* Posts by Michael Dunn

615 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jul 2008

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UK biz prejudiced against public sector staff

Michael Dunn

Eh?

Hey, Atonis, this "huge pool of public funds available" means the money screwed out of the pockets of you and me at an ever-increasing rate for which services are continuously deteriorating!

How many councils have moved to two-weekly bin collections? Here in Crete, for a council tax of about 90p per square metre per year, the bins are emptied every day except Sundays.

Chemists create current-bearing plastic

Michael Dunn
Happy

Printed Bird Strike Detector

So on an average flight, how many printed birds _do_ strike a 747?

Council loses USB of patient records

Michael Dunn
FAIL

@Silent but Deadly

Fines are all very well if applied personally to the employee/managers involved. If applied to the council as a body, they just go into next year's budget and are carried by the taxpayer so that there's no incentive to deal with the security issues.

It is strange that an employee who was unable to use an encryption process was allowed access to sensitive data in the first place. If this employee was of sufficient seniority to require handling of such data, why was there not a career progression policy in place that required all such to demonstrate the ability and the motivation to implement security policies? Council fail here.

It always puzzles me how employees who handle sensitive - commercial or personal - are allowed to work in the system without proper training and without having to demonstrate that they understand and carry out the processes involved. Would you want hospital cleaners to carry out your blood tests?

Flash drives dangerously hard to purge of sensitive data

Michael Dunn
Headmaster

5-inch square

Sorry, 50 tons on a 5-inch square is actually 2 tons per square inch.

Michael Dunn
Headmaster

Thermite

A Thermite reaction is actually fairly easy to implement iirc - Aluminium powder, Potassium Permanganate and an inch or two of Magnesium ribbon, all available on ebay.

Cobol cabal will take over THE WORLD Australia

Michael Dunn
Unhappy

Pascal

What happened to MODULA 2?

Your mind's '.brain' jpeg-like picture file format probed

Michael Dunn
Headmaster

@Stratman

So, you got there before me! Should not forget attribution - it was Emo Phillips first said this.

Super-thin materials could POWER our WORLD

Michael Dunn
Coat

Benzene

I was taught that the benzene molecule had two conformations - chair and the other one I don't remember the name of both of which would give a 3D object rather than a planar one. Of course, I was taught 60 years ago, so perhaps someone has ironed out the molecule since.

Yes, I ironed my coat before I came out.

Boffins hope for dimensional portal event at LHC by 2013!

Michael Dunn

Aye

The Higgs boson is a boojum, and we'll slowly and silently vanish away.

Michael Dunn

Cat?

We've only got your word for it that the cat is alive - open the box!

Michael Dunn
Unhappy

Infinities

Yes, I've often wondered about this.

When I was a boy I read a couple of books with titles on the lines of "Relativity for T C Mits" (T C Mits being The Celebrated Man in the Street). These books laid out the development of Einstein's Special and General Theories. They introduced a modicum of tensor analysis geared to the understanding of a 14 year old.

One of the things I always found dubious was their glib references to massaging the equations so as to eliminate the infinities. Now to my immature mind at the time, this always smelt of cooking the books, and I naively thought that Scientists did not fudge facts to fit theories. If there were awkward infinities in the equations then surely these equations represented some phenomena which included infinite quantities.

Messing with the Maths to get rid of these infinities was surely moulding our understanding of the physical phenomena to fit some pre-conceived comfortable "comfort food" for the limited human understanding.

Now the subject has cropped up again. If the equations contain infinities, then it's because the phenomena described by the equations have infinite values somewhere hiding in them, or division by zero, which as any first year comp sci student will tell you, is forbidden by convention only, not necessarily by "truth".

Sorry, I'm a bear of very little brain.

Michael Dunn

Bottom boffins?

Best not ask.

Michael Dunn
Happy

Yeah

All those unpaired (hence supersymmetry) socks that disappear in the washing.

Michael Dunn
Thumb Up

Ten dimensions

Interesting that so much Buddhist literature speaks of the "ten directions" - and he didn't even have a LHC!

BTW Gong xi fa cai to all on Feb 3rd!

UK.gov 'HyperHighway' aims to 'speed up the internet by 100x'

Michael Dunn
Thumb Up

Le mot just!

Like the pun: a shining example.

'Personal Air Vehicle' VTOL jump-copter in key flight test

Michael Dunn

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Probably more expensive.

Michael Dunn

Hah!

Thought I was first poster -- sigh.

Michael Dunn
Thumb Up

Title?

I can post you an address for delivery quam celerime I'll be happy to be a "tester" of this device!

Apple $10k winner hangs up on 'prank caller'

Michael Dunn

$10,000 worth of music would go a long way

Yes, but how much Tallis, or Monteverdi do they have, or to be more up to date, Vaughan Williams?

Michael Dunn

Ted

Why do you apply reason and logic all the time?

Michael Dunn
FAIL

Hey

Have Reg readers gone loopy? Ted's post and the one it refers to seem to me the epitome of rational comment. Why are Reg Readers (it's not Sun readers (oxymoron) you know) down voting perfectly clear and reasonable opinions?

Prosecutors opt for 'malfeasance' over DPA to charge officials

Michael Dunn
Thumb Up

Nonfeasance?

Surely this will cover those police officers who fail to pursue investigations against people in public office who appear guilty of mal/mis/nonfeasance. Keep their noses to the grindstone!

Israel and US fingered for Stuxnet attack on Iran

Michael Dunn
Badgers

Twelver?

I believe Israel is also awaiting the arrival of a Messiah. There are those actively expecting the birth of a red heifer without blemish as a sign of his/her imminence. (Must the Messiah be a man, in this Harriet Harentity century?)

(Sorry, I have to explain: If we say HarMAN, that's sexist, and contrary to that persons stated beliefs. However,. if we say HarPERSON then we are being speceisist; if we say HarBEING we are being livingist or sentientist. The only truly neutral word we can use is entity, as that which exists.)

(On a totally different note, why do Muslims use a Latin word to describe non-Muslims? Surely this is totally against the very sentiment being propounded?)

Cable vendor slapped for unproven claims

Michael Dunn
Coat

RFI?

As an amateur who has dabbled in electronics for some 60 odd years, I can't help thinking that a couple of capacitors across the mains input connections of a piece of equipment would do a decent job of filtering out RF, coupled, if necessary, with with a couple of RF chokes in series with the mains input wires. One is then able to spend the £1249.70 saved on a world cruise.

Ticket in the pocket.

Michael Dunn
Coat

@Steven Jones

"Higher quality cables may be capable of longer runs, but they won't improve picture quality."

Here's a mystery - I still do not believe that bog standard telephone cable can carry signals of up to 2/5/8 Mhz, so how does ADSL work?

Yes, I _do) have a copy of the Ladybird Book of Computing in the pocket - they can't explain it either.

US woman @theashes gives in to Twitter, flies to Sydney

Michael Dunn
Headmaster

Not only British Commonwealth

There is a Holland team!

MOSSAD SPY VULTURE seized in Saudi Arabia

Michael Dunn
Coat

Oh, yes?

An exercise in futility, looking for a bar in Saudi.

No, Officer, there's no alcohol in the pockets!

Beaver, correctly used, 'could save ecosystem', contends prof

Michael Dunn
Coat

Red-tape

And risk assessment, diversity monitoring............etc.

I have all the forms in my pocket.

How I watched a holographic storage company implode

Michael Dunn
Headmaster

@Graham Marsden follow on

Good, I'll carry on pedanting!

Michael Dunn
Thumb Down

@Graham Marsden

My own pet aversion is "leverage".

Santander mixes up 35,000 bank statements

Michael Dunn
Coat

letters.

Extract from the Peter and Jane Ladybird Book of Business English:

"We really take blah blah blah.... very seriously" means "We don't give a damn."

Yes, I've got the Ladybird book of HPC in my pocket, too.

Google Chrome OS mauled by Richard Stallman

Michael Dunn

@AdamWill

Plaudio te!

Sacked health care BOFH jailed for revenge hack

Michael Dunn

Insubordination?

You can actually be sacked for insubordination in the land of the free?

As is often the case with the media (even including El Reg) we have only been given half a story - what was the act of insubordination fopr which she was sacked?

Michael Dunn
FAIL

BOFH?

If she was the BOFH, perhaps "they" did not know how to change the admin password. She obviously had admin priveleges, if she could change other people's passwords, or the system was so insecure that a five-year-old could have hacked it.

Man caught w*nking over Alan Sugar's autobiography

Michael Dunn
Headmaster

Innocent until proved guilty?

I do wish people would consider what Anglo-Saxon common law really means - it is Innocent UNLESS proved guilty. The way you state it means that he's really guilty and the proof is only a matter of course!

BURNING LUST for SEXY BUSTY BLONDES - Science explains

Michael Dunn

I Thigateres tou Alexandrou

You just like the exotic!

Michael Dunn
Unhappy

Eh?

Just a minute there. Isn't the sex of the child(ren) determined by the male's contribution to the set of chromosomes? How would it be that such and such a woman is liable to produce male/female kids? Just don't get it.

NASA to make MAJOR ALIENS REVELATION this week

Michael Dunn
Alien

Re Nicole

Perhaps, but at least she's single-handedly delayed the invasion foe another decade.

What NASA is really going to say is that one of their super-duper space telescopes has detected a fleet heading this way, and that ETA is December 21 2012, and the Mayans knew that!

Michael Dunn
Coat

Forbidden Planet best Sci Fi movie ever made

Yeah, script (slightly adapted) by Shakespeare.

Has it ever struck anyone that humans are monsters from some other race's id?

OK, there's a tinfoil roll in the pocket - I'm going into the hat business.

'Smear agricultural land with human poo'

Michael Dunn

Re: Sewage sludge dressing

Milorganite - I believe it was the Milwaukee sewage works that did this - mentioned in science text books back when I was at school ('40's).

Michael Dunn

Crystal Green, eh?

How big a step from Crystal Green to Soylent Green?

Stuxnet code leak to cause CYBER-APOCALYPSE NOW!

Michael Dunn
Coat

@Dogfaced Boy

Quote "Some of the comments on the Sky article are hilarious especially the one about planes falling from the sky, life support machines turning off, and EVERTHING failing (their capitals not mine), almost tempted to go trolling."

Hey, wasn't this just the scenario we were cautioned with when 2K was approaching?

Still got a 2K update kit in one pocket, in case I survive till 3K.

China-inspired charity aims to sex-down society

Michael Dunn
Thumb Up

Opening a jar

I'm afraid arthritis has made jar opening more troublesome now I'm in the late 70's, but I have a handy gadget of plastic and rubber called a boa, which makes it easier.

Michael Dunn

@Aaron Em

If your pickled mushroom jars stay in the fridge a few weeks, have you ever asked yourself if you really like pickled mushrooms?

How von Neumann still controls the desktop

Michael Dunn
Coat

@Mike137

"von Neumann was not considering security when he came up with his computing model."

No, he was thinking in a similar way to Thomas Watson Junior (The world has a market for 11 computers). For von Neuman, there would have been fewer than 10 computers in the world, all at Los Alamos.

They were still using valves (tubes).

Just picked up a load of 6SN7GT's

Fedora gets nips and tucks with 14 release

Michael Dunn
Boffin

D Programming Language

At last! The answer to a question proposed decades ago.

BCPL led to the language B, and then eventually to C. The question asked at that time was: "Will the next programming language be called D or P?"

Spanish fascist decries Franco Eurovision slur

Michael Dunn
Coat

Philip?

So our fascist liked Philip, did he? I'm reminded of the lines from Lepanto:

King Philip's in his chamber that is soft and black as sin,

And little dwarfs creep out of it, and little dwarfs creep in.

Palgrave in the pocket, and if anyone remembers that, then they must be even older than me.

Official exposes govt IT overlaps

Michael Dunn

On Line Costs

"Initially costs may rise..."

And there's the rub - once you've budgeted for rising costs, that increase will be fought for in future budgets - have you ever heard of a department lowering their estimates for future needs?

What about the good old local authority mantra "Don't spend it this year, you won't get it next year!"

MP urges Parliament to reform FOI laws

Michael Dunn
Coat

Queen's English

Interesting that Her Majesty's government is unable to spell "regional" - I'd have thought it was a word in fairly common use in government circles!

OK, I do have a copy of the OED in my pocket - that's why the coat is so heavy!

Bacon thief leaves rasher on door knob

Michael Dunn
Unhappy

@Mysterious malingerers

Have you tried scaling a 10 ft fence with or without Victorian decorative spikes, with a lawn mower?

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