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Actually from TFA:

The professor has caused outrage in the past with claims that white people are more intelligent than blacks and that criminal traits are genetically inherited.

The quote is from the third one, but they all mention this!

Not all terrorist attacks are suicide attacks. Maybe you havn't been paying attention to the news lately, but not too long ago the London subways were bombed and surveillance cameras helped police determine their identities.

The cameras are primarily used for monitoring criminal rather than terrorist activity.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article 307679.ece
A spokesman said that the police made regular requests to see footage as part of their investigations, although the vast bulk of such requests involved criminal rather than terrorist activity.

When the cameras could have caught images of a suspected terrorist ... none of them were working.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article3076 49.ece
None of the cameras at the scene of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July were working, a police document revealed.

Not all terrorist attacks are suicide attacks. Maybe you havn't been paying attention to the news lately, but not too long ago the London subways were bombed and surveillance cameras helped police determine their identities.

The cameras are primarily used for monitoring criminal rather than terrorist activity.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article 307679.ece
A spokesman said that the police made regular requests to see footage as part of their investigations, although the vast bulk of such requests involved criminal rather than terrorist activity.

When the cameras could have caught images of a suspected terrorist ... none of them were working.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article3076 49.ece
None of the cameras at the scene of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July were working, a police document revealed.

Admittedly not a great example of web design, but structurally it does the right thing. If you have firefox, view that web page and go to View -> Page Style -> No Style to see the structural markup (or just use View Source if you're comfortable with that). Of course we do use <div>, but only where it's essential. I would prefer to use it less, or even not at all.

Compare to this or this or this to see the overuse of <div>.

Rich.

Can't anything good be free?
No, or p'raps mebbe it's not good. TFA links to the real story about what the music industry execs said. But WTF? One para. then Click here to buy this article for £1.

Spare a quid, guvnor, so I can read a link from /.

Suicide deaths during anti-depressant trials regarded as trade secrets by the FDA

Therefore, kings are less likely than presidents to misuse the wealth of their country; the hereditary sovereign will want to avoid exploiting his subjects so heavily...as to reduce his future earnings potential to such an extent that the present value of his estate actually falls.

True, but wouldn't the people themselves, if allowed to rule, have an even greater desire to improve conditions in the long term? The "most profound national instinct."

Not voting isn't always indicative of laziness. In the recent general/council elections in the UK I intentionally spoiled my ballot paper. Some (a majority? It really can't be idleness) people, recognising that they don't support either the system or any of its participants would not think to spoil their paper. They were counted as apathetic, and once more the politicians feigned caring.

We recently had a spot of bother trying out new voting methods ourselves. Politicians and political parties were willing to conspire to commit fraud knowing they could be caught by some simple checking.

The Evening Standard releases The Metro and Evening Standard Lite. All are rubbish.

So what? The number of the beast is 616 anyway.

Fuck the reviewers. They're nothing more than shills nowadays. Tell people the movie is crap, you don't get any more "previews", so you're out of a job.

Try the Independent's review

It got a whopping one star out of five. It's an entertaining review, as well. I can't say whether it's accurate or not though, because I haven't seen the film. Ep. I was bad enough that I just rented Ep. II later on. Ep II was dull enough that I haven't bothered with Ep III at all.

> >The problem, Gates said, is that the information exists, but it is not
> >in one place and cannot be easily viewed in a meaningful way using today's software.

> And, of course Microsoft will sell you their new improved office suite,
>MSN search, yada yada, to fill this "perceived" need.

Heck, Microsoft will dis their own software once a few years have passed. Ad in yesterday's Independent for the latest version of Office had people in an office wearing various dinosaur masks; one dinosaur had just forwarded everyone's salary to the whole company; end of the "cartoon" said that "The WE CAN'T GET A GRIP ON OUR DATA era is over".
Two smaller dinosaurs at the bottom of the page, beside the blurb and Office logo were saying "We're still using Office 2000", "Talk about old school".

I'm sure it would be possible to take the mick out of this advert with another guy in a silly Firefox mask making sarcastic remarks about how the MS-using dinosaurs were still MS-using dinosaurs once they'd upgraded.

OTOH, someone probably thinks that sounds like a good idea for a Firefox ad or something; I'm not convinced. Geeks come up with ideas for ads all the time; most of them are rubbish, because they're pandering to *their* ideas of what would be cool, not necessarily persuading the people who need persuading. And I think my idea falls into the same category...

The two main causes were:

1. Teddy Kennedy not wearing one on TV
2. The car and its low ceiling.

So to come all the way back to Diamonds, we would need:

1. Brittney Spears' fourth husband gives her a Modern Diamond.
2. Semiconducting and coating technologies.

Give it time, it will happen. As an adjunct, what will help 1. is that now humans will be in control of the fabrication process, instead of tectonic movements. So potentially we'll be able to fabricate pink, yellow, chartruse diamonds as well. If your fiancee asks for a leopard print diamond ring, run.

IIRC the UK and US are the only two countries (there may be one other) that still use the "first past the post" system - its rediculous.

In the UK Labour said they would fix the voting system in 1997. Now they are saying that they have fulfilled that promise because they use proportional representation in various regional and EU elections, but the election that really matters, the one for Westminster, is still in the dark ages.

The Independent newspaper is pushing the issue, see this article.

A number when we've learned is not accurate: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/stor y.jsp?story=634679

The 'number of the beast' is 616, not 666 after all.

So, thank you for your mindless idiotic jab at the President, but some of us here actually voted for him. Keep your completely off-topic and pointlessly partisan one-liners to yourself.

Don't you mean 616? :D

Information for non UK readers.

This could be considered off-topic but it looks at the Machiavellian [Niccolò Machiavelli] practice closely associated with Mandelson and the party he serves (UK Labour Party), that of being a spin doctor.

The term spin doctor could be interpreted politely as one who is "responsible for ensuring that others interpret an event from a particular point of view." But the term has grown to cover many dirty tricks.

Now I know that the link between Paul Allen and Microsoft today is at best tenuous, but one does smile over the dreamed of connection between the UK's once King of Spin and the dastardly Microsoft.

Now witness a spin doctor, attached to the same party as Mandelson, in action. This is taken from Britain's Independent newspaper. It has a delicious ending.


While others watched the horrific television pictures from New York and Washington on 11 September last year [2001], Jo Moore, personal spin doctor to the Transport Secretary, Stephen Byers, sent an email saying that it would be a good day to "bury bad news". Obviously, it did not occur to her that emails can be stored on computers - and passed on to journalists. Ms Moore lost her job.


Spin is dreadful practise and sadly its not confined to Politics. For those wishing to pursue further reading on the matter check out SpinWatch

Note to the Slashdot staff. You should ask for readers to write in sometime of their experiences of spin in the companies they work for. Should make for some enlightening reading on a Friday afternoon or a Monday morning for that matter.

More information for non UK readers

This could be considered off-topic but it looks at the interesting practices closely associated with Mandelson and the party he serves UK Labour Party, that of spin doctor

The term spin doctor could be interpreted politely as one who is "responsible for ensuring that others interpret an event from a particular point of view." Does the company 'Microsoft" employ such practioners????

Now witness a spin doctor, attached to the same party as Mandelson, in action. This is taken from Britain's Independent newspaper. It has a delicious ending.

While others watched the horrific television pictures from New York and Washington on 11 September last year [2001], Jo Moore, personal spin doctor to the Transport Secretary, Stephen Byers, sent an email saying that it would be a good day to "bury bad news". Obviously, it did not occur to her that emails can be stored on computers - and passed on to journalists. Ms Moore lost her job.

Spin is dreadful practise and sadly its not confined to Politics. For those wishing to pursue further reading on the matter check out the link SpinWatch (http://spinwatch.server101.com/index.php")

Note to the Slashdot staff. You should ask for readers to write in sometime of their experiences of spin in the companies they work for. Should make for some enlightening reading.

They probably hate them for the same reason I dislike them - most blogs are a waste of time. They're more fiction than news - and bad fiction at that. Blogs aren't a source of news - they're a natural extension of the `my first homepages` sites which once littered the web. You remember those. Photos of fat little nerds and their dumpy girlfriends, a photo of their cat and an cheesy animated `under construction` .gif that vanished along with their site when they were asked to pay their next months internet access. Sure, some of them are good, I guess, but the sort of people with something to say would have - indeed did - do so before the current trend for blogging took off.

How would blogs replace news? I check out 6 or so news related websites every day (for the record, they are http://news.bbc.co.uk/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/ http://news.independent.co.uk/ url:http://news.google.com/news> http://www.reuters.com/newsChannel.jhtml?type=worl dNews http://slashdot.org/) in addition to following links mentioned in those stories, links from emails etc. I also check out the papers from time to time.

How do I get close to that range and quality of information from looking at blog sites? Which bloggers have anything approaching the same reputation?

I can't help but think that it is no coincidence that this is going on at the same time as anti-japanese riots in Japan. Seems like China is pulling out the stops to truly become the dominant Asian power.

You make a good point. Unfortunately, it is one that the telemarketers have overcome.

I'm ill off work today, and got raised out of bed at 8:30 am. to a call on my landline. There was no-one on the other side. Here in Britain, MPs are looking into it, because the Direct Marketing association is failing to ensure that they do not Silent Call old people.

The basis is that they get a whole pool of automated diallers to dial, and connect the live ones through to a human. The Silent Calls, result when you pick up the ringing call and all the human marketers are busy, so the computer cannot put anyone through. Silence, but you still went to the trouble of picking the fucker up.

So most of the hassle of the Call is The Call, not The Conversation. It takes a hardened person 1 ms to put the phone down on a telemarketer, but 5 seconds to hear, move and answer the damn thing.

And more importantly, did they actual cover those allegations in the first place, or were they just running government created pseudo-news?

Yes, the people you were told were the 9/11 hijackers did have valid ID. But it's always difficult to know who they really were!

Quote:
"As my mother said when I told her, 'which part of the silence are they claiming you nicked?'. They say they are claiming copyright on a piece of mine called 'One Minute's Silence' on the Planets' album, which I credit Batt/Cage just for a laugh. But my silence is original silence, not a quotation from his silence."

Censorship is a slippery slope. I agree with the Neo-Nazism ban in Europe--oftentimes, it's the only weapon the authorities have in the fight against hate crimes. http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?sto ry=604279 However, in the same Russia, the entire mass-media is controlled by the government and independent news media tend to "mysteriously" go out of business. Is your security more important than your freedom?

This ain't no laughing matter. Environmental change is
reviving old diseases left and right.

Right, just me and the scientific community. Our ship is unsinkable, right, jerk? Too bad we have to save your ignorant ass along with the rest of the species.

Tedious twaddle says the coward.

Pray tell, in what country does the U.S. have a military base where the local government seeks the base removed.

Every time an American soldier rapes someone in Japan theres a pretty big push to kick the Americans out. Panama was a pretty risky occupation there for a while when the canal ownership transfer didn't look like it was going too smoothly.

Pray tell, oh enlightened one, about trade barriers.

Very well, lets talk about Iraq, and the oil embargo, and how the US ignores barriers whenever it feels like it. Or how America (and other countries, America isn't alone in this) backs such barriers only when it benefits corporations, not consumers or laborers.

God, please do do tell me just what those 8 million Iraqi's were doing last weekend

Wait, were we there for the election last week? Only months ago it seemed we were there to depose Saddam, and months before that to protect the United States from WMDs, and months before that to protect the United States from Al Quaeda terrorists, all the time using battle maps drawn up before 9/11 when the plan was to go to war for oil.

I'm glad Bush finally got his story in synch with reality. Those votes only cost us about $12 billion each... At that expense you'd think that we could spare the $200 to fly Iraqis in America to one of the 8 voting places set aside for them. With the names of the campaigners not revealed until days before the election, and very few of those even campainging, confusion was rampant, and voters had no choice but to vote randomly. This is the democracy we died for? At least women's rights will be restored to pre-american-interference levels. Who knows, maybe in a decade or two being publically Christian will be non-fatal again.

Oh, and BTW, you people know very little about the Patriot Act

And what do YOU know about it, other than what you've read in the law itself and what little your government admitted to you?

But hey, cowards like you just like to spout off nonsense and run, thinking "gee I showed that guy" when all you really showed is that you can spout off a lot of stuff.

Regardless of the temperature rise, how is melting *all* of the world's ice in Antarctica and general land mass going to cause sea levels to rise substantially? One figure I saw reported this week was a 10 metre sea level rise. (Countdown to global catastrophe)

Area of Earth's surface (Area of Earth's Land Surface):

• Water ~70%;
• Land ~30%
• Percentage of land covered in snow: ~20%

So snow and ice covers around 6% of the planet overall and would have to be on average 116 metres thick (assuming 100% compaction, which it isn't becuase ice is full of air) to achieve a 10 metre sea level rise - does that sound right to you? Melting the entire Arctic ice mass will have no effect whatsoever because its weight is already supported by the water it floats in, so it can be ignored - people do seem to forget that.

Media hype, anyone?

Yes, higher temperatures will probably accelerate evaporation and increase the rain cycle. But who *really* knows? It's all theory and conjecture - people need to stop treating it as fact.

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - hand picked by the Bush administation - a person who was intrusted to find the "devil in the details," has begun to '[call] for immediate and "very deep" cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive"'. Dr Rajendra Pachauri is no Chicken Little when it comes to global climate change.

An excellent example can be found here.

The formula is as follows.
1.) Write article based entirely on misrepresented sensational claims about the end of the world.
2.) Get slashdotted
3.) Sell more ads for website based on high traffic volumes (use only averages when representing numbers to ad buying customers.)
4.) Profit!

In the NYTimes.com picture, they added a leaf... Is this some American thing? /European

Let me explain the difference between American and European censorship:

In America, you can't see naked people.

In Europe, you can't see swastikas.

In their respective locations, both types of censorship is done to protect the public. Both are about as silly. (Oh no! Think of the children! On no! We can't have neonazis! Lets limit free speech!)

PS: Wasn't it the English that started adding figleafs to statues? Unfortunately, America imported English prudishness and kept it alive long after the English realized just how silly it was.

True. Also worth supporting long term initiatives like the this one proposed by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to the G8.

A tidal surge of 6 feet doesn't mean that the entire ocean rose 6 feet all around the island. This surge is essentially a large swell coming from one direction.

It the case of Diego Garcia, it came from the east. Most of the development on DG is on the west side. The tidal surge was essentially deflected/absorbed by the east side of the U shaped land mass (see map [ntlworld.com]) and likely resulted in little more than a slight rise in water height in the central lagoon, and little if any flooding on the west side.

I'll point you to a map of the Maldives.

The Maldives are interesting because there was extensive damage, flooding & loss of life. Yet the islands of the Maldives are exactly what Diego Garcia are: coral atolls perched on the eastern edge of the Chagos plateau with deepwater to the east. In those circumstances my belief is that DG must have suffered extensive flooding (it wasn't just the eastern Maldives that copped the flooding E.g Look at Faafu - 18 boats lost on one atoll).

I might have bought the story that there was only "some damage" but no damage? No loss of life? (Don't the servicemen go down to the beach?)

BTW, my newspaper asserted shortly after the tsunami that Diego Garcia was "forewarned of the approaching tsunami" and hence spared....who told them that and why was it then after dropped?

I'd also point out that the epicentre of the quake was north of east of DG.

• Torture in the US
  
• Execution of foriegners in the US
  
• The spread of fundamentalism in the US
  
• Historical support for Terrorist Organisations in the US
  
• Suppression of Homosexuals in the US
  

I'm not saying that we can't criticise countries because of their human rights records, but we have to remember that the US is not whiter than white. By any stretch of the imagination.

Yeah, the French banks made all the money in the deal.

There are a few US companies that are just as dirty in this affair.

And it's not anti-US hate as much as it is pointing out the fact that the emperor has no goddamn clothes.

I most heartily agree with nwbvt here. But I would add further points

The police are there to stop activity, collect evidence whilst no further activity is occuring and often press charges. In most of the highly modded posts, I have heard a lot about The Police and nothing about The Courts.

Look at DVD Jon. Arrested, taken to court repeatedly and exonerated .

The US and Finnish governments can not influence the courts decision here. If those groups do not like the outcome of the courts, then they have to legislate.

So this is why it is so important to have an independent judiciary.

However, if you actually do manage it, the story was also covered by the Independent today.

"So, for whatever it's worth, and for the record, and as long as it's not-for-profit, people can always do readings of my stuff, if they want to, in public, in private, in school, in front of small invited audiences of marsupials, or even in Dublin. No permission or payment will ever be required. And my unborn grandchildren will just have to learn to live with it."

His eyes and nerves were fine, but the visual processing part of his brain had been killed. So signals were coming through, just not ones that you and I associate with sight.

Having trouble finding exact bills- but got loads of press about it in the last few days:

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?co ntentid=2727
http://www.wilderness.org/Library/Documents/BushRe cord.cfm
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000223.p hp
http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-99 537
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120604G.shtml
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story .jsp?story=589884
http://bobwhitson.typepad.com/howlings/2004/12/bus h_sets_out_p.html

-FL

Already, this lab has had problems with foreign collaborators who are not from Canada, Europe or Australia being denied entry to the country.
Not only are you losing those graduates who would like to collaborate in research in the US, but can't because of new restrictions and enforcement. The US is also losing those people who would have liked to study there five years ago but now simply don't want to because of it's international policies.

An interesting story I read recently was this, in which we find that applications at university in Britain for Middle Eastern studies are rising and applications for American Studies are plummeting as: "people shied away from courses that might label them pro-US in the wake of the war in Iraq."

And this is in Britain! I imaging most of the rest of the World feels even more strongly. The US simply isn't very inviting to anyone right now, regardless of how friendly individual citizens may be.

Friday Dec.3rd marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy in Bhopal, India. Unfortunately, the Bhopal disaster has never ended. It remains one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of the century.

More than half a million people were exposed to the deadly MIC gases on the night of the accident, 120,000 so badly that they've been left with permanent and debilitating health effects. Blindness, extreme difficulty in breathing, and cancer are common after effects of exposure, and gynecological problems are also rampant. Some women are still waiting for their first period at the age of twenty, while others have as many as four or five per month. Brain damage and birth defects are also common. The after effects of gas exposure have extended to the second and third generations, and few of the victims have access to adequate medical treatment.

The people of Bhopal have endured unimaginable pain and suffering, and will continue to do so until the site is cleaned up (Union Carbide simply packed up and left the site as it was) and is now after 20 years, the chemicals are contaminating local water supplies. Students and other organizations are joining together in the struggle for Bhopal, one of the most beautiful areas of India. I have collected over 200 links to information on the Bhopal tragedy including local actions on the 20th anniversary, humor, Dow/Union Carbide statements, activist groups, news, book reviews, petitions, timelines, photos and videos, case studies and technical papers.

Please visit my site at...

20th Anniversary of Bhopal, India tragedy on December 2/3. 1984

Thanks for your time,

also aswell

Here's a previous slashdot story the Yesmen vs. Dow, Dow vs. Parody.

PS this post was rejected two days ago

Given the current situation in the USA, where corporations have the same rights as people then they should bear the same responsibilities.

You're right. The COMPANY should be held responsible. Not someone who probably had no idea there were safety issues at the site.

As CEO of the company Warren Anderson is the person in which these responsiblities rest.

He's Chairman, but that doesn't matter really. Someone can, and should be, held personally responsible if their actions lead to the problem. Did Warren Anderson order that safety issues be ignored? Did he know about the problems, but did nothing? Then he might be personally responsible. Simply being at the head of a company when some of the people way down the chain from you massively fuck up is in no way a reason for you to personally be charged for murder.

To extend the analogy - who effectively is responsible for Abu Ghraib?
To extend your badly formed analogy: clearly it's the Bushilter and Cheniburton! Give me a break.

Instead of spending time on Slashdot, maybe you should go and educate your British friends about Auschwitz.

I'm probably too late for anybody to read this, but Tuesday's Independent has a story on Alan Moore's new project, reviving old UK comic heroes from the vaults of IPC.

I'm probably too late for anybody to read this, but Tuesday's Independent has a story on Alan Moore's new project, reviving old UK comic heroes from the vaults of IPC.

Hmm, that link doesn't seem to be working anymore, so consider this random article, in particular this quote:

Traffic's managing director, Kirk Ewing, said that the game would "bring history to life" for a whole new generation of people. "We genuinely believe that if we get enough people participating we'll be able to disprove once and for all any notion that someone else was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy," he said [...]

So... care to retract your "arrogant schmuck" remark?

In related news, Canada is also doing its part.

Cars that are environmentally friendly may be coming to drivers in North America faster than anyone expected after the Canadian government pledged this week to a dramatic 25 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from all vehicles sold inside its borders by the end of the decade.

Just why is this stupid? Counterfiting is illegal and undesirable. Please explain your opinion.

I'm neither the original poster, nor do I necessarily agree with him. But I think I can do a good job as advocate for the Devil.

The obstensible objection to the hardware and software currency detection would probably be that it does nothing to catch actual counterfeiters but does inconveniance legitimate users. Do you really think that people such as these are going to be bothered by such little measures. In order to procure the equipment, inks and papers to forge modern currency (at least in Europe), you have to be a professional. The only remaining result of this technology is the inconveniance to legitimate users.

Now that said, there is a secondary reasoning behind objecting to the law which is less commonly stated, but often underlies such arguments.

You stated that Counterfeiting is illegal and undesirable. Placed in a criticism, this indicates that you feel the law is essentially a good thing and that legality is an indication that something is acceptable. There are many who would agree that counterfeiting is undesirable (it reduces the value of their own / family's money) but would not instinctively add illegal as a criticism. This is because many now feel the government is an adversary, especially in recent times and especially in the US and the UK. They are heavily concerned about increasingly unjust laws and this is colouring their view of the entire legal process. The relation of something as large as this to something as small as the anti-counterfeiting technology is twofold. Firstly, in foisting this technology on innocent people, they naturally resent the presumption of wrong-doing. Much the same as you would feel about having people come around to search your home for stolen goods without grounds for suspicion, or having someone wire your car so that it couldn't go over 70mph to prevent speeding, or outlawing firearms (in the US). It's insulting to many people who no longer feel the government is their friend. It's especially insulting that this redundant technology was diseminated secretly and sneakily amongst people who did not know that what they bought had that it had been fiddled with by government agencies. Remember, many people no longer regard the government as friendly.

The second secret reason behind the objection may be that in order for this technology to work there has to be some subversion of people's computer systems. It can't be implemented in The Gimp and if Photoshop or Lexxmark is calling the FBI when it detects a banknote, then this is basically taking control away from the user. He can no longer trust his computer. Who knows what information it's providing to other parties. This will be especially true with technologies enabled by Trusted Computing. The issue about the anti-counterfeiting technology is not the thing in isolation, but that is part of a broader sweep of taking power away from the user and making their computers work for someone else, not their owner.

Okay, that's my analysis. Of course, the OP may not think this way at all, purely basing his comment on the fact that the technology is flawed (which it is) and inconveniances innocents (which it can do); but I think that many people do feel the way that I've described.

For myself, I just want someone to post the pattern so that I can mix it into my own images and mess with people's heads.

Before anybody mods that funny, an artist did receive a copyright infringement claim over a completely silent track on his album. Slashdot has discussed this before.