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Foxconn is investing $12bn in Brazil. Citing the rising labor costs in China for this expansion.

Unfortunate coincidence - just as the source code is leaked, Sony executive talks to BBC about lessons learnt from the network hacks and compromised user account information:'Making sure that (you know) once you have a secure network, then people that are out to get the information will try to out do the security mechanisms that we have put in place. Even today, we don't know what was actually stolen, because we are still doing the investigations.'

Maybe Sony should look at the bright side; much of the investigation has been done by the hackers themselves who are not shy about sharing what they have stolen.

On a side-note, I wonder how Robert is doing as the LulzSec claims arrested hacker is not part of the group, just some guy.

"Pres. Medvedev is a great troll! Unfortunately, he doesn't decide anything in Russia - Putin does."

Uhuh. That was the initial view of him when he became PM from a position of relative obscurity. Unfortunately times change, I guess you don't watch the news:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12810566

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-31/medvedev-tests-limits-of-power-with-plan-to-oust-putin-allies.html

http://www.euractiv.com/en/global-europe/medvedev-putin-tensions-grow-2012-elections-get-closer-analysis-504662

Similarly look at Medvedev's history on justice, human rights and so forth. Without a doubt, Medvedev is a much more positive force than Putin and he's never been afraid to express that in his position as PM.

"You see, there's a mandatory 'performance fee' in Russia which goes toward central agency which then distributes gathered money to artists (minus 15% commission)"

Sounds like the PRS in the UK, or GEMA in Germany, or any number of other rights collection agencies that exist in pretty much every country.

What, you thought that kind of thing only happened in Russia?

"So Medvedev can talk all he wants, it won't change a thing."

Unless of course he beats Putin to the presidency next year, severely denting Putin's ability to control anything anymore.

Just to back that up:

People who openly say that the War on Drugs is a failure and will never ever work:

- Global Commission on Drug Policy,
- Kofi Annan,
- Ernesto Zedillo (former Mexican president),
- Fernando Henrique Cardoso (former Brasilian president),
- Cesar Gaviria (former Colombian president),
- Paul Volcker (former boss of the Federal Reserve),
- George Papandreou (current Greek prime minister),
- Sir Richard Branson,
- Javier Solana (former "foreign minister"-equivalent of the EU),
- George Schultz (US foreign minister),
- Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa (latin-American authors).

If you believe in authority, here's some: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13624303
And the report: http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report

(Sorry, I just can't log in from here.)

No ecstasy isn't perfectly safe. It's about as dangerous as horse riding though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7876425.stm

One is encouraged, celebrated even, the other can land you with jail time. Doesn't seem right to me.

It's probably not news if it's something you could learn by skimming over the Wikipedia entry. In that case, it's your fault for not caring enough to look it up

The number of casualties is still controversial. These leaked cables (which apparently we can't even read, they were released exclusively to the Telegraph) at best give us one more data point.....a datapoint that comes from an eye witness account of a Chilean diplomat. What actually happened is not known.

Part of the problem may be that different eye-witnesses were there at different times. The standoff lasted for a while. Other eye witnesses reported tanks crushing people. At one point, there were tanks in the square, peacefully. Looking here, you can see no one is being killed. It's rather calm. Earlier though, you can tell things are bad, even if you can't determine exactly where.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4313282.stm
At the top of the square just in front of the Forbidden City, an APC got separated from its column, and in its panic to get out of the crowd area, ran over several demonstrators. This, in turn, caused the crowd to grow violent.

Yes, technicaly an APC is not a tank. So we look further.

At about four or five in the morning, tank columns raced into the square smashing buses, bicycles and humans under their treads.

Clearly talking about tanks and not an accident.

You can decide for yourself the quality of said source. His name is Charlie Cole and he is the winner of the 1989 World Press Photo of a man standing in front of a tank in China. The URL above tells what happened that day. Sounds like a pretty good quality source to me.

Good point. Definitely against their own guidelines on undue prominence:

"However, we must avoid any undue prominence which gives the impression that we are promoting or endorsing products, organisations or services."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-editorial-integrity-product-prominence/

I will consider complaining if I can be arsed.

Also, contrast the life of the average Frenchman to ours. They live longer, have more free time, have medical and JOBS.

Actually, the unemployment rate in France is higher than in the US (9.5% vs. 8.7%), and it is very difficult for young people to find jobs there. If you recall, there was a major bout of riots in 2009 over it, and smaller riots have been occurring since then.

Just think if we would have followed the French's lead on Iraq, we wouldn't have invaded and wasted trillions of dollars in a war that we get absolutely NOTHING from. Leave it to the Right wingers to smear them after they didn't play ball with them.

I don't think we should have invaded Iraq (and I didn't think so at the time), but did you know that France had strong economic ties to Iraq at the time that probably contributed to their decision to oppose the war? It would be similar to the US opposing war on Saudi Arabia, or the UAE (which we certainly would). Those kind of decisions are made the same way in France as they are in the US.

Fair call. But they are still designed for the purpose which is better than getting it from face book/twitter.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
This is better than an a list of 140 character news briefs.

If the frequency is not the problem, then how do you explain the large number of children having cancer, living near the radio aerials in the Vatican?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10634977

I explain that as BAD STATISTICS. What is being described in the article is called CORRELATION -- but it is not proving CAUSATION. (Usually this is explained as "CORRELATION != CAUSATION.") Basically the argument they're making is A) the area around the Vatican has an unusually high rate of cancer, B) the area around the Vatican has a lot of radio aerials, therefore C) the radio aerials must be causing the cancer. However, this is an error in logic; all they know is that the area around the Vatican has a high rate of cancer, but not why.

If the frequency is not the problem, then how do you explain the large number of children having cancer, living near the radio aerials in the Vatican?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10634977

On the contrary when I want to fly somewhere I want to put the origin, destination, dates (and even times of day if that's important for the trip) into a website and get a list of all the options sorted by price. I can then pick the cheapest one that's not at ridiculous times (eg. 6am flight from London Stanstead or something equally awful).

That's how it works in Europe at the moment with sites like expedia, opodo, skyscanner etc. and it's a godsend, it's also one of the strongest drivers of real competition between the airlines. The alternative, which American Airlines is hoping other airlines will also adopt, is that you must go to each separate carriers website and enter those details manually.

Of course no one will do this for the 10-30 airline options that exist between most European destinations so you'll get people going with whatever airline they have some crappy royalty program with or have flown with before.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fast_track/9369897.stm

Yep, not like this has been done before:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/820758.stm

Shocking, just shocking. Next thing we'll hear that there is no Santa Clause and all those letters are answered by the USPS!
http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2009/holiday/santa.htm

LOL @ the idiot

Second headline on the BBC's international news website (which I believe is the most-read news website in the world): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13636704

Cretin

This is currently getting coverage on the front page of the BBC News website - both the domestic and international front pages - ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/ respectively). Coverage doesn't get much more mainstream than this.

This is currently getting coverage on the front page of the BBC News website - both the domestic and international front pages - ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/ respectively). Coverage doesn't get much more mainstream than this.

Sony is a big company with a lot of activities, and not all of them are objectionable.

Given their poor hardware quality, rootkits, data breaches, exploding batteries, inventing fake movie critics, removing advertised features, obnoxious viral marketing, spying on environmental activists, being seen as one of the two worst companies in America, and whatever else I couldn't think of off the top of my head, I'd say "most" rather than "not all".

Maybe I can put your mind to rest.

I have a policy in my office, you can point at the screen but if you touch it, I will break one of your fingers, you get to decide which one.

What's the matter? Has someone put your stapler in jelly again?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p0074577/the_office_stapler_in_the_jelly/

See subject-line, & this quote from yourself:

"I would not call the malware situation on OS X anywhere near rampant. Rampantly reported, maybe." - by Stupendoussteve (891822) on Wednesday June 01, @10:49PM (#36315642)

OK Then - Refer to this list of malware related incidents, + security flaws on MacOS X then (over 50++ of them easily & I have more than this IF you would like them as well):

---

MacOS X - Techworld.com - Third worm hits Mac OS X:

http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=5429

MacOS X - Slashdot Apple Story | Apple Quietly Goes After Mac Trojan With Update:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/06/19/1811203/Apple-Quietly-Goes-After-Mac-Trojan-With-Update

MacOS X - Slashdot | Worm Threat Forces Apple to Disable Software?:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/08/03/1451217.shtml

MacOS X - Slashdot | Two Trojans For Mac OS X:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/06/25/0032226.shtml

MacOS X - Slashdot | Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/18/1919224

MacOS X - First Rogue Cleaning Tool for Mac - F-Secure Weblog : News from the Lab:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001362.html

MacOS X - Mac malware authors release a new, more dangerous version | ZDNet:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385

MacOS X - Mac OS X backdoor Trojan, now in beta? | Naked Security:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/02/26/mac-os-x-backdoor-trojan-now-in-beta/

MacOS X - Mac Malware Evolves - No Install Password Required - Slashdot:

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/05/26/1355243/Mac-Malware-Evolves---No-Install-Password-Required

MacOS X - New 'MACDefender' Malware Threat for Mac OS X - Mac Rumors:

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/02/new-macdefender-malware-threat-for-mac-os-x/

MacOS X - New Backdoor Mac OS X Trojan Surfaces - Slashdot:

http://slashdot.org/submission/1485038/New-Backdoor-Mac-OS-X-Trojan-Surfaces

MacOS X - New Mac fake-defenders similar to Windows scareware â The Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/20/mac_scareware_win_rogue_similarities/

MacOS X - OS X Crimeware Kit Emerges MacDEFENDER- Slashdot:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/05/02/2120203/OS-X-Crimeware-Kit-Emerges

MacOS X - OSX/Pinhead-B Trojan (OSX_HELLRTS.A, OSX/HellRTS.D) - Sophos security analysis:

http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/osxpinheadb.html

MacOS X - Fake security software catches out Apple owners:

htt

Try this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1261829.stm

It looks like Tesco were prevented from importing goods from outside the EU, but weren't prevented from sourcing the jeans from within the EU (but not the UK) for a lower price, then selling them in the UK.

This Wikipedia article has some possible reasons why this might be reasonable for some goods, like different safety standards for a car... hmmm.

If you think the psychopathic dictators in North Korea use carrots to keep expats loyal, you're crazy. Their families are held hostage - to the extreme. These expats know full well that, should they fail to return, their families will be moved to one of many NK concentration camps (best scenario) or just summarily executed (more likely).

This would be an excellent anti car jacking technology. When you brake at the lights the external door handles would be charged. And you could fire charged darts at people who look like they might be thinking of becoming squeegee merchants - the car would track what you are looking at and if you gave them a look of disapproval it would fire a charged dart to incapacitate them.

... is this an act of war on China's part or not?

I'm no MS fan, I'm a Linux bloke, but I heard a fact today that made me think that there's "life in the old dog yet".

Apparently, Microsoft Kinect is currently the fastest selling electronic device ever - yep, faster selling than iPhones, iPads, Android phones, etc. etc.

Yep, there's no getting away from the fact that Microsoft have made some blunders in recent years and I personally won't mourn their passing too much - but don't dismiss them just yet.

Where is this "Open mode, I am not a moron" button for the iOS devices?

It's called jailbreaking.

... which may void your warranty (on the hardware, not just the OS) apparently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10836692

I doubt they would have an easy way to enforce this given that if you've performed a factory reset on the device they probably can't tell it has been jailbroken (but then again if you are sending it out for repair/replacement under warranty you might not be in a position to perform such a reset).

That said, I still wouldn't compare a built-in feature with warnings about possible consequences, that will always be available, that does not affect the device's warranty to a "feature" that is only available by exploiting bugs in the OS, may be disabled completely if future OS revision fill in all the relevant holes, and may (according to statements made by the manufacturer) invalidate your warranty.

As someone who has studied energy policy (from the geological/environmental perspective) there are significant issues with most fuel sources:

- Solar power is expensive (currently) and current proposals in the Mojave threaten the California Desert Tortoise. Likewise it does not provide consistent electricity in most locations, and therefore requires expensive infrastructure to even out the electrical supply.
- Geothermal power has been shown to trigger up to 5.0Mw Earthquakes in areas not known for earthquakes. In areas with significant known faults (e.g. California), this could result in triggering much more dramatic problems.
- Nuke power has large start up costs, has problems with long-term storage of radioactive waste as well as mining issues. Likewise there is the threat of radioactive release due to problems with the reactor, as we most recently saw in Japan. Finally, nuclear energy has been a stepping stone to nuclear weapons in countries such as Isreal, South Africa, and India. Finally this has extensive political ill-will in the US.
- Wind power has problems with being deadly to birds and killer to heavily reduced bat populations. Since these are often built tall, these often dominate the landscape (which many people object to). Finally, they only work when the wind is blowing, meaning that it, like solar, requires extensive storage.
- Hydroelectric (as dams) has been extensively done in the western US, and is hard to expand in the US. While this does do some things like stop flooding, and provide recreational, and consistent sources of water downstream, there are problems. Primarily rivers, which Salmon need to spawn, cannot be passed. Beautiful canyons (e.g. Hetch Hetchy) are no longer accessible. Finally running water through lakes, results in changing the water temperature (cooling it) and chemistry (removing silt).
- Hydroelectric (as energy storage) is fairly inefficient, and completely screws up the local aquatic ecosystem.
- Fuel cells are not an energy source. They are a way of storing energy.
- Biofuels, currently are 10x the expense of conventional energy, have the side effect of reducing the amount of food available, and increasing the price, which according to some at the UN is a crime against humanity. Many of the current biofules (e.g. Corn ethanol) do not actually result in a net energy gain.

"Fossil Fuels" (which use carbon)

- Coal releases more carbon per amount of energy than petroleum, and has the problem with killing thousands per year (mostly in China), releasing dangerous H2S* (although less in recent years due to international agreement), and other nasty combustion by-products. In addition accessing it results in destruction of mountains.
- Methane Hydrates/Clathrates are a possibility, but currently there is not a feasible way to liberate them from the ocean floor. However, there is enough there to fuel us for centuries, if we figure this one out. (Also methane (CH4) is ~14x more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.)
- Tight natural gases (e.g. Marseilles Shale) are increasingly being used, however there has been significant controversy over the various chemical and physical techniques ("fracking") used to increase porosity.
- Oil Sands (e.g. in Alberta) are highly energy inefficient, as they are highly biodegraded low-quality heavy oils, and require significant amounts of energy to access them.
- Conventional (shallow water/on the continent) Petroleum is rapidly running out. Easy-to-pump oil is significantly harder to get to, and as a result "enhanced" oil recovery using things like surfactants (soap) and fracking is needed. But this has the problems with being more expensive, as well as issues with environmental contamination.
-Unconventional

Would that be the jew infested US satan, or the rain stealing EU you think they want to communicate with ?

Did you know to this day 20% of Belarus's farmland is unusable?

No, and you didn't know either because it isn't true. The original BBC story states that 20% of Belarus was contaminated by Chernobyl fallout. Much of that land (probably everything aside from a bit that lies within the Chernobyl exclusion zone) is being used.

So tell me how do you plan on making all of the land usable again?

You can always reuse such land for industrial purposes. Or plant a crop that aggressively absorbs cesium or other problem isotopes.

This time was just over money, but there have been others who cancelled appearances when reminded of political issues. A very timely example is Gil-Scott Heron who passed away May 27, 2011.
From wikipedia:

'In 2010 he was due to play a gig in Tel Aviv, but this attracted criticism from Palestinian groups who stated "Your performance in Israel would be the equivalent to having performed in Sun City during South Africaâ(TM)s apartheid era... We hope that you will not play apartheid Israel." In response he cancelled the gig.'

Being a talented jazz musician and political poet, he undoubtedly had mixed feelings when some labeled him the grandfather of rap. What he did wasn't a thing for the kids, although he reached some of them too. He brought attention to what was going on in South Africa, he's the man who coined the phrase "The revolution will not be televised".

(an early track "Winter in America")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcHOq8i5Pyk

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/05/20115287194489734.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8362518.stm

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gil-Scott_Heron

Why do you accuse me of peddling dodgy treatments? Just google for zinc and cold.

It works better than placebo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12462910
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/for-cold-virus-zinc-may-edge-out-even-chicken-soup/
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Zinc-HealthProfessional/

Stick to the pills/lozenges, take them at early onset of symptoms, don't overdose and definitely don't spray your nose with it (or you might damage/lose your sense of smell). May not be a cure, but most subjects would feel better and that's good enough for most people.

AFAIK doctors in some countries are still prescribing antibiotics to those with colds and flu. Despite being told year after year not to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/20/coughs-colds-cures-treatment-antibiotics
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6526575/GPs-told-to-stop-prescribing-antibiotics-for-coughs-and-colds.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574995/Stop-giving-antibiotics-for-colds-doctors-told.html

My current guess (not enough proof yet :) ) that most people get antibiotic resistant bacteria from hospitals, not farms.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20524852

RESULTS:
Neither the preintervention rate of MRSA colonization or infection (0.56 cases per 1,000 patient-days [95% confidence interval {CI}, 0.49-0.62 cases per 1,000 patient-days]) nor the slope for the rate of MRSA colonization or infection changed significantly after the first intervention. The rate decreased significantly to 0.28 cases per 1,000 patient-days (95% CI, 0.17-0.40 cases per 1,000 patient-days) after the second intervention and to 0.07 cases per 1,000 patient-days (95% CI, 0.06-0.08 cases per 1,000 patient-days) after the third intervention, and the rate remained at a similar level for 8 years. The MRSA bacteremia rate decreased by 80%, whereas the rate of bacteremia due to methicillin-susceptible S. aureus did not change. Eighty-three percent of the MRSA isolates identified were clonally related. All MRSA isolates obtained from healthcare workers were clonally related to those recovered from patients who were in their care.
CONCLUSION:
Our data indicate that long-term control of endemic MRSA is feasible in tertiary care centers. The use of targeted active surveillance for MRSA in patients and healthcare workers in specific wards (identified by means of analysis of clinical epidemiology data) and the use of decolonization were key to the success of the program.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718935

March 22, 2010 â" A multifaceted infection control program led to a significant decline in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) cases in Paris-area hospitals with high endemic MRSA rates, according to an article in the March 22 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

There are other superbugs too:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/enemy_pr.html

It's true that many species of acinetobacter flourish widely in the environment. Thriving colonies have been recovered from soil, cell phones, frozen chicken, wastewater treatment plants, Formica countertops, and even irradiated food

As in many other cases, such as fx the Kyoto agreement, "world wide" means that the US is the last country to do the obvious. Europe has fx done this long ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/234985.stm

Europe banned this use of antibiotics long ago, for this reason: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/234985.stm

Honestly? "as of 2007"? In computer terms, that's several lifetimes.

Not only that, but just because the news article linked to has 2007 at the top, doesn't mean the findings were from 2007. The news article in which the author "just read an incredible scary article" links to said incredible scary article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4423733.stm - from 2005. So not only was the news article writer 2 years behind the times, you're now suggesting that we should believe that you find it incredulous that things may have improved in 6 years' time?

In that time Windows 7 and Vista have been released - both with far better security models out of the box. Even Windows XP saw a reasonable update with SP3.

Then again, by April 2005, SP2 was also distributed and guess what it enabled by default? Windows Firewall. The worm in the original article, Sasser, would not have gotten very far.

Then again, Sasser would not even have been on the system if they bothered to install the update that fixed the hole that Sasser would eventually exploit.

It's just not a very convincing example to begin with, and certainly not one you should be citing 6 years later.

There's two points in response to your question:

The first is, the US gave moon rocks to a bunch of other nations as gifts several decades ago, so presumably one would get them by stealing or buying it from one of those gifted sources.

Second is that the moon rocks we gave other countries as gifts were bullshit and were actually made of petrified wood. So if this woman is guilty of anything, it's probably more like "selling stolen wood". If you think I'm bullshitting you, ask the Dutch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8226075.stm

Yes, that's all it takes, and MP John Hemming did exactly that.

You can't take money from people as an MP, even for campaigns. That would be bribery and corruption. I might sound a little blatant, but this is something that seems to happen in the USA.

(read quickly because this comment will deleted soon by those in power)

Since Nuclear power is statisticstically safe, and the power plants would have shutdown in the earthquake it is very unlikely that such a disaster really happened there. All that we can see is that real news is censored, everybody in a wide area was moved away, A No fly zone was erected , even as radiation at high altitudes is completely neglect able,and independand research are kept a great distance.

All that surely must point to something more serious and it can only lead to the conclusion that the tjunamis was caused aliens landing and that they came to land close to fukushima, or that the hatching eggs of godzilla caused the tsunami and now they are researching Godzilla at that location, or whatever, this region was filled with old folklore that either came to life or is now lost for the next decades.

By making a storage there it is a sure thing that they can keep the peopla away for some more decades, while they at the same time have a good excuse to build some huge buildings that can hide the cover-up. And since no more people live there, there is no-one who can protest.

If you enjoy seeing Sony suffer, because like me, you recognise the world would be a better place without it due to the fact that it's a leading figure in artificial digital restrictions that remove long established rights from consumers as well as being a leading member of the RIAA and one of the largest proponents of net restrictions to fulfil it's anti-piracy dreams at the expense of fundamentally important tenets of anonymity, openess and freedom the internet has historically offered. Whilst also being one of the worst offenders at trying to stamp out your right to tinker with something you've bought, then, well, this might make you chuckle even more:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13557431

I only hope the prediction they'll return to profit later this year is wrong. The world would be a better place without Sony, it's too big, too evil and has the ear of too many governments.

No it's not. Your head exploding is a perfectly normal reaction to trying to comprehend the piece of shit that passes as scientific journalism nowadays. I'm a physicist and after reading the article I still had no idea about what the researches discovered. At least Science Daily had the original reference so I could look up. Even more appalling is BBC's coverage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13545453

They both only said "lasers" about what the group actually measured. As if the measurement technique were as relevant as what they were actually measuring. Even laymen like OP see that there's something weird about saying the electron has a shape and is a sphere. Of course, this makes absolutely no sense. This talk about sphere is a semiclassical analogue that someone in the 20's once thought that could be true and was quickly disproved. What they measured was the electron's electric dipole moment. What is that?

Imagine a small bar magnet, with south and north poles. This is what we call a magnetic dipole. The strength of the magnet (measured in a standard way) is what we call magnetic dipole moment. Now imagine that instead of south and north poles, we have negative and positive electric charges. This is an electrical dipole, and it's strength is likewise the electrical dipole moment.

Now the beauty of the electron is that despite not being a small bar magnet, it still displays a strong magnetic dipole moment, which we call spin. Originally people thought that it could be explained by postulating a structure on the electron (an electric charged spinning sphere gives rise to a magnetic dipole moment, hence the name spin), but quickly we found out that it couldn't be so. We have no explanation for it, it is what it is, just a property of the electron.

But what the electric dipole moment? The electron is a single charge, so it can't be an actual electrical dipole. But despite this, the Standard Model predicts that it has a very small electric dipole moment, too small to be measurable. But Supersymmetry predicts that it is quite larger, and even measurable, and these folks' measurement showed that Supersymmetry's prediction is probably wrong.

Ok, but why did they call it measuring the roundness? Analogously with the spinning sphere model for the magnetic dipole moment, a distorted sphere gives rise to an electric dipole moment. But calling it measuring the roundness makes as much sense as saying that when we measure the magnetic dipole moment (spin) we are measuring the speed with which the electron spins about itself.

So, makes more sense now?

You are, of course, entitled to your opinions - even though they are derived from a sweeping statement.

There are thousands of great albums out there that are high quality from start to finish - this notion of "two good tracks per album" may be the case for churned-out plastic pop, but is definitely not the case for music made by talented musicians. So if you yourself find that is definitely the case, then I suggest you go find some more talented artists to listen to.

Yes, we all have music playing in the background while we do something else but please do not call that scenario "listening to music" because it isn't. In order to appreciate fully a good piece of music, you need to give it your full attention span - if you are not doing that then you can learn a thing or two from these guys.

Finally, don't confuse appreciating music with being an audiophile snob. I have a "reasonable" hi-fi set up that cost me no more than about £600 for CD player, amplifier & speakers. It does me fine, I haven't done any upgrades to it in about 8 years and only if I happen to come across a set-up in a similar price range that has a quality difference to justify additional expense then I may consider an upgrade. Otherwise, it's fine how it is.

I'm in my late 40s, I know hearing deteriorates with age (not noticeably so in my case) but I cannot personally tell the difference between an actual CD track and an MP3 rip at 256K on my hi-fi setup - I "think" I can hear a slight deterioration at 192K but that might be just my imagination.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

Harmful to, harm to others around you.

Iirc, Prof. David Nutt was the former UK government drug adviser until his arguments about the relative harmlessness of cannabis we're ignored by the government.

Like that time Tepco ran a geiger counter on a piece of material and found a radiation spike 10 million times above normal? Then they realized the person running it had only made a single test which turned out to be inaccurate, and everyone laid into Tepco for inducing panic?

There are more dangerous things in the world than not knowing exactly what is meant by "relatively low".

I've heard of people using ferrets to lay cables http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/582123.stm but horses? How do you get them into the trunking?

In the image, it actually looks a lot like I imagine Iain Banks' Culture ships to look. Combine that with the news that robots are developing their own language to talk to each other, and real life starts to look a little like Excession.

The fuel may have been removed, but apparently the waste won't be safe to remove until 2065, and the buildings themselves aren't scheduled to be demolished and the site finally closed down until 2098. (Partly because it'll take that long for the widespread low-level contamination of the ground to reach safe levels, by the looks of it.)

That would be 87 years, not tens of thousands of years. It is also clearly not the case that the reactors are still running because they can't be turned off (as the post I was replying to indicated).

Oh, and I'm not sure if we've managed to come up with a better way to dispose of nuclear waste than leaving them to rot in badly-maintained storage ponds at places like Sellafield yet...

Fuel rods only need to be kept in storage ponds for a small number of years (single digits) until the rate of heat generation becomes low enough that water cooling is no longer necessary.

All fuel has been removed from the reactors and decommissioning is well underway.

The fuel may have been removed, but apparently the waste won't be safe to remove until 2065, and the buildings themselves aren't scheduled to be demolished and the site finally closed down until 2098. (Partly because it'll take that long for the widespread low-level contamination of the ground to reach safe levels, by the looks of it.)

Oh, and I'm not sure if we've managed to come up with a better way to dispose of nuclear waste than leaving them to rot in badly-maintained storage ponds at places like Sellafield yet...

Only if you choose to treat the residue as waste as opposed to a valuable fuel source.

The UK actually had one of the few nuclear reprocessing plants. They have a history of doing things like contaminating the sea and beaches nearby with large quantities of radioactive waste (in some cases deliberately and in others due to incompetence), not to mention stuff like falsifying testing data on the fuel they were selling to other governments. Fortunately they've since managed to get the UK government to offer them unlimited indemnity for any future accidents they might have, even ones caused by negligence.

Yes, accidents do happen, but conditions change the rates quite dramatically. More than 100,000 Chinese people died in work related accidents every year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7201875.stm

Even if we say China has 4 times as many people, that only accounts for 16k deaths a year. Not even a quarter of the total.

You are either being disingenuous intentionally, or are a complete moron, which is it?

(1) Mugabe and Kim are not my friends - just because I don't cheerlead for the West it doesn't mean I think that DPRK or Zimbabwe are suitable alternatives;

(2) If you take the time to read my post you'll note that I'm concentrating on the supporters of Mugabe and Kim and suggesting that you study what they want rather than what you, Mugabe and Kim want. The fact that you put it in terms of "winning the argument" between A and B suggests that you're here to promote your interests rather than to increase understanding;

(3) One half of my family was brought up in a "police state" - the idea that you get a free ride to express yourself in the West but the slightest peep elsewhere will get you lifetime in a labour camp is jingoistic fantasising. The West is great at hiding to Westerners how it treats its underclass, just as DPRK propaganda hides the full extent of its own behaviour, but it is as bad as anywhere - and recall that US prison population is similar to DPRK;

(4) Free speech is overrated anyway - all your opponent has to do is shout louder, as is the case in the US. I'd rather have the freedom of health than the freedom to shout "Jewish conspiracy!"

And if you think the US treats its guilty badly, you'll be reassured to know that it treats those not found guilty no better.