Posts by Secretgeek

Boffins demo one-molecule DNA 'walker' nano-bot

@Boffins

You're new round these parts aren't you?

(Translation: Lighten up, it's Friday)

Bill Gates backs ball-busting ultrasound

@Good grief

I did actually go to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semen at work". Strangely it was an article on the...

(a) Royal Navy

(b) Working girls of Amsterdam

(c) Health and safety practices in a fertility clinic

(d) Tour dates of the popular Aussie ditty thieves 'Men At Work'

Select one or more of the above.

US Navy's plane-hurling mass driver in tech hiccup

So...

...we got the tech sorted Bob. Just one final thing - where are we going to put this highly important , hideously expensive and cutting edge piece of control tech for the mass driver?

Careful with that Bob we've only got the one.

What's that? There's a handy space at the beginning of the mass drivers runway?

That's brilliant it'll be safe there.

This thing does only go one way right?

'Phantom Ray' robot stealth jet rolls out

Become a sad race?

Where have you been?

We've been knocking each other off since we first picked up rocks. It's only that the means that has become more effective (and cooler too looking at the pic) and the numbers have become higher.

Peace has only ever been localised and short lived. Try not to be sad about it - maybe one day we'll grow up.

The icon seemed appropriate.

Quick question.

Anyone else read "specter of security". as "sphincter of security"?

Nope?

Just me then.

Still, a secure sphincter is always a good thing too.

Where's my cloakroom ticket?

Waterstone's whips out its pendulous dugs

Why?

I strongly suspect sir that you've answered your own question.

Vote Lib Dem, doom humanity to extinction

It's probably been said elsewhere but...

"Consider this: nuclear weapons to date are thought to have killed as many as 340,000 people, in Japan in 1945. That was less than one per cent of the death toll produced by the six years of high-intensity conventional war which had preceded the nukes."

I suppose the problem really was that most of these 340,000 were killed in the space of a few hours (not incl. flights and development time of course).

Even if we say the two weapons killed only 200,000 between them in the first 12 hours after detonation (what with blast, firestorms, radiation poisoining etc) it's not rocket science to work out that there's a potential 340,000,000 dead with a 340 nukes thrown around the planet. That's the entire death toll of WW2 in a day or two.

This is very rough math peeps but not I think too farfetched?

US boffins fashion quantum-computing bit out of SQUID

Stretch.

I love trying to get my head round this stuff (failing mostly). I can feel my brain stretching to accomodate it.

Terror in the Outback: Attack of the Giant Space Balloon

Not RotM

MtdR

Machine that didn't Rise.

Ridley Scott talks up 'nasty' Alien prequel

In space...

...no-one can hear me weep tears of blood over the godawful crapness that was AvP.

As long as it's better than that I'll be happy and if it's anywhere near half as good as the original Alien then an imminent chest bursting won't take the smile off my face.

Now where's my flamethrower?

Cameron promises yet more Avatar

re: re:I can't wait

Or probably both.

With pirates...yarrr.

To join the small minority of people...

...that actually enjoyed themselves seeing Avatar.

Yes, yes it was a badly scipted, greener than thou, enviro film but I liked the 3d stuff and the pretty colours.

I still might give the second one a miss and wait for the 'in space' one though as I thought the arrival at the planet were the best bits for 3D effect-ery suffering from none of the annoying blur quite a bit of the rest of it did.

Brussels to rule on cheap pub football sat decoders

Not supply and demand.

More of the UK want the footie so they charge us more. Now how exactly is that fair seeing as I assume it costs them exactly the same to broadcast to 1 person as it does 1 million? This seems to be a warping of the supply and demand in which more demand usually means a shortage in supply. In this case there can never be a shortage in supply so once you've got enough viewers to cover your costs everything else is profit (and tax).

Are UK viewers subsidising those countries where demand is lower? Or is it simply a case of charging more 'because we can'?

The article implies the latter but I suspect it's a bit of both.

Reverse-engineering artist busts face detection tech

Yeahhh...nice idea.

One tiny problem that I can see with this.

Given that the point is to hide your identity from the Man you'll proabably attract a signiificant amount of attention walking round in that get up.

Not really conducive to surreptious operation.

That is until we all start wearing it.

And I can just picture a 50 year old builder in face paint. Nothing to do with the article, I just can.

'al-Qaeda suicide cat' sends US Iraq war robots out of control

Wrong section.

Surely this should be under Rise Of The Moggies.

I'll get me coat.

'Goodness, evilness makes you powerful' - like the Force

I suppose...

...there has to be some benefit to having the rational part of your brain missing.

MS kernel patch skirts infected machines

I like it.

I'm assuming that MS will tell you that you're infected?

Maybe they should braoden the net a refuse to update anyone with a virus, trojan or rootkit. Maybe it'll have some impact on the botnets?

Antarctic boffins obtain prehistoric deep ice core sample

The expedition FROM HELL

A bit of an overstatement I think. If you really want an expedition from hell go dig up The Thing (Kurt Russell not the Fantastic Four).

Mine's the one with the flamethrower on the back.

Fear 2012? Bunker hustler has you covered

Two things.

First: "the dark rift of the Milky Way"

Ermmm it's not a 'rift' it's just a cloud of gas. Muppet.

Second: This guy's been playing FAR too much Fallout 3. Forgivable.

One fifth of humans say aliens walk among us

Men more than women

I think that should be amended to 'Anorak wearing, single, lonely, geeky, obsessive, tin foil hat wearing men...'

@thinking about it

But that's what THEY want you to think!!

Brit science vessel probes hot cleft for weird lifeforms

So no sunlight.

and seing as they've just discovered life that exists and reproduces without oxygen would it be too much of a leap to think that there's life that exists in the absence of water too?

Silicon based lifeform anybody.

All right yes it probably is too much of a leap, but it is fascinating how just damned persistent life is once it gets going.

Thumbs up for the genome!

Lower termination rates will bring pricey data

Less for the same.

"Overall we'll probably end up spending a little less on our mobile telecommunications, at a cost of delaying the deployment of next-generation networks. Whether you think that is a good thing remains a matter of opinion."

Yes it is.

Yes I do.

I don't know what benefit 4G will give me but seeing as I'm happy with the capability I've got at the minute, I'll be happy to continue with 3G for now and to pay less for it is a bonus.

Works for me.

Apple's iPad - 'Will It Blend?'

Will it blend?

Yes.

Will it Wi-fi?

No.

DIMENSIONAL PORTAL INCURSION AT THE LHC!

AAAAAAaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm working in an office - where the fuck am i supposed to get a crowbar from?

LHC particle-punisher in record 7 TeV hypercollisions

"... riotous scenes took place in the control rooms..."

Where's my crowbar?

Top stuff science type bods!

Probe spots Pac-Man on Saturnian Death Star

"...around 84 kelvin"

Practically t-shirt weather then?

So if the heat signature is Pac-man and Herschel crater is the pill...where are the ghosts?

Tinfoil Condition Red! LHC 7 TeV mega-blasts today

"...nuclear weapon borrowed from Osama bin Laden..."

'Borrowed'? Is he going to give it back when he's finished with it?

(Adopting dodgy middle eastern accent)

"What the hell is this? I let you borrow my perfectly fine wmd and now look at the state of it! Completely vaporised! No, I don't care what you've done to Geneva, I want my bomb back. You better go round to Kim's and get me another. Ptah, you can't trust anyone with your stuff these days."

Expedition to seek out 'alien' ocean-abyss life sets sail

Unexpected side effect.

Is it wrong that I was slightly aroused by the first paragraph?

MIT boffins on track of portable 60-watt seawater desalinator

Desalinated water.

Have you tasted salinated water? Even more euughhh factor to that! Though i agree with the beer angle.

Beer

Own pee

Desalinated water

Other lifeboat companion's blood

I foresee at least one benefit of installing these units in a lifeboat.

Man could face prison over six second 'extreme porn' clip

Welcome to the future, people.

That is all.

LHC boffins crank beams to 3.5 TeV redline

What's more intriguing.

Is the 4.00 entry "Ramp started with bucket."!

Is that all this dimension distorting scientific wizardry is then? A giant game of Mousetrap?

End government pre-snoop on stats

An aside.

It's New Labour, that's 'New' as in 'not the old'. Frankly it's not even that new anymore so you might as well just call them 'Labour'. It may be because it's Friday but for chuffs sake won't you stop using that ridiculous 'Nu' like it's some kind of witty reference to 'ZaNu'. It's not witty or funny or even relevant. It doesn't help whatever argument you might have and just serves to highlight your uber-right wing 'won't-sopmeone-think-of the-children?!', 'i-blame-the-immigrants', Daily Mail tendencies. Now that's fine if that's your purpose and you're happy to be viewed that way. I suppose it does make completely dismissing your rantings that much quicker as I'm able to do so as soon as I come across the word 'NuLabour'. But if you actually have a useful point to make then please do try and stop foaming at the mouth quite so much.

Also, what's this bollocks about 'treason'? For crying out loud do you have any idea of the last person was tried for treason in the UK? William Joyce in 1945 that's who. The bunch of tossers that run us now were elected by US (that's you and me not the U.S. (although..)). If anyone should be tried for "serious acts of betrayal of one's nation" it should be fucking muppets like you that truly believe that your endless vomitous bile and prejudice is actually reasoned opinion.

Now, try this exercise:

Step 1. Whenever you use the any of the words 'NuLabour' or "ZanuLabour" or similar in a post, delete that post and fuck off.

Step 2. When you come back refer to step 1

Step 3. Repeat until you get it fucking right.

/rant

Bare-chested Shetlander welcomes Google with open fingers

Slight tweak.

I always thought it was a post-Agincourt gesture to remind the French of how many English fingers it took to beat them royally at that battle.

Still, I failed History so you're probably right.

Supersonic stealth jumpjet achieves its first mid-air hover

"...roaring columns of hot air."

These would be the columns of hot air generated keeping this crappy variation alive then would it?

Sky gets Five HD

And also.

"...the channel was apparently unable to satisfy the broadcasting watchdog's scheduling and launch requirements." whilst also being unable to satisfy the "What reason do I have to watch this crap?" requirements of almost anyone with half a brain.

Jobcentre ejects Jedi Knight

Apparently...

...this wasn't the job he was looking for either.

Prat.

UK still lousy on electronic nosiness

Okaaayy.

Great post. Lots of interesting theories but I really think you're being far too pessimistic. I also think that a better reason to not have kids is the fact that there are 7 billion of us twats running all over this planet already.

You cite all the negatives but think of some of the proactive things even the unsuccesful or misdirected ones - Tianamen Square, the campaign against the Burmese junta, the collapse of apartheid, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the orange revolution, Lech Walensa, hell even the Taliban are fighting back against the authority that's being placed upon them (I make no other comment on that conflict as I support the unbelievably difficult job our soldiers are doing).

People will put up with a hideous, horrible amount of oppression but don't ever think that we will never be motivated to act and act in unexpected and vigorous ways. That would be an overconfidence, that I believe, will be the controlling powers undoing in the long run.

"30 day clock."

Addendum: It's a 40 day clock in the UK

Daily Mail reader out-tw*ts the Tw*t-O-Tron

Joke Alert?

'Twat Alert' might be more useful on that site.

Pope pooh-poohs airport perv-scanners

"Humans seem to have a need for a diety."

I tried a diety once. It made me thinity.

Sorry.

On a more serious note. This need that you speak of isn't need for a god it's a need to explain that which we don't understand, the world around us and our own existence. Simple curiosity which in my opinion is one of human race's greatest assets (civilisation) and one of it's weakest (religion).

Mad Aus gov accuses Sydney hacks of hacking

"...more Aussie hating...jurisdiction."?

I think they'll have to go a very long way indeed to find anyone that hates the Aussie's more than their own government at the minute.

Do they not have elections down there?

US school comes out fighting over webcam spy claim

"Home Access Initiative"

Or as a friend of mine that works on the project likes to call it, "Laptops for Scrotes"

Argentinians invade Falkland Islands website

Added bonus.

At least if they do find a heap of oil the Americans will probably help us out a bit more than (the absolute fuckin zero) they did last time sabre rattling turned into invasion, missile launches and gunfire.

Oh and just for the record the islanders themselves are very much of the opinion that they are British.

And it's not like we couldn't do with the cash now is it?

Airport scanners face double exposure

Far more simple than it first appears?

Putting aside the issue of whether the scanning itself is legal as this appears to be an argument over who is selected to be scanned. Surely, if the current regime of selection for searches is legal (and I haven't particularly heard anyone hollering about that) and if your body scanning is done on a similar or identical basis then surely this is a non-issue?

Intel joins troll-blocking club

" Intellectual Ventures"

"Intellectual Vultures" maybe more appropriate?

But then I suppose no side in this, including the, possibly patent infringing, manufacturers, look good. In fact at first glance it seems that the only person to lose in this deal is the inventor of the patent itself.

Jumbo-jet ray cannon in missile-vape success

Yay for the big white elephant!

I'm actually quite chuffed it's managed to shoot something (or at least 1 of 2 somethings) down. This way when it finally gets cancelled and dumped in the dustbin of history at least we'll be able to resurrect something vaguely working when the alien invasion arrives and we REALLY need a giant airborne laser.

"What're we gonna do Chuck Killemall?! The alien mothership is veeerrry slowly making it's way to DC and we've already used 1 hour 40 on pointless back story!"

"Stay cool Bill. I've just had an idea that could wrap this implausible movie up in 10 minutes. Now grab my flying jacket, we've got a job to do." (Cue determined but thoughtful look. Fade to black.)

Four UK politicians charged for dodgy expenses

@ Blah

Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.

But you sir, are definitely a troll.

@ Meh

That was the most non-meh 'meh' I've ever read.

Seems we have an escaped Daily Mail reader on the loose, people. Every one remain calm and it'll soon find it's own way back to it's natural squawking grounds.

"Four UK politicians charged for dodgy expenses"

376 others tell their lawyers to stand down.

Where's my flamethrower?