I remember using GEM back in 1986. It was quite good.

Interestingly it looks similar to a Unix Window System I worked on for Siemens around the same time called Collage (I think). This ran on the Siemens Sinix variant of Unix. I wrote a spreadsheet for Collage and there was a word processor. The system ran on the MX2 / X20 mini computers as well as MX500 multiprocessor systems. One model was a dinky little desktop about the size of a small form factor PC and ran using the National Semiconductor 32 bit processor range. It is was a kind of NeXT Pizzabox before its time. The big advantage of Collage was that it didn't crash all the time.

There doesn't seem to be any Wikipage on Collage so I guess it is lost in the midst of time.

Cool, an Ipad with a real keyboard.

1000 lamps powered by overhead cables near Bristol, England

I'm happy to assist dictators but draw the line at working for Steve Ballmer

The article doesn't give any useful information about what was actually going on and doesn't mention dodgy landlord Haresh Parmar cited in the summary.

Fourth way, if you live near high voltage cables run cables beneath to tap of electricity by induction. People have been prosecuted in the UK for doing this.

The electric company meters the supply upstream of the domestic supplies so they have an idea if someone is drawing electricity illegally as all the individual readings should add up to the global reading minus losses.

Citroen DS lights work this way. In order to get a bit more visibility out of the puny late 1960s headlamps the reflector behind the lamp would pivot to point in the direction you pointed the steering wheel.

DS 21M phares tournant

You are contradicting yourself. You say that the case in unlikely to go to court then you say that it will go to court and they risk fines in the thousands.

The latter is more accurate, the case will go to court if you don't pay or contest the fine and you will face additional costs if you lose. Parking and speeding fines are no brainers for the police and councils.

> and that it seemed the average age was going YOUNGER

You should try working in my company. Only the MD and me are over 40, there are a few guys over 30 and everyone else is under 30, it is like Logan's run. I assume they kill IT folk when they reach 30 because they get too expensive, salary wise.

Jenny Aguter has never been a stranger to nudity, from the Railway Children where she was only too ready to rip off her bloomers to Spooks where she has a fcuk in the stairwell of Mi.5. Still got a good ass despite drawing a pension.

> The main reason, in my mind, to upgrade is being able to effectively use 64-bit machines fully--and have more than 4GB of RAM.

in which case you'll need to wait for proper 64 bit support for many windows 7 applications and given the hell of 32 bit / 64 bit software not talking Windows 7 is a bit of a nightmare in my experience.

I've also not noticed any performance increase between 32 and 64 bit apps or between windows 7 64 bit and windows xp 32 bit. Basically, compared with Ubuntu, I would say that Windows 7 64 bit is not ready for prime time.

That might be an issue depending on the grade. It has a direct drive powertrain like most electric bike. Electric bikes are generally wound for town cruising speeds (25km) and the motors are prone to overheating and powerloss climbing steeper grades, electric bikes used in the hills are often powered at the crank to use the bike's gears. Sounds like they will have similar problems without a gearbox.

Is anyone working with GWT Query? What is the status of this project?

This sounds a lot like a Mach 3.0 uK variant I worked on that ran on the Intel Hypercube. Before Intel canned that project. The interesting thing about that project was that in order to simulate the Hypercube we ran the OS on clusters of i386 machines. To me, this was the real application of the technology, exploiting the power of commodity boxes with a single OS.

Interestingly a lot of the original Mach 3.0 team got hired by Microsoft never to be be seen again (they were sent to some gulag somewhere cold and wet near alaska... Seattle I think they call it).

The Amstrad PCW runs on CP/M. There were 200,000 units sold and they are still in use and there is still some 3rd party support.

http://www.luxsoft.demon.co.uk/lux/pcw.html

I believe the hitchhikers guides were written on the PCW.

An article I read in the Economist.com claimed the horrible light output from Chinese cheap CFLs and LEDs was due to the fact that ambient light is whiter in those countries so they like their indoor lighting that way. They are now starting to adapt their bulbs for European/US markets.