100 million URLs on the net, 100 million URLs
Take one down, pass worms around,
99 million URLs on the net...
99 million, 999 thousand, 999 URLs on the net, surely?
You need to context to appreciate it
on
Roasting Sacred Cows
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This program is satire, and very well done satire too. Watching it in isolation is a bit pointless because you will have no idea who or what the targets of the satire are. So a little bit of background is needed.
The tabloid press in the UK has, for the past few years, been using paedophiles as the new bogey men, and at one point there seemed to be almost a revulsion race to see which paper could revile them the most. One of them ("The News of the World") came up with the most disturbing: they would print photographs and addresses of known paedophiles. This seems reasonable, and it was defended by the NoW as such, but it lead directly the the aforementioned riots and, as the article says, witchhunts. This was entirely predictable.
The problem with the violence and the witchhunts is that things got out of hand, as they do when a mob tries to think. In one town they forced out a paediatrician by daubing "Paedo out" slogans on her house (see this). In other locations the naming of people a "Paedos" was enough to get them beaten up - there was a fair bit of score settling going on at the time - here is the BBC about Paulsgrove, the main estate where such things were happening.
There was also a bit of feedback going between the sections of press, hand wringing about the violence whilst implicitly condoning it - after all no one could be for paedophilia. So all was good in the world of the press - circulations were up, they were protecting children from evil, and they were secure in the knowledge that nobody could successfully attack them because that would mean that they were for paedophilia, and could instantly be slurred.
Enter Brass Eye. The press were livid, and instantly attacked. In fact, they attacked before the program went out, and the program was delayed for two weeks whilst the legalities were sorted out - Mr Collins was upset for some reason. The reaction to the show was amazing: every news bulletin, every newspaper, every channel reported it. And reported it negatively at first.
Then the press belated realised that a large section of the public were just not buying the story - see this for a fairly typical cross-section.
Certainly no one I know who has seen it thought it in anyway glorified paedophila. No one was particularly offended by it either. It wasn't about paedophilia - it was about media manipulation. It is vastly amusing to see the very same things that were so effectively satirised in the show wheeled out to attack it. This includes government ministers saying "I haven't seen the show but..." (I will except David Blunkett, the Home Secretary from this as he is blind).
Tell that to my local council, thay wanted my passport and council tax documents before I could vote in the last election
This would be an addition to the electoral roll. As this is a new thing then what is happening is that they are screwing it up.
As for the others the only time that you could register was in (usually) September, when the forms went out. And I have been on lots of electoral rolls (probably still am on several - I was called to jury duty about a year after I had moved because of the broken deletion process) and I have never had to provide a single piece of id for any of them (I have even had the canvessers at the door filling in the forms and they just want the details).
For details see Waveney DC and Exeter. For a copy of the form you have to fill in then try here. All you have to do is print this out, fill it in and send it to your local council. Absolutely no mention whatsoever of the requirement for any identification.
When you register to vote in the UK, you are required to prove your identity using a passport/photo-id drivers license[1], and to prove your address by means of utility bills or tax documents
Wrong. The system in the UK is that once per year a form is delivered to each household which you are legally required to fill in and return. This is used to compile the electoral register. Electoral registers are compiled and maintained by the local council.
The electoral register is "rolled forward", which means that an entry for a household stays until a different one is received. Needless to say this is a bit of a flaw.
From February 2001 (after an amendment to the "Representation of the People Act") you can request a form at any time and you will be added within 7 weeks. This is slightly different in that it is a personal form as opposed to a household form.
The main difference between the UK and the US is that registering to vote is automatic/compulsory in the UK, and voluntary in the US.
In the UK there is a specific crime called "Corporate Manslaughter" in which a company can be held liable for causing a death, and is subject to an unlimited fine. Fine in theory, but in practice the conditions that the company must meet to be found guilty are very tough, so very few companies are prosecuted, and even fewer are convicted.
There were plans to replace it with "Corporate Killing", with a different criteria, but these have not come to pass.
The best idea I have seen for this is to create an obligation on a specific boardmember of the company (the Chairman by default, but one can be appointed) for acts carried out by the company, and if the working practices we inadaquete then he is liable for manslaughter, and he can go to jail. Defences were that the rest of the board were told that the working practices were flawed and that they decided to do nothing about it (in which case they are on the hook), or that he was ignorant of the practice (which is easy to disprove). Ignorance via not listening does not count - if the safty man does not provide a conduit for these issues to be raised then he is on the hook.
It makes it in Mr Safety's best interest to bring up safety issues at board meetings, makes it imperative that he gets to know of safety issues, and provides the best motivation for the board to deal properly with safety issues.
Dunno how this would have panned out for Ford/Firestone, but I suspect that some people would have been going to prison.
As one of the techies who make these decisions for my company I have seen no reason to upgrade to XP whatsoever - the best justification that anybody has given is that different appointment types appear in different colours in the outlook calender (and I am not maming this up).
Sure, there are a lot of "cool" features in XP but they will never be used by any of the staff in the course of their work so "thanks, but no thanks".
This is independent of any subscription model or anything. The details are so vague about when subscriptions die that unless we are absolutely confident that we will not be stung by this we are not going to even think about it. I'll give you an example: suppose we have an employee in Nigeria and his laptop dies - what we are planning to do is to have the ability to restore his laptop from backup onto a new machine and Fedex it out to him. Will this work in XP? Well, it might, or it might not - suppose we have to send a more modern machine out: will the different hardware disable XP?. Are we going to risk this? No way. This is before we even think about the problems that we have with imaging machines.
No doubt Microsoft will try to force the upgrade path at some point, but I think (hope) that they will be in for a surprise when they do. Under the current situation we buy the basic "OS+Office" package for all employees (plus a few to make sure we don't stray), and a number of licences for such things as Visio and Project. So we know we're covered, and they know we're covered. Everyone's happy, although we're slightly poorer (think of it as audit insurance).
Fast forward a few years to the happy world of subscription based software. Despite paying for the licence and all the rest, there is now this extra hoop to jump. And you cannot tell me that we will be able to jump through this hoop with 100% success rate from anywhere in the world (and the only continent that our employees don't work in is Antarctica). So the onus has shifted - before the sitation was that we could use the software, but microsoft reserved the right to sue use if we broke the agreement. In the future the situation is that MS has to approve the use of the software before it is used. Just wait until the first day the the CEO of a big company finds that he cannot use his new PC because MS is being DDoSed again. Apart from really pissing him off, and him telling all his friends (i.e. other CEOs), he will (hopefully) start to wonder exactly why it is that his company has paid big money for something that, sometimes, doesn't work at all.
Just think back to the Repo man story - imagine XP was a car that, if you moved house, got towed away by the manufacturers, and you had to phone them up to get them to return it. Would this be acceptable? Of course not.
He only wants you to contact him so he can then sue you for patent infringement - you must infringe the patent to contact him. Beware!
Re:3000' wide base, 3700' tall ...
on
First Arcology?
·
· Score: 3
As for simulators being able to predict the behavior of structures in adverse conditions, what about London's gloriously wobbly Millenium Foot Bridge, which was closed the day it opened because it was too unstable?
That is a classic case of the triumph of reality of simulation. For those who don't know the London Millenium Bridge is a new type of bridge - horizontal suspension. The architects and engineers extensively modelled it and worked out that it would perform within acceptable design parameters. What they missed was that when people walk across the bridge they exert a vertical force (the foot going down) and a horizontal one (which is usually small, and therefore usually unimportant).
This horizontal force increases when you are on a swaying structure, so once the bridge starts to sway the users are adding more energy to the bridge fighting the swaying. The resonant frequency of the bridge is about the same period as a stride, which a) adds even more energy to the bridge and b) tends to make everybody walk in step, which increases even more the positive feedback, resulting in a very wobbly bridge indeed.
These batteries have a weight of 1kg (2.2lbs) for a 160 Whr model, which makes them better than standard Li-ion batteries (they would have about 90Whr/kg as specific energy), but this is known technology that is nothing dramatic, or indeed newsworthy.
Valence are another company that make Li-polymer batteries - the link is their FAQ, which is good, especially the graph halfway down.
Probably arguing from different viewpoints here. The population of the UK is about 60 million. The weekly attendance at an Anglican Churchs is
Church of England (which is the Christian denomination that Anglicans worship in) is the "state" religion. The state in this case being the monarchy rather than the Government - although there are rather bizarre rights of the Prime Minister in selecting Anglican Bishops - who incidently sit in the Upper Chamber of the British Parliment.
Accidently bombed the Chinese Embassy??? I don't think so - it was probably deliberate. Remember, this embassy was bombed just two days after the stealth bomber was brought down. There is a very high probability that the stealth bomber was in the embassy when it was bombed, and that the bombing was done to destroy the plane.
And if you would read the report before commenting
I did. The point is not the regulation. The point is that it is enshrined in law. It is not part of the licence agreement between the broadcaster and the government (as it is in the UK) but the LAW.
And to say that the FCC is regulating religious content is insane.
Again I did (how else did I get the quote "obscene, indecent, or profane" - it's near the start). Now, go to a dictionary and have a look at the meaning of profane: "to treat something sacred with abuse, irreverence, or contempt". This is where the thin end of the wedge comes in - the word sacred brings in religion. That could be a powerful lever in the wrong hands. The fact the the FCC is not yet regualting religion does not mean that it does not have the power under the law to do so.
Come off it and don't even try to pretend that Europe (or anywhere else in the Universe) is better about this.
Europe is better about "this". The article was talking about "offensive speech" being censored - specifically anything "obscene, indecent, or profane". Even in the UK (you know, the repressed country) plenty of obscene, indecent, and profane stuff gets aired and nobody bothers. On the Graham Norton Show last week, for example, Rikki Lake was happily saying "fuck" just because she could. There are guidelines, but after 9pm ("the watershed") more or less anything goes language wise. Same in the rest of Europe.
When ever I go over I am always bemused that a country that trumpets free speech has such bland television. At first I thought it was the advertisers. Eventually I found out it was the Government - you actually have a law prohibiting naughty words on TV and Radio. Except it doesn't just say that - "profane" brings religion into it. Thin end of the wedge (although via the Supreme Court thin ends have been driven much further than you would think possible - Abortion is based on the right to privacy??? I'm not saying it is right or wrong, merely weird) but you actually have a law that says "You can't be naughty, you can't be rude, and you can't diss God".
Have fun writing a book about the royal family in the UK
You should have a quick visit to news.bbc.co.uk and have a read about Sophie to see just how incredibly wrong this comment is. Writing about the Royals (in books, magazines, and newspapers) is very common, and most of the comments are negative. On the TV it is not unusual - after all it was on TV that Diana accused Charles of adultery.
Give the guy a break. A foolish consistency is, after all, the hobgoblin of small minds. These are minor errors and it is entirely unreasonable to attack Jon over the trifling mistakes and piffling inconsistencies in this article.
Instead we should attack him for the big mistakes.
Ah, where to start? Lets start at the beginning
First paragraph "
confused about it's goals". Now, I'm not one normally to go for grammar flames, but he is supposed to be a journalist.
Repetition. First paragraph (again). We have "The net revolution", "Net", and "digital revolution". All are used synonymously. Get rid of them - they add nothing but clutter.
Weak writing. "not necessarily for the better" - replace with "for the worse". Similarly "Lots of", "many", "more significantly", "sometimes it's hard to". All these are weasel words - especially in a paragraph that starts with "Revolution".
Repetition again - two "hard to"s in less than a dozen words. Time to get a book in which you can look up synonyms.
Rambling sentence - "In an essay....set of social ideas." is far to long. Split it up.
And so on. And on. This is just the writing. The content is another matter. It's an important issue, and I really despise him for forcing me not to give a damn after reading it.
gibe - intransitive senses : to utter taunting words.
transitive senses : to deride or tease with taunting words
Which is where the confusion comes from. In the sentence "I jibe him and you jibe with me while the yacht jibes" each jibe has a different meaning (taunt, agree, and change course respectively).
There are several important differences in heavy water and normal water. The first is density, the second is the weaker "hydrogen" bonding found in deuterium, a third is a steric effect (the bond is shorter), it is also more polar but less polarizible than the hydrogen analogue.
The density effect makes little difference except to the canals in the inner ear - these are finely tuned so a small change in the density of the liquid can cause an effect here. The effect is that you get dizzy and fall down.
The second effect is due to deuterium "hydrogen bonding" being weaker that normal hydrogen bonds - the effect can be seen in chromatography where deuterated analoques elute first due to this effect. The effect, while small, can have a major effect on metabolic pathways in cells etc.
The third (bond size) can have important effects when proteins are involved - the atom may be in the wrong place.
The final two will alter the rates of reactions (albeit very slightly)
All these add up to deuterium and hydrogen being identical chemically in all respects except for rate constants and equilibrium points - the very things that are important for biological processes.
Here's the problem with that though. Assuming Napster had an impact, there's no amount of market research that's going to get a 100% accurate prediction. 80%, sure, 90% yeah, 95% maybe, 98%+ grey at best.
Varying Accuracy is possible, but 1.8-3% error margin is considered extremely accurate. The Napster effect on total sales and revenue is well within any error margin that's gonna be made.
You are mixing up two different things. Measuring absolutes is difficult, measuring relatives is easier.
For simplicity (and ignoring corrections for other confounding variables whcih can be done) plot sales of various market segments (e.g. Country and Western, Hip-Hop etc) on a city by city basis and plots the units per head of population (normalised to the number you'd expect to sell) versus internet connectivity. If the line if flat then you are pretty sure that internet connectivity does not affect sales - if the line is sloped then you can be fairly sure (if you are confident of your corrections) that internet connectivity does affect you sales.
Now, this isn't rocket science by any means, and I'm positive it has been done. So, let's think about results:-
No trend
More internet = more sales
More internet = less sales
If it was the last one it would have been shouted from the rooftops ("We can prove..."). If it was the first or the second then there would have been a FUD attack.
Now, 39% drop in revenue... would this be a FUD attack? Their attacks on Napster (based on misleading use of statistics) actually supports the idea that Napster has a null or positive effect on music sales.
So, two questions: what effect does Napster have, and will napster (or napster like services) always have the same effect?
For the first, I think that napster does have a positive effect on music sales for a couple of reasons: most people have narrow band and can only sample, and there is generally a reasonable amount of disposable income about.
For the second, I can see situations where it will have a negative effect: with increased availability of wide pipes and a recession cutting down on the ready cash I can see it moving away from sampling towards a download for ownership situation, especially with CD walkmen (or is it walkmans) and other consumer electronics that do MP3s getting commonplace.
You cannot declare that X has affected Y to degree Z, unless you can observe Y in the absence of X.
Well, we have
Historical Trends - given the state of the economy, how many units would we expect to shift?
Other countries - can the level of internet use in a country be correlated with the change in units shifted? Assumes you can correct for differences in economy, musical taste etc (which I think you can, as they market in these countries).
Intra country - can you link places with more prevalent high speed internet connectivity with changes in units shifted.
Intra market - can they correlate the type of music that internet users like (or hate) with changes in the units of these types shipped
It's called market research, and to even suggest that such things cannot be calculated (to varying degrees of accuracy) is naive - they can do it to measure the impact of advertising, so they can certainly do it to measure the impact of Napster.
Slashdot Mirror
99 million, 999 thousand, 999 URLs on the net, surely?
The tabloid press in the UK has, for the past few years, been using paedophiles as the new bogey men, and at one point there seemed to be almost a revulsion race to see which paper could revile them the most. One of them ("The News of the World") came up with the most disturbing: they would print photographs and addresses of known paedophiles. This seems reasonable, and it was defended by the NoW as such, but it lead directly the the aforementioned riots and, as the article says, witchhunts. This was entirely predictable.
The problem with the violence and the witchhunts is that things got out of hand, as they do when a mob tries to think. In one town they forced out a paediatrician by daubing "Paedo out" slogans on her house (see this). In other locations the naming of people a "Paedos" was enough to get them beaten up - there was a fair bit of score settling going on at the time - here is the BBC about Paulsgrove, the main estate where such things were happening.
There was also a bit of feedback going between the sections of press, hand wringing about the violence whilst implicitly condoning it - after all no one could be for paedophilia. So all was good in the world of the press - circulations were up, they were protecting children from evil, and they were secure in the knowledge that nobody could successfully attack them because that would mean that they were for paedophilia, and could instantly be slurred.
Enter Brass Eye. The press were livid, and instantly attacked. In fact, they attacked before the program went out, and the program was delayed for two weeks whilst the legalities were sorted out - Mr Collins was upset for some reason. The reaction to the show was amazing: every news bulletin, every newspaper, every channel reported it. And reported it negatively at first.
Then the press belated realised that a large section of the public were just not buying the story - see this for a fairly typical cross-section.
Certainly no one I know who has seen it thought it in anyway glorified paedophila. No one was particularly offended by it either. It wasn't about paedophilia - it was about media manipulation. It is vastly amusing to see the very same things that were so effectively satirised in the show wheeled out to attack it. This includes government ministers saying "I haven't seen the show but..." (I will except David Blunkett, the Home Secretary from this as he is blind).
This would be an addition to the electoral roll. As this is a new thing then what is happening is that they are screwing it up.
As for the others the only time that you could register was in (usually) September, when the forms went out. And I have been on lots of electoral rolls (probably still am on several - I was called to jury duty about a year after I had moved because of the broken deletion process) and I have never had to provide a single piece of id for any of them (I have even had the canvessers at the door filling in the forms and they just want the details).
For details see Waveney DC and Exeter. For a copy of the form you have to fill in then try here. All you have to do is print this out, fill it in and send it to your local council. Absolutely no mention whatsoever of the requirement for any identification.
Wrong. The system in the UK is that once per year a form is delivered to each household which you are legally required to fill in and return. This is used to compile the electoral register. Electoral registers are compiled and maintained by the local council.
The electoral register is "rolled forward", which means that an entry for a household stays until a different one is received. Needless to say this is a bit of a flaw.
From February 2001 (after an amendment to the "Representation of the People Act") you can request a form at any time and you will be added within 7 weeks. This is slightly different in that it is a personal form as opposed to a household form.
The main difference between the UK and the US is that registering to vote is automatic/compulsory in the UK, and voluntary in the US.
There were plans to replace it with "Corporate Killing", with a different criteria, but these have not come to pass.
The best idea I have seen for this is to create an obligation on a specific boardmember of the company (the Chairman by default, but one can be appointed) for acts carried out by the company, and if the working practices we inadaquete then he is liable for manslaughter, and he can go to jail. Defences were that the rest of the board were told that the working practices were flawed and that they decided to do nothing about it (in which case they are on the hook), or that he was ignorant of the practice (which is easy to disprove). Ignorance via not listening does not count - if the safty man does not provide a conduit for these issues to be raised then he is on the hook.
It makes it in Mr Safety's best interest to bring up safety issues at board meetings, makes it imperative that he gets to know of safety issues, and provides the best motivation for the board to deal properly with safety issues.
Dunno how this would have panned out for Ford/Firestone, but I suspect that some people would have been going to prison.
So is the "Church" that is talked about in the book- when I lived in Glasgow it was known as Cardinal Follies, and was a nightclub.
Sure, there are a lot of "cool" features in XP but they will never be used by any of the staff in the course of their work so "thanks, but no thanks".
This is independent of any subscription model or anything. The details are so vague about when subscriptions die that unless we are absolutely confident that we will not be stung by this we are not going to even think about it. I'll give you an example: suppose we have an employee in Nigeria and his laptop dies - what we are planning to do is to have the ability to restore his laptop from backup onto a new machine and Fedex it out to him. Will this work in XP? Well, it might, or it might not - suppose we have to send a more modern machine out: will the different hardware disable XP?. Are we going to risk this? No way. This is before we even think about the problems that we have with imaging machines.
No doubt Microsoft will try to force the upgrade path at some point, but I think (hope) that they will be in for a surprise when they do. Under the current situation we buy the basic "OS+Office" package for all employees (plus a few to make sure we don't stray), and a number of licences for such things as Visio and Project. So we know we're covered, and they know we're covered. Everyone's happy, although we're slightly poorer (think of it as audit insurance).
Fast forward a few years to the happy world of subscription based software. Despite paying for the licence and all the rest, there is now this extra hoop to jump. And you cannot tell me that we will be able to jump through this hoop with 100% success rate from anywhere in the world (and the only continent that our employees don't work in is Antarctica). So the onus has shifted - before the sitation was that we could use the software, but microsoft reserved the right to sue use if we broke the agreement. In the future the situation is that MS has to approve the use of the software before it is used. Just wait until the first day the the CEO of a big company finds that he cannot use his new PC because MS is being DDoSed again. Apart from really pissing him off, and him telling all his friends (i.e. other CEOs), he will (hopefully) start to wonder exactly why it is that his company has paid big money for something that, sometimes, doesn't work at all.
Just think back to the Repo man story - imagine XP was a car that, if you moved house, got towed away by the manufacturers, and you had to phone them up to get them to return it. Would this be acceptable? Of course not.
He only wants you to contact him so he can then sue you for patent infringement - you must infringe the patent to contact him. Beware!
That is a classic case of the triumph of reality of simulation. For those who don't know the London Millenium Bridge is a new type of bridge - horizontal suspension. The architects and engineers extensively modelled it and worked out that it would perform within acceptable design parameters. What they missed was that when people walk across the bridge they exert a vertical force (the foot going down) and a horizontal one (which is usually small, and therefore usually unimportant).
This horizontal force increases when you are on a swaying structure, so once the bridge starts to sway the users are adding more energy to the bridge fighting the swaying. The resonant frequency of the bridge is about the same period as a stride, which a) adds even more energy to the bridge and b) tends to make everybody walk in step, which increases even more the positive feedback, resulting in a very wobbly bridge indeed.
Valence are another company that make Li-polymer batteries - the link is their FAQ, which is good, especially the graph halfway down.
Probably arguing from different viewpoints here. The population of the UK is about 60 million. The weekly attendance at an Anglican Churchs is Church of England (which is the Christian denomination that Anglicans worship in) is the "state" religion. The state in this case being the monarchy rather than the Government - although there are rather bizarre rights of the Prime Minister in selecting Anglican Bishops - who incidently sit in the Upper Chamber of the British Parliment.
Accidently bombed the Chinese Embassy??? I don't think so - it was probably deliberate. Remember, this embassy was bombed just two days after the stealth bomber was brought down. There is a very high probability that the stealth bomber was in the embassy when it was bombed, and that the bombing was done to destroy the plane.
Moderation Totals:Flamebait=2, Troll=3, Insightful=5, Funny=1, Overrated=2, Total=13
Just needs an "interesting" for a full house.
I did. The point is not the regulation. The point is that it is enshrined in law. It is not part of the licence agreement between the broadcaster and the government (as it is in the UK) but the LAW.
And to say that the FCC is regulating religious content is insane.
Again I did (how else did I get the quote "obscene, indecent, or profane" - it's near the start). Now, go to a dictionary and have a look at the meaning of profane: "to treat something sacred with abuse, irreverence, or contempt". This is where the thin end of the wedge comes in - the word sacred brings in religion. That could be a powerful lever in the wrong hands. The fact the the FCC is not yet regualting religion does not mean that it does not have the power under the law to do so.
Europe is better about "this". The article was talking about "offensive speech" being censored - specifically anything "obscene, indecent, or profane". Even in the UK (you know, the repressed country) plenty of obscene, indecent, and profane stuff gets aired and nobody bothers. On the Graham Norton Show last week, for example, Rikki Lake was happily saying "fuck" just because she could. There are guidelines, but after 9pm ("the watershed") more or less anything goes language wise. Same in the rest of Europe.
When ever I go over I am always bemused that a country that trumpets free speech has such bland television. At first I thought it was the advertisers. Eventually I found out it was the Government - you actually have a law prohibiting naughty words on TV and Radio. Except it doesn't just say that - "profane" brings religion into it. Thin end of the wedge (although via the Supreme Court thin ends have been driven much further than you would think possible - Abortion is based on the right to privacy??? I'm not saying it is right or wrong, merely weird) but you actually have a law that says "You can't be naughty, you can't be rude, and you can't diss God".
Have fun writing a book about the royal family in the UK
You should have a quick visit to news.bbc.co.uk and have a read about Sophie to see just how incredibly wrong this comment is. Writing about the Royals (in books, magazines, and newspapers) is very common, and most of the comments are negative. On the TV it is not unusual - after all it was on TV that Diana accused Charles of adultery.
Well, there is at least one that has life. Although possibly not intelligent life.
Instead we should attack him for the big mistakes.
Ah, where to start? Lets start at the beginning
And so on. And on. This is just the writing. The content is another matter. It's an important issue, and I really despise him for forcing me not to give a damn after reading it.
Is Open Source the New Jerusalem?
Not to mention the pretension.
Not even close: 1/x is between 0 and 1 for all x > 1. More efficient schemes are of course possible.
The clear inference is that the order has been leaked, and the leak is reasonably accurate.
jibe - see gibe
gibe - intransitive senses : to utter taunting words. transitive senses : to deride or tease with taunting words
Which is where the confusion comes from. In the sentence "I jibe him and you jibe with me while the yacht jibes" each jibe has a different meaning (taunt, agree, and change course respectively).
Beware of confusing Kbits per second with Kbytes per second - a CD is 44100 * 2 * 16 kBits/sec = 1.4 MBits/sec.
The density effect makes little difference except to the canals in the inner ear - these are finely tuned so a small change in the density of the liquid can cause an effect here. The effect is that you get dizzy and fall down.
The second effect is due to deuterium "hydrogen bonding" being weaker that normal hydrogen bonds - the effect can be seen in chromatography where deuterated analoques elute first due to this effect. The effect, while small, can have a major effect on metabolic pathways in cells etc.
The third (bond size) can have important effects when proteins are involved - the atom may be in the wrong place.
The final two will alter the rates of reactions (albeit very slightly)
All these add up to deuterium and hydrogen being identical chemically in all respects except for rate constants and equilibrium points - the very things that are important for biological processes.
You are mixing up two different things. Measuring absolutes is difficult, measuring relatives is easier.
For simplicity (and ignoring corrections for other confounding variables whcih can be done) plot sales of various market segments (e.g. Country and Western, Hip-Hop etc) on a city by city basis and plots the units per head of population (normalised to the number you'd expect to sell) versus internet connectivity. If the line if flat then you are pretty sure that internet connectivity does not affect sales - if the line is sloped then you can be fairly sure (if you are confident of your corrections) that internet connectivity does affect you sales.
Now, this isn't rocket science by any means, and I'm positive it has been done. So, let's think about results:-
No trend
More internet = more sales
More internet = less sales
If it was the last one it would have been shouted from the rooftops ("We can prove..."). If it was the first or the second then there would have been a FUD attack.
Now, 39% drop in revenue... would this be a FUD attack? Their attacks on Napster (based on misleading use of statistics) actually supports the idea that Napster has a null or positive effect on music sales.
So, two questions: what effect does Napster have, and will napster (or napster like services) always have the same effect?
For the first, I think that napster does have a positive effect on music sales for a couple of reasons: most people have narrow band and can only sample, and there is generally a reasonable amount of disposable income about.
For the second, I can see situations where it will have a negative effect: with increased availability of wide pipes and a recession cutting down on the ready cash I can see it moving away from sampling towards a download for ownership situation, especially with CD walkmen (or is it walkmans) and other consumer electronics that do MP3s getting commonplace.
Well, we have
- Historical Trends - given the state of the economy, how many units would we expect to shift?
It's called market research, and to even suggest that such things cannot be calculated (to varying degrees of accuracy) is naive - they can do it to measure the impact of advertising, so they can certainly do it to measure the impact of Napster.Other countries - can the level of internet use in a country be correlated with the change in units shifted? Assumes you can correct for differences in economy, musical taste etc (which I think you can, as they market in these countries).
Intra country - can you link places with more prevalent high speed internet connectivity with changes in units shifted.
Intra market - can they correlate the type of music that internet users like (or hate) with changes in the units of these types shipped
You missed the fertile offspring bit, but I think that that is essentially the definition.