GSM/GPRS is slowly progressing here. It still has a long way to go though. There has never been much compatibility between wireless carriers' networks but with AT&T and T-Mobile's new attempts at building up GSM/GPRS networks, this might finally change.
I still can't believe that you have to buy a new phone here just to switch companies.
The FCC has ruled a long time ago that telemarketers may not call cell phones because cell phone customers would have to pay for the minutes. If a telemarketer calls you on your cell phone, you have a good chance in seeing some $$$ by filing a complaint with the FCC or taking it to court.
I was reading trillion and meaning trillion. Dunno how that billion got there.
Either way, when you look at the article you will actually see that the author of the article got it wrong. 652,000 x $150,000 = $97,800,000,000 which is really "just" $97.8 billion, not trillion.
Just because something becomes part of the public domain doesn't mean the prior owner has to release it to the public. Microsoft may very well hang onto the source code. However, if at that time somebody were to acquire a copy of that code or reverse-engineer it from the MS-DOS binaries, Microsoft couldn't sue them for copyright infringement.
Sending unsolicitied advertising via postal mail is illegal in a number of European countries, most noticeably Germany. The law is not limited to postal mail though: no business without a business relationship to you may directly contact you against your will. In any buiness transaction, the customer has to do the first step (have the intent of having a business transaction). It's part of the German Personality Rights (which, for example, also make it a civil offense to insult someone).
You can bet your butt that car manufacturers and the petroleum industry will make certain that this is not going to happen anytime in the future or heavily proprietized. There would be no need for overprized gas stations anymore, if you could just get some ethanol-derivative from the grocery store. I'm almost certain that you won't find this used in larger style until oil becomes too rare and thus too expensive.
And they royally fuck up when you continue a line, because the right place to put the line continuation is rarely a tabstop.
That can be fixed easily: stop trying to indent code and align it with something in the line before. It's simple. That way, it makes no difference what indentation different people use because it will still just be one tab stop further than the line before (if it's a continuation
At the end, tabs are a matter of coding style. I prefer tabs because I can set my tab length to be anything I want and the code I get looks just right.
Use a crappy editor and you get what you deserve. Any decent editor will do the right thing. Vim allows you to set the tabstop, the indent level, and translate tabs to spaces properly.
I'm using BCB. Borland's editors aren't necessarily known for their great features but I have yet to find a more useful and responsive IDE under Windows.
Ctrl-Right is a clunky key combination if I've ever seen one. It is also not universal in that sometimes I need the Right key to navigate and sometimes the Ctrl-Right.
The whole point of tabs is that ever user can change what a tab expands too. Some people like to read C(++) with two space indentation and some with four space indentation. Tabs are perfect for this kind of scenario as they automatically adjust the code to what the reader expects.
Also, with spaces, many editors will require you to hit the right-key for every space to get to the next indentation level. With tabs, most editors will let you jump in increments of the size of the tabs
I do. I read a newspaper from my hometown every day. I just go thru each section and have all the articles load in the background. Once I'm done with that, I close that tab and read each of the articles in the order I opened them.
This was always a pain in IE because it would open a new window in front of the one I'm getting the links from. Then, after switching back to that window, the newly opened window would grab focus again. Quite a nuisance.
I would have to disagree with that. While educational and administratives purposes are definitely a part of what university networks are for, entertainment is an important part too. Especially so, if you consider that a lot of students live in overpriced dorms anyway. Right now, I'm paying $675/month for a room the size of an average kitchen with bathroom down the hall, heating and air with a response time of two days and crappy food on campus. The internet connection is really just a consolation for the high cost.
And before you say that I don't have to live in the dorms, I'm sure my school is not the only one requring students to live on campus for at least a year.
Take a laptop and dial-up to a cheap carrier. That's really the cheapest and easiest way to get internet access. Libraries sometimes will offer internet access but it's still rare. Because dial-up flatrates don't exist, you will hardly find any places that offer free public internet access.
Another option is to get a GSM/GPRS handy and hook it up to your laptop (gotta have one of those). It's a bit costly but virtually 100% reliably as cell phone service in Germany is close to perfect (with the exception of new year's eve at midnight maybe).
It is also a legal issue. In general, German law doesn't allow for oral contracts. If you stay in Germany for a while you will notice that almost every significant transaction is covered by written contract including all leases and matters of employment.
As a result, entering into or cancelling contracts over the phone are discouraged and you will find that most companies will ask you to either fax or mail a contract or cancellation request. Make sure you sign it too or you just wasted at lesat $.50 in postage or whatever you just paid for faxing it.
You only have to remember that dial-up flatrates are not offered in Germany. It might come as a shock to most Americans but in Germany you pay for local calls by the minute.
Customer service in general is rather crap which also means that you will find that most companies charge you for calling them beyond the rate of normal local calls. Only a select few offer toll-free phone access.
callingcard.com. You sign up with them and charge an up front balance to your credit card. They offer Germany for 7.5c/minute. The advantage is that you don't have to switch phone companies with that. You can also use your caller id to serve as your customer ID so all you have to do is dial your local access number (speed dial), wait for the prompt, and then dial the foreign number. Works like a charm for me.
see post above. It was introduced with the protected mode as a method of accessing low-level OS functions while working in a different app. That was before multi-tasking windowing systems were avaialable for the PC.
I presume the hardware designers back then expected multi-tasking to work so that only one application at any given time could occupy the screen and you needed some sort of key to switch between them.
Of course, all that is only true for the Microsoft plattform. Linux has been using it for a while to the exact purpose it was originally intended (keyboard access to critical OS functions). Windows never did that.
IIRC, the SysRq key was introduced with the 286 protected mode. It was thought that this key would provide access to operating system functions in that mode while a regular app is running.
This is exactly the kind of software I learned to hate. As a student without my own computer, the only internet access I could get was through the computers in the library. Curiously enough, every so often all my personalized settings and the files I saved to the hard disk would just disappear.
I got rather pissed when I found out what was going on. There's got to be better ways to deal with this kind of thing. It's a pain in the butt having to change the resolution and all kinds of IE settings everytime I log onto a new computer. I thought Win2k had roaming profiles?
Sensible judges will not take such a lawsuit. Judges with an ego and/or personal interest in the subject will probably take it and act in contrast to centuries of case law.
The question then is if the authorities in the other country will comply with the extradition request. They will weigh very carefully whether extradition is appropriate in that particular context.
But even in that case, the court still has to have jurisdiction over the case. That implies that the offense was actually committed on US territory. So, if you killed someone and fled to another country, most likely--provided that country has an extradition agreement--you will be deported back to the US. But if you commit a crime in another country, you can't be prosecuted in the US for it.
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GSM/GPRS is slowly progressing here. It still has a long way to go though. There has never been much compatibility between wireless carriers' networks but with AT&T and T-Mobile's new attempts at building up GSM/GPRS networks, this might finally change.
I still can't believe that you have to buy a new phone here just to switch companies.
The FCC has ruled a long time ago that telemarketers may not call cell phones because cell phone customers would have to pay for the minutes. If a telemarketer calls you on your cell phone, you have a good chance in seeing some $$$ by filing a complaint with the FCC or taking it to court.
http://www.webster.com/mw/table/number.htm
An American Billion is what the Brits call a Milliard and it's the same as 1,000,000,000. The British Billion is actually the American Trillion.
So, by all accounts that I can find, 97,000,000,000 are no 97 trillion in either system.
I was reading trillion and meaning trillion. Dunno how that billion got there.
Either way, when you look at the article you will actually see that the author of the article got it wrong. 652,000 x $150,000 = $97,800,000,000 which is really "just" $97.8 billion, not trillion.
97.8 Billion US$ = approx. Earth's accumulated GDP Nov 10, 1998 - Dec 31, 2001.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2000/02/ data/#1
What are busines school's teaching students these days???
The only problem with Pascal (nowadays) is that compilers/debuggers seem hard to come by.
Borland sells and maintains an exceptional programming system based on a Pascal dialect called Delphi.
Just because something becomes part of the public domain doesn't mean the prior owner has to release it to the public. Microsoft may very well hang onto the source code. However, if at that time somebody were to acquire a copy of that code or reverse-engineer it from the MS-DOS binaries, Microsoft couldn't sue them for copyright infringement.
Sending unsolicitied advertising via postal mail is illegal in a number of European countries, most noticeably Germany. The law is not limited to postal mail though: no business without a business relationship to you may directly contact you against your will. In any buiness transaction, the customer has to do the first step (have the intent of having a business transaction). It's part of the German Personality Rights (which, for example, also make it a civil offense to insult someone).
You can bet your butt that car manufacturers and the petroleum industry will make certain that this is not going to happen anytime in the future or heavily proprietized. There would be no need for overprized gas stations anymore, if you could just get some ethanol-derivative from the grocery store. I'm almost certain that you won't find this used in larger style until oil becomes too rare and thus too expensive.
And they royally fuck up when you continue a line, because the right place to put the line continuation is rarely a tabstop.
That can be fixed easily: stop trying to indent code and align it with something in the line before. It's simple. That way, it makes no difference what indentation different people use because it will still just be one tab stop further than the line before (if it's a continuation
At the end, tabs are a matter of coding style. I prefer tabs because I can set my tab length to be anything I want and the code I get looks just right.
Use a crappy editor and you get what you deserve. Any decent editor will do the right thing. Vim allows you to set the tabstop, the indent level, and translate tabs to spaces properly.
I'm using BCB. Borland's editors aren't necessarily known for their great features but I have yet to find a more useful and responsive IDE under Windows.
Ctrl-Right is a clunky key combination if I've ever seen one. It is also not universal in that sometimes I need the Right key to navigate and sometimes the Ctrl-Right.
The whole point of tabs is that ever user can change what a tab expands too. Some people like to read C(++) with two space indentation and some with four space indentation. Tabs are perfect for this kind of scenario as they automatically adjust the code to what the reader expects.
Also, with spaces, many editors will require you to hit the right-key for every space to get to the next indentation level. With tabs, most editors will let you jump in increments of the size of the tabs
I do. I read a newspaper from my hometown every day. I just go thru each section and have all the articles load in the background. Once I'm done with that, I close that tab and read each of the articles in the order I opened them.
This was always a pain in IE because it would open a new window in front of the one I'm getting the links from. Then, after switching back to that window, the newly opened window would grab focus again. Quite a nuisance.
Are you nuts? How many more years is it going to take for people to realize that tabs are better?
I would have to disagree with that. While educational and administratives purposes are definitely a part of what university networks are for, entertainment is an important part too. Especially so, if you consider that a lot of students live in overpriced dorms anyway. Right now, I'm paying $675/month for a room the size of an average kitchen with bathroom down the hall, heating and air with a response time of two days and crappy food on campus. The internet connection is really just a consolation for the high cost.
And before you say that I don't have to live in the dorms, I'm sure my school is not the only one requring students to live on campus for at least a year.
Take a laptop and dial-up to a cheap carrier. That's really the cheapest and easiest way to get internet access. Libraries sometimes will offer internet access but it's still rare. Because dial-up flatrates don't exist, you will hardly find any places that offer free public internet access.
Another option is to get a GSM/GPRS handy and hook it up to your laptop (gotta have one of those). It's a bit costly but virtually 100% reliably as cell phone service in Germany is close to perfect (with the exception of new year's eve at midnight maybe).
It is also a legal issue. In general, German law doesn't allow for oral contracts. If you stay in Germany for a while you will notice that almost every significant transaction is covered by written contract including all leases and matters of employment.
As a result, entering into or cancelling contracts over the phone are discouraged and you will find that most companies will ask you to either fax or mail a contract or cancellation request. Make sure you sign it too or you just wasted at lesat $.50 in postage or whatever you just paid for faxing it.
You only have to remember that dial-up flatrates are not offered in Germany. It might come as a shock to most Americans but in Germany you pay for local calls by the minute.
Customer service in general is rather crap which also means that you will find that most companies charge you for calling them beyond the rate of normal local calls. Only a select few offer toll-free phone access.
callingcard.com. You sign up with them and charge an up front balance to your credit card. They offer Germany for 7.5c/minute. The advantage is that you don't have to switch phone companies with that. You can also use your caller id to serve as your customer ID so all you have to do is dial your local access number (speed dial), wait for the prompt, and then dial the foreign number. Works like a charm for me.
see post above. It was introduced with the protected mode as a method of accessing low-level OS functions while working in a different app. That was before multi-tasking windowing systems were avaialable for the PC.
I presume the hardware designers back then expected multi-tasking to work so that only one application at any given time could occupy the screen and you needed some sort of key to switch between them.
Of course, all that is only true for the Microsoft plattform. Linux has been using it for a while to the exact purpose it was originally intended (keyboard access to critical OS functions). Windows never did that.
IIRC, the SysRq key was introduced with the 286 protected mode. It was thought that this key would provide access to operating system functions in that mode while a regular app is running.
It never served any real purpose.
This is exactly the kind of software I learned to hate. As a student without my own computer, the only internet access I could get was through the computers in the library. Curiously enough, every so often all my personalized settings and the files I saved to the hard disk would just disappear.
I got rather pissed when I found out what was going on. There's got to be better ways to deal with this kind of thing. It's a pain in the butt having to change the resolution and all kinds of IE settings everytime I log onto a new computer. I thought Win2k had roaming profiles?
Sensible judges will not take such a lawsuit. Judges with an ego and/or personal interest in the subject will probably take it and act in contrast to centuries of case law.
The question then is if the authorities in the other country will comply with the extradition request. They will weigh very carefully whether extradition is appropriate in that particular context.
But even in that case, the court still has to have jurisdiction over the case. That implies that the offense was actually committed on US territory. So, if you killed someone and fled to another country, most likely--provided that country has an extradition agreement--you will be deported back to the US. But if you commit a crime in another country, you can't be prosecuted in the US for it.