Posts by Disturbikus

Fukushima reactors lend exotic nuclear finish to California's wines

NERDS!

(sorry)

Fermi famously asked: 'Where is everybody?' Probably dead, says renewed Drake equation

Re: We're gonna need a bigger board

touché - outsocked!

Re: We're gonna need a bigger board

"Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our socks with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us"

We're gonna need a bigger board

I'm sorry but working on the assumption that "they" would use radio signals as their preferred means of contact is begging the question.

Perhaps alien civilisations have been reaching out to us for millennia via déja vu, static electric shocks, coincidences, and socks teleported out of our washing?

We need a new equation.

Human DNA 'will be found on moon' – Brian Cox

Great so Cox obviously knows there's a whale of a meteor headed this way soon and he's not sharing it.

Also why in God's name has the UK got military satellites called Skynet? ... "Viene una tormenta!"

FLABBER-JASTED: It's 'jif', NOT '.gif', says man who should know

Re: Apologies to Izzard

Ahhhhhh .... Bicester

Ah but your forgetting Tony the tiger's famous quote "Theyyyyy're gerrrrrrrrrraphically interchangeable"

Cue Graham Chapman:

"Lucky we didn't say anything about the dirty JPEG"

Mars probably never wet enough for life, nuclear bomb crater indicates

Re: Your conspiracy theory

Spot on. They fled Nazi Germany at the end of WW2 - you know back when all they had was a couple of 8 year old boys defending Berlin with sling shots - yes they all fled Nazi germany in GIANT FLYING SAUCERS armed with death rays - you know that could probably have helped them win the war but they didn't use them cos it would've been really uncool and they weren't that bothered about the war really - and went to live in Antarctica for a bit where they had a secret MASSIVE WAR with the US fleet, then went to live on the moon and are secretly running shit now. That documentary was awesome. Anyway the discussion of life on Mars is redundant as it was already proven beyond all reasonable doubt that humans came to Earth from Mars in that previous Mars mission where Tim Robbins got killed and Gary Sinise became the human ambassador to our new alien friends.

NASA really should do their homework before wasting tax payers' money in such a cavalier fashion.

Disgusted, Midlands.

UK govt to KILL OFF Directgov within weeks

Re: I am still astounded

Good question. People will say it's typical of public or publically funded organisations. I disagree. I think it's the modern way in any large organisation:

Insane amounts of change for change's sake. No checks or balances on much fo that change. Decision makers can f#ck up and are simply not accountable for it. They move on to a higher paid job and all is forgotten until next time ... and so the process repeats. People need to have a stake in the changes they're making and they need to be accountable for those changes and whether they're necessary/successful. I saw this happen at a publically funded organisation where a new guy came into manage the IT dept out of absolutely nowhere. Turns out he was mates with the CEO, who also materialised out of nowhere, as did a plethora of random consultants and contractors. He awarded a contract for a new, arguably completely unnecessary, website to someone he'd worked with before. Danger Will Robinson Danger! An insane amount of money was then spent on this website which ultimately never saw the light of day. Boom. That guy disappeared, completely unaccountable for the f#ck up and the subject became instantly taboo.

Anyone with any knowledge of web development knows there are more cowboys out there than professionals. Doesn't even matter though - the people approaching them for websites very rarely have enough knowledge to make a wise, informed choice, so it has all become about the bells and whistles, the hard sell. That's all these cowboys have to do to get a foot in the door, presumably with a loss leader, then it's all about lying, deceiving, playing hardball and milking the contract for as much as they humanly possibly can. This has happened many times with both private and public organisations - NHS anyone? The problem isn't public or private, it's simply the oh-so-low bar we have accepted for ourselves, outr society and for work, where people are unaccountable, change is revered and unchecked, people can flit from one f#ck up to the next quite freely, and dishonesty has become a way of life. At this point the whole game needs changing I'm afraid.

Mars rover will.i.am 'cast: A depressing day for space and technology

Well-written and funny article. While I kind of agree and cringe at the contrast of a pinnacle of sceintific and technological endeavour being whored out to pander to popular culture, I can also see why they might do this - presumably to hook in as many folks as possible behind the cause and get some momentum in the bank for years to come. It'd be interesting to actually measure how effective that exercise is though.

Having gone from a state school to studying science(albeit badly) at a uni with a lot of history in sciences, I think I know the fundamental problem they're attempting(albeit badly) to address. I quickly developed a huge dislike for the kind of people my course and that place in general seemed to attract. I felt I had next to nothing in common with them and I didn't enjoy being there or around them. Always exceptions to that obviously, but I'm talking about the real hardcore bescarved, bespectacled, blue peter badge owning, chess/robot/choir club alumni in duffle coats who didn't exactly revel in the social aspects of uni life and seemed to have grown up on a different planet to me. Now those guys *tended* to be the best students and I was in awe at some of their abilities, but unfortunately I will forever associate science/technology with that place and those people. I guess the question remains - so what? If those people are good at science and they naturally gravitate toward it, then what's the problem here? Well, at a guess "no bucks, no Buck Rogers" to quote The Right Stuff. Maybe the PR guys at NASA are trying to erode those negative perceptions and get as many *other* people on board as possible, most probably resulting in a series of very tense and awkward meetings where the technical guys were in a Jets/Sharks style stand-off the PR guys over this issue and what song to play etc. As usual looks like the bl00dy Marketing crowd won again!