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So the physicists who hate the term "God particle" are crazy religious nut jobs having crises of faith? I didn't know so many pysicists were "religious nut jobs".

and the police in London declaring Occupy protesters a terrorist movement,

citation needed.

Or are you referring to their including info regarding the protests in their regular circular which is used primarily to inform local businesses of relevant threats? The circular is an obvious place to include it and in it they are referred to as "peaceful" and "activists". The alternative would have been to print a specific leaflet, even though it would be going to the same people and is on the same broad topic of security, contingency planning and so on.

A bit of common sense from the police leads to headlines like "Police include Occupy movement on ‘terror’ list". Note the 'terror list' is an actual thing, and Occupy is not on it.

Desk-based "protesters" love to repeat and hype up this drivel ad nauseam but anyone with the slightest bit of sense can't miss the stench of bullshit. This then taints the entire movement by putting doubt on the credibility of any claims.

Google once offered access to their search engine via a SOAP API. That disappeared years ago. Then they offered more limited access with the "Google Web Search API", which came with an obfusicated interface, a restrictive EULA which permitted its use only for widgets on a web page, and is now closed to new users. Now they have the Custom Search API, where you get only 100 queries a day before you have to pay.

Yahoo used to have a Yahoo Search API, which was free. Then they had the Yahoo BOSS API, which was also free. Now they only have a pay API.

Bing's search API remains free, but you have to sign up with Bing first, and Microsoft reserves the right to start charging.

Google once offered access to their search engine via a SOAP API. That disappeared years ago. Then they offered more limited access with the "Google Web Search API", which came with an obfusicated interface, a restrictive EULA which permitted its use only for widgets on a web page, and is now closed to new users. Now they have the Custom Search API, where you get only 100 queries a day before you have to pay.

Yahoo used to have a Yahoo Search API, which was free. Then they had the Yahoo BOSS API, which was also free. Now they only have a pay API.

Bing's search API remains free, but you have to sign up with Bing first, and Microsoft reserves the right to start charging.

It's likely from the Yahoo Answers quote you can find here
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090828084027AAcTBrZ

I would finish this post with "How is babbi fourmed", but expect a similar response as your last one :/

Interesting, when you combine this with the story on Yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tv-prices-fall-squeezing-most-070009145.html. Good luck to Apple, seems they are gonna need it.

I'll go so far as to offer this article as evidence that people - HUMANS - have an innate desire to be free even under repressive controls.

http://news.yahoo.com/china-daring-few-challenge-one-child-limit-051010073.html

The birth of our own nation was at the hands of a few who chose to break away from their country's attempts at control.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110513075522AAgInY0

The Great Space Ball Mystery Has Been Solved

"For anyone wondering what it actually is, it's likely a 39-litre hydrazine bladder tank (based on its apparent size; there are also much larger hydrazine tanks)," he wrote. "They're used on unmanned rockets for satellite launches, which would explain why they're falling down in such a specific geographic footprint."

Right. Wait, Foxconn is American, right?

Yes, compression helps (and is generally done automatically in any good Apache configuration). What helps even more from a user's perspective is combining files; basically, in the backend we combine all our Javascript and CSS (or as much as is reasonable) into one file instead of serving it as multiple, separate files linked to the current page. This cuts down on HTTP requests massively and speeds site loading from a user's perspective. Yahoo has a great list of best practices for speeding up sites if you're interested.

If you declared a law that everything over 200k a person makes would go to the government it would be about 2 trillion dollars or enough to run the country for less then 2 months

If you took away my tax liability completely it probably wouldn't run the country for two seconds, so by your logic I shouldn't be taxed at all.

The other consequence of raising taxes on the producers...

Producers of what? The middle class people on the factory floor produce the wealth, the CxOs merely aggregate and control it.

...is that those costs are embedded into the products they create or lowering the amount of capital available for investment.

Or the profits available to the shareholders or the extremely insane amounts of compensation the folks who run these companies get.

There are two solutions left lowering the federal tax exempt level so that more then 50% of the population will be paying federal taxes, or spending much less.

It isn't an either/or proposition. You want to tax the middle class more and the rich less? (looks to see if parent's user name is Ebeneezer... nope).

The military is [already] enacting 20% cuts to their budget if other programs did the same we wouldn't have a debt problem.

That 20% reduction should be fairly easy on them, considering we just finished one of the two longest and most expensive wars in US history, which is where most of the defecit comes from. What would you cut? Infrastructure? If you say "bridge to nowhere" I'm with you, there is far too much waste. If you say "legalize, tax, and regulate now-illegal drugs, lay off half the cops, close half the prisons and disband ATF and DEA and TSA and DHS" I'm with you there, too. Hell, that alone might solve the budget problems.

They should also end insanity like this.

The easiest way out of the budget mess is fix the economy; that will raise far more revenue than any tax hike on anybody, or murderous cuts to our far more meager than other countries' social services.

Problem, comprehension? If the house has solar panels, wind turbines, etc, as well as being energy efficient in usage, then yeah, it could easily generate more electricity than it produces. You know, like a power plant.

Problem, engineering? Even if the house has solar panels (optimistically 20W/sqft cite), wind turbines (in a heavily suburban area with trees, neighbors, kids who like throwing things into other things... cite = maybe 200kwH per year), etc., as well as being energy efficient in usage...

Okay, let's just stop there. Your fridge alone needs 600kwh. Hate to break it to you, but unless you live in a temperate climate that requires no heating, cooling, and the only major appliance in your house is a fridge, forget it hippy. There's a reason this is a major government backed initiative: It's almost hopelessly optimistic given today's technology.

p.s. recursion is fun.

From the link: "Space Is Not An Ocean" and "Rockets Are Not Boats"

So we will never have solar sails?

Because this is /.

It's information, therefore it must be known to us. I think you'll find OMG! much more to your liking.

is it the Stop Online Privacy Act?

Paul, is that you?

Ask any Scot.

A Kilt is NOT a skirt.

The best explanation I've found online is the marked answer here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111013145703AAO6AEd

A kilt is a made to measure garment that is specifically designed to fit a man's anatomy, and as such it is usually very unflattering to a woman's figure.

A kilt has eight yards of material, most of which is taken up in the pleats, there are very few women who would want to carry so much weight in a skirt.

A kilt fastens on the right hand side, whereas a woman's skirt usually closes on the left.

Traditionally kilts may only be worn by men and boys, but nowadays many women like to wear tartan skirts, which are sometimes called kilted skirts.

The only women I know of who wear traditional kilts, are those who play in a pipe band, they also wear the kilt so as to keep the entire band uniform.

Many Scots especially the traditionalists, will take great offense if you call their kilt a skirt, as they see the kilt as their national dress, as indeed it is, and they are rightly very proud of it.

We generally call them notes, a fifty euro note etc, and often we just say the number, a fifty, a twenty, a tenner, a fiver. I've never heard them referred to as bills.
Hopefully the euro won't disappear any time soon, but if it does, I imagine most of the notes would be far too common to ever exceed their former face value. BTW, assuming you're from the USA, I wouldn't be bragging about the dollar either. You could argue that we're merely trying to catch up to the dollar...in a race to the bottom.
(hit the max button)yahoo finance chart usd vs a few others
random dollar decline chart I found online

Typically employees can't sell their shares until at least six months post-IPO.

The SEC required a 2-year wait until the early 1990s. Which is partly why IPOs that ran way up after the IPO and then crashed were so popular during the original dot-com boom.

How much is Facebook really worth, anyway? Let's look at the numbers. Facebook revenue for 2010 was $1.86 billion. Goldman Sachs, which makes a private market in Facebook stock, sent a report to their investors indicating Facebook earned $355 million in the first 9 months of 2010. That would be $473 million for the year, for a 25% profit margin. Of course, those are unaudited numbers. When the SEC filings take place for an IPO, they may decrease as accounting gimmicks are disclosed and discounted.

The next question is, do we value Facebook as a growth company or an ongoing company? Let's look at Facebook's traffic stats. Traffic went up steadily until mid-2011, when it peaked. (Before Google+ started, incidentally.) It's been down a bit since then. So Facebook may have maxed out and started on its decline, like every other social network from AOL to Myspace did. There probably isn't a lot of growth left. Is there anyone not on Facebook who wants in?

OK, what's a company with $473 million in annual revenue worth? Google's price/earnings ratio is 21.39. Microsoft, 9.34. IBM, 12.69. Netflix 16.11. AOL 26.43. Yahoo 19.51. IAC (Ask's parent) 18.27. So we can say that the market is at best valuing mature Internet companies around 20x earnings.

That gives Facebook a valuation around $9 billion.

Even that may be optimistic. That assumes Facebook's user base doesn't shrink. Remember when Myspace was on top? This is Myspace on the way down. To earn that $9 billion valuation, Facebook has to maintain its current size and profitability for 20 years. Does anybody think that will happen?

(How many people here remember when one of the founders of Slashdot was asking on here what to do with his money when VA Linux, the parent of Slashdot, went public in 1999? They had the biggest first-day runup after an IPO ever. The stock hit $239 on the first day, and then went into a screaming dive. Six months later it was around $40. Not as rich as he thought. By 2002, it had dropped to $0.54. The stock is still trading as GKNT, formerly LNUX. Here's the chart.)

Not all were stolen. http://news.yahoo.com/former-resident-sues-claim-alaska-moon-rocks-071955850.html

If this is a real moon rock someone just threw it away at one point. One person's valuable rock worth millions is another thing you can just pick up outside.

It's all probably very Gary Larson-esque - the fat kid with the crew cut and circular glasses, who cleans up at night, swept them up and put them all in the bin. Nobody likes an untidy lab.

The only Moon rocks I've seen were already cut in very fine slices and placed in plastic holders. So moon "rocks" may be imprecise, Moon Samples is probably better.

Not all were stolen. http://news.yahoo.com/former-resident-sues-claim-alaska-moon-rocks-071955850.html

If this is a real moon rock someone just threw it away at one point. One person's valuable rock worth millions is another thing you can just pick up outside.

They only reason the plant became a risk was due to the land dropping a meter.

Where do you people get this kind of bullshit? The run-up was 13-15 metres, the typhoon breakwater (which btw was only intended to protect the harbor) was only 5 metres high.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant

TEPCO knew about the risk of a 10-meter tsunami, and ignored it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/29/fukushima-daiichi-operator-tsunami-warning

Even TEPCO's own report says they fucked up the risk assessment:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/fukushima-not-prepared-tsunami-tepco-report-102155428.html

I used to reply to posts on slashdot, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

True.

But there's "want to make a lot of money" and then there's "stupid".

J/K/ Rowling refused (and so far as I know STILL refuses) to allow Harry Potter to go ebook, because she's afraid it will be pirated; hence it's one of the most pirated book series available on the torrent sites. It's the only way you can GET them.

Yup... still only available electronically for free. Can't pay for it if you want to.

http://news.yahoo.com/harry-potter-e-book-sales-postponed-until-2012-202829043.html

"The clamp down on the OWS is not a free speech issue."

Actually... it very well may be. There is considerable debate regarding this very notion... Please don't rant and pretend that the speech aspect of this is settled.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/18/us-usa-protests-law-idUSTRE7AH2OE20111118
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/11_-_November/ANALYSIS__Is_sleeping_speech_/
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-sleeping-zuccotti-park-free-speech-232305668.html

That the protestors are breaking existing law is NOT the same argument as whether or not those laws interfere with freedom of speech rights.
Those laws are being tested, as is the definition of what is considered to be freedom of speech.

Speaking as an authority on the hypothetical just makes you sound silly... Until this topic hits the Supreme Court, both arguments (laws restricting freedom of speech -leading to a valid protest being re-interpreted or discarded... AS WELL AS... freedom of speech trumping existing laws - leading to those laws being re-interpreted or discarded) have merit.

Sorry that your strong opinion isn't yet based in solid fact... time may prove you to be correct. For now, you're just ranting. =)

My apologies. I seldom bother to read responses anymore, so I didn't notice this till now.

In any case:

http://news.yahoo.com/activists-invade-nuclear-plant-france-100229724.html from the first morning of this particular incident includes:

After Greenpeace alerted authorities that its activists were behind the incursion, police and security teams held their fire and allowed the activists to continue scaling a containment building that houses the reactor to put a banner on top, Brandet said.

"Taiwan's intelligence agency on Tuesday flatly rejected allegations that it had launched "electromagnetic wave" attacks against the running mate of an opposition presidential candidate.

"The National Security Bureau has not owned the alleged technologies, nor have we used equipment to harass the alleged targeted person," the bureau said in a statement.

Lin Ruey-shiung, the running mate of independent candidate James Soong, surprised the public last week when he claimed to have been subjected to "electromagnetic wave" attacks by the bureau on September 20 outside his home and over the following three days.

"If I hadn't quickly moved out (of my home), I would have lost my mind," he told reporters."

- http://ca.news.yahoo.com/taiwan-running-mate-claims-magnetic-attack-003709546.html

russian spies models radio hacking HOW TO JAM RADIO FREQUENCIES spying spy counter terrorist fleas

It's possible they took control of the UAV. This would gel with what NATO said regarding "losing control" of a drone.
The type of drone appears to be one that would not be used in Afghanistan (uses stealth technology, not required in Afghanistan as they do not have air defenses) --either targetted at Iran or Pakistan imo.

The UK embassy invasion was in reponse to the sanctions the UK recently placed on Iran. Iran had voted to expell the UK ambassador last week. Imo the embassy invasion could have been orchestrated by the more hard line factions of their political system to ensure there is no back down from the resolution.
Regarding the blowing up of the missile base, that would (imo) more than likely be by saboteurs - the US has declared (Mr Bush (Jr), continued by Mr. Obama) that they will fund and assist dissidents. Although stating it is not about regime change, I personally find that hard to believe.

http://m.voices.yahoo.com/lol-not-punctuation-87668.html

In other words keep sales up while insider traders and Apple executives dump the Apple stocks and aren't those Apple insiders busy selling shares http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=aapl.

Of course don't forget those mega corporate executive bonuses, for each month they can keep the prices up, the bigger the their bonus and damn the long term consequence, like all those pension funds that are going get stuck with Apple stuck as a result of under the table off shore, keep buying that stock commissions.

(Now if you want companies that totally destroyed shareholder value over time, though, you should look at Proxim Wireless.)

The proper term here is "comparable advantage".

Guess if you call a combination of criminally negligent or absent environmental laws and rigging your currency exchange rate to ensure an incomparable advantage equitable, you might be right. Or you might be a GE manager or otherwise work for the communists in the PRC....hard to say; but I am again forced to note that you're not familiar with American sarcasm which I personally found to be common in Asia.

And there is still too much pollution originating from America...we're partly responsible for the biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases. Mostly responsible, if you include the fact that our multinational corporations are jacking their profits and management salaries up by taking advantage of the aforementioned environmental criminal negligence in India and China.

Which will, of course, affect America. It is hilarious, in a way: Those "scary" Eastern nations are indeed attacking us, but the operators of the weapons - in the final analysis - are Americans.

I also think that atheists go too far... they see all of the problems of religion, but do not see the clear path through those problems to a set of beliefs that are not bound by the religionist superstitions and dogma.

That's called philosophy, not religion.

True religion is free of dogma and superstition and embraces all truth.

What is this "true religion" you speak of? All you did was redefine religion to what you wanted it to be. Let's try a dictionary instead:

"1. a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

1.b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship."

Of course, the average person doesn't have any direct experience with such powers, so they rely on religious authority in the form of dogma, prophets, religious texts, and the like.

I happen to believe that it is only in and through Christ that one can have the most personal, the deepest, and the most significant growth.

Ah, so this is your "true" religion. You have accepted religious authority from a prophet that was written about 2,000 years ago. You could also go with secular humanism and ditch the mysticism.

I'll be glad when these clowns finally sell their Exxon stock...

Most people who have money sitting in the stock market include some variant of the S&P index. The popular ETF SPY has ~3% of its holdings in Exxon (XOM). You may be waiting a long time, and when you get your wish you'll probably find another waiting to take Exxon's spot.

This argument is silly, the Fed's chief goal is market stability, and sustained growth.

No you simply have no idea what you are talking about, and have contradicted yourself within a single sentence but are nevertheless quite happy to expound your ignorance to the rest of the world.

Go watch Alfred Bartlett.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

Watch all of the sections from start to finish.

This could not be described as stability

North Korea of course :-) And yeah, I want to see it just for the experience and because it's something so little amount of people have done. Would make awesome small talk subject too. I also have heard it's really safe country to visit, actually. If you're being an idiot, they don't punish you.

This stamp collector from the Netherlands> (lame Babelfish translation, but Googles one is even worse) visited North Korea 24 times. His last visit however ended with weeks and weeks of interrogations, a forced confession to a crime he didn't commit and a judge that absolved him (but that might just as well sentenced him to decades of jail).

"and spend some significant money to purchase radio equipment.

Well, no one doesn't, especially if one enjoys working VHF, I recently purchased a dual band (2 Meter & 440 MHz) hand held transceiver for $45 U.S., it also receives broadcast FM radio and has a nifty built in LED flashlight, and it's the size of a pack of playing cards.

BAOFENG UV-3R

And I've built a 2 Meter J Pole antenna and a 5 element Yagi-Uda beam antenna, both of those together cost me all of $10 U.S., I used copper water pipe for the J Pole and old broadcast TV antennas that I disassembled and used the parts to construct my beam antenna, they preform as well as antennas costing well over a hundred dollars U.S..

And as already pointed out, a lot of Hams are aging and there is quite a bit of used and perfectly good gear available at reasonable prices, especially if one finds a local Ham radio club to hook up with (avoid tobacco smokers gear though, UGH, sticky and nasty).

There is still a lot of "fun" to be had in the VHF and Microwave bands.

Recent inspections in Germany showed that over 90% of all chicken produced for consumption contain remains of antibiotics. So I guess you are right.
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,797970,00.html (german),
http://de.babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fmensch%2F0%2C1518%2C797970%2C00.html&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=%C3%9Cbersetzen (Yahoo Babelfish Translation)

The average OWS'er lives in a much nicer house than me, but you don't see me shitting on their front lawn about it.

All they have are first world problems. They wouldn't know poverty if it came up to them asking for change. Mostly because they chased all the homeless people out of Zuccoti.

Yes, the stock is clearly increasing over time...

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT+Interactive#chart2:symbol=msft;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined

You're stupid.
I'm smarter than you.
Deal with it.

Oh look the years that the company was left to colored sugar-water salesmen and bean counters. Not the dynamic and growing company it is now.

Yes, and if I had been born in an earlier decade, I could have bought IBM when there was a market of "four to five computers"

Moron.

Oh, look, a softie redefining words at whim.

You're an idiot.

Here, have another chart. This is growth.

You should have bought AAPL, ya dummy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y&l=off&z=l&q=l&c=aapl

Of your last six comments, 2 are at +5, 3 are at -1, and one is at +2 (at the time of this writing). For what it's worth, I agree with every one of them.

Here's 8% for the last 5 years.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=alsk

With IBM, you just illustrated my point. Let's see:

IBM profits in 2000: 8.1 billion (source)
IBM profits in 2010: 14.8 billion (source)

Your chart shows IBM has been rewarded for it's growth. MICROSOFT GREW EVEN FASTER THAN IBM (from 9b to 24b during the same period).

Yet you say the problem is Microsoft? Really?

I really wish the Y! charts would include an option to represent present value of a DRIP [fool.com] investment at the beginning of the period.

I've been complaining to Yahoo about that for years. It's especially bad for mutual funds since they are required to make (potentially substantial) distributions each year. For example, note the sharp drops in December 2006 and December 2007 -- they have no economic significance (fund price drops by $X and shareholder receives $X in cash), but they mangle the graph and make it really hard to compare funds.

Who the hell has a flat stock price and reliable 20 percent dividends? Please tell me so I can hand them all my money.

Me too. Although, you should remember that past performance is no guarantee of future returns....

I spotted PG (Proctor & Gamble) in the late 1990s, and their 10 year performance at that point was impressively reliable... now I'm kinda glad I didn't have any money to invest in it at the time.

I'm just saying, that I'd be happy with fat dividends, or growth... MS has been paying 3% lately, not too fat, but I was remembering their one-time 15%-ish dividend in 2004, if they did that every year, I'd buy a chunk of their stock. I have held a chunk of O for about 10 years now... it has been good to me, better than a lot of the "growth" stocks.

Depends on "when" and how long you got in.

Look at a charts more representative of the long term investor:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=my&s=MSFT&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=aapl&c=%5EGSPC&c=%5EIXIC

Microsoft has been a rather stable investment over the years, and held its value well during the recent
crunch.

That said, some years ago, after Microsoft paid off my house and put my kid thru college, I jumped ship to Apple.
Now I'm looking for somewhere else to jump, because I figure Apple has run its course.

The yield is 3 percent.

Forward Annual Dividend : 3.00%
Trailing Annual Dividend : 0.48
Trailing Annual Dividend : 1.80%
5 Year Average Dividend : 2.00%

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft

Where you get 20 percent, I have no idea. Check your math.

--
BMO

Microsoft peaked earlier. Overall growth from the beginning appears to be in Microsoft's favor.

You could look here