Shape DOES help. The top and bottom of the soda can turn what would be a very very weak bag-of-liquid into something a bit more rigid.

However in the case of the HTC One (M8) it's fairly thicker than the iPhone as well. The middle of the back bulges out quite a fair bit, and the edges dont' come close to the iPhone6. That probably means a lot more material in general: thicker metal, more "stuff" inside the case, etc.

I'm not standing up for Apple... this was a stupid mistake. Didn't any of their beta-testers wear skinny jeans and keep it in the pocket? They should have realized the potential issue.

However... your comparisons are silly. Keys are solid bricks of metal, and usually hard metal so they don't deform and become useless. They must be very strong and very rigid; it's their entire purpose.

Phones are hollow metal shells with mostly air inside, with some silicone wafers and bits of copper wires.

If you make a hollow shell out of metal and thin enough... OR COURSE it's going to bend. Even if it's flippin steel. In this case they chose aluminum, presumably because it was easier to shape into that wedge design.

Now... MOST companies when making thin metal shells purposely don't make them too thin just for reasons like this. And this is where Apple's form-over-function failed.

I managed to bend a company iPhone 5 very slightly last year; I don't know when or how. So I'm not surprised something even thinner and completely aluminum can bend.

I have the regular iPhone 6 right now and I tend to be careful with it. I have it in a soft-case for now but I'll probably put it in a more rigid case once a nice one comes out. Supposedly people are still bending the regular 6, but nowhere near as easily as the 6 Plus.

Because it doesn't just kill you in a day. It takes a while. Symptoms don't appear from 2-21 days; once the symptoms appear you're contagious. Granted that's a wide margin of error.

In the meantime, you have people that try to "get away" because they either don't realize they're already infected or are simply in denial. Said person just has to cross a certain threshold and now it's in a whole other region. You can get pretty far in 21 days, and depending on our knowledge of the area and motivation, it's "possible" to get somewhere else. After all, you might have weeks until you start to show.

That's not counting the doctors / nurses / guards / etc. that can accidentally get exposed and unknowingly pass it on.

Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous did fine on KickStarter back when they were still using it. Eventually both stopped using KickStarter and started using their own methods.

Back in the early kickstarter days Star Citizen had, at most, some in game footage of a dogfight and some 3D renderings of a couple of ships. I don't know what Elite Dangerous had.

They did not have 50% of their game done... heck SC STILL doesn't have 50% done.

Then again, both heads were fairly well-known in the gaming circles for their past works.

As an American, I do not see my car as a status symbol or phallic symbol.

It's a means to an end because the public transportation in my part of the state is inadequate and I couldn't find a place I liked close enough to work for walking or biking. I got something practical without too many fancy options.

Sure my state has public transportation to a degree... hop between specific cities using the commuter rail. But then none of those cities have buses internally and the nearest station to work is far enough that it becomes pointless.

It's cyclical... we need cars because most of our (suburban) areas don't have great public transportation. But those areas won't build up the public transportation because people use cars.

When I travel for work to my one our other locations, I like using the public transportation system there. Less hassle, less headaches. The only annoying thing is waiting in the cold or rain.

Don't get me wrong, playing with your friends while in the same room is INSANELY FUN. Seriously they are a lot more fun than Internet+VOP can ever be.

But LAN parties aren't my thing anymore unless we all have gaming-worthy laptops

Carry in your tower + monitor + box of stuff (keyboard, mouse, cables, etc.). Which can be a real pain depending on where you friend lives: in an apartment, where you have to park 100 meters away and then take the stairs. Sometimes make multiple trips.

By the time you bring in YOUR stuff and wire it up... a fair amount of time has gone past. Then you have to factor in doing all of that in reverse when you want to leave.

And if you're HOSTING then it's still a hassle: clean out an area large enough, setup a router nearby, find enough tables and chairs, clean up afterwards, etc.

Again: all laptops is easier. Just a backpack, power brick, and mouse. But I don't spend that much on my laptops.

Ah sorry.

I actually hear people say stuff like that often though... and MEAN it.

Like 720p isn't HD. Or 1080i is the REAL HD.

So when I hear it, I just cringe.

Except 720p was always defined as HD.

Initially, you had two choices: 720progressive or 1080interlaced. They both required more-or-less the same bandwidth to run. 1080p is more of a Jonny-come-lately.

Many preferred 720p for some shows where the progressive scan adding an important benefit: mostly fast-moving scenes (sports, action, etc). Others preferred interlaced for shows that didn't need the fine detail in motion.

Eventually, years later, 1080p became a thing but for a while some TVs didn't even support it. And heck, cable-TV only recently started supported in limited amounts.

This is one of the many reasons why I won't be an adopter, or at least an early adopter.

If I have to babysit the car second-to-second, then there's little point in having the car.

And I won't trust the car to not malfunction and kill me or someone else, so chances are I will be monitoring it. Maybe the car companies / Google / whoever will say "trust me, you can sleep in the back seat" but I'll have a hard time accepting that for at least another 15 years.

And lastly... I trust myself as a driver (never had an accident). To ME, my skills are a known commodity. And if I mess up, then I messed up and can own up to it. If my car messes up and I wasn't babysitting it enough or some birds**t landed on a camera, then if I'm liable then that sucks. I can accept that I made a mistake and pay the consequences easier than something I own made a mistake and now I have to pay for its consequences.

We had a relative from Europe complain about our lack of signage. He lives in Austria but he travels all over.

In any case, he was under the impression that our highways and roads would have way way more signs stating how to get to the various cities. Like that exit 26 would help you get to towns W / X / Y/ Z. Or that every-other intersection in town would say would list 6 nearby towns and distance/direction.

We tried to tell him that at least in our state, the most you would see is the city that a freeway exit dumps you... or maybe the nearby 1-2 bordering towns at a local intersection. And that he should look up where he's going on a map first... instead of just assuming he can rely on signs to get to Maplewood or Bernardsville.

He thought we were being silly... unfortunately after getting lost on his own he realized we were right. And then went on to rant and complain about how stupid it was.

I've been to a couple of cities in Europe often, but I've only used mass transit so I never really paid attention to these many many signs he speaks of. But I imagine they're there.

I see people flip out when:

- Plane is running late
- Their train hits a snag: trouble on the rails, power issue, etc.
- Their bus hits traffic
- Their ferry is running late

Plane rage is the worst... but people (in the US) keep their cool inside the plane because they don't want to get sky-marshalled or put on a no-fly list. Then again I've never been in a "wait on the runway for 5 hours in the hot summer" situation.

The train rage is the next strongest of the three... though nowhere near as bad as on the road. And even if it was THAT bad, we don't have to worry about their anger making them screw up and accidentally kill a bunch of people with their metal battering ram.

The other two are minimal.

I speed, but not highly so. ~5mph on the roads, and usually only ~10mph in the right or middle lane. I DO get annoyed when the person in front of me is going UNDER the speed limit... especially after I watch them pass a couple of limit signs that they either ignored or didn't notice.

Beyond the obvious (spilling gravel out a truck, cutting me off) the only other thing that bothers me is people that don't pay attention at green-arrow signals. They tend to only stay green for 5-10 seconds and a person sometimes doesn't it appeared notice until it turns amber already.

Probably a troll, but I'll bite.

Here in the states, driving isn't a right... it's a privilege. I imagine this phrase is popular in the UK as well.

If you want to drive then you have to follow their rules and demands... else get fined or imprisoned for breaking the rules and risking the safety of others.

This means being properly licensed, having a car that has been inspected and approved for use on the roads, and following they various rules and regulations.

Agreed. People are going to freak out about that car in front of them following the rules 100%

Humans play it fast and loose... we either gamble or assume from experience that a cop won't pull us over on this particular stretch of road for going 5MpH over the speed limit but the WILL on that stretch or at that time of day.

But... some cops / towns WILL pull you over for just going 1MpH over the speed limit. It's rare, but it happens.

So the car will have to be built to follow the rules exactly: speed limit, stop on yellow, full multi-second stop at a stop sign, etc. Otherwise if the owners are getting tickets, they will be angry. And the community will yell at CompanyX for unsafe cars.

And the people are going to freak out because they actually had to stop or go the speed limit. Honestly, the complaints might be loud enough to screw up the project.

I'm a big guy too.. and I agree with most of what you're saying. I don't consider my situation as I'm disabled. I don't think anyone should ever get a better parking space because they're too big or whatever.

That being said... being fired BECAUSE you're overweight is pretty bad. It's one thing if your job requires something physical and thus the obesity prevents you from doing your job (fireman, EMT, cop, etc.)... but if you're fired from a desk job or mistreated at work due to being fat then that's crossing a line IMHO.

It's illegal (in the states) for an employer to fire or harass an employee due to a number of attributes: gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability. But it's still kosher for an employer fire someone or harass them BECAUSE they're obese. And as a result, it happens.

I'm NOT saying a person should be protected from firing in GENERAL because they're obese, but I've heard of people who've been fired and/or mistreated BECAUSE they're obese from jobs where physical fitness isn't an issue or requirement. Often from ex-athletes that are disgusted by the obese; which is fine on a personal level but not if it lets them fire someone.

But, that's just my opinion.