http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=Who+is+Tricia+Helfer? ;P

Yeah, well, we were last at war with the French in 1815, 194 years ago..... and that particular grudge ain't going away *any* time soon :>

"Fun and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive, especially when it comes to entertainment based on real-world military conflicts". Eh???? Fun and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive? Orly??? Seems like such a normal combo nobody would comment on the fact surely? Then it becomes clear - he actually means the opposite of what that sentence says given the next sentence is as follows "'It may not be possible to make a realistic war game that is fun -- war is not fun -- but it is possible to create an experience that is informative, appealing, and startling in a positive way.'" What he meant was fun and entertainment don't have to go together or 'fun and entertainment aren't mutually *inclusive*' in the context of real-world military conflict which is what the dev quoted is saying.

You were surprised how confident and competent the NSA seems here? Honestly that got me scratching my head hugely. Not because I have some god given insight into the strength of the NSA but simply because this was an *under-grad* evaluation where they pitched the task as slightly too hard for the best under-grad team. Nuff respect to under-grads who study hard, but being an under-grad is just part of the journey and you have so much more you can develop when you finish that phase of your life. You really think it's surprising the NSA (or for that any fact any corporation / organisation / entity) is fairly or in fact let's make that *hugely* more advanced than the undergrads entering it? For every genius entrepreneur who comes out of college with a hot idea, there's a million who are just beginning their development. The world would be f$cked if we stoppped at that point...

The downstairs of my house has thick walls and (tin?)foil insulation in it. Combined with odd corners and lack of line of sight it's a wireless-killer par excellence. In the end, getting fed up with lack of wireless signal, I cabled from the router in the garage, out on the outside of the house (couldn't get under the floors), with external pvc clad cat 6 (6 for future proofing) and brought it in through the walls for a port in every room. Cat 6 has a plastic wire separator in the middle and it makes it very unflexible and unaccomodating to lay and plug. Network is now fab but my hearty recommendation is do *not* do this until and unless you need to :)

One thing TFA suggests (and a comment or two here) is that click tracks are necessary to allow digital editing. That's not really the case and isn't the reason people use clicks. You can sync an editor to a live track and in any event, if you need to push or pull an off-timed beat you can just adjust manually or snap to grids with accuracy in the hundredths of a beat in Protools or whatever. And its not drummer tempo consistency. The vast majority of pro drummers are perfectly tight and the human ear enjoys their slight variations in timing (although My Chemical Romance got rid of their first one for it among other things). No, the real reason that clicks are used 9 times out of 10 is where there are sequenced keyboard, bass line or percussion type parts and the click is used to keep the drummer in time with the pre-programmed parts.

If I could mod this +6 insightful, I would....

Actually that's not right. The New Years Honours list has been drawn up by the political party that's in government for decades and not the Queen at all. This was what caused the "Cash for peerages" scandal a few years back. It was long known that honours went to the i) media-popular as in the over-weight of sports stars in today's list and ii) the correlated worthy-achievers who just happened to be on the same side of the political spectrum as the government in power when they get their honours. Liz II might get an input but it is pretty minor.

At not even two years old, a child is still totally grappling with training its motor functions. A tiny keboard is a rubbish interface for a child of that age. Using a mouse (a trackpad is no good for this) with child-related software is as much as you can do but at not even two they are too young for this as well. You mistake that the Fisher-Price type stuff looks like a rip-off and is bad but the point is that it's also taken into account creating interfaces that are actually helpful and child-friendly. Get your child some interactive books / systems that are specially targeted at development and which you can sit and do with them. Leapfrog have graded kit from 12-36 months and up in age brackets thereafter. http://www.leapfrog.com/en/families/leapster/leapster_learning0/leapster.html . My 3 and 6 year old have had this stuff from an early age and the ability to use laptops, pcs and Nintendo DS etc. I found that between the ages of 2 to 4 / 5 they still preferred the Leapster etc.

The Baroque Cycle is just an utterly different (huge) work to anything like Snowcrash or Diamond Age. It needs an editor who isn't scared of Stephenson in places but it is one of the most fantastic feats of human imagination I have ever read. If you can only deal with sci-fi then clearly a novel about Baroque England with Isaac Newton, a half-dicked pirate king and a fabulous ex-Hareem girl turned Duchess with diverse characters and fantastical imaginings isn't going to be your thing. But I can hardly remember a book that left me more open-mouthed with the sheer imagination and achievement of the author. The B.C. is a book that will never leave me.