Posts by weegie38

Virgin Galactic reveals giant mirror feature in cabin design for Beardy Branson's space bus

No need to pay him...

Branson makes me feel sick every day, just thinking about the amount of tax his companies dodge. I don't need to pay him for that effect.

Plan to strip post-Brexit Brits of .EU domains now on hold: Registry waves white flag amid political madness

Re: Does the UK require citizenship for .uk domains?

With Brexit, Scotland/Wales no longer become analogous to Catalonia.

They become more like the Baltic states or Yugoslav states - parts of a failing Union state bordering the EU, rather than a splintering existing member of the the EU (Spain)

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin unveils 'Blue Moon' lander, making it way too easy for manchild Elon Musk to take the piss

Re: Considering What The Rocket Reminds Me Of...

A rocket lifting two of these would look like a giant...

</Austin Powers credit gag>

Galileo, here we go again. My my, the Brits are gonna miss EU

Re: "Minister for Defence Procurement Guto Bebb"

He's a Tory - do you really need to ask?

Geoboffins believe gigantic volcanoes kickstarted Mars' oceans

Michael Manga?

With a name like that, he's obviously a Marvel superhero. Mild-mannered exo-geologist by day, but at night be becomes...Volcano Comic Man!!!

Boffins: Sun's red dwarf neighbour is looking a little thick around the middle

Even the trees were a bad move: no-one should ever have left the oceans.

Star Trek's Enterprise turns 50 and still no sign of a warp drive. Sigh

"Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had hyperspace"

Oh come on El Reg, don't be so tedious. DNA had invented at least 3 more interesting/feasible methods of space travel: the Infinite Impossibility Drive, the Bistromathics Drive, and the Bad News Drive

Private moonshot gets the green light from US authorities

Re: Rare Earths really?

"There must be something we're missing here."

Yes. They're after the Helium 3.

If my name was Sam Bell, I'd be watching this operation very closely...

Cats understand the laws of physics, researchers claim

The follow-up experiment will be testing whether pieces of buttered toast understand gravity.

It's all leading up to Japan replacing all their maglev train equipment with armies of cats wearing slippers made of toast buttered on one side - the side attached to the cat's paws.

Such a combination could never, ever, touch the ground. It would be the perfect anti-gravity device.

NASA 'naut to boldly enter pump-up space podule

"NASA says of Williams' first foray into BEAM: "He will take an air sample, place caps on the now closed ascent vent valves, install ducting..."

Hang on...has he got a 27B/6?

ISS pump-up space podule refuses to engorge

Oh Behave!

When it's up, will it be visible from the ground? Won't it look just like a giant...

F-35s failed 'scramble test' because of buggy software

Re: This is how the US is preserving its air superiority

IIRC the US Marines are really to blame for the F-35 being a dog, since they weren't going to buy into the JSF project unless it had V/Stol capability?

NASA injects cash into solar electric motor

Re: "SEP-powered spacecraft"

The SEP drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds; without all the coronary health implications of sitting around in restaurants, dangerous mucking about with improbability factors, or tedious mucking around in hyperspace.

It simply makes the problem of how you get from A to B very fast, Somebody Else's. Arcturan Megafreighters now use this drive as standard, and can cross the galaxy in seconds with full axial-tilt shifting payloads. The Galactic Navy is also investing heavily in the technology.

Recent research has suggested that the exhaust from such massive SEP field generators manifests exclusively amongst organic lifeforms living in Plural sectors. Sometimes, clues as to their origin can be tracked by observant phenomenologists. Concern has arisen about the possibly disastrous consequences of the explosive growth of this Problem Displacement technology. The group SIYSYM* has cited the recent test runs of the Galactic Navy's new battlecruisers, Trump, Cruz, and Farage, as being potentially catastrophic for primitive lifeforms.

Solve It Your Selves, You Morons

Champagne weekend for Blue Origin with third launch

Re: It sure looks more like one....

Oh, OK, I'll start.

Radar Operator: Colonel, you better have a look at this radar.

Colonel: What is it, son?

Radar Operator: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant...

Hope for Hitomi after tumbling space 'scope phones home

Have JAXA checked to see whether a crazed Matt Damon tried to dock with the scope?

Ben Nevis embiggened by a metre

The post glacial rebound is about 10cm a century, which would be about 1mm a year. Though the sea level rise is around 1.7mm per year so it merely delays Nevis' drop back into 1344m territory.

Labour: We want the Snoopers' Charter because of Snowden

Re: A necessary evil?

FPTP is dying, though: between them Labour and the Tories command less than 40% of the electorate, down from 75% in the 1950s. Meanwhile the numbers voting for other parties (mostly wanting PR) has risen. And with the SNP locking out over 50 seats like the IPP did before WWI, it gets even harder for either Labour or the Tories to form a majority.

All it'll take is for either of them to be forced into PR in a coalition deal. The Tories dodged the bullet in 2010 when that muppet Clegg went for a referendum on a voting system no-one wanted.

NASA sets the date for Martian robot drilling rig to lift off

Re: Opportunity

A changing sound pattern, eh? How about a concept album featuring various guitars, some high (and low) pitched electronica, a full orchestra, and various human voices. Say, David Essex, Julie Covington, Justin Haywayd, Phil Lynott and Richard Burton. That'll do, eh?

Google human-like robot brushes off beating by puny human – this is how Skynet starts

We're safe as long as they don't include the Herring Sandwich Experiment in their testing. Once the robots pass that, we're f***ed.

Boffins' gravitational wave detection hat trick blows open astronomy

Yeah Reg - this article should have been titled "Arthur! Stop talking to that sycamore, we've found Eddie!"

I love you. I will kill you! I want to make love to you: The evolution of AI in pop culture

" I’m glad Blade Runner was given appropriately reverential treatment by Ridley Scott. "

Eh? Much of Blade Runner's strength lies in the fact that it ISN'T "reverential" of Dick's novella. Scott took what would work best in a movie, and ditched stuff like Mercerism and the joy of owning a robot sheep. For which we should be grateful IMO: a reverential adaptation of DADoES would have been a bit naff.

China names the date for dark side moon landing

Re: Had to...

I believe Mission Control's colour scheme is really funky. Every time you try to operate one of the weird black controls, which are labeled in black on a black background, a small black light lights up black to let you know you've done it.

(with apols to DNA)

NASA photos: Dawn's December deep-dive haul arrives on Earth

Re: Hmmmm

Dantu: hmm, sounds a bit like a corruption of Dantooine.

Maybe it's the ancient remains of a Rebel base? It was all a long time ago, after all.

It's replicant Roy Batty's birthday – but hey, where's my killer robot?

There's something wonderfully ironic in the fact that today, in the real world, a Nexus 6 is a mobile phone - the one piece of ubiquitous tech that doesn't appear in Blade Runner.

Periodic table enjoys elemental engorgement

Re: Unobtainium...Bacon(ium)

We can't have daltonium yet. It has to be preceded by connerium, lazenbium, and moorium in the decay chain (I believe lazenbium has a rather short half-life)

Curiosity Rover digs into humanity's first alien sand dune

Re: Martians!

"With just a handful of Martians, we'll start all over agaaaain!!"

Beardy Branson bangs birds on Boeing

Re: Ughh... I do not like where the world is going

Bit too much hair really. I mean, if he was bald with the goatee he could manage it, but no-one could ever be a convincing evil mastermind with a mullet.

Doctor Who: Even the TARDIS key can't unpick the chronolock in Face the Raven

Re: one of the better episodes of this season

"Good point - so *this* Clara might be pining for the fjords but there are plenty of others dotted about"

Actually, I took Clara's "You're alone now" line to the Doctor as a sort of hint that this marks the end of Impossible Girl. That is, from this point on in the Doctor's timeline, there's no version of Clara around to help him out.

Given that the Doctor is now in a new set of regenerations, the events in the "...Of The Doctor" episodes seem to only refer to the first cycle, and Clara has been around for real up to now, this would make some sense.

Spotty Ceres baffles boffins with bright patches

There seem to be other bright spots in craters in the bottom left of the image: one at around 8 o'clock, and possibly another right on the edge. Not as bright as those at the centre, but still noticeable.

Rosetta science team thinks Philae might come to life in the spring

Re: Ambient Sleep Sound Made From the Comet's EM Emissions

To be fair, Darmstadt bears responsibility for a lot of crimes against music: the ultra-serialists like Stockhausen, Boulez and Nono were all products of the so-called "Darmstadt School".

Boffins 3D-print biomimetic shark skin

Re: Cue the Next Controversy

You're gonna need a bigger 3-D printer.

Scottish news site hit by 'DDoS attack' in run-up to elections

Psephology Fail

AV is NOT proportional representation. In fact it can be even less proportional than first past the post.