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User: GerryHattrick

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Comments · 326

  1. Re:Metric time? on Vote To Eliminate Leap Seconds · · Score: 1

    In Corfu, if you asked how far away somewhere was to walk, they'd tell you in 'cigarettes'. A unique combination of time, distance (and lifespan reduction too).

  2. Operating errors essential on Colossus Cracks Again · · Score: 1

    Generous of the chaps in Germany to encypher (you'd think the whole affair would pain them). Note that it's for the Lorenz 'teleprinter-thing', not the Enigma. But I recall that in either case the usual starting-point for decryption was defects in operating procedures at the sending end (which allowed plaintext bits to be guessed). Without that, which was the result of great volume and fixed procedures, what convincing chance is there for a significant comparison of decryption now?

  3. Easy to fix on Babelfish Sparks Minor Diplomatic Row · · Score: 1

    Done this, officially, in both Russian and Mandarin (but not with BabelFish). The knack is to re-input the foreign translation after you've got it, and see what it then says in English. Then change your English text (usually by being much more 'literal') and see if the tough spots get better. When it comes back from the reinput intelligibly the same as you meant - send it along. Gives you an insight into the quirks of English, too. Of course, if you have the time and money, support a starving translator. (But for online orders, check the different versions of Chinese as above). And if it's just Dutch, guys, merely half-close your eyes and read the stuff back.

  4. Unexpected 'advantage' on Internet Explorer Drops WGA Requirement · · Score: 1

    Well I rebuilt a laptop with XP (SP3 Beta actually) and messed up some registry permissions, so IE7 would never install. Followed ALL the remedies to no avail (well, I prefer Firefox, but I do need IE7 too - and validation was never a problem here). So today I tried again with the identically-named download. It spent 5+ minutes thrashing on the hard drive (repairing things?), then went straight through sweetly. So a few extra issues have been fixed under the covers. Grudging credit where credit is (eventually) due.

  5. What counts? on Artificial Life May Be Possible Within Ten Years · · Score: 1

    Does artificial life mediated by scientists who are themselves 'life' really count for anything? Might count for more if it were not water/carbon based - then at least it would seem original. But the real challenge will be to initiate a higher 'form' of life than our own - extensible self-replicating intelligence, say, in a more pervasive medium than our ecosphere. In fact, that would seem under some assumptions to be Homo Sapiens' long term strategic responsibility.

  6. Re:How? on 3 Ton Meteorite Stolen · · Score: 1

    If it had been a proper 3-*ton* weight, and not denominated in fashionable 'funny tonnes', it could never have floated away.

    Now that the Russkis are getting their self-esteem back, they should have labelled it 20 Berkovets then no one could have lifted it at all.

  7. Re:Why not? on New Theory Explains Periodic Mass Extinctions · · Score: 1

    Interesting. I once heaped professional scorn on an Austrian Doc whose business was to invite patients to lie in his family caves, inhaling halon gas (radioactive) from the rocks. There didn't seem to be any rationale for that, and most authorities try to pump such gas away from subfloors where it occurs naturally. But now here is a credible hypothesis that can surely be tested. Not that the side effects might not still be potentially nasty, though.

  8. Holepunch on Five Finger Keyboards · · Score: 1

    In my day, I could input alpha COBOL, two fingered, to a manual 80-col card keypunch (is that a chord keyboard?) as fast as I could think it. Any mistakes, you stuck a confetti back in the hole with polystyrene glue. Then swan off home and leave them to compile it all night with nothing but magtapes for memory. Wouldn't compile? - more glue tomorrow.

  9. Rotation immaterial on Identify Galaxies Using Spare Wetware Cycles · · Score: 1

    I puzzled why clockwise/anticlockwise should matter, given that it's indeterminate for any tilted galaxy (seen from 'underneath'?). Now I understand the 'axis of evil', I guess it's only the fact of the spinning (confirmed by people's agreement on apparent direction) that matters. Once you know it spins, you can work out from the apparent elongation of the blob which (two possible) axes might be involved. That's enough for a statistical test of the 'axis of evil'. Or is it?

  10. Re:How many are really wonders? on Did We Really Need Seven New Wonders? · · Score: 1

    Insightful. That's all.

  11. Re:this is just a very big SCAM on Did We Really Need Seven New Wonders? · · Score: 1

    Agreed. I went to vote for that, but immediately saw that it was involving some directed dynamic or other. So I didn't, therefore not any kind of valid result.

  12. Don't duck the grammar on Thousands of Rubber Ducks to Finally End Journey · · Score: 1

    Reading: "...After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek.", any grammar Nazi would have to ask how the scientists had got trapped in the container in the first place.

  13. Re:So what SHOULD they use? on BBC Threatened Over iPlayer Format · · Score: 1

    I don't think I disagree with you at all. The way I (carefully) worded it was trying to understand whatever contractual logic they might think they have, the better then to avoid the kind of lockup that seems to be proposed - investigating "So what SHOULD they use?". Big institutions are seldom truly logical, but it helps to understand what they think are their imperatives. I wonder why else they might have got into this hole. Any theories from a brave AC who works there?

  14. Re:So what SHOULD they use? on BBC Threatened Over iPlayer Format · · Score: 1

    It's sad that 'the Beeb' thinks that only Msft can do what they want, but worth considering WHY they might be compelled to specify DRM of some kind. For example, lots of contributors to programmes have contracts involving 'repeat fees'. Even if you change that now, it wouldn't affect 'done deals' on the vast archive.

    So probably the BBC has to show respect for such contracts by somehow using 'best efforts' to control systematic redistribution (or at least being able to claim that they are trying). Sure TPB is a gaping hole, but just because expert poachers sometimes outwit the gamekeeper doesn't mean he can tell his boss he's invited the whole village to shoot free.

    Think about that uncomfortable reality and THEN constructively suggest a better way.

  15. Re:P2P Listings on Zap2It Labs Discontinuing Free TV Guide Service · · Score: 1

    IP is worth watching though. In the UK, channels were able to claim that their forward listings were copyright, and print media then had to restrict what they republished (or buy a license). Sure it's easy enough to steal, but any really capable service (compare 'VideoPlus' in UK) could best operate if fully legit.

  16. Re:I'm not surprised... on Europe's Galileo Program In Serious Trouble · · Score: 1

    I'm an EU 'citizen' too, and I've noticed that this is the system that will enable mandatory 'road pricing' with satnav metering. So the majority of us WANT it to fail, and would happliy add sugar to their rocket fuel if it would abort some launches. Check the Brussels Directives if you doubt me.

  17. Re:Only two countires in the world... on Are TV Pharmaceutical Ads Damaging? · · Score: 1

    Good to hear from NZ. This has been a very U.S. thread so far, and my sympathies to those Gentlefolk. Here in what is laughingly called the 'EU' we have so far been able to resist DTC Ads - not that the lobbyists are idle in Brussels, you understand. The agenda is 'progressively' being rewritten as 'patient information' instead. Now, that cannot be all bad: in the UK people visit their GPs with reams of stuff they've already printed off the internet - surprise! the discussion that follows can be quite intelligent. Interesting to see how that pans out... But TV ads for pills? Bad idea. Giant pharma grants for captive 'patient groups'? - also bad idea. Maybe this is something 'Europe' can yet get right. Well, that would be a 'first'.

  18. Re:Validity? on Three Months of Britain's e-Petition System · · Score: 1

    Agreed to this, but for satellite road pricing, check whether it hasn't already been secretly committed-to in Brussels. That would likely have been part of the 'carbon nonsense' package. OT, my contribution to the fight against the 'global warming' chimera is eagerly to burn all my rubbish (that's 'carbon neutral', at least in the longer term), and to make the bonfires as smoky as possible - well, soot on the neighbour's washing is carbon trapped within Gaia, not naughty carbon dioxide that trees live on.

  19. Re:and yet... on Hubble Camera Lost "For Good" · · Score: 1

    I'd be grateful for Iraq myself. The British Empire tried and failed, now it's the turn of 'youall' - to the extent that anyone rational (sure you are?) can make any difference at all in these benighted millenia. But Hubble is something else. The greatest public insight on our 'mini'-human existence (yes, all of us) ever. The US in this matter, and it pains me to say it, now represents us all. Just get out there and fix it. Remind me what the ISS is 'for'? Moon/Mars landings so what? Just go on reminding us ALL where we live.

  20. Re:Norwegians, I'm ashamed of you on Vista DRM Cracked by Security Researcher · · Score: 1

    Friends from South America claim they are also Americans, and grumble at interpreters in Europe who routinely have trouble with this idea. BTW, did you see the theory that America was named after a Bristol (UK) merchant, one Mr Amerike, and not the Spanish explorer? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas

  21. Re:Wrong Name on The Birth of Quantum Biology · · Score: 1

    Yes, and it's especially dangerous because it will be ignorantly quoted in support of the 'quantum healing' snake-oil ripoffs that are taking over the fey fringes from the galvanic, magnetic and 'radionic' gizmos of an earlier century.

  22. Re:the U-Bend on What Bizarre IT Setups Have You Seen? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I started, pre-computer, the accounts department had rows of incredibly noisy mechanical 'Marchant' multiplying machines, each on a resonant all-steel desk. The production department kindly sent up inch-thick felt pads, and the racket subsided. Then came re-equipment with the precious 'electronic' machines (Anita*) with a line of hot number-valves ('tubes') along the top. But accountants are traditionalists, so the felt pads loyally stayed on, as a kind of sympathetic magic for quiet calculation. Ventilation was supposed to come from below, but of course it never came through thick felt. Thus the Anitas were extra popular - because if you put your meat pies on the generous top during the morning tea-break, they'd be hot for everyone by lunchtime. * http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/photo_anita_C_VIII. htm

  23. Re:Cataloguing DNA for future use on White Dolphin Functionally Extict · · Score: 1

    Excellent idea - now thinking again about Noah's Ark: are we part of a recursion?

  24. Re:No sound thinking person... on Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution · · Score: 1

    There is nothing to understand - your surmise is correct. The distinction seems to be invented whenever religionists have to concede that something 'micro' is indeed observable - whereas 'macro', almost by historical definition, never can be. So whenever you see a micro/macro divide adduced, suspect that religionists are around.

  25. Re:That's What You Think It Said on Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution · · Score: 1

    I don't happen to agree with these conclusions from that evidence, but we should strongly value this particular contribution to a debate which too often merely pitches the sillies against the reductionists. Welcome to the 'broader view and diverse opinions' recommended!