Posts by Anonymous Custard 2797 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2008
They can also probably expect a call from some Japanese lawyers from Bandai - it's a net-enabled modern reincarnation of a Tamagotchi.
And we all remember how bloody irritating they were...
I wonder if it's coincidence that the BBC website today had quite a fun article on Heath Robinson (the UK equivalent of Rube Goldberg, for our colonial cousins)?
If there was ever a modern-day equivalent of one of his contraptions, the IoT Fridge is certainly a prime candidate...
Judging by the interior of our fridge after Herself has emptied our local Tescos, having weighing shelves wouldn't work. It tends to get so much stuff in there, often stacked up, that it looks like a chilled but edible variant of Tetris.
Plus if you can only put stuff on allocated spaces inside the thing, then it'll also need standardisation of packaging shapes/materials (for uniform weight from brand to brand) which is a whole other ballgame.
There is of course the slightly easier options of a "to buy" list stuck on the door of the thing that gets filled in as things are used up (or getting close to being used up) which then becomes part of the shopping list, or of course just looking in the damn thing and quickly inventorying it before going shopping.
But of course neither of them are innovative, sexy or high-tech (unless you stick a tablet onto the door to act as the list), they just quietly work (most of the time)...
It could be a good use for the device/concept, but it doesn't need an internet connection to do that does it? OK so you may need to plug it into a PC initially to set it up (so it knows what to try and detect), but aside from that no further need for talking to anyone except whoever is holding it.
OK there may be an argument for an alert system too, but that's probably overkill (no pun intended). Isn't the only person who really needs to know the one who's actually holding the thing, as it's them that would be affected (presuming we don't go mug-sharing).
Not only too fast but also not high enough, leading to the infamous stormtrooper headbanger.
Probably explains all the armour when inside their own space-station (or is it a small moon?). I'm sure the Emporer's evil elf n safety minions would be right on it too...
And why is it that whenever I'm on a project that gets such delays and stop-overs, it's always in some godforsaken place with grotty weather and horrible hotels?
Why is it never somewhere like Hawaii as these guys are having to endure? I'm sure that I could just about put up with a couple of weeks of doing nothing around there just waiting for the wind to blow...
...why not just use a ship to launch it? OK it's a largish bit of kit, but it's not that big.
Then you can more or less pick your launch site, away from everything except the ship itself, which can of course move if required.
That way also you've also got a craft on-station ready to recover the bits that come down again after the test (presuming they don't end up in a jetstream and go off looking for trees to come down in) and generally not add to the growing trash island a bit to the west.
You think that one's impressive, look at the Arizona Cardinals one. Its playing field is on a huge tray, and after the game it's wheeled outside the stadium into the open for better growing conditions for the grass.
Saw a programme about it not so long ago on Discovery Channel - it's seriously impressive to watch.
I heard this last night whilst Episode II was playing on the TV, at the point where they were railroaded into voting the Chancellor (Palpatine, not Osborne) extra powers and he's going on about how he's going to use them to create an army and whatnot.
It made me chuckle at the perfect timing and synchronicity of it all. And it also nicely distracted from Jar Jar Binks, which never hurts in those movies...
You can make your own jokes at this point about evil Chancellors :)
Our calculations suggest the unit would easily allow a plucky Playmonaut to slip the surly bonds of Earth and then some.
Yes, but where are you going to find a tree big enough for it to get tangled up in when it does come down? Still at least if it came down in the drink you'd have a chance of finding it.
In fond memory of our heroic and sadly missed pioneer...
Interesting, so why does Apple not use the software defined MAC address for the wifi connection as well as the scanning?
As an additional security measure, routers can be set up to filter MAC addresses and only allow known and approved ones to connect. It's how I have my one at home set up ( in addition to the normal encryption and passwords etc), as an additional layer of mischief prevention.
So if I had a device which gave a random MAC every time it tried to connect, then basically either the above would need to be turned off, or more likely it'd swiftly get the boot.
Damn, with a bit more warning and preparation we could have re-opened the Rockall Post Office again!
That raised some good money for charity from Lester et al's run up there in 2005 - double-damn was that really almost a decade ago?!?
Anyway best of luck to one man and his pod...
Given how badly they are doing this season (4 points out of 4 races so far, for an 8th place in Spain, and half of those due to a disqualification of someone else) I wonder if there's someone else in Redmond that's nervously looking out for knives. So seems altogether appropriate for this article topic, and maybe an opportunity for our featured chap.
If it gets any worse the "winning edge" part may become false advertising. Although any comparisons between the fortunes of the advertiser and advertisee are strictly your own ;)
There's Oolite, Pioneer and even a BBC emulator in ajavscript (which can run Elite).
And to continue the literary parallel, there's the Oolite Saga mirroring Oolite, plus of course Drew's Elite: Reclamation novel itself which is due out in a couple of weeks time from his website.
http://www.drewwagar.com
There's also another official book due out imminently, Elite: Reclamation by Drew Wagar (writer of the Oolite Saga and several other worthy tomes).
Due out at the end of the month, and with the distinction of itself being funded by a Kickstarter.
Details are available from his website
That's what they want you to think... :-)
Forget the logo, I'd prefer the content of some of those jumpsuits...
And if your looking for a closer example, what do English people call a small bread item ideally shaped to contain cooked bacon?
Personally I call it breakfast, at least as often as I can get away with one when it does contain aforesaid pig slices...
Although around here you should probably call it the beginning of a whole new parallel argument (based on past experience anyway, especially if you include sauce and accompanying beverage of choice).
Therein lies the problem: with all the power of mobile networking at your fingertips, you chose to read 'Something for the Weekend, Sir?' on a Friday afternoon.
Are you trying to imply there's something better to do on a Friday afternoon whilst waiting for beer O'clock? The only other candidate I can bring to mind is BOfH, as and when Simon gets motivated enough to produce something...
I'm in a slightly worse boat - our Dell laptops also have the swappable drives, but the company refused to buy any of the floppy drives (and didn't ask us about it). So when the new laptops arrived and we all complained, pointing out that most of our old equipment only had floppy drives in it to save data off (semiconductor manufacturing equipment, ironically enough) we were suddenly given the old floppy drives from our previous laptops back.
Unfortunately the old ones don't actually fit in the bays of the new laptops, so we have to use them externally via a mini-USB cable. Still at least our USB ports are open (although they did threaten to disable them a while back, having learned nothing from the previous debacle until we all revolted and suddenly that plan got cancelled), although the SD card reader to this day is still disabled (and even pointing out that a quid down the pound-shop will buy you a USB card reader didn't get them revived). Some days we wonder if they actually realise we're supposed to be able to actually use these things for business purposes, rather than just for ornamentation.
I said I was showing my age, not that I was that old ;) Although to be fair, the PC the thesis was actually written on was a 386 with (I think) a 200MB or so HD. And when it was doing some of the Coreldraw stuff it had to be assisted by a little beaker of liquid Nitrogen stood beside the air intake or it had a tendency to overheating and going ga-ga (said PhD was of the Physics persuasion).
But I'm certainly of the generation when cassettes (and the ZX81, Spectrum or the C64, depending on your personal persuasion) ruled, at least at home.
So we have to ask, do I have to take the blame for stirring up all this nostalgia, or can I pass that up to Dabbsy? Always a fun way to spend your Friday afternoon until beer o'clock, certainly beats doing any work anyway...
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