I don't really agree with that in modern day Europe. The media companies don't toe the government line more than you'd expect in any country with a free press. There are often concerns about the closeness of ties between politicians and media but I think that's pretty common in Western countries. Moreover, in the UK the government itself makes a big deal of how important our relationship with the US is. Besides that, I'd argue that you're underestimating the reach of both the Internet and US culture generally. The Internet makes it easy to get access to a wide range of news sources, at least for those who are motivated to do it.

Probably more importantly, I'd guess that easily half the popular TV and most of the movies in Europe (and probably much of the world) comes from the US - there's a lot of information about US culture, self-image, even simple turns of phrase that continuously percolates into everyone's minds from this alone. People continually get (arguably idealised, since this is Hollywood) images of what the US stands for, what it's like to be American, etc. In terms of the vast entertainment industry, I'd argue that Europeans are routinely shown the same image of the US that Americans themselves receive.

Although I can imagine certain items being banned or screened more careful, I'd suspect that the lobbying of airports / airlines will protect the duty free shops from significant changes. Similarly, I've always suspected that the restrictions on liquids would have been lifted quickly if they were a financial pain (rather than a financial benefit) to the airports / airlines / shops.

Just my opinion, though, it's not like there's (as far as I'm aware!) particularly good insight available into how and what the interested parties communicate.

This is one of the reasons airport security has bugged me so much - I've been inconvenienced over trivial things that don't really matter to security, whilst equivalent or greater threats just go unmentioned. I once had a cone spanner confiscated. That's a very small, thin spanner, suitable for adjusting bicycle bearings - and very little else - I'd lost it at the bottom of my bag and hadn't realised it was there (though I had flown the outbound leg successfully without security picking up on it!).

It was against the rules to let "tools" through the checkpoint - but couple of weeks later on a much larger, more significant flight, I was able to get a heavier spanner for free on the front of a biking magazine in the duty free area. Derp.

Which makes sense because gasoline / petrol is more common than diesel. But as I understand it, diesel in a gasoline / petrol engine is less harmful than the reverse situation - so it's all a bit unfortunate!

A couple of mentions of the Model F already but I think it's worth a dedicated post! My understanding is that the Model M (a keyboard before whose build quality, longevity and tactility modern keyboards quake in fear) originated as the cheaper, mass-market version of the older Model F keyboard. I have both a Model M and a Model F; I do find the key feel of the latter to be even nicer. It's also even louder and heavier - and I don't have one of the really big 122 key terminal variants.

The Model M does actually use a membrane (a bit like a modern keyboard) to detect key presses but it puts a spring and a hammer / foot on top. The Model F uses a hammer / foot but senses its movement using capacitative sensing. In principle it seems like there is even less to wear out using this mechanism - not that the Model M typically has lifetime issues! I've also heard that this potentially gives the keyboard n-key rollover, which the Model M cannot achieve. I suppose you might need a custom controller to actually get the benefit, though.

It's worth trying a Model F if you get the chance; the only trouble is that at least some of them had a horrible, heavy space bar - that can be fixed by a spring modification. The other problem is that the layouts are varying degrees of crazy, since it appears people still weren't really sure what keys should be on a keyboard (or where). Still, it's the only keyboard you can successfully use to intimidate Model M users, when you're telling them to get off your lawn.

Unless things have changed, I think you can also ##program-name and get the TeXInfo page for it.

With file management, web browsing, KParts rendering PDFs, and the integrated man / TeXInfo viewers I practically never used to leave Konqueror.

If your plane is on fire and not a plane anymore then you are having a bad problem. You will not fly on Venus today.

I imagine that at the moment it really is in the "Just to show they can" phase. I can anticipate some potential benefits of this kind of manufacture, though I'm not an expert in the field, so take it with a pinch of salt! There was an episode of Grand Designs on UK television (I think it's a Channel 4 show) where they build a house using insulation-filled plywood boxes that were CNC-cut on site. It's probably worth a watch if you can get it, since it must have similar benefits to printing (e.g. just ship raw materials to the site and then any custom parts are made just-in-time). What I've heard about that episode has put ideas in my head about that sort of technique...

Firstly, assuming a more completely automated system than the one described above, you might build a house by simply assembling a 3D printer machine around the site and letting it run. You could potentially assemble a building very quickly and with a relatively small workforce.

Secondly, as with other forms of 3D printing, there's the potential to build an irregularly-shaped or custom-designed structure just as easily (in terms of construction effort) as a standard one. Less need to mess about with what curves you can easily make, getting the right sized construction materials, etc. Just let the machine lay down walls in whatever configuration you want.

Thirdly, even in a system like the one described (printing out elements which then require finish and - presumably - putting into place) you still get the opportunity to make custom components on-site where they'll be used. Raw material can be shipped to you in a dense form, instead of transporting unwieldy, finished parts. Although you incur the cost of using the 3D printer, you do avoid the cost of having someone in a factory construct moulds for the concrete shapes you need. I can also imagine designs being checked during the build and minor alterations made before running off the next part. Design errors might be fixed in this way without greatly delaying the project.

There was also a form of house arrest in use (supposedly for people who couldn't be tried for security reasons, I think) that was used to severely restrict people's freedom. This was applied if the right people believed "We really, really think this guy is dodgy" but couldn't say why, at least not in a public forum. The house arrest approach was adopted after a ruling by the Law Lords (would now be the Supreme Court, I think) saying that indefinite detention in prison without trial was not legal. The "suspects" were then allowed out of prison but only permitted a very specific, restricted set of "freedoms" including being restricted to their home for most hours of the day.

I'm not sure if those measures are still in force (though I suspect so). As I understand it, they were a separate issue from the (much shorter) periods you could be held by police without charge, nominally whilst they gather evidence, etc.

Awesome.

I would guess there's a societal aspect to that split also, though... If the Chinese government, with their larger population and stronger controls on the media and information flow, can sustain a large military (and get the public to tolerate military losses) then I'd suggest that they don't need drones so much. That still doesn't give them the other technical advantages of drones, though (e.g. staying aloft for days at a time, etc).

Do you mean ARM 64 bit, or ARM in general? The latter has at least got itself deployed more widely than I am aware of MIPS ever getting. The former ... well, I hope it takes off.

In that instance it strikes me more as protectionism than socialism - the French government are considering measures to aid their local businesses, at a cost to a foreign business which is muscling into their territory. Capitalist governments also take various protectionist measures to safeguard their home industries - often by disadvantaging foreign companies more directly through import duties, etc. For instance, the Conservative government in the UK moved to block EU laws that would have disadvantaged our highly capitalistic financial sector.

You could still argue that protectionism and socialism can be linked, for instance by choosing to protect certain home industries as a way of distributing wealth.

I imagine newspapers all over the world are lobbying their governments about Google. They might not succeed but a common part of big business does seem (sadly) to involve complaining to government about other businesses that seem threatening.

Me too. The feeling of unreality has not yet left me!

This really is an Apple style acknowledgement of fault - I'm reminded on when some iPods were found to be carrying a Windows malware, which then infected some PCs...

http://www.apple.com/support/windowsvirus/

Key quote (emphasis mine): "We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it."

They do have chutzpah.