Slashdot Mirror

But there are a few things that people seem to forget when making the argument that the internet will kill media as we know it.

1. Local news. Sorry, but unless a plane drops out of the sky, CNN isn't remotely interested in in Ballarat, Australia - nor do most CNN readers care about the local government elections, or which local VIP has just been arrested for DUI, or who won the district football on the weekend - but I do, and so does our local newspaper.
While they don't have the circulations of the major world newspapers...the bulk of print news is still regionally based.

I don't know about the local internet news in your area, but I have icCoventry and Coventry & Warwickshire Network to provide local news for my area. The first is a digital edition of a newspaper, and the second isn't, which means it provides more detail on some subjects and less on others. They complement each other nicely.

2. Local Advertising. The local plumber doesn't need to or want to advertise to the entire state, country or to the world writ large. He wants to target the people in his immediate area, and the larger newspapers, and TV, are cost prohibitive, and online sites (mostly) don't meet that need. Local businesses and small businesses need a
centralised local vehicle to push their message.

It's quite possible to advertise locally on the Internet. There are sites like those above, or you can use IP/geographic lookup to regionally target adverts on national-interest sites, like all those adultfriendfinder adverts I keep seeing that say "meet hot singles in Birmingham" or whatever (ahem).

2. Content. Someone, somewhere has to generate it. Someone has to follow up on leads and stories, and get the word out. Sure, once the word IS OUT, there is no limit to the number of places online where you can find out about it, but someone had to go out and get the story in the first place, check the facts, and filter it down to a piece that most people can digest. THIS is where newspapers must head if they want to survive.
They need to be going out and getting the in-depth investigations and stories that their competitors don't have, and stop relying on regurgitating the same stories that everyone else has.

Yes. But saying newspapers will die doesn't mean that journalists will die. They'll simply shift to different revenue models than selling a sheet of paper with adverts stuck on it. They'll move to special-interest web sites and content-indexing organisations that bring attention to the stories they think their readers will want to look at (kind of like slashdot is, only for all kinds of different readers, probably with a wider focus -- imagine a slashdot-like site for your local area, for example).

As long as people still want to sit down with a coffee to read through the week's news, local, national, international, and do the crosswords, read the comics etc., newspapers will be around. People enjoy sitting down and flicking through a paper at their leisure, and you can't do that online.

As handheld computers become more common and easier to use, more and more people will find them more convenient for this purpose. Physically, something like a kindle or an iliad or another similar device is way more convenient than a newspaper. Connectivity issues are disappearing; it seems like it won't be long before we have ubiquitous free-or-nearly-free wifi. The price of such computers is dropping, while their battery life expands. Once we get to the point where we can take these items anywhere we want to go and read relevant, targeted stories on the Internet, I doubt many of us will look back on the days we used to lug huge sheets of folded paper around with us.

That's funny, I was able to find all kinds of stuff about gangs in London with a quick Google search. Either you're a liar, or completely naive.

Mugged by gang:
http://icsouthlondon.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0550wandsworth/tm_headline=mugged-by-gang-of-thugs&method=full&objectid=18485578&siteid=50100-name_page.html

169 gangs currently active in London:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/03/14/gang_insider_feature.shtml

Islamic gangs in London have guns:
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/755

16-year-old boy murdered by gang:
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/news/64167-boy-skewered-death-railings-violent.html

Armed london gangs recruiting via YouTube:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=437617&in_page_id=1770

"London violence scarred us all":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jul/01/youthjustice.crime

Thug gangs ruining Liverpool:
http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/blackpoolnews/Thug-gangs-ruining-Blackpool.3781214.jp

Have fun when you have children and they're forced to join a gang.

This is not a mere case of possesion of materials.

Another article is at http://ichuddersfield.icnetwork.co.uk/examiner/news/regional/tm_headline=8216-teen-tried-to-kill-bnp-supporters-8217&method=full&objectid=19904648&siteid=50060-name_page.html

In the UK, this case cost the taxpayer £18.4m. All to prosecute a gang who made precisely £0 from their activities.

Errr... maybe I've just missed it but I am amazed that http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost /news/tm_method=full%26objectid=18967955%26siteid= 50002-name_page.html this hasn't been mentioned anywhere outside Birmingham (thats Birmingham, UK) Surely more of a breakthrough than this?

From this article:

Luigi Guerriero, from Bedfordshire Police, said: "It is definitely not Big Brother. It is directed at persons deliberately trying to evade detection.

"Primarily it is keeping officers on the streets. In normal circumstances it would have taken four or five hours to deal with them.

"We used it earlier this week when a man stopped in Leeds was found to be wanted in Leeds for other offences.

"The Big Brother issue is, if you're not a person involved with the police you have nothing to worry about."

Ah phew, I have nothing to worry about! Seriously, do people still use that argument?

Barry Taylor, Deputy Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys Police, was the project leader on the scheme, which will cost £2.6 million over the next 12 months.

At the moment suspects must give their consent to be fingerprinted but there is legislation already in the pipeline which would force people to submit to the test, said Mr Taylor.

"We have legislation in waiting for fingerprints to be taken without consent," he said.

"It would certainly be preferable to have consent, we do not want to have to compel people to do this."

Well, I'm reassured. We certainly couldn't do without yet another bit of pernicious, unnecessary legislation. And only £2.6m! Bargain!

The £100000 that could have been saved by moving to Windows would just about offset the pay of one council employee in an overpayments scandal that's been floating around Birmingham in the past few weeks. See http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost /news/tm_method=full%26objectid=18018775%26siteid= 50002-name_page.html for some of the details. With appalling mismanagement of council finances in general, it's no wonder they've done this too.

If Sir Ian McKellen can put solar panels on his roof in England and have it generate more energy than he needs I think you could do just fine in Michigan.

If you ask me, it's you brain making solar power hard, not the Universe. The Universe is dumping it all over the ground around you.

You shouldn't be riding a bike if your bladder is inflamed :)

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/ tm_objectid=17564553&method=full&siteid=50082&head line=cyclists-beware--bladder-disease-has-returned -name_page.html

I'm not saying that we glorified you, but the USA's image was nowhere near where it's today. Anti-Americanism boiling under the surface is something different from wide-spread open distrust towards the USA.

Okay- fair enough. I still believe that there are bigger issues at play here than trying to make sure that Europe likes us.

As for Iraq: Nobody believed you when you said that Saddam paid Osama (which he didn't),

I'm not sure what you mean by "paid Osama" (Osama was already rich- why would Iraq need to pay him?), but even assuming Iraq had no relationship with al Qaeda, they had still been supporting dozens of other terrorist organizations (like Abu Nidal, the PKK, Carlos the Jackal, etc) for decades. Or do you think that Russia didn't believe us?

nobody believed you when you said he didn't comply with the weapon restrictions

That's strange. In January, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, Hans Blix himself testified that Iraq "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament, which was demanded of it" (Source). So I guess he believed it. In fact, several other governments have also publically stated that they believed this as well. And guess what? They were exactly right. The Iraqi Survey Group found dozens of illegal and hidden weapons programs in Iraq that the UN didn't know about. True, we didn't find the old decaying stockpiles of weapons we thought we would find, but instead what we found was much worse.

almost nobody wanted to help you when you attacked a country that was well under control (partially due to you already keeping them in check).

If Iraq had been well under control, they would not have been supporting international terrorist groups to commit murder, they wouldn't have been gaming the UN Oil-For-Food program to allow them to smuggle any proscribed item that they wanted in the country, and they wouldn't have been developing dozens of illegal and hidden weapons that UNMOVIC didn't know about.

In the process you destabilized the country and possibly the region.

Are you somehow under the impression that the middle east was "stable" prior to 2003?

Also, you're making yourself unpopular with the very people you claimed to have freed, as you a) are an invader, b) have plunged their entire country into conditions even worse then before and c) are effectively taking away their oil resources.

We may be unpopular, and we certainly are invaders, but how can you claim that conditions in Iraq are worse than under Saddam? And how can you claim that we are taking away their oil- "effectively" or not?

Iraq is not a fun place to be right now, and like I said, we all wish it was going better there now than it is. But at least now the Iraqis have a chance to determine their own future, rather than suffer under a brutal and tyrannical dictator. Not only did Saddam directly murder hundreds of thousands of his own innocent civilians (some estimates are as high as 2 million), but he started two bloody wars that cost millions more to die, and countless others suffered and died under his direction because of his refusal to cooperate with the UN to lift sanctions in the 1990s.

So would you rather live like that, or live in an Iraq today that is violent, dangerous, and scary, b

You don't see the police arresting people who use these, unless they use them to commit (or attempt to commit) a crime,

Yeah you do, or with guns at least. There was a story about a year ago about someone who kept a Luger handgun which his grandfather had yoinked from a German officer during WWII. It had been in the family for ~ 60 years and was kept in a safe (although it still worked & he had ~ 20 rounds of ammo for it as well). His house was robbed. He reported it to the police and made sure to mention that a working WWII gun had been stolen with some ammo and so they might like to look into finding that. He was arrested, charged and convicted of possesion of an illegal firearm: here

You have 3 choices: accept selective enforcement, accept people occasionally being screwed over by unreasonable laws which it's someones "duty" to enforce, even when innappropriate, or get rid of the unreasonable laws, which may make it harder to deal with real criminals.

sigh... apparently, this is one of those government and business promulgated myths that is going to take years to undo, if even undoable. There are a ton of "scientists" out there who are emotionally and economically dependent on the current established "truth". Bad science is killing us all. But, here's the pointer. Read it.

Returning natural amounts of fat to our diet is essential for getting our weight back under control. As we've reduced our fat intake percentage, we have increased our food intake to take in the same overall amount of fat, hence the threefold increase in diabetes.

And while you're at it, add the following to your reading.

I can't find one right now, but there have also been several studies that were suppressed by those funded by the established theories indicating that high concentrations of free iron and calcium, both of which are as essential to the formation of plaque as fat, in the blood stream are more closely associated with heart disease than fat intake. So, yeh, go choke down some more iron and calcium laced supplements if you'd like to die young. And you might throw in the fact that family history, i.e. genetic makeup, is the number one best predictor.

In short, I've decided that your body knows what's best more than current established "science". Since deciding this, I've lost 50 pounds eating what I want instead of what's "good" for me. And the substitution of bacon grease in place of crisco in my corn bread last night was awesome.

Omega 3 might not be a lifesaver
Mar 24 2006
Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail
SCIENTISTS have cast doubt on whether fish oils can really help protect against heart disease.

It's interesting that they're using genes from C. elegans which along with the fruit fly, yeast and the mouse make up some of the most throughly studied organisms. I wonder if it's a case of looking for the lost keys under the street light because that's where it's brightest.

Pigs have become popular as pets and many campaign to end the eating of pork. A open and shut case of anthroporcmorphism.:)

And you don't even have to use FRESH oil as your fuel, if you don't mind your exhaust smelling like a chippie! This was a news story in the UK around 2003/2004 (possibly earlier) when motorists in South Wales started using cheap vegetable oil in preference to rather more expensive diesel.

What folk in the US have to remember in costing these fuels is that not everyone has such CHEAP roadfuel. Current UK petrol prices are around 85/87 pence per litre ( $5.52 per US gallon) and diesel is around 91 pence per litre. Sunflower and other vegetable oils retail at about 40p/litre for the cheapest brands. So bio-fuels are VERY cost effective here, if you ignore the Inland Revenue who take their duty cut on all road fuel sales as well as ordinary sales tax...

Here's some references to the South Wales stories

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/ content_objectid=13489386_method=full_siteid=50082 _headline=-Grant-to-promote-use-of-car-fuel-from-c hip-shops-name_page.html

http://www.vegoilmotoring.com/

You really don't understand Microsoft, do you? One of their defining characteristics is their totally singleminded focus on market share. Doesn't matter what size the market is. Witness their reaction to Welsh translations of rival software: this and this. The market in New Zealand dwarfs the market of Welsh-speaking Welsh people..

From some more coverage:

The U2 frontman, speaking of his collaboration with the Gateses on tackling global health, said: "When an Irish rock star starts talking about it, people go, yeah, you're paid to be indulged and have these ideas.

"But when Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, they know he's done a few spreadsheets."

Was that the same Gates who once said that spam would be solved by 2006 (who now has just under 2 weeks to make it happen)?

Just wonderin'.

There is more detail about the rescue on my icNorthWales site here

Sorry, meant to post this link

You can be killed if a cricket ball hits you. A rock-hard ball that can travel in excess of 100mph? We're hard bastards, not stupid bastards.

The age limit for buying a knife will rise from 16 to 18. Anyone selling a knife to someone under 18 faces up to six months in jail and a fine of up to £5,000. Couples who marry under 18 or students on catering courses will have to ask adults to buy knives for them.

Giving head teachers the power to search children they suspect of having weapons in schools was criticised by teachers unions, which said that school staff must not be expected to search teenagers for knives.

I think it's a bit of a stretch saying that LSD is less harmful than alcohol. I don't know of anyone who got drunk and decided that theier has face was wrong and proceeded to cut it off with a razor (a college roommate years after dropping out).

How about this welsh rugby fan who got drunk and cut off his balls? Crazy people do crazy things. Is it the drugs fault? Psychotic reactions to LSD are very rare, and can be avoided by taking simple precautions. Especially that those with psychological problems should not take them without professionaly guidance.

What kind of motor offenses land you in Jail? Here in Iowa (in the US) only Drunk Driving will put you in jail, and usualy only for multiple offenses.

Speeding

Refusing to pay a Speeding ticket

Causing Death by Dangerous Driving through drinking

and usually to escape being identified by police officers and manslaughter

What kind of motor offenses land you in Jail? Here in Iowa (in the US) only Drunk Driving will put you in jail, and usualy only for multiple offenses.

Speeding

Refusing to pay a Speeding ticket

Causing Death by Dangerous Driving through drinking

and usually to escape being identified by police officers and manslaughter

For the quarter ending March 31, the Redmond, Wash.-based company earned $2.56 billion, or 23 cents per share, up from $1.32 billion, or 12 cents per share, a year ago.

I just find it comforting, with my deflating techie salary and rising energy prices, that at least somebody is having a good time.

While General Motors is busy destroying its last EV1-s and getting people arrested over it, the French have debuted a new electric vehicle concept at Geneva Motor show.
Here is the press kit and images of the BlueCar, designed by Philippe Guedon and sponsored by Vincent Bolloré.
In other EV news, Commuter Cars Tango is reportedly close to producing its first vehicles, one of the first ones sold to George Clooney

D-Link's install software for the AirPlusXtremeG WiFi adapters generates a 60 digit random hexadecimal number for use as a pre-shared key.

The Daily Mirror is one of the United Kingdom's largest newspapers. Here is their front page on the day after the election (PDF file): Daily Mirror Front Page: How could 59,054,087 people be so dumb?.

Interesting. A Slashdot editor just subtracted 2 points from the moderation of the parent comment. It's easy to see it was an editor because editor moderation does not change the moderation statistics at the bottom.

I suggest that everyone take some time to understand how much America is becoming despised in the rest of the world. To the Slashdot editor: What I have said is mild and very well documented compared to what is being said outside the United States.

The Daily Mirror is one of the United Kingdom's largest newspapers. Here is their front page on the day after the election (PDF file): Daily Mirror Headline: How could 59,054,087 people be so dumb?.

Excerpts:

This once-great country... [is now] a fearful, backward-looking and very small nation.

... power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves...

... America chose a man without morals or vision. An economic incompetent who inherited a $2 billion surplus from Clinton, gave it in tax cuts to the rich and turned the US into the world's largest debtor nation.

The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land "free and strong".

Today is a sad day for the world, but it's even sadder for the millions of intelligent Americans embarrassed by a gung-ho leader and backed by a banal electorate,...

Full text:

UK Daily Mirror Editorial:


GOD HELP AMERICA

THEY say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world.

This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge for another four years and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced to share the same air. And in doing so, it has shown itself to be a fearful, backward-looking and very small nation.

This should have been the day when Americans finally answered their critics by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and looking outward towards the rest of humanity.

And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls predicted a John Kerry victory, it seemed they had.

But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.

A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity.

A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides cover for a power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to increase America's grip on the world's economies and natural resources.

And in foolishly backing him, Americans have given the go-ahead for more unilateral pre-emptive strikes, more world instability and most probably another 9/11.

Why else do you think bin Laden was so happy to scare them to the polls, then made no attempt to scupper the outcome?

There's only one headline in town today, folks: "It Was Osama Wot Won It."

And soon he'll expect pay-back. Well, he can't allow Bush to have his folks whoopin' and a-hollerin' without his own getting a share of the fun, can he?

Heck, guys, I hope you're feeling proud today.

To the tens of millions who voted for John Kerry, my

Gotta love how the UK Sees This

Link to a pdf of the cover of the Daily Mirror here

You might start by reading Declaration of War over at wikipedia. It's far more informed than your little diatribe. Editors: this is not news, this is nonsense!

Granted, far more interesting news on the warmongering front can be found here, and I quote:

"...the Prime Minister faced yet more unwelcome news over the weekend. Confidential Foreign Office documents were leaked to a London-based newspaper confirming once and for all that Mr Blair invaded Iraq, not, as he has repeatedly claimed, because he believed Saddam Hussein had WMDs, but because both he and George Bush wanted regime change. The papers also confirm that Mr Blair knew invasion for regime change was illegal under international law, and that he realised the only way of getting a sceptical British public and Parliament to back Bush's war was by mounting a case that Saddam was a threat to the world."

I get the impression that the majority of people who vehemently oppose surveillance cameras live in nice, affluent suburbs lined with picket fences and friendly neighbours. How nice for you.

Tell you what, try living in an inner-city hell-hole, where you are in constant fear of being attacked. You think car bombs outside police stations are something that only happens in Iraq and not in the UK? Think again. You try living in an area where people think it's fun to throw hand-grenades through your windows. The fact is, survey after survey shows that people who live in high-crime areas in the UK welcome CCTV - it reassures them and makes them feel safer. Perhaps if you had to live here too, you might feel different?

The fact is, in Britain we don't have a history of being quite so paranoid about the government as our US cousins. We don't feel the need to carry guns or spend the weekend in militias training to overthrow the government. Most of us realise that the majority of CCTV cameras are not even watched (they merely record footage that can then be referenced in the event of a crime). We are not so ego-centric as to think that anyone would even be particularly interested in watching a pixelated image of us walking to the shop to buy a pint of milk. We have long reconciled ourselves to the fact that liberty and freedom are never absolute because if they we would live in a state of anarchy and mob rule. Oh, and we enjoy reading about the dumbasses caught on camera, too :)

who needs computers for this sort of thing Uk has at least 2 notable pieces of road

Coventry ring road, picture the scene your decending a ramp to get on to the main ring road on the same stretch of road cars ect are leaving the ring and coming on to an extension of the ramp which runs on and off on to another road yes two streams of traffic crossing over constantly.

coventry
coventry
alternatively there is the magic round about in swindon
swindon

5 mini roundabouts arranged in a pentagon with 5 roads leading off
both scary to drive but apparently have low accident rates

When you think about it, Sony's never been into the corporate market. They're all about multimedia and entertainment, hence the upcoming PSP media handheld. PDAs have their most functional benefits in business applications. I could defnitely see them taking their Clié R&D environment and redirecting it to the market they know best: entertainment.

See here or here.

Which reminds me of my new money-spinning idea ( © Me on Slashdot) - a cross between fight club and Gaydar. People sign a disclaimer, and can then contact people who match their profile but instead of doing something rude with them they get to fight each other. As it's all among consenting adults, I'm sure it would be legal.... :-)

I thought cover in this context came from the old catering usage as a seat or customer . See this UK ref as an example.

It's worth thinking about, yes.
However, MS are getting a lot of negative publicity lately with having to pay SCO and also the european monopoly suit.
Meanwhile, the number of Linux users seems to be increasing so hopefully things will turn out for the best eventually...

Yeah yeah.
Those guys (who have been on permanent ceasefire for 7 or 8 years and reportedly moving towards breaking up if change continues) really have me living in terror.
From the article: "When you have that [process of change] working - whatever about what is happening within unionist paramilitaries - you are going to see an end to the IRA. That is the logic of all this." - Senior Sinn Fein source)

And if you must know, the 'security forces' already have such lists of their own of anyone who may be, know, is related to, bought a cat from, or otherwise was spotted on the same street as someone who may be suspected of being a sympathiser. Yes, I'm being flippant, but I know I am on it, along with probably nearly everyone in the whole area. 'Just in case', I presume.

Lists, schmists. Do we really need another one? They just piss me off thinking about them.

Perhaps its about time you updated your facts. Unless of course, you're one of those who'd prefer it all failed...

"come on, even in this post 9/11 age we arent locking kids up forever for stupid kid mistakes."

Girl takes the piss out of security guard, she likely will not be coming home

I don't know how old it is, but Reader's Digest almost certainly got it from the press surrounding a recent study on jokes at the University of Hertfordshire. More info on (and jokes from) the study can be found here.

I wonder if this has anything to do with this, Pilot Whales Beached in Tasmania.
Too much caffine explains why they get so disoriented.

Today, almost 400 hundred years later, little has changed and though 'Guys' are still placed on top of bonfires, (along with the occasional pope and unpopular contemporary politician) it is simply the continuation of a harmless tradition - the anti-catholic sentiment having long since disappeared.

So, burning the Pope in effigy is not an anti-Catholic sentiment? Hmm....

People seem to think that sniper attacks are a new and American phenomenon. That just ain't so. It's just another kind of murder, and murder's been around for a while, now.

First he was impeached for perjury in a case where he was getting sued by one of the many women he tried to bed.

Second, there are WMDs. The UN sanctions where over them, and they had inspectors there trying to oversee the destruction of them before they were thrown out. Clinton took a few pot shots at them over this, and claimed the same WMDs when he did that. About a month ago, an Iraqi scientist brought Americans to his back yard and dug up a component for a nuclear arms program, plus the documentation to go with it.

These things are buried, and will be found. They're finding things every day. Hell, they found buried PLANES for crying out loud... And they just found those. Check this for details. Here's another report.

The thing is, if we didn't even know those planes were there and the Iraqis were willing to bury them in the desert, why isn't it possible that they did the same with the other unaccounted for (but by the UN inspectors own reports, real!) biological, chemical and nuclear weapons?

A GIANT lobster saved from the cooking pot by a fishmonger, died of stress today hours after becoming the star attraction at a local aquarium.

Heads turned at Swansea Market, in south Wales, when Lucky the lobster, who was two feet long and weighed in at 7lbs, appeared on a fish stall.

But fishmonger Christopher Thomas, 20, was so taken with the colossal crustacean he refused to sell and had it transferred to an aquarium instead.

The giant lobster, estimated to be aged around 40, was caught off the Gower Peninsula coastline by a fisherman earlier this week.

He took up abode at the Silent Night Aquarium, in Tenby, yesterday, but was discovered dead in his new personal tank this morning.

Innocent people do suffer when the GOP is "taking out its enemies".

There is a message board for comments on the story...

"These micro-engines have over 300 times more energy than an ordinary battery" is meaningless. If they mean total energy delivery over whatever time period you like, then microengines can beat batteries by a factor of a million trillion zillion, as long as you hook them up to a big enough fuel tank. In actual power capacity, though, microengines aren't anything special at all, yet.

The aim is little turbines the size of a sugar cube that run from butane or propane or whatever, and have several watts of output power; prototypes of such things have been spinning for a while now. The microengines shown in the U of B release, though, are minuscule piston units which have power output in the microwatts, if that. Heck, the ones shown in the release don't even have generators attached to them, so their electrical output at the moment is zero!

For your amusement: A reader also pointed this out to me; it's a reprint of a piece on the subject from the British "Sun" tabloid, and it reads as if they took the U of B press release and put it through a Markov chain program, or something.

It's good to know that alcoholism in the press is alive and well.

Ahh...someone who knows the message. Here is a news story about it.

Fire
Rocks
Sharp sticks
Screw drivers
Cars
Planes
Rocks dropped from planes

Rocks? How about bowling balls, easter eggs, and a 2,600lb rubberband ball?

-

War is not a game. Bush and Saddam are happyly sitting in their sofa watching TV, while Civilians keep dying :(:

Pictures don't lie:
Soldiers and civillians suffer
War is not a game (Hard images)
And children are the most affected.
Censored Version by US/UK press

You would think this is not the place to post that. But the war, and the people dying there are more important than a fucking article.