Posts by SoupDragon

Readers, we need you... for LOHAN ignition failsafe brainwaves

slack bits and swivels

Also need to ensure that the lines don't get twisted (as the pin design might)...

slack bits

How about attaching the lift line from the balloon directly (through a small hole in the top of the parachute) to the payload or through the centre of the swivel fitting, (the top of the parachute could be held up on this lift line, so that the parachute lines would be slack), when the balloon bursts the parachute lines then take the full weight and become taught, with the lift line becoming slack

the lift line could hold a switch open against a spring

or something attached directly to one of the parachuute lines would then pull the pin out.

or some other way of utilising the differential in tensions between these two items (lift line and parachute lines) would be a reliable indicator of release.

One more try: Metro apps are now 'Windows Store' apps

Re: " one of the worst branding and marketing disasters in the history of computing"

+1 for calling it Vista 2

New guide: Bake your own Raspberry Pi Lego-crust cluster

One Pi is Pi

What is the plural of Pi,

I vote for Pice (better than Pis IMO) Raspberry Pis sounds more like something you get after eating too many beetroot.

likewise should the collective noun be 'a circle'?

Boffins develop nanoscale vacuum tube running at .46 THz

Dyson

Don't suppose he'd be interested - mine gets clogged up with dog hair too quickly as it is

Bishop to bless road salt supplies for added winter safety

Plastic jesus

Reminds me of that great song that did the rounds many years ago (I am sure still available if you google 'plastic jesus')

lyrics started

I don't care if it rains or freezes

so long as I've got my plastic jesus

riding on the dashboard of my car

I can go 100 miles an hour

as long as I've got the almighty's power

glued up there with my pair of furry dice

Maybe if he blessed the power stations I would get better electricity and fewer bugs in my software?

Fourth Euro star truck christened Albert Einstein

@Alain Moran

what, that the ISS is an Ikea flatpack, I know things are well hidden in their stores - I must search harder next time - my son would love it as his bedroom!

'Lemon Entry my dear Watson'

Amazon opens online Macware store

My Mac Download now has a store

e-i-e-i-oh

I'll get my coat & head back to the day job ....

FBI asks for help to crack mystery code in 12-year-old murder case

Lisp?

I'd get a few Lisp programmers to look at it.

It seems more like txt - meant to be read aloud rather than decrypted, but then I was never much good at either. Maybe I'd better just stick with Objective C...

Crematorium to heat council swimming pool

Better stop breathing then

so are they all going to stop breathing in case any of the exhaust gases end up in their lungs - sounds like a few people out to get some publicity with sound bites to me.

paris I suppose , because she would be a sound bite.

'Hyperbolic map' of the internet will save it from COLLAPSE

Big bang and eventual collapse

Similarities with the universe?

This is based on the assumption that it will go on increasing forever, rather like the differing views of our universe, it may reach a point where it stops increasing then starts shrinking again.

Should we not be looking for the next big thing that will replace the interweb thingy, so this problem goes away?

mine's the white coat with the large telescope in the pocket...

Feds break Apple's code of App Store silence

All animals are not quite equal

No prizes for guessing what whould happen if Microsoft tried to set up a panel to decide which software (browsers) would or would not run on windows...

If it is an operating system then how do they have the right under non-competition law to dictate this?

Don't call me Ishmael

Beeching (and underscores

I see there is one closed station called 'login' - I am sure that would cause no end of problems with some software...

Whitehats tackle The Great Botnet Dilemma

Remember that Stephen Hawking quote?

'But then most forms of life, ourselves included, are parasites, in that they feed off and depend for their survival on other forms of life. I think computer viruses should count as life. Maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. Talk about creating life in our own image. '

(http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/public/life.html)

Sun nails four buyers in 15 months with White Trash Data Center

Google Earth?

Get the black helicopter brigade onto it right away.

New Bond film title voted a 'Licence to Thrill!'

Rigged voting

So they don't even need to be making money on premium rate phone lines to have pre-decided the result!

At least the writers strike in America means that we get an interesting title, not something dumbed down to the nth degree - I happen to like it, and for all of the 'it doesn;t make sensers' out there sew your eyes back onto your teddies (better get an adult to help) - I believe that it was one of Fleming's titles anyway.

Want faster broadband soon? Move to Kent, says BT

So who will be moving there?

Which BT Director has bought a house in Ebbsfleet then?

or should I get out more...

US gov silent robot white (?) helicopter prangs itself

Maybe it got distracted...

by an automated lawnmower cutting the grass next to a large conservatory.

Paris Hilton cavorts naked in middle of desert

Shaken, not stirred

They decided not to run with the advert where someone off camera shakes the tin hard & opens it close to her, as it would cause a huge reduction in water pressure as cold showers were turned on simultaneously in n million homes countrywide - apparently the energy companies can cope with this sort of surge (as it were), but not water companies.

Western Digital drive is DRM-crippled for your safety

More worrying - anti-capitalist restrictions

though maybe this is a unix 'feature' - try creating a directory called 'Shares' - the system will not let you do that either - maybe it is objecting to capitalism as well now!

(who uses the Mio sharing anyway? - your original DRM story is not a WD one).

Nine-second delay sinks unfair dismissal claim

Please sir, the dog ate my electrons

Definitely a student!

untreated medical condition - I didn't know that laziness was classed as a medical condition...

prepared the claim form from scratch at a 30 wpm typing speed - surprising he didn't include Microsoft in the claim for losing his work or other such whining...

This is other people's livelihoods he is messing with, not just another project assignment, he needs a lesson in real life, I am sure that prison life will give him ample opportunity to mix with a potential new client base.

Sun: MoD has Bond/Potter/Klingon cloaking device

Was the military gent in question a Sgt Franz Harary by any chance?

http://www.askipedia.com/askipedia-article-004005-1378.htm

Franz Harary is a magician/illusionist, famous for making a Space Shuttle disappear in 1994 which aired on NBC’s “World’s Greatest Magic”, as well as making MD-80 airliner appear from thin air in 1992, and for making the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas disappear in 1997.

Seems like he might have good promotion prospects!

Jordan mulls mamtastic epitaph

Gravestones

No epitaph, but I heard she has commissioned the artist who designed these to make her gravestone:

www.skateparkoftampa.com/spot/images/btb7tits.jpg

Becks shows Scientology some rispek

Ah, but maybe he had said it <i> without turning around</i>.

You imply that he can do speaking and moving at the same time, surely a level of coordination too far?

James Bond ditches the Aston Martin

Realism

Having seen the complaints about Nigella walking into a house, then appearing in a kitchen elsewhere, I am appalled to learn that James Bond has never actually been into space.

Now where is that letter to Father Christmas that I must finish...

HP inks deal for micro-needle skin patch

Tattoos anyone?

I'll be first in line for the new HP tattoo attachment for the printer - hours of fun tattooing any logo you like! That way they still resell their own inks.

Alternatively they might use the medicines to print their own theraputic papers - anyone for a smiley?

Viking ship resurfaces under Merseyside boozer

Inquiry

Apparently they are now calling for an enquiry as to how it came to go aground and who was to blame, blah blah blah... The union of rapists and pillagers expect that any of their members discovered to be on the boat will be cleared of wrongdoing as they were all about to go on duty at the time.

Get a passport, enjoy casual sex with foreigners

And they want these people to go abroad?

I would have thought this is exactly the group that the government ought not to issue passports to - gives Blighty a bad name - they should bring in an exam that you need to pass before being allowed out of the country. (hang on, maybe they should issue one-way passports, so they can't get back in - there's a better idea).

/Oh dear, not my medication time again?

Channel 4 refuses to pull Diana crash pics

Hit them where it hurts

I would suggest direct action to the advertisers of Channel 4, especially those companies who have chosen to advertise in / around this programme - this has been a most effective way in the past of ensuring that they take notice of public disgust...