Chris Samuel

https://mastodon.acm.org/@chris_bloke

A Welsh/Aussie #HPC geek with lifelong interests in archaeology, history, astronomy and computing.

Cardiff -> Aberystwyth -> Malvern -> Melbourne -> Berkeley -> Philadelphia.

Blog: https://www.csamuel.org/
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/chrissamuel/

Public Key

npub1pwyun8emctuhzpvpfpqs8qcgn0zt0s5t9uhufkhparytgz87lzpspt8vv0

NIP-05 Address

chris_bloke_at_mastodon.acm.org@momostr.pink

Profile Code

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Last Notes

2026-04-23 00:10:00 UTC

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they painted the name on upside down! (sorry, couldn't resist)

2026-04-07 01:40:23 UTC

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Here am I tapping on my tablet
High above the Earth
Now the screen is blue
And there’s nothing I can do…
Ground control to Major Tom
Your Outlook’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you reboot it, Major Tom?
Can you reboot it, Major Tom?
#filk #parody #artemis

2026-02-26 03:05:55 UTC

If you're ever thinking "oh my work will never come to anything" spare a thought for Robert Recorde of Tenby in Wales. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
He invented the equals sign (=) in 1557 (the year before he died) "to auoide the tediouſe repetition of theſe woordes : is equalle to" - and was promptly ignored for 61 years before being picked up again in 1618.
#mathematics #Wales #Cymru

2026-01-26 03:00:37 UTC

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yeah, I've been out 4 times today shovelling and learned that sleet is heavier than snow... 😬 ❄️
I think Philly got over 22cm, and it's still going.

2025-11-29 01:24:01 UTC

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er, I am puzzled by multiple references to:
> Use the SAFETY CLIP - CIRCUIT BREAKER as necessary.
🧷

2025-11-29 01:19:21 UTC

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yeah could be - I just found this PDF with the work instructions but I don't think it gives much extra insight into the cause. https://avherald.com/files/AOT-A27N022-25-00.pdf

2025-11-29 00:53:22 UTC

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it's odd that the fix for many aircraft is to revert to an earlier version of the software.
Someone took a shortcut they shouldn't for some reason. Maybe dropped some bounds/error checking?

2025-07-16 01:45:12 UTC

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I suspect that is C/1908 R1 Morehouse and I wonder if it's part of this yet to be digitised collection? https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co56443

2025-07-13 23:41:10 UTC

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well worth doing, I've got the DVDs from when I lived in the UK. Also visited Portmeirion in North Wales where most of the location filming was done. A really wild place, Clough Williams-Ellis who was the architect made something really unique! https://www.visitwales.com/destinations/north-wales/snowdonia/must-do-and-around-portmeirion

2025-07-13 22:50:30 UTC

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Patrick McGoohan called and wants his ball back. 😎 Be seeing you... 😉 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_(The_Prisoner)

2025-06-06 04:38:04 UTC

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Hmm, so an ideal location for a film called Loch, Stock and Two Whisky Barrels?
Sorry... #puns

2025-05-10 02:20:58 UTC

Well this could be awkward, the latest ESA prediction (thanks @npub1ucv…5a8g) of the reentry of Cosmos-482 puts its track pretty close to the Murchison Radio Observatory in the WA outback. 😬 🌠
ESA: https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/05/07/reentry-prediction-soviet-era-venera-venus-lander-cosmos-482-descent-craft/
MRO: https://virtualtours-external.csiro.au/MRO/
#cosmos482 #astronomy #Australia
https://mastodon.acm.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/481/123/232/919/722/original/ec2dfc94ab7d3a0a.png
https://mastodon.acm.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/481/131/646/383/692/original/a24c2831161a4e61.png

2025-03-06 15:28:01 UTC

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“I’m old enough to remember when IP addresses were still in school”
“Don’t be silly, IP addresses were never in school”
“They were in classes”

2025-01-26 19:05:37 UTC

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I've always wondered when does something transition from "rubbish dump" to "midden" in archaeology. 🙂
(seriously, middens and pits can tell us a huge amount about how people lived in the past, especially now we've got lipid analysis and other tools to tell us what was being cooked in pots we might find - intact or in pieces)

2025-01-05 20:53:04 UTC

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in 1992 the computer society at Aberystwyth was gifted an ICL Clan 4 deskside system where the TCP/IP stack was an optional extra, it had a single release and it had a bug.
What's the first thing most people do when they want to test their TCP/IP stack for the first time? They ping it.
Can you guess what packet crashed this TCP/IP stack?

2024-12-30 19:09:55 UTC

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I agree, sadly my home country was way ahead of that curve, this is from 2016.. 😠 https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/staff-wales-biggest-hospital-being-12140891

2024-12-21 23:30:26 UTC

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if you're not careful with how you ride it does it Hertz?

2024-12-08 21:29:29 UTC

The Australian science organisation CSIRO runs the numbers on power generation and once again nuclear power is about twice the cost of renewables (presumably not taking into account the cost of cleanup and long term storage either). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-09/nuclear-power-plant-twice-as-costly-as-renewables/104691114
The executive summary of the draft report is available as a PDF and neatly summarises the problems with the counter arguments made about last years report. https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost24-25-Executive.pdf

2024-11-10 18:52:53 UTC

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I don't know if you saw but PNG pulled out of Cop29 a few days ago because they say it's a waste of time. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/08/png-cop29-papua-new-guinea-un-climate-summit

2024-10-22 02:14:34 UTC

The debacle of Paradise Dam in Queensland is quite something, and really lucky that a determined engineer and their team was able to show that the situation was much more dangerous than suspected. Might interest you @npub1ucv…5a8g from an engineering point of view. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-22/paradise-dam-failure-rebuild-project-qld-election-water-issues/104009524 #engineering #australia

2024-08-10 05:24:38 UTC

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yeah it's wonderful! But if you do get the chance to see the southern sky then take it - it's amazing. Including the emu - an indigenous constellation made from the dark patches in the milky way, including the coalsack nebula. https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/coins-and-constellations

2024-08-10 04:54:03 UTC

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Erk. 😬 Yeah, would love to get somewhere really dark! When I was in Melbourne a couple of the folks at the observatory I helped out at said they'd gone into the central desert and found they couldn't recognise the usual constellations because there were so many more stars visible.

2024-08-10 03:58:24 UTC

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oh that's great! I miss having dark(ish) skies..

2024-07-30 05:16:39 UTC

The Oxford School of #Archaeology have resurrected their "Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland"! https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk/
Spectacular resource, the entries I've looked at have either aerial photography or LiDAR of the sites, plus a link to a PDF with imagery, description and summaries of excavations. You could lose yourself in it for ages.. #hillforts