I think we are discussing of irrelevant matters. Just look at the video of the hospital partially reduced to cinders, with a few rooms still up [(your favorite search engine)+MSF+hospital+Kunduz], to verify that neither it was nor it is not under Taliban control. This is not "collateral damage". It is wanton bombing of a notoriously neutral NGO, who has my financial support. Go figure why this decision was taken...
Please mod up parent , even if AC. Secure Boot should be monitored by the Commission competition investigators, and not just on ARMs, but on any CPU. It is far more nefarious and dangerous than crappy little IE, where M$ has always had an unbelievable cheek: they claimed that the browser was an integral part of the operating system... (Sure, and I have my trackpad magicglued to my right hand, so I can only accept work which requires trackpad usage or else I can only eat lasagne for trackpads...). Agenda for the Commission's DG COMPET on SecureBoot: 1. act now to discourage SecureBoot via all available international fora, given that your investigation procedures are far too slow; 2. make it clear that SecureBoot will NOT have any impact on malware/security, only on M$ role in HW control; 3. tell your legal counsels, also not particularly known for their astounding speed, to prepare an advance legal advice on the breach of the competition rules which is bound to the current specs of SecureBoot; 4. start tackling Apple for IOS and iTunes: under cover of security they are just playing exactly as M$ [not for nothing the French competition authorities investigated iTunes].
You state: "Scientific proof is available for few things in the human experience.". Really? Like e.g. the entire corpus of experimental physics, astronomy, biology, etc. You do need to take Basic Science for Freshmen 101... It would be perhaps best avoiding to repeate rather stale arguments used by a bunch of illiterate theists. They carry no weight.
Rather that push my favourite show/novel/TV series, I take the liberty of proposing an assessment code which is not only for Americans. 1. Thou shalt not compare books with movies, ever; 2. Thou shalt not compare movies with video games, ever; 3. Thou shalt not vilify fantasy/hard SF/vintage SF/alternate history, etc.; 4. Thou shalt not believe that the inordinate passion for vampires/demons/supernatural horrors extends to countries which are far less religious than the USA; 5. Thou shalt not acritically judge any prequel, as so far, in most areas, from Star Wars to Star Trek to Caprica, they were chemically pure drivel. And, to prove that human beings are illogical, here I go now providing contradictory advice. Read books like "Twister", written by a real research physicist, if you want to read very entertaining hard SF, not Greg Bear, not Isaac Asimov. You will instantly see the difference from folks like Asimov (a biochemist) who had (forgive me...) a manifestly insufficient grasp of physics. Even I, research physicist, was always underwhelmed by his forays in areas he knew precious little about (a PhD in biochemistry does not make you an authority on particle physics or quantum mechanics or a number of other things). He even proceeded to top up his display of ignorance by publishing divulgative stuff on any possible subject. That he is still considered a saint by a sizable community makes me wonder... And to finish in beauty: casting a Scotsman who was famous for roles as e.g. the lead male actor in The Full Monty was not just catastrophic, but plain dumb. This contributed greatly to transform a would-be SF series as Stargate Universe into a boring reality-like show, eventually killing (deservedly) the show. Just like dreadful Caprica. Should I be so dumb to want to watch a reality, then I will go for the real thing, not for an SF travesty...
This is to save the energies of the various suckers, who, like me, wanted to read either the presentation (will do even Powerpoint, if really really desperate) or the notes or whatever he had.
These conferences, unlike BlackHat® conferences, seem to publish zilch, and on his company web site there is nothing, in any language, except for a news item in Inspector Clouseau's English (Pink Panther, remember?) on this same matter, hardly more informative that the OP comment.
To shake him, please e-mail him in any language, asking him to publish his presentation.
I am confident that by the 3.000.000th e-mail, he might get it...
Am going to mail him in idiomatic, begging, French to begin with.
All right, let us defer our match to how easy it will be to customize the Maemo platform.
From what I have read (Wikipedia), Maemo is a Debian distro with a number of proprietary bits.
If I can customise it without asking Nokia's permission, then you're right.
If you need a certificate or fingerprint or Lord know what to change some options, then I am vindicated and they will be using Linux exclusively as a politically correct marketing weapon.
Re-match in 2-3 months, once I buy the N900 here in Belgium.
I am.
Their business model is based on locked down symbian (the open source is to let kids play, not for real-life) and Windows Mobile.
Allow me to doubt of their good intentions.
And yes I have tried to hack their "open source symbian". It's hard as hell!
You a Nokia fanboy, by any chance?
Pal, when I will see Nokia selling anything open and hackable I will believe it.
So far they keep sleeping with the Microsoft suits and you cannot hack their crappy software without lots of efforts.
BTW, I am considering the HTC Hero, not the Dream, as it is running Android, though customised.
The N900 will probably be as locked up as any other crap sold by Nokia...
Recent E71 Nokia victim
Then you might consider having a read of contemporary European philosophers: I do not recall a single contemporary one making this point.
Should you wish to state that individualism is king in the US (and in the UK, the branch office), of course you're right.
I used to teach my US students in Texas that the word "solidarity" appears by mistake in the Merriam-Webster...
Maybe we're veering a bit OT, but I cannot resist advising to look up this guy on Wikipedia: "Geert Hofstede".
He made a seminal study on culture characteristics and developed a number of conclusions, interesting if you do not take them as absolute truths.
The constitution of Upper Slashdottovia says
in its Article 3:
Thou shalt not feed the Troll (mythical creature from the Norse folklore OR contemporary being who hasn't got a life).
Accordingly, I will not reply to such a blatant and inane baiting. Different does not mean enemy.
Buddy, we live in different worlds...
1. "If Italians are forced to pay for the system with taxes..." standard defence.
The difference is Europeans think, to different extents, that the state has to supply some services, not just jail pushers.
2. Ever heard of Buddhism? Wikipedia is free...
3. May I recommend reading some basic textbook on "humour, sense of"? I was poking fun at ourselves, geeks.
Try to tell a geek he should see Venice and he'll shrug and get back to his on-line game or whatever.
Tell him that there is the additional benefit of free WiFi, and maybe he'll come...
And as to those mentioning tourist traps, oversold tourist spots and mixed complaints.
Folks, there are people who get Venice and people who don't.
Machu Picchu, the Hermitage, the Louvre, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, are in the same situation.
Italy is not better than elsewhere. It is different, though. If you don't agree, it's all right - am on my third zen book. I will not lose sleep over it.
BTW, I write "him" because I never knew a geekette, in thirty-more years as an IT professional, much as I understand there are some over there (and even some real good ones, like Gina Trapani of Lifehacker.com fame; I don't even talk to people who do not know her...).
It is important to non-Italians because:
1. it shows Americans that you can get something for free, much to their utter dismay, given the tenets of their society;
2. proves to non-Italians that local authorities do have a purpose in the general path of the Wheel;
3. provides to nerds and geeks of all over the world a reasonable pretext to visit Venice, one of the magic places on the planet
That, for me, is enough.
I know European posters are a minority, but I wonder whether anybody has a better list than the hopelessly outdated TuxMobile one.
Googling around has provided me with a couple of resellers in Germany, four in the UK and three in France.
The French should have it easier, because there you can ask to take Win down and lower the price of the box (consumer protection legislation), if Sarkozy didn't change that already, to help his pals...
Come on folks, any European vendors' list?
Do forgive me, but I do not believe that, other than in Hollywood blockbusters and US presidentiale election propaganda, people are either all good, Yoda-like, or all bad.
Forry, who used to give paraphernalia (he gave me too) with the combination "4E" (pronounced by Americans "Forry"), was in my opinion a mostly decent and very cordial fellow fan.
I met him at the World Science Fiction Convention in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1990, and we must have talked for at least half an hour, during which he managed to convey a number of very interesting and/or funny anecdotes, he did not behave at all arrogantly and he was most courteous.
I have met in my life many SOBs (at that convention for instance there was an obnoxious Aussie fan, who managed to attract, by his vulgarity, drunkenness and hate-loaded speech mannerism, the unanimous detestation of the attendees), and I know a few symptoms.
Forry exhibited none. That is all I can say.
R.I.P.
I am quite surprised to see that none of the posters has pointed out, so far, that direct debit is preferred in Europe because of the deep difference in the banking systems with the US.
In Europe, except for the UK (primitive and consumer-hostile banking) and France (deeply rooted customs), practically nobody uses checks.
Here in Belgium I last wrote a check nine years ago.
This means there is very little manual compensation activity, and instead most countries have a uniform EFT system, that works from a home computer (my bank offers a package that runs on Linux, Win, and Mac OS X).
In Belgium again I can transfer money from one of my accounts to an account I know very little about within half an hour for free.
Also, for those who are afraid of getting a debit entry of EUR 5000, you can also set, again standard practice here, direct debit with limits, so that for instance the gas utility can take money from your account up to, say, EUR 500.
That should reassure even the most paranoid consumer.
To recap:
a. a uniform, in Belgium free, EFT system exist, unlike in the USA;
b. checks are now, with the exceptions noted, essentially obsolete;
c. you can temporarily dip into red and it is not a big deal;
d. you can set a limit on the direct debit, so to avoid keying mistakes.
Buddy, this is nonsense.
Am located in Belgium and have ordered three days ago a Freerunner from Germany, likely to be shipped after the 25 July.
On behalf of the European geeks,
GeneralSunTzu
Well, not all are very diligent in collecting it, but yes, it is already in effect for cross-border purchases. Should you, e.g., buy books over the internet from Amazon UK, they will charge VAT according to the country of delivery (on books and newspaper the VAT rate in the UK is 0...). In Belgium, where I live, it is also a ridiculously high 21%.
It looks like NYers are rattled by this perspective. In any of the 27 European Union (EU) member states it is instead very simple. Mail order/internet order? The firm shipping will charge VAT (Value Added Tax) at the rate of the destination country (Member states send each other the amounts they have collected on behalf of the other member states). Should you instead go to another EU country and buy something there (though not a car, because it must be licensed in your country of residence), then you will pay at the VAT rate of the country where you are making your personal purchase, and have no more obligation to do anything at all in your own country. No sweat and no need for painkillers...
Please mod parent up.
This is precisely why this medical model does not work.
It is not geared to rid people of illnesses - it is just a legal drug bandits' model!
Now you see why considering regulating the medical industry is not that crazy...
I do believe the iPhone's edge is exclusively the UI, which Apple masters like no other computer manufacturer. Good ol'e Steve is convinced, however, that only a tied-up customer can be conveniently milked, and therefore will also bundle it with an exclusive operator contract. European customers were already fed up with the local operators, who were milking them to death via international roaming, before being forced to lower the price by an EU regulation (think of the FCC ever doing something like that...) not to go for even more getting handcuffed... Will I buy the iPhone when it comes to Belgium? Certainly not. Will I miss something? Ditto. What I am actually looking for right now is an open source cellphone with 4G technology, so that I may write my own stuff, not a locked tin can which will burn like a interocitor (This Island Earth, remember?)... And if it burns when I open it, then I want a free saucer ride, not a mail-in rebate...
Slashdot Mirror
I think we are discussing of irrelevant matters.
Just look at the video of the hospital partially reduced to cinders, with a few rooms still up [(your favorite search engine)+MSF+hospital+Kunduz], to verify that neither it was nor it is not under Taliban control.
This is not "collateral damage". It is wanton bombing of a notoriously neutral NGO, who has my financial support.
Go figure why this decision was taken...
Please mod up parent , even if AC.
Secure Boot should be monitored by the Commission competition investigators, and not just on ARMs, but on any CPU.
It is far more nefarious and dangerous than crappy little IE, where M$ has always had an unbelievable cheek: they claimed that the browser was an integral part of the operating system... (Sure, and I have my trackpad magicglued to my right hand, so I can only accept work which requires trackpad usage or else I can only eat lasagne for trackpads...).
Agenda for the Commission's DG COMPET on SecureBoot:
1. act now to discourage SecureBoot via all available international fora, given that your investigation procedures are far too slow;
2. make it clear that SecureBoot will NOT have any impact on malware/security, only on M$ role in HW control;
3. tell your legal counsels, also not particularly known for their astounding speed, to prepare an advance legal advice on the breach of the competition rules which is bound to the current specs of SecureBoot;
4. start tackling Apple for IOS and iTunes: under cover of security they are just playing exactly as M$ [not for nothing the French competition authorities investigated iTunes].
You state: "Scientific proof is available for few things in the human experience.".
Really?
Like e.g. the entire corpus of experimental physics, astronomy, biology, etc.
You do need to take Basic Science for Freshmen 101...
It would be perhaps best avoiding to repeate rather stale arguments used by a bunch of illiterate theists. They carry no weight.
Rather that push my favourite show/novel/TV series, I take the liberty of proposing an assessment code which is not only for Americans.
1. Thou shalt not compare books with movies, ever;
2. Thou shalt not compare movies with video games, ever;
3. Thou shalt not vilify fantasy/hard SF/vintage SF/alternate history, etc.;
4. Thou shalt not believe that the inordinate passion for vampires/demons/supernatural horrors extends to countries which are far less religious than the USA;
5. Thou shalt not acritically judge any prequel, as so far, in most areas, from Star Wars to Star Trek to Caprica, they were chemically pure drivel.
And, to prove that human beings are illogical, here I go now providing contradictory advice.
Read books like "Twister", written by a real research physicist, if you want to read very entertaining hard SF, not Greg Bear, not Isaac Asimov.
You will instantly see the difference from folks like Asimov (a biochemist) who had (forgive me...) a manifestly insufficient grasp of physics.
Even I, research physicist, was always underwhelmed by his forays in areas he knew precious little about (a PhD in biochemistry does not make you an authority on particle physics or quantum mechanics or a number of other things).
He even proceeded to top up his display of ignorance by publishing divulgative stuff on any possible subject.
That he is still considered a saint by a sizable community makes me wonder...
And to finish in beauty: casting a Scotsman who was famous for roles as e.g. the lead male actor in The Full Monty was not just catastrophic, but plain dumb. This contributed greatly to transform a would-be SF series as Stargate Universe into a boring reality-like show, eventually killing (deservedly) the show. Just like dreadful Caprica.
Should I be so dumb to want to watch a reality, then I will go for the real thing, not for an SF travesty...
This is to save the energies of the various suckers, who, like me, wanted to read either the presentation (will do even Powerpoint, if really really desperate) or the notes or whatever he had.
These conferences, unlike BlackHat® conferences, seem to publish zilch, and on his company web site there is nothing, in any language, except for a news item in Inspector Clouseau's English (Pink Panther, remember?) on this same matter, hardly more informative that the OP comment.
To shake him, please e-mail him in any language, asking him to publish his presentation.
I am confident that by the 3.000.000th e-mail, he might get it...
Am going to mail him in idiomatic, begging, French to begin with.
All right, let us defer our match to how easy it will be to customize the Maemo platform. From what I have read (Wikipedia), Maemo is a Debian distro with a number of proprietary bits. If I can customise it without asking Nokia's permission, then you're right. If you need a certificate or fingerprint or Lord know what to change some options, then I am vindicated and they will be using Linux exclusively as a politically correct marketing weapon. Re-match in 2-3 months, once I buy the N900 here in Belgium.
I am. Their business model is based on locked down symbian (the open source is to let kids play, not for real-life) and Windows Mobile. Allow me to doubt of their good intentions. And yes I have tried to hack their "open source symbian". It's hard as hell! You a Nokia fanboy, by any chance?
Pal, when I will see Nokia selling anything open and hackable I will believe it. So far they keep sleeping with the Microsoft suits and you cannot hack their crappy software without lots of efforts. BTW, I am considering the HTC Hero, not the Dream, as it is running Android, though customised. The N900 will probably be as locked up as any other crap sold by Nokia... Recent E71 Nokia victim
Then you might consider having a read of contemporary European philosophers: I do not recall a single contemporary one making this point.
Should you wish to state that individualism is king in the US (and in the UK, the branch office), of course you're right.
I used to teach my US students in Texas that the word "solidarity" appears by mistake in the Merriam-Webster...
Maybe we're veering a bit OT, but I cannot resist advising to look up this guy on Wikipedia: "Geert Hofstede".
He made a seminal study on culture characteristics and developed a number of conclusions, interesting if you do not take them as absolute truths.
The constitution of Upper Slashdottovia says
in its Article 3:
Thou shalt not feed the Troll (mythical creature from the Norse folklore OR contemporary being who hasn't got a life).
Accordingly, I will not reply to such a blatant and inane baiting. Different does not mean enemy.
Buddy, we live in different worlds...
1. "If Italians are forced to pay for the system with taxes..." standard defence. The difference is Europeans think, to different extents, that the state has to supply some services, not just jail pushers.
2. Ever heard of Buddhism? Wikipedia is free...
3. May I recommend reading some basic textbook on "humour, sense of"? I was poking fun at ourselves, geeks.
Try to tell a geek he should see Venice and he'll shrug and get back to his on-line game or whatever.
Tell him that there is the additional benefit of free WiFi, and maybe he'll come...
And as to those mentioning tourist traps, oversold tourist spots and mixed complaints.
Folks, there are people who get Venice and people who don't.
Machu Picchu, the Hermitage, the Louvre, the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City, are in the same situation.
Italy is not better than elsewhere. It is different, though. If you don't agree, it's all right - am on my third zen book. I will not lose sleep over it.
BTW, I write "him" because I never knew a geekette, in thirty-more years as an IT professional, much as I understand there are some over there (and even some real good ones, like Gina Trapani of Lifehacker.com fame; I don't even talk to people who do not know her...).
It is important to non-Italians because: 1. it shows Americans that you can get something for free, much to their utter dismay, given the tenets of their society; 2. proves to non-Italians that local authorities do have a purpose in the general path of the Wheel; 3. provides to nerds and geeks of all over the world a reasonable pretext to visit Venice, one of the magic places on the planet That, for me, is enough.
I know European posters are a minority, but I wonder whether anybody has a better list than the hopelessly outdated TuxMobile one. Googling around has provided me with a couple of resellers in Germany, four in the UK and three in France. The French should have it easier, because there you can ask to take Win down and lower the price of the box (consumer protection legislation), if Sarkozy didn't change that already, to help his pals... Come on folks, any European vendors' list?
Do forgive me, but I do not believe that, other than in Hollywood blockbusters and US presidentiale election propaganda, people are either all good, Yoda-like, or all bad. Forry, who used to give paraphernalia (he gave me too) with the combination "4E" (pronounced by Americans "Forry"), was in my opinion a mostly decent and very cordial fellow fan. I met him at the World Science Fiction Convention in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1990, and we must have talked for at least half an hour, during which he managed to convey a number of very interesting and/or funny anecdotes, he did not behave at all arrogantly and he was most courteous. I have met in my life many SOBs (at that convention for instance there was an obnoxious Aussie fan, who managed to attract, by his vulgarity, drunkenness and hate-loaded speech mannerism, the unanimous detestation of the attendees), and I know a few symptoms. Forry exhibited none. That is all I can say. R.I.P.
I am quite surprised to see that none of the posters has pointed out, so far, that direct debit is preferred in Europe because of the deep difference in the banking systems with the US. In Europe, except for the UK (primitive and consumer-hostile banking) and France (deeply rooted customs), practically nobody uses checks.
Here in Belgium I last wrote a check nine years ago.
This means there is very little manual compensation activity, and instead most countries have a uniform EFT system, that works from a home computer (my bank offers a package that runs on Linux, Win, and Mac OS X).
In Belgium again I can transfer money from one of my accounts to an account I know very little about within half an hour for free.
Also, for those who are afraid of getting a debit entry of EUR 5000, you can also set, again standard practice here, direct debit with limits, so that for instance the gas utility can take money from your account up to, say, EUR 500. That should reassure even the most paranoid consumer.
To recap:
a. a uniform, in Belgium free, EFT system exist, unlike in the USA;
b. checks are now, with the exceptions noted, essentially obsolete;
c. you can temporarily dip into red and it is not a big deal;
d. you can set a limit on the direct debit, so to avoid keying mistakes.
Buddy, this is nonsense. Am located in Belgium and have ordered three days ago a Freerunner from Germany, likely to be shipped after the 25 July.
On behalf of the European geeks,
GeneralSunTzu
Well, not all are very diligent in collecting it, but yes, it is already in effect for cross-border purchases.
Should you, e.g., buy books over the internet from Amazon UK, they will charge VAT according to the country of delivery (on books and newspaper the VAT rate in the UK is 0...).
In Belgium, where I live, it is also a ridiculously high 21%.
It looks like NYers are rattled by this perspective.
In any of the 27 European Union (EU) member states it is instead very simple.
Mail order/internet order?
The firm shipping will charge VAT (Value Added Tax) at the rate of the destination country (Member states send each other the amounts they have collected on behalf of the other member states).
Should you instead go to another EU country and buy something there (though not a car, because it must be licensed in your country of residence), then you will pay at the VAT rate of the country where you are making your personal purchase, and have no more obligation to do anything at all in your own country.
No sweat and no need for painkillers...
Please mod parent up. This is precisely why this medical model does not work. It is not geared to rid people of illnesses - it is just a legal drug bandits' model! Now you see why considering regulating the medical industry is not that crazy...
I do believe the iPhone's edge is exclusively the UI, which Apple masters like no other computer manufacturer.
Good ol'e Steve is convinced, however, that only a tied-up customer can be conveniently milked, and therefore will also bundle it with an exclusive operator contract.
European customers were already fed up with the local operators, who were milking them to death via international roaming, before being forced to lower the price by an EU regulation (think of the FCC ever doing something like that...) not to go for even more getting handcuffed...
Will I buy the iPhone when it comes to Belgium? Certainly not.
Will I miss something? Ditto.
What I am actually looking for right now is an open source cellphone with 4G technology, so that I may write my own stuff, not a locked tin can which will burn like a interocitor (This Island Earth, remember?)...
And if it burns when I open it, then I want a free saucer ride, not a mail-in rebate...