Untrue. PHProjekt and PHPGroupware both fill that function nicely, and they do it through a browser at a tiny fraction of the client CPU/memory overhead of Lookout!
I am a big fan of web-based solutions anyway--they're easier to run and maintain, you have control of the presentation, and in a company using Windows clients, where the browser is such an integral, inseparable, vital part of the OS , users should be perfectly happy reading their IMAP mail with Outcrook, and clicking on links in their mail.
The only thing nobody has "solved" to my satisfaction yet, and this is probably more of a user education issue than anything else, is being able to open attachments from a mail, edit them, and have the attachment in the stored mail automagically updated with your changes. This is, as far as I'm concerned, a non-issue, but it's the kind of detail that management care about (that's some free advice for you evangelists out there).
I set up a network for a previous client, a large private middle school, based around FreeBSD/Apache/MySQL/BIND. It was a nice implementation; very secure, utterly reliable and as much open source as I could get in there (I was not able to move some servers because of Windows apps the previous guy had installed on a few boxes that they just *had* to have.
Our initial plan for this client was to move everything to Linux-based Xterminals (after all, what do they do? Edit some word docs, look at web pages, send mail) but management decided that the time wasted by some clueless idiot coming in after we'd left who didn't know what he was doing would outweigh the cost savings.
So, I snuck FreeBSD in as their monitoring, web, DNS, and firewall server, not to mention software repository, UPS controller, and groupware server, along with a host of other functions.
I still check up on their infrastructure occasoinally, and have noticed that the guy who took over their support after we'd left has been steadily moving everything back to Windows 2000 as fast as he can; he runs a small IT "consultancy" and just can't be bothered to learn how to use something that doesn't require point-and-click.
Regardless, I consider it a minor victory that some of the services I set up (firewall, monitoring, etc.) have withstood any attempts to downgrade them to M$ brokenware--if only because nobody could figure out a way to do it better and easier....
Yes, agreed. However, throwing hand grenades at people in "real life" tends to be considered a bit of a faux-pas in many less-enlightened social circles.
That's not, of course, meant to be judgmental, as I've found that throwing hand grenades at people can be a very productive form of conflict resolution; I'm just saying that the common hordes one encounters during the day may not necessarily be capable of understanding the enlightened intellect of the gamer.
Why, just think about it, at some point there will be real money to be made in the sort of skills learned during online gameplay. "I'm sorry, sir, but you can't smoke here." "UNLEASH PLASMA HELL ON THE INFIDEL, MR. SULU." *ZOT* "there, now who's smoking here..."
Potentially, the following mail from my some root-type person from my college computer organization sums up nicely what all the barbarians are thinking:
I hate to offend any die-hard mudders in the bod (actually, I revel in the opportunity to do so....), but the first letter in that series, the one that said people should try to convice the evil sysadmin (does he know rob?) to allow the mud (muck? schmuck?) to stay up by touting, and I quote:
"...worse ways to use up disk space, advantages of learning to program,
friendships, and the safe nature of the MUD program."
OH MY GOD!! I SEE THE ERROR OF OUR WAYS NOW! SO TRUE, SO BLINDINGLY TRUE! How could we have been so callous?! We didn't even think of the worse ways dburr could have (ab)used disk space and memory! How could we have been so stupid?? All the time, we were thinking petty things like "this will screw up the machine it's running on and slow down network connections for the whole cluster to a crawl," while ignoring the great programming experience that dburr was gaining. Alas! Why didn't we think about the great friend- ships that would have developed! Just think, because of our cruelty, some people might not be able to form the deep bonds which are inevitable when "Mr. Sticky" throws a grenade at "The Crimson Warlord"! And, gosh, it's not as if a MUD program isn't _safe_. When was the last time you heard your mother say "Oh, sure, a MUD's all fun and games until SOMEONE LOSES AN EYE!" Oh, woe is us, woe is us.
Just great. Now I have to keep a portable EMP generator next to my cans of RAID under the kitchen sink. Do you know how much power those f***n things use?
Let's hope they don't teach the little bastards to breed. What will they do, lay their eggs in my box of spare PC parts? Although I assume there'll be a nice satisfying mechanical *crunch* when you step on them.
Gives new meaning to cockroaches carrying diseases. Maybe they'll find one that transmits W95/Klez@mm. Norton Antivirus will now cost three times as much to ship, because it comes with a large hammer. Don't download files, don't open mail attachments, and put a ring of flea powder around your PC. "Dr. Solomon..." *WHAM WHAM WHAM* *crunch* "...has detected and isolated a virus."
On the other hand, it'd make for a nice way to smuggle an X10 cam into a cute girl's bedroom--assuming they ever make the transmitter units weigh less than 5 pounds. Blattidae Elegans Electronicus indeed.
My Australian boss, when we were dealing with a particularly obnoxious English type, told me, "watch me and learn how to shut up an Englishman in one word: 'cricket'"
The guy shut it.
Then I started talking about Sailing (I'm Swiss/American) and he shut up too...:-)
Sorry, it's just that it seems like the majority of loud nasal American voices in nice cities abroad always seem to be saying something like "well, back in Omaha....". Plus, you should be aware that people from CA know that everything east of the rockies is bound to fall into the Atlantic someday! Or maybe I just have a defective attitude towards the rest of the country...
And as for touristing, yes, I'm a resident here, but I do travel occasionally:)
But as a a general observation, it isn't just the US tourists that are loud...
Nothing personal, but you seem more interested and informed on your individual trees than the forest you're living in...or not living in.
Interested, yes, as is my right to be. I don't trust you and I don't trust a government. You've not made much of a point as to my lack of informedness--I think I'm fairly aware of the world around me.
I don't know about your assets, nor do I care. However, as a foreigner living here, you were taxed at source. The calculations are different, and Basel (where you say you lived) has a very high tax rate compared to other parts of the country. Yes, it does vary.
I do not see filing 1040s as a necessity. I do not see the inefficiency and intrusiveness of most government revenue-collecting systems as a necessity, I do not see the waste of my tax money as a necessity. Donate your "$1MM of assets" to charity or to the government, that is your prerogative; go ahead and sling names, but I stand behind my assertion that what's mine is mine to do with as I judge (not you.) I don't have $1MM in assets, although I'd sure like to. If I ever do have $1MM in assets, you can rest assured that I will do whatever I can to keep it out of the hands of whatever government I'm living under. Greedy little capitalist scumbag, I am.
I'm no libertarian. I'm just a guy who wants to make a decent living and left alone. There is very well such a philosophy (in fact there are several). It is not necessarily mine. Do you subscribe to an ideology? I subscribe to ideals that I find right. I don't know if that's a philosophy in itself.
Yes, the US has had many failings (and still does.) What does this have to do with tax law? Does believing that 'x' was better in the past make me a hunter-gatherer?
And as for your point about Europeans, have you ever considered that the climate of political debate various a bit from country to country?
As a small piece of advice, I'd watch the ad-hominem attacks and the generalizations. They form a bit of a trend throughout your previous posts, and don't necessarily enhance your credibility.
What's too bad about this is that, if I feel like playing a certain game, I can't go out and buy the unaltered version.
Used to be the case that I'd run to the store to pick up what's basically a license key, with fancy packaging and a CD-ROM included, then download an ISO and burn it from somewhere outside the country.
Now, some newer anti-piracy technology doesn't let me burn CDs, so in effect I have to wait for my game to arrive in the mail from some overseas distributor, at a substantial markup.
Terrible, terrible. Woe is me. Oh well, it's a nice day outside:)
As a basis, I should mention that I fully disagree with you about conscription (waste of money and time, rather than moral objection), VAT, state control and government interference in private lives. Not much point arguing about that.
To be honest, the Swiss actually do a very good job of keeping information compartmentalized; they're (almost always) open about what they collect and where it goes, and actually collect quite a bit less personal information on citizens. The instance of CCTV here, as well as the volume of information they require in their bureaucratic processes, is far less than I've seen in most countries. It's an imperfect system, sometimes frustratingly so, but I feel that via mechanisms such as the banking privacy law and the data protection office, as well as the small size of the place, my discretion is reasonably assured. I also believe that the Swiss bureaucracy is not powerful enough that I could not withhold substantial information about myself that I don't deem necessary for their purposes.
Regarding Americans: don't forget that Americans already have one of the most intrusive, repressive taxation systems in western society. What's often in the news is US government abuse of power towards other states; what you rarely see, however, are the often horrific instances of the IRS overreaching its authority towards its own citizens. Not many countries require all citizens to file tax returns, from anywhere, all their lives, no matter where they live or where they've paid taxes.
Another point I should make is that, for all its current failings, a fundamental philosophy of American society is the freedom of the individual and liberty from undue taxation and government intervention. I (and many others) subscribe strongly to these ideals, and thus question the basic idea of taxation at all. Remember that until the early 20th century, the US did not have a federal income tax at all; revenue was generated via tariffs on trade. Many people feel that a government should be allowed to collect either or but not both.
That being said, I pay my Swiss taxes willingly, albeit grudgingly, because they are kept at a low enough level that they do not substantially impact my chosen lifestyle, and I feel that I am actually getting something for my money.
I dispute your point about European governments and the 'common good'. One good look at the German economy, the abuses of the Berlusconi government, the state of English public services, and the French pension system should dispel that notion quite nicely. I also would once again like to point out that the EU's idea of a 'common good' does not necessarily apply so tidily to individual countries' perception of the 'common good'. Ask any German what he thinks of Eastern Europe joining the EU, and what it's about to cost him...
Wasn't there a whole development team, including coders, QA testers, admins and managers for sale on EBay a few years ago? Initial asking price something like everyone's base salary + hiring bonus?
I always wondered whether that was for real.
It hasn't happened so much in the recent economic climate, but up to a few years ago, one often heard of about whole teams in investment banks or software companies switching quite readily.
I suppose it depends on whether you can find someone with budget and a need. Or you can just spin off your own consultancy. My advice, without knowing more specifics, would be to hang around and collect paychecks for as long as you can (do the work, but don't kill yourself) while very actively exploring your options.
The unfair trade advantage comes from the fact that the U.S. government does not require EU-based company X selling digital goods to collect and remit state sales tax to the State of California finance department when a kid in San Francisco buys a copy of Opera.
As it stands, when I buy online from an EU company, I either pay no sales tax, or the VAT is pocketed by the government in which the company is based. That's hardly what I call fair.
Nonetheless, what surprises the hell out of me is that, given most EU countries' base income tax rates, not to mention the EU's execrable record of fiscal discipline, nobody even questions the idea of charging 15%-20% VAT in the first place!
A French judge required Yahoo! from blocking access by French citizens to online auctions involving Nazi memorabilia, following a lawsuit by a Jewish university students' group.
Although I don't know the exact status of the case to date, at the time Yahoo! duly complied after some initial wrangling.
The key bit of information in all this will come when you do a whois lookup on 'yahoo.fr'.
Which is why you face ~50% base income tax rates in Germany and France, and rates approaching this in Italy, the UK, and Sweden, as well as somewhere in the neighborhood of triple the US gasoline tax, as well as higher rates of inheritance and property tax across the board, etc etc etc. Not to mention road tolls for highway usage
Think again, my friend. Public transportation, healthcare, road use, and the other accoutrements of a civilized society do not come for free. However, if you look at the amount of money the EU has squandered on mountain highway improvements in central Spain, or subsidies to French cubumber farmers, you'd think twice about being willing to fork over yet another fair chunk of cash so willingly.
I won't live in the US anymore due to what I already consider an oppressive system of government and taxation. I currently reside in Switzerland, of which I am also a citizen, and vociferously oppose any moves on the part of the EU to bully this country to join the club. In fact, the most vocal opponents of this country subjugating itself to Brussels are EU expats...
Our VAT is 7.6%, and my income taxes are a total of somwehere around 20% (I am in a high tax bracket, and pay some surcharges due to not being in the army.) We have a stellar healthcare system, the best public transportation on the continent (have you ridden a German regional train recently?) and a formidable network of public schools. Our crime rate is far lower than the (ridiculous) amounts of crime you get in London, Berlin, and Paris. Our streets don't have potholes. And all this without the US-style international revenue grabs to which the EU apparently is beginning to subscribe.
The EU has always been a nice counterbalance to US attempts to impose rules in all fields, ranging from taxation and transportation to banking regulations and military policy. It would be nice if American companies would receive more government support against this sort of reciprocal silliness.
I don't know how well it will scale if you ever expand REAL BIG, but as it just relies on a standard SQL backend, you should be able to import/export data anywhere.
Do a google search for ptunnel or httptunnel, or some variant thereof. There are a number of scripts which properly implement https (or even http) headers around an ssh connection, including passing authentication information to a proxy server.
In some cases, you may need someone to redirect port 443 or 80 on a unix box to your ssh port (although you can do that yourself, can't you:) if the proxy/firewall is too locked down.
Hope this helps--it did me. As one additional tip, run ssh -X and send an xclock or something similar over it--a lot of corporate proxies have session inactivity timeouts, which are easily defeated by anything that sends periodic signals across the link.
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Any claim that OSS is bug-free due to its nature is horse manure.
However, I'm more inclined to believe OSS is more secure, . It's not a question of 'no bugs in the code', but rather of how fast those bugs are found, and of how many of them are discovered.
Cool point. I played Netrek for many many years, and the 'borgs', or robot/semi-robot players usually didn't have much of an effect on game outcome. They would make the less-experienced players get pissed off and leave, which is a regrettable side effect, but they would often be replaced by better players who were more focused on winning games than battles.
Good point. However, you're missing something Important: "Sleazyjet", their car rental firm, and their internet cafes don't just manage to get the job done just fine, they also manage to provide a reasonably clean and functioning environment (the seats work, there's no gum on the floor, etc.)
The main reason they're cheap is the 'no frills' side of their business--that's what I would call a passive inconvenience (as in, it doesn't pop up and bug you until you actually demand free snacks on the plane.) The only real nuisance is that they pick the cheapest docking slots at the cheapest, out-of-the-way airports.
Now if you consider that the _really_ big multiplex cinemas are generally a ways out of town anyway (at least in the USA--here in Switzerland you don't get often get such huge theaters that you couldn't fit them in a city somewhere), you see that they are geared towards mass-processing of customers anyway, that you have to pay for all the add-ons (popcorn, whatnot), and that as long as the place is clean and functional (something your PFY minimum-wage ushers take care of anyway) you have a good start.
Your only major investments are good sound and projection systems. You get economies of scale from those--getting good sound effects to 1000 people isn't going to be that much more effort than getting them to 500 people.
Lastly, I don't know about the UK/Germany/France, but here (Zurich) you do need to book at least 1-2 days in advance if you want any chance of getting a semi-decent seat for any major movie on a weekend. People are more than happy to fork over the ~$10 or more for that, as the movie houses are usually full up for major releases.
Frankly, I could see this niche fitting Stelios' business model just fine, if they can get around the RIAA's restraint of trade practices (as that is pretty blatantly what uniform retail pricing is.)
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like an engraved steak knife or something. I liked the Doom II double-barrelled shotgun a lot better. How insipid can you get...
Because they couldn't fit enough hamster wheels in the trunk of the sedan to give it some real kick.
Untrue. PHProjekt and PHPGroupware both fill that function nicely, and they do it through a browser at a tiny fraction of the client CPU/memory overhead of Lookout!
Ximian also has a few nice products in that area.
I am a big fan of web-based solutions anyway--they're easier to run and maintain, you have control of the presentation, and in a company using Windows clients, where the browser is such an integral, inseparable, vital part of the OS , users should be perfectly happy reading their IMAP mail with Outcrook, and clicking on links in their mail.
The only thing nobody has "solved" to my satisfaction yet, and this is probably more of a user education issue than anything else, is being able to open attachments from a mail, edit them, and have the attachment in the stored mail automagically updated with your changes. This is, as far as I'm concerned, a non-issue, but it's the kind of detail that management care about (that's some free advice for you evangelists out there).
I set up a network for a previous client, a large private middle school, based around FreeBSD/Apache/MySQL/BIND. It was a nice implementation; very secure, utterly reliable and as much open source as I could get in there (I was not able to move some servers because of Windows apps the previous guy had installed on a few boxes that they just *had* to have.
Our initial plan for this client was to move everything to Linux-based Xterminals (after all, what do they do? Edit some word docs, look at web pages, send mail) but management decided that the time wasted by some clueless idiot coming in after we'd left who didn't know what he was doing would outweigh the cost savings.
So, I snuck FreeBSD in as their monitoring, web, DNS, and firewall server, not to mention software repository, UPS controller, and groupware server, along with a host of other functions.
I still check up on their infrastructure occasoinally, and have noticed that the guy who took over their support after we'd left has been steadily moving everything back to Windows 2000 as fast as he can; he runs a small IT "consultancy" and just can't be bothered to learn how to use something that doesn't require point-and-click.
Regardless, I consider it a minor victory that some of the services I set up (firewall, monitoring, etc.) have withstood any attempts to downgrade them to M$ brokenware--if only because nobody could figure out a way to do it better and easier....
Sigh. Oh well, they paid their invoices on time.
Yes, agreed. However, throwing hand grenades at people in "real life" tends to be considered a bit of a faux-pas in many less-enlightened social circles.
That's not, of course, meant to be judgmental, as I've found that throwing hand grenades at people can be a very productive form of conflict resolution; I'm just saying that the common hordes one encounters during the day may not necessarily be capable of understanding the enlightened intellect of the gamer.
Why, just think about it, at some point there will be real money to be made in the sort of skills learned during online gameplay. "I'm sorry, sir, but you can't smoke here." "UNLEASH PLASMA HELL ON THE INFIDEL, MR. SULU." *ZOT* "there, now who's smoking here..."
Potentially, the following mail from my some root-type person from my college computer organization sums up nicely what all the barbarians are thinking:
Just great. Now I have to keep a portable EMP generator next to my cans of RAID under the kitchen sink. Do you know how much power those f***n things use?
Let's hope they don't teach the little bastards to breed. What will they do, lay their eggs in my box of spare PC parts? Although I assume there'll be a nice satisfying mechanical *crunch* when you step on them.
Gives new meaning to cockroaches carrying diseases. Maybe they'll find one that transmits W95/Klez@mm. Norton Antivirus will now cost three times as much to ship, because it comes with a large hammer. Don't download files, don't open mail attachments, and put a ring of flea powder around your PC. "Dr. Solomon..." *WHAM WHAM WHAM* *crunch* "...has detected and isolated a virus."
On the other hand, it'd make for a nice way to smuggle an X10 cam into a cute girl's bedroom--assuming they ever make the transmitter units weigh less than 5 pounds. Blattidae Elegans Electronicus indeed.
My Australian boss, when we were dealing with a particularly obnoxious English type, told me, "watch me and learn how to shut up an Englishman in one word: 'cricket'"
The guy shut it.
Then I started talking about Sailing (I'm Swiss/American) and he shut up too...
Sorry, it's just that it seems like the majority of loud nasal American voices in nice cities abroad always seem to be saying something like "well, back in Omaha....". Plus, you should be aware that people from CA know that everything east of the rockies is bound to fall into the Atlantic someday! Or maybe I just have a defective attitude towards the rest of the country...
And as for touristing, yes, I'm a resident here, but I do travel occasionally
But as a a general observation, it isn't just the US tourists that are loud...
(a) I come from San Francisco and went to U.C. Berkeley. Safe to say, I've long ago stopped paying attention to accents.
(b) "here in the US"--I live in Europe. Ve heff vays off makink you talk, Doktah Chones...
It's called Video Cafe, and it's at 5700 Geary, and it's open most of the night (or used to be.)
Interested, yes, as is my right to be. I don't trust you and I don't trust a government. You've not made much of a point as to my lack of informedness--I think I'm fairly aware of the world around me.
I don't know about your assets, nor do I care. However, as a foreigner living here, you were taxed at source. The calculations are different, and Basel (where you say you lived) has a very high tax rate compared to other parts of the country. Yes, it does vary.
I do not see filing 1040s as a necessity. I do not see the inefficiency and intrusiveness of most government revenue-collecting systems as a necessity, I do not see the waste of my tax money as a necessity. Donate your "$1MM of assets" to charity or to the government, that is your prerogative; go ahead and sling names, but I stand behind my assertion that what's mine is mine to do with as I judge (not you.) I don't have $1MM in assets, although I'd sure like to. If I ever do have $1MM in assets, you can rest assured that I will do whatever I can to keep it out of the hands of whatever government I'm living under. Greedy little capitalist scumbag, I am.
I'm no libertarian. I'm just a guy who wants to make a decent living and left alone. There is very well such a philosophy (in fact there are several). It is not necessarily mine. Do you subscribe to an ideology? I subscribe to ideals that I find right. I don't know if that's a philosophy in itself.
Yes, the US has had many failings (and still does.) What does this have to do with tax law? Does believing that 'x' was better in the past make me a hunter-gatherer?
And as for your point about Europeans, have you ever considered that the climate of political debate various a bit from country to country?
As a small piece of advice, I'd watch the ad-hominem attacks and the generalizations. They form a bit of a trend throughout your previous posts, and don't necessarily enhance your credibility.
What's too bad about this is that, if I feel like playing a certain game, I can't go out and buy the unaltered version.
Used to be the case that I'd run to the store to pick up what's basically a license key, with fancy packaging and a CD-ROM included, then download an ISO and burn it from somewhere outside the country.
Now, some newer anti-piracy technology doesn't let me burn CDs, so in effect I have to wait for my game to arrive in the mail from some overseas distributor, at a substantial markup.
Terrible, terrible. Woe is me. Oh well, it's a nice day outside
As a basis, I should mention that I fully disagree with you about conscription (waste of money and time, rather than moral objection), VAT, state control and government interference in private lives. Not much point arguing about that.
To be honest, the Swiss actually do a very good job of keeping information compartmentalized; they're (almost always) open about what they collect and where it goes, and actually collect quite a bit less personal information on citizens. The instance of CCTV here, as well as the volume of information they require in their bureaucratic processes, is far less than I've seen in most countries. It's an imperfect system, sometimes frustratingly so, but I feel that via mechanisms such as the banking privacy law and the data protection office, as well as the small size of the place, my discretion is reasonably assured. I also believe that the Swiss bureaucracy is not powerful enough that I could not withhold substantial information about myself that I don't deem necessary for their purposes.
Regarding Americans: don't forget that Americans already have one of the most intrusive, repressive taxation systems in western society. What's often in the news is US government abuse of power towards other states; what you rarely see, however, are the often horrific instances of the IRS overreaching its authority towards its own citizens. Not many countries require all citizens to file tax returns, from anywhere, all their lives, no matter where they live or where they've paid taxes.
Another point I should make is that, for all its current failings, a fundamental philosophy of American society is the freedom of the individual and liberty from undue taxation and government intervention. I (and many others) subscribe strongly to these ideals, and thus question the basic idea of taxation at all. Remember that until the early 20th century, the US did not have a federal income tax at all; revenue was generated via tariffs on trade. Many people feel that a government should be allowed to collect either or but not both.
That being said, I pay my Swiss taxes willingly, albeit grudgingly, because they are kept at a low enough level that they do not substantially impact my chosen lifestyle, and I feel that I am actually getting something for my money.
I dispute your point about European governments and the 'common good'. One good look at the German economy, the abuses of the Berlusconi government, the state of English public services, and the French pension system should dispel that notion quite nicely. I also would once again like to point out that the EU's idea of a 'common good' does not necessarily apply so tidily to individual countries' perception of the 'common good'. Ask any German what he thinks of Eastern Europe joining the EU, and what it's about to cost him...
Wasn't there a whole development team, including coders, QA testers, admins and managers for sale on EBay a few years ago? Initial asking price something like everyone's base salary + hiring bonus?
I always wondered whether that was for real.
It hasn't happened so much in the recent economic climate, but up to a few years ago, one often heard of about whole teams in investment banks or software companies switching quite readily.
I suppose it depends on whether you can find someone with budget and a need. Or you can just spin off your own consultancy. My advice, without knowing more specifics, would be to hang around and collect paychecks for as long as you can (do the work, but don't kill yourself) while very actively exploring your options.
Wayyyyyyy too many.
Way too many Canadians/Germans/Brits/Japanese/Italians/Koreans
as well, for my tastes. At least the loud ones.
When you visit a country, do so quietly and try to behave yourself...
Signed,
--A well-behaved American tourist (who cringes anytime he hears a midwestern nasal voice)
ps: I see more Europeans in McDonalds in US touristy cities than Americans in them in Florence/Paris/London, just as a tip.
The unfair trade advantage comes from the fact that the U.S. government does not require EU-based company X selling digital goods to collect and remit state sales tax to the State of California finance department when a kid in San Francisco buys a copy of Opera.
As it stands, when I buy online from an EU company, I either pay no sales tax, or the VAT is pocketed by the government in which the company is based. That's hardly what I call fair.
Nonetheless, what surprises the hell out of me is that, given most EU countries' base income tax rates, not to mention the EU's execrable record of fiscal discipline, nobody even questions the idea of charging 15%-20% VAT in the first place!
It makes me shudder.
I'll give you a hint:
A French judge required Yahoo! from blocking access by French citizens to online auctions involving Nazi memorabilia, following a lawsuit by a Jewish university students' group.
Although I don't know the exact status of the case to date, at the time Yahoo! duly complied after some initial wrangling.
The key bit of information in all this will come when you do a whois lookup on 'yahoo.fr'.
Which is why you face ~50% base income tax rates in Germany and France, and rates approaching this in Italy, the UK, and Sweden, as well as somewhere in the neighborhood of triple the US gasoline tax, as well as higher rates of inheritance and property tax across the board, etc etc etc. Not to mention road tolls for highway usage
Think again, my friend. Public transportation, healthcare, road use, and the other accoutrements of a civilized society do not come for free. However, if you look at the amount of money the EU has squandered on mountain highway improvements in central Spain, or subsidies to French cubumber farmers, you'd think twice about being willing to fork over yet another fair chunk of cash so willingly.
I won't live in the US anymore due to what I already consider an oppressive system of government and taxation. I currently reside in Switzerland, of which I am also a citizen, and vociferously oppose any moves on the part of the EU to bully this country to join the club. In fact, the most vocal opponents of this country subjugating itself to Brussels are EU expats...
Our VAT is 7.6%, and my income taxes are a total of somwehere around 20% (I am in a high tax bracket, and pay some surcharges due to not being in the army.) We have a stellar healthcare system, the best public transportation on the continent (have you ridden a German regional train recently?) and a formidable network of public schools. Our crime rate is far lower than the (ridiculous) amounts of crime you get in London, Berlin, and Paris. Our streets don't have potholes. And all this without the US-style international revenue grabs to which the EU apparently is beginning to subscribe.
The EU has always been a nice counterbalance to US attempts to impose rules in all fields, ranging from taxation and transportation to banking regulations and military policy. It would be nice if American companies would receive more government support against this sort of reciprocal silliness.
Think about that.
Try PHProjekt. It's actively being developed and supported.
I installed it at a client's site, after looking at alternatives, such as PHPGroupWare (which also looks quite good, albeit a tiny bit immature and others, and PHProjekt was the most robust of the bunch.
I don't know how well it will scale if you ever expand REAL BIG, but as it just relies on a standard SQL backend, you should be able to import/export data anywhere.
You forgot Colonel Panic and Corporal Punishment.
Do a google search for ptunnel or httptunnel, or some variant thereof. There are a number of scripts which properly implement https (or even http) headers around an ssh connection, including passing authentication information to a proxy server.
In some cases, you may need someone to redirect port 443 or 80 on a unix box to your ssh port (although you can do that yourself, can't you
if the proxy/firewall is too locked down.
Hope this helps--it did me. As one additional tip, run ssh -X and send an xclock or something similar over it--a lot of corporate proxies have session inactivity timeouts, which are easily defeated by anything that sends periodic signals across the link.
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/
Any claim that OSS is bug-free due to its nature is horse manure.
However, I'm more inclined to believe OSS is more secure, . It's not a question of 'no bugs in the code', but rather of how fast those bugs are found, and of how many of them are discovered.
Cool point. I played Netrek for many many years, and the 'borgs', or robot/semi-robot players usually didn't have much of an effect on game outcome. They would make the less-experienced players get pissed off and leave, which is a regrettable side effect, but they would often be replaced by better players who were more focused on winning games than battles.
Good point. However, you're missing something Important: "Sleazyjet", their car rental firm, and their internet cafes don't just manage to get the job done just fine, they also manage to provide a reasonably clean and functioning environment (the seats work, there's no gum on the floor, etc.)
The main reason they're cheap is the 'no frills' side of their business--that's what I would call a passive inconvenience (as in, it doesn't pop up and bug you until you actually demand free snacks on the plane.) The only real nuisance is that they pick the cheapest docking slots at the cheapest, out-of-the-way airports.
Now if you consider that the _really_ big multiplex cinemas are generally a ways out of town anyway (at least in the USA--here in Switzerland you don't get often get such huge theaters that you couldn't fit them in a city somewhere), you see that they are geared towards mass-processing of customers anyway, that you have to pay for all the add-ons (popcorn, whatnot), and that as long as the place is clean and functional (something your PFY minimum-wage ushers take care of anyway) you have a good start.
Your only major investments are good sound and projection systems. You get economies of scale from those--getting good sound effects to 1000 people isn't going to be that much more effort than getting them to 500 people.
Lastly, I don't know about the UK/Germany/France, but here (Zurich) you do need to book at least 1-2 days in advance if you want any chance of getting a semi-decent seat for any major movie on a weekend. People are more than happy to fork over the ~$10 or more for that, as the movie houses are usually full up for major releases.
Frankly, I could see this niche fitting Stelios' business model just fine, if they can get around the RIAA's restraint of trade practices (as that is pretty blatantly what uniform retail pricing is.)