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and then the US proceeded to shoot down a satellite after having criticized china for their stunt.

China accuses US of double standards over satellite strike

It shows nothing with respect to Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Mordechai Vanunu would be disappointed!

Not completely true. There's a reason if you do a photo shoot with a model you ask them for a model release (right to use their image). Not every image is copyright to the photographer. And I have quite a few citations.

Of course, whether or not you need a release is a complex issue, but if you don't want lawyers sorting it out the best is to err on the side of caution.

The Bikini Atoll still has enough radiation that you really should not be there very long.

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

VR, I see as having other problems. Oculus has had how long to release their VR stuff? It's gotten long enough that the only product is the Galaxy Gear, while plenty of people are using it for development and research.

The problem is the simulator sickness effect that people get when the messages from your eyes don't match what your inner ear is telling your brain. Oculus have been working on this for a long time and even warned Sony not to release a Playstation VR accessory until this has been resolved lest it taint the VR experience for the public.

The Oculus Rift is brilliant and I'm sure these others will be equally good but they still aren't practical in the market until the simulator sickness problem is resolved.

"It's called proportionality .. you can't nuke a country in response to a platoon of infantryman crossing the frontier" ...

You're more likely to use nuclear or chemical weapons if the other side don't have them ref.

You are correct. The article in The Guardian states: "The app will be free and funded by advertising, although YouTube says it will be carefully screening ads to ensure they are appropriate for children." If there were no ads, then there would probably be no partner or claimed videos. This would have cut out a lot of YouTube.

I recommend you do something rather unreasonable. That thing is to learn about what you're talking about.

mmm

I'll also bring up that the UK has a horrible problem with violent crime in areas other than gun violence.

Hi. I'm in the UK and I don't think this is actually true. Also, I'm not the only one to think that way. The Guardian, The BBC and The Office for National Statistics all think violent crime is lower than ever:

• Crime statistics for England and Wales: violent crime and sexual offences
• Violent crime in England and Wales falls again, A&E data shows
• Crime Statistics, Focus on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences, 2012/13

“Now I prefer cloudy days when the drones don’t fly. When the sky brightens and becomes blue, the drones return and so does the fear. Children don’t play so often now, and have stopped going to school. Education isn’t possible as long as the drones circle overhead.”
I added the bold.

From: http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

I only read this a few days ago, but was really struck by it. The reason is completely different from that covered in the original article, but I wonder at the effects the author is concerned about...

Cheers,
Bruce.

I didn't watch more than a few seconds of the video because I'm at work, but do you really think a video posted by anonymous is likely to show her comments in context? Maybe she does think that way, but don't you think you should find a more reliable source before making up your mind?

I note that the GP didn't like to the article they quoted either. If I were not so generous I'd assume that was to prevent people getting the complete context in which it was said. For the benefit of the discussion, here is a link to the full article: http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

Look at Norway if you want to see a functioning system. It is not a technological problem it is a political, sociological, and phsychological problem. Have a look and read carefully this comment on the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/com...

That's why you can't stop using google, or have any other choices, or even change the search engine simply by yourself.

I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".

E

I am fortunate to be in Canada, where I can use optionally use the yandex search engine. It is as extensive or better than google. Please don't believe that google has exclusivity on intelligence and capabilities.

Right now, because my keyboard has Canada French layout, Google has decided I want their searches in French. I never selected that language, though the keyboard I use is standard for Quebec.

Google, stop being stupid.

We're not even over the NSA hard drive hacks and now this?

Next you're gonna tell me Americans shove food up people's ass for freedom. Oh wait they do.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of worldâ(TM)s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

That's why you can't stop using google, or have any other choices, or even change the search engine simply by yourself.

I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".

E

You do know that you are echoing Microsoft's exact argument in the EU antitrust case against IE bundling?

That's why you can't stop using google, or have any other choices, or even change the search engine simply by yourself.

I'm pretty sure that yandex knows how to do all this, so claiming it's "difficult to install" must mean "difficult to compete".

E

Ah, yes, that gospel of truth, The Daily Mail.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/...
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foo...
http://www.standard.co.uk/news...
http://www.theguardian.com/lif...
http://www.news.com.au/enterta...

What we really need to do is sit down and talk about whether we merely need to stop abuses of the patent system, or need to scrap it altogether and in the meantime do what we can to stop the most egregous abuses of the system. We also need to sit down and have the same talk about the economic system in general.

http://www.theguardian.com/new...

Amazon's automated warehouses become K-Mart's automated stock rooms. Check-out lines are replaced by assisted self-checkout, allowing one cashier to run 4-6 checkouts. Hamburger makers are replaced by hamburger making machines. Auto manufacturers use a fully machine-tooled line with only a few workers for final assembly. It's coming.

Our welfare system, in 2013, cost $1.62 trillion, of which $1.28 trillion was Federal spending. This is made up of Social Security Old-Age Pensions, Supplemental Disability Insurance, Food stamps, WIC, income security programs, unemployment, and the HUD direct housing voucher program. Just the Federal spending accounts for 37% of Federal spending, 46% of Federal taxes taken, and 55% of all Corporate and Individual income taxes taken at the Federal level.

If we drop the payroll OASDI tax and roll OASDI into general income, all income taxes increase by 9.34%. If we then slice those incomes by 55% and apply a 17.0% separate Dividend Tax on all currently-taxed Income, our tax brackets move from 16.2% on the lowest income earners and 39.6% on the highest income earners to 25.69% and 38.99%. Low-income earners around $9,000 income will take home $5000 more per year; middle-income earners at the $120,000 level will about break even; above that, it increases as high as a 3.17% take-home decrease around $400,000, again breaking even around exactly $2,000,000.

The base income tax system is progressive, and can be adjusted to smooth this out as appropriate; reducing the income taxes at the lowest level to around 0% would return the system to something resembling our current tax structure, with a 3% increase at the highest end. Considering this along with the above, the total taxes taken can raise from 16.2% to 17% on the most poor, and 39.6% to around 43% on the most rich. This compares favorably against current proposals to tax Millionaires and Billionaires at 45%, 50%, 60%, and 80%. Minimizing the taxes in the poor and middle-class ranges is a practical matter: it reduces their wage demand, reducing the cost of labor and slowing down all future transitions to new management strategies designed to reduce labor expenses; such management strategies have higher base cost, but lower labor utilization, and thus are cheaper only when labor is expensive or when the base costs factors of the new strategy have been refined into a significantly inexpensive form.

The 17% Dividend tax would be distributed among every natural-born, resident, American citizen over the age of 18. This specifically excludes the abuses of immigrants flooding to America to live on free Government money, and immigrants crossing the border illegally to birth an American citizen who then goes to live in Cuba or Mexico or wherever with a pension coming at age 18. It also excludes the abuse of welfare families popping out more babies to get at an additional per-child stipend by simply not providing one. The Dividend amounts to $6,558 in 2013; with the typical 3.4% total income growth per year, this amounts to $7,010 in 2015.

In 2013, a 750sqft apartment in a lower-class neighborhood rented for $725/mo, or $0.96 cents per square foot. Assuming an inflated $1.34/sqft, a 224sqft apartment could rent for $300. The model apartment houses a single adult individual and consists of a 6'x9' bedroom suitable to contain a twin bed and a small end-table dresser; a 10'x9' sitting room; a bathroom including a 3'x3' shower stall with corner sink basin and spigot mounted inside, totaling 20 sqft; and an 80sqft kitchen, one counter surface separating it from the sitting room to function as a prep surface and a dining table. These living arrangements provide an improvement over the standard soggy cardboard box inhabited by 600,000 of the United States's poor.

Assuming $300 for rent, out of the 2013 $546/mo, $246 remain. The cost of food is

Data puts it at 0.6% in the UK: http://www.theguardian.com/com...

In the period of the review, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence. During the same period there were 35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape, six for making false allegation of domestic violence and three for making false allegations of both rape and domestic violence.

So you know, there's some conclusive research you can look at.

That's not research its public records which aren't very accurate. I'm not sure about Europe, either in case law or in social pressures, that's true. However you can be assured the actual false claims were higher considering that it takes a pretty high level of evidence to convict someone. Assuming no false convictions (a dubious assumption) there is around a 30% margin of people who are acquitted - some may be false accusations with no substantial evidence. In the United States its so taboo to even suggest the claim is false you need incontrovertible evidence to even stand a chance. The reality is a study would likely reveal a false reporting of rape much higher than actual conviction rate.

In the period of the review, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence. During the same period there were 35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape, six for making false allegation of domestic violence and three for making false allegations of both rape and domestic violence.

So you know, there's some conclusive research you can look at.

I would advise people to give this a chance.

Let me clear up some things about Mars One. It is often claimed that Mars One is a scam and has no scientists, engineers, technology, timetable, suppliers or plan. This is just not true!

Scientists and Engineers:
Lansdorp received his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Twente University in 2003. For five years Lansdorp worked at Delft University of Technology and in 2008 founded Ampyx Power in order to develop a new, viable method of generating wind energy.
Lansdorp is also a successful entrepreneur. Here is a ted talk about his last company.
Arno Wielders received his Master of Science in Physics from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1997. He was soon hired by the Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, to work at Dutch Space in the Very Large Telescope Interferometer Delay Line project.
Gerard 't Hooft, Nobel laureate and Ambassador of Mars One
Gerardus (Gerard) 't Hooft is a Dutch theoretical physicist and professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Received the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Norbert Kraft, Chief Medical Officer, Mars One
Norbert Kraft is an American Medical Doctor with over 17 years of experience in aviation and aerospace research and development as of 2012.[1] His primary area of expertise is developing physiological and psychological countermeasures to combat the negative effects of long-duration spaceflight.[1] He has worked for the Russian Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency and NASA.[1]
Grant Anderson, Sr. VP Operations, Chief Engineer and Co-Founder, Paragon Space Development Corporation 28 years of experience in spacecraft systems design, requirements formulation and preliminary and detail hardware design. Founded or help found 5 companies, two of which are still operating.
Time table: http://mars-one.com/en/mission...
Suppliers: http://mars-one.com/en/partner...
Technology they want to use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
They don't plan to develop much of the technology themselves, they're planning to buy it from other companies mostly such as SpaceX. Most of this technology exists already. They have written statements of the companies that they are willing and able to supply these things.

Price/Funding:
All they need is the funding, and they plan to get that through broadcasting and sponsor deals. His argument is that the olympics got 6 billion dollars in sponsor deals, so wouldn't a colony/trip to mars get the same? It would certainly help them get funding if people didn't denounce it as soon as they hear the name. The mission is so cheap (6 billion dollars) because it's a one-way trip. Sending people from Mars back to earth is very expensive. Also, they're not a big wasteful government agency.
The falcon heavy for example costs only $77-135M to launch (2013). Technology has come a long way, this combined with the privatization of space has caused costs to drop significantly.

Comparison Olympics/Moonlanding:
http://www.theguardian.com/med...
According to this the 2008 olympic openings ceremony was watched by 1 billion people. According to wikipedia in 1969 (the world population was only half of what it is now, and people weren't as well connected as they are now) the moon landing had 500 million people watching. So, just imagine, how many people would watch a landing on Mars in 2023.

Other:
Not saying they're actually going to be able to pull it off, but there's no evidence that their efforts aren't sincere.
Here is a press conference that answers most of the questions you may have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I am aware that reddit AMA was badly received and too

Who went to jail for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Or this: http://www.justice.gov/crimina...

From 2006 to 2010, the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, the Norte del Valle Cartel in Colombia, and other drug traffickers laundered at least $881 million in illegal narcotics trafficking proceeds through HSBC Bank USA. These traffickers didnâ(TM)t have to try very hard. They would sometimes deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows in HSBC Mexicoâ(TM)s branches.

Or this: http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

The 1970 Bank Secrecy Act requires banks to report all cash transactions above $10,000 to regulators and to tell the government about other suspected money-laundering activity. Big banks employ hundreds of investigators and spend millions of dollars on software programs to scour accounts.

When people are depositing hundreds of thousands of dollars via custom boxes that fit teller slots, how the heck are you not responsible especially since laws and regulations require you to report suspected money-laundering activity?

Many people would still be alive today if the banks didn't help drug lords launder billions of dollars. Without the money their armies wouldn't be as well funded or equipped.

this pretty much says it all.

Holy shit. The Guardian has turned into buzzfeed. How far have we fallen?

this pretty much says it all.

http://www.theguardian.com/med...

As content is worth less and less, they need to do something to prop up the profit structure.

Sad thing is, if the content being infringed is worth less and less, why are people getting stiffer and stiffer penalties for infringing?

"According to Thompson the future of online advertising looks increasingly like the business of television"

Wishfull thinking by the television advertisers. They would like to turn the Internet into television but that's not going to happen and surely facebook is the one trick pony.

Burson-Marsteller: PR firm at centre of Facebook row

Well, Finland already has a border with Russia and the way things are going, it's entirely possible Estonia and the rest of the Baltics will be returned to Russia's "sphere of influence" by 2030. Promises made by NATO to put a brigade in Poland and create local headquarters in each of the Baltic states have made depressingly little progress and the EU has made it clear that avoiding conflict with Russia is worth the sacrifice of nations on the periphery of Europe.

Well, Finland already has a border with Russia and the way things are going, it's entirely possible Estonia and the rest of the Baltics will be returned to Russia's "sphere of influence" by 2030. Promises made by NATO to put a brigade in Poland and create local headquarters in each of the Baltic states have made depressingly little progress and the EU has made it clear that avoiding conflict with Russia is worth the sacrifice of nations on the periphery of Europe.

Third, what does the drone do if it's heading towards a no-fly zone? Turn around? What if it can't avoid entering a no-fly zone?

That's easy, you make each no-fly zone 30 miles wide.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/28/white-house-drone-technological-fix-phantom-menace-no-fly-zones

"DJI’s new Phantom drones will ship with the update installed, and owners of older devices will have to download it in order to receive future updates. The no-fly zone over the capital will extend for a 15.5-mile radius."

"China started assaulting VPNs recently as well."

China has been blocking VPNs since 2011. It seems like an annual ritual. Here is a typical article from back then:
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

Eventually the blocking eases, or people figure out another way around. It becomes a game of "whack-a-mole".

It gets worse, HMRC basically let everybody off, they were asked to pay 10% of the tax owed and gave immunity from prosecution. The guy runnning HSBC at the time was made a gov't minister.

Someone from HMRC should be fired at the very least, the action gives a very clear signal that it is OK to hide your money abroad in order to avoid tax.

Conservative party, government of the people, by the millionaires, for the billionaires.

http://www.theguardian.com/bus...

Yes, links have been established with increase of antibiotic use and increase in weight. When I read the summary this was the first thing that came to mind as the likely cause.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal...

http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

You mean the organization that damaged Peruvian Nazca Lines just a few months ago?

Or the Greenpeace that defaced a power plant ?

-1, eh mods?

The world is full of self-confident rock-star developers who turn their noses up at professional software engineering practices.

As for the other thing, here are the good old citations: Amazon 1, Amazon 2, Amazon 3.

Evolution is still happening. We have plenty of geological evidence of that as well.

No we don't - we actually have recorded documentation written by humans that evolution is still occurring. The geological record is not accurate at anything close to that resolution. However the process is slow enough that I strongly suspect that we will still be 'humans' no matter how different we end up from what we are now and that our species will be the one renamed as "primitive human".

As for health care costs spiraling out of control, you honestly don't think that's because of out of control insurance, lawsuits, and top-heavy bureaucracy?

Yes, it is because of that too. The medical industry could certainly be more efficient. However the cost to develop and test a new drug is huge and increasing (and not just because of inefficient bureaucracy). If you strip away the bureaucracy you will still have an underlying problem of increasing costs.

We are putting far more money into applying existing technology to medicine (and other fields) than we are in the fundamental science which drives the whole machinery. This means that each new development is a more complex, hard to achieve application of technology we those we already have. You can solve the bureaucracy problem but you cannot solve the underlying problem it obscures without investing in fundamental science.

Really? No wonder you believe the space age nonsense, you've left the planet years ago!

600 years ago you would also have been saying that it was a waste of time to build ocean going vessels and that clearly people who thought it was a good idea had "left the continent already"? I hope even you can see that this was not a waste of time. We clearly do not have the technology yet to go into space in any meaningful fashion but the resources out there mean that we should certainly aim to develop it. As for the need to spread to another planet to maintain our species I'm not the only one with that view but you may have a harder time dismissing his opinion as clearly nonsense.

Some links to pages describing Tempora.

I think the fact that UK Defence officials issued a Defence Advisory Notice to the BBC requesting they don't mention certain espionage programs, which may-or-may-not exist, basically confirms that they in fact do exist. It's damn near an official acknowledgement even. Same goes for the US Army restricting personel access to The Guardian website since they started mentionain PRISM and Tempora. Well done chaps!

smaller cameras

Pinhole cameras can be surprisingly large.

Largest in the world
Industrial wheelie bins
And many other sizes

Size, shape and construction doesn't matter. A pinhole camera can look like a bomb, a bomb can look like a pinhole camera.

If you want to deploy such things in public, then the scheme needs publicity and the co-operation of public bodies. Otherwise, the official response (in this case) is largely correct.

Similarly, Forbes relies on the Heartland Institute's James Taylor (also not a scientist) to report on climate change. How bad is the Forbes reporting? Well, in an August 2012 interview, I correctly stated that in a warming world, hurricane intensity can increase and these increases are being observed. Also, rainfall, storm surge, and storm size can be affected.

In response, Mr. Taylor attacked me and discussed the frequency of landfalling U.S. hurricanes, as if the two were the same. Obviously, he either misunderstood my comments or does not have the knowledge to interpret them. When I asked for the right to rebut Mr. Taylor, what did I hear? Crickets. Did Forbes feel even a bit embarrassed when just over a month later, Superstorm Sandy hit the U.S. coast, causing approximately $65 billion in damage? Do they feel embarrassed now that the newly released IPCC report supports me, not their non-scientist Mr. Taylor? Perhaps we will never know. - http://www.theguardian.com/env...

Similarly, Forbes relies on the Heartland Institute's James Taylor (also not a scientist) to report on climate change. How bad is the Forbes reporting? Well, in an August 2012 interview, I correctly stated that in a warming world, hurricane intensity can increase and these increases are being observed. Also, rainfall, storm surge, and storm size can be affected.

In response, Mr. Taylor attacked me and discussed the frequency of landfalling U.S. hurricanes, as if the two were the same. Obviously, he either misunderstood my comments or does not have the knowledge to interpret them. When I asked for the right to rebut Mr. Taylor, what did I hear? Crickets. Did Forbes feel even a bit embarrassed when just over a month later, Superstorm Sandy hit the U.S. coast, causing approximately $65 billion in damage? Do they feel embarrassed now that the newly released IPCC report supports me, not their non-scientist Mr. Taylor? Perhaps we will never know. - http://www.theguardian.com/env...

Of if we do, please televise the battles so that people can choose which side they belong to.

I take it you've not heard of Fox News then? Although sometimes they do switch it around and fight stupidity with ignorance. Best watched in very small doses though.

I think that was a kind of "we're religious, we don't really understand it" thing.

And now, because of that, there's this:

http://www.theguardian.com/sci...

If your suspected action threatens to influence government policy, you're good enough for a terrorist watchlist.

And now you know why the FBI put "National Security" on its charter. National Security means: To maintain the status quo even against the will of the nation's people. This means spying on Civil Rights Activists, Women's Rights Activists, and Anti-War activists among others.

It's not enough to want to influence government policy. If you care about anything enough to do something about it -- say, organize a voting block, petition and/or protest, submit a bill, etc. AND it goes against the status quo, then you're a "terrorist" AKA "anti-government extremist" which the Pentagon has been militarizing the police to combat (The plan most recently surfacing as the NY Police having permanent long rifle and machine gun armed anti-protest squads).

What's ridiculous is that even just posting such things has drawn to me the negative attention of the government, regardless of whether my world view is mature enough to acknowledge that other forces are at work against us, and allow my concern to be tempered by the big picture. A new cold war is going on right now, and online assets (including journalists) are under attack. The sad thing is that without shedding some secrecy, the people who are now disenchanted with their new outlets (due to overtly ideological slants) can not bring themselves to align with their governments. They are not willing to trust blindly, and thus transparency is required for true national security to be maintained -- These growing pains during the first generation of world wide information networks will cause turmoil as the systems of government shift to incorporate strategies for the rallying of public via truth instead of lying sockpuppets. The first nation to trust their citizens enough to reveal a measure of their true inter-workings publicly (and thus sacrifice some corruption to stay afloat), will win the support of the world's populace.

Now begins the Standoff. The government can only survive by transparency and moderation, but its agencies cling to totalitarianism of secrecy and spying with the fervor of ideological extremists.

If you're not willing to go to jail or die for what you believe in, then you don't truly believe it. Either watch your words and keep your head down or stand up and become a citizen.

Also European, not living in the bush; black is still the term to describe many people of colour, at least in my culture. A selection of headlines from last last six months in the very, very politically-correct Guardian newspaper

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

They all, unfortunately, have something else in common. But no, African-American is certainly not used with anything like the same dominance by our media.

Also European, not living in the bush; black is still the term to describe many people of colour, at least in my culture. A selection of headlines from last last six months in the very, very politically-correct Guardian newspaper

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

They all, unfortunately, have something else in common. But no, African-American is certainly not used with anything like the same dominance by our media.

Also European, not living in the bush; black is still the term to describe many people of colour, at least in my culture. A selection of headlines from last last six months in the very, very politically-correct Guardian newspaper

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

They all, unfortunately, have something else in common. But no, African-American is certainly not used with anything like the same dominance by our media.

Also European, not living in the bush; black is still the term to describe many people of colour, at least in my culture. A selection of headlines from last last six months in the very, very politically-correct Guardian newspaper

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-...

They all, unfortunately, have something else in common. But no, African-American is certainly not used with anything like the same dominance by our media.

> "The knowledge that they may be rated is also encouraging people to submit more upbeat reviews themselves, even if the experience was less than stellar,"

Ebay had the same problem with sellers threatening to give buyers crappy feedback ratings if they weren't first given a perfect rating. Eventually ebay changed their system so sellers could not rate buyers. That's imperfect too, but seems to be less imperfect than the previous iteration. I have no opinion as to whether a similar change would be a good thing for Uber, I don't use their service.

workers who stepped in the water at Fukushima sustained significant radiation burns.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

There are safer ways to work around these exposed cores but in some ways Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl. The workers who tunnelled under Chernobyl and laid concrete to stop further core intrusion into ground water avoided the more severe problem that now occurs at Fukushima.

The total exposed core material and the use of MOX also make the total expelled radiation greater at Fukushima, just that most of it has gone into the water rather than into the air.

Have we suddenly forgotten how totally crappy public transport in India is? Where 6 men can rape a woman to death with a steel pipe in a crowded pubic bus and nobody intervenes? Or the 6 guys who raped a Swiss tourist who was bicycling? Or this copycat rape where the bus driver and bus conductor refused to let the woman off the bus, drove to an isolated spot, raped her, and 5 others also joined in? Or the police refusing to listen, instead laughing when the family tried to report their two girls missing - they were later found raped and hanged?

Have we forgotten the Indian practice of bride burning if the wife doesn't bring what the groom and his family considers an adequate dowry with her?

On second thought, let me rephrase that. Have we suddenly forgotten how much of a sh*thole India is if you're a woman and you're not high-caste and moneyed? The problem isn't Uber, or this crass venue-shopping. The problem is India.