I tried the shutter glasses only this week, I didn't experience any issues with flicker at all, although I only watched around 10 minutes of material so couldn't gauge whether fatigue would become an issue. They were noticably heavier than my reading glasses. The glasses and TV were Sony, i haven't tried out any other manufacturers shutter glasses yet.

I would still prefer a polarised projector solution - you get the full resolution, the glasses are passive (i.e cheap, lightweight, no batteries to replace and no syncing to the source) - overall this seems like a better solution to me, but of course not one which is avalable on TVs.

LG produce a polarised LED TV for 3D viewing with polarised glasses at a reduced resolution, normal 2D sources can be displayed at full HD resolution.

Since the glasses are polarised, they are very lightweight in comparison to the active shutter glasses and are 1/100 the cost.

the 3D bit of HDMI1.4 doesn't require any physical changes to transceivers or to cables, it's protocol and display mode related. It's stuff like the HDMI ethernet channel and audio return channel which would require different cables/transceivers. You'll be able to run 3D over the existing cable you've already got if it's a 1.3 spec.

I'm assuming from your comment you haven't sampled what gaming in 3D looks and feels like? I've only been able to watch in game footage from a couple of the demo titles (Motorstorm, Super Stardust HD and WipeoutHD) so far, but I can say that for both of the racing type games the effect is excellent and for me at least really contributed to the level of immersion. I think sports titles, and FPS really will be enhanced by this. I personally am not so enthusiastic about the 3D TVs (casual viewing in 3D isn't really going to work I think), but I can't wait for the 3D projectors to be launched, i'll be upgrading my projector as soon as a good model which is 3D capable is available.

Yeah I had pretty good mileage from mediatomb too for a while, but things which PS3 media server does persuaded me to swap, and I haven't been back since.

One _really_ useful feature of PS3 media server which mediatomb can't currently match is the ability to seek, pause etc in a transcoded stream. This is not possible with mediatomb and that's a pain in the ass if you need to take a break when you're watching a movie.

I think the thing that concerns me about GM food, is that we are inserting genes from completely different phyla in some cases, into crops which will be grown in the wild. These GMed plants have not evolved these characteristics, they've just been inserted into their genome. I am concerned that the effects of this may not be clearly understood, when these crops are out there, competing with other plants, pollinating non GMed versions of these crops, or even cross-pollinating other species.

I can and do appreciate the benefits of GM, from a 'green' perspective there are a number of points in favour of GM, for example:

  - the ability to improve disease resistance, allowing lower volumes of pesticides to be used to produce a given quantity of a crop.
  - the ability to reduce water loss, or reduce the overall volume of water to produce a given quantity of a crop.
  - the ability to introduce nitrogen fixing to non-nitrogen fixing crops, requiring less usage of fossil fuel derived fertiliser.

Please, how have you managed to turn this into a rant about a global warming conspiracy?

There are 3 requirements for these clouds to form:

1. Dust in the mesosphere to seed the accumulations
2. Moisture in the mesosphere
3. Temperatures less than about 150K

There isn't a lot of either dust or water in this part of the atmosphere, and things like volcanic eruptions, and shuttle launches are one mechanism by which large quantities of both can be transported to this layer of the atmosphere, which is what TFA is saying.

The clouds themselves form when the temperature in this layer is low, and the lowest temperatures in this region occur in summer, counterintuitively. This is of course when temperatures are highest in the lower atmosphere.

So, the cooling you refer to hasn't got any established relationship with the "scam" of global warming, and if it did, it wouldn't support your argument.

Well, the answer is both in effect, because there is more than just oil to consider.

Currently our food, transport, materials (plastics etc) are inextricably linked to the use of petroleum based products, this is the non-renewable resource which we are likely to find becoming increasingly costly and scarce in the near (<20 years) future. There is still a LOT of it in the ground, with a lot of CO2 to release into the atmosphere, but our consumption is still growing, and we burn more of it per day than at any time in the past. Of course the peak oil debate would lead us to believe that our growing consumption will be constrained by our ability to extract it, but in any case it is oil which we are likely to lose as the ubiquitous and cheap energy source we exploit so extensively today.

Arguably of far greater concern for its potential effect on climate change is coal, which as we use it today is a massive polluter and contributor to greenhouse emissions. There is an awful lot of coal still in the ground, there is a risk it will continue to be exploited to provide cheap energy even as we see its effects on our climate and environment.

I think the most worrying thing at the moment is that we as a population don't seem to appreciate that we are consuming non-renewable stored energy at a prodigious rate and at low cost today, and it is only through this cashing in of the earths stored solar energy that we are able to maintain our modern way of life.

We don't have a set of viable alternatives which are renewable currently, which can provide the same levels of energy at the same costs. The return per dollar spent in terms of energy in petroleum has been the driving force of modern civilisation for 50 plus years, we can't get anything like that kind of efficiency out of any other form of energy production today, so we better keep working on those alternatives, or we're going to have to face the consequences.