Not generally. If anything the reverse is usually true i.e. honorary degrees are given to people who have made large donations to the University or paid for buildings/labs/research centres. Honorary degrees are just that, honorary.


I can't imagine either. Generally honorary degrees are presented as part of the 'normal' degree awarding ceremonies, so they don't have any inherent cost of themselves. They're just one more degree given as part of the ceremony. You get to wear a lavish robe but the University would be stupid to give those away as part of the deal - it's not as if the occupant will use them again. I can only imagine they're throwing some utterly ludicrous shindigs in the background with stupidly expensive champagne and what have you.

Either way, that's way too much, but kind of indicative of the way the Irish establishment had been behaving for last few years or so.

Jon

Yes that is probably the real reason for the cost. There might be extra costs like flying the buggers in, and accommodating them in some hotel overnight. Though publicity might take a huge slice. How much does it cost to give someone a piece of paper actually? Not that much I suspect.

Apple Surpasses $300 Billion in Market Capitalisation
That's 300,000,000,000 … count those 0s!
(8+0

Mark

Central Heating's stopped working. Great.

What seems to be the trouble?

I suspect the boiler has given up the ghost. At the moment the pilot light simply isn't sparking up. Worked earlier today (lunchtime) but thought that the sound from the vent (not sure of correct terminology) was sounding slightly different and making a more 'whistling' sound than usual. I know the boiler is over 10 years old.

Trouble? I don't think there's any trouble. Paul's central heating has stopped working, and I think he's actually quite pleased about the fact, hence the use of the word "great" at the end of his post.

Have I misunderstood? Again.

Edit to add: Having read Paul's post, it would appear that his boiler was haunted, and now it's not.

Edit again: Having re-read my post, I seem to be coming across as fairly heartless... Sorry Paul, I hope it's nothing too serious.

My boiler broke down early Christmas day. It was the thermocouple. Only cost me £2.44 for a new one, but the timing was rotten.

My boiler is nearly as old as me. It was born in 1972

Have you tried taking it to bits and vacuum cleaning the inside? It could just be a bit of crap stuck somewhere. You don't need a certificate to use a Hoover.

Will have a look tomorrow morning and see what I can shake loose!

Adding RAM to my Minecraft adder, just a simple RS NOR latch with two AND gates per bit controlling reads and writes at some point i need to sort out which of my two inputs to use as the RAM input and which to use for new inputs. and its only one bank for now, so i can input two numbers, save the output, and add that to something else then i can add that to something else too, but obviously that will overwrite the first number

*EDIT* and of course because of the way Minecrafts logic works, id have to use the NOT of the current input the reset the RS NOR if it changes from a 1 to a 0, because of the way the RS NOR circuit works (a 0 input wont change it, because that is the default state, setting it to 0 is basically clearing it, which i cant do per-bit yet)

Stupid American billion...UK billions look better:
300,000,000,000,000

France.

TheFrenchUn finished Season 5 today.


At this point in time, still in France.

And why not?! A fine choice. I'm considering it myself shortly.

Edd!
Happy New Year.
I haven't yet seen season 5 of House I don't think. Your lady friend tweeted for the first time in I don't know how long just a little earlier.
Pass on my new year wishes to her, if you'd be so kind?
Hope you're having a good time of it, mate.

Mark

Sorry, I was confusing earlier. Back in the UK now. But I was in France when Mark said that.