The land area of eruope is about 2,269,180 hectares. The land area of europe minus the "Russian Federation", which is as far as I know a part of Eruope, is a mere 569600 hectares.
Of course you are using very different figures from the ones I took from Encarta - they are from 1993, so don't take into account certain little changes since then.
But anyway, using your table, you're right, Europe is about 570k hectares, and the USA is 957k hectares - a difference, but not a vast one.
However, back to the original point. I consider the argument that Europe has GSM and the USA doesn't because it is 'easier' in Europe to be rubbish.
As far as I understand they still lag behind us in DSL capacity.
As far as you understand, or is this an assumption you have made because you assume that surely the USA must be more advanced than Europe in these things? I live between the UK and Spain and I have 2Mbps DSL connections to my homes in both places, and have had for a while now.
That includes a lot of the less populated land masses. Like oh.. huge chunks of russia...
This is humor right? You are joking, right? I do hope so.
Just in case you're not, here are a few facts from Encarta for you:
In both total area and geographic extent Russia is the largest country in the world. With an area of 17,075,200 sq km (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia constitutes more than one-ninth of the world's land area and nearly twice the area of the United States or China.
Notice that Russia is a country. It is not part of Europe.
And for christsakes, please look at a map before posing another comment.
In the states? Not quite so easy... due to the simple fact of the size. Same reason we don't have GSM, same reason all these nifty technologies (anything wireless) take time.
Oh yes, that's right. Europe's easy because it's small. I'd forgotten that. Europe has a tiny land mass of 3,998,000 sq miles, whereas the USA has a massive land mass of 3,717,796 sq miles, according to Encarta. Oh, hang on, those figures can't be right, surely?
And being lots of different locally governed countries speaking different languages and (until very recently) using differnt currencies - that's got to make things easier, hasn't it!
The only reason that Europe is ahead of the USA in terms of DSL, GSM and advanced networks is because the USA, being a young country, speaking a single language with virtually a single culture and mindset and single government, well, everything is so much harder for the USA isn't it?
Yes, it exists, and this research network is not even in the U.S!
Gosh! Outside the US! In Europe!
The Europeans really seem to be advancing don't they? A friend of mine visited Europe and told me that they've got TV, computers, mobile telephones, everything! How long before they catch up with the US?
However, they are still really lagging in cultural things. They don't have that many great places to hang out as in the US like Starbucks or MacDonalds (just little coffee shops and resturants which are all different!) and they don't have so many TV channels (and a lot of the ones they do have are in funny languages!). And they aren't as advanced politically as the US - they don't have the personal freedoms that we have, like the feedom to carry guns and, er, the other freedoms that we have.
It's not that the magazine sucks so much as it's lost its primary relevance.
I disagree. There's lots of exciting stuff happening in the IT world right now. But Wired has changed how it covers it.
For instance, see its dumb coverage of Linux a couple of issues ago. The early Wired coverage would be - wow, Open Source is a huge trend, let's predict what's going to happen. The current Wired coverage is - Open Source, we don't get it, and some of our big advertisers don't like it, so we're going to say it sucks and the status-quo isn't going to change. I prefer the old Wired.
I just brought my last copy of Wired magazine a few days ago. It's got to a point where it's just not worth buying anymore - I could hardly find an article I could be bothered to read. It used to be that upon buying a new issue of Wired I would read it cover to cover in one sitting.
What happened? It used to have writers who were passionate about technology, had interesting opinions, and had their fingers on the pulse of change. Now it's like a product catalog for gadgets and 'cool stuff'. About half the articles seem to be 'advertising features'.
I think the rot set in during the dot-com boom. The writers stopped talking about the technology and started focusing on making a fast buck.
Sorry Wired, I used to love ya, but we've just drifted apart, ok? Time to move on.
There is a good resource here [techcentralstation.com] that explains why all of these broadband providers are going out of business.
It's not a good resource at all. That has got to be one of the biased websites I have every seen. It is funded by 'sponsoring organisations' and every article seems to be written with some alterior motive in mind. Here's a summary of the kind of stuff the site says:
1) Global warming is rubbish. People who believe in it are hippies who don't like business and America, and don't understand science.
2) There are no risks associated with genetically engineered food. People who believe this are hippies (see above).
3) There are no risks associated Nanotechnology, you damn hippies.
4) Europeans are all damn hippies. And Canadians.
5) The government is interferring with Microsoft's right to innovate.
6) Broadband is failing because of the government.
If you think that a realiable source for news, the you've got to be nuts.
I find it a sensible solution regarding to strictly national TLDs
I don't think it is sensible at all. What is sensible is to have a second level domains at the country level. They have this in the UK, so that, for instance,
company.ltd.uk
must be a registered, limited, company, but (as far as I am aware)
whatever.co.uk
can be registered by anyone.
Spain doesn't have this second level and is very restrictive about who can have domain names. It might, as you say, give "respect for the national flag", but I don't think it does much good for the new economy of Spain.
Yes, the Spanish system is especially crap, and demonstrates that there is actually a lot of good in the "first come, first served" method of.com assignment.
One of the great failings of the Spanish system is that you have to be a registered company to get a.es domain name, and there is a lot of red tape to jump through to set up a company. Even with expensive lawers, it can still take a month, and then another few weeks until your registration is approved, and you need a minimum capital (about $3000) to start a company.
Compare this to the UK where you can buy an off-the-shelf company in 24hrs for about $150 and get the domain name the same day.
Microsoft claims that they already have several hundred million Passport users, on the strength of the fact that all Hotmail users are automatically signed up for a Passport.
However, how many people actually use Hotmail for serious email? I doubt foxychic52@hotmail.com and hot_guy334@hotmail.com really provided accurate information when they signed up for their Hotmail accounts...
The infrastructure required for the 3G is massive, complex and expensive. In my opinion, it may well be doomed.
Consider this - local wireless is becoming increasingly popular and powerful. How long will it be before your handheld, Palm, or whatever, instantly connects to your office network via wireless so that you can have a broadband connetion to the Internet via that? Project a bit further - how long is it going to be before your handheld instantly becomes a guest on other companies' networks when you are visiting them, so you get a broadband internet connection through that? How long will it be before hotels also have this facility? Universities? Schools?
The technolgy to do this is very nearly here, today. It will be relatively cheap to implement. So, the telcos are going to be loosing out on all that lovely revenue from connections to the internet made in or near company offices, hotels, schools, universities, etc. What proporition of their mobile phone revenue has that got to be? Sixty per cent? More?
Remember Iridium? Once upon a time it sounded like it couldn't loose, didn't it?
The telcos are years behind with 3G. My advice - don't invest in it.
The exchange connector is NOT FREE SOFTWARE. Why is slashdot not calling a jihad against this?
Why are you asking us to?
Yes, some free software fanatics read Slashdot, but there are also a lot of us who think that free (in both senses) software and non-free can co-exist. In fact, I believe Ximian's strategy is the most sensible for new generation software companies - give away the basic product, sell the add-ons.
I live in central Barcelona in Spain. The petty crime here - bag-snatching, pick-pocketing etc. - is terrible. I wish they would fill the streets with surveillance cameras - that would be much preferable to the damn thieves.
Someone on the city council has a sense of humor. They are doing a trial of surveillance cameras in George Orwell Square.
With the framework being developed by three different groups (one in the UK, one in the US, and one in Australia), one would expect this to be a very competitive field, but alas, this is not the case. The three groups are working together so that they can have it all up in running the in the projected 15 years that it will take to put all this data into an electronic format.
Our village needs a new town hall. Because we're modern progressive thinkers, rather than build one, we've decided that we're going to divide the village into three teams, and then compete to see which team can build a town hall first. Each team will get a grant from tax-payers money to build their hall. Obviously this will give us the best and most efficient result.
Has anyone actually seen an IT related EU project that achieved something? The company I work for has been involved in two EU project proposals so far, and nothing came of either of them -- though they both consumed a large ammount of resources from universities to get through the three failed applications each.
Perhaps you are expecting the wrong results.
I have been involved in a couple of large EU funded projects, and have spoken to the project managers about the aims and motives of the projects.
One principal point is that just because a new successful product/standard/format whatever does not arise from a project, does not mean that it has been a failure.
The EU is made up of lots of different countries with lots of different types of people speaking different languages and with different working mentalities. This is a major competitive disadvantage for us compared to a country like the US. If a company in San Francisco wants to work with a company in New York, there aren't many barriers to them doing that. In the EU, there are lots of barriers. One of the main aims of EU funded projects (and the EU in general) is to break down these barriers by getting different companies and universities working together across the EU. If new technologies come our of these projects, so much the better, but that's not necessarily the principal aim.
Has anyone actually seen an IT related EU project that achieved something?
Government funded work, in the EU, US and internationally, actually drive changes in the IT industry a lot more than most people realise (or perhaps would care to admit).
For christssakes, the web itself came out of a CERN project! Also many other web standards originated in EU funded projects, for instance JPEG and MPEG. So, the most common formats on the web for text (HTML), images (JPEG), and video (MPEG), all owe something to funding from the EU.
And of course the Internet itself comes from US government funded projects. Even commonly used business process have resulted from government funded work (project management methodologies).
Both Americans and Europeans like to bitch about the inefficies of their governments, but the fact of the matter is that if you look at the history of IT, more fundamental innovations come from government funded work than from industry. Of course Bill Gates, Larry Ellison etc. don't want you to think that, but that's the way it is.
Why can't these guys see that the nature of the software industry is changing?
Let me spell it out:
If you have a software product which is very widely used, there is no business model that will be highly profitable in the longer term.
The nature of the IT industry is changing due to the Internet and the web. These changes may take a long time, perhaps 20, 30, 40 years. Unless draconian progress-halting laws are passed, the Internet is going to completely screw the 'old' software company business model.
The invention of new processes during the industrial revolution lead to the death of many industries and professions. The "Open source development model" is a new process for developing software. It has been brought about by the fact that software can now be copied and distributed at virtually zero cost, and multiple individuals from multiple companies and other organised groups from around the world can work simultaneously on projects of mutual benefit. So, if you hope to make a long term business based on selling a widely used software product, forget it.
In fact, just as there are some more solitary people in other branches of work, there will be some more solitary people in IT. It's only because our sector is IT, it will be commented on and remembered as a prime example of the non-social "nerd" (in the pejorative sense of the word). This is called Confirmation Bias and is well documented in psychology.
Are you serious? So you believe that IT people are just a typical cross-section of society as a whole? That certain personality types are not more attracted to IT than to other professions? You must have your eyes closed.
Some people who are heavily into IT are naturally solitary. Just like some people who are heavily into bar-tending are naturally solitary types, or just like how some people who are heavily into skeet-shooting are naturally solitary types. The two have nothing to do with each other. It's just SOME people are like that!
So your argument is basically that IT attracts non-descriminately from all peronality types? Oh, yes, that would be why 50% of computer programmers are women then.
People who are heavily into IT are naturally solitary types.
Perhaps using a computer provides some of the fundamental interaction that we require, making social interaction less important for computer programmers. Stupid idea? People have emotional relationships with cats and dogs, and even with creatures which arguably don't have any self-awareness or emotions (pet spiders and fish, for instance). These animals fulfil some basic emotional need for interaction, and something to care about. Can the same thing not be said of a computer? They evoke emotional responses from humans after all. (Especially when the damn things crash when you haven't saved a copy of your work).
I don't think we have a superiority complex so much--rather, I think that Americans sometimes fail to understand that other countries lack some of the freedoms we consider essential, and that we oftentimes equate technological abiltity with the health of a country.
Funny!!
If you don't understand why it's funny, ask a non-American friend to explain.
Sounds like you want to partake in a pissing match to me...
The point of my email was not to say "my county is better than yours". In fact, my point was exactly the opposite. Many Americans do seem to believe that America is the greatest country in the world, and that the American people are in some way superior. Many people in Europe find that kind of sentiment ugly, and not a little dangerous.
So, no, I don't think we're better than you. I wish that you wouldn't persist in your belief that you're better than us.
Slashdot Mirror
The land area of eruope is about 2,269,180 hectares. The land area of europe minus the "Russian Federation", which is as far as I know a part of Eruope, is a mere 569600 hectares.
Of course you are using very different figures from the ones I took from Encarta - they are from 1993, so don't take into account certain little changes since then.
But anyway, using your table, you're right, Europe is about 570k hectares, and the USA is 957k hectares - a difference, but not a vast one.
However, back to the original point. I consider the argument that Europe has GSM and the USA doesn't because it is 'easier' in Europe to be rubbish.
As far as I understand they still lag behind us in DSL capacity.
As far as you understand, or is this an assumption you have made because you assume that surely the USA must be more advanced than Europe in these things? I live between the UK and Spain and I have 2Mbps DSL connections to my homes in both places, and have had for a while now.
That includes a lot of the less populated land masses. Like oh.. huge chunks of russia...
This is humor right? You are joking, right? I do hope so.
Just in case you're not, here are a few facts from Encarta for you:
In both total area and geographic extent Russia is the largest country in the world. With an area of 17,075,200 sq km (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia constitutes more than one-ninth of the world's land area and nearly twice the area of the United States or China.
Notice that Russia is a country. It is not part of Europe.
And for christsakes, please look at a map before posing another comment.
In the states? Not quite so easy... due to the simple fact of the size. Same reason we don't have GSM, same reason all these nifty technologies (anything wireless) take time.
Oh yes, that's right. Europe's easy because it's small. I'd forgotten that. Europe has a tiny land mass of 3,998,000 sq miles, whereas the USA has a massive land mass of 3,717,796 sq miles, according to Encarta. Oh, hang on, those figures can't be right, surely?
And being lots of different locally governed countries speaking different languages and (until very recently) using differnt currencies - that's got to make things easier, hasn't it!
The only reason that Europe is ahead of the USA in terms of DSL, GSM and advanced networks is because the USA, being a young country, speaking a single language with virtually a single culture and mindset and single government, well, everything is so much harder for the USA isn't it?
(Yes, this is more sarcasm)
Yes, it exists, and this research network is not even in the U.S!
Gosh! Outside the US! In Europe!
The Europeans really seem to be advancing don't they? A friend of mine visited Europe and told me that they've got TV, computers, mobile telephones, everything! How long before they catch up with the US?
However, they are still really lagging in cultural things. They don't have that many great places to hang out as in the US like Starbucks or MacDonalds (just little coffee shops and resturants which are all different!) and they don't have so many TV channels (and a lot of the ones they do have are in funny languages!). And they aren't as advanced politically as the US - they don't have the personal freedoms that we have, like the feedom to carry guns and, er, the other freedoms that we have.
(Yes, this is sarcasm).
It's not that the magazine sucks so much as it's lost its primary relevance.
I disagree. There's lots of exciting stuff happening in the IT world right now. But Wired has changed how it covers it.
For instance, see its dumb coverage of Linux a couple of issues ago. The early Wired coverage would be - wow, Open Source is a huge trend, let's predict what's going to happen. The current Wired coverage is - Open Source, we don't get it, and some of our big advertisers don't like it, so we're going to say it sucks and the status-quo isn't going to change. I prefer the old Wired.
I just brought my last copy of Wired magazine a few days ago. It's got to a point where it's just not worth buying anymore - I could hardly find an article I could be bothered to read. It used to be that upon buying a new issue of Wired I would read it cover to cover in one sitting.
What happened? It used to have writers who were passionate about technology, had interesting opinions, and had their fingers on the pulse of change. Now it's like a product catalog for gadgets and 'cool stuff'. About half the articles seem to be 'advertising features'.
I think the rot set in during the dot-com boom. The writers stopped talking about the technology and started focusing on making a fast buck.
Sorry Wired, I used to love ya, but we've just drifted apart, ok? Time to move on.
There is a good resource here [techcentralstation.com] that explains why all of these broadband providers are going out of business.
It's not a good resource at all. That has got to be one of the biased websites I have every seen. It is funded by 'sponsoring organisations' and every article seems to be written with some alterior motive in mind. Here's a summary of the kind of stuff the site says:
1) Global warming is rubbish. People who believe in it are hippies who don't like business and America, and don't understand science.
2) There are no risks associated with genetically engineered food. People who believe this are hippies (see above).
3) There are no risks associated Nanotechnology, you damn hippies.
4) Europeans are all damn hippies. And Canadians.
5) The government is interferring with Microsoft's right to innovate.
6) Broadband is failing because of the government.
If you think that a realiable source for news, the you've got to be nuts.
Make all government-funded development work open-sourced.
I find it a sensible solution regarding to strictly national TLDs
I don't think it is sensible at all. What is sensible is to have a second level domains at the country level. They have this in the UK, so that, for instance,
company.ltd.uk
must be a registered, limited, company, but (as far as I am aware)
whatever.co.uk
can be registered by anyone.
Spain doesn't have this second level and is very restrictive about who can have domain names. It might, as you say, give "respect for the national flag", but I don't think it does much good for the new economy of Spain.
Yes, the Spanish system is especially crap, and demonstrates that there is actually a lot of good in the "first come, first served" method of .com assignment.
.es domain name, and there is a lot of red tape to jump through to set up a company. Even with expensive lawers, it can still take a month, and then another few weeks until your registration is approved, and you need a minimum capital (about $3000) to start a company.
One of the great failings of the Spanish system is that you have to be a registered company to get a
Compare this to the UK where you can buy an off-the-shelf company in 24hrs for about $150 and get the domain name the same day.
Microsoft claims that they already have several hundred million Passport users, on the strength of the fact that all Hotmail users are automatically signed up for a Passport.
However, how many people actually use Hotmail for serious email? I doubt foxychic52@hotmail.com and hot_guy334@hotmail.com really provided accurate information when they signed up for their Hotmail accounts...
The infrastructure required for the 3G is massive, complex and expensive. In my opinion, it may well be doomed.
Consider this - local wireless is becoming increasingly popular and powerful. How long will it be before your handheld, Palm, or whatever, instantly connects to your office network via wireless so that you can have a broadband connetion to the Internet via that? Project a bit further - how long is it going to be before your handheld instantly becomes a guest on other companies' networks when you are visiting them, so you get a broadband internet connection through that? How long will it be before hotels also have this facility? Universities? Schools?
The technolgy to do this is very nearly here, today. It will be relatively cheap to implement. So, the telcos are going to be loosing out on all that lovely revenue from connections to the internet made in or near company offices, hotels, schools, universities, etc. What proporition of their mobile phone revenue has that got to be? Sixty per cent? More?
Remember Iridium? Once upon a time it sounded like it couldn't loose, didn't it?
The telcos are years behind with 3G. My advice - don't invest in it.
The exchange connector is NOT FREE SOFTWARE. Why is slashdot not calling a jihad against this?
Why are you asking us to?
Yes, some free software fanatics read Slashdot, but there are also a lot of us who think that free (in both senses) software and non-free can co-exist. In fact, I believe Ximian's strategy is the most sensible for new generation software companies - give away the basic product, sell the add-ons.
I live in central Barcelona in Spain. The petty crime here - bag-snatching, pick-pocketing etc. - is terrible. I wish they would fill the streets with surveillance cameras - that would be much preferable to the damn thieves.
Someone on the city council has a sense of humor. They are doing a trial of surveillance cameras in George Orwell Square.
With the framework being developed by three different groups (one in the UK, one in the US, and one in Australia), one would expect this to be a very competitive field, but alas, this is not the case. The three groups are working together so that they can have it all up in running the in the projected 15 years that it will take to put all this data into an electronic format.
Our village needs a new town hall. Because we're modern progressive thinkers, rather than build one, we've decided that we're going to divide the village into three teams, and then compete to see which team can build a town hall first. Each team will get a grant from tax-payers money to build their hall. Obviously this will give us the best and most efficient result.
If several products are widely used, people will expect them come with a box
This is the old way of doing things. I doubt that in ten years time anyone will buy software 'in a box'.
Has anyone actually seen an IT related EU project that achieved something? The company I work for has been involved in two EU project proposals so far, and nothing came of either of them -- though they both consumed a large ammount of resources from universities to get through the three failed applications each.
Perhaps you are expecting the wrong results.
I have been involved in a couple of large EU funded projects, and have spoken to the project managers about the aims and motives of the projects.
One principal point is that just because a new successful product/standard/format whatever does not arise from a project, does not mean that it has been a failure.
The EU is made up of lots of different countries with lots of different types of people speaking different languages and with different working mentalities. This is a major competitive disadvantage for us compared to a country like the US. If a company in San Francisco wants to work with a company in New York, there aren't many barriers to them doing that. In the EU, there are lots of barriers. One of the main aims of EU funded projects (and the EU in general) is to break down these barriers by getting different companies and universities working together across the EU. If new technologies come our of these projects, so much the better, but that's not necessarily the principal aim.
Has anyone actually seen an IT related EU project that achieved something?
Government funded work, in the EU, US and internationally, actually drive changes in the IT industry a lot more than most people realise (or perhaps would care to admit).
For christssakes, the web itself came out of a CERN project! Also many other web standards originated in EU funded projects, for instance JPEG and MPEG. So, the most common formats on the web for text (HTML), images (JPEG), and video (MPEG), all owe something to funding from the EU.
And of course the Internet itself comes from US government funded projects. Even commonly used business process have resulted from government funded work (project management methodologies).
Both Americans and Europeans like to bitch about the inefficies of their governments, but the fact of the matter is that if you look at the history of IT, more fundamental innovations come from government funded work than from industry. Of course Bill Gates, Larry Ellison etc. don't want you to think that, but that's the way it is.
Why can't these guys see that the nature of the software industry is changing?
Let me spell it out:
If you have a software product which is very widely used, there is no business model that will be highly profitable in the longer term.
The nature of the IT industry is changing due to the Internet and the web. These changes may take a long time, perhaps 20, 30, 40 years. Unless draconian progress-halting laws are passed, the Internet is going to completely screw the 'old' software company business model.
The invention of new processes during the industrial revolution lead to the death of many industries and professions. The "Open source development model" is a new process for developing software. It has been brought about by the fact that software can now be copied and distributed at virtually zero cost, and multiple individuals from multiple companies and other organised groups from around the world can work simultaneously on projects of mutual benefit. So, if you hope to make a long term business based on selling a widely used software product, forget it.
In fact, just as there are some more solitary people in other branches of work, there will be some more solitary people in IT. It's only because our sector is IT, it will be commented on and remembered as a prime example of the non-social "nerd" (in the pejorative sense of the word). This is called Confirmation Bias and is well documented in psychology.
Are you serious? So you believe that IT people are just a typical cross-section of society as a whole? That certain personality types are not more attracted to IT than to other professions? You must have your eyes closed.
Some people who are heavily into IT are naturally solitary. Just like some people who are heavily into bar-tending are naturally solitary types, or just like how some people who are heavily into skeet-shooting are naturally solitary types. The two have nothing to do with each other. It's just SOME people are like that!
So your argument is basically that IT attracts non-descriminately from all peronality types? Oh, yes, that would be why 50% of computer programmers are women then.
It is more true of IT companies than others, mainly because a lot of IT workers are anti-social.
We are not fucking anti-social! Idiot.
People who are heavily into IT are naturally solitary types.
Perhaps using a computer provides some of the fundamental interaction that we require, making social interaction less important for computer programmers. Stupid idea? People have emotional relationships with cats and dogs, and even with creatures which arguably don't have any self-awareness or emotions (pet spiders and fish, for instance). These animals fulfil some basic emotional need for interaction, and something to care about. Can the same thing not be said of a computer? They evoke emotional responses from humans after all. (Especially when the damn things crash when you haven't saved a copy of your work).
I don't think we have a superiority complex so much--rather, I think that Americans sometimes fail to understand that other countries lack some of the freedoms we consider essential, and that we oftentimes equate technological abiltity with the health of a country.
Funny!!
If you don't understand why it's funny, ask a non-American friend to explain.
Sounds like you want to partake in a pissing match to me...
The point of my email was not to say "my county is better than yours". In fact, my point was exactly the opposite. Many Americans do seem to believe that America is the greatest country in the world, and that the American people are in some way superior. Many people in Europe find that kind of sentiment ugly, and not a little dangerous.
So, no, I don't think we're better than you. I wish that you wouldn't persist in your belief that you're better than us.