gdacuna

"This study concludes we better not exceed the 50 per cent mark of wholesale transformation of Earth’s surface or we won’t be able to delay, never mind avert, a planetary collapse. We’ve already reached the 43 per cent mark through our conversion of landscapes into agricultural and urban areas, making Earth increasingly susceptible to an environmental epidemic."

I'm guessing this really means the land surface of the Earth, rather than the Earth's surface as a whole, as ~70% of the Earth's surface is water. Without access to the paper itself, I can't say whether or not this is an issue with the "media release" or the research itself, of course.

The article talks about the measurement of skill. The number of accidents that a driver has caused in the past year is not a good measurement of skill. Essentially the difference you bring up is whether something can be expected to fit a normal distribution (where the average is by definition in the middle). It's a reasonable assumption that skill will fit a normal distribution, but the number of accidents caused in the past year is much more likely to fit a Poisson distribution.

As a software company, I would be wary of doing anything, whether legal or otherwise, to support a software patent troll. Having access to your software is clearly in the interest of your real users, and this access is threatened by the practice of patent trolling.

I understand your reluctance, of course, but a company whose business model that abuses the legal system at the expense of companies that produce software seems like a reasonable thing for a software company to avoid dealings with. How can your users trust you if they think they might wake up one day and your product is gone because of spurious patent litigation?