Quite. In fact, being hetero probably means your sex life is far less interesting than many gay people's. Well, I'm probably speaking for myself...

I've never taken it to mean "proud" as in superior - that's not, and never has been, what pride has meant. Pride is the opposite of shame, and there's no reason to feel shame (as it was in the past) if you're gay, so to say you're proud is simply "not ashamed".

It seems that the hoo-hah about CurrentC is local to the USA; I'd never heard of it until this week. Here in Australia most retailers have installed paywave terminals in the last 18 months - it's now almost ubiquitous alongside chip and pin terminals. In fact, it's so ubiquitous that it's becoming a minor annoyance when a retailer hasn't got it yet. I do think that it has reached the point of maximum convenience really - getting your card out and waving it at a terminal is probably about the minimum effort it's ever going to be. Even getting out your phone instead is slightly MORE effort, as it involves (in the case of the iPhone anyway) the extra step of authenticating using the fingerprint scanner. That additional step might be acceptable as it adds a layer of security that your card doesn't have.

However, from what I've read about CurrentC, there's no way that it's going to get any traction. It's nowhere near as convenient and it seems it's nowhere near as secure. It's also conflicted in that it's trying to be attractive to the retailer as well as the consumer - those things can't be easily reconciled. But the killer is that paywave is already here and people are already getting used to that degree of simple convenience - anything that goes backwards now is never going to be popular. The horse has bolted, CurrentC is trying to close the stable door. The fact that some retailers have been forced to turn off paywave because they signed up to support CurrentC betrays their thinking: we know paywave is far more convenient and we haven't got a hope in hell if people get used to it, so let's pretend it never happened.

If I had anything to do with CurrentC, I would be packing my things.

It's always amusing to watch religious people tying themselves into knots trying to fit reality into their various belief systems. The problem with that (and why it's sorta fun to watch, for a while) is that the ONE thing that cannot be allowed to change is the belief system. Those who would argue that science is just another belief system need to understand that if true, then it's at least the only belief system that is flexible and willing to change in response to reality, rather than vice versa.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to logically disprove the concept of god as most religions seem to define him/her/it. Most religions, especially the abrahamic ones, state that god is all-loving, omnipotent and omniscient: he knows all, sees all and is all-powerful (and he loves us all too!) Wow, pretty cool god there. But, says a five-year-old child, if god's so great, why does he allow bad things to happen? Either he is omnipotent, and chooses not to do anything about "bad stuff", like preventing a flood that kills thousands, showing he's not all-loving, or he would do, but didn't know it was happening, showing he's not all-knowing, or did know about it, and looked on helplessly, showing he's not omnipotent. Or maybe god's just an asshole. Or maybe he doesn't exist. I know which conclusion I tend towards.

If anybody wrote code like that for me, they'd be made to sit on the naughty step and think very, very hard about what they'd done.

Free speech is about haveing the right to express your opinion without fear of retaliation

Express away, you overprivileged cunt with an overinflated sense of self-worth. You are the scum of the earth and deserve nothing less than to be horribly beaten and raped by a gang of spanner-wielding bikers.

Here's the thing. Free speech does not trump the other basic principle I mention, to do as you please as long as it does not harm others. There is no doubt that in some cases, your free speech can harm others. And I mean harm, not just offend. I agree about not having the right not to be offended, but it's not black-and-white. And if what I wrote above did have some small effect on you, then think about that. Imagine if you were on the receiving end of something like that day in, day out and it really affected you? Some people might not be as robust as you.

Just have a little compassion. Is it really too much to ask?

I think a lot of people are misinterpreting the intent of this. Much as I despise the current UK government, and am deeply concerned about surveillance and censorship and erosion of privacy and free speech generally, I think in this case it's not what's being proposed at all.

Basically, I believe in being free to do as you please unless it harms others. There's no doubt that trolling, in some cases, does harm, but right now the punishment isn't very harsh for the worst cases, and most people that indulge in trolling feel they have the "right" to do it (those were the exact words used by a recent troll who attacked the McCanns online and was called out on it by the news media; she later committed suicide. A pretty sad case for everyone concerned). This is confusing the right to free speech with a non-existent right to slander and libel with impugnity. If you are attacked, and it harms you (for some definition of harm) then you should have the right to prosecute the perpetrator to the extent the law allows.

All this is proposing is that harmful trolling is taken more seriously, and I agree with that. A judge will rule on the merit of any case brought, and hand down a sentence as he sees fit. This is merely proposing that the maximum available sentence is extended from 6 months to 2 years, and I agree with that. Note that this has nothing to do with the government having greater powers to monitor online activity - the judiciary have nothing to do with the government in the UK. If someone is trolled online and they feel it has harmed them, it is up to them to report it and press charges, and present their case in court. The government are not involved at all.

Who gets to decide what qualifies as trolling?

A judge in a court of law? That's their job.

Presumably if you feel particularly aggrieved by something you've had directed to you online, you can complain to the police and press charges. When it comes to court, the evidence is presented, the defence puts its case and the judge decides.

It's the software... do the alternative systems you talk about have end-to-end colour management built right into every use of colour on the system? Macs do. Maybe others do, I don't know - but if they don't then just having the same hardware isn't the issue.

I think the jury's still out - SSDs haven't been in the field long enough to know how they fare in the real world. In theory, they should be better, but there are some concerns.

I recently upgraded my older 2011 iMac 27" to an SSD - I had to drop to half the original capacity but it's far, far faster and a little quieter. So even if the lifespan ended up the same as the spinning disk, it would be worth it.

By the way, "to have it fixed" does cost a lot of money, but DIY and it's obviously only as expensive as the drive. I'm not sure abut the newer iMacs, but getting into mine to swap the drive was a cinch.

Modern digital SLRs have higher res than this. e.g. my mid-range Nikon D5300 does 6000x4000, and that's not a top end camera by any means.

I'm surprised they're calling it "Apple Pay". I thought it would be "iPay".

Or YouPay.

If people took the trouble to learn a little bit of basic punctuation, this phrase would be wrong. It's easy to be subtle using the written word, look at the thousands and thousands of published books by professional writers.

Only if you insist on using pointless shorthand and writing like a hyperactive 10-year-old is lack of subtlety a problem.

While I'm sure the oil thing was just thrown in there to be flippant, nobody seems to have realised that for oil deposits to exist, there must have once been abundant plant life...

Or "The Beat" as they were actually called, in their home country.