In 1990, there were 17,637 bank branches but the network had shrunk to just under 12,000 by 2003.
This year Barclays indicated it could shrink its 1,600-strong branch network by 25pc, meaning 400 could close, and is piloting a scheme to move high street branches into Asda superstores.
My phone lives in a jacket pocket. I carry it for the thirty minutes to get to work. Then it comes out of my pocket and goes on my desk at work, unless I am leaving the office. I rarely have it on my person at weekends, or sometimes even know where it is... I am slightly baffled by those that have it in a pocket continually.
I do have it in my hands at various points for 30 to 40 minutes a day, probably. I should try to get that time down because it sucks time, not due to radiation concerns.
I see lots of people holding some rectangular object (sometimes with rounded corners) to their heads on a pretty regular basis. What are these mystery objects that they seem to be talking to? Candy bars? Small Italian refectory tiles?
Correlation may not imply causation. But a complete lack of correlation refutes causation.
And you can be absolutely sure that all other factors that might cause brain cancer have remained absolutely the same over the time period? The answer is you can't, so sometimes the lack of apparent correlation in non-controlled situations is just that, an apparent lack of correlation, but if you control for other factors, as most epidemiological studies try to, you may quickly find a correlation.
I would expect that in calculating risks, they looked at risk within the standard lifespan. Whether they looked at the cancer risks only for those that died at a standard lifespan, I don't know. Arguably, though, if the lifespan was overall increases then looking at those that died at the standard lifespan might be a case of looking at the subset of the irradiated cohort that were least healthy otherwise, and would have had a shortened lifespan if not irradiated.
I haven't read the paper, but I am also presuming that they took the control group out of its enclosure, and put it in a location for mock irradiation. If not, then it may be that the irradiated rats lived longer simply because they got more attention. Ideally, those caring for the rats should not know which group they are in, so as to avoid them looking after the irradiated rats slightly better, assuming that they would be suffering from an untimely death.
Often the issue is in reporting (especially in some news outlets), rather than the science or scientists. This is why there is increasing interest in research bodies (universities and others) managing the message a little better, by engaging with news outlets and essentially giving them copy in a variety of lengths to fit the available number of column inches. One of the dangers is that if a press release is made in a long form, then if space is tight words will be removed, and sentences rewritten to be slightly shorter, with the danger that the sense or caveats are removed. I've seen examples where the sense of the conclusion is exactly reversed through poor editing. That might not even be the fault of the science journalist writing the original article, but a last minute tweak by a sub-editor without requisite training whose job it is to get the word count down by 20 to fit into the news feed or newspaper to make space for other content.
In some ways, web-based news can be better, as there is less need to trim the article, but some of the summary-based formats (e.g. insertion into social media feeds), can require editing.
Indeed, it is how you demonstrate there may be an effect. If rats showed no increase prevalence of cancer, even at large doses, then assuredly no one need worry about realistic doses. This research warrants more, and it's quite possible (maybe even likely) that the levels from a mobile phone will be shown to not be of concern.
Conclusions are normally phrased in this way to minimise misinterpretation of the conclusions, by ascribing greater certainty to the results than is necessarily warranted by the research. Designing experiments that control for non-causal correlations and confounding factors is not necessarily trivial. Often 'common sense', when controlled for those factors, is shown to be incorrect.
However, if you could have 20% of the current work force working from home it would likely make traffic far more bearable for the other 80%.
There's a risk that the other 80% might then move further from work over time for other reasons, and traffic would return to the same inconvenient level, and then if the 20% tried to go back it would be much worse! I find the 80% already have more tolerance to an extent that baffles me, but then I can walk to work in 45 minutes, cycle in under half that.
I prefer open plan with a dozen people to cubicles, except when needing to video conference, for which rooms are available. But then I am good at ignoring distractions to the extent that when focused people have problems getting my attention.
I just saw this illustrated last month, with the super cold weather we had out here in Maryland. People pretty commonly received electric bills of as much as $750 for the month, because we're all using electric heat pumps or baseboard heating. A few people with Vivint and other solar PPA arrangements bragged that their bill was only about $50 or $60. But fact check! With the amount of energy it takes to heat a home with all electric heat plus all the other power used (electric stoves, water heaters, clothes washers/dryers, etc.), there's no WAY those panels generated anywhere NEAR what it would take to offset the bill down to $50.
I don't know if those specific figures are accurate, but often those who are serious about things like solar have taken other measures to improve their home, including additional insulation, and often things like wood burners (although I am not personally convinced they are a solution to the energy problem worldwide as it would require a large amount of net primary production to support), and solar thermal for hot water. If you look at standards such as PassivHaus, then even in winter there can often be little requirement for heating for a house that is reasonably occupied (e.g. a family of four).
I live in the UK, and I have gas for heating and hot water, but my monthly electricity bill is not normally that much more than $50 (electrical cost is a little higher here) for a family of two, although my wife's been using the electric heater the past month to top up with, so it is likely to be higher this month, probably doubled. We have a washing machine, dryer, electric oven, microwave, etc., but a modestly sized LED TV and LED lights apart from a couple of rarely used areas like the shed, and halogens in the bathroom as dimmable LEDs don't seem to be compatible with the current dimming controller.
Almost all of the incremental improvements I've seen with solar panel technology have come from private industry doing their own in-house R&D so their specific brand of panel can outperform the competition in some way. It wasn't a matter of the U.S. government doing all that R&D and then sharing it with industries so we could have better panels for all.
Actually, there are a lot of universities in the USA doing research on solar panels, and then publishing the research (sharing it with industry). Private companies do research too, but it doesn't make sense to ignore the university research which is quite extensive.
The DOE performed basic research in the 1970s that led directly to our leadership in today's fracking technology
You seem to suggest, no one would've researched those technologies, if the government hadn't done it.
That no one would have done the research eventually is probably unlikely, although hard to determine, but it is seems likely that such research would have been delayed, and less readily available to all companies in the field, so is likely to have reduced adoption. It's very hard to determine by how long a period without an alternative earth to test this on in detail, which does make fundamental research funding decisions difficult, but government has an opportunity to act like a VC firm, such that whilst not all investments necessarily pay off, it is highly likely that there is net benefit.
That's why government has a role to play in the funding of research that the private sector is not likely to have the fortitude to pursue.
It's not necessarily an issue of fortitude.
As you noted, without sufficient sources of investment or income a private sector may not be able to afford, in the shorter term, to do the research that might ensure its success in the longer term, even if it wanted to. The ability to attract capital can be affected by market capitalisation, which can be affected by shorter or medium term profitability, which may be reduced by large R&D costs. It's a complicated situation, and often the fundamental research can only really be carried out in universities and similar.
Public funding of research is a terrible idea. The decisions on who gets the money is decided by a bunch of lawyers in Congress based on how many votes it will buy them in their re-election campaign, not on it's ability to reduce pollution.
Whilst the size of the pot may be decided by Congress, a lot of the research goes on in universities, and allocation is via competitive tender, judged by a panel of senior academic peers.
Without QE, the banks certainly wouldn't have lent money to anyone with any amount of risk, as they would have had very slim capital adequacy to play with.
Slashdot Mirror
Ability to develop doesn't mean that you are suitable for consulting, or wish to do so, though.
I'm baffled as to why some people might react to potential death by stealing things, unless those things were survival rations.
I'm in the UK. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin...
In 1990, there were 17,637 bank branches but the network had shrunk to just under 12,000 by 2003.
This year Barclays indicated it could shrink its 1,600-strong branch network by 25pc, meaning 400 could close, and is piloting a scheme to move high street branches into Asda superstores.
The above may explain my previous comment.
You mean minding the dog that's there to stop the operative interfering with the SecuroBot 3000, surely?
To be fair, rail killed itself to some extent, or its ability to expand, due to a series of investment scandals.
Are you being sarcastic?
If it's those Bluetooth earpieces to allow them to use their phone whilst doing many other tasks, the answer is 'making them annoying'.
My phone lives in a jacket pocket. I carry it for the thirty minutes to get to work. Then it comes out of my pocket and goes on my desk at work, unless I am leaving the office. I rarely have it on my person at weekends, or sometimes even know where it is... I am slightly baffled by those that have it in a pocket continually.
I do have it in my hands at various points for 30 to 40 minutes a day, probably. I should try to get that time down because it sucks time, not due to radiation concerns.
I see lots of people holding some rectangular object (sometimes with rounded corners) to their heads on a pretty regular basis. What are these mystery objects that they seem to be talking to? Candy bars? Small Italian refectory tiles?
Correlation may not imply causation. But a complete lack of correlation refutes causation.
And you can be absolutely sure that all other factors that might cause brain cancer have remained absolutely the same over the time period? The answer is you can't, so sometimes the lack of apparent correlation in non-controlled situations is just that, an apparent lack of correlation, but if you control for other factors, as most epidemiological studies try to, you may quickly find a correlation.
I would expect that in calculating risks, they looked at risk within the standard lifespan. Whether they looked at the cancer risks only for those that died at a standard lifespan, I don't know. Arguably, though, if the lifespan was overall increases then looking at those that died at the standard lifespan might be a case of looking at the subset of the irradiated cohort that were least healthy otherwise, and would have had a shortened lifespan if not irradiated.
I haven't read the paper, but I am also presuming that they took the control group out of its enclosure, and put it in a location for mock irradiation. If not, then it may be that the irradiated rats lived longer simply because they got more attention. Ideally, those caring for the rats should not know which group they are in, so as to avoid them looking after the irradiated rats slightly better, assuming that they would be suffering from an untimely death.
Good point.
Often the issue is in reporting (especially in some news outlets), rather than the science or scientists. This is why there is increasing interest in research bodies (universities and others) managing the message a little better, by engaging with news outlets and essentially giving them copy in a variety of lengths to fit the available number of column inches. One of the dangers is that if a press release is made in a long form, then if space is tight words will be removed, and sentences rewritten to be slightly shorter, with the danger that the sense or caveats are removed. I've seen examples where the sense of the conclusion is exactly reversed through poor editing. That might not even be the fault of the science journalist writing the original article, but a last minute tweak by a sub-editor without requisite training whose job it is to get the word count down by 20 to fit into the news feed or newspaper to make space for other content.
In some ways, web-based news can be better, as there is less need to trim the article, but some of the summary-based formats (e.g. insertion into social media feeds), can require editing.
Indeed, it is how you demonstrate there may be an effect. If rats showed no increase prevalence of cancer, even at large doses, then assuredly no one need worry about realistic doses. This research warrants more, and it's quite possible (maybe even likely) that the levels from a mobile phone will be shown to not be of concern.
Conclusions are normally phrased in this way to minimise misinterpretation of the conclusions, by ascribing greater certainty to the results than is necessarily warranted by the research. Designing experiments that control for non-causal correlations and confounding factors is not necessarily trivial. Often 'common sense', when controlled for those factors, is shown to be incorrect.
However, if you could have 20% of the current work force working from home it would likely make traffic far more bearable for the other 80%.
There's a risk that the other 80% might then move further from work over time for other reasons, and traffic would return to the same inconvenient level, and then if the 20% tried to go back it would be much worse! I find the 80% already have more tolerance to an extent that baffles me, but then I can walk to work in 45 minutes, cycle in under half that.
I prefer open plan with a dozen people to cubicles, except when needing to video conference, for which rooms are available. But then I am good at ignoring distractions to the extent that when focused people have problems getting my attention.
Or learn to share a large room with one other person?
Use a green screen and matte in a background. One week a yacht, next the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, Seychelles...
I just saw this illustrated last month, with the super cold weather we had out here in Maryland. People pretty commonly received electric bills of as much as $750 for the month, because we're all using electric heat pumps or baseboard heating. A few people with Vivint and other solar PPA arrangements bragged that their bill was only about $50 or $60. But fact check! With the amount of energy it takes to heat a home with all electric heat plus all the other power used (electric stoves, water heaters, clothes washers/dryers, etc.), there's no WAY those panels generated anywhere NEAR what it would take to offset the bill down to $50.
I don't know if those specific figures are accurate, but often those who are serious about things like solar have taken other measures to improve their home, including additional insulation, and often things like wood burners (although I am not personally convinced they are a solution to the energy problem worldwide as it would require a large amount of net primary production to support), and solar thermal for hot water. If you look at standards such as PassivHaus, then even in winter there can often be little requirement for heating for a house that is reasonably occupied (e.g. a family of four).
I live in the UK, and I have gas for heating and hot water, but my monthly electricity bill is not normally that much more than $50 (electrical cost is a little higher here) for a family of two, although my wife's been using the electric heater the past month to top up with, so it is likely to be higher this month, probably doubled. We have a washing machine, dryer, electric oven, microwave, etc., but a modestly sized LED TV and LED lights apart from a couple of rarely used areas like the shed, and halogens in the bathroom as dimmable LEDs don't seem to be compatible with the current dimming controller.
Almost all of the incremental improvements I've seen with solar panel technology have come from private industry doing their own in-house R&D so their specific brand of panel can outperform the competition in some way. It wasn't a matter of the U.S. government doing all that R&D and then sharing it with industries so we could have better panels for all.
Actually, there are a lot of universities in the USA doing research on solar panels, and then publishing the research (sharing it with industry). Private companies do research too, but it doesn't make sense to ignore the university research which is quite extensive.
You seem to suggest, no one would've researched those technologies, if the government hadn't done it.
That no one would have done the research eventually is probably unlikely, although hard to determine, but it is seems likely that such research would have been delayed, and less readily available to all companies in the field, so is likely to have reduced adoption. It's very hard to determine by how long a period without an alternative earth to test this on in detail, which does make fundamental research funding decisions difficult, but government has an opportunity to act like a VC firm, such that whilst not all investments necessarily pay off, it is highly likely that there is net benefit.
That's why government has a role to play in the funding of research that the private sector is not likely to have the fortitude to pursue.
It's not necessarily an issue of fortitude.
As you noted, without sufficient sources of investment or income a private sector may not be able to afford, in the shorter term, to do the research that might ensure its success in the longer term, even if it wanted to. The ability to attract capital can be affected by market capitalisation, which can be affected by shorter or medium term profitability, which may be reduced by large R&D costs. It's a complicated situation, and often the fundamental research can only really be carried out in universities and similar.
Public funding of research is a terrible idea. The decisions on who gets the money is decided by a bunch of lawyers in Congress based on how many votes it will buy them in their re-election campaign, not on it's ability to reduce pollution.
Whilst the size of the pot may be decided by Congress, a lot of the research goes on in universities, and allocation is via competitive tender, judged by a panel of senior academic peers.
Without QE, the banks certainly wouldn't have lent money to anyone with any amount of risk, as they would have had very slim capital adequacy to play with.