How far back are you going?

The pencil museum in Keswick is worth a visit (even if only to watch The Snowman on telly). And there is secret pencil tech from WWII. And you could stock up on mint cake while in town.

Takes me back to Codonas...

...on Aberdeen beach. Happy days spending all my money on Outrun (got top sores on that one), BattleZone, Star Wars and there was a Gauntlet in the Aberdeen Students Union as well ("Elf's life force is running out"). I tried Space Harrier once, I felt travel sick and nearly fell off, couldnt get the hang of HangOn either, unless it was just the handlebars version. Going further back into my childhood and I used to play Boot Hill, which was like a western version of pong but with bullets and suitably crappy graphics and sound. :-)

Thanks for all the memories!

You have to appreciate the effort he put into those images though. I mean the effort to match the faces to the images he planted them in, not his prowess in PhotoShop, obviously.

Can we have a website like this every Monday morning? It has fair made my day :-)

Born again

I have an old Sammy NC10 which has been getting slower and slower on Win XP and as a result getting used less and less. Now that I have a smartphone I can get my emails and twit-tubes etc just by putting on my reading glasses. However some websites arent very smartphone friendly and after someone here mentioned LinuxMint I thought I'd have a look at that. The NC10 had already had Ubuntu 10.10 installed alongside WinXP but I found Unity less than helpful after years of occasional RedHat/CentOS use. Also it used to lock up for no apparent reason. I got LinixMint13 XFCE downloaded, burnt to DVD, installed (even recognised the Ubuntu install and overwrote it) in a few hours and not long after that had my wireless network setup and email configured. Now it boots in about a minute and shuts down in seconds, which is what I was after, so I can put the tablet purchase on hold for a little while yet. I still have my desktop system for serious work, but for everything else I can sit in my living room and pull out my old netbook.

Thanks commentards for saving my old netbook from an early retirement of sitting on a shelf gathering dust! :-)

Just a thought...

Perhaps taking into account the massive heat output of major cities would explain why AGW isnt following the models. In fact the greenhouse gas emissions are a smaller input into the climate models than originally thought when you add in heat emissions which would explain why the earth seems to be coping ok (for certain values of ok) with the increase in CO2 etc.

I never did understand why big corps and retail didnt pay much attention to energy saving like insulation. Surely the energy bills for a large office/retail store must have a significant impact on the bottom line? Even going into new shops and looking up you can see there is nothing between you and the roofing panel, and yet they seem happy to pump money into heating these vast spaces to ~20C day and night. And presumably cooling them in the summer as well.

<- Flames, obviously :-)

Why another London channel?

== Local TV channel franchises have been awarded over the last few months,

== though we're still waiting for the one that matters: London.

In what way is it important for London to have a local channel? Most of the national channels broadcast from London so they already have a London bias.

Why all the anti-butter stance?

I'm on a diet and this morning I had bacon, egg, onion and haggis slice, all fried in butter. Unfortunately no bread or roll allowed, or tomato sauce sadly. Like ghostbusters you cant mix the streams together or bad things might happen.

Cant beleive I get to eat this every morning and still lose weight, yay!

And there is no such thing as overdone bacon, the crispier the better. The A90 is a bit under-done in my book. Just as long as you dont use that waffer-theen merkin rubbish!

The Horn

An A90 institution, I've never seen it *not* busy. Sometimes with queues just to get into the car park.

Add to that all the possible Viz comic level amusement, fnarr fanrr.

I, for one, welcome our sugary power overlords.

If they overheat like lithium ones, do we get caramel?

Black Books

Reminds me of the episode where Manny leaves Black Books to work at the new bookstore next door. Simon Pegg was excellent as the store manager full of management speak trying to get him to cut his hair and get him to wear the corporate uniform. So nice to see life imitating art.

The Grand Hotel in the centre is nice, but the Lund area is all a bit flat and boring for my liking.

Shame for the guys out of a job, used to consult for Ericsson out there, dont think there is enough capacity in the local area for them all to find another job.

"or risk a spell begins bars for contempt of court"

Was this story written on a phone with predictive text?

Where is the squiggly red underline of shame when you need it?

don't know about the horizontal issue, but...

...why would the two balloons need to be on long tethers that could twist around each other?

I assume that the plan is to make the girder long enough to leave a big enough space to shoot the vulture between them (ooh, err, missus!); then all you need to do is make sure the tether lines are less than the length of the girder (or maybe less) and the two balloons shouldn't get tangled.

As for the horizontal issue, I'm going with Albert G's self balancing strings dragging the gubbins around to balance it out. That and using a spring balance when filling the balloons with helium to get an approximate match on lift generated by each one before launch.

< So simple even Paris could manage it.

Tried to book a delivery slot on Sunday for delivery today from Sainsbury's, but they were showing nothing available until the 27th, so got ours via sneakernet on Wednesday night.

Best episode of The Good Life ever!

"Good will to all men, especially me!"

Surely you could strap a mower to the front of Stephen Hawking's wheelchair. That would have enough power and weight to push stuff around, and it's covered in tech, so presumably it could be controlled remotely?

BTW I'm not condoning the hijacking of the Prof himself, but what the hey, he's not got anything better to do, and he could do any work remotely over the Wifi link while trundling around the lawn.

Its also used extensively in aromatherapy, and the price has been rising for the past few years. I'm guessing the difficulties in propagation are why nobody has been able to expand production up until now.

I'm sorry but his I cannot take any man seriously that wears a cravat!

Bad hair and terrible taste in clothing is almost de rigueur in IT, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

I for one, welcome the new Reg Goss section, especially now that we never see anything in the rebranding/joss sticks/whalesong section any more.

Small point - charcoal is produced from trees which capture the CO2 while growing, so the CO2 produced by burning the charcoal is effectively 'carbon neutral'.

Apart from that, the guy is obviously bonkers! An ideal role model for teaching the yoof of today. It never did us any harm being taught by nutters!

Bumblebee Boffin

...and I thought a job title of software toolsmith was cool!

No geothermal power, but if you want low temparature range to reduce cooling costs, and keep the data in the UK then why not stick your data cente on Shetland? Presumably there is a decent net connection and it keeps the jobs in the UK.

Get some wave/tidal power just off the coast and your sorted!

War Games

Let's play Global Themornuclear War...

More importantly what is the tech behind the new super-battery?

I'm not convinced on the whole noise factor of a bike. Now sitting in the queues in my tin box instead of filtering down the middle I dont hear any bikes filtering until they come past me anyway. However I havent had so many dolts pulling out on me since I got my Priller and its 'road legal' OE silencer. I think this ebike is a more direct substitute for a 125cc scooter than a full-on bike. You dont see (or hear) many of those with loud zorsts.

And when will someone invent a proper visor cleaning system that can be used on the move so that I can keep riding when the roads a covered in brown slime? Heated grips / clothing are all very well, but they are no use if I cant see.

My wife just got a 1.2 GT-Line. I think Renault pre-registered a bunch in July and then flogged them to the dealers to get rid of them, presumably to clear the decks for the Gordini edition. Got a decent discount for ours at six weeks old and just 30 miles of demos on the clock.

It's no sports car, but the 1.2 (really 1.15) turbo is not bad, and makes a decent noise which is just as well, as you dont get any choice in whether you want to hear it or not. The handling is brilliant, reminds me off all the old minis I owned in my yoof, there is no bodyroll in corners at all. Talking of minis, the roof mechanism is actually made by Webasto, so that's good enough for me.

The uprated stereo with bluetooth, cruise control and climate control also comes on the GT-Line spec, so all the Gordini gets you is some additional blue and grey leather.

It does look pig-ugly in the photos but doesnt look so bad in the flesh, although as mentioned its still a bit too tall for a proper roadster.

I have to say that the view out the back isnt that bad, it is a doddle to reverse compared to the Kia Pro'cee'd we had before.

However the main reason we bought it is it is in a market of one. Find me another drop top with a decent boot for £12K with 3 years warranty and AA cover?

^ What has the Renault Flatulence got to do with IT anyway? It has a bluetooth stereo!

This isn't the title you are looking for

Finally, I have perfected my Jedi mind control!

On another note, general comments wouldn't be a good thing. If there is something out there worth our opinion then we can email the story to you guys, and if it is genuinely relevant then you will publish a story about it (maybe), and then we can comment on that. Otherwise, as already mentioned, it will degenerate into "Windows/Linux/Apple/Android/OS2Warp* is the best" flame wars.

* OK, maybe not the last one... (tin hat on)

schmitle

We are assuming of course, that there is Voda 2G coverage in your home. According to Vodas website there is only "outside coverage" in my estate, and I'm only a few miles from the centre of Glasgow. What do these so-called smart meters do when they cant phone home?

You could emulate the same by building your meter cupboard from copper mesh ;-)