Posts by EddieD 1117 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
Peter Higgs...
The official portrait we have of him at EdUni, painted by Ken Currie, shows him holding his glasses behing his back - missing one wing. He was too involved in his research to get a new pair...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Ken_Currie%2C_Portrait_of_Peter_Higgs%2C_2008.tif.jpg
And David Bellamy, with a side order of Johnny Ball....and maybe James Burke...ah nostalgia, the only thing cable TV is good for
Back then, the presenters radiated enthusiasm and it was infectious.
I've just been watching the historical Horizons on iPlayer - and the older ones are far, far better. No music, no elaborate locations, no fancy-schmancy camera work - just good old fashioned science.
69p per year = unlimited text and multi-media messaging (and the picture messaging works unlike O2's miserable service, and also unlike O2's miserable service it delivers the picture to the handset, no messing about cutting and pasting a URL and having to note down a password), so why would anyone want to pay the Telcos for any text or picture messaging?
And, whilst the sender is known, I'm not sure if the telco would know the recipient - I think it may go to WhatsApp, and then on to the recipient - anyone who knows more about the structutre of the message can say whether the recipient is sent in clear or crypt can add more.
It also works over wi-fi which removes it yet further from the telco.
Just as T5 loses your bags, the SG5 loses your connections?
One terrifying fact I heard (and it was on Radio 4 so it must be true), was that a new warship had automated it's munitions transport procedure to slash the number of crew needed "based on the baggage handling systems in Heathrow Terminal 5".
26. I've still got them, on a shelf, above my head, next to the USB floppy I keep, just in case someone digs out an old Excel/Access/Whatever document that refuses to open in modern software.
They're alongside DOS5, DOS6, Windows 3, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, the two floppies of TCPIP for Windows, Wordperfect...
The best fun I ever had was installing Office for Mac on a Performa 630 - as with most Mac things it had no eject button, and when the disk was done would eject the floppy automatically - when the machines were new, they fired the disks out like bullets!
My dad was brought up on boiled brains, and sheep's testicles were quite a treat...can't get them nowadays for many reasons. Offal though needs to become acceptable again (although up here is Scotland it's hard to find as it's used for haggis)
I've eaten stir-fried locusts (delicious - pork scratchings with legs) and a few other invertebrates - and why not, they're just landbound shrimps!
We seriously need to change our attitude to oddities, and possibly explain to kosher/halal enthusiasts that it's a bit outmoded now that we're no longer nomadic, and we do have fridges.
In order to get shots comparable with Adams', you'd still need to schlep a pretty large amount of gear - large-format cameras, tripods, lenses, filters haven't become much lighter, all you'd do is probably swap the pretty weighty glass plates for a similarly pretty weighty laptop...
You have to suffer for art you know!
Elon and his boys may be going orbital, the I think Lester and company could help on the video side...
Sarcasm aside - SpaceX are doing an incredible job, maybe soon all flights will be like I saw on 60's SciFi films, with the space craft descending on a point of flame to land
But I preferred the co-op of Gauntlet... I had the port expander for my ST, and we used to play for hours..
But +1 to Worms - the original was just stonking, and the landscape generator it had has never been matched. I've got Armageddon for my Nexus, but the original was just unbeatable. Well, actually my mates were unbeatable. I've always been crap at games...
They do a lot of things that they don't talk much about - I saw Craig Charles once talk of their teledildonics experiments, which I'd never heard of, but given how often Microsoft products go down on you isn't probably too much of a surprise.
Most other tech companies probably have similar departments.
Cù magairle...
According to the indefinite oracle Mr Fry, the expression comes from Meccano, which had two kits, large and small - the small was box standard (bog standard), the larger box deluxe which spoonerised to dogs bollocks.
This may be complete cojones however.
If I get a chance I'll ask some of the cunning linguists here for further translations.
Fiat money was sufficiently comprehensible that after the last crash we were able to look (with hindsight) at the smoke and mirrors that the financiers had thrown up to conceal bubbles that they had created to obscure the fact that the money had run out (been put into their pockets). Crypto-currencies will do away with that last iota of comprehensibility, so that the next time we get shafted, we won't even have the vaguest idea of how it was done.
I want a screen. I don't want an intelligent, 3D, web connected behemoth that will be out of date in 6 months so I have to buy another one, I want a screen I can connect to my devices that will play the material of my choice from the device of my choice.
I already have NetFlix, I already have LoveFilm, if I wanted them I could have Facebook, Twitter, I have a PVR (okay, I have a computer), I have everything I need.
Just give me a large, high quality, terminally dumb screen with plenty of connectors.
Okay, it can have WiFi. So I don't have to have cables. But that's all.
He talked at our Students' Union, and as a hack, I got to chat with him
Thoroughly nice chap, I know that politicians have to be professionaly nice, but he just seemed genuine, always open to debate alternate opinions, but within a few minutes you'd have doubts about your own long held ideas.
Sad loss, but we all have to go when we go.
I got copies of the CDs of the radio series (which cost 42 pounds incidentally), and I keep exposing new generations of students to the original and best incarnation...
And not a lot of people know this, but in the 2nd series, Zaphod apparently has has 4 arms? "Hey Ford, put it there....and there...and there....and there.... (Although this is probably the result of Mark Wing-Davey ad-libbing)
I've got a minisuit case for my Nexus 7, and, after a few days adjusting to the small keyboard, it works wonderfully a pocket computer, and very adaptable - when I use it for mapping cycle rides, I can leave the keyboard behind, so it's lighter (though the saving in weight is approximately the same as the extra mars bar I take with me...) - definitely my favourite tech acquisition in the last few years. Battery life - okay, not as good as the Psions, but I can get 2-3 days use out of it (and I haven't charged the keyboard in over a week)
EDIT - the minisuit also works with my mobile phone, which is nice...
It is unlikely, but possible, with the right yeast, and the a lot of luck. When I did my degree in Brewing (at Heriot-Watt), we experimented, and occasionally got 17ish, 16% was not uncommon though, normally by adding extra sugar after the initial ferment, but then very sparingly, and with one eye glued to the hygrometer.
There are yeasts that claim 24% ABV yields, but I'd recommend that the product made from these are used for engine cleaning or similar tasks, because subtle, they ain't.
On Mango - the hardware of my Lumia 800 (by Nokia) is holding up magnificently, as they always do. The software though (by Microsoft) is outdated and creaking - but I'm not going to trash a perfectly usable machine - I've got an Android tablet for apps, and that will be updated for years - the phone will continue to be a phone - and a darn good one, that's vastly tougher than my office mate's Nexus machines (he's gone through a 4 and a 5 in 6 months) - for probably the same amount of time.
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