Posts by Kubla Cant

Re: Not to get too gushy...

While agreeing entirely with your sentiment, I have to say that you can probably clean a lot of moats for the cost of an interplanetary mission. Besides, we wouldn't want to be caught with our moats dirty when the aliens pay us a return visit.

Re: I took the summer off

The ludicrous shopping list of requirements is nothing new. I suspect it's partly due to the fact that recruiters are understandably ignorant of the scope of the skills they're listing. I keep seeing jobs advertised as "Server-side developer - must know HTML and CSS" or "Web UI specialist, HTML, Javascript, Oracle, SQL, Hadoop, Coherence, Perl, BASH...".

Then there's the mythical skills. I explain that I've used Java for 15 years, and I've developed software in just about every part of an application, but I still hear "Yes, but do you know Core Java?"

Re: Limited on US vehicles

"Limited" or "LTD" seems to have originated with trains, though I've never been able to work out what it was meant to signify. I suppose it's a bit like calling a European car "Express" or "Inter City".

Re: THAT MOMENT

Everyone should send HSBC a letter informing them that they are in arrears and that they will be charged £25 for the letter.

Re: KU the pedants

I don't want to seem ignorant, but what does KU stand for?

Google suggests: Kansas University; London's award winning gay bar; KU Software; KU Bookstore, the source for Kansas Jayhawks; or Ku band, a band of microwave radio frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. The last looks the most relevant, but I can't see what the role of the pedants is.

Natural Language Processing is a hard problem and translating from one to another gives compound difficulty

I have read that the basis of Google Translate isn't the traditional Natural Language Processing algorithms that get confused by arrows and bananas. They realised that despite decades of work parsing algorithms that translate by extracting meaning are still inadequate. So it basically translates by searching for existing translations of words and phrases. I assume that there must be a lot of algorithmic processing to assign appropriate weight to selected translations, too.

The compound difficulty aspect is interesting. Because of the way it works, Google Translate can translate between language pairs where there is no history of human translation.

There's a non-techical article here.

Stalking horse

In the days before everyone and his dog was signed up for ADSL by BT, geeks had the idea of sharing their network connections via meshed wireless.... Whatever happened to them?

In the days when BT was telling us that we would never, ever get ADSL in our village because it was technically impossible, there was a company dedicated to delivering rural broadband via wireless. I signed up and volunteered to have an aerial mast installed on top of my house.

No sooner had the wireless company started installation, than BT suddenly discovered ADSL was possible after all. So the company went bust and I had to pay somebody to remove the aerial.

Interestingly, when BT began to install FTTC around the country, we started to see posters and leaflets from a non-BT company promising super-fast fibre to villages in the area. I registered an interest, but I could never find out any more about the company. Shortly after, BT decided to run fibre to all the villages. I can't help wondering if somebody invented the "fibre company" as a stalking horse to get BT moving.

You might try something of the kind in Docklands/Greenwich.

Re: Stanford

It used to be said that you can walk from Oxford to Cambridge on land owned by St John's College, Oxford.

Dateline Cambridge Science Park - owned by Trinity College.

Re: They're all idiots...

Why do they need to summon a human to "verify your bags"? All the till needs to do is check incremental weight. It should be the same with my bags (typical hessian bags-for-life) as it is with the supermarket's polythene bags. It's not as if I'm asking it to accommodate my desire to pack my groceries on top of a hundredweight sack of coal that I happen to have with me.

Re: Eating a peach

Does he wear white flannel trousers etc.?

They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”

Thin? More like non-existent.

Re: Lessons in ecology optional...

Koi carp don't sound very alternative. My sympathies are with the otter.

Re: FTFY

Do not study psychology. You'll be reduced to eating out of bins

I suspect you don't really know anything about psychology. As taught at a good university, it's probably equal to any of the other life sciences in terms of numeracy and intellectual rigour.

My degree was 50% psychology and 50% philosophy (another subject not generally regarded as a meal ticket). I don't want to appear boastful, but I've had no cause to complain during the ensuing 45 years.

The trick is not to make the mistake of thinking that the things you learn up to the age of 20 need determine your future. In a few vocational subjects, they do, but most of the stuff studied up to first degree level, in science subjects as well as arts, qualifies you for nothing.

Re: pricing?

Technically true, but actually trying to get the warranty honoured without going to court over it would probably be a big time sink.

That seems unlikely unless you purchase from a dodgy source. Most online traders realise that reputational damage is worth more than the cost of replacement goods - especially as they probably have an agreement to return faulty items to the manufacturer.

Also, any warranty, would only cover hardware faults (try getting your computer replaced because of Windows bugs!), so it should be immaterial what O/S you install.

US corporate nomenclature

When I've worked at American companies, I've always found it amusing that hordes of middle-ranking executives are called Vice President. I know that in US politics the Veep is notoriously powerless, but at least there's only one of him.

"pegging order" is probably an eggcorn.

Re: <pendantry>

Touché. But I think you mean dangly.

Re: good for you

@Aimee And there lies the problem, multiple hardware platforms.

That is why most of the commercial systems, Apple and even DEC, due to the hardware and software coming from the same vendor, install with less hassle.

Yeah. The mainly problem-free installation and patch regime of Linux distros is because they restrict themselves to a single hardware vendor, too.

Re: Its surely cheaper to hang'em?

There's no political motive - Shirley?

I agree. There is a strong whiff of silly-season grandstanding about this report.

Re: Footprint

What is?! I'm on a 256 GB SSD and after 2 years only 50GB is actually being used up by data... and yet I'm down to 10GB of free space!

The enduring mystery of disappearing Windows resources! When your workstation's grinding to a halt and you eventually manage to fire up Task Manager to investigate, it tells you that CPU, I/O and memory are all hunky-dory - you're just imagining it.

Re: While this looks fine at first sight

what seems to be happening in the contract market is that companies are increasingly employing contractors at rates not significantly different from employee rates

I have seen no evidence of this. Contract rates are, of course, more volatile than permanent salaries, and there are always a few comedians hoping to hire a senior contractor with a comprehensive portfolio of skills for school-leaver rates. But in 30 years of contracting I've hardly ever seen a permanent job that pays what a comparable contract job does.

Re: Brain required

I used to commute between King's Cross and Huntingdon. The route is served by clapped-out trains that must be at least 30 years old. Air is delivered through eyeball vents above the seats, but there are notices telling you to open the windows for more ventilation.

One sweltering evening I had to share a compartment with a moron who insisted that all the windows remain closed "so the air conditioning will work". The air blasting through the vents was obviously about the same temperature as that outside, but he knew better. By the time he alighted the temperature in the compartment must have been well above the 30C.

Re: something to stop it crumbling

Moisture resistant chipboard has a green tinge

... and is thus easy to confuse with mouldy non-moisture-resistant chipboard.

Re: inside out

Everywhere has a light socket, the light socket supplies power. So building devices into lightbulbs is a good idea.

I don't know about your house, but in mine nearly all the rooms that have light sockets also have power points.

Re: If it quacks like a duck

There are plenty of ducks out there, but only a mallard quacks.

Are you sure? The author of this apparently well-informed article about Aylesbury ducks evidently thinks they quack.

I don't understand why Time decided to show everyone what the Oculus looks like when you're observing someone using it, instead of an illustration of what the experience of using the Oculus is like.

I guess if you could convey what the experience of using the Oculus is like on a magazine cover it wouldn't be very good VR. And everyone would just buy a copy of Time instead of a headset.