Domain: bbc.co.uk
Stories and comments across the archive that link to bbc.co.uk.
Comments · 22,906
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Re:Only one to protect yourself
Top 5 2009 Estimates, Citation, of the percentage of adults (aged 15-49) living with HIV/AIDS followed by a news bit lending no credence to any claim of traditional values as we define them.
25.90 - Swaziland - 23 August 2005, Swazi girls celebrate as king lifts ban on sex for under-18s - Citation
24.80 - Botswana - 1 December 2010, Botswana mulls legalizing prostitution to fight HIV - Citation
23.60 - Lesotho - July 20, 2004, in Lesotho as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, early sex is the norm. - Citation
17.80 - South Africa - 9 October 2011, 30% of people would use condoms for their first coital sex versus 4% for oral sex - Citation
14.30 - Zimbabwe - 12 June 2009, girls as young as 12 to sell their bodies for as little as a packet of biscuits - Citation
Not too sure about those traditional values. It just looks like the dazzled approach isn't being worked. -
Perfectly plausible...
Especially when you consider that the click wheel iPod is thought to be influenced by a 1954 transistor radio.
Plus even Jobs' comments about the iPhone 4 being "like a Leica camera" betray the fact to yes, their designers look to past gadgets for inspiration, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone given the task of locating the port saw the Polaroid camera and went "let's try that"... -
Re:Not available in your Area...
The BBC cannot make a profit, due to the not-for-profit charter of the organisation it can only make periodic surpluses or deficits - over the long term they can only net off to nil. Any surplus generated on popular programmes is used to subsidise either/both the licence fee and/or unpopular but "culturally significant" or whatever programmes.
I'm not really sure you have a solid grasp of the way media or any other duplicable asset is sold. Making a sale in many different ways is not the same as "being paid at least twice". Let's say a commercially successful programme like Planet Earth costs £10m to produce, maybe it makes £3m from DVD sales, £1m from BBC America and £3m from deals with other broadcasters. The remaining £3m then comes from the licence fee pot. Maybe another series is so widely successful that it made £20m from those other sources: £10m would go into the licence fee pot, subsidising the licence fee and/or other programmes.
"They can get paid at least twice" just doesn't have any meaning. I watched Inception at the cinema with 5 friends. Did Warner get paid 6 times? Another friend bought the DVD, still another bought the Bluray. Are Warner getting paid 8 times over just between my social circle? Or is it 3? What if myself and 2 of my cinema-going friends also bought the Bluray? What if the BBC then pays to broadcast the movie? Does it matter that all of us pay the licence fee, but some of us live in shared housing and split the bill? Is it relevant that Warner arguably financed the movie from the proceeds of The Dark Knight? Many of my circle bought that in various ways too. Pretty sure the sum total of all our expenditure never covers the $160m cost, though admittedly one friend is quite well off and might have bought a special edition.
To clarify, the BBC did not have their budget cut by government as some sort of punishment for making international sales, or any reason connected with international sales. They were not allowed to increase the licence fee (allowing for inflation this is a cut) in order to cut costs for the licence-paying public. This is set out in the BBC's proposal Delivering Quality First, and many BBC and government announcements widely covered by various media. Some people argue the Tory government not liking the BBC played it's part, or the lobbying from competitors such as Murdoch, but that's conjecture and regardless still has nothing to do with international sales. Cutting the licence fee serves to increase the motivation to make international sales, in order to offset the reduction in the licence fee pot.
The 2,000 staff cut is out of a total of 18,000. Although "a very small percentage" is subjective, 11% can be in your very small opinion, but personally I'm not convinced it is an appropriate turn of phrase when describing people losing their jobs. For the avoidance of doubt I note that the 18,000 figure excludes contractors, which is appropriate because the 2,000 also excludes people losing their contracts.
You are not required to pay the TV licence to own a TV, only to watch broadcast TV (which does include recorded TV on VCR or computer, more info if required).
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Not the oldest submerged city found
That would belong to this city http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1768109.stm It was found in 2002
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Re:Shotgun
Who needs a laser? All you need is a nuclear weapon and a hundred thousand tonnes of molten iron
;) -
Re:Friend to sign up /mobile internet /Human Right
The cat thing is getting annoying. Don't believe everything you hear/read. That stupid woman ranting about how a cat allows an illegal immigrant to stay in the UK is just trying to scare the public about how bad the Human Rights Act is. There is a lot more to the story than a cat.
Indeed, this has been disproved already by people who know what they are talking about: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15171980
I even read the other day an article by one of the lawyers involved saying it was not the reason, but don't have the link at the moment.
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Excellent! Can't wait to get one!
There's been plenty of discussion about the tablet over the last year and a half. Much conjecture about whether it would happen ( http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/india-35-tablet/ ). But what struck me most when all the jabber started was the enthusiasm of one minister: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10740817 .
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Re:Berlusconi's a c**t...
Berlusconi's a cunt
FTFY: Il Duce's a cunt.
Instant karma!!! Italy credit rating slashed by Moody's from Aa2 to A2
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Re:Scam Alert!
Here's some stuff I turned up real quick with Google:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5402342.stm
http://dsc.discovery.com/survival/how-to-survive/how-to-survive-a-plane-crash.html
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/travelgetaways/4536344/detail.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-flight_safety_demonstration -
Re:The sane users already left Dodge.
to some extent the BBC UK service, but certainly the BBC World Service, trail the "contact us at facebook" line for programs - it is the only way they are allowing people to contact them. It is insidious.
They publish their contact address:
BBC World Service
Bush House, The Strand
London WC2B 4PH
UKThey also have a web-form to contact them: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/institutional/2009/03/000000_contact_us.shtml
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You are deluded about the nature of US government
You speak as if elections matter in the USA. I think you've not been paying close attention, else you are deluded. The two branches of the Money Party each field a candidate, and you get to choose between them. That's effectively one party government. The (mostly) young people protesting in New York have figured this out. I'm surprised you have not.
Also, I'd like to point out that these kids are using the same non-violent resistance techniques that have toppled multiple governments worldwide in the past 12 years. These techniques were pioneered by Gandhi and have been refined considerably since then. They have proven, time and again, to be an effective technique, if and only if there is a free press. While I'm not suggesting that as isolated protest in New York City will cause revolution in the USA, I suspect the powers that be are more concerned than they care to admit. Please recall Gandhi's quote about the use of non-violent direct action techniques, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
These protests in New York are largely considered practice by the (non) organizers. I suspect that the protesters will learn, through some unpleasant incidents, that they need to engage in more and better non-violent resistance training. The standard mechanism used to stop protests of this sort is to have agent provocateurs incite violence, which is then used as an excuse to crush the public protest with overwhelming force. The way to avoid this is for all people engaging in non-violent direct actions to first practice, in an organized group training environment, how to respond non-violently when confronted with violence or the threat of violence. I don't believe this first round of protesters have had much training.
Personally, I wish the protesters well, and hope they succeed in raising awareness about just how bad the current US system is. Perhaps, then, some practical ways to deal with the current disaster-in-the-making will be seriously considered. Here is a link to a very mainstream article from the BBC that describes the history of the techniques currently being deployed in New York.
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The first rule of international manipulation is..
"I would like to learn more about Artificial Intelligence and Game Theory. I know these are both large areas of study; however, my main interest is in how these affect decisions in the world. This would include politicians, business people, and general society. I'm not looking for a career or anything; this is just a personal interest of mine. Where are good places to start in these areas for somebody new to them? I'm aware of the Stanford on-line classes, but those don't work with my current schedule."
Do you really understand how unwise it is to put those words together in that manner? Don't interfere. -
Moving to a post-scarcity society
AC wrote: "Robotic Rick Perry 2032"
FTFY. And he will be following in a Robotic Sarah Palin's footsteps, since she governed a state with a basic income (from the Alasakn Permanent Fund). He'll get the robot vote, for sure.
Related on the rights of robots:
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/LegalRightsOfRobots.htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article1695546.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6200005.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_artificial_intelligenceA related parable on economic change and robots that I created (which mentions robot lawyers):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA -
Re:Good
Try this one. It's three minutes shorter, I don't know why (I can't listen to GP's link either).
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Re:Good
Professor Brian Cox explains
Hope this works for non-UK IPs; It's interesting. -
Re:What garbage non-science!
Oh, my mistake, you were looking for an imaginary excuse to bash the BBC, carry on.
Hay, I am a fan of the BBC. I still think their news reporting is the best in the UK, but there are clear instances where they fell short IMHO. I documented a recent case, but unfortunately forgot to grab a screen shot. This is the article in question:
Toyota recalls 110,000 hybrid cars on safety concerns
It has been fixed since I complained, but previously it had the sub heading 'Full Blown Crisis' and right underneath it the sentence "The good news is, they are not allowing it to become a full-blown crisis". You can see a copy of the original article, complete with the bad heading, here. That is hardly an isolated incident.
The first time it really hit me was when I was in Tokyo at the time of the earthquake, and the situation on the ground was very different to what the BBC was reporting. It got worse over the following days as they cherry picked quotes out of context or poorly translated (Japanese is extremely difficult to translate into English without losing important meaning through lack of context or differing social norms). I would watch someone go on TV to make a statement with my friends, and NHK would broadcast it in full. Then a few minutes later the BBC would report a sentence fragment and their reporters interpretation of what was said, which tended to sensationalise and generally failed to convey the content accurately.
That last point is critical. What a BBC news report on TV. Notice how when someone makes any kind of speech or statement, gives any kind of interview all you hear is a couple of seconds of the speaking. The rest of the report is then the journalist giving their account of what was said and their opinion/analysis of it. It can be argued that they do it for brevity, but the result is the same: they don't report the facts any more, the viewer is instead given an interpretation that is subject to journalistic pressures, i.e. making an interesting story. The BBC is still better than most, but if you go back and read TFA you can see that most of it is trying hard not to report the actual statement that was made.
All that is IMHO of course, but I'd say there is enough clear evidence of (not necessarily deliberate) misdirection to back up my more general feeling. The BBC does appear to be at least aware of this, for example you can see how they revise reports from time to time and how they have started to include the original Japanese wording in some of their Fukushima coverage (still nearly useless due to lack of context though). There is room for improvement and I am glad they take these issues seriously.
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Re:
There was one guy in Australia I think who had built up so much static charge he was leaving smouldering footprints in the carpet behind him, in a hotel, with plenty of witnesses. Here it is... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4252692.stm?lsm
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Re:Only one to protect yourselfNatural selection doesn't "care" much about the dynamics of one generation, how many kids you will have. It's a blink of an eye for it.
Plus, even having one child possibly puts you ahead of majority of males (if the child is a girl), and outside (ahead) of what is possibly the largest group of males:Dr Balaresque told BBC News: "The variance of reproductive success between males and females is completely different. If you look at a population, even now, most of the females have children, which is absolutely not the case for males.
"We estimate that about 40% of males do not leave any descendents. This means that each generation, you are losing the traces of 40% of males in that generation. The turnover for males is much higher than it is for females." -
Re:And what about the African population control?
Are they ever worried that your medicine might contain bad juju?
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Re:Look on eBay
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Re:The Stock Market is a Joke
I agree with everything you say, with a single exception: buying index ETFs is *not* buying the index. It's buying a sophisticated financial instrument that sorta mimics the index. There are very significant risks for holding ETFs, especially synthetic ETFs. Tread carefully....
Here's a pdf of a BBC programme on the topic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/fileon4_05_07_11_usual.pdf -
Re:Crop Milk = Fermented rotting pigeon barf
> Some people in south america eat the shit of animals that feed on certain kind of berries,
... and some people with too much money drink coffee made from beans that animals have "pre-digested"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7340005.stmWhat we consider disgusting is cultural. At some point in history someone was hungry enough to try it and now eating pig is not considered strange but eating horse is in many countries.
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Re:Shudder?
Yep.
Pigeon Pie. Not made with the flying rats you see in towns.
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Re:misleading demoReconstructing images from neural data has in fact already been done; the resolution is pretty low but you can make out basic shapes. Visual Image Reconstruction from Human Brain which is based on the paper Visual Image Reconstruction from Human Brain Activity using a Combination of Multiscale Local Image Decoders.
The resolution of a reconstituted neural image is higher if you directly wire electrodes to the brain; see Looking through cats' eyes and the PDF Reconstruction of natural scenes from ensemble responses in the lateral geniculate nucleus.
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Re:distribution
Eh, this happens every few years... what tends to be the case is someone gets a hold of one of the charts where velocities were recorded and due to measurement issues there is a probability curve rather then a simple line... normally you use the curve to determine what the actual velocity was, but you always get at least a couple yahoos that look at the curve, notice that one of the tails goes above C and get all excited that something is going faster then light.
Good thing they are are going to put the findings online to be checked then (they have been looking for errors and have been unable to find any so far).
The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.
In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.
"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.
"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
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Re:Sure it's almost certaintly going to be an erroIt looks as though they have tried to find errors and are asking the community to see if there is anything they have missed:
In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.
"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of the Opera collaboration.
"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.
"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
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Re:FLAT TAX
I don't know about the cost of goods, which certainly can't be policed like that. But yes, there can be proportionality on taxes, fines and the like. Finland does it and they don't seem to be doing too bad.
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Re:I thought that too, except ....
The bbc article on it gives far more detail:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15009028
...particularly the comment: "After sitting with a ghost writer for more than 50 hours of taped interviews, he decided he wanted to cancel the contract. " -
Re:another try at the paperless office
the civil service apparently pays upto 10 times the commercial rate for IT systems.
You do realise that a major factor behind this is the constant demand to reduce the amount of public money spent on public bodies (public money spent on private companies is good for economy apparently?) and the indisputable belief that private companies can do things for at least 50% less than public bodies?
If the media would stop spouting pop-economic one-liners at every chance they get and actually took a look at the numbers they themselves print, then maybe they would realise it's not so black and fucking white, and we could get on with trying to get the work done at the best VFM.
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Re:another try at the paperless office
Exactly - they have ignored the TCO of iPads and compared only the initial purchase cost with the assumption that every civil servant with an iPad will never use a printer again! What about support, administration, setup of wifi networks or 3g costs, software and security updates, replacement of broken hardware etc.? That will be outsourced to some big corporation like Accenture, which will easily triple the initial purchase cost; the civil service apparently pays upto 10 times the commercial rate for IT systems.
This is the same civil service that has consistently refused to upgrade from IE6, and which their own MPs report said "The lack of IT skills in government and over-reliance on contracting out is a fundamental problem which has been described as a 'recipe for rip-offs'". Maybe they should fix the existing problems before they embark on a whole new IT rollout? And why iPads or Android tablets? What can a civil servant do with an tablet that they can't do with a cheaper laptop or netbook? And why dismiss the obvious solution to expensive printing costs - buy cheaper paper and ink? Or charge the users for each page printed? I have seen a per-page charge for printer use instigated at an institution and the change in user behaviour was fast and cut costs more than any large IT project every would. When printing is free it will get abused - people were printing out non-work-related manuals, books, home photos, stuff for their friends etc. Charging for printing stopped that overnight.
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Compared to some UK houses its luxurious
Some of the houses in the UK barely have room for the bed.
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Re:Anti-Rich People Rhetoric
The Chinese are not getting richer from any of the dollars that they are accumulating, they are in fact getting poorer because they are buying those dollars up on national level with the newly printed yuan, but then what can they do with those dollars?
They can't spend them obviously, because they can't buy anything from USA, the US doesn't produce much for Chinese to buy, the 53Billion USD/month trade deficit shows it.
If China comes to USA and asks to buy a port, say in New Orleans, would US sell them the port for all those trillions? Unlikely.
Chinese keep buying up US debt, but they can never sell it. It's only "liquid" as long as you don't try to sell the stuff, and if you sell it, you'll crash the price (which would be good for USA, don't take me wrong.)
But the Chinese are getting poorer as they are immediately hit with the inflation that they are importing from USA by buying up those dollars. China sees huge price increases immediately, 15-25% price hikes a year just for food.
As a country, the Chinese would be BETTER served dumping all of the goods they ship to USA into the ocean, you see. But of-course the best thing they could do is let their currency go where it must go - up due to market appreciation, and then they'll have enough purchasing power in China to be able to buy their own stuff they make and not sell kidneys for iPads.
No, they are not getting wealthier by selling to US.
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Re:Lessor of two evils...
Don't worry. Solar power is going to save us all, provided they get $0.30/kWh subsidies.
China: Villagers protest at Zhejiang solar panel plant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14963354Oh wait, wind will save us all, provided it doesn't get too hot or cold or windy or calm. That gets wind power 30% efficiency.
OK, hydroelectric will save us all. OK, that's maxed out already.
And while we protest, record number of coal and natural gas power plants are getting built. Fraking and ground water pollution is the reality while the "environmentalists" bitch and moan over nuclear. Nuclear, a power source that is not 100% clean. That is not 100% safe. But its the only power source where we require the industry to manage its entire waste. Nuclear gives us the lowest impact on environment from any power sources.
Heck, in avoidable incidents like Fukushima or even Chernobyl, we, the people, suffer almost entire impact of these events. While some are scared shitless of the word "radiation" and most try to avoid any contaminated areas, nature does not have these inhibitions and goes on. Almost any amount of radiation is vastly preferred by nature to birth control pills or plastics. Why? Because radiation is an equal -opportunity stressor.
http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2008-02-19/cupido-birthcontrol.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
The "environmentalists" can't understand basic physics or biology. They don't get it. Natural world "re-routes" around low environmental stresses, like radiation. Provided an organism can reproduce, it will adapt. It is only people that can't really adapt because we do not want to pay the price of mutation/natural selection.
The bottom line is, "environmentalists" are trying to protect people from minimal risks at a cost of the natural world, and hence eventually at the cost of future generations. Quite sad actually.
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Re:Did South-Africa ...
Two sources for the quote are ynet and Haaretz. The NYT passed it along too. The BBC reported on documents obtained by Gisha from the Israeli government detailing the blockade and containing estimates of the calories required by Gazans to stay alive.
It took five minutes to Google this up. Open your eyes and see that what has been happening for decades now is real and not just some "narrative." Of course, I'm sure you can cook up some explanation of why it's a military necessity to prevent food from entering Gaza.
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Re:Did South-Africa ...
For one, it's not the Palestinian nation that's firing rockets, it's individuals within, and for two, most of the rockets they're firing don't actually have a warhead, and aren't actually any more dangerous than a bottle rocket. Rather different than using live ammunition and launching rocket air strikes, no?
I have never said that either side is without fault. I am, however, drawing issue with people who seem to believe that no fault at all lies at the feet of the Israelis. As I said previously, it's mutual, and it's not ever going to end if they keep on down the current road they're taking. Somebody needs to put down the weapons, and take the other side seriously, and frankly, I think it should be the ones using live ammunition, bombing schools and hospitals, and running a blockade preventing even basic construction supplies from entering the other side's territory that should be making a few concessions here. They're essentially holding the entire west bank hostage, and that's not a negotiating position... it drives the people within to acts of desperation. If they want the rocket attacks to stop, then perhaps they should stop doing things that make people desperate enough to start lobbing rockets their way.
I mean, do you understand the economic opportunity Israel is giving up on with the way they're handling the west bank? Most of it is arable farm land, in an area that's mostly desert. If the news reports of the rent situation in Israel are to be believed, there's a major economic problem developing in Israel in the near future, and having a supply of cheap food should be a high priority. If they took the Palestinians seriously, they have an opportunity to develop a major bread basket for the area, and work with the Palestinians to develop sustainable economic prosperity. but apparently, they'd rather just kill each other.
You may want to read this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7375994.stmThere's some interesting numbers regarding the numbers killed by each side that may help you to understand why I'm less than sympathetic to the Israelis... nearly 10x as many Palestinians have been killed by Israelis as have been Israelis by Palestinians, and that's using the Israelis' own numbers. I'm not particularly sympathetic to the people shooting rockets into Israel either, but it's naive to believe that Israel is doing no wrong here. As I said in my previous post, neither side is without fault, and both sides are doing wrong to the other. It's not going to end until somebody matures enough to put down their fucking gun and start taking the other side seriously.
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Re:From Gosling's blog in case it goes down.
> They're saying "30 serious injuries" but I know that's a long way from the truth. At least that many
> died instantly in the impact. ...
> The impact happened so fast, there was hardly any sound: just one huge shock wave. No fireball.
> The plane, and many people, disintegrated instantly, right in front of me. There were bodies
> everywhere. No crash you've ever seen in a movie is even remotely authentic.Sounds very exciting. But interestingly, the BBC is currently saying 3 deaths:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14957437"Three people have died and scores are injured after an airplane crashed near a grandstand at an air race near Reno, Nevada, say medical officials."
...
"Earlier unconfirmed reports said up to 12 people might have been killed"Probably going to go with the BBCs figures, to be honest.
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In the last year or so
There's been an avalanche of research published in the last year or so regarding these types of things, with a lot more scientific backing than the little bit I read in this article.
In one of many articles on the topic, this one raised a whole new series of questions about our ancestry:
Scientists unveil a newly-discovered, ancient human ancestor
Or check out these that all relate to different areas of genetic research, most empirical, one modeled, all relating supporting information about homo sapiens (that's us!) inbreeding with various offshoots and close relatives, with us apparently coming out the better? for it.
Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'
Sex with Neanderthals boosted human immunity
Neanderthals, Humans Interbred—First Solid DNA Evidence
Frontiers of Anthropology
Ancient DNA Reveals Secrets of Human History
Fossilised finger points to previously unknown group of human relatives -
not "discovered" . trader told bank of problem
BBC has just announced the bank did not discover the error or problem. The trader told bank about problem. So no bank checks or audits were in any way involved until after the problem was known to bank.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14943084 -
Re:I can make bubbles! I've created life! Idiots..
Uh-huh. How about self-replicating "bubbles"? The membrane is just a tiny part of the puzzle. The rest has already been solved: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10132762
Or are you ignorant as to what the definition of "life" is? -
Re:We can't even synthesize carbon-based cells yet
You are behind the times: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10132762
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Re:Remember when hiring MORE workers was a good si
I believe that this is largely an unintended side-effect of the democratization of the capital markets and specifically the stock markets
In the UK at least, overseas investors and large insurance companies and pension funds own the majority of shares in companies. The proportion held by private investors is only about 10%:
Whatever the comparable figures for the US may be, here in the UK short-termism can't be blamed on democratization of the stock markets. -
Re:Or TVs, FTA;
Yes, but the problem is with this subject the BBC has a history of talking bollocks on it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7122230.stm
I notice that they mention there is some evidence for it being a real problem because blind tests proved it- this is contrary to all scientific evidence I've read which says quite the opposite- that people claiming to suffer from the condition only get it right about 50% of the time - or in other words, the same amount as if they'd just been guessing. It says in the article the the number of correct guesses was significant enough to demonstrate it as a real problem but gives us no detail about what that value was meaning we can't judge for ourselves.
I know what you're saying, but I'm not sure with the BBC it is that innocent, especially when this is about the 3rd time they've brought the issue up, and in both previous cases have been publicly embarassed when it was exposed as bullshit. I suspect someone at the BBC has an agenda relating to this issue judging by the fact they keep pushing it over and over.
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Re:Propaganda or Bad reporting?It would appear that he's not made enough pleas of other cases to be taken into consideration, either. He's been charged again.
A man has been charged over a doctored "offensive image" on Facebook of a teenage girl who was shot dead, police have revealed.
Sophie Taylor, 16, was accidentally shot by Calum Murray, 18, at a cottage near Tomintoul, Moray, on 12 April.
Her boyfriend, a trainee gamekeeper, then turned the gun on himself.
Grampian Police said a 25-year-old man - who the BBC Scotland news website understands to be Sean Duffy, from the Reading area - had been charged.
Some people really don't get the hint, do they?
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Re:Propaganda or Bad reporting?
Rowan Atkinson believes in having the right to offend, so long as he's not the one being offended. He reaches for the libel courts (see here) and secures a five-figure payout for things that are "ludicrous, hurtful and irresponsible" being written about him. If they're ludicrous, no-one will believe them. How can being hurtful be grounds for a libel action, when he says that other people don't have the right to be hurt?
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Re:Propaganda or Bad reporting?
A salient fact that the OP omitted to mention is that the policeman in question was walking in to a court to give evidence in a case against two men accused of aiding and abetting the man who blinded him (which he did while on a rampage with a gun, injuring and killing several other people before dying in a stand-off with police). More details on the BBC news website.
In that case, I suspect at least part of the reason behind the sentence was because she (unintentionally) interfered with the case; the penalties for intentionally interfering with a witness are quite steep. -
Re:It's contagious, all right
Just as you learned of this invented disease from someone else, you've undoubtedly passed it along to another hypochondriac.
And why are you so sure the disease is imaginary? Because you can't sense these things yourself? It could be real for them, you don't know.
Take the annoy-o-tron (briefly makes a noise ever so often). You know it's there and it annoys you, but you can't find it. If somebody walks into your office and you tell them you are hearing random noises from nowhere they'll think you're crazy unless it goes off when they're there. But in the case of hypersensitivity they can't 'be there when it goes off' since they can't perceive it. If they are like you they would just think you crazy.
People get a shitton of input that they aren't usually even aware of, but some people are. And we just found out that human cryptochrome genes when put into a fly restores their ability to sense magnetic fields. So it could be possible for people to actually see magnetic fields or detect radiation that almost nobody else can. In any case to say they are crazy and inventing it because of your personal beliefs is just as crazy.
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How many mS == 1S?
Listen to their VP of Business Development when asked how many mS in a second (starts at 0:23:00) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014f7g7
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Re:Cue more irrational nuclear panic in 3...2...
In other news:
a petroleum pipeline explosion has killed at least 100 so far today in Kenya.
From linked article:
"The scene is horrific, with charred bodies all around. I cannot differentiate between men and women or boys and girls. All that is left are bones, and the only way to identify the children is from their smaller skeletons." -
Re:My thoughts are with everyone who lost anyone
It is hard to imagine a Buddhist group doing anything like this. That said, they seem to be a major exception where their teachings are about non-violence first.
All the other religions I've studied are a mix of "turn the other cheek" and "an eye for an eye" and other violent principals. This is inviting different people to interpret things differently. So you get Christians who run soup kitchens who would never hurt a fly, and other people who are Christians who bomb clinics that perform abortions or attack people because they are Muslims.
Buddhism (from what I know of it) doesn't have these inconsistencies in its teachings, so you get less wild swing in interpretation on this issue as people cherry pick ideas from the teachings.
But even being more consistent, there are *still* some examples of Buddhists turning to violence. Largely in self defense, but the examples are out there.
Here's an interesting piece that examines the issue:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/buddhistethics/war.shtml -
Re:Filed in July 2005
The Wii was released on November 19th and it was revealed on May 15th 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4557443.stm so Nintendo had this in the pipeline for awhile and this is partially what's wrong with patents. They both hard the same idea roughly at the same time and neither one should have to pay the other just because they got to a patent office first.