Posts by VictimMildew

From Soviet to science fiction icon, the weird life of Isaac Asimov 100 years on

Re: Letters from America

The odd thing about Cooke's Letters is that they're fascinating to listen to but almost completely unreadable.

Too hot to handle? Raspberry Pi 4 fans left wondering if kit should come with a heatsink

Re: Heats always worth adding

My ZX80 (or was it the ZX81?) worked fine using a strip of curved aluminium attached to the built-in heatsink using a bulldog clip.

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

> I once got stuck on the Coventry ring-road after visiting Marconi. Every turn I took eventually brought me back onto the bloody ring-road.

Me, in about '89, except that it wan't Marconi.

I've since heard that it's a pretty common thing. Or was, before sat-navs became widely used.

> Yes, and 640K is all you will ever need....

"It's pointless giving hobbyists more than 1k, they wouldn't know what to do with it".*

- Andrew Hewson in a magazine (Sinclair User?) column, on the release of the first ZX80 RAM pack.

Hewson later went on to form Hewson Consultants, which became a moderately successful 8-bit games company thanks to some of those hobbyists. They not only knew what to do with it but also sent him the proof to populate his company's catalogue.

*Probably a paraphrase. It's pushing 40 years since I read it.

ZX Spectrum reboot latest: Some Vega+s arrive, Sky pulls plug, Clive drops ball

Re: What we need

>> Interested in your thoughts regarding Betamax v VHS . . . .

> U-matic.

Hardly a domestic format.

Re: What we need

> Interested in your thoughts regarding Betamax v VHS

Video 2000 was a superior format to both and the player came with a free hernia.

Millionaire-backed science fiction church to launch Scientology TV network

Re: Can't fault their record keeping

It took me many years to shake the bastards off after I was stupid enough to agree to read a copy of Dianetics handed to me by someone I'd always thought of as a friend. That he then charged me for the book should have given me pause but I was so taken aback I actually paid him.

They kept sending me letters asking me my thoughts on the book. I think they eventually gave up after I told them that, though it made lousy toilet paper, I'd finally managed to finish it without reading a word.

What did we say about Tesla's self-driving tech? SpaceX Roadster skips Mars, steers to asteroids

Re: It was never going anywhere NEAR Mars

> "A million to one", he said.

As Terry Pratchett pointed out: it's the million to one chances that come up every time. A.K.A. The dice have no memory.

Hold on to your aaSes: Yup, Windows 10 'as a service' is incoming

Re: an operating system and, as such, is not supposed to innovate.

> So you're still running CPM yeah?

A new OS is an innovation. Once in the wild, it should surrender its innovative ambitions, settle down and concentrate on supporting the development of innovative software.

Danger! High voltage: German customs bods burn half-tonne of weed in power station

Re: warm beer

Ale at cellar temperature is only "warm" when you compare it with the temperature lager has to be sold at to ensure it can be drunk without any of the flavour surviving.

Overheard in an off-license, where the chiller had just been refilled: "The Stella's warm. Don't buy any. It tastes like shit when it's warm". Actually, it tastes like that all the time but you don't notice when it's almost frozen.

Re: THC, the active ingredient

"...bootleg distillers simply wanted maximum yield, or were totally ignorant of what they were doing."

The same would appear to be true of the people breeding new varieties of cannabis with high THC content, un-balanced by CBD content. THC is a psychotic; CBD an anti-psychotic. When their effects are balanced, cannabis is safe to ingest; when the effect of the THC predominates, it isn't.

Re: Bathtub gin

Don't take that too literally. What I meant is that the appearance of a harmful form of a recreational substance, used safely for a very long time, is due to prohibition leading to lack of regulation and the surrendering of the market to criminal enterprise.

No one's ever died from smoking cannabis* but people have had their heads screwed up by the psychotic effect of the THC-heavy varieties which have been bred over recent decades.

* Not "marijuana". That's a name invented during Ansliger's "reefer madness" campaign, to make it sound like a foreign threat and to pander to the period's anti-Mexican prejudice.

THC, the active ingredient

ONE OF the active ingredients.

The fallacy that THC is the only active ingredient of cannabis is what's lead to the prevalence of the high-THC rubbish which is predominant in the market these days. It's the modern day equivalent of the bathtub gin which caused so much damage during the US's prohibition years and the source of the relatively new phenomenon of 'cannabis psychosis'. Please don't perpetuate this myth.

What does the Moon 4bn years ago and Yahoo! towers this week have in common? Both had an awful atmosphere

> Is anyone else bothered about a scientist saying the moon "was nearly three times closer to Earth than it is today”?

Two nations, divided by a single language.

Mattel's Internet-of-kiddies'-Things Aristotle canned before release

> ...or they've become much butter.

I can't believe they haven't. They're certainly spreading.

NASA extends trial of steerable robo-stunt kite parachute

Re: "the brainchild of Airborne Systems of New Jersey"

Minor point: That's Rogallo, after Gertrude and Francis Rogallo who invented what they called a 'parawing'. They were the subject of some of my early kite experiments, too.

Blockchain: A digital 'golden section' that's the 'gestalt of its pieces'

Drop the Dead Logo

This is Gus Hedges, right?

Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Re: "Personal" computer no more

"Maybe Windows should have two separate modes, one for people who want control and one for those who just want to take the line of least resistance and do everything the recommended way?"

Isn't that what administrator and user accounts are supposed be?

Re: "...we can't complain now when they start to implement basic security principles"

If that's all it were, then you might be right, but there's bugger all that's 'basic' about it from what I understand. And even if it were, how does embedding un-blockable spyware in 10 address any security principles?

Sign of the telly times: HDR shines, UHD Blu-ray slides at IFA

Re: ...where on earth do you fit it into your living room?

You don't. You install it in your home cinema.

US politician: 'homosexual agenda' behind TSA groin grope

Except...

> "Not to put too fine a point on it, but mayhap Supervisor Delgaudio doth protesteth too much."

>

> Methinks ElReg probably has a pretty good handle on the situation ...

Except that it should be "doth protest" or "protesteth", not a combination of the two.

Apart from that little bit of hair-splitting, I agree wholeheartedly.