Erm, the most obvious problem would be the extreme scarcity of suitable asteroids. Only one good hit in hundreds of years, ergo unlikely that there's any more lurking close enough to be used. Plus the problems of targetting the enemy's city, given that outgassing could affect the course of the asteroid by 20 degrees (see other posts) - you'd look a bit bloody stupid if it went off course and landed on you instead!
He wrote hundreds of _stories_. Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for Asimov's bank balance), editors then assembled these into THOUSANDS of books. And, most cunningly of all, they're all the same, apart from the one or two stories you're missing from the Asimov books you already own. It's like the "buy a CD album for a single song" thing, only on paper.
But it's probably safe to assume Wil meant all of Asimov's _fiction_. Reading his doctoral thesis, lecture notes and stuff probably wouldn't be too exciting, unless you happen to have a strange fetish for chemical engineering. Besides that chemical engineering required to brew alcohol, bake cookies, etc...;-)
Amen. Matlab is my current Private Enemy #1. In the 6 months from getting this PC loaded with Win98 (yes, I know, but this is work) to getting Matlab installed, it shut down properly 9 times out of 10. Since using Matlab, I have NEVER had the PC shut down correctly. Never. Every time, I have to do the hard poweroff and sit through ScanDisk the next morning. And this isn't just me - every engineer in my office experiences exactly the same thing. A 100% record of failure is not what I'd call acceptable for _any_ software, never mind commercial stuff that's selling for umptitum thousand dollars a seat!
Shit, the IRA have been bombing ppl and places in NI, mainland Britain and Germany for years. ETA has been busy doing the same in Spain. In the 60s and 70s, Action Direct was doing it in France and Baader-Meinhof in Germany. Europe wised up ages back. It's only the US which didn't give a shit about airport security, and look where it got them. It was crap security in the US which allowed Libya to bomb the Pan-Am jet which crashed at Lockerbie in Scotland - but of course, that's not in America so it doesn't count, right? The words "stable door" and "horse" spring to mind...
And the reason baggage wasn't 100% put through scanners? The "American People" wouldn't put up with it. The same "American People" who are now going hog-wild with paranoia. Good trick, eh?
They thought it was unbreakable though. And the work required to change every Enigma everywhere would have been incredible. Mind you, just changing the rotor designs would've stopped the Brits breaking it for a while.
But the thing is, the British very quickly developed good radar, so incoming planes weren't a surprise, and the RAF established air superiority so that incoming raids were hugely expensive for the Luftwaffe. And when the convoys were really getting hit bad, the Brits came up with seriously effective sonar, so attacking convoys became hugely expensive for the U-boats, and radio direction-finding could pinpoint a U-boat fast when it came up to transmit. And finally, the desert troops (after getting beat up a bit) eventually started kicking ass. So generally, I reckon it wasn't too surprising for the Germans when shit happened. The Enigma information was mainly used to inform the Allies of general strategy so that it could be counteracted, and there's little difference between fighting an enemy who knows what you're doing, and fighting an enemy who's a good strategist and has good technology. They just assumed we had good generals and good gear.
And even the _Americans_ didn't believe the British could break Enigma. The British told the Americans there was a U-boat off the US coast. The Americans ignored the warning. The U-boat sank a large number of ships in US harbours. The Americans then looked around and said, "Hey, you guess mebbe them Limeys was tellin' the truth?" DOH!
Hey, everyone makes typos! I'm only a self-taught touch-typist, so sometimes my fnigers go worgn..;-)
This was in Occam though, a language for parallel-processing where indentation takes the place of C's braces. To do several hundred lines of code in that (and that's "code", not "code plus whitespace plus comments", and maybe up to 1000 lines as "several hundred") without error is _hard_.
Well God knows they needed to have fun in the line, since they sure as hell weren't going to in the cinema. Don't think I've seen such an outrageously bad film since Johnny Mnemonic - another one which tried to cash in on FX and bombed out. And Lucas didn't even have the excuse of a bad leading actor - 2 top actors (Neeson, McGregor) plus a good stuntman-actor (Park) and he still couldn't shoot the fish in the sodding barrel!
Current job: Tempting, but some of them might recognise themselves, and my website is shown in my ID!:-) Ah what the hell... Our top engineer is _seriously_ hot on damn near everything. He also has a long, flowing white beard which would put Gandalf to shame. But the kicker - he dresses monochromatically. By which I mean every item of clothing (every visible one, anyway - the rest I don't want to know;-) is the same colour, including his socks and sandals. He has two sets of these, one in pillarbox red and one in light blue. But by god, does he ever work!
Previous job: Another genius type. Bulgarian. He worked with ear defenders on bcos he said the rest of the office were too noisy. When he got a few new ppl in the office, he said this wasn't good bcos of the negative ions - his ioniser could cope with a few ppl, but more than that would cause problems.:-) When stuck, he'd go outside, walk up and down a while talking to himself, then almost run inside and type frantically. But he's the only guy I've ever known who could knock out several hundred lines of code and have it work perfectly first time, every time - he got very annoyed one day when the compiler spotted a syntax error in his code!
Neither are exactly normal humans, but when the sh*t hits the fan, you're damn glad they're on your side!:-)
This is a problem unrelated to language. It's surely possible to write good code in C, or C++, or Java, or C#. The problem is that ppl don't, and won't regardless of the language.
Read any software QA textbook, and you'll find they all agree (and experience tells you the same). How do you learn to code? It's not by being taught, it's by hacking away in a dark room somewhere. Individual coders/engineers may being incredibly skilled, but the experience doesn't get passed on, so the next generation of engineers make the same mistakes as the last one! Personally, I split up software developers into "hackers" and "engineers".
The "hacker", when given a vague problem to solve, sits down on his own and bashes out a piece of code without reference to requirements clarification, design documents, etc. It may even work - but it will be an unmaintainable nightmare, and if it doesn't work first time (or if it works sporadically) then it's over to printf and the debugger for months. Documentation, where it exists, will be written post-facto, and you'll be lucky if it explains the code properly. No-one else will be able to rework the code, and the hacker himself may not remember how it worked 6 months later!
An "engineer", OTOH, spends most of their time working in Word and a CASE package working out what they want to do and how they're going to achieve it, and runs his ideas past someone else to see whether a fresh pair of eyes can spot anything wrong. By the time the engineer goes for his favourite text editor, the problem's most of the way solved, and any bugs can be found by comparing design against code (ie. peer review). Any future changes are simple to include, as the design explains how everything works in sufficient clarity that anyone can pick it up and rework it.
A really good engineer (and I'm not one, yet:-) can distance himself from his own work enough to review it himself to make sure that a new reader can follow it easily. This differs from a hacker in the same way that a solo round-the-world sailor differs from the nutter who sets off across the Atlantic on a boat he bought at a garage sale: the former starts off knowing that there are risks, but has the experience to avoid or minimise them; the latter sets off not knowing that there are any risks, and only finds out when he hits the rocks.:-) An engineer doing RAD may well have a few trial hacks at the problem to see what works - but the difference is that the final result will not be constrained by these, ie. the experiments will likely be thrown away so that the final version is not cluttered with legacy crap from when the problem wasn't understood properly.
I've not run Netscape 6 for more than a few hours total, and it's already crashed on me more than once. Java is no magic bullet. Sure, there's some ways C will let you kill things which Java doesn't let you do. But coding standards such as MISRA define "safe" subsets of C, and by following them you will minimise the risks. Is it better to be coding in C, knowing how to avoid the problems, or coding in Java without knowing about any pitfalls? And as for timescales, Netscape are hardly a shining example, are they?:-) I'm not saying that Java is bad and C is the one true way, I'm just saying that more layers of indirection and "slower" code do not necessarily make it more reliable. What makes it more reliable is good design, and that is something you have to learn, not something you're born with.
For a typical user running typical productivity software, a 300MHz CPU and 128MB of RAM is all they'll ever need. More power will only be required for a new "breed" of programmes - maybe the Metaverse, maybe not. But your typical home computer user will not require any more processing power until a new killer app comes along. OfficeXP is not that killer app.
In short, no, nor will 99.99% of the world's serious computer users, ie. those for whom a computer is a tool to be used rather than an end in itself. The 0.01% who do will likely not be doing it on a regular basis (eg. a couple of semesters of maths lectures). The 0.01% of those who do it on a regular basis (eg. maths professors/postgrads) can go out and get a multi-processor mobo and umpty-GHz CPUs - or more likely, will get their uni department or company to buy it.
In other words, no-one needs this unless they (a) need to compile mega-programs or (b) do heavy maths work. So no home user and most business users have no need.
I speak as someone who switched from a P233 to a Duron 800 only bcos the mobo broke - I refused to spend £80 on a new Pentium mobo when £200 would get a complete new system!
Oops - meant "this does reduce the saleability of the MP3 player", ie. you've limited your customer base to those with home networks installed, which is quite a small subset of available hi-fi and computer users.
This sounds like there's some usability problems and limitations. First off, your house has to be networked - this does seriously reduce its saleability!:-) Secondly, if it can only be controlled effectively through the web interface then you need a computer next to you to select the track, regardless. And if you've got that, why have a separate piece of kit?
I have a better suggestion - and if there's anyone from those hifi companies reading, pick this up. If it needs a graphical menu to browse effectively, why not build one in? OK, most hi-fi stuff doesn't have room for one in the rack-mounting form factor. But suppose you have one mounted flat in a drawer-type thing - you press a button, the drawer ejects, and the screen pops up, kind of like how Psion organisers work. Then the gadget could genuinely be driven from the front panel.
Jitter in the sound while you're browsing web pages is unacceptable. A two-processor system should really be used for this, one dedicated to sound processing and one dedicated to network access. Two cheap processors should work out the same price as one complex one, and it'd give much better quality output. Alternatively, web page serving should be a background task which only happens in the spare cycles between updates of the sound processing.
As for showing up the limitations of MP3 - well, yeah. But then, did you buy all those 650 CDs that you've got the 6500 MP3s off?:-) The words "gift horse", "mouth", "don't look a" and "in the" are springing to mind in no particular order...;-) Anyway, you can hear the limitation of MP3 through _headphones_ on a PC, never mind putting it through a fancy hifi system, so it obviously didn't bother you too much when you ripped them.
"Crossbows and Catapults" for a legitimate version of this, ie. the purpose of the game was to cause destruction and mayhem! Uprate the weeny elastic bands, and you can get some real distance with those little plastic poker-chips.
The point of a lobbyist is to know what works. He knows (as does everyone) that money works - it's a short-cut to get their attention. But he also lists other ways of getting their attention - letters to the editor that could influence public opinion, protests, etc. Pick your option.
Grab.
Re:Imperial vs. Metric: SERIOUSLY OFFTOPIC!
on
Biking @ 80 MPH
·
· Score: 1
Well, there _isn't_ much difference between 250g and 1/4 kg.:-) But there's about 23g difference between 250g and 1/2 lb. And that 23g is just enough to leave you with that dried-up bit of scraggy cheese in the fridge that no-one wants to eat by the end of the week.
I don't know, no-one here cares about cheese. Kick out the unbelievers! Brits, Frenchmen and Wisconsinites against the world!
And hopefully Harry Potter. Although the marketing crap for HP has started already (HP dolls, trading cards, even _shoes_ for crissakes!) which makes me worried. Last heavily-marketed film was "Jar-Jar's Big Adventure"...:-(
Check out "Enigma" though - that's pretty good, although fairly lightweight. Not Hollywood either, so you can feel good about spending your money on something not linked to huge corrupt organisations.
Plenty of owners of recumbent bicycles in Cambridge (I was going to say "recumbent bicycle owners", but that's usually only after a few drinks;-). Strangely, they never actually seem to go fast at all - they go slower than your typical mountain-bike rider. It's probably cos they're so damn heavy and need quite fat tyres - they may be more aerodynamic but they'll have a sky-high rolling resistance.
Grab.
Re:Imperial vs. Metric: SERIOUSLY OFFTOPIC!
on
Biking @ 80 MPH
·
· Score: 1
Well, American scientists, _apart_ from selected ones at NASA...;-)
Britain still uses mph as the standard - all British speed restrictions are in mph. But just about everything else in Britain is in metric now (although I still order cheese in half-pound portions - I find it's just the right amount to last us a week).
If you mean the Hindenburg, it was determined many, many years back that it was the Hindenburg's outer skin that burned, not the hydrogen. Read the thread above.
British Sean Bean (Boromir)
Ian Holm (Bilbo)
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
Billy Boyd (Pippin)
Dominic Monaghan (Merry)
Orlando Bloom (Legolas)
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)
Bernard Hill (Theoden)
The voice of Andy Serkis (Gollum)
Australian Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)
Miranda Otto (Eowyn)
Hugo Weaving (Elrond)
John Noble (Denethor)
David Wenham (Faramir)
New Zealand Martin Czokas (Celeborn)
Karl Urban (Eomer)
American Elijah Wood (Frodo)
Sean Astin (Sam)
Viggo Mortenson (Aragorn)
Liv Tyler (Arwen)
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)
As for pronouncing it as Tolkein put in the appendix, the purists have lost that one - the trailers definitely pronounce Gandalf as Gandalf, not Gandolv.
It's a shame only the Americans will invest in movies. Since half the actors are Brits, the top Hollywood cinematographers are Brits, and the book was written by a Brit, you'd reckon you could drum up some finance in Britain. But no... Silly buggers, money-men.
Slashdot Mirror
Erm, the most obvious problem would be the extreme scarcity of suitable asteroids. Only one good hit in hundreds of years, ergo unlikely that there's any more lurking close enough to be used. Plus the problems of targetting the enemy's city, given that outgassing could affect the course of the asteroid by 20 degrees (see other posts) - you'd look a bit bloody stupid if it went off course and landed on you instead!
Grab.
He wrote hundreds of _stories_. Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for Asimov's bank balance), editors then assembled these into THOUSANDS of books. And, most cunningly of all, they're all the same, apart from the one or two stories you're missing from the Asimov books you already own. It's like the "buy a CD album for a single song" thing, only on paper.
;-)
But it's probably safe to assume Wil meant all of Asimov's _fiction_. Reading his doctoral thesis, lecture notes and stuff probably wouldn't be too exciting, unless you happen to have a strange fetish for chemical engineering. Besides that chemical engineering required to brew alcohol, bake cookies, etc...
Graham.
Amen. Matlab is my current Private Enemy #1. In the 6 months from getting this PC loaded with Win98 (yes, I know, but this is work) to getting Matlab installed, it shut down properly 9 times out of 10. Since using Matlab, I have NEVER had the PC shut down correctly. Never. Every time, I have to do the hard poweroff and sit through ScanDisk the next morning. And this isn't just me - every engineer in my office experiences exactly the same thing. A 100% record of failure is not what I'd call acceptable for _any_ software, never mind commercial stuff that's selling for umptitum thousand dollars a seat!
Grab.
Shit, the IRA have been bombing ppl and places in NI, mainland Britain and Germany for years. ETA has been busy doing the same in Spain. In the 60s and 70s, Action Direct was doing it in France and Baader-Meinhof in Germany. Europe wised up ages back. It's only the US which didn't give a shit about airport security, and look where it got them. It was crap security in the US which allowed Libya to bomb the Pan-Am jet which crashed at Lockerbie in Scotland - but of course, that's not in America so it doesn't count, right? The words "stable door" and "horse" spring to mind...
And the reason baggage wasn't 100% put through scanners? The "American People" wouldn't put up with it. The same "American People" who are now going hog-wild with paranoia. Good trick, eh?
Grab.
They thought it was unbreakable though. And the work required to change every Enigma everywhere would have been incredible. Mind you, just changing the rotor designs would've stopped the Brits breaking it for a while.
But the thing is, the British very quickly developed good radar, so incoming planes weren't a surprise, and the RAF established air superiority so that incoming raids were hugely expensive for the Luftwaffe. And when the convoys were really getting hit bad, the Brits came up with seriously effective sonar, so attacking convoys became hugely expensive for the U-boats, and radio direction-finding could pinpoint a U-boat fast when it came up to transmit. And finally, the desert troops (after getting beat up a bit) eventually started kicking ass. So generally, I reckon it wasn't too surprising for the Germans when shit happened. The Enigma information was mainly used to inform the Allies of general strategy so that it could be counteracted, and there's little difference between fighting an enemy who knows what you're doing, and fighting an enemy who's a good strategist and has good technology. They just assumed we had good generals and good gear.
And even the _Americans_ didn't believe the British could break Enigma. The British told the Americans there was a U-boat off the US coast. The Americans ignored the warning. The U-boat sank a large number of ships in US harbours. The Americans then looked around and said, "Hey, you guess mebbe them Limeys was tellin' the truth?" DOH!
Grab.
Hey, everyone makes typos! I'm only a self-taught touch-typist, so sometimes my fnigers go worgn.. ;-)
This was in Occam though, a language for parallel-processing where indentation takes the place of C's braces. To do several hundred lines of code in that (and that's "code", not "code plus whitespace plus comments", and maybe up to 1000 lines as "several hundred") without error is _hard_.
Grab.
Well God knows they needed to have fun in the line, since they sure as hell weren't going to in the cinema. Don't think I've seen such an outrageously bad film since Johnny Mnemonic - another one which tried to cash in on FX and bombed out. And Lucas didn't even have the excuse of a bad leading actor - 2 top actors (Neeson, McGregor) plus a good stuntman-actor (Park) and he still couldn't shoot the fish in the sodding barrel!
Grab.
Current job: Tempting, but some of them might recognise themselves, and my website is shown in my ID! :-) Ah what the hell... Our top engineer is _seriously_ hot on damn near everything. He also has a long, flowing white beard which would put Gandalf to shame. But the kicker - he dresses monochromatically. By which I mean every item of clothing (every visible one, anyway - the rest I don't want to know ;-) is the same colour, including his socks and sandals. He has two sets of these, one in pillarbox red and one in light blue. But by god, does he ever work!
:-) When stuck, he'd go outside, walk up and down a while talking to himself, then almost run inside and type frantically. But he's the only guy I've ever known who could knock out several hundred lines of code and have it work perfectly first time, every time - he got very annoyed one day when the compiler spotted a syntax error in his code!
:-)
Previous job: Another genius type. Bulgarian. He worked with ear defenders on bcos he said the rest of the office were too noisy. When he got a few new ppl in the office, he said this wasn't good bcos of the negative ions - his ioniser could cope with a few ppl, but more than that would cause problems.
Neither are exactly normal humans, but when the sh*t hits the fan, you're damn glad they're on your side!
Grab.
A more accurate one: "audiophiles are people who listen to the price of the audio equipment". ;-)
Grab.
This is a problem unrelated to language. It's surely possible to write good code in C, or C++, or Java, or C#. The problem is that ppl don't, and won't regardless of the language.
:-) can distance himself from his own work enough to review it himself to make sure that a new reader can follow it easily. This differs from a hacker in the same way that a solo round-the-world sailor differs from the nutter who sets off across the Atlantic on a boat he bought at a garage sale: the former starts off knowing that there are risks, but has the experience to avoid or minimise them; the latter sets off not knowing that there are any risks, and only finds out when he hits the rocks. :-) An engineer doing RAD may well have a few trial hacks at the problem to see what works - but the difference is that the final result will not be constrained by these, ie. the experiments will likely be thrown away so that the final version is not cluttered with legacy crap from when the problem wasn't understood properly.
:-) I'm not saying that Java is bad and C is the one true way, I'm just saying that more layers of indirection and "slower" code do not necessarily make it more reliable. What makes it more reliable is good design, and that is something you have to learn, not something you're born with.
Read any software QA textbook, and you'll find they all agree (and experience tells you the same). How do you learn to code? It's not by being taught, it's by hacking away in a dark room somewhere. Individual coders/engineers may being incredibly skilled, but the experience doesn't get passed on, so the next generation of engineers make the same mistakes as the last one! Personally, I split up software developers into "hackers" and "engineers".
The "hacker", when given a vague problem to solve, sits down on his own and bashes out a piece of code without reference to requirements clarification, design documents, etc. It may even work - but it will be an unmaintainable nightmare, and if it doesn't work first time (or if it works sporadically) then it's over to printf and the debugger for months. Documentation, where it exists, will be written post-facto, and you'll be lucky if it explains the code properly. No-one else will be able to rework the code, and the hacker himself may not remember how it worked 6 months later!
An "engineer", OTOH, spends most of their time working in Word and a CASE package working out what they want to do and how they're going to achieve it, and runs his ideas past someone else to see whether a fresh pair of eyes can spot anything wrong. By the time the engineer goes for his favourite text editor, the problem's most of the way solved, and any bugs can be found by comparing design against code (ie. peer review). Any future changes are simple to include, as the design explains how everything works in sufficient clarity that anyone can pick it up and rework it.
A really good engineer (and I'm not one, yet
I've not run Netscape 6 for more than a few hours total, and it's already crashed on me more than once. Java is no magic bullet. Sure, there's some ways C will let you kill things which Java doesn't let you do. But coding standards such as MISRA define "safe" subsets of C, and by following them you will minimise the risks. Is it better to be coding in C, knowing how to avoid the problems, or coding in Java without knowing about any pitfalls? And as for timescales, Netscape are hardly a shining example, are they?
For a typical user running typical productivity software, a 300MHz CPU and 128MB of RAM is all they'll ever need. More power will only be required for a new "breed" of programmes - maybe the Metaverse, maybe not. But your typical home computer user will not require any more processing power until a new killer app comes along. OfficeXP is not that killer app.
Grab.
In short, no, nor will 99.99% of the world's serious computer users, ie. those for whom a computer is a tool to be used rather than an end in itself. The 0.01% who do will likely not be doing it on a regular basis (eg. a couple of semesters of maths lectures). The 0.01% of those who do it on a regular basis (eg. maths professors/postgrads) can go out and get a multi-processor mobo and umpty-GHz CPUs - or more likely, will get their uni department or company to buy it.
In other words, no-one needs this unless they (a) need to compile mega-programs or (b) do heavy maths work. So no home user and most business users have no need.
I speak as someone who switched from a P233 to a Duron 800 only bcos the mobo broke - I refused to spend £80 on a new Pentium mobo when £200 would get a complete new system!
Grab.
Oops - meant "this does reduce the saleability of the MP3 player", ie. you've limited your customer base to those with home networks installed, which is quite a small subset of available hi-fi and computer users.
Grab.
This sounds like there's some usability problems and limitations. First off, your house has to be networked - this does seriously reduce its saleability! :-) Secondly, if it can only be controlled effectively through the web interface then you need a computer next to you to select the track, regardless. And if you've got that, why have a separate piece of kit?
:-) The words "gift horse", "mouth", "don't look a" and "in the" are springing to mind in no particular order... ;-) Anyway, you can hear the limitation of MP3 through _headphones_ on a PC, never mind putting it through a fancy hifi system, so it obviously didn't bother you too much when you ripped them.
I have a better suggestion - and if there's anyone from those hifi companies reading, pick this up. If it needs a graphical menu to browse effectively, why not build one in? OK, most hi-fi stuff doesn't have room for one in the rack-mounting form factor. But suppose you have one mounted flat in a drawer-type thing - you press a button, the drawer ejects, and the screen pops up, kind of like how Psion organisers work. Then the gadget could genuinely be driven from the front panel.
Jitter in the sound while you're browsing web pages is unacceptable. A two-processor system should really be used for this, one dedicated to sound processing and one dedicated to network access. Two cheap processors should work out the same price as one complex one, and it'd give much better quality output. Alternatively, web page serving should be a background task which only happens in the spare cycles between updates of the sound processing.
As for showing up the limitations of MP3 - well, yeah. But then, did you buy all those 650 CDs that you've got the 6500 MP3s off?
Graham.
"Crossbows and Catapults" for a legitimate version of this, ie. the purpose of the game was to cause destruction and mayhem! Uprate the weeny elastic bands, and you can get some real distance with those little plastic poker-chips.
Grab.
The point of a lobbyist is to know what works. He knows (as does everyone) that money works - it's a short-cut to get their attention. But he also lists other ways of getting their attention - letters to the editor that could influence public opinion, protests, etc. Pick your option.
Grab.
Well, there _isn't_ much difference between 250g and 1/4 kg. :-) But there's about 23g difference between 250g and 1/2 lb. And that 23g is just enough to leave you with that dried-up bit of scraggy cheese in the fridge that no-one wants to eat by the end of the week.
I don't know, no-one here cares about cheese. Kick out the unbelievers! Brits, Frenchmen and Wisconsinites against the world!
Grab.
And hopefully Harry Potter. Although the marketing crap for HP has started already (HP dolls, trading cards, even _shoes_ for crissakes!) which makes me worried. Last heavily-marketed film was "Jar-Jar's Big Adventure"... :-(
Check out "Enigma" though - that's pretty good, although fairly lightweight. Not Hollywood either, so you can feel good about spending your money on something not linked to huge corrupt organisations.
Grab.
Battery weight and cost.
Plenty of owners of recumbent bicycles in Cambridge (I was going to say "recumbent bicycle owners", but that's usually only after a few drinks ;-). Strangely, they never actually seem to go fast at all - they go slower than your typical mountain-bike rider. It's probably cos they're so damn heavy and need quite fat tyres - they may be more aerodynamic but they'll have a sky-high rolling resistance.
Grab.
Well, American scientists, _apart_ from selected ones at NASA... ;-)
Britain still uses mph as the standard - all British speed restrictions are in mph. But just about everything else in Britain is in metric now (although I still order cheese in half-pound portions - I find it's just the right amount to last us a week).
Grab.
If you mean the Hindenburg, it was determined many, many years back that it was the Hindenburg's outer skin that burned, not the hydrogen. Read the thread above.
Grab.
Oh yeah, plus half the crew, and nearly all the extras... :-)
Grab.
By nationality:-
British
Sean Bean (Boromir)
Ian Holm (Bilbo)
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
Billy Boyd (Pippin)
Dominic Monaghan (Merry)
Orlando Bloom (Legolas)
Christopher Lee (Saruman)
John Rhys-Davies (Gimli)
Bernard Hill (Theoden)
The voice of Andy Serkis (Gollum)
Australian
Cate Blanchett (Galadriel)
Miranda Otto (Eowyn)
Hugo Weaving (Elrond)
John Noble (Denethor)
David Wenham (Faramir)
New Zealand
Martin Czokas (Celeborn)
Karl Urban (Eomer)
American
Elijah Wood (Frodo)
Sean Astin (Sam)
Viggo Mortenson (Aragorn)
Liv Tyler (Arwen)
Brad Dourif (Wormtongue)
As for pronouncing it as Tolkein put in the appendix, the purists have lost that one - the trailers definitely pronounce Gandalf as Gandalf, not Gandolv.
It's a shame only the Americans will invest in movies. Since half the actors are Brits, the top Hollywood cinematographers are Brits, and the book was written by a Brit, you'd reckon you could drum up some finance in Britain. But no... Silly buggers, money-men.
Grab.
But it wouldn't be the BFG, it'd be the BSG, for Big Smurfing Gun...
Grab.
Maybe they have. Unfortunately he can't do more than blow bubbles at them and go "googoogaga". Which is pretty much what he did in office...
Grab.