Here in Germany, when cellphones first hit the streets, they were quite expensive. SMS messages between phones, however, were free - a kind of add-on, to see how people like them.
Apparently the LOVE them - and the companies started charging for it. Looks like they're all making a bucketload of cash on SMSs (which are *quite* cheap for the companies themselves),and obviously they're not dropping the prices. After all, people are willing to pay this much, thus they are charged this much...
Seeing how we can get (cheap) flat-rates on mobile phones here, I simply stopped using SMs.
Hah! Being a german, I can't resist answering this. "Panzer" ist german for tank. *And* it's german for armor;)
Thus, bugfix: Panzer == tank Panzer == armor
Not a good idea building one over here, not even for 1.274 Euros (=$2000) - the gouverment would panic, and probably blow you into oblivion... after all, this place is full of eeeeevil terrorists (according to the gouverment, anyway).
I actually programmed something like this on my Olivetti M24 (8086 CPU, 256K RAM, top of the line for the time) in the late 80s (yes, I'm an Old Fart). No, no, I'm no genius - I got the code from the grand magazine "Creative Computing". I believe the program (in BASIC, natch) can also be found in their wonderful "101 Basic Computer Games I/II" books.
> I seriously doubt oil really drove the attack (and why the hell would we have invaded Afghanistan? nothing but opium there - maybe Bush did it for his dealer buddy from his coke snorting days)
Well, that very easy to explain. The war is costing a truly astonishing amount of money. This money is being paid out to some companies. Who are making an enormous profit. Since your industry (in this case, particularly the military industry) has a very large influence over your leadership, your country engages in warfare and warfare-support - and has in fact done so since WW1 ended. Simple.
I agree with the AC, and I find that my entire environment (here in Europe) tends to agree with me: the USA is over. Every great country ends up being a small country over the years... the spanish were a world power, and are now a mere tourist-target. Same with Portugal. Egypt. Italy. Greece. Germany. Austria... lots more. You think the USA will not have the same end? Quickest way to get there is to lower your schooling standards. Which they're doing at the moment - quite massively, I might add.
Well, let's put it like this: the book first came out, say, this week. That means it was handed to the publisher several months ago. It contains 1200 pages - ergo, it wasn't written in two months, either. Finally, Hardy is only coming out in a few weeks.
Thus we can assume that, unfortunately, this book was not written in the future and posted backwards in time in order to use the Latest And Greatest version.
Well, my company had a look at Vista. Long and hard. And found that MS wrote Vista while listening to the music/film industry. The entire system seems based on forbidding us to do things, and encoding *everything*, *everywhere*. No, we couldn't care less about such restrictions (we don't copy films/music, thus we don't care). However, the OS wastes quite a lot of CPU power on this. And blocks all kinds of useful utilities, as they juuuust might be used for eeeeevil things...
We're rewriting our entire software base (from Delphi to Java). We're completely switching to Linux. No, we're not a tiny 10-man company.
My main problem in this is that I have to allow Windows 7 to access the Internet on its own. Allowing Microsoft to collect all kinds of data about myself. Forcing me to have an active internet connection when using Windows.
What a strange question. For each person, it is up to themselves if they want to date somebody with these ideas or not. In my eyes, it's not exactly something which needs an "Oooh, no, if you're a scientist you should never date people like this!" argument. Let people choose themselves.
As to myself: I've always dated intelligent human females. None of them ever believed in this astrology crap, but then they were simply not the type to do so. I assume there to be a connection: brains belief in astrology.
Isn't this obvious? Apparently, universities, ISPs, and whoever else *must* store all the communications so the state can check for all these eeeeeeevil terrorists... And if a university refuses to do so, well, obviously they'd be searched by the army, er, police. Full body armor, drawn weapons, seizure of all electronic equipment.
...its next functonality will be testing for 'evil terrorist' behaviour. Seeing that the states are more and more interested in making '1984' look like a childrens book about paradise, I would not be surprised at all.
And in a few years, my bet would be on arming these things, requiring a remote permission to fire. Which will, of course, fail. Due to the Evil Terrorists, according to the media.
Sorry for ma bad mood, but I've been reading global news again.
And why should I? I don't have a TV, thus I won't ever have a playstation, XBox, or whatever. I view DVDs on my PC. Thus, to me, the only use of bought DVDs (DVD-RW are getting too small for backup) are movies.
Way back when, I viewed VHS movies on my PC - and enjoyed them a lot. Then the DVDs came out: no VHS player needed, much better image, last longer, take up less space, no image decay. Great - I switched immediately. Now DVDs with a higher resolution are out. So what? In my book, the movie resolution of a DVD is high enough - while I've seen comparisons, I don't notice them when the movie is playing.
I have quite a few DVDs. So now I should eBay them all (like my VHS), buy everything *again*, just so some company makes more money?
See, I don't have a TV (I hate the ads in it - aimed at the lowest common denominator, i.e. idiots). For the same reason I do not have a radio. My browser is fitted with a very nice ad-blocker. I've stopped going to the movies, because not only do I pay quite a bit of money, I'm also treated to up to 50 minutes of ads before the film starts.
You put ads in your game? I'm not even going to copy it, let alone buy it. Plenty of (free, or cheap independent) games without ads around, this would make for yet another reason to stop buying these expensive games (50 Euros for some boring graphics-display-only stuff, no thanks).
That kind of thinking is exactly what our state wants from us. But while I certainly agree with you, such universities couldn't care less about your view of the problem.
You're seeing it from the wrong side: be assured that quite a lot of people who wanted to study at this university (and paying handsomly to do so) will have read this and changed their mind. They will go to a different university instead. Thus this university is loosing profit which, these days, is the main thing universities are interested in.
These things have been used all over the world for a very long time now. Over ten years ago I programmed a Proton Therapy Planning System with my brother - and while our system was very fast ( 10 seconds), there were several others around already (usually Suns, 2-4 hours). And the therapy itself was used a lot already - particularly for eye treatment and brain cancers.
Treatment centers were found in Germany, France, England, Japan, South Africa (!) and - yes - even the USA.
It's Sony. The last time I bought anything from these morons, it was a navigator for my car. Which told me to do a U-turn on the highway at 180 km/h. Asked me to turn right NOW inside a tunnel. Crashed three (three!) times on a distance of 250 km.
Pfff. They used to be good, but today? I am not prepared to buy *anything* from these weirdos. And certainly not CDs (some of which try to install crap on my PC if I play them there, thanks).
Well, to me it looks as if these chaps are testing advertisements in games (yes, I know some games already have these) to see how people respond, and how much they don't mind. A good idea placing them in free games (meaning, you can't expect to sell any more of them, so you might as well give them away and get a good name for this) as an experiment.
However... I personally find advertisements disgusting. They're the primary reason I don't own a TV (that, and the rather moronic content). Same reason I don't listen to the radio. Hardly go to movie theaters (sometimes, on a particularly good film, I go if I can find out when the actual movie starts). Thus I, personally, have no interest in these games.
Meaning, if this turns out to be successful, I'm worried that we might see more ads in the games we buy. Which would mean that I buy less games than I do now...
And the interesting (and quite unsurprising thing) is: in 2005 more germans left their country than ever (since WW2, that is). 145,000 people. And those are merely the ones who *say* that they're leaving - an estimate 250,000 people are simply leaving without comment. Over half of them are under 30.
2006 there were more. The 2007 numbers will be even higher.
Germany is not particularly evil (I know, I live here). The politicians are morons like everywhere else, so this doesn't count either. But they're a) amazingly bureaucratic (the lawbooks, stacked on each other, make a much higher pile than *any* other country) and b) they're more and more crawling into the USAs arse (which the population does *not* consider amusing).
And now we're probably loosing an interesting company as well. Wonder where they'll really move to - not many people here want to move into the USA, as it'll probably collapse rather irritatingly in the near future...
Slashdot Mirror
Here in Germany, when cellphones first hit the streets, they were quite expensive. SMS messages between phones, however, were free - a kind of add-on, to see how people like them.
Apparently the LOVE them - and the companies started charging for it. Looks like they're all making a bucketload of cash on SMSs (which are *quite* cheap for the companies themselves),and obviously they're not dropping the prices.
After all, people are willing to pay this much, thus they are charged this much...
Seeing how we can get (cheap) flat-rates on mobile phones here, I simply stopped using SMs.
Lovely :)
And may I recommend a set of original sketches by Rube Goldberg: http://www.rubegoldberg.com/
On the photo we can very clearly see Classical Mistake Number One: a highly reflective screen.
Congratulations: not interested.
Hah! Being a german, I can't resist answering this. ;)
"Panzer" ist german for tank. *And* it's german for armor
Thus, bugfix:
Panzer == tank
Panzer == armor
Not a good idea building one over here, not even for 1.274 Euros (=$2000) - the gouverment would panic, and probably blow you into oblivion... after all, this place is full of eeeeevil terrorists (according to the gouverment, anyway).
Well, the tank has its own parking space, labelled "Panzer parking. Violators will be totaled." :-D
...positively ancient.
I actually programmed something like this on my Olivetti M24 (8086 CPU, 256K RAM, top of the line for the time) in the late 80s (yes, I'm an Old Fart).
No, no, I'm no genius - I got the code from the grand magazine "Creative Computing". I believe the program (in BASIC, natch) can also be found in their wonderful "101 Basic Computer Games I/II" books.
> I seriously doubt oil really drove the attack (and why the hell would we have invaded Afghanistan? nothing but opium there - maybe Bush did it for his dealer buddy from his coke snorting days)
Well, that very easy to explain.
The war is costing a truly astonishing amount of money. This money is being paid out to some companies. Who are making an enormous profit. Since your industry (in this case, particularly the military industry) has a very large influence over your leadership, your country engages in warfare and warfare-support - and has in fact done so since WW1 ended.
Simple.
I agree with the AC, and I find that my entire environment (here in Europe) tends to agree with me: the USA is over. Every great country ends up being a small country over the years... the spanish were a world power, and are now a mere tourist-target. Same with Portugal. Egypt. Italy. Greece. Germany. Austria... lots more. You think the USA will not have the same end?
Quickest way to get there is to lower your schooling standards. Which they're doing at the moment - quite massively, I might add.
Well, let's put it like this: the book first came out, say, this week. That means it was handed to the publisher several months ago.
It contains 1200 pages - ergo, it wasn't written in two months, either.
Finally, Hardy is only coming out in a few weeks.
Thus we can assume that, unfortunately, this book was not written in the future and posted backwards in time in order to use the Latest And Greatest version.
Well, my company had a look at Vista. Long and hard.
And found that MS wrote Vista while listening to the music/film industry. The entire system seems based on forbidding us to do things, and encoding *everything*, *everywhere*.
No, we couldn't care less about such restrictions (we don't copy films/music, thus we don't care). However, the OS wastes quite a lot of CPU power on this. And blocks all kinds of useful utilities, as they juuuust might be used for eeeeevil things...
We're rewriting our entire software base (from Delphi to Java). We're completely switching to Linux. No, we're not a tiny 10-man company.
Congratulations, Microsoft. And goodbye.
My main problem in this is that I have to allow Windows 7 to access the Internet on its own.
Allowing Microsoft to collect all kinds of data about myself. Forcing me to have an active internet connection when using Windows.
Not. Interested.
Weeeeell... who knows what lovely aliens might land here some day? ;)
What a strange question.
For each person, it is up to themselves if they want to date somebody with these ideas or not. In my eyes, it's not exactly something which needs an "Oooh, no, if you're a scientist you should never date people like this!" argument.
Let people choose themselves.
As to myself: I've always dated intelligent human females. None of them ever believed in this astrology crap, but then they were simply not the type to do so. I assume there to be a connection: brains belief in astrology.
Isn't this obvious?
Apparently, universities, ISPs, and whoever else *must* store all the communications so the state can check for all these eeeeeeevil terrorists...
And if a university refuses to do so, well, obviously they'd be searched by the army, er, police. Full body armor, drawn weapons, seizure of all electronic equipment.
No. I'm not joking. Unfortunately.
Pretty obvious, isn't it?
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm
Looks like Iran is the one loosing *all* internet access... a pure coincidence, I'm sure...
...its next functonality will be testing for 'evil terrorist' behaviour.
Seeing that the states are more and more interested in making '1984' look like a childrens book about paradise, I would not be surprised at all.
And in a few years, my bet would be on arming these things, requiring a remote permission to fire. Which will, of course, fail. Due to the Evil Terrorists, according to the media.
Sorry for ma bad mood, but I've been reading global news again.
Really? You want your brain cells to simply grow?
;)
That's called a cancer. Feel free. Can't guarantee that you'd like it, though...
And why should I? I don't have a TV, thus I won't ever have a playstation, XBox, or whatever.
I view DVDs on my PC. Thus, to me, the only use of bought DVDs (DVD-RW are getting too small for backup) are movies.
Way back when, I viewed VHS movies on my PC - and enjoyed them a lot.
Then the DVDs came out: no VHS player needed, much better image, last longer, take up less space, no image decay. Great - I switched immediately.
Now DVDs with a higher resolution are out. So what? In my book, the movie resolution of a DVD is high enough - while I've seen comparisons, I don't notice them when the movie is playing.
I have quite a few DVDs. So now I should eBay them all (like my VHS), buy everything *again*, just so some company makes more money?
Sorry, not interested.
Well, I can't.
See, I don't have a TV (I hate the ads in it - aimed at the lowest common denominator, i.e. idiots). For the same reason I do not have a radio.
My browser is fitted with a very nice ad-blocker.
I've stopped going to the movies, because not only do I pay quite a bit of money, I'm also treated to up to 50 minutes of ads before the film starts.
You put ads in your game? I'm not even going to copy it, let alone buy it.
Plenty of (free, or cheap independent) games without ads around, this would make for yet another reason to stop buying these expensive games (50 Euros for some boring graphics-display-only stuff, no thanks).
That kind of thinking is exactly what our state wants from us.
But while I certainly agree with you, such universities couldn't care less about your view of the problem.
You're seeing it from the wrong side: be assured that quite a lot of people who wanted to study at this university (and paying handsomly to do so) will have read this and changed their mind. They will go to a different university instead. Thus this university is loosing profit which, these days, is the main thing universities are interested in.
These days, money is the only thing that counts.
Sounds like a very interesting idea, and a beautiful way to demonstrate your rights.
Of course, you will simply be told that you are not allowed to board that flight. Bye.
We're having a particularly slow news day today?
These things have been used all over the world for a very long time now. Over ten years ago I programmed a Proton Therapy Planning System with my brother - and while our system was very fast ( 10 seconds), there were several others around already (usually Suns, 2-4 hours). And the therapy itself was used a lot already - particularly for eye treatment and brain cancers.
Treatment centers were found in Germany, France, England, Japan, South Africa (!) and - yes - even the USA.
So why is this news in any way?
*shrug*
It's Sony. The last time I bought anything from these morons, it was a navigator for my car. Which told me to do a U-turn on the highway at 180 km/h. Asked me to turn right NOW inside a tunnel. Crashed three (three!) times on a distance of 250 km.
Pfff. They used to be good, but today? I am not prepared to buy *anything* from these weirdos. And certainly not CDs (some of which try to install crap on my PC if I play them there, thanks).
Well, to me it looks as if these chaps are testing advertisements in games (yes, I know some games already have these) to see how people respond, and how much they don't mind.
A good idea placing them in free games (meaning, you can't expect to sell any more of them, so you might as well give them away and get a good name for this) as an experiment.
However... I personally find advertisements disgusting. They're the primary reason I don't own a TV (that, and the rather moronic content). Same reason I don't listen to the radio. Hardly go to movie theaters (sometimes, on a particularly good film, I go if I can find out when the actual movie starts).
Thus I, personally, have no interest in these games.
Meaning, if this turns out to be successful, I'm worried that we might see more ads in the games we buy. Which would mean that I buy less games than I do now...
Thwarting the attack would require 'hacker tools'. Which are ILLEGAL in Germany.
Reverse-engineering: dito. You'd actually end up in JAIL for this: usage of hacker tools.
No wonder these tools were forbidden a while ago.
Welcome to political morons of massive stupidity.
Yes, I live in Germany.
Ciao,
Klaus
And the interesting (and quite unsurprising thing) is: in 2005 more germans left their country than ever (since WW2, that is).
145,000 people. And those are merely the ones who *say* that they're leaving - an estimate 250,000 people are simply leaving without comment. Over half of them are under 30.
2006 there were more. The 2007 numbers will be even higher.
Germany is not particularly evil (I know, I live here). The politicians are morons like everywhere else, so this doesn't count either.
But they're a) amazingly bureaucratic (the lawbooks, stacked on each other, make a much higher pile than *any* other country) and
b) they're more and more crawling into the USAs arse (which the population does *not* consider amusing).
And now we're probably loosing an interesting company as well. Wonder where they'll really move to - not many people here want to move into the USA, as it'll probably collapse rather irritatingly in the near future...