Brilliant...

When I was kid I depended on a kaleidoscope to see stuff like this

To see anything remotely interactive I'd head off to the planetarium, which has now been almost killed off by Google Sky and other similar applications, like Starwalk for tablets.

It's awesome to watch rendering sequences like this, it shows that technology brings science to the masses via mediums like YouTube.. and let's not overlook the programming that went into the production

And to think my kids believe I spend all my "Internet time" on YouTube time watching cheesy 80's musics videos...

S.A: Put your clocks back...

I've recently returned to S.A. after 12 years of working in the U.S. and the U.K.

IT in education isn't exactly embraced at government level here; they can't even deliver textbooks* to students in government schools, never mind roll out any form of IT infrastructure for education

Bear in mind that most South Africans do embrace technology at a personal level, but the bottom line is that the government cannot deliver the most basic services to the majority of South Africans.

Rest assured, Internet connectivity to rural and poor areas is not a priority either, most would rather see houses, water, electricity, drainage and asphalt appear in their areas, opposed to a technology that only benefits the "privileged" irrespective of their race.

Kudos to Google for implementing an infrastructure that will benefit the next generation of South African scholars.

Sadly in 3rd world nations with 1st world ambitions, we depend on NGOs to make a difference in areas that are bottom of the pecking order when it comes to development

*The Limpopo province textbook scandal in 2012 when organisations contracted to deliver textbooks to Limpopo schools found it easier to dump them in rivers and on rural open ground opposed to delivering them to the schools that need(ed) them

Amazing!

Great little mission and a good video of the entire adventure..

It's amazing how ingenious some people can be, using an over the counter RC plane, Helium weather balloon, and other available gadgets, including the GoPro camera to achieve the kind of feats that were limited to science labs and universities a decade or so ago.

The reasonably priced and rugged GoPro camera has really revolutionised video footage for amateurs undertaking high altitude adventures like this,

Thanks ElReg, for not letting the Scandanavian's little experiment go unnoticed..

Good choice..

..but the ElReg readers and Forumites have also added some classics that need mentioning:

Silent Running, without a doubt a grear classic, although it was a 70's eco awareness type message. I loved the three little tape driven drones, Hewie, Louie and Dewie... I was young when I saw it and it sowed the seeds that made me an eternal SciFi fan..

Sunshine: Visually stunning and also real scifi in the fact that mankind would dontate his nuclear arsenal to rekindle the sun... but it was the little things like how a slight alteration in course almost led to disaster and even with all the technology in place, man is the weakness that made the maiden mission fail..

Black Hole, sure I am going to hell for digging this Disney "classic" out, but it was entertaining and also visually brilliant for its era too.

Event Horizon: Love it or hate it, it was believable SciFi with some scares in the plot. Quite enjoyable and one of LFJr's better roles as a stern faced, no nonsense salvage crew commander

How long..

..before Games Workshop sues someone's ass off for 3D printing WarHammer figurines?

Amazing Grace...

I cut my teeth in the mainframe game, we ran DG's iCobol on Eclipse series AOS/VS boxes in the mid 80's

In our IT department we had a framed photo of Grace Hopper as our geeky tribute to this pioneering woman.

The chairman of the group of companies we worked for one day asked us about this photo portrait of an elderly woman in a Navy uniform.

Our lead programmer gave him a brief synopsis of Grace M H's contribution to the digital dawn and also highlighted that our entire financial system was based on Cobol.

The chairman was quite impressed, but I reckon it was because of our program team leader's passion for what she had achieved.

A few years later we relocated the IT department to the group's corporate HQ. The chairman and directors were giving some high profile customers a tour of the HQ including our IT department.

One of the VIPs asked about Grace Murray Hopper's framed photo which was relocated too. Our chairman rattled off, almost word for word how she was a pioneer in computing. He also made mention that the companies within the group used Cobol too.

I guess Grace Hopper touched us all in a small way, she was the unsung hero known only to us back room geeks.

Every now and then she gets a mention and I can only smile when she does. A brilliant mathematician who was a pioneer in so many ways..

Grace, once again, I salute you

Tea can be greatly improved with....

an accompaniment comprising of a bacon sandwich...

Memories...

This brings back some fond memories of being a teenage immigrant lad in South Africa in the late 70's as the arcade games era hit us..

I recall Ridge Racer, then Space Invaders being the first two I saw at the local cafe (as the cafe's were the pre-games arcade hangout for "gamers")

Then came Donkey Kong, my next addicition and introduction to the Brothers "Mario"

"Track and Field" was known as "Hyper Olympics" here, exact same game, different name but a great game!

By the early 80's games arcades sprung up all over the place, usually alongside roadhouses or cafes, as the (usually Portuguese or Greek) cafe owners saw the opportunity and opened arcades.

I do recall most of the titles, we didn't get them all here, sadly, but one thing I believe needed a mention is this nostalgic article was "Asteroids"

Thanks for the trip down memory lane to when I was a teenage school/college boy who used to starve all day just to spend his "lunch money" on those great CRT and oversized button equipped coinops..

Seriously now...

I know a guy who is squint, he wears glasses but it's a problem he was born with and has had for many years. Sadly his conditon cannot be corrected with surgery.

So, I have to ask what will happen if he looks at the screen? Will the camer misinterpret the occular feedback and scroll up/down and sideways at the same time?

Yes, I know, he would just disable the feature...

Just for fun....

...I'd buy a few pairs of those and stick them in the washing machine, just to freak my other half out...

But as for ever putting something like that on a phone? Noways, the entire concept is pants in my opinion

SC2K FTW!

I loved this game like no other.

It was such a huge improvement over the 2D original and the fact one can terraform your map prior to building your virtual empire was awesome

Adjusting tax rates, building parks and museums to appease the binary citizens, building right angled highways and prisons made it an experience I shall never get tired of.

I have to ask just how many SimMayors left the game running overnight to accumulate beeelions in taxes so we go the mega route and build those Arco type buildings,.

The biggest bous of all for me was integrating your SC2K maps into SimCopter so you could get a real bird's eye view of your creation!

Yes, I still have a copy but sadly it's been years since I played. Rest assured that this weekend I will dig through my old jewel cased software collection and install it on the Windows box...

Cool for CATs

I'm diging it... but will make the earth move for me?

Hopefully they'll be available where I live and perhaps I can scrape enough together to buy one

It's a lot better than the JCB branded phone we saw on ElReg about 18 months back..

A good article and and it highlights a lot of truths about the Interwebz dating thing..

I recall IRC was always a fairly decent resource for "Internet dating" and I know a few couples who hooked up on the IRC #Channels in the mid 90's and are still together today.

Sadly unlike the proper dating websites that require a valid email and often require credit card details, IRC was also the hunting grounds of some unscrupulous characters too, good moderation was really needed to protect the unaware from these type of people

In my experience, I find Internet dating tends to bring people together from afar. I know of people who have met their ideal match, however their "match" may live in another state or country. The glue that initially holds them together tends to be phone calls and Skype, but, hey it works for them

Quite a few have actually met their distanced cyber-matches and made it work, I do know of some who have been gravely disappointed too..

Momentus.. the shape of things to come?

The Seagate Momentus XT disks do wonders to speed up boot times and isn't that what most users want, a really fast boot time?

Perhaps as NAND dies are shrunk and the production costs decline, we'll see hybrid drives contain more than a fraction of a percent to one percent of flash capacity. I believe when we hit 10%+ flash capacity is when we'll really reap the benefit of these hybrid type drives.

Of course the market for this type of technology is for those who understand it and the benefits it brings as well as the premium paid for it

To most "consumers" the "hybrid drive" technology is "gobbly-geek" and fitting hybrid drives into "Joe Public's" laptop or desktop is like feeding caviar to pigs.

Acidic revenge...

Wow, gives new meaning to scrubbing the disks..

Very malicious indeed and his sentence was quite light taking the damage he done over the period.

If he was "than unhappy" why didn't he just look for another job? FFS!

Rest assured....

.. that the concept design diagram you submitted will soon appear in the Iranian press as a "homebrewed Iranial rocket powered drone that will singlehandedly lead to the destruction of the enemies of the ayatollah"

Intel Desktop Mobos

A pity, they were never the fastest or most groundbreaking product but they are rock solid reliable

The Channel likes the product, sure a few dollars more than an ASUS oe Gigabyte equivalent, but Intel's warranty policy is fairly decent.

I don't think most will miss the products, but the OEMs may just shed a tear or two.. after all the little "Genuine Intel BOXDH77EB - Eb Lake LGA 1155 Motherboard" on the quote gives some buyers a peace of mind..

Ahem...

The Tweenies featuring a puppet "impersonating Jimmy Savile".

So this cigar smoking puppet was luring starry eyed teen girls to parties, then to hotel rooms?

It must have pulled some strings to get all that right...

So as I suspected...

..Anonymous are a bunch of "Windows Kiddies"..

My advice to any University is to supply Windows 8 fondleslabs, that way Windomynous will be at peace...

To be honest...

..I'd rather eat a kilogram of horsemeat than anything from Macdonalds..

Excellent

Excellent in depth story about the LISA and what she brought to the party in regards to "personal" computing

This was briefly covered in the documentary film titled "Weclome to Macintosh" where some of the original development team members were intrviewed

As for a LISA being worth almost US$25K, I wonder how many former owners rue junking their LISAs now?

Bumping up the stats...

Congrats ElReg.. this site is a legendary institution among us IT / Tech types

In the past year I have been located in the UK, France, Germany and now South Africa.. so although I am just one avid reader (and Commentard), I wonder if I helped bump up the stats just a fraction?

Either way, may the reader (say 'followers') number continue to mushroom

Games 'n guns link?

I've visited half a dozen firearms dealers and still cannot buy a Flak Cannon, Rail Gun, Rocket Launcher or Health Pickups...

Par boiled rice..

I've used pair boiled rice to dry a cell phone out that my son left in his shorts pocket when wakeboarding

It's like natures silica gel and sucks up water faster than Gordon Brown could suck up the working class taxes.

The article just goes to show how well made modern servers are. Kudos to the techs who embarked on the mission of mercy and revived the saline infested server

If it was my server, I'd continue to use it as rename it to "Lazarus"

Suck my Glock..

.. was the sbumper sticker I had on my car in South Africa in 1997. It said "Gun Free S.A. suck my Glock" and was a stab at the anti-gun lobbyists who believed that law abiding, legal gun owners were the cause of violent crime that was rife from 1994 onwards.

I bought my Glock Model 17, Generation 2 in 1994, a fine pistol indeed. Light, easy to maintain and strip, plus it held 17 rounds of Federal Hydrashok 117Gr +P hollow point rounds in the magazine.+ 1 in the "spout" which is always a round nosed full metal jacket in the chamber in case I ever shot myself in error.. as the Glock's safety mechanism is on the trigger

Don't pull the trigger and it won't go off was the brainwashing I had to give myself when I forst took delivery of the Austrian potent polymer pointing device.

It's a good choice for the armed forces, a proven design with a solid track record and the 17 is chambered for NATO's tried and tested 9x19mm ammo choice, 9mm ammo is easy to obtain (legally)

Sure the legendary Browning HP 9mm has had a good run in the British forces, but it's time to move on and I think the MOD made a wise choice with the G17 as a replacement

Useless info:

Strangely enough most believe the Glock 17 got it's model designation from the magazine capacity, i.e. 17

But it was the 17th patent of the company, hence the model number..

Battleship?

I could not agree more, although visually entertaining, I do agree it was a crock of shyte

As for including Rihanna is the cast, I guess that was nothing more than a ploy to attract a younger audience to a crap movie.

As for the other choices, they're all valid and yes, 2012 was a year of production line crap that some term as "entertainment"

Let's see what this year holds...

Sweet Poison

Janet Starr Hull has been warning the public about the dangers of Aspartame for years

She has a fairly informative website www.sweetpoison.com gives a good run down on the effects of the artiificial sweetner gunk..

I've always avoided sweetners and anything labelled "diet" mostly because they taste shit. I do enjoy frshly ground coffee though, with no sugar and a gallon or two of full sugar Coca~Cola

I think...

..the first generation of firefly inspired LEDs may be a little buggy...

Ah, most excellent

The type of cheeful and humerous correspondence that put's a big smile on my face and makes me want to go and buy a toy railway set after work...

Top tip for Lenovo

Get a damned good legal team on board....

Oh boy....

"By being taught what baby sounds mean – whether fussing indicates a baby is hungry, hot, tired or in pain – a sophisticated speech recognition system would correlate sounds and babbles with other sensory or physiological information such as heart rate, pulse and temperature," Big Blue said.

Hmm, this kind of prediction makes me wonder if technology will take the parent out of parenting.. I can just imagine some future yuppie suing an App or gizmo manufacturer because the device mistook their baby's colic cry for for teething pains...

This tells me TWO things...

Firstly, the Clangers know exactly what's going on here on planet earth

Secondly, our kids may dream of circuit boards and build a pressurised orb and travel to outer space, a-la the 1985 film "Explorers"

I'd love some to hack into the Ayatollah's Facebook account and "Like" the following:

Israel

Barack Obama

Bacon

Lady Gaga

Madonna

...and of course: LOLCatz!

Some SMBs...

..take the "Install now and contemplate licensing later" approach.

Not just on the Server products but also on the desktop OS and Office suites too, because they 'can get away with it' With so many KeyGen utlities being available, it makes it easier to get a system up and running "illegaly"

MS are just doing due diligence, a little like those questionable characters who knock on your door and demand proof of a TV license, however the revenues that MS can recover are probably quite good. After all, no comapny ever wants to be named and shamed or possibly shitlisted over a few MS licence costs

Puts "something" into orbit?

I foresee another mission objective for the very secretive USAF X-37B..

You missed...

Tommy Chong... he has those crazy "stoner eyes" that is much more suited to the McAfee role...

The King and I.... SuperHub

Whenever I feel afraid

I hold my head erect

And whistle a happy tune

So no one will suspect I'm afraid

While shivering in my shoes

I strike a careless pose

And whistle a happy tune

And no one ever knows I'm afraid

The result of this deceptionIs very strange to tell

For when I fool the peopleI fear

I fool myself as well

There has to be a movie in this story..

With McAfee played by Tommy Chong... (of Cheech & Chong 'fame')

The story of a crazy millionaire stoner who's neighbour is killed by aliens, but fearing the worst he goes on the run disguised as women, vagrants and even getting a Korean impersonator to head to the Mexican border

The cop hunting him down is a veteran cop played by Cheech Marin, who portrays a Latino "Tommy Lee Jones/U.S. Marshalls" type character who buzzes out on mushrooms and often carries a banana in his gun holster..

Ah, the possibilities are endless

No stock? Pity us third world residents!

I get this message from the Play Store "Sorry! Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet. We're working to bring devices to more countries as quickly as possible.

Please check back again soon."

Perhaps it should be named the Google "Nemesis 4" because getting hold of one on this end of the planet will be a fucking nightmare....

Fear Factor?

Assange's biggest fear is having nothing to fear at all.. so open the floodgates of the obvious and tell the connected world what it either knows or suspects anyway...