Mike Collins

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• Commented on Place your bets
  It’s a very useful and common test. But it’s non specific. Without an obvious case a raised CRP will usually lead to more investigations....
• Commented on Place your bets
  I read the link about biomarkers or PTSD. I’ve measured most of the biochemical endocrinology and immune markers in my ten years as clinical trials coordinator. Most of them are expensive, non specific and with poor quality control. The most...
• Commented on Place your bets
  The last boundary commission report was not implemented because the Liberal Democrats were punishing their coalition partners for the outcome of the referendum on the Alternative Vote. The boundary changes would have been advantageous to the Conservatives....
• Commented on Place your bets
  It might be simpler just to buy a car with this already built in. A hybrid....
• Commented on Place your bets
  Drones don’t even need to be new designs. Rumours about the Russians converting AN-2 cargo planes as drones for use in Ukraine have ben around for a few weeks. https://theaviationist.com/2022/03/02/russia-may-use-an-2-biplanes-in-ukraine/...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Europium is used in time resolved immunofluorescence. It’s used as a marker in immunoassays mostly for hormones. Lutetium also has a commercial use. One of it’s isotopes is used in nuclear medicine.....
• Commented on Place your bets
  Monazite has about the same percentage of lutetium as the Earths crust. There doesn’t seem to be any known ore with a higher percentage. And one source seems to suggest that there are over seventy different steps to its purification....
• Commented on Place your bets
  My Chemistry BSC ignored lutetium except for a mnemonic we had to learn to memorise lanthanides. So I looked it up. It’s currently refined from monazite as a by product of thorium and rare earth production. The concentration in monazite...
• Commented on Place your bets
  When I was on call at Leeds Infirmary I used to get pizza delivered from a local place called Pizza Planet. They had pizzas named after every major Jovian moon except Io - the only solar system object which actually...
• Commented on Place your bets
  When I lived in Leeds I refused to have cable TV because to get Discoevery I had to but a package which included religious channels. Now we have Freeview with 100 or so channels of which about ten are with...
• Commented on Place your bets
  Wouldn’t that rule out anybody who’d been in the US armed forces? Wasn’t it Truman who ended segregation in them?...
• Commented on Place your bets
  It’s not that brutal. My minimum total weight lifted in a 1 hour 50 minute gym weight training session is 11 tonnes....
• Commented on Place your bets
  According to the BBC WHO all accredited labs have a couple of H5N1 samples which could be suitable for preparing vaccines. Also most mammal cases in the UK seem to be foxes and otters who have presumably eaten infected birds....
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  This should tell you all you need to know about Ryanair. https://youtu.be/HPyl2tOaKxM Youtube...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_Requirement_F.155 The proposed FD 3 and the proposed Saunders-Roe hybrid jet/rocket interceptor based on the SR53 were both contenders with export potential. The Lockheed scandal resulting in the sale of the Starfighter to most European air forces. Some F104G were...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  For over a year I lived a bit 100 metres from the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital helicopter landing pad. I was never heard a landing or takeoff when I was inside the house. It just had standard UK double glazing...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  My understanding was that the Rotodyne was only excessively noisy at takeoff and landing because the rotors were unpowered during forward flight. My only helicopter flight from Penzance to the Isles of Scilly was deafening. The crew wore ear protection...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  To me the alternative to the Osprey would be a Rotodyne as featured in your novels. Vertical takeoff and landing plus high speed. Fairly/Westland claimed to have saved the tip jet noise problem but Duncan Sandys pulled the plug, as...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  I don’t think drafting is an important part of the journey I was describing. I keep a lot of distance between me and the vehicle in front. In the summer the tall grass by the side of the roads (and...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  Jimmy Carter was also a hero. He led a US team in 1952 which stopped a serious accident in a Canadian reactor becoming much worse. https://www.voanews.com/a/jimmy-carter-hailed-in-canada-for-1952-nuclear-rescue-/6373070.html...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  I get much lower fuel efficiency on the motorway. I drive for economy. I rarely change gear once I’ve reached 6th. In the Yeti (1.2 litres) I get just under 50mpg for what was my daily journey to work and...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  A few years ago “Which” did some tests that proved this 40 - 60 MPH was wrong. In general in modern cars the slower the more fuel efficient. It certainly agrees with my experience. My journey to work was about...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  My wife had heartburn for years and got relief from antacids. When she finally got a competent doctor she found she had a hiatus hernia and an oesophageal ulcer from the acid reflux. Which was bleeding and she ended up...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  Haven’t you read the Empire Games trilogy. With parts of South America almost uninhabitable due to global warming?...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  The problem with amateur astronomers photographing the ballon is finding it. Computerised astronomical telescope databases are designed to point at astronomical objects and compensate for the rotation of the Earth. And the observer’s location. To photograph a high white balloon...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  Greg If you’re at home just go to settings and turn WiFi off. Then you should be able to access the internet if you have a decent phone signal....
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  Not ChatGPT but definitely AI. Space.com reports possible radio telescope alien signatures from several stars. https://www.space.com/machine-learning-seti-technosignatures...
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  Ellery Queen was the pseudonym of many authors - including Jack Vance who wrote three novels published under that name....
• Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
  In his 1961 book The Silver Eggheads Fritz Leiber had all novels written by machine. The “authors” were people hired to look good in their pictures on the covers and media interviews. The books themselves were “wordwooze” (now an internet...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Cobalt is an essential trace element (vitamin B12). The have also been concerns about absorption of cobalt from artificial joint replacements. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4637398/...