Slashdot Mirror

Insurance companies did provide insurance rates risk tables based on post codes (eg. SW10 A34, first four digits give an area of the city, last three digits give the street and number). I once combined a post-code map from the post office with a set of such insurance tables, and it was immediately obvious that the high-rise council blocks were the epicenter of home burglaries. It figures. What could be a better surveillance method than to be 100 metres up in the air with a birds-eye video of all the surrounding terraced streets?

Burglaries can happen anywhere in the UK. Farmers have the problem of "travellers", ie. Tony Martin. Londoners have to put up with random burglaries, or even home takeovers by Romanians. Anyone parking on the street has the risk of having their car insurance disks and contents stolen. Even home invasions aren't unknown. There's also the risk of having garden property stolen regardless of weight:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6951786.stm

Since 1973.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3583801.stm

Only where they can't get out of it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20197710

The CIA vaccination thing actually reads like some kind of fan service to conspiracy theorists...
The sad aspect is the cover was not used for a full set of meds.
The CIA got their DNA and left before the second dose was given.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/12/137792912/reports-cia-tried-to-confirm-bin-laden-dna-using-fake-vaccination-drive
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14117438

"I think there are better things to rant about than Windows 8 to be honest."

Absolutely. It's been a few hours and still no story on this truly monumental event:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20812870

Jeesh, people, where are your priorities? We already know that Win 8 sucks, Apple is a walled garden, and the Raspi is a great platform for doing nothing. How about some "news" for nerds?

Will be compulsory to use for jobseekers from next year (as in, 2 weeks from now).

Have a friend who uses it. They checked the terms and conditions of signing up to use it (remember this is mandatory for those people who wish to sign on for benefits, e.g. somebody who has paid taxes for 20 years and would now like a little back from the taxes to help them get by on important bills for the next few months til they find their next job). If you register on the system, the terms and conditions currently note that your personal data can be passed on to third parties outside the EU.

I don't remember us signing up to that agreement when we agreed to the contract where we pay taxes into society, and when we need some help we can get a little back.

I'll ask my friend to send over the details of the text and I'll post it.

He was interviewed this week on Radio 4's "The Life Scientific" and you can download the interview as .mp3. And yes, I think you peeps outside the UK are treated to this as well even though it's the BBC.

I can also *highly* recommend Slashdotters have a dig through the TLS archive for other interviews ; it's full of incredible scientists talking about their life and work. Proper fascinating. For my money I can reccommend the first three as starting points Paul Nurse, Stephen Pinker, Jocelyn Bell-Burnell.

An extra special mention goes to the interview with Molly Stephens. She is doing the most incredible things that blew my mind when I heard the interview. Not only that but she's assembled a really unusual collection of people with skills across so many different fields to look at the one goal in a the pragmatic way that so many organisations fail to. Oh, and she comes across as a genuinely lovely and interesting lady. Wow. I just realised that I have the most immense geek crush on her. I hope she doesn't read Slashdot... Actually, if you do, fancy a drink? :-D

He was interviewed this week on Radio 4's "The Life Scientific" and you can download the interview as .mp3. And yes, I think you peeps outside the UK are treated to this as well even though it's the BBC.

I can also *highly* recommend Slashdotters have a dig through the TLS archive for other interviews ; it's full of incredible scientists talking about their life and work. Proper fascinating. For my money I can reccommend the first three as starting points Paul Nurse, Stephen Pinker, Jocelyn Bell-Burnell.

An extra special mention goes to the interview with Molly Stephens. She is doing the most incredible things that blew my mind when I heard the interview. Not only that but she's assembled a really unusual collection of people with skills across so many different fields to look at the one goal in a the pragmatic way that so many organisations fail to. Oh, and she comes across as a genuinely lovely and interesting lady. Wow. I just realised that I have the most immense geek crush on her. I hope she doesn't read Slashdot... Actually, if you do, fancy a drink? :-D

He was interviewed this week on Radio 4's "The Life Scientific" and you can download the interview as .mp3. And yes, I think you peeps outside the UK are treated to this as well even though it's the BBC.

I can also *highly* recommend Slashdotters have a dig through the TLS archive for other interviews ; it's full of incredible scientists talking about their life and work. Proper fascinating. For my money I can reccommend the first three as starting points Paul Nurse, Stephen Pinker, Jocelyn Bell-Burnell.

An extra special mention goes to the interview with Molly Stephens. She is doing the most incredible things that blew my mind when I heard the interview. Not only that but she's assembled a really unusual collection of people with skills across so many different fields to look at the one goal in a the pragmatic way that so many organisations fail to. Oh, and she comes across as a genuinely lovely and interesting lady. Wow. I just realised that I have the most immense geek crush on her. I hope she doesn't read Slashdot... Actually, if you do, fancy a drink? :-D

He was interviewed this week on Radio 4's "The Life Scientific" and you can download the interview as .mp3. And yes, I think you peeps outside the UK are treated to this as well even though it's the BBC.

I can also *highly* recommend Slashdotters have a dig through the TLS archive for other interviews ; it's full of incredible scientists talking about their life and work. Proper fascinating. For my money I can reccommend the first three as starting points Paul Nurse, Stephen Pinker, Jocelyn Bell-Burnell.

An extra special mention goes to the interview with Molly Stephens. She is doing the most incredible things that blew my mind when I heard the interview. Not only that but she's assembled a really unusual collection of people with skills across so many different fields to look at the one goal in a the pragmatic way that so many organisations fail to. Oh, and she comes across as a genuinely lovely and interesting lady. Wow. I just realised that I have the most immense geek crush on her. I hope she doesn't read Slashdot... Actually, if you do, fancy a drink? :-D

He was interviewed this week on Radio 4's "The Life Scientific" and you can download the interview as .mp3. And yes, I think you peeps outside the UK are treated to this as well even though it's the BBC.

I can also *highly* recommend Slashdotters have a dig through the TLS archive for other interviews ; it's full of incredible scientists talking about their life and work. Proper fascinating. For my money I can reccommend the first three as starting points Paul Nurse, Stephen Pinker, Jocelyn Bell-Burnell.

An extra special mention goes to the interview with Molly Stephens. She is doing the most incredible things that blew my mind when I heard the interview. Not only that but she's assembled a really unusual collection of people with skills across so many different fields to look at the one goal in a the pragmatic way that so many organisations fail to. Oh, and she comes across as a genuinely lovely and interesting lady. Wow. I just realised that I have the most immense geek crush on her. I hope she doesn't read Slashdot... Actually, if you do, fancy a drink? :-D

Sadly, it's actually the most visited online news site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16746785

It's not surprising it gets a lot of press - a lot of people "read" it.

The UK smoking age has been 18 for some time....

Nope, from the National Radiological Protection Board

"What do you propose? that I lie on the floor like a coward and hope he doesn't shoot me in the back out of contempt after he's done robbing me?"

You're assuming he'd have a gun, if the gun ban in the UK has taught us anything it's that the "If you ban guns, only bad guys have guns" mantra is grossly overplayed. In the UK guns are just about never ever used for breakins, whilst bad guys have them, they're so hard to get hold of and so expensive as a result that they only ever get used against other gang members and so forth in gang on gang violence. Innocent law abiding citizens are so very very rarely shot here, which is why it makes headline news on the rare occasions it does happen. Somewhat interestingly, the majority of guns that do make it across to the UK are actually legally bought guns from the US smuggled over, so a limitation on US firearms purchases would actually help us. It's not uncommon that the same gun in the UK is passed around for multiple murders, so of the 39 or so gun murders last year or whatever it was for example, 10 of them may have been with a single weapon which highlights the limited amount of firearms on the streets, which highlights the minimised impact they now have on our society.

"Who are you to state the value of my 'stuff'? My family? my rights? my dignity? Look at it another way, don't invade peoples' homes if you value your life. That makes a lot more pragmatic sense than some kind of neo-hippie stockholm syndrome attitude towards violence."

But that's what we do in the UK too, we make criminals scared to break in by telling them don't do if if they value their lives. We reinforce this principle by broadly publicising cases like this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8812716/Homeowner-cleared-after-burglar-stabbed-to-death.html

America seems obsessed with the need for guns to defend themselves, what happened to the good old fashioned cricket bat if you're paranoid? If you're really, really desperate for a gun then manual load shotguns and hunting rifles at least are still perfectly legal. You just can't have a concealable firearm or a semi or fully automatic one. Here we have a concept of reasonable force, if someone's in your home with a knife it's reasonable to grab a big fat kitchen knife and attack them with it before they attack you. But as this article points out there are limits:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20398432

"There was a case when a man in a warehouse captured an intruder who'd come onto his premises. He tied him up, threw him in a pit and set fire to him."

Obviously that was taking things a little too far.

It's about getting the balance right between deterring intruders and preventing excuse for murder. I think we have that balance about right in our country now and certainly guns aren't part of it. Of course Americans make the argument that we've no way to defend ourselves against our government, but I think this is a silly argument, is there really any evidence we're less free to influence political discourse in nations like ours where guns are banned than in the US? What if a theoretical dictator comes along, sure we wont be armed to remove him but do we need to be? If the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya showed us anything it's that gun ownership needn't be a barrier to revolution - the army either sides with the population because it's their friends and family being oppressed to, or if they don't, then the populace just storms the army bases and then gets their guns - this is precisely what happened in Libya, an otherwise peaceful protest passing an army check point turned on it and stormed it before they even knew what had happened. I don't buy the guns are essential to protect liberty argument, as there's absolutely zero evidence to date for that being the case whilst there is evidence that nations with strict gun

Aren't there any equivalent US laws? Or is no one in US interested in prosecuting?

Who do you think pushed to get Wikileaks payments blocked? The US Government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11945875

That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Like any large organization, different departments of the US government often work at cross purposes. I'm not saying that anyone will, just that the fact that some part of the government did one thing gives no assurance that another won't try to do the opposite.

Yet the cash stopped Jane. WikiLeaks or its staff faced no public findings, courts at the time yet a group of "US" multinational financial services corporations all stopped?
Call it an extra judical request? A chat over drinks at the club? Lunch?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11945875
Just a 'letter"?

Aren't there any equivalent US laws? Or is no one in US interested in prosecuting?

Who do you think pushed to get Wikileaks payments blocked? The US Government.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11945875

blame the playmakers

source

Seeing and doing are two different things, however we live in a nation of retards, so every time something bad happens, the tards come out in force with their "ideas".

My thoughts are it's a tragedy, there was a time you could walk into a school without a visitor badge to pick somebody up, it's not the guns that are to blame, it's the fact that we as a society are producing people who go out into their neighborhoods and do such things. I don't hear anybody proposing a solution for that.

If you're at the university on a visa, there's an expectation you're attending the university. Don't laugh, it happens.

If the UKBA feels the university isn't doing enough, this happens: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19425718

And there are countless other colleges running fake courses or dumbass courses just to get people student visas. Or at least there were, the government is trying real hard to clean it up.

There used to be posters all over London advertisting that if you enroll in some basic class at some Indian run dodgy college you get the right to stay in the country. It was all one big visa scam.

2 "seriously" injured, 20 others lightly wounded, no deaths (so far). This is what happens without easy access to automatic weapons. You're going to have sociopaths and psychotics everywhere, but only in the US (and maybe Afghanistan) will they have such easy access to such lethal weaponry. Absent this lethality, it's a lot more difficult for these people to create such efficient carnage.

You want your "right to bear arms" organized around individuals and not through State militias? Give everyone access to a 1776 -era state of the art musket. See how many kids they can shoot on a rampage then...

You would have to take that up with the government, it's their requirement: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19425718

I'd have to check the specifics of what the requirements are (they're actually not terribly harsh, just more admin work we didn't need), but they are something that are imposed on universities.

If you're at the university on a visa, there's an expectation you're attending the university. Don't laugh, it happens.

If the UKBA feels the university isn't doing enough, this happens: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19425718

Compare the UK to the US.

Ok. The violent crime rate in England is higher than it is in South Africa. Switzerland has a private gun ownership rate over half that of the US (note not counting the government issue rifles) and yet "the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept."

So yeah, it's all about gun control laws.

The whole premise of the article seems to assume that unions are exclusively about 1950s-like factory jobs. How about all those low paying service jobs out there? I don't see too many robots stocking shelves at Walmart.

Have you seen any? Where there's one there's bound to be more, and where there are none there's likely to be one soon.

Actually, I'm kind of surprised by the service jobs that remain. I'm surprised we haven't seen a fully-automated fast food restaurant yet, for instance. I guess they're hiding in Japan and Germany for now.

Gun laws are an oxymoron. Criminals, by definition, do not abide by the laws. So it is only the good people that do not have guns in gun free zones. I do have strong feelings about gun laws but I do not think that this is the time to air them.

I do. It's much more relevant now than any other time.

Criminals don't abide by the laws, but with good enforcement and harsh sentencing for criminals using a gun the chance they'll carry one (and use it) decreases.

Britain has harsh gun laws: it's pretty much an automatic minimum-five-year jail sentence if you handle a gun without a license. Shootings are rare, mass-shootings + suicide far rarer, and accidents (child getting gun, etc) very rare too. Knife crime is possibly more common that the US (I haven't checked), but I prefer it that way.

Some criminals have guns, but they're careful with them. They're kept hidden somewhere (hidden in a relative's house, and carried to and from the scene by a young gang member in an attempt to avoid the penalty for possessing a gun).

For example, 12 years for possessing a firearm, ammunition and knives with intent.

Or 18 months for a 13-year-old holding a gun for an older gang member.

Don't forget the Barbary Corsairs, who took Europeans as slaves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml

Jon Stewart, the Comedy Central spoof news show host, really? Well, that is quite serious.

Perhaps, Vint Cerf or Tim Berners-Lee are better experts in how the Internet works, though? See Berners-Lee comments http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20594779

Nobody can fake a tape - except the Met Police who can play back their recorded hum in a soundproof room. Of course the would never tamper with evidence. Would they?

Incorrect:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20688479

CIA Head: We Will Spy On Americans Through Electrical Appliances

Global information surveillance grid being constructed; willing Americans embrace gadgets used to spy on them

Steve Watson | Prisonplanet.com | March 16, 2012

http://www.prisonplanet.com/cia-head-we-will-spy-on-americans-through-electrical-appliances.html

"CIA director David Petraeus has said that the rise of new "smart" gadgets means that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any "persons of interest".

Speaking at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA's technology investment operation, Petraeus made the comments when discussing new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously 'dumb' home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.

Wired reports the details via its Danger Room Blog[1]:

"'Transformational' is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies," Petraeus enthused, "particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft."

"Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters - all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing," Petraeus said.

"the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing." the CIA head added.

Petraeus also stated that such devices within the home "change our notions of secrecy".

Petraeus' comments come in the same week that one of the biggest microchip companies in the world, ARM, unveiled new processors that are designed to give practically every household appliance an internet connection[2], in order that they can be remote controlled and operate in tandem with applications.

ARM describes the concept as an "internet of things".

Where will all the information from such devices be sent and analyzed? It can be no coincidence that the NSA is currently building a monolithic heavily fortified $2 billion facility[3] deep in the Utah desert and surrounded by mountains. The facility is set to go fully live in September 2013.

"The Utah data center is the centerpiece of the Global Information Grid, a military project that will handle yottabytes of data, an amount so huge that there is no other data unit after it." reports Gizmodo.

"This center-with every listening post, spy satellite and NSA datacenter connected to it, will make the NSA the most powerful spy agency in the world."

Wired reports[4] that the incoming data is being mined by plugging into telecommunications companies' switches, essentially the same method the NSA infamously uses for warrantless wiretapping of domestic communications[5], as exposed six years ago.

Former intelligence analyst turned best selling author James Bamford, has penned a lengthy piece[6] on the NSA facility and warns "It is, in some measure, the realization of the 'total information awareness' program created during the first term of the Bush administration-an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans' privacy."

----------------------

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones' Infowars.net[7], and Prisonplanet.com[8]. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

(C) 2012 PrisonPlanet.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC company. All rights reserved.

[1] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17345934

CIA Head: We Will Spy On Americans Through Electrical Appliances

Global information surveillance grid being constructed; willing Americans embrace gadgets used to spy on them

Steve Watson | Prisonplanet.com | March 16, 2012

http://www.prisonplanet.com/cia-head-we-will-spy-on-americans-through-electrical-appliances.html

"CIA director David Petraeus has said that the rise of new "smart" gadgets means that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any "persons of interest".

Speaking at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA's technology investment operation, Petraeus made the comments when discussing new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously 'dumb' home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.

Wired reports the details via its Danger Room Blog[1]:

"'Transformational' is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies," Petraeus enthused, "particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft."

"Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters - all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing," Petraeus said.

"the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing." the CIA head added.

Petraeus also stated that such devices within the home "change our notions of secrecy".

Petraeus' comments come in the same week that one of the biggest microchip companies in the world, ARM, unveiled new processors that are designed to give practically every household appliance an internet connection[2], in order that they can be remote controlled and operate in tandem with applications.

ARM describes the concept as an "internet of things".

Where will all the information from such devices be sent and analyzed? It can be no coincidence that the NSA is currently building a monolithic heavily fortified $2 billion facility[3] deep in the Utah desert and surrounded by mountains. The facility is set to go fully live in September 2013.

"The Utah data center is the centerpiece of the Global Information Grid, a military project that will handle yottabytes of data, an amount so huge that there is no other data unit after it." reports Gizmodo.

"This center-with every listening post, spy satellite and NSA datacenter connected to it, will make the NSA the most powerful spy agency in the world."

Wired reports[4] that the incoming data is being mined by plugging into telecommunications companies' switches, essentially the same method the NSA infamously uses for warrantless wiretapping of domestic communications[5], as exposed six years ago.

Former intelligence analyst turned best selling author James Bamford, has penned a lengthy piece[6] on the NSA facility and warns "It is, in some measure, the realization of the 'total information awareness' program created during the first term of the Bush administration-an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans' privacy."

----------------------

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones' Infowars.net[7], and Prisonplanet.com[8]. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

(C) 2012 PrisonPlanet.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC company. All rights reserved.

[1] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17345934

Because getting rid of the state religion, and the state relationship with the church of england would be problematic. It's not that it can't or won't be done, but there's quite a lot of legal effort involved in the powers of parliament vs the sovereign vs the church as an independent entity.

In some respects it's the same reason why none of the countries have actually settled the legal inheritance issue of if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have a daughter and then a son (just a daughter, or multiple daughters doesn't require any rewrite), because it's not that we can't sort this out. But it's a lot of legal paperwork that can be deferred 50 or 60 years if they never have a son after a daughter.

I was under the impression that they sorted this out very recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20600543

Any politician who dared sign the release papers wouldn't only be out of a job, he'll be lucky to make it through the next year without an angry mob destroying his house.

Israel releases 429 Palestinian prisoners in gesture to Abbas
Israel releases another 550 prisoners
Israel approves release of 250 prisoners
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange followed an agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners
Hezbollah released the remains of two captured Israeli soldiers in exchange for Samir Kuntar (described here)

Of the politicians responsible, Olmert resigned on corruption charges and Netanyahu is still Prime Minister.

so know illegal aliens getting arrested for blocking traffic is the same as jailing someone for posting something some peoples club considers offensive?

*winces at the bad english* Freedom of expression must have a very different definition in your world.

your violent crime examples of homicides, not violent crime. Of course, rape and violence on women is rarely reported, and even less frequently documented. so you link is less facts and more half truth.

Yeah, what was I thinking, using the most reported and documented violent crime as a baseline reference? Silly me.

The crime rate was low in Germany During the Nazi regime. Is that really an argument that Nazi Germans is better then the US, or any country?

You Godwin'd yourself. But ignoring that, there's about 11 million dead Jews and political prisoners that would disagree about the crime rate. But you know, other than that, there's also the problem of there not being any statistics on the crime rate or population of the Third Reich for the past 67 years.

That said, I suspect that there rate of imprisonment is lower then the US. The USs prison increase is doe toy the privatization of prisons.

Every time you post something to the internet, God kills a dictionary. The ownership of our prisons has as much relationship to the reasons why so many are jailed each year as your literary shortcomings do to the number of books Amazon sells each year.

the truth is, they aren't better. All your metrics ignore what life is like for over half their population.

I will admit I have more confidence that the CIA, the United Nations, The Harvard Institute of Law, and a handful of major news outlets got the numbers right than I do in a person on the internet literary abilities of a fifth grader, who is backing up his argument with no citations, logical reasoning, or even an anecdotal story.

However our country can, and has many times, changed without needing a revolution.

I'm skeptical of this claim that stuff has happened many times. I don't think stuff happens many times. In fact, I'd even go as far as to call myself a stuff skeptic. I'm going to need a citation from you that the country has done stuff, and that this stuff has happened many times. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, you know.

We do live in a country where you can have a different house of worship on each corner at an intersect and nothing violent happens.

Can I suggest you open a newspaper someday?

LOL, but if you burn an image of Jesus or The Virgin Mary onto toast you can sell it for a fortune, right?

But, yes, a web-enabled toaster sounds monumentally pointless. As would a fridge, a toilet, a chair, or my stove.

At a certain point, this is just adding internet support for the sake of saying you have it. I'm sure someone out there is going "ZOMG, but it's an internet enabled toaster", and they can spend their money on it -- I on the other hand will stick with the boring old toaster I have now, it even does bagels. :-P

It's also a question of difficulty. Could the police reasonably have faked DNA evidence? A DNA testing lab might be able to, but the average bobby probably not (yet). On the other hand faking electrical hum is almost trivial, easily done in Audacity. You don't need access to the database, just a recording of your own made at the time you want to fake.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7966641.stm One woman's DNA was found at more than 40 crime scenes across Germany. The police thought they had a serial killer but it turned out the DNA was from cotton swabs used to collect DNA had been contaminated accidently by a woman working at an unidentified factory.

This wasn't intentional, but it doesn't take a leap to figure out how this might be used to point suspicion at a person. You don't have to convict someone to ruin their life.

All true, except that is a rainforest. Rainforest doesn't have fires because it is perpetually wet - it rains and trees suck up all the moisture and release it, day in and day out. Unless of course people cut down enough trees that rainforest climate changes where it no longer rains every day.

Yes, it is the trees that make the rainforest what it is. You remove the trees, you end up with no forest and no rain. You end up with a desert. To get a rainforest, you need a complete or near complete canopy of trees. Start poking holes and you end up with lots of moisture leakage and drying ground.

Well, at least it was good while it lasted. Brazil, the new Sahara in 2100? I'm sure they'll try to blame it on Global Warming or El Ninia or some other horseshit, but they are making their own bed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13449792
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20408238
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17448581

All true, except that is a rainforest. Rainforest doesn't have fires because it is perpetually wet - it rains and trees suck up all the moisture and release it, day in and day out. Unless of course people cut down enough trees that rainforest climate changes where it no longer rains every day.

Yes, it is the trees that make the rainforest what it is. You remove the trees, you end up with no forest and no rain. You end up with a desert. To get a rainforest, you need a complete or near complete canopy of trees. Start poking holes and you end up with lots of moisture leakage and drying ground.

Well, at least it was good while it lasted. Brazil, the new Sahara in 2100? I'm sure they'll try to blame it on Global Warming or El Ninia or some other horseshit, but they are making their own bed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13449792
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20408238
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17448581

All true, except that is a rainforest. Rainforest doesn't have fires because it is perpetually wet - it rains and trees suck up all the moisture and release it, day in and day out. Unless of course people cut down enough trees that rainforest climate changes where it no longer rains every day.

Yes, it is the trees that make the rainforest what it is. You remove the trees, you end up with no forest and no rain. You end up with a desert. To get a rainforest, you need a complete or near complete canopy of trees. Start poking holes and you end up with lots of moisture leakage and drying ground.

Well, at least it was good while it lasted. Brazil, the new Sahara in 2100? I'm sure they'll try to blame it on Global Warming or El Ninia or some other horseshit, but they are making their own bed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13449792
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20408238
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17448581

The whole concept of high frequency trading and trying to out-do competition using algorithmic trading beating competition by microseconds just sounds like a future disaster guaranteed to happen. The cock-up earlier in the year by Knight Capital should be viewed as only an overture of things to come.

Now, I understand the concepts behind how algorithmic trading works in principle and what potential it has for fuck ups and to me it seems like the best way to attempt to avert such things would be to enforce an artificial rate cap on trading speed. For example, electronic trades could be enforced to only be allowed to occur (for everyone) at 10ms intervals. This would kill dead all the potential for crazy algorithmic loops at massive speed (well, still what I'd think of as high speed I suppose!) but not affect normal trading. Can someone with a proper knowledge of the way the stock markets work explain (briefly) why this would or wouldn't work?

You have billions in construction and refining costs. Billions in operation costs. Hundreds of billions in long term storage costs of nuclear waste - which will be with us for hundreds of years. Billions in insurance costs, most of which are born by the taxpayer as opposed to the for-profit corporation running the reactor.

Don't forget decommissioning. We are currently looking at £70,000,000,000, with the caveat that it might go higher.

We had the most interesting football game of the season yesterday - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20571835 . That didn't help.

Google maps? ;)

That said: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20442487

It's[the island is] on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We're really puzzled. It's quite bizarre.

(emphasis mine).

Well, first you have to actually get INTO prison. That's the easy part. Get creative.

Once your there, assaulting a few of the guards ought to buy you some time in solitary.

Its perfectly possible to get them to pay for your flights to the US too (and return flight on expulsion at the end of the sentence). It appears that the best crimes to commit are to provide links to torrent sites or to release US government information. You could take some tips from Julian Assange. WHat you don't want to do is anything like funding or encouraging terrorism or the courts will fight to keep you from the USA for years

How do you catch a python? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7967587.stm It helps they're nonvenomous

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/7245763.stm

This is the worst comment on this article. You've imagined he's a libertarian caricature solely so that you can create an opportunity to bust out this stock liberal attack on libertarians, with not a shred of fact to go with any of it.

According to BBC, "He moved to Belize about three years ago seeking lower taxes".

Also, I never once said anything about libertarians. That you instantly associate "tax evasion" with "libertarians" is their own fault, not mine.

What is wrong with you?

Utter disgust with people who refuse to do their share to support society yet start whining when it turns out they're not the top predator in the jungle.

He ran from the US because he had built a custom hang-glider and the test flyer died, prompting a wrongful death lawsuit from the guy's family. McAfee, assuming they would win and bankrupt him, grabbed what funds he had left and ran for it.

So he's not only a tax evader but also a fugitive from justice, thinks an independent court would find him guilty of at the very least criminal negligence, and doesn't want to pay damages for the harm he's caused. Much better.

He's paranoid and desperate, not political.

I never claimed he was political. That's your own strawman. All I said he ran to avoid taxes. That you piled more wrongdoings on top of that doesn't exactly make this seem any less of a case of getting what he had coming, though.

I can't believe this made it onto Slashdot, but this bad ass motherfucker in his bitch mobile didn't:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20614593

Forget parrots in buggies. What about dogs in real cars?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20614593

99% sure this is not a hoax.