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If we are talking found and reported vulnerabilities, then yes, Linux has more. Although notably, even grouping together all Linux kernel vulnerabilities regardless of version the number of HIGH vulnerabilities is not higher than the number of HIGH vulnerabilities in Windows 8.1.

But then, it's a lot easier to get fewer vulnerabilities when dropping support for one of the most used OS'es on the planet. Although XP is only on about 14% of all PC's now, it appears. And now support for Windows 8.1 is dropped as well. That seems to be the way Microsoft keeps vulnerabilities in supported systems down; by simply dumping older OS'es.

Almost. It's not the calories that you eat that matter, however. It's the calories that you ABSORB vs the calories that you burn.

And the calories you absorb can differ significantly from the nutrition labeling, depending on how you process (e.g. cook) the food, see: http://theconversation.com/why...

First of all, the government has acted irresponsibly with the powers it already has. Giving them the ability to remotely control our appliances is a terrible idea. We have to fix the problem with the unaccountable government and lack of societal trust before we start even thinking about these sorts of pie-in-the-sky, cooperative efforts which require a VERY high amount of accountability by those in control.

Second of all, even if the government can be trusted, the companies that will build these things will not take security seriously. I won't say maybe; I won't say possibly. Definitely. These things will definitely not be secure. Most companies still think they can just take a half-hearted crack at security, let marketing make it sound impermeable to the masses and act surprised when it comes out that the security was crap in the first place. It's pretty much the industry model at this point.

Finally, and most importantly, it's not even clear that smart meters will have the intended effect, that people adjust usage. As another commenter pointed out, when everyone is using electricity at the same time, there is usually a reason for that.

My fear is that these devices will be forced upon the public (they already are forcing the "smart" meters on us), and when the evidence is gathered that consumers don't adjust usage voluntarily, it will be done by force. And, the government does absolutely nothing to make me think this won't happen. Why should we, the public, accept this?

Increasing hours is rather less important than increasing the prestige of teaching as a profession (note: this does not and should not mean paying more to teachers). The total time in instruction is in the OECD 2012 report [PDF], at chart D1.1, while the rough breakdown into subjects is in charts D1.2a, D1.2b, and D1.2c for different age groups.

In summary, Finns spend among the lowest formal instruction times in the OECD. For example, 9-11 year olds in Finland spend 640 hours per year at school lessons, while the average in the OECD for that age group is 821 hours. The hours for the USA are not indicated, as there is a good deal of variation among the states, but only 8 of them require less than 800 hours per pupil per year (some insanely require more than 1000).

You may also like to read this.

http://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent-renewables-will-work-13210

http://www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/MarkBaseloadFallacyANZSEE.pdf

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=374

http://bze.org.au/media/newswire/living-green-power-renewables-131007 (and that's from the energy market!)

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-power-myth-video/

Australian cops are *dirty*

NSW!
Good cop, bad cop: how corrupt police work with drug dealers http://theconversation.com/goo...
Corruption is endemic within Australia's police agencies, and certainly within the Australian Federal Police and New South Wales Police, which between them cover the Sydney airports. It also embraces crime commissions and other institutions charged with responsibility for police governance on behalf of the public. http://www.expendable.tv/2011/...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
Pressure grows for NSW police inquiry
Posted 8 Oct 2012, 7:18pmMon 8 Oct 2012, 7:18pm
Up to 200 police officers may have been spied on with listening devices and telephone intercepts.

VICTORIA!
http://www.theaustralian.com.a...
Victorian police corrupt: ex-judge The Australian
VICTORIA'S police force is riddled with "deep-seated and continuing corruption" that will only be flushed out by a powerful and wide-ranging royal commission. Don Stewart, one of the nation's most respected judicial figures, says Victoria Police and the Bracks Labor Government oppose a royal commission because they do not want the extent of corruption within the force made public. "They know that it would reveal what they don't want revealed," says the former Supreme Court judge and founding head of Australia's first national crime agency. Dismissing arguments that dirty police are already being driven out of the force through the courts, he says the recent convictions of senior Victorian officers on corruption charges are "the tip of the iceberg". "The arrest of some corrupt police only proves that corruption is deep-seated and continuing," Mr Stewart says in a book to be published in March.

CANBERRA!
http://www.canberratimes.com.a...
A long history of police corruption. In 1990 the AFP officer Michael Anthony Wallace was convicted of stealing $20 million worth of drugs and cash exhibits. In 1995 Standen's colleague, Alan Taciak, rolled over in the NSW Police royal commission and alleged 78 AFP officers - 15 per cent of the force - were corrupt. Taciak's allegations sparked the Harrison inquiry in 1996. Its final report, which is understood to have alleged widespread corruption in the AFP, has also not been released. The head of the inquiry, Ian Harrison, now a Supreme Court judge, said many agents escaped investigation by quitting the AFP. In 2001 Standen's former boss at the Sydney drugs unit, Cliff Foster, committed suicide while under investigation over corruption.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA!
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/...

DARWIN!
http://www.abc.net.au/local/st...
NT police oppose anti-corruption tests. The Northern Territory Police Association says it will oppose Federal Government plans to secretly test officers' integrity as part of new anti-corruption measures.

QUEENSLAND!
Queensland police misconduct files reveal corruption, favouritism, sexual misconduct

Oh, bloody hell, of course this comes in as I'm heading out the door. But this is rather in my field, so at least a short reply.

So, first off, please be very careful when generalizing from studies of gender differences. They are generally smaller in effect than most people understand (and this is often not well characterized in popular reporting) and there's a long history of confounding factors being ignored (for instances, differences that have to do with body size rather than gender). Even when you can say that there is a statistically significant difference between the means of different populations, that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot more overlap than difference. ...and then you go on make a number of assertions about behavior, without citation, and without talking about origin. Because, yo, culture. (And, of course, the situation in Medieval times, when there wasn't much in the way of reliable birth control also presented a very different social picture. Pregnancy and lots of kids can mess the hell out of your social options.)

So, I'll leave you with this, because I thought it was a fairly brilliant discussion of one of the more decent studies of gender differences in brain structures, which is still accessible to the layman: https://theconversation.com/ne...

With the sole exception of Slashdot, and The Register, I hate reading comments on articles. They're, at best, a minute fraction better than the comments you see on youtube videos....

And I think this article explains very well why comments, or modern day public discussions in general, are crap:
http://theconversation.com/no-...

Nobody, not even the Israeli's are claiming it gets 80-90% of incoming rockets. But I'm pretty sure you're a shill.

You're now welcome to live out your life being less ignorant of the world.

https://theconversation.com/so...

Actions like this are how you get the other half to agree to do things to reduce CO2 emissions.

Good step: Offer to eliminate tariffs on solar panels and other things.
Bad step: Call anyone who so much as questions ANYTHING a denier.
Good step: Get behind building LOTS of modern nuclear plants. LOTS.
Bad step: Say that anyone who so much as questions ANYTHING should be arrested. https://theconversation.com/is...
Good step: Get behind building LOTS of electric cars, and the technology to increase batteries' energy density.
Bad step: Say that anyone who so much as questions ANYTHING should be killed. http://www.americanthinker.com...

Much of the political opposition that the Global Warming people get is because they believe that all of their solutions are so good that they should be mandatory. They come to you and say that you'll have to give up your money, your freedom, your independence, and your quality of life. This is all demanded at the barrel of a gun with the implication that if you don't capitulate, you'll also have to give up your life itself.

Environmentalists have made many great missteps, the two largest being not loudly denouncing those among them that call for murder of anyone who dissents, and continuously pushing plans that they know half the population will never get behind.

You want to reduce CO2 emissions? Suggest plans for it that everyone can support. Leave the death threats at home. ; )

Apparently the psychologist involved thought is was OK, because as it is part of normal default policy, âoeFacebook apparently manipulates peopleâ(TM)s News Feeds all of the timeâ. https://theconversation.com/sh....

SHIT THAT'S A REAL SHOCKER deserving of capitals.

Other economics papers that reached similar conclusions such as the well known Growth in a Time of Debt also were based on flawed spreadsheets. It makes one question the entire hypothesis when the best known works on the subject are based on incorrect (or just plain fabricated) data.

Free hypocrisy points to all the posters who bash these guys but would gladly sign up for the Obama brown-shirt core to enforce "fairness" and "equality" on Fox new or to censor Rush Limbaugh but now feel that their pigs are far more "equal" than those other pigs they disagree with.

P.S. --> Since I'm not a hypocrite, I don't think these creationists deserve "equal time" any more than I think whack-job Global Warming religionists who want to put so-called "deniers" or even people who think Global Warming is real but isn't apocalyptic in concentration camps should be given "equal time".
Oh, no, I'm not exaggerating either: https://theconversation.com/is...

https://theconversation.com/no...

Now, there are a lot of articles that you can read across the web that talk about the "debunking" of Lamarck. Implied in this is a rejection of the data which now seems irrefutable. I like this quote, "Although it has been known for a long time that the inheritance of genetic traits does not always follow Darwin’s laws of inheritance, the majority of molecular geneticists disregarded these findings.", from:

http://www.bio-pro.de/magazin/...

But yeah, I totally make this stuff up. It's my hobby.

Really? Insightful?

I think that if "not-sexist" and "not-racist" are reduced to "not physically threatened because of gender or colour", then you're going to miss a discussion that's important to have.

If computer science is like other science, then your competence, your hire-ability and whether you are considered to be mentored are reduced if you are thought to be female compared to male.

Women are no less sexist than men. So is it a problem? We are not selecting or encouraging exactly the best people. This has economic and scientific consequences, and it has social consequences. If the work "sexism" doesn't apply to this, then you need a word that does, because there's plenty to discuss here.

But everyone else is using "sexism". It might be quicker to use that one.

(Because the article I link to references work on sexism, I use that term in this post, but racism acts on the same level.)

Will they plant their flag right next to the U.S. flag?

Nope - the US congress to take care of that.

b) we already cooperate with those we used to call enemies (like russia) and we made an international space station.

But forbid cooperation with China (not formally an enemy even now) in spite of the other participants in ISS agreeing to it.

d) china steals all their technology

It doesn't need to. China cooperates with the same partners as US (probably with the exception of Japan). And them some others - e.g. Brazil closer to Equator, better suited for space launches.

we invent it.

Wrong tense. NASA's budget in decline drives NASA in the role of a museum custodian rather than a science/technology promoter.

The mouth and nose area are also important indicators of (micro)emotion ( http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2011/05/facial-expressions.aspx ), which could explain why many people (and women especially, I've noticed) regularly glance at that area when they are talking themselves. I believe it is to gauge the emotional reaction of the conversation partner to what they are saying.

See also:
http://theconversation.com/face-value-where-to-look-when-you-want-to-read-someone-11219

Yet in Australia, the most corrupt and inequitable country in the English-speaking world, the courts ruled that the BRCA1 patent owners can screw 'we the people' for all they are worth, all the while their porcine politicians snorted and squealed in delight.

Gene patenting: Australian court rules BRCA1 patent is legal http://theconversation.com/gene-patenting-australian-court-rules-brca1-patent-is-legal-12240

This is nothing new. When asked to rule if Australians had free speech the Australian courts wouldn't even grant them that: http://www.findlaw.com.au/articles/4529/do-we-have-the-right-to-freedom-of-speech-in-austr.aspx http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1741850/QA-What-are-the-limits-to-free-speech http://www.ask.com/question/what-countries-don-t-have-freedom-of-speech

Well, nice to see America putting Australia to shame: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implications_of_US_gene_patent_invalidation_on_Australia

Sure, it's all easy and fun until something like this happens: http://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how-not-to-excel-at-economics-13646. (I'm not saying that errors do not happen with databases, but the fact that the logic in your code is written in one bazillion copy-and-pasted formulas makes it very, very easy to screw up something. And it makes it impossible to write proper tests.)

You are incorrect about Australia's statistics. The result of the gun ban is disputed, but it's generally accepted that the ban led to a large decrease in suicides, and a smaller but still statistically significant decrease in homicides. We also haven't had a single spree shooting since the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms, whereas we had 13 spree shootings (four fatalities or more) in the 18 years before the ban.

As for gang violence, gang violence accounted for 1% of all homicides in 1980 and 6% of all homicides in 2008.