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Comment Re:competitive features? generally available? not (Score 1) 88

1GHz doesn't compare well-enough with >3GHz dual-core Intel product in terms of GUI responsiveness.

GUI responsiveness is more a matter of software bloat than about hardware.

A Commodore 64 at 1 MHz running GEOS can sometimes be more responsive than a PC with dual eight-core Haswell Xeons.

Comment Re:Ineffective advertising (Score 2) 149

Funny how everyone called it a "trash can" ... until they saw how small it was. Then they started calling it an "ash tray".

I thought the unified thermal core was genius... until I heard that it actually runs pretty hot.
The graphics card have to be custom-made for the Mac Pro, and you can't put a mechanical drive inside, which limits performance for video editing. Yet again Apple's own overpriced accessories are the only ones that fit.
I'm not saying that the Alienware trapezoid/pentagon isn't more ridiculous. I think the older Mac Pro was a better design than both of them.

Android

MIPS Tempts Hackers With Raspbery Pi-like Dev Board 88

DeviceGuru (1136715) writes "In a bid to harness the energy and enthusiasm swirling around today's open, hackable single board computers, Imagination Technologies, licensor of the MIPS ISA, has unveiled the Creator C120 development board, the ISA's counter to ARM's popular Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black SBCs. The MIPS dev board is based on a 1.2GHz dual-core MIPS32 system-on-chip and has 1GB RAM and 8GB flash, and there's also an SD card slot for expansion. Ports include video, audio, Ethernet, both WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, and a bunch more. OS images are already available for Debian 7, Gentoo, Yocto, and Arch Linux, and Android v4.4 is expected to be available soon. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the board is that there's no pricing listed yet, because the company is starting out by giving the boards away free to developers who submit the most interesting projects."

Comment Re:A basic land line (Score 1) 635

Here here!

My landline phone:
* Has a more ergonomic handset than a cell phone,
* Can be used with phone menu systems without having to move the handset from/to the ear - I don't miss the response of my key press because it was not at my ear at the time
* Has better sound than many cell phones
* I don't have to be worried about microwave radiation (that may or may not be harmful).
* Will work if the power is out
* Does not suffer from a degraded or lost signal because there is a hill or too many walls in-between me and the base station.
* Can be exchanged for a xDSL modem that would provides Internet connection to any device I may have (through a router), where as tethering may not always be supported by the cell phone or allowed by the carrier and the tethered device has to be connected through USB or Wifi, not cable, etc. etc.

Comment Re:perhaps men and women are different? (Score 1) 579

Perhaps you could expand on how Facebook emulates what you see in the yard with girls? It really has never occurred to me. Please remember that your own experience is a very small sample, and your opinions will rule over your experiences (some kind of personal conditioning, the exact term in english alludes me atm).

Earth

Numerous Methane Leaks Found On Atlantic Sea Floor 273

sciencehabit writes Researchers have discovered 570 plumes of methane percolating up from the sea floor off the eastern coast of the United States, a surprisingly high number of seeps in a relatively quiescent part of the ocean. The seeps suggest that methane's contribution to climate change has been underestimated in some models. And because most of the seeps lie at depths where small changes in temperature could be releasing the methane, it is possible that climate change itself could be playing a role in turning some of them on.

Comment Re:Poland *probably* wouldn't, & why (Score 0) 303

The Polish soil is fertile because Poland has used a lot of fertilizer .. an excess of fertilizer .. which is flushed into the rivers that lead into the Baltic Sea.
Large parts of the Baltic Sea is dead, the cause leading back to this overuse of fertilizer.

Not that the other countries around the Baltic Sea are that much better in controlling their agriculture.

Comment Re:Only 40%? (Score 2) 256

Practically every other moslem in the Middle East, I would guess, and a few more.
Some names from Islam's history, such as Mohammed or Ibrahim are very common, as first, last and middle names.
For instance, I know two people named Ibrahim Mohammed, both having being born in Europe, descendants of immigrants and not the least bit religious.

Comment Only one point of contention (Score 1) 278

Actually, what you tout as two points of contention are really not. The science is clear, but there are people who have their own agendas for questioning these issues.

The UN founded the IPCC. It is the authority on climate change science. They do not do science as a group on their own, they condense what science has already been done.

1. The IPCC report released in September last year answers this question with a large YES: Humanity is responsible for climate change. The probability is 95%, and that is still considered a conservative estimate.

2. The IPCC released a working draft in April of this year for the predictions on what will happen if carbon emissions continue as they do. There is a lot to read. I can sum it up for you: We would be screwed.
Even if we cut carbon emissions completely right now, the climate will still warm from the gases that are already there. Sea levels are already rising and will rise even more.
Global warming does not mean that it will be warmer everywhere, it means that the weather becomes more extreme: dry areas can expect to be more dry, wet areas will be more wet, storms are going to be stronger, etc.

As to #3, there will be a summit next year about what to do.
It is clear that carbon emissions need to be cut substantially and that there needs to be global agreements that are tough enough to do any effect.
Personally, I think the best thing would be to couple a treaty with trade: if you don't sign the treaty, those who do will add high tariffs for goods to and from your country. (And no, there is not just one economist who thought that up a few weeks ago, that idea has been debated a long time.)
In the EU, countries have had carbon allotments that could be bought and sold, but they have failed because they have been too cheap. Several countries, and the EU itself has goals for cutting emissions by certain amounts by a certain year, but there has been too little progress and it looks as if the goals won't be met if things progress as they have.
If carbon allotments are going to be highly valued and countries are going to change, then emission limits need to be tightened every year.

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