You're both completely forgetting about the fact that income distribution in the US has become increasingly lopsided. The extra income that "average" person in the 50s had didn't go away, it's now in the 99th percentile of earners.

Actually, China in particular has been importing more food (due to higher standard of living) and it has had a noticeable effect on prices. We're also seeing the effects of some unusual droughts in Russia. Biofuels are a red herring.

They threw balloons filled with herbicide onto the field. Allegedly they contained Roundup which is made by *drum-roll* Monsanto.

This was publicly funded research to end a blight on a major food crop. You might have some problem with GMO (unsupported by the facts), but the intent of this research is pretty damn pure to begin with. Possible consequences to the environment are exactly what these researchers are concerned with in the first place.

I wouldn't use the word terrorist though. Vandals, more like. Ignorant fools.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Or when you are travelling internationally (roaming charges are a right bastard).

Those Nexus phones were more expensive for many in the US, and outside of the US they're just not available. I'm pretty sure the number of android devices outside of the US is now bigger than inside, so you should assume when you see someone whining that they did not have a chance to purchase a Nexus phone in the first place. (unless they were willing to have it insecurely shipped across international borders, facing charges if customs takes an interest).

I'll assume you're ignoring factual errors. But to get to the heart of things, this is not a "bizarre pronouncement". There's a bunch of confusing studies out there that were not well executed and seemed to show some evidence for cell phone radiation being harmful. The public at large is not very science-literate, nor are most politicians, so it was inevitable that this would lead to some of them playing better safe than sorry.

In this, they are responding to actual concerns from the public at large, however misguided. And thus it's not bizarre nor overreaching, it's politics as usual.

And I sincerely doubt that people are losing faith in the EU because of a report by an entirely different institution. The EU is doing well enough on its own to shoot itself in the foot, they don't need other institutions to help.

Except, you know, this is not a report from the European Union, it is from a committee in the assembly of the Council of Europe, which is an entirely different institution. It does not even rise to the level of a resolution and in any case those resolutions are always non-binding, as far as I can remember.

And for the record, they're based in Strassbourg, not Brussels.

The open source radeon drivers for one are surprisingly crap. I've got three different ATI cards, two in desktops and one in a laptop. On all of these, there are graphics glitches and sometimes major problems (I can't run unity with a dual-head setup, for one).

The only thing that keeps me from slagging off the free drivers too much, is that I couldn't get the proprietary ones to work out of the box either and then just kinda gave up (you can start configuring them manually, apparently EXA pixmaps might've been my problem, but it's a shitty thing to be trying to figure out on a work computer).

Ubuntu classic sorta works still, except for the two dualhead bugs that I reported a friggin' year ago.

I don't think I quite get how this is more economical. Is it actually cheaper to send up a bunch of smaller rockets with fuel as payload than it is to simply send a bigger rocket with enough fuel on it? Can somebody walk us through the math?

There's no doubt that if you work really hard (I've got colleagues who pull 80 hour weeks routinely, which I consider excessive, YMMV), then you will definitely do well in science. If, on the other hand, you are like the majority of people and go for a more even work-life balance without all those sacrifices, chances are that at some point you will get stuck in a low paying postdoc, moving from project to project, never really sure that you have a job for more than the next year or so and a salary on which you can't really support a family.

This trade-off is there in every profession of course, but I find it's a lot more exaggerated in science and technology than elsewhere. That being said, there are of course lots of places where a good work/life balance is possible and where sensible career choices are available. I do think we shouldn't kid students towards believing that it's some sort of cakewalk though. It's grueling and sometimes thankless (like being labeled a parasite by the common tax payer, always fun).

Of course, a science or technology degree is usable in lots of industries, so you're not really limiting yourself that much by getting one. Compare this with people pursuing an english degree, where there are so many more candidates than positions at the postdoc level, and you wonder why anyone would still bother.

There's a couple brands you might want to stay away from though. When people ask me, I never recommend HP (consumer) laptops because in the past I've seen them have terrible build quality (up to USB ports being installed the wrong way around) and even worse customer service.

It wouldn't be useless. Even with the interest rate of your savings account at zero, your money would still be appreciating in value and you'd still want to put it in a bank for all of the other benefits (not having to store it under your mattress, for one).

Whether deflation would be good for us is another matter, of course. (it wouldn't)

The only thing I find a little bit disturbing about this story is that they apparently found cocaine in a secure area last time, where they are supposed to know who has access, and yet nobody tested positive (or is cocaine one of those that you can break down pretty quickly?). Seems they have somewhat of a security problem.