Posts by vic denwood

OpenOffice is the new David Hasselhoff

WP5.1 Home User

I have WP5.1 running on DOS 3 on my vintage 1986 Amstrad PC1640 at home which is used for all my domestic letter writing

UK population to abandon Midlands

Did they forget to mention in their survey...

The high level of naturally occuring Radon Gas in SW England and in Scotland. After smoking it is the highest cause of lung cancer in UK.

Home Office mum over mad March at the CRB

Budgets

It was the end of the financial year (FY), and they had not used up their error budget, so it had to be made up by extra errors that month.

Everyone knows that if you do not use your budget up in the current FY then you will lose it in the next FY by the amount you did not use in the last FY

Can the iPhone save NFC?

And another...

Automatic man overboard alarm for large ships such as aircraft carriers, the crew carry an RFID chip in their identity tag set. The periphery of the deck is a large RFID reading device. As the falling sailor passes the detector it sounds an alarm, records the vessel's location, triggers lifebelt ejection mechanisms and identifies the missing seaman - all before he hits the water and gets chewed up in the propellor wash.

Years ago when Lossiemouth was an RNAS station all the kerbstones were painted with a frangible white paint. If a service vehicle was returned to the MT section with white paint on the tyre walls, the driver was charged with driving overboard. Allegedly this was to train RN drivers to keep away from deck edges on aircraft carriers

Obesity witchhunt is a 'moral panic' - sense out of Texas

What we need is...

smart rationing cards based on the holders BMI. For those with High BMI their ration would be lower than "standard", conversely for those with low or normal BMI their ration would be higher or normal against standard as appropriate. Food bought outside the ration for High BMIs wanting a top up would be available but with 100% VAT.

Since we all have to eat, we will all need a smart ration card with biometric details, registered on a national database, to ensure that fraud and impersonation are not carried out. Thus it would provide two complementary services ration control and personal identification.

No card, no problem... all you can eat at twice the price!

Ex-Star Wars boffins build mosquito-blasting raygun

Laser Mossie Blaster

Mossies are attracted to Carbon Dioxide exhalations, some american schools have used CO2 dispensers at the edge of playgrounds to attract mossies away from the children - think of the children!

By applying a CO2 attractant with the laser mossie blaster then there would be no need for airborne platforms - just bring the beasties into a closed range killing field. The CO2 cloud would also stop the flaming shower of mossies starting an accidental forest fire.

Colonel: US Army has working electropulse grenades

British Army had these in the '50s

The British Army had nuclear hand grenades in the 1950's. The first line of the operating instructions read:

"Remove safety pin and throw 15 miles..."

Scotland to battle grey squirrel invaders

The Blacks are coming!

Where I live near the Bedfordshire/Cambridge border there is a growing enclave of Black Squirrels. It seems that Blacks & Greys can cohabit but the result is always black progeny. So the greys are under threat by progressive blacking. The black squirrels are deliberately released CIA genetically modified animals designed to look cute in an urban environment, and are used for stealth surveillance purposes

EU funds Antipodes-in-90-mins rocketliner concept

Barnes Wallis has designed this already

I remember an interview on TV when Concorde was just coming into service, and Barnes Wallis pooh-poohed the design as antiquated, becuase he had already designed a sub-orbital airliner to reach Australia in about 2 hours or so. Someone needs to look up his designs and make it happen!

Boffin seeks $300,000 to build eight-wheel 230mph EV

With electric motors...

it should be able to go just as fast in reverse and break the Caterham world record of 102+ mph

'Miracle' plane crash was no miracle

grills on air intakes

Many years ago I was an engineer on Jaguar aircraft at Lossiemouth. When doing ground runs it was mandated that mesh engine intake screens were fitted to prevent foreign object ingestion and subsequent engine damage. The only problem is that the air intake causes a local depression in the air and thus cools the air flow. Accordingly we had air temperature / humidity limits that we could not do the ground runs becuase of induced icing on the screen mesh and the ice then possibly breaking off into the engine. It should be noted that we could fly aircraft normally without intake screens at temperature / humidity conditions that would be precluded if screens were fitted, thus by fitting a screen to the intake you severely limit the operating conditions for the engine. I cannot remember the exact figures but it could be as warm as 8 to 10 deg C at high levels of humidity and we would get intake screen icing. Trying to explain this to the aircrew, why we had not been able to ground run an engine and generate an airframe for the next days flying because it was too warm and mild, was something of a problem. The aircrew (class A personality killer types) view was that if I can fly it at that temperature then u can ground run it at that temperature and intake screen protection was only for wimps!

Hubble's 486 back-up springs into life

AMSTRAD PC 1640

I still use my Amstrad PC 1640 vintage Nov 1986 as my home PC. It was millenium bug proof It runs WP5.1 perfectly and has Autoroute 84 loaded, so I can never get lost on the M25 - it doesn't exist

US Navy spares Silicon Valley's 'Alexandria Lighthouse'

And we have two too...

Don't forget we still have the airship hangars at Cardington just south of Bedford that housed the R100 and R101

Trousers Brown Counterpoint: Is Gordon right?

An Excuse for Rationing Cards

This could be an excellent excuse for the universal introduction of rationing cards instead of identity cards. This would solve the "Obesity Problem" by rationing the allowable calories per week per person with "smart chips" on the ration card. Food bought over the ration would be perfectly admissable but subject to 100% VAT, and of course there would be an annual revalidation charge to amend your calorie allowance as you progress from baby to the grave.

Alan Sugar leaves Amstrad

PC 1640

Vic Denwood

My PC 1640 is 22 years old this November and still in regular use at home for all my domestic correspondence using WP51, and it only takes about 45 seconds to run up. The SCANDISK still shows no bad sectors - but it does take about 2 hours to run that programme. I have to change the AA batteries every two years to keep the clock and calendar on time. Best of all, running Autoroute 84 saves me getting stuck on the M25 because it does not exist in that time zone

Police nick 460 a day for using mobiles while driving

Fags & Fones

A few weeks ago I was followed by a young lady who I could see in my rear view mirror, was using a normal hand held fone in one hand whilst smoking a fag with her other hand. I was so distracted by watching her that my attention to the road ahead was severely diminished. I also could not figure out what part of her anatomy she was using to steer the car!

Paris 'cos she has the bits for hands-free steering

Vic

Stripogram copper walks on offensive weapon rap

Real Uniform?

If he was spotted whilst in real uniform, then it was because he was on foot! Real Policemen only travel in cars.