Okay, that is pretty terrible too. We're a tiny country (about 29% the size of Illinois), and we don't have the separation of governance that you Leftpondians have. So we get taxed only by the national government.
I know that an American from Connecticut who works in the Netherlands now is kindof miffed. His 'pretty good' salary that he moved here for isn't that good given Dutch taxes. I'm guessing taxation levels vary drastically.
Sane drug laws? Pot is illegal but allowed. Sort-of. You're allowed to have three plants for personal use. Coffeeshops (not a place to go to just get coffee) are allowed to sell the stuff, but suppliers are not allowed to actually transport the stuff.
As for free healthcare, as I understand it American healthcare is much, much more expensive if you get it. In Holland it's mandatory, but it costs at minimum around 85 euro's a month. This has an "own-risk" of 150; if you actually have problems, the first 150 euro's are on your ticket. Last year we had a no-claim of 250 euro's, so basically we've been F'd up the A for 400, Alex.
You should try living in the Netherlands. Income tax averages to about 40% (highest scale is 52%), sales tax is 6% for food and entertainment, 19% for everything else.
I especially love cars here, for those who buy them. You have the manufacturer price. Add about a third in a purchase tax (purpose unknown, except moneygrabbing government). 19% sales tax over that all. Then to keep it, you pay road tax. Gasoline is about US$8.6 per US gallon, 70% of which is tax (I shit you not).
Mine's a company lease car. So the company pays everything to the lease company (who paid that purchase tax over the car, mind you). But because I use it for personal use, I have to pay income tax over 25% of the list price (including all taxes) of the car every year.
Governments job is to enforce the tedious-but-useful things that are a benefit to their whole nation without providing drawbacks for their citizens. I think this qualifies.
More government control on corporations out to lock in consumers while wasting tremendous amounts of electricity is a good thing.
Weight training is necessary for long-term fat loss. If the body has to burn calories, it gets them wherever it can find them while attempting to minimize caloric expenditure. This involves breaking down muscle.
While cardio is heavily leg centric (and of course supporting musculature), upper body strength will decrease further if there is a significant caloric deficit. Less musculature means less caloric expenditure.
As for cardio... build up to a certain point (say, 45 minutes sustained cardio without being tired), then switch to HIIT (high intensity interval training). Studies have shown that people doing HIIT for half an hour burn about half as many calories as people doing steady-state for an hour, but burn about 9 times as much fat per calories as the steady-state group.
You can use Nimbuzz for voice. Not open source, but uses Jabber/XMPP. They do have a web-client (that does not do voice) and a flash widget for Facebook et al that does do voice. Making a full-featured flash client that does voice should be an obvious next step, since it opens up linux/mac markets.
Nimbuzz connects to your Skype, MSN/Live, GTalk, Yahoo and AIM, with voice calling supported for the first three networks, and also works for mobile phones (both local dial-up and full VoIP) and PC (Windows only currently, which kindof sucks, given that I'm typing this on a Mac)
They should love to one-up Skype in a project like this, if they can get tight integration.
A friend of mine has legal insurance, and had a conflict with his ADSL provider. He wanted to switch to a new one, but the old one (despite not actually providing reliable service) would not relinquish his contract for six more months.
He called his legal insurance, and they said they'll pay for those six months ADSL. Cheaper than having a lawyer work a court case. Amazing:)
Well, I'd say it depends on how standard practice this is. Right now, they offer to settle for $3000, and if you go to court they will raise that to cover the expenses they've made. So far, so sort-of reasonable.
But if the story becomes "Settle for $3000 now, or we'll force you to pay $8000 later", that's approaching extortion. Especially when they've proven they'll cheat the justice system if they can to get the judgement they want.
It might also have something to do with them oppressing the freedom of speech, and tampering with the election system on a massive scale, and generally behaving more and more like a dictatorship.
Of course, I'm talking about Russia, not the US, though I'll admit the differences are small.
Why would he hold on to a bullet of any weight? It's not as if gravity would pull him down noticeably faster than if he were wearing a streamlined suit. Try dropping 1-kilo weight and a 10-kilo weight. They'll drop at the same speed.
Any computer with a sound card, DVD burner, video capture and and video-out is a "media center".
Like hell it is. I was talking about 'solutions', which means plugging it in, and being able to record video and play it back conveniently. Just having the hardware does not qualify.
> Linux is still tough to configure
So is Windows. Actually I find Window's "control panel" an inextricable mess, while Mandriva's KDE solution for configuring your hardware and desktop is elegant and simple. You don't have to "dive into config files" at all. It's pretty obvious it's been a while since you've tried Linux.
I was talking about applications, not the OS itself. It's a mindset difference mainly. For serving media to my PS3 I googled for media servers. For Linux, getting these configured always required dicking about with config files. Getting the Windows equivalent (TVersity) running was trivial, base configuration works fine. That's the difference in culture between Linux and Windows, and the reason why Linux on the average desktop is not here. While I can get the media serving to work, without tinkering, it doesn't. While under Windows the default settings do work. I had the same experience with my capture hardware, and with getting MythTV to work, earlier.
I'll admit to having stuck with one distribution (Ubuntu), and have not tried Mandriva. I may give it a shot at some point. Improvements are being made constantly, but it's not there yet.
As for better OS'... I like gaming, so on my home rig I'm using Windows. For my server (mainly file store, headless torrent downloader) I use linux, and my work machine is a Macbook with OSX.
Even so, for OS', noone (for significant values of the population) even knows Be exists, and Sun is not a household name. Don't be ridiculous. Linux is still tough to configure. Generally, people do not want to dive into config files, which you have to do to get things like capture cards working. At least, I had a hell of a time when I last tried to get that working.
In terms of Media Center solutions, Be is dead, Sun makes servers and OS', Linux solutions exist but are not plug-and-play. Apple certainly *can* do it, they have the appropriate mindset in application design, but I don't know if they actually *do* have a solution at the moment.
So if someone wants a Media Center solution on their PC, Windows Media Center is the only realistic option they have. Hope this clears things up.
So $100 for the box, at least $50 for a decent case and PSU, $100 for a video card that could handle 1080p, $50 for a rudimentary hard drive (storage on network, natch), $200 for a blu-ray drive...
That comes down to about $500 for the whole she-bang.
The flaw in your reasoning is that you want a PS3, which is cheaper, looks better, and is perfectly capable of being a streaming media player out of the box. Also, you can play games on it. I use it currently with TVersity on my main PC, though I've started tinkering with MediaTomb for my linux box to stream the media to the PS3. The only thing it can't handle natively so far is MKV files, which is bloody annoying, but then, you'd also be hard pressed to decode those well on the Atom.
Nice one by MS, but this won't have much of an impact on Windows I think. What else are people going to use? Just because MythTV is out there doesn't mean it's plug-and-play all of a sudden.
Long-term viability of Yahoo is endangered by a deal with Microsoft. Hell, it's endangered without it, but if there is a merger, it'll be the death blow. You know it, I know it, Yahoo knows it. So what I'd like to know is, where is Yahoo's responsibility: Providing short-term monetary gains, regardless of long term results? Or are they allowed to take the long view, and take the *good* decision?
The main thing with talking to a real person and talking on the phone is, a real person can see when you're paying explicit attention to the road, and can shut up. A person on the phone can't do that unless you tell them, and not enough people do that.
Yes, but blank ballots and voted-for ballots would have to be replaced at all the voting districts, as each district would be responsible for counting. To buy the vote, you'd need to affect a *lot* of people, and it would be obvious. To buy the vote with these machines, all you need is to buy the manufacturer.
I think I've already seen that on CNN. It starts out strong, but the story has no ending to speak of, and just degenerates into random nonsense the longer the administrati^Wgame continues.
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Okay, that is pretty terrible too. We're a tiny country (about 29% the size of Illinois), and we don't have the separation of governance that you Leftpondians have. So we get taxed only by the national government.
I know that an American from Connecticut who works in the Netherlands now is kindof miffed. His 'pretty good' salary that he moved here for isn't that good given Dutch taxes. I'm guessing taxation levels vary drastically.
Sane drug laws? Pot is illegal but allowed. Sort-of. You're allowed to have three plants for personal use. Coffeeshops (not a place to go to just get coffee) are allowed to sell the stuff, but suppliers are not allowed to actually transport the stuff.
As for free healthcare, as I understand it American healthcare is much, much more expensive if you get it. In Holland it's mandatory, but it costs at minimum around 85 euro's a month. This has an "own-risk" of 150; if you actually have problems, the first 150 euro's are on your ticket. Last year we had a no-claim of 250 euro's, so basically we've been F'd up the A for 400, Alex.
You should try living in the Netherlands. Income tax averages to about 40% (highest scale is 52%), sales tax is 6% for food and entertainment, 19% for everything else.
I especially love cars here, for those who buy them. You have the manufacturer price. Add about a third in a purchase tax (purpose unknown, except moneygrabbing government). 19% sales tax over that all. Then to keep it, you pay road tax. Gasoline is about US$8.6 per US gallon, 70% of which is tax (I shit you not).
Mine's a company lease car. So the company pays everything to the lease company (who paid that purchase tax over the car, mind you). But because I use it for personal use, I have to pay income tax over 25% of the list price (including all taxes) of the car every year.
Yeah, your taxes sound really bad... *sigh*
Governments job is to enforce the tedious-but-useful things that are a benefit to their whole nation without providing drawbacks for their citizens. I think this qualifies.
More government control on corporations out to lock in consumers while wasting tremendous amounts of electricity is a good thing.
If you remove all the unnecessary plugins, neither does Acrobat Reader. At least, not for as long.
Weight training is necessary for long-term fat loss. If the body has to burn calories, it gets them wherever it can find them while attempting to minimize caloric expenditure. This involves breaking down muscle.
While cardio is heavily leg centric (and of course supporting musculature), upper body strength will decrease further if there is a significant caloric deficit. Less musculature means less caloric expenditure.
As for cardio... build up to a certain point (say, 45 minutes sustained cardio without being tired), then switch to HIIT (high intensity interval training). Studies have shown that people doing HIIT for half an hour burn about half as many calories as people doing steady-state for an hour, but burn about 9 times as much fat per calories as the steady-state group.
Bike to work slowly and relaxed, don't get your heart rate up to much.
Bike home like the devil's chasing you, towards that shower and clean clothes.
You can use Nimbuzz for voice. Not open source, but uses Jabber/XMPP. They do have a web-client (that does not do voice) and a flash widget for Facebook et al that does do voice. Making a full-featured flash client that does voice should be an obvious next step, since it opens up linux/mac markets.
Nimbuzz connects to your Skype, MSN/Live, GTalk, Yahoo and AIM, with voice calling supported for the first three networks, and also works for mobile phones (both local dial-up and full VoIP) and PC (Windows only currently, which kindof sucks, given that I'm typing this on a Mac)
They should love to one-up Skype in a project like this, if they can get tight integration.
Their first version of the site was called Fakebook. Seems pretty obvious.
OCZ Core series drives come to that mark. RSP of $479 for the 128GB model. See their press release, or a news message
Which obviously resulted in the ice age all those years later. See illustration of latter-day pirate activity
A friend of mine has legal insurance, and had a conflict with his ADSL provider. He wanted to switch to a new one, but the old one (despite not actually providing reliable service) would not relinquish his contract for six more months.
:)
He called his legal insurance, and they said they'll pay for those six months ADSL. Cheaper than having a lawyer work a court case. Amazing
Well, I'd say it depends on how standard practice this is. Right now, they offer to settle for $3000, and if you go to court they will raise that to cover the expenses they've made. So far, so sort-of reasonable.
But if the story becomes "Settle for $3000 now, or we'll force you to pay $8000 later", that's approaching extortion. Especially when they've proven they'll cheat the justice system if they can to get the judgement they want.
It might also have something to do with them oppressing the freedom of speech, and tampering with the election system on a massive scale, and generally behaving more and more like a dictatorship.
Of course, I'm talking about Russia, not the US, though I'll admit the differences are small.
Good point. See also 'Rods of God'. Something heavy and low profile will use its greater mass to overcome more friction.
Why would he hold on to a bullet of any weight? It's not as if gravity would pull him down noticeably faster than if he were wearing a streamlined suit. Try dropping 1-kilo weight and a 10-kilo weight. They'll drop at the same speed.
Pretending to be the main Apple demographic (ie, "I have no idea, but everyone else is standing in line") would match.
This did immediately make me think of ImprovEverywhere. They're fantastic, and this sounds funny.
Like hell it is. I was talking about 'solutions', which means plugging it in, and being able to record video and play it back conveniently. Just having the hardware does not qualify.
> Linux is still tough to configure
So is Windows. Actually I find Window's "control panel" an inextricable mess, while Mandriva's KDE solution for configuring your hardware and desktop is elegant and simple. You don't have to "dive into config files" at all. It's pretty obvious it's been a while since you've tried Linux.
I was talking about applications, not the OS itself. It's a mindset difference mainly. For serving media to my PS3 I googled for media servers. For Linux, getting these configured always required dicking about with config files. Getting the Windows equivalent (TVersity) running was trivial, base configuration works fine. That's the difference in culture between Linux and Windows, and the reason why Linux on the average desktop is not here. While I can get the media serving to work, without tinkering, it doesn't. While under Windows the default settings do work. I had the same experience with my capture hardware, and with getting MythTV to work, earlier.
I'll admit to having stuck with one distribution (Ubuntu), and have not tried Mandriva. I may give it a shot at some point. Improvements are being made constantly, but it's not there yet.
As for better OS'... I like gaming, so on my home rig I'm using Windows. For my server (mainly file store, headless torrent downloader) I use linux, and my work machine is a Macbook with OSX.
I'm talking about Media Center solutions.
Even so, for OS', noone (for significant values of the population) even knows Be exists, and Sun is not a household name. Don't be ridiculous. Linux is still tough to configure. Generally, people do not want to dive into config files, which you have to do to get things like capture cards working. At least, I had a hell of a time when I last tried to get that working.
In terms of Media Center solutions, Be is dead, Sun makes servers and OS', Linux solutions exist but are not plug-and-play. Apple certainly *can* do it, they have the appropriate mindset in application design, but I don't know if they actually *do* have a solution at the moment.
So if someone wants a Media Center solution on their PC, Windows Media Center is the only realistic option they have. Hope this clears things up.
So $100 for the box, at least $50 for a decent case and PSU, $100 for a video card that could handle 1080p, $50 for a rudimentary hard drive (storage on network, natch), $200 for a blu-ray drive...
That comes down to about $500 for the whole she-bang.
The flaw in your reasoning is that you want a PS3, which is cheaper, looks better, and is perfectly capable of being a streaming media player out of the box. Also, you can play games on it. I use it currently with TVersity on my main PC, though I've started tinkering with MediaTomb for my linux box to stream the media to the PS3. The only thing it can't handle natively so far is MKV files, which is bloody annoying, but then, you'd also be hard pressed to decode those well on the Atom.
Move along...
Nice one by MS, but this won't have much of an impact on Windows I think. What else are people going to use? Just because MythTV is out there doesn't mean it's plug-and-play all of a sudden.
Long-term viability of Yahoo is endangered by a deal with Microsoft. Hell, it's endangered without it, but if there is a merger, it'll be the death blow. You know it, I know it, Yahoo knows it. So what I'd like to know is, where is Yahoo's responsibility: Providing short-term monetary gains, regardless of long term results? Or are they allowed to take the long view, and take the *good* decision?
The main thing with talking to a real person and talking on the phone is, a real person can see when you're paying explicit attention to the road, and can shut up. A person on the phone can't do that unless you tell them, and not enough people do that.
Yes, but blank ballots and voted-for ballots would have to be replaced at all the voting districts, as each district would be responsible for counting. To buy the vote, you'd need to affect a *lot* of people, and it would be obvious. To buy the vote with these machines, all you need is to buy the manufacturer.
I think I've already seen that on CNN. It starts out strong, but the story has no ending to speak of, and just degenerates into random nonsense the longer the administrati^Wgame continues.