If you could provide some kind of contact information (e.g. email address) I'd be delighted. Having said that I owe an email to another Slashdot user along the same lines which I've had sitting in my drafts folder for rather too long now. But I'll do my best.
As a Brit now living in Japan, I have to say that in many ways our public services do suck. BT are not alone in their criminally poor service. Our public transport system has been gradually slipping further into 3rd world territory for many years now.
Additionally the health service, despite (debatable) minor improvements claimed by the incumbent government has been in serious need of medicine for a long time. However, this is not generally the fault of those who work in it - it's the bastard politicians who would rather waste money on management consultants and disastrously ineffective PPP deals. If you're not sure what PPP means, look it up on Google - it would take another thousand words to even scratch the surface of how it works. In a nutshell though it stands for Public Private Partnership and involves the private sector securing government contracts and raping them for every penny they can get.
The net result of this is one of the major contributing factors to why I know live in the land of the rising sun.
However, every country has bad eggs and I agree with some of the comments from other users who said that they found the article somewhat patronising and condescending. It's one thing to point out a country's flaws, and another thing to simply look down your nose at its culture (particularly when one of the opening paragraphs tried to claim that "I don't intend to play the boorish American" suggesting that somehow this was going to be a fair and balanced piece).
One thing in particular which I would take issue with was the rather snobbish remarks about bringing cats into the country. The author seems to suggest that he has an issue with this, yet I've heard numerous comments from Americans in the past poking fun at the British for some of our recent animal disease outbreaks. Particularly the fairly recent "mad-cow" problem. So what exactly would you like us to do sir? Add rabies or other such diseases to the list, or instead adopt a rigourous and strict set of procedures to ensure that Britain has learned from previous mistakes and is now going to be one of the safest countries in the world when it comes to animal transportation and the prevention of animal epidemics.
Personally I think this was probably on the whole a fairly accurate account of what happened to the writer. It's just a shame he had to colour it with his petty quips and prejudices, which don't add anything to his argument.
Let's be honest... as things stand we only have one isolated incident to base things on. Comments like "this proves HP can't be trusted" have about as much credability as Gee's decision to remove the comment in the first place.
I agree with the guy who said you can't treat a company as a single entity. This was plainly an error of judgement by one guy who decided to pull a comment he didn't like on his blog. The error was compounded because he didn't consider at the time that it could end up somewhere like Slashdot where it would be viewed by thousands of net users, many of them HP customers (or potential customers).
But what happened next? The comment was restored and a speedy and (fairly) humble admission was given that a mistake had been made.
Personally I don't have a strong opinion either way about HP (other than that Carly Fiorina was a mistake). But it seems to me that one guy (albeit the Worldwide Head of Marketing) made a misjudgement and then corrected it. Big deal - this happens in business every day and I'm surprised it's even considered newsworthy. Actually for standing up and admitting his error, Gee has more respect from me than he did before; although that's primarily because I didn't know who he was!
Bah! I was downloading files to my Sun 3/80 before you were in long trousers sonny. Funnily enough I seem to recall most of my time at university was spent hacking (without much difficulty due to the lousy security) the internet gateway for Imperial College (apparently Britains top tech university) so that we could play Swedish MUDs.
This is probably gonna get me flamed outta town but...
This would be great for members of the general public who are looking for an alternative to Windows, don't want to pay for Mac, but are looking for a platform where installing and running software is as easy as on the platform they are used to.
Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of people and a lot of companies moving in the right direction with Linux. But I can't help thinking (and believing) that there are still a considerable number of people in industry who are very comfortable with the fact Linux is not as easily manageable (as a desktop OS) as Bill or Steve's products.
I'll be the first to admit, it massages my ego to think that I can use (let alone administrate) Linux when the majority of the population (and it is a significant majority) still consider it something that is beyond them. It's not something I hear advocated often, but I honestly believe there is some truth in this observation. If the Linux community *REALLY* wanted to make the OS as (dumbass) user-friendly as Windows or MacOS they could have done it years ago. Its not like they don't have the development skills or the resources.
It's not just that Windows has the marketing budget and the PR machine. It's the fact that it's aimed squarely at the average man/woman in the street who doesn't have the time and frankly doesn't care about anything other than being able to point and click half a dozen times to perform practically any operation.
I just wish more people would wake up to this. If Linux is ever going to seriously make a dent in Gates' desktop monopoly it's a sacrifice that's gonna have to be made.
What I found most interesting from the Yahoo! article was the "Houston we've had a problem" quote. Assuming the journalist has done his homework (and a quick Google search would indicate that he probably has), it's interesting that the phrase "Houston we have a problem" seems to be the one that has entered the public consciousness (or at least amongst the crowd that I hang out with).
As for which was uttered on Apollo 13, I think the latter phrase is the one that accompanied the eponymous movie about the troubled flight (IMDB confirms this) and so has become more well known amongst a certain generation than the original.
As someone who used to teach English, hats off to Swigert, who in his moment of crisis used the more appropriate present perfect tense (have + past participle) to suggest an incident that happened in the (recent) past but is still (extremely) relevant now.
I'm no recruitment agent, but if I can offer any advice or suggestions you're welcome to pick my brains. I'd take this discussion off the forum, but I don't know of any other way to contact you directly since your email is hidden.
You're right. There's even a prime-time family show over here (completely unrelated to anything techie) that has a robot-walker battle segment in it where amateur hobbyists duel it out with robots that would put the "wedges" to shame. Mom, Dad and the kids all turn up to control or cheer on the beast that they've been furiously developing in their garage. Their robots even do funky kung-fu style moves (albeit slowly!), or have 'gloat' manouevers so that they can do a little dance after they've knocked the other guy off the arena.
A few years ago when the dotcom crash blew apart our industry I nervously accepted a position in Japan and headed out here not really knowing what to expect. I can honestly say its the best decision I ever made. I've never regretted it for a single day. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Well, just imagine the situation where the company you bought a car from was in a position where they were holding the car business by the throat, and effectively shoving the stereo down yours
I find it hard to imagine anyone shoving a stereo down my throat. My teeth would get in the way.
Since I've been a bit harsh in my last couple of comments on Slashdot, this might be an apt time to say "God Bless America!"
As a PSP owner living in Japan, I've been looking forward to the US release of the handheld for entirely the reason that it'll bring forth a wealth of 3rd party / open source / freeware apps, and hacks. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the "amateur" development community doesn't have the same strength in Japan as in the US or Europe.
One thing I noticed that was particularly unsettling when looking at the PSP Vault website was their front page poll ("How many dead pixels does your PSP have?") Given that nearly 45% of owners are reporting at least 1 or 2 dead pixels, this is a pretty damning indictment of Sony's manufacturing & quality control. I know that when the PSP was released here, many people considered taking their units back to the store, but decided against it because of the huge shortages around the time of the Japanese release (i.e. we'd rather accept the minor fault, rather than losing our new toy for a month or two).
It's pretty tough to decode the somewhat cryptic statement, but my reading would be as follows:
Games like FIFA 2005 and the other 25 on the list are not officially distributed in China, and the only copies that get into the county are illegal pirated versions. Therefore they've been (justifiably) outlawed.
The other games are being illegally distributed (for whatever reason, one would assume companies distributing games need some kind of license or authorization - perhaps an age rating) and are also being banned.
However, since the statement itself is not really clear, I doubt any of us can claim to have an authoritative insight into exactly what is going on.
As a Japanese resident (originally from the UK) I kinda disagree with the above comment.
Yes, Japanese fashion can sometimes be different from western tastes, but this doesn't necessarily make it "good" or "poor" - it's just different.
One thing I really like about Japan is the non-judgemental attitude that most Japanese seem to take to individuality in fashion. You can walk down the street in a pair of pyjamas and gumboots and people don't turn to each other and "tut tut" as if they the arbiter elegantiarum of what is the right or wrong thing to wear.
Conversely when I lived in London, I would often hear people saying, "oh look at her - what does she think she's wearing?" in a similar fashion to the writer of the parent comment.
Excuse my pedantry, but I believe it's 6 Euro cents per minute, amounting to 3 Euros and 60 cents for an hour (approximately $4.81 according to today's current exchange rate).
I recently installed Skype after having it recommended to me. Within 2 weeks I had cancelled my phone line. I work and live in Japan, but since my family is back in the UK it's invaluable to me. I can speak several times a week long-distance at no cost (this would burn a serious hole in my wallet if I was paying for the calls). For people back home who don't have a PC or reliable internet access I use SkypeOut and the cost is almost negligable. It helps that I have a 100 megabit fibre connection into my home (you gotta love that Japanese 'net infrastructure!) but it's a real blessing for me. I've never yet had a problem with audio quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Get your bets on now. I have a feeling Hollywood is waiting to honor this guy just for his box office revenues alone.
> what will the technique generate? Depends whether or not she's wearing panties. But possibly a firm conclusion.
Good job that man! If I had mod points today you'd be the first to benefit.
If you could provide some kind of contact information (e.g. email address) I'd be delighted. Having said that I owe an email to another Slashdot user along the same lines which I've had sitting in my drafts folder for rather too long now. But I'll do my best.
Additionally the health service, despite (debatable) minor improvements claimed by the incumbent government has been in serious need of medicine for a long time. However, this is not generally the fault of those who work in it - it's the bastard politicians who would rather waste money on management consultants and disastrously ineffective PPP deals. If you're not sure what PPP means, look it up on Google - it would take another thousand words to even scratch the surface of how it works. In a nutshell though it stands for Public Private Partnership and involves the private sector securing government contracts and raping them for every penny they can get.
The net result of this is one of the major contributing factors to why I know live in the land of the rising sun.
However, every country has bad eggs and I agree with some of the comments from other users who said that they found the article somewhat patronising and condescending. It's one thing to point out a country's flaws, and another thing to simply look down your nose at its culture (particularly when one of the opening paragraphs tried to claim that "I don't intend to play the boorish American" suggesting that somehow this was going to be a fair and balanced piece).
One thing in particular which I would take issue with was the rather snobbish remarks about bringing cats into the country. The author seems to suggest that he has an issue with this, yet I've heard numerous comments from Americans in the past poking fun at the British for some of our recent animal disease outbreaks. Particularly the fairly recent "mad-cow" problem. So what exactly would you like us to do sir? Add rabies or other such diseases to the list, or instead adopt a rigourous and strict set of procedures to ensure that Britain has learned from previous mistakes and is now going to be one of the safest countries in the world when it comes to animal transportation and the prevention of animal epidemics.
Personally I think this was probably on the whole a fairly accurate account of what happened to the writer. It's just a shame he had to colour it with his petty quips and prejudices, which don't add anything to his argument.
I agree with the guy who said you can't treat a company as a single entity. This was plainly an error of judgement by one guy who decided to pull a comment he didn't like on his blog. The error was compounded because he didn't consider at the time that it could end up somewhere like Slashdot where it would be viewed by thousands of net users, many of them HP customers (or potential customers).
But what happened next? The comment was restored and a speedy and (fairly) humble admission was given that a mistake had been made.
Personally I don't have a strong opinion either way about HP (other than that Carly Fiorina was a mistake). But it seems to me that one guy (albeit the Worldwide Head of Marketing) made a misjudgement and then corrected it. Big deal - this happens in business every day and I'm surprised it's even considered newsworthy. Actually for standing up and admitting his error, Gee has more respect from me than he did before; although that's primarily because I didn't know who he was!
I thought the hobbit succeeded, or was I watching a different movie to you?
Bah! I was downloading files to my Sun 3/80 before you were in long trousers sonny. Funnily enough I seem to recall most of my time at university was spent hacking (without much difficulty due to the lousy security) the internet gateway for Imperial College (apparently Britains top tech university) so that we could play Swedish MUDs.
Thanks peshewa - that's cleared that one up.
This would be great for members of the general public who are looking for an alternative to Windows, don't want to pay for Mac, but are looking for a platform where installing and running software is as easy as on the platform they are used to.
Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of people and a lot of companies moving in the right direction with Linux. But I can't help thinking (and believing) that there are still a considerable number of people in industry who are very comfortable with the fact Linux is not as easily manageable (as a desktop OS) as Bill or Steve's products.
I'll be the first to admit, it massages my ego to think that I can use (let alone administrate) Linux when the majority of the population (and it is a significant majority) still consider it something that is beyond them. It's not something I hear advocated often, but I honestly believe there is some truth in this observation. If the Linux community *REALLY* wanted to make the OS as (dumbass) user-friendly as Windows or MacOS they could have done it years ago. Its not like they don't have the development skills or the resources.
It's not just that Windows has the marketing budget and the PR machine. It's the fact that it's aimed squarely at the average man/woman in the street who doesn't have the time and frankly doesn't care about anything other than being able to point and click half a dozen times to perform practically any operation.
I just wish more people would wake up to this. If Linux is ever going to seriously make a dent in Gates' desktop monopoly it's a sacrifice that's gonna have to be made.
Now where did I put that Microsoft Speech API manual?
McF
As for which was uttered on Apollo 13, I think the latter phrase is the one that accompanied the eponymous movie about the troubled flight (IMDB confirms this) and so has become more well known amongst a certain generation than the original.
As someone who used to teach English, hats off to Swigert, who in his moment of crisis used the more appropriate present perfect tense (have + past participle) to suggest an incident that happened in the (recent) past but is still (extremely) relevant now.
Sorry.... I really should get out more.
McF
Or maybe a "+1 joke went way over my head" modifier?
I'm assuming that you're being humorous and know that lb is not used to denote pounds sterling (currency).
I'm no recruitment agent, but if I can offer any advice or suggestions you're welcome to pick my brains. I'd take this discussion off the forum, but I don't know of any other way to contact you directly since your email is hidden.
A few years ago when the dotcom crash blew apart our industry I nervously accepted a position in Japan and headed out here not really knowing what to expect. I can honestly say its the best decision I ever made. I've never regretted it for a single day. I'd recommend it to anyone.
I find it hard to imagine anyone shoving a stereo down my throat. My teeth would get in the way.
As a PSP owner living in Japan, I've been looking forward to the US release of the handheld for entirely the reason that it'll bring forth a wealth of 3rd party / open source / freeware apps, and hacks. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the "amateur" development community doesn't have the same strength in Japan as in the US or Europe.
One thing I noticed that was particularly unsettling when looking at the PSP Vault website was their front page poll ("How many dead pixels does your PSP have?") Given that nearly 45% of owners are reporting at least 1 or 2 dead pixels, this is a pretty damning indictment of Sony's manufacturing & quality control. I know that when the PSP was released here, many people considered taking their units back to the store, but decided against it because of the huge shortages around the time of the Japanese release (i.e. we'd rather accept the minor fault, rather than losing our new toy for a month or two).
Crikey! That's a first. He normally spouts the most unbelieavable, ill-informed guff...
It's pretty tough to decode the somewhat cryptic statement, but my reading would be as follows:
Games like FIFA 2005 and the other 25 on the list are not officially distributed in China, and the only copies that get into the county are illegal pirated versions. Therefore they've been (justifiably) outlawed.
The other games are being illegally distributed (for whatever reason, one would assume companies distributing games need some kind of license or authorization - perhaps an age rating) and are also being banned.
However, since the statement itself is not really clear, I doubt any of us can claim to have an authoritative insight into exactly what is going on.
Yes, Japanese fashion can sometimes be different from western tastes, but this doesn't necessarily make it "good" or "poor" - it's just different.
One thing I really like about Japan is the non-judgemental attitude that most Japanese seem to take to individuality in fashion. You can walk down the street in a pair of pyjamas and gumboots and people don't turn to each other and "tut tut" as if they the arbiter elegantiarum of what is the right or wrong thing to wear.
Conversely when I lived in London, I would often hear people saying, "oh look at her - what does she think she's wearing?" in a similar fashion to the writer of the parent comment.
Holy crap Batman! I really have to refresh my browser a bit more often instead of typing replies after 20 minutes.
Excuse my pedantry, but I believe it's 6 Euro cents per minute, amounting to 3 Euros and 60 cents for an hour (approximately $4.81 according to today's current exchange rate).
I recently installed Skype after having it recommended to me. Within 2 weeks I had cancelled my phone line. I work and live in Japan, but since my family is back in the UK it's invaluable to me. I can speak several times a week long-distance at no cost (this would burn a serious hole in my wallet if I was paying for the calls). For people back home who don't have a PC or reliable internet access I use SkypeOut and the cost is almost negligable. It helps that I have a 100 megabit fibre connection into my home (you gotta love that Japanese 'net infrastructure!) but it's a real blessing for me. I've never yet had a problem with audio quality.