* Posts by ian 22

965 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jun 2009

Is it all over for Mars Rover?

ian 22

Done Roving

Spirit will never rove again on the bonny bonny banks of..... Oh wait.

Even if she responds to NASA's "Good Morning", she's stationary forever more. Well done, regardless.

Boffins develop greenhouse invisible to night-vision goggles

ian 22
WTF?

Amazing!

If I understood correctly, they say that I could be invisible by hiding in my shed at night!

Will they patent this discovery?

Malaysia bans 'satanic' Man Utd kit

ian 22

Questions answered

I had wondered if Man Utd was the Devil's Own, and now I know.

I'd also wondered if organised religion was as brilliant as organised sex. Question answered.

They do insist on making themselves ridiculous.

Our Vulture 1 aircraft begins to take shape

ian 22

Lovely

I did enjoy seeing the paper aircraft foundry. Thank you Lester.

If a bit of radar reflectivity is needed, try inserting a narrow strip of metallised mylar in the main wing spar.

Any plans for corporate sponsor's logos on the exterior? Racing stripes?

Microsoft lines staff pockets with Windows 7 phone

ian 22
Pint

10 friends?

Be these Facebook friends, or actual mates? I know several microsofties, and they don't have 10 actual friends between them.

Beer, not only for breakfast any longer.

Cross-dresser shags mutt at historic castle

ian 22

Is this what bestiality has come (cough) to?

Will no one think of the sheep? That mutt was a right munter (or vice-versa).

LPG lake on Titan evaporating in scorchio -180°C heatwave

ian 22
Headmaster

hydrological cycle?

As stated in the article, water (as in "hydro") exists only as ice on Titan, so perhaps "hydrocarbonical" cycle might be more appropriate here.

/pedant

FLYING CAR, full hover, fairly quiet, offered to US Marines

ian 22

@Neoc

+1

Bad enough having diamond encrusted iPhone 4's falling from the sky, but worse are the falling bodies of their fule owners.

Renault DeZir: 'leccy sex machine

ian 22

Fading batteries

Interesting comment, that.

I've wondered how Toyota's Prius batteries are doing, now that they have a good few years on them. Also, as an electric car needs no fiddling with engine timing or regular motor lubricant replacement, do battery replacements every 5th year (or so) total the same as 5 years of engine tuning and oil changes? Surely the savings in petrol count for something too.

Carbon neutrality is all well and good, but what of the economics of the thing?

We should be told...

Vital PARIS supplies jet in from US

ian 22
Coat

dart of A4 paper?

Expect a flash of light and a puff of smoke as PARIS succumbs to friction with the atmosphere!

Shirley there's a third-world country that produces aero-space quality paper cylinders. Other than the U.S....

Mines the one with the little umbrellas and straws in the pockets.

Paraguayan model to strip if team wins World Cup

ian 22

"Plenty of coverage"

Plenty of un-coverage, I'd think.

Tape business shows steep decline

ian 22

Curvy!

Lovely curve, but does it have any basis in reality? I suspect tape will never quite go away, but it will become an ever-more niche business. And so it it should decline asymptotically- approaching but never reaching zero. Much like the curve in the article.

Birmingham jihad-cam network suspended

ian 22
Big Brother

Marginal

I may be wrong, but I've always been of the opinion that anyone having imaginary friends was already a bit marginal. And if those imaginary friends were homicidal, well then...

Are the voices telling you to prepare your weapons?

Hayabusa in fiery return to Earth

ian 22

Genesis? Fail? Not so much.

While it did land with a thump, Genesis did complete its mission by returning useful samples. This is an example of the old pilot's adage "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing".

Palin puts paid to Boob-gate

ian 22

No implants

Falsies, then?

Unarmed Royal Navy destroyers: French missiles blamed

ian 22

"Cutting-edge weapons..."

Swords? A cutlass?

Garage worker prangs £200k Ferrari

ian 22

A bit of advice

Never trust another man with your money, your car, or your woman.

Boffins snare swollen 'excited giant' in forcefield prison

ian 22

Understood

It might be possible to understand and not understand- but only if you are not observed whilst doing so.

Understood?

Britain and Israel in stand-off over Mossad officer

ian 22

No double standard?

Are you suggesting that death camp survivors should get as good a kicking as Palestinian terrorists?

Feel.me up for grabs in dot-me domain auction

ian 22

doMEn can....

...bite.me.

Apple rejects crazy canuck's seal bludgeon game

ian 22
Terminator

So no Seal of Approval?

Killing people (brown or otherwise) is always acceptable, even required by some religions.

It is the Prime Directive, after all.

'Phantasmal' bioweapon drug-sweat microfrogs bred in UK

ian 22

Deadly frogs

And I thought it was the Frenchie's smell that would kill you.. Oh, wait.

So now we can expect our green and pleasant land to be laid waste by these havoc wreaking frogs? Or will we have a generation of frog-sucking epibatadine non-addicts roaming our fens in search of their next frog ^w fix?

US Army portaloo-full-of-missiles project for the chop

ian 22

Laser Dot Data

Should be simple enough to modulate the laser dot with a digital code. The soldier's request for a missile might say the equivalent of "Kill dot AA0153F0D". The missile would then seek a dot modulated with that code. The request (and the code) can easily be encrypted such that the enemy would be unable to generate one on the spur of the moment.

Hawking: Aliens are out there, likely to be Bad News

ian 22
Alien

Close encounter of the worst kind

"May I be the first to welcome our.." <BZZZT!>

Fat cat fanbois' obscene dream bling

ian 22

So this is a ...

iPosh?

'Goodness, evilness makes you powerful' - like the Force

ian 22

It works

Hitler embodied both good (he loved dogs) and evil (he loved vicious dogs). See where it got him! And no, this is not a Godwin.

Volcanic Eyjafjallajökull dirt-splurt space snap

ian 22
Joke

Is Iceland a plague upon the planet?

The famine of 1782 was caused by Iceland.

The latest bank crash was caused by Iceland.

And now airlines left and right will go titsup, not to mention Airbus, because of Iceland.

God save us from the wrath of the Northmen!

New ISS machine makes water from waste CO2

ian 22

Centrifugal Urine Processor Assembly?

CUPA?

What is in the astronaut's food that causes them to excrete graphite? It must be painful, excreting graphite.

French city in pedestrian-powered streetlight plan

ian 22

Per "The Matrix"

Simply wire the Toulousians up in series-parallel. There, sorted.

BTW, are Toulousians alkaline or acid?

Cocaine-hunting robot chopper in 60kg bust seizure

ian 22
Coat

Britain. China. Opium Wars.

Perhaps you can convincee the Chinese that drug addiction is A Good Thing, and that they should allow Blighty to supply it.

No? How strange.

Mine's the one with white powder on the lapel.

Discovery team wrap first ISS spacewalk

ian 22

NASA channel

I was unaware that astronauts need spend hours in a hypobaric chamber before space walks. The atmospheric pressure in the ISS is ~14 pounds/in^2, but the pressure in the space suits is only ~6 pounds/in^2, so they must spend a night at ~10 pounds/in^2 to avoid the bends.

So my idea of a spacewalk (throw on the old spacesuit and step outside) was complete rubbish.

US weather meisters buy mini Cray

ian 22

Where is the AGW angle?

Surprise! No reaction from the AGW deniers yet!

Yes, I AM trolling for trolls.

Leaked details on HP iPad challenger reveal tight fight

ian 22
Thumb Down

Slated

H/P and Microsoft? I hate them both (for different reasons), and will never give them my hard-earned dosh. I look forward to the anti-fanboi's ooing and aaing over this non-Apple product. It ain't Apple don't you know.

Normal Human Being™ reviews the iPad

ian 22
Paris Hilton

4. == +1

After a long hard day slaving over a hot desktop computer, I've no interest in waiting about for yet ANOTHER machine to boot up just to read my email or surf for pr0n.

However, not being one of the lunatic fringe (read: "early adopters"), I'll not be buying version 1.0. I'll allow others to smooth off the rough edges.

Paris, as she has no rough edges.

Chinese hunters capture 'yeti'

ian 22

And yet...

assumptions aside, the Chinese have done this.

You may welcome your Sino-American overlords.

Apple files 'in your face' iPhone patent

ian 22

Panavision version

Can this be done with an iPad? I'm looking forward to viewing Imax movies (after I complete my course of neck-strength exercises) with it.

Italian toads predicted L'Aquila earthquake

ian 22

So Mother Nature says...

"Hop off, you Frogs!"

Time's fun when you're having flies.

Apple uncloaks deep details of its 11 iPad apps

ian 22

Support headaches

My wife now has an iMac, after I decided my time was worth more than the bloody iMac. And she loves it. And I'm impressed by the well-designed GUI.

But will I buy an iPad? Dunno, must wait and see if does anything I need at a price I can afford.

Weak passwords stored in browsers make hackers happy

ian 22

Lucky

So yer saying "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose".

I pity the rich....

Woman finds Romanian living in shed

ian 22

Is she?

Tilly does look quite nice. Will she appear on Page 3 soon?

Expedition to seek out 'alien' ocean-abyss life sets sail

ian 22

Normal?

"...sustain normal life".

Who are we to say what is normal?

May I be the first to say "May I be the first ....".

US Navy plans self-building floating fortresses

ian 22

Yes, we did.

I believe the floating base was called Britain.

A 1:1 scale model of the British Isles was constructed and towed to a point several miles south of the actual British Isles. The actual Britain was camouflaged to blend in nicely with the North Sea, and the Jerrys never knew.

Council deforests beauty spot to combat dogging

ian 22
Joke

Beauty

As a lumberjack, I think the place looks much nicer.

"I'm a lumberjack and I don't care..."

Pirates of the Caribbean say 'narrr' to Bulgarian airbags

ian 22

Hollywood hippies

Hybrid cars, granola, and now natural jubbs? Hippies!

China Mobile pleads for compatible iPhone

ian 22
WTF?

What do these mean?

SCDMA = Sino-CDMA?

WCDMA = Western CDMA?

Boffins peg co-polymers for cheap chip construction

ian 22

"Lower wavelengths"

Interesting perspective, however I think you meant "shorter wavelengths".

Illuminating article!

Supersonic stealth jumpjet achieves its first mid-air hover

ian 22

Real-world threat?

Remind me again why we need this, other than for junior bird-men's pleasure. "Fighter" jets no longer fight, they launch missiles at other "fighters" at 20 miles. A missile launching platform need not be carrying a meatbag or two, nor need it be capable of anything over mach 1. Likewise ground-attack duties seem to be passing to meatbagless Reapers and such.

There, that's sorted. RAF, be warned.

I'm willing to allow BAE develop my flying missile platform idea for a small fee...

El Reg insults 'millions of Irish Catholics'

ian 22
Boffin

Offer an Israeli apology

Simply apologize for bad timing.

O'course I'm colorblind (red-green don't you know), and wouldn't know the diff.

Irate Aussies go after US website

ian 22

This does raise several questions...

1. As the government could have blocked the web site yet chose not to, are they in fact accomplices to the crime?

2. As Australia has chosen the Iranian style of internet access, what can we expect to follow? Burkas (of Aussie wool, of course)?

3. Are Aussies such twits that the government must protect them from the likes of us?

Brilliant, just brilliant <shakes head>.