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could you elaborate re "worse response"?

IIRC, the Soviets responded something like "I dunno, must be your fault, you capitalist pigs" even after the Swedish government complained loudly about the fallout cloud they detected (first).
I remember in the Netherlands (a country which exports milk and cheese) the cows had to be taken inside so they wouldn't absorb Iodine-131 which had rained on the grass and would be accumulated in the cows' milk and afterwards the cheese. That's called a timely government response. I don't think that that quick response also happened in the Ukraine and Belarus SSR although I could be wrong.
Contrast this with the Japanese response: We saw a Japanese spokesperson warn publicly on TV about the levels of radioactive Iodine in spinach in Fukushima and Ibaraki prefecture (see also BBC).

Ripping from a CD is not illegal in any way shape or form if you own the CD and rip it for your own use.

It is in some countries, e.g. here in the UK, although everybody realises it is stupid, I don't think anybody has ever been prosecuted and there is talk of fixing the law.

However, everybody ignores the law so, yes, buying a CD and ripping it is, and always was, a perfectly viable "competitor" to iTunes.

Yeah, they could at least pick one that is a bit negative yet not utter crap and flamebait - but I guess it drives hits. If you go to news on BBC it says:

Millions download latest Firefox
Mozilla celebrates more than five million downloads of its latest browser, however Firefox's market share is declining.

The article goes on to say that the 5.5 million downloads is short of the 8 million downloads Firefox 3 saw, that it has gone from a peak of 24% to 21% now etc. Those are at least reasonably supported facts, until the ZDNet crap which in one sentence goes

It took Google only a bit more than two years to ship Chrome 9 last month, and it was replaced by version 10 just a little over four weeks later.

then a bit later

Itâ(TM)s also easy to be skeptical about Mozillaâ(TM)s ambitious roadmap that has them shipping versions 5, 6, and 7 before the end of this year.

So Google shipping monthly releases, no problem but Firefox shipping quarterly releases is overly ambitious. It's a wonder this guy can tie his shoelaces in the morning...

speaking of which - I just saw on BBC that Apple sued Amazon I wonder - do they actually produce anything these days or just outsource stuff (should be staff I guess) and hire lawyers? In any case I think more and more that the products of fruit company are for people with small penises - I mean one cannot explain all this hoo ha about their products in any other way or?

Good catch, but still doesn't look like the correct photo was used. The articles describe the Iranian device as a quad rotor... that stock picture of the DraganFlyer X6 has 6 rotors.

Anyway, here's a real picture of an Iranian UAV from last year: :P
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11052023

They made jokes about rape. Why should anyone care? As far as I know, only the people deemed 'insane' by society would be affected by such jokes so much that they would view rape as more 'okay' because of them. As far as I know, no one really believes that rape is okay just because someone (or themselves) make a few jokes about it.

I'm sorry to let you in on this, but human beings don't work that way.

It's not the case that there's some bright line where sane people all understand that rape is always 100% wrong and only a handful of people with seriously broken brains would ever think otherwise. There are a lot of people in a grey area, who can be pushed one way or the other. It's why, for example, rape is routinely used as a tool of war: you can take an otherwise sane soldier, expose him to concentrated toxic memes, and create a rapist.

Similarly, you can take some gamer kid who does not believe that violence against women is ok, expose him to media that normalize beating up women, and create a batterer.

Will it be common? No, because that's one influence among many. Should we use force to silence odious media that normalize violent behavior? No. Should intelligent, thoughtful people who give a damn say "this is over the line, and we're going to criticize it"? Yes.

Vaguely related: it is reported this morning that an F-15E crash landed(apparently without the assistance of hostile fire). Luckily it fell near a rebel position, so the locals gave the flight crew an enthusiastic reception and they were recovered without incident; but that is still 30+ million in hardware that fell out of the sky without any AA systems even working.

Given the disparity in GDP between Libya and the western coalition currently air-striking, this obviously isn't the start of an unwinnable war of attrition or anything; but modern air wars are expensive, even if they are the equivalent of kicking someobody while they are down. The better you are at hiding/disguising/spamming/decoying your real assets, the longer your enemies have to keep doing expensive things. You can't easily win that way; but if you are lucky they'll lose interest and leave you to your little civil war...

Will the US now bomb Israel toà force them to comply with the hundreds of UN resolutions that Israel is in violation of

Depends. Is there a UNSC resolution authorizing the use of military force against Israel? There was one for Libya.

The problem with this is the USA, whom acts as the peace broker, keeps blocking any attempts for action by virtually the rest of the world, while supplying arms to Israel, paid for by the USA tax payer, recently a package of $30 was awarded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9418922.stm

what's the difference between Yemen, Bahrain & lybia?

One of those doesn't exist.

sry for the typo, well imagine if a civil war started in the USA, aimed at removing the war criminals bush & obama, whom both have torturer/d and murder/ed innocent ppl happened, would the government step down or send out the police and national guard as soon as the protesters became heavily armed?

Why do Americans vote against their own self interests? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm
They are told stories not facts
What's the Matter with Kansas? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What's_the_Matter_with_Kansas%3F

My employer (disclosure) has a proposal out for a NASA discovery-class mission to put a boat (yes, a boat) on the surface methane seas of Titan;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8409052.stm
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010LPI....41.1236S
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/01/carnival-of-space-135-proposed-titan.html

It's called the Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) and let me just say, it's the coolest thing that I've ever come anywhere near close to working on. Not much of a Catholic anymore but I say a littler prayer each night that NASA selects this proposal to go forward. (They are due to announce next month. Write your congressperson!)

So it's not impossible, it's actually do-able, and it's not very logical to carp about whether it's convenient or fun for astronauts to go, as we've got a tremendous amount left to learn from automated missions before we contemplate sending people there. Besides, when TiME sends back the first live footage of the ravenous methane kraken, I'm sure everyone will be glad that astronauts were not part of the first payload.

The BBC has a helpful guide - not sure it the numbers are the same as XKCD http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12722435

Do you really believe that the news channels do anything other than bloviate?

Japan nuclear threat: The tsunami is the bigger tragedy

"And we're definitely not in the situation where we're going to see another Chernobyl - that possibility has long gone."

Both fairly balanced. To say there are problems with Fukishima is an understatement, however from a brief 5 minutes of watching an ABC program the other night, I can see why a bigger risk to Japan is the American media.

Do you really believe that the news channels do anything other than bloviate?

Japan nuclear threat: The tsunami is the bigger tragedy

"And we're definitely not in the situation where we're going to see another Chernobyl - that possibility has long gone."

Both fairly balanced. To say there are problems with Fukishima is an understatement, however from a brief 5 minutes of watching an ABC program the other night, I can see why a bigger risk to Japan is the American media.

Actually, there is some evidence that low levels of radiation may actually be good for you. It makes a good point that our warnings about low levels of radiation come from linearly extrapolating harmful high-radiation doses backwards to zero. There's been very little study done on the long-term effects of low-level radiation, and experiments on laboratory animals does seem to suggest it can make them live longer.

I remember this. Quote from that programme:

"Prof MICHIO KAKU (City University of New York): The end of Moore's Law is perhaps the single greatest economic threat to modern society, and unless we deal with it we could be facing economic ruin."

Really?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2004/hendrikshontrans.shtml

Do you? (fully, not PR version for the masses; few quick examples: first, second, third; curiously even some(!) parallels with...)

Do you? (fully, not PR version for the masses; few quick examples: first, second, third; curiously even some(!) parallels with...)

You forgot Canada.

Well at least Canada isn't in this one! Whew! Missed this one.

And you would be wrong.

The fact that the French took the lead on this says volumes about how big of a pussy Obama really is.

I really don't think the states needs to flash the size of its dick again quite so soon. If it's going to be done, it should be done right, and welllll, America doesn't exactly have the best reputation for taking charge and doing it right at the moment.

Just to note, I'm in the UK and to be honest I'd say the same for our country right now. Also, I recommend you actually read the quick analysis on the bbc website. The most important phrases in the analysis I feel are this:

Crucially it excludes any "foreign occupation force" in sweeping terms. This is a message to the Arab world - this is not another Iraq.

and this:

[] a final settlement to the crisis in Libya must be political and reached by the parties to the conflict themselves

This is not the same as what Bush did. Libya UN Resolution 1973: Text analysed

From your article:

"The Japanese people, rightly, are hailing the personnel at the site as heroes. Not the least impressive aspect of their performance is the way they appear to be tackling the situation with such professionalism as not to carelessly risk their own well-being."

So, nothing in OP's point really changes.

That said, I'll agree with your article that the media hypes. . Everything. . to the nth degree, and that this practice severely detracts from its credibility, but in this case there is I think legitimate cause for concern. The Japanese nuclear industry does not exactly have a sterling record for safety or transparency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/652169.stm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,992195-1,00.html

Note that both of those articles were written over a decade before this incident, and by well-respected news agencies. Japan has a long and, frankly, sordid history of poor safety practices in the nuclear industry. Whether this incident will be a major disaster or a minor incident as your source predicts remains to be seen, but that people are worried is hardly surprising.

After all, if you're face to face with a cobra, you're probably going to be nervous even if one guy claims that its poison glands have been removed.

> Quite a few Arab govt's are still safe. Most notably Palestine, Syria and Jordan.

Whilst Jordan and Syria are probably "safe", there have been plenty of protests there.

RS

> Quite a few Arab govt's are still safe. Most notably Palestine, Syria and Jordan.

Whilst Jordan and Syria are probably "safe", there have been plenty of protests there.

RS

I hate to be pessimistic about the no-fly-zone. But it seems to me that the Arab governments that backed calls for the UN to impose a no-fly-zone will simply use any foreign military action in Libya as justification for their own plans to intervene in the affairs of other states.

Witness the way Saudi Arabia sent its troops to Bahrain, presumably at the invitation of Bahrain's royal family. The governments in power in those two countries belong to a branch of Islam (Sunni) different from those that dominate the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain and some parts of Saudi Arabia (Shia Muslims). So here we see foreign military intervention being used in support of an unpopular regime as against the possibility of foreign military intervention in Libya being used to support the removal of an unpopular regime.

Someone is tinkering with the timeline. And it's someone from a period +- 50 yrs Current time. They're trying to produce outcomes that bear on our current geopolitical status. There are changes embedded in ancient periods:

The mother culture of Central America:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/caraltrans.shtml

Massive civilization in Amazonian Basin:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081119-lost-cities-amazon.html

There are better-known examples closer to Europe, and more modern: the Antikythera mechanism or the batteries of Sumer, the Jacquard loom or the automata of Rhodes or China:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton

All of these happened. They are indisputable fact. Yet, they have not disrupted the general sweep of accepted history. For example, if the mother culture of the Central and South American cultures the Spanish encountered, namely the Maya, Aztec, and Inca, far pre-dated even the Egyptians, then why did the peoples of the New World not stand on par with those of the Old? If the Amazonian basin sported a sophisticated culture of millions of people far before the same was achieved by Rome, then why do we scarcely know about them today?

Closer to home, meaning the here and the now, we have attempts to introduce advanced technology far prior to their realization now. Yet, they have not changed the here and the now. Rather, they remain outliers.

Certain parties have tried to alter the timeline. But they've done so in scattershot fashion, trying to get history to pivot on a dime by introducing innovations before their time or deeper, longer term ploys to get the engine of history moving in a different direction earlier (ie. Ecuador or Brazil). If they had succeeded, then we would not now know the difference. It would simply be as it has always been. There would be no alternate outcomes.

That there is a disparity suggests that the timeline is a massively multi-variate system whose movements defy simple interpretations or solutions. Kill Hitler and WWII and the Holocaust would never have happened? Well, the disparity suggests it may have changed the timing, but that one event, Hitler's death, may not have avoided the thing altogether. There was much more in play than that one man.

There is a lot more than a /. post can accommodate, but it's something to consider. There have been many revelations of late, but none have changed the narrative.

Why?

This is a very similar headline to one the BBC were running yesterday: Japan earthquake: US alarm over nuclear crisis
I'm not sure the content of the article is much better either. The Register's Lewis Page has been running some quite sensible, albeit pro-nuclear reports on this.

My understanding is that this is an old idea, and the core method is definitely ablation not the negligible force of radiation pressure.

This system is intended to stop particles that are between 1 and 10 cm in diameter. Currently deployed technology allows for reliable ground tracking of debris that is approximately (supposedly) 10 cm, though proposed laser based tracking systems would detect debris in the 1 cm range. Presuming a 5x5x5 cube of solid steel, that's more like 1kg. Individual hobbyists are creating handheld personal laser strong enough to liquify bits of metal already. It's not too much of a stretch to think of a ground based laser in a housing the size of a building could be strong enough to get through the various atmospheres on a clear day and transfer that much energy to an object in LEO. And while the atmosphere is going to be fighting you every step of the way, at least the change in angle for refraction will tend to place the laser target at the front of the object. And aiming lasers and optical telescopes through atmospheric distortions is something that NASA has faced before, on their ground-based telescope initiatives. Lasers are how we aim things, and we're pretty good at it.

The goal is to get the perigree of the orbit low enough that it skims the upper atmosphere and loses energy on its own. A small change in velocity can lead to significant orbital eccentricity, and greater eccentricity generally leads to a lower perigree.

Obviously, I'm too tired to do the math right now. But it seems like you are dismissing the idea a little prematurely.

The list of highly questionable if not outright illegal activities is very long:

You can start here with "A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm"
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

and then move on to a catalog of their attacks on standards:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history

and then any of these:
Illegal tying: http://www.ecis.eu/documents/ECISPressStatementonOperaSO1.pdf
Unethical marketing: http://www.nearsoft.com/blog/MS-test.html
Antitrust: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/600488.stm

Or these:
http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/Kerberos-PACs-And-Microsofts-Dirty-Tricks
http://www.technologyevangelist.com/2007/02/microsoft_dirty_tric_1.html
http://techrights.org/2008/12/01/leaked-oem-vista-ad-incentives/
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/57261/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/368660.stm
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/06/08/23/1251210/Microsoft-Admonished-by-US-District-Court-Judge
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-tried-to-muck-with-anti-linux-facts/235
http://www.zdnet.com/news/fact-and-fiction-in-the-microsoft-sco-relationship/139743
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110
http://lproven.livejournal.com/102128.html
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

The list of highly questionable if not outright illegal activities is very long:

You can start here with "A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm"
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

and then move on to a catalog of their attacks on standards:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history

and then any of these:
Illegal tying: http://www.ecis.eu/documents/ECISPressStatementonOperaSO1.pdf
Unethical marketing: http://www.nearsoft.com/blog/MS-test.html
Antitrust: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/600488.stm

Or these:
http://slashdot.org/story/00/05/02/158204/Kerberos-PACs-And-Microsofts-Dirty-Tricks
http://www.technologyevangelist.com/2007/02/microsoft_dirty_tric_1.html
http://techrights.org/2008/12/01/leaked-oem-vista-ad-incentives/
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/57261/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/368660.stm
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/06/08/23/1251210/Microsoft-Admonished-by-US-District-Court-Judge
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-tried-to-muck-with-anti-linux-facts/235
http://www.zdnet.com/news/fact-and-fiction-in-the-microsoft-sco-relationship/139743
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110
http://lproven.livejournal.com/102128.html
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

British Geological Survey is reporting up to 13 ft. to the east. Revisions will probably settle down and start agreeing in a couple of weeks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12732335
http://www.slate.com/id/2288382/

Remember folks, the piece of earth that moved can be larger than the country sitting on top of it. In the case of Japan it almost is. When you jog a table it doesn't break your dinner plates in half.
http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/updates/louie/kobe/kobe-sci.html

It's funny because what is happening in Japan is exactly why Nuclear Power is SAFE!

An earthquake 7 times more powerful than the biggest it was built for hit, and all that happened to the reactors that didn't shut down cleanly was a small amount of radioactive noble gases, which decay within minutes. Even if the cores DO melt, they're safely contained in ... wait for it... containment chambers!

People don't realize the amount of engineering that goes into nuclear to make it safe.

Fukushima workers withdraw after radiation spikes
"A part of the containment vessel is broken and it seems like the vapour is coming out from there. So... [it] appears to be that vapour is coming out from the broken part."
Your faith in the containment chambers seems misplaced.

Nuclear power MAY be ok but cost-wise and risk-wise (in the event of an unforseen incident), proliferation-wise, I personally have serious reservations.

The thing to also be alarmed about is the lying and cover-ups that has been going on over there with their nuclear plants.
more explosions and a no fly zone now imposed does not sound like a safe environment.

Well, I don't have first hand knowledge, but I was told that large parts of the police are bribed or otherwise involved with the drug cartels. One could say a true police state would only make it worse (note however that police state is a tautology anyway, considering that polices stems from the Latin word for "the state" ). IMNHO the only way to fight the drug related violence is legalize the drugs.

The BBC appear to be challenging everyone right now with the double entendre "Radiation falls at Japanese plant".

As it ain't pure water, you end up with slightly more radioactive matter with a half-life which is more like minutes than seconds, so less desirable, somewhat radioactive gas results, which is harmless well before it travels that 30km.

Tokyo is hundreds of km away and is up 23 times. Not a dangerous amount, but I doubt the wind can travel 240 km in seconds or minutes. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tokyo-radiation-levels-23-times-normal-officials-2011-03-15-04540

Secondly, there appears to be a breach in containment at reactor 2, although the radiation release could also be due to a fire, now out, at reactor 4's spent fuel pool (remember, reactor 4 was completely shut down before the quake). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12745186

400 milli-sieverts/hr measured briefly (reportedly, though trust is an issue) at the plant is a lot: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-radiation-factbox-idUSTRE72E14R20110315

Airline crew flying the New York-Tokyo polar route are exposed to 9 mSv a year.

Seems like you fall in the overly-confident underly-prudent category.

It is not clear when and why it died.

This BBC story says TEPCO is blaming the #2 fuel exposure to several different problems including a fire pump running out of fuel, 4 out of 5 fire pumps being damaged by the #3 explosion and the 'accidental' operation of an 'air flow valve.'

These reactors scrammed over two days ago. At some point the generation of decay heat will be low enough to stop damaging fuel. Meanwhile TEPCO has discovered an easy method of dealing with hydrogen accumulation; they just wait for it to burn and blow up whatever part of the reactor building it accumulates in. This means we'll be spared the post meltdown hydrogen bubble drama experienced at TMI-2.

I actually agreed with you when I read this the other day. But since Japan is facing yet another meltdown in yet another reactor now (3rd by my count) it is starting to be more worrisome. BBC

Lets see what happens before we try to write off this accident. The Anti-Nuke people aren't worried about 2-3 people dying. They are worried about more Chernobyls. The US moved one of their battleships because they detected radiation 100 miles off the coast. That is pretty frightening. (per the link above)

Google 88000 missing.

It will be VERY hard for you to NOT find one report that refers to BBC claiming that number.
In fact, if you've heard that news prior to reading my post above, then you've heard it referring to BBC.
Best part is, their shitty twitter-clone "live-feed" gets flushed after 24 hours (at least I couldn't find any way of digging up that original "88000" post), so the original post is now long gone - but it still gets parroted around on blogs and by "news agencies".

Perhaps... The thing is, he's quite correct. A "dirty bomb" need not be loaded with just something like weapons grade Plutonium or Uranium for effect- and loading it up with some of the left-overs from a fast breeder would actually be worse.

The typical U.S. "terrorist" shoots politicians, shoots people at gas stations, blows up buildings, mails anthrax, and once in a blue moon you get some foreigners knock over a couple of buildings.

The total number of deaths in the last 15 years from US terrorism is fewar than the number of deaths per year on the road.

You don't get the kind of scare stories the media are concerned with. Dirty bombs, suitcase nukes, bio warfare. It just doesn't happen. Terrorist cells just aren't that educated or organised to pull that kind of caper off. Although CNN and Fox may tell you otherwise, the bogeyman isn't hiding in the cupboard. If there were, a shooting spree at malls up and down the country would cause more havoc to the economy then all the above incidents (including 9/11) combined. I don't see you having to go through metal detectors to get into WalMart -- you do in Jerusalem.

Aside from recent crackdowns with piracy, there is virtually no internet censorship in the US, while there is plenty in Australia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia

Also, aside from broadcast television, any censorship on TV, movies, video games, books, is left entirely up to society. Nothing needs to be approved for classification by the government to be distributed in the US. You can basically publish anything you want aside from child pornography, though there are restrictions on pornography in terms of selling things to minors. The movie and video game industry regulate themselves and do a very good job at it, but nothing is ever banned from distribution by the government.

In contrast, in Australia, if you show a film or a possess books that haven't been classified for distribution by the government, that's grounds for the government to raid your house or business and you can be slapped with heavy fines or jail time. Loads of video games, movies, or books are heavily censored before being released in Australia or refused classification and effectively banned. Australia also has a huge obsession with anything that remotely resembles child pornography. A man received fines for possess nude photos of the Simpsons, and smaller but still perfectly naturally breasted women (B cup and under) have been banned from the covers of pornographic material under the idea that small breasted women incite child pornography.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7770781.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/11/3063975.htm

This could be very dangerous needless to say. I suspect that we have the next Chernobyl on our hands. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

The Swedish government has asked all citizens to leave Japan as soon as possible.

Folks, I undersand it's not the same kind or reactor design but... ... I saw the footage of the explosion: fireball, shockwave, debris & plume. Having heard that the core pressure was 2.5 times over design limits, to me it looks the core tore itself apart :( beeb footage

BBC News have a video of the explosion. The plant operator says that several workers were injured but doesn't seem to be reporting any immediate deaths.

There's a lot of misinformation flying around.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12721498 [bbc.co.uk] (watch the movie)

Steam was released on purpose.

Based on just this discrepancy between the BBC and the CBC articles, /. might be a bit careful on it's reporting right now...

Everyone's getting excited over the nuclear plants, and ignoring the thousands that are still are dying due to just water. Why is radiation so much scarier? Water kills faster. /rant.

Seriously? BBC has live (flash) coverage, for one - together with the occasional & fabulous apocalyptic(*) rave BBC World News theme (*fitting...)

(via Bill Bailey
This is the BBC!
Do not listen to the others!
They are the false prophets!
This is the true way, follow us!
Not the others, they are the evil ones! )

Ironically, the BBC have a follow-up article, the first paragraph of which reads:

European rules aimed at giving consumers more control over how their web browsing is tracked will not be enforced come May, experts have said.

if we put a limit on that says 'women can only have 2 children' then I would have been screwed

"Screwed" attaches unnecessary value. Other way of saying it - "fairly average":

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."

Maybe this article will give you a better understanding:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12668230

It is not just the excellent positioning that GNSS affords but the very precise timing information these systems deliver that has made them so popular.

The navigation problem, not really the biggest problem. It's the fact that so many systems rely entirely on GPS for timing.

Yep, another example of the dumbing down of /. the tag line really ought to be changed to 'old news for wannabe nerds, stuff that's paid for'.
This story hit the BBC at least 21 hours before IBTimes published and, unlike IBTimes, they had the good journalistic principles to link to the original report for us all to read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12668230

> massive gamechanger, and a clear rip-off.

No it isn't. For starters when you put an App on the iTunes store apple automatically takes a cut of the sales (part of hosting and giving you a demographic to sell to). Only time you don't pay anything is if you give the app away for free. Which works great for the consumer.

The magazine companies have been getting around paying Apple by giving away a free app which when you launch it does nothing except expect you to pay for what is basically screenshots of a magazine.

I am not sure you have tried it, but I have. It is a total rip-off because it gets advertised as free when it isn't. It is also a rip for for Apple because they have to take the hit for the free apps while the magazine companies rake in the cash from those that do use it.

> 2. Research touchscreen patents.

Well you are kind of changing your argument here. As your initial claim was that Apple was screwing Nokia. But when I searched on that, I see it was Nokia that attacked Apple first with patents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12010872

But my question to you is have you googled Touchscreens? I did. Apple awarded touch screen patent. Counter sued by a company that put a patent in for touch pads.

You can read them here:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=IAkYAAAAEBAJ

http://www.google.com/patents?id=dCKzAAAAEBAJ

Not alike. But it is you making the claim so how about some thing a bit more concrete then "google it".

> 3. Flash works fine on:

Some people have pointed out that isn't the case. Apple are not banning it. They are just not supporting it. There is a difference. There is nothing to stop you from creating an App that is a ported flash (previously there was, but Apple relaxed the rules of the appstore).

There is also nothing stopping you from say porting Flash to HTML5 and render that way (which Adobe plan to do).

> classic iSheeple argument

Again, if you have to resort to name calling you have already lost the debate.