You are on your own when it comes to spreadsheets, though.
ODF is actually an opportunity for opera
The Hakon dude also came up with the CSS specification. I'm fairly certain it was this hat he was wearing, not his CTO, Opera Inc hat (which, truth be told, is a great red hat and pays his bills, but that's not the real reason you ought to listen to him).
Add to this that recently scientists have discovered how to "slow down" light
Gosh, I'm usually very mild-mannered when it comes to/., but sorry, this is a load of steaming crap. "Recently discovered"? Do you even you know what you're talking about? Does the term 'refraction' mean nothing to you?
According to Wikipedia, "the second is currently defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.
Sigh. Not according to Wikipedia, friend, but according to the Systeme Internationale. Wikipedia merely quotes SI's definition; it doesn't do the defining by itself. There's a difference.
Is the percentage of people on broadband a even valid benchmark of technological ability of a nation?
Not the only benchmark possible, but broadband penetration is definitely one of the many ways in which you should consider technological potential of an entire populace.
Here's why:
Maybe a large amount of people don't have broadband because they don't want it?
You've set yourself an impossible trap here, haven't you. If a large amount of people don't want broadband, then ipso facto, they aren't technologically advanced, are they.
IMHO, the only people who harp about this are the companies trying to get a govt subsidy.
Out here in Asia, it is governments and tech-oriented NGO's that are harping on the issue. Reason: There is a very direct correlation between technological ability and earning potential even in the deepest Africa. I would guess it is the same in the US as well.
Even without censorship, not all locations on Google Earth have the same amount of resolution. Urban areas in 'non-third-world nations', in general, have the highest resolution. So blurring (or obscuring) per se isn't an issue, unless there are complete blanks for certain areas. Which is not the case here, presumably.
Neither ipod Linux nor Rockbox works with the second gen ipod nano. I love my 2nd gen ipod nano to death, but I'm bothered by three things:- a) there is no easy way of moving songs up and down in a playlist, b) Indic characters in a song's ID3 tags don't get displayed, and c) I'd like to be able to make simple apps for route-maps and such on my nano.
Normal users might not need power-tools, but I'm willing to go the extra mile and tinker with my nano. Things will be so much easier if there is an official API.
It also ignores real wheel-dealing in these parts. Out here in Singapore, I can get an 8 gig ipod nano for S$429 at the official Apple showroom, S$380 - S$390 at the local electronic mart, Sim Lim Square, and S$350 if you search hard and bargain hard. Which one is it for Singapore?
Or wait, was that the point after all, that "true" free-trade goes on outside the realms of corporations' supply-chain networks?
Out here in Singapore, video-calls over 3G are fast becoming the norm, at least between colleagues in my company. Reason: video calls are free, while regular voice calls are charged.
The pricing's bound to change, of course, but you get the point here: 3G is no longer an niche plaything.
I included Egyptians and Sumerians when I said "Middle East".:-) The trade routes across the Arabian Sea are really old; I'm talking 2000-3000 BCE here.
Earlier empires had a distinction as opposed to the british empire; they went after countries with roughly equivalent military technology.
India, China, Middle East had free and prosperous trade for five thousand years before the Portuguese showed up in gunships and blockaded India's west coast.
The real story isn't just about weaponry, although you're right, it certainly played a huge part. The real story here is about the western powers using military power to move economic objectives, and that's something that Asia is still coming to terms with.
The mods seem to think yours was an attempt at levity, but I'll give you a serious response.
kuttaa in Hindi certainly means 'dog'. That's 'ku' as in "Kumar" as in "Kumar's at No 42", that rather popular British sitcom with British-Indian characters. The 't' here is a soft 'th', as in 'thalidomine'. Additionally, it is actually a conjunct-consonant; meaning, two 'th's combine together to form an extended 'thth' sound. Finally, the vowel at the end is a long 'a', and is pronounced as in 'fake', thus forming the word, 'kuttaa'.
The word kooTa, on the other hand, comes from a completely different language altogether. It is from Telugu, the predominant tongue in the region around the launch site.
To a native South/South East Asian speaker, 'kuttaa' and 'kooTa' are quite distinct, not just for the first vowel-sound ('u' versus an elongated 'oo'), but also for the second consonant ('th' versus a hard 'T', as in 'Tango') and for the second vowel-sound (an elongated 'aa' versus a shorter 'a').
s'ri' hari ko't'a, to properly transliterate the extended vowel sounds. Literaly translates to fort ("koot'a") of sri' hari (either a local ruler called Sri Hari, or, more likely, a reference to Lord Vishnu).
Think of it as an Indian version of Fort Lauderdale or something.:-)
It isn't. As any studio looking at getting its broadcast-flags up will realize, MS will be the ultimate arbiter of what gets played on Vista. Don't want to pay $699 for the Vista Protection Fund? See how your little HD-DVD/ Blu-Ray will become unplayable across an entire range of graphic cards.
I live in Singapore and often cross the land border over to Malaysia for the weekend, or to get some cheap deals. In the two years I've been doing this, I was never asked why I was entering Malaysia or re-entering Singapore once I was done. Note that I'm neither a Malaysian nor a Singaporean citizen.
Remember, though, that Singapore is often considered to be an authoritarian nation, with no liberal democracy structure in place. While we have a biometric pass program, that's entirely voluntary, and even there, it is neither RFID (a smart chip, I understand), nor is the actual fingerprint stored in a central database. Again, I'm stressing this, this in a nation that isn't really a bastion of the free world; we have the world's second largest concentration of security cams on the streets, a not-so-free press, and the Opposition gets into a lot of rough weather every now and then.
I'll let that sink in for a moment. An apparently authoritarian country with so-called 'protected democracy' has a more liberal visa-regime than the US.
In fact, come to think of it, I was never asked why I was visiting any of the other South East Asian countries I keep popping by, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. Not even Hong Kong, where I once landed up on a whim without a visa.
The word in the local electronics mall is that most laptops, even those from IBM/Lenovo etc., are re-branded Acer laptops.
Re:Things I would use to measure techie density...
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Legal residence doesn't count. I haven't been staying at my parents' place for the last six-and-a-half years (except for quick trips every year), but I'm required to list that address for legal reasons in my country of birth.
Besides, most folks in Asia live with their parents till they get married, so.
The CIA, though, still has not just found weapons of mass destruction, but also the nation of Boswanna, even after a spending a few millions on a fact-finding trip to Africa.
While the distinction between ta-IN and ta-SL is well-received (I don't identify myself as Tamizh, but understand a fair bit, and have friends from both sides of the Palk Straits), I'll still have to call you humourless.:-)
There are other big organizations in India switching to Linux. Kerala for one, as a commenter pointed out below, and United India Assurance (if I'm not wrong), for another.
I'm officially speaking out of my glorious backside on this, but I suppose language could be a key issue here. Tamil, famously, was the first Indian language with a full Linux UI. I have no idea (too lazy) to see if there's a Tamil version for Windows, but if there isn't, here's a very good reason. (And our Tamilian brethren, bless their hearts, are rather proud of their linguistic heritage, so there).
Slashdot Mirror
For your presentation needs.
You are on your own when it comes to spreadsheets, though.
The Hakon dude also came up with the CSS specification. I'm fairly certain it was this hat he was wearing, not his CTO, Opera Inc hat (which, truth be told, is a great red hat and pays his bills, but that's not the real reason you ought to listen to him).
Gosh, I'm usually very mild-mannered when it comes to /., but sorry, this is a load of steaming crap. "Recently discovered"? Do you even you know what you're talking about? Does the term 'refraction' mean nothing to you?
Sigh. Not according to Wikipedia, friend, but according to the Systeme Internationale . Wikipedia merely quotes SI's definition; it doesn't do the defining by itself. There's a difference.
WTF is that?! If the negotiations break down, will there be cannon-fire reaching 1 Infinite Loop or something?
Not the only benchmark possible, but broadband penetration is definitely one of the many ways in which you should consider technological potential of an entire populace.
Here's why:
You've set yourself an impossible trap here, haven't you. If a large amount of people don't want broadband, then ipso facto, they aren't technologically advanced, are they.
Out here in Asia, it is governments and tech-oriented NGO's that are harping on the issue. Reason: There is a very direct correlation between technological ability and earning potential even in the deepest Africa. I would guess it is the same in the US as well.
Even without censorship, not all locations on Google Earth have the same amount of resolution. Urban areas in 'non-third-world nations', in general, have the highest resolution. So blurring (or obscuring) per se isn't an issue, unless there are complete blanks for certain areas. Which is not the case here, presumably.
Normal users might not need power-tools, but I'm willing to go the extra mile and tinker with my nano. Things will be so much easier if there is an official API.
48 3.5" floppies for Office Professional 4.3. We began using CD's after that (Except for Win95, which needed 12 or so 3.5" floppies). :-)
It also ignores real wheel-dealing in these parts. Out here in Singapore, I can get an 8 gig ipod nano for S$429 at the official Apple showroom, S$380 - S$390 at the local electronic mart, Sim Lim Square, and S$350 if you search hard and bargain hard. Which one is it for Singapore?
Or wait, was that the point after all, that "true" free-trade goes on outside the realms of corporations' supply-chain networks?
Out here in Singapore, video-calls over 3G are fast becoming the norm, at least between colleagues in my company. Reason: video calls are free, while regular voice calls are charged.
The pricing's bound to change, of course, but you get the point here: 3G is no longer an niche plaything.
I included Egyptians and Sumerians when I said "Middle East". :-) The trade routes across the Arabian Sea are really old; I'm talking 2000-3000 BCE here.
India, China, Middle East had free and prosperous trade for five thousand years before the Portuguese showed up in gunships and blockaded India's west coast.
The real story isn't just about weaponry, although you're right, it certainly played a huge part. The real story here is about the western powers using military power to move economic objectives, and that's something that Asia is still coming to terms with.
You're right. 'Fake is a fake, a pretender; 'far' is not too far from the original sound. :-)
The mods seem to think yours was an attempt at levity, but I'll give you a serious response.
kuttaa in Hindi certainly means 'dog'. That's 'ku' as in "Kumar" as in "Kumar's at No 42", that rather popular British sitcom with British-Indian characters. The 't' here is a soft 'th', as in 'thalidomine'. Additionally, it is actually a conjunct-consonant; meaning, two 'th's combine together to form an extended 'thth' sound. Finally, the vowel at the end is a long 'a', and is pronounced as in 'fake', thus forming the word, 'kuttaa'.
The word kooTa, on the other hand, comes from a completely different language altogether. It is from Telugu, the predominant tongue in the region around the launch site. To a native South/South East Asian speaker, 'kuttaa' and 'kooTa' are quite distinct, not just for the first vowel-sound ('u' versus an elongated 'oo'), but also for the second consonant ('th' versus a hard 'T', as in 'Tango') and for the second vowel-sound (an elongated 'aa' versus a shorter 'a').
Greetings from your friendly vyákaraNa nazi. :-)
s'ri' hari ko't'a, to properly transliterate the extended vowel sounds. Literaly translates to fort ("koot'a") of sri' hari (either a local ruler called Sri Hari, or, more likely, a reference to Lord Vishnu).
Think of it as an Indian version of Fort Lauderdale or something. :-)
A highly placed contact in a certain HDD company (that recently merged with another) once told me just that.
It isn't. As any studio looking at getting its broadcast-flags up will realize, MS will be the ultimate arbiter of what gets played on Vista. Don't want to pay $699 for the Vista Protection Fund? See how your little HD-DVD/ Blu-Ray will become unplayable across an entire range of graphic cards.
I live in Singapore and often cross the land border over to Malaysia for the weekend, or to get some cheap deals. In the two years I've been doing this, I was never asked why I was entering Malaysia or re-entering Singapore once I was done. Note that I'm neither a Malaysian nor a Singaporean citizen.
Remember, though, that Singapore is often considered to be an authoritarian nation, with no liberal democracy structure in place. While we have a biometric pass program, that's entirely voluntary, and even there, it is neither RFID (a smart chip, I understand), nor is the actual fingerprint stored in a central database. Again, I'm stressing this, this in a nation that isn't really a bastion of the free world; we have the world's second largest concentration of security cams on the streets, a not-so-free press, and the Opposition gets into a lot of rough weather every now and then.
I'll let that sink in for a moment. An apparently authoritarian country with so-called 'protected democracy' has a more liberal visa-regime than the US.
In fact, come to think of it, I was never asked why I was visiting any of the other South East Asian countries I keep popping by, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. Not even Hong Kong, where I once landed up on a whim without a visa.
Fact is, you guys are getting screwed.
The word in the local electronics mall is that most laptops, even those from IBM/Lenovo etc., are re-branded Acer laptops.
Legal residence doesn't count. I haven't been staying at my parents' place for the last six-and-a-half years (except for quick trips every year), but I'm required to list that address for legal reasons in my country of birth.
Besides, most folks in Asia live with their parents till they get married, so.
The CIA, though, still has not just found weapons of mass destruction, but also the nation of Boswanna, even after a spending a few millions on a fact-finding trip to Africa.
In India we fly carpets, not chairs.
While the distinction between ta-IN and ta-SL is well-received (I don't identify myself as Tamizh, but understand a fair bit, and have friends from both sides of the Palk Straits), I'll still have to call you humourless. :-)
There are other big organizations in India switching to Linux. Kerala for one, as a commenter pointed out below, and United India Assurance (if I'm not wrong), for another.
I'm officially speaking out of my glorious backside on this, but I suppose language could be a key issue here. Tamil, famously, was the first Indian language with a full Linux UI. I have no idea (too lazy) to see if there's a Tamil version for Windows, but if there isn't, here's a very good reason. (And our Tamilian brethren, bless their hearts, are rather proud of their linguistic heritage, so there).
Just to say this: exciting to see another /.-tter from Singapore! :-)