Well, the decrease in monitor depth and reduction of eye-strain while coding is desirable, but I still notice the lack of responsiveness on the 16-20ms models for gaming.
Some panels are better than others. There are 20ms panels out there that are better than 16ms panels when it comes to gaming.
Well I have a Nokia 6600 and it has worked really well. In fact, we have about 50 of those in my workplace and they all work very well. Before that we had 6310i. Again: very few problems. Before that I had Nokia 7110. Worked flawlessly. Nokia 6150? Zero problems. 5110? Zero problems.
I have personal experiences regarding six different Nokia-phones and they have all worked very well. Two of those models (6130i and 6600) have been in wider use, so I have had the possibility to see how well they work. And they work really well.
As far as I'm concerned, I have no problems with Nokia or their quality. If you want to talk about crappy phones, think Motorola. Or, to a lesser extent: Siemens. Like that one Siemens "business-phone" where you can't use the headset. Why? Because if you have the headset plugged in and somebody calls you, it plays back the ringtone in the headset. At full volume. In a Nokia-phone (and in any phone that has been designed by people with functional brains) it sends a faint notification to the headset. Loud enough for the user to notice it, but not so loud that it cripples the users hearing (like on the Siemens). Well, the Siemens's manual did mention that the headset is not to be used all the time. Apparently you have to answer the call and THEN plug in the headset!
And if you go to Redhat.com, they don't call Microsoft "Micro$oft" or something like that. But I bet you can find some pro-Windows fansites/blogs and the like in the net where they use childish phrases to describe Linux and Linux-users.
And besides, Microsoft has called Linux "a toy", "anti-american" and GPL "a virus". Why is that "professional" whereas Slashdots images are not?
* Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
* Tech Support: "YOU CLICKED 'CANCEL'???"
* Customer: "That's what I was supposed to do, right?"
* Tech Support: "No, you were supposed to click 'OK'."
* Customer: "I thought you said to click 'Cancel'."
* Tech Support: "NO. I said to click 'OK'."
* Customer: "Oh."
* Tech Support: "Now we have to start over."
* Customer: "Why?"
* Tech Support: "Because you clicked 'Cancel'."
* Customer: "Wasn't I supposed to click 'Cancel'?"
* Tech Support: "No. Forget that. Let's start from the top."
* Customer: "Ok."
I spent the next fifteen minutes re-constructing the carefully crafted setup for this lady's unique computer.
* Tech Support: "All right. Now, are you ready to click 'OK'?"
* Customer: "Yes."
* Tech Support: "Great. Now click 'OK'."
My TFT has a native resolution of 1280x1024. It can do lower ones as well, but 800x600 is really pushing it. But since I never need resolution that low, that's not a problem for me. But the point is that the TFT does the resolutions I need just fine. Older panels had serious problems with non-native resolutions, but newer ones don't have it that bad.
I used to think that "there's no way I'll move to TFT!". But I did, and I'm not looking back. The image-quality is perfect, it does gaming really well, it consumes less electricity and I have more space on my desk than I can shake a stick at! My old CRT took almost half of my desk-space.
* I do a lot of gaming, and I'm not convinced that any TFT I can afford is up to the task
the 17-inch TFT on my desk cost me something like 450 euros, and it does gaming just fine. Max Payne, Soldier of Fortune, UT2004 etc, etc.... Zero problems.
Gaming wasn't that nice with those old 25+ms panels, but newer 12, 16 and 20ms panels are ALOT better! And we will be seeing 10ms panels in the near future!
There are 64-bit processors and there are 64-bit solutions the latter of which includes those little bits like memory controllers and other details that make up a useful computer. AMD didn't offer that.
No, but all those computer-manufacturers that use AMD-CPU's do, and they were available before G5 was. And besides: Apple still doesn't offer us 64bit "solution"! Their OS is still 32bits! That will change with Tiger though.
They weren't, however, ever remotely targeted for consumers, and therefore largely in a different class ($5k machines and up).
PowerMac is also targeted at Professionals, not at Joe Sixpack.
(Its just like how there's Sun, SGI, and all of the other flavors, but when Apple started shipping OS X as the standard install, it became the "largest vendor of Unix in the world" overnight.)
Since MacOS X is not certified by the Open Group, it's not Unix. It might be based on Unix, but it's still not Unix. Therefore Apple is not the "largest vendor of Unix in the world".
You just conveniently decided to forget AMD, which gave us nice 64bit solution in spring of '03. Not to mention the plethora of 64bit CPU's that existed long ago....
Linux will be ready for the desktop when it is as easy to install, run, and care for as carelessly as Windows users demand.
Linux already is easier to install than Windows is. How many Windows-users install Windows on their computer, as opposed to getting it pre-installed? Very, very few.
As to running the OS. Linux runs just fine. I have no problems using it, and neither does my wife.
As to taking care of the system.... Alot easier on Linux than on Windows. On Windows I have to have up-to-date anti-virus and the like up 'n running and I have to periodically run something like Ad-Aware on the machine, just to make sure there's not spyware in there. Stuff like that just don't happen on Linux! I feel like I have to hand-hold Windows so that it doesn't collapse under it's own weight, but Linux "just works".
All the applications he lists (OpenOffice, Mozilla, GNU Cash) are no where near the level of their Windows counterparts
I can do word-processing in Oo.org just fine. And besides, you are comparing a free app to something that costs ALOT of money. As to Mozilla... you do know that when it comes to features and security, it completely blows IE out of the water? IE is, by far, the crappies web-browser in the market today. No tabs, no pop-up blocking, no ad-blocking, crappy security... Well, if your "not on the same level"-comment meant that "these apps don't suck as much as these MS-apps do", then you are 100% right.
"On the fourth night of the air war, March 27, around 8:45 in the evening an F-117 was heading back to base after dropping at least one of its 2,000-pound, laser-guided bombs on a target near heavily defended Belgrade. Suddenly, with little or no warning, an SA-3 missile flying at three times the speed of sound and guided by an improvised network of Serbian radars, exploded in a blast of shell fragments a fewft from the plane, slamming it into an uncontrolled dive. The missile's 130 lb warhead is designed to detonate when it gets within 20 ft of its target. Stunned by the explosion, the pilot struggled against what he said approached pressure five times the force of gravity to yank the handles below his seat to eject from the crippled warplane."
I never said I knew a group of people. I've made inqueries and detected reoccuring statements of alcoholism.
Well whoop-de-fucking-do! Those take place in just about every military around the world! And alcoholism is pretty common in Finland so there are bound to be few problem-cases in the military as well.
The people who go on peacekeeping missions are voulunteers, and not forced against their will like the majority of the military force.
No-one is forced to serve in Finland. you can choose civil-service instead. Majority still choose regural service. And according to studies, overwhelming majority of Finns are prepared to defent the country if needed.
In case of war, how long do you think the bulk of the fighting force would be trained? A week? - In one week Finland would be overrun.
This may come as a shock to you, but wars don't "just happen". There would be advance-warning giving more than enough time to bring the troops up to speed.
The people who go on peacekeeping operations are trained much longer
Actually, they receive regural training in the Pori Brigade. the additional traning is only relevant for peace-keeping-missions (mob-control, applying of force etc.). They receive the actual combat-training during the regural-training.
In return they get the Finnish BNP
I assume you talk about GNP? Do you really assume that Russians could just annex Finland and Finlands GNP would then be added to Russias? It doesn't quite work that way, espesially not after a hostile invasion.
natural resources
yeah, Russians are really craving for those Finnish forests, wilderness, swamps and lakes.... Just about the only "natural resource" this country has is the people and their know-how. And those can't be controlled like you could control oil for example.
You _can_ invade a country through air force, and unless you've been living under a rock you'd know it happened last time right after 9.11.2001.
Is Al-Qaida in control of USA? No? That's what I thought.... to control the country, to INVADE it, you need troops.
And how is Russia doing in Chechnya...?
Like shit. And they are just facing some rebels running around with AK-47's and RPG's, not a modern army with modern equipment.
1. Overwhelming majority of worlds planes are still non-stealth 2. Tell you comment to the pilot of the F-117 that the Serbs shot down
And we all know this group of people you know stands to represent the rest of all the regular staff.
But the group of people you know, does represent the military as a whole?
They have all recieved special training for this mission, and as they get quite a lot of pay for it, they should be concidered "professionals".
And those same soldiers form the core of the war-time military. And do you assume that in case of war, the people are just handed an assault-rifle and told to go shoot some Russians? No, they receive training as well.
It would not take all their military power, but only enough to establish air-superiority and surpress infantry.
And doing that would cost them too much when looking at what they get in return. Comprende? you cannot invade a country with air-force, you need troops in the ground. And just look how well Russia is doing in Chechnya. Why would it be any easier in Finland?
he face of warfare has changed, as the latest Gulf conflict really demonstrated, such that lots of cannon fodder with machine guns, which is about all conscripts are good for, can't hold a candle to technology.
Just because they are consripts does not mean that they are "cannon fodder". Yes, Iraq's military was not much to write home about. But that does not prove that conscripts can't be an effective fighting-force. Finland has deployed troops to Kosovo for example, and they compare favourably to US and UK soldiers, even though Finns are just conscripts and US and UK troops are uber-leet professionals.
Conscripts are not necessarily crap, and professional soldiers are not necessarily uber-soldiers.
And besides, there are good reason of having a consript-army here. The wartime manpower of Finnish Army is about 350.000 men. That's enough to defend the country. If we had a professional army, we might have about 50.000 men. Even though those men would have better equipment, there would just bee too few of them. they could defend Helsinki, but that's about it, the enemy could freely invade other parts of the country. If they tried to defend other places as well, they could only send few thousand troops (with no reserves) against several divisions.
Thing is, even if Finaland made every able citizen in their country serve in the military full time, they'd still not have a real military force to speak of only 1 million people and at conscript level abilityies.
The war-time force is 350.000 men, and it's enough. And I fail to see anything wrong with their "abilities". One military-expert was asked on the news that how do the Finnish soldiers compare to US soldiers for example. His reply was: "they compare just fine in both training and in abilities. American soldiers are not somekind of super-soldiers when compared to Finnish soldiers"
Foot soldiers can't do much when faced with carpet bombing except turn into minced meat
Finland is a large country, and about 80% of it is covered with forests. Good luck carpet-bombing anyone there. It didn't help in Vietnam, and it wouldn't help in Finland.
Finland has recently started aqcuiring a number of armored vehicles to replace an aging garage, but completely neglected the defence of air-space.
Not quite. The planes in the Finnish Airforce are just about the best money can buy (F/A-18 Hornets). And they have advanced SAM-batteries (Crotale NG's, Russian BUK's)
To cut a long story short, in my eyes the Finnish army is the epitome of incompetence. The regular staff is the bottom layer of individuals which could not get a decent job in civilian life. A lot of them are alcoholics, the bread of the State the only thing separating them from the averenge bum.
I actually know people who are in MPKK (equivalent to West Point). And let's just say that I don't share your "vision" about them.
And the Finnish Soldiers in Kosovo are highly respected by the others there. They are not outclassed by those "professional" militaries in any shape or form.
The only country Finland could have a chance against in a war is Sweden
Of course if Russian used all their military-power in invading Finland, they could do it. But that's not the point. The point is that invading Finland would cost them too much, that the effort is not worth the cost.
when it comes to military and army, finns still live 30's. it's almost a crime to say a negative word about army in finland and finns haven't never been honest with their ww2.
either you are not a Finn, or you live in a barrel in a middle of the forest. There is ACTIVE discussion about the military going on all the time! Should we join the NATO or not? Should we ratify the Ottawa treaty? Should we move from conscript-military to professional military? How long should the guys doing civil-service serve?
it's funny when finns are like "we are the only one who have ever been able to stop the attack of super power"
Close but no cigar. What is said is that "Finnish Army was the only army in the WW2 that was able to stop Red Armys strategic offensive" and "Finland was the only country in WW2 that sided with Germany and was NOT occupied by a foreign power". And you know what? Both comments are 100% true! Read some military-history before displaying your ignorance!
finnish army is nowadays for patriots, who want to scare finns with the "big bad russian folks behind the border".
Considering that overwhelming majority still serve in the military, it seems that this country is full of patriots, and weasels such as yourself are in the minority.
And besides, there ARE "big bad Russian folks behind the border". For as long as Finns have lived here, the enemy has always been in the east. And Russia has LOTS of military-hardware parked right across the Finnish-Russian border!
only scenario where i could see use of finnish army is against domestic rebellion. i don't see there's any possible outside threat to finland.
uh-huh. I bet people thought exactly like that in 1938. And look what happened.
army of finland is the same kind of crap that every other state army in the world.
I have two proverbs for you that seem fitting:
"There will always be an army inside the country. Either yours or someone elses."
"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't"
But really, what self-respecting Army would pass on a soldier because he spent too much time practicing his BFG9000 skills...
They did't. Basically, they sent the rookies back home to their mommies in order to grow up. In few years, they will find themselves back in the army. So, being addicted to the net is not a valid excuse to get them out of the service.
I was excused from the service back in my day, but that was because I got a severe allergic reaction the moment I reported for duty. It was propably the washing-powder (industrial strength) they use to wash the uniforms. Three days in the service, 30 days in the hospital and I was sent back home.
Speaking as a Finn.
Re:Get your facts straight, moron
on
Soyuz To The Moon?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
My apologies, I was indeed talking about Skylab the spacestation. Don't know how I got Spacelab in there.
But my point remains. you are just arbitaruly changing the definition of "spacestation" so that Salyut would not qualify whereas Skylab would. Couldn't I then just as well say "Mir was alot more than what Skylab was, therefore Mir was the first spacestation."?
Again: Why is Skylab a spacestation whereas Salyut is not? If it's "Salyut wasn't inhabited long enough!", then I have to ask: how long do you have to live there in order for the construction to qualify as a "spacestation"? If it's "It's just a capsule!". Well, where is the line between a capsule and a spacestation? Of course Salyut was less than impressive then compared to those which came after it. Hell, the first satellites in orbit were nothing more than beebing soccer-balls when compared to modern-day satellites, but they were still satellites nonetheless. By same logic: Skylab was more advanced than Saluyt was. But that doesn't change the fact that Salyut was a spacestation.
I'll say it again but slowly this time: because...you...are...an...exception.
What makes me an exception? Because some AC on/. says so? Nothing personal, but I don't accept your opinions and assumptions as gospel. I know plenty of folks who run just KDE and KDE-apps. And I know plenty of folks who stick to Gnome and it's apps. I'm not an exception in any shape or form.
KDE alone? Certainly can't! Should I use OO.o or *guffuw* the glorious crap pile that is KOffice?
Koffice is OK for creating documents, it's doc-compatibility is not perfect, however. If you need oo.org, you can have it KDE-ized just fine. it would then share the look 'n feel, the file-dialogs and the works. I fail to see the problem there.
Firefox or Konquorer?
I use Firefox in Windows and Konqueror in Linux. I have exactly zero problems when it comes to Konqueror and web-browsing. I could just as well use Firefox (I have it installed), but I choose to use Konqueror instead. Just because you prefer Firefox over Konqueror, does not mean that everyone else does as well.
Adobe Acrobat Reader or the KDE Postscript viewer that barely works?
I haven't even installed Acrobat Reader, yet I can read PDF's just fine. Amazing isn't it?
Gimp or..hey wait, there is nothing like the Gimp for KDE! Oh sorry, I forgot that there's KPaint (Ha! I crack me up!)
Gimp is one of the few apps with no equivalent in KDE. But it's not a problem for me since I don't need it that much. And you can't live with the fact that ONE app looks different from the others? Hell, there are apps in Windows that look different from the others!
I have yet to find a decent replacement for the KDE 2.x KBiff that worked so well with KMail.
Well, the Kbiff-website says: "KBiff has now been ported to KDE 2.0 and 3.0.", so it might work with even more recent versions. And if you want an app like that, go ahead and write one. Surely an uber-hacker such as yourself could do it in no time?
Have fun with your consistent desktop. The rest of us will be hoping that Qt fixes their X clipboard support. Again.
Who is this "us" you are talking about? Rest Linux/*BSD-users? What makes you qualified to speak for them? And FWIW: I haven't seen any problems with the clipboard.
Which was up there for all of 6 months, with two crews.
So what? I mean, according to you, Skylab was the first spacestation. Why is Spacelab a spacestation whereas Salyut is not? Aren't you just making up some arbitary definitions for spacestations, so that Spacelab would qualify as one, whereas Salyut would not? Then you could just say "yeah, USA had the first spacestation".
Why couldn't we then say that Spacelab was not a "real" spacestation, but Mir was the first. After all, Mir was inhabited for a lot longer than Spacelab was.
You then go on to mention a GTK+ app and several other non-Qt applications.
I said that I have few such apps installed, but I don't really use them at all. If I don't use them, what does it matter what toolkit they use?
Oh yeah, my KDE desktop is perfectly consistent, but that's only half the picture and you know it.
"half the picture"? In my case, KDE/Qt-apps satisfy my needs just fine, so they are all I run. And they are perfectly consistent.
If you manage to turtously stick to KDE and Qt only, ever, then of course you'll have a wonderfully consistent desktop (Unless you have an old Qt 1.x or 2.x application you might want..whoops, did I just say that?)
I have tried non-Qt/KDE apps, and went back "turtously" to KDE/Qt. Like I said, they do what I want them to do, and that's good enough for me.
No, I don't have any Qt 1.x or 2.x apps. Those are old news.
Welcome to the real world though, where you are the exeception to the rule by a very, very long way.
I don't give a flying fuck about your or anyone elses desktop. I care about MY desktop, and my desktop is consistent. And if I can do it, why can't everyone else do it as well?
Almost nobody runs only KDE and Qt applications only just so they can have a consistent desktop.
I don't use KDE-apps just so I could say "my desktop is consistent!". I use them because I like KDE, the apps do what I want and I'm comfortable using them. The consistency that comes with it is a mere side-effect.
Most of us have real work to get done.
So, you are saying that you can't get work done with KDE? uh, OK.....
I don't use any GTK+ apps. Well, I do have GIMP installed, but I use it only rarely (in three months I have used it for grand total of 2 times for 5 minutes total). I do have OO.org and Firefox installed, but again, I don't use them that much. Firefox is just for sites that require flash (Konqueror is 64bits on this machine, and it doesn't work with 32bit flashplayer-plugin). OO.o is installed, but I haven't used it at all.
Maybe it's just barable if you want to stay right on the bleeding edge of Linux and KDE, where every application you always run is always totally upto date, but for those of us who don't buy into the rabid Gentoy fanboism and who don't enjoy upgrading everything every month,
Why did you bring Gentoo in to the discussion?? What does having up-to-date software have to do with consistency between the apps?
consistency on Linux is a total fucking joke
And, like I said, my KDE-desktop is VERY consistent. I would say that it's MORE consistent than Windows is for example! Many apps in Windows use their own toolkit/look 'n feel. Hell, Office XP looks different than W2K does for example! on my desktop, 95% of the apps look and behave in similar way, and the remaining 5% aren't even used.
a myth purpurtrated by fools and fanboys who don't understand the term and think that a semi-transparent XTerm over their anime wallpaper is the panacea of good design.
Do you want some cheese with that whine? IMO good design is something that lets the user do his job as smoothly as possible. If that transparent Xterm over an anime-wallpaper helps the user to gets his job done, who the hell are you telling him that "No, that is wrong! You shouldn't run your system like that!"?
Slashdot Mirror
Some panels are better than others. There are 20ms panels out there that are better than 16ms panels when it comes to gaming.
Well I have a Nokia 6600 and it has worked really well. In fact, we have about 50 of those in my workplace and they all work very well. Before that we had 6310i. Again: very few problems. Before that I had Nokia 7110. Worked flawlessly. Nokia 6150? Zero problems. 5110? Zero problems.
I have personal experiences regarding six different Nokia-phones and they have all worked very well. Two of those models (6130i and 6600) have been in wider use, so I have had the possibility to see how well they work. And they work really well.
As far as I'm concerned, I have no problems with Nokia or their quality. If you want to talk about crappy phones, think Motorola. Or, to a lesser extent: Siemens. Like that one Siemens "business-phone" where you can't use the headset. Why? Because if you have the headset plugged in and somebody calls you, it plays back the ringtone in the headset. At full volume. In a Nokia-phone (and in any phone that has been designed by people with functional brains) it sends a faint notification to the headset. Loud enough for the user to notice it, but not so loud that it cripples the users hearing (like on the Siemens). Well, the Siemens's manual did mention that the headset is not to be used all the time. Apparently you have to answer the call and THEN plug in the headset!
Microsoft calls Linux "a toy". Why isn't that immature?
And if you go to Redhat.com, they don't call Microsoft "Micro$oft" or something like that. But I bet you can find some pro-Windows fansites/blogs and the like in the net where they use childish phrases to describe Linux and Linux-users.
And besides, Microsoft has called Linux "a toy", "anti-american" and GPL "a virus". Why is that "professional" whereas Slashdots images are not?
I'm reminded by this quote from Rinkworks:
I had this conversation recently with a lady who swore she had been using computers since forever.
* Tech Support: "All right. Now click 'OK'."
* Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
* Tech Support: "Yes, click 'OK'."
* Customer: "Click 'OK'?"
* Tech Support: "That's right. Click 'OK'."
* Customer: "So I click 'OK', right?"
* Tech Support: "Right. Click 'OK'."
Pause.
* Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
* Tech Support: "YOU CLICKED 'CANCEL'???"
* Customer: "That's what I was supposed to do, right?"
* Tech Support: "No, you were supposed to click 'OK'."
* Customer: "I thought you said to click 'Cancel'."
* Tech Support: "NO. I said to click 'OK'."
* Customer: "Oh."
* Tech Support: "Now we have to start over."
* Customer: "Why?"
* Tech Support: "Because you clicked 'Cancel'."
* Customer: "Wasn't I supposed to click 'Cancel'?"
* Tech Support: "No. Forget that. Let's start from the top."
* Customer: "Ok."
I spent the next fifteen minutes re-constructing the carefully crafted setup for this lady's unique computer.
* Tech Support: "All right. Now, are you ready to click 'OK'?"
* Customer: "Yes."
* Tech Support: "Great. Now click 'OK'."
Pause.
* Customer: "I clicked 'Cancel'."
My TFT has a native resolution of 1280x1024. It can do lower ones as well, but 800x600 is really pushing it. But since I never need resolution that low, that's not a problem for me. But the point is that the TFT does the resolutions I need just fine. Older panels had serious problems with non-native resolutions, but newer ones don't have it that bad.
I used to think that "there's no way I'll move to TFT!". But I did, and I'm not looking back. The image-quality is perfect, it does gaming really well, it consumes less electricity and I have more space on my desk than I can shake a stick at! My old CRT took almost half of my desk-space.
Would 20" be good enough?
the 17-inch TFT on my desk cost me something like 450 euros, and it does gaming just fine. Max Payne, Soldier of Fortune, UT2004 etc, etc.... Zero problems.
Gaming wasn't that nice with those old 25+ms panels, but newer 12, 16 and 20ms panels are ALOT better! And we will be seeing 10ms panels in the near future!
No, but all those computer-manufacturers that use AMD-CPU's do, and they were available before G5 was. And besides: Apple still doesn't offer us 64bit "solution"! Their OS is still 32bits! That will change with Tiger though.
PowerMac is also targeted at Professionals, not at Joe Sixpack.
Since MacOS X is not certified by the Open Group, it's not Unix. It might be based on Unix, but it's still not Unix. Therefore Apple is not the "largest vendor of Unix in the world".
You just conveniently decided to forget AMD, which gave us nice 64bit solution in spring of '03. Not to mention the plethora of 64bit CPU's that existed long ago....
Linux already is easier to install than Windows is. How many Windows-users install Windows on their computer, as opposed to getting it pre-installed? Very, very few.
As to running the OS. Linux runs just fine. I have no problems using it, and neither does my wife.
As to taking care of the system.... Alot easier on Linux than on Windows. On Windows I have to have up-to-date anti-virus and the like up 'n running and I have to periodically run something like Ad-Aware on the machine, just to make sure there's not spyware in there. Stuff like that just don't happen on Linux! I feel like I have to hand-hold Windows so that it doesn't collapse under it's own weight, but Linux "just works".
I can do word-processing in Oo.org just fine. And besides, you are comparing a free app to something that costs ALOT of money. As to Mozilla... you do know that when it comes to features and security, it completely blows IE out of the water? IE is, by far, the crappies web-browser in the market today. No tabs, no pop-up blocking, no ad-blocking, crappy security... Well, if your "not on the same level"-comment meant that "these apps don't suck as much as these MS-apps do", then you are 100% right.
Propably, but they receive even more of it.
how many stealth-fighters does Russia have?
For example:
"On the fourth night of the air war, March 27, around 8:45 in the evening an F-117 was heading back to base after dropping at least one of its 2,000-pound, laser-guided bombs on a target near heavily defended Belgrade. Suddenly, with little or no warning, an SA-3 missile flying at three times the speed of sound and guided by an improvised network of Serbian radars, exploded in a blast of shell fragments a fewft from the plane, slamming it into an uncontrolled dive. The missile's 130 lb warhead is designed to detonate when it gets within 20 ft of its target. Stunned by the explosion, the pilot struggled against what he said approached pressure five times the force of gravity to yank the handles below his seat to eject from the crippled warplane."
Well whoop-de-fucking-do! Those take place in just about every military around the world! And alcoholism is pretty common in Finland so there are bound to be few problem-cases in the military as well.
No-one is forced to serve in Finland. you can choose civil-service instead. Majority still choose regural service. And according to studies, overwhelming majority of Finns are prepared to defent the country if needed.
This may come as a shock to you, but wars don't "just happen". There would be advance-warning giving more than enough time to bring the troops up to speed.
Actually, they receive regural training in the Pori Brigade. the additional traning is only relevant for peace-keeping-missions (mob-control, applying of force etc.). They receive the actual combat-training during the regural-training.
I assume you talk about GNP? Do you really assume that Russians could just annex Finland and Finlands GNP would then be added to Russias? It doesn't quite work that way, espesially not after a hostile invasion.
yeah, Russians are really craving for those Finnish forests, wilderness, swamps and lakes.... Just about the only "natural resource" this country has is the people and their know-how. And those can't be controlled like you could control oil for example.
Is Al-Qaida in control of USA? No? That's what I thought.... to control the country, to INVADE it, you need troops.
Like shit. And they are just facing some rebels running around with AK-47's and RPG's, not a modern army with modern equipment.
Two points:
1. Overwhelming majority of worlds planes are still non-stealth
2. Tell you comment to the pilot of the F-117 that the Serbs shot down
But the group of people you know, does represent the military as a whole?
And those same soldiers form the core of the war-time military. And do you assume that in case of war, the people are just handed an assault-rifle and told to go shoot some Russians? No, they receive training as well.
And doing that would cost them too much when looking at what they get in return. Comprende? you cannot invade a country with air-force, you need troops in the ground. And just look how well Russia is doing in Chechnya. Why would it be any easier in Finland?
you have an option of serving unarmed or going to the civil-service. Overwhelming majority choose regural service, though.
Yep. 542 confirmed kills in 105 days...
Just because they are consripts does not mean that they are "cannon fodder". Yes, Iraq's military was not much to write home about. But that does not prove that conscripts can't be an effective fighting-force. Finland has deployed troops to Kosovo for example, and they compare favourably to US and UK soldiers, even though Finns are just conscripts and US and UK troops are uber-leet professionals.
Conscripts are not necessarily crap, and professional soldiers are not necessarily uber-soldiers.
And besides, there are good reason of having a consript-army here. The wartime manpower of Finnish Army is about 350.000 men. That's enough to defend the country. If we had a professional army, we might have about 50.000 men. Even though those men would have better equipment, there would just bee too few of them. they could defend Helsinki, but that's about it, the enemy could freely invade other parts of the country. If they tried to defend other places as well, they could only send few thousand troops (with no reserves) against several divisions.
The war-time force is 350.000 men, and it's enough. And I fail to see anything wrong with their "abilities". One military-expert was asked on the news that how do the Finnish soldiers compare to US soldiers for example. His reply was: "they compare just fine in both training and in abilities. American soldiers are not somekind of super-soldiers when compared to Finnish soldiers"
Finland is a large country, and about 80% of it is covered with forests. Good luck carpet-bombing anyone there. It didn't help in Vietnam, and it wouldn't help in Finland.
Not quite. The planes in the Finnish Airforce are just about the best money can buy (F/A-18 Hornets). And they have advanced SAM-batteries (Crotale NG's, Russian BUK's)
I actually know people who are in MPKK (equivalent to West Point). And let's just say that I don't share your "vision" about them.
And the Finnish Soldiers in Kosovo are highly respected by the others there. They are not outclassed by those "professional" militaries in any shape or form.
Of course if Russian used all their military-power in invading Finland, they could do it. But that's not the point. The point is that invading Finland would cost them too much, that the effort is not worth the cost.
either you are not a Finn, or you live in a barrel in a middle of the forest. There is ACTIVE discussion about the military going on all the time! Should we join the NATO or not? Should we ratify the Ottawa treaty? Should we move from conscript-military to professional military? How long should the guys doing civil-service serve?
Close but no cigar. What is said is that "Finnish Army was the only army in the WW2 that was able to stop Red Armys strategic offensive" and "Finland was the only country in WW2 that sided with Germany and was NOT occupied by a foreign power". And you know what? Both comments are 100% true! Read some military-history before displaying your ignorance!
Considering that overwhelming majority still serve in the military, it seems that this country is full of patriots, and weasels such as yourself are in the minority.
And besides, there ARE "big bad Russian folks behind the border". For as long as Finns have lived here, the enemy has always been in the east. And Russia has LOTS of military-hardware parked right across the Finnish-Russian border!
uh-huh. I bet people thought exactly like that in 1938. And look what happened.
I have two proverbs for you that seem fitting:
"There will always be an army inside the country. Either yours or someone elses."
"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't"
They did't. Basically, they sent the rookies back home to their mommies in order to grow up. In few years, they will find themselves back in the army. So, being addicted to the net is not a valid excuse to get them out of the service.
I was excused from the service back in my day, but that was because I got a severe allergic reaction the moment I reported for duty. It was propably the washing-powder (industrial strength) they use to wash the uniforms. Three days in the service, 30 days in the hospital and I was sent back home.
Speaking as a Finn.
My apologies, I was indeed talking about Skylab the spacestation. Don't know how I got Spacelab in there.
But my point remains. you are just arbitaruly changing the definition of "spacestation" so that Salyut would not qualify whereas Skylab would. Couldn't I then just as well say "Mir was alot more than what Skylab was, therefore Mir was the first spacestation."?
Again: Why is Skylab a spacestation whereas Salyut is not? If it's "Salyut wasn't inhabited long enough!", then I have to ask: how long do you have to live there in order for the construction to qualify as a "spacestation"? If it's "It's just a capsule!". Well, where is the line between a capsule and a spacestation? Of course Salyut was less than impressive then compared to those which came after it. Hell, the first satellites in orbit were nothing more than beebing soccer-balls when compared to modern-day satellites, but they were still satellites nonetheless. By same logic: Skylab was more advanced than Saluyt was. But that doesn't change the fact that Salyut was a spacestation.
What makes me an exception? Because some AC on
Koffice is OK for creating documents, it's doc-compatibility is not perfect, however. If you need oo.org, you can have it KDE-ized just fine. it would then share the look 'n feel, the file-dialogs and the works. I fail to see the problem there.
I use Firefox in Windows and Konqueror in Linux. I have exactly zero problems when it comes to Konqueror and web-browsing. I could just as well use Firefox (I have it installed), but I choose to use Konqueror instead. Just because you prefer Firefox over Konqueror, does not mean that everyone else does as well.
I haven't even installed Acrobat Reader, yet I can read PDF's just fine. Amazing isn't it?
Gimp is one of the few apps with no equivalent in KDE. But it's not a problem for me since I don't need it that much. And you can't live with the fact that ONE app looks different from the others? Hell, there are apps in Windows that look different from the others!
Well, the Kbiff-website says: "KBiff has now been ported to KDE 2.0 and 3.0.", so it might work with even more recent versions. And if you want an app like that, go ahead and write one. Surely an uber-hacker such as yourself could do it in no time?
Who is this "us" you are talking about? Rest Linux/*BSD-users? What makes you qualified to speak for them? And FWIW: I haven't seen any problems with the clipboard.
So what? I mean, according to you, Skylab was the first spacestation. Why is Spacelab a spacestation whereas Salyut is not? Aren't you just making up some arbitary definitions for spacestations, so that Spacelab would qualify as one, whereas Salyut would not? Then you could just say "yeah, USA had the first spacestation".
Why couldn't we then say that Spacelab was not a "real" spacestation, but Mir was the first. After all, Mir was inhabited for a lot longer than Spacelab was.
See? making up new meanings for words is fun!
I said that I have few such apps installed, but I don't really use them at all. If I don't use them, what does it matter what toolkit they use?
"half the picture"? In my case, KDE/Qt-apps satisfy my needs just fine, so they are all I run. And they are perfectly consistent.
I have tried non-Qt/KDE apps, and went back "turtously" to KDE/Qt. Like I said, they do what I want them to do, and that's good enough for me.
No, I don't have any Qt 1.x or 2.x apps. Those are old news.
I don't give a flying fuck about your or anyone elses desktop. I care about MY desktop, and my desktop is consistent. And if I can do it, why can't everyone else do it as well?
I don't use KDE-apps just so I could say "my desktop is consistent!". I use them because I like KDE, the apps do what I want and I'm comfortable using them. The consistency that comes with it is a mere side-effect.
So, you are saying that you can't get work done with KDE? uh, OK.....
I don't use any GTK+ apps. Well, I do have GIMP installed, but I use it only rarely (in three months I have used it for grand total of 2 times for 5 minutes total). I do have OO.org and Firefox installed, but again, I don't use them that much. Firefox is just for sites that require flash (Konqueror is 64bits on this machine, and it doesn't work with 32bit flashplayer-plugin). OO.o is installed, but I haven't used it at all.
Why did you bring Gentoo in to the discussion?? What does having up-to-date software have to do with consistency between the apps?
And, like I said, my KDE-desktop is VERY consistent. I would say that it's MORE consistent than Windows is for example! Many apps in Windows use their own toolkit/look 'n feel. Hell, Office XP looks different than W2K does for example! on my desktop, 95% of the apps look and behave in similar way, and the remaining 5% aren't even used.
Do you want some cheese with that whine? IMO good design is something that lets the user do his job as smoothly as possible. If that transparent Xterm over an anime-wallpaper helps the user to gets his job done, who the hell are you telling him that "No, that is wrong! You shouldn't run your system like that!"?