It has been suggested that Congress issue Letters of Marque against hackers.

It's also possible that since Gollancz is doing this, that the eBooks will be available in the UK or EU only.

I can think of two positive points for the UK monarchy: - tourist attraction. - frees up the PM from lots of "ribbon cutting" type activities. I find the UK's lack of a written constitution with explicit bill of rights more of a concern. (Yes, they have the Magna Carta and a few other documents, but it's ad hoc and much seems to be subject to legislative change.)

I haven't been a regular comics reader or buyer since about 1968. Before that I was a heavy DC and Mad reader. That said, friends and my daughter have gotten me to read Sandman, Watchmen, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I started on Sin City when my brother worked on the movie. So recommendations from people with good taste are welcome! I found Global Frequency when I saw it at the game/comics store and the owner described it to me. It's a dirty, rotten shame the TV series didn't get picked up as is seemed that the creative team "got it". Sigh. And there is talk of a new Sin City movie starting production next year.

There are already two systems for playing boardgames on PCs, Cyberboard (Windows only, PBEM only) and Vassal (any machine with Java). Vassal is open source and can be programmed with game rules to enforce player action. Vassal games can be played live over the internet or via email. See www.vassalengine.org for details.

So, givne the events of the New Year, when you next talk to Patrick Stewart will you threaten to taunt him a second time? Does his father now smell of elderberries?

"Because nobody told me I couldn't." That's something that can be said about many great feats. Geek Story follows: In the late 70s I worked at a small software startup and the head programmer had been in the field since the 50s, including stints at IBM working on OS/360 and at EDS as a troubleshooter. He never went to college and was a self taught programmer. Normally, IBM wouldn't hire someone without a degree for a programming job, but they sought him out for OS/360. Why? Because while he was a computer operator at mid-sized company, he didn't like the operating system on the mainframe. So he rewrote it. Alone. In assembler. 100% compatible with the manufacturer's OS. He did it because nobody told him it was impossible for an autodidact to duplicate the work of 100s of programmers. The OS was distributed free by a user society and came to the attention of IBM. You might say he beat Linux to the punch by 35-40 years.