The Netherlands are not at all a freedom-loving country anymore. I live there, I carry a Dutch passport. This used to be a liberal country, where some things were legal that were outlawed elsewhere -- a lot of that has already changed, and soon smoking weed and squatting will be outlawed here, too. We have a very nasty extreme-right party growing in the polls, that wants to kick all muslims out. Asylum seekers are treated very badly by the state. Some die in custody. And the Dutch government is introducing one law after another that dismantles what little privacy we still enjoy in an overcrowded country. For the first time since the German occupation, people all have to carry ID now. There will be fingerprints in the new passports, from september. CCTV cameras proliferate. Parents have to answer the wildest questions about themselves and their children (like: Does you daughter have pubic hair already? How much What colour? -- I am NOT making this up). In fact, the loss of privacy and freedom is reason for my wife and me to seriously consider leaving the Netherlands. And go... where?
Wilders, it seems to me, has simply found an intricate and very public way of committing suicide. Of course, we should hope no-one actually succeeds in killing him, but is it wise to parade into a pub frequented by hooligans of team A, when you're all dressed up in the colours of team B, and announcing team B's utter superiority, and inevitable victory?
I, like many others here in the Netherlands, am quite fed up with professional hate-mongers like Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I live in a "mulitcultural" part of the city, and get along just fine with my muslim neighbours.
Of course, Wilders has every right to release his movie. But perhaps he could pay for his own security, from now on?
This almost makes the government here in the Netherlands look progressive. Of course, they're still a bunch of war-mongering morons at best, slavish vassals of the US at worst, but now, at least, they'll write their "Please Mr. Bush, tell us what to do next" letters in an open format.
Leopard does not fully live up to the hype, but it's stable on my MacBook Core 2 Duo 2 GHz and what it brings is good: Time Machine, QuickLook, Core Image, Spaces.
Every single visitor to our house sings the praise of our coffee. I use a La Pavoni Italian espresso machine, with a lever, not a pump. It takes some practice, but eventually, if you really care, you will make a perfect cup of espresso coffee 9 out of 10 times. Of course you'll use freshly roasted coffee beans that you'll grind yourself just minutes prior to making the coffee. If the tap water is low quality, use bottled water. Operating a La Pavoni is a ten step process, and if you miss or mess up a single step, you can throw away the sad result.
It's remarkable that so many of you don't seem to acknowledge, let alone accept the fact that in Europe, European law applies. Microsoft may be a US corporation, but as long as US marines aren't occupying our cities, we'll make our own laws here, thank you very much.
That being said, I should add that the EU we have now is a bureaucratic, undemocratic Moloch, and I voted against the proposed EU constitution last June (here's why). But the idea in itself of Europe imposing European laws on anyone (and any corporation) doing anything at all in Europe seems sound and fair to me.
And maybe, who knows, Microsoft having failed to bribe the EU authorities justifies some optimism regarding the democratic potential of the Union. I seem to remember that in the US, nailing Microsoft for unsavoury business practices turned out to be rather difficult.
I have this one-button Apple mouse lying on my desk and I can just grab it and press in any way whatsoever and I will have clicked, since the whole thing is one big button and that, ladies, is genius. It don't ever look at the dumb thing. I never click 'wrong'. And my trusted control key is patiently waiting for me to modify the meaning of my infallible clicks, within reach of my other finger-equipped extremity (I have two, see?).
Oh, and mod parent up, is that the correct expression? Funny! "It's like having a gun with two triggers, one kills the person in front of you, the other serves them delicious ice cream." Delicious, no less. Up! Up!
On my box, running Mac OS X 10.3.6 with all the latest Software Updates, Safari (1.2.4 (v125.12)) is not affected. I did the Secunia test, and the popup window that opened when I clicked the link was a regular Citibank popup, not the predicted Secunia one.
According to the advisory, Safari 1.2.4 is affected, but to me it seems it's not.
Maybe it's because I have Pithhelmet (an ad filter) installed?
Instinctively, I would tend to agree with those who say aliens more advanced than we are might just decide to enslave us. But on second thoughts, I'm sure they won't. A class society will never be able to develop the technology needed for interstellar travel. Then again, if communist aliens visit us, this won't be good either. It would be 'socialism from above', quite literally. And that's a bad thing, folks.
On a PowerBook G4 867 MHz, 640 MB RAM, running Mac OS X 10.3.5, AbiWord is useful only for viewing Word files. Typing is far too slow, with characters taking up to five seconds to appear. Once that's fixed, I won't bother to update OOo (ugly GUI, but typing is fast) anymore.
The Haarlem court's ruling may seem an example of famous Dutch 'tolerance' and the 'liberal' political climate here, but unfortunately the country is quickly losing those characteristics, that have always been persistently overemphasised, to begin with.
Things are rapidly changing in the Netherlands.
What are we famous for? Rembrandt will not be outlawed, but things are looking bleak when it comes to drugs, prostitution and immigration. Well, the present right-wing government is reconsidering long-standing soft drugs policies, so smoking grass may be illegal in a few years time; pimping was made legal, while prostitutes are being subjected to ever more restrictive laws and regulations, the consequence of which is the creation of a new, underground prostitution scene where all the girls from outside the EU work under bad circumstances and without any rights - which brings us to immigration: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have voiced concern about the way the Dutch regime is presently trying to get rid of thousands of asylum seekers.
To get back to the original topic: the general tendency in Dutch politics being what it is, the introduction of more restrictive copyright legislation will be a matter of time. Here, too, big corporations nearly always get what they want.
Karzan's explanation is on-the-spot. If only those criticising Marx would read Marx every once in a while, such explanations would be superfluous, but unfortunately, even the/. audience seems to consist of people who are happy to parrot their high school history teachers, their parents or other 'authorities' when it comes to politics.
In China, a socialist revolution never took place. Mao's army, upon seizing a city, proceeded to ban unions and strikes, and left the police force that defended the old regime firmly in place. To call China a communist country is to show a complete lack of understanding of socialist politics.
Study Trotsky's work if you want to fine-tune your understanding of the travesties of socialism that were found in the Soviet Union, and elsewhere, after, say, 1925.
I bought a 12 inch PowerBook G4 last month (a wonderful little machine) and decided not to buy AppleCare for it. I can still change my mind for eleven months, I suppose, but reports of faulty units are few and far apart, so any repairs that I would need would probably come from `abuse'. The only thing that worries my is the `warping' thing: the case is slightly bent already. I'll have to see how that develops. And again: I can still decide to have it repaired or replaced for nearly a year from now.
I suppose my eyesight is not what I thought it was. I do see red borders on vertical lines in text, but my bronze PowerBook certainly does not present text in an unreadable manner.
Slashdot Mirror
The Netherlands are not at all a freedom-loving country anymore. I live there, I carry a Dutch passport. This used to be a liberal country, where some things were legal that were outlawed elsewhere -- a lot of that has already changed, and soon smoking weed and squatting will be outlawed here, too. We have a very nasty extreme-right party growing in the polls, that wants to kick all muslims out. Asylum seekers are treated very badly by the state. Some die in custody. And the Dutch government is introducing one law after another that dismantles what little privacy we still enjoy in an overcrowded country. For the first time since the German occupation, people all have to carry ID now. There will be fingerprints in the new passports, from september. CCTV cameras proliferate. Parents have to answer the wildest questions about themselves and their children (like: Does you daughter have pubic hair already? How much What colour? -- I am NOT making this up). In fact, the loss of privacy and freedom is reason for my wife and me to seriously consider leaving the Netherlands. And go ... where?
Wilders, it seems to me, has simply found an intricate and very public way of committing suicide. Of course, we should hope no-one actually succeeds in killing him, but is it wise to parade into a pub frequented by hooligans of team A, when you're all dressed up in the colours of team B, and announcing team B's utter superiority, and inevitable victory?
I, like many others here in the Netherlands, am quite fed up with professional hate-mongers like Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I live in a "mulitcultural" part of the city, and get along just fine with my muslim neighbours.
Of course, Wilders has every right to release his movie. But perhaps he could pay for his own security, from now on?
This almost makes the government here in the Netherlands look progressive. Of course, they're still a bunch of war-mongering morons at best, slavish vassals of the US at worst, but now, at least, they'll write their "Please Mr. Bush, tell us what to do next" letters in an open format.
Leopard does not fully live up to the hype, but it's stable on my MacBook Core 2 Duo 2 GHz and what it brings is good: Time Machine, QuickLook, Core Image, Spaces.
Every single visitor to our house sings the praise of our coffee. I use a La Pavoni Italian espresso machine, with a lever, not a pump. It takes some practice, but eventually, if you really care, you will make a perfect cup of espresso coffee 9 out of 10 times. Of course you'll use freshly roasted coffee beans that you'll grind yourself just minutes prior to making the coffee. If the tap water is low quality, use bottled water. Operating a La Pavoni is a ten step process, and if you miss or mess up a single step, you can throw away the sad result.
It's remarkable that so many of you don't seem to acknowledge, let alone accept the fact that in Europe, European law applies. Microsoft may be a US corporation, but as long as US marines aren't occupying our cities, we'll make our own laws here, thank you very much.
That being said, I should add that the EU we have now is a bureaucratic, undemocratic Moloch, and I voted against the proposed EU constitution last June (here's why). But the idea in itself of Europe imposing European laws on anyone (and any corporation) doing anything at all in Europe seems sound and fair to me.
And maybe, who knows, Microsoft having failed to bribe the EU authorities justifies some optimism regarding the democratic potential of the Union. I seem to remember that in the US, nailing Microsoft for unsavoury business practices turned out to be rather difficult.
I have this one-button Apple mouse lying on my desk and I can just grab it and press in any way whatsoever and I will have clicked, since the whole thing is one big button and that, ladies, is genius. It don't ever look at the dumb thing. I never click 'wrong'. And my trusted control key is patiently waiting for me to modify the meaning of my infallible clicks, within reach of my other finger-equipped extremity (I have two, see?).
Oh, and mod parent up, is that the correct expression? Funny! "It's like having a gun with two triggers, one kills the person in front of you, the other serves them delicious ice cream." Delicious, no less. Up! Up!
On my box, running Mac OS X 10.3.6 with all the latest Software Updates, Safari (1.2.4 (v125.12)) is not affected. I did the Secunia test, and the popup window that opened when I clicked the link was a regular Citibank popup, not the predicted Secunia one.
According to the advisory, Safari 1.2.4 is affected, but to me it seems it's not.
Maybe it's because I have Pithhelmet (an ad filter) installed?
Instinctively, I would tend to agree with those who say aliens more advanced than we are might just decide to enslave us. But on second thoughts, I'm sure they won't. A class society will never be able to develop the technology needed for interstellar travel.
Then again, if communist aliens visit us, this won't be good either. It would be 'socialism from above', quite literally.
And that's a bad thing, folks.
On a PowerBook G4 867 MHz, 640 MB RAM, running Mac OS X 10.3.5, AbiWord is useful only for viewing Word files. Typing is far too slow, with characters taking up to five seconds to appear. Once that's fixed, I won't bother to update OOo (ugly GUI, but typing is fast) anymore.
The Haarlem court's ruling may seem an example of famous Dutch 'tolerance' and the 'liberal' political climate here, but unfortunately the country is quickly losing those characteristics, that have always been persistently overemphasised, to begin with.
Things are rapidly changing in the Netherlands.
What are we famous for? Rembrandt will not be outlawed, but things are looking bleak when it comes to drugs, prostitution and immigration. Well, the present right-wing government is reconsidering long-standing soft drugs policies, so smoking grass may be illegal in a few years time; pimping was made legal, while prostitutes are being subjected to ever more restrictive laws and regulations, the consequence of which is the creation of a new, underground prostitution scene where all the girls from outside the EU work under bad circumstances and without any rights - which brings us to immigration: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have voiced concern about the way the Dutch regime is presently trying to get rid of thousands of asylum seekers.
To get back to the original topic: the general tendency in Dutch politics being what it is, the introduction of more restrictive copyright legislation will be a matter of time. Here, too, big corporations nearly always get what they want.
That's Breukelen, not Breukelyn. A half hour's ride from where I live.
Karzan's explanation is on-the-spot. If only those criticising Marx would read Marx every once in a while, such explanations would be superfluous, but unfortunately, even the /. audience seems to consist of people who are happy to parrot their high school history teachers, their parents or other 'authorities' when it comes to politics.
In China, a socialist revolution never took place. Mao's army, upon seizing a city, proceeded to ban unions and strikes, and left the police force that defended the old regime firmly in place. To call China a communist country is to show a complete lack of understanding of socialist politics.
Study Trotsky's work if you want to fine-tune your understanding of the travesties of socialism that were found in the Soviet Union, and elsewhere, after, say, 1925.
I bought a 12 inch PowerBook G4 last month (a wonderful little machine) and decided not to buy AppleCare for it. I can still change my mind for eleven months, I suppose, but reports of faulty units are few and far apart, so any repairs that I would need would probably come from `abuse'. The only thing that worries my is the `warping' thing: the case is slightly bent already. I'll have to see how that develops. And again: I can still decide to have it repaired or replaced for nearly a year from now.
I suppose my eyesight is not what I thought it was. I do see red borders on vertical lines in text, but my bronze PowerBook certainly does not present text in an unreadable manner.