Nick Deverill

But there are an estimated 50000 others convicted of the same 'offence'. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315 (BBC report on posthumous pardon for Alan Turing.

When I went to school, calculators were just becoming affordable. I remember going to exams with a calculator, spare battery (it ate them), a slide rule and taking the loaned log tables too. But a trick I and a couple of friends learnt was that we could beat the early calculators in doing reciprocals by learning what 1 to 10s reciprocal was, and interpolating the rest. We'd have a good enough answer while the calculator owner was still pushing buttons.

I suspect the "porn ban" will catch far more than porn, sexual advice, NHS sites, perhaps even sites like this. It won't be a case though of needing your ISPs permission, they'll need your permission to not apply the filter. True the present government is right wing, but I bet this is the sort of thing that'll attract all party support. And while it seems to them to be a good idea, I bet the computer literate 13 year old will find a way round it - might be as simple as using a proxy server.

The domain is fine, but the email IP is in a group of good guys and bad guys. Quote from Spamhaus web page when I put the IP address of the emails in (only took two minutes to track and query it). As a precaution we are listing this range in an SBL Advisory until we are able to determine with certainty exactly who is operating these domains/hosts/servers and also verify the opt-in permission status and origin of whatever lists are used for those mailings. So really they've covered themselves, the fact that some operators are treating range as wholly naughty is not down to Spamhaus. I imagine they don't respond to an individual saying they never sent spam in the first place.

Basically their server has been listed as in a group where a few addresses are spamming, by Spamhaus. One does not have control of the numerical address, so Timmy can't just change it and restore service. Yahoo buy their services and thus blacklisted IOMFATs emails. And Yahoo do emails for other people so the banning reaches further than you'd think. There is no security implications of this.

There's a sequel, rather longer and on the other site, 12 chapters. So I presume it will appear here presently. Don't be put off by the language issues, less than '1984' by George Orwell although to be fair, many of his made up terms have now entered the language, and certainly better than 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess which I found an impossible read.

Like the invention of flaired trousers!

Firstly, I have to confess, I've read it before in another place. I liked it there and read it there twice Finding it here, I've just carefully re-read it for a third time. http://awesomedude.com/mihangel/xenophilia%20part%201/index.htm Please don't rush, but read carefully, savouring the odd Welsh words which are well explained. And when you come to the end, see if you don't think as I do, that the ending is among the best in almost any form of literature. No peeking!

All I can really say is, read it, as anything else would be a spoiler. A jolly good read.

Worth also seeing the BBC News story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24964100 It's obviously splashed across the media from the other links I found.

Ah but is it one writer's tears, or many writers' tears? (Singular or plural possessive).

An enjoyable read. Sums up the age of the protagonists well.

I think it is, but if you are basically happy, I'd stick with it a month or two as there are a few bugs in Windows 8.1, that I presume Microsoft will get around to fixing. I updated my display driver last night as I was one of the many laptop owners who could not change the brightness settings. I accomplished it, but the silly thing kiboshed my WiFi card. Really did a good number on it, I eventually got it back by uninstalling the WiFi in device manager, and then re-installing it. Complicated by the fact my card does bluetiith as well, but electrically uninstalling does bluetooth seperate to WiFi - so I had to do it twice. Most, but not all displays are too bright whether it's a laptop or a TV and usually a far better picture can be got with a bit of tinkering. I can now dim mine for the winter evenings!

Basic general rule, the pictures are better in a book or radio play than TV or film because if the writing is any good at all, the reader's imagination trumps any visual effect possible.

I'm using 8.1 on my newly bought laptop. Bought just after Window 8.1 was released, and obviously, it had Windows 8.0 installed. Had to load all sorts of updates to 8.0 before I was even offered 8.1. Good job I don't pay for bandwidth, as I used a heck of a lot tail end of October. By the time Microsoft emailed me to sell touch applications and the new look, I'd disabled just about all touch controls, some still work, but I like a clean screen not one covered in finger streaks, boot to the desktop, and I'm another user of Classic Shell to make it even more sensible. Shame Microsoft didn't seek feedback. There are a few early issues of course, despite it being beta tested for some months. Unless you need it, turn off "home group" as at the moment, it stops the computer going to sleep properly. Another is the fact it fills your router log in a matter of hours. Eventually I found out it's all tied into network discovery, and the blessed thing looking for other devices, pausing while it does so and generating a new connection on the router - as often as every minute! Again, unless you need it, disabling SSDP in the services menu sorts it for now. I guess sometime Microsoft will issue a fix, but few folk look at their router logs closely, I do as I had connection problems last Winter (lots of line faults). Laptop is now a usable computer, but it probably took 36 hours of mostly downloads, updates and installs to get to that state. If I didn't have a desktop PC to ask questions of google while I was setting up the laptop, I'd probably have gone loco. Not granny friendly in my language.

Quite often, a popular book will have all sorts of meaning attached by reviewers, some who will swear the author meant something they'd never even thought of. Probably not much known outside the UK, but Gerald Durrell one of whose books was chosen for a literature exam (O level Eng Lit if I remember correctly) said he never knew he mean that after reading the questions asked of the students. Given all the noise about the book and the film "Enders Game", my guess is we'll never know the truth but I suspect it's much more simplistic than painted. Mr Card probably just though "that's a good idea, I'll see where it goes". I don't if anyone else has said it, I can't recall reading so, but Mr Card could have suffered a number of mini strokes in the last few years. Not enough to be physically debilitating, but could explain his current offensive views as a change in personality is symptomatic.

Ok, it was a storm - but nothing like as bad as the media hyped it to be. All I saw was squally showers which were quite heavy. Round here, semi-rural Hertfordshire, a few leaves blown about, the odd tree damage and I had to replace my rubbish and recycling bins three times. I think it was worse elsewhere, but not to the extent of the puff.

Extraordinary - a one word complement to all. One of them, "My Halloween wish" could so easily be the start of a serial novel, but loses nothing by being a short story (well, shortish, it's quite long at over 18,000 words). As said above, the bar has been well and truly raised. If you've not yet read them, shame on you!

Only reason I said anything was I like the tale! I do try to help and make constructive remarks when I've enjoyed reading. I also hope this is a start of another fine collection.

Another well rounded tale by Altimexis, read it here: http://awesomedude.com/altimexis/Crossroads/XR01-BedBreakfastBoys.html However, a bit of criticism which I hope will be taken the right way, the story as posted has two errors I've found. Early on in the tale with strikeouts and corrections for errors. “Don’t mention it,” she replied. “Seven AM is not so early for me. I usually start me my day at five AM and sometimes even earlier.” "Our ignorance came to a screeching hault halt when we finally opened the door to the master bedroom and waltzed right in, never giving a moment’s thought to whether or not we were alone. It came as an utter shock when our entry was greeted with a pair of screams. Given the normal high standards of this author, his editor and proofreader, I wonder if the wrong version was posted. It is one of those tales that has to be read slowly - perhaps why I found the errors. (Dude - if you want to edit this post and make the corrections, be my guest).

Yup, it's another tale that's causing me to wish my life away. Roll on the next part.

I also did the quiz, and it says I'm a liberal too.

Ok in the browser that is the spawn of satan IE and Vista as well.

Spotted this rather late. 10000 words in 2 hours is 83.333 words a minute. That is a figure that at school would have you net special attention from a school teacher since average reading speed is 250 to 300 for an adult.

Signed.