Needs to be simple ...

How about rigging the parachute strings so that when the parachute opens, the truss is angled in the other direction. That way the SPB would simply slide down the greasy pole?

What I would like to see

Is Mr Fry provided an account here on the dear old Reg.

He would need to understand the the Reg is a hive of scum & villainy; That asbestos undergarments would be a requirement.

But the thought of the esteemed Mr Fry eviscerating the commentards here fills me with a feeling of delight and evil glee

Perhaps he would consider the post of moderatrix?

Simple solution

I am offended and feel threatened by people being easily offended and acting as the thought police

Therefore these people have to cease & desist!

Job done :)

Old ARCnet jocky here

I kinda miss ARCnet sometimes

Most of the benefits of token-ring and most of the benefits of early Ethernet

Still remember soldering up 4-way passive hubs *sniff*

S-100 anyone?

Everything old is new again

How long before the rack holding the main compute nodes in a data centre is called the "Main Frame" :)

I love puppet, but it can at times be a little like playing high stakes kerplunk with your servers

Toffuacon anyone?

First there was the abomination that is toffurkey, never was a big turkey fan; so I said nothing

But if Toffu-Bacon is the only thing left to me than the world is definitely coming to its end times

Where will I get my Bacon & Egg Pies from now?

We're doomed I tells ya, DOOOMED

MythTV FTW

Been using MythTV for a few years now

I find it hard to imagine having to work my schedule around TV viewing habits anymore

Next step

Would be to make the little darlings completely computer controlled

I'm thinking of the vids of the swarm of quad-rotors

Think of it; A swarm of Computer controlled roaches, all governed by a game AI

Make for a good AR game ;)

Lets be honest

Most of us got into computers & engineering with the dream of building ourselves killer robots

I know I did :)

Igor! Pull the lever ....

In soviet Russia

The porn watches you

Browser assisted video/voice conferencing ... good

Browser based surveillance .... bad

Guess which option will be most popular with out ad wielding corporate overlords

Time for webcams to come with a physical on/off switch

Oh noes 0xDEADBEEF

No one tell PETA

Once again, I weep for my species

Would someone please get me the hell off this rock!

red tide algal bloom

I wonder is the Ocean seeding projects are the cause of this?

Am I right in thinking that this is not the first study into iron seeding

I vaguely recall something similar in 2004-5

http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CGIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.niwa.co.nz%2Fpublications%2Fwa%2Fvol13-no2-june-2005%2Feye-in-the-sky-tracking-harmful-algal-blooms-with-satellite-remote-sensing&ei=Jb0IUJrDOYuziQeoysDZCQ&usg=AFQjCNEPdTpEA0L2eP76Jqwq_yej_6mjbQ&sig2=qf6RegTw8I_TV1eQVxNXHQ

Why aren't we doing cool stuff like this anymore

Don't get me wrong I'm glad that someone at least is doing cool tech like this

But It makes me sad to think that in the west we have basically given up

Alcubierre drive signature?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Perhaps the aliens from life of Brian came back :)

My 2 sense

How about this ....

You can copyright something or patent it, but not both

Copyright for software can only be granted on the original source code, binaries are also copyrighted but as a translation of the source

Software copyright is 20 years, everything else 50 years from application date

Copyrights have to be renewed every 10 years

To get/maintain a copyright, the source material but be published via a public forum (some sort of central library?)

As for Patents

Software & business process patents to be 10 years, everything else 20.

Basically same deal as for Copyrights above but....

All inventions must actually exist & be proven to work IE No working prototype? No patent

A patent must contain all the information required to replicate the invention

Can't replicate it? No patent

If companies don't like the above then they can keep their stuff as a trade secret,

but if the secret gets out ... tough shit

If the central authority is say UN based central repo; the registered the info is available worldwide & will receive world wide protection

That way ownership of & payment for use of patent/copyright material can be made easier

The fees gained from renewals etc should cover the cost of running the above

The library should keep track of material that has entered public domain & once in the public domain material can not be re-appropriated (Like Sony does with various e-books)

I for one ...

No actually I don't, we don't need smarter mice

How about trying this on politicians?

What could possibly go wrong?

Puppeteer homeworld perhaps

Puppeteer are headed that way no?

Easy fix .... LinkedIn

If an emplyer or agent want contact through a SocialMedia type website

I usually tell em to contact me via LinkedIn

LinkedIn for work

Facebook for friends & family

Usually give em my e-mail addy too

But never ever give em your passwords, thats just retarded :)

A job for PARIS & LOHANs offspring?

The google X-Prize seems like a perfect fit for the SPB guys!

As for mining on Mars, wouldn't asteroid mining be easier? ... No need to lob dirty great chunks

of rock out of the Mars grav well?

Unpure septic tosser; Shocking use of sellotape accuses Australian paper plane guru

There fixed that for you ;)

It's not the montion of the LOHAN

It's the angle of the dangle.

1 or more balloons connected to a single a 20-30 meter tether

the truss should be balanced to that it dangles at a near vertical (5-10deg) angle

LOHAN can then ride a rail under the truss to allow a stable launch

It might be a nice touch to build some sort of bra arrangement of you are using two balloons

you could connect the teather to the bra-strap :)

Stainless steel rat

Or "The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton"

Either serias of books would make for a better SF series than a reboot of Space 1999.

I loved it as a kid; Seen some re-runs not so long ago...

I pity my poor parents who had to sit through that crap

Hmmmm ... at that speed the 5GB monthly data cap won't last long

LAN parties

Ahhh that brings back memories

I always amazed me that the gang could turn up, setup 8-10 machines & be playing in under 15min

If only the desktop support people at work could be as quick :)

Explosion icon for Boom headshot

Yesterday I couldn't spell Enginear now I are one

I've been over the years; Code monkey, Network grunt, Sys Admin and a few more swear words besides. What I've learned is this ...

In IT if you've done your job right, you are invisible; If the people up the food chain know you exist it's because you've fucked up.

You are only as good as your last biggest fuckup; The powers that be never remember the 40 hours straight you put in, or the novel solution to whatever the problem of the day was

No they only remember you killed the e-mail server at 9:30 yesterday morning

Infrastructure is boring to most people, they don't care about the effort that goes into roads, water, sewage, ATM's etc; they only care when it doesn't work and when it doesn't work it's all your fault; never mind they would rather spend vast amounts of cash to big up their own glory but never on the infrastructure that keeps them safe happy & warm.

I think Neal Stephenson had it right, Engineers & Scientists are Dwarves and the media studies types are the Elves, they may prance & frolic in the forests & the sunshine; but if you want something done and done right, you hire a Dwarf

I may not have a degree that says engineer on it; I've just been doing it for 20+ years

Five Rounds Rapid

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: Jenkins?

Jenkins: Sir!

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: Chap with wings, there. Five rounds rapid.

—Doctor Who, "The Daemons"

*sigh*

The good old days

Voice controlled TV

Great yet another thing in my house that won't do a thing I ask.

At least I'd have a legit reson to be yelling at the TV

If there are any IVR people out there , please, PLEASE! make sure there is another way of dealing with your thrice damned systems. They never ever understand a bloody word I say.

I end up screaming incohearently down the phone, Although one system; after I started cursing & swearing, did route me through to a human operator, in india, that I couldn't understand :(

voice recognition systems = Evil

Igor we need more Igor's

If CERN doesn't have an Igor on staff and a big red switch or lever I'm going to me very dissapointed.

Lets face it, these guys are doing mad^H^H^H MAD science.

Wild haired white-coated boffins are one thing

But if you don't have an Igor or two, you just ain't doing it right :)

May I humbly suggest

L ohan

U nit

S tatic

T estbed

Smart move

Would be funny to see IBM step up with a similar deal saying,

Hey customers, Enjoy getting caught between HP & Oracle,

Why not try our stuff? The first hit is always free :)

Dr Who = Archetypical Boffin

@Pete 43

Clockwork Daleks .... FFS that Brilliant!

WRT the the Daleks always comming back, Isn't that always the problems with what is effectivly a cloned species?

Only takes one of the little buggers to be hiding under the stairs; next thing you know

Intergalactic battlefleet :)

Watching my mates kids, watch Dr Who brings back happy memories

They hide behind the sofa, pillows and/or mum & dad

but god help you if you suggest they don't watch or try to change the channel

It's good to have a hero on TV that wins through brains, gadgets & perseverance.

My first real machine was an MV/8000

AOS/VS was a kinda cool OS

Anyone know where I can find a system copy to crank up in an emulator?

200+ students on a machine with 8mb of ram and 512mb of disk

*sigh* the good/bad old days :)