Microsoft should give Vista users a free upgrade to Windows 7. Unfortunately, my laptop doesn't work well with XP, because the drivers are unstable. So I'm stuck using Vista, which is a huge beast, slow, and shitty. Now that Windows 7 is coming out, I would love to use that instead, but I get stomach pains when I think about handing my hard earned money to get what Vista SHOULD have been. Now I wait for the/. crowd to flame me to death me for using windows.
Why can't everyone see that the legal system is slowly being steered to work against the people, to benefit corporate interests? Why isn't it a crime for executives at AIG and other bailed out banks to receive huge bonuses at the expense of tax payers? Why is it a crime for some college kid to hack some game consoles? We're talking about billions vs hundreds of dollars.
Howard Stern is on Siruis/XM to escape the FCC. However, in Germany, he still wouldn't be allowed on any type of radio calling Oprah a fat cow without the fear of getting sued.
On a side note, the FCC is completely assbackwards. The big problem Stern had was that the FCC refused to give specific rules on what could not be said. So of course the radio station over-reacted and censored everything to avoid fines. I'm glad to see his old radio stations tanking. They should have defended Stern against the FCC's vague, made-up rules.
German laws are pretty strange. You can be sued just by insulting someone. Of course it's hard to differentiate a harsh opinion and a genuine insult. And if you swear at any governmental worker (police, vehicle licensing office, employment office, etc), forget about it. Free speech is not as strong as it is in the US. So the likes of Howard Stern could not exist in Germany. Of course Germans are worried about l33thax0r posting insults on message boards.
What I find even crazier is that most Germans I've talked to agree with this speech law. I suppose Germans don't value free speech as much as the Americans.
However, the law is unfair. The fines are far too high for the actual damages it causes. When someone loses a case, it's just another average joe, like you and me, getting raped by the RIAA and the US legal system. Of course people are going to get pissed. This could easily be any one of us.
The RIAA are also criminals. They are guilty of extortion. "We found that you may have done something wrong. Give us $5000 or face an expensive legal battle." Why is this even allowed?
In Japan, all ads are tagged with a QR code (see parent link). All mobile phones can read this code via the mobile phone camera, and will refer you to more information via the internet. Even Big Macs are tagged with these codes, so you can look up nutritional information. Although this technology is cool, we can already do this with current technology, and it's already proven to work! What's even cooler with these Japanese mobile phones, is that you can even take picture of Japanese text, it will read it and convert it to text, which you translate over the internet. WTF doesn't the rest of the world that this technology!?!?
He's lucky that it wasn't Verizon who made the error. Their customer service reps aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the broken box of bulbs.
Customer: "I think I was overcharged. My bill says I owe $23 quadrillion dollars."
Verizon: "Yes, that's what our records show."
Customer: "But I only used my iPhone once to check my e-mail in Canada. I used only 100kb of data and the rate is.002 dollars per kb."
Verizon: "Yes, that amounts to $23 quadrillion dollars."
Customer: "But that's many times the GDP of the entire world!"
Verizon: "GD what? Look sir, pay up or we'll send the collectors."
Somehow, the old radio laws have been thrown out, and Clear Channel has been allowed to gain a near monopoly on the radio market in America. Now regular radio is worse than ever.
However, the most innovative radio companies must pay royalties. Sirius/XM must pay royalties, Web Radio must pay royalties, therefore regular radio must pay royalties too. When regular radio implodes, it will be clear to everyone that the whole system needs to change. And another good side effect is getting rid of another near monopoly.
I think you need to take a quick look at google earth. Most of Canada's population lives at a LOWER latitude than all of the UK. In Canada (except for the west), you just have to deal with the -20C winters. There's more daylight in the winter than in the UK. And there's actually quite a few sunny days in Winter. In my opinion, it's better than months of cloudy days just above freezing temperature.
Seriously, I would love it if hot chicks said some words to me in exchange for using my laptop. But if you really don't want people using your computer, just do everything with the command line.
I never bought from sony because they kept all their formats proprietary. Why should I buy a memory stick that's twice the price of an SD card? Because of these annoyances, I strongly recommend against all sony products when someone asks me about electronics, especially with digital cameras.
I 100% agree on this point. In Germany, gas is taxed extremely heavily. However, public transportation is extremely efficient and extensive, thus the poor don't need cars to get around.
Also, file sharing really improves our standard of living. Instead of spending money on an overpriced product, we are now able to use this money on something else. In terms of pure economics, this is a huge productivity boost!
I forgot to add, if you want to work in Europe, I definitely recommend a masters, regardless if you want to do it or not. In Europe, post-secondary education is cheap, so MANY people do it. As a result, there's a huge supply of people with an undergrad degree, so the undergraduate degree isn't as "special" as it is in the US. A masters differentiates you from the crowd. (BTW, this is just my observations as a Canadian working in Germany.)
It really depends what you're interested in. If you have a specific interest, then I think you're better off getting a Masters in that specific interest. It will make it easier for you to get a job that fits your specific interests. For example, if you are really interested in DSP, then you should get a masters that relates in DSP. If you want to do chip design or something like that, you definitely need a masters (or maybe even a PhD).
I was in your situation a while ago, and I decided not to do a masters. In some ways, I regret it because I have really no specialization. But at that time, I really wanted to start making real money and pay off my debts.
In the end though, work experience is king. Getting a masters helps you a lot getting that first few years of work experience in the field you're interested in.
I would say that all companies behave (or would like to behave) this way. I'm sure Ford would love to make cars which only handle proprietary Ford tires and take only proprietary Ford gas. I'm sure if they had a monopoly on cars, they would do it. Of course if they tried now, they would just guarantee themselves a quick death.
I was thinking the same thing. Why not price based on demand? If they double the price, I bet the sales volume would drop by way more than half. But if they halved the price, maybe the sales volume would more than double.
I think these RIAA execs are either retarded or evil. Either they really don't have an understanding of economics, or they're trying to raise prices and manipulate the laws to limit the music market.
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The title of the article is deceiving, they claimed to have tested in depth, but there are only 5 benchmark scores, and only tested in 32-bit. WTF
Microsoft should give Vista users a free upgrade to Windows 7. Unfortunately, my laptop doesn't work well with XP, because the drivers are unstable. So I'm stuck using Vista, which is a huge beast, slow, and shitty. Now that Windows 7 is coming out, I would love to use that instead, but I get stomach pains when I think about handing my hard earned money to get what Vista SHOULD have been. Now I wait for the /. crowd to flame me to death me for using windows.
Why can't everyone see that the legal system is slowly being steered to work against the people, to benefit corporate interests? Why isn't it a crime for executives at AIG and other bailed out banks to receive huge bonuses at the expense of tax payers? Why is it a crime for some college kid to hack some game consoles? We're talking about billions vs hundreds of dollars.
Howard Stern is on Siruis/XM to escape the FCC. However, in Germany, he still wouldn't be allowed on any type of radio calling Oprah a fat cow without the fear of getting sued.
On a side note, the FCC is completely assbackwards. The big problem Stern had was that the FCC refused to give specific rules on what could not be said. So of course the radio station over-reacted and censored everything to avoid fines. I'm glad to see his old radio stations tanking. They should have defended Stern against the FCC's vague, made-up rules.
I guess I should rephrase: I suppose Germans don't value free speech as much as the Americans used to.
German laws are pretty strange. You can be sued just by insulting someone. Of course it's hard to differentiate a harsh opinion and a genuine insult. And if you swear at any governmental worker (police, vehicle licensing office, employment office, etc), forget about it. Free speech is not as strong as it is in the US. So the likes of Howard Stern could not exist in Germany. Of course Germans are worried about l33thax0r posting insults on message boards.
What I find even crazier is that most Germans I've talked to agree with this speech law. I suppose Germans don't value free speech as much as the Americans.
Scientist: "I would like to buy 1 million Windows XP licenses for my botnet research."
MS: "That would be 300 Million dollars please. Muahahaha!"
Finally, the system is starting to return to balance. Less money to greedy executives pushing Brittany Spears, more money to creative artists.
However, the law is unfair. The fines are far too high for the actual damages it causes. When someone loses a case, it's just another average joe, like you and me, getting raped by the RIAA and the US legal system. Of course people are going to get pissed. This could easily be any one of us.
The RIAA are also criminals. They are guilty of extortion. "We found that you may have done something wrong. Give us $5000 or face an expensive legal battle." Why is this even allowed?
In Japan, all ads are tagged with a QR code (see parent link). All mobile phones can read this code via the mobile phone camera, and will refer you to more information via the internet. Even Big Macs are tagged with these codes, so you can look up nutritional information. Although this technology is cool, we can already do this with current technology, and it's already proven to work! What's even cooler with these Japanese mobile phones, is that you can even take picture of Japanese text, it will read it and convert it to text, which you translate over the internet. WTF doesn't the rest of the world that this technology!?!?
He's lucky that it wasn't Verizon who made the error. Their customer service reps aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the broken box of bulbs.
Customer: "I think I was overcharged. My bill says I owe $23 quadrillion dollars." .002 dollars per kb."
Verizon: "Yes, that's what our records show."
Customer: "But I only used my iPhone once to check my e-mail in Canada. I used only 100kb of data and the rate is
Verizon: "Yes, that amounts to $23 quadrillion dollars."
Customer: "But that's many times the GDP of the entire world!"
Verizon: "GD what? Look sir, pay up or we'll send the collectors."
Somehow, the old radio laws have been thrown out, and Clear Channel has been allowed to gain a near monopoly on the radio market in America. Now regular radio is worse than ever.
However, the most innovative radio companies must pay royalties. Sirius/XM must pay royalties, Web Radio must pay royalties, therefore regular radio must pay royalties too. When regular radio implodes, it will be clear to everyone that the whole system needs to change. And another good side effect is getting rid of another near monopoly.
I think you need to take a quick look at google earth. Most of Canada's population lives at a LOWER latitude than all of the UK. In Canada (except for the west), you just have to deal with the -20C winters. There's more daylight in the winter than in the UK. And there's actually quite a few sunny days in Winter. In my opinion, it's better than months of cloudy days just above freezing temperature.
Seriously, I would love it if hot chicks said some words to me in exchange for using my laptop. But if you really don't want people using your computer, just do everything with the command line.
I never bought from sony because they kept all their formats proprietary. Why should I buy a memory stick that's twice the price of an SD card? Because of these annoyances, I strongly recommend against all sony products when someone asks me about electronics, especially with digital cameras.
No, if we apply the rules for distinguishing different species to dogs, then it turns out that we have different species of dogs. There is no fudging.
But the designer is Man. So does that mean that Man is God?
I 100% agree on this point. In Germany, gas is taxed extremely heavily. However, public transportation is extremely efficient and extensive, thus the poor don't need cars to get around.
Also, file sharing really improves our standard of living. Instead of spending money on an overpriced product, we are now able to use this money on something else. In terms of pure economics, this is a huge productivity boost!
I forgot to add, if you want to work in Europe, I definitely recommend a masters, regardless if you want to do it or not. In Europe, post-secondary education is cheap, so MANY people do it. As a result, there's a huge supply of people with an undergrad degree, so the undergraduate degree isn't as "special" as it is in the US. A masters differentiates you from the crowd. (BTW, this is just my observations as a Canadian working in Germany.)
It really depends what you're interested in. If you have a specific interest, then I think you're better off getting a Masters in that specific interest. It will make it easier for you to get a job that fits your specific interests. For example, if you are really interested in DSP, then you should get a masters that relates in DSP. If you want to do chip design or something like that, you definitely need a masters (or maybe even a PhD).
I was in your situation a while ago, and I decided not to do a masters. In some ways, I regret it because I have really no specialization. But at that time, I really wanted to start making real money and pay off my debts.
In the end though, work experience is king. Getting a masters helps you a lot getting that first few years of work experience in the field you're interested in.
Wow. Mrs. Kin is really a perv...
I would say that all companies behave (or would like to behave) this way. I'm sure Ford would love to make cars which only handle proprietary Ford tires and take only proprietary Ford gas. I'm sure if they had a monopoly on cars, they would do it. Of course if they tried now, they would just guarantee themselves a quick death.
I was thinking the same thing. Why not price based on demand? If they double the price, I bet the sales volume would drop by way more than half. But if they halved the price, maybe the sales volume would more than double.
I think these RIAA execs are either retarded or evil. Either they really don't have an understanding of economics, or they're trying to raise prices and manipulate the laws to limit the music market.
Good thing, because that'll just be another thing Microsoft has to patch every month.