Posts by AlistairJ

Talking DAB and the future of radio

Dead As Betamax

Said it before and I'll say it again.

I note how he admits there is an in-building coverage issue. Guess what, numb nuts, I always listen to the radio either in the house or in the car. In fact, we usually have two or three radios going in the house, offering perfectly acceptable house-wide audio quality. Replace them with DAB and we would experience different group delays from each, plus drop-out (please don't call it "glitch" that merely reveals the level of your technical ignorance). Not an experience we would put up with.

Please give us a digital radio system that is engineered with the end use in mind, thank you.

North Wales Police says the law is what they say it is

fifty fifty

I don't know which is sadder, MCN pretending to do real journalism, or the North Wales plod pretending to be the Sweeny circa '73.

Grab 'im sarge!

Boffins build Flash-like chip from graphite

Nice paper, but ...

Well sorry to be a naysayer but we already have a highly effective solid state storage system, its called flash memory. This isn't even solid state. Plus its a couple of decades behind in commercial investment to develop the technology. Another irrelevant but nice new way of storing bits story. Yawn.

Xbox 360 'least reliable' console

As any fule kno,

The real money is made from the software. The hardware platform is just that.

Sadly those ejits at MS can't do hardware. They don't realize you can't make hardware in the same way they do software, it just doesn't work like that I'm afraid. Apple do a lot better.

Bubbly-belly-bugging boffins battle bovine belch peril

What a load of guff

The problem with collecting methane in a roofed enclosure is that the gas is heavier than air. Ask anyone who's ever been trapped under a duvet with some. And as for the stuff being a worse greenhouse gas than C02, this may be true, but atmospheric methane quickly oxides yielding CO2 and H2O.

It was all a load of hot air stirred up by the meat=evil lobby.

No more Eurofighters for RAF, despite 232-jet pact

woeful

I for one remember us going into Gulf War 1: First Blood, equipped with Buccaneers and Jaguars because the Tornaduh was virtually useless. But then again the Iragi's were well equipped back in those days. In 30 years time we'll be attacking some part of south-east Asia using modified Typhoon-mkV's and no navy (we'll have to borrow a French aircraft carrier).

And to the commentard who says Rover never made tanks, I give you, the SD-1 also know as the "Chieftan Metro"

Dan Brown is most unwanted author says Oxfam

At last the secret is revealed

Now we know where all the fat goth girls hang out on a Saturday.

Another use for Dan Brown books is as firewood. Think log.

US Navy aims to make jetfuel from seawater uranium

The solution is obvious

all we have to do is stop going to war, and learn to love fat goth girls.

i am way ahead of you all on this

Researchers forge secure kernel from maths proofs

Huh you lot

We in the chip industry use formal proofs on real projects.

These days we commonly use formal proofs to compare gate level implementations of designs (from automated design tools) with the original design in a high-level language. It offers a much more complete verification than mere simulations. Sounds like this could have been useful on that crappy Viper project (RSRE = loud harmonica).

We also use formal proofs on high-level designs, although these methods have their drawbacks and limitations it has to be said.

Mind you, I would take anything coming from a bunch of Aussie academics with a large pinch of salt. Jeez they can't even spell their own initialisms.

MoD stokes media-paralysing UFO feedback loop

they don't like it up 'em, sir!

Let me just add that I for one would welcome our new self-replicating cobblers enabling journo-hack overlords.

Facebook acts to soothe red-faced Redhillians

It would never happen in Reigate

Much better class of folk on the west side of towns, dontcha know ;p

Margot Fontein?

NASA review: Forget about boots on Mars by 2030

Lets have a real future not a dimwits wet dream

Send out the robots. Leave out interplanetary meatsack transport its just not worth it.

And lets spend this century getting the surface of this planet sorted out. Fusion power. Feed everyone and end all suffering. Universal political and economic freedom. Save the environment, animal and plant habitats. Its not impossible.

Cops taser naked doorbell-ringing giant

I'd like some of what he's having, please

With a side order of Crystal Meth, natch. But hold the smug moralizing hypocrite reporter and film crew, ta.

Microsoft at a loss in Word patent case?

Drama? What drama

What happens is the big company try to out-gun the little company with lawyers and money. If the little company still has some fight in it, they may settle out-of-court on a licensing fee. Or they can buy the little company. Whatever. Little company makes some money from their patent and big company carries on as before.

Shame they didn't break up MS years ago, though.

Brain-jacking fungus turns living victims into 'zombies'

@Nextweek

No it is not more logical, because Ants don't really think as such, they just do.

This fungus has evolved into a very specific niche. You may think that this is Fungus 1, Ants 0 but some ants (leafcutters IIRC) actually farm fungus for food. They take bits of leaf back to their burrow where conditions are right for growing fungus on it, they then eat the fungus.

So you can think of it as what our American cousins like to refer to as "Payback".

The logical conclusion is that one day, in the not-too-distant future, the mushrooms will start to invade out craniums. Oh hang on ...

Exotic star's 'violent ejections' during companion's visits

Old grey whistle test

Yes it ejects some cosmic star juice each time it is kicked by that damned star man at the beginning of said muso programmes title sequence.

Dr Henri Boffin indeed. Almost as plausible as a journo called Lewis Page.

Ridley Scott signs up to direct Alien prequel

Avatar

Lets wait and see what Camerons forthcoming epic "Avatar" turns out like. If its a special-effects laden turd-spurt then we can write-off Holeywood as a thing of the 20th Century.

And I have to stick up for David Fincher here as I consider Alien 3 a triumph, given the amount of interference the studio subjected him to during production its a miracle he was able to pull the thing together, let alone make a distinctive and imaginative SF horror as part of a franchise.

My plot for Alien: 0.5 The Early Eons has early Human space explorers getting involved in an Alien v Another-Alien fracas and ALL DIEING. Sadly Holeywood could never stomach a film in which the mammal meat-sacks come out as anything other than glorious victors. Sadly.

Oxfordshire reveals ANPR traffic camera sites

@AC at12:38 @ etc, no need for ANPR

Speaking as former resident I can give them all the information they need. Basically all car journeys in and around Oxford, apart from the most wasteful trip down to the corner shop types of journey, have to use the ring road. This is because they have effectively closed the city centre to all through traffic, and the city has an old-style all-roads-are-radial layout.

Thus on any journey around the town you will have entertain several large busy and intimidating roundabouts, endure long delays on the busy A34 and/or A40 (which incidentally, has been narrowed). So all car journeys take at least 30 minutes possibly much more.

See, no need for that expensive ANPR.

Did the Vatican suppress hidden 'Galileo Cryptogram'?

Its terrible

Langdon reached for the IBM compliant keyboard. He typed in his password. "I can't think of a snappy yet witty title" he said. Sophie stopped doing her warming up exercises. "But you are so clever and dashing and yet likable" she said. Suddenly a very evil looking man in a monk outfit appeared behind Langdon. He had a roll of duck tape [sic]. [remainder of chapter deleted for reasons of taste]

Galileo, we salute you!

X2 supercopter in first tail-drive flight

Wot no customers?

I'd have one, provided you can train my monkey butler to fly the damn thing.

Paris because she has a very well trained monkey by all accounts.