As far as I'm concerned, as soon as the tens digit in the year changes, it becomes a new decade. I don't give a leaping G-d damn about the Year One/Year Zero people.

Happy New DECADE, El Reg!

Carole Pope of Rough Trade should have something to say about that.

...not to mention Sinead O'Connor.

Where's St. Patrick when you need him?

It's a Good Thing (tm) that I live in New England. let's see one of those slithery tropical beasties last through a good New England winter.

Point and laugh, boys. Point and laugh.

Combining matter and antimatter... I don't see what the big deal is. Right now I'm combining pasta and antipasto in my stomach and I haven't blown up yet.

As Magnus Pyke would probably say, "SCIENCE!"

It's like a modern day C64 (Speccy, Amiga 500, Atari, *your favoured retro computing platform here*). It's cute, but I'll have to see how much it is before I think about giving up my hard-earned dosh for it.

Wasn't that the Plymouth equivalent to the Dodge Aspen back in the 1970s?

Hey, now! Whoa! Let's step back from this for a moment. I'm looking over the comments here, and I can't believe what I'm reading. You mean to tell me that this Trabant-based automobile looks _UGLIER_ than some of the other "futuristic," day-glo bubble-cars that many other automobile manufacturers have been saying are the Next Big Electric Thing?

Just compare some of the other electric car designs that have graced the pages of The Register's 'Leccy Tech, and you'll find the Trabant design isn't that bad at all. At least you can fit more than just the lead to charge it in the boot space. I'd like to see one of those when it's made (but living in the US, I have every doubt in the world it would even be seen on this side of the pond).

I'll stick with Google, thanks. Whenever I hear Bing, I think "cherries" or "Crosby," not "search engine."

Paris, because when it comes to cherries... oh snap, I went there!

I've used Opera for years (even paid for a license key back in the day). I found it worked best for me. And that's what a browser should be, a personal choice. You like IE? Use it! You like Firefox? Use it! You like Safari? Use it! You like Mosaic? Use it (if you can)! Just don't have the audacity to point at me and say my browser choice is wrong, because I'll tell you to piss off.

That being said, that blogger needs the WAAAAAMBULANCE desperately.

Paris... because even SHE doesn't want to be limited in her choices.

"Chavs & Scallys"... Why does that sound like a department store chain?

I got this great Burberry strap for my Rulex watch at Chavs & Scallys. It was a steal!

Not bad, really, but it looks nothing like a warthog. I'll wait and see what their Rocksteady concept looks like before I have a final opinion.

Mine's the one with the tortoise shell buttons.

NICE Move reference! Full marks for that one.

Turn on the computer and it's ready to go... "instant-on" computing without boot-ups or hard disks... Wasn't this the norm years ago? I mean, my C64 did that.

Paris... beause everything old is new again.

I'll bet the petrol generator will be driven by a 5.3 liter double overhead cam V-12... just because they can.

Paris... because Jags aren't the only ones that are fast.

AAAAA-GAAAAA-DOO DOO DOO! Push pineapple, shake the tree...

Geez, you people at The Reg are slipping. This was a perfect story to break out that old Black Lace song.

Paris... because she'd look pretty darn hot in black lace.

(What's a nice pineapple like you doing in a place like this?)

As a septic (I know how much you love us 'Merkins), it does my heart good to see such righteous indignation over specialty small car prices. The same shock and horror you feel for paying £15000 for a G-Wizz electric is pretty much the same as the shock and horror Americans feel paying $15000 for a Smart ForTwo. And don't convert the Dollars to Pounds. The Dollar isn't twice as easy to get in the US as the Pound is to Britain, nor do Americans make twice as much as UK citizens. Getting/making 15000 in either denomination is just as difficult no matter which side of the pond you're on. Just my 2¢ (or 1p).

I think I have some cells on me that aren't doing anything special right now. Put me down for a kidney and a pancreas, please... hold the liver.

Paris...because even she'd want some replaceable parts.

No love for Tommy Flowers, then? ...just kidding.

I'm always amused that our friends across the pond call vacuum tubes "valves." It's an apt description for what they do, sure, but it sounds very steampunk-y to my ears.

"I bought an old valve radio at the boot sale!"

"Well, fire up the boiler and tune in Radio 2, then."

As an Anglophile American who has yet to visit the UK (I will someday, I vow), Bletchley Park is high on my list of "Places to Visit Before I Die," if only for its historical importance.

"Ford is heading in the direction America and our customers want us to go..."

Oh, NOW they're heading in that direction. It bloody well took them long enough.

I think Ford took a bit of a PR hit when, in the middle of ever-increasing fuel prices, word got out that they had a 65 mpg Fiesta in Europe that would never be brought into the US. They claimed the engines would be too expensive to build here and gave various other excuses. Mm-hmm...

Keep building those F-350s, Explorers and Excursions, Ford, you're right in tune with what the American people want. Goodness knows we don't want an inexpensive econo-box, or a car that gets over 25 mpg city driving. Oh! And make sure the cars you do build are all boring and feature the same cookie-cutter styling. You don't want to disappoint your American customers for yet another model year. [/sarcasm]

A long-range compact or sub-compact EV is a bit more tricky to produce than a mid-sized vehicle, mainly because of the batteries. You have more room in a mid-size vehicle to store all the batteries needed than you do in a sub-compact design. Well... you could have as many batteries, but you wouldn't have any usable boot/trunk space... and possibly no back seat... and maybe no passenger seat.

That being said, I, too, am waiting for a compact or sub-compact EV that has a decent range and able to do (US) highway speed without breaking into a sweat. I'll even go for an extended range vehicle (you know, the ones with the petrol-powered electric generator). I'm willing to give auto makers some slack on this. They've only seriously started to produce electric vehicles in the past couple of years, and they're still trying to get the technology right. (Yes, I know of the EV1, thank you.)

...because I like it. Granted, if that rear quarter above the wheel was filled in, it would look much better. Still, compared with some of the other quasi-futuristic, bulbous affronts to good taste usually seen in the 'Leccy Tech section, this one, actually, is pretty nice.

In 1904, with lead-acid batteries, a relatively unsophisticated motor, and a chain-driven transmission, the Columbia Automobile Company had an electric car on the market that had a 40-mile range before needing to be charged.

100+ years later, with advances in battery technologies, electric motors, drivetrains, and automotive design, there are new electric cars coming out on the market... that have a 40-mile range before needing to be charged.

Why does this strike me as immensely funny (and not in a good way)?

Great... All we need now is some yobbo to hack the sound generator so he can pump his iTunes Drum'n'Bass playlist through the engine at "V8 roar" levels.

"It may stop, but it never ends." - Matt Howarth

No truer words have ever been spoken, especially when it comes to spam. I hope I'm proven wrong, but this is probably just the calm before another (more massive) storm.

Debian has been my distro of choice since Etch went stable. I was a solid Mandrake user from 6.0 until 10.1 (after which their quality had tanked so hard I couldn't stand it anymore). Some other distros were OK (Sabayon, SuSE before they joined forces with Satan, Xandros, SimplyMEPIS was a strong contender), while others made my teeth itch ([K]Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware). Then I thought if the one I liked (Mepis) and the one that's most popular (Ubuntu) were both Debian derivatives, why not try the original? Etch had just gone stable a few days prior to me installing it, and I liked the system that it set up. I've been using it ever since. Sure, there are one or two odd things that I have to work around (mostly in the scanner department), but I'm happy with my choice.

Best of luck to Mr. McIntyre and all the Debian developers/volunteers. I hope Lenny improves on a great distro.

/Tux, obviously.

While I applaud car makers bringing more electric vehicles on the road, why oh why are they focusing on these ghastly vans, SUVs and sports cars? Soccer moms and guys with small willies aren't the only people in the market for an electric vehicle. When I saw "Jeep" in the headline, I was hoping for something along the lines of the 2-door Wrangler. You know... something small-ish. Even the Chevy Volt is a big 4-door sedan. Let's see some smaller electric cars go into development.

And, as for the 40-mile range, in 1904, electric cars with more primitive batteries had a 40-mile range. After 104 years and improvements in battery technologies you'd think they'd be able to go a little further than that by now.

Fire, because even steam cars would be an improvement over petrol.

When I saw "Merc" in the headline, I automatically thought "Mercury," then "Ooo! Are they bringing back the Comet as an electric car?" Imagine my disappointment.

It's something Chrysler likes to call "cab-forward design" (http://www.allpar.com/corporate/cab-forward.html), but it's taken to the extreme with this car (the bottom corner of the windscreen is over the center of the front wheel, for crying out loud).

I agree with the others here who think the design is a bit too radical for a production car (which is a nice way of saying it's butt-ugly).

My guess is that these all-electric cars are large because of the space needed to store all the batteries and still give you a usable boot/trunk.

I would really, really like to get the Volt, but the problem is I don't have a garage and park on the street. Getting the power to plug in the car means running a heavy-duty extension cord from the outside power tap to the car.

The plus side is, my daily commute to work is about 8 minutes... which means I can run on battery power there and back again for a few days between plug-ins.

If I start saving for it right now, I can probably put a down payment on it when it becomes available.

Will Martin Landau be the commander of the moonbase?

Mine's the one with the Eagle insignia on it.

/13 September 1999 -- Never Forget!

Please, for the love of All Things Good In The World, isn't there a way we can get this twat out of office early? Send him on an extended cruise to Nowhere? Lock him in the bog until January? Give him a "Time Out" in the corner for the next few months? The man has been a source of hideous embarrassment and outrage to Americans since 2000, and I'm tired of it.

Can't we just tell him to please go away?

/Sad face, because I am.

So much for my favourite answer: "Miss Scarlet did it in the Conservatory with Colonel Mustard!"

That being said, it matters not a bit to me. I still have my original Clue game from when I was a teen (PRE-HASBRO) that has the Revolver, Lead Pipe and all. For all its simplicity, that game was loads of fun.

Religion does have its place in today's world as part of the _spiritual_ side of humanity. Meditating upon the tenents of your chosen religion, finding wisdom while coping with day-to-day life, finding the strength of will to get you through adversity, and gaining inner peace in today's modern society are all well and good, and perfectly suited for religion.

But, if you need to learn about the workings of everyday life. the "why"s and "how"s, the real, deep-down system of this thing called Life, then you need to learn about Sciences, History, and analytical thinking. Believe me, reality is complex enough without introducing Supernatural red herrings into the mix.

If more prople understood this, we'd ALL be better off.

The heart, because Science without heart is just as bad as Religion without brains.

As a New England Yankee that has the first two seasons of Look Around You on DVD (yes, I imported the Region 2 DVDs from BBC Video... I love my region-free DVD player), let me say that I found the first season to be the some of the funniest television I had seen in ages. The dry-as-toast delivery and the absurd takes on the subject matter were absolutely fecking brilliant.

Sadly, my biggest fear is that the American producers of the show will be convinced that the average American will be totally unable to "get" the jokes and dumb them down, or worse, include a LAUGH TRACK (*cringe*), obliterating any semblance of fine humour... making it "yet another British television import that mysteriously flopped once it got to American telelvision, why-can't-we-get-another-Monty-Python-damnit."

No, I don't hold much for American television, and if you lived here, you'd understand why. Please, God, don't let them make a mockery of "Look Around You."

I wonder if Microsoft will put "Vista-Capable" stickers on them.

Mine's the green and white one.

I believe I know what you're getting at...

Microsoft "does" software like Debbie "Does" Dallas

Tux... because it rhymes with "does."

I can only imagine how part of the conversation went...

"What's the password?...And if you say swordfish, I'LL LOSE IT!!"

Cause of death? Google for images of "Pali Lookout." He essentially jumped off a cliff. The cause of death was most likely shock and trauma from sudden deceleration.

...most likely.

...unless they really *did* get him.

Hmmm... I may have to try this from my home machine. I don't have any ad blocking software installed, but I *DO* have a Hosts file with just about every ad server under the sun pointed to 127.0.0.1.

Let's hear it for old-school ad blocking.

Tux, because my Hosts file in Debian is easily accessible.

Why all the hating against Spam (the meaty snack)? Fry up a couple of slices to have with your egg and toast for breakfast and it's quite tasty.

Meanwhile, DEEP frying the spammers (junk emailers) is being too good to them.

Cream isn't the only substance that rises to the top. I felt it's my doody... err... duty to let you know.

Now if there were only some way to get the Quadraphonic mixes of classic albums on 5.1 (4.1?) surround discs, that would be pretty nifty. Of course, they'd probably have to be remastered a bit more attentively than the original releases to get the separation just right.

I, for one, welcome our new minotaur overlords!

What a croc.

(I'm surprised no one else had said it.)

From TFA: "Muniz doesn't intend to release his software."

Yup. He only intends to show that it can be done, and leave the door open for some other unscrupulous hacker to reinvent his wheel and start infesting routers with rootkits.

BRILLIANT!

Time to invest a little time with DD-WRT.

@Chris C: "Why is it that when there's any article about hard drives, you have a load of people bashing the manufacturer or the drive... And why is it only hard drives that you guys do this for?"

Apparently, you haven't seen some of the Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux "discussions" around here. This HD bashing is baby tame by comparison.

@everyone else: And, OK, fine, I got my facts about the "DeathStar" crossed. Mea culpa. My only real complaint about all the TravelStar drives I have (2 6GB and 2 20GB) is that they're all fairly loud; even when they're idling. I stay away from them when I'm searching for replacement drives for that reason. If they've quieted them down (like the Samsung and *shudder* Seagate laptop drives I have... and I have my own misgivings about Seagate in general, but that's not important now), will someone please tell me? I'll be willing to give them a sporting chance.