* Posts by Michael H.F. Wilkinson

4245 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2007

Mega-star HD 10180 could have more planets than the Sun

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

Bode's law is really the result of gravity and time

Bode's law was quite mysterious, until people realised that the curious sequence of orbital radii of planets meant an equally curious sequence of orbital periods (see Kepler's second law). Effectively, a sequence of orbits obeying Bode's law have simple resonances between the orbits. This increases stability. Over time, we would expect planetary systems to stabilize into orbits which obey this law.

Whisky IN SPAAAAACE: Zero-G Scotch is matured aboard the ISS

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

If the whisky does get back to earth

we must really salute the astronauts' and cosmonauts' restraint.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Of course we must have Scotch Whiskey in space....

contradiction in terms:

Scotch Whiskey

Scotch whisky now, is another matter. It reminds of an man "kindly" asked to leave the premises of a Scottish "watering hole" after asking for a Bourbon.

He does still have his own teeth, as I recall

CSIRO patent-trolls ALL OF AMERICA!

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

"Doing the science, but leaving the commercialization to the private sector, is not patent trolling"

Sums it all up. I have been to the CSIRO in Sydney, great place to do research, when they patent something, take it seriously. "Ars Technica" suddenly reads "Arse Technica" as seen from down-under, I suppose.

Nature ISN'T fragile nor a bossy mother-in-law - top eco boffin

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: But what is the "balanced view"?

I simply mean that if each side demonize the other, we do not get anywhere.

Making money is not evil in any way, nor is preserving nature. It is not wrong to hunt, or cut down trees, it is wrong to hunt creatures to extinction, and wantonly cutting down trees in such a way that whole forests disappear. A forest can be productive, and yet be a nature reserve (many are). If creating large nature reserves means chasing farmers off their land, you not going to make any friends. It causes resentment, and locals often start justifying poaching. If you make nature reserves that include sustainable farms, sustainable wood production, sustainable hunting and tourism, you get a win-win situation. Locals then tend to help track poachers, rather than be the poachers. You do not have to go to Africa for good examples. In the Netherlands many farmers contribute to care for the environment.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Interesting piece. It has strong echoes of how someone like Darwin saw nature. In excerpts of his journal published in "A Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Beagle" his descriptions of landscapes and natural scenes are surprisingly utilitarian, focusing very much of how the landscape could be used to man's benefit. Not at all what many modern environmentalists would expect.

I think Kareiva is dead right that a more balanced view is needed. I have seen several efforts to set up reservations and protect species at the expense of the local population in Africa fail. Likewise I have seen other efforts in which the local population benefits be highly successful. Not really surprising when you think of it.

Arizona bill makes it illegal to 'annoy or offend' online

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Ted Nugent? Rush Limbaugh?

This bill (now amended and dying or dead) could have been used to sue Ted Nugent, who openly threatened the President and Hilary Clinton (and assorted others) with a gun in one of his rants. Rush Limbaugh (in the way he described a certain student who testified before congress) could be seen as insulting and harassing using obscene language (i.e. business as usual). He too could be sued. Did the Republicans involved realize this? If so, they might be commended for trying to deal with extremist views from people who claim to be on their side. If not, they might have made the amendments and killed it because they collectively went "oops."

As others have said, you cannot legislate for good manners. Besides, notions of what is acceptable change. We can now say "swut", "jujuflop" and turlingdrome" and know we are healthy, well-adjusted and completely un*****-up personalities. So long as we do not say "Belgium"

Feathered Tyrannosaurus uncovered in China

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Did it taste like chicken?

Sorry, I'll get me coat

Help Astronomers in Britain

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Help Astronomers in Britain

Light pollution is a huge problem for (amateur) astronomers. Nobody is suggesting we switch of all the lights at night, but a lot of unnecessary lights could be turned off or dimmed.

There is an e-petition here on cutting back light pollution and energy waste at the same time. All British citizens and anyone living in the UK can sign.

Thanks

Browsium rescues HMRC from IE6 – and multimillion-pound bill

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Is it just me,

or does Browsium sound like a Discworld element like Narrativium?

Mine is the one with "Thud" in the pocket

iPhone fanbois enraged by Instagram's Android triumph

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: iPhone users <> Apple fanbois

or:

Pascal programmers .NE. Real programmers

Mine is the one with the Fortran 77 Manual

Prehistoric monster snake crushed prey under 1.5 Brooklyn Bridges

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

"so could this thing lift the Brooklyn Bridge?"

Yes, and so can you. If I give you a long enough and strong enough lever and a place to stand you can lift the world, as Archimedes would say (but then in Greek)

;-)

Blighty's new top supercomputer bagged by software boffins

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: Yes

quite likely

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

But will it run Crysis?

Mine is the one with the MPI manual in the pocket

Condom compartment hidden in iPhone case

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

According to "Good morning Vietnam!"

the sizes are:

Large

Medium

Caucasian

Star's guts turned INSIDE OUT in supernova mega-blast

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Stellar dyspepsia?

A serious case, by the sound of it

No-strings nookie radar tugged offline in stalking backlash

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Geo-social exploration

Now that is a euphemism to remember:

"I can assure you, I am not looking to get laid! I am conducting a geo-social exploration!"

Terrafugia flies first prototype: Flying cars 'within a year'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Ok, if the flying car has been sorted

When will we get jet-packs?

Steve Jobs biopic

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Re: STEVE BALLMER

SHOULD THAT NOT BE JACK NICHOLSON AND GLENN CLOSE?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Balmer?

Option 1: Alexei Sayle

Accent may be a problem, but the thought of him chanting "developers, developers, developers!!" in a strong Liverpudlian accent has a strange appeal.

Option 2: Danny DeVito

might have to practice chair flinging, however.

Coders' 'lives sucked out' by black-and-white Visual Studio 11

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

So will this new IDE work on my old Hercules card?

Just a thought

What does the Titanic's sinking tell us about modern science?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

Re: peer reviewed

You are right that publicly funded work should be available publicly. However, note that in all cases any scientist without access to a journal simply contacts the corresponding author (I still have some of those quaint reprint request postcards in a drawer somewhere). The author emails you the PDF, end of problem. IEEE and some other publishers allow you to put your stuff on the web for research and education purposes, provided a suitable copyright statement is included.

The same holds for code we produce: ask and ye shall receive.

Press releases are NOT under embargo in all cases except one (where patent applications are involved, nothing to do with the publisher), in my experience. In those instances where we want to do a press release, the university takes care of it, and the publisher has no say. We do often let this coincide with the (on-line) publication of the paper, so journalists can check out the paper.

Use the holy word of God to stay secure online, says bishop

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Re: Isnane or Welsh!

So do you use Llanfairpwyllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch as pass phrase?

Cwmtwrch is a shorter favourite

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Devil

Re: so...

You could always go for:

"Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number. Its number is 666"

A bit long, but very memorable.

Would be a good BOFH password, once he has given up on "Grievous bodily harm"

Icon, because, well....

Third European supply podule docks with space station

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

What is this figure in double-decker buses per fortnight?

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

'Smooth, gentle' mating at 28,000 kph

I trust that is with respect to our earthbound frame of reference, not the speed of the podule with respect to ISS.

100 EARTH-LIKE PLANETS orbit stars WITHIN 30 LIGHT-YEARS!

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

Re: The other thing about red dwarfs

They have far less UV radiation output than the sun. Because the temperature is lower. If we put the planet near enough to the red dwarf to be comfy temperature-wise, the amount of shorter wavelengths (including blue light) hitting the atmosphere is less. Charged particles release might be energetic, but with a strong enough magnetic field a planet could be OK. One worry is actually that there is not enough UV and other hard radiation to cause enough mutations to keep evolution ticking over, but that is a rather speculative argument. There are many sources of randomness which could supply enough mutations.

Incidentally, the colour of light emitted by your typical red dwarf equals that of an incandescent light bulb (3200 K colour temperature) to that of a halogen light (3600K). So they are really yellowish red, whereas our "yellow" sun emits white (5800K) light.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

They avoid us because of cricket!

It's in very bad taste, you know.

Republicans shoot down proposed ban on Facebook login boss-snoop

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Joke

Um, what's a Facebook?

Potential answer if you really do not want the job

Actively cooled rocket primed for easy re-entry

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Alien

Should this craft not be manned by Kryten?

Looks like the perfect pilot for it

AVG nukes stalking ads at press of BIG SHINY BUTTON

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Sounds interesting. Might give it a try on the windows machine at home.

Sitting down all day is killing you

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Cycling

Yer doomed, doomed, DOOOMED!!!!!

Private Fraser

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Does going to the pub for a quick pint count?

Sounds plausible, especially if we include earlier reports that beer is good for you.

Female Chinese astronauts must have no scars, straight teeth

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: At least...

genius in its simplicity

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

So male scars are tough and do not bleed?

Was that published in the Journal of Dermatology, or was it Annals of Improbable Research?

TSA bars security guru from perv scanner testimony

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Couldn't have that, now.

Exactly, we want fact-free politics!

Sounds like they like Gordon Way's inverse expert system: don't reason based on facts to get the best possible conclusion, but enter the desired conclusion beforehand (along with the known facts) and let the program come up with a plausible reasoning to support the conclusion.

Douglas Adams, you are sorely missed!

Brazilian cops hunt pillaging 'gang of blondes'

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

Brazillian policemen chasing blonde women?

is this unusual behaviour?

Sorry, I had to ask. Mine is the one with the ticket to Rio in the pocket.

OAP sues Apple for $1m after walking into store's glass door

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Lucky lady

Elderly bones can be rather fragile. The septum (which I assume got broken) is not very strong to begin with. It is the only bone I have broken, and I can tell you it is pretty painful. Having it set is not fun either.

I really do not know what happened, so I will not jump to conclusions.

Giant paper plane thunders across Arizona sky

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

So how many sheets of A4 (sorry, Letter) size paper would be needed?

to get the equivalent amount of paper.

Nice attempt, but could not match PARIS for altitude!

Americans resort to padlocking their dumb meters

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: No tinfoil hats

Good points.

Really smart meters could be of benefit when you have really smart equipment in the house to negotiate good (=cheap) moments to switch on (like the washing machine automatically picking suitable times to do the washing to minimize cost). Whether there are any benefits now is debatable.

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Re: Tinfoil Cures All

That and duck tape!

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Happy

Re: All the symptoms described...

"watching too many Republican Party nominees' speeches"

that is a major cause of stress ;-)

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

$300 savings for the company perhaps,

but what about costs incurred having to visit people to measure usage?

Very high levels of shortwave radio signals (we are talking powerful radar here) have been documented to have adverse health effects. I think some people do a linear interpolation between zero effect at zero W to a handful of points of massive problems in the MW range, with little or no data in the intermediate range. I very much doubt that damage at the levels experienced is real. All the symptoms described (including those of the diabetics) could be explained by stress (caused by the fear of the effects of radio signals, perhaps?). BTW, I am not saying the complaints are not real, I am saying that the cause might be different.

Baffling barcode-on-steroids stickers plaster the Earth

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Coat

A QR-code for "42"

is what would like to stick on every QR-code I find.

Mine is the one with the cassette tapes of the Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays in the pocket

Hard-up Iceland plumps for cheaper open source

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Free stuff

We use Linux (and OS-X and Windows) at our research institute. My own work is mainly on Linux systems (but I am at writing code that is cross-platform portable). I do not consider my work a hobby.

BOFH: Dawn raid on Fort BOFH

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Thumb Up

The description of the box is spot on, as many have said.

I still have an old 8" floppy somewhere (staggering 128kB capacity). It's got (or at least had) a legit copy of CP/M 2.0 on it. I sometimes fancy lashing up an old 8" drive with a USB interface (where is that soldering iron), and see if I can "upgrade" someone to CP/M 2.0 running on some Z80 emulation software. Unfortunately, I doubt the drivers will be available.

Still, a man can dream.

Space probe in orbit above Mercury sees signs of polar ice

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Cool!

In more ways than one.

iPad subsidies axed for Microsoft S&M fanbois

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Pint

Re: Even worse

For some brands of beer, that might be fine, in other cases (fill in your least favourite here) it is cruel and unusual punishment

Man FLIES with Android-powered homemade bird wings

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

Ye cannae break the laws of physics, capt'n!

As Scotty would say. He might well add:

"Powerrr, we need more powerrrr!!"

Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Gullable?

page 478, Concise Oxford Dictionary, 6th Edition (and showing its age)

Gullable, I agree is not in that dictionary, though it may be in Ultra-Complete Maximegalon Dictionary of Every Language Ever"