Slashdot Mirror

http://www.fitbit.com/forcesup...

While only 1.7% of Force users have reported any type of skin irritation, we care about every one of our customers. On behalf of the entire Fitbit team, I want to apologize to anyone affected. ...
Independent test results have not found any issues with the battery or electrical systems.
Test results show that users are likely experiencing allergic contact dermatitis.
All Force materials are commonly used in consumer products. However, some users may be reacting to the nickel present in the surgical grade stainless steel used in the device. Other users are likely experiencing an allergic reaction to the materials used in the strap or the adhesives used to assemble the product.

And that's just one of them, that Fitbit ran into.
Apple may be running into that same one, AND MORE, once people start using their watch instead of the Fitbit or using it like the Fitbit.

For one, Fitbit's battery lasts a week. Tim Cook suggested charging Apple Watch over night.
With all those sensors, "Taptic" actuators, color screens... I have a feeling that's a rather optimistic estimate.
They didn't mention the battery for a reason.

Also, I have a feeling that the "Digital Crown" won't last. At least for people trying to use the watch for tracking their activity.
Either it will be replaced by a slide sensor, dropped, or Apple may come out with a iBrush to clean the iGrime.

Price, naturally is an issue for many as Fitbit is 3.5 times cheaper AND does not require a new iPhone too boot.

Apple Watch also features the same old issues which caused Woz to throw away his Samsung Galaxy Gear, dubbing it "worthless".
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

You had to hold it up to your ear and stuff. ...
"I want my smartphone [on my wrist], but I really want the whole thing," said Wozniak. "I don't want just a little Bluetooth connection to the smartphone in my pocket because then it's just an intermediary, an extra thing I buy to get what I already have and have to carry anyway."

His comments reflect a trend seen in the adoption of wearable technology by consumers. Around 40% of UK consumers ended up abandoning them because they got bored with the idea or simply forgot to put them on, according to research by CCS Insight. Fewer than half a million smartwatches were in use in the UK by March this year, according to data from research company KWP ComTech.

The story is similar in the US. One-third of American consumers have also stopped using a smart wearable device within six months of purchase according to data from Endeavour Partners.

Though, the reality distortion field is a powerful force, and one that must be reckoned with.
From USA TODAY:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

As with other smartwatches, consumers will be able to change watch faces on the new Apple Watch and customize it in various ways.
I especially liked a watchface featuring Mickey Mouse.

Customizable wallpaper/skin. A highlighted feature for the Apple crowd.

If you really want to visit the largest e-waste site on Earth you won't find it in China

Because it is in Africa

http://www.theguardian.com/env...

http://www.theguardian.com/env...

From TFA:

Saudi Arabia has announced it is on track to start work on its first major solar farm early next year. ...
He added the project was on track to begin feeding electricity into the grid by 2015 and will mark the first step on the government's path towards delivering 41GW of solar capacity by 2032, through a combination of solar PV and solar thermal technologies.

And they are planing to be producing 120 GW by 2020 - of which only those 41GW will be solar. By 2032. 17GW will be nuclear.
http://www.eia.gov/countries/c...

UAE as of 2011 was producing 26.1 GW of electricity.
http://www.eia.gov/countries/c...
With plans for 28.8 megawatts (MW) wind farm and a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant with 100 MW capacity.
While building at least 4 nuclear reactors, first two 1.4 GW ones planned to come on-line in 2017.

Neither country cares much about renewable sources because 1) oil and gas and 2) they are investing in nuclear.

Recent research has shown that chickens are the closest living relative of T. Rex.

Do you have a reference for the research?

If it's true that T.rex is closer to chickens than to pheasants, peafowl, and other Phasianinae, it would mean that the Phasianinae family dates back to before the K-T disaster.

This was all over the mainstream press last April. I was echoing their over-simplified characterizatoin of the research.

It's actually "closest living relative among the set of genetic databases they tested", I.e. chickens, sheep, etc. Chickens happened to be a bird they tested, with aminno acid sequences far closer to those of the collagen recovered from T. Rex - nearly identical, in fact, than those of things like mammals. So don't expect this to re-write taxonomy - or to mean that chickens were any closer - or farter - from T. Rex than their close relatives such as phesants.

Of course there's other evidence that birds were around well before T. Rex. So it may turn out that chickens are closer relatives to T. Rex than, say, bluebirds. (Or maybe bluebirds will turn out to be closer, once they're compared.)

Of course they aren't documenting their ability to subvert anonymity on Tor.

Stop spreading FUD. Actually they documented the fact that they do NOT have that ability. And they admit that in top secret documents, which aren't exactly supposed to be used for propaganda:

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

Hence they probably try to influence Tor's design in the hope to make it weaker in future, as OP was saying.

Or Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The mystery of flight 870 (22 July 2006)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
It seems strange this story was just 'found' now... with a mention of the "Kola Peninsula or a submarine in the Barents Sea"...

It's always been easier, safer, and more reliably productive for scientists, young and old, to contribute incrementally to established lines of inquiry rather than to attempt to trailblaze. The present age is no different.

See Kuhn, Thomas..

Not yet. I doubt Russia is going to make such claims until it has military capability that is greater than the one U.S has. Not even the Soviet Union did regard Alaska as an issue or the fact it used to belong to Russia (pre-Soviet Union). Russia today under Putin is dangerous country and its media is full of lies and deceptions.

As for list of Russia land grabs. It seems we have our next target. That is Kazakhstan.

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

While Daily Mail is not the most reliable source, they just might have a point on Russia wanting to take over Belarus too. Even if they are now "allies", or so the dictator of Belarus believes at the moment.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Putin is not out to build new Soviet Union. He is out to expand Russia and that is a totally different matter. He has already had some success doing to with his less economic able neighbour countries.

That means the instantaneous peaks will be in the ballpark of 50% of grid energy coming from solar.

Is that EE is your username a mere unused decoration or an utter lie? Who outside of bad science fiction is suggesting 50% of grid energy coming from solar?

http://www.theguardian.com/env...

Germany hit over 50% of their instantaneous electrical power coming from solar on June 9th of this year.

  I think you are confusing instantaneous and total power.

You seem to have reduced renewables to just wind and assumed that I think the country should be powered 100% by wind, That is incorrect.

I'm not, but I'm looking at the cheapest renewable. There is some hard (dispatchable), but highly limited renewables, like hydro and biomass. These can make some contribution, but it's rather small. If you look at the fastest growing ones, it's wind & solar.

Tepco lie habitually. Their own statements show they don't know what's going on.

Them not knowing doesn't mean you can just make stuff up and fill in the gaps with whatever you like. The linked article is still over a year old and could indicate a temporary condition. Moreover, it's notably light on radioactivity figures for the contaminated water. When you have a look at an article on the guardian which mentions at least some quantitative measurements, it says "quantities of radioactive caesium-134 and -137 in locally caught fish have fallen to levels close to the government-set safe limit of 100 becquerels per kilogram", while noting that it's "scant consolation". I don't know about other people, but knowing that the level of contamination is falling is indication that the situation is definitely improving. And 100Bq of Cs137 (by far the more active of the two) corresponds to concentrations of 0.22 picograms per kg of water (or less than 1 part in one quadrillion), that's pretty close to the detection threshold of the measurement hardware (which is very low) and means you really don't need to be worried at all. There's shitloads of other much more toxic stuff in much larger concentrations in that water that has nothing to do with radiation - honestly, think about the danger rationally.

Hinkley point will get tens of billions in subsidies at the guaranteed rate of £92.5/MWh - roughly double what will be paid for gas, coal, wind etc.

And I don't agree with that. Did you read what I wrote? I said Hinkley Point C was a bad deal.

If renewables are so unobtainable why are Scotland aiming for 100% renewable by 2020 after having beat their goal of 31% renewable by 2011 set in only 2007.

Because you don't understand how the accounting there works. They look at generation, divide by consumption and declare victory. But last I looked, Scotland isn't an island somewhere in the Pacific. In fact a significant amount of that will be pushed south and reimported from fossil fuel generation later when the wind isn't blowing. But since the overall generation divided by their rather limited population (and thus limited consumption) is high, they can declare "100% victory!" Unfortunately, in the big picture, they are hardly making a difference: http://www.gridwatch.templar.c... <- study these graphs, they're not made up. Portugal is probably the same story with Spain, but I'd have look it up (TBH, I'm not familiar with their grid, I know the UK's and Germany's and I've also studied German renewable growth vs CO2 trends - they won't make their 2050 commitment if they continue at the way they've been going since 2004. In fact, by my estimation after they have expanded to 100% renewables in 2055, they'll still be at 40% of 1990 CO2 levels. Can share the raw data, if you like.).

Iceland is 100% renewable electricity, and much of their heating is renewable.
Norway is 99% renewable electricity.

These two are extremely out of the ordinary examples. Both have very low population densities (Norway 1 order of magnitude less than the UK, Iceland 2 orders of magnitude) and both have specific geographies. Iceland is a highly active volcanic island, so it has ample geothermal resources (and I acknowledged that). Norway has lots of water flows, so it has plenty of hydroelectric resources (and I ackn

You seem to have reduced renewables to just wind and assumed that I think the country should be powered 100% by wind, That is incorrect.

Tepco lie habitually. Their own statements show they don't know what's going on. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Politicians smart? They are only smart about lining their own pockets.

Hinkley point will get tens of billions in subsidies at the guaranteed rate of £92.5/MWh - roughly double what will be paid for gas, coal, wind etc.

If renewables are so unobtainable why are Scotland aiming for 100% renewable by 2020 after having beat their goal of 31% renewable by 2011 set in only 2007.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-sco...

Portugal hit 58% renewable electricity in 2013 and in January of this year renewables supplied 91% of their electricity.
Iceland is 100% renewable electricity, and much of their heating is renewable.
Norway is 99% renewable electricity.
Germany hit over 30% renewable electricity for last year and has peaked at 74% of renewable electricity.

Renewable energy provides 21.7% of electricity generation worldwide as of 2013
Renewables trend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Nato seems to believe there are at least a thousand Russian troops in Ukraine. Ukraine says it is more like 1,600. Either way, Putin says 1,000 troops is irrelevant because he can take Ukraine within 2 weeks if he so orders.

So, not really just rumors.

I hope very much that not just Russia’s historical memory but that all of humanity will prompt us to search for peaceful solutions to the various conflicts that are currently unfolding and that will arise in the future. We support political dialogue and the search for compromise.

That would be a lot more meaningful if Putin didn't have 100 tanks fighting in Ukraine.

Russia has up to 100 battle tanks fighting in Ukraine, UK believes
Putin likens Ukraine's forces to Nazis and threatens standoff in the Arctic

Do you have any thoughts as to how many of the questions Putin got were plants orchestrated to deliver a message?

I hope very much that not just Russia’s historical memory but that all of humanity will prompt us to search for peaceful solutions to the various conflicts that are currently unfolding and that will arise in the future. We support political dialogue and the search for compromise.

That would be a lot more meaningful if Putin didn't have 100 tanks fighting in Ukraine.

Russia has up to 100 battle tanks fighting in Ukraine, UK believes
Putin likens Ukraine's forces to Nazis and threatens standoff in the Arctic

Do you have any thoughts as to how many of the questions Putin got were plants orchestrated to deliver a message?

Russia had plausible deniability by only supplying things like T-64s to the rebels, but as the rebels were losing it seems Putin couldn't accept that and now there are numerous photos of T-72BMs in the Ukraine and the Russian military is the only military in the world to have access to and operate these:

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

Similarly, Russian mothers are beginning to ask why their sons are coming back in coffins due to unexplained deaths from a "training exercise" on the Ukrainian border, and where reporters attending their funerals are attacked by mobs that have nothing to do with the funerals in question but magically turn up at them to keep journalists away all the same. Then of course there's the actual Russian soldiers who were outright captured in Ukraine:

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

Of course, we have history, just this year too, where Crimea was filled with "rebels" who Putin eventually admitted were Russian soldiers, so it's obviously well within Putin's realm of willingness to pass of serving soldiers as civilians until their mission is complete, which, by the way, is a war crime for what it's worth - yes, that's right, admitting this tactic makes Putin a self-admitted war criminal.

When MH-17 was shot down, and it was just T-64s and modern machine guns the rebels had it seemed a bit of a stretch, yet still plausible that this was just a rag tag bunch of individuals fighting on behalf of Russia. Now, with more recent evidence you'd have to be exceptionally retarded to not recognise that Russia is very clearly in the Ukraine with full serving units (hell, the 10 captured soldiers prove that as an outright fact by itself whether you really believe they were lost or not, you don't just allow your soldiers to stumble into a war zone accidentally unless you want them to end up in a potential fight). This is why the tide of battle has changed too from being strongly in the Ukrainian military's favour to now being in the Russia's favour - the Ukrainians are no longer fighting relatively lightly armed insurgents, they're fighting full blown armoured battalions backed up by professionally precision launched artillery strikes all of a sudden - that doesn't just get organised out of nowhere by rebels in a couple of cut off towns with little remaining access to the outside world and dwindling numbers, that requires state level planning, implementation, and financing over an extended period of time to implement - i.e. it requires a professional army.

At this point the only hope is that enough Russian soldiers are killed such that Russians themselves start asking what the fuck they're doing in someone else's country that has done absolutely nothing wrong to Russia (other than hurting Putin's ego) when there's a simple solution of leaving that country the fuck alone and letting it get on with becoming a modern nation even if it does mean Putin's little big man syndrome takes a knock. Thankfully that already seems to be happening to some degree with the Russian soldier's rights institute that's compiled a list of the 400 dead Russian soldiers it believes have been killed in this war already - putting that into context that's very nearly as many lives as the British have lost in 13 years in Afghanistan so thankfully there is a high cost to Russia for this stupidity, and thankfully it is beginning to be noticed by ordinary Russians themselves.

I like the idea of police wearing cameras, but you're jumping to conclusions by assuming that it has a "clear and enormous benefit".

I'm not jumping to conclusions, I'm relying upon empirical data like this:

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

Nobody knows what the long term consequences are or how this technology may be abused.

And unless a better, more tangible case against them can be presented than vague and airey fear, uncertainty, and doubt of speculative "unknown unknowns", we should expect to discover the consequences through experience shortly.

We don't know whether this is the right choice for every single community in the US either.

Is that the bar, now? Any law that is passed has to be "the right choice for every single community in the US", by the standards of every individual? That sounds like a recipe for a totally dysfunctional government. Even in a republican democracy, sometimes the majority gets to rule.

Just because something seems like a good idea to a lot of people doesn't mean it should become federal law.

I don't think anyone has been arguing that everything that "seems like a good idea to a lot of people" should become a federal law, so what point are you addressing here? A strawman?

Something should become federal law only if it cannot be implemented at the local or state level.

That's just your opinion, not the American tradition.

You are correct. I reversed them.'Incredible' rate of polar ice loss alarms scientists

It was found from the average drops in elevation that were detected by CryoSat that Greenland alone is losing about 90 cubic miles a year, while in Antarctica the annual volume loss is about 30 cubic miles. These rates of loss – described as "incredible" by one researcher – are the highest observed since altimetry satellite records began about 20 years ago, and they mean that the ice sheets' annual contribution to sea-level rise has doubled since 2009, say the researchers whose work was published in the journal Cryosphere last week.
"We have found that, since 2009, the volume loss in Greenland has increased by a factor of about two, and the West Antarctic ice sheet by a factor of three," said glaciologist Angelika Humbert, one of the study's authors. "Both the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Antarctic peninsula, in the far west, are rapidly losing volume. By contrast, East Antarctica is gaining volume, though at a moderate rate that doesn't compensate for the losses on the other side of the continent."

You seem to have drunk the Kool-Aide if you believe that the west (aka, EU, US) have had no involvement in the ongoing (over a decade) political instability in Ukraine. Here are just a few oldies but goodies

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/G...
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://monthlyreview.org/2006/...

And of course there is the very long history of CIA and MI6 meddling in the internal affairs of, well, just about every country in the world.

Let's hope Apple's new fingerprint reader is better than their previous one: http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

Actually false.

Well Actually We're Talking About This Year You Moron.

Are you seriously so stupid as to try and debunk something so widely reported???

So what are the policy implications? What do we do differently now that we know this? I mean, we've always been aware that they'd do something with bio weapons if they could.

You ask and answer your own question - the important steps to deal with this sort of threat should have been taken long ago. And if we're "lucky" the "insightful" people in government responsible for helping to prepare haven't dismantled the apparatus developed by the previous administration for handling it. It hard to say what the current state is, but if the constant denial we see on this and related topics on Slashdot is any indication .... well .... we're already screwed.

We also know that their capabilities are limited and that what we're really likely to see is a an attempt that may fizzle or may, if they're lucky, be moderately successful.

Well, that's assuming they didn't make off with any of the biological weapons developed by Saddam (and there were some) or by Syria where ISIS controls considerable territory and apparently has already used chemical weapons, or that the government scientists from those regimes or the former Soviet Union didn't either sell their expertise or volunteer it to "help the brothers."

Finally, we've always known that there's a short list of biological agents that amateurs with limited resources would likely deploy.

And the general public isn't really vaccinated against many of those agents, are they? Also note that amateurs may have a freer hand, especially if they don't aim for a high probability of killing. It is the professionals that are aiming for military grade effectiveness that have to push the envelope. And who says that they aren't buying help from various places, places with considerable experience in "experimental" "evidence based" programs such as North Korea?

Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag

...things that we're already as well prepared for as we can reasonably be?

Are we? I can think of some things that probably haven't been done, or funded. Do you think the Obama administration is refilling the vaccine stocks as they expire? I'm not sure I would be confident. After all, they "ended" the war on terror, didn't they?

Or is this particular thing so much more likely than any of the million other attack vectors that we should spend outsized resources on it?

Is something potentially this dangerous something that we should just ignore? I'm pretty sure there must be some middle ground between denial and surrender to it being "too hard."

It seems to presuppose the long-discredited Conflict Thesis, which states that religion and science are inherently always in conflict.

Long discredited? That may be so but we still have lots of religious people who oppose teaching evolution or reproductive biology on a religious basis, disbelieve climate change in disproportionate numbers, believe the earth is about 6000 years old, or even, in some parts of the world, think that girls have no need for education.

Finally most religions require one to accept truths on faith, that is without objective reproducible proof. That's the anti-thesis of the scientific method.

Wikipedia is about providing correct information, which is unrelated to gender distribution.

The Wikimedia Foundation and numerous commentators in the press disagree. See for example this recent Guardian editorial, or recall last year's controversy about the categorisation of women novelists in Wikipedia. It does affect how information is presented, and what information is presented.

The start of burning man was delayed by rain.

These comments reminded me of this story, where even sending exceptionally creepy stuff to the guy's house, and making specific threats against his family weren't actually indicative of genuine intent to do harm. This is what I think of when I see stuff like this. Not that there couldn't be some genuinely disturbed person who would cause harm; but I suspect that in all or nearly all cases of sick trolling like this, it's just "a game thing."

Given that all our leaders in both the west and Russia are pathological liars, I'm always interested to find the other side of the story. Not that our media makes it easy.

This slashdot story reports what's happening as fact. But as far as I can tell what we have is actually only quotes from Kiev, the same people who have been claiming that Russia was invading for weeks. The same people who claimed that a convoy of aid was actually full of soldiers and military equipment, even after it was repeatedly spot checked by journalists and found to contain exactly what Russia claimed it did (food and aid). This is coming just days after Poroshenko dissolved his Parliament, there were apparently rising protests against conscription into the Ukrainian army, and the separatists were able to make progress.

Just to make things even more complicated: simultaneous with the claim that Russian troops are crossing into Ukraine, RT is claiming that Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia, in order to defect, and the Ukranian government admits this.

This comment on the Guardian story (which incidentally is much less biased than this Slashdot article and presents this as an accusation by Kiev) is what got me to look for these stories and I think interesting enough to quote in full:

Nothing really to explain. Ukraine troops, left without leadership and provisions, have been deserting and losing ground all week. Now that people are demonstrating in Kiev calling for Poroshenko's resignation, he's calling invasion.

- Close to 2,000 Ukraine combatants have put down their guns and asked for asylum in Russia.
- In the last 4 or 5 days, the DPR army has encircled and captured more than 7,000 troops, and all the hardware they possessed.
- On the 24th we all saw thousands of these defeated troops marched through Donesk city centre.

Now they have close to 80 tanks, and various other armored vehicles, all acquired from defeated Ukraine troops, and are sweeping over eastern Ukraine.

Poroshenko was given billions of dollars, and some how failed to pay pensions, salaries, or to send adequate supplies to the forces. He's losing this war, that's all.

1) it's not a given that officer discretion is gone. the same argument was said about dash cams in squad cars, but was just as invalid there. It's up to department policy. Very few departments I know of would even contemplate removing officer discretion, let alone actually do it.

2) No more so than dash cams, or the millions of cameras in peoples pockets already, uploading tons of background to youtube. Public spaces and all that. Plus, it's not terribly difficult to write laws or policies regarding handling of actual privacy data. There's many laws already on the books, it's not an unknown new preoblem, but rather a previously encountered and solved one.

3) No. Absolutely not. Pure absurdity and stupidity.

4) You just cited the "technicality myth". Even more invalid than the slippery slope. It basically only exists on TV. (Myth #6 on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... ). It rarely happens in real life. But when it does, what you call a "technicality" is when the state somehonw violated your (or specifically the defenedant's) rights in its pursuit of justice. When rights only matter for "law abiding citizens", but can be tosed out the window for anyone accused of a crime...that's not law, that's a charade. You should be happy that in enforcing the law is willing to make its own job harder and more difficult, and even toss it's own victories, in the name of protecting your rights should you be accused.

5) That's the whole point. In the cities where this has been done, YES INTERACTIONS CHANGED. Specifically, accusations of brutality or misconduct decreased to tremendously. Wearing the camera protects BOTH THE OFFICER AND THE CITIZEN. An impartial observer to the complete interaction is in everyones' interests: the cop's, the citizen's, and society's in general. Cops have a job to do. That job entails making decisions on a daily basis in regards to enforcing law and interacting with everyday citizens. If you dont have the gumptions or confidence to do that and face potential review at a later date, maybe you shouldnt enter that sort of occupation. Course, that applies to every job.

Traffic cameras, police car dash cams, and officer worn cams have all been tremendous success stories in terms of providing an impartial official record of what actually happened. When actual video exists of an entire encounter, rather than relying on notoriously unreliable "eyewitnesses" or hoping some passerby caught it on camera, it becomes clear exactly what happened. Also, we can once again turn to other countries, as this isn't a new thing being encountered for the time ever. It's been common in Europe and UK for close to 10 years now. Also tremendously successful over there.

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://online.wsj.com/articles...

You saw the DEA do it with phone call records.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... Sept 4 2013
".... to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.""
Thats just one tiny project with once set of data.
Water news http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Power news http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
Thats just for one classic storage site thats in the news a lot.
Re So what would it really take to put this sort of thing together?
"The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control" 11 July 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
"At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US, says whistleblower William Binney – that's a 'totalitarian mentality'"
Should give an average reader an idea of the US internal scale to store, track, index, search, voice print, call to, call from, other numbers, work back from hops surrounding people of interest.
ie well funded, all of the USA, over years, aspects of calls stored for years ready to be found in storage if seen at a protest, near a protest or near a person who was near a person at a protest.
ie you just need a lot of tame Room 641A like access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

After reading a shameful article praising clickbait I realize the term isn't negative enough. "Bait" can be good or bad. Instead, please call them "misleading headlines" or "incomplete headlines" or "editorializing headlines."

And at this point, I think you are deliberately misstating my argument. Fusion is a dream at this point that the most knowledgeable in the sciences say is at least 60-80 years away from economic viability. Don't believe me? Look at the ITER roadmap, publically available.

And how much of that is precisely because we keep cutting funding or simply not devoting the resources that could make it viable in, say, 20 years? No, fusion is seen as a long-term investment so there's every incentive to make long-term funding decisions that seen no reason to get a result in 20 years vs 60 years if it means spending three times as much (at least) in 20 years. That it creates some sort of morale problem seems to be missed or ignored.

And the reality is that the visionaries are usually overoptimistic.

No kidding. You're playing the part of visionary too, btw.

You and I will be dead before it becomes viable and our children as well. And that is assuming this becomes viable as there is always a risk when talking about advanced tech like this.

Certainly, the way we keep putting off funding, that's pretty much a given. The real issue is that solar isn't a viable option for mass deployment as energy needs grow--there's too much daily variability which can't average out without massive energy storage tech (which we aren't pushing hard enough either)--and neither nuclear nor fossil fuels are really long term answers. But if all you care about is you and your kids? Move to an island and become self-sufficient.

Even if you are convinced the science will work out, political upheaval could mean that we can't see the project through to the end. Just imagine a more indebted US and Europe having to cut science and a China that no longer has a market to sell to and collapses on its own centrally managed bureaucracy.

The US and Europe are already cutting science funding and China is developing itself as its own market, including massive nuclear/solar/whatever short-term energy it needs so it doesn't have to rely upon the US/Europe--and honestly, given how its trying to transform itself by urbanization and consumption, the US/Europe market aren't near large enough so it inherently has to rely upon itself. Very few countries are thinking that long term, but if any country could be said to be in a position, China is actually the one taking the lead and working on a 50 year project with gusto. Perhaps we'll be lucky and China will see the need for fusion and the US/Europe can buy the tech when they're done?

Insert your own worst case scenario and you see why century long, multi billion dollar research projects are risky.

Everything is risky. But the real question is if we don't spend multi-billions on such research projects, do we really gain anything? More money in the bank? No, in the long-term we need massive research projects precisely because, just like VC, some of the work pays off so massively to make all the waste worthwhile. Hell, that's the foundation of accepting capitalism--where tons of money is wasted infighting and fueling companies that'll implode from inefficiency--over more regulated systems--and it's not merely a question of not trusting any one organization since distributed socialistic programs along with government oversight would be both a dead weight loss and yet undoubtedly better than the current self-made conglomerates. But, I digress.

So, fund it? Sure. But not at the expense of something that is a sure thing and will have a huge benefit now. You state that solar is somehow selling out the long-term... unless you mean over a billion years from now when the Sun goes nova, I'm not sure how this is remotely accurate.

The

It depends on the US or UK mission. If the US gov wants to support some NGO doing a Colour revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... then the communications and support has to work well over years.
For every other use of online anonymity the US and UK would like to have a way in as now understood with most of the tame telco and banking crypto over decades.
e.g. NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure http://www.theguardian.com/wor... (6 September 2013)
the classic line "... have invested in enormous programs to automatically collect and analyse network traffic"
The US gov and mil can afford do both and keep users guessing. Protect the very well supported "freedom fighters" just enough globally and still collect it all.

Spain has already stated they will not veto Scotland

Every source I can find seems to indicate the complete opposite.

Hmmm, that's interesting - got a citation? Only time I've heard people talking about "passports to enter England" it's been Better Together canvassers. The Yes campaign deride the idea as ludicrous - for precisely the reasons you mention.

The Home Secretary's view: Theresa May would seek passport checks between Scotland and England

The Depute First Minister's view: We would have a Scottish passport. My passport says EU as well as British citizen and that's the point. We've got right of free travel. We can go to Ireland without a passport.

And the article gets a pass on citations because ... why?

Anyhow - check out the following:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...

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

http://www.theguardian.com/pol...

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

And the article gets a pass on citations because ... why?

Anyhow - check out the following:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-s...

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

http://www.theguardian.com/pol...

http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

There are other news sites than Slashdot, you know. Actually, forget that. There are news sites, and Slashdot isn't one. It's fairly widely reported that he was killed by beheading, without watching the video. For example, a recent Guardian article mentions it in the fourth paragraph.

google global warming hiatus ipcc

http://www.motherjones.com/env...

http://washington.cbslocal.com...
http://www.weather.com/news/sc...
http://articles.latimes.com/20...
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
http://www.climatecentral.org/...

Re ". . . if you're that paranoid."
We saw the free UK offer of wifi to attempt get to phones of interest under
"UK spy agency reportedly intercepted email of delegates at G20 meetings in 2009" (Jun 17, 2013)
http://www.pcworld.com/article...
"... set up Internet cafes at the G20 meetings in order to extract key logging information and credentials from foreign delegates, giving the agencies “sustained intelligence options” against the targets even after the events ended."
"...allowing the reading of people’s emails before or at the same time as they do"
A few sites kept open to herd the press too, with CCTV and dat collection? All other easy to find sites closed thanks to tame telco help?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/... 17 June 2013
"Setting up internet cafes where they used an email interception programme and key-logging software to spy on delegates' use of computers"
"Penetrating the security on delegates' BlackBerrys to monitor their email messages and phone calls"
"Supplying 45 analysts with a live round-the-clock summary of who was phoning who at the summit"
In any city for local police work soon :) You connect, the gov pushes some extra software out too.

I meant this stuff: http://www.wired.com/2011/09/u... and (same story) http://www.motherjones.com/moj... and http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

If you live outside major cities your service level would be like Amtrak in those cities - terrible.

You should read the article ... on wait, there isn't one ... here is a description of their plan. It involves a range of services, including on-demand self driving cars and vans, easy access to rental cars, etc. They envision that most of these services will be provided by competing private businesses. It is also non-coercive: they aren't banning private cars, just trying to make them unnecessary for most people.

Hm. So either allow females full control over every aspect of the shared male/female environment or support sending death and rape threats to random women who speak their mind?

I don't think anyone anywhere mainstream is making you make that choice. Rather the idea of the story is that prejudice has little or no place in rational discourse, and that includes blatant misogyny and sexism. Why? Because it isn't rational, and because it leads to horror.

FWIW, I find myself, as I get older, having less and less respect for women as a group (as individuals, of course, everyone deserves to be treated on their own merits), but even as I veer towards misogyny myself, I find it completely ridiculous that we should continue to tolerate a situation where members of one gender - the other being more or less free to say anything - is targeted for frightening abuse up to and including rape and death threats whenever said women speaks their mind on anything remotely controversial, and frequently on topics that shouldn't be controversial at all.

We are not Iran. Hell, Iran is not Iran.

It's fine to say Jane Austin sucks and shouldn't be on a banknote. It adds nothing to the debate, however, to say women shouldn't be on banknotes, and tt's not OK to post rape threats against Caroline Criado-Perez.

And then all that money that would be used to pay salaries that would be used on expenses locally, making the local economy work, will be redirected to Bill Gate's pockets.

The chief idea behind this was to save money yet it resulted in a poor user experience with many complaints. Saving money by paying salaries to people to produce a product that results in many user complaints is not a good economic choice.

Agreed. But exporting jobs to an already incredibly rich country is even worser.

Tough decision.

when all our documents will be locked in a proprietary cloud

No, you have stored them on a server, in fact any sane organization already stores all their documents on a server. They are not "locked" there, you could equally store them locally if you want. Did you not know that?

Nice. Stop paying Office 365 and try to get your documents. :-)

Storing your documents in the cloud, the way we're doing now (granted, it's not the only way), is like storing private data on Facebook. You can't expect integrity in the former in the same way you can't expect privacy in the latter.

You didn't knew that, right?

that anyone with the right influence will have access

So now it is a conspiracy? The defeatist has not heard of encryption? Or not storing sensitive data on a server you do not control? Anyone with the right influence could put a backdoor in the open source software too and they wouldnt have to go through Microsoft to get one put in Windows.

Microsoft software may not be a good choice but dont be so dimwitted as to think open source is some silver bullet that solves all the problems you pointed out.

You take it on the wrong side. =]

WHen you store your documents in the cloud, the software is irrelevant. Doesn't matter if you're using open ou closed source software, the server's owner can do whatever he wants and you'll never know.

Now... About that encryption thing....

Sure I'm playing with android. Given the choice of developing for blackberry or android, why would I play with a phone that's got almost zero market share?

What killed Blackberry: Terrible apps.

Many of the most popular apps on the iPhone and Android are nowhere to be found. There's no Instagram, Netflix (NFLX), Candy Crush or Google (GOOG) Maps. Many of the big-brand apps that do exist for BlackBerry, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, are infrequently updated and have received dismal reviews from users.

Meanwhile, BlackBerry news site BerryReview revealed last month that a single developer is responsible for 48,000, or 40%, of BlackBerry's apps. Some of those apps developed by Hong Kong outfit S4BB many seem legit and functional. But many of them are either generic clones of other apps or possess minimal usefulness.

... and ...

BlackBerry is also rapidly losing subscribers, so big app makers don't want to devote resources to a vanishing platform. But BlackBerry also gives free rein to small developers to fill its app store with spam apps.

Although the open-ended strategy may be mildly beneficial to BlackBerry and a few ambitious developers in the short term, encouraging such a large ratio of garbage apps to quality apps poses consequences in the long run: Smaller developers don't want to invest in BlackBerry, because it it's hard for consumers to stumble upon their apps in a diluted pool.

BlackBerry isn't a "competitor" to anybody any more. They sold fewer phones last year than in 2008. And worse ...

analysts remained sceptical about the future of the firm formerly known as Research in Motion. "If you wouldn't lend money to buy BlackBerry, why would you lend money to BlackBerry?" queried Benedict Evans, of Enders Analysis.

... and ...

One major supplier, Jabil, warned in September that it might stop building parts for the company, which could completely kill off the handset business.

When such a critical supplier says they're thinking of bailing, there's no way to spin it.

Except per Swedish and EU law that would be illegal.

I don't know why you people keep bringing it up.

Because Assange has said that if Britain and Sweden would put forth a good-faith promise not to extradite him he would happily travel to Sweden to face the molestation charges.

If what you are saying is true then I don't know why Glenn Greenwald (a former lawyer) and others would have put together a document detailing exactly how the two governments could make that promise,

This is why this is so crucial: if Sweden (and/or Britain) would provide some meaningful assurance that Assange would not be extradited to the US to face espionage charges for WikiLeaks' journalism, then the vast majority of asylum supporters (including me) would loudly demand that he immediately travel to Stockholm to confront those allegations; Assange himself has said he would do so. That gives the lie to the ugly slander that those who have expressed support for Ecuador's asylum decision are dismissive of the sex assault claims or do not care about seeing them resolved.

Speaking for myself, I have always said the same thing about those allegations in Sweden from the moment they emerged: they are serious and deserve legal resolution. It is not Assange or his supporters preventing that resolution, but the Swedish and British governments, which are strangely refusing even to negotiate as to how Assange's rights against unjust extradition and political persecution can be safeguarded along with the rights of the complainants to have their allegations addressed.

Of course, Greenwald and the Guardian might be lying but, at this point, I trust them much more than I trust British and Swedish governments.

Hey Slashdot, does anyone knows why telegrams are peppered with the word 'STOP'? Was there no punctuation mark to use a period?

Apparently, when telegrams were in widespread use, four letter words were free but punctuation cost extra.

Using the word "STOP" instead of a full stop saved money because four-letter words were free and punctuation cost extra.

Although football is a still late in the numbers race compared to some other sports, it is rapidly catching up. For a nice view of the power of numbers in football, and what makes football unique as a sport, I strongly recommend reading The Numbers Game .

Yes, Capitalism is the accepted economic system because it produces results; if those same results persist through extreme levels of inequality is a different matter. If what you are trying to say is that the current levels of inequality are actually beneficial for society, I believe most economists would disagree. See The Great Depression, this article, or this book. No one knows what they threshold really is, but no one argues that there isn't one.

This also won't work against the "terrorist" Buddhist monks who have decades of training in maintaining a perfectly zen state of calmness even in extreme situations... however their shaven heads and robes might be a dead give away.

"The Chinese foreign ministry has accused the Dalai Lama of "terrorism in disguise" for supporting Tibetans who have set themselves on fire in protest against Beijing's rule." - http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

$89 billion is surely false precision, but it's not unreasonable to put a value on lives when you have an economic decision to make. None of them work all that well, but it's better than just flailing in the dark which is the alternative.

For example, you can look at how much it would cost to save those lives another way (eg, through spending on road or rail safety or other, known, healthcare spending). This might give you a figure of a few million. But you tend to find huge discrepancies between spending in different areas - eg, much more in air and rail safety or terrorism prevention than in road safety - depending on how the public responds to those things. Refusing to put a cost on lives this way kills - governments spend huge sums on rail (eg, after the UK Hatfield rail crash) and terrorism prevention when spending a lot of it on healthcare and road safety would save more lives. eg, according to this http://www.theguardian.com/uk/... the UK government was prepared to spend three times as much (~£3m) per life saved on rail compared to road, and more like £15m in an expensive system after the crash - in effect letting 15 people die to save each one.

You can also recognize that we're not talking about certain death, we're talking about risks to life - and people implicitly put a value on risks to life all the time. Car vs train, one car vs another, a dangerous job vs a safe one, driving further to buy something more cheaply or commute from somewhere different. You can come to estimates based on how much they're prepared to spend to avoid risk. But, of course, people are quite irrational about risk and you get widely varying numbers.

And, as another commenter has said, you can estimate from economic output lost, but that's not very satisfactory. In theory it produces a minimum value (assuming that the economy isn't overproducing, spending people's time on producing things less valuable than the time). But it confuses the purpose of an economy - to give people the best quality of life it can, not to produce as much stuff as it can.