It's a rather nice small pub/brewery near the ferry wharf.

OK, I'm good mates with the guy who's behind this beer. Let me assure you that they have actually thought about the whole bubbles-in-zero-G thing. And the whole reduced-sense-of-taste-in-zero-G thing. The current version of the beer is a very low carbonation, strongly flavoured Irish stout.

That's not what I was taught. If it's steep enough that you can't switch from brake to throttle without rolling, you use the handbrake to hold the car.

1. Press brake pedal.

2. Press clutch.

3. Start engine.

4. Hold handbrake up with release button depressed.

5. Switch brake foot to throttle.

6. Release clutch, depress throttle and lower handbrake as the engine engages.

What's wrong with that? Surely as a general rule, the foot brake is for slowing or stopping the car in motion, and the handbrake is for holding the car while stationary.

Bear in mind, I've done that about three times in the last ten years. It's got to be really, really, really steep, and something has to be really, really close behind. It's invaluable for novice drivers, though, or when it's too slippery to put on a lot of throttle in a hurry.

I'm teaching my brother in law to drive at the moment, so I've been giving this some thought. As far as I'm concerned there are two basic rules.

1. Be as predictable as possible. Try to drive so a half-blind indecisive idiot who's texting can reliably know what you're going to do several seconds in advance. This particularly applies to stopping - do it gradually. If for some reason you have to drive significantly below the speed limit, for christ's sake do it consistently. There is nothing more irritating on a country road than someone who goes very slowly in the winding bits and speeds up in ths straights. Pick a speed, and stick with it.

2. Never assume that anybody else on the road is going to be predictable. This is mainly learnt from cycling and motorcycling, where the stakes are higher. Don't assume they've has seen you and will give you your right of way, don't assume they're going straight because they're not indicating a turn, don't assume they'll turn because they are indicating a turn, don't assume that because they're not braking there are no obstacles ahead, don't assume nobody is going to run the red light and T-bone you, don't assume that kid on the sidewalk isn't going to run out in front of you. Never, ever, ever rule out someone doing something just because it is idiotic and suicidal.

Unfortunately, driving while following both those rules is pretty damn hard work. I'll admit I don't follow Rule 2 nearly as well as I should, particularly if I'm chatting to a passenger or listening to the radio. My husband is much better at it, as he normally rides a motorcycle.

As for cutting in, as far as I'm aware of my local laws (NSW, Australia) you are obliged to allow someone to merge if any part of their vehicle is in front of yours. Not a whole lot of people know that one, but it would save a lot of drama if they did. However, as a general rule drivers in Sydney do 1-1-1 zipper merges better than anything I've seen anywhere else in the world. I have no idea why. They're useless in a million other ways, but they are the world champions at efficient and civil lane mergers.

In my experience (admittedly relatively limited, as everyone's experiences are), there are tens of millions of men in the West looking for a compassionate, supportive life partner in a woman. Almost none of them are finding it. The divorce rates alone would tend to support this. If you start talking to men about their wives or girlfriends, you find that virtually all of them share my experience to some extent or another

Well shit, I wonder what happens if you look at it the opposite direction and talk to women about their boyfriends and husbands? Not that anyone would do that of course, there's no point talking to women because they're soulless wallet-vacuuming devices, but wouldn't it just be crazy if half of divorces were initiated by women who were unhappy with their husband because they didn't feel emotionally supported, or their husbands were abusive? What if most women will express some degree of dissatisfaction with the quality of their relationship? This would obviously mean there was a major problem with all men.

It couldn't possibly that most people of either sex have major personality flaws, or many tend to make bade relationship decisions, or change over time and become unsuitable for their partner, or fall in love with someone else. Nope, it must be that women are all bitches.

Speaking as a married Western woman who relies on her husband to be her intellectual, sexual and financial equal (except when I'm at home raising children, when he's happy to bring in the cash): Where the hell are you looking for women? Because you fail pretty hard at it.

Yes, there's a lot of neurotics and gold-diggers out there. They're probably a majority. But then the majority of men are self-centered assholes just looking for something pretty to fuck. And no, I can't name any women who have absolutely no annoying characteristics, particularly myself. But I can't name any men either.

Seems like you might have a major case of being-unable-to-deal-with-other-humans.

And what is with this "Western" or "American" generalisation? Are nice subservient women more to your taste? Because that's usually what asshole misogynists mean when they complain about Western women. Do you need your woman to always defer to your judgement and follow your orders? You might be in for a pretty rude shock with a lot Asian women if you expect them to be meek, demure little dolls. You sure as shit can't claim that women from other cultures are less interested in a man's money, as this particular complaint of yours is older than dirt.

My lady is a chef, and I still have to cook occasionally

Oh, woe is you! You have to share a household task occasionally?? That's just shocking, man.

I'm appalled by most people's inability to cook. What are the blokes going to do, eat out every day until they move in with a woman? What are they going to do if she gets sick, or has to go somewhere for a week? You shouldn't be dependent on someone else for something as basic as preparing food.

If she was born in Malaysia she was probably given a BCG immunisation at birth. However, this generally only protects against TB infection for about 10 to 15 years, and is not usually given a second time due to limited effectiveness and high risk of severe side effects. In south-east Asia between 20 and 50% of the population are latently infected with TB, and almost everyone will have some immune recognition of it, either of which will come up as a positive Mantoux test (as will a still-functional BCG immunisation). If the Mantoux is strongly positive, suggesting infection, a chest X-ray is generally a good idea.

My wife grew up in Malaysia and when she gets a cough she gets it for weeks

Has your wife had a Mantoux test recently?

Sorry, but I'm getting very sick of this attitude. I'm finishing off my PhD in molecular biology in Australia, where things are, if anything, much better for scientists than in the US. I keep being told that if I'm going to make it as a scientist, I have to be willing to sacrifice everything else. I shouldn't expect to take holidays, have enough money to take any time off, have maternity leave, live in a decent house within a reasonable distance to work, eat good healthy food, have hobbies, or play sport. Research should be my only priority! Well I'm sorry, but cool as science is, I would like to have one or two other things in my life.

This whole YOU MUST BE PURE OF HEART AND HAVE NO LOVE BUT SCIENCE schtick is driving away thousands of perfectly capable young researchers who may not want to be fat-cat millionaires but would definitely like to have financial security and a good quality of life outside of work.

It also usually seems like a thinly-veiled excuse for lab heads and university research offices to exploit the living shit out of their junior research staff - I've been asked to work without pay for 3 to 6 months to gather more data for a paper. Several senior people I've talked to seem to think I'm lazy or greedy for objecting to this - apaprently I just don't have the right stuff. Well, I don't want to stay in a field which considers it reasonable for young scientists to have to burn through their savings or build up debt just to pay basic living expenses while working on something that benefits the entire lab.

Until scientists at all stages of their career get back some basic professional respect and quality of life, students will continue to avoid or flee the field.

That's all true. Along with the lack of money, a serious problem for young people in research is the lack of realistic career progression. I'm about to finish my PhD in the biological sciences in Australia. I am surrounded by brilliant, extremely hard-working, accomplished researchers who are in their 30s and 40s who do not have a secure job. They live grant-to-grant, and have no realistic hope of getting a permanent faculty position until their 50s at least. There just aren't enough academic research jobs for the number of new students graduating. Having had a good hard look at this for the last few years, I have made the decision to get the fuck out.

While I realise that many people make a decent living like this, I have to admit that the idea of working 80 hour weeks for $60K with no job security when I didn't get a paid job until the age of 25 doesn't really appeal that much. It's got nothing to do with wanting a mansion and a Lambourgini, it's about wanting to not live in a constant panic about having enough money to get by.

Let's face it: scientists are exploited. We want to do research more than society wants us to do it, and we're prepared to accept the absolute bare minimum of pay and conditions just so we can survive while we do our experiments. We're expected to do things like work for free for six months to finish off papers after our salary grants have run out. We're expected to never take leave, or go home at night, or have weekends off, but not have the kind of money that allows you to make that kind of lifestyle acceptable by living close to work, eating out, hiring nannies and cleaners and so forth.

More worryingly, we're expected to put up with the fact that after ten years of this, with no savings, we can suddenly run out of salary because we had a bad run of luck with experiments last year and couldn't get a grant renewed. One guy from our lab has spent the last twelve months answering phones at a TV station. Having seen this happen to people who I fully recognise are smarter than me and have fifteen years more experience, I have been filled with an overpowering urge to run to somewhere, anywhere, where I can have enough money for a modicum of security.

This isn't new, and there isn't anything to stop your ISP from siphoning your emails in transit. Many companies are required to keep all email communications stored for an amount of time and have systems in place that capture and store for later discovery. Even deleting the message doesn't mean that it's really gone. The cold hard fact is that while your data is in transit on a system not owned by you, you don't own it. It's like your trash on the curb, the sanitation workers can (and probably do) go through it if it looks interesting enough. The best you can do is make it look boring.

I have a t-shirt (that I got from thinkgeek) that reads "I read your email" and it's absolutely true, in more than one respect. As an administrator for an ISP, the mail server, all accounts and subsequently all data stored in those accounts is in within my sphere of influence. I can legally read any message present on the server. Included in those numbers are mail accounts for several city and county governments as well as many businesses that host their domains on our server. As a forensic examiner, I also am given access to much information and many email messages, so I do indeed read your email.

At this point in the explanation of my t-shirt, is where I explain my personal ethics.

It is because I have no faith in the ethical boundaries of others that I have a private server for my personal email.

One note about one of the potential options listed above. Storing mail in an encrypted folder would be a great idea if the mail server didn't have to read and write to the mailbox. If the server doesn't have the key, then the incoming messages cannot be encrypted. You could always use PGP though.

Men drive dangerously. Probably Y/testosterone. Women just can't drive.

Seriously. Just stop trying to type notes. We both know you're just dicking around on facebook. Just take notes with paper. You can write equations, draw graphs, and whatever else you want, including little stars and hearts next to your favorite equations.

If for some reason you really need to type your notes, do it after class. You have a problem of your own making.

On a two lane road, is half a lane really an avenue of escape? On the highways they usually build these additional side parts shoulders... to be used in emergency situations... hint, hint.

I was driving back from my parent's this weekend late at night and I had some deer run out in front of me. It doesn't matter what side of the road you are on, or the middle, you are not going to dodge deer. They are highly unpredictable. If I would have swerved to go behind the deer, I'd be eating deer right now because it turned around and went back half way. I was better off in my lane and stopping in my lane like I did.