Here in the Netherlands (and more generally in the whole of Europe) these things are much beter controlled. There are very strict rules about what information a company is allowed to keep about you and what they are allowed to do with it. They are obligated to tell you on request what information they have about you and they must ask your permission to give the information to anyone else.
Also, there is exactly _one_ credit history agency in the Netherlands. They only know how much you owed and when, but not to whom or what for. Records of debts are destroyed after five years, so after five years there is no way anyone can know you ever had any debts unless you tell them about it.
I agree with you, but I should point out that drugs are _not_ legal in the Netherlands (nor in Belgium or the UK as far as I know). It's just that you're not prosecuted for taking soft drugs (like cannabis) as long as you abide by a few reasonable and simple rules. This way, excesses can still be swiftly dealt with.
I'm from the Netherlands, so you may think that I'm saying this from national bias, but I truly don't think I am. I seriously believe, and have for some time, that you can't beat the Netherlands for personal freedom.
I have lived in the US for a year (in California, which is probably one of the most 'free' states) so I have some experience to base my opinion on.
In almost every respect there is an 'it's OK if you don't bother anyone else' attitude about things in the Netherlands that I've not found anywhere else, certainly not in the US.
A very recent case in point is euthanasia: the Netherlands is now (short of some formalities) the only country in the world where euthanasia is legal. The freedom to decide about your own life in dignity seems to me to be the ultimate freedom and there's only one country in the world where you have that freedom right now.
Another case is, of course, soft drugs. Taking them is not legal in the Netherlands (so that excesses can still be swiftly suppressed), but as long as you abide by a few reasonable rules you're not prosecuted for it. This makes sense: taking soft drugs doesn't bother anyone (it's considered 'not done' to do it publically) so why should the government say that you can't? I only know of one country that takes that attitude: the Netherlands.
And it's not only the government who give you freedom in these and many other ways, it's also the people. Although even in the Netherlands discrimination is a problem, it is so far less than any other country I know of, including the US. The Dutch pride themselves in being tolerant of other people's characteristics, opinions, ideas, etc. to a degree that most people from other countries that I talk to think even higher than they do themselves.
Protection of privacy is another thing I'd like to mention. In Europe, this is taken very seriously. There are strict rules about what information a company may keep about you and what they may do with it. I like that a lot and I think it's also a form of freedom. The scales tip a lot more in the direction of the individual than they do to big companies, as I've found they do in the US.
I could go on and on and there's many more reasons besides those concerning freedom that make me feel this way. I've thought about it a lot (because I really like the US and have been trying to decide for a long time whether I want to go back and live there for a few years) and whichever way I turn it and whatever other country I think about, I always come to the conclusion that there's only one country in the world that I would want to raise my kids in: the Netherlands...
PCAnywhere, Back Orifice (classic & 2000), Windows 2000's Remote Terminal (I forget the "proper" name), Netbus + any screen grabber, and a whole host of other such software.
Yeah, but you have to _install_ all of those first. It's possible, but not very likely, that the spammer had been infected with BO or some such program, but IMNSHO it's far more likely that this is a hoax.
I have a question: is it true that acceleration is non-relative? I noticed that you mentioned a 'non-accelerated frame of reference'. Does that mean that when you have a frame of reference A that is accelerating away from a frame of reference B you cannot say that B is also accelerating away from A (as you can with non-accelerated motion)?
Everything you said is correct, however it isn't the same as what I said: In your situation, you know that the man falls the instant he does. In my situation you know the man falls _before_ he actually does! That's the time travel part. (It's more complicated in reality, but the essential parts are correct.) In my situation, what you could do is see the man fall and then, since you know that the witnesses on the sidewalk haven't seen him fall yet, shout to them that they should point out the ice patch to the man, so that he won't fall. But if he doesn't fall, how could you ever see him falling so you can warn the witnesses? That's the paradox. The way it's usually told is this: if time travel was allowed, you could go back in time and kill your grandparents before your parents are born, so that you're never born. But if you're never born then how can you exist to go back and kill your grandparents?
You'll see why it is a paradox when you think this through:
* Someone looking through the window sees a man slip and fall on a patch of ice well before witnesses on the sidewalk see the mishap occur. * He then shouts through the open window to the witnesses (for whom the event has yet to occur) that the man is about to fall and could they please warn him. * The witnesses then prevent the man from slipping, so that the person looking through the one could have never seen him slip and fall in the first place.
In other words, if you see the event so far in advance that you can get that information back to where the event occurs before it actually happens, someone could then prevent the event from occuring. Voilá: paradox...
Slashdot Mirror
Here in the Netherlands (and more generally in the whole of Europe) these things are much beter controlled. There are very strict rules about what information a company is allowed to keep about you and what they are allowed to do with it. They are obligated to tell you on request what information they have about you and they must ask your permission to give the information to anyone else.
Also, there is exactly _one_ credit history agency in the Netherlands. They only know how much you owed and when, but not to whom or what for. Records of debts are destroyed after five years, so after five years there is no way anyone can know you ever had any debts unless you tell them about it.
I agree with you, but I should point out that drugs are _not_ legal in the Netherlands (nor in Belgium or the UK as far as I know). It's just that you're not prosecuted for taking soft drugs (like cannabis) as long as you abide by a few reasonable and simple rules. This way, excesses can still be swiftly dealt with.
I'm from the Netherlands, so you may think that I'm saying this from national bias, but I truly don't think I am. I seriously believe, and have for some time, that you can't beat the Netherlands for personal freedom.
I have lived in the US for a year (in California, which is probably one of the most 'free' states) so I have some experience to base my opinion on.
In almost every respect there is an 'it's OK if you don't bother anyone else' attitude about things in the Netherlands that I've not found anywhere else, certainly not in the US.
A very recent case in point is euthanasia: the Netherlands is now (short of some formalities) the only country in the world where euthanasia is legal. The freedom to decide about your own life in dignity seems to me to be the ultimate freedom and there's only one country in the world where you have that freedom right now.
Another case is, of course, soft drugs. Taking them is not legal in the Netherlands (so that excesses can still be swiftly suppressed), but as long as you abide by a few reasonable rules you're not prosecuted for it. This makes sense: taking soft drugs doesn't bother anyone (it's considered 'not done' to do it publically) so why should the government say that you can't? I only know of one country that takes that attitude: the Netherlands.
And it's not only the government who give you freedom in these and many other ways, it's also the people. Although even in the Netherlands discrimination is a problem, it is so far less than any other country I know of, including the US. The Dutch pride themselves in being tolerant of other people's characteristics, opinions, ideas, etc. to a degree that most people from other countries that I talk to think even higher than they do themselves.
Protection of privacy is another thing I'd like to mention. In Europe, this is taken very seriously. There are strict rules about what information a company may keep about you and what they may do with it. I like that a lot and I think it's also a form of freedom. The scales tip a lot more in the direction of the individual than they do to big companies, as I've found they do in the US.
I could go on and on and there's many more reasons besides those concerning freedom that make me feel this way. I've thought about it a lot (because I really like the US and have been trying to decide for a long time whether I want to go back and live there for a few years) and whichever way I turn it and whatever other country I think about, I always come to the conclusion that there's only one country in the world that I would want to raise my kids in: the Netherlands...
...did /. become a helpdesk?
PCAnywhere, Back Orifice (classic & 2000), Windows 2000's Remote Terminal (I forget the "proper" name), Netbus + any screen grabber, and a whole host of other such software.
Yeah, but you have to _install_ all of those first. It's possible, but not very likely, that the spammer had been infected with BO or some such program, but IMNSHO it's far more likely that this is a hoax.
I have a question: is it true that acceleration is non-relative? I noticed that you mentioned a 'non-accelerated frame of reference'. Does that mean that when you have a frame of reference A that is accelerating away from a frame of reference B you cannot say that B is also accelerating away from A (as you can with non-accelerated motion)?
Everything you said is correct, however it isn't the same as what I said: In your situation, you know that the man falls the instant he does. In my situation you know the man falls _before_ he actually does! That's the time travel part. (It's more complicated in reality, but the essential parts are correct.) In my situation, what you could do is see the man fall and then, since you know that the witnesses on the sidewalk haven't seen him fall yet, shout to them that they should point out the ice patch to the man, so that he won't fall. But if he doesn't fall, how could you ever see him falling so you can warn the witnesses? That's the paradox. The way it's usually told is this: if time travel was allowed, you could go back in time and kill your grandparents before your parents are born, so that you're never born. But if you're never born then how can you exist to go back and kill your grandparents?
You'll see why it is a paradox when you think this through:
* Someone looking through the window sees a man slip and fall on a patch of ice well before witnesses on the sidewalk see the mishap occur.
* He then shouts through the open window to the witnesses (for whom the event has yet to occur) that the man is about to fall and could they please warn him.
* The witnesses then prevent the man from slipping, so that the person looking through the one could have never seen him slip and fall in the first place.
In other words, if you see the event so far in advance that you can get that information back to where the event occurs before it actually happens, someone could then prevent the event from occuring. Voilá: paradox...
...that's displayed a couple of times somewhere half way through. One of the bytes is three hundred something... :-)