Beawulf

congrats amnotborg :)

'Clear' human impact on climate Now their own scientists are telling them something is happening, I wonder if they will start acting acordingly? Personally I doubt it, not while it will cost money to change, and people are still able to say "this data doesnt go back far enough" or "there is no evidence it wont change back". Personally I dont think there will be concensus until the sea level rises, half the planet turns into a desert or the gulf stream stops triggering an ice age...... even then I'm sure it will be blamed on 'natural cycles' ;) heh

I found it impossible on my touchpad, I kept reaching the edge.... will up my sensitivity and see how I go (will probably go straight into the side wall lol) edit: damn! I'm already at the max

I voted for battlefield 1942, but what I really want is desert combat, which is a modern warfare mod for battlefield 1942. for people who dont own many games this would be a good option as battlefield 1942 is getting very cheap, and with the desert combat mod being free for anyone to download you are essentially getting 2 great games for very little :) making it preferable to battlefield 2 for those that dont know, battlefield 1942 is a mix of strategy and fps, each team has to secure and hold flag points, each flagpoint your team controls can be used as a spawn point, and the more flagpoints you control the more points a death will cost your other team (the game is over when a team has zero points). You soldier has the option of having various specialities, anti tank, medic, engineer etc which you can change each time you die, and you can also drive tanks, planes, helicopters and even battleships. Strategy is important, if you dont control any of the flagpoints you will probably lose, regardless how many people you kill. In desert combat you get to use modern weapons, kick arse tanks, apache helicopters (with a friend manning your machine gun if you want).... It is hours of fun, with tons of replayability

hubble images copywrite info They seem pretty happy for anyone to use them including for commercial situations with some minor conditions such as the voluntary notification of use, and a credit to them, which could be in fineprint at the bottom of some page on nite's site if necessary, or even in *tiny* print on the logo I checked the images I used before, the first set (blue ones) have no copyright claim the second set have credited someone at a university, so to be used he would need to be contacted, however I only used a tiny portion of the image. 10 points if anyone can find it :D as for the third set (mars surface), that is from the ESA, they also seem rather free to allow people to use the images. I used and even tinier portion of the image this time. Their website states:

I had the joy of going to see a lawyer recently relating to a situation I had at work. The guy was completely useless, did virtually no work and gave terrible legal advice. I had looked around to try and find a good lawyer with good legal knowledge, asked others for recommendations but most were for settlement advice or relating to criminal law. Thanks to the lawyer's "legal advice" things got a bit worse for me, unfortunately I cant go into any details but it involved a settlement of sorts in the end. I didnt go out of my way to ask for the lawyer's bill afterwards, and fortunately he never contacted me to settle the account ;) Has anyone else had experience with lawyers, good or bad I'd be curious to hear about them.

obviously the backgrounds for these werent based on the logo, the first two types are hubble images, the last type is from one of the new high res images of Mars. I'd normally leave a comp like this to the pros, but there is no way I will let it be a one horse race :)

aaarg Baltar? never, he is to spineless, not a respectable villian at all.

there was also an xwing used as part of the model for the ship Event Horizon (in the movie Event Horizon.. funny that) It was part of the antenna array. Can't find any pics of it sorry :(

45 years ago today, the pride of the Soviet Empire, Yuri Gagarin became the first person into space. on this day... If that doesn't make you feel proud, then I'm afraid you're dead.

I second that motion! I might need a replacement a bit sooner though :/

welcome :) Glad you could join in :)

that's some full on stuff. Imagine if they enhanced our brains so that we could remember every single details of events.....would we want that? we might become detached from the emotions that normally mark events in our memories and end up somewhat...borg. This would probably also adversly affect how we normally deal with traumatic and intense experiences. I hear this detachment from emotions is common for people who have photographic memories. What sort of benefits are there for having neurons in a computer, I guess it would require less power to run, but would it be faster? and would it be able to create new links or repair damage....now that would be cool :D Although I'm sure someone could cite more than one sci fi story where this has gone wrong.

if you fold the Australian $5 note a certain way you can get the queen to give head. Part of a terrorist conspiracy to get the queen some action? I think so!

interesting you should say that... George Bush: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." December 18, 2000 video footage

anyone else find it suspicious that bush used to own an oil company? He then went on to be CEO for the oil and gas company Spectrum 7, after that he was a director for the Harken Energy Corporation, infact his family has been heavily involved in the oil industry since the 50's. He also recieved 2.8m from the oil industry, 2.3m from the auto industry to support his presidential campaign (and another million from enron) With so many friends in the industry I'm not suprised he didnt want to sign the kyoto protocol.

I'm definitely interested :D

Ditto!!

Hypersonic Jet Launch Some interesting stuff going on in the world of rocket engines. I went to some seminars by the hyshot group over the new year period. There is alot of involvement from the mechanical and space students at the University of Queensland which is pretty exciting imo ;) the article is somewhat misleading to say the engines were tested in windtunnels, not at least how most people would consider them. No windtunnel that uses turbines can achieve speeds of mach 5. Instead these engines were tested in shock tunnels, which heat air up to the temperature of the sun, and then this expanding gas produces the high speeds. It is these high temperatures that prevent the testing from lasting more than a fraction of a second

France to force apple to provide DRM source This is a very interesting development. I'm glad to see that someone is fighting for consumers rights to use purchaced products as they see fit.

It's unfortunate that the alternative energy cars are currently so expensive, and I think governments need to step in and do something about it. The manufacturing costs go down as the quantity produced increases...this is true for any manufacturing situation. Perhaps they should make the companies base their prices on future/desired production levels . The government should also be looking at subsidies and incentives for people to make the change in the meantime... might cost a bit for the government, but I'd imagine it wouldn't be as much as the 6 billion a week that Iraq costs the US. These incentives should also be given to industries that replace processes dependant on oil, there may not be alternatives for every application but there sure is for many, and with incentives in place companies actually might start to look for an alternative where there was no need before. If they don't look, they wont find it. Something also needs to be done about the car mentality in the US, and I'm not talking about catching public transport instead of driving (although that isn't a bad idea) I'm referring to the preference for big SUVs and cars that consume unnecessarily large amounts of petrol. Introduce a tax for owning an SUV, if you want to be a petrol guzzling jerk you will have to pay for it....plus the fuel you use. Diesel is definitely a good intermediate choice, fuel efficiency is fantastic, and the fuel can also contain large amounts of bio-diesel without any adverse affects to the engine, while producing less emissions. and because it is made from waste plant matter (like from sugar cane) it would mean more money and jobs for American farmers! that's a good thing right? you get to keep a lot of the money in your own country. Diesel vehicles are also better for work applications as they have more torque than petrol engines. and for the people who say it is all out of your hands... you live in a democracy right? well contact your government, tell them what you want and DEMAND ACTION, if you arent satisfied with the action they are taking DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, vote someone into office who will. lobby for change!...

I voted "I don't care". but I have to agree with some of the others that this thread reeks of emo attention seeking, maybe a blog would be a more appropriate place for it.

Captain Beawulf, reporting for duty my first task will be to remove all traces of Jar Jar Binks from history :P

lol, those bush emperor pics are priceless :D I voted nite....of course