Slashdot Mirror

I'm going to miss Bert Jansch more, but still a sad loss.

It's perfect timing to take a revenge against Apple...

Except the specific patents they chose to use against Apple cannot be used as weapons, at least not without potentially serious repercussions. Samsung committed those patents to a patent pool in order to establish an interoperable 3G standard incorporating its ideas. Those patents *must be licensed fairly* to any and all who want to use the 3G standard, under FRAND commitments that Samsung committed itself to.

These patents *cannot* be used to coerce competitors, just because they feel like it.

There are many questions around this; whether Apple is already licensed (as it buys the chips implementing the 3G standard from a licensed chip supplier), or if not, whether Apple refuses to pay if needed, and whether Samsung is offering Fair, Reasonable, and *Non-Discriminatory* terms [1]. It was reported that Samsung wants 2.4% of chip price for each patent asserted [2], utterly outrageous considering there are hundreds of standard essential patents in 3G.

With the tens of thousands of patents Samsung claims to have, surely it could have found something better than this to use as muck to tie up courts? Of course, since Samsung does not create Operating Systems or Application Software and Apple doesn't create wireless communication standards or implement existing standards in chips, there is little to no overlap in their technology creations (Samsung creates hardware components, Apple creates extremely software dependent final products).

So Samsung is reduced to blatant anti-competitive abuse of standards committed patents.

Samsung needs to be ready for an anti-competitive EU investigation if it keeps up this tactic. The result in the Netherlands in less than two weeks, which is looking directly at this question of FRAND patents, should make interesting reading.

``Looking for revenge'' this way is not going to work. Perhaps Samsung should spend that time and money to create unique designs of its own? Remember: it *admitted* to the world that it canned the original Galaxy Tab that was proudly flaunted last Feb, after the iPad 2 was released, in order to make it more like the iPad 2--there is simply no denying that *fact*. And so Samsung invites litigation in various forms (design patents, trade dress, etc). I don't know why people get all up in arms about this. Perhaps we would all be better off today had Apple stayed out of the phone and tablet business? The truth is it is Samsung (and others) who cannot compete on merit [3].

- jtc

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair,_reasonable,_and_non-discriminatory_terms
[2] http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/26/apple-samsung-wants-to-charge-2-4-percent-of-chip-price-for-every-patent/
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/02/samsung-galaxy-tab

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/09/apple-pips-exxon-as-worlds-biggest-company

Oh yes, 2005. And 1999-2000. And the world completely failed to end. In fact everything was back to normal in a few years. Well since the environuts have lost the polar bear debate, I guess now we have to worry about the big bad Northern Ozone Hole coming and killing us in our sleep. But hey make up your mind, is this Arctic cold snap caused by Global Warming too, or what?

I see quite a few REVAs on the streets of London. It's been panned by the Jeremy Clarkson club, and it has a fairly limited range, but clearly it is selling. The mayor of London has been supporting electric car ideas for a while, and now he's pushing replacing the city's fleet of 22,000 taxis with zero-emission vehicles by 2020, which might mean electric vehicles. But as you say, the cost of petrol in the US isn't providing an incentive, and apparently nor is air quality, all compounded by the greater driving distances Americans travel in and around their cities.

I see quite a few REVAs on the streets of London. It's been panned by the Jeremy Clarkson club, and it has a fairly limited range, but clearly it is selling. The mayor of London has been supporting electric car ideas for a while, and now he's pushing replacing the city's fleet of 22,000 taxis with zero-emission vehicles by 2020, which might mean electric vehicles. But as you say, the cost of petrol in the US isn't providing an incentive, and apparently nor is air quality, all compounded by the greater driving distances Americans travel in and around their cities.

Before you go off calling someone a liar, maybe you should check up on it first. Google "see ultravilot". I just replied to another of your messages. I have a replacement lens in one eye, so I see both ways (normal and altered vision).

The following are quotes from http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2002/may/30/medicalscience.research

These harmful effects are reduced by the lens, which absorbs UV and prevents it entering the eye. When the lens becomes opaque due to cataracts, it may be surgically removed, and can be replaced with an artificial lens. Even with the lens removed (a condition known as aphakia) the patient can still see, as the lens is only responsible for about 30% of the eyes' focusing power.

However, aphakic patients report that the process has an unusual side effect: they can see ultraviolet light. It is not normally visible because the lens blocks it. Some artificial lenses are also transparent to UV with the same effect. The receptors in the eye for blue light can actually see ultraviolet better than blue. Military intelligence is said to have used this talent in the second world war, recruiting aphakic observers to watch the coastline for German U-boats signalling to agents on the shore with UV lamps. ...

An illustration of how ultraviolet appears is provided by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet. Following cataract surgery in 1923, his colour palette changed significantly; after the operation he painted water lilies with more blue than before. This may be because after lens removal he could see ultraviolet light, which would have given a blue cast to the world.

Seriously? The appearance on Top Gear was infamous for being unfairly staged! Top Gear hates electric cars!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/30/tesla-sue-top-gear

So the Bush Administration began talking and cooperating with Qaddafi in exchange for his abandonment of nuclear ambitions. Perhaps the Obama Administration sought to continue this because they too saw the facts as it stood, that Qaddafi had a hard grip on his country and didn't look like he was going out of power any time soon, and thus cooperation and diplomacy was in order for the interests of the US. Contrary to what idealists on the internet may believe, diplomacy isn't just talk, it's backed up with some quid-pro-quo -- you have to throw a dog a bone if you want some tricks out of him.

Of course, the amount of military parts given by the US pales in comparison to the EU's arms export to Libya -- France, UK, Germany, Malta, and Belgium in particular Maybe they too thought they were getting some safety in return as well?

Record high temperature outnumbered record cold temperatures by 2-1 in the 2000's. Admittedly that only covers the US but in 2010 17 countries had all time record high temperatures.

A full page colur ad in a UK national newspaper (I chose The Guardian as it is my first choice of broadsheet) is GBP18,000 And you'd need more than one page to fit a reasonable number of viewable photos on.

It would be cheaper to self publish a short run of a good quality paper book and send a copy to the British Library and the Library of Congress.

The point is that resources are actually scarce, government systems make the treatments more expensive by putting government money there, and this ends up costing lives at the end, while in a free market the medical costs would be coming down, not going up all the time

The USA pays more than double per capita what the UK does for it's healthcare, for much worse outcomes (and far more inequity).

What you get with the system you have is a vast twisty apparatus designed not to provide as much healthcare as possible for the money it is given, but to provide as little healthcare as possible, and extract as much money as possible. And this has been the intention right from the outset.

One of the many reasons the UK NHS, is suffering is because technology tends to make the costs of healthcare increase, not decrease. New technology means that you save more lives that need more care. New technology costs more, because it's patented. And these costs increases are very much driven by the corporate side of the equation ; drug companies are not adverse to lobbying to get existing generic treatments off the market, simply so they can make a buck selling exactly the same medicine at 10x the price.

The medical sector considers 15% a low profit margin. Wal-Mart operates at a profit margin of around 3.8%

Quite aside from the ethics of making profits from healthcare, when those resources could be diverted into more healthcare instead ; if corporate involvement in healthcare was really operating to introduce competition and drive costs down, you'd expect a margin more like Wal-Mart. Instead they have margins closer to Gucci and Hermes.

Why are you paying for a luxury healthcare system and getting a Wal-Mart healthcare system?

Over here in the real world, the Republicans are the anti-science, anti-intellectual party. That is not an opinion, it is an observation based on factual information. Want some examples?

Jon Huntsman Jr, a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn't a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that's too bad, because Mr Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the Republican party in the United States, namely, that it is becoming the "anti-science party".

...

Mr Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as "just a theory", one that has "got some gaps in it", an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got people's attention was what he said about climate change: "I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change."

That's a remarkable statement – or maybe the right adjective is "vile".

The second part of Mr Perry's statement is, as it happens, just false: the scientific consensus about man-made global warming – which includes 97% to 98% of researchers in the field, according to the National Academy of Sciences – is getting stronger, not weaker, as the evidence for climate change just keeps mounting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/04/evolution-climate-republicans-president

More examples? How about Bobby Jindal and the Volcano?

(AP) A month after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal complained about wasteful spending in President Obama's economic stimulus package - including money he sneered was for "something called 'volcano monitoring'" - Alaska pilots were grateful for such expenditures.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory was ready with warnings to flight officials when Alaska's Mount Redoubt blew, sending potentially deadly ash clouds north of Anchorage.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/24/tech/main4887816.shtml

And what about Michelle Bachman claiming hurricane Irene was divine punishment from god (note the lower case spelling) because the country was sinful? Or Rick Perry praying for rain to help with the Texas wildfires? You know what he did about fighting fires in Texas? Cut the state budget by 75%, then ask for federal FEMA support when the state was burning down. Yep, the Feds are useless until you completely screw up everything and need them to bail you out. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/perry-asks-for-federal-funds-to-fight-wildfires-after-slashing-state-fire-budget/

So the Republicans are the party of stupid. And you fit right in.

Supposedly there is ongoing legal action on account of the the same cop, who is accused of abusive behavior during a 2004 protest:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/27/occupy-wall-street-anthony-bologna?newsfeed=true

RP is certainly not "the Queen's English". The Queen speaks with a distinct upper class accent, as satirised endlessly by Steve Bell et al.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2010/nov/23/queen-prince-philip?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Problem is there is this nasty thing called "religion" whose adherents keep on insisting that condoms are somehow wrong, and that sex is for procreation only.

A big part of the problem is all those religious jerks that are coming to those third world countries to insist on that. Fortunately they're not getting all that much traction in civilized places, but in third world countries it's devastating.

Add to that ridiculous notions held by people in some of those countries, like that sex with a virgin will cure you, and you have one horrible mess as a result.

Kicking out all those missionaries and bringing in some proper education would do wonders.

Good God y'all, let's continue to spread hate without looking it up!
Pope Benedict says that condoms can be used to stop the spread of HIV

The pope is saying that if you can prevent disease, the use of condoms could be permissible," said John Allen, senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. "But this has been in the mix for a while," he argued. "I think Benedict has been thinking this way since 2006, which is why he asked for the commission to look into it.

"The problem was not Benedict, it was others in the Vatican who argued that if you said using condoms was OK in certain situations, it would send out the message that they were approved. This was a PR problem."

Vatican Adds Nuance to Pope’s Condom Remarks

Yet it added that “those involved in prostitution who are H.I.V. positive and who seek to diminish the risk of contagion by the use of a condom may be taking the first step in respecting the life of another even if the evil of prostitution remains in all its gravity.”

But no, let's kick out all the missionaries and continue hating on religion. Nothing like kicking out charity organizations to solve the problem guys, am I right. Next you're going to say that all those people benefiting from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation attempting to do something about Malaria are all evil and should stop getting help from them since they're supporting the crazy shit Microsoft does at times.

Jesus H. Christ people. Just because you are against religion doesn't make it right to be both uninformed and rabid in your hate.

What amazes me is that everyone is fawning over the changes in FB. But no-one is standing up and saying "um, I noticed they were pitching advertisements at me for things that are relevant to me, but I have never revealed in a post or comment anything of the sort".

Yes, this has happened to me. Yes, something medically related appears as an advertisement, despite the fact that I have never mentioned it anywhere on FB. Yes, this is a potential privacy violation. Yes, it's damn spooky that they can figure this shit out. Yes, they are fucking watching you. No, it is not paranoia. Yes, they even admit that they know when people are going to break up by doing analysis on their postings - still believe they are not watching you?

If you think FB is still your kind, benevolent friend, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Social networking is great - for those profiting from it. If you are not profiting, then frankly, it's just another panopticon being presented with sickly-sweet trappings to tempt you into it. Once you enter, they do everything in their power to make sure you don't leave, a digital roach motel made complete with others to share your fate. You are the fucking product, being bought and sold like cattle. When you post about your activities, you are nothing more than a prostitute being passed around like a party favor. I hope you like having a hand rammed up your ass only to the wrist, because in about 10 more years (at this rate) that'll be the net effect.

Get out of FB while you can. I am not a walking ho-bag bent over for some corporate buttfucking. Neither are you.

If you are in social networking for profit, go die in a fucking fire.

Since Julian tried to point the finger at them for the release of the unredacted cables, their editorials of him have become scathing.

Personally I hope an alternative to Wikileaks shows up at some point and does the whole thing properly without the ridiculous circus and personality cult of old Jools. The idea is a great one, I'd just prefer it without an egomaniacal dictator at the helm.

Uhm, no.

The MafiAA, as we call it, are engaged in:

- Illegal price-fixing and collusion
- Illegal acts such as using "investigators" who are not licensed nor monitored and who then commit more illegal acts on order of their employers
- The defrauding of the artists to whom they owe royalties. This has been discussed ad nauseum in the categories of RIAA and Hollywood accounting scandals.
- Outright theft of property, when they retroactively and alternatively try to redefine musical and theatrical works as either "works of the artist" or "works for hire" according to the arbitrary principle of Whichever Will Fuck The Artist Over More.

They are an organized criminal enterprise. Nothing more.

I've been following this in the guardian recently and it seems to me that they have been spending a suspicious amount of time trying to assassinate Assange's character. Just read their take on the recent release of the un-redacted cables... and their other articles that seem to serve no purpose but to try and damage his reputation. They are all collected here if you care to waste a few hours... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/julian-assange?INTCMP=SRCH All I see are a long list of ad-hominem and poisoning the well fallacies, and this is being generous - some of it they have clearly just made up. You think he's arrogant?... So what? I'd say he has a right to be. Unlike many of the other arrogant people, running their mouths off he's actually done something useful. Doesn't anyone think its ironic the organisation that has done the most to disseminate valuable information is being given the tabloid treatment by what is supposedly one of the UK's leading left-wing papers? Jealousy? People need to grow-up and look at the issues instead of focusing on a fallible man and getting excited when you find a fault. Who else here would stand up to this level of scrutiny as well as he has?

but the govt. would need to select one and oversee it.

But that's the entire problem though isn't it?

but the govt. would need to select one and oversee it.

But that's the entire problem though isn't it?

Indeed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free-software-stallman

Fukushima has yet to kill anyone. Decisions should be based on actual statistics.

On the other hand, Fukushima could have been much worse; it looks like the Japanese have had some luck in this tragedy, in particular that the wind was mostly blowing eastward, towards the ocean, during the most critical few days of the accident. Would the situation have been different, the whole ordeal would have been much bleaker. Perhaps not more people killed, but a forced evactuation of the greater Tokyo area would indeed have been very bad for the country. Should we dismiss that worst possibility because it was avoided by sheer luck?

Both were caused by a combination of corruption and exceptional circumstances

Which are not going to go away anytime soon. Let me place a easy bet here: the next accident will be caused by the same factors.

coal power working exactly as it's designed to

Not sure what you mean here. I think coal could be a clean as nuclear, except probably on the CO2 asepct, provided the regulations regarding were as tight as with the latter. Ashes can be filtered from the exhaust and I think this is the case in most advanced countries.

nuclear power wins hands down on pretty much every metric

Nuclear wins easily if you're ready to disregard its drawbacks and ignore the reality of its deployment, i.e., basically if you're a nuclear nutty. Just like renewables win hand down if you disregard their limitations and ignore the reality of their deployment. Now if you truly want to understand the problem and decide for the best way to go it seems to me things start no to look so simple.

Unless, of course, you don't actually care about making the best or even a good decision

We should definitely do that but really it's far from obvious to me that you're in the right and your opponents in the wrong. I would love to be convinced but hasn't happened yet, despite the amount of discussions that have been ongoing on the subject lately.

Your claim about God and creativity is roughly correct. God was the creator; it was the role of artists to reflect the majesty of God's creation. See M.H. Abrams The Mirror and the Lamp. The development of the idea of authorship was partly a response to the upheavals of the industrial revolution. I have attempted to explain this in a video about the invention of the author. The video description includes references for further reading.

To address the larger point, audiences are significant contributors to the value and meaning of artistic works, as I explain in a video about audience labor. For something like Star Wars I would even suggest that the audience is the major contributor. However, the artist remains the largest individual contributor to his or her work, and before the audience gets involved they clearly haven't contributed much. It is the hits, not the also-rans, that in a sense belong to the audience.

Taking credit for their works was instituted in pre-modern copyright law. In 17th century England copyright was a censorship regime for licensing publishers, rather than a mechanism for rewarding authors. In order to allow the crown to keep tabs on who wrote what, the law required authors' names to be printed in books. Taking credit for their writing was a response to government monitoring, not the assertion of proprietorship that it later became.

Finally, Lucas is hardly the author of his films. Many, many people worked on them. The habit of giving credit for a film to a single person obscures their essential contributions. The recent copyright suit against one of the guys who made the storm trooper helmets gives a hint at how copyright can unjustly focus all credit in one individual.

The Guardian isn't a very good news source for science (nor is any other mainstream newspaper that I know of). However, when even George Monbiot supports nuclear you've got to wonder about who doesn't.

Yeah, I know. Amanda Hocking is totally pathetic, with her completely self-made millions and millions of dollars and legions of loyal fans. Not to mention Amazon, who sold more e-books this year than real books must be truly regretting their business focus.

Keep on trucking, Mister Anonymous Coward. Keep on trucking.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/16/israel2
http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/children.html
http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/remember2010.html

Yup, yup

organ harvesting: http://www.prisonplanet.com/israel-admits-harvesting-palestinian-organs.html

The article you linked to used a misleading (and subsequently corrected) headline to further its anti-Israel propaganda agenda:

We should not have put the headline "Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs" on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/dec/22/corrections-clarifications

There's been an avalanche of research published in the last year or so regarding these types of things, with a lot more scientific backing than the little bit I read in this article.

In one of many articles on the topic, this one raised a whole new series of questions about our ancestry:

Scientists unveil a newly-discovered, ancient human ancestor

Or check out these that all relate to different areas of genetic research, most empirical, one modeled, all relating supporting information about homo sapiens (that's us!) inbreeding with various offshoots and close relatives, with us apparently coming out the better? for it.

Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'
Sex with Neanderthals boosted human immunity
Neanderthals, Humans Interbred—First Solid DNA Evidence
Frontiers of Anthropology
Ancient DNA Reveals Secrets of Human History
Fossilised finger points to previously unknown group of human relatives

Uhm, how about a reality check? The fact that they're doing anything even remotely directed towards this drug cartel is showing some balls, (and risks showing some intestines and other body parts while hanging off of a bridge if any the Anon are located in Mexico.)

What would you (and the summary author) like Anonymous to do? Step away from their core competency of hacking, pick up a pitchfork and fly to Mexico? Maybe some nice meaningful physical actions right? The kind that Mexican and American Police have failed at for years now?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/03/mexico-police-garay-drugs-crime
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0726/How-Mexican-killers-got-US-guns-from-Fast-and-Furious-operation

While I'm sure there are lonely people who are not on Facebook, them going on facebook is not going to stop them being lonely.

This is exactly my point. It will often make them feel more lonely.

I think that part of this is that what lonely people crave isn't acquaintances, but friends. Social networking sites really aren't the ideal places for that; comparing who you think of as friends to the number others claim as friends doesn't do much for the self esteem. Neither does unfortunate occurrences of finding out that who you thought of as friends really only are acquaintances who value you slightly less than 137 others.

I'm sure there must be a backlash to social networking one day - I can't believe that the human mind is suited for spreading so thin or caring so little. The days when you got introduced to people and knew more than their nick before jumping into a conversation are over, but I think there's room for the pendulum to swing back a little. Cause there have never been more lonely people than now, when they have more "friends" than ever.

Facebook's user count has stopped growing in the US and UK. That's a killer sign for an IPO.

Once growth has stopped, the company's value has to be based strictly on revenue. The value of the stock is the present value of future dividends. It's not clear how profitable Facebook really is. Since they're private, audited numbers are not available.

Once the number of users has peaked, all the ways to increase revenue annoy users. Facebook can run more ads. (See Myspace for where that leads.) They can add more services (Yahoo and Google went overboard in that direction. It didn't help.) They can force developers to pay them. (That works in the short term, until the major developers figure out another way to get paid.)

Social networks have a life cycle, like nightclubs. They start small, get the cool people, then allow massive numbers of people in. The jerk level becomes excessive, the cool people leave, and the social network winds down. This happened to AOL, Geocities, Orkut, Tribe, Xanga, Bebo, Yahoo 360, Nerve, and Myspace. Facebook looks to be next.

Anybody else still have nightmares about back when they used to run that shoddy OS?

Slashdot: news for nerds, stuff that matters and Microsoft Windows stories?

Can we please get back to bashing Apple now?

By the way, on what Carter is up to now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/11/president-jimmy-carter-interview
"The young Jimmy studied engineering at the US naval academy in Annapolis, and even now he's drawn to practical problems he believes he can solve. The Carter Center, the foundation he and Rosalynn set up to promote and champion human rights, has been quietly working towards eradicating some of the world's nastier diseases. Guinea worm, a debilitating parasite, affected 3.5 million people worldwide when the Carter Center decided to try to eradicate it. Last year there were just 1,797 cases, mostly in South Sudan, and it looks set to be only the second (after smallpox) disease ever eliminated. Also on their hit list is river blindness, trachoma and lymphatic filariasis, otherwise known as elephantiasis. As part of their human-rights efforts, they monitor elections in some of the most troubled corners of the world. "Our basic principle that has shaped us ever since we were founded is that we don't duplicate what other people do," says Carter. "If the World Bank or Harvard University or whoever is adequately taking care of a problem, we don't get involved. We only try to fill vacuums where people don't want to do anything." ...
    Jimmy Carter approached his career with all the pragmatism of a practical man, and the deep-rooted morality of a religious one. American politics is increasingly dominated by what's called the religious right; conservatives who share an anti-scientific world view, who treat evolution as a heretical theory, and universal healthcare as dangerous socialism. But Carter was of the religious left, a very different beast. He has a profound faith, rooted in his Baptist upbringing. He and Rosalynn read the Bible to each other every night and have done so for "30-something years". (They read in Spanish, so that they can practise their language skills at the same time; they're relentless self-improvers.) "I read a chapter one night," says Rosalynn. "And he reads a chapter the next night."
    Politics wasn't so much a life choice he made, as the culmination of a sequence of events. "I was the chairman of the school board, and I was concerned about the public school system," he tells me. "I served as governor for as long as the constitution would permit me, and after that I ran for president in 1975. As you probably know, I was elected."
    I heard, I say. Was there really never a master plan?
    "Not at all. It was always just the next step. When I told my mother I was running for president, she said, president of what?" ...
    What he's most proud of, though, is that he didn't fire a single shot. Didn't kill a single person. Didn't lead his country into a war -- legal or illegal. "We kept our country at peace. We never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. But still we achieved our international goals. We brought peace to other people, including Egypt and Israel. We normalised relations with China, which had been non-existent for 30-something years. We brought peace between US and most of the countries in Latin America because of the Panama Canal Treaty. We formed a working relationship with the Soviet Union." ..."

Well, this is Jeremy Cu... I mean Hunt we're talking about.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/01/climate.change

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3624242/There-IS-a-problem-with-global-warming...-it-stopped-in-1998.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/05/scitech/main20076934.shtml

"Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for why the rise in Earth's temperature paused for a bit during the 2000s, one of the hottest decades on record."

Come now, to paraphrase "Volcano," it doesn't matter if you're a native European or a North African immigrant, we're all the same color after being carbonised by a nuclear waste furnace explosion. And that color is black. A crispy, crispy black.

I hear Samsung is also planning a new headquarters that looks just like it.

That's a bunch of crap. There are only so many variations of a large technology corporate headquarters building that will properly fulfill their function. And besides, Apple just stole it from this stadium designer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/20/taiwan-solar-stadium

Apple never comes up with anything original.

I know, right! Look people, the government said there was no risk of a leak after theJapanese earthquake. And it only took a couple days after Chernobyl for the USSR to announce the problem.
 
All accidents, especially nuke/chemical ones, are accurately reported minutes after by officials responsible for the oversight. Never has anyone said nothing to see here move along and it be reported as fact.

"Ok, so now you're changing your argument because originally, you said "

No I'm not, you're just applying your own arbitrary and incorrect interpretation to what I said.

"That doesn't suggest anything about casualties of war from our operations, which is what you're suggesting in your last response."

I'm not really sure what you're on about, the fact is, Bush ordered the war, civilians died. Civilians that wouldn't have died in anywhere near such great numbers if Bush didn't order the war. Bush's actions and orders hence led to far more deaths than were otherwise going to happen.

"which is what Osama has done."

No he hasn't. It's not Osama's modus operandi for the most part- he doesn't concern himself so much with petty level sectarian violence, he's more interested in attacks on Western interests which are relatively fewer and further between. Those suicide bomb attacks on civilians are a direct effect of Bush destabilising the country with his poor military strategy of going in guns blazing with no clue what to do after you've stopped shooting.

"Actually, he was interested and they never offered"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/05/afghanistan.terrorism3

"As for Pakistan, Al-Qaeda are only heavily relying on them now because of our invasion of Afghanistan."

This is silly, al Qaeda has depended on Pakistan since it's inception. Even it's mujahudeen forerunners depended on Pakistan because Pakistan is the place the US equipped them from in the 80s. North and Western Pakistan have been al Qaeda strongholds for decades.

"having Pakistan sever ties with Afghanistan wouldn't have done a damn thing."

It would because the Taliban regime in Afghanistan depended on support and arms from Pakistan to hold out against the Northern Alliance, without that strong support from Pakistan the Taliban regime would've been defeated by other Afghans, and it'd have nowhere to hide like it does now in Pakistan.

"And your last paragraph just tells me why Pakistan relies on Al-Qaeda, not the other way around."

I told you, funding.

"So tell me again, how would your plan have worked to ask Osama to stop and have Pakistan sever ties with the Taliban?"

I said nothing about asking Osama to stop, that would be a no go, he's an extremist. What I said was to force Pakistan to sever ties so that the Taliban became too short on funds and arms to realistically pursue anything much of an agenda. Without the backing of Pakistan the Taliban would've found themselves short on funds and isolated, with a resurgent Northern Alliance then able to fight back against them which would in itself apply pressure against the Taliban there too.

Seriously, who cares about the crazy North Korean dictatorship. I'm sure they're doing other outlandish things to like blacking out half the internet with their not-so-great-firewall and..

Oh.Shit. It's not the North Koreans...

Fuck. Well, I never knew the South Koreans were supposedly so bad at internet that they need to be tracked and punished.

I guess now when they whomp me at Starcraft I'll at least have their real names so I can know who beat me IRL.

However, the journals do need to be able to make money to pay their staff and meet their business expenses. Maybe the model doesn't fit modern times, but it is what it is.

Some journals don't even pay their staff or even need to meet many of their business expenses. A comment by "MrBendy" here gives this interesting perspective (emphasis mine):

I was a journal editor for several years and, like George Monbiot, was left astonished by the shamelessness with which this racket operates.

        In particular, I did all, and I mean ALL, the donkeywork personally, from licking envelopes to commissioning reviews to copy-editing all contributions. Yet not a cent did I receive from the publisher, a well-known British academic publisher. In effect the considerable operating costs of every part of the journal's work up to setting, printing and distribution were carried by me personally, using my spare time, and to a limited degree by my employer (a university) in so far as I was able to use a little normal work-time on occasion and pass the journal's (substantial) postal costs through my departmental office. ...
        The final indignity for me was, on inquiring of the trustees about succession planning, being told that it was essentially up to me to persuade someone else to become editor. In short, it was my problem and mine alone and I was expected to continue working for free to generate large profits for the publisher and a small rake-off for the trust until or unless I could find a mug to replace me. ...
        For the publisher, of course, this extraordinary combination of unpaid and unresourced amateur production, which reduces costs to a bare minimum, and the opportunity then to maximise revenues through the lucrative exercise of legal and financial power, is immensely attractive as a business model.

However, the journals do need to be able to make money to pay their staff and meet their business expenses. Maybe the model doesn't fit modern times, but it is what it is.

Some journals don't even pay their staff or even need to meet many of their business expenses. A comment by "MrBendy" here gives this interesting perspective (emphasis mine):

I was a journal editor for several years and, like George Monbiot, was left astonished by the shamelessness with which this racket operates.

        In particular, I did all, and I mean ALL, the donkeywork personally, from licking envelopes to commissioning reviews to copy-editing all contributions. Yet not a cent did I receive from the publisher, a well-known British academic publisher. In effect the considerable operating costs of every part of the journal's work up to setting, printing and distribution were carried by me personally, using my spare time, and to a limited degree by my employer (a university) in so far as I was able to use a little normal work-time on occasion and pass the journal's (substantial) postal costs through my departmental office. ...
        The final indignity for me was, on inquiring of the trustees about succession planning, being told that it was essentially up to me to persuade someone else to become editor. In short, it was my problem and mine alone and I was expected to continue working for free to generate large profits for the publisher and a small rake-off for the trust until or unless I could find a mug to replace me. ...
        For the publisher, of course, this extraordinary combination of unpaid and unresourced amateur production, which reduces costs to a bare minimum, and the opportunity then to maximise revenues through the lucrative exercise of legal and financial power, is immensely attractive as a business model.

People should keep in mind that Fukushima ended up being not as bad as it could have been by sheer luck. Would the wind have blown in the other direction (i.e., towards inner land and Tokyo) during those first critical few days, then the outcome would have been vastly different (think evacuation of greater Tokyo area). I think this ought to be taken into account when assessing the risk of nuclear energy generation, not simply by saying "nothing serious happened this time, which proves that everything was always safe".

waste of real estate and too little energy.

Most are in deserts, I don't think it makes for very good real estate for much else.

The Blythe plant output sounds impressive, until you realize it can't take sunlight 24x7. So divide its 960 MW by four or more.

I don't know about Blythe, and from googling it seems it'll use PVs.

Again, I was talking about solar thermal, and since it's going to store energy it would make sense that the turbines would run at full power 24/7, by storing the extra power during the day.

Then realize its $6 billion price tag. Compared to nuclear power, it's a farce.

Some googling suggests nuclear costs about 14 billion for about 2000MW, so the price seems to be about the same really.

Still, it seems a bit much to have solar cost that much. It'll probably come down in price when the tech is properly worked out, there's not a lot of those around yet.

If there's a 1 in 21 trillion chance that an individual will be hit, and there are 7 billion people, then the odds of someone, somewhere, getting hit are 21,000,000,000,000/7,000,000,000 or 1 in 3,000.

Of course, seeing as people tend to clump together, the most likely scenario, IF someone gets hit, is that multiple people get hit - so that is also ~ 1 in 3,000.

This matches pretty well with the actual odds in the article:

There is a 1-in-3,200 chance that a person somewhere on Earth could be hit by falling satellite debris, but the odds of the UARS spacecraft re-entering over a populated area are extremely remote, NASA officials said.

A 300-pound piece of flaming satellite debris traveling at supersonic speeds is going to do more than hurt a little.

Johnson said that, on average, a spacecraft as large as UARS falls back to Earth about once a year. In 2010, a total of 400 pieces of satellites or spent rockets fell back to Earth, though most pieces either burned up during re-entry, fell into the ocean or fell over unpopulated areas, he added.

So, given that this happens every year, the odds of someone, somewhere getting hit during your lifetime are actually much better - if you only live to 50, they become 1 in 64.

Also, it's already happened that someone has been hit, even though the woman wasn't hurt, so the odds may be higher than "theory" alone predicts.

Good question. Well, the USA has stated that anyone publishing them is committing a capital crime. So I think at the very least in the US people might not want to take the chance? Maybe I'm paranoid, but I wouldn't be surprised if you would get into trouble for it. Think when you need to take an airplane. That might get harder for you. In the Netherlands mostly blogs write about the cables. Sometimes media picks up on it, but the good stuff is on the blogs. The Guardian had/has a section with it though. And that's the only big news-source I can think of that does/did it like that. But where it used to be a prominent item on their frontpage, now you have to use the search function to find it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/wikileaks?INTCMP=SRCH and even then it looks like it's decapitated. So you got me thinking here as well... Where is that site lol :P Good one.

Irony Alert: Government USPS service being killed due to efficient Internet delivery service, invented by US Government.

This is not irony.

Before the election we had this and this. After it, you were expecting what, exacty?