You are conflating several things. The theory of evolution consists of several aspects:

* Variations between generations
* Some of these variations are positive and some are negative
* Natural selection
* Everything evolved from a single organism

Of them, the first is easily testable. We can see it happening, firstly in that one generation's DNA is slightly different to the next, but even see the effects in our own lifetimes on short-lived generations of other species.

The second is also verifiable. Most usually we see the negative effects and label them disabilities, but the positive variations are obvious - a stronger than normal child might become an athlete, a taller child might become a basketballer etc.

Natural selection isn't really a theory. It's a corollary of the above. If you get genetic variation, then some are better adapted to the world around them, others less so. Interestingly, this effect isn't anywhere nearly as visible in humans as other species because we tend to look after the weaker members of society, however it is very apparent in most other species. In examples that we would consider cruel in our species, almost every litter of puppies for instance has a runt of the litter who the mother will kick away and deny food from because it is "better" for the group as a whole that the strongest of the litter are well nourished than all of them being relatively undernourished and pehaps unable to survive later on.

The only controversial point in creation theory is extrapolation backwards into areas we can't actually test. It's a big leap from "we can see small variations between generations in a species" to "all species evolved from a single organism". There are so many obvious problems with this as a theory, e.g. "why can't different species reproduce?", "why are there radically different methods of reproduction?", "how can all a major variation possibly happen in a couple of generations when we observe only very minor variations?"

The real issue is that this last theory is always lumped in with the genetic mutation theory, which is a real shame, because it's the only part of evolution theory that actually contradicts a biblical stance and equally it's the only part of evolution theory that actually can't be proved with science, because at best all you can do is find more examples of bigger than normal evolutionary jumps. You can never actually prove it's a fact and so it is always destined to remain a theory.

Evolution is a theory, and the aspect of evolution relating to small changes between generations in observably valid.

One unprovable hypothesis that can be drawn from evolution theory is that everything evolved from a single organism.

Another unprovable hypothesis that can be drawn from evolution theory coupled with creationist theory is that God created evolution between generations as a way to create variety between generations rather than exact clones.

If you look at the actual mechanisms in DNA and RNA replication where it's pretty much guaranteed to produce some occasional copying errors but rejects large errors, one could very easily argue that the process was designed to produce evolution.

Ultimatelty, it all comes down to fact versus belief. Just as religious education is taught in most UK schools as "some people believe this, some other people believe this other thing, some other people believe none of this", so should things like evolution as an explanation of the origin of all species, the big bang theory or anything else which is an unprovable hypothesis. The children should be allowed to assess for themselves which is the most credible option.

As someone who grew up through school years as an atheist studying a lot of science, I actually found deep flaws in a lot of things presented as "scientific fact" when I dug into them further and many years later became a Christian in part due to contemplating these things. Science is only science when you create theories that can be tested. If you accept untestable theories as fact, you're just turning them into religion, albeit a godless religion, because it is just predicated on belief.

TLDR: Evolution should be taught but in the correct context - as a theory that explains some of the things we can see around us. However, as soon as the government starts mandating that theories should be taught as fact, we have a problem, because by removing the requirement to actually test the theory, it no longer represents science.

I think I am one of these people. In an ideal world, I'd much prefer e-mail, however in my experience as an end-user customer of "big name services" (e.g. TV companies, phone companies, utilities, quite a bit of bought software), I won't expect a response to an e-mail for up to 4 days, and even then it's clear they haven't really *read* the e-mail, just scanned it for keywords and sent the closest match canned response. This isn't necessarily true for middleware I use as a software developer, but it can still often be up to a day for answers to those kind of questions because of time zone differences.

With a support line, I know that I'll be speaking to a real person or get a message saying when they are open and when I'll be able to speak to a real person. When I have that real person on the line, I won't be fobbed off with a glib solution like "have you rebooted your PC" (because of course, I've tried all that *before* I called support). I know that I'll get an answer immediately or at least a promise to look into the problem.

Personally, I don't like live chat, because again they're often automated and they frequently have canned responses at the ready. Phones really are much easier to get results with.

What about all the stuff in the atmosphere the laser will destroy before it hits anything in space? It's not like we need another hole in the ozone layer...

While the might be legitimate in their own country, they're typically only licenced to distribute within their own territory, because other companies will have the distribution rights elsewhere. So, almost certainly, you won't actually have bought the right to use that music even though you paid money, because they didn't have the rights to sell you.

The pricing is incredibly bizarre. The US price works out to Y20,000 and the EU price works out at Y29,000. The Japanese price is in the middle at Y25,000. I know the US is often cheaper, but it's odd that their home market price is 25% higher than the US. Even considering Japan's consumption tax at 5%, that's a Y4,000 markup for their home territory compared to the US pre-sales tax price. And certainly, whilst import duty and VAT is fairly high in Europe, it's nowhere near 45%...

No, Sony doesn't have stores per se. At least in the UK, these stores are all franchises that pay Sony for the right to use their name. They're not owned by Sony and are pretty much next to useless if you ask them anything that you'd expect Sony to be able to handle, e.g. warranties.

This might put pressure on Sony indirectly via the store owners complaining, but this is definitely a case of annoying people who have nothing to do with what they're protesting about.

[quote]What part of the UK are you in? They still seem to be around here (West Midlands) although in falling numbers.[/quote] I'm in the West Midlands, although it shouldn't make much difference.

150W bulbs were banned in 2008. 100W bulbs were supposed to be banned by January 2009, but it was delayed until August 2009. 60W bulbs should have been banned last year, although maybe that got delayed. I've certainly not seen any in shops for a while outside of "specialist" fittings, such as ES. It's true that the shops seemed to be running down their stocks of 100W bulbs in advance of the actual ban so they weren't left with a stockpile of them, so maybe specialist light shops still had them right up until the ban.

Like I say, I stockpiled a load of bulbs about 2 years ago. I bought 100 x 100W bulbs and 20 x 60W, so that should be sufficient to run the couple of bulbs I need incadescents for about 20 years! Maybe by then, CFLs might have improved enough that the flicker doesn't annoy me. One guy suggested buying a CFL for €10 that *might* not flicker in a way that annoys me. Well, I could do, but it still might annoy me. And €10 is about what I paid for 50 bulbs that I know will last longer and won't flicker.

Well, they've already banned them here in the UK, starting with the 150W, 100W and now 60W are gone too. I think you can still buy 40W until next year, but I haven't seen them in the shops any more.

I stockpiled a load of 100W ones. The new bulbs have lots of advantages - cheaper to run, so ideal to leave on as a security light, last longer, etc, but although I've replaced about 75% of the lights in my house with CFLs, I absolutely had to stockpile the old ones. The reason? It's simple. CFLs give me a headache. I can't sit underneath one for more than about 10 minutes without getting a headache, so it's fine to have one in the bedroom or bathroom, and it's not too bad in the kitchen, but I'm in the lounge or my office I need a regular incandescent light. It's not a problem for everybody, but sufficient numbers of people are similarly affected that I think it's outrageous the government can legislate such stupid big brother dictats.

Then there's the fact that they're sold massively below cost to get them adopted. Here, you can often find them for less than 10p per bulb at retail, and nobody is yet really worrying about the environmental costs of disposal because people aren't really throwing them away in any numbers yet. This will be a major problem in a few years though.

Finally, the usual arguments that the old bulbs are less energy efficient is pretty much redundant. As I mostly use light bulbs during the winter evenings and for a short period on winter mornings, I'll have my heating on anyway. Who cares if 90W of the 100W bulb is emitted as heat - it's making my house warmer. There's even a company in Germany trying to get round the ban by selling "heating globes" that happen to emit light and happen to look exactly like an old lightbulb.

Well, I'm not too sure of that. The example he demonstrated in the video looks very underwhelming - he certainly doesn't demonstrate that Qt can look more visually appealing than the native android calculator.

Frankly, the download time for the libraries is unacceptable - it should be packaged along with the application itself. If it's so large (25Mb is much more than most apps), then something is seriously wrong. When I get an app from the marketplace, I'm happy for it to be added to the system download queue and wait until I get a notification that it's ready to use. If that app then required focus whilst spending another 10 minutes downloading stuff, I'd just quit it and uninstall. I'd never get to find out how great the app might be.

I stopped counting at 21, where I counted each *device* as a microprocessor even if in reality it contains multiple, and I'd probably only accounted for half the stuff that's in day-to-day use. I've got at least the same again in my loft with all the obsolete tech I've got stored up there...

Nope, there wasn't even a slight hint that you were being sarcastic. It looked like you were just wrong.

I think it's cool from a geek point of view, but totally unnecessary.

Apart from the first couple of days of owning the fridge to set the temperature to something sensible, in the last 6 years, the controls I've wanted to use are "defrost" (once). I can also see the use for the "just got home from supermarket, chill a bit more please" button, but it's not something I need as I'm close enough to the supermarket that my food is still cold when I get it gome.

I agree. There's nothing cool about swastikas. However, that's not really the issue here.

The problem is that Microsoft approved a game for release that allows people to use the swastika as a logo. If they find that so objectionable that it's an automatic Xbox Live ban for the player, then the simple fact of the matter is that they should have rejected the release until the logo was removed from the game. The requirements on a game's release are incredibly strict, and Microsoft has an entire team of people looking for issues like this in game. If they missed it, it's Microsoft's problem, not whichever gamer decides to use it as a logo.