Yaxela

:D Come on, surely the first time you used a fliptop phone you shook it open a la Kirk?

OK; it's electric fields generated by electric devices. You know traditional TVs, right? They have Cathode Ray Tubes, which use electric fields to move a beam of electrons about the screen. Here, we use electric fields to move hot electrically charged gas, so we can form a hot screen of gassyness and hold it in place using electric fields. Touching it is an ouchie. :-)

Ringringringringringringring BANANAphone! Ringringringringringringring bananaphone! I get this feeling It's so appealing For us to get together and sing, sing! Operator, get me Bei-jing-jing-jing!

Congratulations you people! Wow.... WOW!

The Lash (see Winston Churchill for details)

We don't get Mr. Pibb here, but I think I'd still prefer Dr. Pepper. He's got his PhD, after all.

What about good old-fashioned root beer? Mmmmm.... root beer. Why are there no properly minty soft drinks? I think there should be a turquoise fizzy drink with peppermint and maybe caraway.

Ah, my grinder-obsessed friend, (would someone explain that to me?) not only can it be held between glass, but also can it be held between electric fields making it a proper forcefield. The only problem is that it's an effort to set up and takes a lot of energy. Oh, and there will need to some structure to generate the electric fields and ionise the gas... but it can be forcefieldy. Such is the joy of plasma.

That depends. Fanta is the very spirit of evil. Whereas Britvic is the finest thing known to mankind.

This is interesting... Fake Doctor Pepper Roundup

It is indeed made by Cadbury Schweppes, the chocolate-and-soft-drink equivalent of Microsoft. It's distributed by Pepsi in the USA and by Schweppes in the UK. Doctor Pepper. What's the WORST that could happen? Apart, of course, from choking on the bottle top and falling off a precipice onto the trigger for an intercontinental ballistic missile.

oooh! What's Sierra Mist? Sounds interesting.

Ah, now this is the bit that gets cool. There are such things as forcefields already in existence, in the form of the 'plasma window'. Because plasma (high energy ionised gas) carries a charge, it can be channeled into a thin plate of gas using electrical fields. This has been done to a limited extent and the plate of gas is called the 'plasma window'. It's VERY similar to forcefields and shields in ST... see the November 1, 1995 edition of the Journal of Applied Physics for more.

I love My Grandfather's Clock. I always thought it was limited to colliery bands, but I found out today it's treated as a bluegrass number on the American side of the pond... strangely addictive. My Grandfather's Clock

Rain

You're all very nice. I can't help but be terribly terribly afraid. Ha! Would anyone like any citrus-flavoured fudge?

'tis Hempy Cola. The Hempiest Cola in the Galaxy. Available in a green plastic bottle from the market in York.

Paris Hilton! How can you take someone named after a hotel seriously?! If she was called "Marriot Highcliff Asheville", or "The Holiday Inn, Third Exit Off the Roundabout Near Junction 12A of the M29", nobody would listen to her. But "Paris Hilton" is fine...

[Expected joke] Don't they make Ketracel White? [/Expected joke]

It's better than Premium Bonds.

Well, lookee here! Another purrer. I purr. Oh, yes, do I purr. I usually purr for limes or fudge, though. Oh, thanks for the lime, Kestra. Can you believe people regard me as odd for eating the jewel of the citrus world whole?

I feel compelled to agree with Fred, in as far as human spaceflight is concerned at least. The heyday of space exploration brought with it tremendous advances in, at the very least, materials science and rather less tangibly gave a generation an aspirational idea. The X-15 and SpaceShip One wouldn't exist without the Space Shuttle, but then arguably neither would the stealth projects or most of the recent developments in command and control systems; the manned space program is innately a good thing, and while the applications may not always be immediately obvious, with a little persistence we can benefit massively from it. Harry makes a good point in saying that we should clean up our own house and spend on domestic applications before space exploration. But then, if we didn't spend money on space exploration, would we really spend it on anything useful? The US Federal Government subsidises the tobacco industry while paying for anti-smoking campaigns. The European Union pays for the exorbitantly wasteful common agricultural policy. In the light of these things, the Space Shuttle is quite a reasonable expense. The terminal cost of the space shuttle program is estimated at US$174 billion. Compare this to the Eurofighter; Austria recently bought 18 Eurofighters (and who is Austria going to be at war with in the near future? The South Tyrolean Rebels?) at the equivalent of US$2.3 TRILLION. Ouch.

I guess Kirk's probably got my time-zone problem. I'm OK to do the normal times myself; but maybe some cadets could make some unofficial arrangements to practice amongst ourselves? Have someone experienced act as an extra GM on the understanding that they don't get the authority and general cool status of a 'proper' GM.

Oooh. I shall endeavour to be very nice to both of them :D . Is it my imagination or is this a slightly amazonian message board? At the very least it's more female than most.

"Last Tango in Paris"