Corporate law makes directors only responsibility the financial gain of their shareholders. So care for your employees is only a concern in as much as it attracts higher quality workers that can make more money for your shareholders.

(Not that we have that, though!)

Politicians' wages are always a nice button topic for the gutter press, but we do want skilled managers in politics. The fact is that skilled managers are in high demand in business circles, and receive high wages.

If remuneration for politicians isn't somewhere near what an appropriately skilled person could earn on the open market, then all we would have in politics is those whose skills aren't good enough for business.

(Then again, there is the opinion that we have a "Yes Minister" form of government - that is, one that is as it is portrayed in the British comedies "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister": The politicians are the show, and the Civil Servants run the country. In which case, Yeah, pay the pollies peanuts and retain the skilled Civil Servants. )

It's called sarcasm.

There are many areas where the unemployment level is much higher, though. That number is pushed up by mining areas where large populations are at 100% employment, because no one can live anywhere near a mining town if they don't earn miners wages. (A problem when you need to employ shophands or fill government positions, like nurses or various clerks, whose wages are fixed across the country!)

5% unemployment is only 1 in 20 currently out of work. That number could easily be persons between jobs, even not regarding the unemployable. If you get below 5%, you have a serious shortage.

As coins sold by this machine are instantly available on the public key it provides as a QR code, It would by loaded up with private keys preloaded with certain amounts. In this case, stealing this device would be lust like stealing a normal ATM - you could demolish it at your leisure and extract the cash.

There are, however, ways to secure digital devices against this type of attack - Eftpos machines have their keys stored in a memory chip that is erased if the chip detects interference. Externally, they have normally closed switches that open if the case is disturbed, forcing the chip to erase itself. Some of these switches are blind keys on the keypad, held down by the case. They also surround the chip with very fine, fragile conductors potted into the epoxy surrounding the chip. Any attempt to gain physical access to this chip will break these conductors and, again, erase the security keys.

This sort of setup could erase the private keys held inside the device if it is tampered with. This would, of course, require an off site copy of the keys, which would itself be a security target.

Of course, this device just a Raspberry Pi with a bit of hardware, so this sort of thing hasn't been done, However, it certainly is on option for future devices.

Contamination of a organisms genetics with pieces of virus DNA happens in nature ALL THE TIME. It is only because this is a GMO crop that it was tested, and found.

When the testing is finished, this may well be found to be a bit of perfectly natural, happened in the field, no-scientists-required genetic mangling.

The only difference with GM is it is done in a carefully controlled manner with a known goal, and carefully tested to determine any unwanted side effects. Random, uncontrolled genetic modification, whose consequences are totally unknowable, is completely natural.

As it is, one of the later posters linked to an article that actually looked at the research paper in question. It searched the known genomes for known toxic genomes, and found nothing. It found one possible thing that might be allergenic, looked at it further and ruled it out as well.

In the end, they found a possible cause for a GMO to be less effective - stunted growth, late flowering - and concluded that this is something that geneticists should look out for.

To finish, we have yet another study that shows how GM is completely safe. And how the media is totally untrustworthy when it comes to providing information. OH, and the article makes my point about natural virus proteins, too.

What would you think is an appropriate penalty for what Aaron did? He connected a computer to a public network, and retrieved publicly available data. He may have done this in a way and to an extent that the managers of these networks were uncomfortable with. Personally, I'd say that banning him from the library would have been too harsh.

Demanding jail time and felony convictions? It is so far beyond the pale that I think we are to be permitted our anger!

And, yes, he could have read them, one by one? But could he have done a global search using arbitrarily complex queries? Fed them into a neural network? Indeed, done anything actually interesting with them? Not unless he got heaps of them onto a hard drive.

And they go to extreme efforts to reduce it. Muscle strength spent flexing the crank is wasted.
Same thing for crank weight. They go to extreme lengths to shave grams off their bikes, and even more to reduce weights of moving parts.

The idea that this is a great, new, magic crank because it's flexible and heavy is ridiculous!

For those others who don't know, the lumber is cut into even inch measurements. But it is then dried, where it shrinks, and then is planed smooth, or 'dressed', which takes more off. So a 2x4 is 40mmx90mm, and, indeed, in metric countries, is generally sold as such!

Roundup, the plant growth hormone that messes up the plants growth regulation to the point that they die, and is then quickly destroyed by soil bacteria.

It is hard to find a completely natural substance more benign, unless you happen to be the plant sprayed with it. ( I will refrain from making statements involving the word "vegetable".)

If you are going to complain about chemicals, find something that is worth complaining about.

you ask if you need to use blue, nails, screws or bolts to secure your feet to the floor.

You can tell the worth of an argument by the one arguing it. In this case, it is clear evidence that spam filters should b mandatory.

They might be separate cities, but there is very little not-a-city between them.

Yeah, that's probably my point. But, also, yes, I may have it wrong. Maybe if I explain it, it will get clear in my mind.
At the moment, it is hard to get funds into the bitcoin economy, but relatively easy to sell out. So available cash to buy coin is scarce. Therefore cash is currently expensive, so flipping it around, according to this reasoning, coins are currently undervalued.
So, yes, I'm wrong, and it should rise, all things being equal and predictable. Mea Culpa.

I would expect that it will rise on the news - it usually does - but this story broke a few days ago, and, yes, now I remember it, it did rise.

Medium term, though, it may well push it back down. Part of the price at the moment is because they are difficult to buy, so there is a premium. If it becomes easier, then the price may fall.

So, I predict temporary instability, on top of the usual long term instability. And yet I still think it, or a tweaked successor, will succeed. Am I not loopy?

We did it, here in Australia. It required spending one of the new dollar coins on a piece of plastic to convert the dollar note slot into two coin containers. If you had an old register, it already had a couple of empty coin containers that used to hold 1 and 2 cent coins.
Ditch the penny, and 5c (nickel?), get yourself a few shiny new $1 and $2 coins, and join the sane world, peoples!

Water is really heavy and really expensive to move large distances, or lift up relatively small amounts.

I'm sure most people look at a map and say "Lakes at the top, river at the bottom, water flows from top to bottom, so no problem." Here in Australia, people are always nattering on about moving water from the tropical north to the termperate south as if it is all so very easy and cheap!