To add a little information to what the parent poster has sad. The state collects church tax for the Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Protestant Church. The reasons for this arrangement go back to the early 19th century when the state appropriated the land that formerly belonged to the church. This was meant as a compensation for losses incurred by the state when Napoleon occupied the Western Rhineland. Don't ask me how that makes sense.
So, if you belong to either of those two denominations, the state will collect a church tax from you and pass it off to the church. To get out of this you have to go to the Amtsgericht (local court) and declare that you're not part of the respective church community anymore. You don't have to declare that you're an atheist, though.
You right, this arrangement is stupid but it's almost 200 years old and not likely to change anytime soon. Those who have to pay the tax don't seem to mind. Interestingly, it was never meant to be permanent. We have a saying here in Germany: "Provisorien halten am längsten." Literally translated it means that provisional arrangements last the longest.
I'm very much against guns but I find myself agreeing with the guy from the NRA on this issue.
Also, it's pretty obvious that the gun in Skyfall only had this "feature" so it could be exploited in a (way too predictable and pretty lame) plot twist.
Telling people to "do your utmost to avoid asking questions that you can find the answers to" is really bad advice. I've seen this sentiment a lot and Eric Raymond wrote an entire article (How To Ask Questions The Smart Way) that boils down to RTFM and is outright contemptuous of newbies.
Asking questions is a fast way to get a problem resolved and people should not be intimidated from doing that. On the mailing lists I frequent, newbie questions are asked all the time and answered fairly quickly. A nice side effect is that you learn something new by skimming posts that aren't relevant to you. So asking questions has a benefit to persons other than the one who's asking. Other mediums, like IRC channels, exist to get problems resolved quickly and how can you do that if you do not ask?
Now, I agree that you should do some research before asking, simply because it might be quicker to find an answer that way. But if after a bit of research you can't figure it out then go ask a question!
If you're referring to Mein Kampf, you're mistaken. Publishing excerpts of it is prosecuted in civil courts, but only because the Bavarian state claims the copyright. When Hitler killed himself, his estate went to the state, including the publishing rights of that book. The copyright is about to expire after which everybody will be free to print copies in Germany.
On the other hand, distribution and use of some symbols commonly associated with Nazi ideology is a prohibited by the law. If and how much freedom of speech is restricted by these laws is a matter of debate. Certainly, the US is more permissive in this regard, but one should not forget that these laws grew out of denazification regulations instituted by the Allied occupation forces after World War 2.
That is simply not true. You can drop buoys directly into a moving water and generate electricity without first damming of the river. These buoys can be equipped with features that make them save for the fish and other river life. Google "hydro power without a dam" to find out more.
NK also has a powerful neighbor in the north who would object to further encroachment by US troops so close to its borders as it did in the past and who is the only reason why there is a NK in the first place.
If the US intervenes in NK without the (tacit) acknowledgement of China things will get really ugly really fast.
Basically, the test in question was a bribery test. People from cultures more attuned to bribery (euphemistically referred to as "gift-giving" in the study) turned out to be faster to use it and more generous with their offers. Big surprise. The more developed your country is, the less likely you are to try to openly bribe a stranger with cash.
You missed the crucial part that the recipient of a large gift (more than a 50-50 split) also turned these gifts down more often than not. It is explained later on in the article by the mindset the generous offers lead to unwelcome burdens. None of this matches your bribery analogy.
And what was so special about the moon to create that brand value?
That's easy to answer. The moon has had a special place in the human imagination since time immemorial. It's been raised to the status of a deity by many cultures. Thus, it does not surprise me that the moon landing, i.e., the first instance of "man touching the moon" is such a significant cultural event. Conversely, I venture that even most educated people have a problem picturing the emptiness of deep space. This vagueness in understanding translates to putting somebody up there.
There are one-click installers available for Windows and OS X. On Linux, you would obviously the package management version.
You also don't have to run PostgreSQL as root at all. I develop on OS X and typically run an installation from my home directory. (I also compile my own version, but you don't have to do that.)
It's the butterflies' fault. If they had not stopped with the development of nuclear power 30 years ago, they would not suffer from these "abnormalities". After all, modern reactor designs are intrinsically safe!
even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998)
on record: since 1850 (thermometers), or for the last 2000 years (tree rings, ice cores), or for the last 800.000 years (ice cores), according to Wikipedia. Doesn't really say which, but the Mesozoic era ended 65 million years ago, so it's not covered.
warmest years for the entire planet: if one considers global temperature averages. Note that local climate is not a good indicator.
But I've grown more than a little sick of Chicken Little, crazy-eyed alarmists preaching apocalyptic sermons with utterly ridiculous language that makes it sound like the fucking end is nigh if mankind doesn't abolish all industry NOW NOW NOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
Straw man. Actually, the total opposite of what the article is about.
And spouting off laughably ridiculous "facts" like "the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998" only makes them sound even more like a bunch of religious zealots than they already do.
Oh god, this is such a horrible idea. So they fixed the VBA problem where code developed for the German version of Excel fails to run anywhere else. Good for them. But then they claim that you can mix and match French and Spanish code. This is good how? As a German native speaker I was exposed a Java program written in German. For example, getters and setters were prefixed with "nimm" and "gib". My eyes start to bleed just thinking about it.
If you learn programming you have to deal with complex abstract problems. Learning the arbitrary names of a few keywords doesn't really impose such a cost, compared to the gymnastics you have to make to wrap your head around, say, pointer arithmetic. Okay, so nobody uses that anymore, but what about the difference between a value and a reference (e.g. in a linked list)? Or even simpler: how about the basic concept of extracting common code into a function?
A more reasonable request is more standardized 3D glasses and better quality. There are many people who wear glasses all the time in order to be able to see anything at all. Glasses made for that are more comfortable to wear. Let's have 3D glasses that are as comfortable to wear as ordinary glasses. And let's have 3D glasses suitable for people who need glasses, such that those people don't have to wear two pair of glasses on top of each other in order to watch a 3D move. Fix those two things, and 3D technology will become more popular.
Not gonna happen. There is a huge market for real glasses because people actually need them and thus they chose the pair they like and which fits them comfortably. There is no such market for 3D glasses because, wait for it, people don't actually need glasses to see in 3D.
3D is a fad that has been around since there have been moving images, i.e. for over a hundred years. It comes and goes. The cinemas jump on it because it allows them to milk their patrons. It's a brilliant artistic choice for very few movies und completely useless the rest. BTW, I wear eye correction, i.e. contacts during the day and glasses in the evening when I'm at home. I have no problems with 3D glasses in movies because they don't interfere with my lenses and I'm so used to wearing glasses that it doesn't bother me. It's just that the experience of the vast majority of 3D movies is underwhelming.
So, I'm with the GP. Wake me up when they have invented the holodeck. Until then, spare me the faux 3D shit.
As far as practical uses, well few thought General Relativity would have practical application, and now it's use is a common everyday thing because GPS depends on it.
Huh? As I understand it, GPS depends on triangulation of multiple signals. It has to correct for relativistic effects, but would still work in a world without relativity.
Now, if you want more members of the second group to be hired, then you need to look at the causes and address them. For example, do they encounter the relevant skills later? Are there hidden prejudices against them in hiring? Are they excluded or discouraged from participating in some relevant educational prerequisites?
If you answer yes to the questions I have bolded the argument at the beginning of your post loses a lot of its strength. I.e. if there is are systemic prejudices against people in group B then the chance that one of them is hired without a quota is closer to 0% and not 20%. Now you have to decide what is more important for society. That always the best people are hired (no quotas) or that discrimination against a group of people is reduced (quotas).
Never mind the bad translations. What about the sterile sound quality of the dub and how it totally obliterates the emotional content of the actor's performance? Why does it have to sound like it is spoken by some bored dude sitting in a studio?! Oh, wait. Right. And then there's the disconnect between the visual and auditory sensory perception, i.e. the words are not synced to lip movements.
The original has the bus in the middle slightly to the left, whereas the so-called copy has it in the lower right corner. Also the original appears to be shot with a 50mm equivalent lens, but the so-called copy uses a wide angle. Then the steps to the bridge which are dominating the lower part of the original photograph are completely missing from the so-called copy as is the river. Finally, the lighting appears to be different. The shadows in the so-called copy are more distinct, because it was shot on a sunny day whereas the original sky was probably overcast.
Regarding the treatment -- so putting a bright red object on a monochrome background is forbidden now? I now it's cliché and overused, but that's no reason to ban the technique. (Which was used by Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List for great effect. There you have your prior art.)
Never mind the fact that artists have been copying each other since forever. It's how you learn and how art works.
Don't get me started. I too had a bug report resolved as "works as expected". Another one of mine was closed as a duplicate, but Apple's bug tracking software won't let you view other people's bug reports. So I couldn't follow its progress anymore.
Apple's bug reporting policy is a joke. On the user.
Slashdot Mirror
To add a little information to what the parent poster has sad. The state collects church tax for the Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran Protestant Church. The reasons for this arrangement go back to the early 19th century when the state appropriated the land that formerly belonged to the church. This was meant as a compensation for losses incurred by the state when Napoleon occupied the Western Rhineland. Don't ask me how that makes sense.
So, if you belong to either of those two denominations, the state will collect a church tax from you and pass it off to the church. To get out of this you have to go to the Amtsgericht (local court) and declare that you're not part of the respective church community anymore. You don't have to declare that you're an atheist, though.
You right, this arrangement is stupid but it's almost 200 years old and not likely to change anytime soon. Those who have to pay the tax don't seem to mind. Interestingly, it was never meant to be permanent. We have a saying here in Germany: "Provisorien halten am längsten." Literally translated it means that provisional arrangements last the longest.
I'm very much against guns but I find myself agreeing with the guy from the NRA on this issue.
Also, it's pretty obvious that the gun in Skyfall only had this "feature" so it could be exploited in a (way too predictable and pretty lame) plot twist.
Telling people to "do your utmost to avoid asking questions that you can find the answers to" is really bad advice. I've seen this sentiment a lot and Eric Raymond wrote an entire article (How To Ask Questions The Smart Way) that boils down to RTFM and is outright contemptuous of newbies.
Asking questions is a fast way to get a problem resolved and people should not be intimidated from doing that. On the mailing lists I frequent, newbie questions are asked all the time and answered fairly quickly. A nice side effect is that you learn something new by skimming posts that aren't relevant to you. So asking questions has a benefit to persons other than the one who's asking. Other mediums, like IRC channels, exist to get problems resolved quickly and how can you do that if you do not ask?
Now, I agree that you should do some research before asking, simply because it might be quicker to find an answer that way. But if after a bit of research you can't figure it out then go ask a question!
If you're referring to Mein Kampf, you're mistaken. Publishing excerpts of it is prosecuted in civil courts, but only because the Bavarian state claims the copyright. When Hitler killed himself, his estate went to the state, including the publishing rights of that book. The copyright is about to expire after which everybody will be free to print copies in Germany.
On the other hand, distribution and use of some symbols commonly associated with Nazi ideology is a prohibited by the law. If and how much freedom of speech is restricted by these laws is a matter of debate. Certainly, the US is more permissive in this regard, but one should not forget that these laws grew out of denazification regulations instituted by the Allied occupation forces after World War 2.
Replying to undo a bad Troll mod.
I was aiming for +15, Effin Awesome.
That is simply not true. You can drop buoys directly into a moving water and generate electricity without first damming of the river. These buoys can be equipped with features that make them save for the fish and other river life. Google "hydro power without a dam" to find out more.
NK also has a powerful neighbor in the north who would object to further encroachment by US troops so close to its borders as it did in the past and who is the only reason why there is a NK in the first place.
If the US intervenes in NK without the (tacit) acknowledgement of China things will get really ugly really fast.
Basically, the test in question was a bribery test. People from cultures more attuned to bribery (euphemistically referred to as "gift-giving" in the study) turned out to be faster to use it and more generous with their offers. Big surprise. The more developed your country is, the less likely you are to try to openly bribe a stranger with cash.
You missed the crucial part that the recipient of a large gift (more than a 50-50 split) also turned these gifts down more often than not. It is explained later on in the article by the mindset the generous offers lead to unwelcome burdens. None of this matches your bribery analogy.
Do Coding Standards Make a Difference?
Yes.
We live in the future, why don't our tools enforce these standards automagically?
Eclipse has had a configurable code formatter for ages. I would be surprised if other tools did not have this feature.
And what was so special about the moon to create that brand value?
That's easy to answer. The moon has had a special place in the human imagination since time immemorial. It's been raised to the status of a deity by many cultures. Thus, it does not surprise me that the moon landing, i.e., the first instance of "man touching the moon" is such a significant cultural event. Conversely, I venture that even most educated people have a problem picturing the emptiness of deep space. This vagueness in understanding translates to putting somebody up there.
Just cover your eyes! If you can't see them, they can't see you!
There are one-click installers available for Windows and OS X. On Linux, you would obviously the package management version.
You also don't have to run PostgreSQL as root at all. I develop on OS X and typically run an installation from my home directory. (I also compile my own version, but you don't have to do that.)
It's the butterflies' fault. If they had not stopped with the development of nuclear power 30 years ago, they would not suffer from these "abnormalities". After all, modern reactor designs are intrinsically safe!
Wait. What?!
even as the U.S. endures its warmest year on record (the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998)
on record: since 1850 (thermometers), or for the last 2000 years (tree rings, ice cores), or for the last 800.000 years (ice cores), according to Wikipedia. Doesn't really say which, but the Mesozoic era ended 65 million years ago, so it's not covered.
warmest years for the entire planet: if one considers global temperature averages. Note that local climate is not a good indicator.
But I've grown more than a little sick of Chicken Little, crazy-eyed alarmists preaching apocalyptic sermons with utterly ridiculous language that makes it sound like the fucking end is nigh if mankind doesn't abolish all industry NOW NOW NOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
Straw man. Actually, the total opposite of what the article is about.
And spouting off laughably ridiculous "facts" like "the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998" only makes them sound even more like a bunch of religious zealots than they already do.
Pot, meet kettle.
You know, in case the apocalypse happens in the next 25 years, you'll have something to eat when you open your time capsule.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16852830
Oh god, this is such a horrible idea. So they fixed the VBA problem where code developed for the German version of Excel fails to run anywhere else. Good for them. But then they claim that you can mix and match French and Spanish code. This is good how? As a German native speaker I was exposed a Java program written in German. For example, getters and setters were prefixed with "nimm" and "gib". My eyes start to bleed just thinking about it.
If you learn programming you have to deal with complex abstract problems. Learning the arbitrary names of a few keywords doesn't really impose such a cost, compared to the gymnastics you have to make to wrap your head around, say, pointer arithmetic. Okay, so nobody uses that anymore, but what about the difference between a value and a reference (e.g. in a linked list)? Or even simpler: how about the basic concept of extracting common code into a function?
A more reasonable request is more standardized 3D glasses and better quality. There are many people who wear glasses all the time in order to be able to see anything at all. Glasses made for that are more comfortable to wear. Let's have 3D glasses that are as comfortable to wear as ordinary glasses. And let's have 3D glasses suitable for people who need glasses, such that those people don't have to wear two pair of glasses on top of each other in order to watch a 3D move. Fix those two things, and 3D technology will become more popular.
Not gonna happen. There is a huge market for real glasses because people actually need them and thus they chose the pair they like and which fits them comfortably. There is no such market for 3D glasses because, wait for it, people don't actually need glasses to see in 3D.
3D is a fad that has been around since there have been moving images, i.e. for over a hundred years. It comes and goes. The cinemas jump on it because it allows them to milk their patrons. It's a brilliant artistic choice for very few movies und completely useless the rest. BTW, I wear eye correction, i.e. contacts during the day and glasses in the evening when I'm at home. I have no problems with 3D glasses in movies because they don't interfere with my lenses and I'm so used to wearing glasses that it doesn't bother me. It's just that the experience of the vast majority of 3D movies is underwhelming.
So, I'm with the GP. Wake me up when they have invented the holodeck. Until then, spare me the faux 3D shit.
a-umlaut: ä
o-umlaut: ö
u-umlaut: ü
Still broken? Preview shows them, but what about when the comment is posted...?
As far as practical uses, well few thought General Relativity would have practical application, and now it's use is a common everyday thing because GPS depends on it.
Huh? As I understand it, GPS depends on triangulation of multiple signals. It has to correct for relativistic effects, but would still work in a world without relativity.
Now, if you want more members of the second group to be hired, then you need to look at the causes and address them. For example, do they encounter the relevant skills later? Are there hidden prejudices against them in hiring? Are they excluded or discouraged from participating in some relevant educational prerequisites?
If you answer yes to the questions I have bolded the argument at the beginning of your post loses a lot of its strength. I.e. if there is are systemic prejudices against people in group B then the chance that one of them is hired without a quota is closer to 0% and not 20%. Now you have to decide what is more important for society. That always the best people are hired (no quotas) or that discrimination against a group of people is reduced (quotas).
Never mind the bad translations. What about the sterile sound quality of the dub and how it totally obliterates the emotional content of the actor's performance? Why does it have to sound like it is spoken by some bored dude sitting in a studio?! Oh, wait. Right. And then there's the disconnect between the visual and auditory sensory perception, i.e. the words are not synced to lip movements.
The original has the bus in the middle slightly to the left, whereas the so-called copy has it in the lower right corner. Also the original appears to be shot with a 50mm equivalent lens, but the so-called copy uses a wide angle. Then the steps to the bridge which are dominating the lower part of the original photograph are completely missing from the so-called copy as is the river. Finally, the lighting appears to be different. The shadows in the so-called copy are more distinct, because it was shot on a sunny day whereas the original sky was probably overcast.
Regarding the treatment -- so putting a bright red object on a monochrome background is forbidden now? I now it's cliché and overused, but that's no reason to ban the technique. (Which was used by Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List for great effect. There you have your prior art.)
Never mind the fact that artists have been copying each other since forever. It's how you learn and how art works.
Gawd, I hate copyright law.
... when their van unexpectedly mushroom-clouds.
That's a beautiful verbification.
The point of holding the steering wheel with two hands is greater control of the car in case you you need to veer unexpectedly.
Don't get me started. I too had a bug report resolved as "works as expected". Another one of mine was closed as a duplicate, but Apple's bug tracking software won't let you view other people's bug reports. So I couldn't follow its progress anymore.
Apple's bug reporting policy is a joke. On the user.