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bahadden

46 karma · joined March 15, 2011

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bahadden··on ACTA killed in EU parliament: 478 votes to 39
That seems to be how the EU works. They did exactly that when Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty. Ignored the referendum results and basically told them to go back and vote again, until they came up with the right result.

Also De Gucht was appointed to office, not voted in. There is no democratic way to oust him.

bahadden··on Devaluation is austerity done right
Good point. I'm actually talking about inflation. I'd assume devaluation usually leads to inflation, especially if we buy a lot of imported goods (we do), but it ain't necessarily the case.
bahadden··on Devaluation is austerity done right
Devaluation is the easiest solution from a political point of view, but it is basically a transfer of value from those with savings/creditors to those in debt (including all of us with large credit card debts and mortgages).

It punishes the careful savers and rewards the profligate, and sends a signal that living high on credit is good, while those that save and live within their means are idiots.

bahadden··on Interesting Church Site in pure HTML
There is also a fair bit of javascript in there. Disable it, and the side navigation doesn't work.
bahadden··on One-Third of O2 Staff say They are More Productive Working From Home
People like working from home. They don't have to commute, they can sit a watch telly, they can go into the garden. Lovely.

Under those circumstances how many people are going to come back and say 'actually I was less productive, I don't think you should let me work from home again.'

bahadden··on Principle of Least Coding
A major difference between software and engineering (roads, bridges etc) is in the amount of redundancy.

Bridges and such are usually made massively bigger and stronger than they need to be, just in case. Belt and braces. Of course, it's a lot cheaper to build that redundancy into a bridge than it is in software.

bahadden··on Why Does Work Start At 9 A.M.?
My experience is the opposite. Our department recently changed flexi-time start from 7am to 6:30am, leading to moaning in other departments where they want the same (mainly because the car park is full by 7am).
bahadden··on The Quiz Daniel Kahneman Wants You to Fail
I just read this and came here to see if anyone else was confused by some of the answers they've given.

From question 2: "They found that a large percentage of participants overestimated the likelihood that Jack was an engineer, even though mathematically, there was only a 30-in-100 chance of that being true."

So all the additional information we are given should be ignored, no patterns can be derived, and stereotypes have no basis in reality?

Sounds like bollocks to me. But then I don't really follow probability theory, kinda lost interest in a class I took when the lecturer proved that you were more likely to be hit by a bus every day for a year than win the lottery.

bahadden··on Cutting the Gordian Knot of Web Identity
I'm a bit wary of any system that automatically supplies identity information to a website. Under a system like this, how would you decide 'I don't fully trust this site so give it a different email address and fake name'.
bahadden··on Boost your productivity: Cripple your technology
Completely off topic but "Wikipedia, brought to you by Orange"? What is that all about?
bahadden··on About Linkrot: Proportion of Working Links on Pinboard.in, 1997-2011
So they have a quarter-life of 7 years?
bahadden··on Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now
"considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mSv total."

In Ramsar, Iran the background radition is around 200 mSv/Y (compared to a worldwide average of 2.4 mSv/Y) and _according to wikipedia_ this "high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area".

Call me confused.

Is the 1 mSv/Y total one of those made-up safety guidelines?