That’s right, after an extended break, The Facts has returned. Let’s take a rundown of some facts that may have missed your attention.

1) The Headline
That’s right, I decided to use Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” as a template for my headline for this article. I can think of no good reason for this, and several bad ones: it’s a terrible, terrible piece of music; now that I’ve thought of it, it’s stuck in my head on an endless cycle; oh god make it stop.

2) Apple Macs Now Have Intel CPUs
Like a tidal wave washing over a completely uninhabited and unknown island in the middle of the Pacific, Apple announced they were switching CPU vendors. Upon hearing this news, I immediately carried on as normal. Not true, I did pause to count the buttons on my mouse, because I enjoy the fact that I can control multiple fingers at once.

3) Nun Enters Arms Trade
“A group of Irish schoolgirls and a nun have set themselves up as an international arms company to highlight the absence of weapons brokerage laws in Ireland.”BBC News

I can’t help thinking that an easier way to highlight these laws would be to quite literally highlight them in a copy of the Irish Book of Laws and send it directly tothe President, with a note saying “these laws are somewhat insubstantial”. Perhaps I just lack motivation.

More disturbing right now is that fact that an Irish nun and a group of schoolgirls possess more destructive potential than I ever will. Even more disturbing than that is the thought that these schoolgirls could level my house with a few well-aimed RPGs from their stock cupboard.

4) Global Warming Is Bullshit
Source: Me. This Winter has been damn cold.

5) XBox 360 Released
I know this happened a while ago. I told you, I’m playing catchup. So, yeah. Woo. Let’s take a look at the must-have games for the XBox 360.

Well, now we’ve got that out the way, let’s look at the hardware itself. The new XBox 360 is indeed smaller then the original XBox, by a whole seven microns in width. The CPUs are dual core processors. Each core is made of neutronium, which goes some way towards explaining the weight of the system. Microsoft’s strategy of releasing the console early in order to get a lead on Sony’s Playstation 3 may well have backfired, since Microsoft decided the best time to release the 360 was when no one was screaming out for a hardware update.

This has been borne out by the fact that games on the XBox 360 look slightly better than games on the original XBox. I could buy a lot of pies for the price of an XBox 360. We’re talking serious pie volume.

Windows is an operating system specifically designed by Microsoft to make your system crash.

Since Windows 2000 and XP, however, Microsoft changed their strategy and instead focussed on trying to make your computer run as slowly as possible.

With Windows Vista on the horizon, let’s take a look at what we can look forward to:

Enhanced DRM: For those that don’t know, Digital Rights Management is an exciting new technology aimed at making it as difficult as possible for you to enjoy your music when and where you want it.

More Multimedia: That’s right! Each version of Windows has been more MULTIMEDIA CAPABLE that the last. Where Windows 95 could only play video and sound files quite well, 98 could play them harder and more often. Windows ME was so good at being multimedia capable, that it projected video files directly into your mind. Windows XP could bend reality so that your videos actually happened in real life in front of you. The threesome scene from Wild Things is the most often played piece of video on XP machines, for this reason.

Now Windows Vista is so amazingly powerful at playing multimedia, that it will simply fire a laser out of the computer screen and kill you instantly, because there’s no point seeing any of Vista’s multimedia capabilities, since the puny human brain cannot comprehend how good the playback is.

UI improvements: The Windows XP UI was a slightly improved version of the standard Windows 95 UI. However, for Windows Vista, Microsoft want to transform the UI so that the screen is filled with useful information. Want to order pizza from a folder’s right-click menu? No problem. Want to call in an airstrike on your neighbour using MSN Messenger? Just put in his e-mail address. Want to make your computer emit the sound of a dog whistle to attract all the dogs in the neighbourhood? Just choose “Dog Whistle Alert” from the “Help” drop-down menu on Paint.

Scheduling Assistance: Always forgetting your appointments at the local brothel? Don’t worry! Windows Vista will keep track of your entire life for you! When you click “I Agree” to the End User Licence Agreement, you will be agreeing for Windows Vista to absorb your soul. It will then assess your needs and make appointments as required. If it thinks that your teeth aren’t straight, it will ring the detist for you, and request an appointment using a synthesized voice based on Michael Ironside’s gutteral tones, mixed in with 200% reverb to scare the bejesus out of the receptionist.

Incidentally, if you say “Microsoft” three times while looking into a mirror, Bill Gates will appear behind you and offer you a Beta version of Windows Vista, before clubbing you about the head with it and stealing all your silver.

Invented in 1975, the world’s first mobile phone was a petrol-driven monstrosity that could convey a family of six a distance of approximately seven miles. It had eight wheels and was regularly used by the police during chases. In order to make mobile calls, it had to be parked nearby to a house with a phone. At this point, it was the duty of the tallest person present to knock on the door of the house and ask to use their phone.

Later versions of this phone ran on goodwill and happy thoughts. It could not function in Sheffield.

More functional versions of the mobile phone appeared in the late seventies. The best of these was the MessageMaster, which weighed over 400Kg. In order to offset the disappointing weight-to-functionality ratio, the phone was given extra functions; it could be deployed into the form of an Italian restaurant. This procedure required six men and took four hours, and was seen as something of an extravagance.

Another extra function of the phone was that it could be used as a raft. In raft mode, the phone was guaranteed to stay afloat for forty seconds.

By 1984, phones had become true handsets. The most popular of these was the Motorola TALKR. It had the marked disadvantage of requiring a forty-foot transmission mast to be plugged into it in order to transmit further than three metres.

Since then, phones got smaller and smaller until, in 1999, the Nokia 647510i, was roundly criticised for being the size of four atoms.

Today, phones fulfil a variety of functions, such as the Motorola ROKR, which can store more music than any one person can listen to in their entire lifetime.