I'd join in the criticism of the Met Office's forecasts, but ever since they decided to distort their maps to shrink Scotland to vanishing point I haven't really been aware of what their forecasts for my part of the world actually *are*.
I just tried installing the Safari update on my MacBook but Software Update boaked - says it has the wrong signature, somebody's tampered with it since it was signed by Apple.
If this isn't the time for the new Mac Mini - or the new iMac for that matter - then when is? The current ones are spectacularly bad value. If the new Macs don't appear soon I'm going to replace my ancient Mac with a Linux PC.
Two of the "big three" already make outstandingly fuel-efficient, stylish, best-selling ranges of cars already. It's just that they do it in Europe, not in the USA. All the USA has to do is make slightly cleaner diesel available and Bob's their uncle, the big three can sell Americans outstandingly powerful turbo-charged beasts that do twice the MPG.
... of not going shopping often enough in Tesco or Asda, obviously; I'd forgotten that they'd resurrected self service scanners in a new form. Thanks to several people for pointing that out. Doesn't change the fact that the Embra library scanners are more hassle and more slow than the Audience Development Officers though.
I'm a regular user of the Edinburgh libraries, I'm a computer industry professional, and I have trouble using those damn self-service machines :-) so I dread to think how others get on with them. One can manage them with persistence but really it's a lot easier to get the librarian to do it for you. Just as with those self-scanners the supermarkets tried a few years ago - nobody could be bothered with the extra hassle so they died a death. Same here.
Surely pinching the fingers together should zoom out, not in? And moving the fingers apart should zoom in? That's the way round it works on the ipod touch?
Remember the Citroen AX? It had plastic body panels and as a result was pretty light and therefore economical for its day: the diesel AX got 75mpg ISTR. Nowadays that isn't allowed because the law insists on far better crash safety than it did in the 80s.
Much as I'd love to cheer for Edinburgh, the top500.org June 2008 list has Hector as only the second most powerful supercomputer in the UK. The most powerful apparently belongs to the catchily named ECMWF and is in Reading; it's number 18 on the list. HeCToR is at number 29.
Glaswegians know that knife crime has been at a horrific level in the UK for a loooong time. But not in London, apparently, so the parochial London media treats it as a recent phenomenon when it's not.
Could someone explain what "for sure" is intended to mean here please? I've only ever heard it uttered on Frank Zappa's "Valley Girls", so I'm at a loss as to its meaning in this context...?
So? The first euro coin left Norway off the map, did it not, leading to the alarmingly well-endowed Scandinavia depicted here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/2e_comm.png
In Scotland you have to be convicted for your DNA to be kept on the UK database. If you're acquitted, it's removed. I see from Wikipedia that that's about to change for the worse though.
The electronic counting of votes was considered necessary because of the complexity of the vote counting mechanisms: the Scottish government election votes were counted both by first past the post and by the D'Hondt system and the council votes were counted by single transferable vote. It was felt by the Scotland Office that results could take days to appear if counted manually.
One big problem though, at least the one reported at the time, seems to have been that the vote counting machines could not cope with ballot papers of more than a certain size - and so many candidates were registered in some regions that there wasn't room on the ballot paper for both the candidates and the instructions on how to fill in the ballot paper correctly. Instead of falling back to manual counting at this point, Douglas Alexander's Scotland Office decided at the last minute to remove the voting instructions from the ballot paper where necessary to make room for the candidates. So in some regions the instructions were left off, or severely curtailed. Those were the regions that had the highest number of spoiled ballots.
Another problem was the bizarre decision, again by Douglas Alexander's Scotland Office, to amalgamate the two separate Scottish government votes on the one piece of paper. Nobody had seen such a ballot paper before and it baffled a lot of people; particularly where the instructions had been removed!
By contrast, the single transferable vote was used in the same election for the very first time for the council ballot, and voters seem to have taken to it like a duck to water; there were almost no spoilt council votes, as I recall. Which is interesting, when one big reason for adopting the bizarre FPTP/D'Hondt system in the first place was that voters were said to be incapable of coping with STV - or so I remember from the late 90s, anyway...
Simon, Doctor Who jumped the shark several decades ago! But we don't really mind, as that's part of its charm.
Personally I thought Catherine Tate was rather good in her Christmas episode, and certainly not one dimensional. If the scripts are good (hint, more Steven Moffat please) she'll be excellent.
If $600 is viewed as too pricey, just wait until they hit the UK market at twice that price. I think the must-have frenzy is going to be fairly short-lived unless they make it cheaper.
Register
38 posts • joined Friday 29th June 2007 12:50 GMT
bye bye Met Office
I'd join in the criticism of the Met Office's forecasts, but ever since they decided to distort their maps to shrink Scotland to vanishing point I haven't really been aware of what their forecasts for my part of the world actually *are*.
nope - doesn't install
I just tried installing the Safari update on my MacBook but Software Update boaked - says it has the wrong signature, somebody's tampered with it since it was signed by Apple.
running "our country"
The proposals sound splendid. I fear they'll be wiped out if/when New Labour gets back in control of Holyrood.
pump storage
This is why we're building new pump storage power stations.
Driving DOWN the cost of air travel?
Payment Handling Fee - Per passenger/ Per One Way Flight - £4.75
Airport Check-In Fee - Per passenger/ Per One Way Flight - £4.75 or £9.50
Hold Bag – Per bag/ Per One Way Flight - £9.50 or £19
Second or third bags, each - £19
Excess Baggage Fee - Per Kilo £14
Flight Change Fees - Per Passenger/ Per One Way Flight - £24 or £52
Name Change Fee - Per Passenger - £95 or £142.50
etc...
if not now, when?
If this isn't the time for the new Mac Mini - or the new iMac for that matter - then when is? The current ones are spectacularly bad value. If the new Macs don't appear soon I'm going to replace my ancient Mac with a Linux PC.
no interesting music
Signed up, tried it, there's nothing there I want to listen to. Bye.
they're already doing it, just not in the US
Two of the "big three" already make outstandingly fuel-efficient, stylish, best-selling ranges of cars already. It's just that they do it in Europe, not in the USA. All the USA has to do is make slightly cleaner diesel available and Bob's their uncle, the big three can sell Americans outstandingly powerful turbo-charged beasts that do twice the MPG.
Guilty!
... of not going shopping often enough in Tesco or Asda, obviously; I'd forgotten that they'd resurrected self service scanners in a new form. Thanks to several people for pointing that out. Doesn't change the fact that the Embra library scanners are more hassle and more slow than the Audience Development Officers though.
the self service machines are crap
I'm a regular user of the Edinburgh libraries, I'm a computer industry professional, and I have trouble using those damn self-service machines :-) so I dread to think how others get on with them. One can manage them with persistence but really it's a lot easier to get the librarian to do it for you. Just as with those self-scanners the supermarkets tried a few years ago - nobody could be bothered with the extra hassle so they died a death. Same here.
London only
"Serving England, Scotland, and Wales,..."
No. Serving London only, by the look of the front page. Of no interest to anybody else, unless they have plans to visit London.
atmosphere
If there isn't enough atmosphere for a gliding landing, why would there be enough for a parachute?
Do you make this up?
Leccy Lizzie? Do you make this slang up?
wrong way pinching
Surely pinching the fingers together should zoom out, not in? And moving the fingers apart should zoom in? That's the way round it works on the ipod touch?
not completely futile
The Scottish government can at least refuse to require ID cards when providing services under its jurisdiction though?
eh
So you're saying that Google doesn't think there isn't a pot of gold there? Well, that's OK then.
Crash safety
Remember the Citroen AX? It had plastic body panels and as a result was pretty light and therefore economical for its day: the diesel AX got 75mpg ISTR. Nowadays that isn't allowed because the law insists on far better crash safety than it did in the 80s.
Tschüss
Sounds like they're doing their best to move the trade shows to other countries.
Virgin? Which Virgin?
Virgin Trains? Virgin Mobile? Virgin Blue? Virgin Atlantic? Virgin Money? Virgin Media? Virgin Life Care? etc. etc. Please be more specific in future.
great for pedestrians
So congestion's no worse, and now there's a lot more help for pedestrians? Great!
ECMWF?
Much as I'd love to cheer for Edinburgh, the top500.org June 2008 list has Hector as only the second most powerful supercomputer in the UK. The most powerful apparently belongs to the catchily named ECMWF and is in Reading; it's number 18 on the list. HeCToR is at number 29.
Recent?
"They were named before all the recent problems."
Glaswegians know that knife crime has been at a horrific level in the UK for a loooong time. But not in London, apparently, so the parochial London media treats it as a recent phenomenon when it's not.
hot jobbies...?
Yuck.
alumini?
I think you mean alumnus. Alumni is plural.
Geographical morons
If Sizewell B is in Suffolk then Longannet is in Fife. Conversely, if Longannet is in Scotland then Sizewell B is in England.
If they get fired...
... they could go and work for British Airways. Sounds like they'd fit right in there.
short memories
The UK government says it'll keep data safe, and people *believe* it?
Neelie Kroes
I wonder what the EU competition commissioner will make of this...
For sure?
Could someone explain what "for sure" is intended to mean here please? I've only ever heard it uttered on Frank Zappa's "Valley Girls", so I'm at a loss as to its meaning in this context...?
So?
So? The first euro coin left Norway off the map, did it not, leading to the alarmingly well-endowed Scandinavia depicted here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/2e_comm.png
Turkey at least is off the edge of the map.
Scotland's better
In Scotland you have to be convicted for your DNA to be kept on the UK database. If you're acquitted, it's removed. I see from Wikipedia that that's about to change for the worse though.
So many problems...
The electronic counting of votes was considered necessary because of the complexity of the vote counting mechanisms: the Scottish government election votes were counted both by first past the post and by the D'Hondt system and the council votes were counted by single transferable vote. It was felt by the Scotland Office that results could take days to appear if counted manually.
One big problem though, at least the one reported at the time, seems to have been that the vote counting machines could not cope with ballot papers of more than a certain size - and so many candidates were registered in some regions that there wasn't room on the ballot paper for both the candidates and the instructions on how to fill in the ballot paper correctly. Instead of falling back to manual counting at this point, Douglas Alexander's Scotland Office decided at the last minute to remove the voting instructions from the ballot paper where necessary to make room for the candidates. So in some regions the instructions were left off, or severely curtailed. Those were the regions that had the highest number of spoiled ballots.
Another problem was the bizarre decision, again by Douglas Alexander's Scotland Office, to amalgamate the two separate Scottish government votes on the one piece of paper. Nobody had seen such a ballot paper before and it baffled a lot of people; particularly where the instructions had been removed!
By contrast, the single transferable vote was used in the same election for the very first time for the council ballot, and voters seem to have taken to it like a duck to water; there were almost no spoilt council votes, as I recall. Which is interesting, when one big reason for adopting the bizarre FPTP/D'Hondt system in the first place was that voters were said to be incapable of coping with STV - or so I remember from the late 90s, anyway...
What, Joan Bakewell on Doctor Who?
Oh. Felicity Kendall. Oh well...
Arabs are caucasian, dummy
Arabs *are* caucasian. As are Indians.
Can you ban "boffin" too please?
Irritates the hell out of me...
Catching up with Scotland at last
It happened first in Scotland. Or so says the Scottish government, here:
http://www.scotland.org/about/innovation-and-creativity/features/education/gaming.html
Jumping the shark...
Simon, Doctor Who jumped the shark several decades ago! But we don't really mind, as that's part of its charm.
Personally I thought Catherine Tate was rather good in her Christmas episode, and certainly not one dimensional. If the scripts are good (hint, more Steven Moffat please) she'll be excellent.
Only $600?
If $600 is viewed as too pricey, just wait until they hit the UK market at twice that price. I think the must-have frenzy is going to be fairly short-lived unless they make it cheaper.