I wouldn't worry about algal carbon sequestering leading to no fish, the acidification of the oceans from current atmospheric carbon levels will take care of that.

>I'm having trouble understanding exactly what kinds of technology this device is using to obtain accuracy


Handwavium?

I am also a New Zealander, and in reply to the parent need to point out that if the nation votes to keep MMP then then MMP will be up for review, and one of the issues under the gun will be the rule about if someone wins an electorate seat does the party vote apply when it otherwise will not.

Having had about half my life (ignoring the early bits I can't remember) under the preceding First Past the Post system and about half under MMP, I'd say the major difference is the for fraction of the population to obtain influence under FPP they would gain control of one of the major parties then execute rapid change while they were in control. In MMP the brakes have largely gone on, as to get anything passed it needs to have the support of the parties that a majority of people have actually voted for (though I have to say the present Government have been remarkably effective at governing by decree).

Truth be told MMP is not really more 'Unstable" than FPP, in the early 90s there was the kind of instability people attribute to MMP occurring under FPP (as it had many times previously in history), and MMP has in most sessions been more stable.

If anyone wants details on the New Zealand Referendum on what voting system we use that is taking place this weekend you could start at http://www.referendum.org.nz/votingsystems

I support MMP because it results in governments having less power to push through laws against the wishes of the people. Without it I think we would have had much more pro-multinational-corporation friendly copyright legislation when they recently changed the laws around that.

I know some who basically did this with a cheap digital camera that had a Camera to TV set cable. I think, from memory it was a Kodak Camera. Put the camera on a stand with a lot of lighting, and enough shielding that the lights used to illuminate the book are not going to interfere with someone with poor eyesight being able to see the TV screen clearly.
That said, I also know several people with strong levels of visual impairment who have found the various iDevices to be game changers for them in the past few years, particularly when on the go. In this case, if electronic texts of favorite works are available I can think of ways of scripted conversions to movie files to play via an Apple TV. Basically compiling a movie file of text (sized and fonted for easy reading) playing at an appropriate reading speed.

Not a Lawyer, am a New Zealander. After the 3rd warning notice the copyright owner can take you (the account holder of the IP address, as they are the one's liable) to the Copyright Tribunal (not a standard court), if they win it is damages in the range $275 to $15000.
For more information see the 3strikes website.

Didn't you read the summary?

Putting aside that There Is No Religious Gene so the premise is bunk, the study is starting from the present and extrapolating forwards. If there was a genetic basis for religion, then the huge worldwide rise of secularism over the past 20 generations suggests that it has been massively selected for, and I can see no reason for that long running trend to suddenly change.

Neat project, but I'm more impressed that your 11 year old daughter can write python

In teaching her python, the key explanation that made things understandable was:
hey_you.do_this(with_this)
Which covered enough understanding of object orientation to make useful progress.

If my child was 13, she would love to participate in this.
Last year she won the regional science fair here (which was open to 11-17 year olds), but could not progress to the national contest (which was open to 13-17 year olds).
For reference, a link to her project site . Hopefully, this will continue to run in the future, when she is eligible.

Maybe a lot of interesting stuff did happen on April 18ths in other years. But the article is about the most boring day since 1900 (though that wasn't mentioned in the summary) rather than most boring day of the year, hence the computer determining April 11th 1954. April 18th 1930 was the day noted at the time as so boring they cancelled the evening news.

To determine the most boring day, you either need every fact or one fact: That on Good Friday, 1930, the B.B.C. evening news announcer led the bulletin with "There is no news tonight" and gave a piano recital in place of the normal bulletin.
Mentioned on the BBC website
or according to the software used, does the fact that the day was recognised as one on which nothing happened make the day itself interesting.

The batch file stuff-up happened Wednesday, and up to 40,000 customers may be waiting until Monday to get things fixed.
By the reports, the compounding effects of the batch problems flowed through to Thursday and Friday. The bank opened some of its branches today (Saturday) so people could seek help (they would normally be closed in the weekend).

Well, Terrorists tried attacking Glasgow Airport, but it didn't end well for them.
Meet John Smeaton

While that may be part of it, it does seem to be more about the Australian MEAA union trying to use its power of international links to break into the New Zealand (note: separate country) film industry. The MEAA is not even currently operating in NZ, its NZ branch having folded up last year.
There were some forthright comments from New Zealand production people on Radio New Zealand this morning, some of which made it into this Sydney Morning Herald article

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