Hi aa, the time machine is formatted HFS+, windows doesn’t understand that. If you boot up your windows machine with a ‘live distro’ of Linux (doesn’t change the hard disk) it usually can read the disk (not usually write).

The idea of Mac Mini + iPad over MBP is an interesting one. Depends on how much oomph you require. Browsing – iPad. Banking etc – Mac Mini (as long as you can get to the telly/monitor you use it on!).

EDIT: found this which may be of use for reading disk in Windows (not write) for free: http://www.catacombae.org/hfsx.html

Very tough year. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.

Positives:

My tech skills got a bit better. I managed some dreaded steps last Sunday that I had been scared stiff of!
Got a road bike (OK, OK, I know, don’t shout!) 😀
Got some stuff on the house done.
Started night riding with some great people.

Negatives:

Partner suffering severe anxiety depression, makes me feel constantly on edge and haven’t focussed on much. 😕

I’m going to make sure that 2013 is a much better year. More biking of all sorts and more focus on me. 😀

Try Sibelius’s fifth symphony. Search out “Strawberry Switchblade” on YouTube – same theme!

My straight fetish friends took me to “Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar” a number of years ago. It is a market for fetish stuff. As I walked in there were four men, in their forties/fifties dressed in nappies and stuff. They even had bonnets and dummies!

I had to go back out for five minutes to wipe away the tears of laughter!

Still, each to their own. Makes the world a bit more colourful! The dominatrices there were a bit stern, mind!

Tariquet VSOP armanac. Really smooth and yummy. I don’t like spirits normally (esp. Whiskey) but for this I make an exception!

Well I didn’t see the programme but I knew what would happen.

For the last hour or so I have had the following from my non-cycling colleagues at work who saw the programme:

[list]
[*]Cyclists are all stupid/arrogant.
[*]EVERY cyclist runs red lights.
[*]EVERY cyclist should use the cycle path if there is one.
[*]EVERY cyclist is a nob and it should be banned.
[*]Cyclists should never be in the middle of the lane, regardless of safety.
[/list]

Some even went on to blame Wiggo for his recent accident (“Should stay off the road, where cars are meant to be.”) and started joking about how they were going to set-up their screen washers to spray water at cyclists as they pass.

Thanks BBC, for making my life pretty miserable from idiots.

Yay! A calendar I can put up at work without getting sacked! (One of the reasons I won’t buy Knog stuff).

I’m not racist, some of my best friends are Welsh

OI!

Racism is just plain stupid.

You never think it will happen until it does, especially as an adult white male (putting the whole gaybashing etc. etc. stuff to one side). In Germany I have been called (not politely) an ‘inbred island monkey‘ which is apparently the racist term for peoples of this isle. It makes you nervous of everyone around you thinking the same thing. Nasty.

Lightly fried (or is it steamed?) with pasta and mozarella/fresh basil.

No, no issue.

Copy from the PC to a flash drive or USB hard disk with FAT32 then plug that into the mac, it will see it and use it OK. macs can read NTFS and read/write FAT32.

Do you think the Welsh should have the right to occupy London?

Yes/ydw.

Next/nesaf! 😀

They may modulate the beam and hy can be really powerful so don’t need as much time. Up to 100kW, as opposed to 850W one one.

I think.

Paramedic or nurse.

Odd isn’t it: many responses are looking to careers that help others.

Or have a Thomas the Tank Engine fetish! 😀

My sister has about three miniature dachshunds, and they are all noisy bitey little rats. She calls them names like Pooky and no matter what they do, it is never their fault (biting etc.). Typical baby substitutes. My mother has a standard one that just bites, again it is never its fault. She feeds it cheese sandwiches on a plate, FFS. My experience of dachshunds is that they are the most nasty dogs you can get.

I love dogs but when I get one (border collie) it will be trained.

Not that I’ll ever have kids but if I did and my dog but him/her then the dog would be history.

Had it done a few years ago for medical reasons. Some general advice below from my experience.

Was under for about an hour.
Took six weeks to heal OK.
Strongly suggest you get some comfy briefs if you normally wear boxers as the stitches may catch. Put a gauze pad with some petroleum jelly in the front to prevent stitches catching. I used boxers for a short time and it was very bloody for a while!
Be warned: your frenulum (banjo string) will be cut and it has blood vessels so is more likely to bleed.

And you will be absolutely gagging for some action by the time it heals!

Typical! Every one of them nut-related.

Drat, drat and thrice drat!

I got some coffee duck capsules and they are OK but take some getting used to. Coffee tends to be weaker. Use a very fine grind to improve the strength.

If it is recorded it is libel. If it is spoken it is slander.

Twitter is recorded, therefore libel.

The Chimp Paradox by Dr Steve Peters. An interesting view on how the psyche works. I may have a bash with the ideas with regards to biking. I prepare for the next few TdF winner!

Have a look at ifixit.com, lots of tutorials for this kind of stuff!

You should have no problem. I live in Long Eaton near the train station. Lay me know if you need owt!

Bought 32GB one last Sunday from Curry’s at £199. Couldn’t find a 16GB one for less than £189.99.

Went to shop to get, not online.

Yes, you end up with coffee grounds all over the floor!

Love mine. I used to buy recently roasted beans but they would go stale before I finished them. It’s replaced the stovetop and cafetiere now.

Scamper: it produces an espresso/lungs. You put one or two shots in and top it up with hot water. You can program the buttons to deliver more water but I thought that was supposed to be a no-no for posh coffee? Anyone else know?

I also bought an outpresso to crush the caps for recycling. Good bit of kit but very expensive for what it is.

edit: Andy, Waitrose/ocado sell caps too but they are not as good apparently. I have a refillable cap but it doesn’t provide as good a cup.

There are two versions of IE, depending on how you call it. I think the tiled one is the mobile version. Odd that.

I see where they are going but I hate it.

You touch a tile on the ‘metro’ screen which drops you into the desktop (changing contexts from tile to windowing) but when you end the program you end up still on the desktop.

It took me a while hunting around to work out how to shut the damned thing down, then the list of open windows etc. Hot spots which were hard to hit with the mouse. It’s a touch-based interface trying to do everything everywhere and failing.

First thing I did was get a start button replacement.

Hang on, AdamW is Welsh?

Err, yes?

that was pretty much my point, especially as all our gay heroes were going fishing

Yep. And who were we left with? Larry Grayson and John Inman. I didn’t realise I was “one of them” as we used to say, because I’m just a normal* bloke and am not camp.

Bah!

* For strange values of ‘normal’ which may including biking and not football.

Enfht: you owe me a new white rug and a keyboard!

I was doing the Wales clubs; when they would allow it, usually a weekday night when business was slow or the pub that turned gay on the Friday night in an attempt to get more money even though they hated us!

North Wales was horrible to grow up in during the 80s when you’re gay.

The only reason I didn’t think of marriage personally was due to me being single and that hell may freeze over before bigoted people relaxed their views. Fortunately it happened! I did feel sorry for my mate Phil whose lover died and “family” treated him like poo, demanding everything he owned. Or a couple from Bangor in their seventies, been together 50 years but were scared of either of them dying – couldn’t afford the inheritance taxes of the house and were afraid of being thrown on the streets.

Sad times. But things should now hopefully be coming fully equal and in a few years people will look back and wonder what on earth the kerfuffle was a about!

Ok, you may be issued patches or gum though.

Singletrackd so you were there 30 years ago in the gay scene? Like I was?

Amazing. Which clubs did you go to then?

Miketually, we have moved on. It’s all techno these days, Bacardi, being ultra thin, smoking like tobacco has suddenly been endangered and drooling after the men in the “Dante’s Cove” and “The Lair” TV series.

You can like Elvira as much as you like and Bette Middler is also allowed.

I think Michael Ball is under the label of “fetish”.

Singletrackd, don’t know if you’re seriously deeply trolling or what.

I was around and just realising I was gay 30 years ago (who would have thought I was this old?!). Yes, gay people wanted to get married 30 years ago. I have met people thrown out of their houses by hateful bigoted families after the death on their long term partner. I have seen these vile people spitting at the partner who is deep in grief, even after they had disowned him decades previously, while at the same time emptying the bank account and forcing a house sale.

Hell yes gay people wanted marriage 30 years ago.

Either they could leave a will for each other, or get married.

Simples!

As for other things: believe it or not other people sometimes take the pee because I’m a gay bloke who can’t eat nuts, and the GNS (Gay National Service) would have people drafted in and given a girl/boyfriend. After three years if they decided they wanted to stay being gay that’s fine, or if they wanted to go straight that’s also fine. Got it all worked out!

Actually, while driving home, I realised there is one benefit that I have that straight married people do not.

If I and He Who Must Be Obeyed were to split we could do so amicably with a ‘no-fault’ divorce. (And no, I don’t know what the stupid-named term is for gay divorce; still ducks, all the way down…!).

Straight couples cannot do this at present, one party has to be at fault.

Though when I rule the world (won’t be long now):

All nut-based products will be banned.
To prevent homophobia there will be a gay national service started.
Straight married people can have no-fault divorces.

😀

If the term Marriage is wanted for Homosexual partnersips, should gay men’s bum holes be renamed as Vaginas?

Steady now….. you’re getting close to insult. 🙁

It doesn’t prevent them from getting married, but as the law stands their marriages may be voidable.

So you’re against disabled people/elderly people being able to marry too?

Either the law is an ass or there is a lot of bigotry about.

EDIT:

Hold on a sec: the law states the marriage is voidable, not void. This means it may be deemed void if either side contests it or an external entity that has standing does. Also David Cameron is actually going to change the law in this respect.

My understanding is that one of the main hurdles in legalising same sex marriages is that the current legal contract of marriage is sealed by consummation and under the current definition a same sex couple cannot perform the acts necessary for consummation.

Not so:

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Consummation+of+marriage