First of all, the house could be built to be efficient, thus requiring less heating (google for "passive house"). Even if you don't hae a proper passive house, you could still insulate properly. Most houses in Finland have triple (or even quad)-windows for example.
Second, you could heat the house using efficient means, like heatpumps. Also, if you have heated floors (like many houses in Finland do), you don't have to heat the house that much, since your feet would be warm. If your feet are cold, you will feel cold no matter how warm the house is. If your feet are warm, you can comfortable maintain a bit cooler temperature than you normally would.
Linux is my main desktop and frankly my experience is the opposite. There is "always" something that doesn't work out of the box especially with new hardware.
Well, I haven't tried Vista, but my experience is that after booting a fresh Linux-installation, stuff usually just works. In Windows I need to install drivers for the NIC, vidcard, soundcard... Things that do work out of the box are few and far between.
Many (but not nearly all, and probably much less than a majority) have trailers to pull, for work or otherwise.
That doesn't explain why trucks are so popular. I mean, most Americans are NOT farmers or construction-workers.
Or they have to go places to get to job sites that require higher clearance and/or four-wheel drive.
Most Americans live in cities. The only clearance they need is to get them over a speed-bumb.
Or we have recreational activities that need a truck, such as pulling a trailer with ATV's on it.
Those activities still don't explain the huge popularity of trucks.
We also help friends out when they need furniture moved.
Are those friends moving all the time? I don't think so. I have helped my friends move, and my friends have helped me move. And none of them own a truck. What we have done is to either rent a van for few days, or rent/borrow a trailer, and haul it with our normal passenger-cars. No need to have a truck for that.
One big thing to keep in mind, though, is that Americans in general do not like our government telling us what kind of car to drive.
Government doesn't do that here either. I could buy a pickup if I wanted to. I just think that it would be stupid thing to do, since regular cars drive so much better, have better mileage and are more practical in everyday-driving.
We are also not generally fans of government-generated artificial pricing for anything.
well, we do have that. Cars with higher CO2-emissions get taxed more, so they cost more to buy.
Why not, instead of punishing people who choose a vehicle that is convenient to them or that makes them happy, work on making the high-efficiency cars a more economical and more attractive option?
They ARE the "attractive option" over here, even before the CO2-tax. It was (and is) very, very unusual for normal consumer to buy a pickup. Reason being that in everyday-driving, normal cars beat the hell out of trucks in driveability, economy, comfort and general usefulness. The few use-cases that require a truck are handled by renting a van for few days.
Why should I buy a truck, and suffer from crappy handling, crappy comfort and poor economy, just so I could haul stuff once or twice a year?
"The statistics paint a grim picture. According to the World Resources Institute, more than 80 percent of the Earthâ(TM)s natural forests already have been destroyed. Up to 90 percent of West Africaâ(TM)s coastal rain forests have disappeared since 1900. Brazil and Indonesia, which contain the worldâ(TM)s two largest surviving regions of rain forest, are being stripped at an alarming rate by logging, fires, and land-clearing for agriculture and cattle-grazing."
"Of great concern is the rate at which deforestation is occurring. Currently, 12 million hectares of forests are cleared annually - an area 1,3 times the size of KwaZulu/Natal! Almost all of this deforestation occurs in the moist forests and open woodlands of the tropics. At this rate all moist tropical forest could be lost by the year 2050, except for isolated areas in Amazonia, the Zaire basin, as well as a few protected areas within reserves and parks. Some countries such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Costa Rica, and Sri Lanka are likely to lose all their tropical forests by the year 2010 if no conservation steps are taken."
And I fail to see why I got labeled as "troll"....
Are Americans really hauling stuff all the time? IIRC, the most popular vehicle in USA is a truck. Why? I don't think average American is THAT different from your typical European. Yet Europeans seem to cope just fine without having to drive huge trucks or SUV's.
I might occasionally need to haul lots of stuff. But I would much rather drive a normal car, and rent a van for those few times I need some serious hauling-capacity, as opposed to driving a truck all the time.
So really, what's the point? Are you guys constantly moving huge rocks around or something?
Eventually the marxist will get their way. Everyone will drive a crappy car that has no air conditioning and the only radio station will be one controlled by the state playing "inspirational" messages from "our leader". RIP capitalism, freedom....it's gone!
All that from simple increase in gas-mileage?
In Europe we have cars that have mileages that are a lot better than mileages in American cars. And I don't think that our cars are "crappy". In fact, most people would consider those gas-guzzling American cars as the crappy cars....
What you say is true, but the difference is not big enough to change the fact that diesel-cars pollute less on average. In Finland just about all cars with low CO2-emissions are diesels, with hybrids from Toyota and Honda being the only exception. Which makes me wonder why are they wasting their time making gasoline-hybrids, as opposed to diesel-hybrids....
If you're seriously arguing that "trailer trash" doesn't imply that someone is trash (literally worthless) because of their background (living in a trailer), well... I'm not sure what you think "trailer trash" means.
It's simple: trailer trash lives in a trailer, but not everyone who lives in a trailer is trailer trash. Living in a trailer is one nomitator for trailer trash, but it's not the only nominator.
Yeah, well, just try and deal with diesel fuel at 10 below zero (F).
-10f is about -23c. Sounds pretty typical winter in Finland, and we are managing just fine with diesel. Well, people up in north started having some problems with diesel-cars when temperature dropped to about -35c (that's.... -31f) few years ago.
In theory. perhaps. It's dishonest to say that "this product is equipped with feature X" if the feature in question is so clumsy, awkward and hard to use that no-one will use it. Sure, the company might be telling the truth in a literal sense, but people do know when they are being dealt in a dishonest way.
And no, it doesn't have to be about intelligence or anything of the sort. The feature can simply be so badly implemented that people simply do not want to use it. I think that having GPS in my phone is a neat idea and I was excited when I tried it out. But after few tries (I CAN make it work, that's not the issue here) it became obvious to me that the feature is so clumsy that I simply have no desire to use it.
Your GCC-example does not work, because developers obviously do not find GCC so hard to use or generally crappy that it's unusable. In other words, it's a feature that is actually used.
I maintain that if a feature goes unused, it's not really a feature. Seriously, what's the point of having feature X in a device, if it's not used? It might as well not exist at all.
There's a difference between "having a feature" and "having a feature that's actually usable".
My Nokia E71 has loads of features. And most of them are so crummy and hard to use, that they might as well not exist. It has GPS. Which is so cumbersome to use that I never use it. It has web-browser. But browsing with it is so frustrating and clumsy that I only use it when I desperately need to check something online.
The thing is that when the iPhone was released, people compared it to other phones (like Nokias) and said "my phone has had those features for a long time already, how exactly is the iPhone "revolutioary?". But they fail to understand that it's not about list of checkboxes called "features", it's about features that people can actually use.
Like I said, my E71 has a web-browser. It also has WiFI. But for some reason I never use it for web-browsing at home through my Wifi, I use my iPod touch for that.
You can't compare phones (or any other devices for that matter) by staring at a piece of paper that lists their specs. You need to actually USE the devices to make that judgement. And the thing is that iPhone might not have every single bell and whistle some other phone has, but the bells and whistles it has. are so usable that people actually use them. Nokia has been piling features to their phones for years, but since they are implemented in such a crappy way, they go mostly unused.
If your phone has a feature that no-one uses, is it really a feature?
Well, population-density in Helsinki is 2714/km2, and it has metro, lots and lots of buses, trams and commuter-trains.
If we include the nearby cities of Espoo and Vantaa to the mix (which intermingle with Helsinki, and the three basically share the mass-transit-system), the population-density goes even lower (Espoo's population-density is 776/km2, while Vantaa has 823/km2).
The question of having a mass-transit system is not about the population-density as such, it's about the will to implement it.
My boss drives 75 miles each way to and from work five days a week. When gas was topping $4.50 a gallon he looked into taking the commuter train in. Our shop is 2 miles from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, and he lives in Lancaster, only a few miles from a Metrolink station. Turns out, even at $4.60 a gallon, the fuel cost for his 40mpg Kia Rio cost FIFTY BUCKS LESS than what a Metrolink monthly pass cost.
Yeah, but there's still the fact that if he takes the train, he could use his commute for sleeping, working, reading etc., whereas if he drives to work, he would have to spend that time driving. Only thing he could do is to listen to music or something.
"Japan is the only country that I can think of that has nuclear power, and doesn't have (or want) nuclear arms"
Finland, Sweden, Germany, South Korea, Spain, Belgium, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Slovakia... Finland is building a new nuclear power-plant as we speak, and last time I checked, Finland has no nukes, nor do they have any desire to have them.
"How is 95% a monopoly, and yet 75% isn't? What's the exact percentage at which we switch to calling something a monopoly?"
That is for the courts to decide. And they have decided that 95% is a monopoly, whereas 75% is not. Of course these things are determined on a case-by-case basis, but still. You want Apple to be labeled a monopoly? Well, go whine to the courts then and see what they think about it. Blathering about in on/. doesn't get you far. Just because you say "Apple does have a monopoly with their 75% market-share! Why ? Because I say so, and because I don't like them very much!" does not make your opinion a fact.
"How about the fact that Apple threatens legal action against anyone who tries to make a music player that can read their protected version of AAC?"
What about that? Like it or not, bypassing DRM is not OK with the legislation we have. Don't like the DRM? Then shop elsewhere or buy only the non-DRM'ed songs from iTunes Store. And in any case, you should whine to the record-labels who insist on pushing that crap down our throats.
Why do you keep on seeing problems and monopolies in places where it does not exist?
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Try listening to German porn. Its hilarious!
Ja, meine panzerwagen, das ist gut!
German is short, has a lot of consonants all over and it kind-of crackles.
You would love Finnish:
"Kokoa kokoon kokko!"
"koko kokkoko?"
"Koko kokko"
Yes, that does make sense in Finnish.
Were any child exploited in creating the cartoon? No. So how exactly is it "exploitation"?
Well, there are ways to heat a house.
First of all, the house could be built to be efficient, thus requiring less heating (google for "passive house"). Even if you don't hae a proper passive house, you could still insulate properly. Most houses in Finland have triple (or even quad)-windows for example.
Second, you could heat the house using efficient means, like heatpumps. Also, if you have heated floors (like many houses in Finland do), you don't have to heat the house that much, since your feet would be warm. If your feet are cold, you will feel cold no matter how warm the house is. If your feet are warm, you can comfortable maintain a bit cooler temperature than you normally would.
It's like their version of the interstate.
I would rather say that interstate is a version of autobahn... I mean, the interstate-network was modeled after the autobahns of Germany.
Ah yes, the old "drunkards and useless slobs are positive role-models, the successful people are the bad ones!"-argument....
Well, I haven't tried Vista, but my experience is that after booting a fresh Linux-installation, stuff usually just works. In Windows I need to install drivers for the NIC, vidcard, soundcard... Things that do work out of the box are few and far between.
Um, we have had start-stop-diesels (not hybrid) in Europe for quite some time...
That doesn't explain why trucks are so popular. I mean, most Americans are NOT farmers or construction-workers.
Most Americans live in cities. The only clearance they need is to get them over a speed-bumb.
Those activities still don't explain the huge popularity of trucks.
Are those friends moving all the time? I don't think so. I have helped my friends move, and my friends have helped me move. And none of them own a truck. What we have done is to either rent a van for few days, or rent/borrow a trailer, and haul it with our normal passenger-cars. No need to have a truck for that.
Government doesn't do that here either. I could buy a pickup if I wanted to. I just think that it would be stupid thing to do, since regular cars drive so much better, have better mileage and are more practical in everyday-driving.
well, we do have that. Cars with higher CO2-emissions get taxed more, so they cost more to buy.
They ARE the "attractive option" over here, even before the CO2-tax. It was (and is) very, very unusual for normal consumer to buy a pickup. Reason being that in everyday-driving, normal cars beat the hell out of trucks in driveability, economy, comfort and general usefulness. The few use-cases that require a truck are handled by renting a van for few days.
Why should I buy a truck, and suffer from crappy handling, crappy comfort and poor economy, just so I could haul stuff once or twice a year?
You need citations that show that we are cutting down forests? Um, OK:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/deforestation/effect.html
"The statistics paint a grim picture. According to the World Resources Institute, more than 80 percent of the Earthâ(TM)s natural forests already have been destroyed. Up to 90 percent of West Africaâ(TM)s coastal rain forests have disappeared since 1900. Brazil and Indonesia, which contain the worldâ(TM)s two largest surviving regions of rain forest, are being stripped at an alarming rate by logging, fires, and land-clearing for agriculture and cattle-grazing."
http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/envFacts/facts/deforestation.htm
"Of great concern is the rate at which deforestation is occurring. Currently, 12 million hectares of forests are cleared annually - an area 1,3 times the size of KwaZulu/Natal! Almost all of this deforestation occurs in the moist forests and open woodlands of the tropics. At this rate all moist tropical forest could be lost by the year 2050, except for isolated areas in Amazonia, the Zaire basin, as well as a few protected areas within reserves and parks. Some countries such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Costa Rica, and Sri Lanka are likely to lose all their tropical forests by the year 2010 if no conservation steps are taken."
And I fail to see why I got labeled as "troll"....
Are Americans really hauling stuff all the time? IIRC, the most popular vehicle in USA is a truck. Why? I don't think average American is THAT different from your typical European. Yet Europeans seem to cope just fine without having to drive huge trucks or SUV's.
I might occasionally need to haul lots of stuff. But I would much rather drive a normal car, and rent a van for those few times I need some serious hauling-capacity, as opposed to driving a truck all the time.
So really, what's the point? Are you guys constantly moving huge rocks around or something?
All that from simple increase in gas-mileage?
In Europe we have cars that have mileages that are a lot better than mileages in American cars. And I don't think that our cars are "crappy". In fact, most people would consider those gas-guzzling American cars as the crappy cars....
What you say is true, but the difference is not big enough to change the fact that diesel-cars pollute less on average. In Finland just about all cars with low CO2-emissions are diesels, with hybrids from Toyota and Honda being the only exception. Which makes me wonder why are they wasting their time making gasoline-hybrids, as opposed to diesel-hybrids....
I doubt it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ygYUYia9I
the problem with that is that we are cutting down more and more trees in the global scale....
It's simple: trailer trash lives in a trailer, but not everyone who lives in a trailer is trailer trash. Living in a trailer is one nomitator for trailer trash, but it's not the only nominator.
-10f is about -23c. Sounds pretty typical winter in Finland, and we are managing just fine with diesel. Well, people up in north started having some problems with diesel-cars when temperature dropped to about -35c (that's.... -31f) few years ago.
"Eh yes."
In theory. perhaps. It's dishonest to say that "this product is equipped with feature X" if the feature in question is so clumsy, awkward and hard to use that no-one will use it. Sure, the company might be telling the truth in a literal sense, but people do know when they are being dealt in a dishonest way.
And no, it doesn't have to be about intelligence or anything of the sort. The feature can simply be so badly implemented that people simply do not want to use it. I think that having GPS in my phone is a neat idea and I was excited when I tried it out. But after few tries (I CAN make it work, that's not the issue here) it became obvious to me that the feature is so clumsy that I simply have no desire to use it.
Your GCC-example does not work, because developers obviously do not find GCC so hard to use or generally crappy that it's unusable. In other words, it's a feature that is actually used.
I maintain that if a feature goes unused, it's not really a feature. Seriously, what's the point of having feature X in a device, if it's not used? It might as well not exist at all.
There's a difference between "having a feature" and "having a feature that's actually usable".
My Nokia E71 has loads of features. And most of them are so crummy and hard to use, that they might as well not exist. It has GPS. Which is so cumbersome to use that I never use it. It has web-browser. But browsing with it is so frustrating and clumsy that I only use it when I desperately need to check something online.
The thing is that when the iPhone was released, people compared it to other phones (like Nokias) and said "my phone has had those features for a long time already, how exactly is the iPhone "revolutioary?". But they fail to understand that it's not about list of checkboxes called "features", it's about features that people can actually use.
Like I said, my E71 has a web-browser. It also has WiFI. But for some reason I never use it for web-browsing at home through my Wifi, I use my iPod touch for that.
You can't compare phones (or any other devices for that matter) by staring at a piece of paper that lists their specs. You need to actually USE the devices to make that judgement. And the thing is that iPhone might not have every single bell and whistle some other phone has, but the bells and whistles it has. are so usable that people actually use them. Nokia has been piling features to their phones for years, but since they are implemented in such a crappy way, they go mostly unused.
If your phone has a feature that no-one uses, is it really a feature?
Well, population-density in Helsinki is 2714/km2, and it has metro, lots and lots of buses, trams and commuter-trains.
If we include the nearby cities of Espoo and Vantaa to the mix (which intermingle with Helsinki, and the three basically share the mass-transit-system), the population-density goes even lower (Espoo's population-density is 776/km2, while Vantaa has 823/km2).
The question of having a mass-transit system is not about the population-density as such, it's about the will to implement it.
Yeah, but there's still the fact that if he takes the train, he could use his commute for sleeping, working, reading etc., whereas if he drives to work, he would have to spend that time driving. Only thing he could do is to listen to music or something.
Just because you can detach the tabs does not mean that they are individual processes.
"Well, Microsoft officially endorse the open-source client"
If they do, why don't they do it themselves?
"Japan is the only country that I can think of that has nuclear power, and doesn't have (or want) nuclear arms"
Finland, Sweden, Germany, South Korea, Spain, Belgium, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Slovakia... Finland is building a new nuclear power-plant as we speak, and last time I checked, Finland has no nukes, nor do they have any desire to have them.
"How is 95% a monopoly, and yet 75% isn't? What's the exact percentage at which we switch to calling something a monopoly?"
That is for the courts to decide. And they have decided that 95% is a monopoly, whereas 75% is not. Of course these things are determined on a case-by-case basis, but still. You want Apple to be labeled a monopoly? Well, go whine to the courts then and see what they think about it. Blathering about in on /. doesn't get you far. Just because you say "Apple does have a monopoly with their 75% market-share! Why ? Because I say so, and because I don't like them very much!" does not make your opinion a fact.
"How about the fact that Apple threatens legal action against anyone who tries to make a music player that can read their protected version of AAC?"
What about that? Like it or not, bypassing DRM is not OK with the legislation we have. Don't like the DRM? Then shop elsewhere or buy only the non-DRM'ed songs from iTunes Store. And in any case, you should whine to the record-labels who insist on pushing that crap down our throats.
Why do you keep on seeing problems and monopolies in places where it does not exist?