As a certified bookkeeper in Belgium AND a graduated Engineer I can tell you some things...
There is no country in the world with more complex pay laws as Belgium. We're the only country in the world, to my knowlege, that still uses the archaic Napolian based distinction between those who work primarily with their hands, and those that work primarily with their brains. And that's just to get started.
I can tell you that pay calculations are really quite easy, when you compare it to most subjects related to accounting and bookkeeping. As a certified bookkeeper I've always been a "Do it right the first time" type of person. When you spend 48 hours looking for a 0,05 (or 5 euro CENTS) difference in a yearaccount, you learn to do all that is humanly possible to do it right the first time.
As I said, I'm a certified bookkeeper AND a graduated engineer, so I just wonder how they can fuck things up THAT badly. Seriously, you can make all nessecary distinctions in pay regulations easily by adding a few fields to the database that keeps track of a employee's data, and adding for example the raises linked to inflation, seniority raises, etc...
I've worked with my share of accounting and pay software, and even created some quick fix databases and spreadsheats for use in departments and smaller companies under the umbrella of the company I worked in (think 15k+ employees spread over 60+ companies under one main organisation, but working independently). I worked at the personnel department, mostly involved in pay calculations and ROI and all that basic accounting. Most of the time we just used good old AS400 and crystal reports on top of that to get proper printouts of the pay info to pass on to the finance department who actually sent the pay to the employees.
It cost almost nothing, compared to all this ERP and such and it did the job, plus we had HUMANS with proper education in charge of every company, and every department. Strangely the humans caught the errors, surprisingly (cough). When you have properly educated people and a KISS (Keep It simple and PeopleSoft, oops Stupid) type of IT system you get the best results.
Low amount of mistakes thanks to humans checking the results, (I'm just wondering why nobody blowed an alarm when they saw teachers getting no pay at all according to the system) and thanks to using KISS principles in the IT part, you get an easily adapted and properly managed IT system.
End of story, the first 2 things ANY engineer should learn are: A; if ain't broken, don't fix it! B; you know you're done NOT when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to take away.
So the lesson here really is that you should NEVER have pay done solely by IT sollutions, especially external IT sollutions. Get a few people who know bookkeeping/accounting, and let them check the plausibility of the paychecks. That way you cut 95% of all errors before they are sent out to employees, and you save yourself a lot of legal and financial heartache, not to mention ruining your companies image of doing things right.
And to end things in beauty, if I ever see a salesrep for any ERP or Peoplesoft or whatever, I'm putting itching powder on my "straight kick up their arse" boots.
"It (microsoft) has won two lawsuits - in Utah and California - resulting in the total award of $3m in damages and the return of 409 domain names"
What on EARTH is going on there. Someone buys and open domain name, and is sued for it. This doesn't make logical NOR legal sense. First come first serve. if M$ wanted to own microsft.com as well as microsoft.com they should have bought it a long time ago.
Also, I find it weird that anyone would care about users stupid enough to not notice they entered the wrong URL. Is this something in the area of teh "save the children" bit, but then "save the retards" or some such?
I've lived and used healthcare in the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Germany, and once in Sweden and Estonia, but those were a special cases.
I've gotten quite a nice reimbursement from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Finland, thanks to the EU wide application of the E111 form. They changed that into a different form now, but I don't remember the new number.
When I had the small things in Sweden and Estonia, I didn't get reimbursement, but at that point they weren't part of the E111 group so that was to be expected.
I've never had the "pleasure" of going through the French system. But well, the French have a reputation in the rest of Europe for doing good technology, agriculture/wine and perfumes/shampoos and the like. That's all France is reputably good at.. that and chauvinism... I'm very glad to read your comment and prove once more not all French are "chauvinist pigs" as especially German and UK lore indicates.
Not all our systems are perfect, but I at least have noticed good service in the countries I've mentioned.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, the entire IDEA of having a government is to have it regulate things in such a way that everyone gets at least approximately equal chances, minimum pay, access to healthcare, etc...
A government is as effective as the people you vote into it and those that they chose to employ. So if your government doesn't work, blame your voters and politicians, not me.
And about your "proud not to be European", well let's say everyone who doesn't live in a 3rd world country is most likely at least as proud as you to NOT BE AN AMERICAN.
I can personally speak about my first GF in Finland, her dad needed a his heart fixed to, it took them LESS THEN 24H to get him into the operating room after diagnosis was made.
So it looks like I'm not the only one who "hasn't done his research" as you claim.
Me flamebait? Sounds more like you're a bit on the nationalistic side there. Your first bit of answer goes beyone me tough. I've never heard of ANY CENTRAL or NORTHERN European countries doing anything like that.
A, in my original post I ESPECIALLY noted tat I was talking about CENTRAL EUROPEAN and NOTRTHERN EUROPEAN countries. Don't give comments unless you properly read a post dude.
And about the smoking, A, nothing but cigarettes, and B, none of your business.
A; buy M$ Vista
B; download/upload DRM restricted material.
C; castrate myself with a blunt rusty spoon heated over a bunzenbrander.
In that order...
Distributing non-DRM material however, is something I'm willing to sacrifice some of my bandwith for.
I refuse to touch ANY DRM file that has ANY conotation with M$
Honestly, would you trust M$ with your rights to anything at all, I don't...
I know it's not all black and white but there is, as always, a middle ground here.
In Finland for example, there is the normal European Union type of healthcare sate, but you also have private doctors, dentists, etc...
I know from one of my Ex girlfriends father, that when he needed an immediate hearth surgery, it was arranged that very same day, by the public healthcare channels. They juggle the times to try and give those who need it most service first if there are waiting lists.
When you are in a hurry and need something done now,something not very important for your life, then you go to the private healthcare. That costs you more of course, but you get service pronto.
Otherwise it's mostly better to go through the public healthcare, because pretty much all of it it reimbursed by the state.
It might be a bit harder to get a job due to the "extra" taxation from the American point of view, and yes the extra health security and money from the state for those unemployed are things that make some into mooches. But on the other side, with the EU style of government, Everyone gets superior education, great healthcare, a guaranteed minimum income to survive on and free extra education if want it while you're looking for a job.
That in my book at least outshines anything the USA has to offer. Canada on the other hand, I would actually consider moving there instead of dismissing it out of hand like the USA. No insult meant, but I find living in the USA something I hope I never have to put up with. IMO I think the place would drive me nuts wondering where the hell these supposed "freedoms" are. The USA that the family Bush is trying to create seems like NAZI wonderland to me, that I hope I never have to experience firsthand.
Sorry dear old cap, but I honestly don't count the UK or Ireland as part of Central Europe.
Especially not after the "Splendid Isolation" policy the UK has had in the not to distant past.
I've been in the UK before, but only in London, southeast England and South Wales. That was quite a while ago, about 10 years, except the London bit, so I don't think my impression from way back then are anything to go on.
I had absolutely no issues with getting around in the London Area by public though. It was the same as most other decently sized cities in my opinion. Not especially good, but surely not to bad either.
20 miles, let's make it 30 km, I know it's a bit further but that's not important. 30km isn't to bad. I've had to travel a lot further for job, about 45km in each direction, took me an hour a day to get there, and another hour,hour and a half sometimes due to traffic.
I didn't really have to much problems with it, because I could do a lot of my work in the train or bus on the way to work.
Your problem however, seems to stem more from bad planning on the side of your elected politicians to pay proper attention to the public transport. I'm most surely not an expert on UK politics and can therefore give no real constructive comments on how to solve it. You just might be "fudged" and have to suffer the situation.
I do know however, that I've always lived in cities because I could get anywhere easily, fast and to have everything I crave at my fingertips. The lights, the sounds, city life has always been good to me.
In case of the evolution of Belgium, you are absolutely right. It's a very old area in Europe, it's been inhabited for thousands of years, and is in the heartland of where the industrial revolution began. It's always been a major population center, Belgium as a nation has always been a democracy. We've always had more political parties, so there is a background of having a social and green concerns properly addressed. That makes it's evolution quite different from America.
Finland on the other hand went from a farm and forester type of society straight into the modern society, just as the US has. It had, especially in the beginning, little or no industry anywhere but in he cities, which are pretty far apart.
They chosen very smart people in my opinion to run and plan the public transportation. In the Helsinki area for example, trains go from the center to the urban areas as well as long distance to far cities. From every trainstop, there is also a bus transfer center. A place where virtually all buses in the area go through. This allows a very good coverage by the combination bus and train.
In the inner city area trams, metro and buses have their own lanes during normal business hours. This really speeds up the speed of public transportation vs taking a car. Of course you need to enforce the trafic law, but what's one or 2 camera's or cops on a city's budget.
The public transportation here works like clockwork. I've virtually never seen a bus more then 3 minutes early or late. Most of Helsinki is surely suburbs. Only 2 train stops are actually in the city area, the suburbs start beyond that.
What you as a private citizen could do, in my opinion, is to find out what your local city elected person in charge of transportation has in mind for your city, and suggest improvements where you think they've gone really wrong. If they are negative about your suggestions, go to the local paper, they should be interested in running any story where a member of the local electorate can be put in bad light.
Besides that I cannot think of anything you could immediately do. Still, I've lived in a city most of my life exactly for the reason that everything is close by. For me that's surely worth the "trade off" in loss of backyard or anything like that. It might be different for you though. But that's just me. Rather have everything close.
Seriously, how dare you call yourself the "best country in the world" if you don't even have nationally implemented healthcare?
Europe, glorious old lady that she is has long ago implemented the National healthcare to make sure that
A; Everyone has access to proper healthcare.
B; Everyone automatically pays into the healthcare fund so it can be maintained
C; Good quality in healthcare is guaranteed by state checkups.
In those days there were no "private" health insurance companies, but look what trusting in those has brought you? Deception, Fraud, and general run-around or obfuscation from most if not all of the private insurance companies.
IMHO, healthcare is not, and has never been something companies should be in charge of. A companies purpose is to make money. The state however, if it's run by others then the idiots running the American state, should be more interested in keeping it's taxpayers ALIVE and healthy so they can work and pay taxes next year.
Jolly joy, After reading all this... well, I can only say I had a great laugh at the "scientific data" produced.
I've had no special education in calculating these, but I do know such a small change over a year is just "noise" as mentioned in other posts.
However, after reading the/. article on Gates For President, I'm once more struck by the fact the USA really seems to be run by the most incompetent pricks I could ever imagine.
Not signing the Kyoto treaty, then making a big deal over a supposed drop in average driving per American, that is basically nothing but statistical noise.
The sad part is most of the sheeple there will watch the news and claim that they've done something for the environment. Big, red white and blue, prime American BULLSHIT.
Even if every individual driver in the USA drives 500 miles less a year, the average amount of cars per household still raises every year, as well as the total amount of families using virtually nothing but cars.
As previously mentioned in this post, by someone I assume to be one of the few intelligent Americans out there, you Americans really need to rethink the entire organization of where and how you live and get around. I've lived all over central Europe in my younger days, and the last 5 years or so I've been living in Scandinavia, Finland.
Finland is known as the "little America" of Europe. Mostly because they have the same type of population spread. A few "cities" in the middle of nowhere, and one huge capitol city area that includes multiple communities that make their own decisions. Yet everywhere in Europe, public transportation is properly organized and implemented.
In my 24 years of living in Europe, all over it really, I have yet to find any place in north or central Europe where I actually needed a car. I don't even have a drivers license. There's just never been a need for it.
If Americans would only organize their cities and suburbs properly, I believe that they to could very easily provide a public transportation service that eliminates the need to drive cars, almost totally, for every day purposes. I do realize however, every family should still have one car to go to the cabin in the mountains/woods if they have one. Or to visit family that lives in he next city or move or such.
In my opinion, with a bit, ok a LOT, of reorganizing, the USA could make it so that only delivery vans/trucks need to drive in the inner cities, and that all suburbs have a train or metrostation, from where daily commuting can take place. Take a lesson from your "parents", the European countries, and sign the damn kyoto treaty and reorganize. There is no other way as effective in reducing emissions and wasted fuel.
Every time I read/. I end up reading through these type of articles and every time I wonder...
My mother, normal central European woman of 60 something years in age, knows nothing really about technology, yet she realizes how making a weak spot known to the public would result in any central European government to fix it, because someone would find a way to get some financial profit out of the hole in the government organizations. It's kind of a hobby for all central Europeans, try to get some money back out of the government. We do have much higher tax percentages here, so we deserve it.
The point I'm trying to make here is that we seems to have a different attitude here then in the USA, and I'm very glad we do. It really sounds like you're all dropping deeper and deeper into the totalitarian, Orwellian even, hole there. Has anyone ever thought of either re-educating the old, spiderweb covered brains of most of the senators and politicians there? On internationally published news here in Europe I never seem to see any US politician who isn't at least in his 60's or 70's. Lately here in Europe, the political streams have seriously renewed themselves and added loads of young, or at least younger, political names to their voting lists. Maybe that's something that might start changing the attitudes there? To put people whom actually know what they're talking about in the security/government places?
Just watching the "American theater" of degrading personal freedoms... It's entertaining, in the same way that seeing images of a war is entertaining. But you still realize that war might get to your front door at some point...:(
Ok, with a structured approach you can make testing walk in the park.
First, listen to your costumer, what ar his needs? What does he wnt to do?
Define input and output, and of course wht information needs to be stored, and what information can be tabulated. It's no use storing for example ge when you have a birthdate registered. Remove ALL information that can be derived.
Make a paper drawing of the structure of your database. plan out the relations. Make sure to obey the CODD rules for design of a relational database. Don't go ovrboard with it though. Just remove the repeating groups (the reoccuring fields inside a table, if there are any) and draw up the general layout.
Then proceed to define the content type (text field, integer, float, boolean,...) of each field and set up the test database. You allready have a paper blueprint, liturally so you can easily use an erasor and pencil to record any changes you make. If you've done your planning well, there won't be a need for changes.
Now that you have a digital empty construct of the database, defined with the content types. you can then make masks on the input so that only the correct type of date, properly formatted (think of dates etc...) is sent to the database.
Having done this you have now successfully created a proper test database.
As mentioned earlier as a reply to this post, I agree, you should NEVER alow multiple user groups to access the database during testing time. Give every group it's own test database so the problems both in structure and usability can be recorded seperately from each user group. You get a much clearer view of the problems you might have this way. Better information makes for better sollutions.
after the first round of testing compare notes of the different user groups problems, fix them, and go to the second round. Repeat as often as is nessecary.
A good database is able to keep preforming forever. If the needs don't change a properly designed and tested databse will work till all our bones are in some history museum. And, provided it'sa relational database, changes in needs can usaully be complied with without having to redesign the entire database.
Allrighty, Being from Belgium where the worlds most (in?)famous pedophile stuff takes place (anyone remember Dutroux? the guys that abducted, raped, killed and then made the bodies disappear) I feel we need to take a step back and look at this hole thing at once before zooming in the issue of "the button"...
Anyway, Belgiums (and mostlikely the whole world) most known pedophile is Dutroux. He abducted, raped, imprisoned for months and then killed his victims. Most of this was going on AFTER the internet got full of chatsites, MSN/ICQ/... and other communication technologies. As far as any reasearch can prove he never even went online, let alone use it actively.
That proves that pedophiles and the internet have no relationship. Not all pedophiles use the internet, (most pedophiles are "older" people most of whom haven't got the foggiest clue of what the interenet is, let alone how to poperly abuse it) so IMO tht means that during the present generation (of course as generations progress and the "elder" people on average know more about PC/net the use of tracking them gets more important)isn't to productive.
Then let's go to the zoomed bit and talk about the actual "button of doom"..
First, I agree, that buton is just SCREAMING to all underaged kids to "see what it does" or to use when they are really pissed at for example their parents who forced them to eat brocoli? Or if they've been to grandmas, because she sent them to bed at 20.00 insted of letting them see.. I dunno, American gladiators? Kids never seem to look or think beyond the next 2 seconds of their life.
Secondly, I'm all in favor of catching pedophiles, just in case I ever decide I just might want kids, but I do see in all countries in Europe (and I've been almost all over, from Portugal to Finland) seem to be seriously overracting to any and all CLAIMS of pedophily.
It's still a Europewide (or even worldwide) overreaction that has been going on for 5-10 years. To give a good example of how much overreaction, here's a quick recap of something that happened in Belgium.
A retired coupple (the husband so old he reached impotence) was charged by their neighbours (apparently mommy was jealous that her kids enjoyed going over to the neighbours after school till he parents got home) of pedophily. The coupple was immediately arrestd nd put into arrest. It took 6 MONTHS in jail to prove that A, the old man was impotent, B, the neighbours were lieing and most importantly C, the kids themselves continiously claimed nothing had happened, but it took 6 months apparently to read and understand that the kids (supposed victims)had always said the old coupple never did anything.
So in cunclusion, all I can relly see happening is either the police ignoring the entire button report because there are to many and after a while they realise virtually any underaged kid with a tempertantrum is reporting their family OR they come up with some INSANELY draconic punishment system for abuse. Which will of course NOT be implemented towards underage kids.
Ergo, the entire idea is useless. There are allready MANY ways to accuse someone of pedophily. There's no need for more, especially not when kids can so easily abuse it, and that most pedophiles probably know less about PC's and the internet then youraverage 14 year old.
I have no real clue of how things go in the US schools but DARN... It seriously sounds like you all REALLY got off on the wrong foot, and like everyone put out their brain before going to school there....
Here in Belgium, Europe, we have little or no problems with all these phone and search issues... Surprise surprise, thanks to our GOOD gun policies (as in DON'T have one unless you're a certified hunter)we don't even need to pass through metaldetectors to get into schools.
Just like anywhere else in the modern world, many, many schoolchildren have cellphones, but the rule is that they are not allowed to be on during classes. If yours is on during class, it can be taken away from you till the end of your schoolday, then it is returned. The school has absolutely NO rights to dig into the contents of your phone OR your backpack or anything.
If they feel they need to search someones bag (which happens maybe once a year, if that much) they call a cop to be present. A cop has the right to search your bags, but not your person of cellphone. The school itself isn't allowed to search the bag, only the cop they call is allowed to do that.
Also a big difference I've noticed here is the "drug issue". Here in Belgium smoking a joint really isn't a big deal, if you carry a few grams for your own use, that's perfectly fine. Hower, you cannot be stoned or drunk or under the influence while attending school/classes. So as soon as your schoolday is over, you can do what you like, just not in school. Carrying afew grams in your backpack to school isn't an issue as long as you DON'T use it on school property and as long as you are sober while you are in school.
This seperation is, in my oppinion one of the great things about Belgium. State and church are seperated, so is home and school/work. As long as you do well in school or work your teachers/empoyer coun't give a rats arse what you do in your free time. That's the way it should be.
You need to recalculate mate, the amount of foreighners on/.
It goes something like this; one, two, many foreighners... but that only goes for US citizens;)
Me however, I'm Belgian, and let's be honest, Belgium doesn't really have any kind of nationalistic feeling to it. Heck, our army even parades around with plastic rifles, I kid you not! So naturally I'm not to big on nationalism. I've always thought it's wiser to unite and compromise then to be nationalist and divide.
I know I'm probably a member a minority worldwide with that idea. Anyhow, to the point of actual discussion. I hope you've all read 1984 by George Orwell? I can almost see it happen if the internet gets regionalised, Oceania, (UK, ustralia, USA, etc) as one enourous network, the EU and eurasia as another mega network, and south east asia as a third... And groups of regional hackers trying to hack the other networks to corrupt data, steal information and so on...
Looking at the technological opportunities and the growth in them each and every day, this scenario is a possible future accordig to me at least.
Last little comment, about us foreighners going to great lenghts to publish things in English... Let's be honest about that, English is just the "Common" (sorry for the AD&D reference)of the internet. Unlike most Americans, most Europeans speak at least 2 languages.. FLUENTLY! Not the badly accented, half incromprehensible talk Americans call speaking a foreighn language. Most Europeans of smaller countries (Belgium, Finland, The Netherelands,..) will speak at least 3 languages fluently. For most of us it really is no real extra effort to write in English.
I'm doing my thesis this year on FOSS, using OOo to create some "carrot" migration files (mini functional bookkeeping database and so on).
I've used M$ Office mostly previous (couppled with HTML kit, notepad, and whatnot for programming/scripting futures) nd there seems to be some things you're all missing here.
First of all, OpenDocument format, or in this case the ODT, OpenDocumentText file format is an encrypted XML. This means that M$ Office can't open it. I've tried, you get only a few long lines of encrypted data. THis adds an extra dimention to all this. Your files are safe in odt format form the lower educated members that have access to your files. Idon't know about the rest of you, but in the places where I've been employed I'm sad to say I usually knew more of PC's, formats and the whole shabang then anyone around me, especially my superiors.
I've been looking into the major reasons why OOo hsn't taken over everywhere allready. Let's be honest it offers VASTLY superior things then M$. The XML based fileformat provides adequate, pretty much verlasting access to a wealth of informtion. All of that in XML format takes a vastly smaller space then in any fileformat M$ has producced. Also because OOo is FOSS it's free, reliable, and OPEN. You get to adapt ANYTHING you like to suit ANY need you can think of.
That flexibility will be the deathblow to M$. Not yet, but in 5 to 10 years, mark my words, FOSS office suits will grind M$ market share into a minority, a SMALL minority.
Well my dear little frogs, let this toad explain to you why he moved out of Belgium and how the Belgian system works....
First thing to remember, Belgium is the only real federal state in Europe. Belgium comprises of 4 very different groups of people. You have the Flemmish, Dutch speaking who lean culturally really close to the Netherlands, the Waloon who spek French and mostly lean towards French tendancies, the German speaking +/-3000 people in the east and then "Les Brusselois". Those who live in Brussels, that lean towards the EU and try to create some sort of national feeling (as anyone who has lived in Belgium knows, there is no such thing as a Belgian nationalist feeling)
The reasons why this polititian has been fined are not because he abused the internet with this podcast, but because he broke Belgian law by creating a podcast for a political extremist party.
This all happens in Flanders, where the nationalist "Vlaams Blok" has for many years, been the target of what is commonly called the "cordonne sanitaire". A common cause of all non exreme right or left parties. To stop the growth of the extremist parties, a law was created to keep them out of the publics eye.
Anyone with even the tiniest bit of cerebral power knows that sweeping something under the carpet isn't a sollution, but when over 10 parties need to agree on something, the final result is almost always a compromise without to much of a effect on reality.
That brings up an interesting point indeed. Could it be that the lesser developped areas intellectually (eg: the good "old" US of A) have yet to understand the buisness principle of prepayed economy. They recieve their money BEFORE they need to provide the service, and pretty much the entire process can be automated while the sales can be done in anything from conenience stores to kiosks.
I fail to understand how the US can fail to see the value of this buisness model.
I'm Belgian, living in Finland andI go from one country to the other at least once a year.
I live roughly 11 months a year in Finland, and buy a prepayed SIM card (fixed value at purchase, but rechargable) and use that during the time I'm in Belgium.
This entire locking phones buisness seems to be a rther typical Anglo-saxon problem. I have never purchased a phone that was locked.. EVER!
All I need o do, when I go ANYWHERE in the world, is take out my Nokia, open it up and put in a prepayed card I buy in whatever country I am. I've done this all over Europe, and never had any problems whatsoever, since the introduction of GSM standards. Then again, I've always had Nokia, so my experience is rather limited.
Slashdot Mirror
As a certified bookkeeper in Belgium AND a graduated Engineer I can tell you some things...
There is no country in the world with more complex pay laws as Belgium. We're the only country in the world, to my knowlege, that still uses the archaic Napolian based distinction between those who work primarily with their hands, and those that work primarily with their brains. And that's just to get started.
I can tell you that pay calculations are really quite easy, when you compare it to most subjects related to accounting and bookkeeping. As a certified bookkeeper I've always been a "Do it right the first time" type of person. When you spend 48 hours looking for a 0,05 (or 5 euro CENTS) difference in a yearaccount, you learn to do all that is humanly possible to do it right the first time.
As I said, I'm a certified bookkeeper AND a graduated engineer, so I just wonder how they can fuck things up THAT badly. Seriously, you can make all nessecary distinctions in pay regulations easily by adding a few fields to the database that keeps track of a employee's data, and adding for example the raises linked to inflation, seniority raises, etc...
I've worked with my share of accounting and pay software, and even created some quick fix databases and spreadsheats for use in departments and smaller companies under the umbrella of the company I worked in (think 15k+ employees spread over 60+ companies under one main organisation, but working independently). I worked at the personnel department, mostly involved in pay calculations and ROI and all that basic accounting. Most of the time we just used good old AS400 and crystal reports on top of that to get proper printouts of the pay info to pass on to the finance department who actually sent the pay to the employees.
It cost almost nothing, compared to all this ERP and such and it did the job, plus we had HUMANS with proper education in charge of every company, and every department. Strangely the humans caught the errors, surprisingly (cough). When you have properly educated people and a KISS (Keep It simple and PeopleSoft, oops Stupid) type of IT system you get the best results.
Low amount of mistakes thanks to humans checking the results, (I'm just wondering why nobody blowed an alarm when they saw teachers getting no pay at all according to the system) and thanks to using KISS principles in the IT part, you get an easily adapted and properly managed IT system.
End of story, the first 2 things ANY engineer should learn are:
A; if ain't broken, don't fix it!
B; you know you're done NOT when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to take away.
So the lesson here really is that you should NEVER have pay done solely by IT sollutions, especially external IT sollutions. Get a few people who know bookkeeping/accounting, and let them check the plausibility of the paychecks. That way you cut 95% of all errors before they are sent out to employees, and you save yourself a lot of legal and financial heartache, not to mention ruining your companies image of doing things right.
And to end things in beauty, if I ever see a salesrep for any ERP or Peoplesoft or whatever, I'm putting itching powder on my "straight kick up their arse" boots.
from the article;
"It (microsoft) has won two lawsuits - in Utah and California - resulting in the total award of $3m in damages and the return of 409 domain names"
What on EARTH is going on there. Someone buys and open domain name, and is sued for it. This doesn't make logical NOR legal sense. First come first serve. if M$ wanted to own microsft.com as well as microsoft.com they should have bought it a long time ago.
Also, I find it weird that anyone would care about users stupid enough to not notice they entered the wrong URL. Is this something in the area of teh "save the children" bit, but then "save the retards" or some such?
I've lived and used healthcare in the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Germany, and once in Sweden and Estonia, but those were a special cases.
I've gotten quite a nice reimbursement from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Finland, thanks to the EU wide application of the E111 form. They changed that into a different form now, but I don't remember the new number.
When I had the small things in Sweden and Estonia, I didn't get reimbursement, but at that point they weren't part of the E111 group so that was to be expected.
I've never had the "pleasure" of going through the French system. But well, the French have a reputation in the rest of Europe for doing good technology, agriculture/wine and perfumes/shampoos and the like. That's all France is reputably good at.. that and chauvinism... I'm very glad to read your comment and prove once more not all French are "chauvinist pigs" as especially German and UK lore indicates.
Not all our systems are perfect, but I at least have noticed good service in the countries I've mentioned.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, the entire IDEA of having a government is to have it regulate things in such a way that everyone gets at least approximately equal chances, minimum pay, access to healthcare, etc...
A government is as effective as the people you vote into it and those that they chose to employ. So if your government doesn't work, blame your voters and politicians, not me.
And about your "proud not to be European", well let's say everyone who doesn't live in a 3rd world country is most likely at least as proud as you to NOT BE AN AMERICAN.
I can personally speak about my first GF in Finland, her dad needed a his heart fixed to, it took them LESS THEN 24H to get him into the operating room after diagnosis was made.
So it looks like I'm not the only one who "hasn't done his research" as you claim.
Me flamebait? Sounds more like you're a bit on the nationalistic side there. Your first bit of answer goes beyone me tough. I've never heard of ANY CENTRAL or NORTHERN European countries doing anything like that.
A, in my original post I ESPECIALLY noted tat I was talking about CENTRAL EUROPEAN and NOTRTHERN EUROPEAN countries. Don't give comments unless you properly read a post dude.
And about the smoking, A, nothing but cigarettes, and B, none of your business.
A; buy M$ Vista B; download/upload DRM restricted material. C; castrate myself with a blunt rusty spoon heated over a bunzenbrander. In that order... Distributing non-DRM material however, is something I'm willing to sacrifice some of my bandwith for. I refuse to touch ANY DRM file that has ANY conotation with M$ Honestly, would you trust M$ with your rights to anything at all, I don't...
I know it's not all black and white but there is, as always, a middle ground here.
In Finland for example, there is the normal European Union type of healthcare sate, but you also have private doctors, dentists, etc... I know from one of my Ex girlfriends father, that when he needed an immediate hearth surgery, it was arranged that very same day, by the public healthcare channels. They juggle the times to try and give those who need it most service first if there are waiting lists.
When you are in a hurry and need something done now,something not very important for your life, then you go to the private healthcare. That costs you more of course, but you get service pronto.
Otherwise it's mostly better to go through the public healthcare, because pretty much all of it it reimbursed by the state.
It might be a bit harder to get a job due to the "extra" taxation from the American point of view, and yes the extra health security and money from the state for those unemployed are things that make some into mooches. But on the other side, with the EU style of government, Everyone gets superior education, great healthcare, a guaranteed minimum income to survive on and free extra education if want it while you're looking for a job.
That in my book at least outshines anything the USA has to offer. Canada on the other hand, I would actually consider moving there instead of dismissing it out of hand like the USA. No insult meant, but I find living in the USA something I hope I never have to put up with. IMO I think the place would drive me nuts wondering where the hell these supposed "freedoms" are. The USA that the family Bush is trying to create seems like NAZI wonderland to me, that I hope I never have to experience firsthand.
Sorry dear old cap, but I honestly don't count the UK or Ireland as part of Central Europe.
Especially not after the "Splendid Isolation" policy the UK has had in the not to distant past. I've been in the UK before, but only in London, southeast England and South Wales. That was quite a while ago, about 10 years, except the London bit, so I don't think my impression from way back then are anything to go on.
I had absolutely no issues with getting around in the London Area by public though. It was the same as most other decently sized cities in my opinion. Not especially good, but surely not to bad either.
20 miles, let's make it 30 km, I know it's a bit further but that's not important. 30km isn't to bad. I've had to travel a lot further for job, about 45km in each direction, took me an hour a day to get there, and another hour,hour and a half sometimes due to traffic. I didn't really have to much problems with it, because I could do a lot of my work in the train or bus on the way to work.
Your problem however, seems to stem more from bad planning on the side of your elected politicians to pay proper attention to the public transport. I'm most surely not an expert on UK politics and can therefore give no real constructive comments on how to solve it. You just might be "fudged" and have to suffer the situation.
I do know however, that I've always lived in cities because I could get anywhere easily, fast and to have everything I crave at my fingertips. The lights, the sounds, city life has always been good to me.
About the design bit...
In case of the evolution of Belgium, you are absolutely right. It's a very old area in Europe, it's been inhabited for thousands of years, and is in the heartland of where the industrial revolution began. It's always been a major population center, Belgium as a nation has always been a democracy. We've always had more political parties, so there is a background of having a social and green concerns properly addressed. That makes it's evolution quite different from America.
Finland on the other hand went from a farm and forester type of society straight into the modern society, just as the US has. It had, especially in the beginning, little or no industry anywhere but in he cities, which are pretty far apart.
They chosen very smart people in my opinion to run and plan the public transportation. In the Helsinki area for example, trains go from the center to the urban areas as well as long distance to far cities. From every trainstop, there is also a bus transfer center. A place where virtually all buses in the area go through. This allows a very good coverage by the combination bus and train. In the inner city area trams, metro and buses have their own lanes during normal business hours. This really speeds up the speed of public transportation vs taking a car. Of course you need to enforce the trafic law, but what's one or 2 camera's or cops on a city's budget.
The public transportation here works like clockwork. I've virtually never seen a bus more then 3 minutes early or late. Most of Helsinki is surely suburbs. Only 2 train stops are actually in the city area, the suburbs start beyond that.
What you as a private citizen could do, in my opinion, is to find out what your local city elected person in charge of transportation has in mind for your city, and suggest improvements where you think they've gone really wrong. If they are negative about your suggestions, go to the local paper, they should be interested in running any story where a member of the local electorate can be put in bad light.
Besides that I cannot think of anything you could immediately do. Still, I've lived in a city most of my life exactly for the reason that everything is close by. For me that's surely worth the "trade off" in loss of backyard or anything like that. It might be different for you though. But that's just me. Rather have everything close.
Seriously, how dare you call yourself the "best country in the world" if you don't even have nationally implemented healthcare?
Europe, glorious old lady that she is has long ago implemented the National healthcare to make sure that
A; Everyone has access to proper healthcare.
B; Everyone automatically pays into the healthcare fund so it can be maintained
C; Good quality in healthcare is guaranteed by state checkups.
In those days there were no "private" health insurance companies, but look what trusting in those has brought you? Deception, Fraud, and general run-around or obfuscation from most if not all of the private insurance companies.
IMHO, healthcare is not, and has never been something companies should be in charge of. A companies purpose is to make money. The state however, if it's run by others then the idiots running the American state, should be more interested in keeping it's taxpayers ALIVE and healthy so they can work and pay taxes next year.
Jolly joy, After reading all this... well, I can only say I had a great laugh at the "scientific data" produced.
/. article on Gates For President, I'm once more struck by the fact the USA really seems to be run by the most incompetent pricks I could ever imagine.
Not signing the Kyoto treaty, then making a big deal over a supposed drop in average driving per American, that is basically nothing but statistical noise.
The sad part is most of the sheeple there will watch the news and claim that they've done something for the environment. Big, red white and blue, prime American BULLSHIT.
I've had no special education in calculating these, but I do know such a small change over a year is just "noise" as mentioned in other posts.
However, after reading the
Even if every individual driver in the USA drives 500 miles less a year, the average amount of cars per household still raises every year, as well as the total amount of families using virtually nothing but cars.
As previously mentioned in this post, by someone I assume to be one of the few intelligent Americans out there, you Americans really need to rethink the entire organization of where and how you live and get around. I've lived all over central Europe in my younger days, and the last 5 years or so I've been living in Scandinavia, Finland.
Finland is known as the "little America" of Europe. Mostly because they have the same type of population spread. A few "cities" in the middle of nowhere, and one huge capitol city area that includes multiple communities that make their own decisions. Yet everywhere in Europe, public transportation is properly organized and implemented. In my 24 years of living in Europe, all over it really, I have yet to find any place in north or central Europe where I actually needed a car. I don't even have a drivers license. There's just never been a need for it.
If Americans would only organize their cities and suburbs properly, I believe that they to could very easily provide a public transportation service that eliminates the need to drive cars, almost totally, for every day purposes. I do realize however, every family should still have one car to go to the cabin in the mountains/woods if they have one. Or to visit family that lives in he next city or move or such.
In my opinion, with a bit, ok a LOT, of reorganizing, the USA could make it so that only delivery vans/trucks need to drive in the inner cities, and that all suburbs have a train or metrostation, from where daily commuting can take place. Take a lesson from your "parents", the European countries, and sign the damn kyoto treaty and reorganize. There is no other way as effective in reducing emissions and wasted fuel.
Every time I read /. I end up reading through these type of articles and every time I wonder...
:(
My mother, normal central European woman of 60 something years in age, knows nothing really about technology, yet she realizes how making a weak spot known to the public would result in any central European government to fix it, because someone would find a way to get some financial profit out of the hole in the government organizations. It's kind of a hobby for all central Europeans, try to get some money back out of the government. We do have much higher tax percentages here, so we deserve it. The point I'm trying to make here is that we seems to have a different attitude here then in the USA, and I'm very glad we do. It really sounds like you're all dropping deeper and deeper into the totalitarian, Orwellian even, hole there. Has anyone ever thought of either re-educating the old, spiderweb covered brains of most of the senators and politicians there? On internationally published news here in Europe I never seem to see any US politician who isn't at least in his 60's or 70's. Lately here in Europe, the political streams have seriously renewed themselves and added loads of young, or at least younger, political names to their voting lists. Maybe that's something that might start changing the attitudes there? To put people whom actually know what they're talking about in the security/government places?
Just watching the "American theater" of degrading personal freedoms... It's entertaining, in the same way that seeing images of a war is entertaining. But you still realize that war might get to your front door at some point...
Ok, with a structured approach you can make testing walk in the park. First, listen to your costumer, what ar his needs? What does he wnt to do? Define input and output, and of course wht information needs to be stored, and what information can be tabulated. It's no use storing for example ge when you have a birthdate registered. Remove ALL information that can be derived. Make a paper drawing of the structure of your database. plan out the relations. Make sure to obey the CODD rules for design of a relational database. Don't go ovrboard with it though. Just remove the repeating groups (the reoccuring fields inside a table, if there are any) and draw up the general layout. Then proceed to define the content type (text field, integer, float, boolean,...) of each field and set up the test database. You allready have a paper blueprint, liturally so you can easily use an erasor and pencil to record any changes you make. If you've done your planning well, there won't be a need for changes. Now that you have a digital empty construct of the database, defined with the content types. you can then make masks on the input so that only the correct type of date, properly formatted (think of dates etc...) is sent to the database. Having done this you have now successfully created a proper test database. As mentioned earlier as a reply to this post, I agree, you should NEVER alow multiple user groups to access the database during testing time. Give every group it's own test database so the problems both in structure and usability can be recorded seperately from each user group. You get a much clearer view of the problems you might have this way. Better information makes for better sollutions. after the first round of testing compare notes of the different user groups problems, fix them, and go to the second round. Repeat as often as is nessecary. A good database is able to keep preforming forever. If the needs don't change a properly designed and tested databse will work till all our bones are in some history museum. And, provided it'sa relational database, changes in needs can usaully be complied with without having to redesign the entire database.
Allrighty, Being from Belgium where the worlds most (in?)famous pedophile stuff takes place (anyone remember Dutroux? the guys that abducted, raped, killed and then made the bodies disappear) I feel we need to take a step back and look at this hole thing at once before zooming in the issue of "the button"...
Anyway, Belgiums (and mostlikely the whole world) most known pedophile is Dutroux. He abducted, raped, imprisoned for months and then killed his victims. Most of this was going on AFTER the internet got full of chatsites, MSN/ICQ/... and other communication technologies. As far as any reasearch can prove he never even went online, let alone use it actively.
That proves that pedophiles and the internet have no relationship. Not all pedophiles use the internet, (most pedophiles are "older" people most of whom haven't got the foggiest clue of what the interenet is, let alone how to poperly abuse it) so IMO tht means that during the present generation (of course as generations progress and the "elder" people on average know more about PC/net the use of tracking them gets more important)isn't to productive.
Then let's go to the zoomed bit and talk about the actual "button of doom"..
First, I agree, that buton is just SCREAMING to all underaged kids to "see what it does" or to use when they are really pissed at for example their parents who forced them to eat brocoli? Or if they've been to grandmas, because she sent them to bed at 20.00 insted of letting them see.. I dunno, American gladiators? Kids never seem to look or think beyond the next 2 seconds of their life.
Secondly, I'm all in favor of catching pedophiles, just in case I ever decide I just might want kids, but I do see in all countries in Europe (and I've been almost all over, from Portugal to Finland) seem to be seriously overracting to any and all CLAIMS of pedophily.
It's still a Europewide (or even worldwide) overreaction that has been going on for 5-10 years. To give a good example of how much overreaction, here's a quick recap of something that happened in Belgium.
A retired coupple (the husband so old he reached impotence) was charged by their neighbours (apparently mommy was jealous that her kids enjoyed going over to the neighbours after school till he parents got home) of pedophily. The coupple was immediately arrestd nd put into arrest. It took 6 MONTHS in jail to prove that A, the old man was impotent, B, the neighbours were lieing and most importantly C, the kids themselves continiously claimed nothing had happened, but it took 6 months apparently to read and understand that the kids (supposed victims)had always said the old coupple never did anything.
So in cunclusion, all I can relly see happening is either the police ignoring the entire button report because there are to many and after a while they realise virtually any underaged kid with a tempertantrum is reporting their family OR they come up with some INSANELY draconic punishment system for abuse. Which will of course NOT be implemented towards underage kids. Ergo, the entire idea is useless. There are allready MANY ways to accuse someone of pedophily. There's no need for more, especially not when kids can so easily abuse it, and that most pedophiles probably know less about PC's and the internet then youraverage 14 year old.
I have no real clue of how things go in the US schools but DARN... It seriously sounds like you all REALLY got off on the wrong foot, and like everyone put out their brain before going to school there.... Here in Belgium, Europe, we have little or no problems with all these phone and search issues... Surprise surprise, thanks to our GOOD gun policies (as in DON'T have one unless you're a certified hunter)we don't even need to pass through metaldetectors to get into schools. Just like anywhere else in the modern world, many, many schoolchildren have cellphones, but the rule is that they are not allowed to be on during classes. If yours is on during class, it can be taken away from you till the end of your schoolday, then it is returned. The school has absolutely NO rights to dig into the contents of your phone OR your backpack or anything. If they feel they need to search someones bag (which happens maybe once a year, if that much) they call a cop to be present. A cop has the right to search your bags, but not your person of cellphone. The school itself isn't allowed to search the bag, only the cop they call is allowed to do that. Also a big difference I've noticed here is the "drug issue". Here in Belgium smoking a joint really isn't a big deal, if you carry a few grams for your own use, that's perfectly fine. Hower, you cannot be stoned or drunk or under the influence while attending school/classes. So as soon as your schoolday is over, you can do what you like, just not in school. Carrying afew grams in your backpack to school isn't an issue as long as you DON'T use it on school property and as long as you are sober while you are in school. This seperation is, in my oppinion one of the great things about Belgium. State and church are seperated, so is home and school/work. As long as you do well in school or work your teachers/empoyer coun't give a rats arse what you do in your free time. That's the way it should be.
You need to recalculate mate, the amount of foreighners on /.
;)
It goes something like this; one, two, many foreighners... but that only goes for US citizens
Me however, I'm Belgian, and let's be honest, Belgium doesn't really have any kind of nationalistic feeling to it. Heck, our army even parades around with plastic rifles, I kid you not! So naturally I'm not to big on nationalism. I've always thought it's wiser to unite and compromise then to be nationalist and divide.
I know I'm probably a member a minority worldwide with that idea. Anyhow, to the point of actual discussion. I hope you've all read 1984 by George Orwell? I can almost see it happen if the internet gets regionalised, Oceania, (UK, ustralia, USA, etc) as one enourous network, the EU and eurasia as another mega network, and south east asia as a third... And groups of regional hackers trying to hack the other networks to corrupt data, steal information and so on...
Looking at the technological opportunities and the growth in them each and every day, this scenario is a possible future accordig to me at least.
Last little comment, about us foreighners going to great lenghts to publish things in English... Let's be honest about that, English is just the "Common" (sorry for the AD&D reference)of the internet. Unlike most Americans, most Europeans speak at least 2 languages.. FLUENTLY! Not the badly accented, half incromprehensible talk Americans call speaking a foreighn language. Most Europeans of smaller countries (Belgium, Finland, The Netherelands,..) will speak at least 3 languages fluently. For most of us it really is no real extra effort to write in English.
I'm doing my thesis this year on FOSS, using OOo to create some "carrot" migration files (mini functional bookkeeping database and so on). I've used M$ Office mostly previous (couppled with HTML kit, notepad, and whatnot for programming/scripting futures) nd there seems to be some things you're all missing here. First of all, OpenDocument format, or in this case the ODT, OpenDocumentText file format is an encrypted XML. This means that M$ Office can't open it. I've tried, you get only a few long lines of encrypted data. THis adds an extra dimention to all this. Your files are safe in odt format form the lower educated members that have access to your files. Idon't know about the rest of you, but in the places where I've been employed I'm sad to say I usually knew more of PC's, formats and the whole shabang then anyone around me, especially my superiors. I've been looking into the major reasons why OOo hsn't taken over everywhere allready. Let's be honest it offers VASTLY superior things then M$. The XML based fileformat provides adequate, pretty much verlasting access to a wealth of informtion. All of that in XML format takes a vastly smaller space then in any fileformat M$ has producced. Also because OOo is FOSS it's free, reliable, and OPEN. You get to adapt ANYTHING you like to suit ANY need you can think of. That flexibility will be the deathblow to M$. Not yet, but in 5 to 10 years, mark my words, FOSS office suits will grind M$ market share into a minority, a SMALL minority.
Well my dear little frogs, let this toad explain to you why he moved out of Belgium and how the Belgian system works....
First thing to remember, Belgium is the only real federal state in Europe. Belgium comprises of 4 very different groups of people.
You have the Flemmish, Dutch speaking who lean culturally really close to the Netherlands, the Waloon who spek French and mostly lean towards French tendancies, the German speaking +/-3000 people in the east and then "Les Brusselois". Those who live in Brussels, that lean towards the EU and try to create some sort of national feeling (as anyone who has lived in Belgium knows, there is no such thing as a Belgian nationalist feeling)
The reasons why this polititian has been fined are not because he abused the internet with this podcast, but because he broke Belgian law by creating a podcast for a political extremist party.
This all happens in Flanders, where the nationalist "Vlaams Blok" has for many years, been the target of what is commonly called the "cordonne sanitaire". A common cause of all non exreme right or left parties. To stop the growth of the extremist parties, a law was created to keep them out of the publics eye.
Anyone with even the tiniest bit of cerebral power knows that sweeping something under the carpet isn't a sollution, but when over 10 parties need to agree on something, the final result is almost always a compromise without to much of a effect on reality.
That brings up an interesting point indeed. Could it be that the lesser developped areas intellectually (eg: the good "old" US of A) have yet to understand the buisness principle of prepayed economy. They recieve their money BEFORE they need to provide the service, and pretty much the entire process can be automated while the sales can be done in anything from conenience stores to kiosks. I fail to understand how the US can fail to see the value of this buisness model.
I'm Belgian, living in Finland andI go from one country to the other at least once a year. I live roughly 11 months a year in Finland, and buy a prepayed SIM card (fixed value at purchase, but rechargable) and use that during the time I'm in Belgium. This entire locking phones buisness seems to be a rther typical Anglo-saxon problem. I have never purchased a phone that was locked.. EVER! All I need o do, when I go ANYWHERE in the world, is take out my Nokia, open it up and put in a prepayed card I buy in whatever country I am. I've done this all over Europe, and never had any problems whatsoever, since the introduction of GSM standards. Then again, I've always had Nokia, so my experience is rather limited.