I paid $20 for my Tron Legacy 3D ticket, which actually is standard price for 3D movie tickets here in Norway. A regular movie costs $15. *sigh*

Indeed New Years is amateur night, so it's exclusively celebrated with friends at a private party. The new years eve party - though cherished - is "just" another party (except for the good food) where we make one of the toasts outside. So I chose christmas. The warm quietness among family is a nice change from the rest of the year.

I reckon having children will change up both holidays.

Cheggit

The first digit is the generation, higher is newer is better. The second digit is the series: 8 and 9 are for the enthusiasts, 5-7 are mainstream while 1-4 are budget cards. The last two digits is the relative quality within the same range of cards, i.e. 5970 (series 5 high-end card) is a tad stronger than 5950.

I've actually become quite proficient at writing quite fast while having my (left) pinky holding the shift-key down. I do a slight bit of SQL myself once in a while, and I'm more comfortable holding the shift-key down for the keywords instead of turning caps on and off.

Arguably though, I might've had more of an issue with it had SQL been my primary area of expertise. Our main database developer doesn't even use the shift-key. Ever.

That's one dead event you subscribed to. I hope you didn't create a deadlock, or even a fatal error.

Bad idea, sand witches are extremely hard to kill.

Apologies for the pathetically late response, but that's actually a good question. I once saw a video interview/demonstration and I can't recall the exact reasoning for the guitar being late, but they said something along the lines of there being two ways to create a peripheral: fast or thorough. They've done it fast before and don't want to do that mistake again, so they'll rather spend some extra time making sure the guitar meets whatever quiality standards they're aiming for.

What they need another half-year for when they had a working prototype on E3 in may this year, I don't know.

I forgot to mention one more thing; all the controllers (keyboard, drums, button guitars) are made by MadCatz except the Squier, which is made by Fender. It is a guitar with midi-support and some extra electronics so the game can determine where the player is holding his fingers.

The Fender Squier is a real guitar. On a promotional event a guy had it hooked up to an amplifier while also being connected to the game, so you could actually hear his playing while the tune also rolled in Rock Band 3. Check the (rather cool) demonstration/teaser video on Fenders website.

In other words, if you go for the Fender Squier, Rock Band 3 will function as a learning tool. That games career mode is more about challenges rather than just plauying at venues. Different difficulty levels (where the hardest setting equals the way the guitarist is actually playing the current song), tutorials and the ability to slow down sections at will makes it possible to get down to business learning how a guitar produces sound. If you take the time, you will be able to learn to play. The only thing the game doesn't teach specifically is technique, but with the songs including (and the game supporting) hammerons/pulloffs, left hand muting, open chords, arpeggios, sustained notes and slides, the techniques will come eventually as long as one is eager and willing to learn.

Hehehehe, farming.. That far up north the ground is solely permafrost soil, as in totally useless for anything but perhaps storing food.

On a serious note, the main industries in Svalbard is mining (coal), tourism and research, and a long time ago (couple hundred years) whaling. The other thing is that the norwegian government made a point out of encouraging spreading out and keeping most of Norway populated, as opposed to having everyone migrating to the "larger" cities over time. Sweden didn't have the same policy and there you'll see wast stretches of uninhabited or deserted land (mainly in the north though).

There's an obvious reason why there are only 2000 inhabitants there, which is why you get some advantages for living there like an incredibly low income tax, annual reduction of your student loans (financed by the state "loans bank" in the first place) and probably some more I don't know of (I live south of Oslo, sun's shining outside now and I'm happy for it).

Also, don't forget that while the winter is dark for four months, the summer has no nights. And THAT my friend puts everyone in a good mood as long as you've got good shades to cover your bedroom windows.

There might still be hope for the slashdot crowd!

It looks like a lot of lawyers might get a decent payday when the first slashdot effect hits.

Actually, Ctrl-B does nothing here. I currently use 7.0 dev but as far as I remember it was the same in chrome 6.