Posts by Richard Scratcher
333 posts • joined Friday 31st August 2007 20:00 GMT
Posted in Movie review: Star Trek Into Darkness
Re: Benedict Cumberpatch may be good, but ......
Standby lights... roll cameras... cue music... cue Cumberpatch... Action!
We won't even be allowed to play snakes on a plane.
Re: Funding?
"...Given the tight financial strictures of the US government this is unlikely"
Just find a military application for this thing and watch the $$$ come rolling in.
File? What file? I don't remember saving any files!
I owned a Sinclair QL and its Microdrives were a real let down. The QL was very late in delivery and had a "dongle" attached to fix the issues that made it so late.
For me, saving files to a Microdrive was a fingers-crossed affair and I would always verify that the file had been saved and then save it again to a second cartridge... or even a third.
Re: T-mobile....
...kindly enlighten me as to the difference between "unlimited" and "truly unlimited"???
I'm guessing that "truly unlimited" will be almost the same as "unlimited" but be subject to slightly fewer limits.
Naked chick strutting about on rooftop garden!
http://btlondon2012.co.uk/pano.html?view.hlookat=90.1875&view.vlookat=32.4706&view.fov=0.8065&imarkerath=90.1875&imarkeratv=32.4706
Posted in AMD: Star Trek holodecks within reach
Re: Holodecks appeared briefly in...
The animated series of Star Trek featured a holodeck in an episode called "The Practical Joker". This was aired in September 1974. The holodeck was then called the "Recreation Deck".
The concept of a holodeck was suggested to Gene Rodenberry by the holographer Gene Dolgoff in 1973. Mr Dologoff spent a lot of time in his lab mucking about with lasers and convinced Gene Rodenberry that interactive holograms would be a commonplace technology in the future.
Posted in Polish man mistakes hot iron for mobe
Got to be a fake story surely - I don't believe it
I first heard the "how do you make a [insert national stereotype here]man burn is ear?" joke when I was at school and phones had dials.
"...have Apple pulled a blinder here ?"
They also took the opportunity to fire Scott Forstall.
()()
That's no moon!
Posted in Why do Smart TV UIs suck?
Can't be long now can it?
Most of the devices currently in and around my telly are very similar to items in and around my computer:- Hi-res display, UI, hard disc, CD/DVD, blu-ray, graphics card, tuner, media player, wifi, sound card, speakers, web cam, etc.
Shirley it can't be long before some manufacturer puts all these items together into a multi-media centre (with a fully weaned UI) designed for the lounges of coach potatoes such as myself.
There's obviously no technical reason why this couldn't be done. I don't understand the manufacturers' apparent reluctance to create such a device.
Maybe it just needs someone to take the first step - Apple Television anyone?
Re: Oh, I don't know
Attractive? She's probably a bit of a dog.
Re: Bah!
I heard you the first time.
Bloody favouritism!
How come Cairns was chosen to host the eclipse?
I'll bet their poxy video stream won't be as professional as the 1972 Audio Recording from Lord's Cricket ground.
A pity about the rain though.
Life on Mars?
"The new bright bits are smaller, there's [sic] more of them and they are located inside the hole that Curiosity dug, rather than laying on the surface.
What would they be laying on the surface? Eggs? Each other?
Now that's what I call falling...
...with style!
Re: Bah humbug - simulated picture
"...have you ever looked out of the window of a plane as you pass over the airport parking lot on a bright sunny day?"
At night a person's pupils will have dilated up to 25 times the size they are on a sunny day. The retina will undergo a physical change to make it many thousand times more sensitive to light. This takes about 20 minutes to happen and is why the cabin lights are dimmed before a plane lands at night - to give passengers' eyes time to adjust in case of emergency. Returning from night vision takes about 5 minutes.
Pilots need to be able to see, especially while they're landing.
Just change the name
"All-you-can-eat" becomes "All-you-may-eat".
Not that big of a deal.
Posted in Oregon farmer devoured by own hogs
The reason for the 'attack' may never be known... unless somebody squeals.
A sow bit Garner last year when he accidentally stepped on one of her piglets. His brother, Michael Garner, said: “He said he was going to kill it, but when I asked him about it later, he said he had changed his mind."
Looks like a clear case of self defence to me.
Posted in Happy birthday, Compact Disc
Re: The coming of commercialisation
Yeah, the covers were crappy....but the sound was amazing! I remember being wowed by classical music on CDs. I could switch on my hi-fi, start a track and not know what volume I'd left my amp at until the music started. No matter how careful I was with vinyl, the snap, crackle and pop was always in the mix.
I'm getting old too but I am nostalgic about the dawn of the CD. I don't link the event to crap music at all. Of course these days it's all MP3, with it's inferior sound quality...or so I'm told. At my age I've lost sensitivity to a good portion of the audio spectrum.
Feeling small?
The Total Perspective Vortex is allegedly the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected.
When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here." - Douglas Adams
I remember when the SS Enterprise flew over Manchester on its visit to the UK in 1983. In those days I used to carry my Pentax 110 camera in my pocket, every day...except that particular day.
Posted in The Jupiter Ace is 30
I still have mine
Or rather, my brother's. We rehoused it in a metal box with a new keyboard and installed it under the telly to manage our video tape library. It worked well unless it got unplugged and we had forgotten to back things up to tape. But that happened rarely...maybe once a week.
Posted in Fans rap Apple's 'crap' Map app
The UK has had an alternative to google maps for decades
Sure, it's in black and white but I find the traffic news is better.
FTL travel must be possible...
...or how else was I repeatedly probed by aliens aboard their UFO?
I find the idea of a 22" tablet a little hard to swallow.
The figures in this study might be rather skewed...
...because they don't include the opinions of an unknown number of people who, like me, refuse to take part in such studies and surveys**
**Please don't quote me on this.
See icon
See title
Useful Kit
When it's in a canyon or a short distance away from a vertical rock face it can shout yodel-ay-he-hee! and then determine the speed of sound in Mar's thin atmosphere by timing the echo.
So putting a speaker on the rover makes sense. The spinning hub caps and furry dice though....
Mars ain't the kind of place to stage your gigs
In fact it's cold as hell.
And there's no one there to praise them, if you did.
We need to go nuclear
We need to stop using fossil fuels and to break away from the strangle hold the oil producing countries of the Middle East have on us.
Nuclear power is a dangerous thing to have in you back yard but it needn't be there. We could set up huge power stations and use the energy produced to to create the equivalent of fossil fuels, which could then be transported safely around the planet. After all, fossil fuels are just hydrocarbons that have stored chemical energy, which originally came from photosynthesis.
The power stations needn't be near populated areas, they could be thousands of miles away, in the middle of a desert somewhere, such as the Middle E....oh, hang on....
Re: ULLLLLAAAAAA!!!!
"It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely proved these details. However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light. Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam." - H. G. Wells
Posted in Ten phones for seniors
NICE REVIEW BUT...
...CAN WE HAVE IT IN A LARGER FONT PLEASE? MY EYES AREN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE.
Damn these deadly dominos!
Another example of man's creations destroying the planet.
My cat is NOT a killer!
That's because I read Beatrix Potter stories to him ever since he was a tiny kitten.
No Sam, don't try to bite off Jemima Puddleduck's head, she doesn't like it.
Is that Mrs Tittle Mouse under your paw Sam? Now let her go this instant! Naughty cat!
Re: Curiosity needs its own section
And were would they get enough material to fill such a section? Just out of curiosity.
Re: No anaglyph please
It's for the kids man, you know, for the little kiiiiiids!
First impressions
I was looking at the incredible Mars satellite image showing the various landing system components scattered across the surface of this distant planet - the parachute, rocket pack, heat shield and capsule back shell - and I thought wow! What a mess! Curiosity's first task should be to scoot around and pick up all the crap it's littered the place with.
If any Martians see it they'll wonder what on Mars is going on.
Amazing!
So many things that might go right in that complicated landing procedure...and they did.
To place that behemoth of a rover precisely into a crater on Mars is a stunning achievement but one tinged with sadness after the team's pet cat was run over by the robot during its testing phase.
Posted in Nikon D4 DSLR review
Yeah, I had one of these...
...for about 24 hours.
I had ordered a Canon 5D MKIII but the shop dispatched one of these Nikon thingies. The first thing I did was check the price on-line (wow!), which was more than double what I'd paid. My friends suggested I sold all my Canon glass and bought Nikon gear but I decided to phone the shop and let them know of their blunder.
They sent a courier to my door to exchange prisoners the very next morning.
Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...
I was with you up to "It's simple".
If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...
The latest results from the LHC have confirmed my long-held theory about QED, the standard model and supersymmetry, namely that I'll never be able to understand them no matter how many simple analogies these so-called boffins come up with to try to explain things.
It's like trying to teach a caveman to play scrabble.
A Very British Coup
Now that was a classic piece of British drama (1982) adapted from a great book. It's a pity we don't get dramas like that these da.......awww shit! Channel Four is doing a remake. Let's hope they don't bugger it up.
Re: Stupid Grandma Query
Remember - twice as light = half as heavy and twice as heavy = half as light.
Light just falls into it.....
http://www.isciencetimes.com/data/images/full/2012/07/18/2339-aerographite.jpg
Posted in Trekkie pays £45,000 for rusty shuttle
Wow! What a wreck!
What happened to it? It looks as though it's been battered by a shower of boulders, thrown by a group of giant ape-like creatures.
Re: They found the Higgs Boson?
I've been praying to St Anthony that they'd find it.
Re: Or, in plain English...
The money spent on cosmetics in Europe per annum is around $60,000,000,000. And what have we got from it? "Expert Hydra Energetic Turbo Booster Moisturiser" for "men". Is it worth it? Lo'really?
