Posts by Jon Tocker

@ E

"Pohl is an accomplished writer who seems to understand that if a thing can be said in 10 words then it is better not to use 100"

Thank fuck he didn't get Gentry Lee, then! He seems to believe the opposite - I'm presuming, given the difference in thickness between Rendezvous With Rama (Clarke) and Rama II (Clarke and Lee), that Lee is the bastard responsible for all the verbal diarrhoea... like spending 14 pages painstakingly describing the growth of shanty towns and the decline of civilisation merely to explain why technology hasn't advanced a lot in the twenty years since the first Raman ship turned up. Seriously, the whole thing could have been explained away in a couple of bits of taut, well-written dialogue referencing "the Collapse" and the characters could have got on with the adventure.

Pohl's good. I look forward to reading the book when it comes out.

Classic!

Hardcore porn, from what I've seen, lacks any real plot, requires no acting ability and has badly-scripted dialogue read from autocues...

In other words, it'd be a damned sight more intelligent than any thugby match...

@ Ian Michael Gumby

Cheers, I was going to mention the quick-change mounts with no zero-shift.

Spend some quality time sighting in your weapon with the different sights before you head off to battle and you can just detach one and put on another that is already zeroed for that weapon.

Admittedly, it can take a whole 4 seconds to change sights and the DARPA boffins may well wish to remove that lag (and the necessity of having to lug around a number of different sights in your kit) by having an integrated system that does the lot (I can certainly see the benefits there) but that's not the issue.

The issue is the sweeping statement that "Movie scenes where people gaily snick aiming attachments on and off weapons and never bother to zero them on the range are **strictly creative licence**".

Perhaps a movie should have a short scene wherein you see the marksman putting in some time zeroing one sight, switching to the other and zeroing that as well?

Personally, my assumption, when watching a movie and the guy (or girl) is a hot-shot sniper/assasin with his/her own specialised easily disassembled/reassembled sniper rifle and several grands' worth of precision optics, is that they invested the (relatively small) sum involved in getting some precision quick-release sight mounts to go with it (actually, I'd also assume that the cast, reach, balance, trigger draw weight etc of the weapon are all set up for that particular shooter as well) and I would presume they've spent a goodly amount of time sighting it in and practising with it. I figure certain things "go with the territory" and need not be spelled out. We frequently don't get to see the sniper handloading his/her cartridges either, but that's "a given" for the serious shooter.

Frankly I would have expected better from Mr Page who, as resident weaponry correspondant, should be well aware that precise-fitting quick-release sight mounts have been around for ages and that some of them are pretty good.

I figure that a trained sniper would be able to change a weapon sight in the same amount of time as (or in less time than) a well-rehearsed actor so I don't think the snicking of sights on and off weapons in a movie is particularly inaccurate - even if we don't get to see the sighting-in process or the custom-manufacturing of the weapon and the practising or precision hand-loading of matched cartridges etc etc etc.

High-tech custom weapon with quick-release sight mount = (so far as I'm concerned) high-tech weapon with non-zero-shift sight mounts and a lot of work in the preparation stages.

@ Will, re: River Song...

She had the *Doctor's* sonic screwdriver (well, an older version of the Doctor, anyway) and one gathers they're a little more than "just friends", which accounts for how she had the screwdriver and knows his name.

It's revealed in "Forest of the Dead" that he would know, before he even starts anything with her, that she would perish in the Library and thus he later (in his timeline, earlier in hers) gives her the (by now very modified) sonic screwdriver to capture her data ghost so he could record her into the Library's brain - Moffat loves playing around with the Doctor knowing something because he remembers something out of synch with the current time.

Their obviously deep relationship (her past, his future) is the reason she knows his name.

I'm just wondering if the Library episodes mean that Tennant will still be the Doctor and that River Song's going to be a regular or semi-regular character in a later season.

Rewatching The Stolen Earth - anyone notice that while Donna was sitting on the stairs in numb shock at the Shadow Proclamation there's the drum/Heart beat sound before she's interrupted by she-of-the-frizzy-hair? Very much like the prelude to revealing Prof Yana was the Master...

Poor fucking Terrorists!

You smuggle your box-knives, manicuring scissors, 101ml bottles of liquid and C4-padded jacket onto the plane, wait until you're in the air and make your bid:

You whip out your weapons, take control of the flight crew and scream "We're taking over this flight"...

And all the passengers look at each other then back at you and go "BWAAAhahahahahahaha! Trippy, man. Far out." and won't stop giggling or laughing.

That'd just fuck your "Terror" campagn, wouldn't it.

@ Pyros

Yeah, regretably that was an image that crossed my mind as well - given that this is DARPA-funded, methinks an intrusive robot designed to get into small openings, reshape and "perform a function" might be quite popular with the - errrm - "information facilitation specialists" at Guantanamo Bay...

@ AC 18/6/08 16:56

"You don't seem to have considered the tax implications of the transaction. Death, taxes, coat, door, etc."

Don't post anonymously - I like to know the names of those who brighten my morning with laughter.

RMartin, Ash and Brian

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

"Sense of humour" - GROW ONE!

As to a lot of the other posts: Sheer brilliance. ade, you bloody-near killed me. and to the initial post: if I thought for a moment that there was a clear and present danger of our machines being remotely switched over to decaf, I'd start my own little "Waronterr'r"

Thankfully the espresso machine here in our IT dept is a stand-alone model and the only overruns it's likely to experience are if someone's caffeine-withdrawal-induced jitters cause them to punch the button too many times...

@ tony trolle

The email said USD, which means (if converted into NZD) I'd be able to by a Double Whopper with Cheese combo at BK - but I would have to dig into my own pockets to up-size it...

T-shirt wanted

I'm flying internally within New Zealand next week and want to test our domestic airport security systems. Anyone got a Transformers or Guns 'n' Roses t-shirt - actually, any T-shirt with a recognisable firearm on it - I can borrow for the occasion?

I've already determined I'll either have to check my single tiny bag (I travel really light) in rather than carry it on or leave my cigarette lighter at home and buy a new one when I reach my destination due to the ludicrous "security precautions" in place.

Having just admitted I own such a dangerous terrorist weapon as a cigarette lighter, I considered posting anonymously as I have no desire to be stopped and cavity-searched for any cigarette lighters I might be attempting to smuggle into the cabin - but then I thought: "fuck it, let 'em try, I could frankly do with the compensation money they will be giving me to keep it out of court and the tabloids."

@ Wouldn't happen in London....

400 quid a week for a closet? It's a deal, it's a steal, it's sale of the fuckin' century.

Fuck it, Nick, I'll take it.

How small are these supposed to be?

It occurs to me that even at the size of a house-fly, these things would look terribly suspicious if the artist's impression is anything to go by.

One of those things buzzing around the room or perching on a wall is hardly going to blend in, is it?

They should stick with remote controlled cyborg moths - they'd at least look the part while frantically circling the light bulb...

@ Mark

"How about NOT SHOOTING EITHER.

Police used to be trained to restrain. Orderlies in mental institutes were taught the same thing. No need for teaching now, however. Just ZAP THE BASTARD! Much cheaper to get a mouth-breather who can press a button than spend money training someone, isn't it."

Yeah, because drugged-up perps always considerately attack people when there's good visibility, plenty of room to move, and plenty of time to react.

Tell you what, I'll get someone to attack you in a relatively uncluttered well-lit hospital corridor or ward and then (after you get out of your plaster casts) I'll get some meth-crazed bastard to attack you in a dimly-lit cluttered street - then maybe you'll be qualified to have an opinion.

Unlike you, some of us actually venture outdoors at night time and are aware that lighting is not optimal, "housekeeping" is non-existent, street lights create confusing extremes of glare and profound shadow, the terrain and buildings provide cover and shadow, numerous unpredictable hazards abound and there are plenty of opportunities to be "blind-sided".

But anyway, you can sit in your little safe well-lit bubble and dream but kindly refrain from sharing your dreams with those of us in the real world.

And re: Tasering: It should only be used in situations where a clear and present physical danger is evident. And I'd rather be accidentally hit by a badly-aimed Taser than a badly-aimed firearm.

Disappointed with NASA

If they're going to program their landers to send back holiday snaps they could have at least got it to digitally stamp "Weather is great, wish you were here" or (better) "Scenery is here, wish you were beautiful" on the bottom of the pic.

They've really let the side down.

re the "Second Amendment"

OK, I'm not bagging firearms ownership - I've own a fair few rifles and shotguns in my time and fired pistols at the local range, I live in New Zealand where there is some pretty hefty legislation in place regarding firearms but they are not impossible to legally obtain given a clean record and the ability to pass a firearms safety exam.

I do, however, have to wonder, every time someone in the US trots out the second amendment and says "our government cannot oppress us as we own firearms", exactly what the 2nd Amendment and firearms ownership have done to protect the public of the USA from the Patriot Act and other gross breaches of their Constitutional rights in recent years.

Seriously, guys, by all means buy firearms to protect yourselves and your families from armed intruders if you must (and for fuck's sake don't keep them in a "safe" that some teenager can prise the lid off (what was it made of, marzipan?) or in your side-table drawer) but please stop going on about how they "protect you and your Constitutional rights" from a despotic, corrupt and totalitarian government because evidence suggests they do no such things.

As to the Kel-Tec. Forget it. Use the $250 voucher as a discount voucher on a better firearm. Get $250 off the price your beloved Glock, Colt, S&W, Ruger, Walther or whatever - any brand new gun that's "a bit rough" out of the box and needs modifications is false economy when compared with more expensive, but better-made, firearms that need nothing more than ammunition "out of the box".

Better a $250 discount on a proper weapon than a "free" piece of crap, especially if you're planning on betting your life on it, else it's just like getting a cheap car that's "a bit rough off the showroom floor but just fine once you've fixed up the brakes and replaced the sharp spike in the middle of the steering wheel with a proper airbag"...

I wouldn't buy a crap firearm for hunting or target shooting (the only legal reasons to fire firearms here), let alone "personal protection" - which is why the names associated with my purchases in the past have been Anschutz, Miroku, Mossberg, Walther...

I'll leave you with that thought.

Coat, please... yes, the 3/4-length safari jacket with large-capacity pockets, leather patches on the elbows and Walther patch on the breast pocket...

@ Spiderman for all!

I guess that depends on whether you intend dangling by one arm/leg or not. If you were to work to "three points of contact at all times" you could divide that 1600 sqcm into three and make four pads of that size - about 24cm on each side - for hands and feet. That way you can support your weight adequately while shifting one limb to a new position. Or you could make 4x 800sqcm pads (<30cm/side) and you'd be able to support your weight on 2 points of contact while you reposition the other 2.

Christian Bale again

Yes, good choice of actor but other things I've heard bandied about re the movie gives me the screaming shits: PG rating?!?!?!

Speaking tubes vs telephone

Got to love all the people making references to "slow electic cars" and "milk floats", they remind me of a tale I heard of some bloke not long after Bell had invented the telephone who, on hearing you'd be able to talk between New York and Boston, said "Nonsense, you'd never get a speaking tube that long and if you did, you'd never make yourself heard down it."

Such quaint archaisms should, I feel, be treasured and those who utter them should be preserved as a rich part of our cultural heritage. Now, in a time where it seems everyone is forgetting the lessons of the past, it is especially important to hold onto such people who's grip on ancient history is so tight they're actually still living in it.

I propose a special facility to house these people so that the rest of us can visit them from time to time and marvel in their rustic simplicity. I figure an extra wing at the Smithsonian should suffice.

By all means, question where the fuck the power for these vehicles is going to come from, discuss the logistics of setting up a recharging or battery-swap infrastructure or the costs of all the new EVs or the logistics of a proper battery recycling system - but for fuck's sake at least move into the later years of the 20th Century with regard to the performance of electric cars if you can't make it as far as the 21st.

and michael:

I rather doubt they would leave the charging points and batteries sitting on the side of the road unattended and unsecured - there would doubtless be attendants at some outlets to help you change/charge your batteries like in a service station and self-help outlets would be secured against abuse/theft/vandalism. We have a few unattended EFT-POS-only petrol stations here in NZ. Strangely enough, they are still functional. No one has vandalised them or stolen the petrol. Why is that? Oh, that's right, they're well constructed, monitored by security cameras and fitted with alarms.

See what you could have come up with if you'd thought for more than 10 minutes?

And actually, more people live within cities than commute from the outside - that's why they're cities: they have lots of people living in them.

The headline is the SECOND BEST news I've had this week...

I thought it was the BEST news until I read the article and learned that Moffat is taking over - that was the perfect trump to an already brilliant bit of news.

I want to turn handsprings and cartwheels but my manager's in the office - CURSES!

Feds are getting soft these days...

Back in the day they gunned down Bonnie and Clyde.

That said, the criteria for being a modern day Bonnie and Clyde seems pretty slack - Bonnie and Clyde did armed hold-ups (though it's said Bonnie never actually brandished or fired a weapon, she was more support and logistics - W. D. Jones: "As far as I know, Bonnie never packed a gun. Maybe she'd help carry what we had in the car into a tourist-court room. But during the five big gun battles I was with them, she never fired a gun. But I'll say she was a hell of a loader.")

Waiting for some unrepentant video/music "pirate" to be deemed "The new Jack the Ripper" because, like, you know, his crimes [against Warner Bros et al.] are like really /heinous/.

@ Tim Bates and Stephen

I'm a kiwi, so I know full well it's you Aussies that are the sheep-botherers...

About sodding time.

I've been saying for years that they should depolymerise plastics etc to recycle the raw materials but the "conventional wisdom" was "it's too complicated and costly".

Oh look, now people all over the place are finding "simple" cost effective ways of doing it.

So shall I just assume that all those people in the past meant "they too fucking lazy to work out a way to do it yet"?

Richard Hebert:

While getting rid of our oil addiction, so far as fueling vehicles goes, will do wonders for our pollution levels, we still rely on oil or coal to manufacture plastics, most of which wind up in landfills and more oil/coal needs to be used to create more plastic products to put in landfills.

This will at least help with ensuring plastics aren't the one-off waste of resources they used to be.

I seriously question the wisdom of all those disposable plastic shopping bags being used and then thrown out (nearest to recycling of the bags is often "I use the shopping bags as bin-liners") when the 1950's tech - brown paper bags - is completely biodegradeable, recyclable and comes from a renewable resource.

Good to see people are working on ways to re-extract the basic compounds back out of the waste plastic.

Definitely got to be a scam variant.

That's the bait, the hook comes later once correspondence has been entered into. I've encountered a few 419 scams that don't immediately launch into "I've got ONE MILLION US DOLLARS to get rid of" in the first email. They become "penpals" first, establish dialogue, then "confide" in you about their vast piles of cash and their problem of how to get to it....

This variant is obviously looking for sympathetic types whose willingness to help is evidence by their replying to the letter. Later will come "could you please send me a few thousand dollars to pay this one man who is very angry, I don't want my dad to commit suicide..."

bobbles31: "Mines the one with "CYNIC" in big white letters on the back."

Then you must try harder, I don't need anything written on my jacket for people to know I'm a cynic.

david: Go for it, getting yourself a new motorcycle is a worthy cause.

Life is everywhere

Life is so persistent that it is most likely to exist outside our solar system (and pretty bloody likely it exists in some form on/in other bodies in our solar system) but, as others have rightly pointed out, in order for ther to be an "invasion" they would have to be more technologically advanced than us just to get here (no guarantee of that at all), close enough to get here and still need something that we have that, despite having the ability to cross vast interstellar distances, they cannot produce themselves or can't get by stripping a few conveniently empty planets nearer home.

And even if they did, by some strange series of coincidences, possess the technology, live close enough and want what we have, what the fuck are we going to do about it?

Any incoming aliens would obviously hold the "High Ground" - all our resources are clustered around this planet - Geosynch orbit at the best - and even if we had a suitably beweaponned base on the moon, the aliens are "higher" still. Most our spy sats, and any *cough* /theoretical/ spaceborne weapons, are pointed inward and so are no fucking use against a bunch of aliens that can clean out a sizeable chunk of our asteroid belt on their way in from another solar system and drop said rocks on our communications, surveillance and weapons networks (they could take out a moon base on the way past) before turning their attention to raining town-sized boulders on our ground emplacements. They could do this from Mars' orbit and there's not a thing we could do about it given the best China and the USA have managed is to knock out a couple of LEO objects.

In interplanetary battle, who holds the high ground wins. Our own gravity is our enemy and their ally.

@ImaGnuber

I'm pretty sure that it would be more humane if you merely dropped several kilos of C4 out of a sub-sonic plane onto the starving Third World. Hitting them with Mach-6 flour probably contravenes a number of Arms Limitation treaties and the Geneva Convention.

What a surprise!

The US Constitution gets ignored by Government Agencies and the Appeals Court says it's OK. What a shocker.

</sarcasm>

I've got a number of good friends in the States I'd love to visit and there are some great places in the USA that I'd love to see as part of a motorcycling tour of the World but the more I read about their border controls and the breaches of basic human rights exercised by US-Gov, the less inclined I feel to visit the place.

In fact, I'd rather visit Somalia, where at least I know they're not pretending to be anything better than a war zone.

Citizens of the USA: if you're not going to dispose of your goverment, at least do the decent thing and cremate your Constitution so it can finally rest in peace.

@Armitage

"heh, only reason he only had a small amount of weed on him must be because he smoked the rest of it before going into the bank to cash a cheque for $360Bn"

I'll say! From the look of that pic, he's totally fucking WASTED!

Makes "Jim" from the series "Taxi" look positively compos mentis, doesn't he.

Dunno if they would make it...

in this post-Sept11 world: a small bunch of heaviliy-armed malcontents rebelling against the duly recognised government? Sounds like a bunch of Terrorists (capitalised because that's how TPTB see it, these days) to me.

Unless of course they make the Federation obviously Arabic and have all of Blake's 7 played by Americans - with a suitable back-story of how the Evil Terrorists took over and a stalwart crew of red-blooded "Umerkins" carries on the resistance...

I suppose that if there's any funding from the USA at all, Blake and Avon (or their new counterparts) will be played by Americans or at least have American accents as you cannot have anyone but an American in the lead, no matter how "British" the show might be.

Of course, they could go for the "Famous Five remake" model which not only has one of the main characters being (you guessed it) an American, but put in a multi-racial crew from all the acceptable (non-Middle Eastern) countries.

I'll reserve judgement and give it a watch (if it doesn't get canned for being "potentially too sympathetic to Terrorism").

What I'd really like to see is a redoing of the finally episode of series 4.

I hated that episode. Not because they killed off the crew (with the possible exception of Avon, as we have no proof of who was shooting whom), but because they'd spent the series really getting the characters defined and then they all acted out of character in the last few minutes in the midst of a minor ambush that should not have troubled them - Ex-Military Del Tarrant breaking cover to get shot, Vila using his famed cowardice to get close enough to disarm the traitor (great!) and then just standing there like an idiot (DUH!), Avon standing around like a stunned mullet in the midst of a fire fight, Dayna NOT having some fiendish concealed weapon to bring to bear (she has explosive chewing gum and more weapons than the USAF, FFS). Seriously, I was wondering what these nongs had done with the REAL crew of the Scorpio.

I would like to see a properly done remake of Blake's 7 with a decent budget - provided they got the right actors and stuck to the ideas and interpersonal dynamics behind the original. Dunno how much hope we have of that, though.

Brilliant episode!

Had me laughing aloud for the first time in a while.

David:

The fact that it was the BOFH who mentioned the muffins, I don't think he was "sitting back". As Dr. Mouse said: "Why have a dog and bark yourself?"

Couldn't happen to a more deserving target.

Got to go now and pay the EULA licencing fee in order to read the copyrighted licence for the copyrighted software, will be going via a certain porcelain bowl and the coffee machine...

@ Dave

Yeah, well, it was a twat from MIT speaking and the average American does not recognise the capabilities of anyone outside the USA so Mr Hawking "doesn't count" so far as he's concerned. Only people from the US of A can be superheroes, doncherknow.

If Hawkings was born in the USA and taught at MIT, the quote would have been different but, being English, the best he can hope for is "supervillain", going by the portrayal of Brits/Poms/Limeys in most movies...

@ Simon Ward:

"speaking as an (ex-)physicist "

So you've stopped going to MIT, then.

"electronic demobilizing device"

Direct from the "GW Bush School of Speakifying".

You can instantly tell the cop's a semi-literate redneck who probably had the nickname "Bubba" for most his life and regularly chews cud^H^H^Hgum - but not while he's walking...

"Put down thart theer eeeelectronic demobilizin' device boah an' come ovah heah with yo' hands up afore ah blow yo' heyad ahf."

For the Continentals:

Depending on which tribe you're listening to, "Wh" can approximate to an "F" sound, the a's are a short "ah" sound not too unlike the u in "stuck" (for anyone except for certain poms who pronounce that word to rhyme with "book" and the e is pronounced like the one in "get".

So one could phonetically render it as something like "Fah kah tah neh" - say it fast enough and you'll understand what R Callan was talking about.

Incidentally, in other news a car rental company caused a bit of a stir with one of their advertising billboards:

"The billboard, featured three images of road signs with place names beginning with whaka - Whakatane, Whakamaru and Whakamoa.

Next to the pictures the billboard said "Rent a car from only $25.00 a day so you can visit any whaka.""

They took it down after a complaint was received...

More here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4454041a11.html

@ exercise bikes

Wouldn't work where it was needed - all those morbidly obese bastards that whine that they have to pay for two seats every time they fly wouldn't be able to pedal fast enough and long enough to generate sufficient power to offset their own excess weight, let alone provide enough of a surplus to power in-flight electronics.

If we had some means of generating electricity by blobbing-out on a couch and stuffing your face with Twinkies they could power the next Shuttle mission.

@ Kain

Especially since it was bunging it on Craigslist that called attention to *themselves* as well. Oh look, *these* guys posted the listing. And look, they recently sold stuff that matches the description of missing goods.

Shit, not even the Famous Five could have solved it quicker.

@FatherStorm

And you wind up with a missive not unlike one of amanfrommars's posts or the "English" instruction manual from a Taiwanese hardware manufacturer, thus misdirecting the Forces of Evil^H^H^H^HLaw towards innocent bystanders.

Cut it out, you lot!

Being raped by a wombat is no laughing matter and sounding like a bloody Aussie is the worst possible thing that can happen to a Kiwi.

The other way for Continentals and Europeans to tell the difference between Kiwis and Aussies is to ask them to say "g'day".

If they sound like they're whining, they're Aussies - and they complain about "whinging Poms". At least the Poms can greet you without it sounding like a complaint.

@ James O'Brien:

A wombat give a reach-around? You've gotta be kidding. The little bastards only care about their OWN satisfaction!

Yep, mine's the coat with the silver fern, kiwi and Southern Cross (with the right number of stars in it) on the back. No wombat claw marks, though...