Posts by Michael M

Eggheads have crunched the numbers and the results are in: It's not just your dignity you lose with e-scooters, life and limb are in peril, too

Yep, take it out the boot of your car and go home.

The top three attributes for getting injured on e-scooters? Having no helmet, being drunk or drugged, oddly enough

Obvious solution to reduce 200 San Diego road deaths.

People convicted of DUI must be permanently made to ride scooters rather than cars. Scooter riders aren't going to smash into and kill an innocent family.

My MacBook Woe: I got up close and personal with city's snatch'n'dash crooks (aka some bastard stole my laptop)

Re: That's horrible.

Yes. That's the very definition of Product Placement.

After repeated warnings Facebook bans Britain First for 'inciting hatred'

So, from that phrase, it's "minority" that you find objectionable.

Swiss see Telly Tax as a Big Plus, vote against scrapping it

What UK BBC 'talent' get in a year is what their American counterparts would expect in a week.

The Mail vs Wikipedia: They're more alike than they'd ever admit

Yes. Yes. Yes. Hardly disguising. "We want your money" is perpetually on its front page.

Barcodes stamped on breast implants and medical equipment

Re: But how toSc know if someone has an implant?

Inserting/removing the stirrer from the urethra can ... sting a bit. So I've heard.

Cynical Apple gouges UK with 20 per cent price hike

MSFT at it too

"Microsoft to raise prices by up to 22pc after slump in pound" is another headline from the Telegraph.

'Strategic' submarine cable to connect islands where locals just emerged from stone age

From the headline I thought the Isle of Wight was finally going to get BT Infinity.

Got to dash out for some rubber johnnies? Amazon has a button for that

If Amazon arrive in under 5 minutes you get an embarrassed apology.

How to save Wikipedia: Start paying editors ... or write for machines

Re: Is it a monopoly?

"Treat encyclopaedias as the start of your journey to find out about a topic, not the final destination" is a wider truth.

It's Wikipedia mythbuster time: 8 of the best on your 15th birthday

How amused will the Daily Mail readers will be to find out that nugget.

Google robo-car suffers brain freeze after seeing hipster cyclist

Re: '...useful during track cycling spring races...'

Don't concern yourself, it's all in the passed.

Wikipedia jumps aboard the bogus 'freedom of panorama' bandwagon

EU snipers

Mr Orlowski is aligning himself with Civil War General John Sedgwick's last words: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance". Never assume terrible laws will not pass, protest them just the same.

Scientists love MacBooks (true) – but what about you?

Sheeple?

There are many arguments for/against buying a Mac but the 90% criticizing the 10% for following the herd is one I could never quite understand.

The 'echo chamber' effect misleading people on climate change

Re: Consensus is not science

Science is 100% about consensus. It's about you being right and everybody else being wrong. About having the only theory that explains all the experimental data. It's about everybody else slowly discarding their pet theories and accepting the one you thought of. It's about challenging the current consensus with a new idea, such as Barry Marshall showing the connection between Helicobacter pylori and stomach ulcers. to become the newer, better consensus.

In religion, art, politics and sport and all other forms of human endeavour you will not find consensus. Science is the one activity we do that you can find consensus. Consensus is never immediate but it eventually happens and science does not move forward without it. It doesn't mean 100% consensus, I imagine Fred Hoyle went to his grave believing in the Steady State model but those outside the consensus get sidelined and forgotten. If we are going to bet on the future it'd be advisable to bet on the 19/1 on favourite aka the consensus.

World's only flyable WWII Lancaster bombers meet in Lincs

Re: Bah!

There is an extra a. I'll leave it to the diligent readers to spot the obvious mistake.

'Polar vortex' or not, last month among the warmest Januaries recorded

Re: The BBC tells us what's really happening

Well done Prof Francis. Two clear sentences.

What kind of point do you think you're scoring by noting that scientists don't know everything about a polar vortex in February 2014? We're posing questions about the effect of increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere over decades. Where do you actually want your information from? If not from "the experts" then who?

To date, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record (since 1880) have occurred during the 21st century. Only one year during the 20th century—1998—was warmer than 2013. I bet Prof Francis wouldn't have a difficult job teasing out a climate change signal from that.

Study: Arctic warming at 'stunning' rate – highest temps in 44,000 years

Re: LarsG

You're using the local weather and they're comparing the climate. Yes. Chicago and Washington have different local weather and average temperatures but do you have any reason to believe that the relationship in average temperatures between the two places has changed over the centuries. 44,000 years ago Chicago wasn't tropical while Washington was ice-bound. It's highly probable that both were equally colder/warmer.

If the two places are at the same latitudes and similar sites eg both large islands it increases the validity of comparing climates. So, you compare sites on Baffin Island and Greenland now and use that difference when comparing data from the past.

Re: Surfs up!

The trick will be in deciding how many miles inland the beach will be.

If a climate scientist wrote a paper that the sun was coming up tomorrow Watts would find "problems" with it.

Let me know if the American Geophysical Union have any problems with it.

Google menaces Apple's 3-year-old toddler with its cheap stream tech

"...and Google is offering three months of Netflix free with the device."

It stopped that before the weekend.

Linux 3.11 to be known as 'Linux for Workgroups'

Linux 95?

Will the fact that this will occur after the sun becomes a red giant preclude the naming of Linux 95 being equally snappy.

I'm assuming, in the above, that the entity known as 'Linus' is by then a loadable module, as are the rest of the kernel writers.

Wind farms make you sick … with worry and envy

> Strangely many older people in the village seem to develop cancer,

Who says the Germans don't have a sense of humour. It's too subtle for some readers here.

Era of the Pharaohs: Climate was hotter than now, without CO2

Re: BEST - warmist?

You seem to be under some illusion that Climatologists are the only group putting forward AGW when in fact I am not aware of a single professional body of scientists or engineers who dispute AGW.

An example from the Institute of Civil Engineers: "The science is clear: Climate Change is a reality. Engineers must now be in engaged in responding to the challenges and threats which Climate Change poses to our built environment."

Permafrost melt to boost atmospheric CO₂ faster than thought

Re: What about plant cover?

"Just how is the sun supposed to get to that deep permafrost layer anyway?" It says in the article, google thermokarst failure.

Cisco unwraps Unified Access boxes in East London

Re: "Now you can get plugged in to the wireless revolution"

I believe this is what is known, in the technical jargon that is all too common these days, as a "joke".

Frenchmen's sperm plunges by a third in quality and quantity since '89

Re: Old news

At some hospital, somewhere in the UK, a klaxon has gone off and they are doing a roll call.

John McAfee blogs from Guatemalan jail, says coffee excellent

Re: Joke alert

This illustrates the sad decline of journalism - why is a free trial gag not in the story.

Steady Antarctic ice growth 'limits confidence in climate predictions'

Expertise?

If the Register is going to continue posting these climate trolling articles should they not think of employing an actual scientist to write them who can actually speak about the subject instead of people who write about the climate because they, you know, use umbrellas and have been skiing and stuff.

Revealed! Prime Minister's iPad 'dashboard' for controlling Britain

Re: "Controlling Britain"

So you faked your death, Mr Saville.

Businessweek: 'It's Global Warming, Stupid'

Pandora boss urges 85% pay cut for musicians

Value for money

Reading this I see El Reg also "price their valuable product or service at what it's worth".

Don't panic: Arctic methane emissions have been going on for ages

Re: The Life Of Brian

So this storm, is it a new thing or do storms occur every year? If they occur every year it doesn't really affect the record. If it is a new thing is it one more thing to worry about that new storms increase sea ice melt?

Climate sceptic? You're probably a 'Birther', don't vaccinate your kids

Re: climate sceptic

"We simply don't know." Which 'we' is this? The 'we' I'm concerned about is myself and climate scientists and that 'we' does know.

New hottest-ever extreme temperature records now easier to achieve

Watts Up

I imagine Anthony Watts will be most pleased. He is forever going on about incorrectly made temperature readings that are too high. This one's for you, Tony.

Error found in climate modelling: Too many droughts predicted

Rate of change

..."climate change is occurring: and indeed that it always has been."

I'd dismiss car-crashes by saying decelerations happen on the time.

Ice core shows Antarctic Peninsula warming is nothing unusual

Climate news at El Reg?

It's like getting your IT information from Horse and Hound.

Arctic ice shrinks to ‘smallest in satellite era’ - NASA

Re: Percent

Given that the record in 2007 did not happen for a few weeks, todays ice extent, according to IARC-JAXA, is 16.5% below the same day in 2007.

Re: BREAKING NEWS! Ice is melting in the summer!

Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years

Christophe Kinnard, Christian M. Zdanowicz, David A. Fisher, Elisabeth Isaksson, Anne de Vernal & Lonnie G. Thompson

Nature 479, 509–512 (24 November 2011)

or googling "Kinnard arctic" gives it as the top hit.

Re: BREAKING NEWS! Ice is melting in the summer!

For the last 1400 years summer ice levels have never before dropped below 8 million square km (Kinnard et al, 2011) and now, in the last 30 years they have dropped below 5 million. So, what's this natural process that has just occurred in recent times then?

Why British TV drama is crap – and why this matters to tech firms

As William Goldman said...

...of people in Hollywood - "Nobody Knows Anything". I admire how Mr O is bringing this ethos to The Register.

1930s photos show Greenland glaciers retreating faster than today

Industrial Revolution

I was taught it started in the mid-18th century and was virtually over by the 1840s. All that coal being burnt in steam engines for 100 years might have begun to have an effect.

I note that in figure 2 of the article you can see how much more melting is going on in the 2000-2010 decade.

Foxconn to create workers' paradise?

100 Years Behind

Foxconn may have been converted to the benefits of Fordism by deciding to providing a wage which makes it more likely that its employees can actually afford the products they make.

Study finds water cycle accelerating with warming

Re: Not a global effect...

It's almost as if "changes in the water cycle are running faster".

Gaia scientist Lovelock: 'I was wrong and alarmist on climate'

Retirement:

It does seem to affect scientists badly. Since they are no longer generating data they do tend to grasp for relevance by going for the soundbite. This seems to apply no matter the belief. They all end up more like columnists.

Arctic Ocean may be releasing its methane

Re: Missing heat

Decisions decisions - shall I wait for the paper to come out or analyse the readings from 3500 over the last 10 years and then integrate it into the other readings from the last 50 years... That's a toughie.

I might even trust that the American Association for the Advancement of Science have provided an accurate precis of the paper.

Re: PPM

For an 80Kg man, a 500mg paracetamol pill is 1 part in 160,000. At 4 parts in 10,000 he would be taking 64 pills.

Re: So, how much gas per day ?

There are 1,000,000 sq metres in a sq km so your figures should be 28.1 million tons per day.

Educating Rory: Are BBC reporters unteachable?

Coding at school

I'd rather some form of coding was introduced in Primary school and then in year 1 and 2 as a small part of Maths and parts of other subjects (scripting in Excel or Photoshop type apps). I would advise students that a qualification in computing was a waste of the chance to study another subject especially at A-Level.