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I suspect the answer lies somewhere in between.

What about India -- under threat of allowing foreign drugs to be replicated without paying patents -- slashing the price they'll pay for said pharmaceuticals?
Surely this is an example of the market not working? (The final price is not the result of supply intersecting demand.)

Of course, it's very important that the pharmaceutical companies remain profitable so they can continue their R&D.
Though ... I don't think there's any imminent cause for concern

Alzheimer's at 90 so you can't run your island nation anymore? Liked that story better when it was it Roy Bates on Sealand.

but things like this are used more and more to justify land closures.

If people wouldn't screw things up, or destroy parts of a park, or just not think, then this wouldn't be an issue, would it?

To use a phrase, this is why we can't have nice things.

North Korea threatened war with the US over The Interview back in June 2014. Sounded like typical NK bluster back then. "Merciless retaliation" on the US would occur if the movie came out. Source: See: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... Sony got hacked over The Interview. What other entity, other then North Korea, would bother to screw with Sony to such an extent unless they were deeply offended? The timing of the attack is not likely a coincidence.

According to this BBC article, the most recent (2013) test was claimed to have miniaturized the warhead to make it small enough to put on a missile, but prior to that, they were known to be large weapons:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

As I said, I read it somewhere that their weapons were large, but I am still unable to find the article I read.

You're numbers aren't even close:

3.6 million tonnes a year, projected.
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

1 million metric tons LNG = 52 trillion Btus
http://www.extension.iastate.e...

3.6 * 52 trillion
that's about 175 trillion BTUs.

Current price ~10 dollars per million BTU.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/his...

1.75 Billion a year, BEFORE cost of operation.

Once again, when not using made up numbers, Green energies are the same.

This is just current enterprise tech finally making its way into the consumer world.
I've done a lot of work developing technology for language schools, requiring the recognition & reproduction of speech. This is nothing new, it's just speech recognition algorithms being parsed through a translator & then spat back out by a text-to-speech engine. Heck, I even have something like this running on my home Media Centre.

The groundwork has been done by universities & is being improved by both public (the CIA comes to mind) & private sectors. Unsurprisingly, it's big business in the teleconferencing market.

It's not perfect, however it's very different to the challenges presented to the likes of YouTube. A telephone conversation doesn't have problems with background noise & the people using this technology are aware they need to speak more slowly & clearly - a benefit not afforded to movies & cat videos.

The Japanese telecoms company NTT Docomo has been offering this technology to its customers since 2012!
http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...

I'm still talking about the list of attacks. That is a summary of facts. I've randomly sampled some of the attacks some time ago and none of them was made up; all of them happened. It's not a "soundbite" or a "pre-baked conclusion" "made to look factual" that a policeman was beheaded by Muslims for religious reasons on this December's first day, BBC reports on it. And if the authors of that web site indeed only "cherry-picked" some of them, as you insinuate, I'm not sure I want to see the rest.

At this point in history, arguing that perhaps religion doesn't make people utterly stupid really sounds almost like arguing that perhaps the Earth is hollow.

we aren't currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to create Spiderman

I beg to differ:

http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

Definitely. If a 5-year old boy can manage it then it is worth aspiring to. I'm assuming his programming skills are thin on the ground as well.

Because it's not like anyone's ever been raped by a 'licensed and regulated' taxi driver.

Being a convicted rapist doesn't even seem to be an impediment to getting a taxi license in the UK:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...

If I was a Spectrum fanatic, I'd want something that was either a "true" reimplementation of the original Spectrum and/or something that looked and could be used like the original Spectrum- possibly with additional features or connectivity, but retaining the original features.

I don't care. If Sir Clive Sinclair is behind it, then I'm getting one :-)

Science fiction films have many warnings for us – not least, how the road to a perfect future society is fraught with peril.

http://www.bbc.com/future/stor...

Problem with it is that it's not actually scary. People have been living in Exclusion Zone itself and right outside it for a long time. Mainly cleanup crews and their families.

So long as you don't go rolling in the hay of Red Forest, it appears you're going to be pretty much fine living there. Locals are even living off the land and eating local produce like fruit and mushrooms. Which apparently scared the pants off the BBC cuisine reporter who went into the region until they thawed him off with some good old moonshine. Which they told him afterwards, was made from the local produce.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feat...

I'll believe that when I have seen you move there and source all of the food and drink for your wife and kids from the immediate area around the Chernobyl plant for a few years. Wanna put your money where your mouth is?

Scientists, outside those few who suggest that LNT is real (and most are not at this point, they're just sticking to it because "err on safe side") do not in fact suggest things you suggest.

As for the rest, have you seen this?
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feat...

Some people on the other hand did just that and came out with flying colours:

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feat...

Problem with it is that it's not actually scary. People have been living in Exclusion Zone itself and right outside it for a long time. Mainly cleanup crews and their families.

So long as you don't go rolling in the hay of Red Forest, it appears you're going to be pretty much fine living there. Locals are even living off the land and eating local produce like fruit and mushrooms. Which apparently scared the pants off the BBC cuisine reporter who went into the region until they thawed him off with some good old moonshine. Which they told him afterwards, was made from the local produce.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feat...

This sentence is completely meaningless. Do you even cite, bro?

Anyone who reads UK newspapers will know what the GP is talking about. This isn't Wikipedia, but here you go

An ape who went to college: http://www.pbs.org/program/my-wild-affair/
A driving school for dogs: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-20614593
Animals don't build much, so I don't think any have build a rocket. However, multiple animals made it into space before any human did. I think building things is the main difference between us humans and other animals.

So yes I agree, humans are way too full of themselves and aren't as special as they like to believe.

Already been tried in the UK, and it didn't go well:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...

As for the USA, I doubt that "embarrassing a drunk" could even be conceptualized.
I suspect that may be true in parts of the UK, haven't been there myself.

The car was part of the assets under seizure, so no he can't sell it. compared to what most people go through in such a criminal trial where the assets may be considered illicit gains he has actually been treated unbelievably well. He was able to keep his money to spend on his legal bills as well as a political campaign, gambling and even a ridiculous music venture and a monthly rent bill that was $80,000. seriously that is nearly a million a year he was spending on rent.

I thought Kim Dotcom was broke and not even able to pay his lawyers? http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30209067

Plutonium: The scary element that helps probe space's secrets http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

The idea that the French work a significantly shorter work week than Americans is a largely a myth. The French do enjoy longer annual leave, but I suspect that in the US, the productivity gains resulting from a little more rest at certain points in the year would more than make up for the lost working time.

- DETEKT

What is Detekt and how does it work?

"Detekt is a free tool that scans your computer for traces of known surveillance spyware used by governments to target and monitor human rights defenders and journalists around the world. By alerting them to the fact that they are being spied on, they will have the opportunity to take precautions.

It was developed by security researchers and has been used to assist in Citizen Lab's investigations into government use of spyware against human rights defenders, journalists and activists as well as by security trainers to educate on the nature of targeted surveillance.

Amnesty International is partnering with Privacy International, Digitale Gesellschaft and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to release Detekt to the public for the first time."

###

Official Sites:

https://resistsurveillance.org...
https://github.com/botherder/d...
https://github.com/botherder/d...
https://github.com/botherder/d...

- version 1.1 download (Nov 20, 2014) .exe & sig
https://github.com/botherder/d...

###

- Detekt Author's GPG key:

The distributed binary is signed with my personal PGP key, the public key is available at

https://nex.sx/nex.asc

###

- More info/News stories:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://threatpost.com/detekt-...
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...
http://www.zdnet.com/amnestys-...

###

- Author's Twitter Page:

https://twitter.com/botherder

http://www.theamericanconserva...
"This is no surprise, as libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society.
The most fundamental problem with libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. Simple physical security, which even a prisoner can possess, is not freedom, but one cannot live without it. Prosperity is connected to freedom, in that it makes us free to consume, but it is not the same thing, in that one can be rich but as unfree as a Victorian tycoon's wife. A family is in fact one of the least free things imaginable, as the emotional satisfactions of it derive from relations that we are either born into without choice or, once they are chosen, entail obligations that we cannot walk away from with ease or justice. But security, prosperity, and family are in fact the bulk of happiness for most real people and the principal issues that concern governments."

I would add "community" and "health" as public goods government should also help support.

BTW, to underscore the point that charity only tends to work well in communities where people are well known to each other (either that or an abstract gifte economy like JP Hogan wrote about), see:
"Switzerland's shame: The children used as cheap farm labour"
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...
"Gogniat, his brother and two sisters were "contract children" or verdingkinder as they are known in Switzerland. The practice of using children as cheap labour on farms and in homes began in the 1850s and it continued into the second half of the 20th Century. Historian Loretta Seglias says children were taken away for "economic reasons most of the time⦠up until World War Two Switzerland was not a wealthy country, and a lot of the people were poor". Agriculture was not mechanised and so farms needed child labour.
If a child became orphaned, a parent was unmarried, there was fear of neglect, or you had the misfortune to be poor, the communities would intervene. Authorities tried to find the cheapest way to look after these children, so they took them out of their families and placed them in foster families. ...
The extent to which these children were treated as commodities is demonstrated by the fact that there are cases even in the early 20th Century where they were herded into a village square and sold at public auction. ...
"Children didn't know what was happening to them, why they were taken away, why they couldn't go home, see their parents, why they were being abused and no-one believed them," she says.
"The other thing is the lack of love. Being in a family where you are not part of the family, you are just there for working." And it left a devastating mark for the rest of the children's lives. Some have huge psychological problems, difficulties with getting involved with others and their own families. For others it was too much to bear. Some committed suicide after such a childhood.
Social workers did make visits. David Gogniat says his family had no telephone, so when a social worker called a house in the v

Standard contracts for routine purchases can't contain completely unexpected things in the fine print. If the contract said check-out is 9:30 in the morning, that would be surprising, but wouldn't be out of place. If it said that checking out later than 9:30 would automatically add a day to your billed visit, that would be completely unexpected, and the hotel would have trouble enforcing it unless it was in boldface and underlined so it couldn't be missed. There is a difference between a contract negotiated between lawyers, and something that the client has reason to expect is boilerplate standard. Isn't the legal term "an idiot in a hurry" or something similar? IANAL, but the Trading Standards office seems to think the contract was of questionable validity.

Hotel already folded and agreed to drop charges for these and all future customers:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...

Which already happened:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...

As I said, hotel folded instantly.

This reminds me last november when we discovered a new ligament in the knee : http://www.bbc.com/news/health... How can we miss something so obvious after all those dissections and numerical imaging?

BBC quote follows:
MUPUS the sensor package from the German space agency's Institute for Planetary Research deployed a thermometer on the end of a hammer.
It retrieved a number of temperature profiles but broke as it tried to burrow its way into the comet's subsurface.
Scientists say this shows the icy material underlying 67P's dust covering to be far harder than anyone anticipated - having the tensile strength of some rocks.
It also helps explain why Philae bounced so high on that first touchdown.
The 4km-wide comet has little gravity, so when key landing systems designed to hold the robot down failed at the crucial moment - the probe would have been relying on thick, soft, compressive layers to absorb its impact.
However much dust it did encounter at that moment, it clearly was not enough to prevent Philae making its giant rebound.
[end-quote]
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

Yes, the Bechdel test is not egalitarian. GI Joe will be considered sexist because it doesn't have enough females in it, My Little Pony won't be despite it's lack of males.

So your video game better not have too many men in it but at the UN it is perfectly acceptable to say "Women have greater and deeper and more profound insights into how to resolve problems." http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi... because no matter how blatantly sexist something is, it isn't sexist if it is against men.

Welcome to a world that considers "violence against women" horrible but kicking a man in the crotch as humor. Where a women getting raped can get you more jail time than murder, but a guy getting raped by "dropping the soap" is a joke. Where UN ambassadors can freely say women are superior than men but a video game with a princess that is anything but the hero is sexist.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...

I think they're doing this precisely because they want to head off government regulation, most likely because they fear government regulation would be much stricter than what they are imposing on themselves via this document. It's probably the same reason why industries like movies and videogames set up their own rating systems. If they waited for the government to do it, it might be worse than than what they came up with themselves - at least from their perspective.

Obviously, those companies are not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, but likely because they see privacy as a potential hot-button consumer issue in the future, and would like to preempt the discussion if at all possible with this document. If they can self-regulate themselves reasonably well, fine. If not, we can go the legislation and regulation route.

All I'm saying here is that it would be foolish of them to thumb their noses at their customers and piss them off, because they're more likely to either lose sales or get burdened with more regulation via the government that way, as has happened so often before. One would like to think they could eventually learn from decades of mistakes and stay ahead of the curve for once. Maybe some people think of me as naive for thinking a company would use privacy as a selling point, but I'd say there's at least one example to point to recently.

Now Philae seems to be sideways and under the shadow of a cliff that only let's it have sunlight 1,5h per 12h cycle.

That amount of sunlight may not be sufficient to keep Philae operating beyond its 60h battery autonomy.

Most info seems to appear first in BBC news

It's not like this hasn't already been tried and failed miserably. http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...
A quote from the article, "In August 2012 West Midlands Police said of 1,618 alerts produced by the system since November 2011, only two were confirmed gunfire incidents. What's more, the force added, ShotSpotter had also missed four confirmed shootings."

Google: bbc cat parasite
and you'll find articles like
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26240297
"We know, for example, that people who have antibodies to toxoplasma are more than twice as likely to be involved in a traffic accident. It could be that the parasite is making us, like rodents, behave in a more reckless fashion."

China's producing 7.2 tons per person. The US is producing 16.5 tons per person. http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

The US is committing to cutting its emissions to 14.1 tons per person (down 27% from 19.3 in 2005). That's still 2x China's current level. Why on earth would China agree to forever have half the emissions per capita of the US?

Yeah well, like that's just your opinion, man.

China's producing 7.2 tons per person. The US is producing 16.5 tons per person.
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

The US is committing to cutting its emissions to 14.1 tons per person (down 27% from 19.3 in 2005). That's still 2x China's current level. Why on earth would China agree to forever have half the emissions per capita of the US?

From http://www.bbc.com/news/health...

While excess winter deaths are linked to low temperatures, hypothermia is not the main cause.

Experience shows that the majority of such deaths are due to heart disease, stroke and respiratory illness

Age UK's director Caroline Abrahams, said: "Excess winter deaths are preventable and today's figures are a damning indictment of our failure to address the scandal of cold homes in this country.

"We strongly believe that the only sustainable solution is investment to increase the ENERGY EFFICIENCY of our housing stock so cold homes become a thing of the past."

Recently I tried the BBC Fuel Price Calculator, which for where I am at $2.55/Gallon indicates that the only place I can get gas cheaper is either Nigeria or Venezuela.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27067615

http://www.amazon.com/Biologic...
"Homosexuality in its myriad forms has been scientifically documented in more than 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and other animals worldwide. Biological Exuberance is the first comprehensive account of the subject, bringing together accurate, accessible, and nonsensationalized information. Drawing upon a rich body of zoological research spanning more than two centuries, Bruce Bagemihl shows that animals engage in all types of nonreproductive sexual behavior. Sexual and gender expression in the animal world displays exuberant variety, including same-sex courtship, pair-bonding, sex, and co-parenting--even instances of lifelong homosexual bonding in species that do not have lifelong heterosexual bonding.
Part 1, "A Polysexual, Polygendered World," begins with a survey of homosexuality, transgender, and nonreproductive heterosexuality in animals and then delves into the broader implications of these findings, including a valuable perspective on human diversity. Bagemihl also examines the hidden assumptions behind the way biologists look at natural systems and suggests a fresh perspective based on the synthesis of contemporary scientific insights with traditional knowledge from indigenous cultures.
Part 2, "A Wondrous Bestiary," profiles more than 190 species in which scientific observers have noted homosexual or transgender behavior. Each profile is a verbal and visual "snapshot" of one or more closely related bird or mammal species, containing all the documentation required to support the author's often controversial conclusions.
Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, filled with fascinating facts and astonishing descriptions of animal behavior, Biological Exuberance is a landmark book that will change forever how we look at nature."

Basically, for decades, even centuries, wildlife biologists have been making assumptions about the sexes of animals based on their interactions -- either than or consciously suppressing the data that shows homosexuality in the wild.

Of course, just because animals do something has never been a conclusive argument for why humans should do it, because humans are moral beings and make choices (a point my Ecology&Evolution Prof. Larry Slobodkin made in a course of philosophy and ecology/evolution). But love is so often rare and fleeting in this life, why go out of our way to make it more difficult for some people? Was the world really better off because of what was done to Alan Turing after he helped Britain survive WWII?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

See also for references to some studies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

More discussion (which mentions the page you site):
"Is Sexual Orientation Determined at Birth?"
http://borngay.procon.org/view...

And:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...
"Paul Vasey's research in Samoa has focused on a theory called kin selection or the "helper in the nest" hypothesis. The idea is that gay people compensate for their lack of children by promoting the reproductive fitness of brothers or sisters, contributing money or performing other uncle-like activities such as babysitting or tutoring. Some of the gay person's genetic code is shared with nieces and nephews and so, the theory goes, the genes which code for sexual orientation still get passed down. ... Vasey speculates that part of the reason the fa'afafine are more attentive to their nephews and nieces is their acceptance in Samoan culture compared to gay men in the West and Japan ("You can't help your kin if they've rejected you"). But he also believes th

That's not sponsoring a junta that's working with a new quasi-European country over a quarter century.

That's some impressive contortionism. I'm suuuure you'd be saying the same thing if, say, the Chinese government had spent billions undermining the Tories in Canada, with a top official bragging about it in front of banners for Russian oil companies, and then supported a coup when they couldn't beat Harper at the box office.

That's not sponsorship that's friendship.

Now you're being comical.

They saw it as the population and the legislative branch replacing an executive.

And I'm suuuure you would have said the same thing if the Democrats had a majority vote to impeach Reagan just before the 1984 elections, when they figured they out they weren't going to win. It's okay, it would have been legit, they had a whole 55 votes in the Senate to remove him! That you need a 2/3 vote would have been meaningless trivia.

What are you talking about? There was a disagreement about policy in Ukraine. There were mass protests.

What are you talking about? Not only was there a coup, the same State Department official was caught picking post-coup leaders to support with the US ambassador.

The president began slaughtering his own population.

And the state police defending the government at the same time? Not even the junta is repeating that propaganda any more.

You put you finger on what concerns me- that a smaller number can control the larger population. In that sense, even the moderate muslims could be considered "sleepers"; because if their community goes radical, they either aren't likely to buck the trend, or have much of an option. Many, due to their intense religious upbringing, might be shamed, bullied, or guilted into believing they aren't truly faithful muslims unless they follow the words of their cleric or imam, and judging by the numbers of psychos out there, ostensibly it's not all that difficult to (re)interpret many parts of the Qu'ran as a call to Jihad. When a small immigrated muslim community grows in population (and thus representation and power), they often start stirring the pot and calling for Sharia law, from London to Dearborn, Michigan. Here are just a few examples.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.co...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
and this is really worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That is disturbing.

I submitted this summary, but it linked to the BBC because their write up is better. Mr. Hannigan's actual words are published on the Financial Times.

Fuck your "homespot", get off my lawn. Doesn't "not given the option to opt out before receiving it" sound like digital rape? There will be no vendor supplied WiFi in my house, no sir.

Per TFA:
"US provider Comcast caused controversy when it introduced its public home wi-fi service in the summer because customers were not given the option to opt out before receiving it.
Such "homespot" public wi-fi will see explosive growth rising to more than 325 million in 2018 and taking wi-fi "from the cities to the suburbs", according to the research."

Credit: http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...

Seriously, it took longer to paste the link to slashdot than to google them.

NSA 'engaged in industrial espionage' - Snowden
NSA Busted Conducting Industrial Espionage In France, Mexico, Brazil, China and All Around the World
NSA accused of spying on Brazilian oil company Petrobras

Two wrongs doesn't make one right, but China isn't the worst offender here.
Now that we both know that NSA is doing illegal things that makes everyone hate the US, could you please stop defending them?

And still misses the real issue here. If you want to narrow the "Digital Divide" stop granting monopolies to companies like Comcast. Once you have some real competition in the market there's no reason that people who need the internet won't be able to buy it for themselves.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

Is there any reason that internet in NYC should cost 4 times what it does in Zurich or Seoul, except and exploitative monopoly ? The U.S. has places were the population density will make any kind of communication service more expensive but NYC is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet and is not one of them.

Where are they going to get enough biomass? Farms aren't going to grow low value biomass instead of high value food.

Britain gets enough by importing wood from America, with plenty of subsidies to make it affordable. Everyone, except the politicians, agrees that the policy is idiotic and counterproductive.

As reported by the BBC two months ago, f'cryin'outloud.