Yeah, I suppose they should have just gone ahead with the launch. There was probably only a small chance of doing this or this.

Having a something visible in incredibly important. I've never owned a bike, but did own a Westfield (Lotus Super7 style) kit car - it was 425kg of box metal and fiberglass. It was bright yellow, and I always drove with my headlights switched on. When you're driving something in which you'll most likely die in the event of an accident you make sure that people will see you. It wasn't massively noisy (2 twin webber carbs are noisy but behind a scoop, but it had a good exhaust silencer) compared to most kit cars, and as most people have said most of the noise is behind you.

I picked up a lot of good habits from motorcyclists when driving that car that I still use - always look over your shoulder (don't rely solely on mirrors) when changing lanes, never assume that people realise how quickly you can accelerate and never assume that people have seen you. In fact, assume nothing.

Is this what we've come to? "It's not a law", so fuck common sense?

Out of interest, did you go to a CofE school or a state school, and when? I'm under the impression that my niece's school (England) has an RE class, but then they're probably a lot more careful about what they teach (rather than preach) nowadays. For her school, I can see no mention of a chaplain being on the books.

I too had a lot of RE classes where they spent more time preaching rather than teaching, though for the last few years most of us used it as a place to do our homework. In secondary school I always felt that I should kick up a fuss to allow me not to go to the [daily] religious assembly - like Jewish students - as I was (still am) an atheist. It was only years later that I realised that the only reason that I was in a private Methodist school was that the state (Republic of Ireland) provides grants to families to go to a school of their own faith - something that is granted in the constitution. So, I may have put up with the religious rubbish, but I did get an [what I feel was an] excellent education from the school.

More like they didn't want to be seen practicing Thierry Henry's "technique".

It's not ten-year-olds that you have to worry about, it's the 40+ people (who haven't immersed themselves in the internet) who google (more likely use ask.com) for something, comes across IkeaHacks.net, sees the familiar Ikea font at the top in familiar colours and then clicks on an advert to that takes them sliderobes.com
I've come across websites with a trademark in the name, and sometimes it's been easier to check the whois record to see if it's legit.

The funny thing about technology is that the "a toddler could do it" cliche no longer works - it's the complete opposite now. Companies should advertise their products as "an octogenarian could do it", but that would probably be seen as patronising.

That would work if the hacks actually linked to the Ikea furniture they used, or if the "My Mini Store" button took them to Ikea's website, rather than her affiliated Amazon store (the button is no longer working).

Unless you've visited the Ikea website recently, visiting a website that has "Ikea" on the header, with no obvious parody (like Ryanair sucks) or disclaimer (on the about page isn't obvious), and uses similar colours, then yes it *could* be confusing. And the people who are likely to be confused *may* (I'm not a psychologist) be more likely to click the "My Mini Store" button or use the adverts to try buying stuff, which as you might guess take you to Ikea's competitors.

Most fan sites put a disclaimer on their front page, or maybe even on every page so as to make it completely unambiguous. Putting it on a page that people are highly unlikely to visit comes across as being slightly dishonest.

I get pretty pissed off when I hear about company's abusing their IP rights, but as others have posted, there's a right and a wrong way of running a fan site - she's done it the wrong way. Sure they could have sent her a nice letter rather than a C&D (maybe they did, though unlikely), however think of it as a start to haggling, if you Ikea starts low, then a negotiated middle ground will be nowhere near what they want - and this appears to be what happened.

As others have mentioned, the "My Mini Store" button take you (it's now not working) to an Amazon affiliate store, so everything pointed to the owner making money from Ikea's trademark.

As a disclaimer, I used to buy quite a lot from Ikea, but I've stopped - the quality has really gone downhill, and rather than increase prices a little, they elected to drop the quality. They've obviously done the maths and worked out it's more profitable, but it's still annoying to find that simple wooden shelves now have ugly grey plastic bit visible on them.

Denis Leary - Coffee flavoured coffee.

I'm not convinced Serbians would blow even more money on firearms - they don't have to, they've a massive surplus of weapons left over after an incredibly bloody civil war - there's a firearm for every 2nd man, woman and child.

Look at it another way, large ownership of weapons are a result of wars in the country
1 - USA - In the constitution as a result of the war of independence
2 - Serbia - A succession of wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia
3 - Yemem - Take your pick - there are 4 since 1994
4 - Switzerland - No civil war since 1840s, but instead had been surrounded by countries at war for the following 105 years, while attempting to stay neutral
5 - Cyprus - A country which has been a host to sectarian violence between Greeks and Turks since the Ottoman Empire

Similarly, for the UK, Northern Ireland has over 3 times the number of firearms than the rest of the UK, again a history of bloody sectarian violence. I'm not saying that I'm right, just that it the history of the country should be considered when looking at the reason for firearm ownership rates.

Interesting, but I think I broke it's brain

No I didn't mean to, for that reason I did state "solely" - normally I reread my posts to remove any ambiguity, but I think I was concentrating on the numbers part of my post. I certainly didn't mean to imply that gun ownership isn't part of the culture of violence.

So you arbitrarily multiply double the number of firearms, because of a feeling - basically saying that 30% of Swedes are lying about possessing unregistered firearms. Then you add the number of government firearms (920,000* + 32,652**) which adds an extra 10 firearms per 100 people, but keep in mind that only a small percentage of these may be in possession of a civil militia, however, and this is a big one - a Swedish colleague of mine said that they don't have government issued rifles in almost every house, like they do in Switzerland. Certainly I can find no mention of one online, so please link to some sources.

He did however say that he's heard of stories of weapons caches, but mainly among Hells Angels type groups who stole them during national service - but again I can find no solid evidence of that. Plus, it doesn't fit in with the idea of repelling an Eastern foe, more like a gang wanting a stash of weapons for turf wars, crime, etc. Moose hunting is a big thing, but do you really think that 30% of the population have an illegally owner firearm for something as public as hunting?

Even with your plucked out of the air numbers you haven't even reached gun ownership levels in the USA. And surely, if you feel it's ok to arbitrarily inflate gun possession level in one country, you should inflate it for the USA too, but you haven't.

* 920,000 in the defence forces
** 32,652 in law enforcement
Source: Guns in Sweden

While I completely agree with you on the violence being cultural rather than due solely to firearm ownership rates, I do have to disagree with you about Scandinavia having higher ownership rates. According to this the US (89/100 people) has 53% more firearms per person than Serbian (58/100 people) who is second in the list. Sweden and Norway are ranked 10th and 11th respectively with almost 32/100 people.

This is a list of privately owned firearms, not possession, so state owned firearms (like in Switzerland) are not included. However to bring the possession rate of Sweden up to the ownership rate in the US, the government would have to give a firearm to every 2nd person.

One of the reasons why gun control works isn't because it stops sociopaths doing crazy things, it works because it's a lot harder to damage with a knife than a TEC-9 in one hand and a shotgun in the other. I was appalled when I came across this page detailing US school shootings while looking up the numbers.

Not necessarily - they could just go straight over (or under) the North Pole, It may not be the shortest route (I haven't checked distances), but it's certainly the path of least resistance, unless of course Canada has armed their polar bears and mooseseses