I know a number of people who play WoW and try AoC. As of now over 90% of them have canceled their AoC accounts and the couple who haven't don't play it much, they just haven't decided to quit yet. None of them left WoW for AoC for good, or have even made AoC their primary game.
I'm the opposite: AoC is now (still) my primary game. I have tried numerious other MMORPGs, and liked quite a few of them (SWG and LOTRO come to mind), but every time I have tried to get into WoW, I hated it. For some reason that game just doesn't do it for me, though I am not sure why. I do much prefer the "low fantasy" and less cartooney setting of AoC. I think AoC had great potential, though if they have the cashflow and capability to realise that potential... I really don't know.
I agree about the initial success being due to fortuitous timing, but there was another big factor. The initial game lacked some features and the client had its problems, but it was definitely playable (and a lot of fun). Then subsequent patches made the client a lot more unstable, almost to the point of being unplayable. This situation carried on for months... it seems the dev team's original plan of releasing small nuggets of features and content LOTRO-style (PvP notoriety and Ymir's pass were planned for the summer IIRC) over the months following release, was ditched because of the effort required to fix critical bugs.
In fact, I'd love to see these overlays in goggles in any museum showing artifacts. They're always in crappy shape in their cases (the intact articles are probably all in private collections, the broken ones sold off to finance them). Goggles showing them in their original condition, and in their original usage, would turn those displays from mere trophy cases of booty into actual demonstrations of history and our global heritage.
In that case, why bother to visit Rome and these museums? Just keep a case of beer and some pizza handy, pop on the goggles, and watch the spectacle of Rome unfold, whilst sitting right there on your couch at home (in your underwear, no doubt...)
Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products.
Amen. And think about it... Micro-soft itself is a pretty ho-hum name, in fact it's downright lame. Today, if the company name would be still available, no one in their right mind would give their software firm a name like that, even freelancing consultants wouldn't be so silly as to pick that as their firm's name. But they rose to greatness (in influence and dollars if not reputation for quality), and thus the name lost its lameness and became associated with an extremely succesful tech company.
Wait, what MS system current boots under 15 seconds?
Just as an experiment, I added a Flash drive (a 30GB SATA model) to my "standby" PC, a run-of-the-mill Compaq Presario. With Windows XP installed on this Flash drive, boot time from the Bios splash screen to being logged in at the desktop is just under 10 seconds.
Or it used to be. For some reason, it now takes about 5 seconds more to go from the login prompt to the desktop being ready, bringing it on par with my other machine which boots in about 15 seconds. I haven't installed anything on the Compaq in ages (though automatic updates have gone in), so, what gives? Even on fast-booting systems, it seems that the OS will eventually slow down anyway.
Obama, the likely next President of the United States has recently said of such prizes...
To be fair, it was probably just some (lame) election rethoric on Obama's part, even though Obama might be more inclined to go for big state funded programmes rather than offer incentives to private enterprise.
By the way, what is the deal with Obama...? Europe has always been leaning slightly towards Democrat candidates in presidential elections, but it's reached ridiculous levels this time. The media show nothing but Obama, the Dutch national broadcast service sent a team of 8 reporters and tv show people to cover Obama's campain 24/7, then they more or less "forgot" to send anyone to cover McCain at the Republican convention. Palin did get a little press... it's small wonder that as a result over 85% of this country would vote for Obama if given the chance; they don;t even know who the other guy is. It's like those old Soviet Union elections where there's only one candidate.
Why is that "better"? Very likely a software developer (anyone smaller than IBM) in that position will declare bankruptcy, or just disappear. You're very unlikely to get a cent back, no matter if you win your case or not.
It's not about getting our money back or claiming damages, in fact it's unlikely that it would ever come to a lawsuit. But having someone else to blame to the point where you could sue him, means that there is that much less blame to apportion inside the organisation. Cynical? Yes, but this kind of thinking is often what it takes to get things approved in a large organisation.
No. At best, after a brief hiatus the infringing code will be replaced by non-infringing code.
True, but the problem is that often even a relatively short hiatus could mean disaster. And it's not always proprietary software, it can be patents too. Remember Blackboard? Their patent claims pretty much precluded implementation of any e-learning system other than their own. (Thankfully all their patent claims were rejected, but they have sued others for infringement). Again, this works against commercial software as well, and it would cause as great a disruption, but in that case at least it'll be that vendor's neck on the block, not ours.
I have implemented a high-profile system in a large multinational, using open source. I too found it hard to get OSS accepted, but not for the reasons I first expected. Most of the initial arguments were quickly countered.
- Malware? We were confident enough to see there were sufficient controls around code changes.
- Support? Easily handled by our existing channels, even for elaborate changes and additions.
- Quality? Millions of users can't be wrong...
The one thing we struggled with was: liability. Our own, our manager's, the software approval guy's. The problem is this: what if that bit of open source software contains proprietary code, and the owner of that code suddenly starts asserting his rights? At best, we will be forced to stop use of that software.
You can argue that this is also a possibility with commercial software, which is true. But with commercial software, the owner of the infringed code will go after the creator of the software. Better yet, we too get to sue his pants off. In the case of open source, they are likely to sue not the creators or distributors of the software, but the people using it. That means us, and the legal eagles don't like that, oh no. Remember the old maxim "No one has ever been fired for buying IBM"... that goes doubly for OSS. OSS exposes you to lawsuits, and when the stuff does hit the fan, the buck stops with you.
In the end, OSS was allowed in our corporation, provided that it isn't used for mission critical purposes if no commercial drop-in replacement exists. If the software develops issues, there's still no vendor to blame for me, but I can live with that, personally.
When things like a paint job and how "angry" a car looks are determining what cars people buy, you know that the cars themselves are grossly overvalued. If someone can add on 5% to the price of a car because of the shape of its headlights, you have to ask just how much of the original price was based on cosmetics and not on quality.
I read about a study on the psychology of car selection, road rage, etc... Basically the outcome was that most people see their cars as an extension of their personal space. And many people care deeply about how the looks and comforts of personal space. Interestingly, they found that there is a direct correlation between the importance someone places in the looks of their car and the amount of bumper stickers, nodding dogs, furry dice etc they add, and the likelyhood of that person feeling anger at someone else's mistake in traffic. Someone cutting them off in traffic is felt as an invasion of their personal space.
I think there is something to that notion. When I leave the office and get on the train home, I feel like I am still working, right until I leave the train (even when I'm just reading a book instead of doing actual work). But when I leave the office and get in my car, it feels like the work day is already done... because at that moment I am entering my personal space.
By the way, Americans have absolutely no business buying used cars, at prevailing prices in the USA. Here in the Netherlands we usually pay around twice the US sticker price... mostly because we've a 45% special tax on new cars, and the 20% VAT comes on top of that.
The rest of the game did not deliver on its promises, particularly in sieging and, well, just about everything that would have mattered.
I think that's exactly right. AoC is not a crappy game as a concept, it just wasn't a finished game. It was plagued by rather intrusive bugs up till a few weeks ago, which delayed some of the additional content that was to follow the game's release. Which is sad... of all the MMORPGs out there, I still think AoC by design has the most potential of turning into my game of choice. Whether it can still be that game in practice, remains to be seen.
As for WAR, some people are already getting a bit bored of it, or so I hear. Good PvP alone is not enough for them.
A good game has a good concept, content, gameplay and eye candy. What Google has is just eye candy, and from a gamer's perspective it's not even very good eye candy.
They are not really any closer to being a game publisher than any other company, though they can throw a lot of cash at the problem to get there. If they want to publish games, I am sure they can make that happen. Whether they'll be succesfull games is anyone's guess.
In corporations, you have to react to e-mail fast. That's why people check it often.
Educate your co-workers! I tell everyone that I do not read my email continuously. Use emails for non-urgent stuff, big reports, stuff that needs to be filed or tracked, and quick questions that don't require an immediate response. For urgent stuff, I ask people to use the phone or IM. And if I need to concentrate, the phone goes to voicemail. If something comes up that is urgent enough to interrupt me while I do not want to be interrupted, drop by my desk.
I don't like being interrupted by email, so I use the "Getting Things Done" approach: processing email is best done as an activity when you are in the mood, not ad-hoc every time the little envelope appears on your taskbar (turn that thing off, by the way). A few times a day (depending on what else I am doing), I open my inbox, read everything and take action:
- If the email contains junk or info only, I delete or file it accordingly
- If the email prompts me to take some action, I do it right away if I can complete the action in under 2 minutes.
- If I can't process an email in under 2 minutes, it goes into the "action" folder (which I process when I am in the mood for that).
Bam. A few minutes, empty inbox, no distraction. And best of all, no stress caused by interruptions or an overly full inbox.
Can you run a passenger plane (at least partially) on nuclear power? Hydro? Wind? Tidal? Geothermal? Solar? Any currently-available (sorry, BTL isn't just there yet), non-fossil-fuel power?
The figures I quoted were CO2 emission figures rather than energy consumption numbers, so the energy source has already been taken into consideration. The high speed trains used in this study are the French ones, which use a lot of hydro and nuclear power. Even so, they still emit more CO2 per passenger-km than a long haul flight.
According to the Dutch study I mentioned earlier, trips under 1000km or so are best done by high speed train. Longer journeys are environmentally friendlier if taken by airplane (or by a much slower train).
It shouldn't matter what the distance is; planes are not green in any way, shape, or form. I don't see how a plane can be more environmental than a train, even for long distances (discounting flights over oceans, of course). A passenger train really should be able to haul people, say, 3500 miles, using less fuel than an equivalent fleet of jets
It shouldn't? Says who? This is what I mean by immutable "truths" about public transport that we have to change. Here is a another, sobering comparison Though the graph shows CO2 emissions rather than fuel consumption, it should be clear that a high-speed train such as the TGV or the Chinese one draws a massive amount of power to maintain its speed. And airplanes do not require all that much fuel to stay airborne once they reach cruising altitude in thinner layers of air; it's the takeoff that requires the tons of fuel. That's why an aircraft wins on the long haul, where the expense of taking off is spread out over more passenger-miles. The train isn't a clear winner by any means.
However, only a complete moron would ever question the environmental impact of a train versus highways or airlines. Trains are more efficient than any other form of transportation for moving goods and people between two points.
[...]
While planes are certainly faster, trains are cheaper (except in the USA) and far more fuel-efficient, which obviously means it's better for the environment.
You'd be surprised. A study, conducted by a decidedly conventional-green (e.g. with a "public transport = good" mindset) Dutch governmental agency concluded that, given our current trains, cars, and even with our rather fine mesh of public transport service, commuting by car is about as energy efficient as it is by train, when you include the journey to and from the actual train station (often by a heavily polluting, mostly empty bus). They also concluded that on shorter hauls, less than 500km, a high speed train is greener than an airplane, but on longer hauls the airplane wins.
I can't say how accurate the study is, but if it was biased it would have been in favour of public transport, coming from this particular agency. I can say however that I would not be surprised to find out that the immutable truths we are taught about public transport, namely that it is always better than planes and cars, turn out to be not so true after all.
Sorry to seem negative, but if my (limited, Holland/Belgium) experience is anything to go by, you will fail to learn the language in these countries. Certainly, despite attempts, I ended up with little more than a smattering of Dutch.
Why - they want to practice their (already good) English. So it's hard.
My gf had this problem when she moved into the Netherlands. Her solution: when someone addressed her in English, she'd answer (in passable Dutch): Sorry, I do not speak English. Of course that's not going to work with people who know where you are from.
But seriously, learning the language means making the effort, expecting people speak Dutch to you all day is not enough. Insist that people do, though. Read books to build up a vocabulary. Consider enrolling in an intensive 1-2 week course. I know several people from abroad who have made the effort to learn the language in about a year. Enough to let them operate in an all Dutch speaking company, or take exams in Dutch. Be prepared though, it will take a lot of your free time to learn a new language.
To be honest, it's your banks that are the problem, not direct debit. Many people in W-Europe happily pay pretty much all of their recurring bills with direct debit.
1) Billing errors occur. Don't allow them to take your money until you've verified the bill is correct. Otherwise, even if they correct the bill, you will never, ever get a refund.
An error occurs, I call the bank and reverse the transaction. Now the company that screwed up will have to call me and ask me why I did not pay my bill.
2) Balance errors occur. Most banks will slap you for a $30-$40 NSF fee if someone sends an ACH debit transaction that's in excess of your available funds, whether or not they actually pay the ACH.
That's insane. Banks here will either just complete the transaction and charge you interest for overdraft (15% apr or so). That amounts to a tiny amount of interest in most cases, since the overdraft limit usually is around â1000-2000. In other cases, the bank will just cancel the transaction, and again the billing company will call and ask you what the problem is.
3) Emergencies occur. If I need to take my kid to the ER and shell a large amount of money so that he'll have an eye tomorrow, I shouldn't have to call the electric company to get them to stop the payment so I can do it.
Again, one phone call to my bank fixes everything, no questions asked. besides, I'd hate to think solving such an emergency depended on me having one utility bill's worth of money, or even a paycheck's worth. That's why I have a revolving credit line, which costs me nothing until I actually use it in an emergency. I suppose people in the States use credit cards for that.
The real bottom line is: I do not have any experience with all of the above, because in the 25 or so years I am using direct debit, not a single error has occurred.
And well, AOC is probably the most buggy broken game I have played in the history of my gaming career.
Then I guess you haven't played *any* of the big MMORPGs, not when they launched anyway. WoW and SWG all had their problems, and who can forget when UO opened up Trammel for housing?
AoC has a lot of potential; nice combat system, the dark fantasy setting feels right, especially if you hate WoW Cartoon Central (and WAR looks just as silly albeit with better graphics), or Lotro's theme park looks. If they fix some of the imbalances and the memory leaks in the client, this game could still do well if they get the new content out in time.
Companies are perfectly willing to take non-trivial jobs and ship them overseas, but seem to be extremely reluctant to let workers telecommute, which would probably help in lowering costs, allowing the jobs to stay here
Companies usually offshore whole teams or departments rather than individual jobs. The guys in India work as a team under a team lead or manager, sitting together and (hopefully) communicating effectively. If you want to compare it to telecommuting, it would be allowing you to work from home, but only if you'd let your team mates bring their laptops to your place and work with you...
I wonder how long before there is a class action lawsuit?
Kind of sad that this is the first thing on peoples' minds. Would you not prefer Apple to recall the phones for a fix, or issue a firmware update that takes care of the problem? No.... you were wronged and therefore must sue.
Why not add to your enemies' expenses, especially when it costs you nearly nothing?
It doesn't cost them anything either since it's all paid for by the taxpayer. For instance, last month our gov't slapped a 100 "CO2" tax on the ticket price of transcontinental flights, and since none of that cash is being spent on CO2 reduction, they can probably afford the gear to break keys. Alternatively, they'll force ISPs to block all unsanctioned encrypted traffic, all in the name of "fighting terrorism" of course.
Another good reason to never agree to a non-compete clause, or at least try to get a contract without one. I had my last employer strike the non-compete clause from my contract of employment when I signed it. Left the company to freelance for my client. The agency I worked for tried to foist a non-compete clause on me as well, but they too agreed to have it removed from the contract.
You'll want to look for non-contact clauses as well... the contract I was offered had a clause that forbade me to seek any professional contact with other employees if I quit my job, and having people on LinkedIn would probably qualify as such contact. (I had that clause removed as well... employers and clients buy my professional services, not my life or my soul).
My main reason for pirating games is availability, price is usually not an issue. In this day and age it's a bit silly that I need to go buy a physical box to play a game on my PC. And in the Netherlands, buying the box means you'll have to find the damn thing first, as there are not many good game shops around. Most games are sold in electronics stores, who do not pay much attention to what's new and hot.
I've bought a good many things through Steam. Fast and mostly painless. You let me download your games (or movies / music for that matter) and don't apply too much DRM, I'll pay your fee.
Modded funny, but... here in the Netherlands fines have become just that: a revenue generator. A few years ago fines were still counted as "extra" revenue, then a controversial change in policy made them part of the general budget of the national government, then annual targets for revenues from fines were introduced ("Don't go to the Zeeland bailiwick, they aren't meeting their fine target this year so they'll do you for as little as a smudged reariew mirror!"). And now fines are being earmarked for specific purposes. When another idiotic plan was announced last year (free textbooks for schoolgoing children), the minister informed us that these books were to be paid for by increased traffic fines.
By the same token, the new mandatory ID law serves as a nice "fine doubler": if you get stopped for anything fine-worthy and fail to show an ID, they slap on another 50 Euro. Maybe that's why they want RFID chips in ID cards, so that thet can drive around in a manner similar to the one in the article, and round up everyone not carrying ID.
Sometimes I feel like I am living in a novel that's a bad mix of Ayn Rand and George Orwell.
Why exactly would I want to fire a 155mm projectile slowly?
I read about just that, a few years ago in a Dutch Navy publication. It was an article on the lack of big guns capable of coastal barrages on modern ships, and options to put them back on now that that type of warfare might become useful again. The idea is to have one (or a few) guns fire a few rounds in succession along different trajectories, so that they all arrive on target at the same time, creating a nice firestorm. One of the options discussed was a gun using technology similar to this rifle.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm the opposite: AoC is now (still) my primary game. I have tried numerious other MMORPGs, and liked quite a few of them (SWG and LOTRO come to mind), but every time I have tried to get into WoW, I hated it. For some reason that game just doesn't do it for me, though I am not sure why. I do much prefer the "low fantasy" and less cartooney setting of AoC. I think AoC had great potential, though if they have the cashflow and capability to realise that potential... I really don't know.
I agree about the initial success being due to fortuitous timing, but there was another big factor. The initial game lacked some features and the client had its problems, but it was definitely playable (and a lot of fun). Then subsequent patches made the client a lot more unstable, almost to the point of being unplayable. This situation carried on for months... it seems the dev team's original plan of releasing small nuggets of features and content LOTRO-style (PvP notoriety and Ymir's pass were planned for the summer IIRC) over the months following release, was ditched because of the effort required to fix critical bugs.
In that case, why bother to visit Rome and these museums? Just keep a case of beer and some pizza handy, pop on the goggles, and watch the spectacle of Rome unfold, whilst sitting right there on your couch at home (in your underwear, no doubt...)
Amen. And think about it... Micro-soft itself is a pretty ho-hum name, in fact it's downright lame. Today, if the company name would be still available, no one in their right mind would give their software firm a name like that, even freelancing consultants wouldn't be so silly as to pick that as their firm's name. But they rose to greatness (in influence and dollars if not reputation for quality), and thus the name lost its lameness and became associated with an extremely succesful tech company.
Just as an experiment, I added a Flash drive (a 30GB SATA model) to my "standby" PC, a run-of-the-mill Compaq Presario. With Windows XP installed on this Flash drive, boot time from the Bios splash screen to being logged in at the desktop is just under 10 seconds.
Or it used to be. For some reason, it now takes about 5 seconds more to go from the login prompt to the desktop being ready, bringing it on par with my other machine which boots in about 15 seconds. I haven't installed anything on the Compaq in ages (though automatic updates have gone in), so, what gives? Even on fast-booting systems, it seems that the OS will eventually slow down anyway.
To be fair, it was probably just some (lame) election rethoric on Obama's part, even though Obama might be more inclined to go for big state funded programmes rather than offer incentives to private enterprise.
By the way, what is the deal with Obama...? Europe has always been leaning slightly towards Democrat candidates in presidential elections, but it's reached ridiculous levels this time. The media show nothing but Obama, the Dutch national broadcast service sent a team of 8 reporters and tv show people to cover Obama's campain 24/7, then they more or less "forgot" to send anyone to cover McCain at the Republican convention. Palin did get a little press... it's small wonder that as a result over 85% of this country would vote for Obama if given the chance; they don;t even know who the other guy is. It's like those old Soviet Union elections where there's only one candidate.
It's not about getting our money back or claiming damages, in fact it's unlikely that it would ever come to a lawsuit. But having someone else to blame to the point where you could sue him, means that there is that much less blame to apportion inside the organisation. Cynical? Yes, but this kind of thinking is often what it takes to get things approved in a large organisation.
True, but the problem is that often even a relatively short hiatus could mean disaster. And it's not always proprietary software, it can be patents too. Remember Blackboard? Their patent claims pretty much precluded implementation of any e-learning system other than their own. (Thankfully all their patent claims were rejected, but they have sued others for infringement). Again, this works against commercial software as well, and it would cause as great a disruption, but in that case at least it'll be that vendor's neck on the block, not ours.
I have implemented a high-profile system in a large multinational, using open source. I too found it hard to get OSS accepted, but not for the reasons I first expected. Most of the initial arguments were quickly countered.
- Malware? We were confident enough to see there were sufficient controls around code changes.
- Support? Easily handled by our existing channels, even for elaborate changes and additions.
- Quality? Millions of users can't be wrong...
The one thing we struggled with was: liability. Our own, our manager's, the software approval guy's. The problem is this: what if that bit of open source software contains proprietary code, and the owner of that code suddenly starts asserting his rights? At best, we will be forced to stop use of that software.
You can argue that this is also a possibility with commercial software, which is true. But with commercial software, the owner of the infringed code will go after the creator of the software. Better yet, we too get to sue his pants off. In the case of open source, they are likely to sue not the creators or distributors of the software, but the people using it. That means us, and the legal eagles don't like that, oh no. Remember the old maxim "No one has ever been fired for buying IBM"... that goes doubly for OSS. OSS exposes you to lawsuits, and when the stuff does hit the fan, the buck stops with you.
In the end, OSS was allowed in our corporation, provided that it isn't used for mission critical purposes if no commercial drop-in replacement exists. If the software develops issues, there's still no vendor to blame for me, but I can live with that, personally.
I read about a study on the psychology of car selection, road rage, etc... Basically the outcome was that most people see their cars as an extension of their personal space. And many people care deeply about how the looks and comforts of personal space. Interestingly, they found that there is a direct correlation between the importance someone places in the looks of their car and the amount of bumper stickers, nodding dogs, furry dice etc they add, and the likelyhood of that person feeling anger at someone else's mistake in traffic. Someone cutting them off in traffic is felt as an invasion of their personal space.
I think there is something to that notion. When I leave the office and get on the train home, I feel like I am still working, right until I leave the train (even when I'm just reading a book instead of doing actual work). But when I leave the office and get in my car, it feels like the work day is already done... because at that moment I am entering my personal space.
By the way, Americans have absolutely no business buying used cars, at prevailing prices in the USA. Here in the Netherlands we usually pay around twice the US sticker price... mostly because we've a 45% special tax on new cars, and the 20% VAT comes on top of that.
I think that's exactly right. AoC is not a crappy game as a concept, it just wasn't a finished game. It was plagued by rather intrusive bugs up till a few weeks ago, which delayed some of the additional content that was to follow the game's release. Which is sad... of all the MMORPGs out there, I still think AoC by design has the most potential of turning into my game of choice. Whether it can still be that game in practice, remains to be seen. As for WAR, some people are already getting a bit bored of it, or so I hear. Good PvP alone is not enough for them.
Because for the last fifty years, fusion power has been constantly just twenty years in the future, that's why.
No.
The ITER guys state that it will take until the 2050s until the first production fusion powerplant comes online.
A good game has a good concept, content, gameplay and eye candy. What Google has is just eye candy, and from a gamer's perspective it's not even very good eye candy.
They are not really any closer to being a game publisher than any other company, though they can throw a lot of cash at the problem to get there. If they want to publish games, I am sure they can make that happen. Whether they'll be succesfull games is anyone's guess.
In corporations, you have to react to e-mail fast. That's why people check it often.
Educate your co-workers! I tell everyone that I do not read my email continuously. Use emails for non-urgent stuff, big reports, stuff that needs to be filed or tracked, and quick questions that don't require an immediate response. For urgent stuff, I ask people to use the phone or IM. And if I need to concentrate, the phone goes to voicemail. If something comes up that is urgent enough to interrupt me while I do not want to be interrupted, drop by my desk.
I don't like being interrupted by email, so I use the "Getting Things Done" approach: processing email is best done as an activity when you are in the mood, not ad-hoc every time the little envelope appears on your taskbar (turn that thing off, by the way). A few times a day (depending on what else I am doing), I open my inbox, read everything and take action:
- If the email contains junk or info only, I delete or file it accordingly
- If the email prompts me to take some action, I do it right away if I can complete the action in under 2 minutes.
- If I can't process an email in under 2 minutes, it goes into the "action" folder (which I process when I am in the mood for that).
Bam. A few minutes, empty inbox, no distraction. And best of all, no stress caused by interruptions or an overly full inbox.
Can you run a passenger plane (at least partially) on nuclear power? Hydro? Wind? Tidal? Geothermal? Solar? Any currently-available (sorry, BTL isn't just there yet), non-fossil-fuel power?
The figures I quoted were CO2 emission figures rather than energy consumption numbers, so the energy source has already been taken into consideration. The high speed trains used in this study are the French ones, which use a lot of hydro and nuclear power. Even so, they still emit more CO2 per passenger-km than a long haul flight.
According to the Dutch study I mentioned earlier, trips under 1000km or so are best done by high speed train. Longer journeys are environmentally friendlier if taken by airplane (or by a much slower train).
It shouldn't matter what the distance is; planes are not green in any way, shape, or form. I don't see how a plane can be more environmental than a train, even for long distances (discounting flights over oceans, of course). A passenger train really should be able to haul people, say, 3500 miles, using less fuel than an equivalent fleet of jets
It shouldn't? Says who?
This is what I mean by immutable "truths" about public transport that we have to change. Here is a another, sobering comparison Though the graph shows CO2 emissions rather than fuel consumption, it should be clear that a high-speed train such as the TGV or the Chinese one draws a massive amount of power to maintain its speed. And airplanes do not require all that much fuel to stay airborne once they reach cruising altitude in thinner layers of air; it's the takeoff that requires the tons of fuel. That's why an aircraft wins on the long haul, where the expense of taking off is spread out over more passenger-miles. The train isn't a clear winner by any means.
However, only a complete moron would ever question the environmental impact of a train versus highways or airlines. Trains are more efficient than any other form of transportation for moving goods and people between two points. [...] While planes are certainly faster, trains are cheaper (except in the USA) and far more fuel-efficient, which obviously means it's better for the environment.
You'd be surprised. A study, conducted by a decidedly conventional-green (e.g. with a "public transport = good" mindset) Dutch governmental agency concluded that, given our current trains, cars, and even with our rather fine mesh of public transport service, commuting by car is about as energy efficient as it is by train, when you include the journey to and from the actual train station (often by a heavily polluting, mostly empty bus). They also concluded that on shorter hauls, less than 500km, a high speed train is greener than an airplane, but on longer hauls the airplane wins.
I can't say how accurate the study is, but if it was biased it would have been in favour of public transport, coming from this particular agency. I can say however that I would not be surprised to find out that the immutable truths we are taught about public transport, namely that it is always better than planes and cars, turn out to be not so true after all.
Sorry to seem negative, but if my (limited, Holland/Belgium) experience is anything to go by, you will fail to learn the language in these countries. Certainly, despite attempts, I ended up with little more than a smattering of Dutch. Why - they want to practice their (already good) English. So it's hard.
My gf had this problem when she moved into the Netherlands. Her solution: when someone addressed her in English, she'd answer (in passable Dutch): Sorry, I do not speak English. Of course that's not going to work with people who know where you are from.
But seriously, learning the language means making the effort, expecting people speak Dutch to you all day is not enough. Insist that people do, though. Read books to build up a vocabulary. Consider enrolling in an intensive 1-2 week course. I know several people from abroad who have made the effort to learn the language in about a year. Enough to let them operate in an all Dutch speaking company, or take exams in Dutch. Be prepared though, it will take a lot of your free time to learn a new language.
1) Billing errors occur. Don't allow them to take your money until you've verified the bill is correct. Otherwise, even if they correct the bill, you will never, ever get a refund.
An error occurs, I call the bank and reverse the transaction. Now the company that screwed up will have to call me and ask me why I did not pay my bill.
2) Balance errors occur. Most banks will slap you for a $30-$40 NSF fee if someone sends an ACH debit transaction that's in excess of your available funds, whether or not they actually pay the ACH.
That's insane. Banks here will either just complete the transaction and charge you interest for overdraft (15% apr or so). That amounts to a tiny amount of interest in most cases, since the overdraft limit usually is around â1000-2000. In other cases, the bank will just cancel the transaction, and again the billing company will call and ask you what the problem is.
3) Emergencies occur. If I need to take my kid to the ER and shell a large amount of money so that he'll have an eye tomorrow, I shouldn't have to call the electric company to get them to stop the payment so I can do it.
Again, one phone call to my bank fixes everything, no questions asked. besides, I'd hate to think solving such an emergency depended on me having one utility bill's worth of money, or even a paycheck's worth. That's why I have a revolving credit line, which costs me nothing until I actually use it in an emergency. I suppose people in the States use credit cards for that.
The real bottom line is: I do not have any experience with all of the above, because in the 25 or so years I am using direct debit, not a single error has occurred.
Then I guess you haven't played *any* of the big MMORPGs, not when they launched anyway. WoW and SWG all had their problems, and who can forget when UO opened up Trammel for housing?
AoC has a lot of potential; nice combat system, the dark fantasy setting feels right, especially if you hate WoW Cartoon Central (and WAR looks just as silly albeit with better graphics), or Lotro's theme park looks. If they fix some of the imbalances and the memory leaks in the client, this game could still do well if they get the new content out in time.
Companies usually offshore whole teams or departments rather than individual jobs. The guys in India work as a team under a team lead or manager, sitting together and (hopefully) communicating effectively. If you want to compare it to telecommuting, it would be allowing you to work from home, but only if you'd let your team mates bring their laptops to your place and work with you...
Kind of sad that this is the first thing on peoples' minds. Would you not prefer Apple to recall the phones for a fix, or issue a firmware update that takes care of the problem? No.... you were wronged and therefore must sue.
It doesn't cost them anything either since it's all paid for by the taxpayer. For instance, last month our gov't slapped a 100 "CO2" tax on the ticket price of transcontinental flights, and since none of that cash is being spent on CO2 reduction, they can probably afford the gear to break keys. Alternatively, they'll force ISPs to block all unsanctioned encrypted traffic, all in the name of "fighting terrorism" of course.
Another good reason to never agree to a non-compete clause, or at least try to get a contract without one. I had my last employer strike the non-compete clause from my contract of employment when I signed it. Left the company to freelance for my client. The agency I worked for tried to foist a non-compete clause on me as well, but they too agreed to have it removed from the contract.
You'll want to look for non-contact clauses as well... the contract I was offered had a clause that forbade me to seek any professional contact with other employees if I quit my job, and having people on LinkedIn would probably qualify as such contact. (I had that clause removed as well... employers and clients buy my professional services, not my life or my soul).
My main reason for pirating games is availability, price is usually not an issue. In this day and age it's a bit silly that I need to go buy a physical box to play a game on my PC. And in the Netherlands, buying the box means you'll have to find the damn thing first, as there are not many good game shops around. Most games are sold in electronics stores, who do not pay much attention to what's new and hot.
I've bought a good many things through Steam. Fast and mostly painless. You let me download your games (or movies / music for that matter) and don't apply too much DRM, I'll pay your fee.
Modded funny, but... here in the Netherlands fines have become just that: a revenue generator. A few years ago fines were still counted as "extra" revenue, then a controversial change in policy made them part of the general budget of the national government, then annual targets for revenues from fines were introduced ("Don't go to the Zeeland bailiwick, they aren't meeting their fine target this year so they'll do you for as little as a smudged reariew mirror!"). And now fines are being earmarked for specific purposes. When another idiotic plan was announced last year (free textbooks for schoolgoing children), the minister informed us that these books were to be paid for by increased traffic fines.
By the same token, the new mandatory ID law serves as a nice "fine doubler": if you get stopped for anything fine-worthy and fail to show an ID, they slap on another 50 Euro. Maybe that's why they want RFID chips in ID cards, so that thet can drive around in a manner similar to the one in the article, and round up everyone not carrying ID.
Sometimes I feel like I am living in a novel that's a bad mix of Ayn Rand and George Orwell.
I read about just that, a few years ago in a Dutch Navy publication. It was an article on the lack of big guns capable of coastal barrages on modern ships, and options to put them back on now that that type of warfare might become useful again. The idea is to have one (or a few) guns fire a few rounds in succession along different trajectories, so that they all arrive on target at the same time, creating a nice firestorm. One of the options discussed was a gun using technology similar to this rifle.