Also, in the Transporter series of films he plays an American (with an *extremely* suspect accent).

Erm, that's true but it seems to me that there's comparatively little marketing targeting the "technical or sophisticated user" from hardware manufacturers, with the possible exception of graphics cards. Why? Because if you need an 8-core mac pro, there's a good chance you know you need it.

Yes. This applies (I suspect) pretty much everywhere outside the US/NA.

And -- as someone who spends a significant chunk of their time working on this sort of thing and looking for "local diversity" imagery to fit with a variety of places, it's not easy. Or rather, it's not easy and cheap. It's relatively easy to hire some models, a photographer, a studio/location and take great photos with suitable ethnic/gender/age balance for your uses, with the right clothing and in the right setting, and shot in an appropriate way. No, really, it isn't *that* hard.

It's very expensive though. Many thousands of [valuable currency unit]. And it's extremely time consuming to evaluate photographers, model portfolios, location scout/decide on studio set dressing, find free space in diaries.

So that's when we turn to the stock photo libraries, and they (for the most part) have *very* limited supplies of non-US focused diversity images.

Is it?

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2007/evaluation/editions.mspx

Perhaps I'm misreading, but aren't you confusing "I really hate all doctors" with "I'm going to kill all doctors with this knife", or even "I'm going to kill Doc R with this knife"?

Legislation against "you should go kill him now, go on, do it, go and kill him" makes sense to me

Legislation against "I really don't like him, he smells of burned tyres and he wears lycra shorts the whole time" makes less sense.

Yes, that's fair. I have an old Microsoft Sidewinder FF2 which I loved to use with MW games -- not the most accurate setup, I know, but the immersion was (to me at least) well worth the lost accuracy and kills. A decent joystick setup *is* better than a 360 controller.

The OP was talking about keyboard and mouse though -- which leaves you with analog torso control and digital everything else -- so I'd still go with a 360 controller if my choice was either that or m&k alone. I don't think my mere 10 years of playing makes that any less valid.

There were also a number of 'mechs in the Battletech universe that featured rear-facing weapons -- for example, I think standard atlas (7k?) featured a pair of rear-facing medium lasers. I seem to remember there was also a 'mech which could shoulder rotate it's arms sufficiently to aim backwards. I suspect that they had difficult making a control scheme for this which wasn't deemed "too complex".

Eh? Keyboard-mouse? Multibutton joystick, I think.

Besides, to quote a poster on rockpapershotgun.com, Dominic White:

"Just reminding people that the 360 pad has four full analogue axes, two half-axes, and 14 buttons to play with. That is [i]plenty[/i] for a Mechwarrior game."

I'd suggest that a 360 controller would be *better* than mouse+keys for controlling a 'mech.

Or, confusingly, for BT Group plc, the holding company.

I don't really get this.

Take the example of acceptable clothing. How about you say, "we recommend something along the lines of x, y, z. O, P and Q are definitely forbidden. Basically, we're looking for [formal/biz casual/this dorky uniform/whatever]. If you wear something we don't like, we'll [tell you not to wear it again/send you home to change and dock your pay the missing time]. If you have to be cautioned about your clothes more than 5 times, we'll terminate your contract".

Doesn't that cover all the bases? And in any case, for pretty much all employees worth having, wouldn't "hey Dave, the combat pants don't really cut it..." be sufficient?

Do you write for the Daily Mash (www.dailymash.co.uk)?

You should.

Um, no.

For large corporations (excepting Microsoft, where Mr Gates has the largest shareholding at ~8% of the corp) the largest shareholders are typically mutual funds and investment institutions. Individual officers might have extremely valuable shareholdings, but for large corps it's a small percentage of the total.

Some stores offer FLAC-encoded tracks. Bleep.com is one.

This is an excellent point.

The biggest drawback to the "write and release yourself" school of music publishing is that it requires musicians have production/engineering/mixing/mastering/studio tech skills, as well as being able to play their chosen instruments and write good songs.

I *know* that you can go out and hire a studio, an engineer, a producer or whatever yourself, but if you don't know what you need it's difficult to get the best out of the experience.

It's (arguably) easier for people making music electronically, as they have a decent chance of going from creative idea to ready-to-master with the skillset they've acquired to be able to make the music, but I'm not sure how well that applies to a singer-songwriter, or a guitar/bass/drums/vocals band, or chamber music or whatever.

As other commenters have mentioned, it's about the trade off.

I guess I'd fit into the target market, as I'm a graphic designer and video editor, so more screen and more power are always nice. But I can't see me ever going larger than the 15.4" screen laptop I have now.

Why? Because, as nice as a bigger screen/more screens would be, it would guarantee that I couldn't do anything until I reached my destination unless I carried a smaller laptop as well. The laptop I have (Dell D820) is awkward on planes unless travelling business class or above, as it's slightly too big to fit on a tray table comfortably. Ditto for train travel (in the UK) -- even at a "table" seat (2 pairs of seats facing, separated by a small table) it's necessary to have the laptop uncomfortably close to the edge of the table so as not to use all of the table space belonging to the person opposite.

It seems to me that the extending display tech would be more suited to a smaller laptop -- if it can be made to work -- so you can have portability but still have a sizable working desktop when you have the space.