Posts by Dave

My first thoughts...

...were WTF? Why?

My second thoughts were less focused, more fuzzy and musing on Sci Fi, loosly aimed towards Paul Murphey (but aimed like a friendly orange, not a board-eraser):

Sci fi films are a dissapointment these days; the only hope I have is that James (Aliens Terminator Abyss) Cameroon's *Avatar* will be all it promises to be, you can do it JC! Computer games offer a good way to present novels since they take several days or weeks to digest, not hours- though really, I just want to crash/shoot things; Bungie, creators of Halo, say they are more influenced by sci fi literature than by Sci Fi movies. Just read the book. Niven rocks, though until recently I had only come across his concepts through Iain M Banks, Halo and Arthur C Clarke. The best film adaptations take huge liberties with the original novel because they want to make a good FILM (or just becuase they HAVE to, in the case of PKDick or William S Burroughs). Blade Runner and Total Recal fucking rock. Is Baxter a cYOUnt? I haven't decided but I'm leaning towards Yes. (Baxter as in "Asimov, Baxter and Clarke" "Aren't you forgeting Bradbury?"- Bart Simpson. )

How would you like a move of Consider Phleabus to be made? "With a fucking large budget" - Ian Banks.

WTF? Why remake Total Recall? Make something new, it might work!

/ focus returning

Movie tie-in games...

are usually crap. Goldeneye for the N64 was an exception. It was better than the film. It was even better than PC first-person shooting games at the time as well, when previous console FPS were rubbish.

It also allowed four people to play on one machine... I like the PS3, but a few too many of its games are only multiplayer over a network.

Please help this idiot (me)

Um... My brain is a little slow today... which these of motherboards would be best for building a cheapish, cool and QUIET media centre PC? Or would a Playstation 3 (at 250 GBP) be better for this task?

"Seagate emphasised that there is no safety issue with these products."

I'm trying to think of how a harddisk could be dangerous, the spinning platters encased within a cast body within a steel PC case as they are, with no flammable bits.

The only scenario I can concoct is if they vibrated at such a frequency as to resonate with the PC, causing it to fall off the desk and squash a particularly slow cat.

I would love to hear any other theories you gentle folk might be able to come up with.

Health n Safety dude icon, because.

And the point is...

Umm so... if I'm understanding this article right, we don't know if the new mac mini will be any faster than the old one- will this mean that it will be cheaper, sold on green / power efficiency credentials, smaller form factor or all of the above?

Or will it out-perform the current Mac mini due to Snow Leopard GPU as CPU support, current Adobe (traditional Mac strength) GPU support or have market placement as a media centre thingy (in which the GPU will be handy?)

Who knows. I don't.

There were a lot of 'or's in what I've just written, I'm still recovering from the Reg's mention-by-proxy of the Cheeky Girls (that Lempik Opik story).

Haloed Jobs because I hope he isn't due to join the celestial choir yet.

Just as daft as

that story bout the 17 Georgian lad who got ten years for receiving the labial affections (what is the current Reg euphamism?) of a 15 year old girl at a party.

Hell, 12 year old girls were once the centre of my world- when I was 12. Just as I now love women in their late twenties like me (not as lardy as the new crop of twenty-somethings, just my preference though and nothing for rounded lasses to worry about as long as they are happy). School kids had their own social mechanisms (social mechanisms that matured just as the kids did), generally a two-year age gap in relationships was scoffed at but accepted, a larger gap (largely unheard of) would result in longer-term piss-taking etc

These girls taking snaps of themselves... some will be happy, some will suffer the resulting humilation amongst their peers and adjust their future behaviour accordingly- its called learning. If we are to be sacred about children, it has to be for the sake of allowing them to make mistakes amongst their peers without it being invaded by a peado or prosocuter.

So people will do what, then?

Blathering away on a mobile when driving is unnecessary- but surely making a short hands-free call whilst driving (e.g "I'm stuck in traffic, home in an hour" or "What's the name of your street again?") can be safer than pulling in, parking and then pulling out again. It's certainly more fuel efficient! Was a risk assement on the alternatives to taking a call (including the resulting preoccupation with any untaken call) even a part of this study?

And that is before we consider RAC men, policemen, delivery drivers and others who have need telecommunications.

Who here hasn't had some numpty pull out on them from a parked position? I'm sure you have, Mr Reed. Though sympathetic to your two-wheeled situation, I don't think banning all calls is the answer to all your woes - in fact, it could result in much hurried witless parking in bike lanes, bus stops and the like, with cars crossing cyclists' routes twice in the process.

@ A. C. re Ben Heck's 360 Laptop...

I believe he's made Mk III just recently. I'm glad that there is someone out threre who is as good at putting things together as he is at taking them apart!

Is there any truth in the news of Apple applying for patents thery never intend to us for the purpose of disguising their future product road-maps?

Coat Icon- man retrieving water-cooled calculator from the pocket.

Drop in use

Which Radio4 newreader was it who commented on a news story about Vietmanese gangs not growing dope within the M25 because of high property prices with "Whats the world coming to when an Englishman can't grow cannibis in his own home?"

Consumption may also be down because the price has been driven up by energy rates... indoor grow systems use a lot of electricity, so some growers are finding things uneconomical. In this age of capping Carbon Emissions, legalisation or decriminalisation would allow it to be grow in more environmentally-friendly greenhouses.

1 1/2 constructive comments

1: I liked the way that old reg gave a flavour of the comments at the end of the article. It only took up five lines.

1/2: This point isn't for Reg to act on, but if I can't raise it here...

If many sites are fixed width, maybe browsers can have a feature where the browser is MAXIMISED to to the width of the page, and no more. Having said that, my windows are always in a mess, so I'm sure that some combination of discipline/keyboard shortcuts/third-party apps can help me here.

Off-topic warning:

Oh, can we have a screaming Balmer icon?

Evil Gates because my new XBOX has scratched my only game and they want to charge me a tenner for a replacement disc. WTF? Surely piracy is bad because it is stealing IP. If I've paid to use said IP in my home within the termsof the licence (I.E bought a game to play it) then surely I deserve another copy of the IP for fair cost (if I return the damaged orginal, of course)? I don't understand why MS are giving legitimacy to the console hacker's/freetard's excuse of enabling 'back-ups'. Grrr!

I'm glad Blu-ray won, 'cos scratch-proofing of the disc is mandatory part of the format.