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French Response to Google is Microsoft
efp writes "Mark Liberman posted over in the Language Log that, in considering alternatives to Google's library initiative in Europe, French President Jacques Chirac would consider a partnership with Microsoft 'since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates'. This comes out of talks between the French president, the head of the French National Library and the Minister of Culture, in in part 'building an alter ego to the American project, before thinking of an eventual collaboration with Google, so as not to negotiate from a position of weakness' as they plan to digitize their cultural resources."
Just see the sig.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Karma be damned. France surrendering to what appears to be a superior power? Where have I seen this before...
They are both filthy stinkin rich, hate google, and dream of a new world order?
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
France is evil. Just as we suspected...
J'utilize Linux
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
If it's anything like my Outlook PST file, it will be able to hold about 1000 documents, then not work as well.
Sounds fun!
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
...a "freedom engine"? ;)
DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
I see some kind of retaliation or what I'd call divide & rule, by the French government. "If you do not cooperate, (read `pay for content') I will go to your rival(s)." M$ used this against IBM on a limited level in the 80s and they succeeded to some extent.
for all the French+Bill Gates jokes
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
It seems to me that it is unlikely that the French government will align themselves with such a symbol of US cultural imperialism. Therefore, I suspect that the implied use of MS as a bargaining chip with google is correct.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
I have nothing against the French but what's next? France decides SCO's case has merit, claims jurisdiction? I'm just confused. It just seems odd that the country that takes issue with Google's helpful, automated services because they occasionally violate copyright is considering working with Microsoft, the king of anti-trust! No wonder the French people are so jaded.
When negotiating with Microsoft, is there anyone who can NOT negotiate from a position of weakness?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Perhaps the saddest part about France going to Microsoft for this project is that whatever data is produced is more likely to be locked into some proprietary format. That could be particularly unfortunate, since these cultural resources really belong to all the people of France and should therefore be made as accessible as possible.
best. department. evar.
is that the french are very nationalist and I would of thought they would of done something with a European or at least a French software outfit. I thought they were scared of globalisation and were worried about their identity being lost on the world stage. So to cure this fear they choose MS.
Jonathanjk.com
It is a well known fact that European governments prefer to support the under-dog: "Go Bill, go Bill, go!"
Now the French can leverage the power of DRM to keep their military failures in the last century a secret!
We can't let France do that can we? No more Windows XP, from now on it will be known as FREEDOM XP.
The plan is coming together, just a tad slower then they had hoped.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Moi, j'aime bien nos maitres francais des biblioteque borg.
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
What's wrong with the french?
French good deeds this year: 2French bad deeds this year: 5
Le sigh . . . .
As Seen On TV's? Come back!!!
second story
support of terrorists
uh, huh? disagree with bomb-mad bush and you're a terrorist?
Support of terrorism?
How about the US funding the IRA to the tune of $100 million dollars a year - all used to plant car-bombs in shopping centers or to run "taxi-driver murder" campaigns.
You know fuck-all.
Wow, it seems you don't need to fire a shot now to get the French to surrender to somebody hell bent on taking over the world!
Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
1760s: The indians can be relied upon to help drive the british from america
1803: Let's sell the Louisiana Territories
1934: Let's overlook Germany's military buildup
Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own
So; Chirac, Bill and Linus walk into a bistro:
Linus says to Chirac, "C'est magnifique! Mais c'est ne pas la Google."
KFG
It's funny how a post like this, which is full of crap gets a socre of 2, and the two intelligent replies I read got a whopping 0.
Way to go, Slashdoters, you're looking like a bunch of racist rednecks.
So Microsoft has just bought France to go along with their acquisition of evil?
Sounds like a matched set to me.
No, the terrorists probably just get a bigger rush from destroying a powerful country.
Think about it. It happens everywhere. Nobody wants to see the little guy lose. In american courts, everybody is happy when a big corp. loses a case, since everyone thinks that the "big corporations" are doing evil by impressing their will on the general populace.
The same thing happens with America. The terrorists see some kind of injustice in the fact that we live (for the most part) richly, and they have to scrounge out a living. They are just jealous of the power and affluence we have. That's why France isn't getting bombed....
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
soooo many accent marks in that article
Something that would make sense would be cooperating with a big canadian software company, since Canadians speak french too.
The rest has been said by others, I've nothing to add.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
The french decide Google's perceived hegemony in electronic document archiving is a problem.
"What company could stand against Google? I know, I will for Microsoft's help!!"
The french now have 2 problems.
Hmm. I read your gibberish post, and then examined the opening statement of your last post...
I am a high school history teacher...
I'd be fuckin' scared/annoyed/upset if you taught my children.
You're so stupid, it's almost funny
French President Jacques Chirac would consider a partnership with Microsoft 'since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates'.
Chirac siding with an American president. Now I've seen it all!
Reminds me of another domestic bargaining chip.
Manager: "Well, our techies say we could move some of our stuff over to linux."
MS: "How about some fat discounts?"
You're right, this is negotiation and its part of businesss as well as politics.
The article is essentially some non-denials from Chirac's advisors. Not exactly a done deal.
Come on! We're Americans! Do you think we *care* what everyone else thinks?
All joking aside, regardless of my feelings towards the French, which are pretty close to neutral, this does seem contrary to their nationlistic zeal to keep France French. I (like other posters) assumed that the government would come up with its own solution. It seems absurd that France would team up with that oh so American company Microsoft to thwart that other oh so American company Google.
P.S. The US was attacked by terrorists because of numerous things, but name calling is not one of them.
P.P.S. The rest of the world bashes the US. Don't you think we get tired of that?
Come'on, my children they need wine!
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Which two intelligent replies would those be? :-P
P.S. Don't feed the trolls.
If I were Bill Gates, I'd be suing France for defamatory remarks against me. Who wants to be linked to France in the manner of "So many views in common."
On the other hand, if were Bill, I'd probably just declare war on France instead.
Mandrakesoft maker of the Mandrake Linux distro closes their offices in France and moves their headquarters to Brazil...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
And they wonder why.
.fr email addresses. That means these actions of France will not be politically supportable.
Jokes aside, a large part of opensource software devleopers have been french, just read the sourcecode and search for
In corporate circles, Bill Gates is admired for being a shrewd businessman, books on him are read by managers and enterpreneurs. However rank-and-file software developers know better and admire good product design.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
so as not to negotiate from a position of weakness
So, they prefer to negotiate from a position of stupidity?
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
I refuse to post this anonymously: this place makes me sick!
The knee-jerk racism that a large proportion of Slashdotters display is very much tied in with the reason there's so much bad feeling against the United States out in the rest of the world...
ta mere
That will solve everything I *assure you!
* assurance not guaranteed
Interestingly enough there is a site dedicated to those of us who truly admire france.
http://www.fuckfrance.com/
TT
Does someone realize that Chirac never actually talked about partnering with Microsoft??? Not even close?
This post relates to ANOTHER post which translates ANOTHER article in a French newspaper which says that some UNNAMED assistant to Chirac when asked about the possibility of partnering with Microsoft answered "why not?" (which does not seem like a terrible answer..., there is no reason to dismiss anybody before the project is launched...).
First off, considering the recent ruling to ban "overt religious symbols" such as head scarves in schools, I think French-bashing is one of the things the US and Wahabiists have in common.
Secondly, if this isn't a reason to make fun of the government in Paris, I don't know what is.
> if it wasn't their support of terrorists, their ingratiating manner about our saving their asses twice, and the fact that they are as useless as tits on a nun, now i have another reason.
in the words of Simon Pegg:
what a prick.
I'm inclined to bash anybody who chooses MS over Free Software. The fact that they're French this time is only a coincidence.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
For those who don't know about this:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html
Interesting little timeline showing major battles in French history (note the lack of victories).
Here's an easy to use example of how not to negotiate with Microsoft from a position of weakness:
MS: Hello, we would like to negotiate with you.
Me: Fuck off.
France and Microsoft,
Sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First came love,
Then came marriage,
Then came Satan.
France is only defending its culture as it sees fit.
It is no big deal because digitization of French language works will only hasten their translation to other languages.
I would welcome being able to read some of the specialized French language scientific journals in my native language.
I seem to remember some reports a while back about municipalities using Linux as a pawn to get better licensing agreements with MS. I think I will die laughing if the French are manipulating MS in the same way.
that Slashdot created a top level icon for french bashing subjects? This is long overdue. Bill has his own Slashdot icon, so sacrebleu why can't Jacques?
Say it frenchie! CHOWDA!
Don't Tread on Me
I've never met anyone from France that was rude and refused to try to speak English -- quite the opposite.
I've heard it argued that Americans go to Paris to "see France" -- and their opinions about the French is more or less similar to the common French opinion about people living in Paris... :-)
It has been a bit frustrating, when the "frogs" don't live up to the image I get from being steeped in the literature of English speaking (or mangling) cultures.
But I'll have to change opinion now. :-(
It do give a bit of perspective at the local politicians. There are worse examples.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
digitization of French language works will only hasten their translation to other languages
Sacre bleu!
Err, when did the French become a race?
My digital rights don't need management.
Actually it's more basic than that. Osama wants to be "The" caliph of the Arabian Peninsula (he has openly stated so). However, he chose the U.S. as a target because he was under the notion (now discredited) that another military reaction my the U.S. in the Middle East would stir a popular uprising for "His" caliphate throughout the peninsula. He was hoping for a reaction similar to the Islamist power grab made in Iran.
Unfortunately for Osama it turned out that in general Arabs want economic prosperity more than they want him as their caliph...just like everyone else on the planet. Go figure...
It will be interesting to see how long Osama's campaign lasts after he bleeds to death all the students from the ideologically extreme madrassas on the peninsula.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
No wonder most Americans have such a distorted view of world history if this is how an American high school history teacher thinks.
Seriously, in that one sentence you've demonstrated that you're so clueless about history that you're a danger in the classroom. I have to agree with the other poster that I'd be very worried if you were teaching my kids.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
More like, "You know what would piss off the brits?"
France had good reasons for helping out in the revolutionary war. It certainly wan't altruism.
Think "French and Indian War" here.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
No, this is what you've come to believe - either through propaganda, or through independent thought influenced by propaganda - in order to reconcile events with your own world view.
It pays to remember that, no matter how nice you are, no matter how good you are, no matter how altruistic you are, there are enough different people and opinions in this world that it's almost certain that somebody, somewhere, will think you're a cunt.
And face it - America's actions throughout the word for the last 50 years or much more have, on the whole, been less than nice, good, and altruistic.
(And yes, I used the word "propaganda" most deliberately. Just because you agree with a statement doesn't mean it isn't propaganda...)
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
What happened up to now is that: The president of France said that he'd rather have his own "very large digital library" rather than let google do it all on their own. What some of his "minder" said in answer of a journalists question was: yes Microsoft could be a partner. Most probably if the journalist would have asked if Oracle, or Mysql or any other organisation/person/BEM the answer would have been more or less the same.
The first issue being: Should the governement fund a public "digital library" The second issue being: How.
So I do find it very unfortunate that people make a lot of "advertizement" for a mediocre propriaitary software provider (as in you can write good things or bad things about me, but first of all write about me !), based on partial information.
For the record, I do like the google search engine, but I do think that any government should make the effort of putting as much as possible of cultural content as possible online.
Of course I do hope that when the project will start it will use Free and Open Source Software, but for the time being there is not even a call for tender
BTW the french national library is called "La tres grande bibliotheque"/"Bibliotheque François Mitterand", (socialist predecessor of Chirac) no wonder Jacques wants his own.
For those actually interested in what is there http://gallica.bnf.fr/
Oops, wrong web site ... still ... not not a bad idea, give it a shot.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
And the only reason other countries went and colonized it for them was because they wanted tobacco and maple syrup and apple pie and breakfast cereal and orangutangs and sanitation and medicine and aqueducts and peace...
I guess they did a bit of a buggered up job on that last one, but the rest are pretty hot commodoties even today. So just thank your lucky stars you've got the U.S.A., else you might never get to take it easy with a big glass of maple syrup while getting wanked off by your orangutang. Jim just told me it's spelled 'orangutan.' Well, not in the United States it's not. There, it's spelled 'tang,' and bugger anyone who thinks differently.
So the lumbering dinosaur that is the modern Microsoft may ally itself with a backwardly-minded socialist republic that is rapidly being taken over by foreign immigrants because their population refuses to breed.
France is part of the past. Their role in the future will likely can be compared to the foodcourt in the mall except with a heavier emphasis on Middle Eastern cuisine. They're a dying nation who gave up their chance to be relevant when they started stumbling down the misguided road of nationalist socialism. The only thing France is known for anymore is a ramshackle economy, industrial goods no one else in the world would ever buy and opposing US imperialist foreign policy while simultaneously attempting to imperialistically control as much of EU and UN policy as is absolutely possible (and pissing on their own colonies for decades before finally losing them all).
MS is falling behind technologically when compared to the rest of the industry. Their upcoming OS "update" is a hodgepodge collection of features and patches that should've made it into Windows 98. They're renowned for border-line illegal business tactics, shoddy engineering and the some of the most idiotic and backwards arguments ever heard in the debates over intellectual property rights.
This is like the T-Rex and the Stegosaurus agreeing to unite in an effort to stop the meteor. It's downright comical.
as well as state-sponsored monopolies and heavy handshaking between business and government. It is lamentable that for all their French pride they couldn't even find a single French company, however incomparable to Google, to mention.
It is no big deal because digitization of French language works will only hasten their translation to other languages.I can't wait to see the translation of La Planète des Singes by babelfish!
FACT The Koran does not say such a thing, implicitly or explicitly.
You quote the utterly warped views of a few insane "mullahs" to try and make some effect - and falsely generalise against 750m honest peaceful muslims.
The bible "states" that PI is (exactly) "3 and one quarter". This is the same type of utterly ridiculous out-of-context quotation that the US media so loving reports.
Ask yourslef WHY they report it, what's in it for them?
I seem to recall that Chirac was on very friendly terms with Saddam Hussein, so having "views in common" with Billy seems like par for the course to me.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Posting as AC to preserve my karma from the hordes of French pussies who'd rather mod me down than step up and fight...
So basically what you're saying is you're too much of a pussy to risk your karma because you're afraid someone might mod you down in disagreement?
"Run to Bill, he'll protect us!" Now there's an idea. Jeeze, France, explain to us how your country has actually been relevant for 30 years...
They're not running to Bill, when asked if they'd select Google's competitor, Microsoft, the president's advisor said "Why not?" Not "Yeah, we've already signed a contract", just "Why not?" if any other company was mentioned it would have had the same response.
Jacques Chirac surrenders to Bill Gates. Grants Microsoft access to build France's technology. Whole country suffers from massive BSOD, and Script Kiddies now control the government of France. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
He has to.
He married one, Melinda, her maiden name is French, of Microsoft Bob fame...
One could say we saved France three times as we have Indo-China(Vietnam) we could blame on them as well as WWI and WW2. There is that little favor they did for us in the Revolution so they can't all be bad but it is times like these when I think that maybe all the good Frenchmen were killed in the Nepoleonic wars and WW1/WW2. Most of the above comment is meant to be a joke but maybe you had better go read some history.
Why clone Unix when I can clone Windows instead. http://www.reactos.org
You know what else is ironic? How closely his intermediate goals match up with the intermediate goals of the neocons. What the US is doing is certainly destabilizing the status quo in the Middle East, and loosening the grip of the House of Saud (albeit slowly). It's in the long term goals and of course the ideological differences that make Osama and the neocons imcompatible (and yet strangely complimentary*)
*Would the neocons have been able to advance their agenda as far as they have without an Osama? I doubt it.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
The thing is that places do acquire reputations for a reason.
I'm not saying everyone in France is rude, I'm saying that on average in France you are going to find more people who are seemingly rude (seemingly is key, more in a second) to you than perhaps if you travelled elsewhere.
I have a few friends who have travelled to France (including outlying regions beyond paris) and the only one who enjoyed the experience is someone whose wife spoke fluent French.
This effect is aggravated by the "seemingly rude" point - there are some things people do in other cultures that strike Americans as rude. Part of that for my friends was some sort of service issue at restaurants, I forget the detail but some seemingly inconsequential thing they wanted was looked on in outrage by the waiter. Perhaps he also viewed the request as rude, but the response basically discolored my friends opinion of restaurants in France.
My own example along those lines is from a trip to Barcelona - myself and a few friends (two of which spoke Spanish pretty well) went into a toy store to browse. Now there was this cool thing in the window that I wanted to buy, so I took it from the display to take up to the cash register -well let me tell you the owner of the store flipped out! He was yelling and cursing at me like I had just set fire to his dog. Even after we explained calmly that I had not meant to offend he was incredibly angry and demanded we leave the store that instant! Well no toy is worth an altercation but to this day none of us can figure out what set him off to that degree. While it did not make me think of all Spaniards as lunatics, it certainly made me think a little bit inside that shopkeepers there were on something of a power trip with little respect for customers.
So reputations of other countries being difficult may stem from the degree of cultural differences between two countries. And to some extent, I have to say that given that the reputation is correct as far as the average person goes. Even though the behavior there might not really be rude, to the traveller it might seem that way and really that's the same thing as far as the traveller is concerned!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here's another dirty little secret. The US couldn't be fucked about Europe, or the plight of the jews and other minorities slaughtered by the Nazi regime until the Japanese severly embarrassed them at Pearl Harbour.
Learn a little history, the French had their arses handed to them on a platter, the Germans had developed completely revolutionary battle tactics that would have pasted the US at the time in pretty much the same way they did the French and the BEF. Most of the country was occupied up until 1942 when Vichy France was finally overrun after the Vichy forces in North Africa surrendered.
This idea that the French are the stereotypical "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys" is complete bullshit, sure they can be insufferably arrogant and for some reason they gave Jerry Lewis an award but unlike the US they have managed to survive two world wars being fought on their soil and still keep going.
Would you like pie with that sir?
It's not very good but then it's better than anything else in this thread!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Did you know that when the U.S. entered WW2 in the European Theatre, the first military power we opposed was....
Vichy France in North Africa.
I am not making this up. Not Germany. Not Italy. France.
And strangely enough, when the Americans finally beat the French, Petain perversely would *NOT* surrender because he had pledged support to Nazi Germany.
This is all in "An Army At Dawn" by Rick Atkinson, which I found to be a compelling read.
But gawdamn FRANCE was sticking by the Nazi's. To Fight Americans and British. Cripes. And then we saved their gaulic asses. I don't get it.
Are you American or did you go to private school? Because most public high school history professors think like this. Many of them being former military personale or have a conservative outlook. However some tend to be very radical but still extreme. Also the problem with Americans and so-called history has more to do with Americans then teachers. I remember in days in high school, people would fall asleep in class and get into fights. I often knew more then teachers. So don't ridicule this poor guy he probably works in some shitty school with crappy students. He's just a product of his culture.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
There is a lot of truth to what you say. Both the U.S. and Osama wish to institute political change. Osama's actions did give the U.S. an excuse to impose change on the region. And you are right, it takes a unique set of events to garner the support needed of U.S. citizens for such a lengthy process.
Both Osama and the U.S. also recognize that the current monarchies and autocracies are not providing as they should for their citizens.
Of course the difference lies mainly in their proported aims for that change: the U.S. proports to desire an Arab Peninsula that is composed of democratic governments, but Osama wants a regional Islamic caliphate.
I don't really think this is really any "neocon" agenda we see in motion. The means are definitely theirs, but the desire to see a repesentative government in the Middle East spans much farther than the Bush presidency (think post-WWI Geneva doctrine in regard to Lebanon, Algeria and Palestine). But as you said, the means the Bush Administration used would not have been possible without Osama's actions.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Its not Like Etats-Unians really helped in WW1 or WW2 , they just came in at the end.
First world war, perhaps/maybe/maybe-not.
Second world war, no. France capituated when it was outclassed miitarily, as did most of continental Europe. Britain was starved of resources because of the U-Boat menace, plus the colonies were getting a kicking from the Japs in the pacific. We were in no fit state to help France, we barely fought the luftwaffe off as it was.
You could have waited a few more years for the Russians to end the war, but then continental Europe would have become a greater part of the soviet union.
You have the yanks to thank, mes amis.
After all the documents are stored, they are going to have to beg Google for Google Desktop in order to search them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is interesting because politically the U.S. is so much like Microsoft - a lumbering dinosaur of stasis that won't engage an evolving world. Instead, it looks to impose it's will by brute force and deceitful stratagems.
Can you explain again how imposing "brute force and deceitful stratgems" is not an example of engaging the world?
We can argue (or agree as the case may be) about the effectiveness of the response, but to say that the U.S. is not engaging the world seems senseless. I'd argue it is one of the few countries engaging the world.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Yes, I know about Vichy France, which the U.S. originally recognized before we joined the hostilities. At that point we supported de Gaulle and the Free French, but never whole heartedly, because de Gaulle was such a pain in the ass (from the Anglo-American perspective).
You might note that the Free French 19th Corps participated in Operation Torch. And it's been said that the fight was easier because many Vichy soldiers went over to the Free French side, rather than fight the Allies.
Still, one of the funnier Churchill quotes is, "The heaviest cross I had to bear during the war was the Cross of Lorraine." The Cross of Lorraine was the symbol of Free France, and de Gaulle was Free France.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Actually the "kill infidels" part came way after the Koran was written. I can't remember the guys name (Deobandi I think), but it actually comes out of a sermon given in the 14th century not the Koran itself.
"Jihad" actually similar to the infinitive "to struggle". But this Muslim preacher in the 14th century was arguing that it was the duty of every Muslim to restore an Islamist caliphate similar to the one Muhammad ruled. At the time this ment defeating the Turks, and he argued for a "violent" jihad.
Today Osama bin Laden bases his ideology off of this same sermon. The goal is the same too. He want to restore an Islamist caliphate (ostensibly with him as the caliph).
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Oh I don't know, I imagine France has been rather relevant to its citizens and its neighbors. Not everyone feels this overwhelming need to control the world and everything in it.
And just how relevant have you been in the past 30 years, anyway?
This sounds a bit like something from Atlas Shrugged... government-owned State Science Institute is a money drain that never makes anything relevant; and all of a sudden, industrialist Hank Rearden invents a new, fantastic metal alloy. The Institute, of course, tries to destroy Rearden, or else people might realize what a waste of money it is.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Well the public neocon agenda isn't a secret, and the unspoken agenda isn't difficult to miss. (Although one could argue that the not-so-secret agenda is due to the overlapping interests of the neocons and certain business interests.)
Anyway, checck out that link, and look for stuff from before Bush was elected. It's more or less all laid out, and it becomes clear (as if it wasn't before) that the neocons were looking for any sort of pretext to invade Iraq; 9/11 was a godsend for them.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
- How is Redmond, Washington-headquartered Microsoft any less American than Google?
- How is negotiating with Microsoft not a weaker bargaining position than negotiating with Google?
Your mother had the brains of a hamster, and your father smelt... oh, never mind.Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...50x100mm RHS, in about 1500 length.
An RSJ would have a much greater effect, but it's harder to wield accurately.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Managing major companies as M$ is not much different from running a country. Politics, business and money are intimately mixed in most situations. Look at the current president!
If you really want to find stuff on the web, the fact that google favors paid advertisers gets you censored data.
French are being smart, as much as Gates and the MSFT monopoly frustrates me, I hope they work it out and put things in perspective for google-mania.
Frankly Yahoo.com has done everything I wanted for 6 years, until I found Slashdot.org, of course.
Getting old fast, Shit!
sorry i meant leftist...
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
The Quebec's government have some big projects ongoing for our own Bibliotheque Nationale (National Library). They actually merged the old one with the Montreal's library, moving all major collections into a brand new building downtown and begun a big effort to digitalize a big chunk of the collections, if not all of them. In fact, I'm really impressed with the work done up to now and this is maybe one of the few project well managed here. And for the best, without any private partnership, an hot debate here !
Rav
They use Linux, yes. And "free" could mean "not Microsoft" in the metaphorical sense, where Microsoft becomes a symbol of everyone who wants to take away computing freedom...
But yeah, sorry, I wasn't paying attention. I suppose I should have said "...chooses Microsoft over some non-evil company."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
OK, Mandrakesoft. Here's you chance to kick Bill in the nuts...
I bet you could do it for a fraction of the cost as well.
Do it for France. Do it for the World.
Uhhh, is it just me or is France making a big deal out of nothing here?
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
The French government sided with the Nazis, and the French people didn't have a lot to say about it, with a foreign army parked on their territory. Certainly the French fought as they could. Ever heard of the Free French, which while lead by a royal pain in the ass, were as anti-Nazi as you could get. How about the French Resistance, which did a lot to make the German occupation a costly one for the Nazis. France had been screwed long before the war started, and its collapse was probably inevitible after the world stood by and let Hitler rearm the Rhineland.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Chirac is such a businessman... quel dommage.
I'm willing to bet that there are loads of Slack/Linux users eager to collaborate on such a project. If there could be some government funding on such a project this could really take off, creating new opportunities in the job market as well - benefitting the French economy even more while keeping everything "home-made".
Oh well, I guess this will never happen. Slackware doesn't have wads of cash to wave to politicians so probably they're not even a blip on their clue-radar.The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Actually there were two main subgroups of the FR. One was more careful, and was more interested in intelligence gathering, while the other, which was mostly French Communists, were doing the sabotage and assassinations. The first group didn't like the Communists, because they made the espionage that much more difficult and brought down the heat.
Also, compared to the partisans in Yugoslavia or the behind-enemy-lines guerillas in Russia, the FR really wasn't that effective overall, at least not until right before D-Day.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I find it sad that your feelings towards the french are only "neutral". France is and has always been a US ally, and one of the closest (remember that 9/11 event? Guess which president was the first to go to New York?).
...their nationlistic zeal to keep France French.
As an example of why I feel people are unfaire towards France : When we ask that products we buy at the supermarket actually be labeled in *french* we are called xenophobic and anti-english. You do understand most of this country doesn't speak english that well? Imagine having to do your groceries with everything labeled in russian?
The quickest way to become an atheist is to study the Bible thoroughly.
The translation isn't correct for the first paragraph. That's quite a problem, since it changes the meaning significantly.
Le président serait-il prêt à s'entretenir avec le concurrent de Google, Microsoft, puisqu'il a tant de convergences de vues avec son président, Bill Gates, qu'il a longuement reçu à l'Elysée? "Pourquoi pas?", répondent les conseillers de M. Chirac.
The initial translator wrote "Would the president be ready to make a deal with Google's competitor, Microsoft" which is incorrect.
A correct translation would be:
Would the president be ready to talk with Google's competitor, Microsoft, since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates, whom he has long welcomed to the Elysée?
Quite a different meaning, don't you think ?
When I say "neutral" I mean neither hostile nor happiness towards that particular country. This has more to do with ignorance on my own part than anything else. How can I truly appreciate something that I don't know anything about? So they are an ally. So is Australia. Does that mean I have to love Australia? No. I feel neutral about Australia as well.
I think you just assumed that I was anti-French from the get go, and I'm sorry to say that's just you reading into it more than there is. It really feels like you're simply trying to pick a fight here. There's no animosity on my part towards the French embracing their heritage. You simply *assumed* that "nationalistic zeal" has bad connotations. It doesn't have to, I don't mean it in a negative way. Its a perfect description of things like excising Anglicanized words from their vocabulary. Or trying to get muslim women not to wear burqas. Did I call them xenophobic? No. Did I call them anti-English? No. I realize you're trying to defend the French, but attacking my post is the wrong place to begin. I simply pointed out the incongruity of their situation, which wasn't an attack, just a comment on the situation.
you're not from texas by any chance are you? :)
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The US had good reasons for helping out in World War II. It certainly wan't altruism. It was that Germany declared war on them.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
That would be a ken-by-ten But what about Barbie, and all my other action figures? ;)
I'm French. And I CAN tell you, people who live in Paris are NOT normal french ! They're much more inpolite, and believe they are the center of the world.Repulsing, mainly for the others French !!!
But to make something clear : It's not because a lot of French people can READ english that they can actually understand SPOKEN english (and, much more difficult, american !!!). So, if you're american, don't be angry if they have problems to speak with you or look at you in a strange way. Don't get fooled by the charmant accent of the waitress ; she's just very bad in english, and if her accent sounds very nice to you, it's not important how good your english is, she will not understand it anyway unless you have a very good frenchy accent...
The cause to that could be that, at school, we only learn to write and read, and so little to speak and understand ! There is absolutely NO phonology in the english school's courses !! I did heard for the first time of phonology of english at the university... After 5 years of learning english.
And finally, take distance with what french say to you. There a lot of dumb french people, you will sure meet one of them in a travel to France. But the people are simply very frankly, they say and show you what they think. Even the negative. But when it's positive, it's really positive ; this a different culture, like Asia or Africa. Take it as it is.
The President of France at the time whas : Paul Reynaud.
That's totally wrong. Reynaud was the French Prime Minister!
I never realized that the French education system was as good (if not better) than the US education system. =)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
As usual, the Slashdot headline is pure FUD.
Here is the snippet from Le Monde's article : Dans l'esprit du chef de l'Etat, il s'agit de bâtir un "alter ego" au projet américain, avant d'envisager une éventuelle collaboration avec Google, pour ne pas discuter en situation de faiblesse. Le président serait-il prêt à s'entretenir avec le concurrent de Google, Microsoft, puisqu'il a tant de convergences de vues avec son président, Bill Gates, qu'il a longuement reçu à l'Elysée ? "Pourquoi pas ?", répondent les conseillers de M. Chirac.
Translation : "In Chirac's mind, the idea is to build an "alter-ego" to the American project, before thinking about a collaboration with Google, to have a good position in negociations. Would the president be ready to talk with Microsoft, since he has many common ideas with Bill Gates, whom he has met at the Elysée ? "Why not ?" is the answer from Chirac's advisors."
In summary, Chirac wants to build a French language online library, to have a good collaborative work with google. Should that work be done with Microsoft ? Maybe yes, maybe not. But the stated goal is to work with google, whatever that goal that can be achieved with Microsoft or not.
If you need to work with Oracle, what do you do ? You call an MS sales man to leverage your negociations with Oracle. Well, France wants to work with Google, so it doesn't forbid itself from working with Microsoft, if that gives it a better negociations position.
Slashdot has become more and more a FUD machine, with more or less every headline in contradiction with linked article. Worse, since the actual content of the article is from Le Monde, and is in French, many non-French speaking readers won't be able to see the utter non-sense that the Slashdot article is. This is more and more becoming the Fox News for Nerds, and it's starting to seriously upset me.
Shit, they gave a medal to the terrorist Alain Mafart (Knight of the Order of Merit) and a parade for Dominic Prieur.
That was the government actually ordering terrorism, leading to actual convictions.
So yeah, the French state supported terrorism.
It's hard to argue with their success. It's not like people don't have other choices at where to shop (Target, Kmart, etc.).
The parent does make a good point, though. A better shopkeeper would not worry about his customs and conventions, and would service his customers. Honestly, it should be pretty easy to see if someone is from another culture and doesn't understand your local customs. As long as they're trying to pay you for something instead of steal it, what's the problem?
Unfortunately, this isn't a problem just in Europe: lots of stores in America are also plagued by horrible customer service. It's probably one of the reasons the faceless, soulless big-box stores are doing so well: while they're not wonderful, you can always expect consistency at them. They usually have extremely generous return policies, good prices (not great), and a wide selection. With small shops, you don't know what kind of experience you'll get until you've been there a few times. Some shops are great, other really suck.
Just because you make an observation about a difference in something doesn't mean that this particular difference is relevant in all contexts.
Clever signature text goes here.
The problem with 'the customer is always right' is that culture is always a factor. You just don't see it in your own culture. Say in a US store, you let your dog crap on the floor. Would the shop keeper get upset? After all, the customer is always right, and if the customer wants it, they should get it. Somehow, I think you'd get yelled at and thrown out.
Now let's assume the customer is from a (hypothetical) foreign culture where dogs are revered and allowed to do what they want, where they want, so to him, he's done nothing wrong. He'd go home and tell tales about how US shopkeepers are so unfriendly and insensitive.
Just because something is not offensive in your country, you shouldn't assume that when you've pissed someone off it's because they're unfriendly and crap at customer service. They just may expect different rules of behaviour than you.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
but in that last paragraph, you forgot the word "beleagured." Furthermore, I think you misspelled "Apple," as "America." Use the preview button next time, for crying out loud. >;)
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
i dont trust anybody that drives on the wrong (right hand) side of the road
France just crashed.
Needs a reboot.
Love your country always, but respect your government only when it deserves it. -- Mark Twain
In my case its American Education I am a Canadian ...
Did you hear the joke about the American moron that ran away from home?
He was found years later, teaching school in Toronto.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
While many don't notice, the *real* reason that Americans make fun of the French, and everyone mocks Microsoft, is that it's *easy*--they do all the work for us, and we need only repeat what they said.
.0
However, at the moment France has 52% and Microsoft 45% of the "saying things so stupid that we get mocked just by people repeating it" market. This combination would put a whopping 97% of this market in the same hands!
Obviously, this merger *mut* be stopped, or we'll have to get some work done! (Either that, or we could write or own material . .
hawk
rats. I can't. :)
.
.
Then how do you explain that sports where french have been traditionally quite good are fencing, judo, karate, rugby etc.
Gosh, this is too easy . .
You can't *surrender* in any of those sports!
Note that boxing and chess aren't on the list . .
hawk, who should know better
But the important part is that profit is not what drives him. That allows him to stay in business and do what he likes. As soon as there is some profit and he can do what he likes and feed his family, there is no need for more. If he sells toys, its likely because he likes to sell toys.
If this would be in US, the shopkeeper would likely try to make as much profit as possible converting his store in some high margin wares and use the profits to enjoy his hobby outside the work, for which he would not have time left anyway, because of the need to make a lot of profit.
Some people prefer to rather enjoy their life than maximize their productivity in order to drive higher GDP. From my observations, they largely do not live in US or Japan.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
The problem with 'the customer is always right' is that culture is always a factor. You just don't see it in your own culture. Say in a US store, you let your dog crap on the floor. Would the shop keeper get upset? After all, the customer is always right, and if the customer wants it, they should get it. Somehow, I think you'd get yelled at and thrown out.
Actually, if you did this in a typical big-box store, no one would even notice. However, this is assuming dogs were allowed inside at all, which they're not unless you're blind.
However, I do think there's a big difference between dogs crapping on the floor and taking a display item out of a window with the intention of purchasing it. Any reasonable customer service person knows that losing your temper is never a good thing in customer service, no matter what someone has done. If they've done something annoying, you calmly tell them this isn't allowed. If they've done something really bad, you either ask them to leave the store, or inform them you're calling security/police.
We have people from all different cultures regularly shopping at stores here in the US, especially in metro areas: Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, Indians, etc. Indians are especially funny: I've heard stories of them (usually relatives visiting here for the first time) trying to bargain for vegetables at supermarkets, because they didn't understand that we don't typically bargain for anything here. I've never heard of shopkeepers yelling at customers and throwing them out because they made some silly cultural faux pas.
I'd like to mention here that any adult should know that losing your temper is almost never acceptable, no matter what the circumstance. People who have problems controlling their temper after the age of 18 should be on medication. Throwing hissy-fits is normal for little kids, but most of us grow out of this by the time we're adults: this is part of learning to not act like animals, and be a part of society. So as far as I'm concerned, the shopkeeper in this particular anecdote really had no business being a shopkeeper; if this is actually normal in that country, then I think it'd be a fair generalization to call people in that country assholes.
And a case of bad memory for me!
Still, at least it was close...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In a small store, whatever is on display, is there to bring the customer in. Its not to be touched and many shopkeepers spend hours to arrange the things in the display. He probably had another piece just like this in the back of his store. If you would come to him and say you want that thing, he would bring it to you and if it would be the last one, he would (maybe) take it out of the display to sell you.
Thank you for a civil response that I found really informative. I consider myself mindful of cultural traditions in other places, but I simply had never heard of anything like that or had any issues to other places in Europe.
I still found it really odd that he would not consider the fact that we were foreigners, and cut us a little slack - but like you say I probably really offended him.
It is true I would not go into a bar and take a drink from behind the bar. But here we are talking about a box you can se in the window, easily accessible from near the front door and on a stack of other boxes of the same type. In short I was fooled into thinking it was a stack of toys like any other you might see at ToysRUs, and my shopping instinct of not trying to bother any of the workers in the store took over. Frankly, I thought I was being helpful not making him go all the way back to the door and get it when I was already there!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah, and you've just shown us how Americans have gotten their reputation.
Aha, but ironically it also shows THAT reputation is perhaps as undeserved as the one about French people!
My intentions were good and as I said I apologized porfusley when I realized he was upset, I really did not mean any harm or disrespect at all. I am actually really careful when I travel overseas and generally get along with others quite well. This was the only instance really where I have ever had an issue with anyone, as generally if you show a lot of respect and friendly openeess to people they will treat you kindly regardless of what language you speak or where you come from. That is why it was so baffling to me, because from my perspective I was helping him out by carrying this large box from the front (where I already was) to where he was. I mean, would you normally be standing right by a box and tell someone to cross the room to pick it up for you? I don't know about you but I have no Manservent Jeeves to order about, nor do I want one.
So basically a lot of Americans may mean well but simply offend through cultural ignorance, which is hard when you are travelling the first time (that was my first time in Spain but not Europe). And I don't think you would argue that Americans should never travel! Indeed they could stand to travel abroad quite a bit more. Then I think some of the cultural assumptions would fade away a bit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First, it is harder to enjoy a trip in a foreign country when you don't speak its language. It may sound weird to you, but the vast majority of humans do not speak or even understand English. The French popular culture relies heavily on spoken language, so it is hard to enjoy it if you don't understand it.
I think that part was a bit of dig that was undeserved. As I said my friends with me spoke spanish (I'm afraid I am limited to a tiny bit of German and some unrehersed Japanese). So no I do not find that wierd, and indeed it's a bit of a result you expect. But even my fluently speaking friends run into wierd things sometimes that are simply cultural divide issues, where even if you speak the language you simply cannot understand why someone would do what they are doing, especially when evrything you know is telling you it's rude.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Go on then. Fuck off. Withdraw all your troops from where they're not wanted. Ban your fucking annoying citizens from leaving America. We won't miss you. No more fucking American tourists. Woohoo! Party Time!.
If you are exposed to that many American tourists then your area is probably quite dependent on the tourist dollar. Withdraw the American tourist dollar and you'll be back to castrating goats and selling pickled testicles to the local miners for a living.
Tell me one thing that America produces that we need to live. We don't need Hollywood. Films are made in New Zealand, in England, in India.
Interesting. So America doesn't produce anything you need to live and the example you cite is the movies they make. If that's what you need to live you're probably a rich fat pig who gobbles as much crap as Hollywood can slop into your trough.
We'll never have to see another Hollywood film that shows the fucking dumbass yanks in the USAF trashing yet another country where they don't belong. None of this "America saves the world from yet another unlikely disaster".
You didn't have to see them in the first place. You chose to see them and paid to see them, like the capitalist dog you are LOL!!!
Take your films, take your advertising, take your fat fucking asses. Take your disgusting pretend-beer. Take your fucking lame TV-shows. Take your pro-life abortion campaigns, and your prudish attitude to anything sexual or arousing. Take your sick violence-worshiping culture. Take your fucking insane fire-arms policy. And for God's sweet sake take your fucking Pledge of fucking allegiance.
All other things you have a personal right to disagree with but it's interesting you have a problem with the Pledge of Allegiance. Why would citizens promising loyalty to their home country be a problem for you? That's not a hypothetical question, why is it a problem? I'm waiting for an answer as I'm stumped what you could find offensive in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The rest of the world doesn't want you.
You should try just talking for yourself. The rest of the world is not also babbling like a hepped up glue sniffing wino so please don't speak for them...
You're a joke. You smell. You eat too much. You talk too loudly.
Sensitive little fellow aren't you? This kind of baseless vitriol works best on uneducated, disaffected people with nothing to lose. This tired old waffle doesn't get much traction on Slashdot where the average IQ is higher than the average shoe size.
You have opinions that are fucking offensive to the rest of the world.
Once again, I live in the rest of the world and a frothy mouthed lunatic like you certainly doesn't speak for me.
You've got the highest incarceration rate per capita than any other country
Fortunately, unlike many primitive countries, US prisoners are incarcerated because they broke laws, not offended powerful people.
You have a death penalty.
OK, that narrows it down. Pompous, hateful bag of wind and your home country has no death penalty.... who is John Howard?
Corporate scum rule your country and decide your policies.
Not quite true. Corporate scum heavly influence those who decide policies, as opposed to religious scum heavily influencing policy decision around most of the rest of the world.
You are proud to be headed by a man who would have trouble finding his own arse with both hands.
OK, less than 50% of America were proud on election day, probably less today. Latest reports are that George is quite good at finding it with both hands now, it's only single-handedly he's having troubles.... so give him a break... he's trying...
You don't understand sarcasm.
You can't be serious. Have you ever watched "Everybody Loves Raymond"??