But... but... I thought Java was "write once, run anywhere!"

huge numbers of built-in magic 2-character variable names that you can't remember without a cheat sheet.

This is where use English; is your friend. Doesn't help if the previous guy wrote his code without it, of course.

I had a legit copy, but only got a few levels in before I was unable to hit anything.

I was never sure whether I just needed to practice more, or whether FADE had kicked in and was subtly making the game impossible.

Certainly put me off buying another game that had it.

You really should have expected the Spanish Inquisition.

That's not gum. They're little brush-like things that you move around your teeth by chewing.

At least, if you're thinking of the same machines that I am.

(Am I the only one who misread the headline as "tooth cleaning gun", BTW?)

Better to use XBMC Live, which installs a stripped-down version of Ubuntu. Bonus then is that you can buy the Revo with Linpus rather than Windows 7, and avoid paying the Windows Tax.

Still not parent-proof, though, even if you set it up for them (for example, I'd like to know what reset my modelines the other day so I only had 60Hz modes available - all the PAL content got very juddery...)

I think getting run over by a 4 year old on a tricycle should be considered an act of god.

Satan, surely. Haven't you seen The Omen?

The trick is to ask once, arrest, get the conviction, then wait until they get out before asking again.

"It was on Goatse"

"I only read it for the articles."

Yes, but most Facebook users have already added their number to their profiles so their friends can call them...

People put up with crappy cell phone calls, d ppin ev ry ther s lla le, but complain to high hell when there's the least bit of echo or static on a (non-VoIP) land line.

Damn right. That echo/static is nerfing my DSL.

Cash out a credit card, yes.

Cash out your mom and dad's address and the fact that you go there for Thanksgiving after buying a Safeway pumpkin pie, no.

Cash out your address at Thanksgiving while you're at your mom and dad's, eating pumpkin pie: quite possibly.

So what possible reason would I have for wanting a Facebook, and why would people want to know my Facebook account and yet have no interest in my email or website?

They want you to friend them so their friend count goes up by 1 and they can get the high score.

As further proof, in the UK where most TV/radio is advertising free

Well, the BBC stuff is ad-free; the rest has ads. Probably less than the US equivalents, of course, though Sky seems to be doing their best to catch up.

Yet another potential problem that no one seems to have mentioned yet is that of shared houses. If my flatmate has a virus (which he doesn't any more because I cleaned it off last night) then the whole house is going to be seen as "infected" and four innocent people will be cut off the internet due to the indiscretions of one person. This could be made all the worse if the person owning the infected computer is on holiday for a week.

Roll on IPv6, I guess, where they'll be able to cut off just the offending machine, as there'll be enough public IP addresses for everyone.

Until then, though, I'd still support cutting the connection. Allowing an infected machine to spew for a week in order to be fair to the housemates is unfair to the rest of the Internet.

As you said, though, the trick is doing it without losing customers — which means all providers would need to start cutting botnet customers at the same time. I suspect we'll see pigs flying at that point...