Deed poll

All in the name Spartacus.

Methanol - not a good idea

It's a neurotoxin and easily absorbed through the skin, so it would probably start blinding and killing the hospital staff - this is generally not thought to be a good thing.

That interior is very Amstrad

Shiny plastic things wedged in at random.

And the exterior is a bit of a horror too from the gimpy 'smile' at the front to the standing on tip-toes poise - are the French pathologically unable to design a good looking car?

Bofors

The Swedes aren't quite as squeaky clean as you may think when it comes to selling minimalistic and elegant weapons systems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_Scandal

[Thinks]

Mornington Crescent?

Sounds like a business opportunity to me

Who's up for founding lumpentrolls.com - the social networking site for those 85% of the British population too hideous to join beautifulpeople.com? At just $20 per month you'd even save money.

You're right

Whilst donkeys are definitely the most serious looking of all hoofed animals, that one is clearly pondering something.

Possibly wondering if it'll be involved in the next project launched from the Reg's donkey sanctuary / spaceport.

Blimey!

'I calculate for 1 tonne moving at 0.1C ( ~40 years) the kinetic energy is ~4.5E17 J . That's equivalent to 14 1000MW power stations for 1 year.'

That's very nearly TWO deep-fried Mars Bars!

Bit different

Boeing didn't actively court al Qaeda, they didn't set up aircraft production plants, training and maintenance facilities with the organisation. IBM under Thomas Watson was an active and willing supplier of equipment to the Reich long after the persecution of the Jews turned into outright extermination. They even tried to continue operating in the Reich after Germany declared war on America. Watson was a close friend of the Nazi chiefs and was one of the very few foreigners ever to receive a medal from Hitler.

'IBM and the Holocaust' is a devastating and authoritative book on the subject.

Greenland

It was five centuries of settlement from the time of Eirīkr Þōrvaldsson through to the final disappearance of the colonies. Even now it is not certain what happened, only that the colonies were abandoned some time in the late 15th Century. it is still uncertain whether they starved to death, were killed in conflicts with the Inuit or whether they returned to Iceland (although the Icelandic records do not mention the return of the Greenlanders).

Greenland in the Norse period was very slightly more appealing than it is now (i.e. not very) and supported a borderline pasture economy which the Vikings brought from Scandinavia. You grew grass, raised animals, produced milk and ate the animals. But it was very, very marginal. Even in the good years the climate was never good enough to grow arable crops, so all grains had to be imported from their other colonies.

As the climate deteriorated, the Norse stuck to their pasture farming which become ever more unsustainable. They never adapted their lifestyle to one better suited to Greenland, so the colonies gradually dwindled until they failed entirely.

Much the same happened in Iceland, but there, conditions were just good enough that pasture farming could be maintained throughout the Middle Ages, but it was a wretchedly poor place right up until the middle of the 20th Century.

Bzzzt!

@Anonymous Coward

'The Eric the Red story is a fallacy. It is an impossibility for the Vikings to have set up successful and long term settlements and keep them supplied via sea routes. Therefore the settlements must have been able to sustain themselves with home grown crops and herding animals (abundant evidence for this exists). This is something they could not do today therefore Greenland was more hospitable when the Vikings were there.'

The Norse economy was pasture based. Animals grazed in the wild in the summer whilst hay was grown and fed to them indoors in the winter. You see the same in Iceland - and Greenland today.

All other staples (with the exception of fish) were imported. The Greenland records show this was increasingly infrequent as time went by with many of the Greenland Norse not knowing what simple things like bread were.

Not just rocks

We also have hammers - big hammers

And volcanoes.

Why 7?

Was one watching the others go at it?

As always...

talk.origins is your sceptical friend:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#flood

We like authors even more

if they contradict themselves within the same article.

Peak coal

China has to diversify its energy supply incredibly rapidly as it's facing an energy crunch in the next couple of decades. Domestic coal production is expected to peak in the next decade and go into a sharp decline, its oil and gas fields are either approaching, or at, peak production and it's seeing a decline in hydropower reserves because of long-term drought. Couple that to the need to keep 10% growth and the challenges they are facing are immense.

How many people are still using their Wiis?

The Wii had so much potential, but Nintendo blew it (again) - rehashing the same franchises, and pouring their efforts into attracting the 'casual gamer' that many people simply got fed up waiting for decent challenging content.

Yep here too

I got the same email today and it came via an account used for Pixmania about four years ago.

Hairdressers would be a better choice

'So, bombing anywhere nice this year?'

Good point

How do we know they are a success when we don't know how many sites they miss or falsely categorise as bad for our moral health?

I can see this working

And so how are you feeling? Just relax now - hmmm - yes - well maybe take a little more gentle exercise a couple of times a week and perhaps stay off the fatty food to see if that settles down. Now I'm just looking at your blood count - yes that looks quite normal, your cholesterol is fine, no sign of diabetes so nothing to worry about there. So how do you feel about the restoration of the caliphate and have you had any problems passing water?

Call the ICO

If you are in the UK the ICO may have the power to fine them:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/privacy_and_electronic_communications.aspx

@Zippy the Pinhead

You do know that the vast majority of eruptions at Mauna Loa occur through the flanks rather than from the Mokuʻāweoweo summit caldera, and that the measurements are adjusted for the rate of outgassing from the volcano.

Thought not.

Why?

Coal doesn't go off and the life of wheat stored under proper conditions is months or even years. Why do these freighters need to go faster?

I think he's also forgetting the realities of the shipping market which is to reduce costs as far as possible by only ever using very old, single hulled bulkers manned by third world crews sailing under flags of convenience. Only a few years ago, one of these monsters was sinking every month and no one in power gave a toss until the MV Derbyshire vanished, but since then, nothing's changed.

Daily Mail???

'The Perishers' were in the Mirror when it used to be a newspaper.

Legally...

The price on the shelf only constitutes an 'invitation to treat'. When you take the beer mountain to the till you are making an offer to complete the contract at that price. A contract only comes into being when Tesco accepts your offer and you pay (so called 'consideration'). Up until that point the seller or the buyer can pull out of the negotiations, or change the conditions without prejudice, so Tesco are fully within their rights to say there has been a pricing error and the customer has no legal protection.

Although I hope they issued the check-out staff with cattle prods when they tried to explain this.

Mind you, I wonder if anyone got the lower price on the self-service tills?

I'm going to say this quietly

But Disney are one of the more enlightened DVD distributors. A recent Blu Ray not only came with a DVD, but a download licence through iTunes for only a quid or more than the bare bones DVD. And then, it had the rarest of things - skippable ads and trailers.

Compare that to Momentum who put a completely unstoppable Maltesers ad on their disk.

An even better idea

Make the packaging so delicious that the user cannot help but gobble it up rather than casting it into the garbage.

Sounds hard doesn't it? But many would argue McDonalds have already perfected containers with more flavour and nutrition than their contents.

A Cory Doctorow story

http://craphound.com/?p=573

Old chemist trick

Mould a spoon out of gallium and get the victim to stir their coffee with it. It looks like stainless steel but has a melting point of 30C.

Now such hilarity is available to the masses:

http://www.disappearingspoons.com/

Mind you I've been in some labs where the coffee can melt a stainless steel spoon.

You've just won the Internet

Stop the competition Lester, this is just too good.