Posts by Lord Raa

Microsoft's maps lost Melbourne because it used bad Wikipedia data

The Internet Never Forgets

You should archive the tweets as screenshots can be faked before the first dose of caffeine in the morning.

After Monday's landing, SpaceX wants to do it in triplicate

Does this mean we'll see more from the world's worst superhero, Florida Man?

Remember those stupid hoverboards? 500,000+ recalled in the US after they started exploding

Re: Sent mine back.

It's a reference to Back to the Future: Part 2

Domino's trials trundling four-wheeled pizza delivery bot

Re: anti-theft

If it's pizza, surely the code should be 1077, in honour of Philip J. Fry?

Brits seek rousing name for polar research vessel

If it's not the first ice breaker, then may I suggest "Mingler"?

Of course, if it ends up looking a mess, you can always drop the "L"...

Boffins: There's a ninth planet out there – now we just need to find it

Re: re:Maybe call it Real Pluto and make everyone happy.

New Pluto?

Pluto Max?

Hacks rebel after bosses secretly install motion sensors under desks

But that's what we get with the new Buzzfeed style click-bait that we have these days.

Speaking of which, I'm led to believe that they had a video of their employees drinking their own urine for clicks.

Make of that what you will.

Alumina in glass could stop smartphones cracking up

@James Micallef

I am of the same opinion, however, my travels through the intertubes has led me to believe that a great many people believe that asking people to take personal responsibility is the same thing as victim blaming.

It's part of the "my feelings are more important than the facts" attitude that some people have these days.

Looking back, I should have used the troll icon.

Isn't that what they call "victim blaming" these days?

Boffins solve bacon crisis with newly-patented plant

Re: It's people!!

"I used to enjoy soylent beige myself. Until I discovered, to my horror, that it was made from soya beans."

-Professor Nebulous

Bacon as deadly as cigarettes and asbestos

Re: Oh no, oh lor

They made a beer with bacon in it on Brew Dogs.

And one with meat-smoked malt.

Terror in the Chernobyl dead zone: Life - of a wild kind - burgeons

Re: Hmmm

The problem with that plan is there will be some debate as to which third of the population are useless.

Every human has a use.

It's just that sometimes, that use is best described as "organ donor."

Obsolescence of food is complete: Soylent now comes in bottles

Re: I thought hospitals already had this...(@Roq D. Kasba)

"Get excited and make things better" - Engineers

Re: "Unlike crispy bacon, Soylent 2.0 is available on a subscription basis"

I think I remember there being some kind of algae based bacon-flavoured thing announced recently.

Maybe they could combine the two?

Graphene sheaths could boost processor signal speeds by 30 per cent

Re: Contradiction?

I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression that graphite (and by extension, graphene) was an electrical conductor but a heat insulator.

Whereas diamond was a heat conductor but an electrical insulator.

Of course, I was "told" that some years ago and have probably misunderstood and misremembered it.

Au-mazing! Cornwall sold GOLD to Ireland back in the Bronze Age

Re: Tuatha De Danann

Tuatha De Danann certainly explains how they travelled from Ireland to Cornwall so steathily.

Mine's the one with the MITHRIL logo on the sleeve.

DEEPENING MYSTERY of BRIGHT LIGHTS on dwarf world Ceres

Surely Captain Picard should be the metric used here?

Shields up! Shields up! ASTRONAUTS flying to MARS will arrive BRAIN DAMAGED, boffins claim

They said that about going faster than 30mph.

Brits send Star Wars X-wing fighter to the stratosphere

Re: Can't tell scale from photo

Indeed, we need at least a banana for scale here.

SEX: Naughty female stegosauruses offered it on a PLATE

To be fair, sex/mating rituals and religion are serious business and people/species have spent a lot of time and energy making sure that they're done properly.

National Grid's new designer pylon is 'too white and boring' – Pylon Appreciation Society

Re: "Flash Bristow"

I'd commission a short series of Flash Bristow and the Pylons from Mars.

Google: Give us cash or we'll poke YouTube ads into your eyeballs

Re: Indeed!

You can always white-list a site you want to support.

Elon Musk plans to plonk urban Hyperloop subsonic tube on California

Re: For a little fella....

Don't you try to derail the narrative with your demands for fact-checking and legitimate sources!

Boffins baffled by the glowing 'plumes' of MARS

Re: Next news

As long as it doesn't result in a series of difficult decisions culminating in a choice of Instagram filters over an explosion, I'm fine with this development.

ATTENTION SETI scientists! It's TOO LATE: ALIENS will ATTACK in 2049

Re: You guys are just too positive...

Oh no, it's like what happened to the series finale of Single Female Lawyer again!

Swedish National Font marches to the sound of whalesong

Re: Am I the only one......

Horseshoe theory makes it a possibility.

Elon Musk snowed under with Googley dollars for Space Internet

Re: 10% is a hefty chunk?

It's heftier than the chunk of SpaceX that I own.

UNDER A VEST: Man cuffed for smuggling 94 iPhones strapped to his body

Re: Just when I think humans can't get any more dumb...

I'm sure that Florida Man will no doubt endeavor to create a more ridiculous headline in the coming weeks.

PlayStation-processor-powered plutonium probe prepares Pluto pics

Re: Wonder

It only produces 240W, not the 1.21GW required to power a flux capacitor.

Want to shoot FIREBALLS from your wrists, SPIDER-MAN style?

But...

But Colin Furze built something along these lines: http://youtu.be/ypIGeNdJbJ4

And here's it in action: http://youtu.be/D5_ogU4Jzt4

Want a more fuel efficient car? Then redesign it – here's how

Re: Octane

I'm not sure if the same method of octane rating is being used both sides of the pond. But yes, 95 octane is standard in the UK.

NASA finds ancient films that extend Arctic ice record by 15 years

Re: Ancient?

You know how it is with Star Trek - "ancient" covers things like the Bronze Age and the development of thermonuclear weapons.

NASA clears zero-G 3D printer for mission to SPAAAAACE

I'd imagine that

It's to do with extruding in a microgravity environment.

I'm not sure how molten plastic flows in low gravity, it could be rather difficult to get the layers in the right place.

El Reg nips down IKEA's 'I've Got A Screw Loose Street'

This reminds me of reports of the town "Fucking" in Austria having problems with tourists stealing the signs.

I think they did get around to selling the signs. I can't recall and I'm at work, so I'm not doing searching the internet right now.

ET hunter: We will find SPACE ALIENS in 20 years

Re: RE. Re. SETI

How does one harness a particle that's famous for not interacting with matter?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Time-rich Brit boffin demos DIY crazytech wolverine talons

Now, the question is: how long before he gets recruited for el Reg's SPB?

He would be quite the asset.

Asteroids as powerful as NUCLEAR BOMBS strike Earth TWICE YEARLY

Re: Why does Hiroshima always get mentioned in such stories?

It depends on the composition of the asteroid. If one was made up of radioactive material(s), then it could potentially shower an area.

Not as much as nuclear weapon of course, but it'd still ruin your day.

Apple stuns world with rare SEVEN-way split: What does that mean?

Re: Why Divide by Seven?

Because they cannot get away with dividing by zero.

Or perhaps someone rolled a D10 and that's the result?

Get your MOON GEAR: Auction to feature Space Race memorabilia

I wonder...

Are NASA planning to use the proceeds to fill funding shortfalls?

Fair play to them if they are, though I am of the opinion that they and other science-based organisations shouldn't have to sell off memorabilia to pay the bills.

Electronic kit low on juice? SPIT ON IT

Does anyone know how well MFCs scale their power output?

Assuming that they do scale in an efficient manner, I'm having silly thoughts like they could be used with conjuction with sewage and/or landfill sites for some kind of green-hued, quasi-renewable energy source.

Feel free to point out where I'm going wrong with this thinking as it's early and I can't do the analysis very well at the best of times.

Ahhh, SATISFACTION: Watch while we set a NAS on FIRE

I believe it is a reference to Tara Reid.

I could be wrong though.

Soylent days and soylent nights

As Professor Nebulous once said

"I used to enjoy Soylent Beige myself, until I learned to my horror that it was made from soya beans."

Hacker who helped find Steubenville rapists threatened with decade in prison

Re: Tough call

It is entirely possible that I misread the article, but it looks like the crime took place across state lines, making it a federal offence.

If that's the case, then it's possible that the trial venue could be a reasonably metropolitan area.

Gourmet chemists sniff out ultimate cheese on toast

Goats' cheese is delicious when used in the right dish.

Brit boffins build projectile-vomiting robot to kill norovirus

Re: Cure for cancer?

Do you have any idea how complicated cancer is? Cancer refers to a group of diseases that are by many things that affect many different parts of the body.

What might cause lung cancer might not cause prostate cancer.

Check your Profanisaurus

I think you should check your Profanisaurus app.

The "driving" part comes from having your hands around the bowl of the toilet.

Boffins spot 7 ALIEN WORLDS right in our galactic backyard

Then they would be very simple lifeforms.

It's been a while since I looked at a biology textbook, but I recall that water is involved in many of the biological processes of lifeforms more complex than bacteria.

China plans astro-farms on Mars

Lunar Cheese

Sustainability, if we mine all the cheese from the moon, we'll all look like fools.

Of course, trying to mine lunar cheese would make us look pretty silly, too.

How can the BBC be saved from itself without destroying it?

No, you pay via the adverts that saturate the commercial stations.

Japanese boffins unfurl banner above newly-discovered Element 113

Re: Actually

I was under the impression that temperature did not affect radioactive decay rates.

Though, in theory anything at near absolute zero could have a longer half-life, but radioactive elements would make such an experiment difficult.