Dec 8th 2009
From Economist.com
Which countries' children have the worst teeth?
FOR many people, a trip to the dentist still evokes unpleasant childhood memories of big needles and screeching drills. And judging by data from an OECD report, “Health at a glance”, released on Tuesday December 8th, eastern European adults will be having nightmares for years to come. Polish children have the worst teeth in any OECD country; a 12 year old has nearly four teeth that are missing, decayed or have a filling. American adults are renowned for having perfect sets of pearly whites, but each child has one decayed or missing tooth. Britain's children (along with Germany's) have the healthiest teeth, if not the straighest or whitest in later life.
Their daily charts tend to take information from places where it is reliable and easy to access. Or, if two neighboring countries share similar data, they may take only one of the two and use that as representative of the area. But in the end, every chart results in some people complaining about their country being left out.
It seems generous grandmothers aren't the only ones purchasing PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles this holiday season. The U.S. Dept. of Defense has announced plans to buy an additional 2,200 PS3s to complement a military supercomputer cluster running on 336 PS3 systems.
The military purchase was likely encouraged by Sony's recent PS3 price cut, which brought the price of a single console down to $299.
A military justification of review document explains the decision:
Though a single 3.2 GHz cell processor can deliver over 200 GFLOPS, whereas the Sony PS3 configuration delivers approximately 150 GFLOPS, the approximately tenfold cost difference per GFLOP makes the Sony PS3 the only viable technology for HPC applications.
According to Ars Technica, Sony sells the PS3 at a loss and hopes to make back the difference by selling games and accessories.
The reason that the PS3 is a more cost-effective way to buy Cell-powered GFLOPS than, say, the Cell blades that IBM actually makes specifically for supercomputing applications, is that the consoles come with a big, fat subsidy from Sony.
However, the military isn't likely to purchase any games for these PlayStations. The justification review states the systems will run a proprietary Linux-based operating system, which probably won't be able to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Nice to see the military trying to be cost effective at least. Although I've seen numbers for double precision performance on modern graphics cards (Radeon 5850?) listed anywhere from nearly 600GFLOPS to 750GFLOPS. That's pretty good for a card that's supposed to also go for $300.
Of course they'll no doubt try to push special (read: greatly overpriced) versions of GPU's for performance computing purposes, thus killing the idea.
But maybe this is just an excuse. Maybe they will quietly purchase 2200 copies of Little Big Planet when nobody's looking...
The billboard is intended to challenge the stereotypes of the Christmas conception story, but it has been described as offensive to Christians
An unholy row has broken out in New Zealand over a church billboard aimed at "challenging stereotypes" about the birth of Jesus Christ.
A dejected-looking Joseph lies in bed next to Mary under the caption, "Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow".
St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, which erected the billboard, said it had intended to provoke debate.
But the Catholic Church, among others, has condemned it as "inappropriate" and "disrespectful".
Within hours of its unveiling, the billboard had been defaced with brown paint.
The church's vicar, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, said the aim of the billboard had been to lampoon the literal interpretation of the Christmas conception story.
"What we're trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about," he told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).
"Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?"
He told NZPA that the church had received e-mails and phone calls about the controversial image.
"About 50% said they loved it, and about 50% said it was terribly offensive," he said. "But that's out of about 20 responses - this is New Zealand."
But Lyndsay Freer, spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, said the poster was offensive to Christians.
"Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph," she told the New Zealand Herald. "Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful."
The family values group Family First said any debate about the Virgin birth should be held inside the church.
"To confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary," Family First director Bob McCroskrie told the news website stuff.co.nz.
Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph," she told the New Zealand Herald.
She just proved twice in one sentence that she can't read. The billboard doesn't say Joseph fathered Jesus, it clearly says God was there first, so I assume his super sperm will beat Joseph's. Second, since when did Mary remain a virgin. How the hell did Jesus have brothers if his mother remained a virgin?
I bet they just loved you at Church.
As it is, I know the Catholic Church doesn't ever talk about Jesus having brothers, but I don't recall them ever really saying he didn't either. Mary being a virgin forever seems like something that might have been a result of some propaganda dating back to medieval Europe or something. Mary and Joseph were married. Considering the time period, I think it would have been more odd to think that they had no children than to think that they did. Regardless of the existence of brothers, they don't really play a significant role in Jesus' public life anyway. Maybe they grew up and became carpenters like their dad to continue a life of prosperity? (Oh yeah. It's highly unlikely that they were a poor family either.)
I remember hearing something like this... Jakey, you can probably say more on this, but the whole "step-brothers" thing is part of this huge trend to lend increasing amounts of holiness to the main figures of Christianity. So it starts by making Christ pure. Okay... he's totally without sin. Like TOTALLY. He never even thought a bad thing in his life or did anything remotely bad (besides those children he turned into goats in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, but that doesn't count). So...... how can we make Jesus more holy and pure? Hmm... well, the one thing that sucks is that he came out of a woman... gross. Vaginas are nasty.. but what if that vagina wasn't QUITE so nasty as other women's? How might that happen? Hmm.... what if it wasn't polluted by the touch of penises? BRILLIANT!
I think I remember somewhere saying that some radical sects of Christianity even took this a step further and tried to say that Mary was also conceived of a virgin or that her mother was also divinely inseminated or something... but I could be wrong.
Hey now, your post really sort of extends part of mine anyway. You're sort of adding further weight to the propaganda idea that I was just sort of guessing at.
I'm probably going to Hell. I don't seem to be much of a Catholic.
Multi-dimensionality? What are you talking about? Everyone knows that Dante's version of hell is the REAL hell.
Multiple layers, each corresponding to one of the seven deadly sins, subdivided into specific punishments for specific types of sinners. That's how hell REALLY is.
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Except for AMERICA
Of course they'll no doubt try to push special (read: greatly overpriced) versions of GPU's for performance computing purposes, thus killing the idea.
But maybe this is just an excuse. Maybe they will quietly purchase 2200 copies of Little Big Planet when nobody's looking...
She just proved twice in one sentence that she can't read. The billboard doesn't say Joseph fathered Jesus, it clearly says God was there first, so I assume his super sperm will beat Joseph's. Second, since when did Mary remain a virgin. How the hell did Jesus have brothers if his mother remained a virgin?
Uh... Since forever according to Catholic faith. Jesus did not have brothers according to Catholicism.
EDIT: Found it Mark 3:31-35 I remember that one because I called out my Sunday School teacher with it.
As it is, I know the Catholic Church doesn't ever talk about Jesus having brothers, but I don't recall them ever really saying he didn't either. Mary being a virgin forever seems like something that might have been a result of some propaganda dating back to medieval Europe or something. Mary and Joseph were married. Considering the time period, I think it would have been more odd to think that they had no children than to think that they did. Regardless of the existence of brothers, they don't really play a significant role in Jesus' public life anyway. Maybe they grew up and became carpenters like their dad to continue a life of prosperity? (Oh yeah. It's highly unlikely that they were a poor family either.)
I think I remember somewhere saying that some radical sects of Christianity even took this a step further and tried to say that Mary was also conceived of a virgin or that her mother was also divinely inseminated or something... but I could be wrong.
EDIT: Screw you X, posting while I was typing.
I'm probably going to Hell. I don't seem to be much of a Catholic.
Multiple layers, each corresponding to one of the seven deadly sins, subdivided into specific punishments for specific types of sinners. That's how hell REALLY is.