Slashdot Mirror

Yes, but beware of the scare quotes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19617175

(reposted while logged in)

You should bare in mind that the film is being promoted by a right-wing extremist Steve Klein, linked with various anti-Islamic groups in California. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19572912

WTF are you talking about? If they didn't comply by end of today, they would be held in contempt of court.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19597437

Twitter spent months resisting the call to release the messages, saying to do so would undermine privacy laws.

If the messages were not handed over on 14 September, Twitter would have been in contempt of court and faced substantial fines.

Learn to read the news sometimes before you start having your informed opinion.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19595773

The plan faces strong opposition from businesses. Before the nuclear disaster, Japan had wanted to raise its nuclear energy use to 50% by 2030.

"There is no way we can accept this - I cannot think this is technologically possible," Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of the Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

The government says it plans to utilise more renewable energy sources, increase investment in renewables and look for cheaper sources of LNG and other fossil fuels.

So, Global Warming issue be damned, soon there will be a nice spike in gas prices in NA as LNG export terminals come online 2014-2017.

As for summary of their plan is hope for cheap fossil fuels!! Good luck with that!!

Freedom of expression is guaranteed by domestic law and international treaty in every European country. What "free speech" entails differs from country to country (see Germany and Nazi symbols).

The penalty in this French case did not include termination or suspension of his Internet access.

Other countries in Europe like Finland and Estonia, both EU members, have found Internet access to be a basic human right protected by law. Usually this idea spreads from one country to the next over time [within the European Union] and the domestic and/or supra-national courts (eqv. or similar to "federal").

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8548190.stm

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides the right to freedom of expression, subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". This right includes the freedom to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_10_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights

BBC Radio 4 PM probably the most respected News Programme in the one UK ran a feature on that video.

Practically everything we've been told about it is false.

"Islamic democracies" work quite nicely. Ask Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia.

Doing a quick search reveals countless religious problems in Turkey. Even ignoring their historical problem with Kurds (who aren't much different than secular rebels), the Alawites fear for their safety and have been attacked: "As Syria War Roils, Unrest Among Sects Hits Turkey" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/world/middleeast/turkish-alawites-fear-spillover-of-violence-from-syria.html?pagewanted=all

And there are countless small stories of religious persecution, things that would be classed as hate crimes in America, e.g. http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/turkey/15153

Malaysia has a two-tier justice system, one for Muslims one for others, with a history of discrimination against non-Muslims: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/world/asia/13malay.html

Again, countless reports of smaller-scale incidents as well. I'm sure you remember when churches were attacked for using the word "allah", which Muslims wanted to keep associated with Islam only; it made international news. Yeah that was good old Malaysia. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10961282

Look at this little gem from that article: "But some Muslim groups are suspicious of their motives, our correspondent says, saying the use of the word Allah is a ploy to encourage Muslims to convert to Christianity - something that is illegal in the country."

So apparently proselytizing is illegal in Malaysia. HMMMMMM I wonder if that also applies to Muslims encouraging Christians to convert? Nope didn't think so: http://www.prayway.com/unreached/countries/malaysia.html "Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom are under attack, as it is illegal to proselytize Muslims, while Muslims may convert whoever they like."

Indonesia... seriously... why would you even bring up Indonesia? Are you unaware of all the problems in Aceh? They've had tons of Islamic radicals, and in 2006 instituted sharia: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/world/asia/01iht-aceh.2356621.html?pagewanted=all

And predictably since then things have gotten worse with attacks on Christians: http://www.persecution.org/2012/06/20/hundreds-of-muslim-extremists-attack-christian-prayer-house-in-indonesia/

Do you honestly think they are working "quite nicely" in these Islamic strongholds? Your standards are too low.

This is the logical culmination. We've already had decisions that making a sexual cartoon involving Bart Simpson is child porn http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7770781.stm. This isn't much farther than that.

Where were the moderate Christians when Christian extremists bombed abortion clinics and shot staff members?

I'll grant you that there are probably more violent extremists who would cite their motivation as Islam than there are violent extremists who would cite Christianity as their motivating force. But so what? That still doesn't put the blame on the rest of the Muslims.

The fact is that there were no U.S. security forces there. The consulate was defended by and the mob was engaged with deadly force by Libyan security forces. Early reports indicate that when it became clear that the mob was overrunning the consulate, a local Militia intervened and stepped in to defend the consulate. Many / most of these Libyans were likely Muslims themselves.

Today, there were rallies in Egypt and Libya of people expressing remorse for what happened. But I guess they must not be Muslims because they weren't violent and because they denounced the violence. Funny that.

To answer your questions:

How many of them did you see spoke out against the beheading of non-moslems, carried out by their moslem brethren, in the name of Islam?

Every single Muslim I know. Every. Single. One. To say nothing of Muslim politicians and prominent leaders speaking out in more prominent venues than my living room or office.

were those so-called "moderate moslems" when the Madrid Train Stations got bombed?

There are 1.1 Million Muslims in Spain. 29 individuals were charged in involvements in the Madrid train bombings. While I'm sure there are other violent crimes that have been committed in that population of 1.1 million, am I to believe that the vast bulk of them are what? Biding their time? Waiting for the right moment to detonate their suicide vests that they've all been issued at the local mosque / radicalization center? Wow! Spain is a ticking time bomb!

Did we see any of those "moderate moslems" spoke out against the bombing of the London subway system?

Why yes we did see moderate Muslims speak out after the 7/7 bombings. In fact, 500 of their religious leaders in the U.K. issued a Fatwa condemning the bombings.

Do you know that them moslems beheaded little kids in southern Thailand, just because their parents were (the parents were butchered as well) non-moslems?

Did you know that Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (a group that indentifies itself as a Christian militia) has committed genocide, kept prisoners locked in rooms that were essentially mass graves, kept women and children as sex slaves, and engaged in conscription of child soldiers? Does this mean all Christians are vile? Or maybe just all African Christians? Maybe just Ugandan Christians? I'm sure we can find a sweeping bigoted generalization you can agree with!

You should be modded down as a troll, because you are a troll.

There are bad Muslims in the world. Congratulations for figuring that bit out.

But guess what? If there are a million Muslims in an area and 100 of them go on a killing spree, guess which group gets news coverage?

Nobody is apologizing for anything. We're trying to make sure bigots and morons understand that a couple billion people aren't responsible for the actions of a few.

At least in Iraq, the ousting of Saddam made the situation worse for women and especially for gays. Now gays are being routinely hunted and tortured to death. Human right record of Saddam was poor, but for gays it was still much better than the current situation.

Might be interesting - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19524962

I think espionage charges for such a thing are more than a little ridiculous (and I doubt that is what they'll actually be charged for)

You may doubt it, but I do not. I took over nearly two year for a group of tourist plane spotters to be acquitted of espionage charges in 2001. At the initial process 8 of that group were convicted to three years in jail.

This has happened before. A group of British plane spotters were convicted of spying and sentenced to 3 years in jail. It doesn't seem to have occured to the Greek military that real spies will be a little more discrete in their methods.

BBC news article

but also many other large 'projects' that people give names to, eg:
* Chips - Intel has fun names
* Police operations
* Military operations
* Cars have names

We just seem to like naming things rather than giving them numbers - that is why one degrading act of imprisonment is to refer to the inmate by number

Of course, some will riot if the food isn't prepared to their satisfaction;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-19549082

although, how many people does it take to constitute a 'food riot'?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17543356

Your wage is $5,417. The world average is $1,480.
Your wage is 166% of the United States average and 366% of the world average.

And I don't see anything that would prohibit a Goatse.cx inspired logo. I can see the hands wrapping around the "o" in Slashdot now.

This one made the BBC's list of the top 12 alternative Olympics 2012 logos until someone realised. They deleted the link, but not the jpeg:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43006000/jpg/_43006883_sean_stayte_416.jpg
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/04/bbc_olympics_cx/

("Here is my design for the Olympic logo. It is very simple and so memorable. The hands represent Britain pulling together to reveal the Olympics.")

I have to agree that in the case of India; that has serious infrastructure problems, the money would be far better spent on the basics. Once India takes care of most of its' pressing matters and can provide reliable clean water, sanitation, electricity etc to the vast majority of the population, perhaps then they can reach for the stars as a bonus. If you take all the money put into the space program and invest in infrastructure, like the electrical grid/power would the average citizen not be far better off and have a better future? Let's not build towers in the air on foundations quite shaky.

I'm not so sure I would agree with Google's typical defense on this issue, which is that they have an algorithm that automatically ranks all the search results and they can't change that. Except they manually change the results. When companies break their rules, they can punish them. For example, when BMW's German website was found to influence results, Google banned them from their index. An eyeglass company, DecorMyEyes, verbally abused its customers to generate bad reviews ... and more publicity. After being published in The Times, they dropped the company from the index. Even in the Santorum case, they eventually made some results less prominent. Google has also been accused of pushing up the rankings of its own products. So it's kinda hypocritical to say that Google doesn't adjust individual results.

We have to do away with the concept of good and evil. There is no good and evil. There may be smart and stupid or competent and incompetent but there is no good and evil.

No good and evil? Really?

This World uncovers the "gas chambers" of North Korea

Witnesses tell the BBC's This World (BBC TWO, 1 February 2004, 9.00pm) that North Korea is killing political prisoners in gas chambers.

The programme has also uncovered documentary evidence that North Korea is now testing new chemical weapons on women and children, the families of dissidents and political prisoners held in secret jails.

Kwon Hyuk (his new name) was the former military attaché at the North Korean embassy in Beijing and chief of management at North Korea's prison camp 22 (or "Management Centre" as they call them).

He says he has chosen to speak because he wants the world to know what is happening there and for the first time has decided to reveal on public record what he witnessed in Camp 22.

"Scientists observe the entire process from above, through the glass."

"I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber. The parents, son and a daughter.

"The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth to mouth breathing.

"At the time I felt that they thoroughly deserved such a death. Because all of us were led to believe that all the bad things that were happening to North Korea was their fault; that we were poor, divided and not making progress as a country."

Asked about the children Kwon Hyuk says: "It would be a total lie for me to say I felt sympathetic about the children dying such a painful death.

"Under the society and the regime I was in at the time I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all."

He tells the BBC's Olenka Frenkiel: "Before escorting them to the lab, we receive transfer letters containing details of the prisoners. We pass on such letters to the agents from the National Security Agency for a signature."

This World features a document recently smuggled out of North Korea stamped "Top Secret" and headed "Transfer Letter" that clearly explains that political prisoners are used for the purpose of human biological experimentation and for production of biological weapons.

The role of suggestion, of subliminal triggers, the role of desperation and poverty, the role of lack of intelligence, a lot of different things can convince a person that a criminal act is right and in some cases it is ethical for themselves based on their ethics to commit a criminal act but unethical by the conventional ethics of society.

Did liberals get it wrong on crime?

People were asked which statements were closest to their own opinion about how evolutionary theories should be taught in science lessons in schools. The highest proportion agreeing that evolutionary theories alone should be taught was in India, at 49%, followed by Spain (42%).

Does the EU have any other purpose than harassing US companies? This is 10+ year old news.

Microsoft has a legally binding contract with the EU.
It seems like Microsoft broke that contract.
The EU investigates.
Where exactly is the harassment?

On a side note: The EU also investigates European companies in the same way if they break anti-trust laws. One example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8140024.stm

Normal atmospheric pressure is about 100kPa, so that was clear to many of us anyway.

(For some reason they use millibars on the British weather forecasts (here), which is metric but not SI. 1000millibars === 100kPa. The weather today is 1023mb)

If that's what they do in public, what do they do in private?

Well you could join MI5 or get a position at GCHQ to find out. But then you wouldn't be able to tell us.

And obviously you would run the risk of killing yourself but somehow zipping your corpse into a holdall in the bath.

The Glasgow airport "attack" wasn't terrorism, it was two drunk Asian kids crashing a car. It happens all the time in Renfrew, it's a rough area.

I suppose they all plant car bombs in London before-hand, fill their cars with petrol and propane tanks, and that if they survive are Jailed for life for planned mass murder?

We've never had any bother from the Muslims here, at all.

Apart from the 77 bombings, the Glasgow Airport attack, the Exetrer bomb attack, shoe bomber and dozens of failed attempts and arrests.

Also how much aid was given to Cambodia before Svartholm was arrested?

The exact same amount (200 million SEK) was allocated, out of which 183 million was paid out. Swedish embassy in Cambodia has the following information around sweden's payouts to Cambodia per year (last 3 years).

Approved 2009: SEK 190 Million
Actual Payout 2009: SEK 182 Million

Approved 2010: SEK 177,5 Million
Actual Payout 2010: SEK 173 Million

Approved 2011: SEK 200 Million
Actual Payout 2011: SEK 183,8 Million

So virtually the same amount was allocated again as the past three years, but this time it's because Sweden wants someone extradited.

Doubt any of the conspiracy nuts hanging around will change their opinion but shall we at least assume there is a possibility the money has nothing to do with TPB? Maybe, just maybe, there is the possibility that Assange is wanted in Sweden for questioning because, and I know this is a bit out there, the prosecutor really wants to question him? But hey, what do I know, these days apparently Equador is for freedom of speech.

Actually, Android is open source — no licensing fees

Utter rubbish. There no licencing fees paid to Google but almost every handset manufacturer who sells Android phones has to pay a cut to Microsoft to licence certain patents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15427575

This is what Oracle were aiming for too, thankfully they failed. Nice try though.

Easier...

Warning: This product is not endorsed by the manufacture.

Blackberry-maker Research in Motion (RIM) has said it plans to refocus its business back onto corporate customers.

The announcement came as RIM reported a quarterly loss, as revenues fell due to sharply lower smartphone sales.

The Canadian company made a net loss for the three months to 3 March of $125m (£78m), compared with a profit of $934m a year earlier.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17557177

Skynet will never need to launch the missiles.

Those scooters are a bloody nuisance (and in the UK are apparently totally above the law) but if you can see them coming & can get up a kerb you're safe.... for now.

I'd be more interested in how you propose to pay for all those additional 'tax collectors'. I'd be willing to go along with your ideas as long as these additional tax collectors met the same stringent criteria as tax collectors in India. Let us know when you have the first hundred applicants.

Perhaps the government could funnel a little (more?) of our tax dollars to help cover your meds and in-patent treatment.

The Muzzies will have to 'detain' rats for colaberating with the enemy (civilised world) as well as vultures and sharks. With any luck this will distract them from persecuting non-Muslims, raping under-age girls (OK so according to them 9 isn't over age, I mean by civilised standards), and from honour killings

all the things that the BBC iPlayer can currently do

Such as what? The BBC seemed well aware HTML5 was the way forward 4 years ago.

Many Melanesians, Indonesians, Malays, Polynesians, Filipinos, as well as indigenous tribe on island of Taiwan, have Denisovan genes in them

In fact, this isn't news anymore

Back in 2010 there have been reports of similar findings. Here's one report from the BBC -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12059564

like he said... it's not competitive, therefore also non-duplicative. just because it can be done in two places does not mean it *will* be done in both places. LHC is concerned with a whole lot that the RHIC isn't capable of. So, a lot of work the RHIC can do just fine will not be done at the LHC as it's got "better" things to do.

Exactly. Its the different installations and methodologies that are important when someone has as "I'm not sure if this is something real or a problem with our instruments" moment.

You remember correctly, people have been doing this for years. I have no idea why TFA calls this "world first bionic eye", perhaps there is something new about their particular method, although it doesn't sound very impressive compared to other options.

Here is a list of some companies producing retinal implants (incl. Bionic Vision from TFA): http://www.upgradeyourbody.com/catalog/bionics/eyes/ At least some of those are already past clinical trials and available commercially.

The latest, greatest breakthrough:
Scientists reverse engineer eye-brain signaling, enabling next generation of implants

More links on retinal implants:
Wikipedia - Retinal implant
1000-electrode implant developed in Stanford
Long-term trials started in Oxford in 2010
Phase II trials of 1500-electrode implant by Retina Implant AG (2011)
Argus II implant goes to market
Bio-Retina 576-pixel implant to start trials in 2013

Very interesting interview with the jury foreman on the BBC.

Especially his statements like:

"The jurors wanted to send a message to the industry at large..."

"And in example after example, when we put it to the test, the older prior art was just that. Not that there's anything [wrong] with older prior art - but the key was that the hardware was different, the software was an entirely different methodology, and the more modern software could not be loaded onto the older example and be run without error."

"And so consequently, when we looked at the source code - I was able to read source code - I showed the jurors that the two methods in software were not the same, nor could they be interchangeable because the hardware that was involved between the old processor and the new processor - you couldn't load the new software methodology in the old system and expect that it was going to work. And the converse of that was true."

I hope Samsung's lawyers are watching.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LI11Ae01.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3126241.stm

Bonus info:

Mr. Yazid Sufaat, the guy who organized the "Kuala Lumpur Summit", which led to the bombing of World Trade Center in New York City, is a FREE MAN in Malaysia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazid_Sufaat

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/12/al_qaedas_anthrax_sc.php

Also, 99% of the hits you will get googling this issue are for a particular case in which most of the reports fail to mention, the woman confessed and was convicted of murdering her husband. Although I won't even try to weigh in on the reliability of that conviction.

And the BBC site article of about 8 hours ago used the headline 'Tatooine-like' double-star systems can host planets.

I encourage you to read the ruling for the Korean case. It ruled that Samsung violated the "bounce-back" patent, but was innocent as far as copying.

It was innocent of infringement so far as the look-and-feel patents went, but not so for the bounce-back patent, as you pointed out, which means that they were indeed ruled to be infringing on those devices, hence the injunctions that went out. So, yes, they did find that Samsung was innocent on some counts, but not on others. I still feel that your original statement was too broad and thus inaccurate, since it suggests that they were innocent of infringement on all counts, which is not the case.

As for the Dutch case:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16704461

Thanks for the info. I had looked around, but the only stuff I saw was some pretty bland reporting that made no mention of those details. I saw your followup post as well. I do appreciate the additional information, and I stand corrected.

I encourage you to read the ruling for the Korean case. It ruled that Samsung violated the "bounce-back" patent, but was innocent as far as copying.

As for the Dutch case:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16704461

Well, Jobs has been quoted saying "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion [£25bn] in the bank, to right this wrong."

I would think that could include using the courts, not just building a better product.

I think that diaspora is a great idea

So do I.

Disband the murderous tribe of Israel and give the land back to those who lived there now!

> milk exists within a somewhat healthy market

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18898830

In short: big supermarkets reduce the price they pay for milk, causing farmers and milk processing plants to operate at a loss. Big supermarkets claim the price cuts are for the good of everybody because of the state of the economy and bla and bla.

This recent news story in the UK Makes me sad. It doesn't matter how long you want to live if you have no legal choices when you want to stop living.

It seems like we give our pets more compassion at the end of their lives than we do our fellow humans.

That doesn't appear to be true. Indeed, the trend appears to be in the opposite direction.

India income inequality doubles in 20 years, says OECD

The OECD says India has the highest number of poor in the world.

Some 42% of its 1.21 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day.

And there we have proof that India is joining western civilisation -- the poverty gap is increasing in most developed countries too....

Not in Russia; for example see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1102275.stm. Also all these Russian pop stars and ice dancing with celebrity programs shown on Channel 1 make the station hugely popular with Russians.

Half of India's population is now in the middle class.

It's about time to throw out the old preconceptions about the rising powers of China and India. They simply aren't true any more.

That doesn't appear to be true. Indeed, the trend appears to be in the opposite direction.

India income inequality doubles in 20 years, says OECD

The OECD says India has the highest number of poor in the world.

Some 42% of its 1.21 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day.