when traveling in Europe it seemed unnecessary to know anything beyond hello in a local language
This is only true if you stick to the touristy bits of a country. I have been in bars and restaurants in major cities like Barcelona, Copenhagen and Brussels where no one spoke a word of English, as they were off the normal tourist routes.
If you hang out in major hotels and so on, fair enough everyone probably will speak English.
Expecting an exchange student to learn your language fluently before going is also not reasonable
There is a big difference between being fluent in a language and being able to say please, thankyou, ask for directions or the price of a drink and so on. In addition, if you're going to live/study somwehere for a couple of years, it is probably a good idea to get at least a reasonable idea of that country's customs and history, which is something that you tend to acquire when studying a language anyway.
And it is so funny when foreigners don't understand the English language. You are writing in English, someone with a Bachelor degree has been a post graduate in England since *BEFORE* any university existed in what is now Germany by nearly two hundred years you ignorant twit.
No, here in England, if you have a Bachelor's degree you are a graduate. If you are doing a Master's you are on a post graduate course.
I have never understood how you can hope to do a startup business if you're not interested in business. If you're only interested in the tech stuff, go and work for someone who is a businessman, don't start a company and think that all the boring stuff won't apply to you.
My first thought was that AdKeeper should be on the list, but apparently that turkey is still flying, albeit with what looks like a different business model.
If The Onion hade made AdKeeper up, they'd have been criticised for being too obviously satirical.
Bullshit, it's the entrepreneur who chooses to go for the flashy IPO, because if there's one thing that entrepreneurs like it's making money. Brought in managers will obviously jump on the band wagon, but no one forced the entrepreneur to hire them or flog the company.
Many times, the reason boils down to the fact that the entrepreneur's mind works very differently than the mind of a business person.
.
Many entrepreneurs wait too long before calling in a business person to watch over the financial aspects and business goals of the company.
Absolutely correct. The problem is that entrepreneurial types pretty much by definition think they are always right and can do everything themselves.
They also have no medium or long term interest in the products or ideas they come up with, each one is just a way of generating money to give them time to come up with the next Big Thing. They are essentially like children let loose in a sweet shop, having a couple of licks of one lolly before dropping it and moving onto the next bon bon.
I just check, Katz is no longer a filter option on my profile, if he comes back I'll be forced to see Welcome to the Hellmouth: A 20 year Retrospective on the front page.
I literally shuddered with a frisson of angst when I read your post, as though a teenager in a trenchcoat had walked over my grave, machine pistol in hand, silhouetted against a lightning storm generated by youthful anomie.
Cool, a new variation on the traditional slashdot "I was so brilliant that I got bored at school and lost interest which is why I left without passing any exams and now work flipping burgers" anecdote.
Seriously, everyone just ignored your genius-level exam scores?
I am 32 and single, I have a PhD in Physics from one of the best universities in the world and am wealthy in my own right. Your size and intelligence appeals to me and I would like you to be the biological father of my child. You would not have any obligations whatsoever. Would you do it?
We just see Dotcom for what he is, a con artist who paints on a thin veneer of anti-establishment rhetoric to legitimize what always end up being criminal operations.
So what you're saying is, against the law baaaaaad.
The default position should be that breaking the law is bad, yes. And breaking it solely to make money is never justified. If a law is bad, you get it changed.
People on slashdot seem to think of Kim Dotcom as a modern day Rosa Parks, except better because he's a multi-millionaire.
I'm up at 4:30 to go for my morning run, back home by 5:15 and out the door to work by 5:45. I usually work from 6:00 to 18:00, with a 30 minute lunch break, a 30 minute "tea" break and several 5 minute walking breaks (sitting for too long is very bad for you). I arrive back home at around 18:15, have dinner then have supper later at 20:00 and in bed by 21:30.
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
Slashdot Mirror
when traveling in Europe it seemed unnecessary to know anything beyond hello in a local language
This is only true if you stick to the touristy bits of a country. I have been in bars and restaurants in major cities like Barcelona, Copenhagen and Brussels where no one spoke a word of English, as they were off the normal tourist routes.
If you hang out in major hotels and so on, fair enough everyone probably will speak English.
Anybody who utters the word 'racist' is by definition 'racist.'
The whole idea of 'race' is contrived.
Yeah, and it's contrived by racists.
Expecting an exchange student to learn your language fluently before going is also not reasonable
There is a big difference between being fluent in a language and being able to say please, thankyou, ask for directions or the price of a drink and so on. In addition, if you're going to live/study somwehere for a couple of years, it is probably a good idea to get at least a reasonable idea of that country's customs and history, which is something that you tend to acquire when studying a language anyway.
And it is so funny when foreigners don't understand the English language. You are writing in English, someone with a Bachelor degree has been a post graduate in England since *BEFORE* any university existed in what is now Germany by nearly two hundred years you ignorant twit.
No, here in England, if you have a Bachelor's degree you are a graduate. If you are doing a Master's you are on a post graduate course.
You want engineers, scientists, linguist and capable managers of businesses and finance, not basket weavers, musicians, artists in abundance.
You need both mathematicians and musicians in a decent society, you moron.
idea: app to order and pay for drinks at a bar or nightclub reason for failure: "hard to market ourselves properly in bars without being there"
I rather admire the complete stupidity of that and hope they managed to get funding on kickstarter for it.
I have never understood how you can hope to do a startup business if you're not interested in business. If you're only interested in the tech stuff, go and work for someone who is a businessman, don't start a company and think that all the boring stuff won't apply to you.
My first thought was that AdKeeper should be on the list, but apparently that turkey is still flying, albeit with what looks like a different business model.
If The Onion hade made AdKeeper up, they'd have been criticised for being too obviously satirical.
Bullshit, it's the entrepreneur who chooses to go for the flashy IPO, because if there's one thing that entrepreneurs like it's making money. Brought in managers will obviously jump on the band wagon, but no one forced the entrepreneur to hire them or flog the company.
Many times, the reason boils down to the fact that the entrepreneur's mind works very differently than the mind of a business person.
. Many entrepreneurs wait too long before calling in a business person to watch over the financial aspects and business goals of the company.
Absolutely correct. The problem is that entrepreneurial types pretty much by definition think they are always right and can do everything themselves.
They also have no medium or long term interest in the products or ideas they come up with, each one is just a way of generating money to give them time to come up with the next Big Thing. They are essentially like children let loose in a sweet shop, having a couple of licks of one lolly before dropping it and moving onto the next bon bon.
I just check, Katz is no longer a filter option on my profile, if he comes back I'll be forced to see Welcome to the Hellmouth: A 20 year Retrospective on the front page.
I literally shuddered with a frisson of angst when I read your post, as though a teenager in a trenchcoat had walked over my grave, machine pistol in hand, silhouetted against a lightning storm generated by youthful anomie.
There's little now that approaches the ridiculousness of the Jon Katz days, though.
For newbies, he was a bit like regular contributor Bennett Haselton, but with a distinctively insane prose style.
Jesus, I bet you're a riot at parties.
You divorce your spouse, give them custody and make your maintenance payments on time. That's it. You are now free to take risks.
If you really have that little interest in your spouse and kids, I don't see why you'd bother getting married and having them in the first place.
Cool, a new variation on the traditional slashdot "I was so brilliant that I got bored at school and lost interest which is why I left without passing any exams and now work flipping burgers" anecdote. Seriously, everyone just ignored your genius-level exam scores?
they should not go off when burning a small bit of paper
Clearly GP needs to do a proper test by burning his house down.
I am 32 and single, I have a PhD in Physics from one of the best universities in the world and am wealthy in my own right. Your size and intelligence appeals to me and I would like you to be the biological father of my child. You would not have any obligations whatsoever. Would you do it?
This would involve visiting the US presumably?
Nice try G-man.
A: It saves time.
(Original joke copyright Brian Clough, I believe).
I am astonished at the crass and low-born nature of the posted questions.
Did it not occur to you that it's because the majority of people here hate him and have no interest in getting his opinion on anything serious?
You probably missed the whoosh as it was so far above your head.
Probably the same feeling as being an idiot that uses the word "epic" to describe every day happenstance.
No, Kim Dotcom is far from an every day fuckwit. He truly takes fuckwittery to an epic level.
Were you born a criminal sociopath and con-artist, or did you evolve into one?
He was born a criminal, just like you, just like me, just like all of us.
Speak for yourself, psychopath.
We just see Dotcom for what he is, a con artist who paints on a thin veneer of anti-establishment rhetoric to legitimize what always end up being criminal operations.
So what you're saying is, against the law baaaaaad.
The default position should be that breaking the law is bad, yes. And breaking it solely to make money is never justified. If a law is bad, you get it changed.
People on slashdot seem to think of Kim Dotcom as a modern day Rosa Parks, except better because he's a multi-millionaire.
And if the copyright laws were scrapped tomorrow, what would you do to earn an honest living?
I'm up at 4:30 to go for my morning run, back home by 5:15 and out the door to work by 5:45. I usually work from 6:00 to 18:00, with a 30 minute lunch break, a 30 minute "tea" break and several 5 minute walking breaks (sitting for too long is very bad for you). I arrive back home at around 18:15, have dinner then have supper later at 20:00 and in bed by 21:30.
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.