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User: MartinSchou

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  1. Re:but just for people that look just like me! on Iceland Votes "Já" To Proposed News Haven · · Score: 1

    In Sweden, around 12% of the population are first generation immigrants, of which around 75% are from non-Western countries.

    Where did you find that particular statistic?

    I can find one that points out the number of people born in foreign countries, which is 14.3% for 2009 (1,337,965 people), but not anything about where they're from.

    If I do an extraction of data of people born in foreign countries, and I remove the EU countries I can remember, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Canada and Iceland, I end up with a total of 790,024 in 2009, which is 8.46% of the total population. The countries I excluded (Western countries) makes up 547.941 people. That's 41% of the entire group of foreigners, not 25% as you claim. This doesn't look at citizens vs non-citizens, just where people were born.

    Now, my numbers come from Statistics Sweden, and you can easily double check them if you don't believe me. Where did you get yours?

  2. Re:Windows Live Photo Gallery on A File-Centric Photo Manager? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, thankfully some (quite a lot actually) of us live in "communist" countries, where such blatant attempts at blackmail will be laughed out of court.

    Some of us even live in countries, where the lawyer representing the MPEG-LA is likely to have his or her knuckles used as target practice for the judge's gavel.

    See - not only did we not sign any contract with the MPEG-LA, nor do software patents apply, but if we've bought a product in good faith, any patent breach that might apply is going to fall on the head of the manufacturer, i.e. the company that made the camera - not us. And since any camera that can record video is designed to ... what's the term ... record video, we will always be in good faith, even if we record more than 12 minutes and turn it into a movie.

    But hey - if that means we can't publish or visit the US without getting sued in the US - well, that's their loss, not ours.

  3. Re:Start interviewing on Getting Paid Fairly When Job Responsibilities Spiral? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A friend of mine did something similar, but different.

    He took at 25% pay cut (from a very good salary mind you) just to get back to a 40 hours/week job again. The employer he was at offered him a raise to stay, but he made it quite clear that he didn't need more money - he needed more time for himself.

    And since they weren't willing to hire extra people to cover the 60 hours/week he was working, he left. According to him, the letter of recommendation he received wasn't really one. Just said he worked there for 3.5 years and stated his title.

    Both things just makes him laugh and smile - he's quite happy he took the pay cut. If he hadn't, the new company couldn't have afforded him, and he'd likely have been at least one nervous breakdown richer.

    Moral of the story: Money isn't worth crap, if the process of acquiring them is going to kill you.

  4. Get the RIAA to buy one! on ITER Fusion Reactor Enters Existential Crisis · · Score: 1

    At 20 billion USD the RIAA could buy 75 of these! (if they win their 1.5 trillion dollar suit)

    I so don't see why funding would ever be a problem. I mean - if these scientists asked the RIAA nicely, I'm sure they could get their funding. Right?

  5. Re:Not a 400% Increase on Univ. of California Faculty May Boycott Nature Publisher · · Score: 1

    ***ducks***

    Shouldn't that be either bucks or possibly geese?

  6. Re:spin-offs are always awful on Why Are Video Game Movies So Awful? · · Score: 1

    You seem to either not understand sarcasm, or have an inability to read a sentence.

    I specifically said BOOK at the end of my statement, clearly making the statement, that the BOOK wasn't the original form.

  7. Re:spin-offs are always awful on Why Are Video Game Movies So Awful? · · Score: 2, Informative

    it's simple, really - spin-offs are, by definition, lame and derivative.

    Which is why The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is such a lame, derivative and quite thoroughly uninspired book.

  8. Re:Actually, no on 2 In 3 Misunderstand Gas Mileage; Here's Why · · Score: 1

    It's a false dilemma in any case.

    Sell the 10 MPG car, buy the 50 MPG car and get a rental the few times a year you need to move something you can't move with the 33 or 50.

    What cars do 10 MPG anyway? Those are either long haul trucks or really really really old crappy cars, that aren't good for anything anyway. And if you're the kind of person who needs to use a long haul truck, you're probably not going to get much better mileage anyway.

    And if you're in a slightly smaller category, like vans, even a Ford Transit Van does 23 mpg these days - what the hell kind of crappy cars do you guys drive in the US, that you can't even get 20 MPG in a regular sedan? Geez.

    Sure, lots of you guys seem to 'need' a flat bed truck. Buy a decent van instead, get better economy and more storage space. I wouldn't even be surprised if it's cheaper to buy as well.

  9. Re:3 people in 2 don't know math. on 2 In 3 Misunderstand Gas Mileage; Here's Why · · Score: 1

    If it's anything like the European system, it's broken or will be shortly.

    In the EU we started out with something similar. Most fridges were D class and good ones were C when it started. Now I suspect you'll be hard pressed to find a new fridge that isn't an A. So now we get A+. Then A++. Then A+++. And will probably end up with A+++++++++.

    Grading it like that is silly. And fridges (and similar) can be dealt with in a simpler way: Estimated cost per year. Doesn't even have to specify a dollar/cent but a kWh/year is fine. And while that is true for the AU version, it has the same problem as the EU version:

    Stars. 384 kWh/year is a 4 star fridge. 153 is a 6 star fridge. Well 7 because of the Super Efficiency Rating. What merits 10 stars? 100 kWh/year? 50? What happens when everything is at that level? Well, it's easier with stars, because you can just add more stars. Not so easy with an alphabet and A as the best class possible.

  10. Re:Great for filtering, but - on Cloth Successfully Separates Oil From Gulf Water · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah, I was looking at that site when I was pondering the question myself, but as they say themselves - they have no long term survival rates.

    It's not that I don't want to see those creatures being put back in the wild. It's just that if they're going to die from after effects "immediately" after being released (i.e. if they get eaten, die of old age or regular stuff, it doesn't count), it's not only cruel to stress these animals by putting them through the cleaning procedure, it's also a huge waste of resources.

    They themselves say upwards of 300 gallons to clean 1 pelican. The average American uses 8,000 gallons a year. That's a LOT. And how clean is clean? Is it 'no more polluted than the average sea bird in areas unaffected by the spill' or is it 'we can't see any more oil on it', which might just be a cosmetic effect.

    And do they really need to clean ALL the animals they find? Why do they clean sea gulls? Sea gulls are plentiful and aren't even close to getting on the endangered list. Seems more humane and a better use of resources to euthanize them. Pelicans are close to being endangered, to there it might make sense to keep them alive.

    I realise that a lot of people feel better if we clean the animals and send them off, but unless we have data on their survival rates afterwards, it's essentially just like security theatre. Just a show being put on to make us feel good.

    Like when we're feeding ducks and other birds at the ponds and lakes. It feels good and gets us closer to nature. Never mind the fact that there's enough food in the pond for the ducks. Or were ... until we started polluting it with all the left over bread, leading to a huge bloom in algae growth and less food for the ducks. But the ducks keep coming back, because we feed them. So we get more and more ducks. Too many in that area, so now they end up raping and often times drowning the female ducks during mating season. But hey - we sure do feel good about feeding the birds, don't we?

    People are idiots.

  11. Re:Only 1,500,000,000,000 dollars? on RIAA Says LimeWire Owes $1.5 Trillion · · Score: 1

    those F-22s are 150G$

    From Wikipedia (where I pulled all my numbers): Unit cost US$150 million(2009 flyaway cost). Last I checked 100 x 150 million was 15 billion, not 150 billion.

    But I didn't know they couldn't go on a carrier, so I'll give you that one.

    Wikipedia doesn't give a price tag on the Gerald Ford carrier

    Interesting:Gerald R. Ford class: A 2009 report said that the Ford would cost $14 billion including research and development, and the actual cost of the carrier itself would be $9 billion.

    That's quite a step away from the 100 billion a piece you're suggesting. Essentially you were 135 billion dollars off on the F22s, but you get 9 billion of that back on the F35s instead. But since you believe the F35 is 900 million a piece instead of the 90 million listed by Wikipedia, you're now off by 270 billion for the carriers and 162 billion for the F35s. But you did get 9 billion back, as I mentioned, so now you're only off by 423 billion dollars.

    And you did it without ever specifying a source for your numbers.

    Yes, I did leave out the rest of a supply fleet, but since your 'estimate' of the carriers are off by an order of magnitude (I can show my 27 billion, you can't show your 300 billion), that'd be 40 billion for those. Fuck it, I'll be generous and call it an even 100 million. That still leaves them with 1.3 trillion dollars.

    Spend 300 billion on weaponry, and you have a cool trillion to spend on keeping the fleet running.

  12. Re:Bigger? on Cloth Successfully Separates Oil From Gulf Water · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, the idea he has, is that the entire gulf of Mexico is filtered through a 30 cm^2 cloth, because, obviously, this process does not scale in any way, shape or form.

  13. Re:Great for filtering, but - on Cloth Successfully Separates Oil From Gulf Water · · Score: 1

    Mammals and birds have a better chance, and it seems like a skimmer like this gets them into the boat and gives rescuers a chance to wash them. They're probably better off in the boat than out of it.

    I'm not entirely sure - for two reasons:

    1) Nets are huge. If you get dragged into one, even one that floats on top, and more and more oil is dumped onto you, I think you're going to die unless you're the last thing to get dragged in
    2) I'm rather curious about the survival rate of birds, mammals, turtles etc., after they have been cleaned. It might look really nice, that you start with an oil covered pelican and end up with a shiny white and clean pelican, but if it dies a week after you set it free, because it's swallowed too much oil, infections or whatever, that doesn't bode well for the creature. Might be more humane to kill it instead of cleaning it off.

  14. Re:1.5 Trillion?! huh on RIAA Says LimeWire Owes $1.5 Trillion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, how much gold does 1.5 trillion dollars buy?

    Well, gold is around 1,235 USD/ounce at the moment. So we could buy 1,21 billion ounces. That's 34,432 tonnes. And to put that into perspective, it is estimated that throughout humanity we have mined between 140,000 and 160,000 tons, so that'd be 21 to 24% percent of all gold ever mined.

    At 19.30 g/cm^3, that's 1.618 × 10^9 cm^3 or 1,618 m^3.

    But what about gold leaf then? Well, that's about 0.1 micrometer in thickness. And 1,618 m^3 of gold could be made into 16,180 km^2 of gold leaf. That's enough to cover the land of Delaware and Rhode Island twice. New Orleans is trickier - it's only 467.6 km^2 land, but the metro area is 9,726.6 km^2. There's plenty to cover it, but how much should be covered?

    However - we're talking about the RIAA here. They wouldn't want to gild a city. But maybe skin in an attempt to kill the evil pirates? We have enough gold leaf to cover 16,180,000,000 m^2 of skin, and the average adult has about two m^2 of skin. In other words they could completely cover 8,090,000,000 people in gold leaf. Plenty more than there are people in the world.

    At least now we know how they ended up at the 1,500,000,000,000 dollar figure.

  15. Only 1,500,000,000,000 dollars? on RIAA Says LimeWire Owes $1.5 Trillion · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's not too bad. It's only like 40% of the US Federal Budget for 2009.

    That'll only buy them:
    100 F-35 (9 billion)
    100 F-22 (15 billion)
    3 Gerald R Ford class carriers (27 billion, carries 225 planes)
    4 Virginia class submarines (11.2 billion)
    10 Zumwalt class destroyers (33 billion)

    And then they'll "only" have 1,400 billion dollars left. That should keep them in crew for a while as well.

  16. Re:Meh. on AMD's Fusion Processor Combines CPU and GPU · · Score: 1

    I wasn't singling out Macs as a separate group - I was lumping them into the same group: "PCs + Macs". But even if we use your example, Intel is STILL a supplier of graphics for those particular models. High or low performance doesn't really matter - they're selling graphics units to Apple.

    And if you're wondering, here's a nice comparison:
    http://techreport.com/discussions.x/18829

    Q1 2010: Intel 43.5%, nVidia 31.5%, AMD 24.0%

    They ship an ungodly amount of graphics compared to their performance.

  17. Re:Meh. on AMD's Fusion Processor Combines CPU and GPU · · Score: 1

    You may have missed the memo - Intel is the largest supplier of graphics units for PCs and Mac. And no - none of their graphics units are discrete. They're all mounted on the motherboard. Just like the audio controller. And the USB controller. And SATA controller. And NIC.

    And for some strange reason, there's still a market for discrete controllers.

    What this is doing isn't taking away your choices. It's giving you more choices. Though, to be realistic, it's probably aimed more at OEMs and business who have no use for discrete units.

  18. Re:This isn't so strange. on Guess My Speed and Give Me a Ticket, In Ohio · · Score: 1

    The difference being rather obvious, in that with speed estimation, you can do dry runs any number of times and compare the in-vehicle speedometer, radar gun and laser with the trainees guess/estimate.

  19. Re:when you argue in the realm of the theoretical on Bill Gives Feds "Emergency" Powers To Secure Civilian Nets · · Score: 1

    you should stand against polygamy, for the sake of society and the individual. to conclude otherwise is ivory tower foolishness.

    Stephen Fry made an interesting observation on QI.

    If a man chooses to be married to woman number 1, have children with her and then chooses to have an affair with woman number 2 and have children with her, and an affair with woman number 3 and have children with her as well, that's perfectly legal - even if woman number 1, 2 and 3 have no knowledge of each other. He may even choose to tell woman number two and three that he's not married to anyone, and that he has no desires to be.

    If the same man meets the same three women, says "I know it's weird, but I love you all equally much, and I'd very much like us all to become a family, how about we get married", that's illegal.

    This is one of the very very few cases where honesty is illegal and deception is legal.

    Why is that?

  20. Re:New weight loss on Part-Human, Part-Machine Transistor Devised · · Score: 1

    And apart from a thermal probe, it's an output bus only.

  21. Re:Spelling is for the bees on Why Are Indian Kids So Good At Spelling? · · Score: 1

    One thing that proper spelling and grammar helps you achieve is communication.

    While most of us can read

    "You're hoarse kneads a knew saddle" and figure out what it's actually supposed to say, that only works because we are able to read it aloud and hear the homophones. Doesn't work if you're deaf and have never heard the words before.

    Then you might try to read it by reasoning your way through it:
    "You have a sore throat" Makes perfect sense
    "Massage/press/rub a known saddle" Makes absolutely no sense at all

    It's not just for deaf people though. People who are new at a language, aren't adept at telling homophones apart. And while it's easy to poke fun at someone doesn't speak or read perfect English, it says a lot more about the writer (who, by the way, is most often a 'native' speaker), as the non-native speaker is at least making an effort. This is true for not just English, but every other language that I know (Danish, English, Swedish, German, Norwegian).

    My experience is that those who are crappy writers (native speakers) barely know a second language, and if they do, that's at an even worse level than their native language.

    But noooo. Never put the blame on the crappy writers. Not their fault at all. It's the ones who try to read through their crap, that are to blame. Every single time.

  22. Re:Manual on iRobot Demonstrates New Weaponized Robot · · Score: 1

    The military of the future may not need to put lives on the front-lines. I think we're seeing a glimpse of that with the air drones that are taking out terrorists via rockets.

    Suspected terrorists.

    Until they're tried and convicted, they are suspected terrorists. Granted, there is probably not solid evidence to convict them (and it's expensive to capture and detain them) even if they do blow up girl-schools, which is why it's convenient to just label them terrorists and killing them. Just look at the FBI's info on Osama Bin Laden. Not a word about the attacks on the Pentagon or the World Trade Center, so even if he were to walk into an FBI office tomorrow, I doubt they'd put him on trial for it.

    But imagine the outcry, if China decided to something similar in the EU or US. It'd be bad enough if they shot people they called terrorists, but imagine if they launched missiles at cars in traffic and housing blocks to take out a "bad guy"?

  23. Re:Obvious questions... on iRobot Demonstrates New Weaponized Robot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's a continuing effort underway for mine clearing systems with an eye to small cost and high effectiveness and safety.

    Well, use prisoners sentenced for execution and animals (30+ kg) tagged to be destroyed. Each prisoner is given as many animals as (s)he wants, and if (s)he steps on a mine, we'll put him/her down with a bullet to the head.

    If they manage to clear a set number (say 100 mines), they're free to go.

  24. Re:Ubisoft : DRM isn't about piracy but used games on Blizzard Boss Says Restrictive DRM Is a Waste of Time · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't assume it's the same.

    WoW requires you to purchase a subscription, because you can only play it on their servers. Since you're constantly paying for the game, there's no obvious reason to sell your game.
    If Starcraft and Diablo III has single player elements, there is no reason for a subscription service.

  25. DMCA compliance on Tetris Clones Pulled From Android Market · · Score: 4, Informative

    Google has to remove the items in question to be in safe waters with the DMCA.

    You can choose to assert that you own the copyright for your app. Once you do that, Google must forward your information to The Tetris Company, LLC, and reinstate your app. It now becomes a matter between you and The Tetris Company, LLC, and Google cannot be held liable for damages.

    Then if The Tetris Company, LLC chooses to do so, they can file a court case. That's probably the tricky bit, as you seem to indicate, that you're in Brazil and not the US, where they are likely to file.

    But - ask a lawyer. I'm not one, the above is just how I understand the DMCA works.