Clearly, the author DOES differentiate between Dark matter, and antimatter (and matter). They use the terms to refer to different things: 2 Dark Matter particles BEFORE a collision, and a matter + antimatter particle AFTER it. If you meant that the particle/antiparticle pair would instantly annihilate (and the large amount of DM would cause many such annihilations), remember that the DM particles *collided*. IANA Physcist, but wouldn't momentum be conserved, and the 2 new particles move apart with the conserved momentum, preventing annihilation? Also there is the weak interactivity that others have mentioned.

Excuse me, but what evidence is there for that accusation against this *particular woman*? (I'm not saying there is no thievery in general).

From TFA: "Pulling up unused copper cables for scrap is a common means of making money in the former Soviet Union" [my emphasis] Also, it was a fibre optic, not a copper one (admittedly this might not have been obvious until it was cut).

The charge of "damaging property" seem incredibly vague. I hope it applies only to "deliberate" damage of a known useful structure.

Accidental damage to cables by excavations and other means happens all the time. TFA also says that she was "looking for scrap metal", not cable per se, although it says that others (including companies) do.If she wasn't seeking cable, and accidentally cut one, charging her would be completely objectionable.

If she was seeking cable, but didn't realise it was in use, they should be lenient. It seems she is both poor (or she wouldn't be doing this?) as well as old.

P.S. I keep thinking of the owner of the failed dotcom ripping ethernet cables out of his walls before they could be repossessed, in "The Simpsons".

I'm sorry, I don't think a "better" app is necessarily worth sacrificing privacy, *especially* not in the context of Facebook. Facebook and Zuckerberg repeatedly seem to have disregard or even contempt for users' privacy. A lot of apps on Facebook are trivial and ask for data that seems entirely irrelevant to their supposed purpose. Some apps are plainly fronts for spam campaigns.

It's true that FB does have an "Opt-in" system for apps, and you can turn them off altogether (which I have done). There are a couple of aspects to this.

1.) People need to be informed and they need to take responsibility, and Facebook should likewise be responsible and not obfuscate privacy choices..

2.) Permissions for apps always seem to be all-or-none. Why can't there be piece-by-piece permissions (e.g, yes to friends list, no to phone numbers). Some will find this this even more onerous, others would welcome the opportunity.

In the end, I wouldn't trust Facebook as far as I could throw them, anyway. They will still sell user data in one way or another, anyway.

Go to Account >> Privacy >> Contact infomation. By default FB has "contact Information" set to "Friends Only", which isn't too bad as long as you trust all your FB friends.

But maybe not all of someone's FB friends are trustworthy. And this becomes an issue when some users have hundreds of friends, accumulated at whim. In the case of contact info (as in other cases) FB provides some security mechanisms, but these are not always set to good defaults, and they can be changed with little or no notice.

So I think it's case of Facebook's lack of consideration, or deliberate data-mining and users' lack of personal responsibility.

That said, personally there's no way that I will give FB *ANY* personal info (such as address, phone number etc.) that isn't absolutely necessary, This is despite FB's cute recent ploy to obtain such data by saying my account is "insecure", meaning that the data would help if I have login problems. This is plainly just an attempt to data-mine, as FB already has techniques such as friend-recognition to verify troublesome logins. I tell my friends my phone number personally. Or they can message me on FB (if they must) and I will *email* them my contact (not via Facebook).

So, I'm a Libran now? I suppose that's OK, on the balance.

Yes, it seems a twisted summary, and a confusingly written article as well, but as far as I can determine,
they're being asked to pay royalties for Microsoft patented software.

If this IS a Microsoft scheme to enforce usage of their OS, surely it'd backfire, considering the manufacturers don't want to pay royalties as it is?
I think it would encourage makers to use Open Source even further.

Certainly they shouldn't pay M$ royalties for a device that doesn't even use their technology, but the article doesn't SEEM to say that, IF the $15/per handset quoted is ONLY for ones actually using Microsoft software.

I suppose the complicating factor is using services that are require M$ technology in one way or another, even if from a Linux-based OS.

Clearly not. Being out-competed, disease, various disasters, etc, can do a species in. Of course some disasters could be considered as rapid/local/global climate change.

Me too! Having a fragile-but-necessary clip right in the position where it can break if the cable is involved in tangles or tight spaces, is dreadful design for a connector, especially for cables that are regularly removed and replugged. Connector boots help, but they can make insertion and removal difficult in tight spaces (beside other connections etc).

BTW, you can sometimes do a MacGuyver by using a piece of matchstick in place of a broken clip.

However, I think the idea of using Cat5/6 for a video/network/USB/etc cable is a great idea.

Whatever the merits of promiscuity, the TFA itself (or the research ) doesn't mention it!. Please, RTFA!

A careful reading of the summary (RTFS?) shows that:

The results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, and promiscuity, tied to TV viewing."

So the evaluation of promiscuity seems to belong to the writer of the summary, or at least those they refer to.

I agree with what others have said here about correlation vs causation. There could be several explanations for the correlation, although sitting in front of the TV not exercising (and also exposing one self to household contaminants for longer) certainly seems a bad thing.