It is refreshing to read an article in mainstream media that explains correlation and causality in such a clear way. More people need to read this -- I've posted it on my twitter and will report in my LJ. Thanks!
Yes, well written. It exposes the fundamental flaw in the data:
"As the population of an area goes up, so do both the number of mobile phone users and the number people giving birth."
Wha---? The birth rate figure is only meaningful in this context if it's expressed RELATIVE TO THE POPULATION DENSITY!!!!! Otherwise, it's just balls. The number of Tesco Metros is proportional to the birth rate; doesn't mean people are screwing in the aisles!
Scotland in black and white: the golf course one is particularly telling.
Ofcom: hurrah. But how do we fit all the mobiles in 07, and need three digits for landlines? 03 for pseudo-local business lines sounds like a good idea.
I can't remember which Predator film is which, or which I've seen.
Oh I can tell you all about how London codes went. It was a mess.
When I was a kid, it was simple: all of Greater London was (01), followed by 7 digits. Then around the mid-90s they split it into inner and outer London, and it was 071 and 081. These were shit, and splitting London was stupid because it drove everyone nuts trying to remember whether someone was 071 or 081. They should have back then just gone to 8 digits, which was effectively what they'd done but just stupidly. Then only a couple of years later the national change to the 1 prefix (ie 0482 to 01482) came in, so it became 0171, 0181. Then they reunified London to 020 and 8 digits, with the new 8th digit being 7 or 8 accordingly, which was what they should have bloody done in the first place.
But why they needed a whole new code in the 2s rather than find a nice 01x code I don't know. Other than to make London feel special of course.
which makes it clear that _all_ of the changes that happened were part of one plan, which was come up with in the 80s. Seems altogether more organised than anything we might do nowadays (IPv6 being a prime example).
Oh, hm. I agree letting people in prison vote is probably a good idea, but I genuinely didn't think it was a problem at the moment, so I was surprised to see the change made until I saw it had come from Europe. I'm also trying to think, of all the random stories about human rights imposed from Europe, if there were any I disagreed with, and I don't think there were, which seems quite positive!
I've seen a theory (probably in The Brain that Changes Itself, a book about neuroplasticity) that autism could be caused by early exposure to white noise.
The hypothesis is that brains develop to pull signal out of experience but white noise has no signal, and brains get miswired.
I did a couple of comparison shots using Edinphoto's archive when I was bored one summer - have a look here for the flickr set. It's really good fun. I bet there's some sort of phone app you can use to do this nowadays.
So, if digital files are not considered "tangible goods", and we do not get the same protection when buying them, logically copyright infringement can't be considered stealing, and the owners can't expect the same protection when we do so. It goes both ways.
Yeah, trying to define negative and positive property is usually the first step in these discussions, and then their brains turn off, and it doesn't end well...
I always make sure to call it "copyright infringement".
And then usually throw in snide remarks about how the penalties, particularly in America, for copyright infringement are often larger than for real theft, assault, drunk driving with manslaughter...
"Dr. Volk and her colleagues found that living within 309 meters of a freeway (or just over 1000 feet) at birth was associated with a two-fold increase in autism risk. [....] The researchers found no consistent pattern of association of autism with proximity to a major road."
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A freeway is not a major road? Ohhhkay. Or do I mean 'Very well.'
And yet the public (and arguably some members of the government, at least when caught on camera) still expect the banks to provide low interest credit (credit here meaning "people spending money they don't have") to individuals and small businesses and free banking.
Apparently the small business are "struggling" because the photogenic ones interviewed can't get credit. Whether or not they're telling the whole story (some evidence suggests they're usually not), if THEY are struggling and expect someone else to bail them out, why not the banks? If those people think that the banks should suffer, why should the banks suffer but their badly thought-out business be bailed out?
Sure, the banks are all up shit creek, and it's a mess mostly of their own doing (though not entirely, the mess was entirely government and public-backed from the lowest to the highest level), that doesn't mean you can expect things to go back to how they were.
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andrewducker) wrote2010-12-18 11:01 am
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"Two possibilities
The sight of a mobile phone mast creates associations in women's brains and stimulates their sexual appetite.
It is easier to have sex when talking on a mobile phone, than when talking on a fixed line phone."
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"As the population of an area goes up, so do both the number of mobile phone users and the number people giving birth."
Wha---? The birth rate figure is only meaningful in this context if it's expressed RELATIVE TO THE POPULATION DENSITY!!!!! Otherwise, it's just balls. The number of Tesco Metros is proportional to the birth rate; doesn't mean people are screwing in the aisles!
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Scotland in black and white: the golf course one is particularly telling.
Ofcom: hurrah. But how do we fit all the mobiles in 07, and need three digits for landlines? 03 for pseudo-local business lines sounds like a good idea.
I can't remember which Predator film is which, or which I've seen.
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The first Predator movie is Arnie in a jungle. The second one is Danny Glover in New York. Both are awesome, in quite different ways.
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I assume that back in ye olden days things were broken down more by area code, and bits inside London were assigned 01xx. Not sure how it works now.
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When I was a kid, it was simple: all of Greater London was (01), followed by 7 digits.
Then around the mid-90s they split it into inner and outer London, and it was 071 and 081. These were shit, and splitting London was stupid because it drove everyone nuts trying to remember whether someone was 071 or 081. They should have back then just gone to 8 digits, which was effectively what they'd done but just stupidly.
Then only a couple of years later the national change to the 1 prefix (ie 0482 to 01482) came in, so it became 0171, 0181.
Then they reunified London to 020 and 8 digits, with the new 8th digit being 7 or 8 accordingly, which was what they should have bloody done in the first place.
But why they needed a whole new code in the 2s rather than find a nice 01x code I don't know. Other than to make London feel special of course.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Number_Change
some areas were close to exhaustion. There's a nice history of all the chances here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_the_United_Kingdom#Splitting_01_for_London_into_071_and_081
which makes it clear that _all_ of the changes that happened were part of one plan, which was come up with in the 80s. Seems altogether more organised than anything we might do nowadays (IPv6 being a prime example).
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I still reckon it would have been easier to have London go 8 digit with the first change -- say to 071 for all of London and add the 7/8.
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The hypothesis is that brains develop to pull signal out of experience but white noise has no signal, and brains get miswired.
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It also conspicuously falls outside most literal definitions of the word 'theft'...
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And then usually throw in snide remarks about how the penalties, particularly in America, for copyright infringement are often larger than for real theft, assault, drunk driving with manslaughter...
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A freeway is not a major road? Ohhhkay. Or do I mean 'Very well.'
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Apparently the small business are "struggling" because the photogenic ones interviewed can't get credit. Whether or not they're telling the whole story (some evidence suggests they're usually not), if THEY are struggling and expect someone else to bail them out, why not the banks? If those people think that the banks should suffer, why should the banks suffer but their badly thought-out business be bailed out?
Sure, the banks are all up shit creek, and it's a mess mostly of their own doing (though not entirely, the mess was entirely government and public-backed from the lowest to the highest level), that doesn't mean you can expect things to go back to how they were.