1

Just Chat! / Help!

« on: Yesterday at 15:13:31 »

I tried to reply to Hamdani on his "origin of the magnetic field" and it came up as a new topic which I find I cannot delete. Any suggestions?

2

Just Chat! / Should smartphones be banned from the dinner table?

« on: 01/12/2024 09:57:32 »

I am fed up with my family and their smartphones on a night out. They remain glued to their screens and then bombard me with images that I have zero interest in(most of my family seem to suffer from a malady I call photophilia, collecting countless useless images). Personally I think it is bad manners to be using one's smartphone during what should be a social event and not a source of stress. What do ye think? Am I just too old and grumpy?

3

Just Chat! / What has happened to the USPTO?

« on: 15/11/2024 11:58:46 »

My attention has been drawn to US patent #us11411513b2. This is a granted patent for a free energy device. I thought this nonsense had been stopped after Robert Park kicked up a stink about patents that fall foul of the laws of physics being granted.

4

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Has anyone heard of tresino theory?

« on: 14/11/2024 20:48:31 »

A tresino is a hypothetical conglomerate of a proton and two electrons that is smaller than an atom but larger than a proton. I don't have the knowledge to query this idea analytically but to my uneducated brain it sounds like a wooly concept(Neilep would like this). Any thoughts?

5

Technology / Anyone have a circuit diagram for a tenma 72-6800 oscilloscope?

« on: 14/11/2024 10:49:45 »

One of my 'scopes that I use routinely has developed a problem and I can't find a circuit diagram online. The focus failed while in use and when I opened it up I noticed a tiny amount of tracking occurring on the sub-assembly carrying the brightness and focus pots. I scraped away the bit of board where the tracking was occurring and the problem was cured. Unfortunately several days later the focus failed again and this time there is nothing obvious and I need a schematic. I could trace out the relevant circuitry but this would be time consuming and other task are building up.

6

Just Chat! / A query on Trump's tactics

« on: 06/11/2024 18:55:03 »

Trump sells himself as the saviour of the common man and someone to curtail the power and influence of the "wicked elite class". Yet he thinks Elon Musk is the greatest thing since sliced bread. You can't get more elite than Musk, if you buy into this paradigm. What is the story with this apparent contradiction?

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Just Chat! / Copout 29 on the way, what do you think?

« on: 29/10/2024 12:21:27 »

Here we are, heading for another copout, will it be as stunningly successful as copout 28? Just to be clear, I am a fully paid-up card carrying member of the cynic party. Did anyone happen to see the "AISEG" generator shown at last year's conference? This free energy doohickey will solve the world energy shortage and it's inventors have discovered 12 new laws of physics including the critical "bandwagon" effect!! How the hell does crap like this get displayed at this, or any other conference? Am I on the right planet?

8

Just Chat! / What is the purpose of the conductor in an orchestra?

« on: 27/10/2024 13:29:49 »

This has always puzzled me. Sheet music identifies the notes to be played, the time signature and other "modulators" can be written down, ie allegro, andante, grave, etc. What variables can the conductor influence? Is it the intensity?

9

The Environment / Why do winter storms occur?

« on: 21/10/2024 19:35:14 »

We have just had the first named storm of the winter storm season here in the British Isles. Why do these storms occur in winter with such vigour when there is less energy available in the atmosphere, compared to summer time? The American Atlantic hurricane season runs from high summer to the end of autumn(fall) when the seas are warm and atmospheric energy is high. Any thoughts?

10

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What is the optimum speed to make a point in space disappear?

« on: 16/10/2024 08:53:02 »

Following on an error I made on another topic this question arose. Supposing one had a space vehicle with unlimited power and one wished to see the earth disappear from view at the fastest possible rate, what would be the optimum speed? Go too fast and the earth might never disappear from view as Halc has kindly explained in the other topic. I may or may not  be able to calculate this myself. Any ideas?

11

Just Chat! / Strange spelling query or not?

« on: 13/10/2024 11:41:38 »

This morning I posted a comment using terms from abstract mathematics, namely sedenions and octonions. My original post used the following spellings- sedenians and octonians and no red line appeared under these words. Thinking about my post subsequently I began to doubt my spelling and I looked it up to find I was in error. Changing the endings from ian to ion now brings up the red line indicating spelling error. Now it has changed again while writing this post both spellings indicate error.

12

Just Chat! / What's gone wrong with the world?

« on: 11/10/2024 09:49:13 »

Ten minutes ago I heard a statement from a meteorologist, on BBC, that "dry air is very dense". That is a sweeping generality that may or may not be correct, depending on circumstance.

13

Just Chat! / Why do women have so many clothes?

« on: 28/09/2024 20:15:38 »

The sheer quantities of clothing items the boss has collected over the years we have been together is baffling. New items are constantly added to this already voluminous collection with some items hardly worn at all. I have pointed out the wastefulness of such a practice with the response being "you are male and don't understand". I wonder what the latter day philosophers(such as the eminent Alancalverd!) think of this predicament.

14

Just Chat! / Exploding batteries or not?

« on: 17/09/2024 17:49:58 »

Watching the news about the exploding pagers in Lebanon I see some nonsense being disseminated. So called defence "experts" are suggesting this was done by software to short the batteries and having seen some of the blasts I discount this. This was obviously carefully planted explosives, assuming the batteries involved don't use ethyl perchlorate as solvent!

15

Just Chat! / Where is Hamdani?

« on: 04/09/2024 19:40:11 »

As the title suggests I have not seen a post from Hamdani today. I did not believe this was possible. Hope he is ok. Indonesia is seismically active and prone to disasters. PS I was in southern Portugal last week and woken up ~5.30am with the bed shaking slightly and the doors rattling- my first earthquake!

16

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Where have all the bugs gone?

« on: 23/08/2024 11:10:36 »

We live in a rural location in the middle of a forest and have been here for~30 years. Previously(10 or more years ago) in July and August we would be inundated with all kinds of weird and wonderful bugs and critters. Not anymore, the last few years have witnessed a dramatic decline. For example we used to see cinnabar moths every year but no longer. We had several swallow families regularly breeding in an outbuilding and these have ceased, presumably due to lack of food. I should also point out that we practice rewilding over a large portion of our .75acre.

17

That CAN'T be true! / Is potassium chloride explosive

« on: 20/08/2024 13:24:03 »

Of course not, but bear with me. Recently the boss had the gogglebox on but was not watching it- it was running a programme called "abandoned engineering" on one of the freesat channels. I watched it for a short while and was absolutely gobsmacked by what I heard. An educated gentleman(an archaeologist I think but could be wrong) stated that potassium chloride was madly explosive which was popular with terrorists and was the reason for the extreme danger of potash mines!! I can only think he meant potassium chlorate but this is a man made substance and is definitely not a mined product- abandoned mines was the subject matter. If I was to pontificate on a subject I was not familiar with I would at least do some research first.

18

Just Chat! / Is there any greater ******** than Elon Musk?

« on: 07/08/2024 18:28:59 »

With Musk's recent remarks concerning the riots in the UK, I believe he has become the greatest plonker that I am aware of. I am also beginning to think he has "a leak in his attic", an expression used by the late Rod Serling in the twilight zone(a series of surrealistic short stories on tv circa 1960).

19

Science Experiments / A report: may be of use to someone?

« on: 07/08/2024 08:17:24 »

My eldest daughter had a flimsy white garment(cotton/synthetic mix) that she intended to use in a charity event but which had a nasty rust stain which seemed indelible and I was asked to remove said stain. My first idea was a sequestrant acid such as edta, nta or atmp but not having any of these I thought maybe citric acid would do the job but this failed miserably. A rethink was needed: from the colour I reckoned it was ferric iron and maybe a reducing agent would return it to the ferrous state whereby it would dissolve in dilute acid. Hydrazine hydrate and sodium dithionite came to mind but again I have neither. I decided to try sodium metabisulphite, sprinkling some over the stain and adding a few drops of water. I left this sit for several hours but again it seemed to have no effect and I intended to rinse the garment out and give up. Fatigue overcame me and I forgot to rinse the garment out and to my surprise next morning the stain had disappeared. A note of caution: this was a white garment and attempting to use this method on a coloured item may cause damage to the dye.

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Just Chat! / Is social media compromising civilisation?

« on: 24/07/2024 10:21:56 »

I am not on social media, never have been and never will be. I am stunned by the amount of hatred spewed out by the so called "keyboard warriors". Even news events that are entirely noncontroversial seem to trigger the outpouring of venom. Recently a young man lost his way in Tenerife and died tragically and this story apparently led to some foul on-line correspondence. Personally I think social media is destroying the cohesiveness of society.