LeeHunter

Another masterpiece of science journalism from the BBC!

Plant something other than grass. Seriously. I'm experimenting with yarrow in some problem areas on our property: a hot dry and sandy septic bed and some embankments with crappy soil. Yarrow can be mowed much less frequently, looks amazing (better than grass), grows on any soil, chokes out weeds, and doesn't need watering. For shady areas I'm having good results with periwinkle.

But when other countries have tried to loosen their drug enforcement policies it is the US that has historically leaned against them very hard with the big sticks of trade sanctions and development aid.

Wow. Just a raft of unfounded assumptions there. For example, warming won't necessarily create farmland in Canada (much of the topsoil in Canada is very poor anyway) but will certainly destroy vast amounts of farmlands in warmer countries ... along with devastating the oceans as a food supply (via acidification). Everyone loses with a warming climate.

Eh, seriously?

"By 2030, the benefits of these three sets of sector policies would include 94,000 premature deaths avoided annually and GDP growth of $1.8 trillion-$2.6 trillion per year," according to the report. "The policies would avoid 8.5 gigatons of CO2-equivalent and almost 16 billion kilowatt-hours of energy saved, roughly equivalent to taking 2 billion cars off the road. Together, these implementing these policies could represent about 30 percent of the total reduction needed in 2030 to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius."

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/10643/world-bank-climate...

If the OP works for the company or is a stock promoter it might break some rules. Talking about your own investments (even hyping them) is not against any rules. The Internet is awash in stock forums.

If you're interested in motion picture sound design, you'll want to read about the groundbreaking work done for The Exorcist way back in 1973 http://theexorcist.warnerbros.com/cmp/silencebottom.html

Exactly. Editing WP for money is a conflict of interest unless you're being paid by Wikipedia. Hellbanning is the most appropriate action.

From what you describe, WP was totally correct to ban your organization. Your business model was to inject commercial links into articles. The fact that you think you provided some value in exchange is pretty much irrelevant.

Back in the early 1970s the Canadian navy tested a small hydrofoil ship for antisubmarine work and coastal patrol. It could travel at 60 knots. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Bras_d'Or_(FHE_400) At the time it was the fastest unarmed naval vessel in the world.

Some of this is disturbing and some is not. I don't know why the article makes a big deal out of predictive policing and it's roots in counter-insurgency. Putting police officers where crime is likely to happen is just good management. More power to them. I could care less whether the software was developed for Fallujah. Why would you want to put police resources where they're not needed?

I wonder if the information they are collecting can be just as useful to the bad actors (particularly the government). As in "Oh look there's still an open bakery in this sector! Let's start shelling."

Not to mention that the Koch bros really only have two items on their agenda. No taxes for rich people and no environmental regulation.

Why are you talking about "lethal dose" when the issue with atrazine is specifically a proven link to birth defects at very low doses?

It would be more interesting to know how that compares, perhaps per hundred words, with other bodies of text, professionaly edited and not.

And, for an article on finding grammatical errors, there were a surprising number of grammatical errors.

And you are repeating this 'rather bigoted saying' here why?

One of the most astonishing books I've ever read is Unbroken, which is the true story of an American pilot (and Olympic athlete) who went through a similar experience as a POW of the Japanese. Well worth checking out.

"Is there some benefit to knowing the fate of Facebook?"

If you care about social media in general then yes, the fate of the world's largest social media platform is tremendously important. If your life or business doesn't intersect much with social media then, no.

Looking through the lens of 2013 it might sound stupid. In the cultural context of the mid-20th century it was perfectly appropriate. Fifty years from now the word "iPhone" will probably sound like the dumbest name ever.

The actual argument was not critiqued, so yes.

A line-by-line dissection of a writer's pposition is not an ad hominem attack. Slamming Jezebel for some supposed disposition for ad hominem is itself, ironically, an ad hominem attack.

From Jezebel: "Camille Paglia has been trolling since before trolling was A Thing. She's the OG of barfing up archaic assertions about women, men, and feminism, justifying them with sweeping, unverified statements, and dressing them up with $2 words, and calling it new. Her latest, "It's A Man's World, And It Always Will Be" is so absurd that it doesn't merit a response; it merits an edit." Http://jezebel.com/camille-paglia-please-see-me-after-class-1484324950

This. Given the choice of dealing with a world that is always shiny, bright, cheerful, smooth, clean, and instantly responsive and a world that is frustrating, demanding, ambiguous, unyielding etc an infant (and a helluva lot of adults) will remain transfixed by the screen to the detriment of their physical and mental development.

"... the 'left' using lethal force to ensure that people pay for other people's healthcare."

WTF?

Here's a message from the civilized world where publicly funded healthcare is an utterly mundane fact of life, on a par with publicly funded policing: Take two Valium America and calm yourself down.

I've been reading stories about the supposed wonders of Internet-connected fridges for at least a dozen years and I'm baffled as to why anyone would think that this is a good idea. I generally have a great idea of how much milk I have in my fridge and if I didn't I could just, you know, open the door and look. It's not that hard. I have about as much use for an Internet-connected coffee table that tells me it's time to dust.

Correct. And I should add that what is considered the "left" in the US is what most of the rest of the world considers slightly right of center. The US right, virulently opposed to environmental regulation, basic human rights (e.g. universal health care, a woman's right to control her body), and favoring low taxes for the rich etc is "evil".

To misquote Churchill "Capitalism is the worst possible system, except for all the rest".

The problem here is more a lack of strong mechanisms to set and enforce standards along with a host of deeply rooted cultural norms (especially the dowry system) that are easily exploited.

Be careful what you wish for. Internally developed systems in the government tend to suck as badly and cost as much or more than solutions that are contracted out. Software development, except in relatively small isolated cases, will never be well executed inside government. The nature of bureaucracy pretty much guarantees it. The best hope is relying on open source or off the shelf software as much as possible.

The lowest bidder who met the minimum requirements.

Saudi Arabia has apparently had considerable success deprogramming militants by engaging them in religious discussions.