My first MP3 player was a Rio Chiba 128 MB, a tiny little thing that had a built-in belt clip, and was even smaller than the iPod I went on to replace it with. It was powered by a couple of AAA batteries, and could store around 60 songs; easily enough for a few albums to listen to on the way to work.

Thing is, I didn't buy the Rio Chiba - I actually won it in a prize draw on the "MyCokeMusic.com" website, not long before that disappeared forever. It was the first time I'd ever won anything of any value. Many thanks to Coca-Cola for that!

Sure, 128 MB isn't a huge amount of space for storing music, but it certainly beat carrying around a CD player and a pack of discs. Or (*shudder*)... tapes...

I eventually replaced it with an iPod 60 GB (before they began referring to them as "iPod Classic"), which fell out of use as soon as mobile phones with built-in MP3 players and decently-sized SD cards became available.

I haven't tried Retropie, I use Lakka (which runs on OpenELEC and runs Retroarch as the UI) and the Pi3 boots to UI in under 10 seconds from cold.

Oh, forgot to mention - Lakka includes plug-and-play drivers for various game console controllers. I use my PlayStation 3 DualShock controller with it; absolutely zero setup required. You need to connect it up wired at least once, but then you can configure it to use the controller wirelessly (Pi3 has built in WiFi and Bluetooth, but older Pi units would need to have USB dongles to replicate the same functionality).

Lakka can also use ROMs and BIN/CUE files that have been shared from a NAS, but it does require a teeny little bit of command line usage to do.

They can be overclocked. The Raspberry Pi 3 has a newer ARMv8 SoC which runs a bit hotter than the previous SoCs they have used.

I'm going through this process at the moment; I have a Pi3 in the official Pi case running Lakka (an OpenELEC distro with RetroArch on top of it, designed exclusively for emulating a fair number of classic systems).

Like other people, I've found the Pi3 is perfect for emulating 8-bit, 16-bit, and some 32-bit consoles, but struggles a bit with some - Atari Jaguar and Sega Saturn seem to be way too slow to use, while N64 is just a bit too slow. PS1 emulation works pretty well, but gets choppy in some places.

I want to overclock my Pi3, so I have bought and fitted some heatsinks (one to the SoC and one to the USB hub/Ethernet controller chip). I have drilled ventilation holes in the underside of the case to allow cool air to get in to the RAM chip, which sits on the underside of the board. I have drilled ventilation holes in the lid of the case, along with holes to allow me to fit a 30mm 5v cooling fan. Then I fitted such a fan, and found it to be the loudest, whiniest, most irritating sound in the world. So I threw it away and have ordered a 40mm 5v fan from a company who specialize in making silent PCs instead.

Don't follow the money?

A pound coin originally weighed one troy pound (around 370g) of sterling silver; this is why the currency is called "Pounds Sterling". Nowadays the pound coin is made of copper, zinc, and nickel, and they weigh less than 10g.

I'm not sure why the # symbol on telephones is called "pound" in America though, especially when on Twitter it's referred to as the "hash tag". In the UK it's called "hash", whether it's on phones, or typewriters, or keyboards, or Twitter. I've occasionally heard Americans refer to it as the "grid" button (again, talking about phones), which makes more sense than "pound".

The winds on Mars would never be enough to cause the rocket to topple over, because the atmospheric pressure is so low. Yes, the atmospheric gases move at hundreds of miles per hour in a storm - but the most they seem to be capable of is kicking up dust.

I, for one, welcome our Tub-Thumpin' robot overlords.

They're typically used in wireline logging (real-time collection of down-well data, used for measuring the mineral content of strata being drilled through - this is how they're able to tell there are hydrocarbons present). They also use them to measure flow rate.

This Wikipedia article is reasonably good:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

"As of 2003 the isotopes Antimony-124, argon-41, cobalt-60, iodine-131, iridium-192, lanthanum-140, manganese-56, scandium-46, sodium-24, silver-110m, technetium-99m, and xenon-133 were most commonly used by the oil and gas industry because they are easily identified and measured.[3][5] Bromine-82, Carbon-14, hydrogen-3, iodine-125 are also used.[3][4]"

Not sure if serious, so I'll answer anyway.

No - the BBC is not the only game in town when it comes to television and radio in the UK. The BBC is uniquely-funded through a "television license" which anyone who watches live broadcast television must pay, regardless whether they watch the BBC's channels or not. There is no commercial advertising on the BBC when watched in the UK (though I understand this is not necessarily the case with the versions of the BBC that are shown internationally).

But there's also the commercial broadcasters:

ITV (a regionalized network of broadcast companies) operates a number of channels

Channel 4 (also broadcasts E4, more4, Film4 (which makes original film content as well as screening Hollywood and independent films)

Channel 5 (again, they operate a few channels).

Sky (satellite TV provider, which has its own channels, but also broadcasts channels from overseas, typically US channels - their set-top boxes also have access to a streaming catch-up service with access to download TV show box sets for you to watch. Sky is hideously expensive, though)

There's the usual assortment of TV shopping channels and adult entertainment

The BBC also has its 24-hour news channel.

Telephone giant BT also has its own service, but it's a streaming service that is (as far as I know) only open to BT Broadband (DSL) and BT Infinity (FTTC) customers.

And we can watch Netflix and Amazon Prime here too. Just not with as much content as the US gets (this is true of Netflix everywhere though).

The first stage isn't supposed to land with humans on board. It's just designed to land so that they don't have to build another one from scratch every time they launch a customers' payload into orbit.

This will mean they don't have so much cost per launch, so they can either pass those savings on to their customer (customer wins), don't pass those savings on to their customer (SpaceX profits), or pass SOME savings on to the customer (so both parties benefit).

Virgin were deploying cable internet here years before BT spun off their infrastructure into what is now known as Openreach, let alone began their FTTC rollout

However, they've still not got cable anywhere near me, so they're not an option.

BT Openreach upgraded my telephone exchange to allow FTTC connections more than 2 years ago. However, they only got around to enabling my cabinet back in June. I can therefore get a FTTC internet connection from any number of providers - but my estimated maximum download speed is between 8 and 11 Mbit/sec, regardless which provider I ask. I currently get anywhere between 6 and 9 Mbit/sec on ADSL (but mostly nearer 6). There's almost no point in upgrading. I am guessing my cabinet is a fair distance away (I have absolutely no idea where it is).

I'd like to see Google Fiber coming to the UK - give BT Openreach some much-needed competition.

Sure, there are plenty of ISPs in this country - but they are all entirely dependent on BT Openreach's fixed-line infrastructure, telephone exchange network, and street cabinets.

End the monopoly!