Hopefully it will stay that way. Of course the conservatives might get so scared of losing that they do something incredibly foolish such as ally with UKIP or come to an agreement where they don't contest certain seats to ensure the other one wins. Of course that might mean they lose voters from the centre who would be horrified by the prospect of UKIP getting anywhere near the reins of power.

Scotland will probably stop the madness. It's a stronghold for the Labour party and will contribute to its majority at the next election.

Cameron has been a competent prime minister. He hasn't screwed up in any major way, the economy has significantly recovered, he's survived the Scottish referendum and the coalition has been successful in moderating his party's reforms. But his party and Clegg's are doomed in the next election.

As generations are born and die, the old system falls out of use and people use the new system instead. I don't see that as a reason to keep on using it when it was gotten rid of for a reason. If I want to approximate something I can always say a litre, or half a kilo, or 50 meters or whatever.

The Conservatives Party's electoral base is being undermined by UKIP and measures like this are simply pandering to voters who might be swayed by the far right rhetoric, nationalism anti-immigrant and anti-EU whargarbl that UKIP is putting out. It's popularism pure and simple. They're trying to outdo UKIP in the popularist soundbites. Expect to see Cameron standing around for photo-ops with a pint in one hand.

It's very unlikely the Conservatives will win another term thanks to UKIP, not because UKIP stand a chance but because the first-past-the-post system ensures Labour will win a handy majority.

Multi touch would allow the OS to do stuff like pinch to zoom, rotate, scrolling and other gestures that have become common. I doubt it says anything one way or another about other forms of input. Quite clearly the prevalent form of input will be mouse and keyboard for a long time to come.

Don't be ridiculous. Supporting a multi touch input device says absolutely nothing of what the experience is like for someone using that way or what the experience is like for someone using a mouse and keyboard.

As it happens GNOME 3 is perfectly usable for someone with a mouse and keyboard. It's also discoverable, forgiving, easy to use and simple to learn which are the main goals of it.

Feel free to install Cinnamon or an entirely different desktop if you don't like it.

Why bother installing the dist at all if you don't like what it does?

Aluminium is a terrible material to make a phone from and I bet Apple have milled it to within an inch of its life. Maybe it doesn't matter so much for a smaller device but these phablets are so big that they are going to suffer increased leverage and bend forces. Perhaps it would have been better to use plastic over a steel frame like most other phones. It might not look so good but it would probably be stiffer and more resistant.

I think it's quite reasonable to rag on it given that Apple are claiming they encrypt data on the phone. Maybe they do but if you can get at it with a fingerprint then it's not hugely more secure than before. Not that I would single out Apple for all the heat here - most phones are only protected by a short pin and even alternative authentication schemes are likely guessable in some way - e.g. Microsoft's photo login and Google's pattern unlock can probably be inferred just by looking at the finger smears on a screen.

Young earth and old earth creationists. And holocaust deniers. And climate change deniers. They all play the same tricks - quote mining & simile abuse, nitpicking, cherry picking of facts, pseudo science etc.

Exactly. It's essentially whack-a-mole but with paranoid and stupid people.

People such as moon landing hoaxers, 9/11 truthers etc. are so far gone that you could methodically tear down each and every one of their assertions, employing evidence, science, logic to beat it to a pulp and they'd still start right up with the first one again.

That's why I said the "official" store should be a subsiduary that buys its stuff wholesale like every other store. Then they can put whatever margin they like to turn a profit and they don't have to worry about what other retailers think.

I guess the problem that Apple & Sony demonstrate is that going to the manufacturer doesn't necessarily get you a better price even without a middleman. They just use it as an excuse to have bigger margins.

The proper form of competition would see the manufacturer required to sell its products at a wholesale price in a transparent and unbiased way. If the manufacturer wants to sell its own product it would have to set up a subsiduary company which would be subject to the same rules as everyone else.

I think I'd have more sympathy for dealers if they sold cars for the price on the sticker with no negotiations, no hidden extras, no hidden fees. The price you see is the price you pay. It would be better yet if they did this online where they can't bamboozle people with figures or promises they won't keep or with high pressure sales for extras.