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I just tried to work that out using a basic app on my phone. My 'calculations' say that Saturn will be to the north east of the moon if you're in the UK? I spent about 3 seconds on this. Can anyone confirm/correct this?

Edit: by north east I mean if you imagine that the moon is on the centre of the map and you look up and to the right from it.

Edit 2: Looks like Saturn will be in the bottom of the constellation Virgo.

The thought crossed my mind too but I think this is probably legitimate.

"While Privacy International intended to file the Prism claim in the Administrative Court, which would have made the proceedings public, Government lawyers, upon receiving notice of our intention, vociferously notified us that we could not bring such a claim in the Administrative Court. Rather, the claim has been forced to be filed with the IPT, a secret tribunal that does not make its proceeding public or have to justify reasons for its decisions."

So what's the point then? It would be very easy to lean on a few tribunal members, and with no pressure in the opposite direction, which way we do reasonably expect them to act? They will side with intelligence services and we won't know why. Very unsatisfactory.

That link is brilliant, well worth listening to.

Clearly the American intelligence services should act within the American constitution.

Has the path forward not been made clear by Snowden's revelations? It's crystal clear to me.

Here's how I interpreted the letter: "We cannot confirm or deny the thing you requested exists because that thing you requested is classified". Unless all FOIA fail, it seems to me, in some broad sense, that they just confirmed the existence of the requested material.

If he was receiving pay-checks from Russia for spying, it would probably come with the stipulation that you don't blab to the world's media that you're a spy. At the very least it's implied.

Sarcasm will get you down voted.

Perhaps it would be better if these fonts were created on a daily basis, or if people created their own independently. It could significantly add to the processing load of the OCR process.

I totally get your point that people often make fallacious comparisons. In the interest of making a concise point I omitted stating it myself. However just because some people do not debate with integrity, or they make mistakes in their reasoning, it should not prevent others making comparisons which are pertinent.

I disagree that with your last point, that people should make the argument purely on its own merits. "So what if people are monitoring our communications?" I might ask this question myself if I had never read any history books.

The worrying thing for me is that we've been here before. Hitler did not come to power via some dramatic coup. He tried that and it failed. Instead he took the long, slow, legal and democratic route. Many legitimate comparisons with early 1930's Germany are there. I'm not saying it's a facsimile, it never would be. But with each civil liberty we sacrifice in the name of security the state becomes more oppressive, more open to abuse, an evermore viable breeding ground for tyranny. Worst of all, it can all happen without a shot being fired and well meaning onlookers saying, 'It will never get that bad'.

I'm going on a bit now, but for me the really terrifying aspect is that with all our modern technology (which I do love) it is possible for the state to create an apparatus to suppress the population that which we could never extricate ourselves from.

To quote BoC, "Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you."

Godwin's Law, or people's interpretation of it, has a lot to answer for. It's perfectly acceptable to make comparisons to the Nazis if it's relevant to where a conversation is at, at a particular moment. Not only is acceptable, it should also be encouraged. The most valuable thing to emerge from World War Two was the anti-blueprint for society. Let's not make this taboo merely for the sake of falling foul of some internet meme.

There's a half way house here. Passenger's could pay a nominal fee for the right to ride the bus. They are issued with a card. If people abuse the bus service the card can be revoked. This way many more people could afford to use the bus but there is still some control on who can use it.

I cannot believe that this is not getting more coverage.

It would be great if he got elected.

I disagree. Satire is a very effective form of political argument. There are probably many people in the politically apathetic masses who will have not followed recent developments. Unlike the regular media, gimmicks like this can effectively penetrate their consciousness.

I would argue that developers can be impressed. However the ones that aren't are normally quite vocal. Commentary on the internet is normally toward the extreme end of opinion and should be regarded as such. It is difficult to adjust to this though as it is in direct contrast to real life where people make deliberate efforts to moderate what they say.

Lighttable is already very pleasant to use. It's light on features but it's new and it's coming along nicely.

There's no mention of compounding factors like an ageing population and improvements in detection. Without this there isn't much one can read into this.

I never knew that sketch artists were able to make such accurate drawing from verbal descriptions alone. Every time I've seen this on TV the interviewee is able to see and correct the developing image.

Interesting article but a bizarre conclusion. We may not encounter another population bomb but we are in the process of living through one right now. "The longest period of exponential population growth for any organism… ever. " If that doesn't describe a population bomb, nothing does.

I don't think it's a dating service. I think it's like an anonymous 'man review' site. You might be on there ...

"Under the new system, Samoa Air passengers must type in their weight and the weight of their baggage into the online booking section of the airline's website. The rates vary depending on the distance flown: from $1 per kilogram on the airline's shortest domestic route to about $4.16 per kilogram for travel between Samoa and American Samoa. Passengers are then weighed again on scales at the airport, to check that they weren't fibbing online."

It works for me.

Awesome stuff. It would be great to use something like this for suggesting relevant tags of content. Perhaps a WordPress or Drupal plugin to get the ball rolling.

People who want to see a reduction in human population relish the same things you do. We can consume as much as we want if there are fewer of us.

You can to almost anywhere on this planet and you can see human settlement encroaching on and damaging natural habitats. The magnitude of these effects are in direct correlation to human population growth.

Check out this: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=2847.0

It's a pity that before we've even begun creating a new civilization, we've started issuing dictates. I really hope that this policy is purely for pragmatic reasons and not the personal pollitics/ideology of one person being put upon others.

Wikipedia has two videos explaining what SAM is for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_Analysis_at_Mars

It seems that it is related to the question of is/was there life on Mars. It can detect organic products that are most likely produced by life, and if it has, it means we will be able to follow these products to something more conclusive.

Here's a reason. I, like most humans, live near the coast. When my home is submerged I'm going to come and live in your neighborhood. And when I run out of food, I'm going to go to your house and steal yours.