Comment Re:Is It One of Those Laws Where Everyone is Guilt (Score 1) 402
Not just the far right.
He strangely but really generates fanacism among his supporters, suppress their brain and have them vote for him. Very strange to witness first handedly. And quite frightening.
The heavy use of so called "sondages qualitatifs" (quality-driven polls ?) has surely something to do with it. Never has a president so much relied on them: he just chooses a somewhat homegeneous audience and delivers a targetted message to them, one that will suit them very well. After that, he can nearly say what he wants on other matters, they will vote for him.
#1 target group: old people, do not really know anything about the Internet, feel frightened, think the young guys of their time were better. They vote for him much more than the average Frenchman. To put it another way: it just work.
Comment Re:It is not the french which should be reminded (Score 1) 402
Not all French politic personnel is equal. Mitterand, or Jospin, of even Chirac, independently of what you think of them, have not spent all their time in power to create or amend a law each time someting nasty occured. And many current opponents to Sarkozy would not do that either. I bet even tightwing députés are fed up with so many laws. Most of Sarkozy's laws have never been enacted, by the way: neither French administration nor even Sarko's own governement can cope with such an amount of baddly written (and badly thought) laws.
Do not put all politicians in the same bag please.
Comment I use it for 3 months now... (Score 1) 101
... and I really get accustomed to it.
It is the firt time I find the multi-virtual-desktop thing usable : it becomes very practical to setup multiple virtual desktops for so many different tasks, and it is nice.
I had to customise it a little though, with the folowing extensions, right out from the https://extensions.gnome.org/ website
- Coverflow Alt-Tab : Replacement of Alt-Tab, iterates through windows in a cover-flow manner.
- Dash Click Fix : Fix the dash's behavior when you click on an already running icon. The default behaviour is to switch to it, this extension changes that to lanch a new instance instead
- Places Status Indicator : Add a systems status menu for quickly navigating places in the system
- Power Options : Show Suspend, Hibernate (if available) and Power Off options in user menu.
- Remove Accesibility : Remove the accesibility button from the top panel.
- System Monitor : Add a system monitor to the left side of the message tray.
Hardware / software base : Debian "Wheezy" (testing) on a high end full HD laptop with an external monitor attached to it sometimes.
Usage : web / email / some games / office work / platform prototyping with virtual machines, modelling.
The external display behaves like a charm (with really minor glitches : le login screen will somtimes not appear properly if the monitor gets plugged off before one unlocks the screen, but it still work).
I miss the cube. I miss a screensaver, I miss the capacity to change windows themes and colours and the "control pannel" lacks several usefull features, but overall, it is very usable and properly translated in French.
Comment Re:Distributed Grid (Score 1) 314
And they are especially put at use when winter bites, so the net CO2 emission scheme may not be as brilliant as die Grünen would like to put it.
Meanwhile, France can only blame herself: EDF (Electricité de France) has promoted electric heating so much that peak demand cannot be provided by EDF... Similarly, we have seen a huge push for electric cooling systems in the last years (you will not feel warm nor cold with the Electricity Fairy !) wich also induces high peak demand when the Nuclear Plants are providing less electricity (many are closed for maintenance, and the rivers are warm and low, so the plants must tread light on water supply).
Strange to see how brilliant polytechnicians can make stupid blunders.
Comment The Monge partcipated in the track (Score 1) 65
The Monge is an big scientific vessel from the French navy, conceived to track ICBM missiles during their re-entry phase and provide precise telemetry for validation purposes.
Have a look there (in French) : http://www.meretmarine.com/article.cfm?id=117220
Submission + - Dying bees: a new nail in the coffin (liberation.fr)
boule75 writes: Mr. Sylvestre Huet compiles (fr) the results of a French study (us) concerning the combined effects of parasites and insecticides on bees.
Considered alone, those insecticides are somewhat innocuous for the bees. But for bees already affected by Nosema ceranae, even a very low dose of fipronil or thiaclopride appears to be deadly. And since changing the molecule does not change the result, it may prove difficult to find suitable insecticides to save bees.
As if one bane was not enough, Asian hornets (fr) are invading south-western France and hunting bees along their path...
Considered alone, those insecticides are somewhat innocuous for the bees. But for bees already affected by Nosema ceranae, even a very low dose of fipronil or thiaclopride appears to be deadly. And since changing the molecule does not change the result, it may prove difficult to find suitable insecticides to save bees.
As if one bane was not enough, Asian hornets (fr) are invading south-western France and hunting bees along their path...
Submission + - DisplayPort-To-HDMI Cables Illegal, Face Recall 1
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "PC Magazine reports that the licensing company overseeing the HDMI specification has confirmed that existing Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapters which are designed by several cable makers and sold by several PC OEMs, are apparently illegal and could be recalled. According to Charlene Wan, director of marketing for HDMI LLC, any cable that does not include HDMI connectors on both ends violates the specification. "The HDMI specification defines an HDMI cable as having ONLY HDMI connectors on the ends," says Wan. "Anything else is not a licensed use of the specification and therefore, not allowed." That apparently includes Apple's mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapters, which are sold by Belkin on Apple's Web site. However a representative for Belkin denies that the cable it sells on Apple's Web site is illegal. "Essentially, the product you mention in your post is not out of compliance because it is just an adaptor and not a cable," the representative wrote in an email. "We do not sell a cable with a male Mini-DP and male HDMI port, which is what falls out of compliance with the spec. HDMI does recognize a product that has a Mini-DP connector and HDMI receptacle with an internal active circuitry as it falls into the definition of a source device." There may also be a glimmer of hope, in that HDMI Org understands that there is a need for this type of cable: "We do recognise that there may be a market need for a cable solution rather than a dongle solution. However, at this time, there is no way to produce these cable products in a licensed manner.""
Comment Re:Hmm (Score 1) 779
Omnipotent means that God can do what He wants, but that does not mean that He always wants to control everything.
I bet He does not want it, for a simple reason: that would be no fun at all, not interresting at all, pointless.
One could even argue that free will is the Gift of God to mankind, you know, like in Tolkien's world...
I bet He does not want it, for a simple reason: that would be no fun at all, not interresting at all, pointless.
One could even argue that free will is the Gift of God to mankind, you know, like in Tolkien's world...
Comment Re:It's Alcatel-Lucent btw (Score 1) 185
Well it depends: Alcatel spent the money to acquire Lucent but the whole management is now American, and the jobs too are shored away from France at an accelerated pace (directly to Asia, no need to hire in the US either). So seen from the interior it seems the US company has bought the French one and proceeds as usual.
We French are apparently accustomed to be f***ed up hard by the US and we love it ! See the brilliant adventures of Renault, EDF with Constellation, and Executive life with the Credit Lyonnais, compensations 10 times lower for French citizens compared to US citizens blasted in the same plane, etc, etc, etc, the list is endless.
We love you !
We French are apparently accustomed to be f***ed up hard by the US and we love it ! See the brilliant adventures of Renault, EDF with Constellation, and Executive life with the Credit Lyonnais, compensations 10 times lower for French citizens compared to US citizens blasted in the same plane, etc, etc, etc, the list is endless.
We love you !
Comment Re:Projectile? (Score 1) 144
A human is 80% water anyway. So it produces only 80% of the nominal foam quantity.
Submission + - Record Companies lose, Artists gain (espen.com)
An anonymous reader writes: After 10 years of digitalization of music, the average (Norwegian) musician's income has increased by 66%. As a group, the only losers in digital music seems to be the record companies. This is the conclusion of a M.Sc. study done by students Richard Bjerkøe and Anders Sørbo at the Norwegian School of Management BI in Oslo.
The thesis "The Norwegian Music Industry in the Age of Digitalization" shows that the musicians' income increase is due to increased income from concerts, various collection agencies and stipends from the government in the period from 1999 to 2009. During the same period, record sales have decreased by about 50%. The fall in income from record sales is less important for the musicians, however, since, on average, they only receive 15% of record sales, whereas they receive on average 50% from concerts and 80% from collection agencies (who collects provisions from radio play and other uses of the artists' productions.)
The thesis "The Norwegian Music Industry in the Age of Digitalization" shows that the musicians' income increase is due to increased income from concerts, various collection agencies and stipends from the government in the period from 1999 to 2009. During the same period, record sales have decreased by about 50%. The fall in income from record sales is less important for the musicians, however, since, on average, they only receive 15% of record sales, whereas they receive on average 50% from concerts and 80% from collection agencies (who collects provisions from radio play and other uses of the artists' productions.)
Submission + - Nvidia Sells Graphics Cards At Best Buy (crn.com)
cgriffin21 writes: Nvidia has begun producing some of its own graphics cards and making them available to retailers. So far, it's only building and supporting certain models of its GeForce line and making them available at Best Buy. However, this represents a significant strategic shift for a company that has made billions designing GPU architectures alone. In the past, Nvidia has left it to a number of its partners including Asus, PNY, and EVGA to build, package, and sell the chips at retail. In so doing, it has avoided the costs of manufacturing and marketing these chips.
Comment Re:In the meantime, we in the USA... (Score 2, Insightful) 267
<quote><p>Spending money is not good for an economy. Spending money EFFICIENTLY is.</p></quote>
You're right, that's the optimal thing.
<quote><p>However time and time again governments (which account for a vast chunk of total spending) have proven themselves to be incapable of this.</p></quote>
First , it very much depends of the timeframe you're placing yourself in, or of the expenses you're talking of. For instance "government" overhead for managing medicare is apparently very small compared that of privately runned health insurance companies.
Publicly runned health systems in Europe cost less and are vastly more efficient than the US private version...
Then consider building a bridge : it will cost a lot and could possibly become profitable only in the very long run. Furthermore, many of its benefit are probably hidden. So there is no incentive for the private sector to build that bridge even though it may be very useful and profitable for society as a whole in the long run.
And who would run an honest army for a profit ?
Second : there are so many idle spendings in the private sector that are truly worthless that you're surely joking. Advertisement is one, vast sums hijacked by the financial sector are another, especially when the government bails it out...
I am all for efficient spending, from the government of from the private sector.
You're right, that's the optimal thing.
<quote><p>However time and time again governments (which account for a vast chunk of total spending) have proven themselves to be incapable of this.</p></quote>
First , it very much depends of the timeframe you're placing yourself in, or of the expenses you're talking of. For instance "government" overhead for managing medicare is apparently very small compared that of privately runned health insurance companies.
Publicly runned health systems in Europe cost less and are vastly more efficient than the US private version...
Then consider building a bridge : it will cost a lot and could possibly become profitable only in the very long run. Furthermore, many of its benefit are probably hidden. So there is no incentive for the private sector to build that bridge even though it may be very useful and profitable for society as a whole in the long run.
And who would run an honest army for a profit ?
Second : there are so many idle spendings in the private sector that are truly worthless that you're surely joking. Advertisement is one, vast sums hijacked by the financial sector are another, especially when the government bails it out...
I am all for efficient spending, from the government of from the private sector.
Comment Re:Wrong! (Score 1) 267
The record took place on the regular Paris-Reims line, which had just been built. Those new TGV lines are systematically built to avoid road crossings on the line and are equipped with high and sturdy fences to hold back big mamals from trespassing.
So yes, the catenary was especially tensed, the train was somewhat customised (bigger wheels) but the tracks were "standard" : they just choose the straightest part of the line to set up the record.
To come back to the Chinese line : how long does it take to accelerate and to brake from the top speed to zero ? Is that comfortable ?
So yes, the catenary was especially tensed, the train was somewhat customised (bigger wheels) but the tracks were "standard" : they just choose the straightest part of the line to set up the record.
To come back to the Chinese line : how long does it take to accelerate and to brake from the top speed to zero ? Is that comfortable ?
