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Here's a piccie.

Looks very intriguing. I'm a definite buyer. My boys will want one!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13689609

[Ask the Hivemind!]

Curious? Confused? Stumped? Think no one can help? Then Ask the Hivemind!

This thread is for those New Scientist "Last Word" type questions. A place to seek answers to the odd conundrums life throws at us.

Like, my question:

Hivemind, why do you sometimes get a single bolt and washer threaded into a pavement?

Anyone else got serious wind?

70mph to 80mph gusts here. It's wild. All the trains between Glasgow and Edinburgh were cancelled - that's worse than at the height of last year's snow, when they reduced the service to three an hour an everyone moaned.

Finally struggle home after a couple of hours in a... well, a storm. Living at one of Central Scotland's highest points has its downsides.

Just found a fan patch that lets you play the classic Diablo 2 at any resolution up to 1920 x 1280. It looks quite good, too.

What it says on the tin.

I've just upgraded to the latest version of Avast (version 6) and it kicked me out of Deviant Art.

Anyone else had any problems? Should I be worried?

Postie here at 7.50! Sorry for the scant review but it's a rush to blag this thread.


DREDD
Oooh: Rennie and Robinson on Dredd! And a throwback to veggie creatures from 9 years ago, for those who can remember that far back. It's much more than that one-off fluff though, and I really quite enjoyed it. Only Dredd can combined ninja assassins and psychic plants.

SHAKARA:
More of the same, really. I've always found this bonkers but ultimately hollow. Sets up a downbeat finale.

FLESH:
Haven't read it. I'll read it with my boy this afternoon.

FUTURESHOCK:
Normal stuff. Not to say it's bad, 'cos its not. Rather it is light and timeless - a standard 'shock that could have been in the comic 10 years ago. A good riff on the normal fish out of water/ prince and pauper tropes.

DANDRIDGE:
A new start. Invasion of the pissed up leprechauns, just after St Patrick's day! I quite liked this although it reminded me of Pratchett's angry little men in his recent Discworld books. It will really remind me if the leprechauns end up helping Dandridge.

No letters page, quality Ro-Jaws scan.

Another top prog!

I just bought Raptor: Call of the Shadows (frankly, the best shoot 'em up on the PC evah!) from DotEmu for £3.

Also bought Pinball Dreams, Illusions and Fantasies from Good Old Games for a tenner.

Sod yer modern stuff. When a game is good, it stays good.

Not a snappy title, but it does what it says on the tin.

The current Journal of the Scottish Law Society has an article in it illustrated with a print of a half page Jock Dredd. I would normally bin it, but if anyone wants it let me know.

A touching moment...

My boy, just picked up this week's prog and asked to read it. He struggled through all the hard words in Flesh, as he's a big dinosaur fan, and was gutted when it was over. Then he perked up when I told him more would come on Saturday.

"I like this comic," he said, an infinitely wise sentiment.

I skpped over the sweary word though judicious use of a covering finger.

A few weeks from now and he'll be making headway into the old 80s progs. I feel jealous of the worlds of wonder that await him.

Has Tharg permanently reduced Futureshocks to four pages?

The last few (including this week's Time Twister) have all been four pages long.

I'm just wondering about script submissions. The Official Word has always been that a script should be for five pages, hasn't it? Should it now be four?

PS - Sorry if I've missed a comment about this already; I did a quick search and saw nowt.

I have these books to give away:-

Chasm City;
Revelation Space;
Redemption Ark;
Century Rain;
Pushing Ice;
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days;
Absolution Gap

If anyone wants them, they can have them - provided they can collect or pay for postage.

I only read the first three. To be honest, I found them a bit glacial in pace. But who am I to judge? I bought them cos they were going cheap and a few friends raved about them.

If you are in Glasgow then I will happily meet you in the City Centre on a work day (I go back on Wednesday) to pass them over.

If no one takes them by Wednesday then they are off to the charity shop.

I know it's a pants day for it. Mrs X is tomorrow.

A mere 36 but I got this:

[I spy with my little eye something beginning with... S]

Can't believe it's nine years old. Must be my 10th anniversary here next year.

Anyway, as always at this time of year, some of us are stuck at our desks while others are off having fun.

But fret not! Stick two fingers to the man and play I-Spy with us.

Same rules as before:-

1) Poster of the question says who won in the event of a tie;
2) Winner gets to post the next question.

So:

I spy with my little eye something beginning with... S

No love for the trailer?

Can't wait myself. Top, top games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZGFjBmD41Q

I was wondering if anyone could help.

My boy wants a Venom and Lizard-Man figure for Christmas. It's all he wants (well, apart from "dinosaur hands for a day"). Thing is, I can't find them anywhere. At least, not in the UK.

I've looked on Amazon (nope), Play (nope), Forbidden Planet (nope) and eBay (not new, or collector's items that are way too expensive).

I have found them on a US site, Toy Dorks. They have a set of Spiderman and the Lizardman, and a separate Venom, for $26 all in... plus $49.95 to ship to Scotland!

Can anyone think of a similar site in the UK? Can anyone tell me if $49.95 is reasonable for a courier? $76 is abour £44 according to Google, so it will not cripple the bank, but it seems a lot of dosh for a couple of toys.

Any other options would be appreciated before I splash the plastic.

Fellow boarders, I find myself wracked by self doubt and would appreciate your help in the form of nasty comments launched from behind the shield of internet anonymity.

Myself and Darren Cornwell and Chillipenguin from this here board have put together a three page strip, Cloudbusting. It's below. I quite liked it until about 6.30pm - which is when my wife read it for the first time. Now, I'm not so sure. With a pursed lip and a "hmmm" she has shot a number of holes in it.

Her comments include:

1) I don't know who is who;
2) Did the helicopter space-ship thing land or crash?
3) Am I supposed to know that woman was on it?
4) I don't get the end.

Now, she's an intelligent woman but she doesn't read comics. So, Dan and myself have decided to ask for your input on it. You are intelligent people who do read comics.

Is it clear? Could it do with some more panels showing the helicopter landing and the door opening? Or would that slow it all down?

Y'see, this was something we were going to pitch to Clint. But it was written at the time it was looking for 3 pages only. Now there is the luxury of more space if the strip needs it. Previously, I thought it worked just fine - but then I am close to it and might not see the obvious flaws the way she has done. Maybe my writing and choice of panel isn't as clear, flowing and succinct as I thought. Maybe I need to take more time to show what is going on.

So, what do you think? Any comments? How would you change it? Did you get it? Obviously, now is the time to sort out any problems, so don't hold back.

Thanks in advance.


















EDIT: Gotta love Dan's sea in the first panel.

Can anyone recommend good video editing software? I have a load of old digital tapes and more recent hard-drive home video footage that I want to convert to DVD (nothing dodggy! Birthdays and Christmas and that kind of thing).

Ideally, I am looking for something that uses a 64 bit system and multi-core processor.

Ta muchly.

I just finished a daft three page script involving cannibals' Christmas dinner.

Would any kind artistic type volunteer to draw it? I'd be happy to pass it to anyone half-inclined to look at it on a no commitment basis. From a practical point of view it'd be nice to have it ready before the 25th.

It might make a nice Christmas card?

[Necropolis finished 20 years ago]

Here's a scary thought:

Necropolis finished 20 years ago (Prog 699, Cover date 6th October 1990).

Now, this isn't a nostalgia post about how time flies and how we all feel old.
It does, we do, get over it.

Rather, I was wondering if they would ever come back. I know there's been a little bit of dabbling with the Dark Judges since then but nothing that feels canon, at least to me. As far as I remember, there were the Batman - Dredds and then there was the Death story (in the Megazine?) with him riding a quad-bike and ending with him being pulled into hell.

Is that it? Really?

To put this into perspective, there are comic buying, forum reading, folks who were not born the last time the Dark Judges went on a rampage. Why is this? Does everyone on this board under the age of 25 (or even 30!) know who Fear, Fire and Mortis are? What they do?

Why are they so under-used? Is it because they're one dimensional? Well, 20 years ago so was the Joker or the Penguin or Lex Luthor.

Why has there been no attempt to use them since? If it's a fear of re-doing a "massacre of MC-1" then fair enough, but the world is a big place. Surely they could do something different but still within their goal of killing everything. Maybe (and this if just from the top of my head) going to another country or city and possessing their judges, or creating a disease?

Has Dredd as a story become too "straight"? There's been a real move, I think, from the older style sci-fi - at least by Wagner. No aliens. No dimension jumping Judda. No wacky guns. No monsters. It's all politics and mutant rights; all allegory for the modern world. I love that, and the recent big Dredd stories have been among the best - Tour of Duty was the bees' knees - but I do wonder if the fantastic (as opposed to silly) side of Dredd is being toned down?

Or are we wating for the film and possible sequel?

The Dark Judges are Dredd's iconic villains. But they are not recurring villains. Should they be?

Is 20 years long enough? Should we hear their hiss again? Or is it just the start of a longer sentence?

Does anyone here use Thunderbird for email?

If so, could you tell me - in idiot, baby steps - how I insert an an email address from my address book into the "to" bar?

If I hit "Write" to work on an email, I can type the message - but there is no obvious way of opening my address book to fill the "to" bar.

This is so fundamental to any email program that I reckon I must be missing something. But what?

I can open the address book from the main program, where all my emails are listed, but not when I am writing one!