You all forget the one thing that explains Russia's reactions: Russians are afraid that US with its allies will eventually get the missile defense system working and they will find a way to scale it to disable first Chinese and then secondly Russian nuclear threat. When we set our time frame to 2030 or 2050 and start project future advances in technology and manufacturing, it isn't so far fetched idea that the West could have in the future capabilities to build and deploy working SDI against any other nuclear power. This is what Russia is afraid.
It should also be pointed out that because Russia doesn't have large economic, industrial and technological base, and it will not have these in foreseeable future, there is no way to challenge the west after a working version of SDI has been build and deployed. It should also be pointed out that if and when west builds it SDI, China will probably build it's own version of SDI quite shortly after the west. So if we look at 2050, the strategic outlook may be very different: we have the West and China safely behind SDI and the rest of the world either trying to remain neutral or aligned to either party. In this situation Russians would be in very difficult situation: they must supply oil and gas to China or China will use it's military might to get what it wants and the West that challenges Russia in it's neighbourhood (Ukraine, Georgia etc..) leaving it either to accept that and join west, or be in mercy of Chinese.
The only way that Russia can play time and maybe avoid all this is to have west not deploy any kind of missile defense. If west doesn't deploy missile defense, the Chinese don't any motivation to start building their own. Thought it should be pointed out also that Chinese have, even with out west building SDI, impetus to do something: either have enough nuclear war heads to challenge both west and Russia, or to disable the nuclear threat all together by building SDI.
In both Finland and Canada when they became independent, the minorities both Swedish and French had been there for relatively long and they were well integrated to the majority. In Estonia the case is very different, most of the Russians were transported there to colonize the Estonia and transform it to be a part of Russia. In Estonia minority wasn't well integrated to majority, majority was by force tried to integrate to minority.
PS. In Finland there has been much discussion about making Finnish the only national language and giving Swedish official minority language status. Times change, statistics change and needs change. In Estonia there is need to support the Estonian language and culture after 50 years of oppression. For this it's only natural that Estonia's only official language is Estonian. Luckily for you Russians, Estonians have been tolerant and not banned Russian language, they have assured same right to all, they have given education to all even in Russian. So shut the fuck up, and fix first problems in Russia.
Eh.. where are you getting this "information"? What you are saying and presenting is just false.
After Estonia became independent all persons who's forefathers had been citizens of Estonia before Soviet occupation were granted automatic citizenship, this group also included Russians that had arrived before the occupation. In 1992 about 32% of peoples in Estonia didn't have any citizenship, these are the people who's forefathers became to the country Russianize the country. As Estonian government didn't want to do the same things that Russians (Soviet Union) did, that is to start mass deportations, they settled on making knowledge of Estonian language and history as a requirements on having a citizenship. To ease the task for population without citizenship, Estonian government organizes free language studies so that all willing can prepare and succeed on taking the test. In 2006 only 9% of population didn't have any citizenship and 7,4% had another citizenship. So nobody is denying Estonian citizenship, it's possible for individual to get it, some just or either lazy or stubborn. Also all children in Estonia are educated, they have a right to go to a school, and nobody is denying that. Those who's mother language is Russia get to study with their own language and they also teach Estonian as part of the curriculum.
There is nothing that Russia and Russians can complain. People can acquire citizenship, many just don't want to, and there is education for all. If you look the situation in Russia, well you won't see same things as you see in Estonia or other CIVILIZED places. In Russia minorities are suppressed, in example Mari people who are natives and who's language belongs to Finno-Ugric family are been suppressed! They don't get any education in their language, they don't get anything. If Russia and Russians want to say something about other countries and nations, they should start by cleaning their own backyard. The only thing that Russia and Russians who are complaining and putting up Soviet style crap, are only making the rest of the world more hostile against Russia.
PS. And btw. in the world you have the baddest situation with neo-nazis. In 9th of May, when you celebrate the victory on world war 2, foreign students are asked to stay inside dorms and not go out, same with other foreigners. Why? Well if you go then, or in any other day and if you are Black, Asian or Arab there is a big danger that you are beaten or stabbed. That is scary. Also how you have treated Georgians and bullied with them, just shows you that current Russia is just the fascist country that it accuses on others.
You are forgetting a one very important question, namely: would the money spend at otherwise have a bigger return. It may be trendy to produce your own computers and keep as much money as you possible can circulating in your own country, it even may boost your national pride, but it will probably not be the smartest move to make. The smart move to make, in developing and under developed countries is to use the money to industrialize, namely: opening mines, building factories, building dams, building power plants, building roads and railroads, these all have very much higher returns for the whole economy.
It should also be pointed out that people in developed countries enjoy higher quality of life, because A) infrastructure build in last 200 years, and B) specialising on certain task and performing them better than any other or most other places. So keeping as much money circulating your own economy is not the thing where to aim, but to be better at manufacturing or better yet designing things is a key to succeed in a global economy.
On a different note, I also would like applaud Uruguayan efforts introducing OLPC to school children. OLPC can be a good step to educate their future workforce to be better suited on industrial and manufacturing industries: i.e. making a pulp or paper mill to work, or operating a nuclear plant requires having educated workforce.
Only in United States you would get arrested for criticizing church of Scientology. In Europe at least many governments have understood that Scientology is not a religion but a business: i.e. Wikipedia article about them states that "Germany classes Scientology as a business, rather than a religious organization, and Belgium, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom, remain unconvinced that Scientology is a religion"
I also remember an incident from the beginning of 90's where a Finnish anonymous email re-mailer service was accused in US, actually in California if I remember correctly, on being a nest of pedophiles and Johan Helsingius the maintainer of service being a pedophile too. Actually if my member serves me good some California states legislator in public speach demanded that US uses to it's power to pressure Finnish government to crack down on service. Later it was found at that the church of Scientology was behind this campaign as a pressuring way and as a retribution Johan for not cooperating with them and disclosing information about on the users of service. Wikipedia has a small article about this in their section about Johan Helsingius.
Just have to wonder how on earth US government hasn't cracked on Scientology and hard.
I won't buy any hype about Sun's Java Mobile FX nor any hype about Apple's iPhone nor newest offering from Microsoft. The reality in the mobile phone market is that to make any everlasting impact in mobile phone industry, especially when we are talking handsets and software, is that you either have to have Nokias's support or Samsung, Motorola and Sony-Ericsson hoping in board of your technology. Yes the technology itself might be interesting and even working as it should be, but if you are only offering it via few manufacturers or have only few handsets, even if you can make it a hit product, Nokia and others will just come and copy and lower prices and offer 30+ different handsets and kill you.
I also don't see so much business sense in Sun's move in here. I could understand if Sun would make Java Mobile FX mobile stack free as shared source or industry specification and use it's leverage as server and application server manufacturer to sell it's own servers and software to mobile phone vendors and to mobile carries: i.e. "all the killer applications use Java Mobile FX, would you be interested on our Java Mobile FX optimized solutions for your enterprise stack".
I did notice when I red your reply that you too thought that bureaucracy was a problem. I continued from the topic just to make my point more clear.
To continue from the economic point I would say that uneven distribution of wealth is not the problem, it's a symptom of a problem. The problem is government bureaucracy and corruption, these actually hurt most those who are starting from the bottom. If bureaucracy and corruption where kept in check, that would allow people from lower income classes to start making out: i.e. the American dream from poor to rich. Now the situation is that higher classes can do whatever they want and middle classes manage, that's just absolutely unhealthy.
Yes it's good that government tries to do at least something, but even more important is to bring up the real issue and the only real solution to it out in the open: namely economy and making it work. As long as general population doesn't understand that they can make their economy work by themselves, the economy and peoples living conditions won't become better.
If your AIDS prevention program is fucking example for all nations, why do you have AIDS problem? Why AIDS isn't going away? The fact of the matter is that for Brazil, the AIDS prevention program is not effective enough, if it would then there would be incentive for government to take extraordinary measures like void Merck's patent on their medicine. It should also be noted that Merck's AIDS medicine doesn't cure AIDS, it wont prevent new people getting the disease, it just gives some time for AIDS victims.
The only way to really stop AIDS in Brazil is to recover the economy, meaning shutting down the government bureaucracy that is crippling the country. Hell, if you look anywhere in the world, doesn't it make you wonder how on earth ex-communist countries now days have better GDP than Brazil!? Their economies, industrial base and infrastructures where almost null when they started to rebuild their economies in the beginning of 90's. The key here really is economy and fixing it. Educating population and making their living conditions better are the keys to fight AIDS and any other problem, this is best achieved by making the economy work.
This post and others aren't about putting down Brazil or Brazilians, it's about fixing problem. You have all the power you need to fight AIDS and make Brazil better plays to live, but that isn't achieved by putting down international drug companies, it's done my freeing the economy and shutting down the bureaucracy, enabling peoples to work by themselves to themselves.
I have to say that I really can't understand logic that says that all world problems could be solved if just western industrialized nations would be willing to throw enough money at them. That logic is dead wrong: throwing money has never solved anything, it would not bring freedom from diseases, pollution and lack of energy. Just to make my stance more clear: poverty, diseases and lack of infrastructure are usually the byproducts of war, bad government and culture gone wrong. Wars are not stopped by money, they are stopped by understanding real power, security and prosperity coming by building a nation. Bad government is not stopped by money, it's stopped by individuals that want to serve their people not themselves. Finally cultures don't change by money, they change when leaders of people come out and praise against the old habits and guide them to new better habits.
Lets take a case example on one of the root causes that drive poverty and diseases. A case of bad government in action is Brazilian government voiding Merck's patent on an AIDS drug. Yes, this is a perfect case of bad government. What the Brazilian government did was not to get rid of their AIDS problem, they just played little more time for the AIDS victims and they made a political move that makes the government look better in front of masses. What the Brazilian government actually should have done was to cut the roots from people having AIDS by both educating more and trying to change the general culture and to cut down the government bureaucracy that cripples Brasilia. And when I talk now about bureacrazy I have to first point out that the bureaucracy and government stupidity that we see in Nordic countries or in other western countries is so far out Brazil that you don't believe before you encounter it yourself. Just an example: in Finland it takes a matter of hours to start up company, in Brazil starting a company usually takes at least an half year, and in here I'm just talking about sorting out the paper work and other legal matters. The situation is that because economy, businesses and entrepreneurship are so badly crippled by government bureaucracy in Brazil, the unemployment is rampant and leads poverty stricken people into the streets and working in crime or prostitution. The horrible situation in here is that Brazilian government could very easily free it's people from poverty and diseases but because of rampant incompetence and bureacrazy the situation is what it is.
You say what? You say that you don't believe. You say that governments and nations should be given time to work things out and we should fund it. I say to you that is not the case, it never has been. You can yourself remedy your problems when you are willing to face the situation and are humble enough to start the work from the bottom. Case in point: in the beginning of 20th century, Argentina was in top ten of richest countries in the world, in the same time Finland was one of the most poverty stricken countries and by our current standards a third world country. After a hundred years of development, Argentina is now more of a third world country and Finland is one of the richest and most developed countries in the world. This case is definitely a case of bad government versus good government.
Darling and others, as I am may day drunk, I just have to say this: all languages are all the same. I use and have used Java as my primary programming language for the last 5 to 6 years. Before that I used Pascal and some C to achieve what I wanted. In these years I have to confess, all these languages to me have seem to be all the same. Yes, Java is more object orientated and thanks to modern IDE's (hallelujah for Netbeans) developing has newer been as easy at it is. The story still remains the same, I could still do the same things that I do with Java almost as easy with any language.
For you language fanatics and others... I use Java not because it's nice pretty language... It's not... It's because Java has a history, it has a history in enterprise, it has history with Sun, IBM, Accenture (those bastards!) and others... with that history I can be sure that Java isn't going to go anywhere, it's going to stay. Yes C# could be as nice as Java, but hey, it doesn't have the same history, it doesn't have the same industry support as Java... and looking at Microsoft's history... well... embrace and extend... change as you go... well.. that doesn't suite to me... I need assurance that my code works and my environment where I'm developing works as well it's today still a decade in the future...
Oh yeah... C# and the whole.NET platform are usable and secure in that day that Microsoft will open source them whole with any and all extensions that they have made to them, and they backing up and giving support options for deployments in Linux, AIX and Solaris environments... I'm sorry but giving up Java for.NET and C# with out real assurance and multi-platform support is for mad mans and MBA's only.
You should also remember that was then and this is now. In then British didn't allow exporting industrial machinery and tools out of the country. Also to be remembered that in then it was very hard or impossible for foreign company to start subsidiary in another country. If you compare the situation in then to today there is vast difference: today companies can operate in multiple countries and can easily protect their intellectual property, also governments and nations benefit too because after enough time has gone, patents and copyright will lapse and the information is there and it can be freely used.
Intellectual property has been the driving force in industrialized countries for the past two hundred years starting from the beginnings of industrial revolutions into today. Intellectual property rights, meaning largely patents and more lately copyright, have in the past and also today individual and companies engage in innovation and invention activities by assuring them that after their work they also can enjoy the fruits of their labor.
In example if you take look to an automobile like newest BMW or Volvo, they include many innovations and sometimes new inventions in mechanics, materials or metallurgy. If there would be no patent nor copyright protections, BMW and Volvo would go out of business very soon because in a game with no intellectual property protections the manufacturer with biggest economies of scale would win, which eventually would like into a harmful monopoly and stagnation of invention and innovation. This is to just make an example that all economies that are engaged to research and development activities are more or less dependent on intellectual property: i.e. not just US is dependent of intellectual property, so are Europe and Japan and other developing countries.
I also realize that you are pointing more and are worried on US transformation into information and service based economy where industrial and manufacturing segments of economy have seen little growth or have been decreasing. I would like to point out that in today's economy which is basically global interconnected network, there is no difference where a product is manufactured or new invention thought of because everything can be traded and exchanged. Also there is no real risk in this, because of countries that are connected to this network are dependent of it: i.e. if US, Europe, China or Japan would put large protectionist import or export restrictions, world economy would come crashing down so fast that there would be shakeout in almost every government.
On a note, US still today has a large industrial manufacturing sector, it hasn't gone away. Yes, there aren't so many jobs in industry today, but that has much to do with automation.
This is no news. European Union Parliament can't legislate laws or directives by itself. European Union Commission only has power to bring new directives to parliament, and parliament has two options: either accept the directive or send it back to commission. It should be noted that European Union Commission is not formed by parliament but it's formed by member countries, meaning that parliament doesn't have quite much direct power on the workings of commission. As we here hear that few parliament members are making drafts, it doesn't mean in real world anything, they have no power to put that draft into a directive. No news.
Er... Hate to break it to you, but fear and hate among other human emotions are natural and build into every one of us, emotions inside us give birth to words and drive us to use them. You may ban words, you may even succeed in killing a word and removing it completely them from language and collective memory and culture, but you can't remove the basic emotions inside us that gave originally birth to those words. You can't control nor change people by changing the language of communication, we are not living in 1984, the reality and forces driving in it are more complex.
I would also like to remind you that conflict is a natural part of human life. You may see that your existence is threatened by some other group of people. This is not new, this is human life, this is what we all face and have to deal with. There has always been struggle between tribes, nations, faiths, social classes etc.. I for once in my youth thought that for me as an intelligent and tolerable person the threat to my existence came from unintelligible and intolerable people and that if the revolution would come, I would be in the first group of people to be gotten ridden of. That of course is not the case and that is my own fear fueling hate. When you start fearing other people, when you start hating them, then you are just few steps closer on suggesting once again another final solution: "if we all would be just the same there would be no problems". That is not true unity, that is fascism, that is no way to go.
Words are here and emotions are build inside of us and conflict is a part of life. These are the facts. If you want to make life better for you and others, you have to accept this and start working from here. Words are messengers, they tell us their emotional message be it love, friendship, fear or hate. If you want to break the conflict, you have to find the message behind the words and then identify the emotions and reason behind the message. Emotions and their reasons are you real target. If you want to win or convert somebody from their stance, you have to understand their emotions and reasons and discuss with them to change their ideas and the logic they see world working.
To sum it up, don't attack words, they are just messengers. Attack the emotions and reasons behind the message. Hiding words only hides problems.
Okay, I maybe going to sidetracks in here but so be it... What is even wrong with words such as nigga, ho, etc..? They are just words. Using those or other slang words won't change who you are or make you something else. If the words are suitable for carrying a message, be it whatever, then why not use them. I have been using and still use phrases such as "was up my nigga!" when I see some of my friends, just to bound and because we both find using those phrases humoral and funny. Of course in this case, the words of another slang and cultural meanings have been transformed into another context and slang with it's own references. Even if I would be using the words in their original context of happening, I can't see how using those words would be bad. Or even if I would be using the words in public, I can't see how the words themselves would be bad.
To make an example. If I would not normally refer to someones racial / bloodline background when talking to somebody, it would be quite the same if I would say "so you African-Americans" or "so you black people" or "so you niggers". If I would refer always to someones background, it would be same to use "so you rednecks" and "so you niggers" etc.. as long as I would follow the same logic when interacting with different people. So what I'm trying to say is that the words themselves are not bad, the context where and what message I'm saying is the key not words themselves.
I have to say that I really don't understand your comment on that you don't allow using words 'black people' in your or your family's presence. To make my point is that you can replace the word black with French / German / Swedish / Finnish / Russian i.e. "French people", "German people" etc.. It's very common to address a group of people with a common word, and at least here in Europe nobody goes crazy if somebody makes a joke about other nationalities / cultures i.e. "Swedish are gay", "Finnish are alcoholics", "Russians are gangsters" etc.. Nobody is shouting that "no! not all Swedish are gay, only some!". If you are offended by somebody saying "black people" or blacks then I think you are little hyper sensitive. People always abstract their environment and especially when they describe it to each other.
On a note I can't even really understand why people in US call themselves or other as African-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Latins etc.. when in fact you are all Americans and some of you are white, some black, some speak Spanish and some of you are just indescribable. If we would use that same here in Europe, we would have to invent many fancy words: i.e. I have mostly Finnish but also Swedish, Russian and Ukrainian blood in my veins, so should I be Ugric-Scandinavian-Russian-Ukrainian-Finnish? What I think goes wrong in US is that words are over politicised. You really should stop being politically correct and say hello to the reality and not try to hide it.
I don't think that public ownership is an answer to your problems. It has not been the answer in Finland nor in Sweden nor in Denmark. What the government in here has done is that it has defined certain rules to telecom companies on how they should operate and how they should act with other telecom companies. To give you an example: a local phone company owns the lines to my house, if some other company would like to use them to deliver me in example Internet or phone connection, the local phone company would have to rent the lines for the other company, the rent price from line usage would have to be the same that the local phone company uses in it's internal pricing. This same system has worked in Internet access and mobile communication markets. It's fair in that the local phone company gets rent from the line that is beneficial to it from renting lines to others, it's beneficial to new comers in markets because they don't have to make extensive investments to networks and can start as virtual operators, like Saunalahti did.
So I don't believe in that public ownership of last mile would resolve anything. What would resolve the problem would be breaking of natural monopolies and setting rules and guide lines that enable competition in a field.
What you and the parent have completely missed is that government interference has been decreased by the actions of European Union and the development of common European market. Let me educate you from the past: in past individual European governments saw companies and industries as national strategic assets and tools for government control both in inside the country and also in international scene. What this meant was that some industries where completely protected by formation of national monopoly to an individual company or government agency, or in other cases foreign ownership was totally denied or sanctioned to a very small percentage, or in some cases tolls and import taxes were put on place to protect countries companies, or countries standards and laws were written so that it would be near impossible for companies from other countries to fulfill them, or it straightly denied to buy some foreign companies. So the difference with today's situation were we have one European market with one set of rules compared to past when we had 27 different markets with different rules, is very drastic.
Lets make in example of this. I'm from Finland and Finland is nation of five million inhabitants. I have a software company, for my company the Finnish market is very small and for my company to grow I need bigger markets. In past it would have been very difficult to set up foreign operations, but because European Union has established common European market, I can sell my software products and services in whole European Union area with almost 500 million inhabitants with out the need to set up subsidiaries in other countries, with out need to pay import taxes or tolls, with out need to customize my product to country specific standards. Also because Finland uses Euro as a currency, I can sell my products and services to other Euro countries with out currency risks. Also because European Union has mandated that all public projects in all member countries are open to public bidding by all companies regardless of their country of origin, so if in example German government organization would have public bidding race for a specific product or service, my company would be in an even playing field with other companies.
And lets make a better example in more smaller level. Because European Union, people are free to locate themselves freely in European Union area. I can travel freely in European Union area in countries belonging to Schengen treaty I don't even need passport when traveling. If traveling in Europe I happen to fell in love with some place, I can just start living there, I can buy a house, I can get a job i.e. There is nobody telling me that because I'm from Finland I can not stay in their country. What this has meant that if in some cause there isn't enough jobs in Finland, I can freely locate in example in Ireland, or if I marry somebody from other European Union country, she can come freely to Finland or I can move to her country. In past moving between European countries and especially moving from country to country was more harder and one needed to deal with bureaucracy, or in some cases it was not allowed. So because we have a thing called European Union, I'm more free to do and archive things in Europe.
To make a note is that when we talk about European Union, in many countries like in Britain and France, politicians like to blame European Union for all the problems they have in their countries. Also in Britain there are some powerful business men that have straightly dictated that their media companies are anti European Union. Of course problem with the European Union also is that it's very difficult for European Union citizens to understand what European Union does and how valuable the things are that it has achieved: i.e. no war in Europe, common markets, common currency, more and more power to negotiate with US, Russians, etc..
You talk as if the economy and politics have nothing to do with each other, but that is not true. We are mired in economic sclerosis because no European company is free from the greedy, interfering tendrils of the organs (can I say organs on this web site?) of the European Union. Imagine a picture of prehistoric creatures trapped in a tar pit, slowly but inexorably sinking until they suffocate, only the creatures are businesses and the tar is miles and miles and miles of red tape.
European Union as greedy interfering tendril of the organs? I think that you really don't understand what European Union does and what it has achieved. Currently we have an common European economic area that runs with common rules and standards that are same from country to country. We have Euro as a currency in most of the European Union countries making internal and international trade more balanced and safe. We have European Union Commission that negotiates as an unified front with countries such as USA, China, Japan, Russia and etc.. making sure Europe and European companies are treated fairly and rules of international trade are fair for Europe. What European Union does is to enable common European marketplace where individuals and companies are in the same playing field regardless on their country of origin.
Also to make a note, in Europe, industry and companies have been the driving force of European unification. National, European wide and International companies have for a long seen the need to have for unified Europe. If you go in any European Union member country and look for people who want more unified Europe and who see Euro as an currency beneficial to them you will notice that these people are more likely entrepreneurs and managers of companies engaged to European and international business. If you wonder what is the rational for this, the rational is very easy explain: with European Union there are only one set of rules and standards instead of 27 making it easier for business to concentrate on their core functions and spend less on dealing with bureaucracy.
All in all, European Union does the same job as US Federal Government, or Chinese, Russian, and Indian central governments. In this today's world where political and economic power is more and more concentrated to big or super blocks, small individual countries don't have the resources and power to match this power blocks. Only by uniting together European nations can succeed and make sure that the future still includes prosperous and well-being Europe.
I just have to wonder when are these children who have been thought by playing computer games to study with a book? When are they going to learn how one should do his/her reading and writing exercises? I mean in elementary school you learn to concentrate on a book and on how to write essays, and when you go to high school you will start really using what you have learned previously. To go more to a point, how can kids thought by computer games and etc.. in later life, in collage or university concentrate on to hard-to-read-hard-to-understand books that they just have to read and understand to achieve anything in their studies?!
I myself am very much into using computers and software to help and automate task, but when we talk about basic education, I have to say that I'm inclined to go back to basics: books, pens and lots of repetition to get the education in the bottom layers of brain.
And before somebody says that it's boring and no fun when you have no audio visual and interactive material then I have to say that childrens work is to go to school and learn. Yes the kids may complain, but if and when they do, they should be told about the realities of life: "Daddys and mommies work brings the bacon home and it takes all day with no play, so if you don't want to go to school, the other alternative is real work" or just tell them that "If you don't work hard at school, if you don't learn, you will not know anything and you will not get anything done, and when you are adult you will be poor and living in bad neigbourhood and the best place you can get work is local Wal-mart or McDonalds bathroom cleaner, you want that?". Of course if this doesn't work, you can always threaten them: good grades = you get something you want, bad grades = nothing to wait for.
Yes, that is very good too, praise the lord! But ask yourself, how can bible help you when your beloved project manager is shouting developers, developers, developers and you suddenly find yourself in path of flying furniture's? I can say that praising lord doesn't do a squad. But alas, help is on a way! For all those miserable souls who don't mind giving their soul in exchange of dark forces of hell, there is the Necromancer Bible. Unfortunately Amazon doesn't carry this item currently. So what to do in a mean time? Well, one could start from The Anarchist Cookbook and show those bastard colleagues on how object class hierarchy should be done. Nothing really starts the day better than seeing your office go way high into the sky and dropping down.
Well 30 to 40 dollars can make a yearly difference of 360 to 480 dollars. Also to mind is that mobile operators still have with these prices quite good marginals, so from the point of view of a consumer 30 to 40 dollars difference can be a difference between fair price and robbery. To be noted that in my original message I thought that the fair price for the service should be more like 30 to 40 euros. In the future I think that the price can actually fall to that, if consumers put enough pressure to operators. To note also is that in article 120dollars is the price of unlimited phone, sms and data services, when you pay 30dollars more you also get mobile broadband, in another words more speedier connection. Same actually in here, if you pay 9,95 euros more you get max 2mbit/s speed.
I personally think that mobile broadband is a nice idea, but I wouldn't never replace my primary net connection with it. At least in here you get 2mbit/s speeds only in towns bigger than 30k and in more densely populated country side you get EDGE connections (236kbit/s) and in totally rural areas only 53kbit/s.
PS. About networks... EV-DO can achieve 2.4 Mbps with Rev. 0 and up to 3.1 Mb/s with Rev. A. UMTS can achieve 384 kbit/s for R99 handsets, and 3.6 Mbit/s for HSDPA EV-DO Rev B can archive 4.9mbit/s
If I would live in US, I wouldn't be satisfied to what network operators are offering, and would seriously complain about the offerings and pricing. It should be also noted that my point was not to promote Finland nor lay a finger, just to inform you on how things are in other parts of the world so you wont be fooled by untrue sales pitches. The best way to put pressure in sales people and companies is to question their offerings and pricing to achieve better prices and offers.
How can they charge so much? In Finland, you can in example get 3G phone packet from Saunalahti that includes a 3G phone, 3000min/month to all GSM and wired phones, videophone-calls for 3000min/month, 3000 sms/month, 3000mms/month and 3G-, EDGE- and GRPS data connection with max 384 kbit/s speed and that only costs 57,95euros which already includes sales tax. To me paying 57euros from that packet is little bit expensive, I would definitely get it if it would cost 30 to 40 euros... charging 115 to 150 dollars from basically the same deal that Saunalahti offers is just crazy, I wouldn't accept it.
To me it seems more that these managers that are afraid of open source are just lazy and don't do what they are paid to do: to manage. Using open source in ones system or taking advantage of it by including it to your own software is not that hard. You just have to decisions. If I want to keep my application closed then I can make a simple rule: no GPL code or if GPL code really badly needed then contact the developer and check if it's possible to license the code in another license. In example in my own company which develops closed source survey research software we follow few rules:
1) No usage of GPL code/software allowed that requires opening up our application
2) LGPL code can be used under few conditions
a) no straight code lifting
b) code is only used via Jars
c) if code is changed, the changes are distributed back
d) include the package with sources that we have used into included directory when distributing the application
3) Usage of code under other licenses like BSD etc.. is evaluated case by case
These are very simple rules to follow and very simple to understand. Of course we could have more rules and more specific rules and guidelines but then again we are small company and we are not that heavy on including open source components to our software: our main work is writing good software not linking all the worlds code to our software. Of course in a bigger company writing rules and guidelines may need more work and more thought, but then again that is what managers and lawyers are paid to do and if they do their job by just shouting "NO!" then they are not doing their jobs.
Just to make an point. Does treasures have any effect on following: Rule of the law? Organization of government? Organization of army? Writing and reading skills? Education system? Science research? Development of agriculture? Development of finance and banking? Development of roads and canals? Development industrialization? No. Treasures don't have any effect on those things. Actually treasures and just treasures, they don't produce anything, they just are, they maybe viewed, they maybe wanted, but they don't do nothing. The key thing here what I'm trying to say is, that west rouse up because it's society build itself and how it continued to build and evolve it. Yes, eventually after western nations rouse, they did suppress and exploit other areas of the world, but the key thing was that these areas and civilizations where even in that time were very much behind west. So to make it clear, rise of west was not product of suppression and exploitation, but the rise of west allowed later suppression and exploitation of many areas.
Just to give you one example what went right in the west and wrong in China and Japan. If we look Europe, China and Japan in 16th and 17h centuries, China was ahead of the previous two, Japan could be said been in equal level of development with Europe. What set China and Japan a part from Europe that in China and Japan, traders and creditors were seen as lower parts of society and their fortunes were robbed from time to time and debts to nobles and governments wiped out. The bad treatment of traders and creditors made sure that banking and finance sectors didn't form up in either of these. Instead in Europe, because of constant war ventures, kings and nobles realized that the key to win a war is your ability to finance it. In the same time as Rothschields set up Europe wide banking network there were no such development in either China or Japan. When we go on further, as the industrialization started, Europe had very advanced banking and finance sectors witch allowed efficient allocation of resources to new industrial ventures.
Or just to give you another example. Japan was very closed society in Tokugawa reign, trade to outside world was severely limited and in example firearms i.e. muskets were banned. Later on it costed Japanese dearly for banning firearms because when Americans landed, Japanese hadn't developed muskets or organization of their armies and thus had no real force to put up to western powers.
These both cases, banking and finance and firearms were all in these three civilizations, but only one of them, that is Europeans, continued to develop them. If Chinese had treated traders and bankers better they could have had very advanced financing system that could have allowed them to better finance ventures and war efforts. Also if in both of these places development of firearms would have kept going on, Europeans would have not had any chance to set up colonies in Asia.
So again... rise of west happened because of it's internal reasons, not by exploitation and suppression of others. Thou rise of west allowed west later on to exploit and suppress.
Slashdot Mirror
You all forget the one thing that explains Russia's reactions: Russians are afraid that US with its allies will eventually get the missile defense system working and they will find a way to scale it to disable first Chinese and then secondly Russian nuclear threat. When we set our time frame to 2030 or 2050 and start project future advances in technology and manufacturing, it isn't so far fetched idea that the West could have in the future capabilities to build and deploy working SDI against any other nuclear power. This is what Russia is afraid.
It should also be pointed out that because Russia doesn't have large economic, industrial and technological base, and it will not have these in foreseeable future, there is no way to challenge the west after a working version of SDI has been build and deployed. It should also be pointed out that if and when west builds it SDI, China will probably build it's own version of SDI quite shortly after the west. So if we look at 2050, the strategic outlook may be very different: we have the West and China safely behind SDI and the rest of the world either trying to remain neutral or aligned to either party. In this situation Russians would be in very difficult situation: they must supply oil and gas to China or China will use it's military might to get what it wants and the West that challenges Russia in it's neighbourhood (Ukraine, Georgia etc..) leaving it either to accept that and join west, or be in mercy of Chinese.
The only way that Russia can play time and maybe avoid all this is to have west not deploy any kind of missile defense. If west doesn't deploy missile defense, the Chinese don't any motivation to start building their own. Thought it should be pointed out also that Chinese have, even with out west building SDI, impetus to do something: either have enough nuclear war heads to challenge both west and Russia, or to disable the nuclear threat all together by building SDI.
In both Finland and Canada when they became independent, the minorities both Swedish and French had been there for relatively long and they were well integrated to the majority. In Estonia the case is very different, most of the Russians were transported there to colonize the Estonia and transform it to be a part of Russia. In Estonia minority wasn't well integrated to majority, majority was by force tried to integrate to minority.
PS. In Finland there has been much discussion about making Finnish the only national language and giving Swedish official minority language status. Times change, statistics change and needs change. In Estonia there is need to support the Estonian language and culture after 50 years of oppression. For this it's only natural that Estonia's only official language is Estonian. Luckily for you Russians, Estonians have been tolerant and not banned Russian language, they have assured same right to all, they have given education to all even in Russian. So shut the fuck up, and fix first problems in Russia.
Eh.. where are you getting this "information"? What you are saying and presenting is just false.
After Estonia became independent all persons who's forefathers had been citizens of Estonia before Soviet occupation were granted automatic citizenship, this group also included Russians that had arrived before the occupation. In 1992 about 32% of peoples in Estonia didn't have any citizenship, these are the people who's forefathers became to the country Russianize the country. As Estonian government didn't want to do the same things that Russians (Soviet Union) did, that is to start mass deportations, they settled on making knowledge of Estonian language and history as a requirements on having a citizenship. To ease the task for population without citizenship, Estonian government organizes free language studies so that all willing can prepare and succeed on taking the test. In 2006 only 9% of population didn't have any citizenship and 7,4% had another citizenship. So nobody is denying Estonian citizenship, it's possible for individual to get it, some just or either lazy or stubborn. Also all children in Estonia are educated, they have a right to go to a school, and nobody is denying that. Those who's mother language is Russia get to study with their own language and they also teach Estonian as part of the curriculum.
There is nothing that Russia and Russians can complain. People can acquire citizenship, many just don't want to, and there is education for all. If you look the situation in Russia, well you won't see same things as you see in Estonia or other CIVILIZED places. In Russia minorities are suppressed, in example Mari people who are natives and who's language belongs to Finno-Ugric family are been suppressed! They don't get any education in their language, they don't get anything. If Russia and Russians want to say something about other countries and nations, they should start by cleaning their own backyard. The only thing that Russia and Russians who are complaining and putting up Soviet style crap, are only making the rest of the world more hostile against Russia.
PS. And btw. in the world you have the baddest situation with neo-nazis. In 9th of May, when you celebrate the victory on world war 2, foreign students are asked to stay inside dorms and not go out, same with other foreigners. Why? Well if you go then, or in any other day and if you are Black, Asian or Arab there is a big danger that you are beaten or stabbed. That is scary. Also how you have treated Georgians and bullied with them, just shows you that current Russia is just the fascist country that it accuses on others.
You are forgetting a one very important question, namely: would the money spend at otherwise have a bigger return. It may be trendy to produce your own computers and keep as much money as you possible can circulating in your own country, it even may boost your national pride, but it will probably not be the smartest move to make. The smart move to make, in developing and under developed countries is to use the money to industrialize, namely: opening mines, building factories, building dams, building power plants, building roads and railroads, these all have very much higher returns for the whole economy.
It should also be pointed out that people in developed countries enjoy higher quality of life, because A) infrastructure build in last 200 years, and B) specialising on certain task and performing them better than any other or most other places. So keeping as much money circulating your own economy is not the thing where to aim, but to be better at manufacturing or better yet designing things is a key to succeed in a global economy.
On a different note, I also would like applaud Uruguayan efforts introducing OLPC to school children. OLPC can be a good step to educate their future workforce to be better suited on industrial and manufacturing industries: i.e. making a pulp or paper mill to work, or operating a nuclear plant requires having educated workforce.
Only in United States you would get arrested for criticizing church of Scientology. In Europe at least many governments have understood that Scientology is not a religion but a business: i.e. Wikipedia article about them states that "Germany classes Scientology as a business, rather than a religious organization, and Belgium, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom, remain unconvinced that Scientology is a religion"
I also remember an incident from the beginning of 90's where a Finnish anonymous email re-mailer service was accused in US, actually in California if I remember correctly, on being a nest of pedophiles and Johan Helsingius the maintainer of service being a pedophile too. Actually if my member serves me good some California states legislator in public speach demanded that US uses to it's power to pressure Finnish government to crack down on service. Later it was found at that the church of Scientology was behind this campaign as a pressuring way and as a retribution Johan for not cooperating with them and disclosing information about on the users of service. Wikipedia has a small article about this in their section about Johan Helsingius.
Just have to wonder how on earth US government hasn't cracked on Scientology and hard.
I won't buy any hype about Sun's Java Mobile FX nor any hype about Apple's iPhone nor newest offering from Microsoft. The reality in the mobile phone market is that to make any everlasting impact in mobile phone industry, especially when we are talking handsets and software, is that you either have to have Nokias's support or Samsung, Motorola and Sony-Ericsson hoping in board of your technology. Yes the technology itself might be interesting and even working as it should be, but if you are only offering it via few manufacturers or have only few handsets, even if you can make it a hit product, Nokia and others will just come and copy and lower prices and offer 30+ different handsets and kill you.
I also don't see so much business sense in Sun's move in here. I could understand if Sun would make Java Mobile FX mobile stack free as shared source or industry specification and use it's leverage as server and application server manufacturer to sell it's own servers and software to mobile phone vendors and to mobile carries: i.e. "all the killer applications use Java Mobile FX, would you be interested on our Java Mobile FX optimized solutions for your enterprise stack".
I did notice when I red your reply that you too thought that bureaucracy was a problem. I continued from the topic just to make my point more clear.
To continue from the economic point I would say that uneven distribution of wealth is not the problem, it's a symptom of a problem. The problem is government bureaucracy and corruption, these actually hurt most those who are starting from the bottom. If bureaucracy and corruption where kept in check, that would allow people from lower income classes to start making out: i.e. the American dream from poor to rich. Now the situation is that higher classes can do whatever they want and middle classes manage, that's just absolutely unhealthy.
Yes it's good that government tries to do at least something, but even more important is to bring up the real issue and the only real solution to it out in the open: namely economy and making it work. As long as general population doesn't understand that they can make their economy work by themselves, the economy and peoples living conditions won't become better.
If your AIDS prevention program is fucking example for all nations, why do you have AIDS problem? Why AIDS isn't going away? The fact of the matter is that for Brazil, the AIDS prevention program is not effective enough, if it would then there would be incentive for government to take extraordinary measures like void Merck's patent on their medicine. It should also be noted that Merck's AIDS medicine doesn't cure AIDS, it wont prevent new people getting the disease, it just gives some time for AIDS victims.
The only way to really stop AIDS in Brazil is to recover the economy, meaning shutting down the government bureaucracy that is crippling the country. Hell, if you look anywhere in the world, doesn't it make you wonder how on earth ex-communist countries now days have better GDP than Brazil!? Their economies, industrial base and infrastructures where almost null when they started to rebuild their economies in the beginning of 90's. The key here really is economy and fixing it. Educating population and making their living conditions better are the keys to fight AIDS and any other problem, this is best achieved by making the economy work.
This post and others aren't about putting down Brazil or Brazilians, it's about fixing problem. You have all the power you need to fight AIDS and make Brazil better plays to live, but that isn't achieved by putting down international drug companies, it's done my freeing the economy and shutting down the bureaucracy, enabling peoples to work by themselves to themselves.
I have to say that I really can't understand logic that says that all world problems could be solved if just western industrialized nations would be willing to throw enough money at them. That logic is dead wrong: throwing money has never solved anything, it would not bring freedom from diseases, pollution and lack of energy. Just to make my stance more clear: poverty, diseases and lack of infrastructure are usually the byproducts of war, bad government and culture gone wrong. Wars are not stopped by money, they are stopped by understanding real power, security and prosperity coming by building a nation. Bad government is not stopped by money, it's stopped by individuals that want to serve their people not themselves. Finally cultures don't change by money, they change when leaders of people come out and praise against the old habits and guide them to new better habits.
Lets take a case example on one of the root causes that drive poverty and diseases. A case of bad government in action is Brazilian government voiding Merck's patent on an AIDS drug. Yes, this is a perfect case of bad government. What the Brazilian government did was not to get rid of their AIDS problem, they just played little more time for the AIDS victims and they made a political move that makes the government look better in front of masses. What the Brazilian government actually should have done was to cut the roots from people having AIDS by both educating more and trying to change the general culture and to cut down the government bureaucracy that cripples Brasilia. And when I talk now about bureacrazy I have to first point out that the bureaucracy and government stupidity that we see in Nordic countries or in other western countries is so far out Brazil that you don't believe before you encounter it yourself. Just an example: in Finland it takes a matter of hours to start up company, in Brazil starting a company usually takes at least an half year, and in here I'm just talking about sorting out the paper work and other legal matters. The situation is that because economy, businesses and entrepreneurship are so badly crippled by government bureaucracy in Brazil, the unemployment is rampant and leads poverty stricken people into the streets and working in crime or prostitution. The horrible situation in here is that Brazilian government could very easily free it's people from poverty and diseases but because of rampant incompetence and bureacrazy the situation is what it is.
You say what? You say that you don't believe. You say that governments and nations should be given time to work things out and we should fund it. I say to you that is not the case, it never has been. You can yourself remedy your problems when you are willing to face the situation and are humble enough to start the work from the bottom. Case in point: in the beginning of 20th century, Argentina was in top ten of richest countries in the world, in the same time Finland was one of the most poverty stricken countries and by our current standards a third world country. After a hundred years of development, Argentina is now more of a third world country and Finland is one of the richest and most developed countries in the world. This case is definitely a case of bad government versus good government.
Darling and others, as I am may day drunk, I just have to say this: all languages are all the same. I use and have used Java as my primary programming language for the last 5 to 6 years. Before that I used Pascal and some C to achieve what I wanted. In these years I have to confess, all these languages to me have seem to be all the same. Yes, Java is more object orientated and thanks to modern IDE's (hallelujah for Netbeans) developing has newer been as easy at it is. The story still remains the same, I could still do the same things that I do with Java almost as easy with any language.
.NET platform are usable and secure in that day that Microsoft will open source them whole with any and all extensions that they have made to them, and they backing up and giving support options for deployments in Linux, AIX and Solaris environments... I'm sorry but giving up Java for .NET and C# with out real assurance and multi-platform support is for mad mans and MBA's only.
For you language fanatics and others... I use Java not because it's nice pretty language... It's not... It's because Java has a history, it has a history in enterprise, it has history with Sun, IBM, Accenture (those bastards!) and others... with that history I can be sure that Java isn't going to go anywhere, it's going to stay. Yes C# could be as nice as Java, but hey, it doesn't have the same history, it doesn't have the same industry support as Java... and looking at Microsoft's history... well... embrace and extend... change as you go... well.. that doesn't suite to me... I need assurance that my code works and my environment where I'm developing works as well it's today still a decade in the future...
Oh yeah... C# and the whole
You should also remember that was then and this is now. In then British didn't allow exporting industrial machinery and tools out of the country. Also to be remembered that in then it was very hard or impossible for foreign company to start subsidiary in another country. If you compare the situation in then to today there is vast difference: today companies can operate in multiple countries and can easily protect their intellectual property, also governments and nations benefit too because after enough time has gone, patents and copyright will lapse and the information is there and it can be freely used.
Intellectual property has been the driving force in industrialized countries for the past two hundred years starting from the beginnings of industrial revolutions into today. Intellectual property rights, meaning largely patents and more lately copyright, have in the past and also today individual and companies engage in innovation and invention activities by assuring them that after their work they also can enjoy the fruits of their labor.
In example if you take look to an automobile like newest BMW or Volvo, they include many innovations and sometimes new inventions in mechanics, materials or metallurgy. If there would be no patent nor copyright protections, BMW and Volvo would go out of business very soon because in a game with no intellectual property protections the manufacturer with biggest economies of scale would win, which eventually would like into a harmful monopoly and stagnation of invention and innovation. This is to just make an example that all economies that are engaged to research and development activities are more or less dependent on intellectual property: i.e. not just US is dependent of intellectual property, so are Europe and Japan and other developing countries.
I also realize that you are pointing more and are worried on US transformation into information and service based economy where industrial and manufacturing segments of economy have seen little growth or have been decreasing. I would like to point out that in today's economy which is basically global interconnected network, there is no difference where a product is manufactured or new invention thought of because everything can be traded and exchanged. Also there is no real risk in this, because of countries that are connected to this network are dependent of it: i.e. if US, Europe, China or Japan would put large protectionist import or export restrictions, world economy would come crashing down so fast that there would be shakeout in almost every government.
On a note, US still today has a large industrial manufacturing sector, it hasn't gone away. Yes, there aren't so many jobs in industry today, but that has much to do with automation.
This is no news. European Union Parliament can't legislate laws or directives by itself. European Union Commission only has power to bring new directives to parliament, and parliament has two options: either accept the directive or send it back to commission. It should be noted that European Union Commission is not formed by parliament but it's formed by member countries, meaning that parliament doesn't have quite much direct power on the workings of commission. As we here hear that few parliament members are making drafts, it doesn't mean in real world anything, they have no power to put that draft into a directive. No news.
Er... Hate to break it to you, but fear and hate among other human emotions are natural and build into every one of us, emotions inside us give birth to words and drive us to use them. You may ban words, you may even succeed in killing a word and removing it completely them from language and collective memory and culture, but you can't remove the basic emotions inside us that gave originally birth to those words. You can't control nor change people by changing the language of communication, we are not living in 1984, the reality and forces driving in it are more complex.
I would also like to remind you that conflict is a natural part of human life. You may see that your existence is threatened by some other group of people. This is not new, this is human life, this is what we all face and have to deal with. There has always been struggle between tribes, nations, faiths, social classes etc.. I for once in my youth thought that for me as an intelligent and tolerable person the threat to my existence came from unintelligible and intolerable people and that if the revolution would come, I would be in the first group of people to be gotten ridden of. That of course is not the case and that is my own fear fueling hate. When you start fearing other people, when you start hating them, then you are just few steps closer on suggesting once again another final solution: "if we all would be just the same there would be no problems". That is not true unity, that is fascism, that is no way to go.
Words are here and emotions are build inside of us and conflict is a part of life. These are the facts. If you want to make life better for you and others, you have to accept this and start working from here. Words are messengers, they tell us their emotional message be it love, friendship, fear or hate. If you want to break the conflict, you have to find the message behind the words and then identify the emotions and reason behind the message. Emotions and their reasons are you real target. If you want to win or convert somebody from their stance, you have to understand their emotions and reasons and discuss with them to change their ideas and the logic they see world working.
To sum it up, don't attack words, they are just messengers. Attack the emotions and reasons behind the message. Hiding words only hides problems.
Okay, I maybe going to sidetracks in here but so be it... What is even wrong with words such as nigga, ho, etc..? They are just words. Using those or other slang words won't change who you are or make you something else. If the words are suitable for carrying a message, be it whatever, then why not use them. I have been using and still use phrases such as "was up my nigga!" when I see some of my friends, just to bound and because we both find using those phrases humoral and funny. Of course in this case, the words of another slang and cultural meanings have been transformed into another context and slang with it's own references. Even if I would be using the words in their original context of happening, I can't see how using those words would be bad. Or even if I would be using the words in public, I can't see how the words themselves would be bad.
To make an example. If I would not normally refer to someones racial / bloodline background when talking to somebody, it would be quite the same if I would say "so you African-Americans" or "so you black people" or "so you niggers". If I would refer always to someones background, it would be same to use "so you rednecks" and "so you niggers" etc.. as long as I would follow the same logic when interacting with different people. So what I'm trying to say is that the words themselves are not bad, the context where and what message I'm saying is the key not words themselves.
I have to say that I really don't understand your comment on that you don't allow using words 'black people' in your or your family's presence. To make my point is that you can replace the word black with French / German / Swedish / Finnish / Russian i.e. "French people", "German people" etc.. It's very common to address a group of people with a common word, and at least here in Europe nobody goes crazy if somebody makes a joke about other nationalities / cultures i.e. "Swedish are gay", "Finnish are alcoholics", "Russians are gangsters" etc.. Nobody is shouting that "no! not all Swedish are gay, only some!". If you are offended by somebody saying "black people" or blacks then I think you are little hyper sensitive. People always abstract their environment and especially when they describe it to each other.
On a note I can't even really understand why people in US call themselves or other as African-Americans, Anglo-Americans, Latins etc.. when in fact you are all Americans and some of you are white, some black, some speak Spanish and some of you are just indescribable. If we would use that same here in Europe, we would have to invent many fancy words: i.e. I have mostly Finnish but also Swedish, Russian and Ukrainian blood in my veins, so should I be Ugric-Scandinavian-Russian-Ukrainian-Finnish? What I think goes wrong in US is that words are over politicised. You really should stop being politically correct and say hello to the reality and not try to hide it.
I don't think that public ownership is an answer to your problems. It has not been the answer in Finland nor in Sweden nor in Denmark. What the government in here has done is that it has defined certain rules to telecom companies on how they should operate and how they should act with other telecom companies. To give you an example: a local phone company owns the lines to my house, if some other company would like to use them to deliver me in example Internet or phone connection, the local phone company would have to rent the lines for the other company, the rent price from line usage would have to be the same that the local phone company uses in it's internal pricing. This same system has worked in Internet access and mobile communication markets. It's fair in that the local phone company gets rent from the line that is beneficial to it from renting lines to others, it's beneficial to new comers in markets because they don't have to make extensive investments to networks and can start as virtual operators, like Saunalahti did.
So I don't believe in that public ownership of last mile would resolve anything. What would resolve the problem would be breaking of natural monopolies and setting rules and guide lines that enable competition in a field.
What you and the parent have completely missed is that government interference has been decreased by the actions of European Union and the development of common European market. Let me educate you from the past: in past individual European governments saw companies and industries as national strategic assets and tools for government control both in inside the country and also in international scene. What this meant was that some industries where completely protected by formation of national monopoly to an individual company or government agency, or in other cases foreign ownership was totally denied or sanctioned to a very small percentage, or in some cases tolls and import taxes were put on place to protect countries companies, or countries standards and laws were written so that it would be near impossible for companies from other countries to fulfill them, or it straightly denied to buy some foreign companies. So the difference with today's situation were we have one European market with one set of rules compared to past when we had 27 different markets with different rules, is very drastic.
Lets make in example of this. I'm from Finland and Finland is nation of five million inhabitants. I have a software company, for my company the Finnish market is very small and for my company to grow I need bigger markets. In past it would have been very difficult to set up foreign operations, but because European Union has established common European market, I can sell my software products and services in whole European Union area with almost 500 million inhabitants with out the need to set up subsidiaries in other countries, with out need to pay import taxes or tolls, with out need to customize my product to country specific standards. Also because Finland uses Euro as a currency, I can sell my products and services to other Euro countries with out currency risks. Also because European Union has mandated that all public projects in all member countries are open to public bidding by all companies regardless of their country of origin, so if in example German government organization would have public bidding race for a specific product or service, my company would be in an even playing field with other companies.
And lets make a better example in more smaller level. Because European Union, people are free to locate themselves freely in European Union area. I can travel freely in European Union area in countries belonging to Schengen treaty I don't even need passport when traveling. If traveling in Europe I happen to fell in love with some place, I can just start living there, I can buy a house, I can get a job i.e. There is nobody telling me that because I'm from Finland I can not stay in their country. What this has meant that if in some cause there isn't enough jobs in Finland, I can freely locate in example in Ireland, or if I marry somebody from other European Union country, she can come freely to Finland or I can move to her country. In past moving between European countries and especially moving from country to country was more harder and one needed to deal with bureaucracy, or in some cases it was not allowed. So because we have a thing called European Union, I'm more free to do and archive things in Europe.
To make a note is that when we talk about European Union, in many countries like in Britain and France, politicians like to blame European Union for all the problems they have in their countries. Also in Britain there are some powerful business men that have straightly dictated that their media companies are anti European Union. Of course problem with the European Union also is that it's very difficult for European Union citizens to understand what European Union does and how valuable the things are that it has achieved: i.e. no war in Europe, common markets, common currency, more and more power to negotiate with US, Russians, etc..
You talk as if the economy and politics have nothing to do with each other, but that is not true. We are mired in economic sclerosis because no European company is free from the greedy, interfering tendrils of the organs (can I say organs on this web site?) of the European Union. Imagine a picture of prehistoric creatures trapped in a tar pit, slowly but inexorably sinking until they suffocate, only the creatures are businesses and the tar is miles and miles and miles of red tape.
European Union as greedy interfering tendril of the organs? I think that you really don't understand what European Union does and what it has achieved. Currently we have an common European economic area that runs with common rules and standards that are same from country to country. We have Euro as a currency in most of the European Union countries making internal and international trade more balanced and safe. We have European Union Commission that negotiates as an unified front with countries such as USA, China, Japan, Russia and etc.. making sure Europe and European companies are treated fairly and rules of international trade are fair for Europe. What European Union does is to enable common European marketplace where individuals and companies are in the same playing field regardless on their country of origin.
Also to make a note, in Europe, industry and companies have been the driving force of European unification. National, European wide and International companies have for a long seen the need to have for unified Europe. If you go in any European Union member country and look for people who want more unified Europe and who see Euro as an currency beneficial to them you will notice that these people are more likely entrepreneurs and managers of companies engaged to European and international business. If you wonder what is the rational for this, the rational is very easy explain: with European Union there are only one set of rules and standards instead of 27 making it easier for business to concentrate on their core functions and spend less on dealing with bureaucracy.
All in all, European Union does the same job as US Federal Government, or Chinese, Russian, and Indian central governments. In this today's world where political and economic power is more and more concentrated to big or super blocks, small individual countries don't have the resources and power to match this power blocks. Only by uniting together European nations can succeed and make sure that the future still includes prosperous and well-being Europe.
I just have to wonder when are these children who have been thought by playing computer games to study with a book? When are they going to learn how one should do his/her reading and writing exercises? I mean in elementary school you learn to concentrate on a book and on how to write essays, and when you go to high school you will start really using what you have learned previously. To go more to a point, how can kids thought by computer games and etc.. in later life, in collage or university concentrate on to hard-to-read-hard-to-understand books that they just have to read and understand to achieve anything in their studies?!
I myself am very much into using computers and software to help and automate task, but when we talk about basic education, I have to say that I'm inclined to go back to basics: books, pens and lots of repetition to get the education in the bottom layers of brain.
And before somebody says that it's boring and no fun when you have no audio visual and interactive material then I have to say that childrens work is to go to school and learn. Yes the kids may complain, but if and when they do, they should be told about the realities of life: "Daddys and mommies work brings the bacon home and it takes all day with no play, so if you don't want to go to school, the other alternative is real work" or just tell them that "If you don't work hard at school, if you don't learn, you will not know anything and you will not get anything done, and when you are adult you will be poor and living in bad neigbourhood and the best place you can get work is local Wal-mart or McDonalds bathroom cleaner, you want that?". Of course if this doesn't work, you can always threaten them: good grades = you get something you want, bad grades = nothing to wait for.
Yes, that is very good too, praise the lord! But ask yourself, how can bible help you when your beloved project manager is shouting developers, developers, developers and you suddenly find yourself in path of flying furniture's? I can say that praising lord doesn't do a squad. But alas, help is on a way! For all those miserable souls who don't mind giving their soul in exchange of dark forces of hell, there is the Necromancer Bible. Unfortunately Amazon doesn't carry this item currently. So what to do in a mean time? Well, one could start from The Anarchist Cookbook and show those bastard colleagues on how object class hierarchy should be done. Nothing really starts the day better than seeing your office go way high into the sky and dropping down.
Well 30 to 40 dollars can make a yearly difference of 360 to 480 dollars. Also to mind is that mobile operators still have with these prices quite good marginals, so from the point of view of a consumer 30 to 40 dollars difference can be a difference between fair price and robbery. To be noted that in my original message I thought that the fair price for the service should be more like 30 to 40 euros. In the future I think that the price can actually fall to that, if consumers put enough pressure to operators. To note also is that in article 120dollars is the price of unlimited phone, sms and data services, when you pay 30dollars more you also get mobile broadband, in another words more speedier connection. Same actually in here, if you pay 9,95 euros more you get max 2mbit/s speed.
I personally think that mobile broadband is a nice idea, but I wouldn't never replace my primary net connection with it. At least in here you get 2mbit/s speeds only in towns bigger than 30k and in more densely populated country side you get EDGE connections (236kbit/s) and in totally rural areas only 53kbit/s.
PS. About networks...
EV-DO can achieve 2.4 Mbps with Rev. 0 and up to 3.1 Mb/s with Rev. A.
UMTS can achieve 384 kbit/s for R99 handsets, and 3.6 Mbit/s for HSDPA
EV-DO Rev B can archive 4.9mbit/s
If I would live in US, I wouldn't be satisfied to what network operators are offering, and would seriously complain about the offerings and pricing. It should be also noted that my point was not to promote Finland nor lay a finger, just to inform you on how things are in other parts of the world so you wont be fooled by untrue sales pitches. The best way to put pressure in sales people and companies is to question their offerings and pricing to achieve better prices and offers.
How can they charge so much? In Finland, you can in example get 3G phone packet from Saunalahti that includes a 3G phone, 3000min/month to all GSM and wired phones, videophone-calls for 3000min/month, 3000 sms/month, 3000mms/month and 3G-, EDGE- and GRPS data connection with max 384 kbit/s speed and that only costs 57,95euros which already includes sales tax. To me paying 57euros from that packet is little bit expensive, I would definitely get it if it would cost 30 to 40 euros... charging 115 to 150 dollars from basically the same deal that Saunalahti offers is just crazy, I wouldn't accept it.
To me it seems more that these managers that are afraid of open source are just lazy and don't do what they are paid to do: to manage. Using open source in ones system or taking advantage of it by including it to your own software is not that hard. You just have to decisions. If I want to keep my application closed then I can make a simple rule: no GPL code or if GPL code really badly needed then contact the developer and check if it's possible to license the code in another license. In example in my own company which develops closed source survey research software we follow few rules:
1) No usage of GPL code/software allowed that requires opening up our application
2) LGPL code can be used under few conditions
a) no straight code lifting
b) code is only used via Jars
c) if code is changed, the changes are distributed back
d) include the package with sources that we have used into included directory when distributing the application
3) Usage of code under other licenses like BSD etc.. is evaluated case by case
These are very simple rules to follow and very simple to understand. Of course we could have more rules and more specific rules and guidelines but then again we are small company and we are not that heavy on including open source components to our software: our main work is writing good software not linking all the worlds code to our software. Of course in a bigger company writing rules and guidelines may need more work and more thought, but then again that is what managers and lawyers are paid to do and if they do their job by just shouting "NO!" then they are not doing their jobs.
Just to make an point. Does treasures have any effect on following: Rule of the law? Organization of government? Organization of army? Writing and reading skills? Education system? Science research? Development of agriculture? Development of finance and banking? Development of roads and canals? Development industrialization? No. Treasures don't have any effect on those things. Actually treasures and just treasures, they don't produce anything, they just are, they maybe viewed, they maybe wanted, but they don't do nothing. The key thing here what I'm trying to say is, that west rouse up because it's society build itself and how it continued to build and evolve it. Yes, eventually after western nations rouse, they did suppress and exploit other areas of the world, but the key thing was that these areas and civilizations where even in that time were very much behind west. So to make it clear, rise of west was not product of suppression and exploitation, but the rise of west allowed later suppression and exploitation of many areas.
Just to give you one example what went right in the west and wrong in China and Japan. If we look Europe, China and Japan in 16th and 17h centuries, China was ahead of the previous two, Japan could be said been in equal level of development with Europe. What set China and Japan a part from Europe that in China and Japan, traders and creditors were seen as lower parts of society and their fortunes were robbed from time to time and debts to nobles and governments wiped out. The bad treatment of traders and creditors made sure that banking and finance sectors didn't form up in either of these. Instead in Europe, because of constant war ventures, kings and nobles realized that the key to win a war is your ability to finance it. In the same time as Rothschields set up Europe wide banking network there were no such development in either China or Japan. When we go on further, as the industrialization started, Europe had very advanced banking and finance sectors witch allowed efficient allocation of resources to new industrial ventures.
Or just to give you another example. Japan was very closed society in Tokugawa reign, trade to outside world was severely limited and in example firearms i.e. muskets were banned. Later on it costed Japanese dearly for banning firearms because when Americans landed, Japanese hadn't developed muskets or organization of their armies and thus had no real force to put up to western powers.
These both cases, banking and finance and firearms were all in these three civilizations, but only one of them, that is Europeans, continued to develop them. If Chinese had treated traders and bankers better they could have had very advanced financing system that could have allowed them to better finance ventures and war efforts. Also if in both of these places development of firearms would have kept going on, Europeans would have not had any chance to set up colonies in Asia.
So again... rise of west happened because of it's internal reasons, not by exploitation and suppression of others. Thou rise of west allowed west later on to exploit and suppress.