Re: Magnetic as motion
You are MfM and I claim my £5!
Posts by KittenHuffer
366 posts • joined 10 Dec 2018
The results are in: Science says the Solar System's magnetic heliosphere looks like a deflated croissant
Thursday 6th August 2020 07:11 GMT 
Re: Aren't we lucky!
For a planet to be inside a heliosphere it needs to be near (or preferably in orbit around) a star. So orphan planets are out of luck, but ALL of the exoplanets that we've found so far qualify.
Planets without a (or with a weak) magnetic field will slowly have their atmosphere stripped by the solar wind. So planets without a significant magnetic field either end up with little to no atmosphere (e.g. Mars) or have a deep, thick, boiling, crushing atmosphere (e.g. Venus) that will take billions of years to strip away.
So if you look for an atmosphere that's thick enough, but not too thick, and is gonna be around long enough for life to evolve then the heliosphere and magnetic field can pretty much be assumed.
I am of course discounting extremophiles, the likes of which we might just find living on Mars or in the clouds of Venus. But that's because we've not been able to find them on Mars or Venus, which are both in our own backyard. If there are extremophiles living on an exoplanet we have zero chance of finding them from here with our present (or near future) technology.
So many stars, so little time: Machine learning helps astroboffins spot the most oxygen-starved galaxy yet
Monday 3rd August 2020 08:27 GMT
Before following that link ......
xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing.
911, I wanna report a robbery. Hundreds of thousands of stars stolen from a cluster. I think it was the Milky Way
Thursday 30th July 2020 06:12 GMT
Re: Light years not a measure of distance
Your new theory should explain everything else that the old theory explained, it should also explain something that the old theory did not explain, and then should predict something that can then be tested.
I'm prepared to wait on the third item, but please outline how your wonderful new theory handles the first two requirements. If you're unable to do that then please stop typing such drivel into the comments sections of science stories.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a charred white dwarf star blasted across our galaxy by an ancient semi-supernova
Google employs people to invent colours – and they think their work improves your wellbeing
CEO of motherboard maker MSI dies after plunging from headquarters' seventh-floor
Cereal Killer Cafe enters hipster heaven, heads online: Coronavirus blamed for shutters being pulled down
Remember that black hole just 1,000 light years from Earth? Scientists queue up to say it may not exist after all
Thursday 2nd July 2020 08:06 GMT 
I feel an overwhelming urge to quote Holly!
Well, the thing about a black hole - its main distinguishing feature - is it's black. And the thing about space, the colour of space, your basic space colour, is black. So how are you supposed to see them?
And before anyone mentions it .... Yes! This is a copy & paste from my post for the last black hole story. But it actually fits better here!
Because she also has an IQ of 6000 --------------->
(+/-5999)
Beware the fresh Windows XP install: Failure awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth
Friday 26th June 2020 09:43 GMT
Re: chewed wires
The caster wheels for chairs are easy (and relatively cheap) to replace.
I figured this several months ago whilst battling HR for a chair that could be raised an extra inch to give me a comfortable working position. Unfortunately the monolithic HR department I was dealing with couldn't understand that someone wanted something that had never been asked for before, and which didn't fit their policies.
I had reached the point of reading the UK Gov document on seating at w**k (https://www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/priced/hsg57.pdf) and listing all of the places where their policy fell short, when I discovered that larger than normal casters were easily available. I decided that rather than having a months long battle with a bunch of useless box-tickers (all while suffering aches and pains from a chair that wasn't high enough) that I'd buy a set of oversize caster and fit them to my chair during the quiet hours.
Looking back now I wonder why I let them off so easily. I think that when I'm back w**king in the orifice I'll bring it up again and see what I can do about forcing them to change their policies.
Detroit cops cuffed, threw a dad misidentified by facial recognition in jail. Now the ACLU's demanding action
Grav wave boffins are unsure if they just spotted the smallest black hole or the biggest neutron star seen yet
'Work pressure' sees Maze ransomware gang demand payoff from wrong company
No Wiggle room: Two weeks after angry bike shop customers report mystery orders on their accounts, firm confirms payment cards delinked
Bloke rolls up to KFC drive-thru riding horse-drawn cart only to be told: Neigh
Trump's Make Space Great Again video pulled after former 'naut says: Nope
Astroboffins peering back in time with Hubble find stars may have been flickering into life even earlier than thought
Friday 5th June 2020 07:14 GMT
Re: Unhelpful sugestion
That would actually be quite interesting if it is true, as our current understanding of physics is that it would not have been the case. It would mean that there is something new for us to learn.
IIRC currently we believe that by the time (almost) all of the anti-matter had been eliminated, and the energy level had dropped far enough for an atomic nucleus to form, that the density/pressure had dropped to a level that Hydrogen (and a little Helium and Lithium) would be the only atoms to form.
It was only in the heart of the Population III stars that the density/pressure rose high enough to start making heavier elements.
As I say it would be quite interesting as it would require new physics, but is probably very unlikely for the same reason.
Nice wallpaper you've got there. It would be a shame if it bricked your phone
COVID-19 sparks new wearables to push the pandemic away
Tech's Volkswagen moment? Trend Micro accused of cheating Microsoft driver QA by detecting test suite
AT&T tracked its own sales bods using GPS, secretly charged them $135 a month to do so, lawsuit claims
Tuesday 19th May 2020 12:27 GMT
Re: Telekom
The other thing to consider for Leftpondians is that most of them suffer a virtual monopoly when it comes to telecom companies. Those AT&T customers probably don't have a viable alternative that they can go to, so AT&T can't be punished for this sort of behaviour by customers voting with their feet.
Worried about the magnetic North Pole sprinting towards Russia? Don't be, boffins say, it'll be back sooner or later
Australians can demand visitors to their homes run contact-tracing app
Mad dash for webcams with surge in videoconferencing has turned out rather nicely for Logitech
CEO of AI surveillance upstart Banjo walks the plank after white supremacist past sinks contracts
Tuesday 12th May 2020 06:46 GMT
My thoughts were along the same lines as well. How long before a person can be forgiven for past actions? How long before they are rehabilitated?
The way he is being treated it seems that the answer is never. In which case wouldn't it just be kinder to euthanise all people convicted of crimes above a certain level, as this would be better than the cruel and unusual punishment of hanging the crime around their necks for the rest of their lives.
'We're changing shift, and no one can log on!' It was at this moment our hero knew server-lugging chap had screwed up
DBA locked in police-guarded COVID-19-quarantine hotel for the last week shares his story with The Register
There's a black hole lurking within 1,000 light years of Earth – and you can see stars circling it with the naked eye
Quick Q: Er, why is the Moon emitting carbon? And does this mean it wasn't formed from Theia hitting Earth?
So you've set up MFA and solved the Elvish riddle, but some still think passwords alone are secure enough
Thursday 7th May 2020 07:29 GMT
Re: ... tens of thousands across the world were using such Fort Knox-style gems
They might have just done a dictionary attack on their own users to get an idea of what percentage were vulnerable to such an attack. I know that if I were in such a business it would be something I would at least suggest to manglement.
California’s privacy warriors are back – and this time they want to take their fight all the way to the ballot box
Thursday 7th May 2020 07:21 GMT
I really hope this happens, and that the Usual Suspects are forced into being more open and honest about what they have on you and what they use it for. If it does happen then it'll be the thin end of the wedge, and other States/Countries will be able to say that they want what California are getting.
It won't destroy their business model cos so many will not care, but those of us that do will be able to go to the Usual Suspects every few months and tell them to delete everything that they have on us.
Singapore to require smartphone check-ins at all businesses and will log visitors' national identity numbers
Where were you in drought season? Interstellar comet 2I/Borisov dumped 230 million litres of water as it whizzed through Solar System
Microsoft decrees that all high-school IT teachers were wrong: Double spaces now flagged as typos in Word
Singapore's corona-crushing superhero squad grounded by football fans
Baby, I swear it's déjà vu: TalkTalk customers unable to opt out of ISP's ad-jacking DNS – just like six years ago
COVID-19 is pretty nasty but maybe this is taking social distancing too far? Universe may not be expanding equally in all directions
Thursday 9th April 2020 07:25 GMT
This needs a bigger better study
There is a phrase coined by Carl Sagan that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". And since the current cosmological thinking (and prevailing evidence) is that the Universe is flat to within 0.5% then this claim needs to be supported by some pretty extraordinary exidence, which doesn't appear to be there yet.
Summary of the current cosmological thinking:
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-87-the-shape-of-the-universe-bce004916a33
If the Universe wasn't expanding evenly then that would suggest that it isn't flat (to within 0.5%) and I would have expected this to show up in the analysis of the CMB.
