I wonder if it would be possible to carefully hacksaw a slot for the handle and drop commuter mug into the lens and superglue in place?

We had to do this in Engineering design 101 when i was at Uni and it is a great game but also essential skill for any engineer or scientist. You need to know if your carefully calculated computed complicated formula answer is vaguely in the right order of magnitude, as 38 says.

The project we had to work on was to think of a machine to transplant a fullygrown oak tree. So how heavy, tall is the tree, what about the rootball and earth etc. How long does the crane jib need to be, what safe working load etc etc. Good practice.

More recently when teaching Renewable Energy to a class of final year honours civil engineering students, I had them do something similar to figure out how much steel and concrete you would need to replace all the UK's electricity production with wind turbines. They hated that because they were not used to assignments that did not have a precisely "right" answer. But real life is more like this than it is like an exam paper.

My kids (not at all techy) and I sometimes do this game on long journeys and set each other loopy things to approximate, such as how long is a "piece of string".

wrt 119: When you get into the realms of not jus the wrong religion but the wrong kind of one particular religion interwoven with your politics and you have only to look at Northern Ireland, Iraq and Beirut to see where that is heading..

My cousin in the USA tells me that where she lives you cannot get a public-funded job unless you are a christian and go to the 'right' church in her town. I find that really scary.

On a more positive note, there is a fair chance that the next UK prime minister could be an 'out' atheist. I wont say fingers crossed for luck, cos that would be superstitious and we rationalists dont do that do we!

This is unbelievably scary. I had no idea these people existed in such numbers who believed in such stuff as the following from the Assemblies USA website:
"We believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit as an enduement of the believer with power for service, the essential, biblical evidence of which is the speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance (Acts 1:4-5, 8, 2:4, 10:44-46, 11:14-16, 19:6).

We believe in the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of Christ in the Church today (1 Cor. 12:4-11, 28; Eph. 4:7-16).
We believe in holiness of life and conduct in obedience to the command of God (1 Pet. 1:14-16; Heb. 12:14; 1 Thess. 5:23; 1 John 2:6).

We believe that deliverance from sickness, by Divine Healing is provided for in the Atonement (Isa. 53:4-5, Matt. 8:16-17, James 5:13-16)."

I really thought beliefs like that was serious MINORITY nutjob stuff in tiny homechapels or something. How could you guys vote for someone who declares openly they believe in the USA equivalent of the old "divine right of kings" that was the belief here in the middle ages? I take it from the last part of the section I quote above that these people are essentially Christian Scientists and do not believe that a conventional medical system with doctors, medecines and hospitals is needed at all??

Interestingly the UK website is toned much differently. I guess we are somewhat protected from extreme religion here.

I can also reccommend the musical fence at
http://www.oddmusic.com/gallery/om13750.html

and there is loads of other great stuff at the same site, including many instruments that would really have to count as Steampunkish.

What could they possibly mean "Gone the way of the typewriter"? I bought a vintage one the other day from Ebay and was going to cannibalise it for parts for other steampunk projects but the family (14-59 year olds) are squabbling over who gets to use it and the thing has pride of place in our living room. In fact it sits where other folks might have a TV. We are a 4-computer/no TV/no car household.
There's more than one way to make good use of the wonderful world we inhabit and technology is not the baddy here.

OMG! They are actual children! The pictures are beautiful but SO SAD. I completely agree with MGFarelly above. How can all this be anything but a disaster for the national psyche.

Starman Jones was my NUMBER ONE favourite book when I was a kid. Obviously the idea of a youngster saving the day against the odds was always a good theme for a kids' story. The dystopian aspect was just a ruse to engineer our hero's achievements. My copy certainly didnt have such a garish cover. As I went on to become a navigator (of sea ships rather than space ships) you can see why this was an attractive story to me.

"This is my weapon, this is my gun,
This is for killing, this is for fun"

This is the doggerel used in the British army to teach new recruits not to refer to their personal weapon (normally a rifle) as a 'gun'. I would have to say that I dont think I have ever heard guys (even soldiers) refer to their penis as a gun, but thats the army for you!