I'm always surprised that google hasn't just listened and given us http://simple.google.com./ It'd get rid of any whining and allow them to clutter the front page as much as they like.

It's not a monopoly. There are many private health providers in the UK. You may buy medical insurance if you like, or just pay up when you want treatment. The NHS is available for everyone (provided you're eligible) and if people want extra, the only reason they can't is if they can't afford it. It's kind of like the US system except you still get good care if you don't have the funds and they don't hand you a clip board for your insurance details when you walk into a hospital.

In case that direct link redirects to the main page (it did for me), the html page that has a link to the PDF is here.

The company I work for does exactly this. However, my contract says that work created in the course of my employment belongs to them, so it's ALWAYS a good idea to get written permission to either give back to OSS projects tweaked* or open source anything written on company time, premises or equipment. A quick email can avoid misunderstandings and even legal arguments later.

* If I understand correctly (and please, correct me if I'm wrong), open source projects used and edited internally and never released, don't actually need to be fed back to the OSS project it belongs to. We generally do offer work done back to the original authors though!

Jabber was renamed XMPP. XMPP is what facebook uses for chat.

I'm pretty sure someone could wait outside a store for someone who looks down on their luck and then pay them to go get a phone. Pressuring a person to give up a stranger is a bit useless, especially if the payee is a drug addict and wouldn't recognise their own mother.

Sure, it's a lead but will more than likely go nowhere if the criminal is even just smart enough to have the presence of mind *not* to get their mate to go get the phone.

A Mathematicians Lament. I really wish more teachers would read this essay.

Good point. As a programmer with very little taught maths (British high school level) I have to say I keep trying to improve myself and my maths skills so that I can write better code and design better systems. Maybe I'll try a bit of physics to help me along.

Except stats showing how many voters turned up and didn't vote for anyone. Politicians don't like missed votes and every spoiled ballot was a potential vote for them. They take the number of spoiled ballots seriously because the person who spoilt it isn't apathetic and is therefore a potential vote next time around. Any politician wants to make sure that vote is for them and not their opposition.

If you don't know who to vote for always get down to the polling station regardless. High voter turnout is a powerful reminder that the public still exist and have the job of deciding elections.

After hating knetworkmanager, the newer plasmoid seems to work very nicely. I use it when I take my laptop out and about and have never had an issue finding and connecting to networks. Encryption is dealt with just fine now.

YMMV though as I'm not out and about all that often, just often enough to see that it's working for me.

For anyone trying to start developing, even techbase is pretty horrible. They seem to feed you odds and ends of useful info and examples but leave you scratching your head at how to make the jump from making a basic plasmoid to doing something useful. For example, in 10 minutes of looking I can't find a nice, clear, well documented PyKDE4 API. I'm sure there has to be one somewhere

Using KDE in Kubuntu 9.04 (just upgraded to 9.10 today so can't comment on anything newer than Jaunty) at work as a software developer. I have to say, I'm not really sure what all the bad press has been about. The only issues I've had are when I tried to upgrade to the first KDE4 development version and was well aware that it wasn't for general consumption. After that I've not had any real issues with KDE on a dual display system. On occasion I find some of the plasmoids a little rough around the edges, so to speak, but that's down to the individual plasmoid developers, not KDE. On second thoughts, I lie, there was one issue which led the task bar to freeze for a few seconds whenever I got an IM in kopete but that disappeared in Jaunty.

I wouldn't say there are any glaring bugs or issues for day to day work. Heck, I use it here at home now as well and wouldn't say I've got issues with it when playing either. I think most of the big criticism comes from people who are still trying to use it like KDE3, haven't used it or are just trying to do odd things with it.

I get my work done and KDE doesn't get in my way. There are some things I don't like about it (dolphin, I'm looking at you) but that's personal preference. I'd suggest ignoring the peanut gallery and trying it out yourself, it's really the only way you'll figure out if you like it. Just try not to knock it for not being KDE3.

Even better, if you called yourself an artist and made up an explanation using some sociological BS as an excuse for why you smashed it up, you could probably sell a copy of that video as "art".

As a female in the tech industry I've found that most of the girls I know don't realise what's even involved in what I do. I've surprised many of my friends with descriptions of things that I do in my work and they actually seem quite interested. I think that one of the problems is that it's never actually explained to girls what's involved and unless they're like me and exposed to tech at a young age (my dad's an electronics engineer) they'll never find out enough to be interested.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong but the term "money talks" seems to have come from the US, so I guess that'd be the reason.