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Scotland seems to want to stay in the EU:
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling...

Will the Kingdoms become Ununited, as Jasper Fforde shows:
http://www.jasperfforde.com/dr...

Recommending censorship of scientific literature is extremely dangerous ground, and a precedent which could lead to the halt of scientific advancement on earth if the limit is applied (mathematically).

Scientific advancement generally lets us do difficult things more easily. Humans are reasonably resilient to other humans, but still rather delicate and fragile over the spectrum of physical and chemical (biological) forces. Scientific advancement will allow an individual human to apply physical and chemical (biological) forces at a greater magnitude; surpassing the difficulty barriers in place for a naked individual.

It is already relatively trivial to wipe out a large number of humans with scientific advancement - poisoning wells was first implemented millenia ago. An ordinary Western kitchen has everything you need to make an IED in five minutes. Eventually (and not too far in the future), an ordinary household could contain everything needed to design the next pandemic (just modify your bio-LEGO set, or corrupt your dodo home cloning kit). A byproduct of scientific advancement will be the increased triviality of wholesale death; thus the desire for censorship. The problem is that we will hit a point where any further advancement in a field would result in making it too easy for the skulker in the shadows so all research in that field would be halted by censorship.

The problem is ultimately social and not scientific in nature. Should scientists pause progress and wait for social advancement to catch up in responsibility, or is social advancement primarily a reaction feedback mechanism which needs the ethical dilemmas produced by science to move forward? Will we ever get to a point socially where no one on earth would be capable of setting lose the deathly horrors? To identify and cure every sociopath, to have every extremist cause sits at a table. Is such a thing possible? If not, should we freeze scientific advancement to limit the damages which could be caused?

This is not a question which can be balanced without weighing the potential trade offs. It may be trivial these days to make an IED, but it is also trivial to cure the bubonic plague. The comparative risk of bringing new life into the world is trivial, producing enough food for a scientific nation is trivial, sharing ideas and communicating with friends and enemies alike... Eventually curing influenza, HIV, cancer, and even old age could be trivial.

Right now, NSABB has decided we're not ready for the next step of scientific advancement (science without publication is dead"). As I started with in the beginning - this is dangerous ground, but I can see their reasoning. We're standing at the leading edge of a great tunnel, when not just nation states with coordinated effort can destroy the world, but hidden men in basements and kitchens can do the same. We could stay here in the dusk, but for myself, I think I'd rather adventure onward and take my chances with the skulker in the shadows rather than cutting power to the light at the end of the tunnel.

I second the recommendation for Jasper Fford, though The Well of Lost Plots is not the first of the series, The Eyre Affair is the first. An extremely well-plotted novel, it evoked the sense of surfing the net, watching a movie, and reading at the same time. His latest series is in a similar universe but has different protagonists -- The Big Over Easy featuring the murder of Humpty Dumpty and the detectives Jack Spratt and Mary Mary from the Nursery Crimes Division. Jasper Fforde's home page is fun too.

I seem to remember reading in the book that the decision for recreating Neanderthals actually started from the idea of using them for medical testing, as the Neanderthals are pretty close to human in regards to physiology...

Ah, here is the relevant passage:

'The Neanderthal experiment was conceived in order to create the euphemistically entitled "medical test vessels", living creatures that were as close as possible to humans without actually being human within the context of the law. The experiment was an unparalleled success - and failure. The Neanderthal was everything that could be hoped for. A close cousin but not human, physiologically almost identical - and legally with less rights than a dormouse. But sadly for Goliath, even the hardiest of medical technicians balked at experiments conducted upon intelligent and speaking entities, so the first batch of Neanderthals were trained instead as "expendable combat units", a project that was shelved as soon as the lack of aggressive instincts in the Neanderthals was noted. They were subsequently released into the community as cheap labour and became a celebrated tax write-off. It was Homo sapiens at his least sapient.'

Gerhard VON SQUID - Neanderthals Back after a Short Absence

From "Something Rotten" by Jasper Fforde. (Goliath being the megacorp that cloned the 'thals).

Also highly recommended is the "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy by Robert J Sawyer (although it's pretty much straight scifi, not comedic like Fforde's books).

'Thals don't figure prominently until the fourth book in the series, "Something Rotten," where they turn out to be instrumental in a high-stakes world cup croquet tournament.

All four books are a hell of a lot of fun, and approach the level of wit and humor of Douglas Adams. Recommended.

Schwab

If you haven't read the Thursday Next books - you're missing a treat. Not just because the author is a genius (Think the love child of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett) but because the book can be UPGRADED and has SPECIAL FEATURES!
How cool is that!

I read loads of content on my (black and white) RIM Blackberry. It's fine for casual reading - but the screen needs to be a bit bigger.

Ebooks need to have all the convenience of "real" books - but address all their failings. Like VHS to DVD.

Real Book - fixed font (hey, you'll be old one day, too!). EBook fonts will go up or down depending on what you want.

Real Book - can't read 'em in the dark. Ebooks, lovely backlighting!

Real Book - can't carry 10 of them on the plane. Ebooks, you can fit all of Shakespeare in less than a MB.

It's not enough to give people the same old content in a fancy wrapper - people need a tangible reason for swapping formats. Especially if you're going to be taking away some of their original benefits (book sharing etc)

T

If you haven't read the Thursday Next books - you're missing a treat. Not just because the author is a genius (Think the love child of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett) but because the book can be UPGRADED and has SPECIAL FEATURES!
How cool is that!

I read loads of content on my (black and white) RIM Blackberry. It's fine for casual reading - but the screen needs to be a bit bigger.

Ebooks need to have all the convenience of "real" books - but address all their failings. Like VHS to DVD.

Real Book - fixed font (hey, you'll be old one day, too!). EBook fonts will go up or down depending on what you want.

Real Book - can't read 'em in the dark. Ebooks, lovely backlighting!

Real Book - can't carry 10 of them on the plane. Ebooks, you can fit all of Shakespeare in less than a MB.

It's not enough to give people the same old content in a fancy wrapper - people need a tangible reason for swapping formats. Especially if you're going to be taking away some of their original benefits (book sharing etc)

T

Many characters from the "standard" English classics -- Shakespeare, Dickens, Bronte, Austen and the like -- appear in this series. So while a casual knowledge of this sort of literature is not essential for reading the series, it certainly increases the humour. Potential readers should be warned that The Eyre Affair contains Jane Eyre spoilers.

For fans of the books, Jasper Fforde's website is very good. I think I read there that the fourth Thursday Next book is due out this summer and will tie up the loose ends.

Who wrote Shakespeare? Who Invented the banana? What really happens when a bookworm farts? Don't read this book unless you want to find out.