Posts by Simon Harris

Re: A Complex Messiah

Does watching Dr Who make you a Je-Who-vah's Witness?

Re: Bloody good, but it wont please everyone

I think Silverberg's Lord Valentine series pretty much fills the brief of a Game of Thrones genre fantasy, but set on an alien world with a mixture of aliens and some SF technology.

@ac Batllestar Galactica.

At least, the reboot, was pure fantasy by the final series when it went all mystical.

Even the relatively sensible earlier episodes needed suspension of disbelief over minor things - how did 20th century motor vehicles find their way to their world? In a system with limited resources, how could it possibly be more economical to make notepaper with chamfered corners rather than rectangular?* (did they use the offcuts to power the engines?)

* I know that one was actually an in joke about the production team always cutting corners.

More an OS upgrade that forgets to tell you in the installation instructions that it's going to wipe everything important that you wanted to keep.

Re: subscription-only will ensure a quick death

"look what happened to SyFy - it's a wrestling channel now!"

Sounds like the original series is safe then - Kirk seems to find someone to wrestle in most episodes!

Re: You make it sound like dystopia is a new thing.

Star Trek may have tried to be utopian, but Bob H appears to be discussing other series since he namechecks two of them and suggests 'current trends'. Since there hasn't been a new episode of any version of Star Trek (excluding the recent movies - are they 'canon'?), my guess is he's talking about dystopia in science fiction in more general terms than Star Trek.

"I hope it is less dystopian than the current trend in writing has become."

Current trend in writing? You make it sound like dystopia is a new thing. Hasn't science fiction always had a dystopian vein running through it? - for example: The Time Machine (1895), Brave New World (1931), 1984 (1949), Fahrenheit 451 (1953), The Chrysalids (1955), A Clockwork Orange (1962), Logan's Run (1967), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), and we haven't even made it to the 1970s yet!

Re: Is there a B Ark?

"Past the prime of youth"

Waiting for the 'old codgers' recruiting campaign. I reckon I'll be about 70 by the time they get around to sending people to Mars.

"Take a look at me now"

Phil's just being attention seeking with his announcement.

Re: Goto vs Break

"You know as soon as you see it what it's doing and where it'll jump to; with goto you know none of that without examining the code and finding the label."

That all depends on how much code there is between the break and the end of the loop, and whether the blocks within that section have been indented consistently and correctly - it might just be faster to find the label than have to count the opening and closing braces that follow the break.

(that's not to say I'm condoning using gotos and untidy bracing!)

Re: Nice motor...

Maybe not the most commonly used version of the abbreviation these days, but not unheard of.

Additional presents...

Only 12 days until the feast of St. Simon.

I'll be expecting presents from you all!

Re: Kanye West's son is called North.

If he gets into the White House, will there be a Kanye West Wing?

"All these beards, it must mean Linux is becoming very popular."

But where is Linus Torvald's beard? I think we should be told.

Re: Correlation thingy

"Is that not because during those periods there's less reason to shave?"

SWMBO's opinion is that a man does not have sex for a while because the facial hair has grown more.

Re: Damned if you do and damned if you don't

Not to mention a minor character who went on to become the Doctor.

Re: Mid-season cliff-hangers aren't new...

The difference being, if you look at the episode titles and director lists for this series, most, if not all, are going to be two-parters.

Re: Dematerialised over the shark ?

"If he was broadcasting WiFi or similar from inside the cage then that is silly and would plainly not work."

Or maybe there was a WiFi router in the cage with an optical network connection to the outside.