Hah! Just about any consumer products I look to buy here in Ireland are cheaper in the US than anywhere in the EU. Far from getting fleeced, you get rock-bottom prices cause that's all the US consumer is prepared (or able) to pay (this has been the truthful response I received from at least one customer service dept - others try the Steve Job's "cost of doing business" line or cite tax differences). Oftentimes the numerical prices in dollars is less than the numerical price in euro, even now with such a disparity in exchange rates! Tax doesn't remotely account for the difference, as at most, generally there's 10% extra to the price due to tax differences. Whereas the price difference can be 50% or more!
I object to any attempts to get me to buy something I don't want or need. If there's something I do want, I'll go look for it. In fairness, with the Internet to research products on demand and get manufacturers sugar-coated fluff, end-users rants, actual prices and where to buy, who needs ads?
I'm OK with products being presented in a way that tries to make them look good, that's perfectly reasonable even if one can be fooled sometimes. Fortunately we have pretty good governmental regulation here in Europe to attempt to ensure packaging etc. doesn't have fraudulant claims and includes necessary information. I'm rather happy that we're starting to have more obvious content information on food products, e.g. salt content as % recommended daily intake. Although it's mindboggling the likes of instant noodle snacks don't reduce their salt rather than baldly print the equivalent of "this will kill you" on the packet.
Plenty of people have fridges that aren't keeping food at a low enough temperature, people keep things in the fridge for too long, let the fridge get unhygenically dirty, have open containers, etc., etc.
Plenty of people can't actually even use fridges properly.
For a start, there are very distinct types of book in the Bible. Some are obviously history books (Kings, Chronicles), and while there are holes to pick there, they probably are not even as great as modern history books (which do at the least present the past in a particular fashion even if just using "facts"). Psalms is a book of music. There are books of prophecy (considering the nature of "prophecy" even if real, they are for sure going to be a bit different to other books) - some of which did indeed prophesy about real events that later occurred. The gospels are literally that - from even the style of writing they are written as witness accounts - if not direct, then as close as you're going to get. They aren't remotely the same kind of writing as say the Book of Jonah. Pauls letters are quite transparently theological analysis based on the gospels and scriptures (the old testament).
I do not doubt that there's an awful lot to argue about what the Bible *is* and the nature of various parts of it, but it's not sensible to outright write off the whole thing due to choosing some random part of it that seems very odd out of context.
The job of the government is to govern. To manage the country, act in its best interest. Democracy is useful in giving the public some say in the government's make-up (in theory it allows the public to get rid of politicians who are becoming totalitarian or not acting in the country's interest), but I do not subscribe to the concept that it would be better if the public dictated exactly how the country were run. That said, our current politicians are mostly muppets, but that's mostly because the public chooses those muppets. Certainly here in Ireland with PR-STV voting we could choose differently (your vote counts in deciding between the major contendors even if you vote for a minor contendor), but our constituency politics means that we elect a national parliament of county councillors - acting in the interest of their local voting base or vested interests rather than the country.
Quite frankly, I do expect the government to interfere and at least attempt to rectify a country's problems. Indeed even if some problems are general problems of society, then the government should recognise them, highlight the issues and inform people, and certain act to alleviate the symptoms even if directly they can't cure the diseases of society. Partly, even our current inept governments do somewhat act along these lines, and quite rightly. Yet all a lot of commentators do is cry out about Nanny-states and interference.
The attitude of some people online who seem to think the ungoverned disaster that is Internet culture should be extended to the real world is not rational. One may as well not have a government if one were bending to the hippy-esque nonsense spewed forth from blogs, Wikipedia, etc.
Eurozone is only relevant to the last 8 years - prior to that there was no difference compared to say UK on the language/currency benefit score.
Ireland is not pro-US, though the government certainly is.
Ireland doesn't have much in the way of right or left, it's all pretty centerist and the policies are usually whatever gets the policians into power. The exception being the right-wing minor PD party that was allowed by the main party Fianna Fáil to drive some ridiculous nonsense through. Out of self-interest of potential benefits for their friends (FOFF) rather than any real right-wing ideology.
You're not kidding. Best of all if you're a builder though.
We did get maybe two days of sunshine this summer. But screw it, next year I'm getting out of here for the summer.
Partnership is doomed - the "essential" professions can't afford sensible accommodation without major pay increases. Government lack of development planning (i.e. whatever the builders want to build, wherever, they can and sure who needs infrastructure to go with) will ultimately be to blame for the breakdown of union/strike/pay management.
I'll agree to that, having recently purchased the whole TNG caboodle on DVD with it finally being a sensible price (oh if only I could have bought such a thing in my teenage Trekkie heyday).
There are of course *some* good episodes in later seasons, indeed occasional gems, but there's a lot of waffle to wade through. The bulk of season 4 and 5 TNG seems to be particularly bad despite occasional true Trek episodes.
I found a new-found appreciation for season 1 and 2 on rewatching 10 years later; they are kinda like the old Star Trek but updated, and the TNG crew works quite well - even the doctor substitute in season 2.
Season 3, bar a few average episodes, is just the business on TNG. Plenty of episodes that are what Trek should be, and varying quite a bit from episode to episode.
Disclaimer - I never watched season 7 of DS9, past season 2 of Voyager, or any of Enterprise. Nor Star Trek:Nemesis.
A small rural village? Unless you've put a reasonably decent bit of well-presented detail up about it, there's every possibility it'll be deleted as unverified, non-notable, etc., etc.
Trying to pretend religion is the cause of humankind's problems and that people would all get along merrily if it were not for religion is just as absurd. It's as absurd as those who decry the "intolerance" of the religious while themselves being intolerant of the religious.
You're missing the point - it's more like if you are paid less by your employer (and anyone else) than you spend at the grocery store, on accommodation, everything else. Eventually, even if you're living on credit, you'll not be able to sustain such a deficit.
Isn't the Xbox360's non-implementation of HDCP a bad thing? I mean can't the copy-protection on the discs be later arranged such that the Xbox360 is blacklisted and they won't play back on it?
They will later though, when pricing is saner, we all have our HD TVs (or pretend ones) and next-gen discs are used for PCs.
The truth is, DVD is pretty poor resolution - it's very obvious even now on PC playback (where one already does have high-res screen).
A lot rides on the Playstation 3, if it finally takes off properly, then it'll not only put Blu-ray in front, but it'll push ahead HD playback in general. Already the main HD discs I see in shops are Blu-ray, simply because those shops also sell the PS3, and some of the more fanatical PS3 owners buy the discs.
Wah wah wah. Here in Ireland the income tax rates are (for a single person), 20% on the first €34,000 and 40% on the balance. Admittedly there are tax allowances (everyone gets them automatically but you need to inform the tax people if you're eligible for greater allowances) which reduce the tax payable and also there are various other tax reliefs for having a mortgage, paying rent, etc. - though these calculations aren't automatically used on your tax payment, even though your payments are automatic (taken directly from your wages).
In addition, our default sales tax is 21% (yes, you read that correctly). The vast majority of the price of petrol (gasoline) is tax. Oh - and did I mention that retail prices are higher here than in the US too?
You'd think these taxes would pay for lots, but our kids don't have enough classrooms, we don't have enough teachers, nurses or police, an entire city doesn't have clean water, our hospitals are inadequate and A&E patients are left on trolleys in corridors, we're only now getting some decent roads in the country, our public transport is the worst in Europe - people drive more km per person in Ireland than the US. Also, this performance gets a government re-elected for the third time.
Admittedly most people have jobs (~4% unemployment, that includes people who can't work or are between jobs). Still, it feels like we've almost got the social injustices of American-style capitalism with the tax burden of European social democracy.
Don't you know anything about the Western world (well, OK, USA particularly)? Intolerance is inexcusable (freedom of speech, belief, etc.) except when it's against conservatives - they're obviously wrong and should be locked up.
Have pity for us in Ireland - we pay a TV licence fee to our government, yet our publicly funded broadcaster, RTÉ, gets to use commercial advertising too. You'd think of course they'd have great home-produced content? Hah hah hah hah. I'm just happy that one can usually get BBC without too much hassle here in Ireland, although it usually involves paying cable/satellite providers.
If we ever get Digital Terrestrial here, it could be used to broadcast BBC (encrypted and requiring a minimal monthly fee) - except that unsurprisingly enough, RTÉ will let that happen over their dead bodies (they control the current transmission network).
Realistically, that's a naive view of how things actually work on Wikipedia. In reality, certain contributors earn or grab authority and their views are given more weight than those who are newer, less experienced, or who hold unpopular views. Not only that, but certain contributors "get away" with more through either an earned status, or essentially sort of being a bully (or at the least, having more perserverance or perservering back-up supporters).
In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a traditional authority structure, however much not having one has certain advantages.
One cannot expect a project of such a magnitude to survive in the real world (for all the talk of a "second life", people forget that the Internet is reality - part of our boring old society) without a sensible authority structure - and indeed rules decided by something else other than what sticks on a wiki. Even from a purely legal standpoint, Wikipedia is only going to have more trouble in the future than it can eventually handle.
In the book - it isn't settled that Dumbledore *didn't* kill his sister. Harry didn't like to ask in case Dumbledore now knew for certain that he had been the one who killed her during the fight.
You might be right about some of the deaths being quick and sudden or random - but that was the point - they served the purpose that you did not know who would be next. I did not know for sure that Harry (or Ron or Hermione) would survive till the end of the book.
Maybe some folks would liked it all to have ended badly. Me, I appreciated that I didn't know whether it would end well or not till the very end - and having reached the end, I did not wish for a thoroughly sad and depressing end to the tale; however much I had anticipated one.
Personally - I'd avoid most PC manufacturers. I've bought Dell for my current desktop and laptop because it was cheapest for the specs I wanted and still cheapest with 4 year on-site warranty. Admittedly I had to wait several months each time to catch just the right deal and specs.
I know quite a few people with Apple kit - they really like it and are happy with it - it is stylish and relatively functional; but have all had hellish experiences with customer "care" and warranties and sending stuff back for repair, and have had to fork out through the nose for some of the kit too.
I agree - gameplay-wise Civ4 is the pinnacle of acheivement (and I've played all previous versions as well as the Call to Power offshoots). For all the annoyances that are simplified (that people might call dumbing down but I say they're carefully done and make the game much more enjoyable) there is other complexity added.
The pretty graphics is just icing on the cake, and I feel it does help immersion to see the cities evolve up close, all the terrain and resources to hand, to see the units so clearly.
I may have to go play this again this evening... This is going to be quite detrimental to my sleep...
LOTR was so smooth and immersive because it wasn't just CGI. It was a whole lot of set design, props, cool camera work and *then* clever CGI over the whole lot. I'm sure it helped even with the acting to have so much actually recreated, even if it was all amended, tweaked and expanded by CGI effects. The combination of not entirely relying on detailed real pieces, but not entirely on CGI effects is the best of both worlds in my opinion.
The extra "making of" material on the extended LOTR DVDs is really worth watching in full, it's fascinating. Even the galleries of all the artwork, prop design, etc. are worth going through in full. Just find a rainy Sunday afternoon a couple of times and sit down and go through it all.
Give over. I'm certainly in favour of using censorship very sparingly indeed, but this seems to definitely be a game deserving of being the first computer game ever banned in my own country, Ireland. It is entirely sensible for a government to decide that it's not particularly good for society if some adults let alone kids play a computer game where they pretend to use "a saw blade to cut upward into a foe's groin and buttocks, motioning forward and backward with the Wii remote as you go". In fact, it would probably better for them to allow people to buy this and keep tabs on people who are happy to be entertained by such violence.
Let this go and what happens when something worse again is published? What about the time after that? Is it perfectly fine to allow society to go in a direction where such "freedom" is allowed? The ultimate end would be the destruction of society. We're already on the road to that - people still have strong values concerning protection of children for example, but for how long? Already much of the public are allowing commercial forces to deliberately market sex fashion to lower and lower age groups.
With the banning of this game in Ireland and the UK I'm glad to see that the issue of violence in "entertainment" isn't a lost cause.
Slashdot Mirror
Hah! Just about any consumer products I look to buy here in Ireland are cheaper in the US than anywhere in the EU. Far from getting fleeced, you get rock-bottom prices cause that's all the US consumer is prepared (or able) to pay (this has been the truthful response I received from at least one customer service dept - others try the Steve Job's "cost of doing business" line or cite tax differences). Oftentimes the numerical prices in dollars is less than the numerical price in euro, even now with such a disparity in exchange rates! Tax doesn't remotely account for the difference, as at most, generally there's 10% extra to the price due to tax differences. Whereas the price difference can be 50% or more!
I've avoided starting the series, based on the frustration of people I know who've read the books faithfully and have been hanging on for so long.
I think I'll still wait till some semblence of a final book is pulled together and published.
I object to any attempts to get me to buy something I don't want or need. If there's something I do want, I'll go look for it. In fairness, with the Internet to research products on demand and get manufacturers sugar-coated fluff, end-users rants, actual prices and where to buy, who needs ads?
I'm OK with products being presented in a way that tries to make them look good, that's perfectly reasonable even if one can be fooled sometimes. Fortunately we have pretty good governmental regulation here in Europe to attempt to ensure packaging etc. doesn't have fraudulant claims and includes necessary information. I'm rather happy that we're starting to have more obvious content information on food products, e.g. salt content as % recommended daily intake. Although it's mindboggling the likes of instant noodle snacks don't reduce their salt rather than baldly print the equivalent of "this will kill you" on the packet.
Plenty of people have fridges that aren't keeping food at a low enough temperature, people keep things in the fridge for too long, let the fridge get unhygenically dirty, have open containers, etc., etc.
Plenty of people can't actually even use fridges properly.
For a start, there are very distinct types of book in the Bible. Some are obviously history books (Kings, Chronicles), and while there are holes to pick there, they probably are not even as great as modern history books (which do at the least present the past in a particular fashion even if just using "facts"). Psalms is a book of music. There are books of prophecy (considering the nature of "prophecy" even if real, they are for sure going to be a bit different to other books) - some of which did indeed prophesy about real events that later occurred. The gospels are literally that - from even the style of writing they are written as witness accounts - if not direct, then as close as you're going to get. They aren't remotely the same kind of writing as say the Book of Jonah. Pauls letters are quite transparently theological analysis based on the gospels and scriptures (the old testament).
I do not doubt that there's an awful lot to argue about what the Bible *is* and the nature of various parts of it, but it's not sensible to outright write off the whole thing due to choosing some random part of it that seems very odd out of context.
The job of the government is to govern. To manage the country, act in its best interest. Democracy is useful in giving the public some say in the government's make-up (in theory it allows the public to get rid of politicians who are becoming totalitarian or not acting in the country's interest), but I do not subscribe to the concept that it would be better if the public dictated exactly how the country were run. That said, our current politicians are mostly muppets, but that's mostly because the public chooses those muppets. Certainly here in Ireland with PR-STV voting we could choose differently (your vote counts in deciding between the major contendors even if you vote for a minor contendor), but our constituency politics means that we elect a national parliament of county councillors - acting in the interest of their local voting base or vested interests rather than the country.
Quite frankly, I do expect the government to interfere and at least attempt to rectify a country's problems. Indeed even if some problems are general problems of society, then the government should recognise them, highlight the issues and inform people, and certain act to alleviate the symptoms even if directly they can't cure the diseases of society. Partly, even our current inept governments do somewhat act along these lines, and quite rightly. Yet all a lot of commentators do is cry out about Nanny-states and interference.
The attitude of some people online who seem to think the ungoverned disaster that is Internet culture should be extended to the real world is not rational. One may as well not have a government if one were bending to the hippy-esque nonsense spewed forth from blogs, Wikipedia, etc.
Eurozone is only relevant to the last 8 years - prior to that there was no difference compared to say UK on the language/currency benefit score.
Ireland is not pro-US, though the government certainly is.
Ireland doesn't have much in the way of right or left, it's all pretty centerist and the policies are usually whatever gets the policians into power. The exception being the right-wing minor PD party that was allowed by the main party Fianna Fáil to drive some ridiculous nonsense through. Out of self-interest of potential benefits for their friends (FOFF) rather than any real right-wing ideology.
You're not kidding. Best of all if you're a builder though.
We did get maybe two days of sunshine this summer. But screw it, next year I'm getting out of here for the summer.
Partnership is doomed - the "essential" professions can't afford sensible accommodation without major pay increases. Government lack of development planning (i.e. whatever the builders want to build, wherever, they can and sure who needs infrastructure to go with) will ultimately be to blame for the breakdown of union/strike/pay management.
Nevermind Google, Ireland's getting singled out here just for wooing corporate America.
I'll agree to that, having recently purchased the whole TNG caboodle on DVD with it finally being a sensible price (oh if only I could have bought such a thing in my teenage Trekkie heyday).
There are of course *some* good episodes in later seasons, indeed occasional gems, but there's a lot of waffle to wade through. The bulk of season 4 and 5 TNG seems to be particularly bad despite occasional true Trek episodes.
I found a new-found appreciation for season 1 and 2 on rewatching 10 years later; they are kinda like the old Star Trek but updated, and the TNG crew works quite well - even the doctor substitute in season 2.
Season 3, bar a few average episodes, is just the business on TNG. Plenty of episodes that are what Trek should be, and varying quite a bit from episode to episode.
Disclaimer - I never watched season 7 of DS9, past season 2 of Voyager, or any of Enterprise. Nor Star Trek:Nemesis.
A small rural village? Unless you've put a reasonably decent bit of well-presented detail up about it, there's every possibility it'll be deleted as unverified, non-notable, etc., etc.
One word for you... Vista.
It looks like being more on the Windows ME level of insanity than even 95 or 98.
Trying to pretend religion is the cause of humankind's problems and that people would all get along merrily if it were not for religion is just as absurd. It's as absurd as those who decry the "intolerance" of the religious while themselves being intolerant of the religious.
You're missing the point - it's more like if you are paid less by your employer (and anyone else) than you spend at the grocery store, on accommodation, everything else. Eventually, even if you're living on credit, you'll not be able to sustain such a deficit.
Isn't the Xbox360's non-implementation of HDCP a bad thing? I mean can't the copy-protection on the discs be later arranged such that the Xbox360 is blacklisted and they won't play back on it?
They will later though, when pricing is saner, we all have our HD TVs (or pretend ones) and next-gen discs are used for PCs.
The truth is, DVD is pretty poor resolution - it's very obvious even now on PC playback (where one already does have high-res screen).
A lot rides on the Playstation 3, if it finally takes off properly, then it'll not only put Blu-ray in front, but it'll push ahead HD playback in general. Already the main HD discs I see in shops are Blu-ray, simply because those shops also sell the PS3, and some of the more fanatical PS3 owners buy the discs.
Wah wah wah. Here in Ireland the income tax rates are (for a single person), 20% on the first €34,000 and 40% on the balance. Admittedly there are tax allowances (everyone gets them automatically but you need to inform the tax people if you're eligible for greater allowances) which reduce the tax payable and also there are various other tax reliefs for having a mortgage, paying rent, etc. - though these calculations aren't automatically used on your tax payment, even though your payments are automatic (taken directly from your wages).
In addition, our default sales tax is 21% (yes, you read that correctly). The vast majority of the price of petrol (gasoline) is tax. Oh - and did I mention that retail prices are higher here than in the US too?
You'd think these taxes would pay for lots, but our kids don't have enough classrooms, we don't have enough teachers, nurses or police, an entire city doesn't have clean water, our hospitals are inadequate and A&E patients are left on trolleys in corridors, we're only now getting some decent roads in the country, our public transport is the worst in Europe - people drive more km per person in Ireland than the US. Also, this performance gets a government re-elected for the third time.
Admittedly most people have jobs (~4% unemployment, that includes people who can't work or are between jobs). Still, it feels like we've almost got the social injustices of American-style capitalism with the tax burden of European social democracy.
Don't you know anything about the Western world (well, OK, USA particularly)? Intolerance is inexcusable (freedom of speech, belief, etc.) except when it's against conservatives - they're obviously wrong and should be locked up.
Have pity for us in Ireland - we pay a TV licence fee to our government, yet our publicly funded broadcaster, RTÉ, gets to use commercial advertising too. You'd think of course they'd have great home-produced content? Hah hah hah hah. I'm just happy that one can usually get BBC without too much hassle here in Ireland, although it usually involves paying cable/satellite providers.
If we ever get Digital Terrestrial here, it could be used to broadcast BBC (encrypted and requiring a minimal monthly fee) - except that unsurprisingly enough, RTÉ will let that happen over their dead bodies (they control the current transmission network).
Realistically, that's a naive view of how things actually work on Wikipedia. In reality, certain contributors earn or grab authority and their views are given more weight than those who are newer, less experienced, or who hold unpopular views. Not only that, but certain contributors "get away" with more through either an earned status, or essentially sort of being a bully (or at the least, having more perserverance or perservering back-up supporters).
In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a traditional authority structure, however much not having one has certain advantages.
One cannot expect a project of such a magnitude to survive in the real world (for all the talk of a "second life", people forget that the Internet is reality - part of our boring old society) without a sensible authority structure - and indeed rules decided by something else other than what sticks on a wiki. Even from a purely legal standpoint, Wikipedia is only going to have more trouble in the future than it can eventually handle.
My Nokia 6233 does 800x600 for more than 30 seconds (if I'm using my 1GB micro-SD), but it no way does 23 fps or higher; more like 15 or something.
Apparently not many other camera phones record video at 800x600 nevermind the other two criteria.
In the book - it isn't settled that Dumbledore *didn't* kill his sister. Harry didn't like to ask in case Dumbledore now knew for certain that he had been the one who killed her during the fight.
You might be right about some of the deaths being quick and sudden or random - but that was the point - they served the purpose that you did not know who would be next. I did not know for sure that Harry (or Ron or Hermione) would survive till the end of the book.
Maybe some folks would liked it all to have ended badly. Me, I appreciated that I didn't know whether it would end well or not till the very end - and having reached the end, I did not wish for a thoroughly sad and depressing end to the tale; however much I had anticipated one.
Personally - I'd avoid most PC manufacturers. I've bought Dell for my current desktop and laptop because it was cheapest for the specs I wanted and still cheapest with 4 year on-site warranty. Admittedly I had to wait several months each time to catch just the right deal and specs.
I know quite a few people with Apple kit - they really like it and are happy with it - it is stylish and relatively functional; but have all had hellish experiences with customer "care" and warranties and sending stuff back for repair, and have had to fork out through the nose for some of the kit too.
I agree - gameplay-wise Civ4 is the pinnacle of acheivement (and I've played all previous versions as well as the Call to Power offshoots). For all the annoyances that are simplified (that people might call dumbing down but I say they're carefully done and make the game much more enjoyable) there is other complexity added.
The pretty graphics is just icing on the cake, and I feel it does help immersion to see the cities evolve up close, all the terrain and resources to hand, to see the units so clearly.
I may have to go play this again this evening... This is going to be quite detrimental to my sleep...
LOTR was so smooth and immersive because it wasn't just CGI. It was a whole lot of set design, props, cool camera work and *then* clever CGI over the whole lot. I'm sure it helped even with the acting to have so much actually recreated, even if it was all amended, tweaked and expanded by CGI effects. The combination of not entirely relying on detailed real pieces, but not entirely on CGI effects is the best of both worlds in my opinion.
The extra "making of" material on the extended LOTR DVDs is really worth watching in full, it's fascinating. Even the galleries of all the artwork, prop design, etc. are worth going through in full. Just find a rainy Sunday afternoon a couple of times and sit down and go through it all.
Give over. I'm certainly in favour of using censorship very sparingly indeed, but this seems to definitely be a game deserving of being the first computer game ever banned in my own country, Ireland. It is entirely sensible for a government to decide that it's not particularly good for society if some adults let alone kids play a computer game where they pretend to use "a saw blade to cut upward into a foe's groin and buttocks, motioning forward and backward with the Wii remote as you go". In fact, it would probably better for them to allow people to buy this and keep tabs on people who are happy to be entertained by such violence.
Let this go and what happens when something worse again is published? What about the time after that? Is it perfectly fine to allow society to go in a direction where such "freedom" is allowed? The ultimate end would be the destruction of society. We're already on the road to that - people still have strong values concerning protection of children for example, but for how long? Already much of the public are allowing commercial forces to deliberately market sex fashion to lower and lower age groups.
With the banning of this game in Ireland and the UK I'm glad to see that the issue of violence in "entertainment" isn't a lost cause.