Posts by Sir Wiggum
739 posts • joined Tuesday 3rd March 2009 22:30 GMT
Also, the UK have some exceptionally talented engineers, but doesn't seem to fare so well at leaders. (cf the UK car industry, Rover in particular, and the rest that are mostly foreign owned and led)
That's where the US differs - they have some great inspirational leaders, and while some of their engineers may be mediocre - they can take the risk and fire them on the spot.
More like a crap Bebo
More like a crap Bebo.
Remember towards the end, when chavs were really getting into BeBo, the pages were an absolute mess that made mid 90s geocities pages with gifs and midis look like the epitome of web design minimalism.
Re: Nutritional
I was thinking the same as OP.
Generally shrimp, prawns, lobsters and crabs the digestive tract is removed and disposed, not eaten.
I get squeamish with creatures with too many legs - even lobsters and crabs. Though I do enjoy a prawn cocktail.
In the future, ants will be a staple diet. Ant farms will literally be used for this purpose.
Thank you, Ants.
Thants.
Re: @RonWheeler - Or...
"Either grow some food yourself ...."
I'm glad I am not living on the food I grow myself.
Last autumn I would've had a feast on:
- A handful of potatoes
- A couple of spring onions
- The remains of the broccoli that the caterpillars left
- Withered pea stems
- Dead strawberry plants
- Spinach. Or, at least I think it was, and not a weed....
I would've starved over the extended winter, and this years batch is only getting planted now, seeing as the snow decided to remain with us until April.
Come the revolution, I'm doomed. Better stock up on tinned grub and pot noodles...
Exit music for an episode
For some reason, I'm hoping that the end credits play over the Piano Coda from the end of Eric Clapton's Layla....
Posted in Excess all areas
Re: Hmmmm....
Dunamaichmophobia.
It is derived from the Greek Dunamis (power/action, Ancient Greek: δύναμις) aichmē (point) and phobos (fear).
Re: "Something seems amiss."
I stuck my Raspberry Pi into a C64X case.
Rather stupid, as the case was probably 10x what I paid for the Pi. I had originally planned it to be a PicoITX media server.
Re: Deliberately misleading nonsense.
@Return to Sender
VMs engineers do seem to know their stuff, the difficulty I found lay in the disconnect in communication between front line tech support in the offshore call centres, and the guys on the ground in the vans.
@NogginTheNog
I'm west of the pennines, heck I'm west of the island of Great Britain. Still appreciate a friendly Yorkshire voice.
Apple price bubble
Apple gear is ridiculously expensive.
I recently found a Mac Plus clearing out my mothers attic, fixed up the analogue board and sold it for a cool 200 quid to a collector.
A lot to do with the current trendiness of Apple gear. Similarly prices of urQuattro/100 Coupe Audis have been rising. When both of these companies inevitably fall out of fashion again, prices should stabilise.
Re: AH-HA!
Flour, water, beef stock, chicken stock, pepper?
Re: Deliberately misleading nonsense.
Yep, I am with PlusNet because one of their USPs is that you get through to a Yorkshire call centre.
For anyone used to Virgin Media's "customer service"/"tech support" it is chalk and cheese!
A good answer, @Ledswinger, have an upvote!
Good point too about the wage v living cost affect locally (within the UK), I remember the student loans were greater for London based students and that estimated graduate salaries are greater in the big smoke, but their rent would probably pay for a large house anywhere else in the UK.
@jonathanb
Last time I was in Nice, judging by the amount of Russian registered Bentleys, I wouldn't be alone in exploiting the price difference :)
Re: A long time but...
An electric bell has been ringing since 1840, and hasn't stopped.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Electric_Bell
No-one knows what the battery is made of....
Posted in Ten ancestors of the netbook
Wot? No PC110?
Nice to see the Libretto mentioned, but no IBM PC110?
Similarly, this was a Japanese only item. With the footprint of a floppy disk it was a handheld but ran DOS and Windows as it was a proper x86 PC.
They go for crazy money on eBay these days.
My old Toshiba T2130CT sits between netbook and notebook size.
I often wondered this, and whether it was my ignorance, but when it is reported that x% of the world's population live on less than a pound/dollar a day, I wondered how they actually survived.
Is food cheaper? As in, because the locals have little to spend, local traders offer low price items.
(Conversely if I turned up in Monaco to do my shopping, I'd not be able to buy anything.)
Is the type of food cheaper? eg. a bowl of rice vs. a UK full meal
Thanks
Yet another Virgin Media fail.
Virgin Media in poor Customer Service scandal?
Why does this not surprise me in the least.
The only scandal I can see is why people continue to persist in using Branson's cable service, knowing that they subscribe to the "customer is always wrong" school of customer service.
Re: Quality?
I'm on my 3rd T series because the fans keep failing, seems to be a well known defect judging from the Lenovo forums.
Yet my old Thinkpad 380Z just soldiers on as an old game station.
Posted in Ten Windows 8 Ultrabooks
Re: Fiestas and marketing wonks
Superminis, which are now as large / larger than C segment family hatchbacks of a couple of generations ago?
Posted in Ten Windows 8 Ultrabooks
Re: Beware the Yoga...
Doesn't surprise me, the Thinkpad line has gone downhill since IBM got rid of their PC manufacture branch.
I'm on my 3rd T410 thanks to fan issues.
Posted in Ten Windows 8 Ultrabooks
Fiesta?
But then the Fiesta has gotten a bit bloated - the latest model is mk1 Focus sized, the Ka could be thought of as a spiritual Fiesta (though the mk2 doesn't seem to be a huge seller).
Ultrabooks would be the size of desktop computers if they followed the car analogy, and people who once bought family desktops would now be buying sports utility minicomputers with bullbars for their offspring to do their homework on.
Re: Impressive
Surely a DVD drive from a Wii would read the GC games?
I use mine to play Mario Kart DD.
Quality?
Given the nosedive in Quality between IBM ThinkPads of old, and the newer Lenovo machines, I would not consider a Lenovo server for any enterprise application.
Impressive
Nice work!
One PSU to run them all, but of the optical media machines (Saturn, Dreamcast, PS2) is there a unified optical drive?
Re: This could be useful-
I was thinking this
"Audi also found that driver frustration and distraction play a large role in both urban and rural accidents."
Tailgating and not leaving a braking distance play a large role in both urban and rural accidents. Something Audi drivers are guilty of mostly.
Perhaps if Audi stopped fitting large magnets to the front of their cars, or perhaps this Minority Report prediction thing will allow them to tailgate and brake just before an accident occurs?
Posted in The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME
Of the Macs, the original compacts (128 up to Classic 2 / Color Classic) would be worth a mention. Then their spiritual successor, the iMac G3/4.
Mac Mini G4. Took the cube, made it smaller.
And, without meaning to sound like an Apple fanboy, the Twentieth Anniversary Mac, which effectively previewed the iMac flat panel.
The C64 facelift in C128 style was a nice machine.
I own, and have owned, various consoles. The PS3 slim is reminiscent of the PS2 slim, though the sliding drive cover does feel like it could fail at some point. The Xbox 360 is a bit of an ignorant slab design, though the face panels offer a little in the way of customisation. I'd say the Wii would be the best looking box under the TV if it was in black, and lying horizontally. Compact yet still has the Gamecube ports on the side.
Other candidates:
The IBM PC110 was like a shrunken Thinkpad.
The Packard Bell 'corner' desktop from the 90s, solved the problem of huge desktop/monitor combinations on small desks by being designed to be placed in a corner, with the keyboard/mouse to the side. (A common setup back then!).
Posted in The healing hands of guru Dabbs
Re: If only proximity had something to do with it.
Phone calls usually go:
"This message came up and I just clicked ok and it went away no I didnt read what it said then the computer started it comes up with this white screen and when I click it it goes away then the printer wouldnt print just said paper jam and its very slow it said I had a virus so I clicked clean then a man phoned and said he was microsoft so I gave him my bank details and I got emailed this file by somebody but when I open it nothing happens so I kept opening it and it wont open what do I type to fix it?"
Re: The Web
Angelfire doesn't, archive.org kept it.
I've looked up my old freeserve website. And a cringeworthy blog that one of our circle of friends kept....
Biodome
Some of the Bioshock Infinite combat scenarios (eg. Soldiers in oil - Flame vigor) are effectively training, similar to the Splicers in water - Electroshock plasmid of Bioshock 1.
The tears were a bit of a pain to start with, but you soon get used to bringing cover / a friendly turret / some medipacks over.
Yes the AI isn't combat realistic - but that it what your CoDs / Halos / Gears of Wars are for.
I do often wonder, when searching a soldier's corpse, why they bring things like cake and pineapples in battle though.
I'm playing on a PS3 and even on that I think it looks fantastic.
The Web
'The Web' is freaky when put in context as the seed for Facebook.
Otherwise, this is just the usual late 90s teenage kid website that any one of my group of friends might've created.
Heck I had a few web presences myself, thought mostly devoted to whatever game I was playing at the time.
Re: Shame
"Dublin Airport is now close enough to Belfast to be usable as an alternative to Aldergrove, and has flights to more places."
US border controls too - you enter the country at the airport and touch down as a domestic arrival!
Saves a lot of time after a long flight.
Re: If he thinks Cork is the back of beyond
Close to City of Derry/London//Foyle/City airport, just under an hour from Belfast International.
Hardly the back of beyond.
Re: Ouroboros
When I last had to use it a couple of years ago, the UI reminded me of old Win16 applications. It was a bit of a retro moment.
Shark Fin
I think the cultures in which Shark Fin is eaten are those for which delicacies are the bits of the animal which are *different*.
Therefore, shark fin, chicken feet etc. are popular, the rest of the animal not so much.
Re: Gordon Deitrich
Haig was actually played by Geoffrey Palmer, when Blackadder tried to call in a personal favour and was given poor advice...
Skiddlydee
They also hacked Radio Ulster twitter.
Home of Steven Nolan, who tries to get sense from fundamentalist local politicians, and Hugo Duncan, who's first reponse after the budget broadcast yesterday was 'Skiddlydee'.
Cold spot?
Cold spot?
That'll be the weather system currently working it's way over the UK and Ireland, heralding the start of spring.
Re: thin clients anyone?
Sounds like a replacement for Windows FLP (Fundamentals for Legacy PCs) - the cut down version of XP that shipped to corporates to wean them off Windows 98/2000, but still ran on a Pentium 2.
Posted in Build a BONKERS gaming PC
Re: Forza etc
I have Forza 3 and 4, PGR 3 and 4, and GT 5.
Forza I find is geared more towards simulation, though you can alter your car - tighten up the suspension etc. but it isn't an arcade racer. GT5 is quite similar. The Top Gear track in the Lotus Elise especially took a lot of tries to get past.
PGR series is set up a little arcadey, but tremendous pick-up-and-play fun. The cities are extremely detailed, the Las Vegas strip in particular.
Sadly the PGR series is no longer. I'm not sure if Forza Horizon is going for the arcade-handling route as per PGR, or going for the F-Zero style hyperactive Burnout Paradise / Need For Speed route.
Re: Now if Microsoft were building cars...
"Corporate vehicle users will find our new pedal placements new and exciting, invoking synergies from cycling and hang-gliding into the road vehicular paradigm"
Actually, car manufacturers used to do that back in the early days of motoring. A model T Ford, for example, has a pedal layout quite unlike a contemporary Austin, and a world away from a modern hatchback.
Posted in Trip the fight fantastic
Re: Other than Tomb Raider, anything that isn't a futuristic FPS?
I thought I wasn't going to like Bioshock, but tried the demo and loved the art deco underwater city setting.
I'm not sure how 'infinite' will pan out without Rapture.
Might have some retro city charm.
Thing is all of these future/aliens shooters are starting to look samey. Bioshock, while it was more or less a zombie-fest, I felt had a bit of charm.
Posted in Build a BONKERS gaming PC
Same here
I used to be a PC gamer in the late 90s.
4MB RAM isn't enough, upgrade to 16MB.
486 isn't good enough, get a Pentium board.
Need a Voodoo card.
Pentium isn't good enough, get a Pentium 2 board.
Voodoo isn't good enough, get a Voodoo 3.
Not including the cases, or the sound cards, or the double speed CD that ended up as a DVD and CD writer combo.
In the end, I gave up on that money pit, settled on a machine that I could use for productivity, and went the console route for gaming.
Sure they're a few years behind what a bonkers gaming PC could show, but you buy a console game and it is guaranteed to run on that console without having to spend a few hundred quid on more upgrades.
I do want to build a PC now, with a pico board, but this is as a living room media server and not as a gaming rig. So concerns are SSD for quick boot, USB3 for external HDD, Bluray, silent running, small form factor (C64x case) and adequate performance.
Posted in New nuke could POWER WORLD UNTIL 2083
Leccy cars
One of the disadvantages of leccy motors - that they still rely on the dwindling resources of finite fossil fuels abstracted to the power station, should be lessened, albeit on a slightly less dwindling resource of finite nuclear fuel.
What was it?
What was the announcement?
None of the news agencies seemed to report it.
Posted in Trip the fight fantastic
Other than Tomb Raider, anything that isn't a futuristic FPS?
Other than Tomb Raider, which I never really got into in the last/last-last generation of consoles, are there any games for the PS4 which aren't futuristic FPSs?
I loved Bioshock 1 and 2, the GTAs are always fun, but I was bored to tears playing one of the Gears of War series, and I have an unopened Halo4 that I won in a competition but never got round to playing.
(Cues the downvotes...)
Posted in Trip the fight fantastic
Re: A few comments
The PC costs as much as a Ferrari, but gives you Ferrari performance.
The Console costs as much as a Toyota GT86, nowhere near Ferrari performance but still loads of fun.
Re: Tested a drivers skill...
I've tested this in my own "simulator".
A steering wheel/pedals attached to an Xbox 360, F1 2012 and the Monaco circuit.
Sober - put in a relatively good time, top 6.
After a dozen pints - wall, wall, wall, wall.
Have a great St Patricks day, folks! But leave the motor at home.
Posted in SimCity 4
Too complex
Aftert SC2000 and SimCity3, I found SimCity 4 too complex, even with the tutorials.
Greenish powder = copper
Greenish powder
Looks like what was round the copper pipes into the radiator in the bathroom.
Maybe they've found a martian heating system.
Re: Solaris but no Sunshine?
It could be worse, I could've worked Cool Runnings in there somewhere :)
CYOD over BYOD
I'd prefer CYOD over BYOD.
BYOD was like telling a sales rep to supply their own saloon car.
Shifted the IT cost onto the corporate end user.
CYOD it's the company property, but at least you have the oppurtunity to choose something a bit more reliable than the modern day post-IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads or Dells that corporate land seem to choose.
