But China has 4 times as many people, so by your own metric, China actually manufactures 2x as much as the US,

Then again, I live in the UK where the Thatcher government made a conscious decision 40 years ago to disinvest in manufacturing and concentrate on service and financial industries, That short termism and lack of foresight has become horribly apparent over the succeeding years.

Given the critcal nature of the projection systems in the cinema, as well as their power consumption, I'd be very surprised if these weren't hard wired to dedicated power outlets rather than a standard 110v/220v wall socket.

We used to make IBM keyboards at their plant in Greenock. Keyboard E's were used for 3270/3279 terminals and had the highest spring force and the most satisfying click known to man. No keyboard since has come anywhere close.

The person making the statement didn't say they were male. You made that assumption.

Blimey The OS/2 memory test. I worked in IBM Greenock and I that was part of the box test process as well.

"The German software firm SAP, among a handful of others, have similar programs"

Thanks. I wish I'd realised that the one time I had contact with that particular company. Explains an awful lot.

It was dark and she'd dropped the phone.

Pink Floyd must be reforming...

Beat me to it, and yes we must be horribly horribly old.

Maybe your kids (assuming you ever had any) were boring till they were 5. Mine (and most folks' you care to ask) found them fascinating in a thousand different ways from day one.

No. You just forgot that the US was one of many allies who fought together to defeat Germany and Japan in separate wars.

Actually the Hawker Hurricane was by far the most common British fighter in the Battle of Britain (29 Squadrons vs 19 for Spitfires.) Both great planes, groundbreaking for their time.

It's that sharp thing on the top of his head.

Sounds like when you have an unnatural sexual relationship with a small black and white sea bird.

From Minutes of the UK Defence Select Committee...

http://www.publications.parlia...

UK'S TRIDENT SYSTEM NOT TRULY INDEPENDENT
    33. Acquiring Trident gave the UK a greater nuclear weapons capability than it could ever have achieved on its own. This enhanced capacity, however, had significant consequences.
    34. The fact that, in theory, the British Prime Minister could give the order to fire Trident missiles without getting prior approval from the White House has allowed the UK to maintain the façade of being a global military power. In practice, though, it is difficult to conceive of any situation in which a Prime Minister would fire Trident without prior US approval. The USA would see such an act as cutting across its self-declared prerogative as the world's policeman, and would almost certainly make the UK pay a high price for its presumption. The fact that the UK is completely technically dependent on the USA for the maintenance of the Trident system means that one way the USA could show its displeasure would be to cut off the technical support needed for the UK to continue to send Trident to sea.
    35. In practice, the only way that Britain is ever likely to use Trident is to give legitimacy to a US nuclear attack by participating in it. There are precedents for the USA using UK participation in this way for conventional military operations. The principal value of the UK's participation in the recent Iraq war was to help legitimise the US attack. Likewise the principal value of the firing of UK cruise missiles as part of the larger US cruise missile attack on Baghdad was to help legitimise the use of such weapons against urban targets.
    36. The most likely scenario in which Trident would actually be used is that Britain would give legitimacy to a US nuclear strike by participating in it.