Posts by Mike Richards
3371 posts • joined Wednesday 28th February 2007 21:13 GMT
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Posted in NASA snaps Sun in super STEREO
Coming soon to Sky 3D
The Sun.
(it's an extra fiver a month to get it in HD)
Posted in Motorola Super Bowl ad rips Apple drones
Second ad
Had they ended it when they reached 'it's time for more choices' they'd have a fantastic teaser that would have got people talking.
As soon as they follow up with 'dual core' and '1080p' they've lost most of the market.
Which is why Apple ads are so effective, there's almost no discussion of the technology, it's all about the experience and emotion of using the product. That makes a connection with the customer. And that's why iPhones and iPads are so successful.
Polar orbit Shuttles and Soviet space planes
Were canned for several reasons, none to do with payload. The delays associated with Shuttle launches were unacceptable to the military who wanted a more reliable launcher, so lobbied for, and got, additional Titan IVs. What finally killed the project was Challenger; the Vandenburg launches would have used an even lighter SRB design which would have been even more prone to leakage and disaster. NASA canned the development of the booster.
Whether or not Uragan ever existed (there is plenty of evidence it was no more than a disinformation programme), the Soviet Union certainly flew and recovered a scale-model spaceplane called BOR-4 four times in the 1980s. The BOR project had originally been part of their Spiral spaceplane, when that was cancelled, the half-scale model was used to test materials and re-entry profiles for Buran. So it's nice to see the Americans playing catch-up ;)
http://www.buran-energia.com/bor/bor-desc.php
Surely someone from ESA reads this site
Is there no room in that 7 tonne payload for a Playmobilnaut?
Posted in NASA hails 'amazing' exoplanetary system
'Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist and a Kepler science team member'
Whoa there!
Following the Neal's ('we're not charlatans, honest') Yard ruling from the ASA, 'scientist' might mean he's got an advanced degree in theoretical yogurt weaving from the University of Creditcard sur Internet.
I'm hoping that Lissauer being described as a 'planetary scientist' means he's sort of a geologist. Geologist may not often need to resort to solving problems with calculus (most geological problems are soluble with a hammer), but must be considered boffins because they're responsible for dinosaurs and volcanoes.
Posted in Sky loses pub footy case
Waiting for the News International response
Even now the finest minds of the Murdoch press will be trying to retain Sky viewers with a hearts and minds campaign based around a high-minded concept such as 'foreign telly gives you AIDS'.
Trashcan
It does seem odd that suspended accounts aren't moved to a trashcan pending deletion. Flickr could send the registered user a notification that there is something suspicious about the account. if they don't respond within (chooses random number) seven days then the account is deleted permanently. If they reply, an arbitration process begins.
True boffins
I'm also certain that a real boffin has a pipe and performs jaw-dropping breakthroughs in a shed. (This of course rules out Americans from true boffinry)
Not just you
If you listen to Murdoch v.2 you quickly realise he didn't get his position by being best at his job. That's the weakness of NI, too few people being brought in from outside to come up with new ideas. They're wedded to pay-TV and paywalls and really don't have a plan B.
Neal's Yard - charlatans
These are the people who were perfectly happy to sell homeopathic 'remedies' for malaria - a product that offers absolutely no defence against what can be a crippling, or even fatal, condition. Later, they were invited to discuss their products and ethics with possibly the least hostile audience imaginable - Guardian readers - and it all went horribly pear shaped:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/may/26/you-ask-neals-yard-remedies?INTCMP=SRCH
Sony eBooks
The idea of an eBook app is nice, but Sony don't have the infrastructure to deliver the same experience as buying through Kindle. With Kindle, if you buy the book on iOS it is also immediately available on your PC, Mac and your Kindle when you get it.
The Sony readers in the UK don't have WiFi and Sony don't even deliver their own content in Britain. So if you bought an eBook on your iPhone, you probably could get it on to your reader when you buy one of their very nice piece of hardware.
Posted in Ten... wireless keyboards
Mattias Tactile Pro
A fabulous Mac keyboard with microswitches under the keys. I've never been able to type as fast as with this beast, but had to retire it when we moved to an open plan office as the clickity-clackety sound could be heard on the other side of the building.
It's USB with two USB unpowered sockets and weighs a ton. A really nice touch is that all the alternate symbols are also marked on the keyboard, so it's easy to find all those weird accents less fortunate languages insist on using.
You have to hunt them down in the UK, but if you're a Mac user who likes a proper keyboard they're hard to beat.
Posted in MSI Windows webpad goes on sale
WindPad?
Sounds like a cushion filled with activated-charcoal.
Another difference between the US and the UK
They still have thriving engineering and science sectors in their economy, we have openings for mortgage brokers, pizza delivery boys and the insanely large number of people required to sell Sky TV packages in shopping centres.
" There are lots of reasons an item could be prevented from going through security."
I dare you to give one that won't reduce me to tears of laughter in this context.
Posted in Your call is not important to us
Amazon
Their 'call me back' facility on the customer service pages is quite simply brilliant. I've never waited more than 30 seconds for the call back and then no more than a few more moments until I'm speaking to someone who can fix the problem.
Crap plane - but...
Comparing the price of the development of the Nimrod to the price of a new Orbiter is misleading as it ignores the huge amounts of money NASA sunk into designing the Shuttle in the first place.
Posted in UK tech retailers are rubbish
Not just Richer Sounds
Comet are especially evil in this regard. They carry Monster cables - and we all know what good value for money they aren't - and bully customers into buying them with a TV. My parents got scammed for £60 for component cables (and were told this was a special offer because they were buying a table) - when both their DVD player and TV had HDMI.
Posted in UK tech retailers are rubbish
If you really need a SCART cable
Drop round my place and I can give you a dustbin bag full of them.
Well I don't need any more evidence than that
It's quite clear that MW2 also inspired time-travelling terrorists to attack Vienna and Rome airports in 1985:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_and_Vienna_airport_attacks
Posted in Bookeen CyBook Orizon
PRS-650
Any chance of a comparison with Sony's top-end eBook reader which has the same screen? From the photos the Sony is better looking, but it'd be nice to know about the usability.
Size of Wales
Is a bit arbitrary really. Do you mean the size of Wales as seen from above, or the size of Wales if you ironed it properly (in which case it is considerably larger than Greenland*)
* which isn't as large as you think it is.
I'm really not helping am I?
Posted in The Last Airbender up for nine Razzies
You're forgetting the Expendables
Easily the worst movie of last year.
It's like someone had 1980s action movies explained to them through interpretive dance, then commissioned a script from a slumming chimp, got it directed by someone who might have trouble using a flip, lit by a blind man and the sound recorded through treacle.
Never have so many steroids been shot to so little effect.
ENIAC first????
Hasn't it been agreed by everyone outside the US that ENIAC was preceded by the all-electronic Colossus (which was also binary - something ENIAC wasn't)? The Zuse machines and the ABC preceded both, but contained mechanical components.
'yesterday's delivery is likely to have gone into a high-angle polar track'
DID go into a high-angle polar track. If it had been in any other inclination it would have dumped boosters and spent stages on the US.
Posted in End of the line for ID cards
Somewhere...
ex Identity Card Minister Meg Hillier is crouched in her bunker, ID card in one hand, pearl-handled revolver in the other 'They'll never take my card. Never I tell you!'
Unencrypted car details?
I hope someone is recreationally fired for that mistake.
I *think* if the card issuers find the data has not been held securely they can not only force Lush to cover the losses, but they can refuse to offer card services to the company.
Posted in Boffins sex pterodactyls at last
Pterodactyl???? Never trust spokespeople, they know not what they write
Darwinopterus is a genus in the pterosaur order. Pterodactyls are another genus in the same order but belong to a completely different family.
Can't wait for the headlines
Bearing in mind both disruptions are in areas famed for their wackos we should expect some hilarious news stories.
If only...
...they'd had the foresight to put a little Playmobilnaut aboard.
Should have crowdsourced it
I'm sure a whole lot of people here would have brought their own sledgehammers and done it for free just for the reward of making David Blunkett cry.
Posted in Brazilian cult condemns USB
'because blue is the colour of Jesus' eyes'
Really, are there a lot of good Jewish boys from Nazareth with blue eyes?
Posted in BBC rebuilds Civilisation in HD
35mm remastering
If they've done it with 'The Prisoner' maybe they'll do it with 'The Avengers' which was also shot on 35mm.
Sorry the thought of Diana Rigg in HD has left me utterly incapable of working for the rest of the day.
Last paragraph
Is genius.
Although are we limited to shark-deployed weapons? Would one of the members of Tylosaurinae (15m of pure bloody-minded viciousness) make a better platform ?
Or even a brachiosaur with water wings.
Just so long as this wouldn't delay the delivery of my pet dinosaur.
Posted in BBC rebuilds Civilisation in HD
Big fan of 'Earth Story'
Not only was it gorgeous (and at the time cutting edge geology). But they were very clever with Aubrey Manning as a presenter. He openly admitted he didn't know much about geology, but didn't go down the more common route of acting like a cretin. Here was a smart guy using his knowledge of a different area of science to explore another.
BTW. Does Brian Cox's constant smile freak other Regitards as much as it does me?
Posted in BBC rebuilds Civilisation in HD
To be fair to Iain Stewart
At least he's a geologist.
The BBC is usually much happier to embark on 'celebrity led journeys of discovery'*, just think back to the buttock clenchingly awful episode of Horizon with Alan bloody Davies. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that'll follow that up with Barbara Windsor's Quest for the Higgs Boson.
* their words not mine. It was used in cold blood at a pitching meeting I once attended.
Maybe it isn't as good as it could have been because...
...it had to be ready by a certain day?
Such as the day before the Israelis started bombing.
Posted in Boeing customers spy distant Dreamliner
Chevrons on the engines
They're there help reduce engine noise.
As mentioned above the 'Top Gear' jumbo was a prop on Casino Royale where its undercarriage and engines were mated to a CGI upper.
Wow!
Someone who makes ACPO look rational.
Speaking of ACPO, I was very surprised recently to learn that they're not a statutory body. For all the press attention they get and access to ministers, they are nothing more than a private company. It's also exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
Fast charging
Some of the information about charging is out of date. Nissan have already announced a fast charge for the LEAF which will take it from flat to 80% charge in less than half an hour.
Posted in Ace Reg reporter in career suicide shock
Good luck Chris
You have a monumental task ahead of you with the Telegraph's tech pages which appear to be aimed at users of - well the telegraph actually with articles that alternate between 'can it ever be acceptable for women to use a home telephone?' and 'Steven Fry says this is the best thing ever - so it is'.
So are you the Reg's very own trojan horse on Fleet Street? A stealthy replacement of the Telegraph's journalists by the likes of yourself, Lester, Lewis and of course the very lovely Moderatrix would be guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of elderly conservatives everywhere.
Why hydrogen?
Is there something special about hydrogen which makes it the only suitable fuel for such a mission?
Posted in Dixons warns on crap Christmas
They're bigger than that
Have you already forgotten that they are 'the greatest electrical store in our galaxy':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODFqZBoAPc
Posted in Dixons warns on crap Christmas
WH Smith
Just one of those stores I kind of wonder how it's still in business.
Every time I go into one they seem to have added another disparate line of products. First it was chocolate bars, then it became pick 'n mix, now Krispy Kreme. All of which have been accommodated by as you say - crunching magazines so tightly together you can't see anything - assuming of course they haven't randomly moved all the shelves around.
Books? Nope, if it isn't a Twilight book, a sleb autobiography or on Richard and Judy's list you aren't going to find it. Music - forget it, DVDs - how much??? Blu-Ray - what's that?
They must be existing solely on the profits on Lottery scratch cards and chocolate oranges (which are crap since Terry's got taken over, but that's another rant entirely).
See also Boots.
America - never short of terrorist threats
So they're now detaining people coming from that hothouse of fundamentalist reasonableness - Iceland.
Watch out Finland, you'll be next.
Posted in Airbus secures whopping 180 plane deal
Sharklets?
What a fabulous new word. I plan to use it every day.
Maybe it's not aimed at the US
China has any number of border disputes with non-aligned countries - most especially with Vietnam and India. How would the J-20 compare to their latest aircraft should Beijing decide that these matters need to be resolved without resorting to diplomacy?
Presumably
This dildo came with an enormous seven-segment LED display and beep-beep-beeped its way down to the suitably explosive climax.
