Piracy is just the scapegoat publishers use to justify DRM. Pirated versions of Spore were available even before the game was in store; DRM is useless in preventing piracy, if anything, it provokes piracy, and the publishers know this.
The actual goal of DRM is to prevent second-hand sales of games. Publishers know that they can't convert pirates into paying customers, but they can convert people who pay for second-hand games into people who pay for new copies. So that's what they're doing.
He/she could have added that thinking of your own anecdotal experience of a nation as typical of the whole place is also a mistake. Remember, you self-select your sample by choosing who you prefer to spend time with:P
This is untrue in this case. You don't choose who you hang with until you're able to choose where you live and work. You go to the school you go to, and that pretty much determines your friends.
The whole American culture thing was not a local fad. It was everywhere. Magazines, TV shows, the clothes people wore on the street.
who the fuck is Chuck Norris? i also grew up in the 90s and as far as i can remember, everybody wanted to take as many drugs as the Deal twins and play drums like Dale Crover:-).
This is a joke, right?
American politics these days does really piss off many people in Europe
That does not contradict what I said. In fact, I pointed out the same.
It is unfair to say that all or even most Americans dislike the French
True, but it is at some level a farily universal feeling. You can actually watch mainstream TV shows or talk shows where people will make derogatory remarks about the French, and nobody will bat an eyelid. It's universally accepted, even expected behavior.
Clearly, some Americans use these "surrender monkey" remarks as an ironic device to make fun of their fellow Americans, but that actually shows how universally this works. Speaking badly of the French so ingrained in contemporary American culture that you can make jokes about it that everyone gets.
You will never take me alive! By actually eating this non-Italian pizza, I will ensure that I will die quickly (and, unfortunately, under considerable pain).
A common mistake is to refer to Europe as one place - it's not.
Yes, I agree. I'm Swiss, and my experience is with Switzerland and its neighboring countries. I have friends in Germany, France, Austria, Italy, the UK and Spain, and I think my points hold true for those countries.
This does not mean that you won't find anyone who hates the US in those countries, of course. It's my impression that generally, people in those countries like Americans. There is no general dislike (similar to how all Americans seem to dislike the French).
Even when he got re-elected, it was roughly 25% of the population who elected him. Sure, 50% opted to not vote at all, but still, a majority did not vote for him. And while I will gladly argue the matter with the people who actually did vote for him, I won't blame those who did not.
Just wait until the recession fully kicks in; there will be plenty.
Nope. There will be plenty of unemployed poor programmers. But we will always be needing good software engineers.
In fact, since comp sci student numbers are going down where I live, while open jobs are going up, demand for good software engineers will increase during the next decade.
See, that's not a particularly useful response, now is it?
I hate Bush as much as the next guy but to blame everything on him shows how inept you are when it comes to the US government and how it functions.
Again with the ad hominems; I thought we were over that. I realize how the US government works. The president is basically the head of the executive branch of the US government, and he's the boss of the US army.
You know, we do get US news stations and papers and even Internets over here. We're also interested in these things. In fact, I would bet that many Europeans are better informed about how your government works than Americans are.
Let me finish by saying that I do not "blame everything on him." I specifically said that not re-electing him "would have stopped some of the madness." Emphasis on "some."
It's true that people in Europe will often speak to you in English, but it's more out of consideration for you, rather than because they want to practice. If you tell them that you're trying to learn their language, they will respect this and only switch to English if there's a misunderstanding.
Yes. I work in Switzerland, and all of my company's internal communication is in English, even though we have no native English-speaking person on staff (yet).
The reason for this is that with four different languages spoken, English is the most common language - not everyone speaks German, French or Italian, but everyone speaks English:-)
I guess I can shed some light on the situation in Switzerland.
There are four spoken languages here: German, Italian, French and Romanic. Typically, reasonably large companies in Switzerland have offices in at least two language areas, typically German and French or German and Italian. While the Swiss have their own version of German (which Germans don't understand when they first hear it), they will usually use the official version when talking to non-Swiss. So you can easily learn German, French and Italian in Switzerland.
All working-age Swiss speak English. There are some older people who may never have learned English, but you can easily get by even if you only know English.
I have a few American friends who live and work in Switzerland (Google has an office here, so there's tons of American Google programmers over here:-), and they seem to love it, so I guess I would recommend Switzerland. Also, we're always hiring good programmers:-)
When looking for programming jobs, I would start out in Zurich; there's a lot of software companies in Zurich.
I think admin.ch should have information on how to apply for jobs and such.
Typical European who has no idea how the US government works. George Bush is only one part. Learn the facts then come back to a US based website to debate.
Typical American, validates every preconceptions Europeans have of you with three poorly written sentences:-)
Seriously though, there's really no question that not re-electing Bush would have stopped some of the madness.
I grew up in the 90s. People over here had "America" stickers on their skateboards, wore baseball caps from US teams, had 49ers jackets, listened to Michael Jackson and every kid wanted to grow up to be like Chuck Norris. People actually bought US cars, and most sports gear was from US brands.
A lot of people spent their holidays in the US, and many planned to move there after finishing school. Having friends in the US automatically made you the cool kid.
Second, Europe doesn't hate America now; certainly not as much as the Americans seem to hate the French.
We obviously don't love the United States as much as we used to, but most Europeans are perfectly capable of distinguishing between a government and the people. We realize that a lot of Americans are unhappy with what their government is doing. We realize that you suffer more from your government's actions than we do (it doesn't exactly hurt us if your government takes away your freedoms). Our American Style Pizza is still called American Style Pizza and was never renamed to Freedom Pizza or something like this.
You are very welcome over here. There's no animosity.
As for the article's original question, programmers are always sought after in Europe. I know a few Americans how have moved over here (ironically, the opposite of what I thought would happen even a decade ago), and they seem to be happy with their choice (although sadly, they could not come with us when we went on holidays in Cuba - what the hell is up with that???).
The issues between the KHTML and WebKit teams did not last two years, and have long since been resolved. If you have to dig that deep to find some dirt, I count that in Apple's favor.
Hrm. Wikipedia or OED. That's a difficult one...(sarcasm).
Well, no. Given that the word "atheist" itself contains the meaning "non-theism", it's obvious that Wikipedia got it right. Here's the urban dictionary and the wiktionary.
As far as I can tell, only religious nuts pretend that atheism is some kind of belief system. Why they do that I don't quite understand; seems to me trying to denounce somebody else by pretending that they believe something when you yourself define yourself through your faith is borderline insane.
Slashdot Mirror
Piracy is just the scapegoat publishers use to justify DRM. Pirated versions of Spore were available even before the game was in store; DRM is useless in preventing piracy, if anything, it provokes piracy, and the publishers know this.
The actual goal of DRM is to prevent second-hand sales of games. Publishers know that they can't convert pirates into paying customers, but they can convert people who pay for second-hand games into people who pay for new copies. So that's what they're doing.
You win the discussion :-)
He/she could have added that thinking of your own anecdotal experience of a nation as typical of the whole place is also a mistake. Remember, you self-select your sample by choosing who you prefer to spend time with :P
This is untrue in this case. You don't choose who you hang with until you're able to choose where you live and work. You go to the school you go to, and that pretty much determines your friends.
The whole American culture thing was not a local fad. It was everywhere. Magazines, TV shows, the clothes people wore on the street.
Oh! Oh, I know the answer to this one.
Because it's fucking ludicrous, you twat.
And why is it fucking ludicrous?
Wait, I'm forgetting something here... Oh, I got it: I forgot to insult you, you twat.
who the fuck is Chuck Norris? i also grew up in the 90s and as far as i can remember, everybody wanted to take as many drugs as the Deal twins and play drums like Dale Crover :-).
This is a joke, right?
American politics these days does really piss off many people in Europe
That does not contradict what I said. In fact, I pointed out the same.
It is unfair to say that all or even most Americans dislike the French
True, but it is at some level a farily universal feeling. You can actually watch mainstream TV shows or talk shows where people will make derogatory remarks about the French, and nobody will bat an eyelid. It's universally accepted, even expected behavior.
Clearly, some Americans use these "surrender monkey" remarks as an ironic device to make fun of their fellow Americans, but that actually shows how universally this works. Speaking badly of the French so ingrained in contemporary American culture that you can make jokes about it that everyone gets.
You will never take me alive! By actually eating this non-Italian pizza, I will ensure that I will die quickly (and, unfortunately, under considerable pain).
A common mistake is to refer to Europe as one place - it's not.
Yes, I agree. I'm Swiss, and my experience is with Switzerland and its neighboring countries. I have friends in Germany, France, Austria, Italy, the UK and Spain, and I think my points hold true for those countries.
This does not mean that you won't find anyone who hates the US in those countries, of course. It's my impression that generally, people in those countries like Americans. There is no general dislike (similar to how all Americans seem to dislike the French).
Even when he got re-elected, it was roughly 25% of the population who elected him. Sure, 50% opted to not vote at all, but still, a majority did not vote for him. And while I will gladly argue the matter with the people who actually did vote for him, I won't blame those who did not.
Just wait until the recession fully kicks in; there will be plenty.
Nope. There will be plenty of unemployed poor programmers. But we will always be needing good software engineers.
In fact, since comp sci student numbers are going down where I live, while open jobs are going up, demand for good software engineers will increase during the next decade.
No it would not have.
Yes it would have!
See, that's not a particularly useful response, now is it?
I hate Bush as much as the next guy but to blame everything on him shows how inept you are when it comes to the US government and how it functions.
Again with the ad hominems; I thought we were over that. I realize how the US government works. The president is basically the head of the executive branch of the US government, and he's the boss of the US army.
You know, we do get US news stations and papers and even Internets over here. We're also interested in these things. In fact, I would bet that many Europeans are better informed about how your government works than Americans are.
Let me finish by saying that I do not "blame everything on him." I specifically said that not re-electing him "would have stopped some of the madness." Emphasis on "some."
It's true that people in Europe will often speak to you in English, but it's more out of consideration for you, rather than because they want to practice. If you tell them that you're trying to learn their language, they will respect this and only switch to English if there's a misunderstanding.
Well played :-)
France just loves Americans who only speak English. Maybe you can find something there.
I guess this is meant as a joke, but the replies it got show that the Americans dislike the French much more than vice-versa.
All countries (and EU) protect their labor market and do not allow foreigners to just come and work.
This is simply not true. I work in a Swiss company, and >10% of our work force is non-Swiss (mostly from Italy and Austria).
We need more software engineers, and we will hire you if you're qualified.
Yes. I work in Switzerland, and all of my company's internal communication is in English, even though we have no native English-speaking person on staff (yet).
The reason for this is that with four different languages spoken, English is the most common language - not everyone speaks German, French or Italian, but everyone speaks English :-)
"difficult to fill" == "software engineering"
The company is I work for (in Switzerland) is desperately looking for good software engineers.
I guess I can shed some light on the situation in Switzerland.
There are four spoken languages here: German, Italian, French and Romanic. Typically, reasonably large companies in Switzerland have offices in at least two language areas, typically German and French or German and Italian. While the Swiss have their own version of German (which Germans don't understand when they first hear it), they will usually use the official version when talking to non-Swiss. So you can easily learn German, French and Italian in Switzerland.
All working-age Swiss speak English. There are some older people who may never have learned English, but you can easily get by even if you only know English.
I have a few American friends who live and work in Switzerland (Google has an office here, so there's tons of American Google programmers over here :-), and they seem to love it, so I guess I would recommend Switzerland. Also, we're always hiring good programmers :-)
When looking for programming jobs, I would start out in Zurich; there's a lot of software companies in Zurich.
I think admin.ch should have information on how to apply for jobs and such.
Typical European who has no idea how the US government works. George Bush is only one part. Learn the facts then come back to a US based website to debate.
Typical American, validates every preconceptions Europeans have of you with three poorly written sentences :-)
Seriously though, there's really no question that not re-electing Bush would have stopped some of the madness.
First of all, Europe used to love America.
I grew up in the 90s. People over here had "America" stickers on their skateboards, wore baseball caps from US teams, had 49ers jackets, listened to Michael Jackson and every kid wanted to grow up to be like Chuck Norris. People actually bought US cars, and most sports gear was from US brands.
A lot of people spent their holidays in the US, and many planned to move there after finishing school. Having friends in the US automatically made you the cool kid.
Second, Europe doesn't hate America now; certainly not as much as the Americans seem to hate the French.
We obviously don't love the United States as much as we used to, but most Europeans are perfectly capable of distinguishing between a government and the people. We realize that a lot of Americans are unhappy with what their government is doing. We realize that you suffer more from your government's actions than we do (it doesn't exactly hurt us if your government takes away your freedoms). Our American Style Pizza is still called American Style Pizza and was never renamed to Freedom Pizza or something like this.
You are very welcome over here. There's no animosity.
As for the article's original question, programmers are always sought after in Europe. I know a few Americans how have moved over here (ironically, the opposite of what I thought would happen even a decade ago), and they seem to be happy with their choice (although sadly, they could not come with us when we went on holidays in Cuba - what the hell is up with that???).
"Tongue only slightly in cheek, but drawing parallels between the United States and Germany under Wilhelm or Hitler is hilarious"
And why is it hilarious?
The issues between the KHTML and WebKit teams did not last two years, and have long since been resolved. If you have to dig that deep to find some dirt, I count that in Apple's favor.
I not only read the article, I also even tried out the software for a day or so. (Several days ago.)
Looks more like a classic case of "let's assume someone is ignorant, simply because we don't agree with them" to me...
Actually, I think it's a classic case of "I can't use this, so it must be useless for everyone" thinking :-)
Hrm. Wikipedia or OED. That's a difficult one...(sarcasm).
Well, no. Given that the word "atheist" itself contains the meaning "non-theism", it's obvious that Wikipedia got it right. Here's the urban dictionary and the wiktionary.
As far as I can tell, only religious nuts pretend that atheism is some kind of belief system. Why they do that I don't quite understand; seems to me trying to denounce somebody else by pretending that they believe something when you yourself define yourself through your faith is borderline insane.
The problem is a different definition of the word. I'm going with this one:
Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods, or the rejection of theism.