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timthorn

Re:Scientists solve 1840s space weather mystery on Monday September 28, 2026 @07:25PM (#49885880)
> 1. If it were true, I expect it would be a national security concern, and quickly remedied

The UK rates severe space weather as one of the most significant, most likely events on the National Risk Register: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a50d66b1228e...

It's seriously underselling ICL to call it a consulting company, though by the time of the Fujitsu acquisition that might be accurate.
Yes, though I think it's being positioned as a commuter service for the people of Bewdley to get to Birmingham and back rather than for visitors to get to Bewdley.
Re:The Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA on Friday August 21, 2026 @03:59AM (#49385147)
It's a rhetorical device to emphasise the reason for cancellation, not a revision.
Re:Beware Management Consultants on Tuesday August 18, 2026 @05:23PM (#49352924)
Richard Walker tried to become a Conservative MP, but when no constituency party selected him as their candidate defected to Labour, who put him in the House of Lords.
> I probably missed a lot of them

Psion is the big one - the Organiser, Series 3 and Series 5 in particular. The latter was the genesis of Symbian, which Motorola was also a partner in.

Re:Twenty Years of RISC OS Open on Sunday August 02, 2026 @12:13PM (#49145843)
Paul Fellows absolutely claims that. From https://astrospeakers.org/provider/paul-fellows :

> He worked on the first generation of home computers and lead the design of the RiscOS operating system for the ARM processor, including inventing the apps and icon bar user interface that has since spread to phones and computers across the world

Re:Twenty Years of RISC OS Open on Sunday August 02, 2026 @12:10PM (#49145821)
Well, a reminder of the origin story of RiscOS: https://binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Acorn/fellows.php

Paul Fellows later went on to be the CTO of AlertMe, which became the basis of British Gas' Hive service, and then Lowes' Iris product line.

Re:Ask HN: What old developer tool do you still miss? on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @03:27AM (#48290876)
Dot matrix printers + fanfold paper
> Connections, Cosmos, Civilization, The Ascent of Man and Attenborough's Life on Earth

Civilization and The Ascent of Man were both commissioned by Attenborough - he had a major impact on the broadcast landscape well beyond natural history.

Re:The Gay Jailbreak Technique on Saturday May 02, 2026 @03:51AM (#47984341)
It's the same Greek root as Kubernetes
Re:IrDA on Monday April 13, 2026 @04:00AM (#47749119)
The article is a great read. Though it talks about OBEX, and how Bluetooth wiped out IrDA, but not that Bluetooth took OBEX straight out of the IrDA stack.

Not IRDA, but there was also IRTalk built into some of the Power Book series, allowing native AppleTalk to a diffuse IR access point. I really wanted to try that out but never had the opportunity.

Partially redacted details here. The award was over 5 years for half that amount, but could be extended to 10.

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/0f8a65b5-2...

Re:The Appalling Stupidity of Spotify's AI DJ on Sunday March 15, 2026 @06:59AM (#47386197)
> click on the “books” tab - the author is a technologist

That's rather underselling him. Charles Petzold wrote the canonical reference works for programming Win32 and MFC.

It's like calling Donald Knuth a lecturer.

Re:An old photo of a large BBS on Friday March 13, 2026 @11:44AM (#47365987)
And a Televideo 910. Keyboard with added reverb :)
Re:Can my SPARC server host a website? on Sunday February 15, 2026 @05:11AM (#47022554)
Typically, fun memory they'd move to a secure connection for credit card input, but most of the site would be open HTTP - why secure what isn't confidential? Concerns about 3rd parties eavesdropping on the sites you visited weren't a big thing at the turn of the century.
I bought myself a 3 year subscription with my very first pay cheque. I got 2 or 3 issues before it went under. As a way of teaching a teenager about the full range of computer technology from the Cambridge Active Badge through to Big Data, it was and is unmatched.
Re:Thirty Years of the Square Kilometre Array on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @08:20AM (#46795012)
The MRAO is a fascinating place, with things left as they were the last time an instrument was used. The floor of the hut where the array cables were aggregated for connection to the cable back to the Cavendish is covered in little plastic caps from the connectors, discarded as the instrument was being set up.

The article talks about HERA; MRAO hosts the prototype for that. IIRC, they experimented with methods to build the dishes with off-the-shelf parts - such as drainpipes to build the ring.

Re:Doing gigabit Ethernet over my British phone wires on Saturday January 24, 2026 @06:11AM (#46742619)
It's possibly because of a ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority back in the ADSL days: https://www.asa.org.uk/resource/broadband-speed-claims-guida...
I wondered, but my 15 year old loved it.
And the lesser known "Look Around You" which might also not land so well with an American audience.

Thants.

Are the dual redundant leaky feeders configured to act as a MIMO array?
Re:Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines on Sunday January 11, 2026 @06:43AM (#46574806)
Reminds me of Field, an art installation of planted fluorescent tubes under an HV electricity distribution line back in 2004: https://www.gorge.org/images/field/
Re:Ask HN: Expository/Succinct Books on Modern Physics on Sunday January 04, 2026 @05:13AM (#46486608)
The print copy of Felder and Felder looks to be cheaper than Young and Freedman at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon?

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