The US and Canada have incredibly tightly integrated economies. BOTH countries export and import 80% of their goods with each other. Mutual dependance.
Huh? Surely this can only be true for Canada as there aren't enough Canadians to buy 80% of U.S. exports?
Let me quote the CIA World Factbook.
Canada
Exports - partners: US 86.6%, Japan 2.1%, UK 1.4% (2003)
Imports - partners: US 60.6%, China 5.6%, Japan 4.1% (2003)
United States
Exports - partners: Canada 23.4%, Mexico 13.5%, Japan 7.2%, UK 4.7%, Germany 4% (2003)
Imports - partners: Canada 17.4%, China 12.5%, Mexico 10.7%, Japan 9.3%, Germany 5.3% (2003)
Wow. Cell phone service in the subway is rather commonplace in Europe and has been for years and years (in the city I live in, all carriers have coverage for the entire subway system). Do you really mean that they're just starting to implement it where you live?
I always see Americans bitching about commercials on DVDs. I've never seen them; I mostly have Region 2 and a couple of Region 1 DVDs. None of them have commercials on them. Is it less common in Europe/Region 2 or am I just not buying the rights DVDs?
True, and they are effectively destroying tourism. I used to like spending time in the US but there's no chance I'll go there again anytime soon just to be treated like a criminal. Right now there are really cheap flights to the US (like EUR 200) because nobody wants to go there.
And I was actually berated for being European (on multiple occasions) when I was in the US just before the Iraq war.
in austria, alternative providers are only slowly gaining ground.
What he means is that in really small towns and rural areas there's no alternative to Telekom Austria if you want *broadband* access. Many places do, of course, have one or several alternative broadband ISPs.
But you don't see us dancing to Russian rock music or watching the latest TV shows from Amsterdam.
Actually you do. Notice that "Big Brother", "Who wants to be a Millionaire" and "Fear Factor" crap on American TV? It's all from Endemol, a Dutch company. And guess what, they produced these shows for Holland first.
39 dollars for Opera web browser that will most likely be obsolete in 6 months
Wrong.
Opera 7.x has been around for about 2 years and all upgrades to newer 7.x versions are free. You'll have to pay a discounted upgrade price once 8.0 comes out, which won't happen anytime soon.
The last time I was in the US, people had to empty their bags and go through a metal detector prior to boarding busses. I also got checked twice by "border patrol" while on the bus (hundreds of miles away from any border BTW). Now, since I'm from a relatively small Central European country that many Americans have never heard of, they interrogated me for a couple of minutes before they determined I wasn't a terrorist.
I really liked travelling to the US before that. But there's no way I'll go there in the near future if I can help it.
Most cities have flattened out into suburban sprawl.
Right, that's the situation in the U.S. with its artificial cities. Keep in mind though that this scooter hasn't been invented in America. There are plenty of places where driving a scooter seems practical enough that people do it. Italy and Southeast Asia come to mind.
An alternative-powered scooter would be SWEET if it ran 40mph with a range of 100 miles. Then you could drive to work and back without feeling like you were "asking for trouble" on the road.
Maybe I'm just being closed-minded about this, but it would take an awfully long time to retrofit all the infrastructure to deal... so you would have to have a very long transition time as people and machines adjust to the different-sized money
I don't know, it's not like other countries never change their banknotes and/or currencies. Here in Europe the transition to the Euro went surprisingly well (there were like three months in most countries where both the national currencies and the Euro were accepted), and our bills are all different sizes, from rather small 5s to really large 500s. Wallet manufacturers had problems keeping up with the demand though because some wallets were too small for large Euro banknotes.
Ever try and ride a bike with 10 bags of groceries?
In the U.S. you have big shopping malls and enormous grocery stores. But usually (in my experience) they are so far away from residential areas that you have to take a car to get there. Hence you buy your groceries for a whole week because it's such a hassle to get to the store.
Here in Europe supermarkets are a bit smaller than they are in the U.S., but they are everywhere. Where I live there are four decent supermarkets I can walk to in 10 minutes. Because supermarkets are literally everywhere people buy their groceries every other day or so (at least here). That means small quantities that can easily be transported in a backpack or on a bike (and often are).
What I'm trying to say is, the problem you're mentioning needn't exist, though it exists in many American cities.
The Austrian version of MSN is even better. If you search for Linux, the first two results are WinXP ads on the Microsoft site. And, while you're at it, try searching for google or yahoo. This will produce a popup saying "Why look for a search engine when you've already found one?".
Well, one thing I've heard a couple of times is that there can't be anything like free will because what we describe as 'thinking' and 'decision-making' (deciding what to do based on your free will) relies completely on chemical reactions. The future state of our minds is thus predetermined as we depend on those reactions and not vice-versa.
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The US and Canada have incredibly tightly integrated economies. BOTH countries export and import 80% of their goods with each other. Mutual dependance.
Huh? Surely this can only be true for Canada as there aren't enough Canadians to buy 80% of U.S. exports?
Let me quote the CIA World Factbook.
Not a problem.
Move to Europe.
In some countries they even use the IMEI numbers to track the thieves.
Anyway, this only stops casual and ignorant thieves since it's rather trivial to change the IMEI number on many phones.
Just remember to read the this.
They're even extending service into the subway.
Wow. Cell phone service in the subway is rather commonplace in Europe and has been for years and years (in the city I live in, all carriers have coverage for the entire subway system). Do you really mean that they're just starting to implement it where you live?I always see Americans bitching about commercials on DVDs. I've never seen them; I mostly have Region 2 and a couple of Region 1 DVDs. None of them have commercials on them. Is it less common in Europe/Region 2 or am I just not buying the rights DVDs?
True, and they are effectively destroying tourism. I used to like spending time in the US but there's no chance I'll go there again anytime soon just to be treated like a criminal. Right now there are really cheap flights to the US (like EUR 200) because nobody wants to go there.
And I was actually berated for being European (on multiple occasions) when I was in the US just before the Iraq war.
Except that many KDE applications start a DCOP server which takes ages to load.
in austria, alternative providers are only slowly gaining ground.
What he means is that in really small towns and rural areas there's no alternative to Telekom Austria if you want *broadband* access. Many places do, of course, have one or several alternative broadband ISPs.What do AFP's operations in the US have to do with France?
Damn hackers, intercepted my finger print. Could I block my account and get a new fingerprint, please?
Sure, just send your old one in for replacement.
However, have you noticed that in the above post, the pertinant linkage did not go to prostoalex's site? That's the difference.
It does. Do a whois on itfacts.biz.
NES- and SNES-emulators are the only things that force me to boot to Windows anymore, since there simply isn't decent ones for Linux
I use snes9x for SNES and FCE Ultra (fceu) for NES. Both work great here. I think it's best to use the SVGALIB versions for both.But you don't see us dancing to Russian rock music or watching the latest TV shows from Amsterdam.
Actually you do. Notice that "Big Brother", "Who wants to be a Millionaire" and "Fear Factor" crap on American TV? It's all from Endemol, a Dutch company. And guess what, they produced these shows for Holland first.
Firefox will not convert www.barnes and noble.com to www.barnesandnoble.com.
But Opera will.
39 dollars for Opera web browser that will most likely be obsolete in 6 months
Wrong.Opera 7.x has been around for about 2 years and all upgrades to newer 7.x versions are free. You'll have to pay a discounted upgrade price once 8.0 comes out, which won't happen anytime soon.
At the Olympics, there is no Taiwan. It's "Chinese Taipei"; they don't want to offend the Chinese.
Exactly.
The last time I was in the US, people had to empty their bags and go through a metal detector prior to boarding busses. I also got checked twice by "border patrol" while on the bus (hundreds of miles away from any border BTW). Now, since I'm from a relatively small Central European country that many Americans have never heard of, they interrogated me for a couple of minutes before they determined I wasn't a terrorist.
I really liked travelling to the US before that. But there's no way I'll go there in the near future if I can help it.
Here in Europe supermarkets are a bit smaller than they are in the U.S., but they are everywhere. Where I live there are four decent supermarkets I can walk to in 10 minutes. Because supermarkets are literally everywhere people buy their groceries every other day or so (at least here). That means small quantities that can easily be transported in a backpack or on a bike (and often are).
What I'm trying to say is, the problem you're mentioning needn't exist, though it exists in many American cities.
The Austrian version of MSN is even better. If you search for Linux, the first two results are WinXP ads on the Microsoft site. And, while you're at it, try searching for google or yahoo. This will produce a popup saying "Why look for a search engine when you've already found one?".
No, it won't. Wanadoo is the largest French ISP, so they have more than enough bandwidth to spare.
Well, one thing I've heard a couple of times is that there can't be anything like free will because what we describe as 'thinking' and 'decision-making' (deciding what to do based on your free will) relies completely on chemical reactions. The future state of our minds is thus predetermined as we depend on those reactions and not vice-versa.