They can't have been that fast, given one of the stormtrooper extras famously managed to smack his head on one.
Posts by Anonymous Custard
2797 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2008
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Harrison Ford's leg, in the Star Wars film, with the Millennium Falcon door
It's 2016 and your passwords can still be sniffed from wireless keyboards
Seminal adventure game The Hobbit finally ported to the Dragon 64
Tuesday 26th July 2016 13:58 GMT
Re: Home 'putering
So you missed out on a meeting with Mel Croucher, Christian Penfold and maybe the Pi Man and Lady Claire Sinclive herself (but hopefully not Sweatybits)? I bet they had a good night at the pub as a result of the no-shows.
And I'm now wondering how the hell I can remember all this after 30 years or so. The back cover of Popular Computing Weekly has a lot to answer for (as has PiMania and Deus Ex Machina et al).
Tuesday 26th July 2016 08:25 GMT
Re: pfft!
Hmm, TKV - now that takes me back.
Remember I had it on my specie and my mate had it on the BBC Micro. Many an evening and weekend spent getting through and finally beating it. Still remember the look on my parents face when they saw me doing the maze bit in the dark (at one point you had to fill the lamp up with water rather than oil, so couldn't use it to light the way) as they were surprised I could do it all from memory (although it was only about 15-20 steps or so).
Don't recall anyone having a Dragon though, was all Beeb's, Speccie's and C64's. At least until the Amiga and the ST came along anyway. Those were the days :)
Yahoo! She said yes. Verizon confirms $4.8bn acquisition
Web meltdown: BT feels heat from angry punters
Wednesday 20th July 2016 09:55 GMT
Had just the same, except in my case it's a hard drive caddy I'm after.
Just managed to get to Amazon though (11am) and ordered it, so give it a try..
Also had the irony of getting an RSS feed message from the BBC News about their article on the subject, but not being able to open it due to the issue...
UK's climate change dept abolished, but 'smart meters and all our policies strong as ever'
Monday 18th July 2016 15:52 GMT
Re: Yes you can say no.
Supposedly there is a new standard that is coming out that will allow meters to be used across all suppliers.
And you can bet that will lead to them being even less secure and protected than the current crop are, if that is actually possible.
Remind me why we as consumers might actually want these things again? I'm sure the convenience isn't ours, especially as most normal people won't have "Gaz and Leccy running out of control" to use their moronic advertising wording...
Please stop working and abuse your expense account at the beach
Juno probe spins up its sonic screwdrivers for Jupiter flyby
Monday 11th July 2016 04:58 GMT 
Enquiring mind wants to know
"...and a tool for measuring gravity via radio waves"
OK, now I'm wondering quite how that works?
I'm sure the mental image it conjures up of measuring the Doppler shift of a Chris Evans broadcast from a DAB dropped down into the Jovian atmosphere probably isn't quite correct somehow.
Idiot brings gun-shaped iPhone to airport
Friday 8th July 2016 07:46 GMT
Re: Apparently he was allowed to continue his journey
The lesson may have been engrained more deeply though had he been restrained by officers in possession of the real thing (and having them on show and it made clear of quite how things could have gone), and then made to continue his journey without the opportunity to change his underwear.
And also perhaps contacted ahead to the US immigration and homeland security people to make sure they gave him a good talking to as well at the other end of the trip to make it truly memorable...
Lightning strikes: Britain's first F-35B supersonic fighter lands
Brexit-bored Brits back to bashing the bishop after ballot box blues
Bacon is not my vodka friend
Microsoft won't back down from Windows 10 nagware 'trick'
Hooves in spaaace: Goat Simulator goes galactic
Safety, pah! Digital Dukes of Hazzard have robot cars powersliding
Tuesday 24th May 2016 10:36 GMT
Re: Magic Roundabout
There's also a smaller one in the spaghetti network of Heathrow (near T4, between it and T5 iirc), which I though particularly cruel given the amount of people in hire cars that would need to tackle it.
Not to mention the National Express et al coaches, which was how I encountered it the last couple of times...
Coders crack Oculus DRM in 24 hours, open door to mass piracy
A UK digital driving licence: What could possibly go wrong?
Friday 20th May 2016 12:47 GMT 
Security was a priority
Of course it is, or else they'd lose their existing cushie business of selling your personal information to anyone and everyone who wants it that happens to have a suitably large suitcase full of cash...
Just look up all the stories about their dealings with various parking companies, dodgy insurance dealers and other less shining examples of members of the motor trade.
The ‘Vaping Crackdown’ starts today. This is what you need to know
Friday 20th May 2016 12:39 GMT
Follow the money?
So how much of this is either greed to get the cash from all the now-required testing and suchlike (with its mentioned fees), and of course to try and prevent existing smokers actually quitting and so losing all that lovely tax revenue from the money they're burning?
All it'll do of course is drive things underground...
BBC's Britflix likely dead before the ink has even dried on the news
Friday 20th May 2016 09:13 GMT
Re: I think a paid service would only work
Isn't that more or less what YouView is, or at least was supposed to be? And look how well that one is doing after a few years on the market.
Wholeheartedly agree on the iPlayer front, I have exactly the same gripe when I'm abroad on a business trip and either have to have remembered to download stuff first, or to use my VPN.
Not to mention their current push to sell all of their shows on download or DVD just after they've aired them. Who was it that funded the production of these shows again?
NASA 'Kilo-Kitty' Super Pressure Balloon goes aloft at last
US schoolkids deploy Earth-watching CubeSat
Tuesday 17th May 2016 14:20 GMT 
Reached their ACME?
"Upon the approval to proceed from NASA and JAXA, the NRCSDs are commanded one by one, allowing the dispenser doors to open and the large internal spring to be released, deploying the CubeSats."
Is it just me that thinks that sounds wonderfully Wile E Coyote? Especially combined with the tape measure antenna on one of the university cubes.
Anyway top marks all round to the boffins, especially the junior ones from the elementary school.
Sysadmin paid a month's salary for one day of nothing
Monday 16th May 2016 08:26 GMT
Sounds familiar
Worked that night too (although not for quite that much money...) along with a colleague, plus the missus came in too and brought a TV and bottle of bubbly.
Was there to support all the European customers in case things went tits-up, and the company had set up a fairly nice system to help us do the support (we're the European arm of a global company, the db was worldwide).
So comes the time, and of course we only had problems with the "millennium bug" on one system. And yes, of course it's the one you guessed, the support database went gaga. But as there was absolutely no issue from any of the customers, we just savoured the irony along with the champagne, the extra pay and the coverage on TV.
The EU wants you to log into YouTube using your state-issued ID card
Nanoparticle boffinry could boost battery life
Germans stick traffic lights in pavements for addicts who can't take their eyes off phones
Wednesday 27th April 2016 08:21 GMT
Re: Hmm...
Maybe just replace the LEDs with a BOFH style cattle prod (lengthways of course)? Step near it when you shouldn't be crossing and get a zap?
Also fit a variant across the road too, so muppet drivers who jump the red lights (especially at crossings) get a similar jolt? Could be tricky to deal with the insulating properties of car tyres I guess, so maybe a higher voltage or a set of stinger spikes too?
Tokyo rebrands 2020 Olympics
Tuesday 26th April 2016 12:59 GMT
Re: The whalesong is deafening where I work...
Personally I'd just love the channels to have discrete, unobtrusive and above all static brand logos in the corner (if they must have them at all).
Several of the channels these days seem to think that having animated logos that look like they're doing aerobics plus all sorts of other "information" in scrolling or bouncing tiny fonts that aren't readable unless you're sat 3 inches from a HD TV are a good thing.
When I'm trying to watch a TV show, the last thing I want is some animated antics in the corner of the screen continually distracting you on the edge of your peripheral vision.
F-35's dodgy software in the spotlight again
RIP Prince: You were the soundtrack of my youth
Friday 22nd April 2016 10:05 GMT
Re: I've
There are a few radio stations over here at the moment who are currently playing a track from him as roughly every 5th song at the moment and going on non-stop about it.
Seems somewhat hypocritical when I can't recall them playing any of his songs at all for several years now prior to yesterday's sad news.
No denying his influence or talent, I just wish it didn't need his death to get his music actually played. Or maybe I just need to retune my radio again and clean out some of the presets.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
