Scrutable

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:10 pm

Goldfinches are an interesting species right now as they are increasingly colonising suburbia and becoming more common in gardens and parks etc. They're quite fun to watch at this time of year - they'll often be in twos, with one appearing to follow the other. Generally, the female flies around doing what she wants, while the male follows to make sure she doesn't mate with anybody else. They can also be quite aggressive to bigger birds - that red face means business!

One morning a few months ago (high summer) I saw a dozen of them flock into my friend's garden, forage among seedheads, and flock off a couple of minutes later. I hadn't seen that many together before. It was very colourful.

basementer wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:07 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:10 pm

Goldfinches are an interesting species right now as they are increasingly colonising suburbia and becoming more common in gardens and parks etc. They're quite fun to watch at this time of year - they'll often be in twos, with one appearing to follow the other. Generally, the female flies around doing what she wants, while the male follows to make sure she doesn't mate with anybody else. They can also be quite aggressive to bigger birds - that red face means business!

One morning a few months ago (high summer) I saw a dozen of them flock into my friend's garden, forage among seedheads, and flock off a couple of minutes later. I hadn't seen that many together before. It was very colourful.

The old collective noun is a charm of goldfinches, which I think is one of the better ones.

I'd forgotten they've been introduced elsewhere. A birder friend of mine did a year abroad at Otago and texted me that the first dozen or so species he saw were all European introductions. He ended up doing his dissertation with the New Zealand Robin reintroduction project, though, so things got better

Goldfinches are what ended my OH's vendetta against dandelions, after we spotted one in the garden eating the seed heads a couple of years ago. I've just about won her round to preferring the free flowers that show up if you do minimal effort gardening.

AMS wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:09 pm

Goldfinches are what ended my OH's vendetta against dandelions, after we spotted one in the garden eating the seed heads a couple of years ago. I've just about won her round to preferring the free flowers that show up if you do minimal effort gardening.

I got my mum into that when I was a teenager, and not just because I was too lazy to mow regularly. By the time she moved a decade later our crap suburban lawn had two species of orchid and a whole load of chalk downland species had recolonised it. It was really quite beautiful. But, a bit like growing a beard, you do have to go through an awkward scruffy intermediate period.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:42 pm

basementer wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:07 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 02, 2020 1:10 pm

Goldfinches are an interesting species right now as they are increasingly colonising suburbia and becoming more common in gardens and parks etc. They're quite fun to watch at this time of year - they'll often be in twos, with one appearing to follow the other. Generally, the female flies around doing what she wants, while the male follows to make sure she doesn't mate with anybody else. They can also be quite aggressive to bigger birds - that red face means business!

One morning a few months ago (high summer) I saw a dozen of them flock into my friend's garden, forage among seedheads, and flock off a couple of minutes later. I hadn't seen that many together before. It was very colourful.

The old collective noun is a charm of goldfinches, which I think is one of the better ones.

I'd forgotten they've been introduced elsewhere. A birder friend of mine did a year abroad at Otago and texted me that the first dozen or so species he saw were all European introductions. He ended up doing his dissertation with the New Zealand Robin reintroduction project, though, so things got better

That's really sweet. I'll pass it on.

science_fox wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 02, 2020 9:21 am

Air pollution should be significantly lower, but I don't know if you'd notice on an individual level.

We have a nice view of the central Manchester skyline about five miles away from our upstairs window and while this may be subjective and coincidental it has definitely been looking clearer than usual these last two weeks.

nekomatic wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:38 am

science_fox wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 02, 2020 9:21 am

Air pollution should be significantly lower, but I don't know if you'd notice on an individual level.

We have a nice view of the central Manchester skyline about five miles away from our upstairs window and while this may be subjective and coincidental it has definitely been looking clearer than usual these last two weeks.

Anecdotally, my hay fever doesn't seem so bad this year. Perhaps due to not being on the tube twice a day?

Does Moore's Law continue during a global lockdown?

Does technology advance for the coming year? Or does it sort of get suspended? Not just Moore's Law - will electric cars be a year's worth better in March 2021? Solar panels? Cancer drugs?

My instinct is the key advances come from production rather than research, and if production gets suspended for a year you lose the driving force, even if a research team is still moving forwards.

lpm wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:45 pm

Does Moore's Law continue during a global lockdown?

Does technology advance for the coming year? Or does it sort of get suspended? Not just Moore's Law - will electric cars be a year's worth better in March 2021? Solar panels? Cancer drugs?

My instinct is the key advances come from production rather than research, and if production gets suspended for a year you lose the driving force, even if a research team is still moving forwards.

It depends what the current critical path is to any particular advance. It might well be the design phase for mass market electric cars, which can continue, while Moore's law is probably more (somewhat suspended?*) micro-fab lab development dependent.

*Hard to think of a professional/production activity that is safer in a pandemic than working in a CPU factory cleanroom. Except maybe winter-overing at South Pole, which closed up for the winter before the virus got there.

lpm wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:45 pm

Does Moore's Law continue during a global lockdown?

Does technology advance for the coming year? Or does it sort of get suspended? Not just Moore's Law - will electric cars be a year's worth better in March 2021? Solar panels? Cancer drugs?

My instinct is the key advances come from production rather than research, and if production gets suspended for a year you lose the driving force, even if a research team is still moving forwards.

My feeling is that both contribute - research moves ideas forward, production (and hence use) identifies the kinks.

There may not be as much research in the coming year(s), especially if production slows down, as companies look to cut costs to remain profitable/reduce losses.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 21, 2020 12:26 am

lpm wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:45 pm

Does Moore's Law continue during a global lockdown?

Does technology advance for the coming year? Or does it sort of get suspended? Not just Moore's Law - will electric cars be a year's worth better in March 2021? Solar panels? Cancer drugs?

My instinct is the key advances come from production rather than research, and if production gets suspended for a year you lose the driving force, even if a research team is still moving forwards.

It depends what the current critical path is to any particular advance. It might well be the design phase for mass market electric cars, which can continue, while Moore's law is probably more (somewhat suspended?*) micro-fab lab development dependent.

*Hard to think of a professional/production activity that is safer in a pandemic than working in a CPU factory cleanroom. Except maybe winter-overing at South Pole, which closed up for the winter before the virus got there.

We're still in production, as our products are considered essential. Production is scaled back though, and development is affected in several ways.

You need to run lots through the fab to get the results of experiments (although we do heavily rely on simulation to inform those in the first place).

And once a process is released, uou do indeed need to run in production in order to improve the yield.

The numbers involved are huge - our key customers insist on well under 1ppm customer returns and they are actually meaningful numbers given how many we ship to them.