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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Inferno-Jon-Per twee/dp/B00004CON8

We must visit the alternate dimension, watch their mantle spill over, causing calderas, then come back and stop the project!

$2 an episode is too much

There seems to be 22 episodes per series of the Simpsons, and the current series is #18. Series #9 is retailing at $33 so that would suggest that $1.50 is a reasonable cost to own an episode. Hell, even the first series is still $30 at amazon. Series #9 (the latest available to buy) was aired 9 years ago, and series #1 was aired in 1989!!! (On a side note, UK consumers are still getting screwed by the infamous $1:£1 currency converter - #9 costs £30 (aka ~$60))

If a network put the series that weren't available up for pay-per-view on a server, they'd take a fortune and people would pay it. Whether they can make a larger fortune by buying^H^H^H^H^H^H lobbying legislation like DMCA, witholding the DVD releases and dribbling episodes to networks (foreign or domestic), is another question

I did it this was so that I could also do a print version from the same source document.

I'm starting to wonder why any Europeans will actually bother to buy the thing.

So am I. Some personal, anecdotal evidence for you: when the Wii went on pre-order on amazon.co.uk, it sold out in something like 11 minutes. The Playstation 3 went on pre-order on the same site last Thursday and at the time of writing, units were still available.

Now this means one of two things:
1. Sony have sorted out supply problems in a way that Nintendo couldn't, and are shipping vast quantities to our shores to quench our demand.
2. The Playstation 3 isn't in as much demand as Sony would like.

It's a bit worrying if even the pre-orders aren't selling. Perhaps Europe has had a chance to see what's going on in Japan and the States and are playing wait-n-see.

And this latest news regarding backward compatability is more worrying still. I'll be honest - I'm a Nintendo fanboy, and am loving the Wii. However, I was contemplating a PS3, for mainly two reasons - firstly, as a cheap(ish) high-def movie player, and secondly, so that I can play some of the PS1 and PS2 games I missed out on by never having owned a Sony system to-date. Games like Katamari Damacy, Okami, Ico. Great games exist on all platforms, and I'm hopefully not that much of a fanboy to discard genuinely good gameplay regardless of platform. However, the news about 'gimped' backward compatability makes me reconsider the PS3.

(I also think that the console looks ugly as sin, and I happen to think that aesthetics are important in my living room, but that's a different gripe altogether)

Anyway, ramble over. I hope that this issue with backward compatability is only a temporary one, and that future software updates will resolve the issues. Until then, I shall wait, and wii.

>Do you consider a country "own" after 8 century "invasion"?

Yes. And obviously the spanish did too.

>During those 8 centuries Moors and Christian and Jew people lived together.

How very cosy and inclusive. You could however say the same about any number of empires down the ages. Perhaps India and half of Africa should still be run by the British? Perhaps Spain itself should still be in charge of Mexicon and central america?

>Tell me, who did write those books?

Are you unable to search Amazon without someone holding your hand? Heres a link for you then:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/026-23016 89-7838812?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=m oors+spain&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

Presumably because there's a lot of Top Gear DVDs out there, the sale of which may be impeded by the clips being available on YouTube (though not too much I'd imagine; Top Gear is one of those shows which really can't be enjoyed properly by watching a fuzzy Flash video of it).

Wiimote and Nunchuks aren't region-coded, are they? So why don't all you US gamers orders yours at amazon.de or amazon.co.uk for example, where there's still plenty available. It's only a couple of days of delivery, if you order stuff from amazon.com as a European, so I guess it's the same the other way around.

As for sustaining enthusiasm for the Wii: Obviously, I don't play 2+ hours per day every day anymore. I might even not use it all for a week occasionally. But I sure as heck still turn it on whenever friends come over. And I still play Red Steel every now and then, being one of the two people worldwide who actually like the game. Just the same, as with prior consoles, actually.

Indeed, much like Singstar is done in Europe: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/026-14116 97-5245268?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=S ingstar&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

Strange, Amazon says otherwise. Of course the law always trumps this sort of notices, but in my experience with Belgian shops their terms of service are usually in compliance with the law.

So if that slap-dash story can actually happen, how can any plan counter one of the many *serious* long term Fictional problems??

* Alien, Crimson Tide - Superuser has too much power
* Stark - Everyone hates it and commits suicide
* Celebrity Big Brother - One group starts picking on another
* Robocop 2 - First prototype mission works, but subsequent missions/models cannot *recreate the magic* ?

If things go wrong, will they stop the daily messages back from the deranged crew??

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallo ws-Adult/dp/B000M2DJQI/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/202-14 18729-1355842 Does this mean that "Harry" gets his kit off in relation to some animal that hagrid brings home?

You can get the whole thing (all 8 series) on Amazon for just £57

> Obviously you've never tried to use one of the new Sony Handycam thingys. Its DRM makes it impossible to edit movies you create
> with your own camera unless you're willing to put up with the DRM enforced degradation.

I've got one. Editing them is for nerds and wannabe directors. I just want to record video, like I do with my phone, only with higher quality. The little 8cm DVDs are cool, and I can copy them no problem using DVD Shrink/DVD Decryptor.

> You can no longer buy a DVD player that plays DiVX files.

Completely untrue:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-DVD-HD860-XEU-Mult i-region-Upscaling/dp/B000F4PF2O/sr=8-1/qid=117002 1384/ref=pd_ka_1/026-5048211-8322812?ie=UTF8&s=ele ctronics

> You could in principle release DRM-enabled stuff that just happens to be tagged with no restrictions, but that could be very, very
> expensive.

Pure speculation, your honour. Current generation DVD players have to (legally) be unlocked, or unlockable, in some parts of the world - in others, no attempt to restrict their availability would succeed due to this or that treaty or law.

Just a small but important point. Lockerbie was tried under Scottish Law, not "British Law". There are quite a few technical differences. But talking of principles, I didn't know that anyone in Britain can accuse someone pubically like this. Maybe, Britain never really wants to find the killer, they just blame someone who they know they can not get. This has happened in the past before. Oscar Slater was accused of a crime he didn't commit. He was in America at the time and the scottish police 'tried' to extradite him, but he came back Scotland voluntarily. He was then sentenced to Death but it reduced to life. Interesting case
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oscar-Slater-Immortal-Arth ur-Conan/dp/0750945737/sr=8-1/qid=1170020349/ref=s r_1_1/202-4743077-6636648?ie=UTF8&s=books

He wrote a book called The Road Ahead. I have no idea of it's content, or it's success predicting the future. I leave that as an exercise for whoever wants to fork over the dosh.

His later records were published by Reprise Records, but they did not enter the picture until he was already fairly well known and had self-published some LPs. His decision to sign with a record label seems to have been mostly motivated by laziness; he couldn't be bothered to handle the distribution himself, because it wasn't something he found interesting. The barrier to entry was small enough that he could do if himself, it was just more convenient for someone else to do it for him. These days it's even easier, but it wasn't very difficult even in the '50s.

[1] Definitely music-for-geeks; a Harvard mathematician singing satirical songs in the 50s and 60s.

Actually, it's the simplest known way of creating a unified field theory.

1. It's not a theory but a collection of theories. The original five different-but-possibly-dual theories and handwaved 'M-theory', plus different flavours with added restrictions or extensions?
2. It's not by any means finished: for instance, finiteness hasn't been proven, and there is no explicit background independent formulation which yields GR spacetime?
3. The basic idea may seem simple, but is overlaid by a lot of kludges such as supersymmetry to eliminate tachyons and fluxes to get a positive cosmological constant?

In fact, it has only one constant, which is certaintly definable: it is the string tension.

/.../ all of the string theories are part of the same theory /.../

In short, string theory is not a totally contrived fudge /.../

That's why cheap players don't do ogg

Erm...

For a better overview of how memory allocation works, I suggest Amit Singh's excellent book, which covers the workings of the XNU kernel in exhaustive detail (I did a technical review for the publisher, and learned more than I ever wanted to know about XNU and Mach).

Depends how you define kernel. Most people define kernel as 'that blob of stuff running in a single address space in ring 0' and, by this definition, there is a load of BSD code in the Darwin kernel (XNU). If you're interested, I can thoroughly recommend Amit Singh's excellent book. I did a technical review of it for the publisher; he knows far, far more about the XNU kernel than I feel anyone ought to.

"Hello USA, this is Europe. Here is a list of more tarrifs that we shall impose upon your trade" :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Europe-Will-21st-Centu ry/dp/0007195311/sr=1-1/qid=1168715726/ref=sr_1_1/ 026-9520916-4570038?ie=UTF8&s=books

I recommend this book for the differences in approaches between USA and the EU with regard to the approaches to solving disputes :)

Wii Play: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wii-Play-Wiimote-controlle r/dp/B000INYT0G/sr=8-1/qid=1168620977/ref=pd_ka_1/ 202-6446174-2571802?ie=UTF8&s=videogames

Availability: In Stock

There's a great review covering all the games on wii play on there too.

It is really scary when scientists *never* think outside the box...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-God-Bible-Novel/dp/07 4593983X/sr=1-1/qid=1166533688/ref=sr_1_1/026-5404 366-8449265?ie=UTF8&s=books

Or just google for it.

The "Book of God" is a novel based on the Bible filling in well researched but still imagined details about life in Biblical times. It stays close to the original text and gives a reverend rendition of happenings starting with Abraham and moving on through to the Acts of the Apostles. It is not an exhaustive account. YMMV

Try it ... there's an excerpt here http://walterwangerinjr.org/new_web/publish_detail s.php?id=27&t=excerpt from the start of the novel.

Quote:
          Abraham felt the hairs on his neck begin to tingle. Suddenly this was not
mere dinner conversation. It felt intimate and dangerous.
          He was about to respond, when the stranger turned toward the tent and
called out, "Sarah! Sarah, why did you laugh?"
          A tiny voice in the dark interior said, "I didn't laugh."
          The stranger said, "Yes, you did. When I said you would bear a son you
laughed in your heart and mumbled. Shall old age have pleasure anymore?
Woman," said the stranger, "is anything too hard for the Lord?"
          Abraham gaped. His heart had begun to race wildly. His mind could scarcely keep
pace with events. The Lord! This fellow had said. Is anything too hard for the Lord?
          Once more, louder now but hidden still behind the reed screen of the tent,
Sarah said, "I did not laugh!"
          The three men were rising up, preparing to travel on. "You did, you know,"
the more glorious one said. "You laughed."
          And then they left. They set out on the long road that descended to the city of
Sodom.

Off-shore wind farms are a key part of the solution to global warming according to George Monbiot's book Heat.

Here in the UK, I was reading a Littlewoods mail order catalogue (just for christmas gift ideas) and came across a new toy for young girls.

It's a *POLE DANCING* kit !

What is wrong with this picture ? I mean, have the womens liberation movement ceased to exist ? I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he replied that he already knew about it, and that his daughter had been doing it as a course at school ! WTF.

I am all for liberisation etc, but surely this is a bit over the top. I mean, do they teach these children what the fucking pole represents ?

I tried to get to Littlewoods website to find a link, but the net is slow here right now, google has some good links to a story on it though, as it appears Tesco had a similar product. I remember a time when women got pissed off if you bought a young girl a pram and a doll, now apparently we can train them to be erotic dancers, at public expense ! Jesus H Christ, on a bike. What's next, My Little Pony Fuck 'n' Suck outfits, Crotchless panties (age 5 to 6), Leather gear for the discerning 8 year old ?

Amazon have the same product and it even includes toy dollars ! They also have a toy lapdancing kit, which seems to have the words "not a toy" hastily tacked onto the description.

A Mac Mini has a DVI port. A DVI cable can be very long (mine is 10 metres). So I simply put my box in another room and use an X10 radio remote. Complete silence. Bliss.

A Mac Mini has a DVI port. A DVI cable can be very long (mine is 10 metres). So I simply put my box in another room and use an X10 radio remote. Complete silence. Bliss.

...simply click here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Catherine-Cookson-Complete -Collection-Disc/dp/B0009PZ8I0

in fact the only fm transmitters that also charge your mp3 player only exist for the ipod

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DIGITAL-FM-TRANSMITTER-CHA RGER-PLAYERS/dp/B000IVILHK

This story is overflowing with FUD and misrepresentation. A routine fact-check will demonstrate this. Let's pull this apart:

According to Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president of the Taiwan-based company, the issue is simply that the basic home edition of Vista, Home Basic, which is available for preorder on Amazon.co.uk for 154.99 pounds ($293), is so basic that users will be forced to move to Vista Home Premium, at 189.99 pounds ($359).

First of all, they got the prices of Vista wrong: Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is 185 GBP; Vista Home Premium is 224 GBP.

Second, price-conversion. Everybody knows that you don't take the street price of a product in British pounds, run it through xe.com, and come out with the street price in USD. Microsoft's MSRP on Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is $199 USD, -not- $293 as given in the article. Vista Home Premium (non-upgrade) is $239 USD. Note that the MSRP on XP Home Edition is $199 USD, the same as Vista Home Basic.

Third, Microsoft has never sold an edition of Windows with the Media Center included on the retail market, so in a way there isn't really any good point of comparison.... of -course- it's going to be more expensive than XP Home.

"The new (Vista) experience you hear of, if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all," Wong told PC Pro magazine. "There's no (Aero) graphics, no Media Center, no remote control."

Yeah well, guess what? some people just don't want or need that stuff. Actually, I'd hazard a guess and say that the vast majority of users don't want or need Media Center functionality or a remote control. That's not what's worth harping on about. Home Premium does have a lot of neat things in it, especially for mobile users, media centers, tablet PC owners, etc., but it's useless for a lot of people who just use their computer to get stuff done.

Wong also said that the manufacturer's license for Vista Home Premium is 10 percent more expensive than for XP Home.

It's also got far more functionality (Media Center, new mobility features, XBox 360 connectivity, Tablet PC features) than XP Home Edition or Vista Home Basic Edition, the latter of which Acer is refusing to sell to its customers.

"We have to pay more but users are not going to pay more," Wong said. This would mean an increase in the cost to PC manufacturers of 1 percent to 2 percent, according to Wong, in a business where the profit margin is around 5 percent or less.

Quit your bitching, Mr. Wong. If the price of Windows is going up by 10% because you are choosing to force a higher edition on your customers, you pass that price increase on to users... it's not your job as a company to absorb price increases from Microsoft.

At the top of the Vista lineup is the Ultimate Edition, which can be preordered for 325 pounds ($614) and, again, is significantly more expensive than the XP operating system it replaces.

Ultimate Edition is covers a lot more ground than XP Professional. The thing comes with Media Center, twice as many games (good ones, too, like Chess and Majongg), backup software that doesn't suck, a bunch of extra software and add-ons analogous to the XP Plus! Pack, and even a friggin' UNIX stack to boot -- and that's not even going into

This story is overflowing with FUD and misrepresentation. A routine fact-check will demonstrate this. Let's pull this apart:

According to Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president of the Taiwan-based company, the issue is simply that the basic home edition of Vista, Home Basic, which is available for preorder on Amazon.co.uk for 154.99 pounds ($293), is so basic that users will be forced to move to Vista Home Premium, at 189.99 pounds ($359).

First of all, they got the prices of Vista wrong: Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is 185 GBP; Vista Home Premium is 224 GBP.

Second, price-conversion. Everybody knows that you don't take the street price of a product in British pounds, run it through xe.com, and come out with the street price in USD. Microsoft's MSRP on Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is $199 USD, -not- $293 as given in the article. Vista Home Premium (non-upgrade) is $239 USD. Note that the MSRP on XP Home Edition is $199 USD, the same as Vista Home Basic.

Third, Microsoft has never sold an edition of Windows with the Media Center included on the retail market, so in a way there isn't really any good point of comparison.... of -course- it's going to be more expensive than XP Home.

"The new (Vista) experience you hear of, if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all," Wong told PC Pro magazine. "There's no (Aero) graphics, no Media Center, no remote control."

Yeah well, guess what? some people just don't want or need that stuff. Actually, I'd hazard a guess and say that the vast majority of users don't want or need Media Center functionality or a remote control. That's not what's worth harping on about. Home Premium does have a lot of neat things in it, especially for mobile users, media centers, tablet PC owners, etc., but it's useless for a lot of people who just use their computer to get stuff done.

Wong also said that the manufacturer's license for Vista Home Premium is 10 percent more expensive than for XP Home.

It's also got far more functionality (Media Center, new mobility features, XBox 360 connectivity, Tablet PC features) than XP Home Edition or Vista Home Basic Edition, the latter of which Acer is refusing to sell to its customers.

"We have to pay more but users are not going to pay more," Wong said. This would mean an increase in the cost to PC manufacturers of 1 percent to 2 percent, according to Wong, in a business where the profit margin is around 5 percent or less.

Quit your bitching, Mr. Wong. If the price of Windows is going up by 10% because you are choosing to force a higher edition on your customers, you pass that price increase on to users... it's not your job as a company to absorb price increases from Microsoft.

At the top of the Vista lineup is the Ultimate Edition, which can be preordered for 325 pounds ($614) and, again, is significantly more expensive than the XP operating system it replaces.

Ultimate Edition is covers a lot more ground than XP Professional. The thing comes with Media Center, twice as many games (good ones, too, like Chess and Majongg), backup software that doesn't suck, a bunch of extra software and add-ons analogous to the XP Plus! Pack, and even a friggin' UNIX stack to boot -- and that's not even going into

Anyone read Stephen Baxter's Sunstorm? This is straight out of it.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sunstorm-Gollancz-Arthur-C -Clarke/dp/0575078014/sr=8-6/qid=1162822823/ref=pd _ka_6/203-8104224-7318347?ie=UTF8&s=books

I'm not completely sure, but it seems that the W3C is also implicated. Sounds almost like the end of Snow Crash...

Would you care to ellaborate how serfdom is a "right wing" thing? or perhaps a dictionary or encyclopedia reference professing so?
Must not be hard if you are definite...
 
  I on the other hand, an avid fan of "Friedrich Hayek" who authored "The Road to Serfdom" back in the 40's. His contention was that Socialism reduces the individual to the condition of the serf who ends up without even the power to sell his labour to a higher bidder.

Good book, highly recommended...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-Serfdom-Routledge-Cla ssics/dp/0415253896/ref=cm_lm_fullview_prod_1/203- 2243310-4687102

Isn't this just obvious to anyone? James Bamford, in his excellent book Body of Secrets makes the explicit claim that senior NSA officials sit in key positions within Cisco, so why should anyone be surprised that Google provide special, specific portals for the US intelligence services. If I were running the CIA that's the first and most obvious thing I'd do too. This is a no-brainer. But I'm still happy to use Google Earth, GMail, Google Search, AdSense, etc etc ect. Why not? Like the DK's said, give me convenience or give me death. Dave

The question shouldn't be about staying alive, it should be about people with genetic defects procreating. I think it's pretty obvious we're diluting our gene pool with a bunch of shit (the rise of nearsightedness seems like an obvious one to me), a huge number of diseases have their symptoms treated without the problem being fixed. When these people have kids.. they're just perpetuating the decline.

Doing a quick search of 'ham' on Amazon US/UK yeilds the following results:

American: top 6 results are for ham (normal)

UK: 3rd result is for Hardcore Eurhoria and the 5th result is for Concert For Banglades

I have no idea what ham means over there, but ham is definitely more perverted and kinky over there than over here in the states.

Doing a quick search of 'ham' on Amazon US/UK yeilds the following results:

American: top 6 results are for ham (normal)

UK: 3rd result is for Hardcore Eurhoria and the 5th result is for Concert For Banglades

I have no idea what ham means over there, but ham is definitely more perverted and kinky over there than over here in the states.

Doing a quick search of 'ham' on Amazon US/UK yeilds the following results:

American: top 6 results are for ham (normal)

UK: 3rd result is for Hardcore Eurhoria and the 5th result is for Concert For Banglades

I have no idea what ham means over there, but ham is definitely more perverted and kinky over there than over here in the states.

Maybe they were ditching DS stock... I was looking to buy a DS-Lite this week and everywhere was £109 with one game... Except Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nintendo-Lite-Handheld-Con sole-Black/dp/B000FTQR8K/sr=8-4/qid=1161553768/ref =pd_bbs_sr_4/026-1104481-1180463?ie=UTF8 . But all the local shops were 109.

Ok, so I know he isn't published in the USA, but Halo was at least partly inspired (http://marathon.bungie.org/Story/halo_culture.htm l) by an Iain M Banks book, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consider-Phlebas-Iain-Bank s/dp/1857231384). I think this means that comparison's with films like DOOM is kind of unfair. Btw, Iain M Banks is one of the best sci fi authors alive. If you don't believe me, read it. An awesome book. Steve Crawford

All you need is to add 2+2 to get 4

Sounds scarily like the engineered food described in Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in which the character Famine develops food with specially woven and capped protein chains (approx. sic) with no nutritional value that allows the consumer to eat as much as they want and still look good while at the same time dying of malnutrition.

I'm nearing the end of a Computer Science PhD, and my primary machine is a Mac. Over the last few years, I have seen more and more people in my department move to Mac. Visiting other computer science departments, I see the same picture. Many of these people have a Windows/Linux/BSD box or two, but they use the Mac for real work. Anyone who uses a Mac and wants to understand what's going on should read Amit Singh's excellent book. Wanting things to work and being tech savvy are not opposites, in fact I would say there is a strong correlation between the two.

Even though I am a Brit, I am a big fan of the U.S constitution, well, when its upheld anyway ;-) And I really do not understand how gambling can be illegal? If anything, all it is, is a moral law / church law. Its your money isn't it? You do what you like with it. Or should be allowed to anyway.

I recently read an excellent book all about the absurdity of consenual crimes in America so I'd like to recommend it right here. link
It's worth a read just for the vast array of excellent quotes that occupy each page :-)

an excellent book which covers, amongst many other things, how people do behave over how they say they'll behave is Freakonomics.

for example, they cover how people behave about race and dating, whilst people SAY they have little preference, analysis from dating agencies shows the opposite. Even some game show stats are used to prove people are prejudiced.

indeed, I saw this on amazon (.co.uk - and we have to wait longer than the US for everything) about a year ago, infact it is so old that it's now been discontinued from amazon, still, there are some reviews; http://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Tech-C51-A04031-XX-Bluet ooth-Virtual-Keyboard/dp/B000BBQQRY/sr=8-34/qid=11 59734652/ref=sr_1_34/026-5191554-0026041?ie=UTF8&s =electronics

Oh I agree that they wouldn't. Doesn't mean they don't want/have the capability to do so if the circumstances demanded it... Personally I'm not even close to knowlegeable in these fields - literally the only writing on the subject I've ever read was in an old Cold War novel by Tom Clancy called The Cardinal of the Kremlin (which by virtue of very spooky timing I only read about two weeks ago :) )