* Posts by John H Woods

3577 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Nov 2007

Boffins detect antimatter thundering down from Hurricane Patricia

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: Fascinating!

"Too little radiation and you don't get the chance of potentially beneficial mutations occurring in living organisms" --- [sequence of mainly digits with a hidden 'I']

Pedantic note: there are plenty of sources of mutations even without ionizing radiation, and even without any radiation at all: I should imagine the errors in the genetic processes themselves are a significant cause.

But I have no idea if anyone has attempted to quantify the relative rates associated with relative causes; I can't see anything obvious out there on the web and I'm no longer in academia. Anyone got any ideas?

Military brainboxes ponder 'UK needs you' list of AI boffins

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: Automatic or intelligent?

'My proposal for an agreed definition of AI: "It seems to do things that look to us as if it's thinking, but we have no idea why."' --- Jonathan Richards 1

Isn't that just the Turing Test?

It could be you: National Lottery hands £16m to England's Jodrell Bank

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This is fabulous

n/t

Sysadmin hailed as hero for deleting data from the wrong disk drive

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Let me remove all these intermediate compiler files...

rm *.o

<sticky shift key>

rm *>o

OK, now I have just one file with one character in it. On the plus side, I have plenty of disk space.

Das blinkenlights are back thanks to RPi revival of the PDP-11

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Re: Basic skill of slide rule

I used to teach remedial maths to biology undergrads. Nearly all of them had been taught that logs were historic and related to the time before calculators, and they weren't that happy to hear that they were fundamental to science. One day, one of my mature students, who understood the maths back to front but nevertheless dutifully turned up to even the maths tutorials, asked if we'd like to see his slide rule. "I'm an old fossil" he explained apologetically.

By the end of the hour the three students still struggling with the concept of logs had got it absolutely solid. The "old fossil" gave me the slide rule and I used it for years: some people massively benefit from a degree of "physical learning." I think the same must be true for computing and projects like this are invaluable.

Blood spilled from another US high school shooting has yet to dry – and video games are already being blamed

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Don't Panic, Fellow Commentards

Video games are off the hook. The problem is too many doors!

Look how modern we are! UK network Three to kill off 3G-only phones

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I love Three ...

... as a network. As a phone provider? KILL IT. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Want to know what an organisation is really like? Visit the restroom

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In my unpopular opinion...

Seats lift for *cleaning*. If you lift the seat to avoid dribbling on it, presumably you don't mind urinating on the rim? So if you have to lift the seat, you should probably be sitting down anyway.

A quick postmictural survey with a UV torch explains why civilized gents sit unless either using a urinal or relieving themselves outdoors. But manufacturers and buyers need to up their game ... few relish penis-to-porcelain contact!

Open justice FTW! El Reg fought the law – and El Reg won

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"There are a few others left"

Can be a bit hit and miss, but Private Eye needs an honourable mention.

El Reg - Well done, we're proud of you.

German IKEA trip fracas assembles over trolley right of way

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Re: Ikea trip rules...

Learn the shortcuts!

+1

Look for doors that look like they're missing a staff only sign!

Engineer crashed mega-corp's electricity billing portal, was promoted

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Re: I can forgive 'Matt' for all of his sins...

Sorry, but literally doesn't literally mean literally any more.

Virtue singing – Spotify to pull hateful songs and artists

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"First they came for R. Kelly, then..."

... they came for the other paedophiles?

Not bothered, sorry.

John H Woods Silver badge

OK, there's a spectrum, but ...

... surely we all agree that R. Kelly is a bit of a douche?

Southend Airport tests drone detection system

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re: "in spite of being around 40 miles from the capital"

So, the same distance as London Stansted? In fact I think even "London" Luton Airport is nearer to Trafalgar square. And, unless you want to crawl down the A23 and knock off about 10 miles, London Gatwick is about the same distance.

EDIT: macjules beat me to it.

Make masses carry their mobes, suggests wig in not-at-all-creepy speech

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Can't lawmakers be sacked for being too dim to be useful?

Yes, I know, undemocratic. And for some reason I suddenly had a mental image of both houses almost entirely empty ... weird.

Your software hates you and your devices think you're stupid

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: I just bought an MP3 player actually

"Just try that on a phone, in a hammock, I double dare you." Joe Harrison.

That's why I spent a small sum (less than a quart at the local) on a tiny bluetooth remote control for my phone. That way I can pause / restart even if i'm not wearing bt headphones

AWS won serverless – now all your software are kinda belong to them

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Lambda

Just done an AWS course (thanks Boss) and came across Lambda for the first time. It is absolutely awesome. If only it executed Smalltalk ... :-)

Fixing a printer ended with a dozen fire engines in the car park

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Don't wear high vis

Although on the wrong side of 50, I don't have any "grown up" outdoor coats: I find high vis safety wear to be cheap, warm, waterproof, has loads of useful pockets and the added bonus of making it harder for people to run you over if you are on the roads with horses, dogs etc.

However, I no longer wear it to the office. I'm quite happy to brave the ridicule, but when the fire alarm goes off on a client site or your own office you really don't want to be wearing high vis --- everybody thinks you should know what to do. In the end I had to abandon it and get soaked in the rain in the car park whilst people solicitously enquired about why I hadn't got a coat.

Also learned not to wear it to collect offspring from concerts: although it helped them find me, everybody else also found me and asked me everything before coming to the conclusion that I am the dumbest steward ever.

There will be blood: BT to axe 13,000 employees

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British Disease

"It seems to be a British disease - management are held in higher esteem than those that actually know what they are doing, and actively denigrate engineers" -- AC

It's the class system. Whilst managers will (grudgingly) accept contractors who earn more than they, no permanent member of their team should ever approach their salary.

The corollary is that the only way to get increasingly well paid in IT is to steadily become more of a manager and less of a technician - or to become a contractor.

It's Galileo Groundhog Day! You can keep asking the same question, but it won't change the answer

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Oh yes it is

"I don't think that's particularly fair - outside of tech communities like this, most people haven't even heard of the Galileo system" --- David Nash

Oh yes it is. Politicians want it both ways: they want us to excuse their ignorance because they aren't "techy" and then they want to ignore all the advice they are given by experts because they feel they know best.

Crypto chat app Signal's disappearing messages found hiding on macOS

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Cant you just have...

... a notification that there is a message, rather than the content itself? That's how the Android App works.

Trademark dispute by Dr Dre against Dr Drai the gynaecologist dismissed

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Stephen Paul Manderson

Well, if Dr Dre can't call himself Dr, WTF is Prof. Green gonna do?

Personally, I only make the bank (and the occasional business I'm complaining to) call me 'Dr' --- although the owner of our local Chippy, having learned that the scruff in high vis and rigger boots has got a PhD, delights in shouting "Alright, Doc!" at the top of his voice when I walk in.

Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings

John H Woods Silver badge

Cool ---

especially if you sometimes use Notpad as a windows wget ... can't be just me?

Microsoft reckons devs would like an AI Clippy to help them write code

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I'm going to suggest ...

... that if there's any chance an automated system can successfully autocomplete your code, you are using a language with unnecessary redundancy, Rectangle rectangle = Rectangle.new(); and other such nonsense.

Is your gadget using secondhand memory? Predictable senility allows boffins to spot recycled NAND chips

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Re: Bathtub curve

Surely we've established that you can eat your cake and have it?

Pentagon in uproar: 'China's lasers' make US pilots shake in Djibouti

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Pirate solution

As the issue seems to be temporary dazzle, rather than permanent loss of vision, perhaps an eyepatch might be in order?

Talking of dazzle - I take it the subhead is a 'Sunshine' reference?

BOFH: But I did log in to the portal, Dave

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: "using quicklime to quickly decompose a body is an urban myth"

According to SWIM, it's not to decompose the body (it preserves it, as you say) but to prevent signs of decomposition (odours, animal excavation, etc).

Mystery crapper comes a cropper

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Apparently...

... the fact he has not yet been convicted has not deterred the press from referring to him as the Poopertrator. Or the Pooperindendent.

Congratulations, we all survived Star Wars day! Now for some security headaches

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Re: we all survived Star Wars day...

... Is today the Revenge of the Fifth? Or is tomorrow ditto of the Sixth?

No top-ups, please, I'm a millennial: Lightweight yoof shunning booze like never before

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: If you're still doing it when you're 40, you're probably a barrister.

"My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,

Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,"

I contend that there is literally no better document describing the British relationship with alcohol than GK Chesterton's marvelous "The Rolling English Road"

Kudos if you can recite it from memory it after 8 pints. Extra fun if people shout out the place names and bonus points for amusing new suggestions.

Brit healthcare system inks Windows 10 install pact with Microsoft

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COBOL

In my experience it's easier to move old COBOL to new environments than it is to upgrade the OS on a PC connected to a dedicated bit of scientific kit --- expect dedicated obsolete hardware with dedicated obsolete closed-source drivers that have 0% change of continuing to work.

John H Woods Silver badge

"the specialised stuff used for controlling things"

There's always a network (or no-network) solution for this kind of stuff.

Eurocrats double down on .eu Brexit boot-out

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Coat

U-turns not necessarily bad shocker

"what on earth is going on within the European Commission when it can emit two directly contradictory statements within a month of each other."

Well, maybe they realized the first decision was stupid and made a better one. Seriously guys, unless we stop criticizing politicians for U-turns we are going to get what we deserve: idiots who press on regardless with the first thing they thought of despite accumulating evidence that it's not a good idea.

Like ... Brexit? .... yeah i'll just get that and run for cover ...

Boss sent overpaid IT know-nothings home – until an ON switch proved elusive

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: "... that it's never as easy as they say "

This is true in so many walks of life. Watching the demo of laying a laminate floor in a B&Q I was unconvinced: anyone can lay laminate on a perfectly flat surface with perfectly right angle corners. Good luck finding any of that in a British house, even a new one. Where the experts, whether they be plumbers, sparkies, chippies, gardeners or us humble IT types really come into their own is where things aren't as simple as they should be ... which is nearly all the time!

Can't log into your TSB account? Well, it's your own fault for trying

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: Last Year at Marienbad...

... is an absolutely f***ing superb film

BOFH: Guys? Guys? We need blockchain... can you install blockchain?

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Re: Adobe

"Whats it do? Fuck if Adobe knows!"

We know though ... it lets every miscreant with a web connection pwn your computer

TSB outage, day 5: What do you mean you can't log in? Our systems are up and running. Up and running, we say!

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Re: Oh come on, we can do better than that!

Try Switching Bank, surely

Blighty stuffs itself in Galileo airlock and dares Europe to pull the lever

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EU Army

Why is an EU-wide military alliance "the EU Army" considered to be a symptom of federalism and NATO isn't?

There is no perceived IT generation gap: Young people really are thick

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Re: Most people are not just thick.

Here's one from Facebook

Her: "as if we can be expected to believe that novichok was in liquid form AND that it is destroyed by water"

Me: "You do realise some liquids aren't aqueous?"

Her: "I'm not as stupid as you are"

John H Woods Silver badge

Thickies...

This how we get people choosing stuff like "our little life is rounded with a sleep" to advertise beds

Torvalds schedules Linux kernel 5.0, then maybe delays 'meaningless' release

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Re: I can't believe no-one's mentioned TeX versioning yet

... and Metafont asymptotically approaches e

'I crashed AOL for 19 hours and messed up global email for a week'

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Re: Dig

"Future archaeologists will find an entire strata of discarded AOL CDs"

Ah yes, the Eternal September line of 1993, up there with the K-T* and P-T boundaries

* oops, showing my age: K-Pg for those with hair on their head rather than their chin

Boffins try to grok dogs using AI, a cyber-brain charter, a bot running for mayor, and more

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Dog-like intelligence

I have a weirdo sheepdog mongrel thing ("Megan Sparkle"). As with Joe, her (Labrador mongrel thing) brother, she was trained, when walking off the lead, to respond to vehicles by getting to the side of the road, and sitting until they pass.

I then got into the habit of podcast catch-up when walking the dogs. Dim Lab continues to dutifully sit - but Meg has realized that I am no longer able to respond to vehicles approaching from behind, and therefore runs back to herd me off the road onto the verge.

How near are we to this type of intelligence? Or that of Corvids (crow family)? My guess is absolutely nowhere flaming near. I'll start to fear Musk's doom prophecy of God-like AI when they can approach dog-like. I reckon I've got decades.

The first rule of maths class: Don't start a fight club

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Re: Thesaurus Club

I liked XKCD's first rule of tautology club

Sysadmin’s worst client was … his mother! Until his sister called for help

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As my old boss used to say ...

... I learned two very important things today. I can't remember what the first one was but the second was "write everything down"

GCHQ boss calls out Russia for 'industrial scale disinformation'

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Re: Bude

"Any half reasonable research chemist in a University lab could make it"

Make it in a university lab and the fatalities will be right there in the lab, including the cook. There's more to manufacturing chemical weapons than synthesizing the chemicals.

There's a reason ISIS have been using bombs, guns and knives. It really isn't that easy to make this sort of stuff and, even if you've made it, it's incredibly hard to handle and, even if you can handle it, it's non trivial to weaponize.

John H Woods Silver badge

Re: Bude

"If they were the target and they were attacked at home (as you describe) they would have not been alive. "

-- Voland's right hand

They very, very nearly were not alive. It doesn't matter how lethal a poison is, if the dose is low enough and/or medical attention prompt enough, there are circumstances in which a victim can survive. That's why measures like LD50 have to be used, after all.

In any chemical attack, the injured outnumber the killed. Tokyo subway sarin attack, about 50 dead, hundreds severely affected, thousands affected overall. Hell, it's probably true in any attack (with the exception of airplane bombings or other 'traps'): in the Manchester Arena bombing the ratio of injuries to fatalities was over twenty to one. Are you going to argue that bombs clearly aren't lethal, because most of the people injured weren't killed? No: even a lethal bomb has a non lethal 'dose'.

A potent nerve agent is a f***ing stupid assassination weapon. The only way to be sure to kill the target would be to use a dosage that would cause huge collateral damage and contrariwise, a precise dose is not guaranteed to kill (moisture in the environment hydrolyzing the compounds; other environmental effects; skin absorption variability; genetic differences in susceptibility due to PON1 or other enzyme differences; promptness of medical attention; etc., etc. --- just too many factors to make it suitable).

So why use CWs? To send a message. That message is "the Russians did it" whether or not the Russians actually did do it. But, on the balance of probabilities, the Russians did it. It's the old horses-head-in-the-bed: the signature is completely obvious to everyone without being anything like evidence.

Samsung Galaxy S9: Still the Lord of All Droids

John H Woods Silver badge

Waterproofing...

... became almost essential, imho, as soon as some phones were waterproof.

It rains a lot in the UK. In the old days I sometimes had to resort to wrapping a phone in a dog poo bag (unused!) to ensure it wasn't destroyed by the time walkies finished. (I also found you can operate a kindle in a sealed freezer bag!).

Then there's using the phone in the kitchen --- or the bath.

When I got my original Xperia Z1 one of the girls at the yard asked why i hadn't bought an iPhone - I still remember the look of terror on her face when I 'accidentally' fumbled it and dropped it into the bucket of water she was carrying.

'Dear Mr F*ckingjoking': UK PM Theresa May's mass marketing missive misses mark

John H Woods Silver badge

I was addressed as: Dr John H Woods The Mighty Rechecki, 75 Acacia Avenue ...

... on a lovely embossed gilt edged card from an expensive Dubai hotel where I had stayed on business.

Couldn't work it out until I recalled we had left in a hurry (due to Uncle Sam starting to bomb Libya) and I had asked the hotel to keep my room if I couldn't get a flight and had to come back ... the guy said "No problem, Sir" and hurriedly hammered on the computer, presumably mistyping "He Might Re check in" after my name.

I may well have posted this story before, sorry if you've heard it :-)