Could the riots not be symptomatic of a disconnect among certain groups in society with their communities? Just because the majority of the rioters were not expressing political motivations does not mean that there is not an underlying socio-economic cause to their actions. I work in a shop in south east london (we survived, but are boarded up except for the doors) and the general mood seems to be that the rioters were idiots, yes, but there is none of the bile and bitterness expressed by the government, more a feeling that something like this was inevitable.

People are dead and all most of you can do is whinge because the headline might be slightly inaccurate, but in all likelihood isn't?

Its true, I went on holiday to the states a few years ago, and everything was effectively half price (the exchange rate at the time was particularly good/bad) :) To be honest I think 4£ is fairly reasonable for something like that from a store.

mmm but the cheapest lead you'll see in a high street store over here at the moment is gonna be at least a fiver. I work weekends at a large electronics retailer here and our cheapest is 12.99£. So 4£ is really cheap for an actual shop.

... for everything that needs naming. Quorra (on now), Cortana (my phone), Caprica_6 (my endlessly rebooting router) etc

... because we won't be making any more long distance human space flight before then. I've just returned form a 3 week class/conference on "human spaceflight and exploration" at the IRF in Sweden and the near unanimous conclusion is that the global space industry needs to sort itself out. At the moment we have at least 3 major space agencies worldwide (NASA, ESA and the RKA), all using different standards on simple things like docking hatch sizes, let alone things like objectives and policy. As there is no big enemy that needs to be shown up anymore so there is no reason to assume that any single agency will complete the next milestone, be it mars or an asteroid or even "just" a lagrange point station. ESA and NASA are both currently involved in massive restructuring programs including standardising interfaces and looking to contract out to private industry rather than build things themselves. Whilst sad from a pure science point of view it does make sense; as specialised industry develops more and more private, non governmental agents get involved, there comes the money. The development of new systems is becoming more of an international affair and the "next generation" of internationally compatible spacecraft should (supposedly) take 10 years... then 10 to build. As far as choosing a destination goes the elements required to get there and back and do something useful when there are the same; you need people able to hand long periods in a small place together, more efficient life support and propulsion, new "planetary" suits, and money, lots of money. The current thinking is that NASA, RKA and ESA will have to work together on any future large scale mission. Possibly with JAXA and ISRO and CNSA support, and each would supply parts or money or whatever. One of the key speakers at the IRF said he expected that people would go to mars first and that it would happen in the next 20-25 years. He was an astronaut for ESA and most of the other experts agreed with him (including fairly high up members of ESA and the SSC). So i'm gonna go with that point of veiw. Plus, from a purley simplistic and personal point of veiw; a man on mars would be WAY better than a man on an asteroid or floating around at L2. Why? Because its MARS! its the second most logical place for a first base on another body... its just exciting.

most of the time its one main machine with 2 screens, and a tv next to it, but sometimes there's a laptop on my chair... i'd have 3 screens, my machine can support it but i dont have space.

well, skynet does exist... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(satellites)

i live in england. the only thing that changes with the seasons is the amount of grey light that comes from the fluffy, high, celing.

obviously has been eaten by some kind of Mega Shark. Or possibly a Giant Octopus

i for one welcome our new botnet overlords