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A Quarter of the EU Has Never Used the Web
smitty777 writes "Reuters reports that a quarter of the EU has yet to use the internet. Further, half of those in some of the southern and western states do not even have internet access at home. From the article: 'As well as highlighting geographic disparities across one of the world's most-developed regions, the figures underline the lack of opportunity people in poorer communities have to take part in advances such as the Internet that have delivered lower cost goods and service to millions of people.' The full report created by Eurostat can be found here."
"Reuters reports that a quarter of the EU has yet to use the internet. Further, half of those in some of the southern and western states do not even have internet access at home.
So half of the people that has never used the web has internet access at home?
The summory sais 'West' but that's supposed to be 'East' - the former communist countries. Poverty and bad infrastructure are known problems there.. Lack of internet probably the least of their problems.
As for southern europe goes - yes, they have more internet cafe's. I assume the climate helps on that culture, same as for coffee etc.
States?
Everyone should have access to the internet. Those at the poorest end of society need it the most because all the best utility deals are online, as is a lot of government information.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
A state is any politically-distinct entity, which can be as small as a single town, or as large as the whole EU. The word is much more versatile than the particular usage in the name "United States of America".
The State of the Union address states the state of the state of states.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The article (and report) conclude that "24 percent of 16-74 year olds across the 27 countries in the European Union have never accessed the Internet". Meanwhile in the parts of the EU with the highest Internet use (such as in the Scandinavian countries) the rate of Internet access (ie people who actively use the Internet, not people who've used it only once) is in the 90%.
I would assume part of the reason for the statistic is that 16-74 is a pretty big age span. Particularly when it comes to new technology. It wouldn't surprise me if the "never used internet" population is almost entirely in the 50+ age bracket. Unfortunately the article, and report, doesn't give that information.
"Lowest standard of living in Europe."
Not all the world is the USA, and you do not have a monopoly on enforcing the meaning of words.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
So, interestingly, your argument (which I completely agree with) seems to have been taken on board by the poorer EU States.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
As a Spaniard (South and West of EU) I have to say the summary is wrong. The fine article says the South and EAST!
Anyway, Spain is a country with large rural areas, but the broadband is nearly ubiquitous.
The term is not employed in the article linked to - only the submission. The common use of the term "states" in reference to the EU, without a modifier such as "Sovereign" or "Member" is in arguments about the precise political relationship of the 27 members to each other. To refer to them as "states" is to take a position in that political discussion.
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
I once saw a saw saw a saw...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You're demonstrating dangerous levels of arrognorance -- the ignorance to form conclusions that are not just wrong, but stupid wrong, combined with the arrogance to dictate to others that your conclusion is correct and they are wrong.
For your ignorance, see Merriam-Webster:
5 a : a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially : one that is sovereign
(Sorry, there's no link for humility; good luck with that problem.)
Declarative statements about the intent of the summary's author are necessarily outrageous fabrications when made by anyone but the original author.
Do you not understand that people often use the short form of technical and multi-word terms when speaking, and when writing, out of a simple desire for convenience and succinctness?
How can you state so assertively that the author of the summary did _not_ mean to use the term 'state' simply to mean sovereign- or member- state? And if that was his intent, how can you claim that the author took a position in 'that' political discussion?
"Sovereign State" was not the concept employed.
Okay, fine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State
As another poster in this sub-thread pointed out, you're not just wrong, you're stupid wrong. I just knew as soon as I saw the summary that there'd be someone making a fool of himself by complaining about the use of the word "state" in this context, and congratulations, you didn't disappoint.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm always amazed when I see the number of articles on Wikipedia in different languages. The German Wikipedia for example has about 1.3 million articles, while the number of German-speaking people is about 100 million. There are *a lot* more people speaking Spanish around the world (Mexico alone has more than 100 million citizens), yet there are only about 850.000 articles in Spanish on Wikipedia.
I think the number of articles says a lot about internet penetration in European countries, because most of them have their own language. The Dutch Wikipedia for example has almost a million articles, while only about 30 million or so people actually speak the language. You see the same sort of ratio between articles to speakers in other nordic and western European countries. This ratio drops sharply as you move towards the east and south of Europe. People seem to be a lot less interested to add content to the internet in those countries. You could argue a poor country has other more important preoccupations, but people in countries such as Spain or Italy aren't all that poor, yet they don't seem to be adding a lot of articles to Wikipedia either.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
>Declarative statements about the intent of the summary's author are necessarily outrageous fabrications when made by anyone but the original author.
Nonsense! We can state categorically, for example, that the summary did not intend to refer to green cheese.
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
Just like with all things, time and a compelling reason is needed to adopt new practices. My mother disliked it when computers were introduced in her job and after retirement was not interested in using the home PC for leisure purposes. When the nest became empty, Skype became a necessity. Last time I visited, she was looking at the camera and saying "hmmm, this photo is too dark but I'll adjust the brightness when I get home"...once at home she was complaining the computer was "too damn slow!" to get anything done...
Laptops are getting cheaper all the time, but you don't even need a laptop to access the internet nowadays. Cheap smart phones that are more than capable of accessing the internet are getting more ubiquitous and cheaper every day. Even in some rich countries where everyone could probably afford a laptop, a large number of people access the internet exclusively from their phone. It may be cheaper, easier, and more useful for countries to provide their poorest citizens with smartphones instead of laptops
Monstar L
I've met more than a few elderly people with, well not an Internet aversion but I guess just Internet ambivalence. They didn't have it growing up, they can't see why they need it now and don't wish to learn something new.
Also they are part of the case of dialup stats. You find an amazing number of people still on dialup. Geeks tend to say "Oh that's because broadband distribution sucks, so many people can't get it!" While it is true that broadband penetration isn't 100%, turns out that where most people live it is available. Most people live in more concentrated areas (hence why they are concentrated) and broadband is there.
Looking in to it you find there are people who just don't care. My grandma was one of those. Had a modem until like 2007. The only reason she got broadband was my uncle got fed up with not having broadband when he visited and just ordered it for her. She liked it once she had it, but couldn't be talked in to ordering it herself.
I've been on the Internet since mid 80-ies. With the authority of experience -for what it's really worth- I can classify these 25% as the happy few.
There still are ample media available for you to live an informed life without using the Internet.
Personally I find the Internet an invaluable source of CS related information and a nifty tool to obtain good deals on purchases. I actually speak face to face with people I care about. Anything skin deep I ignore completely.
I'm most likely not interested in your life story. The best times I have with actual people. CS is merely a hobby that happens to earn me a living. It took me a few mental leaps in the early stages to realise that graphical representations of bytes will never govern my life.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The EU has a wide spread of countries, and development levels. Rural Romania has a different level of wealth and technology infrastructure than urban Finland, for example.
You make a good point about trust as an issue why some people might not take up internet use. My 77 year old father here in the UK does not go shopping online. I think part of this is lack of trust with the novel (to him) environment. Also, he doesn't need to go online. All his local services are within a few kilometres and he likes doing business in person. He is retired, so he can go to the bank and shops during quiet times of the day. Some people don't need the internet, or if they have access to it, choose not to use it.
For some people in Europe it is technical infrastructure. Check out a map of Europe and you will find that there are large areas where there is low speed or little access to the internet - modem speed access or maybe no access to fixed line telephones or mobile coverage. In Scotland, there is better coverage for 3G phones in the seas around the country than on the surface area of the land (internet is usually ok up to 2Mbs via land line in this country).
For quite a number of people in Europe, they cannot afford the cost of an internet connection. Check out prices in some of the lower developed European countries compared to state pension levels for example. For the young, employed, urban Europeans in highly developed countries internet costs are low compared to income, but for many others this is not the case.
You appear to have made the word so versatile that it has become almost meaningless. It is worth noting that the term "state" did not appear in the original article.
I think you are simply incorrect that the a "state" is ANY politically distinct entity.
And you are simply incorrect in thinking that the only use of the word "state" is as in the US States.
The phrase "EU member state" is a common one in Europe, and the fact you haven't heard of it is simply ignorance on your part.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The term is not employed in the article linked to - only the submission. The common use of the term "states" in reference to the EU, without a modifier such as "Sovereign" or "Member" is in arguments about the precise political relationship of the 27 members to each other. To refer to them as "states" is to take a position in that political discussion.
Please, just give up, you are making yourself look more and more ignorant. You are fixated on the US usage of the word "State" and think this implies that an EU country must be part of a greater "United States of Europe". It simply does not mean that in this context
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
when you have to non-choose between surfing the Web (for whatever reason) and feeding your kids (or yourself) or paying the rent or going to the doctor ... the action is straightforward: you suppress what is not first necessity and accessing the Web in this circumstancies is NOT first necessity.
... "EU member state" was not the term employed!
So you are essentially changing the subject.
Had the summary referenced "member states" I doubt any of the people who have commented on the strange use of the word "state" in isolation, in this context, would have done so.
Interestingly enough, it is still the term "countries" that seems to be preferred. ... although there is one reference to "member states" on the page.
http://europa.eu/about-eu/27-member-countries/index_en.htm
If you can't defend the use of the word "state" in this context, unmodified by "member" or "sovereign", and uncapitalised, then you are effectively conceding the point.
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
You just keep on digging that hole you're in, kiddo.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Um, yeah, my guess is that you have no understanding of poverty, at least poverty in the first world. Being able to search for housing, search for jobs, search for other necessities of life etc. is of utmost importance to poor people. And as all of that information is going online, people who cannot access the information often end up having to pay more for those same services because middle men will insert themselves between the poor and the providers of those services.
Monstar L
> It simply does not mean that in this context
Well, to help us establish what it DOES mean in this context, perhaps you could cite usage of the word "state", with reference to a country in the EU, uncapitalised and unmodified by the words "member", "sovereign" or "the", in EU documentation. Or anywhere else.
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
We have National Rifle Association mailers and Fox News providing reliable information in lieu of the internet.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
some hillbilly christian types that have no internet, no cable TV, no landline telephone, they live way out of town, they believe the US Government is the "Beast" of Revelation (chapter 13) and the end of the world is going to happen before the end of this decade
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Not the Internet per se but mobile phones have been used by yak herders to decide the best time to take their yaks to the valley to sell, and by fishermen to decide where to take their catch.
Economics 101 tells you that power st6ems from asymmetric information. The Internet is a leveler of playing fields.
A friend of ours is in Nepal at the moment and using the Internet to relay back exactly what can be done most effectively to support the charity she's working with. The result is that they get aid months earlier than they would have done. I'm afraid that your argument is about Western media consumers, not real poor people.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Only if you're young(ish). A huge percentage of the population here (Portugal) is retired, has a place to live and doesn't even know how to use the 'net.
Dilbert RSS feed
Yeah, what's another hundred mil on the already bottomless pits of debt?
Dilbert RSS feed
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/12/romania-management-idUSL6E7NC1ZR20111212
CEE MONEY-Help wanted: emerging EU state needs good CEOs
Dec 12 (Reuters) - For two decades, Romania's inefficient state companies have undermined the country's economy through graft, mismanagement, disadvantageous business deals and budget-sapping losses. ...
---
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pressroom/content/20111213IPR33945/html/Parliament-endorses-EU-wide-protection-for-crime-victims
Qualified by "EU". (I didn't exclude it specifically, I took it as read that all qualifiers were out.)
Parliament endorses European Protection Order for crime victims
Crime victims who are granted protection from their aggressors in one EU Member State will be able to get similar protection if they move to another, under new rules adopted by Parliament on Tuesday. The European Protection Order aims to protect victims of, for instance, gender violence, harassment, abduction, stalking or attempted murder. Member States will have three years to transpose this directive into national law.
Measures to protect crime victims from aggressors already exist in all EU Member States but at present they cease to apply if the victim moves to another country. The European Protection Order (EPO) directive, already agreed with national governments, will enable anyone protected under criminal law in one EU state to apply for similar protection if they move to another.
Hardly! The fact they use "EU Member State" twice in the quote before "EU state" makes this particularly weak...
----
http://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/policies/asylum/asylum_criteria_en.htm
The "Dublin" Regulation â" Which EU State is responsible for examining an asylum application?
Knowing which State is responsible for an asylum claim avoids asylum seekers being transferred from one EU State to another, with none accepting responsibility, as well as multiple or simultaneous applications by the same person in different EU States (a phenomenon known as âasylum shoppingâ(TM)). ...
Again, there is a qualifier. EU. And it is capitalised.
Find Japanese addresses in English on Google Maps Japan: http://diddlefinger.com/
The lack of Internet at home does not mean those people are disconnected. There are many people who only use the Internet at work, or go to a netcafe etc.
I guess most people know that "state" means country, and so didn't get their panties in a bunch.
You could argue a poor country has other more important preoccupations, but people in countries such as Spain or Italy aren't all that poor, yet they don't seem to be adding a lot of articles to Wikipedia either.
I'd say the weather has a part in that. I'd rather enjoy the countryside in the Toscana or a stroll and hangout outside in the town of Florence then go outside where it's raining constantly. Or at least way more often as it does in Italy and Spain. My time spent on the web would be less in those countries, I presume. Especially if they have a tradition of socializing outside. Which both countries do.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
As hard as it would be to imagine in the United States, there are still places on earth where people actually know each other and interact with each other in person. If some farming village in the middle of nowhere doesn't have internet access, then I wouldn't wish it upon them. For the most part the internet is a scourge. I would be more interested to know how people without the internet in their lives survive. In america you can't even get a job without going online, which is ridiculous. Poor people are not helped by technology. Rich people force poor people to use technology as a way of generating revenue from otherwise lost causes.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
"but on paper we are still different countries"
Hmm , not really. A true country has control of its own foreign policy and defense. The US States don't. A federal system is not the same ad a coalition which is what the EU is.
Broadband internet access enables higher speed when browsing and performing activities over the internet. The proportion of households with a broadband connection rose in all Member States in 2011 compared with 2006. Sweden (86%) registered the highest share of broadband connections in 2011, followed by Denmark (84%), the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (both 83%) and Finland (81%), while Romania (31%), Bulgaria (40%) and Greece (45%) had the lowest.
Soooo the places where connectivity sucks people don't bother getting on the net? Maybe there is something in the ratio between minimum wage and cost of getting on a slow as shit ISP.
Minimum Wage:
Greece Euro 25.01 per day ($US 93.30/mo)
Bulgaria: 150 Levs per month ($US 95.54/mo)
Romania: 390 RON per month ($US 116.80/mo)
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I'm really getting rather sick of listening to patronising Generation Y'ers that the net is the solution to all day to day transactions and that anyone who doesn't agree is some sort of reactionary luddite.
You know what? If those people want to live their lives online then thats their lookout.
But I actually LIKE going to shops to check out stuff physically before I buy in IT THE SHOP so I have somewhere to take it back to if it fails instead of having to parcel it up and go down the post office and pay money to send it back and then find out it got lost in the post and they never received it.
I LIKE sending cheques instead of using direct debit so *I* can choose on what day I pay, not have the money taken out regardless of how much is left in my account.
I LIKE speaking to a human on the end of a phone, not having to navigate through some feckin useless website which doesn't solve my problem anyway.
I LIKE using cash because I don't want my bank/CC company knowing about every single goddamn transaction I make.
And to sum up , I LIKE not having to be reliant on a sometimes unreliable piece of kit called a computer to run my entire feckin life.
1- Sponsor study showing some people never used the internet/has lower bandwidth internet, pointing out as to how this disparity in such a developed continent is baaaaad. 2- ??? 3- PROFIT!
Send your spendthrift head of state this
You really have absolutely no clue what you're talking about do you. I'd stop now before you come across as an arrogant buffoon who has never travelled further than the border of his country. If you had ever seen real poverty you'd know how irrelevant laptops or smartphones are to these people.
It may be cheaper, easier, and more useful for countries to provide their poorest citizens with smartphones instead of laptops
Sure, after they've provided shelter and food. If you're a peasant farmer, you'd probably rather have 400 euros worth of food to get you through the winter without starving, rather than a shiny smartphone or laptop
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I think you are simply incorrect that the a "state" is ANY politically distinct entity.
I think the true distinction is that the entity must be sovereign to be a state.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Thats why they still think French is the language of the future and that they're still a world power and the most important nation in the EU.
oh lord this reminds me of a phone call I had this morning with an 80+ yo customer (helping with his connectivity), of Austrian or German descent, Helmut von something or other,
Me, speaking slowly and articulating each word, after spending a long time explaining what a web browser is, "ok sir, now that you have entered the website address, please press the enter key."
In a soft gurgling voice, he answered slowly, painfully, "urghalam, urs, ahh, ussh, ur, er, nein, , urgh, argh, ja, ok, no, I cannot see the enter key anywhere on the screen..."
At this point my toes curled in on themselves and I screamed silently, stomach contents churning in rancid, bubling acid.
Whats the point of fiber to the home if they dont have a computer? Ah, they have a right to a (working) computer, then. Whats the support cost for that?
"His name was James Damore."
Other examples in common usage:
State-owned newspaper (heard during the cold war wrt TASS)
Secretary of State
State dinner, state function
Head of State
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I relayed the story awhile back about internet connectivity and one set of relatives. They saw no need for "that internet" let alone even computers for the most part because they never were impacted by it.
Until grandchildren entered the picture and were in pictures. Pictures they could get by having the computer make all that noise connecting to the internet (dial up on the farm, cable will probably never be an option in rural midwest). That sold them on the net, do they use it for much more than pictures, not really.
So I can fully expect to see large parts of the world, even in areas we count at civilized, as not having access the net simply because it has not crossed their lives nor have they been negatively impacted by not having access.
People these days are quick to claim rights to things they want without the realization that its not a right but a want. A want that many other people might not even care about. It makes life easier for those who adapted to it but for others its not going to do squat.
I can cite a hundred examples of how it would make life better for someone to have access to the net on a daily basis but if your just getting by or have fields to take care of, you already have a full day and for many people that is contentment.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
They are probably better off...the way Comcast and Verizon (the only 2 real choices in our area) charge ridiculous prices and, frankly, price fix everything the cost would be too high for most and I am NOT going to subsidize someone else just because I can afford my connection right now....no way. If Obama had his way he would make those of us who can afford it pay for everyone who cannot...last I checked, having internet access wasn't a God-given right....although Liberals would have you believe that...
You are an idiot. What the devil do you think a "member state" is? I'll say it slowly so you don't miss it: A member state of the EU is a state which is a member of the EU. As opposed to all the other states, which are not members of the EU.
To summarise the broader debate, the term state, when referring to a political entity, can have several meanings:
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
Er, we're not the United States of Europe just yet. Refer to the southern and western countries, sure, but not states.
I'd have thought that the eastern countries would have lower take up than the western ones though - the new EU members that were once part of the eastern bloc - but perhaps if you live in Spain or Portugal you have better things to do than spend your life on the internet...
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
Leaving aside the question about percentages of users, almost everyone in almost every country (in europe, at least) can receive a 3G signal. So long as you can receive that signal and can afford the equipment, you have internet access. Whether or not you then choose to spend your agricultural-grade income on something as unnecessary as Facebook or Twitter access, and content in a language you probably don't speak is up to you. I have to say that if I only earned 50 euros a day and was asked to pay out some hundreds for a computer, and 3G broadband - but that most of the content I could access was in some unknown language, I think I could easily life a full and happy life without it.
Having internet access at home does not mean you need to have ADSL or cable provision. It only means that it is theoretically possible, with enough money spent, to ping a site. It does not mean the access has to be affordable, ubquitous or even useful. On that basis, this survey fails.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The phrase "these United States" has been used only rarely, at least in the publications scanned by google, and much more Post-Civil war than before. There is a curious spike in 1983.
In Finland banks have practically forced people to use Internet for paying bills, by making payment at the desk ridiculously expensive and reducing the number of payment machines. The 8% of Finns that have never used the internet must be old people that are wealthy enough to pay 6€ per bill. Learning even basic usage is a big effort if you haven't touched a computer before, people growing up with computers and other gadgets have no idea how hard it can be.
That's why R-Kioski (chain that makes most of it's money selling tobacco, candy, magazines and lottery tickets) has started a service where paying a bill costs "only" 3 euros.
Oh, internet access is not a "right" in Finland. There has only been talking about that every household should be capable of having a broadband access for a reasonable price, with government support if needed, but there has been no real action yet. For people living in cities there is no problem, but in the countryside many farmers can't get a broadband, or are struggling with a 3G connection that works sometimes.
Though most of Finland is covered with 3G networks, ensued by Finns need to go to a shore of one of Finland's 187888 lakes every chance they get. People expect their UMTS modem to work in their summer cottage, 100 paying customers by a lake makes you build a station for them. But if you are a lone farmer with no lakes near, who's gonna care for you? In current economic situation propably nobody.
I'm almost positive that there are STILL folks that will read this report and decry the woeful network connections many in America face - like only have a paltry meg or two download speed and ONLY two choices of providers (ignoring sattelite and cellular)...
That's why the current administration is proposing to inject billions into upgrading our national broadband infrastructure...
Ken
Here in the Republic of Ireland, the government commissioned an online survey into internet use.
They've proudly been able to report a 100% penetration of internet services, with all respondents claiming they had access to the web.
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
Even if that quarter of people aren't going to use the web anytime soon, Europe is still going to run out of IPv4 addresses in a few months. And still there are countries where no single ISP is selling IPv6 capable connections. As much as it may seem like a good idea to improve infrastructure to allow the remaining Europeans to get online, it is actually more important to get the existing infrastructure upgraded to IPv6. Even if we could magically get the remaining Europeans online with IPv6, they would be 2nd class users if the old infrastructure remains IPv4 only.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
The EU is violating those poor people's human rights! The UN must invade the EU to protect their human rights!~
/sarcasm
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
the article is crap and eurostat is a joke; don't know about this "survey", but in other occasions they just poured in the same buckets data collected using different criteria ... but I ranted enough about this already ...
making conjectures about crap data is a waste of time
get the Internet out to everyone
the internet is already out to everyone in Europe, the article and the Eurostat reports are crap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Romania ... the data is from 2007
in Rumania the real coverage is close to 100% (well, maybe up in the mountains in the middle of the forest you don't have access, but hardly anybody lives there). EDGE is dirt cheap and omnipresent ( example http://www.orange.ro/acoperire/ or one of the smaller providers http://www.zapp.ro/acoperire/ ... yes, true, the quality of the service is a bit exaggerated, you don't get 100% of the speed 100% of the time), G3 is cheaper than dial-up in Western Europe and available in all towns ... you don't get internet only if you don't want to since a decent monthly fee will put you back the price of 5 cigarette packages, and a wireless connection + 1 modem will cost you the price of 10 cigarette packages, and second hand computers that can do Flash are available at under 150 Euros ...
I've lived in more countries than you could even point out on a map dumbshit, I also said "at least poverty in the first world". Maybe instead of being an arrogant dickhead, you go back to first grade and learn basic reading comprehension skills, k?
Monstar L
The hell of it is... it was an online poll.
I8-D
Not yet. Give it 200 years and a couple of crises to go through, then get back on the subject. With entangled economies, currencies, and therefore militaries, and no borders to speak of, it's just a matter of time as things start binding the EU together as these United States ended up being bound together even though they started out fairly autonomous.
The next generation (teenagers and those under thirty, are the new internet users. They have actually having more use with smart phones, texting and chat, than using the net.
My son lived in Riga Latvia for 3 years, and when I visited, there were no internet cafés, and those who had laptops had all the software imaginable. You could go on the streets and buy any software you wanted for a dollar a DVD.
Most students (my son was a not a student), had azerty keyboard laptops, all the software imaginable, and were studing Linux and Linux servers in the schools and in computer science clubs.
Call that portion of EU, the hackers domain. University of Riga is topnotch, and not promoting this kind of copyright infringement or hacking.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Yeah , whatever you say Walter Mitty. I think your mum is calling you for dinner.
You are right, libraries have free internet and free access. And opening time between 11:00 and 14:00 :(
paper Maps? Yeah, but the the whole point of being online is doing it in 2011 style. paper maps and paper books work fine. But having the 2011 online tools saves you a lot of time.
3g roaming+internet ? This might require a masters degree in comparing subscriptions... in a strange language. Certainly a throw away phone is fine for calling, they even sell them at the airport in a machine, but internet is a different story. I certainly would not provide my credit card...