Posts by Lukin Brewer 236 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Sep 2007
There was that series of Robot Wars where Team Diotior were frantically trying to rebuild their robot after Customs forced them to dismantle most of it. I was wondering at the time whether they really had no idea what Diotior was, or whether Customs were just trying to give the home teams a leg up.
Thanks but no thanks, Excise guys.
...can end up in jail whether they help the authorities or not.
On 14th April 1865, a man on horseback called at the home of Dr Samuel Mudd and asked him to treat his broken leg. Dr Mudd did so. The following day, Dr Mudd heard the news that President Lincoln was dead - assassinated the day before by one John Wilkes Booth who had broken his leg during his barnstorming escape. Realising that this was the man that he had treated, Dr Mudd immediately went to the authorities and told them all he knew. He was arrested and later convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was pardoned (but still declared guilty) four years later. It was only a century after that they got around to declaring him innocent. By which time he was, of course, dead, having lived out the rest of his life as a pariah.
If someone you know thinks they're "manufacturing ricin" then telling the authorities might not be a good idea - you never know how they will react. Instead, explain to why they should not do this. If they are too crazy to be swayed by reason, get AmanFromMars to explain to them.
I want to, I want to, I want to, keep XP…
I want to, I want to, I want to, keep XP…
Look at all those yoyos working out in Redmond,
Hacking Vista for the next SP,
It ain’t working, (not the way they do it!)
A hiding to nothing with no USB.
We’ve got to install enterprise systems, failsafe platform delivery-y-y-y-y-y,
We’ve gotta move to Linux servers, we’ve gotta move to BSD.
As has already been noted, any black holes created by the LHC would be subatomic-particle-sized and would dissipate mass via Hawking Radiation far faster than they could accrete it.
Strangelets, on the other hand... Just as neutron stars are composed of neutronium - ultracompressed matter where all the electrons and protons have been forced together into neutrons - it is theorised that even greater compression could cause the neutrons to break down into individual quarks, creating an even denser object composed entirely of strange quarks. This "strangelet" would have a gravitational field powerful enough to accrete matter, and compress the new matter down into more strange quark matter. What is more, it doesn't emit Hawking radiation, and so won't lose mass unsustainably. It doesn't have an event horizon either, so the sensitive detectors of the LHC should be able to track its path as it falls out of the particle beam on its way to the earth's core...
Mine's the white coat, the one with the gloves attached, and the matching leggings, bubble helmet and life support pack. This sort of thing, methinks, is best monitored from the far side of the Moon.
There was indeed a man who considered “Nineteen Eighty-Four” a blueprint for a society he wished to create, and his name was Iosef Vissarionovitch Dzhugashvili, better known as Joe Stalin. Having read the book, he put it on the banned list, but then had an authoritative Russian translation made and distributed to the Politburo as required reading.
As it happens, Stalin ended up dying a slow and unpleasant death from internal haemorrhaging, brought on by high blood pressure, and, possibly, a sneaky dose of warfarin. All of his body cavities filled with blood, including his lungs. Sic semper tyranis - may the IDcrats choke on their plans in like fashion.
... as Mad Magazine put it. With dull, yecchy muddy colours. "Which is why we always use a Nikon loaded with Ektachrome."
The main reason why professional photographers are sticking with film is response time. Press the shutter button on a film camera, the shutter opens, the shutter closes, and your image is captured. With digital cameras, there is always a delay of some sort. The other problems - white balance, resolution, accessories and so forth have largely been fixed.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=93070&in_page_id=34
Bernard Gilbert, 79, has an argument with Zoe Forbes, 26, over a parking space at Asda. Her husband takes his registration number to a friend in the Police, who gets Mr Gilbert's name and address from the registration database. Mr Forbes and his brother then go out and brick Mr Gilbert's windows. Mr Gilbert has a heart attack and dies.
The national ID database will provide many more opportunities for this sort of thing to happen.
We had a BBC model B, upgraded from A, with a Torch Upgrade: Disk Pack, Z80 second processor board and CP/N ROM. Yes, it's up in the loft, along with the Archimedes 410 (our RISC PC is still in active service).
We were always told never to leave a disk in a drive when we turned it on or off, as it might become corrupted. I never bothered to test the veracity of this claim. It might have been true - in the early 80s few manufacturers at the affordable/consumer end of the electronic market seemed able or willing to suppress their power supplies. The budget music centres all went "pop" when you turned them on or off. In a floppy drive, this could easily translate into a localised electromagnetic pulse around the read/write head, and possibly wipe a vital part of a mounted disk. Of course, this was not a problem on the (more expensive) IBM PCs.
Take a look at this page on Winchell Chung's site: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aa.html
He quotes from "The Killing Star" by Charles Pelligrino and George Zebrowski, which seems to cover the problem perfectly well:
"The great silence (i.e., absence of SETI signals from alien civilizations) is perhaps the strongest indicator of all that high relativistic velocities are attainable and that everybody out there knows it.
The sobering truth is that relativistic civilizations are a potential nightmare to anyone living within range of them. The problem is that objects traveling at an appreciable fraction of light speed are never where you see them when you see them (i.e., light-speed lag). Relativistic rockets, if their owners turn out to be less than benevolent, are both totally unstoppable and totally destructive. A starship weighing in at 1,500 tons (approximately the weight of a fully fueled space shuttle sitting on the launchpad) impacting an earthlike planet at "only" 30 percent of lightspeed will release 1.5 million megatons of energy -- an explosive force equivalent to 150 times today's global nuclear arsenal... "
"We ask that you try just one more thought experiment. Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That's when the monsters come out. There's always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides.
It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can't read minds.
Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distant shriek or blunder across a body.
How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, "I'm here!" The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, "I'm a friend!"
What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don't want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out.
There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.
There is no policeman.
There is no way out.
And the night never ends."
IBM, recognising their total lack of experience in this sort of development, did indeed OEM as much as they could. The 8088, regardless of all other merits, had a complete chipset ready to support it.
Because they had OEMed everything, the only part of the PC which could be protected as IBM’s intellectual property was the BIOS. The engineers assured management that nobody would be able to produce a 100% compatible clone without using the IBM BIOS. Anyone who did would either licence the BIOS and compete with IBM on very unequal terms, or steal the BIOS and be sued. Either way, IBM wasn’t worried.
However, it was possible to “cleanroom” or “blind reverse engineer” the BIOS, replicating all the functions it performed, but without copying it or even looking at it. A few companies did, and sold their clone BIOSes to everyone. Then a chip design startup called Chips & Technologies, while waiting for the chip design work to come in, took it upon themselves to reengineer the Intel chipset, reducing the part count from 63 chips to 12. They licensed this design to everyone.
As a result of this, anyone could start manufacturing PC clones and match IBM on price. And so the PC began to pull away from the IBM brand and move towards becoming a commodity item.
Or should that be "cur" ses. :-)=)
This happened in the Mahabarat. The exiled hero Arjuna was out hunting and shot a stag who was mating. The stag cursed him for this dishonourable act of coitus interruptus, paying him back in kind by forcing him to live as a woman for seven years or so. He spent most of this time as a transvestite dancing instructor, but he did manage to carry off the look, as his enemies were unable to recognise him when they came calling,
...two of the violent ghosts from the film '"White Noise".
Why is it that only the "good" entities seem to be involved in this sort of thing? Or is it just that eBay won't take satanic stuff? If so, will that form the basis of the next buyer scam: "The Playstation arrived, but it was possessed by demons."
British sci-fi series? Featuring an oppressive, all-encompassing police state called “The Federation”? I for one would be rather worried if FAST started recruiting a black-garbed paramilitary enforcement squad, especially if they wear silly-but-sinister ring-shaped head visors. Or if FAST’s next chief executive wears her dark hair very, very short. And if you are visited by an aggressive man who refuses to take both his gloves off, no matter how hot it is, don’t let him look at your computers and don’t let him point the hand with the rings on anywhere near you.
Now all we need is for someone to start smuggling grey imports in on a boat called the “Liberator”.
They ought to pass that mobile number on, as a public service, to some housebound but mentally fit and imaginative Mrs Kumar type, who will only be too happy to be called up by lots of randy young males.
"Why yes, of course you can come round on a date, young man, I have nothing else planned. No, there is nothing wrong with my voice, we must have a bad connection."
Or they could lend this auspicious mobile out to womens' social clubs, to be passed around for the enjoyment of all.
"I say, Mrs Chandra, do not Bogart that shettyphone."
Come to that, Ms Shetty will be getting a new phone now, with a number that could also be susceptible to leaking. I wonder how many fake shettyphone numbers could be leaked into circulation and how many bored women could be provided with amusement before the whole thing implodes. My guess: a lot. Everybody wins. So come on you Lovely Wobbly Randy Old Indian Ladies: purchase those handsets, send your hoax emails and have fun helping out a Bollywood star in distress. You know it makes sense.
...isn't toxic. It's a transparent, colourless, odourless liquid, viscous, but miscible in all proportions with water. It's a vasodilator used in medicine to treat angina. It reduces blood pressure (but not to a dangerous extent), can cause a morning-after headache, and would probably result in a case of the runs a few hours after being ingested. Mixed with titanium dioxide (or similar), it would look just like baby milk. Filling the top quarter of the bottle with water would make it slosh about properly, and enable one to take a sip under the watchful eye of the security people. A decent impact will set it off. The instructions for preparing it have appeared on "Fight Club" (a little short on the finesses that help prevent it from detonating prematurely, but martyrdom is martyrdom, ain't it?).
So the question is: why hasn't it happened yet? Anyone?
...the rest is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Shatner.
I have seen ST: Generations. I watched the plot, dialogue and pacing twist, creak and stumble as its creators tried to give Kirk a glorious, feature-length end, having pulled him out of the (plot) hole in which he had been quietly existing. It messed up the film. Also, putting Shatner up alongside a real actor really showed up his deficiencies. Personally, I think he should throw posterity (and ST) a bone and quit while he’s still ahead.
I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like,
It's got a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good,
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it,
You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world,
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things.
But seriously, this is seriously wrong. Once again the "Ugh!" reaction gets translated into legal judgements and policy.
There is a similar app. The Refi Retaliator II - Fake Bank Form Filler fills the application forms on phishing sites with fake data, poisoning the phisher's victim database with hundreds of nonexistent people. It doesn't always work properly, though, as the phishers have to keep changing their forms to counter it.
A crude oil slick in space? Assuming the oil was kept as a liquid for ease of handling, the lighter fractions would boil or flash to vapour as soon as it hit vacuum, leaving the heavier fractions as a rapidly expanding cloud of droplets. Solar radiation and the solar wind would boil and ablate these into a stream of vaporised molecules and complex ions over the next few hours or days.
You may rest assured, though, that it isn’t going to happen. The costs of interplanetary transport are going to be colossal. Even if there were a reliable supply of naturally-occurring inkjet printer ink on Mars, it would not be profitable to bring any of it back.
The word "religion" comes from the Latin for "tie or binding", just like "ligature".
Maybe he misinterpreted Ephesians ch. 6 verses 11 on, describing the metaphorical "whole armour of God".
Maybe he visited Denver, Colorado, and liked the sound of their Power Invasion Ministry.
Maybe he was trying to mortify the flesh.
Maybe, maybe he was kind and just man, who managed to carry on his ministry without passing judgement on his neighbours or condemning those he disapproved of to Hell. Unfortunately, southern baptist ministers do have something of a reputation when it comes to style and demeanour.
I wonder if any of the "god hates fags" brigade will turn up at his funeral.
Yes, Russia, “where the powers-that-be take the attitude that anyone can say whatever one likes, as long as the people presently in charge can continue to run the place.” Indeed. However, they reserve the right to deal as they see fit with anyone whose actions or utterances threaten or annoy them. No rules, no guidelines, no warnings, no harassment, no arrests, and no state-sponsored trips to a Siberian gulag for re-education like in the old days. Just a few bullets delivered at close range when least expected, or, for the wealthy, a trumped-up corruption charge. But yes, this comes under the heading of “running the place” so the statement is accurate.
The old communists had this ideology, however bankrupt, corrupted or hypocritically misused it was, that they were working for the betterment of all their people, so that all could become equals. They justified their actions in terms of defending or pursuing this goal.
Putin and co. just have, to misquote Pratchett, definite ideas about who should be in charge – i.e. that it should be them. Period.
they'll pass laws making them illegal. There will be lists of shimmery fabrics that can no longer be worn in public, and others that can't be taken out in the rain, 'cause they fall below the electrical resistivity threshold defined in the Act when they get wet.
Tazers probably have protection against short circuits - a fail safe with a reset at least. There's always the chance that the conductors will touch, and it would look really bad for the company if the tazer burned out (or melted, or exploded).
Didn't they do that for the Proms? You had to retain proof that you had attended a certain number of the more pedestrian concerts if you wanted to be admitted to the Last Night.
BTW, will these points (Live Unkempt Unregarded Rock Venue Enthusiast points? LUURVE Points?) be awarded to the people who are performing on stage at these venues, or selling CDs for the band, or coaxing their superannuated mixing desk through yet another gig. Will there be bonuses for people who buy the CDs, or write up the performance for a 'zine? Will there be penalties for directors of the big music companies(TM), such that they will never be able to attend a live performance ever again?
...sacrilicious.
And heavens, those are some tasty graphics! May BAFTA reach their last judgment on merit, uninfluenced by the C of E. Look to the cannon in the player character's hands, not the canons of the church.
p.s. Does this game have a God mode?
p.p.s. All right, I'll get my surplice.
Maybe the pump-and-dumpers are finding that bigger fish are swimming in and consuming their profits.
There are hundreds of investment houses around the world, earning their bread and Colombian frosting by trying to work out which shares are going to rise or fall. In between liquid lunches and frequent nostril-to-desktop action, they scan the markets and news across the world, looking for anything that might affect share prices. For such an establishment, it would be worth setting up a standalone PC with a few spam-magnet email accounts, and getting someone junior to collate together the pump-and-dump emails and provide hourly reports to the traders, with trends.
Professional traders in an investment house would probably have better access to the markets, and could probably beat the spammers to the punch when it came to selling off the inflated shares. Or, as the shares picked for pump-and-dumps are usually inferior performers and unlikely to recover quickly after the pump-and-dump treatment, the investment house might just decide to sell off any holdings they have in that company immediately. It wouldn't take many such investment houses to make the value of a pumped share collapse before any ill-gotten gains could be reaped from it.
Ain't life just tough all over!
A fast LCD display element has a response time of a few miliseconds. A fast OLED display element has a response time of a few microseconds. OLEDs are about a thousand times faster than LCDs, far too fast for any lag to be perceivable.
These spokesbods are supposed to highlight a product's strengths, aren't they?
On the subject of consumer durable durability, I think all of our family's TVs did at least 12 years service apiece, and none of them were ever disposed of until they were thoroughly knackered. We were using a Sony Trinitron with a tuning knob well into the 1990s, and I can still remember the channel positions (ITV = 25, C4 = 28, BBC1 = 32, BBC2 = 35). O tempora, o mores.
Others have touched on the problems little guys have enforcing patents. It is spelled out in straightforward language as lie no. 10 in Guy Kawasaki's blog entry "The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs".
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_top_ten_lie_1.html
quote
10. "Patents make our product defensible." ...
... You won't have the time or money to sue anyone with a pocket deep enough to be worth suing.
/quote
James Dyson was namechecked earlier. He did indeed spend years developing and refining his cyclonic cleaner after all the big vacuum cleaner manufacturers had rejected the idea. After his cyclonic cleaner went on sale, he then had to spend just as long in court, battling repeated violations of his patents by these same manufacturers. He did eventually force them to respect his patents but it was a major drain on him and his company.
Simple explanation: it’s detecting infrared radiation. If the detector and the parts around it were not cooled to near absolute zero, they would be emitting infrared radiation themselves. This would lower the sensitivity and mess up the results.
They could indeed site the telescope at the 2nd Lagrange point, unless it would interfere with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe which is already sited there (how much elbow room is there at L2?). The site is partially shielded from the Sun, lying about 100,000km beyond where the Earth’s umbra peters out
> Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"
In a friendly fire incident detailed in "Hitler - My Part in his Downfall", Spike Milligan downed an Allied fighter in the Mediterranean just by shouting "Noisy bastard, I hope you crash!"
There was a competition in the "Independent", shortly after he stopped being Prince, to work out what his new "symbol" was supposed to mean. The best answer IMHO (it was declared first runner-up) was that it was a combination of the old (al)chemical symbols for iron and copper, the letters of which can be rearranged to spell "poor Prince".
Does anyone remember the backlash against Blaggers ITA when they got signed by EMI? This was back in the early 1990s, before YouTube, the weblog, or even the web. Their grass-rootsy, anti-establishment fans were outraged, and cries of "sell out" came from every quarter. There were articles and rants in the radical mags and photocopied festival ‘zines denouncing them. There was even a leaflet, distributed at all the festivals, condemning them for their betrayal, and warning other unsigned bands not to follow their example.
As for the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren’s secret master plan (as described in “The Great Rock and Roll Swindle”) was to use notoriety and outrage to bypass all the hard work and expense usually involved with tapping into a paying audience. They wouldn’t have to advertise or promote the band, as Mary Whitehouse and the scandalised popular press would do that for them. They wouldn't have to play many gigs, as most of the promoters that booked them would get cold feet and have to pay huge penalties in order to back out of the (standard) performance contacts. They wouldn't have to record many albums because the record companies that signed them would get cold feet and have to pay through the nose to back out of their recording contracts. Then, when the bookings stopped coming and no record company would touch them, McLaren would take the money and run. To this end, he did everything he could to provoke public relations disasters, even retaining a team of secretaries to write outraged letters to the press. But he reckoned without his band and their army of fans. He actually got frustrated, as time went on, at the failure of the whole enterprise to crash and burn, allowing him to drop the whole thing make his exit.
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