I live in Europe. Other reasons to stay where you are could be:
- Bureaucracy (various taxes from the city hall, the province, the region,the state and indirectly from the EU.). - Bureaucracy (Even if you plan to make a small modifications on your house's façade, even if it will be seen by you only, you have to ask the permission first. and Then wait for weeks to get an answer. Do you want to have a nice walk in a forest with your dog running freely around you ? You can't. The dog has to be kept on leash). - More bureaucracy (With so many bureaucratic paper to fill in...You will forget at least one, be prepared to pay fines). - Taxes (I enjoy a 55% taxes rate on my revenues here in Belgium)) - Jobs (more difficult to get a job more simple to live with state aids) - Entrepeneurship (up to three months to launch a company due to point one two and three...You have to pass a test in front of a civil servant to proove that you are enough "smart" to manage a company). - Socialist governments considering anykind of private initiative as evil. They know better than you what is good for you. - Racism (you talk about diversity, but most Europeans support "white diversity only", racism/xenophoby is on the rise.).
It is a bit biaised. You look so positive about the EU. I thought I should balance your point of view. You are going to live under a nanny state, you have no idea how frustrating this experience could be if you enjoy your freedom.
That's why I'm considering Australia....See you in the Airport;-).
Something missing are all these data concerning your health. They were taken away at a later stage I think. Too bad...Imagine how useful this ID card would have been after a trafic accident.
This is pretty useful for any legal stuffs. But it is also a real pain in the ass when you lose it. Suddently you are nobody. You cannot access your bank account, even if you still have you driving license with you (extremely less secure, outdated paper document).
I still have my "grand grand father" ID card. an ID card from 1901. The funny thing is that there are still his profession on the card. (At that time it was usually a job for life).
That's precisly why I bought my new 20" LCD screen. I wanted To get a wider working space (I had only a 15 laptop screen previously). I was tired to click on the "start bar" endlessy.
If you really need bigger fonts because you are using a misconfigured screen: Click on Display and select large fonts.
If you are a web designer and you care about them, do everything in CSS and add a javascript to enlarge all fonts on your web site. (you may even help visually impaired surfers)
That's all. You don't need to change the whole web. And I will happily use my new LCD screen I've bought a week ago.
But please not the other way around...Don't force people with the proper configuration to change it...That's plain stupid.
It looks even like the opposite of what the CSS and the new W3C standards were all about. We would come back to the font size=2 (instead of text-size:12px) philosophy.
Netscape 4 was a huge disapointment. Everybody was looking for a more stable HTML engine with a true support for the buzz word at that time: DHTML. The result was tons of bugs and "layers".
The only great thing about this netscape 4 was their email client.
He has a nice business, a dozen of employees get a living thanks to it. Models are paid. Customers get what they were looking for. He doesn't promote anykind of violence. There is strictly nothing to be ashamed about. He should be proud of his achievment.
This is quite strange the fascination/repulsion the society has for this "traditionnal" business. It exists for centuries (first were drawings, then black and white pictures, magazines and now web sites) and so many people are still so unconfortable with it.
I don't want to sound like a hippy:-) but...Sincerily what is the worst? Producing a movie glorifying the war; singing how great the drug dealer life can be or making a video clip about a beautiful nude girl?
This was a transfer between two companies. There isn't any social security tax at this level. The only collected "tax" could be the various banks fees. It could be labelled as "credit", "capital funds", or whatever. You only need an invoice or a contract (well a paper at least) to justify the transfer.
Potential "real" explanations: 1. It would have been illegal in Belgium to have a commercial activity without any incorporation. So maybe they 've started the activity before being incorporated. Apple couldn't send the money to an "nonexistant" company.
2. Apple had no dedicated budget to fund foreign branches, they had internal negociations to take the money from various departments.
3. It took longer than expected to incorporate the company (even today I needed 2 months to get all the necessary papers to create my company...Belgium is notoriously bureaucratic, for example as a CEO you have to proof to the state administration that you have the basic knowledge to manage a company. So one day you will be face to face with a civil servant, with strictly no experience in the business, and he/she will have the power to deny you the right to create a company. Say thank you to our beloved socialist party. I guess it was even worse 20 years ago). So the Belgian branch was not fully "created".
the reporter made a mistake anyway : he has received erroneous information. He didn't double check it. He didn't understand the problem and tried/failed to explain it.
I will never buy a console at $400 or more. I'm 30 years old, I play once a week or less. games are usually 4-8 hours long, I buy around 4 games per year, they cost $75 each (if not more). So Xbox made a turnover of -/+ $1500 with me. It looks like that's not enough for them. It will be more With the Xbox 360 and PS3 (I expect a budget of $1800 or more for 4 years with games only, a lot more if I start to play with their video on demand). Too expensive.
This is getting insane. This is precisly why I left PC games, I was tired to discover that after 6 months my configuration was obsolete. (investment in hardware: $600 per year + new games).
If Nitendo provides a console at $100 or more (up to $200), I may consider buying one.
I don't need a super/hyper/ultra video card, with a hyper CPU and Giga RAM. All I need is a device to play entertaining games occasionally. I won't have this new rendering things? Who cares...I'm old enough to know that I just have to wait to get it at a decent price.
I don't need Sony/MS multimedia centre either. What's the point? They will push DRM formats, you will "force" to buy everything for every single device you own. I want to be able to record the things I've paid for, put them on a DVD or a HD, copy them, backup them and play on any of my devices. Period.
Sony and MS will never provide such a thing. I will look elsewhere to get it.
I've read last week some new projects currently done in Bangladesh (the Economist)...Not Exactly projects, they were all real private companies making "real" profits.
The genius behind the micro-credit concept is at work on new projects. He is currently building a business model on mobile phones at an extreme low cost. This mobile phones are shared between villagers.
He had the experience that none of the western brains will ever had: he actually grew up in a developping country. He can find the business models that work.
Other exciting projects are also on the table. Another one is to help villagers to get a market and competitions. A lot of products are sold to them at an artificial high price. Thanks to SMS and other media (I forgot the details), villagers will be able to compare prices and pay products at the faire one (and also selling their products at a fair price too).
My point is : All they need is freedom, justice and stability. They will find by themselves these little "hacks" that will make their society prosperous.
All these big projects will be failures. Micro-credits, micro-investment, micro-ivention, micro pragramatic stuffs are the keys.
This $100 laptops isn't on the street yet and a more competitive, flexible and cheapiest solution is already available.
They don't need Internet yet, they need to communicate at a very low price. They need information for their daily life. That's their need today, right now.
So the question is: What is the most efficient approach? Big western brains study what a poor may need. Big brains ask for charity from big pockets, spend it and no return on investment.
A More modest approach: they look at sucessful developping countries entrepreneurs, invest in their projects and expect return on investment like any investors for centuries.
You said that Europe needs 10 or even 15 years to compete with a JSF design. Well i'm totally ignorant on avionic engeneering but why do you think that countries like the UK or France (even if their are united) are so retard that they still live in a pre Internet world where high definition computer screen are still 640X480 and CD-ROM driver costs a fortune?
I mean the only explanation I've seen so far is purely financial (no budget for European armies). The problem isn't the technology/know how as such. If suddently European countries decide to invest all the money they've got in a state of the art military airplane. Do you seriously think it would take them 15 years to reach the JSF level? I can hardly believe it.
European powers thought they had a technological advantage over any other nations in the world before the World War I. Russian have learnt the hard way that humans, whatever the race could be, Japanase included, are the smartest beings on earth. If you think they are idiots, you lose.
Anyway what's the point to cause so much stress between the UK and the US. In the upcoming new world, western powers will be under severe competition with asiatic countries. If we aren't united, we will lose the leadership for a millenium if not more. If the US cannot even trust an ally like the UK, NATO is doomed.
I bought a video game few weeks ago (BET ON SOLDIERS). I knew nothing about starforce. The game had some promising features but in the end it was too "repetitive". Anyway back to the topic.
The loading time of starforce is approximatly 5 min. Then 3 minutes more for the game and their repetitive ads (I don't care what the distributor is ESC, thank you, I don't care that you advice AMD CPU, thank you ESC).
And then the game needs around 4 min to load the saved campaign.
So I have to wait +/- 12 min. or so simply to play a game.
I don't know if it is the video game fault or starforce: Each time you die, you have to wait 3 min to play again. After three reloads, you leave the game. It looks like you spend more time looking at the loading screen, than actually playing the game. The producers have never played a video game and they don't know how frustrating the whole thing is when you simply want to "play".
My computer's hardware matched their requirements.I bought it, I paid +/- $50.
I won't buy a single game with this copy protection software.Until they dramatically improve the loading time of starforce. It takes me even less time to play a game on a commodore 64 with a K7 driver.
Most updates Microsoft did on MS Word are useless. the problem isn't the feature as such, the problem is that less than 10% of Microsoft Word users know how to use style sheet, they can't even build automatically a table of contents.
If they don't use them, it simply means that they don't need them or worst they don't understand how to use them and stick to what they know.
When you need +300 pages to understand all the features of a "commodity" like a word processor, you've got a problem.
I believe in collaboration features but if they want to succeed things have to be fare more easy. Example: if you want an active workflow on a document you share with somebody, the only thing you should have to do is to click on a checkbox. Then you may expect that some users will use it.
OOo may be 10 years behind but for most users they won't even notice the "gap" between them (if such thing exists). They don't use the missing features.
here is two lines that will confuse a lot of them: from math import sqrt a,b,c=input()
What is sqrt? what should I import it? How could I know that I should import it? What is input()?
Input() is a function or a method or a new object What is an object? What is a method? What do you mean by object oriented language...Errr. I don't want to make objects, I want to make a program.
A variable...Well I know what is a variable at least. But why should I declare a variable?
I was able to code my first little program at 10 on a sinclair ZX81 (BASIC). A little program drawing dots after dots from pixel A to pixel B.
The manual was in English, I'm a native Frenchspeaker. I looked at the examples and copied some codes...And then, after weeks, I tried my first program:
(something like) 1 point_A_X=1 2 point_A_Y=1 3 point_B_X=125 4 point_B_Y=80 5 CLEAR 10 point_A_X=point_A_X+1 20 PLOT (point_A_X,point_A_Y) 30 IF (point_A_X point_B_X) GOTO 10 40 point_A_Y=point_A_Y+1 50 PLOT (point_A_X,point_A_Y) 60 IF (point_A_Y point_B_y) GOTO 40 70 PRINT "that was my first program"
RUN
Python, Ruby, C# or Java that are impossible for a 10 years old boy (genius excepted). I would have to learn first what import system.whatever or use system.whatever or import whatever means...Objects, reading a manual, or worst trying to find the information in the online documentation.
Let's face it, there is a large room for easy/limited scripting languages out there. I really hope other young boys will have the joy I had the first time I saw these little points appearing magically on my black&white screen. I discovered my passion.
What Darwin said is that they are clear evidence that species have involved. Nothing more and nothing else. He didn't argue about the way it happenned (IMHO).
A Dutch scientist (De Vries) claimed that this evolution was based on mutations (decades after the Darwin initial observations). Mengel observations on heridity was the initial support for this theory.
You tried to confirm that Evolution happenned through mutations.
So basically what Darwin told us, the fact that there were evidences of Evolution can't hardly be refuted by your simulation. This is observable without any computer. You simply need to observe living species and fossils.
I know these day most if not all Biologists think that mutation is de facto the explanation of Evolution. Back in the Darwing days, that wasn't the case.
Well i've read the article. The main point is the equation v = dx/dt (velocity). But why does he transform it into v=dt/dt to explain that time travel is impossible?
I a complete idiot in physic but time is dt=dx/v . To get a space travel dt should be "simply" negative? Why is it "impossible" to get a negative value? because there aren't such things as a "negative" distance or a negative velocity?
I'm sure there is something i simply don't understand. (completly illiterate in physic) but I want to understand:-).
Is there any physicians out there to explain all the fuss about it?
RMS has lost touch with reality occasionally (see xmacs). It looks like the guy received his mission from God himself.
I'm tired of all these ideological stuffs around computing. For most of us open source is about sharing sources.
I've learnt a lot (if not all) by looking at somebody else code. This is the fundamental thing: sharing codes, sharing knowledge.
The rest is crap. Evangelical/political stuff. I'm "really" tired of it.
If you don't like DRM, simply don't use it. If new commercial services based themselves on DRM...And if there are actually something worst listenning/watching. I will glad to install it on my PC...Whatever the OS is.
I've never used services likes monster and all. I mostly use google and alltheweb.com to get resumes around my city. I've got only those with a bit of creativity. And most importantly I can see their previous works.
If you are a freelance web designer, you "must" know the subtile differences between CSS rendering on Firefox and on Internet Explorer. You shouldn't be afraid to open notepad and write the HTML code directly. You must know all the little tricks. If you don't then you are doomed.
But...When you work inside a web agency, then roles are defined. The web designer concentrates on...design. He/she makes the lay-out according to the corporate identity, the marketing stuffs, ergonomy, and so on. His/her role is purely on design. There is another guy, a technician guy who knows everything about techniques. He/she will transform his/her work into a working HTML based lay-out.
He will give all the guarantees that it will work on all major browsers.
Then a web developer will put the lay-out inside the CMS, or as the user interface on a custom built web application.
This is a team.
On large scale project, you've got enough work justify a full-time job on design and another one to make the result HTML compliant.
My company, a small web agency outsources everything related to design. We use traditionnal infographists. We had to "educate" them on basic stuffs, but it in the end, it helps us to concentrate ourselves on the web site features and technical parts.
Most technicians are extremely bad at communication/graphism and so on. Most of us can't understand why we should spend hours to make a stupid paragraph aligned with some tiny parts of the lay-out, nor can we understand that the customer may get mad because font is Arial 10 instead of Arial 12 on the subtitle. We simply can't understand why it matters so much and why the customers cannot understand the beauty of our new CMS with all the new features that let us make multilingual content with simple clicks or this new XML import feature that works automatically with one of their partners.
A lot of talended designer are bad on the technician part. They simply don't care about how it works.
Let's leave the "philosophical" level and go back to the pragmatic level.
DRM is aimed at protecting intellectual rights on content. Who will use it? Disney, Hollywood companies, music companies and so on.
Is it their right? Yes. Nobody should be forced to sell easy to copy stuff. All they have to is to provide what has been agreed in the contract.
Who cares? Only those who watch/listen to them for free.
What do we (the geeks) want? P2P ad nauseum. We want to download MP3 and DivX as usual. No control.
Where is the problem? Some of us fear that we won't find any DivX/MP3 compliant hardware player on the market. Or that the new format will be so heavily dependant on the hardware that it will impossible to decypher.
Does it make sense? No.
Why? Because there is a market for non compliant DRM hardware.
If US/European companies won't take it, I bet everything I guest that the right answer will come from China. They have a long history at fixing commercial holes like this one.
Second...No matter what they do, until they found a way to put DRM in our eyes and ears, their product will have to produce sound and lights. They can be easily reproduced.
My Conclusion: Linus is right. We should stick to our code, a pragmatic approach will help us to "infest" their commercial machine and be at the right place to provide the neccessary alternatives.
Developping a new OS is like reinventing the wheel. You base your project on existing solutions and you move forward. You don't try to develop everythig from scratch.
The future lies in web services and possibly few niches OS based applications, IMHO.
All they need to do is to guarantee that "Free" or non MS OS/browser exist. (ie: Firefox, macOS, and so on). Then MS won't be in a position to dictate anything (like during the browser war).
They should support as much as they can alternative like Firefox.
It simply means that Google received too much money. They are wasting it. I guess their next project will be to develop an open source CMS...
The US is giving arguments to countries like China or Cuba for a more "state controlled" internet. We have already seen this trend during the last clash over ICANN.
I'm European and what suprises me is to remember that the French few days ago reinforced their wish for an European google like search engine.
it looks like both events are linked.
You may think that the biggest threat so far is directed to American citizens, but for foreigners and I guess particularly foreign officials, the biggest concern so far is that US intelligence could follow their searches request since most if not all search engines are US based.
It is simply a bad idea. For US economy (point above), for US citizens (your point) and for Internet as a whole (more and more countries wanting their share of "contols" over the Internet).
Olivier
I know both languages, I'm not a genius but they are so closed. I bought two books on C#, play around, choose a pet project to explore its features and voilà.
Some people seems to reduce the choice by either Visual studio or by Eclipse. Let me tell you that I can simply use notepad, Kwrite to start coding. Runtime environments are free to be downloaded for both. For java, I'm using other tool than Eclipse at work.
What really matters is to learn Object oriented programming. You learn faster when you have fun.
So what does the student like? Designing desktop application? Or does he prefer Server based application running on *nix OS? Does he want to join a sourceforge project? Working on a 3D video game? Developping a smartphone application? does he own a Blackberry or a Windows based smartphone? And so on.
He should choose a project, his own pet project, whatever this project could be and then he should choose the language.
There are as many demands for C# coders and for Java coders AFAIK. if you want to follow the hype, you get lost. Simply learn the language that you need. If you are a good programmer learning a new language is a matter of months (even weeks for some of us) not years.
Propose your plan. A well documented document. Describe all the potential failures the current network may face and the potential dammages. Don't go too much in the details. Use simple sentences, with the potential dammage clearly indentified.
Define the rules you would like to apply.
For each rule, set the goal. Tell them simply and clearly why the rule should be applied and what do you want to avoid.
They arenn't technicians. But they are smart. Simply use words they will understand.
If you tell them that without any backup for the mail server, the company may face up to 4 days without emails, they will understand. If you tell them that the pop server is using outdated hardware and there is probabily that the hardisk may break. Most won't understand.
Don't send the report without any "face to face" introduction, try to organize meetings. If you are unable to put them all in the same room at the same time, try to meet them one by one in their office, and finish your "lobbying" by emails.
Once the executives boards is convinced by the neccessity, define a step by step plan. Don't try to change everything in the same week. Propose it and negociate it.
Once you've got their agreement. Try to make a mailing list and explain clearly to the employees why you will perfom the change and when. Invite them to ask any question they want.
With the experience you 've got, you should send your resume to consultant agencies. That's what I planned for my carreer later (I'm Not old enough;-) ).
There are plenty of opportunities out there. Legacy systems need experts (I'm always impressed by the need of cobol programmers), team of young programmers will always make mistakes... At the end of the project they will need senior to fix them or at the beginning of it to avoid them.
I've got also a lot of friends who have settled their own company by themselves or with the help of a financially minded partner.
With a bit of luck, a good network, good work, you will end up working less and be paid twice the salary you used to get.
You simply have to change your mind. You won't be the young one eager to show your skill, but the old one who has done all the mistakes possible and who knows how to fix them.
Opera is able to make money through licenses on mobile devices, mostly Symbian Based smartphone.
I guess (Maybe I'm wrong, I have no data to backup my claims) their PC division brings symbolic returns but you can easily understand its strategic nature. (ie that's why we can talk about a possible google acquisisition).
I have to salute the tenacity of their CEO and directors. Years ago I wouldn't have put a penny in their company. I thought that the Browser market was doomed by Internet Explorer. How terribly wrong I was. A new generation of mobile device gives them the niche market they needed to survive and to prosper.
They were clever and harworkers. Clean, effcient softwares. With a true vision (first to bring the tab browsing) and an identity. When the hype was about activeX & plug-ins in 2000 (I have to confess I was part of them), they keep pushing open standards, years before Netscape launch Mozilla and paid attention to W3C.
They deserve the respect from all entrepreneurs like myself who started their activities in the dot com era.
Slashdot Mirror
I live in Europe. Other reasons to stay where you are could be:
;-).
- Bureaucracy (various taxes from the city hall, the province, the region,the state and indirectly from the EU.).
- Bureaucracy (Even if you plan to make a small modifications on your house's façade, even if it will be seen by you only, you have to ask the permission first. and Then wait for weeks to get an answer. Do you want to have a nice walk in a forest with your dog running freely around you ? You can't. The dog has to be kept on leash).
- More bureaucracy (With so many bureaucratic paper to fill in...You will forget at least one, be prepared to pay fines).
- Taxes (I enjoy a 55% taxes rate on my revenues here in Belgium))
- Jobs (more difficult to get a job more simple to live with state aids)
- Entrepeneurship (up to three months to launch a company due to point one two and three...You have to pass a test in front of a civil servant to proove that you are enough "smart" to manage a company).
- Socialist governments considering anykind of private initiative as evil. They know better than you what is good for you.
- Racism (you talk about diversity, but most Europeans support "white diversity only", racism/xenophoby is on the rise.).
It is a bit biaised. You look so positive about the EU. I thought I should balance your point of view. You are going to live under a nanny state, you have no idea how frustrating this experience could be if you enjoy your freedom.
That's why I'm considering Australia....See you in the Airport
Olivier
I'm Belgian too.
Something missing are all these data concerning your health. They were taken away at a later stage I think. Too bad...Imagine how useful this ID card would have been after a trafic accident.
This is pretty useful for any legal stuffs. But it is also a real pain in the ass when you lose it. Suddently you are nobody. You cannot access your bank account, even if you still have you driving license with you (extremely less secure, outdated paper document).
I still have my "grand grand father" ID card. an ID card from 1901. The funny thing is that there are still his profession on the card. (At that time it was usually a job for life).
Olivier
Agreed,
That's precisly why I bought my new 20" LCD screen. I wanted To get a wider working space (I had only a 15 laptop screen previously). I was tired to click on the "start bar" endlessy.
If you really need bigger fonts because you are using a misconfigured screen: Click on Display and select large fonts.
If you are a web designer and you care about them, do everything in CSS and add a javascript to enlarge all fonts on your web site. (you may even help visually impaired surfers)
That's all. You don't need to change the whole web. And I will happily use my new LCD screen I've bought a week ago.
But please not the other way around...Don't force people with the proper configuration to change it...That's plain stupid.
It looks even like the opposite of what the CSS and the new W3C standards were all about. We would come back to the font size=2 (instead of text-size:12px) philosophy.
Olivier
Netscape 4 was a huge disapointment. Everybody was looking for a more stable HTML engine with a true support for the buzz word at that time: DHTML. The result was tons of bugs and "layers".
:-)
The only great thing about this netscape 4 was their email client.
I still miss the BLINK tag
Olivier
He has a nice business, a dozen of employees get a living thanks to it. Models are paid. Customers get what they were looking for. He doesn't promote anykind of violence. There is strictly nothing to be ashamed about. He should be proud of his achievment.
:-) but...Sincerily what is the worst? Producing a movie glorifying the war; singing how great the drug dealer life can be or making a video clip about a beautiful nude girl?
This is quite strange the fascination/repulsion the society has for this "traditionnal" business. It exists for centuries (first were drawings, then black and white pictures, magazines and now web sites) and so many people are still so unconfortable with it.
I don't want to sound like a hippy
I prefer the last one.
Olivier
This was a transfer between two companies. There isn't any social security tax at this level. The only collected "tax" could be the various banks fees. It could be labelled as "credit", "capital funds", or whatever. You only need an invoice or a contract (well a paper at least) to justify the transfer.
Potential "real" explanations:
1. It would have been illegal in Belgium to have a commercial activity without any incorporation. So maybe they 've started the activity before being incorporated. Apple couldn't send the money to an "nonexistant" company.
2. Apple had no dedicated budget to fund foreign branches, they had internal negociations to take the money from various departments.
3. It took longer than expected to incorporate the company (even today I needed 2 months to get all the necessary papers to create my company...Belgium is notoriously bureaucratic, for example as a CEO you have to proof to the state administration that you have the basic knowledge to manage a company. So one day you will be face to face with a civil servant, with strictly no experience in the business, and he/she will have the power to deny you the right to create a company. Say thank you to our beloved socialist party. I guess it was even worse 20 years ago). So the Belgian branch was not fully "created".
the reporter made a mistake anyway : he has received erroneous information. He didn't double check it. He didn't understand the problem and tried/failed to explain it.
Olivier
Exactly my thought.
I will never buy a console at $400 or more. I'm 30 years old, I play once a week or less. games are usually 4-8 hours long, I buy around 4 games per year, they cost $75 each (if not more). So Xbox made a turnover of -/+ $1500 with me. It looks like that's not enough for them. It will be more With the Xbox 360 and PS3 (I expect a budget of $1800 or more for 4 years with games only, a lot more if I start to play with their video on demand). Too expensive.
This is getting insane. This is precisly why I left PC games, I was tired to discover that after 6 months my configuration was obsolete. (investment in hardware: $600 per year + new games).
If Nitendo provides a console at $100 or more (up to $200), I may consider buying one.
I don't need a super/hyper/ultra video card, with a hyper CPU and Giga RAM. All I need is a device to play entertaining games occasionally. I won't have this new rendering things? Who cares...I'm old enough to know that I just have to wait to get it at a decent price.
I don't need Sony/MS multimedia centre either. What's the point? They will push DRM formats, you will "force" to buy everything for every single device you own. I want to be able to record the things I've paid for, put them on a DVD or a HD, copy them, backup them and play on any of my devices. Period.
Sony and MS will never provide such a thing. I will look elsewhere to get it.
Olivier
Well I partly share your point of view.
I've read last week some new projects currently done in Bangladesh (the Economist)...Not Exactly projects, they were all real private companies making "real" profits.
The genius behind the micro-credit concept is at work on new projects.
He is currently building a business model on mobile phones at an extreme low cost. This mobile phones are shared between villagers.
He had the experience that none of the western brains will ever had: he actually grew up in a developping country. He can find the business models that work.
Other exciting projects are also on the table. Another one is to help villagers to get a market and competitions. A lot of products are sold to them at an artificial high price. Thanks to SMS and other media (I forgot the details), villagers will be able to compare prices and pay products at the faire one (and also selling their products at a fair price too).
My point is :
All they need is freedom, justice and stability. They will find by themselves these little "hacks" that will make their society prosperous.
All these big projects will be failures. Micro-credits, micro-investment, micro-ivention, micro pragramatic stuffs are the keys.
This $100 laptops isn't on the street yet and a more competitive, flexible and cheapiest solution is already available.
They don't need Internet yet, they need to communicate at a very low price. They need information for their daily life. That's their need today, right now.
So the question is: What is the most efficient approach?
Big western brains study what a poor may need. Big brains ask for charity from big pockets, spend it and no return on investment.
A More modest approach: they look at sucessful developping countries entrepreneurs, invest in their projects and expect return on investment like any investors for centuries.
You said that Europe needs 10 or even 15 years to compete with a JSF design. Well i'm totally ignorant on avionic engeneering but why do you think that countries like the UK or France (even if their are united) are so retard that they still live in a pre Internet world where high definition computer screen are still 640X480 and CD-ROM driver costs a fortune?
I mean the only explanation I've seen so far is purely financial (no budget for European armies). The problem isn't the technology/know how as such.
If suddently European countries decide to invest all the money they've got in a state of the art military airplane. Do you seriously think it would take them 15 years to reach the JSF level? I can hardly believe it.
European powers thought they had a technological advantage over any other nations in the world before the World War I. Russian have learnt the hard way that humans, whatever the race could be, Japanase included, are the smartest beings on earth. If you think they are idiots, you lose.
Anyway what's the point to cause so much stress between the UK and the US. In the upcoming new world, western powers will be under severe competition with asiatic countries. If we aren't united, we will lose the leadership for a millenium if not more. If the US cannot even trust an ally like the UK, NATO is doomed.
I bought a video game few weeks ago (BET ON SOLDIERS). I knew nothing about starforce. The game had some promising features but in the end it was too "repetitive". Anyway back to the topic.
The loading time of starforce is approximatly 5 min. Then 3 minutes more for the game and their repetitive ads (I don't care what the distributor is ESC, thank you, I don't care that you advice AMD CPU, thank you ESC).
And then the game needs around 4 min to load the saved campaign.
So I have to wait +/- 12 min. or so simply to play a game.
I don't know if it is the video game fault or starforce: Each time you die, you have to wait 3 min to play again. After three reloads, you leave the game. It looks like you spend more time looking at the loading screen, than actually playing the game.
The producers have never played a video game and they don't know how frustrating the whole thing is when you simply want to "play".
My computer's hardware matched their requirements.I bought it, I paid +/- $50.
I won't buy a single game with this copy protection software.Until they dramatically improve the loading time of starforce. It takes me even less time to play a game on a commodore 64 with a K7 driver.
Most updates Microsoft did on MS Word are useless. the problem isn't the feature as such, the problem is that less than 10% of Microsoft Word users know how to use style sheet, they can't even build automatically a table of contents. If they don't use them, it simply means that they don't need them or worst they don't understand how to use them and stick to what they know. When you need +300 pages to understand all the features of a "commodity" like a word processor, you've got a problem. I believe in collaboration features but if they want to succeed things have to be fare more easy. Example: if you want an active workflow on a document you share with somebody, the only thing you should have to do is to click on a checkbox. Then you may expect that some users will use it. OOo may be 10 years behind but for most users they won't even notice the "gap" between them (if such thing exists). They don't use the missing features.
here is two lines that will confuse a lot of them:
from math import sqrt
a,b,c=input()
What is sqrt? what should I import it? How could I know that I should import it? What is input()?
Input() is a function or a method or a new object
What is an object? What is a method? What do you mean by object oriented language...Errr. I don't want to make objects, I want to make a program.
A variable...Well I know what is a variable at least.
But why should I declare a variable?
I was able to code my first little program at 10 on a sinclair ZX81 (BASIC). A little program drawing dots after dots from pixel A to pixel B.
The manual was in English, I'm a native Frenchspeaker. I looked at the examples and copied some codes...And then, after weeks, I tried my first program:
(something like)
1 point_A_X=1
2 point_A_Y=1
3 point_B_X=125
4 point_B_Y=80
5 CLEAR
10 point_A_X=point_A_X+1
20 PLOT (point_A_X,point_A_Y)
30 IF (point_A_X point_B_X) GOTO 10
40 point_A_Y=point_A_Y+1
50 PLOT (point_A_X,point_A_Y)
60 IF (point_A_Y point_B_y) GOTO 40
70 PRINT "that was my first program"
RUN
Python, Ruby, C# or Java that are impossible for a 10 years old boy (genius excepted). I would have to learn first what import system.whatever or use system.whatever or import whatever means...Objects, reading a manual, or worst trying to find the information in the online documentation.
Let's face it, there is a large room for easy/limited scripting languages out there. I really hope other young boys will have the joy I had the first time I saw these little points appearing magically on my black&white screen. I discovered my passion.
What Darwin said is that they are clear evidence that species have involved. Nothing more and nothing else. He didn't argue about the way it happenned (IMHO).
A Dutch scientist (De Vries) claimed that this evolution was based on
mutations (decades after the Darwin initial observations). Mengel observations on heridity was the initial support for this theory.
You tried to confirm that Evolution happenned through mutations.
So basically what Darwin told us, the fact that there were evidences of Evolution can't hardly be refuted by your simulation. This is observable without any computer. You simply need to observe living species and fossils.
I know these day most if not all Biologists think that mutation is de facto the explanation of Evolution. Back in the Darwing days, that wasn't the case.
Olivier
Well i've read the article. The main point is the equation
:-).
;-).
v = dx/dt (velocity). But why does he transform it into v=dt/dt to explain that time travel is impossible?
I a complete idiot in physic but time is dt=dx/v . To get a space travel dt should be "simply" negative? Why is it "impossible" to get a negative value? because there aren't such things as a "negative" distance or a negative velocity?
I'm sure there is something i simply don't understand. (completly illiterate in physic) but I want to understand
Is there any physicians out there to explain all the fuss about it?
Let's go back to my little computer world
RMS has lost touch with reality occasionally (see xmacs). It looks like the guy received his mission from God himself.
I'm tired of all these ideological stuffs around computing. For most of us open source is about sharing sources.
I've learnt a lot (if not all) by looking at somebody else code. This is the fundamental thing: sharing codes, sharing knowledge.
The rest is crap. Evangelical/political stuff. I'm "really" tired of it.
If you don't like DRM, simply don't use it. If new commercial services based themselves on DRM...And if there are actually something worst listenning/watching. I will glad to install it on my PC...Whatever the OS is.
I confirm as a IT business owner.
I've never used services likes monster and all. I mostly use google and alltheweb.com to get resumes around my city. I've got only those with a bit of creativity. And most importantly I can see their previous works.
If you are a freelance web designer, you "must" know the subtile differences between CSS rendering on Firefox and on Internet Explorer. You shouldn't be afraid to open notepad and write the HTML code directly. You must know all the little tricks. If you don't then you are doomed.
But...When you work inside a web agency, then roles are defined. The web designer concentrates on...design. He/she makes the lay-out according to the corporate identity, the marketing stuffs, ergonomy, and so on. His/her role is purely on design. There is another guy, a technician guy who knows everything about techniques. He/she will transform his/her work into a working HTML based lay-out.
He will give all the guarantees that it will work on all major browsers.
Then a web developer will put the lay-out inside the CMS, or as the user interface on a custom built web application.
This is a team.
On large scale project, you've got enough work justify a full-time job on design and another one to make the result HTML compliant.
My company, a small web agency outsources everything related to design. We use traditionnal infographists. We had to "educate" them on basic stuffs, but it in the end, it helps us to concentrate ourselves on the web site features and technical parts.
Most technicians are extremely bad at communication/graphism and so on. Most of us can't understand why we should spend hours to make a stupid paragraph aligned with some tiny parts of the lay-out, nor can we understand that the customer may get mad because font is Arial 10 instead of Arial 12 on the subtitle. We simply can't understand why it matters so much and why the customers cannot understand the beauty of our new CMS with all the new features that let us make multilingual content with simple clicks or this new XML import feature that works automatically with one of their partners.
A lot of talended designer are bad on the technician part. They simply don't care about how it works.
Let's leave the "philosophical" level and go back to the pragmatic level.
DRM is aimed at protecting intellectual rights on content.
Who will use it? Disney, Hollywood companies, music companies and so on.
Is it their right?
Yes. Nobody should be forced to sell easy to copy stuff. All they have to is to provide what has been agreed in the contract.
Who cares?
Only those who watch/listen to them for free.
What do we (the geeks) want?
P2P ad nauseum. We want to download MP3 and DivX as usual. No control.
Where is the problem?
Some of us fear that we won't find any DivX/MP3 compliant hardware player on the market. Or that the new format will be so heavily dependant on the hardware that it will impossible to decypher.
Does it make sense?
No.
Why?
Because there is a market for non compliant DRM hardware.
If US/European companies won't take it, I bet everything I guest that the right answer will come from China. They have a long history at fixing commercial holes like this one.
Second...No matter what they do, until they found a way to put DRM in our eyes and ears, their product will have to produce sound and lights. They can be easily reproduced.
My Conclusion:
Linus is right. We should stick to our code, a pragmatic approach will help us to "infest" their commercial machine and be at the right place to provide the neccessary alternatives.
Exactly
Developping a new OS is like reinventing the wheel. You base your project on existing solutions and you move forward. You don't try to develop everythig from scratch.
The future lies in web services and possibly few niches OS based applications, IMHO.
All they need to do is to guarantee that "Free" or non MS OS/browser exist. (ie: Firefox, macOS, and so on). Then MS won't be in a position to dictate anything (like during the browser war).
They should support as much as they can alternative like Firefox.
It simply means that Google received too much money. They are wasting it.
I guess their next project will be to develop an open source CMS...
Brief summary:
Rim used to be the bastard. NTP is the bastard. Lawyers changed brilliant inventors into agressive beasts.
Conclusion:
the US patent system is bad for the US economy and bad for your ego.
The US is giving arguments to countries like China or Cuba for a more "state controlled" internet. We have already seen this trend during the last clash over ICANN. I'm European and what suprises me is to remember that the French few days ago reinforced their wish for an European google like search engine. it looks like both events are linked. You may think that the biggest threat so far is directed to American citizens, but for foreigners and I guess particularly foreign officials, the biggest concern so far is that US intelligence could follow their searches request since most if not all search engines are US based. It is simply a bad idea. For US economy (point above), for US citizens (your point) and for Internet as a whole (more and more countries wanting their share of "contols" over the Internet). Olivier
I know both languages, I'm not a genius but they are so closed. I bought two books on C#, play around, choose a pet project to explore its features and voilà.
Some people seems to reduce the choice by either Visual studio or by Eclipse. Let me tell you that I can simply use notepad, Kwrite to start coding. Runtime environments are free to be downloaded for both. For java, I'm using other tool than Eclipse at work.
What really matters is to learn Object oriented programming. You learn faster when you have fun.
So what does the student like? Designing desktop application? Or does he prefer Server based application running on *nix OS? Does he want to join a sourceforge project? Working on a 3D video game? Developping a smartphone application? does he own a Blackberry or a Windows based smartphone? And so on.
He should choose a project, his own pet project, whatever this project could be and then he should choose the language.
There are as many demands for C# coders and for Java coders AFAIK. if you want to follow the hype, you get lost. Simply learn the language that you need. If you are a good programmer learning a new language is a matter of months (even weeks for some of us) not years.
Olivier
Avoid tech slang at any cost.
Propose your plan. A well documented document. Describe all the potential failures the current network may face and the potential dammages. Don't go too much in the details. Use simple sentences, with the potential dammage clearly indentified.
Define the rules you would like to apply.
For each rule, set the goal. Tell them simply and clearly why the rule should be applied and what do you want to avoid.
They arenn't technicians. But they are smart. Simply use words they will understand.
If you tell them that without any backup for the mail server, the company may face up to 4 days without emails, they will understand.
If you tell them that the pop server is using outdated hardware and there is probabily that the hardisk may break. Most won't understand.
Don't send the report without any "face to face" introduction, try to organize meetings. If you are unable to put them all in the same room at the same time, try to meet them one by one in their office, and finish your "lobbying" by emails.
Once the executives boards is convinced by the neccessity, define a step by step plan. Don't try to change everything in the same week. Propose it and negociate it.
Once you've got their agreement. Try to make a mailing list and explain clearly to the employees why you will perfom the change and when. Invite them to ask any question they want.
Olivier
With the experience you 've got, you should send your resume to consultant agencies. That's what I planned for my carreer later (I'm Not old enough ;-) ).
There are plenty of opportunities out there. Legacy systems need experts (I'm always impressed by the need of cobol programmers), team of young programmers will always make mistakes... At the end of the project they will need senior to fix them or at the beginning of it to avoid them.
I've got also a lot of friends who have settled their own company by themselves or with the help of a financially minded partner.
With a bit of luck, a good network, good work, you will end up working less and be paid twice the salary you used to get.
You simply have to change your mind. You won't be the young one eager to show your skill, but the old one who has done all the mistakes possible and who knows how to fix them.
Opera is able to make money through licenses on mobile devices, mostly Symbian Based smartphone.
I guess (Maybe I'm wrong, I have no data to backup my claims) their PC division brings symbolic returns but you can easily understand its strategic nature. (ie that's why we can talk about a possible google acquisisition).
I have to salute the tenacity of their CEO and directors.
Years ago I wouldn't have put a penny in their company. I thought that the Browser market was doomed by Internet Explorer. How terribly wrong I was. A new generation of mobile device gives them the niche market they needed to survive and to prosper.
They were clever and harworkers. Clean, effcient softwares. With a true vision (first to bring the tab browsing) and an identity. When the hype was about activeX & plug-ins in 2000 (I have to confess I was part of them), they keep pushing open standards, years before Netscape launch Mozilla and paid attention to W3C.
They deserve the respect from all entrepreneurs like myself who started their activities in the dot com era.
Olivier