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Judging by the picture and prices here, there are about 40 grapes in a 500g pack costing 2 pounds. So for for 1.5 pounds, I would expect to get about 30. Does that answer your question?

I have bought a couple of these, work very nicely, easy install (BIOS tweaks needed) and all the hardware works. Limited to 2GB RAM, this is plenty for web surfing, word processing & similar (I don't know if you can upgrade).

I bought a 14" one for £159 from Tesco, they were also advertising 11.6" ones for £129 (although the price has now gone up). Beware Acer seems to have several different laptops called AspireOne.

I have bought a couple of these, work very nicely, easy install (BIOS tweaks needed) and all the hardware works. Limited to 2GB RAM, this is plenty for web surfing, word processing & similar (I don't know if you can upgrade).

I bought a 14" one for £159 from Tesco, they were also advertising 11.6" ones for £129 (although the price has now gone up). Beware Acer seems to have several different laptops called AspireOne.

You know, from a British perspective, the US flag is a rebel flag as well. Just sayin.

True. I doubt it flies above any government buildings in the United Kingdom, but I bet you can still buy one at TESCO!

Yep: http://www.tesco.com/direct/us...

And it's probably made in China. Just like the real thing.

You know, from a British perspective, the US flag is a rebel flag as well. Just sayin.

True. I doubt it flies above any government buildings in the United Kingdom, but I bet you can still buy one at TESCO!

Yep: http://www.tesco.com/direct/us...

And this is why we have different products.

Just like with mobile phones. Or chairs. Or well anything really.

See I don't need my chair to have speakers. So this is not aimed at me. However, as I'm only a little bit of a douchbag I don't go on ever article about chairs bitching about how silly that chair is.

Brands available in Britain (see here etc) list "maltodextrin". That's a polymer of 3-20 glucoses, and I'd guess at the higher end since only some of the mass is included in the "of which sugars" on the nutrition information.

Is that really much different than starch?

(The purpose is simply to dilute the über-sweet Stevia powder so you can use reasonable amounts.)

For comparison, Tesco give the RDA of carbohydrate and sugar: http://www.tesco.com/groceries...

330ml of Coca Cola contains:
* Carbohydrate 35g, 13% RDA
* of which sugars 35g, 39% RDA

Surprisingly, the can itself only shows the "sugars" value and RDA. (In Britain, the supermarkets are much better at promoting these values, since their store-branded products are usually better -- probably because they have more flexibility to change the recipe.)

Sales of diet Pepsi are falling because half of them are buying Pepsi Max instead. Not sure how it differs from the diet option. They both taste equally bad to me.

Depends which one you mean- apparently there's a "Pepsi Max" (nee "Diet Pepsi Max") on the US market which has more caffeine than regular Diet Pepsi. The "Pepsi Max" sold in the UK since the early 90s is really just... Diet Pepsi marketed towards men instead of women.

About 15 years ago, I tasted some (UK market) Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max side by side just out of curiosity- the difference was minor at best.

The reason for having the two was- I assumed- more to do with marketing. Diet Pepsi and diet drinks in general were marketed and perceived as "girl" drinks, which probably put off male consumers. Pepsi Max launched with (very) 90s male-oriented advertising. (*)

What surprises me is that Coca Cola took around 15 years to do the same marketing trick with Coke Zero. That- at least- has the excuse of being a clearly different product from Diet Coke. (It sucks because it follow's Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max's nasty over-intense "sweetness" rather than Diet Coke's less intense but more unpleasantly "hollow" sensation (**)).

On the other hand, it means that some men (e.g. my boss) might still have a legitimate reason to buy Diet Coke instead of Coke Zero, which he doesn't like.

Personally, I think almost all diet soft drinks are horrible, except Sugar Free Irn Bru because it's one of the very few- if not the only one- that avoids both the above pitfalls if it's properly chilled. Plus, it's not over-sweet, it's got caffeine in it, and IT'S SCOTTISH! (^_^)

(*) What's weirder; the fact that with the wonder of the modern Internet YouTube (cough) I can find obscure twenty-year-old adverts in under a minute, or the fact that that advert still seems familiar to me after all that time. (I remembered the annoying "ooh" at the end even before watching it).

(**) You might recognise this as "my mouth thinks this is sweet, but some part of my reptilian brain knows damn well this is carbohydrate-free chemical-flavoured water and is refusing to give me any sense of satisfaction in drinking it").

Rum comes in all qualities. This one: http://m.tesco.com/h5/grocerie... is mass produced, though that didn't stop an American I met last summer buying everyone at the bar a drink of something "illegal".

They talk about it being more environmentally friendly, however how many of these ingredients that you growing, then cutting, and processing the hell out of them are you using. You "egg" is made from an acre of Soybeans, don't you feel good about yourself, with a good portion of it going to waste. While my Egg is from a chicken that has eaten 1 acre of feed and produced hundreds of eggs during its lifetime. And the chicken works as a rather efficient little factory of making eggs.

If you're going to argue that using pea protein instead of eggs is less environmentally friendly, you'll have to do better than just making up some numbers. The chicken seems rather inefficient since if all you want is the egg, doing things like growing, moving around, maintaining life, etc. all are inefficiencies in the plant to egg process.

On first glance, it would seem that it's more efficient to use the plant-based version. Hellman's Mayo is 8% eggs while Hampton Creek's mayo is under 2% pea protein. Even if the chicken was ultra-efficient and converted 1g of feed to 1g of eggs, you'd still have to show the that process from pea to pea protein was at least four times less efficient.

Given that one of their main points / goals is to be less expensive than using eggs, it seems unlikely that the plant-based version would be less efficient.

First, let's find the cost of a cheap burger. Just the meat part:
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268666515

£2.75 for two, so 1.37 each. But that's retail - McDonalds are buying wholesale, and in bulk, so they'll be paying a much lower price. Just to give a very rough estimate, let's call it half - that sounds about right as an upper limit, but it may well be less than that. So that's 68p for the meat in a quarter-pounder.

So even if the price doubled, that's an increase of 68p per burger sold. Or, rounding off, about $1.

The quarter-pounder with cheese sells for $3.69. But no-one buys a burger on it's own: You buy the meal, to get the drink and fries too. That's $5.39.
http://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/

So the price of your meal, if the price of meat doubled, would go from $5.39 to $6.39. That's more than $0.20, but still not huge - and I really doubt McDonalds pay even half retail price, given the sheer quantity of meat they get through.

This Buzz Lightyear laptop should do it. It has all the fun games and lessons a PHB will ever need,

These tablets are being offered for sale at £549 (US $834.32) and £634 (US $963) respectively. The Kindle Fire HD costs from £159, the Google Nexus 10 costs from £319, while the Apple iPad costs from £399. Even if there were nothing else wrong with Windows RT, trying to sell tablets for between 150% and 350% of the price of the comparable market leaders was never going to work.

As it is, if you actually want a Windows RT tablet for some reason, you've got to know that there's going to be a huge fire-sale of these things, and soon. Why would anyone pay those prices?

This is the product: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=264291549

It's entirely possible Tesco make no profit on some of their cheapest products. I think by having the "Tesco Everyday Value" product many more people will be happier buying the second-cheapest product ("Tesco"). Without it, they'd still buy the second-cheapest product ("Birds Eye Burgers") and Tesco wouldn't make so much money.

However, I'd guess WalMart would be a good start.

WalMart bought Asda a few years ago. For a *really* cheap product, these 32% pork sausages are sure to please.

Well the ingredients are listed as
Beef (63%),Onion (10%) ,Wheat Flour ,Water ,Beef Fat ,Soya Protein Isolate ,Salt ,Onion Powder ,Yeast ,Sugar ,Barley Malt Extract ,Garlic Powder ,White Pepper Extract ,Celery Extract ,Onion Extract
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=264291549

All that stuff is on the list. No mention of the 29% horsemeat though

An éclaire like that was a childhood indulgence :-D. I generally had to share one with my sister (not unreasonable, really).

I'm not sure how much they cost here. A crap one from a supermarket is $0.50 (that's still using real cream though). Probably $2-3, but a luxury bakery will sell them for double that.

The mass-produced what-sell-by-date? thing is still available, e.g. http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=254948221 (on http://www.cadburycakes.co.uk/range/cadbury-mini-rolls/ "THESE CAKES DO NOT CONTAIN DAIRY CREAM". Also I note that the serving is one roll, 27g, and the serving for a Ho-Ho is three rolls, 85g! http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-hostess-ho-hos-i113324 )

An éclaire like that was a childhood indulgence :-D. I generally had to share one with my sister (not unreasonable, really).

I'm not sure how much they cost here. A crap one from a supermarket is $0.50 (that's still using real cream though). Probably $2-3, but a luxury bakery will sell them for double that.

The mass-produced what-sell-by-date? thing is still available, e.g. http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=254948221 (on http://www.cadburycakes.co.uk/range/cadbury-mini-rolls/ "THESE CAKES DO NOT CONTAIN DAIRY CREAM". Also I note that the serving is one roll, 27g, and the serving for a Ho-Ho is three rolls, 85g! http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-hostess-ho-hos-i113324 )

How about this: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250035553

£1 for 4x440mL.

But the usual cheap drink in the UK is cider (in a three-litre bottle): http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255238708

5.3% isn't very strong, they used to be stronger. £1.25/L though.

(This is 7.5%: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268773411 . Last time I went to Scotland I met an 11-year-old boy who offered me a sip of his cider in return for helping him stand up...)

How about this: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250035553

£1 for 4x440mL.

But the usual cheap drink in the UK is cider (in a three-litre bottle): http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255238708

5.3% isn't very strong, they used to be stronger. £1.25/L though.

(This is 7.5%: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268773411 . Last time I went to Scotland I met an 11-year-old boy who offered me a sip of his cider in return for helping him stand up...)

How about this: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250035553

£1 for 4x440mL.

But the usual cheap drink in the UK is cider (in a three-litre bottle): http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255238708

5.3% isn't very strong, they used to be stronger. £1.25/L though.

(This is 7.5%: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268773411 . Last time I went to Scotland I met an 11-year-old boy who offered me a sip of his cider in return for helping him stand up...)

not their main food, medicine, personal hygine, etc purchases which I imagine they make at the supermarket reasonably near their home.

Err... you may have missed the move to online grocery shopping.

In the UK, over one-third of purchases from the big supermarkets are made online and delivered to the door. Actually, delivered into the kitchen.

Can anyone tell me what cheese is made of?

American cheese*? That's anyone's guess :-D

(*Legally, I can't call it cheese here. The supermarkets call packs "singles", but I think the legal term is "cheese analogue" -- I've seen that term on extremely cheap frozen pizzas sold in corner shops).

And you've given me permission to sell that data.

Not necessarily. (I'm at IT pro, but I have nothing to do with this kind of work, so this is based on my general knowledge.) In the UK privacy laws are a bit stronger than the US, so:

http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/charter.asp#information_used

Your personal information is safe with us and will never be released to companies outside the Tesco Group for their marketing purposes.

We may use and share anonymised information outside the Tesco Group. However, we would like to reassure you that this never includes your personal information

If you agree, we may contact you: [...]
* with offers and information about partners' products or services

(The result is similar. I might still get an offer from AA Insurance based on Tesco's knowledge of my petrol purchasing habits, but I think Tesco would have to approach AA and say "we have 25,000 people who spend more than £X on petrol per month, we'll charge you £Y to send them all your junk mail".)

[quote]A family of four can go to McDonald's and eat dinner for $15. They're consuming 2,000 empty calories in a single sitting. A 2-liter of Coke is $1.29. A gallon of orange juice is $6. See the problem?[/quote]

Is this actually reality in the US? I get the feeling you're intentionally misrepresenting prices. I am far from rich by any means, but I manage to save by relentlessly cutting the costs of food (my biggest expense after rent, easily.)

I can buy four chicken breasts for £4 UK, ($6.20). Those are fresh, not frozen chicken breasts, so you can do cheaper.
To cook them you throw them in the oven and watch TV for 25 minutes.
Buy some random vegetables for £1-2 max. The vegetables you drop into a pan and go and watch TV for 15 minutes.

There is your meal for 4 for £6, I'm not even trying, and those prices are without even making an effort to find cheaper.

On juice:

Coca-Cola £2/2L
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=254857167
Orange Juice £1.24/2L
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255595820

The OJ works out at $3.66 per US gallon. I would be very surprised if the US has more expensive groceries than the UK.

[quote]A family of four can go to McDonald's and eat dinner for $15. They're consuming 2,000 empty calories in a single sitting. A 2-liter of Coke is $1.29. A gallon of orange juice is $6. See the problem?[/quote]

Is this actually reality in the US? I get the feeling you're intentionally misrepresenting prices. I am far from rich by any means, but I manage to save by relentlessly cutting the costs of food (my biggest expense after rent, easily.)

I can buy four chicken breasts for £4 UK, ($6.20). Those are fresh, not frozen chicken breasts, so you can do cheaper.
To cook them you throw them in the oven and watch TV for 25 minutes.
Buy some random vegetables for £1-2 max. The vegetables you drop into a pan and go and watch TV for 15 minutes.

There is your meal for 4 for £6, I'm not even trying, and those prices are without even making an effort to find cheaper.

On juice:

Coca-Cola £2/2L
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=254857167
Orange Juice £1.24/2L
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=255595820

The OJ works out at $3.66 per US gallon. I would be very surprised if the US has more expensive groceries than the UK.

mmm, faggots. Damn you, you've made me hungry.
http://www.tesco.com/superstore/xpi/5/xpi50150805.htm

maybe some spotted dick for pudding too:
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=262754870

mmm, faggots. Damn you, you've made me hungry.
http://www.tesco.com/superstore/xpi/5/xpi50150805.htm

maybe some spotted dick for pudding too:
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=262754870

No the problem's not delivery, that's well understood. The problems's relationships with suppliers, which for groceries is essentially farmers. In the UK, as several people have mentioned, all the big supermarkets do home delivery. And they all have close supplier relationships. To keep prices down they prefer to deal directly. See for example http://www.tescofarming.com/ There might be space for another one, but the competition's fierce - here's a selection of major chains which already have fully debugged delivery chains: http://www.tesco.com/groceries http://groceries.asda.com/ http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries http://www.ocado.com/webshop (Note that Asda is owned by WalMart and that WalMart and Tesco are the first and second most profitable retailers in the *world* measured by profits.)

When I was in the US I got a GoPhone pay as you go SIM card and 100MB data for $20. Which is a terrible deal by the standards of most places but it did the job if I needed net access. AT&T seemed like a good option as I was travelling a lot.

http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-plans/prepaid-feature-packages.jsp

Actually if you get one of those coupon magazines (e.g. http://www.roomsaver.com/ or http://www.travelcouponguide.com/) you can easily get a discount on an already cheap hotel (e.g. Best Western) which has wifi and do your emailing there. The coupons work during the week when the hotels are empty but the hotel has an option to refuse them if they are busy during the weekend. It's best to call ahead before you check in. Incidentally expensive hotels - the sort your company will check you into - will often charge an outrageous amount for Wifi if you walk in off the street in addition to an already outrageous non discounted (aka Rack) room rate.

Incidentally if you go to the UK get a Tesco Mobile Pay As You go Card. They have a £2 (i.e US$3) per week unlimited data option. You sign up by SMS - they charge you the £2 and subscribe you. It will auto renew each week and charge you another £2 but you can opt out at any time, in which case it will run to the end of the week and then not renew.

http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-mobile/help-and-support/bundles.aspx

So you get unlimited data for about US$14 per month. You can pick up the SIM card from any Tesco store. Tesco is a ubiquitous supermarket, so it's not hard to find one anywhere in the UK.

It's not always HSDPA - you'll drop down to GPRS if you're not near a base station. Still it is unlimited (well subject to an ill defined fair use policy). I.e. it's a much better deal than the AT&T one in the US. Tesco is an MVNO using the O2 network, so the coverage isn't too bad. In fact I've travelled around the UK quite a bit and apart from dropping down to GPRS it seems like it works almost everywhere.

That's because you live in the US and telcos have formed a cartel.

In the UK I can get unlimited data for 2 GBP per week (i.e. US$14) per month with a pay as you go SIM

http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-mobile/help-and-support/bundles.aspx#

Thoroughly recommended.

In Taiwan I pay between 375 TWD (US$13) to 1100 TWD ( US$38 ) depending on how much I use. Flat rate would be 750 TWD (US$26), but I don't use it enough to justify that. That's with Far Eastone and a subscription.

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-TW&u=http://www.fetnet.net/estore/jsp/frontend/plan/html/E375775.html&ei=8rZ3TYW7BIPCvQPsmYncBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBwQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3D375%2B40mb%2Bsite:http://www.fetnet.net/%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26prmd%3Divns

It's weird actually the UK used to be the land of cartels. But mobile data isn't that expensive there any more. Tesco Mobile and the like are MVNOs and their existence seems to have resulted in a competitive market.

I've been carrying a torch for partly this reason for years.. and given pocket torches out to 'worried' friends.

Also use million candle power torches... very handy in protests against people with pork chops.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-3886.aspx?utm_source=GoogleShopping&utm_medium=GSF_NormalFeed&utm_campaign=GSF_TescoDirect&utm_content=206-3886

"The device consists of a 75-watt lamp, combined with optics that collect and focus the visible light into a targeted beam, which can be aimed like a flashlight. Recovery time ranges from “seconds to 20 minutes,” Eisenberg says. “It’s very analogous to walking from a very bright room into a very dark room.”

Yep... I'd say that's about right!

Hi David,

I'm pretty sure you're in the UK. Here are some of Amazon.co.uk's rivals, who also do delivery:

• Play.com
• HMV
• Waterstones
• John Lewis
• Tesco
• ASDA

It's as simple as ordering from Amazon's rivals instead of Amazon. You don't even need to move from your seat!

Isn't internet capitalism grand?

Is $75 normal? (I can't see the Verizon site outside the USA.)

Round here, basic phone service is about £10-15/month (slightly less if you shop around). Once you're paying £20/month or more you've got free anytime calls to most of Europe, the USA and the more modern Commonwealth countries. However, I don't know anyone with basic phone service, since broadband tends to be about £5/month extra.

Mum has a pay-as-you-go (prepay) mobile phone, which is fine for occasional use. I think she spends £10 every three months or so. Round here you can get a basic phone for almost nothing (e.g. here -- £10), or you can get one second hand from eBay for £1 + postage. Perhaps pick one that can take a headset, since there are special headsets available (here) for use with hearing aids. The main advantage of a newer, basic phone should be that the battery lasts for ages. (Obviously, bits of this will not apply to the USA.)

My dad (65) sent his first text while he was on holiday earlier this summer, and has since then accepted they might be useful (sometimes). My grandma (80?) was pestering him (no one told her she was too old to send texts). Stubbornness is not a good reason to get a voice-calls-only phone :-).

I agree it's a shame physical keyboards aren't more common. I love my 5800, but I would have liked something with an actual keyboard as well as touch (there weren't any that I could see on PAYG in the price range I was looking).

The interesting thing is, I've seen a few dirt cheap feature phones with slide out QWERTY keyboards - e.g., the LG 360 for a measly £40 - so it doesn't seem to be something that should massively increase the costs.

You need to look a bit harder, like for all of five seconds: non-portable for £20, portable for £30. Of course, that's still pretty expensive compared to FM.

Apple has (for all intents and purposes) one phone on one carrier.

Some of us live in Europe, you insensitive clod!

I was merely making an observation regarding how Apple are evidently keeping such tight control over the iPhone that there is no room for the networks to compete on pricing.

I'm aware of the alternative options of acquiring an iPhone, but my desire to own one is negligible. You can buy one with a PAYG SIM legitimately on Tesco Mobile.

That is because mobile phones are one of the few things (along with healthcare) where Americans get a raw deal compared to the rest of the world.

Most things (rent, food, gadgets) are cheaper in the USA but it seems phones and healthcare are not.

The UK normally is an expensive country (gadgets cost twice the US price) but you can get a "pay as you go" phone (no contract) for £8.97 which is $14 - including tax and delivery.

So you can see why teenagers just throw one into the river and get a new one without thinking much about it.

God knows why phones are more expensive and so lacking in features over there in the USA - the healthcare is less of a mystery (from conversations I have had, USians are happy that their health care is overly expensive as long as that means that immigrants don't get treated).

Why the hell can't cell phones be this way, instead of the current quagmire where they're hopelessly entangled with what the carrier wants? I want a cellular carrier that charges a fair price for service (per byte and per minute, or whatever), and then lets me use whatever device I want to use that service. If I can stick a radio into a TI-89 and make it speak CDMA, let me make phone calls with it.

Because you're in America, the land of the fee.

More seriously, CDMA is a large part of the problem. Most CDMA phones aren't designed to work with multiple carriers. The phone ID is hard-coded at build time and tied to a particular carrier. This means that it's really hard to change them to another carrier.

GSM phones work differently. The network ID, the bit that is tied to a particular carrier, is actually housed on a smartcard that plugs into the phone. You can remove the smartcard and insert it into another phone, and presto, that phone adopts the smartcard's ID and logs on to the appropriate carrier.

While you still get subsidised phones with GSM that are locked to one particular carrier, and will refuse to work with a different SIM, the fact that this is possible and easy has encouraged a whole industry of unlocked phones and SIMs. You can go into any supermarket and buy a SIM in a box (that one is $7 and contains $15 worth of credit). If you need a phone you can either buy a cheap SIM-less phone (that one costs $10!), but they'll work in any unlocked GSM phone. The end result is that I, living in the UK, can spend about $30 a year on mobile phone service. That includes data.

(If you hunt around you can actually find SIM-only options for GSM phones in America, but of course this requires you to live in a GSM area; plus, the terms are usually terrible with unpleasant features like evaporating credit if you don't use it.)

There is apparently a standard for a similar CDMA smartcard system, but it's now too late and nobody cares.

Why the hell can't cell phones be this way, instead of the current quagmire where they're hopelessly entangled with what the carrier wants? I want a cellular carrier that charges a fair price for service (per byte and per minute, or whatever), and then lets me use whatever device I want to use that service. If I can stick a radio into a TI-89 and make it speak CDMA, let me make phone calls with it.

Because you're in America, the land of the fee.

More seriously, CDMA is a large part of the problem. Most CDMA phones aren't designed to work with multiple carriers. The phone ID is hard-coded at build time and tied to a particular carrier. This means that it's really hard to change them to another carrier.

GSM phones work differently. The network ID, the bit that is tied to a particular carrier, is actually housed on a smartcard that plugs into the phone. You can remove the smartcard and insert it into another phone, and presto, that phone adopts the smartcard's ID and logs on to the appropriate carrier.

While you still get subsidised phones with GSM that are locked to one particular carrier, and will refuse to work with a different SIM, the fact that this is possible and easy has encouraged a whole industry of unlocked phones and SIMs. You can go into any supermarket and buy a SIM in a box (that one is $7 and contains $15 worth of credit). If you need a phone you can either buy a cheap SIM-less phone (that one costs $10!), but they'll work in any unlocked GSM phone. The end result is that I, living in the UK, can spend about $30 a year on mobile phone service. That includes data.

(If you hunt around you can actually find SIM-only options for GSM phones in America, but of course this requires you to live in a GSM area; plus, the terms are usually terrible with unpleasant features like evaporating credit if you don't use it.)

There is apparently a standard for a similar CDMA smartcard system, but it's now too late and nobody cares.

I was sure I'd seen something in Tesco, so I had a look online:

"Bacardi Breezer Watermelon 70cl
Produce of United Kingdom
4% Alcohol
A refreshing and delicious fruit flavoured alcoholic drink. Bacardi Breezer is fruity, delicious and incredibly refreshing. Available in either 4 packs or as a 70cl to share, there is a flavour for every occasion."

And currently on offer, two bottles for £5.

They don't have a juice though. A watermelon is £3.50, or £4 for a "giant" one.

I've always thought that phrase was just something lame and idiotic bloggers who want traffic and respect, would say. I mean afterall, it's been said for the last decade or whatever, so I've never taken it seriously.
Now, though, I'm starting to think it might actually have some weight. You've got Dell, Asus and other vendors shipping hardware with Linux on it. Hell, even Tesco here in the UK sell Ubuntu PCs.

Anything that wipes that smug look off Ballmer's face is good enough for me :)

http://www.tesco.com/
http://www.ocado.com/
http://www.asda.co.uk/asdashop.html

Works fine in the UK...

UK retailer tesco recently released a Linux PC with similar specs. Is this start of a new trend ?

I wonder if Ubuntu will replace Microsoft on school computers.

I just saw that Tesco UK is selling Ubuntu PCs as well! This is a first in England.

For those that don't live here Microsoft is the computer. For about 10 years I have never heard of anyone else using Linux in the UK (I mean walking around or in real life. Not over the internet), then this year suddenly walking around the university everyone's laptops have Ubuntu or Fedora or SUSE. Even my university has SUSE in one of their labs. Now that is a first!

There was a piece from 2005 in which it talks about the government seriously thinking of switching all its software to open source.

in the uk digital TV decoder boxes are already less than that
http://direct.tesco.com/q/N.1999558/Nr.99.aspx?Ns=P_SORT_Price&btnResultSort.x=519&btnResultSort.y=208

Who knows, maybe someday you'll be able to buy a cell phone in your local supermarket--a cell phone not marked "Tracfone." [grin]

http://direct.tesco.com/homepage/phones.aspx

online as well, wooo!

Local supermarket always has 20 or so models in stock from major phone companies.

Goodness knows how many mobile phone shops there are selling handsets and comparing deals for you. People like Carphone Warehouse.

I guess you do things differently in the USA, not as free and independent a system.

But, I gotta ask...how the hell do you go shopping for things like groceries over there, if you don't have a car??

This is probably getting off-topic, but...

All the big supermarkets offer online grocery shopping with home delivery - e.g. Ocado, Tesco, Sainsbury's - so quite a few people use that.

Alternatively, you can shop more frequently than once a week. Although I have a car, I sometimes stop off on the way home from work (I'm within walking distance) and pick up some pizza, beer etc. when I can't be bothered to cook a proper meal.

Also, you can always order a taxi to take you and your shopping home, though this only really makes economic sense in a town/city.

When I was at college and had no car, I used to cycle to the supermarket with a large backpack and fill that up. You can get quite a lot of groceries in a 60-litre rucksack.