* Posts by PaulyV

104 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jun 2011

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The Apple Mac is 35 years old. Behold the beige box of the future

PaulyV

It's a great computer. I am using one to post thi

ZX Spectrum reboot scandal biz gets £35k legal costs delayed

PaulyV

Horace goes repossessing.

Take-off crash 'n' burn didn't kill the Concorde, it was just too bloody expensive to maintain

PaulyV

The Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdwoWbBduxw

Quite the event when I was taken to see it at our local cinema. I still remember a bedraggled and soaked Martha Raye's quote as she staggered out the lavatory door:

"The bathroom's broken..."

PaulyV

Re: This was back when

I think it's a future where auto-correct renders most of what we type rather confusing. ;)

2001: A Space Odyssey has haunted pop culture with anxiety about rogue AIs for half a century

PaulyV

My mum took me to see 2001 at Louth Picturehouse when re-released in the late 70's. I remember her saying that to me! She also pointed out that the Discovery's communications dish looked like Mickey Mouse.

10 PRINT "ZX81 at 37" 20 GOTO 10

PaulyV

Computer exhibitions and shows - that takes me back. Being driven out by my Dad to hotels in places like Huddersfield or Grimsby, parking up and being directed to the conference suite. Desk after desk of Vic20's, Oric 1's and Dragon 32's were setup, each accompanied by a chap more than happy to talk about them at length. The BBC B's felt like the best built and eventually our primary school got one, whilst at home my parents splashed out god knows how much on a Dragon 32 which saw me through my youth.

Never had a ZX81, but Dad did borrow an '80 for a week or two from one of his younger colleagues. I still recall tuning it in to the TV.

Vatican sets up dedicated exorcism training course

PaulyV

Quite head turning.

Home taping revisited: A mic in each hand, pointing at speakers

PaulyV

Re: Got a call once at home...

Still works though - just reading this has me heading out to the shop to buy a Milky Way. Lovely.

PaulyV

Home Taping is Skill in Music

Oddly enough only yesterday did I get sent WAV's taken from a cassette of our 1980's Lincolnshire band. My Dad recorded us in the living room using a decent Technics deck (Dolby C no less!) and a crossed pair of AKG D90 mics. Despite being carted around the country in the bottom of various boxes for the past 30 years the quality of the audio held up well enough to rekindle many memories. The quality of the music itself however...not so much. Thank god dance music came along.

https://youtu.be/MAE16JH5bwc

Voyager 1 fires thrusters last used in 1980 – and they worked!

PaulyV

Orbit

Is an eventually fuel-less Voyager not subject to orbital gravitational forces, no matter how weak? What orbit should Voyager eventually settle into?

A certain millennial turned 30 recently: Welcome to middle age, Microsoft Excel v2

PaulyV

Re: Grandather's Axe

Cheers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvPs6uQlsvw

Blade Runner 2049 review: Scott's vision versus Villeneuve's skill

PaulyV

In the words of director Dean Learner...

"Some say Harrison Ford used to be a carpenter...I say he still is."

Blade Runner 2049: Back to the Future – the movies that showed us what's to come

PaulyV

Demolition Man

The Three Seashells

What does Elon Musk really need? A personal theme tune, of course!

PaulyV

Re: Da feme tune

If you want to he'll change the situation...

Foot-long £1 sausage roll arrives

PaulyV

Re: but does it taste any good

You make a good point. I am originally from Lincolnshire and there are any number of decent quality sausage rolls you can still get there for about 60-70p. Nothing artisan or oversized - just decent sausage meat in layered puff pastry...I am often puzzled as to how many places in this country can't get that simple formula right.

Everything you never knew about mail: The Postal Museum opens

PaulyV

Still waiting for my tickets to arrive.

Thank you and goodnight.

Volterman 'super wallet': The worst crowdsource video pitch of all time?

PaulyV

Was going to watch Dunkirk today but am going to stay in and watch this repeatedly now.

Alan Turing Institute bags a Cray Urika-GX to crunch numbers for next-gen tech boffinry

PaulyV

Re: I guess technically the Turing institute is looking for better algorithms to do this

........UVAVU!

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd scoops up $17.4m from 350,000 share sales

PaulyV

15 million Solaro's

...or 4 Magnum's

'Grey technology' should be the new black

PaulyV

Ageing tech users

Could not agree more. I hope we can ensure more is in place as I approach my later life.

I spent the last 20 years watching and helping my increasingly housebound Dad get to grips with his laptop, the internet, a mobile phone etc. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes encouraging and sometimes downright disappointing.

His 17 inch Asus laptop fared quite well over the years, although its touch pad became increasingly difficult to use with his very arthritic fingers. Catching a palm across it could easily highlight and magically delete the 4 paragraphs of text he had spent the previous 45 minutes painstakingly entering.

Windows was also okay but once it started prompting him to upgrade to 10 on a regular basis it became more of a hassle until we disabled it. He used the AOL browser most of all as he had learned his way around it in the late 90's when he had more dexterity. I rather think he imagined AOL WAS the internet despite my explaining the concept of a browser on many occasions.

Smart phones were out the question, as was texting but he did have a natty Binatone mobile featuring large buttons which lived in his pocket. A bargain at £25.

His last Christmas brought an Amazon Fire his way as a toe in the waters of tablet computing. Holding it was impossible, as was typing anything on it given the accuracy required on-screen, but a stylus and stand helped those issues to some extent. Far from ideal though and I can see a change coming surely. It was not as if he did not want to communicate and understand these devices. His last 3 years of life alone resulted in close to 10000 posts on the Guardian forums, this despite being only able to type a single letter every 5 seconds or so as he dallied his way around the keyboard.

Some things will never change however - at aged 80 he did manage to inexplicably change the language on the Amazon Fire to German all on his own thereby bricking it until I visited him once again...

Private moonshot gets the green light from US authorities

PaulyV

Couldn't think of an original logo?

Emu Systems beat you to it in '87.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LuTGoW2xeRI/TeEth1nC4PI/AAAAAAACg2c/4XLkGhEgOk8/s1600/emu4.jpg

German lodges todger in 13 steel rings

PaulyV

Did he...

...enter a downward spiral?

'No safe level' booze guidelines? Nonsense, thunder stats profs

PaulyV

Youer not the bboossss of mee....mmm...zzzzzzzz.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Star Wars Special Editions

PaulyV

£12.95 (in 1970's money - £42 now) for a silent 5 minute 8mm projection reel of Star Wars.

What a world we lived in!

Kids' TV show Rainbow in homosexual agenda shocker

PaulyV

Bit of a sad comments about Geoffrey at the end - couldn't end with a more positive note? He was on Pointless a few weeks ago.

Why are only moneymen doing cyber resilience testing?

PaulyV

This was going to be my question as I have little knowledge regards such systems.

There must have been a logical rationale for having, say, air traffic control linked to 'the internet' in some manner, but I cannot understand what it would be.

Can anyone shed light on this for me?

So. Farewell then Betamax. We always liked you better than VHS anyway

PaulyV

Re: Can we finally settle this?

Betamax not long enough? You're only thinking of the John Holmes films...

Skype founders planning non-drone robodelivery fleet. Repeat, not drones

PaulyV

These things are easily scared

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLqNmMH4hsg

TalkTalk incident management: A timeline

PaulyV

Re: Legislate visible security ratings for companies that hold personal data

Ah, like this:

http://postimg.org/image/s4uwb08zx/

Balloon-lofted space podule hits 30,000m

PaulyV

Helium

I never considered Helium to be rare, and thanks to here I have just read up about it.

With that in mind how expensive is it?

Made you jump! Space to give Earth an asteroid Halloween scare

PaulyV

Nobody does - the writer says that in the very next line after your quote...

Windows 10 mobile upgrade coming in December

PaulyV

Re: Stick with 8.1

In the same situation as you. I went to 4G EE as soon as the Nokia 920 came out. I have had it almost 3 years now and the phone was outstanding when I first got it and is still fine now. During that time however Windows has barely changed and as much as I liked it at the start I am seeing more attractive options elsewhere. Sadly the phone doesn't relay my voice calls very clearly any more - something which seems not uncommon at this age on the 920. The keyboard I could never get on with for some reason - I think that might just be me.

From tomorrow I downgrade my EE contract and am using a Wileyfox Swift which came into stock at Amazon today.

The Lumia will stay on 8.1 and will never leave my car again where it will act as a rather good SatNav - those Here maps are excellent.

The Steve Jobs of supercomputers: We remember Seymour Cray

PaulyV

Re: My mate swore blind...

Ah, every school had one of those. Ours was called 'Peter' and it wasn't long before he had the nickname of 'The Incredible BullSh*tting Man'.

Hats off to Nintendo’s platform supremo Super Mario Bros at 30

PaulyV

1985-1996

The graphical jump between 1985 and 1996 is quite stunning...since then not so much. Such rapid development of hardware in that period.

Honor 7 – heir apparent to the mid-range Android crown

PaulyV

Re: Release date?

Appears they will ship when the item is in stock, but they will 'earmark' the £209 from your bank account.

PaulyV

Seems a little odd. The website clearly states the phone is out of stock and that funds will only be taken once the phone is back in stock, however it does try to take the full amount from ones card immediately.

Seems a good phone.

Return of the Jedi? StarWars.co.uk bod to fight the Empire (Disney)

PaulyV

Star Wars Domains

Late 1998 I bought ThePhantomMenace.co.uk and ran a fan site from it for 2 years, but was also linking to toy vendors. Got a lot of traffic and did quite well out of it from the affiliate sales and ad revenue, even reviewing the 'film' for Radio 4 and selling stories on the film to the UK and US press. I never heard anything from Lucasfilm, although I always expected to...I guess they were too busy at the time.

At the same time I also ran StarWarsEmail.com giving people free email addresses - again, heard nothing.

Spy: Acres of comedy talent make this smart spook spoof an instant classic

PaulyV

Enjoying Paul Feig's work. He is putting a lot of effort into his films and I am pleased they are finding an audience. We get, what, 2 decent comedies a year generally, and a raft of mildly amusing or simply rubbish comedy films that are marketed as being a laugh a minute.

Mad Max: Fury Road – two hours of nonstop, utterly insane fantasy action

PaulyV

The eternal question

Should I see it in 2D or 3D?

Oz father and son team plan suborbital spaceplane

PaulyV

"Once upon a time...

...a junk man had a dream..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mR-gz9EFO8

Orion 'Mars' ship: Cosmic ray guard? Go. Parachutes? Go. Spacerock shield? Go!

PaulyV

Re: Its Amazing Really...

The joys of having no atmosphere and little gravity.

PaulyV

Re: Temperature

Good lord - a space fact I never knew (or considered) was that the speed you hit the Earth depends on how far out your have been. Makes sense if you are not taking engines which retard your speed back with you.

PaulyV

Temperature

I am guessing the temperature you reach when coming back from the moon is hotter due to your hurtling back through the atmosphere faster after the return trip???

Why can't a mobile be more like a cordless kettle?

PaulyV

Re: Nokia

You're a gent. Thank you.

PaulyV

Nokia

I still run my Lumia 920 and dearly loved the wireless charging which was built in to the phone's casing. Alas after a Nokia automatic update (not the windows one) the charging simply stopped working. Oddly enough it turns the phone on when placed on the charger, but doesn't charge any further.

I know this isn't a technical forum, but you know, though'd I'd mention it just in case.

The additional charger wasn't cheap - pressed my sister into getting me one for Christmas that year, but really handy to have one next to the work PC so the phone effectively charges whenever I place it down. I am often surprised it is seen as a gimmick.

James Bond's metal-toothed nemesis Richard Kiel dies at 74

PaulyV

Re: He said no to the Darth Vader part in Star Wars

No reason to - he got his face in front of millions...I may be wrong but Dave Prowse often seems a bit miffed with that role.

Next blockbuster you watch could be rendered on Google: Star Trek fx biz Zync gobbled

PaulyV

Got it. Thank you.

PaulyV

Excuse the ignorance, but I never understood how these kind of services avoid being 'slow' to do their work, given that they rely on the speed of the internet connection to pass their data back and forward?

I must be missing something and would appreciate any explanation.

Pauly

Apple 'sapphire glass' fronts for iPhone 6? It's NEWS to SUPPLIERS

PaulyV

Not scratched the glass on my (almost) two year old Nokia despite accidentally trying my best at every opportunity. That uses Gorilla Glass as I understand it so I am not really sure how much more scratch proof a screen needs to be?

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