* Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson

4245 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007

40,000 sign petition to oust Rep. Paul 'pit of hell' Broun

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

I must say what most gets up my nose is that they insist on literal meaning of the bible when it comes to facts, but tend to ignore the more important moral and ethical message it has.

As a kid, I was an atheist at a Catholic (Jesuit) school (in the Netherlands). That school had very sensible ideas about science and religion, and how the two need not be at loggerheads. I was especially invited by a Jesuit priest to join a discussion group on philosophical and religious issues, precisely because I was an atheist. He did not want to convert me, he wanted someone to challenge religious dogma. "I want the pupils to think about religion, not just accept what I say" were his words.

There were, and are many scientist who are devout Christians. Let any one of them take over this idiot's place in the committee.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Earth is 9,000 years old...

Remember Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman have shown that the date and time derived by bishop Usher and his co-worker was inaccurate.

By a quarter of an hour

LOHAN plugs into some hot LiPo treatment

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

My only point is that it is unaffected by the low density of the air. It is convective transfer (along with a bit of diffusion) which takes a dive. If the object is in direct sunlight, radiative transfer may cause it to warm up.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

At altitude, heat will still radiate away, as radiative heat transfer still works in a vacuum. It is convective transfer which will be much less. However, the very low temperatures may offset that (larger heat gradient).

US trounces UK in climate scepticism jibber-jabber

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

May I still enjoy my popcorn?

Carbon neutral, organic, corn, heated with a little bit of polyunsaturated (organic!) oil, of course!!

Home-grown drone finds ‘missing’ hiker

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

And at even higher accuracy, you can hit him on the head with it!!

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Improved accuracy

I suppose you would like it to have a fixed undercarriage, a curious crook in each wings, and designation JU87

EU green-lights 'copyright land grab' law on orphan work

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

@Kevin Johnston

"I assume by 'reliably tagging' you mean finding a way to stop media companies 'accidentally' stripping out the tagging information supplied by the creator."

Precisely: this is what digital watermarking is about: this inclusion in the actual photograph of a data identifying its origin. A well-designed watermark cannot be stripped accidentally, but requires a concerted effort. Ideally, stripping the watermark should degrade the image enough to make it useless for many purposes. In practice, many attacks on existing watermarks exist, but watermarks are getting better. Digital watermarking is still an active area of research.

'X Factor for tech is going to be OUTTA THIS WORLD'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

"X-Factor for Tech will be out of this world!"

Does this mean Elon Musk is involved?

Prehistoric-super-tooth dentists drill DIAMONDS into duck-billed 'saur riddle

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Sounds like these beasts could rid us of bracken

No other creature seems to want to eat that stuff. Forget getting velociraptors for a Jurassic Park experience, get us some hadrosaurs to chomp away at bracken!

4K vs OLED: and the winner is...

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Ummn

25% of brain power? 25% of the brain power of an amoeba suffices for a dreadful number of shows on the tele (X-factor, anyone?). Sometimes I feel the only way to enjoy shows is to switch all higher brain functions off completely.

Perth porkfest crowned ULTIMATE BACON SARNIE

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Oh Noes Another Church ??

No worries: Pasta and bacon go together very well (witness spaghetti alla carbonara)

Archaeologists resume Antikythera Mechanism hunt

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

The Ultimate Prior Art?

I bet Samsung is hoping they find the case of the device, and that it has rounded corners

Samsung claims Apple jury foreman LIED to get REVENGE

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: Peers ...

A jury of pears would have been an improvement over a jury headed by someone who has such difficulty telling the truth

Hogan really missed his true calling, he should have become a politician

New telescope tipped to spot 700,000 galaxies

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

I am surprised they use dishes at all

The LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) is using a phased array approach. Much cheaper, no moving parts.

'It is absolute b*ll*cks that contractors aren't committed'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

The BOFH is a contractor

who should be committed

Bone-bothering boffins pull TINY fanged dinosaur from drawers

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

One thing we will never know is

did it taste like chicken?

Mine is the one with the cookery book in the pocket

More seriously: nice work finding this strange creature!

From Dr No to Skyfall: The Reg's one month of Bond

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Of course my favourite one has to be the 1967 version of Casino Royale

'Who is this "le Chiffre"?'

'Nobody knows, not even "le Chiffre"!!'

Whopping supersonic-car rocket rattles idyllic Cornwall

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Coolness check-list

good list, but shouldn't the motorbike goggles be peering through a tiny little windscreen at the fron of an open cockpit?

Boffins get black hole double-vision

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: time travel?

However, as you travel through this mangled space, you might e in for some serious mangling yourself. Bit of a downer, that.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Interesting stuff. M22 is magnificent in my 8" scope, as my son (10) also agreed to when we observed it from France this summer. I will tell him he has seen the home of a black-hole binary system. I bet he will be excited.

Romans, Han Dynasty, kick-started climate change

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Greelanand?

I am dyslectic Borg. Your ass will be malted!!

(Thanks to Mr. Spock on Stargazers Lounge)

Boffins prescribe SNAKE VENOM as future pain killer

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Take zis pill, it will take ALL ze pain avay, I perzonally promise!

This really sounds like one from Igor (or Junior Postman Groat, for that matter). Mamba poison does kill all pain (quite quickly), along with the rest of you.

It also reminds me of the proposed surgical treatment for migraine (amputation of the head)

Still, kudos to the scientists if this works well.

Adele's Skyfall poised to fall from sky

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Bondfest?

Now that is a phrase which could easily be misunderstood

No, mine is not the black leather one.

Oregon farmer devoured by own hogs

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Tragic, however...

it reminds me of:

Ravenous bugblatter beasts of Traal often make a good meal for visiting tourists

versus

Ravenous bugblatter beasts of Traal often make a good meal of visiting tourists

The bacon sarnie that bit back.

Pastafarians: Get your noodly appendages off that Facebook suspect

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Childcatcher

Deary me

Those "Golden Dawn" ultra right wingers and the church are taking themselves WAY too seriously,

Oh, wait.....

Maybe it is mandatory to undergo a full humourectomy before joining either

Simon Cowell plans X Factor for Tech

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Can't you just see people vote

One a really nifty new way to handle loads of database transactions 10 times faster on the same hardware?

You're right, I can't either.

HP Spectre XT 13in Ivy Bridge Ultrabook review

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Intel Graphics == No use to me

I like to do some CUDA stuff on my laptop. There are some pretty decent 13" laptops out there, with nVidia graphics, and a lot more processing clout, for less money. OK, they might not be quite as thin, but they are still quite light (I have seen an ASUS of just 1.78kg). Much more useful to me.

Draft UK libel law forces websites to axe mudslinging comments

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

One whole load of foetid dingo's kidneys

Will that still be OK?

After all, it is just a quote from the great Douglas Adams

And at least I didn't say Belgium

Whoops!

Japanese boffins unfurl banner above newly-discovered Element 113

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Mushroom

If they really wanted to create an explosive atmosphere

Sukakuium would be the name of choice

In Chinese textbooks that would have to become Diaoyuium

Space Station ready to SWERVE sat junk hurtling towards it

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Navigational Deflectors?

And what about jet-packs, I want a jet-pack! It does not even need antigravity, for goodness' sake (or slood for that matter)

Hobbyist star-gazer cops amazing eyeful of Jupiter's space ball

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

It's an 11" Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain

Even without the image on his website, the aperture of 11" tells you it is the Celestron C11, one of the only 11" scopes out there (and the big brother of my C8). Excellent planetary imaging scopes. You do not want a DSLR for this work, a decent webcam (CCD-based for preference) or a specialized planetary camera, which can maintain 30-60 FPS at VGA resolution is generally best.

Blazing new comet may OUTSHINE THE MOON in 2013

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: "Or not."

Same here in the Netherlands.

Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake were pretty good though. And anyway, a comet like this would be visible for quite a long time. Time to get that astronomized DSLR ready.

NZ bloke gets eel stuck up jacksie

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

At least it wasn't an electric eel

That would have been shocking

Berkeley Lab proposes 4D clock

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Infinity is a very long time indeed

The authors do assume the nuclei have infinite life span. This might not be correct. And anyway, some klutz in a lab coat is bound to drop it at some point (he might even be called Ponder Stibbons).

Interesting work, otherwise

Google promises autonomous cars for all within five years

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Future consequences

I have this sudden sense of deja vu

Brave copper single-handedly chases 'suspicious' Moon

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Calling Sgt. Angua

Mine is the one with "The Fifth Elephant" in the pocket

Samsung slams Apple patent jury, wants new trial in US

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Jury was fatally flawed.

Interesting reads. At the end of the first, the phrase "Sulk Hogan" sprang to mind,

I wonder why?

Half of Milky Way's mass found in million-Kelvin gas cloud

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Interesting.

Similar clouds have been known to surround galactic clusters, but not around our own. That is of course hard to do, and has been likened to "drawing up a map of the city whilst standing in the market square." A more accurate analogy would be "drawing up a map of the city whilst standing on a playground somewhere in the (unfashionable western) suburbs"

Thumbs up to the scientists for attempting perhaps not the impossible, but at least the very, very improbable!

Christian footie match ends in almighty brawl

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Maybe they were followers of the Holy Shoe and the Holy Gourd!!

HE IS NOT THE MESSIAH, HE IS A NAUGHTY BOY!!

NTT demos petabit transmission on single fibre

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Cool, seriously cool!

I visited their lab with two dozen students eleven years ago. They do a lot of seriously cool things there (like transistors that switch based on a single electron on the gate: talk about low power). The students were suitable impressed, even the guy who tried to do a limbo dance underneath a manipulator arm of a vacuum chamber set-up. Needless to say, our host was seriously relieved that I grabbed this student by the shoulder and gave him a very severe reprimand (think sergeant-major Shut-up Sahib).

Ig Nobels 2012: Physics of ponytails, chimp arse-cognition and more

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Proud!!

I am proud the Dutch managed to get another two IgNobels!

Here's to research that makes you think and laugh (I am not picky about the order)

'Apple's iOS 6 maps app is SHOCKING, rushed and half-baked'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pirate

Biggest thing??

"Windows 95 was certainly the biggest thing in the last 20 years until now. I think Windows 8 certainly surpasses it."

What is Balmer smoking? Windows 95 the biggest thing in what? Computing? I would think other things in computing have been bigger (or at least better) in the last 20 years. The world-wide web, for one. OK that made its first wobbly steps in 1990/1991, so outside the time frame, but it only really took off the years after. The Mosaic Browser (1993) was a seminal event in computing. Windows 95 was not.

In my view, Windows 95 improved upon Windows 3.1(1) in that it camouflaged the fact that it was a graphic shell overlaid on MS-DOS rather better. It did a bit more than that, and popularized the WIMP-style (windows, icons, menus, pointer) GUIs still with use today. Yes I know MS did not invent them, but W95 did bring them to a big audience, and took the MS-DOS crowd away from the command line.

Pirate icon because I was ill on "Talk like a pirate day"

'Programming on Windows 8 just like playing bingo' - Microsoft VP

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

On the photograph

Soma seems to be doing an impression of a flounder. Is this to suggest Microsoft are floundering?

Darn, I'm hungry now

Mine is the one with Rick Stein's "Seafood" in the pocket (OK, in the backpack).

Win8 tablets may cost MORE than iPads – AND LAPTOPS

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Seriously?!

Absolutely! Can anybody explain to me why an $800 device (including keyboard) with Windows RT would be better than the latest incarnation of the Asus Transformer, with its much higher resolution (1920x1200) and roughly the same price point down here (just shy of 700 euro)?

OK it has a version of office. Big deal!

Memo to openSUSE 12.2: More polish, less angst

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
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Neat!

I'll upgrade my home system shortly!

Microsoft bod dreams up 'Star Trek holodeck' games console

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

The description of a device or method is enough for a patent

The US government patented ships with nuclear propulsion before they got it working. The description as to contain enough technical detail to show it is inventive.

Countless patents have been awarded on perpetual motion devices (now no longer allowed), and there are patents for algorithms that compress any bit string (including its own output) by at least one bit without loss of information. This is clearly impossible, but it has been patented.

Opportunity finds new patch of 'berries' on Mars

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: It depends on whether you can get it to stay onna stick.

Jam will stay "inna bun"

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Get your Martian Blueberry Jam right here!!!!

Lovely! Rich in iron!

C.M.O.T. Dibbler would try that.

These old rovers (hopefully) never cease to amaze. I once pointed out Mars to my kids, and added: there are two robot cars driving about on that planet. Now they want to be space scientists

I spy: Drug drops and foxy couples

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Of course

Real men carry binoculars like these