Re: Technology changes ..

"If you're going to pay £1800 for a laptop then perhaps you shouldn't baulk at £20 to make it compatible with older hardware."

As I've written in these comments before (to many down votes) at that price and mark up the £20 adaptor should be included! It won't cost the manufacturer £20 probably something closer to the fancy folded packaging.

Re: Can we check one thing? @Tim Worstal

But the tax is not really a tax on the dead person, it is effectively a tax on the people benefiting from the estate. By your logic any salary paid to you by your employer should be exempt from tax because your employer has already paid corporation tax.

And as you do mention in the last paragraph it's 40% on sums above £325K so if a house valued at £330K (let's call it a third of a million pound) is inherited your inheritance tax liability is actually £200 pounds? Are you really going to sell a third of a million pound house to pay a £2000 pound bill? I think you might be able to get a new mortgage to cover that bill even these days.

Re: Water levels...

"Is it sad that as I was reading this comment, my head was playing the dunda dunda dunda dunda "

If you're sad then so am I - I was hearing the same sound

Re: so...

Can't see how they'll be able to justify a surcharge per person, per direction when the payment is all on one card (i.e. 8 charges for a return trip for a family of 4).

But I'm sure they'll try!

Re: why xp is ubiquitous

Have an up vote for a Tom Lehrer reference

Re: More adverts, everywhere.

Ad revenues must be down

Re: Charly

I can't remember how old I was when I first read Flowers for Algernon in a library book but I'm sure it made me cry. It still has an impact,

Re: OK, I want to add

Arrggh no .. not A.I. I think a kubrick solo project would have been much better, the heavy hand of Spielberg saccharine schmaltz ruined it for me.

Re: and a few outliers...

Not sure what sort of author you'd classify Christopher Priest as. Trying to compare "The Affirmation" with "The Prestige" and with "The Inverted World" shows quite a range.

I'd understood that "non-official" apps were limited in the number of users they could have..

" the folks at Twitter introduced new API restrictions that made it so third-party Twitter clients could only get 100,000 “tokens,” which would be unique user activations. The idea was to drive more people to use Twitter on the web or Twitter’s own official apps."

Quote from http://phandroid.com/2013/02/26/falcon-pro-price-twitter/

Re: TRUE STORY

I unexpectedly got a new power supply for my cable modem in the post.. I replaced to old one and sent it back in the envelope they supplied.

Since then I've had an SMS asking me to confirm I got the new one and then about a week after I said yes I got a letter through the post telling me they were going to be sending me a new power supply.

Re: Er....

" .... your sister who is the only other musician you are willing to work with."

Cough... The Raconteurs?

Re: He's quite right

"You will find that they are passionate and knowledgeable about their products"

As an example my local "comic book" store is run by an incredibly knowledgeable guy. You can tell him what stuff you've liked and he'll suggest new stuff, taking you to the shelves and quoting dialogue before he's even opened the book. Also when I went in to buy a present for my daughter's birthday and provided a list of things she liked his response was "ah yes I know who she is, haven't seen her in her for a while."

It's even been know to get intentional authors doing their only UK signings in the shop and it's not even in London.

I also go to a more expensive optician rather than a vision express type chain because I trust their advice, know they tell me honestly if I look like a twat in a particular design and clean service and replace screws free of charge. I'm always really please when I find another shop with staff like that.

Those are the sort of shops the internet can't replace.

Re: Clueless banks

And they always seem rather surprised when you challenge who they are... as if it's never happened to them before.

Re: I Hate Cats

"Foxes kill for pleasure, they decimate entire hen hutches, but only eat a few."

Actually they don't kill for pleasure, they find themselves in an artificial environment with a sudden abundance of prey and their killing instinct is triggered. In a natural environment the other chickens would flee, in the run they can't. Foxes will then take away dead chickens to stash; if the hutch remained undisturbed they would eventually remove all the dead birds, but usually that's interrupted by the owner checking it..

Re: Hang on...

But on the other hand he did also reference the Decemberists, which is a plus for a Friday.

Re: Orac

> we both agreed on the names Orac and Zen!

My cats are called Avon & Vila

Re: My mum loved her razr

Got to agree, had the original RAZR and the hardware was gorgeous, but after the contract expired I vowed never to have Motorola software again.

Re: Stupidity (@ Mad Mike)

http://documentingfire.tumblr.com/post/17542908626/south-park-explanations

So why couldn't they include it for free?

I fully expected to hate Ms Tate in Doctor Who, i wasn't encouraged by the Christmas runaway bride episode, but in the end I though she was probably the best of the new series.

Re: never liked

Ditto-ed for Mr Ecclestone, I really would have liked to have seen him do another series, the dark tone had great promise for a new slant with the re-vamped series and he had the potential to be up there with Mr Baker.

I didn't realise until all this kicked off that Game and GameStation were owned by the same company. I've always found GameStation better. Were they a takeover or something?

"Suggests the top bracket (for the richest) is 50%, not 25%."

But you don't pay 50% income tax on all of it - only the part that's over the 50% threshold. And, of course, if you can afford a good tax accountant there are all sorts of creative ways of defining "income".