Europe has import taxes on about anything, ranging from 10% to over 20%. In particular end-consumer products are taxed very high. On top of that comes sales tax etc, making a lot of things way more expensive than anywhere else in the world.
A recent example is the solar-panel industry. It was said china was 'dumping' solar panels. Read: the prices were dropping so it was getting very interesting for private persons to install solar installations on their roof top, even without any subsidy at all (as lot of countries used to do - European countries love high taxes just to spend it on subsidies again). So, solar installation companies were flowering. Yet, European solar panel industry was having a hard time making a profit as China would undercut them.
Reaction of European politicians? Just add a 30% import tax on solar panels, just and only to protect a local and very marginal industry. At the cost of delaying and discouraging renewable energies.
So despite all talk and political intentions for more renewables, in practice they only discouraged it and money talks.
On topic. I actually think a better trade agreement between USA & Europe and other countries is a good thing. Just the secrecy and the smoke curtain that surrounds it now is bad. It should be a more public debate allowing more stakeholders to share their views.
There's a reason i quit booting windows.. And this just adds one more - as i would have been an effected user, by the looks of it.
I have windows license. I moved the * to a virtual machine. Which i can easily copy, move, boot from whatever i'm running at that moment (although i replace desktop OS only every so often).
I rarely use it (Windows). Primary reason to use it is because some other people use it and request me for help. I don't need or use windows at all, thank you, life is too short to waste time on that clickable crap. I keep the VM updated every so often. And i'm not even considering booting windows ever again, after it evolved a habit of randomly deleting any non-ntfs partitions, or making itself and the rest of the system unbootable, thank you.
Windows is not an OS, it's a data destruction system. They (MS) don't give a f* about your data. It was like that 20 years ago, it was like that 10 years ago and it is now. My data more important than any narcissistic OS. And i not even started about usability issues like convenience or 'just getting things done'.
Not sure why you have such positive view on mobile networks in Europe..
Of course, the situation differs a bit per country but in mine (densely populated netherlands) not all providers have optimal coverage, and when crossing borders roaming does exist - at excessive charges up to several pennies a MB and euro's per minute called - in contrast to relative cheap national calling&net.
G4 has largely been rolled out by 2 1/2 provider, but personally i find the reliability far from 100% - as in - my G3 only phone seems to have better internet. High speed is of no use if connection fails at every other corner.
The only thing that 'works' is competition, with t-mobile the underdog here but still with a strong yet not perfect infrastructure. However, as consumer i'd rather had they would share their networks so our phones always gets signal from the best tower - instead of fighting for a signal in a electromagnetic battlefield, my phone ending up getting hot and blasting way more watts of power than would be needed.
Denmark has a really good PR department. They can only afford to have so many wind turbines because they also have a lot of dirty coal power plants, and when they produce too much electricity, they sell it at a loss to Sweden and Norway (who have many hydro power plants). Denmark has a pretty bad CO2/kWh electricity footprint.
This is a very inaccurate sketch of reality, and almost any statement in this sentence is untrue.
* Wind power turbines can be started and stopped with simple procedure, in contrary to a large gas, nuclear or coal plant. Wind energy is actually actively used to steer energy supply based on the demands. The idea that you `need` coal plants to adjust for varying winds is more than a misconception. In reality, it's the other way around - large plants are monoliths that are not usually actively adjusted in output power based on the demand. Wind energy parks are capable of adapting output to demand in real-time.
* Hydro plants are are very nice solution, both for varying demands. When not used, they actively can store energy. There's nothing wrong with hydro plants. There's also nothing wrong with (high voltage / DC / bidirectional) undersea electricity cables that, once installed, help a continent create and distribute more electricity efficiently.
* Denmark produces about 50% of it's energy needs with wind power. That makes an excellent CO2 footprint per kWh.
Please stop your blatant lies and fud. Renewable energy exists, is flexible enough, greatly reduces carbon footprint, and is economically feasible.
The only reason to object renewables is if you have many stock interests in some oil-based company.
-- On-topic: I do agree that bitcoin in it's current form is mostly a waste of energy.
In all fairness. speaking from overseas.. this sounds like a good deal. If all rural area gets 10/1Mbit net, or better, for only 100M.. then it's a pretty good deal.
And getting anyone connected should be priority for any state. Just only once you have and use net you realize it's about as essential as electricity. So even if tax payers help connecting more remote area's, i'd still see it as a good thing.
Relativating again.. If AT&T were to promise that kind of speeds on landlines nationwide at that price where i live (Netherlands; about same size and pop as california), it'd be laughed at as implausible.
Meanwhile, G3/4 speeds exceed DSL over here. Up to the point that you might consider dropping cable/dsl/landline alltogether. Which is likely anywhere 'soon' (<10 years) as wireless data scaled up much better as cupper based. My DSL now about same speed as my cable connection in 2000, while mobile connection dwarfs the dsl speeds.
Replace Logical Operators (&&, ||, etc) with words like "and" and "or":
Bless your c-styled bitwise- and logical operators. For example, Pascal uses 'and' and 'or' as suggested. They happen to be bitwise and and or. For true logical operations you have to jump some hoops. So, before you know your code is full of `if ((b=0) and (c<>0))` etc. That's `if ((b==0) & (c!=0))` for the C readers.
You could solve it by indicating logical or bitwise operators. Band (bitwise and) and land (logical and)? bor and lor? That would surely make code more readable.
I love the c-style logical operators. It's obvious what they do. They are very readable as they are not letters, making it much easier to parse for the brains.
To end with a quote: `I would use pascal more frequent if only it had the syntax of C`
Companies that make cheap commodity hardware have little incentive to provide those updates, because they are better off selling replacement hardware.
Not in my experience. The phones they sell you here with a contract rarely get patched, despite the big mobile names from both operators and manfufacturers behind it.
The cheap c-brand android phones i order in China only not offer more value for money, but happily receive regular firmware updates.
At least in Europe many telecoms offer inverse service. Instead of buying extra good service, you pay to get ripped and run outdated inferior firmware.
Their motivation may similar as you suggested though, they prefer selling you a new yearly or two-yearly contract with fresh-new-outdated-phone; instead of the customer having a perfectly fine free phone after a year and gets a cheap pre-paid plan or some.
To me, expansion is more imaginable if i imagine the `reverse` view:
"The size of the universe is 1 (just mathematical 1). At time of the big bang, and now, and ever. Matter (and all galaxies etc) 'shrink'."
Well, matter not actually shrinks and there's good theory to prove/assume that much, but as concept of imagining expansion, this approach works just fine for me.
Pity really, it was hijacked by a group of people with 'certain ideas' of how everything must be, and no willingness to compromise with the general user base.[...]Compare it with Blender, [..] a continuous flow of real and useful new features
I'm actually happy that the Gimp is resilient to changes just for the sake of changes. I does what it has to do and it does it very well. It has great support for various file formats. Never crashes. Can do all kind of neat tricks and if it can't you can write or download a filter to do it.
And best of all: it doesn't bother me to learn `new improved` interface. The Gimp of 2015 is about the same as 10 years ago, with only minor conservative changes - for better or for worse - to the user interface. While i partly agree that save/export should have been combined in same menu, it's also a very minor inconvenience and actually a good habit to save your work before you export to some format that looses information.
So, if you are happy with an alternative, sure. Not everybody willing to pull a thousand $ for software and a mac. I - and many others - are very happy with Gimp just as it is and regard it as a properly maintained project. It requires some learning to unlock all abilities and know all tricks, but that's with all feature rich software.
Valid points - however, most European countries have some form of national TV.
When i am abroad, i'm often annoyed with the dutch public TV digital online channels not being available, due to whatever IP issue causes it. Which i find quite absurd, since it's available for free within my country.
I would welcome a situation where i can watch British, German, French, Italian, Belgian and Dutch television stations online. If all countries open op public stations, i see it as win-win for everyone.
Commercial thinkers should realize i can only watch one TV channel at a time. The BBC will obviously put up the argument that 'everyone speaks English and not everyone speaks French or German, hence their audience is bigger and thus the market is skewed'. And while their may be some truth in that, the British tax-payer will not pay a penny more or less if half Europe watches their shows, since the cost is in creating them, not in distributing.
Likely, IP issues only play with purchased shows (overseas content, sports, etc). Everything produced by public broadcasters themselves - payed by taxpayers - will only profit from a bigger audience in my view.
In The Netherlands it's usually thought that diet was the most influencing factor behind this effect. Over the last centuries we have had plenty dairy products, no severe food shortages, in contrary, we had a reasonable high availability of varied food. Combined with relative welfare in the golden age. There are probably many other factors too, however, to grow tall you need more food on average, and so it must be available first.
Which ethical choices you mean, the ones made by me as consumer or by them?
Spotify - 10 euro to get ad-free version Netfix - 9 euro, ad free HBO - 15 euro Youtube - ? euro. Torrents - free & ad free National television - tax. about 50 euro / year - and still loaded with ads
So there are options, but they cost quite a bit, especially if you would want more than one. Having said that, maybe youtube will offer a really reasonable price (like $20 yearly) and i would consider it, but i doubt their pricetag will be that low.
I can't help that the 'default' state is to bombard listeners or viewers with ads. With up to 10-30% airtime spend on ads on some commercial TV but also on our national (tax payed) radio. With 30 second ads to watch a 2 minute video. And webpages with 75% ads and 25% content. And worse: the most annoying kind of ads, the ones that makes you pull your hair and actively makes you mute or switch channel.
If ads were not that obtrusive, no-one would bother to block them. However it became an arms race - where the blockers got better and the ads even more annoying.
So, i have no idea why you find it unethical that i, or any other customer, protect myself from ads. Or is it unethical to wear a safety belt, or earplugs at a rock concert, or safety glasses when using machinery, because i see very little difference between physical and mental damage (annoyance). I have the right to protect myself from unwanted influences.
I could even turn the argument and say no-one has the right to (un)consciously steer my (shopping) behaviour. Others would even make the argument that obesity and smoking addictions are largely caused by advertising. So again, who's being unethical here?
Please don't compare apples to oranges. You are totally right about the trust issue, that's something personal. But it has very little to do with the C# language or.NET.
Pulling JVM into the equation not really helps either, cause the consequent question would be: Do you trust Oracle? Or Google, for that matter if you count Dalvik in.
I do like the C# as a language, having done a few smaller projects with it. The reason why i prefer not to use it is, indeed, because i don't trust or like Microsoft. Having said that, i am totally fine with the Mono project - despite all criticism it's just the language and the VM and has very little to do with MS, and when appropriate (i.e.: someone pays for it) i wouldn't hesitate to develop with Mono or.Net again.
GP totally has a point here: The languages you really need for a certain task already exist, whether it be C, C++, C#, Java and a handful of other niches including but not limited to Perl and PHP. Whatever your choice is, try stick to a steady platform. Code written in any such `proven` language is much more likely to compile in another 10-20 years from now than code written in some obscure actively-developed language which adds little, that couldn't be done otherwise, but headaches.
And AC above also has a point that many OS enthusiasts are guilty of exactly what they accuse their nemesis of. Hence he doesn't deserve the tag 'astroturfer', it may well be his honest opinion. It's totally ok to criticize, but be prepared to accept criticism too, please.
Actually, silver is already used in fabrics as anti-bacterial additive (or anti-smell, depending how it's advertised) in various brands of sport clothes.
How beneficial this is for the health is another question, as it remains a heavy metal. Other nitpickers say it gets washed out after only a few wash cycles (and consequently pollute the waste water).
I think the problem with most programmers (and techies) is they aren't big picture and very detail oriented
Then, maybe, your using the wrong approach.
Try "Don't document your code, but code you documentation"..
This is as easy as creating all files you normally would, and just write down, in comments, the code you are planning to write. You catch several flies at once here: You design the entire code base, top-down, you bring structure to it, and you already documented it before you even started coding!
All you have to do now is work out your comments. You start by prototyping your (OO) classes and methods or (non-OO) functions. Once you validated your information flow (as in: all methods take all parameters they need, objects have all variables and methods they need in a non-redundant way, etc etc)- the remaining task is trivial: work out any method.
Then once you completed implementing the last method, you hit compile. And guess what: chances are your code _just works_ because you organized yourself and your activities in such a way that will avoid creating stupid mistakes and oversights, and 100% of your focus was with implementing well-defined functions or methods.
Top-down just works. Especially when your projected project is large. Resist the temptation of coding (but of course, you can consider your approaches while designing). Don't feel stupid for spending 2 or more days designing without coding - you will earn this time back tenfold. And while designing without implementing, you will get a good feel of which potential libraries you need, and where the easy and tough bits of coding are. But eventually, it all comes down to avoiding errors while having oversight of the entire program flow.
I feel stupid for paying now. MS just said that they are ok with stealing their software. For consumers & small businesses who actually consciously purchased a license - MS just showed us their middle finger to show how valued we dear customers are.
And now since MS said that stealing propriety software is ok, some other software vendors may not be happy with them. Pirating photoshop or games or whatever is just accepted, according to MS. Don't search for really free alternatives, they rather have you steal/copy it than using an alternative.
Really, i don't like stealing software. That's why i stick to free solutions quite often. It's also not why i like Linux, but a nice added benefit, and added benefit of OS in general. But now i feel stupid because one of the richest companies in the world say i was a moron by paying them in the first place, and that they don't care if you play the game fair or not. I suddenly regret any penny i payed them over the last 20 years.
A year is not long. Only young people think a year is long. It might as well have been a week.
Some people just want to put their code in 'the public domain'. It may be code they are not maintaining, not commercial, or targets a very small niche.
Sometimes you want your code just published - shared with the world - forever, for the next one to find it useful.
Google promises such service. One would think 'google, they know how to store data'. Even google engineers use the service themselves. And then, one day, they announce the service will cease in 2 years.
Google should NOT HAVE STARTED SUCH SERVICE. They mislead developers, and now put them up with the extra hassle of moving stuff. If they wanted to kill it, they should have said 'testing' 'alpha' 'beta' 'do not use for your project' etc.
I'm totally with the some of the other people here, Google has proven to be unreliable. Any service they not like could be gone at ant time they choose, no matter how well it works or how succesful it is. Your gmail account may well be next.
I don't mind google cleaning up beta projects. But Google Code was anything but a beta project. Ok, they were not the largest player in the market, how bad is that? I do like choice, and multiple players can learn from eachother.
So.. My personal conclusion: a very very bad move of Google which will steer many people away from their current and future projects.
I don't think the average Tesla buyer buys the car because it's 'green'. They buy it because it's electric sports car. Being electric, the (peak) power output is much much higher than achievable with combustion engines.
Then, the battery problem will likely solve itself over the next decennia. We may not have reached the optimal solution, but Tesla clearly shows there is a market for what is available with current-day technology.
Other car manufacturers are going the hybrid road to increase efficiency. But i do agree that the 'green' aspect is misleading, in general. If we want to be green, best thing we can do is reduce the amount of times and distances we (need to) travel; improve public transport and promote/easify carpooling. Yet, i think electric cars are here, and are here to stay, just as gasoline cars are, for the foreseeable future.
As you say, the costs per visitor are extremely low. That's also why i, personally, wouldn't mind to pay a few cents to have access. However, such is not possible. Either one pays reasonable high fees, up to multiple dollars per month, either it's free and filled with ads. There is no such choice as donating 1 cent.
So, what is lacking is a proper micropayment system that works, in an unobtrusive way. That's something that a *random big player in the market* has to solve. 20 years of consumer internet. The word micropayment is about just as old. And it still does not exist.
Europe is jealous because we not have a major ICT culture. Yes, we have some `big` companies filling pockets with overpriced projects that never finish in time and always need maintenance after delivery doubling the price.
What we do not have is a (economic) culture where start-ups can flourish. Where smart entrepreneurs can easily find investors and employees. Europe looks at Silicon Valley and is very jealous. But instead of some self reflection and trying to catch up with USA - and other players like China - we turn to more legislation, more import taxes, more protection of the own markets and eventually more unemployment, more taxes and less knowledge.
The only knowledge we build is heavily institutionalized - like universities and the R&D departments of some multinationals. The only thing politics care about is how to collect tax - not how to improve economy and freedom and prosperity.
As EU citizen, i can only say this is received with a lot of skepticism here too. And the usual anti-EU sentiment.
While i'm pretty `pro-EU`, i indeed think this is bullshit. Yes, Google has some sort of monopoly, however, monopolies are only a problem when abused. I don't see that abuse part. Also, there are plenty alternatives, however, Google is the biggest simply because they are the best at what they do. For them it's core business. For MS and Yahoo it's not their core business.
Anyways. it will blow over i guess. They prefer to launch this kind of bullshit ideas instead of worrying the things they really should worry about; like unemployment rates, poverty, eastern relationships, etc etc.
So i opened in firefox, watch a little, then opened up in chrome. Initially i didnt' really notice. So i watch a few minutes (nice vid indeed).. then switched back to firefox. Amazing..
It's not only the resolution, it's also that the increased fps visually increases resolution too, and overall smoothness, even color perception (why that latter, i'm not sure).
I admit. I turned from an unbeliever ('my eyes can't see better than 25fps anyways') to a believer. 60fps footage really improves video quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Europe has import taxes on about anything, ranging from 10% to over 20%. In particular end-consumer products are taxed very high. On top of that comes sales tax etc, making a lot of things way more expensive than anywhere else in the world.
A recent example is the solar-panel industry. It was said china was 'dumping' solar panels. Read: the prices were dropping so it was getting very interesting for private persons to install solar installations on their roof top, even without any subsidy at all (as lot of countries used to do - European countries love high taxes just to spend it on subsidies again).
So, solar installation companies were flowering. Yet, European solar panel industry was having a hard time making a profit as China would undercut them.
Reaction of European politicians? Just add a 30% import tax on solar panels, just and only to protect a local and very marginal industry. At the cost of delaying and discouraging renewable energies.
So despite all talk and political intentions for more renewables, in practice they only discouraged it and money talks.
On topic. I actually think a better trade agreement between USA & Europe and other countries is a good thing. Just the secrecy and the smoke curtain that surrounds it now is bad. It should be a more public debate allowing more stakeholders to share their views.
There's a reason i quit booting windows.. And this just adds one more - as i would have been an effected user, by the looks of it.
I have windows license. I moved the * to a virtual machine. Which i can easily copy, move, boot from whatever i'm running at that moment (although i replace desktop OS only every so often).
I rarely use it (Windows). Primary reason to use it is because some other people use it and request me for help. I don't need or use windows at all, thank you, life is too short to waste time on that clickable crap. I keep the VM updated every so often. And i'm not even considering booting windows ever again, after it evolved a habit of randomly deleting any non-ntfs partitions, or making itself and the rest of the system unbootable, thank you.
Windows is not an OS, it's a data destruction system. They (MS) don't give a f* about your data. It was like that 20 years ago, it was like that 10 years ago and it is now. My data more important than any narcissistic OS. And i not even started about usability issues like convenience or 'just getting things done'.
Not sure why you have such positive view on mobile networks in Europe..
Of course, the situation differs a bit per country but in mine (densely populated netherlands) not all providers have optimal coverage, and when crossing borders roaming does exist - at excessive charges up to several pennies a MB and euro's per minute called - in contrast to relative cheap national calling&net.
G4 has largely been rolled out by 2 1/2 provider, but personally i find the reliability far from 100% - as in - my G3 only phone seems to have better internet. High speed is of no use if connection fails at every other corner.
The only thing that 'works' is competition, with t-mobile the underdog here but still with a strong yet not perfect infrastructure. However, as consumer i'd rather had they would share their networks so our phones always gets signal from the best tower - instead of fighting for a signal in a electromagnetic battlefield, my phone ending up getting hot and blasting way more watts of power than would be needed.
Denmark has a really good PR department.
They can only afford to have so many wind turbines because they also have a lot of dirty coal power plants, and when they produce too much electricity, they sell it at a loss to Sweden and Norway (who have many hydro power plants). Denmark has a pretty bad CO2/kWh electricity footprint.
This is a very inaccurate sketch of reality, and almost any statement in this sentence is untrue.
* Wind power turbines can be started and stopped with simple procedure, in contrary to a large gas, nuclear or coal plant. Wind energy is actually actively used to steer energy supply based on the demands.
The idea that you `need` coal plants to adjust for varying winds is more than a misconception. In reality, it's the other way around - large plants are monoliths that are not usually actively adjusted in output power based on the demand. Wind energy parks are capable of adapting output to demand in real-time.
* Hydro plants are are very nice solution, both for varying demands. When not used, they actively can store energy. There's nothing wrong with hydro plants. There's also nothing wrong with (high voltage / DC / bidirectional) undersea electricity cables that, once installed, help a continent create and distribute more electricity efficiently.
* Denmark produces about 50% of it's energy needs with wind power. That makes an excellent CO2 footprint per kWh.
Please stop your blatant lies and fud. Renewable energy exists, is flexible enough, greatly reduces carbon footprint, and is economically feasible.
The only reason to object renewables is if you have many stock interests in some oil-based company.
-- On-topic: I do agree that bitcoin in it's current form is mostly a waste of energy.
In all fairness. speaking from overseas.. this sounds like a good deal. If all rural area gets 10/1Mbit net, or better, for only 100M.. then it's a pretty good deal.
And getting anyone connected should be priority for any state. Just only once you have and use net you realize it's about as essential as electricity. So even if tax payers help connecting more remote area's, i'd still see it as a good thing.
Relativating again.. If AT&T were to promise that kind of speeds on landlines nationwide at that price where i live (Netherlands; about same size and pop as california), it'd be laughed at as implausible.
Meanwhile, G3/4 speeds exceed DSL over here. Up to the point that you might consider dropping cable/dsl/landline alltogether. Which is likely anywhere 'soon' (<10 years) as wireless data scaled up much better as cupper based. My DSL now about same speed as my cable connection in 2000, while mobile connection dwarfs the dsl speeds.
just 2 cents..
Replace Logical Operators (&&, ||, etc) with words like "and" and "or":
Bless your c-styled bitwise- and logical operators. For example, Pascal uses 'and' and 'or' as suggested. They happen to be bitwise and and or. For true logical operations you have to jump some hoops. So, before you know your code is full of `if ((b=0) and (c<>0))` etc. That's `if ((b==0) & (c!=0))` for the C readers.
You could solve it by indicating logical or bitwise operators. Band (bitwise and) and land (logical and)? bor and lor? That would surely make code more readable.
I love the c-style logical operators. It's obvious what they do. They are very readable as they are not letters, making it much easier to parse for the brains.
To end with a quote: `I would use pascal more frequent if only it had the syntax of C`
Companies that make cheap commodity hardware have little incentive to provide those updates, because they are better off selling replacement hardware.
Not in my experience. The phones they sell you here with a contract rarely get patched, despite the big mobile names from both operators and manfufacturers behind it.
The cheap c-brand android phones i order in China only not offer more value for money, but happily receive regular firmware updates.
At least in Europe many telecoms offer inverse service. Instead of buying extra good service, you pay to get ripped and run outdated inferior firmware.
Their motivation may similar as you suggested though, they prefer selling you a new yearly or two-yearly contract with fresh-new-outdated-phone; instead of the customer having a perfectly fine free phone after a year and gets a cheap pre-paid plan or some.
To me, expansion is more imaginable if i imagine the `reverse` view:
"The size of the universe is 1 (just mathematical 1). At time of the big bang, and now, and ever. Matter (and all galaxies etc) 'shrink'."
Well, matter not actually shrinks and there's good theory to prove/assume that much, but as concept of imagining expansion, this approach works just fine for me.
5 years since development ground to a halt.
Pity really, it was hijacked by a group of people with 'certain ideas' of how everything must be, and no willingness to compromise with the general user base.[...]Compare it with Blender, [..] a continuous flow of real and useful new features
I'm actually happy that the Gimp is resilient to changes just for the sake of changes. I does what it has to do and it does it very well. It has great support for various file formats. Never crashes. Can do all kind of neat tricks and if it can't you can write or download a filter to do it.
And best of all: it doesn't bother me to learn `new improved` interface. The Gimp of 2015 is about the same as 10 years ago, with only minor conservative changes - for better or for worse - to the user interface. While i partly agree that save/export should have been combined in same menu, it's also a very minor inconvenience and actually a good habit to save your work before you export to some format that looses information.
So, if you are happy with an alternative, sure. Not everybody willing to pull a thousand $ for software and a mac. I - and many others - are very happy with Gimp just as it is and regard it as a properly maintained project. It requires some learning to unlock all abilities and know all tricks, but that's with all feature rich software.
So Occam's razor says he is an editor.
Valid points - however, most European countries have some form of national TV.
When i am abroad, i'm often annoyed with the dutch public TV digital online channels not being available, due to whatever IP issue causes it. Which i find quite absurd, since it's available for free within my country.
I would welcome a situation where i can watch British, German, French, Italian, Belgian and Dutch television stations online. If all countries open op public stations, i see it as win-win for everyone.
Commercial thinkers should realize i can only watch one TV channel at a time. The BBC will obviously put up the argument that 'everyone speaks English and not everyone speaks French or German, hence their audience is bigger and thus the market is skewed'. And while their may be some truth in that, the British tax-payer will not pay a penny more or less if half Europe watches their shows, since the cost is in creating them, not in distributing.
Likely, IP issues only play with purchased shows (overseas content, sports, etc). Everything produced by public broadcasters themselves - payed by taxpayers - will only profit from a bigger audience in my view.
Somehow, that reminds me on 20Q...
In The Netherlands it's usually thought that diet was the most influencing factor behind this effect. Over the last centuries we have had plenty dairy products, no severe food shortages, in contrary, we had a reasonable high availability of varied food. Combined with relative welfare in the golden age. There are probably many other factors too, however, to grow tall you need more food on average, and so it must be available first.
Which ethical choices you mean, the ones made by me as consumer or by them?
Spotify - 10 euro to get ad-free version
Netfix - 9 euro, ad free
HBO - 15 euro
Youtube - ? euro.
Torrents - free & ad free
National television - tax. about 50 euro / year - and still loaded with ads
So there are options, but they cost quite a bit, especially if you would want more than one. Having said that, maybe youtube will offer a really reasonable price (like $20 yearly) and i would consider it, but i doubt their pricetag will be that low.
I can't help that the 'default' state is to bombard listeners or viewers with ads. With up to 10-30% airtime spend on ads on some commercial TV but also on our national (tax payed) radio. With 30 second ads to watch a 2 minute video. And webpages with 75% ads and 25% content. And worse: the most annoying kind of ads, the ones that makes you pull your hair and actively makes you mute or switch channel.
If ads were not that obtrusive, no-one would bother to block them. However it became an arms race - where the blockers got better and the ads even more annoying.
So, i have no idea why you find it unethical that i, or any other customer, protect myself from ads. Or is it unethical to wear a safety belt, or earplugs at a rock concert, or safety glasses when using machinery, because i see very little difference between physical and mental damage (annoyance). I have the right to protect myself from unwanted influences.
I could even turn the argument and say no-one has the right to (un)consciously steer my (shopping) behaviour. Others would even make the argument that obesity and smoking addictions are largely caused by advertising. So again, who's being unethical here?
Please don't compare apples to oranges. You are totally right about the trust issue, that's something personal. But it has very little to do with the C# language or .NET.
Pulling JVM into the equation not really helps either, cause the consequent question would be: Do you trust Oracle? Or Google, for that matter if you count Dalvik in.
I do like the C# as a language, having done a few smaller projects with it. The reason why i prefer not to use it is, indeed, because i don't trust or like Microsoft. Having said that, i am totally fine with the Mono project - despite all criticism it's just the language and the VM and has very little to do with MS, and when appropriate (i.e.: someone pays for it) i wouldn't hesitate to develop with Mono or .Net again.
GP totally has a point here: The languages you really need for a certain task already exist, whether it be C, C++, C#, Java and a handful of other niches including but not limited to Perl and PHP. Whatever your choice is, try stick to a steady platform. Code written in any such `proven` language is much more likely to compile in another 10-20 years from now than code written in some obscure actively-developed language which adds little, that couldn't be done otherwise, but headaches.
And AC above also has a point that many OS enthusiasts are guilty of exactly what they accuse their nemesis of. Hence he doesn't deserve the tag 'astroturfer', it may well be his honest opinion. It's totally ok to criticize, but be prepared to accept criticism too, please.
Actually, silver is already used in fabrics as anti-bacterial additive (or anti-smell, depending how it's advertised) in various brands of sport clothes.
How beneficial this is for the health is another question, as it remains a heavy metal. Other nitpickers say it gets washed out after only a few wash cycles (and consequently pollute the waste water).
I think the problem with most programmers (and techies) is they aren't big picture and very detail oriented
Then, maybe, your using the wrong approach.
Try "Don't document your code, but code you documentation"..
This is as easy as creating all files you normally would, and just write down, in comments, the code you are planning to write. You catch several flies at once here: You design the entire code base, top-down, you bring structure to it, and you already documented it before you even started coding!
All you have to do now is work out your comments. You start by prototyping your (OO) classes and methods or (non-OO) functions. Once you validated your information flow (as in: all methods take all parameters they need, objects have all variables and methods they need in a non-redundant way, etc etc)- the remaining task is trivial: work out any method.
Then once you completed implementing the last method, you hit compile. And guess what: chances are your code _just works_ because you organized yourself and your activities in such a way that will avoid creating stupid mistakes and oversights, and 100% of your focus was with implementing well-defined functions or methods.
Top-down just works. Especially when your projected project is large. Resist the temptation of coding (but of course, you can consider your approaches while designing). Don't feel stupid for spending 2 or more days designing without coding - you will earn this time back tenfold. And while designing without implementing, you will get a good feel of which potential libraries you need, and where the easy and tough bits of coding are. But eventually, it all comes down to avoiding errors while having oversight of the entire program flow.
I feel stupid for paying now. MS just said that they are ok with stealing their software. For consumers & small businesses who actually consciously purchased a license - MS just showed us their middle finger to show how valued we dear customers are.
And now since MS said that stealing propriety software is ok, some other software vendors may not be happy with them. Pirating photoshop or games or whatever is just accepted, according to MS. Don't search for really free alternatives, they rather have you steal/copy it than using an alternative.
Really, i don't like stealing software. That's why i stick to free solutions quite often. It's also not why i like Linux, but a nice added benefit, and added benefit of OS in general. But now i feel stupid because one of the richest companies in the world say i was a moron by paying them in the first place, and that they don't care if you play the game fair or not. I suddenly regret any penny i payed them over the last 20 years.
A year is not long. Only young people think a year is long. It might as well have been a week.
Some people just want to put their code in 'the public domain'. It may be code they are not maintaining, not commercial, or targets a very small niche.
Sometimes you want your code just published - shared with the world - forever, for the next one to find it useful.
Google promises such service. One would think 'google, they know how to store data'. Even google engineers use the service themselves. And then, one day, they announce the service will cease in 2 years.
Google should NOT HAVE STARTED SUCH SERVICE. They mislead developers, and now put them up with the extra hassle of moving stuff. If they wanted to kill it, they should have said 'testing' 'alpha' 'beta' 'do not use for your project' etc.
I'm totally with the some of the other people here, Google has proven to be unreliable. Any service they not like could be gone at ant time they choose, no matter how well it works or how succesful it is. Your gmail account may well be next.
I don't mind google cleaning up beta projects. But Google Code was anything but a beta project. Ok, they were not the largest player in the market, how bad is that? I do like choice, and multiple players can learn from eachother.
So.. My personal conclusion: a very very bad move of Google which will steer many people away from their current and future projects.
I don't think the average Tesla buyer buys the car because it's 'green'. They buy it because it's electric sports car. Being electric, the (peak) power output is much much higher than achievable with combustion engines.
Then, the battery problem will likely solve itself over the next decennia. We may not have reached the optimal solution, but Tesla clearly shows there is a market for what is available with current-day technology.
Other car manufacturers are going the hybrid road to increase efficiency. But i do agree that the 'green' aspect is misleading, in general. If we want to be green, best thing we can do is reduce the amount of times and distances we (need to) travel; improve public transport and promote/easify carpooling. Yet, i think electric cars are here, and are here to stay, just as gasoline cars are, for the foreseeable future.
As you say, the costs per visitor are extremely low. That's also why i, personally, wouldn't mind to pay a few cents to have access. However, such is not possible. Either one pays reasonable high fees, up to multiple dollars per month, either it's free and filled with ads. There is no such choice as donating 1 cent.
So, what is lacking is a proper micropayment system that works, in an unobtrusive way. That's something that a *random big player in the market* has to solve. 20 years of consumer internet. The word micropayment is about just as old. And it still does not exist.
Europe is jealous because we not have a major ICT culture. Yes, we have some `big` companies filling pockets with overpriced projects that never finish in time and always need maintenance after delivery doubling the price.
What we do not have is a (economic) culture where start-ups can flourish. Where smart entrepreneurs can easily find investors and employees. Europe looks at Silicon Valley and is very jealous. But instead of some self reflection and trying to catch up with USA - and other players like China - we turn to more legislation, more import taxes, more protection of the own markets and eventually more unemployment, more taxes and less knowledge.
The only knowledge we build is heavily institutionalized - like universities and the R&D departments of some multinationals. The only thing politics care about is how to collect tax - not how to improve economy and freedom and prosperity.
As EU citizen, i can only say this is received with a lot of skepticism here too. And the usual anti-EU sentiment.
While i'm pretty `pro-EU`, i indeed think this is bullshit. Yes, Google has some sort of monopoly, however, monopolies are only a problem when abused. I don't see that abuse part. Also, there are plenty alternatives, however, Google is the biggest simply because they are the best at what they do. For them it's core business. For MS and Yahoo it's not their core business.
Anyways. it will blow over i guess. They prefer to launch this kind of bullshit ideas instead of worrying the things they really should worry about; like unemployment rates, poverty, eastern relationships, etc etc.
You are twisting his words. Ballmer was not talking about Linux, but about the GPL and it's 'viral' nature.
And to their defense, MS has released more open-source software and libraries in the past. Also they actually contribute to the Linux kernel.
There's plenty left to dislike MS for without twisting the truth.
Indeed.
So i opened in firefox, watch a little, then opened up in chrome. Initially i didnt' really notice. So i watch a few minutes (nice vid indeed).. then switched back to firefox. Amazing..
It's not only the resolution, it's also that the increased fps visually increases resolution too, and overall smoothness, even color perception (why that latter, i'm not sure).
I admit. I turned from an unbeliever ('my eyes can't see better than 25fps anyways') to a believer. 60fps footage really improves video quality.