Posts by Max Lange

GAGA prepares to inhale some grass

Why not a decent drum mower?

Don't just go with the wee wires, use what real people use, out in the meadow: A drum mower that will leave your cut grass conditioned for haymaking. Or if you feel a bit more concerned for fleshy things (even of the small furry kind), try a rake cutter. Bl**dy effective and doesn't easily get stuck. The tricky bit will be to stear well clear of auntie Gertrude's tulips, though! :->

Paul Allen proposes new space launcher

Actually it's a great idea

Not totally new maybe, but it gives you the flexibility to launch in any azimuth at essentially any point of the globe. So you don't have to first adjust your orbit inclination like you do when launching from the Cape into, say geostationary orbit, or into the Space Station one. What's more, you get to the altitude where you can optimise your rocket nozzle to work best in (almost) vacuum, gaining some efficiency (specific impulse). Yes you also launch above the weather, another point in favour. So yes, if they get around the (more or less) obvious engineering challenges, it'll be worthwhile.

Apple shouldn't bother with TV...

Isn't that just what people thought about the ipod?

And iphone and iwhatever.

ithink that there couldn't be anything simpler than flicking channels, but then icould imagine a nice on-screen programme with previews and all as an alternative - granted some TVs already feature that, but not all do and of course they could look better. So go Apple, surprise us, amaze the reg hacks, and imight even dream about buying one - after the second price reduction or so.

Apple tops $6bn in quarterly income

Sales on par with IBM?

With 26bn a quarter, it looks like Apple is now selling as much as IBM - and making a lot better profits on it. Someone remind me when that was last the case?

New Euro multicopter aims bitchslap at American X2, V-22

BS Comments

Re Dan and Modern[sic?]Marine, how low can you go? As low as taking Lewis' headlines seriously? Certainly not!

Of course this thing is not intended to take on the Osprey head-on. It's a technology demonstrator for furz' sake. You could compare it to the XV-15, though that had NASA funding behind it, not just one company's advanced development shop. But anyway, Eurocopter clearly see this as their entry into the low end of the compound chopper market, not where the V-22 is aimed at. That might be quite lucrative in the end - look at the 178 Lakotas they sold to the US Army, that's the sort of application. Heavy will come later

General Motors bitchslaps Tesla with Range Anxiety™

Hotel to charge? Not here!

It might be prototype technology, but one of the entering criteria for this year's round-the world zero-emission race - www.zero-race.com - was that participants needed to recharge to 80% over lunch break at a regular gas station, and be able to travel 200km with that. It takes some effort - you have to find a suitable high-current fuse, or combine several outlets - but it works. And since modern batteries work perfectly well with a partial charge, that's a practical way to go. Of course, these cars use less power for driving than your typical car, but at least it shows one of the ways to go.

If you can drive from Geneva to Shanghai using only regular outlets to charge, sure it won't be long before you can go from Detroit to your cabin on the shore of lake Michigan and back!

Boeing: Raygun dreadnoughts will rule the oceans by 2019

That's a mighty turret....

to see and shoot at a sea-skimming missile at 100nm! Or do they use reflector balloons?

Fraunhofer boffins tout new 'diamondballs' mech tech

Oooh yeah!

I'll have that diamond-bearing bike please! Nothing like it to make an impression on the roads these days. Beats a Tesla every time.

Sun: OpenSolaris 'pretty freaking amazing'

Recycled Text Alert?

I'm sure I've read large bits of this article before, in El Reg. Maybe T.P. Morgan should reconsider the use of that handy autotext feature. Watch out Mr Morgan, it gets boring by the third time.

Mine's the one with the old printed copies of Register articles in the pockets.

Google cedes Belgium to Germany

And poor Greece!

The southern part is completely drowned!

That can only mean one thing: It is a map received from the future, after the eruption of someplace like Santorin or so, taking with it a sizeable chunk of Hellas.

Obviously, if Google knows as much about the future development of Europe, they also know what people will be looking for in a browser 10 years from now.

I.f.o.w.o.n. Google-eyed, devining overlords.

German high court throttles government net snooping

@AC, nickj, rogue

Of kourse ve don't need souper kom-pooh-turds! Ve liff in ze forest and cook our soup in big kettles. Ve need jus' beer an' pork.

Besides, our English and some American friends still like thinking of us as living in the 1940's, so we just keep builiding more Zuse Z4's to please them.

Man, how I wish some people would just start living in today's world.

AC: www.top500.org

Cheers (gotta go look after that kettle, and hug some local trees along the way)