Show me proof that a community exists in Canada that has Catholic and Protestant school boards, or a secular school that has crosses all over it.
Admission and Enrolment of Students for the 1998-99 School Year
Photos of crosses will have to wait, I'm off in a few hours for 10 days in Florida. However here's a cite proving dual boards did exist a mere three years ago:
http://www.meq.gouv.qc.ca/REFORME/info_ref/anglais/number3.htm
The Québec education system is undergoing the most important reform in its history. On July 1, 1998, the existing Catholic and Protestant school boards will be replaced by new French-language and English-language school boards.
The Québec education system is undergoing the most important reform in its history. On July 1, 1998, the existing Catholic and Protestant school boards will be replaced by new French-language and English-language school boards.
Not today, but certianly while you were of appropriate age if you'd been in their jurisdiction.
Try gravy on the words, helps them go down better.
Ummm, I am pretty sure that both the US and Canada cannot just change their minds about giving out these work permits.
Um - I know (not "pretty sure") each nation keeps control over this; or don't you recall the visa battles a few years ago? Silly Valley was screaming they were starving, Canadians were lining up six deep to move, it was still a tough deal to swing. This is also true in reverse; I can refer you to several dozen other Americans of my acquaintence who can attest it is not trivial (it seems to be a rule at Canadian cocktail parties that all of the US'ers must be introduced to each other, usually as such.)
Also, I can never stand the nativist sentiment about trying to keep workers from working in one another's countries, especially countries like Canada and the US.
Thank you for your opinion; I'm sure it is revelatory to someone and I urge you to make it known to your congress-critter at first oppportunity. However your dream is not the one espoused by many folks who see their jobs and standard of living deeply threatened by non-local labor. Again, I can refer you to several very good friends now living in California who had to battle to get in and are now deeply concerned about their positions being cut and their having to scoot back to Canada.
Tell me, would you extend to Mexicans the same open-border/open-work policies you'd like to extend to Canadians? How about Germans? Koreans? Afghanastani?
Really - then all of my friends with kids buying PC and getting online 'cause they get a kid-in-school rebate from the Provincial government aren't subsidized? This is true in several provinces, I don't know if Alberta is one specifically.
However, I'm not bashing Canada so stop trying to "defend" it. I could get a job in about any country and having lived in quite a few number so I know what I like: I chose to live in Canada.
However for J. Random High-Techer considering upping and moving to Canada 'bout all of us US expats. will tell you there are significent differences and lots of trade-offs and they're a hell of a lot deeper the zed-or-zero.
Back to the topic yes there are lots of products one can pick up in a Circuit City that aren't available in Future Shop. Like I noted wireless Palm, TiVos (non-satellite) and generally most anything else just arrived on the market. GSM phones are now working in many US cities, as did metropolitan wireless (Riccochet.) Often times it will eventually make it to Canada (though not always) but often in the second shipment.
Don't believe my? Go shopping in a big US electronics store, compare it to back home. I'm back and forth nearly every week; trust me if I want the very latest I'll find it South, not North. This isn't a terrible thing but it is of interest to geeks.
First of all, it's obvious that you haven't actually attended the schools here.
No, I didn't. My elementary & primary schooling was in four European nations ending up in the US.
However many of my peers in their 30's and 40's are natives so I hear about it from them and about their children. I expect half of the issue is that most of the Canadians have no idea how absent religion is from US schools (IMHO a very good thing.)
While there might be a very cautious religion-and-ethics-around-the-world class or why-the-Crusades-happened unit there is never a representative of a religion on staff as such in a US public school. There is never a religious symbol on the school building or inside. There is never any connection between Church & State in public schools however much some may wish otherwise.
This is not and has not been the case in Canada. While it's not universal it is true for the majority of the population. As noted it is common in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, also historically amongst the First Nations folks (or the residental schools were run by ???)
Its all very nice that the classes you attended weren't coericive and really irrelevant whatever view you hold now: The point is that to a US'er considering moving to Canada would find any classes, connections, official state religions bizarre in the extreme.
Uh, easy. Broadband. Twice the penetration in the US, 20-30% cheaper, generally available universally within metropolitan areas, will be available in most rural areas soon in Alberta (Calgary is in Alberta).
Thank you - I'm well aware of where Calgery is. My Mom's Canadian, I've got a half dozen aunts & uncles across the country plus cousins and others, have lived here five years, etc. I've also been to Calgery and was scouted for a job there years ago (I had some unique qualifications.)
Back to Broadband you failed to note its massively subsidized - not a legitimate comparison. Besides which Broadband is widely (just not as widely) availaible in the States.
What can I find in FutureShop I can't find in Circuit City? What consumer service is in Canada but not the US?
I'm not disputing ANY of Canada's products, I'm just pointing out that by and large Canada's businesses overall are slower then the use to adopt new technologies and Canada's consumer products are generally a rev behind the US's. BTW this isn't news, it's been well documented and comes up regularly in Canadian business publications.
You can point out all of the single examples of Canada having an innovative high-end product (btw whose largest market is generally the US so it's not like they're Canada-only products.) Now show me what I was asking about, consumer products that the average Canadian can use that their US counterpart doesn't (not counting McCains products.) Not flight simulators or CANDU reactors but something one can find in Canada's Futureshop and not US's Circuit City.
... because no public (i.e. secular) schools in Canada have such things, that's just insane.
Really? Insane? Perhaps you weren't paying attention, might want to talk to some of your fellow Canadians. Or perhaps you'd care to read the other threads associated with this one?
Explain the crosses on all of the schools around me (Montreal) or how until 3 years ago we had Catholic & Protostant school boards? These AREN'T some sort of non-mainstream/parochial/private schools, ALL of the public schools have them here as they do in some other parts of the country.
Its dark now or I could drive around my neighborhood and photograph *every* school and show you a cross, post them on a website.
Perhaps you might want to do a biiit more research and doublecheck your statements before you starting calling into question other person's statements because you're being really insulting and I'm gonna expect you to own up to it and apologize.
San Francisco and Silicon Valley has an enormous critical mass of Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans people, and Nerds. The counter-culture continues to thrive here.
Consider Montreal.
Great enormous gay community, widespread acceptance, far more liberal in many ways then any US city, arguably more/better nightlife then SF, equally great food, much cheaper cost of living, safer streets. Beautiful people who really appreciate the better things life has to offer. Walk down Rue St. Denis or St. Lauraunt or du Gai Village on Ste. Catherine on a warm summer night and tell me it can be any better (ok - not as great today with the snow.)
Yes there's the whole French/English issue but that's primarily political and almost never personal. In 5 years of living here in both a samll Francophone farming community and then on the East side of Montreal (Ahuntsic) I've had it brought up twice, both by drunks.
My lover used to have to go to religion classes, got a grade for it.
This is only in the Catholic, or separate, school system. In the public school system, there are no religion classes. I'm speaking from personal experience, because I attended Catholic school from grades 1-8 and public after that, and never got religious instruction after grade 8.
This may be true in Alberta - it is not universally true. As I noted I'm familier with other Canadian schools systems where this is distictly not true.
Perhaps along with talking to some US'ers about religion in schools some discussion with folks from other provinces would be in order also.
... the tech that does come out in Canada tends to get adopted a lot more quickly than it does in the States. The debit card is the classic example.
Its the classic example because it is one of the very few examples. By and large Canadian business has been slower to adopt technological change then US ones. Furthermore while there are any number of small differences for the consumers there are few that are significent. Indeed the biggest I can think of offhand is that many Canadian phone companies have offered home-phones-with-text-services for years and that many Canadian pay phones take cards.
Any big technology-penetration-into-the-Canadian-market stories other then debit cards you can recommend?
Little separation of Church & State with things like religious lessons in schools.
Being a Canadian, I have no idea what your talking about:) While some provinces fund part (or as in Ontario, nearly all) of religious schools (better than the 'classims' of US private schools), there are still an abundance of public schools that are just as secular as anything you'll find in the US.
Well, I'm directly familier with Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario: That's more then 50% of Canada's population and all have vastly more religion in their schools then even the deepest bible-belt US school. BTW I've lived in California, Texas, Massachusetts, Maryland & New York. Heck, take a look at many of them, see those crosses on the outside and in the lobby - think you'd see that in a US public school?
I was astonished when I moved to Canada the amount of religion that is institutionialized, I expect Canadians don't see it only because they're so used to it. As noted in another thread only 3 years ago did Montreal change from Catholic & Protastant school boards (PUBLIC school boards) to French & English. My lover used to have to go to religion classes, got a grade for it. That would be unthinkable in the US public schools.
As to "classisms" of US private schools it is every bit the same in Canada. I'm well familier with US (non-parochial) private schools, many of my friends growing up attended them, went on to prep schools. I can assure you there are no differences.
However, religion in public schools, it is a big difference. Try talking to a US'er and discussing this topic, I assure you that you'll both will be amazed at the different experiences.
For one thing it's rather difficult for a US'er to get a work permit. Like the US Canada gets lots of applications but has commitments like being a Commonwealth nation, there are different priorities. Furthermore with Nortel, Corel, and the like still hurting there's no employment crunch up here, no need to invite folks from south of the border.
Any part of the full statement you'd like to take exception with? (I really look down on folks who selectively quote and leave out relevant parts, its so intellectually dishonest.)
The US was sucking in techies like mad while the boom was on and the economy was strong. Now with the boom over and neither country's economy as strong do you imagine Canada is interested in importing lots of techies or that employers are having trouble filling spots, are interested in jumping through the hoops of bringing in a US'er if they don't need to?
No, they're not. Canadian high tech has lots of local talent sending in resumes who are already established, won't get homesick halfway through a project, know the score and understand the living and work syles/conditions/situations/payscales, are a bit more invested in staying around.
Can US'ers move to Canada? Yes. Is there gonna be a flood? No.
Little separation of Church & State with things like religious lessons in schools.
I have to disagree with that. Where i'm from(Quebec), religious lessons are optional and next year they will be eliminated.
Until three years ago Quebec had Catholic & Protostant school boards. They were turned into French and English boards but the culture remains. Yes, the mandatory classes are being dropped but there's still FAR more of it then in the US. For example EVERY school I know of has large crosses on the outside, in the lobby, etc which is VERY unlike the US.
Spend some time talking to a US'er who went through those school systems and compare them to your own, I think you'll be amazed at the differences.
BTW, I'm a US'ers who lives in Montreal (Ahuntsic).
No, I doubt lots of American high-tech employees will come flooding to Canada. For one thing it's rather difficult for a US'er to get a work permit. Like the US Canada gets lots of applications but has commitments like being a Commonwealth nation, there are different priorities. Furthermore with Nortel, Corel, and the like still hurting there's no employment crunch up here, no need to invite folks from south of the border.
Next if US'ers moves here they'll be paid in Canadian dollars. While you'll live well in Canada it's a big pay cut from the US, especially when you add taxes on top. Furthermore prices in Canadian cities have started to rise and while they don't compare to NYC, Boston or SF they're still shocking the natives and expensive in local terms.
Finally there are the cultural differences. While visiting Toronto or Vancouver may feel very familiar to a US'er that changes when you actually live here (Montreal is immediately obvious as being different.) There're the little things like brands being different, everyone being that one notch politer, and Curling being a real sport. There's also a dearth of ghastly evening news (you'd think Canadians are the world's worst drivers from watching TV news until you realize there aren't as many shootings and other violent incidents for the if-it-bleeds-it-leads stories) and lots more interest in international events.
However there are even more important differences. One is the Quebec issue. This is where I live but it comes up everywhere across the nation: French language laws, government policies, separatism, and the economic shock-waves every time Quebec threatens to leave.
Other significant differences:
Little separation of Church & State with things like religious lessons in schools.
However by-and-large Canada is more liberal then the US and does have far fewer of the extreme right-wing biblethumpers.
Canada doesn't place individual liberties above all else; the general good is at least as important.
The Provinces are stronger politically then US States and there's a lot more Federal/Provincial jostling.
Strong social policies often more in line with European models then US.
Political parties that don't map at all onto the US model.
Socialized Medicine (services are generally good in spite of the horror stories often heard in the States.)
Establishing credit across the border can be difficult, sometimes very difficult.
Lots of technology comes out later in Canada (wireless Palms) or not at all (TiVo.)
While Canadians get US TV & somewhat radio there are lots of programs, acts, and personalities that are big in Canada but unheard of in the US. Some are programs like "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" and others are bands that make Top-10 in Canada but never rise above Top 500 in the US.
No, I like living in Canada a lot, and US friends love visiting, but ask any US expat. living in Canada and they'll tell you it is different and it's more then the good beer.
As a Cox customer, I can say that's incorrect. They have news servers that are painfully slow, but reasonably complete with half-decent retention. They seem to be running their own servers with a lot of help from Usenetserver. You may have been thinking of Comcast, who originally announced they wouldn't be providing news until some unspecified point in the future, if at all. Whether it was public outcry or some other business reason, they recanted and outsourced to Giganews. For a measly 1 gig/month.
You're right, I rechecked my sources and one had Cox/Comcast confused, the other was out of date.
On the other hand I'm hearing lots of rumblings that with tiered services Usenet will be an upper-tier option contracted or not. Pay $n per month and get a slow connection without a web page, pay $n+$10 and get Usenet, server space, open ports, etc. Or pay $n+$25 and get business class with a faster connection and all of the options.
Silver, Gold, Platinum / Basic, Better, Business: Cable companies understand tiers and thier ISPs are adopting them, they'll drive the industry. Flat rate pricing with it's all-you-can-eat excesses will become a thing of the past.
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· Score: 5, Interesting
With the increasing popularity of portable devices it's getting easier to copy things to non-disc media.
In my own case last week I was visiting my parents, Dad wanted me to burn a bunch of pictures to a CD for him to send out to relatives. Now, he's got an iMac without a burner and I live 6 hours away in another country. I could have sent them online (we've both broadband) but with the rate caps it would have taken many hours to send the 300-some MB of files and the AppleTalk IP I've got running on my wintel boxes is a bit unreliable for big long slow stuff like that.
The solution? We both have Canon PowerShot cameras (S100 & S110), both with their shipped small CompactFlash cards and both with 3rd party 128MB CF's we've each added. Grabbing his CF's and clearing mine out I was able to load everything onto the CF's though the cameras, bring them home and burn to CDs.
Worked fine, the CDs have been sent out and his CFs are in the mail on the way back to him loaded with some mp3s of radio shows I know he and Mom will enjoy listening to. Now I'm looking at investing in one of those small USB "hard drive" devices for storing my emergency software/system tools on. Easier to carry then a CD, hand it off of the keychain and pull it out whenever I've a need for a PGP key, repair utility or favorite bit of software.
Actually ISPs are often dropping Usenet service these days.
AT&T Broadband considered it a freebie and as it wasn't a specifically paid-for service didn't worry if it was messed up or down for awhile. Cox doesn't offer Usenet at all. Apparently the merged beast of the two will offer Usenet initially but with no promises (likely to become a tiered product.) This is pretty typical of much of the industry these days.
Universities are also dropping Usenet; I got an announcement this week that Northeastern University will be discontinuing it and is referring folks to Google or other commercial services. Others are following the same path as copyright issues, costs, lack of academic relevance, and sheer volume become problematic - they're finding it easier to just offload the comparatively few users to custom services.
Thus the two communities that were once most involved are moving away. Where once everyone at your typical ISP followed at least a few newsgroups or had fond memories of such now the staff is just as likely to say "like AOL chat?" and have no idea what you're talking about. Without those folks to champion it Usenet is seen as an odd step-child: Something used by warez-traders, porn freaks and whiners perpetually asking that so-and-so get dropped because they dissed the other. Without the free local access university students are also unlikely to become enamored of Usenet and request it of their ISPs in the future, contribute their free time (many of us recall the annual September deluge of newbies making the same mistakes year after year anew.)
Further more with the opening up of online access the Global Village is becoming plagued with Village Idiots. Spammers are legion and have laid waste to many newsgroups. The socially maladjusted are increasingly hard to get dropped and their harrassment techniques are increasingly sophisticated. Much of the conversation has moved off to mailing lists, web-boards, and other richer-content/easily moderated venues.
On an immediate scale the serving and servicing a full feed is increasingly expensive and becoming more so. The ISP-class software can be expensive, the hardware is a capitol cost, the users are generally the "top talkers" (most bandwidth hungry customers) of an ISP and thus among the least profitable under today's pricing models. With only a few percent of a ISPs customers even aware of Usenet it's an attractive cost-saving sacrifice for many.
As to just Googling - that to me seems such a poor interface. They've done a good job of presentation but for following threads on an ongoing basis, setting filters, quoting and responding effectively a good news client is still worlds away better (ok - mebbe not Outlook Express, but about everything else is.) There are any number of good unix clients. Forte Agent on Wintel is decent, has a free version and is once again under active development. MT-Newswatcher is a brilliant variation of the venerable Newswatcher Mac client and has both MacOS & MacOS X version.
For alternatives there are any number of commercial nntp feeds one can sign up for. Median price for a single user is around US$10/month and generally offers a generous though not unlimited transfer allowance. This could probably be shared amongst a few folks if someone were willing to set up the requisite hardware, software, and had the bandwidth. This of course also means administering the feed and funneling back up postings, doing one's own bit to not let spam in.
Ironically one of the few bright spots of all this is Microsoft. Their support newsgroups have been a great success and are receiving ever-increasing amounts of support from within the company. Other vendors offer their own private news servers and groups but the best known generally is MS and it is bringing in a new set of users.
This would be great if we could apply it to the media itself:
Only one TV show about a bunch of pretty 20-somethings living together with lots of free time, trendy clothing & furnishings and a penchant for drinking coffee together
Only one TV show about a hard working dedicated bunch of Drs/Lawyers/Teachers who all exhibit a full DSM-Guide of personality disorders and apparently only date or socialize with each other.
Only one talk show hosted by a comedian with an endless series of "celebrity" guests shilling their latest project.
Only one band fronted by a nasal-voiced Bob-Dillon wannabe singing about teenage angst and lost love.
Only one all-girl/all-boy teen band singing out processed harmonies written for them by an ad agency committee.
Only one swords & sorcerer novel allowed to be pushed at once all using pretty much Tolkien's plot & milieu, set in three parts but with a twist
Only one religion allowed to claim to be the one true one and all of the others prosecuted as Intellectual Property infringers.
All books and non-digital media have the same rules applied as proposed for digital media. Photocopiers, scanner, tapes, pens, pencils, carbon paper, all must have copyright-protection devices built in. Oh, mechanical pencils are *very* suspect and will require a license.
Cameras are of course geo-shuttered unless one gets a permit for the view desired. California will begin charging 10 cents for a Golden Gate Bridge shot, NY, NJ and the Nat'l Park Service will be in court over rights to the Statue of Liberty, France will angle for a cut too.
Every politician who promises to be tough on crime, cut taxes and restore pride to our great nation will be fined for copying.
Ownership of saws, screwdriver & T-squares will be regulated to prevent the illicit construction of unlicensed buildings or machines.
Web-browsers will come equipped with Digital-Media-Rights-Modules determining for how long a page can be displayed and ensuring no copies are made. Webcams with biometrics will be utilized to ensure the identity of properly authorized readers.
"Take an old PC and...": Folks in dorm-rooms don't need an additionial clunker PC taking up room, pumping out heat, adding to the din, etc. While lots of geeks may appreciate living in the equivalent of a hardware cave most dorm rooms I've ever seen barely qualify as a decent closet much less a hardware bay.
Yes there are good low-cost 10/100 routers out there. I use a SMC Barricade 7004ABR which offers 4 10/100 LAN ports as well as a simple firewall, print-server, backup modem connection, etc. Some folks have trouble configuring it with a browser other then WinIE, if so just make friends with a Wintel laptop owner down the hall.
Watch for deals. I got my router for $50 after refund (check took a month to arrive, not bad.) Another buddy just bought his for $50 direct. My favorite source for good prices is dealnewsnetworking. They've got a couple of good sub-US$100 listings right now.
Actually, I don't know if that is the bad part. A smartcard has to be programmed that tells it the destination. People can't program VCRs....
The system is limited, it would be trivial to arrange a touch-screen or even mechanical buttons on a map to select destinations. Indeed I can't imagine why this would need to be done at the platform at all and involve cards unless there's some sort of smart-queuing going on. Otherwise it would be nearly as easy to put a selector inside the vehicle: A wheel to scroll up and down the list of stations, a voice reading them out for the vision-impaired, push the wheel and you've made your selection.
As to this being difficult, it can't be any more difficult explaining the USA's Washington DC Metro fare system with each station a different cost and peak-pricing and the map is *there* but the fare-card machines are *here* and the turnstyles are back *that* way and the card has to be fed *thus* and used again to exit...
Typically Electric Powertrains are not economically feasible for automobiles.
Re-read the article. The cars are to be recharged (at least somewhat) at every station. Thus they'll rarely ever go more then a few kilometers withoutout at least a few meters of rail to top them off and can expect a minute or two of recharge every time some boards or disembarks as well.
In short there's no need for a large quantity of stored energy or even particularly high energy densities. I'm sure the simplicities and efficiencies of an electrical motor as well as lack of local effluent more then cliched any discussion.
My only question would be if they'd considered a fly-wheel. They'd also be suitable for storing the requisite energy as well as providing a nice bit of stabilization, not require any nasty-for-the-environment materials. As long as the wheel were encased in some sort of GLARE-type safety cage it would be as safe or safer and likely last longer.
What is going to happen the first time someone comes home from Circuit City with an unsupported peripheral and decides that the OS sucks?
What happens the first time someone comes home with an unsupported PCI card and decides that their iMac sucks? After all, because it fits in the slot, it should be supported, right? What do you mean, I should have looked on the box and made sure it wasn't a PC-only card?
iMacs don't have PCI slots. All they have is RAM and in 2nd generation ones AirPort Card slots. They're all-in-one consumer desktops. If someone buys a PCI card for their iMac it's moot if the OS supports it or not.
However we're already there with FireWire & USB devices. Lots of them work in MacOS (the generic USB class drivers do a good job) but not everything is and folks deal. The same for PCI cards in Macs that do have them - if it don't say Mac support on the side then you takes yer chances. Usually you'll be fine for generic items.
There weren't any Mac clones (ok, a very few long ago that got quickly litigated into oblivion.)
However there were licensees which is a whole 'nother thing. Clones just rip off the product, licensees have an arrangement with the owner, contracts, payment schedules, etc.
In Apple's case they were having production, inventory & cost-control issues so they figured let some other folks into the pool, expand the market. Apple would keep the mid and upper-end NA & European markets for itself, others could service the super-premium, budget, Asian, educational, and gamer markets. Unfortunately many of these companies soon stopped expanding the market and just went for the low-hanging fruit: Apple's own sales.
Instead of bringing in lots of new Mac users from markets Apple wasn't strong in (or not particularly profitable) instead Apple found itself competing with their own licensees on their own turf with their own technologies and own their compatibility assurances etc. It was cannibalism and Apple was the one getting eaten. Every time Power Computing sold one of their Macs it was at the cost of Apple selling one, and instead of that sale bringing in $$$ it was bringing in $, all while Apple was hemorrhaging money.
Did they shut down the licensees? Damn right - if they hadn't Apple'd have been bled dry pretty darn quick. Sure no Apple would have meant no Mac market but that wasn't the licensees concern, they'd gotten contracts allowing them to buy MacOS ROMs and sell MacOS 7.0 at a great price and they were busy undercutting Apple and making super money.
So finally Apple took advantage of the contracts, refused to write a new license for the new MacOS 7.5 and then used the buy-out clause to shut the licensees down. Did they scream? Sure, they'd been milking an expensive cow for cheap, who wouldn't scream to see that taken away. But was it shutting down "clones"? No, it was all legal, no cloning there.
Wintel PCs on the other hand: IBM never locked wily Bill Gates into an exclusive for DOS. Bill was happy to sell a custom version to anyone who ponied up and when the plethora of versions became too great released the generic and soon to be standard MS DOS.
Later the subtly-incompatible-in-different-ways BIOS issue was surmounted when the IBM PC BIOS was legally reverse-engineered and at that point the cat was out of the bag. IBM had never wanted clones, never expected them, and fought long and mightily against them but was never able to eradicate them.
Clever strategy? No, awful mistake. While the market wouldn't have grown as explosively most folks agree that had IBM kept control of their PC design they'd have made multiples of what they did off of it, would likely have "owned" the market. Anyway, IBM came out with MicroChannel and the PS/2 design and OS/2 which were all attempts to redefine the "IBM PC" back to something IBM controlled but to no avail - and trust me Apple had watched and learned and made sure those MacOS ROMs were crucial.
Now - the ROMs are gone. They're a file loaded like any other. You can even download the core of MacOS X and Apple has kindly ported it to x86. They've kept the upper levels to themselves but Darwin (and particularly with X on top) is a usable OS with some nifty architectural features. After flirtations with standardized PowerPC platforms (PREP, CHRP, etc - at one point there was such compatibility it is rumored that it was possible to boot a legit MacOS on an IBM RS-6000) Apple has instead gone to industry standard hardware with IDE, PCI, AGP, etc - just their own North & South Bridges and Open Firmware instead of the ancient BIOS.
What keeps folks from producing PowerPC-based Mac clones? Well the non-embedded PowerPC motherboard market is pretty small and somewhat pricey. There are also the legions of rabid Apple lawyers. Finally while Darwin is a start on MacOS X it's certainly not the whole thing and without Quartz/Aqua/Carbon/Cocoa/Etc. nobody is going to even try to label the thing "Mac". Apple probably does lose some sales to folks running QuickTime servers on Darwin but hey, it gets QuickTime more exposure, likely results in some outside development on Darwin that can be rolled back into MacOS X and it's not all that big a loss. Besides - that's not a clone either.
As you are aware we take our quality of service here at #ISP# very seriously. As part of that we attempt to protect our customers from unsolicited commercial email (spam) and other like burdens.
Unfortunately not all ISPs are as responsible as we are and their negligence places a burden on all of us. One particular ISP, #offender# is particularly problematic and is refusing to curb their most egregious customers. In the past 24 hours we have received #number# emails from them, #percent# of which are apparently unsolicited commercial email, all going to you, our customers.
After numerous attempts to work out a solution #offender# continues to indicate they've no interest in responding to our and other ISP's requests and will not curb their customers. We are now reluctantly forced to consider alternative options. It is possible that in the interests of serving our customers we will soon be forced to block all traffic to/from this ISP until this problem is resolved satisfactorily.
This is not an action we take lightly nor are we unsympathetic to the disruption this may cause some. However without #offender#'s cooperation it is you, our customers, who are bearing the burden of this barrage of unsolicited commercial email.
We have created a special team within our Customer Service Department to answer any questions you might have and to assist you in resolving any difficulties this may cause. They can be reached at #(nnn) nnn-nnn# 24/7. We've also created a special web-site at #isp.net/offender# containing answers to the questions we anticipate and offering tools for identifying how your individual service will be affected.
We have also arranged with several of #offender#'s competitors to provide replacement service should you or your business partners require connectivity in that region, we urge you to look into their offerings.
Finally, we deeply regret any problems these actions may cause, however this is all being done in our customers best interest. We will be contacting all of our customers directly should this blockage become necessary and will do our utmost to ensure you continue to receive constant high-quality network services.
Sincerely, #Somebody#
VP, #Dept.#, #ISP#
Bet that'll get them to fix the problem within 24 hours
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Not today, but certianly while you were of appropriate age if you'd been in their jurisdiction.
Try gravy on the words, helps them go down better.
Tell me, would you extend to Mexicans the same open-border/open-work policies you'd like to extend to Canadians? How about Germans? Koreans? Afghanastani?
However, I'm not bashing Canada so stop trying to "defend" it. I could get a job in about any country and having lived in quite a few number so I know what I like: I chose to live in Canada.
However for J. Random High-Techer considering upping and moving to Canada 'bout all of us US expats. will tell you there are significent differences and lots of trade-offs and they're a hell of a lot deeper the zed-or-zero.
Back to the topic yes there are lots of products one can pick up in a Circuit City that aren't available in Future Shop. Like I noted wireless Palm, TiVos (non-satellite) and generally most anything else just arrived on the market. GSM phones are now working in many US cities, as did metropolitan wireless (Riccochet.) Often times it will eventually make it to Canada (though not always) but often in the second shipment.
Don't believe my? Go shopping in a big US electronics store, compare it to back home. I'm back and forth nearly every week; trust me if I want the very latest I'll find it South, not North. This isn't a terrible thing but it is of interest to geeks.
However many of my peers in their 30's and 40's are natives so I hear about it from them and about their children. I expect half of the issue is that most of the Canadians have no idea how absent religion is from US schools (IMHO a very good thing.)
While there might be a very cautious religion-and-ethics-around-the-world class or why-the-Crusades-happened unit there is never a representative of a religion on staff as such in a US public school. There is never a religious symbol on the school building or inside. There is never any connection between Church & State in public schools however much some may wish otherwise.
This is not and has not been the case in Canada. While it's not universal it is true for the majority of the population. As noted it is common in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, also historically amongst the First Nations folks (or the residental schools were run by ???)
Its all very nice that the classes you attended weren't coericive and really irrelevant whatever view you hold now: The point is that to a US'er considering moving to Canada would find any classes, connections, official state religions bizarre in the extreme.
Thank you - I'm well aware of where Calgery is. My Mom's Canadian, I've got a half dozen aunts & uncles across the country plus cousins and others, have lived here five years, etc. I've also been to Calgery and was scouted for a job there years ago (I had some unique qualifications.)
Back to Broadband you failed to note its massively subsidized - not a legitimate comparison. Besides which Broadband is widely (just not as widely) availaible in the States.
What can I find in FutureShop I can't find in Circuit City? What consumer service is in Canada but not the US?
You can point out all of the single examples of Canada having an innovative high-end product (btw whose largest market is generally the US so it's not like they're Canada-only products.) Now show me what I was asking about, consumer products that the average Canadian can use that their US counterpart doesn't (not counting McCains products.) Not flight simulators or CANDU reactors but something one can find in Canada's Futureshop and not US's Circuit City.
Explain the crosses on all of the schools around me (Montreal) or how until 3 years ago we had Catholic & Protostant school boards? These AREN'T some sort of non-mainstream/parochial/private schools, ALL of the public schools have them here as they do in some other parts of the country.
Its dark now or I could drive around my neighborhood and photograph *every* school and show you a cross, post them on a website.
Perhaps you might want to do a biiit more research and doublecheck your statements before you starting calling into question other person's statements because you're being really insulting and I'm gonna expect you to own up to it and apologize.
Great enormous gay community, widespread acceptance, far more liberal in many ways then any US city, arguably more/better nightlife then SF, equally great food, much cheaper cost of living, safer streets. Beautiful people who really appreciate the better things life has to offer. Walk down Rue St. Denis or St. Lauraunt or du Gai Village on Ste. Catherine on a warm summer night and tell me it can be any better (ok - not as great today with the snow.)
Yes there's the whole French/English issue but that's primarily political and almost never personal. In 5 years of living here in both a samll Francophone farming community and then on the East side of Montreal (Ahuntsic) I've had it brought up twice, both by drunks.
Perhaps along with talking to some US'ers about religion in schools some discussion with folks from other provinces would be in order also.
Any big technology-penetration-into-the-Canadian-market stories other then debit cards you can recommend?
I was astonished when I moved to Canada the amount of religion that is institutionialized, I expect Canadians don't see it only because they're so used to it. As noted in another thread only 3 years ago did Montreal change from Catholic & Protastant school boards (PUBLIC school boards) to French & English. My lover used to have to go to religion classes, got a grade for it. That would be unthinkable in the US public schools.
As to "classisms" of US private schools it is every bit the same in Canada. I'm well familier with US (non-parochial) private schools, many of my friends growing up attended them, went on to prep schools. I can assure you there are no differences.
However, religion in public schools, it is a big difference. Try talking to a US'er and discussing this topic, I assure you that you'll both will be amazed at the different experiences.
The US was sucking in techies like mad while the boom was on and the economy was strong. Now with the boom over and neither country's economy as strong do you imagine Canada is interested in importing lots of techies or that employers are having trouble filling spots, are interested in jumping through the hoops of bringing in a US'er if they don't need to?
No, they're not. Canadian high tech has lots of local talent sending in resumes who are already established, won't get homesick halfway through a project, know the score and understand the living and work syles/conditions/situations/payscales, are a bit more invested in staying around.
Can US'ers move to Canada? Yes. Is there gonna be a flood? No.
Until three years ago Quebec had Catholic & Protostant school boards. They were turned into French and English boards but the culture remains. Yes, the mandatory classes are being dropped but there's still FAR more of it then in the US. For example EVERY school I know of has large crosses on the outside, in the lobby, etc which is VERY unlike the US.
Spend some time talking to a US'er who went through those school systems and compare them to your own, I think you'll be amazed at the differences.
BTW, I'm a US'ers who lives in Montreal (Ahuntsic).
Next if US'ers moves here they'll be paid in Canadian dollars. While you'll live well in Canada it's a big pay cut from the US, especially when you add taxes on top. Furthermore prices in Canadian cities have started to rise and while they don't compare to NYC, Boston or SF they're still shocking the natives and expensive in local terms.
Finally there are the cultural differences. While visiting Toronto or Vancouver may feel very familiar to a US'er that changes when you actually live here (Montreal is immediately obvious as being different.) There're the little things like brands being different, everyone being that one notch politer, and Curling being a real sport. There's also a dearth of ghastly evening news (you'd think Canadians are the world's worst drivers from watching TV news until you realize there aren't as many shootings and other violent incidents for the if-it-bleeds-it-leads stories) and lots more interest in international events.
However there are even more important differences. One is the Quebec issue. This is where I live but it comes up everywhere across the nation: French language laws, government policies, separatism, and the economic shock-waves every time Quebec threatens to leave.
Other significant differences:
- Little separation of Church & State with things like religious lessons in schools.
- However by-and-large Canada is more liberal then the US and does have far fewer of the extreme right-wing biblethumpers.
- Canada doesn't place individual liberties above all else; the general good is at least as important.
- The Provinces are stronger politically then US States and there's a lot more Federal/Provincial jostling.
- Strong social policies often more in line with European models then US.
- Political parties that don't map at all onto the US model.
- Socialized Medicine (services are generally good in spite of the horror stories often heard in the States.)
- Establishing credit across the border can be difficult, sometimes very difficult.
- Lots of technology comes out later in Canada (wireless Palms) or not at all (TiVo.)
- While Canadians get US TV & somewhat radio there are lots of programs, acts, and personalities that are big in Canada but unheard of in the US. Some are programs like "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" and others are bands that make Top-10 in Canada but never rise above Top 500 in the US.
No, I like living in Canada a lot, and US friends love visiting, but ask any US expat. living in Canada and they'll tell you it is different and it's more then the good beer.On the other hand I'm hearing lots of rumblings that with tiered services Usenet will be an upper-tier option contracted or not. Pay $n per month and get a slow connection without a web page, pay $n+$10 and get Usenet, server space, open ports, etc. Or pay $n+$25 and get business class with a faster connection and all of the options.
Silver, Gold, Platinum / Basic, Better, Business: Cable companies understand tiers and thier ISPs are adopting them, they'll drive the industry. Flat rate pricing with it's all-you-can-eat excesses will become a thing of the past.
In my own case last week I was visiting my parents, Dad wanted me to burn a bunch of pictures to a CD for him to send out to relatives. Now, he's got an iMac without a burner and I live 6 hours away in another country. I could have sent them online (we've both broadband) but with the rate caps it would have taken many hours to send the 300-some MB of files and the AppleTalk IP I've got running on my wintel boxes is a bit unreliable for big long slow stuff like that.
The solution? We both have Canon PowerShot cameras (S100 & S110), both with their shipped small CompactFlash cards and both with 3rd party 128MB CF's we've each added. Grabbing his CF's and clearing mine out I was able to load everything onto the CF's though the cameras, bring them home and burn to CDs.
Worked fine, the CDs have been sent out and his CFs are in the mail on the way back to him loaded with some mp3s of radio shows I know he and Mom will enjoy listening to. Now I'm looking at investing in one of those small USB "hard drive" devices for storing my emergency software/system tools on. Easier to carry then a CD, hand it off of the keychain and pull it out whenever I've a need for a PGP key, repair utility or favorite bit of software.
AT&T Broadband considered it a freebie and as it wasn't a specifically paid-for service didn't worry if it was messed up or down for awhile. Cox doesn't offer Usenet at all. Apparently the merged beast of the two will offer Usenet initially but with no promises (likely to become a tiered product.) This is pretty typical of much of the industry these days.
Universities are also dropping Usenet; I got an announcement this week that Northeastern University will be discontinuing it and is referring folks to Google or other commercial services. Others are following the same path as copyright issues, costs, lack of academic relevance, and sheer volume become problematic - they're finding it easier to just offload the comparatively few users to custom services.
Thus the two communities that were once most involved are moving away. Where once everyone at your typical ISP followed at least a few newsgroups or had fond memories of such now the staff is just as likely to say "like AOL chat?" and have no idea what you're talking about. Without those folks to champion it Usenet is seen as an odd step-child: Something used by warez-traders, porn freaks and whiners perpetually asking that so-and-so get dropped because they dissed the other. Without the free local access university students are also unlikely to become enamored of Usenet and request it of their ISPs in the future, contribute their free time (many of us recall the annual September deluge of newbies making the same mistakes year after year anew.)
Further more with the opening up of online access the Global Village is becoming plagued with Village Idiots. Spammers are legion and have laid waste to many newsgroups. The socially maladjusted are increasingly hard to get dropped and their harrassment techniques are increasingly sophisticated. Much of the conversation has moved off to mailing lists, web-boards, and other richer-content/easily moderated venues.
On an immediate scale the serving and servicing a full feed is increasingly expensive and becoming more so. The ISP-class software can be expensive, the hardware is a capitol cost, the users are generally the "top talkers" (most bandwidth hungry customers) of an ISP and thus among the least profitable under today's pricing models. With only a few percent of a ISPs customers even aware of Usenet it's an attractive cost-saving sacrifice for many.
As to just Googling - that to me seems such a poor interface. They've done a good job of presentation but for following threads on an ongoing basis, setting filters, quoting and responding effectively a good news client is still worlds away better (ok - mebbe not Outlook Express, but about everything else is.) There are any number of good unix clients. Forte Agent on Wintel is decent, has a free version and is once again under active development. MT-Newswatcher is a brilliant variation of the venerable Newswatcher Mac client and has both MacOS & MacOS X version.
For alternatives there are any number of commercial nntp feeds one can sign up for. Median price for a single user is around US$10/month and generally offers a generous though not unlimited transfer allowance. This could probably be shared amongst a few folks if someone were willing to set up the requisite hardware, software, and had the bandwidth. This of course also means administering the feed and funneling back up postings, doing one's own bit to not let spam in.
Ironically one of the few bright spots of all this is Microsoft. Their support newsgroups have been a great success and are receiving ever-increasing amounts of support from within the company. Other vendors offer their own private news servers and groups but the best known generally is MS and it is bringing in a new set of users.
Good luck.
- Only one TV show about a bunch of pretty 20-somethings living together with lots of free time, trendy clothing & furnishings and a penchant for drinking coffee together
- Only one TV show about a hard working dedicated bunch of Drs/Lawyers/Teachers who all exhibit a full DSM-Guide of personality disorders and apparently only date or socialize with each other.
- Only one talk show hosted by a comedian with an endless series of "celebrity" guests shilling their latest project.
- Only one band fronted by a nasal-voiced Bob-Dillon wannabe singing about teenage angst and lost love.
- Only one all-girl/all-boy teen band singing out processed harmonies written for them by an ad agency committee.
- Only one swords & sorcerer novel allowed to be pushed at once all using pretty much Tolkien's plot & milieu, set in three parts but with a twist
- Only one religion allowed to claim to be the one true one and all of the others prosecuted as Intellectual Property infringers.
- All books and non-digital media have the same rules applied as proposed for digital media. Photocopiers, scanner, tapes, pens, pencils, carbon paper, all must have copyright-protection devices built in. Oh, mechanical pencils are *very* suspect and will require a license.
- Cameras are of course geo-shuttered unless one gets a permit for the view desired. California will begin charging 10 cents for a Golden Gate Bridge shot, NY, NJ and the Nat'l Park Service will be in court over rights to the Statue of Liberty, France will angle for a cut too.
- Every politician who promises to be tough on crime, cut taxes and restore pride to our great nation will be fined for copying.
- Ownership of saws, screwdriver & T-squares will be regulated to prevent the illicit construction of unlicensed buildings or machines.
- Web-browsers will come equipped with Digital-Media-Rights-Modules determining for how long a page can be displayed and ensuring no copies are made. Webcams with biometrics will be utilized to ensure the identity of properly authorized readers.
Etc.Write your Congress-Critters.
As to this being difficult, it can't be any more difficult explaining the USA's Washington DC Metro fare system with each station a different cost and peak-pricing and the map is *there* but the fare-card machines are *here* and the turnstyles are back *that* way and the card has to be fed *thus* and used again to exit...
In short there's no need for a large quantity of stored energy or even particularly high energy densities. I'm sure the simplicities and efficiencies of an electrical motor as well as lack of local effluent more then cliched any discussion.
My only question would be if they'd considered a fly-wheel. They'd also be suitable for storing the requisite energy as well as providing a nice bit of stabilization, not require any nasty-for-the-environment materials. As long as the wheel were encased in some sort of GLARE-type safety cage it would be as safe or safer and likely last longer.
However we're already there with FireWire & USB devices. Lots of them work in MacOS (the generic USB class drivers do a good job) but not everything is and folks deal. The same for PCI cards in Macs that do have them - if it don't say Mac support on the side then you takes yer chances. Usually you'll be fine for generic items.
However there were licensees which is a whole 'nother thing. Clones just rip off the product, licensees have an arrangement with the owner, contracts, payment schedules, etc.
In Apple's case they were having production, inventory & cost-control issues so they figured let some other folks into the pool, expand the market. Apple would keep the mid and upper-end NA & European markets for itself, others could service the super-premium, budget, Asian, educational, and gamer markets. Unfortunately many of these companies soon stopped expanding the market and just went for the low-hanging fruit: Apple's own sales.
Instead of bringing in lots of new Mac users from markets Apple wasn't strong in (or not particularly profitable) instead Apple found itself competing with their own licensees on their own turf with their own technologies and own their compatibility assurances etc. It was cannibalism and Apple was the one getting eaten. Every time Power Computing sold one of their Macs it was at the cost of Apple selling one, and instead of that sale bringing in $$$ it was bringing in $, all while Apple was hemorrhaging money.
Did they shut down the licensees? Damn right - if they hadn't Apple'd have been bled dry pretty darn quick. Sure no Apple would have meant no Mac market but that wasn't the licensees concern, they'd gotten contracts allowing them to buy MacOS ROMs and sell MacOS 7.0 at a great price and they were busy undercutting Apple and making super money.
So finally Apple took advantage of the contracts, refused to write a new license for the new MacOS 7.5 and then used the buy-out clause to shut the licensees down. Did they scream? Sure, they'd been milking an expensive cow for cheap, who wouldn't scream to see that taken away. But was it shutting down "clones"? No, it was all legal, no cloning there.
Wintel PCs on the other hand: IBM never locked wily Bill Gates into an exclusive for DOS. Bill was happy to sell a custom version to anyone who ponied up and when the plethora of versions became too great released the generic and soon to be standard MS DOS.
Later the subtly-incompatible-in-different-ways BIOS issue was surmounted when the IBM PC BIOS was legally reverse-engineered and at that point the cat was out of the bag. IBM had never wanted clones, never expected them, and fought long and mightily against them but was never able to eradicate them.
Clever strategy? No, awful mistake. While the market wouldn't have grown as explosively most folks agree that had IBM kept control of their PC design they'd have made multiples of what they did off of it, would likely have "owned" the market. Anyway, IBM came out with MicroChannel and the PS/2 design and OS/2 which were all attempts to redefine the "IBM PC" back to something IBM controlled but to no avail - and trust me Apple had watched and learned and made sure those MacOS ROMs were crucial.
Now - the ROMs are gone. They're a file loaded like any other. You can even download the core of MacOS X and Apple has kindly ported it to x86. They've kept the upper levels to themselves but Darwin (and particularly with X on top) is a usable OS with some nifty architectural features. After flirtations with standardized PowerPC platforms (PREP, CHRP, etc - at one point there was such compatibility it is rumored that it was possible to boot a legit MacOS on an IBM RS-6000) Apple has instead gone to industry standard hardware with IDE, PCI, AGP, etc - just their own North & South Bridges and Open Firmware instead of the ancient BIOS.
What keeps folks from producing PowerPC-based Mac clones? Well the non-embedded PowerPC motherboard market is pretty small and somewhat pricey. There are also the legions of rabid Apple lawyers. Finally while Darwin is a start on MacOS X it's certainly not the whole thing and without Quartz/Aqua/Carbon/Cocoa/Etc. nobody is going to even try to label the thing "Mac". Apple probably does lose some sales to folks running QuickTime servers on Darwin but hey, it gets QuickTime more exposure, likely results in some outside development on Darwin that can be rolled back into MacOS X and it's not all that big a loss. Besides - that's not a clone either.
I take it you consider yourself part of the "civilized" bit?
Bet that'll get them to fix the problem within 24 hours