Posts by Paul Naylor91 posts • joined Tuesday 24th April 2007 18:23 GMT
Does the course that the rozzers undertake teach them how to write a GUI in Visual Basic to track the tea-leafs' IP?
Put on a Pink Floyd record and chill the fuck out
Pretty much agree with the whole list, except Hungry Horace, which I never played: I was put off my Horace Goes Skiing.
Elite was by far the best game of the 80s. I used to play it on a mate's BBC Model B with another chum, a Spectrum owner. Because of the frankly weird placement of the Break key on the Beeb, and because we had to wait half an hour for Elite to load from tape, we had the rule that if you accidentally pressed it during your allotted hour of play, you forfeited your go, no exceptions. Said friend then got a 5.25 floppy drive to load it from, unbelievably fast load times!
And yes, nearly 30 years later I'm playing Oolite!
Used to play Jet Set Willy a lot on the other friend's Spectrum. I had a Vic-20 and so was stuck with Perils of Willy. Had Jelly Monsters and a bunch of text adventures on cartridge, including Pirates' Cove, which was ace!
Of course, there are many games not on the list. Others that stand out for me were Sentinel, Sabre Wulf, Imogen, Repton 3. Of the latter, I designed and tested a whole load of levels on graph paper before begging my mate to lend me his Beeb so that I could code them.
Thanks for the great memories Reg and fellow posters!
Only as long as the theme for the reception isn't Red...
I bought the Lord of the Rings Blu Ray set a while before buying an actual player! Only a bog standard Panasonic 80 quidder. The GoT discs do look amazing though: the prologue scene of episode one in the snow looks absolutely gorgeous.
Totally agree. I expected so much more from Danny Boyle and was pretty much bored for most of it. I'm trying to rack my brains now to remember the plot (apart from spaceship going to try and stop the sun going out) but can't...
I see what you did there! I was going to suggest that you take your meds until I read the last paragraph!
Don't ownan iPad (though I am a 'fanboi'), but I'll probably be going for the 3 a couple of months down the line...
I wonder if this result will be splashed across the news broadcasts as much as the initial result was? I doubt it will even get a "and finally..." mention, leaving the masses believing that Einstein was wrong, science is wrong and that we should all believe in the religionist claptrap that the anti-science establishment have been vomiting all along...
I've been a Mac user since 1990, having gone through an SE, and LC475, G3, G4 and now Mac Pro and MacBook Pro. I've always found that though Macs are inherently expensive, their shelf life is much longer and they keep their value well. My current rev1 Mac Pro is now edging into 'over the hill' territory when I discovered last week that the original X1900 graphics card won't run Portal 2 (any recommendations for a new card that is compatible with this model?) and the original SuperDrive is becoming very flaky. Still, throwing more memory at it and plugging in bigger disks (2x 2Tb, 1x1Tb, 1x500Gb Western Digitals) continues to keep this a relevant machine for me, even if I would like a new 12-core behemoth.
In that time, friends and colleagues have gone through various incarnations of cheaper machines - laptops and desktops - and upgraded at least a couple of times due to hardware failures and Windows support.
Similarly, I have managed to turn other people on to Macs over the years and their satisfaction levels have remained consistently high.
Yes, Apple kit is expensive. Yes, you can get similar specs for less cash but overall Macs last longer, hold their value and generally support the latest OSs and applications. Running VMWare on my Mac Pro also means that I can run work stuff if I need to.
My only regret, being an Apple user, is that I didn't buy APPL stock in the 90s...
I'll wait for 2015 when the Mr Fusion comes out...
What IS the fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery??
I never really played this in the arcades (much preferred to throw my hard-earned 10ps into Bubble Bobble) but discovered it many years later on MacMAME and had a strange several month addiction to it. Not played it for years though but I think I might dig it out again. Classic game!
Actually, you're right; I meant Eccleston in the "reimagining". As for the old school, I'm a little bit too young for Hartnell. I vaguely remember Jon Pertwee but Tom Baker was my Dr of choice, with some genuinely scary episodes. Was it "The Ark" where victims got absorbed by some weird alien blob (presumably the picture in the main article)? Scared the crap out of me did that...
I'm not a fan. I kinda stopped watching after the excellent Blink and Empty Child episodes. I found the Rose Tyler / Dave Tennant running around the universe giggling like a couple of ADHD kids on a Red Bull trip annoying after a while. Unfortunately though, I'm vilified by my fellow geeks for not watching it, as not liking it makes me 'un-British'. Even more so for not considering the "edgier" spin-off Torchwood, the biggest pile of unwatchable shite I've ever witnessed. Yes John, we get it, you're gay.
So I ditched Dr Who for the far more interesting American sci-fi: Battlestar Galactica, V, and Flash Forward. Better production, better acted. We Brits can do ace drama; I just don't think think we're that brilliant at sci-fi. Dr Who started off so well with Chris Eccleston (though I generally watch anything he's in) but then just descended into kitsch.
And I kicked the download off at about 6pm. Download was slow but that's because I live in the sticks. Complete upgrade and restoration took about three hours in total. The only thing that went wrong was that I lost all my application groups and had to reorganise my application icons, but not really an issue.
Not had much chance to play with the new OS but it seems a little zippier on the iPhone 4.
So you think people using an iPhone are illiterate? Read your own post and then maybe get that bullet hole in your foot looked at.
Yes, I am an iPhone user but know the difference between "there" and "their", "its" and "it's", and know exactely [sic] how to spell "exactly".
You're assuming that someone actually cares...
Fondleslab is a great term for tablets, but your French translation "slabettes de fondlage" had me soiling my keyboard. Kudos!
"If religious people actually believed what they said they believed then anyone saying anything against their religion would be laughed at and mocked rather than attacked."
Very good point. Religion is the only thing that automatically assumes immunity from any kind of criticism or analysis, obviously because their 'arguments' are so easy to refute. I'm sick and tired of a secular society having to tippy-toe around these godbotherers, for fear of saying or doing something that they deem "offensive".
Kudos to Phones4U for running this though. However, I think that using religion to sell anything would, as an atheist, put me off. Shouldn't we Free Thinkers be more offended?
Or perhaps the opportunity to make a new Sky 1 show entitled "Guilty or Not Guilty" - if you think the defendent is guilty, press Red now!
I would have thought that this would damage the right to a fair trial, the cornerstone of the English legal system? And aren't journos already allowed to report on court proceedings, within strict parameters?
"Ofcom's decision treads awfully carefully though the rights of the religious..."
This is what pisses me off about any form of religion: that it considers itself immune from any kind of criticism, selling tat to the gullible and vulnerable in the name of 'faith'. Had a mainstream non-religious channel made such claims, I suspect Ofcom would not have tread quite so awfully carefully.
And yet we have to 'play nice' to this section of society that believes in magic sky fairies and tells people that they're going to hell if they don't talk to him/her/it every night.
I'll stop now. Once I get on to religion I tend to just ramble and rant inanely. Mine's the one with the God Delusion and Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the pocket...
Being Blackadder / Simpsons / etc. fans in our office, us lads are trying to get the words "embiggen", "cromulant", "contrafribularities" and "interfrastically" into the common tongue. Though no-one we know outside these walls know what we mean however.
Nice to see that The Reg uses "embiggen" now and again though!
Come to think of it, "nerdgasm" would be a good one too...
But I wanted to check out my Blu Ray player that evening and I'd only made the decision a couple of hours earlier to buy one! I agree that a tenner is probably a tad on the steep side but I'm fairly new to the world of digital videogramme equipment...
A company selling stuff with a mark-up? Surely not!
I bought myself a Blu Ray player a couple of weeks ago from a "high street electrical store" and was asked if I wanted a HDMI cable because one wasn't supplied in the box. A gold plated cable from them cost £30 but it came supplied with a little bottle of screen cleaner.
Similar HDMI cable from Tesco: a tenner.
I hate to break it to you Apple deniers but companies do this a lot. Kinda page one of "Economics, How to Make a Profit". And, like many others have said, this is a bargain if installation is allowed on a fresh disk, without Snow Leopard being on there first...
Received mine this morning. Found on Amazon.co.uk for £42, so snapped it up. Now all I need is a Blu Ray player! Was going to wait until next month but I think a trip to Comet/Amazon/Richer Sounds is in order some time later...
I thought the whole point of the the Flying Spaghetti Monster was to highlight the inherent ridiculousness of organised religion and blind faith in a magic sky zombie? Becoming a recognised religion pretty much legitimizes the concepts they were rallying against. Or are they being "ironic"?
Could someone enlighten me?
or does it seem to be the case that the more expensive something is, the tackier it is? This looks shite.
You have a fungus desk?? Sweet.
But I suspect that the inevitable Daily Mail / Express article will be even funnier. Though in entirely a different way.
Is the whole "May I be the first to welcome our toadstooloid overlords" meme still de rigueur?
Got my iPhone 4 last year, with a 24 month contract and was considering flogging it to Mazuma / Envirophone / etc. to get the latest slidy aluminiumness! Then I realised that I really was an Apple whote and thought it best to wait until next year!
Crossing fingers for a big screen though. Buddy of mine has a HTC somethingorother with a bigger screen that the iPhone and it looks awesome!
I don't know why Branson comes in for so much flak when, as you say, he is investing his own money to push the boundaries of technology and engineering forward. We need to get out of this "we're shit" attitude in this country and support our innovators and visionaries, instead of bitching about them. But I guess hoi poloi are only interested in (insert name of vacuous z-list celeb here) and every minutae of their pointless lives...
Read Branson's biography. It's ace!
I am of the opinion that there is room in the world for both Android and iOS. Friends of mine use Android and I'm an iOS man. I know little about the former (because I've never used it) but word on the street is that the next major release of Android is going to be a biggie and I really hope that Apple take note and come back with something as good, if not better, which can only be good for both companies.
I feel that the current iOS is looking a bit dated and so hopefully v5 will be something pretty special.
Raw British cynicism at its best! Someone calls to say you've won a prize; we immediately assume that it's a con. Makes me proud to be English! Had the winner been over the Pond in the Colonies you wouldn't have been able to do anything for all the high-fiving...
Stiff upper lip icon??
If there was a Razzie for most hyped but failed to deliver movie of the year then Cameron's Avatar should win it. And I paid for a ticket; worst £10 I ever spent...
Going to see it with my geek chums after Chrimble and the only evening showings are in 3D. I must have weird eyes because 3D doesn't work on me and only succeeded in giving me a headache. Disovered that after going to see Avatar, which was a decidedly medicore film...
If they manage to manufacture this device as a sex aid for the ladies, that's us men fucked. And not in the good way...
Thanks for a very good read. I like my scf-fi but hate anything Star Trek for exactly the reasons outlined here. There seems to be this smugness amongst the characters that they know they are much cleverer than the viewer and spout all kinds of technobullshit that the Fanbois take as literal. A friend of mine, a big fan, heard that when Stephen Hawking was given a tour of the set he was heard to say "yes, I'm working on that!" when he saw the Warp Drive. He seems to think that Star Trek 'invented' many of the things we use today, communicators became mobile phones, etc.
This is why I'm a BSG. The technology isn't stuffed in your face and so the story can concentrate on real character development. Characters have weaknesses and faults set against the wider arena of political machinations. I'm a fan of Babylon 5 for the same reasons, which, whilst a bit cheesy in parts, does have some incredible dialog. I want dialog, I don't want a show with a load of bollocks about how a hypermegaplasmeriser works or seeing the characters dicking around in a hologram suite...
For giving two fantastic phrases that I will endeavour to weave into every day conversation: Boffin Botherer and "leaky as a Swiss cheese rowing boat".
Who remembers the halcyon days when the interwebs only appealed to us geeks? When there were probably only about four sites in existence, you could have a proper conversation in a chatroom and none of this Web 2.0 malarky? Who's great idea was it to open it up to easily led Great Unwashed??
Sigh.
The BBC nicking someone's idea and passing it off as their own? Never!
</sarcasm>
I use CoPilot for iPhone and my Android chums use it too. Not had chance to take it out on the motorways yet, but for the country roads around Yorkshire, it's never failed me. I'm very impressed with how quickly it recalculates the route if you decide to take a detour.
Woman's voice is calming and places pronounced accurately but, like you, I find that the 'Just ahead' instructions does become a pain after a while. Still, you cannot beat this application for the money.
I even bought the US version when they offered it for a tenner. Never going to drive over there but a tenner's a tenner!
The download was fine on my 3G but the "Backing up your iPhone" was glacial. I kept quitting it and restarting, thinking it had bombed, but no change. Checked out the Apple discussion forums and other people were having the same problems. In the end I just stopped fiddling about and left it to it. Had I done that in the first place then I reckon an hour or so in total for backup, installation and restoration wouldn't have been far off the mark. The whole experience though did piss me off a bit (for the first time in 20 years as an Apple user) but I'd had a crap day anyway!
No problems running iOS 4, no apparent slow downs and no hangs yet.
I found some common sense at last!
Makes me think back to the early 90s when I got my first Mac, a second or third hand SE, with a massive 20Mb hard disk, 2Mb memory and a black and white 320x240 screen resolution! Today's cash points probably have better screens than that old thing did! Still, in the three years I had it, it was on pretty much 24 hours a day and I did really cool stuff with Hypercard. Happy days!
Could not have put it better myself and the best comeback I've heard on here fr'ages!
True, you can't do it for message alerts, which I thought was a bit of a bummer (on my previous SE my message alert was "Bad Robot", from the end of Lost. I know, I'm a geek...) but wasn't a deal breaker for me getting the iPhone. It would be cool to have it though as several of us in the office have iPhones and whenever an email arrives we all simulataneously reach for our phones to see if it's us.
iPhone Ring Tone Maker. I use the Mac version but I think there is a Windows version available too. Import and crop any sound and it uploads it to Ringtones in iTunes, ready to sync to your iPhone!
I made 20 seconds. And my PC doesn't even have a sound card...
