We occasionally hear about the dog-eat-dog corporate culture at Microsoft. I hope someone will shed light on the details of what happened over the past 10 days or so, who managed to persuade who to reverse whose decisions, etc. Must be an interesting story to tell.
The first SF I read was the Demon Princes, many decades ago. Got me hooked on the genre for a while. Still my best travel agent to faraway places you can only go in your imagination.
Thanks for your (and the other guys posting as ACs) detailed answers.
So it's mostly a ratchet effect on the foreign exchange, with massive impact because of AUD/USD volatility.
It sucks that online platforms such as Steam are playing that game and not allow you to buy in USD at US prices... Well it also sucks for me to some extent (although online prices in Japan are not so bad - almost in sync with the US, the selection is limited, with AAA titles such as Arkham City missing for obscure reasons, etc). There used to be a time where I actually relied on Steam more, when they had not implemented regional segmentation yet. Now I am back to brick and mortar import shops or HK based outlets.
Why is it so expensive? Taxes? Or just good old price fixing?
I am a European, now living in Japan, and have ordered a lot of stuff from the US over the years. While I can figure out most factors for explaining game prices in these 3 regions (the 1 USD = 1 GBP = 1 EUR "special exchange rate", VAT differences, margins lower in the US vs rest of the world aka price fixing), I still cannot make sense of the outrageous prices in Australia...
If I see these guys putting top investment bankers' heads on spikes or something, then I will take them seriously. With fear and respect. Otherwise, they are just whiny hippies.
OK, so I give it a try for the first time since I switched back to non-free OS world (many, many years ago).
The good: it is about 1 million times faster and more polished than 1.x iterations.
The yummy: the perspective of writing macros in Python instead of craptacular VBA
The puzzling... and maybe the ugly: I have yet to find a way to set OOo locale to "system locale".
Microsoft did a pretty good job with the regional settings, allowing for a lot of customization. Very useful for people who juggle with around 4-5 languages on a daily basis (with accents, chinese characters, and other oddities) and like to have a very customized "common ground" locale. I like to be able to write my dates ANSI style, separate my 3 digit groups with spaces, count in meters, use $ as a currency symbol, and then some.
It is just natural that an office suite should inherit all those settings from the OS (or at least provide a setting to do so). And so far, it appears that OOo does not have this basic functionality? The "default" option actually sets the application locale to the same used for localizing menus (i.e. if the application menus are in en_US, then the standard en_US locale - including units, date, number formats) will be used...
Looks like I am stuck with Excel for quite a while then.
Too bad I cannot use my mod points anymore, but thank you for posting something that is not either: - rambling about religious stuff - Score: 5, Funny but actually on topic, i.e. what greatness it is to live in the digital age with regards to access to such precious material (and unfortunately, a lot of less interesting material... but I will happily take both rather than none).
Also, I do not know if you are aware of it, but there are translations into many languages which are neither Latin nor English (which incidentally is not even the first language that it was translated into after Latin). Some people even argue that quite a few people on this planet are still speaking some of these languages even now...
Note that basically nobody knows about the so called-battle of Tours in France. "Charles-Martel arrêta les Sarrazins à Poitier en 732" (Charles-Martel stopped the Arabs in Poitiers in 732) is basically written with that exact wording in 99.9999% of French history books and Frenchmen's minds. Poitiers = 732. Sure win in a French history quizz (and one of the many actual French military victories:p)
There's a statue of Benjamin Franklin in Paris, not too far where I live. Here's what written on it: "The genius who freed America and shed torrents of light upon Europe. The sage whom two worlds claimed as their own."
That's how we French like to joke about the US, sometimes.
While if Capcom invented counting, we'd all count something like this:
"one, two, two champion edition, two turbo, super two, super two turbo, zero, zero two, ex, versus X-Men, ex plus, versus Marvel Super Heroes, zero three, ex two, ex two plus, three, three second impact, three third strike"
My understanding is that bashing/hating people is a popular sport in the anglo-saxon culture, and now that it is not politically correct to target the Black people/the native American people/etc any more, the French get blasted.
Just because some guy in the government made some vague comment.
Seems like hating the whole American people because of the US government foolishness makes sense then...
Honestly, how dare some of you talk about anti-American sentiment in France when you read some of the comments on this thread. Nobody in France, bare the most extremist people, would be half as insulting as the majority here. And then they might try to base it off actual information...
This is on par with what you'd expect from the Yahoo boards.
segregrated World of Warcraft servers because they cannot handle a world release. Importing is being made impossible so that English speakers in the EU will have to wait for the French/German translation to be ready... Unless they go and play EQ2 of course...
I sincerely hope that Vivendi goes under in the near future.
Actually he did. In a press conference, US President George W. Bush just announced that nuclear missiles would be fired against the Sun in retaliation.
One journalist asked: "But won't the intense heat of the Sun melt the missiles before they even reach the surface?"
"Haha, you think I'm dumb!", Bush said. "That's why we'll launch them at night!"
As any French citizen (including myself) knows, French justice is completely fscked up. Check
here.
To be completely fair, at least the lawyers here are still half decent.
The Namco announced on the 8th, the merger proposition to Sega is withdrawn. The document which verifies the intention to merger proposition in the reply time limit was submitted, but " it continues from the Sega side and examines, but at present time it is not the circumstance which replies concretely ", there is reply of gist, it judged May 9th vis-a-vis Sega it is not the stage which advances the concrete conference of merger. Simply if in the future, from Sega there is new proposition and request in the Namco, as for the margin which is examined you say it is. Sega the same day, has announced the business integration send-off of the Namco.
London is not the only capital city where the authorities are trying to drastically reduce the traffic by restricting access to cars. Paris city office has been scaling down streets by enlarging bus corridors (at least, this has an immediate positive impact on public transportation within the city limits). Athens, for instance, has been using alternate driving days as a measure to limit pollution caused by vehicles.
Unsurprisingly, all these cities are capitals of very centralized states. After a long history of concentrating powers of every conceivable nature (political, economic, cultural, etc...), it is no wonder so many people want or need to go there, be it by car or any other way.
The problem with people who live there, and suffer from nuisances such as terrible traffic, noise, overcrowdedness, high rents etc... is that they mostly can't seem to acknowledge the fact that these nuisances are just a fair price for extremely priviledged access to much better public and private service, not mentioning better job opportunities and higher wages than the rest of the country...
If the people living there really want less cars in their cities, then what about trying to actually make less PEOPLE want or need to go there, independently of how they travel... One good thing to try would consist in moving the capital (with ministries, ambassies, and the like) to another city. Or close a few cultural centres (museums, cinemas, etc...). Demolish a couple monuments (would keep those pesky tourist bus at large). Prevent high-profile businesses from settling in the city (and forget about tax revenues as well...). Promote the creation of highways, train lines, and all sorts of infrastructures that don't actually go through the capital (when they actually go further than its limits)... etc
Stop being selfish, and leave the rest of the country a chance to get some of your nuisances, for the price of a few privileges...
Yes I'm French, a people much mocked by Anglo-Saxon folks. But yes, tonight, let me be an American.... I'm shocked, I'm upset, I'm mourning with you. I have friends there whom I'm waiting to hear from, and friends here who are shocked, upset, mourning with you....
I'm an American, tonight. I'm French either.
Maybe, you and your friends and my friends are human beings and those responsible for this aren't?
Slashdot Mirror
We occasionally hear about the dog-eat-dog corporate culture at Microsoft.
I hope someone will shed light on the details of what happened over the past 10 days or so, who managed to persuade who to reverse whose decisions, etc.
Must be an interesting story to tell.
The first SF I read was the Demon Princes, many decades ago. Got me hooked on the genre for a while. Still my best travel agent to faraway places you can only go in your imagination.
Thanks for your (and the other guys posting as ACs) detailed answers.
So it's mostly a ratchet effect on the foreign exchange, with massive impact because of AUD/USD volatility.
It sucks that online platforms such as Steam are playing that game and not allow you to buy in USD at US prices... Well it also sucks for me to some extent (although online prices in Japan are not so bad - almost in sync with the US, the selection is limited, with AAA titles such as Arkham City missing for obscure reasons, etc). There used to be a time where I actually relied on Steam more, when they had not implemented regional segmentation yet. Now I am back to brick and mortar import shops or HK based outlets.
Why is it so expensive? Taxes?
Or just good old price fixing?
I am a European, now living in Japan, and have ordered a lot of stuff from the US over the years. While I can figure out most factors for explaining game prices in these 3 regions (the 1 USD = 1 GBP = 1 EUR "special exchange rate", VAT differences, margins lower in the US vs rest of the world aka price fixing), I still cannot make sense of the outrageous prices in Australia...
If I see these guys putting top investment bankers' heads on spikes or something, then I will take them seriously. With fear and respect. Otherwise, they are just whiny hippies.
OK, so I give it a try for the first time since I switched back to non-free OS world (many, many years ago).
The good: it is about 1 million times faster and more polished than 1.x iterations.
The yummy: the perspective of writing macros in Python instead of craptacular VBA
The puzzling... and maybe the ugly: I have yet to find a way to set OOo locale to "system locale".
Microsoft did a pretty good job with the regional settings, allowing for a lot of customization. Very useful for people who juggle with around 4-5 languages on a daily basis (with accents, chinese characters, and other oddities) and like to have a very customized "common ground" locale. I like to be able to write my dates ANSI style, separate my 3 digit groups with spaces, count in meters, use $ as a currency symbol, and then some.
It is just natural that an office suite should inherit all those settings from the OS (or at least provide a setting to do so).
And so far, it appears that OOo does not have this basic functionality? The "default" option actually sets the application locale to the same used for localizing menus (i.e. if the application menus are in en_US, then the standard en_US locale - including units, date, number formats) will be used...
Looks like I am stuck with Excel for quite a while then.
Too bad I cannot use my mod points anymore, but thank you for posting something that is not either:
- rambling about religious stuff
- Score: 5, Funny
but actually on topic, i.e. what greatness it is to live in the digital age with regards to access to such precious material (and unfortunately, a lot of less interesting material... but I will happily take both rather than none).
Also, I do not know if you are aware of it, but there are translations into many languages which are neither Latin nor English (which incidentally is not even the first language that it was translated into after Latin). Some people even argue that quite a few people on this planet are still speaking some of these languages even now...
In Japan for instance:
6 67.html
http://www.thingsasian.com/goto_article/article.2
Note that basically nobody knows about the so called-battle of Tours in France. "Charles-Martel arrêta les Sarrazins à Poitier en 732" (Charles-Martel stopped the Arabs in Poitiers in 732) is basically written with that exact wording in 99.9999% of French history books and Frenchmen's minds. Poitiers = 732. Sure win in a French history quizz (and one of the many actual French military victories :p)
Well said.
There's a statue of Benjamin Franklin in Paris, not too far where I live. Here's what written on it: "The genius who freed America and shed torrents of light upon Europe. The sage whom two worlds claimed as their own."
That's how we French like to joke about the US, sometimes.
While if Capcom invented counting, we'd all count something like this:
"one, two, two champion edition, two turbo, super two, super two turbo, zero, zero two, ex, versus X-Men, ex plus, versus Marvel Super Heroes, zero three, ex two, ex two plus, three, three second impact, three third strike"
Mmmmmm....
French tax for the win: 320 (~$390) for a 4GB iPod Nano!
Mod parent up!
My understanding is that bashing/hating people is a popular sport in the anglo-saxon culture, and now that it is not politically correct to target the Black people/the native American people/etc any more, the French get blasted.
Just because some guy in the government made some vague comment.
Seems like hating the whole American people because of the US government foolishness makes sense then...
Honestly, how dare some of you talk about anti-American sentiment in France when you read some of the comments on this thread. Nobody in France, bare the most extremist people, would be half as insulting as the majority here. And then they might try to base it off actual information...
This is on par with what you'd expect from the Yahoo boards.
Shame on you.
HL2 boxes unplayable
segregrated World of Warcraft servers because they cannot handle a world release. Importing is being made impossible so that English speakers in the EU will have to wait for the French/German translation to be ready... Unless they go and play EQ2 of course...
I sincerely hope that Vivendi goes under in the near future.
What about winds from Northern Africa, especially the ever expanding Sahara?
Are all Republican affiliates that obsessed with the urge to bash France for pointless, out-of the-context, reasons?
And you dare to say that Gore Vidal is an idiot?
Whatever.
Actually he did. In a press conference, US President George W. Bush just announced that nuclear missiles would be fired against the Sun in retaliation.
One journalist asked: "But won't the intense heat of the Sun melt the missiles before they even reach the surface?"
"Haha, you think I'm dumb!", Bush said. "That's why we'll launch them at night!"
As any French citizen (including myself) knows, French justice is completely fscked up. Check here. To be completely fair, at least the lawyers here are still half decent.
Q: What is the difference between Merill Lynch and David Lynch?
A: There is no difference. Nobody understands what they do, and they both lose a lot of money.
Babelfish translation:
It seems that Namco just announced that they are cancelling their offer for a merger with Sega.
Japanese link here.
London is not the only capital city where the authorities are trying to drastically reduce the traffic by restricting access to cars. Paris city office has been scaling down streets by enlarging bus corridors (at least, this has an immediate positive impact on public transportation within the city limits). Athens, for instance, has been using alternate driving days as a measure to limit pollution caused by vehicles.
Unsurprisingly, all these cities are capitals of very centralized states. After a long history of concentrating powers of every conceivable nature (political, economic, cultural, etc...), it is no wonder so many people want or need to go there, be it by car or any other way.
The problem with people who live there, and suffer from nuisances such as terrible traffic, noise, overcrowdedness, high rents etc... is that they mostly can't seem to acknowledge the fact that these nuisances are just a fair price for extremely priviledged access to much better public and private service, not mentioning better job opportunities and higher wages than the rest of the country...
If the people living there really want less cars in their cities, then what about trying to actually make less PEOPLE want or need to go there, independently of how they travel... One good thing to try would consist in moving the capital (with ministries, ambassies, and the like) to another city. Or close a few cultural centres (museums, cinemas, etc...). Demolish a couple monuments (would keep those pesky tourist bus at large). Prevent high-profile businesses from settling in the city (and forget about tax revenues as well...). Promote the creation of highways, train lines, and all sorts of infrastructures that don't actually go through the capital (when they actually go further than its limits)... etc
Stop being selfish, and leave the rest of the country a chance to get some of your nuisances, for the price of a few privileges...
Don't you post that kind of stuff as AC again...
I Am Not An American.
Yes I'm French, a people much mocked by Anglo-Saxon folks. But yes, tonight, let me be an American.... I'm shocked, I'm upset, I'm mourning with you. I have friends there whom I'm waiting to hear from, and friends here who are shocked, upset, mourning with you....
I'm an American, tonight. I'm French either.
Maybe, you and your friends and my friends are human beings and those responsible for this aren't?
I don't know, but good luck, and godspeed.