On the other hand, region-free DVD-drives for computers are almost non-existant without a firmware upgrade that allows some drives to be modified to RPC-1.
As I understand it, the drive-manufacturers made an agreement that all drives made after January 2000 must be region-locked.
Luckily I have a DVD-drive that I was able to make RPC-1 (=region free) with a firmware upgrade. But I haven't ever watched a region 1 DVD, and it is possible that I never will or even want to, as region 2 DVDs have better picture quality (=resolution). The resolution of region 2 DVDs are often 720x576. Region 1 DVDs have usually a resolution of 720x480, and to make things worse, it often has to be de-interlaced (BOB'ed) to avoid artifacts, which (depending on the BOB-method) can reduce the effective resolution to 720x240 (=to half).
In the case of the region 2 DVDs the de-interlacing is usually (in the cases of 24fps film-based material) not necessary, so the DVDs can be viewed at full resolution of 720x576.
Linus, as far as I know, belongs to the 6% Swedish-speaking minority, but he also speaks Finnish fluently like almost all of the others in the 6% minority.
CDRs cost around 60c a piece in Finland. The funny thing is, about 20c of the price goes directly to local equivalent of AARC (Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies), which charges licencing fees for each CDR (or cassette or MP3-player..) sold. They charge twice as much for audio-CDRs.
The fee is ridiculously high and unjustified in general.
Actually it's Finland that has the smallest differences in wages (and income in general). This means that it's extraordinarily difficult to get rich here.
Czech Republic probably has many opportunities - but not necessarily for working-class people. If I was a middle-class Czech, I would move out of there as soon as Czech Republic becomes a member of the EU.
As well as being the most violent, Finland also happens to have the most over-weight people in the western Europe..:) It's not surprising that many people consider Finland as the most "American" state in Europe.
You are right saying that the social system is probably better in Europe than in the US. How well the social system actually works is another thing. Sick people often have to wait a long time to get a surgery, many times too long. Hospitals have too few nurses and doctors.
It's also very, very difficult to get wealthy here. Everyone gets enough cash to get by - but changes of a wealthier life are minimal.
America, on the other hand, is a land of an opportunity. Someone living there can at least dream of a better future.
The government doesn't necessarily take 50% of our paycheck (unless your income is huge or you have more than 1 job at the same time).
They DO take 22% of the price every time I buy milk and cookies, 70% when I buy gasoline, and about 50% when I buy a new car (or to put it another way: they add 100% taxes to the net price of a new car).
This is how it works here in Finland. Pretty much the same everywhere in Europe, except that the cars and food aren't as heavily taxed in most (if not all) member countries.
I think that the UK is actually much, much worse than the US. For example, just recently the police asked an art gallery to remove some photos which the photographer took of his naked children on a beach. They consider it "child pornography".
The standard of living is also quite low in the UK, lower than in most other EU-countries and MUCH lower than in the US.
The amount of violence varies a lot across the Europe. UK is quite violent, but I happen to live in the most violent country in western Europe measured in the number homicides and other violent crimes. I live in Finland.
A perfect country doesn't exist. Dispite the lack of "total" freedom and some other foolishnesses, the USA is pretty much the best bang for the buck we (the Earthlings) got.
Napster is perfectly legal. It's basically just a search engine.
Napster can also be used in law-obeying manner, ie. for swapping non-copyrighted MP3 files.
Sure, but he is doing nothing illegal. The newsgroup and the content of it are also probably 99% legal as there aren't supposed to be any binaries in it. There's nothing illegal in written stories about sex with 14-year-olds.
Even if the newsgroup WAS intended for binaries, not nearly all of the content would be illegal. And it sure isn't ISP's job make a judgment about the legality of a particular message.
Perverts watching kiddie pr0n don't directly produce injury to the child in question, but the theory is, that the audience "feeds" the activity.
Well I think that free speech (or the 1st amandment as you Americans call the same thing) should be unconditional. No exceptions. I don't like kiddie pornography, but trading those pictures is pretty much a victimless crime, and for the sake of free speech, we must accept it, because if we make ANY limitations to free speech, we're ultimately no better than authorities of communistic China, for example.
"alt.binaries.erotica.children" is just a newsgroup name. Should ISPs remove a newsgroup from their servers just based on its name? Any newsgroup may or may not include so called "illegal" material (speech is never illegal in my opinion).
Not a single newsgroup include ONLY "illegal" material. On the other hand, ANY newsgroup may contain SOME "illegal" material. (Kiddie pr0n, by the way, is just the tip of the iceberg.. What about MP3s for example?? Or warez?? Or bomb-making guides??)
Is it ISP's job to decide what is illegal and what's not? No it's not.
The conclusion: newsgroups are going to get banned. ISPs can't afford to take the risk that somebody may post "illegal" material to their newsservers.
Taxes are very high in Scandinavia (I live in Finland, but situation is same in Norway and Sweden also), weather sucks, and wages rarely are as high as in the US. A Big Mac costs twice as much as in the US. As well as a coke. And so on. Not to mention liquor, which is very heavily taxed.
Scandinavian region is a good place for poor people, but it would be very dumb for a US IT-professional to come work here. Unless you are already so rich that you don't care about money any more..
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's 160 letters.
SMS has been part of the GSM-standard from the beginning (early 1990s), and every single phone has had that feature for at least 5 years now.
On the other hand, region-free DVD-drives for computers are almost non-existant without a firmware upgrade that allows some drives to be modified to RPC-1.
As I understand it, the drive-manufacturers made an agreement that all drives made after January 2000 must be region-locked.
Luckily I have a DVD-drive that I was able to make RPC-1 (=region free) with a firmware upgrade. But I haven't ever watched a region 1 DVD, and it is possible that I never will or even want to, as region 2 DVDs have better picture quality (=resolution). The resolution of region 2 DVDs are often 720x576. Region 1 DVDs have usually a resolution of 720x480, and to make things worse, it often has to be de-interlaced (BOB'ed) to avoid artifacts, which (depending on the BOB-method) can reduce the effective resolution to 720x240 (=to half).
In the case of the region 2 DVDs the de-interlacing is usually (in the cases of 24fps film-based material) not necessary, so the DVDs can be viewed at full resolution of 720x576.
Sure, but competition ensures that solutions are actively being searched for.
If there weren't any competition, THE harddrive manufacturer most certainly wouldn't throw as much money into research.
1TB can hold only ~150 DVD movies, which isn't very much.
240 gigs of storage space has room for only ~50 DVDs, which is not nearly enough.
Linus, as far as I know, belongs to the 6% Swedish-speaking minority, but he also speaks Finnish fluently like almost all of the others in the 6% minority.
Not only that, there was many CD-players even in the DOS-era that recognized individual CDs as they were inserted.
Finland has fourth largest relative amount of civilian handguns in the world.. So..
I'm a Finn myself, but clearly not as proud of it as you are.
CDRs cost around 60c a piece in Finland. The funny thing is, about 20c of the price goes directly to local equivalent of AARC (Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies), which charges licencing fees for each CDR (or cassette or MP3-player..) sold. They charge twice as much for audio-CDRs.
The fee is ridiculously high and unjustified in general.
That shouldn't make you hate the product, as the advertiser of the product actually pays for the service for you.
Banner ads are not the only form of net-advertising. I'd be happy to see everyone figure that one out.
Advertising is more effective, if people are forced to view them, for example full screen before entering a service/site.
We all are creatures of nature, so everything we do is "natural". Even typing with a keyboard or whatever.
Actually it's Finland that has the smallest differences in wages (and income in general). This means that it's extraordinarily difficult to get rich here.
Czech Republic probably has many opportunities - but not necessarily for working-class people. If I was a middle-class Czech, I would move out of there as soon as Czech Republic becomes a member of the EU.
As well as being the most violent, Finland also happens to have the most over-weight people in the western Europe.. :) It's not surprising that many people consider Finland as the most "American" state in Europe.
You are right saying that the social system is probably better in Europe than in the US. How well the social system actually works is another thing. Sick people often have to wait a long time to get a surgery, many times too long. Hospitals have too few nurses and doctors.
It's also very, very difficult to get wealthy here. Everyone gets enough cash to get by - but changes of a wealthier life are minimal.
America, on the other hand, is a land of an opportunity. Someone living there can at least dream of a better future.
The government doesn't necessarily take 50% of our paycheck (unless your income is huge or you have more than 1 job at the same time).
They DO take 22% of the price every time I buy milk and cookies, 70% when I buy gasoline, and about 50% when I buy a new car (or to put it another way: they add 100% taxes to the net price of a new car).
This is how it works here in Finland. Pretty much the same everywhere in Europe, except that the cars and food aren't as heavily taxed in most (if not all) member countries.
I think that the UK is actually much, much worse than the US. For example, just recently the police asked an art gallery to remove some photos which the photographer took of his naked children on a beach. They consider it "child pornography".
The standard of living is also quite low in the UK, lower than in most other EU-countries and MUCH lower than in the US.
The amount of violence varies a lot across the Europe. UK is quite violent, but I happen to live in the most violent country in western Europe measured in the number homicides and other violent crimes. I live in Finland.
A perfect country doesn't exist. Dispite the lack of "total" freedom and some other foolishnesses, the USA is pretty much the best bang for the buck we (the Earthlings) got.
Janne
Napster is perfectly legal. It's basically just a search engine. Napster can also be used in law-obeying manner, ie. for swapping non-copyrighted MP3 files.
Sure, but he is doing nothing illegal. The newsgroup and the content of it are also probably 99% legal as there aren't supposed to be any binaries in it. There's nothing illegal in written stories about sex with 14-year-olds.
Even if the newsgroup WAS intended for binaries, not nearly all of the content would be illegal. And it sure isn't ISP's job make a judgment about the legality of a particular message.
It's still just a newsgroup name. It isn't even supposed to have binary content in it, because those groups start with "alt.binaries..."
"alt.porn.child.fourteen" is just a newsgroup name. It may or may not contain "illegal" material. Often these groups contain both.
Besides, is it ISP's job to decide what content is illegal and what is not?
Perverts watching kiddie pr0n don't directly produce injury to the child in question, but the theory is, that the audience "feeds" the activity.
Well I think that free speech (or the 1st amandment as you Americans call the same thing) should be unconditional. No exceptions. I don't like kiddie pornography, but trading those pictures is pretty much a victimless crime, and for the sake of free speech, we must accept it, because if we make ANY limitations to free speech, we're ultimately no better than authorities of communistic China, for example.
"alt.binaries.erotica.children" is just a newsgroup name. Should ISPs remove a newsgroup from their servers just based on its name? Any newsgroup may or may not include so called "illegal" material (speech is never illegal in my opinion).
Not a single newsgroup include ONLY "illegal" material. On the other hand, ANY newsgroup may contain SOME "illegal" material. (Kiddie pr0n, by the way, is just the tip of the iceberg.. What about MP3s for example?? Or warez?? Or bomb-making guides??)
Is it ISP's job to decide what is illegal and what's not? No it's not.
The conclusion: newsgroups are going to get banned. ISPs can't afford to take the risk that somebody may post "illegal" material to their newsservers.
Think about it: no resistance - no heat...
Cellphone freqs? Being able to hear those is pretty useless in Europe, as GSM is digital and encrypted. Usage of analog cellphones is very minimal.
Answer to your question: no it's not.
Taxes are very high in Scandinavia (I live in Finland, but situation is same in Norway and Sweden also), weather sucks, and wages rarely are as high as in the US. A Big Mac costs twice as much as in the US. As well as a coke. And so on. Not to mention liquor, which is very heavily taxed.
Scandinavian region is a good place for poor people, but it would be very dumb for a US IT-professional to come work here. Unless you are already so rich that you don't care about money any more..
Janne