Posts by Nuke

Shy? Socially inadequate? Fiddling with your phone could help

Re: But in the end..

ShelLuser wrote :- " I think that if people really have this kind of problems with their social live they're better of relying on friends or family. If that isn't an option then professional help."

I think the point is that they don't have friends. A situation perhaps hard for you to imagine. As for family, they may not be sympathetic or located nearby. My experience of other people (whether friends or family) suspecting that you do not have a GF, or simply being shy, is to make it into a huge joke at your expense.

You have a better point about professional help, but it will cost some serious money over many sessions.

@Khaptain - Re: Sorry...

Wrote :- "in order to improve social skills there is only one true technique, you have to be SOCIAL .. hiding behind a Pseudo will not create anything"

That's silly. Like saying the only way to improve engineering skills is just do engineering. This is about TRAINING, as in studying engineering at college before actually building bridges and things.

Wrote :- "There is nothing more efficient than a good pub and a cold pint for helping break down "social / people related shyness".

Not sure if you mean get drunk before a date, or arrange the date in a pub. What you don't seem to understand is that for some people the problem is to get the date in the first place.

Wrote :- " it takes effort to be social and you will always have to supply that yourself"

Yes, and what is being proposed is part of that effort. What are you complaining about?

Thirty-five years ago today: Space Invaders conquer the Earth

@Ridley - Re: Dot Matrix

Dot matrix printer? Luxury!

Where I worked we played our games with a golf-ball printer (Startrek actually, on a PDP-11). After each move it hammered away for half a minute on green-ruled sprocket-hole line printer paper. We used it back and front, and then (as less than half the width was used) in the opposite direction.

Facebook's Sean Parker fined $2.5m for tasteless eco-trashing wedding

@Paul 185 - Re: why all the Sean Parker bashing?

Paul185 wrote :- "what has he actually done wrong here? .. What evidence is there here of actual environmental damage?"

You do ot need any such environmental evidence. The evidence is that he broke planning laws. The commentary about environmental damage is to show context.

Moreover, the "evnvironment is not just about endangered species and air quality as many seem to assume. It is about visual aspects too - I do not want to go to what should be a natural forest and see someone's wedding tat built there, or the scars of its presence even if removed.

Laws need to work this way otherwise enforcement would become impractical. There is no doubt he did environmental damage, but to prove it to the satisfaction of a court of law you would need hire a team of experts who would need to conduct extensive studies that could go on for years (such as whether the endangered trout were affected long term).

It is much more effective and efficient to have a law that simply says in effect "Just don't fucking mess with this place!" because it can easily been seen and proved if you have done so (eg building things) - you don't need a highly paid consultant to prove it.

It is good to see a guy's arse get a kicking over a planning matter. What usually happens (in the UK) is that the authorities roll over because the guy promises he won't do it again.

Longer, stronger love starts online, finds 19,000-marriage study

@Jake - Re: I've been using "the internet" (whatever that is) ...

Jake wrote - "nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, takes the place of real-life human-human contact when it comes to relationships"

This is an example of the silly ideas that people get about dating clubs and online dating. You do not seem to get it Jake, that an online dating club is only a way to facilitate the physical meeting that you are so keen about. People (with some nutty exceptions) do not generally meet and get married over the internet without ever meeting physically.

The online part is not only a way of getting to meet people physically, it can also be a filter such as to eliminate single mothers, horse riding fanatics, or born-again Christians (if those aren't your thing). Yes, people can lie or not reveal things on line (as they can in a bar), but is is better than nothing, and if the girl I meet starts telling me I need salvation from Hell, I can always make the date brief and leave it at that.

Personally, I only EVER met girls this way (but lots), so I do not even know what the supposed "real life" way of meeting is.

@AC 4th June, 07:03

Wrote :- "78% of them find out later that their partner lied on their profile page, 58% used someone else's photograph .... And so they have more divorces"

You seem to be referring to people who meet online (but TFA says they have *fewer* divorces).

It is no big deal if they use somone elses picture, because when you meet them in meatspace (meetspace?), which presumably you plan to do before you actually marry them, it is going to be obvious. If they are really that bad, you walk away. It only matters if you are going to waste months or years chatting on-line first, but I generally progressed to meetspace within 2 weeks of first contact, and always kept within a 30 mile range.

And their partner LIED on their profile??!! Well blow me down. I'm sure that no-one you meet in a club would EVER do that.

Real Life? WTF is that ?

"Those who separated from partners did so at a lower rate compared to those who meet in REAL LIFE [my capitals], at 5.96 per cent compared to 7.67 per cent for those who get together after a more traditional random meeting (... in bars or clubs [or] at a 'social gathering').

That "real life" attitude really gets me. So "real life" is supposed to be life in bars and 'social gatherings' - whatever they are. Personally, when single I was never once invited to any 'social gathering' apart from the occasional family funeral. Nothing stopping me going into bars of course, and have even been approached and propositioned by 'hostessess' in the more up-market ones, but I never identified anything that looked like "real life" in them, let alone any suitable dating partner.

Found all my GFs in dating clubs of one sort or another, and I do know they were real.

BT! dumps! Yahoo! after! 10! long! years! together!

BS :- "always looking for ways to improve"

"BT wouldn't give The Reg any reason for binning Yahoo!, other than to say that it was "always looking for ways to improve and develop products and services"."

They use that "reason" a lot in my experience. They wheel it out every time they raise their prices, although they then "compensate" by telling me something like they've reduced the cost of phoning Timbuktoo.

Paul Allen buys lovingly restored vintage V-2 Nazi ballistic missile

@ Allan George Dyer - Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...

Wrote :- "Might have been a V1 (doodlebug, flying bomb)" [rather than a V2]

Not sure, but you seem to be replying to my story of the damage at Nutwell Street. It has always been a V2 in the story as told in my family, and that it was the very last V2 to hit London, but you sent me checking. It was a V2 all right, 6th March 1945, but not quite the last (which was 27th March) :-

www.rpwbresidents.org.uk/area/local-history/35-rebuilding-raynes-park

http://hawkley.ctie.org.uk/History/civilian_air_raid_casualties.htm

@John Brown - Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...

Wrote :- "Some things need to be preserved to reinforce the education of those not old enough to have witnessed history."

I believe you are assuming that people will learn not to repeat such things. On the contrary, the first thing the USA did on learning about V2s was to hire von Braun to carry on designing and improving the things.

It is a fallacy (it needs a name) to assume that everyone else reacts to things as you do yourself. People are always keen to "show the facts" to others, in the belief that those others will be persuaded to adopt the same opinions as themselves. Not so. It can have entirely the opposite effect. I have known people, who, on seeing the usual pictures of starving Africans, have reacted not (as intended) by wanting to send them food, but by suggesting they be sent something to put them out of their misery.

Re: A question for rocket scientists on El Reg...

Wrote : "Was it Tony Robinson who .... argued that the V2 penetrated a long way into the ground before the fuse had time to fire. So there was very little damage to nearby buildings"

Tony Robinson talks bollocks - he should have remained a comedian.

To see a good illustration of the effect of a V2, look on Google Street View at Nutwell Street, London SW17. You will see Victorian Terraces both sides in the northern half, but 1960's houses and a block of flats in the southern half. The newer buildings show the damage extent. It extends across the south end junction with Melison Road and continues 30 yards up Himley Road nearly opposite. So about 140 yds of destruction.

My grandfather's house was there, and an uncle of mine was killed in that blast. Really bad luck as there are square miles of similar housing that were untouched around there.

Curse you, old person, for inventing computers!

@Dogged - Re: Only one of many misconceptions

Dogged wrote :- "My tax is not paid into a deposit account for me to somehow claim when it's my turn. It pays baby boomers so that they can afford to go on holidays and drive cars that I couldn't even afford to insure. You don't get it back."

Of course it does not sit in some vault until you are old. The system is meant to be a rolling one whereby, yes, you are currently paying pensioners, but in due course when you get old yourself, the younger people then will be paying your pension in turn.

Sounds fair to me. Unless politicians interfere with it. My suspicion however is that these things will be kicked away just when I should be reaping what I have sown in the taxes I hav e paid.

As for "getting benefits regardless of your income", that is not true. Membership of many private pension schemes involved "opting out" of the larger part of the State Pension. And those cars you "cannot afford to insure" may have been bought from savings. I am not sure that the younger generation have heard of "savings", but it is what people used to do buy things before credit cards were invented and their marketing droids made having debts seem "respectable".

UK.gov's love affair with ID cards: Curse or farce?

@hammarbtyp - Re: The sad thing about ID cards

Wrote :- "Fortunately I drive and have a passport so this is not a problem. I don't know how someone who does not have either of these documents actually manages."

Nice to hear someone who has actually thought of this instead of just shouting "La, la, la, liberty, la, la, over-my-dead-body, la, la, police-state, la, la ...."

My sister-in-law was in exactly that position, and ended up taking out a provisional driving licence just to have something to show. F-ing stupid state of affairs.

@ Jason Hindle - Re: The sad thing about ID cards

Wrote :- "We already have an optional, robust form of ID called the passport."

Your "we" is making a lot of assumptions. I don't have a passport, and most of my relations do not have one either. But you are right, there is a need for a form of identification for things like opening bank accounts and legal transactions that does not involve assembling some arbitrary permutation of utility bills, Council Tax statements, driving licence, pay slips, passports, etc some or all of which many people will not have.

@ Scandinavian AC - Re: Bad ideas never die...

I apologise for my fellow Brits, but they are as paranoid about having ID cards as Americans are about their "right" to carry guns infringed.

From TFA, the hero of the anti-ID card movement, one Clarence Harry Willcock, sounds like he was a rather obnoxious particular and common English* type, the bloody-minded and self-righteous motorist (in fictional parody J. Bonington Jagworth - leader of the militant Motorists' Liberation Front and defender of "the basic right of every motorist to drive as fast as he pleases, how he pleases and over what or whom he pleases") whom one would think was poles apart from most Reg regulars. Sounds like a 1950's Jeremy Clarkson, and again, the English equivalent of the gun-toting American.

* Yes, English rather than British

Re: Bad ideas never die... but farce and curses on the other side of the coin too

I do not possess a passport, and I am fed up with being asked to show one to do things like open a bank account. Never been asked for a NI card (do I even have one?). Apparently you cannot be "respectable" if you do not have a passport - THAT sounds like a Daily Mail attitude to me.

In TFA Cameron is quoted as imitating the Gestapo asking for "Papers please", but the lack of an ID card is not going to stop officialdom from asking for papers of one sort or another. At least I can show a driving licence, but my sister-in-law wanted to open a bank account and *couldn't* because she had neither passport nor driving licence. She had to take out a provisional driving licence, with no intention of driving, just so she could open a bank account FFS.

I would *like* ID cards to stop that kind of nonsense. Now thumb me down.

Want to know what CIA spooks really think of spy movies and books?

@ Dave 126 - Re: Mostly Boredom

Wrote :- "I seem to recall Bond on a bus in Live and Let Die... or at least I remember a double-decker bus being converted to a cabriolet with the aid of a low bridge."

Yes, in that case Bond was driving it as a getaway vehicle. The roof landed in the road behind him and the baddies drove into it AFAIR.

I knew the guy who engineered that stunt - an engineer at London Transport's experimental workshop at Chiswick (at the time). They first sawed through all the upstairs window pillars except the corner ones, and they were half-sawn through.

Mostly Boredom

I love the way James Bond breaks into the villain's office at night and the first thing he pulls out of the filing cabinet is the Master Plan. Dgeez, it takes me half an hour to find anything in my *own* filing cabinet. Similarly, Bond can travel halfway across the world, stakes out some place, and the baddies arrive within a minute. Or if they don't, he has just the right amount of time to seduce the villain's mistress.

He even gets on a bus once [Quantum of Solace] and the bus arrives just as he walks up to the bus stop, despite the place looking like it only gets one bus per week.

Paradoxically, mentally filling in the "missing" bits in a Bond film, they can give a good impression of what spying must be like - mostly boredom.

Vietnamese madam cuffed after advertising girls on Facebook

Re: ribosome - Progress...

ribosome wrote :- "So...In your view why did the Soviet Union collapse? Rather than demand a citation for a commonly held view - this is a blog, not an academic journal"

You are being sensitive. It was my attempted humourous way of pointing out that the USA and Russia have never been at war, so the USA can never have "defeated" Russia. I do not need any citation.

Vladimir Plouzhnikov Silver badge Re: The real immorality

Wrote :- "Now, [these girls] have been "saved" from all that, so that they are faced with working on the streets ..."

Er, no. I hesitate to offer any worldly advice to you, or give direct links, but try Googling for "Vietnam escorts" for example. The issue here is whether Facebook wishes to be the vehicle for this trade.

ribosome - Re: Progress...

Wrote :- "The US defeated the Soviet Union"

Citation please ?

Study suggests US companies use overseas workers to cut wages

@Destroy All Monsters - Re: It is sad the USA is doing this

Wrote :- "The fact that you are even able to write this using a dirt-cheap ADSL is proof enough that cheap manufacturing and international trade is a Good Thing."

The cheap ADSL is only possible because some over-worked Chinese girl is making it for a handful of rice. You might think that is a Good Thing for *you* but :-

1) Is it a good thing from a world point of view? Sounds like we are back as it was in the UK around 1700-1900 when the middle classes lived off the subsisting poor, but now on an international scale. Yes, I know what you are going to say, but those mill owners also said their workers were "better off" than if the mill were not there.

2) This situation can only be temporary. As manufacturing moves more and more to India and the East (Africa next) such places will be able to charge higher and higher prices. Eg, if China were to become the only place steel or ADSLs were made, they could charge other nations whatever they like. Why will they be content for ever with selling it cheap to the West? They might not even sell it for any price, as they will need it all for themselves when those ADSL factory girls all want cars.

Re: Bog standard economics

Wrote :- "What's wrong for a business to reduce the cost and improve profit?"

If it makes the nation poorer as a whole. That is why there are regulations about business. For example you cannot defraud customers to make a profit, nor use slaves, nor import cheap foreign labour beyond an allowance (the slave trade's modern equivalent). It is that level of allowance, somewhere between zero and infinity, that this is about.

@Brewsters Angle Grinder - Re: In other news...

Wrote :- "what do you do? Complain it was obvious all along. If that's your attitude ......"

It is not an attitude, it is a fact. It was and is obvious all along.

Guess who PC-slaying tablets are killing next? Keyboard biz Logitech

Re: The Logitech M570 Wireless Trackball is OK

I have used wired Logitech trackballs for some years (I never understood why people use mice). They are brilliant, the ball seems to float on its bearings; just need to clean the fluff out every 6 months. I noticed a couple of years ago that they had vanished from the shops, so I bought serveral from e-Bay - terrified I might not find a replacement if one failed (but they never have).

I don't quite get the sense of a wireless trackball. Yes, with a wired mouse you are dragging a bunch of wire around with it all the time, but a trackball stays put.

Bill Gates offends Koreans after sticking hand down trousers

@Psyx - Re: Maybe

Wrote :- "Speak many languages, do you? Understands the rudiments of other world religions and basic manners in other cultures? Frankly, Brits are an embarrassment overseas"

My daughter goes to a "Catholic" School as it was the best around here (I am agnostic BTW). At this school she was taught more about non-Christian religions than about Christianity. Crazy.

I am not an embarasment overseas as I never go there.

@David Cantrell - Re: Maybe

Wrote :- "Yes, we do try to accomodate other peoples' cultures. That's ... why we, with the help of immigrants, do so much better than most other places, attracting the best, brightest, most driven .."

And you, no doubt priding yourself on being worldly, don't give any thought as to whether those other countries might have needed those "bright" (as you believe) people? But lets not mention also the scum who come here because things have become too hot for them back home, getting away from the moderating influence of parents and family, and importing their crime and their violent political and religious feuds.

And it depends on what you mean by doing "better". Perhaps you mean living in a place looking increasingly like an overcrowded airport lounge, sitting in traffic jams, and seeing what is left of our green spaces being rapidly concreted over to house everyone in ever more cramped living spaces.

US Senate vote to add internet sales tax this week

@Matt Siddall - Re: I'm confused

Wrote :- "If all companies have to deal with 9,600 separate taxing districts"

Don't be ridiculous. There may be 9,600 separate tax entities in the US in total, but any one company will only need to deal with those relevant to its district.

The "9,600 entities" is parly an effect of USA administration in its regard of each State being somewhat like a separate nation. So there are redundant layers in there. Perhaps it's time the USA recognised that they are no longer some of coastal colonies separated by impenetrable forest and Red Indians, like it was in 1780.

And how will this be different from a bricks and mortar business? If the USA is anything like the UK, internet businesses are killing many bricks-and-motar businesses (just take Comet as an example) and do not need the playing field tilted their way any more.

Game designer spills beans on chubby-fancying chap with his stolen Mac

@The First Dave - Re: The blog

Wrote :- "every bike off the road is an accident prevented, so why would Plod want to recover any?"

It's not off the road. The thief, or whoever he sold it to, is riding it. Probably a dodgy rider too.

The fast-growing energy source set to replace oil: Yes, it's coal

@ Dr Mouse - Re: Renewable Energy

Wrote :- "Not exactly. DOING more is how we better ourselves. This normally uses more energy."

Not exactly. I use more energy than my father in that he drove 5 miles to work and I drive 30 miles. I do not see that I am "better off" than my father in this respect.

Such differences are quite common. He considered it a long way to go to work at the time, but today I work with guys who travel 50-60 miles, thanks to ever-changing company ownerships and locations (and thanks for that in turn to Mrs T. Norman Tebbitt's dad's bike just would not cut the mustard for these journeys).

@ Tom 13 - Re: TOO MANY ******* PEOPLE

Wrote :- "greenie who admits his real prejudices: he hates human beings and wants to kill off "

Bit of crossed wires there. The greenies sensibly started some years ago with population reduction on the agenda, but have long since dropped it " in case it was interpreted the wrong way". That was when they came out as just another left-wing group - they don't really give a toss about nature and just want to take shots at industry.

It is time politicians and others dropped the medieval lord-of-the-manor's notion that people are an asset, like land and minerals. That was only true when peasants produced more than they consumed (and the lord-of-the-manor got the rest) and could be conscripted into a private army against the neighbouring lord. In the modern world, once economies of scale are achieved (a point that has long been passed in most nations) further numbers are a liability.

Forget about trading our "services" such as insurance and "management consultancy" for food and minerals - when the latter run short their price will be unreachable, and those who have them will harbour and stockpile it. I can see, within the next generation of two, nations even desperately pushing some of their people at gunpoint across borders into neighbouring countries to offload the burden.

Nowadays, people consume more than they produce, so the Earth's reserves are rapidly depleting, but even if they were not, an increasing population stretches them further. Fuel, copper and decent timber are the first that have become really noticable.

We are talking about birth control, not gas chambers.

Are biofuels Europe's sh*ttiest idea ever?

@dave93 - Re: to answer the headline question

Wrote :- "Raising awareness of all alternatives to unsustainable fossil fuels, by [running around waving your arms like a windmill while tossing money down the drain] is a 'Good Thing'".

Reminds me of the scrap iron scam in Britain in WW2. The authorities went round cutting down iron railings and gates (some of them works of art, and you can still see the stubs if you look around inner cities today) supposedly to build tanks. But after the war they were found piled up in fields in Bedfordshire. The authorities later admitted that it was done to "raise awareness" that there was a war on.

Applicants sought for one-way trip to Martian Big Brother house

My Nominees :-

Gates, Balmer, Steve Job's corpse, and a token H-1B worker. Gates loves non-flushing toilets anyway [www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19271061] so he will be in Heaven.

Smart metering will disrupt weather forecasts, warns Met Office

@haloburn - Re: Rationing, rebranded.

Wrote :- "Wait a few years and see legislation that turns off electricity at peak times for those on benefits or are deemed to be anti-social"

No, that would take the ASBOs away from their XBoxes and out into the street or the pub. It will be kept on for them.

@S4qFBxkFFg - Re: "No thank you ...... etc etc"

S4qFBxkFFg wrote :- "I am reminded of proposals to force utility companies to switch people to tariffs which would save [the consumers] money "

No thanks, I've had it with people trying to save me money. Trouble is, they always assume that you are Mr Dipshit Average, and I am not.

I once read comparison of bank accounts; they had run trial accounts for several months. I already had an account which I had worked out was best for me by far, but according to the comparison report it was the WORST. WTF ???

Turned out the reviewers had operated all the trial accounts in a "typical" way. My particular account penalised you if you let the balance drop below £50 (AFAIR), and their "typical" usage did that. But I gamed the system, and never let that happen.

Like I have an off peak meter now. I game that too, doing all the heavy lifting like washing at stange times of the day to take advantage of it, but I expect a smart meter would say "You can't do that Dave, it is outside our assumptions".

AC @11:59 - Re: yep... security is the key point.

AC wrote "Languages change over time, it's what makes English in particular a very powerful means for communication."

So did "pissed" just change from meaning "drunk" to meaning "angry" ? OK, but I'll just change it back again - there, done it ! Wonderful, this changeable language!

Logitech launches MEGA-PRICEY 15-in-1 remote

Been done before

I bought something like this 10(?) years ago. To programe it you shone your existing remote into it while pressing the buttons on both devices that you wanted replicated. There was a button to cycle it through working for several different devices.

It didn't work.

Flexible flywheel offers cheap energy storage

Part old hat, part snake oil

I thought the interesting bit would be the "flexible" aspect, but their website says little about that, and is mostly a school science presentation on flywheels and motor-generators, all well established stuff.

It is ambiguous whether they are talking about flexible flywheel material or flexible bearings. Their desktop demo is about flexible bearings, but that principle has been used in spin driers for years, and in large steam turbines (at power stations) - you need to get above a critical speed. There is no reason flexible material for the wheel itself should be better than rigid; expect worse because any eccentricity would distort further in the same direction leading to even greater imbalance.

There have been dynamically self-balancing gadgets around for years though. Perhaps this guy's secret lies in that area, but he reveals nothing about it in his presentations (pending a patent ?) but instead we get the usual soundbites about renewable energy and toxicity. He is a salesman, and the cost comparison between an aircraft engine and a piece of rope is fatuous.

The basic problem with any flywheel is the small amount of energy for its cost and size (even his will cost more than the piece of rope), making them suitable mainly for transients such as allowing a contolled shutdown of equipment following a mains power failure, or recovering vehicle braking energy. The idea of covering wind power during calm periods is moonshine.

Anons torn over naming 'n' shaming of 17yo's gang-rape suspects

@Jordan Davenport - Re: Hmm...

Wrote :- "I don't approve of blackmail"

This is not blackmail. Blackmail is threatening to expose something in order to get money (or some other favour) for the blackmailer). In this case, Anon are seeking no favour to themselves.

If I had evidence of a crime and the police did not bother to prosecute, I would go public with the evidence too.

I think Anon are a bunch of shites, but evidence is evidence, no matter who comes up with it.

Geolocation tech to save 60 Londoners from being run over next year

@Madra - Re: Harsh but fair...

Wrote :- "Death penalty for failure to use indicators."

Using indicators would also save a lot of time/holdups. Many a time I could have pulled out of a junction if only I had known that an approaching car was going to turn into it.

However, in many people's minds, giving indications is like showing your cards in a game of poker.

Windows 8 has put the world's PC market to sleep - IDC

@ Rick Giles - Re: All you need to do...

Wrote :- "All you need to do...is request that MS Windows not be installed on the PC when you buy it."

Sorry Rick, you can't do that. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows]

Almost all PC makers are contracted with Microsoft to pre-load a copy of Windows on every machine. Your post does not sound like you are joking, so have you been on a desert island these last 20 years? If they do not, they lose the right to buy Windows at a discounted price, so would become uncompetitive for most of their sales, as most customers do want Windows pre-loaded, unfortunately.

If you buy from a small supplier he might wipe the disk for you, but you could do that yourself and he will probably charge you extra for the bother. Microsoft would still get their licence fee and no "message"

If you want a Microsoft-free PC, build it yourself. That is what I do.

@Ken Darling - Re: Vista Part II...?

Wtote : - "I never had a problem with Vista; ...... it was superior to Win 95/98/2000/ME"

Crikey, you had to scrape the barrel to find something to which it was superior.

Your putting 2000 in there as if it were part of the Win9x consumer line is a bit odd though (it was in a different development line, aimed at servers, and not bad I've heard), but the point is that Vista was inferior to its own immediate predecessor which was Windows XP.

@Oh4FS - Re: underlying issues

Oh4FS wrote :- "2 in ever 3 people who are hard pressed to get a decent meal, who live in shanties, and or have little to no medical facilities, money etc... "Oh no... microsoft sales.... Damn...!"

You sound a bit depressed this morning. Way off topic. Why not paste this rant into every discussion?

But perhaps it is relevant to world hunger after all. If people and corporations are no longer forking out for every "upgrade" that Microsoft want to ram down their throats, like they have these last 20 years, with the associated tossing of hardware into landfill, maybe there will be more resources left over for other things, like food. Personally, I am not saying "Damn!" ; I glad to see Microsoft being cut down to size.

@Andrew_b65 - Re: Lack of Start button?

Wrote : _ "They discovered the Windows key +D combination last week"

But I understand that even the desktop mode lacks a Start Button (without a 3rd party add-on). Is this true or not? I have never used Win8 and it sound's like you haven't either - can anyone help here?

Moreover, according to a review I read, some apps MUST be run in Metro mode, and others MUST be run in desktop mode, so the user needs to switch between them.

Hard luck lads, todger size DOES matter: Official

@AC, 14:27 - Re: Ignoring the Feedback Loop?

Wrote :- "Waking up and seeing a clown with an erection is the sign of a very bad day for most people."

New keyboard from you please !

@AC - Re: Cameron Colley - "Girls don't like boys girls like cars and money."

Wrote :- "My car for many years was a Range Rover. Most women had no idea that they cost a fair bit to buy and run - so were not impressed."

The impression can be negative. I know a guy with a collection of classics including Mercs, Jaguar XJS's, a Range Rover and even a Cadillac stretch limo. But for dates he has found it best to use a run-of-the-mill diesel Audi, and keeps his collection secret.

@Steven Roper - Re: Also

Wrote :- "anything more than a handful is a waste!"

You can always extend the range above about a DD by using both hands.

Cameron Colley - Re: "Girls don't like boys girls like cars and money."

Wrote : "women tend to like men who are well-paid, ambitious"

There is a a problem with that. Women must first be attracted to the man for other reasons to find those things out, because they are not apparent at first sight or even after a few dates. I have known women complain that they were with a partner for several months before they found out that they were in massive debt or that they did not even have a job ("working from home" but in fact playing computer games).

I have always been fairly well off, have risen to a senior job, and had some impressive cars too, but you can hardly go around with a sign round your neck saying it. And inside a social function, how do they know what your car is? In my twenties girls tended to ignore me (ie not pursue a conversation) in open social situations because there were always showier (ie louder, not necessarily better looking) guys around, and guys always outnumber girls anyway. All my GFs I met through dating clubs where the first date is essentially 1 to 1.

I have concluded that women like men who are "entertainers".

@ Richard Wharram - Re: Also

Wrote : "In other news: MEN LIKE BIG TITS!!!!!!!"

Yes, but there is a major difference in that a woman can show off her tit size to everyone, even in normal clothing. Men cannot reveal their dick size however until they have already pulled the bird to the point where it does not matter any more - on that occasion anyway.

Some here have claimed that women can tell even when you are fully clothed. I dispute that. For one thing flacid size is no indication of erect size. And having an erection in trousers is something I have always, often with great difficulty, tried to avoid - for one thing it hurts, and secondly you do not know how the girl is going to take it, particularly if you have not long met her, (unless, again, things have progressed to the point where it does not matter any more).

I remember a first date (dating club) when sitting down at a table in a pub I looked down her massive cleavage and got a hell of a boner. I was worried she might ask me to get up for a packet of peanuts, I couldn't have got across the room. I was looking out of the window for distraction; don't know what she made of me. I did see more of her after that ;-) but a pity she had bad breath .....

Re: It all in the hands

>>."There is NO CORRELATION between hand size & penis size - it's just another urban myth."

> Says the man with small hands. :p

Says the man with large hands. :-)

Really, I have heard it all, supposed to correlate with nose size, ear size, arm length, forehead height (negatively). But I have heard good evidence, on good authority, that it does not correlate with anything else, and certainly not general size. Fred West for example, a bear of a man, had a small penis (it came out at his trial - no, not in that way).

What is very plausible though (and I've been told) is that a todger of any given size looks relatively larger on a smaller man.