McPhee

Read a few reviews, watched a few videos; I'm gonna pass. It just doesn't look or sound like it's any good. The ideas were there but the execution is just... off. I really hope The Witcher 2 is good. Between Brink and 'Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword' I'm feeling a tad disappointed with PC gaming right now.

I don't really 'get' the Google Music thing. I mean... why? No, I kinda get why, but isn't it... a bit crap compared to a proper all-you-can-eat subscription service? It's preferable to keeping everything on your hard drive; more secure and you'll have less data redundancy (identical copies of tracks between machines), but it just doesn't seem revolutionary to me. Then again, I've been using subscription services for all my music needs since the beginning of 2010. The idea of being tied down to 20,000 tracks instead of millions is a tad backwards. To someone who only uses their local library of tracks I guess Google Music (or the same service offered by Amazon, or by Carphone Warehouse) could be quite cool. £9/month for Zune, £9.99/month for Spotify or £???/month for Google Music (once it's out of private beta)? I know what I'd rather have.

Visually it's stunning, and the relationships between the characters are pretty well done, but overall I found it a bit 'Meh'. It's just not really my thing. I watch it because it's entertaining and visually stunning, it's never going to have me hooked like a lot of other American shows have in the past few years (BSG, 24, Supernatural, Band of Brothers. The Wire and The Sopranos are on my 'must-see' list). It's kinda like Desperate Housewives, only not quite so vomit-inducing.

They want to use a referendum to decide whether or not Scotland will be independent, so surely it's a moot point when it comes to choosing who to vote for? I'm not really sure how Scotland can be made independent though in all honesty. Natural resources, for example. How are the Scottish Parliament and Westminster going to agree on who owns what? Issues like that will have to be sorted out before it goes to referendum, otherwise there's no way Independence will happen. It's a pipe dream and an unrealistic threat.

That's a bit unfair on poor Ed :p

The Conservatives don't want AV because the party would be fucked under that system. How many Labour/Lib Dem/Green voters do you know who would put the Tories as their second choice? They'd lose in almost every marginal. We'd likely never see a Conservative majority government ever again! Kinda an unfair system in that regard really. Then again, if Scotland winds up Independent then FPTP will give us the opposite, constant Tory governments with a weak Labour opposition. We'd then either have to increase the number of constituencies in the North of England or move t a new voting system.

How many weeks do you think Nick Clegg will last as Lib Dem leader then? I'd wager the coalition will fall too not long after he departs. Not sure who would replace him though. I'd like to say Paddy Ashdown, but isn't that impossible with him being a Lord and all? I guess that leaves Chris Hulne and Danny Alexander. Oh joy... Also, congrats to the SNP! a fell fought campaign

I thought Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland used the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation? It's not the same as AV.

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

I'm not sure. The Witcher 2 is out a few days later and I'm saving for holiday. Looks great though. Hmmm...

I think it's fairly safe to assume he is. Altiar will be in Constantinople. Ezio will be in Istanbul. That's my bet anyhow. One city, two different centuries and all of the changes that go along with that. Should be really cool to see!

You're right. However, on Betfair the 'Lay' better stakes the 'Bet' better. Lay bets get great odds, but if it goes wrong then you have to pay in more. As an example, if you place a £10 Lay bet at 32-1 on 'Yes' being the outcome of today's vote and the result is 'No' then you win £320. If the result is 'Yes' then you have to pay in that figure, as the winnings of the 'Bet' better that you were matched to. In a nutshell, Lay betting is a massive gamble. You get the best chance of winning, but it comes at the risk of massive liability.

The Conservatives are 'No' because AV will result in them loosing seats. The Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and various other small parties are backing the 'Yes' campaign because they only stand to gain from AV. Labour are split because some of the Labour MPs know they'll lose their seats under AV. Overall the party stands to gain, it would weaken the Tory party (whom Labour would beat in almost all Labour/Tory marginals if AV is brought in) and they'd likely be the biggest single party for at least the next few elections. Unfortunately it seems education standards fell so much under Thatcher that the middle-aged population in this country can't understand what AV is. Honestly, so many of them think it a difficult system to understand. God help us if we ever adopt PR!

Low turnout at my polling station, we're talking dozens rather than hundreds of people this year. I abstained from voting in the local council elections, I've heard nothing of/from the candidates so it'd be unfair of me to vote on that.

I think I'll do the same. Those odds are ridiculous! Is anyone else THAT certain that 'No' will be the answer? EDIT: Even better, use the code 'bet789' and your first bet is insured up to £25. If the result is 'No' they credit your account with the value of your bet

The Lib Dem would have been eliminated third (most likely, though she might have been one of the final two if she picked up all of the votes from the already eliminated candidates, there wasn't much between her and the Labour bloke). At this point the 2nd choices of those Lib Dem voters would have been looked at to determine who won out of the Tory MP (who has held the seat for almost 25 years off of around 40% of the vote each time) and the Labour candidate. I suspect we'd have a new MP under AV, the chances of a significant number of Lib Dem voters even bothering to rank a Tory candidate are slim to none (which from what I gather is a major reason why Ed Miliband is in favour of AV, his party will gain seats from the Tories because most people who don't currently vote Tory would rank them behind Labour on their ballot sheet).

In all honesty, I think AV would have handed Labour the last election. There was a lot of people (myself included) who guiltily voted Lib Dem knowing fine well it would pave the way for the Tories to take the seat. Under AV I'd have put Labour as my second choice and my vote would have transferred to them. It's all speculation though. Only one thing is certain, if we get AV it will screw the Conservative Party over big-time. There ain't many people who will have the Tories down as a second or third choice, you either love them or you hate them. If they have under 50% of the first votes then more often than not they'll lose the seat.

If you voted for your Labour MP then how did you vote for the Lib Dems at a national level? Just curious.

It's not wasted, but there's a perception that it's wasted. If you live in a Labour/Tory marginal, support the Greens but really don't like the Tory MP there's a high chance of you voting Labour instead. You shouldn't, but it allegedly happens quite a lot. Under AV you could put the Greens as your first choice even if you think they've not got a cat in hell's chance of winning, and Labour as your second choice. Assuming FPTP is an accurate representation of people's views you would then find that the Greens come last and your vote gets added to the Labour pile. You both voted for the Greens and opposed the Tories. If FPTP is inaccurate (as the 'No' campaign seem to think, it's where the hung parliament argument comes from) then there's a chance that the seat would no longer be a Labour/Tory marginal. Maybe a lot of people put the Greens, Lib Dems, independent candidates or others down as their first choice? It could be that in that particular constituency the BNP received the least votes followed by Labour, because everyone had them as 2nd choice. Who knows who would win the seat then? The Greens might actually take it! Under FPTP voting for candidates that have little to no chance of winning is seen as wasting a vote, your vote is very unlikely to carry any weight when it comes to the final result. This view is the thing that makes it so difficult for small party and independent MPs to win seats. AV would hopefully remove that psychological barrier.

It amazes me how many people don't get the concept. In a nutshell, if you don't want the Tories to win a marginal seat ever again then vote 'Yes' If you want to vote Green, Lib Dem, UKIP etc. without fear of "wasting" your vote then vote 'Yes'. If you want to vote for who you believe in rather than feeling obliged to pick between the two most likely to win, then vote 'Yes'. If you'd like to see more parties and independent MPs, then again vote 'Yes'. The 'No' Campaign has been the most flaccid thing I have ever seen. It's all based on fear-mongering, personal attacks and praying off peoples stupidity/naivety/laziness. In truth the Tories are genuinely worried that it'll make it impossible for them to ever get a majority government again. It's really quite sad that they didn't feel they could fight a campaign off the back of that. The Labour MPs backing the 'No' campaign really wind me up. Again, it's purely about self-preservation. AV will make it easier to vote for minority parties. You can back it up with a #2 vote for your preference between the Labour and Tory candidate with no fear of a wasted vote. To combat this reality they're using scare tactics about coalition government becoming the norm, which is a step short of an admission that they believe a lot of people only vote Labour/Tory because FPTP encourages them to. Whatever happens, I look forward to seeing the result tomorrow.

Same here. Wages go in to one, savings in to another (and an ISA) and I use the third in stores and online (no overdraft and rarely more than £100 in that account). It would be handy if Sony were more open about the nature of the breach, the speculation must surely be more damaging to them than the truth?

I use the Antec fans at the moment. Had some Scythe S-Flex in my last build and they were definitely better than the Antec Tri-Cool. They're quieter, push more air and plug in to the motherboard (they can be set up to change speed based on temp).

Probably. I'm sure they're both capable of hitting Christmas 2012 too if they feel the need. All depends on how Nintendo play it.

I doubt you can have two resolutions. It'll be ATi Eyefinity/Nvidia 3D Vision Surround with two monitors of equal resolution acting like one large one. If it's two 1920x1080 monitors you get a 3840x1080 resolution. Set the splitscreen to vertical and each player will get 1920x1080, which should put them both on separate screens. If you want to use different resolution monitors you'd need to set them both to the same resolution. AFAIK running one application across two separate screens isn't possible, they have to act as one for it to work.

Split-Screen co-op on the PC; http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 If I've read that correctly you should also be able to play on separate monitors. Not got a copy to test this yet, but if that's true then it is absolutely EPIC! They should have included it from the start!