Has there ever been a time in the development of the Linux Kernel where you've wished you'd gone the Hurd-style micro-kernel route espoused by the like of Tannenbaum, or do you feel that from an architectural standpoint Linux has benefitted from having a monolithic design?

Linux has been massively more successful than Hurd, but I wonder how much of that is down to intrinsic technical superiority of its approach, and how much to the lack of a central driving force supported by a community of committed developers? It always seemed like the Hurd model should have allowed more people to be involved, but that has never seemed to be the case.

"If we're ever going to build space craft and other things in orbit, this seems like a great first step."

What, you mean like the ISS (over 100m long and 70m wide)?

I think we took the first steps in building things in orbit quite a long time ago.

I still think this is a very cool idea though, and the more practice we get at building stuff in space the better.

Another great example is electricity.

You won't find many today who would argue that electricity has no use. But go back to the very early days of electricity research (I'm talking about Volta and before) and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thought it had any practical use at all.

That we have electricity as a practical form of energy is down to a bunch of people who researched it because it was interesting, and a mystery to be investigated, not because they thought there was some obvious practical application for it. Yes, engineers like Tesla, Marconi, et al, did lots of work to make it a widespread and developed useful applications for it, but they wouldn't have been able to had the fundamental research not been carried out.

My wife is a secondary school German and French teacher here in the UK.

Her school has a very tech heavy setup, with smart-boards in all the classrooms and all the kids have netbooks.

She really loves the smart-boards, they are incredibly useful because they allow her to use much richer teaching material much more easily than in the past, mixing video, audio, and even letting her create interactive games for the whole class.

The netbooks on the other hand are much less useful. In a class of 30 the odds of all the kids remembering to bring them, and all of them working properly is pretty small. They get broken and lost or infected with viruses. The school's IT team have done a really good job, but with 1200 students it's a sisyphean task to keep them all running.

Don't get me wrong, I think the kids having the netbooks has been a good thing overall, but it's not a magic bullet.

But most importantly the use of the new tech has been driven by the teaching staff, not imposed on them from above, so what they have actually serves an educational purpose.

Politicians should stay out of the minutia of teaching and let teachers and school mangement get on with it. Government should stick to just making sure that the results are good, and intervening where necessary, not ruling by dictat.

...is that Americans are dumber than people from Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Cyprus,Israel, Malaysia, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom* - all of whom seem to cope quite happily with the concept.

I totally understand that there is a problem with driver education about any kind of new road layout, but the idea that americans are somehow intrinsically incapable of using a roundabout is just weird. Can americans really be intrinsically incapable of cooperating with other road users and generally being aware of those around them?

How do people cope with things like changing lanes or merging onto freeways? Both require awareness of other road users and a certain amount of spontaneous cooperation.

Or are you suggesting that America, the land of personal freedom, only works properly when someone or something (like a set of lights) else tells everyone what to do?

* - according to Wikipedia

I agree with him in so far as the Kindle store is concerned. Being able to effectively "un-sell" a book as happened with 1984 is basically wrong.

However that's a product of the Kindle store, not the device. About two-thirds of the books on my kindle have no DRM. Some of these are Project Gutenberg books, others are Pragmatic Programmers ebooks which are sold in DRM free formats.

There is nothing to stop you from buying a Kindle and then never buying a single ebook from Amazon if you really want.

As with all these sorts of things, the problems lie in the services and publishers, not with the technology.

Does anyone know if similar powers exist to take over things like power-stations, water supplies etc in the event of some attack/emergency?

The Wired article keeps talking about "covered critical infrastructure" without actually defining exactly what that means.

The described intent (for arguments sake lets assume they are being honest for a change) is to secure critical infrastructure. This could include things like the phone network (essential for the emergency services and governemt to function), the power grid, water supply, gas and electric distribution systems. This is not about taking over Random Corp's internal network.

Of course, as with all "emergency powers" legislation there is massive scope for abuse and for creep in what is defined as "critical", which is why they are almost always a bad idea and should always have very strict checks and balances from all branches of the government and judiciary.

Reminds me of an old saying I heard a lot when I worked in the aerospace industry...

"Takeoff is optional, landing is mandatory"

The whole operating remotely thing has interesting potential for allowing specialist surgeons to operate on patients from a distance and therefore make possible operations that might not have been possible for that patient.

However in this case the reason was because the patient was being x-rayed during the operation to allow the surgeon to see where the catheter was in the heart.

Repeated and prolonged exposure to x-rays, even low levels, is not a good thing so surgeons normally have to wear lead aprons to protect themselves during an operation like this. That get's pretty knackering after a few hours. By operating from another room the surgeon could be shielded better, while not getting tired out by the weight of protective clothing.

All in all a really interesting operation.

And not a death panel in sight :)

in the theatre:

Lighting control desks normally use them for letting you save lighting plots (most also have hard-drives for normal use). Lighting plots are a tiny amount of data that easily fit on a floppy.

Most are just DOS PCs with a digital desk and DMX connections to the dimmer packs and other gear.

I would like to be able to use a USB key, but that's more because I don't have a floppy drive for my laptop so can't get the data onto it to edit.

To add to all the specialist gear that people are mentioning we can add theatre lighting desks.

The smart lighting desks are basically just DOS based PCs with a funky set of peripherals.

If I need to save a lighting plot or configuration I use a 3.5" disc.

I'm sure they will have USB disc support eventually, but lighting plots don't take much space so there is no real pressure. It'll probably happen when people can't get new disks.

I know, it's shocking when a bill passes despite even the people pushing it think it shouldn't (yet).

Really, all of them? I'm curious what your political views are (seriously). Are you just looking at the big three? There are other parties out there, from the Communists to the BNP, and of course the like of the Greens. Most constituencies have independents standing. I know that voting for a small party, or an independent can seem like a wasted vote, but it's better than not voting at all. It takes time for small parties to build support.

See this list for who voted and how.

To contact details for them go to WriteToThem.

If they voted against, let them know that you appreciate it. My MP is Don Foster, who voted against. I've emailed him to thank him for doing so.

If your MP voted in favour, berate them for their obvious contempt for you, not just in passing this bill, but the manner of its passing.

If they didn't vote at all, ask them why they are such a spineless contemptible worm (in the nicest possible way) and ask them why you should vote for a person or party that has so much contempt for you that they couldn't be bothered to debate and vote on such a bill, and could allow it to be passed in this way. Point out that not voting in this case was tacit support for the bill and the manner in which it was passed.

Keep it clean and polite (nut-job rants will be ignored), but make it clear what you think of them and their kind.

As I pointed out to Don Foster, whatever the merits of this bill, the idea that it could be passed in this fashion just goes to show just how much contempt many politicians have for the electorate (as if we needed any more evidence).

And for christ sake, VOTE. I'm bored of people telling me they are not voting because "they are all the same". If you don't want to vote for one of the main parties, vote for an independent or a smaller party. If you don't vote at all then they don't care about you, it doesn't work as a protest.

"In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve" - Alexis de Tocqueville/Hunter S Thompson (and various others, take your pick).