Slashdot Mirror

"Slavery" is not just in South Korea. For example, a recent report on the problem here in Britain from the right-wing Daily Telegraph on 29.November.2014. (I mention that it is right wing to avoid any impression that this is an issue raised only by bleeding heart liberals.) Theresa May is the British Home Secretary (political head of the Home Office, the department responsible for law and order, security and immigration) and is a member of the UK Conservative Party, again on the right of British Politics.

Theresa May says tens of thousands held as modern slaves in Britain "As many as 13,000 people in Britain are being held in conditions of slavery, four times the number previously thought, it has been revealed. In what is said to be the first scientific estimate of the scale of modern slavery in the UK, the Home Office has said the number of victims last year was between 10,000 and 13,000. They include women forced into prostitution, domestic staff and workers in fields, factories and fishing boats. ... outlining the strategy for government departments, its agencies and partners, Home Secretary Theresa May said legislation was 'only part of the answer'. The 'grim reality' is that slavery still exists in towns, cities and the countryside across the world, including the UK, she said. ..."

If you're suggesting that the slavery problem in South Korea is in any way comparable to what's happened recently in North Korea, some information:

A 17-minute BBC TV Newsnight report from 2008 Risking lives to escape N Korea Hundred of thousands of North Koreans are fleeing their country illegally, crossing north into China. A camera team from South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper spent the past 10 months filming activity at the border. The BBC's Olenka Frenkiel was given exclusive access to their material.

"Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea" - a book by Barbara Demick

A 2011 lecture by the British politician David Alton North Korea – A Different Approach – Cambridge University Lecture which has useful background on the history of Korea (the Japanese occupation, the Korean war), and has two sections on "4. Human Rights" and "5. Humanitarian Situation".

For example, from "4. Human Rights": ... My own interest in North Korea began through an encounter with an escapee, Yoo Sang-joon. A North Korean Christian who had escaped from the country and came to see me at Westminster. His story was harrowing and disturbing. He told me how he had seen his wife, and all bar one of his children shot dead by Kim Jong-Il's militia. He subsequently escaped across the border to China with his one remaining son. The boy died en route. He encouraged me to read the prison memoirs of Soon Ok Lee. In them she describes in detail the brutality and barbarism of the system in North Korea. 'Eyes of the Tailless Animals' is Soon Ok Lee's account of the sham judicial system, the show trials, the starvation, the forced labour, the degradation, humiliation and rape of prisoners. Through her eyes we get a glimpse of this corrupt, paranoid and tyrannical regime.

... Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, the previous United Nations Special Rapporteur on North Korea, told me that he estimates that 400,000 people have died in North Korea's prison camps in the last 30 years. Vitit Muntarbhorn ... has described North Korea's human rights record as "abysmal" due to "the repressive nature of the power base: at once cloistered, controlled and callous." The exploitation of

Of course... if you read it at proper news outlets, they might be able to get a headline with some semblance of truth in it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal...

Most cancer TYPES 'just bad luck'

Most TYPES of cancer can simply be put down to bad luck rather than risk factors such as smoking, a study suggests. 338

The "spot" one measures vehicle speed at a particular location that may be identified as an accident blackspot or around an institution like a school or hospital to deter local high or enforce a local speed limit.

The other type, the "average speed" camera initially appeared to deter speeding where roadworks caused narrowing of traffic lanes and the possibility of injury to road workers. This technology is now being more widely introduced to govern speeds along extensive stretches of motorway in the UK (and no doubt elsewhere). A BBC news report highlights the problems that will arise in a few weeks time when an average speed area is to be imposed on the M4 in South Wales.

With average speed cameras, its no use slowing down when you see the camera then speeding up when you're out of sight; it makes a note and sends the time you passed it, and your number plate details to its buddy at the exit of the speed trap area and if your average over the distance is over the limit, then KABOOM!!!! you get a ticket/points off your licence and if the disparity is truely humengous, a set of blues and twos in your rearview mirror.

I've no disagreement with speed cameras in general, its the blanket assumptions made in setting speed zones and the general idea that "speed kills" that annoys me. Too much is doen by means of maps and compasses...

Prove yourself: = "booked". Hmmmmmm...

That probably affects the British recommendation -- it's permanently damp here. (amateur data in London, but the official data is only available as a download).

It's 3C outside now (17:09), with 86% humidity, changing to 0C and fog overnight.

This link and this one for what Newton gave us.

Let's not forget the guy Newton got his optics and celestial mechanics from. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/781...

Luis Suarez left Liverpool because he kept biting people. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/f...

BURN ENGLAND DOWN. KILL ALL THEIR JUDGES
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

Swearing man 'risks life in prison' after 176 convictions
George Lancelot mugshot George Lancelot has 176 public disorder convictions

A man with 176 convictions for repeated foul-mouthed outbursts risks spending the rest of his life in prison.

George Lancelot, 61, was jailed for 20 months on Thursday at Exeter Crown Court for breaching an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) banning him from swearing and drinking in public.

His latest offence was committed hours after he was released from prison.

As Lancelot was led from the dock on Thursday he shouted: "I'd get less for burglary." He then swore at the court.

Judge Phillip Wassall told Lancelot, of Higher Warberry Road, Torquay: "I am told there is unlikely to be any psychiatric disposition to help you.

"Unless you deal with this you could spend the rest of your life in prison."

Kevin Hopper, defending, said the court should order mental health treatment.

"He (Lancelot) cannot comply with the ASBO because he is mentally ill," said Mr Hopper.

"He faces a life term but I don't know what to suggest."

Andrew Neilson, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "We should not be filling our jails with people who have mental health needs, let alone someone who appears to pose no actual threat to the public."

It's like the damn island hasn't heard of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. "Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,"

Mario Balotelli, a black football player with a Jewish mother is suspended a game and fined 25k pounds for posting an anti-racist picture about a multicultural Super Mario.

Luis Suarez was essentially forced out of England for using the word negrito while speaking Spanish because it happened to sound like nigger. (While John Terry was given a sentence of half the time for using the word nigger in English.)

Crazy arse porn rules.

A man is threatened with life in jail for swearing too much.

And what the fuck is an Anti-Social Behavior Order?

How can the nation that brought us Locke also be bringing us this?

I was denied the vote in the last election because my poll booth closed FIVE HOURS EARLY.

I'm not the only one this happened to.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_...

Highest turnout for thirty years?? Sure, half of them didn't get to fucking vote, though!

Is that he saw this documentary, were John Sweeney said almost the exactly same thing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...

Snowden let us know that GCHQ was busy carrying out DDOS attacks on websites suspected of being used by Anonymous. Without due process, without any tested proof of wrongdoing, without any judicial oversight of what they were doing or consideration of collateral damage. Legal only because GCHQ has pretty much carte blanche to do whatever they want. Maybe if GCHQ spent more of their time doing what most people think they should be doing, instead of playing script kiddy and DDOSing random chat rooms, they would get more sympathy. Personally I think in this case they're just using Snowden as a convenient excuse for their failures.

There are fish that can survive swimming on molten sulphur. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci...

Beat that.

as in, this was on mainstream two days ago.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/718... & http://www.abdn.ac.uk/oceanlab... (original research)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...

and a seriously poor writeup from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

BBC News

I think that the GP was just making a point that many of the global warming proponents have oversold their agenda.

You can't remain credible by simultaneously implying (with "weasel" words) that each natural disaster is a direct result of global warming, while ignoring the growing arctic ice thickness and decrease in tornado activity.

Yes, nature is stochastic. But the sword cuts both ways, but pandering to sensationalism will ultimately undercut any scientific argument.

http://science.time.com/2014/0...
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/globa...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...
     

No, I don't.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto...

What we are seeing is a rare opportunity for a politician to accuse Greenpeace of overreach.

They've done it before.

You'll have to excuse the grossly misleading headline and summary, I just noticed it's posted by Rei.

Rei turns up on Slashdot every time an Assange story turns up. She's mentioned before that she was a victim of assault, and so has basically decided to make it her life long internet crusade to ensure that any man accused of rape is determined to be guilty, and fuck the law and all that.

She likes to sound intelligent by throwing in random Swedish words like the Swedish version of "the accused" as if it somehow makes her sound more intelligent, but honestly it just comes across as plain weird, I really to this day cannot understand why you'd write out a paragraph in English and just throw in a few otherwise directly translatable words in Swedish other than to try and pretend you have more of a clue than you actually do.

But don't take my word for it. She's already spreading her bile in this discussion already:

http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

"Rape fugitive"? yeah sure Rei, that doesn't sound like a loaded description of someone who has neither been found guilty of rape, nor even been charged for rape, but merely wanted for questioning. Oh let me guess, the tired old "but Sweden can't charge someone without doing it on their soil!". Bollocks. Completely false. Sweden can do this and have done this. They haven't done it because they're not far enough along in their investigation yet. Sweden isn't far along enough in it's investigation yet because it refuses to question Assange anywhere other than on it's soil even though it can and has done this for many other suspects in the past. All of this is mentioned black and white in places like this, by journalists that have actually done their homework, unlike propagandist man-haters like Rei:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

In fact, Sweden's own courts recently criticised Assange's prosecutors for not being willing to move the case forward by simply questioning him in the UK or via video link:

http://www.svea.se/Om-Svea-hov...

To quote:

"The Court of Appeal notes, however, that the investigation into the suspected crimes has come to a halt and considers that the failure of the prosecutors to examine alternative avenues is not in line with their obligation â" in the interests of everyone concerned â" to move the preliminary investigation forward."

Honestly I've not bothered before, but it's getting tiresome seeing the same old biased hatred filled trash coming from her. It's become impossible to have a rational discussion on Slashdot about the whole Assange thing with her bile and random nonsensical insertion of an arbitrary selection of Swedish words. Yes it sucks what happened to you Rei, but that doesn't mean that we should just throw all semblance of justice and reason out the window just for you.

It's basically become Rei's own personal bitch the fuck out of Assange space. Go away Rei, Slashdot isn't yours, you don't get to unilaterally set the fucking agenda and shame on the editors for allowing it in this case.

Of course we, the UK tax payers, stuck in the middle are footing the bill for this Swedish prosecution caused farce that people like Rei are so quick to defend because of their own personal issues:

https://govwaste.co.uk/

Rapists should be hung, drawn, and quartered, and the widespread failure by authorities globally to deal with sexual assault and obtain convictions in cases where they should is a major problem. Conviction rates seem to be from a statistical standpoint unrealistically low, and it needs to change. But when a prosecution can't even be bothered to determine that someone is one and actively avoids doing so then it doesn't instil confidence that they gen

When do we start adding UK to the list of unfree states.

You know that the filter is strictly optional, right?

Being opt-out is stupid pandering to the "think of the children" morons who are too lazy to opt in to an opt in system which was present before (surprise! companies offered this service!).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/tech...

The proportions of people NOT opting out are:
* Virgin Media - 4%
* BT - 5%
* Sky - 8%
* TalkTalk - 36%

(Note: TalkTalk offered the service as an opt in feature before the government waded in).

The filter is a stupid and pointless thing to be mandated (as evidenced by the nubmers), but given the number of people opting out (almost all), chicken-littling over being like China is even more stupid than the filter itself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/maga...

Buses are per person mile very inefficient in energy use, pollution and especially convenience. They are only efficient in the first two when full to capacity which they are only during major commute rushes.

That's not true. Busses even when pretty empty are efficient. A modern bus weighs about 8 times that of a small car, is a hybrid (which really does help substantially for city driving) and has a single large engine which is generally a bit more efficient than a collection of smaller ones. As a result a bus only needs a few people on board before it matches a car for efficiency.

Given a maximum capacity of about 90 people, I'd estimate that even at 10% full the bus will win in terms of efficiency. There are other factors which probably help in the busses favour, since busses aren't built for high acceleration and are also driven by more competent professionals than cars on average.

Anyway I found this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

Seems that busses are in the range 5 to 8 MPG roughly. Cars are largely around the 30 mark for decent cars. At that point even the worse busses only need 6 passengers to equal the efficieincy of single occupancy cars.

The average occupancy in the UK is apparently 1.58:

http://www.publications.parlia...

meaning compared to the worse busses you'd need 9 people to match the efficiency of cars, with the least efficient busses. Coincidentally, this is about the same as the average bus occupancy in the UK as well.

People tend to use busses differently from cars. During commuting, occupancy is only 1.2 per car and busses are fuller.

So, I'd say your claim that busses are inefficient are misplaced.

No, I should. That is our exact term. And its goal is to ensure that "stupid children" as you put it get both peer and teacher's help to progress. That's why we score so high on PISA - we tend to lack the super high achievers, but our average is high and we have very few students who fall through the cracks.

BBC has a pretty good primer for Anglo countries' citizenry here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/860...

Given what they are offering to customers as compensation this time, I wonder whether a substantial backlash against this kind of substandard quality has finally started, perhaps even among the serious gaming community. It certainly seems like Ubisoft might actually be getting concerned about their reputation and future profits now. It's not as if they haven't had launch disasters before, but presumably you only get so many before people stop pre-ordering your next "must have" game, even if the limit is high in this business.

That'll be the Walkie Talkie building

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

The problem isn't reflectiveness alone, the shape of the building played a part too.

I'm not sure how much longer Pelamis will be around:-

Wave power firm Pelamis calls in administrators

"...via all the corrupt politicians they have caught and not reported."

Controlling politicians is big business.

The expose The Franklin Cover Up by former Senator John Decamp exposes high ranking politicians, clergymen and businessmen using and abusing children (mostly boys) regularly and sadistically.

These abuses are often recorded and then used to compromise powerful individuals.

Pedophilia is literally the fabric that binds the system together - which is also why these sickos keep getting off (no pun intended!).

It happens in every country. In Canada, these activities were exposed by whistle-blowing police officer Perry Dunlop.

In the UK, there are ongoing scandals which will likely end with little to no convictions and hundreds of abused victims with no justice or compensation.

In Belgium there is the famous Mark Dutroux case. Dutroux admitted to procuring children (mainly little girls) for "high ranking officials in police and government".

These pedophile rings operate 24/7 and involve some of the most prominent members of society and are always covered up.

With the seemingly limitless global surveillance technology, it would be folly to think that the 'five eyes' are unaware of these crimes - much less that they would actively investigate and convict these child rapists.

One of the more disturbing 'government sponsored' activites, is the CIA program The Finders, exposed by former FBI special agent, (the late) Ted Gunderson.

To make the changes required for humanity to truly evolve, these pedophiles need to be exposed and convicted.

Please, think of the children.

Yes, the rhetoric for this week's episode of "Theresa May had an idea" has been particularly silly.

The statistics trotted out over the past week or so make for interesting, if depressing, reading.

For example, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a very senior officer with counter-terrorism responsibilities, says they've been prevented on average one terrorist attack per year but so far this year it's been 4-5 already. (It's not clear whether this was in the specific context of "lone wolf" attacks, though.)

Just hours apart from that, we have Theresa May herself saying that almost 40 major terrorist attacks have been foiled since the 7/7 bombings, giving an average of about four per year. This means, she says, that the UK is facing the biggest terrorism threat in its history, which might be surprising to anyone who was around during the worst of the troubles with the IRA not so long ago. There are plenty of scary messages played over the PA system when you go through any major London railway station these days, but not frequent closures due to actual bomb threats and the like.

Also on Monday, there was a statement from Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley citing 271 arrests resulting from counter-terrorism investigations so far this year. Their Commissioner seemed to be implying in the above statement that all of these had led to charges, too. What they don't seem to have mentioned anywhere in this week's PR campaign is how many such arrests ultimately lead to convictions, nor how many of those convictions (or the arrests or charges themselves) are actually for terrorism offences.

The combined budget for our security services reportedly remains somewhere around the £2B mark, not counting additional funding for counter-terrorism units within other organisations such as the police.

In other news, in 2013 (the last full year for which stats are available) there were 1,713 people killed on our roads, and a further 21,657 seriously injured, not to mention damage to the economy estimated in the £15-30B range as a result of the disruption due to incidents on the road. Would anyone like to guess what's been happening to the annual road safety publicity budget in recent years?

Also: Trip Advisor bad review 'fine' scrapped by Blackpool hotel

Laws trump contracts pretty much everywhere and in every circumstance.

Yes, but the laws need to exist first. UK, EU, Australia etc. tend to have stronger consumer protection laws than the US (which, AFAIK, vary state by state) and often have authorities that enforce them rather than leaving it up to individuals to sue. You'll notice that big firms like Apple are often getting slapped by the authorities in these countries (e.g. for selling extended warranties that partly duplicate statutory rights) c.f. in the US (where they get hit with class-action lawsuits instead).

NB, looks like Trading Standards have had a little chat with the hotel in TFA.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

And then Americans wonder why they're pissed off about things like this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/tech...

If I've learnt anything about Americans is that you can't help them, they often vote for the things they most despise. They're probably the most contradictory people on earth, they bitch and moan about something and then vote exactly for it and vocally defend it on the internet.

So here we'll have Slashdotters cheering about how this is great and the right to be forgotten is awful and then next week we'll have them whining about how some company is storing data on them that it shouldn't, or a company is indexing their e-mails, or the NSA is spying on them. They say they want privacy and then cheer on and support rulings and companies that destroy their privacy.

According to this site, yes.

Huh. Though it does say dubious.

Flash Gordon its due, it does portray women as professional reporters

Reporters? I believe Dale Arden is a travel agent (who's scared in planes no less).

and generals, and Princess Aura is far from the stereotypical princess in the tower.

Indeed. The women are not protrayed as at all helpless. Far from it. Though it always puzzled me that after handily dispatching 3 of the imperial cannon fodder guards, Dale chucks away the gun and picks up her sparkly, high heeled shoes.

Anyway, if you're a fan and haven't seen this, it's well worth a watch:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...

pow pow eheheheheh bollock harness diiiiiiiiiiive

Well, no mention of missile system here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...
This one suggests a different platform: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/18/5... references other aircraft shot down at ranges requiring BUK or Pantsir missiles.

So it does look like someone was using a missile system capable of taking down an airliner to shoot down other Ukrainian aircraft, although it could be a Pantsir rather than a BUK.

I'd rather have a Pantsir myself, the missile is nice but those autocannon are multipurpose hotness. No pictures of a Pantsir being spirited back across the border into Russia just after shooting down the wrong aircraft though.

That's what you think! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_... http://www.caughtoffside.com/2... http://pageantgirl.co.uk/uncat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Maybe I'm biased. Half Irish/Scotch, Half Suomalainen...

Timely:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

I believe the previous poster was referring to such lovely things as the employment of "The pear of anguish" for people "convicted" of "the heinous, unnatural" act of sodomy.

Due to religious influence, the practice of "Sodomy" (a wide umbrella for multitudinous sexual acts considered 'sinful') was considered a capital offence in more countries in europe than not. (And those that didnt have it as a capital offence, had torture as one of the major punishments, such as the afore mentioned pear of anguish.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ptop/...

"Christians" generally DID do those things (Beheading people and the like) for a very long time. The major reason we don't now, came from 3 things, one of which is vitally important for the others to have as much influence as they did.

Firstly, THERE MUST BE A NON-AMBIGUOUS MESSAGE OF FORGIVENESS AND ACCEPTANCE in their religious text.

Secondly, Literacy and availability of that religious text must be high.

Thirdly, some political figure must shatter the religious oligarchy, and make free-practice of religion safe.

The middle east has a very "medieval" worldview. The difference between modern christianity (with emphasis on catholicism and the vatican) and current islam (in the middle east), is that modern christianity is radically more "Enlightened"--- That's just on the secular front.

This happened because 1) The actual text of the new testament is one of forgiveness, (practically unending levels of forgiveness), 2) The Rennaisance enabled the common public to have access to the bible, so that they could read it for themselves, and 3) The great schism of the roman catholic church, pushed into prominence by the king of england instituting the church of england, and protecting "Heretical protestants" enabled people who free-practiced to do so without fear of political prosecution.

On the religious front, the actual tenets of the bible's new testament strongly advocate forgiveness of sin, not punishment. The entire new testament is basically devoted to this ideal. There is no such parallel in islam. The qur'an is very much like christianity's levitical law; it advocates extreme punishments for infactions of the religious code of conduct. The prescribed punishment for homosexuality in the levitical law is stoning. (same with adultery, beastiality, etc.)

That does not say that people who self-identify as musslim strictly adhere to the written text of the qur'an however. This is every bit like there are many many people who self-identify as christian, who do not strictly adhere to the biblical text. (For good and for ill.)

The major difference, is that in the middle east, there is no secular protection for people who self-practice islam, (and don't bow to a religious leader/clerical hierarchy), and literacy is poor-- coupled with no strong underlying message telling the religiously faithful that they should not be extremists.

The basic thing I am reading here are arguments that are not very logical.

One side says "Islam is a backward religion that advocates brutalism, and is in no fashion a religion of peace."

Another side says "There are more moderate Muslims than there are extremist ones, so islam is clearly not the problem."

Both are wrong, but for different reasons.

Judaism was every bit as cruel and medieval as strict Islam is now before the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth. (Religiosity of this figure witheld; the individual existed, but any divine status is not substantiated.) Islam has a similarly prophesied figure, called the Mahdi, (or the hidden imam, and several other descriptors.) This figure has not yet come for Islam.

The appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, and the message he brought, changed Judaism permanently. Christianity came into existence because of it, and the message of forgiveness (even if subverted by power trippers in the medieval period for pu

Or the shooting down of airliners by Americans...

That was in 1988 — before Reagan-intensified initiative was completed and GPS came into common usage.

Or the Ukrainians - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Interestingly enough, the Ukrainians responsible for that disaster are currently Russians — the missile came from Crimea...

Why oh why do people *still* go on about those planes that were shot down... ...crimea river.

Or the shooting down of airliners by Americans...

That was in 1988 — before Reagan-intensified initiative was completed and GPS came into common usage.

Or the Ukrainians - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Interestingly enough, the Ukrainians responsible for that disaster are currently Russians — the missile came from Crimea...

Or the shooting down of airliners by Americans...

Or the Ukrainians - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

First off, being a Muslim has nothing to do with screaming, crying, and arresting as soon as they express a view we don't like.

really?

At least, that's what our friendly spooks think:

"However much they may dislike it, [US technology companies] have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us," he writes.

"The challenge to governments and their intelligence agencies is huge - and it can only be met with greater co-operation from technology companies.

the video seems to state:

1) SOP is to unlock at 1.4
2) the co-pilot moved the lever to unlock at 1.0

"the lock unlock is not to be moved into the unlock position until acceleration up to mach 1.4. Instead, that occurred at approximately mach 1.0"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl... (2:50)

I don't know if that difference is significant. It sounded to me like 'we're not casting blame formally yet, but look over here at this pilot error'

Indeed. From The Guardian:

Christopher Hart, the acting chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board, told a press conference on Sunday night that the co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, had unlocked the feathering system, but that the second stage of the process, which moves the wings into the feathering position, happened “without being commanded”.

And here's a short video from the press conference.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-2...

The article has changed since I first read it from 'charged with' to 'accused of'

The Metropolitan Police said the men are accused of taking an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) militant group and arranging to buy a handgun equipped with a silencer and conducting "hostile reconnaissance" of a police station and Army barracks in London using Google Street View.

I second this. A lot of attention gets paid (understandably) to those researchers who discover some new particle, material, species etc, but science is utterly dependent on the brilliant people who are prepared to work in the background on less "sexy" topics.

X-Ray crystallography is a brilliant example, without all the work being done by brilliant experimentors like Elspeh Garmen who have worked so hard to make other people's discoveries and inventions possible.

As the biologist Steve Jones once put it, "Science is the last refuge of the mediocre". People focus on the geniuses but it's really a massive collaborative effort by a lot of actually pretty ordinary people who just like to investigate the unknown.

The BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific had a great interview with Garmen who was very humble about a career that has had a massive impact on so many areas of research - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...

It's a really fantastic series if you want to get an idea of what real scientists actually do, and how they got to where they are in their careers.

This is why not:

Crop yields are expected to decline because plants need more water as the temperature goes up:
http://www.qaafi.uq.edu.au/mai...
http://www.circleofblue.org/wa...
http://www.seeddaily.com/repor...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...

Also try this on for size; The spread of pests and disease:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...
http://www.wunderground.com/ne...

As for the rest of your assumptions: http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Even worse you can see the gender difference in monkeys. Put more clearly monkeys who have *NEVER* seen a toy in their life will exhibit classical gender differences when presented with a mix of wheeled toys and dolls.

That should put paid to any notions that it is down to cultural barriers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...

Gerry Potter's research led to what he calls "pro-drug paradigm" that is it's not a drug, it's turned into a drug by something, then becomes active.

I met one of this guys friends in Starbucks once and we became good friends and he explained a bunch of this stuff to me. Here's the short version:

The Cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP1B1 [1] only occurs in cancer cells [2][3]. When certain phytoallexins such as resveratrol and salvestrol are ingested these phytoalexins are converted by the P450 enzyme into piceatannol [4], which is fatal to cancer cells but not human cells [5][6].

  [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
  [2] http://cancerres.aacrjournals....
  [3] http://secure.salvestrol.ca/se...
  [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
  [5] http://www.nature.com/bjc/jour...
  [6] http://www.orthomolecular.org/...

Here's some articles and stuff:
http://www.thisisleicestershir...

"Prostate cancer drug so effective trial stopped"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/hea...

Pat ettenttion to the colors on this map: http://www.cancerresearchuk.or...

If you poke around you can find cliical repoets online. All people seem to get better and this stuff has been around since 2007.

So, I think they're on to something here... and it may be a a way to Patent Potter's second discovery (based on CYP1B1) which is not patentable. His first discovery based on CYP17 was patentable and sold for two billion untested.

They're awfully skint on the biochemical explanation.

This reminds me of how the cable/satellite companies nuke counterfeit smart cards. My favorite part is how DirecTV personally "signed" the anti-hacker attack. The first 8 computer bytes of all hacked cards were rewritten to read "GAME OVER".

http://slashdot.org/story/01/01/25/1343218/directvs-secret-war-on-hackers
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/143
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1138550.stm

These are old articles but still begs the question about what a company should be allowed to do to protect itself. I’m all for it. But a popup notice would be nice so people could have some time to get non-counterfeit hardware. Or keep using the knockoff and not update the driver. However your moral compass points.
I know the main difference is the poor users who may or may not have known about the counterfeit chips vs those who clearly should have known their Satellite card was a fake or maybe they didn’t...

Nope. First $499 Mac Mini was released in 2005.