Here in the UK halloween , and specifically Trick or Treat is little more than door to door begging. If you are lucky you might open the door to a hoodie instead of someone wearing a bin liner. No one in the UK bakes cookies or spends time organising the community like in America where the event is done properly. For this reason and not wanting to get my head kicked in by yobs at the front door I will just "be away from home". Camerons Britain - where at halloween local shops displaying signs noting that "eggs and flour will not be sold to persons under the age of 18"

Yup - Im holding out for this one too. For the moment Im very much into Renoise - its pretty amazing. I use it exclusively on Linux and get great results... take a look : https://soundcloud.com/polyp

Apple's license allows installing it on Apple branded computers. ... So i presume if i buy a beat-up stripped mac shell / case off ebay and put a motherboard of my choice inside - that would be ok would it ? N.

I think i speak for many, the hardest thing about my job is the expectation that i will work late or overtime without extra pay or work over family holidays such as christmas and the like.

Noooo ... Apple waits till everyone has failed to do something , and then - learning from everyone elses mistakes does the same thing and claims it was there idea all along.

case in point :

mp3 players - were very much a niche item until iPod came along
smart phones - apple would have you believe they invented them - of course this is not true
tablets - nothing new here

currently - there are several players out there bringing "smart watches" on the market - they will probably fail to garner much interest until apple reveals one under an intoxicating media frenzied event!

So I wouldnt dismiss the Apple mobile / desktop OS convergence just yet.

Its an interesting question ... It wouldnt suprise me though if these things are actually a lot safer than human drivers, as i understand it though law dictates e a human driver to be present "babysit" the controls in case anything goes wrong. Im not sure if this has ever happened. If an accident did happen I assume the person babysitting the controls would be responsible in the same way an driving instructor would likely be responsible if a learner driver caused an accident. I think as time goes on the tech from googles cars will creep into consumer cars and when accidents do happen it will usually be down to human error. N.

That's possible, but I suspect Google engineers would be able to rig up some sort of wiper system... Sarcasm aside, they'll be able to use far better snow clearing systems than we can now, with spinning lenses,"frikkin laser beams" etc that would be impossible to implement with human drivers. fixed that for you ;)

Yes , I know what you mean. Im almost due for an upgrade on my smartphone (s3) and having looked at whats currently out there nothing excites me. Truth be told i use about 3 different "apps" daily and very occasionally play a game - but only if im very bored i cannot stand touchscreens for gaming.

Im considering just keeping the phone and switching to a sim-only tariff when my contract ends.

N

Are you for real or just being sarcastic ?

Having recently started using Visual Studio - new position mandated it. (Previously an Eclipse user). I was wondering if i might find out what precisely people like so much about it. Quite frankly I hate it. Perhaps the interface is a bit cleaner - but overall its more like the "Tesco Value IDE" , offering only a basic subset of the functions I've come to rely on in Eclipse.

It is - I own "The Day After" which is saccharine by comparison. Still a I like this film too!

I own this film on DVD and while it is a harrowing piece. If you are a into apocalyptic scenarios or were a teenager in the 80's this film is a must view IMHO!

These accidents will likely be mostly minor fender-benders that result in the road-ragers losing their licenses (unless, of course, they get a self-driving car.) Or, That, and you'd also probably see road-ragers driving themselves off the road and into fixed objects. The automatic cars'll generally do a pretty good job of avoiding serious collisions--far better than even a reasonably skillled human driver could.

If a person is so lacking in maturity and self-control that they'd start ramming automated cars for not letting them treat the road as their own personal speedway, it's highly unlikely that these individuals are able to conduct themselves in a mature manner in today's traffic. We're not looking at a substantial net-up of people who have no business driving a car, y'know?

Best chair joke so far :D

I was thinking that in response to the Steve Jobs crowdfunding initiative to build a sculpture - perhaps we could celebrate this by crowdfunding a giant statue of Ballmer flinging a chair!