Ollie

Sorry, but why would anyone invoke Fermat for that? It proves that the roots are irrational simply because it contradicts itself. You originally assumed that the root was rational, and so could be written in its lowest form as a/b where a and b are non-zero integers. Eventually you get the line 2 = (a^n)/(b^n) so (a^n) = 2(b^n). This is in contradiction to your original assumption that the root was presented in it's lowest form, so it can't be rational. Fermat has nothing to do with it (unless you're seriously over-thinking the problem). And it does have one use: I got an offer from a uni based on an interview where I had to prove that (2^0.5) was irrational, and I used that proof . Ollie

I've modded my webcam to pick up *only* near IR (fully-developed photographic film blocks visible light, but lets near-IR thorugh, just replace the IR-filter in your webcam with a couple of pieces of film and hey presto, IR-webcam). Only problem is it's not that good. I can find my bedroom window on a sunny day, and my bedsite lamp uses a very bright halogen bulb that gets very hot after a while, that shows up sometimes. Still, it killed an afternoon for about £5 But it's not just cheap webcams. There was a movie-camera a couple of years ago that (through some sleight of hand) allowed you to take pictures of people in IR, but with a little bit of visible light, producing "naked" pictures (most clothes transmit IR quite well). Unfortunatley, these "X-ray cameras" got taken off the shelves and fixed The T-ring is just a fancier version of YT's putty and glue. Ollie

Probably the most common (and cheapest, easiest, etc) is the Phillips ToUCam2 Pro (or some similar name). It's a webcam that a lot of amateur astronomers use. Just google for webcam astrophotography. The general idea is to get some adapter (T ring I think) and attach the webcam to the eyepiece, get everything focussed and all, and then you're off. You might also want to get a program such as Registax (it's free) for some useful image processing such as stacking. All in all, the cost should never be more than £100 (I believe that's around $100), with the webcam being the most expensive part. The pro webcam is £55 from Amazon, while the regular version is £20. I have no idea what the differences are.

Number one was the best, everything else was just rubbish. Ollie

The Sperm Song!!! It's a masterpiece.

You might want to change the title to Harry Potter Spoiler. I only came in here to see what on earth you were talking about Don't worry, I couldn't care less about Harry Potter, so you haven't spoiled anything for me, it's the 17 other views this thread's received so far Ollie

Apparently nothing cooks quite like them. I recall some very nice roasts, but some less than great jacket potatoes (probably the potatoes, the skins came up very hard). Also, you've got to be very careful with them. We moved into a house with one and it hadn't been cleaned in who-knows-how-long. My family started complaining of headaches, drowsiness, nausea, etc. They bought a CO testing patch which was designed to provide a long term alarm ("If after a few weeks this patch turns black, worry"), and it was black within 2 hours of it being opened. Ollie

Is a quarter of the way to Proxima Centauri not interstellar enough? Ophiolite, thank's for the clarification. Guess I should've picked up on the belt and cloud parts a little earlier Ollie

Aga's are a type (brand?) of range/stove/hob. I believe traditionally coal powered (our one was), but I've seen an oil-fired one (my grandparents). And Mmmmmmm, Nutella. Much better than standard chocolate spreads

"A Short History Of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson covers pretty much everything very nicely. A great read.

Wrong kind of singularity ssarda. Obnoxious: aren't they just infinitley small? Which would then be measured as Planck length because that's the smallest measurable. Ollie

Ydoaps, the Kuiper belt is kind of like a near-Oort cloud, while the Oort cloud itself stretches into interstellar space. This one's particularly interesting for a number of reasons: It's the nearest non-Pluto Kuiper object of appreciable size. At it's closest point to the sun it is only 35 AU away, compare to Pluto's average distance of 39. It has a moon. It has been observed many times, but no-one really noticed it until this time. I believe the first observations that matched it's predicted orbit to it's actualy one were done by amateur astronomers. Anything else, or anything I was wrong about, please say. Ollie

Star fruit?

Oo err, it conjured up a completely different image in my mind. From the list, could you clarify prep and punk please? (The only preps I can think of are nursery kids, and I've always had a problem with punk, waaay too many uses). Defining chavs is difficult. They tend to wear Reebok or various other brands of sports-bottoms (sweat-pants? I'm sorry, I couldnt translate here), although (fake) Burberry is also fairly common. The defining drink is probably White Lightning (or various other white ciders). The attitude is also essential. Crotch-grabbing, impregnating young girlfriends, and skipping school are popular pass-times. Music of choice would be 50 and the Crazy Frog (though I could be wrong on the 50 part, he's probably chav-parent material by now). As far as I'm aware, the wigger is probably the closest comparison that can be made, as honour doesnt seem to play as large a role in chav gangs as in gang-gangs.

Historically, the best use of that line is to get annoying philosophers to shut up.

gang bangers?

Actually, from "Braniac", driving wired/buzzing is worse than driving tired. I think it's got something to do with over-reacting to stimuli and putting yourself and others into further danger.

I've been saying "cheers" in place of "thanks" towards the end of a post/conversation for a long time now. I believe it comes from toasting somehow.

Sounds like Aphex Twin to me. Not particularly scary/freaky. Like d22k said, he just want's to party . I take it no-one else on these boards ever watches 120 Minutes?

"Pi is exactly 3"

They shouldn't do. Wireless protocols are designated unique bands in the em-spectrum to minimise interference. If mobiles did interfere with various wireless protocols then bluetooth phones wouldn't work and it would be nigh-on impossible to set up a wireless network in cities.

XGA and SXGA describe the maximum resolutions your monitor is capable of displaying. They're standards (like Firewire, Bluetooth, SCSI, whatever), which means that manufacturers can say "This screen conforms to SXGA standards", which translates to "This screen has a maximum resolution of 1280x1024, vs. 1024x768 for vanilla XGA. I think those are the resolutions anyway.

I have a feeling bluetooth devices have a high power consumption, so with a bluetooth mouse you'd probably end up spending a lot of money on batteries. Just use the money for a USB mouse instead and you could probably get a much more comfortable/button-covered mouse. I can't think of any other bluetooth devices many people use. You've already decided against the cell phone connection, so that's phone's out. Just remembered RE insurance, if you have household contents insurance then a laptop might be covered by that outside of the house (some schemes do, some don't). Probably worth checking.

That's not a bad processor. Pentium M's use a very different architecture to the desktop chips (I believe that over the next couple of generations Intel's going to put the netburst architecture and replace it with some version of Pentium M [i forget it's code name]). Anyhoo, a couple of months ago motherboard manufacturers started to put Pentium M slots into desktop motherboards. The benchmarks came in and were very surprising. Pentium M's, with their much lower clocks and power consumption, compare *very* well to desktop processors. In fact, desktop gaming systems are being built around them. So the low clock speed is absolutely nothing to worry about. RE the graphics, as long as the chipset is fairly recent there should be no problems there either. I can't see on the page who the manufacturer is, but mobile graphics have caught up with desktop graphics (even Intel's own chips), but I'd recommend the 64Mb version. Oh, and I'd lose the after-sales care package, they're a big waste of money. Just treat the laptop right and it'll be fine.