I've seen the same for Irish and British accents. In fact, I think I've seen such subtitling on a US show featuring some Americans with more colourful accents.
It's quite amusing.
However, there's nothing as disturbing as a US show where the main presenter, and only the main presenter, has been dubbed with a local (Irish) voiceover. It's quite patronising, yet seems to be on the increase. I can understand in advertising at least how a US accent doesn't really sell things so well in Europe anymore. But a TV show being dubbed for localisation?!
Except you're missing the whole bit about that people don't generally do well in not being evil, at least in some small ways, and hence need something further (Jesus Christ) to be OK with God rather than just trying to be good.
And it's reasonably generalising to treat the Bible as one thing. It's a collection of books with a very varying style and purpose. There's everything from Jewish law (important for historical reference, nevermind other issues) to a Music book (most Christian hymns are derived from Psalms, nevermind that some of the closest scriptural links with the New Testament are with the Psalms) to prophecy, history (the whole careful detailing of Israel's relationship with God is/should be very instructive to Christians) and theology.
I think "don't be evil" is fairly indistinct even as a "gist" of the Bible. Perhaps you could have a subtitle of "Man and God" to guess some of the subject matter, that'd be at least someways more accurate.
> Reminds of the old MP3Player/CellPhone/PalmPilot debacle.
Except that there are many who *only* want a mobile phone. And many many more who only want one other thing, and want it as a separate specific device (a music player that's just that, an organiser that's not a phone or plaything). As for camera phones? Again, many just want a phone, and will buy/carry their proper digital camera if they need it.
A games console is a handy specific unit for playing simple (relatively speaking) games.
Put it this way, you have a choice. Games console or PC or both (if you can afford it). Now some people may want both but not be able to afford it. Tough cookie - that's the way it is - you can't always have all you want (people running up loads of credit should realise this).
The Dell XXXXFP models are quite variable in response time. The expensive larger models are much better - e.g. my 2001FP is 16 ms (which is OK, admittedly not fantastic) as opposed to 30ms for the 1801FP (it's worse than the other 17", 19" or 20" Ultrascan flat panels).
A friend bought a 19" with 8ms response time - which is great for games. I find the 16ms grand though - any blurring isn't too noticable - and having a 20" flat panel is *sweet*!
They aren't "copyrighted" by GPL, they're *licensed". This is the misconception the article is drawing attention to.
Copyright is automatic, and applies to the creator of something as soon as they create an original work. A copyright notice serves to give notice to other - it doesn't change anything.
And the copyright holder can issue their work under any licence (and can't usually subsequently withdraw the work under a licence, and explicitly not withdraw a GPL AFIAK). They can subsequently offer permission to use under other terms, explicity set the work forth as public domain, etc.
I can write an original Wikipedia article. I automatically have copyright. By submitting it to Wikipedia I automatically am agreeing to licence it under the GFDL. But I in particular can do whatever the hell I like with it subsequently, without adhering to the GFDL (although obviously, this has little consequence, as I've already allowed a GFDL copy), e.g. place it on my personal website with only (c) My Name and no mention of the GFDL (a situation in which people must assume they have no right to copy it). Anyone else using the version from Wikipedia must abide by the GFDL. I of course must abide by the GFDL if I'm using a revised version that someone else edited on Wikipedia.
There are people who don't display a copyright notice.
Wikipedia for example, should have (c) Main contrib 1, Main contrib 2, Main contrib n, history link et alhistory link
At the bottom of each article - and probably hand edited (with policy guideline) would be fine.
It would make mirrors less of a problem unless the conciously remove the copyright notice (which is more of a faux pas than not linking to the actual article and history on Wikipedia - also the history would remain automatically linked to as above).
Ah, but a good OS has to have all this for ordinary users, yet at the flick of a checkbox, be fully flexible and complicated for power users. And yes, there's no reason that even in Windows, the cmd line shouldn't be always on - switchable to at the flick of a key combo. And everything should be possible from this (many unexpected things are actually, even in Windows as is). A major problem though is the integration of the graphics with the kernal. a) if the graphics goes awry, it would be nice to have console to reset it if possible (plus kernal and other apps not crashing) b) one could turn if off if all one wants to do is cmd line compiling for example.
Personally, I populate My Documents with shortcuts to folders like "Documents", "Downloads", "Programming", "Mail" (Thunderbird profile dir - useful for backup), etc.
Something interesting in Windows XP (possibly earlier Windows too) is that you can now mount volumes (local HDD, local removable media or network locations) into the file system of any logical volume on your local computer. Personally, I don't see why I'd bother unless I was used to that convention. I mean, is C:\CD Drive\ easier than L:\? (I usually use R:\ for recording drives, and never E:\, F:\ etc. as that can be variable)
80MB is low for Windows XP Professional, yes. Many systems are well over 120MB usage by default.
As regards security - well, Linux is certainly more secure in many ways, but it is simply the case that it is subject to less of the "common" attacks, simply because the attacks are targeted at the largest userbase (Windows).
For example, take a more than cursory look at the US DOE CIAC security bulletins for Red Hat, and Microsoft. Sure MS is worse, and there're probably better Linux distros, but I call foul on the cry that Windows is far and away more insecure. It's simply the case that yes, it's insecure. It's subject to more attack than Linux. Linux also has insecurities, of a reasonable number despite not being as bad or as likely to be attacked.
Make no mistake, I have nothing against Linux, and consider Windows a piece of crud. But there's not much basis for the moral superiority that Linux users often display. It's an alternative, not an obvious replacement (not for all users anyways, so far - whatever about servers and tech users).
I think it's a question of that they've let Sony get a reasonably decent foothold (almost half of next-gen handhelds?)
Granted, that may not come to anything, but it just as easily could.
Looking at current sales of previous handheld + games merely reflects the past. Eventually people will move to the DS, or PSP. One would think if Nintendo had a truly better system, and did a decent job marketing presuming the DS is better than the PSP, then there should be a much bigger proportion of people buying DS rather than PSP!
It remains to be seen whether Sony drop the ball or not, but for the time being, the two are selling reasonably neck and neck (despite Nintendo being in the lead) in a market in which previously Nintendo pretty much had it all!
Ideally Nintendo should have hung on to at least a big lead (60%, 70%, 80%?) despite not being 9X% anymore. But at the minute, they aren't.
If in Nintendo, I'd at least being chewing my nails, for the time being (like I said, if Sony screw up, the PSP sales could drop off).
> Sterilizing everybody in the inner cities would certainly reduce crime for the same reason that encouraging inner city residents to have abortions does. Should it be done?
Quite appalling, I know, but I would be careful in asking that question. I know plenty who would say "yes".
It's similar to the recent shooting & killing of two criminals (one armed, one not) by the police during an attempted armed robbery here in Ireland. It's the first instance of the police shooting + killing people in years. There are many questions about the stake-out and planning they did (it does look a bit botched), and in years gone by, people would consider it quite appalling and look for an investigation to make sure that was their only option.
But today, people are delighted to see two "scumbags" killed. Yes, they probably/certainly were, but it still belittles the value of human life to think even such people can be killed willy-nilly.
Nevertheless, probably the public majority would support some scary draconian stuff due to their (well-founded) fears on law and order and the future of society. (I guess terrorism too for the US).
They'll probably have to drop the more pompous bits of the constitution, but considering most countries will have backed it - they'll go ahead with it regardless.
France will either re-vote on the the same or amended constitution, with "opt outs" negotiated/agred by the govt. Failing that - the French govt. will allow most of the constitution stuff to happen at EU level regardless.
The same goes for the other countries who vote no - except the UK - which will require insane dancing and manoeuvring by both the EU and UK govt. Either that or everything re: UK will fall apart.
To some extent the disappointment show after the French vote was merely PR. The show (with preplanned amendments/surrupticiousness) will go on.
Oh - plus the EU may shelve some of the political stuff, and concentrate on economic stuff again - working on precisely the free-market stuff that the French No camp (on the left anyways) accused the constitution of enshrining (despite the No camp in the UK thinking the opposite:)
All in all, it's merely a bump in the road. I don't necessarily view the EU's undemocratic nature as a bad thing as long as we continue to elect the govts. who run it. (And they do run it, despite them saying the EU is to blame for this/that - it's all their own work).
HAH! You evidently aren't familiar with this whole "working for the government" lark.
It's more a case of job security, enjoying being in a govt. mandated monopoly (your market is always there, and you don't face growing competition), and the wages (depending on the country) range from reasonable to "as absurd as in a free market".
Here in Ireland of course, we have the worst situation, a hideous mish-mash of free-marketism of the overboard US type, and socialism of the "we didn't bother checking how other countries do it, lets make it up out of our heads, or pay some friends lots of money to think about it".
On the plus side, we get a ludicrous amount of foreign investment (thanks to the only 10-12.5% corporation tax), have pots of money and loads of jobs (not that you aren't screwed if you're in the marginalised 10% that's either in the 4% unemployed, or the minimum wage/high costs bracket).
Ah yes - also disabling certain services (i.e. anything I don't need/use or that no-one should use) and some other tweaks are needed at install time. The default Windows install is quite broken.
Hear hear. This isn't so relevant to server systems, but any workstation Windows box, I can lock down to a memory footprint of 80MB. Now with 1GB+ of memory that's not so important - but what is important is exactly the lack of myriad apps loading on startup, lurking in the task tray, and using up processor time as well as memory.
Also by virtue of using a hardware firewall, not opening dodgy attachments, not downloading from unreliable sites, not visiting dodgy sites (and in the past year, using firefox and content filtering/adblock) - I have never, in my twelve years of Windows experience, ever gotten a virus, nor gotten spyware. And yes, back in the day, security mindedness meant not allowing boot from floppy (still the case, better safe than sorry), not copying other's software/disks, etc.
I currently run a virus-scanner - just for the craic - as it (f-prot) was a low yearly subscription when bought as a group and my machine is insanely over-powered enough that I need not worry about one extra task.
Running Spybot S&D is something I occasionally do for fun - but seeing as I'm picky even about cookies - it doesn't ever give a single notification.
To be honest, I don't regard that as all that bad for current machine translation. The fact they think they have something that will be at least some bit better than the current version is great.
I mean in fairness - it's nearly good enough as it is to grasp the story (reading that translated from German version). For any other purpose, hand translation is required any ways (for any presentation purpose, even ordinary English needs tweaking, much less translated text). As long as this improvement increases the readability of machine-translated text, that's a good enough advance. Eventually, sure, we want translation approaching human work, but the current advances are certainly ensuring the utility of machine translation.
In essence, it is becoming "good enough" for everyday "I want to read this foreign language document" usage.
Longhorn looks like being far from a definitive release, *as well* as being delayed. Just about every milestone technology supposed to be in it won't be fully there from the start, and it will end up being as patched up as an old bicycle inner tube.
It's not unlikely that many will realise this, and stick with XP until the next OS release *after* longhorn (and that's some time away). Don't forget, if people want the new tech patched in, why buy Longhorn? WinFS for a start will be available for XP.
MS may be fine - but they've left an awfully long period open to attack from others.
BTW - it may have been very calculated that IBM sold off their PC division. They may not end up capitalising fully on the Cell architecture, but potentially they could start afresh in the desktop arena (they'd have to go for an OS they control to some degree, rather than allow an MS-like co. to dictate terms). Ideally they should ensure a PC replacement where they sell the processors and software - and only leave the actual machine assembly/sale (which becomes generic again) to other Dell-like companies.
Yeah right Sony and Microsoft are in trouble. Kids do play their games despite them not being aimed at kids. They have nothing to worry about - their profits will continue in the next generation (they already have to some extent).
Society of course perhaps should worry about kids playing GTA3 etc. Or the fact that kids have parents that let their kids play such games.
But ultimately, Nintendo are making money off the segment of kids that still have some innocence, whose parents won't let them play more "mature" Sony and MS titles. Sadly, their time of making money from this market will come to an end with the direction society is taking (think it becoming the norm that sex+violence will be subject to a limit more like 8 (or less) rather than the official 18 limit or actual real cutoff of teenager-hood).
If you think this is overly cynical - you're living in middle/upper-class cloud-cuckoo land, where you can't even see things as they are in your own class nevermind the lower class.
The North American Dells are assembled in the US. The EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) Dells are assembled in Ireland. And incidently many of the components have been through Ireland at some stage too! And the software being installed on them has been localised/"produced" in Ireland too.
Speaking as one from the country that's the third largest recipient of US investment (Ireland), I say "HAH HAH"!
Actually, our government may be bad at running our country in some ways, but they are sly devious conmen when it comes to business and attracting industry/multinationals to Ireland.
After all, despite the massive US interest - they account for something like 20-25% of businesses in Ireland - although that's a lot, that means we've a lot more companies that aren't from the US! It also means we've an insane amount of outside investment overall!
And our government continues the slyness by picking up on trends and getting the Chinese interested in setting up shop here (our entire local government for my area went over to China with representatives from practically every major business in the province, along with the Prime Minister! Largest trade delegation ever from Ireland). And we've had the Chinese premier in my little backwater city too.
At some point Ireland may have to examine her ethics, but hey, all these people have money, so... Bwah hah hah.
All the benefits of being in the EU without the sluggish economy and massive unemployment seriously rocks.
Come to Ireland while you can. Just don't go to the insanely expensive Dublin - one of the highest cost-of-living places there is. Go to Cork or Limerick. Galway's nice but doesn't have so much industry.
And due to unbalanced regional investment a two-hour car trip brings you to undisturbed quaint and beautiful real Irish countryside, with traditional lifestyles! (Yes, we nab a disproportional amount of tourists as well as all the industry. Nice one! Keep coming!)
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I've seen the same for Irish and British accents. In fact, I think I've seen such subtitling on a US show featuring some Americans with more colourful accents.
It's quite amusing.
However, there's nothing as disturbing as a US show where the main presenter, and only the main presenter, has been dubbed with a local (Irish) voiceover. It's quite patronising, yet seems to be on the increase. I can understand in advertising at least how a US accent doesn't really sell things so well in Europe anymore. But a TV show being dubbed for localisation?!
Except you're missing the whole bit about that people don't generally do well in not being evil, at least in some small ways, and hence need something further (Jesus Christ) to be OK with God rather than just trying to be good.
And it's reasonably generalising to treat the Bible as one thing. It's a collection of books with a very varying style and purpose. There's everything from Jewish law (important for historical reference, nevermind other issues) to a Music book (most Christian hymns are derived from Psalms, nevermind that some of the closest scriptural links with the New Testament are with the Psalms) to prophecy, history (the whole careful detailing of Israel's relationship with God is/should be very instructive to Christians) and theology.
I think "don't be evil" is fairly indistinct even as a "gist" of the Bible. Perhaps you could have a subtitle of "Man and God" to guess some of the subject matter, that'd be at least someways more accurate.
> Reminds of the old MP3Player/CellPhone/PalmPilot debacle.
Except that there are many who *only* want a mobile phone. And many many more who only want one other thing, and want it as a separate specific device (a music player that's just that, an organiser that's not a phone or plaything). As for camera phones? Again, many just want a phone, and will buy/carry their proper digital camera if they need it.
A games console is a handy specific unit for playing simple (relatively speaking) games.
Put it this way, you have a choice. Games console or PC or both (if you can afford it). Now some people may want both but not be able to afford it. Tough cookie - that's the way it is - you can't always have all you want (people running up loads of credit should realise this).
The Dell XXXXFP models are quite variable in response time. The expensive larger models are much better - e.g. my 2001FP is 16 ms (which is OK, admittedly not fantastic) as opposed to 30ms for the 1801FP (it's worse than the other 17", 19" or 20" Ultrascan flat panels).
A friend bought a 19" with 8ms response time - which is great for games. I find the 16ms grand though - any blurring isn't too noticable - and having a 20" flat panel is *sweet*!
They aren't "copyrighted" by GPL, they're *licensed". This is the misconception the article is drawing attention to.
Copyright is automatic, and applies to the creator of something as soon as they create an original work. A copyright notice serves to give notice to other - it doesn't change anything.
And the copyright holder can issue their work under any licence (and can't usually subsequently withdraw the work under a licence, and explicitly not withdraw a GPL AFIAK). They can subsequently offer permission to use under other terms, explicity set the work forth as public domain, etc.
I can write an original Wikipedia article. I automatically have copyright. By submitting it to Wikipedia I automatically am agreeing to licence it under the GFDL. But I in particular can do whatever the hell I like with it subsequently, without adhering to the GFDL (although obviously, this has little consequence, as I've already allowed a GFDL copy), e.g. place it on my personal website with only (c) My Name and no mention of the GFDL (a situation in which people must assume they have no right to copy it). Anyone else using the version from Wikipedia must abide by the GFDL. I of course must abide by the GFDL if I'm using a revised version that someone else edited on Wikipedia.
There are people who don't display a copyright notice.
Wikipedia for example, should have (c) Main contrib 1, Main contrib 2, Main contrib n, history link et alhistory link
At the bottom of each article - and probably hand edited (with policy guideline) would be fine.
It would make mirrors less of a problem unless the conciously remove the copyright notice (which is more of a faux pas than not linking to the actual article and history on Wikipedia - also the history would remain automatically linked to as above).
Ah, but a good OS has to have all this for ordinary users, yet at the flick of a checkbox, be fully flexible and complicated for power users. And yes, there's no reason that even in Windows, the cmd line shouldn't be always on - switchable to at the flick of a key combo. And everything should be possible from this (many unexpected things are actually, even in Windows as is). A major problem though is the integration of the graphics with the kernal. a) if the graphics goes awry, it would be nice to have console to reset it if possible (plus kernal and other apps not crashing) b) one could turn if off if all one wants to do is cmd line compiling for example.
Personally, I populate My Documents with shortcuts to folders like "Documents", "Downloads", "Programming", "Mail" (Thunderbird profile dir - useful for backup), etc.
Something interesting in Windows XP (possibly earlier Windows too) is that you can now mount volumes (local HDD, local removable media or network locations) into the file system of any logical volume on your local computer. Personally, I don't see why I'd bother unless I was used to that convention. I mean, is C:\CD Drive\ easier than L:\? (I usually use R:\ for recording drives, and never E:\, F:\ etc. as that can be variable)
80MB is low for Windows XP Professional, yes. Many systems are well over 120MB usage by default.
As regards security - well, Linux is certainly more secure in many ways, but it is simply the case that it is subject to less of the "common" attacks, simply because the attacks are targeted at the largest userbase (Windows).
For example, take a more than cursory look at the US DOE CIAC security bulletins for Red Hat, and Microsoft. Sure MS is worse, and there're probably better Linux distros, but I call foul on the cry that Windows is far and away more insecure. It's simply the case that yes, it's insecure. It's subject to more attack than Linux. Linux also has insecurities, of a reasonable number despite not being as bad or as likely to be attacked.
Make no mistake, I have nothing against Linux, and consider Windows a piece of crud. But there's not much basis for the moral superiority that Linux users often display. It's an alternative, not an obvious replacement (not for all users anyways, so far - whatever about servers and tech users).
I think it's a question of that they've let Sony get a reasonably decent foothold (almost half of next-gen handhelds?)
Granted, that may not come to anything, but it just as easily could.
Looking at current sales of previous handheld + games merely reflects the past. Eventually people will move to the DS, or PSP. One would think if Nintendo had a truly better system, and did a decent job marketing presuming the DS is better than the PSP, then there should be a much bigger proportion of people buying DS rather than PSP!
It remains to be seen whether Sony drop the ball or not, but for the time being, the two are selling reasonably neck and neck (despite Nintendo being in the lead) in a market in which previously Nintendo pretty much had it all!
Ideally Nintendo should have hung on to at least a big lead (60%, 70%, 80%?) despite not being 9X% anymore. But at the minute, they aren't.
If in Nintendo, I'd at least being chewing my nails, for the time being (like I said, if Sony screw up, the PSP sales could drop off).
> Sterilizing everybody in the inner cities would certainly reduce crime for the same reason that encouraging inner city residents to have abortions does. Should it be done?
Quite appalling, I know, but I would be careful in asking that question. I know plenty who would say "yes".
It's similar to the recent shooting & killing of two criminals (one armed, one not) by the police during an attempted armed robbery here in Ireland. It's the first instance of the police shooting + killing people in years. There are many questions about the stake-out and planning they did (it does look a bit botched), and in years gone by, people would consider it quite appalling and look for an investigation to make sure that was their only option.
But today, people are delighted to see two "scumbags" killed. Yes, they probably/certainly were, but it still belittles the value of human life to think even such people can be killed willy-nilly.
Nevertheless, probably the public majority would support some scary draconian stuff due to their (well-founded) fears on law and order and the future of society. (I guess terrorism too for the US).
Hah hah hah hah hah.
:)
They'll probably have to drop the more pompous bits of the constitution, but considering most countries will have backed it - they'll go ahead with it regardless.
France will either re-vote on the the same or amended constitution, with "opt outs" negotiated/agred by the govt. Failing that - the French govt. will allow most of the constitution stuff to happen at EU level regardless.
The same goes for the other countries who vote no - except the UK - which will require insane dancing and manoeuvring by both the EU and UK govt. Either that or everything re: UK will fall apart.
To some extent the disappointment show after the French vote was merely PR. The show (with preplanned amendments/surrupticiousness) will go on.
Oh - plus the EU may shelve some of the political stuff, and concentrate on economic stuff again - working on precisely the free-market stuff that the French No camp (on the left anyways) accused the constitution of enshrining (despite the No camp in the UK thinking the opposite
All in all, it's merely a bump in the road. I don't necessarily view the EU's undemocratic nature as a bad thing as long as we continue to elect the govts. who run it. (And they do run it, despite them saying the EU is to blame for this/that - it's all their own work).
> Making doctors govt slaves
HAH! You evidently aren't familiar with this whole "working for the government" lark.
It's more a case of job security, enjoying being in a govt. mandated monopoly (your market is always there, and you don't face growing competition), and the wages (depending on the country) range from reasonable to "as absurd as in a free market".
Here in Ireland of course, we have the worst situation, a hideous mish-mash of free-marketism of the overboard US type, and socialism of the "we didn't bother checking how other countries do it, lets make it up out of our heads, or pay some friends lots of money to think about it".
On the plus side, we get a ludicrous amount of foreign investment (thanks to the only 10-12.5% corporation tax), have pots of money and loads of jobs (not that you aren't screwed if you're in the marginalised 10% that's either in the 4% unemployed, or the minimum wage/high costs bracket).
Ah yes - also disabling certain services (i.e. anything I don't need/use or that no-one should use) and some other tweaks are needed at install time. The default Windows install is quite broken.
Hear hear. This isn't so relevant to server systems, but any workstation Windows box, I can lock down to a memory footprint of 80MB. Now with 1GB+ of memory that's not so important - but what is important is exactly the lack of myriad apps loading on startup, lurking in the task tray, and using up processor time as well as memory.
Also by virtue of using a hardware firewall, not opening dodgy attachments, not downloading from unreliable sites, not visiting dodgy sites (and in the past year, using firefox and content filtering/adblock) - I have never, in my twelve years of Windows experience, ever gotten a virus, nor gotten spyware. And yes, back in the day, security mindedness meant not allowing boot from floppy (still the case, better safe than sorry), not copying other's software/disks, etc.
I currently run a virus-scanner - just for the craic - as it (f-prot) was a low yearly subscription when bought as a group and my machine is insanely over-powered enough that I need not worry about one extra task.
Running Spybot S&D is something I occasionally do for fun - but seeing as I'm picky even about cookies - it doesn't ever give a single notification.
Or how many lumps of reference metal in Paris does it weigh?
To be honest, I don't regard that as all that bad for current machine translation. The fact they think they have something that will be at least some bit better than the current version is great.
I mean in fairness - it's nearly good enough as it is to grasp the story (reading that translated from German version). For any other purpose, hand translation is required any ways (for any presentation purpose, even ordinary English needs tweaking, much less translated text). As long as this improvement increases the readability of machine-translated text, that's a good enough advance. Eventually, sure, we want translation approaching human work, but the current advances are certainly ensuring the utility of machine translation.
In essence, it is becoming "good enough" for everyday "I want to read this foreign language document" usage.
Longhorn looks like being far from a definitive release, *as well* as being delayed. Just about every milestone technology supposed to be in it won't be fully there from the start, and it will end up being as patched up as an old bicycle inner tube.
It's not unlikely that many will realise this, and stick with XP until the next OS release *after* longhorn (and that's some time away). Don't forget, if people want the new tech patched in, why buy Longhorn? WinFS for a start will be available for XP.
MS may be fine - but they've left an awfully long period open to attack from others.
BTW - it may have been very calculated that IBM sold off their PC division. They may not end up capitalising fully on the Cell architecture, but potentially they could start afresh in the desktop arena (they'd have to go for an OS they control to some degree, rather than allow an MS-like co. to dictate terms). Ideally they should ensure a PC replacement where they sell the processors and software - and only leave the actual machine assembly/sale (which becomes generic again) to other Dell-like companies.
Yeah right Sony and Microsoft are in trouble. Kids do play their games despite them not being aimed at kids. They have nothing to worry about - their profits will continue in the next generation (they already have to some extent).
Society of course perhaps should worry about kids playing GTA3 etc. Or the fact that kids have parents that let their kids play such games.
But ultimately, Nintendo are making money off the segment of kids that still have some innocence, whose parents won't let them play more "mature" Sony and MS titles. Sadly, their time of making money from this market will come to an end with the direction society is taking (think it becoming the norm that sex+violence will be subject to a limit more like 8 (or less) rather than the official 18 limit or actual real cutoff of teenager-hood).
If you think this is overly cynical - you're living in middle/upper-class cloud-cuckoo land, where you can't even see things as they are in your own class nevermind the lower class.
I think the phrase is, so sharp they'd cut themselves.
Ah come on, surely at least your great-grandad's dog was half-Irish setter? :)
The North American Dells are assembled in the US. The EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia) Dells are assembled in Ireland. And incidently many of the components have been through Ireland at some stage too! And the software being installed on them has been localised/"produced" in Ireland too.
Speaking as one from the country that's the third largest recipient of US investment (Ireland), I say "HAH HAH"!
Actually, our government may be bad at running our country in some ways, but they are sly devious conmen when it comes to business and attracting industry/multinationals to Ireland.
After all, despite the massive US interest - they account for something like 20-25% of businesses in Ireland - although that's a lot, that means we've a lot more companies that aren't from the US! It also means we've an insane amount of outside investment overall!
And our government continues the slyness by picking up on trends and getting the Chinese interested in setting up shop here (our entire local government for my area went over to China with representatives from practically every major business in the province, along with the Prime Minister! Largest trade delegation ever from Ireland). And we've had the Chinese premier in my little backwater city too.
At some point Ireland may have to examine her ethics, but hey, all these people have money, so... Bwah hah hah.
All the benefits of being in the EU without the sluggish economy and massive unemployment seriously rocks.
Come to Ireland while you can. Just don't go to the insanely expensive Dublin - one of the highest cost-of-living places there is. Go to Cork or Limerick. Galway's nice but doesn't have so much industry.
And due to unbalanced regional investment a two-hour car trip brings you to undisturbed quaint and beautiful real Irish countryside, with traditional lifestyles! (Yes, we nab a disproportional amount of tourists as well as all the industry. Nice one! Keep coming!)
OK, technically not just three letter ones, but still:
PSAP? CLEC? RBOC? SBC? LATA?
Plus there's the known acronyms as well of LERG (explained here), DSL, VoIP, NOC.