Posts by Pompous Git

"actually, physical media are an excellent backup - and sound far better than MP3s."

After a recent discussion here on El Reg I decided to test that assertion. It might be the case that when I was younger and the codecs were less well-developed that there was a difference. I could not detect any difference between SACD, CD, Flac, or 320 kbps MP3. And I'm talking active listening here, not as background.

Re: 4'33" by John Cage

"It's crazy how repressed our social norms still are, especially for women."

Never stopped my mother, but then we were working class. Her refrain:

"Where e'er you be on land or sea

Always let your wind blow free."

Re: as we have started down memory lane...

Mike Hayes of Prickle Farm fame used to relate a story about cleaning out the septic tank on the day of a wedding he had to attend. He fell in and no amount of washing could remove the stink!

First house we lived in in Australia the night cart used to collect the full can and replace it with an empty one. Mother wrote a letter to the local paper in UKLand. They refused to print it on the grounds that life couldn't ever be that primitive, even in the colonies.

Re: Forgotten already?

"Not one mention The Butthole Surfers?"

Turd comment... So to speak ;-)

Re: What did Rome do for us

There's a scene in Aristophanes Frogs where Dionysus meets Aeacus a security guard in the underworld. Aeacus believes Dionysus stole his puppy, Cerberus, so he's really pissed off. Aeacus tells Dionysus that the hags of hell “are going shred your blood-soaked kidneys,” whereupon the immortal deity Dionysius falls flat on his face cowering in fear. Dionysuius’ next line is: “I shit myself!”

Will that do?

Re: That is not science..just a waste of time and resources!

"However then you would have no electricity which also means no computer so you wouldn't have been able to post your comment."

And we'd be stuck watching television by candlelight!

Re: "The universe is made up of about 23 per cent dark matter and 72 per cent dark energy"

"Contents may have settled after packing"

Bonus 50% extra space at no additional cost!

Re: High School Math question

"I recall seeing a recent artilce somewhere saying that it takes about 12 seconds for mammals to do a wee, irrespective of size"

Esme, I consider myself to be a member of the class Mammalia and I suspect that you're underestimating the time to wee. Due to my advancing years, I suffer from hardening of the prostate gland and this makes weeing a more protracted process; more like 60 seconds to completion, ignoring the last few drops of course. Then I also have congestive heart failure and that means my day starts with 40 mg of Frusemide, a dieuretic, closely followed by two very large mugs of unsweetened black coffee; also dieuretic. So on a bad day I might wee four or five times in the first hour.

OTOH these times may not be applicable to weasels, rats, or indeed members of the class Reptilia.

@ gerdesj

Upper case thorn is Alt 0222 (Þ) and lower case Alt 0254 (þ) on a Windows PC. Law is late Old English (ca. 1000 AD).

Re: Interesting use of statistics... "lies, damned lies and statistics"

"homo sapiens arrived ate all the large animals and then decided to switch to a healthy vegetarian diet once they had eaten all the meat. The problem is that there's no evidence to support it - homo sapiens was around for tens of thousands of years prior to the extinction and then, in one year, ate everything?"

Here's what the evidence suggests:

"The late Pleistocene witnessed the extinction of 35 genera of North American mammals. The last appearance dates of 16 of these genera securely fall between 12,000 and 10,000 radiocarbon years ago (≈13,800–11,400 calendar years B.P.), although whether the absence of fossil occurrences for the remaining 19 genera from this time interval is the result of sampling error or temporally staggered extinctions is unclear. Analysis of the chronology of extinctions suggests that sampling error can explain the absence of terminal Pleistocene last appearance dates for the remaining 19 genera. The extinction chronology of North American Pleistocene mammals therefore can be characterized as a synchronous event that took place 12,000–10,000 radiocarbon years B.P. Results favor an extinction mechanism that is capable of wiping out up to 35 genera across a continent in a geologic instant."

Emphasis mine.

Synchronous extinction of North America's Pleistocene mammals

A lot more than "just a guess".

Re: And a further thought...

Meant to type African elephants. Indian elephants were domesticated.

Re: Interesting use of statistics... "lies, damned lies and statistics"

"Sure they do: the arrival; of homo sapiens. As in Australia and Europe, our arrival was quickly followed by population crash and extinction of megafauna."

It was also contemporaneous with the Younger Dryas climate event and a possible impact by an extra-terrestrial impact. It's hard to envisage these two latter as non-contributing factors. Likely it was a perfect storm as they say...

Re: not with read or lead

"not with lead, as Pb? seriously, how do you say that word?"

Plumbum.

Re: @Pompous Git

"Obviously, your superpower is: Impervious to Puns!"

I don't know where the idea I possess superpowers comes from, but you are correct. I missed the pun and that makes me somewhat Mellon Collie...

"Stop dreaming, you can't elope with her."

Who'd want to? With somebody who thinks baked beans on toast is a "celebrity chef" recipe? [Shudder...]

"The word is "pleaded" not "pled""

From the OED:

"Forms: α. 3–4 plaide(n, plaid-i, 3–6 playde, 4 plede(n, 4–7 plede (5 pledde, plide, 5–7 pled), 6 pleade (pleed), 6–7 Sc. pleid, 6– plead. pa. tense and pple. pleaded: contracted 5 pladde, (9 dial. plad), 5– pled (orig. Sc. and dial.), 7–9 plead. β. 4 pleit-y, pleyte, playt-y, playte, pleten, -yn, 4–6 plete, 5–6 pleete, 6 pleate. "

I rest my case as it were...

Re: Where's the upvote button?

"According to some accounts, some religious adherents simply refused to see the evidence even when looking directly through Galileo's telescope."

Careful... Galileo was a religious adherent too and rather more famous for his sermons than his science in his day. His telescope was rather primitive and other astronomers (Jesuits) were rightly sceptical and thought that what was being seen were artefacts in the telescope's lenses.

Three drawings of Saturn by Galileo

Today we know that Saturn doesn't have ears.

Re: Same old problem

"I would make speeches promoting apathy if I thought anyone would listen."

Bit isn't apathy supposed to be a problem. Anyway, who gives a fuck?

Typed by someone who used to hand out cards with the words: "Vote 1: Informal" on them in the 1960s...

Re: The problem isn't ideologies spreading on the Internet

"I've applied for such cleaning jobs. I was turned down due to lack of experience of being a cleaner."

What? Your mother/wife/sister [delete whichever is inapplicable] wouldn't give you a reference? Shame...

Re: The problem isn't ideologies spreading on the Internet

"Just another indication that a major requirement for political ambition is basic ineptitude."

The other being lack of conscience.

Re: The usual baloney

""He doesn't say they make it from nothing he claims they transmute some other element !"

...which is unspecified.

I probably ought to resist replying to Pompous Git because he so obviously doesn't have a science background."

And you ought to resist attributing a quote by an AC to me. You obviously have a reading and comprehension problem.

As it happens I do have a science background, just not a conventional one. A decade ago I was offered the opportunity to undertake a PhD even though I lacked the requisite degree. Recognition of prior learning and current competencies and all that.

If you reread what I have written in this thread you will discover that I refer to transmutation of potassium to calcium. That is very specific, not as you state "unspecified".

For all of the reasons you stated, I too thought for many years that the addition of a proton to a potassium atom necessarily entails more energy than is available in a living organism. I learnt my physics from Resnick and Halliday back in the late 60s and I doubt that the physics has changed much in the intervening 40+ years.

But then my prawn farming friend who does have a science degree and was for decade an agricultural researcher decided to grow his own prawn food. For what should be obvious reasons he had his inputs analysed and also decided to have the output analysed. Now X amount of Ca, Y amount of K, Z amount of P... should equal (with some specific uncertainty) the amounts of Ca, K, P... They didn't. My friend went to considerable trouble to confirm the results. Why didn't he publish? I think your and Chemist's response here explains that.

BTW, I find it amusing that you don't bother addressing the content of Allan Widom's paper that claims that the transmutation is possible and as a Professor of Physics must necessarily be aware of the thermodynamic and other issues. I can't, as stated earlier, but will pass it to one of my physicist friends for comment. Providing they haven't died as so many of my friends seem wont to these days.