What if this thing gets out of hand and plants start to become larger as they are fed more nitrogen. We could become overrun with weed type plants that we can't control.

The plants would grow bigger ... until they start to run short of the next limiting nutrient. As a "for instance", maybe phosphorus? There is a reason that the commonest type of fertilizer is described as "NPK" - because it provides nitrogen (possibly fixed here, if you like that sort of pun), phosphorus and potassium, all often limiting nutrients in intensive agriculture.

Meh. That link basically says that there are different results from different benchmarks. It says that it's a "not uncommon assertion" that companies "have attempted in the past to "manipulate" benchmarks", but that's not the same as finding code that overclocks the chip specifically when it's running benchmark programs

The clean diesel Jetta gets 42mpg highway and 30 city. The hybrid Jetta gets 48mpg highway and 42mpg city.

Wow, those are atrocious mileage figures. What did you do to the car to damage it so badly? We're up in the 55-60 mpg range just for day-to-day running.

Yeah. They help you put earrings in.

So, I need to get my step-daughter an EARING AID so that she can get her earrings in her ears not all over her face?

She will be so delighted by this news. I shall tell her immediately so that her reaction will happen in another country.

Skoda and Seat, both selling cars aimed at the cheaper end.

And having driven from-new both a VW-era Skoda and a VW itself, in future I'd probably take the Skoda.

Then again, I fully expect to not have to worry about the question for at least 3 more years, possibly as many as 5, depending on how much mileage the wife clocks up. Or what she drives into.

Better to have Americans spy on Americans then a foreign entity.

But it's likely that the foreign spies would do a better job than the Americans, and very likely that they'd do it cheaper.

Better and cheaper - it's the way to go.

The innumeracy of the public is at a lower level than that. This is like arguing about whether kids should be taught calculus in school when they're struggling with basic arithmetic.

What we need is not more equations in the press, but more graphs, tables, and diagrams. I can't count the number of times I've seen a journalist try to explain, say, changing poll results or the interplay between mortgage rates and foreclosures using text, plus a quote from an expert which they clearly don't understand, when all they need is a quick line chart.

I'm a college professor, and in my classes that require essays I insist that the students incorporate graphical charts, maps, and diagrams. Generally speaking, they're awful at it, but it gets them thinking about data.

Punishment for breaking a formal oath is usually much harsher for the same act performed while not under an oath. A person's "word" should be taken seriously and should be punished if broken. Of course blind trust is pure stupidity, but the expectation that an individual should "keep his word" is not. It's called "having principles", but be warned, these so called "principles" are expensive. Snowden and Manning took an oath that (at the time) they believed did not conflict with other strong principles they already held. Ironically the conflicting principles can both be described as patriotic.

If there's an independent witness then it's a solid verbal contract in most legal systems around the world. In this case we're talking about the military who have their own oaths, laws, courts, police, judges, and jails. A soldiers "pinky swear" is taken very seriously by that system, especially when it's broken. I've never been a soldier but the fact that you appear to believe a (wo)man's word means nothing outside a court of law indicates the principle of "integrity" is too expensive for your particular personality.

The reason freedom of the press exists is so that you don't have to rely on the goodwill of the government to "do the right thing" when you tell them you have found out what they are doing. WL is a legitimate press organization, they released the manning stuff at the same time as three well established and respected newspapers they partnered with, Guardian, NYT and Der Speigel. The news people did what WL did not have the resources and expertise to do, redacted the names of informants. The result - WL cops all the flack from the spooks, while the release and the role of the established newspapers is ignored.

Freedom of the press does not mean individual publishers have to apply for a license to publish.

Disclaimer: I don't like either Rupert Murdoch or Julian Assange steering the views of the public, they both have lousy personalities that I wouldn't associate with unless absolutely necessary, but they most certainly have a right to their freedoms, and not the least of those is the freedom of the press.

"The first casualty of war is truth" because people like you are more than eager to drown it in a bathtub.

You'd be surprised how far they go to really minimize "time spent on the job". We had to get special language put in our contract requiring our employer to make us eligible for FMLA because by their definition of "time at work", we did not meet the 1,250 hours that would otherwise require them to offer it.

My first 12 months as an airline pilot I grossed $22,000. Whether that is above or below minimum wage depends if you define my pay time as "flight time", "duty time", or "time away from base". It is for some of those and it isn't for others.

Airline pilots *ARE* hourly workers. If you know so much about how my contract is negotiated you should have taken a moment to actually read it.

I'll give you the comparison on time on job related duties though, we don't spend 40 hours at work a week. We tend to spend 48-60 hours "on duty" a week being paid a maximum of around 30 hours (pay time and duty time tends to be a 1:2 ratio) and may only be home 2 nights a week sometimes.

I don't need to negotiate by the hour pay, I already have it. I just don't get paid for all of the hours I am actually working.

Pilots are not salaried, we are hourly workers.

We are paid by the hour from the time all exterior doors are closed and the parking brake is released at our origin until the parking brake is set and a door opened at the destination.