Or in the UK, they could file some papers at Companies House, pay the fee (all this can be done online btw) and they have an incorporated business. Having tried both, the UK is far easier. Not as easy as New Zealand mind.
As for employees - in the UK, many businesses just go to an agency and take temps. It's ingrained into the culture now. Many of what should be permanent jobs are farmed out to agencies. And of course, staff can be sacked with a moment's notice.
Which has what to do with trains not being viable in the US?
I can just imagine: "It's all very well Europe using trains but they won't work in the US because Russia pretty much under performs the US on just about every health care indicator."
Quoth: "And finally there is no, zero, zilch scientific evidence that quantum processes play a role in neurons. That doesn't keep people from speculating about it because they think there must be something special, metaphysical about our wetware. No that's not required if you look at how complex the brain is."
Thanks for that. I keep hearing this as if it was an oft-tested and consensus-supported theory rather than speculation / topic land-grab / brainfart by Dennett.
I just read this and a big smile spread across my face. I've been a fan of Pratchett's books for many years now (mid 1980s I think) and it's surprising how well he is known around the world. Isn't he something like he sells the third most books of any British author? His work is fantastic, though sometimes slated by critics - undeservedly IMHO because his books can be so original and funny and still be insightful.
Just as an example, when a very close relative of mine was undergoing major high-risk surgery, the only way I could pass the time other than biting my nails was by reading one of his books.
Congrats Sir Terry! And thank you very much for all your work.
Is this USD or AUD? The page seems to be a US page (and anyway, USD is the most commonly quoted currency) but it discusses a phone being released in Oz so I'm not sure.
Even if they're not producing answers (which my favourite comp.lang.python still does), a lot of questions have already been answered. Usenet is a treasure trove of information. Though there is a lot of noise, I find the signal/noise ratio is better than other places. Many authoritative names have produced useful work in usenet over the years and IMHO it's worth using as a resource.
I concur but would go further. In my experience, it's the less developed nations that have the most stringent requirements for visas. This also seems to apply to setting up businesses, owning property, dealing with the local government in a business capacity etc. It's not strange that there's a correlation between onerous burocracy and an appalling lack of development.
This is only partly facetious, but look at the UK - they give better rights to foreigners than the natives!
It's only partly facetious because a UK citizen needs to pay £500 for a spousal visa if their spouse is from outside the EU. EU citizens living in the UK pay nothing at all.
Replying to one's own post is bad form, but I forgot to mention that I have come across people who have a strong bias against open source projects. I've been involved since 1999 but participation has ballooned over the last few years by people wanting to pad resumes. Unless a person has a "name" or a demonstrably high position in a large project (ie, probably paid), these people won't count OS experience. Some even count it against people. Personally I think it's best to not bother working for folk like that.
I got some small-level consultancy stuff through volunteer open source programming but nothing serious. Employers value non-volunteer experience far more than just about anything else (unless they are deliberately aiming to pick up new graduates). The consultancy helps a little in terms of experience, but except for the payment, none of it was particularly useful.
"Problem is you're in England. You're stuck with socialized health care."
First, it's the United Kingdom, not England. Second, a national health service is not "socialised medicine". Socialised medicine is just perjorative spin used by heavy investors in healthcare to ensure that their profits remain uninterrupted. What the NHS is, is a national health service funded by tax contributions. Roads in the US are paid for by taxes. Does this mean you have a "socialised transport network"? Third, if you don't want to use the NHS, you can go private and be seen immediately, in the UK. There are plenty of private healthcare facilities along with various plans, insurance policies etc. Fourthly, the NHS appears to deliver higher quality treatment for a lower cost than in the US and for many conditions (eg, cancer) there is no waiting. Still, who cares about the health of a nation when shareholder value is booming? There is also no wrangling with insurance companies or having to remortgage your house or borrow vast amounts of money with little realistic hope of paying it back.
Having lived in countries with both a NHS and with entirely private healthcare, I can say from sore personal experience that I would take the NHS every time.
And conversely, it could be argued that coders who can't design adequately have absolutely no business "working" in software either, not unless their work has no human interface.
Which leaves an awful lot of programming down to only those souls who can do both and everybody else can fuck off and watch. Which means that I can make a *lot* of money 'coz I can!
btw - "usability" is formalised in an ISO standard and derives from the field of human-computer interaction. It's best to forget your own opinions when discussing usability.
Quoth TFS:"Repeated calls to several levels of management at Verizon failed to resolve the problem, with several managers suggesting he change his last name."
Good idea! He could change it to "Dr Herman Verizon management are cocks"
The arrogance reportedly shown by the managers isn't exactly reasonable. Change a name just to use a poxy DSL service? This must have been in jest.
One factor might be the increasing sophistication of spammers and SEO crabs. Most are quite poor, but some are good and because there is always a percentage who will not play fair, I think any dominant search engine will have problems staying on top as long as they are targeted as massively as Google is.
Google has done well so far, but the SEO problems are already affecting search results. Other things like "helpfully" changing my search phrases into some completely irrelevant will also contribute towards dissatisfaction; and returns pages full of other directories (hint: when I use Google, I am looking for the source, not a link to another search engine with results that are way off the mark - pages of these make me want to give up); or review sites without any reviews;
I can't help but feel that these problems (which never used to be as much of a problem) are coming from the pressure from SEO spammers determined to be on the top of every list regardless of search.
Personally, I think that there needs to be a lot more competition in the search engine market. That alone reduces SEO spammers effectiveness because they then have to hit several moving targets instead of just one. If the relevance measures of different engines are contradictory, then that helps to smack down fake SEO. All good in my book.
An extremely interesting post. If I had mod points left, I would give you some.
I saw something similar on TV a while ago. Some African hunters needing water would do this trick only using a small hole between some large rocks. The baboon would be captured because they wouldn't want to release the stone before the man got hold of them. The man would then tie up the baboon and feed it salt until the baboon was incredibly thirsty. Then, with the baboon on a leash, the man would untie it and the creature would go straight to the nearest place with water which baboons would not normally do.
Maybe a lot of users don't know what a software dependency is?
It's a valid point - very few people in the real world care or understand about what a shared library is even if you tell them carefully. Let's face it - being into computers is not a majority thing. Most people don't give a stuff. They really just want things to work easily for them.
Quoth TFA: "Steve Bennett who heads up the University's Space Technology Laboratory, will be presenting his 58ft Nova 2 rocket at the University and will discuss how his company, Starchaser Industries plans to launch it in September 2009 with the help of school pupils from across the UK."
There is something so British about that statement. I almost expected the guy to say, "well, I knocked it up in my garden shed at weekends with a friend of mine who is a keen amateur astronomer. We thought of getting some of the local schoolchildren to help out which would be good for their Scout's badges."
I miss the old country sometimes even if we are often portrayed as a nation of lovable middle-class eccentrics.
Re:Existing legacy support. Wait, what?
on
Fresh Air For Windows?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If only I had mod points today...;-)
Seriously, I'm not a fan of MS by any standards but I have Vista installed on my desktop box and it annoys me less than XP on my laptop does. It's not a bad OS really and good enough for me not to scrub it and install Linux instead. Years ago, I couldn't stand Windows and always hosed the HD so I could put Mandrake or Debian on, but now I find Vista to easily be good enough.
I'm afraid you are very wrong. If you look, you can see that a '0' is *much* wider than a '1' (it's what we call, in technical terms, the "fat" bit) and will therefore be the bit that gets stuck when you have those bends in your cable.
But hey, it's just as well we don't have '|' and 'W' to denote bits? There would be even worse stoppages and the digital world might never have worked!
I can vouch for that. Linux has been in Wall Street for a long time: it just sits there quietly working without fuss. For those interested, Morgan Stanley funded the development of a new language A+ which is similar to APL. It's also GPLd.
Slashdot Mirror
Or in the UK, they could file some papers at Companies House, pay the fee (all this can be done online btw) and they have an incorporated business. Having tried both, the UK is far easier. Not as easy as New Zealand mind. As for employees - in the UK, many businesses just go to an agency and take temps. It's ingrained into the culture now. Many of what should be permanent jobs are farmed out to agencies. And of course, staff can be sacked with a moment's notice.
Which has what to do with trains not being viable in the US?
I can just imagine: "It's all very well Europe using trains but they won't work in the US because Russia pretty much under performs the US on just about every health care indicator."
Quoth: "And finally there is no, zero, zilch scientific evidence that quantum processes play a role in neurons. That doesn't keep people from speculating about it because they think there must be something special, metaphysical about our wetware. No that's not required if you look at how complex the brain is."
Thanks for that. I keep hearing this as if it was an oft-tested and consensus-supported theory rather than speculation / topic land-grab / brainfart by Dennett.
I just read this and a big smile spread across my face. I've been a fan of Pratchett's books for many years now (mid 1980s I think) and it's surprising how well he is known around the world. Isn't he something like he sells the third most books of any British author? His work is fantastic, though sometimes slated by critics - undeservedly IMHO because his books can be so original and funny and still be insightful.
Just as an example, when a very close relative of mine was undergoing major high-risk surgery, the only way I could pass the time other than biting my nails was by reading one of his books.
Congrats Sir Terry! And thank you very much for all your work.
Is this USD or AUD? The page seems to be a US page (and anyway, USD is the most commonly quoted currency) but it discusses a phone being released in Oz so I'm not sure.
Do you have a link to this? It's not that I don't believe you, but it sounds like a very interesting story and worth a read.
Even if they're not producing answers (which my favourite comp.lang.python still does), a lot of questions have already been answered. Usenet is a treasure trove of information. Though there is a lot of noise, I find the signal/noise ratio is better than other places. Many authoritative names have produced useful work in usenet over the years and IMHO it's worth using as a resource.
I concur but would go further. In my experience, it's the less developed nations that have the most stringent requirements for visas. This also seems to apply to setting up businesses, owning property, dealing with the local government in a business capacity etc. It's not strange that there's a correlation between onerous burocracy and an appalling lack of development.
This is only partly facetious, but look at the UK - they give better rights to foreigners than the natives!
It's only partly facetious because a UK citizen needs to pay £500 for a spousal visa if their spouse is from outside the EU. EU citizens living in the UK pay nothing at all.
Completely OT I know, but isn't "The Times" a UK newspaper? It might be better to refer to the NY Times as, well, the NY Times to prevent confusion.
Replying to one's own post is bad form, but I forgot to mention that I have come across people who have a strong bias against open source projects. I've been involved since 1999 but participation has ballooned over the last few years by people wanting to pad resumes. Unless a person has a "name" or a demonstrably high position in a large project (ie, probably paid), these people won't count OS experience. Some even count it against people. Personally I think it's best to not bother working for folk like that.
I got some small-level consultancy stuff through volunteer open source programming but nothing serious. Employers value non-volunteer experience far more than just about anything else (unless they are deliberately aiming to pick up new graduates). The consultancy helps a little in terms of experience, but except for the payment, none of it was particularly useful.
"Problem is you're in England. You're stuck with socialized health care."
First, it's the United Kingdom, not England. Second, a national health service is not "socialised medicine". Socialised medicine is just perjorative spin used by heavy investors in healthcare to ensure that their profits remain uninterrupted. What the NHS is, is a national health service funded by tax contributions. Roads in the US are paid for by taxes. Does this mean you have a "socialised transport network"? Third, if you don't want to use the NHS, you can go private and be seen immediately, in the UK. There are plenty of private healthcare facilities along with various plans, insurance policies etc. Fourthly, the NHS appears to deliver higher quality treatment for a lower cost than in the US and for many conditions (eg, cancer) there is no waiting. Still, who cares about the health of a nation when shareholder value is booming? There is also no wrangling with insurance companies or having to remortgage your house or borrow vast amounts of money with little realistic hope of paying it back.
Having lived in countries with both a NHS and with entirely private healthcare, I can say from sore personal experience that I would take the NHS every time.
And conversely, it could be argued that coders who can't design adequately have absolutely no business "working" in software either, not unless their work has no human interface.
Which leaves an awful lot of programming down to only those souls who can do both and everybody else can fuck off and watch. Which means that I can make a *lot* of money 'coz I can!
btw - "usability" is formalised in an ISO standard and derives from the field of human-computer interaction. It's best to forget your own opinions when discussing usability.
Quoth TFS:"Repeated calls to several levels of management at Verizon failed to resolve the problem, with several managers suggesting he change his last name."
Good idea! He could change it to "Dr Herman Verizon management are cocks"
The arrogance reportedly shown by the managers isn't exactly reasonable. Change a name just to use a poxy DSL service? This must have been in jest.
One factor might be the increasing sophistication of spammers and SEO crabs. Most are quite poor, but some are good and because there is always a percentage who will not play fair, I think any dominant search engine will have problems staying on top as long as they are targeted as massively as Google is.
Google has done well so far, but the SEO problems are already affecting search results. Other things like "helpfully" changing my search phrases into some completely irrelevant will also contribute towards dissatisfaction; and returns pages full of other directories (hint: when I use Google, I am looking for the source, not a link to another search engine with results that are way off the mark - pages of these make me want to give up); or review sites without any reviews;
I can't help but feel that these problems (which never used to be as much of a problem) are coming from the pressure from SEO spammers determined to be on the top of every list regardless of search.
Personally, I think that there needs to be a lot more competition in the search engine market. That alone reduces SEO spammers effectiveness because they then have to hit several moving targets instead of just one. If the relevance measures of different engines are contradictory, then that helps to smack down fake SEO. All good in my book.
I saw something similar on TV a while ago. Some African hunters needing water would do this trick only using a small hole between some large rocks. The baboon would be captured because they wouldn't want to release the stone before the man got hold of them. The man would then tie up the baboon and feed it salt until the baboon was incredibly thirsty. Then, with the baboon on a leash, the man would untie it and the creature would go straight to the nearest place with water which baboons would not normally do.
Maybe a lot of users don't know what a software dependency is?
It's a valid point - very few people in the real world care or understand about what a shared library is even if you tell them carefully. Let's face it - being into computers is not a majority thing. Most people don't give a stuff. They really just want things to work easily for them.
A pleasure to meet you sir. I never knew that Steve Ballmer posted to /.
Quoth TFA: "Steve Bennett who heads up the University's Space Technology Laboratory, will be presenting his 58ft Nova 2 rocket at the University and will discuss how his company, Starchaser Industries plans to launch it in September 2009 with the help of school pupils from across the UK."
There is something so British about that statement. I almost expected the guy to say, "well, I knocked it up in my garden shed at weekends with a friend of mine who is a keen amateur astronomer. We thought of getting some of the local schoolchildren to help out which would be good for their Scout's badges."
I miss the old country sometimes even if we are often portrayed as a nation of lovable middle-class eccentrics.
If only I had mod points today... ;-)
Seriously, I'm not a fan of MS by any standards but I have Vista installed on my desktop box and it annoys me less than XP on my laptop does. It's not a bad OS really and good enough for me not to scrub it and install Linux instead. Years ago, I couldn't stand Windows and always hosed the HD so I could put Mandrake or Debian on, but now I find Vista to easily be good enough.
Could you turn faeces and household waste products into oil? If so, it would help solve a few problems in one go.
I'm afraid you are very wrong. If you look, you can see that a '0' is *much* wider than a '1' (it's what we call, in technical terms, the "fat" bit) and will therefore be the bit that gets stuck when you have those bends in your cable.
But hey, it's just as well we don't have '|' and 'W' to denote bits? There would be even worse stoppages and the digital world might never have worked!
I can vouch for that. Linux has been in Wall Street for a long time: it just sits there quietly working without fuss. For those interested, Morgan Stanley funded the development of a new language A+ which is similar to APL. It's also GPLd.
Go for it m8. I left this year and have no regrets except for missing Clark's pies :-(