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Asset stripped then m$ get their patents. The is what they really want in order to fight Apple with since they never got off the ground in a fair technical fight.

I've scanned your past comments:

• example

• example

and you paint a very rosy picture of Muslim countries. I must respectfully disagree with the picture you paint.
Coptic Orthodox Christians in moderate-Egypt are still prevented from building new churches.

There is nothing I can say to sway you. There is nothing you can say to sway me.
(My family was one of the thousands of Christian families that fled Egypt when Nasser came into power in the 1950's, leaving behind property and possessions.)

However your past comments show that you are very level-headed.
And if you truly have a live-and-let-live attitude, then I wish there were more people like you.

Cairo is the Hollywood of the middle east, home to a large music and film industry and even scantily dressed women.

So you're saying that Egypt is one of the more liberal Muslim countries?

And still the Christians are persecuted / slain?

The BBC provides service in many different languages and to many regions. Under pressure to cut costs, some cutbacks are planned. They want to hear from those affected to gauge impact.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12283356

Does anybody know if streaming BBC news in this manner requires you to have a license fee?

I think the position, at least on the BBC's own site, is that while you can play pre-recorded shows without one, a license is required to stream BBC programs live which was clarified with the release of smartphone apps.

with the complicity of Congress and the Executive and the voters from the "greatest generation"

We are the ones who were too stupid to remove the corrupt and greedy from office, not them. We are the ones that fell for the free lunch promises of our political class, not them. We are the ones that let absolute morons take over our schools. I wouldn't blame the next generations if they just decided to put a bullet in grandpa's head, given our poor stewardship beginning in the 20th century.

So close and never quite saying it... from where do people directly involved in the system of governance come from? Which of the world societies determines the style of governance in a given place?

Govs are largely a reflection of society; the latter needs to be fixed, too (it does generally require a generation or two, unfortunately)
It's often symptomatic, on many levels. Referring a bit to "sacred DoD cow" of grandparent - sure, many people can even realize the "9/11 & Iraq" BS, some might be even aware of grander background of PR machine, or maybe even (gets harder) such heresies. But, if the closest or even extended family has somebody in military, brining income, then this person is of course a honorable man... (same for unit, its actions, et al)
Or, generally, if a family depends on engineer or blue collar worker providing something for public money. They might even complain about pork everywhere... except, of course, in the place of work of said family member. Its services are essential, and the price fair.

Most people want either less corruption or more of a chance to participate in it.

The Supreme Court has long held (since the 1800s) that searches at international borders don't require a warrant.

In addition, the courts have repeated ruled that national security warrantless wiretaps are legal, such as this recent ruling:

Intelligence Court Releases Ruling in Favor of Warrantless Wiretapping
The judges ...concluded that the government's protections and restrictions included in the 2007 procedures were appropriate. "Our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts," Selya wrote in the 29-page opinion.

He added that requiring a warrant in such cases would probably "hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information and, thus, would impede the vital national security interests that are at stake."

And here are just a few recent examples of why they might need to do so:

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians that could easily spill across the border: Converts Who Kill

The national security wiretaps are legal, and not an abuse of human rights.

They do them because people either in the US, or who come to the US, keep trying to conduct attacks. Just a few recent examples (there are many more):

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

You forgot "Think of the Children."

Well, that's maybe where we differ. I think we need to be adults and think of everybody, especially if Al Qaeda is successful in getting nuclear weapons, which they already have permission to use.

But, if it will make you more comfortable, for the moment lets forget about the children, and see where we stand. We can recap, and maybe you could point out what is actually wrong instead of in essence saying "I don't like it".

I pointed out that the courts have ruled against your assertion that the government's national security wiretapping is illegal, and a human rights violation: Intelligence Court Releases Ruling in Favor of Warrantless Wiretapping

Even the page you linked to noted the EFF defeat on the legal question:

EFF Plans Appeal of Jewel v. NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Case
Court Rules That Mass Surveillance of Americans is Immune From Judicial Review
San Francisco - A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls and emails.

I also pointed out just a handful of the many active terrorism investigations and court cases going on inside the US. This points to a genuine, current, dangerous threat of people being killed by militant Muslim extremists. I assume you don't debate that they are genuine.

Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

I then pointed out that this current turmoil started with Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks, and that according to Bin Laden, he won't stop trying to a

All the actions of our government over the last few years are those of a governement afraid it's own people will rise against it, not one worried about our safety from terrorists, should be clear to almost anyone by now.

No, it's terrorists - that's pretty clear given the limited actions they've taken domestically along with the fact that we continue to change our government with elections, have a free press, free speech, 2nd Amendment rights, are free to work and travel largely as we please (even if there is the nuisance of security checks prior to flights). I'd love to see your version of how this somehow isn't the case.

To the extent they've stopped even a single credible terrorist plot (I haven't noticed they have prevented a single one) all they've managed is to deny me some good clean fun on moving target practice -- it's a total lose-lose.

Not hard to find... really....it's not. I'm guessing you've never looked.

(Just a sample - there are many, many more.)
Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009

The US is the only one allowed to use this tech to abuse human rights, and it really doesn't want to risk losing its lead in technology used for spying on citizens.

You are completely wrong. First off, it's legal, and not an abuse of human rights. (And no, this isn't the first time a court has made a similar finding.)

Second, it's necessary because some American citizens, immigrants, and visitors don't want to live in peace, but have taken up the cause of extremists. (Just a sample - there are many, many more.)
Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

And how did this get started? September 11 attacks

If you bother to read bin Laden's 'letter to America', you will see that in order for him to call off his minions, Americans will have to convert to his flavor of Islam, give up the constitution, implement Sharia law (which will mean cutting off hands of thieves, stoning adulterers, no more alcohol (prohibition again), drugs, porn, executing homosexuals, etc., etc., etc.), and many other odious demands.

Ultimately this is about various factions of Islam trying to extend their power by force. It won't go away soon. I suggest you get used to it.

Dreaming of Al-Andalus

By the way - the Muslim Brotherhood is not helping.

Whoops! This all important tidbit is not in the linked article, I was confusing it with the article I just read on BBC on the same subject: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12429353

While many may say "this is just a stunt" or whatever, regardless if it is or not it was interesting none-the-less. There have been many instances of technology being implanted into people lately, especially in and around the head. While perhaps not as invasive and technical as a chip implant that gives the blind the ability to see, I think the day of artificial technological implants of this type are just around the corner. This sort of trial and error with the implanting of hardware on the human body is necessary for us to get an idea of what the human body will accept and reject, and what procedures of implantation can help reduce the chances of rejection.

The real reason the BBC is cutting back on its online presence is hidden pressure from the commercial sector who have always seen it as a threat to their revenue. "News Corporation's James Murdoch has said that a "dominant" BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK". Of course we all know what kind of 'independent' journalism he really means. One where some Australian pornographer decides who gets to be president or Primeminister.

"James Murdoch, son of Rupert and the man in charge of BSkyB has criticised the BBC iPlayer, insisting that the popular online VOD service is squashing competition" link

In Germany after you have been employed for six months it is basically impossible to fire someone. There is no "cause" that is good enough.

If you as an HR manager cannot spot a flaw so serious to warrant a dismissal of an employee within 6 months, you should be fired first. And economic difficulties are a good cause for termination, provided of course you are not using that as a pretext for random terrorisation of employees.

Little growth happens because of the overly-restrictive employment regulations.

Never mind that last year Germany was the European country with the highest GDP growth.

If 18 months later it doesn't make sense, they are gone. Period. You can't do that in Germany.

And that's the way we likes it, thankyouverymuch.

No dropping from 4 bars to 3 is a huge performance drop on an iPhone 4. Tests show the iPhones 5 bar coverage is actually quite a weak signal. I'm not certain if 3 bars is enough to do anything more than send text messages. See here for Apples admission of the problem, Slashdot also had a story with the actual numbers.

While there is no standard for displaying signal strength Apple massaged the figures by quite a bit. For an example a friend lives in a signal trouble area. In that area my Nokia reports 1 bar, you can make calls (quality is terrible) but text messages can sometimes pick up a delay. My friends iPhone 3GS reports 5 bars (still) although if he tries to make a call it's dropped quickly.

Your demonstrating one of the most annoy traits of an iDevice owner (any fanboy really) rather than accept there's a flaw in your device and it isn't perfect everything else is to blame. I love Symbian I think Nokia would be foolish to drop it but I long ago accepted that a lot of people seem to be gifted at breaking Symbian devices. My biggest concern with phones right now is Elop will drop Meego. I've waited over a year to have a play with one before I lock myself into a 2 year contract (current plan is for a WP7 phone)

Oh look: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3785509.stm

An amateur built a small motor in his spare time in 1960... But somehow professional scientists and engineers of the era, the same era that invented modern computing, intergrated cicruits, the mouse, gigahertz sampling oscilloscopes, jet airplanes, missiles, satellites, color TV, planetary probes and a worlwide net of telephones and computers would have been stumped by a small motor, given the budget of the world's richest country.... Makes sense!

Ah yes, "today's technology", that mysterious entity that popped into existence from a vacuum ten, twenty years ago? Yes, from nothing at all!! It's a miracle! Praise Jeebus!

The story seems to be very much about a manned rocket ... and BTW, the only way for SRBs to pass man-rating standards was to relax the standards.

Auntie Beeb's article has pictures.

Corporations are made up of people... just thought you might like to know.

Not true. In a legal sense, corporations are independent entities; in most jurisdictions the only "person" requirement is that the company have a Director and Secretary, and often these can be the same person. That person is often a lawyer acting on behalf of other corporations, and he is contractually obligated to not have any free will to make any decisions on behalf of the corporation. These corporations may employ no one, and exist physically only as "brass plates" at the lawyer's place of work or post office:

In June 2008, the high street chemist, Boots, which has a 150-year history in Nottingham, moved the registered head office of its parent company, Alliance Boots, to Zug. On its website the company gives its address as Baarerstrasse, a central street in Zug. But a visit to the address, an office block, opposite a pizza takeaway and a hotel, revealed that there is no physical office location in the town. Instead, the registered office is housed in a Swiss post office - in an anonymous post office box alongside dozens of others.

Of course, offshore tax avoidance is completely legal.

This will only encourage those who blame Mossad for shark attacks

Confusing "Jaws" with Jews and all...

"According to the BBC, those who've had the swine flu get super-immunity to the common cold amongst other things.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12152500"

The article doesn't mention the common cold anywhere.

.. accurate simulations are not news for nerds? I have no interest in American Football, or most other competitive sports, but I still think this is cool.

What would really impress me is if they could predict the results of the Pakistani cricket team, including who was going to bribe who. The meta model for corruption would make this much more challenging than a game prediction.

Some random felis catus to the rescue? (I'm not sure if such one is a bad or good thing...)

Not much more than for comfort of course - though sometimes I do wonder how quick the result could be with a breeding program aimed for intelligence and gripping paws ;) (given less than a year for a generation...)

The headline of the BBC article about this story: No, robot: Japan's elderly fail to welcome their robot overlords source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12347219

See what?

I have actually seen this working the the University of Birmingham. It's impressive, but it's small.

A video I saw on my local BBC news the other week too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12338447

Girl of four died in sat-nav error crash in Blackrod

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12360687/

Too many people blindly follow these things. There's a ford a few miles from me that is impassable for much of the year if not in a Land Rover etc. After heavy rain only a big tractor could make it.
Yet every year the fire service pulls out 6 - 10 cars whose drivers followed their Sat Navs instructions to pass through it. There is a easily visible water depth gauge.

And you can actually calculate the average distance to that identical copy of yourself. This has also been discussed in this BBC Horizon program.

This will only encourage those who blame Mossad for shark attacks and who detained a vulture for working for Mossad. perhaps they will be detaining mice now.

This will only encourage those who blame Mossad for shark attacks and who detained a vulture for working for Mossad. perhaps they will be detaining mice now.

But makes sense for a country that is trying to get European nations to pay to clean up Chernobyl. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12335595

Does anyone actually use Stonehenge for its intended purposes?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wiltshire/hi/front_page/newsid_8750000/8750983.stm

Reading articles like this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12322948

Remind me how awesome geeks are around the world!

Stay connected people!

>Where's the thought provoking article on horses?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-12309654

Like 640Kb, its not enough: With SuperHD (UHDTV) in 3D simultaneously streaming to my lounge, kitchen, both kids' bedroom, my 10 tuner PVR, and neighbourhood CCTv then 10Gbps is not enough. With one UHDTV stream in 2D already at 600Mbps then the 10Gbps bandwidth will soon be flooded.

Add my 6x2m live 3D streaming view over the Amalfi coast then I really need that 1TB bandwidth. (a never-going-to-happen idea I once had with http://anyview.org/

Considering the time this super Fibre network's research, commercialisation/productation(is that a word) an final rollout of required fibre and routers, it is going to be years before this becomes a reality. Probably in time for when we actually will have consumer UHDTV available....

(A BBC video on SuperHD.)

(I replied to this once already, but I wasn't logged in, and cant find it so perhaps it was not posted correctly and anyway someone has already made the same comment I said that someone once said 640Kb was enough. )

The technologies available for backbones already are fast enough for the next decade or so. The main problem is the 'last mile'.

I have 20mbit ("up to 24mbit") ADSL in the UK. However the only times I have noticed the bandwidth being fully utilised is when downloading from a specific Ubuntu mirror, iPlayer and occasionally when downloading from MS. Otherwise frankly I consider 8mbit a good source. This is irrespective of time of day.

Hardly an empirical study, but the only conclusion I can draw is that in practice the home-to-cabinet is far from being the bottleneck for me, and for people with even bog-standard connections even a small improvement will quickly be met with bottlenecks elsewhere.

Also, bear in mind the government is throwing £830m at upgrading "the last mile" by 2015, including quite a lot of FTTH.

Regardless, on the backbone scale economics are important. Even if you were right that existing technology may be able to provide the capacity for the next decade, the cost is at least as important.

Not forgetting that it takes a long time to go from starting the research to installing the finished product. Research is done today for tomorrow.

You see, what you've mentioned here is actually wrong.

There's nothing to suggest this is being seriously considered by the government as a whole, only that it's the pet project of a couple of MPs

Citation:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12041063

"A spokesman for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, confirmed Mr Vaizey's plan to talk to ISPs about setting up an age verification scheme to govern access to pornographic sites."

Age verification in order to view adult content means by default you would be blocked and get a censored connection unless you verify your age, i.e. register in some way. This is exactly what I said.

Ed Vaizey is the culture minister and this is his direct responsibility. It's quite clearly not "the pet project of a few MPs" but being proposed at the highest level.

"It's ridiculous, but science is being bullied in the US..."

There fixed that for ya.

Nice...
You know, the UK isn't part of the US, right?
Further:

Some 36 per cent of teachers quizzed [in the UK] said they believed a divine hand played a role in the creation of humanity, while 28 per cent said it should be raised in lessons.

Creationism is a plague which infects more than the US.
From wiki:

In 1986, the then minister of education Kjell Magne Bondevik proposed new education plans for the elementary and middle school levels which included skepticism to the theory of evolution and would hold that a final answer to the origin of mankind was unknown. The proposal was withdrawn after it had generated controversy.

It would appear Norway managed to fend off that attack, but you know it's bad if the education head is even suggesting it.

Now, granted it's worse in the US, but that's mostly due to the autonomy that states and towns have in selecting their curriculum.

The key can be changed by a firmware update

No, it can't. It's written in non-volatile ROM, the only way to replace it is to change the physical ROM chip.

http://www.popfi.com/2011/01/06/hackers-unlock-ps3-master-key/ exerpt: "Well, when Sony was designing the PS3, they put the master key on the hardware of the PlayStation itself"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12116051 exerpt: ""The only way to fix this is to issue new hardware," he said. "Sony will have to accept this.""

There's plenty more if you wish to Google.

During the Falklands War in 1982, Argentine forces seized control of the phones and radio network on the islands and had cut off communications with London. Scottish amateur radio operator Les Hamilton, GM3ITN was able to relay crucial information from fellow hams Bob McLeod and Tony Pole-Evans on the islands to British military intelligence in London, including the details of troop deployment, bombing raids, radar bases and military activities. However, radio hams usually avoid controversial subjects and political situations and discussions as a part of the code of politeness of radio communications.

A BBC reporter called Laurie Margolis tried to claim he was the guy who first contacted and heard it. however it was not him at all. it was a Scotsman from Clydebank who provided and kept providing the critical information.

recording of it here

BBC page here

Do you have any reputable citations showing professional climatologists engaging in groupthink or responding badly to reasoned criticism? I ask because, once again, your description of the climatology community sounds like a description of a cult... [Dumb Scientist]

You mean like how they circled the wagons around Phil Jones, even when actual bad behavior on his part was discovered? For example: [ShakaUVM]

“This has some similarity to the CRU email theft, where precious little was discovered from among thousands of emails, but a few sentences were plucked out of context, deliberately misinterpreted (like “hide the decline”) and then hyped into “Climategate”.” [RealClimate]

Presumably you meant to say that scientists in general are circling wagons and responding badly to reasoned criticism.

Or you can just read the editor’s comments left in the response sections of RC.org. Just skimming through that above article, here’s an interplay between Pielke and Stefan. [ShakaUVM]

Coincidentally, Pielke Jr. had similar things to say about that interplay. That's the interplay where he asked a bunch of 'questions' like "Was it appropriate for the IPCC to make stuff up about my views?". Then Stefan replied:

Clearly there are different views on this, which is why we called this graph "debatable". But let's keep things in perspective: we're discussing Supplementary Material and a response to one of those 90,000 review comments now, not even the report itself. You've been working hard to scandalize your personal quibbles with IPCC here - how consistent is this with your self-proclaimed role as "honest broker"? Stefan

That link leads to an in-depth comment, and neither seem to constitute "responding badly to reasoned criticism." In fact, it's not clear that Pielke's rant counts as "reasoned criticism" in the first place. As far as I can tell, he's got

Well, English is a close cousin of all the Scandinavian languages, but more to the point Old Norse.

The original Old English language was influenced by two waves of invasion: the first by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic language family, who conquered and colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second by the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman.

However it was the Danish and Norwegian Vikings that attacked and settled in Britain. Have you heard of the Danelaw? So it would be more precise to say English has a closer relationship with Danish/Norwegian than Swedish.

In fact some dialects still exist in the northwest of England that sounds like modern Norwegian (BBC, 2008). Indeed, modern genetic sampling and research reveals a lot of Viking blood heritage in England, Ireland and Scotland.

The influence of this period of Scandinavian settlement can still be seen, and is particularly evident in place-names: name endings such as -howe, -by ("village") or "thorp" ("hamlet").

Furthermore many British island groups, including the Isle of Man(n) and Shetland, belonged to Norwegian Kings for hundreds of years. Indeed York was once known by its original name Jorvik. Dublin (Dubh Linn) and other Irish cities were Viking settlements.

Then later the descendants of Norwegian/Danish settlers in Normandy, France, decided to invade and conquer England. Of course by that time William the Conqueror and his men spoke French. His father again was the well known [Norwegain/Danish] Rollo, or Hrólfr, who forced the French king to sign a treaty ceding part of the province to him, from which it took the name of Normandy, the country of the Northmen.

Ironically it was the attack of the invading Norwegian Viking army under King Harald Hardråda and Tostig Godwinson, brother of the English King, that led to the fall of England to the Normans. King Harold managed to beat the Norwegian invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, near York, but was not strong enough to withstand a second attack by the Norman army. In 1066 at the time of the Battle of Hastings the languages were mutually intelligible.

Swedish Vikings moved east and played a major role in the development of Russia. These Vikings are know as the Rus and it is from this name that the name of Russia has been derived. Actually the Rus were Swedish Vikings meaning the northern Germanic tribes which setteled in Sweden. The Term Rus was not what they called themselves, but the name given them by the Finns. Today Sweden is Ruotsia in Finnish.

English, the three Scandinavian languages, Icelandic, Dutch and German all belong to the Germanic language family.

Windows Phone 7 (not "the Windows 7 Phone") is doing just fine. It hasn't been a runaway success, but its done reasonably well on all carriers its been released on and is coming to both Verizon and Sprint soon.

I wouldn't call an OS doing "just fine" when it has been reported as having excessive data usage of "between 30 and 50MB of data" per day and 500MB being used up overnight in some cases. BGR Reports that MS has identified "a third-party solution commonly accessed from Windows Phones is configured in a manner that potentially cause larger than expected data downloads." The third party has not been identified and a timeline for a fix has not yet been given...

Caveat emptor!

I spend much more time in the UK than the US, so I don't have examples to hand from the latter, but there are definitely some from the former, and I'd say the two cultures shares more similarities than differences. Iraq war protests were pretty pervasive, culminating in somewhere around a million people marching in London. Admittedly they've died down, but I think it's fair to say that after the government ignored the people and went to war anyway, the questions changed - many people (myself included) fought against the idea of going to war, but accept that since it did happen it's better to remain and stabilise than leave a chaotic power vacuum.

If you want to see the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of pent-up anger, just look at what happened a few months ago when the government decided to triple university fees. That's the point at which the people of my generation really seemed to say "fuck this, we deserve better". Even so, though, the government gets away scot-free with far too many abuses of their power.

I guess my point is that the young/old dynamic doesn't (from what I understand of history) seem to be changing that drastically - some of you guys protested, and so did some of us. Plenty more sat around and did nothing, in both generations, but those people are the ones who get forgotten about as time passes. In both times there were some victories but the powers that be still got away with far more than they ever should.

Even at my age, I'm a cynical bastard. My generation sucks. I just get the impression that yours was probably no better!

There are deep frustrations in Egyptian society, our Cairo correspondent says, yet Egyptians are almost as disillusioned with the opposition as they are with the government; even the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Islamist movement, seems rudderless. While one opposition leader, Mohamed ElBaradei, called on Egyptians to take part in these protests, the Muslim Brotherhood has been more ambivalent. Our correspondent adds that Egypt is widely seen to have lost power, status and prestige in the three decades of President Mubarak's rule.

So this revolt, if successful, would create a leaderless state. That seems very risky.

Then why is their prime minister saying that the debt is a problem, along with nearly everyone else around the world? Usually when a country thinks it's a necessary part of running the economy to have a bit of debt, they don't say "There is a huge risk of this thing fucking us in the future, and we need to do something about it now.".

source
source2

That's why it is better for us to act together in criticising Islam. Kind of an "I'm Spartacus" moment. France's banning of Islamic full face coverings is a good example in that it limits the overall danger to individuals of reprisal to a very low level, lower than say death from horse riding or in a car accident.

Unfortunately some people take that as a sign of prejudice, but in the case of Islam it is legitimate criticism. What kind of shitty half-baked religion can't stand up to scrutiny anyway? Islam is particularly bad because the Koran is supposed to be the literal word of god, and you would think that being god he could make some pretty compelling arguments that mere human beings wouldn't be able to argue with.

Well, there has been a court summons to two Hindu Gods

"without the downsides such as democratic control"

The BBC must obey its Charter as a condition of its existence, and the government sets the Charter, so it's under a similar degree of democratic control to anything else. It has various obligations and its conformance to those obligations was one of the key topics in the 2005 General Election.

There are different degrees of "high predictability" (plus OECD report didn't talk only about education, also economic status)

Apparently in nanny states only around 20% of status is determined by family (vs. around 50% ... and certainly even more in developing places)