You're shopping in the wrong place then. Try play.com, where most stuff is 7-8UKP including postage (no value added tax, you see, because they're based in Jersey and the package is under 18UKP in value so it's H.M. Customs exempt). Even recent double albums are only about 10UKP.
Nuclear energy was, we were told, going to be too cheap to meter when the UK Calder Hall reactor was opened in the 1950s. Now the industry is propped up by government subsidies.
Actually, I *am* a fan of nuclear energy; the economic case is only poor because the clean-up requirements are absurdly expensive - considering that coal-fired plants spew an order of magnitude more radioactive fallout across the countryside.
The rate we're burning oil, it will become uneconomic to extract the dwindling reserves within my lifetime (North Sea oil and gas is already past its peak and the UK is a net importer again). Mind you, we can then blame the Shrub [1] for getting us to that point several decades earlier than necessary. As well as starting wars over it.
[1] unless he's assassinated in office, which, for the sake of the rest of the world, many of us fervently hope for...
It sucks since they put a fence around it in the 1980s and started charging a fortune for admission. When I was little you could go and sit on the stones. Now you only get to do that at the solstices if you pretend to be a Druid. There's also the A303 trunk road right next to the site which detracts from the atmosphere, but this is being buried in a tunnel soon (the debate is still going on about how long the tunnel should be).
Go to Avebury, it's much bigger and you can still hug the stones.
It's proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, so a 3 ton SUV causes 81 times the road damage of a 1 ton small car. Average vehicle weights have crept up so much in the last 20 years - an average family car in the UK is now about 40% heavier - that it's no surprise all the roads are fuX0red.
Unless the computer comes with a copy of Windows, your low-income family has to stump up a few hundred $ for a licence, or work out how to install and use Linux. Most large companies license Windows using the Select system, and their old PCs go out having been wiped clean of whatever OS they were using. In theory the PCs would have been bought with some kind of OEM licence because it's so hard to buy a "naked PC" without the MS tax, but someone then has to go to the trouble of reinstalling whatever the OEM version was under the original OEM licence number. Costs money.
Doesn't work. Some things (e.g. plastics) burn or decompose at the temperatures needed to melt silicon or glass. Many substances are miscible when molten and can't even be *distilled* from each other (azeotropes). Plus the energy required to do all this is horrendous.
Basically, you have to separate as much as possible mechanically, then bury or incinerate the rest. That's high-technology and mixed materials for you.
Everyone is dumping perfectly serviceable CRTs for LCDs. You can't *give* away a 15" CRT, and even 17" models are hard to shift for 10-20UKP. There's a lot of material in a CRT compared to an LCD, too.
Modern mobile phones have proper HTTP (not WAP) browsers and sites formatted for PDA fit on their little screens quite well. Not many people are using PDAs to surf the Internet, but it's worth keeping the PDA sites going - if you had one - to cater for the new style phones. Here's the cute little Google search page for PDAs.
If you got the cheap OEM version, officially it dies with the computer. And you thought the $$$ saving was just because you weren't entitled to tech support from Microsoft, didn't you?
The full price bend-over-and-be-reamed retail version can be transferred to another PC if you scrub it from the first one. I do warn people about this when I build systems for them and give them the option of OEM or retail versions (they all pick OEM).
"Windows Genuine Advantage already helps protect millions of Windows users from an inferior computing experience, viruses and other vulnerabilities that can result from counterfeit software."
When you've stopped laughing, what percentage of ripped-off Windows copies do you think actually perform any differently, or contain malware, compared to the legit version? Answers on an email to billg@microsoft.com, please.
So why on earth would ABCDEF be any better than QWERTY? Did the ancient Romans and Greeks know anything about keyboards? At least Dvorak put some thought into the layout.
Slashdot Mirror
Somebody set up us the ad!
You're shopping in the wrong place then. Try play.com, where most stuff is 7-8UKP including postage (no value added tax, you see, because they're based in Jersey and the package is under 18UKP in value so it's H.M. Customs exempt). Even recent double albums are only about 10UKP.
Actually, I *am* a fan of nuclear energy; the economic case is only poor because the clean-up requirements are absurdly expensive - considering that coal-fired plants spew an order of magnitude more radioactive fallout across the countryside.
At least working out the postage would be easy.
Well, there's chicken tikka masala, no hurricanes or tornadoes, and Keira Knightley. So maybe the /. eds aren't being sarcastic after all.
[1] unless he's assassinated in office, which, for the sake of the rest of the world, many of us fervently hope for...
Go to Avebury, it's much bigger and you can still hug the stones.
It's proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight, so a 3 ton SUV causes 81 times the road damage of a 1 ton small car. Average vehicle weights have crept up so much in the last 20 years - an average family car in the UK is now about 40% heavier - that it's no surprise all the roads are fuX0red.
In ancient times
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people
The Druids
No-one knows who they were
Or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
Hewn into the living rock
Of Stonehenge
Is this dude related to David Hahn?
About frackin' time ;-)
Bart: Hey look - is that Dad?
Lisa: Either that, or Batman's really let himself go.
Unless the computer comes with a copy of Windows, your low-income family has to stump up a few hundred $ for a licence, or work out how to install and use Linux. Most large companies license Windows using the Select system, and their old PCs go out having been wiped clean of whatever OS they were using. In theory the PCs would have been bought with some kind of OEM licence because it's so hard to buy a "naked PC" without the MS tax, but someone then has to go to the trouble of reinstalling whatever the OEM version was under the original OEM licence number. Costs money.
Basically, you have to separate as much as possible mechanically, then bury or incinerate the rest. That's high-technology and mixed materials for you.
Everyone is dumping perfectly serviceable CRTs for LCDs. You can't *give* away a 15" CRT, and even 17" models are hard to shift for 10-20UKP. There's a lot of material in a CRT compared to an LCD, too.
On the other hand, maybe it works like free radiotherapy on all those Chernobyl cancers.
Modern mobile phones have proper HTTP (not WAP) browsers and sites formatted for PDA fit on their little screens quite well. Not many people are using PDAs to surf the Internet, but it's worth keeping the PDA sites going - if you had one - to cater for the new style phones. Here's the cute little Google search page for PDAs.
'cos the Bush voters living in "Jesusland" would refuse to use it, going on about the Book of Revelation, man's mark required to buy or sell, etc.
No, it's a kind of radiation belt with an exceptionally high frequency. And a poodle haircut.
Sorry, CowboyNeal, you're at least 2 months early with this one.
Er...no. There's something called the speed of light. If the data goes via a comms satellite, you can add 250ms to any intercontinental ping.
MS have lied in the past. In theory a genned key hasn't worked on Windows Update for about 2 years, but we all know that's not true.
The full price bend-over-and-be-reamed retail version can be transferred to another PC if you scrub it from the first one. I do warn people about this when I build systems for them and give them the option of OEM or retail versions (they all pick OEM).
When you've stopped laughing, what percentage of ripped-off Windows copies do you think actually perform any differently, or contain malware, compared to the legit version? Answers on an email to billg@microsoft.com, please.
So why on earth would ABCDEF be any better than QWERTY? Did the ancient Romans and Greeks know anything about keyboards? At least Dvorak put some thought into the layout.