I am a Finn, and I'd say that English is definitely an easy language to learn and master. Finnish, for example, is much more difficult to learn, but it is also much more "powerful" language in terms of versatility in expressing things.
Also other languages like Russian and Swedish seem more difficult to learn than English.
Of course it helps learning a lot that you actually NEED the language in everyday life, which is the case with English. Major part of TV-programming is in English, although subtitled. Surfing the net and using a computer would be a pain in the ass without the knowledge of English.
So English definitely has many advantages over other languages, which make it easier to learn. But it is also quite an easy language initially.
This has been available in Finland for years now. I could get a plan with 800 messages per month for about 7 euros. (After the 800 they're about 10 cents a piece or something like that.) Probably other operators have even better deals.
I suppose prepaid is pretty popular in many countries, but NOT here in Finland. It's much more convenient to just pay the bills as they arrive without need to worry about re-charging etc. The problem with kids overusing the phone is solved by monthly limits of use that parents can apply with the service provider.
I've read that there will be a smaller-sized version of Blu-ray discs (probably 8cm like mini-CDs/DVDs). I think those will make much sense in the future. Easier to carry around and still plenty of space for even an HD-movie. (An HD-movie fits easily even in a DVD-disc if encoded with a modern codec! And some of these are actually sold already, encoded with WMV9.)
So basically using a 50GB disc for a ~10-15GB HD-movie is a waste of space. The smaller 8cm discs could actually get more popular than the larger ones, if movie industry sees the potential!
Yes, you definitely should change your presidential election voting system to a 2-stage system used in many democratic countries throughout the world (including my home country of Finland).
That way everybody can vote whomever they REALLY want on the first round, and then on the second round the least inferior candidate of the two remaining.
How would this system affect the upcoming elections? Ralph Nader would get a lot more votes on the first round. Probably over 10%. Bush and Kerry would still be the ones passing to second round, BUT other candidates wouldn't be there messing things up anymore, and Kerry would win by a large margin. (If used in 2000, Gore would be president now.)
The current US system definitely favors Republicans.
Yeah, the AK-47 is probably the most successful assault rifle ever. It was originally designed in the 1940's, but modifications are still in use around the world... Even some western nations use them. For example the Finnish army made it's own RK62 -variation over 40 years ago, and it is still in use.
Russia is not a democracy. It's a totalitarian state, where the man (Mr. Putin) has literally all the power. Not only is he a president, he with his allies also controls 60% of the parliament (if I remember correctly), so he can make whatever changes and laws he wishes.
All of the major TV stations are also OWNED by government corporations nowadays.
Media is also basically not allowed to talk about presidential candidates, because they have to treat everybody "equally" (which means that if you write about one candidate, you have to write about all of them, which is impossible).
Putin wasn't even elected by the people at the first place, he was chosen by former president Boris Jeltsin!
It isn't hard to imagine that Putin will make a chance to constitution which allows him to continue his presidency for more than two terms... And when he eventially resings, he will without a doubt pass his presidency to some of his buddies from KGB.
So Russia a democracy? My ass it is.
Re:I've Not Understood The Amiga Strategy For Year
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Amiga Sells AmigaOS
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Actually (S)VGA was far superior to AGA, and SVGA was a reality on the PC scene in 1992, even earlier.
CGA sucked, of course, but it was early 1980's technology.
Original Sound Blaster wasn't that great, but soon after came dozens of improved sound cards, from Creative and other manufacturers. Especially one to mention is GUS (Gravis Ultrasound), which was THE sound card to own in early to mid 1990s.
PhotoCD's are multisession discs. You theoretically would bring your old CD with you to the photoshop and they (or a Kodak center rather) would burn more photos in to it.
I got my first (and only) PhotoCD in 1993. The cost was about 200 Finnish marks (~$35) for a 24-photo disc.
Strong dollar? The US$/ exchange rate is currently $1=0.818777, so at least compared to euro, dollar has never been this weak (of course euro has been around only for a few years).
Finland is not a "great" place to live in. Of course we have universal healthcare and other benefits, but it's almost impossible to get rich in this country. With "rich" I mean something like >$40.000 (=>40.000) a year, which in U.S. standards is only an average income, if not below average.
Not to mention that Finland is the most expensive country in the euro-zone.
And it's way too cold and dark in here right now...
Well, the situation in Canada is nothing compared to Finland..
The fee for CDRs is 18,5 eurocents (that's 30,2 Canadian cents), and there is also the VAT (value added tax) of 22% that is added to every product sold in this country.
But that's just the beginning. About 75-80% of the gasoline price are taxes.. (1 liter costs about 1,15eur = 1,21USD. That's $4,56 per US gallon.)
New cars are heavily taxed. There's naturally the VAT, but in addition there is also a special tax, which is about 25% of the total price.
Alcohol is ridiculously highly taxed. One bottle of beer in a supermarket costs about $1 (quantity doesn't matter). Aluminum cans are almost non-existant due to a special "environment tax" for them.
There's even a special tax for soft-drinks! A small bottle of Coke (0.5L) costs over $1.
And last but not least, the income taxes are highest in the euro-zone...
Sometimes I hope people designing household gadgets were a little bit more innovative.
Why not include the codec in the discs themselves in software form? That way content developers could choose which codec to use on case to case basis, and if new codecs become available they could be easily utilized.
Of course this approach would require a relatively powerful CPU, but I doubt this would add to the cost too much, even today.
Slashdot Mirror
I post this here, so maybe it will be better noticed than at the bottom of the page...
According to whois.org, the registrant of viralg.com, Juha Natunen, also owns a humour site called hupsis.com.
I think one could draw some conclusions...
According to whois.org, the registrant of viralg.com , Juha Natunen, also owns a humor site called hupsis.com.
I think one could draw some conclusions...
And probably they do this with hard drives also? Disabling platters on some models...
Display adapters also come to mind.
And some CD/DVD -drives.
I am a Finn, and I'd say that English is definitely an easy language to learn and master. Finnish, for example, is much more difficult to learn, but it is also much more "powerful" language in terms of versatility in expressing things.
Also other languages like Russian and Swedish seem more difficult to learn than English.
Of course it helps learning a lot that you actually NEED the language in everyday life, which is the case with English. Major part of TV-programming is in English, although subtitled. Surfing the net and using a computer would be a pain in the ass without the knowledge of English.
So English definitely has many advantages over other languages, which make it easier to learn. But it is also quite an easy language initially.
This has been available in Finland for years now. I could get a plan with 800 messages per month for about 7 euros. (After the 800 they're about 10 cents a piece or something like that.) Probably other operators have even better deals.
I suppose prepaid is pretty popular in many countries, but NOT here in Finland. It's much more convenient to just pay the bills as they arrive without need to worry about re-charging etc. The problem with kids overusing the phone is solved by monthly limits of use that parents can apply with the service provider.
I've read that there will be a smaller-sized version of Blu-ray discs (probably 8cm like mini-CDs/DVDs). I think those will make much sense in the future. Easier to carry around and still plenty of space for even an HD-movie. (An HD-movie fits easily even in a DVD-disc if encoded with a modern codec! And some of these are actually sold already, encoded with WMV9.)
So basically using a 50GB disc for a ~10-15GB HD-movie is a waste of space. The smaller 8cm discs could actually get more popular than the larger ones, if movie industry sees the potential!
Yes, you definitely should change your presidential election voting system to a 2-stage system used in many democratic countries throughout the world (including my home country of Finland).
That way everybody can vote whomever they REALLY want on the first round, and then on the second round the least inferior candidate of the two remaining.
How would this system affect the upcoming elections? Ralph Nader would get a lot more votes on the first round. Probably over 10%. Bush and Kerry would still be the ones passing to second round, BUT other candidates wouldn't be there messing things up anymore, and Kerry would win by a large margin. (If used in 2000, Gore would be president now.)
The current US system definitely favors Republicans.
Movies still play 4% too fast on a PAL-TV, no matter what the source is - a TV-station, VHS or DVD.
As far as I know, only some software DVD-players (well, WinDVD) allow true speed playback from PAL-DVDs.
But 4% isn't enough to really bother.
Yeah, the AK-47 is probably the most successful assault rifle ever. It was originally designed in the 1940's, but modifications are still in use around the world... Even some western nations use them. For example the Finnish army made it's own RK62 -variation over 40 years ago, and it is still in use.
Russia is not a democracy. It's a totalitarian state, where the man (Mr. Putin) has literally all the power. Not only is he a president, he with his allies also controls 60% of the parliament (if I remember correctly), so he can make whatever changes and laws he wishes.
All of the major TV stations are also OWNED by government corporations nowadays.
Media is also basically not allowed to talk about presidential candidates, because they have to treat everybody "equally" (which means that if you write about one candidate, you have to write about all of them, which is impossible).
Putin wasn't even elected by the people at the first place, he was chosen by former president Boris Jeltsin!
It isn't hard to imagine that Putin will make a chance to constitution which allows him to continue his presidency for more than two terms... And when he eventially resings, he will without a doubt pass his presidency to some of his buddies from KGB.
So Russia a democracy? My ass it is.
Actually (S)VGA was far superior to AGA, and SVGA was a reality on the PC scene in 1992, even earlier.
CGA sucked, of course, but it was early 1980's technology.
Original Sound Blaster wasn't that great, but soon after came dozens of improved sound cards, from Creative and other manufacturers. Especially one to mention is GUS (Gravis Ultrasound), which was THE sound card to own in early to mid 1990s.
In Finnish, "orkut" means "orgasms"... :)
Finasteride was created for treating enlarged prostate (BPH). It was and still is effective for that purpose.
It also slows down hairloss by suppressing DHT (Dihydrotestosterone) production in the hair-follicles.
PhotoCD's are multisession discs. You theoretically would bring your old CD with you to the photoshop and they (or a Kodak center rather) would burn more photos in to it.
I got my first (and only) PhotoCD in 1993. The cost was about 200 Finnish marks (~$35) for a 24-photo disc.
Obviously Slashdot doesn't support the Euro-symbol...
Strong dollar? The US$/ exchange rate is currently $1=0.818777, so at least compared to euro, dollar has never been this weak (of course euro has been around only for a few years).
- 1993: 2,4kbit/s
- 1995: 28,8kbit/s
- 1999: ~8000kbit/s (cable)
- 2003: ~512kbit/s (same cable)
In Finland the whole economic system is very dependant on gas tax.
The gas price and tax proportion of it are pretty much the same as in the UK.
Only about 10% of the tax goes to road maintenance. The rest is used to finance the social government.
Do you know what it takes to earn a net salary of $50.000/year in Finland?
Probably under 0.1% of the population earns that much...
Finland is not a "great" place to live in. Of course we have universal healthcare and other benefits, but it's almost impossible to get rich in this country. With "rich" I mean something like >$40.000 (=>40.000) a year, which in U.S. standards is only an average income, if not below average.
Not to mention that Finland is the most expensive country in the euro-zone.
And it's way too cold and dark in here right now...
Well, the situation in Canada is nothing compared to Finland..
The fee for CDRs is 18,5 eurocents (that's 30,2 Canadian cents), and there is also the VAT (value added tax) of 22% that is added to every product sold in this country.
But that's just the beginning. About 75-80% of the gasoline price are taxes.. (1 liter costs about 1,15eur = 1,21USD. That's $4,56 per US gallon.)
New cars are heavily taxed. There's naturally the VAT, but in addition there is also a special tax, which is about 25% of the total price.
Alcohol is ridiculously highly taxed. One bottle of beer in a supermarket costs about $1 (quantity doesn't matter). Aluminum cans are almost non-existant due to a special "environment tax" for them.
There's even a special tax for soft-drinks! A small bottle of Coke (0.5L) costs over $1.
And last but not least, the income taxes are highest in the euro-zone...
I guess in 1987 an Atari ST could do anything that PC could - and probably even more.
But harddrives weren't that pricey for the PC, if I remember correctly..
True, but not every amusement park in the world has a 50-year-old, wooden coaster like in Linnanmäki, Helsinki...
Thursday.
Sometimes I hope people designing household gadgets were a little bit more innovative.
Why not include the codec in the discs themselves in software form? That way content developers could choose which codec to use on case to case basis, and if new codecs become available they could be easily utilized.
Of course this approach would require a relatively powerful CPU, but I doubt this would add to the cost too much, even today.