Perhaps they can explain why Fifty Shades did well despite being badly written.

There is a danger in this process that we end up with a "Save the cat" problem where everything has to follow a formula
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/07/hollywood_and_blake_snyder_s_screenwriting_book_save_the_cat.html

Such as a binary star where one goes supernova and somehow the binary is not destroyed? Perhaps a binary with a long period? Though imagine that the binary pair would be destroyed or ejected. What is another example that might do this?

I stand corrected on Korea. According to various sources including http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Division_of_Korea it was

> On August 10, 1945 two young colonels, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, supervised by Brigadier General George Lincoln, working on extremely short notice, proposed the 38th parallel as the administrative line for the two armies.

So 5 days before the end of the war. The soviets had troops in Korea and the U.S. did not. While the detail of Korea's split was not done at Yalta it seems in line with the split of Germany, Austria and in line with what Stalin wanted for Japan. Is there any evidence the U.S. expected to occupy all of Korea or that Korea was even much on its mind at the time of Yalta? ...and what point are you trying to make? Other than being obnoxious?

The agreements to split Korea and Germany were made well in advance. The zones were planned. In Germany the allies had to evacuate certain areas as they were in the Soviet zone. The only reason the frontline resembled the final zones was because Eisenhower did not want to waste energy taking areas that they would not be administering later on. This is why he had no interest in taking Berlin, though Churchill saw it as a potential bargaining chip.

Read up on the Okinawa campaign and how costly that was. There was no indication that the Japanese would have surrendered without the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Japan would create a much higher potential loss of military and civilians on both sides. Morally there is no difference between a nuclear bomb and conventional bombing. Dead is dead.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the effect of saving the Japanese from themselves. They were preparing to have civilians attack the invaders with pitchforks, spears and machetes. Imagine how that would have gone. The "they would have surrendered without the bomb" argument is a more recent one. The U.S. expected to be fighting into 1946 and so did the Japanese. The loss due to starvation would probably have exceeded military losses.

The moral issues on the bomb came up after the war. Particularly when we realised there were enough bombs to wipe out humanity, and still are. Also, there has been a lot of whitewashing of the Japanese since the war. If you read up on their actions in China and the Pacific you will probably feel a lot less sorry for them. Their humanity was severely lacking. Luckily it is a different story today. But the Japanese do not fully acknowledge what they did in the war and a lot of the history is not taught to the young. This contrasts with Germany which basically acknowledged what was done and set about purging it from society. That is not the Japanese way, though.

My stepfather was a banana farmer and exposed to some nasty chemicals. He has parkinsons and blames the pesticides. So reading this seems to support his belief. Just one data point and proves nothing, but personally interesting.

Not really. It is an imaginary currency mainly set up by crooks. I see no need for it and no trust in it.

Bitcoin is far too small a currency to have any affect on the U.S. dollar. Astroturfers on Slashdot keep posting these stories as if Bitcoin matters. It is a scam and once the governments shut down the illegal transactions it will disappear.

Because we dont pass the costs on...

And in any case i dont agree with the IP Barons exploiting us any more than i agree with lawyers exploiting anyone.

These payouts get positioned as "justice" but they are not really.

Payouts to the victims should reflect the loss. Punitive damages should not be in cash or if in cash should be paid to the state, just as normal fines are. The focus should be on what is being done to avoid this problem in the future. So in this case AFP would have to show that they have the process and steps in place to ensure that the issue is not repeated. Punitive damages could be in the form of them doing charity work or other non-cash forms. If the directors have to give up every saturday for a year you can bet this will never happen again, if it is cash, then the insurance company pays or it comes from profits and nothing much changes.

I am not a libertarian and don't care about people getting "above their station". This gives more insight into you, than me. And if you think insurance companies get rid of quacks then you truly are delusional. This is also a reason why the U.S. has much more expensive medical care than most other comparable countries. And more lawyers than other countries too. And it just encourages people to do frivilous lawsuits hoping to win the big lottery.

Big payouts like this are not in line with the actual loss. Was the image worth $1.2m? perhaps but i doubt it. Particularly with this being just one of many outlets that used the image. Do other photographers get that much? no. So it makes us all feel good until we realise that ultimately the costs are passed onto us. Instead the lawyers get rich and that just breeds more lawyers.

Big payouts for medical problems act as a lottery and while they look like they penalise the doctors they just penalise the rest of us. Instead provide payouts in a manner that alleviate the problems, with free medical and income replacement, instead of a massive, instant multi-millionaire payout. Which also pays for the big lawyer fees.

Was he expecting to make $1.2m on the photos in the original place? How much of that goes to lawyers on his side and how much did the other lawyers get paid?

Did AFP have suitable mechanisms to identify the source or the photos or did they have fixed compensation in place where a source is later found?

Everyone cheers these big payouts but forgets that in the end we pay. When a large insurance payout goes to someone of something ridiculous like $50 million, to people who would be lucky to make a million in their lifetime, people cheer, yet complain when it means their medical costs go up to cover the doctors insurance premiums.

It is good that the correct source was found and that he won the court case but this is not the correct way to solve these problems.

I'd be pretty sure those generals did not come out of the traditional army. They would be better than mugabe, who wouldn't, but not much better. It would not change the situation in Zimbabwe that much. If that is the only reason to hate Assange then it is fairly weak. The other suggestions of people being outed are suspect. There was such a desire to paint the release of information as being harmful that you would be sure to hear about it. Instead we didn't. Instead we heard things that said our freedoms are being severely compromised and that means we gained much much more than we ever lost.

we can't stop surveillance from every country in the world so knowing about it is the best we can hope for. In that respect Snowden, Manning and Assange have done a great job in shaking up and educating the world. We have all benefited from their actions.

In regard to the Zimbabwe generals, if that is the worst that come out of the leaks then that basically confirms that little damage was done compared to the benefits. Given the number of people who were predicting dire consequences and were desperate to prove the damage, quite frankly that is fairly low on the scale.