In that case you should probably argue for a data escrow service to be set up independent of the Government (although true independence would probably be impossible there could be a lot of oversight).

An independent escrow service would mean that if there is any suspicion the data can't be (as easily) destroyed. As for who's suspicion: anybody could raise questions but before this type of somewhat sensitive information is released the alegation would be reviewed by an independent body.

There is certainly still scope for corruption but there always will be. All we can do is raise the bar high enough that most people can't be bothered to try and jump it and it's the classic case of diminishing returns.

It's also far to easy to see evil lurking around every corner when in actual fact I think most people are generally honest and will do the right thing left to their own devices. There are occasional pockets of corruption and they seem to glow like a cancer but, like a cancer it would probably be better to surgically remove just those elements than put in place a system that polices everyone as if they were a criminal.

Re-read the second line of my post. I specifically state that I don't think she has done anything wrong but I feel she has acted in an irresponsible manner by aggregating and making easily available this information.

What she has done is lower the barrier to revenge attacks on these officers and her families. I would be pretty annoyed if I was one of those officers.

I think you have badly missed my point. I completely agree that Government needs to be transparent that doesn't mean I agree that we need to make the home address of everyone that works for the Government publicly available.

I'm sure a lot of the information on this womans blog is information that is important that the people have access to such as how much is being spent on drug enforcement and how many people are working in drug enforcement. I don't see the public has any right to know where the individual oficers live.

There is an interesting grey area in the article though: the posting of the movements of the officers. Normally I would say that this is not information that should be in the public domain as there are obvious security risks associated with it. However, the information should be obtainable if there is a suspision of foul play.

This just another case of rights vs responsibilites. I don't think she has done anything wrong per se but she has acted in an irresponsible manner. These police officers deal, on a day to day basis, with people that range from mostly harmless to exceedingly dangerous. Posting their movements, home addresses and other information all on one place, I would argue, diminishes their safety. The information might have been publicly available but there was a certain amount of affort required to collect it. I would imagine a large number of the people these police officers interact with couldn't be bothered to put in that effort themselves but if it's as easy as just going to a blog maybe they would do something.

In an ideal world the police would have been allowed to just go round to her and ask her to act more responsibly. Let her have her blog just make the infromation a little less specific and perhaps throw in some dummy data for good measure.

I would guess that they are intending to use the methanol on a fuel cell rather than a regular internal combustion engine. Fuel cells produce essentially nothing but co2 and water. It should also be fairl easy to put a catalytic converter on the exhaust to remove any traces of methanol. Over all I think methanol could be a great fuel.

While I doubt it would be reported as valid by Government readers what they have done is likely enough for a lot of situations. They probably couldn't travel on the card but I wouldn't be surprised if they could get work, claim benefits (maybe), open bank accounts, etc etc. They could also possibly acquire other valid ID with it. For example, they probably couldn't get a passport with a fake ID but maybe they could get a bank account and a driving license, with that they could get a passport.

I considered this but if you want to read books a dedicated e-paper reader is better. For example: I can read my 505 in full sunlight, a netbooks LCD display would be essentially unviewable. I can read a book for many hours, with the ebook I can do this untethered (for several days at least) with the netbook I would probably need to have the power plugged in after a couple of hours. Where a netbook does win though is viewing PDFs - all the ebook readers I've viewed suck at PDF so I'll grant you there is scope for improvement.

I have to agree with the parent the Sony Reader is probably the more open of the two big players offerings and long may it last (I have a 505 BTW). All the EPUB format books I've read have been well laid out. Adobes Digital Editions also uses EPUB but with a good helping of DRM thrown in. Fortunately it's generally possible to strip the DRM from your purchases. All in all I would buy another Sony Reader which is saying something as I normally steer well clear of Sony products because they always screw it up in some way.

The only reason I wouldn't buy another Sony Reader is if they move to an all touch interface. I _want_ a button to turn the page. The button location on the 505 is perfect I really hope they don't completely do away with them.

IANABiologist but I've studied some biology. AIUI the DNA is quite similar but breeding is about more than just the DNA. I doubt that the other machinery necessary to produce viable off spring is sufficiently compatible. Wikipedia sheds more light on the possibility of the humanzee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

I'm guessing it was probably from blood getting into a cut / mouth rather than a misguided attempt to create an ape / human hybrid if you catch my drift. If you ever hunt something you will find out that like humans animals, as a general rule, don't want to die. This leads to a lot of blood, thrashing about and noise where you can easily end up cut. Even when they are dead there are risks as even a small animal has a surprising amount of blood in it which for some reason wants to spread itself liberally about your person.

In your situation what I would do is set up at least a single blind study. If you are correct about your hypothesis then we need to look at what is ending up in our milk. If you are wrong then you can look for whatever else is causing you to get stomach cramps. I suggest that you try to get four different types of organic and non-organic milk so that there is a good comparison, it could be that only one brand of milk is causing you a problem which might come from a particular breed of cow. Conversely it could be that the organic milk is coming from a breed of cow that doesn't produce something you are mildly allergic to. There are a lot of variables to control for and I don't think you will be able to say what the causative factor is.

A plant grown "organically" and one grown in what is now considered normal conditions will almost certainly produce all the same chemicals and take up the same nutrients and therefore have the same health benefits. We might be able to control the proportions of various chemicals in the plant - for example cause more sugars to be produced in sweet corn - but fundamentally it's the same plant and therefore it will produce the same things.

I looked into "organic" farming a while back when I got quite into growing my own vegetables. I couldn't believe the stuff they were allowed to use and still call it organic. Pretty much if it appears in nature, anywhere, it was fair game but I could find plenty of things in nature that are just as harmful as modern man made sprays.

I'm about to fit some BS 546 sockets in my living room to power lamps (rather than have standard ceiling lighting). The reason for fitting BS 546 sockets is simply to stop people plugging in high power appliances by mistake. The problem is that a regular light switch and lighting wire (1 or 1.5mm CSA) can only handle 10A, if you fitted regular sockets on the lighting circuit you could reasonably expect some people to deliberately or accidentally plug non-lighting devices in. If someone plugged in an electric fire for example pulling a full 13A it would melt the switch and possibly the wire and it would be more than possible to plug in multiple high power devices at the same time.

You can't really wire the lighting circuit in 2.5mm as a normal ring circuit because you can't then find a switch for it that would act as a light switch (because it would potentially have to switch 32A). Some people recommend fitting regular sockets and marking them as for lights only but I feel this is too open to mistakes.