If you compare US airlines to foreign airlines, foreign airlines (excluding Europe) have far better soft product (food, service, etc) because they are not saddled with the costs of an American labor force.
Sales tax is the most regressive form of taxation in the United States. If sales tax is 30%
All European states charge VAT (value added tax) on goods and services. This ranges from 8% - 25% depending on the country. This, however, is always in combination with an income tax and often a tax on their assets, which is usually progressive.
While I don't dispute your point that the poor pay a higher proportion when it comes to VAT the system is mostly balanced fairly due to the other taxes levied on a progressive scale.
It's obviously not "fair" to tax each person the same dollar amount. Why do people think it's "fair" to tax each person the same percentage?
That's why progressive taxation is the norm (there are a couple flat rate countries). This overall balances the system into the direction of fairness and - I would argue - is accepted by most European citizens. If you earn more, you pay proportionally more (there's still more left at the end of the day).
Then again most people seem to understand that infrastructure, education, health care and the overall maintenance of a civilized society comes at a price.
It's also odd that Scandinavian countries, which have traditionally a rather high tax burden, are considered some of the most livable in the world.
Spoofed callerid to the voicemail number, if people don't have a PIN set for voicemail, you can access voicemail without any further barrier.
If you have no pin at all set, sure, but then you don't need to spoof caller id in the first place. Case in point: I don't need a pin if I call from my own country. I do, however, need my pin when I check my voice mail from abroad, even though my caller id is transmitted internationally.
The reason is probably that the id can be certified as genuine as long I'm calling on the provider's own network, but not if the call is routed by another provider or internationally.
Any phone company that trusts caller id submitted by a third party network is grossly negligent to begin with.
That's the point, though. When a shit spec is received, outsourced developers won't request clarification of the requirements. They'll do exactly what the spec says, regardless of how awkward or incorrect it may seem. Outsourcing is like to telling a robot what to do.
You can do it for generic software/website/enterprise system which is brain dead boiler plate coding for some huge bank that they can milk for maintenance contracts.
Actually it usually doesn't work at all, except for very, very standardized processes (i.e. credit card processing). I have never seen a successful software implementation, where the software was created by off shoring. It's just impossible to create specs, which are so specific that there's absolutely no ambiguity. In addition: domain knowledge is basically non-existent in offshore coding sweat shops.
Example needed? Our awesome time reporting system. I just know what one line of the spec said:
Must be able to enter hours
That's exactly what you can do. Unfortunately you're not able to enter minutes or even fractions of an hour.
I totally agree with you. I just wanted to point out that it's actually worse.
Germany's ICE, however, had a bad accident with 101 fatalities (details here ), which was caused by a series of issues, but most notably by a faulty wheel design.
Nevertheless, high speed rail on a global scale has an exceptional safety record.
A single example: When we build bridges and buildings in the US the steel and measurements are produced in US Imperial units, even the steel shapes are specific to the US market because the measurements are in imperial. Producers of steel beams and components in foreign countries have steel mills that are calibrated to metric sizing and are unable to produce US steel shapes without a major retrofit to the mill.
I end up having less and less stuff on my profile.
Well, here's what's on my Facebook profile: first name, surname, date of birth. Alas, I wonder until today why I gave a true DOB.
What REALLY annoys me more and more about the site is the cutesy passive aggressivness. For example:
You log in after some time and get some : Hello, your account is not secure. Enter cell phone # to secure it. Now hold on a second: My private information is not secure unless I provide you with more private information? Yeah, sure!
Finally in, you're greated by a blinking banner of the sort 10 of your friends live in $CITY. Click here if you live in $CITY
I use Facebook a few times a year. But if they push up the bullshitometer any further I'll definitely (pseudo-) delete my account.
Seriously, doesn't it seem like the US SEC just wanted in on the deal? I'm against bribery because living in a culture of bribery is miserable. If China wants to have a system of bribes necessary to get anything done, let them do so. I don't want the SEC to import that culture over here!
So you consider stealing OK?
Bribing officials is nothing else then stealing from the public coffers and thus the population.
In addition it has the nasty tendency to rot away the core of a society.
Do you think that argument would be accepted by the border guards anywhere (except maybe Netherlands;-)?
I guess you where kidding, but for everybody else here goes: As opposed to popular believe (especially in the States) controled substances are not legal in the Netherlands. From trusty Wikipedia:
Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the Netherlands and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanors, punishable by fine. Coffee shops are also technically illegal according to the statutes but, as has been said, are flourishing nonetheless. However, a policy of non-enforcement has led to a situation where reliance upon non-enforcement has become common, and because of this the courts have ruled against the government when individual cases were prosecuted.
So no, you can't bring you stash on a private plane to Holland.
Although Big Content might get lucky and get away with stuff like Microsoft did.
Microsoft didn't really get away from anything when trying to peddle their DRM crapped content.
Remeber their Plays For Sure initiative? Well, I'm sure their hardware partners remermber it well and wouldn't touch anything Microsoft related with a ten foot pole, content-wise.
Last I looked the Zune Marketplace also wasn't a roaring success.
One of the huge problems was, of course, that any Microsoft crippled format maybe played on your device, but quite likely it didn't.
the fact that Steam (not their fault, thy're a reseller here) charged 50 Euro for APB, which gives you the privilege to pay a recurring subscription fee on top of that?
Nosire! Of course not. It's probably due to evil software pirates.
It surprises me that it is possible at all to open a bank account in the US without proper identification.
In Switzerland, the country with super-seekrit-numbered accounts (at least according to some bad fiction writers) it is impossible to open an account (even a super-seekrit one) without personally identifying yourself to the bank with proper documents (i.e. passport).
While you may find a more shady financial institution that takes a more flexible approach on the "know your customer" rule, this will not happen with the more reputable banks.
Not quite the same thing (and likely off-topic as hell), but while The Economist obviously prints adverts, they derive 75% from their income from readers and subscribers and only ~25% from adverts.
This is the reverse proportion from just about any other print product and makes them fairly independent and fearless to piss off corporations (yes, they do that too) and even governments.
I have been seeing stories like these for several years. Although this situation is clearly undesirable, I have still to see anyone proposing a realistic alternative. The bottom line is doing proper recycling costs money, people do not want to pay
This is resolved here (Switzerland, and I think the EU too) for ages and very simply too.
You pay the recycling fee upfront on a device. Say a couple bucks on a mobile phone 10 bucks or such on a laptop.
This gives you the right to dump the device at any shop (selling such devices) at the end of it's lifecycle.
I was told that technology doesn't wait for my old phone and I should upgrade and pay good money
That's what actually bugs me most and it doesn't seem to be fanbois only. Apple iPhone owners seem to buy the newest phone whenever it comes out more often then not.
I'm probably extremely uncool, non-hip and anti-trendy owning a five year old Nokia 9300, which just works. While there are some features that would be nice I feel that reliability and quality of my phone (with emphasis on phone; this seems an afterthought for most iUsers) is much more important to me then a cool interface and the smug factor.
Speaking of Canon [and really drifting off-topic here, sorry] the reason I bought a PowerShot G11 was exactly because they reduced the pixel size from 14M (G10) to 10M.
Slashdot Mirror
Citation needed..
All European states charge VAT (value added tax) on goods and services. This ranges from 8% - 25% depending on the country. This, however, is always in combination with an income tax and often a tax on their assets, which is usually progressive.
While I don't dispute your point that the poor pay a higher proportion when it comes to VAT the system is mostly balanced fairly due to the other taxes levied on a progressive scale.
That's why progressive taxation is the norm (there are a couple flat rate countries). This overall balances the system into the direction of fairness and - I would argue - is accepted by most European citizens. If you earn more, you pay proportionally more (there's still more left at the end of the day).
Then again most people seem to understand that infrastructure, education, health care and the overall maintenance of a civilized society comes at a price. It's also odd that Scandinavian countries, which have traditionally a rather high tax burden, are considered some of the most livable in the world.
Spoofed callerid to the voicemail number, if people don't have a PIN set for voicemail, you can access voicemail without any further barrier.
If you have no pin at all set, sure, but then you don't need to spoof caller id in the first place. Case in point: I don't need a pin if I call from my own country. I do, however, need my pin when I check my voice mail from abroad, even though my caller id is transmitted internationally.
The reason is probably that the id can be certified as genuine as long I'm calling on the provider's own network, but not if the call is routed by another provider or internationally.
Any phone company that trusts caller id submitted by a third party network is grossly negligent to begin with.
EUSome European nations even allow government access to data for police work without a court order.
Sigh! Citation needed!
And no, Belarus does not count as an European country in this respect.
That's the point, though. When a shit spec is received, outsourced developers won't request clarification of the requirements. They'll do exactly what the spec says, regardless of how awkward or incorrect it may seem. Outsourcing is like to telling a robot what to do.
Amen. That was exactly my point.
You can do it for generic software/website/enterprise system which is brain dead boiler plate coding for some huge bank that they can milk for maintenance contracts.
Actually it usually doesn't work at all, except for very, very standardized processes (i.e. credit card processing). I have never seen a successful software implementation, where the software was created by off shoring. It's just impossible to create specs, which are so specific that there's absolutely no ambiguity. In addition: domain knowledge is basically non-existent in offshore coding sweat shops.
Example needed? Our awesome time reporting system. I just know what one line of the spec said:
Must be able to enter hours
That's exactly what you can do. Unfortunately you're not able to enter minutes or even fractions of an hour.
I totally agree with you. I just wanted to point out that it's actually worse.
TGV Accidents
Germany's ICE, however, had a bad accident with 101 fatalities (details here ), which was caused by a series of issues, but most notably by a faulty wheel design.
Nevertheless, high speed rail on a global scale has an exceptional safety record.
A single example: When we build bridges and buildings in the US the steel and measurements are produced in US Imperial units, even the steel shapes are specific to the US market because the measurements are in imperial. Producers of steel beams and components in foreign countries have steel mills that are calibrated to metric sizing and are unable to produce US steel shapes without a major retrofit to the mill.
Yeah, seems to have worked like a charm on the Mississippi River bridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge
I end up having less and less stuff on my profile.
Well, here's what's on my Facebook profile: first name, surname, date of birth. Alas, I wonder until today why I gave a true DOB.
What REALLY annoys me more and more about the site is the cutesy passive aggressivness. For example :
You log in after some time and get some : Hello, your account is not secure. Enter cell phone # to secure it. Now hold on a second: My private information is not secure unless I provide you with more private information? Yeah, sure!
Finally in, you're greated by a blinking banner of the sort 10 of your friends live in $CITY. Click here if you live in $CITY
I use Facebook a few times a year. But if they push up the bullshitometer any further I'll definitely (pseudo-) delete my account.
Assholes!
More sensationalist bullshit [citation needed]
How to win the price for dumbest strawman of the year: Congratulations!
Seriously, doesn't it seem like the US SEC just wanted in on the deal? I'm against bribery because living in a culture of bribery is miserable. If China wants to have a system of bribes necessary to get anything done, let them do so. I don't want the SEC to import that culture over here!
So you consider stealing OK?
Bribing officials is nothing else then stealing from the public coffers and thus the population.
In addition it has the nasty tendency to rot away the core of a society.
Er, wait!
That was an airbus 320, er, nervermind.
But the GP's icing on the cake is the introductory statement:
This is the result of a computer controlled fly-by-wire airplane having a cascade failure.
Er; right. Theories abound and nobody has any hard facts, except, aparently, the GP dude.
Sounds like a Boeing shill to me.
And what are they going to do about it, send a strongly worded letter?
Cancelling the agreement ?
I can assure you, that the EU parliament will be extremely unhappy about this one.
Do you think that argument would be accepted by the border guards anywhere (except maybe Netherlands ;-)?
I guess you where kidding, but for everybody else here goes: As opposed to popular believe (especially in the States) controled substances are not legal in the Netherlands. From trusty Wikipedia:
Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the Netherlands and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanors, punishable by fine. Coffee shops are also technically illegal according to the statutes but, as has been said, are flourishing nonetheless. However, a policy of non-enforcement has led to a situation where reliance upon non-enforcement has become common, and because of this the courts have ruled against the government when individual cases were prosecuted.
So no, you can't bring you stash on a private plane to Holland.
Although Big Content might get lucky and get away with stuff like Microsoft did.
Microsoft didn't really get away from anything when trying to peddle their DRM crapped content.
Remeber their Plays For Sure initiative? Well, I'm sure their hardware partners remermber it well and wouldn't touch anything Microsoft related with a ten foot pole, content-wise.
Last I looked the Zune Marketplace also wasn't a roaring success.
One of the huge problems was, of course, that any Microsoft crippled format maybe played on your device, but quite likely it didn't.
Plays for Sure; Yeah, right!
What could actually go wrong with that?
Nosire! Of course not. It's probably due to evil software pirates.
In Switzerland, the country with super-seekrit-numbered accounts (at least according to some bad fiction writers) it is impossible to open an account (even a super-seekrit one) without personally identifying yourself to the bank with proper documents (i.e. passport).
While you may find a more shady financial institution that takes a more flexible approach on the "know your customer" rule, this will not happen with the more reputable banks.
This is the reverse proportion from just about any other print product and makes them fairly independent and fearless to piss off corporations (yes, they do that too) and even governments.
I have been seeing stories like these for several years. Although this situation is clearly undesirable, I have still to see anyone proposing a realistic alternative. The bottom line is doing proper recycling costs money, people do not want to pay
This is resolved here (Switzerland, and I think the EU too) for ages and very simply too.
You pay the recycling fee upfront on a device. Say a couple bucks on a mobile phone 10 bucks or such on a laptop.
This gives you the right to dump the device at any shop (selling such devices) at the end of it's lifecycle.
I was told that technology doesn't wait for my old phone and I should upgrade and pay good money
That's what actually bugs me most and it doesn't seem to be fanbois only. Apple iPhone owners seem to buy the newest phone whenever it comes out more often then not.
I'm probably extremely uncool, non-hip and anti-trendy owning a five year old Nokia 9300, which just works. While there are some features that would be nice I feel that reliability and quality of my phone (with emphasis on phone; this seems an afterthought for most iUsers) is much more important to me then a cool interface and the smug factor.
To each his own, I guess.
Not that this makes such practices in any way, shape or form acceptable.
"iPhone used as canoe by 14 year old stranded after typhoon!"
Yes, but apple didn't honor the warranty, since the hunidity indicators on the outside of the phone went red.
The picture quality is awesome.