Posts by Sam_B.

Climate change means beer made from sewer water, says North Carolina brewery

It would be helpful to indicate that you are using U.S. gallons in your measurements as, although the U.S. is the largest territory to still officially use gallons, a much larger area of the world still unofficially know gallons to be the 20 % larger imperial gallon.

Re: Wouldn't put me off

Not more efficient, just a lot cheaper.

Scientists speak their brains: Please don’t call us boffins

Re: Use of boffin, egghead, brainiac, ...

Personally I think Boffin is a warmer word making scientists/technicians/researchers/engineers, one of ours rather than something more cold and clinical (even if that is part of their job).

Egghead and Brainiac I would see as more commonly a bit rude but then I would generally regard them as more American terms.

Boffin may be diminutive, but in the way we use diminutives for friends and loved ones: They may be a bit eccentric but they're our eccentrics and we recognise the great work they do.

It may be a British/American thing.

Re: Usage

You see, that's the sort of comment that drives young people away from STEM subjects, not the risk of one day being referred to as a Boffin.

The ridiculous thing here is that they should be celebrating the use of the ungendered term Boffin, I'm quite sure the pilots soldiers etc didn't check the gender mix in the labs when they referred to the Boffins producing new equipment.

If the IOP want to improve things they should just start using the term more often alongside pictures of female Boffins.

Re: Hmmm

Manageress is unnecessarily genderising a previously ungendered role.

Move over, Kraftwerk: These musical instruments really are the robots

Re: old news

I was going to say, weren't Compressorhead there some time ago?

They're out gigging these days:

https://youtu.be/9gMX_hR-RoM

Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists

Not Good News for global warming.

Not good news at all as roughly 90% of the global warming caused by jet aviation is from the direct greenhouse effect of contrails not from CO2 emissions, so any trick like this to label air travel as carbon neutral will still mean efforts to reduce air travel or come up with genuine alternatives are undermined.

The reality is that levels of fast air transport need to massively reduce with the bulk taken over by electric rail transport. Obviously slower electric airship transport can also be a useful addition, but our present expectations to dash off to wherever we want, or to have plastic crap from China delivered in a day or two will need to be reconsidered if there is to be any hope of maintaining the livability of large areas of the planet.

When you think of a unit of length, do you think of Antony Gormley's rusty anatomy?

BS: not Bovine Excrement, but British Standards.

If the Angel of the North is 66' high then the newspaper were using exactly the same measurements used to measure the whole country (and yes I know it wasn't Britain at the time) for the Domesday Book of 1086 and found on those nice old leather cased surveyors tape measures till at least the '70s.

A Chain (22 yards or 66 feet) is a 10th of a Furlong (8 to a mile) and was the width of an Acre, which due to ploughing were measured not as squares, but as long strips a Chain wide and a Furrow long (furlong).

Back in the 11th Century, the chain was a physical chain with 100 links, which made the links a very odd length.

Obviously, these days referring to an asteroid's dimensions in Chains would confuse people as they wouldn't have a surveyor's tape handy to refer to so the newspaper just renamed one of the oldest British Standards for modern times.

Audacity users stick the knife – and fork – in to strip audio editor of unwanted features

Re: back to the etymological roots

Nice: a well constructed fork of the original name both close enough to imply the link but different enough not to be mistaken. Also still has the hint of Audio and an added one for Music.

Re: Bodacious

Yes, Bodacity was my first thought, but both Tuning Fork and Pluck are good too.

Gummy bears as a unit of measure? The Reg Standards Soviet will not stand for this sort of silliness

Regardless of edibility, the gummy bear is a useless unit of measurement as it is flexible so can be stretched or squashed to falsify measurements. The (uncooked) linguine has the proper attribute of not being variable in length, although as with the gummy bear a brand, country and possibly date of manufacture need to be included in the standard, as it has been pointed out that these may change the exact size. Luckily within normal (human bearable) temperature variations the Linguine is pretty stable.

Is there a "standard" Linguine stored in stable conditions somewhere in the vaults deep below Reg central ?

Up yours, Europe! Our 100% prime British broadband is cheaper than yours... but also slower and a bit of a rip-off

Re: @AC

Not sure why your sexuality is relevant (or is non-binary a reference to the analogue systems most of the network was built for ?) but, in the U.k. at least, he wiring/fibre to the house is the same for most of the companies you buy internet from: yes there are now a few companies actually putting new fibre in, but the bulk are still just selling you the same connection via the same equipment maintained by the same engineers, so the "free enterprise" is an entirely invented layer of profit making companies leaching off the customers. Had we not "Privatised" the GPO we would have had direct to house fibre, before there was even an internet to make use of it. And a lot cheaper as there wouldn't be multiple layers of companies who's only real role is to siphon money out to their investors.

Re: @AC

I'd prefer the fully socialist system where there is only one non profit (Govt.) provider as all utilities should be.

Blame it all on Thatcher; As I understand it, the GPO were planning to roll out full fibre nationally back in the 80s and had the production facilities in place before Thatcher's govt. decided to sell off those facilities and privatise the phones, sticking us with the copper wiring that still limits most of our speeds. Not much point having superfast fibre at the exchange when you've got a mile of copper, with who knows how many junctions and repairs getting affected by atmospheric conditions before reaching your house.

If it weren't for Thatcher, we'd have had Superfast broadband before there was even an internet to connect to it.

England's COVID-tracking app finally goes live after 6 months of work – including backpedal on how to handle data

Re: (thanks to Cummings)

The Cummings incident was certainly a turning point, and personally I don't see it as accidental, given that Cummings has always promoted the "herd immunity" approach, and until his little outings (the second required because no-one really noticed the first) people were still being sensible and not taking many risks even though the lockdown had been loosened.

Re: "wearing masks outdoors when moving"

A personal chauffeur would tend to be part of your bubble, especially if upholding the tradition of servicing the wife for you as well.

Re: Never mind

But unfortunately, they are the very people who refuse to wear one.

Re: Never mind all the studies

The charlatans did their best to avoid advising masks, and were making a point of shaking hands and going to large gatherings, until they got it themselves.

The advice from charlatans to avoid is the advice that it's safe to go back to work or to the pub, or get on public transport; this advice was purely designed to start making money and nothing to do with the actual safety of the general public.

Re: Never mind

I must admit I haven't come across these studies you refer to. The ones I've been reading largely suggest that masks of pretty well any sort, and certainly proper well fitted ones, considerably reduce the chances of you passing the COVID19 virus to other people, and that social distancing at 2m is also effective in reducing the spread in both directions. It is pretty obvious that the fewer moisture containing micro droplets from your breath that reach another person, either by attenuation or by distance, the less chance they have of catching anything from you. It is possible that the massive drop off in cases after lockdown started was a complete coincidence, but what makes you think that coming in to contact with far fewer people isn't going to reduce your chances of catching something from someone, and of course, the even more rapid increase of the number of cases after people went back to pubs and other social interactions must also be a coincidence.

What would you prefer: Satellite-streamed cat GIFs – or a decent early warning of an asteroid apocalypse?

Anyone for crowd funding a satellite that sits in their path then gives them a little shove towards the sun?

Winter is coming, and with it the UK's COVID-19 contact-tracing app – though health minister says it's not a priority

So fewer than 40% of the IoW population downloaded the app. Theory says you need around 60% for it to work.

I wonder if the low percentage was for an app in general, or for a centralised database app run by Cummings and co.

Original WWII German message decrypts to go on display at National Museum of Computing

Re: Terminology

Metric Tonne is a Tautology, but it is also irrelevant if compared to an Imperial or Long Ton as you do, as the mass of the machine is unlikely to be exactly 1 Tonne, to better than the 2% accuracy of 1 Ton. On the other hand it may become relevant when compared to the U.S. or Short Ton which is 93Kg out, and still in common usage.

Re: Terminology

That used to be the UK pronunciation when I was at school, but Alister was referring to the Imperial Long Ton of 2240lb not the American Short Ton of 2000lb.

Slap visibility beacons on bikes so they can chat to auto autos, says trade body

Re: Cycling is a Victorian mode of transport...

Cars are also a Victorian mode of transport, and much less suited to city roads, and the health of the planet and the user, than cycles are.

Re: Education

Yes, flashing lights are illegal, if they don't show a constant light as well, and I'm pretty certain there are regulations about the brightness of vehicle lights, and there has been an indication that over bright after market car lights are going to be prosecuted, but unfortunately the number of police these days is so small, that even if there are rules, no-one's going to enforce them. Part of the trouble is that cyclists have spent so many years with crap little lights which had to shine straight at drivers to be seen, they haven't got used to dipping these new ones.

Re: If we cyclists agree to beacons how about...

Yes, they are responsible if they cause an accident or run down a pedestrian as the recent court case has shown, but the risk to other road users and pedestrians is minimal, as the statistics show. Pedestrians are the cause of more accidents, so are you going to have to have a licence to walk ?

This is going to be the whole thing with driverless cars: Can't make the technology safe for normal road use, so adapt the roads and the users to fit the driverless cars. As soon as drivers, and their cars are assuming cyclists have beacons, there will be a lot more cyclists without beacons getting run down, not to mention the pedestrians. This may be ok in the U.S. where it's already illegal to walk across the road, but will mean huge changes in the U.K.

Full shift to electric vans would melt Royal Mail's London hub, MPs told

Of course they do have over 11,000 m^2 of roof, so possibly as much as 1.5MW of solar capacity.

UK Land Registry opens books on corporate owners

Re: The interesting one will be how much land around the UK is owned by the big builders.*

In the garages on the recent Wainhomes estates round here, there's dropped floor level relative to the room or passage it has a door into, and a raised brick skirt round the walls which is just the right level to put floor joists on to lay a floor at room/corridor level. I don't know how the rules or finances work, but I can only assume there's some advantage to the builder selling a 2 bed house with garage and the buyer converting it to a 3 bed without, although having the easy conversion may just make them easier to sell

Re: May I introduce you to...

That is only part of the one we were taught: I before E except after C when the sound is a long E.

Milk IN the teapot: Innovation or abomination?

Scalding the leaves is normally regarded as a positive thing, in fact a requirement, when making "normal" tea, but should be avoided with green and white teas.

Are bearded blokes more sexist?

It would be interesting to try this survey in the UK where according to the media, beards tend to be associated with Old Lefties or young Hipsters.

It would be interesting to try this survey in the UK where beards tend to be associated with Old Lefties or young Hipsters.