Definitely the best US article on France I've read for a long time.
The author is certainly better informed of the current events and the background than any other US 'journalist' I've heard of, with notable exceptions like Ted Stanger.
I live in Rennes, France. It's a peaceful city of about 350,000 inhabitants, one of the capital cities of the IT industry (it's nicknamed the Telecom Valley). Minitel, Digital TV, DSL, MP3 were (at least partly) invented there. I work in the IT industry (Digital TV). It's green, quiet and pleasant. How surprised and shocked I was today when I saw excerpts of CNN and Fox News (that so-called 'news' TV, bah) about the riots (in the cult TV show 'Zapping').
CNN couldn't even locate the cities properly: Rennes over Chartres, Paris in Champagne, Toulouse in Switzerland, Cannes on the Spanish boundary, Lyons in the middle of the Massif Central mountains, and Strasbourg in Austria! Come on guys, if you pretend to feed the world with news, at least learn to read a map!
Fox News sucked even more, talking about 'Islamic riots', amongst a torrent of anti-French hate speech. Only in the US this parody of News channel is taken seriously, us the rest-of-the-world untermenschen know this is mere Murdoch far-right propaganda. The riots have NOTHING, I tell you, NOTHING to do with Islam. It's a social problem, not a religious one. Even the not-so-moderated local Imams called for the end of the violence.
But back to Rennes. The France map on CNN was covered with fires, including one over my beloved city. Sorry but I see no fire from my windows, and I live in one of the tallest buildings. The total number of cars set on fire is about 50 over the last 12 days, compared to several thousands in the Paris area. I can tell you that, contrary to Paris (actually Seine-Saint-Denis, or 93, or Nine-Three), there is no real ghetto out there, only a excessive concentration of relative poorness in the southern district, but nothing like the 93, which is the largest in Europe. The arsonists were certainly a bunch of jerks with too much free time who tried to enter a 'competition' with other French cities. Anyway 50 is still too much for Rennes, but the city is certainly not on fire. In Strasbourg, about 100 cars are set on fire EVERY YEAR during the New Year's Eve.
So sorry but I'm fed up with the US media who can't get basic facts and make me feel like I live in the Bronx during the 80's. It's Britanny, damnit, we have 100 times less murders than an average US city. If you want facts, call me, I'll give you 10 times more facts than your so-called reporters.
Anyway, a very good article.
(BTW the French don't hate the Americans, but it's not easy everyday)
If you want to portably watch television, get a portable tv.
Try watching TV in a high speed train then. It's not about PORTABLE tv, but MOBILE tv.
The main problems addressed by DVB-H (the European^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrest-of-the-world standard for mobile TV) are:
Mobility and nomadism. Broadcast frequencies are not constant across territory. With non-mobile TV (digital or analog) you must constantly (and manually) tune your receiver. With DVB-H, national TV channels are available seamlessly on the whole territory (you can also have local channels) whatever the actual broadcast frequencies, even if you're moving at high speed (train, car...).
Battery life. DVB-H is an adaptation of DVB-T that sends data in short bursts to save power due to the reception antenna and tuner. The antenna is the most power-demanding part of a mobile set.
Limiting DVB-H to mobile phones is narrowing the possibilities of this standard. Think in-car TVs. Applications are countless, and I predict that, if the technology is ready, demand will rise before the beginning of Soccer World Cup in Germany next summer, the same way it will drive demand for HD TVs, and the 1998 World Cup drove demand for big screen TVs. You could for example get summaries of matches, videos of the best goals, statistics, and so on in a customized fashion.
The US work week is tied for first as the longest in the industrialized world at an average of 2040 hours. (France is around 1400 by comparison)
France is around 1560, please don't make us look more lazy than we are. Moreover, we have a higher hourly productivity, and a similar annual productivity. Working less usually means working better.
Some facts about France's so-called 35h week:
35h is a rough average based on annual rates. You can get e.g. 30h weeks during quiet periods and get 45h peaks sometimes. The 35 hours reform wasn't only designed to work less but also to adapt to fluctuating activity.
Most workers either get 35h weeks or 39h with extra holidays (known as RTT Réduction du Temps de Travail, Work Time Reduction). Engineers and execs most often get the latter.
Those with 39h weeks get an average of 12 RTT days (the luckiest ones may get up to 25). This actually means around 37h.
About half of RTT days are chosen by the employer. They often replace "bridges" (one work day between public holiday and weekend) that we used to get for free. This eats 2-3 days a year.
Overtime is frequent, but seldom paid and accounted for. Exec and IT workers are supposed to work 8h a day but routinely work 9h depending on the workload. OTOH you can leave earlier the next day if our boss doesn't mind.
With its switch to Intel, Apple is going to succeed where MS couldn't: build a "proprietary" PC that doesn't rely on anything legacy such as the BIOS.
Nearly everything except the BIOS will be standard on the Mactel platform. Seems to me like the perfect occasion to introduce a "trusted", DRM-enabled platform from the ground up.
Now Apple can tell the RIAA & MPAA: on our platforms, your stuff will be secure.
A simple heuristics for choosing between GPL and BSD is community.
If your goal is to to build a community of users or developers around a long-term, evolving project, and ensure that it remains free, then GPL is a good choice. Typical example: Linux.
OTOH, if your goal is that people just use your code, or your project rapidly reaches maturity, and you don't care about community building, then BSD-style is a better choice. It wouldn't make much sense, for example, for libpng to be GPL'd, since one of its purpose was to be an alternative to other closed or proprietary formats such as GIF.
BSD-style licensing ensures that all applications, free or commercial, can use your code. Of course you could still use LGPL but this becomes a religious or political issue (notwithstanding the fact that it prevents static linking).
Sad to say, but of all five competing cities, all but London had been targetted by islamic terrorism to this date:
- New York: 9/11/2001 and previous WTC attacks, Al Qaeda - Madrid: 3/11/2004, Al Qaeda - Moskow: Chechen islamists - Paris: several waves in the 80's and 90's, Algerian GIA
I'm not sure hybrid cars are the answer. You use somewhat less gas, but every few years you need a new set of batteries
If your question is about environmentally friendly car, your remark is pertinent. However the question is about energy savings and the associated impact on global warming. AFAIK batteries have no impact on global warming, and if any, it should be infinitesimal compared to the amount of CO2 emissions saved during a hybrid car batteries' lifetime. And batteries MAY be properly disposed, which is not the case for CO2.
open the window and turn off your fucking air conditioning
Air conditioning increases power consumption by about 10%. Driving with open windows has about the same effect. So I'd say don't use AC unless temp exceeds 30C (about 86F), and drive with closed windows. Oh, and lose some weight, too.
Another French joke with engineers from different schools building a bridge...
An engineer from Ecole Polytechnique builds a bridge. The bridge collapses, but he knows why.
An engineer from Ecole Centrale builds a bridge. The bridge does not collapse and he knows why.
An engineer from Ecole Des Arts et Métiers builds a bridge. The bridge does not collapse, but he doesn't know why.
You can easily adapt this joke by chosing engineers from different universities or with different backgrounds (pure theory, applied theory, pure practice).
The Cell combines a general purpose PPC-based RISC core with a powerful parallel architecture. Both are complementary : the PPC is well suited and is a well-known solution for DBMS, but can't beat a parallel computer at scientific applications such as speech recognition, natural language, fuzzy logic or any AI. On the other hand, a parallel computer is less suitable for general purpose computing than a RISC CPU such as the PPC.
The killer app for a Cell-based server would be a DBMS with natural language queries, or image queries and the like. I remember IBM developed a query system for images some while ago, maybe they have a grand scheme for world domination.
A group of lawyers is launching one of the first class actions in France against the movie industry. Infos here. To sum up they claim up to 1000 Euros for every DVD owner because the anti-copy features on DVDs prevent fair use, whereas blank DVDs and other digital media (yes, even hard drives!) are taxed to compensate the media industry for fair use.
Class actions are a new concept in France. Prior to that, plaintiffs had to create an ad-hoc association or rely on existing consumer associations such as UFC-Que Choisir.
Metakit is a radical alternative to conventional RDBMS.
Portable, self-contained, on-the-fly restructuring, fast, memory-mapped...
IIRC Apple uses it for MacOS X's address book.
I understand that, QEMU being an unfunded project, the author hasn't enough resources to port this technology to other host platforms.
However if the Accelerator Technology is portable to platforms such as PowerPC or Cell, then it perfectly makes sense to keep it closed source if the goal is to open source it in exchange for financial or material support. Imagine what IBM could do with a near-native performance x86 emulator running on Cell... No more counter-arguments about compatibility, and Cell becomes instantly the fastest x86-compatible processor on the market. Given Cell's potential for parallel computation, this should beat the crap out of Opteron or whatever Intel could release in the near future.
First time I've heard of this technology it was 15 years ago. This has been originally developped at the LETI (a french research institute). PixTech (also french) seems to be an emanation from this lab.
FED displays are based on the so-called 'tip effect' (not sure about the english term, in french it's 'effet de pointe'). This electromagnetic effect is what makes lightning rods work. To simplify, each pixel is thus basically filled with micro-lightning rods that throw particles towards the phosphore.
Let me know what they do for us, then figure out what we do for them. compare those two lists.
Guess who is helping the US most in Afghanistan? And who was the first leader to visit New York in the aftermath of 09/11 ? (hint: his first name is Jacques).
Comparing lists as you suggest is not a correct way of handling relationships between such two long-lasting allies.
The reason why the French are so upset about the USA is that they wasted the vast amount of sympathy they gained after 09/11 by engaging into a so called "war on terrorism" that rather looks like a struggle to safeguard their own interests (oil, dollar...). The reason why the USA are so upset about France is because they tried to make the UN prevail above these interests. Please stop watching Fox News and get some real information.
Slashdot Mirror
Read this thoroughly, and try to do the opposite.
'nuff said
Definitely the best US article on France I've read for a long time.
The author is certainly better informed of the current events and the background than any other US 'journalist' I've heard of, with notable exceptions like Ted Stanger.
I live in Rennes, France. It's a peaceful city of about 350,000 inhabitants, one of the capital cities of the IT industry (it's nicknamed the Telecom Valley). Minitel, Digital TV, DSL, MP3 were (at least partly) invented there. I work in the IT industry (Digital TV). It's green, quiet and pleasant. How surprised and shocked I was today when I saw excerpts of CNN and Fox News (that so-called 'news' TV, bah) about the riots (in the cult TV show 'Zapping').
CNN couldn't even locate the cities properly: Rennes over Chartres, Paris in Champagne, Toulouse in Switzerland, Cannes on the Spanish boundary, Lyons in the middle of the Massif Central mountains, and Strasbourg in Austria! Come on guys, if you pretend to feed the world with news, at least learn to read a map!
Fox News sucked even more, talking about 'Islamic riots', amongst a torrent of anti-French hate speech. Only in the US this parody of News channel is taken seriously, us the rest-of-the-world untermenschen know this is mere Murdoch far-right propaganda. The riots have NOTHING, I tell you, NOTHING to do with Islam. It's a social problem, not a religious one. Even the not-so-moderated local Imams called for the end of the violence.
But back to Rennes. The France map on CNN was covered with fires, including one over my beloved city. Sorry but I see no fire from my windows, and I live in one of the tallest buildings. The total number of cars set on fire is about 50 over the last 12 days, compared to several thousands in the Paris area. I can tell you that, contrary to Paris (actually Seine-Saint-Denis, or 93, or Nine-Three), there is no real ghetto out there, only a excessive concentration of relative poorness in the southern district, but nothing like the 93, which is the largest in Europe. The arsonists were certainly a bunch of jerks with too much free time who tried to enter a 'competition' with other French cities. Anyway 50 is still too much for Rennes, but the city is certainly not on fire. In Strasbourg, about 100 cars are set on fire EVERY YEAR during the New Year's Eve.
So sorry but I'm fed up with the US media who can't get basic facts and make me feel like I live in the Bronx during the 80's. It's Britanny, damnit, we have 100 times less murders than an average US city. If you want facts, call me, I'll give you 10 times more facts than your so-called reporters.
Anyway, a very good article.
(BTW the French don't hate the Americans, but it's not easy everyday)
Try watching TV in a high speed train then. It's not about PORTABLE tv, but MOBILE tv.
The main problems addressed by DVB-H (the European^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrest-of-the-world standard for mobile TV) are:
- Mobility and nomadism. Broadcast frequencies are not constant across territory. With non-mobile TV (digital or analog) you must constantly (and manually) tune your receiver. With DVB-H, national TV channels are available seamlessly on the whole territory (you can also have local channels) whatever the actual broadcast frequencies, even if you're moving at high speed (train, car...).
- Battery life. DVB-H is an adaptation of DVB-T that sends data in short bursts to save power due to the reception antenna and tuner. The antenna is the most power-demanding part of a mobile set.
Limiting DVB-H to mobile phones is narrowing the possibilities of this standard. Think in-car TVs. Applications are countless, and I predict that, if the technology is ready, demand will rise before the beginning of Soccer World Cup in Germany next summer, the same way it will drive demand for HD TVs, and the 1998 World Cup drove demand for big screen TVs. You could for example get summaries of matches, videos of the best goals, statistics, and so on in a customized fashion.Yes, Sicilia is on the African tectonic plate: http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/EarthSC102Notes/102PTEa rthHist.htm
Wouldn't that be even slower? Well... It was supposed to be sarcastic. Guess it won't be moderated funny this time.
It's called Direct3D software renderer
France is around 1560, please don't make us look more lazy than we are. Moreover, we have a higher hourly productivity, and a similar annual productivity. Working less usually means working better.
Some facts about France's so-called 35h week:
With its switch to Intel, Apple is going to succeed where MS couldn't: build a "proprietary" PC that doesn't rely on anything legacy such as the BIOS.
Nearly everything except the BIOS will be standard on the Mactel platform. Seems to me like the perfect occasion to introduce a "trusted", DRM-enabled platform from the ground up.
Now Apple can tell the RIAA & MPAA: on our platforms, your stuff will be secure.
A simple heuristics for choosing between GPL and BSD is community.
If your goal is to to build a community of users or developers around a long-term, evolving project, and ensure that it remains free, then GPL is a good choice. Typical example: Linux.
OTOH, if your goal is that people just use your code, or your project rapidly reaches maturity, and you don't care about community building, then BSD-style is a better choice. It wouldn't make much sense, for example, for libpng to be GPL'd, since one of its purpose was to be an alternative to other closed or proprietary formats such as GIF.
BSD-style licensing ensures that all applications, free or commercial, can use your code. Of course you could still use LGPL but this becomes a religious or political issue (notwithstanding the fact that it prevents static linking).
Sad to say, but of all five competing cities, all but London had been targetted by islamic terrorism to this date :
- New York: 9/11/2001 and previous WTC attacks, Al Qaeda
- Madrid: 3/11/2004, Al Qaeda
- Moskow: Chechen islamists
- Paris: several waves in the 80's and 90's, Algerian GIA
If your question is about environmentally friendly car, your remark is pertinent. However the question is about energy savings and the associated impact on global warming. AFAIK batteries have no impact on global warming, and if any, it should be infinitesimal compared to the amount of CO2 emissions saved during a hybrid car batteries' lifetime. And batteries MAY be properly disposed, which is not the case for CO2.
Air conditioning increases power consumption by about 10%. Driving with open windows has about the same effect. So I'd say don't use AC unless temp exceeds 30C (about 86F), and drive with closed windows. Oh, and lose some weight, too.
Another French joke with engineers from different schools building a bridge...
An engineer from Ecole Polytechnique builds a bridge. The bridge collapses, but he knows why.
An engineer from Ecole Centrale builds a bridge. The bridge does not collapse and he knows why.
An engineer from Ecole Des Arts et Métiers builds a bridge. The bridge does not collapse, but he doesn't know why.
You can easily adapt this joke by chosing engineers from different universities or with different backgrounds (pure theory, applied theory, pure practice).
The Cell combines a general purpose PPC-based RISC core with a powerful parallel architecture. Both are complementary : the PPC is well suited and is a well-known solution for DBMS, but can't beat a parallel computer at scientific applications such as speech recognition, natural language, fuzzy logic or any AI. On the other hand, a parallel computer is less suitable for general purpose computing than a RISC CPU such as the PPC.
The killer app for a Cell-based server would be a DBMS with natural language queries, or image queries and the like. I remember IBM developed a query system for images some while ago, maybe they have a grand scheme for world domination.
Luckily an AI strong enough to replace pyschologists has existed for quite a long time.
Are you thinking about Dr Emacs?
A group of lawyers is launching one of the first class actions in France against the movie industry. Infos here. To sum up they claim up to 1000 Euros for every DVD owner because the anti-copy features on DVDs prevent fair use, whereas blank DVDs and other digital media (yes, even hard drives!) are taxed to compensate the media industry for fair use.
Class actions are a new concept in France. Prior to that, plaintiffs had to create an ad-hoc association or rely on existing consumer associations such as UFC-Que Choisir.
Unless you pump enough water.
are both Finnish, which certainly is coincidental.
Metakit is a radical alternative to conventional RDBMS. Portable, self-contained, on-the-fly restructuring, fast, memory-mapped...
IIRC Apple uses it for MacOS X's address book.
Personally, I think every time they make promises like this, the stockholders should hold them liable.
Sure, MS stockholders Bill and Steve should hold MS execs Gates and Ballmer liable for their promises...
AirO2bic Mouse
I understand that, QEMU being an unfunded project, the author hasn't enough resources to port this technology to other host platforms.
However if the Accelerator Technology is portable to platforms such as PowerPC or Cell, then it perfectly makes sense to keep it closed source if the goal is to open source it in exchange for financial or material support. Imagine what IBM could do with a near-native performance x86 emulator running on Cell... No more counter-arguments about compatibility, and Cell becomes instantly the fastest x86-compatible processor on the market. Given Cell's potential for parallel computation, this should beat the crap out of Opteron or whatever Intel could release in the near future.
First time I've heard of this technology it was 15 years ago. This has been originally developped at the LETI (a french research institute). PixTech (also french) seems to be an emanation from this lab.
FED displays are based on the so-called 'tip effect' (not sure about the english term, in french it's 'effet de pointe'). This electromagnetic effect is what makes lightning rods work. To simplify, each pixel is thus basically filled with micro-lightning rods that throw particles towards the phosphore.
Guess who is helping the US most in Afghanistan? And who was the first leader to visit New York in the aftermath of 09/11 ? (hint: his first name is Jacques).
Comparing lists as you suggest is not a correct way of handling relationships between such two long-lasting allies.
The reason why the French are so upset about the USA is that they wasted the vast amount of sympathy they gained after 09/11 by engaging into a so called "war on terrorism" that rather looks like a struggle to safeguard their own interests (oil, dollar...). The reason why the USA are so upset about France is because they tried to make the UN prevail above these interests. Please stop watching Fox News and get some real information.