Posts by TeeCee 9435 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Oct 2007
It ain't exactly eco-friendly to lay track across huge swathes of the countryside.
Reminds me of a documentary I saw a while back on the Channel Tunnel rail link. One of the things the programme makers did was toddle off to France to interview their man in charge of track as to how they could stick in a huge high-speed network while we spent years and millions on the "arguing about it a lot" process for one little bit.
His response was that in the past they'd had carte blanche to stick whatever they wanted whereever they wanted it. However, they'd just gone millions over budget and years behind schedule putting in a line to the west of the country. Apparently some bunch of inconvenient little fonctionnaires had introduced the concepts of planning, approval and environmental impact to what had historically been a simple process. To add insult to injury, they'd also seen fit to allow the peasants to object to having a nice, shiny new railway run through their cruddy little hamlets.
It would depend what the shiny bits were made of. Presumably, the iPhone being a penomenally high-quality product (just look at the price, it must be), it has a real chromed metal surround and can thus be polished up. I suspect Simoniz chrome cleaner would work just as well and you can clean the bumpers of your car with it too as a bonus.
Anything with the chrome-effect tacky-placcy stuff treated this way would have the shiny bits removed very quickly leaving you with a dull plastic bezel.
Paris, so you can see what dull plastic bezels look like.
"And they have no union (europe) to kick there gov's ass for being so slopy."
Let me fix that for you:
"And they have no union (europe) to argue about it interminably, levy a huge fine on the government in question for not doing more about it and then invent a convoluted excuse to explain why they rescinded said fine when the government in question told 'em to shove it where the sun shineth not."
"...waiting for new staff members to start so the technology can be tested..."
For an 18 month trial? In an economy that's far more focussed on finding new ways to sack people than hire them?
I can see it now: "In our trial involving a sample size of sod-all, we proved that the system is robust and reliable."
If a reload for a raygun Jumbo fills *two* C17s, how the f*** do you get it into *one* 747? (and one that's inconveniently filled with the raygun itself in addition to its nasty fuel at that).
Is it bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? If so, the BBC's patent lawyers may wish to take an interest.....
1) You need somewhere to plug it in.
2) This has to be easily accessible without rooting around underneath it.
3) It has to covered up when not in use to prevent shite getting into the connections.
4) Said cover has to open and close for charging purposes and latch closed to stop little johnny shoving glue in the socket.
Exactly why wouldn't it look remarkably similar to and be in pretty much the same place as the fuel filler flap on a normal car? I can't think of another way of doing it myself.
If you look at pics of the upcoming Prius PHEV (plug-in hybrid) pilot it's got two identical flaps. One in the usual place for the existing fuel filler and one on the continental* side for the plug.
*Yes, RHD cars *should* have the fuel filler on the left like Jap cars do, so you can pour in a tinfull at the side of the road without being run over and get out of the car to fill up under normal circumstances without clobbering the driver's door on the pump. The reason that having this on the right has become more common is that most vehicles available in Blighty were designed as LHD and converted later. Hence the MINI Clubman (an allegedly British car) ending up with its "Club door" (opposite the filler) on the wrong bloody side for its "native" market.
"......the keyboard is a little too cramped to use with ease when it's stuck to your windscreen."
Take it out of the cradle then. Of course, you can't do this while driving, but then not being able to do so will save you six points, a fat fine and a possible jail sentence for fiddling with the thing on the move anyway.
What, you mean like:
Suddenly turning off all the lights, wedging the airlock door closed and ignoring any thumping on the hull for half an hour.
Hotwiring the "decompression alert" siren in the airlock for entertainment value on your return.
Playing Barry Manilow tracks in an endless loop on the EVA comms frequency.
Smearing the seat of the space bog with impact adhesive for entertainment value some time after your return.
Calling up and advising that they've found a hidden stash of fresh salmon, caviar, beer, vodka and weed in the Russian module, which they've already eaten, drank and smoked.
Faking up a Ground control communication advising of the outbreak of World War three.
Hacking the EVA suit systems and repeatedly cycling the internal temperature between "hinges of hell" and "balls off brass monkey".
Downloading one of those "real fire" screensavers, taping a monitor running it to the nearest porthole and then screaming for help.
Adding a pinch of salt and some yellow food dye to the output side of the piss recycler.
@any Astronauts reading this. Feel free. I like a laugh.
You forgot "and greenwashed to fuck" on the car description.
Diesels. Pollute like it's going out of fashion in all the really nasty areas, but have low CO2 emissions and that's what's trendy right now courtesy of the eyecatching "oh noes is globall worming 2 kilt us all" headlines.
In a minute somebody important'll notice the obvious connection between the massive smog problem that's building up and the dash for diesels and there'll be a handy purchase tax adjustment in this area.
Scene: Apple boardroom.
We're doing great. This iPhone thing's really taken off. We've got a product that every bugger wants and they're prepared to pay whatever vastly inflated price we ask for it. The margins on the thing are fantastic and the phone networks give us a kickback on every one we sell as well. So, any suggestions for how we milk this futher?
We could sell it for 99 dollars!
<pistol shot>
Anyone *else* got any suggestions?
First there were big cars. Then there were MPVs based on big cars. Then MPVs became very successful. Then there were MPVs based on just about every size and shape of car imaginable to satisfy the world's love for MPVs. There were even MPVs carefully targetted at people who didn't exist (the Renault Avantime). The car manuacturers were in clover. Take an existing car, stuff a taller body on it and suddenly it sells to a whole new market*.
Then someone did one based on an electrified Messerschmidt Tiger..........
*unless you're Renault and smoking weird shit at the time of course.
Particularly as it's actually: "......<blah>, so you're going to have to call and tell us what's happened so you can reinstall, but we won't have an issue with this."
Been there, seen it, done it loads of times. This one refuses to go away though, presumably 'cos lots of people have heard the FUD, but very few have actually been through the process.
Then again, it's M$'s FUD in the first place..........
So, those Deep Siren buoys. How long before they get connected to twitter then?
#nukesub_deep_siren
Just been to the Head. A really big jobbie.
Corned beef fritters for lunch. Again :-(
Off to nuke North Korea, should be fun, they're letting us use the really big jobbies.
Just read that back. Different jobbies of course. Wouldn't that be LULZ though???111!!!!??!
Whether or not it is (and I doubt that's more than Beardie hype) is irrelevant to any claims made about the current joyride and how much greenwash has been slapped on it.
A gen-u-ine suborbital, transcontinental spaceplane, certified for commercial use and viable financially for such would bear about as much resemblance to what they have now as stilton cheese does to a herd of cows. (i.e. you can see there's a connection in there somewhere, but that's about it.)
You might actually have a valid reason for flying from London to New York.
Nobody actually needs to go 65 miles straight up and then back down again.
The size of the eco-footprint of doing this is therefore utterly irrelevant as, whatever it is, it's always going to be infinitely larger than it needs to be (i.e. zero).
Dear Beardie. If you're that worried about the amount of nasty thingies that your new pointless luxury toy chucks out, try not fucking doing it. Otherwise STFU and enjoy the ride.
...that people on both sides of the fence are looking at the (undoubtably large) legal bills run up in the no-score draw catfight and asking the pertinent question. To whit: "WTF was the point of all that?"
As far as I can make out, this was a fairly bog-standard negotiation over a license agreement renewal, spoiled by some lawyers spotting an opportunity to trouser hefty amounts of wonga in there.
I don't think they'll be too upset. It just serves to reinforce their "iTunes p0wns teh wurld" strategy. B0rking Pre compatibility would only have the effect of pissing off Pre owners, causing them to export everything, remove iTunes, bugger off and buy their digital music elsewhere in future. I know I would if I were placed in this situation and it would take the moon on a stick from Apple to get me to move back. I like to bear a grudge when companies piss me off.
As for the hardware side, anyone taken with the Pre's iTunes compatibility will probably already have an iPod anyway, which is why they have their stuff in iTunes and thus give a shit about it. Anyone else'll probably keep using Windoze Media Mangler or whatever floats their boat.
I know full well how difficult it is to get the users to sign off a Beta product so it can be promoted to a Release. Every single last bloody one of 'em will raise some cosmetic bollox that wasn't in the spec that they want changed and half of these will conflict with the other half.
Maybe they shouldn't open their beta tests to so many users........
One thing that you can rely on with a cable is that you shove it in the hole and it bloody works.
See the recent travails on record of people trying to get DNLA certified piece of kit A to talk to DNLA certified piece of kit B.
At least with computer gear you can swear, bin the card or adaptor, buy a new one, tweak some drivers and make it work. With appliances you're reliant on the manufacturer deciding that actually, yes, it *is* worth producing a firmware update to make it work with Logisoftple's ArseWangler X2 turbodisplay.
The Government's well known for pissing money on the wall.
The Government's known to be the largest advertising spender in the country.
Why is the fact that the Government's pissing advertising money on the wall such a shock?
The only astonishing thing here is that 5000 people took a vague interest in what is, effectively, a multi part "Government information film" (showing my age). Ah! Distributed via ArseBook and Tw@tter. Now I understand. Given a massive audience of people with absolutely no life at all they only managed to get a "meh" or better out of 5000. Problem solved.
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