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Comment Re:AD 2200 (Score 2, Informative) 606

If flying cars were available tomorrow, they would not sell in any meaningful numbers.

Nobody, or near enough nobody has the means and inclination to fund the raft of licenses required to fly/drive one, and if they did they wouldn't be able to get insurance, or flight clearance in any way that would render it more useful than any other light aircraft.

James May of top gear fame went quite deeply into this in one of his many lucrative geek-out shows, I think it was 'James May's big ideas' S1E01 'Come fly with me'
There have been plenty of flying cars; the shortage is in flying-car ready consumers.
PlayStation (Games)

Gran Turismo 5 Delayed 122

RogueyWon writes "The Times is reporting that Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 5, likely to prove a key title for the PlayStation 3, has been delayed indefinitely, despite an expectation that it would be released relatively early in 2010. The delay seems likely to impact Sony's plans to bundle the game with the PlayStation 3 console in time for the important spring sales period in Japan."

Comment Re:Am I the only one? (Score 1) 447

When someone else wants to use firefox start it as:

firefox -p

Give them a fresh profile, set it not to ask this again and it will default to theirs.
Run with the -p flag again to select your own profile when your guest is gone.
I do this regularly, it's easier than giving people their own userspace on my machine, and has the nice bonus that everyone gets their own awesomebar.

Comment Re:It's about goddamn time (Score 1) 640

I very much doubt there is a city, let alone a country in the world where the majority of smokes smoke two cigarettes a day.

You're comparing apples and oranges anyway.

Smoking one or two packs of joints in a day is probably impossible. You'd be asleep before the second pack ever happened.

If you disagree with this statement, you just aren't smoking the right strain.

Comment Re:It's about goddamn time (Score 1) 640

Cannabis is a wonderful plant, it should by all means be legal, but should not be left uncontrolled.

Under 18's that smoke are at risk of developing mental illnesses, I've seen it in friends and relatives.
As far as I'm aware, this risk isn't present with tobacco or alcohol.
If the developed world is to legalize cannabis, we need a way to stop it falling into the hands of our children (ie selling it prescription only, or to licensed individuals only.)
I'm thinking if we do this, street dealers will still have a market in u18's and individuals unable to get a license or prescription, so the cartel problem won't disappear overnight.

In the UK, where tobacco is heavily taxed, a similar, albeit smaller scale phenomena already exists.

Comment Re:Sorry, but the LAST book wasn't that funny, eit (Score 2, Interesting) 410

Mod parent up. I was about to post this observation myself.

The HHTG series got less funny as it progressed, as Adams grew more frustrated with writing.
He hated writing with a passion, and often had to be locked in his office to meet deadlines. Since the fourth and fifth books of the trilogy were new material rather than expanded radio scripts, they suffer from this far more obviously - it took him eight years to write Mostly Harmless, with the other books all being released within two years of each-other.

I must also note that Adams already started on a sequel, (prequel) called Young Zaphod Plays It Safe Wiki

Unfortunately he suffered a TEF at the gym before he could finish it; his final joke.

If you have genuine interest in his works you'd probably benefit from checking out the soon-to-be-released BBC remake of Last Chance To See Wiki - A short documentary series following some of the worlds most endangered animals, Due to start September 6th on BBC2

The entire radio miniseries is available on the BBC website linked above, and is drenched in Adam's usual style.

Businesses

OnLive and Gaikai — How To Stop a Gaming Revolution 125

happierr writes "The gaming industry has been struggling in the last few months, and it is about to struggle even more when OnLive and Gaikai launch later this year. The new services are both a step in the right direction to counter piracy and provide easily-accessible gaming to people with low-end PCs. They might even do for PC gaming what the Wii did for casual gaming; greatly expand the market and draw interest from people who would not ordinarily play games. The services are a real threat for the Big Three video game companies (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo). How will they combat these revolutionary services? There are a few steps that the Big Three are taking to combat the New Two, such as an increased reliance on peripherals and vision cameras, exclusivity deals, and more online multiplayer features, which OnLive and Gaikai will have a hard time matching."

Comment And nothing of value was lost. (Score 1) 632

I fail to see why the targets of this move, the gangs of scum that hang around the outskirts of UK cities having their recruitment videos taken down is such a bad thing.
These videos show hooded/masked youths, bragging about their violent crimes, and showing off their hoards of stolen/black-market guns and knives.
Taking down the recruitment videos helps to stop the gangs growing, it's part of a wider tactic police here use to disrupt the social lives of the gangs, forcing them apart.
Of course, if you'd rather the scum of the British underclass were allowed to rob, stab shoot, and deal drugs freely, you're welcome to take them, and let them do so in your own country.
We're sick of it here, especially in Liverpool.
Microsoft

Microsoft Says Free Software Violates 235 Patents 1217

prostoalex writes "Microsoft told Fortune magazine that various free software products violate at least 235 patents, and it's time to expect users of this software to pay up patent licensing royalties: 'Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents.'"
Microsoft

MS No Cathedral, Open Source No Bazaar? 170

AlexGr sends us to InternetNews.com for an account of a Microsoft VP demonstrating Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX product running on Ubuntu at AJAXWorld. In his earlier keynote, Brad Abrams had declared that, when it comes to AJAX, Microsoft is not the cathedral and open source isn't really a bazaar. He noted that ASP.NET AJAX is available under Microsoft's permissive license with full source code. "The Web is built on open standards and we at Microsoft believe that we have to enable those open standards," Abrams said.
Communications

UK Taps 439,000 Phones, Now Wants To Monitor MPs 290

JPMH writes "With the largest density of CCTV cameras in the world, and an increasing network of automatic number-plate recognition cameras on main roads, Britain has long been a pioneer for the surveillance society. Now new official figures reveal that UK agencies monitored 439,000 telephones and email addresses in a 15 month period between 2005 and 2006. The Interception of Communications Commissioner is seeking the right for agencies to be allowed to monitor the communications of Members of Parliament as well, something which has been forbidden since the 1960s. It must be that it is bringing their numbers down: on the law of averages they should be monitoring at least 5 of the MPs."
Windows

Vista Followup Already in the Works 482

DesertBlade passed us an InfoWorld article, which has the news that Microsoft is already hard at work on the next version of Windows ... and we may see it as early as 2009. Possibly codenamed Vienna, the next Windows iteration will be coming a brief two and a half years after Vista's launch. This is the same timeframe Microsoft claims it would have utilized for Vista, had they not put Longhorn 'on the back burner' to deal with security issues in XP. Corporate Vice President of Development Ben Fathi is already discussing features for the next OS: "We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe its hypervisors, I don't know what it is ... Maybe it's a new user interface paradigm for consumers. It's too early for me to talk about it ... But over the next few months I think you're going to start hearing more and more."
Biotech

Brain Scanner Can Read People's Intentions 338

Vainglorious Coward writes "Reality continues to catch up with Nineteen Eighty-Four with the announcement of the development of a brain scanner that can read a person's intentions. 'It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a wall,' said the leader of the project, Professor John-Dylan Haynes . Demonstrating his own mastery of doublethink, Haynes continued 'We see the danger that this might become compulsory one day, but we have to be aware that if we prohibit it, we are also denying people who aren't going to commit any crime the possibility of proving their innocence.'"

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