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jh3141

Listed below are comments made by jh3141 between Sunday, 29th March 2009 and Monday, 6th July 2009.

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Music industry v Technology 5:52pm on 06 Jul 2009 ASCAP's theory is deeply flawed: the phone providers are not performing the tracks, they're only providing a recording which can be performed. By this theory, HMV is liable if they sell a CD which is then used without a licence in a pub jukebox. Utterly ridiculous.
Jackson: Did the internet buckle? 5:04pm on 26 Jun 2009 Against the background noise of file sharing, bulk e-mail, and large video streaming, I don't think a little text news site browsing is going to make a huge dent in usage stats like the one above. Even if there was suddenly 100 times as much use on stuff like that, you wouldn't see the effect on your graph. But it _will_ have an awful lot of effect on the speed of those text news sites.
World leaders: Cheap at the price? 9:59pm on 02 Apr 2009 "Perhaps it should be performance-related - salary dependent upon improvements in wealth or well-being. Let me know what you think."

Like the industry I work in (software engineering), the performance of politicians can only be measured indirectly via measurements that are two or three degrees removed from what they actually do. Based, therefore, on the history of performance-related pay in software engineering, I can predict the likely outcome of PRP for political leaders: gaming the system, i.e. a focus on techniques that improve the numbers without improving the underlying issues those numbers are designed to represent. Concerned with unemployment? Students aren't counted: let's get as many people as possible into education. Etc.
Condoms or family meals? 1:00pm on 29 Mar 2009 There are a number of other cultural differences between the UK and the other countries on the list that may explain some of the differenxes observed.

First of all, note that the accuracy of the survey of how many 15-year-olds have had sex is quite questionable; we have little reason to believe that most of the respondents were honest. In Britain, where as we've seen here before, self-esteem is substantially lower than many other european countries, respondents may be more inclined to exaggerate their experience than elsewhere.

WRT the prevalence of teen pregnancies, we must bear in mind a few effects. As another commenter noted, we have rather substantial benefits for young parents in this country, and with above-average unemployment, those will look attractive. Further to this, there is a culture among some sections of the teenage population that sees a baby almost as a fashion accessory; having one is the gateway between being a child and being an adult. This culture probably places a serious skew on the statistics.

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