And ticket pricing?

Wait... Does the cost-benefit analysis (depending on everybody on the train sitting not working not phoning not checking up on things) take into account that all these £50/hour people will have to pay say £50 extra per half hour faster that the train is?

Why would your model anyway assume that anyone who's not working on a train (where there's space to do so --- not in the usual cattle commuters), would be working otherwise? It's people on their time off, or it's the same people that's checking their facebook during 'work' otherwise, and so forth.

Re: horned helmets?

If it's on History, it wouldn't surprise me to see horned helmets.

I had the misfortune of watching their "Rome" series, filmed somewhere in the Baltic (and they didn't even bother faking Latin) with 20 blokes that normally reenact the triumphs of the XXth Legion every weekend: Over I think six episodes, I saw the same 20 blokes fight another 15-20 blokes dressed up now in vaguely-arabic, now vaguely-norse, then vaguely-asian dress, and so on.

Except the one time the first twenty split into two groups of about ten, with the newer group holding a newly-painted sign "VI" up and that represented civil war. That kept me on my toes.

Thirded.

As long as the "A" doesn't stand for "APL" snuck into the "XML" it's all fine by me. What the "C" would be for, is harmless by comparison.

Obligatory?

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

Also, in the article, "they should have checked with PR first" -- clearly, because PR is where a bunch of geniuses, philosophers, and friends of humanity typically gather together and come up with far-sighted decisions.

Re: If...

On a memory stick will not really give a good impression of responsiveness etc.

YOu're right.

... and it's obviously bugfree and security-hardened after 12years of fighting the gremlins, so no worries at all running it unsupported.

Re: Yes, very impressive BT: "Let BT run Belgium"

That's just adding cruelty to injury.

Good ol' classic values.

Random sexist remark about female scientist (ok, trick-cyclist rather)? Check.

It ought to be obligatory to now pay for full fellowship; as a conservative you have to put your money where you mouth is and conserve something.

"effected me in now way"

Well now, are you sure it didn't affect your spelling?

What is even more missing: an alternate history.

If (as he says should maybe have happened) Simonyi had written Ethernet instead, we'd have a well-functioning open standards wysiwyg text editor, and an expensive (even more than TR) proprietary network interface that has Clippy the Paperclip trying to talk us into doing stuff?

/The good half of that outcome is more or less there (hello, LibreOffice4.0).

Re: No RepRap?

But owning one still don't make much sense (except the £300 hobbyist kits, possibly). If you actually need the produced output (like the mentioned "no we don't make that anymore" cases), you get it from a place like http://www.emachineshop.com/ --- then you can have it in either a useful form (say metal), instead of some doubtful plastic ('has a shelf life').

Because in the real world, you need stuff from specific plastics, or spring steel, or sterling silver, or other; and you need it moulded, extruded, milled or etched. These are one-trick ponies, some with arguably useless tricks ('good for hearing devices' but the plastic degrades rapidly?).

Possible exceptions I can imagine, like the architecture firm that can fire its model maker, and would be OK with printing in some brittle plastic as long as a large spectrum of colours is available (with surface possibly hand-finished). But on the whole each of them seems quite limited or too expensive.

Re: Muslims in Space

This raises the question of stasis chambers for deep space travel: should Jewish and Muslim astronauts be defrosted (once a week, resp. 5x a day) to do their praying?

(Same for Catholic monks, of course, just with more singing at dawn and vespers.)

Re: Lester, I beg to differ

What is this "history" you speak of? The Victorian version of it that's been stamped into children since then? Something usefully focused on the period from 1066 to the Tudors? The revised version looking at atrocities from Ireland to the Raj? A more feminist one?

Can we now kick out all those residents, british-born or not, who cannot answer "What should you never mind if you're a Sex Pistols fan?" --- this solves the entire NHS and budgeting crisis, as not many over-60s would answer.

[As a Belgian, I never learned anything much at school about the few million Congolese that were killed under the glorious regime of king Leopold I... There was a hint in the margins (e.g., Stanley the newspaperman was mentioned) but it was mostly economic structures and administrative organisation.]

Re: Correlation != Causation

Well the graph is anyway wrong, as the deathrate isn't a straight(ish) line --- there's coffin dodgers that will hang on to 105, 110, even 115y --- but a saturating function, so a horizontal asymptote at the "100% dead" point. Similar for eBooks, as I guess that 50y--100y from now there will still be the odd (very odd) geek running one or more as if it's a C64.

That will be called the 'siliconpunk' lifestyle probably.

Fortythousand Schmortythousand

The cited "there's only 40K apps" and similar (much higher) figures for Android and iOS beg the question:

How many apps are needed?

Disregarding games (where infinite variations and clones can be had), how many other apps are needed? *Four-five office suits,

*ten editors (baby versions of popular desktop ones, and mainly for markup and scripting languages --- nobody in their right mind will do heavy duty work, e.g. compiling, on a tablet),

*less than ten browsers,

*ten weather widgets,

*less than ten calendar widgets (which IMO the OS should already do),

...

All in all about a thousand, tops?

Any more than a thousand makes managing choice hopeless: people cannot usefully scan, they will only consider the top-five or so in whatever category they search (count review-stars, some comments, the end).

Re: Another option.

I think "Blackberry" would be such a fruit

Re: "This article is a waste of pixels." - really ?

You don't have to be a cow to discuss milk, but it sure helps to be at least a mammal.

Here you get a snake talking, and not a particularly knowledgeable or intelligent one.

That, and the simple fact that an online insult stands unretracted for millions to view, while something shouted on the street is a quickly forgotten one-off.

Question arises: if someone shouts abuse at someone on the street, and someone else puts it on youtube (maybe because they agree with the sentiment), it becomes a crime again? But who's the criminal, the shouter or the uploader? Both? Neither? What if shouter and uploader are the same?

Re: Miss Congeniality ?

The pub is more comfy as the coffee bar --- but it's far harder to work efficiently in a comfy sofa than on a rickety metal table. So it will remain coffee places here.

@JimmyPage

It's a bit of just-so-stories that superficially make sense but are completely generated by digital-rectal manipulation, no? For instance, "after the revolution" so say 1776 they didn't want hanging so they chose the electric chair --- somewhere end of 19th century as electricity wasn't big yet...

So you're pretending there weren't executions for a good hundred year? No "String 'em high!" etc etc in Wild West settings etc?

In summary, no, the electric chair wasn't chosen to distinguish themselves from the English. I have no idea whether any of your other arguments have a stronger foundation or are similarly pulled out from a dark place. (And as for an earlier post by you, no mention of bears in the cables.)

Re: What about...

Err, Ratfox... You seem to have missed the whole GoogleBooks malarkey!?

Re: "popular Japanese Reddit clone 2channel"

No, no, they're clones without an original. Stand alone complex, it's called.

As the first commentor suggested, the perpetrator is long dead, sending out pre-programmed stuff. So far, so "ghost in the shell".

Re: YUM YUM TUM TUM

I'm sure you can wash that ammonia out. Like you do with dogfish?

Re: "Let's not assume without evidence "

Evidence comes either from observation, or is from reasoning. So:

(a) It would be futile to let it go, given that it's hunting device (two extra long tentacles) are missing --- at best it gets eaten by a whale, at worst it dies from starvation. There is no humane nor scientific reason to let it go.

(b) It's a museum. It collects specimens, it's its raison d'etre.

Re: The rights man, the rights

Very true. The cries of incomprehending agony from a 2year old when "The Gruffalo" and "The Gruffalo's Child" disappeared after a month, about a year ago, having watched those daily for a month... It's still fresh scars.

It may become obligatory in Magaluf.

Having a DIY pump facility installed would certainly help reduce emergency calls from binge drinkers --- their mates could just pump them & continue.

Another factor that springs to mind...

"Low hanging fruit". If there really is a "several-decades old slowing down of growth".

Re: Winter?

Whatever GCSE season we're in, in Blighty it's definitely the Rainy Season. Which stretches typically from Mid-May to Early-March.

Re: I still dont get why Google is dumping iGoogle

No, iGoogle (in its /ig incarnation) will be discontinued in November 2013, so less than a year to go.

Re: I think the girl is lucky

Well, if she's succeeded in sneaking out of the airport, they would have been taken out at about the same time by the controlling mob. They weren't a retirement fund or the equivalent of a cash-stuffed sock under the mattress.

I think she's unlucky in any case; release her to Colombia after a token sentence (if that) and she'll be back with the gangsters who sent her, but now they've just lost a lot of money on her and will demand her to make it back.