...will include several hundred million GBP that they will get for selling off land around the Adastral Park "Research" site. That's land that was compulsorily purchased for an RAF airfeld, which was ultimately "given" to BT. So it's taxpayer's land. BT has been leaning on the local council to rewrite their land use policies to allow the farmland to be built on. They intend to build a new town of 2000 homes right next to a European Special Protection Area that is also an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (think National Park, without the planning restrictions).

The land value will go from 6,000 GBP per acre to at least 500,000 per acre when BT get planning permission. And the worst bit is that this kind of house building is exactly what the district does NOT need - we need new housing in all the scattered villages where low-income people live and work, instead of in one place where are no jobs.

Please can we stop tarmacing over the entire f**king world?

The town is a pit of despair. I sincerely hope, for all your sakes, that this does NOT put Ipswich "on the map". FFS, this place has only just made it to the 20th C (rough end of).

God help anyone who mentions Adastral Park, because I won't hold back.

..with XP look-alikes. Yeah, OK, I can dream, can't I?

...it's called a Gertboard http://uk.farnell.com/gertboard/gertboard/board-gertboard-assembled/dp/2250034, plugs directly onto the Pi, has an Arduino, a motor controller chip, an A/D and D/A chip on it, breaks out all the GPIO pins, buffered, completely jumperable. Price equiv 46 USD.

I agree. I had an Iomega tape drive for backups. When it stopped working (after one use per month for a couple of years) , it turned out that the little widget inside that sensed the presence of a cartridge and opened the cartiidge's access door, was a little 2-cent piece of plastic that was (a) well-known for failing (b) not replaceable. More fool me, I bought a Jaz drive as replacement, and had all the problems associated with it. After that, I too refused to buy Iomega products and warned others away from them.

"I am a lawyer representing a senior banking official in Nigeria, who recently died leaving $10 million untraceable... and I am able to pay you to help me find the rightful heir..."

I'm not saying that it's a bad idea. Refactoring can be the only way out of lock-in. On the other hand, the software they are talking about is described in TFA as "critical spacecraft control software". They haven't rewritten it because (a) it works, so they don't need to (b) you don't rewrite that unless you absolutely have reasons to do so that are so compelling that they outweigh the risk of major bugs.

What has changed for ESA is the advent of cubesats, a device so cheap that the consequences of losing a spacecraft are significantly diminished. So they can take risks again with "critical spacecraft control software".

In this context, "innovative = "brand new" = "full of bugs". Should be entertaining.

Maybe one Pi then. It has a seriously potent GPU.

Ok, so you're saying that it makes sense to risk frying a $500 laptop instead of a $25 Pi? Riiiight.

And when you say "underpowered", that's because you hadn't realised that the SoC was designed to go into hi-def PVRs or BluRay players, so it has a muscular GPU, and the "underpowered" ARM CPU was an afterthought...and you haven't kept up with the news, that a guy at UCL is using the Pi to analyse MRI brain scans, which he will be able to do significantly faster when the library that supports the GPU arrives in a few weeks. Welcome to the world of open source, where you don't have to wait ages for the suits, who then say no to doing something sensible.

is the general purpose I/O pins that enable you to read, write, or drive many sorts of real-world device (thermometers, pressure gauges, GPS, servos, motors, etc etc). This feature, in a device that can talk to the internet, opens up a world of possibilities. So the flow of creativity around the Pi from people of all ages and walks of life is just awe-inspiring.

So don't see the Pi as just another computer like your desktop or your laptop.

So the takedown "was done out of respect for those injured."? Yeah, we lied about owning the copyright of newsfilm of a public event, in order to CMA, we didn't want to look bad or not caring about safety, we just wanted to suppress it all, so we invalidly exploited a stupid law. Who cares? We're important and those people injured are nobodies.

Unable to deliver your message. 553 Contact your postmaster/admin for assistance. Perhaps the PSF's Inbox is a little undersized...

I've seen a map of thunderstorm frequency for UK which shows that a majority occur directly downwind (in prevailing wind direction) from cities, and size and frequency of storms is related to size of the city. Thunderstorm frequency and severity also relate to frequency and severity of lightning damage and hailstorms. If I can find that again, I'll post a link (unless someone else gets there first).

Best advice my old boss gave me just before I left Big Corp to be a freelancer:
"Find the person (individual) in Accounts Payable who will actually process your invoice, and make friends. Show the person a sample of your invoices and ask if it is in the format they prefer. If not, alter the invoice till it is easiest possible to process (if necessary, split it in two to get amounts below the authorisation limits for the person you are doing work for so that it doesn't have to be escalated unnecessarily). Then when you have done work, and have prepared the invoice, get it signed off, and take it to your friend in Accounts Payable and hand it to them, or at least put it on their desk. Buy flowers or chocolates for this person on their birthday and Christmas, and whenever they have helped you, if they can accept such. At the very least be friendly, polite, and respectful. This approach not only sharply increases your chances of getting paid on time, it also means that when you don't get paid, you have an insider that you can ask what went wrong, so you can put it right."

I have used this approach at many clients, and it really helps.