science bit: Fe (Iron) 54 half life > 3.1×10+22 years

More science bit: Half life of Carbon 14 is 5730 years. SimonFBarnes is made up from large quantities of this highly radioactive material, step away from him immediately!

Nuclear is the most expensive energy produced.

Why then is French electricity so cheap?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article4888149.ece

humans are too short termist for nuclear, where the waste takes a billion years to become safe

If the half-life is billions of years, it's as safe as it gets – almost zero radiation by definition.

Does no-one do science at school any more? The anti-nuclear hysteria is just mental.

Sigh…And you are on a cycling website! You are supposed to be "the converted". Maybe there is no hope!

But I was talking about normal people, not cycling nuts.

Just don't understand why anyone wouldn't cycle on an urban commute of up to 10 miles. Actually I do, cos it's scary on the road unless you are a seasoned road rat. That's the biggest blocker imo.

That and the crap weather we have in the UK. No normal person is going to cycle to work in the pi$$ing rain and I don't blame them.

As others have said, part of the reason for the success of Ipods is the fact that Apple have allowed / encouraged a whole ecosystem to build up around them.

BUT – be aware that some older docks work with 12v (firewire) rather than 5v (USB), and Apple in their wisdom have dropped support for 12v from new ipods (certainly touch, nano, not sure about classic).

The logic3 you linked to looks identical to the one I bought 3 years ago which doesn't charge my touch. You might want to check this.

FWIW I just bought this and IMHO it is better built than the logic3, looks nicer, and allows you to use the menus on the ipod better from the remote (only relevant if you have very good eyesight or sit next to it):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PURE-i-10-Powered-Remote-Control/dp/B001HBIXSW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1247573458&sr=8-1

Otherwise, you'll have to buy one of these "charge converters" (which I needed to make the touch work in the car):

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/TS696LL/A

20 quid from Apple stores, so some cheaper docks might not be so cheap when you factor that in (and after paying 200 quid to Audi for a car dock only to discover I needed this extra thing I wasn't too pleased).

Sounds like what I did, though maybe I pointed it at the music folder under the itunes folder, perhaps should be the whole thing. I didn't do the 'consolidate' thing each time either, this puts the wind up me. Do I really want to do that? I'm sure I don't. Though I'm sure I relented and let it do at some point, I was thinking that's when it all went wrong.

Why is itunes so poor when the ipod so good?

I'm not sure it is true, there's plenty of traffic during the week.

It goes slower on Sundays though.

When's it closed (and open again)?

breatheasy – is it the entire itunes folder hierarchy, not just the music?

I ask because I did this, transferred to a new computer, copied all onto the new computer's HD, altered the folder settings in itunes, all seemed well, but then every time I restart itunes now it has no music in it despite the folder being the correct one. So re-import, takes ages, then it needs to get the artwork from the internet again (even though it's there already), etc.

This is iTunes 8 on Vista – I can well beleive it works properly on Mac, but on Vista at appears broken in some way. Is it the copying rather than just setting the itunes directory that is the important bit?

If she wanted to do something useful, how about telling the BBC to get rid of their "North of England Correspondent" (what an intrepid chap he must be).

I don't have the reference, but there was a Times / Guardian study on Quango members a few months ago, showing something like a 10:1 bias.

Where are these quangos, I wonder?

Typical Harperson newspeak.

Presumably this sort of nonsense is easier than, say, spending appropriate amounts of money on transport infrastructure in parts of England not adjacent to London.

Hey careful man, there's a beverage here!

It's the wrong way, but otherwise excellent…

This is a car for kids and prams… not bikes

In that case you won't want to know that two bikes with front wheels off fit very nicely in the back of a mark 1 Focus with the back seats down.

I had a 1998 Focus from 2000 to 2007, never any trouble with it, did 70,000 miles.

I can't remember what the actual trigger for the UK / nato / Un invasion was

9/11

But this one goes to 11!

I never understand this thing about "changing money". Just use card and cash machines where you're going, like you would normally.

it can aid rapid weight loss

Dodgy weight loss pills from t’internet. Mystery solved.

Yep – the Pre-Raphaelites were doing HDR 100 years ago !!!

DrJ – on the other hand Vermeer appears to have anticipated photography 200 years early (and computer graphics techniques like ray tracing, radiosity, ambient occlusion) 300 years early… presumably because he restricted himself to painting what he saw inside his camera obscura rather than what he saw if he stepped outside.

presumably a way of viewing a true HDR image on a screen would be to make an animation which tweened between a series of normalised images taken with different exposures

No, you need to invent some form of display with a larger range (a High Dynamic Range display if you will).

They are coming…

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~heidrich/Projects/HDRDisplay/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/10/04/brightside_hdr_edr/3

The unreality of HDR photos (and CG imagery) when tone mapped for display on a standard screen (or worse, for print) is entirely due to how well the tone mapping is done IMHO, and of course we have 100 years or more of our culture looking at traditional photography / cinematography (and until recently computer generated stuff also aimed for ‘photorealism’ rather than ‘realism’). But we have a much longer culture of looking at paintings, and if you look at some of the HDR images posted above and forget photography and instead think painting they make sense. Done well, they capture what you would perceive, rather than the necessarily extremely limited view that photography gives us (some of the artistry of good photography comes from working within those limitations of course).

Has the Isle of Wight declared independence?

86%

its because the map is shown with NORTH at the top. It would look strange the other way up eh?

If it’s a map, it shouldn’t be skewed. If it’s a “3d” perspective flyover, you could do it from any direction, the camera should fly around and come back north to south looking south.

What is actually is, is a wrong and misleading map. It really irritates me and Sheffield isn’t even very far north (you might think it is, from the BBC’s “map”, but it’s not). If I was Scottish I’m sure I’d hate it even more.

It’s called PERSPECTIVE

It certainly does reflect the BBC’s southern perspective.

steve_b: no boggyness, just multiple line choices and all firm, fast and dry

It’s raining now though! ;-)

It’s terrible, nearly as bad as their ridiculous TV presentation with the country slanted to make Surrey appear bigger than Scotland.

metcheck.com is much more useful

There’s actually a direct train from Gatwick to Kings Cross but it takes an absolute age to get across London.

To some extent that is correct – some of our longest serving prisoners are those who were locked up as miscarriages of justice – they refuse to admit their guilt they don’t get parole

If they admit to being a witch and repent they go free, if not they must be burnt for the sake of their souls… good to see we’ve moved on.

It’s only right the Straw considers public opinion – that’s his job

No, it’s very wrong. There should be a seperation of powers.

a condition of parole that the offender needs to show remorse

I don’t really understand this – you can get let out earlier if you lie than if you tell the truth?

Also, this wouldn’t be a home secretary ignoring the advice of legal experts just avoid looking bad in the tabloids because of the high level of public interest would it? Nah, that wouldn’t happen.

– a lorry driver who suddenly slowed 40 every time he passed a speed camera – despite being on a derestricted road.

Maybe ‘cos that’s the limit for an HGV on a single carriageway NSL?

Rule 124:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070304

Still don’t like the personality that comes across from him

I do. Breath of fresh air after Tim Nice-but-rubbish.

Who cares if he moans and whinges and doesn’t fit into the nicey nicey pims and losing wimbers mindset? He wins. Much better IMHO.

I’d never try and interfere with somebody passing me, but if I feel I’m going a comfortable speed for the road/conditions/limit/whatever then the fact that somebody behind wants to go faster doesn’t make me a bad driver.

If there’s a queue forming beind you then you should pull over when safe to do so to allow people to pass. Like it says in the highway code.

Hard Day’s Night is surely the only song you could name after one chord.

I also speed up on the straights so they cant get past when they actually get the oppertunity.

That’s just plain dangerous.

I loved Some Cities and bought the new one which took a while to grow – but after seeing them at Glasto last night think I’ll have to check out their earlier albums…

“Life-affirming miserabilism” – so that’s what it is!

feels vaguely like carving slalom turns on a snowboard which is nice

Sounds like skiing to me – bend at the hips so your upper body is relatively straight, legs and skis / bike tilted over as far as they will go, as much weight as you can through outside foot, don’t lean back.

all we seem to do is debate at GCSE-level

If this thread is up to GCSE standard then our education system is knackered.

Anyway, serious question, repeated – who gives a monkeys? Why do some people get their knickers in a twist about random crimes in the news (when they couldn’t give a toss about the other 99.999%)? Why the urge to spout idiocy on here about how hard they are / shout abuse outside courts / generally act like a retard? Is it because you were upset by hearing what happened and are too emotionally challenged to admit it?

I really don’t get it. Seriously, if the news upsets you, don’t look at it.

Sheesh.