Understood. In all the italian legal texts the action of selling, giving away for free, and similar is always called "to alienate" (alienare), actually.
Try to pass an agreement on videotaping workers in italy, and you'll see the flames ablaze.
Casinos after _years_ of struggle, and with *everyone* knowing that croupiers stole money, only managed to have the HANDS videotaped, without the real possibility to identify people.
Just because it is written and signed does not mean it is legal: EULAS are mostly inapplicable under most european law systems. But they are there nonetheless.
Italian laws have a series of rather strict guidelines of what clauses are considered vexatory (since the "seller" demands too much power).
You have to sign two times on most contracts: one for the bulk of the contract, and one under the "I specifically agree to clauses n. 3,7,67" part. (you guessed it, insurance contracts have 90% clauses repeated in the second part: almost all the clauses are vexatory:-) )
This is however taking a risk for the seller, since a customer (or more likely a customers association) can appeal against those clauses, and often win.
I was actually referring to Italy, in fact (where vexatory clauses in contracts can be ruled as illegal even after they have been specifically signed).
but as to the drug testing, unless you did not agree to such a thing when you started your job, well, it's kind of like having to deal with a Non-Compete clause. You agreed to it.
I don't know... in more civilized law systems some rights are upheld EVEN if you signed them away.
That's why they are called "unalienable", you know.
As you can read on the Librie pages around the web (mostly a wiki and a yahoogroup) you can in fact put whatever you want on the Sony Librie: after the market launch they realized that people really don't want to rent books that autodestroy after 60 days and introduced a new format.
There are tools in Windows and Linux to convert texts to Librie format.
As for the storage, well... it accepts Sony's Memory Sticks, so where is the problem?
You complain also about connection speed:true, but you can expect the next version to have USB2, and who knows, maybe even bluetooth.
mp3 and radio... well definitely possible: there is online the webpage of a e-ink employee that built a prototype of exactly that.
It can be good, unless your a doctor. Then your stuck with whatever the govt. decides your worth paying.
Except doctors are paid very well, and they can keep a share of private visits at whatever cost they choose. And people who can afford it often choose to pay more for private assistance because in general you are treated better (not on the medical side, actually, but in terms of accomodation and such ancillary services).
Making doctors govt slaves isn't my idea of a good solution to the problem, comrade.
Doctors are not forced to work for the national health service, either, but they choose to, cause the pay is good and very safe.
Besides, enjoy your freedom to bleed to death while the E.R. doctors try to decide if your insurance will pay the costs...
A STATE monopoly on socially sensible matters (healthcare, public transport in some areas, etc) can be good, especially to keep costs down, since a state owned company only has to try to break even. (it's also normally highly inefficent, though)
A PRIVATE monopoly is just wrong, especially if you consider yourself a capitalist (what do they teach in economics courses in high school in your parts??)
and btw: which one has a medical/healthcare assistance average status only slightly better than developing counties? Non-monopolistic USA or EU countries? Dont't be silly...
EULAs are close to meaningless in several european countries and do not count as valid contract.
In several cases judges have ruled against EULAs enforcing in Italy, Germany, and other countries.
MS and the other vendors still write long and complex EULAs that nobody reads nor can understand fully because well... they hope the customer will *believe* such a complex document resembling a contract actually IS a contract.
And I reiterate: I tried very recently to open some.doc files with Wordpad, and it spit at me dozens of "unknown error", "conversion error" and whatnot and in the and it barely showed the TEXT content.
If that's "reasnoably well"... linux has had "reasonably good" interoperability with word documents for many years. I remember the "antiword" tool in 2001 converting.docs in.html with images: much better than you "reasonable" wordpad...
Oh, but the Cisco solution for VoIP (ICCM) is windows based and indeed has GUIs (for routing script writing and IVR scripts)......and you know what? They suck very badly.
Not to mention their GUI installers.
And their web-based admin GUIs.
Or their GUI to administer the system... but somehow I don't think we'll see a good alternative soon (read, it's proprietary and locked down). OTOH, GUIs for Asterisk are numerous. GOOD!
Don't be silly: you can just go out and photograph every street in any country and send back the photos to the "evil secret base". Or you could use a small plane. Or buy the hi-res photos from one of the many providers 'round the world (from plane or from satellite).
Or you could buy a truckload of street maps of usa's cities (*shock!*) in the tourist section of any average bookseller 'round the world...
Indeed online commerce is not very common in italy, but for other reasons.
The fact is that in italy (and I am sure in Germany too) the seller can sell his goods and the buyer can buy them. And that's it. If the seller places further restrictions on how the goods will be used by the buyer then they probably are what is called "vexatory clauses" (clausole vessatorie). And those clauses are in effects without any power unless the buyer agrees to each specifically.
Yes, you can probably put a step more in the online transaction with "I agree to clause 5,6 and 8 which are vexatory as per civil code law nr.." and a checkbox. But I don't know to what extent this has been checked in court...
Except in most european countries "the precedent" is not binding at all for future rulings. Don't know the norwegian court system, but it sure isn't in italy.
Still, the judges DO take precedent rulings in consideration when deciding.
Most of the end user licenses of software and services are completely meaningless in Europe (and in Norway).
The laws protecting the customer are far stronger here, and the seller cannot impose rules on the buyer without explicit (hand signed) acceptance of EACH clause on a written contract.
Yes, you guessed it, even Microsoft's EULAs have been proved to be largely unenforceable (for example) in Italy.
No, no: the "order of importance" is much more distinct here (italy): a good catholic will probably have a copy of the Gospel (is this the right name?), but a lot of people do not have a bible at all.
Nobody reads the bible other than for the excerpts that are part of the ligurgy of sunday's mass(?).
The words you cite of st. Augustine are subletlies of church scholars. They mean close to nothing to anybody not part of the clergy, I think.
(sorry for strange/incorrect names: I'm not used to flam^H^H^H^Hdiscuss religion matters in english)
A Fundamentalist (at least in italian) is someone that thinks that Civil Law should follow dictates from the religious texts.
Even if Vatican is constantly meddling in politics, they don't dare to put it this way.
Besides, no catholic in the world believes the bible to the letter.
And, the old testament is only a very distant second to the new testament in order of importance.
So well... the pope is a fundamentalist, since the laws of HIS country follow the sacred texts (Vatican City: the size of a city block). But the catholic church has stopped trying fundamentalistic tactics a long ago. Nowadays they use subtler tactics of control:-)
In the past I've used OOo (1.1.2) and python/UNO to automatically open, recover, convert and save with a name deduced from internal data more than 700 MSOffice.doc files that were recovered from a broken raidset.
Sure, on files utterly destroyed OO crashed, but in the end I recovered several hundred documents, saving tens of hours of tedious work.
And that was medical data that were NEVER backupped. Say thanks to OOo:-)
I still don't understand the "must have support" myth. I work in the IT industry and I have never seen or known ANYBODY calling Microsoft for support for the OS or MSOffice.
The idea does not even cross their mind. Most people don't even KNOW that commercial software has support, save for packages costing thousands of EURs (like Oracle, ARSystem Remedy, and so on).
Slashdot Mirror
Are you joking?
In italy it is normal for a newly released PS2 or XBOX game to cost 60EUR!
If you count the change rate that's MUCH more.
Understood. In all the italian legal texts the action of selling, giving away for free, and similar is always called "to alienate" (alienare), actually.
I don't know about the language subtlenesses of english, but in italian "to alienate" is equivalent to "to sell", not to "to take away".
It has a USB _client_ port, that probably works as a usbstorage client device.
This means you can use the console as a removable drive, not that you can attach removable drives to the console.
Try to pass an agreement on videotaping workers in italy, and you'll see the flames ablaze.
Casinos after _years_ of struggle, and with *everyone* knowing that croupiers stole money, only managed to have the HANDS videotaped, without the real possibility to identify people.
Just because it is written and signed does not mean it is legal: EULAS are mostly inapplicable under most european law systems. But they are there nonetheless.
Italian laws have a series of rather strict guidelines of what clauses are considered vexatory (since the "seller" demands too much power).
:-) )
You have to sign two times on most contracts: one for the bulk of the contract, and one under the "I specifically agree to clauses n. 3,7,67" part.
(you guessed it, insurance contracts have 90% clauses repeated in the second part: almost all the clauses are vexatory
This is however taking a risk for the seller, since a customer (or more likely a customers association) can appeal against those clauses, and often win.
I was actually referring to Italy, in fact (where vexatory clauses in contracts can be ruled as illegal even after they have been specifically signed).
:-)
I just forgot the Sarcasm tag
but as to the drug testing, unless you did not agree to such a thing when you started your job, well, it's kind of like having to deal with a Non-Compete clause. You agreed to it.
I don't know... in more civilized law systems some rights are upheld EVEN if you signed them away.
That's why they are called "unalienable", you know.
As you can read on the Librie pages around the web (mostly a wiki and a yahoogroup) you can in fact put whatever you want on the Sony Librie: after the market launch they realized that people really don't want to rent books that autodestroy after 60 days and introduced a new format.
:true, but you can expect the next version to have USB2, and who knows, maybe even bluetooth.
There are tools in Windows and Linux to convert texts to Librie format.
As for the storage, well... it accepts Sony's Memory Sticks, so where is the problem?
You complain also about connection speed
mp3 and radio... well definitely possible: there is online the webpage of a e-ink employee that built a prototype of exactly that.
Except doctors are paid very well, and they can keep a share of private visits at whatever cost they choose. And people who can afford it often choose to pay more for private assistance because in general you are treated better (not on the medical side, actually, but in terms of accomodation and such ancillary services).
Doctors are not forced to work for the national health service, either, but they choose to, cause the pay is good and very safe.
Besides, enjoy your freedom to bleed to death while the E.R. doctors try to decide if your insurance will pay the costs...
A STATE monopoly on socially sensible matters (healthcare, public transport in some areas, etc) can be good, especially to keep costs down, since a state owned company only has to try to break even.
(it's also normally highly inefficent, though)
A PRIVATE monopoly is just wrong, especially if you consider yourself a capitalist (what do they teach in economics courses in high school in your parts??)
and btw: which one has a medical/healthcare assistance average status only slightly better than developing counties? Non-monopolistic USA or EU countries? Dont't be silly...
And actually... they dont! *SHOCK*
EULAs are close to meaningless in several european countries and do not count as valid contract.
In several cases judges have ruled against EULAs enforcing in Italy, Germany, and other countries.
MS and the other vendors still write long and complex EULAs that nobody reads nor can understand fully because well... they hope the customer will *believe* such a complex document resembling a contract actually IS a contract.
And I reiterate: I tried very recently to open some .doc files with Wordpad, and it spit at me dozens of "unknown error", "conversion error" and whatnot and in the and it barely showed the TEXT content.
.docs in .html with images: much better than you "reasonable" wordpad...
If that's "reasnoably well"... linux has had "reasonably good" interoperability with word documents for many years. I remember the "antiword" tool in 2001 converting
LOL! This is called "mirror climbing".
.doc files correctly. It does only if they do not have tables, images and whatnot.
Wordpad DOES NOT open
That is, only if they are so dumbed down you should not have used word to edit them anyway.
Well, Zaurus PDAs are famed for having a full qwerty keyboard, since the first linux model, so typing will not be so difficult.
Oh, but the Cisco solution for VoIP (ICCM) is windows based and indeed has GUIs (for routing script writing and IVR scripts)... ...and you know what? They suck very badly.
Not to mention their GUI installers.
And their web-based admin GUIs.
Or their GUI to administer the system... but somehow I don't think we'll see a good alternative soon (read, it's proprietary and locked down). OTOH, GUIs for Asterisk are numerous. GOOD!
Don't be silly: you can just go out and photograph every street in any country and send back the photos to the "evil secret base". Or you could use a small plane. Or buy the hi-res photos from one of the many providers 'round the world (from plane or from satellite).
Or you could buy a truckload of street maps of usa's cities (*shock!*) in the tourist section of any average bookseller 'round the world...
you mean... like 95% of the home users?
Win2k by default installs with only the Administrator user and autologins. Same story for XP.
And new users in xp are admins by default.
Indeed online commerce is not very common in italy, but for other reasons.
The fact is that in italy (and I am sure in Germany too) the seller can sell his goods and the buyer can buy them. And that's it. If the seller places further restrictions on how the goods will be used by the buyer then they probably are what is called "vexatory clauses" (clausole vessatorie). And those clauses are in effects without any power unless the buyer agrees to each specifically.
Yes, you can probably put a step more in the online transaction with "I agree to clause 5,6 and 8 which are vexatory as per civil code law nr.." and a checkbox. But I don't know to what extent this has been checked in court...
Except in most european countries "the precedent" is not binding at all for future rulings. Don't know the norwegian court system, but it sure isn't in italy.
Still, the judges DO take precedent rulings in consideration when deciding.
Most of the end user licenses of software and services are completely meaningless in Europe (and in Norway).
The laws protecting the customer are far stronger here, and the seller cannot impose rules on the buyer without explicit (hand signed) acceptance of EACH clause on a written contract.
Yes, you guessed it, even Microsoft's EULAs have been proved to be largely unenforceable (for example) in Italy.
No, no: the "order of importance" is much more distinct here (italy): a good catholic will probably have a copy of the Gospel (is this the right name?), but a lot of people do not have a bible at all.
Nobody reads the bible other than for the excerpts that are part of the ligurgy of sunday's mass(?).
The words you cite of st. Augustine are subletlies of church scholars. They mean close to nothing to anybody not part of the clergy, I think.
(sorry for strange/incorrect names: I'm not used to flam^H^H^H^Hdiscuss religion matters in english)
A Fundamentalist (at least in italian) is someone that thinks that Civil Law should follow dictates from the religious texts.
:-)
Even if Vatican is constantly meddling in politics, they don't dare to put it this way.
Besides, no catholic in the world believes the bible to the letter.
And, the old testament is only a very distant second to the new testament in order of importance.
So well... the pope is a fundamentalist, since the laws of HIS country follow the sacred texts (Vatican City: the size of a city block). But the catholic church has stopped trying fundamentalistic tactics a long ago. Nowadays they use subtler tactics of control
In the past I've used OOo (1.1.2) and python/UNO to automatically open, recover, convert and save with a name deduced from internal data more than 700 MSOffice .doc files that were recovered from a broken raidset.
:-)
Sure, on files utterly destroyed OO crashed, but in the end I recovered several hundred documents, saving tens of hours of tedious work.
And that was medical data that were NEVER backupped. Say thanks to OOo
I still don't understand the "must have support" myth. I work in the IT industry and I have never seen or known ANYBODY calling Microsoft for support for the OS or MSOffice.
The idea does not even cross their mind. Most people don't even KNOW that commercial software has support, save for packages costing thousands of EURs (like Oracle, ARSystem Remedy, and so on).