threegee

A lot of people - especially in the Linux community - would like it that way, but the migration onto the desktop is inevitable. Support from MS and Apple! When was the last time you rang the MS support desk?

Surely the "main stream" on gaming is consoles? Well there's the disagreement you see. It has nothing to do with elitism. Either you are willing to turn your brain on or not. Either you are willing to try something different (and give it a fair chance) or not. Microsoft are assured of their continued gigabucks from the people that aren't, but they won't stem the slow but steady rise of open source. Being dumb, and stubbornly maintaining your ignorance, is expensive. BTW lots of people use Linux but don't even know they do. It's turning up in lots of domestic appliances - and phones quite soon now.

Compatibility with what? I know of a couple of people who also installed XP on netbooks. I also know of a couple of people who were converted to Linux trough them. The dumbed down interface provided on the eee's can be broken out of, but many people install Ubuntu. There's now a special distribution for them, and it's much better tailored to running out of flash than XP is. The people who went the Ubuntu route were the more computer literate, and generally get much more out of their machines. In the long run they are the people that matter. The new Toshibas already have Ubuntu installed. There's only one bit of paid-for design software I was keeping an XP boot partition for, and it took me by surprise the other week to see it's now released for Linux. When I come to upgrade that software to the next major release I will of course be opting for the Linux version. Installed the demo version and it works great. The Mac is a great help for this kind of expensive paid-for application, because when it's made to port to a Mac then there's very little development effort to release a Linux version too. The rapid rise of portable APIs like Qt are helping this process along. That said there's oodles of things you can do on a Linux machine (and for free) that it's often awkward and/or expensive to do with another OS. I can read and write legacy FAT and NTFS drives with Linux, and connect to a Windows (SMB) LAN, but the reverse isn't true with Windows, at least not without a lot of expense and hassle. Thus Windows will shortly be history here.

It wouldn't be an exception then; this is the way MS has always worked. One lousy major release followed by one quite stable one. You sucker folks into installing an upgrade then you make sure that they have to move on again. After another couple of years, and when they've forgotten the bad experience, knock out another bad experience dressed up as a major advance. The point is that all these releases, and near empty fancy boxes, are totally unnecessary. The OS could be continuously updated. But, if you do that, you lose the opportunity to sell the same old code time and time again to the same purchaser. Selling the same products to OEMs at a fraction of the price you or I can buy the shrink-wrap is another strategy. There's no need to charge three figures, it's just they've locked you in to their proprietary data formats, and their way of doing things. So you meekly shell out another wodge of cash, rather than make the effort to break out of the exploitation cycle. When they have to slash prices drastically to keep users they do; witness the competition Linux was giving them on netbooks and their knocking out XP to the OEMs for a few dollars a throw just to stem the rise of Linux on that class of machines. But, just so long as there's a dumb following, they will play it for every billion dollars it's worth.

As an amusing addendum to our discussion on the crafty right-wing Dutch MP - Mr VanWilders: The Muslim lord who was railing against the 14 minute film, but was forced to admit by Kirsty Wark he hadn't actually seen it (because he didn't have to), also didn't have time to stop on the motorway to send extended text messages. And, as a consequence... No doubt he will appeal on the grounds that his conviction is racially motivated, and that if he isn't released pronto civil disturbance will inevitably result. Well, there is a precedent for the home secretary intervening on those grounds!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7910110.stm First rational thing I've seen this government do in a long while! Give that minister a knighthood. And while you are at it give him a sensible job title; Minister for Digital Engagment sounds like he's running a computer dating agency!

Because you make the selections yourself. And, as I said, the sub is only to get rid of the ads every 15 minutes. That's how it's both legal and free.

http://www.spotify.com/en/ The subscription is only if you don't want an ad every 15 minutes.

A picture would help a lot. I think at this stage the owner has probably abandoned it.

I must own up to the same confusion a while back - which is how I recognised the cause!

In the Options drop down at the top right of the thread select Standard Mode. You've got Outline Mode selected. Nothing to do with which browser you are using.

The last (and only) time I was asked for any input was in the mid-70's. By one of the come and go firms of consultants. They listened, even agreed as the report seemed to echo some of what I'd written. Then zilch! I've never been consulted, written to, circularised, or had my attention drawn to any other form of meaningfull consultation since. Not long ago WDC were offered a platform for public notices here - totaly free of course. They simply ignored the offer. I wasn't even consulted about major changes outside my own house in Wansbeck! They just went ahead and did what suited them. The first I knew about this was when I heard the road drills. A chance to have input? Some chance! The brief time I lived in Blyth Valley the difference in attitude could't have been more marked. We were invited to the planning dept for a little soire to discuss future plans. Ever since the inception of Wansbeck there's been near total disconnection between local goverment and the local people who can make things happen. The reason for this only became entirely clear to me in my chance conversation with you-know-who. Councillor I'm greatful for that moment of candid honesty; formerly I thought you to be total fools. Now we both know who the fools are!

Come on Malc, you know it's just monopoly money now. The pretence of balancing budgets and "prudence" went out of the window long ago. The printing presses are about to start rolling - in the next few weeks we're told. We are going to attempt to print and borrow ourselves out of the biggest debt in all of history. All that's needed is coordinated action to see that all three major currencies fall at more or less the same rate, so nobody notices terribly much. The Yen is now out of play: they are now admitting to full-bown depression. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this but: Buy Gold! When the ship is going down break out the expensive cigars and the vintage port!

Yes, but it sometimes isn't as plain as it seems. A bit over a year ago I bought a new "English Language" Nokia N73 from an That online auction site that is in no way as good as Free Bedlington.co.uk Classifieds trader with stacks of ++++ feedback. It turned out to have a Chinese box and instructions and a non-standard data lead. Some sort of cheap version for the Asian market. Wouldn't even talk to the Nokia link software or re-flash - just identified itself to the PC as storage. Probably was "genuine" Nokia but nothing you'd buy from a proper phone shop. Seller ignored first complaint and I had to complain to That online auction site that is in no way as good as Free Bedlington.co.uk Classifieds. Even when I was promised a refund and returned it promptly they took weeks refunding and I had to complain again. Never refunded shipping and I had the return postage and insurance to pay to boot! Thing was it wasn't particularly cheap either. I could have bought good second hand for less. You don't have to; there are plenty of traders who will do it for you.

The best time to take photos is when you are ready to leave. All they can do about it is.. err.. ask you to leave!

I call it my Brown-Devastation Period. Another budget to spend - another reshuffle of the Titanic's deckchairs. Half the money spent on encouraging in-town small business, half the regulatory !*!@#, and we might start to get back some of the sense of community that has been lost through one thorougly bad planning decision after another.

A new £460 Nokia e90 smartphone for £100. What a bargain! http://www.tootoomart.com/product-1260176-...+Game+Function/ But look closely and you'll see it's a cheap dual band GSM phone dressed up to look like one. Does it even work as well as your £30 budget phone of reputable make? There's a million such cons. Beware of what you buy out there - especially on That online auction site that is in no way as good as Free Bedlington.co.uk Classifieds!

.. that it's historically bloody cold at the moment! The real question is why has it been so cold for so very long. And, as we can easily see, the Earth self-regulates to about 25c, even following some utterly cataclysmic random event. About five or six degrees warmer than it is today seems about average, but there's some hope of that in the next few hundred thousand years!

You are right, it's partial data, so a cunning deception of the global warming industry. Here's the full map over the past 30 years: The Orange areas are warming where the ice is thinning, and the Blue areas cooling, where the ice is thickening. As you'll observe in equatorial regions (where we are told people will roast to death/die of starvation over a couple of fictitious degrees change) there is in fact virtually no change at all. They have to sucker us on that score, and appeal to our concern for others, because a degree or two in Northern latitudes can only be good. We'd produce more food, use less heating, burn less fosil fuels, etc.

We've always had "freak weather". By definition weather is changeable and full of surprises, otherwise we wouldn't be preoccupied with it. There are places where the ice is getting thicker. Doesn't suit the global warming industry to take the cameras there! NASA satellites (which measure globally and can monitor minute changes) show no recordable differences on average. Doesn't suit to mention this! You can arrive at any conclusion by selecting your data. Continents move; solar activity varies; the earth wobbles; the jet-stream moves about; lots and lots of other things change over time. The Earth has a monstrous Carbon Dioxide sink called the oceans, and they have a super way of locking up carbon in carbonates (limestone etc.). But the whole ecosystem is fairly self-regulating, else we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't have survived (as mamals) through previous cataclysmic changes, disasters far greater than the doom-mongers can ever come up with. Doesn't mean we should treat the Earth like a garbage dump. Doesn't mean that we can go on in the same dumb way as before. But it does mean that all the dire predictions are a load of utter crap, fed to us by people who can profit from the alarmist talk. That we should spend countless billions on carbon capture and such junk when there are real problems to solve - people dying for want of food and the simplest or remedies - is almost beyond belief! Pity the oil price has dropped so much; we were just at the point where we would have been forced to get off our backsides and speed-up the development of alternative technologies. Now that has been once-again put off. Our politicians are now too busy digging themselves further into a crisis they themselves created (by licensing the printing of huge amounts of money to buy votes) to return to the subject. So.. "global warming" is off the agenda for now, and thank goodness because it was a non-issue to start with! I for one would readily pay far more for a car that had fuel-cell technology. Not just because it would reduce pollution (particularly lead) but because it could even work out cheaper over the life of the vehicle. So why haven't we seen the incentives to produce and market these vehicles? Could it be that the government is addicted to taxing the motorist (and even taxing tax itself!), and without that revenue they'd be sunk. More or less the same situation which applies to tobacco - tax it as far as you can possibly get away with, but not enough to kill the golden goose. If to get some needed change the existing motor manufacturers have to go bust then bring it on! But the government is preoccupied with the short-term consequences and vote garnering, so they won't keep their noses out of the situation, or their hands out of our pockets!

I drive a Fiat Punto, but it's not mine! Really need something with more room in the back - for the alligators! And on the what would I rather be driving: I'd rather be flying. Will post you a picture of the helicopter quite soon.

Always billed on the Internet as the centre of the known universe (specifically the Market Cross). So what took them so long?

Yes. Original report was over 6000 jobs in total. Comprising plant jobs and including as many jobs again at suppliers. So logically that means 3000 direct jobs - an almost exact match with the current Nissan figure. It looks like Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port is already down to about 2000 workers so that doesn't seem a good match.

So could the latest "enemy without" be global warming? Although we've got the luxury of two imagined foes to unite us at the moment. That's if you ignore the real one of a major and extended economic depression. Can't be the latter of course as we are constantly being fed the line that it's both global and unforeseen, and so, by definition, not any fault of The Great Leader. The culprits who must be sent to the guillotine are the bankers. The very same bankers who were members of the Gordon Brown - City of London Mutual Back-slapping Society of the past years. Oh how embarrassing those Lord Mayor's banquets look these days. Definitely not a fashionable place to be seen anymore! Ah Magna Carta! Fed to us in school as the emancipation of the common man. Ask any historian and they'll tell you that it had b-all to do with that. It was solely about the Barons pointing out to the monarch who's pocket he was really in. But of course these days we can all aspire to baronhood - only providing the PM so favours us!

Another reason to believe it's Nissan is that Mandelson specifcally mentions them in this recent interview. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7902584.stm If he'd mentioned someone who wasn't under threat that would have been irresponsible in itself.