that people who spend their evenings watching TV pay the books of those who prefer to read on the cheap by borrowing books to a public library is no big deal to me.
Public Libraries are free in France. Publishers claimed that it was hurting them. They wanted a symbolic fee (around 0.5EUR) on each book that was loaned.
The proposal of the culture ministry is the following (if I remember correctly) : a fee will be actually paid, but will not be charged to the user, instead it will be paid on a local government budget, and also partly by the bookshops who provide public libraries.
Everyone seems content with that, so it will probably pass as a law.
The only thing is that it is pointless. It didn't symbolicaly extend the reach of human beings into space like a trip to Mars would. It didn't put anything into orbit that a booster couldn't. It didn't lower the cost of putting things into orbit. The Russians prooved that it was not useful for operating a space station. Pointless. Time and money wasted.
The article suggests that the capability to launche a satellite in geostationary orbit is currently restricted to the US, Russia and China. Actually most of the launches in geostationary orbit, most of which are launches of commercial satellites, are currently done by European Ariane 4/Ariane 5 rockets, with 10 to 15 launches a year for the past 15 years. Arianespace currently captures about 60% of the "open" market, i.e. the non-government launches market.
Japan also have an ambitious booster program, even though they have been rather unlucky with it. (the H-2 rockets).
The perception that plane necessarily obsoletes train is false.
In France when high speed rail put the second biggest city Lyon, 2 hours away from Paris, the domestic air link that took 50 minutes or so lost almost all its market. All that was left of it was international passengers connecting in Paris.
Same thing between Paris and Brussels, and partly between Paris and London (waiting for the English to modernize their part of the track to gain another hour on the currently 3 hours trip).
Plane is extremely inefficient in terms of energy consumption, plus it becomes very difficult to manage for very massive transits. In particular the train system scales up far more efficiently during peak periods. I think a high speed link connecting all the cities of the US west coast from Seattle to Los Angeles would prove extremely profitable.
know it's a little naive, but is anyone else suprised that this is happening in China? I know they've got a space program etc etc but I have a real problem thinging of it as a high tech nation.
If you decide how technologically advanced a society is by the kind of trains it uses, how do you think the US would do ?.
And anyway its just a 30km or so link. France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, etc have had hundreds of km of high speed tracks for decades. Even the US is catching up with their acela link.
I've seen this study about the trip between
two French cities. I think the order was, from the most energy efficient to the less energy efficient:
- electric, high-speed train (300km/h TGV)
- diesel train
- car
- and way less efficient : plane
I discovered that the Ministere de la Culture's web site uses Netscape Enterprise, even though under the previous minister it had been stated that all the ministry's IT infrastructure would go linux. So why doesn't it use Apache ?
The culture Ministry's retractation came less than 48 hours after the original interview. It now appears that it has never been a governement project, just a vague idea from Mme Tasca. It comes along with a few other tax-related blunders from the government, including a proposal for selective tax breaks for the low income salaries, which was censored by our constitution watchdog court.
All that to say that maybe slashdot should delay a little bit this kind of scoops.
The ministry of finance and industry has stated that it would firmly oppose this measure.
The massive and outraged reaction of the public opinion here has led the government to remind the culture minister that she should care more about culture and less about taxation.
Now that's great : a democratically elected governement would have to consider critiques from a foreign corporation ? This is crazy. I hope Australians become outraged by this and that it backfires against M$'s image in the Australian public opinion.
While the tax on CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and minidiscs has started yesterday in France, taxing other digital media such as HDs is only a supposition from the minister, not even a formal law proposal. And she probably now regrets her interview with
Le Figaro since it has prompted quite angry reactions in the public opinion and in the industry here.
I've heard that Germany charges 30EUR (about as many dollars) for each computer sold, though.
just do what I do for my German (I'm French) :
just browse web pages in French to have some material. For example computer related pages:
often written with simple grammar, full of words
you already know or that you would easily guess
by the context. try
linuxfr for example, or do a reearch for your favorite topic
on Yahoo! France
I also want to point out that the French national electricity company operates with huge profits, is loaded with cash, and that the government (who owns it) has a tradition of using this cash to make ends meet. So its more the power plants that subsidise the government than the contrary.
<p>
But I don't think you want to thank the greens in the government for that, if they were listened, we would be in the same shit than californians. Comies happen to be among the strongest back ups of the nuclear policy and I would actually trust them to maintain the good situation we are in, if only for that.
- 75% of produced power is nuclear.
- among the cheapest electricity in Europe.
- among the smallest CO2 emissions.
- same price wherever you live
- national electricity utility turns huge operating profits, owns many foreign utility companies.
- lots of power exported, so that's even more cash.
- rolling blackouts do not happen, there is not
even a word to translate it in French.
<em>
Once France had spured democratic progress
in Europe and in the whole world. These times
are gone long ago. What remains is the belief
that the world has to follow their "lead".
</em>
<p>
Now wait a minute. What is this country you're referring to ?
<p>
Is that the one whose wicked electoral system has just blown up and whose media pundit are boasting they are actually giving a lesson of democracy to the world ?
<p>
First get to be able to pick something else than the son of a former president or senator that is not backed even by 50% of the voters as a leader, then turn back and see how wonderful were the regimes that the US have promoted in Chili, Salvador and God knows where.
We also use a similar system in France, where we
also elect directly a head-of-state with executive
power (a not-so-frequent situation in industrialized democraties).
We use pre-printed ballots instead of pencils,
but the system basically consists in putting on
of the ballots in an envelope and putting the
enveloppe in a poll box.
Counting is proposed to people when they vote.
I did it once and it couldn't be more transparent
and efficient. It is quite formal, we formed
groups of four on separate tables, number one
opens an envelope, number 2 reads the name on
the ballot, number three counts, number 4 checks.
Any ballot with anything written on it or any mark
of any kind, or any enveloppe containing anything
else than one ballot are presented to the
people in charge who stamp it, have everybody
on the table sign it, and it is put aside to
be discarded.
Results are progressively entered on a computer
system that sends them to the interior ministry.
The counting was done by 11pm in an office that
closed at 8pm. Even though exit polls have always
called the election at 8pm when the last offices
close, final results are given by the interior
ministry the morning of the next day.
Another thing is that there is no vote-by-mail
at all. It would be considered non-constitutional
since it doesn't guarantee that the vote is cast
free from any pressure. It is possible to mandate
someone to vote in your place, if you can justify your need for it (I did it during my military service).
I think that your US electoral systems has proved its unreliability and that you should switch to a two-turns, direct majority election system.
That the electoral college has to be put out of the loop seems obvious to me. Comparing the US, a prosperous nation with homogeneous ethnic distribution, to the former yougoslavia is so idiotic an argument that it takes all credit out of the one who uses it.
The reason why you have to go to two turn elections is to allow the freedom of giving one's vote to a minor party candidate for those who feel like it. What happened this week is that not only Nader likely changed the name of the 43th US president when he decided to run, but also he didn't get enough votes to secure his party through federal funding. Thus, supporters of the Greens who chose 'not to waste their vote' and went for Al Gore are not accounted for when it comes to assessing the real influence of the greens and other minor parties.
The two-turns elections, by using a first turn to narrow the race to the two top candidates, gives the best legitimity to the aventual winner, who is assured to be elected with more than 50% of the votes, and gives an accurate and fair assessment of the influence of non-dominant opinions amongst registered voters. It also puts back into the hands of the constitution, the selection of competing candidates in major parties, which currently is done by the obscure system of primaries.
When it came to write a democratic constitution in '91, the russians chose to copy the French constitution for their president election. Just imagine what would happen if they had chosen the US system , and that today's Russia was put into the current US situation.
Your system is outdated and dangerous, because stability, civil peace and prosperity might not be as obvious in your country in a few decades as they are now, and such times are good times for these kinds of reforms.
Slashdot Mirror
I know I'm gonna get modded to flamebait for that, but I have to say it :
America is a sick country.
You are not charged for every book you borrow.
that people who spend their evenings watching TV pay the books of those who prefer to read on the cheap by borrowing books to a public library is no big deal to me.
The proposal of the culture ministry is the following (if I remember correctly) : a fee will be actually paid, but will not be charged to the user, instead it will be paid on a local government budget, and also partly by the bookshops who provide public libraries.
Everyone seems content with that, so it will probably pass as a law.
The only thing is that it is pointless. It didn't symbolicaly extend the reach of human beings into space like a trip to Mars would. It didn't put anything into orbit that a booster couldn't. It didn't lower the cost of putting things into orbit. The Russians prooved that it was not useful for operating a space station. Pointless. Time and money wasted.
Japan also have an ambitious booster program, even though they have been rather unlucky with it. (the H-2 rockets).
The two "NGVs" that link mainland France with Corsica have a top speed of 37 kts, and carry 500 passengers, plus 148 cars.
NGVs
In France when high speed rail put the second biggest city Lyon, 2 hours away from Paris, the domestic air link that took 50 minutes or so lost almost all its market. All that was left of it was international passengers connecting in Paris.
Same thing between Paris and Brussels, and partly between Paris and London (waiting for the English to modernize their part of the track to gain another hour on the currently 3 hours trip).
Plane is extremely inefficient in terms of energy consumption, plus it becomes very difficult to manage for very massive transits. In particular the train system scales up far more efficiently during peak periods. I think a high speed link connecting all the cities of the US west coast from Seattle to Los Angeles would prove extremely profitable.
If you decide how technologically advanced a society is by the kind of trains it uses, how do you think the US would do ?.
And anyway its just a 30km or so link. France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, etc have had hundreds of km of high speed tracks for decades. Even the US is catching up with their acela link.
I've seen this study about the trip between two French cities. I think the order was, from the most energy efficient to the less energy efficient: - electric, high-speed train (300km/h TGV) - diesel train - car - and way less efficient : plane
I discovered that the Ministere de la Culture's web site uses Netscape Enterprise, even though under the previous minister it had been stated that all the ministry's IT infrastructure would go linux. So why doesn't it use Apache ?
In France Mme Tasca is now also known as "Mme Taxa" (Mme has taxed)
All that to say that maybe slashdot should delay a little bit this kind of scoops.
The massive and outraged reaction of the public opinion here has led the government to remind the culture minister that she should care more about culture and less about taxation.
Now that's great : a democratically elected governement would have to consider critiques from a foreign corporation ? This is crazy. I hope Australians become outraged by this and that it backfires against M$'s image in the Australian public opinion.
I've heard that Germany charges 30EUR (about as many dollars) for each computer sold, though.
just do what I do for my German (I'm French) : just browse web pages in French to have some material. For example computer related pages: often written with simple grammar, full of words you already know or that you would easily guess by the context. try linuxfr for example, or do a reearch for your favorite topic on Yahoo! France
I also want to point out that the French national electricity company operates with huge profits, is loaded with cash, and that the government (who owns it) has a tradition of using this cash to make ends meet. So its more the power plants that subsidise the government than the contrary.
<p>
But I don't think you want to thank the greens in the government for that, if they were listened, we would be in the same shit than californians. Comies happen to be among the strongest back ups of the nuclear policy and I would actually trust them to maintain the good situation we are in, if only for that.
As usual you should look how its done in France.
- 75% of produced power is nuclear.
- among the cheapest electricity in Europe.
- among the smallest CO2 emissions.
- same price wherever you live
- national electricity utility turns huge operating profits, owns many foreign utility companies.
- lots of power exported, so that's even more cash.
- rolling blackouts do not happen, there is not
even a word to translate it in French.
actually not even one million.
<em>
Once France had spured democratic progress
in Europe and in the whole world. These times
are gone long ago. What remains is the belief
that the world has to follow their "lead".
</em>
<p>
Now wait a minute. What is this country you're referring to ?
<p>
Is that the one whose wicked electoral system has just blown up and whose media pundit are boasting they are actually giving a lesson of democracy to the world ?
<p>
First get to be able to pick something else than the son of a former president or senator that is not backed even by 50% of the voters as a leader, then turn back and see how wonderful were the regimes that the US have promoted in Chili, Salvador and God knows where.
Just read the other comments and get a clue.
Does not your soon-to-be president-designate, George II, has a plan to implement a mandatory filtering of all government funded internet access ?
I couldn't agree more with that.
We also use a similar system in France, where we
also elect directly a head-of-state with executive
power (a not-so-frequent situation in industrialized democraties).
We use pre-printed ballots instead of pencils,
but the system basically consists in putting on
of the ballots in an envelope and putting the
enveloppe in a poll box.
Counting is proposed to people when they vote.
I did it once and it couldn't be more transparent
and efficient. It is quite formal, we formed
groups of four on separate tables, number one
opens an envelope, number 2 reads the name on
the ballot, number three counts, number 4 checks.
Any ballot with anything written on it or any mark
of any kind, or any enveloppe containing anything
else than one ballot are presented to the
people in charge who stamp it, have everybody
on the table sign it, and it is put aside to
be discarded.
Results are progressively entered on a computer
system that sends them to the interior ministry.
The counting was done by 11pm in an office that
closed at 8pm. Even though exit polls have always
called the election at 8pm when the last offices
close, final results are given by the interior
ministry the morning of the next day.
Another thing is that there is no vote-by-mail
at all. It would be considered non-constitutional
since it doesn't guarantee that the vote is cast
free from any pressure. It is possible to mandate
someone to vote in your place, if you can justify your need for it (I did it during my military service).
Bottom line : the simpler the better.
I think that your US electoral systems has proved its unreliability and that you should switch to a two-turns, direct majority election system.
That the electoral college has to be put out of the loop seems obvious to me. Comparing the US, a prosperous nation with homogeneous ethnic distribution, to the former yougoslavia is so idiotic an argument that it takes all credit out of the one who uses it.
The reason why you have to go to two turn elections is to allow the freedom of giving one's vote to a minor party candidate for those who feel like it. What happened this week is that not only Nader likely changed the name of the 43th US president when he decided to run, but also he didn't get enough votes to secure his party through federal funding. Thus, supporters of the Greens who chose 'not to waste their vote' and went for Al Gore are not accounted for when it comes to assessing the real influence of the greens and other minor parties.
The two-turns elections, by using a first turn to narrow the race to the two top candidates, gives the best legitimity to the aventual winner, who is assured to be elected with more than 50% of the votes, and gives an accurate and fair assessment of the influence of non-dominant opinions amongst registered voters. It also puts back into the hands of the constitution, the selection of competing candidates in major parties, which currently is done by the obscure system of primaries.
When it came to write a democratic constitution in '91, the russians chose to copy the French constitution for their president election. Just imagine what would happen if they had chosen the US system , and that today's Russia was put into the current US situation.
Your system is outdated and dangerous, because stability, civil peace and prosperity might not be as obvious in your country in a few decades as they are now, and such times are good times for these kinds of reforms.