Snooze

LIVE FOR SPEED Best driving game. Ever. By a country mile. There's a fantastic comparison of driving simulations on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_racing_simulators

Oops - double post.

Errr. The Guardian. I guess they may be a bit biased!

This. This. This.

I'm in the far reaches of Surrey too, and promise you that the journey all the way up to Phoenix in Watford is worth it. To get the same quality of service, level of competence and value for money, I would happily travel 2 or 3 times as far too.

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This one last month: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/6327033.stm

Oh - don't get me wrong - I feel sorry for these people with genuine problems too, and I understand that MANY forces guys suffer mental problems and really should get the necessary support to help them. After all, we need these guys to be at the top of their game, and I would be wholeheartedly behind offering as much support as is required to keep them healthy. My point is that we are talking about the really extreme cases here. The ones for whom the support that is available within the forces is insufficient. From the statistics and the indications of others, I think this is quite a small minority - the people with REAL mental issues, who probably shouldn't ever be touring again. These people are the responsibility of the whole nation, not just the army, and (IMO) their care should be funded as such - from the "bottomless" coffers of the whole nation, rather than the limited budget of the forces. Ah - and the line about WW1 was more regarding the "scallys" and "chancers" discussed - back in the WW1 days, even these individuals were needed by the army, who just wanted bods in the trenches, so it was worth the army's time and money to try and re-enlist AWOLs (esepcially with the HUGE numbers of deserters back then). My question was asking whether this sort of time and investment was still required for the modern-day forces. ben. Good thread this. Some really enlightening stuff. Thanks, guys.

Chilly, relating to your previous comment, do you regard the looking after of these people with genuine problems as a military issue, though? The problem seems to be that it is the military that appears to be expected to pick up the tab for supporting and rehabilitating them on what (I assume) is a too-small budget. If, as you suggest, these are people with underlying problems anyway, shouldn't they be handed back to a national rehabilitation system (NHS?) rather than being a military burden? Thanks for the insight, ben

In my opinion (and this is purely speculative), I would tend to hang on the important point raised in the report that the majority of the 2,700 cases are actually repeat cases and soldiers nipping off to sort out personal affairs. I'm not saying this is all cases: In such a stressful job as military service, there are ALWAYS going to be some that aren't emotionally suited to the work. So in conclusion - although I feel sorry for the individuals affected - I don't think it's possible to say whether this is really an issue in the bigger scheme of things without knowing what real percentage of military servicemen go AWOL because of inadequate support services..... (edit: as chilly says: probably a real minority) .....especially at a time when the general populace are looking for reduced military spending and tax cuts! What I don't understand is why they don't just let these people go? I don't understand how the costs involved in hunting them down and forcing them back into service are worthwhile if these AWOLs are not suited to the job anyway. It's not like it's WW1 out in the Middle East: it's not like there's a shortage of people ready to join the military at the moment, is it?

I have a stock J-Spec Manual TT. I use mine every day for a 15-mile roundtrip. With weekend trips as well (say avg. 50 miles/weekend). Fill up on V-Power only. In total I am spending about £100/month on petrol. I have had it for 18 months and it has been our (me, missus & 9-month old nipper) only car for this entire period. It has met all our requirements from a practical perspective and we've had zero mechanical problems with it at all. It has never failed to start first time - more reliable than any other marque I've ever had. Servicing is costing me about £600/year (and about another £500 for decent tyres). I do pretty well for insurance (32yrs old, 9yrs NCB) - just had a renewal quote from Sky for £450. So all in, I'm looking at: Insurance £450 Servicing £600 Tyres £500 Petrol £1200 Total for the year: £2,750. I park it on the street overnight including a couple of times when we've been away for an entire week and in an open car park during the day at work and haven't had any issues with unwanted attention. Our road is not a main road, but a through-fare for schoolkids during the day and the Friday-night p*ssheads' 3am staggers back from town, which has resulted in several smashed mirrors and windows and keyings, but never for the Supra. Maybe it garners a little more respect than the BMW's and Audis? PS. Shame you're so far away - mine may be up for sale imminently, and might even squeeze into your budget!

Ha! I declare shenanigans. You may have deceieved this gullible lot, but I for one won't believe you were really a Supra test driver until I've seen a Hovis shot.

The "Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly" is my most played at present. Went to see "Idlewild" at the Hammersmit Pally (just before they knock it down ) last night, touring for their new album. Good stuff!

We have our own SMS gateway here, so I've never really had the chance to look into it. The only other independent development we've done used Kapow for SMS, but I think you'll find it is in about the same price range/msg.

Sorry! I really do feel for the service boys stuck out there in the middle of all this. Especially if they were indeed taken at gunpoint. Must be scary. But this report isn't even subtle: Blah, blah, hostages, guns, evil arabs, blah, blah. Then BLAM:

....and so the mighty media machine begins fuelling the anti-Iranian hype in an attempt to obtain public backing for an invasion.

@Pot: None at all. As I mentioned before, anyone happy to go to a flatscreen will be seriously content with either LCD or Plasma, 1080i or 1080p in my opinion. The only thing I would point out is that many people who don't buy a flatscreen TV without having demoed it first are frequently disappointed with motion handling, particularly in sports, as the flatscreens are usually worse for that kind of display than the CRTs that they had before. @Jake: Yeah - I'm not SkyHD either (btw - SkyHD is only 1080i too) - seems way overpriced for what you get at the moment. I only really want an HDTV for my PC. And, yes, the PS3 should happily play all the porn that you've already downloaded More specific info about supported formats here. @Pot: Well, in theory, you could play any resolution movies through your PC. However, depending on your graphics card and TV, you may not be able to actually get the display you're hoping for. You can get into all sorts of problems with 1:1 pixel mapping and resolution mismatches. Ideally you want a graphics card that you can set precisely to the native resolution of the TV you're trying to pair with. Also, of course - you still can't play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD discs through your PC unless you've got the corresponding drive (you could download the movies, but them HD films are going to be seriously mahoosive).

I agree that the technology arguments (plasma lifespan vs LCD response times, plasma noise vs LCD viewing angles, etc. etc.) have become pretty much a non-issue with the latest of both technologies. And to be honest, even at 42", you'll be more than chuffed with a decent TV, either LCD or a plasma. My personal opinion is that Plasma suits real-life films and TV better (probably especially non-HD TV broadcasts), whereas LCD is better for games consoles and PCs (which is why I'm going LCD). But to be honest, as I said - either technology will satisfy, I'm sure. Thoroughly recommend getting a good demo somewhere if possible. Find a proper AV shop (not a Comet/Curry) and get them to demo a plasma vs an LCD for different input types for you.

This Panny is a Plasma rather than an LCD (like the Samsung you were looking at). Different beast, really - depends which you prefer.

I suggest you save up for a deposit on a flat/house instead - but then I'm old, I guess!

The reason that the big tax hike only affects post-2006 cars is because of the comparatively few number of people who currently own them. If Brown had put a big tax hike on older cars, he would have been committing political suicide.

Errr - isn't that the whole point? That's why the budget has to be balanced. The only difference from term to term, budget to budget is who the current government decide to target. If you want across the board tax cuts, you'd have to expect across the board spending cuts to match. So you'd need the NHS abolished or all public transport privatised or something if you truly want tax cuts.

Beef tax!!!

Well, the simple answer is YES. However, it does really depend on the TV. A 1080i image will show more resolution, therefore better detail, overall than a 720p image. How well that extra information is displayed depends on how well the TV does the interlacing. The difference is more noticable in images with lots of small, fast moving parts - sports is usually the best example, where a "p" (progressive scan) motion image will look MUCH smoother than an "i" (interlaced) motion image.

Okay - the cheaper TV is 768 line resolution, and DOES support 1080i. The difference between 1080i and 720p is the mechanism of display. 720p means the whole image is displayed at once. It has 720 lines of resolution, which fits easily into the 768 pixels on the TV. 1080i means the source (an HD-DVD, Blu-Ray or whatever) is acutally stored on the disc in 1080-line resolution. To display it via 1080i (because 1080 lines of data won't fit into the TV's 768 lines), the TV "interlaces" the image (a basic description: it doesn't actually display ALL the image at once. It displays half the image - every other line - and then switches back and forth between alternate lines very quickly to give the illusion of higher resolution). The same image displayed via 1080p would display the whole image at once. If I wasn't running the PC, I would be happy with a 1080i screen for now (small text, where individual pixels really matter, like on Windows, displays REALLY badly when interlaced). By the time the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD debate has resolved and the next generation of truely-1080p-supporting consoles are out, 1080p TV's will probably be dirt cheap anway as I'm sure some new (SED?) technology will be out by then! And the reason I would lean towards HD-DVD rather than Blu-Ray (although I wouldn't worry too much, as I'm sure dual-format players will be affordable within 18 months anyhow) is because of PORN!..... .....although probably not in the way you think The porn industry was largely the driver behind the success of VHS over the (arguably superior) Betamax format. Because the porn industry really led the technology surge in terms of film sales, they had a lot of clout in terms of format popularity, and cheaper unit manufacturing costs and more open standards (VHS) beat higher quality and proprietary technology (Betamax) in the porn market! The same features can be applied to the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray battle. Although, as I mentioned, I wouldn't worry too much - the formats are pretty similar, so dual-format players will be much easier to make (I don't think anyone even tried a VHS/Betamax dual player).