Nick Gibbins
@nick.gark.net
Computer science lecturer, UCU. Film and SF geek, gaming nerd (particularly the #TravellerRPG), manned spaceflight aficionado (but nothing Musky). cis, he/him. Born at 327.5 ppm.
Welp, that's a new one. Blocked by an academic for having the temerity to note that university libraries cannot in fact keep everything. What do I know? I've only been working with our library for over a decade, and am married to an academic librarian.
Name a film or TV character dressed in white.
Sophia_Nyx 🐰@sophianyx.bsky.social · last wk.Name a film or tv character dressed in white.
Wake up, babe! New unquiet dead just dropped!
Alison@finger-post.blog · 2w agoI am the only person on the bus so of course the ghost has sat right next to me and is now sodcasting.
Make a war film rubbish. All quiet on the Best Western front.
Dreadnought Holiday@dreadships.bsky.social · 2w agoMake a war film rubbish. The Heroes of Telemarketing
Similar event at my school in the mid-80s. Archer was invited to speak on “the true meaning of conservatism” but spent the whole time talking glowingly about himself. When it came to questions at the end, a sixth-former pointedly asked “so what is the true meaning of conservatism?”
Otto English@ottoenglish.bsky.social · 3w agoArcher came and spoke to my school in the 1980s. Charm personified. Bragged at length about his many achievements and then... something bizarre happened. 1/3 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Unpopular opinion, but I think that the utility of Knuth's TAoCP is much overstated. It's comprehensive, and has for many years been considered the sine qua non, but I've found that other reference works on algorithms are far more useful in practice (e.g. Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and Stein).
Dr Sarah Hewitt@s2hewitt.bsky.social · last mo.Why am I only now learning about this reference book? Could have done with it when I started my PhD.
The credulity of some people continues to amaze me. Alas, this is not "Cary Grant's mugshot when he was arrested for being drunk & disorderly in 1959", as claimed by @rufustsuperfly.bsky.social This is a continuity photograph taken during the filming of North by Northwest, for scenes 48 and 49.
Thermodynamics is *among* the issues. Inter-satellite latency is another, as are environmental hazards (both radiation and debris), and the difficulty of upgrading servers when they’re on-orbit.
DaveO@daveon.bsky.social · last mo.I am still unconvinced by the possibility of doing this at any scale purely because of the laws of thermodynamics. If it was going to work, ironically, it would need Starship and I'm still somewhat skeptical that will ever work as promised.
Oh, and Brexit was obviously a third significant source of damage to UK HE, in terms of both student recruitment and international research collaborations.
Nick Gibbins@nick.gark.net · last mo.At what point do we admit that the financial crisis in UK HE has left the “gradually” phase and entered “suddenly”? This was all predictable, due to the erosion of tuition fee income (no meaningful uplift since 2010) and the hostile environment making the UK unattractive to overseas students.
At what point do we admit that the financial crisis in UK HE has left the “gradually” phase and entered “suddenly”? This was all predictable, due to the erosion of tuition fee income (no meaningful uplift since 2010) and the hostile environment making the UK unattractive to overseas students.
The *only* reason for watching Birth of a Nation* is to more fully understand it as the propaganda it is. * likewise Olympia, The Triumph of the Will, arguably Gone with the Wind…
Movies Silently@moviessilently.bsky.social · last mo.If you are unfamiliar, the 1915 KKK recruitment film BIRTH OF A NATION was marketed as pioneering cinema in order to get its message into theaters. It did not invent anything, they lied, it was always about the racism. Modern people still believe that lie. So I have to inform them they are wrong
A couple of impulse buys during an exam board last week turned up today - and now I own a comptometer and an Odhner arithmometer that my students can play with on my history of computing module. Now looking out for a Burroughs calculator.
I’ve just realised that this is the same Lewis Page that used to write for The Register a decade ago. Given that his stablemate Orlowski ended up in Spiked, I shouldn’t be surprised, but yet here I am.
Nate O@nateo.bsky.social · 2mo agoHell yeah. Hell yeah brother. Here we go. Hit me with this content. Hell yeah. I can feel it.
The US government is being run by 14yo edgelords. This is just pure cringe.
Regarding unilateral changes to long-established hydronyms, I’m quite surprised that there hasn’t been a campaign to rename sewage works. “The Donald J. Trump Wastewater Treatment Plant” has a nice ring to it, and is especially fitting given that both are full of shit.
Best Star Trek crew, wrong answers only.
Silversprite@silversprite.bsky.social · 2mo agoBest Star Trek crew, wrong answers only.
I shall be stealing this analogy for OAuth when I come to teach it again this coming semester. (I like my existing slides, but it’s a fiddly protocol and anything that makes it easier for students to understand is fine by me) edshare.soton.ac.uk/21143/
Authentication and Authorisation - EdShare Southampton
edshare.soton.ac.uk
AngryDutchman@angrydutchman.online · 2mo agoEurosky never gets your password, by the way. Authentication (logging in) is done via OAuth which, well, it boils down to arriving at a theme park gate where you go "lemme in!", and the guy at the gate goes okay well, go talk to your mom and have her write a note that says you are you, and...
Paul Simon - The Rhythm of the Saints. Still a cracking album 36 (!) years later.
The old internet@theoldinternet.bsky.social · 2mo ago44 years ago today, the first CD was produced. What is the first CD you owned?
For me, it’s the early-60s library in Upminster, where I grew up. Despite the unprepossessing exterior (I wish they hadn’t glazed in the porch), it was light and airy inside with a mezzanine at the front of the building that let you look down over the book stock.
John Walton@thatjohn.bsky.social · 2mo agoMine is the late-60s concrete monstrosity in the suburban New York town where we lived in the 80s and 90s — now torn down for a larger building. I can still remember the book-carpet-concrete-paint smell of the place. I must have borrowed a thousand books from there over the years.
The response to @sainsburys.bsky.social claiming a 99.98% accuracy for their facial recognition system should be to ask them to give the formal definition of accuracy, and then to state the rate of Type I (false positive) and Type II (false negative) errors.
Jill Hayward@frdragonspouse.bsky.social · 2mo agoOne of several reasons I try to avoid self-service tills (and, in general, all in-store shopping).
Oi! Goffick! Shoes off the bed!
Dennis Detwiller@drgonzo123.bsky.social · 3mo ago"This is where I come to cry."
The score is now one-all in the mischaracterisation of UK vs US cuisine; this is presumably revenge for the “UK food has no flavour” taunts. Shenandoah is the only part of Appalachia that I’ve visited, but I would have thought that seaweed was not a common ingredient.
👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻@oldenoughtosay.com · 4mo agoAre the Americans awake yet? Okay so a restaurant just opened in London called ‘Appalachia’ and this is their ‘June’ menu; discuss
I’m stepping down from my admin role of 20 years - an unprecedented innings, and a role I greatly enjoyed. My loading for it was about 2.5 hours per week, but it took far more in practice. My replacement is getting a day and half per week, plus two deputies. It’s a compliment of sorts.
He is not the real Count Binface; he inherited the costume from the previous Count Binface. The man he inherited it from was not the real Count Binface either - his name was Cummerbund. The real Binface has been retired for fifteen years and is living like a king in Patagonia.
Lucibee@lucibee.bsky.social · 4mo agoFor those who may not be aware, Count Binface is actually a serious comedian and historian, Jon Harvey, who did a very interesting series on BBC Radio 4 about the origins of democracy a few years ago. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
There is nothing quite so depressing as a conversation with an old and dear friend who has thoroughly AI-pilled themselves and is now convinced that they’ve discovered (with the help of an LLM) a Theory of Everything that will upend all physics.
Me, packing my bag before leaving the house for work: there’s no point lugging around an umbrella today, is there?
The mature lime tree outside our house is now in full bloom. Not only is the air full of its scent, but there’s also a pronounced hum from the hundreds and hundreds of bees that are harvesting nectar from it.
Three-way split between: * Usenet before the Eternal September * LiveJournal before it was sold to the Russians and * Cheeseplant’s House[1] before it got shut down. [1] orchid.warwick.ac.uk:2001 as ane fule kno.
JD (by way of Blacksky)@jdot.blacksky.team · 4mo agoCan I ask y’all a genuine question? In all your life online, what’s the greatest social media you’ve ever used?
