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whaling is illegal in majority of countries which actually could engage in whaling. case in point below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7188674.stm

that means, the majority of the countries which have a stake in this, are against whaling. but, japan, engages in whaling on its own accord.

then lets reflect on this - where does the 'individual freedom' stop ? see, majority of the countries in the world find something unethical and ban something, like slavery. and then is it ok if i broke accord and go against majority, and engage in slaving within my own country or international waters/zones - based on my own 'freedom' ?

it is a simple case of individual freedom's limits. there is no unlimited individual freedom, and there cant be unlimited individual freedom. you cant just go shit in your neighbor's backyard, or your neighbor cant just shit on the streets in common space. there are all encompassing rules that everyone needs to obey for society to EXIST (note how i didnt say 'work', but, even to exist), and these rules are determined by the overall level of ethics and morals understanding of the entire society. (planet in this case).

Google had been against censorship all along,

Don't be ridiculous. Google has a long history of supporting censorship in Europe and elsewhere.

I was very impressed when I saw this news item - German factory built especially for an older workforce. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16260315

"But look at any individual manufacturer, and that "All Android Phone" share is sliced into so many tiny pieces that Apple dwarfs them."

Really?

Many sets of stats, like these:

http://www.mobilesplease.co.uk/news/nokia-lumia-slow-start/

and these:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15489523

Suggests that's simply not true.

If you look at the first survey for the UK, the Galaxy S II has been outselling the iPhone 4 white, and black model combined, and it's only when you then factor in the 4S white, and black model, that the iPhone finally overtakes the Galaxy S II in sales.

What all stats coming out in the last couple of months appear to demonstrate is that you're quite wrong - the Galaxy S II as a single model, has been outselling either the iPhone 4, or the iPhone 4S as a single model. When Samsung combines all it's Smartphones, as the iPhone 3GS, 4, and 4S are lumped together as if they're equally a single offering, it's shifting over 7% more handsets than Apple.

It was a valid argument early on, but it just doesn't seem to really hold any weight anymore. This is the fundamental problem with people who feel the need to defend Apple, they originally said Android would never overtake the iPhone, then when it happened they said, no individual manufacturer will ever overtake Apple, now it's happened they're saying no individual handset is beating the iPhone, but even that seems it's almost certainly happening now. Even if it's not quite the case yet and the stats are wrong and the Galaxy S II isn't outselling a specific iPhone model, and almost even all iPhone models combined, then it's still a close enough call such that terms like "Apple dwarfs them" is laughably incorrect rhetoric.

Apple's marketshare for tablets has already declined this year, it's now down as far as 62%, having been up at around 90% last year:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20111215172936_Apple_s_Tablet_Market_Share_Drops_to_61_5_in_Q3_2011_IDC.html

This is with countless false starts (HP's tablet, RIM's playbook etc.), lacklustre Android offerings, and even some Android tablets being banned from sale in some markets. As these issues start to fade and the Android tablets pick up strength, i.e. through inclusion of things like Android 4, then the market for the iPad isn't suddenly going to grow. It's opportunity to thrive has been possibly bigger than ever with all the setbacks competitors have faced, yet it's marketshare has still declined.

I'm not talking Apple down because I have some irrational will to see them fail, I'm not that much of a fanboy - I do disagree with many of their corporate decisions, but what I do like is to see a bit of truthfulness in these sorts of discussions, because fanboys lying to themselves and agreeing with each other is a largely meaningless sport - a fanboy can spout some crap about how their pet brand is going to win some arbitrary war all they want, but it wont change reality if it then doesn't. By all means I may be wrong, and Apple may see a resurgence that allows it to grab increasing levels of marketshare, and that's fair enough if someone wants to make that point, but throwing around clear bullshit like "no individual Android tablet is going to have more than 5%" with no suggestion as to why that might be the case when it's not been the case with phones is meaningless.

There's no doubt Apple is going to continue to be a massively profitable company thanks to the iPhone and iPad in the near to medium term, but I believe they've made some serious mis-steps that has allowed Android to take the lead, and that's led to an inevitable snowballing on it's behalf - the more marketshare it gets, the more developers begin to develop for it, the more open it is, t

stop thinking so rationally!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6091334.stm

In southern Africa, countries have followed the philosophy of sustainable use. They have issued permits to sport hunters to kill a limited number of elephants that are pre-selected according to factors like age and sex. They cannot shoot breeding animals...

The result is that in Namibia, South Africa and Botswana, elephant populations are well-stocked and healthy, while incidences of poaching have been kept to low levels.

this is not just random poaching with no goal.

i think people who dont hunt might not realize how much paperwork is involved.. its a lot of thought out work by conservation programs to make sure populations are kept in balance with their environment and other species..

Your numbers are wrong. There might be a lot of guns, but the number of people with guns is around 60 million ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/ihavearightto/four_b/casestudy_art29.shtml ) that end up owning multiple guns. From those, I'd imagine half of those (or maybe less) uses it actively every year for something ( as some of you pointed out, it's a self defense thing ). So:

31224 / 60M = 0.0005204 ratio (if everyone used it), but I'd say it is more like 31224/30M = 0.0010408. I'd also like to point out that they aren't used every single day multiple times a day.

In 2008 there were 255,917,664 registered passenger vehicles in the US according to the census. I'm not going to say everyone has exactly 1, but according to this ( http://answers.ask.com/Consumer_Electronics/Other/what_percent_of_americans_own_cars ) almost 90% of americans own a car. Lets assume that only 80% actively use it for something. That brings the total of 204734131 cars that get used every year (hell, I'd say every day, but it'd ruin any statistical comparison). So:

41059/204734131 = 0.000200547 ratio. So that is even less than half the ratio if everyone used a gun every day and almost 5 times less with the adjusted statistics.

And now, about your first point. Where do you think those black market guns come from? I won't say the majority, but some are stolen guns that end up getting sold in the black market. You'll be hard pressed to find a gun (and most likely would get arrested first) in any countries that regulate guns and don't have armed civilians.

About the fallacy, yes, it is. If you want to defend guns you use the argument "10000 robberies were avoided due to guns" not "these other things have bad numbers so it is acceptable to have bad gun numbers". It is not. An argument to be valid has to stand on its own, not hidden behind other social calamities. If death's is a valid point of comparison, do the same argument with people dying of hunger and you'll see how ridiculous it sounds.

And this: "other arguments that point out the fact that an armed populace is critical to a successful democracy". OH MY GOD. Are you this oblivious? Most (I'd say all, but not sure) European democracies regulate guns and, excuse me, are in no way unsuccessful. Where the hell are you getting these ideas from?

Human eye does not see in frames per second. It has a certain data transfer speed, and the way brains process the information is also not as discrete as you might want to wish.

For example, the flicker fusion point (inability to distinguish alternating black and white images) is somewhere around 60fps and the army has done experiments on showing images for a very short time to see whether they could be identified by pilots. The shortest intervals were way less than those postulated even by the flicker fusion point. It also matters greatly how large amount the object moves in your absolute field of vision between frames for your brain to understand motion and simulate smooth movement. Your brain has interpolation algorithms that piece together information streams to form smooth motion.

This has some information, but not many references: http://www.100fps.com/
Wikipedia has more stuff and it's a starting point to look for research. Here's some by BBC on fast-moving objects in sports: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP169.pdf

Also, you can test the difference of 30 and 60 fps here: http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/
At least to me, it is blatantly evident.

You were wrong, and acted like an ass over it towards me and other posters. Will you please apologize and shut up?

Overclocking is fun. Maybe you'll find a new new cooling method too! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16285036

Its payout lottery. Buy a patent and you might win big. Why not buy tens of thousands of them like some companies do.

In other news - it doesn't help you still need to pay MS the extortion money.

I was pondering this as well, and wondering exactly how easy it is to land that sort of thing at a remote outpost when there'll be a lag time between the drone sending data and the flight operator receiving it and then again for the operator's commands to reach the drone.

After Googling an old BBC article it seems the drone hovers over the area and then drops the supplies with a parachute. I'm guessing that to get the supplies to land as close as possible to the guys waiting for them you've got to lower your altitude a fair bit and hover overhead to get the right mix of bang-on-target and low wind, and that could make it vulnerable to nearby insurgents hiding in the rocks. Last thing you want is a drone crashing down on top of the guys you're resupplying.

Compare that to a standard chopper which could either land much faster with the onboard pilot experiencing and reacting in real time or which would just chuck the supplies out the back at a higher altitude and hope the marines don't get jumped when they venture out to get them.

"The Core" is a recent, hour-long documentary that provides some illustrative background (and CG) for the iron crystal theory, and explains some of the major difficulties in drilling below the crust. It's an episode of Horizon , a long-running science documentary series. You can watch the entire episode in 720p on YouTube.

"The Core" is a recent, hour-long documentary that provides some illustrative background (and CG) for the iron crystal theory, and explains some of the major difficulties in drilling below the crust. It's an episode of Horizon , a long-running science documentary series. You can watch the entire episode in 720p on YouTube.

There is an argument that, unlike American Football, Association Football is not a play by play game and is free flowing with the ball often in play for 5 to 10 minutes between breaks in play for a corner, throw in or goal kick. The reluctance to "break up play" by going to the video referee for every foul or debatable decision is understandable. Additionally, the room for and level of interpretation from referees is much greater in soccer (and rugby) than in the NFL. For instance a replay of a tackle might not result in an increase in clarity as to whether a foul has occurred and the line between a foul and diving (or simulation) is often very thin.

The lack of goal-line technology or replays to determine whether a ball has crossed the goal line (as occurred in the England vs Germany game during the World Cup) is again a topic of controversy and one that's being discussed by FIFA and is likely to be introduced by the next World Cup: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14322449.stm

The problem lies in another corner, and that DOES play on a global scale. If the age of legal competence to sign a contract lies at 18, then explain to me how a child can agree to the use of their information before that age, because that's where the problem lies. If most ADULTS are not competent enough to realize the impact of public disclosure on a global scale, then please explain to me why a child is allowed to permit access.

Even when a child posts publicly,I would still like the provider to keep its fat fingers off their data. If you want an argument why, look at this BBC article, and that's just today.

I don't see a major problem with Google giving kids email facilities. I do see serious problems (as a parent) with Google abusing that data like it does with all the other information it overtly as well as surreptitiously collects, and throwing ads at such kids. That I have HUGE problem with, because that audience is more gullible and innocent than the adults they target. That's child abuse in a different way.

Dr. Majid Shahriari, Dr. Fereydoon Abbasi, Dr. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, Darioush Rezaeinejad, Dr. Ardeshir Hassanpour. Those are just the known ones.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/killing-irans-nuclear-scientists/story?id=14152453
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11860928
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2010/11/201011297228879910.html
http://www.eurasiareview.com/03102011-ahmadinejad-accuses-iaea-of-releasing-list-of-iranian-scientists/

Well Nationwide was fined over a million pound for lost data on a stolen unencrypted laptop, and zurich fined 2.3 million pounds for data los on a USB, and HSBC fined over 3 million pounds for losing an unencryptd CD. There a many more similar stories

Well Nationwide was fined over a million pound for lost data on a stolen unencrypted laptop, and zurich fined 2.3 million pounds for data los on a USB, and HSBC fined over 3 million pounds for losing an unencryptd CD. There a many more similar stories

Your statement is great in theory. By using ubiquitous they way you did, you seem to assume the government and citizens will be on an equal playing field. That is almost assuredly not the case, and the deck will be stacked in the government's favor.

Exactly this. In the UK PC Simon Harwood was caught on camera murdering an innocent man who was walking away from him for no apparent reason, and it still took journalists and years of legal wrangling to even start a manslaughter case against him. For some strange reason the CCTV in the area wasn't working that day, but fortunately a couple of people caught it on camera phones.

Similarly when the police accidentally murdered an innocent man on the London Underground in the wake of the 7/7 bombings for some reason all the surveillance technology wasn't working and in the end no-one was actually punished for it.

The police always try to cover up wrongdoing by their colleges and the Crown Prosecution Service tries to avoid bringing cases against them. Their hand has to be forced by overwhelming evidence and media attention, and even then sometimes they just lose vital files and the crime goes unpunished.

We can't allow the government to have wide ranging surveillance. It is abused far too often, because that is human nature, and the abuses are rarely punished and powers rarely taken back. It really is a slippery slope, with each incremental power grab requiring monumental effort to claw back.

Witchcraft does exist, and it's nearly beyond belief. It's probably not about cursing cows though.

About 1% of the population is capable of multitasking. Only they can focus on their gadget and the road. The rest should stay as far away from that as possible.

According to published studies, those who are actually good at multitasking generally consider themselves bad at it, and tend to avoid it. On the other hand, those who consider themselves good at multitasking are rather bad at it. Yet another manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The more you know, the more you realise that there is so much more that you will never know.

That's because the law can comprehend the difference between faiths and fanboyism and making a joke on a mandatory census. This is where the law is sensible.
However, where the legislation fails is when it does not protect people against discrimination based on their place of birth or language, should that be within the UK. For example, were you to discriminate against someone based on the fact that they were English, Welsh or Scottish, or even Cornish, Northern or from Norfolk, Kernow or Cymraeg speaking or any one of many other ways that people are "different" then you would be quite entitled to do so. e.g. Anne Robinson's comments. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1279679.stm

Damn good idea; currently the standard driving test does not include three lane highways, which apart from directly outside schools is the site of the most terrible incidents involving cars and fatalities, and it's mainly down to people who don't know what the fuck they're doing on fast roads.

Actually, that's almost exactly the opposite of what the statistics say. There are comparatively very few fatalities on motorways compared to almost every other road type, with A roads and unclassified country roads being by far the worst (A roads 9 times worse than motorway, for example) - both of these road types are covered on the practical driving test.

Motorways are some of the safest roads in the whole of the UK, despite the high speeds involved. There should definitely be a compulsory section of the driving test that deals with them, however.

Here's the 2009 data - you can go to graphics and "sort by road type" for my citations here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2009/crash/8414354.stm

About 1% of the population is capable of multitasking. Only they can focus on their gadget and the road. The rest should stay as far away from that as possible.

According to published studies, those who are actually good at multitasking generally consider themselves bad at it, and tend to avoid it. On the other hand, those who consider themselves good at multitasking are rather bad at it. Yet another manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The article fails at describing SOPA and is super vague in most of its descriptions.

Better description

Erm .. yes they are.

What planet have you been on for the past 6 months? ... probably the good ol' U S of ignorant-to-the-outside-world A.

If this estimate is correct, its 0.4% worldwide.

Airspace violations happen all the time. Usually all that happens is planes are scrambled to intercept and escort the offending craft out, and a formal protest is filed at the embassy of the country who did the violating. Iran is just milking this for all that it's worth. (Which is not to say they're unjustified in doing so, if the drone was in fact on a spying mission rather than malfunctioned and flew over on its own. Unfortunately that's probably something we'll never know for sure.)

Unless they're running for a train in London...

sarcasm warning

Look that was an honest mistake he did sort of look like one of the guys they were looking for and the coppers are human if at the critical moment , when you have to ID the person you are about to assassinate, nature calls well nature calls man

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7073125.stm

What I find the most hilarious, is that their secret facility appears to be a basketball court/high school gym (see the markings on the floor):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16098250

Or maybe they decided to house it in a school gymnasium so if the USA does decide to launch an attach against it, Iran gets to parade around video of the USA destroying a school.

What I find the most hilarious, is that their secret facility appears to be a basketball court/high school gym (see the markings on the floor):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16098250

More farmable land is actually one of the predictions: some models show America's "wheat belt" migrating northwards, so the plains of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba will become productive in the way that Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas currently are for the U.S.: here's a map

Volvo is way ahead of you with the YCC:

The whole front of the car is moulded in one piece which can be removed only by a Volvo mechanic.

In fact, a Spanish software magazine had an editorial article where they used it for a car analogy with MS ;)

In light of how woefully sparse iPlayer is in terms of the BBC's back catalogue (take a look) I'd like to see a test case of a UK resident sharing programmes with their countrymen. In principle, I don't see how Aunty could complain about us sharing between ourselves what we've already paid for. By way of comparison take a look at 4oD, another catch-up service from another free* UK broadcaster.

Of course, ensuring that only UK residents can access such a P2P system, there's the rub.

*They get a portion of the license fee, I believe, but supplement it with advertiser revenue.

Quality of life under Sharia law is better than that in the bible belt? I sure wouldn't want to live under either circumstance, but it's not as if muslims never forciblytried to convert people the way those nasty christians did/do.
I'm not defending the religious zealots of christianity by any stretch, but islam, overall, is actually worse. We just don't hear that much about it's history and oppressions here in the west. And xtianity worse than Hitler, Mao, and Stalin put together? lol. I think hundreds of thousands of Russians, Chinese, and Germanic jews who lived under them might disagree on that point.

You mean much like Google was caught giving patents to handset vendors so they could in turn sue Apple with said patents?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14832762

Only a fanboi or a troll would suggest that those two things are alike.

You mean much like Google was caught giving patents to handset vendors so they could in turn sue Apple with said patents?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14832762

Even companies like Google will find it increasingly hard to get enough IPv4 addresses for their needs. See e.g.
Microsoft's recent purchase at $11.5 a pop.
I'm sure they require a lot of globally routable addresses for internal communication. Those can be converted to IPv6 to free up address space for their public endpoints, even while most of their users are IPv4 only.

From the user side of it, ISPs in growth areas like Asia simply cannot hand out IPv4 addresses to all their users, leading to kludges like ISP-level NAT. At that point, even if IPv4 is reachable due to the hacks, you would give them a better user experience (a faster and more reliable connection) by offering your services over IPv6 as well.

In short, even though IPv4 will be 'mandatory' for the foreseeable future, the hacks needed to make it work for everyone and everything that needs internet access may make it a second-grade experience compared to IPv6, maybe within a few years time.

Why I would go to Dubai again?

Because you don't like poppy seed muffins?

The problem is that it costs money to run a trial. When convictions are overturned because of jury behavior, then you have to order a new (possibly expensive) trial, or give up and let a convicted criminal go free because of what to many appears to be a technicality. Either is undesirable. It does seem like this kind of thing is becoming more likely to happen, e.g. this case from only a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what the answer is, other than to come down hard on jurors who do this.

"And it's only in 2006 people actually bothered to find out that sitting up straight is bad for your back: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6187080.stm [bbc.co.uk]"

Actually, we knew that back in the earlier 90s. The curvature of the spine explicitly makes straight-up sitting a bad thing.

That's why we had chairs that reclined slightly.

Hope you guys are enjoying the invisible hand of the ingrown corrupt super-capitalist market which you worship. It's more like an invisible phallus raping you in your sleep.

The IT hard drive industry is definitely not the industry that's doing most of the "raping" and profiteering.

Fact is hard drives were a bargain for what you get - a high tech device with powerful rare-earth magnets, high precision moving parts, 7200 rpm platters, store 2TB of data and _typically_ work for 3 years without failing. All for less than USD100. And sometimes with a 3 or even 5 year warranty.

In contrast it's difficult to get a cheap, comfortable, adjustable and long-lasting chair. Despite the fact that we've been making chairs for thousands of years. And it's only in 2006 people actually bothered to find out that sitting up straight is bad for your back: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6187080.stm
So what were the chair makers doing all these years?

If the "just-in-time fad" and other similar "fads" made chairs (or other similar stuff- clothes?) cheaper and _better_ year by year, and only more expensive after a once in a 50 year massive flood hits Thailand, I'd be all for it.

...and the follow up: not charged, found to have acted in reasonable self-defence. Are you saying that when a man admits to stabbing somebody to death, but claims self-defence, the legal process is not necessary?

The following is what I could dig up on the effects of multi-lingualism. It does impact the brain in many different areas and there appears to be a growing belief that learning a new language at any age will have a pronounced impact on your ability to think and reason, but that if taught young the improvements are far more dramatic still. I didn't want to clutter the submission with this stuff, especially as these studies don't have nearly the same level of rigour as the MRI scans of the taxi drivers (where a whole host of variables can now be examined directly versus the somewhat more indirect studies done on polyglots). They're also a bit more controversial, with opposing studies claiming that the benefits either don't exist or don't exist in the way that is claimed.

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0012brain.html
http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainbriefings_thebilingualbrain
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/11/10/cognitive-ability-improved-when-bilingual/20740.html

(Press coverage adds yet another level of indirectness and potential sources of errors, but there's still some useful info here)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3739690.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking

The impact of music on learning is also not very well studied - I can find press links that talk about the research, but not much actual research.

http://www.livescience.com/5327-music-memory-connection-brain.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801122226.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3095807.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12135590

However, the story gets MUCH more complicated...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15791973
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/amnesia.html

There IS a fascinating "reverse" case, where alteration of the brain resulted in a remarkable alteration in musical ability, but as far as I know there has been no real work done on what changes the brain has undergone as a consequence of the new obsession.

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

If anyone can add to the list, that would be great, especially for the different areas you were mentioning.

The following is what I could dig up on the effects of multi-lingualism. It does impact the brain in many different areas and there appears to be a growing belief that learning a new language at any age will have a pronounced impact on your ability to think and reason, but that if taught young the improvements are far more dramatic still. I didn't want to clutter the submission with this stuff, especially as these studies don't have nearly the same level of rigour as the MRI scans of the taxi drivers (where a whole host of variables can now be examined directly versus the somewhat more indirect studies done on polyglots). They're also a bit more controversial, with opposing studies claiming that the benefits either don't exist or don't exist in the way that is claimed.

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0012brain.html
http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainbriefings_thebilingualbrain
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/11/10/cognitive-ability-improved-when-bilingual/20740.html

(Press coverage adds yet another level of indirectness and potential sources of errors, but there's still some useful info here)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3739690.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking

The impact of music on learning is also not very well studied - I can find press links that talk about the research, but not much actual research.

http://www.livescience.com/5327-music-memory-connection-brain.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801122226.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3095807.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12135590

However, the story gets MUCH more complicated...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15791973
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/amnesia.html

There IS a fascinating "reverse" case, where alteration of the brain resulted in a remarkable alteration in musical ability, but as far as I know there has been no real work done on what changes the brain has undergone as a consequence of the new obsession.

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

If anyone can add to the list, that would be great, especially for the different areas you were mentioning.

The following is what I could dig up on the effects of multi-lingualism. It does impact the brain in many different areas and there appears to be a growing belief that learning a new language at any age will have a pronounced impact on your ability to think and reason, but that if taught young the improvements are far more dramatic still. I didn't want to clutter the submission with this stuff, especially as these studies don't have nearly the same level of rigour as the MRI scans of the taxi drivers (where a whole host of variables can now be examined directly versus the somewhat more indirect studies done on polyglots). They're also a bit more controversial, with opposing studies claiming that the benefits either don't exist or don't exist in the way that is claimed.

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0012brain.html
http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainbriefings_thebilingualbrain
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/11/10/cognitive-ability-improved-when-bilingual/20740.html

(Press coverage adds yet another level of indirectness and potential sources of errors, but there's still some useful info here)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3739690.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking

The impact of music on learning is also not very well studied - I can find press links that talk about the research, but not much actual research.

http://www.livescience.com/5327-music-memory-connection-brain.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801122226.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3095807.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12135590

However, the story gets MUCH more complicated...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15791973
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/amnesia.html

There IS a fascinating "reverse" case, where alteration of the brain resulted in a remarkable alteration in musical ability, but as far as I know there has been no real work done on what changes the brain has undergone as a consequence of the new obsession.

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

If anyone can add to the list, that would be great, especially for the different areas you were mentioning.

The following is what I could dig up on the effects of multi-lingualism. It does impact the brain in many different areas and there appears to be a growing belief that learning a new language at any age will have a pronounced impact on your ability to think and reason, but that if taught young the improvements are far more dramatic still. I didn't want to clutter the submission with this stuff, especially as these studies don't have nearly the same level of rigour as the MRI scans of the taxi drivers (where a whole host of variables can now be examined directly versus the somewhat more indirect studies done on polyglots). They're also a bit more controversial, with opposing studies claiming that the benefits either don't exist or don't exist in the way that is claimed.

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0012brain.html
http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainbriefings_thebilingualbrain
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/11/10/cognitive-ability-improved-when-bilingual/20740.html

(Press coverage adds yet another level of indirectness and potential sources of errors, but there's still some useful info here)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3739690.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking

The impact of music on learning is also not very well studied - I can find press links that talk about the research, but not much actual research.

http://www.livescience.com/5327-music-memory-connection-brain.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801122226.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3095807.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12135590

However, the story gets MUCH more complicated...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15791973
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/amnesia.html

There IS a fascinating "reverse" case, where alteration of the brain resulted in a remarkable alteration in musical ability, but as far as I know there has been no real work done on what changes the brain has undergone as a consequence of the new obsession.

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

If anyone can add to the list, that would be great, especially for the different areas you were mentioning.

Note that a well-known online language forum has picked up this story as the latest examle of a crash blossom, i.e., a headline that has two or more radically different parsings.

This one seems to have originated in the beeb, and there are suspicions that they have headline writers who specialize in this sort of ambiguity. They have had a lot of hilarious headlines recently, that are often read completely wrong by most readers.

Ah, so, the iPad doesn't have a bezel, it just has something exactly like a bezel? And to claim that device is "curved" is ridiculous. Are you talking about the protrusion of the bezel? We obviously need to talk about technology.

See, there were two companies. One innovated a product over the course of years with public prototypes culminating in a release. The other company demoed a derivative product two months before the first one's launch. Yet you seem to think it's more likely that the first company, after years of development, suddenly completely redid it's supply, production, and assembly in two months, not counting auxiliary materials, because you have blind (or purchased) loyalty to a company that is attempting to abuse the patent system worldwide. The overwhelmingly more likely explanation is that they were both using the technology and materials available. Apple was no doubt 'inspired' by the Crunch Tablet, but that's how business works.

Oh, and regarding Apple's falsification of legal documents:
Here, and here.

In other news, atheism is a religion and baldness is a hairdo.

Well, if my employer tried to fire me just because I was an atheist I'd expect to be protected by the same laws that (in many countries) say you can't fire someone for being a Muslim or a Christian.

...and if someone made a TV show featuring a bald starship captain with a French name and a Yorkshire accent, or a bald maverick cop who ate lolipops, they'd probably be, at leased, accused of unoriginality.

In other news, ISTR John Cage sucessfully forced Mike Batt to settle over his 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence.

The problem with these patents is that they rely on trying to describe in unambiguous words what is actually a subjective visual judgement, so you get these lists of attributes that sound ridiculous. All you can really do is get a jury, show them a representative selection of tablets/phones and ask whether any look as if they were copied from the iPad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16043626

It would appear that pentagon has confirmed that Iran in fact does have a "downed US drone". There are also reasons for using bright white, though afaik these are mainly for reflective protection from nuclear blast. For example, high speed strategic bombers like TU-160 are white.