I've just assumed that IPv6 is somebody else's issue to deal with. In theory my OS (XP) supports it but that's all I know. Is there a way of pointing my browser somewhere to find out if everything 'at my end' and my ISP connection is fully functional?

The point of failure is that if somebody uses my credentials then how can I prove they have been mis-used. Verified-by-visa is a classic case (in a long and shameful history by the banks) of claiming their systems are 100% secure and therefore the risk of anything going wrong is down to the consumer.

How, for example do you know if your 'master password' has been lifted by a trojan? This is a really great idea for credit card fraudsters as merchants can't cancel fraudulent transactions so the banks don't have to bear the risk of refunds.

The reason governments don't need a master internet ID database is because they can just ask google, amazon, twitter, youtube or any large organisation to cough up loads of details about you already.

What I want is a "this is who I am/where I live" object I can give to an on-line merchant which is DISTINCT from the authorisation.

(1) It is a really good idea to attend a meeting of the local 'ghost hunters' or Psychical research society. You won't be any the wiser about 'ghosts' but you will have learned a lot about people that they didn't teach you in school. (Quite frankly many are utter nutters, some are deluded enthusiasts and one or two may be keen and still detached. If there are any in the third category then enjoy their company as they will be INTERESTING without expecting you to accept their stories. - In fact if you're NOT highly sceptical with this last mob then you will be discarded as 'the usual spiritualist idiot'.

(2) Allow ten years for your researches. (Assuming you're not being led by a controlling person and you choose your approach and objectives) Maturity will bring a certain degree of
(a) "I wouldn't have believed that if I hadn't been there" and
(b) "Even after researching the hoodwinkers (a) is still spooky" and
(c) I have to accept I can't explain some phenomena.

Now (c), [can't explain] is a trap! For every super-natural spasm there are really a dozen everyday explanations. But seek out the people who might be able to spot the 'normal' explanation. (IMHO Most of these are clueless which is why you want to seek the third category of people in (1) who are usually a lot brighter.)

(3) I can tell you there are some 'super-natural' things 'that are a fact'. For example I have dowsed a water main leak about which I knew nothing with my bare hands. So what does that prove? That is the important question! It doesn't prove Ley lines, or that dowsing can be used to show [fill in your fantasy] or that Auntie Flo is 'with you' at a spiritualist seance.

(4) Good luck. SCIENCE (It used to be called things like "Natural philosophy") is about studying phenomena and reproducing results. Don't be afraid to EXPERIMENT because what YOU find may be useful to somebody one day.

PS Personally I have been 'forced' to do fortune telling for people (I'm one of those sorts of unusual chaps who are assumed by various vacuous people to be 'natural' fortune tellers.) Without the aid of spirits or 'fluences I've scared myself and subjects by the thrust (they might say accuracy) of my guesswork. It is jaw dropping to be told by somebody you met ten minutes previously that "In 50 years I have never told anybody that" - but that's just 'reading people" See http://vulpeculox.net/misc/try.htm and http://vulpeculox.net/archive/brose.htm for things that I learned as a result.

PPS The world is OVERFLOWING with weirdos who don't have much sense of hard scientific ground. (And most of the rest are gullible as hell.) When I first put my FACTS about the Compass pubs in a line on the web (14 years ago) I received 14 pages of close handwritten script on air-mail paper from a nutter who tried through mathematics to show that volume...great pyramid...12345.67890...moon...volume...etc. [Eh?] The moral of this story is that SCIENTIFIC METHOD - including peer review - is your friend. By all means investigate but never let it be said "He should get out more"

The original meaning of "art" was 'Man's work' as opposed to "nature" which was 'God's work'.

A tool is a man-made thing (even if it a rock to chip flints with it is selected and used in a way that is man-made). The cave-man who acquires a better hammer rock is naturally pleased and proud of it and will either imbue it with magical qualities (God-Nature you see) or appreciate its qualities as they matter to a flint-maker (weight, hardness, fit in the hand etc.). The latter is just a 'beautiful' as a clever team manoeuvre to score a goal, or the technology that goes into making an affordable, low maintenance, lightweight bicycle. Of course you have to 'know what beauty looks like' - Those ingredients that make you most proud of your tools and achievements.

I don't think anyone was claiming that 'expressions all over the blackboard' were beautiful... ...but the conclusion may be, and the lead-up to it may be a guide for our own explorations.

FWIW here is my analysis of levels:

1. Reading number, counting and realising 'sums can do things' (Many are shamefully allowed to fail even this!)
2. Basic facility with numbers. 'Arithmetic' (Failure here too. IMHO the key here is 'confidence'.)
3. Maths for high-school science. Inkling of curious 'worlds' and strange coincidences (The best motivator here is 'being brainy is cool')
4. Maths as a field of intellectual study in its own right. (A minority interest.)

Somewhere, possibly after school, especially in old age, people need a sense of 'be safe with numbers, statistics and graphs'

Teachers give exercises in the same way that cooks prepare food. Everyone learns just like everyone eats. And while we're at it let's not muddle "pupil" and "student".

The mentor, professor or role-model turn pupils into students by showing them how to be pro-active and then giving mature guidance, and not-least, encouragement.

• An ignorant (but wise) man says "I ask a question when I don't know"
• A wise man says "I ask a question when I already have an answer"
• A teacher says "I ask questions to teach my pupils"
• A professor says "I teach my students to ask questions"
• A leader says "There is a time for questions and a time for action"
• A pupil says "I must know the answers"
• A student says "I must know the questions"

A browser that will detect repeating structures in the DOM and parse them into segments. Then be able to select on elements with the possibility of export. Often people have to look through long lists of things where only a few are of interest. For example (a) detect the 'comment' structure in a slashdot page (without being told the template) (b) parse into title, who, text (c) offer (in this case) three search fields to select on and then (d) copy a selected one into the clipboard in XLM or append to a clippings file.

Firstly : NO you don't have to do it once and have it set in stone. The business requirements will be changing all the time. So you must plan for change the only way you know how and that's expect to make alterations as you go.

Secondly : NO - do not put all your eggs in one basket. Keep the bunker as stand-by short-term fall-back. Not only is this your resilience (including all those system changes that cause grief) but you can also run training exercises down there without impacting on the normal system. Also spending a short time in the bunker helps people focus on issues, objectives and methods a lot more - which counts when there is 'an emergency'.

Thirdly : A secure but non-hardened environment is much cheaper, 'normal' and easier to alter than a bunker. It is FAR better to give people the tools they need to manage the everyday noise and have the necessary grades of experience of staff (=quantity) to learn the practicalities under supervision than to lock a apprentice in a box with flashing lights and coloured buttons hoping that they will not make too many mistakes.

Ignore the twerps who claim speeders don't kill, what you need is traffic lights etc. They are recycling folk mythology. However what that response should tell you, which you knew already, is that motorists consider it their right to break the law. Therefore don't expect to make many friends.

My advice is don't try to reinvent the wheel, there are many proven suppliers of portable kit of various sorts. Having said that you would need to show things like you trained the operators and had checking systems in place. The cost of kit then becomes small in relation to the cost of ensuring it is used properly.

As law enforcement really relies on deterrent (Oh dear there might be a speed check and I might lose my licence as a result) this has to be an issue that gets through the skull of drivers. Here is how I suggest you go about your mission:

• Research some statistics - This will involve more than Googling, You'll have to ask hospitals, city authorities and the ministry of transport etc. You can also do some sums on the cost to the economy of accidents.
• Find out what the police actually do. See if you can get them on your side. I expect there are plenty of police officials who would like a juicy grant to buy new shiny toys. Ask if you can see what they do in practice. (Perhaps they are hamstrung by politics, red-tape etc. that you might be able to pressurise the city/ministry about.)
• Build a support base - Presumably there are a few people that are 'mad' and say 'something must be done'.
• Get involved with politics - Have a clear agenda. Have a bunch of embarrassing facts. Get up to speed on public relations. Print tee-shirts etc.
• GET ON THE TV - when you have something to say and a solution and know your ground enough to challenge the lazy powers that be. The television is the universal medium.
• Also you may be able to link up with existing organisations (but be VERY careful - some will be worse than useless with devious agendas) For example are there orphanages, sick-societies, employers organisations who would give you quotes to support your campaign, tell their members what a good job you're doing and even support you in other ways.

To conclude. Good objective. Good to have a go. Wrong method. This is much more about getting people to support improved road safety than a radar camera. Once you've got started you will find many other issues apart from speeding that affect road safety and by then you and your mates (yes you'll have to form an organisation - with a name, web page, contact number for the press etc.) will be the experts as nobody else has bothered to get stuck-in and make a noise. Good luck

Rubbish. Loss of mental faculties is part of the normal ageing process which is just that. But the medical profession need things to 'treat' at a profit - modern snake-oil salesmen. For a classic, up to date, example of over-diagnosis look no further than the following link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10787342

Not all older people are crippled but that doesn't mean they can run the 10,000 metres as fast as they did when younger. The sort of intellectual athleticism that is real programming (I can't speak for the average plodder - I'm talking about the programmer who is a number of times more insightful, productive and less error-prone than the majority) is subject to general age-related effects.

As programmers get older their sharpness of brain fades (making quick and accurate coding a struggle) while their experience and ability to take a mature overview of a project improve. You aren't the mental athlete you were 30 years ago so bear that in mind when building a mix of computing skills.

If you want a gentle lead-in to web-ish programming then PHP will be a doddle and give you the opportunity to get your feet under the OO table without a straightjacket. There are lots of fun things you can do with it quite easily: Getting to know the front-end of HTML,CSS etc., URL wrappers, and of course interfacing with the database of your choice. Also there are many PHP frameworks (quality and approach may vary) which are an important part of a lot of people's thinking nowadays.

If you want to get more involved with 'native' code then there are so many choices. There are two 'modern' paradigms, OO and event-driven, which are a big change from FORTRAN but not difficult to understand. Java is cross platform and has plenty of meat on if from a programming perspective.

Might I suggest that you become familiar with something 'more modern' but look towards design and management as a mainstream activity.

Education, knowledge and skills beats the alternatives hands down. There's nothing wrong with a non-programmer wanting to learn programming any more than programmers learning creative writing or German or cooking.

Now there are two reasons why a person might want to have a go at something new: (a) Intellectual interest and I'd-like-to-have-a-go-at-that (b) need. "We're sending you to Germany for 3 months" might be a (b) but things take time and without a GREAT deal of time and effort competence might reach 'OK-useful' but nowhere near 'fluent-reliable'. On the other hand (a) - wanting to explore - (especially when there is a vast area to explore) should lead to personal satisfaction and confidence building that might make a jump to (b) a lot easier (or show you why it is unsuitable for you).

The thing about programming is nothing to do with a particular language - it's a thought process as basic to a programmer as the sound of words to a poet or shape of things to a painter. To be a good programmer you need, amongst other things, to be able to use your brain.

Anyway, the complete answer to your question is here : http://vulpeculox.net/ob/Programming.htm

The UK has a statute law base provided by the government. http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/Home.aspx Don't ask me how they do it.

I have the final say in what's shown on my computer.

Also, as an aside, sites that are funded by advertisers are not free to say what they want.