2) a stopping point before another realm/life/whatever you want to call it.
If 2 is true, but the punishment for not believing in it is eternal damnation, I sure as hell am going to try to believe in #2!
A man dies and enters the afterlife and is given a tour, walking down a beautiful beach with a cocktail in his hands, enjoying everything.
At the end of the beach there is a deep hole in the ground, a vague glow of fire can be seen and sounds of torment can be heard deep down.
"Now what's that about?"
"Oh, that's just the Catholics. Strange, but they want it that way."
I don't know if such a raw number would help, because you will need percentages to compares them with other countries' numbers.
And then there is the same problem again as the populaion structure may be very different from country to country..
Because of that there is the empiric approach used by ILO/OECD - AFAIK:
Instead of using governmental stats they do surveys and ask people if they have a job, are looking for one, how long they are unemployed etc and use those results to calculate the numbers for each country.
The question in your mind should be - is what Paris Hilton does considered "employment?"
AC, I would really like to mod you up..
Although I am not sure about funny or insightful.;-)
Actors (no: despite one short film, Paris Hilton is not an actress) for example are one group of people that are difficult to classify in that regard.
They are/were often regularly employed by theaters, movie or TV companys, but usually have a more or less long time between engagements until they get a new role.
Are they allowed to register as unemployed until they are hired for a new role, getting a percentage of the salary for their last movie?
Often people forget that countries use very different methods to calculate the unemployent rate and are comparing apples and oranges
One major point is who you count; examples:
people who want work, but can't get a job?
people who don't want to work and live of benefits/social security?
people who were laid off into pension earlier than necessary?
close to the point above: people who won't get a job because they are regarded as too old by HR
(maybe >35 or 40 years..)
people who can't work because of health problems?
people who are in governmental work programs (i.e. retraining programs)?
how about people that are jobbing here and there, mybe have more than one part-time job?
related to that: who is counted as "self employed"?
That's one "funny" problem in Germany right now:
Due to a part of a federal law change (meant to reduce unemployment) Germany's rate is jumping right now:
municipalities are "reclassifying" recipients of social security that in reality can't or won't work as people who are able to work (=can _in_theory_ work at _some_ job for at least 3 hours a day), upping the current unemployment rate big time.
The money is about the same, so why are they doing such a silly bureaucratic thing, binding even more resources meant to help willing people find a job, lessening their chances?
A: Because of the new law, unemployment insurance is now payed from the federal fund and municipalities are only responsible for social security.
In some areas more than 99% of former social security recipients are suddenly able to work again. It's really a wonder! Must be Jesus doing a "Germany 2005 Tour" or something like that..
I'm using SuSE since about version 6.0 and it came with JDKs including the source in every version.
Or do they have some special deal with sun about distribution of Java ?
I think I know what you mean by "too smooth".
In a way that is what I dislike most about the two new episodes.
Especially the background feels like it lacks details, looks somehow neglected, simply generated, artifically painted wothout mutch contour and too clean/smooth.
Even the indoor scenes look like they were filmed in a blue room without a real background(?or backdrop? not sure about the right english word for that).
Episode I and (even more) II really feel like some loveless off-the-shelf cartoon to me
- or like bridging video sequences of a computer game.
It's somewhat similar to old movies where you can clearly see that the landscape in the background is not real but painted on a canvas.
Maybe that causes some kind of disapointment:
50 years later you might expect it to look more real (knowing that it is possible) and not to take a step back to artificial again.
That somehow feels really cheap - even if all that (IMHO often unnecessary: give me real sets, dammit! I'm sure the actors/the acting will be thankful, too) CG stuff costs lots of money..;-)
Or you can use a GPLed version for the computer: Robo Rally in Java (minus option cards)
If you know how to use CVS (and have Apache Ant or Eclipse installed) I recommend the CVS version though. (Project page on Sourcforge)
<shameless plug>
As heise reports, the Danish parliament has bindingly instructed their secretary of commerce to vote AGAINST software patents,
so the law can't be nodded through.
According to their parliaments some other ministers are instructed (more or less bindingly) to support
another country's approach to restart the whole process:
Poland, Netherlands, Spain (had already voted against it in the last session), maybe Germany (but represented by some stubbor a..hat, so..)
Also it is likely that some countries that were neutral during the last voting (like Austria, Belgium, Italy) will support a complete restart.
A radar detector helps immensely
Speaking of something like that - a little thought:
the argument that raising the speed limit has not increased the number of accidents might only work (well) if you assume that only very few people were speeding during the time of the lower limit.
If everybody was (and is now legally) going at 60-70 you wouldn't see a difference.
Would be interesting to have some _good_ stats about how many people were speeding with limit 55, how fast were they going, on what roads etc compared to limit 70.
And out of curiosity as Non-Us-guy: where do those limits apply? Highways? Freeways? I sure hope not within city limits..?
I think Winamp (2.xy) does a better job at that than Winamp. I didn't use Windows and so Winamp for a long time but I remember very well (using the same playlist for Winamp and xmms) that I recognized problems ("that song again and again") with xmms but not with Winamp.
I think the playlist must had between 300-500 entries.
Also, I remember a friend I introduced to Linux asking me if I knew a way to get xmms to play all songs in shuffle mode and not the same selection over and over again.
P.S.
For converting (some) people from Windows to Linux:
Forget "geeky" arguments. Show them all the little games like KPatience and Shisen-Sho, kde with rotating background pictures, background color gradients, desktop themes and most importantly xsnow if she likes kitschy X-mas stuff.;-)
To quote the cast list: Magrat Garlick (Julia Knobloch)
The German translation of "garlic" is "Knoblauch", only a little different from "Knoblauch - as "garlick" is different from "garlic"
And in fact, "Magrat Garlick" really is named "Magrat Knobloch" in the German translation of the Discworld series:-)
It is not that surprising from an economical point of view:
Reality soaps are really cheap to produce compared to most sci-fi (special effects, space scenes etc),
but sadly still get a lot of viewers.
So you have a cheap show that can sell more or less expensive advertisement blocks.
Compared to that a sci-fi show would have to draw a _huge_ audience to generate the same profit per dollar spent to create it.
At least that's one reason I read why some sci-fi show was canceled despite somewhat decent ratings (?or was it why Firefly didn't get a second - some might say: a first - chance in light of the DVD sales?
IIRC it was really expensive per episode, even for sci-fi).
I noticed that, too. Strange. Maybe in the US some TV station was still paying to broadcast it.
I don't live in the US but I bought almost all season boxes in the US or UK as the prices in Germany are insane compared to the U?.
And I don't like to pay three times the money for a horrible dubbing I can't stand.
Numbers to think about for German Joss Whedon fans:
Bought the 4th Angel season as RC1 from playusa.com; price including German VAT, customs: ~45 Euro
Sales price in Germany for a whole season: ~120 Euro
For that money you could additionally order a RC1 DVD player and still pay less..
P.S.
I think this strange lag doesn't exist anymore. At least the 5th season of Angel is available in the US but not yet in Germany.
Not that I would buy it here anyway..
We - even those of us in Europe - desperately need to know how the hell our continent is run.
Well..I had that for a whole semester in school, in the year before graduating:
How does the EU work..what does it do..its history..who votes/appoints whom..where are the democratic deficits..
what will be the problems in the future (EU extension; mind you: ~1996/97)..
currently debated plans to solve the current and the likely future problems etc.
At least at my (German) school people getting their "Abitur" (graduating degree after 12/13 years of school if passing the exams) had to take two years of "Politische Weltkunde" ("political world knowledge") and make an exam - unless they didn't specialize on history or geography anyway.
But sadly, most people couldn't even say "who elects whom" on a national level..
No, the chancellor isn't elected directly by the people. Neither is the president. *sigh*
Does the EU even *have* a government?
No, At least not a democratic one.
It's like the thing was designed *by*, bureucrats *for* bureaucrats That's essentially true.
Also, there's the parliament that is
a) a nursing home for politicians that some national party can't get rid off because of prior achievements or
b) has to move out of sight for a couple of years because of national affairs.
c) Also "parliament" sounds somewhat democratic; but don't give them real power because otherwise they might stop you from getting things done - like introducing software patents against Europe's interests.
and point me at an online EU-civics 101 tutorial that outlines how the EU government is organized This
looks promising (from the "International UNESCO Education Server
for Civic, Peace and Human Rights Education").
Also, there is a very short
overview on the(?) EU site.
The idea isn't new, there is a site with a survey how many fans would pay for producing more episodes an selling them on DVD: http://www.fireflymovie.com/directdvd.html
Speaking of Maxtor-HDs..I have a pile of dead ones lying around:
Don't trust the end-of-warranty date on the disc.
If you are going to create a RMA on the Maxtor webpage, they will show you an end-of-warranty date about three months before the one mentioned on the disc.
Also, they might not accept error codes that their PowerMax-Testtook (for-years-soon-available-for-nforce) generates.
I probably could have done something about the date/codes via phone but I wasn't in the mood for arguing around with their Helpdesk-personnel.
I use the discs in old "playing around, don't matter if the data is gone again"-systems and the five or six HDs since were all from other vendors..
Up until that point, general philosophy said you needed a king who had been raised since birth to lead to run a nation.
Not that I'm aware of. Maybe you think to much in terms of the French absolutism? For example, the Frankish empire didn't even have a capital, IIRC Charles the Great usually traveled between lots of 'provincial' palaces.
Julius Ceaser was celebrated, along with Alexander the Greatbecause they were great top-down leaders
Mostly, they are famous for being commanders and for their conquests. Don't know much about Alexander but during nine years of learning Latin at school I had to read a lot of Roman history..there isn't much written in Latin nowadays;-)
Caesar was not "raised since birth to lead to run a nation".
Also, for example, the governors (appointed by the senate) of the Roman provinces (prior to the end of the Republic/the civil wars that led to Caesar becoming emperor) had lots of power.
Mostly they used their power to squeeze money out of their provinces to repay the debts they had made during their earlier political career (Caesar was totally bankrupt after his year as an aedil).
I don't know..depends on how you define literal inerpretation.
You _can_ translate it that way but it doesn't make sense; there are other "literal translations" that do make sense, for example: "time spirit" ("spirit of time" was mentioned) would be as literal as "time ghost".
If you know Latin: "animus" captures the meaning of "Geist" very well (but animus has lots of meanings in Latin).
Or check this list of possible direct English translations of "Geist".
I have a friend who lives in Beijing (married to an American she met there, she is working as some sort of intern for a German company) since 2001 or 2002. They didn't have problems with the government and have good relations with their neighbours.
Another couple travelled on their own through China for a month,also no problems (in theory, they had to report where they were staying that night, but never did or it was taken care of by the hotels). They were welcomed everywhere they went, although mostly because of curiosity as they went to some places were they were the only tourists and the first blonde people there;-)
Another friend and his-now-wife lived in China for about one or two years, no problems there (and he is a geek/CS student who wrote his final thesis there, surely used ssh a lot to log into the university network (and for sourceforge access)). And: they didn't live somewhere in a tourist area,they rented a flat via a Chinese estate agent, they took private language lessions, dance courses, she worked in a hospital (-> interested i skills..) there yaddayadda Both of them even appeared on TV (gameshow&some sort of propaganda news documentation "the foreigner visits our family");-)
Mind you: I am well aware about the human rights violations in China, but I am also quite sure that you can lead a normal life there without fear. Sure, you better don't start demos there or hand out "fuck the system"-flyers, but..
Just had to think of a joke an IBM(!)/Lotus instructor told me during some course:
Q: How can we solve the drug problem?
A: Leaglize drug selling, let IBM do all the markerting.
Didn't you mean:
"Don't worry, it was, like, waffles. But her dad like used like the last of the syrup. Like, man, he never can think of, like, her needs, can he?"
cannot figure out how they'd ever know about to enforce it.
I don't know where you come from but according to a friend (in Germany)who got a purebred puppy a few weeks ago:
Most of the value of purebred dogs(probably animals in general) comes from the fact that they have a well documented bloodline to prove their origin; my friend got a copy of the genealogical tree and some other stuff with the puppy
If her dog has offspring it doesn't matter - as the seller can't know about it like you already said
However, in case that you want to give the offspring away you have to report back if you want to 'advertise' with the bloodline (use the "family name") - at least to talk about the naming of the dog amd its integration in the official genealogical tree
(dunno about asking for permissions/royalties).
There are official registers for keeping track of that sort of stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Because of their growth rate :
Maybe bacteria (i.e. developing resistance against antibiotics) or mutating viruses can be used as an example/model...
2) a stopping point before another realm/life/whatever you want to call it.
If 2 is true, but the punishment for not believing in it is eternal damnation, I sure as hell am going to try to believe in #2!
A man dies and enters the afterlife and is given a tour, walking down a beautiful beach with a cocktail in his hands, enjoying everything.
At the end of the beach there is a deep hole in the ground, a vague glow of fire can be seen and sounds of torment can be heard deep down.
"Now what's that about?"
"Oh, that's just the Catholics. Strange, but they want it that way."
I don't know if such a raw number would help, because you will need percentages to compares them with other countries' numbers.
And then there is the same problem again as the populaion structure may be very different from country to country..
Because of that there is the empiric approach used by ILO/OECD - AFAIK:
Instead of using governmental stats they do surveys and ask people if they have a job, are looking for one, how long they are unemployed etc and use those results to calculate the numbers for each country.
I found their numbers here
The question in your mind should be - is what Paris Hilton does considered "employment?" AC, I would really like to mod you up.. ;-)
Although I am not sure about funny or insightful.
Actors (no: despite one short film, Paris Hilton is not an actress) for example are one group of people that are difficult to classify in that regard.
They are/were often regularly employed by theaters, movie or TV companys, but usually have a more or less long time between engagements until they get a new role.
Are they allowed to register as unemployed until they are hired for a new role, getting a percentage of the salary for their last movie?
One major point is who you count; examples:
That's one "funny" problem in Germany right now:
Due to a part of a federal law change (meant to reduce unemployment) Germany's rate is jumping right now:
municipalities are "reclassifying" recipients of social security that in reality can't or won't work as people who are able to work (=can _in_theory_ work at _some_ job for at least 3 hours a day), upping the current unemployment rate big time.
The money is about the same, so why are they doing such a silly bureaucratic thing, binding even more resources meant to help willing people find a job, lessening their chances?
A: Because of the new law, unemployment insurance is now payed from the federal fund and municipalities are only responsible for social security.
In some areas more than 99% of former social security recipients are suddenly able to work again.
It's really a wonder! Must be Jesus doing a "Germany 2005 Tour" or something like that..
Now, who didn't see that one coming..
I'm using SuSE since about version 6.0 and it came with JDKs including the source in every version.
Or do they have some special deal with sun about distribution of Java ?
I think I know what you mean by "too smooth".
;-)
In a way that is what I dislike most about the two new episodes.
Especially the background feels like it lacks details, looks somehow neglected, simply generated, artifically painted wothout mutch contour and too clean/smooth.
Even the indoor scenes look like they were filmed in a blue room without a real background(?or backdrop? not sure about the right english word for that).
Episode I and (even more) II really feel like some loveless off-the-shelf cartoon to me
- or like bridging video sequences of a computer game.
It's somewhat similar to old movies where you can clearly see that the landscape in the background is not real but painted on a canvas.
Maybe that causes some kind of disapointment:
50 years later you might expect it to look more real (knowing that it is possible) and not to take a step back to artificial again.
That somehow feels really cheap - even if all that (IMHO often unnecessary: give me real sets, dammit! I'm sure the actors/the acting will be thankful, too) CG stuff costs lots of money..
Or you can use a GPLed version for the computer: Robo Rally in Java (minus option cards)
If you know how to use CVS (and have Apache Ant or Eclipse installed) I recommend the CVS version though.
(Project page on Sourcforge)
<shameless plug>
As heise reports, the Danish parliament has bindingly instructed their secretary of commerce to vote AGAINST software patents,
so the law can't be nodded through.
According to their parliaments some other ministers are instructed (more or less bindingly) to support another country's approach to restart the whole process:
Poland, Netherlands, Spain (had already voted against it in the last session), maybe Germany (but represented by some stubbor a..hat, so..)
Also it is likely that some countries that were neutral during the last voting (like Austria, Belgium, Italy) will support a complete restart.
A radar detector helps immensely
Speaking of something like that - a little thought:
the argument that raising the speed limit has not increased the number of accidents might only work (well) if you assume that only very few people were speeding during the time of the lower limit.
If everybody was (and is now legally) going at 60-70 you wouldn't see a difference.
Would be interesting to have some _good_ stats about how many people were speeding with limit 55, how fast were they going, on what roads etc compared to limit 70.
And out of curiosity as Non-Us-guy: where do those limits apply? Highways? Freeways? I sure hope not within city limits..?
I think Winamp (2.xy) does a better job at that than Winamp. I didn't use Windows and so Winamp for a long time but I remember very well
;-)
(using the same playlist for Winamp and xmms) that I recognized problems ("that song again and again") with xmms but not with Winamp.
I think the playlist must had between 300-500 entries.
Also, I remember a friend I introduced to Linux asking me if I knew a way to get xmms to play all songs in shuffle mode and not the same selection over and over again.
P.S.
For converting (some) people from Windows to Linux:
Forget "geeky" arguments. Show them all the little games like KPatience and Shisen-Sho, kde with rotating background pictures, background color gradients,
desktop themes and most importantly xsnow if she likes kitschy X-mas stuff.
To quote the cast list: :-)
Magrat Garlick (Julia Knobloch)
The German translation of "garlic" is "Knoblauch", only a little different from "Knoblauch - as "garlick" is different from "garlic"
And in fact, "Magrat Garlick" really is named "Magrat Knobloch" in the German translation of the Discworld series
It is not that surprising from an economical point of view:
Reality soaps are really cheap to produce compared to most sci-fi (special effects, space scenes etc),
but sadly still get a lot of viewers.
So you have a cheap show that can sell more or less expensive advertisement blocks.
Compared to that a sci-fi show would have to draw a _huge_ audience to generate the same profit per dollar spent to create it.
At least that's one reason I read why some sci-fi show was canceled despite somewhat decent ratings
(?or was it why Firefly didn't get a second - some might say: a first - chance in light of the DVD sales?
IIRC it was really expensive per episode, even for sci-fi).
I noticed that, too. Strange. Maybe in the US some TV station was still paying to broadcast it.
I don't live in the US but I bought almost all season boxes in the US or UK as the prices in Germany are insane compared to the U?.
And I don't like to pay three times the money for a horrible dubbing I can't stand.
Numbers to think about for German Joss Whedon fans:
Bought the 4th Angel season as RC1 from playusa.com; price including German VAT, customs: ~45 Euro
Sales price in Germany for a whole season: ~120 Euro
For that money you could additionally order a RC1 DVD player and still pay less..
P.S.
I think this strange lag doesn't exist anymore. At least the 5th season of Angel is available in the US but not yet in Germany.
Not that I would buy it here anyway..
We - even those of us in Europe - desperately need to know how the hell our continent is run.
Well..I had that for a whole semester in school, in the year before graduating:
How does the EU work..what does it do..its history..who votes/appoints whom..where are the democratic deficits..
what will be the problems in the future (EU extension; mind you: ~1996/97).. currently debated plans to solve the current and the likely future problems etc.
At least at my (German) school people getting their "Abitur" (graduating degree after 12/13 years of school if passing the exams)
had to take two years of "Politische Weltkunde" ("political world knowledge") and make an exam - unless they didn't specialize on history or geography anyway.
But sadly, most people couldn't even say "who elects whom" on a national level..
No, the chancellor isn't elected directly by the people. Neither is the president. *sigh*
Does the EU even *have* a government?
No, At least not a democratic one.
It's like the thing was designed *by*, bureucrats *for* bureaucrats
That's essentially true.
Also, there's the parliament that is
a) a nursing home for politicians that some national party can't get rid off because of prior achievements or
b) has to move out of sight for a couple of years because of national affairs.
c) Also "parliament" sounds somewhat democratic; but don't give them real power because otherwise they might stop you from getting things done -
like introducing software patents against Europe's interests.
and point me at an online EU-civics 101 tutorial that outlines how the EU government is organized
This looks promising (from the "International UNESCO Education Server for Civic, Peace and Human Rights Education").
Also, there is a very short overview on the(?) EU site.
The idea isn't new, there is a site with a survey how many fans would pay for producing more episodes an selling them on DVD:
http://www.fireflymovie.com/directdvd.html
Speaking of Maxtor-HDs..I have a pile of dead ones lying around:
Don't trust the end-of-warranty date on the disc.
If you are going to create a RMA on the Maxtor webpage, they will show you an end-of-warranty date about three months before the one mentioned on the disc.
Also, they might not accept error codes that their PowerMax-Testtook (for-years-soon-available-for-nforce) generates.
I probably could have done something about the date/codes via phone but I wasn't in the mood for arguing around with their Helpdesk-personnel.
I use the discs in old "playing around, don't matter if the data is gone again"-systems and the five or six HDs since were all from other vendors..
I'm sure GP will agree:
;-)
file that under 'problems i'd like to have', too
Up until that point, general philosophy said you needed a king who had been raised since birth to lead to run a nation.
;-)
Not that I'm aware of. Maybe you think to much in terms of the French absolutism?
For example, the Frankish empire didn't even have a capital, IIRC Charles the Great usually traveled between lots of 'provincial' palaces.
Julius Ceaser was celebrated, along with Alexander the Greatbecause they were great top-down leaders
Mostly, they are famous for being commanders and for their conquests.
Don't know much about Alexander but during nine years of learning Latin at school I had to read a lot of Roman history..there isn't much written in Latin nowadays
Caesar was not "raised since birth to lead to run a nation".
Also, for example, the governors (appointed by the senate) of the Roman provinces (prior to the end of the Republic/the civil wars that led to Caesar becoming emperor) had lots of power.
Mostly they used their power to squeeze money out of their provinces to repay the debts they had made during their earlier political career (Caesar was totally bankrupt after his year as an aedil).
I don't know..depends on how you define literal inerpretation.
You _can_ translate it that way but it doesn't make sense; there are other "literal translations" that do make sense, for example:
"time spirit" ("spirit of time" was mentioned) would be as literal as "time ghost".
If you know Latin: "animus" captures the meaning of "Geist" very well (but animus has lots of meanings in Latin).
Or check this list of possible direct English translations of "Geist".
Well..
;-)
I have a friend who lives in Beijing (married to an American she met there, she is working as some sort of intern for a German company) since 2001 or 2002.
They didn't have problems with the government and have good relations with their neighbours.
Another couple travelled on their own through China for a month,also no problems (in theory, they had to report where they were staying that night, but never did or it was taken care of by the hotels).
They were welcomed everywhere they went, although mostly because of curiosity as they went to some places were they were the only tourists and the first blonde people there
Another friend and his-now-wife lived in China for about one or two years, no problems there (and he is a geek/CS student who wrote his final thesis there, surely used ssh a lot to log into the university network (and for sourceforge access)).
And: they didn't live somewhere in a tourist area,they rented a flat via a Chinese estate agent, they took private language lessions, dance courses, she worked in a hospital (-> interested i skills..) there yaddayadda
Both of them even appeared on TV (gameshow&some sort of propaganda news documentation "the foreigner visits our family");-)
Mind you:
I am well aware about the human rights violations in China, but I am also quite sure that you can lead a normal life there without fear.
Sure, you better don't start demos there or hand out "fuck the system"-flyers, but..
Just had to think of a joke an IBM(!)/Lotus instructor told me during some course:
Q: How can we solve the drug problem?
A: Leaglize drug selling, let IBM do all the markerting.
Didn't you mean:
"Don't worry, it was, like, waffles. But her dad like used like the last of the syrup. Like, man, he never can think of, like, her needs, can he?"
I don't know where you come from but according to a friend (in Germany)who got a purebred puppy a few weeks ago: