Then why does it generate quakes in areas that previously had no big ones on record? What you say does happen sometimes, but often the slippage might never have happened at all, at least not for thousands of years.

No. Let's be absolutely clear here. No-one is required to actually forget this stuff, and no-one is prevented from talking about it or publishing more articles on the subject. All that is required is that a commercial company like Google respond to requests to remove the links from data they provide when searching for the individual's name. They can keep the data on file and return it for other search terms. The site hosting the article is not required to remove it. The criteria for removal are quite narrow.

In Europe companies are not people. They don't have free speech rights like individuals do. They are required by law to treat information about people in certain ways.

It's got nothing at all to do with libel. The Data Protection rules concern information about individuals gathered by commercial entities. If a company wants to hold people's personal details they must abide by the rules. One of the rules is that information can only be kept as long as it is relevant and up to date. This was originally to stop companies keeping people on file indefinitely after their relationship had long ago ended, and the data becoming increasingly inaccurate. Everything from junk mail sent to old addresses because you bought one thing 20 years ago to companies selling databases was an issue.

This was back in 1995 though, when search engines were primitive and little personal data was online. The rules need updating, and the EU is trying but member states can't agree.

Actually this isn't the "right to be forgotten" at all, the press just started calling it that because they were confused. The original right to be forgotten was only concerned with data you yourself provided. In other words you can ask for your Facebook account to be deleted, and it really must be completely deleted and not just made dormant.

The current issue with Google is actually based on data protection rules dating back to 1995. Google gathers information on individuals without their explicit permission, much like a credit reference agency. Therefore Google is subject to the same rules.

The EU has been trying to update the data protection rules for some time, in expectation of something like this happening. The right to be forgotten would have been included in the update, further adding to the confusion. Unfortunately member states can't agree on the new rules, so the much needed update has not come yet.

It's because we have a different idea of what freedom is.

To us the idea that if you make it mistake it will be held against you forever and knowledge of it made available to everyone indefinitely doesn't sound like freedom. I understand that in the US once you get say a criminal record or have financial problems they never go away completely and will be noted by every employer and financial institution you deal with for the rest of your life. Essentially your life is blighted and you can never be rehabilitated.

In Europe many mistakes are eventually forgiven and forgotten. Not all of course, some crimes are serious enough to warrant being permanently associated with an individual, and of course (in)famous people can do little to make people forget beyond changing their identity. For the average person though something like bankruptcy will eventually be left behind and they can be fully rehabilitated, free to participate fully in society again.

US freedom is more like freedom from interference. People don't mess with you, but on the other hand if something bad happens no-one helps you either. In Europe freedom means the freedom to live a reasonably pleasant life, with opportunities and people who love you, and with some protection against the worst things that can happen to a person. That's why the European Charter on Human Rights lists things like privacy, having a family life, shelter and basic medical care as human rights. A person suffers and has less freedom without those things.

It's sad that we are a long way behind on home automation in the west. The Japanese have had this stuff for years now, and it works well.

For example many air conditioning units can be linked via wifi for remove control. When you are 5 minutes from home your phone notifies the air-con to turn on max and be ready for your arrival, at which point it can turn right down to avoid giving you the chills. The air-con itself has a sensor that makes sure it directs cold air away from you when you are in the room.

You can get cameras for your front door that use wifi to talk to your phone. When someone rings the doorbell an image of them pops up on your phone. If you are out you can chat to them, e.g. to tell them to deliver a package to a neighbour or hide it somewhere.

Phone/internet controlled baths are available too. You can arrive home to a waiting hot tub of water, or just fill it and get a notification when it's ready. Some robot vacuum cleaners have wifi too, and will send you pictures of stuff they find under the sofa. Sharp's Cocorobo has a speaker too so you can drive to around remotely and talk to your pets while away from home. I have to admit that last function may not be terribly useful.

That was true years ago, but these days they have been surpassed in most areas. The iPhone and iPad in particular are looking decidedly mid range now, especially the iPhone screen and body. Other manufacturers offer just as good quality, design and high end production but with more features and a better price.

Jobs knew that was inevitable and kept pushing hard to innovate and come out with new features. Sometimes they were half-baked, but that didn't matter because the hype sold them anyway. Cook doesn't seem to have the knack of doing that now. Perhaps a smart watch or the Beats acquisition will generate something.

This hiring doesn't really bode well though. Jobs would create a new market for himself based on hype, then move on to a new one when the competition moved in. Cook is just following others and trying to get into established markets by hiring people with experience of them. Maybe it will work, maybe not, only time will tell.

It's economics. Russia introduced an import duty on GNSS receivers that don't support GLONASS, so now most vendors support both GPS and GLONASS on the same module. By creating this requirement Russia is giving its domestic data storage industry a boost.

That's my point. The Slashdot posters who think they know what they are talking about and assume any objection to their brilliant plan is due to unwarranted and mindless fear of radiation vastly overestimate their understanding of the situation.

To give another example, people here have reported travelling past Fukushima on the train with Geiger counters and dosimeters. They didn't specify how close they got, and Fukushima is a very large area. Anyway, they claimed that because they didn't detect anything it must be safe... The mind boggles.

No, it was NEVER removed from the search results for anything other than a search on the requester's name. Searching for the subject of the article or anything else related to it still brought it up.

In other words a person can only affect results for their own name, not anything else.

Living in a highly sterile environment and eating sterile food denies our bodies the opportunity to take on bacteria and minor infections, in order to develop immunity to them. It's known to be a problem for children in particular, and is thought to be behind a rise in allergies over the past few decades. We use powerful cleaning agents everywhere now.

There is always some minority of idiots. There are people who post on Slashdot saying it's a good idea to routinely irradiate our food, even though that would cause our existing weak immune system and high allergy rate problems to get worse. Using them to make your argument is a classic straw man.

The sensational headline fails to mention that most operating systems, including OSX and Windows, are affect. In fact most wifi devices are and we have known about this problem since the early days of wifi.

I wish I had the time to mod the shit down before it hit the front page.

At this point it isn't even clear if she really did lie. She certainly screwed up, but the experiments are being repeated to determine if the method actually works or not. It's too early to say if this is fraud or not.