If you are canadian you are allowed to live and work for one year in The Netherlands without any working permit. After that year is over you will need sponsorship from some company. Chances are that if you worked for one year in the same company they will probably want to keep you.
Go to your local dutch embassy, because the same rule may apply to americans.
I am not american, so I might be wrong on this one, but isn't there a tax deduction every three (or five) years for computer upgrades? If a company has to pay monthly licences, then that tax deduction would be useless.
Before I start with my rant I would like to point something out: I am not dutch. I am a south american who moved to Holland a couple of years ago. With that said, my view of certain dutch habits is that of a foreigner who stares in utter surprise at certain issues.
When I first moved here I was shocked at the lack of privacy in dutch society. I am not talking about personal records, what I mean is their "open doors" policy. Houses here are built with HUGE windows which are ALWAYS open. Walk through any dutch neighbourhood and you will look inside these houses and you can see people doing their daily chores in the open. Walk around dinner time and you will see them sitting by their dinning tables eating their food. The windows are generally so big that you can even see what they are eating. Oh, and the windows have no bars and no protection whatsoever.
In addition, every house has a name tag at the door. If you were truly evil, you could write down a certain family's name, walk by that house a few times and survey how many people live there, their approximate age, their daily habits and any other minutiae you would like to gather. First steps for identity theft are so incredibly easy in Holland. It's people themselves who make it that way.
Dutch people are amazingly prone to fill in any survey in exchange of "Frequent Customer" points or miles or awards. Any avarage dutch citizen carries a minimun of three of these cards. They are not even aware of what type of privacy invasions they could be subject to.
An incident which I would consider a severe privacy violation occured to one of my spanish friends: she took out the trash a day earlier than she was supossed to (she just didn't realize it was Monday instead of Tuesday and off she went with her bag). Three days later she received a letter from the municipality stating that she had to pay x amount of money in fines for violating the city laws regarding trash collection.
Her first response was surprise. How did they know that it was HER trash bag and not someone else's? She took half a day off work and the next morning went to the municipality where they merrily explained her that the offending trash bags are opened and subject to inspection. They also showed her a letter sent by her family, in her name, which she had put in that trash bag. That's how they unmistakenly prove someone's ownership on the trash.
With all of the above said, the "safe box deposit" idea is possibly so natural for the dutch that they don't see a reason to be worried.
A bounty of 11,120 Euros in the contest to debunk Amazon's "one click" patent has been split three ways. The submission of an episode of Cheers, in which Norm ordered a beer with one command, missed out on a share of the prize.
Scriptwriters of Friends are now suing TheGlobe.com on the grounds that they pioneered the development of virtual communities.
Technology has, somehow, changed the way we "define" things. According to the latest cultural trend, an operating system is: "the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer. (editor's comment: wtf is that redundancy about?!) The other programs are called applications. The applications make use of the operating system by making requests for services through a defined application program interface (application program interface). In addition, users can interact directly with the operating system through an interface such as a command language. (according to whatis.com).
Now, an operating system, traditionally speaking, is a piece of "code" (to put it somehow), that allows a user to perform operations (thus, the OPERATING system). The evolution of semiotics in the last 15 or 20 years has made it possible that we only associate "operating system" with "software". (Sign and significant associations mostly related to social influences).
I will indulge myself with a digression: what if we divert our attention from the actual social influence of Operating system and take it one step further? What would be the first Operating system then? I mean, as in a "code that allows a user to perform operations through hardware".
Maybe I am wrong, but I found Blas Pascal's calculator from 1,642 as the first machine that fits that definition.
I am surprised that Micro$oft didn't think of this: give the masses the source for Win 3.x, let open sourcers modify and improve the code. Once there is a very decent and stable version of Win 3.x available for everyone, with loads of addons and new features not even existing in Win 2000, start selling software for the new and improved Win 3.x Open Source version.
If you don't mind owning a.com.country domain, then there's a really free alternative: nic.ar.
They let you register any.com.ar domain for free..ar stands for Argentina, but what the heck, it's not worse than having a Christmas Islands domain!
http://nic.ar
The main page is in Spanish, but if you take a carefull look, it has an English link that will have all the info translated.
The procedure to register a domain with them is not very simple and it takes around a week until it's working properly. If anyone needs help, you can mail me and I will explain the procedures and the forms to fill in.
And again: they don't charge any fees. Null, nothing, zero money to have your own domain.
-best screenwriter (movies, also movies distributed through the internet) are meant as art, and while you need a whole new set of participants (programmers, coders, graphic designers, etc), writing a script for internet distribution should be considered a work of art of its own. Just bear in mind that the screenwriter working for the internet will have to deal with the limitations of the new media, as well as finding a way to make the best of the new tools that such media has to offer.
-best webcam. This is a tricky one, but since we are discussing new categories within a new media, I truly believe that best webcam ideas should be awarded. Ok, webcams are not a movie? why not? someone is continually exposing their lives on the air for someone else to view them. They are a form of documentary by themselves, so why shouldnt the best webcam ideas be awarded? I am not talking about giving an award to a webcam pointing to someone's toilet (well, if the voters find that such webcam deserves an award, who am I to stop them?). Point is: webcams could be considered a new expression of documentary by themselves.
IMHO, awards should also be divided between "computer generated" and "flesh generated" hell, I dont know how to name this one. What I mean is, there should be a Best movie for a computer generated piece and a Best movie for pieces involving actors. Why? because they are two totally different things. While in a computer generated work you are the god alike entity who controls every move and frame in the movie, while working with actors, you have to deal with the "random factor". Humans will never perform like puppets at your command, thus, the results will not likely be the same.
Ah well...enough rants for now, I could continue, but I guess my potential audience must be feeling the Valium effect of my words by now. Please feel free to email me in private to discuss this further if what I said is of any interest to you. I am more than willing to participate in this project.
Actually the offender may not even know that he is attempting to connect to your machine. The latest DoS attack tools operate in a network form without the offender even knowing he is packeting a third party. That's basically the way something like Stacheldrecht (sp?) works. You are infected by a "virus" and your box serves as a distribution tool sending packets to another server. Unless you keep an eye on your firewall logs, you won't even notice what your boxes are doing while connected to the Internet.
The best thing you can do is filter your firewall logs, make sure its illegal incoming traffic and then report them to abuse@the culprit's provider.
Is it too obvious that this is my first post? Nice display NOT! I accidentally clicked on submit instead of Preview and I came accross this massively horrible bold text. I truly apologize for it.
Lots have been said by now about the issue, but to me, the real challenge is not "paper publishing vs on line publishing" but "writing for paper vs writing for the web". A new medium (and the net IS a new medium for publishing), demands that writers rethink the way texts are displayed and accessed. The only way to compete with paper books is by not competing at all. The challenge is how to offer a new way of reading and accessing texts. If any writer wants to keep the reader's atention on the net, they will have to offer a lot more than the typical clickety click, next page format. Why would anyone trade the comfort of an armchair with an amusing book on their laps for the boring endless scrolling of an electronic text on their screens? The only way to get readers to be interested in texts published on line is by offering such texts in a fashion that has nothing in common with the paper book. Yes, readers will still be able to print the files and get to read them off line, but they will miss the thrill of the on line version: interaction, link interactivity, animated text or whatever it is that the writer decided to put in their design. On line writers should think of their texts more as a complete work, including design and display than as a simple gathering of words. In the not so far future I imagine on line writers closer to movie directors (giving their texts not only an aesthetic related to the usage of the words but also an aesthetic in the way such texts are displayed and accessed).
(Just waking up, so I may sound a bit delusive). So far the argument here seems to be who's gonna download a book against who's gonna buy it. I am a writer wannabe and one thing I find quite interesting about the net is the fact that it totally changes the way "books" can be displayed. When considering to write a novel to publish it on line, I believe its not a good idea to think in traditional terms of text display. Traditional texts being the format "read, read, read, scroll, scroll, scroll, hit next button" etc. It makes it way more interesting to develop a totally different approach to the reading experience (from the reader's point of view, thats it). It's pretty difficult to catch long term atention on the net, so, long text displays are likely to have a high failure rate unless you can manage to present them in a way that people will find themselves "trapped" by them. To me, the challenge is not "publishing on paper vs publishing on line" but "writing for paper vs writing for the net".
Slashdot Mirror
Did you try anonymizer.com or safeweb?
If you are canadian you are allowed to live and work for one year in The Netherlands without any working permit. After that year is over you will need sponsorship from some company. Chances are that if you worked for one year in the same company they will probably want to keep you.
Go to your local dutch embassy, because the same rule may apply to americans.
I am not american, so I might be wrong on this one, but isn't there a tax deduction every three (or five) years for computer upgrades? If a company has to pay monthly licences, then that tax deduction would be useless.
Before I start with my rant I would like to point something out: I am not dutch. I am a south american who moved to Holland a couple of years ago. With that said, my view of certain dutch habits is that of a foreigner who stares in utter surprise at certain issues.
When I first moved here I was shocked at the lack of privacy in dutch society. I am not talking about personal records, what I mean is their "open doors" policy. Houses here are built with HUGE windows which are ALWAYS open. Walk through any dutch neighbourhood and you will look inside these houses and you can see people doing their daily chores in the open. Walk around dinner time and you will see them sitting by their dinning tables eating their food. The windows are generally so big that you can even see what they are eating. Oh, and the windows have no bars and no protection whatsoever.
In addition, every house has a name tag at the door. If you were truly evil, you could write down a certain family's name, walk by that house a few times and survey how many people live there, their approximate age, their daily habits and any other minutiae you would like to gather. First steps for identity theft are so incredibly easy in Holland. It's people themselves who make it that way.
Dutch people are amazingly prone to fill in any survey in exchange of "Frequent Customer" points or miles or awards. Any avarage dutch citizen carries a minimun of three of these cards. They are not even aware of what type of privacy invasions they could be subject to.
An incident which I would consider a severe privacy violation occured to one of my spanish friends: she took out the trash a day earlier than she was supossed to (she just didn't realize it was Monday instead of Tuesday and off she went with her bag). Three days later she received a letter from the municipality stating that she had to pay x amount of money in fines for violating the city laws regarding trash collection.
Her first response was surprise. How did they know that it was HER trash bag and not someone else's? She took half a day off work and the next morning went to the municipality where they merrily explained her that the offending trash bags are opened and subject to inspection. They also showed her a letter sent by her family, in her name, which she had put in that trash bag. That's how they unmistakenly prove someone's ownership on the trash.
With all of the above said, the "safe box deposit" idea is possibly so natural for the dutch that they don't see a reason to be worried.
From Network Solutions whois:
Registrant: Catalysis (OFFICECLIPPY-DOM) 420 Boylston Ave. E. Seattle, WA 98102 US
Domain Name: OFFICECLIPPY.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Catalysis (O14147-OR) tyler@catalysis.com
Catalysis
420 Boylston Ave. E.
Seattle, WA 98102
US
206-826-8000 fax: 206-826-8888
Technical Contact:
WorldNIC Name Host (HOST-ORG) namehost@WORLDNIC.COM
Network Solutions, Inc.
505 Huntmar Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20170-5142
1-888-642-9675
Record last updated on 03-Apr-2001.
Record expires on 21-Mar-2002.
Record created on 21-Mar-2001.
Database last updated on 11-Apr-2001 07:46:00 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.WOLFE.NET 204.107.189.1
NS2.WOLFE.NET 204.157.98.8
This doesn't look like an official Microsoft website at all.
As read in the Industry Standard Europe:
A bounty of 11,120 Euros in the contest to debunk Amazon's "one click" patent has been split three ways. The submission of an episode of Cheers, in which Norm ordered a beer with one command, missed out on a share of the prize.
Scriptwriters of Friends are now suing TheGlobe.com on the grounds that they pioneered the development of virtual communities.
Is it true that the "Cowboy Neal" option in the polls will be replaced by "Jon Katz" in the near future?
Galambosianism, or how weirdos became mainstream.
Technology has, somehow, changed the way we "define" things. According to the latest cultural trend, an operating system is: "the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer. (editor's comment: wtf is that redundancy about?!) The other programs are called applications. The applications make use of the operating system by making requests for services through a defined application program interface (application program interface). In addition, users can interact directly with the operating system through an interface such as a command language. (according to whatis.com).
Now, an operating system, traditionally speaking, is a piece of "code" (to put it somehow), that allows a user to perform operations (thus, the OPERATING system). The evolution of semiotics in the last 15 or 20 years has made it possible that we only associate "operating system" with "software". (Sign and significant associations mostly related to social influences).
I will indulge myself with a digression: what if we divert our attention from the actual social influence of Operating system and take it one step further? What would be the first Operating system then? I mean, as in a "code that allows a user to perform operations through hardware".
Maybe I am wrong, but I found Blas Pascal's calculator from 1,642 as the first machine that fits that definition.
I am surprised that Micro$oft didn't think of this: give the masses the source for Win 3.x, let open sourcers modify and improve the code. Once there is a very decent and stable version of Win 3.x available for everyone, with loads of addons and new features not even existing in Win 2000, start selling software for the new and improved Win 3.x Open Source version.
If you don't mind owning a .com.country domain, then there's a really free alternative: nic.ar.
.com.ar domain for free. .ar stands for Argentina, but what the heck, it's not worse than having a Christmas Islands domain!
They let you register any
http://nic.ar
The main page is in Spanish, but if you take a carefull look, it has an English link that will have all the info translated.
The procedure to register a domain with them is not very simple and it takes around a week until it's working properly. If anyone needs help, you can mail me and I will explain the procedures and the forms to fill in.
And again: they don't charge any fees. Null, nothing, zero money to have your own domain.
-best screenwriter (movies, also movies distributed through the internet) are meant as art, and while you need a whole new set of participants (programmers, coders, graphic designers, etc), writing a script for internet distribution should be considered a work of art of its own. Just bear in mind that the screenwriter working for the internet will have to deal with the limitations of the new media, as well as finding a way to make the best of the new tools that such media has to offer.
-best webcam. This is a tricky one, but since we are discussing new categories within a new media, I truly believe that best webcam ideas should be awarded. Ok, webcams are not a movie? why not? someone is continually exposing their lives on the air for someone else to view them. They are a form of documentary by themselves, so why shouldnt the best webcam ideas be awarded? I am not talking about giving an award to a webcam pointing to someone's toilet (well, if the voters find that such webcam deserves an award, who am I to stop them?). Point is: webcams could be considered a new expression of documentary by themselves.
IMHO, awards should also be divided between "computer generated" and "flesh generated" hell, I dont know how to name this one. What I mean is, there should be a Best movie for a computer generated piece and a Best movie for pieces involving actors. Why? because they are two totally different things. While in a computer generated work you are the god alike entity who controls every move and frame in the movie, while working with actors, you have to deal with the "random factor". Humans will never perform like puppets at your command, thus, the results will not likely be the same.
Ah well...enough rants for now, I could continue, but I guess my potential audience must be feeling the Valium effect of my words by now. Please feel free to email me in private to discuss this further if what I said is of any interest to you. I am more than willing to participate in this project.
Actually the offender may not even know that he is attempting to connect to your machine. The latest DoS attack tools operate in a network form without the offender even knowing he is packeting a third party. That's basically the way something like Stacheldrecht (sp?) works. You are infected by a "virus" and your box serves as a distribution tool sending packets to another server. Unless you keep an eye on your firewall logs, you won't even notice what your boxes are doing while connected to the Internet.
The best thing you can do is filter your firewall logs, make sure its illegal incoming traffic and then report them to abuse@the culprit's provider.
Is it too obvious that this is my first post? Nice display NOT! I accidentally clicked on submit instead of Preview and I came accross this massively horrible bold text. I truly apologize for it.
Lots have been said by now about the issue, but to me, the real challenge is not "paper publishing vs on line publishing" but "writing for paper vs writing for the web". A new medium (and the net IS a new medium for publishing), demands that writers rethink the way texts are displayed and accessed. The only way to compete with paper books is by not competing at all. The challenge is how to offer a new way of reading and accessing texts. If any writer wants to keep the reader's atention on the net, they will have to offer a lot more than the typical clickety click, next page format. Why would anyone trade the comfort of an armchair with an amusing book on their laps for the boring endless scrolling of an electronic text on their screens? The only way to get readers to be interested in texts published on line is by offering such texts in a fashion that has nothing in common with the paper book. Yes, readers will still be able to print the files and get to read them off line, but they will miss the thrill of the on line version: interaction, link interactivity, animated text or whatever it is that the writer decided to put in their design. On line writers should think of their texts more as a complete work, including design and display than as a simple gathering of words. In the not so far future I imagine on line writers closer to movie directors (giving their texts not only an aesthetic related to the usage of the words but also an aesthetic in the way such texts are displayed and accessed).
(Just waking up, so I may sound a bit delusive). So far the argument here seems to be who's gonna download a book against who's gonna buy it. I am a writer wannabe and one thing I find quite interesting about the net is the fact that it totally changes the way "books" can be displayed. When considering to write a novel to publish it on line, I believe its not a good idea to think in traditional terms of text display. Traditional texts being the format "read, read, read, scroll, scroll, scroll, hit next button" etc. It makes it way more interesting to develop a totally different approach to the reading experience (from the reader's point of view, thats it). It's pretty difficult to catch long term atention on the net, so, long text displays are likely to have a high failure rate unless you can manage to present them in a way that people will find themselves "trapped" by them. To me, the challenge is not "publishing on paper vs publishing on line" but "writing for paper vs writing for the net".