Require any store that sell beverage containers to accept them in return for cash or credit.
Most bottles in Germany are glass. Either way. Because of a 25 euro cent "pfand", most bottles get recycled. This pfand is charged on purchase and returned when you bring the empty bottles back in. Unlike the 5 cent "deposit" here, any store that sell the bottles must take them back and participate in the system, so there are no recycling centers to look for and drive to on the customer's end. Bottles are usually sold in reusable plastic carrying cases 8 at a time, so they are easy to purchase in quantity. The cases themselves have a 2 euro pfand so they usually get brought back as well. Like this: http://blog.ckater.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/p1210390.jpeg
It's not just water, but almost any softdrink and even beer that's like this.
I wish we had this system here, as well as a similiar system with CFL and regular fluorescent bulbs, batteries, among other things. Recycling isn't something the consumer should have to go out of there way for, otherwise it's not done.
you'd think history would have taught them to maximize personal liberties, not to diminish them in any way? Oh well, there is still zeit fur packen zee bagen.
No, they look to the government for guidance still. It's in the character. They still don't have real freedom of speech there.
OTOH, if you look at what set of circumstances us Americans revolted against the King Of England for and how it is today, all you see is more government and taxes than they ever accepted in every aspect of our lives. And people constantly clamoring for more as a solution to their problems.
After 9/11, the US mandated biometric passports for all (if you wanted to enter the US).
Under legislation introduced after the September 11th attacks, the United States has tightened security measures for foreign tourists entering its country. The latest measure requires that by 2012, every traveler entering the United States who is part of the visa-waiver program must have a biometric passport or be forced to apply for a visa....... Initially, Washington gave a 2006 deadline for the 27 countries in the EU and other visa-waiver countries such as Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, but then pushed the date back to June of this year to give these countries more time to prepare the technology needed to issue the biometric passports. The US State Department started introducing e-passports in 2006 and every passport holder in the US is projected to have one by 2017.
There was a time where I played with and installed every OS out there (Linux distros like Ubuntu, Slackware, Linux From Scratch, etc, Plan 9 and Inferno, AtheOS) and I think it should exist.
But with Apple, I generally just want something that works. I'm too old to want to babysit a phone with malware or where things just don't work. I'm not blasting any competition, I just haven't experience with Android or others to comment.
Freedom is good, but sometimes that means people will choose to trade in that freedom for convenience. Also, considering that I grew up where a phone is just a phone, I don't have the expectations for it to be like a desktop.
This was a while back, but I remember recess in my first week of middleschool - 5th grade. A bunch of us wanted to play tag or something, but a teacher/supervisor stopped us and told us we weren't to run anymore, we're too old for that game. The rest of middleschool recess was like that, the one consistent time of day to get out our frustrations we were reduced to walking like any other intermission between class periods. Strange rule though, because we had Gym, and dodgeball is just a form of tag with a ball and slightly different rule (tag, you're out! instead of tag, you're it!)...
The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.
When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.
Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.
"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.
Yeah, I had to drive a friend's car around with one of these as a favor (getting the breathalyzer rechecked monthly or something while they were on vacation - pretty strict). While I didn't mind it at start-up, it was downright dangerous while driving. The intervals didn't seem random at all, it was always 5 minutes apart, and it gave you like 10 second window to start the test or it would report a failure to the authorities. So the whole pull-over and test is bullshit, whenever it beeped, whether it was on a curve or straight-away or heavy traffic, I had to sit there and breath as hard into it as possible while still paying attention to it. Imo, whatever the brand name of the device was, it was a terroristic little thing not suited for safe-driving at all.
BTW, I think the idea is good in theory, just the particular implementation I had was stupid, at least 2 minute should be given to pull over, and it should beep and light up like Vegas just because of 10 seconds coming and going.
Of course, I wasn't used to this car, it was a manual on top of that, something I don't drive often, which may have made it harder than it seemed.
That's just stupid. The soul of the argument of gentrification is that people get displaced. People choosing Apple Laptops doesn't displace anyone, it's just the free market at work.
The Apple PowerBook series, introduced in October 1991, pioneered changes that are now de facto standards on laptops, such as room for a palm rest, and the inclusion of a pointing device (a trackball). The following year, IBM released its ThinkPad 700C, featuring a similar design (though with a distinctive red TrackPoint pointing device).
Later PowerBooks featured optional color displays (PowerBook 165c, 1993), and first true touchpad (Powerbook 500-series, 1994), first 16-bit stereo audio, and first built-in Ethernet network adapter (PowerBook 500, 1994).
So no, while they weren't the first on the block, they did add some valuable things. The whole "first on the block" argument is usually a meaningless dick-measuring contest anyway.
If Apple could add an optional "bottom half" cover to the iPad, which would consist of a keyboard, memory card reader on the side, and perhaps connect only having swing out arms that attach magnetically to the bezel of the iPad (itself having built in hidden magnets) so that it would look like a netbook, I imagine such a thing would be really popular. Especially if priced at $149 or so.
Of course, this idea is from Always Innovating Netbook, Touchpad, and only the attachment is changed to make it more in line with Apple's current style and offerings: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10185351-1.html
I consider the current dock connector keyboard a real klutzy solution.
Judging by what happened to most of the iPod killers and what Microsoft is looking likely to do I'd say he'll be sleeping soundly. I'd be more worried about Android based tablets, ChromeOS on the other hand is IMHO a joke.
The problem with most iPod/iPhone killers is that by taking the title or having someone in the media do it, people who look at your device will also know what to compare it to. However, if every potential customer of these 32 (?) other devices are told the iPad is essentially the standard, each one has a good chance of deciding for an iPad at the end of the day. OTOH, every person looking at an iPad likely only knows of that device and compares it on its own merits, and even if they knew of a competitor, it's a pie sliced up in 32 pieces. The least likely scenario is that a person looks at multiple devices, none of them Apple - perhaps in the geek segment but not in the wider consumer circles.
That's not to say Apple doesn't have other things going for it, besides the math here. Perhaps, in years, the rise of iOS will be seen as more important to Apple than OS X. Google and Apple are the only major players in this OS field. Even Amazon is still clinging to the concept of an overall dumb device that does only one function, more or less.
I think the hybrid (electric motors powered by motor when battery gets low, similiar to diesel electric trains, not like most hybrids today which couple an electric and gas motor together) is even better because of those cross country trips without plugin, plus the hybrid should get 100+ mpg.
I don't understand purists. It's easier to get to their perceived utopia by making some temporary compromises on the way, to help build the infrastructure and gain acceptance rather than demand perfection all at once.
Paying ~$7.00 per entrance is not my definition of cheap. Swimming 3x a week would mean $84 a month. Lots of places in the US where you can get all-you-can-swim for a lot cheaper than that.
They had week and monthly passes at discounted rate. I could buy a regional transit ticket for 5 euro a day or 20 euro for a month (in Freiburg). Someone who stops by once pays more.
I imagine so. Every place in my area has either just one medium pool or an olympic sized (length) pool cut with only like 3 lanes. Everything costs like $12 or more to get in. The closest water park is like 3 hours.
The US is so big, it's hard to generalize. I would say the car culture and strip malls are a near constant though.
No, I used to live in Bellevue. I had a car but it was college and I wanted to see if I could live without a car so I experimented with grocery shopping.
I never had to wait long for a bus, 10 minutes max. But whereas a shopping trip used to take me 30 minute with a car (including shopping), with a bus it took me 1-1/2 hours with a bus for some reason. The grocery store was only 2 miles straight down the road. Maybe it was the sheer number of stops, I don't remember why.
I tried the bus a few more times with a strip mall, but it always multiplied the trip time so much that I swore off entirely.
I'm a native of both and the article rings somewhat true of the people I know. But to be blunt about it, I think there is more to do in Germany, especially in this age range. More clubs, more affordable entertainment options, more and cheaper excercise options. More mass transit too, to get there.
I grew up as a latchkey kid in suburban borderline rural America and summered there. When I was 10-15, I was bored out of my mind most days and would have loved something like the internet. I was just too far from anything entertaining, including other kid's houses. It all comes down to having a car culture, imo.
One example, I find pools very expensive in America. Even my YMCA isn't cheap and is like 7 miles away. In Germany, a schwimmbad, hallenbad, etc are somewhat ubiquitous and cheap (5 euros entrance). The outdoor baths are particularly nice, having several pools, one usually Olympic size. None of this means anything if you can't get to it, but again, Germany has massive transit especially rail, and bus, and it doesn't take hours to get anywhere like the bus systems I know from Seattle or Philadelphia. Also, there are sidewalks and bikepaths everywhere, on the side of the road. Here, I had 3 friends that got hit over the years because it's mostly patchwork, if it exists at all.
There can be other factors and I'm sure urban kids have a different experience.
Which is why Walmart has been eating Kmart's luch since the 80s. You describe the two kmarts near me (seperated from each other by 10 miles) down to a tee. There have been instances where I thought one or other has been closed down, because the parking lots have never seen a repaving or resealing in 30 years, lack of cars, and general run-down appearance but no, for some reason they are still open. But no life in them and just expensive relatively.
The cheapest MacBook is still $1000..... still a hell of a lot more than $350 or $450 for the WIN7 machine. Way overpriced. Why buy an Acura when a Honda is just as good (and made by the same company besides)?
If you are going to do compare it to car, a $450 machine is more like a Hyundai Accent. $10k new. The Honda Fit is around $15 and Civic around 16,500+ (depending on trim).
I drive a Honda, they are good cars, reliable, and looks and performs nice the last decade. A $450 notebook is a piece of shit for two reasons: shit battery that doesn't last and usually a shit or desktop processor that sucks the life out of a crap processor. I'm not going to mention the crappy cheap-looking plastic body with dozens of useless ports (I'm surprised they finally got rid of floppy drives a decade ago) because that seems to ubiquitous on all PC notebooks regardless of pricerange.
You can get a Win7 machine cheaper and a good one, but be prepared to spend $600-800 at least. It would be a more respectable machine I could live with.
I will explain why I like Apple notebooks, especially the last two years: it feels like the sturdiest notebook I ever had since it went unibody and has the battery internal as well. The battery actually lasts a long time (in case I do go portable). I like that they dropped legacy ports (some people will bitch that it has no serial/parallel port but I HATE those fugly things and haven't used them in at least a decade). I like that there aren't 50,000 pieces of shitware/bloatware on a new machine to delete (in a halfassed fashion) when new. The little things like a magnetic cord, magnetic catch (no moving parts) and LED indicators for battery life please me. There are probably half a dozen other little things I like, but most of all, on a Mac, I never find myself fiddling with the machine or software. I'm not a slave to reverted settings or anti-virus software. I sit down, and I can get shit done. (Granted, I used to love to fiddle on computers, but after a relative borks his machine for the 1,000th time, it gets old quick.) I'm not saying Apples are perfect or bulletproof, but I just like the convenience of not playing whack-a-mole on problems.
If people just go to the dollar store, they are going to complain that certain tools at Lowes/Home Depot are overpriced, and for them it probably is. I appreciate being able to buy a nicer version that I think works better for me.
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Most bottles in Germany are glass. Either way. Because of a 25 euro cent "pfand", most bottles get recycled. This pfand is charged on purchase and returned when you bring the empty bottles back in. Unlike the 5 cent "deposit" here, any store that sell the bottles must take them back and participate in the system, so there are no recycling centers to look for and drive to on the customer's end. Bottles are usually sold in reusable plastic carrying cases 8 at a time, so they are easy to purchase in quantity. The cases themselves have a 2 euro pfand so they usually get brought back as well. Like this:
http://blog.ckater.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/p1210390.jpeg
It's not just water, but almost any softdrink and even beer that's like this.
I wish we had this system here, as well as a similiar system with CFL and regular fluorescent bulbs, batteries, among other things. Recycling isn't something the consumer should have to go out of there way for, otherwise it's not done.
I'm both German and American and have lived in both countries roughly equally.
No, they look to the government for guidance still. It's in the character. They still don't have real freedom of speech there.
OTOH, if you look at what set of circumstances us Americans revolted against the King Of England for and how it is today, all you see is more government and taxes than they ever accepted in every aspect of our lives. And people constantly clamoring for more as a solution to their problems.
Oh, I guess a source would be helpful ;)
http://www.alternet.org/story/142239/will_biometric_passports_lead_to_a_state_of_constant_surveillance/
After 9/11, the US mandated biometric passports for all (if you wanted to enter the US).
I have Opera installed on my iPhone...
There was a time where I played with and installed every OS out there (Linux distros like Ubuntu, Slackware, Linux From Scratch, etc, Plan 9 and Inferno, AtheOS) and I think it should exist.
But with Apple, I generally just want something that works. I'm too old to want to babysit a phone with malware or where things just don't work. I'm not blasting any competition, I just haven't experience with Android or others to comment.
Freedom is good, but sometimes that means people will choose to trade in that freedom for convenience. Also, considering that I grew up where a phone is just a phone, I don't have the expectations for it to be like a desktop.
The one bought last year doesn't look deadly enough:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/cash-for-clunkers-shock-horror-hummer-bought-with-c4c-cash/
This was a while back, but I remember recess in my first week of middleschool - 5th grade. A bunch of us wanted to play tag or something, but a teacher/supervisor stopped us and told us we weren't to run anymore, we're too old for that game. The rest of middleschool recess was like that, the one consistent time of day to get out our frustrations we were reduced to walking like any other intermission between class periods. Strange rule though, because we had Gym, and dodgeball is just a form of tag with a ball and slightly different rule (tag, you're out! instead of tag, you're it!)...
Just read the Lolcat Bible:
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
You'll turn the tables and be confusing the kids in no time.
Of course you're doing it wrong, you're torturing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html
I'm confused, you mean she's not allowed there at all anymore?
Yeah, I had to drive a friend's car around with one of these as a favor (getting the breathalyzer rechecked monthly or something while they were on vacation - pretty strict). While I didn't mind it at start-up, it was downright dangerous while driving. The intervals didn't seem random at all, it was always 5 minutes apart, and it gave you like 10 second window to start the test or it would report a failure to the authorities. So the whole pull-over and test is bullshit, whenever it beeped, whether it was on a curve or straight-away or heavy traffic, I had to sit there and breath as hard into it as possible while still paying attention to it. Imo, whatever the brand name of the device was, it was a terroristic little thing not suited for safe-driving at all.
BTW, I think the idea is good in theory, just the particular implementation I had was stupid, at least 2 minute should be given to pull over, and it should beep and light up like Vegas just because of 10 seconds coming and going.
Of course, I wasn't used to this car, it was a manual on top of that, something I don't drive often, which may have made it harder than it seemed.
Your parent moderated someone, but a moderator can't post in a thread they are modding. If they do, all the moderations get reversed.
That's just stupid. The soul of the argument of gentrification is that people get displaced. People choosing Apple Laptops doesn't displace anyone, it's just the free market at work.
Also, according to wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_laptops#Powerbook
So no, while they weren't the first on the block, they did add some valuable things. The whole "first on the block" argument is usually a meaningless dick-measuring contest anyway.
If Apple could add an optional "bottom half" cover to the iPad, which would consist of a keyboard, memory card reader on the side, and perhaps connect only having swing out arms that attach magnetically to the bezel of the iPad (itself having built in hidden magnets) so that it would look like a netbook, I imagine such a thing would be really popular. Especially if priced at $149 or so.
Of course, this idea is from Always Innovating Netbook, Touchpad, and only the attachment is changed to make it more in line with Apple's current style and offerings:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10185351-1.html
I consider the current dock connector keyboard a real klutzy solution.
The problem with most iPod/iPhone killers is that by taking the title or having someone in the media do it, people who look at your device will also know what to compare it to. However, if every potential customer of these 32 (?) other devices are told the iPad is essentially the standard, each one has a good chance of deciding for an iPad at the end of the day. OTOH, every person looking at an iPad likely only knows of that device and compares it on its own merits, and even if they knew of a competitor, it's a pie sliced up in 32 pieces. The least likely scenario is that a person looks at multiple devices, none of them Apple - perhaps in the geek segment but not in the wider consumer circles.
That's not to say Apple doesn't have other things going for it, besides the math here. Perhaps, in years, the rise of iOS will be seen as more important to Apple than OS X. Google and Apple are the only major players in this OS field. Even Amazon is still clinging to the concept of an overall dumb device that does only one function, more or less.
I happen to think the Aptera (both electric and hybrid) are good cars. Jay Leno drove the electric on on his garage website:
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/aptera-electric-car/1104622/
I think the hybrid (electric motors powered by motor when battery gets low, similiar to diesel electric trains, not like most hybrids today which couple an electric and gas motor together) is even better because of those cross country trips without plugin, plus the hybrid should get 100+ mpg.
I don't understand purists. It's easier to get to their perceived utopia by making some temporary compromises on the way, to help build the infrastructure and gain acceptance rather than demand perfection all at once.
I imagine so. Every place in my area has either just one medium pool or an olympic sized (length) pool cut with only like 3 lanes. Everything costs like $12 or more to get in. The closest water park is like 3 hours.
The US is so big, it's hard to generalize. I would say the car culture and strip malls are a near constant though.
No, I used to live in Bellevue. I had a car but it was college and I wanted to see if I could live without a car so I experimented with grocery shopping.
I never had to wait long for a bus, 10 minutes max. But whereas a shopping trip used to take me 30 minute with a car (including shopping), with a bus it took me 1-1/2 hours with a bus for some reason. The grocery store was only 2 miles straight down the road. Maybe it was the sheer number of stops, I don't remember why.
I tried the bus a few more times with a strip mall, but it always multiplied the trip time so much that I swore off entirely.
And not the whole world or America.
I'm a native of both and the article rings somewhat true of the people I know. But to be blunt about it, I think there is more to do in Germany, especially in this age range. More clubs, more affordable entertainment options, more and cheaper excercise options. More mass transit too, to get there.
I grew up as a latchkey kid in suburban borderline rural America and summered there. When I was 10-15, I was bored out of my mind most days and would have loved something like the internet. I was just too far from anything entertaining, including other kid's houses. It all comes down to having a car culture, imo.
One example, I find pools very expensive in America. Even my YMCA isn't cheap and is like 7 miles away. In Germany, a schwimmbad, hallenbad, etc are somewhat ubiquitous and cheap (5 euros entrance). The outdoor baths are particularly nice, having several pools, one usually Olympic size. None of this means anything if you can't get to it, but again, Germany has massive transit especially rail, and bus, and it doesn't take hours to get anywhere like the bus systems I know from Seattle or Philadelphia. Also, there are sidewalks and bikepaths everywhere, on the side of the road. Here, I had 3 friends that got hit over the years because it's mostly patchwork, if it exists at all.
There can be other factors and I'm sure urban kids have a different experience.
Which is why Walmart has been eating Kmart's luch since the 80s. You describe the two kmarts near me (seperated from each other by 10 miles) down to a tee. There have been instances where I thought one or other has been closed down, because the parking lots have never seen a repaving or resealing in 30 years, lack of cars, and general run-down appearance but no, for some reason they are still open. But no life in them and just expensive relatively.
It almost seems you are talking about Microsoft (yet, whether the OS market ever changes is to be seen, having an exclusive API is a powerful thing).
OS 9 had viruses. Macs had viruses that in the early days that were passed between floppies.
You can't tell me that OS X has smaller marketshare (or user base in total numbers) that it wouldn't be a lucrative market.
If you are going to do compare it to car, a $450 machine is more like a Hyundai Accent. $10k new. The Honda Fit is around $15 and Civic around 16,500+ (depending on trim).
I drive a Honda, they are good cars, reliable, and looks and performs nice the last decade. A $450 notebook is a piece of shit for two reasons: shit battery that doesn't last and usually a shit or desktop processor that sucks the life out of a crap processor. I'm not going to mention the crappy cheap-looking plastic body with dozens of useless ports (I'm surprised they finally got rid of floppy drives a decade ago) because that seems to ubiquitous on all PC notebooks regardless of pricerange.
You can get a Win7 machine cheaper and a good one, but be prepared to spend $600-800 at least. It would be a more respectable machine I could live with.
I will explain why I like Apple notebooks, especially the last two years: it feels like the sturdiest notebook I ever had since it went unibody and has the battery internal as well. The battery actually lasts a long time (in case I do go portable). I like that they dropped legacy ports (some people will bitch that it has no serial/parallel port but I HATE those fugly things and haven't used them in at least a decade). I like that there aren't 50,000 pieces of shitware/bloatware on a new machine to delete (in a halfassed fashion) when new. The little things like a magnetic cord, magnetic catch (no moving parts) and LED indicators for battery life please me. There are probably half a dozen other little things I like, but most of all, on a Mac, I never find myself fiddling with the machine or software. I'm not a slave to reverted settings or anti-virus software. I sit down, and I can get shit done. (Granted, I used to love to fiddle on computers, but after a relative borks his machine for the 1,000th time, it gets old quick.) I'm not saying Apples are perfect or bulletproof, but I just like the convenience of not playing whack-a-mole on problems.
If people just go to the dollar store, they are going to complain that certain tools at Lowes/Home Depot are overpriced, and for them it probably is. I appreciate being able to buy a nicer version that I think works better for me.