A little bit like the myth that some swimming pools contain a chemical that changes colour when it reacts with urine, people are unsure enough that they don't want to try it to find out. I am sure enough that no such chemical is added that I would confidently pee in any pool without fear of the water around me turning a funny colour.

I can see one of the big drive makers at some point creating a drive that effectively is 2 drives in one case. Maybe 1/5 of it would be SSD, containing the OS and regularly used files, games the user is currently playing etc with the other 4/5 being a standard HDD used for "slow" storage. I know it's completely possible to set this up right now but as with everything, a plug and play solution is needed for the non-enthusiasts to adopt.

While we are on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle Of particular interest (read: possible practical application) are time-loop logic processes exploiting this principle.

I quite like that scale. What would you rate as a +10? What rating would you give the most disturbing thing that you have ever seen (and what was it)? Also what would you rate commonly distributed shock videos as? I'd say "2 girls 1 cup" is about a -2.5, "1 guy 1 jar" a -4.

Who me? Never. Honest, guv.

4chan is pretty mild. It's pretty rare these days that I'll see something truly shocking on there. For the really bad stuff you'd do best to check out the lesser known chans. Anyone remember evilchan?

I know it's fashionable to bash sequels on here as not being new or original but I enjoyed X-Men 2 a lot more than the first one. 3 was a pile of crap, admittedly. Origins was even worse.

Did someone forget to turn on their sarcasm detector today? Also, who the hell modded this insightful?

I was interviewed quite intensively over a period just shy of a year regarding a crime that I could have gone to prison for a few years over. I spent a day in cells in solitary before being bailed repeatedly. I was never charged, as far as I'm aware the only evidence was circumstantial. I mean really, how many white guys of average height and build are going to be in Leeds city centre on a Friday night...

I'd still vote for him over Bush.

So you're saying that in all likelihood, the number of Iraqi children killed in the war is OVER 9000?

I'd also bet my last pound that more people have been killed by the war than would have been killed by Saddam and Bin Laden combined, even if they had both lived to be 200.

So a bit like our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I agree that the 3rd point is probably small when it comes to games but I'd be interested to know how large a factor it is in music though. I once purchased an album that had retarded DRM to the point that I couldn't play it in my PC/transfer to my iPod so I downloaded it. This would probably be included as a "lost sale" in the RIAA's figures.

Spending that much on games is perfectly reasonable but the idea that piracy causes every single person that owns a handheld to buy 3 less games per year seems a little farfetched. I don't have any stats to back me up but I'm going to guess that the average DS owner isn't very tech-savvy and wouldn't know how to pirate a game. The figures are probably inflated due to a relatively small group of people who pirate nigh on every single game that is released, in every language that it is released in. I'd be willing to bet money on the number of DS owners who have never pirated anything being well over 90%. I'm not so sure about PSP but I'd imagine the figure would still be well over 80%.