Richard Feynman on getting laid: "You Just Ask Them?"

The justification for intellectual "property" is to encourage creators to work that will eventually belong to the public. I cannot believe that an author's decision to write a book at that time was influenced by whether or not could continue extracting profits in today's world.

The original copyright term of 14 years might have been defensible for books in that time, but extensions are very, very hard to justify in terms of the benefits to society.

Whether you think it's sad or not, I have known people who felt exactly this way. e.g., my senior year EE lab partner was a woman who couldn't stand our Theory of Communications prof, but put up with him because he was the only person who could explain the topics in a way that made sense to her.

I'm pretty sure she wasn't alone in that sentiment. Fortunately or unfortunately, we all have to make compromises.

My "confident creep" has inner confidence in his abilities (he might even think of himself as a god among men), but he cannot correctly project his confidence (though in his mind, he is projecting it correctly). He can drop any empathy and ask such a question without being nervous, but his style, dress, conversation, etc. are so awkward, it fails.

Point being: Confidence is not the only thing that matters. You actually need social skills.

Personally I'd expect that line to work better on "good quality" girls, actually. Especially pretty girls that know they look good.

Uh huh.

With really beautiful and/or confident girls you're more likely for them to expect guys to be shy and deferential or just plain creepy.

Of course the chance of coming off as creepy with a line like that if not delivered with the perfect attitude is pretty high.

Uh? So if a pretty girl is more used to guys being shy or creepy and you deliver the line in question, which way do you think she's more likely to interpret the approach? You then go on to say that in any case, the chances of coming off as creepy while using such a line are pretty high.

Sexual intent, confidence and the perception that you're very successful with women and don't need to by shy about what you're after means far more than looks.

Well that really depends on how ugly you are, doesn't it. :) If you're average to good looking, then yeah I can see (and have personally seen) how attitude makes a difference. If you look like you fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, then good luck with that awesome confidence you're exuding. I suspect it will be just you and your hand tonight, as a lady once sung.

Sounds to me like you're more working off how you wish things were as opposed to how they are. It seems pretty self evident in my mind that no matter how the line in question is delivered, there will be girls who respond positively and girls who do not. The point I'm trying to make is that it's more about the girl than it is the opening line. How inebriated the girl is would make a large difference to the outcome of the interaction and at the risk of repeating myself, in my experience the girls who would respond positively to that line generally are not the ones I've wanted to sleep with.

It's another thing entirely if we're talking about using this line or something similar on a woman who you've know for a while and who has had a chance to get used to your personality and sense of humour. I think there might be a far greater chance of a positive response from a "quality girl" in this case. But this isn't what we're talking about here.

In the end, I guess you can test your expectations for yourself. Let me know how it goes. :) And hey, this is HN and I have no studies or statistics I can cite to prove my point so we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.