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Would you like to tell us WHERE it's proposed it should be banned from? Then the poll might have some meaning. You're surely not advocating that in our free country (allegedly devoid of chanting mindless idiots) people should not be permitted to wear dress of their choice? Safety, decency, security and identity considerations aside, of course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minaret -- notice anything else wrong? Anyway, good job MV isn't still in charge; else this one would be closed quicker than a council school with 5mm of snow!

dabs.com (on Hitachi) - ebuyer too, and perhaps others.

A one terabyte 3.5" Hard Drive just spotted on offer for below £60 (yes, even including that increased VAT). Two terabytes for around £116 - so even cheaper per Gigabyte. How long before we see the sub-£100 two terabyte drive? i.e. £50 a terabyte (or a fiver for 100GB). My first hard drive 10MB ( 0.01GB), and it cost an arm and a leg! There were 5MB ones available at the time. What's really galling about the storage revolution is that the things are now far faster, and many many times more reliable too. If only other things had seen this rate of improvement over thirty years!

In law it's treated as trading coupons. Really no different to issuing any form of promissory note - like a cheque for instance. It would be illegal to put Bank of Bedlington or some such on them as that would be misrepresentation - and would we really want to be associated with such rummy institutions anyway! But nothing wrong with calling them a Bedlington Pound. It should be illegal to do what our banks do: create money out of thin air! But the whole broken system relies on public ignorance. Any honest banker would tell you that if the real truth were universally known they (politicians and bankers) wouldn't get away with it. Of course paper currency is only a promissory note anyway. It all boils down to who people trust, and as far as I'm concerned that's not HM Govt.! Months now and they are still stalling in repaying my tax refund! No disagreement that it's due, it's just they haven't got the capacity to process it. Ha ha; wonder how far that excuse would get me if the boot was on the other foot! Meanwhile, I must pay interest on the money, and I can't recover the loss from big-spending Gordon!

Someone (the traders?) have to back the currency to ensure that it's fully convertible into Gordo's funny-money. Putting the same amount on interest somewhere would ensure that it's rock (not Northern) solid. A refreshing change from "real" money created by banks, which has only about 4% backing from deposits with the Bank of England. Key is getting enough traders interested, as you can completely discount any interest from banks and government - who will always see it as a challenge to their monopoly. This is a bit like what the insurance companies do - invest the premiums and collect the interest for themselves. So anyone backing it wouldn't be a bit out of pocket, or running any significant risk. In this case the interest would go to the community, as all that is in effect happening is that you are taking a £UK out of circulation, placing it on interest, and replacing it with a £B. The process can be reversed on demand, but as confidence in the local currency builds that demand will wane. The really interesting thing to do would be to tie it to a stronger currency than Sterling. Now that would put a hell of a lot of noses out when Gordon's ongoing spending addiction causes Sterling to fall even further. It would give the average person access to the hedges enjoyed by the super-rich, and our oh-so-prudent bankers! The Bedlington Pound could easily become worth more than UK Pound!

I'm sure he'd put on a better act in the Commons than Dennis Skinner (and others of similar name). No, wait! There's another interesting statistic to be got there: 30,163,317 HIV/AIDS infected people 105,667 Deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year So, get AIDS and live to be 300! How did Ricky Gervais miss that insensitive one at the Golden Globes?

Was going to post the Youtube video but it has been taken down. Probably just as well; embarrassment saved all around! OK, I found an appropriate video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9PmpTOx9c8

Yup, it's only that 19,059 nuovi immigrati quest'anno (and their credit cards) that keeps the population from falling. Lowest birth rate in the world probably not an entirely bad thing in a nation which still appears to believe that the solution to the waste disposal crisis is just to put it in a supermarket carrier bag, drive into the scenic countryside, and deposit as far as your arm will extend without actually getting out of the car. However most people do know that the civically responsible thing to do is - drop a match now and then!

Skipping over issues like car production being surprisingly small given the population (and that illegal drugs are an even better business to be in than computers), there's one stand-out thing in the environment section: This is that carbon dioxide output (show to ten digits) is racing upward, yet temperature increase has to be extended to eleven digits just to produce an obvious upward movement. That increase is so small that it is a wonder it can be measured at all. Could it now be static or even falling, and isn't this well within the range of normal solar output fluctuations? Are the ice caps of Mars still melting? I suspect maybe not, and if they are are how do those have anything to do with man-made CO2 emissions? I don't think you are going to get cogent answers to any of those questions from our climate "scientists". But here's an even more interesting one they won't answer: Dumb kitchen table "experiments" aside - where is the scientific proof that there is any kind of correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and mean temperature? Actually there is some correlation, but they wouldn't want you to look too closely at it because all studies show that it is delayed something between 200 and 1900 years! The mechanism is obviously a lot more complex than the simplistic explanations offered, and the timescale of same won't make for imminent doom and disaster scenarios, and so put money in their pockets!

Go back to the 1950's, even 1960's, and the Front Street was a hive of activity. Not so many cars as there are now, but those cars didn't drive right on through. There were factory units in the old Council Yard that provided real jobs making stuff that people wanted to buy, and at lunch time those people, together with many other retail and service workers, came out onto the street and patronised the shops. There was real economic activity on the South side too. It certainly wasn't only the pits that drove the economy. What happened to those factory units - well they got "zoned" by the planners. Moved to the middle of beyond where they steadily died. Instead of walking or biking to work you needed a car, but cheap petrol would go on forever (only relatively lightly double-taxed), and you could park for free more or less where you liked. Instead of just nipping across to Bill Scott's engineering works to get a part drilled or welded and your machine back in service in no time, you got on the phone to the smoke, and then waited days for delivery. This was the era when bigger (we were told) was better. Dozens of "inefficient" small motor manufacturers and parts suppliers were cajoled and bullied by government into large "efficient" groups like the British Motor Corporation. New Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson (not a stranger to Bedlington Front Street) told us all about how our future would be forged in "the white heat of the technological revolution". But the politicians and the planners got it all very wrong. They "zoned" countless millions into white elephants like Cramlington and Killingworth "new towns" when all they had to do was provide a little help here and there to established towns of the region, and allow those towns to develop naturally. As a result they destroyed thousands of small-town economies that worked, all in pursuit of a mirage. The real tragedy is that there are people who still seem to believe that central planning, and even local "grand schemes" can deliver any lasting benefit at all. If you visit the current centres of real activity and innovation in the world you'll be struck by how intertwined it all is. There's been little or no central planing, very little zoning; if there's a need for this or that people just get on and do it. I'm not advocating complete planning anarchy, but maybe something like micro-zoning where light industry is permitted (actually encouraged) just off the front street. Any functioning town needs an economic heart. It used to be the colliery, of course; but the Bedlington blunder was removing other light industry, right at a time when we should have been going all out to encourage it. I'm not talking offices or airy-fairy "innovation centers" here, but places where people get their hands dirty. Ideally we should have some light industry within a couple of minutes walk of the Market Place, but is there anywhere now left that hasn't had "for profit" houses built on it? And, we've now created a major NIMBY problem too! We also need just a portion of that big government (national and regional) squander in the hands of our own local people, and a free hand to dispense it in any direction where it will aid sustainable employment. Sure there will be local squabbling and some mistakes; but they will be our squabbles and our mistakes, and local people will see them and directly correct them. Local authorities without money to spend are a sham, and we shouldn't accept the power structure which has been foisted off on us without any sort of mandate. The past has taught us that small and local is good, and that governments - national and even regional - have (at best) a huge propensity for waste, and (at worst) are totally counterproductive. We need real change - a restoration of local democracy with its own spending power - and not the illusory change which has been imposed on us!

Almost right: two idiots driving down the Union Canal in Scotland. They only got away with it because there's so much muck in it there. They were charged with reckless conduct, but should have been committed!

So how is an anti-vi going to protect you from a flawed piece of software like MSIE running compromised ActiveX controls? This has nothing to do with "bugs". Leaving dangling pointers around is amateur coding in the extreme, and yet this multi-billion dollar organisation keeps on doing it. Maybe that's because of the uncritical customer base who doesn't know any better. The big difference between MS code and everyone else's is that it's closed source and so can't be inspected for obvious flaws. To someone who doesn't write software that's probably only an academic issue. But constant peer review is how good software is written, and little that comes out of Seattle has ever been good software.

Details in today's post here. http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/1733-serious-security-flaw-found-in-microsoft-internet-explorer/page__gopid__29211entry29211

Once again! This time it's being exploited by the Chinese Govt. to hack into dissident's machines, and is behind the recent Google threats to withdraw from China. http://www.microsoft...ory/979352.mspx If you must continue to use this flawed product then at least make sure: the code execution protection is turned on the Windows Firewall is enabled you aren't using Vista in Admin mode you steer clear of iffy websites - particularly Chinese ones and you whop up the security level for the "Internet" zone to high. [Tools->Internet Options->Security Tab] The last will stop it running ActiveX stuff - which is often at the heart of these sorts of problems.

It was Newsnight, and I meant all the evidence which you pretend to have looked at. You exhibit exactly the same unreasoning intolerance that you so despise in those chanting Muslims. And it's obvious that to you Megrahi is guilty because of who he is rather than what he might have done. And what a pity your concern for innocent people only extends to WASP people. Two simple questions: Do you think it's fair to say to someone: we will release you if you stop protesting your innocence and withdraw your appeal? Isn't this essentially just the same thing as those mock confessions terrorist groups love to show - any intelligent person knows that it's coercion of the worst kind. Where is the evidence that Megrahi put the bomb on the plane? This was supposed to be a fair and open public trial, so that evidence - however circumstantial - should be in the public domain. Point me to it!

Did you look at any of that? 'Course you didn't! Just let your Nick Griffin fueled blind prejudice about Arabs have full reign. This is why the Country needn't worry about the BNP, and we don't need any of your "help" on the matter Mr Straw!

Other reasons being: The previous anti small business attitude, and the we can count on the dummies in Bedlington to vote for us anyway, so let's centralise in Ashington - Labour led WDC. Plus the locking the stable door after the horse has bolted Conservation Area, that wants to apply the same standards as a wealthy Southern rural area. Together with the 15% unemployment carefully fostered by decades of state dependency, so-called employment protection legislation, and the too common belief that anyone that tries to better themselves is exploiting the community. (The Mandelsons of NuLabour no longer believe this, so why do we elect political dinosaurs who do? They're just laughed at an humoured by their very own party! This reinforces the idea that we are a bunch of political illiterates that can safely be sidelined.) ...all resulting in the sad fact that anyone with any enterprise generally buggers off South (or to countries external). Which takes us back to all the former reasons, and the whole vicious circle feeding on itself.

Yet more evidence that the whole thing is a CIA framing exercises. But even they can't pull the wool too much longer. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8441796.stm This one ain't going to go away until the truth emerges - however long it takes! The best guess is that the bomb was loaded at Heathrow, and - as most reasonable people now believe - Libya had nothing at all to do with it.

Safest place for a mini death-trap: on your fridge! Yes, I used to own one way back and I'm still alive; just! P.S. Thanks for testing the new forum. Would have got around to it though.

Melting tarmac swallows-up car!

http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/1693-would-the-last-person-to-leave-a-o-l/

I've bought RAM on that auction site a few times and it was fairly good value. But it was micro-DIMMs which are rather difficult to find, and on a couple of those occasions either I don't think the sellers knew quite what they had, or there was much buyer competition. So been lucky. My bad experience with these was buying one from an Irish supplier's website who promises a lifetime guarantee blah blah. When the module kept crashing they put up all sorts of excuses, and I'm still waiting for that replacement. Sixty quid down the drain! If what you need is say a regular 512MB module then you can generally get one that someone has swapped out good for larger for a song, and that's low risk. But if you want 1GB and especially 2GB modules it's far safer - and likely cheaper in the long run - to buy from a reputable supplier (who hopefully isn't Irish!). You can get some reasonable buys on Amazon and it's safer, faster, and generally much less hassle than an auction. But you still need to be careful in what you're buying. More careful than through a single regular reputable seller. Also Amazon take over 11% off the top of small suppliers payouts - which I think is a quite greedy, especially on big ticket items. As a result you seldom get a real bargain there, and a lot of what's on Amazon.co.uk is overpriced. The last used computer I bought on Amazon wasn't quite as described, and there were bits missing.