Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Does Europe Have Better Magazines Than the US?
An anonymous reader writes "Now that all the large chain book stores have disappeared from the landscape, I visited my local independent book store. In the basement I found a dazzling array of amazing magazines from the UK and Germany. Not only were the magazines impressive, they included CDs and DVDs of material. Nearly every subject was there: Knitting, Photography, Music, Linux, and Fitness. I snapped up a magazine called 'Computer Music,' which had a whole issue dedicated to making house music, including a disc of extra content. I subscribe to U.S. magazines like Wired, 2600, & Make, but their quality seems to ebb and flow from issue to issue and I don't ever recall a bonus disc. Are the UK magazines really better? If yes, why and which of them do you subscribe to? The other interesting thing about them is they weren't filled with tons of those annoying subscription cards. What is the best way to subscribe?"
I once read somewhere "c't is a magazine worth learning german for".
c't is a technology magazine somewhere between casual and pro, and deals with gadgets, computers and their peripherals, mobile phones and more. It reviews the quality of service of hardware vendors, ISPs and such, reports on wage situations in the IT-field and the occasional game. Being very broad in content, they still manage to go indepth (?) if questions arise via reader feedback. I have yet to find a publication in that field that matches the quality of research, writing and running this fine line of easy consumable content without being shallow.
Also they used to have the most hilarious April fools articles.
They have a sister magazine called IX, which focuses on linux and security. It's outside my competence field, so i can't say much about it, but it seems it's quite good, regarding to my linux-loving peers.
Sadly there is no data to back me up, but i wonder if mugging and other random crime is reduced by a functioning welfare system. This in that it removes the desperation for many people, leaving mostly addicts and the mentally ill as performers of such crimes.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
As the other guy pointed out, you do realise that even then the French healthcare system is still cheaper than the US one?
The problem with the US system is that it's built around an insurance system, where healthcare providers make the most money when they ensure people are signed up, but don't actually get to use the service. So they have to employ many thousands of people to deal with designing their schemes, marketing their schemes, determining the validity of claims, trying to get away with not paying claims and spending months, sometimes years arguing over the validity of claimsm and if they finally agree to pay a claim - actually dealing with the paperwork of paying that claim.
The problem is the US system creates a whole additional layer of bureaucracy that are unnecessary in the European system, so makes the US system grossly inefficient.
Of course, you're right that the French system may run a deficit that's paid up for in taxes, and the US system doesn't, but that's because Americans are paying much more per head directly to the healthcare firms on average than you pay indirectly to it through your taxes on average - in other words, their system is still drastically more expensive.