Slashdot Mirror

e.g.
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529- 1173432_2,00.html

The Octavia vRS does 0->60 in 7.9s and this is the kind of thing they're planning:

http://www.skoda-auto.com/global/showroom/concepts /tudor/

Then there's the WRC and BTCC racing cars. They aren't the joke they were 10 years ago, thinking they are is complacency.

The moral is that market leaders had better keep on their toes.

(Interesting that the Secret Service is involved)

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8209- 1645235,00.html

A retail loans arm of Citigroup was ferrying the data via UPS to Experian, the credit-checking arm of GUS, the UK retail and logistics group. But one box of data failed to arrive at Experian's Texas offices and was presumed lost en route by UPS.

Experian said last night that it was moving ahead with plans to shift from transporting hard copies of data overland and was working with customers to allow all data to be sent electronic ally.

Citigroup has already agreed to the plan and is expected to cease overland transportation of most customer data within the next month.

This news is pretty damn old and was reported in Indian Newspapers like a month ago. Well, it came in UK Times too. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2- 1571664,00.html
SMS's really suck. They are too damn annoying in public places where cellphones ring at random. This is probably the most annoying technology ever!!!

A little more digging finds a number of news articles (most rather sceptical) about the bomb test claims, some of which mention analysis of supposedly radioactive material from a site or sites in Thuringia:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4348497.stm
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1518173,0 0.html
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7090178/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1511154, 00.html

There's a particularly sceptical article in Spiegel that makes the whole thing sound a bit 'Da Vinci Code':
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spie gel/0,1518,346293,00.html
Also according to Spiegel, the Jonas Valley in Thuringia is turning into a sort of German Area 51, attracting an army of crackpots looking for everything from stolen art treasures to evidence of nuclear weapon testing:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spie gel/0,1518,260784,00.html
("[Conspiracy theorist] Stade also believes that the Führer's telephone system inside the tunnel network is still connected to the public telephone system. In fact, he claims that it's buried deep in the archives of the German Reichspost, and that he found Hitler's number there. It's 03624-1200500... Although the Führer's number is a working number, it's always busy.")

Not only was it not an ideal choice, it was a counterproductive one. In 2002 those of us who gave this any serious thought predicted that invading that country would be destabilizing. And instability makes a perfect breeding ground for fundamentalism. An analogy to your statement would be a doctor saying "Tequila isn't the ideal medicine for your hangover, but it's the only available one".

As far as being "actively hostile", what were they doing? Planning an invasion of the U.S.? As Colin Powell said in February of 2001, "frankly they [sanctions] have worked. He [Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." This explains why "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" instead of the other way around.

On the other hand, the elections are evidence that it is working, as are events in Libya and Lebanon. It's still too early to tell.

Democracy != Elections. Democracy means fair access to government. Iraq is a long way from that. Democracy *could* help make fundamentalism of all kinds less viable (though there's no guarantee of that), but elections by themselves have nothing to do with that.

Fundamentalist Christianity *has* been eliminated as a viable worldview.

It has merely been relabeled as "intelligent design" and "culture of life". True, it isn't viable in the sense of "logically defensible", but that hasn't stopped many Americans from calling for certain theocratic views to be imposed on public policy.

You might have a point, except that the Bush administration has repeatedly conspired to keep the truth from the American public, and to circumvent the Constitution when it suits them. Saddam Hussein doesn't have WMDs? Fine, we'll pick and choose intelligence to make it look like he does. While we're at it, we'll meet with Blair to discuss strategy for the war that Congress hasn't authorized. What, you tell me that Saddam Hussein hasn't done anything aggressive? Then we'll increase bombings to try and goad him into war.

What? You still haven't seen this? Osama had nothing to do with US policy in Iraq, except the "fixing the intelligence to suit the policy" part. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936 07,00.html

It's called grooming and there have been cases of kids meeting up with and being attacked by people they met over the Internet.
In the UK there are laws against this. See: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-1132 151,00.html

Well, have a read of this article and see what you think.

Finland in the 70s decided that enough was enough, and bribed the nation back to health. The Glasgow experiment is based on this (on a very small scale). Hopefully it will take off over the entire UK as the dietary situation is grim.

What happened (and what is still happening in some areas) was "a rush to the bottom". School meals were contracted out to whoever could provide them cheapest (subject only the the most rudimentary controls). The net result is that the cost for a child's school meal is less that that of an army dog. And the dog's meal is probably more nutritious.

The population has been forcibly reminded of this recently (courtesy largely of Mr Jamie Oliver, whom I didn't like, but kudos for this) and has almost been embarrassed into taking action. Well, embarrassed into talking about taking action at the moment - we shall see.

Yes. In comparison to the US, we do have a perfectly clean reputation for democratic justice: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1140590, 00.html

It's probably better that you don't take out allied troops whilst you're at it... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-15173 27,00.html

Sorry, but anyone using the term "loony left" cannot be taken seriously.

As for your opinion on their view, surely you must be aware that not everyone has given positive reviews. For example, the Sunday Times gave a very similar review. Considering that the paper is regarded as being rather right-wing in the UK, I think your suggestion that poor reviews of ROTS are politically motivate is rather implausible.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,, 14931-1615203,00.html

He hated them all. He hates every movie, as far as I can tell, apart from Lord of the Rings. I read his reviews so my expectations are lowered, and I come out feeling "it wasn't that bad" with every movie I see. Makes me happy.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936 07,00.html

"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

It also doesn't help that with all the incentives that were offered for so long when the economy was bottoming-out recently, as with Christmas shopping, everyone now expects incentives and profit-shredding sales, and will hold out for them.

As for lack of demand, who do you think all the people that bought huge trucks and SUV's for the past several years were buying from? Honda?

Irresponsibility such as that bears crushing.

i'm not sure why the story links to engadget, since it's just summarizing another site's summary of the real story, found at:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2- 1571664,00.html

it's got the "optimized" text that went over sms ("hey gf u can txt ur best pals 2 tel them wot u r doing, where ur going and wot u r wearing.") and the times (90 seconds to 108).

The real article is here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2- 1571664,00.html

Haha, so the real answer was: the SMS was typed in quicker, but the network latency of sending an SMS message made it arrive 12 seconds too late :)

Anyways, here's the breakdown:
Morse message: 948 units of time / 50 elements per word (PARIS) = ~19 words / 1.5 minutes: 12.67 wpm.

SMS message: ~23 words / 1.8 minutes: 12.78 wpm.

(Special thanks to KEdit find/replace and wc)

The SMS slang version is only saves 15% from the original message, which is also interesting.

Therefore, the whole test is bogus - they take the same amount of time. (actually, I bet the ops sent the code at ~40wpm, but it took a while to write it down onto paper. A better test would have been to have the sms receiver convert back into proper english :-)

But, yeah, morse code is awesome anyways. Another LOL from TFA: "I send about three messages a day," she said. "I used to send lots more but I ran out of credit." :) Remember, kids, with Morse Code there is no "credit"!

Feel free to comment!

The girl lost partly because she mistakenly added 4 extra words to the message, among other things.

I love it! If Bush said something like that, FOX News would report it as FACT, CNN would follow 10 minutes later and every blogger from here to katmadu would praise Bush for his vision.

Don't beleive me? Look at his record. To date, the only thing Bush invented was a reason to invade Iraq, and I quote: There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. - Tony Blair, 23 July 2002

So according to America's #1 ally, not only had Bush decided a YEAR BEFORE THE INVASION that Iraq would be attacked, but he had the intelligence "fixed" to make it seem like more of a threat than it was. The American people were duped into supporting the Iraq war and yet for some strange reason we are sitting here listening to you babble on about how the media is biased against Bush.

Your gall is astonishing, and when you meet your maker, he will surely add your mindless support for Bush to the column labelled "reasons you belong in hell".

This story was in The Times last week: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-18 791-1584294,00.html

This interview and Atheist Richard Carrier's article explains that the world famous now former atheist Antony Flew believes in a non-interfering creator. Creator may be too strong of a word for him. First cause might be better. His god is a minimal god, but it is the complexity of life, especially DNA, that caused him to acknowledge that science can not explain the origins of life. But here is a someone, a famous atheist, that is now convinced that there is some Intellegent Design.

Nearly exterminate? There are still more than a few news organisations with online presences:

Reuters
The Times
The Guardian (interesting... the content is free but if you want to read it in a paper format you can subscribe)
The Sun
The Mirror
ITN Sites, e.g. Channel 4 News
The Scotsman (a surprisingly large online presence)

The sites you mention: FT and Telegraph, it isn't surprising they charge as they have concentrated readerships with higher levels of disposable income, so why not go for a straightforward revenue model?

I have no doubt that the popularity of BBC news is for reasons consistent with the popularity of their television and radio news: high quality and impartial in a way commercially sponsored news could not be (commercial news also remains very popular: the total cross-media circulation of ITN, Times, Sun, etc is massive).

It may sound even more offensive in French, as neo-con does.

You're British. So what do you think about the recent revelations that Blair lied cold-faced to the British people about Iraq?

The use of multispectral imaging (MSI) to view ancient papyri has been going on for some years now, with the following being some of the most interesting projects:

- recovering text from a manuscript containing 10th century copies of some of Archimedes works which had been erased and over-written in the 12th century. http://www.thewalters.org/archimedes/frame.html

- similar to the project above, this is the recovery of carbonised Roman papyri found in Herculaneum (which was covered in 100 feet of lava during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-14522 44_1,00.html

There are also lots of other artefact imaging projects, such as that being carried out by the Digital Hammurabi Project (http://www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi/), who want to digitise (make high-res 3D computer models of) ancient cuneiform tablets or the work at the University of Kentucky which may allow text to be 'read' without the artefact being touched at all - using a CT scan which can be decoded on a computer http://www.research.uky.edu/odyssey/fall04/seales. html

Awesome stuff...

Just because we're an island doesn't mean we are secure. We've got the Channel tunnel now - asylum seekers/refugees/illegal immigrants kept trying to run through the tunnel (all 32 underwater miles of it) between train departures. Not forgetting their attempts to sneak on board container trucks, train wagons and ferries; and it's the trucker/airline/ferry owner who gets fined $10,000 per immigrant. Although this has stimulated research into all sorts of detection equipment that wouldn't look out of place in Star Trek (ultra-sensitive microphones that detect heartbeats, gas detectors that detect the carbon dioxide from human breath, near-infra-red detectors that can see through vehicles and containers).

And when they do get caught by customs, they have already destroy all existing documentation, so we don't know where they came from. As there is only so many space in the detention centres, they are allowed 48 hours to stay in the UK before being required to return to customs to be deported.

Our government are really in a panic now, because there is estimated to be 250,000 illegal immigrants plus 5000 terrorists in the UK now. At least one has been caught already

now faces the situation of getting constant beating by the management in a company which sees their researchers not as assets anymore but more as a cost reduction point which has to be outsourced to another country. It does not matter in the end that the company will run out of new products a few years later, because the management gets the golden handshake.

A textbook example of this situation is MG Rover in the UK.

Gay rights in UK: snubbed to save the Muslim vote.

I sure won't have to look hard to find another faith that condones genocide (verses 10-12) repeatedly (15.2, 15.3), or moving into modern times (as opposed to holy doctrine) bombing clinics and gay bars...

I think that the Religious Reich has a lot to answer for, but when you compare attitudes among evangelicals in America with regard to what they regard as blasphemy to those among Dutch-born Muslims regarding Theo van Gogh, you cannot honestly say that the latter are even remotely as tolerant and fit for membership in a pluralist society. As van Gogh found out, that mistake can be fatal.

... and murdering non-believers.

Say what you will; no Christian society has been that bad for at least a century. As an atheist I would much rather live in the increasingly intolerant USA than in any Muslim country.

You're right. It's all Cuba's fault.

Get a clue. The US has control of that area of Cuba, not Cuba.

It may not (note: "MAY NOT") be illegal, but it certainly is under US jurisdiction.

Don't deceive yourself.

In fact, read how the U.S. has now decided that the World Court is not convenient for the purposes of the bush administration.

Perhaps the World Court would not agree that the bush administration could blatently get away with their bullshit.

First off, The USofA is not torturing people there. What is happening there is similar to what the French are doing with suspected terriorist:They are detained.

yes, it is sad but you are completely wrong

Secondly, these people are not innocent. They were captured fighting for a terrorist cause on a battlefield.

Some of them were, but certainly not all. Some were rounded up by a $20,000bounty offered by the US Government, and there are children as youg as 13 imprisoned there, and they are being let go - as in free- as in "not terrorists". Not to mention a senior American military interrogator at Camp Delta told 60 Minutes II that as many as 20 percent of the Guantanamo prisoners were sent there by mistake - and that they were innocent bystanders, or very small fish.

This Sunday Times article is a representative overview in the online media about the likelihood of a sale, but a swift Google reveals that some of these arguments have been going on for years.

The Government published their plans for the BBC charter for the next ten years and it basically leaves the online services alone. You want to be careful about anything you read about the BBC in the Murdoch press (The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The News of the World) as Murdoch has no made no secret of his dislike for the BBC and its funding mechanism.

Not for long. The BBC's charter is under review again and the calls for privatisation that come at such times are just as loud. But the Hutton inquiry did real damage this time, and some politicians smell blood.

This Sunday Times article is a representative overview in the online media about the likelihood of a sale, but a swift Google reveals that some of these arguments have been going on for years.

Frankly, all public broadcasting and their associated websites are seen as unfair competition by the corporations, and must be stopped from undercutting their valuable market.

You might be on to a winner, check out Japan's "s-phone" and here

By contrast, the "S-Phone", which has attracted thousands of Japanese subscribers since its introduction by the Tu-Ka
network last November, has no function except that of a basic telephone. It does not even have a screen.

Google Plans Free VoIP In the UK

Posted by timothy on Mon Jan 24, '05 01:49 AM
from the thinking-ahead dept.

jarich writes "According to this news article, Google may be preparing to offer free Voice Over IP telephone service in the UK. This sounds related to a previous Slashdot article about Google starting to buy dark fiber. So what are they planning? A free service like Skype (computer to computer only) or more along the lines of Lingo or Vonage?"

• Why aren't cancer rates much higher in nations with significantly more cell phones/coverage- say, Japan for example?
• Why hasn't brain cancer increased in the last 20 years as cell phone usage has gone from near zero to a major percentage of the population? I also don't hear much about "cancer of the hip"...

Of course the Encyclopaedia Britannica never makes mistakes:

12-year-old expert brings top encyclopaedia to book

Just a word of advice, from some fool accross the internet.. I highly suggest you read This Article. Just a unique perspective on your life...

As The Times wrote in the wake of Carly's sacking:-

"Here's a little-known fact about the computer business: if you filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool with printer ink from Hewlett-Packard's inkjet cartridges, the bill would come to $5.9 billion (£3.2 billion). It would be cheaper to fill the pool with Dom Perignon, or petrol."

The folks at http://www.climate2003.com and http://www.climateaudit.org/ debunk the crackpots at http://www.realclimate.org/.

The folks at http://www.realclimate.org/ debunk the crackpots at http://www.climate2003.com/ and http://www.climateaudit.org/.

This is as it should be in science.

The graph used in the New Scientist article about the Bush Whitehouse accepting humans as the cause of global warming, here http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6334, has been debunked as bad science here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/. Mann's own bad science puts any reports that use it in doubt. This is how science works.

How did they debunk it? They used the scientific method of attempting to duplicate Mann's study using Mann's data. They couldn't. They found flaws. They found buggy software - the math was simply wrong! It always produces a hockey stick even with random data with a flat trend! They reported those flaws. Unfortunately for Mann his science was junk.

Scientific understanding progresses as a result. Now we know more.

As for the Time Online report at the top of this thread (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1489955 ,00.html. Where's the data? Where's the software? Where's the actual report/paper?

Open source the science otherwise it's all disconnected conclusions and might as well be mind poo (a technical term ;--). Mann et al kept their data secret (as you can read at the links above that debunk him). That's not science. That's closed science of the elite or the schiesters.

Open source science is science that can be audited by anyone. Otherwise how can you really judge it's value? If a scientist with the stature of Mann can be debunked and have his result crushed like a bug how can anyone trust the reputation of any scientist? The answer is that you can't ofcourse otherwise you're bringing a belief into your resoning: a belief that you trust a particular scientist. That's not science, that's potentially religion, or at least faith based science (due to the trust factor).

Open science is the only way to go to be able to have supportable conclusions. The Times Online article is just a fluff peice with no hard data to back it up. It's just a summary of items to peak interest. Where's the beef? Where's the data? I want the software. Let's audit the software for bugs. That's what was partly wrong with Mann's analysis, a software bug.

Earth is too important to us to have the wrong conclusions, no matter which way they are headed. It's better to know reality accurately than believe in a fantasy as far as Global Warming is concerned.

Which would you rather be: faith based or science based? If your are science based then you must be prepared to have your views shaken now and then as a result of more accurate and up to date science. If you are faith based then go to church and leave us rational humans be.

Oh, as a final point, it's the responsibility of a scientist to be skeptical. To hold the neurtal gound even when faced with conclusive data. To keep asking the questions time and time again. To ask questions that underly the conclusions. To question the conclusions. Remember that consensus isn't science, it's mob rule, science works by multiple scientists auditing the data, methods and process of the analysis and conclusions.

Unfortunately for Mann his famous hockey stick hasn't passed this close scutinty process. Now he has to fight for his reputation and career. It seems harsh, but that's what happens with junk science.

I remain an open minded skeptic.

Pet

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7947-13097 59,00.html

You think you're joking. Authors in the UK are trying to get the law changed to give them a cut when books are resold:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1461505, 00.html

...and the manufacturers will sue your ass if you want to propagate them.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-213339,0 0.html

A good example of "open source" or "free as in speech" journalism is Wikinews. Granted, organisations like the AP and Reuters provide on their wires every news story Wikinews will (probably) cover, but that's beside the point. The point is that there exists a news source that licences it's content under the GFDL which means that anyone can take the stories on Wikinews and do whatever they like with them that springs to mind.

One might want to write a tool that analyses news sites and not want to worry about whether or not scraping the news content is legal or not!

Of course, many detractors will say that there is no way that a wiki news source could ever be accurate. The same thing was said for a wiki encyclopaedia. It turns out that mass-collaboration can sometimes be a more accurate form of editing than traditional forms. I don't want to mention Rathergate so I wont :)

In any case I think the whole argument about Wikipedia/Wikinews 's accuracy is pretty much irrelivant. This is a free information source that exists and if people don't want to rely on it they are more than free to do so. In any case there is a big push happening right now to improve the validation of articles within wikipedia. Check the comments of an article i wrote on this subject for more information.

P.S. If you live in Europe anywhere near Brussels or Berlin at all please try to make it to the protests against software patents! I'll be travelling from Amsterdam to Brussels on the day.. if anyone wants to catch the train with me please reply here and we'll get in touch!

I read an article (I believe it was in the Times Online, can't find it now) that described how North Korea was dissolving from the inside out. People are escaping the country across several borders, and infighting is eating away at the ability of the ruling group to stay in power.

I can't imagine what they hope to accomplish by this new announcement, other than to perhaps go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Google has VOIP plans in UK

you do know that it was made up...?

Well, I am inclined to disagree.

______________________________________

The Sunday Times [28 November 2004]
Andrew Sullivan: Where the Bible bashers are sinful and the liberals pure

. . .

Take two iconic states: Texas and Massachusetts. In some ways they were the two states competing in the last election. One is the home of Harvard, gay marriage, high taxes and social permissiveness.

The other is Bush country, solidly Republican, traditional and gun-toting. Massachusetts voted for John Kerry over George W Bush 62% to 37%; Texas voted for Bush over Kerry 61% to 38%.

Ask yourself a simple question: which state has the highest divorce rate? Marriage was a key issue in the last election, with Massachusetts' gay marriages becoming a symbol of alleged blue state decadence and moral decay. But in fact Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country at 2.4 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants. Texas, which until recently made private gay sex a crime, has a divorce rate of 4.1.

A fluke? Not at all. The states with the highest divorce rates are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. The states with the lowest divorce rates are: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Every one of the high divorce rate states went for Bush. Every one of the low divorce rate states went for Kerry. The Bible Belt divorce rate is roughly 50% higher than the national average.

Some of this discrepancy can be accounted for by the fact that couples tend to marry younger in the Bible Belt and many do not have the maturity to know what they are getting into. There is some correlation, too, between rates of college education and stable marriages, with the Bible Belt lagging behind a highly educated state such as Massachusetts.

The irony still holds, however. Those parts of America that most fiercely uphold what they believe are traditional values are not those parts where traditional values are healthiest. Hypocrisy? Perhaps. A more insightful explanation is that socially troubled communities cling to absolutes in the abstract because they cannot live up to them in practice.

Doesn't being born again help to bring down divorce rates? Jesus was clear about divorce, declaring it a sin unless adultery was involved. A recent study found no measurable difference in divorce rates between those who are "born again" and those who are not; 29% of Baptists have been divorced, compared with 21% of Catholics. Moreover, a staggering 23% of married born agains have been divorced twice or more.

Teenage births? Again, the contrast is striking. In a state such as Texas where the religious right is strong and the rhetoric against teenage sex is gale-force strong, teen births as a percentage of all births are 16.1%. In liberal, secular Massachusetts they are 7.4%, less than half. Marriage itself is less popular in Texas than in Massachusetts. In Texas the proportion of people unmarried is 32.4%; in Massachusetts it is 26.8%. So even with a higher marriage rate, Massachusetts has a divorce rate almost half of its "conservative" rival.

Take abortion. America is one of the few western countries where the legality of abortion is still ferociously disputed. It is a country where the religious right is arguably the strongest single voting bloc and in which abortion is a constant feature of cultural politics. Compare it with a country such as Holland, perhaps the epitome of social liberalism. Which country has the highest rate of abortion? It is not even close. America has a rate of 21 abortions per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44. Holland has a rate of 6.8. Americans, in other words, have three times as many abortions as the Dutch. Remind me again: which country is the most socially conservative?

. . .

More at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-13782 27,00.html

And the Romans used crusafiction as a standard form of capital punishment.

And the Saudis still use it today.