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At first glance it seems a very attractive proposition, an HDMI dongle that turns your TV into a smartTV for $35 (UK price yet to be determined). But look more closely and you see it for what it really is: an Apple-type trojan to enable control of your living room and ensure *all* revenue streams flow through Big G! Most of the engineering seems to have gone into making it a API platform for third party providers, and of course all this is heavily locked down. Give me one and I might just use it now and then ("free" is the usual Google proposition you can't say no to), but to ask people to pay for the privilege of helping to establish another media empire, well... only for Appleheeds! There are plenty of little Linux/Android boxes with HDMI making fairly decent Media Centres for not much more money, and they aren't nagging to get into your wallet all the time!

Amazon have scrapped "Super Saver" delivery on small items under £10. Quite often you'll be asked to pay more for shipping than the item costs! Tip: Look for a cheap CD (you can find some for 83p), and add it to the order. Then the whole order qualifies for "Super Saver" again.

If you think Italy is "right wing" you haven't studied your history (or lived there)! All it's current problems stem from a "lazy left" mentality - I'm all right Jack, and the world owes us a living! This is why Berlusconi - self-made millionaire - resonates with such a large proportion of the population. They hope (in vain) that some of it will rub off on the country. Immediately post WW2 the country very nearly joined the communist block when the commies fixed the vote to ditch the monarchy. Realising what was going on the R.C. Church, CIA, our own security services etc., allied to keep the commies out of power. It was a close run thing! Today communist still isn't a dirty word, and communists regularly get elected to high office. And... Dave may be a toff but that's all the politics of envy Left has against him. Otherwise you could have swapped him with Mlliband and no one would have noticed the difference. Dave could cruise the champaign socialist cocktail parties with ease. If you think I'm wrong it's you who hasn't got your feet on the ground - witness the completely undemocratic back-room deals going on social issues like "gay marriage" and Dave going over the heads of the LDs to push things through with quiet Labour support. Labour now says it will continue with Dave's policies if elected - whilst hoping this commitment went over the heads of it's deaf and blind traditional supporters. Case proven me lud! Mrs T may be the subject of much irrational hate locally, but her views were far closer to those of working people than the current lot. No one was more relieved that she broke the unions stranglehold on the country than the Labour elites who had tried reform and miserably failed, as had incompetent toff Ted Heath. Things are generally a lot more intertwined than the political classes would like you to believe. Complex strategies don't get votes, and make politicians appear to be "scheming" - which of course they always are! BTW the car was just a joke, and I drive an extremely unsymmetrical Fiat, though technically it may belong to my (opposite sex) wife.

Insincere, moi?! I was just being my usual antithetical self - confuses me at times too. Actually, it all depends on whether you buy into the CO2 thing. I sort of don't, but the connection with dark satanic mills leads to a compelling feeling of wanting to see significant reductions. I'm much more bothered by plastic waste in the environment though; it's an even bigger problem, but not one that's become profitable to any scare lobby group just yet. Energy: I hear the "we'll just use less" thing lots of times in Italy. It's generally from folks whose extended country pile is lit so's it registers well with NASA cameras, who keep their fruit trees and vast veggie patches well watered throughout the year, and who have aircon going in all rooms. They actually mean everyone else - the people who don't really need it - must use less! Affluence, like effluents, is a global problem!

Ah the Stalinmobile, symmetrically designed (by a people's comittee) to be driven in either direction (along the party line); depending, of course, on what Uncle Joe had had for breakfast that day. But never mind the motors, history really wants to know who KP was, and just who thought he/she was "Great"(?).

Yup, let's burn more "cheap" imported coal and release carbon that's been stored for millennia. Then we can build a carbon sequestration plants that use oodles of energy to stuff as much as we can of it it back underground. Pointless I know, but think about all those pointless jobs in the construction industries and the operation of the plants. This may go just some way to offsetting all the jobs we will lose/have already lost, by our overpriced electricity and our "carbon taxes". So ignore the resulting balance of payments deficit and futility of it all, there's still mega opportunities for political sound-bites - electioneering on the back of being "the greenest" party/government/country in the world. All those windmills, and huge public subsidies for them, are wearing rather thin now; also any more and on a calm night the lights will go out, with someone having to face the music for being so dumb not to see that they were an unsightly and costly mistake. As Gerry has recently discovered, they screw up the market for investment in reliable 24/7/365 energy providers, and make them even more disinclined to invest in reliable power generation.

You may have noticed the current offerings of Nexus Tabs have had "(2012)" added to their names. That's because: http://www.google.com/nexus/7/ The 4G LTE version looks a really interesting proposition with dual band WiFi and 2GB RAM. Screen resolution is way higher than the Apple mini, but there's still no microSD slot. It looks like they've improved the sound though, as the original Nexus 7 wasn't up with my Acer A110 in that department.

It had to come, an open RasPi! http://cubieboard.org/ It's based on an Allwinner A10 as now used in 1001 cheap tablets, and Cubieboard are already producing a dual-core A20 version. I will probably order one, but I've already had a pcDuino (also A10 based) on the way directly from China for well over a month. Will likely report on that soon.

There's likely an agreement with the WI: you don't infiltrate us and we won't infiltrate you! Oh, hang on, it's called the Soroptomists. My mum was once approached to join, but gracefully declined on the grounds that she didn't feel comfortable being a member of any secret society who would have someone like her as a member. [sorry Groucho - and Mum!]

The Beeb is buying content not giving money away; they reserve the giving away for their own I think. If it delivers for their customers then no I wouldn't agree. They could of course ask the viewers what they think and act on the response - we have the technology - but of course that might set a terribly dangerous precedent. I'm not one of people who think that digging up cricket pitches in the early hours did anything but harden the attitudes of those in South Africa. I met a few Boers on their own turf; they were not unreasonable people, and had some views that were hard to counter. They could, and eventually were, talked into the 20th Century. The Peter Hains of this world did nothing to help in this, and probably did a lot to hinder. Boycotts don't work, they polarise! On the NUJ thing, you are probably right. All they seem to be able to do these days is reschedule a few repeats now and then. Technology and much more proactive middle management are easily able to neutralise much of their mischief, and the free market has done for their monopoly. Another uncredited win for Mrs T? So I'd be wrong singling out the leftie elements for special mention when the real villain is many decades of inbreeding at higher levels.

Tax breaks aren't a public subsidy, they're just a little less of your own money (mis)appropriated by the state. [Labour Party writers of such politics of envy sound bites as "tax breaks for millionaires" please note.] A tiny fraction of one percent of our citizenship gives us 26% of our state spending. They don't actually have to, as unlike the rest they have a wide choice as to where to pay their taxes, but that's straying from the point - again. It all depends if you think "our betters" should be allowed to social engineer, and I think things have gone way too far in telling Joe Public how he should act and think. I object to my tax money being spent on social engineering that weakens our society overall, and allows a small clique of drones (the political classes) feel better about themselves; that leads them to believe that they've done good without unintentionally doing even more bad - more often the reality. Please! The lefties at the Beeb (NUJ) don't need any more encouragement to colour their output. Though now that we have a Tory party that appears to have fully bought in to all things politically correct I'm no longer sure what that colour is. Logically it would be a muddy grey - highly appropriate for all the Polly Toynebee types who would remove all colour from our lives, and all the natural variation that so enriches it.

What no Android version?! A much bigger audience for Android than iOS these days - and the difference grows every month. http://phandroid.com...e-market-share/ Could get you a job at the detached-from-reality Beeb though!

Bee politicians meddling in people's lives again! What a private club wants to do is up to its members. If people don't like it then don't join, start your own if need be! End. Politicians have no answers to the issues they get elected on by promising action, so justify their existence by meddling in matters they have no mandate to interfere in. Who gave Cameron the right to mess with traditional marriage? No mandate, virtually no debate, and cross-party stitch up with all the budding "social engineers" and the leagues of their "gay" buddies in parliament. A pox on the lot of them, and I will never vote for Cameron, or indeed any of the "major parties", ever again. Democracy is something they only give lip service to. They pretend they are concerned at the lack of respect they get and dwindling public support. But actually it's only when a major wake-up call is looming (like UKIP and the EU) that they start paying attention to public opinion. Unless there's organised opposition to what they are up to the country is being run by cross-party political stitch ups by three parties, that in truth have so little between them these days that you could randomly redistribute the rosettes and it would make no practical difference to anything. The Tories have completely sold out to lefty social engineering, and Labour to market capitalism and now to rolling back the welfare state. Indeed if you think doing something about the unaffordable welfare state is priority you'd be better off voting Labour, as they'd get away with the needed reforms without quite so much fuss. And, the Lib Dems will agree to practically anything to get cushy jobs for their boys too. Principals have now gone completely out of the window; the game now is say anything, do anything, just get power! When you get it follow your own hidden agenda, and ignore what the people who put you in power think.

Oops! My apology to Mr Alsop for spelling his name wrong!

Both those photos are amazing foxy. The second one shows the place I only ever knew as Allsop's the Barber as Foggan's shop. One of those really obvious things that never register when you are too close to the action! My fashion expert says the crowd scene is turn of century. Lots and lots of possibilities there, as we were big on community in those days. A coronation perhaps? Let's take a totally wild guess at Saturday, 9 August 1902. We so easily forget the import of infant mortality in those days. Large families to provide assurance, and spread the grief around!

To Americans?! Why do they all look/act like John Cleese?

We aren't talking about Mr Henderson the dentist who bought the "Patton" house further up? They lived above the present Post Office before moving over the road and up a bit. Daughter is Patricia - and a very nice lady she is; I remember her mum, a very smart lady. Straker is a very old Bedlington name. I have some sort of recollection that some Strakers may have lived in the Baptist Yard before it was demolished (early 1960's or maybe late 1950's?), That's was around about the location of the present telephone exchange. Or maybe it was Foggan's Yard - entrance where Lloyds TSB is - or even both? I think they edit themselves out these days. Especially true when it's so easy these days to find "long losts", even on the other side of the globe. Only the truly geriatric have any excuse, and the real dodderers seem to get be getting ever older.

US Government Agency demands magician write a detailed "disaster plan" for his (previously unlicensed) rabbit and he and his wife then get training to implement the rabbit disaster plan. The plan must protect said rabbit from disasters "such as a tornado, fire, flood etc" and ensure its care afterwards. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/1/agriculture-department-tells-magician-write-disast/ Brought to you by the Obarmy Administration?

When I was in Amsterdam many moons ago I was disgusted to find that the Anne Frankhus had been heavily colonised by commie propaganda pedallers. Didn't go in for that very reason. Hope they were booted out long before now. Anyway that looks an exceptionally well-heeled district for pre-war - supporting the oft-floated theory that there aren't too many poor Jews.

= The Baptists. Ah, the truth always comes out in the end - but only on the Internet! Is there a Marley in amongst your names?

To sum up: It's the Sun stupid! What many real scientists have been saying for years. Really interesting how the Beeb instantly shuts down any argument that conflicts with the present politico's delusions. They even admit to this bias - justified on the grounds that they don't need to cover anything that conflicts with "established scientific fact". This makes about as much sense as their admitted bias towards Apple products, justified on the grounds that "[The iOS app caters to] a demographic that was more likely, both in percentage terms and absolute numbers, to use BBC on-demand services." In other words while we have to admit that there are many times more Android users out there than Apple, those Apple users are our type of people! An intrinsically self-fulfilling prophecy when you ignore 80%+ of the potential users. Ignoring inconvenient ideas, and inconvenient scientific data, seems to be the new way to self advancement. You can only marvel at Al Gore's bare-faced cheek by accusing others of this. http://www.takepart....t-truth-hangout Note that he starts off by turning a wholly scientific issue into an entirely moral issue by making several false comparisons with social issues; proceeds from the false premise that the garbage he promotes is established science, and when asked how this can be taken out of politics further politicises the whole thing. Listen to this sickening bit of pure propaganda in front of a carefully selected and swooning audience, but only if you have the best part of an hour to waste. Don't expect any pertinent questions, because there aren't any! "This is not that complicated"! Actually it's a lot more complicated than you are prepared to acknowledge Mr Gore, or suits your sound-bite method of putting your illogical political arguments. That's the really Inconvenient Truth.

The best thing the EU could do is break the M$ monopoly that forces you to pay for Windoze on a new machine. i.e. the manufacturer should be required to offer the same hardware without Windoze at a lower price. That price reduction should represent a large proportion of the retail price of the software - the price M$ charge you and me - and not some cooked-up deal to make the discount appear hardly worth having. Then operating systems could compete on a level playing field. Anyway, if you are lumbered with W8 then you absolutely *need* http://www.stardock....roducts/start8/ (or similar product) to preserve your sanity. Best five bucks you will spend this year, and you get to try it free for a month anyway.

"Clean coal" has nothing to do with reducing "greenhouse gasses" Adam. If you burn X Kg of carbon, you get Y calories of heat, and generate Z m3 of CO2 - the numbers are the numbers, and there's no getting away from them. CO2 is the "greenhouse gas". Whatever you burn, if you want to reduce CO2 you have to extract it expensively, and with near exactly the same process as for any other organic fuel. Only nuclear is clean. As for the economics of coal just at the moment... well... just turn your radio on. Back to those "riches" everyone is so concerned about. Actually, having looked at this for a while, and very practised at losing large chunks of money on dusty holes in Bongo-Bongoland, I really don't think that there are any riches! Yep, I think a great deal of the shale gas/oil thing is a way of parting unwary investors from their money. Take a glance here: http://energypolicyf...-not-in-shales/ There's a lot more of that - all very technical, but what it boils down to is that no one is making any wonga. Or rather no one who doesn't sell out rather sharpish after the first gas starts flowing is making any. To quote that article "It is a failed business model of epic proportion." The economics of the oil business depend an awful lot on back of envelope calculations (dressed up to look authoritative) - projected reserves are often alarming wide of the mark. Energy extraction from shale seems to be taking this guesswork to a whole new level. It's looking increasing like a lot of shale projects are simply incredibly long tubes in the ground to stuff ten pound notes into!

Some good advice above, and Symptoms is right about the Apple myth too. Only on an Apple product can the mere act of plugging it into a charger result in the device being seriously compromised. Chrome OS is probably the safest platform these days, but that's likely because for most people they accept big brother Google's free offers and defaults. It's not entirely without its bloopers though. For someone completely wet behind the ears a Chromebook is easily the safest bet, and way way cheaper than anything Apple. Google do the thinking for you, supply your software for free, and keep everything up-to-date. Most sensibly configured PCs are hardened these days and it's necessary to resort to trickery to compromise them. Hover your mouse cursor over and links so that the actual URL appears (sometimes in the status bar) if there are subtle differences from a URL shown in the text that's VERY suspicious. The main vulnerability these days is malicious Java scripting on sites you are lured to. Make sure your Java engine is fully up to date. Any e-mail attachment you don't expect and are in any way unsure of the source of probably carries a payload, and should never ever be opened. Windows users would probably be best advised to remove any Microsoft e-mail clients and use Thunderbird - though you probably will need some assistance at setting this up properly to filter spam and flag likely malicious stuff. I was surprised quite recently though to discover that most people these days don't even know what an e-mail client is, and assume webmail is proper email! If you are viewing HTML emails make sure that the display of LINKED graphics is turned off. It's the default these days on any decent e-mail client but Microsoft were very laggy in implementing this on Outlook/Outlook Express. There's not a direct threat here, but it makes it possible for scamsters to detect if you've received and displayed their mail. If you need to take one thing away from here it's to NEVER publish your e-mail address on a website anywhere so it is publicly readable, and be very picky who you give it to. People still do this all the time! This is both idiotic and completely unnecessary.