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I still can't see that that's somehow wrong. As you and I have both said, there can be serious repercussions for demonstrating, even if you have every right to do so. Discrimination still happens and it looks like those employment protections you mention depend on where you live https://www.google.co.uk/amp/w...

You will never actually enjoy those employment protections unless the discriminatory employer is incredibly and unusually stupid. Generally in these situations, the reason given is some vague bullshit like "wasn't a good fit for the team" and you will never prove any intent to discriminate. Of course, that's supposing you have the time (potentially years) and enormous financial resources it takes to bring a lawsuit against a multinational corporation. In all likelihood, you won't even be able to try, let alone prevail.

Once again, there's the way the system is supposed to work, in theory. Then there's the real-world way that the system actually works, in practice. Laws on the books sound nice and they're a step in the right direction, helping to prevent the very most blatant and obvious abuses. Yet, they have no real deterrent effect without a swift and certain mechanism to enforce them. The only pragmatic effect they have is that the abuses go slightly underground, hiding behind vague reasons that you will never actionably disprove.

I still can't see that that's somehow wrong. As you and I have both said, there can be serious repercussions for demonstrating, even if you have every right to do so. Discrimination still happens and it looks like those employment protections you mention depend on where you live https://www.google.co.uk/amp/w...

There are different national versions of Scrabble. Here's Icelandic

What Icelandic "Scrabble" pieces might look like.

They do!

Have seen who works is healthcare these days? Ever been to an old people's home?

Immigrants do the jobs we don't want to. They pay more tax they take from society.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s...

We need them. Like it or not!

I expect the reactions to abuse and death threats to be the same no matter what. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/d...

Yep https://www.google.co.uk/url?s...

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

The one right below Panama, or are you being pedantic about the o/u

Someone please paste this every time someone reprints this amazing "let's get rid of timezones" idea.

So you want to abolish time zones

Laudable!

Let's take a look at some of the changes that arise from this, through a simple case study: making an international phone call to a relative.

Before abolishing time zones

I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?

Google tells me it is currently 4:25am there.

It's probably best not to call right now.

After abolishing time zones

I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?

It's 4:25am there, same as it is here, of course! Same as it is in New York, Bangalore and Hawaii, at the South Pole and on the Moon.

Well, hold on a second. First of all, we need to straighten out some terminology. The terms "a.m." and "p.m." (ante meridian and post meridian) are strongly deprecated now, because they refer to the position of the Sun, not of the clock. With time zones, these were roughly the same, but now the position of the clock is objective whereas the position of the Sun is subjective. In much of the world, they do not agree in the slightest. 12:00 is nowhere near the middle of the solar day, if it's even during the solar day. Likewise, 00:00 is nowhere near the middle of the solar night. Worse, in many places there is still a "7pm" (i.e. 7 in the afternoon), but it's at 07:00. Similarly, "7 in the morning" is at 19:00... but is followed by "8 in the afternoon", because the Sun passes its zenith at 19:30.

So, you have to say "solar noon" to refer to the instant when the Sun is at its zenith, and "twelve hundred hours" to refer to the instant when the clock reads 12:00. Similarly "solar midnight" and "zero hundred hours". And you have to use the twenty-four hour clock, it's the only way to be unambiguous.

So to rephrase: I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?

It is 04:25 ("four twenty-five") there, same as it is here.

Does that mean I can call him?

I don't know.

*

...Well, put it this way. I'm in the UK. He's in Australia. How far ahead of me is he?

He isn't. Not at all. Uncle Steve is zero hours ahead. Melbourne, Australia is on the same time zone, the same week day and the same calendar date as me, and the rest of the world. We have blissful disambiguation. We have eliminated time zones, daylight saving and the international date line.

I still don't know if I can call my uncle, though!

*

Alright, there must be a way to work this out. We can find out what hours Uncle Steve's office operates, add a few hours beforehand for breakfast, and a few more hours after that for evening activities. Then we can see whether 04:25 falls in that range.

Well, those ranges. I'm in the UK, and a typical "nine to five" office (hah, bit of an anachronism there) now operates multiple ranges of times each day:

Monday 17:00 to 24:00

Tuesday 00:00 to 01:00, 17:00 to 24:00

Wednesday00:00 to 01:00, 17:00 to 24:00

Thursday 00:00 to 01:00, 17:00 to 24:00

Friday 00:00 to 01:00, 17:00 to 24:00

Saturday 00:00 to 01:00

Sunday closed

Although, some people go home early on Saturday evening, because that's the start of the weekend. "Saturday evening" means around 01:00 in the UK at this time of year. (It can vary seasonally.) Some people even go home as early as 23:00, which is Friday evening. The second Friday evening, that is. There are two Friday evenings now. In this country, anyway.

In any case, you can see very easily (?) that if it's currently 04:25, then my office closed a few hours ago.

It's actually Saturday today, so in fact my office is closed for the weekend.

*

But there's another dangerous word: "today". You can't say "it's Saturday today" anymore. It's more correct to say that "it's Saturday

Documentary voice - Now let us all bow our heads in payment...

Slartibartfast - Just don't nod...

https://books.google.co.uk/boo...

snake

Quantum of Solace, however, was (presumably accidentally) actually appropriately named - when do you actually see Bond have any solace in that movie?

The title would imply that he was getting the smallest possible amount, but that would still be more than none. Anyway, I'm not sure that this doesn't count as a quantum of "solace", if not a lot more. :-)

Anyway, yeah. The title of the film was a bit of a contrivance (especially given the criminal organisation was apparently called Quantum), given that it was taken from an entirely different short story by Fleming that only had the character of Bond in common and wasn't even really about him per se; but in which context the title made complete sense.

You are taking advantage of a loophole of ambiguity in the English language with the word "why" and pretending it makes you clever.

Alright, if you want to get all word definitions. I'm going to useGoogle's definition, but I'm sure you'll want to reply with something obscure next.

Adverb:

for what reason or purpose.

Yep, explained that.

(with reference to a reason) on account of which; for which.

Explained that too.

Didn't use it in exclamation.

Noun:

a reason or explanation.

Yep, explained that too

Sorry, I don't see a problem here.

Add me to that list as well.

Just started reading The Dark Forest too, as it happens.

Both very enjoyable, and I think the 3rd one is out at the end of this year sometime.

This is a pretty insightful, yet very worrying, comment.

I recently finished The Conundrum by David Owen, and in it he gives the following figures (albeit quoted from someone else's paper, but, since I've returned the book to the library I'm afraid I no longer remember who the original study was by):

We, as in mankind in totality, currently consumes energy at a 'rate' of 16 trillion watts (16 terawatts).

Limiting atmospheric CO2 to 450 ppm will require freezing this energy consumption and converting all bar 20% of it to energy from carbon neutral sources. This conversion will require building (for example - we can dicker about what proportions of these various carbon neutral sources suit our preferences another time):

100 square meters of solar cells, 50 square meters of solar thermal reflectors, and one Olympic size swimming pool’s volume of g’engineered algae for biofuels every second for the next 25 years, and

1 three hundred foot diameter wind turbine every five minutes, and 1 one hundred megawatt geothermal powered steam turbine every eight hours, and 1 three gigawatt nuclear power plant every week, also all for the next 25 years.

The sheer scale of the problem boggles my mind! It is absolutely no wonder many people would prefer to bury their heads in the sand. But, it is precisely because of this scale that governments need to address the issue. Action on an individual level, however admirable it might be, is simply not sufficient, far from it - and, as you'll see if you read the book, might actually be exacerbating the problem.

On that note, while I can't say I agree with everything he says within the book it is a very very good and thought provoking read, and I'd really recommend it for anyone who's not prone to fits of despair / nihilism.

Are you dense? This happened Sep 9th. Recall wasn't official then.

Stay away from poorly engineered Android phones I guess.

And links to a google search showing iphones burning up too!
:-)

No, the adverb form is "every day."

I asked Google and Google said "adverb: every day; adverb: every-day; adverb: everyday". Sorry, I don't see the issue.

That sort of thing happens in the UK all the time. Usually they'll make it a roundabout to simplify it if there's room.

Yandex is pretty good

In the UK, Virgin Media is actively trying to intercept access to disk.yandex

For your amusement

05 pres-core-2b-ae16-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.254.42.30) 21.594 ms 21.589 ms 21.541 ms
06 wb7301b.network.virginmedia.net (213.105.115.6) 25.037 ms 22.733 ms 22.670 ms
07 * * *
08 m686-mp2.cvx1-b.lis.dial.ntli.net (62.254.42.174) 31.364 ms 26.466 ms 25.174 ms
09 213.46.174.10 (213.46.174.10) 25.123 ms 31.205 ms 29.875 ms
10 ae-238-3614.edge6.Amsterdam1.Level3.net (4.69.162.246) 31.536 ms ae-237-3613.edge6.Amsterdam1.Level3.net (4.69.162.242) 31.351 ms ae-238-3614.edge6.Amsterdam1.Level3.net (4.69.162.246) 31.485 ms
11 YANDEX-EURO.edge6.Amsterdam1.Level3.net (212.72.47.202) 31.421 ms 31.768 ms 31.587 ms
12 jansson-et-4-1-0.yndx.net (213.180.213.95) 72.745 ms 72.703 ms 71.417 ms
13 std-p2-hu0-1-0-1.yndx.net (213.180.213.125) 76.205 ms 80.422 ms 80.749 ms
14 iva-b-c2-ae7.yndx.net (87.250.239.14) 87.084 ms 88.736 ms 91.979 ms
15 * * *
16 * front.disk.yandex.ru (213.180.193.50) 84.014 ms 83.769 ms
17 front.disk.yandex.ru (213.180.193.50) 76.285 ms 76.022 ms 75.978 ms

Note Hop 6 wb7301b.network.virginmedia.net, this *was* just their IWF filter/blocker, but is also their means of blocking domains the UK courts at the behest of the MAFIAA tell them to.

As the connections to it are usually encrypted, it's rather curious how the first connection now invariably fails with a 'network error' but works on second attempt...far be it from me to suggest some sort of MITM SSL proxy fucking around going on....better get my tinfoil hat on..

So according to that link extra mass causes an atmosphere to heat up, so if the Earth is getting warmer then logically it must have taken on more mass very recently. Care to show us where that extra mass is hiding?

And if atmospheric composition doesn't matter, why is Venus 30x hotter than Earth when it only receives 2x the solar insolation and has slightly less mass?

Not to mention we've known about Jupiter's internal heat source since 1969.

Yes that entire site is starting to sound like one big straw man isn't it? Or straw planet, perhaps?

Recently I have been reading The Geek Manifesto and one of the many interesting points it makes involves Republicans and science:

"We need to be careful, though, that in making science a political issue we don't allow it to become a polarizing one. It would be dangerous for its interests to become too closely aligned with those of a single party. The risk is that the other side will see us as hostile opponents they will never win over, and fail to give us the hearing we deserve ... excess politicization of this sort has been a significant factor in the damaging breakdown in relations between science and the Republican Party in the US."

In other words, faced with perceived attacks on their worldview they have retrenched, creating additional walls. One of the problems here is that these walls cannot simply be smashed down, it's a battle that cannot be won by 'violence'.

Unfortunately it is also the case that there are a number of people who benefit from the continuing 'war' between the Republican Party and science, I think we have an inkling as to who they might be.

I wish I could see, and suggest, an easy solution to the problem, as we'd all benefit from everyone, on all sides of the political spectrum, seeing slightly more clearly, and being less antagonistic to each other. Then again, perhaps that is part of the answer, be less antagonistic to people who do not share our opinions. Be prepared to listen to them, I mean really listen, and look forward to that golden moment when they say something that causes us to change our mind, however ridiculously unlikely that may seem.

By the tail end of the campaign everyone was pretty clear about the fact we would not be pumping £350 million into the NHS.

Where everybody is defined as the top 10% of the country educationally and maybe 20% in London. On the day before the vote the Brexiters were still standing in front of the Brexit Bus. Many voters said things like "it will be better to send £350 Million to the NHS" when interviewed.

What the Brexit guys were saying was that we'd not be sending £350 million a week over the Channel and letting the EU bureacrats decide how it got spent.

That wasn't what I ever heard them say at the beginning. That was their backup explanation when questioned by their opponents. Even that's a lie because the EU rebate was about 100million and reduced the direct payment so there was only 250 million actually being sent out. Lies within Lies.

As I understand it we have a net deficit of about £100-150 million between what goes out and what comes back in terms of EU grants etc. They were saying this excess money could be largely spent on the NHS and a few other projects.

Again it's another, but more subtle lie. Poorer regions of the EU tend to consume and richer ones produce. In the UK's case mostly financial services. Whilst the UK is in the EU it's part of the single market which means that the other countries can't impose tariffs on that flow of money, so a huge flow of money comes into UK private industry and thus into UK government coffers. The payments to the EU which are distributed back to those poorer countries very partially compensate. Overall, the UK gets far more money than it gives out.

The most important thing is that they were saying that the UK Government would be free to decide how the entire £350 million/ week would be spent. Some of this money (science, agriculture, regional aid) would be spent in the same way, but the UK Government would probably have different priorities than the EU and target this money differently.

Please don't repeat the £350 million. Only £250 million was being sent. However,

However the thing that really won for Leave was Immigration control, not the economy. Many people were willing vote Leave and take a hit on the economy if it meant regaining control over who came in the country and who could be kicked out.

This is largely true. Though, again, the lack of understanding of what the real causes and effects were was astounding. People believed that immigrants have a bad effect on the NHS when in fact they tend to be younger, healthier, higher earning and often working directly for the NHS. Given the stories they believed about the effect of immigrants it's not difficult to see why this had a big influence

As for me personally, I abstained, believing the EU was good for me personally, but probably not so good for the many lower paid in the country.

The lower paid will be the ones who lose their benefits and also the ones who will be unable to move abroad. We will be back in the times of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet without the ability to escape. The lower paid will be the ones who lack the resources to adapt.

Inflation was high in the seventies afaik, need to know if the chart is adjusted accordingly.

see:
https://www.google.co.uk/imgre...

(and holy crap, look at that negative inflation in the 20's)

The Miocene Epoch, 23.03 to 5.3 million years ago,* was a time of warmer global climates than those in the preceeding Oligocene or the following Pliocene and it's notable in that two major ecosystems made their first appearances: kelp forests and grasslands. The expansion of grasslands is correlated to a drying of continental interiors as the global climate first warmed and then cooled.

That's just a bit confusing - is it a "first appearance" of grasslands, an "expansion of grasslands, or possibly an appearance followed by an expansion. Also note that they're careful to talk of the ecosystem "grassland" rather than specific grass species.

A book on palaeopedology (the science of studying ancient soil deposits ; do I need to point out that changing from (say) open forest to grassland will affect soil structure in ways that will be detectable?) talks on the changes in spore abundance, with diagrams. See particularly fig 20.3 on p.303.

Ah, I'd forgotten about that. C3 versus C4 plants. The Neogene transition from C3 to C4 grasslands in North America: assemblage analysis of fossil phytoliths I'd forgotten bout the C3-C4 transition. (I'm not a plants or fossils person - more high grade metamorphics for me. Plus shit-bagging for pay.)

The rapid ecological expansion of grasses with C4 photosynthesis at the end of the Neogene (8-2 Ma) is well documented in the fossil record of stable carbon isotopes. As one of the most profound vegetation changes to occur in recent geologic time, it paved the way for modern tropical grassland ecosystems.

This was a major change. There was discussion a couple of years ago about using genetic engineering to copy the C4 carbon fixation path from grasses into other crop plants for IIRC a 20% improvement in efficiency. Worth considering, but a lot of work, and not popular with the Greens.

... this broadly synchronous change, long after the evolutionary origin of the C4 pathway in grasses. To date, these hypotheses have suffered from a lack of direct evidence for floral composition and structure during this important transition.

And the paper I'm quoting then provides evidence of the change. The paper is open access, so you cn sweat it as much as you like, but the clearest indicator of change I can see is a decline in tree cover in their study area through the time interval - fig 4-A

The increase in abundance of grasslands in the Miocene is well established, even if the actual families of grasses evolved much earlier. Which does rather raise the question of why it took so long between evolution of the grasses and the development and increase of the grassland ecoystems of the world. That's a good question.

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp...

Yeah really. *I had no idea that Trump would actually become president [telegraph.co.uk] just because I voted for him!*

Trump analogy usage aside (#), the interesting thing about that "regretful Brexit voter" story is it appears on the Daily Telegraph website; the Telegraph being the quintessential "quality" broadsheet rag of the right-wing, conservative, "Middle England"- and indeed, "Little Englander"- demographic whose stereotypical reader is a retired colonel in the English home counties.

In short, the paper whose readers- and editors- you would expect to be among the most enthusiastic Brexiteers.

Guess now it's all over there isn't much to lose, given that even Nigel Farage announced the morning after that the "£350m a week for the NHS" figure the Brexit campaign had been spewing about was actually BS. (##)(The same figure that pretty much any unbiased observers had been saying was BS for weeks, but if you repeat a lie enough...)

Anyway, yeah. I bloody regret that she and her countrymen voted that way as well. I also regret that there wasn't an easy way to have her live with the consequences of her decision while I didn't have to. Believe me, I've no sympathy for any of the Little Englanders who for years swallowed (and regurgitated) the endless anti-EU propaganda that used it as a whipping boy for everything under the sun while failing to acknowledge its successes. Oh, what? You didn't really want to leave the EU despite years of saying you did? You didn't realise the consequences of voting leave?

Fuck off. It's too late for you to start crying now. You shat the bed; now you have to lie in it.

(#) It's a legitimate analogy, and makes a point I already suspected regarding Trump voters' "we're voting for him to punish the establishment" mentality. But as someone who lives in Scotland- i.e. currently part of the UK- you'll forgive me if I'm currently more interested in the actual story than its reduction into an analogy for US-centric purposes.

(##) As if- even if they *did* have that extra £350m- UKIP would spend it on the NHS they're ideologically opposed to. (Given UKIP's stereotypcal popularity with defecting members of the right wing of the Conservative party- a faction which is itself known for being blatantly anti-NHS, what the hell would anyone expect?!)

Remember poor Joe Cox before you vote tomorrow. Don't give away our children's future to the narrow minded, hateful, economically unproductive brexit supporters. Don't let hatred win over growth!

For posterity's sake: Google has changed their UK homepage to include a link, "In remembrance of Jo Cox MP", at the bottom. The link is to a GoFundMe page to raise money to "establish a foundation to continue advancing the causes closest to Jo's heart and to help give her a lasting legacy".

Of course one of those causes is "refugee support", an issue tied to the upcoming Brexit vote. Google UK put this on their homepage one day before the vote.

Don't listen to this conspiracy theory racist filth.

Remember poor Joe Cox before you vote tomorrow. Don't give away our children's future to the narrow minded, hateful, economically unproductive brexit supporters. Don't let hatred win over growth!

"Google's search results are developed by a politically neutral team of various multiculturalisms and higher income levels."

You already can to that to some extent. When I look at streets in London I can often choose to go back and look at previous Street View images over several years:

Eg looking at the end of Ely Place here in 2009:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

Rgds

Damon

RUD = "Rapid Unplanned Disassembly" has been around a _lot_ longer than ksp.

See google books for one example from 1991, but it goes back much further than that.

Director: Benjamin William Stubbs
https://www.linkedin.com/in/be...
https://www.facebook.com/ben.s...

Born 7 November 1991 and is 24 years old
Mother : Andrea Stubbs
Father : Graham Stubbs
Siblings : Lucy https://www.facebook.com/lucy.... and Jessica https://www.facebook.com/xXStu....
Home Address: Yew Tree Farm, Wetton, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, DE6 2AF
United Kingdom
https://www.google.com/maps/@5...

Director: STEPHEN PAUL THORNHILL
Born October 1964 and is 51 years old
https://www.linkedin.com/in/st...
https://www.facebook.com/steve...
Father: Roger Thornhill
Mother: Zandra Knight https://www.facebook.com/zandr...
Children: Alice Thornhill, Emily Thornhill https://www.facebook.com/emily...

Company Secretary: VICTORIA LOUISE EVANS
Born February 1966 and is 50 years old
66 Allport Road, Cannock, United Kingdom, WS11 1DY
https://www.facebook.com/vicky...
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

Wonder if theres 2 guys in that garage!

I wrote a PhD on this technique as a way to support collaborative learning by allowing third-party annotation sharing: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.431525

In essence, the only way to do this without storing a copy of the original page (which has merit, but is challenging legally and in terms of disk space), is to store the annotations, pull in the page and then merge the annotations and send the output to the viewer. So it is basically acting as a proxy, but means that there are potential issues with orphaned annotations - the more dynamic nature of the web today would cause real problems in getting any kind of consistent output for two different people, or even for the same person at different times. I have to admit, I was looking at the educational side of things and so the security issues were less of a consideration, but things like the injection of malicious code, invisible amendments (e.g. censorship) to the underlying text, etc. were all pretty obvious.

Anyway, the technique itself was far from novel when I started working on my PhD, but given the continued citations to papers that I published back (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=KK_EFSUAAAAJ&hl=en) then it seems to still be an area of active research.

Looked up a few of the locations mentioned in TFA. They are indeed in Russia, but over 100km from the Chernobyl site in Ukraine with a chunk of Belarus in the way. Google Map.

There is potential to use tree growth (and tree damage), combined with dendrochronology (dating events by analysis of tree growth rings), as a tool for extending earthquake records beyond the precise knowledge of written history.

Actually, it's not a new technique. E.g. : in the 80s (approx), studies of salt-water killed coastal trees in Cascadia helped to tie down the last large Cascadia earthquake to the winter of 1700, and then tie that to the 26th January from (written) Japanese records of an "Orphan" tsunami.

Even so ... yes there is potentially useful data there. What would I do? Using the "jaw-cracker words" in Google (since long words are eschewed by casual writers, generally). So ... "dendrochronology" and "seismology" should be a good start ... https://www.google.co.uk/searc... gives, a course description from Silesia (that's home to the "Silesian" period - Mississippian or Pennsyllvanian in the US) of "Application and importance of dendrochronological methods in climatology, geomorphology, hydrology, archaeology, forest ecology, volcanology, seismology." (It's an early undergrad course ; probably the Cascadia example.)

Oh, this looks like the dog's dangly bits : http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

APPLICATION OF TREE RING ANALYSIS TO PALEOSEISMOLOGY Abstract. Knowledge of a region's seismicity is one of the keys to estimating earthquake hazards. Unfortunately, historical records are generally inadequate for evaluations of seismicity.
Paleoseismology addresses this problem using various techniques for dating earthquake- disturbed materials. Trees, with widespread distribution, identifiable annual growth increments, and sensitivity to environmental change, can provide a unique tool for dating past earthquake events

Interesting point. I'll pay more attention to it in the future. It isn't exactly ignored at the moment, but might deserve more attention.

In the middle of London, just outside Fenchurch Street station: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

And 50 metres away: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

In the middle of London, just outside Fenchurch Street station: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

And 50 metres away: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/...

A quick google shows that scientists are working on it and that it may be possible.
https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

1st hit:
Early Warning System For Earthquakes: Seismic 'Stress Meter' Warned Of Earthquake 10 Hours In Advance

Also a little like the robots from Silent Running; not so much in how they mechanically work, but more so in the visual appearance of a bipedal robot that's relatively wide compared with it's hight.

Do you think... nah... they wouldn't.... okay, do you think Google/Alphabet use midgets too?

If it's throttled at 64 kbps, or even 128 kbps, you can't download everything you want. Most web sites will time out before they're done loading, and video streaming becomes impossible.

Strange, but I used to use video conferencing on dial-up at 30 kbps up / 56 kbps down kbps. Now, I'm not going to claim that it was 4k ultra-def 3dTV standard (or whatever this weeks buzz word is). But it was adequate for conversation with colleagues, and hooking the webcam up to the microscope to show them what I was talking about. Limited to 2-hour time chunks, of course, after which I had to dial in again. But it worked.

You might wish to revisit the definition of "impossible"

As far as I can see the management are determined to floor the share price as quickly as possible. And this is just one more way they can help do that, although in mitigation I'm sure there can't be THAT many new parents at Twitter in any given year, so it's probably not hugely expensive. Also as you say, it's not something a singleton can resent given the propagation of the species is quite important and being a new parent is utterly horrific for the first 20 weeks. It's swings and roundabouts with kids isn't it.

Who actually trusts Google anymore?

I'm not sure Maybe I should go to my usual source to find out.

Waaaaiiiitttt....

That's fine if you're able bodied but what if you're in a wheelchair, have a pushchair, a disability, carrying heavy shopping?

All the busses round here have automatically extending ramps for wheelchairs. Some of them also have pneumatic suspension so they can lower themselves down to help people who are less abled (e.g. crutches). It is generally considered good form to give up one's seat to someone in need of it and in fact some seats are dedicated to the purpose.

HAve some pictures:

http://www.google.co.uk/search...

In fact the busses even have a special stop request bell in the wheelchair bay so the driver even knows in advance when the wheelchair user is getting off, so they can extend the ramp.

Pushchairs are easy to get on and off anyway. I've done it and it's not hard. I've also helped random strangers numerous times at train and underground stations with carrying push chairs up and down flights of stairs. I'm not ususual in this regard.

Heavy shopping, well, one can generally put it on the floor when the bus is in motion. That's what I do.

Imagine a world without lawyers https://www.google.co.uk/url?s...

Hydrogen has a higher diffusivity than helium. Seems to be about 25% higher.[PDF]

That seems to be about diffusion of gaseous things within H2, not diffusion of H2 through solids.

Since I've never heard of such a thing, please provide a link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/f...
http://www.google.co.uk/search...

Note: given that hydrogen, even when diatomic, is smaller than Helium,

Really? The atomic radius of Helium is 31pm http://periodictable.com/Prope... whereas the bond length for H2 is 74 pm http://www.wiredchemist.com/ch...

Helium, it doesn't need to be "soluble" in metal to diffuse better.

I like hopw you've never heard of it, can't be arsed to google, then use disparaging scare quotes because you want to be a consescending. Turns out you should have googled. It's a real thing.

If that were true, and it's not quite established that it is, all that would mean is that you have more shitty laws than we do. You've had more time to create them. Legality has never been the same as morality or even common sense, and is often not aligned with the will or good of the people, so your argument ("the law says so") is stupid.

Find me a law that isn't shitty they are all written from the point of view that in order to stop a minority of people doing something we have to make it illegal for everybody. As for laws in foreign countries being shittier than ours I'm sure that holds true from the point of view of citizens of most civilized countries where the police actually get prosecuted if they shoot dead an unarmed civilian who was trying to surrender. However, that's not true for my country ( https://www.google.co.uk/url?s... ) or yours.

Would you buy a car that came equipped with an explosive that would, under certain circumstances, explode and kill the driver?

You mean like an airbag? https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

it is patented, here it is https://www.google.co.uk/paten... differential workfactor encryption, as used in the International version of IBM Lotus Notes until the US government decided not to classify encryption as heavy munitions. It gives the US government 40 bits of encryption to crack and everyone else gets 128 bits. (and you can vary the assisted evesdropper and workfactors to taste). As far as I am aware they never once gave a single shit about it whilst they had it, and never wanted other products to implement it.

I expect BGA have one corner cut off to prevent incorrect installation... Nope, notches instead for i7

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres....

So is it Britain or England? I'ts not 'rocket science' guys.

As the other guy said, Britain or England are both correct, since England is a part of Britain and despite their position quite some distance from the mainland, the Scilly Isles are still considered part of England.

As a nationalistic Scot, I dislike when "England" and "Britain" are used interchangeably, and the headline/summary discrepancy does smack of that being the reason- however, since it was still technically correct I wasn't going to make a deal of it until you made that comment.

(You can stop reading here if you don't want a confusingly-detailed breakdown of the various terms. Just at least do me a favour as long as I have to remain technically British and don't assume "English" and "British" are synonyms! )

FWIW, if one wants to start nitpicking, the term "Britain" on its own isn't really well-enough defined in modern usage to argue over- beyond the fact it definitely *isn't* synonymous with "England". Generally "Britain" tends to be used even by people here as synonymous with the political state of the United Kingdom (i.e. the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"). "Great Britain" is the geographic term for the main island including Scotland, England and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, hence the full name of the UK. Meanwhile, the "British Isles"- a geographic term- includes the island of Ireland (part of which is of course an entirely independent country), along with some others such as the Isle of Man and the aforementioned Scilly Isles. (Some people in the Irish Republic dislike the term "British Isles", which is understandable given the use of "British" above).

What's really going to bake your noodle is that whereas the Scilly Isles are considered part of England, the Isle of Man, despite being a British crown dependency roughly the same distance from the mainland, isn't even technically a part of the United Kingdom itself... :-/

Actually, now that I've looked into it, the Channel Islands (i.e. Guernsey and Jersey) are also considered a part of the "British Isles"- a nominally geographic term- despite the fact they're far closer to- and more obviously associated with- France. One might suspect they were only counted as part of the "British Isles" for political reasons, since they're British crown dependencies, albeit not a part of the UK itself (like the Isle of Man).

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

Yes, people have multiple consoles across the generations and use them to play older games where they're not able to play them on the newer systems.