1

Just Chat! / Re: Is there a universal moral standard?

« on: Yesterday at 18:13:43 »

It certainly fails my test of morality because if I fitted a gadget that modifies the flight characteristics of a plane I'd certainly tell the other pilots (not quite my nearest and dearest, but you get the point) and I'd be pretty pissed off if somebody tweaked my plane without telling me.

Evil? Not sure. I don't detect any malice. In fact the MCAS addition was well-intended but incompetent, and not including it in the operating manual should fall into the category of criminal negligence.

Funnily enough I just remembered two parallel incidents. Some years ago I fitted an experimental electronic ignition system to my father's car. But it was done with his knowledge and consent, and there was an "override" switch. Massive improvement in performance, but the system died about two years later: no problem because he had read the manual and just flipped the switch!  And from my father's recollection: he was issued with a company car in the days when motor vehicles were rare, because he was on call for emergencies. One day he complained to the mechanic that the brakes were noisy. He picked the car up at the end of the day to drive home and found the brakes didn't work at all - not the sort of  thing you want to discover in London traffic. Turned out that the mechanic had cured the squealing brakes by lubricating them with graphite. Boeing employee, perhaps? 

Truly, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

2

Just Chat! / Re: Why should I be bothered with lockdown?

« on: Yesterday at 17:53:14 »

Not if he values his teeth.

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Just Chat! / Re: The two biggest questions of all-time?

« on: Yesterday at 17:51:58 »

Why assume that dead people know more about the universe than live ones?

Why assume that the universe had an origin?

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COVID-19 / Re: asymptomatic infection/ testing

« on: Yesterday at 17:46:41 »

All infectious disease has an asymptomatic period whilst the infection grows without significantly impairing the patient's function. Covid is just remarkable in having a fairly  long period in which the patient is incubating and dispersing virus but does not complain of any effects.

If you have been in close contact with an infectious person, it is quite likely that you have acquired the infection even if you don't feel ill, so it is worth testing both known contacts and those who, if infectious, will infect large numbers of others (e.g. in an aeroplane or a dental surgery). But the guy sitting next to you with a broken leg will not break yours.

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General Science / Re: Is it possible to measure the weight of clouds?

« on: Yesterday at 17:25:28 »

Condensation is fairly rapid at or below the dewpoint. This is a function of local pressure (altitude) and relative humidity. If you look at "active" (developing) clouds you will see that they have flat or concave bottoms and well-defined edges. The classic cumulus cloud drifts downwind, first forming and growing as the moist air mass condenses, then merging or dispersing.

A truly dynamic equilibrium cloud  is called a lenticular, formed at the top of a standing wave  in the lee of a mountain.  Although the shape remains fairly constant, the air inside is usually moving at 30 - 100 knots: the cloud is continuously forming at the leading edge (as rising air passes the dewpoint) and  dispersing at the training edge where the moist air is descending.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Why shouldn't we engage in eugenics?

« on: Yesterday at 17:10:30 »

If this pandemic was allowed to run its natural course, what would happen? 

Most of the deaths occur among people who have passed their reproductive years, so there would be no effect on future generations..

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Just Chat! / Re: Do Malthusains have a point?

« on: 05/03/2021 14:06:25 »

climate is more complicated than the narrative we see expressed in the general media as portrayed currently.

Regrettably, this is one point in which we agree.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Why shouldn't we engage in eugenics?

« on: 05/03/2021 13:51:43 »

he last century has seen massive amounts of radioactive materials being released and the use of many harmful chemicals, all of which have lead to an increase in cancer.

No. The last century introduced massive amounts of useful chemicals which have increased life expectancy to the point at which cancer became a significant cause of death because we eliminated starvation and most infectious diseases.

Artificial sources of ionising radiation deliver about  50% of your lifetime dose in the last 5 years of your life, mostly in the diagnosis of cancer or heart disease, and less than 1% of your annual dose if you are not sick.

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COVID-19 / Re: If you catch COVID from someone with milld symptoms, will you get less sick?

« on: 05/03/2021 13:48:01 »

Not necessarily. If I can pick up 100 kg with one hand, are they lighter kilograms than average?

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New Theories / Re: Are positive and negative charge equal and opposite?

« on: 05/03/2021 13:45:05 »

A positron can be broken down at room temperature.

Please tell us how.

You might care to study 20th century physics, particularly with regard to quarks, before talking nonsense about "preferring the long shot".

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Just Chat! / Re: Do Malthusains have a point?

« on: 05/03/2021 11:12:06 »

It was politics that excluded China and India from the original Kyoto protocol and took the US out of the Paris conference. As long as the world is run by parasites, we are doomed to the effects of ignorance.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Why shouldn't we engage in eugenics?

« on: 05/03/2021 11:08:29 »

we will end up like the giant panda.

Eh? AFAIK the animal evolved in perfect harmony with its environment until homo "sapiens" started to destroy the environment and kill the pandas. Same problem for gorillas, elephants and orang-utans.

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Just Chat! / Re: Why should I be bothered with lockdown?

« on: 05/03/2021 10:59:47 »

Private flying for pleasure is banned. As far as separation from others is concerned, it beats even cricket: the radar umpires keep the participants at least 500 feet apart, and 5 miles from the paying public! But it's expensive and therefore seen as permitting the privileged few to have fun while the hoi polloi suffer.

And cricket itself is subject to an odd prejudice.  My schoolteacher son was allowed to coach tennis but not cricket last summer. Why?

14

Just Chat! / Re: Are Nigel Farage and George Galloway truth tellers?

« on: 05/03/2021 10:48:40 »

Politics consists of the memory of Tony Benn plus the presence of a million liars.

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General Science / Re: Is it possible to measure the weight of clouds?

« on: 05/03/2021 10:45:27 »

The distinction is between humid air (effectively transparent with mostly mono and dimer H2O) and a cloud (reflective and absorbent, with mesoscopic droplets) is pretty obvious. Even the most apparently static clouds are actually dynamic, with falling droplets or ice particles being replaced by rising and condensing vapor: the shape of a "cloud" is actually the shape of the condensation isotherm.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Is it desirable for Mankind to be smaller in stature?

« on: 05/03/2021 10:38:31 »

The square cube rule does not apply. Distance runners (need to disperse chronic heat from aerobic exercise ) are a very different shape from sprinters (maximum anaerobic power/weight ratio)  weightlifters and Sumo wrestlers (optimum momentum/strength distribution within a weight class).  Boxers, swimmers and rugby backs tend to "ideal general purpose"  shape, for whom the rule may be approximately valid, but the forwards and scrum half cover a very broad spectrum.

Smaller pilots and racing drivers tend to have better g tolerance, but size and weight are an advantage in yacht racing.

Saami and northern Inuit survive better if they are short and round, but native Australians and South Americans need to lose heat, not retain it. 

There is an underlying problem in Western society. As diets improve and machines do more of the heavy lifting, males become both larger and redundant, so spend more time fighting than working.

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Just Chat! / Re: Is there a universal moral standard?

« on: 05/03/2021 00:57:53 »

Debatable what a "completely new" aircraft might look like. The industry generally proceeds by evolution, which is why the pitch stabiliser is usually at the back where it can stall the plane instead of the front, where it can't.

All large passenger jets trace their ancestry to the B29. The only significant departures were the Comet (based on fighter designs with the engines buried close to the fuselage, so very difficult to maintain or upgrade)  and Concorde (uneconomic). What would you suggest?

Most of the cockpit of the BA146  was copied from a Boeing 707 because it had four jet engines and worked fairly well - why reinvent the wheel? Increasing the capacity or range of the 737 is entirely logical because it's a fundamentally well-sorted design. 

Fitting a bigger engine is entirely normal on all successful designs from the Piper Cub (originally 40 HP, modern "Super Cubs" up to 180 HP) to the Spitfire (1030 HP to 2300 HP) but always involves a change in flight characteristics and in practically every case some formal type conversion training. That's the only bit that Boeing and the FAA missed out, assuming that the MCAS computer would cover it, and not mentioning it in the handbook. Funny, that. If you modify the oven or the toilet, the ground and cabin crews  get introductory training, but if you add a wholly unnecessary flight control that overrides the pilot, you don't have to tell him.

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Just Chat! / Re: Do murder trials of white victims receive more attention than non-white victims?

« on: 05/03/2021 00:18:31 »

I guess it depends on the journalistic value of the victim. In a society that is 90% white but in all other senses random, the probability of selling newspapers or TV advertising  based on the presumed public profile of the victim or the gruesomness of his killing,  is strongly in favor of the victim being white. If you multiply by a nonrandomness factor such as the fact that the richest members of society tend to be white, and given that you have to sell your TV advertising slot on the basis of only one murder trial (newspapers can accommodate more, but the most expensive adverts are on Page 1) the likelihood of today's favored victim being black is very small.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Why shouldn't we engage in eugenics?

« on: 05/03/2021 00:07:27 »

People judged potential partners by analyzing their DNA.

Which we do anyway, in effect. We look at appearance, behavior, and sometimes family, all of which is partly determined by genetics and partly by circumstance, and base our relationships, including breeding programs, on the totality of what we find.

20

That CAN'T be true! / Re: How long should a Vaccine Trial take?

« on: 04/03/2021 23:58:28 »

the suggestion that the market is better then government to control society has allowed regulators to be captured by the very market forces they are meant to be monitoring. 

Whilst I have always found  European Union Directives to be fundamentally biassed in favor of the market, everyone I have worked with in ethics committees and national regulatory agencies (apart from the Health and Safety Executive) has been scrupulously honest and for the most part competent.