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In 2013. In 2014 the figure is different and it is counted differently, and the budget/spendings underwent change.

As written here:

2014 was the first year under the new MFF for 2014-2020, which contains lower overall figures than the preceding spending plan. The weight of regional spending and research and development gradually increases until 2020, while the share of agriculture decreases year on year, unlike under the previous MFF where it was the biggest spending area. This change is reflected already in 2014, with regional and agricultural resources on par with 42% of the budget.

They base their number on the EU budget from 2013 (budget as a document), while this here is apparently the actual post-factum number from the 2014.

Will not pretend to be a finance specialist, but AFAIK the budget is only a plan, a commitment, and is not always followed strictly, and thus differs from the actual numbers. Though I do not expect the numbers to differ it that much. But one has to compare the comparable years, and there is no by-country split of 2014/later budgets.

They base their number on the EU budget from 2013 (budget as a document), while this here is apparently the actual post-factum number from the 2014.

Will not pretend to be a finance specialist, but AFAIK the budget is only a plan, a commitment, and is not always followed strictly, and thus differs from the actual numbers. Though I do not expect the numbers to differ it that much. But one has to compare the comparable years, and there is no by-country split of 2014/later budgets.

Everyone need to be for any expansion of the capability? Not just majority?

As far as I understand, this affects the "Eurolaw"(?) (Primärrecht in German: the basic founding laws of the EU).

In order to change any of them, all participating countries must vote "yes".

Changes to other laws require only majority, but can be vetoed by any member with veto right. UK has veto right.

With sharing of wealth for instance Sweden is supposed to be the country which pay the most in vs what it get back / capita I think? I assume UK pay in more than what they get back directly, but of course they also have access to the market and the people and get to sell goods onto other EU nations and get their brightest people into their union.

Infographic. SE pays 3.8B, and receives 1.7B. UK 11.3 vs 6.9. (Wow, I always thought that UK is not part of the CAP, because they were deriding the program so much in the past, and yet they are.)

Outside the CAP, the money largely go to support poorer countries and regions: building infrastructure, improvement in education, and so on. To make sure that with the time they could raise their living standards. It was very insightful to read that some regions in UK are poor enough to receive that support (but largely voted to leave).

a) The UK already had a special arrangement with the EU, where they got conditions that other members do not necessarily get.

b) In February, The UK got a new settlement with *additional* conditions that no other member had: http://www.consilium.europa.eu... (However, that settlement was contingent on a Remain vote).

c) There is no provision for the EU to force a member out, or to force the Article 50 timeline to begin. While Article 50 has a 2 year time limit it only begins when the leaving member notifies the EU and the EU has already stipulated that the UK referendum does not constitute notification for the purpose of starting the 2 year timeline for UK exit.

Member contributions are proportional and based on GDP. A system that GB agreed on when it joined. Whining about it afterwards doesn't change that fact.

The fact that GB is a net contributor is because it has a relative large GDP compared to other members. Something most other nations would be rather happy about.

It's gonna be interesting to see what happens to GB without the common market.

Anyway, enjoy your acrobats without hard-hats and your curvy bananas!

Member contributions are proportional and based on GDP. A system that GB agreed on when it joined. Whining about it afterwards doesn't change that fact.

The fact that GB is a net contributor is because it has a relative large GDP compared to other members. Something most other nations would be rather happy about.

It's gonna be interesting to see what happens to GB without the common market.

Anyway, enjoy your acrobats without hard-hats and your curvy bananas!

If anyone cares to read the actual draft document...

As you might expect, the summary doesn't completely reflect what this document says. Basically, it a long kitchen sink document that says the EU should try to figure out how best to get ahead of the curve in legal framework for this inevitable AI revolution. The document contains a big laundry list of stuff like...

- making sure AIs are all "registered" (that's a bit ominous)
- allowing you to "sue" an AI (force owners to carry insurance and producers to contribute to a compensation fund in case owners don't carry enough insurance)
- require access to source code (presumably for forensic purposes)
- code of conduct/ethics for the AI researcher and developers (including the AI "teachers")
- make sure AIs are developed to respect European values of dignity freedom and justice (including privacy and data sharing issues)
- provide basic income to support all the people that are going to become unemployed by AIs (a commonly recurring EU parliament theme, not a scheme to give social security to robots)

The theory (I'll call this The Theory) goes like this: If you give free food to Africa, you'll price out African farmers who will starve because they have nothing else to do. And then the people will starve when you stop donating food.

That complaint seriously misses the point. Let me tell you why: African farmers don't need to farm. They need to do something that pays for what they need. Any work will do, really. As long as an unskilled person can do it. So there are three possibilities here: Industrialization is impossible for African nations (so there can't be other work) OR there isn't enough investment to drive industry (so the farmers can't get other work) OR technological unemployment now makes unskilled work insufficiently profitable to support a person.

Now African farmers are already doing something otherwise (effectively entirely) done by machine in first world countries. A farm in Europe requires far, far less human labor. A European farmer's job is more in the line of managing machines, scheduling planting, organizing finances, and so forth. You won't see him on his knees weeding a patch of land. You won't see him with a scythe in his hand at harvest time. You won't even see him helping a pig give birth or tending a sick cow* An EU farm averages "...an average size of 16.1 hectares per agricultural holding. An average EU farm has less than one person see here. 12 million farms, 10 million farmers.

If the above theory about farmers going out of work is to be believed then it's impossible for farming to make up a significant percentage of employment. Otherwise the complaint would be invalid. So the farming singularity has not arrived in Africa. I'm going to beg the question that a strong industrial economy and a service economy also haven't, I think it's obvious. This leaves the third possible support for The Theory completely without support. In Africa unskilled labor can still pay what passes for a living wage. On to the first possibility.

The statistics here tell us that Africa has averaged a 3 to 6 percent increase in GDP for the last decade. This is despite AIDS, Malaria, pants-on-head retarded or just evil actions by African politicians, revolutionary wars, and otherwise being the unwashed asshole of the world. More to the point, this increase represents industrialization. For evidence see this economic diversification report.

It may not be enough yet, or even certain but it is happening.

Going back to africaneconomicoutlook.org if we look at table 10, foreign direct investment we see that the middle objection to food exports to Africa is quite strong. Africa has averaged 51 billion dollars per year of direct foreign investment. For a whole continent that's shockingly small. As shown by continual growth through massive problems... problems that are going away one by one, Africa is at the cusp of a new era. All that needs to be done is entice a rational amount of foreign investment (say, 400 billion dollars per year) by parties interested in money, not power (actual economic investment, not strings-attached economic manipulation) and it will industrialize at a clip only seen so far in China's rise to power.

If that happens:
1. The Theory's complaint will be rendered moot very quickly by African farmers reaching par for productivity.
2. Food can be freely given on the basis that the vast majority of

The theory (I'll call this The Theory) goes like this: If you give free food to Africa, you'll price out African farmers who will starve because they have nothing else to do. And then the people will starve when you stop donating food.

That complaint seriously misses the point. Let me tell you why: African farmers don't need to farm. They need to do something that pays for what they need. Any work will do, really. As long as an unskilled person can do it. So there are three possibilities here: Industrialization is impossible for African nations (so there can't be other work) OR there isn't enough investment to drive industry (so the farmers can't get other work) OR technological unemployment now makes unskilled work insufficiently profitable to support a person.

Now African farmers are already doing something otherwise (effectively entirely) done by machine in first world countries. A farm in Europe requires far, far less human labor. A European farmer's job is more in the line of managing machines, scheduling planting, organizing finances, and so forth. You won't see him on his knees weeding a patch of land. You won't see him with a scythe in his hand at harvest time. You won't even see him helping a pig give birth or tending a sick cow* An EU farm averages "...an average size of 16.1 hectares per agricultural holding. An average EU farm has less than one person see here. 12 million farms, 10 million farmers.

If the above theory about farmers going out of work is to be believed then it's impossible for farming to make up a significant percentage of employment. Otherwise the complaint would be invalid. So the farming singularity has not arrived in Africa. I'm going to beg the question that a strong industrial economy and a service economy also haven't, I think it's obvious. This leaves the third possible support for The Theory completely without support. In Africa unskilled labor can still pay what passes for a living wage. On to the first possibility.

The statistics here tell us that Africa has averaged a 3 to 6 percent increase in GDP for the last decade. This is despite AIDS, Malaria, pants-on-head retarded or just evil actions by African politicians, revolutionary wars, and otherwise being the unwashed asshole of the world. More to the point, this increase represents industrialization. For evidence see this economic diversification report.

It may not be enough yet, or even certain but it is happening.

Going back to africaneconomicoutlook.org if we look at table 10, foreign direct investment we see that the middle objection to food exports to Africa is quite strong. Africa has averaged 51 billion dollars per year of direct foreign investment. For a whole continent that's shockingly small. As shown by continual growth through massive problems... problems that are going away one by one, Africa is at the cusp of a new era. All that needs to be done is entice a rational amount of foreign investment (say, 400 billion dollars per year) by parties interested in money, not power (actual economic investment, not strings-attached economic manipulation) and it will industrialize at a clip only seen so far in China's rise to power.

If that happens:
1. The Theory's complaint will be rendered moot very quickly by African farmers reaching par for productivity.
2. Food can be freely given on the basis that the vast majority of

In which of the European Union's 24 official languages at last count should a name for something discovered in Europe be meaningful? I think they choose Greek because it's the oldest European civilization to have become literate, with whose history Europeans speaking one of the other 23 languages are expected to be familiar.

The Fine Document says:

However, large parts of the public remain apprehensive about data collection and consider that more transparency is needed. Online platforms must respond to these concerns by more effectively informing users what personal data is collected and how it is shared and used, in line with the EU data protection framework.[36] More generally, this issue includes the ways in which users identify themselves in order to access online platforms and services. It is recognised that a multitude of username and password combinations is both inconvenient and a security risk. However, the frequent practice of using one’s platform profile to access a range of websites and services often involves non-transparent exchanges and cross-linkages of personal data between various online platforms and websites. As a remedy, in order to keep identification simple and secure, consumers should be able to choose the credentials by which they want to identify or authenticate themselves. In particular, online platforms should accept credentials issued or recognised by national public authorities, such as electronic or mobile IDs, national identity cards, or bank cards.

which sounds like it would, at most, require "online platforms" to allow the use of national ID cards as credentials, but says nothing about requiring users to use them as credentials.

... one of the most important freight routes is between Genova (Italy) and Rotterdam (Netherlands): according to last year's EU report *1, in Italy 71% of the railroad infrastructure is electrified, in Switzerland it is 100%, in Germany 60%, in Netherlands 76.1%... According to another report *2, in 2009 in Europe "Around 80% of rail traffic is performed with electrified trains.", in a newer report *3 you can also compare the EU situation (p.35- Fig. 29) with USA (p.42 - Fig. 42). *1 http://ec.europa.eu/transport/... *2 http://www.uic.org/com/IMG/pdf... *3 http://www.uic.org/IMG/pdf/iea...

According to this, trains accounted for 18.2% of freight in EU. But it seems to be varying a lot by country. The same page says that "between one third and two fifths of the inland freight transported in Sweden, Slovenia and Slovakia was carried by rail in 2013; this was also the case in Switzerland."

The EU's Brussels I regulation provides for cross-border civil litigation (English PDF):

If the case is about a breach of contract, the courts of the place where the contract should have been carried out should hear the case. If the case is about non-contractual matters (tort or delict), the courts of the place where the harmful event took place are competent.

Under this rule, a Slovak distributor with exclusive rights to distribute a work in Czechoslovakia since before the breakup could sue an unfairly competing French distributor in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic, at least before the proposed "Regulation on the cross-border portability of online content services" goes into effect.

The EU's Brussels I regulation provides for cross-border civil litigation (English PDF):

If the case is about a breach of contract, the courts of the place where the contract should have been carried out should hear the case. If the case is about non-contractual matters (tort or delict), the courts of the place where the harmful event took place are competent.

Under this rule, a Slovak distributor with exclusive rights to distribute a work in Czechoslovakia since before the breakup could sue an unfairly competing French distributor in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic, at least before the proposed "Regulation on the cross-border portability of online content services" goes into effect.

exactly. who gets to decide what hate speech is real and what is imagined?

According to TFS, it will be Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and Facebook. And, you can look at the "code of conduct" here.

The Code of Conduct for those who don't wish to give TechCrunch a click, or just can't be bothered to clickthrough.

This link(EU vs disinfo) was burried deep in the story, but is rather interesting, though it is unfortunate this particular service only targets pro-Kremlin disinformation.

This one story though can apply anywhere: Three classic "disinformation recipes" put to use

"how will he create a single digital-services market, after the fact?"

By using examples like the one he gave: I want to buy this but because of these barriers, I can't (easily). Look at all the revenue you're losing. Join our European Digital Single Market and make more money.

I think he understands about the credit cards.

If it works well for public services (see korgitser's comment) the private sector will see the advantages and may have to join in anyway to gain government contracts. The key is to make it more attractive than the current walled gardens.
If that happens, problems with copyright agreements etc will melt away.

See https://ec.europa.eu/prioritie...

+1
As usual with energy, it's very informative to look at orders of magnitude.
Facts just don't fit very well with the statement from TFS.
http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I reckon it would be nice to give less power and petrodollars to Russia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, though.

"Geo-blocking and other geographically-based restrictions undermine online shopping and cross-border sales. The Digital Single Market strategy includes a commitment for an initiative to end unjustified geo-blocking by way of legislative proposals to change the e-Commerce framework or the Services Directive framework."

Germany residential rate averages 0.30 EUR/kWh, not 0.15. 0.15 EUR is industrial rate, it is something like 0.06 USD in the US.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s...

Ocean desalination? I assume you mean acidification or deoxygenation.

Here's some info for acidification:

http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-...

The current pH is lower than the last 2 million years, and looking at the graph, the rate of change appears to be the fastest on record.

I couldn't find any historical data for ocean oxygenation. There are records for temperature going back to 1880 that could be helpful in estimating oxygen exchange rates, but that's about it.

Again, I can't do anything about the fact that there are people who think that climate change is real who are blowhards, know-nothings, and even bullshitters out to make a buck. If that fact turns you off, you REALLY won't like the denialists...

Reporters who make elementary mistakes get corrected on science blogs instead of the mainstream sites where they posted the mistake. Reporters screwing up on science stories is hardly new or restricted to climate science.

I recently helped an elderly family member get tested, fitted, etc for hearing aids at an audiology office. Sure, it seems like a lot of money. But the $2,400 covers the hearing aid for three years of whatever you might happen to do to it. That breaks down to $800 per year, or less than $70 per month (per ear). That's less than a cable bill, and less than what most people - even elderly drivers - spend on gas for their cars for a month.

That said, there is one health care plan that does cover hearing aids 100% that I am aware of - the VA. I know several people who have gotten their hearing aids for free through them and they've been very happy with it.

Several health insurance plans also offer a small rebate to the customer after they purchase them. The same elderly family member I mentioned before got $500 back from these, and is eligible to do that every 3 years. While I'm not in need of them myself I believe my health insurance plan has a similar arrangement.

That difference may not play so much here in Europe where consumer electronics have a minimum two year guarantee by law. Consumer protection law that America does not prioritize because corporate profits are more important.
http://europa.eu/youreurope/ci...

On the other hand, as medical coverage here tends to be worlds better than in the US it's probably not an issue to get hearing aids here almost for free.

You are respecting the user's privacy, and the EU specifically exempts the kind of cookies you are using: http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics...

So you don't need a statement on your site, your use is exempt from the rules.

Actually lawmakers seem to understand the technical issues extremely well. Take a look at the EU site on the subject.

They clearly differentiate between different types of cookie (session/persistent, first/third party) and list exemptions for things where cookies are necessary and don't interfere too much with privacy.

The real issue here is that sites haven't bothered to read the rules and just stuck a blanket "we use cookies" banner on everything, even if they don't need one. Reading the rules carefully, most sites could easily be implemented within the exemptions, as the EU is requesting. That includes advertising, as long as the ads don't use cookies.

As it happens the Dutch are leading the way with renewables.

Leading the way? What have you been smoking? The Dutch are near the bottom of the pit for renewables, only Malta and Luxembourg fare worse in the EEU.
This proposal (which won’t be turned into a law, the government doesn't support it and nobody likes its enough to impeach the government over it) is a bad case of windowdressing by politicians that do not dare to take measures that do matter (and cost money).

Estimating Community Drug Abuse by Wastewater Analysis, Environ Health Perspect. 2008 Aug; 116(8): 1027–1032.

Wastewater analysis and drugs — a European multi-city study

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/...

The new rules will give individuals greater control over their personal data in the following ways.
The right to be forgotten (Article 17)

Any person will have the right to be âoeforgottenâ/have his or her personal data erased when he or shel no longer wants the data to be processed, provided there are no legitimate reasons for retaining it.

To enforce this right, if a person asks an internet company to erase his/her data, the company should also forward the request to any others that replicate the data.
However, this right would be restricted in some cases, for instance when the data is needed for historical, statistical and scientific purposes, for public health reasons or to exercise the right to freedom of expression.
Also, the right to be forgotten would not apply when the retention of personal data is necessary to fulfil a contract or is required by law.

Purpose of this is to ensure that Facebook, Google and various government and other agencies can't use or sell your private data if you don't want them to.
Not for convicted murderers to be able to erase their past from the internet.
Freedom of speech still applies and still includes news articles about murder.
Just as the laws pertaining to government archives about the case still apply.

Ask yourself why the US and EU increase their CO2 emissions every year, even while they bleat about "climate change".

EU's emissions are going down, actually.

Web blocking certainly is legal under UK law

And under European law, in its current form:

Article 8(2), directive 2001/29/EC: "Each Member State shall take the measures necessary to ensure that rightholders whose interests are affected by an infringing activity carried out on its territory can bring an action for damages and/or apply for an injunction and, where appropriate, for the seizure of infringing material as well as of devices, products or components referred to in Article 6(2)."

Injunctive relief (such as a blocking injunction) is specifically recognised as acceptable by the law which grants ISPs "mere conduit" status:

Article 12(3), directive 2000/31/EC: "3. This Article shall not affect the possibility for a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Member States' legal systems, of requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement."

Of course, this is just law, and could be struck down by a court on, for example, human rights grounds, and the CJEU's Advocate General made some interesting comments on human rights considerations in the context of blocking of open, free Wi-Fi recently but, to date, the courts have been relatively comfortable granting blocking injunctions.

Web blocking certainly is legal under UK law

And under European law, in its current form:

Article 8(2), directive 2001/29/EC: "Each Member State shall take the measures necessary to ensure that rightholders whose interests are affected by an infringing activity carried out on its territory can bring an action for damages and/or apply for an injunction and, where appropriate, for the seizure of infringing material as well as of devices, products or components referred to in Article 6(2)."

Injunctive relief (such as a blocking injunction) is specifically recognised as acceptable by the law which grants ISPs "mere conduit" status:

Article 12(3), directive 2000/31/EC: "3. This Article shall not affect the possibility for a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Member States' legal systems, of requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement."

Of course, this is just law, and could be struck down by a court on, for example, human rights grounds, and the CJEU's Advocate General made some interesting comments on human rights considerations in the context of blocking of open, free Wi-Fi recently but, to date, the courts have been relatively comfortable granting blocking injunctions.

In the EU there is only a requirement for ISPs to monitor users, other providers (wifi, VPN etc) don't need to keep any data.

In the EU, there is no requirement of data retention at all any more – there was, for some years, but this was struck down by the CJEU in the Digital Rights Ireland case.

However, the European directive would have covered providers of Wi-Fi services: it uses the term "publicly available electronic communications services". (Article 3(1) directive 2006/24/EC).

This definition comes from the telecommunications regulatory framework – Article 2 directive 2002/21/EC defines "electronic communications service" as "a service normally provided for remuneration which consists wholly or mainly in the conveyance of signals on electronic communications networks".

Whether the Wi-Fi service would generate or process in the course of its operation of the types of data to which a retention notice could relate (list here, Part 3 in particular) is perhaps a different matter, and likely depends on the service in question. A service requiring subscriber registration, for example, or entering an email address, may well have been in scope (for example, paragraph 11(3)).

In the EU there is only a requirement for ISPs to monitor users, other providers (wifi, VPN etc) don't need to keep any data.

In the EU, there is no requirement of data retention at all any more – there was, for some years, but this was struck down by the CJEU in the Digital Rights Ireland case.

However, the European directive would have covered providers of Wi-Fi services: it uses the term "publicly available electronic communications services". (Article 3(1) directive 2006/24/EC).

This definition comes from the telecommunications regulatory framework – Article 2 directive 2002/21/EC defines "electronic communications service" as "a service normally provided for remuneration which consists wholly or mainly in the conveyance of signals on electronic communications networks".

Whether the Wi-Fi service would generate or process in the course of its operation of the types of data to which a retention notice could relate (list here, Part 3 in particular) is perhaps a different matter, and likely depends on the service in question. A service requiring subscriber registration, for example, or entering an email address, may well have been in scope (for example, paragraph 11(3)).

In the EU there is only a requirement for ISPs to monitor users, other providers (wifi, VPN etc) don't need to keep any data.

In the EU, there is no requirement of data retention at all any more – there was, for some years, but this was struck down by the CJEU in the Digital Rights Ireland case.

However, the European directive would have covered providers of Wi-Fi services: it uses the term "publicly available electronic communications services". (Article 3(1) directive 2006/24/EC).

This definition comes from the telecommunications regulatory framework – Article 2 directive 2002/21/EC defines "electronic communications service" as "a service normally provided for remuneration which consists wholly or mainly in the conveyance of signals on electronic communications networks".

Whether the Wi-Fi service would generate or process in the course of its operation of the types of data to which a retention notice could relate (list here, Part 3 in particular) is perhaps a different matter, and likely depends on the service in question. A service requiring subscriber registration, for example, or entering an email address, may well have been in scope (for example, paragraph 11(3)).

I'm oblivious to EU laws and precedent regarding this, but I wonder if this case would have an (positive?) legal implications for TOR exit node operators...

The most interesting part of the opinion, in my view, was the clear statement that someone offering free public Wi-Fi to their customers did so as part of the "economic context" of their shop, even though they do not charge directly for it.

The reason why this is important is that the shielding law in question here — Art. 212, directive 2000/31/EC — can be invoked only by those providing an "information society service". This is defined as:

"any service normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by means of electronic equipment for the processing (including digital compression) and storage of data, and at the individual request of a recipient of a service"

As you'll have noticed, to be protected, the service must be "provided for remuneration". In this opinion, the Advocate General argues that it need not be direct remuneration, and that a link to a broader economic context is sufficient. This is logical, in the sense that it follows previous decisions, but it is an important clarification. (There is a previous decision, for example, (Papasavvas) which held that a website funded by advertising was an "information society service", even though the remuneration to the sites comes not directly from the site's users, but from the advertising broker.)

The Advocate General expressly stated that he was not considering the situation where there was no other economic context.

There is no specific European case law relating to the liability of someone running a Tor exit node. However, following the principles of the opinion (not yet a court ruling) here, someone running a Tor exit node would probably be well-advised to try to bring their activities within the scope of an economic context. That could be running the exit node alongside some other business, or offering subscription plans (well, supporter plans, I suspect) for would-be users of Tor (even if not of that specific exit node) to contribute to the running of the system, or something else which made it part of an economic activity. Someone running a Tor exit node, or an open Wi-Fi connection, from their home network, without an economic context, looks unlikely to be shielded by this law, if the court chooses to follow the Advocate General's ruling.

(My general comments on the opinion are here.)

I'm oblivious to EU laws and precedent regarding this, but I wonder if this case would have an (positive?) legal implications for TOR exit node operators...

The most interesting part of the opinion, in my view, was the clear statement that someone offering free public Wi-Fi to their customers did so as part of the "economic context" of their shop, even though they do not charge directly for it.

The reason why this is important is that the shielding law in question here — Art. 212, directive 2000/31/EC — can be invoked only by those providing an "information society service". This is defined as:

"any service normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by means of electronic equipment for the processing (including digital compression) and storage of data, and at the individual request of a recipient of a service"

As you'll have noticed, to be protected, the service must be "provided for remuneration". In this opinion, the Advocate General argues that it need not be direct remuneration, and that a link to a broader economic context is sufficient. This is logical, in the sense that it follows previous decisions, but it is an important clarification. (There is a previous decision, for example, (Papasavvas) which held that a website funded by advertising was an "information society service", even though the remuneration to the sites comes not directly from the site's users, but from the advertising broker.)

The Advocate General expressly stated that he was not considering the situation where there was no other economic context.

There is no specific European case law relating to the liability of someone running a Tor exit node. However, following the principles of the opinion (not yet a court ruling) here, someone running a Tor exit node would probably be well-advised to try to bring their activities within the scope of an economic context. That could be running the exit node alongside some other business, or offering subscription plans (well, supporter plans, I suspect) for would-be users of Tor (even if not of that specific exit node) to contribute to the running of the system, or something else which made it part of an economic activity. Someone running a Tor exit node, or an open Wi-Fi connection, from their home network, without an economic context, looks unlikely to be shielded by this law, if the court chooses to follow the Advocate General's ruling.

(My general comments on the opinion are here.)

Islamists are responsible for about 5% of terror attacks in the US and 2% in Europe.

The EuroStat statistics are horribly misleading. From the 2015 report (PDF).

On page 8 (emphasis mine):

Type of terrorism
As in previous years, separatist terrorism continued to be the dominant type of terrorism in court proceedings in 2014. The vast majority of separatist terrorism verdicts (92%) were pronounced in Spain. Courts in Denmark, France, Lithuania and Germany also issued verdicts in relation to separatist terrorism.

And on page 4 it says:

In Spain, reported terrorist attacks continued to decrease from 54 in 2012, to 33 in 2013, to 18 in 2014. In both countries, all attacks, except one that happened in Spain, were classified as separatist. The attacks in Spain did not cause casualties.

In fact, ETA hasn't killed anyone since their ceasefire in 2010, which they later amended to be permanent so that's over 100 terror "attacks" without loss of life as far as I can tell. Meanwhile a single islamist attack in Paris cost 130 lives with zero convictions because they're dead. No wonder they don't show up in arrest statistics.

The higher you set the threshold, the more obvious the relation gets. If you look at terrorist attacks that have killed more than 10 people in the EU since 2000 that list is presumably quite complete and it's as follows:

2004: Madrid train bombings, 191 dead - islamists
2005: London subway bombings, 52 dead - islamists
2015: Charlie Hebdo attack, 18 dead - islamists
2015: Paris attacks, 130 dead - islamists

Are you starting to see a pattern? Feel free to make the same list for the US.

Reductio ad absurdum I must not live in Europe. In my country, college is neither free nor you have to accumulate debt nor you have to earn spots (There are some exceptions but not the general rule). You just pay your tuition (For example, 835€ a year for UE student but 374 € for low income and in some cases 0€, you may even receive money and a place to live).

Europe educational and social system is far from being uniform. You cannot say "There's a dirty little secret regarding the European 'free college' program": there are no such thing as an European College Program. There are a multitude of programs in Europe with various systems. And there are a lot of countries were just a secondary school (high school, I think for US) diploma is required, for example, in Germany.

Whatever, you just seem to have in mind "(nearly) free tuition" is impossible/wrong/... for idontknow wich reason and any lie seems good to support your preconception.

none of the EU member countries have yet created legislation to enact the 2015 "net neutrality" laws

Nor did I say they had. All I did in my OP was to ask whether this violated network neutrality, a principle that many in the EU are pushing for. See here. The rest is a bunch of delusions and straw men on your part.

Common carrier in the US has a legal meaning, it does not in the UK.

What a brilliant insight! Next you'll tell us that there are no elevators in the UK! And to top it off you'll observe (correctly) that ISPs don't have common carrier status in the US! You are just amazingly good at missing the point!

yes, it does result in fewer accidents: here 1km/hr = 3% more or less

If this ever become widespread, there would be a law introduced to curb it. We already got a law protecting aftermarket parts and non-vendor service station for cars: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal...

http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg...
Selecting Berlin, for a 2-axis tracking mount, a 1kW panel outputs on average over the year 1300kWh, or 15% or so of nominal expected power.
This is questionably above 900kWh (11%) for a non-pointed much simpler static mount.
However.
7776 'solar cells' - these are not solar panels.
The pictured thing looks very much like a simple fixed vertical panel.
This would come out to 700kWh or so/kWp of panel.

If we assume they talk of germany - 'up to 30000kWh/year' would mean you'd need 42kW of solar panel.
This would be around 230m^2.
Checking https://vimeo.com/154154924 - it gives dimensions of 25*5.5m. This is 137m^2.
This sort of vertically oriented panel is relatively insensitive to position on the earth - as it gets worse as you go towards the equator.

Ew. I think I see what they're doing.
If you cover a vertical panel of 25*5m in solar panels, and point is south/north, then you get 17000 out of the south-pointing, and 4290 out of the south.
This is (in Berlin) 21300.
If however, we put this in the sunniest part of Spain, we get about 28000, which could hit 30000 with optimistic assumptions.

It's a truly terrible design though from most aspects.
If we take 50kWp of solar panels in this design, and simply lay them out flat pointed southish and inclined, we get not 21000 in Berlin, but 48000.

Putting it in the sunniest part of spain gets you 78000.

The numbers for this also work for '7776' solar cells. Conventional solar cells used in panels produce about 6W for the cream of the crop.

I've got no idea why the "k" before the "â" [1] mysteriously disappeared

There shouldn't be anything before the € anyway.

http://publications.europa.eu/...

[1] Slashdot mangles it, as you can see. Better to use the iso code. It's EUR.

2. Member States may require the persons concerned to provide evidence that they have:

(a) stable and regular resources which are sufficient to maintain themselves and the members of their families, without recourse to the social assistance of the Member State concerned. For each of the categories referred to in Article 14(2), Member States shall evaluate these resources by reference to their nature and regularity and may take into account the level of minimum wages and pensions;

(b) sickness insurance covering all risks in the second Member State normally covered for its own nationals in the Member State concerned.

since free movement of people is one of founding principles of EU - it can't happen.

That's free movement of workers within the EU, i.e. if you already live in an EU state, you're free to pick up and go seek employment in another EU state. If you're not already living in an EU state, you don't fall under that principle.

I thought you guys were supposed to know shit. You don't need a tank of hydrogen to power a hydrogen fuel cell. THIS IS NOT NEWS. http://www.fch.europa.eu/proje...

On Jan 25th, 2016 "the world will reach a point of no return".

Of course, the world did not just continue on its pre-2006 path, but has been making changes. In the US and Europe, GHG emissions are down by 5-10%. Even globally, CO2 emissions seem to be leveling off and that before the recent global agreement. Nevermind that the "point of no return" was about conditions likely to produce a couple of degrees temperature rise in 2100, not the date when New York City would be taken back into the sea.

Sure, the activists tend to use worse-case predictions (in exactly the same way that the "deniers" use better-case predictions). But it's disingenuous to pick out some 10-year old predictions, ignore the corrective actions taken to prevent disaster, and claim that the predictors were idiots. Remember the Y2K problem and how it turned out to be no-big-deal? That's not an argument to ignore the Epoch bug.

I'll leave this and this here for you.

Further reading if desired. (those are the first 4 links in my search [5th link] - I didn't know why it would hurt either, so I Google'd it.).