It seems to be the worst country when it comes to vendor lock-in (firmware branding, sim locking), long contracts, high costs and craptastic prepaid packages. The one GSM network they have there (Rogers) is only GSM by technology, they use IMEI numbers to make sure people are using the right branded device for the data plan they're on. In any country where there is no CDMA that shit wouldn't fly, of course the Gubmint there don't feel like doing anything about it.
This is BS.
I moved to Canada 18 months ago and got a Rogers SIM card that I just popped into my unlocked european phone and it worked. I eventually changed over to Fido for a better plan (no contract) and bought an unlocked phone, no worries. You can get prepaid SIM cards basically anywhere and they'll never, ever ask for the IMEI.
If you only need a cheap prepaid, I recomment Speakeasy that's sold by 7-11. Credit lasts for 1 year and you can get a nearly free phone if needed.
I do agree that the cell phone market in Canada totally sucks and blows. Bell is hell, I had the misfortune of dealing with them and they're the absolute worst company I've ever dealt with. Rogers is a pain to deal with, but they do deliver on the product in a more satisfactory way than Bell or Telus.
Now there's a thing to take into account: the sheer size of the territory. Canada's HUGE. Maps don't do justice to its immensity, only second to Russia. I would think that installing and maintaining such a huge network to cover such a small population does have a rather high cost... but that's no excuse for the ways those companies gouge us!
When counting by percentage of population, Sweden would actually be pretty much on par with the USA (12.3% and 12.81% respectively). Germany's immigrants are 12.31% of the whole population, in Austria there are 14.9%, in Canada 18.76% and in Switzerland 22.89%.
All of the countries I have listed do have socialized medicine.
Switzerland doesn't have socialized medicine. Every resident of Switzerland *must* subscribe to a MANDATORY PRIVATE health insurance. While the insurance companies can't deny the basic coverage, the extra coverage (dental, care in private clinics/hospitals, etc.) is up to the insurer's whim. There are public hospitals, but they require insurance. The premiums for the basic, mandatory coverage are not indexed on revenue like in the other countries you cited, a poor family will pay the same as a billionnaire. Think $300/month per person, minimum, whether your unemployed or are making good money. If you're poor, the state will help you pay for it but you can't opt out.
Since the country is home to big pharmaceutical firms and large insurance companies, drugs are commonly priced 3 to 10 times more expensively than in neighbouring countries and, in general, health care in Switzerland is one of the world's most expensive. It is IMHO one of the most flawed system, just after the American one due to the collusion of insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms.
I don't think any health system should be designed to be profitable. Maintaining your population in good health is expensive but it's a small price to pay for a prerequisite to prosperity. Mind you, it would cost a whole lot less to have a universal health coverage in the USA than to wage war for a month in Iraq or Afghanistan.
So, what does that mean in the US? Like, you can't drive for 1 hour?
I'd say make it like in Europe: 3 months suspension for a first offence, 6 months for the second, 1 year for the third and then void the license altogether with a 3 years driving ban after that (after which you'd have to pass the exam and start as a new driver).
I nearly got killed a few years ago by a "distracted" driver who was happily chatting on his cell phone while running a traffic light. It took me over a year to recover and be able to work again and I'll feel the secondary effects of this accident for the rest of my life (definitely NOT a nice thing, trust me).
In most European countries, using a cell phone while driving is considered impaired driving and you basically face the same consequences as if you were drunk in case of an accident, meaning your insurance will happily run away from you and you'll be declared responsible for the accident even if it's not initially your fault.
I'm looking forward to the day it'll be the same here in Ontario as a lot of people don't seem to be able to distract themselves from their crackberries while driving. Maybe a $1000 ticket and a license suspension will teach them a lesson before they get to injure or kill someone.
I for one hope this moron eliminates himself from the human gene pool without injuring or killing someone first.
Some of the rest of the world already has free VoIP, though. For instance, ~50% of French households have broaband, and the typical monthly fee of 30 bucks includes free VoIP (and numeric TV). Not only that, but the calls are free when calling no less than about 50 countries, US included. With some providers, you can can connect to your number through SIP from basically anywhere and place calls for free. Wish I had that here in Canada, where I get charged long distance whenever I call out of city limits.
Until a few months ago, I was working for a finance training institute. One of the courses was teaching neuromarketing techniques to bankers, specifically in the way it's used to 'sell' certain kind of less-than-stellar banking products *cough* subprime loans *cough*.
Why not? They're talking about storing braking power and then using that to power the train. Without a battery any such energy is simply lost to the environment.
Simply not true. In my town the streetcars and electric busses send energy back into the network during braking. To avoid losses, the extra power only goes to the local power loop, benefiting other vehicles tapping from it, which can be quite a few in the downtown area.
Okay, I can completely sympathize, but if you routinely drive around without your seatbelt, a door open, and the handbrake engaged, I think you have some more important things to worry about.
True, but when the damn thing starts "talking" to you when you dare turn the engine on to warm up while taking your coat off with the door open, or if you're simply moving the car from the service area to the parking lot (a mere 10 yards) without putting the seatbelt on, or dare use your handbrake to start uphill with a manual transmission... the thing gets really nagging to the point you wonder if the idiot in charge of designing such an insult to intelligence ever tried it more than once.
The few people I knew who actually *bought* one of those (gasp) had the system speaker disconnected within a couple of weeks of ownership.
I don't want machines talking to me, at least not until they got some kickass AI you can actually RESPOND to!
I remember renting one of those back in the days. By the time I'd gone around the block to RETURN the damn thing for a mute one, I'd been served with at least 5 or 6 spoken messages. Beyond annoying doesn't even begin to describe how irritating this thing was.
"door is open", "fasten your seatbelt", "handbrake on" and so on... Had I not been able to return it, I would have prolly taken the loudspeaker apart!
Now this thing today reminds me of Sirius Cybernetics' happy elevators and doors.
Wanna make ppl happy? Make sure they reach their destination as quickly as possible, period.
After 12 seconds of sleuthing, my best guess is that you are talking about Switzerland.
All I can say is, "Wow." I would have expected better from a country whose financial systems are the envy of the entire world. Yikes.
You're good... Switzerland it is. How did you know? Not for long though, leaving in 2 months (after 11 years here...) and moving to Canada. And my fiancée is a labour lawyer, this time I should be safe from fine print:P
The Swiss system is heavily geared towards high incomes whilst the shrinking middle and lower classes get hit the hardest by tax, medical insurance premiums (all private AND mandatory) and contempt. Gains on capital (stock, etc.) aren't taxed, making it very attractive to big financial investors, adding to the legendary bank secrecy (assets in Swiss banks can't really get seized easily, let alone investigated). As beautiful as it is (I'll miss the landscape for sure), the atmosphere isn't really friendly to people who, like me, aren't rich or even interested in profit. And I'm not even talking about the stupid, xenophobic/racist/intolerant/downright nazi-like stance of the present political landscape.
As to be an indie here, it can perfectly be done... given you hire a lawyer to read and write everything, from insurance contracts to the spelling of your invoices (which should be handled by a separate company if you wanna cover your ass). Tax deductions aplenty, lots of high-income ppl ready to pay $140/hour minimum for whatever they want. Bring your car to get fixed and it's easily over $100/hour for labour. You're an IT specialist with lots of certifications? Get a contract with a local public administration, the UN or some bigass company and charge them $250/hour minimum. At $100/hour you'll live OK, given you work a lot and don't take too many holidays and don't try to buy a house (only 30% of the Swiss own their homes), which is reserved to the elite (gotta make at leat $15K/month to afford anything here, a tiny 2-rooms (kitchen included) apt cost about $1 million.
If you're not Swiss and have a lot of money... there's some Swiss states that will be happy to charge you a minimal flat-rate tax in exchange of a residence permit. A Swiss citizen earning the same amount would get taxed regularly though... nice, eh?
Switzerland is a country which would have morally gained from having its collective arse kicked during WW2, it would have forced the Swiss to go through a collective consciousness self-examination ; they'd perhaps not tolerate certain public opinions (if you know Switzerland, you know who/what I'm talking about) and inequities. Despite the recent historical reports clearly demonstrating how this country enriched itself actively collaborating with the Third Reich (they delivered ammo and weapons to the nazi until april of 1945!), the very same rhetoric is being used today as an election platform by the majority party, it makes me puke.
Pansy. You explain to your clients when you'll be gone for a few weeks, and you do a good job networking so that you can pay another indep. worker to cover support while you're gone. You know, just like an employer would.
Ha, did that twice. First guy ended up screwing the systems and infuriating the client, second double-crossed me and stole the client from me. I don't know where you live, but here unless you got a contract with a public service (they tend to be more honorable than regular businesses) you're likely to be screwed by the first person you encounter, with no compensation. Indie workers here are the last in line to get paid in case of bankruptcy for instance, meaning if your client folds up owing you a month of work (usually more), you're SOL. When that happens several times in the course of a year, your reserves melt like butter very quickly.
Heh, tell that to my wife; I bought my house on contracting income. They don't care nearly as much about "stable" if your payment is going to be less than 20% of your average income over the past 5 years. Besides, if you're a corp, you pay yourself a salary (that's plenty "stable"). You then get bonuses when the company does well. Have you actually tried any of this?
Thought about it, but alas laws and regs are different here. Incorporating a company means you have to put down at least $20.000 in hard cash on the table and you must use (and pay) a separate accountant, etc. At my level of business/income, it was a financial no-go. It is my understanding this kind of procedure is cheap and straightforward in the USA, had it been the case here I would have certainly gone through it and would perhaps still have my business today. Add to this a tax system that's hitting indies real hard, with monthly tax based on the previous year (on which you have already paid tax) so if you don't earn anyting, you still have to pay a substantial sum, which you can't recover since that part goes to the national, mandatory pension fund (rejoice, you'll have access to it when you're 65!).
Dude, it's called insurance. And no, not just health and car insurance. If you actually bother to incorporate yourself, you can (and should!) have liability insurance and some form of loss/temporary disability insurance that would allow you to collect a salary and even pay someone to keep running your business for you while you're out of commission.
Then again, as I said I got screwed over majorly on this. Since then I have all my insurance contracts checked by a lawyer friend (and there's a lot to be discussed). Given the circumstances, there was simply no way I could handle hiring anyone to take over and had no other choice but to fold up. Not being able to use your hands for 9 months doesn't help, I'm telling you. Not in a country in which you don't get awarded *any* damages after a non-responsible accident from which you dare recover in less than 2 years. And certainly not when you're hit with a $35.000 hospital bill when the insurance says "sorry but we'll pay you back when we're done disagreeing with the opposite insurance, it may take in excess of one year". Yeah, I lost my business and 2 years of my life, but I'm not in a wheelchair and can use both my hands pretty much normally today, so I'm not complaining. Failing your own enterprise, losing the fruit of your labor and a big chunk of your lifestyle is hard but it's not the end of the world and I'm grateful to be alive today. Rather that than the opposite. It was my first business, which I did with no training whatsoever except in IT (and even that's not much), did many mistakes and have learnt a lot from it. Experience is always a good thing.
I'm not dissing going indie, actually I might just get back to it (maybe not in IT this time though) once I've moved away from this stupid place to one that has a system actually encouraging individual businesses. Now that I got a lawyer GF, I might just manage to do things right this time;)
If you are really good at what you do, you can do the complete indie thing....make great bill rates, and enjoy more time off.
Yes.
And no.
I was an indie sysadmin for 7 years, liked the first 3, not so much the rest. Being indie is no picnic, you don't know what tomorrow will be made of, which is great when you're a free-thinker who hates routine, but you soon have to pay the price for all this freedom, excitement and novelty. Not knowing what tomorrow will be like means you can kiss goodbye to any long-term plans you may have. Forget about going on holidays for more than a weekend, your clients need you. Forget about buying a house, your income isn't stable enough. And hope nothing happens to you that could keep you from working or else lose all your clients - I wasn't so lucky (bad road accident).
So I'm telling you, after awhile all you'll dream about is a nice nine-to-five job, with paid holidays (prolly more than you'd be able to take if you happen to be an indie sysadmin), benefits and the certainty you won't have to spend your evenings going through the accounting and the knowledge you'll get a paycheck at the end of the month, rather than hoping your clients will remember to pay you and not just disappear leaving you with nothing.
And being indie in IT also means you have to pay for your own training, software licenses, etc. Ha, more time off you were saying??? Let me chuckle at the thought.
Wanna be indie? Do something like being a lawyer, plumber, gardener or electrician... not in IT.
And to think that Yahoo's music service (Launch) is working just as well as always, today. I had no idea that there was any kind of boycott going on. I have Launchcast streaming all day, every day. Too bad Yahoo wasn't involved.
Then how come I get the following message if I try to listen to any stream?
" LAUNCHcast Is Off the Air - It's a Day of Silence LAUNCHcast Radio and other webcasters are silent today, from 12 midnight EST to 11:59 pm EST. A recent COPYRIGHT ROYALTY decision will impose punishing fees that could shut down most online radio. You can do something about it. Go to www.savenetradio.org to find out more, and call your congressional representative before JULY 15th.
Today is only one day of silence -- but if you don't speak up, this could be the only sound we'll hear from online radio. "
I'm a photographer and my RAW image files are 15MB each. At every shooting, I come back with 1 to 8GB worth of data to be processed. My workflow involves working on 16-bit TIFFs that weigh in excess of 40MB/file and I'm not even counting the photoshop work files. 40GB would last less than a week here.
Not being rich, I have a couple of external HDs totalling a little less than 1TB, and it's nearly full. The rest is archived on DVD or transfered to HD for storage (cheaper, faster and more reliable than DVD).
So yeah, I can easily imagine why any organisation dealing with huge media files would be interested. Heck, I'd be a client for a safe, multi-TB storage system if I could afford it... Not everybody only deals with text files for a living:P
Imagine catching wild meat like deer or ducks and grinding them up to make food pellets to raise pigs or cows.
They did it in Europe and all we got in return is Mad Cow Disease and its sibling the wonderful Creuzfeld-Jacob Disease that turns your brain into mush.
What about the American dust bowl in the early 1930's? Was that caused by huge carbon emissions or was it a small natural climate cycle that just happens?
"The Dust Bowl was the result of a series of dust storms in the central United States and Canada from 1934 to 1939, caused by decades of inappropriate farming techniques, with buffalo herds that fertilized the soil displaced by wheat farming, followed by a severe drought. The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing. During the drought, the soil dried out, became dust, and blew away eastwards, mostly in large black clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky all the way to Chicago, and much of the soil was completely lost into the Atlantic Ocean."
Get your facts straight, puhleeeaaase! Western civilization and productivist agriculture hold a nasty record in destroying the environment on a wide scale. You can't destroy entire ecosystems without suffering consequenses, short-term and long-term.
You cannot legitimately point guns at people to make them shut up.
Who's calling for guns?
The point is not to kill or maim the ones who practice hate speech, but to keep them off the air with the help of the law. In Europe, where hate speech is precisely defined and condemned by law in most countries, a dimwit like Pat Robertson wouldn't be able to spead his hate through TV and radio, even the web. What's wrong with it? Would you condone some neo-nazi ideology being aired on prime-time TV, solely on the pretense of "free speech", knowing what's happened back 60 years ago?
Hate speech, unfortunately, easily gets an audience with the frustrated populaces who want a scapegoat... I say it's better to limit the damage beforehand by simply making it as difficult as possible for those wanabe-hitlers to spread their mentally deranged speech. Laws are society's standards and I don't believe a free society would gain anything by helping its most extreme constituents spread their destructive ideology.
How would you like it if Al Qaeda were to open a TV channel and spread its anti-western propaganda towards the muslim population of your country, in the name of a freedom they're bound to anihilate?
We already put limits to freedom in many areas, mostly for the good of society... Freedom to spread racial or religious hate is something we can part with, along with murder and theft.
The USA: 280 millions ppl, somewhat educated for the most part. India: 1 billion+ ppl, out of which a big bunch are poor and uneducated.
Educated people mostly disregard hate speech ('they know better') but we've all seen the kind of mass hysteria that can go through the poor/illiterates, whether it's in South-East Asia, the Middle-East, Africa, a football stadium or in Kentuky.
I can't stand censorship, but I don't believe hate speech should be tolerated, especially when the targeted audience doesn't 'know any better', for it leads to a form of wide scale brain-washing. Hate speech goes against the very idea of freedom and equality, why should it be tolerated? Theft is against our principles and isn't tolerated, calling for hate and murder shouldn't be either. Hate speech is what's used on populaces to spur wars and, ultimately, makes the bed for extreme dictatorships.
I don't think the exercise of freedom should require the ability to destroy what's taken centuries to achieve just to satisfy some ignorant, frustrated, deranged wannabe-dictators.
Note that I live in a country where hate/racist/negationist speech is forbidden by law and I for one find myself a lot more free than if the stupidest branch of the gene pool was able to get its way.
From what I've read, they had the entire 5 year story arc fully plotted out before they started shooting the first episode of season 1.
Nope, they only had the first season written, since back then they had no idea whether the series would be successful enough to justify funding for the rest. Then on, they only wrote storylines for the oncoming season. It's only when they had finished shooting the fourth season that they got the surprise (and late) approval for a fifth season, which explains it pretty much stands apart from the rest (most of the major arcs ended in the 4th season).
You have to remember that B5 was the first TV series to use massive CGI and its production costs were giganormous for the time!
I've just re-watched the whole series (+ movies) over a 6-weeks span... Great Maker, it felt good seeing Londo and G'Kar again!
Now if only Farscape could get its fifth season too, that'd make my day! Good thing there's BSG to fill the gap.
in a steam/turban plant the energy to move the turban doesn't _really_ come from boiling the water, it comes from super-heating the steam. You have to move the steam through the turban energetically enough to move the machinery...
Steam-powered turban?? There's a few pakistani taxi drivers who might be interested ^^
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My words eggs act, Lee!
How dare you inject Common Sense and Logic in such a /. thread?
We're talking about freakin' laser beams here, you insensitive clod!
It seems to be the worst country when it comes to vendor lock-in (firmware branding, sim locking), long contracts, high costs and craptastic prepaid packages. The one GSM network they have there (Rogers) is only GSM by technology, they use IMEI numbers to make sure people are using the right branded device for the data plan they're on. In any country where there is no CDMA that shit wouldn't fly, of course the Gubmint there don't feel like doing anything about it.
This is BS.
I moved to Canada 18 months ago and got a Rogers SIM card that I just popped into my unlocked european phone and it worked. I eventually changed over to Fido for a better plan (no contract) and bought an unlocked phone, no worries. You can get prepaid SIM cards basically anywhere and they'll never, ever ask for the IMEI.
If you only need a cheap prepaid, I recomment Speakeasy that's sold by 7-11. Credit lasts for 1 year and you can get a nearly free phone if needed.
I do agree that the cell phone market in Canada totally sucks and blows. Bell is hell, I had the misfortune of dealing with them and they're the absolute worst company I've ever dealt with. Rogers is a pain to deal with, but they do deliver on the product in a more satisfactory way than Bell or Telus.
Now there's a thing to take into account: the sheer size of the territory. Canada's HUGE. Maps don't do justice to its immensity, only second to Russia. I would think that installing and maintaining such a huge network to cover such a small population does have a rather high cost... but that's no excuse for the ways those companies gouge us!
When counting by percentage of population, Sweden would actually be pretty much on par with the USA (12.3% and 12.81% respectively). Germany's immigrants are 12.31% of the whole population, in Austria there are 14.9%, in Canada 18.76% and in Switzerland 22.89%.
All of the countries I have listed do have socialized medicine.
Switzerland doesn't have socialized medicine. Every resident of Switzerland *must* subscribe to a MANDATORY PRIVATE health insurance. While the insurance companies can't deny the basic coverage, the extra coverage (dental, care in private clinics/hospitals, etc.) is up to the insurer's whim. There are public hospitals, but they require insurance. The premiums for the basic, mandatory coverage are not indexed on revenue like in the other countries you cited, a poor family will pay the same as a billionnaire. Think $300/month per person, minimum, whether your unemployed or are making good money. If you're poor, the state will help you pay for it but you can't opt out.
Since the country is home to big pharmaceutical firms and large insurance companies, drugs are commonly priced 3 to 10 times more expensively than in neighbouring countries and, in general, health care in Switzerland is one of the world's most expensive. It is IMHO one of the most flawed system, just after the American one due to the collusion of insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms.
I don't think any health system should be designed to be profitable. Maintaining your population in good health is expensive but it's a small price to pay for a prerequisite to prosperity. Mind you, it would cost a whole lot less to have a universal health coverage in the USA than to wage war for a month in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Maybe a $1000 ticket and a license suspension
So, what does that mean in the US? Like, you can't drive for 1 hour?
I'd say make it like in Europe: 3 months suspension for a first offence, 6 months for the second, 1 year for the third and then void the license altogether with a 3 years driving ban after that (after which you'd have to pass the exam and start as a new driver).
I nearly got killed a few years ago by a "distracted" driver who was happily chatting on his cell phone while running a traffic light. It took me over a year to recover and be able to work again and I'll feel the secondary effects of this accident for the rest of my life (definitely NOT a nice thing, trust me).
In most European countries, using a cell phone while driving is considered impaired driving and you basically face the same consequences as if you were drunk in case of an accident, meaning your insurance will happily run away from you and you'll be declared responsible for the accident even if it's not initially your fault.
I'm looking forward to the day it'll be the same here in Ontario as a lot of people don't seem to be able to distract themselves from their crackberries while driving. Maybe a $1000 ticket and a license suspension will teach them a lesson before they get to injure or kill someone.
I for one hope this moron eliminates himself from the human gene pool without injuring or killing someone first.
Until a few months ago, I was working for a finance training institute. One of the courses was teaching neuromarketing techniques to bankers, specifically in the way it's used to 'sell' certain kind of less-than-stellar banking products *cough* subprime loans *cough*.
Seems to be working...
Reality is now considered flamebait?
You must be new here.
Why not? They're talking about storing braking power and then using that to power the train. Without a battery any such energy is simply lost to the environment.
Simply not true. In my town the streetcars and electric busses send energy back into the network during braking. To avoid losses, the extra power only goes to the local power loop, benefiting other vehicles tapping from it, which can be quite a few in the downtown area.
Okay, I can completely sympathize, but if you routinely drive around without your seatbelt, a door open, and the handbrake engaged, I think you have some more important things to worry about.
True, but when the damn thing starts "talking" to you when you dare turn the engine on to warm up while taking your coat off with the door open, or if you're simply moving the car from the service area to the parking lot (a mere 10 yards) without putting the seatbelt on, or dare use your handbrake to start uphill with a manual transmission... the thing gets really nagging to the point you wonder if the idiot in charge of designing such an insult to intelligence ever tried it more than once.
The few people I knew who actually *bought* one of those (gasp) had the system speaker disconnected within a couple of weeks of ownership.
I don't want machines talking to me, at least not until they got some kickass AI you can actually RESPOND to!
I remember renting one of those back in the days. By the time I'd gone around the block to RETURN the damn thing for a mute one, I'd been served with at least 5 or 6 spoken messages. Beyond annoying doesn't even begin to describe how irritating this thing was.
"door is open", "fasten your seatbelt", "handbrake on" and so on... Had I not been able to return it, I would have prolly taken the loudspeaker apart!
Now this thing today reminds me of Sirius Cybernetics' happy elevators and doors.
Wanna make ppl happy? Make sure they reach their destination as quickly as possible, period.
Happy happy joy joy!
After 12 seconds of sleuthing, my best guess is that you are talking about Switzerland.
:P
/rant
All I can say is, "Wow." I would have expected better from a country whose financial systems are the envy of the entire world. Yikes.
You're good... Switzerland it is. How did you know? Not for long though, leaving in 2 months (after 11 years here...) and moving to Canada. And my fiancée is a labour lawyer, this time I should be safe from fine print
The Swiss system is heavily geared towards high incomes whilst the shrinking middle and lower classes get hit the hardest by tax, medical insurance premiums (all private AND mandatory) and contempt. Gains on capital (stock, etc.) aren't taxed, making it very attractive to big financial investors, adding to the legendary bank secrecy (assets in Swiss banks can't really get seized easily, let alone investigated). As beautiful as it is (I'll miss the landscape for sure), the atmosphere isn't really friendly to people who, like me, aren't rich or even interested in profit. And I'm not even talking about the stupid, xenophobic/racist/intolerant/downright nazi-like stance of the present political landscape.
As to be an indie here, it can perfectly be done... given you hire a lawyer to read and write everything, from insurance contracts to the spelling of your invoices (which should be handled by a separate company if you wanna cover your ass). Tax deductions aplenty, lots of high-income ppl ready to pay $140/hour minimum for whatever they want. Bring your car to get fixed and it's easily over $100/hour for labour. You're an IT specialist with lots of certifications? Get a contract with a local public administration, the UN or some bigass company and charge them $250/hour minimum. At $100/hour you'll live OK, given you work a lot and don't take too many holidays and don't try to buy a house (only 30% of the Swiss own their homes), which is reserved to the elite (gotta make at leat $15K/month to afford anything here, a tiny 2-rooms (kitchen included) apt cost about $1 million.
If you're not Swiss and have a lot of money... there's some Swiss states that will be happy to charge you a minimal flat-rate tax in exchange of a residence permit. A Swiss citizen earning the same amount would get taxed regularly though... nice, eh?
Switzerland is a country which would have morally gained from having its collective arse kicked during WW2, it would have forced the Swiss to go through a collective consciousness self-examination ; they'd perhaps not tolerate certain public opinions (if you know Switzerland, you know who/what I'm talking about) and inequities. Despite the recent historical reports clearly demonstrating how this country enriched itself actively collaborating with the Third Reich (they delivered ammo and weapons to the nazi until april of 1945!), the very same rhetoric is being used today as an election platform by the majority party, it makes me puke.
opps
Cheers
Pansy. You explain to your clients when you'll be gone for a few weeks, and you do a good job networking so that you can pay another indep. worker to cover support while you're gone. You know, just like an employer would.
;)
Ha, did that twice. First guy ended up screwing the systems and infuriating the client, second double-crossed me and stole the client from me. I don't know where you live, but here unless you got a contract with a public service (they tend to be more honorable than regular businesses) you're likely to be screwed by the first person you encounter, with no compensation. Indie workers here are the last in line to get paid in case of bankruptcy for instance, meaning if your client folds up owing you a month of work (usually more), you're SOL. When that happens several times in the course of a year, your reserves melt like butter very quickly.
Heh, tell that to my wife; I bought my house on contracting income. They don't care nearly as much about "stable" if your payment is going to be less than 20% of your average income over the past 5 years. Besides, if you're a corp, you pay yourself a salary (that's plenty "stable"). You then get bonuses when the company does well. Have you actually tried any of this?
Thought about it, but alas laws and regs are different here. Incorporating a company means you have to put down at least $20.000 in hard cash on the table and you must use (and pay) a separate accountant, etc. At my level of business/income, it was a financial no-go. It is my understanding this kind of procedure is cheap and straightforward in the USA, had it been the case here I would have certainly gone through it and would perhaps still have my business today. Add to this a tax system that's hitting indies real hard, with monthly tax based on the previous year (on which you have already paid tax) so if you don't earn anyting, you still have to pay a substantial sum, which you can't recover since that part goes to the national, mandatory pension fund (rejoice, you'll have access to it when you're 65!).
Dude, it's called insurance. And no, not just health and car insurance. If you actually bother to incorporate yourself, you can (and should!) have liability insurance and some form of loss/temporary disability insurance that would allow you to collect a salary and even pay someone to keep running your business for you while you're out of commission.
Then again, as I said I got screwed over majorly on this. Since then I have all my insurance contracts checked by a lawyer friend (and there's a lot to be discussed). Given the circumstances, there was simply no way I could handle hiring anyone to take over and had no other choice but to fold up. Not being able to use your hands for 9 months doesn't help, I'm telling you. Not in a country in which you don't get awarded *any* damages after a non-responsible accident from which you dare recover in less than 2 years. And certainly not when you're hit with a $35.000 hospital bill when the insurance says "sorry but we'll pay you back when we're done disagreeing with the opposite insurance, it may take in excess of one year". Yeah, I lost my business and 2 years of my life, but I'm not in a wheelchair and can use both my hands pretty much normally today, so I'm not complaining. Failing your own enterprise, losing the fruit of your labor and a big chunk of your lifestyle is hard but it's not the end of the world and I'm grateful to be alive today. Rather that than the opposite. It was my first business, which I did with no training whatsoever except in IT (and even that's not much), did many mistakes and have learnt a lot from it. Experience is always a good thing.
I'm not dissing going indie, actually I might just get back to it (maybe not in IT this time though) once I've moved away from this stupid place to one that has a system actually encouraging individual businesses. Now that I got a lawyer GF, I might just manage to do things right this time
If you are really good at what you do, you can do the complete indie thing....make great bill rates, and enjoy more time off.
Yes.
And no.
I was an indie sysadmin for 7 years, liked the first 3, not so much the rest. Being indie is no picnic, you don't know what tomorrow will be made of, which is great when you're a free-thinker who hates routine, but you soon have to pay the price for all this freedom, excitement and novelty. Not knowing what tomorrow will be like means you can kiss goodbye to any long-term plans you may have. Forget about going on holidays for more than a weekend, your clients need you. Forget about buying a house, your income isn't stable enough. And hope nothing happens to you that could keep you from working or else lose all your clients - I wasn't so lucky (bad road accident).
So I'm telling you, after awhile all you'll dream about is a nice nine-to-five job, with paid holidays (prolly more than you'd be able to take if you happen to be an indie sysadmin), benefits and the certainty you won't have to spend your evenings going through the accounting and the knowledge you'll get a paycheck at the end of the month, rather than hoping your clients will remember to pay you and not just disappear leaving you with nothing.
And being indie in IT also means you have to pay for your own training, software licenses, etc. Ha, more time off you were saying??? Let me chuckle at the thought.
Wanna be indie? Do something like being a lawyer, plumber, gardener or electrician... not in IT.
And to think that Yahoo's music service (Launch) is working just as well as always, today. I had no idea that there was any kind of boycott going on. I have Launchcast streaming all day, every day. Too bad Yahoo wasn't involved.
Then how come I get the following message if I try to listen to any stream?
" LAUNCHcast Is Off the Air - It's a Day of Silence
LAUNCHcast Radio and other webcasters are silent today, from
12 midnight EST to 11:59 pm EST. A recent COPYRIGHT ROYALTY decision will impose punishing fees that could shut down most online radio.
You can do something about it. Go to www.savenetradio.org to find out more, and call your congressional representative before JULY 15th.
Today is only one day of silence -- but if you don't speak up, this could be the only sound we'll hear from online radio. "
Looks like involvement to me...
I'm a photographer and my RAW image files are 15MB each. At every shooting, I come back with 1 to 8GB worth of data to be processed. My workflow involves working on 16-bit TIFFs that weigh in excess of 40MB/file and I'm not even counting the photoshop work files. 40GB would last less than a week here.
:P
Not being rich, I have a couple of external HDs totalling a little less than 1TB, and it's nearly full. The rest is archived on DVD or transfered to HD for storage (cheaper, faster and more reliable than DVD).
So yeah, I can easily imagine why any organisation dealing with huge media files would be interested. Heck, I'd be a client for a safe, multi-TB storage system if I could afford it... Not everybody only deals with text files for a living
Just use MozBackup to backup and restore. Works with Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Mozilla Suite and Netscape.
It allows you to backup and restore bookmarks, mail, contacts, history, extensions, cache etc.
Been using it for ages, it's one of the handiest tools I've got.
Cheers!
In the end, everybody listens to Reason.
Imagine catching wild meat like deer or ducks and grinding them up to make food pellets to raise pigs or cows.
They did it in Europe and all we got in return is Mad Cow Disease and its sibling the wonderful Creuzfeld-Jacob Disease that turns your brain into mush.
What about the American dust bowl in the early 1930's? Was that caused by huge carbon emissions or was it a small natural climate cycle that just happens?
That was man made, according to this wikipedia article:
"The Dust Bowl was the result of a series of dust storms in the central United States and Canada from 1934 to 1939, caused by decades of inappropriate farming techniques, with buffalo herds that fertilized the soil displaced by wheat farming, followed by a severe drought. The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing. During the drought, the soil dried out, became dust, and blew away eastwards, mostly in large black clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky all the way to Chicago, and much of the soil was completely lost into the Atlantic Ocean."
Get your facts straight, puhleeeaaase! Western civilization and productivist agriculture hold a nasty record in destroying the environment on a wide scale. You can't destroy entire ecosystems without suffering consequenses, short-term and long-term.
You cannot legitimately point guns at people to make them shut up.
Who's calling for guns?
The point is not to kill or maim the ones who practice hate speech, but to keep them off the air with the help of the law. In Europe, where hate speech is precisely defined and condemned by law in most countries, a dimwit like Pat Robertson wouldn't be able to spead his hate through TV and radio, even the web. What's wrong with it? Would you condone some neo-nazi ideology being aired on prime-time TV, solely on the pretense of "free speech", knowing what's happened back 60 years ago?
Hate speech, unfortunately, easily gets an audience with the frustrated populaces who want a scapegoat... I say it's better to limit the damage beforehand by simply making it as difficult as possible for those wanabe-hitlers to spread their mentally deranged speech. Laws are society's standards and I don't believe a free society would gain anything by helping its most extreme constituents spread their destructive ideology.
How would you like it if Al Qaeda were to open a TV channel and spread its anti-western propaganda towards the muslim population of your country, in the name of a freedom they're bound to anihilate?
We already put limits to freedom in many areas, mostly for the good of society... Freedom to spread racial or religious hate is something we can part with, along with murder and theft.
The USA: 280 millions ppl, somewhat educated for the most part.
India: 1 billion+ ppl, out of which a big bunch are poor and uneducated.
Educated people mostly disregard hate speech ('they know better') but we've all seen the kind of mass hysteria that can go through the poor/illiterates, whether it's in South-East Asia, the Middle-East, Africa, a football stadium or in Kentuky.
I can't stand censorship, but I don't believe hate speech should be tolerated, especially when the targeted audience doesn't 'know any better', for it leads to a form of wide scale brain-washing. Hate speech goes against the very idea of freedom and equality, why should it be tolerated? Theft is against our principles and isn't tolerated, calling for hate and murder shouldn't be either. Hate speech is what's used on populaces to spur wars and, ultimately, makes the bed for extreme dictatorships.
I don't think the exercise of freedom should require the ability to destroy what's taken centuries to achieve just to satisfy some ignorant, frustrated, deranged wannabe-dictators.
Note that I live in a country where hate/racist/negationist speech is forbidden by law and I for one find myself a lot more free than if the stupidest branch of the gene pool was able to get its way.
From what I've read, they had the entire 5 year story arc fully plotted out before they started shooting the first episode of season 1.
Nope, they only had the first season written, since back then they had no idea whether the series would be successful enough to justify funding for the rest. Then on, they only wrote storylines for the oncoming season. It's only when they had finished shooting the fourth season that they got the surprise (and late) approval for a fifth season, which explains it pretty much stands apart from the rest (most of the major arcs ended in the 4th season).
You have to remember that B5 was the first TV series to use massive CGI and its production costs were giganormous for the time!
I've just re-watched the whole series (+ movies) over a 6-weeks span... Great Maker, it felt good seeing Londo and G'Kar again!
Now if only Farscape could get its fifth season too, that'd make my day! Good thing there's BSG to fill the gap.
in a steam/turban plant the energy to move the turban doesn't _really_ come from boiling the water, it comes from super-heating the steam. You have to move the steam through the turban energetically enough to move the machinery...
Steam-powered turban?? There's a few pakistani taxi drivers who might be interested ^^