Metropol

Neil DG wrote:Has anyone ever used the Pause/Break key?

On its own, it doesn't do much - except, perhaps, stopping the BIOS info scrolling off screen at boot up.

However, pair it up with the Windows key and it's an incredibly useful shortcut - it takes you straight to the system info dialog. Great for nosing at the specs of machines in stores.

So it bloomin' well does!

Why, thank you, kind sir. That's one to remember.

Niiiiiiiiiiiice

Thanks AW.

Nick Harvey wrote:

Chie wrote:You wouldn't say 'he casted his fishing net...' for example.

No, of couse you wouldn't. You'd say 'he casted his fishing line...'.

If he casted his fishing net, it would land in the middle of the river and then float off down stream.

Wouldn't the net be attached to his boat? The word applies whether the net is tethered or not as the word 'broadcast' itself came from farmers who cast their seeds over a broad area, as opposed to sowing them in rows. This became known as broadcasting and was later used to describe the transmission of radio waves across a broad area when radio was invented. But you probably already knew that.

I just don't get why people are out shopping today on the premise of 'beating' the VAT increase. You'd have to spend £400 to make a saving of a tenner. Spend a hundred pounds and you save £2.50.

Buy everything on your credit card (which is probably what most of these lemmings are doing - when will they ever learn?) and you end up paying more in interest than you saved on the purchase in the first place. So why bother??

Chie wrote:I just don't get why people are out shopping today on the premise of 'beating' the VAT increase. You'd have to spend £400 to make a saving of a tenner. Spend a hundred pounds and you save £2.50.

So you're confused as to why people are using this quite boring day off to go shopping, when a load of sales start AND when prices will assuredly be higher for both sale and non-sale items this time next week? Really? You find that hard to comprehend?

Buy everything on your credit card (which is probably what most of these lemmings are doing - when will they ever learn?) and you end up paying more in interest than you saved on the purchase in the first place. So why bother??

Hello, I'm Chie. I'm going to attach a load of assumptions of irrational behaviour to something and then declare it irrational. I'M SO FUCKING INSIGHTFUL AND MY SMUGNESS IS ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED.

Andrew Wood wrote:However, pair it up with the Windows key and it's an incredibly useful shortcut - it takes you straight to the system info dialog. Great for nosing at the specs of machines in stores.

Great, if PC World, Comet and John Lewis ever stop running a Flash application and actually let you use the OS.

Sput wrote:So you're confused as to why people are using this quite boring day off to go shopping, when a load of sales start AND when prices will assuredly be higher for both sale and non-sale items this time next week? Really? You find that hard to comprehend?

Yes. And, some people I know say 'I'm just doing my bit for the economy' as a reason for spending so much money they can't afford. But hey, they wouldn't want to be labelled A PROTECTIONIST. Because you know, protecting the financial security of yourself and your loved ones is *completely* irrational.

Sput wrote:Hello, I'm Chie. I'm going to attach a load of assumptions of irrational behaviour to something and then declare it irrational. I'M SO FUCKING INSIGHTFUL AND MY SMUGNESS IS ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED.

Not so much smug. Just fed-up.

Philip wrote:Great, if PC World, Comet and John Lewis ever stop running a Flash application and actually let you use the OS.

I find Ctrl/Alt/Delete, Task Manager and End Task is usually quite effective.

Then the real fun begins. You stand in the next aisle and look over as assistant after assistant fails miserably at restarting the application, none of them realising that just rebooting the thing will automatically start it up again.

One day, the likes of PC World, Comet and John Lewis will employ somebody with a bit of technical knowledge and put them out on the sales floor to actually help people, rather than keep them locked up in a back room where all they do all day is nose through the hard drive of the PC which was only brought in for a new power switch.

I actually agree (slightly) with Chie regarding Boxing Day - in my family Boxing Day is a day when we actually do nothing, nothing whatsoever. That is the point of Boxing Day in my opinion - after the previous day's combination of food preparation and eating, entertaining, drinking, gift-giving (which in a family of 11 is a logistical adventure), and staying up late playing all sorts of stocking-filler games, having one extra day before going back to work where you can slouch on the sofa, watch rugby / football / Aardman Animations films, eating cold turkey and ending the day with a big plate of chips... that's what Boxing day is all about.

Certainly not wrestling my way through shops (which, IIRC, most of us have been doing for most of December) or paying exorbitant car-parking fees or anything else. I look at these people (many of which have dragged their children along away from their new toys) and think exactly the same as Chie, although for different reasons.