No, Apple has enjoyed a very successful year thanks to the Intel switch alone. In fact they are expecting further growth thanks to A. Adobe products for the intel OS X and B. Paralllels' virtualization products.
..(and other Eastern bloc countries) start taking cybercrime seriously, it should just be cut off the net entirely
The former Eastern Block countries that were under Soviet occupation are now all part of the European Union and NATO. The countries you seek to "cut off" are part of your greatest ally, trade partner(s) and defense alliance!
No, people adopt the napoleonic code because it's simple - fits in two volumes
Actually the Napoleonic code was adopted because it was a revolution in more ways than it's structure and organisation. It provided a very effective and just system. I could go on but I'd rather get back to my Law studies. But I will say this much; my own legal system uses one (1) single core volume of some 3000+ pages. And the German work of codification, BGB, inspired the world as far away as China and Japan.
Since then, personal rights have remained where they were
Actually I strongly disagree with you. The UN has been instrumental in creating new treaties securing new, better and stronger civil rights for the people of the world. However the conventions are not effective with out a strong enforcer.
That problem has been solved in Europe with the European Human Rights Convention of 1950. The treaty is valid in every European country and then some. It is enforced by the Council of Europe and more importantly by the European Union. The EU restricts political and trade links with countries that do not respect and adhere to the convention(s) and their additional protocols.
The last few years a growing number of citizens in Eastern European countries have found it an effective tool to pressure their national governments into respecting their rights. Western European citizens have used it successfully since the 1950s. Especially in Russia where freedoms are under extreme pressure this has given people a strong position that even powerful and ruthless governments are afraid of! I invite you to read the catalogue of righs contained in the convention. And please compare it with your comparable American Human Rights Convention (not the Bill of Rights).
It's a pity US law is based on English law and not on Scots law, maybe life in the USA would be less complicated.
And Scots law is if anything more or less a mix of continental Civil Law and Common Law. Probably a good combination for everyone. Except that the Civil Law legal system, as is, works very well for most of the world today.
Excuse me but the Napoleonic Law was innovative and revolutionary - so much in fact it remained the legal code of choice for the countries formerly-occupied under Napoleon. If anything the French Code Civil was and is a very good system of law. And today most of the world's legal systems are based up on the Civil Law legal system with deep French roots. The US legal system however is mostly based up on Common Law..
While the letter of the law comes from a book, this is why we have a court system to deal with cases and interpret intent of laws in addition to "the letter."
Actually I'd like to point out that it would not be exactly the same. Because the incident happened in Norway which like most of the world has a Civil Law legal system. The article does not explain properly how it differs from Common Law - but the judge is only allowed to "interpret" within a very limited scope. It would take a book to explain it all. The penal code section the verdict refers to covers any "person" incapable of "consenting". It's all about equality. Our system also allows for such things as the right for men to seek alimony from their wives should they get divorced et cetera.
So unless you have ruling in your local US state this protection is not afforded American men. Or are you from Canada?
You are almost correct - it happened in Norway a year ago. The man was furious because he was in a relationship and had nothing to do with the woman that "raped" him. People might make fun of it - but he felt violated. .
Who is beating down walls to sneaking into Norway?
Are you kidding?? They are beating on our walls every day. People from all over the world people are seeking asylum in Norway to enjoy the peaceful, democratic and wealthy society we have. We don't have open borders in theory - but the economic migrants just claim political asylum instead.
And we experience the exact same problems you do with immigrants - the second generation born in the country are the most productive and integrated.
Today Norway has a good 3-5% immigrants in our vast country - but small homogenic population. You consider Mexico and Latin America your closest poor neighbours - in Europe we have Africa, the Middle East and Asia next door! The greatest groups of foreigners in Norway are Pakistanis, Turks, Iraqi Kurds and North Africans and Somalis! See any connection with their origins and certain wars by the way?
Just today it was featured on the news that last year saw record immigration from our poorer European cousins - and our borders are closed for open immigration from outside the European Union. The most wealthy country in Europe and ranked #1 by the UN (as the place to live) is bound to attract quite a few people!
The economy is always important in election campaigns obviously but the Norwegian political scene is dominated by moderate forces that want to make sure we don't waste the wealth we have been fortunate enough to find on just our contemporaries. The oil wealth is seen as the rightful inheritance of the future generations (arvesølvet) - not something just today's generation should enjoy the benefits of.
The political parties differ on what percentage of the surplus we might use today - if any at all. Some extreme suggestions from the extreme right Fremskrittspartiet, eq. the Danish Folkepartiet, have been to invest all of it today in education and infrastructure. It might sound like a good idea but the consequences would be terrible for our economy - and very short lived just like the Dutch "disease".
The two greatest parties with a majority of the vote oppose increasing the pressure on a very "hot" economy with low unemployment, high spending/borrowing and low interest rates. The Conservative Party wanted to spend less than anyone else, and the same goes for Labour.
Yes, we have had wonderful weather in the Greater Oslo area lately:)
Okay, Deternal, I see you are from Denmark - and we can discuss the level of "socialism" in Scandinavia and Europe. But the term "Socialism" in the US and the way Americans use it - just does not apply to Europe today. They don't understand that social-democracy is not the Soviet "socialism" they used to scare their population with back during the Cold War.
Secondly I'd like to point out that the US has had "socialist" policies like welfare and work programs since the 1930s and the "New Deal". They just don't like talking about where those ideas came from ideologically:)
I think you have totally misunderstood the Norwegian economy - and especially the Norwegian oil money. We actually save all of the surplus income in a pension fund invested abroad (to not create inflation at home). That fund is now the worlds largest fund after the California state workers pension fund. In other words we don't use the oil money now - we are saving them.
And just to make it perfectly clear - Norway is not a part of the EU - and never will be.
The Kingdom of Norway is NOT a socialist country. Being one of the founding members of NATO, the UN and the OECD. It's a social-democratic multi-party democracy where healthcare, schools and universities are free of charge. Where the government saves for your pension (but not exclusively), generous welfare/unemployment benefits and maternity leave is paid. Where the government wants broadband in every home - at affordable prices. Where the Consumer Ombudsman looks out for the consumers, hehe. I'm very proud of my country as you can tell:)
Well I suppose that is a valid enough reason to have one. However I believe the main reason people purchase printers is to print documents and such on paper. And for that purpose I see little reason to buy an inkjet printer. In fact I wonder why they're still around except for their low cost of production - and the hugely profitable ink business of course. I believe the consumer however would be much better served with a cheap color/BW laser printer.
I don't know why people even buy inkjets any longer. Those multifunction printers are awful and expensive to use. I have HP color Laserjets with network cards in all my places of work and at home. They barely cost anything and produce great quality at reasonable prices. The inkjets I have were freebies I received with my Dell orders - I couldn't even make Dell keep them..
And what Western democracies would that be? This is a question of definitions. Please remember that the Westmay include South America - but only if you disregard the economic criteria. I certainly don't include them. But perhaps it would be better to compare apples with apples.
The North or the countries of the OECD might make for more interesting and relevant comparisons. European democracies actually work. But then again we have proportional representation.
Actually quite a lot of films made in the US today are financed from abroad - and the profits also go there. Most production companies do not sell their products directly - they have distributors in each country. Not sold from America in other words.
Since the German government instituted a tax incentive program to encourage film making Germans have been funding lots of Hollywood movies. Not that the German government wanted to support Hollywood.. but that's just politics for you.
Oh, and companies like Universal is partly owned by the French Vivendi group. Columbia is owned by Sony of Japan... TimeWarner is publicly traded. etc
Since Apple doesn't produce low end machines we can't do much comparison - but high-end Macs are actually cheaper than Dells with comparable specs. So who's paying more?
Besides we're all Intel slaves now - so the real premium is for the OS and hardware extras. I personally love the fact that my aluminium MBP case comes with stuff like [user programmable] light sensors, Sudden Motion Sensor accelerometer, magnetic trip-safe power connector etc. Other PCs might have some of them (or all) but the package Apple offers is superb. And the second hand value is far better - not to mention that they last longer for most users.
Besides I don't mind paying for Windows if I have to - but I would pay twice that for OS X any day. The only thing the Mac platform is missing is games - and we're getting them now...
Here in Europe that kind of regulation is fairly common with regards to political advertising. In my own country there is a specific law against broadcasting advertising for any political party.
Norway is a real multi-party democracy. Politics is a grass roots affair here, and printed media is central to the debate. We view the issue of TV-advertising as a threat to democratic discourse - in that the big two/three parties have far more funds than the rest. The only TV debates that matter are the one's broadcast on the national public broadcaster - where the representatives of the 8 major parties field their views. The commercial TV channels have their own coverage of course - but still no advertising campaigns. Oh, and the political parties are publicly funded, but may receive gifts from private donors if they are publicized.
Civil law on the other hand focuses mostly/exclusively on legislated statue.
The problem is that Civil Law only describes in very general terms the legal systems of not only every European country (except England/UK) but most of the world.
The difference between France and Germany are indeed many and significant - but that's only two out of 49 European countries. And then there's the rest of the world that inherited the system from their European colonial masters.
To quote the website you referred to:
Thus, in a civil law country such as Germany or France, a judge hearing a particular case does not look to the transcript or judicial opinion of a previous case to find the operable rule of law, but rather seeks out a relevant legislative or administrative statute to find the explicit text governing the point in question.
This is in fact wrong and not the whole truth. Far too often the French system is seen as representative for all of Europe - which it is not. In fact European Community law is decided in line with previous verdicts - but with greater freedom of "interpretation" that can lead to new practices. However in each and every European country domestic law is still practised according to national traditions.
No, that is indeed still true. It is obviously my opinion - however the Mac philosophy, technology and the developers working on the Mac platform DO create better products.
And regarding multimedia software and editing - you would not believe the difference! For professionals and amateurs alike working with video, photos and sound the Mac beats everything out there. Do you know anyone in the industry at all?
Besides, in the event you do need to boot, doesn't Windows boot faster than Mac/Linux?
Absolutely not! Even with comparable Intel C2D + 2GB of RAM my MBP boots way faster than any of my Windows PCs! And I keep them mean and lean.
On the other hand the Linux distributions I have tried have been much slow(er) to boot. But then again I never bothered to configure them properly.
and breaking the licensing agreement and giving Apple
You mean like installing Linux on a Compaq? Or changing the hardware configuration on a Windows Vista PC? Besides most people on Macs don't need to hack anything - they just work. The hardcore gamers are all on their PCs anyway, let's just agree to disagree.
Looks like we actually agree on something! From what you wrote in your post I thought you didn't grasp the logic described in your reply. Of course, if those people did not produce any value they should be fired. But let's take a closer look at that.
I believe you are still missing the point here; those salaries represent far greater sales than $30 million - they have to in order to pay them! Those salaries probably produced several times over their value in sales (gross). They are losing more income than just the money needed to pay for those salaries. They are just looking at increasing profitability per employee and sale.
So now what they are looking at is hiring slightly cheaper, inexperienced sales people that will not sell for an equal amount - but still cost almost as much. You don't fire the productive and profitable workers! You find the dead weight. Non profitable stores get closed. A pay cut might have been better - but would still impact their sales (motivation).
Sure the company is taking the loss, no dispute. And you know what? Those losses that will accumulate, will have an even greater impact on the very problem they are trying to solve. Now, not only will they have less sales, efficiency and profit - they have just lost their greatest assets. And bad press to boot!
I know you didn't major in Economics! The $30 million they "save" on wages will quickly have a major impact on lost sales and other losses. Those $30 million probably paid for their most experienced workers - and now they'll lose sales capacity, knowledge and experience in one fell swoop. And I am not referring to their technical knowledge alone - but the corporate business routines. The corporate machine will not run as smooth. I appreciate the need to save however this is literally cutting of your arms and legs.
They already did this in 2003 and like the article says: "At the time, the move hurt the company's sales, Whalin said."
It's more like the plumber not getting paid by his employers - they will loose sales and skills. If you want to earn money - invest time and money.
You seem to be forgetting that the last major upgrade was from Windows NT to Windows 2000 - not XP. Windows XP is basically Windows 2000 with window dressing, bells and whistles. Sure there are some nice new additions - but I stuck with win2k+SPn for a long time.. XP didn't offer much more, just like Vista.
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No, Apple has enjoyed a very successful year thanks to the Intel switch alone. In fact they are expecting further growth thanks to A. Adobe products for the intel OS X and B. Paralllels' virtualization products.
But I will say this much; my own legal system uses one (1) single core volume of some 3000+ pages. And the German work of codification, BGB, inspired the world as far away as China and Japan.
Actually I strongly disagree with you. The UN has been instrumental in creating new treaties securing new, better and stronger civil rights for the people of the world. However the conventions are not effective with out a strong enforcer.
That problem has been solved in Europe with the European Human Rights Convention of 1950. The treaty is valid in every European country and then some. It is enforced by the Council of Europe and more importantly by the European Union. The EU restricts political and trade links with countries that do not respect and adhere to the convention(s) and their additional protocols.The last few years a growing number of citizens in Eastern European countries have found it an effective tool to pressure their national governments into respecting their rights. Western European citizens have used it successfully since the 1950s. Especially in Russia where freedoms are under extreme pressure this has given people a strong position that even powerful and ruthless governments are afraid of! I invite you to read the catalogue of righs contained in the convention. And please compare it with your comparable American Human Rights Convention (not the Bill of Rights).
Compared with what the occupied countries had it certainly was innovative.
Excuse me but the Napoleonic Law was innovative and revolutionary - so much in fact it remained the legal code of choice for the countries formerly-occupied under Napoleon. If anything the French Code Civil was and is a very good system of law. And today most of the world's legal systems are based up on the Civil Law legal system with deep French roots. The US legal system however is mostly based up on Common Law..
Actually I'd like to point out that it would not be exactly the same. Because the incident happened in Norway which like most of the world has a Civil Law legal system. The article does not explain properly how it differs from Common Law - but the judge is only allowed to "interpret" within a very limited scope. It would take a book to explain it all. The penal code section the verdict refers to covers any "person" incapable of "consenting". It's all about equality. Our system also allows for such things as the right for men to seek alimony from their wives should they get divorced et cetera.
So unless you have ruling in your local US state this protection is not afforded American men. Or are you from Canada?
You are almost correct - it happened in Norway a year ago. The man was furious because he was in a relationship and had nothing to do with the woman that "raped" him. People might make fun of it - but he felt violated. .
And we experience the exact same problems you do with immigrants - the second generation born in the country are the most productive and integrated.
Today Norway has a good 3-5% immigrants in our vast country - but small homogenic population. You consider Mexico and Latin America your closest poor neighbours - in Europe we have Africa, the Middle East and Asia next door! The greatest groups of foreigners in Norway are Pakistanis, Turks, Iraqi Kurds and North Africans and Somalis! See any connection with their origins and certain wars by the way?
Just today it was featured on the news that last year saw record immigration from our poorer European cousins - and our borders are closed for open immigration from outside the European Union. The most wealthy country in Europe and ranked #1 by the UN (as the place to live) is bound to attract quite a few people!
You are welcome to move back ;)
The economy is always important in election campaigns obviously but the Norwegian political scene is dominated by moderate forces that want to make sure we don't waste the wealth we have been fortunate enough to find on just our contemporaries. The oil wealth is seen as the rightful inheritance of the future generations (arvesølvet) - not something just today's generation should enjoy the benefits of.
The political parties differ on what percentage of the surplus we might use today - if any at all. Some extreme suggestions from the extreme right Fremskrittspartiet, eq. the Danish Folkepartiet, have been to invest all of it today in education and infrastructure. It might sound like a good idea but the consequences would be terrible for our economy - and very short lived just like the Dutch "disease" .
The two greatest parties with a majority of the vote oppose increasing the pressure on a very "hot" economy with low unemployment, high spending/borrowing and low interest rates. The Conservative Party wanted to spend less than anyone else, and the same goes for Labour.
Yes, we have had wonderful weather in the Greater Oslo area lately :)
Okay, Deternal, I see you are from Denmark - and we can discuss the level of "socialism" in Scandinavia and Europe. But the term "Socialism" in the US and the way Americans use it - just does not apply to Europe today. They don't understand that social-democracy is not the Soviet "socialism" they used to scare their population with back during the Cold War.
Secondly I'd like to point out that the US has had "socialist" policies like welfare and work programs since the 1930s and the "New Deal". They just don't like talking about where those ideas came from ideologically
I think you have totally misunderstood the Norwegian economy - and especially the Norwegian oil money. We actually save all of the surplus income in a pension fund invested abroad (to not create inflation at home). That fund is now the worlds largest fund after the California state workers pension fund. In other words we don't use the oil money now - we are saving them.
And just to make it perfectly clear - Norway is not a part of the EU - and never will be.The Kingdom of Norway is NOT a socialist country. Being one of the founding members of NATO, the UN and the OECD. It's a social-democratic multi-party democracy where healthcare, schools and universities are free of charge. Where the government saves for your pension (but not exclusively), generous welfare/unemployment benefits and maternity leave is paid. Where the government wants broadband in every home - at affordable prices. Where the Consumer Ombudsman looks out for the consumers, hehe. I'm very proud of my country as you can tell :)
Well I suppose that is a valid enough reason to have one. However I believe the main reason people purchase printers is to print documents and such on paper. And for that purpose I see little reason to buy an inkjet printer. In fact I wonder why they're still around except for their low cost of production - and the hugely profitable ink business of course. I believe the consumer however would be much better served with a cheap color/BW laser printer.
I don't know why people even buy inkjets any longer. Those multifunction printers are awful and expensive to use. I have HP color Laserjets with network cards in all my places of work and at home. They barely cost anything and produce great quality at reasonable prices. The inkjets I have were freebies I received with my Dell orders - I couldn't even make Dell keep them..
And what Western democracies would that be? This is a question of definitions. Please remember that the West may include South America - but only if you disregard the economic criteria. I certainly don't include them. But perhaps it would be better to compare apples with apples.
The North or the countries of the OECD might make for more interesting and relevant comparisons. European democracies actually work. But then again we have proportional representation.
Actually quite a lot of films made in the US today are financed from abroad - and the profits also go there. Most production companies do not sell their products directly - they have distributors in each country. Not sold from America in other words.
Since the German government instituted a tax incentive program to encourage film making Germans have been funding lots of Hollywood movies. Not that the German government wanted to support Hollywood.. but that's just politics for you.
Oh, and companies like Universal is partly owned by the French Vivendi group. Columbia is owned by Sony of Japan... TimeWarner is publicly traded. etc
Since Apple doesn't produce low end machines we can't do much comparison - but high-end Macs are actually cheaper than Dells with comparable specs. So who's paying more?
Besides we're all Intel slaves now - so the real premium is for the OS and hardware extras. I personally love the fact that my aluminium MBP case comes with stuff like [user programmable] light sensors, Sudden Motion Sensor accelerometer, magnetic trip-safe power connector etc. Other PCs might have some of them (or all) but the package Apple offers is superb. And the second hand value is far better - not to mention that they last longer for most users.
Besides I don't mind paying for Windows if I have to - but I would pay twice that for OS X any day. The only thing the Mac platform is missing is games - and we're getting them now...
Norway is a real multi-party democracy. Politics is a grass roots affair here, and printed media is central to the debate. We view the issue of TV-advertising as a threat to democratic discourse - in that the big two/three parties have far more funds than the rest. The only TV debates that matter are the one's broadcast on the national public broadcaster - where the representatives of the 8 major parties field their views. The commercial TV channels have their own coverage of course - but still no advertising campaigns. Oh, and the political parties are publicly funded, but may receive gifts from private donors if they are publicized.
The difference between France and Germany are indeed many and significant - but that's only two out of 49 European countries. And then there's the rest of the world that inherited the system from their European colonial masters.
To quote the website you referred to:This is in fact wrong and not the whole truth. Far too often the French system is seen as representative for all of Europe - which it is not. In fact European Community law is decided in line with previous verdicts - but with greater freedom of "interpretation" that can lead to new practices.
However in each and every European country domestic law is still practised according to national traditions.
And regarding multimedia software and editing - you would not believe the difference! For professionals and amateurs alike working with video, photos and sound the Mac beats everything out there. Do you know anyone in the industry at all?Absolutely not! Even with comparable Intel C2D + 2GB of RAM my MBP boots way faster than any of my Windows PCs! And I keep them mean and lean.
On the other hand the Linux distributions I have tried have been much slow(er) to boot. But then again I never bothered to configure them properly.You mean like installing Linux on a Compaq? Or changing the hardware configuration on a Windows Vista PC? Besides most people on Macs don't need to hack anything - they just work. The hardcore gamers are all on their PCs anyway, let's just agree to disagree.
Looks like we actually agree on something! From what you wrote in your post I thought you didn't grasp the logic described in your reply. Of course, if those people did not produce any value they should be fired. But let's take a closer look at that.
I believe you are still missing the point here; those salaries represent far greater sales than $30 million - they have to in order to pay them! Those salaries probably produced several times over their value in sales (gross). They are losing more income than just the money needed to pay for those salaries. They are just looking at increasing profitability per employee and sale.
So now what they are looking at is hiring slightly cheaper, inexperienced sales people that will not sell for an equal amount - but still cost almost as much. You don't fire the productive and profitable workers! You find the dead weight. Non profitable stores get closed. A pay cut might have been better - but would still impact their sales (motivation).
Sure the company is taking the loss, no dispute. And you know what? Those losses that will accumulate, will have an even greater impact on the very problem they are trying to solve. Now, not only will they have less sales, efficiency and profit - they have just lost their greatest assets. And bad press to boot!
I know you didn't major in Economics! The $30 million they "save" on wages will quickly have a major impact on lost sales and other losses. Those $30 million probably paid for their most experienced workers - and now they'll lose sales capacity, knowledge and experience in one fell swoop. And I am not referring to their technical knowledge alone - but the corporate business routines. The corporate machine will not run as smooth. I appreciate the need to save however this is literally cutting of your arms and legs.
They already did this in 2003 and like the article says: "At the time, the move hurt the company's sales, Whalin said."
It's more like the plumber not getting paid by his employers - they will loose sales and skills.
If you want to earn money - invest time and money.
You seem to be forgetting that the last major upgrade was from Windows NT to Windows 2000 - not XP. Windows XP is basically Windows 2000 with window dressing, bells and whistles. Sure there are some nice new additions - but I stuck with win2k+SPn for a long time.. XP didn't offer much more, just like Vista.