Their lawyers are in fact some of Sweden's top lawyers (Peter Althin, for example, has handled many famous cases).
IANAL but I think the way it works in Sweden is that there are no public attorneys. Instead, private firms provide defence attorneys at the request of the courts. I think a defendent can request his/her preferred attorney, and I think the the tab is picked up by the state (at least in criminal trials -- I feel less certain about this apparently combined civil/criminal trial).
Another institution worth mentioning is Lagrådet (Google translation) which examines the constitutionality of laws before they are voted on. In this case, it had declared the law to be constitutional.
The European Court of Justice is an EU institution, and has nothing to do with the European Convention on Human Rights. What you're probably referring to is the European Court of Human Rights.
This is not correct. The right to secede was never formally recognized except in the proposed EU constitution a few years back, which was rejected (and is being replaced with an additional treaty that may or may not be ratified).
Incorrect. Most EU member states are part of the Schengen agreement, which allows for passport-free travel. You do however have to be prepared to prove your European citizenship in some situations (e.g. checking into hotels), which you can do with the European identity card issued by many (all?) EU member states these days. I haven't ever brought a passport with me to another EU country except the UK (not part of Schengen).
Disclaimer: IANSBHRAEBAT (I Am Not Swiss But Have Read An
Excellent Book About This). The Swiss constitution guarantees the right of referendum, but a referendum is only called after a specific number of signatures have been collected. So the parties rule by default, but can be overridden by the population if some group feels strongly enough to collect the required signatures to hold the referendum. A lot of interesting decisions have been made this way, and referendums have been held on things like whether to abolish the Swiss secret service (when the population felt it had started becoming abusive). There is also a constitutional arrangement to prevent the "tyranny of the majority" that I predict some people will bring up now. Funding for campaigns in these referendums is allocated equally by the state to the different sides, so there are no problems with special interest groups. It all seems to work very well. This has got to be the best system of governing a country by far -- if we're serious about giving power to the people, then the Swiss system is the logical conclusion. It should scale pretty well too, just increase the number of required signatures and so on.
I hadn't heard of Rhapsody before. I went to check it out and it seemed quite appealing. I was disappointed, however, to find out that their service is not available outside the U.S.
I don't have an opinion on your overall view, but would just like to make a couple of minor clarifications regarding Sweden (where I was born and live).
1) $3000 / month (about 21 - 22 000 kr) is considered acceptable but not that good. It's at or below average, particularly for a major city where the average income is bigger. Skilled professionals (such as good developers, who are in demand right now) often earn significantly higher incomes.
2) I'm not so sure about the individual rights thing -- in general, I think Americans (for example) and more aware of civil rights and the importance of safeguarding them. For example, a controversy erupted in Sweden over a Christian preacher sentenced to jail for hate crime (preaching against homosexuals in a sermon). The reaction of most people I discussed it with was that the preacher was an idiot and that he deserved to go to jail. Comparatively fewer considered the case that although the preacher may have held unpleasant views, he should have a right to express them. Ultimately the sentence was struck down by a higher court, referencing the European convention on human rights -- which, again, was an unpopular decision.
Games often did work directly with the hardware, but software did not. The AmigaOS API was extensive -- especially with AmigaOS 2.04 and above which offered a really good standard widget library (gadtools.library), object oriented GUI extensions (BOOPSI) translation services (locale.library), graphics (intuition.library), spoken speech and much, much more. I particularly liked how GUIs would continue working even when apps locked up or crashed (in the sense that windows and widgets could refresh and react when clicked on).
I was a BeOS user (and hobbyist developer) and really liked BFS, but it can't really be compared to WinFS which (if ever completed according to specs) will be an entirely different beast, much more advanced than a simple file system with custom attributes. The same goes for those who imply that the Spotlight equivalence (what a joke!) or ReizerFS are anywhere near being comparable.
I don't really see Sweden as particularly different from other countries -- at least not enough to warrant a special label. It's more or less in line with other industrialized countries, perhaps with a greater degree of welfare and public services (and taxes!) than most. I hadn't heard the term "Nordic-style welfare capitalism" before, but on reflection think it sounds reasonably accurate.
Describing Scandinavian countries as social democracies would seem biased towards the social democratic party. There are many other parties, some of which are almost as strong. It's true that for the most part, a left-wing coalition with the social democrats tend to win a majority in the national elections, but it is not inherent in the system that this needs to be the case -- in the early ninetees we had a right-wing conservative-christian-liberal government.
Actually,.eu in this case does mean European Union and nothing else. Only businesses, organizations and residents of the union can register a domain under the new TLD.
The European Commision may have decided MS is "guilty", but ultimately that's up to the courts (European Court of Justice, etc) to decide -- if MS appeals, that is. It wouldn't be the first time the courts overruled the European Commision on anti-trust matters.
Actually the European Commision is not a court. Their anti-trust division is more comparable to the DOJ's role in the U.S. When European Commision anti-trust decisions are appealed to the real, independant courts (the Court of First Instance or the European Court of Justice) they are overturned relatively often.
What was better with the Atari ST exactly? I vaguely recall it having a MIDI interface or something, but other than that the operating system and graphics hardware was way below what the Amiga 500 could accomplish (especially after an upgrade to AmigaOS 2.x or 3.x). The Atari lacked multitasking and had a crappy DOS-like file system.
If you have experience with C++ or Java, go with Visual C# 2005 (download the free Express edition). It has everything you need, is super-easy to use, and includes a serial port component which works well (and imposes no additional dependencies). If you prefer, you can go with Visual Basic 2005 which is a first class object oriented language these days (although personally, I still can't stand BASIC syntax).
None of this requires any additional third party or Microsoft libraries with the exception for the.NET framework. If you use ClickOnce deployment (which may or may not be supported in Express, I don't recall) you'll get a neat little folder with the.NET framework, your app and a Setup to double click on which will install.NET seamlessly if not already present. Alternatively you can deploy to a website, which creates an install link.
I've heard this type of argument before and never really understood it. I'm assuming you're American. Surely you must recognize that the rights and freedoms awarded citizens in different countries (including "free" countries) differ? Are you saying that it just so happens that the American "rights" are the only true human rights? In democratic countries, the citizens may well have different views on what rights should and should not be awarded (like gun rights, public healthcare rights, and so on).
Your argument would make more sense to me if you said that China violates the UN conventions on human rights, the closest thing we have to universally agreed upon human rights.
While I'm not sure how Vista will handle that, WinFS (which is scheduled for stand-alone release after Vista) uses "metadata handlers". The purpose of such an add-on is to transfer metadata to and from binary files. So, for example, a metadata handler for MP3 music could automatically fill in the appropriate metadata found in the various ID3 tags when a song is copied to your drive. Similarly, it could write ID3 tags based on your current WinFS level metadata fields. JPG supports some tagging so that will probably be used to some extent. But what I'm actually getting at is that presumably a custom metadata handler could be written that would store the metadata in any arbitrary format, perhaps as text files accompanying the binary file or something of that nature (if necessary for reasons of interoperatibility).
In case you were unaware, WinFS (the database / file system hybrid) is still on the table, and scheduled for release sometimes after Windows Vista. So while Vista will have something simpler (more similar to Spotlight I suppose), Microsoft hasn't really dropped WinFS, just delayed it. It's available right now in various pre-release versions for developers.
Interesting post. I'm not quite familiar with HFCS -- in Sweden they typically use aspartam or sorbitol for the "diet" drinks, and those sweeteners contain a LOT less calories than the equivalent drinks with real sugar. I have two 1.5 litre bottles of "julmust", a popular Christmas soda here in Sweden, in front of me for comparison.
The regular product with sugar contains 35 kcal per 100 ml, which is 35 * 1.5 / 0.1 = 525 kcal for the full bottle. That's about half of the calories of a typical lunch at a restaurant here. So that's pretty significant, especially given that restaurant lunches are typically not very healthy.
The "light" or diet version of the same soda contains 3 kcal per 100 ml, i.e. 3 * 1.5 / 0.1 = 45 kcal. That's about half of the calories in a banana. In other words, almost negligible.
The downside with these ingredients is a possible link to cancer (still uncertain and controversial) and I've also read that these sweeteners, like the HFCS you described, inhibits the "full" feeling.
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Their lawyers are in fact some of Sweden's top lawyers (Peter Althin, for example, has handled many famous cases). IANAL but I think the way it works in Sweden is that there are no public attorneys. Instead, private firms provide defence attorneys at the request of the courts. I think a defendent can request his/her preferred attorney, and I think the the tab is picked up by the state (at least in criminal trials -- I feel less certain about this apparently combined civil/criminal trial).
Another institution worth mentioning is Lagrådet (Google translation) which examines the constitutionality of laws before they are voted on. In this case, it had declared the law to be constitutional.
The European Court of Justice is an EU institution, and has nothing to do with the European Convention on Human Rights. What you're probably referring to is the European Court of Human Rights.
This is not correct. The right to secede was never formally recognized except in the proposed EU constitution a few years back, which was rejected (and is being replaced with an additional treaty that may or may not be ratified).
Incorrect. Most EU member states are part of the Schengen agreement, which allows for passport-free travel. You do however have to be prepared to prove your European citizenship in some situations (e.g. checking into hotels), which you can do with the European identity card issued by many (all?) EU member states these days. I haven't ever brought a passport with me to another EU country except the UK (not part of Schengen).
Disclaimer: IANSBHRAEBAT (I Am Not Swiss But Have Read An Excellent Book About This). The Swiss constitution guarantees the right of referendum, but a referendum is only called after a specific number of signatures have been collected. So the parties rule by default, but can be overridden by the population if some group feels strongly enough to collect the required signatures to hold the referendum. A lot of interesting decisions have been made this way, and referendums have been held on things like whether to abolish the Swiss secret service (when the population felt it had started becoming abusive). There is also a constitutional arrangement to prevent the "tyranny of the majority" that I predict some people will bring up now. Funding for campaigns in these referendums is allocated equally by the state to the different sides, so there are no problems with special interest groups. It all seems to work very well. This has got to be the best system of governing a country by far -- if we're serious about giving power to the people, then the Swiss system is the logical conclusion. It should scale pretty well too, just increase the number of required signatures and so on.
I hadn't heard of Rhapsody before. I went to check it out and it seemed quite appealing. I was disappointed, however, to find out that their service is not available outside the U.S.
I don't have an opinion on your overall view, but would just like to make a couple of minor clarifications regarding Sweden (where I was born and live).
1) $3000 / month (about 21 - 22 000 kr) is considered acceptable but not that good. It's at or below average, particularly for a major city where the average income is bigger. Skilled professionals (such as good developers, who are in demand right now) often earn significantly higher incomes.
2) I'm not so sure about the individual rights thing -- in general, I think Americans (for example) and more aware of civil rights and the importance of safeguarding them. For example, a controversy erupted in Sweden over a Christian preacher sentenced to jail for hate crime (preaching against homosexuals in a sermon). The reaction of most people I discussed it with was that the preacher was an idiot and that he deserved to go to jail. Comparatively fewer considered the case that although the preacher may have held unpleasant views, he should have a right to express them. Ultimately the sentence was struck down by a higher court, referencing the European convention on human rights -- which, again, was an unpopular decision.
Games often did work directly with the hardware, but software did not. The AmigaOS API was extensive -- especially with AmigaOS 2.04 and above which offered a really good standard widget library (gadtools.library), object oriented GUI extensions (BOOPSI) translation services (locale.library), graphics (intuition.library), spoken speech and much, much more. I particularly liked how GUIs would continue working even when apps locked up or crashed (in the sense that windows and widgets could refresh and react when clicked on).
I was a BeOS user (and hobbyist developer) and really liked BFS, but it can't really be compared to WinFS which (if ever completed according to specs) will be an entirely different beast, much more advanced than a simple file system with custom attributes. The same goes for those who imply that the Spotlight equivalence (what a joke!) or ReizerFS are anywhere near being comparable.
I don't really see Sweden as particularly different from other countries -- at least not enough to warrant a special label. It's more or less in line with other industrialized countries, perhaps with a greater degree of welfare and public services (and taxes!) than most. I hadn't heard the term "Nordic-style welfare capitalism" before, but on reflection think it sounds reasonably accurate. Describing Scandinavian countries as social democracies would seem biased towards the social democratic party. There are many other parties, some of which are almost as strong. It's true that for the most part, a left-wing coalition with the social democrats tend to win a majority in the national elections, but it is not inherent in the system that this needs to be the case -- in the early ninetees we had a right-wing conservative-christian-liberal government.
Exactly. The concept of European Union citizenship has in fact already been established.
Actually there is in fact such a thing as a European citizenship, or more specifically EU citizenship: http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/fsj/citizen ship/fsj_citizenship_intro_en.htm
Actually, .eu in this case does mean European Union and nothing else. Only businesses, organizations and residents of the union can register a domain under the new TLD.
I think that's on a per-nation basis, but here in Sweden there are no tax deductions for charities (free software centered or otherwise).
The European Commision may have decided MS is "guilty", but ultimately that's up to the courts (European Court of Justice, etc) to decide -- if MS appeals, that is. It wouldn't be the first time the courts overruled the European Commision on anti-trust matters.
Actually the European Commision is not a court. Their anti-trust division is more comparable to the DOJ's role in the U.S. When European Commision anti-trust decisions are appealed to the real, independant courts (the Court of First Instance or the European Court of Justice) they are overturned relatively often.
What was better with the Atari ST exactly? I vaguely recall it having a MIDI interface or something, but other than that the operating system and graphics hardware was way below what the Amiga 500 could accomplish (especially after an upgrade to AmigaOS 2.x or 3.x). The Atari lacked multitasking and had a crappy DOS-like file system.
If you have experience with C++ or Java, go with Visual C# 2005 (download the free Express edition). It has everything you need, is super-easy to use, and includes a serial port component which works well (and imposes no additional dependencies). If you prefer, you can go with Visual Basic 2005 which is a first class object oriented language these days (although personally, I still can't stand BASIC syntax).
.NET framework. If you use ClickOnce deployment (which may or may not be supported in Express, I don't recall) you'll get a neat little folder with the .NET framework, your app and a Setup to double click on which will install .NET seamlessly if not already present. Alternatively you can deploy to a website, which creates an install link.
None of this requires any additional third party or Microsoft libraries with the exception for the
It works really well.
Then how do we determine exactly what these rights are?
I'm not at all implying that China does not violate the conventions. Read what I said again.
I've heard this type of argument before and never really understood it. I'm assuming you're American. Surely you must recognize that the rights and freedoms awarded citizens in different countries (including "free" countries) differ? Are you saying that it just so happens that the American "rights" are the only true human rights? In democratic countries, the citizens may well have different views on what rights should and should not be awarded (like gun rights, public healthcare rights, and so on).
Your argument would make more sense to me if you said that China violates the UN conventions on human rights, the closest thing we have to universally agreed upon human rights.
While I'm not sure how Vista will handle that, WinFS (which is scheduled for stand-alone release after Vista) uses "metadata handlers". The purpose of such an add-on is to transfer metadata to and from binary files. So, for example, a metadata handler for MP3 music could automatically fill in the appropriate metadata found in the various ID3 tags when a song is copied to your drive. Similarly, it could write ID3 tags based on your current WinFS level metadata fields. JPG supports some tagging so that will probably be used to some extent. But what I'm actually getting at is that presumably a custom metadata handler could be written that would store the metadata in any arbitrary format, perhaps as text files accompanying the binary file or something of that nature (if necessary for reasons of interoperatibility).
In case you were unaware, WinFS (the database / file system hybrid) is still on the table, and scheduled for release sometimes after Windows Vista. So while Vista will have something simpler (more similar to Spotlight I suppose), Microsoft hasn't really dropped WinFS, just delayed it. It's available right now in various pre-release versions for developers.
Interesting post. I'm not quite familiar with HFCS -- in Sweden they typically use aspartam or sorbitol for the "diet" drinks, and those sweeteners contain a LOT less calories than the equivalent drinks with real sugar. I have two 1.5 litre bottles of "julmust", a popular Christmas soda here in Sweden, in front of me for comparison.
The regular product with sugar contains 35 kcal per 100 ml, which is 35 * 1.5 / 0.1 = 525 kcal for the full bottle. That's about half of the calories of a typical lunch at a restaurant here. So that's pretty significant, especially given that restaurant lunches are typically not very healthy.
The "light" or diet version of the same soda contains 3 kcal per 100 ml, i.e. 3 * 1.5 / 0.1 = 45 kcal. That's about half of the calories in a banana. In other words, almost negligible.
The downside with these ingredients is a possible link to cancer (still uncertain and controversial) and I've also read that these sweeteners, like the HFCS you described, inhibits the "full" feeling.