Yeah, my mistake. I was (apparently erroneously) using "right hand drive" to mean "drives on the right hand side of the road" rather than "has the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car". Sorry about that.
Actually, they also drive on the left in Ireland, Malta and Cyprus (plus the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands which are not technically part of the UK). Admittedly the vast majority of Europe is right-hand drive, but it isn't just the UK.
(...continued; I accidentally hit post while previewing to check the formatting.)
The question is does it really suck for the average housewife? So what if 10 times something is uncommon for a housewife? The only way other differences (such as 2 or 4 times) can be accommodated any better is by using a different base for counting altogether.
When you go to the grocery store, is everything packaged in even Liter increments?
That depends what you're buying. For example, large drinks bottles are 2 litres, while the smaller ones are 500 mL (or 1/2 litre if you prefer) and small cans are 330 mL (close as makes no difference to 1/3 litre), and 250 mL cars are also available (although not common).
Most dry things of sufficient size are sold in multiples of 1 kg, while smaller ones are usually multiples of 100g or 50g. Smaller than that and things are usually in multiples of 5g.
Really, the only exceptions to this are alcohol, and occasionally milk, which are still sold in pints (well, 576 mL) for legacy reasons. I believe this is a peculiarity of the UK though (in mainland Europe its all 1 L/500 mL I think)
I'll bet calculating cost/gram or cost/liter is as much of a challenge in Metric countries as cost/ounce is in the US.
Not so much. Anything that is over a certain mass or volume will be in multiples of 1 kg (say, washing powder or breakfast cereal) or 1 L (drinks, cleaning liquids etc), or at worst 0.5 kg/L, so easily divide into price per unit. Nothing is sold to consumers by the cubic metre etc, so there's no problem there (I dare say there isn't much sold in cubic feet either). Smaller things are more of a problem since different items are practical at different volumes/masses. That problem would exist regardless of the units used though.
So, is metric perfect? No, but it's the best we've got and it's unlikely there will ever be a better alternative for all situations. However, metric is pretty much the best we're going to get using a base 10 counting system.
So, how many cubic meters in a liter (in your head, please, and quickly)?
1 Litre = 1 cubic decimetre or 1,000 cubic centimetres/millilitres or 1 million cubic millimetres = 1 thousandth of a cubic metre. Being all powers of ten, it's really isn't that hard to work out as long as you know how cubing works.
How many grams of water in a cubic meter of water?
1 gram(me) = 1/1,000 kilogram(me). 1 litre = 1 kilogram(me). 1 cubic metre = 1,000 litres. Thus 1 cubic metre = 1 million gram(me)s.
The thing is, it's pretty rare to need to measure liquids in cubic metres, or in terms of mass, so even if the conversion weren't trivial it really wouldn't matter that much. By the way, how easy is it to convert fluid ounces to cubic yards, or cubic yards to dry ounces? (This is a legitimate question - I have no idea how many imperial anythings are in anything else other than (I assume) 1 fluid ounce = 1 ounce (weight).)
why aren't either of these 1?
Because the metric system was devised to replace existing systems, specifically those of pre-revolution France. The litre replaced the litron, which is about 0.79 litres. The mass unit grave (which eventually became the kilogram(me)) was equal to a litre of water, while the gram (which eventually gave us the kilogram(me)) was 1 thousandth of a grave. The metre on the other hand replaced the pied du roi (French equivalent of the foot) and the toise (~2 yards/metres). As such, that is what the magnitude is based on. Had they based it on the pounce (~1 inch) then the base unit would probably have been what we now call a centimetre.
Likewise, and most other commonly used paper sizes are other "A" sizes (A1, A2, A3, A5 etc.) which all have an aspect ratio of 1 : root 2 (damn Slashdot's lack of unicode support).
Are you by any chance using a laptop screen? If so the reason 1080p looks fine without anti-aliasing is probably the pixel density. On my 24" display at its native resolution of 1920×1200 (i.e. 1080p with an additional 120 vertical pixels), anti-aliasing is a must on non-2D games. The pixels are about 0.3 mm to a side, or ~95 dpi, which makes them easily visible. On a 17" 1080p laptop screen however, each pixel is about 0.2 mm to a side (~130 dpi) and thus needs less AA to appear equally as "smooth" at the same viewing distance. To get a roughly equivalent pixel density (and thus equivalent "smoothness" and "sharpness") on a 24" 16:10 monitor, a resolution of about WQXGA (2560×1600) is required.
If however you are using a >=24" 1080p display at ~50 cm/1-2 ft then that may be more indicative of your visual acuity than anything else; not everyone's eyes are created equal. An individual with 20/20 vision should be able to distinguish individual pixels when they are above around 0.15 mm/side (~170dpi) at ~50cm, and be able to detect aliasing even beyond that.
With regard to the "sharpness" point, sharpness is determined by how small the smallest details are, so the higher the resolution the sharper an image will be; its that simple. Anti-aliasing has no affect on how sharp and image is, it is designed to make edges smoother (i.e. remove aliasing (jaggies), not add detail).
While I'm not sure I agree about it being government money, your comment about internet access opens another option beyond the standard DVB systems - the internet. We already have BBC iPlayer, ITV/UTV/STV player, 4oD and demand Five, as well as services such as tvcatchup.com (more info here), so upgrading users' internet (and possibly proving a low-end HTPC for access) may well be the most financially viable solution.
As far as I am aware the only "cable company" over here is Virgin Media, who only service a limited area of the country (apparently it's available to 65% of households), most of which is confined to cities (and often there are areas of those cities where it is unavailable too). (Map of coverage) It's not even available in every city; I'm pretty sure that its not available anywhere in Aberdeen, which is the 27th most populous city in the UK (population ~200k), and I doubt its alone. Being in a sparely populated area and next to a motorway (the closest thing we have to freeways) is certainly not the only reason for not having cable access.
Satellite coverage on the other hand is pretty much 100%, line-of-sight issues notwithstanding. Trees aren't the only issues though. If someone lives in rented accommodation they may not be allowed to put up a dish, and even if they own it they may not have a south-east-facing area to mount a dish.
Certainly, I doubt there will be (m)any households that can't get satellite signals because of the LTE transmission, since satellite is transmitted at ~10-12 GHz while LTE is transmitted at 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz in Europe. Sure, the signal sent through the coax cable is within that range at ~970 MHz - 2 GHz, but if the LTE is strong enough to interfere with the cabling, fibre-optic connections are available and would likely be cheaper than getting fibre-optic cable TV installed in any of the non-covered areas.
Well, since you said "God" (presumably referring to some form of Yahweh) rather than "a god", then it is possible to prove the negative. Assuming it is the biblical version that you are referring to, the Bible makes claims about "God", which can in turn be proven or disproven (if it is another version of "God" then the same applies to the holy book in which it is described, or at least all of the ones I have come across). As such a belief that God (i.e. the deity as described in the book) does not exist (rather than just a non-specific deity) is perfectly justified scientifically, and in fact required (evidence suggests that trait A is false, therefore being with trait A does not exist). Active belief that a non-specific deity does not exist is, as you said, unscientific, but once you start adding testable traits or attributing acts to them or whatever, disbelief becomes necessary once one of those attributes is shown to be false/logically inconsistent with other assigned traits. This of course does not preclude the possibility that the entity exists but has been misrepresented, to which the scientific stance should remain "show me some evidence that it exists", but that's more or less the same position as taken towards totally non-specific deities anyway (since that's what it'd be).
I assume you are referring to English history education - Scotland has a totally separate curriculum and set of qualifications from England, so I don't think that statement applies. I'm not sure how things differ in Wales and N.I. (I think Wales generally falls in line with England with regard to education). Certainly, prior to Standard Grade level (equivalent of GCSE) we learn about things like the Scottish wars of independence (which seems to fall into the same patriotism category that you mentioned, but with regard to Scotland) and the Victorians certainly popped up quite a bit (certainly things like the suffragettes were covered too, although that may have crossed over into Modern Studies). At Standard Grade level (which I didn't do, opting instead for Geography, so take everything I say with a pinch of salt) the World Wars are discussed, but along with those come the reunification of Germany and Weimar Germany, since they are kinda important topics to understand if you are to have any context for the wars.
Sure, the boiling point of water has little bearing on air temperature, weather etc, but the freezing point absolutely does. So what if you don't wear you gloves or zip up your jacket at 0C/32F. Being the freezing point of water, temps around 0C are good indicators of things such as "will the roads be slippery" or "will it snow". Regardless of that though, "human comfort levels" are entirely subjective and vary from person to person, so are not a good basis for a temp scale. Even if they didn't vary, the scale that is used to measure it is largely irrelevant as long as the person using it is familiar enough with it to judge things from it. On a personal note, I can't really stand temperatures much above 25C, and currently my room is 15C and I'm quite comfortable.
You also seem to be assuming that (other than for scientists, engineers etc) temperature scales are only used for judging the weather/air temperature. They are not. Cookery is a fine example; using a scale based on "human comfort" makes little sense for cooking, and I'd argue it makes significantly less sense than using water's boiling/freezing point to judge weather/air temperature.
Apples and Oranges. Net neutrality is about regulation of those that deliver the internet (i.e. ISPs) so as to prevent them from, for example, blocking or throttling sites/content from particular providers or that use particular protocols as it suits them. SOPA is about regulating what goes on ON the internet which is entirely separate. Net neutrality is about competition, while SOPA is about content control.
I'm not sure what you consider mainstream, but I'm fairly sure Carphone Warehouse only sell unlocked phones (i.e. they don't sell any that are locked).* Certainly it's the norm for phones to be locked when bought on contract from the networks (carriers), but unlocked phones aren't as uncommon/difficult to get hold of as one might think.
*I may be mixing it up with Phones 4 U, not that it really matters, the point still stands regardless of which it is - I'd consider both to be fairly mainstream retailers.
While it may not apply across the board, it is certainly possible that they don't want to give said brands free advertising, or don't want to be seen to be endorsing a particular company/brand/idea.
For me it seem the "interesting" bundles are the "main"/numbered ones. Those with specific titles (like "Frozenbyte" or "Introversion") have tended to be developer specific (with some exceptions such as the "more than average price" extras) and so tend to be a little "samey" and one doesn't get as much variation from them.
I believe the word you are looking for is dogma, not religion. It is quite possible to be dogmatic about completely secular things; doing so is misguided but certainly not religious.
Um, I know this is slashdot, but did you even bother to read the whole summary*? It specifically said "... a method of combining the carbon-based material with metallic nanostructures to use as photodetectors that could greatly increase the amount of light optical communications devices could handle" (emphasis mine). Sure that particular sentence didn't mention it, but taking it on its own seems a bit "quote-miney" to me. Then there's the title of course, which seems pretty clear to me.
*It's summary, not summery; that means "like summer".
Yeah, I'm not convinced by it. As TapeCutter pointed out they may only be interested in US citizens (doubtful though considering they mention world market share). It's not just that though - they seem to have reversed it in order to draw their conclusions. Sure there may be more "liberal"* Mac users by % than Windows users, but does that mean that liberals are more likely to be Mac users than PC users? Considering the difference in market share (89.2% : 10.8% according to the infographic) the data isn't representative. Also, the breakdown of users surveyed (52% : 25% : 23% - Windows : Mac : "other/those who don't define themselves as either") seem to suggest that the actual breakdown is "liberals" who use Mac is 14.5% (58% of 25%), "liberals" who use Windows is 18.72% (36% of 52%), "others" (non-liberal doesn't necessarily mean conservative) who use Mac is 10.5% (42% of 25%) and "others" who use Windows is 33.28% (64% of 52%) with "non-aligned" (presumably "no preference/both/Linux, BSD etc") people making up the remaining 23%. Assuming my calculations are accurate, that makes the split of those surveyed (who are either Mac or Windows users since they don't give data for the "others") 43.1% "liberal" to 56.9% "non-liberal", which would seem to suggest that those who were surveyed were a particularly liberal bunch considering most Americans seem to describe themselves as conservative or moderate (according to this article the % liberals is actually about 15-25% of the population assuming nothing drastic has happened in the last 2 years).
*"Liberal" is in scare quotes since it is self-reported and what someone claims to be and what they actually are can be wildly different. Different people use different definitions for things.
The same can be said of the "4 year college degree" bit as well. Windows degree = 28.08%, Mac degree = 16.75, Windows !degree = 23.92%, Mac !degree = 8.25%, with the rest, again, being "other". This data is even less useful than the political alignment as it can be pretty much be written off by the fact that Windows is extremely dominant in market share (i.e. the masses generally use Windows) and that, generally speaking, Windows computers are cheaper than the equivalent Macs (degree = higher chance of high payed job -> more likely to be willing to spend a lot of money on a computer).
There also seem to be some other rather suspect figures. They have placed "Win users are more likely to be suburban/rural" opposite "52% of Mac users live in a city". Those are connected but not directly comparable figures (what about urban town dwellers for example, and what are the actual figures for Win users/ non-city Mac users). The fashion/aesthetics clothing section doesn't give any direct comparisons, and under food & drink, I don't see how any of it is relevant other than possibly the vegetarianism bit. The newspaper preference is also not directly comparable (unless by "The Times" they mean "The New York Times" - considering there is a "The Times" paper, in the UK/on the internet at least, that would at best be misleading) and from websites down to magazines they simply list items (which are presumably "preferred" by that group, but without knowing the selection criteria the data is useless; that also applies to most of the food and drink section).
Interestingly, the figures on the bar chart at the bottom which shows preferred computer type has different figures than the main infographic. That's probably down to rounding though as the graph also includes a "skipped" option (when that is removed the numbers almost correspond).
All in all, the whole thing screams of data dredging, whether intentional or not, and is certainly skewed by the fact that all respondents were visitors to the Hunch rather than members of the general public, and that the creator of the infographic is a Mac user (although the same would likely be true in reverse for a Windows user - the only way to be truly unbiased in a situation like this is if the creator is not a computer user).
In that case it's a compromise of content quantity vs. video/audio quality (due to limited bandwidth), so there is an actual advantage to doing it beyond making the "premium" version better (even if all the additional cable channels are crap). Do you have any evidence that the compression was intentionally increased to make HD seem like a worthwhile option? I'm in the UK, so wouldn't really have been exposed to such information (or paid attention if I was), but I doubt it is the case (although US cable companies do seem to pull a lot of shit on their customers, so it's not beyond reason). Also cable TV is a closed system - it's either SD or HD from that company in most areas (in the US at least) - the same cannot be said for music downloads.
I'm not saying that Apple won't decrease the quality of standard (SD?) song downloads but I don't see all that much in it for them - those who don't care about quality will continue to buy the "SD" versions, those who do but not enough to buy the new "HD" ones (will depend on pricing) will either go to another service (Amazon for example) or go back to CDs and those who care enough to buy the "HD" ones will buy them (mostly audiophiles, so not likely to be effected by the quality of the "SD" ones). Where a non-audiophile person falls (between Amazon/CD etc and "HD" iTunes) depends mostly on song price, not on the quality of the "SD" track. Of course this assumes that everyone is aware of other services etc (although I'm sure most that aren't probably fall into the "don't care about quality" category).
As TaoPhoenix alluded to, what if your likeness is being used to promote (i.e. make money for/increase usage of/improve the public image of) something that you vehemently oppose, or that paints you in a bad light, or whatever?
I hardly think you would be happy to be used in the advertising for an extreme political party that has views at the opposite end of the spectrum to you, or even on a less extreme level, if you were used to promote Windows while being a rabid Mac/Linux/whatever fanboy. In the actual instance that the article is about, the person in the photo is being painted as freeloader, which is hardly something which has any kind of "cool-factor" to it. If you agree to be painted in such a light (whether you are being paid or not) then it's OK, but otherwise it isn't.
That doesn't even touch on the rights of the photographer, for which the same things apply more or less (not wanting to promote an opposing ideology or for a company to profit from their hard work without compensation etc).
While most wouldn't care that much if their likeness were used on some random billboard, and many wouldn't about photos they had taken, that doesn't give anyone the right to do it without permission from both parties (assuming it is in private property, otherwise only the photographer has rights I think, although morally speaking it wouldn't hurt to ask).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, it would seem I misused the term (see reply to blane.bramble).
Yeah, my mistake. I was (apparently erroneously) using "right hand drive" to mean "drives on the right hand side of the road" rather than "has the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car". Sorry about that.
Actually, they also drive on the left in Ireland, Malta and Cyprus (plus the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands which are not technically part of the UK). Admittedly the vast majority of Europe is right-hand drive, but it isn't just the UK.
(...continued; I accidentally hit post while previewing to check the formatting.)
The question is does it really suck for the average housewife? So what if 10 times something is uncommon for a housewife? The only way other differences (such as 2 or 4 times) can be accommodated any better is by using a different base for counting altogether.
When you go to the grocery store, is everything packaged in even Liter increments?
That depends what you're buying. For example, large drinks bottles are 2 litres, while the smaller ones are 500 mL (or 1/2 litre if you prefer) and small cans are 330 mL (close as makes no difference to 1/3 litre), and 250 mL cars are also available (although not common).
Most dry things of sufficient size are sold in multiples of 1 kg, while smaller ones are usually multiples of 100g or 50g. Smaller than that and things are usually in multiples of 5g.
Really, the only exceptions to this are alcohol, and occasionally milk, which are still sold in pints (well, 576 mL) for legacy reasons. I believe this is a peculiarity of the UK though (in mainland Europe its all 1 L/500 mL I think)
I'll bet calculating cost/gram or cost/liter is as much of a challenge in Metric countries as cost/ounce is in the US.
Not so much. Anything that is over a certain mass or volume will be in multiples of 1 kg (say, washing powder or breakfast cereal) or 1 L (drinks, cleaning liquids etc), or at worst 0.5 kg/L, so easily divide into price per unit. Nothing is sold to consumers by the cubic metre etc, so there's no problem there (I dare say there isn't much sold in cubic feet either). Smaller things are more of a problem since different items are practical at different volumes/masses. That problem would exist regardless of the units used though.
So, is metric perfect? No, but it's the best we've got and it's unlikely there will ever be a better alternative for all situations. However, metric is pretty much the best we're going to get using a base 10 counting system.
So, how many cubic meters in a liter (in your head, please, and quickly)?
1 Litre = 1 cubic decimetre or 1,000 cubic centimetres/millilitres or 1 million cubic millimetres = 1 thousandth of a cubic metre. Being all powers of ten, it's really isn't that hard to work out as long as you know how cubing works.
How many grams of water in a cubic meter of water?
1 gram(me) = 1/1,000 kilogram(me). 1 litre = 1 kilogram(me). 1 cubic metre = 1,000 litres. Thus 1 cubic metre = 1 million gram(me)s. The thing is, it's pretty rare to need to measure liquids in cubic metres, or in terms of mass, so even if the conversion weren't trivial it really wouldn't matter that much. By the way, how easy is it to convert fluid ounces to cubic yards, or cubic yards to dry ounces? (This is a legitimate question - I have no idea how many imperial anythings are in anything else other than (I assume) 1 fluid ounce = 1 ounce (weight).)
why aren't either of these 1?
Because the metric system was devised to replace existing systems, specifically those of pre-revolution France. The litre replaced the litron, which is about 0.79 litres. The mass unit grave (which eventually became the kilogram(me)) was equal to a litre of water, while the gram (which eventually gave us the kilogram(me)) was 1 thousandth of a grave. The metre on the other hand replaced the pied du roi (French equivalent of the foot) and the toise (~2 yards/metres). As such, that is what the magnitude is based on. Had they based it on the pounce (~1 inch) then the base unit would probably have been what we now call a centimetre.
Likewise, and most other commonly used paper sizes are other "A" sizes (A1, A2, A3, A5 etc.) which all have an aspect ratio of 1 : root 2 (damn Slashdot's lack of unicode support).
Are you by any chance using a laptop screen? If so the reason 1080p looks fine without anti-aliasing is probably the pixel density. On my 24" display at its native resolution of 1920×1200 (i.e. 1080p with an additional 120 vertical pixels), anti-aliasing is a must on non-2D games. The pixels are about 0.3 mm to a side, or ~95 dpi, which makes them easily visible. On a 17" 1080p laptop screen however, each pixel is about 0.2 mm to a side (~130 dpi) and thus needs less AA to appear equally as "smooth" at the same viewing distance. To get a roughly equivalent pixel density (and thus equivalent "smoothness" and "sharpness") on a 24" 16:10 monitor, a resolution of about WQXGA (2560×1600) is required.
If however you are using a >=24" 1080p display at ~50 cm/1-2 ft then that may be more indicative of your visual acuity than anything else; not everyone's eyes are created equal. An individual with 20/20 vision should be able to distinguish individual pixels when they are above around 0.15 mm/side (~170dpi) at ~50cm, and be able to detect aliasing even beyond that.
With regard to the "sharpness" point, sharpness is determined by how small the smallest details are, so the higher the resolution the sharper an image will be; its that simple. Anti-aliasing has no affect on how sharp and image is, it is designed to make edges smoother (i.e. remove aliasing (jaggies), not add detail).
While I'm not sure I agree about it being government money, your comment about internet access opens another option beyond the standard DVB systems - the internet. We already have BBC iPlayer, ITV/UTV/STV player, 4oD and demand Five, as well as services such as tvcatchup.com (more info here), so upgrading users' internet (and possibly proving a low-end HTPC for access) may well be the most financially viable solution.
As far as I am aware the only "cable company" over here is Virgin Media, who only service a limited area of the country (apparently it's available to 65% of households), most of which is confined to cities (and often there are areas of those cities where it is unavailable too). (Map of coverage) It's not even available in every city; I'm pretty sure that its not available anywhere in Aberdeen, which is the 27th most populous city in the UK (population ~200k), and I doubt its alone. Being in a sparely populated area and next to a motorway (the closest thing we have to freeways) is certainly not the only reason for not having cable access.
Satellite coverage on the other hand is pretty much 100%, line-of-sight issues notwithstanding. Trees aren't the only issues though. If someone lives in rented accommodation they may not be allowed to put up a dish, and even if they own it they may not have a south-east-facing area to mount a dish.
Certainly, I doubt there will be (m)any households that can't get satellite signals because of the LTE transmission, since satellite is transmitted at ~10-12 GHz while LTE is transmitted at 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz in Europe. Sure, the signal sent through the coax cable is within that range at ~970 MHz - 2 GHz, but if the LTE is strong enough to interfere with the cabling, fibre-optic connections are available and would likely be cheaper than getting fibre-optic cable TV installed in any of the non-covered areas.
Well, since you said "God" (presumably referring to some form of Yahweh) rather than "a god", then it is possible to prove the negative. Assuming it is the biblical version that you are referring to, the Bible makes claims about "God", which can in turn be proven or disproven (if it is another version of "God" then the same applies to the holy book in which it is described, or at least all of the ones I have come across). As such a belief that God (i.e. the deity as described in the book) does not exist (rather than just a non-specific deity) is perfectly justified scientifically, and in fact required (evidence suggests that trait A is false, therefore being with trait A does not exist). Active belief that a non-specific deity does not exist is, as you said, unscientific, but once you start adding testable traits or attributing acts to them or whatever, disbelief becomes necessary once one of those attributes is shown to be false/logically inconsistent with other assigned traits. This of course does not preclude the possibility that the entity exists but has been misrepresented, to which the scientific stance should remain "show me some evidence that it exists", but that's more or less the same position as taken towards totally non-specific deities anyway (since that's what it'd be).
I assume you are referring to English history education - Scotland has a totally separate curriculum and set of qualifications from England, so I don't think that statement applies. I'm not sure how things differ in Wales and N.I. (I think Wales generally falls in line with England with regard to education). Certainly, prior to Standard Grade level (equivalent of GCSE) we learn about things like the Scottish wars of independence (which seems to fall into the same patriotism category that you mentioned, but with regard to Scotland) and the Victorians certainly popped up quite a bit (certainly things like the suffragettes were covered too, although that may have crossed over into Modern Studies). At Standard Grade level (which I didn't do, opting instead for Geography, so take everything I say with a pinch of salt) the World Wars are discussed, but along with those come the reunification of Germany and Weimar Germany, since they are kinda important topics to understand if you are to have any context for the wars.
Sure, the boiling point of water has little bearing on air temperature, weather etc, but the freezing point absolutely does. So what if you don't wear you gloves or zip up your jacket at 0C/32F. Being the freezing point of water, temps around 0C are good indicators of things such as "will the roads be slippery" or "will it snow". Regardless of that though, "human comfort levels" are entirely subjective and vary from person to person, so are not a good basis for a temp scale. Even if they didn't vary, the scale that is used to measure it is largely irrelevant as long as the person using it is familiar enough with it to judge things from it. On a personal note, I can't really stand temperatures much above 25C, and currently my room is 15C and I'm quite comfortable.
You also seem to be assuming that (other than for scientists, engineers etc) temperature scales are only used for judging the weather/air temperature. They are not. Cookery is a fine example; using a scale based on "human comfort" makes little sense for cooking, and I'd argue it makes significantly less sense than using water's boiling/freezing point to judge weather/air temperature.
Apples and Oranges. Net neutrality is about regulation of those that deliver the internet (i.e. ISPs) so as to prevent them from, for example, blocking or throttling sites/content from particular providers or that use particular protocols as it suits them. SOPA is about regulating what goes on ON the internet which is entirely separate. Net neutrality is about competition, while SOPA is about content control.
Hmm, it would seem that I'm misinformed then (or perhaps simply out of date).
I'm not sure what you consider mainstream, but I'm fairly sure Carphone Warehouse only sell unlocked phones (i.e. they don't sell any that are locked).* Certainly it's the norm for phones to be locked when bought on contract from the networks (carriers), but unlocked phones aren't as uncommon/difficult to get hold of as one might think.
*I may be mixing it up with Phones 4 U, not that it really matters, the point still stands regardless of which it is - I'd consider both to be fairly mainstream retailers.
Cheers for that! I don't suppose you know why they list both the UK and Scotland in the times/locations list do you?
While it may not apply across the board, it is certainly possible that they don't want to give said brands free advertising, or don't want to be seen to be endorsing a particular company/brand/idea.
For me it seem the "interesting" bundles are the "main"/numbered ones. Those with specific titles (like "Frozenbyte" or "Introversion") have tended to be developer specific (with some exceptions such as the "more than average price" extras) and so tend to be a little "samey" and one doesn't get as much variation from them.
I believe the word you are looking for is dogma, not religion. It is quite possible to be dogmatic about completely secular things; doing so is misguided but certainly not religious.
Um, I know this is slashdot, but did you even bother to read the whole summary*? It specifically said "... a method of combining the carbon-based material with metallic nanostructures to use as photodetectors that could greatly increase the amount of light optical communications devices could handle" (emphasis mine). Sure that particular sentence didn't mention it, but taking it on its own seems a bit "quote-miney" to me. Then there's the title of course, which seems pretty clear to me.
*It's summary, not summery; that means "like summer".
Until I read the comments I thought they meant the other type of Bourbon :/.
Yeah, I'm not convinced by it. As TapeCutter pointed out they may only be interested in US citizens (doubtful though considering they mention world market share). It's not just that though - they seem to have reversed it in order to draw their conclusions. Sure there may be more "liberal"* Mac users by % than Windows users, but does that mean that liberals are more likely to be Mac users than PC users? Considering the difference in market share (89.2% : 10.8% according to the infographic) the data isn't representative. Also, the breakdown of users surveyed (52% : 25% : 23% - Windows : Mac : "other/those who don't define themselves as either") seem to suggest that the actual breakdown is "liberals" who use Mac is 14.5% (58% of 25%), "liberals" who use Windows is 18.72% (36% of 52%), "others" (non-liberal doesn't necessarily mean conservative) who use Mac is 10.5% (42% of 25%) and "others" who use Windows is 33.28% (64% of 52%) with "non-aligned" (presumably "no preference/both/Linux, BSD etc") people making up the remaining 23%. Assuming my calculations are accurate, that makes the split of those surveyed (who are either Mac or Windows users since they don't give data for the "others") 43.1% "liberal" to 56.9% "non-liberal", which would seem to suggest that those who were surveyed were a particularly liberal bunch considering most Americans seem to describe themselves as conservative or moderate (according to this article the % liberals is actually about 15-25% of the population assuming nothing drastic has happened in the last 2 years).
*"Liberal" is in scare quotes since it is self-reported and what someone claims to be and what they actually are can be wildly different. Different people use different definitions for things.
The same can be said of the "4 year college degree" bit as well. Windows degree = 28.08%, Mac degree = 16.75, Windows !degree = 23.92%, Mac !degree = 8.25%, with the rest, again, being "other". This data is even less useful than the political alignment as it can be pretty much be written off by the fact that Windows is extremely dominant in market share (i.e. the masses generally use Windows) and that, generally speaking, Windows computers are cheaper than the equivalent Macs (degree = higher chance of high payed job -> more likely to be willing to spend a lot of money on a computer).
There also seem to be some other rather suspect figures. They have placed "Win users are more likely to be suburban/rural" opposite "52% of Mac users live in a city". Those are connected but not directly comparable figures (what about urban town dwellers for example, and what are the actual figures for Win users/ non-city Mac users). The fashion/aesthetics clothing section doesn't give any direct comparisons, and under food & drink, I don't see how any of it is relevant other than possibly the vegetarianism bit. The newspaper preference is also not directly comparable (unless by "The Times" they mean "The New York Times" - considering there is a "The Times" paper, in the UK/on the internet at least, that would at best be misleading) and from websites down to magazines they simply list items (which are presumably "preferred" by that group, but without knowing the selection criteria the data is useless; that also applies to most of the food and drink section).
Interestingly, the figures on the bar chart at the bottom which shows preferred computer type has different figures than the main infographic. That's probably down to rounding though as the graph also includes a "skipped" option (when that is removed the numbers almost correspond).
All in all, the whole thing screams of data dredging, whether intentional or not, and is certainly skewed by the fact that all respondents were visitors to the Hunch rather than members of the general public, and that the creator of the infographic is a Mac user (although the same would likely be true in reverse for a Windows user - the only way to be truly unbiased in a situation like this is if the creator is not a computer user).
To be fair that's for digital signals, not analogue audio - for audio they at least need to be gold plated coat hangers ;).
In that case it's a compromise of content quantity vs. video/audio quality (due to limited bandwidth), so there is an actual advantage to doing it beyond making the "premium" version better (even if all the additional cable channels are crap). Do you have any evidence that the compression was intentionally increased to make HD seem like a worthwhile option? I'm in the UK, so wouldn't really have been exposed to such information (or paid attention if I was), but I doubt it is the case (although US cable companies do seem to pull a lot of shit on their customers, so it's not beyond reason). Also cable TV is a closed system - it's either SD or HD from that company in most areas (in the US at least) - the same cannot be said for music downloads.
I'm not saying that Apple won't decrease the quality of standard (SD?) song downloads but I don't see all that much in it for them - those who don't care about quality will continue to buy the "SD" versions, those who do but not enough to buy the new "HD" ones (will depend on pricing) will either go to another service (Amazon for example) or go back to CDs and those who care enough to buy the "HD" ones will buy them (mostly audiophiles, so not likely to be effected by the quality of the "SD" ones). Where a non-audiophile person falls (between Amazon/CD etc and "HD" iTunes) depends mostly on song price, not on the quality of the "SD" track. Of course this assumes that everyone is aware of other services etc (although I'm sure most that aren't probably fall into the "don't care about quality" category).
As TaoPhoenix alluded to, what if your likeness is being used to promote (i.e. make money for/increase usage of/improve the public image of) something that you vehemently oppose, or that paints you in a bad light, or whatever?
I hardly think you would be happy to be used in the advertising for an extreme political party that has views at the opposite end of the spectrum to you, or even on a less extreme level, if you were used to promote Windows while being a rabid Mac/Linux/whatever fanboy. In the actual instance that the article is about, the person in the photo is being painted as freeloader, which is hardly something which has any kind of "cool-factor" to it. If you agree to be painted in such a light (whether you are being paid or not) then it's OK, but otherwise it isn't.
That doesn't even touch on the rights of the photographer, for which the same things apply more or less (not wanting to promote an opposing ideology or for a company to profit from their hard work without compensation etc).
While most wouldn't care that much if their likeness were used on some random billboard, and many wouldn't about photos they had taken, that doesn't give anyone the right to do it without permission from both parties (assuming it is in private property, otherwise only the photographer has rights I think, although morally speaking it wouldn't hurt to ask).