Posts by CrazyOldCatMan

Re: Other uses

has strict export and sales criteria

Where said criteria is "do they have lots and lots of money to pay for it?"

spend $2 million on a diamond for our research

Closely followed by "yes boss, it's still there but our research was so good you can't see it any more. I'll tell you all about it when I get back from my extended beach holiday in the Bahamas.".

Re: Black - pffft

Someone ought to notify the authorities

Don't worry - Skippy and Lassie are already on the case.

Re: Vantablack v MIT

thinking of an amazing use for this material

Making panic button for use on a starship bridge? It can be set into a control panel made of the same stuff..

Re: "unfit for use on a public road"

these cars can end up practically invisible

Much like every motorbike ever made. Under some circumstances anyway..

Re: Ferrari

How to drive an automotive photographer bonkers

I have similar issues taking photos of black cats - the autofocus just won't. My next camera will have the ability to manually focus, just like we did in the Good Old Days..

(Something to do with the fur absorbing the IR used I suspect)

Re: we rely upon readers to tell us what colour it turns your, er, you know.

since we cannot make it the male body squirrels fructose from the diet away to the prostate

There is so much fail in that post that I can hardly think about where to start:

1. In general, the human body doesn't make any of the sugars (absent some very specfic conditions). What it does do is take the carbohydrates that you eat and, eventually, break them down into glucose that then gets stored - either in the liver (stored as glycogen) or the muscles and fat.

2. Fructose, being one of the simple sugars, gets stored in the liver in the same way as glucose does. Table sugar is generally a compund of glucose and fructose. As the name suggests, the primary source of fructose is fruit (although it's also contained in honey). It's sweeter than glucose - which is why it's used a lot in foods in the US (the dreaded 'high fructose corn syrup'). Over consumption is directly indicated in some forms of T2 diabetes. It also has no taste other than being sweet. Any fruit flavours come from the organic volatiles and oils rather than the fructose (which only gives sweetness).

In short - maybe learn something about human biology *before* displaying your ignorance quite so publically?

Re: A traditional brew with 52% alcohol?

is distillation of one form or another

OldestBrother tried freeze-distillation of his home-made wiine at one point and got to a reasonable (40%?) ABV. It was a load of faff and he gave up in the end.

He tried it because it was the only legal distillation method not requiring a license.

Re: You're thinking..

damn fine beers use oats in the grist these days

And some vagely passable [1] beers use rice.

[1] To my shame I actually like the US Budweiser beer. Largely because it's utterly inoffensive and has just a mild nutty flavour. And doesn't give me headaches.

Re: Vegan Beer

percentage of lactose would be negligable in the final result

Fun feline Fact of the day:

A lot of cats become lactose-intolerant, just like quite a few humans do. So various vendors produce Cat Milk which, despite its title, isn't milk harvested from cats [1] but is rather ordinary cows milk with the lactose removed.

It also has taurine [2] added as well as a few other cat-specific suppliments. Out of our 7 cats, three can tolerate regular cows' milk and 4 can't and so get offered cat milk.

[1] Doing that would be a fairly high-risk endeavour without appropriate PPE [3]

[2] Cats require taurine but don't produce it themselves but get it from their prey. Modern cat food contains added taurine. 'Vegan' cat food [4] didn't at first and cats fed on that went blind.

[3] Not the utterly useless degree from Oxbridge which seems to be the only degree needed to get to high office in government.

[4] If vegans were that dedicated to not having animals killed for their convenience maybe they shouldn't select as a pet an animal that is a primary carnivore and that has to eat meat in order to be healthy. Maybe get a hamster instead? Although those have been known to eat meat in the wild.. (as do most pure herbivores - especially when breeding. Admittedly, only in very small quantites and only under very specific circumstances)

Re: Vegan Beer

Unlike cider (the rats give it flavour)

I have an old Devon recipe for making beer which requires adding 1/4 of a chicken for each 10 gallons of beer. Helps it to clear apparently.

The title is "Cock Ale"

Re: Vegan Beer

most beers are vegan

Except the ones that use isinglass as a fining agent.. It's made from fish cartilage.

Which means that most cask-conditioned beers and ales are out for vegans and/or vegetarians (depending on which of the strains you are).

belgian fruit beers start with beer..

T'missus quite likes one of the fruit-flavoured Belgian beers sold by our local emporium - I haven't drawn her attention to the ABV figue on the label..

Mind you, she tends to go to sleep after about half a bottle - being somewhat of an alcohol lightweight. Unlike myself and my nephew - as the recycling box indicates after he's been staying for the weekend.

various fruit and flower based "teas" are NOT tea

Actually - the term 'tea' precedes the use of dried/fermented leaves of Camellia Sinensis steeped in hot water. It is simply defined as vegetain steeped in hot water".

So tea is a subset of the tea class. Your assertion fails.

but it is not custard

In much the same way as mycelium-derived textured protein isn't meat. And no, you really, really can't have Quorn beefburger since they don't contain beef.

Re: "Fuel had to be jettisoned"

tens of thousands of dollars in fuel have been wasted

Not to mention the pollution caused by jettisoning that amount of fuel!

Re: Pedant mode

if the pilot screamed when the hot coffee hit is lap

Or whether they sued the airline for emotional distress..

Re: Simples...

Chocolate covered coffee beans

Eww. Go straight to migraine city. Do not pass go, do not lose half your vision or vomit copiously.

I can tolerate some coffee (1 latte/day is fine - filter or instant coffe not so fine) and I can eat choloate (plain by preference - less sugar). The combo of coffee-bean and chocolate? Not happening agin any time soon.

Re: Accounts names

I had several conversations with Jehovah witnesses

Ditto. However, my wife and I being of a somewhat theological bent, knew an awful lot more about the Bible than they did. When the elders realised that we were raising doubts in the minds of their evangelists about the truth of some of their doctrines we got taken off the list of places to visit..

(We also got a procession of increasingly senior elders before they decided that we were too risky to expose their followers to..)

Re: Voice response phone

I was a call jockey a few times in my career

Which is why I try to be as polite and pleasant as possible to those stuck answering the call. The only two exceptions that I can think of are:

1. In the waning days of my Demon internet account (after it had been sold to Thus and support outsourced abroad) I was trying to get my DSL line problem resolved[1]. After the fifth time of phoning the helldesk (and being put through the same rigmarole every time and being given (almost word for word the same response as last time I'd phoned - all of which produced exactly nothing) I tried to just out of the loop by requesting that the phone droid actually listen to what I was saying rather than just parrotting the script. He then blew up at me saying that I wasn't allowed to speak to him like that and promply put the phone down. I redialled and, by mischance, got back through to the same person again. Who swore at me and put the phone down. I subitted a formal complaint and, two days later, moved to IDNet.

2. By virtue of the place where my wife works, we have membership with Benedon [2[. Several years ago, I had an intense period of really, really bad back pain - to the extent of barely being able to move. I went to the GP and was told that I needed to be referred to the local orthopaedic clinic at the hospital. Which was a 9-week wait for a free slot. While I have a very understanding employer, I doubt whether they'd be terribly happy.. So I though to go to Beneden and see if they could help and managed to get through to a rules-lawyer type to told me that, because I hadn't adhered to every jot and tittle of the procedure that they wouldn't do anything for me. So I went back and did things exactly the way their website recommended and phoned her back. Only to have her say that, because I'd been refused treatment before for this problem that, under no circumstance would she permit the claim to go forward. Cue another fairly annoyed [3] email of formal complaint.

[1] I knew exactly what the problem was - our duct in the road had a big crack in the cover and would fill up with water when it was cold and rainy. The BT engineer would turn up, clear out the duct, clean the contacts and everything would be fine. This time they would not deviate from the "have you rebooted your computer and DSL modem?"[4] line.

[2] Sort of a mutual health body - people pay a fairly reasonable monthly levy and, if needed, can get referred to an approved local hospital - one of which is about 3 miles away from my house. They obviously have to pre-qualify what they pay out but her actions tipped over into the deliberately spiteful territory. They later amended their procedures so as not to get people in serious pain upset with them on the phone..

[3] Polite but making it clear that the whole thing had been handled very badly by their staff member. Conversations later with another staff member indicated that they had listened to the call recordings and were shocked at the way it had been handled from their end.

[4] Given that I had a very atypical setup (modem <-> firewall <-> internal network) their standard script really, really didn't fit. The kicker was that the call centre womble clearly didn't know *anything* about DSL, BT or even the UK. All I wanted was for them to call out BT like they had done 5-6 times before to fix the duct again - something that was in my records as having been done before to fix the exact situation I was describing.

Re: Scripted

Banks, eh? Can't live with 'em

Which is why (as a recent ex-student, treated fairly badly by a bank) I said I would never use a bank again. And went and opened an account with the (then) Nationwide Anglia building society.

An account I still have 30(something, something) years later. Unfortunately, I did end up having to do business with banks - we had various savings accounts with various building societies, most of which ended up selling their customers out and becoming banks. Which, of course, were then borged by bigger banks.

Re: Amateur Banks

Barclays - incompetent, sleepy

Ah yes. The place where the lady responsible for photocopying my driving licence[1] was very snippy about the fact that it came in several pieces and wasn't a photo-ID driving licence. I'm afraid that after she had moaned about it for the 10th time I got slighly less polite[2] to her.

[1] Old-style pink paper one. Why both to pay for a new one (and possibly get categories missed off) when you don't have to? Especially as it has to be renewed every 10 years..

[2] I was still fairly polite but did say that, since she obviously valued form over function that maybe she could hurry up so that I could get out of there and make us both happy..

Re: Good work MET Police

I'll just point out that some motor vehicles are paying zero vehicle tax

Like wot the "historic vehicle" currently sitting in the carpark where my wife works..

Strangely enough, the Government withdrew that tax bracket when they realised that it was costing them money. However, they'd trapped themselves into the vehicles that had it keeping it even after they'd closed the scheme. So, while we still have the Morris Minor it'll be tax free.

Mind you, we easily spend 4x the cost of the tax keeping it on the road. New wings to replace the wirewormed ones don't grow on trees y'know.

go to specsavers (Other opticians are available)

And I would encourage people to use anyone other than specsavers.. (speaking as an habitual user of opticians since about the age of 5..)

Re: What's in a name?

he doesn't want another referendum as if there were one, Leave would lose

Which is why I tend to ask leavers why they fear another referendum - surely if it's "The Will of The People" then another referendum would have the same result?

Re: A grand?

Sound is processed faster than video, and no built-in adjustment available

Out TV (LG) has a setting to change the sound delay. Sounds like you need a better TV..

Re: "sound quality issues with flatscreen TVs"

Samsung

*Shudder*.

It might be good, right up until it explodes in a Death Star-stylee fireball and burns down your house..

(I went through several soundbars to try and get some decent sound *and* for it to auto-switch on when the TV did[1]. Ended up with an LG soundplate which goes under the telly (separate bass speaker) which has been pretty good.)

[1] Elderly mother couldn't get the hang of turning the sound bar on as well as the TV - I'd get met with "tried to watch TV but got no sound" despite leaving written instructions by the TV and soundbar remotes..

Re: "Metric system is based in absolute science"

feet and ounces which differed from one region to the other

The dominant distance measure in the ancient world (the cubit - for short distances) was defined as "the length of the ruling king's[1] forearm from the elbow to the fingertips".

Which eventually ended in a rough standard no longer based on the current king but just the kings measurements when they kinda-standardised.

[1] King/pharoah/emperor. Delete as applicable.

Re: Fahrenheit?

deserve eviction, but not pints

I'm all for litres replacing pints - as long as it's at the same price.

My other dream is world peace and my my own personal teleporting dragon. Yes, I did read the Pern books as a child - why do you ask?

Re: Blended?

but even 'single' malts are often blended by the distillery

Unless it says "Single malt, single barrel" on the bottle it's safe to assume that it's blended from lots of casks.

Of course the words "single barrel" add about 30% to the price and it isn't always worth it because each barrel can vary in flavour - sometimes positively, sometines negatively.

Re: DHL, uh yes

Sounds like TLA had same standard elsewhere in world

A long time ago and an employment far, far away[1] we went to our office in Bergen to install some Sun E450 boxes. Said boxes were in France so the sequence was:

1. Fly to our Paris office and check all the kit to ensure it was OK.

2. Send the servers via Air Chance shipment to Bergen while we fly there on a (separate) flight.

3. Our flight goes via Amsterdam and when we get there, we discover that the Air Chance pilots have downed tools and the connecting flight won't be until tomorrow (at the earliest). Not a problem as Air France end up having to pay for us to stay in business-class rooms at quite a nice local hotel.

4. Somewhat hung-over, we take the next day flight and end up in Bergen and go to the office, expecting our servers to have already arrived. No servers.

5. Our French colleague phones the Air France cargo department to find out where the servers are. After several hours on the phone (international call!) he discovers that someone put them on the wrong plane and they are currently in Milan.

6. Some excited comments in French follow. Air France promises to send them via expedited delivery later that day.

7. After 3 more days the servers eventually turn up. By that point, we should have been home so we have to go to more expense to change our plane tickets. I refuse to use Air Chance and instad book my return flight to Heathrow on SAS.

8. Two days later, I have a very nice relaxed flight on SAS and discover the joys of Akavit and get my taxi back from Heathrow to Wiltshire.

Since that day I've refused to ever fly Air France. We calculated that they ended up having to pay us about 10x the cost of our tickets and shipping of the servers as compensation. Which just about paid our Bergen bar bills..

Re: Linux.

ZModem could deal with interrupted file transfers, though that might have been a later protocol

Well - I was using it in the mid-80s on my BBC model B so it was certainly around then..

(I spent many happy days inflating my parents phone bill using my trusty 300/15? non-autodial model to connect to Almac..Up until my parents had to pay said bill - at which point my online time drastically reduced)

Re: Linux.

Downvote deserved

Indeed. Even on poor, benighted DOS you could still use zmodem - which supported resuming a dropped connection..

(I remember writing a batch file that looped - if the zmodem transfer completed then it dropped out of the loop. If it failed then it restarted the tranfer using the resume option)

Re: Not so many years ago...

tropical beach front hotel to hold the next committee meeting at

Clacton?

Oh - you said tropical - well wait for a few years and it'll get there..