* Posts by stucs201

1293 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2010

Astroboffins to search for mega-massive alien power plants

stucs201

Re: Larry Niven had it right...

Not just ringworld. His 'Bigger Than Worlds' essay is worth a read too

stucs201

Re: Harness the energy of multiple universes? How does that even make sense?

Not sure. However energy transfer across universes reminds me of Asimov's "The Gods Themselves".

Perth porkfest crowned ULTIMATE BACON SARNIE

stucs201

Re: How did pork

Cod/haddock?

stucs201

Re: How did pork

Fish?!

Does this mean we need to start this whole thing off again to determine the ultimate fish finger sandwhich?

Fish Fingers: Battered/Breadcrumbs? How many?

Sauce: None/Red/Brown/Mayo?

Bread: White/Brown?

Butter: Yes/No?

Paul Allen: Windows 8 'promising' yet 'puzzling'

stucs201

Re: blah

The start menu isn't just for frequently used stuff. Its also good for organising stuff you don't need very often, but when you do need you really need. That sort stuff is best tucked out of the way, but with enough organisation you can find it even if you can't quite remember what its called. A bit like putting real stuff you use occasionally into drawers or storage boxes instead of leaving everything out on the floor or coffee table.

Liquefied-air silos touted as enormo green 'leccy batteries

stucs201

Re: Penny wise, pound foolish.

A storage mechanism to store excess generation until its needed is equally useful for nuclear.

Happy birthday, Compact Disc

stucs201

Re: A monument to FAILURE

Well the DVD case has to be a contender too. OK they're generally less breakable than CD cases (though I do have one made of the same brittle plastic), but seriously a case designed to hold a disk the same size as a CD, yet about 50% taller and thicker than a CD case?

stucs201

Re: Track information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-Text

AMD launches Android app store for Windows PCs

stucs201

Re: just tested it on my PC

While it may not be perfect running phone apps in a window on the desktop does point to a better way MS could have unified Windows 8 and Windows Phone...

Hitachi claims glass data storage will last millions of years

stucs201

Prior art

I'm sure I remember seeing this in the superman films.

Space shuttle to slip surly bonds of Earth one last time over California

stucs201

re: what have the kids who were inspired by the shuttle first time round done?

I believe a certain Elon Musk is busy building rockets, with an aim to get to Mars one day.

Next question...

Who queues for an iPhone 5? Protesters, hipsters and the jobless

stucs201

Re: Power Source?

You'd think a few days away from a power supply would make them realise the benefits of being able to swap in a spare battery.

Ten backpacks for tech-heads

stucs201

Re: grid-it

Thats genius. Not seen those before, but now I've seen it I want one.

Smack your phones up, says Microsoft

stucs201

Re: Crustacean?

Mantis Shrimp

stucs201

Re: That's actually pretty clever.

Nokia 6600 Fold did tap to silence incomming call too.Only turning on the accelerometer when needed is a nice touch, but I'd be more interested to know if they've solved the problem of the vibrate alert triggering the accelerometer and cancelling some incomming calls automatically (I ended up turning off vibrate since it was too weak to notice anyway).

New iPod nano and touch: Lightning strikes again

stucs201
Thumb Up

Hmmm, new buttons.

Not very often Apple give us those.

Fanboi beats 'e-trespassing' rap after using GPS to find stolen iPad

stucs201

Re: Basic misunderstanding

True of the GPS signals. But he did send a signal to the iPad asking it to send further signals with details of its location.

The world's first Windows Phone 8 hands on – what's it like?

stucs201

Re: too big

Its a whole 1.4 mm thicker than an iPhone 4. Is that really that much? Especially when you consider that the original iPhone was 0.9mm thicker than this Nokia, the 3G thicker still at 1.6mm more than the Nokia. Its hardly 80s phone dimensions.

Now, if you were complaining about width and height, then I'd agree with you - but I'd also say the same about every modern phone - I'm still using an ancient, tiny, flipphone which does everything I want from a phone.

Nokia tears wraps off new Windows Phone Lumias on steroids

stucs201

Removable battery and changable shells

It really is like an old-school nokia - in a good way.

Finger-free Kinect coming to fondlesome Windows 8

stucs201

Re: Minority Report style control: The only way I see 'touch' work on the desktop.

This does indeed sound more promising than a touchscreen on a desktop. To use a touchscreen I'd need to either get longer arms or lose most of the deskspace I gained when moving from CRT to LCD.

Unfortunately it sounds like this is something that application can optionally choose to support, not something done automatically by the operating system and translated to work with any software.

Valve reiterates games hardware gambit

stucs201

Mouse + Keyboard isn't always perfect...

...there's still certain types of games (mostly flying based) where a joystick + keyboard is desirable - not a farty little thumb stick, a proper one with buttons, triggers and hat switches mounted on the stick itself.

Elon Musk says he's planning a 'supersonic, electric hover jetplane'

stucs201

Re: Electric jet

Well yes, whether its a jet or something else this thing isn't going to be running off a couple of AAAs.

stucs201

Re: Electric jet

> "but a jet engine to me generally involves burning fuel"

Generally yes, but alternatives have been proposed - e.g. a nuclear reactor for project pluto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto). As a completly wild guess he could be talking about using a similar ramjet design but with a really big electric heater instead of the nuclear pile.

Techies cook up Minority Report-style video calling

stucs201

Re: in addition to the above

The other problem with video calls on mobiles is when calling someone's mobile - until they answer you don't know where they are, if they're taking advantage of the mobility of their phone there is a good chance they're somewhere where a video call isn't practical.

Ten movies inspired by video games

stucs201

There's a (spoof) trailer for one on youtube if you search for it (can't find it for you at work).

Curiosity rover hijacked by will.i.am to debut science song

stucs201
Facepalm

Wrong artist

If Curiosity is equiped to handle music then they're getting it to play the wrong thing. Just get it to play a certain Bowie track and see if anyone answers the question...

Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Pierogi versus patatas revolconas

stucs201

Re: Great artery-clogging food

"BTW, if you are little worried about your arteries, you can just boil them, garnish with fried bacon and eat them. The last frying stage optional."

Since when is anyone in search of post-pub nosh thinking about the state of their arteries?

stucs201

Re: Great artery-clogging food

Ah, but I feel that bacon would be a reasonable addition to the first one. Proper bacon though, none of this pancetta rubbish.

Coming to a cloud near you: dirty laundry

stucs201
WTF?

Re: why not?

Do you really enjoy washing or something? Tinkering with the program is way to much hassle.

My machine has 5 programs, 2 of which have three temperature variations, there are two modifier buttons which can be combined with any of those programs to tweak them slightly.

From this amount of control I use a grand total of 2 different programs.

stucs201

re: you're already standing in front of so why bother using your phone to control it

That was my first thought too. About all I can think of is it guarantees you've not left your phone in the pocket of the jeans you're about to wash.

Want a Windows 8 Start Button? Open source to the rescue!

stucs201

Re: why?!

No, change is not inherantly good.

Improvement is good.

Improvement requires change, but that doesn't mean all change is an improvement.

Investor pulls out of Facebook, pumps cash into pork-printing joint

stucs201

Standards required

This will work alot better if we can get the makers of bacon printers to talk to bakers and agree on a standard size so that the bacon fits the bread properly. However I'm not hopeful since there still isn't agreement between bakers and toaster manufacturers about the correct size for a piece of bread.

Sony pushes patent for interactive TV ads

stucs201

Only interaction required is...

...recognise I've changed chanels to avoid ads, then stop showing me that crap.

Doctor Who to hit small screen on 1 September

stucs201

Re: FTFY

Don't forget the bag of jelly babies...

Beck's open-source challenge to freetards: play it yourself!

stucs201

Re: Or at least a new, interesting thought.

New?

I think Beethoven, etc. may disgree...

Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote Control review

stucs201

Re: Until you got into an argument over why you turned the TV off

No, not Wetherspoons.

The 'Welly' in Birmingham.

Its bar is a little too long to easily see all the pump clips. While a blackboard would work the TV does make sense since its easier to update as different beers become available during the evening (its positioned above head height for visibility since its a very popular pub).

stucs201

Re: Until you got into an argument over why you turned the TV off

Because a TV has no place in a proper pub unless its to display details of an extensive choice of real ales.

Windows 8: Microsoft's tablet-desktop still painful to swallow

stucs201

Better way they could have integrated tablets into the desktop enviroment

1) Allow multiple 'metro' tablet/phone style apps to run in separate windows (preferably resizable, but fixed size would be ok)..

2) Provide a 'full-screen' button on the frame of windowed metro apps if people don't want them windowed.

3) Leave the start menu in place.and everything else alone.

Cars, lorries stalked via GPS to create live traffic super-map

stucs201
Paris Hilton

Re: Alternatively...

I can't see that name catching on.

I was going to call them Portable All Routes Identical Storage.

stucs201
Facepalm

Re: Alternatively...

Perhaps someone should invent some sort of standard storage module which can be transferred between rail and road as appropriate. If you were really ambitious you could even consider using them on ships.

Microsoft: It was never 'Metro,' it was always 'Modern UI'

stucs201

Should have called it "Emperor"

I hear he's had some new clothes too.

Beer mats to tout tat to mobiles over wireless NFC

stucs201

Re: Although I don't remember the last time I saw a beer mat in a pub.

Then you're going to the wrong 'pubs'. Proper pubs with proper beer still have them.

Doctor Who to unwrap new sidekick in Christmas TV special

stucs201

Re: remembrance/revelation

Yes, of course, I know that really. No idea why I typed revelation instead of remembrance-I'd not even opened the wine at that point.

stucs201

Re: Daleks?

I think they've been reclassified as an 'officer class' - there are a couple at the back. This collection includes various classic era daleks too - most notably the special weapons dalek from revelation of the daleks.

WD's 2TB Green giant can't jam hardness into standard slot

stucs201

Nowt wrong with chocolate teapots

Anything made of chocolate is not useless. I know it normally comes in bar or egg shapes, but I'd happily eat it in a teapot shape too.

Just don't get me started on chocolate covered manhole covers...

Wikipedia collapses threatening the very fabric of civilisation

stucs201

For sale...

...one copy of Encarta. I'll have to hunt for the disc in the boxes in the loft though.

Success! Curiosity Mars lander arrives precisely on schedule

stucs201

Its a shame they had to crash the crane. I understand why it was the plan, but given they had more fuel left in it than expected it a pity they couldn't at least attempt to soft land it.

Pasadena to party hardy as Martian landing looms

stucs201
Coat

Re: The point of going to Mars?

Well Mars has to be an improvement on the moon. They expected that to be a fun place to party, but it turned out there was no atmosphere.

(Unsurprisingly mines the spacesuit)