* Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson

4245 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007

ASSAULT CORSE: Eager Walking Dead heads get a second series

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Corse?

With it's capital Ajaccio? Lovely seafood there

Sorry, mine is the one with the tourist guide to Corsica in the pocket

Bloke hews plywood Raspberry Pi tablet

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Brilliant idea!

Love the idea of having a wooden case. I have some birch plywood lying around which should be great for such a casing. Now to find a CNC router.

Chinese Moon rover, lander duo wake up after two-week snooze

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: Open question

It's called an alarm clock, made in China (just like the one next to my bed)

Sorry, couldn't resist. They could simply detect the end of the lunar night by the increased power of the solar panels. No clouds to get in the way.

Coffee a memory enhancing drug, say boffins

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: More important drink in the UK - Italian coffee?

Come and say that to my Italian PhD student (or my missus for that matter), you might get a response as depicted in the icon. ;-)

Curiously, people say I make very good coffee, but I will still opt for my tea (Keemun black for preference, or a good Assam or Darjeeling).

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Re: More important drink in the UK

Can't be too bad, given that tea also contains caffeine. I do not drink coffee, unless the alternatives are on a par with the poetry of the Azgoths of Kria (i.e. to me coffee is worse than Vogon poetry). Last time I drank coffee was 1986, around Xmas. It was Italian coffee, which according to all others present was excellent coffee, so apparently coffee is just NOT my thing. I do drink gallons of tea (Olympic swimming pools?) and apparently have very good memory (anecdotal evidence of course, I know).

The positive memory effects of tea and coffee can of course be negated by that other favourite drink, depicted above

Hubble 'scope snaps 600-LIGHT-YEAR-wide pic of star-spawning nebula

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

It is really the scale that makes the Tarantula unique

An absolutely awesome image from Hubble again. The Tarantula Nebula (seen quite easily with binoculars from the southern hemisphere) is spectacular in its scale, but several other star-forming regions in our galaxy are of course much closer (the Orion Nebula, for example).

Light, fast ... and pricey: Toshiba's Portégé Z30 – now THIS is an Ultrabook

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Like the fact it sports Windows 7

and the fact is is so light. Other than that I much prefer the (beefier) Sony Vaio S series (the ones with nVidia graphics and 1600x900 res (CUDA user, and all that)).

Woman whipped gun from vagina in SPACE ALIEN spat, reports Officer Zook

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Never Mind The Bollocks

That sir, is a classic remark!

Intel and Asus put the dual boot in, offer 2-in-1 lapslab WinDroid

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

I am tempted

to strip out the win 8 and install a full-blown Linux on such a hybrid. My experiences to date with my transformer pad have been great, but a full LaTeX install and C(++) compiler would be nice on the road. My experiences to date with the Win 8 laptop have been less than stellar.

Thought sales were in the toilet before? Behold the agony: 2013 was a PC market BLOODBATH

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Worst. Year. Ever.

For a given value of "ever". PC were pretty tough in the late iron age. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett: Try getting a druid to upgrade his 33 MegaLith system

Two white dwarfs and superdense star. Yup, IDEAL for gravity lab in the sky - boffins

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Interesting stuff

Also good to see the old Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope still going strong after so many years (first light was in 1970). It has undergone some major upgrades, of course.

As for quantum gravity, I am always a bit uncertain about that

Sorry, I'll get me coat

ALIEN WORLD Beta Pictoris snapped by Earth's Gemini 'scope

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Great stuff!!

We live in wonderful times. I will lift a glass (or two) of Caol Ila malt whisky to that team tonight

Intel ditches McAfee brand: 'THANK GOD' shouts McAfee the man

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Re: Worst software on the planet?

Ah, yes, should of thought of the various thermite variants (though a blow torch or lump-hammer are also choice stalwarts).

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Worst software on the planet?

And there I was thinking that was the Symantec Norton mess (just try removing it). Early versions were OK, but as of about 2006 it brought a powerful quad core machine with MASSES of RAM (6GB, well, it was big in those days) to a crawl. After a lengthy uninstall process (I cannot count the times I must have said "Die, Symantec!! DIE!!!!"), and install of a competing (free) product, the same machine was back to it's responsive self again.

I am happy to take McAfee's word for it, but other contenders for the title of worst software abound, I suppose.

Should the reg introduce IT Razzies?

Fanbois, prepare to lose your sh*t as BRUSSELS KILLS IPHONE dock

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Will it blend?

If it's homogenized, it sounds like it has been blended already.

Sorry, couldn't resist, last Friday at work before Xmas and all that.

Mosquitoes, Comets and Vampires: The de Havilland Museum

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Great!

That's another place I should take the kids to. The Mosquito has always been one of my favourite planes of all time. I had the privilege of seeing one fly near Bude some time around 1990. Awesome sight.. My other favourite was the Hurricane IID: A tank-buster variant which showed just how amazingly versatile and rugged the Hurricane was.

Suffering SPITZER! Boffins discover Milky Way's MISSING ARMS

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Men do not wear enough hats!

Indeed!! This is why I wear at least one every day (the roo leather Barmah today). Essential!!! The only way to fully appreciate the meaning of life!!!! Ask any wizard or witch about the importance of hats!!!!!!

Yes I'll have the kippers today! Hooray!! How do we do it? VOLUME!!!

Mine is the one with the dried frog pills in the pocket (left one, the right has a miniature universe in it)

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Re: Douglass Adams was right, once again.

I thought Rimwards, Hubwards, Turnwise, and Widdershins were the principal directions in a disc.

Mine is the one with "Raising Steam" in the pocket

Two Brits face criminal trial for sending 'menacing' tweets

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Bit sexist really

'I think the collective term for men is "barfull".'

Good suggestion. However, in this case the word "basket" could also be used, given that men who send threats to people campaigning for an image of a famous female author to be put on a banknote, should be treated as basket cases. If people make serious threats of violence in any media (or indeed verbally). simply because they disagree with them, prosecution should certainly be considered.

Former US POLITICIAN gets 6 years in slammer for FACEBOOK SCAM

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

One down, which is good....

It is good to see somebody getting jail time for financial shenanigans. However, I do somehow wonder whether this was because he cheated (rich?) investors. Swindling poor people out of their homes by selling them mortgages you know they cannot afford, or breaking the financial system leading to untold hardship for many poorer people does not seem to carry any penalty. For the LIBOR scandal financial penalties have been handed out to the banks, but the responsible bankers seem to get off scot free, to name just a single instance.

But let's take a balanced view: One down, many more to go .....

HOLD THE PHONE, NSA! Judge bans 'Orwellian' US cellphone records slurp

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Judge makes sensible decision

Good for him. Whatever the difficulties in making the NSA comply, this judge made a good call

Brilliant Brit bloke builds breakfast-belching BACON DRONE

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

So who will be in command of Breakfast Command?

"Banger" Harris?

Darn, I'm hungry now!

Teary-eyed snappers recall the golden age of film

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Lovely piece!

Brings back memories. I tend(ed) to go to extremes: Ilford HP400 pushed to 1600 for theatre photography on the one hand, Kodak Technical Pan film developed in Technidol LC for super-fine grain landscape. I still have a print of water, reeds and willow tree taken with a Carl Zeiss 85mm F/1.4 at F/2.8 in my office. Closest thing I ever got to Ansel Adams (still a LONG way to go ;-) ).

I also did a whole lot of botanical photography on Fuji Provia, and the odd wedding of friends on Kodak Portra. Still have the camera lying around somewhere. Pity really.

Developer unleashes bowel-shaking KILLER APP for Google Glass

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@RyokuMas, Re: Glasshole killer app involves dog turds

This suggests the killer app for Google Glass is AdBlock

Astroboffins spot HOT, YOUNG GIANT where she doesn't belong

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Orbiting, or just a passing rogue?

Good point, it could be an "orphan planet"

I can imagine they may have some indication of the planet's radial velocity, but I doubt the data are sufficient for full orbit calculation. There is of course also the possibility of capture, as in the case of the moons of Mars

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: and now for some math...

And anyway, please express the result in Vulture-Central units

Inside Steve Ballmer’s fondleslab rear-guard action

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: No, Liam, I won't be using a fondleslab as my primary computer.

New tools rarely replace old tools outright. Since buying electric drills and screwdrivers I have not thrown away my hammers, or manual screwdrivers, nor will I. I use tablets (just got an ASUS Transformer Pad cheaply, like the hybrid set-up) and like them for browsing, but I still use my laptop and desktop machines (writing articles and coding), and when I need more serious grunt (Gigapixel images) a 64 core compute server, and when I want to play with the big boys with big data: clusters or supercomputers. I use WIMP or touch as needed, but very often still use the command line. As new tools are added to the toolbox, we gain flexibility. Do most users need the command line? I would not think so. Do I see my students use the command line? Not as much as I do, but they still revert to it for certain types of work.

I love using editors, or word processors, but boy am I glad I still have pen, pencil and paper.

I might also suggest PC sales are going down because many people have PCs that work just fine, and are in no hurry to upgrade.

Creepy US spy agency flings WORLD SLURPING OCTOPUS into orbit

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

At least they are being honest about their intentions. Rare enough in politicians, spooks, and bureaucrats

Blighty's winter storms are PUNY compared to Saturn's 200mph, 15,000 mile wide HEXACANE

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Looks like a copyright symbol on that storm (top image, lower part of hexagon)

SOMEBODY HAS COPYRIGHTED SATURN!!!!!

Quick! Who can we blame?

NASA opens its Jupiter photo album to honour Pioneer 10

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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That brings back memories

I followed all the Mariner, Viking, Pioneer, Voyager mission as a kid/youngster. Awesome era of space research. I will raise a glass to this anniversary, and all the engineers and other (other) visionaries involved.

Calling Doctor Caroline Langensiepen of Nottingham Trent uni

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Neat, but...

a true compute science approach to generate an ElReg-style paper would be to write a script to turn an ordinary paper into and ElReg paper by auto replacement of terms like "scientist" into "boffin", "psychologist" into "trick cyclist", and convert every SI unit into approved ElReg units. Alternatively, adapt the SCIgen automatic scientific paper generator into an ElReg article generator

What is thy bidding? Han Solo’s shooter goes under the hammer

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Z: "Imagine I have a blaster ray in my hand"

Captain: "But you have a blaster ray in your hand"

Z: "So you wouldn't have to tax your imagination too much"

Mine is the one with the Genuine Kill-O-Zap Gun in the pocket

Top comet-watcher pens ISON's emotional obituary

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Great In Memoriam! I'll drink to that (as if I needed an excuse )

Saturn's moon Titan had swamps, say astroboffins

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Yes, they were all called Zem

The one with the radio plays on cassette tape in the pocket please

Fun-killing fireshow-flunking ZOMBIE COMET ISON only LOOKED alive

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

RIP ISON

Pity it fizzled out. For those eager to see a comet, try Lovejoy, a finder chart can be found on the same site. Nice comet to view in binoculars

India's Martian MOM leaves the nest

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Alien

Re: Wrong Priorities

You are right. By not going on this mission they could have spent a whole $0.06 per capita on education and the like. Besides, by developing the capability to launch hefty kit into any orbit they please (cheaply), they are not gaining access to any kind of useful market. After all, satellites aren't money spinners, and level-headed business men like Elon Musk steer well clear of this kind of frivolous, money-wasting projects.

Aliens, because, well, it's about Mars, init?

China's Jade Rabbit takes great hop for mankind

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Big thumbs up to the Chinese

I'll keep my fingers crossed for Yutu (is there a U2 fan in the team? ;-) )

Fancy knocking off early? Just run our fake computer crash 'virus', say admen

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: Utter Bastards

The UTTER bastard is the one wielding the cattle prods and sending abusive e-mails in your name to the CEO to get you fired. Oh, and his PFY would put you on some most-wanted (armed and dangerous) list to give you a well-deserved wake-up call by armed police.

Isn't that about right, Simon?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

I sense a little student project with webcam and computer vision software coming on. Detect hat + coat = crash system.

Hat and coat please!

Deary me, the computer cra...

Asus Transformer Book T100: Xbox One? PS4? Nah, get a cute convertible for Christmas

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

I have seen it for 349 Euro here in the Netherlands also too much compared with US prices, but not as ridiculous as the UK. Rip-off Britain at work?

'Schrödinger's Comet' ISON LIVES (or DOESN'T) after Thanksgiving solar roast

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: 'Schrödinger's Comet'

No, no, no!! Quantum theory states:

1/√2 | IsON ⟩ + 1/√2 | IsOff ⟩

Until the observers can reach agreement, I suppose

RIP Comet ISON: ???-2013. We hardly knew ye

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

If it does emerge again if should say

"I'm not dead yet!!

I'm feeling better"

Alternatively, we should train larger scopes on it to see if there is a card

"I aten't dead!"

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Unhappy

There does seem to be some remnant there, but it is unlikely to give us a spectacular show. Pity for those living in parts of the world not covered in solid clouds for the next week or two.

I am happy I took the time to spot it in the morning sky (and was lucky enough to have two whole clear mornings this whole autumn),

I ATEN'T DEAD?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

I ATEN'T DEAD?

Latest SOHO image suggest ISON is lighting up again. Now all I need is a clear patch of sky

ftp://sohoftp.nascom.nasa.gov/incoming/lasco/rtmovie_jpg24/20131129_0818_c3.jpg

Anglo-Australian cricket brawl spills over into coding clash

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Howzat!!!

For a lame game?

Sorry, I'll get me coat. The one with Wisden in the pocket please

Mass Effect: Ten lightweight laptops that won’t bust your back

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

No nVidia = no CUDA = No deal

For me at least, though for many others it is no problem.

My battered old VAIO SZ series machine came with an nVidia card, and weighed in at onl 1.67 kg. I seriously need to replace it, but this crop of machines does not fit the bill. Pity, because there are some nice screens out there that finally push beyond the poor 1366x768 that plagued so many 13.X" screens (and beyond).

Thai man reportedly dies clutching his scorched iPhone 4S

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

@ Stoneshop Re: The wonders of having a metal phone body

You are right: the filter is the main culprit. Possibly the reduced distance between mains and low-voltage ends of the small transformer (compared to the beefier old ones) increases risk, but that distance is not smaller that the distances typically found in optical couplers (and they are safe, as a rule).

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: The wonders of having a metal phone body

As the charger is only designed to deliver a few volts, and almost any plug you think of has the zero/earth on the outer shell of the plug, a metal casing should be perfectly safe. An old-fashioned charger with transformer would insulate the low voltage circuit completely from mains, and is therefore the safer option. However, with copper prices the way they are, and the weight and bulk of a transformer, most supplies are now switching power supplies, in which there is a potential conductive path from mains to low voltage. Properly designed, there should be fail-safes that should prevent accidents happening. In cheap replacements, these can apparently fail. So while I can understand why phone designers can get metal casings approved, a plastic case would provide an extra fail-safe. Not buying dodgy chargers is another.

Sysadmin job ad: 'If you don’t mind really bad work-life balance, this is for you'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

They clear studied C. Northcote Parkinson

This ad is a page out of The Short List. The aim is to frame the ad in such a way that you only get one candidate,