IIRC the ratio between women and men affected by breast cancer is 100:1. So it makes a big difference.
However, those statistics are about breast cancer in general. Maybe someone with a medical background can enlighten us about the specific ratio of BRCA1.
I totally agree. Thinking of it a city on the south pole could offer just as much attraction as Dubai (provided with the same wealth). Luxury hotels are all the same around the globe, so why stay in one which is located in a city which features an uncomfortable environment and very few non-artificial points of interest.
I could be wrong in believing that the hype around Dubai will vanish in the near future. Las Vegas for example is still doing well;)
It is understandable that the Emirate of Dubai wants to diversify its economy. In the long run they will be better off with oil-related industries like logistics and especially shipping and aviation. After all they have the only natural harbor in the Persian Gulf area and the location is perfect for an intercontinental hub. And when oil becomes scarce Dubai might be one of the few still being able to fuel all these planes and ships...
At least those pento blades don't consume a whooping 289 W while you use them. Somehow most previews don't even mention power consumption. The author of the article linked above actually states about this card, that it "properly balances GPU performance and power efficiency". By that logic everything which does not start to burn is power efficient...
AFAIK no SSD apart from Intel's newest line provides any real advantage over spinning disks. They are faster in some areas, but in others they perform very poorly (write times for example). You'll get far more realistic numbers if you specify a real file in of. Here is the difference:
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=/dev/null
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 2.249553 secs (31062211 bytes/sec)
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=Herbietest
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 3.291721 secs (21227829 bytes/sec)
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=/dev/null
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 0.876336 secs (79736653 bytes/sec)
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=/dev/null
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 0.843004 secs (82889392 bytes/sec)
The last two runs illustrate that caches speed up the process, so a real file should be even slower than in this example.
If you are talking about RAID 0 you are almost correct (two disks in RAID 0 only get close to 2x the speed - they will never reach it) . The problem is that all data is gone in case that one hdd dies and the chances for that grow with every disk you add. The probability is 1 (1 p)^n (n being the number of disks). So at a failure rate of 2% per disk in 3 years you get 8% for 4 disks or even 28% for 8. Of course you could compensate this by combining parity with striping (RAID 0+1 or RAID 5 for example), but you'll have to invest into more disks (higher cost) and they will not perform as fast as a RAID 0.
I'm not sure if Micron's demonstration is a big leap forward or part of their marketing efforts. But in case that this technology is viable we might see similar SDDs from Intel very soon, because Micron is connected with Intel over the joint venture IM Flash Technologies, which produces NAND flash.
Since Siemens is leaving the joint venture I guess that Fujitsu will unify their product lines. So this offer will either be very short-lived or they'll bring it to all countries soon (third option is that they will only offer it in EMEA regions, which wouldn't make much sense IMO).
BTW: Siemens should get rid of the remaining IT-related divisions and focus on things they are good at (like steam turbines).
One thing I'd like to add: There are not enough military ships in the world to really control the affected area. More ships result in higher safety, but as long as cargo and tourist ships pass the area unguarded the pirates still have a chance.
In my opinion any real solution has to change something within Somali territory. It's not like the pirates can switch to safer jobs on land when the international efforts become unpleasant.
So when the Charles County Sheriff's Office wanted to mount a major drug sting, they moved the "Welcome to Charles County" sign back a hundred feet or so, and would arrange deals just across the border. We put away a lot of bad people for a long time. Brilliant.
I think nobody would have a problem with such a trick. But in my eyes it's not related because the laws and jurisdiction is the same in Charles County and the county they thought to be in*. They get charged for the very same crime - the attitude of the judge does not (formally) play a role.
It's a totally different story when the FBI tricks someone to enter the US and he gets charged for crimes not committed on US soil - especially when the person is from a country having a extradition treaty with the US (Germany is one of them). In this case extradition is not even necessary because Valve can sue in Germany just like any European company. Even US porn companies sue individuals in the EU for pirating their "movies" so it can't be that hard;)
In my opinion the possible consequences of a crime should be well defined. If you deal with dope in Singapore and get the death penalty it's tragic, but consequential - it's well known that Singapore has some of the strictest laws regarding drugs and we can't tell a sovereign country how they punish crimes committed within their borders. Imagine the outrage if Singapore sent out invitations to the Dutch. I know that would be surreal, but it would follow the same reasoning.
*Feel free to correct me on this - maybe you are talking about the counties which belong to Virginia and I don't know much about drug laws in the states of the US.
It's not necessarily a windows tax. MS put some (non-public) limitations on netbooks running XP. For example it's pretty obvious that only 160GB and 1 GB RAM are allowed. For that reason the EeeBox running XP ships in most of Europe with half the RAM as the Linux version. The price of an additional GB does not match the cost of an OEM license.
When netbooks get better specs this will become even more obvious. I guess that people will start buying the Linux version and put XP on it. Or MS will change the terms again - originally the HDD had to be smaller than 80GB, so they already doubled this limit.
You of course won't notice a difference on non-HD TV, but on a computer monitor or HDTV the difference is quite large and well worth the upgrade in my opinion.
It really depends on display size and viewing distance. The human eye can only distinguish points which are 1 arch-minute apart (it's actually more in the center, but less around). Here are some ratios for distance times display size (at 16:9):
1280x720 2.33
1366x768 2.19
1920x1080 1,55
So in order to see "everything" on a 50" display running full HD, one's maximal distance to the screen is 1.97 m (or 6.46 feet). Of course the picture will still look better/sharper at higher distances. But there are lots of usage scenarios in which Blueray makes no sense at all.
At home I watch TV on a 25" screen at around 3m (10 feet) distance. Since I do not want to sit closer and I don't like to buy a larger screen (dominating the room) there is not much benefit Bluray can provide. I'd rather invest my money in a media server and some construction which hides the device inflation below my TV.
In general I totally agree. In some cases like free software or services based on advertisements it might even make more sense to give it some understatement by labeling it "beta" in the beginning. Just look at google's services... Another aspect is that the mere fact that the company skipped several versions will spread much faster if the product is buggy. In this case it will amplify bad reputation IMO.
I'm working on the conception of a DMS package for small companies since a few weeks and we haven't even discussed this issue yet (I'm not a programmer btw). I guess that we won't advertise a version when we start selling it. We currently call it $Product_Name without any number and I don't see any reason why we should add something for our customers. Of course there will be something like 1.0 in the about section, but mostly for support reasons. It's only natural to assume that the first release is 1.0 so there is no reason to brag about it. Bugfixes might lead to 1.0.1 and new functionality to 1.1 and so on. When customer feedback demands significant changes we might release 1.5 as a free update. And whenever we charge it will be a different major version like 2.0. I don't see how this approach will hurt our sales in any way. You might argue that DMS doesn't affect normal users, but the pattern is the same: People will not take you seriously if you skip 5 versions and deliver a bad product. And if the app is really good it won't matter to them if it's 6.0 or 200.0.
On the other hand lower wages make the US' economy more competitive, which could lead to a higher employment rate. So it's really a two-sided problem.
However, when it comes to real specialists I don't see how low entry barriers will affect wages, because those people will move to wherever they earn the most. If you look at wages for IT-specialists* in Europe for example they are not much lower in Poland than in the UK, even though the general population earns much less in Poland. The reason for this is that if the employers would offer less those IT workers would just move on to Germany, France, UK etc..
*Not talking about the guy who runs the Exchange server or fixes your printer problems.
I don't know much about the structure of the IRAA, but its local puppet Gema collects royalties for playing a song in public in Germany (at least if there's a business behind it). They even collect fees from businesses which have a radio running in public areas of their venues (restaurants, stores, hotels...). It's a stupid system and I wouldn't mention it if Germany wasn't the 2nd largest music market in the world.
So basically whenever "I'm looking for freedom" runs on some station in Germany there's a big check traveling to the US or wherever David Hasselhoff currently lies on the ground trying to eat a burger:) Like I said I don't have a clue how the RIAA deals with such issues, but the Gema alone should provide enough incentive to keep the current status.
Gravity - the only force you can't avoid by shielding. So unless you do it all in free fall to create a similar experience you are pretty much stuck with space.
Btw: I remember someone produced a porn movie using parabolic flight when porn tried to go mainstream. Since I haven't heard of it again I assume that sex in free fall isn't as exciting as the illusion of banging the girl next door;)
The only reason I posted here is that this documentary was so interesting in many aspects that I wanted to share this story. Ironically I watched it the evening before I took a flight to London and stayed up way longer than planned. So when I arrived in Luton and showed my ID to a Sikh I must have looked like a zombie (at least that's how I felt).
To wrap it up: I'm exactly neutral when it comes to the introduction of IDs in the UK since it's not my cup of tea and as a good EU citizen I should not care how other members deal with internal issues (at least as long as the freedom of persons, capital and goods isn't touched). Nevertheless it is kind of odd that German customs has to deal with such a flood of Nigerian passports going to the UK (and we are most likely just a minor interstation in the global mail system). To me it's one aspect proving that the system in the UK is not sufficient when it comes to identifying individuals. I don't care how it's being solved, but if you look at other EU members it works rather well with IDs. Compared to an energy bill an ID provides actually less information to private companies. But of course the UK can do whatever they want and if they find a solution to this problem which does not involve IDs it is totally fine...
I recently watched a documentary about customs on German TV. They check everything which goes trough Germany by mail somewhere near Frankfurt. They interviewed one guy who is specialized in finding passports. He said he finds dozens of fake Nigerian passports going to the UK every day. They are usually hidden in DVD boxes or simply wrapped in tinfoil. His explanation was that Nigerian passports are rather easy to fake/modify and that it's rather easy to apply for welfare with such a passport in the UK since there is no obligation to register your permanent residence. So with 5 fake passports you can collect welfare 5 times (going to different cities).
I don't know how much of this really works the way he described it, but this seems to be a very good reason to introduce id cards...
I think you are looking at it from the wrong angle: I was talking about programs refusing to run when in a mode higher than 256. It wasn't a driver related issue, but the program expected a color mode less or equal to 256. So at 16.7 millions this error message came on...
You got it right. But it actually says Paper Cassette Load Letter.
And btw: I just read the article on wikipedia and I seem to be wrong in my OP by assuming that there is no PC LOAD A4. As stubborn as they were they at least considered that Letter is not the only format in the world. But still the original error message was not uncommon in A4 countries...
This solution provides 2^24 addresses which is about 16.7 million. I don't know how huge their address space currently is, but given their population size it's pretty obvious that this wouldn't work out (IIRC around 10% of the population had access to the internet in 2006).
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC the ratio between women and men affected by breast cancer is 100:1. So it makes a big difference.
However, those statistics are about breast cancer in general. Maybe someone with a medical background can enlighten us about the specific ratio of BRCA1.
I totally agree. Thinking of it a city on the south pole could offer just as much attraction as Dubai (provided with the same wealth). Luxury hotels are all the same around the globe, so why stay in one which is located in a city which features an uncomfortable environment and very few non-artificial points of interest.
;)
I could be wrong in believing that the hype around Dubai will vanish in the near future. Las Vegas for example is still doing well
It is understandable that the Emirate of Dubai wants to diversify its economy. In the long run they will be better off with oil-related industries like logistics and especially shipping and aviation. After all they have the only natural harbor in the Persian Gulf area and the location is perfect for an intercontinental hub. And when oil becomes scarce Dubai might be one of the few still being able to fuel all these planes and ships...
At least those pento blades don't consume a whooping 289 W while you use them. Somehow most previews don't even mention power consumption. The author of the article linked above actually states about this card, that it "properly balances GPU performance and power efficiency". By that logic everything which does not start to burn is power efficient...
Not at all: If a disk in RAID 0 fails all data is gone. If one block within a SSD fails it will affect only the files which had parts stored in them.
They are not using multiple disks. The reason why the article mentions two disks is because they needed a source and a target.
AFAIK no SSD apart from Intel's newest line provides any real advantage over spinning disks. They are faster in some areas, but in others they perform very poorly (write times for example). You'll get far more realistic numbers if you specify a real file in of. Here is the difference:
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=/dev/null
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 2.249553 secs (31062211 bytes/sec)
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=Herbietest
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 3.291721 secs (21227829 bytes/sec)
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=/dev/null
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 0.876336 secs (79736653 bytes/sec)
Desktop nerdbert$ dd if=test.zip of=/dev/null
136476+1 records in
136476+1 records out
69876088 bytes transferred in 0.843004 secs (82889392 bytes/sec)
The last two runs illustrate that caches speed up the process, so a real file should be even slower than in this example.
If you are talking about RAID 0 you are almost correct (two disks in RAID 0 only get close to 2x the speed - they will never reach it) . The problem is that all data is gone in case that one hdd dies and the chances for that grow with every disk you add. The probability is 1 (1 p)^n (n being the number of disks). So at a failure rate of 2% per disk in 3 years you get 8% for 4 disks or even 28% for 8. Of course you could compensate this by combining parity with striping (RAID 0+1 or RAID 5 for example), but you'll have to invest into more disks (higher cost) and they will not perform as fast as a RAID 0.
I'm not sure if Micron's demonstration is a big leap forward or part of their marketing efforts. But in case that this technology is viable we might see similar SDDs from Intel very soon, because Micron is connected with Intel over the joint venture IM Flash Technologies, which produces NAND flash.
Since Siemens is leaving the joint venture I guess that Fujitsu will unify their product lines. So this offer will either be very short-lived or they'll bring it to all countries soon (third option is that they will only offer it in EMEA regions, which wouldn't make much sense IMO).
BTW: Siemens should get rid of the remaining IT-related divisions and focus on things they are good at (like steam turbines).
One thing I'd like to add: There are not enough military ships in the world to really control the affected area. More ships result in higher safety, but as long as cargo and tourist ships pass the area unguarded the pirates still have a chance.
In my opinion any real solution has to change something within Somali territory. It's not like the pirates can switch to safer jobs on land when the international efforts become unpleasant.
I think nobody would have a problem with such a trick. But in my eyes it's not related because the laws and jurisdiction is the same in Charles County and the county they thought to be in*. They get charged for the very same crime - the attitude of the judge does not (formally) play a role.
;)
It's a totally different story when the FBI tricks someone to enter the US and he gets charged for crimes not committed on US soil - especially when the person is from a country having a extradition treaty with the US (Germany is one of them). In this case extradition is not even necessary because Valve can sue in Germany just like any European company. Even US porn companies sue individuals in the EU for pirating their "movies" so it can't be that hard
In my opinion the possible consequences of a crime should be well defined. If you deal with dope in Singapore and get the death penalty it's tragic, but consequential - it's well known that Singapore has some of the strictest laws regarding drugs and we can't tell a sovereign country how they punish crimes committed within their borders. Imagine the outrage if Singapore sent out invitations to the Dutch. I know that would be surreal, but it would follow the same reasoning.
*Feel free to correct me on this - maybe you are talking about the counties which belong to Virginia and I don't know much about drug laws in the states of the US.
It's not necessarily a windows tax. MS put some (non-public) limitations on netbooks running XP. For example it's pretty obvious that only 160GB and 1 GB RAM are allowed. For that reason the EeeBox running XP ships in most of Europe with half the RAM as the Linux version. The price of an additional GB does not match the cost of an OEM license.
When netbooks get better specs this will become even more obvious. I guess that people will start buying the Linux version and put XP on it. Or MS will change the terms again - originally the HDD had to be smaller than 80GB, so they already doubled this limit.
It really depends on display size and viewing distance. The human eye can only distinguish points which are 1 arch-minute apart (it's actually more in the center, but less around). Here are some ratios for distance times display size (at 16:9):
1280x720 2.33
1366x768 2.19
1920x1080 1,55
So in order to see "everything" on a 50" display running full HD, one's maximal distance to the screen is 1.97 m (or 6.46 feet). Of course the picture will still look better/sharper at higher distances. But there are lots of usage scenarios in which Blueray makes no sense at all.
At home I watch TV on a 25" screen at around 3m (10 feet) distance. Since I do not want to sit closer and I don't like to buy a larger screen (dominating the room) there is not much benefit Bluray can provide. I'd rather invest my money in a media server and some construction which hides the device inflation below my TV.
Exactly. I just expect the development of new materials to follow Moore's Law. It's the weird hippy cousin of 5 year plans...
In general I totally agree. In some cases like free software or services based on advertisements it might even make more sense to give it some understatement by labeling it "beta" in the beginning. Just look at google's services...
Another aspect is that the mere fact that the company skipped several versions will spread much faster if the product is buggy. In this case it will amplify bad reputation IMO.
I'm working on the conception of a DMS package for small companies since a few weeks and we haven't even discussed this issue yet (I'm not a programmer btw). I guess that we won't advertise a version when we start selling it. We currently call it $Product_Name without any number and I don't see any reason why we should add something for our customers. Of course there will be something like 1.0 in the about section, but mostly for support reasons. It's only natural to assume that the first release is 1.0 so there is no reason to brag about it. Bugfixes might lead to 1.0.1 and new functionality to 1.1 and so on. When customer feedback demands significant changes we might release 1.5 as a free update. And whenever we charge it will be a different major version like 2.0. I don't see how this approach will hurt our sales in any way. You might argue that DMS doesn't affect normal users, but the pattern is the same: People will not take you seriously if you skip 5 versions and deliver a bad product. And if the app is really good it won't matter to them if it's 6.0 or 200.0.
On the other hand lower wages make the US' economy more competitive, which could lead to a higher employment rate. So it's really a two-sided problem.
However, when it comes to real specialists I don't see how low entry barriers will affect wages, because those people will move to wherever they earn the most. If you look at wages for IT-specialists* in Europe for example they are not much lower in Poland than in the UK, even though the general population earns much less in Poland. The reason for this is that if the employers would offer less those IT workers would just move on to Germany, France, UK etc..
*Not talking about the guy who runs the Exchange server or fixes your printer problems.
I don't know much about the structure of the IRAA, but its local puppet Gema collects royalties for playing a song in public in Germany (at least if there's a business behind it). They even collect fees from businesses which have a radio running in public areas of their venues (restaurants, stores, hotels ...). It's a stupid system and I wouldn't mention it if Germany wasn't the 2nd largest music market in the world.
:)
So basically whenever "I'm looking for freedom" runs on some station in Germany there's a big check traveling to the US or wherever David Hasselhoff currently lies on the ground trying to eat a burger
Like I said I don't have a clue how the RIAA deals with such issues, but the Gema alone should provide enough incentive to keep the current status.
Gravity - the only force you can't avoid by shielding. So unless you do it all in free fall to create a similar experience you are pretty much stuck with space.
;)
Btw: I remember someone produced a porn movie using parabolic flight when porn tried to go mainstream. Since I haven't heard of it again I assume that sex in free fall isn't as exciting as the illusion of banging the girl next door
Even topics which don't get much attention anymore score much higher in 2008:
Napster: (1,130,000) 17.300.000
Millenium: (1,170,000) 23,900,000
Kursk: (98,300) 3,040,000
I guess 3 factors play a role: Google has better spiders, the net is growing and we have more redundancy.
One thing I haven't figured out yet: Have they filtered results which the current version does not display anymore for legal reasons?
The only reason I posted here is that this documentary was so interesting in many aspects that I wanted to share this story. Ironically I watched it the evening before I took a flight to London and stayed up way longer than planned. So when I arrived in Luton and showed my ID to a Sikh I must have looked like a zombie (at least that's how I felt).
To wrap it up: I'm exactly neutral when it comes to the introduction of IDs in the UK since it's not my cup of tea and as a good EU citizen I should not care how other members deal with internal issues (at least as long as the freedom of persons, capital and goods isn't touched). Nevertheless it is kind of odd that German customs has to deal with such a flood of Nigerian passports going to the UK (and we are most likely just a minor interstation in the global mail system). To me it's one aspect proving that the system in the UK is not sufficient when it comes to identifying individuals. I don't care how it's being solved, but if you look at other EU members it works rather well with IDs. Compared to an energy bill an ID provides actually less information to private companies. But of course the UK can do whatever they want and if they find a solution to this problem which does not involve IDs it is totally fine...
I recently watched a documentary about customs on German TV. They check everything which goes trough Germany by mail somewhere near Frankfurt. They interviewed one guy who is specialized in finding passports. He said he finds dozens of fake Nigerian passports going to the UK every day. They are usually hidden in DVD boxes or simply wrapped in tinfoil. His explanation was that Nigerian passports are rather easy to fake/modify and that it's rather easy to apply for welfare with such a passport in the UK since there is no obligation to register your permanent residence. So with 5 fake passports you can collect welfare 5 times (going to different cities).
I don't know how much of this really works the way he described it, but this seems to be a very good reason to introduce id cards...
I think you are looking at it from the wrong angle: I was talking about programs refusing to run when in a mode higher than 256. It wasn't a driver related issue, but the program expected a color mode less or equal to 256. So at 16.7 millions this error message came on...
You got it right. But it actually says Paper Cassette Load Letter.
And btw: I just read the article on wikipedia and I seem to be wrong in my OP by assuming that there is no PC LOAD A4. As stubborn as they were they at least considered that Letter is not the only format in the world. But still the original error message was not uncommon in A4 countries...
In similar vein: PC LOAD LETTER
Btw: Of course they didn't modify this message for countries which don't use the Letter format, making it even more confusing...
cd /usr/src/linux && egrep -ir "( fuck)|( shit)" *
Technically most are not error messages, but they are quite interesting.
One I'm missing in the list is "Too many colors". Some very old windows programs refused to work when gfx was set to more than 256 colors.
Seems like your friend cited George Best
This solution provides 2^24 addresses which is about 16.7 million. I don't know how huge their address space currently is, but given their population size it's pretty obvious that this wouldn't work out (IIRC around 10% of the population had access to the internet in 2006).