Dan Q

Tag: funny

My first thoughts on Outside.

This self-post was originally posted to /r/outside. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I’ve been playing for a little while now, and here’s my thoughts so far:

  • I love the open world aspects of the game; I’ve never played anything where there’s been quite so much freedom (especially when you’re just starting out). It’s taken a while to get used to the areas which are only accessible at certain times of day, though, like some of the shops. Also: the quest-givers who seem to give me the most money seem to want me to complete missions during the same hours that the shops are open, so I have to choose one or the other – what’s with that?
  • Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck, but I’ve discovered that if you try enough things, eventually something will work. If you go around picking everything up, it’ll probably be useful at some point (but be careful because the NPC guards will stop you “stealing” things!), and you can sometimes get great results by using combinations of things (for example, I tried imbibing a potion of drunkenness and then wearing a traffic cone the other day, and I’m pretty sure it gave me an invisibility buff: no matter how much I sang, everybody ignored me!). Inventory management is a bit of a pain, but picking up a rucksack has really helped.
  • Not so impressed with the NPCs. I’ve learned that the best approach to getting information and quests is to talk to everybody, but most of the people I talk to don’t want to say anything, or just repeat the same few phrases over and over (“Go away,” “Stop bothering me,” etc.). I’ve tried offering things for trade, but most of them aren’t interested in my traffic cone or my crayons or my rucksack: I’m honestly not sure what most of them are for!
  • Anyway: I know that some of you must have been down this quest track, too – I’ve seen you wandering around wearing your traffic cones and carrying your rucksacks. So I’ll jump ahead a bit and save from spoiling it… Here’s where I’m stuck: I’m in the padded room in the hospital, and I can’t get past the boss of the doctors. I tried eating the crayons, to see if they’d give me strength (one of the NPCs here suggested it), but it doesn’t work. The doctors are a seriously creepy monster, by the way – they keep talking about you having “delusions” or something – but I’m sure there’s a way to get back to the main quest track. Any tips?

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TIL that in 1970, British Rail patented the design of fusion-powered interstellar spaceship

This link was originally posted to /r/todayilearned. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/British_Rail_flying_saucer

British Rail flying saucer

The British Rail flying saucer, officially known simply as space vehicle, was a proposed spacecraft designed by Charles Osmond Frederick.

Purpose

The flying saucer originally started as a proposal for a lifting platform. However, the project was revised and edited, and by the time the patent was filed had become a large passenger craft for interplanetary travel.

Design

The craft was to be powered by nuclear fusion, using laser beams to produce pulses of nuclear energy in a generator in the centre of the craft, at a rate of over 1000 Hz to prevent resonance, which could damage the vehicle. The pulses of energy would then have been transferred out of a nozzle into a series of radial electrodes running along the underside of the craft, which would have converted the energy into electricity that would then pass into a ring of powerful electromagnets (the patent describes using superconductors if possible). These magnets would accelerate subatomic particles emitted by the fusion reaction, providing lift and thrust. This general design was used in several fusion rocket studies.

A layer of thick metal running above the fusion reactor would have acted as a shield to protect the passengers above from the radiation emitted from the core of the reactor. The entire vehicle would be piloted in such a way that the acceleration and deceleration of the craft would have simulated gravity in zero gravity conditions.

A patent application was filed by Jensen and Son on behalf of British Rail on 11 December 1970 and granted on 21 March 1973.

The patent lapsed in 1976 due to non-payment of renewal fees.

Media attention

The patent first came to the attention of the media when it was featured in The Guardian on 31 May 1978, in a story by Adrian Hope of the New Scientist magazine. There was a further mention in The Daily Telegraph on 11 July 1982, during the silly season. The Railway Magazine mentioned it in its May 1996 issue, saying that the passengers would have been “fried” anyway.

When the patent was rediscovered in 2006, it gained widespread publicity in the British press. A group of nuclear scientists examined the designs and declared them to be unworkable, expensive and very inefficient. Michel van Baal of the European Space Agency claimed “I have had a look at the plans, and they don’t look very serious to me at all”, adding that many of the technologies used in the craft, such as nuclear fusion and high temperature superconductors, had not yet been discovered, while Colin Pillinger, the scientist in charge of the Beagle 2 probe, was quoted as saying “If I hadn’t seen the documents I wouldn’t have believed it”.

Wikipedia

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I’ll never be good enough.

This self-post was originally posted to /r/minecraftsuicidewatch. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I’ve got chests full of diamonds and a huge fortress of solitude in my singleplayer world. I’ve found the End Portal and I’ve got enough eyes to activate it. But why bother? Alone, I don’t stand a chance against the Ender Dragon anyway: I’m just not that good a player. And it doesn’t matter how much time I spend enachanting all of my stuff, it’s never going to be good enough.

So there’s no point. I’m sat here, alone, and I’m not achieving anything anymore. Sometimes I just want to delete the world and get it all over with. It’s not like anybody will miss me.

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Signs Seen in Service Stations

It feels like most of the time I’ve spent in a car this year, so far, has been for travel related to somebody’s recent death. And so it was that yesterday, Ruth, JTA and I zipped up and down the motorway to attend the funeral of Ruth’s grandmother.

It went really well, but what I wanted to share with you today was two photos that I took at service stations along the the way.

Sign: "Alcohol purchases in this motorway service area can not be consumed inside or outside the premises."
A sign I discovered at a motorway service station.

This one confuses me a lot. If I buy alcohol from this service area, I can’t drink it either inside… or outside… the premises. Are they unlicensed, perhaps, and so the only way they’re allowed to sell us alcohol is if we promise not to drink it? Or is it perhaps the case that they expect us only to consume it when we’re in a parallel dimension?

Costa's slogan, "The Americano Addicts."
Costa have decided to cut down on graffiti by writing all over their own walls.

It’s hard to see in the second photo without clicking (to see it in large-o-vision), but the sign on the opposite wall in this Costa Coffee implies the possibility of being an “Americano Addict”. And there was something about that particular marketing tack that made me cringe.

Imagine that this was not a café but a bar, and substitute the names of coffees with the names of alcoholic beverages. Would it be cool to advertise your products to the “wine addicts” or the “beer addicts” of the world? No: because alcoholism isn’t hip and funny… but caffeine addiction is? Let’s not forget that caffiene is among the most-addictive drugs in the world. Sure, caffeine addiction won’t wreck your liver like alcohol will or give you cancer like smoking tobacco (the most-popular way to consume nicotine) will, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that there are many people for whom a dependency upon caffeine is a very real part of their everyday life.

Is it really okay to make light of this by using such a strong word as “addict” in Costa’s marketing? Even if we’re sticking with alliteration to fit in with the rest of their marketing, wouldn’t “admirer” or “aficionado” be better? And at least that way, Costa wouldn’t leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

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