I'm motivated to focus on compassion because of my faith in God expressed most supremely by what Jesus did. Granted that's faith and not 'religion' but Jesus said true religion is looking after orphans and widows and this is what I see a lot of Christian organisations doing. Therefore I'm saddened when people start the whole "religion is bad" discussion because I suspect they're condemning a lot of people like myself who ARE focusing on compassion.

Sure there's a lot of crazy people in the world, but the Christians I've seen going to other countries have gone there to help people.

I've seen a couple of miracles in the last 10 years (and I'm not making a joke either like it's a miracle I got married).

I'd suggest that you just haven't heard about them.

In case you're interested I've seen a friend's back problem (that was caused by one leg being longer than the other) cured by being prayed for in church. The leg grew to the same length as the other. My other best one was with a lighting desk that wasn't working and that the owners wanted us to confirm wasn't working so they could press their case for buying a new one. Well, it wasn't working and we couldn't make it work. We prayed about what to do and then tried it again (not doing anything different than before) and it worked fine. In both cases I talked to the relevant people a year or more after and they were both still fixed :)

Through links with church and other christians I've heard of other miracles and regularly have impressive answers to prayer that could be considered little miracles. Certainly enough to challenge the argument that they could have just been coincidence.

So, sorry that that's another story about miracles for you but it's what I saw.

$100 on ebay and time learning how to use it and get it right etc etc. Considering their target is to advance computer/programming in schools the same way the BBC micro did and that most teachers in UK primary schools don't have time (or money) to photocopy all the resources they want for lessons (and have a life), I'm not at all surprised that it's not going to be available in kit form (at the start).

parent needs to be modded up big time. It answers it from my point of view.

I'd add the following tho :
                - always think ahead to how the software may be changed in future (to make it easy on yourself when the specification changes)
                - always understand how much work the computer is having to do (ie don't write in-efficient code or the server WILL lock-up)

I agree.

For my wedding I sent the invites out as pdfs (batch job in open office to populate the name and then shell script to send the emails) which included a password to a website to RSVP (ie say they're coming, dietary requirements etc).

That's an apalling attitude!

Find the right one and stick with her. Unlike jobs, she'll thank you for it.

The US subsidizes the UN does it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_United_Nations#The_U.S._arrears_issue

Saw this yesterday in an attempt to see it actually working.

Was disappointed.

Why would you have a whole report without it actually printing any chocolate?

cynical reasons I can think of :
1) It's something they're working on, doesn't work yet but they want to raise publicity/funding
2) They ate all the chocolate so couldn't print anymore

I wonder why it swallowed a fly?...

Not heard of that one before - looks like fun

Already been to the toilet thanks ;)

I'd love to have the instant recall being cyberised would bring. I think the whole world wide mind idea is less realistic though as people in general like to have their own individuality... hence I guess that issue being discussed in GITS

General UK equipment (lamps, 'power strips' etc) is fused at 13amps.

I remember fondly when a friend from from the US I was working with realised that 240v made quite a difference to what was considered safe. Apparently we would have had fires running that many extensions in the US whereas we were at 9amps maybe so no problem.

Of course that did melt one extension but only because they forgot to unreel it!

OK I'll bite -
The Christian message is that Jesus Christ is God's son who died to save you, me, anyone who'll accept it so they can have a relationship with God.

We do need saving from the judgment that is coming from the same God I call loving. Try to see if from God's perspective and it might make a little more sense.

Would you really rather not know about it? If you were about to drive off a cliff wouldn't you want someone to try to shout "turn around!"?

"60 million rotations per minute" seems pretty fast. 30000 rpm seems to be their previous best for levitating small crystals.

Is it just me or is that a stupid question?
A 50mpg car is more 'green' than a 20mpg car. Who cares what you replace what car with what. MPG is a helpful pointer to how much fuel you'll use. If you replace a 10mpg car with a 20mpg your fuel usage is still going to be far too high in my view.