“Advertisements for personalised and live services that rely on belief in astrology,

horoscopes, tarot and derivative practices are acceptable only on channels that are

licensed for the purpose of the promotion of such services and are appropriately

labelled: both the advertisement and the product or service itself must state that the

product or service is for entertainment purposes only”.

As an astronomer, I thoroughly endorse the notion that astrology is suitable for entertainment purposes only. Astronomy is better entertainment still, in my opinion, but I understand that not everyone wants to freeze their nadgers off while looking through a telescope.

Plastic semiconductor makes solar cells more efficient

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

So zey are uzink ze dark quantum state, are zey?

Next, zey will be uzink ze dark light itself!!!!!!! (cue roll of thunder)

It vill all end in tears!!!

Otto von Chriek

Duff Mars probe's flaming shards to rain down mid-January

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

And so it ends

not with a grunt but with 30 or so bangs.

Nearest supernova since 1986 blasts boffin off her chair

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

I observed this supernova for weeks

I got it with my 8" scope when it was at magnitude 11 (100x fainter than what the eye can see) and climbing, followed it through its maximum at mag 10 (visible in binoculars), and back down to just mag 13 (630 fainter than the naked eye kan see). It was amazing. The kids also had a peak and did their best to wake the neighbours with their shouts of "We've seen a supernova! We've seen a supernova! We've seen a supernova!"

Really neat to see such a bright one. It is odd to think all heavier atoms in your body were forged in the furnace of the core of a star, and that everyone is a supernova remnant.

Woz's key to success: Burn the tie, wear T-shirts to work

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

@Ken 16

Woz said: "let people wear what they like" he did not say: " everybody must wear T-shirts". If you feel good in a suit, wear it! If you don't, no worries. That is pretty much the attitude in our research school. I only wear a suit at BSc, MSc and PhD graduation ceremonies. Suits are to warm and stifling for me, others like them.

Authority is obtained through force of personality, prior achievements, and (most importantly!!) through the quality of arguments given, but not through suit and tie. Again, this is a research setting. Quite a few businesses work differently. They should make up their own minds whether an informal dress code would suit them.

Paul Allen latest plan: Space rockets on MEGA PLANE

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

And only call off the lawyers when they promise to call it

LOHAN-2

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Codefinger: Brilliant

Elon Musk has the better Bond-villainesque name however.

Now where has that white Persian cat gone?

Google gives £550k to Bletchley Park

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Good for Google

Given the importance to code-breaking history, should MI5/6/insert number here not contribute. Or maybe they did but want to keep that secret (force of habit, presumably)

Google promises 0.001 of revenue to free the slaves

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Agreed

They did not have to do that, but they did. Well done.

Nokia exec: Young fashonistas 'fed up' with iPhone

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Precisely

And the Windows brand is the first name that comes to mind when "security" is mentioned.

I wonder why?

Jimbo Wales ponders Wikipedia blackout

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Wikipedia on strike?

Why does this remind me of the national philosophers' strike proposed by Vroomfondel and Majikthise. Deep Thought's answer is memorable:

"And, pray, who will that inconvenience?"

In this case the answer must be school kids and students who now have to look for original sources themselves (tip: try the library, you know, the place with all them books ;-) ).

RIM execs chewed through restraints after in-flight fracas

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Maybe it was RIM's equivalent of the BOFH and PFY

they hacked into the navigation system before they were completely pissed out of their skulls. They would also go on junkets for the express reason to become plastered

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Because many of us can handle it

I have regularly had a beer or wine with a meal, or a little night cap before sleeping on a plane, and never thrown any kind of tantrum on board. Why should I be denied that because some goons in suits get plastered?

Churlish gadget cusses those who use it

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Reg Hardware Award Candidate?

See title

Beeb rescues old Who episodes

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

But, couldn't they just ask the doctor?

........................................

What!? You mean it's not real?

Dell XPS 14z 14in Core i5 notebook

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Looks like a candidate

to replace my aging Vaio SZ. Quite compact but with a decent (NVidia) graphics card. Could do some CUDA/OpenCL stuff on that.

REVEALED: People write things on Twitter, Media

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

So

as I comment, I am write about you writing about .......... turtles all the way down

recursion: see recursion

Voyager probe reaches edge of Solar System's 'bubble'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Black Helicopters

"And one WTF?? - Voyager 1 launched September 1977, Voyager 2 launched August 1977 - why did they invert the numbering / launch out of sequence?"

There was an accident with a time machine, but that was all hushed up!

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

I remember the excitement of each planetary visit

These probes have done so much more than can ever be expressed in terms of money!

A toast to all those involved in making all that possible!

Christmas gamma burst stupendo-explosion DEATHMATCH

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Alien

Or then again

May the great green Arkleseizure sneezed just a little bit

Better get a B-ark ready and put all the lawyers, stockbrokers, and bank managers in it this time.

Whatever you do DO NOT put the telephone sanitisers in there

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Or then again

maybe the Great Green Arkleseizure had a little hick-up.

Ready a B-Ark, and put all lawyers and bank managers in, but NOT the telephone sanitizers, this time round.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Clearly the astroboffins

got quite a present last Xmas.

Interesting stuff!

Windows 8 fondleslabs: Microsoft tip-toes through PC-makers' disaster

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Windows will no longer be out of touch?

Sorry, I'll get me coat

BTW what is a "flay-away iPad"? Some SM fondleslab?

US military pays SETI to check Kepler-22b for aliens

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Put differently

How long can SETI milk the military for funding?

Best of luck to them

Navy pays 2x purchase price to keep warship docked for 5 years

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Are you suggesting

they should have put AMERICAN guns on the Victory?

Former HP boss Patricia Dunn dies at 58

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

in any other article this comment might have been funny, in an obituary it is somewhat misplaced.

Snowbound Alaskan survives on frozen beer

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Coors light....

is only palatable when you have run out of all other options.

Here's to real beer, mine is a Westmalle Tripel

Japan, Russia in plan for elephant to birth CLONE MAMMOTH

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Sounds neat

but then Malta is somewhat short on permafrost, last time I looked.

There were pygmy mammoths on certain Siberian islands as well, maybe that is the better option.

Facebook disses Effin Irishwoman

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Effin awful!!

sorry, I'll get me coat

Boffin's bot spots red light jumpers before they kill

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

re: no enforcement = optionality

Maybe this would work?

http://micom.net/oops/SpeedEnforcement1.jpg

Toads predict earthquakes: Official

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

maybe he has less sense than the average toad.

A hypothesis that seems to fit all available data

James Bond savages the Kardashians

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Agreed!!

I especially loved the down to earth: "I'm not judging it – well, I am obviously."

ROFLMAO

Hasselblad H4D-200MS medium format multishot camera

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Awesome

Maybe the set-up we are getting (48 core opteron machine with 256 GB RAM) , and parallel code we are developing for 1.2 and 2.4 GB satellite images (moving later to 1.5 terapixel) would find applications in that domain as well.

European court advisor slams software copyrights

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

A patent is not for any idea, it is for an invention of a (feature of a) product or a process to create a product. So at the time of its invention you can patent a camera and assorted printing kit both as products in their own right, and as a means to create a picture. The idea to create a picture in itself is not patentable (at that point in time). Pure, abstract ideas such as scientific theories or mathematical equations are not patentable.

A nice paper in IEEE Computer argued that as all software can be expressed in an expression in lambda calculus (would you not hate to do that for say an OS kernel), all software is just a collection of mathematical equations, and therefore not patentable.

You can see I have been talking to IP lawyer too much.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Thumbs up to Mr Bot!

Some very useful things can come out of Europe!

The BBC Micro turns 30

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Now that brings back memories

Mainly of the Acorn Atom and Electron, which were used throughout the 80s and well into the 90s in various labs here. Two key aspects were that you had the complete schematic, and that all external buses were buffered. It is quite hard to blow up buffered TTL buses, and believe me, various klutzes in the lab did their best.

Jarmageddon: Marmite spill sparks biohazard threat

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Causing the marmite love/hate balance to tip in the direction of hate, I suppose.

Just needs a truck load of toast.

Backyard astronomer snaps Beta Pictoris dust disk

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Hang the font!

That is one cool piece of astrophotography! Outstanding!

I will raise a glass to that

Phobos-Grunt 'crippled by US aurora station', 'is a bio-weapon'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

More plausible theory:

The shipboard computer of Phobos-Grunt has the all new GPP feature (genuine people personality) and is offended about being given such a silly name, and is moping in orbit. Meanwhile the telemetry system is angry about what the mission control computer said about its software, and is no longer on speaking terms with mission control. Mission control is offended that Phobos-Grunt did want to talk to the Aussies, but not to mother Russia. None want to work before someone else has apologised.

The lesson we learn from this is that the last thing you want is computers with human-like intelligence.

Radio hams pick up Mars rover Curiosity's signals

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

I'll drink to that!

Brilliant work. They may be amateurs, but they are of an Olympic stature!

LOHAN fondles substantial concrete buttocks

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

SHAKIRA

Shrapnel and

Heat

Absorbing

Kinetic

Impact

Resisting

Armour

Scientists probe Earth's core, make mystifying discovery

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Alien

Am I the first to say

That is not a core!

I've got a bad feeling about this!

Spillover from 400lb man squeezed fellow flier into galley

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Better still

Use an Antonov 225

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Was it the Dean of Unseen University?

always referred to as "two-chairs".

Mine is the one with the Unseen University logo.