Switzerland is going open source, yet another reason to admire that country

[Fanboi]

"One of the smallest" is kinda nuanced. Technically anything after 27 is in that group as it now becomes "outside the majority", thus one of the smallest as compared to said majority... Put that aside, The Swiss Alps take up 60% of Switzerland's landmass while lots of that is inhabitable, large areas aren't as they're too high and only serve for tourists. And as pointed out, how do you guage? Landmass or population? It's a valid point this.
/2c worth

 

[Diputs]

As I recall, the statement was 'one of the smallest'. To be 'one of the smallest' you only need to be below the 26th largest (out of the 52 shown in your citation). That's just math (and English).

Then, there's the size... 0.4% of something is definitely 'one of the smallest'.

One of the smallest means one of the last on either size of the list. Being on one half of the list is not enough. That's statistics, a side science of math.

0.4% says not nothing about being small, as it is a RELATION to other countries that is at stake in the concept "one of the smallest". You have to state the percentage of the other 21 countries to come to that conclusion. When you do, also list more digits after the comma. Don't forget to list the percentage of the actual smallest country (with lots of digits after the comma), and then we will compare.

 

[Diputs]

"One of the smallest" is kinda nuanced. Technically anything after 27 is in that group as it now becomes "outside the majority", thus one of the smallest as compared to said majority... Put that aside, The Swiss Alps take up 60% of Switzerland's landmass while lots of that is inhabitable, large areas aren't as they're too high and only serve for tourists. And as pointed out, how do you guage? Landmass or population? It's a valid point this.
/2c worth

You can't have a list of 52 countries and state 26 of them are "one of the smallest". You just can't. As stated before, "one of the smallest" is at best a handful, so five in other words.

The word "majority" wasn't mentioned until now, that's not relevant.

It's obviously about land volume.
Lets take Vimmer statement again. Where do you see "population" listed ?

I just did some research, and switzerland has to be one of the smallest countries in western europe. I think this does make their vision possible, but I'm still skeptical that every government bureaucracy and bank there will be able to pull it off.

 

[Diputs]

I wonder if smallest means land area, or population?

List of European countries by population - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We need to ask Vimmer, he "did the research".

Funny thing is that on population, Switzerland is actually quite populated. How is that possible ? There's so many mountains (according to some researchers here). Well, keep it quiet, but apparently in Switzerland they invented something called a city. And in those things, they keep people.

 

[Fanboi]

The word "majority" wasn't mentioned until now, that's not relevant.

It is very relevant because it's "by way of explanation" ie I was using to illustrate a concept (hence the scare-quotes). Go back and read what I wrote.

It's obviously about land volume.
Lets take Vimmer statement again. Where do you see "population" listed ?

I was just explaining it was nuanced. When I talk about "big cities" (and don't quote me followed by "The phrase 'big cities' was not mentioned so it's irrelevant)... Anyway when I talk about "big cities" I refer to the population, as do most sane people. In fact it is one of those defining characteristics... But you've totally missed my main point, which is...

You can't have a list of 52 countries and state 26 of them are "one of the smallest". You just can't. As stated before, "one of the smallest" is at best a handful, so five in other words.

Of course you can. "The smallest" are the port that are not in the largest. Any one of them, who are in the majority (oops, used that word) largest distribution, are part of what make up the smaller portion.
To really dumb it down...

Out of the 52 countries listed from 1-52, largest to smallest, 39 of them are among the smallest. This is nuanced because we infer "smallest" to point to relative landmass.

Out of the 52 countries listed from 1-52, largest to smallest, the 27th is one of the smallest. Because 26 (ie half) of them are each one of the largest.

Out of 25 countries, 10 are the size of Australia and 15 are varying between Monaco and Malta in size. Colloquially, you'd say that any of those 15 are among the smallest countries. It's not accurate, but most people would say it. Technically it should be based on the majority vs minority, ie sliced 50/50.

... Now you may not understand what I'm saying -- I think you missed my entire point based of your reply -- but from a technical standpoint, you can say anything from 27 downwards is "one of the smallest" through mutual-exclusivity of not being "one of the largest"

However my post was about it being nuanced. Not about anything else.

EDIT: Regarding the remark about mountains, let's refresh what I said:

Put that aside, The Swiss Alps take up 60% of Switzerland's landmass while lots of that is inhabitable, large areas aren't as they're too high and only serve for tourists. And as pointed out, how do you guage? Landmass or population? It's a valid point this.

 

[KGIII]

One of the smallest means one of the last on either size of the list. Being on one half of the list is not enough. That's statistics, a side science of math.

No, that's not math. If you made it through elementary school, you surely learned the little alligator trick?

That is the > and <

A > B

So, B is less than A. That's smaller than A.

There are others also smaller than A.

This being one of those that's smaller than B means it is 'one of the smallest'.

Now, let's try to get back on topic.

 

[Aristarchus]

I wonder how this Swiss myth was born? When asked by Spain, Proton Mail provided user names and email content to the Spanish police.
If request is valid Swiss will abide, so for anyone who wants privacy or anonymity just selecting Swiss providers is plain stupid. This goes for literally anything. If US "politely" ask Swiss entity to provide specific info and US will have solid reason to request the info, Swiss will provide it.
Free software in regard of bugs is as buggy as closed source, advantage being that one can (if knows how) modify sources. In some instances (vide recent CUPS brouhaha) fixing issues will take quite some time just because devs don't believe that there is a security bug.

Free software means more choices and definitely less privacy invasion. MS now treats your hardware as their own and MS users don't have any say what's being installed on their hardware. However everything indicates that users have less and less freedom on the internet. Switzerland or not.

 

[dos2unix]

MS now treats your hardware as their own and MS users don't have any say what's being installed on their hardware.

Ever heard of google? apple?

 

[Aristarchus]

Anyway when I talk about "big cities" I refer to the population, as do most sane people.

wrong: what do you count? agglomeration? conglomeration? urban? city proper? Check out first ten listings for this year and you see that they differ.
As far as I checked these numbers are somewhat explained only by British encyclopedia when listing population. Most places don't bother.

 

[Aristarchus]

Ever heard of google? apple?

Not sure what do you mean? Should I list all companies just because you do not understand example?

 

[dos2unix]

Not sure what do you mean? Should I list all companies just because you do not understand example?

I was agreeing with you, I was just saying google is the same way with android, and apple is the same way on their devices.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I was just saying google is the same way with android,

But you can still install other roms on Android devices, ie: LineageOS, GrapheneOS, etc.

 

[Fanboi]

Anyway when I talk about "big cities" I refer to the population, as do most sane people.

wrong: what do you count? agglomeration? conglomeration? urban? city proper? Check out first ten listings for this year and you see that they differ.
As far as I checked these numbers are somewhat explained only by British encyclopedia when listing population. Most places don't bother.

Sure, people would refer to a large city with a low population and poor infrastructure out in rural nowhere as "big city" in the non-literal sense... Yes, said hypothetical city may be large in size, but when most people say "big city" they mean aesthetically; the feel, the bustle, the noise, the bad drivers, etc. which all are as a result of human beings.
People don't first look it up on Wikipedia to check how many km^2 it is...

I'll give you that mine was not the best analogy, simply because it's usually (not always) the case where large settlements attract more people, more people cause more development, (re)zoning, blah blah chicken:egg... but I was making a point about how everyday people use language. I thought that was apparent. My bad. Should've used a better illustration, or worded it better. Will try my best to improve my writing standards.

PS: I think you may have wires crossed on what I was referring to as it had nothing to do with the metric* involved or any corresponding statistics.
*Other than the language aspect.

Also, I agree about getting back on topic....

 

[Aristarchus]

I was agreeing with you, I was just saying google is the same way with android, and apple is the same way on their devices.

I am sorry I misunderstood. I don't think though that android is in the same room as Windows users mainly because one can do anything with android devices. Until it is possible to install custom ROMs I don't think that Google is this bad. Apple is? I don't know where. My wife has Apple laptop and iphone. I feel that Apple is intruding but MS is in completely different league.