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martinclayton

358 karma · joined March 27, 2017

Consulting Technologist. UCL alumnus, UK-based.

Former astronomer and ex-Starlink (no, not that one).

Co-author of https://foximax.com/ word game.

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martinclayton··on Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil
ESA is a separate entity to the EU.

(When the UK left the EU it was able to remain in ESA because of this separation.)

martinclayton··on Hacking IKEA Furniture
Some time ago I realised that second-hand Ikea furniture is a cheap source of material for DIY projects. Facebook Marketplace (UK) has plenty of Pax cupboards which provide useful large boards. Prices vary, but you can pick up almost pristine items for almost nothing. If you don't need whole boards, spot damage is acceptable. Buying similar new materials would perhaps be better, but cost considerably more.
martinclayton··on The other Sean Byrne doesn't exist
One option might be for the real Sean Byrne to move to the address in Sligo of the fictitious one, then ask to be removed from the Entity List on the grounds that he is a real person. I think that wouldn't work, and could be life-changing in a bad way, but it's an idea.
martinclayton··on Nearest Pint
Dataset does seem sketchy. My village has two pubs, neither appear. Two non-pub licensed locations (social club, stately home) do appear. The dot for the pub in the next village is off by about 100m.
martinclayton··on App Store Rejection of the Week: Dark Hours
The words astro-nomy and astro-logy are similar, but this is no "fluke".

There's a Wikipedia article with some history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology_and_astronomy

I imagine astronomers have been sighing resignedly at dinner parties for a couple of millenia:

In the Hellenistic world, the Greek words 'astrologia' and 'astronomia' were often used interchangeably, but they were conceptually not the same.

In his compilatory work Etymologiae [c. 625], Isidore of Seville noted explicitly the difference between the terms astronomy and astrology (Etymologiae, III, xxvii) and the same distinction appeared later in the texts of Arabian writers.

martinclayton··on The difference between "today's task" and "accretive work"
No mention of chikenized reverse-centaurs in this piece?

I find these neologisms helpful as they quite precisely capture the intended meaning and are easy to remember. Doctorow is an impressive and entertaining communicator, and being an author he needs to market himself and his work, so fair play to him for trying to score a hit follow up to "enshittification".

The earliest use of "centaur" in this sort of context I know of is Kasparov's advanced chess idea from the late 1990s: "a bad (chess) player with a good computer program will always beat a good player with a bad program". How far we travelled since then...

martinclayton··on David Hockney, Who Restored the Human Form to Art, Dies at 88
His work with photography influenced my thinking in the 1980s. The ideas of viewing time and moving focus I think are significant in human experience.

He talks about it, and you can see some of these works in a YT vid here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5vWgKy2Sc

martinclayton··on World Capitals Voronoi
Dublin knabs a decent chunk of Great Britain, Copenhagen gets southern Sweden. Seems fair.
martinclayton··on Michael Burry says neither SpaceX nor Anthropic is worth $1T
Tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars for listing. But they make money from the trading and associated services they facilitate, hence the desire to have the largest most liquid stocks.

https://resourcehub.bakermckenzie.com/en/resources/cross-bor...

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/050515/how-n...

martinclayton··on Michael Burry says neither SpaceX nor Anthropic is worth $1T
Yeah, indeed. See (march) https://www.reuters.com/business/new-nasdaq-rules-include-fa...

Quote from Cameron Lilja, Nasdaq's global head of index solutions:

"It is not necessarily representative to have a company that's big and could have a sizable representation in the index to keep them out for that long," Lilja said in an interview. "We're seeing share and corporate structures change - and companies that are staying private considerably longer are thus growing to be truly mega-cap companies before they even come to the public markets."

There's been fewer IPOs recently so Nasdaq and competitors are all racing to woo the few big ones to list with them.

martinclayton··on Michael Burry says neither SpaceX nor Anthropic is worth $1T
What's the rationale offered by NASDAQ for their new "15-days and you're in the index" rule for these massive IPOs?

Seems equivalent to removing road safety rules for the least-tested, most-powerful new vehicles only.

martinclayton··on Michael Burry says neither SpaceX nor Anthropic is worth $1T
(Agreeing with you) In the 1980s Gary Shilling said:

The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

A long-term principle that I think does still apply.

martinclayton··on Laws of Software Engineering
This resonates with "the bitter lesson" somehow, interesting...

...On reading more it seems of use primarily in adversarial situations, so not-so-much resonant.

martinclayton··on AI for American-produced cement and concrete
Wet cement is kind of sloppy, so this makes some sense.
martinclayton··on Voith Schneider Propeller
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26339421
martinclayton··on Show HN: A free online British accent generator for instant voice conversion
I was expecting regional accent options, so disappointed.
martinclayton··on xAI joins SpaceX
I'm pleased that Blue Origin and others are making progress on reusable flight hardware, because I fear that SpaceX will itself suffer a "RUD" for non-engineering reasons.
martinclayton··on Show HN: The HN Arcade
Added mine ... let's see... https://foximax.com (word puzzle)
martinclayton··on Let's Decrypt dot org redirects to the NSA
Seems Let's Encrypt also have control of https://letsdecrypt.org.

It takes you to https://www.nsa.gov rather than Let's Encrypt home.

Conspiracy? I think not, but others might.

martinclayton··on 10 Years of Let's Encrypt
Seems Let's Encrypt also have control of https://letsdecrypt.org.

It takes you to https://www.nsa.gov rather than Let's Encrypt.

Not sure what to make of that!

martinclayton··on What influence has the BBC had on history?
https://archive.is/fbKl4
martinclayton··on What influence has the BBC had on history?
An aside:

I always understood that Broadcasting House was inspiration for Room 101 (Ministry of Love) rather than the MoT.

It's well-known that the University of London Senate House building was the inspiration for the Ministry of Truth. Both the interior and exterior have appeared in many films and TV shows. Seems to come out of the visual creative toolbox when there's a need to evoke oppression or technocratic stultification through architecture, which is a shame as it's rather nice to visit!

martinclayton··on AI-Assisted Scientific Research?
This looks like "science-slop", but why has it been placed at this URL?
martinclayton··on What happened to Apple's legendary attention to detail?
Nice touch having U2's song "Every Breaking Wave" playing in one of the screen grabs ... that being the second track on the (in)famous "free" 2014 iTunes release of their album "Songs of Innocence".
martinclayton··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2025)
Two-player adversarial version of https://foximax.com

Porting a trivia quiz game I wrote 25 years ago from a Java Applet to the modern-day web. Has a scoring mechanism like golf (par-5 harder, par-3 easier, wrong answer choice costs a shot, etc.) Funny how one's code looks the same or different after 25-years!

A couple of other things I can't mention for various reasons... hopefully next time.

martinclayton··on America is getting an AI gold rush instead of a factory boom
https://archive.is/TY950
martinclayton··on Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans
I have to admit I thought it might be "like that" before I read the article. But I don't think Chris Stringer would be a co-author on the paper if there was an issue of bias.

While this work is impressive, it is just one skull and, as the article points out, seems statistically anomalous, and therefore interesting.

martinclayton··on 60 years after Gemini, newly processed images reveal details
Fabulous, obviously.

I found the headline image confusing - thought it was a Sontaran (Dr. Who baddie) in there! Aldrin's face and the earth reflection are quite confusing to the eye.

martinclayton··on Prime Number Grid
Hours of fun (stimulation?) to be had...

Try these shapes: 100x113, then 100x114, then 100x115, the "patterns" swing from slant down, to vertical, to slant up.

I'd love this (even more) with some animation and colo(u)r options.

martinclayton··on Wick Effect
The Leeds case sounds a bit disturbing: they used real human fat and "simulated" clothing for an experiment. Seems odd that it was easy to find real human fat, but they had to resort to simulating clothing. I guess in 1963 fast fashion wasn't a thing.
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