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Comment Re:I think we are missing something obvious... (Score 1) 342

by Errol backfiring (#49284489) Attached to: UK Chancellor Confirms Introduction of 'Google Tax'

You don't understand. Many countries in the UK are competing themselves to death in being "tax-friendly" to extremely rich companies and individuals. Even American rock stars are "located" in the UK, the Netherlands or wherever they can avoid taxation the most. Off course, this contributes nothing to either countries. To make matters worse, it opens up the possibility of all kinds of incomprehensible constructs that may even be less legal. But who knows? You'd have to know all the laws and all the deals with the tax authorities (which are, even though there are laws of government openness, secret).

Tax paradises are not only located in Africa and run by dictators. Off course, that is what politicians try to make us believe. Tax paradises are in a lot of cases our own countries. It is therefore quite hypocrite for a UK politician to condemn tax paradises or rich companies using them after these companies were lured to the UK for being a tax paradise in the first place.
Power

Deploying Solar In California's Urban Areas Could Meet Demand Five Times Over 437

Posted by Soulskill from the full-conversion-mods dept.
Lucas123 writes: About 8% of terrestrial surfaces in California have been developed, ranging from cities and buildings to park spaces. If photovoltaic panels, along with concentrating solar power, were more effectively deployed in and around those areas, it could meet between three and five times what California currently uses for electricity, according to a new study. The study from the Carnegie Institution for Science, found that using small- and utility-scale solar power in and around developed areas could generate up to 15,000 terawatt-hours of energy a year using photovoltaic technology, and 6,000 TWh of energy a year using concentrating solar power technology. "Integrating solar facilities into the urban and suburban environment causes the least amount of land-cover change and the lowest environmental impact," post-doctoral environmental earth scientist Rebecca Hernandez said.
Communications

Why There Is No Such Thing as 'Proper English' 667

Posted by Soulskill from the but-feel-free-to-continue-screaming-at-random-internet-commenters dept.
Pikoro writes: A recent article in the Wall Street Journal explains why the concept of a "proper" English isn't realistic. Quoting: "It's a perpetual lament: The purity of the English language is under assault. These days we are told that our ever-texting teenagers can't express themselves in grammatical sentences. The media delight in publicizing ostensibly incorrect usage. ... As children, we all have the instinct to acquire a set of rules and to apply them. ... We know that a certain practice is a rule of grammar because it’s how we see and hear people use the language. ... That’s how scholarly linguists work. Instead of having some rule book of what is “correct” usage, they examine the evidence of how native and fluent nonnative speakers do in fact use the language. Whatever is in general use in a language (not any use, but general use) is for that reason grammatically correct. The grammatical rules invoked by pedants aren’t real rules of grammar at all. They are, at best, just stylistic conventions.
United States

How To Execute People In the 21st Century 1081

Posted by samzenpus from the end-of-the-road dept.
HughPickens.com writes Matt Ford writes in The Atlantic that thanks to a European Union embargo on the export of key drugs, and the refusal of major pharmaceutical companies to sell them the nation's predominant method of execution is increasingly hard to perform. With lethal injection's future uncertain, some states are turning to previously discarded methods. The Utah legislature just approved a bill to reintroduce firing squads for executions, Alabama's House of Representatives voted to authorize the electric chair if new drugs couldn't be found, and after last years botched injection, Oklahoma legislators are mulling the gas chamber.

The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life. Arizona, for example, abandoned hangings after a noose accidentally decapitated a condemned woman in 1930. Execution is also prone to problems as witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength." The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands. The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks." The physical effects of the deadly hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber are coma, seizures and cardiac arrest but the time lag has previously proved a problem. According to Ford one reason lethal injection enjoyed such tremendous popularity was that it strongly resembled a medical procedure, thereby projecting our preconceived notions about modern medicine—its competence, its efficacy, and its reliability—onto the capital-punishment system. "As states revert to earlier methods of execution—techniques once abandoned as backward and flawed—they run the risk that the death penalty itself will be seen in the same terms."
Medicine

Dog Sniffs Out Cancer In Human Urine 97

Posted by Soulskill from the and-you-thought-your-job-was-bad dept.
randomErr writes: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences found out that a scent-trained dog can identify thyroid cancer in human urine samples 88.2 percent of the time. Frankie, a male German shepherd mix identified the presence of cancerous cells in 30 out of 34 samples. The shepherd was only slightly less accurate than a standard thyroid biopsy. This offers the possibility of a cheaper, less invasive approach to diagnosis of the illness said Donald Bodenner, M.D., PhD, the study's senior investigator.
United Kingdom

Scotland Yard Chief: Put CCTV In Every Home To Help Solve Crimes 282

Posted by samzenpus from the all-the-better-to-see-you-with dept.
schwit1 writes Homeowners should consider fitting CCTV to trap burglars, the country's most senior police officer declared yesterday. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said police forces needed more crime scene footage to match against their 12 million images of suspects and offenders. And he called on families and businesses to install cameras at eye level – to exploit advances in facial recognition technology.

Comment Those without a timeline will be at an advantage (Score 4, Interesting) 209

Those without a timeline will be at a huge advantage

There, fixed that for you. If influencing strangers is named as an advantage, I strongly disagree. Strangers more likely influence anyone with a publicly available profile. Remaining anonymous gets more important every day.

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