Over here in the UK we've pretty well shifted over to the same billion as everybody else, 10^9 rather than 10^12.
That's moving away from the same billion as everybody else. Most countries I'm aware of use 10^12. It's only the US and now the UK that promote short billions, as far as I'm aware.
Honestly, what makes more sense:
million = 1,000,000^1 billion = 1,000,000^2 trillion = 1,000,000^3
I think the UK uses the same weird billions as the US, though it's the US that's to blame for that weird "short billion" (as I sometimes see it called).
Most of the rest of the world is still sticking to the sensible system, I believe.
With a locked phone they can give the provider control over the phone (read: appstore ), and the telecom provider. I think Motorola hopes to make extra money from the provider instead of the consumer.
Exactly, and that's the real problem here: to Motorola, we aren't the customer. Networks are. They want us to take a hike. There's no reason for us to want Motorola phones. They're forgetting where the money comes from, and deserve to go bankrupt for their backwards business decisions.
I like the Milestone's design quite a lot. If it hadn't been locked down, I would have praised it as the best phone of its generation (2009/2010). It looks good, it can take a lot of abuse, and while the keyboard could have been a lot better it's not awful by any means. But the locked bootloader and Motorola's shitty attitude ruins it.
Even with the cracked bootloader, the company's attitude is not good, so I won't buy a phone from them.
Nobody should. Unfortunately, a lot of people already bought from Motorola before their crippling policies became common knowledge. And those people now finally get the option to upgrade beyond Android 2.1.
I do think it's laziness. There are a lot of people who have no idea what to do with certificates. Have you ever noticed how many websites use invalid/expired certificates? People are lazy when it comes to https.
Exactly. I really appreciate that the EU and US don't decide to act on their own here, but respond to the people of Libya and work with the African Union and Arabic League on this. It's about time we showed some respect for people outside the US and EU.
The Register? Are you sure? I haven't read this piece yet, but a few days ago they had an article explaining how this disaster proved how safe nuclear technology was. I do enjoy reading The Register occasionally, but it's not exactly an objective and unbiased source of information. Try iaea.org instead.
I have a lot of respect for the workers at the plant who risk their health and work hard to prevent a disaster. But I also think it's an irresponsible policy to require this kind of heroism from people. I have only contempt for the people who ignored the IAEA warning about Japanese reactors a couple of years ago, and for the people who are still deciding to build new reactors near fault lines without sufficient safety precautions to withstand the worst earthquakes.
The reactor should have been safe. Better able to withstand earthquake and tsunami, and more, better, and more reliable backup systems.
Is it really about his defense? TFA says Sony needs his Paypal info the determine whether they can sue him in California, rather than in New Jersey. His alleged crime is not defending himself, it's cracking the PS3 security. As I understand it, Sony wants to prove that he did it for money and was funded by people in California, so they can sue him there, which is apparently better for Sony than suing him in New Jersey.
it's very difficult to convince the world that the no-fly action has nothing to do with the price of oil.
So don't. Oil is a part of every modern war. It's a strategic resource and everyone knows it so call a duck a duck. Furthermore, the United States and Europe need oil to fuel our economies and way of life. If the Libyan government, after Gadhafi is gone, is grateful and willing to sell to us then I say, "lets make a deal".
Khadaffi was also perfectly willing to sell oil. It's his oil money that he's currently using to pay his mercenaries. If the US and EU cared just about the oil, they could just as easily support Khadaffi and bring this to a quick end.
The problem is: Khadaffi is a brutal dictator, his people hate him, and he bombs them for their insolence. It's a humanitarian issue. It's the UN (EU, US, AU and AL) finally, grudgingly, accepting that rulers need to serve their people, not bomb them. (And this is hard to accept for people in power. We need more revolutions more often to remind them of this.)
Think about it in the context of what would happen if this civilian uprising were occurring in the Britain. The authorities would use varying levels of force to quell the unrest. At times, these levels would be appropriate. At other times, they would be excessive. The question of whether it would be legal or not would hinge on the actions of individuals in the military or police. Not with the over-arching governmental body.
The moment Khadaffi used planes to bomb peaceful protesters, he lost every shred of legitimacy he may have had. If a ruler is so unpopular that he can't quell unrest with just police and soldiers acting as police, if he has to resort to using artillery and foreign mercenaries against his own people, he needs to step down.
The basic idea behind the no-fly zone is not to overthrow Khadaffi, it's to stop him from bombing his own people. Really, this should have happened immediately after the first bombings against protesters. At that time, no other support would have been necessary, and the Libyan people could have overthrown their dictator on their own. But now it looks like they're going to need a bit more support than that, and that makes it a more political issue.
Afghanistan on the other hand, the US unilaterally went in,
Not even unilaterally. NATO supported the US there, as 9/11 was an attack on a member of the alliance. The US wanted to do the initial attack themselves, but pretty soon after, there were French and German troops on the ground there.
But if any country did it unilaterally, they would be hated for eternity, a la the US in Iraq.
Not for all eternity. People are already forgetting about Iraq.
The real problem is that the US keeps coming up with new reasons to hate them, like ACTA, prosecuting WikiLeaks, and who knows what's next? Those too will be easily forgiven once the US turns around. The US got immediately got a fresh pile of credit merely by electing Obama, though most of that has been squandered already. But it can and will happen again. People have short memories. Don't worry.
There is the fact that this is a people's uprising following the wave of protests in neighbouring countries. I think the Libyan people would have been perfectly capable of liberating their own country if Khaddaffi hadn't had air support to beat them down. A week ago, a no-fly zone would probably have spelled the end for him. But now, I'm not so sure anymore. The rebels are almost defeated. If the UN resolution allows bombing of the Libyan army and mercenaries, that could make a big difference, but I really hope the people haven't had their spirit sufficiently crushed already. An uprising this large is rare, and can easily lose steam.
And I don't think anyone wants a prolonged civil war here.
Gaddafi brought this on himself, and I have to wonder at anybody that sheds a tear because that vile bastard is about to get his ass hammered.
I hope it's not too late for that. Protesters seem to have been almost defeated already. I fully agree with the UN resolution, but I wish it had come a week earlier.
That's exactly what I was thinking. If you've got heat you need to get rid of, can't you use that heat to do so? They still turn water to steam. Can't you use that to drive a generator? Presumably a different kind than when the plant is running, but it only needs to power the cooling system, rather than an entire city.
And if that doesn't work, something with giant heat sinks and stuff like that. It sounds all pretty obvious to me, but I'm no nuclear engineer.
Without an earthquake (one of the biggest in recorded history, I might add) to disrupt the reactors, the Fukushima Daiichi plant could have continued happily along with no major problems.
You mean: as long as nothing goes wrong, nothing's wrong? The point is that you need to make sure nothing goes wrong. Blind faith doesn't get you very far.
Good time to be somewhere else, granted, but this is hardly a disaster yet.
If you don't think this is a disaster, then I really wonder what you would consider a disaster. It's not as big a disaster as the earthquake+tsunami itself, but it's a disaster nonetheless.
As long as non-essential personnel get the hell out of there, and as long as they either get the reaction under control or start taking steps now to contain a meltdown, there should be no major issues.
Ah, I get it now. You've missed about a week's worth of news. Non-essential personnel is already out of there, the reaction is already under control (for now at least), and they have been working all week to contain the partial metldown and prevent worse. And yet there are major issues.
A bit of contamination, but Hiroshima AND Chernobyl are both relatively safe, compared to what nuclear doomsayers would have us believe about the lasting effects.
Relatively safe compared to what exactly? Are you aware of the number of birth defects after Chernobyl? The number of people who died there? Did you know that Chernobyl is still highly radioactive?
But what's a few thousand ruined lives? That's not really anything to get upset about, is it?
In fact, there's been more negative impact from coal and oil based power, even since the advent of nuclear power; hell, even if we include nuclear WEAPONS, there's been far more negative environmental impact made by fossil fuels than radiation. If I had a choice of living next door to a nuclear power plant, or a coal power plant, I'd pick nuclear any day of the week.
Sure, coal is a lot worse. But that doesn't make nuclear a good option. Certainly not nuclear plants that aren't safe enough.
Nuclear power is only bad when something goes horribly wrong. Consider how many nuclear reactors there are in the world. How many reactive cores are currently operating. Now exactly how many times have we had a Chernobyl-scale disaster?
How many Chernobyl-scale disasters do you want? Is one not already one too many? Nuclear power is currently only a small percentage of the world's energy production, and yet we're seeing meltdowns and near-meltdowns almost every 10 years. And stories of radioactive leakage are a lot more common than that.
The mistake was also that a nuclear power plant near a fault line was only designed to withstand a 7.9 earthquake. That's good enough for most earthquakes, but bigger earthquakes are possible, and with something as dangerous as risky as nuclear power, you don't want to take any chances.
Another mistake is that it relied on outside infrastructure for cooling. When off-site power dropped, they had to rely on diesel generators which lost their fuel due to the tsunami, and the backup batteries didn't have enough power to run the cooling system for the days required to cool everything down.
Personally I think nuclear power plants need some sort of passive cooling system that works automatically, even if everybody on the site drops dead and all outside power is cut. No idea what such a system would look like, though.
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Over here in the UK we've pretty well shifted over to the same billion as everybody else, 10^9 rather than 10^12.
That's moving away from the same billion as everybody else. Most countries I'm aware of use 10^12. It's only the US and now the UK that promote short billions, as far as I'm aware.
Honestly, what makes more sense:
million = 1,000,000^1
billion = 1,000,000^2
trillion = 1,000,000^3
or:
million = 1000 * 1000^1
billion = 1000 * 1000^2
trillion = 1000 * 1000^3
I think the UK uses the same weird billions as the US, though it's the US that's to blame for that weird "short billion" (as I sometimes see it called).
Most of the rest of the world is still sticking to the sensible system, I believe.
Exactly my point. Looked like an excellent phone at first, but made sucky by Motorola's policies. I'll never be buying Motorola again either.
With a locked phone they can give the provider control over the phone (read: appstore ), and the telecom provider. I think Motorola hopes to make extra money from the provider instead of the consumer.
Exactly, and that's the real problem here: to Motorola, we aren't the customer. Networks are. They want us to take a hike. There's no reason for us to want Motorola phones. They're forgetting where the money comes from, and deserve to go bankrupt for their backwards business decisions.
I like the Milestone's design quite a lot. If it hadn't been locked down, I would have praised it as the best phone of its generation (2009/2010). It looks good, it can take a lot of abuse, and while the keyboard could have been a lot better it's not awful by any means. But the locked bootloader and Motorola's shitty attitude ruins it.
Even with the cracked bootloader, the company's attitude is not good, so I won't buy a phone from them.
Nobody should. Unfortunately, a lot of people already bought from Motorola before their crippling policies became common knowledge. And those people now finally get the option to upgrade beyond Android 2.1.
I do think it's laziness. There are a lot of people who have no idea what to do with certificates. Have you ever noticed how many websites use invalid/expired certificates? People are lazy when it comes to https.
Exactly. I really appreciate that the EU and US don't decide to act on their own here, but respond to the people of Libya and work with the African Union and Arabic League on this. It's about time we showed some respect for people outside the US and EU.
The Register? Are you sure? I haven't read this piece yet, but a few days ago they had an article explaining how this disaster proved how safe nuclear technology was. I do enjoy reading The Register occasionally, but it's not exactly an objective and unbiased source of information. Try iaea.org instead.
I have a lot of respect for the workers at the plant who risk their health and work hard to prevent a disaster. But I also think it's an irresponsible policy to require this kind of heroism from people. I have only contempt for the people who ignored the IAEA warning about Japanese reactors a couple of years ago, and for the people who are still deciding to build new reactors near fault lines without sufficient safety precautions to withstand the worst earthquakes.
The reactor should have been safe. Better able to withstand earthquake and tsunami, and more, better, and more reliable backup systems.
Is it really about his defense? TFA says Sony needs his Paypal info the determine whether they can sue him in California, rather than in New Jersey. His alleged crime is not defending himself, it's cracking the PS3 security. As I understand it, Sony wants to prove that he did it for money and was funded by people in California, so they can sue him there, which is apparently better for Sony than suing him in New Jersey.
Maybe he's a traditionalist. Somehow coups seem to be colonels' territory. No idea why.
I doubt it. The US hasn't been terribly eager to interfere in Libya. France, on the other hand, has.
I think it's going to be Mirage and Rafale strikes tonight.
It violates Libya's sovereignty.
It violates the "sovereignty" of the totally illegitimate dictatorship run by an insane monster.
It is actively invited and indeed demanded by the group which appears to represent the people of Libya.
Why are Ghadafi's interests "sovereign", but the citizens of Libya's interests "non-sovereign"?
Very well put. This needs to be modded up a lot.
Well put. This sets a better precedent than we've seen in a long time.
it's very difficult to convince the world that the no-fly action has nothing to do with the price of oil.
So don't. Oil is a part of every modern war. It's a strategic resource and everyone knows it so call a duck a duck. Furthermore, the United States and Europe need oil to fuel our economies and way of life. If the Libyan government, after Gadhafi is gone, is grateful and willing to sell to us then I say, "lets make a deal".
Khadaffi was also perfectly willing to sell oil. It's his oil money that he's currently using to pay his mercenaries. If the US and EU cared just about the oil, they could just as easily support Khadaffi and bring this to a quick end.
The problem is: Khadaffi is a brutal dictator, his people hate him, and he bombs them for their insolence. It's a humanitarian issue. It's the UN (EU, US, AU and AL) finally, grudgingly, accepting that rulers need to serve their people, not bomb them. (And this is hard to accept for people in power. We need more revolutions more often to remind them of this.)
Think about it in the context of what would happen if this civilian uprising were occurring in the Britain. The authorities would use varying levels of force to quell the unrest. At times, these levels would be appropriate. At other times, they would be excessive. The question of whether it would be legal or not would hinge on the actions of individuals in the military or police. Not with the over-arching governmental body.
The moment Khadaffi used planes to bomb peaceful protesters, he lost every shred of legitimacy he may have had. If a ruler is so unpopular that he can't quell unrest with just police and soldiers acting as police, if he has to resort to using artillery and foreign mercenaries against his own people, he needs to step down.
The basic idea behind the no-fly zone is not to overthrow Khadaffi, it's to stop him from bombing his own people. Really, this should have happened immediately after the first bombings against protesters. At that time, no other support would have been necessary, and the Libyan people could have overthrown their dictator on their own. But now it looks like they're going to need a bit more support than that, and that makes it a more political issue.
Afghanistan on the other hand, the US unilaterally went in,
Not even unilaterally. NATO supported the US there, as 9/11 was an attack on a member of the alliance. The US wanted to do the initial attack themselves, but pretty soon after, there were French and German troops on the ground there.
But if any country did it unilaterally, they would be hated for eternity, a la the US in Iraq.
Not for all eternity. People are already forgetting about Iraq.
The real problem is that the US keeps coming up with new reasons to hate them, like ACTA, prosecuting WikiLeaks, and who knows what's next? Those too will be easily forgiven once the US turns around. The US got immediately got a fresh pile of credit merely by electing Obama, though most of that has been squandered already. But it can and will happen again. People have short memories. Don't worry.
There is the fact that this is a people's uprising following the wave of protests in neighbouring countries. I think the Libyan people would have been perfectly capable of liberating their own country if Khaddaffi hadn't had air support to beat them down. A week ago, a no-fly zone would probably have spelled the end for him. But now, I'm not so sure anymore. The rebels are almost defeated. If the UN resolution allows bombing of the Libyan army and mercenaries, that could make a big difference, but I really hope the people haven't had their spirit sufficiently crushed already. An uprising this large is rare, and can easily lose steam.
And I don't think anyone wants a prolonged civil war here.
Gaddafi brought this on himself, and I have to wonder at anybody that sheds a tear because that vile bastard is about to get his ass hammered.
I hope it's not too late for that. Protesters seem to have been almost defeated already. I fully agree with the UN resolution, but I wish it had come a week earlier.
I've just got out of my shower and can't see through my living-room windows as they've all fogged up.
That's incredibly convenient if your neighbours live close enough to look into your living room.
That's exactly what I was thinking. If you've got heat you need to get rid of, can't you use that heat to do so? They still turn water to steam. Can't you use that to drive a generator? Presumably a different kind than when the plant is running, but it only needs to power the cooling system, rather than an entire city.
And if that doesn't work, something with giant heat sinks and stuff like that. It sounds all pretty obvious to me, but I'm no nuclear engineer.
Without an earthquake (one of the biggest in recorded history, I might add) to disrupt the reactors, the Fukushima Daiichi plant could have continued happily along with no major problems.
You mean: as long as nothing goes wrong, nothing's wrong? The point is that you need to make sure nothing goes wrong. Blind faith doesn't get you very far.
Good time to be somewhere else, granted, but this is hardly a disaster yet.
If you don't think this is a disaster, then I really wonder what you would consider a disaster. It's not as big a disaster as the earthquake+tsunami itself, but it's a disaster nonetheless.
As long as non-essential personnel get the hell out of there, and as long as they either get the reaction under control or start taking steps now to contain a meltdown, there should be no major issues.
Ah, I get it now. You've missed about a week's worth of news. Non-essential personnel is already out of there, the reaction is already under control (for now at least), and they have been working all week to contain the partial metldown and prevent worse. And yet there are major issues.
A bit of contamination, but Hiroshima AND Chernobyl are both relatively safe, compared to what nuclear doomsayers would have us believe about the lasting effects.
Relatively safe compared to what exactly? Are you aware of the number of birth defects after Chernobyl? The number of people who died there? Did you know that Chernobyl is still highly radioactive?
But what's a few thousand ruined lives? That's not really anything to get upset about, is it?
In fact, there's been more negative impact from coal and oil based power, even since the advent of nuclear power; hell, even if we include nuclear WEAPONS, there's been far more negative environmental impact made by fossil fuels than radiation. If I had a choice of living next door to a nuclear power plant, or a coal power plant, I'd pick nuclear any day of the week.
Sure, coal is a lot worse. But that doesn't make nuclear a good option. Certainly not nuclear plants that aren't safe enough.
Nuclear power is only bad when something goes horribly wrong. Consider how many nuclear reactors there are in the world. How many reactive cores are currently operating. Now exactly how many times have we had a Chernobyl-scale disaster?
How many Chernobyl-scale disasters do you want? Is one not already one too many? Nuclear power is currently only a small percentage of the world's energy production, and yet we're seeing meltdowns and near-meltdowns almost every 10 years. And stories of radioactive leakage are a lot more common than that.
The mistake was also that a nuclear power plant near a fault line was only designed to withstand a 7.9 earthquake. That's good enough for most earthquakes, but bigger earthquakes are possible, and with something as dangerous as risky as nuclear power, you don't want to take any chances.
Another mistake is that it relied on outside infrastructure for cooling. When off-site power dropped, they had to rely on diesel generators which lost their fuel due to the tsunami, and the backup batteries didn't have enough power to run the cooling system for the days required to cool everything down.
Personally I think nuclear power plants need some sort of passive cooling system that works automatically, even if everybody on the site drops dead and all outside power is cut. No idea what such a system would look like, though.