Just crazy old me but... with 100 Mbps around the corner (North Europe has it all over the place and we'll have it in Portugal until the end of the year) why the hell would anyone keep their media locally? Bacteria feed? When everyone is always online (my house surely is) with over 36 Mbps, the main distribution media will be... well... the network?
This is already common practice in Switzerland, where your neighbor will turn you in for not having you car's road tax updated even though you don't drive and your car is parked in the common building garage or you have the crazy idea of flushing the toilet after 22 h. Yes, both are actual examples...
All comunist dictatorships have shown us long ago that the thing a totalitarian government fears the most is a free flow of information. I believe that if the USA really want to get the Cuban regime on it's knees it should be PROMOTING Internet access as way to show Cubans "what they're missing".
All politians should be forced to read George Orwell...
On a side note: I have travelled all around the world. Altough being a democrat (notice the small "d", I'm Portuguese, democrat means someone who believes in democracy) I must admit the Cuban regime puzzles me. Cubans are poor. But none are hungry or desperate. Their health system shames any I have known. Their education system is even better!! And, all in all, they seem in average a lot happier than most "developed" countries I've travelled (in excess of 40 "first world countries"). I does make you wonder...
Excuse me?! Have you EVER tried writing ANYTHING for Symbian?! It's a nightmare, a bad one! That is why most apps you get in a Nokia are... well... Java:D
I have worked with several kind of children and adolescents throughout my lifetime, both from the best and worse of parental backgrounds.
What I have come to learn is that even young adolescents from bad parental backgrounds are more mature that full grown adults from a good parental background. This is mainly due to the placement of responsibility on the child that occurs when there aren't no parents around to take the blame ore be held responsible for the adolescent's behavior.
Once a kid, able of abstract thought (see Piaget on this one), is placed under conditions in which he/she suffers the consequence of his/her actions, he/she learns VERY QUICKLY to become responsible. And once they learn that, they are no longer children but young adults.
It strikes me as incredibly cynical that societies that 100 years ago considered a 14 year old mature enough to marry, have kids, go to war and, in some cases, become the ruler of his nation, now consider a 14 year old as a retard unable to conduct the simplest of social actions unattended.
An alien with a vast superior intelligence coming to Earth and trying establishing contact with humans would be similar to you going to the country side and trying to establish contact with an ant colony. The intelligence divide is just to great for you to care or for the ants to comprehend.
If aliens have visited Earth our great science achievements wouldn't amount to much more than our perception of technology in an ant colony's tunnel system
Most people in my workplace (me included) carry around a rather bulky, regularly crashing, integration nightmare, poor voice quality and snail slow 600 HTC (ex-Qtek) running Windows Mobile just to be able to carry their Outlook data with them.
Give me something that looks like an iPhone and has half the promised functionality, and you've got yourself a costumer. Actually, from the reaction at my workplace (Portugal's largest telecom), you've got yourself a LOAD of costumers
... as someone who was recently refused a visitors' visa to the USA because I've worked 1 month in Saudi Arabia as a CRM consultant, I can't help a grin followed by an "oh bummer!"
I guess that the "keep our country to the locals" isn't so nice when you're on the other side of the border, isn't it?
Please mod me flamebait, but I really couldn't help it:D
IANAL, but if linking to something that may be illegal is illegal, I suppose that linking to IsoHunt is also illegal. That would include Google and other search engines. And if all citizens are equal from a legal standpoint, isn't suing IsoHunt and not Google liable to be labeled persecution?
In Portugal we had an attempt on a similar technology back in the middle 90's, called PMB ("Porta Moedas Multibanco", which translates roughly into "ATM Wallet").
It was basically a smart-card you could load with a certain amount on any ATM and make payments anywhere a terminal existed (many vending machines, for instance, accepted PMB) without inserting any code whatsoever. So it basically replaced your wallet, if someone stole it the money still loaded in the card would be lost.
This wasn't much of a problem, since in Portugal we have a single entity managing all debit cards, so you get money at any ATM or pay at any debit terminal regardless of your bank, so the PMB cards were only used for micro-payments and never carried much money anyway.
The system wasn't very successful, though. Not enough information given to the public in a time where the concept of electronic money wasn't all that widespread...
My choice of words tried to convey my belief that all scientific knowledge is an ever improving fact confirmed theory, that evolves whenever we register new facts that don't fit the existing theory, until a new one emerges that is confirmed by all available facts.
You are correct to say that when all available facts confirm a given theory, it is no longer a theory. But given our past experience that eventually all theories are proven, at the very least, inaccurate, I prefer to continue to call it a theory, even knowing that it isn't the common use of the word.
I must thank you, ExxonMobil for your efforts and obvious lack of understanding of the scientific debate. In science, every attempt to disprove a fact confirmed theory just strengthens it.
So, I'd rather look at it from a different point of view: would there be the degree of certainty we have about global warming if it weren't for these jackasses? (no offense, John Knoxville!)
In Portugal we've had for the last six years a similar system.
And most people here make ALL their payments over 10 using a debit card, since all banks use a common system.
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Just crazy old me but... with 100 Mbps around the corner (North Europe has it all over the place and we'll have it in Portugal until the end of the year) why the hell would anyone keep their media locally? Bacteria feed? When everyone is always online (my house surely is) with over 36 Mbps, the main distribution media will be... well... the network?
This is already common practice in Switzerland, where your neighbor will turn you in for not having you car's road tax updated even though you don't drive and your car is parked in the common building garage or you have the crazy idea of flushing the toilet after 22 h. Yes, both are actual examples...
All comunist dictatorships have shown us long ago that the thing a totalitarian government fears the most is a free flow of information. I believe that if the USA really want to get the Cuban regime on it's knees it should be PROMOTING Internet access as way to show Cubans "what they're missing".
All politians should be forced to read George Orwell...
On a side note: I have travelled all around the world. Altough being a democrat (notice the small "d", I'm Portuguese, democrat means someone who believes in democracy) I must admit the Cuban regime puzzles me. Cubans are poor. But none are hungry or desperate. Their health system shames any I have known. Their education system is even better!! And, all in all, they seem in average a lot happier than most "developed" countries I've travelled (in excess of 40 "first world countries"). I does make you wonder...
Sorry to diasappoint you... Australia was actually discovered by the Portuguese way before, Cook just followed a map...
When will they fix these compatib... oh, forget it!
Have been trying to migrate to OO for a while now BUT... how can you make a "contains" filter in Calc? No, regular expression don't work...
Quoting, I believe, Carl Sagan "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"
Excuse me?! Have you EVER tried writing ANYTHING for Symbian?! It's a nightmare, a bad one! That is why most apps you get in a Nokia are... well... Java :D
I have worked with several kind of children and adolescents throughout my lifetime, both from the best and worse of parental backgrounds.
What I have come to learn is that even young adolescents from bad parental backgrounds are more mature that full grown adults from a good parental background. This is mainly due to the placement of responsibility on the child that occurs when there aren't no parents around to take the blame ore be held responsible for the adolescent's behavior.
Once a kid, able of abstract thought (see Piaget on this one), is placed under conditions in which he/she suffers the consequence of his/her actions, he/she learns VERY QUICKLY to become responsible. And once they learn that, they are no longer children but young adults.
It strikes me as incredibly cynical that societies that 100 years ago considered a 14 year old mature enough to marry, have kids, go to war and, in some cases, become the ruler of his nation, now consider a 14 year old as a retard unable to conduct the simplest of social actions unattended.
I believe your analogy is a bit off...
An alien with a vast superior intelligence coming to Earth and trying establishing contact with humans would be similar to you going to the country side and trying to establish contact with an ant colony. The intelligence divide is just to great for you to care or for the ants to comprehend.
If aliens have visited Earth our great science achievements wouldn't amount to much more than our perception of technology in an ant colony's tunnel system
Great!!! Now we'll ALSO have Echellon ./ every site mentioned here!
Most people in my workplace (me included) carry around a rather bulky, regularly crashing, integration nightmare, poor voice quality and snail slow 600 HTC (ex-Qtek) running Windows Mobile just to be able to carry their Outlook data with them.
Give me something that looks like an iPhone and has half the promised functionality, and you've got yourself a costumer. Actually, from the reaction at my workplace (Portugal's largest telecom), you've got yourself a LOAD of costumers
... as someone who was recently refused a visitors' visa to the USA because I've worked 1 month in Saudi Arabia as a CRM consultant, I can't help a grin followed by an "oh bummer!"
I guess that the "keep our country to the locals" isn't so nice when you're on the other side of the border, isn't it?
Please mod me flamebait, but I really couldn't help it :D
Dealing with adversity, frustration, rejection and so on is part of the process of growing up and the creation of psychological defense mechanisms.
By over protecting our children we are, in fact, under-preparing them to deal with an often ignored fact of life: it's HARD.
But, then again, it will help support the world thriving antidepressant industry...
IANAL, but if linking to something that may be illegal is illegal, I suppose that linking to IsoHunt is also illegal. That would include Google and other search engines. And if all citizens are equal from a legal standpoint, isn't suing IsoHunt and not Google liable to be labeled persecution?
40 cl a LARGE beer? You're being ripped off...
In Portugal we had an attempt on a similar technology back in the middle 90's, called PMB ("Porta Moedas Multibanco", which translates roughly into "ATM Wallet").
It was basically a smart-card you could load with a certain amount on any ATM and make payments anywhere a terminal existed (many vending machines, for instance, accepted PMB) without inserting any code whatsoever. So it basically replaced your wallet, if someone stole it the money still loaded in the card would be lost.
This wasn't much of a problem, since in Portugal we have a single entity managing all debit cards, so you get money at any ATM or pay at any debit terminal regardless of your bank, so the PMB cards were only used for micro-payments and never carried much money anyway.
The system wasn't very successful, though. Not enough information given to the public in a time where the concept of electronic money wasn't all that widespread...
Your question is extremely relevant.
My choice of words tried to convey my belief that all scientific knowledge is an ever improving fact confirmed theory, that evolves whenever we register new facts that don't fit the existing theory, until a new one emerges that is confirmed by all available facts.
You are correct to say that when all available facts confirm a given theory, it is no longer a theory. But given our past experience that eventually all theories are proven, at the very least, inaccurate, I prefer to continue to call it a theory, even knowing that it isn't the common use of the word.
I must thank you, ExxonMobil for your efforts and obvious lack of understanding of the scientific debate. In science, every attempt to disprove a fact confirmed theory just strengthens it.
So, I'd rather look at it from a different point of view: would there be the degree of certainty we have about global warming if it weren't for these jackasses? (no offense, John Knoxville!)
So they have found an high tech method to attack cancer based on the same principle you'd get by eating enough vegetables...
Riiiight....In Portugal we've had for the last six years a similar system. And most people here make ALL their payments over 10 using a debit card, since all banks use a common system.
To be honest, no user will ever need more than 640KB of RAM. The entire PS3 is way over-featured!
In Portugal, where I live, this service is already provided by the postal office... for free!
...uninstalled Vista instead? Now that would be a simple way to solve the matter.
Slashdot invented the self-recycling news way before Xerox even dreamed of this one