* Posts by Philip Lord

16 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Oct 2007

Ultimate Doctor Tom Baker REGENERATES, RETURNS to WHO

Philip Lord

Tom Baker

Well - I didn't know Tom Baker was going to appear in the anniversary episode but there he was in his full glory and a head full of hair - albeit white. I thought it was quite good that he was the curator - seemed sensible and tied up the plot quite well.

Here in France, they showed an earlier episode of the Doctor after the 50th anniversary episode (don't know if it was the same one in the UK), so next time how about John Simms regenerating as the Doctor? After all he is (was?) a time-lord.

Phil

Gold meddler: Doctor Who is 50 years old TODAY

Philip Lord

Fifty Years ago

I can lay claim to have watched the first episode - probably live too - round at my gran's as we had no telly. The thing that stayed with me all these years was the Doctor's grand-daughter in school demonstrating how a triangle had five sides (shirley you remember - sides AB, BC and CA plus side ABC and it's other 'mirror' side). As a thirteen year-old I was impressed! And - yes later, Daleks viewed from behind the sofa, tho' I think the Cybermen were scarier.

BTW - saw the 50th anniversary transmission live here in France last night. I hadn't seen any episodes for quite sometime and this time as a 63 year-old I was impressed again - reasonably good script and good special effects. It's come a long way from that first black and white episode! Good luck to the Doctor for the future.

Phil

Migrating from Windows XP – Time to move on...

Philip Lord

End of XP

No, no, no. Whatever you do, avoid migrating to Windows8, find a copy of Windows7, Linux, anything. Win8 has cost me two new notebooks. Bit the bullet and bought last week for about £300 a new Toshiba Satellite with Win8 pre-loaded for my partner's 61st birthday. As she has never seen any of the comments on El Reg regarding Win8 she didn't have any pre-conceived ideas. Nonetheless, after about 10 minutes of use she was going to chuck it out of the window - and before anyone clever out there says RTFM there was no fscking tutorial offered on start-up. Having been forewarned by El Reg commentards, I wanted to see the tutorial regarding hot-keys and the like - none to be had. TIFKAM is as bad as everyone said - it is terrible. And that two screen nonsense - meh!

Anyway, went and got an Asus notebook with a slightly bigger screen and Win7 pre-loaded for £25 more for her and kept the Tosh for me thinking that I could wipe off Win8 and load a copy of Win7Ultimate that I bought a while back thinking of downgrading to XP for playing games (all I need it for). D'oh. No Win7 drivers available for the Tosh!

The solution has been to buy Start8 - TIFKAM gone!! I'm now happy in that I have some semblance of XP in functionality and she's as happy as Larry on hers.

Yes, yes, I COULD have just loaded ClassicShell or Start8 on hers and saved money but my existing PC is an old third-hand Dell Optiplex that's getting a bit old in the the tooth and needs replacing. Might give Linux a try on it eventually.

Good luck to those who need to move off XP :(((

X-51 hypersonic scramjet test: Flameout at Mach 5?

Philip Lord

Meh - Barnes Wallis

Didn't Barnes Wallis forsee this sort of thing years ago - IIRC a flight from London to Oz in about two hours? Remember seeing a programme about his work on the telly in the 70s or early 80s and showed his design for an 'aeroplane' to undertake such a flight. If IIRC also the 'plane had very slender wings with the engines mounted towards the tips of the wings.

High Court orders MPs to 'fess up on expenses

Philip Lord
Thumb Up

Gaol

Comes from the French - and still used regularly as an alternative to 'prison' on TV news over there.

Nothing wrong with it!

El Reg decimates English language

Philip Lord
Unhappy

Sorry ........

....... for being pedantic but within the lead item should it not have been "sceptre'd" ? *We* this side of the pond have a preference for words ending in "re".

Underground tools foil generic virus detection

Philip Lord
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Re: amanfromMars

You leave him alone - makes perfect sense once you get the hang of IT - and very clever too. If no-one else spotted IT I did espy the song from Val Doonican.

Phil

Inventor promises bottle-o-wind car in a year. Again

Philip Lord
Coat

Historic note

Not really new. The use of compressed air as motive power was widely used in Paris between 1880 and 1910 for powering tramcars in a system attributed to Mekarski. The trams used to weigh about 11 tonnes and carried up to 9 high and low pressure air bottles. They used a bouillotte containing water at 155C at 200atmospheres to warm the air as it was released into the pistons and extend the range. Gawd help us if they use that on board these little cars - should go like a bomb!!!

Mine's the anorak with the notepad and pencil ..............

Employee's silent rampage wipes out $2.5m worth of data

Philip Lord
Unhappy

@sue

Hear hear Sue - well said.

I too read El Reg to try and educate myself in matters of IT. I'm also one of those poor sods that doesn't have a real clue about the big bad world of the interweb nor how this computer really works - and yes I have Windoze (XP thankfully) and Norton and yes I don't really know how to fully delete files other than through the Recycle Bin.

So, what I'm trying to say all of you at the back there sniggering and finger pointing at us sheeple at the front would do rather better from time to time to give us clue. Thank you.

DARPA whirly-wing jet gyrocraft hits noise snags

Philip Lord

Airfix

I too was going to say I'd built the model - first time of seeing the film. Looked bloody good too. I believe it was cancelled by the then old Labour government under Wislon along with the TSR2 - which was another those 'what if we'd carried on with it' aircraft - who knows. Re-inventing wheels again!

<sigh>

When Commodore ruled the world

Philip Lord
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C64

Aaahhh! Being of a certain age myself I fondly remember the C64 which was bought primarily on the basis for our children's education - mum and dad ended up hogging the machine!! Still have the C64 (in fact two) in the attic complete with tape recorder, 5 1/2" floppy drive, floppies - the whole shooting match - which my son who is now 26 only finished using earlier this year on completing his music studies. Not bad for a 25 year-old machine!! Been through at least four/five upgrades of PC over the same period!!

Phil

Microsoft accuses kids of bullying Santa into sex chat

Philip Lord
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Cock-up?

Fnaar! Fnaar!

Lordphil

Facebook 'to drop' creeptech ad system

Philip Lord
Happy

Nitpicking

Ahem - psst ! Roobarb and Custardy - for those old enough to remember.

Phil

Mayor Ken buys hydrogen buses for London

Philip Lord
Happy

Hindenbuses

Love the name! Damn Fraser, I wanted to get to mention trolleybuses first (didn't get to this item 'til late). Trolleybuses are the only way forward - tried and trusted technology, clean and quiet, great acceleration up hills and can leave the overhead to get around obstructions and the like under the power of batteries. BTW some early Cardiff trollies were named Doodlebugs due to the noise they made - sorry no IT or Paris Hilton connections.

Honda hits reverse on £50k fuel cell cars for '08

Philip Lord

@damien

Good god, and I thought my car was a guzzler - just how big IS your Jag - that's like about 2 miles per litre!

Public tracks down Gordon Bennett

Philip Lord
Unhappy

@Simon Greenwood

Errmm ........... the Parisian Avenue Gordon Bennett is in honour of an American hack (says so on the name plate - read it on Tuesday - sorry for being pendantic).

Lord Phil