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Comment Re:Chinese (Score 1) 514

Ahh, I see. You were referring to the youngsters born in the 1940s :-) It seems the liturgy was translated by a committee in the early 1960s. I would have thought the creed would have been translated before that, though. Isn't is used in some Presbyterian churches?

Oddly enough, I remembered the creed as "Tha mi creidsinn" but when I Googled it it said "Tha sinn" so I assumed my memory was at fault.

Comment Re:Chinese (Score 1) 514

but in Scottish Gaelic only conservative speakers use "creididh mi" (or more idiomatically "cha chreid mi" -- I don't believe) and increasing numbers of youngsters (and learners) are saying "tha mi a' creidsinn" -- "I am believing".

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding (I will get around to around to studying languages some time!), but that doesn't seem to be a particularly new formation to me. The Nicene Creed begins, "Tha sinn a' creidsinn ann an aon Dia" and that translation has been around a while. At least since I was a child and had to learn it at school ;-)

Comment Re:Chinese (Score 1) 514

although Scottish Gaelic has recently developed a tendency to use the continuous aspect where it probably shouldn't be.

What does this mean? I assume that "shouldn't" is linguistic shorthand for "historically didn't but now do"; but I mean can you give me an example of where this happens and has changed. Thanks!

Comment Re:The first rule of semiconductor manufacture is. (Score 1) 64

When was the last time the number of transistors per cm2 doubles in 18 months? 2203? 2004?

Actually, it's every 2 years. The 18 month period was from David House and referred to computing power (due to the combination of transister count increasing and speed increasing).

And the answer to your question would appear to be 2011 :)

Comment Re:Bitcoins built-in failure (Score 1) 600

Oh, and Inflation does not depend on exponential growth, just on any kind of growth. Nothing depends on exponential growth. But apparently you don't have the slightest idea of what is exponential growth either. Just to give you some numbers a growth of 4-5% a year tends to generate a very healthy inflation.

Any kind of percentage growth is exponential growth. Taking your 4% as an example, means doubling in size every 17.67 years. In other words, you can consider it as 100% growth over that term.

You can calculate the time it takes to reach 100% growth, at rate r%, with the following (I'm using "ln" to represent the natural logarithm since that's what spreadsheets use):

=ln(2) / ln(1 + r)

So, for 5% growth per annum, for example, it's

=ln(2) / ln(1.05)

which is 14.21 years.

That's why percentage growth of any kind is unsustainable over the longer term.

Comment Re:Oh, crap, it's a wiki (Score 2) 299

I once tried Inkscape and realized in disgust that the "manual" was a wiki.

No, it's not. What gave you that idea?

What you really need to try, though, are the Tutorials. They're under the Help menu and actually consist of SVG documents opened in a normal Inkscape window. It's simple yet brilliant -- when talking about a feature it simply suggests you try it there and then on that document. You should give it a try. Inkscape is an example of documentation done *right*!

Comment Re:HB Inflation (Score 1) 2

Linux donations to the Humble Bundle have been inflated by some improbably large contributions --- obviously not from individual gamers.

No they haven't. Remove the "large" donations and you'd change the average by about a cent or two.

the return from Linux is $625,000. Split among developers, charities, and the Humble Bundle itself.

Oh no! It could be split, say, 10 ways between all those options. And then, if you're an indie game developer, there might be as many as three of you in the company! That only gives you $20,000 each for the two weeks! Barely worth getting out of bed for, huh?

Don't you microsofties have to spend some of your time on research? Or are you allowed to make up whatever crap you like as long as it's negative to humanity?

Music

Submission + - Humble Bundle: Linux Users Pay Most For Music Too (humblebundle.com) 2

dylan_- writes: It's well known that in the various game Humble Bundles — pay whatever you want for a variety of games — Linux users have consistently been the ones who voluntarily pay the most. Some have attributed this to the lack of games on Linux but the latest Bundle is for music rather than games and the trend continues. Linux users paying an average of $11.95, Mac $9.92 and Windows $7.50. Perhaps the old complaint of it being more expensive to hire Linux sys-admins is correct, meaning they tend to earn more and leaving Linux users with more disposable income?

Comment Re:Holy Crap! (Score 1) 142

Uhhhh, yeah. Unlike Finland though, we have to connect up all the states together. That's how the Internet workie workie.

Quoted for sheer, mind-buggering stupidity. You are officially too dumb for slashdot. Please seek immediate medical attention.

Holy fuck, how do these people even breathe?!

Comment Re:"Breaking records" is bogus. (Score 1) 218

Assume the climate is completely unchanging (rather than systematically drifting) and the measurements are randomly distributed (a multi-modal distribution around the various weather patterns typical for the date).

They're either randomly distributed or have a modal distribution. They can't be both: the terms are mutually exclusive.

Then this year's new sample is exactly as likely to be the new record (in a given direction) as any of the others. 1 in 181.

No, because they're clearly *not* randomly distributed. The idea that the temperature on the 5th of August, in any particular location, is equally likely to be -10 degrees, 30 degrees or 70 degrees, is clearly and obviously ridiculous.

See, now I'm left in a quandary....you used the term "multi-modal" distribution in your post: now, either you don't actually know what that means and were just trying to intimidate people into accepting your rather silly statistical analysis, or you did know what it meant and were deliberately lying to people.

You don't present a good appearance either way. Perhaps you can offer a nicer alternative?

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