continued storm in a D-cup

More jerking knees:

• Hit medical drama ER has dropped a scene showing the breast of an elderly woman following the furore over Janet Jackson's Super Bowl performance.
• AOL is seeking a refund for its sponsorship of the Super Bowl halftime show and for the money it paid to show the event online.
• "Although it is very difficult to compare searches for the two events, it looks like the Super Bowl halftime show was the equal of September 11 when it comes to Internet attention,"

no, we don't do that

(No, we don't want to have wide characters in MO files. They would make the file unnecessarily large, and the wchar_t type being platform dependent, MO files would be platform dependent as well.)

This particular issue has been strongly debated in the GNU gettext development forum, and it is expectable that MO file format will evolve or change over time. It is even possible that many formats may later be supported concurrently. But surely, we have to start somewhere, and the MO file format described here is a good start. Nothing is cast in concrete, and the format may later evolve fairly easily, so we should feel comfortable with the current approach.

In other words, in the current incarnation of the gettext program, you can't translate anything that requires wide characters. Well done, guys. You losers. And thanks for the little bit of philosophy about file formats in the MANUAL.

reproduced without permission or comment from today's Irish Times

FOOD QUALITY AT MCDONALD'S

Madam, - Further to your Editorial "We are what we eat" (February 3rd), we at McDonald's Restaurants of Ireland are very unhappy at your reference to "bad food" - as your implication was that our food is "bad".

Nutritionists agree that no food should be regarded as healthy or unhealthy; it is a matter of variation, moderation, balance and physical activity. Our products consist of high quality ingredients that can make up part of a healthy, well-balanced, varied diet. McDonald's menu is made up of poultry, fish, bread, vegetables, dairy products and 100 per cent Irish beef - food from the four basic food groups containing many essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.

In 1986, McDonald's became the first Irish quick service restaurant to provide consumers with complete information of all our products. This information was independently checked and approved by a dietician from the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute and is available in our restaurants and on our website - www.mcdonalds.ie. Recently McDonald's has responded to customers' needs by introducing the "Changing Tastes" menu which currently features a salad and a grilled chicken sandwich. Further additions to this menu are planned.

Last year, a nutritious Danone Gervais yoghurt drink was added to the "Happy Meal" and a "Happy Meal Choice", giving parents the option of milk, water or orange juice as an alternative to a carbonated soft drink, is currently on trial in a number of restaurants.

McDonald's has always advocated the benefits of a balanced diet and all we ask in return is for a balanced and accurate reporting vis-à-vis our food quality. - Yours, etc.,

WILL COOKE,
Director of Operations,
McDonald's Restaurants of Ireland,
Clonskeagh,
Dublin 14.

we're goin' metric

Now you'll be able to find crossroad signposts telling you the nearest town is 1.6km in both directions, since we're ditching all of those "Inch 1 mile" signs.