considering that in/.'s own country even the human body is censored under criminal penalty, it seems to me that the local population needs to get their facts straight about censorship first...
I tend to think it's better that I (the wireless customer) pay for the convenience of having a wireless phone than ask the people who call me to do it for me
Alas, I've heard this argument 100 times. My opinion is: if you're happy to pay for incoming calls, go ahead.
But why should everybody be forced to pay for incoming calls? It's lucky for people in most other places in the world not to have to use such a freedom-restricted system.
Why should my mother with the landline phone pay an extra surcharge to call me just because I have a wireless phone? What value is she getting from my ownership of a wireless phone?
Indeed, following this argument, why should they pay to call you at all, only because you want to be reachable by phone? And why should callers have to pay long-distance charges only because some people they want to reach chose to be available only at a distant place?
But it gets worse: how can companies only in this country get away by charging for incoming SMS messages, which receivers can not refuse nor filter by caller ID?
At least, one can refuse to pick up calls (and pay for incoming minutes) if they arrive from unwanted caller IDs...
It seems to me very sad: most people in this country will do anything to rationalize a 'greatest country' syndrome, finding out all possible excuses to justify worse conditions as 'better' (ranging from the abysmal health system, to the near-illiteracy provided by most of the primary school system, to double/triple pay TV reception, to outrageous internet fiber connection prices, to gun-accident-ridden society and overfilled jails, and finally to the lack of several basic freedoms enjoyed in many other more advanced democracies...) simply because they've never tried anything else; and most of their primary school system keeps them illiterate enough to prevent any understanding of other languages, thus rendering them incapable of gaining 1st hand experience in other places... very sad.
"my real problem with European cell phones is how much is costs to call them"
It's not just European cell phones: it's prettymuch everywhere in the world except the US, since everywhere else people don't pay for incoming calls on their cellphones, which is one of the most absurd charges people are forced to pay when using a US cellphone (everywhere else, people pay the cellphone cost when they call a cellphone, and they know they are calling a cellphone because cellphones have a different area code). It's as if you were paying for incoming long-distance calls on your fixed line. Would you accept that?
Next thing, you're going to tell me you also pay a monthly to watch TV programs containing commercials.... oh, wait.
But the fact remains: why oh why do people defend a system where you're forced to pay to receive calls?
It's fitting just because 400 years ago Galileo Galilei (same name as the observatory, see?), in 1609 began his astronomical observations, and as a direct result of that came in direct conflict with the religious establishment, since he began supporting Copernicus's heliocentric theory.
Try to explain that to the enlightened individuals who still insist nowadays that the universe is 5000-6000 years old, that dinosaur bones were placed there by some humorous deity just in order to make us wonder, or simply that Evolution is 'just a theory'...
Happy round-numbered birthday to both events, I say, or in other words: eppur si muove.
went through elementary and high school with straight-A math grades: it was just easy and no big deal to be top of the class. but I did music and acting on the side, which I liked. then they told me I should get into math, sciences, engineering, since those are the IMPORTANT professions. so I did, while keeping music and acting on the side.
decades later, I still like music and acting, and math/sciences/engineering are mostly boring now. sure they do bring some income, but if I could go back I'd choose a career in performing arts.
moral of the story: let kids choose what they like, not just what they're good at. by doing what they care for, they'll get better at it, and become better professionals too.
Not.
Please, call your holidays whatever you want, but don't pretend to care about the "rest of the world".
It's like the "world series", those are everything but.
Even as a joke it's too feeble to be worthwhile.
What really feels depressing to me are those populations (not necessarily Anglophones) where even highly educated people find it normal to know only one language.
It's as if it were normal not to have any sort of general education (math, reading, history, geography, etc.)...
Knowing only one language is so... boring!
Not to mention close-minded.
Do yourself a favor, and learn at least another language decently.
And by decently, I mean at least as well as the average/.'tter's knowledge of English. Myself included, so I'm not asking much:-)
>buying a car radio and not being able to receive signals of 1/2 of the stations, or losing radio signal in your radio where the car on your right receives the same program because it's coming from another provider... great thing, incompatible 'standards' eh?
Sounds a bit like satellite radio to me.
uh... I have no experience with it - is satellite radio that bad?
Well, to be fair...Joe Q. Public really has no idea or, nor concern with...the technology or acronyms behind how his cellphone works. GSM, CDMA, ABCDE....he hasn't a clue what you're talking about. As long as the phone rings, allows calls and whatever to go through...that's all he cares about.
Of course the general user does not have to know about GSM vs CDMA - maybe no more than FM vs AM radio...
What puzzles me is that customers (in very few countries fortunately) accept the fact that they can't physically use the cellphone on 1/2 or more of neworks...
Compare that for example to buying a car radio and not being able to receive signals of 1/2 of the stations, or losing radio signal in your radio where the car on your right receives the same program because it's coming from another provider... great thing, incompatible 'standards' eh?
But I've heard several people defending this as 'part of the free market mechanism'.. nonsense, since radio and TV have been quite regulated in the same geographic markets, with no danger to the free market (well, certainly no worse than the oligopoly of mobile phone providers).
Mostly not. Amazing eh?
There was no teletext either. (not that the two are related technologies)
Lack of standards in both cases I guess... from wikipedia: "Adoption in the United States was hampered due to a lack of a single teletext standard and consumer resistance to the high initial price of teletext decoders."
The same place which finally produces a reasonable unlimited data plan can't seem to offer simple data services such as landline SMSes as standard. Ah well, pros and cons of living in different places around the globe.
I accept your reasoning if you accept to pay for receiving long-distance calls. From anywhere.
Go ahead, let the person who receives the long-distance call worry.
How do you know if you are calling long distance or even another country, hmm?
Ah, you'd like to say there's no way to tell whether you're calling a cell phone? But then, how would the company know to charge you more then? Can't you find it out too?
Such are my feelings after using cellphones in both situations for extended periods. Your feelings may be different. And I do not feel arrogant enough to doubt it, if that's what suits yourself...
for the life of me, cannot understand why in the US telecom users get billed for stuff they receive.
hear, hear.
Not only this, but this mechanism of paying for 'airtime' on received calls, just as for received SMSes, is so engrained in most cellphone users minds that they'll strenuously defend its 'logic' (excessive use of quotes intended).
It'd be just as bizzarre to charge the receiving party for a long distance phone call. Yet apparently cellphone users accept it, just as they accept the absurd incompatibility between GSM and CDMA (good thing TDMA got scrapped at least) as inevitable side-effect of a 'free market' (yup, there are those quotes again). Funnily enough, there are very few other countries around the world who charge cellphone users for receiving an SMS or a cellphone call... of course, <sarcasm> this is because of GSM's anti-capitalistic approach </sarcasm>.
Yes it is possible to have decent scientific journalism.
Quark in the early eighties was a good example of this.
Especially the older shows with great animations.
- Good rhetorical technique there. Insult the other person when you feel threatened.
To the contrary: if I had good rhetorical technique, I'd have elegantly convinced you. But if you don't like being an AC, why don't you log in?
- No, I do not speak languages other than English but that doesn't mean that I am as you implied American.
I did not imply: I presumed you were, given your arguments.
I am sorry if you only speak one language... that makes it probably harder to understand multi-cultural issues. And you are likely from either some former British colony or from the UK (i.e. one of those who did not like to go metric) ? . . . - Cultures aren't terribly important---and making it seem like they are is another way of trying to divide people against each other.
Until reading this statement of yours I thought I had a point, and was going to keep replying to it all, but with that you convinced me... the only important thing is to be happy.
Au revoir, anonymous coward. Auf wiedersehen. Addio. Ba beneen yoon. Sayonara. Dovidjenja. Hasta la vista, baby.
- That's funny because I have visited my motherland three times, have had my distant relatives over to the states. I continue to communicate with them about the goings-on in our lives and theirs, all without knowing the language.
Kudos for that, even if it's just three visits in a lifetime. When I had more time, I used to make up to three trips overseas every year... but I digress.
We're probably getting off topic here, what I mean to say is that once you don't speak the language, it's not your culture anymore. It's your ancestors' culture. Your culture and language is where you not only grew up, it's also how you learned how to say please and thanks, and all that stuff.
When you're over there, I'm sorry to say, I guess to most people you're a foreigner.
As another example, your sig about soap... ammo is a sign of what you know, where you come from etc.
True multi-cultural people are those who are not just able to be in a certain culture, they are also able to speak it and live it. Being bi- or tri- or multi-lingual from birth is just the starting point - I speak from both direct and personal experiences.
- I suspect I have closer ties to my native culture than most of the Francophones have with the French culture
Sure, but a Francophone, say in Quebec or in Senegal, is a Quebecois or a Senegalese - not French. Just like most English speaking people in N.A. - those who descend from British people - probably don't consider themselves British.
Hopefully easier long-distance communications will blur the distinctions more than they exist nowadays. But losing the ability to speak a language can only impoverish a certain culture, not enrich it...
Anyway, thanks for the chat, or hvala za zanimiv pogovor if you prefer.
Frankly don't see what driving cars or using a computer have to do with cultural assimilation, speaking of non sequiturs. You can use a computer or drive a car without giving up on your own culture or language. It's one thing to evolve one's own culture and language, and another one entirely to be forced to do so by other cultures or languages. To make things more interesting, if you're not an English native speaker, we could switch to different languages even in this conversation I presume. Do you have a half-dozen at your disposal, to cross-compare and pick other ones just for fun? But I should know better than to reply to an anonymous coward...
You define yourself an english person. From where if you please? England or some ex-colony in which the original culture (and people) have been slaughtered - as by so many other colonizing powers?
Really? I find this attitude somewhat hypocritical coming (presumably) from someone in a country for which even switching to a global metric system seems to represent a cultural problem, even though everyone else in the world uses it...
Down here in the US we basically expect and assume that all immigrants will give up their native language within a generation but not necessarily their culture.
Why? I understand the need for anyone moving to a different country to learn the official language there, but why should anyone give up your own language? How can you possibly maintain your own culture without knowing your own language? For example, Italian-americans who don't speak properly Italian really have little in common (culturally) with Italians either living in Italy or abroad who do speak their language and keep strong ties to their native land. You can't keep strong ties to your own culture without knowing your language.
actually, Seamonkey's editor has similar codebase pedigree, gets updated more often, crashes less and its GUI is a bit less of a pain... still quite basic though.
Steve did see Smalltalk when he visited PARC. He saw the Smalltalk integrated programming environment, with the mouse selecting text, pop-up menus, windows, and so on. The Lisa group at Apple built a system based on their own ideas combined with what they could remember from the Smalltalk demo, and the Mac folks built yet another system. There is a significant difference between using the Mac and Smalltalk.
Slashdot Mirror
considering that in /.'s own country even the human body is censored under criminal penalty, it seems to me that the local population needs to get their facts straight about censorship first...
I tend to think it's better that I (the wireless customer) pay for the convenience of having a wireless phone than ask the people who call me to do it for me
Alas, I've heard this argument 100 times. My opinion is: if you're happy to pay for incoming calls, go ahead.
But why should everybody be forced to pay for incoming calls? It's lucky for people in most other places in the world not to have to use such a freedom-restricted system.
Why should my mother with the landline phone pay an extra surcharge to call me just because I have a wireless phone? What value is she getting from my ownership of a wireless phone?
Indeed, following this argument, why should they pay to call you at all, only because you want to be reachable by phone? And why should callers have to pay long-distance charges only because some people they want to reach chose to be available only at a distant place?
But it gets worse: how can companies only in this country get away by charging for incoming SMS messages, which receivers can not refuse nor filter by caller ID?
At least, one can refuse to pick up calls (and pay for incoming minutes) if they arrive from unwanted caller IDs...
It seems to me very sad: most people in this country will do anything to rationalize a 'greatest country' syndrome, finding out all possible excuses to justify worse conditions as 'better' (ranging from the abysmal health system, to the near-illiteracy provided by most of the primary school system, to double/triple pay TV reception, to outrageous internet fiber connection prices, to gun-accident-ridden society and overfilled jails, and finally to the lack of several basic freedoms enjoyed in many other more advanced democracies...) simply because they've never tried anything else; and most of their primary school system keeps them illiterate enough to prevent any understanding of other languages, thus rendering them incapable of gaining 1st hand experience in other places... very sad.
"my real problem with European cell phones is how much is costs to call them"
It's not just European cell phones: it's prettymuch everywhere in the world except the US, since everywhere else people don't pay for incoming calls on their cellphones, which is one of the most absurd charges people are forced to pay when using a US cellphone (everywhere else, people pay the cellphone cost when they call a cellphone, and they know they are calling a cellphone because cellphones have a different area code). It's as if you were paying for incoming long-distance calls on your fixed line. Would you accept that?
Next thing, you're going to tell me you also pay a monthly to watch TV programs containing commercials.... oh, wait.
But the fact remains: why oh why do people defend a system where you're forced to pay to receive calls?
"It's fitting in a numerological sort of way"
It's fitting just because 400 years ago Galileo Galilei (same name as the observatory, see?), in 1609 began his astronomical observations, and as a direct result of that came in direct conflict with the religious establishment, since he began supporting Copernicus's heliocentric theory.
Try to explain that to the enlightened individuals who still insist nowadays that the universe is 5000-6000 years old, that dinosaur bones were placed there by some humorous deity just in order to make us wonder, or simply that Evolution is 'just a theory'...
Happy round-numbered birthday to both events, I say, or in other words: eppur si muove.
correct Italian spelling: "Telescopio Nazionale Galileo" (not 'Telescopio Nationale Galileo' as written in the story blurb)
went through elementary and high school with straight-A math grades: it was just easy and no big deal to be top of the class.
but I did music and acting on the side, which I liked.
then they told me I should get into math, sciences, engineering, since those are the IMPORTANT professions.
so I did, while keeping music and acting on the side.
decades later, I still like music and acting, and math/sciences/engineering are mostly boring now. sure they do bring some income, but if I could go back I'd choose a career in performing arts.
moral of the story: let kids choose what they like, not just what they're good at.
by doing what they care for, they'll get better at it, and become better professionals too.
Many /. readers are college students, possibly in computer-related fields.
Enrolling to Student ADC ($100), and using the developer HW discount for a MacBook Pro ($1599), brings the total to $1699+taxes.
Not.
Please, call your holidays whatever you want, but don't pretend to care about the "rest of the world".
It's like the "world series", those are everything but.
Even as a joke it's too feeble to be worthwhile.
What really feels depressing to me are those populations (not necessarily Anglophones) where even highly educated people find it normal to know only one language. ...
/.'tter's knowledge of English. Myself included, so I'm not asking much :-)
It's as if it were normal not to have any sort of general education (math, reading, history, geography, etc.)
Knowing only one language is so... boring!
Not to mention close-minded.
Do yourself a favor, and learn at least another language decently.
And by decently, I mean at least as well as the average
>buying a car radio and not being able to receive signals of 1/2 of the stations, or losing radio signal in your radio where the car on your right receives the same program because it's coming from another provider... great thing, incompatible 'standards' eh?
Sounds a bit like satellite radio to me.
uh... I have no experience with it - is satellite radio that bad?
Of course the general user does not have to know about GSM vs CDMA - maybe no more than FM vs AM radio...
What puzzles me is that customers (in very few countries fortunately) accept the fact that they can't physically use the cellphone on 1/2 or more of neworks...
Compare that for example to buying a car radio and not being able to receive signals of 1/2 of the stations, or losing radio signal in your radio where the car on your right receives the same program because it's coming from another provider... great thing, incompatible 'standards' eh?
But I've heard several people defending this as 'part of the free market mechanism'.. nonsense, since radio and TV have been quite regulated in the same geographic markets, with no danger to the free market (well, certainly no worse than the oligopoly of mobile phone providers).
Mostly not. Amazing eh?
There was no teletext either. (not that the two are related technologies)
Lack of standards in both cases I guess... from wikipedia: "Adoption in the United States was hampered due to a lack of a single teletext standard and consumer resistance to the high initial price of teletext decoders."
The same place which finally produces a reasonable unlimited data plan can't seem to offer simple data services such as landline SMSes as standard.
Ah well, pros and cons of living in different places around the globe.
I accept your reasoning if you accept to pay for receiving long-distance calls. From anywhere.
Go ahead, let the person who receives the long-distance call worry.
How do you know if you are calling long distance or even another country, hmm?
Ah, you'd like to say there's no way to tell whether you're calling a cell phone? But then, how would the company know to charge you more then? Can't you find it out too?
Such are my feelings after using cellphones in both situations for extended periods. Your feelings may be different. And I do not feel arrogant enough to doubt it, if that's what suits yourself...
hear, hear.
Not only this, but this mechanism of paying for 'airtime' on received calls, just as for received SMSes, is so engrained in most cellphone users minds that they'll strenuously defend its 'logic' (excessive use of quotes intended).
It'd be just as bizzarre to charge the receiving party for a long distance phone call. Yet apparently cellphone users accept it, just as they accept the absurd incompatibility between GSM and CDMA (good thing TDMA got scrapped at least) as inevitable side-effect of a 'free market' (yup, there are those quotes again).
Funnily enough, there are very few other countries around the world who charge cellphone users for receiving an SMS or a cellphone call... of course, <sarcasm> this is because of GSM's anti-capitalistic approach </sarcasm>.
Yes it is possible to have decent scientific journalism.
Quark in the early eighties was a good example of this.
Especially the older shows with great animations.
There's the pink Zune and there's the ... ahem ... brown one reviewed here (slashdot's explicit URL printout gives it away though :-))
To the contrary: if I had good rhetorical technique, I'd have elegantly convinced you. But if you don't like being an AC, why don't you log in?
- No, I do not speak languages other than English but that doesn't mean that I am as you implied American.
.
.
.
I did not imply: I presumed you were, given your arguments.
I am sorry if you only speak one language... that makes it probably harder to understand multi-cultural issues.
And you are likely from either some former British colony or from the UK (i.e. one of those who did not like to go metric) ?
- Cultures aren't terribly important---and making it seem like they are is another way of trying to divide people against each other.
Until reading this statement of yours I thought I had a point, and was going to keep replying to it all, but with that you convinced me... the only important thing is to be happy.
Au revoir, anonymous coward. Auf wiedersehen. Addio. Ba beneen yoon. Sayonara. Dovidjenja. Hasta la vista, baby.
Kudos for that, even if it's just three visits in a lifetime. When I had more time, I used to make up to three trips overseas every year... but I digress.
We're probably getting off topic here, what I mean to say is that once you don't speak the language, it's not your culture anymore. It's your ancestors' culture. Your culture and language is where you not only grew up, it's also how you learned how to say please and thanks, and all that stuff. ... ammo is a sign of what you know, where you come from etc.
When you're over there, I'm sorry to say, I guess to most people you're a foreigner.
As another example, your sig about soap
True multi-cultural people are those who are not just able to be in a certain culture, they are also able to speak it and live it. Being bi- or tri- or multi-lingual from birth is just the starting point - I speak from both direct and personal experiences.
- I suspect I have closer ties to my native culture than most of the Francophones have with the French culture
Sure, but a Francophone, say in Quebec or in Senegal, is a Quebecois or a Senegalese - not French. Just like most English speaking people in N.A. - those who descend from British people - probably don't consider themselves British.
Hopefully easier long-distance communications will blur the distinctions more than they exist nowadays. But losing the ability to speak a language can only impoverish a certain culture, not enrich it...
Anyway, thanks for the chat, or hvala za zanimiv pogovor if you prefer.
Frankly don't see what driving cars or using a computer have to do with cultural assimilation, speaking of non sequiturs.
You can use a computer or drive a car without giving up on your own culture or language.
It's one thing to evolve one's own culture and language, and another one entirely to be forced to do so by other cultures or languages. To make things more interesting, if you're not an English native speaker, we could switch to different languages even in this conversation I presume. Do you have a half-dozen at your disposal, to cross-compare and pick other ones just for fun? But I should know better than to reply to an anonymous coward...
Slaughter, assimilation, no big deal, right?
Really? I find this attitude somewhat hypocritical coming (presumably) from someone in a country for which even switching to a global metric system seems to represent a cultural problem, even though everyone else in the world uses it...
Why? I understand the need for anyone moving to a different country to learn the official language there, but why should anyone give up your own language? How can you possibly maintain your own culture without knowing your own language? For example, Italian-americans who don't speak properly Italian really have little in common (culturally) with Italians either living in Italy or abroad who do speak their language and keep strong ties to their native land. You can't keep strong ties to your own culture without knowing your language.
It is called assimilation and it has been done before. It's not nice.
Would you like to give up your own language and culture?
actually, Seamonkey's editor has similar codebase pedigree, gets updated more often, crashes less and its GUI is a bit less of a pain... still quite basic though.