Good point. In fact I remember speaking to a guy when we were out looking at the Gulfoss falls who explained that they wouldn't be there (in their natural state) if it wasn't for a combination of accident and protest - but mainly due to the efforts of one woman in the late 1800's. I had to look up her name again - it was Sigríður Tómasdóttir. Eventually the developers ran out of money and defaulted on the rent for the site and it was saved from becoming a hydro-electric generator.
I got the impression that most of the thermal vents used for power production were artificially bored (the tour guide explained that sometimes, they even have to fill them in again if they're too powerful), but even so, it would be a shame if that fantastic landscape was covered in hydrogen factories.
gnoring the effect on the core for now, bringing up x billion joules of heat into the lower atmosphere will increase temperature.
I can see your point, but wouldn't we be making this heat from other sources anyway? (nuclear, fossil burning etc) So overall, the planet as whole will have less heat if we take heat from the core and bring it to the surface, convert it to other forms (including some back into heat) etc ?
I guess we already "make" this heat to power the turbines in power stations(i.e. we transform other types of energy into heat), so I would be inclined to say that using geothermal power would not result in a net increase of heat output on the surface. Unless perhaps, that that now guilt-free and cheap electricity causes everyone to go on a leccy binge for the next 200 years and consumption goes through the roof.
I recently visited Iceland where they use the country's ample supply of superheated steam to produce electricity (and provide hot water and heating). A related question that sprang to mind was "if the rest of the world did this, what would be the effects of letting all that heat out? Would the amount of heat that we would cause to escape from the planet's core be significant? We need a geophysicist to give a proper answer to that - but I'm a suspicious bugger and all this "free" electricity looks too good to be true - you know what they say about free lunches. Essentially, we'd be using the planet like a battery: it's just a question of how long it will last - millions of years? Thousands?
One of the other things that struck me about what the Icelanders are doing, is that they may just have struck their country's equivalent of oil. In the past, they couldn't really export their natural resource - steam goes off quite quickly. Then, they figured out how to make electricity with it, which is a bit easier to store and transport, but not out of the country. Now though, it looks like there may soon be a large world market for hydrogen, if fuel cells and other hydrogen consuming automotive engines take off. Iceland has all the ingredients to produce it - seawater, and abundant electricity. There are a number of problems to overcome in transporting it safely, but I reckon these guys may soon be rolling in it.
The Shell petrol station in Reykjavik already sells hydrogen. It's not clear who to exactly right now, but Shell obviously believes it has a future.
xleagueTV - http://xleague.tv/Portal/home.aspx a channel dedicated to gaming, regularly show pro-gaming matches (on a show called "The Match").
They also managed to find some people to discuss the match in the studio who actually have an idea what they're talking about - although it is sometimes a bit cringing when they're winging it. Regular contributors involve various pro-team managers and sponsors, and developers.
It's not perfect, but I do find I can actually be entertained by watching people play games like Quake 4, Forza and gears of war, although the players move in a stilted way on console FPS games due to the limitations of the controllers which makes spectating a bit harder.
The parts which don't really work are interviewing the players after the match - most of them seem to struggle to string a sentence together - but then, they're young kids mostly, and they're not there to be witty - I've always wondered why sports shows in general, interview the athletes so much - they're just not talkers. Mind you, the dumb questions don't help: "What's your plan then?" well he's not going to tell everyone his tactics is he, which leaves the obvious answers like "er.. score more points than the other guy?"
They also seem to take the video feed direct from the player's PC, and most fast FPS players have all the eye candy turned off - great for playing, but not so pretty to watch. A spectator view would be better on a dedicated machine with all the prettiness turned up.
No really! ok forget all about the virus, the BFG, and all that other made up stuff - for the first time ever - a guy in an action movie needs to take a dump!
I clicked on the second link and read that thinking it was the article, so now it appears - neither did I! Please accept my apologies - I've given my ass a stern talking to. The New Scientist write up is a little ambiguous though.
Just re-read that and it could mean they chose it a number of times 60% bigger than the number of times they chose the other, which is better but still - 30's hardly a big sample...
I find that these bulbs make any room look dingy - instantly - there's no delay:P
CFLs are very useful for inspection lamps though - the kind used for peering at engines, and under cars - because they run so cool - don't burn your hands, melt the lamp or bits of your engine when you accidentally leave the lamp resting on it.
Star Trek: "The Motion Picture" that is (as the rest were obviously slide shows of still images ?). Anyway - what I was thinking of was all of that immense alien tech wrapped around the original, and (in the movie) irrelevant idea that was Voyager 6. It seems the librarians have created a technological monster, that can sort, index, virtualise and publish on the whim of the user, but then there's a bit of an anticlimax as the end result is: you get the book you were looking for. I mean - why didn't it just deliver the full text as well? Can I see this Evergreen online? What will happen when I click on the book I want? Will it just tell me what shelf it's on and give the address of the library? A bit like those "DVD's in the post" web sites - I always felt they missed the point of the on-line, on-demand world - you select a movie, pop-corn in hand, and it informs you it will be in the post in 2 days?!? The chances I'll still want to watch it in 2 days is remote to say the least.
I mean:-
"The Shelf Browser shows items ordered along a virtual shelf built out of the holdings of the entire system. Patrons can create bookbags, which are lists that contain a selected collection of annotated titles. Bookbags can be kept private or shared as a regular Web page or as Atom or RSS feeds.' "
Now if they would just OCR all the books, they could dispense with the actual "library" part - and save a chunk of cash on premises, and all that fire insurance! (plus we could search the text a hell of a lot faster:P )
Disclaimer: I realise there are advantages to hard copy over reading off of a screen, and not just subjective ones either. This post is provided for your amusement only and should not be used to form part of any government decision making process.
I have a Razer Viper, and while its an OK mouse, it's fairly useless for gaming (by which I mean no better than AN other mouse you might pick). I agree the software is utterly useless - I use the standard XP driver. There is no way to turn off acceleration completely in the Razer driver, and I can't play when my mouse movements don't have a consistent effect on the game - how on earth can you gain any accuracy when it takes it upon itself to speed up half way through a turn?!?
The other thing that, for me, make Razer's claims that they make "gaming mice" ludicrous is that all of them have wheels. I find wheels a liability in fast FPS games where mouse performance counts. I can't use the wheel as a 3rd button, as the weight is all wrong - it's too clumsy by a long way, so I'm a button down, and as for using the wheel function, I find this is just too random - sometimes it doesn't move, sometimes it moves 2 clicks, and the force of moving it moves the mouse affecting accuracy again. I know a lot of people like these wheels, but I can't get on with them - all I want is 3 correctly weighted buttons, in a lightweight mouse with smooth, consistent movement.
My old Logitech Wingman is better. Hell even the old Logitech Pilot mice were better, as long as you bought, say: 3 of them, and selected the best bits to make one good one (buttons, sensor, ball, base). That and some cereal box (inside surface) taped to the desk as a mat was the best combination I could find.
Not so important for the current crop of high-complexity, slow-speed FPS games I suppose, where perhaps the button count is more important.
"the English government" ?? "England's entire National Health Service" ??!? Has England split from the rest of the United Kingdom again and formed it's own government? And taken the NHS with it? When did this happen? Or is this a sly attempt by the rest of Britain to distance themselves from the project ?:P
"er.. yeah it was them dozy English - never happen in Wales/Scotland/Norn Iron (delete depending on where you live)"
Disclaimer: yes Wales, Scotland and NI (sometimes) do actually have their own assemblies. This post is provided for your entertainment only, and is not intended for use in a serious debate! Also, don't eat the yellow snow, or run with scissors (or hire Accenture unless you have heaps of money to burn).
The one I always remember from my Nethack playing days at uni was also pet related. I had 3 pet dragons (Huey, Duey and Luey (sp?)) I also had a ring of teleport control (had eaten several leprechauns) and a magic whiste (to teleport my private fire breathing army).
My usual room clearance mode was teleport in, teleport the dragons in with the whistle, teleport out. I didn't do the last bit, the dragons attacked some nearby demons with fire, I got caught in the crossfire and the several tonnes of potions and scrolls I was carrying also went up, causing death by.... "thermonuclear explosion".:D
Another one that sticks in the mind even though it wasn't technically part of the game and was from the earlier plain "Hack" version, was my mate Dave, who edited his save file and was very pleased with himself for giving himself 32768 hit points. Until that is, he killed a bugbear, went up a level, gained 4 hp and died with -32764 hp. Killed by a signed integer:D
'"Pure chance," the good professor told the press yesterday. '
Er right then, and there was me thinking the dates were pretty much predictable. I have a sort of flip chart thing on my wall that has successfully predicted all the dates this year - in sequence! It has pictures of cars on it too, which is nice.
I suspect this is where the term Bluetooth originated (it was used long before any technology arrived bearing the name) The idea that yould have a tooth removed and replaced with a "blue" one contining a speaker (or something to vibrate the jaw bone and in turn the ear anyway) and mic. It would then communicate over short distances to you comunication device.
That's pretty much it - I mean she new what it was for (it's a modern day equivalent of a Walkman right?), but never considered how the music actually got in there - they're sold as a piece of consumer electronics so I guess she thought the answers would present themselves when the box was opened....
Not sure how you rate that as "silly": her friends had them so she bought one without knowing what it it actually was. She has no PC and no intention getting one so I'm not sure how she will accomplish step 3. Of course someone will help out but it still struck me that marketing and brand presence can be so powerful as to persuade someone to buy something without really knowing what it is, let alone if you actually need one.
I'm not anti Apple btw - I do think that there's a ot of hype surrounding their products (after all, why don't they own the desktop market?) but if I was in the market for a portable MP3 player than I'd certainly be looking at them, but then I know what I'm looking at, and can make an objective comparison with players from say Creative, iRiver, Arhcos et al, and consdider more multi purpose devices too. If I did buy an iPod or any other apple product it wouldn't be because it said Apple on the front.
Nothing wrong with having a stable orbit around a black hole. Actually, we're in orbit around one at the centre of the Milky way. If you're close up you will be going at a fair fraction of light speed, though, while in the episode they were basically being supported by the anti-devil magic. But I think it' the first time we've seen the Doctor in a space suit, that was nice.
I'd forgotten about the "Anti-Devil Magic". And that's a good point - if the writers just say that a particular problem or solution is down to something that is beyond what we know of the universe so far, then I have no problem accepting it. It's when they rely on things which are fairly well understood and then claim something in that area of knowledge which is known not to be true. The writers have got all of time and space to play with. The space suit is a nice example, and I agree - it was nice they remembered to issue him with one. Who can remember Peter Davison out in the vacuum of space (throwing a cricket ball against the TARDIS to exert a force on himself to push him back to an air lock (whilst holding his breath of course:P) ?
I think that may have once been true of Dr Who, but some of the latest "plots" have been absolute trash. Many of the critical "facts" the plots hinge on are just too broken and in some cases, make me cringe.
A few examples:-
The "gas creatures" in Dickens Cardiff/Swansea "I know, we'll kill them by filling the room with gas, because they are gas creatures" Huh?!? The room is already filled with gases you moron. We call this mixture "air". Why was the coal gas going to kill them? No basis in, well, anything. It's like we went along a bit with this dilemma to the cliff hanger and then gave up and said "er.. and then the Doctor saves everyone in some random manner".
Then there was the green goo in the school, K9 makes a comeback to sacrifice himself by luring the bad alien guys into a room and rupturing a vat of the stuff. But hang on, this stuff is harmless to humans (and metal dogs), so why all this talk of sacrifice? Yep.. the stuff then blows up for no good reason, taking K9 with it. No mention of it ever being explosive previously. However, DrWho being a fluffy bit of kids TV these days, our hero pulls a brand new metal dog out of his ass, and everything is all OK again. Pathetic.
For me though, the absolute worst gaff came with the "base on an asteroid orbiting a black hole" epsisode. No - I'm not even talking about the whole can of worms that is things orbiting black holes in a stable fashion. It's something much more mundane. They re-enact some sort of Aliens-esque scene where they are being chased though "ventilation ducts" (or something) by the bad entity. For no adequatley explained reason they can only have air in one part of this ducting at any one time, so there's a guy operting valves and levers to move this about. Only trouble is, the fecking things are open to the room, as they're only covered by a grating.... This plot device is used to sacrifice one guy who does the noble thing to hold off the beast, which takes ages to reach him - couldn't they have waited 5 seconds for him?!?
Then of course the TARDIS gives the escape ship a tow.. - but you can forgive this, as really, we never saw a spec for the thing and it does far more amazing things than that so why not.
Bill & Ted did more to explore the paradoxes of time travel - when I watch DrWho these days I'm always left wondering why they dont just go back when they mess up and try again (like pressing the quick save in a single player FPS:P) In the old days, this was explained - the TARDIS never went where they aimed it. Now - it seems to pretty much go anywhere and anywhen they want.
There have been some good epsiodes. I always did want to know, who, in a fight, toe to toe, would win: cybermen or Daleks? I always suspected the Daleks would kick their asses, and now we know:D The "are you my mummy" plot was also quite cleverly done.
However, with all this "heart of the TARDIS" bollox, it's all gone a bit Buffy. Still entertaining, but I think it struggles to meet the definition of "Sci-Fi" now.
Slashdot Mirror
Popular Image Manipulation Program? They renamed it the PIMP ? :P
Good point. In fact I remember speaking to a guy when we were out looking at the Gulfoss falls who explained that they wouldn't be there (in their natural state) if it wasn't for a combination of accident and protest - but mainly due to the efforts of one woman in the late 1800's. I had to look up her name again - it was Sigríður Tómasdóttir. Eventually the developers ran out of money and defaulted on the rent for the site and it was saved from becoming a hydro-electric generator.
I got the impression that most of the thermal vents used for power production were artificially bored (the tour guide explained that sometimes, they even have to fill them in again if they're too powerful), but even so, it would be a shame if that fantastic landscape was covered in hydrogen factories.
I can see your point, but wouldn't we be making this heat from other sources anyway? (nuclear, fossil burning etc) So overall, the planet as whole will have less heat if we take heat from the core and bring it to the surface, convert it to other forms (including some back into heat) etc ?
I guess we already "make" this heat to power the turbines in power stations(i.e. we transform other types of energy into heat), so I would be inclined to say that using geothermal power would not result in a net increase of heat output on the surface. Unless perhaps, that that now guilt-free and cheap electricity causes everyone to go on a leccy binge for the next 200 years and consumption goes through the roof.
I recently visited Iceland where they use the country's ample supply of superheated steam to produce electricity (and provide hot water and heating). A related question that sprang to mind was "if the rest of the world did this, what would be the effects of letting all that heat out? Would the amount of heat that we would cause to escape from the planet's core be significant? We need a geophysicist to give a proper answer to that - but I'm a suspicious bugger and all this "free" electricity looks too good to be true - you know what they say about free lunches. Essentially, we'd be using the planet like a battery: it's just a question of how long it will last - millions of years? Thousands?
One of the other things that struck me about what the Icelanders are doing, is that they may just have struck their country's equivalent of oil. In the past, they couldn't really export their natural resource - steam goes off quite quickly. Then, they figured out how to make electricity with it, which is a bit easier to store and transport, but not out of the country. Now though, it looks like there may soon be a large world market for hydrogen, if fuel cells and other hydrogen consuming automotive engines take off. Iceland has all the ingredients to produce it - seawater, and abundant electricity. There are a number of problems to overcome in transporting it safely, but I reckon these guys may soon be rolling in it.
The Shell petrol station in Reykjavik already sells hydrogen. It's not clear who to exactly right now, but Shell obviously believes it has a future.
xleagueTV - http://xleague.tv/Portal/home.aspx a channel dedicated to gaming, regularly show pro-gaming matches (on a show called "The Match").
They also managed to find some people to discuss the match in the studio who actually have an idea what they're talking about - although it is sometimes a bit cringing when they're winging it. Regular contributors involve various pro-team managers and sponsors, and developers.
It's not perfect, but I do find I can actually be entertained by watching people play games like Quake 4, Forza and gears of war, although the players move in a stilted way on console FPS games due to the limitations of the controllers which makes spectating a bit harder.
The parts which don't really work are interviewing the players after the match - most of them seem to struggle to string a sentence together - but then, they're young kids mostly, and they're not there to be witty - I've always wondered why sports shows in general, interview the athletes so much - they're just not talkers. Mind you, the dumb questions don't help: "What's your plan then?" well he's not going to tell everyone his tactics is he, which leaves the obvious answers like "er.. score more points than the other guy?"
They also seem to take the video feed direct from the player's PC, and most fast FPS players have all the eye candy turned off - great for playing, but not so pretty to watch. A spectator view would be better on a dedicated machine with all the prettiness turned up.
It's on channel 279 on Sky.
That may be, but it still painted an horrific vision of our future: a future where the only car you can buy is an Audi!
Nooooooooo!!
No really! ok forget all about the virus, the BFG, and all that other made up stuff - for the first time ever - a guy in an action movie needs to take a dump!
MMO NetHack. That's what we need! It'll run on a Dec VT100 :P I'd actually play that come to think of it...
I clicked on the second link and read that thinking it was the article, so now it appears - neither did I! Please accept my apologies - I've given my ass a stern talking to. The New Scientist write up is a little ambiguous though.
Just re-read that and it could mean they chose it a number of times 60% bigger than the number of times they chose the other, which is better but still - 30's hardly a big sample...
Hardly statistically significant:-
60% of 30 is 18 - I mean come on, that's only 3 over the pure chance 50%!
I find that these bulbs make any room look dingy - instantly - there's no delay :P
CFLs are very useful for inspection lamps though - the kind used for peering at engines, and under cars - because they run so cool - don't burn your hands, melt the lamp or bits of your engine when you accidentally leave the lamp resting on it.
I mean:-
Now if they would just OCR all the books, they could dispense with the actual "library" part - and save a chunk of cash on premises, and all that fire insurance! (plus we could search the text a hell of a lot faster
Disclaimer: I realise there are advantages to hard copy over reading off of a screen, and not just subjective ones either. This post is provided for your amusement only and should not be used to form part of any government decision making process.
Cheers (and a Merry Christmas)
Scoot.
I have a Razer Viper, and while its an OK mouse, it's fairly useless for gaming (by which I mean no better than AN other mouse you might pick). I agree the software is utterly useless - I use the standard XP driver. There is no way to turn off acceleration completely in the Razer driver, and I can't play when my mouse movements don't have a consistent effect on the game - how on earth can you gain any accuracy when it takes it upon itself to speed up half way through a turn?!?
The other thing that, for me, make Razer's claims that they make "gaming mice" ludicrous is that all of them have wheels. I find wheels a liability in fast FPS games where mouse performance counts. I can't use the wheel as a 3rd button, as the weight is all wrong - it's too clumsy by a long way, so I'm a button down, and as for using the wheel function, I find this is just too random - sometimes it doesn't move, sometimes it moves 2 clicks, and the force of moving it moves the mouse affecting accuracy again. I know a lot of people like these wheels, but I can't get on with them - all I want is 3 correctly weighted buttons, in a lightweight mouse with smooth, consistent movement.
My old Logitech Wingman is better. Hell even the old Logitech Pilot mice were better, as long as you bought, say: 3 of them, and selected the best bits to make one good one (buttons, sensor, ball, base). That and some cereal box (inside surface) taped to the desk as a mat was the best combination I could find.
Not so important for the current crop of high-complexity, slow-speed FPS games I suppose, where perhaps the button count is more important.
Cheers,
Scoot.
That wasn't the question smarty pants!
The project may be for England and Wales (which still isn't England on it's own) but the article referred to the "English government" etc.
Cheers,
Scoot.
"the English government" ?? "England's entire National Health Service" ??!? Has England split from the rest of the United Kingdom again and formed it's own government? And taken the NHS with it? When did this happen? Or is this a sly attempt by the rest of Britain to distance themselves from the project ? :P
"er.. yeah it was them dozy English - never happen in Wales/Scotland/Norn Iron (delete depending on where you live)"
Disclaimer: yes Wales, Scotland and NI (sometimes) do actually have their own assemblies. This post is provided for your entertainment only, and is not intended for use in a serious debate! Also, don't eat the yellow snow, or run with scissors (or hire Accenture unless you have heaps of money to burn).
The one I always remember from my Nethack playing days at uni was also pet related. I had 3 pet dragons (Huey, Duey and Luey (sp?)) I also had a ring of teleport control (had eaten several leprechauns) and a magic whiste (to teleport my private fire breathing army).
:D
:D
My usual room clearance mode was teleport in, teleport the dragons in with the whistle, teleport out. I didn't do the last bit, the dragons attacked some nearby demons with fire, I got caught in the crossfire and the several tonnes of potions and scrolls I was carrying also went up, causing death by.... "thermonuclear explosion".
Another one that sticks in the mind even though it wasn't technically part of the game and was from the earlier plain "Hack" version, was my mate Dave, who edited his save file and was very pleased with himself for giving himself 32768 hit points. Until that is, he killed a bugbear, went up a level, gained 4 hp and died with -32764 hp. Killed by a signed integer
From TFA:-
'"Pure chance," the good professor told the press yesterday. '
Er right then, and there was me thinking the dates were pretty much predictable. I have a sort of flip chart thing on my wall that has successfully predicted all the dates this year - in sequence! It has pictures of cars on it too, which is nice.
So the copper wires don't need any energy then?
:p
Maybe they should use these dark fibres you hear about
I suspect this is where the term Bluetooth originated (it was used long before any technology arrived bearing the name) The idea that yould have a tooth removed and replaced with a "blue" one contining a speaker (or something to vibrate the jaw bone and in turn the ear anyway) and mic. It would then communicate over short distances to you comunication device.
Very much *on* topic I thought!
That's pretty much it - I mean she new what it was for (it's a modern day equivalent of a Walkman right?), but never considered how the music actually got in there - they're sold as a piece of consumer electronics so I guess she thought the answers would present themselves when the box was opened....
Not sure how you rate that as "silly": her friends had them so she bought one without knowing what it it actually was. She has no PC and no intention getting one so I'm not sure how she will accomplish step 3. Of course someone will help out but it still struck me that marketing and brand presence can be so powerful as to persuade someone to buy something without really knowing what it is, let alone if you actually need one.
I'm not anti Apple btw - I do think that there's a ot of hype surrounding their products (after all, why don't they own the desktop market?) but if I was in the market for a portable MP3 player than I'd certainly be looking at them, but then I know what I'm looking at, and can make an objective comparison with players from say Creative, iRiver, Arhcos et al, and consdider more multi purpose devices too. If I did buy an iPod or any other apple product it wouldn't be because it said Apple on the front.
Cheers,
Scoot.
LOL - indeed - the things you see when you have no mod points :) Even then I'd have had to choose between funny and insightful.
Someone I know, caught up in the whole Apple marketing machine bought an iPod - but she has no means of populating it with music....
I'd forgotten about the "Anti-Devil Magic". And that's a good point - if the writers just say that a particular problem or solution is down to something that is beyond what we know of the universe so far, then I have no problem accepting it. It's when they rely on things which are fairly well understood and then claim something in that area of knowledge which is known not to be true. The writers have got all of time and space to play with. The space suit is a nice example, and I agree - it was nice they remembered to issue him with one. Who can remember Peter Davison out in the vacuum of space (throwing a cricket ball against the TARDIS to exert a force on himself to push him back to an air lock (whilst holding his breath of course
POSSIBLE SPOILERS
:P) In the old days, this was explained - the TARDIS never went where they aimed it. Now - it seems to pretty much go anywhere and anywhen they want.
:D The "are you my mummy" plot was also quite cleverly done.
I think that may have once been true of Dr Who, but some of the latest "plots" have been absolute trash. Many of the critical "facts" the plots hinge on are just too broken and in some cases, make me cringe.
A few examples:-
The "gas creatures" in Dickens Cardiff/Swansea "I know, we'll kill them by filling the room with gas, because they are gas creatures" Huh?!? The room is already filled with gases you moron. We call this mixture "air". Why was the coal gas going to kill them? No basis in, well, anything. It's like we went along a bit with this dilemma to the cliff hanger and then gave up and said "er.. and then the Doctor saves everyone in some random manner".
Then there was the green goo in the school, K9 makes a comeback to sacrifice himself by luring the bad alien guys into a room and rupturing a vat of the stuff. But hang on, this stuff is harmless to humans (and metal dogs), so why all this talk of sacrifice? Yep.. the stuff then blows up for no good reason, taking K9 with it. No mention of it ever being explosive previously. However, DrWho being a fluffy bit of kids TV these days, our hero pulls a brand new metal dog out of his ass, and everything is all OK again. Pathetic.
For me though, the absolute worst gaff came with the "base on an asteroid orbiting a black hole" epsisode. No - I'm not even talking about the whole can of worms that is things orbiting black holes in a stable fashion. It's something much more mundane. They re-enact some sort of Aliens-esque scene where they are being chased though "ventilation ducts" (or something) by the bad entity. For no adequatley explained reason they can only have air in one part of this ducting at any one time, so there's a guy operting valves and levers to move this about. Only trouble is, the fecking things are open to the room, as they're only covered by a grating.... This plot device is used to sacrifice one guy who does the noble thing to hold off the beast, which takes ages to reach him - couldn't they have waited 5 seconds for him?!?
Then of course the TARDIS gives the escape ship a tow.. - but you can forgive this, as really, we never saw a spec for the thing and it does far more amazing things than that so why not.
Bill & Ted did more to explore the paradoxes of time travel - when I watch DrWho these days I'm always left wondering why they dont just go back when they mess up and try again (like pressing the quick save in a single player FPS
There have been some good epsiodes. I always did want to know, who, in a fight, toe to toe, would win: cybermen or Daleks? I always suspected the Daleks would kick their asses, and now we know
However, with all this "heart of the TARDIS" bollox, it's all gone a bit Buffy. Still entertaining, but I think it struggles to meet the definition of "Sci-Fi" now.