sjh

RTÉ (Ireland’s national broadcaster) has a 404 page with a nostalgic touch for anyone who grew up here in the 1980s: https://www.rte.ie/404

So you think the reason the Soviet union was less colourful was because there wasn't ads?

I think it can have been a contributory but not a determinative factor. Mainly, I was just relaying an interesting observation, about the impact of advertising on public spaces, that I hadn't heard elsewhere, or previously, which prompted me to think that eradicating advertising probably isn't an optimum solution.

I recall watching, some years ago, a documentary about the making of Tetris in which one of the contributors noted how much less colourful public spaces were in the advertising-free Soviet Union compared to the West.

Which isn't to say that a better balance couldn't be struck (in the West and elsewhere) now, but 'cancer' is the sort of thing you want to eradicate rather than moderate.

Last Train Home: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1512201/

ys1010 is (accurately) describing the marginal rate which effectively applies to all income above a threshold (although the different taxes/charges have different thresholds). It’s quite the thing when it kicks in.

As such, the software which makes up "Android" resembles OS X to me: open source in parts (even large parts), but the bit which most people (including developers) use is closed source and restricted to running only on sanctioned hardware.

I wonder whether, after he returns to Earth, Cmdr Hadfield will expect things to hang in the air for him; looks habit-forming.

It would have been better for aspirant attendees to have been able to put the price of the tickets into an escrow attached to Google Wallet and/or pre-authorise the transaction with their payment provider.

It's a quasi-random lottery. If the client-side code is similar to last year's, then the Javascript on the holding page polls the server at random intervals for an "available" ticket, which are released at random intervals and/or as orders fail to go through (e.g. payment times out, etc).

I had this as well, but the payment was ultimately declined.

Same here, using a Mastercard.

That is also blocked in Tokyo: "We're sorry, but this video is not available in your region due to right restrictions."

I'm in Tokyo, and streamed an episode of PBS' FrontLine from pbs.org only last week/the week before last.

It's 'football' in the UK, but in most of the rest of the Anglophone world, it's 'soccer'. Australia has its own 'football', as does Ireland.

I've had a Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 keyboard for a couple of years, now. Apart from the (relative) comfort, it's a well-built, sturdy (i.e. heavy) peripheral, which in itself improves the typing experience, I think.

If you are thinking of switching to one, then be prepared to spend some time adapting to it. I'm a ~100wpm touch typist, and while at university had used the 4000's predecessor, but it still took me nearly three months to get back up to speed after switching to the 4000.

But, having made the switch, I don't find my ability to type on non-ergonomic keyboards affected in the least; I routinely switch back and forth between my desktop and Macbook.

The nominal value of public debt is an unreliable measure. Ireland's national debt was €30bn in 1987 and €36bn in 2002. But in the same period it went from around 128% of GDP to 32% of GDP.

Reminds me of 3D Hidden Picture, a DSi Ware puzzle game, available in Japan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5QSclrIdlE

Supposedly this uses the DSi's camera the track the motion of the device and adjust the displayed image to give it depth.

The protesters are trusting that the process by which the pills are prepared doesn't introduce some other substance which is toxic when consumed in relatively large quantities.

And Woods alone attracts a not-inconsiderable portion of the audience: TV ratings for this year's US PGA Championship were around 50% higher than for the same tournament last year, the principal difference being Woods' absence in 2008 due to injury.

I presume he means that you should have up-to-date contact details for all existing investors, and that they should be contactable - e.g. they don't throw down the phone when you ring them - and ready to sell.

I know of a mid-sized company which sold to a multinational a few years ago, and it took them a few weeks to round up all the shareholders and get written consent to the deal, even though all the shareholders were in the same country, on good terms and none of them objected to the take over.

There may be a support issue for Apple here. Imagine a customer purchases a Pre and syncs it to iTunes, but Palm's reverse-engineering of the iPod-iTunes protocol is incomplete and iTunes crashes as a result (and does so reproducibly). Many customers would follow this up with Apple, but Apple would likely be unable to help them (presuming they were even interested in doing so).

Microsoft's announcement next Monday has almost certainly been in the pipeline since before Google revealed Chrome OS, so it's not a response.

I don't think it's simply a case of "some lazy and irresponsible journalists" - standards generally seem to have slipped. Shane Fitzgerald was intereviewed on the radio here in Ireland earlier today by the former editor of a national Sunday newspaper, a thoughtful and well-read fellow. With his first question, the interviewer invited Mr Fitzgerald to explain how the stunt had highlighted a flaw with Wikipedia.

Resident registration is still required in at least some EU member states, even when one is a citizen of another EU member state. In Germany, all residents - including German nationals - have to register each change of address with the local authority/authorities.

Without wishing to belabour the point, the prices for the same unit (the lesser-spec'ed Mac Mini) also seem to have gone up in the Irish and German stores (to pick but two), from €499 to €599.

By chance, I was looking at Mac Minis in the UK online Store this morning (GMT), and the price of the lesser-spec'ed unit was £391. Now the price of the new lesser-spec'ed unit is £499.

According to the write-up on Wired (http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/01/magnolia-suffer.html), Ma.gnolia also took a snapshot of the page being bookmarked. This may account for the size of the database.

Apple may perceive a cost in supporting developers who may be less likely (or unlikely) to contribute to their platforms. Inasmuch as charging a fee for WWDC videos, or the iPhone program (or whatever), would deter such developers, not only would it save Apple this cost but it would allow them to focus their support on those who are more likely to contribute to their platforms.

Nintendo and Sony have formal, up-front approvals processes for their respective consoles, which - if controlling what goes on/does not go on the platform is the goal - seems a better way of going about it.

Incidentally, SCEE has quietly dropped the approvals process for PS2 games in Europe.

"Slimming down the bloated iTunes 8 installer": http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=554