Andy Millne

Allan Donald

I agree there are a lot of borderline entries. The filter is provided by the BBC so it's pretty exhaustive.

There's a big difference between censorship and maintaining standards. There are a number of reasons there is a swear filter here and none of them are to prevent free speech I can assure you. One of the key aims of this site is to make sure you can say what you want now and forever. It's a site for everyone including minors. Search engines now have very sophisticated algorithms and things like spelling grammar and things considered profanity all play into the quality score. I hope that clears things up.

Happy Birthday!

Drunk

Is anybody planning on watching this? It seems like the juniors are even more smug and self-assured than the contestants in the adult version. Picked a winner yet?

Anybody watching the junior apprentice? Post any good quotes here... Episode 1 (Adam)

What's that? a Local(ish) radio station causes the front street to be "awash with cars and people"? Maybe it's an insight into the future?

Been getting more mail recently? Yesterdays chronicle features an Ashington postman convicted of stealing over 75,000 items of mail.

Aren't Sita obliged to publish the percentage of household waste that is ultimately recycled? If that's the case it would be good if some of the profit was redirected back to the areas that are better sorters on a sliding scale.

the website has started taking on a mind of it's own recently. The machines are taking over.

I think Tyred & Exhausted do.

...boom

Which mob? This one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSlt-vedyL8

One megabyte a second on a 100 megabit connection is very poor. As monsta says an 8mbit connections theoretical max would be around that. A lot depends on the line quality/length and other equipment in the system. a 100mbit FTTH (fibre to the home) connection would theoretically give a true 100mbit as it's not subject to line issues like copper... But you still have issues with other equipment in the chain like the host server etc

Good idea. I'm not familiar with the model but you won't go wrong with a samsung. Also wise avoiding 3D and putting the money towards better sound.

The Industrialization of Traffic: Why Bicycles are Faster than Cars "The model American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for gasoline, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it." "The model American puts in 1,600 hours to get 7,500 miles: less than five miles per hour. In countries deprived of a transportation industry, people manage to do the same, walking wherever they want to go, and they allocate only 3 to 8 per cent of their society's time budget to traffic instead of 28 per cent. What distinguishes the traffic in rich countries from the traffic in poor countries is not more mileage per hour of life-time for the majority, but more hours of compulsory consumption of high doses of energy, packaged and unequally distributed by the transportation industry." "Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories. The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man's metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well. The bicycle lifted man's auto-mobility into a new order, beyond which progress is theoretically not possible." "Bicycles are not only thermodynamically efficient, they are also cheap. With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems." Quoted fromf "Energy and Equity", Ivan Illich, 1978. Previously: Cars, out of the way.Â

Moon

Conversations tend to head in the direction participants take them in. It just so happens politics is very topical at the moment for obvious reasons. I wouldn't say it had nothing to do with Bedlington. Anything in particular you want to talk about? There's nothing stopping you starting threads.

Although a hanged parliament does sound quite appealing. Where do we vote for that?

Yep, I hear the bowler hat and monocle wearers are busy oiling the mincers ready to start pushing homeless and unemployed people through them too.

I was speaking to somebody today who was telling me he was "always going to vote Labour no matter what". Therein lies the problem I think. I asked the obvious "why" question and they told me they were a believer in not changing principles and that Labour would have done alright if it wasn't for the "Global Recession" I'll not go into the "global" recession because I have a feeling 3G will have something to say on that. If we are stupid enough to loudly exclaim a staunch allegiance to one particular party "no matter what" then what incentive do the politicians have to act in this area. They are naturally going to pay more attention to areas in which a few votes will cost them their seat.

Just me there at about 9:30

We have been entered into the Northumberland in Bloom event as was raised at a previous town council meeting. As far as I know the flowers are to be provided by NCC.