Well, Denmark and other scandinavian countries have it sorted out pretty well as well. Sure, normal tax is at 38%, and 25% VAT, but your pay is adjusted accordingly so that you can still live a comfortable life, reminding me of the Netherlands, where we had lower tax but equal comfort.
Sure, there'll be abuse of any free system by some people with too much time on their hands. But IMHO, that's a small price to pay for the security that when something does happen to you, there'll be a system to catch you, and stop you from falling all the way to beggar-level. In America, or so I heard, things are hunky-dory if you have money. But if something happens that breaks your bank, you go all the way to the bottom, with no-one to help you or share your cost. Add to that the problem that Americans tend not to save, but instead max out their credit at the banks, and you'll see that only a small thing could push you down that slope.
As for economic condition (never mind your statement which implies that the world history started when America was "invented"), things are not all that well in America at the moment, with a huge national debt (i.e. America borrows and borrows more and more money from other countries) that rises dramatically, government budget deficits that run in the billions of dollars, a plummeting dollar (it's now half the value as compared to the Euro than it was 8 years ago), and so on and so forth. It's only a matter of time before there'll be a 1930's collapse, and it might already have started.
Oh, but I agree with the extra 5$ levy on internet connections. In theory and by itself, it'd be nice, but it opens up the road for other companies to wiggle in their own tax.
Funny. I moved here from the Netherlands, where the tax on cars is only up to 50%.. The downside is that we don't own a car. The upside is that the streets are not gridlocked with cars, the public transport is EVERYWHERE, we do get a bit of exercise walking for 15 minutes tops to the nearest stop, and people are encouraged to live close to their working place. If you really need a car, you can always afford it.
About tax: sure, it's a lot of tax, but usually you pay 38% unless you earn shitloads, in which case you pay for the remainder a 60% tax. The thing is, though, that the wages have been adjusted so one can still live extremely comfortable despite the tax. I'm a lowly Ph.D. student and even I have loads of money per month to spare (which goes into savings), whilst living in luxury.
Fuel prices: yes, fuel is expensive, so don't drive unless you have to. But if you have to, distances are short (in Denmark, in Sweden distances are a lot larger and cars a lot cheaper, as well as the fuel), and cars are built to be efficient.
Health care: when we immigrated into Denmark we were presented with a list of choices and the kind request that we choose a doctor. That doctor will refer you to specialists for anything out of their expertise, whom will in turn refer you to X-Ray clinics and hospitals when needed. And the nice thing is, there's not a bill in sight or a cent to be paid, it's all taken care of.
vets: my friend has a friend who brought his dead parrot to the vet and now it lives! they must all have genius vets here! Come on. One example does not make a case.
So take it from someone who lives here, in the most expensive part of denmark (i.e. the capital): it's great! Life is good! Come do your Ph.D. here!
Well, I usually use only one, max. In the few cases that I cannot absolutely have any less than two active at the very same time, I can find a hub here or there. Mind you, only in cases that, for some reason, I cannot possibly do without one of the two devices for a while.
Nope, you misunderstand the strategy employed by Microsoft.
First, they say they will make a sudden switch, everyone will be stumped, irked, and in various states of disbelief at their ballsy move. Then they will "concede" and support both scripting languages for one more version, and people will think they've won, and a gradual transition takes place. Managers are happy because they "made" Microsoft change their position on abandoning VB right away, and Microsoft will be happy because they were planning it all along. The only unhappy few are the IT people that get to recode from one language into another.
Well, you must not demand much of your laptop... I barely have 40 GB left for user files on my 80GB disk, because there are so many programs installed. I cannot imagine the pain a 32 GB disk would be. You'll be stuck with constantly having to slim down your application set and user files. 64GB is the absolute lower limit.
And they were absolutely terrible since the contacts corroded, the components were poorly soldered to the contacts and other contact issues that actually required the user to sort of twist and squeak the ensemble to get anything useful out of it...
a) Well, you don't have to replace all roads at once. When placing new roads, you can incorporate the new tech. Wait with "tech-ifying" the old roads until they're up for replacement or servicing. The amount of new roads placed in the Netherlands is at such a high rate that I think it'll be about the maximum speed one _can_ install heat storage systems anyway..
b) so don't use drinking water then. Rain water will suffice just as well. Oh, and in the Netherlands, there's a lot of rain _and_ water.
I think if they're implementing this system in roads, they must have thought about things. Even my old university (Eindhoven) had a heat pump system installed some years ago, and they certainly weren't the first. Perhaps it's not common to have energy "saving" systems in the US, but here they've been around for a while. And they're profitable to have, due to energy (cost) savings.
Well, I notice that one way of optimising _my_ experience is to switch off the ads, java, javascript and plug-ins. Blazingly fast, the tubes then become.
There is no solution. If people emotionally dislike a certain thing, there's very little one can do to turn that feeling around. It's a shame really, the 17" macbook (pro) is a nice machine, if it's anything like my 4.5 year old powerbook G4. Very reliable and sturdy. Although by now, it has developed a slight squeak:).
If you've only got 900 dollars to spend, perhaps you shouldn't be focusing on getting a new pc... Especially since you won't get more than 500 euro's worth of pc;).
Oh, yes. The pain. The pain.... I'm sorry, but I'm not experiencing any discomfort at all. Maybe in your smugness, you fail to see that there is no problem.
Yes, a table like that can quash any questions about methodology. It might also serve to get 80% of your audience to "blank out", causing them to cease to follow the rest of the presentation, and making it a waste of their time...
Perhaps you can follow a middle road. Quickly explain the medhodology (graphically, flow-chart-like perhaps) that you followed during the actual presentation, and keep the table handy on a slide after the last slide, so that if anyone questions, you can show.
As an alternative, you can colour parts of your table depending on what it shows, or otherwise draw attention to the part you want to focus on (encircle, highlight....).
In my presentations, I try not to show any numbers or words. If the people want the details, they can come to me afterwards and I'll be happy to discuss it with them. Or they can read the publication.
Then again, I'm in materials science:). When I try to point people towards the Jobs keynotes, and show them how they can present, they often retort: "but my topic is too complex to present in that way". I think if it is too complex to present that way, perhaps you need to "dumb it down" a little so that more of the audience can understand.
The most useful part of conferences in my field is the general knowledge that you gain. Introductions to topics are far more important to me than the actual work. This might explain my preference for making easily accessible presentations.
Well, to be fair, I do believe that the Office 2004 (mac) version of powerpoint also has a presenter's display, quite like the Keynote one.
Animations are usually to be avoided, except when they can be used to convey a point. I use it to "zoom into" the section of a figure that I want to talk about or show the motion of the translation stages during my measurements. Very illustrative and easier to do than POV-Ray movies:).
I think one of the differences between powerpoint and keynote is that keynote pre-computes the transitions and slides, whilst powerpoint just starts it and hopes the cpu will be able to keep up. But that's just an impression.
Oh yes, and Keynote has guides that will help you align your objects on the slide when you're assembling it.
And finally, please reconsider showing a huge table on a slide, try to summarize instead. 1024x786 should be enough for anyone:). Slides are there to visually underline your presentations with graphics, not to document results...
Yessss. I can help you there, I think:). After giving quite a few presentations in powerpoint, I switched to keynote, because:
- It handles video much better. I use POV-Ray movies to illustrate the technique I'm using. Powerpoint just can't display it without hiccups.
- It has a smooth transition called "dissolve" which fades in and out the items and slides in your presentation. I find that this is the least obnoxious of all effects, and doesn't quite "shock" the audience like the effect of having a slide suddenly appear (i.e. when having no transition).
- It has sane templates, with a sensible colour scheme (i.e. no more than a few different colours, don't make it look like a circus).
- It gives me a useful "presenters display" in which I see on my laptop screen the slide as it will look like when I click, the current slide, the presentation time and my notes. This prevents me from having to see what's on the slide by turning my back to the audience.
- Animations in slides are handled much better, I can have much more of them in a slide than in Powerpoint. Editing the sequence is also quite a bit simpler. Thus, I can have a bulleted list of keywords on the left, and an appropriate supporting picture or graph appear on the right of the slide.
- It supports true transparent images, and vector graphics. I can copy, paste and scale anything from a suitable PDF for example.
But most of all, it allows you to quickly make slides a la Steve Jobs. I can advise this to anyone: aim for having your slide contain no more than one word, one image, one movie or one graph on a suitably unobnoxious background. Let bulleted lists appear one item at a time, and talk about only the item that is highlighted (the one that appeared last). And remember: the slides are not there for you. They are for the audience.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Denmark and other scandinavian countries have it sorted out pretty well as well. Sure, normal tax is at 38%, and 25% VAT, but your pay is adjusted accordingly so that you can still live a comfortable life, reminding me of the Netherlands, where we had lower tax but equal comfort.
Sure, there'll be abuse of any free system by some people with too much time on their hands. But IMHO, that's a small price to pay for the security that when something does happen to you, there'll be a system to catch you, and stop you from falling all the way to beggar-level. In America, or so I heard, things are hunky-dory if you have money. But if something happens that breaks your bank, you go all the way to the bottom, with no-one to help you or share your cost. Add to that the problem that Americans tend not to save, but instead max out their credit at the banks, and you'll see that only a small thing could push you down that slope.
As for economic condition (never mind your statement which implies that the world history started when America was "invented"), things are not all that well in America at the moment, with a huge national debt (i.e. America borrows and borrows more and more money from other countries) that rises dramatically, government budget deficits that run in the billions of dollars, a plummeting dollar (it's now half the value as compared to the Euro than it was 8 years ago), and so on and so forth. It's only a matter of time before there'll be a 1930's collapse, and it might already have started.
Oh, but I agree with the extra 5$ levy on internet connections. In theory and by itself, it'd be nice, but it opens up the road for other companies to wiggle in their own tax.
Funny. I moved here from the Netherlands, where the tax on cars is only up to 50%.. The downside is that we don't own a car. The upside is that the streets are not gridlocked with cars, the public transport is EVERYWHERE, we do get a bit of exercise walking for 15 minutes tops to the nearest stop, and people are encouraged to live close to their working place. If you really need a car, you can always afford it.
About tax: sure, it's a lot of tax, but usually you pay 38% unless you earn shitloads, in which case you pay for the remainder a 60% tax. The thing is, though, that the wages have been adjusted so one can still live extremely comfortable despite the tax. I'm a lowly Ph.D. student and even I have loads of money per month to spare (which goes into savings), whilst living in luxury.
Fuel prices: yes, fuel is expensive, so don't drive unless you have to. But if you have to, distances are short (in Denmark, in Sweden distances are a lot larger and cars a lot cheaper, as well as the fuel), and cars are built to be efficient.
Health care: when we immigrated into Denmark we were presented with a list of choices and the kind request that we choose a doctor. That doctor will refer you to specialists for anything out of their expertise, whom will in turn refer you to X-Ray clinics and hospitals when needed. And the nice thing is, there's not a bill in sight or a cent to be paid, it's all taken care of.
vets: my friend has a friend who brought his dead parrot to the vet and now it lives! they must all have genius vets here! Come on. One example does not make a case.
So take it from someone who lives here, in the most expensive part of denmark (i.e. the capital): it's great! Life is good! Come do your Ph.D. here!
B.
Well, I usually use only one, max. In the few cases that I cannot absolutely have any less than two active at the very same time, I can find a hub here or there. Mind you, only in cases that, for some reason, I cannot possibly do without one of the two devices for a while.
Face it, one is very often enough.
Nope, you misunderstand the strategy employed by Microsoft.
First, they say they will make a sudden switch, everyone will be stumped, irked, and in various states of disbelief at their ballsy move.
Then they will "concede" and support both scripting languages for one more version, and people will think they've won, and a gradual transition takes place. Managers are happy because they "made" Microsoft change their position on abandoning VB right away, and Microsoft will be happy because they were planning it all along. The only unhappy few are the IT people that get to recode from one language into another.
B.
Well, you must not demand much of your laptop... I barely have 40 GB left for user files on my 80GB disk, because there are so many programs installed. I cannot imagine the pain a 32 GB disk would be. You'll be stuck with constantly having to slim down your application set and user files. 64GB is the absolute lower limit.
And they were absolutely terrible since the contacts corroded, the components were poorly soldered to the contacts and other contact issues that actually required the user to sort of twist and squeak the ensemble to get anything useful out of it...
In addition to that, the volumes required to operate such heat pumps dwarf in comparison to, say, the drinking water requirements of a large city.
a) Well, you don't have to replace all roads at once. When placing new roads, you can incorporate the new tech. Wait with "tech-ifying" the old roads until they're up for replacement or servicing. The amount of new roads placed in the Netherlands is at such a high rate that I think it'll be about the maximum speed one _can_ install heat storage systems anyway..
b) so don't use drinking water then. Rain water will suffice just as well. Oh, and in the Netherlands, there's a lot of rain _and_ water.
I think if they're implementing this system in roads, they must have thought about things. Even my old university (Eindhoven) had a heat pump system installed some years ago, and they certainly weren't the first. Perhaps it's not common to have energy "saving" systems in the US, but here they've been around for a while. And they're profitable to have, due to energy (cost) savings.
Well, I notice that one way of optimising _my_ experience is to switch off the ads, java, javascript and plug-ins. Blazingly fast, the tubes then become.
It really _is_ an idea, so true, so true.
I like to be REALLY just on time for my meetings...
Well, in the Netherlands, the driver's license is also a valid means of identification... And I consider them/us quite civilised.
I get the impression that my mac sometimes magically repairs itself as well... Really weird.
There is no solution. If people emotionally dislike a certain thing, there's very little one can do to turn that feeling around. It's a shame really, the 17" macbook (pro) is a nice machine, if it's anything like my 4.5 year old powerbook G4. Very reliable and sturdy. Although by now, it has developed a slight squeak :).
B.
If you've only got 900 dollars to spend, perhaps you shouldn't be focusing on getting a new pc... Especially since you won't get more than 500 euro's worth of pc ;).
Oh, yes. The pain. The pain. ... I'm sorry, but I'm not experiencing any discomfort at all. Maybe in your smugness, you fail to see that there is no problem.
Yes, well, that doesn't mean that you should jumble up the letter positions just because you can..
B.
Hey, what was wrong with Star Trek I: The Motion Picture? I really liked that one, ya kno.
B.
The difference is that at Microsoft, they had 7 years to fix the bugs. At Apple, they had 2.5 years.
What about the .9 million people using macs then? 5% not enough?
Good luck with your conference! May you be the one who shows the handwavey types that you can handwave and still be scientific :).
B.
Yes, a table like that can quash any questions about methodology. It might also serve to get 80% of your audience to "blank out", causing them to cease to follow the rest of the presentation, and making it a waste of their time...
:). When I try to point people towards the Jobs keynotes, and show them how they can present, they often retort: "but my topic is too complex to present in that way". I think if it is too complex to present that way, perhaps you need to "dumb it down" a little so that more of the audience can understand.
Perhaps you can follow a middle road. Quickly explain the medhodology (graphically, flow-chart-like perhaps) that you followed during the actual presentation, and keep the table handy on a slide after the last slide, so that if anyone questions, you can show.
As an alternative, you can colour parts of your table depending on what it shows, or otherwise draw attention to the part you want to focus on (encircle, highlight....).
In my presentations, I try not to show any numbers or words. If the people want the details, they can come to me afterwards and I'll be happy to discuss it with them. Or they can read the publication.
Then again, I'm in materials science
The most useful part of conferences in my field is the general knowledge that you gain. Introductions to topics are far more important to me than the actual work. This might explain my preference for making easily accessible presentations.
B.
Well, to be fair, I do believe that the Office 2004 (mac) version of powerpoint also has a presenter's display, quite like the Keynote one.
:).
:). Slides are there to visually underline your presentations with graphics, not to document results...
Animations are usually to be avoided, except when they can be used to convey a point. I use it to "zoom into" the section of a figure that I want to talk about or show the motion of the translation stages during my measurements. Very illustrative and easier to do than POV-Ray movies
I think one of the differences between powerpoint and keynote is that keynote pre-computes the transitions and slides, whilst powerpoint just starts it and hopes the cpu will be able to keep up. But that's just an impression.
Oh yes, and Keynote has guides that will help you align your objects on the slide when you're assembling it.
And finally, please reconsider showing a huge table on a slide, try to summarize instead. 1024x786 should be enough for anyone
B.
Yessss. I can help you there, I think :). After giving quite a few presentations in powerpoint, I switched to keynote, because:
- It handles video much better. I use POV-Ray movies to illustrate the technique I'm using. Powerpoint just can't display it without hiccups.
- It has a smooth transition called "dissolve" which fades in and out the items and slides in your presentation. I find that this is the least obnoxious of all effects, and doesn't quite "shock" the audience like the effect of having a slide suddenly appear (i.e. when having no transition).
- It has sane templates, with a sensible colour scheme (i.e. no more than a few different colours, don't make it look like a circus).
- It gives me a useful "presenters display" in which I see on my laptop screen the slide as it will look like when I click, the current slide, the presentation time and my notes. This prevents me from having to see what's on the slide by turning my back to the audience.
- Animations in slides are handled much better, I can have much more of them in a slide than in Powerpoint. Editing the sequence is also quite a bit simpler. Thus, I can have a bulleted list of keywords on the left, and an appropriate supporting picture or graph appear on the right of the slide.
- It supports true transparent images, and vector graphics. I can copy, paste and scale anything from a suitable PDF for example.
But most of all, it allows you to quickly make slides a la Steve Jobs. I can advise this to anyone: aim for having your slide contain no more than one word, one image, one movie or one graph on a suitably unobnoxious background. Let bulleted lists appear one item at a time, and talk about only the item that is highlighted (the one that appeared last). And remember: the slides are not there for you. They are for the audience.
B.
> landing safely in a field outside Dalhart, Texas.
whereupon it was shot to smithereens by a farmer shouting "The Russians are here, The Russians are here!"
B.