When I was there six months ago, and several other times in the last four years, there were no ID checks when checking in for domestic departures, and (IIRC) no complaints about water bottles.

Seems like a radical step up.

A scrum team's stand-up meeting shouldn't go beyond 15 minutes. They're a "stand-up" meeting to encourage people to be brief. They should preferably happen at the beginning, or possibly end of the day, and encourage communication and awareness amongst peers working on the same project. Are you telling me that your time management skills are so poor or your bladder so small that you can't time your toilet breaks or non-work related YouTube viewing to avoid a 15 minute meeting?

Freedom of expression as defined in the First Amendment is irrelevant in Europe. It wouldn't matter if EU data protection laws violated that amendment. At the end of the day, US companies have to decide if they want access to the market in the EU area or not.

One of the coolest things I saw when I was living in RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, in the early 80's was a U-2 being chased down the runway. i guess they have another pilot on the ground talking the plane down.

mklink works for me as a member of the local admins group in Win7

Why are you referring to shortcut files? That's something entirely different.

I'm hearing that more and more American companies don't have guaranteed vacation allowances and instead it's at the boss' discretion. Sounds open to abuse to me. This is how my employer does it, except I'm in the UK where the statutory minimum is 20 days, and they offer new and long-term employees 25 days (only 5 can be rolled over to the first quarter of the next year). I'm also Canadian, and as much as I love Canada, when I think of moving back I get put off by the loss of holiday. I don't know you you Americans do it, I guess you just haven't experienced better.

Encourage home working... Most office jobs can be done from anywhere with an internet connection and phoneline...

As somebody who did this for 10 years, let me tell you it's not a good idea as a permanent solution for most people. I only do it now if my early morning meetings leave me in my PJs at lunchtime. Some flexibility is good, but it does disrupt communications.

Many staff never need to interact directly with third parties and so have no reason to be at work 9-5.

As somebody who works with colleagues in Shanghai and California, as much overlap of working hours as possible is a good idea.

Convince businesses to get over this stupid obsession of having offices in central london (or other large cities),

When our office in the Soho was closed recently, I would have quit if forced to travel to the other office outside London. Even SE1 is a bit disappointing.

I personally have turned down several job offers that required commuting to central london.

I would refuse too if I had a stupid commute or had to drive. This is why I live in cycling distance and 25km/day is good for my health. Bonus!

I think you're referring to "loading gauge".

I wonder if there will be enough room for DB and Thalys trains to run from Cologne or Paris right through to Manchester. Finally some competition. Looking for to the DB trains coming through the tunnel to London next year (or is it 2014?). Eurostar is pretty out-dated, and the stop in Brussels Midi is really grating after a while.

This HS2 line is embarrassingly late, and it's still years away. The UK was years behind our neighbours when the Eurostar route was porposed *sigh*

Conveniently ignoring the fact that the US waited until they knew they were on the winning side. Just like a bunch of Manchester United supporters.