Posts by Paul Kinsler

Re: spot the difference

... but if all you do is you keep checking the new result against the old one, isn't that really just like going round in circles?

Re: Consider changing the way you work, and use one.

I use two.

Slackware for both "real work" and day-to-day.

Debian (w xfce desktop) as the second-boot option for laptops; it is slightly more likely to "just work", and for the basics (mainly web, ms teams, and some ad hoc games stuff; not my full suite), it is much easier to install & use without thinking.

There isn't much duplication because the way I use Debian requires very little effort at all.

Re: A Severn barrage would have adverse environmental impact.

Correct, but that's only talking about half the problem. So:

Would a Severn barrage cause more environmental problems than it would solve? (e.g. by replacing fossil burning)?

Mind you, it is not at all clear to me how you might balance and/or compare the two different impacts.

The original translation reads

That might indeed be the original translation, but it doesn't scan as well as the popular version. So the discrepancy is probably just something we have to live with.

Re: just as long as you remember to water it, daily

To be fair, that sounds a lot more interesting - and arguably personally satisfying - than "plug it into a charger, daily"

Re: Scunthorpe

Didn't someone try this sort of thing on Jack Straw, back in the day?

And did it make any difference?

the phone is its own security.

There is, after all, a reason that MFA actually stands for "Mobile Fone Authentication" :-)

Ahem:

Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger, Mushroom Mushroom, ...

&etc.

Re: Isobel

I used to know someone who said they'd called their recently-arrived daughter Isobel; so I asked if it meant "a line of constant noise".

Unfortunately, he replied that she was actually named Isabel, not Isobel. And in a slightly irritated manner, I recall.

:-/

Re: How long ..... to give decent speakers

Ridiculous. They'll instead use the technology to make even worse speakers for your TV, but ones that save them a tiny amount of money per device.

and you won't even remember which idiot wrote it

I think a lot of the problem is that - having just written it - it is transparently obvious what it does, and why, and so it is difficult to actually work out what might need to be explained about something so (apparently) straightforward.

Really, I suppose, you should instead show it to someone else, and ask them to explain it ... at which time the relevant point to document might become clearer.

Re: it's not measurements

Hmm, I wonder if it could give better results if you tried to calibrate it against/with a traditional BP measurement... were the errors systematic, or random...?

it's real alright

Some years back the Independent published an april fools story claiming that scientists had discovered an eighth colour in the rainbow. Most amusing.

But as it happened, such a thing had indeed been discovered. By William Herschel, no less, way back in 1800. :-)

DOI: 10.1098/rstl.1800.0015

(open access, and well worth a read, imo)

Re: "Let's tackle that by assuming good faith"

I think here the point of stating "by assuming good faith" is *not* because you actually believe there is good faith; it is rather to make it harder for the target to reject your arguments by characterising you as hostile.

Instead they have to actually engage in a discussion about how any claim to "good faith" they might make can be demonstrated; so, to an extent, *you* have set out the ground on which to debate the issue.

And if the target then tries to shift the focus of the debate away from "good faith", they can end up looking as if (or perhaps demonstrating that) they lack it.

Re: the $300 HackRF One

I like that you might buy the Hack RF one from somewhere calling itself "Wall of Sheep", but am disappointed that the Wall of Sheep is not in NZ.

Re: Loved my TRS-80 as a kid.

My secondary school had one... it was probably the first computer I got to play with...

wouldn't any sane employer ...

Well, indeed. But why should one assume all employers are sane, unbiased, and without predjudice?

Re: Experienced drivers ...

Irrespective of which way one might like to attribute fault or responsibility, the so-called "safety driver" was *not* the actual _driver_, because she was *not* doing the actual _driving_. They were employed to watch the car drive itself, in the hope that they might be able to intervene in time should something go amiss. Perhaps a better job title might be "drive supervisor" or something.

Re: Everything starts as an adventure ...

I think there is scope for something a bit more nuanced here. At a simple level, the "big industry" result includes making available robust (we hope) components or tools which might be combined in new ways to open up some new kind of "adventure".

But perhaps the main message might be that there is probably some benefit in working out how to promote ways of thinking thinking that looks to construct such new "adventures" by looking to use & combine the new (and old) industry-made tools that are available.

Re: I'll have a beer for the Lady -

Or rather a cup of tea and some cake, surely. Lyon's wasn't a brewery :-)

Re: I put my brain on the 90° program [...] do I get a refund?

It depends. Did it get turned 90° as a right angle, or as a left angle? :-)

Re: Hire a few hundred thousand biplanes.

Biplanes are noisy and inelegant, when compared to a fleet of hot-air balloons, which could glide gracefully and silently across the landscape whilst distributing leaflets... :-)

Re: The error sound ...

I recall changing the error messages on my beeb from the defaults, so that instead they insulted me every time I triggered one.

However, it was only fun-like for a really quite surprisingly short amount of time :-)

Re: Single user vs Multi-user collaboration

I think multi-user editing is fine at an /early/ stage, so that the multi-tude can throw in remarks, add paragraphs, subsections, or whatever according to their own interests or responsibilities. The ghastly -- but hopefully fairly complete -- soup could then be cleaned up by one chosen author, with comments (but not editting) by the others.

Although now sometime in the past, I'm still scarred by the time both I and my phd supervisor made significant, in parallel, and notationally incompatible changes to a reasonably advanced latex document. The resulting manual merging process was not very fun. So now, apart from any early "soup" stages that might arise from using (eg) overleaf, I tend to either take control of a manuscript, or stand back and make comments while someone else does.

I'm very picky who I might send any latex files to. I use a system of line breaks and indents to keep it readable (especially for equations), and allow useful diffs between versions. This is frequently mangled by the editors of others, which usually either insist on re-formatting lines so they have similar lengths, or turn each paragraph into one long unbroken line.

Re: Light and dark mode but

As someone who has been changing the fore- and background colors in command prompts, xterms, window handles, menus, and the like for more decades than I care to admit, I should really be baffled by all the "dark mode" nonsense. "What sort of crippled software gets foisted on people so as to make this an interesting thing to even mention?", I should be thinking.

But, sadly, it happens too often to cause genuine bafflement any more.

I mean, really. I probably could have tweaked one of my unimpressive programs on something 8bit to have a "dark mode" and a "light mode" if I wanted.

Edit: no, wait. I think they were already "dark mode" -like. I'd have had to code a "light mode" instead.

Re: [social media] ... what you just posted on is part of it.

I tend to agree ... but also not agree.

Early internet "social media" were (at least in my experience) just that, /social/ media: e.g. usenet was based on groups, irc had channels, etc. You might have thrown your ego about in such forums, and some were admins or moderators, but essentially the forum was about the group or social interest of those who turned up and posted/talked there. Like these ElReg forums, mostly.

In contrast, what is now called "social media" tend to be explicitly about ego: e.g. /my/ twitter feed, /my/ facebook page, /my/ blogcast, &etc. So I'd rather call it "Ego media" rather than "social media", but my one vote counts for little, especially since I don't have a twittr account or whatever. So these forums don't really fir into "social media" in the contemporary sense.

Hang on, I've got an idea. Maybe I should start up a blogcast (whatever that is :) entitled "Clog Blast", since that sounds superficially amusing. But what should it be about? [1]

-

[1] Well, about *me*, obviously :-) ... and ...er... clogs?

if you're one room away ...

... the solution will be to run some ethernet to that other room, and put a cabled-up wifi7 router in there :-)

Re: Can you understand what the "actual internet" mean[s]

Until you explained what your personal definition of the "actual internet" was, no, I didn't know what you meant by the "actual internet"; and, clearly neither did that other commentard.

And I as far as I might understand now what you meant, I think "actual internet" is not a good descriptor of it; and I think your phrasing is quite likely to give rise to similar confusions rather frequently.

Re: Love, Death & Robots

... and twas based on a short(ish) story by Alastair Reynolds, IIRC.

Re: Jesus Built My Hotrod

I once had my radio alarm clock wake me up to that very track, although perhaps tuning it to 4ZZZ had always been a slightly rash decision, and especially given who was doing the show that morning. Thanks Mark! :-)

Re: Those numbers

ZHC's can be, also, extremely unpleasant for those who need regular income, but can only get a ZHC; especially if the ZHC makes it impossible to have other work at the same time (perhaps by some stipulation that you must *always* be available at no notice).

The task therefore, for regulation, is to somehow balance the benefits and costs of a situation with two extremes. It might be, for example, that the positive side of ZHC's are more socially significant than the costs; or it might not.

Re: ... No one in the UK is anywhere near the bottom 50% poorest on the planet.

I never said they were. My trailing "wouldn't go far" remark was merely emphasis to avoid anyone thinking I was suggesting it might be (given this is a UK site, contexts are often implicitly UK focussed)

Re: Throughput not great

Indeed. It's about 8 seconds since I last got a bit through at that speed :-)

Re: Birth of a planet

More about the hatching than laying, but "Born of the Sun", Jack Williamson, 1934

Re: Pedant Alert!

I can't claim any expertise on sonic booms, but my guess that in a simple model would be there would be some change from mach 1 to 2 or 3, but after than not so much. But in a real atmosphere, with a real object it could be quite complicated.

How bad would it have been without that redesign?

Seeing as the redeesign was to reduce costs, perhaps the question should rather be "How much more f***king awesome would it have been without that redesign?" :-)

.

Although, in reality, probably a very similar degree of awesome.

Re: General question

Eaglemode?

Re: if the salaries were improved./ Universities need serious reform across the board

Well, to improve the salaries the Universities will need more money.

So most likely one of (a) more taxes for increased direct government funding, (b) higher student fees & costs, (c) increased costings for research grants (often sourced from government or charities), (d) capture & subsequent distortion of priorities by well funded industrial (or other) interests.

Sounds like a simple problem to solve. :-/

Re: Ob H2G2

Or:

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/containing/3539243

Re: The Diet Myth

Also, fwiw, he was recently on AlKalalilili's Life Scientific:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010pv0

Re: If you want a conservative, stable distro you have Devuan.

Or, perhaps, Slackware; but each to his own preference.

Re: shift some large masses?

Presumably the main trick is to transfer momentum to the target; and to get an impactor with a defined momentum doesn't require a large mass, but merely some mass, going fast enough. Since p=mv, you could get the same momentum from something with half the mass but twice the speed.

A small mass going fast might presumably get there sooner, which sounds helpful; but I suppose it is possible that a larger mass might have some advantages in whatever horribly nonlinear collision process it is that takes place on impact.