Mind you, I've been to the UK. The buildings are built for warmth, not for getting rid of it.

It's because we love complaining. We spend all winter complaining about the lack of sun, most of summer complaining about the rain and on the three sunny days we get every year we complain that it's too hot.

Well, we are heading for autumn. Tonight it is 11.6 C. That's 52.9 F.

Not exactly snow on the ground, we never get that, but cool. Besides, do you think it is OK to sell electric blankets that forget the time, forget the set temperature, as long as they are sold in Melbourne?

No I don't think it's ok, I was just a bit surprised to hear about electric blankets being used.  Still surprised, it's 12 C here in the daytime in summer. Guess it's largely relative though.

Have you heard of the Tactile Metronome?

http://www.wayneandlayne.com/projects/metronome/

I hadn't, no.  Interesting stuff, shame they're out of stock of the kits.

Melbourne? Electric blanket? Do you live in a fridge??

Following my guitar purchase earlier in this thread I've ordered some bits to make a metronome (555 timer, pot, speaker etc). First time I'll have done anything like this without an arduino in the middle.

What would be nice, though - is if you can somehow get your community to write and submit articles (good articles), and have them compiled into a downloadable PDF each month. I can envision a site where there's a forum, plus each member has a profile page where they can "blog" - then you have other members rate blogged articles monthly, and top 10 (or whatever) get a slot in the magazine at the end. There would still be a fair amount of design and layout work needed as the "deadline" rolled around, but most of it could probably be taken care of by the website design itself...

I think this is the most likely idea.  It's fairly straight forward to set up a decent blog site given the how good the various blog engines are, and it'd be cheap too. 
Get that going with a decent number of articles and good community support (thus making it clear which are the most popular articles) then launch the mag.  Change it so the front page of the site is all about the mag, have the blog as a secondary think (bit like the forum here).  With a bit of luck readership would be far in excess of active blog members but the blog would still be healthy.

You could start of with a newsletter rather than a magazine, highlighting the best of the blog, best external links and maybe letters to the editor.

http://www.inewidea.com/2011/05/11/38310.html
I see a lot of this kind of stuff although some of it has given me good ideas.

That reminded me that the company that made the Nabaztag went under. A quick google later and they're back! Now called the Karotz: http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/9003869/art/karotz/karotz-smart-rabbit.html?srcid=867&key=NRtxekdsPbDcLdsgDj8EViwbSXsMFtXqH+sbP1RlZEt8dEN1ObGLd4p3UmhVAnhIQXpYXg==

Of course Monster may disagree.

Is this going to turn in to a stupid legal action thread?
Murdock tries to sue Skype for use of his "Sky" logo

There isn't a double socket version and I haven't installed either of them yet.

Not entirely sure how to check the stability of the supply though?

Not arduino related, but I decided to take up the guitar so bought me Westfield E4000 (Les Paul style) and a very small amp.

I had a physics lesson today, and now I realise just how true all of this is. We were doing an invstigation about how the legnth of a sicamore seed wing affects the time it takes to fall. I had to describe to my teacher how the lift was created over the wing. Surely it should be the other way round - the teacher telling the student not the student telling the teacher?

Your teacher got you to do an experiment and describe the physics behind it?  Sound like he or she is doing a pretty good job.

If anything conductive gets in to your bag of batteries such as a scrap of metal then the risk is greatly increased.

Also, never carry a couple of AA cells in the same pocket as your keys. You might be sat in a restaurant having lunch when you're caused to leap up and yell out in pain because your leg is burning.

This idea has been stuck in my mind for some months: an Arduino magazine? Why not?
But... Why start a magazine while there are so many blogs, so many project sites and wikipedia who knows everything? It would be aimed towards beginners. Like, every issue, another part or shield is presented, and how to use it, ... You wouldn't only get a pile of electronics if you buy that certain piece after a while, but also the knowledge to use them. Of course that wouldn't be all, stuff like projects in detail (how exactly it's made, how it's works, ...), making a project with a walk through the steps of designing the code and hardware, explanations of, for example, the differences between some programming languages or a description of the differences of Creative Commons licenses, ...

So, in short, I'm looking for opinions and other ideas

It's crossed my mind before.  There's no need to keep it for beginners.  There is a lot of stuff online but it'd be really nice to have something pulling it all together.

You'd want to include news, reviews, letters, readers wives projects (you'd probably want some web space to host decent instructions for all projects included, this may be better than filling the mag with it), how-tos, theory, that kind of thing.

I'd pay for it if you publish it as an eBook through the kindle store.

Not sure if this is the right board for this, but I've just discovered maplin sell a 13a plug socket with a USB socket built in for £3.99:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/13a-wall-socket-with-built-in-usb-340875?C=34124&U=usbsocket1

I popped out at lunchtime and bought both the ones my local store had in stock.

I'm also had a google and they're way cheaper than anyone else (which is a bit of a novelty for Maplin).

Everything that Turbo C had in 1990.

Borland's Turbo IDE was the best I've ever used (though I did pascal rather than c).