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Try reading some of Jack Schofield's columns in the Guardian online. The man is an arrogant boor, convinced he is always right and trashing anybody who doesn't agree with him. He is also a devoted microserf and seems to delight in putting down anyone who takes exception to their software or business practices.

I'm in two minds about Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's a brilliant story, no doubt about that. Orson is also geeky enough -- in the 80s, he even worked for a computer magazine to which I contributed. But Ender's Game is a straightforward story with a twist. It doesn't force you to keep rewriting your mental maps, like, say, The Eye in the Pyramid.

They've also negotiated via press-release regarding their potential merger with Warner Music.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,16781,16440 45,00.html

What terrible generalizations.

It's a shame the author of the article isn't aware of The Guardian Gamesblog that had an entry several weeks ago titled Peter Jackson - game developer. It seems the director was unhappy with EA's treatment of the LotR games, so for the game based on King Kong he contacted the developer of Beyond Good and Evil, a great but overlooked title, and even shipped members of the design team to New Zealand, gave them information about the movie and discussed the game with them.

Yes, games based on movies used to be bad (E.T. anyone) but now that games are big business things are changing.

What terrible generalizations.

It's a shame the author of the article isn't aware of The Guardian Gamesblog that had an entry several weeks ago titled Peter Jackson - game developer. It seems the director was unhappy with EA's treatment of the LotR games, so for the game based on King Kong he contacted the developer of Beyond Good and Evil, a great but overlooked title, and even shipped members of the design team to New Zealand, gave them information about the movie and discussed the game with them.

Yes, games based on movies used to be bad (E.T. anyone) but now that games are big business things are changing.

More mice have been committing suicide by cat.

You joke, but there's already a cat parasite called toxoplasma where the complete life-cycle involves using a mouse or rat as a host, in addition to the final destination of a cat. To increase the chances of that happening, the parasite appears to mess with the rodents' brains, making them more likely to take risks and even actively search for the scent of cat urine. If that rodent gets eaten, the immature parasites can break free and make themselves at home in the cat.

Disturbingly, this same parasite is known to infect humans as well, and there's evidence to suggest it might be altering our behaviour too...

Smoke away- but please crawl into a field when you die-- don't drive up the cost of health care for those who need it for non-preventable, legitamite purposes.

Smoking

May help prevent Alzheimer's and makes you slimmer. So smoke away- but when you die of lung cancer, please crawl out into a field somewhere and die a not so peaceful, quick death there. We'd rather that than have you chew up medical resources dying a long and slow death in hosptital. This drives up the cost for the rest of us who might need it for non-preventable things.

Talk to physicians and they'll tell you there are few things you can put in your mouth that are worse for you than a cigarette. But it's not all doom and gloom. Smokers are at least doing their bit to slow down the runaway obesity epidemic that is sweeping through the western world. "In many studies, you often find smokers are slimmer. We've certainly seen it in our studies," says Jodi Flaws at the University of Maryland school of medicine. "Some people think it's due to certain chemicals in cigarettes somehow making them burn more calories, but others believe it suppresses appetite. It may well be both."

Drastically upping your chances of cancer and heart disease might not be the best way to avoid obesity, but it's certainly easier than running round the block.

Scientists have also found evidence that smoking might, in some circumstances, help prevent the onset of various dementias. Many dementias go hand-in-hand with a loss of chemical receptors in the brain that just happen to be stimulated by nicotine. Smoking seems to bolster these receptors, and smokers have more of them. The theory is that smokers may then have more to lose before they start losing their minds. "It does seem that nicotine has a preventative effect, but the problem is that the other stuff in the cigarette tends to rot everything else," says Roger Bullock, a specialist in dementia and director of the Kingshill Research Centre in Swindon. So if your time is nearly up anyway, and you have somehow managed to steer a course past the Scylla and Charybdis of heart attacks and tumours, smoking might just help you retain your marbles.

this was too good to pass up searching for; thanks for the hint!

http://www.cabalamat.org/weblog/art_217.html
http://www.speedcam.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index2.ht m

and a little news article on the topic
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,690 3,1037031,00.html

I wonder what the governmnet will do with these cheaper, powerful supercomputers?

Why, decrypt your 66,000ft high stack of SSH traffic in case you're a would-be terrorist, of course! :-)

As the sentence you point out is not a direct quote, it's not what these unspecified "experts" said; it's what the journalist thought they meant. Even at the BBC science journalism isn't necessarily written by people who properly understand the subject under discussion. See Guardian science writer Ben Goldacre's critique of science reporting in the media to get an idea of how this kind of meaningless story comes about:

Scientists never said that tenuous small new findings were important headline news - journalists did.

Of course, if these developers had nothing to worry about, they would have doubtless been able to convince everybody of the truth of their case without recourse to litigation.
Any environmental scientists in Canada with soil sampling equipment who might be prepared to volunteer to go and do some soil analysis to help the defence prepare its case?

See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1391842, 00.html about a Spanish piece of software that already did this.

Not revolutionary.

The brain is a powerful guessing engine, sensitive to individual molecules (olfactory lobe), photons (retina) and low-power vibration (sound) as well as tiny changes in rotation (balance). Tapping those perceptions, amplifying their tiny signals among lots of noise to speak the state of the sense, doesn't require nanotech, cyborganics. As you mention, savants often achieve this, usually resulting from trauma. About 1% of humans are savants, including various kinds of synesthesia (as you allude to); about 10% of autistics are savants. Some savants, like the "Rosetta Stone" Daniel Tammet, are lucid enough to describe the experience, and believe it's available to everyone. Mind training can access these latent brain skills. All it takes is the proper thinking, without necessarily needing any external tech to perform. Which also suggests it's been available, and exercised by people throughout history (and before), who wouldn't require our evolutionary tech sophistication.

I'm not so sure that absolute total knowledge, even of our sensed portion of a possibly holographic universe, from which every bit of the universe can be extrapolated, is that fun for people anything like us. For example, I enjoy laughing at joke punchlines, and the experience of actually learning. Maybe those joys are even more fun for the refined mind.

See http://www.hitsongscience.com/technology.php for the developer's description, and
see http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11 710,1391951,00.html for The Guardian's write up.

Observer Article - 'A law the Stasi would have loved'

Guardian Unlimited (2002): Bezos counters that Amazon has made numerous innovations in web commerce that have been widely copied which it didn't patent, such as...customer reviews. oreilly.com (2000): Jeff countered that Amazon has made countless other innovations in Web commerce that it didn't patent, and that have been widely copied.

I mean look at the critism that most Europeans have over the U.S. ... it is too easy to get guns, there aren't enough laws to restrict buisnesses, taxes are too low, "hate speech" is not punished, health care should be nationalized and controlled by a central authority, etc., etc. They are not complaining for the most part that the U.S. restricts freedoms, they are complaining that the U.S. is too free and a "cowboy culture"

No.

Europe is complaining how freedom of press is killed. Europe is complaining how freedom of life is restricted by people being imprisoned for years without trial.

Europe is laughing when a chick flashing some nipple causes a national scandal, and frightened when secret mass surveillance projects and torture facilities do not.

Europe is complaining that corruption and ridiculous massive secrecy restricts freedom. Europe wants things to be managed transparently, so at least abuses can be exposed.

Oh, and Europe is complaining that America's freedom to become better is restricted by automatic labeling of any not-in-Fox-News observations or suggestions as "anti-american".

I mean look at the critism that most Europeans have over the U.S. ... it is too easy to get guns, there aren't enough laws to restrict buisnesses, taxes are too low, "hate speech" is not punished, health care should be nationalized and controlled by a central authority, etc., etc. They are not complaining for the most part that the U.S. restricts freedoms, they are complaining that the U.S. is too free and a "cowboy culture"

No.

Europe is complaining how freedom of press is killed. Europe is complaining how freedom of life is restricted by people being imprisoned for years without trial.

Europe is laughing when a chick flashing some nipple causes a national scandal, and frightened when secret mass surveillance projects and torture facilities do not.

Europe is complaining that corruption and ridiculous massive secrecy restricts freedom. Europe wants things to be managed transparently, so at least abuses can be exposed.

Oh, and Europe is complaining that America's freedom to become better is restricted by automatic labeling of any not-in-Fox-News observations or suggestions as "anti-american".

The government were pushing the 90-day detention-without-charge limit with the supposed safeguard that a judge would have to approve their continued detention every seven days.

You can bet that when the barrister for the police service shows up at court, that he will claim to have sensitive intelligence which he is not allowed to share with the detainee's legal team. Whether he is permitted to share this with the judge is another matter, but if the detainee cannot challenge the material, it remains a one-sided fight. Unless therefore the judge exhibits the same degree of independent thinking as our MPs thankfully exhibited this week, there is unlikely to be any effective oversight of the continued detention.

As SteveAyre pointed out above, this story and the unlucky detainee's continued account (which makes for frightening reading) show that the police and government in the UK just will not admit that they are wrong. I cannot foresee them rushing to release anyone, even if they were as obviously innocent as a newborn child. I can, however, foresee them ruining an individual's life and then refusing to admit that they were wrong. There are plenty of examples of entrenchment by the establishment in the face of obvious wrongdoing: Gulf War Syndrome, Iraq WMD and Deepcut are some that come to mind.

That then the Sun ran a headline screaming "Traitors" which denounced the MPs which held true to our liberal traditions, is nothing short of scandallous. That same newspaper's editor was arrested last week for assaulting her husband and held for nine hours and it was not even mentioned. I would have loved it dearly if that woman was subjected to the type of media harrassment that she dishes out on a daily basis.

Tony Blair almost lost his rag in the House of Commons on Wednesday when he was heckled that Britain was developing into a "Police State". Unfortunately, I believe that this is where we are inevitably headed.

Did we forget about this article featured on /. some time ago? (it even deals with data forensics in the UK) where they explain that the police have no clue how to get data from pc's or disks and less then 1% of them are trained to do this kind of work.
if you are in such a situation it is logical you need as much time as possible to recover encrypted data from suspects. mind you, this doesn't mean i agree with the 90 days proposal or anything, it is just one of the possible reasons.

They don't need to do that. Over here, refusing to reveal an encryption key when required by the Police is an offence in itself.

RIP Act 2000

Exactly.
This time was referring to habeas corpus.

Basically when Tony Blair came to power it was 7 days. He raised it to 14, now 28 but he still wants 90 days.

This is the period of time the police are legally allowed to hold you with no evidence whatsoever that you've done anything wrong, just because they suspect you might have. It's a period of time where the police can hold you while look for evidence. Once they find the smallest amount of evidence they can then charge you and then can keep looking for evidence.

This bill's meant to allow the police to break any encryption so that they would now be able to pick people up they suspect of terrorism and detain them until they've broken every encrypted file on their computer on the off chance that they'll find evidence that way when they can't find any other evidence whatsoever.

3 entire wasted months of your life dragged away from your job (which probably won't be there when you return) and your family while they break your PGP encrypted emails to your girlfriend on the off chance the two of you are discussing how to blow up parliament.

As an example: Check this story out. This journalist hadn't actually done anything, and they released him after a day. They did during that time confiscate his computer equipment.
If this had been raised to 90 days it's entirely possible he'd have been held for 90 days while they decrypted anything they found on his hard drives.

After the 90 days are up they would still have released him. And they would not even have to explain why he'd been locked up, because he'd never been charged.

The bill has too major flaws.

1) There's nothing really to stop the power being abused by police who don't like the look of someone or have a grudge against them, which is exactly what it is designed to prevent. You do require the judges permission keep them for that long, but it's not too hard to create a case of why you suspect someone.

2) This odd 90 days which the Police told Tony Blair that they can break any encryption in. They can't - it's impossible!
- There'll be multiple encrypted files, particularly if they are encrypting their communications (guilty or not guilty). Each one would need 90 days.
- They'll not know the encryption algorithm in all cases, so would need to try every one. Each one would need 90 days.
- There are HUNDREDS of encryption algorithms that use such large keys that you can't realistically expect to crack the password in 90 years, let alone 90 days. There are a few around that even with all the supercomputers in the world working it won't have tried every key before the universe ends. And it's still possible to take one and write your own with an even longer key. (The details of which would be secret so they couldn't crack it in the first place anyway).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,163 7188,00.html

There have been other studies, including one that I can't find the link to right now (but that is similar to the above-linked). The point is, as the article mentions, being "color-blind" allows French society to expect that all immigrants will conform to French societal norms, and removes pressure to accept other cultures on their own terms.

The funny thing about this is that religion is probably an evolved behavior, supported by identical twin studies showing correlated levels of religious feeling of identical twins separated at birth. There are also physiological findings that are localizing spiritual feelings in brain.

Well, this would turn out to be another Biodome if not for Dr. Mills patented cure-all energy tonic.

How timely!

I posted this on rllmukforum.com on Friday, in response to the posting of this article:

[quote="wikipedia"]Randell L. Mills was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chemistry[/quote]

Looks like he'd be in good company with some other quacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_McKeith.

Also, I expect a LOT more from the Guardian, expecially after reading this.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/.

"the real issue isn't so much health as it is the addictive nature of nicotine. Its a drug, that has no benefits,"

No benefits? What about this article: nicotine seriously improves health"

So you're saying that everyone should become a hippy because 0.001% of the students are committing suicide? Perhaps it would be more productive to just get the depressed kids some counseling and Prozac?

Then of course, Bad Things happen when kids fail even one exam (and their parents get upset) or when they are bullied (because kids don't learn how to interact with each other in a non-destructive way) or simply, when they just can't take the pressure anymore.
Tell me, Mr HappyEngineering, do you think (you're giving a professional opinion, right? and it's only 0.001% after all, right? 1 in a 1000?)... do you think, after his third attempt at slashing both his wrists, a six year old should be given Prozac or councelling? Both, maybe?

Those I found, were interesting reads (if you are indeed willing to learn more).

Pushed to the limit here

[...] While the students' performances look good on paper, the report does not show the emotional impact of high-pressured education. South Korea has the fastest-rising suicide rate in the world. Eight out of every 100,000 15- to 19-year-olds killed themselves in 2003. The stakes are high.

[...] That Korea's suicide rate took first place among OECD countries last year should make us reflect seriously on our lives and society. The National Statistical Office's 2004 mortality figures are especially embarrassing since suicide is rampant through all age groups at a time when the nation is most democratized and affluent. It may be these dizzying social changes that forced some troubled individuals to take life's final option.

the Taliban refused to cooperate with us trying to get rid of these terrorists.

Nonsense. You wanted the Taliban to give up Osama Bin Laden without offering any proof. The Taliban offered to extradite Osama Bin Laden to a neutral country. How is that the Taliban refusing to cooperate? What would the USA have done if somebody had demanded the same of them?

Quite right - it's travelling on the tube with suspicious behaviour such as not looking at police officers he should instead be worried about, and which will risk one being thrown in for prison for 90 days.

With just a little effort, you can find game bloggers writing about real issues, rather than just hyping the next big release. The next generation of game journalism isn't going to show up on the newsstand or in your mailbox. It's already on the web. Stop complaining about EGM and its ilk and surf some game sites already! Click on some ads while you're there, because the best way to improve game journalism is to support hard-working game bloggers who are trying to make a living at it.

For some examples, check out Video Game Media Watch and follow some links. Or just read Terra Nova or Game Politics or GamesBlog or any of about a dozen other good blogs I could mention. You'll feel better about the State of Game Journalism.

The goal of modern torture is not to injure the suspect but rather to make him completely dependent on his interrogator. America and Britain does a lot of research and training because, uh, their soldiers might be subject to these techniques and have to be taught how to resist. (R2I: resistance to interrogation training.) "It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis." Article.

One can cover a suspect with a rancid smelling hood having three to four layers that allows him only enough oxygen to survive. He must wear the hood for weeks or months. A Muslim suspect may be stripped naked and interrogated by a woman. Or tying someone into a chair, covering their head in plastic, and simulate a drowning by dipping them headfirst into a bucket of water. Or depriving someone of sleep for a few days and altering light/dark cycles so he thinks that time has never passed or has passed very quickly. Or pretending to send someone to Israel and having Israeli-looking American agents interrogate you. Freezing someone who is from a desert region works well. By the end of such treatment, the suspect will be gratefully to tell anyone anything to stop the torture.

i'm with you on your approach to taking various sources as a basis for an average. this has to be the only way of reading the news, i reckon, as long as you obviously take into account various 'slants' that they take and account for them.

as an aside, i have friends here in the UK that won't take the word of the BBC because they feel it has issues with the government on journalistic freedom, etc.

personally i'm with http://www.guardian.co.uk/ but hey, that's just my opinion. :-)

Much is made of its intermittent nature, but wind is more predictable than people assume. Advanced forecasting makes wind output from across the country much easier to anticipate. Bearing in mind the huge minute-by-minute shifts in power supply and demand, wind is just another cog in the system.

Jenkins claims that wind will require "dedicated backup", but this is not the case - and our view is supported by the National Grid, which runs the electricity system. Dedicated backup is not required for wind because backup supplies are provided for the whole electricity system, not for each individual plant. If this weren't the case, we'd need backup for every plant in the UK: nuclear and coal also have unplanned shutdowns, and when they do the effect is more dramatic than for wind.

• Wind is indeed intermittent, but (demonstrably in the UK, Porritt's commission published a study; and surely in somewhere as large as the USA) it's windy somewhere almost all the time. The purpose of the grid is to flatten out regional variance in supply and demand.
• Yes, backup is required, but this applies equally to other sources.

Green and Blacks now owned by Cadbury Schweppes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4543583.stm

Terry's of York now owned by Kraft Foods International http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,11 95607,00.html

Bendicks Of Mayfair are still independant .....

I see a lot of articles like this, I see industry experts and teams of executives coming up with the mystical answer to how to draw women in to gaming. Scientists and psychologists desperate to crack open a new market.

http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php
43% of gamers are female. In certain categories more women than men.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2005/06 /15/mobile_gaming_more_popular_with_women_than_men .html
The title says it all.

http://www.wi-fitechnology.com/displayarticle2212. html
Online games as well.

One of the best articles I ever read was one written by a disgruntled woman about the fact that she just wanted games developers to develop games. She was sick of her sex being singled out by the industry as if curvy women with big breasts was any worse than he-man look alikes with a penchant for baby oil. She was right.

These 'experts' can harp on about there wonder treatment of the industry but when it comes down to it,
if you make a good game people will play it. It doenst matter what sex you are.

This is the only industry that makes such ridiculous distinctions between the sexes. The movie industry knows what its doing in regard to this. Sure some are chick flicks some are macho fests most are inbetween and most people dont complain. So why is it that in the Games industry no one can accept that if you just make a quality game half of the population isnt just going to ignore it because God forbid the female characters are quite lucky in the looks department I know for a fact the males will almost certainly be a Keanu Reves or Arnold Swarchnegger rip off.

The major problem with women and gaming is the fact people think there is a major problem with women and gaming.

As for the article. A lot of it is really really bad. The explanation of how you can use our ancestory to predict which games we would prefer is utter crap. Go back pre Wolfenstein and ask him to use his theories to take a look in to the future. Chances of him predicting the future game probably around the 0 area maybe a little more due to shear luck. It may tell us why we enjoy playing these games but as a prediction tool, not even close. Thats the key to why this article essentially says nothing. Im fairly sure if you ignored the sims (A game which has a wopping female following and does match up to his 'prediction') this guy probably wouldnt even have made the connection he did. I certainly doubt hes actually come up with the perfect game idea for women using this psychoanalysis. I there even is such a thing.

The UK security service (MI5) doesn't need a court order to access traffic data, which includes tracking your mobile phone. If you find out you've been tracked (or bugged, or burgled) you can complain to a tribunal, but "In the course of their existence, no complaints have ever been upheld by the interception of communications tribunal, security service tribunal and intelligence services tribunal." - The Guardian

Take Africa and Asia for example where AIDs runs rampent. If this trend continues, only the religiously faithfull and monogamous will survive to carry on their genes and culture.

Not when the Vatican and religious leaders have been telling them that not only do condoms not prevent HIV infection, but are laced with HIV themselves:

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.

The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.

Sex and the Holy City includes a Catholic nun advising her HIV-infected choirmaster against using condoms with his wife because "the virus can pass through".

In Lwak, near Lake Victoria, the director of an Aids testing centre says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition. Gordon Wambi told the programme: "Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids."

Still think religion in Africa helps fight HIV?

Start using breeder reactors and we have solved our current nuclear "waste" "problem".

As for the windmills. Currently the problems listed usually deal with birds and bats flying into them or getting hit by them. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,690 3,1130672,00.html
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/17/news-lewis.php
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16383

Ignoring the eminent domain portions, the main problem seems to be that all the best spots for wind power are on bird migration routes. (Makes sense if you think about it). If you mean what effect it could have on the weather? Well, wind comes from air moving from higher to lower pressure areas. That usually means from warmer to colder as well. We are tapping a fraction of that energy to make electricity. (Not sure what fraction, mind you). So we probably are affecting the weather to some extent, but probably not enough to have a noticeable impact. It would all depend on the ammount we are extracting from the wind.

Long before then, it'll likely be used for stuff like this... or master race ala carte.

Programming and art are two sides of the same coin. They're merely different ways of reasoning, exploring, and doing. People who tilt too far one way or the other may be very good at that narrow task, such as coding or drawing, but not so hot at its opposite, which explains a lot of coders with no social life and artists who can't run a business.

Being successful requires the ability to deliver a product and understand relationships, and is true whether you're designing and playing games, working in the garden, or decorating a house. Image what would've happened if Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs had never got together, if you want to test the theory.

Many religions, business theories, and ways of war have known this, and the best leaders, the best achievers, have made themselves and been made by a balance between logic and emotion, a positive drive, and the ability to move people. None of this is new, none of it is a secret. The only difference between those who make it happen and those who don't is in its application.

The Best Boss Is...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4357938.stm

Conflict Resolution Pair Wins Nobel Economics Prize
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/ 0,9830,1588912,00.html

In the US, senator Charles Schumer has threatened legislation compulsory to license Tamiflu unless Roche allowed generic producers to boost the number of pills in circulation.

As long as TV and doughnuts are available, Omar should be fine. Instead of Bud he'll probably just drink Mecca-Cola (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3 604,870413,00.html) at some local tea joint.

There has been much discussion related to the Gizmondo. Specifically, the posting by Threep Doat on that link.

I don't think they're trying to cash in; rather, they registered the name a couple of years before google started using it, and it would have been far more sensible for google to examine the international legal status of the trademark before launching it. the guardian ran a story about it a month ago: http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,156 8222,00.html?gusrc=rss

quick google search (heh) turned up this:

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3 394361

suggesting that a bunch of people attempted to register gmail as a trademark at the same time back in march/april 2004, including google who were a bit slow off the bat. this applies in the US and i assume it's been resolved, anybody?

as for the uk this guardian article

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,125 97,1568223,00.html?gusrc=rss

suggests that the company registered it waaaay back in 2002, therefore not qualifying for bandwaggoning and actually probably having a legit claim.

FIFA is using a radio chip so the ball can say it scored a goal, in a football game (the sport you play with your feet).

This is an early announcement:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1 384236,00.html

They did use it for the Sub-17 World Cup, last month in Peru.
They refuse to use video, because they say it goes against the spirit of the game.

I fear that in the next 50 years we'll have people shagging farm animals on TV shows.

I take it you didn't hear about this, then?

Five is heading for a new storm over dumbed down reality TV shows after screening its most controversial broadcast yet in which David Beckham's alleged lover was shown masturbating a pig.
[snip]
Having completed her task, Loos told her fellow contestants: "My arms are aching! It lasts for about 10 minutes and he starts thrusting really hard and then I grip!"

Fellow farm hand Debbie McGee told her: "You must do it really well."

Betamax was never better than VHS. It was theoretically superior on picture quality, though most side-by-side reviews at the time of real equipment gave the edge to VHS except for a few short periods of a couple of months when Beta would implement a picture advance before VHS. But Beta was vastly inferior on sound quality and on tape length.

See, for instance, http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/comment/st ory/0,12449,881780,00.html

Of course, whether or not Dvorak is any better than Qwerty is open to debate; I've seen at least one study showing that Qwerty's design (alternate hands to avoid typewriter jams) also turns out to be quite helpful to typing speed (alternating hands is faster than typing successive characters on the same hand), and that Dvorak typists with repetitive stress injury benefit by switching to Qwerty in exactly the same way that Qwerty RSI sufferers benefit by switching to Dvorak. The only studies I know of show major Dvorak benefits were done by the inventor and salesman of the Dvorak layout.

See, for instance, http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html

All witnesses agree that Mr Lu was severely beaten, and Mr Lu has confirmed that that was the case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1593599 ,00.html