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Good Afternoon, Alistair Dabbs. Do you still write in the direction of Hi-Tech, didn't you? Perhaps you will find fascinating the following information. Yes, I still write in that direction. I am hoped to it finding fascinate. It's easy to mock. If the roles were reversed, who knows what kind of mangled Mandarin I'd be …

  1. Shadow Systems

    Well said.

    I refuse to do the crowdsource, kickstart, "just hand over your cash now & we promise to send you stuff later" classic pig in a poke nonsense. Either you have it now & can hand it straight across, or you don't & I'm not parting with my money.

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Well said.

      I refuse to do the crowdsource, kickstart,

      In general, I agree. I have done it in a few cases though - a certain well-known prog band from the 80's that used to have an alcoholic front-man (not that that narrows it down much) have crowdfunded their last few albums. And a certain French Prog streaming radio site has funded their ongoing costs that way.

      In both cases I had previous experience of the entities involved so I guess a slightly modified rule would be "don't get involved in crowdsourcing unless you know the people involved or can afford to lose the money involved.."

      1. quxinot

        Re: Well said.

        Absolutely.

        Also nice to read a proper Dabbsy rant.

  2. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    My Nigerian uncle would be turning in his grave at the thought of such underhand tactics in taking money off people. The poor bugger won the state lottery a few years ago and just can't give the money away...

  3. Blitheringeejit
    Thumb Up

    Excellent HHGTG reference

    Brings back nostalgia-inducing memories of recording it (on VHS tape), and playing it back frame by grainy frame to read all the detail (and thus the gags) in the animated bits.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Excellent HHGTG reference

      VHS tape? On true way to experience HHGTTG was on cassette recorded from Radio 4

      (I remember first encountering it when it was originally on as a teenager but only managed o catch a handful of episode so I was surprised when later I heard the whole initial 2 series to discover that I'd the way I'd managed to put the episodes I'd heard together in what seemed like a plausible storyline had got series 2 before series 1!)

      1. BebopWeBop

        Re: Excellent HHGTG reference

        I did that as well but found it difficult to read the small print

      2. D@v3

        Re: HHGTG radio series

        Have the collection in a nice 12CD box. Have found that once ripped to an ipod, and played on shuffle, it is just as entertaining, and makes almost as much sense.

      3. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        Re: Excellent HHGTG reference

        I was lucky enough to hear the original first episode on the repeat of the first airing of the radio show, and every subsequent episode on first broadcast.

        Somewhere or other, I have some tapes with the whole of the first airing of the link episode and the second season. If I could find them, I think that they would be like gold dust, because the first broadcast of the second season went out before it was really finished, and had some different sound effects and music on the later repeats.

        I also had the link episode (the one with the Frogstar fighters) on tape. This was not heard for many years, as it was broadcast twice in the same week, and then neither repeated nor put on the original commercial tapes. It only became available again when the second season was put on CD.

        Frogstar Fighter, class C - "That makes me really angry. I think I'll take out this floor"

        Zap... Rumble, Crash

        Frogstar Fighter, class C - "AAAAHHHHHHhhhh........"

        Crunch!

        Marvin - "What a depressingly stupid robot"

    2. David Roberts
      Windows

      Re: Excellent HHGTG reference

      Hah!

      I spit on your VHS and raise you a Betamax!

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Excellent HHGTG reference

        I see your Betamax and raise you one set of bootleg tapes on Video 2000.

        1. Ralph the Wonder Llama
          Joke

          Re: Excellent HHGTG reference

          Videotape? You were lucky.

          We had to wait two months for the Wandering Minstrel to visit our village where, on the green, he would recite from memory the most recent episode, which he'd learned by hanging around outside rich folks' houses in The Big Town that had a "wireless set". And charge us two bushels of wheat each for the pleasure.

          You try telling kids today that, and so on and so forth...

        2. Roopee Bronze badge

          Re: raise you one set of bootleg tapes on Video 2000.

          Anybody wants an actual Philips VR2022 complete with remote and a few spare tapes, let me know - free to to a good home, yours for the postage (NB I think it has a genuine cast iron chassis with lead ballast)...

  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Grow your own Unicorn

    I saw the above at my local Morrison's pop-up garden centre (an otherwise vacant bit of paving they monetise during the summer). It turned out to be genuine. It's a variety of pepper.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Grow your own Unicorn

      When living in the Bay Area 15 years ago I remember being amused by the signs that a farm near Half Moon Bay used to put beside the road advertising "naked ladies and mums" (meaning they sold a variety of lily plus chrysanthemums)

  5. Alister
    Coat

    Pah!

    That photo is obviously fake, the flag isn't waving, and the shadows are going the wrong way...

  6. earl grey
    Facepalm

    I want unicorns!

    when can i expect delivery. oh, wait...

    1. Tikimon
      Devil

      Re: I want unicorns!

      So, you're a virgin then? Pretty brave of you to let this crowd know!

    2. el_oscuro

      Re: I want unicorns!

      You can order them now, and they are actually in stock:

      http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e5a7/?pfm=Search&t=canned%20unicorn%20meat

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The IT industry was founded on products that were often late and didn't deliver their promised functionality until version 3 - if ever. Nowadays things are quite different.

    1. uncommon_sense

      Yes, now the functionality NEVER arrives, but with first class excuses like EOL components...

  8. Stevie

    Bah!

    Personally I won't back anything that doesn't intend to ship with a self-flying shoulder-station-keeping mini drone that can fly for a week on a single one-hour charge, film my comings and goings as a live blog in any of the formats envisaged in the next ten years, and do so with Dolby Umpteen plus one surround sound to boot, all while deftly and aerobatically dealing with issues raised by crowding on subway trains, elevators and at urinals.

    1. tfewster
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Bah!

      Nice product concept. Send me £100 now, and I'll ship you one of the first production models* -->

      * In 2030**

      ** May be delayed due to our dodgy uranium suppliers letting us down

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    My Vega+ console...

    ...will be with me any day!

    1. Wensleydale Cheese

      Re: My Vega+ console...

      I believe I've still got a Psion IIIa mains adaptor on order.

      And a test trial of a Dyson robot vacuum cleaner which "should be availabe shortly".

      Oh wait, the former was circa 1993 and the latter circa 2001.

  10. Mike Moyle
    Pint

    "We promise to launder process each transaction transparently from your source currency via Bitcoin, Ethereum, Linoleum and Perineum before we vanish entirely in a puff of blockchain."

    Now THAT'S comedy!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      PerineumCoin

      After hashing enough perineums any blockchain miner would end up gassing the canary!

  11. Franco

    "Yes, I still write in that direction. I am hoped to it finding fascinate."

    I misread that as feeling fascination, and now have an annoyingly catch song by The Human League stuck in my head.

    Any reference to the genius of Douglas Adams is always welcome as well. I have rarely in my life laughed as hard as I did the first time I read the argument about man disproving God because of the babelfish, and shortly afterwards proving that black is white before being killed on the next zebra crossing.

  12. Tikimon
    Angel

    Kickstarter's not all bad...

    I've funded two projects and got the products on time. You may wonder, what life-changing notions induced me to part with my hard-earned cash when they didn't actually exist yet? Pure silliness! Both projects also had attainable goals and a solid plan to get there.

    First was The Gentleman's Single Use Monocle, "The world's first Disposable Single-Use Unlubricated Monocle, for the On-the-Go Gentleman." Yep, it's a sight gag item and was cheap.

    I'm actually proud to have helped Kickstart the game "Exploding Kittens". Huge success and has spawned sequels and expansions. I figure I'm doing my part to make the world a stranger place.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Kickstarter's about 99.995% bad

      I've backed exactly one project, it delivered on time and was great.

      However, since then I've noticed that every single electronic device is either impossible or clearly outright dangerous.

      The most recent I noticed was an international socket adapter with a tiny "self-resetting fuse".

      Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any such devices rated for use with mains supplies - the "fuse" contacts will simply arc over and either weld shut or literally explode the first time the fuse tries to trip.

      Perhaps they have invented one that somehow gets the minimum 6kA rated arc suppression into a space smaller than a sand filled BS1362, but I doubt it.

      However, Kickstarter don't care, and as I am not a backer I can't ask very simple questions like "What's the breaking capacity of the fuse?"

      1. Woza
        Pint

        Re: Kickstarter's about 99.995% bad

        I also have backed exactly one project - LOHAN. I got what I paid for (a mug), but not what I hoped for (launch).

        (Icon: Beer for the (grounded) plucky playmonaut.)

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Kickstarter's about 99.995% bad

          My one Kickstarter was for the Carmageddon reboot. A touch late, but at least they delivered. Helped it was a very popular franchise in its heyday.

          1. BongoJoe

            Re: Kickstarter's about 99.995% bad

            I used Kickstarter to pay for an excellent coffe-table book on the history of the Empires of Eve.

      2. The Indomitable Gall

        Re: Kickstarter's about 99.995% bad

        My one Kickstarter was the Adapteva Parallela board. An overpriced toy that I've still not done anything with, but they had the full design on display, so it was just a matter of getting the manufacturing started.

        They did have an end-of-life problem with one of the components, but they managed to get a hand from a supplier, but they were serious hardware types and seemed to have good connections.

        Even so, they almost didn't make it, and I see so many projects with far weaker credentials than them making far stronger claims. I'm always sceptical.

    2. D@v3

      Re: Kickstarter's not all bad...

      +1 for exploding kittens.

  13. John 110

    waiting patiently...

    I haven't fallen for any of that stuff since I pre-ordered my Spectrum...

    1. druck Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: waiting patiently...

      Exactly, pre-ordering is nothing new, companies have been taking us for a ride since the days of the home micro. Pre-ordered products were invariably extremely late, underspec'd or already obsolete. Often the best you could hope for was to cancel for a full refund with a lesson learned.

  14. Jonathan 27

    Wow, that PGS thing looks like a real cut and dried scam. No prototype, check. Ridiculously low price, check. Unlikely claims, check. Company based in country where it is functionally impossible for foreigners to win court cases, check. Taking cash directly to avoid KickStarter rules, checkedy check.

  15. Mage Silver badge

    PC Games

    Glad Dabbsy is sceptical.

    I had the SCUMM engine (Symbian version) on my Nokia E65 (Early 2007), and managed to run PC "Beneath a Steel Sky". Just as "broken" on it as on PC. I think I had DosBox too. Main issue was no mouse and no QWERTY keyboard.

    Big companies too are into vapourware launches.

    Famously Project Xanadu, long before the replacement for GP2X (still not really out), or Duke Nukem (was it Forever waiting).

    Then there was the "new" Osborne that killed existing sales, except it didn't exist!

  16. Dr_N

    PaperSoil

    PaperSoil: Sounds like a shit idea.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: PaperSoil

      It takes the piss.

  17. beboyle

    In my day they called it Vaporware

    Vaporware was a popular term in the first decades of personal computing, applied to everything from products that arrived months (or years) after promise, to things that never existed at all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In my day they called it Vaporware

      It is even worse now. I tried to go for buying or backing games with prototypes I like and am happy with "as is". No risk of faulure then?

      Nope... as revisions and updates can undo all the good and deliver a broken product.

      Thankfully the early adopter discount means I've broken even on the games I've "backed" as half end up good (or I can keep old working versions) and half end up never complete or spun off into oblivion.

      I would never risk it with a phisical product.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Trollface

        Re: In my day they called it Vaporware

        Great! It works on my posts too! 50% likes to dislikes. ;)

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: In my day they called it Vaporware

      "Vaporware was a popular term in the first decades of personal computing, "

      What do you mean "was"?

      We get a regular stream of salestwunts trying to flog us stuff (invariable only for MS platforms, which we don't use) and if we're bored we like to start asking technical questions about the product, usually to find that XYZ feature isn't ready yet and will be in version 2.0, etc.

      It's on par with pulling the wings off flies, but more satisfying.

      1. Elad

        Re: In my day they called it Vaporware

        It's not just Kickstarter/Indiegogo types either. Logitech are notoriously bad, or good - depends on your viewpoint - at taking money upfront for goods and not delivery for months, assuming they deliver at all. They make their customer support mechanism particularly challenging to (a) identify and (b) having done so through sleight of hand or gawd knows what by referring customers to technical support forums.

        I have to add I've been bitten by Kickstarter too, anyone recall the PopSlate II promo for the iPhone? They exceeded their goal, took the money which was blown then promptly terminated the project when found out https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/21/popslate_indiegogo_fail/

  18. TDog

    Babelfish

    Going back quite a long way, as a member of the Birmingham Sci-Fi group I recollect a lecture / chat from one of the guys' who did the HHTG graphics in the original telly series. The Babel Fish was what they got the deal on; but it wasn't computerised it was purely rostrum camera. It also spent the whole special effects budget for the series.

    Please Sir, can I have some more?

    I think the TV series speaks for itself as to whether the question was answered.

    Simon

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Babelfish

      And that hand-animated sequence on the BBC version still far outshines the slicker movie version.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Babelfish

        I too think it does.

        But I also think that's partly due to what our generation thinks what "real" computer graphics should look like.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Babelfish

      "it wasn't computerised it was purely rostrum camera."

      Considering _when_ the series was produced, that shouldn't be a surprise. The real surprise is how so many digital effects try to ape it.

    3. Wensleydale Cheese

      Re: Babelfish

      "it wasn't computerised it was purely rostrum camera."

      The process is detailed in Making of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy 1981 TV Show (Youtube)

    4. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: Babelfish

      Rostrum camera?

      Was the legendary Ken Morse involved?

  19. J. Cook Silver badge
    Pint

    ... that papersoil kickstarter has to be a joke, right?

    (This is where I'd normally say "no one can be that stupid?" but sadly, I've run into people that *are*.

  20. handleoclast
    Pint

    Relevant Thunderf00t videos

    The Thunderf00t versus pseudoscience playlist may amuse some of you who like to laugh at idiotic crowdfunded projects and some idiocies that aren't crowdfunded (instead pulling in grants from gullible governmental authorities) and some things that are just plain stupid (however funded).

    It has gems such as "Solar Freakin' Roadways" (real name of product), Thorium-powered car, Plastic from air, Hendo Hoverboard, Triton artificial gill, Fontus self-filling water bottle, Waterseer, Spinning Solar, Hyperloop, and Trump's "Solar Wall."

    Yeah, he gets repetitive: his later videos on a particular subject re-use clips from earlier videos on that subject along with new material. So just watch the most recent video on a subject first.

    Some of this shit is seriously fucking stupid. Not back-of-fag-packet calculations that go horribly wrong in a more detailed analysis. Worse than that. No calculations at all, just wishful thinking with no understanding of technicalities. That or they were deliberate scams in the first place.

    If you're not gullible enough to fall for a Nigerian 419 scam, try one of these. You may need a few icons to reach the necessary state of gullibility -------->

    1. handleoclast
      Coat

      Re: Relevant Thunderf00t videos

      @handleoclast

      Yeah, bad form to reply to your own posts. But I realized something.

      Some of these schemes start out as scams. Maybe most of them. But some of them happen because few people smoke these days. I'm not arguing that nicotine improves intelligence, or anything like that. But the decline in smoking has an indirect effect on these schemes happening.

      For example. You're sitting there with a glass of cold beer in your hand. You notice condensation forming on the outside of the glass. That (together with the beer already consumed) gets you thinking. Cold causes water to condense. Peltier-effect cooling devices exist. Peltier-effect devices run on electricity. Solar cells generate electricity. Maybe if you hooked up a Peltier-effect device to a solar cell you could condense water out of the air. Wow! You might be able to make a self-filling water bottle.

      At this point, if you smoked, you'd reach for the fags and start jotting figures down on the back of the packet. Shortly after you'd realize that the yield would be so low, even on a bright sunny day with the solar cell angled for optimum power, it would still take weeks to fill a small bottle. So you realize your dream of a self-filling bottle with a flexible solar panel wrapped around it, slung under a bicycle frame between your legs (which shade the solar panels, and the panels weren't angled for maximum power anyway) isn't going to work. The figures on the back of your fag packet prove it won't work, so you abandon the idea. But if you don't smoke you try to get your moronic idea crowdfunded because you had nothing to do calculations on.

      BTW, I didn't make that example up. The thought processes I described came from my imagination. The product itself, the bottle slung under the bike frame between your legs, was actually crowdfunded (and debunked by Thunderf00t).

      The icon is not me reaching for my coat, it's me realizing I left my fags in my coat pocket.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Relevant Thunderf00t videos

        1. That's what beer mats or napkins are for. They don't even have to be lemon-soaked.

        2. Every engineer of any possible denomination I have ever known has always had something to write with on them.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Relevant Thunderf00t videos

          Even if they're forced to wear clothes with NO POCKETS in them and can't wear lanyards for safety reasons?

          1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

            Re: Relevant Thunderf00t videos

            Yes.

            Please do not ask me to go into details here.

  21. JimC

    Nothing very new...

    I remember back at the end of 79 or so Yamaha announced a pair of new bikes - watercooled versions of their well established air cooled 250 and 350/400 2 stroke twins. Unusually they took deposits... We all expected these bikes to be pretty special, but not that radical since they'd been making watercooled 250 and 350 racers for some years which were based on the street bike crankcases.

    But we waited and waited. I forget how long it was, but 18 months somehow sticks in my mind. We were thinking at the time that they hadn't actually developed the bikes before announcing them - very unusual at the time. Still, they were super machines when they finally arrived, and a much bigger redesign than we were expecting.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Nothing very new...

      "back at the end of 79 or so Yamaha announced a pair of new bikes"

      The sad thing is, Yamaha had faster bikes in the 1960s (5 cyilnder 250s and were considering going to V8s) until the FIA stepped in and dropped a while bunch of rules that stopped development cold. It took more than 20 years for race bikes to start reaching the same speeds they'd been routinely achieving in 1964.

  22. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    Alaistair Dabbs. First tech journalist on the Moon,

    It's one small step for man.

    One small step for El Reg expense accounts?

    It's a full pressure suit. The weather round here is murder.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As for waiting for when it actually shows, what if it becomes the next Furby and people wait overnight in around-the-block lines and they sell out everywhere the moment they hit the shelves?

  24. wjake

    35k Tesla Model 3?

    pparently they will be as elusive as unicorns:

    http://jalopnik.com/surprise-the-tesla-model-3-is-launching-at-44-000-not-1797357913

  25. Mystic Megabyte
    Unhappy

    I wanted a Linux video editor

    I gave some cash to the Novacut project back in 2011. It started well but seems to have vanished. Shame 'cos it could have worked very well. The last Tweet was in November 2015.

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/novacut/novacut-pro-video-editor

    1. AndyS

      Re: I wanted a Linux video editor

      I've been in the same boat as you, I even suffered Openshot's endless bugs and crashes for 7 months of extensive video making in Africa in 2011.

      I've been using Kdenlive recently, and it's a real breath of fresh air. It works well, it feels grown up, and it has a lot of decent editing options that others I've tried just never had. Also, it doesn't crash very often. And when it does, it has a good autosave function, so you don't lose work.

  26. ChaosFreak

    Indiegogo -- It's like Amazon Prime but with special three-year shipping!

    Indiegogo -- It's like Amazon Prime but with special three-year shipping!

  27. Chris Jasper

    Vega Plus

    Funny, if you go to the retro computers site they are still insisting the Vega will be out, most recent post was 9/8/2017 (not sure if that is UK or American date format?).

    If it's a scam they are still going for it.

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