If you just write the occasional letter, yes. If you're a heavy user of general purpose office software then you will notice the benefits of moving off anything pre-2007. While the 2007-2010 and 2010-2013 changes are more incremental I think the 2007-2013 change is definitely worth it for heavy users. I always get the impression people who say things like you probably haven't used a more recent version of Office than 2003 because the changes are substantial and worthwhile. People always go on about how wonderful LibreOffice (or whatever they're calling it these days) and Google Docs are. They're not. They can do the basics but they can't take the semi-pro market like Office can. Sure, if you're typsetting a book use Latex and if you're plotting publication quality scientific graphs use Origin/Sigma Plot/etc. But for everything in between MS Office has no competition.

Yes, you keep using Windows 95. I mean I'm sure it's just as good to use as Windows 8.1, it's got complete feature parity and you're productivity will skyrocket from the modern interface and featureset.

...science relies on evidence and is not swayed by what I, arbitrary authorities or consensus believes. But this goes both ways:

Now I'm not familiar with the US vote. It does seem reasonable, as policy makers and legislators are going to have to respond to climate change in their legislation, that they decide whether they buy the arguments for it or not. And given that the US uses a democratic framework for legislating it doesn't seem unreasonable that the legislature uses a democratic vote to take such an opinion collectively.

You see, that's the great thing about science. It's true, they can't just vote it away. But it's not an authority - you can't demand congress address climate change just because the men in white coats say so - you have to address evidence based, logically sound arguments to them. And your opponents can respond with arguments of their own. And the adjudicator has to choose between them.

If you think that no one has the right to challenge the sanctity of the holy scientific truth then you're just as bad as the politician who thinks they can vote objective reality away.

So this vote may be stupid (or it may not be), but, inherently speaking, a group voting on how to collectively respond to some argument isn't necessarily.

Repeating yourself doesn't make your right. Assuming Uber works the same way in Aus that it does in London all their drivers and vehicles are required to be licensed by the local authorities. Typically this will include more stringent driving checks, criminal records checks, road-worthiness checks, proof of the appropriate professional insurance and so on. See here (sorry, stupid website - can't permalink). Now maybe Uber works differently in Australia, but I don't see why they would. Come back with some evidence, and I'll listen.

People keep saying this, yet I've never seen any evidence it's true. In fact, on the contrary, here in the UK at least, Uber are licensed like any other private hire company. Not to mention the fact that, just about everywhere, running a business without appropriate liability insurance is illegal (and stupid) anyway.

Actually David Attenborough graduated from Cambridge with a degree in natural sciences (specialising in geology and zoology). And, actually, I think that he makes for a far better model of science communicator than these modern loud mouths/wannabe philosophers.

When that happens I'm out of here. I'll go and find a country worth living in.

Except, unlike with guns, the internet is multinational and there's no reason to believe that the government is going to (or even can) force foreign companies with no UK offices to comply. So unlike guns, even if it's illegal, just about every innocent person will continue to use strong encryption (TLS with PFS, for example) on a daily basis - potentially without even realising it.

The terrorists have no problem with breaking the law to kill and murder people on kamikaze missions... but I'm sure they're nice reasonable people who will stop using encryption if we make it illegal.

Actually the "one another" is correct. https://english.stackexchange....

I saw this. What kind of crazy squirrels does America have that can digest glass? Seriously, I can't imagine it does their insides any good!

*insert high fibre diet joke here*

Sorry, here's the full text link: http://rdcu.be/bUz8

Oh, and the actual study in question had nothing to do with the Kuna people. I don't know whether the /. submitter or the CBC journalist got that wrong, though.

It's hard to judge how good the research was because neither tfs nor any of the 3 tfas actually linked to the research paper.

And I don't think you read my comment either. I never said the work was rigorous, I said there's no allegations that the research was non-rigorous or of any other improper practice (emphasis added). I was responding to the AC who seemed to think that the source of funding magically altered the quality of the research without providing any evidence. And you haven't refuted me just by disagreeing.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you have no idea how science works. For starters researching natural products, as these scientists did, is a very fertile starting ground when searching for a "cure for cancer". Unfortunately you seem to have bought into the myth that only big glamorous research is valuable, ignoring the facts that, by definition, we don't know what the outcome of research will be until we do it and that most glamorous research will probably mostly involve work that looks "mediocre" in value to you.