Posts by Gobhicks

Boffins spot 'faceless fish' in strange alien environment

The Esoteric Order of Dagon called...

They want their Thing back.

Boffins gently wake the Large Hadron Collider from annual hibernation

"we can inject more particles per bunch and more bunches, hence more collisions" and a greater probability of something highly unlikely happening, like a black hole for example?

NASA's Cassini snaps pic inside Saturn's ring – peace among the stars

Re: Awesome, but one question...

Many thanks. Clearly I have been a victim of Fake News, as well as a frankly inexplicable downvote.

Awesome, but one question...

... if, as reported elsewhere, the gap between the D rings and the cloud tops is 1500 miles, how can she have passed within 200 miles of the innermost ring but no closer than 1900 miles above the atmosphere?

Lochs, rifle stocks and two EPIC sea gates: Thomas Telford's Highland waterway

668: The Neighbour of the Beast

Great article about a great subject. Having opted for the southern B852 route along Loch Ness, though, could perhaps have made time to give us an update on the state of Boleskine House after the fire?

Google Maps' Street View can now lead you into a bubbling lava lake

That's really awesome...

... but I'm also intrigued by the Meeting Place for Jehovah's Witnesses at the western end of the island.

Spammy Google Home spouts audio ads without warning – now throw yours in the trash

Go surface yourselves

"This wasn’t intended to be an ad." So no monetary exchange was involved in the "surfacing of this unique content"? [I was just sick a little bit in my mouth typing that]

60 slow-mo A-bomb test videos explode onto YouTube

If you haven't already...

... you should see The Atomic Cafe, a documentary compiling film clips (military, news, propaganda, civil defence) from the days of US nuclear testing, released in 1982 when cruise missiles were being deployed at Greenham Common.

User lubed PC with butter, because pressing a button didn't work

Excel abuse?

Excel is useful for all sorts of things other than its intended purposes. Don't knock a user for finding a tool that works for them.

Your Amazon order is confirmed: Eutelsat via Blue Origin. Estimated delivery date: 2022

Re: Say barge one more time mofo, I dare you, I double dare you!!!

Barge (noun): a long flat-bottomed boat for carrying freight on (mainly) canals and rivers, either under its own power or towed by another

BONG! Lasers crack Big Ben frequency riddle BONG! No idea what to do with this info BONG!

Re: The only remaining question is ..

How to while away the hour between bongs? Wait, I've got an idea...

Congratulations IBM for 'inventing' out-of-office email. You win Stupid Patent of the Month

Re: Spoilsport

Spot on Bakker. Never let the truth get in the way of kicking Big Blue and/or the patent system. A "will-be-out-of-office-heads-up" system may or may not be worthy of a patent, but this story is just b******s.

Mars isn't the garbage wasteworld you think it is: Swirling polar ice cap photographed

Mars, ladies and gentlemen...

... just one vast dessert

We've found a ‘vaccine’ for fake news. Wait! No, we really are Cambridge researchers

Truth is relative

but some truths are more relative than others. Nothing is true, everything is permitted. Fnord.

Boffins link ALIEN STRUCTURE ON VENUS to Solar System's biggest ever grav wave

Re: Click baity headline is click bait

Is it or is it not ironic that a person seeks to establish their intellectual superiority by asserting one meaning of the word "irony":

- the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect;

while apparently failing to be aware of another:

- a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.

?

US Navy runs into snags with aircraft carrier's electric plane-slingshot

Re: We all need less stress...

"He was famously described as having "played too much football without a helmet""

That was Lyndon B Johnson that was...

Something QI I just learned:

"Lyndon B Johnson is often [also] reported to have said of Ford that “He can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” What he did say was “He can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.” The US media deliberately misrepresented the remark in the interests of decency."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/presidents/gerald-r-ford-1451818.html

Asteroid nearly gave Earth a new feature, two days after its discovery

Re: Who's Piloting this Planet

Attention technicians of Spaceship Earth. This is your captain speaking. Your captain is dead.

Could YOU survive a zombie apocalypse? Uni eggheads say you'd last just 100 days

Whatever

George R Romero should be a billionaire by now if intellectual property had any credibility.

Vinyl and streaming sales offset CD decline in UK music sales

Convenience rules

That's why CDs killed vinyl. Most people aren't audiophiles. They just want hear what they want, when they want, with minimum hassle. I'll wager that most of the vinyl being bought now will never be played, ever. And that most of what gets played will be played on cheap and nasty decks through cheap and nasty outputs. Two words: Bluetooth Turntable. Give me strength.

Re: Colour me sceptical

"but on any technical measure it will be outperformed by CD"

Well, you see, that's it right there. The quality of the listening experience is subjective.

I once got to hear Muddy Waters played on a top end Linn LP12 system, set up by the engineers who designed it, in their own factory demo room. Concrete and three-dimensional ... an audio hologram made of lead crystal. I remember it vividly. So there.

Re: @ It's understandable...

OMG, the Femmes...

When I got my first half-decent hi-fi, mid 80s - Creek 4040 amp, Heybrook HB1 speakers, Dual CS-505 turntable - one of the first things I played was the Femmes first album. "Blister in the Sun" - brilliant, then "Kiss Off"...

...

It's not enough it's just a habit

Hey kid your sick well darling this is it

- DAHDAHDAHDAHDA-DA

made me, literally, jump out of my seat.

I've had much better amps and speakers since then and it has NEVER EVER sounded remotely as powerful in any digital format. The Jesus & Mary Chain also never sounded better than on 12" 45. Last year I dug my Dual out of the attic and got it to work, briefly, so I got a Rega RP1. "Two Tribes" on 12" 45 is just epic. What's the difference? Hard to describe. Better? Oh yes.

NASA explains how 'Spiders' grow on Mars

The Spiders from Mars...

... are pretty Ziggy (and, technically, made of Stardust). Bowie, ahead of the curve as always.

Will Wikipedia honour Jimbo's promise to STOP chugging?

What to do?

After years of using Wikipedia for free, this month I caved in and gave them £20. I paid by credit card so I guess I could get it back. Should I?

NASA – get this – just launched 8 satellites from a rocket dropped from a plane at 40,000ft

I'm reminded once again...

They're ain't have been some clever bastards.

US Supreme Court slashes Samsung's patent payout to Apple

Facts, good story etc.

The SCOTUS only decided a very narrow point here, which won't necessarily result in "slashed" (or even reduced) damages:

"Held: In the case of a multicomponent product, the relevant “article of manufacture” for arriving at a §289 damages award need not be the end product sold to the consumer but may be only a component of that product...

Because the term “article of manufacture” is broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product, whether sold separately or not, the Federal Circuit’s narrower reading cannot be squared with §289’s text. Absent adequate briefing by the parties, this Court declines to resolve whether the relevant article of manufacture for each design patent at issue here is the smartphone or a particular smartphone component. Doing so is not necessary to resolve the question presented, and the Federal Circuit may address any remaining issues on remand."

Basically, they've said that the lower court's reasoning was wrong, but declined to say whether the conclusion reached by that reasoning was also wrong.

Has Canadian justice gone too far? Cops punish drunk drivers with NICKELBACK

It's BOC time, obviously...

Canadian Mounted, baby police force at work

Red and black, it's their color scheme

Get their man in the end

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

Ah yeah, my honies know it's all right

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

Ah yeah, baby knows it's all right

You'd kill, you'd maim

(Ah, c'mon kill 'em)

You'd kill, you'd maim

(Look out)

C'mon my husky

Frontenac Chateaus baby I cross the frontier at ten

I got a whip in my hand, baby

And a girl or a husky at leather's end

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

Ah yeah, baby knows it's all right

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

It's all right

(It's all right)

Yeah baby,…

One-way Martian ticket: Pick passengers for Musk's first Mars pioneer squad

Mars is too good for them

I wouldn't send those people to Mars. Mars doesn't deserve that. I'd just fire them off into deep space. And never mind about radiation shielding.

Star Trek's Enterprise turns 50 and still no sign of a warp drive. Sigh

Remember the Guild

Mutation and powerful psychedelics, that's the way to do hyperspace. Of course you also need a Holtzmann Generator.

The Internet of Cows is moo-ving fast … no bull!

Classic 23 there in the pic...

... what can it mean? And Pokemon Go is just another step in conditioning the population for when the real aliens come out onto the streets.

Boffins boggle, baffled by blobs deep inside the Earth

The Lobes of Cthulhu

Clearly

Lester Haines: RIP

Playmobil or it hasn't happened

Very very sad, Godspeed Lester, condolences to your loved ones

'I am not a lizard' Zuckerberg proclaims in public Q&A

It's all true

What's he like?

What's he Like?

David Icke

David Icke

David Icke

David Icke

What's he like?

That David Icke

(source: a friend of my bro's who's name I can't remember, but who's awesome lyrics I remember all too clearly)

Let's play: 'IT values or hipster folk band?'

Ennui, Existentialism and Enervation

No wait, that's me...

Universe's shock rapidly expanding waistline may squash Einstein flat

Re: Dark Energy

Dark Fudge - my new favourite band, especially their killer tune, Big Bang Baby. If they don't exist, it will be necessary to create them.

King Tut's iron dagger of extraterrestrial origin

Re: So, just common iron then?

If you look up "Irony" in an American dictionary, it says "See: Ferrous".

Curiosity find Mars' icecaps suck up its atmosphere

Re: More information please...

Thanks! That's what I thought, but the article suggested there was something uniquely Martian about it.

More information please...

"Mars' orbit is elliptical" - unlike all the other perfectly circular orbits?

"...so the South receives less solar energy than the North..." - I'm genuinely interested, any chance of a proper explanation?

I am Craig Wright, inventor of Craig Wright

Meta the Author

Meta-journalism, or something of that sort, I suppose. Droll. How Droll? In the eye of the meta-reader.

Go to San Francisco, spend a year in outer space, with a sweet little San Franciscan girl.

Woman scales Ben Nevis wielding selfie stick instead of ice axe

Re: A

@ adnim You really don't have a clue what kind of people do Mountain Rescue or why they do it, do you?

Ouch! Subaru telescope catches astroid prang

Does God play dice...

... or just billiards?

Apple files patent for long-rumoured iRing-type bling

Re: What not How?

This is a published patent application, not a granted patent.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

He's not the Messiah, he's a very nerdy boy

POLAR DINOSAURS prowled ARCTIC NIGHT, cast doubt on COLD BLOOD theory

So what? ...

... God planted some fossils in the wrong place. Nobody's perfect.

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

If only there was some way to check out a Nail Bar before you get there....

Boffins learn to send boredom-beating suggestions to smartphone-fondlers

Physician Heal Thyself

I don't think its the users that need better ways to spend their time...

ALIEN SLIME SHOCKER: Approaching comet probably NOT inhabited, say boffins

Panspermia Rules

Prof Wickramasinghe - he of the Kerala red rain business... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rain_in_Kerala

Behold the mighty Swiss SPACE JUNK NOSHER PODULE

Space Wombles

message ends

Hold my vodka, comrade – I got this: Ruskies blast supplies to the ISS

Re: It just boggles the mind!

The short circuit in the rear seat panel which killed Commander Powell continues to be faulty. Uh...Storage Area 9... And because he's sitting next to it, it continues to bother Pinback. Storage Area 9 self-destructed last week, destroying entire ship's supply of toilet paper. That's all.

Rosetta spots potholes IN SPAAACE: Someone call the galactic council

Badgers

Badger setts. Badgers are the answer to everything.

Giant FLYING SPACE ROCKS could KILL US ALL, warns Brian May

Badgers

Shoot badgers at them with a rail gun.