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The results of the original Lancet paper was never refuted. All the co-authors (eg. Profs John Walker-Smith and Prof Simon Murch) were totally exonerated. Wakefield was accused of 'potentially competing financial interests' (eg. requesting funding from the Legal Aid Board).

MMR doctor wins battle against being struck off

US Court Awards Multi-Million Dollar Payouts To Two More US Children With Vaccine Caused Autism

The terms "Neocon" and "Christian" are opposites.

You mean aside from the fact she's a perjuring pathologically lying domestic abuser who works with racist GNAA trolls?

Nope, Anita actually said that. (Link to Thunderf00t because that's the only transcript a Google search found for that text, not because "MRA, MRA, ermahgerd.")

that's $2 TRILLION for NYC to LA if you extrapolate the costs.

Yeah, we could pay for a few years of another pointless war with that much money.

And for that, instead of a useless war on terror, we get a useless train which no one wants to ride because the security theater and speed make it more of a PITA than the airline. It might be a fun vacation trip exactly once, particularly if they are maintaining the "free train rides if you blog about how great it was, even if it wasn't". Maybe twice, if you take the ride back as well.

High sped trains in the U.S. usually aren't.

https://systemicfailure.wordpr...

http://chi.streetsblog.org/201...

Thank you for all your work!! (love busybox!!)

BSEE here. I'm impressed that you've experimented and observed the resulting change. Actually your horizontal wire _is_ part of the circuit and is the beginnings of a "ground plane" for the vertical (monopole) antenna. A typical ground plane configuration is either a gridwork of metal, or just 4 horizontal elements in an "X" and yes, you'll get better efficiency. https://teknikelektronikansp.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/picture31.jpg

Obviously it still works without a good ground plane, it's just less efficient, prone to poor impedance match, and poor SWR (standing wave ratio) which can hurt (fry) a transmitter. Marconi's adjustable coil, aka "load" coil, helps match impedance and reduce SWR, and they're sometimes still used today, or an adjustable (trimmer) capacitor, or both. Monopoles are somewhat omnidirectional- they radiate equally horizontally (pattern looks like a big donut).

Dipole antennas ("rabbit ears", Yagi, etc.) have more gain (EM radiation efficiency) but are directional and have to be aimed.

SoCal could solve the "water crisis" today if they stopped watering all their fucking lawns.

I'm surprised that after all this time people still have this misconception. Lawn watering is just part of that little 4% sliver at the bottom. Farming uses the vast majority of water.

And farmers indeed are the ones cutting usage by the most. The point isn't that they use more of it, it's that the difference between water at the tap in LA or SD costing the same during the drought is everyone just not wasting it on green grass. No one is dying of thirst but prices are going to get pretty ridiculous here soon, as some munis run out of water entirely (having not managed to get price hikes through) and all the residents rely on bottled water which is far more expensive.

SoCal could solve the "water crisis" today if they stopped watering all their fucking lawns.

I'm surprised that after all this time people still have this misconception. Lawn watering is just part of that little 4% sliver at the bottom. Farming uses the vast majority of water.

In reality it looks like this.

That's "game engine" footage, not "in-game". The final release won't have the same rich colour-depth.

In reality it looks like this.

As the propaganda minister, yes he would of been in control of spreading hatred for Jews, but it is hard to condemn that during wartime when spreading hatred and dehumanizing your enemies is standard practice. And it might not qualify as heinous enough to actually count as a crime against humanity.

Lets take a look at that. There is a disparity you are not acknowledging.

Soviet Union: Country with government at war with Germany, had army, navy, air force in massive quantities
Poland: Country with government at war with Germany, had army, navy, air force in meaningful quantities
France: Country with government at war with Germany, had army, navy, air force in significant quantities
United Kingdom: Country with government at war with Germany, had army, navy, air force in significant quantities
USA: Country with government at war with Germany, had army, navy, air force in significant quantities
Jews: Peaceful ethnic minority in Germany and other parts of Europe that often made important contributions to society.

Germany treatment of the prisoners of:
Russia: severe mistreatment, many died
Poland: severe mistreatment, many died
France: Relatively humane treatment
United Kingdom: Relatively humane treatment
USA: Relatively humane treatment
Jews: Germany used modern bureaucratic methods and tools of industry in an attempt to exterminate all Jews in German occupied territory.

On what reasonable ground could Jews be targeted for even worse treatment than the Russians? They were productive members of German society, not an invading foreign nation. They were targeted for death based purely on ethnic/religious hatred.

It is easy to condemn Germany, the Nazis, and Goebels for the propaganda in service of genocide against the Jews, and the genocide itself, not to mention the waging of wars of aggression by Germany.

If that gruel is too thin for you, fear not. Goebbels had a more direct hand in the Holocaust as well.

Making Berlin 'Judenfrei'. The decimation of Berlin's jewish population by railway deportations.

Now, more than elsewhere - the population of Berlin suffered more Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Minister of Propaganda. In the German capital, he was also an ambitious Gauleiter (District leader). The virulent antisemite wanted Berlin to be 'Judenfrei' (Nazi-German for 'Free from jews') - and he even bothered Hitler with this. On August 19th 1941, Hitler promised the fanatic Gauleiter to 'transport' the jews out of 'his' city when the possibility was there. Only one month later - Goebbels confirmed that this day came closer. In an diary entry of September 24th, he wrote that Hitler stated Berlin would be the very first city to be 'Judenfrei' indeed. The deportations were in sight. Another month later, at October 24th, Goebbels wrote

"Gradually, we start with the evacuation of the Berlin jews to the East. A couple of thousands are already on their way. In first instance, they go to Litzmannstadt (Nazi-German for: Lodz). This causes commotion in the affected circles. The jews ask for support in anonymous letters to foreign correspondents. (. . .) It is annoying that this topic is getting attention in the world’s media, but we have to deal with it. The main thing is that the Reichshauptstadt (Berlin) is made Judenfrei. I will not rest before this goal is totally realised."

. . . Already in this early stage, deportations were connected with the Holocaust. By November 1941 till January 1942, 4000 jews were sent to the ghetto of Riga - where Nazi authorities knew that 'Einsatzgruppen' ('Special Forces') executed these jews.

Nazi Germany pursued the destruction of the Jewish people till the end. They spent enormous amounts of scarce resources (trains, manpower, economic losses) to pursue their evil end. They damaged thei

The Far Side answered this years ago:

https://overthehedgeblog.files...

TSA Pre Check allows members of both parties to skip on by quite easily: https://tsatoday.wordpress.com...

Of course, we do have one noted case of an elected official being illegally detained (per Article I Section 6) by the TSA: http://www.politico.com/news/s...

So we can deduce from that and the article, that some TSA employee was overcome by his attraction to the curly hair and had Paul scanned as the alternate gender, in order to generate an anomaly in the crotchal region which would have to be thoroughly investigated. Ewww.

TSA Pre Check allows members of both parties to skip on by quite easily: https://tsatoday.wordpress.com...

Of course, we do have one noted case of an elected official being illegally detained (per Article I Section 6) by the TSA: http://www.politico.com/news/s...

I'd like to interject for a moment. Sadly, the desktop is still extremely glitchy. Let me show some examples.

1) Notebookcheck a new Intel NUC. Intel HD Graphics 6000 was missing Linux support at the moment of writing. That's not the end of the world, but how does Linux Mint report about it? Nope, you don't get an informative "device not supported" message, nor does X.org fall back to a VESA mode. Instead you get corrupted graphics! Nice failure mode there. Just look at the screenshot in the article. Does that look professional to you?

2) When you install Linux, various manual hacks are needed to correct all sorts of little glitches here and there. Read the installation report of this guy. Does that seem familiar?

3) Laptop brightness adjustment still goes in multiple steps! I can't believe this bug is still around. The same issue is in Ubuntu in Mint and affects most laptops. Bug #527157. Just try pressing the brightness keys of your laptop under Linux and you see what I mean. An everyday feature like this should Just Work without me having to even think about it.

Conclusion: I need an desktop operating system that is more deterministic in behavior. I want robust and predictable user experience. This is not rock solid at all.

I wear a watch daily. Sometimes I like to know what time it is. Not everyone carries a phone with them everywhere they go. Not everyone works in the meat, food or child industries. I have no desire for an Apple watch (especially since they don't make a left-handed one) - or even a digitial watch (I wear a Seiko Big Boss, https://watchpage.wordpress.co...), but I see no denigrate those who do. Hell, I have AAPL stock. I'll be happy if everyone on the planet buys an Apple watch.

If a buy a computer with a CPU that is rated at X GHz then that CPU had better be able to maintain that frequency, always. Otherwise it's a meaningless number. CPUs can already overclock themselves (Turboboost) above that frequency so if they can also legitimately underclock themselves then the 'rated frequency' is completely meaningless. I don't think that is acceptable. I encourage all slashdot readers to test their new computers under load and if they cannot maintain their rated frequency RETURN THEM! Or better yet, file a formal complaint for false advertising or fraud and then return them.

I blogged about this a while ago and I think the problem has only gotten worse. Lots of consumers are getting a crap experience because of insufficient cooling, manufacturers are selling rigs that can't do what they promise, and software developers waste time dealing with complaints about slow games/etc.

https://randomascii.wordpress....

A self-signed certificate makes two guarantees. First, if the public key you see is the same public key you saw the first time you connected to that host, then a MITM probably hasn't been introduced since your first connection. SSH uses this "key continuity management" (KCM) or "trust on first use" (TOFU) model, as did OS X prior to the introduction of Gatekeeper. Granted, the MITM can harm the first connection to a given host.

But the second guarantee even in the face of day-one MITM is route diversity. The Perspectives extension uses notary servers to act as consensus CAs. This ensures that the public key you're seeing is the same public key everyone else sees for that hostname, which means that if there is a MITM, it's between the server and its only connection to the Internet (the "Lserver" attack in the Usenix 08 paper describing Perspectives).

So the biggest difference between a self-signed certificate and a domain-validated certificate is that the latter prevents an Lserver attack on your first connection.

Working LInk

... You can't have a business without customers, you can't have customers if people don't have money, and they can't get money without wages or social security...

What we have here is the situation when corporate power, and the power of the financial elite, takes over all aspects of government policy. It transforms the entire consumer market based economy into the Tragedy of the Commons.

Every corporation aims to to fatten its bottom line, stock price, and C-Suite compensation package by reducing the wages of its labor force. It is a rational micro-decision, just as grazing as many sheep as possible on the commons is rational for the individual farmer, but it destroys in the long run the basis of the whole economy - a nation full of consumers with lots of money to spend on products. The majority of the increases in corporate profitability, and the source of the exploding CEO paychecks, over the last quarter century have come from holding wage payouts flat (or reducing them. Increased productivity stopped being linked to worker compensation a full 45 years ago, an entire working lifetime. As the proportion of wages that make up the economy fall to the lowest level since the Great Depression the engine that drives the growth of the U.S. economy is running out of fuel, now an anemic 2.38%, compared to the long term mean of 4.41%.

But hey, the CEOs are happy!

You just want to believe that you're somehow special because you can write computer programs.

Sorry, no. You should be able to smell your own bullshit, because I sure as hell can.

I was told about the double-tassel distribution by no less than three people with PhDs in CS who taught at university, all in my first year of university.

I can cite references, can you?

I have no need to feel myself as being some special little snowflake because I learned how to program. It certainly isn't something which I feel should be restricted to a specific group of people. But I sure as hell believe that in a random group of students you will not see results which follow a bell curve.

I have seen the grade distributions in classes I've marked, been told this by people who taught CS for a very long time, and seen it in classmates.

You can like it or not like it ... I simply don't give a shit. But that it's a real, documented, and oft-referenced thing has been true for decades. Is it 100% indicator? I honestly have no idea, because I've not studied it.

But if you think I'm pulling it out of my ass or because I want to feel special ... you're a moron.

The simple facts are, accident rates on planes have gone way down as the amount of automation has gone way up.

Facts are loss rates for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle are far above conventional aircraft.

I have traced my family history back hundreds of years. Not a single ancestor within the past three hundred years owned a slave.

Also are you sure that NOBODY In your family owned slaves? Let's see, 300 years is 10 generations, going back to the mid-Seventeenth century. That is 2046 possible ancestors going back "to around the time of the English Civil War and to the early days of British settlement in North America":

https://thewildpeak.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/how-many-ancestors-do-you-have/

Your claim that NONE of your of your ancestors owned slaves is simply unsupportable. First of all you would have to have perfect records kept during wars, revolutions, famines, epidemics, etc. Second unless you are seriously inbred you have family from all over the globe, which complicates tracing one's family history immensely.

I refuse to be punished for the acts committed by individuals over 100 years ago, especially as those acts were not committed by my ancestors.

Meanwhile you take advantage of the system of White privilege that the slave-holding families built, so you are indirectly benefiting from slavery in spite of your dubious claim your family NEVER owned slaves. Must be nice to be White in the US.

The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies slates weren't about not having women and minorities win. Both slates included several women and minorities and even some left-wing writers who had to be publicly "horrified" the wrong people liked their work.

They're about wanting Hugo nominees/winners that reflect science fiction and what they consider the best story, rather than the last decade or so style of being nominated because the author is a leftist non-white male who includes the properly politically correct representatives in their story, even though the story itself isn't remotely the best SF story of the year. They're about wanting the winners to reflect SF fans, rather than just a small insular group of NY elites in the publishing business. Looking at you, Tor.

If you wonder why there seems to be a big gap of 12-15 years where not a lot of new good SF authors came out in book form, except from Baen, it's because the literary elite decided SF should be about identity politics instead of about science and speculation. SP/RP are about taking the field back for real SF that the fans of SF like, not the kind where it's "important" because it shows a woman musing about how the evil corporations are ruining the environment but if only her homosexual boyfriend would wake up from his coma they could live happily ever after mutually respecting each other in hipster anguish. -Gasp-

Man, your indoctrination is really complete, isn't it. And your use of slanders of insults betrays the fact you are unable of critical thinking or reasoned debate. So sad that you choose to deny reality, and you help to advance the fascist agenda of the Statist Collectivists who necessarily must crush individual liberty.

I find that to be a fascinating accusation coming from someone who posts a diagram presenting a political spread with terminology supported by only a tiny fraction of people, existing primarily only in the United States, who are regarded by almost all other groups of people to be insane.

Please study the following diagram: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TI8b... [blogspot.com]

I'll raise you a bullshit blogspot opinion diagram with a bullshit wordpress opinion diagram.
https://sepetjian.files.wordpr...
or another:
http://fee.org/files/imglib/20...
Hell, let's just go with some reading material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
In particular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
The citations are numerous, you may go through them- though many are books used in classical political science courses.

In economics terms a Fascist system is one where: The Means of Production remains in private hands, but the Fruits of Production are controlled by the State.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
More reading for you.
In a fascist system, everything is controlled by the dictator, for the will of the dictator. Those who play ball are allowed limited autonomy. Simply because the dictator is effectively "the State" does not mean that the economics in play are left-wing, particularly because the State in no way represents the people anymore in an autocratic dictatorship. Fascism is not left-wing economics. It's pre-Magna Carta England economics: Do what I say, or I'll fucking kill you. Hail to the King, baby.

This is exactly the system that the Democratic Party of the USA is trying to implement. They chose Barack Obama to help advance this agenda (which he agrees with, if you listen carefully) because of his skin color. This US is so racist it judges people by their skin color, and Barack Obama is immune from criticisms that a white President would have been impeached for. The Left knows this and used it against the population of the US that it seeks to subjugate and control ("for their own good") as it takes a flamethrower to citizen protections in the Constitution.

This is a massive pile of horse shit that you can't begin to back up. While I think most people wouldn't disagree that Democrats are certainly Statists, they're in no way unaligned with the Republicans on this point. It's one of the few things they agree on. The primary disagreement is on protection of the people rendered powerless by both parties, and protections of the Corporations from attack by the people. The social issues are purely red herrings to distract the weak minded.

Do you not understand that Far Left Fascism and Extreme Left Communism were rivals in World War II? It is only disinformation from the communists against their rivals (starting in the schism of the Left in the Spanish Civil War) that calls the Far Left National Socialists "right wing" (which everyone is from the perspective of the Communists of the Extreme Left).

Again, Nazi Germany was far-right. Nazism is far-right. Fascism in general evolved to be far-right everywhere it was instituted. No matter how much you seem to want far-right to be

WPF is very over-rated. that has poor hardware rendering that doesn't work as well as old winforms

Maybe Microsoft isn't open sourcing WPF because they know how bad it is. Only the .NET fanbois are still going on about how wonderful it is, even though the majority of UIs I've seen on Windows are using ASP.NET or Winforms.

WPF is very over-rated. that has poor hardware rendering that doesn't work as well as old winforms

Maybe Microsoft isn't open sourcing WPF because they know how bad it is. Only the .NET fanbois are still going on about how wonderful it is, even though the majority of UIs I've seen on Windows are using ASP.NET or Winforms.

Suggestion: talk to some trafficking victims.

Locating someone who legitimately fits the definition would be nearly impossible. However, counter suggestion: Dig yourself out of the propaganda you've been fed. Example -- don't simply read that, although it is quite accurate -- actually follow the links in it and confirm for yourself.

More and more girls who are younger and younger. The average age has gone down over the years--you used to every once in a while see a girl who was underage. Now it's all the time. Girls who are underage cannot consent.

The underlying assumption you are working from is incorrect. You assume those girls were coerced, and therefore had to consent. While the (ridiculous, but that's a different subject) legal "age line in the sand" that permits young sex workers to consent and to make choices for themselves has not been crossed in either instance, it still requires coercion by another person, not personal choice without interpersonal coercion -- informed or not -- in order to meet even the vaguest concept of "trafficked."

Reasons to enter into the sex worker trade are myriad. The money can be good, and of course our society offers advantage in direct proportion to the amount of money one has. As long as that is the case, income, even the perception of income, will be a prime motivator. Sex work can be fun. It offers both self-management and self-reliance, and this in turn can allow setting one's own schedule as opposed to the typical wage-slave. It can be rewarding, particularly in service to those who are unable to otherwise obtain sex with others due to the intense social stigma associated with looks and/or physical handicaps. Presently there's an element of legal risk, as well as one of push-back, and either or both may serve as titillation.

Any combination of the foregoing (and other similar issues -- post is long enough as-is) can serve to provide sufficient motivation for someone legally underage to decide to go this way. These are not in any sense "trafficked" individuals. They are, at most, people whose decisions you disagree with, who are breaking (arbitrary, ridiculous) rules based on their own decision making.

Which, if you want to concern yourself with it, is something completely different. But at least it is real, unlike the entire trafficking narrative. Arguments can be made and countered for both views on it. Trafficking is, in any significant sense, illusory. Arguments against an imaginary problem are inherently unproductive at the very least. All they do is paint a highly inaccurate picture of the world, which can (and has, in this case) lead to all manner of negative outcomes.

Now go out to one of the cops who is actually properly trained in dealing with human trafficking

You mean like this?

But it is very real.

In the sense that it hasn't happened zero times, yes, it's real. In the sense that it's in any sense a significant social problem affecting numerous individuals, no, it isn't real at all. It is in fact one of the most overblown and pernicious hoaxes pulled on the public in recent years. You've been hoodwinked.

a lot of them aren't even going to understand that some young women they think are their voluntarily have been effectively brainwashed by someone who collects all of their profits and buys them an ice cream cone and says that they care.

Again, the facts do not support your assertion. You are regurgitating propaganda. Not facts. Learn the facts. Only when in possess

Suggestion: talk to some trafficking victims.

Locating someone who legitimately fits the definition would be nearly impossible. However, counter suggestion: Dig yourself out of the propaganda you've been fed. Example -- don't simply read that, although it is quite accurate -- actually follow the links in it and confirm for yourself.

More and more girls who are younger and younger. The average age has gone down over the years--you used to every once in a while see a girl who was underage. Now it's all the time. Girls who are underage cannot consent.

The underlying assumption you are working from is incorrect. You assume those girls were coerced, and therefore had to consent. While the (ridiculous, but that's a different subject) legal "age line in the sand" that permits young sex workers to consent and to make choices for themselves has not been crossed in either instance, it still requires coercion by another person, not personal choice without interpersonal coercion -- informed or not -- in order to meet even the vaguest concept of "trafficked."

Reasons to enter into the sex worker trade are myriad. The money can be good, and of course our society offers advantage in direct proportion to the amount of money one has. As long as that is the case, income, even the perception of income, will be a prime motivator. Sex work can be fun. It offers both self-management and self-reliance, and this in turn can allow setting one's own schedule as opposed to the typical wage-slave. It can be rewarding, particularly in service to those who are unable to otherwise obtain sex with others due to the intense social stigma associated with looks and/or physical handicaps. Presently there's an element of legal risk, as well as one of push-back, and either or both may serve as titillation.

Any combination of the foregoing (and other similar issues -- post is long enough as-is) can serve to provide sufficient motivation for someone legally underage to decide to go this way. These are not in any sense "trafficked" individuals. They are, at most, people whose decisions you disagree with, who are breaking (arbitrary, ridiculous) rules based on their own decision making.

Which, if you want to concern yourself with it, is something completely different. But at least it is real, unlike the entire trafficking narrative. Arguments can be made and countered for both views on it. Trafficking is, in any significant sense, illusory. Arguments against an imaginary problem are inherently unproductive at the very least. All they do is paint a highly inaccurate picture of the world, which can (and has, in this case) lead to all manner of negative outcomes.

Now go out to one of the cops who is actually properly trained in dealing with human trafficking

You mean like this?

But it is very real.

In the sense that it hasn't happened zero times, yes, it's real. In the sense that it's in any sense a significant social problem affecting numerous individuals, no, it isn't real at all. It is in fact one of the most overblown and pernicious hoaxes pulled on the public in recent years. You've been hoodwinked.

a lot of them aren't even going to understand that some young women they think are their voluntarily have been effectively brainwashed by someone who collects all of their profits and buys them an ice cream cone and says that they care.

Again, the facts do not support your assertion. You are regurgitating propaganda. Not facts. Learn the facts. Only when in possess

Also, you have a huge number of girls in this country who are trafficked.

The data does not support that contention. Here's a link with some well-researched facts, complete with useful references. I suggest some reading in a thoughtful vein.

There is overwhelming evidence that the "trafficking" narrative is agitprop specifically designed to trigger moral outrage. Those who spread the meme and those who believe it are the actual victims here.

I've used Lotus Notes (end user) everyday for over 20 years now. Rock solid stable; integrated email, calendar, instant messaging, etc -- it is really great.

Why the hate?

Like grandparent said...it's impossible to actually use. Basic list selection behaviors -- things that Windows (and Mac OS, and hell, OS/2) had settled 25 years ago -- are a bizarre mess of columns with checkboxes in NOtes.,

https://lotusnotessucks.wordpress.com/

(What the fucking fuck are the hieroglyphics in that password dialog, supposed to mean, anyway?!)

We paid 90 million for something we sold back to the builders for 300k. What the hell man?

Probably out of embarrassment. It may be called the Airlander but Flying Buttcrack

would be a better name. If that thing was flesh-coloured instead of white it'd be on porn sites.

This guy did: https://rolandh31.wordpress.co...

At the same time, ugly fences are not an issue when it comes to US embassies on foreign soil.

A good example might be the one at 1, Liberty Square, Budapest, Hungary.

Bonus points for the address...

It's not directly linked anywhere, so here his is wordpress blog page about it, including source (Unity3D project). There's native clients at his link also, or you can download the /Web.html page and /Web.unity3d file from the webplayer version then edit the html to make the screen size larger (I altered it to 2500x1400, looks cooler larger).

It's hitting the nostalgia pretty well for me, having not played any 3D mario games since 64. The little bombs look awesome. The whole thing makes me want to make a small game in Unity, which is pretty cool.

Yes of course, Russia is to blame for the buildup of NATO around its borders and USA meddling in the politics of its closest neighbours. Treachery I say!

Reminds me of a South Park episode, 'Taming Strange', where they computerize the entire school:

https://southparknewsnow.files...

in Britain, our telecoms monopoly (BT) is obliged to provide service for a standard connection fee.

Yes, that's the UK, where even farmland has a dense population.

Consider locations in the US like Wyoming (253,348 square km) compared to the entire UK (243,610 square km) but with a population of 584,153 compared to the UK's 64.1 million. Or states like Alaska, North and South Dakota, and Montana.

Wyoming is such a good comparison because the land mass is similar to the UK. Remove EVERYONE from the entire UK except the people of Cornwall, allow those in Cornwall to spread far and wide, wherever they want anywhere on the isles, and then hook them up with new infrastructure regardless of location. That's about how sparse one of the least populated states is.

Most Europeans fail to understand just how sparse the US really is. While the US is nowhere near as sparse as Australia or parts of Africa, except for a few cities most of the US is quite sparse. I've talked with quite a few people traveling from Europe who flew into Las Vegas and traveled to the Grand Canyon. It is a four hour drive -- 120 miles -- of desert, cactus, and sagebrush that most European visitors were shocked could even exist. Where are the people? How could there be so much empty space? Who owns the land? Google finds some images for comparison: Here is Alaska (the largest state) overlaid over Europe. Another, the lower 48 states overlaid over Europe. The trip from Lisbon to Copenhagen is just a portion of historic Route 66, and is less than half the distance of the country.

In these US states hooking up a single remote dwelling might mean deploying many miles, thirty miles, fifty miles, or even more, to reach the single dwelling. Nobody, not even the federal government, is going to mandate that kind of deployment for £130.

in Britain, our telecoms monopoly (BT) is obliged to provide service for a standard connection fee.

Yes, that's the UK, where even farmland has a dense population.

Consider locations in the US like Wyoming (253,348 square km) compared to the entire UK (243,610 square km) but with a population of 584,153 compared to the UK's 64.1 million. Or states like Alaska, North and South Dakota, and Montana.

Wyoming is such a good comparison because the land mass is similar to the UK. Remove EVERYONE from the entire UK except the people of Cornwall, allow those in Cornwall to spread far and wide, wherever they want anywhere on the isles, and then hook them up with new infrastructure regardless of location. That's about how sparse one of the least populated states is.

Most Europeans fail to understand just how sparse the US really is. While the US is nowhere near as sparse as Australia or parts of Africa, except for a few cities most of the US is quite sparse. I've talked with quite a few people traveling from Europe who flew into Las Vegas and traveled to the Grand Canyon. It is a four hour drive -- 120 miles -- of desert, cactus, and sagebrush that most European visitors were shocked could even exist. Where are the people? How could there be so much empty space? Who owns the land? Google finds some images for comparison: Here is Alaska (the largest state) overlaid over Europe. Another, the lower 48 states overlaid over Europe. The trip from Lisbon to Copenhagen is just a portion of historic Route 66, and is less than half the distance of the country.

In these US states hooking up a single remote dwelling might mean deploying many miles, thirty miles, fifty miles, or even more, to reach the single dwelling. Nobody, not even the federal government, is going to mandate that kind of deployment for £130.

They're not using concrete; according to the blurb, they're using cement

Using pure cement, without aggregate, makes no sense. This is almost certainly just a dumb journalist.

But building the wall at all makes little sense. It takes centuries for the stress in the fault line to build up enough for a really big quake. They just had a HUGE 9.0 quake, so another is not due for a long, long time. Sediment records show they occur approximately every 300 years. This is just pandering to the construction companies that are big political donors to the LDP.

I have a picture of a small but to-scale model of the new advanced Amazon drone.

Here is an artist's rendering of the drone flying overhead as it is about to make deliveries at unparalleled speed.

looks like I effed the url. https://takingsenseaway.wordpr...

Heres a better link: https://takingsenseaway.wordpr...

Now I read Papers Please . similar content, unfortunately lacks the humor/absurdity of taking sense away.

Really, who could blame women for NOT wanting to be in a profession populated by typical male programmers?

Really, who could blame women for NOT wanting to be in a profession populated by typical male programmers?

Here are several links that are public knowledge. I know some cases personally, which I don't want to mention because I don't want to get associated with them publicly. There is more than 200 names in these lists:

http://www.thejerichomovement....
http://www.voxfux.com/features...
https://denverabc.wordpress.co...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-...

I am not even including any of the whistleblowers or the Guantanamo prisoners in this list. But both of those categories are political prisoners.

Endless educational financing is already available.

In what universe would that be?

This one. The U.S. tops the world in education spending per student (p. 4, chart B1.1).

The idea that we're not spending enough on education is a myth, manufactured by those who are sucking up the largest chunk of education dollars. If you ever take the time to dig through a school district's budget, you'll find that the biggest single item is administrative overhead. Basically school payroll is top-heavy with too many administrators and managers.

Every time a budget cut is threatened, they make sure the cuts land squarely on classrooms and teachers, creating an artificial financial crisis. That riles up the teachers' unions and PTAs who broadcast the message that we're not spending enough on education. We really are spending more than enough, but from their perspective we aren't because the administrators aren't passing the money through to them. When the tactic works and public pressure forces legislators to increase school budgets, the administrators divert the bulk of it to fattening up their pay (or hiring more administrators), throwing a few token bones to teachers and classrooms (e.g. an iPad for every child in Los Angeles, which was probably a kickback scheme for the administrators who selected which companies got the contract).

And that very graph you cite is for primary through tertiary [higher] education, not primary through secondary.
To quote from the paper "On average, OECD countries spend nearly twice as much per student at the tertiary level as
at the primary level."

You can't talk about the figures from that paper and talk about school districts in the next paragraph.

I looked up Texas spending per student for public education (primary and secondary) and it was $6000 per student last year, on the level of Czech Republic (for primary through tertiary)

I think you're confusing cause and effect, people ask why you don't use Windows and the answer is because you want to use something other than Windows.

I bring up that point for the simple reason that I do not believe that most people actually care what OS is on their computer.

People just want to know that it works and that it runs the programs they want to run.

On my work machine, I have many programs installed that have no Linux version. It would be a PITA to try and change. I simply must have MS Office, Acrobat (full version, not reader), Photoshop, Quickbooks, etc.

Try doing your taxes on Linux. It can be done, but it is again a PITA.

https://thefearlesspenguin.wor...

^ Yes, the web based versions can be "made to work", but that is a lot of hassle for your average consumer. Why not just run Windows and then it all just works?

---

TL;DR - The challenge for Linux is not technical, it has been "good enough" for a long time now. The challenge is a lack of a reason for Joe Consumer to run it or care, programs that people want to run don't come in Linux versions, it doesn't have any marketing support, etc.

Just a couple off the top of my head:

1. Shows you what it's doing when it's busy (assuming you bother to ask)
2. Mounts mounting volumes in virtually every filesystem ever invented
3. Supports loopback mounting (i.e mount an iso [or any disk image] without thirdparty software)
4. Supports more than 25 attached disks.
5. Boots into a live, usable environment from a USB stick or DVD
6. Has a themeable, customisable interface
7. Supports MUCH MUCH more hardware
8. Runs on ARM devices
9. Runs on a Space Station
10. Serves up most of the web's traffic
11. Provides virtually all of the world's supercomputing
12. Has tens of thousands of high-quality applications available for free and about 3 clicks away from being installed
13. Provides free, 1-click updates
14. Doesn't have any arbitrary limitations imposed based on how much you spent on it.
15. Doesn't need a virus scanner
16. Doesn't suck ass

Have you ever even used Linux? If you tried Red Hat 5.0 back in 1998, it's probably time you took another look. In 2015, it's superior to windows in every respect except one: available proprietary software. And that's changing.

Lord... that is a nerd's wet dream to be sure... 99% of the consumer market couldn't care less about that list... #16 betrays your feelings, I have found that most of the die hard Linux supports are really Windows haters who can't afford OS X.

Linux works fine, I am well aware of this, but working fine isn't enough... Get back to me when Adobe Photoshop, MS Office, TurboTax, Quickbooks, etc. have native Linux versions.

People do not buy computers and run OSes for their own sake, they do it to run their programs and actually do stuff.

Windows does this, Linux does not. GIMP and OpenOffice are not substitutes for Photoshop and MS Office, no matter how much you want them to be.

https://thefearlesspenguin.wor...

^ That is a perfect example of why Linux is a PITA for the average consumer and Windows is not.

Endless educational financing is already available.

In what universe would that be?

This one. The U.S. tops the world in education spending per student (p. 4, chart B1.1).

The idea that we're not spending enough on education is a myth, manufactured by those who are sucking up the largest chunk of education dollars. If you ever take the time to dig through a school district's budget, you'll find that the biggest single item is administrative overhead. Basically school payroll is top-heavy with too many administrators and managers.

Every time a budget cut is threatened, they make sure the cuts land squarely on classrooms and teachers, creating an artificial financial crisis. That riles up the teachers' unions and PTAs who broadcast the message that we're not spending enough on education. We really are spending more than enough, but from their perspective we aren't because the administrators aren't passing the money through to them. When the tactic works and public pressure forces legislators to increase school budgets, the administrators divert the bulk of it to fattening up their pay (or hiring more administrators), throwing a few token bones to teachers and classrooms (e.g. an iPad for every child in Los Angeles, which was probably a kickback scheme for the administrators who selected which companies got the contract).