madaxe

The UK's "unease" is artificial, constructed by nationalistic media. It certainly has nothing to do with the EU's stance towards the US. Had it, there would be no euroscepticism. The US is deeply unpopular, even in the UK.

China and/or Russia.

For English, Western Europe.

This, of course, has nothing to do with improving quality of life or preventing heart disease, but will have plenty to do with denying health insurance or increasing premiums.

3% of the UK population = ~3m potential customers or detractors, so yes.

Even better is "can I bum a fag?", which wins odd looks on both sides of the pond.

Fair enough - and agreed. Berlusconi has done an admirable job of adopting American political mores, in terms of bribery, "special interests", and all the rest. It's going to take years for his chaos to be unwrought.

Frankly, things aren't that much better in the UK, but I stand by the fact that it's a damned sight more straightforward to operate a business here than in the US. I have done both, and have lived in UK, US, HK, ZH, DE, FR, BE, SA, so have a fairly broad (but of course still limited) gamut of experience.

It could be that those are the exact corporations of which I speak who control the legislature, thus creating a better environment for themselves at the expense of others.

Stick your head out of your shell, and you'll realise there's a world out there, beyond America. I know it's hard to believe, but it does exist.

Ah, American exceptionalism. You're right. Everything but the US is some kind of barren desert which only exists in cartoons.

Have you ever left your home city? State?

America sucks as a business environment:

* Crappy immigration. I can get around the EU (Schengen) and across borders without breaking stride. In the US, it's 3 hours minimum, and that's assuming you get in.

* Crappy legislation and tax. Your tax codes suck. Starting a business sucks. In the UK, fill in a single bit of paper, and pay your corporation tax when it's due. Flat percentage of income, two rates, one for most businesses, one for huge businesses. Don't get me started on the strength of behemoth corporate interests lobbies.

* Crappy businesses. The American way seems to be to hold a gun to your "partners'" heads, and use lawyers to enact your will. In Europe, people actually tend to trust one another.

* Crappy security. By this I mean not "THERE SHOULD BE MORE POLICE", but rather "I don't know if I can run a business in the US without the state meddling, and/or simply taking it away from me, and/or the state collapsing leaving mayhem both for a business and for anyone stuck out there when the brown stuff hits the whirly thing.".

I just don't understand why anyone would want to either start a business in the US, or do business with the US. We used to, but pulled out, as the EU is a plenty big enough market, and far more... humane.

Come to Europe, it's nice here, and there are paid holidays.... and a government.

Ban alcohol!

Drugs are bad, because drugs are bad, m'kay?

Kazakhstan is not small.

http://overlapmaps.com/print.php?defaultZoom=2&defaultLat=39...

Unless:

a) He's Ross "Patsy" Ulbricht

or

b) He wanted to be caught, and set some mighty precedents.

or...

c) He's sloppy.

* > who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income *

Software and automation.

OK, add every laptop manufacturer, cellphone manufacturer, and any variety of portable device manufacturer on the planet to that list, then, as lithium ion or polymer batteries are flammable no matter what.

I assume you have a suggestion as to how this could be remedied? Or, actually, looking at your comment history, I see you are also a climate change denialist.

So, which oil giant do you work for, for whom you are spreading FUD?

Too kind. Baudot punchtape, screwed up into a ball and tied in knots.

Perfectly compliant.

Reading it, they have some pretty precise metrics on user accounts, and insights into his messages, so I'm going with "it was all unencrypted".

Non-tech-savvy folks I would hope would understand the wrongness of a bunch of children being thrown in solitary for wanting to play Angry Birds.

If the American people can't and won't see the wrongness in that, then America truly is utterly doomed, and its populace deserves the darkness that will ensue.

These master hackers should all be put in solitary for 30 years, for deliberately circumventing a digital protection system and thus breaking the CFAA.

Perhaps then people may begin to understand why these laws are ridiculous.

OK, so, you know (or you may not) how when you're in the desert, and it's approaching midday, the temperature just rises, and rises? Imagine the hour around midday not being an hour, but 10 days. Insolation, even at our distance (remember, inverse square law), is punishing. On venus, it's ridiculous.

Venusian colonisation will have to be sub-surface, even if we cover it in water - at least until if and when we come up with a gigantic solar shield that can filter and weaken a planet's worth of sunlight.

Release a large number of cats to catch and eat the birds. Solved once and for all. ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Aye, true that. Well, cover it in mylar, and it was rads I was thinking of predominantly. You could potentially make something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete using martian topsoil.

Prestige? Prestige?

Science is not about prestige. It's about science. If you want prestige, go become a jockey, or the world's best hooker. Too many "scientists" are in it for the holidays, money, and "prestige", rather than the, y'know, SCIENCE.

I'm afraid it's not "understandable", it's nasty, selfish, and contrary to scientific advancement.

By not releasing data, they're preventing the internet hivemind from doing its thing - and it has managed some pretty impressive things (NEAR target spotting, anyone?).

This is bait and switch. You liken it to h&m or Zara - but they offer continuity services - they do not trick their customers. I may let them know (as I know C-levels at each) that you are attempting to trade off their good names. I am surprised you have not yet been fined under the distance selling regulations.

You can self-justify all you want, but you just smelt green and wanted in on the dodgy action.

Can you say "Columbia house record club?"

You exploit people. Be ashamed.

Edit: I see from your profile you founded betfair. This all makes rather more sense, given the cloud that has perpetually hovered around that business, due to them, y'know, not paying out when people win "too much". Also repeatedly fined by the Advertising Standards Agency, IIRC.

You like your dodgy businesses. It's your call as to what you do, but a business that provides mutual benefit, rather than being parasitic, will survive in the long term. If you bleed your customers dry and rip them off, they will go elsewhere. You talk about retention, but you are not retaining - you are duping and imprisoning. I dare say you do not care, however, so long as the money keeps rolling in, and will simply move onto the next scam when this one gets too hot.

Or he means literally 3D-print structures using water, which will freeze in the Martian atmosphere to form water ice - which is actually a pretty great structural material if used appropriately.

Imagine how upset they'll be when they thought they were buying Braintree, but got some guy called Brian's tree.

The casings are steel, the rtg is in a ceramic capsule. You'd be amazed at what barnacles and such can pry wide open given time.

What the article neglects to mention is that after months of searching, they never found the bomb. It's still somewhere under the silt near Tybee island, biding its time.

Saltwater, astounding pressure and marine organisms make for a far harsher environment than the vacuum of space, or even a botched re-entry.

That said the argument I heard was that by the time they fall apart, the Pu has all but decayed.

It wasn't similar to the nazi salute - it was the same. Bellamy salute. The NSDAP thought it was such a great bit of nationalistic fervor they adopted it.