This has been going on for a long time. It's due to drainage of basically the Great Plains out into the Gulf. Lots of fixed nitrogen from fertilizers in that these days. That nitrogen stimulates a variety of organisms that also use oxygen. Which there really isn't all that much of in water.

The only way you are going to stop it is to find a different method of raising food for the world. Hint: current organic methods doesn't do it - too labor intensive and yields suffer.

Or you could have less people.

I am severely red-green color blind. I am midly blue-yellow color blind.

And the correct term is Color Deficiency Disorder, you insenstive clod.

Thermite.

Java programmers (at least those writing non-trivial code) do need to understand memory management, in particular how Java manages memory, and how they can influence the JVM so that what it does is appropriate for the problem under consideration.

How this is a CS issue I have no idea.

Come on man

> Meaningful enough for one to conclude that if the real numbers were out there, they'd be doing about as well as random chance (hey, they have a 50/50 chance of being right), and quite probably are doing FAR worse.

Lots of medical tests are worthwhile with a lot more than 50% false positives. The problem with this 40% statistic is that it falls well short of traditional thought that it's better to let 10 guilty go free than convict 1 innocent. If this were just a list that got you watched it would be one thing. But this has other more serious consequences.

Ever hear of ethics?

Government funding, apparently from the NIH and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is charged with coming up with defenses to WMDs likely to be used by terrorists.

Correlation does not imply causation.

I have a few text files on my Windows box with :wq scattered around in random locations.

Sounds like a good deal. I did opt for a lot more options, tv card, wireless, dual burners, fairly high end card in its day etc., which ate up part of the balance. I know I could have built for a little less, but sometimes it is a matter of putting the risk on someone else, and how much your time is worth at the time. But either way, it shows it pays to buy quality. I'm using that computer right now, on my TV in the bed room :)

Referencing the Daily Mail in an internet forum is the forum equivalent of a nuclear first strike.

Seriously, these guys lie like hell every day. Anything they publish is likely to be complete horseshit.

In this case the root reference for numbers of Chinese warheads over a couple of hundred is known to be an extremely unlikely rant by a Singaporean graduate student in a 1990's vintage Usenet message.

If you see someone citing a number like that either they are trying to foment alarm or are just asshats. In the case of the Daily Mail both are very likely.

What a neat looking dust filter. Probably will do a good job catching cat hairs too.

I tend to buy boxes with fairly high end parts (not expensive, just high quality), and when I built them I did the same. High end enough that I really didn't have to upgrade until everything was no longer "state of the art", so no parts to recycle in.

My ooold computer has a Q9550 and 8 gigs of ram, just as I ordered it. It is still pretty usable as a daily backup video player, and not bad for midline gaming like Portal 2, Goat Simulator, etc. Upgraded the video 3 years ago, $150-175 for what was then a steal.

5 years old, and the CPU is still on the front page of Passmark, at >4000 pmarks. Not bad. Paid around 1800 without monitor. Upgraded to 7 Pro over Vista, but even the original install is intact. Hard to beat that kind of stability, and not convinced you can build it by hand anymore.