* Posts by Chemist

2677 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Mar 2010

Microsoft's Windows 10 nagware goes FULL SCREEN in final push

Chemist

Re: It's those nasty penguin people

" That is, even if Linux cost a small amount and Windows was free, people would pay for the OS that behaved as though *you* owned the computer."

Quite a long time ago now i computing terms (~~2000) I used to pay for SUSE Linux ( ~£50 if i recall correctly) For that you got a set of disks, a manual and support. Thought it was a bargain at the time compared with Windows.

Botnet-powered ballot stuffing suspected in 2nd referendum petition

Chemist

Re: (1) Jump out of plane. (2) Check for parachute.

"I believe we should have another referendum "

My guess is that after extensive negotiations we will end up with a worst deal than we have now, the Brexiteers will have to man up and either recommend continuing with membership or having a referendum or general election on the issue.

Chemist

Re: The debate

" or rather, who admitted voting to leave...."

Ah, well I discussed it with many/most of them on several occasions - they'd have to have been pretty devious - what would they gain ?. Their reasons for remain were broadly the same as mine. Most had a good laugh too at "two bananas Boris" and Michael "we don't need experts" Gove . (Hope he never needs emergency surgery)

Chemist

Re: The debate

"I voted remain, the older folks were more likely to vote leave. So we left..."

A little more complicated than that I suggest l

Fewer older voters were for Remain

Urban dwellers more likely to vote Remain

The higher the education level the more likely Remain

The younger the voter the more likely Remain except they were less likely to vote.

(BTW I'm 65, live in the country in the North yet I don't know anyone in my circle of friends and family who voted Leave)

Genes take a shot at rebooting after death

Chemist

"These genes would be active during development, but presumably during that development another gene comes along and turns them off (or else we would never stop growing)."

Well gene expression and control is a lot more complicated than that. And some gene products are often involved in both development and normal adult function - the differential effect is often due to which tissues the expression continues in. It's really very, very complicated.

Chemist

Re: Not that surprising

"I think that was Geoff's point. There isn't so there is no selection pressure to shape post-mortem gene into anything useful."

He also said "These are probably just junk genes."

If they are "inflammatory, immune genes and responses to stress genes. " then they are essential not detrimental to the living phases

Chemist

Re: Not that surprising

"Things only get evolved away if they have a detrimental effect during the useful lifetime of the organism."

Why do you think these genes have a detrimental effect during the living phase of an organism ? As they seems to include "immune system, inflammation, and responses to stress." genes. Many of the others may be switched on due to a breakdown in control as happens in, for example, cancer.

Raspberry Pi 3 tops SBC poll for self-brew hackers and Linux folk

Chemist

Micro-USB

BTW - I have 4 Pi3 and they all work happily with a cheap USB/microUSB lead to provide power from a laptop and a standard ethernet cable to allow VNC. Quite portable if you want to develop software whilst traveling

Laser probers sniff more gravitational waves from mega black hole smash

Chemist

Re: Why LIGO Is a Scam

"You don't understand the politics of mainstream science, IMO. It's Big Brother all the way down."

I don't think you understand much. I've spent 41 years doing 'big science' as you put it. Not Physics but, for example a co-worker and I developed a route to manufacture the world's first $1B /year drug and that was ~ 1975 I also understand. peer review and publishing of papers. You do not !

Chemist

Re: Why LIGO Is a Scam

"I know I'm striking a sensitive nerve for every thumb down that I get. The truth hurts, doesn't it? There is way too much at stake. This is one of the reasons that the whole thing is a scam."

Given such advanced views I'm amazed that you are wasting your time on such an audience as The Register. Clearly you should be submitting serious papers to learned and influential journals. It worked for Einstein despite him being a total outsider who had to argue against the perceived wisdom of his day.

/Sarkasmus und Verachtung

Chemist

"So I'm curious... what happened to the "missing" mass?"

Well all the energy involved in shaking the spacetime fabric of the entire universe probably took a bit.

Raspberry Pi distributor Premier Farnell in £792m Swiss buyout deal

Chemist

"Yet another British company ownership going abroad - along with the profits."

So no UK company has ever bought a foreign company and returned the profits to the UK ?

England just not windy enough for wind farms, admits renewables boss

Chemist

Re: Tidal?

"we could start off the water power revolution by damming all these rivers up and getting some turbines going."

Are you serious ?. Where in this small island is there enough catchment to collect sufficient water and free land to flood to a depth sufficient to generate meaningful amounts of electricity at an altitude that will give a sufficient head - well I can tell you, just about nowhere including most of the Highlands.

I'm in Switzerland at the moment. In the Valais from Martigny to Visp ~60km the side-valleys almost all contain dams for flood-control and hydro purposes. Many of the dams have heads of ~1000m with rainfall and meltwater from 4000+ m peaks and yet this area stiil only produces electricity equivalent to ~15% of Switzerland's consumption

Air-gapping SCADA systems won't help you, says man who knows

Chemist

What !

" “They were designed to manage regulators and voltage flow and that’s still what they do.”

voltage flow ! Sigh - it's also the 2nd time I've heard the term this week.

Universe's shock rapidly expanding waistline may squash Einstein flat

Chemist

Re: Newtown, Einstein, and...?

"Newtown was consider right until things started moving at speeds closer to c. What we discovered, wasn't that Newtown was wrong, just that his theory didn't work at a certain scale.

Newton can be be considered to be approximately correct for aspects of gravity. But his theory does not accurately predict even the orbit of Mercury, and has nothing to say about the effects of gravity on time etc.

Earth's core is younger than its crust surface

Chemist

"The exact center of the Earth would not be subject to a gravitational force (because the mass around that point would be balanced). Full force of gravity at the surface, less the deeper you go."

Indeed so but the effect on time is due to the gravitational potential not the field and that gets stronger all the way to the centre. As others have explained if you fell down an evacuated tube connecting one side of the earth with the other you would reach max velocity at the centre and then almost pop out the other side, then oscillate around the minimum ( the centre). Better than any fairground ride but a bit same-ee after the first billion years. (Presumably there would be some loss of energy from the system to slowly damp the oscillation eventually)

Chemist

Re: the other stuff?

"does that mean there's 39,000 years of energy production 'missing' at the surface that the core simply hasn't had [the] time to produce?"

Not going to even consider that when estimates show it may take a photon a million years just to reach the sun's surface from the core

image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11354.html (0/10 for background to web-page)

Chemist

Re: Quite a large pachyderm in the room

"I guess this is a problem specific to when physicists try to work out geology."

I think you are all (most) missing the point totally. This has nothing to do with fluid flows, tectonics etc.

All these guys are saying is if you have an object the size and mass of the Earth time will run differently at the surface and in the core. It's a General Relativity thing. It's no more suprising than a GPS satellite having a different flow of time to an Earth based receiver

Surface Book nightmare: Microsoft won't fix 'Sleep of Death' bug

Chemist

Re: 'Sleep of death' may be more widespread

"If the laptop starts up just fine from its sleep state and a fully discharged battery,"

Little confused by this. I assume you mean a fully discharged battery but then plugged in and then waking from sleep.

Microsoft won't back down from Windows 10 nagware 'trick'

Chemist

Re: N.W.O.

"The problem was with VirtualBox. It wants the 32 bit version of Mint and I had the 64 bit one"

That's odd I've got a 64-bit Mint running on VBox under OpenSUSE 13.2 ( The .iso is linuxmint-17.2-kde-64bit.iso". I only installed it to settle a query but I don't remember having any problem.

Citrix bakes up Raspberry Pi client boxes

Chemist

Re: > "The Pi has HDMI and composite video outputs but they are exclusive"

"Actually, they abandoned the composite video with the Raspberry Pi 2 (and 3...)"

"The Model B+ features a new 3.5mm audio jack which also includes the composite video signal. This has allowed for the removal of the composite video socket found on the Model B."

AFAIK this is so for Pi 3

Pastejack attack turns your clipboard into a threat

Chemist

Re: Dangerous

"Thus the only way I've found to get a functional Linux system is buy it from a system integrator who charges a premium for a working system, System 7, Dell, or one can waste their time obsessing over every little component of the system and ensuring it has bonified open source 'cred, or simply run it in a VM on Windows. In such cases Linux can be reasonably pleasant and functional."

WHAT ! - have you traveled in a time-machine from the early 90's ?

For years before I retired ( and that was eight years ago) I was using a company supplied workstation running RedHat for all my scientific computing. In parallel I've been using Linux at home since the beginning and exclusively since ~2006. I don't recognize the scenario you present. Sure if you have an obscure bit of hardware that may be a no-no. But even in 2004 I was using hardware stereo graphics under Linux with an extremely expensive graphics card/LCD specs.

Chemist

This ( at the moment) appears to need the user to use the keyboard shortcuts. Certainly on my OpenSUSE desktop using a variety of browsers highlighting the text and then right-click - copy doesn't invoke the 'attack'. Given that you probably used the mouse to highlight the text it will be quicker to use the mouse at that point to copy.

Still quite a warning about Javascript.

Chaps make working 6502 CPU by hand. Because why not?

Chemist

Re: Missing the point

"Actually, I'd like to do that in an FPGA"

Pretty certain there's a 6502 & 6809 FPGA implementation and I think there's a 68000.

I've just noticed for Z80 fans that someone seems to have implemented a ZX81 in FPGA.

Raspberry Pi Zero gains a camera connector

Chemist

Re: expensive

" Is the feed online anywhere? Would be cool to watch."

No idea I'm afraid. I found it when I was new to Pi and wanted to get motion working ( amid a sea of out-of-date info BTW)

Chemist

Re: expensive

"So running anything like motion is out of the question."

Strange then that I've had it running for weeks on two Pis ( a Pi 2 and P 3) with the 'built-in' cameras. Just need the bcm2835_v4l2 module to use motion.

Lots of info around

try :http://www.richardmudhar.com/blog/2015/02/raspberry-pi-camera-and-motion-out-of-the-box-sparrowcam/

Supernova bubble clocked at 19,000,000 km/h

Chemist

"unless your sheep have access to warp drive"

warp and weft drive in fact

This is what a root debug backdoor in a Linux kernel looks like

Chemist

Re: Vulnerable?

echo "rootmydevice" > /proc/sunxi_debug/sunxi_debug"

The echo is really quite important

Chemist

Re: Writing to /proc as user?

"Why are user processes, presumably in some sort of sandbox for protection against dodgy stuff, allowed to *write* to /proc? "

Quite - although (for example) in my copies of OpenSUSE only ~ 3 entries are writable - and that only by root. True also for the pi(s) with one exception.

Official: Microsoft's 'Get Windows 10' nagware to vanish from PCs in July

Chemist

Re: Serious question

"I would need to be using a command line and using such nice commands as:-

"sudo add-apt-repository xxxx" instead of simply double left clicking on "setup" and clicking "next, next, next" etc?"

Well I don't use Mint but I installed it to a VM to answer a query recently. It took ~20mins to install and then the GUI Synaptics could be used to install software and add repos. But as P.Git mentions it's not unusual and indeed encouraged to use the command-line in Windows anyway - so what exactly is your issue ?

Linux Mint to go DIY for multimedia

Chemist

Re: UI changes

"When I installed Mint on a new PC a couple of years ago _all_ my hardware worked out of the box except an ancient samsung scanner/printer, "

When I installed OpenSUSE on a new i7 laptop a couple of years ago _all_ my hardware worked out of the box including an ancient Epson scanner/printer

Windows 10 free upgrade offer ends on July 29th

Chemist

Re: "The program's been a success"

""And how many of the users of those devices chose it because it ran Linux? "

How many mobile phone users chose a Windows phone because it ran Windows ?"

Answer : Hardly any bought it at all - not a trick question, just easy

Chemist

Re: "The program's been a success"

"And how many of the users of those devices chose it because it ran Linux? "

How many mobile phone users chose a Windows phone because it ran Windows ?

SpaceX adds Mars haulage to its price list

Chemist

Re: I assume...

"That's to Mars orbit or even less, "the general direction of Mars". A lander/rover is going to be less weight than the entire package."

A Landrover is going to weigh less than the entire package !

'Impossible' EmDrive flying saucer thruster may herald new theory of inertia

Chemist

Re: The first hint you are reading an Orlowski article

"Let me state the Method Position as follows:

There is something called the scientific method, and someone who understands this method will be able to understand all of science, regardless of the specific subject matter that person has been taught. Thus the goal of science education should be to teach that method.

It's hard for me to understand how anyone could hold a position that is so clearly untenable."

This all nonsense. I note that you've already admitted being rather rusty about Physics. I suggest your sense of logic and indeed commonsense is also lacking.

Chemist

Re: The first hint you are reading an Orlowski article

"Needless to say I was told not to ask such questions by my teachers. Happy now?"

No ! You seem to be suggesting that scientific is something uttered by a scientist . The scientific method is not that. It's the scientific method that needs to be applied to problems. The practitioner might be right or wrong in their application, deduction or even mathematics and being human may well be influenced by fear, greed and prejudice but others will eventually test re-test, argue and adjust.

Chemist

Re: The first hint you are reading an Orlowski article

"Try reading some and you might be surprised."

Oddly enough for a physical scientist I have read a few.

You didn't answer any of my points BTW

Chemist

Re: "But it can't work if we can't explain how it works, can it?"

"We can't explain gravity,"

What ! We can explain it as well as many other forces. GR makes many startling predictions from its rather ( for non-physicists) exotic mathematics. and when tested is shown to provide correct predictions. Sure it probably isn't complete or maybe will be refined or displaced one day.

Chemist

Re: The first hint you are reading an Orlowski article

"Other scientific horseshit includes:

Columbus being the first person to realise the Earth is a sphere."

What particular usage of scientific are you using here ? Someone or other may have said it, it may have been the common belief among even 'educated' people but scientific ?

Ditto : "Gravity in outer space is zero", "Medieval scholars etc"

Chemist

Re: @Chemist

"The reason we talk about rest mass is precisely because a particle has an "effective mass" or "relativistic mass" "

I know why we talk about rest mass - the point is that a photon has no mass otherwise it couldn't travel at c.

Chemist

Re: I think _I_ can explain it (and it's not that hard)

"If you're equating the energy of a photon to an 'effective mass' via an e=mc^2 equivalence"

Which you shouldn't really AFAIK. A particle of zero rest mass has no increase in mass with velocity - indeed it is constrained to travel at c at all times in a vacuum.

Chemist

Re: I think _I_ can explain it (and it's not that hard)

"the photon mass is involved in how gravity affects it, and was part of the proof of Einstein's theory of relativity back in the day, when stars were observed to have "moved" due to their relative position near the sun during an eclipse."

No it wasn't ! Einstein's theory of gravity involves mass/energy curving spacetime and light then following the shortest path in that spacetime.

CERN publishes massive data set

Chemist

Re: Barn ?

"Yep, already a unit. I use it when I'm dealing with fission, and yes, there already are femtobarns."

I think the author already knows it's a unit - they were just trying to put it into a 'Reg' unit. Unfortunately as mention above it's an area Not a volume - so they should really look at the area of the door of the great barn unless they can find a bigger door on some other barn.

Chemist

Barn ?

"ver alive to the possibilities of new standard unit, decided that a Barn has to be suitably imposing, such as the 4,890 cubic metre Harmondsworth Great Barn."

Sorry to rain on your parade but AFAIK a barn is unit of area not volume. ( I think it's derived from 'hitting a barn door') Can't e-mail at present so can't send via corrections.

Intel takes aim at Arduino with US$15 breadboard

Chemist

Re: A clever name?

"You can't get anything smaller than a Quark but you need three of them to make anything that matters."

Well I take your point but the universe would be a very strange place without electrons - positively shocking in fact !

Graphene solar panels harvest energy from rain

Chemist

Re: Lifetime?

"With nano-particles a surface becomes self-cleaning - apparently"

Certainly I've seen examples of titanium dioxide nano-particles being used for self-cleaning ( in sunlight) - not sure of anything else unless they have some with non-stick properties.

April Fool decries Blighty's dodecaquid

Chemist
Joke

"Sanwin had no real excuse to be so uniformed in their opinion and thereby made themselves fair game for a ribbing."

Indeed if his opinion needs to wear a uniform then let the ribbing start

Tesla books over $8bn in overnight sales claims Elon Musk

Chemist

Re: @ bazza

"What is the fuel-energy conversion efficiency of a modern all electric car compared to a modern petrol driven car?"

Well I look at it like this - just comparing the basic energy per mile for both.

Tesla S 85kWh for ~250 miles = 1.2MJ/mile (85e3 W *3600 s /250)

My slightly lower weight but less aerodynamic diesel ( 55mpg measured over the last 1400 miles) = 3MJ/mile. ( 36MJ/L * 4.5 / 55 )

So it all comes down to electric generation/distribution/charging/discharging losses vs refining/transport losses. The electrical losses are the big variable country-country and indeed station-station with older coal-fired stations being particularly bad and gas, nuclear/wind/solar/hydro increasingly better.