Yes ... but what sort of techno geek uses the same device for 400 years and doesn't even update the OS?

Here in Australia we got it on Friday. And we got the special on local TV at the same time as the UK.

Just don't shake it too hard. Don't want it to fall on top of you.

This sounds like the scenario to the novel Blood Music by Greg Bear.

Now I come to think of it - the wise men came from the East, which would be London in the case of Wales, while the virgin came form the North, which would be Scotland.

Perhaps your priest knew what he was talking about after all.

An old problem, as Dilbert discovered.

We had something like this happen were I worked. In our case we have a devices which dispenses boiling or chilled water and people make their own coffee. When it broke down and didn't get fixed immediately I went out & bought a cheap plug in kettle and left it in the kitchen. Made me very popular. Not that the situation is otherwise very close - our building is in the CBD and surrounded by good coffee shops.

For those who aren't English majors (or married to one ;-), 93 Escort Wagon is referring to a satirical essay written by Jonathan Swift, "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public". Swift's "modest proposal" is that children of the poor Irish could be sold as food to wealthy English.

I can't tell if the authors of the article we are discussing are alluding to Swift's essay or whether they are thereby flagging their own proposal as similarly ridiculous.

I went to see the movie with my kids last night, and liked it a lot less than I expected to.

SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS

My main gripe was the set up of how the city was held to ransom for an extended period of time, which simply didn't feel credible. We have a situation where the bad guys manage to hold a city of ~12 million people hostage for a period of about 6 months (not completely sure of the numbers here) by threatening to blow them up with the fusion reactor. The bad guys keep control by their initial army of outlaws who have been training in the city's sewers, augmented by the hundreds liberated from the Bastille - sorry, the prison. During this time no one is allowed to escape because of the threat to blow the nuke, a threat which is enforced from the outside, yet somehow the city manages to function after a fashion - food supplies are provided from the outside, and somehow enough order is maintained that the city doesn't simply collapse. I would expect plagues and famine and riots, not to mention fire after all the explosions at the start of the siege.

I found this all rather hard to buy. In terms of the story the extended siege is done to give Bruce Wayne time to heal up in his remote prison, and to make his spiritual journey that allows him to escape from it and return to Gotham. I find it hard to believe that such a siege with so many hostages could be maintained - this is a city after all, and would leak people like a sieve. Similarly, the maintenance of order would be a real problem in such circumstances. Least credible of all, I could not swallow that a thousand or so police offices could be trapped underground for six months, somehow supplied with food & such, then be busted out and run off to battle, fully fit and wearing clean uniforms. Really?

Did anyone else spot all the French Revolution/Tale of Two Cites references? I mean the conflict between aristocracy and underclass, the storming of the prison (the Bastille), the citizens' court against the oppressors, the final sacrifice and Bruce Wayne's epitaph, read from the close of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Interesting to see that put into a modern setting.

I wondered about some of the technology also. I thought the helicopter thing was pretty neat, though it was fortunate that the missiles fired at it were so slow that the copter could keep ahead while it outmanoeuvred them . Did Bane buy them from the lowest bidder, perhaps? I didn't really buy that the fusion core could be (a) so easily turned into a bomb, or (b) be removable from the reactor and still remain deadly without the need to keep it fuelled or maintained.

That said, there was a lot to like. I don't think I'll be in a hurry to watch this one again, though - unlike the first two movies in the series.

I was going to suggest "A Voyage to Arcturus" but I've been beaten to the draw. I will mention that it is available on project Gutenberg.

Another author you might check out is Charles Williams, whose novels straddle science fiction & Fantasy (though heavily slanted towards the latter). These can be found on Project Gutenberg Australia.

There already is. The Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation has been in operation since 1958. 2001 won the award in 1968, Avatar was nominated in 2010, but lost to Moon (which is arguably a better movie).

I discovered this category a couple of years ago, and have found the list of winners and nominees very instructive. It's alerted me to a lot of good movies which I would otherwise have missed.