Newton has gone unopposed for too damn long.

Actually Einstein already disproved Newton's theory of gravity...

"Zira, the woman scientist."

Very nice work, but I've got to prefer the clean(er) lines of the original. The caterpillar trax would make a good addition to a Special Weapons Dalek.

I suddenly feel as though my life is missing feestvlaggetjes.

Funny that the top 10 artists are mainly 60s/70s supergroups, with a nice selection from the UK. Pity none of our homegrown talent seems to be doing so well nowadays. Is Radiohead the only British band to have made it big overseas recently, or is there anyone else?

(Crossing my fingers the name Coldplay doesn't come up.)

Must've been one of those mountin' bikes.

Conspiracy theory #4: this is all a clever hoax, invented by a rival company to discredit Best Buy.

To all the folks referring to Malik as a 'PM' in the United Kingdom, PM = Prime Minister = Gordon Brown. Malik is an MP = Member of Parliament.

In the UK we also have Chubb locks, which require bigger & bulkier keys. I'd like to see a version that tried to incorporate those too.

Just a couple of thoughts...

«Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.»
Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

I guess Kelvin never went outside much to look at birds, bees, etc?

«I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone.»
Charles Darwin, in the foreword to his book, The Origin of Species, 1869.

This is taken out of context a little bit. Of course Darwin saw those good reasons: he delayed publishing for 20 years because of them. There's a tension of rhetoric running through the whole work, in which Darwin writes already responding to the criticism he knows he'll get from those religious types.

@RyanH:

I don't see how you can tout those CBC articles as better reporting.

Airport security called the Mounties for assistance after an unidentified man began pounding on windows and throwing chairs and computer equipment in the customs area shortly after arriving on an international flight at 1:30 a.m

Shortly after arriving? He'd been there 10 hours already. As to the crucial facts, the reports differ, so it's difficult to judge which is more accurate. Even so it's hard to see how tasering is suitable in any but the most exceptional circumstances. The more widely these methods are used, the more frequent these stories are likely to become.

When I was in Africa, alone in this wooden hut in the middle of nowhere, I witnessed what seemed to be poltergeist activity.

While failing to get any meaningful sleep, I heard this extremely loud scraping, like a chest-of-drawers being dragged bodily across a wooden floor. This happened a few times, loud enough that I knew for sure it wasn't a dream.

The noise seemed to be coming from nearby a window, so naturally I tiptoed over to it and looked outside. It turns out there was a rhinoceros using the side of my hut as a rubbing-post. Kind of quashed any belief I had in ghosts, but made me more respectful of other people's idiotic beliefs. Best thing about it though was that the rhino had brought along its baby too.

So the moral is, baby rhino = cute. Save AFRICA!

The dumbest thing about the website is the length of time it takes to load. Most of these knife-crimes kiddos are impatient and have ADHD and 56k modems.

@Dean:

There's a great party game waiting to be made out of that portable whiteboard version. You caption each other's thoughts - the proviso being that the captionee isn't allowed to see what's written before it's rubbed off.

Cat: What are they doing?.

Lister: Well, just lining up in ... in some kind of firing squad. Woah Woah! Hang on, hang on. Someone's being brought out, they're tying him to a stake. It's Winnie the Pooh.

Cat: What?

Lister: Winnie the Pooh, I swear! He's refusing the blindfold.

Cat: They're tying Winnie the Pooh to a stake?

Bang!

Lister: That's something no one should ever have to see.

It hurts me to think that this is what has become of Winnie-the-Pooh in Disney's hands. I was alright with those movies, but this really cheapens the image of one of the best children's books ever written...

When I was young we had a mouse in our kitchen that kept on running across the top of our cooker. One day my mum saw it and - freaking out - squished it with a hot frying pan. Most horrible thing I ever saw... this charred and mangled mouse crawling around in circles. I had to carry it outside and stomp on it.

Oops, wrong thread...

It hurts my eyes to read the screen too much. Are there any plans in the future to release a book of the internet?

England gets scarier everyday. It's odd how they can so easily ignore the slow drip of fascism into their lives. o.O

What? It's not like all those CCTV cameras are actually functional. "80% of CCTV pictures are of such poor quality they are no good for police purposes, and most cameras are in the wrong places to help in fighting serious crime or terrorism, according to a joint Home Office and police report yesterday."

Damn... I read Chumbly there. As in the cute/annoying robots in the old-time Doctor Who story, Galaxy 4.

Even if it doesn't work against bacteria, you might avoid getting an infestation of pinworm in the intestine.

What exactly is the point in it when everything turns up on UKNova anyway?

Good thing I watch so much Yank TV. You get much higher scores if you use American names for everything. I had to call a 'dummy' a 'pacifier', and use 'soccer' when I meant 'football'.

That joke about Stevie Wonder wasn't funny in the slightest. The guy's an arsehole. He probably deserved it.

I live in the UK, in a small village outside Cambridge, and can say this report bears no resemblance to my experience. My local dental surgery is a place I actually like going to, as it employs charming and attractive female dentists, whose fingers I don't mind so much having in my mouth.

It's very efficient too. They sent me a postcard about a fortnight ago, reminding me that the time was approaching for my six-monthly checkup, and I got an appointment for less than three weeks from when I phoned.

And it's only five-minutes drive from my house, and there's and equally wonderful medical practice next-door... Where I live, at least, the NHS is wonderful.

On my childhood visit to the cockpit, the captain actually allowed me to fly the plane, kind of. He told me to adjust this dial for the autopilot thingy, which made the plane bank a bit.

If you've any doubts about Ginsberg, listen to him reading America here. One of the best poetry recordings I've ever heard.

No. 3 on the slideshow is actually Pikachu

Editing and expurgating books is done with the same motivation as burning them (to eliminate the expressions of unacceptable beliefs) and the outcome is even worse, because rather than no history (or no book), we a presented with a false history (or an altered book).

Actually, you get two versions of the book co-existing. Read the original post and you'll not that the 1963 edition is still available. History (rather than rewritten) is in a way enriched, as future historians can compare versions and see how values have changed since the 1960s.

Personally, I think it's fine to adapt material for the modern age, even where expurgation is involved. The book isn't being censored as such - just made saleable.

We're unique because of evolution and we are the dominant and superior species.

I thought Tardigrades were the dominant and superior species?

Nice to see the darker side of our cultural heritage being represented. I wonder how many people will be commemorated by both plaques? John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester surely deserves both a Black and a Blue one.

Run away!!!!

Let's hope the BBC get there hands on a few of these. Would be great for shooting wildlife documentaries. Sneaky, sneaky into the lion's den.

I respect the interviewer for asking: "Do you care about what you're saying?"

I dunno... Most Mac users I know are pretty keen to talk about not believing in God and how 'bad' religion is.

[I]If this is true, then let us hope that yet another great British invention is not lost to this Country and then exploited by foreign corporations and industry.[/I]

He's probably thinking about the jet engine, and (arguably) the computer. Not that I'm trying to defend a Mail reader...

Creepy. Reminds me of that bit in The Hobbit

Should link to a bigger photo:
http://texasento.net/Social_Spider.htm#Photo

Marzipan edible? Ugh... Foul tasting, but impressive work nevertheless. I do wonder why the scarves are perched on top of dog turds though.

I'd be more impressed if she painted like Rembrandt; or even did one of those horrible photo-realistic thingies. When I was 4 I put on a brilliant performance of John Cage's 4'33, but nobody was around to not hear it...

Tabloid headline dreamland.

Though, the British do have a fairly difference sense of humor than I do. I found it clever, that's all

Yep, likely to be funnier if you're a Brit. It quite closely parodies a real advert, and the policeman's helmet detail is (perhaps) a twisted reference to the Jeeves & Wooster stories by P.G. Wodehouse.

Their example is flawed. The 199$ item is 5.5% off while the 222$ item is only 5% off. You are getting a better deal on the 199$ item.

That's kind of true. A discount of $11 is the same no matter what the original price. But yeah, the reduction is bigger, and therefore probably a better deal.

NASA: Exploring the frontiers of space because poor people can't emigrate there...

There's an interesting government paper listing examples of how ASBOs have been abused here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhaff/80/80we20.htm

A mixture of the sad,

A 26-year-old homeless beggar from Birmingham was banned from begging in various car parks in Birmingham. He breached almost immediately and was, according to his solicitor, given 24 months custody. He was discharged earlier this year having served about eight months and was breached again for returning to begging and on this occasion got three years' jail. His solicitor, therefore, says he received a total of five years' imprisonment for an offence that itself is non imprisonable.

And the funny,

A 13-year-old was served an order banning him from using the word "grass" anywhere in England and Wales.

Ah, Garth Marenghi... Of course it also starred Richard Ayoade, a main character in both shows.

I'd like to see iTunes take a kicking. Apple consistently annoy me with their products. Why make it a requirement that I install their software if I want to buy music from them?

Hopefully Amazon can manage things better.

That said, they'll probably want me to install some piece of software called Amazune.