I would argue that it and other elements of LOTR that used CGI were of the calibre that they were because they relied on *real* stuff (in the case of Gollum, an actual actor having his actions/features captured, not just dialogue). So many wonderful settings, although augmented and given backdrops or details filled in by CGI, were actually created as sets and props. Even the obvious CGI looks better due to relying on real stuff (e.g. replicating orc hordes based on a sizable enough mini-horde of people dressed convincingly as orcs). Watching the making of DVDs for LOTR is pretty mindboggling in terms of seeing the amount of *non* CGI work that went in (and then the CGI on top of that was very cleverly done too). In fact you only have to consider the creation of a mini Hobbiton as an example.
Now I want to go watch it all again despite the length (although it's something like 4% shorter for us Europeans, about 30 mins across the three extended editions).
I'd like to see more films done in such a way, although there are plenty now that use CGI not as the be-all and end-all but rather to seamlessly augment "reality" (the fairly decent sets etc. they start with).
You assume someone is going to use a new portable device. A lot of people are at the least, using devices from last year, or the year before. We quickly end up with only being able to assume 1-4GB of storage and many portable devices are not music players only - that storage has to allow apps and photos as well. Personally, I have 1GB micro-SD in my mobile phone, and using about half of that for music, I can fit just over a half-dozen albums as compressed MP3s - sure I don't need that much for a single trip as such, but I'm not going to selectively load music before every journey - instead it's easier to have a couple of albums, and then just occasionally dump some I'm bored with and load a couple of new ones.
I am considering switching to a less reliable mobile network to get the new subscriber bonus of a "free" (18 month contract at 20 euro pm) nice new phone with GPS and everything. Thing is, it will still have MicroSD (don't know that it even allows HC) but it will have a 5 megapixel camera compared to the 3 mp camera I currently have - so even more storage required for photos. Also this new phone can have apps loaded - so I may use more storage for that too. So even getting a higher capacity card, I think it is doubtful I'll be using less compressed music.
As for hard drives - I still need all the gigabytes I have for games - and with a laptop - even if I cared to throw over 100 euro at boring hard drive storage upgrade, I'd only double my capacity from 80 GB to 160 GB. The terabyte drive while reasonably good value, is desktop only - and I use my desktop infrequently now (just a couple of big-box newer games where I can't turn down the settings enough for my laptop - although more and more I'm turning to direct-release games that are cheap and run on a laptop - and indeed take up megabytes not gigabytes).
The problem isn't just the scaling - it's that the games were designed to be viewed on CRT. Exactly 2x2 pixels does *not* acheive this - on a CRT even at low res, the CRT is more condusive to the eye interpolating detail. Crystal-clear pixels are not how older games are intended to be viewed. I've found some laptop LCDs (i.e. not huge resolution) actually allow you to play old games (e.g. on DOSBox) looking fairly similar to how they should, as the basic scaling to some extent achieves a similar effect to old lousy CRTs. Reference is 320x200 (original Duke Nukem) on a 1280x1024 screen. Indeed even dimensions not matching doesn't entirely matter.
The worst seems to be close resolutions - so 800x600 on 1024x768 LCD looks pants. Indeed the rough multiple of resolution needed may matter too, although it doesn't seem entirely consistent - again it may vary depending on how close you are to native res.
There is a mod for Diablo 2 though to allow any resolution (think it's called AnyRes). I found it was best to just maybe go to 1024x768 on a 1600x1200 screen - anything more and it was too small, but it was an improvement over 800x600 despite the theoretical 2x2 match. I found even with that, the interface and graphics were a bit too primative to allow me to enjoy it as I had. Will stick with Titan Quest for now (a very close clone, with the added plus of fun ransacking of mythology - it's like some hideous mangled mythological dictionary). Torchlight is a good substitute too, though more of a mini-game IMO. Other games in the genre aren't quite as similar.
I wasn't that into Starcraft myself (lousy at RTS - can't multitask and respond fast enough, and the nervous energy kills me), but even with some cool modern RTSes, I can understand why people would still want to play Starcraft.
Well, the original members (plus maybe one or two others) produced a set of 8 coins each. Then after the EU expanded, eventually the common design was changed to not only show EU, but all of Europe on the 10c, 20c, 50c, E1 and E2 coins. Some of the newest Eurozone members will only have minted these coins though (plus the 1c, 2c and 5c which haven't changed in common design). Also there are commemmorative E2 coins - e.g. Treaty of Rome coins of similar but individual design by each state, and then national issues as well.
But if you included coins issued different years, there are far more (minting started in 1999 and some countries put year of minting on the coin, although many like Ireland just put 2002 on all coins minted before 2002).
Also Germany has more than one mint (for a start, former east Germany as well as western mint, but I think there are 3 total), and there is a letter on the German side of the coin denoting which mint the coin came from.
It's not as complicated as you would think though as there are only the old and new common sides, and people are familiar with the major countries they usually get coins from. Seldom here in Ireland for example you get coins from Finland, Greece, Malta, etc. - but commonly Germany, Spain, France, Italy - probably in that order - and to a lesser degree Portugal and Netherlands, and very occasionally Belgium, Austria and then further away/smaller countries. Of course if UK was in Eurozone, then here in Ireland we would most of all after our own coins have theirs (indeed UK 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 50p used to circulate in Ireland when we had Irish pound, until the redesign of the higher value coins).
Referring to the EC rather than the EU is like referring to the cabinet of a country's government rather than the country itself. Although unlike most government cabinets, one member is nominated by each national government rather than from/by the European Parliament (although I believe they get to approve/reject the commission now - I should know having voted in the Lisbon Treaty referendum here in Ireland, but I'll admit I'm not sure).
The one time I've actually had to replace a plug fuse (UK-style plug), was on a desk lamp (3A fuse). When the halogen spot gave out, it blew the fuse.
As regards Christmas lights, I don't know about the US, but here in Ireland (UK is the same) there is always a fuse bulb (as well as the fused plug). Not entirely sure why this is, but faulty Christmas lights seemingly even so manage to start fires here every year.
I've never had a plug fall out, even with the weight of "wall warts" or even the 3 way blocks with wall warts attached.
One downside is that if you trip over a cable - although the plug is designed for the wire to pull out of the plug safely - this doesn't happen as the plug and socket are so robust. Instead you send some device flying off a countertop or something.
Also sometimes if you have something plugged in for some time, it can actually be quite hard to unplug.
Nevertheless, I'd choose this over flakey falling-out plugs anyday.
That's just better planning as regards avoiding unbroken urban landscape in the case of Europe. Southern England and the Low Countries form a high density belt of similar geographic size (albeit broken by the English Channel) with much more population. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_density_with_key.png
You can be a first-world country and do this too though - Ireland, one of three countries in the world not to have postcodes. It makes some online shopping forms a pain though if the postcode field is hard-coded. And note, best to put IRL in these, as an unfortunate incident of a delivery arriving months late with a lot of unusual stickers/postmarks showed that putting NA (for non-applicable) may get your delivery sent via Namibia.
On the other hand, Ireland has some of the worst broadband coverage/speeds in Europe.
Having to manually code the euro symbol into slashdot posts is what annoys me most about posting on slashdot. Anywhere else I can simply rely on Alt Gr + 4 these days.
Yeah, flying to the US is a pain and the US immigration is still unpleasant, but it really helps psychologically to be in an airport I'm super-familiar with, filled up with a nice Irish breakfast from relaxing after check-in looking out over Shannon estuary from the restaurant, and knowing that whatever they throw at me, I'm still just in a little building built on ordinary Irish bogland near home. Going through security in Shannon airport at least is something even the security guys just seem to go through the rigmarole of just like the passengers (actually Dublin is much the same but it's nevertheless a horrendous ordeal just because of the sheer queues of people at times). People here in Ireland aren't that exercised about procedure and stuff!
Note that you still have to deal with the same people and handle the same "interrogation" at pre-clearance, but it is something one can much more easily cope with when you know that if they stopped you in your tracks, you could just leave the airport and go down to the pub or back home to bed. Haven't been there since they integrated Agriculture and Customs checks at pre-clearance (these generally didn't involve anything much on arrival in the US though - just the "no I haven't been on a farm" lark).
It was a bit surreal all the US military wandering around in Shannon in uniform though, although any imposing effect was entirely cancelled by their fawning over Irish tourist trap trinkets in the duty-free gift shop.
We are fairly cash-mad here in Ireland although our old banknotes only went up to IR£50 (~63.50 at changeover), but some other European countries there is a history of using larger denomination banknotes too (hence why there is a 500 note) - Germany and Austria maybe. I think Ireland has the highest amount of coins in circulation per head of population.
It's interesting the differences between countries - in Portugal I found that people would get very annoyed with you if you paid even with small denomination banknotes if it was just a matter of a euro or two. For some strange reason small change seemed to be a precious commodity! And this is with ATMs that dispense change (e.g. ask for 50 and it provides 5,5,10,10,20 - where here in Ireland you usually just get one 50 note).
I don't have a debit card because until recently the con-artist banks here charged you a fee on every single transaction.
Except mostly people want to avoid damaging their car. And with the safety of crumple zones, you can have a *lot* of damage from a fairly slow crash (i.e. fender bender = front/back of car completely mashed up). Saw one of these just last week - doubt the cumulative speed was even 15 mph (stop/start city centre traffic) - and although the vehicle in front only had a broken bumper (or "fender"), the one behind had an entire corner mashed in (lights all smashed, bumper, bonnet and wing all scrunched). Not a big enough crash to deploy airbags or anything either - but not cheap to fix (and the guy behind was liable - you're supposed to keep sufficient distance in front to stop if the guy in front does).
Not entirely true - as you can order online for cheaper, particularly from the UK (even before this year, the exchange rate made it quite favorable - but now if you are in the Eurozone you can buy from the UK for silly cheap prices).
For cheaper games (not the focus of the article I know) you can get them even cheaper as you can buy from outside the EU (Jersey) and pay no VAT or import duty as long as the price is below something like 20 - which means that with the £/ exchange rate, a game at the equivalent of 20 from Jersey online retailer might still be 45 in the shops!
I don't know how popular it is in continental Europe, but UK and Ireland people are more and more buying DVDs, CDs, Games and even all kinds of other cheaper items from these online retailers, who mostly have no shipping charges either.
It's not an either or option. Many European countries have better social mobility than the US, and the welfare system successfully provides a "safety net" despite sales taxes of 20% approx. The relatively high income tax is *as well* as the sales taxes! (Then there is the cost of motoring!)
Ireland doesn't have as good social mobility as other European countries and its welfare benefits are somewhat negated by poor services and high cost of living, but nevertheless the situation is far better than the US. And that is with lower income taxes than the US *and* corporation tax of only 12.5%! So even with a focus on "regressive" taxes rather than progressive, the State manages to provide better social security than the US and fund a health system that while somewhat dysfunctional, is not at the bottom of the European league table.
So the US is clearly screwing up in some more fundamental way than just sales vs. income tax!
They have more sets in the Lego "Creator" line than ever - i.e. basic building sets (many with *three* suggested models and instructions for each) and brick boxes/buckets. 42 sets in that section of their website, and my local store has an entire shelf section devoted to them - as much as Star Wars Lego has, possibly more (some large Creator sets on other shelves too).
City Lego, while it is a theme, is obviously one of the major mainstays of Lego as ever though - again it's the largest product range (far more than Star Wars) and in my local toy store has maybe three or four times the shelf space of Star Wars.
I disagree entirely with your last statement about the cars. These are fantastic mostly brick-built creations giving great inspiration even to adult Lego builders like myself as to how to build realistic-looking cars. The main custom piece is a small two-seat cockpit (created for the "Adventurers" theme in 1997 or so), and this can be used in any vehicle. The roof of the tan vehicle is admittedly a limited use canvas, but that of the black vehicle uses a new (~2005) hull piece used in many many City vehicles too, and it looks great for roof/bonnet of any vehicles you build yourself, also it's suitable for spaceships (indeed used in Space Police), canopies (as used in another indy set), all manner of other things too.
As regards custom parts - things are about right in Lego at the moment. It was only in the late 90s/early 2000s that not only were there *perhaps* too many special parts, but the sets were poor value because large parts were put in to make up for lack of bricks. New sets have the special/large parts *AND* all the bricks! And as long as you get the parts in good value sets with plenty of bricks - I have no problem with things like "Big Ugly Rock Pieces" (referred to as BURPs by adult Lego builders) because they are exceedingly useful for scaling up one's own constructions too. Yeah a cliff made just from bricks looks best, but you need both large quantities of brick and the time and dedication to build a cohesive structure. BURPs allow you to build a load-bearing outline structure for little brick outlay, then decorate it and customise it appropriately with bricks and Lego foliage.
You have to install WGA for later updates, but you do *not* have to install the "WGA notifications" (although it is listed as critical update) which is the tool that among other things pops up incessently if it thinks your copy of Windows isn't legit (and it did this to many legit copies). I presume it is WGA notifier that "phones home". Afaik, WGA itself once installed is only used when called upon (e.g. when visiting Windows Update site).
Of course if it ever got to the stage of recognising individuals, for men at least the simple remedy would to grow beards. Even with medium-term advances in tech it seems unlikely that facial recognition will work very well differentiating between bearded people.
Don't worry about it. There are still plenty of not so risk-adverse countries around, and the risk-adverse ones have already driven genuine advances in safety, not to be sneezed at just because it slows down advancement in other areas. Cars of days were genuinely wildly unsafe compared to what we have today for example, and lets face it, even today's cars are unsafe enough.
We have an easy-going attitude here in Ireland, and when all is said and done, it isn't all that it's cracked up to be. But for the "luck of the Irish" we would have a lot more fatal incidents here due to people saying "ah sure its grand". Just recently a major railway viaduct collapsed just after a train going across - and it had been "inspected" only a couple days before and given an all-clear after kayakers pointed out that there were rapids raging through what was supposed to be a weir that the viaduct supports stood along.
Mandelson surely wouldn't be where he is today though if he had not previously been *elected* and *reelected* as MP for Hartlepool?
I don't think people in UK can complain about so very many of the unelected as those that they have elected have either put them in their unelected positions, or else have become the unelected.
Besides, for all the bad actions of the unelected, the House of Lords in the UK have held up all kinds of barmy stuff that the elected House of Commons have tried to get through. Allowing the people and those they elect to decide absolutely everything isn't really such a brilliant idea - it becomes little more than mob rule. The UK's system isn't quite the right balance, but the idea behind it is not flawed. Besides, they've mostly kept the populance happy enough not to overthrow them, which is more than can be said for the rest of Europe (and indeed one wonders if the US govt. is storing up a lot of trouble).
Lego is experiencing a new golden age at the moment, and rather than catering to lowest common denominator, they offer products in just about every category imaginable now. Want crazy head-wrecking technic constructions? They're there. Amazing large models and sculptures for adult builders? Brick-collection sets that come with three suggested models? Brick buckets? Parts? City/Space/Castle sets that we would have gone berserk over as kids? Lego robotics? Popular culture done in Lego? (for all the criticism of price or specialised parts - remember that some of us dreamed of such a thing as kids - Star Wars in Lego? It was the stuff of fantasy!)
Recent themed sets (i.e. not just brick buckets) have acheived a good balance of small/large bricks, plates, slope/roof pieces, special parts and colours. Just about all ordinary Lego parts (i.e. not Bionicle) have quite a variety of uses - and even many special purpose parts are fairly generic and have had careful geometry design to allow cunning combination with other Lego parts.
Please before repeating this "in my day" stuff about Lego, actually look at what Lego offer today on shop.lego.com, and what they offered in your day (check e.g. brickset.com). The likes of what you had in your day is still there, and vast plethora of choices beyond that too. As an adult Lego builder I can assure you that Lego has never been better - although quality of parts is perhaps not as good as 1980s (better than earlier than that though) but it is also cheaper than ever and in many ways more versatile. The size of set that would have been $20 back in the day, is $20 today when $20 is worth a lot less.
We've invested in basic research here in Ireland, and the government is being criticised for it (link to Irish Times opinion piece).
Certainly there is a problem here in Ireland that there are a lack of opportunities for those who've acheived a PhD qualification through basic research. Already a lot of even ordinary degree graduates in science and technology have emigrated from Ireland, and the number of entrants into such undergraduate courses is dropping year by year.
However, possibly there's nothing inherently wrong with investing so much in basic research and the issues arise merely from the ineptitude of those running this country and the blind voting that such a section of the populance do for the current ruling party - who've throughout Ireland's history acheived lots of public support but attempted to ruin the country at various stages (starting with the Civil War, continuing with the economic war with the UK in the 1930s, going crazy in the 1970s even abolishing car tax to win votes as the country went bankrupt, deliberately facilitating a property bubble after the dot-com crash, attempting to have the taxpayers continue to pay into the Ponzi scheme with a unique Irish version of the bad bank - i.e. pay speculative amounts to banks for bad loans and attempt to keep prices up until a new bubble is created).
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I would argue that it and other elements of LOTR that used CGI were of the calibre that they were because they relied on *real* stuff (in the case of Gollum, an actual actor having his actions/features captured, not just dialogue). So many wonderful settings, although augmented and given backdrops or details filled in by CGI, were actually created as sets and props. Even the obvious CGI looks better due to relying on real stuff (e.g. replicating orc hordes based on a sizable enough mini-horde of people dressed convincingly as orcs). Watching the making of DVDs for LOTR is pretty mindboggling in terms of seeing the amount of *non* CGI work that went in (and then the CGI on top of that was very cleverly done too). In fact you only have to consider the creation of a mini Hobbiton as an example.
Now I want to go watch it all again despite the length (although it's something like 4% shorter for us Europeans, about 30 mins across the three extended editions).
I'd like to see more films done in such a way, although there are plenty now that use CGI not as the be-all and end-all but rather to seamlessly augment "reality" (the fairly decent sets etc. they start with).
You assume someone is going to use a new portable device. A lot of people are at the least, using devices from last year, or the year before. We quickly end up with only being able to assume 1-4GB of storage and many portable devices are not music players only - that storage has to allow apps and photos as well. Personally, I have 1GB micro-SD in my mobile phone, and using about half of that for music, I can fit just over a half-dozen albums as compressed MP3s - sure I don't need that much for a single trip as such, but I'm not going to selectively load music before every journey - instead it's easier to have a couple of albums, and then just occasionally dump some I'm bored with and load a couple of new ones.
I am considering switching to a less reliable mobile network to get the new subscriber bonus of a "free" (18 month contract at 20 euro pm) nice new phone with GPS and everything. Thing is, it will still have MicroSD (don't know that it even allows HC) but it will have a 5 megapixel camera compared to the 3 mp camera I currently have - so even more storage required for photos. Also this new phone can have apps loaded - so I may use more storage for that too. So even getting a higher capacity card, I think it is doubtful I'll be using less compressed music.
As for hard drives - I still need all the gigabytes I have for games - and with a laptop - even if I cared to throw over 100 euro at boring hard drive storage upgrade, I'd only double my capacity from 80 GB to 160 GB. The terabyte drive while reasonably good value, is desktop only - and I use my desktop infrequently now (just a couple of big-box newer games where I can't turn down the settings enough for my laptop - although more and more I'm turning to direct-release games that are cheap and run on a laptop - and indeed take up megabytes not gigabytes).
The problem isn't just the scaling - it's that the games were designed to be viewed on CRT. Exactly 2x2 pixels does *not* acheive this - on a CRT even at low res, the CRT is more condusive to the eye interpolating detail. Crystal-clear pixels are not how older games are intended to be viewed. I've found some laptop LCDs (i.e. not huge resolution) actually allow you to play old games (e.g. on DOSBox) looking fairly similar to how they should, as the basic scaling to some extent achieves a similar effect to old lousy CRTs. Reference is 320x200 (original Duke Nukem) on a 1280x1024 screen. Indeed even dimensions not matching doesn't entirely matter.
The worst seems to be close resolutions - so 800x600 on 1024x768 LCD looks pants. Indeed the rough multiple of resolution needed may matter too, although it doesn't seem entirely consistent - again it may vary depending on how close you are to native res.
There is a mod for Diablo 2 though to allow any resolution (think it's called AnyRes). I found it was best to just maybe go to 1024x768 on a 1600x1200 screen - anything more and it was too small, but it was an improvement over 800x600 despite the theoretical 2x2 match. I found even with that, the interface and graphics were a bit too primative to allow me to enjoy it as I had. Will stick with Titan Quest for now (a very close clone, with the added plus of fun ransacking of mythology - it's like some hideous mangled mythological dictionary). Torchlight is a good substitute too, though more of a mini-game IMO. Other games in the genre aren't quite as similar.
I wasn't that into Starcraft myself (lousy at RTS - can't multitask and respond fast enough, and the nervous energy kills me), but even with some cool modern RTSes, I can understand why people would still want to play Starcraft.
Well, the original members (plus maybe one or two others) produced a set of 8 coins each. Then after the EU expanded, eventually the common design was changed to not only show EU, but all of Europe on the 10c, 20c, 50c, E1 and E2 coins. Some of the newest Eurozone members will only have minted these coins though (plus the 1c, 2c and 5c which haven't changed in common design). Also there are commemmorative E2 coins - e.g. Treaty of Rome coins of similar but individual design by each state, and then national issues as well.
But if you included coins issued different years, there are far more (minting started in 1999 and some countries put year of minting on the coin, although many like Ireland just put 2002 on all coins minted before 2002).
Also Germany has more than one mint (for a start, former east Germany as well as western mint, but I think there are 3 total), and there is a letter on the German side of the coin denoting which mint the coin came from.
It's not as complicated as you would think though as there are only the old and new common sides, and people are familiar with the major countries they usually get coins from. Seldom here in Ireland for example you get coins from Finland, Greece, Malta, etc. - but commonly Germany, Spain, France, Italy - probably in that order - and to a lesser degree Portugal and Netherlands, and very occasionally Belgium, Austria and then further away/smaller countries. Of course if UK was in Eurozone, then here in Ireland we would most of all after our own coins have theirs (indeed UK 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 50p used to circulate in Ireland when we had Irish pound, until the redesign of the higher value coins).
A real mouse works for that too - they'll happily gnaw through the metallic shell to get at the tasty chocolate inside.
Referring to the EC rather than the EU is like referring to the cabinet of a country's government rather than the country itself. Although unlike most government cabinets, one member is nominated by each national government rather than from/by the European Parliament (although I believe they get to approve/reject the commission now - I should know having voted in the Lisbon Treaty referendum here in Ireland, but I'll admit I'm not sure).
The one time I've actually had to replace a plug fuse (UK-style plug), was on a desk lamp (3A fuse). When the halogen spot gave out, it blew the fuse.
As regards Christmas lights, I don't know about the US, but here in Ireland (UK is the same) there is always a fuse bulb (as well as the fused plug). Not entirely sure why this is, but faulty Christmas lights seemingly even so manage to start fires here every year.
I've never had a plug fall out, even with the weight of "wall warts" or even the 3 way blocks with wall warts attached.
One downside is that if you trip over a cable - although the plug is designed for the wire to pull out of the plug safely - this doesn't happen as the plug and socket are so robust. Instead you send some device flying off a countertop or something.
Also sometimes if you have something plugged in for some time, it can actually be quite hard to unplug.
Nevertheless, I'd choose this over flakey falling-out plugs anyday.
That's just better planning as regards avoiding unbroken urban landscape in the case of Europe. Southern England and the Low Countries form a high density belt of similar geographic size (albeit broken by the English Channel) with much more population. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_density_with_key.png
Actually to some extent, big corporations can suck it up.
It's small enterprise that is the loser.
The public end up stuck with whatever the big corporations provide.
You can be a first-world country and do this too though - Ireland, one of three countries in the world not to have postcodes. It makes some online shopping forms a pain though if the postcode field is hard-coded. And note, best to put IRL in these, as an unfortunate incident of a delivery arriving months late with a lot of unusual stickers/postmarks showed that putting NA (for non-applicable) may get your delivery sent via Namibia.
On the other hand, Ireland has some of the worst broadband coverage/speeds in Europe.
Having to manually code the euro symbol into slashdot posts is what annoys me most about posting on slashdot. Anywhere else I can simply rely on Alt Gr + 4 these days.
Yeah, flying to the US is a pain and the US immigration is still unpleasant, but it really helps psychologically to be in an airport I'm super-familiar with, filled up with a nice Irish breakfast from relaxing after check-in looking out over Shannon estuary from the restaurant, and knowing that whatever they throw at me, I'm still just in a little building built on ordinary Irish bogland near home. Going through security in Shannon airport at least is something even the security guys just seem to go through the rigmarole of just like the passengers (actually Dublin is much the same but it's nevertheless a horrendous ordeal just because of the sheer queues of people at times). People here in Ireland aren't that exercised about procedure and stuff!
Note that you still have to deal with the same people and handle the same "interrogation" at pre-clearance, but it is something one can much more easily cope with when you know that if they stopped you in your tracks, you could just leave the airport and go down to the pub or back home to bed. Haven't been there since they integrated Agriculture and Customs checks at pre-clearance (these generally didn't involve anything much on arrival in the US though - just the "no I haven't been on a farm" lark).
It was a bit surreal all the US military wandering around in Shannon in uniform though, although any imposing effect was entirely cancelled by their fawning over Irish tourist trap trinkets in the duty-free gift shop.
We are fairly cash-mad here in Ireland although our old banknotes only went up to IR£50 (~63.50 at changeover), but some other European countries there is a history of using larger denomination banknotes too (hence why there is a 500 note) - Germany and Austria maybe. I think Ireland has the highest amount of coins in circulation per head of population.
It's interesting the differences between countries - in Portugal I found that people would get very annoyed with you if you paid even with small denomination banknotes if it was just a matter of a euro or two. For some strange reason small change seemed to be a precious commodity! And this is with ATMs that dispense change (e.g. ask for 50 and it provides 5,5,10,10,20 - where here in Ireland you usually just get one 50 note).
I don't have a debit card because until recently the con-artist banks here charged you a fee on every single transaction.
Except mostly people want to avoid damaging their car. And with the safety of crumple zones, you can have a *lot* of damage from a fairly slow crash (i.e. fender bender = front/back of car completely mashed up). Saw one of these just last week - doubt the cumulative speed was even 15 mph (stop/start city centre traffic) - and although the vehicle in front only had a broken bumper (or "fender"), the one behind had an entire corner mashed in (lights all smashed, bumper, bonnet and wing all scrunched). Not a big enough crash to deploy airbags or anything either - but not cheap to fix (and the guy behind was liable - you're supposed to keep sufficient distance in front to stop if the guy in front does).
Not entirely true - as you can order online for cheaper, particularly from the UK (even before this year, the exchange rate made it quite favorable - but now if you are in the Eurozone you can buy from the UK for silly cheap prices).
For cheaper games (not the focus of the article I know) you can get them even cheaper as you can buy from outside the EU (Jersey) and pay no VAT or import duty as long as the price is below something like 20 - which means that with the £/ exchange rate, a game at the equivalent of 20 from Jersey online retailer might still be 45 in the shops!
I don't know how popular it is in continental Europe, but UK and Ireland people are more and more buying DVDs, CDs, Games and even all kinds of other cheaper items from these online retailers, who mostly have no shipping charges either.
It's not an either or option. Many European countries have better social mobility than the US, and the welfare system successfully provides a "safety net" despite sales taxes of 20% approx. The relatively high income tax is *as well* as the sales taxes! (Then there is the cost of motoring!)
Ireland doesn't have as good social mobility as other European countries and its welfare benefits are somewhat negated by poor services and high cost of living, but nevertheless the situation is far better than the US. And that is with lower income taxes than the US *and* corporation tax of only 12.5%! So even with a focus on "regressive" taxes rather than progressive, the State manages to provide better social security than the US and fund a health system that while somewhat dysfunctional, is not at the bottom of the European league table.
So the US is clearly screwing up in some more fundamental way than just sales vs. income tax!
They have more sets in the Lego "Creator" line than ever - i.e. basic building sets (many with *three* suggested models and instructions for each) and brick boxes/buckets. 42 sets in that section of their website, and my local store has an entire shelf section devoted to them - as much as Star Wars Lego has, possibly more (some large Creator sets on other shelves too).
City Lego, while it is a theme, is obviously one of the major mainstays of Lego as ever though - again it's the largest product range (far more than Star Wars) and in my local toy store has maybe three or four times the shelf space of Star Wars.
I disagree entirely with your last statement about the cars. These are fantastic mostly brick-built creations giving great inspiration even to adult Lego builders like myself as to how to build realistic-looking cars. The main custom piece is a small two-seat cockpit (created for the "Adventurers" theme in 1997 or so), and this can be used in any vehicle. The roof of the tan vehicle is admittedly a limited use canvas, but that of the black vehicle uses a new (~2005) hull piece used in many many City vehicles too, and it looks great for roof/bonnet of any vehicles you build yourself, also it's suitable for spaceships (indeed used in Space Police), canopies (as used in another indy set), all manner of other things too.
As regards custom parts - things are about right in Lego at the moment. It was only in the late 90s/early 2000s that not only were there *perhaps* too many special parts, but the sets were poor value because large parts were put in to make up for lack of bricks. New sets have the special/large parts *AND* all the bricks! And as long as you get the parts in good value sets with plenty of bricks - I have no problem with things like "Big Ugly Rock Pieces" (referred to as BURPs by adult Lego builders) because they are exceedingly useful for scaling up one's own constructions too. Yeah a cliff made just from bricks looks best, but you need both large quantities of brick and the time and dedication to build a cohesive structure. BURPs allow you to build a load-bearing outline structure for little brick outlay, then decorate it and customise it appropriately with bricks and Lego foliage.
You have to install WGA for later updates, but you do *not* have to install the "WGA notifications" (although it is listed as critical update) which is the tool that among other things pops up incessently if it thinks your copy of Windows isn't legit (and it did this to many legit copies). I presume it is WGA notifier that "phones home". Afaik, WGA itself once installed is only used when called upon (e.g. when visiting Windows Update site).
Of course if it ever got to the stage of recognising individuals, for men at least the simple remedy would to grow beards. Even with medium-term advances in tech it seems unlikely that facial recognition will work very well differentiating between bearded people.
Don't worry about it. There are still plenty of not so risk-adverse countries around, and the risk-adverse ones have already driven genuine advances in safety, not to be sneezed at just because it slows down advancement in other areas. Cars of days were genuinely wildly unsafe compared to what we have today for example, and lets face it, even today's cars are unsafe enough.
We have an easy-going attitude here in Ireland, and when all is said and done, it isn't all that it's cracked up to be. But for the "luck of the Irish" we would have a lot more fatal incidents here due to people saying "ah sure its grand". Just recently a major railway viaduct collapsed just after a train going across - and it had been "inspected" only a couple days before and given an all-clear after kayakers pointed out that there were rapids raging through what was supposed to be a weir that the viaduct supports stood along.
Soo.... just like modern industry except that those at the top in industry are paid vast globs of money more?
Mandelson surely wouldn't be where he is today though if he had not previously been *elected* and *reelected* as MP for Hartlepool?
I don't think people in UK can complain about so very many of the unelected as those that they have elected have either put them in their unelected positions, or else have become the unelected.
Besides, for all the bad actions of the unelected, the House of Lords in the UK have held up all kinds of barmy stuff that the elected House of Commons have tried to get through. Allowing the people and those they elect to decide absolutely everything isn't really such a brilliant idea - it becomes little more than mob rule. The UK's system isn't quite the right balance, but the idea behind it is not flawed. Besides, they've mostly kept the populance happy enough not to overthrow them, which is more than can be said for the rest of Europe (and indeed one wonders if the US govt. is storing up a lot of trouble).
Lego is experiencing a new golden age at the moment, and rather than catering to lowest common denominator, they offer products in just about every category imaginable now. Want crazy head-wrecking technic constructions? They're there. Amazing large models and sculptures for adult builders? Brick-collection sets that come with three suggested models? Brick buckets? Parts? City/Space/Castle sets that we would have gone berserk over as kids? Lego robotics? Popular culture done in Lego? (for all the criticism of price or specialised parts - remember that some of us dreamed of such a thing as kids - Star Wars in Lego? It was the stuff of fantasy!)
Recent themed sets (i.e. not just brick buckets) have acheived a good balance of small/large bricks, plates, slope/roof pieces, special parts and colours. Just about all ordinary Lego parts (i.e. not Bionicle) have quite a variety of uses - and even many special purpose parts are fairly generic and have had careful geometry design to allow cunning combination with other Lego parts.
Please before repeating this "in my day" stuff about Lego, actually look at what Lego offer today on shop.lego.com, and what they offered in your day (check e.g. brickset.com). The likes of what you had in your day is still there, and vast plethora of choices beyond that too. As an adult Lego builder I can assure you that Lego has never been better - although quality of parts is perhaps not as good as 1980s (better than earlier than that though) but it is also cheaper than ever and in many ways more versatile. The size of set that would have been $20 back in the day, is $20 today when $20 is worth a lot less.
We've invested in basic research here in Ireland, and the government is being criticised for it (link to Irish Times opinion piece).
Certainly there is a problem here in Ireland that there are a lack of opportunities for those who've acheived a PhD qualification through basic research. Already a lot of even ordinary degree graduates in science and technology have emigrated from Ireland, and the number of entrants into such undergraduate courses is dropping year by year.
However, possibly there's nothing inherently wrong with investing so much in basic research and the issues arise merely from the ineptitude of those running this country and the blind voting that such a section of the populance do for the current ruling party - who've throughout Ireland's history acheived lots of public support but attempted to ruin the country at various stages (starting with the Civil War, continuing with the economic war with the UK in the 1930s, going crazy in the 1970s even abolishing car tax to win votes as the country went bankrupt, deliberately facilitating a property bubble after the dot-com crash, attempting to have the taxpayers continue to pay into the Ponzi scheme with a unique Irish version of the bad bank - i.e. pay speculative amounts to banks for bad loans and attempt to keep prices up until a new bubble is created).