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Comment Re:War of government against people? (Score 1) 875

Furthermore, I wasn't really focusing on the actual killing by fringe anti-government elements, but the very presence of these people in the debate and their rather extreme attitude poisons the discussion around guns.

These people are of the type that believe more guns actually decrease gun crime. That's an absurd position that is proven to be wrong study after study.

Comment Re:War of government against people? (Score 3, Interesting) 875

First of all, the level of firearm ownership in an area does have an effect on the firearm homicide rate. It correlates -

http://ajph.aphapublications.o...

Violent crime has gone down in most of the industrialized world over the past 3 decades, regardless of whether a country restricts firearms or not -

http://rgambler.com/2013/11/03...
http://jpo.wrlc.org/bitstream/...
http://www.economist.com/news/...

However, America's violent crime rate is much higher than most developed countries -

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

The growing consensus (in public policy circles at least) these days is that it is not gun ownership that is causing this violence, but the American gun culture -

http://www.businessweek.com/ar...
http://world.time.com/2012/12/...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/t...

The problem is that we keep looking at gun ownership rates The Swiss has high levels of gun ownership, but they also have a very strict culture of gun safety and training. Men are required to undergo military training and be in the reserves for 10 years, keeping their sealed army-issued firearm at home or in the Zeughaus, for use in case of invasion. Thus, they have lots of guns, but little gun crime.

Now, the question is how do you measure gun culture? In America you have this issues with two main groups poisoning the culture - the gangs and the "don't tread on me" types. How can you design a study to measure the effect of this culture on gun crime?

Comment Re:Hell yes Nexus 4 (Score 1) 259

IIRC, the Nexus 4 only has the hardware for one of the LTE bands (Band 4), by sheer coincidence due to the part used for the air interface. Google said they disabled LTE support on the device as a cost saving measure, but possibly also under LG pressure to differentiate the Nexus from their top-end phones. Most LTE phones support at least 5 or 6 of the bands to ensure that they are compatible with most providers in that region.

Comment To be honest... (Score 4, Insightful) 259

If she is spending most of term time in Scotland, why not ask her to get a phone in the UK? It's a lot cheaper - most of the time top end phones are free on a 24-month contract. Assuming that she is going to Uni and not college - her course would be at least 3 years anyway. Unless, of course, it's just an exchange program.

Comment The Moto X is one of those things... (Score 1) 154

... which was a great idea, but extremely poorly executed.

The Moto G and Moto E is really amazing for what it is - budget phones that have all the right things - IPS screen, snappy processor, good software, respectable brand, LTE (on E and Gv2), etc. It sells extremely well in the UK and many other markets in the EU.

If they opened up a factory in the UK or somewhere else in the EU, it may be 10-15 pounds more expensive to make than in China, but still there would be plenty of takers. In fact probably more so as it is manufactured locally and in an advanced economy - a sign of quality in its own right. The Raspberry Pi is made in the UK, and they were able to pretty much match cost with the batches produced in China.

Comment Re:Diesel? (Score 1) 462

Actually, those superior numbers are for the Twin Air models that I was talking about. You can't get them in the US (yet).

The Twin-Air is a special case as it's a two cylinder petrol engine tuned specifically for fuel efficiency (and related testing). The problem is that in real world driving, it's not quite as efficient as the Multi-jet diesel (basically you need to rev the twin-air to feel it). The other problem is ride quality - as it's a two cylinder engine, it has a distinctive noise and vibration that some people find harsh.

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