* Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson

4245 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007

The Steve Jobs of supercomputers: We remember Seymour Cray

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Happy days

Same here. My first programming was on a CDC 7600 and much later did loads more serious work on the J932 and SV1e. Cray didn't just provide good hardware, but also cracking good compilers. They could recognize just about the most obfusticated bunch of for-loops as a matrix multiplication and replace the code by some optimized routine from their library. What I really liked about both the SV1e and J932 is how these shared-memory machines managed to attain an average performance of roughly 2/3rds of the theoretical peak. Some really nifty scheduling going on, which is VERY hard to accomplish on clusters.

BOFH: I'm not doing this for the benefit of your health, you know

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Absolutely classic episode!

Simon is on form

Anthropology boffins solve 9,000-year-old headless body cold case

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: Post-mortem decapitation

Maybe their coffins were just not quite long enough

Sorry, I'll get me coat

Boffins make brain-to-brain direct communication breakthrough

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Just "yes" and "no" can go a long way

After all, that's just binary. Send enough bits, and you can encode anything. OK, bitrate might be a tad low, but hey, just overclock the brain!

Our cookies save you from TERRORISTS, Facebook thunders to Belgian judge

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Mushroom

And people still wonder

why I do not do Facebook.

Indianapolis man paints his ball every day – for FORTY YEARS

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

I'll raise a glass to eccentricity

Brilliant case of doing something "just because". More of this kind of harmless weirdness can make the world a better place (in a small way), simply by putting a smile on peoples' faces.

I wonder if he has photographs of the increase as a function of time. Could be publishable in Annals of Improbable Research. Might even be a candidate for an Ig Nobel Prize.

Microsoft starts to fix Start Menu in new Windows 10 preview

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

Re: M$

There is a subtle distinction between infinite and unbounded, ask any mathematician. I certainly do not want an infinite number of items, but I might not want to set a rigid bound. This is the subtle distinction between implementing a list as a static array or a dynamic data structure like a linked list. More than a decade ago one PhD student here scorned LaTeX, and wrote his thesis in MS Word, calling us LaTeX users old-fashioned, stuck-in-the-mud, conservative, etc. There were one or two sniggers when his equation editor stopped working after 128 equation objects were in the file. He phoned the helpline, and they simply told him to split the thesis into smaller chunks, each containing no more than 128 equation objects. Now this was an old version of MS-Word, and the problem may since have bee sorted, but having the limit in the first place is odd, especially given the phrase "Object Link Embedding" used for the implementation method. The phrase suggests an underlying dynamic structure, which clearly wasn't there.

Of course, I might not want infinitely many equations, but I would hesitate to set a fixed upper limit.

Mars needs TRAFFIC COP to stop probe prangs, says NASA

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Just add SPICE

In principle, SPICE should work. However, to work accurately SPICE needs an accurate model of the gravitational field around the planet. For Earth, decades of data gathering have yielded a good model, but it is still being refined. For Mars, the data are far more sparse, I would assume, so the model is not nearly as good, I would assume. It might be good enough, of course

SNAP ;-)

SOHO solar scope spies 3000th 'sungrazer' comet

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Well done that man!

A toast to the 3000th Soho Sun-grazer and Worachate Boonplod!

(and yes, that does sound a bit like a History Monk's name to me, but goodness knows what my name means in Thai)

Asus ZenBook UX305: With Windows 10, it suddenly makes perfect sense

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: touchpad

The UX305 I have does support multi-touch and swipes on the touchpad, and that is a definite step up from my older laptops. I haven't compared it directly to the MacBook, so cannot say which is better. I have worked on earlier MacBooks and got on perfectly well (give me bash, emacs, LaTeX and a compiler and I am quite happy ;-)). OS-wars are SO last century ;-)

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: RAM?

My UX305 model has 4GB which actually is enough for my work on the laptop (8GB would be nicer, of course, but that model, with 256GB SSD was beyond my budget). I have a 16GB desktop for heavier lifting, and a 512GB compute server at work for more serious stuff. Replacing the disk is something I may well consider. I was thinking that if I clone the windows disk image and it doesn't work, I could put back the original disk, and put the bigger SSD in my desktop (which has only HDD). If it does work, I would wipe the 128GB one and install that in the desktop.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

I like it

I have bought one some weeks back and really like it. Excellent travel laptop. Haven't put Linux on it just yet. Apart from work, I use mine to capture solar H-alpha mosaic images, and the SSD keeps up with the full-HD 128FPS camera I use for that. It is also really fast processing the 60-odd GB of data I collect for each mosaic. Much faster than a Core i5 HDD machine I have. I will put Linux on when I get that external USB3 SSD to stream the captured data onto, so I can split the 128GB disk into a Linux and Windows partition.

Brown kid with Arab name arrested for bringing home-made clock to school

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Hysteria

"Lets just hope Hollywood never depicts a car bomb, we'd all get arrested driving to work."

Only if you look Arabic (to a cop, that is)

Regarding the poor kid: Appalling behaviour by the police and the school principal, but alas not unexpected. The principal is rather unprincipled, methinks

PRIME SPACE: Bezos in Cape Canaveral SPACE PODULE debut

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Is a commercial space race hotting up?

Could be interesting. I will watch (this) space with interest

BAN the ROBOT WHORES, says robot whore expert: 'These AREN'T BARBIES'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: Where does she draw the line?

I think you should draw the line when they implement the GPP-feature. Not necessarily for ethical reasons, but just because Sirius Cybernetics is bound to get something HORRIBLY wrong in "your plastic pal who's fun to be with".

That, and inevitably the genuine people personality will be thoroughly annoying in some way

KREMLIN: Google is ABUSING ITSELF, misusing its mighty market position

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: Surely the Kremlin would be familiar with rule #1?

BTW, I thought rule 1 was:

"Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men"

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Surely the Kremlin would be familiar with rule #1?

I am not at all opposed to a little introspection by Google, but I am not sure Putin sees them as a crazed tyrant. I think he just sees them as a potential source of protection moneyfines.

"That's a nice data centre you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to it"

Vanished global warming may not return – UK Met Office

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

WHAT??!! No mention of an impending Maunder Minimum?

Which may plunge us into a mini ice age!! (Or not, of course)

Runs for cover ;-)

<sermon>

Seriously, as a scientist (not climate science, I hasten to add) I find the bickering and mud-slinging (perpetrated by both sides) tiresome and unhelpful in the extreme. As scientists we are bound to disagree, but at least keep the discussion civil

</sermon>

And anyway, not burning up non-renewable fuels might be a good idea whatever the truth about global warming. We might need that stuff in the future for other things

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: Fancy a ham and cheese 'dry tree trunk' sarnie?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Re: @ tfewster

I will comment on the quality of Asturian cider when I have had a statistically significant sample of it.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

People should eat steak any way they like

My preference depends very much on the quality. Generally I go for rare (and I do not mean the "rare" I sometimes get in the UK, which is more like medium, I mean rare as in "saignant" in France), and in the best cases I will even have it "bleu" as the French say (very, very rare).

That however is purely my taste. If a guest at my house wants his steak well done, or medium, I just leave them in the pan a bit longer, while the juices settle in my own.

Back to cachopo: really interesting "Cordon Bleu on steroids"

Darn, I am hungry now

Viper sinks fangs into unwary Indian farmer's todger

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

OUCH!!!

I am sure I am not the only male reading this who instinctively drew his legs together protectively.

MYSTERIES of remote ICE WORLD PLUTO: New pics BAMBOOZLE boffins

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Absolutely wonderful stuff

It is always exciting when new scientific data throw up more questions than answers

Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: "Personal" computer no more

Very well worded indeed. I am seriously alarmed at windows hogging a whole 3GB on my new 128GB SSD lappy. I will see if I can clean up the disk forthwith. I would love to ditch the last vestiges of windows on my machines, but there are some data acquisition and image processing tools that I have not yet been able to replace OR run under WIN or in a VM. More's the pity

Space paparazzo captures bipolar butterfly

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Amazing image

Google robo-car suffers brain freeze after seeing hipster cyclist

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Track Stand? Bah.

Haven't seen this kind of fix-gear bike hear yet (this being the Netherlands, and me being a cycle commuter, I get to see LOTS of bikes). The only single speed bikes I have used a lot myself had back-pedal breaks and certainly a freewheel. These types are still popular here, what with the Netherlands being so flat, there is not much use for the lower two thirds of the 24 speeds of my current bike Koga-Miyata (fun in Dartmoor, though)

Oh no Wikiwon't: Russians plan own version of 'distorted' Wikiland

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: Great

And slood? Have the Russians invented slood yet?

The one with Terry Pratchett's "Truth" in the pocket, please

Perhaps the AIpocalypse isn't imminent – if Google Translate is anything to go by, that is

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: It could be worse

Brilliant, just brilliant.

Hawking, Musk, Woz (and others): Robots will kill us all

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

"Perhaps these are actually human problems."

SSH! Don't tell the robots, they might decide this is reason enough to get rid of us.

NASA's Dawn gets intimate with Ceres

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

I'll drink to the name Byggvir

Excellent choice! Mine is a Westmalle Tripel

What's Russia smoking? Kremlin bans Wikipedia for dopey article

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Re: Crowd Control

Not just Vodka, Russians also like their коньяк (cognac), some of it pretty good too

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Stop

Re: You what?

Please do not feed the troll

Manhattan-sized iceberg splits from glacier – and spotted FROM SPACE

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Re: when measuring things in terms of Manhattans

Given an ice cube of size of approximately 10cc, That would yield some 1.75x1015 ice cubes. At two cubes per drink we could make 8.75x1014 gin and tonics. This means roughly 120,000 drinks per person for the entire population of earth, equating to 32.8 years of partying at 10 drinks per day (modest enough I would say)

FBI probed SciFi author Ray Bradbury for plot to glum-down America

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Interesting, and probably accurate way of putting it

From the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) report

“He noted that some of Bradbury's stories have definitely slated against the United States and its capitalistic form of government”

(my emphasis)

Interesting use of the word "capitalistic." Given the influence (then and now) of big money, it is perhaps a more important distinction than democratic.

I am also perennially amused by a certain group of Americans who shout at the top of their voices that America is the land of the free, and yet don't like liberals. Maybe they should look up the etymology of the word liberal. Just a thought

Many other Americans despair rather than smile at the attitude of these fellow countrymen

High-heeled hacker builds pen-test kit into her skyscraper shoes

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

A kind of SEP-field, maybe

By making something EXTRA VISIBLE her shoes become Someone Else's Problem, and they are therefore invisible

NASA dismisses asteroid apocalypse threat

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: Er.

Or was that wonton destruction?

Hmm, dumplings ........

OK, I am off to the Chinese takeaway

NASA reveals Cassini probe's last glimpse of Saturn's icy moon Dione

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Stunning imagery

The Cassini-Huygens missions has been such a huge success, it is sad (but inevitable) that it should end soon. A toast to the scientists and engineers who have worked so hard to make this a success. Looking forward to the extreme close ups of Enceladus and the other last fruits of the mission

Gas giant cores actually built from shedloads of gravel

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: This must come as a surprise...

I gather he wanted to do Jupiter all in fjords

Yet another Android app security bug: This time 'everything is affected'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Tip o' the hat to Mr Pratchett

In the name of preserving the good Anglo-Saxon tradition of alliteration (Beowulf and all that), I would turn that into

"An embuggerance of exploits"

Doffs hat (the Panama, today) to both Powernumpty and the late great Sir Terry Pratchett

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

A Fright of Flaws?

Just my tuppence

Activist pens pirate's map to 'liberating' academic journals

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: big move towards open-access publishing

OA costs can certainly be a problem. Our research foundation does pay for those costs (as do EU programmes, I gather). In other countries the situation is worse. A key problem is that new OA journals lack the impact factor of established journals, making setting up a new journal (OA or otherwise) difficult. IEEE allows you to choose a model in certain journals at least, I understand. That might be the best way forward: established journals offering a choice.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

Different publishers take very different stances

IEEE allows the authors to place the material on their website, provided that IEEE copyright notice is included, and that the server prominently displays a notice alerting readers to their obligations with respect to copyrighted material. An example is this one here (bottom of page in particular). This is a very good way of doing things I feel. Elseviers is FAR more restrictive, which is why I prefer publishing with IEEE.

There is a big move towards open-access publishing. This allows anyone to access the paper, but is more costly for the authors. However, given the total cost of a typical research project, open access publishing costs are insignificant

Camera-carrying DOLPHIN SPY caught off Gaza

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Whatever next?

Marlins with Missiles?

Icon, because them Missiles be Minutemen

Boffins identify world's (possibly) first flowering plant

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

Like grasses which are wind pollinated, many if not most underwater angiosperms are pollinated through water currents (last time I looked I never spotted bees in scuba gear ;-) )

Hacktivists congratulate Daily Show's Jon Stewart via Donald Trump's website

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: Trump

Are eggs and beans used in the production of this fragrance?

I somehow think there is sufficient hot air in the man not to need such assistance

Microsoft replaces Windows 10 patch update, isn't saying why

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: “includes improvements to enhance the functionality of Windows 10.”

I do not think they would make ANY mention of "improved functionality" in that case, they would simply take a page out of their version of the BOFH excuse generator for patching. After all "correcting several buffer overflow errors" sounds perfectly plausible. Maybe the vague "improvements to enhance the functionality" clause simply is a euphemism for "bricks/borks fewer machines than the previous update"

Or if you do not want to be cynical, it might refer to some modest algorithmic improvements somewhere in this huge amount of code. I have often made a series of incremental improvements to code (improving memory efficiency, slight improvements to speed, etc) in image processing and visualisation code in various releases, and not bothered to specify each and every one.

Whatever the meaning I will not be installing it on any machine of mine any time soon.

Flying Spaghetti Monster spotted off Angolan coast

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: Monday morning design

Fair enough, I would say. On the other hand I can never quite get the hang of Thursdays

Susan Sheridan, voice of Hitchhiker's Trillian, dies aged 68

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Very sad news. I have fond memories of listening to the tapes of the radio plays driving a battered old VW Beetle through France.

Mathematician: sunspot could mean mini ice age from 2030

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: What does this mean for PV?

The minimum does refer to sunspots, and the total energy output of the sun does not vary much, but there is a definite correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature (spanning hundreds of years). The current understanding of the physics suggests that the weaker solar magnetic field during minimum causes more cosmic rays to penetrate the atmosphere, seeding more clouds, which increases Earth's mean albedo.

This correlation between solar activity and global temperature does not necessarily deny the existence of AGW, but no doubt it will muddle (and muddy) the discussion on AGW (yet again). Futile, really, because getting rid of dependence of fossil fuels is a good thing for many reasons besides the warming issue (as many others have noted).

What worries me (a bit) is that I have got myself a load of (expensive) solar astronomy kit, and it would be a shame if the views get boring. On the other hand, nobody knows what the sun looks like in H-alpha during the onset of a Maunder-type minimum, so recording it (IF it happens) is going to be interesting. Even a fairly quiet sun in white light can be full of drama in H-alpha, as can be seen in this shot (with Earth to scale added)

NASA pops open a big can of red planet whup-ass with Mars Trek

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Great piece of outreach software

I really like these kinds of releases of data and visualisation to the public. Great job NASA!

Thinking of adding an SSD for SUPREME speed? Read this

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: You sir owe me a new keyboard

Seconded!

With a camera easily capable of generating a data stream of 600MB/s I really want some of this new tech in my next machine