Slashdot Mirror

I didn't realize that graphite and diamonds were the byproduct of power generation.

If your power source is a flame, then (technically) yes :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-14564702

In simple terms, it had its life sucked out by a machine and would take a miracle to come back now.

4 sigma detection != (officially) found. You need 5 sigma for "discovery" status. The BBC have a good explanatory piece: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14811580

It does seem to be pretty common for people to apply the term "open source" to things that aren't. For example, when Schwarzenegger was governor of California, he started a Free Digital Textbook Initiative. I went to a symposium set up by the state about this initiative. Many people at the meeting used "open source" correctly to describe their books. E.g., the book's LaTeX source code was freely available, and the book was under a CC-BY-SA license. But Pearson, a big commercial textbook publisher, sent a representative, who talked about how Pearson was doing books that were "open source." Actually their sole free offering was a consumable biology workbook that was available as a free PDF download. But they heard everyone else saying "open source," and it sounded like good pixie dust, so they started using the term.

This guy needs to be in the study.

Raytheon, one of the bidders mentioned several times in the article probably doesn't have an open source alternative.

It also demonstrates the cluelessness of the people writing this stuff, that they don't seem to follow the news. Raytheon's main contract was terminated shortly after the current government came to power. It's quite likely they haven't bid at all since.

It's illustrates what a massive fail it is to look at spend and infer about contracts. Most big contracts are going to be multi-year; there really isn't time to see much of a dent, since the election; particularly when about 3/4 of the data actually predates it.
Really, if people can't be bothered to discount data from before the election, they should wait for someone who has a clue to analyze it, rather than pontificating.

The linked-to article cites a BBC FOI request as the source, but doesn't link to the BBC's own article on the subject, as far as I can tell.

And in democracies we don't always have the same people in power now that actually caused the trouble, do we? In the UK we currently call the people that caused the deep financial suffering of many in the UK "The Labour Party". I agree that they all would have resigned had they any honour.

Really? In Scotland we call them the Tories - they were the same under Thatcher when they started the economic destruction of this country by privatising all essential services they could, as they are now as Cameron finishes the job and sells off the NHS to highest foreign bidder.

Labour owe a debt to us to be sure, but they're far from alone in causing the current crisis.

Of course, from your simplified opinion of the riots, it's fairly obvious that you don't actually engage in critical thinking and just jump to the answer that supports your current prejudice - so I can't blame you or the other Daily Mail readers for thinking this.

Have a look at the BBC article (with video, including a selection of artwork) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14706864

a UK professor, who has been on trial for telling false results to help his own company

All I can find in the article you link to is:

Last week, the GMC ruled that Dr Wakefield had shown a "callous disregard" for children and acted "dishonestly" while he carried out his research. It will decide later whether to strike him off the medical register.

 
The regulator only looked at how he acted during the research, not whether the findings were right or wrong - although they have been widely discredited by medical experts across the world in the years since publication.

Wikipedia has more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

"The panel ruled that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted both against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his published research.[8][9][10] The Lancet immediately and fully retracted his 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC’s findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified.[11] Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register in May 2010, and may no longer practise medicine.[12]"

China is the one that shoots down shit in the sky ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6289519.stm

`In a report titled "The other side of Apple", published 20th, 2011, a coalition of environmental organizations brought to light problems of pollution and poisoning in Apple's supply chain in China. Yet to this day, Apple has systematically failed to respond to all queries regarding their suply chain environmental violations'.

It would be interesting knowing who is behind this `coalition of environmental organizations'. And why isn't Microsoft similarly accused seeing as they do business with Pegatron Corp., the parent company of Kaedar Electronics.

"During his keynote address at CES, Mr Ballmer .. showed off two other tablet computers - one made by Archos and the other by Pegatron Corp". link

It's a bit dated. He lost his license: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8700611.stm

Please read "They put out a story..." as, I personally no longer trust the main UK news outlets such as the BBC, to "report" News with any sort of integrity accuracy or objectivity. The anecdote minus the huge cynicism (I wasn't objective) will have to stay an anecdote as I don't' think I'll be able to find the clip of the Doctor. But here was the story - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/313848.stm
This quote "It undermined general confidence in the pill. We still see women requesting abortion who wrongly believe the pill is dangerous." jogs the old memory, so I'm sure it is this one amongst all the other scares "The Media" pump out.

a UK professor, who has been on trial for telling false results to help his own company

All I can find in the article you link to is:

Last week, the GMC ruled that Dr Wakefield had shown a "callous disregard" for children and acted "dishonestly" while he carried out his research. It will decide later whether to strike him off the medical register.

 
The regulator only looked at how he acted during the research, not whether the findings were right or wrong - although they have been widely discredited by medical experts across the world in the years since publication.

This year my wife mysteriously got measles (in Italy). She hadn't been vaccinated because when we were young the vaccine was not available. BUT our youngest child got it, too, because he was at the time younger than the age at which you get the shot.

I don't tell you the trouble of having a diagnosis, since the disease is so uncommon today, that after two visits, my wife finally diagnosed it herself on wikipedia (sic). And the trouble of telling all the authorities, which needed to find the lost protocols for such an infection.

To sum it up: the studies linking the shot with autism were done by an UK professor, who has been on trial for telling false results to help his own company.
When you don't get the shot and you are healthy, you're just selfishly exploiting the fact that most of "other people" will get the shot and you will be protected. BUT measles IS dangerous, and some people won't have your choice, because they are too young or too unhealthy to get that shot. They will risk severe damages by the disease, so PLEASE don't be a wimp and kindly get vaccinated.

I think you and him are talking about different people.

You're talking about the people who did figure out new methods of healing through the years, whilst ignoring those who did manage to fuck up and kill more people than they helped.

He's talking about the shit crazy "witch doctors" who still exist in places like Africa who claim they can produce cures, but first they need the limb of an albino African...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/16/tanzania-humanrights

You're both right- you're right about the people you're talking about, but you're not talking about the people he's talking about- the people who, to this day, think they can cure people through things that have quite the opposite effect, they do exist, and they have always existed- not every "witch doctor" through history has been good or sensible. Humans are quite good at believing their own bullshit, and many such healers through history will have decided "Yes, this'll cure it" and stuck with it no matter how badly it went wrong, using the age old excuses of "Oh, god must've just wanted that one to die", or "He was too far gone, there was nothing that could be done for him" and the like.

There is any number of documented tragic cases in Africa still going on right now where people claim they can heal through things that are far more harmful to the "patient" and others around him.

What about cases like this where he's claiming he can cure AIDs, the people beleive they're cured, and then go and spread it? -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6323449.stm

Or this:

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/aids-virgins.htm

I don't think his view of many third world "healers" is particularly mistaken. Many are just people making up false claims to elevate their status in society, to make people look up to them. Just like faith healers in fact.

Then rinse in one of these: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14114555

Maybe the question should be how to promote policies that prevent software engineers from going to the evil dictator side.

Assassination seems to be a popular choice of late for dealing with technical professionals who are a bit too good at doing their jobs for the wrong sorts of people...

From Wikipedia.

Nigerian Muslims feared polio eradication campaign was actually a secret sterilisation campaign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2070634.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/international/asia/20polio.html?pagewanted=2

Cholera. Not too sure what you're thinking about.
Perhaps the claim of Haitians following the earthquake that UN peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera with them?
An investigation of the source and and examination of the Haitian strain's DNA actually showed that was probably true.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11943902

From Wikipedia.

Nigerian Muslims feared polio eradication campaign was actually a secret sterilisation campaign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2070634.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/international/asia/20polio.html?pagewanted=2

Cholera. Not too sure what you're thinking about.
Perhaps the claim of Haitians following the earthquake that UN peacekeepers from Nepal brought cholera with them?
An investigation of the source and and examination of the Haitian strain's DNA actually showed that was probably true.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11943902

The UK Govt recently admitted that they were programming traffic lights to increase fuel consumption to make more money through fuel tax. I can't find the exact article but here's another one with "Previously the Department for Transport (DfT) had discouraged the systems which reduce fuel use, resulting in less tax being paid to the Treasury." Certainly, in the city where I live, on a major dual carriageway with a 30mph limit from/to the north to the centre, if you drive at 30mph, you will hit every red light. Conversely, if you drive at 15mph or 45mph, you will get a green light. I don't do speeding, so I do 15-20mph average on this dual carriageway. This same dual carriageway has 37 sets of traffic lights over a 2 mile stretch - really, why this much?

Why not remove traffic lights? An experiment at Portishead has shown that traffic has reduced when they switched off a set of traffic lights in the town centre. Recently a roundabout I use often has new traffic lights and I find I waste so much time sitting there waiting for the red to turn green while there is not a single car on the roundabout - I sometimes wait up to 2 minutes. They do have their place, but I'm starting to feel a lot of them are a waste of space & money

From what I can tell, the flooding wasn't nearly what it could have been, either. Unless you call a foot of standing water disastrous..

LOL. A foot of standing water? Try watching this video:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14710069

and tell me that looks like 1 foot of standing water.

It's wrong of the media to overhype it, but it's just as wrong for you to trivialize what damage actually did occur.

Who said you had to be American?

http://www.france24.com/en/20110316-2011-03-16-1140-wb-en-webnews
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13188507
http://www.inforse.dk/europe/nuclear.htm

You do know that looking down one's nose like that will severely restrict your vision, right?

The original link in the Pallab Ghosh article (removed at edit time) was for this story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14680570

"Results from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have all but killed the simplest version of an enticing theory of sub-atomic physics."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14693637

Poland has 15% broadband penetration. That means they have 1/20th the amount of subscribers.

In addition you are actually just straight up lying, Poland has an average speed of 4Mbps, falls to 1.6Mbps according to speedtest.net., where as the US has: has an average speed of 8Mbps according to the OECD, although it is nearly half this (4.6Mbps) according to speedtest.net."

Poland has 15% broadband penetration. That means they have 1/20th the amount of subscribers.

In addition you are actually just straight up lying, Poland has an average speed of 4Mbps, falls to 1.6Mbps according to speedtest.net., where as the US has: has an average speed of 8Mbps according to the OECD, although it is nearly half this (4.6Mbps) according to speedtest.net."

Yes. this BBC article gives a more informative and balanced explanation.

Even the evidence for unusual amounts of subsurface groundwater flow is equivocal. It looks like a rather ordinary aquifer.

Unlike Europeans who lock their children in a basement and rape them repeatedly or other Europeans who run around shooting people.

That's how racism works, you take an anecdote and apply it to the whole population.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Josef_Fritzl

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1578285/norway-gunman-revisits-scene-of-rampage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10219655

Let me put my tinfoil hat on for a moment... Beatings aren't necessary, the US gov't can simply use the NSAKEY to decrypt anything encrypted using Microsoft libraries, this was revealed back in NT4 and again when Win2k SP2 source code was leaked. This is to make their encryption methods export compliant. This is the only legit news article I could dig up on it right now, but if you look around, I'm sure you'll find more. Pretty sure I read somewhere that there's another "unknown" key out there that they think is for the UK gov't to use as well; actually that might be what was revealed in the SP2 source code leak.

That's possible I suppose, but it shouldn't. The case in Germany is solely about the shape of the device, not about the software.

This case concerns both. More detailed coverage here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14652482 including "However, the judge rejected several other patent issues, as well as Apple's claim that Samsung had stolen many of its design ideas."

Running is probably one of the worst forms of exercise for improving health, since it causes long term joint/leg problems, and tends to cause muscle wasting as your body consumes muscle to maintain glucose levels... but the exercise doesn't use muscles in a way that induces a hypertrophic response.

It seems that just walking a lot is the best. The problem is that it takes time and when you can't integrate this into your daily life (like walking instead of driving) spending an hour a day or so on walking around is a lot.

There's a study that shows that prostate cancer can be prevented or massively delayed by brisk walking three hours a week.

Anyway, I think our bodies are evolutionary adapted to a certain lifestyle and this certainly involves quite a bit of getting around and exercising. It's not that exercise extends life, *not* exercising shortens life.

First, obligatory snarky "This is news?!?"

Second, this has always frightened me. See, I'm weird. I don't make good eye contact unless I do it deliberately. I'm easily overwhelmed by loud noises. If I was confused as a child, I'd have a breakdown. Friends were REALLY hard for me to make, I just didn't understand social interactions until late in Middle School, and even then I was mimicing instead of understanding how folks interacted, but most kids tolerated me at that point, so I was relatively happy. It wasn't until college that I *REALLY* started to understand how to interact with people, and that my brand of extremly honest answers wasn't what most folks expected. ("Hey! How you doin?" "Oh, well, I've kinda been really bummed out lately, SoAndSo is givin' me a real hard time, and my mom is just driving me insane, she thinks I've been having sex with this girl, but I swear we're just friends, hell she has a boyfriend!" "...Ok, well, that kind of sucks, take care.")

I've fallen madly in love with and married a weird woman. Growing up, she didn't realize that other kids thought she was mean until nearly middle school. She has mild but real OCD. She can't handle surprises.

Neither of us has a diagnosis of autism/asperger's, though we wince when we think about it. Hell, given the criteria nowadays, I probabaly WOULD have gotten the lable as a child, but self diagnosis of Asperger's being a internet hobby, I think I'll avoid too much speculation.

We have more or less accepted that we're going to have a high risk of some sort of Autistic Spectrum striking, but that's ok. We'll be watching. An autistic 2 year old was an autistic 18 month old, was an autistic 1 year old, and was almost certainly an autistic 6-9 month old. We WILL intervene. We will get the proper therapies, we will NOT let our child fall further and further behind if we can do a gorram thing about it. Play therapy, behavioral interventions. Close follow up with our pediatician. As good a diet as our likely picky child can be taught to eat. Every fracking vaccination we can use to protect him. Every bit of love we can give her.

And if our child is normal, well we'll do the same damn thing, just with less therapy. :-)

Autism *is* geneticly linked, and autism *does* respond to proper therapy. (And any parent who gets their child involved with chelation therapy should be prosecuted for neglect at the least and abuse if possible. If your child doesn't have lead poisoning, then "heavy metals" aren't causing your childs autism. You did. It's not your fault, but it's your genes.)

Heh, capcha: "persuade"

On the contrary, I agree that this forced "experiment" is pointless. But in the longer term, it is worth asking these questions - how is it that the children of Finland are consistently ranked at the top of international education tables, and yet "Finnish children spend the fewest number of hours in the classroom in the developed world"? There is clearly more to optimising education than maximising hours in the classroom.

But there are other advantages of railroads. First, railroads are largely weather-independent, but ships aren't. Northern seas also tend to freeze, but the cold air doesn't affect the railroad much.

That's not necessarily the case, especially where a tunnel is involved.

BBC Article

Having said that, the 45 million year old yeast was a much more interesting discovery (Wired's article includes info on how to extract it from amber) but it hasn't really spawned much of an interest in paleantology. Damn shame.

Meanwhile Asia hasn't had this problem because they're genetic selection had preference for smaller cuter types to begin with. Yes obesity occasionally shows up in Asia, but you don't see it like you do in the Americas.

I don't know where to begin. Your entire post reads like the introverted ravings of someone with entirely too many opinions. Here's a link on the growing obesity problem in China, clearly clinking urbanisation and economic growth to widening waistlines. Also, most people of European descent live not in America, but in Europe where waistlines are substantially slimmer. Genetics has nothing on diet and lifestyle.

Maybe in another 200 years the average North American will be some blend of Asian, European and African. If only we can breed the stupid out, I'm fine with that.

We can never breed the stupid out. We can only educate it away.

There are already accusations that energy companies are doing the same in the West already (massaging profits so customers don't balk when record profits are announced alongside record price rises).

Um, you might want to look at HTC's growth before slagging them off.

Whatever you think of their business plan, it works, and it's giving them growth on a rather impressive scale. Handset growth has been around 230% over last year, and profits are a similar success story.

So to answer your question- "and who will want to buy a cell phone maker with the only future of making me too phones like HTC does"

Well, anyone with even the slightest bit of basic investment sense would be my guess.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14041085

Clearly making "me too" phones as you call them is a fucking good business to be in.

It sounds close to the official number as quick glance at BBC news's website shows. Nothing to do with collusion, people keep talking about all of the CCTV camera's in the UK police have been identifying people through that. Most of the papers have also been printing pictures of rioters in an effort to identify them, there are about half a dozen stories of mothers turning in their kids when they saw the child's photo in a national paper.

This meeting is the higher ups way of looking like they are doing something to daily mail readers, I'm hoping nothing comes of it especially when you realise Twitter & Facebook were used by people to organise clean-ups and identify the rioters.

There has also been a lot of talk about the harshness of the punishments handed down to rioters. The UK doesn't require mobile phones to have Government available GPS tracking like the USA. You can only check-in with Facebook/Google latitude and not twitter.

"gettin their taxes back"

Let's not forget these lovelies http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

contains:

London rioters: 'Showing the rich we do what we want'

This seems to be a better attempt to try to explain what was happening:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/london-riots-who-took-part

Definitely a mix of motives

You don't see this kind of stuff in China

You may not see it, but it is most definitely there. It's just that China's government is a hell of a lot more quiet about it, and the little bit that does see daylight is considered normal, especially when compared to the more outrageous crap (by Western standards) that businesses pull off both with and against each other.

It also helps the facade when you occasionally execute the occasional minor official or two who don't pay enough of a 'vig' to keep the upper echelons' bank accounts properly greased.

"Can someone explain to me, why the USA is so violent?"

It's hard to understand, isn't it?

I hope they've been saving those fuel tanks: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/293366.stm

The NHS is also the most efficient healthcare system of seven top industrialised nations: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10375877 [bbc.co.uk]

I don't know which is scarier, that the NHS is "efficient", or that other countries have it worse.

The BBC is an absolute propaganda tool, it is the best propaganda tool in the world because so many people think it is impartial when it is clearly not.

The BBC glorify war, they glorify soldiers, they deify economy over quality of life.

They always have politicians comment and then for the opposing comment they deliberately pick some member of the public who looks stupid or some other person who is not interview savvy rather than pick someone from a relevant organisation who would give a good argument against the politician or corporate mouth piece.

BBC journalists are often highly opinionated rather than neutral

When the BBC doesn't wish to cover a situation properly, they ask stupid irrelevant questions.

The BBC outright censors - usually war related .

They twist facts. They lie by omission. They lie by suggestion. They lie by insinuation.

I've even seen them character assassinate, not by directly rubbishing the character being assassinated but by interviewing a politician and members of the public who's quotes where all selectively picked to say the politician being rubbished is mad. (this politician had decided the middle east wars were wrong).

The BBC hide stories about war, political moral corruption and corporate wrong doing by burying them in pointless stories about individual people being killed either by accident or by murder and with other pointless fluff pieces about animals, weather, shopping, celebrities etc.

I Personally would like to see the BBC outright scrapped along with the license fee.

But wait, here's some important news:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-14606654

Except that getting doctors to run hospitals is completely stupid. They are massively more expensive than managers, and when you do medicine at university you tend to learn how to treat people, not run businesses. That's not to say that *appropriate* managers aren't doctors (people such as clinical directors), but if you think that doctors are the best people to decide which printer paper supplier to use, or the logistics company that is responsible for transporting samples around the country, or the million other things that running a multi-million pound business (which is what a hospital is), then you are severely misguided.

Only 3% of NHS staff are managers. That is lower than pretty much any company in the oh-so-efficient private sector. The NHS is also the most efficient healthcare system of seven top industrialised nations: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10375877

You, sir, are a right-wing troll. I suggest sticking to facts in your future posts.

I tried one out at Carphone Warehouse today (owned by Best Buy UK). When I tried to read http://news.bbc.co.uk/ it kept refreshing the page every time I tried to scroll up or down, and it took about 15-30 seconds every time to do this, making the browsing experience so frustrating it was virtually unusable. Having tried all the tablets in there, the iPad is the only slab I would buy. I do have an Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S which I am very happy with, but nobody seems to have an answer to the iPad yet.

I prefer apps to websites on the phone because you only have to download data when you use it, rather than user interface + data, so it is faster on slow connections, and they tend to be better designed for small screen + touch interface. On a tablet which has a bigger screen, and would mostly be used on a fast wifi connection, I'm not so sure that is important.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14009910