Not to mention a large proportion of undergrads will be polymaths. I came across a few in my time - superbly gifted - whose only problem was "what subject do I drop?"

Bad car analogy - "I steal your car" is a fact that doesn't need proving in court, because you have my car while I don't. You go to court because we sure don't trust the police all the way.

Agreed - 50 seconds is a sprint that strongly suggests a training limit. I guess the point of a competition like this is the design of an efficient vehicle, so how about publishing the power requirements (wattage)?

I was recently looking for something with about the same requirements. The XD-40 cost me GBP 70 but as luck would have it you can get them for $30 at Amazon which is a fantastic price.

They are DJ / Studio headphones so good isolation, robust, and will go LOUD. Great sound quality as far as I can tell; no obvious colouration and good bass extension. Good staging, too.

Xone are by Allen and Heath and have a great rep in the DJ market.

Unlike a lot of supra-aurals they are not a tight fit, but will not fall off. Circum-aurals offer better comfort but these are good enough for me.

Also they fold, which together with the isolation makes them great for travel.

I've seen it when the cap was biassed at a few volts, and this was in a cheap measurement instrument using PIC with a 10 bit ADC. I sorted it by designing out the bias, as the product was low cost.

It is the attempted coverup they are being charged for, not the crime of phone hacking. That's what "perverting the course of justice" means here in the UK. It's a common law offence that usually carries a prison sentence, which can be up to life.

Accept that life is insecure, and there is more to it than stuff. Seriously, I can't read your post without thinking of Fight Club, so get over it.

What if it needs board mods to meet ESD - what'll they do with 10000 units? Muppets.

Yeah and maybe Farnell are being stupid just because CE marking covers safety too.

I was going to say what about DC fields then I remembered - there's no such thing as DC, it's just very slow AC.

Evolution requires life as a pre-requisite because it depends on reproduction. It cannot explain the origin of life.

I'm a firmware developer relying on a few dozen tools to get my work done. I suppose I might be able to find 10-25% of them for Linux or Mac, but it would take some time and presumably money. And the other 75-90% would need a second machine or VM ... seriously why bother? Windows is good enough.

In fact Win7 is better than that (I finally upgraded from XP this summer). Sure there are wrinkles with network setup and NTFS permissions still suck, but these are known knowns, you know?

If you lose the ability to steer, I'd call that loss of control. Suppose the driver is not as strong as you?

Vacuum assist requires the engine to be running (especially in diesels). Suppose as well as switching off, the driver panics and pushes the clutch pedal, as if doing an emergency stop? Again, suppose the driver is not as strong as you?

You only have to review the various Toyota stories to know how serious this is.

This is not a technology issue but one of branding. Apple needs to sell high-end pro tools to maintain brand attractiveness towards consumers - unless they're planning on total re-branding of Apple as merely a fashion label. (Some might say this has already happened.)

For this reason the pro end cannot be sold off or left to wither. It must be kept in-house, but run with pros in mind. Digital media workflow is crystallizing, and if Apple won't provide tools, someone else will. Pros want device support, power, and innovation - in that order. That may mean sucking it up and accepting it as part of a grown-up tech business, something Apple don't seem to want to be as long as they can fleece the kids with this quarter's new shiny toy.

Because, with Apple products being so freakishly expensive here in the UK, it matters.

The Zoom H1 is a good fit. It's a significant upgrade from MD while being very affordable.