It's a pretty fundamental difference: in one system the individual is sovereign,
This is the socialist health care system, right? At least, that's the way I feel about the Finnish one. I'd never trade it for the American third world insurance system you have there.
in the other system the collective is treated as the most important entity and individuals are treated as interchangeable parts.
I'd say this was the American crappy one, but really, a more correct description would be "individuals are treated as slaves whose money is for the insurance companies to plunder without returning anything in return".
In case you are wondering why there is so much anger over the health care bill in the US, it is because we seem to going further down the road toward losing that concept and a lot of people consider it to be a very valuable thing.
If only someone would remind them about the exorbitant price of freedom in this case. You guys are so worried about having to pay for your uninsured neighbor's health care you forget that you are already paying a very high price for the uninsured, vastly higher than if you had collectively insured everyone in the first place. The cost of health care cannot be escaped, either you pay for it for everyone or you pay even more for the aftereffects of the lack of universal coverage. In fact American's are in many ways a slave to their health insurance system. They actually lack freedoms the socialist health care system provides. Have a pre-existing condition that makes it impossible for you to buy an affordable health insurance but is covered by your employers package? You're a slave to your employer, never able to leave for fear of death (literally). In socialist health care system, you can quit and start your own business without such a worry. Freedom, sweet freedom. Maybe you American's will someday have a taste of it.
Actually, a rather obvious extension to this technology would be to feed the captions to a machine translator and a text-to-speech synthesizer to produce e.g. Russian voice for a video for those Russians who don't comprehend spoken or written English.
Apparently, Ars Technica is using the Fox News definition of facts... Some of these may have been true at a time (XP days, quite possibly), but are no longer (at least not on Vista).
My summary (in order of importance):
An OEM or "system builder" version of Windows is tied to the computer on which it is initially installed. Unlike retail versions, OEM versions cannot be transferred to another computer, even if you remove it from the first computer.
This can be done, I know as I have done it myself. Didn't even need to do phone activation. There IS however a certain timeperiod after successfully activating an installation that will cause a new installation on a different computer fail to activate, requiring phone activation. It may be as long as three months.
OEM versions include either 32-bit Windows or 64-bit (not both), so you must choose before you buy. Retail versions come with both.
Mostly false. The true part is that you can't get the other installation media in the box or by mail (or other means) from Microsoft. Of course, there are other ways to get the installation media, including borrowing a friend's official disk or simply downloading the official ISO from P2P network (yes, both are probably a bit of a grey area legally, but it works, and I doubt MS will hunt you down for it, since you'll still be using a valid license key on just one computer anyhow). Once you have the official installation media, you'll find out that your 32-bit OEM key will work just fine on a 64-bit installation and vice versa. Don't even need to be the same language version, which is nice, since finding the official ISOs in languages other than English is hard enough not to bother.
To me, the only important limitation is the no-transfer limit. However, since the OEM version is roughly half the price of the full retail (not upgrade) version, I don't think it's a big deal. Also, I've read in many forums (including Slashdot) that MS will provide a new activation code for OEM versions if you say you "had to replace the motherboard" on your PC.
Like I said above, Vista should activate through Internet just fine if your last activation wasn't very recent. My experience with XP was that I had to do phone activation, although that was an automated process on MS's part, no need to actually talk to a live person (and yes, the "motherboard had to be replaced" excuse I've heard of being used and probably should work, if you actually have to convince an actual person, but my guess is you won't have to).
That's odd. My Verified by Visa password is 8+ characters and alpha-numeric, I've also only had to reset it after reporting a card stolen and having it replaced. Maybe it differs from different card issuers.
VbV password is the password you use in your card issuers online banking service, and it indeed differs among issuers.
That is not a given in the US. It has been my experience that most Americans I know who are big-government, welfare-state liberals grew up in places where government works. By contrast, most of the small-government, go-it-alone conservatives grew up in places where it doesn't. Don't forget that not all governments work...
Usually, the places in U.S. where the government doesn't work are run by conservatives, I would guess. At least from following the political news in U.S. a year before and after Obama's election, it became apparent that the conservatives are very afraid of a government that actually works for the people, because that would prove the liberals right; therefore, they do everything they can to make sure the government doesn't work, except for them and their corporate buddies.
The thing is, for a few years now, there needed to be an SDL 2.0 that made it as easy to integrate things like Nintendo's Wiimotes, Playstation controllers, and other things. But After all these years, we seem to be stuck on SDL 1.2.x - I don't know why. GTK+ moved on. Qt Moved on, what happened to SDL?
Loki died. Funding can make or break free software, too.
Everyone knows that FOX news and Rush Limbaugh are to be compared with the National inquirer when it comes to news.
That's roughly accurate, although saying "everybody knows" is silly. Now, do you realize that CNN and MSNBC, and yes, even NPR, are no better? Or do you think they're magically better because they correspond more closely to your beliefs?
Well, at least CNN and MSNBC don't just flat-out lie about the facts, report their own talking-heads points of view as news, or copy any political party's press releases as their own news reports the way Fox News does. From the looks of it, quite frankly, you'd think that Olbermann's and Maddow's teams do better fact checking than the Fox News newsroom does. Either that or Fox News newsroom simply ignore the results of their fact checking when it doesn't support the story they want to run, which quite often seems to be the case when they report on politics. Incompetents or liars, that's Fox News, take your pick.
Now, Obama has grasped the steering wheel with both hands, turned it hard left, and romped on the gas. Where will we end up? Nowhere we want to go that's for sure.
Firstly, stop talking like you're royalty. Secondly, if the U.S. takes a hard left and hits the gas it'll end up the same as the heaven of social democracy, the Nordic countries. Mind you, that's not at all what seems to be going on. It looks more like Obama is half-asleep at the wheel. Pelosi and Reid are grappling for the wheel from the front seat trying to change lanes to the overtaking lane. Michael Steele, Glenn Beck and the teabaggers from the rear seat keep claiming it's not an overtaking lane their heading for (even though it clearly is) and are trying to steer to the right into the wet ditch, claiming the wet ditch is actually a luxury pool and anyone who claims otherwise is a communist. The result is you're veering just very slightly to the left. Quite disappointing really.
some people with high IQs may never learn how to interact successfully with those around them...
Reminds me of a discussion I overheard on a break in university (class in question was Philosophy of A.I.)
Student 1: So, if something is incredibly intelligent but cannot communicate in a comprehensible way with the outside world, would we call it intelligent? Student 2: Are you talking about maths professors?
Affordable? So every young married couple without employer insurance is forced to pay a fine of $2000 per person per year versus $1500 if they were unmarried or versus $0 from the current situation? Remember that "Freedom" is paramount in the American mindset. Why can't I be free to not pay anything when I'm young and starting out? Properly invested, that $4000 a year can grow to pay all of the medical bills a couple will face in old age, and buy a sailing boat.
Ah, what you want is the single payer model. Government pays your health care, you pay taxes (which are supposed to be progressive, so if you're young and have no income you don't pay), and it all just works merrily, just like it has in all those modern socialist countries for decades.
What I want to know is if there is a Half-Life connection. I mean, looking at their posters in the downloads section, Ian McKellen sure does look like he could be the G-Man. Is Number Six going to be seen crawling in vents with a crowbar in hand?
If the first...wow...that sounds an awful lot like my insurance. Let's see. It costs me a lot of money, yep. I pay it all the time, even when I don't use it, yep.
Except that unlike U.S. private insurers, the government won't deny you insurance because of pre-existing conditions or deny payment because you gave inaccurate information on your application form. No caps on lifetime expenditure, no loopholes to drop you if they think you're costing them too much.
They have take a lot more of my money than I have asked for back in "free" services, yep. Oh, and if I owe $500,000 for cancer treatments, they pay ALL the bills, "free" (after a measly few thousand deductible anyone can afford, say I give up cable and eating out for a year, or use savings, or sell my posessions). Huh...
Some people wouldn't be able to pay a few thousand dollars or euros for their treatment. Generally, those are the same people who can't afford private insurance to begin with, that's why universally guaranteed coverage by the government is very important for the well being of the poor.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you're thinking of the God Helmet, which uses magnetic fields to cause the sensation of being in the presence of god.
not to be a pain in the ass, but can we start using names of countries within the continent of Africa instead of just lumping it all together as one?
You Earth people are stupid.
It's a pretty fundamental difference: in one system the individual is sovereign,
This is the socialist health care system, right? At least, that's the way I feel about the Finnish one. I'd never trade it for the American third world insurance system you have there.
in the other system the collective is treated as the most important entity and individuals are treated as interchangeable parts.
I'd say this was the American crappy one, but really, a more correct description would be "individuals are treated as slaves whose money is for the insurance companies to plunder without returning anything in return".
In case you are wondering why there is so much anger over the health care bill in the US, it is because we seem to going further down the road toward losing that concept and a lot of people consider it to be a very valuable thing.
If only someone would remind them about the exorbitant price of freedom in this case. You guys are so worried about having to pay for your uninsured neighbor's health care you forget that you are already paying a very high price for the uninsured, vastly higher than if you had collectively insured everyone in the first place. The cost of health care cannot be escaped, either you pay for it for everyone or you pay even more for the aftereffects of the lack of universal coverage. In fact American's are in many ways a slave to their health insurance system. They actually lack freedoms the socialist health care system provides. Have a pre-existing condition that makes it impossible for you to buy an affordable health insurance but is covered by your employers package? You're a slave to your employer, never able to leave for fear of death (literally). In socialist health care system, you can quit and start your own business without such a worry. Freedom, sweet freedom. Maybe you American's will someday have a taste of it.
Especially when they start optimizing for the new 3D displays that are supposed to become more mainstream in the coming years.
They even have similar looking leaders - old guys with long beards wearing black.
Didn't know that about ZZ-Top
Quite frankly the world would be a better place if people followed the teachings of ZZ Top as opposed to e.g. the Pope.
No, you should just move to Canada!
reads the caption and then produces the video?
Actually, a rather obvious extension to this technology would be to feed the captions to a machine translator and a text-to-speech synthesizer to produce e.g. Russian voice for a video for those Russians who don't comprehend spoken or written English.
Mods are funny, since the post should be modded +1 Informative or Insightful.
Your switch() cases are missing breaks.
Ars Technica had a nice article explaining the differences when Vista was released: "Buying OEM versions of Windows Vista: the facts"
Apparently, Ars Technica is using the Fox News definition of facts... Some of these may have been true at a time (XP days, quite possibly), but are no longer (at least not on Vista).
My summary (in order of importance):
This can be done, I know as I have done it myself. Didn't even need to do phone activation. There IS however a certain timeperiod after successfully activating an installation that will cause a new installation on a different computer fail to activate, requiring phone activation. It may be as long as three months.
Mostly false. The true part is that you can't get the other installation media in the box or by mail (or other means) from Microsoft. Of course, there are other ways to get the installation media, including borrowing a friend's official disk or simply downloading the official ISO from P2P network (yes, both are probably a bit of a grey area legally, but it works, and I doubt MS will hunt you down for it, since you'll still be using a valid license key on just one computer anyhow). Once you have the official installation media, you'll find out that your 32-bit OEM key will work just fine on a 64-bit installation and vice versa. Don't even need to be the same language version, which is nice, since finding the official ISOs in languages other than English is hard enough not to bother.
To me, the only important limitation is the no-transfer limit. However, since the OEM version is roughly half the price of the full retail (not upgrade) version, I don't think it's a big deal. Also, I've read in many forums (including Slashdot) that MS will provide a new activation code for OEM versions if you say you "had to replace the motherboard" on your PC.
Like I said above, Vista should activate through Internet just fine if your last activation wasn't very recent. My experience with XP was that I had to do phone activation, although that was an automated process on MS's part, no need to actually talk to a live person (and yes, the "motherboard had to be replaced" excuse I've heard of being used and probably should work, if you actually have to convince an actual person, but my guess is you won't have to).
That's odd. My Verified by Visa password is 8+ characters and alpha-numeric, I've also only had to reset it after reporting a card stolen and having it replaced. Maybe it differs from different card issuers.
VbV password is the password you use in your card issuers online banking service, and it indeed differs among issuers.
So what's the Linux option?
Caterham.
That is not a given in the US. It has been my experience that most Americans I know who are big-government, welfare-state liberals grew up in places where government works. By contrast, most of the small-government, go-it-alone conservatives grew up in places where it doesn't. Don't forget that not all governments work...
Usually, the places in U.S. where the government doesn't work are run by conservatives, I would guess. At least from following the political news in U.S. a year before and after Obama's election, it became apparent that the conservatives are very afraid of a government that actually works for the people, because that would prove the liberals right; therefore, they do everything they can to make sure the government doesn't work, except for them and their corporate buddies.
The *nix Analogue for DirectX is SDL. Not OpenGL.
The thing is, for a few years now, there needed to be an SDL 2.0 that made it as easy to integrate things like Nintendo's Wiimotes, Playstation controllers, and other things. But After all these years, we seem to be stuck on SDL 1.2.x - I don't know why. GTK+ moved on. Qt Moved on, what happened to SDL?
Loki died. Funding can make or break free software, too.
an Australian government
and one from the US Constitution: ... Try again, Congress.
Does this not point out a flaw in your logic?
He's obviously suggesting that U.S. Congress failed because it didn't order an invasion of Australia to promote the progress of science.
Everyone knows that FOX news and Rush Limbaugh are to be compared with the National inquirer when it comes to news.
That's roughly accurate, although saying "everybody knows" is silly. Now, do you realize that CNN and MSNBC, and yes, even NPR, are no better? Or do you think they're magically better because they correspond more closely to your beliefs?
Well, at least CNN and MSNBC don't just flat-out lie about the facts, report their own talking-heads points of view as news, or copy any political party's press releases as their own news reports the way Fox News does. From the looks of it, quite frankly, you'd think that Olbermann's and Maddow's teams do better fact checking than the Fox News newsroom does. Either that or Fox News newsroom simply ignore the results of their fact checking when it doesn't support the story they want to run, which quite often seems to be the case when they report on politics. Incompetents or liars, that's Fox News, take your pick.
Now, Obama has grasped the steering wheel with both hands, turned it hard left, and romped on the gas. Where will we end up? Nowhere we want to go that's for sure.
Firstly, stop talking like you're royalty. Secondly, if the U.S. takes a hard left and hits the gas it'll end up the same as the heaven of social democracy, the Nordic countries. Mind you, that's not at all what seems to be going on. It looks more like Obama is half-asleep at the wheel. Pelosi and Reid are grappling for the wheel from the front seat trying to change lanes to the overtaking lane. Michael Steele, Glenn Beck and the teabaggers from the rear seat keep claiming it's not an overtaking lane their heading for (even though it clearly is) and are trying to steer to the right into the wet ditch, claiming the wet ditch is actually a luxury pool and anyone who claims otherwise is a communist. The result is you're veering just very slightly to the left. Quite disappointing really.
some people with high IQs may never learn how to interact successfully with those around them...
Reminds me of a discussion I overheard on a break in university (class in question was Philosophy of A.I.)
Student 1: So, if something is incredibly intelligent but cannot communicate in a comprehensible way with the outside world, would we call it intelligent?
Student 2: Are you talking about maths professors?
The three biggest reasons I can think of for using Windows are:
Well, they'd save some work by going with Linux, since Linux has more drivers for ARM than Windows (which has none).
'OK' is a meaningful verb. It means I will OK the action.
Affordable? So every young married couple without employer insurance is forced to pay a fine of $2000 per person per year versus $1500 if they were unmarried or versus $0 from the current situation? Remember that "Freedom" is paramount in the American mindset. Why can't I be free to not pay anything when I'm young and starting out? Properly invested, that $4000 a year can grow to pay all of the medical bills a couple will face in old age, and buy a sailing boat.
Ah, what you want is the single payer model. Government pays your health care, you pay taxes (which are supposed to be progressive, so if you're young and have no income you don't pay), and it all just works merrily, just like it has in all those modern socialist countries for decades.
Sony is like Sylvester Stallone in this Deathrace 2000 clip.
What I want to know is if there is a Half-Life connection. I mean, looking at their posters in the downloads section, Ian McKellen sure does look like he could be the G-Man. Is Number Six going to be seen crawling in vents with a crowbar in hand?
If the first...wow...that sounds an awful lot like my insurance. Let's see. It costs me a lot of money, yep. I pay it all the time, even when I don't use it, yep.
Except that unlike U.S. private insurers, the government won't deny you insurance because of pre-existing conditions or deny payment because you gave inaccurate information on your application form. No caps on lifetime expenditure, no loopholes to drop you if they think you're costing them too much.
They have take a lot more of my money than I have asked for back in "free" services, yep. Oh, and if I owe $500,000 for cancer treatments, they pay ALL the bills, "free" (after a measly few thousand deductible anyone can afford, say I give up cable and eating out for a year, or use savings, or sell my posessions). Huh...
Some people wouldn't be able to pay a few thousand dollars or euros for their treatment. Generally, those are the same people who can't afford private insurance to begin with, that's why universally guaranteed coverage by the government is very important for the well being of the poor.
They take it to the EU courts?