How many americans are accidently killed by guns owned by "honest people" such as the father shooting the son because he thinks he's a burglar when the son comes back home at 3AM
How many "killers" are killed by "honest people" such as the father shooting the burglar who entered his house at 3AM
This kind of statistic would help decide if the open access to guns is a good policy or not, one could always argue that if all the students were carrying guns they could have shot the maniac, but if the laws were tougher the maniac could not buy all his equipment.
For sure real criminals could get the guns anyway but whene was the last time that a real criminal went to a school and shot people before shooting himslef, real criminals go to BANKS, try NOT to shoot anybody (less jail if you're caught) and then try to RUN AWAY (and not commit suicide)
The bottom line is that real criminal are less dangerous regarding schools that maniacs because they are predictable (criminals) and maniacs are by definition unpredictable...
One interesting thing about american society is that some of your problems (voting system and guns for example) seem to be so easily solvable that it's a wonder for the rest of the world that you don't and still listen to Charlton HESTON and the DIEBOLD guys telling you "it's in the constitution", I'm sure the guys who wrote the constitution didn't have GUNS at SCHOOL in mind, what's the next step, tasers at kindergarten ?
This new TGV has the "next gen" technology built in it which makes EVERY wheel of the train propel the thing
The next gen fast trains will have no more locomotives front and rear (more passengers, less weight) and go faster, apparently the plan is to have them on the tracks by 2009 and they are discussing next month with the state of california for such a technology to be used on a fast track from sacramento to san diego...
Blum was not really "that bad" treated while in office, after when the Germans took over it was another story because "socialist and jew" was not really a great combination in the eyes of the Germans (OF THE TIME, don't make me say what I haven't)
Fascism was always more "popular" in England because of the strong communist hatred over there, it was generally accepted in England before 39 that Hitler was better than Stalin (turns out they were both assholes)
The Vichy government was composed of thugs and idiotic people (very much like Le Pen's followers today, or Putin's) wanting to get rich or get revenge on their jewish neighbors or get their flats, the typical example would be the "aryan" janitor of the building where the "rich" jewish family lived which turned them out to Gestapo to get the flat for himself, or the paitings or the piano or just the silverware...
But the "elite" (actually more middle class because the real elite was clever enough NOT to go and fight in Stalingrad for "the cause") that joined the SS did this not really for fascism but against communism (something similar as the English fascists in the mid 30's), the "French" propaganda of the time explained that France lost the war of 40 because of the communists and the jews (I didn't know that Guderian was a communist jew:) ), interestingly the French SS recrutment program started in 41 as the "LVF" which was the "Légion des Volotaires Francais contre le bolchévisme" (legion of french volunteers against bolchevism) before 44 when the Germans renamed it the "Charlemagne" division.
Vichy undoubtably brought out the worse out of the French with collaboration and turning out of jews (or communists, or gays, or Germans refugees...)and to be honest it's a part of our history that was never really ackowledged by the authorities until very recently (Mitteran in 93 I think)
We are getting WAY off topic but it's an intereting and enjoyable discussion:)
Well, let me rephrase that as "the German were more willing that the French", the German society was at the time MUCH more "militarist" than the French ever was, it's been a LONG time since wev'e had a chief of state dressed in a military uniform (De Gaulle came AFTER that), it's true that there was a feeling of "get alsace-lorraine back" but the bottom line is that Germany started the war, I don't think France would have started a war to get back these provinces, but since the German saw fit to start a war, the idea was "let's try to take it back", also this was a useful point to justify general conscription which was IMMENSELY despised in 1914.
Then comes the part about the invasion of Belgium (as usual), Napolean passed throught Belgium in his time (going east this time) and it's always MUCH easier to pass through flat plains of Flanders that shitty hills in Alsace-Lorraine
This being said you are VERY right to point out that "everytime" we expected the Germans to come straight at our defenses and "everytime" you came from another direction, that says a lot about the cleverness of the French military:)
During the intervening war-years, French fascism became very popular, with writers like Celine - a brain-damaged survivor of WW1 - thumping the drum wrt anti-semitism. In many ways, the French nation, after the vengeance of the Versailles Treaty (a double vengeance, doing duty for vengeance of loss during the Franco-Prussian war), was very attuned and keen on fascism. They really didn't want to fight the Germans in more than one way. The annointment of Petain as head of Vichy France seemed to underline the force of French (political) cynicism accumulated from the survivors of the 1WW.
That's only partly true with the famous fascist riots in Paris in 34 however one must not forget that in 36 the french elected the "front populaire" which was a coalition from center-left to left (without communists) to be in charge and the prime minister of the time was Leon BLUM which as his name indicates is jewish, so France was quite far from a right-wing antisemitic country at this time.
So even if it is true that the french fascists were very active in the period from 32 to 35 afterwards they quickly faded away only to get back in charge in 40 with the government of Petain "the winner of Verdun" and another useless general, your part about WW1 is excellent...and especially on the fact that the french "fighting spirit" was drowned in blod in Verdun and other places, I think that alltogether US losses in WW2 are around 60,000, French losses in Verdun were over 1,000,000 and German ones slightly more...
French are essentially a non-agressive people, the last time we INVADED another country in a formal war was probably in 1804 with Napoleon going all the way to Moscow (and back quicker than he went)
In the meantime (since 1804) and outside of WW periods the US has invaded Mexico (Alamo), Cuba (1905), Vietnam, Grenade, Panama, Irak (2 times), I didn't count Korea because it was a UN mandate and so I could also left aside the first Irak war
France is situated in the heart of Europe and more interestingly on the Atlantic wall, making it a VERY, VERY interesting place of land for Germany for example, check out a map and tell me why Germany has had no navy ? Because it can't take if out of it's harbours without going by England which is traditionally the great maritime power of Europe, and when you're a maritime power you have COLONIES, and when you have colonies you have MONEY
In the 2 WW where the french army was REALLY bad we were "taken by surprise" each time, it's not an excuse, it's a REASON for our defeats, besides the fact that each time the bulk of the German people WANTED war and were prepared for it and that the French didn't the French military command was/is UTTERLY HOPELESS
Since France is not a belligerent country the military career is FAR LESS appealing that in Germany at the beggining of XX century for example, thus Germany produced FAR BETTER soldiers and we had to stick with 70 years old generals using outadated tactics with absolutely NO SENSE of reality
In 1914 the Germans used an excuse to start the war and invade France, they were ready and willing, we were not, after a disastrous summer we managed to stop them some 40km east of Paris before "locking" the front, the same thing happened in 1940, except that the war was going faster, tanks and planes were going faster than in 1914 and we didn't have the place (think Russia) to slow them down and stop them
The French military is DEFINITELY not a great one, but what can we say about the US military in Pearl Harbor, what can we say about the US in 9/11 ?
The bottom line is that when you're taken by surprise you can do what you want but "the fish smells bad"...
Every historian agrees that if the French army didn't commit suicide in Dunkirk to allow the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) to get back to England (or at least a great part of it) WW2 could have had a VERY different outcome, would the US have "saved the world" if England had fallen in 40 ? Would Russia have been able to stop the Germans if England had fallen ?
Personally and looking at the general mood of US society in these days (racial laws and a generally right wing society) I think we ALL got VERY lucky that
1) The BEF got out enough men to make Hitler think twice about a frontal attack
2) Goring was a joke and the luftwaffe couldn't take out the RAF
3) The war started before the US 1940 elections where FDR was reelected when it seemed at the time it would go the other way around
4)And so on
The bottom line is that France is NOT a belligerent country and when you're surrounded by belligerent countries it's no wonder you lose wars, we don't LIKE war, come on, food and women are more interesting.
On top of this there is NO question that the french military in terms of equipment and leadership is not up to par and that poses the question of whether we NEED an army today, what for ? Who's going to invade us (AGAIN) ?
No doubt MS will see this as a secret penguin invasion vessel, they will release Vista next week in NZ for free to try to counterbalance the massive penguin arrival....
Sorry to say so but the best system is to have 1 paper with "Bush" written on it, 1 paper with "kerry" written on it, 1 envelope and you put the paper with the name of the guy you want to vote for.
Then the envelopes are opened in presence of guys from both parties and the papers are counted.
We do like this in France, we are 60 millions and we have OFFICIAL election results at around midnight when the polls are closing at 20.00, of course in the meantime you have the exit polls estimates but the official stuff comes very rapidly, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to od this in the US, each voting station would have around 10-20 thousand ballots to count as is the case here and the results would come in quickly...
Of course it would mean bad news for diebold, but I think diebold means bad news for elections....
Basically after reading the thread it seems that the electrically cheaper solution would be to have one line of 24 or 48VDC.
Knowing that we would need MANY voltage converters in the MB and on the devices would the electrical savings overcome the converters price increase ?
If you must ask the HDD manufacturers to put in their devices a "mini power station" to get the 5V and 3.3V needed from the 24 or 48 what would the price increase be ?
After all google's idea is good but it could be a bad good idea
With the price of a "full power" XBOX and the price of a "full power" 1080 TV why wouldn't people upgrade their existing PC and buy a videoprojector, I play on my PC in 1280*1024, and if I had 1500 Euros to spend I'd buy a videoprojector with HDMI, connect it to my video board (they ALL have HDMI since 2 years) and beat the crap out of XBOX/PS3 and so on, on top of this my gaming platform would also be available to do other stuff than gaming
The console craze started with the PSX had it's justifications in the fact that it was MUCH cheaper than a PC, if now a console is more expensive than a PC which you can upgrade every 2 years or so (try changing the GPU in a console) I fail to see the point FOR THE CUSTOMER
Bottom line is that if you buy a console you're stuck for 3-4 years with the same system, when the system is superior in performance to a PC you pay a fortune for it, and the price only goes down when the "next generation" is about to come out, NOW would be the perfect time to buy a PS2 for example....
Well sorry but if someone in France speaks of you and says "c'est une bouche" it means that you are full of mouth (or of something else).
Alternatively you could say "Il n'a que de la bouche" meaning "he's only mouth" or "c'est une grande bouche" meaning inpolitely "his deeds do not match his words".
This concludes the "street french" lecture of the day, and in my opinion Chirac AND Bush are both "bouches"
It's funny that all the "socialist-consumer friendly" laws happening in France right now are being enacted by the conservative government of our beloved leader Jacques "the great" Chirac.
Last fall we had a law making it easy for customers to get out of phone and tv contracts where it was not possible to cancel the contract before the renewal period (usually 12 months).
Keep in mind that elections are due next year and that for those unaware of French politics (although VERY funny) Chirac has been elected last time with 82% of the votes because he was facing our local facist Le Pen, so the left voters HAD to vote for Chirac in the second round of the presidential election of 2002.
Then Chirac promised he would not "forget" this and make a government for "everybody" and not just for his "side". Of course this was quickly forgotten and now with the elections coming he has to steer a little bit to the left after 5 years of "shut up I've been elected and I do what I want".
Additionally I work with Czech people and in Czech "Curak" pronouced "shurak" is very close to "sheerak" and means "Asshole", languages are great aren't they ? And Bush is pronounced like "bouche" in French which means "mouth" and also "liar" if you use it in "c'est une bouche" translated as "he's full of mouth"...
Bottom line is that France is rediscovering freedom for consumers instead of corporations because elections are coming up, but it's a good time to grab things...
In US politics it's normal that neither side can acknowledge the "good" points of the other, they are so much alike, it's like the difference between Stalin and Lenin.
In "socialist/liberal" Europe at least we have differences (although in Britain right now it's not that obvious) but in Spain, Aznar and Zapatero are NOT similar, in Italy Prodi and Berlusconi are REALLY different, in Germany Schroder and Merkel were not having the same ideas (and this great coalition sounds great !!!) and in France Chirac is definitely NOT the friend of Ségolène (I wonder how many/.ers know about Ségolène yet...)
But in the US what are the differences between Bush and Kerry for example ? One is more pro choice than the other or maybe pro death-penalty, but besides that it seems that since Clinton US politics has moved from "centre right-right" to "right-full right"
I feel like I have a twin brother now !!!!
For sure our chirac is not the "cleanest" guy on the block, but what's stealing from the city/state compared to sending kids doing a war for a fake cause and false justifications ?
Just a little comment to point out that the last line of the article is dead wrong, in France we HAVE to carry an ID at all times and the police can ask for this at all times, if you don't have it with you then they CAN (meaning they don't HAVE to) ask you to follow them to the police station.
Of course the main difference with such a system in the states means that our police and law enforcement system is controlled by sensible people and not mindless robots so they know who and when to bring "suspects" to the police station.
I guess this is just another example of US "federalism" where each state is fighting not for the common good but just to keep it's little power and so they can issue THEIR drivers licence and have THEIR laws and so on, and it gives you funny elections where the opinion of the people of texas and california and new york are not counting because they are already "won" (or lost depends where you're standing) to this or that party while the main focus is Florida or Ohio or any other place, this system is a FANTASTIC opportunity for lobbyism.
As a final point I'd like to repeat the comment of french police when people show their driver's licence as ID "It's not a ID, it's a paper saying you are allowed to drive, it does not PROVE your ID", and in fact the name says it all "driver's licence" or "ID card", which one is the IDentification document ?
Sometimes centralism is good, for ID and for laws at least.
Hello,
Given into consideration that LCD is ALREADY an obsolete technology since the future lies in OLED, why not wait another 2 or 3 years and buy an OLED display when the price comes down ?
After all for a VERY cheap price you can get an IIYAMA CRT monitor which WILL last for at least 3 years (that's their warranty time) and in 3 years you buy an OLED stuff.
Look at what happened to the hasty people who bought plasma screens for their TV's....
Here's a link on an article on the subject, interestingly they say that in 3 years the technology should be ok http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050105-4500.html
I was personally questioned by the french police and my flat was raided 10 years ago when Nintendo France made a lawsuit for the SNES/SFC game copy machines (the nice thing that plugged in the cartridge port and had ram and a floppy drive).
So the police searched my flat while I was away, seized around 5 copy machines, about 50 games on floppies, my 2 computers and all they thought was of interest, besides that they emptied the trash in the bathtub and let it like that, it was nice when I came back home from holidays 2 weeks after that...
So I had to go to Paris to talk to the police and explain myself, of course I was importing the copy machines from Hong Kong and selling them in France, the only problem for the police was that I was doing this in an "open" way, sending the goos by FEDEX "game copy machine" written on the customs decalaration and paying the customs and VAT tax.
First they told me I was questioned for "importation of material being used for illegal copying" but when I showed them the customs paper they changed this to "selling of pirated games" arguing that I HAD to give games when I was selling a unit, at the time we had a pre internet way of coimmunicating in France called minitel, basically a chat BBS with incredible speed (1200/75) and so they had minitel logs of my conversations with buyers, but since I NEVER sold games after 2 hours they had to let me go, give me ALL my stuff back and pay for the damages they had caused in my flat...
Bottom line is that since the modchip or device can be used for private copying and so on, it's going to be VERY difficult to put someone who's not selling pirated games in jail, at least in France, and even with the P2P hype, the judges are starting to realise that and the situation is MUCH more calm than it was 6 months ago...
Now how is the law and the judges in an hysteric environment such as Fox news-USA and Murdoch land is another question...
I was personally questioned by the french police and my flat was raided 10 years ago when Nintendo France made a lawsuit for the SNES/SFC game copy machines (the nice thing that plugged in the cartridge port and had ram and a floppy drive).
So the police searched my flat while I was away, seized around 5 copy machines, about 50 games on floppies, my 2 computers and all they thought was of interest, besides that they emptied the trash in the bathtub and let it like that, it was nice when I came back home from holidays 2 weeks after that...
So I had to go to Paris to talk to the police and explain myself, of course I was importing the copy machines from Hong Kong and selling them in France, the only problem for the police was tha
I recall a heated debate in Europe some years ago when the british food industry wanted the european rule to adopt their rule on chocolate.
Luckily it was rejected and thus the milka chocolate in france is quite different than the milka brand in England (or germany which I don't know about)
But it's true that milka does not come CLOSE to lindt's...
As in US 2000 elections ?
Then I don't want to have that !!!!
The brother of the CPU will always win, because he's having "special recount" on the punch cards...
Why call it PEOPLE's democratic....
it should be called the CORPORATION's democratic...
In the good old days in the original people's republic it was the state controlling the corporations, in the US today (and Australia) it seems it's the opposite...but in any case the PEOPLE is excluded...
US has always been FROM THE START a very puritan and warrior society.
So it is MUCH better in the US to do a war for the wrong motives (Vietnam and Iraq) than to screw your secretary (one could say for the GOOD reasons, did you see the mouth she has ?).
All republicans insisted HEAVILY on the fact that Clinton lied but when asked about the Bush lies (WMD, Iraq/Bin Laden ties...) they can only answer that "we are in a time of war".
I like americans A LOT, but I really hate Bush and the likes of him who did Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Salvador.....
Slashdot Mirror
An interesting statistic that would help
How many americans are accidently killed by guns owned by "honest people" such as the father shooting the son because he thinks he's a burglar when the son comes back home at 3AM
How many "killers" are killed by "honest people" such as the father shooting the burglar who entered his house at 3AM
This kind of statistic would help decide if the open access to guns is a good policy or not, one could always argue that if all the students were carrying guns they could have shot the maniac, but if the laws were tougher the maniac could not buy all his equipment.
For sure real criminals could get the guns anyway but whene was the last time that a real criminal went to a school and shot people before shooting himslef, real criminals go to BANKS, try NOT to shoot anybody (less jail if you're caught) and then try to RUN AWAY (and not commit suicide)
The bottom line is that real criminal are less dangerous regarding schools that maniacs because they are predictable (criminals) and maniacs are by definition unpredictable...
One interesting thing about american society is that some of your problems (voting system and guns for example) seem to be so easily solvable that it's a wonder for the rest of the world that you don't and still listen to Charlton HESTON and the DIEBOLD guys telling you "it's in the constitution", I'm sure the guys who wrote the constitution didn't have GUNS at SCHOOL in mind, what's the next step, tasers at kindergarten ?
You're right, but they're right too :)
This new TGV has the "next gen" technology built in it which makes EVERY wheel of the train propel the thing
The next gen fast trains will have no more locomotives front and rear (more passengers, less weight) and go faster, apparently the plan is to have them on the tracks by 2009 and they are discussing next month with the state of california for such a technology to be used on a fast track from sacramento to san diego...
Blum was not really "that bad" treated while in office, after when the Germans took over it was another story because "socialist and jew" was not really a great combination in the eyes of the Germans (OF THE TIME, don't make me say what I haven't)
:) ), interestingly the French SS recrutment program started in 41 as the "LVF" which was the "Légion des Volotaires Francais contre le bolchévisme" (legion of french volunteers against bolchevism) before 44 when the Germans renamed it the "Charlemagne" division.
:)
Fascism was always more "popular" in England because of the strong communist hatred over there, it was generally accepted in England before 39 that Hitler was better than Stalin (turns out they were both assholes)
The Vichy government was composed of thugs and idiotic people (very much like Le Pen's followers today, or Putin's) wanting to get rich or get revenge on their jewish neighbors or get their flats, the typical example would be the "aryan" janitor of the building where the "rich" jewish family lived which turned them out to Gestapo to get the flat for himself, or the paitings or the piano or just the silverware...
But the "elite" (actually more middle class because the real elite was clever enough NOT to go and fight in Stalingrad for "the cause") that joined the SS did this not really for fascism but against communism (something similar as the English fascists in the mid 30's), the "French" propaganda of the time explained that France lost the war of 40 because of the communists and the jews (I didn't know that Guderian was a communist jew
Vichy undoubtably brought out the worse out of the French with collaboration and turning out of jews (or communists, or gays, or Germans refugees...)and to be honest it's a part of our history that was never really ackowledged by the authorities until very recently (Mitteran in 93 I think)
We are getting WAY off topic but it's an intereting and enjoyable discussion
Well, let me rephrase that as "the German were more willing that the French", the German society was at the time MUCH more "militarist" than the French ever was, it's been a LONG time since wev'e had a chief of state dressed in a military uniform (De Gaulle came AFTER that), it's true that there was a feeling of "get alsace-lorraine back" but the bottom line is that Germany started the war, I don't think France would have started a war to get back these provinces, but since the German saw fit to start a war, the idea was "let's try to take it back", also this was a useful point to justify general conscription which was IMMENSELY despised in 1914. :)
Then comes the part about the invasion of Belgium (as usual), Napolean passed throught Belgium in his time (going east this time) and it's always MUCH easier to pass through flat plains of Flanders that shitty hills in Alsace-Lorraine
This being said you are VERY right to point out that "everytime" we expected the Germans to come straight at our defenses and "everytime" you came from another direction, that says a lot about the cleverness of the French military
During the intervening war-years, French fascism became very popular, with writers like Celine - a brain-damaged survivor of WW1 - thumping the drum wrt anti-semitism. In many ways, the French nation, after the vengeance of the Versailles Treaty (a double vengeance, doing duty for vengeance of loss during the Franco-Prussian war), was very attuned and keen on fascism. They really didn't want to fight the Germans in more than one way. The annointment of Petain as head of Vichy France seemed to underline the force of French (political) cynicism accumulated from the survivors of the 1WW.
That's only partly true with the famous fascist riots in Paris in 34 however one must not forget that in 36 the french elected the "front populaire" which was a coalition from center-left to left (without communists) to be in charge and the prime minister of the time was Leon BLUM which as his name indicates is jewish, so France was quite far from a right-wing antisemitic country at this time.
So even if it is true that the french fascists were very active in the period from 32 to 35 afterwards they quickly faded away only to get back in charge in 40 with the government of Petain "the winner of Verdun" and another useless general, your part about WW1 is excellent...and especially on the fact that the french "fighting spirit" was drowned in blod in Verdun and other places, I think that alltogether US losses in WW2 are around 60,000, French losses in Verdun were over 1,000,000 and German ones slightly more...
Sorry guys, this is going to be a bit long
French are essentially a non-agressive people, the last time we INVADED another country in a formal war was probably in 1804 with Napoleon going all the way to Moscow (and back quicker than he went)
In the meantime (since 1804) and outside of WW periods the US has invaded Mexico (Alamo), Cuba (1905), Vietnam, Grenade, Panama, Irak (2 times), I didn't count Korea because it was a UN mandate and so I could also left aside the first Irak war
France is situated in the heart of Europe and more interestingly on the Atlantic wall, making it a VERY, VERY interesting place of land for Germany for example, check out a map and tell me why Germany has had no navy ? Because it can't take if out of it's harbours without going by England which is traditionally the great maritime power of Europe, and when you're a maritime power you have COLONIES, and when you have colonies you have MONEY
In the 2 WW where the french army was REALLY bad we were "taken by surprise" each time, it's not an excuse, it's a REASON for our defeats, besides the fact that each time the bulk of the German people WANTED war and were prepared for it and that the French didn't the French military command was/is UTTERLY HOPELESS
Since France is not a belligerent country the military career is FAR LESS appealing that in Germany at the beggining of XX century for example, thus Germany produced FAR BETTER soldiers and we had to stick with 70 years old generals using outadated tactics with absolutely NO SENSE of reality
In 1914 the Germans used an excuse to start the war and invade France, they were ready and willing, we were not, after a disastrous summer we managed to stop them some 40km east of Paris before "locking" the front, the same thing happened in 1940, except that the war was going faster, tanks and planes were going faster than in 1914 and we didn't have the place (think Russia) to slow them down and stop them
The French military is DEFINITELY not a great one, but what can we say about the US military in Pearl Harbor, what can we say about the US in 9/11 ?
The bottom line is that when you're taken by surprise you can do what you want but "the fish smells bad"...
Every historian agrees that if the French army didn't commit suicide in Dunkirk to allow the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) to get back to England (or at least a great part of it) WW2 could have had a VERY different outcome, would the US have "saved the world" if England had fallen in 40 ? Would Russia have been able to stop the Germans if England had fallen ?
Personally and looking at the general mood of US society in these days (racial laws and a generally right wing society) I think we ALL got VERY lucky that
1) The BEF got out enough men to make Hitler think twice about a frontal attack
2) Goring was a joke and the luftwaffe couldn't take out the RAF
3) The war started before the US 1940 elections where FDR was reelected when it seemed at the time it would go the other way around
4)And so on
The bottom line is that France is NOT a belligerent country and when you're surrounded by belligerent countries it's no wonder you lose wars, we don't LIKE war, come on, food and women are more interesting.
On top of this there is NO question that the french military in terms of equipment and leadership is not up to par and that poses the question of whether we NEED an army today, what for ? Who's going to invade us (AGAIN) ?
By NOT telling them the French invented it, or by calling it "freedom system"
No doubt MS will see this as a secret penguin invasion vessel, they will release Vista next week in NZ for free to try to counterbalance the massive penguin arrival....
Sorry to say so but the best system is to have 1 paper with "Bush" written on it, 1 paper with "kerry" written on it, 1 envelope and you put the paper with the name of the guy you want to vote for.
Then the envelopes are opened in presence of guys from both parties and the papers are counted.
We do like this in France, we are 60 millions and we have OFFICIAL election results at around midnight when the polls are closing at 20.00, of course in the meantime you have the exit polls estimates but the official stuff comes very rapidly, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to od this in the US, each voting station would have around 10-20 thousand ballots to count as is the case here and the results would come in quickly...
Of course it would mean bad news for diebold, but I think diebold means bad news for elections....
Basically after reading the thread it seems that the electrically cheaper solution would be to have one line of 24 or 48VDC. Knowing that we would need MANY voltage converters in the MB and on the devices would the electrical savings overcome the converters price increase ?
If you must ask the HDD manufacturers to put in their devices a "mini power station" to get the 5V and 3.3V needed from the 24 or 48 what would the price increase be ?
After all google's idea is good but it could be a bad good idea
With the price of a "full power" XBOX and the price of a "full power" 1080 TV why wouldn't people upgrade their existing PC and buy a videoprojector, I play on my PC in 1280*1024, and if I had 1500 Euros to spend I'd buy a videoprojector with HDMI, connect it to my video board (they ALL have HDMI since 2 years) and beat the crap out of XBOX/PS3 and so on, on top of this my gaming platform would also be available to do other stuff than gaming
The console craze started with the PSX had it's justifications in the fact that it was MUCH cheaper than a PC, if now a console is more expensive than a PC which you can upgrade every 2 years or so (try changing the GPU in a console) I fail to see the point FOR THE CUSTOMER
Bottom line is that if you buy a console you're stuck for 3-4 years with the same system, when the system is superior in performance to a PC you pay a fortune for it, and the price only goes down when the "next generation" is about to come out, NOW would be the perfect time to buy a PS2 for example....
Well sorry but if someone in France speaks of you and says "c'est une bouche" it means that you are full of mouth (or of something else).
Alternatively you could say "Il n'a que de la bouche" meaning "he's only mouth" or "c'est une grande bouche" meaning inpolitely "his deeds do not match his words".
This concludes the "street french" lecture of the day, and in my opinion Chirac AND Bush are both "bouches"
It's funny that all the "socialist-consumer friendly" laws happening in France right now are being enacted by the conservative government of our beloved leader Jacques "the great" Chirac.
Last fall we had a law making it easy for customers to get out of phone and tv contracts where it was not possible to cancel the contract before the renewal period (usually 12 months).
Keep in mind that elections are due next year and that for those unaware of French politics (although VERY funny) Chirac has been elected last time with 82% of the votes because he was facing our local facist Le Pen, so the left voters HAD to vote for Chirac in the second round of the presidential election of 2002.
Then Chirac promised he would not "forget" this and make a government for "everybody" and not just for his "side". Of course this was quickly forgotten and now with the elections coming he has to steer a little bit to the left after 5 years of "shut up I've been elected and I do what I want".
Additionally I work with Czech people and in Czech "Curak" pronouced "shurak" is very close to "sheerak" and means "Asshole", languages are great aren't they ? And Bush is pronounced like "bouche" in French which means "mouth" and also "liar" if you use it in "c'est une bouche" translated as "he's full of mouth"...
Bottom line is that France is rediscovering freedom for consumers instead of corporations because elections are coming up, but it's a good time to grab things...
In US politics it's normal that neither side can acknowledge the "good" points of the other, they are so much alike, it's like the difference between Stalin and Lenin. In "socialist/liberal" Europe at least we have differences (although in Britain right now it's not that obvious) but in Spain, Aznar and Zapatero are NOT similar, in Italy Prodi and Berlusconi are REALLY different, in Germany Schroder and Merkel were not having the same ideas (and this great coalition sounds great !!!) and in France Chirac is definitely NOT the friend of Ségolène (I wonder how many /.ers know about Ségolène yet...)
But in the US what are the differences between Bush and Kerry for example ? One is more pro choice than the other or maybe pro death-penalty, but besides that it seems that since Clinton US politics has moved from "centre right-right" to "right-full right"
You should be more afraid of the local Homer Simpson visiting the facility....
I feel like I have a twin brother now !!!! For sure our chirac is not the "cleanest" guy on the block, but what's stealing from the city/state compared to sending kids doing a war for a fake cause and false justifications ?
So we are not required to carry it but we HAVE to carry it otherwise we might be in trouble ? Seems like a catch-22
Hello all,
Just a little comment to point out that the last line of the article is dead wrong, in France we HAVE to carry an ID at all times and the police can ask for this at all times, if you don't have it with you then they CAN (meaning they don't HAVE to) ask you to follow them to the police station.
Of course the main difference with such a system in the states means that our police and law enforcement system is controlled by sensible people and not mindless robots so they know who and when to bring "suspects" to the police station.
I guess this is just another example of US "federalism" where each state is fighting not for the common good but just to keep it's little power and so they can issue THEIR drivers licence and have THEIR laws and so on, and it gives you funny elections where the opinion of the people of texas and california and new york are not counting because they are already "won" (or lost depends where you're standing) to this or that party while the main focus is Florida or Ohio or any other place, this system is a FANTASTIC opportunity for lobbyism.
As a final point I'd like to repeat the comment of french police when people show their driver's licence as ID "It's not a ID, it's a paper saying you are allowed to drive, it does not PROVE your ID", and in fact the name says it all "driver's licence" or "ID card", which one is the IDentification document ?
Sometimes centralism is good, for ID and for laws at least.
Hello, Given into consideration that LCD is ALREADY an obsolete technology since the future lies in OLED, why not wait another 2 or 3 years and buy an OLED display when the price comes down ? After all for a VERY cheap price you can get an IIYAMA CRT monitor which WILL last for at least 3 years (that's their warranty time) and in 3 years you buy an OLED stuff. Look at what happened to the hasty people who bought plasma screens for their TV's.... Here's a link on an article on the subject, interestingly they say that in 3 years the technology should be ok http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050105-4500 .html
I was personally questioned by the french police and my flat was raided 10 years ago when Nintendo France made a lawsuit for the SNES/SFC game copy machines (the nice thing that plugged in the cartridge port and had ram and a floppy drive). So the police searched my flat while I was away, seized around 5 copy machines, about 50 games on floppies, my 2 computers and all they thought was of interest, besides that they emptied the trash in the bathtub and let it like that, it was nice when I came back home from holidays 2 weeks after that... So I had to go to Paris to talk to the police and explain myself, of course I was importing the copy machines from Hong Kong and selling them in France, the only problem for the police was that I was doing this in an "open" way, sending the goos by FEDEX "game copy machine" written on the customs decalaration and paying the customs and VAT tax. First they told me I was questioned for "importation of material being used for illegal copying" but when I showed them the customs paper they changed this to "selling of pirated games" arguing that I HAD to give games when I was selling a unit, at the time we had a pre internet way of coimmunicating in France called minitel, basically a chat BBS with incredible speed (1200/75) and so they had minitel logs of my conversations with buyers, but since I NEVER sold games after 2 hours they had to let me go, give me ALL my stuff back and pay for the damages they had caused in my flat... Bottom line is that since the modchip or device can be used for private copying and so on, it's going to be VERY difficult to put someone who's not selling pirated games in jail, at least in France, and even with the P2P hype, the judges are starting to realise that and the situation is MUCH more calm than it was 6 months ago... Now how is the law and the judges in an hysteric environment such as Fox news-USA and Murdoch land is another question...
I was personally questioned by the french police and my flat was raided 10 years ago when Nintendo France made a lawsuit for the SNES/SFC game copy machines (the nice thing that plugged in the cartridge port and had ram and a floppy drive). So the police searched my flat while I was away, seized around 5 copy machines, about 50 games on floppies, my 2 computers and all they thought was of interest, besides that they emptied the trash in the bathtub and let it like that, it was nice when I came back home from holidays 2 weeks after that... So I had to go to Paris to talk to the police and explain myself, of course I was importing the copy machines from Hong Kong and selling them in France, the only problem for the police was tha
I recall a heated debate in Europe some years ago when the british food industry wanted the european rule to adopt their rule on chocolate. Luckily it was rejected and thus the milka chocolate in france is quite different than the milka brand in England (or germany which I don't know about) But it's true that milka does not come CLOSE to lindt's...
As in US 2000 elections ? Then I don't want to have that !!!! The brother of the CPU will always win, because he's having "special recount" on the punch cards...
Why call it PEOPLE's democratic.... it should be called the CORPORATION's democratic... In the good old days in the original people's republic it was the state controlling the corporations, in the US today (and Australia) it seems it's the opposite...but in any case the PEOPLE is excluded...
US has always been FROM THE START a very puritan and warrior society. So it is MUCH better in the US to do a war for the wrong motives (Vietnam and Iraq) than to screw your secretary (one could say for the GOOD reasons, did you see the mouth she has ?). All republicans insisted HEAVILY on the fact that Clinton lied but when asked about the Bush lies (WMD, Iraq/Bin Laden ties...) they can only answer that "we are in a time of war". I like americans A LOT, but I really hate Bush and the likes of him who did Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Salvador.....