Explain to me again why China, Russia, India, etc. (as major polluters now and even worse in the future) are not subject to these emissions controls.
Simple - an international agreement has not been reached with them.
Now, can you explain to us all what the hell that has to do with whether climate change is caused by mankind? Are we going to die any less because they pollute more? Leadership falls on the one who leads - and you lead by being the one that always takes the first step; are you saying that you want China, India and Russia to lead the way out of the climate change caused by the pollution that we in the West started with our consumerism?
[Nerd 1] I think I'd like to have a cat.
[Nerd 2] Well, I used to have a poodle called Fifi, and when I took her out for a walk in the evening, she always wanted to go behind this bush in the park to crap, and then afterwards we went down to Burger King to buy a burger and then I let her have some of it and then and then and then...
I'm not an expert but I would guess that a shift to Chinese made chips will be harder on the environment since Chinese pollution laws are generally more lax.
You're right - you are no expert, certainly not on Chinese law. Nor am I, but at least I don't form conclusions based on common prejudice. What I do know is that the problem is not the Chinese legislation or the intentions of the central government - the biggest problem here is corruption on the local level. It matters little that the government in Beijing passes a law that limits pollution from factories, when the local administrators in many places are in the pockets of unscrupulous factory owners little better than gang lords.
Whether they will be able to mount any real competition to Intel and AMD - time will tell. I don't think this is the driving motivation, though.Why pay money for something that they can make themselves? I think it is quite likely that they will get very good at it in the end - the Chinese are clever people.
Glancing over the comments one can see yet another re-run of the same old arguments about why global warming isn't happening and why it isn't our fault anyway; and I wonder - does it matter what we think, in the long run?
Scientists are without a doubt those best suited to evaluate what is going on, and what they have to say makes more sense to me than all these denials. That is the whole point of science: the results stand up to close scrutiny, whether we like them or not. It is silly to imagine a conspiracy amongst climate scientists; the only conspiracy is the conspiracy to only accept research based on the scientific method.
The sad fact is that the climate is changing, that we are causing it and if we want to do anything to avoid a major cataclysmic breakdown, we have to swiftly take radical action. The habitual gluttony that we embellish with names like "consumerism" or "capitalism" is coming to and end, one way or another; the only question is whether we want to exert some influence over how it is going to happpen. If we do nothing or too little, too late - then we will have resource wars, starvation, epidemics and a general breakdown of society, even in Europe and America.
You may call this sensationalism, but that is the thing about looking at the fact objectively: you don't have to like me or my opinions - just check the data, the numbers are all there for you. And then form your own conclusion - but lay aside all the dreams about "we will find a way to continue our gluttony" because we haven't done so yet; which is why there is so much resistance against acknowledging the facts about climate change. Our whole way of life depends on the assumption that we are able to produce cheap energy and pollute without consequences for ever; that there will always be economic growth. We have always known this assumption to be false, and now we see it looming over us. Are we going to panic and hide under our blankets until the bogeyman goes away?
... the last 2 british goverments all but declared war on the concept.
Would you care to elaborate? I'm no big fan of the governments we've had recently, but you seem to start with the conclusion here and work your way to which arguments seem to fit best. "The government is just evil, now all we have to do is find some dirt and stick it on them".
... double park to deliver first aid and you get a ticket, have a word with some unruly kids and you'll find police on your door within mins.
Oh, come on - you know that's not true. Just to counter your examples; the way people in UK park should tell you that you most of the time get away with almost anything, and if you render aid in an accident you are certainly not going to be prosecuted for a trivial offence. As for 'having a word' - what exactly is that? Is it what others would call slapping them around their heads? You don't get into trouble with the police for talking to kids, mate, not unless you are a registered pedophile or under an ASBO.
And flytipping: there are recycling stations everywhere - you'll have to be willfully ignorant to have missed it. The rubbish you'll find in the beautiful country lanes is mostly in the form of whole lorry-loads of building rubbish; clearly some builders have trouble finding their way to all those exclusive "local dumps". This kind of thing wouldn't happen if people in general didn't turn a blind eye, supposedly because they couldn't give a toss.
It is very fashionable to drag out every tiny thing "The Government" does and talk about Big Brother without even trying to understand what it is all about and why it might be a good idea.
One of the big problems in modern society is that people don't give a shit about their society - they don't vote, they dump rubbish out of the car window when they drive along etc. Nobody cares enough to take even a tiny amount of responsibility for what happens around them. I UK we have a lot of beautiful, narrow, twisted country lanes with high hedges on each side; except that each and every one has been used for fly-tipping; a walk in certain areas means wading thigh-deep through dog shit, and so on, and so on.
Perhaps these initiatives are not the best way - who knows? But a lot of things would be a lot better if people cared about each other and about the society they live in.
Ye gods, what a load of snotty attitudes people seem to meet this actually very important question with. Have you guys forgotten that you were once beginners that could hardly find the "Any Key" on a keyboard? Even Americans are not born with the genetic code for how to use a computer; not unless evolution has picked up speed recently. Ok, so there are still only a few responses so far, hopefully the quality will improve.
As for your question - I don't really know. I think it is a very important subject, too important to leave to those that can only view things from one perspective. But you are on the right track - teaching based on open source has the potential to teach more than just how to use computers or program; the open source philosophy and method is very similar to the scientific exchange of ideas, something I feel young people learn far too little of these days.
Perhaps, instead of finding an already written book you could base the courses on a combination of hands-on lessons and your own notes + assignments? I suspect that is what I would do - let them learn about HW by taking apart (and re-assembling) a PC, teach them theory as the need arises from what they are doing. For OS theory, start with UNIX/Linux - it is in many ways the "purest" operating system and allows you to see how the hardware is represented in software. UNIX is a very good starting point for any excursions into all kinds of subjects in IT - filesystems, network theory, programming, system administration etc etc.
The very first thing you need to consider is whether you are eligible for work in Europe or likely to get a work permit. Europeans certainly don't automatically get a work permit in the US; hell, even getting tourist visa is not necessarily trivial, I imagine it is the same for Americans going to Europe. AFAIK, the only ways you are certain to get a work permit are:
1. If you are married to a European 2. If you are studying at a European university (student visa give you part time work permit) 3. If you are exceptionally gifted - think "Soccer Star" or similar.
We have loads of programmers in Europe, so IT is not enough in itself.
If you succeed, however, the greatest pitfall is likely to be cultural. As an American you are probably going to have to prove yourself on a personal level; due to the impression left by American foreign policy and especially the Bush years, many Europeans are less than confident about the average American's ability to fit in. Living in Europe can easily be a major culture-shock.
Over here, on the other side of the water I think most people use Direct Debit, which means that you allow the creditor to take payments automatically from your account; but as a safeguard they must give you 10 days' notice every time, which gives you the opportunity to revoke the DD order before the payment goes out.
Recently we have heard about political demonstrators being arrested, in China during the Olympics, and now in the US before the Republican Convention. I believe we all agree that this is wrong - if freedom of speech has any significance at all, it is to secure the freedom to express your political views without fear of intimidation.
But, bad as it is in China, I think what happens in the US is doubly bad. At least, in China you know in advance that what you do is illegal before you do it, and that it can have negative consequences - you can prepare yourself for it. In America people think that they have the right, that taking part in a political demonstration is not going to have big amd bad consequences, because you have the right to speak your opinion.
True, these Americans are not going to spend long time in a prison or work camp; but in both cases the free expression of political opinions has been oppressed. As far as I can see, America is not living up to its own standards; so - with China, we get to see that they are always doing better than what we expect, and America is always doing worse. Come on, Americans, I know you can do better.
Never mind the statistics - are you happy? Considering the vagueness with which this concept is surrounded, I wouldn't put too much in what "they" say about happiness, but there is actually a way to measure it, which strangely doesn't seem too far out:
Whatever else people say about happiness, I think a major part has to be that you feel contented. Do you go to your job every day wishing that you were somewhere else? Then you are not happy and you should possibly think of a career change. But if you feel that what you do gives you a number of things you want in life, whatever they are, then you are reasonably happy - at least with your job. Our daily life should be much more than just our job.
Lets step back a little bit and look at it with a clear mind, shall we?
I think there are two things worth considering in all this:
- Certain people have been screaming "Fraud" every day of the Olympics over such issues as the pretty girl who mimed to the voice of another girl and the allegedly doctored video of the opening ceremony. I mean, isn't this because those people are going over things with a fine brush trying to find anything that could look bad? And if so, isn't it remarkable that they have only found - how much? Three or four items? I wonder what we would find if we subjected all the Olympic Games that have been held to the same scrutiny. How much would the US turn out to have "cheated"? Well, we'll never know, I suppose. But do we really have to be this petty-minded? If there is something real to criticize, by all means criticize; but this kind of nonsense only detracts from what else you have to say.
- Looking at the evidence, I find a number of questions unanswered; such as whether there is any proof for the authenticity of the said documents? If you accuse somebody of fraud, you have to be able to back it up with evidence that holds in criminal court. Ie. can you prove your accusations beyond any reasonable doubt? If you ever stand accused of a crime, I'm sure you will be able to see the point in that.
But of course, this is not about actually proving that the Chinese are guilty - you have already decided that, proof or not - this is just about scoring cheap points by spreading rumours, isn't it?
Ah, I see you don't know much about Germany. The flames are not an uncommon side-effect of a diet consisting mostly of Sauerkraut and Bockwurst - this also explains things like the leafless trees.
I don't know why others don't use it, but my personal reason has little to do with whether it is a good language or not. I simply got to dislike it from the very beginning - it seemed to be somebody's personal statement about things that have nothing to do with programming.
It's been a long time now, but as far as I remember there is a command or statement in perl called 'bless'; when I finally found some tutorial it went on about 'Christian names' of variables, or something like that - OK, so maybe the guy was religious or something, but it was a real turn-off for me. I mean, I have certain political views which I am perfectly willing to share with the world, but I don't bloody make the programs I write a forum for propaganda.
Ah well, maybe I am way off the mark. Wouldn't be the first time either:-)
(1) credentialed people willing to write and edit them, and
Such as the teacher giving the lectures. You see, mathematics is mathematics, not some branded fashion statement. It remains true or false whether it is written by His Majesty on gold-foil or by a beggar on a piece of lavatory paper. A mathematics course goes through a number of relevant theories, proofs of therems etc - all of which can be found in any number of textbooks. There really is no need to get ripped off.
(2) companies willing to supply a nicely bound printed version of the text for a reasonable price.
Such as the university printer. I remember buying bound lecture notes for about $5 each, written by the teacher - they teach the same courses for years, so of course they not only know this stuff by heart, they also inevitably produce a growing set of notes to clarify this or that, and in the end they might as well publish it. Mind you, this was in Denmark.
In some places, such as France, it's so bad that for many people, it's more profitable to live off welfare than to work.
In most countries with a welfare system like France's you lose part of your welfare if you go and find a job, in proportion to the amount you earn - ie. unless you find a job that pays more than what you can get in welfare, you won't have more money. To many it doesn't make sense to go and work unless it gives you a better income; and who can blame them, really? So, this has nothing to do with the tax system and everythign to do with the way welfare is given.
Still, there is some truth in what you say. There are many ways that a family with a high income can legitimately have greater financial needs than a family with a low income. Take anybody with a university education, for example; they will typically have had to borrow money to finance their studies, so they start their working life in significant debt, which means they can easily have a higher salary, but less disposable income than an average manual labourer.
I don't think it is possible to find a truly fair tax system, but it is possible to make it so that it isn't too unsufferable. As for encoraging people to become more productive - it has little to do with money, unless you feel the squeeze and really need to find a way to earn more. People work hard with things they like to do - hence the open source movement, where people work for nothing and are sometimes hugely productive.
There's ideals and then there's reality. It is a fact of life that some would prefer society to be more like communism, and some would prefer it to be more like - what? Capitalism, I suppose, although I am not sure that the two are opposites. My very loose and unfounded guess is that there are probably about half of each kind in most societies. My hypothesis is that communism and capitalism crystallise two natural tendencies in humans: the caring/sharing part that is essential for holding together families, end by extension, society; and the independent, outgoing, enterprising part that strives to improve their own lot. Some would call the female vs the male principle. I would say both are necessary for society to function well - the eternal question is what is the right mix.
Communism doesn't require authoritarian control - it is the natural state for any group of people who live together, like in a family - think about it, although each member of a family has their own possessions, most of the family's assets are owned in common, at least subjectively even if the law may say otherwise. The authoritarian control only becomes necessary if you try to force the issue - it is not likely that one can create a truly communist society through a revolution. But I think it is a possibility if humanity one day learns that there is no "them and us" - isn't this what we all want to happen in one form or another? The descriptions of the Christian Paradise certainly seem to revolve around that theme; communists believe that it is not only an impossible dream.
Now, my concern is: what kind of consequences could I bring on myself for refusing to support the patent process?
To answer your question: if you don't do your job as described in your contract, you can get fired. According to most contracts I have seen (this is in EU, may be different in the US), the company owns your work; they buy it of you for the salary you receive, sort of thing. Much as I am disgusted by the whole idea of SW patents, I don't think you can outright refuse, unless you are willing to leave your job.
But as others have pointed out, there are legitimate ways to work against this. If your employer is at all reasonable, they won't fire you for voicing your opinion, and there are many valid reasons for not playing the patent game. In my view this kind of patents will turn out to be a waste of money, unless they can profit from it immediately.
The left side will copy the whole directory tree under/source/directory and put it out on stdout in tar format; the right side will route the stdout to the target machine, where it will be unpacked under the target directory. If you don't want to copy everything, there are ways of handling that too - read the man pages of tar and find.
Which is why neither communism nor facism is popular here as both have come to symbolise authoritarian rule.
What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me. Personal freedom, respect for privacy, minimal government, decentralising power - those are some of the most important things for me. I am a communist, by the way - but perhaps not in the sense that people on Slashdot think of.
It would be nice if everybody would learn what all these concept actually mean, like liberty, libertarian, free market, privacy - and communism - because most of the time people simply squabble over differences that only exist in their imagination. Which is why "communism" , at least in America, has become the symbol for everything evil in the world. Never mind that communism is an attempt at creating a balanced and caring society, where everybody gets a fair chance - "Communism" is evil and therefore whenever we encounter something we really don't like, we include it under our oncept of "Communism".
By doing this people actually join forces with people like the fundamental Muslims, to whom "Christianity" is the symbol for everything evil in the world. Or the fundamental Christians, to whom "Islam" means the same. How are we ever going to find peace with others - and with ourselves - when we don't even try to understand each other?
... including behaviour-altering drugs, scanners that can interpret a person's state of mind and devices capable of boosting senses such as hearing and vision....The report highlights one electronic technique, called transcranial direct current stimulation, which involves using electrical pulses to interfere with the firing of neurons in the brain and has been shown to delay a person's ability to tell a lie
Several of these techniques are already covered under international law, I think: You are not allowed to force prisoners of war to take drugs or undergo drastic treatments, like transcranial stimulation; and of course spreading behaviour-altering drugs in the environment is chemical warfare.
I don't see that there is anything new in these things - it is just some general's wet dream of absolute power. We have known about mind-altering drugs for millennia: Magic mushrooms, peyote etc. Boosting senses: telescopes and microphones. And forcing people to tell the truth: that has always been the purpose and definition of torture; whether you beat seven kinds of shit out of a person or use electricity in various strengths is immaterial.
In recent years we have become more refined in some areas; we understand better how the brain works, but there is still a very long way to go before we can read a person's state of mind in any detail. The problem is that our brain is incredibly adaptable. Even if we lose large areas of brain tissue, other areas can take over and compensate. This plasticity means that there is a limit to how fine a resolution we can achieve with a brain scanner. Add to this the fact that scanning the brain also influences it - like in quantum mechanics, the harder you look, the more you disturb what you look at.
These techniques will provide valuable scientific insight and will help doctors cure difficult diseases, but it is doubtful that they will ever become useful as weapons, even if one cares nothing about the ethical side of things.
Yes. Most people do identify themselves with some group or other - and they want to feel that their group is doing well in the world. In an age not so long ago it was your local tribe, later it was "my country" - and they would go to war with each other at the fall of a hat. Sports event have arguably helped decrease the amount of armed conflict in the world; if you know the history of Europe, you'll know that there was constant conflicts until around the beginning of the 20th century, when the first international sports events began, most notably the Olympics.
And you mention football - isn't that a way of having a fight in a controlled manner? I would say so. Seeing how hooligans take to the streets after a game shows that there is a lot of pent up aggression that needs some form of release and finds it in connection with a football game.
The Colbert Report appears to exercise 'disproportionate real world influence'
I don't think so - humour is often the most honest way of communicating news and viewpoints about the political reality, especially when the "serious" news are controlled by special interests. We saw that in the old East-bloc - you couldn't criticise the government in the news, but you could often get aways with it in comedy.
It is interesting to see that the democrats gain from appearing in a comedy show and the republicans don't. Perhaps it is because people have a lot of sympathy for a persons that can laugh at themselves? I often get the impression that the republicans take themselves very seriously.
I think it is basically a good idea; the only problem being how to define and enforce fairness. Several countries in Europe have something similar, which is why European news seem so much more varied than American news. The broadcasting services in Europe seem to have originated mostly as public services, and building in some sort of 'fairness-doctrine' only seemed natural, since the state is supposed to be the servant of the whole of the population, not just the party that happens to be in power.
The sad fact is that American news services are anything but balanced, which at the end of the day harms democracy. How can the electorate make an informed choice about anything when the news are all distorted? People aren't stupid - they can see that each broadcaster has its own agenda, so they give up trying to find out what really goes on and only tune in on the channels that don't challenge their chosen belief; and in effect politics, political news and political ideologies have become irrelevant backgroud noise, replaced by indifferent gossip about the politicians - like "Obama sounds like Osama, hur hur".
How can we repair America? That what I'd like to know. I know from experience that Americans are good and decent people; so why is the American nation such a vile bastard in many ways? Whatever else the explanation is, it is clear that the government of America is not a true representation of its people.
Sport is healthy, we hear, which is true in moderation. Take running as an example: running up to a few miles every day is healthy, it strengthens your body; but running a marathon is never healthy. The reason is simply: exercise causes a lot of minute 'damages' in your tissues, and the body responds by not only repairing the damage, but also improving things in anticipation of future exercise. But a marathon causes more damage than the body can repair, to put it simply.
So, the Olympic games are definitely not about promoting health in the first place - they are about meeting in peaceful competition, and about making money. As far as I can see, the money involved is what makes it such a higly strung and overhyped event that the participants want to win no matter what the price is for their own health. Remove the business aspect and make it exclusively a forum for nations to meet in 'peaceful battle', which is a good way to avoid war; I think the doping problem will be a lot smaller.
As it is now, when an athlete fails a doping test, it is regarded as their personal attempt at cheating; if the games were more of a meeting of nations, doping could be seen as the attempt of that nation to cheat; the whole country would be put to shame, and the athletes would be under much less pressure to cheat.
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Explain to me again why China, Russia, India, etc. (as major polluters now and even worse in the future) are not subject to these emissions controls.
Simple - an international agreement has not been reached with them.
Now, can you explain to us all what the hell that has to do with whether climate change is caused by mankind? Are we going to die any less because they pollute more? Leadership falls on the one who leads - and you lead by being the one that always takes the first step; are you saying that you want China, India and Russia to lead the way out of the climate change caused by the pollution that we in the West started with our consumerism?
[Nerd 1] I think I'd like to have a cat.
[Nerd 2] Well, I used to have a poodle called Fifi, and when I took her out for a walk in the evening, she always wanted to go behind this bush in the park to crap, and then afterwards we went down to Burger King to buy a burger and then I let her have some of it and then and then and then ...
I'm not an expert but I would guess that a shift to Chinese made chips will be harder on the environment since Chinese pollution laws are generally more lax.
You're right - you are no expert, certainly not on Chinese law. Nor am I, but at least I don't form conclusions based on common prejudice. What I do know is that the problem is not the Chinese legislation or the intentions of the central government - the biggest problem here is corruption on the local level. It matters little that the government in Beijing passes a law that limits pollution from factories, when the local administrators in many places are in the pockets of unscrupulous factory owners little better than gang lords.
Whether they will be able to mount any real competition to Intel and AMD - time will tell. I don't think this is the driving motivation, though.Why pay money for something that they can make themselves? I think it is quite likely that they will get very good at it in the end - the Chinese are clever people.
Glancing over the comments one can see yet another re-run of the same old arguments about why global warming isn't happening and why it isn't our fault anyway; and I wonder - does it matter what we think, in the long run?
Scientists are without a doubt those best suited to evaluate what is going on, and what they have to say makes more sense to me than all these denials. That is the whole point of science: the results stand up to close scrutiny, whether we like them or not. It is silly to imagine a conspiracy amongst climate scientists; the only conspiracy is the conspiracy to only accept research based on the scientific method.
The sad fact is that the climate is changing, that we are causing it and if we want to do anything to avoid a major cataclysmic breakdown, we have to swiftly take radical action. The habitual gluttony that we embellish with names like "consumerism" or "capitalism" is coming to and end, one way or another; the only question is whether we want to exert some influence over how it is going to happpen. If we do nothing or too little, too late - then we will have resource wars, starvation, epidemics and a general breakdown of society, even in Europe and America.
You may call this sensationalism, but that is the thing about looking at the fact objectively: you don't have to like me or my opinions - just check the data, the numbers are all there for you. And then form your own conclusion - but lay aside all the dreams about "we will find a way to continue our gluttony" because we haven't done so yet; which is why there is so much resistance against acknowledging the facts about climate change. Our whole way of life depends on the assumption that we are able to produce cheap energy and pollute without consequences for ever; that there will always be economic growth. We have always known this assumption to be false, and now we see it looming over us. Are we going to panic and hide under our blankets until the bogeyman goes away?
... the last 2 british goverments all but declared war on the concept.
Would you care to elaborate? I'm no big fan of the governments we've had recently, but you seem to start with the conclusion here and work your way to which arguments seem to fit best. "The government is just evil, now all we have to do is find some dirt and stick it on them".
... double park to deliver first aid and you get a ticket, have a word with some unruly kids and you'll find police on your door within mins.
Oh, come on - you know that's not true. Just to counter your examples; the way people in UK park should tell you that you most of the time get away with almost anything, and if you render aid in an accident you are certainly not going to be prosecuted for a trivial offence. As for 'having a word' - what exactly is that? Is it what others would call slapping them around their heads? You don't get into trouble with the police for talking to kids, mate, not unless you are a registered pedophile or under an ASBO.
And flytipping: there are recycling stations everywhere - you'll have to be willfully ignorant to have missed it. The rubbish you'll find in the beautiful country lanes is mostly in the form of whole lorry-loads of building rubbish; clearly some builders have trouble finding their way to all those exclusive "local dumps". This kind of thing wouldn't happen if people in general didn't turn a blind eye, supposedly because they couldn't give a toss.
It is very fashionable to drag out every tiny thing "The Government" does and talk about Big Brother without even trying to understand what it is all about and why it might be a good idea.
One of the big problems in modern society is that people don't give a shit about their society - they don't vote, they dump rubbish out of the car window when they drive along etc. Nobody cares enough to take even a tiny amount of responsibility for what happens around them. I UK we have a lot of beautiful, narrow, twisted country lanes with high hedges on each side; except that each and every one has been used for fly-tipping; a walk in certain areas means wading thigh-deep through dog shit, and so on, and so on.
Perhaps these initiatives are not the best way - who knows? But a lot of things would be a lot better if people cared about each other and about the society they live in.
Ye gods, what a load of snotty attitudes people seem to meet this actually very important question with. Have you guys forgotten that you were once beginners that could hardly find the "Any Key" on a keyboard? Even Americans are not born with the genetic code for how to use a computer; not unless evolution has picked up speed recently. Ok, so there are still only a few responses so far, hopefully the quality will improve.
As for your question - I don't really know. I think it is a very important subject, too important to leave to those that can only view things from one perspective. But you are on the right track - teaching based on open source has the potential to teach more than just how to use computers or program; the open source philosophy and method is very similar to the scientific exchange of ideas, something I feel young people learn far too little of these days.
Perhaps, instead of finding an already written book you could base the courses on a combination of hands-on lessons and your own notes + assignments? I suspect that is what I would do - let them learn about HW by taking apart (and re-assembling) a PC, teach them theory as the need arises from what they are doing. For OS theory, start with UNIX/Linux - it is in many ways the "purest" operating system and allows you to see how the hardware is represented in software. UNIX is a very good starting point for any excursions into all kinds of subjects in IT - filesystems, network theory, programming, system administration etc etc.
The very first thing you need to consider is whether you are eligible for work in Europe or likely to get a work permit. Europeans certainly don't automatically get a work permit in the US; hell, even getting tourist visa is not necessarily trivial, I imagine it is the same for Americans going to Europe. AFAIK, the only ways you are certain to get a work permit are:
1. If you are married to a European
2. If you are studying at a European university (student visa give you part time work permit)
3. If you are exceptionally gifted - think "Soccer Star" or similar.
We have loads of programmers in Europe, so IT is not enough in itself.
If you succeed, however, the greatest pitfall is likely to be cultural. As an American you are probably going to have to prove yourself on a personal level; due to the impression left by American foreign policy and especially the Bush years, many Europeans are less than confident about the average American's ability to fit in. Living in Europe can easily be a major culture-shock.
Over here, on the other side of the water I think most people use Direct Debit, which means that you allow the creditor to take payments automatically from your account; but as a safeguard they must give you 10 days' notice every time, which gives you the opportunity to revoke the DD order before the payment goes out.
Recently we have heard about political demonstrators being arrested, in China during the Olympics, and now in the US before the Republican Convention. I believe we all agree that this is wrong - if freedom of speech has any significance at all, it is to secure the freedom to express your political views without fear of intimidation.
But, bad as it is in China, I think what happens in the US is doubly bad. At least, in China you know in advance that what you do is illegal before you do it, and that it can have negative consequences - you can prepare yourself for it. In America people think that they have the right, that taking part in a political demonstration is not going to have big amd bad consequences, because you have the right to speak your opinion.
True, these Americans are not going to spend long time in a prison or work camp; but in both cases the free expression of political opinions has been oppressed. As far as I can see, America is not living up to its own standards; so - with China, we get to see that they are always doing better than what we expect, and America is always doing worse. Come on, Americans, I know you can do better.
Never mind the statistics - are you happy? Considering the vagueness with which this concept is surrounded, I wouldn't put too much in what "they" say about happiness, but there is actually a way to measure it, which strangely doesn't seem too far out:
http://www.coachingtohappiness.com/happiness_-test.html
Whatever else people say about happiness, I think a major part has to be that you feel contented. Do you go to your job every day wishing that you were somewhere else? Then you are not happy and you should possibly think of a career change. But if you feel that what you do gives you a number of things you want in life, whatever they are, then you are reasonably happy - at least with your job. Our daily life should be much more than just our job.
Dinosaurs are extinct
Well, actually, they didn't so much go extinct as evolve into birds! ;-)
Lets step back a little bit and look at it with a clear mind, shall we?
I think there are two things worth considering in all this:
- Certain people have been screaming "Fraud" every day of the Olympics over such issues as the pretty girl who mimed to the voice of another girl and the allegedly doctored video of the opening ceremony. I mean, isn't this because those people are going over things with a fine brush trying to find anything that could look bad? And if so, isn't it remarkable that they have only found - how much? Three or four items? I wonder what we would find if we subjected all the Olympic Games that have been held to the same scrutiny. How much would the US turn out to have "cheated"? Well, we'll never know, I suppose. But do we really have to be this petty-minded? If there is something real to criticize, by all means criticize; but this kind of nonsense only detracts from what else you have to say.
- Looking at the evidence, I find a number of questions unanswered; such as whether there is any proof for the authenticity of the said documents? If you accuse somebody of fraud, you have to be able to back it up with evidence that holds in criminal court. Ie. can you prove your accusations beyond any reasonable doubt? If you ever stand accused of a crime, I'm sure you will be able to see the point in that.
But of course, this is not about actually proving that the Chinese are guilty - you have already decided that, proof or not - this is just about scoring cheap points by spreading rumours, isn't it?
Ah, I see you don't know much about Germany. The flames are not an uncommon side-effect of a diet consisting mostly of Sauerkraut and Bockwurst - this also explains things like the leafless trees.
I don't know why others don't use it, but my personal reason has little to do with whether it is a good language or not. I simply got to dislike it from the very beginning - it seemed to be somebody's personal statement about things that have nothing to do with programming.
It's been a long time now, but as far as I remember there is a command or statement in perl called 'bless'; when I finally found some tutorial it went on about 'Christian names' of variables, or something like that - OK, so maybe the guy was religious or something, but it was a real turn-off for me. I mean, I have certain political views which I am perfectly willing to share with the world, but I don't bloody make the programs I write a forum for propaganda.
Ah well, maybe I am way off the mark. Wouldn't be the first time either :-)
(1) credentialed people willing to write and edit them, and
Such as the teacher giving the lectures. You see, mathematics is mathematics, not some branded fashion statement. It remains true or false whether it is written by His Majesty on gold-foil or by a beggar on a piece of lavatory paper. A mathematics course goes through a number of relevant theories, proofs of therems etc - all of which can be found in any number of textbooks. There really is no need to get ripped off.
(2) companies willing to supply a nicely bound printed version of the text for a reasonable price.
Such as the university printer. I remember buying bound lecture notes for about $5 each, written by the teacher - they teach the same courses for years, so of course they not only know this stuff by heart, they also inevitably produce a growing set of notes to clarify this or that, and in the end they might as well publish it. Mind you, this was in Denmark.
In some places, such as France, it's so bad that for many people, it's more profitable to live off welfare than to work.
In most countries with a welfare system like France's you lose part of your welfare if you go and find a job, in proportion to the amount you earn - ie. unless you find a job that pays more than what you can get in welfare, you won't have more money. To many it doesn't make sense to go and work unless it gives you a better income; and who can blame them, really? So, this has nothing to do with the tax system and everythign to do with the way welfare is given.
Still, there is some truth in what you say. There are many ways that a family with a high income can legitimately have greater financial needs than a family with a low income. Take anybody with a university education, for example; they will typically have had to borrow money to finance their studies, so they start their working life in significant debt, which means they can easily have a higher salary, but less disposable income than an average manual labourer.
I don't think it is possible to find a truly fair tax system, but it is possible to make it so that it isn't too unsufferable. As for encoraging people to become more productive - it has little to do with money, unless you feel the squeeze and really need to find a way to earn more. People work hard with things they like to do - hence the open source movement, where people work for nothing and are sometimes hugely productive.
There's ideals and then there's reality. It is a fact of life that some would prefer society to be more like communism, and some would prefer it to be more like - what? Capitalism, I suppose, although I am not sure that the two are opposites. My very loose and unfounded guess is that there are probably about half of each kind in most societies. My hypothesis is that communism and capitalism crystallise two natural tendencies in humans: the caring/sharing part that is essential for holding together families, end by extension, society; and the independent, outgoing, enterprising part that strives to improve their own lot. Some would call the female vs the male principle. I would say both are necessary for society to function well - the eternal question is what is the right mix.
Communism doesn't require authoritarian control - it is the natural state for any group of people who live together, like in a family - think about it, although each member of a family has their own possessions, most of the family's assets are owned in common, at least subjectively even if the law may say otherwise. The authoritarian control only becomes necessary if you try to force the issue - it is not likely that one can create a truly communist society through a revolution. But I think it is a possibility if humanity one day learns that there is no "them and us" - isn't this what we all want to happen in one form or another? The descriptions of the Christian Paradise certainly seem to revolve around that theme; communists believe that it is not only an impossible dream.
Now, my concern is: what kind of consequences could I bring on myself for refusing to support the patent process?
To answer your question: if you don't do your job as described in your contract, you can get fired. According to most contracts I have seen (this is in EU, may be different in the US), the company owns your work; they buy it of you for the salary you receive, sort of thing. Much as I am disgusted by the whole idea of SW patents, I don't think you can outright refuse, unless you are willing to leave your job.
But as others have pointed out, there are legitimate ways to work against this. If your employer is at all reasonable, they won't fire you for voicing your opinion, and there are many valid reasons for not playing the patent game. In my view this kind of patents will turn out to be a waste of money, unless they can profit from it immediately.
If possible, keep it simple. This is what I do - it is from UNIX, I don't know if Windows can handle it, but probably through a proper UNIX subsystem:
(cd /source/directory;tar cf - *)|ssh user@target '(cd /target/directory;tar xvf -)'
The left side will copy the whole directory tree under /source/directory and put it out on stdout in tar format; the right side will route the stdout to the target machine, where it will be unpacked under the target directory. If you don't want to copy everything, there are ways of handling that too - read the man pages of tar and find.
Which is why neither communism nor facism is popular here as both have come to symbolise authoritarian rule.
What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me. Personal freedom, respect for privacy, minimal government, decentralising power - those are some of the most important things for me. I am a communist, by the way - but perhaps not in the sense that people on Slashdot think of.
It would be nice if everybody would learn what all these concept actually mean, like liberty, libertarian, free market, privacy - and communism - because most of the time people simply squabble over differences that only exist in their imagination. Which is why "communism" , at least in America, has become the symbol for everything evil in the world. Never mind that communism is an attempt at creating a balanced and caring society, where everybody gets a fair chance - "Communism" is evil and therefore whenever we encounter something we really don't like, we include it under our oncept of "Communism".
By doing this people actually join forces with people like the fundamental Muslims, to whom "Christianity" is the symbol for everything evil in the world. Or the fundamental Christians, to whom "Islam" means the same. How are we ever going to find peace with others - and with ourselves - when we don't even try to understand each other?
... including behaviour-altering drugs, scanners that can interpret a person's state of mind and devices capable of boosting senses such as hearing and vision. ...The report highlights one electronic technique, called transcranial direct current stimulation, which involves using electrical pulses to interfere with the firing of neurons in the brain and has been shown to delay a person's ability to tell a lie
Several of these techniques are already covered under international law, I think: You are not allowed to force prisoners of war to take drugs or undergo drastic treatments, like transcranial stimulation; and of course spreading behaviour-altering drugs in the environment is chemical warfare.
I don't see that there is anything new in these things - it is just some general's wet dream of absolute power. We have known about mind-altering drugs for millennia: Magic mushrooms, peyote etc. Boosting senses: telescopes and microphones. And forcing people to tell the truth: that has always been the purpose and definition of torture; whether you beat seven kinds of shit out of a person or use electricity in various strengths is immaterial.
In recent years we have become more refined in some areas; we understand better how the brain works, but there is still a very long way to go before we can read a person's state of mind in any detail. The problem is that our brain is incredibly adaptable. Even if we lose large areas of brain tissue, other areas can take over and compensate. This plasticity means that there is a limit to how fine a resolution we can achieve with a brain scanner. Add to this the fact that scanning the brain also influences it - like in quantum mechanics, the harder you look, the more you disturb what you look at.
These techniques will provide valuable scientific insight and will help doctors cure difficult diseases, but it is doubtful that they will ever become useful as weapons, even if one cares nothing about the ethical side of things.
A good way to avoid war?
Yes. Most people do identify themselves with some group or other - and they want to feel that their group is doing well in the world. In an age not so long ago it was your local tribe, later it was "my country" - and they would go to war with each other at the fall of a hat. Sports event have arguably helped decrease the amount of armed conflict in the world; if you know the history of Europe, you'll know that there was constant conflicts until around the beginning of the 20th century, when the first international sports events began, most notably the Olympics.
And you mention football - isn't that a way of having a fight in a controlled manner? I would say so. Seeing how hooligans take to the streets after a game shows that there is a lot of pent up aggression that needs some form of release and finds it in connection with a football game.
The Colbert Report appears to exercise 'disproportionate real world influence'
I don't think so - humour is often the most honest way of communicating news and viewpoints about the political reality, especially when the "serious" news are controlled by special interests. We saw that in the old East-bloc - you couldn't criticise the government in the news, but you could often get aways with it in comedy.
It is interesting to see that the democrats gain from appearing in a comedy show and the republicans don't. Perhaps it is because people have a lot of sympathy for a persons that can laugh at themselves? I often get the impression that the republicans take themselves very seriously.
I think it is basically a good idea; the only problem being how to define and enforce fairness. Several countries in Europe have something similar, which is why European news seem so much more varied than American news. The broadcasting services in Europe seem to have originated mostly as public services, and building in some sort of 'fairness-doctrine' only seemed natural, since the state is supposed to be the servant of the whole of the population, not just the party that happens to be in power.
The sad fact is that American news services are anything but balanced, which at the end of the day harms democracy. How can the electorate make an informed choice about anything when the news are all distorted? People aren't stupid - they can see that each broadcaster has its own agenda, so they give up trying to find out what really goes on and only tune in on the channels that don't challenge their chosen belief; and in effect politics, political news and political ideologies have become irrelevant backgroud noise, replaced by indifferent gossip about the politicians - like "Obama sounds like Osama, hur hur".
How can we repair America? That what I'd like to know. I know from experience that Americans are good and decent people; so why is the American nation such a vile bastard in many ways? Whatever else the explanation is, it is clear that the government of America is not a true representation of its people.
Sport is healthy, we hear, which is true in moderation. Take running as an example: running up to a few miles every day is healthy, it strengthens your body; but running a marathon is never healthy. The reason is simply: exercise causes a lot of minute 'damages' in your tissues, and the body responds by not only repairing the damage, but also improving things in anticipation of future exercise. But a marathon causes more damage than the body can repair, to put it simply.
So, the Olympic games are definitely not about promoting health in the first place - they are about meeting in peaceful competition, and about making money. As far as I can see, the money involved is what makes it such a higly strung and overhyped event that the participants want to win no matter what the price is for their own health. Remove the business aspect and make it exclusively a forum for nations to meet in 'peaceful battle', which is a good way to avoid war; I think the doping problem will be a lot smaller.
As it is now, when an athlete fails a doping test, it is regarded as their personal attempt at cheating; if the games were more of a meeting of nations, doping could be seen as the attempt of that nation to cheat; the whole country would be put to shame, and the athletes would be under much less pressure to cheat.