Changing the user search is bad, but not nearly as bad as installing a crappy browser addon that hijacks your search. I think the former is a bothersome, but tolerable advertising practice (all advertising is bothersome in a way). The latter should be a criminal offence.
I'm not sure how the OECD compiles these numbers or what the criteria are, but I've read multiple times in different reputable news sources that about 25% of the Greek labour force is directly or indirectly payrolled by the government.
I don't think these sources have been "lying" but I also don't think that the OECD has produced these numbers out of thin air, so I suspect the big discrepancy is through a statistical effect of who you decide to count.
Greece is still among the most rich countries of the world (keep in mind that it is our state which is in trouble, no so much the citizens).
... because 25% of the Greek population and their cousins is employed by the state, twiddling their thumbs or something, Receiving big, nice paychecks, often 13-15 paychecks a year and many being able to retire in their 50's.
Obviously, this is not a sustainable model. But try to take some of that away, reduce the grants, incomes and pensions to levels that the Greek economy can actually sustain, and all of Greek media starts being indignant about it, blaming Germany and Europe for all this shit.
That might be a factor. But I think the major reason is that historically, film in Germany has enjoyed a good reputation as a cultural or entertainment asset. Videogames on the other hand are still somewhat stigmatized. If you out yourself as a gamer, there is still a sizeable portion of the German populace that will regard you as an immature time waster. If you have South Korea on the one side, where videogames are practically universally accepted and integrated in society, Germany is close to the opposite end of that.
You can have games with Nazis in it in Germany. But it has to be censored and all Nazi symbology has to be replaced or removed. For example, the new Wolfenstein game from Bethesda is available, but the swastikas in the German version are replaced by the stylized "W" from "Wolfenstein", and "SS" symbols like the deathshead or the "SS" itself have been removed entirely. Also, one scene where you wake up in a gas chamber surrounded by corpses has been altered and all corpses have been removed.
The original "Wolfenstein 3D" was completely banned in Germany, because there was no censored version available.
Personally, I think that is bullshit. Nazi symbols are generally illegal in Germany, but allowed under special circumstances such as for "artistic purposes". But then for some reason, they don't have to be removed from movies, such as Indiana Jones... I really don't see the justification for allowing it in movies but forbidding it in video games.
But that's not all. Extreme kinds of violence in videgames are almost always also banned in Germany unless softened for the German market. Fallout 3 for example, where you can blow up individual body parts, is also altered to be less violent.
Let me put it this way: Poverty is the problem. Why? Many people do not have a job. Why? There is an abundance of unqualified labor. Why? Many people haven't had a good education. Why? Many people didn't have access to good educational institutions. Why? Many people are immigrants from Africa.
If you want to find solutions to problems, you have to know the causes and the source. Otherwise you are just fighting the symptom. By digging down you list all the points that could be changed to improve the situation.
You could go on: Why are there so many immigrants from Africa? There are wars, extreme poverty and human rights abuses in Africa. Why? There is a lack of democratic institutions in Africa. Why? etc...
You choose to simply stop at the very first point. In my opinion that severely limits discussion and the options to think and do something about the problem.
I think it almost never makes much sense, in any topic, to talk purely about the -is- state without taking the changes and developments into consideration that caused this state to be. Paris has changed considerably in the last 20 years. One of the most evident change is the increase in porverty, and this is caused in no small part by immigration.
Why should I not mention immegration as a cause of this development? And what is illogical about saying this?
In fact it is quite meaningful to make this connection, because it provides the information that the majority of French people are still quite well of and that the poverty mainly affects a fringe group of people due to their special circumstances. It tells us that the problem is not mainly the French economy, but the unusually high influx of unqualified laborers who can not find any jobs.
I see your point... I'm actually left on the political side of things. But I'm not a huge fan of political correctness. And fact is, that there is alot of African immigration in Paris, the overwhelming majority of them are very poor, and it has a noticeable impact on the city.
I was quite shocked when I returned to Paris after a long time, and saw people lying on matresses on the streets, some living in tents, people constantly trying to sell me drugs in parks, shabby characters approaching you asking for money or cigarettes... 90% of these people are immigrants, they bring alot of poverty and it doesn't make the city any nicer.
That's just the way it is. It doesn't mean I hate immigrants, or that I'm a racist. It does mean that immigration is a problem that is being neglected in Europe and needs some serious attention.
- Berlin is a city designed to scale, the transportation infrastructure is 100x better then in London
While I share your opinion that Berlin is a better place to be than London, you must be kidding about this part.
Well, it depends. Theoretically, or on the rare occations when all trams are functional and running as they should, it really -is- good and you can get around to almost everywhere pretty well. Unfortunately the trams are a mess and practically every time I'm in Berlin trams are breaking down and sections of the line are closed due to technical failures.
I've visited London for 2 weeks, and while it was good to see it, my overall impression was that I wouldn't want to live there. Of course I realize that 2 weeks isn't nearly enough time to really get to know a city, but normally when visiting one of Europe's mayor cities on a two week vacation, I love it. And for some reason London didn't raise that feeling in me. Naturally London has its amazing landmarks, but overall the city just didn't make me feel comfortable. The parks are not great, the city somehow feels stark and dirty.
If I had the choice, I would choose any other major city in Europe to live, especially Madrid, Berlin or Barcelona are great. Paris is lovely still, even though some areas have become quite bedraggled due to immigration and poverty. Amsterdam is of course a fucking amazing city to be, if you can tolerate the extreme tourism and partygoers. But London... no thanks.
The vast majority of changes in driver updates for AMD and nVidia are hacks for specific games to fix their broken shit and get them to not run like ass.
Is quite true I'm afraid. NVidia frequently releases "Game Ready" drivers tuned for a specific game. Usually for high-profile new game releases, such as the Witcher 3 most recently.
This most recent batch of new "Game Ready" drivers fucked up my and other users systems by frequently crashing, causing the driver and the display to reset, sometimes even on the desktop while browsing. Sometimes this happens multiple times within a minute, rendering some games unplayable. This is one of the threads on the latest clusterfuck on this issue: NVidia display driver stops responding.
Yea, we Europeans are really super extra great, not like Yankees... it is just that we like our goverments to treat us like babies who can't enter in to an agreement with a business
I expect my government to protect me so that I can focus on my life. I thought this was one of the reasons I pay taxes. I would hope that keeping me safe from bullshit and invasive practices of corporations is part of that protection.
Calling that kind of government activity "babysitting" is what an ultra-capitalist american corporate shill would do.
It depends on the volcano. Short term the ash might cover up the sun. Mid and long term they are releasing a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere. Also, there are underwater volcanos that can release a lot of magma and hot steam into the sea. I think it's pretty obvious how that might warm up things in it's vicinity quite a bit.
As I said, I'm no expert, but there seems to be conclusive evidence that CO2 is a driver of climate change. And it goes without saying that we are indeed pumping incredible amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. It's good to keep an eye out for other causes, but one of the causes is right here in our hands to do something about.
And what are you going to do, in terms of support for policies and technologies, to provide humanity with backup systems? Build more wind farms? I think not.
Why not? Good thing about wind farms is not only that it doesn't pump CO2 into the atmosphere, but also that it doesn't require resources that we will run out of at some point. That's why we call them renewable energy sources. So not only are you helping the environment -if you believe it does- you are also researching and preparing for a future without cheap, abundant energy coming out of the ground. What's wrong with that?
Gaming on PC means Windows and DirectX. Windows and DirectX have been around for a long time. If you are realistic about VR on the PC, teaming up with the guys who control your platform makes sense. Especially now that Sony and Valve are serious competitors for Occulus.
It also makes sense for Microsoft. Sony is an obvious competitor and Valve has been making strides into Linux. With Occulus MS gets a developed VR solution without having to develop their own. It's a natural partnership.
Funny you ask that question. I think the consensus established by the scientific community and accepted all over the world, slowly but surely even in the U.S., is that humans are causing climate change and it isn't very good for us.
These scientists are much smarter than me and know the facts and important factors much better than me, and they are in the majority. If 80% of scientists say we are causing climate change and 20% say we are not, I trust what the 80% have to say. What else is the sensible thing to do?
These 80% also say consequences of inaction are disastrous. Even if they are wrong, would it be wise to ignore the warnings and take the risk? I think not.
Of course there are natural effects that can also cause drastic climate shifts within a short timeframe, such as volcanic activity under Greenland or large asteroid impact. This will certainly have occurred in the past to produce the kind of effects described in the link you provided.
That would not be good for us either and doesn't change the fact that we are actively causing one of these alarming shifts right now.
Basically your argument is like saying: "Yeah, fracking can cause earthquakes, but we have determined that earthquakes have happened naturally in the past, so it's perfectly normal and acceptable"
Slashdot Mirror
Changing the user search is bad, but not nearly as bad as installing a crappy browser addon that hijacks your search.
I think the former is a bothersome, but tolerable advertising practice (all advertising is bothersome in a way). The latter should be a criminal offence.
This was before there was a Slashdot
Jeesh... so there was no way to brag about it at the time? Inconceivable!
Better late than never, hey?
Oh sorry. If that was meant ironically, I take back what I said.
My irony detectors are not the best.
I'm not sure how the OECD compiles these numbers or what the criteria are, but I've read multiple times in different reputable news sources that about 25% of the Greek labour force is directly or indirectly payrolled by the government.
I don't think these sources have been "lying" but I also don't think that the OECD has produced these numbers out of thin air, so I suspect the big discrepancy is through a statistical effect of who you decide to count.
Greece is still among the most rich countries of the world (keep in mind that it is our state which is in trouble, no so much the citizens).
... because 25% of the Greek population and their cousins is employed by the state, twiddling their thumbs or something, Receiving big, nice paychecks, often 13-15 paychecks a year and many being able to retire in their 50's.
Obviously, this is not a sustainable model.
But try to take some of that away, reduce the grants, incomes and pensions to levels that the Greek economy can actually sustain, and all of Greek media starts being indignant about it, blaming Germany and Europe for all this shit.
This is the most self-righteous, dumbass comment I've read on Slashdot in a while.
That might be a factor. But I think the major reason is that historically, film in Germany has enjoyed a good reputation as a cultural or entertainment asset. Videogames on the other hand are still somewhat stigmatized. If you out yourself as a gamer, there is still a sizeable portion of the German populace that will regard you as an immature time waster.
If you have South Korea on the one side, where videogames are practically universally accepted and integrated in society, Germany is close to the opposite end of that.
You can have games with Nazis in it in Germany. But it has to be censored and all Nazi symbology has to be replaced or removed.
For example, the new Wolfenstein game from Bethesda is available, but the swastikas in the German version are replaced by the stylized "W" from "Wolfenstein", and "SS" symbols like the deathshead or the "SS" itself have been removed entirely.
Also, one scene where you wake up in a gas chamber surrounded by corpses has been altered and all corpses have been removed.
The original "Wolfenstein 3D" was completely banned in Germany, because there was no censored version available.
Personally, I think that is bullshit. Nazi symbols are generally illegal in Germany, but allowed under special circumstances such as for "artistic purposes". But then for some reason, they don't have to be removed from movies, such as Indiana Jones... I really don't see the justification for allowing it in movies but forbidding it in video games.
But that's not all. Extreme kinds of violence in videgames are almost always also banned in Germany unless softened for the German market. Fallout 3 for example, where you can blow up individual body parts, is also altered to be less violent.
Let me put it this way:
Poverty is the problem. Why?
Many people do not have a job. Why?
There is an abundance of unqualified labor. Why?
Many people haven't had a good education. Why?
Many people didn't have access to good educational institutions. Why?
Many people are immigrants from Africa.
If you want to find solutions to problems, you have to know the causes and the source. Otherwise you are just fighting the symptom. By digging down you list all the points that could be changed to improve the situation.
You could go on:
Why are there so many immigrants from Africa?
There are wars, extreme poverty and human rights abuses in Africa. Why?
There is a lack of democratic institutions in Africa. Why?
etc...
You choose to simply stop at the very first point. In my opinion that severely limits discussion and the options to think and do something about the problem.
I think it almost never makes much sense, in any topic, to talk purely about the -is- state without taking the changes and developments into consideration that caused this state to be. Paris has changed considerably in the last 20 years. One of the most evident change is the increase in porverty, and this is caused in no small part by immigration.
Why should I not mention immegration as a cause of this development? And what is illogical about saying this?
In fact it is quite meaningful to make this connection, because it provides the information that the majority of French people are still quite well of and that the poverty mainly affects a fringe group of people due to their special circumstances. It tells us that the problem is not mainly the French economy, but the unusually high influx of unqualified laborers who can not find any jobs.
I see your point... I'm actually left on the political side of things. But I'm not a huge fan of political correctness. And fact is, that there is alot of African immigration in Paris, the overwhelming majority of them are very poor, and it has a noticeable impact on the city.
I was quite shocked when I returned to Paris after a long time, and saw people lying on matresses on the streets, some living in tents, people constantly trying to sell me drugs in parks, shabby characters approaching you asking for money or cigarettes... 90% of these people are immigrants, they bring alot of poverty and it doesn't make the city any nicer.
That's just the way it is. It doesn't mean I hate immigrants, or that I'm a racist. It does mean that immigration is a problem that is being neglected in Europe and needs some serious attention.
- Berlin is a city designed to scale, the transportation infrastructure is 100x better then in London
While I share your opinion that Berlin is a better place to be than London, you must be kidding about this part.
Well, it depends. Theoretically, or on the rare occations when all trams are functional and running as they should, it really -is- good and you can get around to almost everywhere pretty well.
Unfortunately the trams are a mess and practically every time I'm in Berlin trams are breaking down and sections of the line are closed due to technical failures.
I've visited London for 2 weeks, and while it was good to see it, my overall impression was that I wouldn't want to live there.
Of course I realize that 2 weeks isn't nearly enough time to really get to know a city, but normally when visiting one of Europe's mayor cities on a two week vacation, I love it. And for some reason London didn't raise that feeling in me.
Naturally London has its amazing landmarks, but overall the city just didn't make me feel comfortable. The parks are not great, the city somehow feels stark and dirty.
If I had the choice, I would choose any other major city in Europe to live, especially Madrid, Berlin or Barcelona are great. Paris is lovely still, even though some areas have become quite bedraggled due to immigration and poverty. Amsterdam is of course a fucking amazing city to be, if you can tolerate the extreme tourism and partygoers.
But London... no thanks.
And his last name is actually "Dracul", but don't say it out loud or he will hear and visit you at night.
At least the part about:
The vast majority of changes in driver updates for AMD and nVidia are hacks for specific games to fix their broken shit and get them to not run like ass.
Is quite true I'm afraid. NVidia frequently releases "Game Ready" drivers tuned for a specific game. Usually for high-profile new game releases, such as the Witcher 3 most recently.
This most recent batch of new "Game Ready" drivers fucked up my and other users systems by frequently crashing, causing the driver and the display to reset, sometimes even on the desktop while browsing. Sometimes this happens multiple times within a minute, rendering some games unplayable. This is one of the threads on the latest clusterfuck on this issue: NVidia display driver stops responding.
Still no fix from NVidia.
Fair enough.
Then, let me rephrase that statement:
Calling that kind of government activity "babysitting" is what an ultra-capitalist greek corporate shill would do. :)
AC comment above wasn't me... I wouldn't personally insult you because of disagreeing with you. Especially not in that kind of language.
Yea, we Europeans are really super extra great, not like Yankees... it is just that we like our goverments to treat us like babies who can't enter in to an agreement with a business
I expect my government to protect me so that I can focus on my life. I thought this was one of the reasons I pay taxes.
I would hope that keeping me safe from bullshit and invasive practices of corporations is part of that protection.
Calling that kind of government activity "babysitting" is what an ultra-capitalist american corporate shill would do.
Until you have the robots to maintain the robots...
It depends on the volcano. Short term the ash might cover up the sun. Mid and long term they are releasing a lot of CO2 to the atmosphere. Also, there are underwater volcanos that can release a lot of magma and hot steam into the sea. I think it's pretty obvious how that might warm up things in it's vicinity quite a bit.
As I said, I'm no expert, but there seems to be conclusive evidence that CO2 is a driver of climate change. And it goes without saying that we are indeed pumping incredible amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. It's good to keep an eye out for other causes, but one of the causes is right here in our hands to do something about.
And what are you going to do, in terms of support for policies and technologies, to provide humanity with backup systems? Build more wind farms? I think not.
Why not? Good thing about wind farms is not only that it doesn't pump CO2 into the atmosphere, but also that it doesn't require resources that we will run out of at some point. That's why we call them renewable energy sources. So not only are you helping the environment -if you believe it does- you are also researching and preparing for a future without cheap, abundant energy coming out of the ground. What's wrong with that?
So besides that, everything MS touches dies
Gaming on PC means Windows and DirectX. Windows and DirectX have been around for a long time.
If you are realistic about VR on the PC, teaming up with the guys who control your platform makes sense. Especially now that Sony and Valve are serious competitors for Occulus.
It also makes sense for Microsoft. Sony is an obvious competitor and Valve has been making strides into Linux. With Occulus MS gets a developed VR solution without having to develop their own. It's a natural partnership.
Robots and automation will put an end to it all long before that.
We have always been at war with Eastasia
FTFY
Funny you ask that question. I think the consensus established by the scientific community and accepted all over the world, slowly but surely even in the U.S., is that humans are causing climate change and it isn't very good for us.
These scientists are much smarter than me and know the facts and important factors much better than me, and they are in the majority. If 80% of scientists say we are causing climate change and 20% say we are not, I trust what the 80% have to say. What else is the sensible thing to do?
These 80% also say consequences of inaction are disastrous. Even if they are wrong, would it be wise to ignore the warnings and take the risk? I think not.
Of course there are natural effects that can also cause drastic climate shifts within a short timeframe, such as volcanic activity under Greenland or large asteroid impact. This will certainly have occurred in the past to produce the kind of effects described in the link you provided.
That would not be good for us either and doesn't change the fact that we are actively causing one of these alarming shifts right now.
Basically your argument is like saying: "Yeah, fracking can cause earthquakes, but we have determined that earthquakes have happened naturally in the past, so it's perfectly normal and acceptable"