Seriously, what can be possibly better than electric trains? Unless your electricity comes from coal, in which case replacing the power station to something else, say nuclear, would make more sense.
Why not just install nuclear reactors on each train, just like with submarines? Maximum efficiency: bring the power source to the vehicle.
For a few months I already own a pda with cell phone and wifi support. I am using a free SIP client to make free unlimited wifi calls with my free sip account. Though the software needs some improvement, it works. However, wifi needs way too much energy. With wifi disabled the battery life is a few days, when enabled it only takes about an hour or two to completely drain the battery, wether I am calling or not! And this is with wifi in 'economy mode', which only makes it usable when reception is very good. Seems to me that for wifi phones to become really popular they have a huge problem to fix.
You honoustly call the EU a country?? Literally nobody I know (also from multiple European countries) ever called it that, even those from more liberal countries like The Netherlands (thus not more conservative countries like France who still value their own borders a bit too much in the practical sense).
Of course, the EU has quite a lot of political and economic influence. But that does not undermine a country's sovereignty at all! About the Jorg Heider case: a more extreme but comparable situation is the threat of economic sanctions against Iran, opposed by the UN. That doesn't mean the UN itself has direct political influence, it still fully depends on its members for that.
You are one of the optimists that still believe in a European Constitution in the short term. Be my guest, but this is quite unrealistic. (I voted in favor of it though, but was part of a small minority in The Netherlands and France, and it wasn't even a real constitution) Besides, before even considering a constitution let's first make Brussels more transparent, more efficient and, above all, more democratic. Priorities!
Maybe the cultural differences aren't much or any bigger than those in the US. But I do believe they are more profound, with the language barriers (in most countries the penetration of English is still very poor) to underline that. Of course, younger people feel a lot less distance than their parents towards foreigners, but it is still the older generation that rules the EU. This is clearly reflected in the way Brussels is organized. Thus it will, unfortunately, still take quite a lot of time for Europe to not only become an economic union, but also a real union in the heads of the people.
The US is a federation of 50 sovereign states (each with the size and economy to match), and saying "Foo City, US" would be like saying "Foo City, EU (...)"
That may be the idea in the States, not at all in Europe! Here few people would ever say they are from "Foo City, Country, EU" as they would leave out the EU part. As many Americans are very aware of being a member of the USA, in Europe almost nobody claims to be a European member. Not that they are unaware of the world geography (I even think this awareness is much higher on average than in the States!), they just don't think of Europe as a coutry. And they are right, since it is mostly an economic union with 'some' political additions.
Each country within the EU still has its full sovereignty, whereas the entire USA is regarded as a sovereign country with largely but not entirely independent member states. The EU doesn't even have a constitution! Hopefully this also underlines the difference between states and countries. The EU is made up of 25 countries, each with their own federal government, the USA is one country with 50 member states, all under the same federal government. And when it comes to most Europeans this will never change. They would rather see the EU disappear entirely than make it their new federal government. Nobody wants to give up their current sovereignty. Also the cultural differences can be huge somtimes, too big to weld the EU together permanently. It is like trying to make one country of let's say the USA and Mexico.
The biggest problem today with diesel engines is the large production of soot. In about a year soot filters will be forced by law here in The Netherlands, mainly due to health issues. I live in Rotterdam, in the middle of the Meuse and Rhine river delta which is one of the most dust polluted areas worldwide. This is mainly caused by diesel trucks, cars and ships and heavy industry. But soot filters are expected to make a significant difference.
Before buying a diesel or diesel hybrid: ask for a soot filter!
The spokeswoman instead pointed to Microsoft's IE Weblog, where company officials are highlighting Microsoft's partial CSS2 compliance in IE 6.0, the most recent version of Microsoft's Web browser.
Even 'partial' is an overstatement here. IE6 does not even support simple things like 'border-left' for table cells. So unless Microsoft really does something about that, I won't even consider keeping my homepage IE compliant. I wish that every webmaster does the same thing to force Microsoft to support CSS2 or, if necessary, to even cause a massive abandonment of IE by the public. Microsoft still has a big lesson to learn in social responsibility.
1. Writing your own software in the States can be against the law? Man, what a madhouse! 2. Officially yes, practically no. This is what's called "gedogen" (no English translation, means "allowing something that's officially forbidden"). Legalizing softdrugs is politically difficult since there is no consensus between all parties. The fact that other countries, especially France, are strongly against it, also makes it quite difficult. More and more EU members however see the benefits of allowing softdrugs since it ends the underground softdrug scene and makes controlling and checking softdrug use much easier. 3. As long as it is with here consent of course. Here in Holland we think that a 16 year old girl is capable of deciding herself who she has sex with instead of letting others decide. Yes, we are still quite liberal, even though more and more Dutch think we are not anymore.
So, if we colonize one or two other planets, that just gives us a few more baskets. What we need are hundreds or thousands of baskets.
Missed math classes at high school? Suppose the odds of Earth being hit by an asteroid within the next 200 years is one in 500. Now imagine there would be a second Earth in our solar system with exactly the same odds. Chances that both Earths are hit within 500 years would be one in 250000. You see that even one extra biosphere already enhances our chance of survival remarkably! Now add one more earth and human kind is safe enough for the next 6 billion years.
A historical remnant of the original meaning of 'Duits' to refer to the people of the Netherlands, rather than the people of Germany, can still be seen in first line of the Dutch National anthem
However, I do not believe refering to the country as "Holland" is incorrect any more than refering to the USA as "America" is incorrect. It's common usage.
On quite a different scale however...
About country names: the Dutch call Germany "Duitsland", the Germans themselves call it "Deutschland". "Dutch" meaning "from Holland" is therefor quite remarkable. We Dutch call ourselves "Nederlanders" or "Hollanders" and our neigbours are named "Duitsers". When we Dutch people talk about Germans ("Germanen") we refer to a people that once lived in western Europe (Germanic tribe). Still get it?
In our national anthem however, we sing "ben ik van Duitschen bloed", literally "am I of Dutch blood", indicating that even to the Dutch it is not quite clear wether to be called "Dutch" is a good or a 'bad' thing. Since there is no real alternative to "Dutch" in English I have no objection.
Trust me, SACD will sound better, much more detailed. The drawback is that you'll get used to the SACD sound and won't notice the quality gain anymore over time. However, when switching back to cd-audio you notice the inferiority of 16bit 44kHz PCM immediately.
SACD and other high quality formats are only appealing enough for people who are really concerned about quality. Just like mp3 interests those who prefer quantity, who simply want to download everything there is to get. Since the latter group of people is *much* larger I forsee a not so good future for the SACD format. Therefore, I whish that SACD based compression formats will become available so I can enjoy this format in more places than just my living room.
All those fans to keep everything cool are quite annoying, especially in those quiet movie parts or long work sessions! So why not get rid of them for that reason instead of temperature?
It's finicky enough that you couldn't build a machine with water cooling and leave it in a room for 3 years so that leaves a hole in reliability as I couldn't leave my machines on while going away for two weeks on vacation
Since when is it necesary to leave a pc running that long without being around? If you want that, build a simple server and put it in a closet or another room to keep out the noise.
Ok, enough stereotypes about Holland. I hate tulips (never even been to the fields in my life which covers more than 25 years) and marihuana stinks;).
The main reason for this big red area above Holland is the port of Rotterdam and all its industry. Note that, despite very strict environment rules in The Netherlands, the exhaust of NO2 is still a big problem. Being from Rotterdam I am not particularly proud of this, but on the other end its quite an inevitable effect of having the biggest port on the face of this planet! Keep this in mind and you even start to realize this red blob could have been much worse! So let's point our fingers to China now...
How about not living in areas that are so warm, you need airconditioning to keep yourself functioning? California! Man, those airconditioners really consume (uhh, convert) too much energy.
The fact about global warming is that society denies there is a problem, but worse, there is a solution too. Or perhaps the solution is the reason why we don't want to see the problem.
Anyways, I am going to enjoy my peanut butter sandwich now.
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Seriously, what can be possibly better than electric trains? Unless your electricity comes from coal, in which case replacing the power station to something else, say nuclear, would make more sense.
Why not just install nuclear reactors on each train, just like with submarines? Maximum efficiency: bring the power source to the vehicle.
For a few months I already own a pda with cell phone and wifi support. I am using a free SIP client to make free unlimited wifi calls with my free sip account. Though the software needs some improvement, it works. However, wifi needs way too much energy. With wifi disabled the battery life is a few days, when enabled it only takes about an hour or two to completely drain the battery, wether I am calling or not! And this is with wifi in 'economy mode', which only makes it usable when reception is very good. Seems to me that for wifi phones to become really popular they have a huge problem to fix.
You honoustly call the EU a country?? Literally nobody I know (also from multiple European countries) ever called it that, even those from more liberal countries like The Netherlands (thus not more conservative countries like France who still value their own borders a bit too much in the practical sense).
Of course, the EU has quite a lot of political and economic influence. But that does not undermine a country's sovereignty at all! About the Jorg Heider case: a more extreme but comparable situation is the threat of economic sanctions against Iran, opposed by the UN. That doesn't mean the UN itself has direct political influence, it still fully depends on its members for that.
You are one of the optimists that still believe in a European Constitution in the short term. Be my guest, but this is quite unrealistic. (I voted in favor of it though, but was part of a small minority in The Netherlands and France, and it wasn't even a real constitution) Besides, before even considering a constitution let's first make Brussels more transparent, more efficient and, above all, more democratic. Priorities!
Maybe the cultural differences aren't much or any bigger than those in the US. But I do believe they are more profound, with the language barriers (in most countries the penetration of English is still very poor) to underline that. Of course, younger people feel a lot less distance than their parents towards foreigners, but it is still the older generation that rules the EU. This is clearly reflected in the way Brussels is organized. Thus it will, unfortunately, still take quite a lot of time for Europe to not only become an economic union, but also a real union in the heads of the people.
The US is a federation of 50 sovereign states (each with the size and economy to match), and saying "Foo City, US" would be like saying "Foo City, EU (...)"
That may be the idea in the States, not at all in Europe! Here few people would ever say they are from "Foo City, Country, EU" as they would leave out the EU part. As many Americans are very aware of being a member of the USA, in Europe almost nobody claims to be a European member. Not that they are unaware of the world geography (I even think this awareness is much higher on average than in the States!), they just don't think of Europe as a coutry. And they are right, since it is mostly an economic union with 'some' political additions.
Each country within the EU still has its full sovereignty, whereas the entire USA is regarded as a sovereign country with largely but not entirely independent member states. The EU doesn't even have a constitution! Hopefully this also underlines the difference between states and countries. The EU is made up of 25 countries, each with their own federal government, the USA is one country with 50 member states, all under the same federal government. And when it comes to most Europeans this will never change. They would rather see the EU disappear entirely than make it their new federal government. Nobody wants to give up their current sovereignty. Also the cultural differences can be huge somtimes, too big to weld the EU together permanently. It is like trying to make one country of let's say the USA and Mexico.
The biggest problem today with diesel engines is the large production of soot. In about a year soot filters will be forced by law here in The Netherlands, mainly due to health issues. I live in Rotterdam, in the middle of the Meuse and Rhine river delta which is one of the most dust polluted areas worldwide. This is mainly caused by diesel trucks, cars and ships and heavy industry. But soot filters are expected to make a significant difference.
Before buying a diesel or diesel hybrid: ask for a soot filter!
The spokeswoman instead pointed to Microsoft's IE Weblog, where company officials are highlighting Microsoft's partial CSS2 compliance in IE 6.0, the most recent version of Microsoft's Web browser.
Even 'partial' is an overstatement here. IE6 does not even support simple things like 'border-left' for table cells. So unless Microsoft really does something about that, I won't even consider keeping my homepage IE compliant. I wish that every webmaster does the same thing to force Microsoft to support CSS2 or, if necessary, to even cause a massive abandonment of IE by the public. Microsoft still has a big lesson to learn in social responsibility.
1. Writing your own software in the States can be against the law? Man, what a madhouse!
2. Officially yes, practically no. This is what's called "gedogen" (no English translation, means "allowing something that's officially forbidden"). Legalizing softdrugs is politically difficult since there is no consensus between all parties. The fact that other countries, especially France, are strongly against it, also makes it quite difficult. More and more EU members however see the benefits of allowing softdrugs since it ends the underground softdrug scene and makes controlling and checking softdrug use much easier.
3. As long as it is with here consent of course. Here in Holland we think that a 16 year old girl is capable of deciding herself who she has sex with instead of letting others decide. Yes, we are still quite liberal, even though more and more Dutch think we are not anymore.
So, if we colonize one or two other planets, that just gives us a few more baskets. What we need are hundreds or thousands of baskets.
Missed math classes at high school? Suppose the odds of Earth being hit by an asteroid within the next 200 years is one in 500. Now imagine there would be a second Earth in our solar system with exactly the same odds. Chances that both Earths are hit within 500 years would be one in 250000. You see that even one extra biosphere already enhances our chance of survival remarkably! Now add one more earth and human kind is safe enough for the next 6 billion years.
A historical remnant of the original meaning of 'Duits' to refer to the people of the Netherlands, rather than the people of Germany, can still be seen in first line of the Dutch National anthem
Apparantly you disagree with Wikipedia.
No, it does mean "Dutch". "Duits" refers to "Diets" or "Dietsch" which is an old form of the modern Dutch language.
However, I do not believe refering to the country as "Holland" is incorrect any more than refering to the USA as "America" is incorrect. It's common usage.
On quite a different scale however...
About country names: the Dutch call Germany "Duitsland", the Germans themselves call it "Deutschland". "Dutch" meaning "from Holland" is therefor quite remarkable. We Dutch call ourselves "Nederlanders" or "Hollanders" and our neigbours are named "Duitsers". When we Dutch people talk about Germans ("Germanen") we refer to a people that once lived in western Europe (Germanic tribe). Still get it?
In our national anthem however, we sing "ben ik van Duitschen bloed", literally "am I of Dutch blood", indicating that even to the Dutch it is not quite clear wether to be called "Dutch" is a good or a 'bad' thing. Since there is no real alternative to "Dutch" in English I have no objection.
Trust me, SACD will sound better, much more detailed. The drawback is that you'll get used to the SACD sound and won't notice the quality gain anymore over time. However, when switching back to cd-audio you notice the inferiority of 16bit 44kHz PCM immediately.
SACD and other high quality formats are only appealing enough for people who are really concerned about quality. Just like mp3 interests those who prefer quantity, who simply want to download everything there is to get. Since the latter group of people is *much* larger I forsee a not so good future for the SACD format. Therefore, I whish that SACD based compression formats will become available so I can enjoy this format in more places than just my living room.
Die PCM, die! Live and prosper DSD!
All those fans to keep everything cool are quite annoying, especially in those quiet movie parts or long work sessions! So why not get rid of them for that reason instead of temperature?
It's finicky enough that you couldn't build a machine with water cooling and leave it in a room for 3 years so that leaves a hole in reliability as I couldn't leave my machines on while going away for two weeks on vacation
Since when is it necesary to leave a pc running that long without being around? If you want that, build a simple server and put it in a closet or another room to keep out the noise.
Isn't that exactly what they are doing, settling on a set of conventions?
Ok, enough stereotypes about Holland. I hate tulips (never even been to the fields in my life which covers more than 25 years) and marihuana stinks ;).
The main reason for this big red area above Holland is the port of Rotterdam and all its industry. Note that, despite very strict environment rules in The Netherlands, the exhaust of NO2 is still a big problem. Being from Rotterdam I am not particularly proud of this, but on the other end its quite an inevitable effect of having the biggest port on the face of this planet! Keep this in mind and you even start to realize this red blob could have been much worse! So let's point our fingers to China now...
How about not living in areas that are so warm, you need airconditioning to keep yourself functioning? California! Man, those airconditioners really consume (uhh, convert) too much energy. The fact about global warming is that society denies there is a problem, but worse, there is a solution too. Or perhaps the solution is the reason why we don't want to see the problem. Anyways, I am going to enjoy my peanut butter sandwich now.
Saw this on tv once. Since I will be in Spain this summer, I will certainly pay a visit to Manzanares to see it for real. Can't wait :).
Two thrid world countries == A re-unified Germany
;).
Being a Dutchman I won't argue 'bout that
I love the metric system.
Already have surround sound from (well encoded) mp3's for years using matrix decoders like dolby prologic. Sounds great and no need for bigger mp3's.