For a start, the fact that you call them "cell phones" show how antiquated the US system is. In Europe these days it is very hard to get hold of an analogue mobile phone, even the cheapest are digital.
Secondly, which countries are these where mobiles are cheaper than landlines? I certainly haven't heard about them.
A little used word in the UK is milliard meaning one thousand million. It appears in quite a lot of european languages (examples: Milliard in French and "Miljard" in Swedish).
I believe it is France, not Denmark and it is still scary but not *quite* as scary. I did find this link:
"Battles over children's names are nothing new in France. Although French parents are free to pick their children's first names, local officials can challenge the names after the filing of the birth certificate."
Hmm, you had better tell the EU then. According to their website here:
"The European Union (EU) is the result of a process of cooperation and integration which began in 1951 between six countries (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands).
After nearly fifty years, with four waves of accessions (1973: Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom; 1981: Greece; 1986: Spain and Portugal; 1995: Austria, Finland and Sweden), the EU today has fifteen Member States and is preparing for its fifth enlargement, this time towards Eastern and Southern Europe."
Minor point, but our "Bill of Rights" does exist and had done for some time before the US decided to have one. Perhaps rather than just throwing a term around you should explain exactly what rights British Citizens don't have.
Anyway, here are a couple of choice quotes from the link above:
"The English Bill of Rights, enacted by the Convention Parliament on Dec. 16, 1689, is one of the three great landmarks of the English constitutional tradition, the others being Magna Carta (1215) and the Petition of Right (1628). "
"The specific clauses of the Bill of Rights can be grouped into three broad categories:..... 3) provisions guaranteeing certain individual freedoms and procedural safeguards against impairment by governmental power, for example, the right of petition, prohibitions of excessive bail, and reaffirmation of the right to jury trial."
"A century later the English Bill of Rights served as an important source for the first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Thus, the clause in the English Bill of Rights prohibiting excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments was taken over, virtually word for word, in the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 and ultimately became the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."
I don't understand your point. Yes, Cable is a monopoly for cable TV, phone is a monopoly for telephones and power is a monopoly for, well, power. However, as long as you have at least two of these in your area neither is a monopoly for high-speed internet access. You suddenly have competition.
Take my example here in Stockholm, Sweden. I can get broadband either via cable or ADSL. Suddenly there is no monopoly, I can make a choice depending on service. Do I want Telia, who seem to be a bit open to running servers on my ADSL, or do I want UPC, who will let me have 5 IP addresses and a slightly higher download speed for more-or-less the same money?
My opinion of this is that as the three utilities are monopolies they have a reasonably sure financial backing, so they are not goign to go under tomorrow, but to get my extra bradband cash they need to offer something I want, making them mor einteresting than the competitor.
All other communications (telephone, TV, radio...) are based on a billing system and have nothing to do with taxes (and no, the License fee is NOT a tax) so why should this be any different?
Imagine a diabetic, an epeleptic or any other person with an illness that may leave them in a confused state.
Now imagine that they, in their confused state, wonder onto your property. Maybe you left the front door unlocked and the person thought it was their house. You ordering them about whilst brandishing a weapon confuses them more and they don't follow you word for word.
Can you legally shoot them? If you can then I hope to Hell I don't live in the same country as you.
I have moved from the UK to Sweden and one thing that did surprise me was the alcohol situation.
The thing is, you get used to System Bolaget. The selection is genuinely amazing, far superior than anything I ever saw in an off license in the UK. The costs are not too bad either (alcohol is very expensive in bars in Sweden, in System Bolaget it is a bit expensive, but not overly so). They also have a fantastic ordering system. I believe that part of being a state monopoly, if you order something, no matter how weird, they have to at least try to get it for you (this is from other countries, not just for Swedish drinks).
I do have three problems with System Bolaget. There are not enough of them, the opening hours need to be lengthened and they sell Pripps Blå, quite possibly the most offensive liquid known to man.
I was under the impression that it wasn't made legal again, they just realised that it was never made entirely illegal and hence started importing it again.
What did shock me was seeing Absinthe in System Bolaget (Off license/liquer store in Sweden). Now if any European country is going to ban something alcoholic it'll be Sweden:o)
Maths may have changed a lot in the past 100 years, but school-level Maths hasn't changed nearly as much. How many theorems are taught at schools today?
University level Pure Maths is all proof, using these theorems you state, but school-level Maths is a completely different kettle of fish. In my UK A-Level Further Pure Maths (a more advanced maths qualification taken when 18, before going to university) we only briefly touched upon group theory (and I mean VERY briefly!). When I was 16 I was taught differentiation as a method for checking my answers - the syllabus only required the drawing of a tangent to a curve at a point to find a gradient.
Briefly, in school you do not have the mathematical background to do the more interesting and advanced stuff you mentioned. You have to go through basic training first - and basic training hasn't changed much at all.
Almost completely off-topic (although someone did mention Doctors), is the UK the only place where they refer to medical consultants as (using a male example) "Mr" instead of "Dr"? Sometimes it can be quite un-nerving, feeling like they have dragged someone in off the street to check out your heart....
Please do not tell everybody else what everybody else means based on your own narrow interpretations
Narrow interpretations, otherwise known as what I was taught at school in Britain when discussing such things. Then again, I suppose us Brits know nothing about the British Empire and everyone else knows everything.
I have had this discussion with friends (it was brought up by a friend who went to live in the US and was amused be people's misinterpretation of it). It seems obvious (to my peer group) what the phrase means, as if it meant "The British Empire will never end" the sentence would most probably have been structured differently. Something like "The sun will never set on the British Empire".
To be honest, if you look at the (dwindling) list of British colonies here, and then look at a map of the world, you will see that Britain still has colonies spread far enough apart such that at any time of day one of them is under sunlight. This, of course, is the meaning of the phrase, "The sun never sets on the British Empire". It is often misunderstood - many people seem to think it means that the British Empire will never end.
The phrase refers to how far spread the empire is/was, not how long it was expected to stay or how powerful it is/was.
Re:Traveling with Cingular Wireless GSM phone
on
SMS vs. E-mail?
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Of course, recommeneded way to call customer support (*666 from cell phone) does not work in europe.
You call *666 to get customer service?
666?
And you expect it to work???:o)
they are no longer tied to their landline phone when they are expecting a call.
But what about if you are not expecting a call? The mobile owner is letting other people have the benefit of calling him when he is not near a landline.
Say if the mobile owner is out shopping and someone desperately wants to talk to him. The mobile owner gets no benefit here. However, the person calling gets the benefit, as without the mobile the caller would have to wait until the mobile owner gets near a landline. Even then the caller would need to know which landline (work, home, partner's etc).
Take another example. My girlfriend gets lost when driving somewhere but has left her map on the kitchen table. She wants to phone me for directions as she is sure that I know how to get there, but I have just gone out to post a letter. So she phones me on my mobile and speaks to me. Who gets the benefit there? I didn't want to go anywhere. I get no benefit from her getting the directions. I didn't need the call. I wasn't waiting for the call. Mobile usage isn't just about being able to make calls. A lot of calls to mobiles are about people needing you, not you needing people.
Also in Europe all providers (that I have seen, having lived in both the UK and Sweden) provide Caller ID for no charge. Digital doesn't come into it as hardly anyone has analogue anymore.
Hey, if you gave me a choice between dinky text messages and a cable modem for 30$ a month, I'll take the cable modem. The US is far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of high speed internet.
Minor point, but at my apartment in Stockholm (Sweden) I can get cable internet via UPC for 229 SEK/Month (approximately 23 USD) and ADSL via Telia for 330 SEK/Month (approximately 33 USD).
Oh - and we get "dinky" text messaging.
Also you can now get GPRS (always on, internet connected 2.5G mobile).
It is a simple extension of the philosophy that those who see the benifit should pay for it. If you choose to "go mobile," you pay for that choice.
Alternatively, shouldn't the caller pay to call the person on the mobile, as they are seeing the benefit of being able to call them when they are away from a landline?
I am also in Sweden and am also not a member of a union, although union rules still affect me.
At my last job, a dotcom that is currently in freefall, they decided to lose a percentage of the development workforce in order to cut costs (probably hanging on for a buyout). Union rules dictate that when laying off employees, the company must operate with a last in, first out policy. Thus, even though I was not a union member I got burned by this and lost my job, no matter how good I was.
My point? I am going to join the union now that I have a new job. If I am going to be burnt by the bad side of being in a union I may as well pay the fees and enjoy the good side as well
RP does exist yes, but I am still arguing that American actors cannot pull it off. RP is placeable, it is placed in the Public School system (as you said) with a high degree in the Home Counties.
American Actors generally can't do that one either. IMHO she aimed for it and missed.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it means that you are intelligent enough to convince someone that you are not intelligent. Or something.
I'm not sure if the movie's out yet.
It had it's premier a couple of weeks ago and goes on general release in the UK later this month.
For a start, the fact that you call them "cell phones" show how antiquated the US system is. In Europe these days it is very hard to get hold of an analogue mobile phone, even the cheapest are digital.
Secondly, which countries are these where mobiles are cheaper than landlines? I certainly haven't heard about them.
A little used word in the UK is milliard meaning one thousand million. It appears in quite a lot of european languages (examples: Milliard in French and "Miljard" in Swedish).
I believe it is France, not Denmark and it is still scary but not *quite* as scary. I did find this link:
"Battles over children's names are nothing new in France. Although French parents are free to pick their children's first names, local officials can challenge the names after the filing of the birth certificate."
Hmm, you had better tell the EU then. According to their website here:
"The European Union (EU) is the result of a process of cooperation and integration which began in 1951 between six countries (Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands).
After nearly fifty years, with four waves of accessions (1973: Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom; 1981: Greece; 1986: Spain and Portugal; 1995: Austria, Finland and Sweden), the EU today has fifteen Member States and is preparing for its fifth enlargement, this time towards Eastern and Southern Europe."
Um ... the UK is in the EU.
Minor point, but our "Bill of Rights" does exist and had done for some time before the US decided to have one. Perhaps rather than just throwing a term around you should explain exactly what rights British Citizens don't have.
..... 3) provisions guaranteeing certain individual freedoms and procedural safeguards against impairment by governmental power, for example, the right of petition, prohibitions of excessive bail, and reaffirmation of the right to jury trial."
Anyway, here are a couple of choice quotes from the link above:
"The English Bill of Rights, enacted by the Convention Parliament on Dec. 16, 1689, is one of the three great landmarks of the English constitutional tradition, the others being Magna Carta (1215) and the Petition of Right (1628). "
"The specific clauses of the Bill of Rights can be grouped into three broad categories:
"A century later the English Bill of Rights served as an important source for the first 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Thus, the clause in the English Bill of Rights prohibiting excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments was taken over, virtually word for word, in the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 and ultimately became the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."
I don't understand your point. Yes, Cable is a monopoly for cable TV, phone is a monopoly for telephones and power is a monopoly for, well, power. However, as long as you have at least two of these in your area neither is a monopoly for high-speed internet access. You suddenly have competition.
Take my example here in Stockholm, Sweden. I can get broadband either via cable or ADSL. Suddenly there is no monopoly, I can make a choice depending on service. Do I want Telia, who seem to be a bit open to running servers on my ADSL, or do I want UPC, who will let me have 5 IP addresses and a slightly higher download speed for more-or-less the same money?
My opinion of this is that as the three utilities are monopolies they have a reasonably sure financial backing, so they are not goign to go under tomorrow, but to get my extra bradband cash they need to offer something I want, making them mor einteresting than the competitor.
If you'd spend two minutes looking at the website you would see that you can have up to 1Mbps each way, depending on how much you want to pay.
The absolute basic is 512 up 256 down.
All other communications (telephone, TV, radio ...) are based on a billing system and have nothing to do with taxes (and no, the License fee is NOT a tax) so why should this be any different?
Imagine a diabetic, an epeleptic or any other person with an illness that may leave them in a confused state.
Now imagine that they, in their confused state, wonder onto your property. Maybe you left the front door unlocked and the person thought it was their house. You ordering them about whilst brandishing a weapon confuses them more and they don't follow you word for word.
Can you legally shoot them? If you can then I hope to Hell I don't live in the same country as you.
I have moved from the UK to Sweden and one thing that did surprise me was the alcohol situation.
The thing is, you get used to System Bolaget. The selection is genuinely amazing, far superior than anything I ever saw in an off license in the UK. The costs are not too bad either (alcohol is very expensive in bars in Sweden, in System Bolaget it is a bit expensive, but not overly so). They also have a fantastic ordering system. I believe that part of being a state monopoly, if you order something, no matter how weird, they have to at least try to get it for you (this is from other countries, not just for Swedish drinks).
I do have three problems with System Bolaget. There are not enough of them, the opening hours need to be lengthened and they sell Pripps Blå, quite possibly the most offensive liquid known to man.
I was under the impression that it wasn't made legal again, they just realised that it was never made entirely illegal and hence started importing it again.
:o)
What did shock me was seeing Absinthe in System Bolaget (Off license/liquer store in Sweden). Now if any European country is going to ban something alcoholic it'll be Sweden
Maths may have changed a lot in the past 100 years, but school-level Maths hasn't changed nearly as much. How many theorems are taught at schools today?
University level Pure Maths is all proof, using these theorems you state, but school-level Maths is a completely different kettle of fish. In my UK A-Level Further Pure Maths (a more advanced maths qualification taken when 18, before going to university) we only briefly touched upon group theory (and I mean VERY briefly!). When I was 16 I was taught differentiation as a method for checking my answers - the syllabus only required the drawing of a tangent to a curve at a point to find a gradient.
Briefly, in school you do not have the mathematical background to do the more interesting and advanced stuff you mentioned. You have to go through basic training first - and basic training hasn't changed much at all.
Almost completely off-topic (although someone did mention Doctors), is the UK the only place where they refer to medical consultants as (using a male example) "Mr" instead of "Dr"? Sometimes it can be quite un-nerving, feeling like they have dragged someone in off the street to check out your heart ....
Please do not tell everybody else what everybody else means based on your own narrow interpretations
Narrow interpretations, otherwise known as what I was taught at school in Britain when discussing such things. Then again, I suppose us Brits know nothing about the British Empire and everyone else knows everything.
I have had this discussion with friends (it was brought up by a friend who went to live in the US and was amused be people's misinterpretation of it). It seems obvious (to my peer group) what the phrase means, as if it meant "The British Empire will never end" the sentence would most probably have been structured differently. Something like "The sun will never set on the British Empire".
What happened in Louisiana?
Not trolling or taking the piss, I am interested. How did things turn out differently there?
To be honest, if you look at the (dwindling) list of British colonies here, and then look at a map of the world, you will see that Britain still has colonies spread far enough apart such that at any time of day one of them is under sunlight. This, of course, is the meaning of the phrase, "The sun never sets on the British Empire". It is often misunderstood - many people seem to think it means that the British Empire will never end.
The phrase refers to how far spread the empire is/was, not how long it was expected to stay or how powerful it is/was.
Of course, recommeneded way to call customer support (*666 from cell phone) does not work in europe.
:o)
You call *666 to get customer service?
666?
And you expect it to work???
they are no longer tied to their landline phone when they are expecting a call.
But what about if you are not expecting a call? The mobile owner is letting other people have the benefit of calling him when he is not near a landline.
Say if the mobile owner is out shopping and someone desperately wants to talk to him. The mobile owner gets no benefit here. However, the person calling gets the benefit, as without the mobile the caller would have to wait until the mobile owner gets near a landline. Even then the caller would need to know which landline (work, home, partner's etc).
Take another example. My girlfriend gets lost when driving somewhere but has left her map on the kitchen table. She wants to phone me for directions as she is sure that I know how to get there, but I have just gone out to post a letter. So she phones me on my mobile and speaks to me. Who gets the benefit there? I didn't want to go anywhere. I get no benefit from her getting the directions. I didn't need the call. I wasn't waiting for the call. Mobile usage isn't just about being able to make calls. A lot of calls to mobiles are about people needing you, not you needing people.
Also in Europe all providers (that I have seen, having lived in both the UK and Sweden) provide Caller ID for no charge. Digital doesn't come into it as hardly anyone has analogue anymore.
Hey, if you gave me a choice between dinky text messages and a cable modem for 30$ a month, I'll take the cable modem. The US is far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of high speed internet.
Minor point, but at my apartment in Stockholm (Sweden) I can get cable internet via UPC for 229 SEK/Month (approximately 23 USD) and ADSL via Telia for 330 SEK/Month (approximately 33 USD).
Oh - and we get "dinky" text messaging.
Also you can now get GPRS (always on, internet connected 2.5G mobile).
What was your point again?
It is a simple extension of the philosophy that those who see the benifit should pay for it. If you choose to "go mobile," you pay for that choice.
Alternatively, shouldn't the caller pay to call the person on the mobile, as they are seeing the benefit of being able to call them when they are away from a landline?
I am also in Sweden and am also not a member of a union, although union rules still affect me.
At my last job, a dotcom that is currently in freefall, they decided to lose a percentage of the development workforce in order to cut costs (probably hanging on for a buyout). Union rules dictate that when laying off employees, the company must operate with a last in, first out policy. Thus, even though I was not a union member I got burned by this and lost my job, no matter how good I was.
My point? I am going to join the union now that I have a new job. If I am going to be burnt by the bad side of being in a union I may as well pay the fees and enjoy the good side as well
RP does exist yes, but I am still arguing that American actors cannot pull it off. RP is placeable, it is placed in the Public School system (as you said) with a high degree in the Home Counties.
American Actors generally can't do that one either. IMHO she aimed for it and missed.