In the UK the liberal (democrat) party is in government in a coalition with the Conservative party. We have a left wing (Labour) opposition party. I guess it's all about localised knowledge and your perspective. From a European perspective, the two main US parties would map to European centre-right wing (Democrats) and more right wing (Republicans). You don't have a big left wing opposition party as far as I can tell.
"There's a little part of me that likes this. I can't tell you how many times I've lent stuff to people only to have it never come back - even after asking for it back."
Improvements in technology aren't going to help you fix your ability to judge who you can trust to lend your possessions to, or who you choose as friends.
Or perhaps more to the point, maybe one day technologies might be able to support these decision making processes but they are such valuable life skills that they are worth you learning, regardless of what technologies are available.
Minor correction: what's your chargeout rate for 200 consecutive weekends (you did 5 computers in a weekend, the guy needs 1000 computers done...) ? Still having fun? Wife and kids fed up yet? Boss getting angry because 4 years is too slow a turn round time for the 1000 machines to be done?
Could shorten that time by hiring in 10 guys and doing it in 20 weekends but now the company needs to set up systems for managing 10 people, health and safety, insurance, admin for payment etc.
The first trains and planes tended to be just for demonstration as well: check out Trevithick's 1808 Catch Me Who Can circular railway in London. People paid to see and have a go on this novelty ride. Others took the concept on from there.
Interesting to note your choices were all from the public sector. It's true that this is what the government has control over, but yet again it feels like the private sector has screwed up and the public sector has to take the hit to sort things out. The invisible hand of the market pickpocketting the public purse again.
Depressinly, it seems the UK government values footballers more than scientists. Premiership football players can get special dispensation on clearing immigration paperwork to work in the UK. This year's UK based (immigrant) Nobel peace prizing winning scientists pleaded that the government also gives some consideration to easing the path for scientists from other countries to work in the UK in the same way. The UK government is not having it - clearly David Cameron and his friends believe that entertainment is more important than science. "Bread and circuses" again....
It's time scientists made their opinions known - very depressing I am sure to be working in an environment where your country's leader has announced he prefers a good football league over a decent science programme.
Not to be taken too seriously, after all NYC does have a pretty comprehensive subway system. I'd love it if the USA invested more in suburban train systems though and other public transport though. As well as for the local ecological reasons, purely selfishly good public transport means you can see more as a tourist without having to get into the hassle of hiring an auto and learning to deal with local transport systems.
If the authorities knew which restaurants he liked to frequent with his girlfriend and that he'd recently finished one job and taken up another, I would have imagined they knew that it was family that he was sending the money to. As they know his employer they know his business interests and so they'll know whether his business flying is legitimate or not. Sounds like they'd already worked out it was legitimate.
So your claim is that if somebody sends money to their family and travels on business, then they are a potential terrorist if family and business are in the Middle East? That's quite close to claiming "all people from the Middle East are potential terrorists".
It's not common to carry firearms generally in Europe, and less so when travelling. I'd be very interested to hear the figures for the number of people who fly with firearms here: I'd imagine it's incredibly minuscule if you discount police and military and the suchlike who carry weapons for duties of state.
We have a different philosophy of society in many countries here; it's not so much an irrational fear of firearms rather than a rational philosophical stance that differs from the US approach. I suppose the lesson for us both is that we should remember that just because somebody does something differently from us where they live, it doesn't mean that it's irrational and driven by fear.
You'll find higher gun ownership in countries that have larger rural areas and stronger traditions of hunting, less so in more urban cultures. I don't think carrying guns for self-defence is seen as legitimate in any European country (though I welcome being corrected). The general approach here is that outside of hunting or tightly regulated sporting environments there is no need for anybody to carry guns, and by there being less guns around less people will be hurt by guns. Given that some criminals have guns, we're happy that some of our police have guns so can respond in these situations. But I think there's less fear of gun crime here than in the USA overall.
It costs a lot of money and a lot of time to digitise a lot of books. That's why.
They are getting 3 miles of books every year. Yup, they can use the mile as their unit of measurement because the numbers are that great. I think it's something like 250,000 books a year. We're in the middle of a recession and huge economic cuts in the UK, the public sector is being asked to make cuts right now rather than expand operations.
One of the things the British Library is interested in is keeping books, not data. Books are valuable not only for the content but also may be of interest to future generations because of their typography, layout, binding, other aspects of their physical construction. Also it takes a lot more time and money to scan a book rather than putting it on a bookshelf.
Sounds more lawyer speak than anything else to me..... check your local lawyers out and any legal documents you've signed of significance (mortgage etc).
Depends on what you consider moral or immoral in your culture.
A lot of folk howled with laughter in Europe when middle America made a fuss about Janet Jackson showing off her body during Superbowl one year, in mainland Europe you'll see advertising hoardings promoting perfume, moisturisers etc with half naked models and nobody even blinks. While on the other hand a lot of Europeans freak out at aspects of US gun culture that pass without comment across the Atlantic. All over the world people have different opinions on what is right and what is wrong.
You want to use a Libyan DNS, I guess you have to abide by Libyan rules.... A classic case of a global economy confronting local norms and attitudes. Who is right and who is wrong? how do you decide? (wish I had the answer but alas I don't.....)
You've come up with some figures that cover the costs of the firefighters going out for 3 hours to fight a fire. You're forgetting the other overheads involved, the cost of running a business has to cover more than just the actions of the moment.
- Training of firefighters - Equipment for firefighters (wear and tear on clothes and kit, need to be replaced every year or so) - Fire station for housing the fire truck and firefighters kit - Running costs of fire station (water, electric, ongoing maintenance, etc) - Admin overhead to pay for the billing and manage the fire department staff
The cost of fighting a fire has to also in some part cover the cost of when there is a fire truck sitting in a fire station not fighting a fire, say the next 24 hours before the next fire, not just the 3 hours when it's out on a call.
As others have noted the USA is so screwed up by a legal culture then you probably have to factor in the "lawyer on year round standby" charges to cover the fact that some of the people who are charged then try to get out of paying the charges and have to be taken through the courts to recoup the money.
Plus the fire dept. will need to pay for its own insurance to cover itself in the shortfalls that occur when they turn out to fight a fire and bill the residents and the residents don't or can't pay and the fire dept. needs to be covered for the $20,000 or so lost.
My guess is that a man who refused to pay 6.25 / month before the event would be unlikely to freely hand over 10,000 or more after the event even if he claims he will. He'd probably claim he was forced to sign under duress as his house was burning down and would try to hire a lawyer and try to get out of paying. I can understand the fire chief making the decision that as nobody was at risk of injury or death, and the homeowner had decided not to pay for the fire protection service, his first priority was to protect the lives of his own firefighters and stand off and just check the fire didn't develop further but rather guard it and let it burnt out.
I assume you're trolling but I'll bite anyway.... Allowing pets to die in a fire and claiming animal cruelty? Presumably only in America....
Setting fire to animals or putting animals in a burning building, yes that's animal cruelty. Perhaps even watching a cat stuck up a tree while you have a ladder on hand and nothing to do and could rescue it and you choose not to.... might be considered animal cruelty.
But risking the death or permanent disability of humans (the firefighters) to to save pets from an out of control fire? that's not cruelty, that's a rational decision taken by the firefighters that their lives are more important than a dog or cat's (or a goldfish, or whatever the pets were) given the local conditions.
It's a philosophical discussion whether you consider not acting to save an animal from a situation you find it in that you had not created yourself is an act of cruelty.
Most people consider human lives more valuable than pets lives, however, so if that situation endangers the humans then many people would consider the safety of the humans takes precedence.
Weird thing is I've just come back from the supermarket and I noticed on the side of some kids party novelties that the box advertising had the slogan "Hours of fun and safety!". How depressing. The last thing I wanted as a kid was *safety*. Whatever happened to "Hours of fun and excitement"?
Here in the UK we're lucky if our intercity trains get much over 200km/h so I'd be happy with a mere 300km/h on the regular London to Glasgow route.....
Wow these slashdot posters are getting younger every day!
You used to read crazy posts about employment that made you suspicious that the poster hadn't actually ever had a job so was probably a university student. Occasionally there were posts with wild suggestions about university life that made you suspect that the poster was a teenager still at school.
Now I've read a post which asks "...Have you ever ridden a bike on the street?.." . By heck, I think the under 10s are now posting....
;-) Sorry, couldn't resist it - I am sure you meant something different but it kind of read like your mother doesn't think you're old enough to ride your bike on the roads yet...:-)
"People are cheap and don't want to spend more for an eBook than the mass market paperback version" Sounds like you've got shares in an eBook company, my friend!
Perhaps, people are *sensible* and weigh up the cost-benefit analysis and take the best option. "Hey buddy, I've got 2 identical products here, one costs $5 and one costs $15. Which one do you want?". Err.....
Probably people are looking at similar priced products and weighing up which one works best for them. There's a huge number of people once you step out of the computing and shiny-shiny ooh new geek toy communities that are unlikely to be interested in ebooks for a long time if ever. They'll be considering the whole technology package and how it fits into their lives. Most people in developed countries have come across a lot of technology in their daily lives now. They'll compare ebook readers to other technologies and factor that into their purchases of books in whatever format. "So if I want my book in ebook format, I've got to put down a couple of hundred dollars on another device before I can even open the first page of my ten dollar book, and it will probably last only a couple of years then break and I'll have to get another one, I am going to have to think about chargers and batteries, if it breaks will I be able to get all my books off the old one onto the new one in five minutes, can I read it on the beach?" - a lot of factors in there before ebook formats as technical packages get as good as 5 dollar books.
Wow, and I feel guilty enough about reading and posting on slashdot when I should be writing my PhD thesis. Building a human powered ornithopter, that's a whole other level of displacement activity!
Yeah, and what do Tea Party people make their tea in? My mate who moved over to the States said it was near impossible to buy a kettle there (in NYC). I suppose if the Tea Party people improve the quality of tea in the USA then that's one positive aspect to their existence...
A bit like "ay-lan ruah" apparently but yes, let us know if we're supposed to prounce that in an Irish accent, an American accent, or a Martian accent.....;-)
The first speaker claims to have a PhD from "Calamus International University, London, England". Speaking as somebody working within the UK higher education system I can tell you that there is no such recognised university operating within the UK higher education system. Looks like it might be one of these fake colleges that runs from the upstairs of a shop.
Slashdot Mirror
In the UK the liberal (democrat) party is in government in a coalition with the Conservative party. We have a left wing (Labour) opposition party. I guess it's all about localised knowledge and your perspective. From a European perspective, the two main US parties would map to European centre-right wing (Democrats) and more right wing (Republicans). You don't have a big left wing opposition party as far as I can tell.
"There's a little part of me that likes this. I can't tell you how many times I've lent stuff to people only to have it never come back - even after asking for it back."
Improvements in technology aren't going to help you fix your ability to judge who you can trust to lend your possessions to, or who you choose as friends.
Or perhaps more to the point, maybe one day technologies might be able to support these decision making processes but they are such valuable life skills that they are worth you learning, regardless of what technologies are available.
Whats your chargeout rate for weekend work?
Minor correction: what's your chargeout rate for 200 consecutive weekends (you did 5 computers in a weekend, the guy needs 1000 computers done...) ? Still having fun? Wife and kids fed up yet? Boss getting angry because 4 years is too slow a turn round time for the 1000 machines to be done?
Could shorten that time by hiring in 10 guys and doing it in 20 weekends but now the company needs to set up systems for managing 10 people, health and safety, insurance, admin for payment etc.
Not scaleable methinks....
The first trains and planes tended to be just for demonstration as well: check out Trevithick's 1808 Catch Me Who Can circular railway in London. People paid to see and have a go on this novelty ride. Others took the concept on from there.
Interesting to note your choices were all from the public sector. It's true that this is what the government has control over, but yet again it feels like the private sector has screwed up and the public sector has to take the hit to sort things out. The invisible hand of the market pickpocketting the public purse again.
Depressinly, it seems the UK government values footballers more than scientists. Premiership football players can get special dispensation on clearing immigration paperwork to work in the UK. This year's UK based (immigrant) Nobel peace prizing winning scientists pleaded that the government also gives some consideration to easing the path for scientists from other countries to work in the UK in the same way. The UK government is not having it - clearly David Cameron and his friends believe that entertainment is more important than science. "Bread and circuses" again....
It's time scientists made their opinions known - very depressing I am sure to be working in an environment where your country's leader has announced he prefers a good football league over a decent science programme.
Sorry, couldn't resist it :-)
Not to be taken too seriously, after all NYC does have a pretty comprehensive subway system. I'd love it if the USA invested more in suburban train systems though and other public transport though. As well as for the local ecological reasons, purely selfishly good public transport means you can see more as a tourist without having to get into the hassle of hiring an auto and learning to deal with local transport systems.
I accept your demographics are different however.
If the authorities knew which restaurants he liked to frequent with his girlfriend and that he'd recently finished one job and taken up another, I would have imagined they knew that it was family that he was sending the money to. As they know his employer they know his business interests and so they'll know whether his business flying is legitimate or not. Sounds like they'd already worked out it was legitimate.
So your claim is that if somebody sends money to their family and travels on business, then they are a potential terrorist if family and business are in the Middle East? That's quite close to claiming "all people from the Middle East are potential terrorists".
It's not common to carry firearms generally in Europe, and less so when travelling. I'd be very interested to hear the figures for the number of people who fly with firearms here: I'd imagine it's incredibly minuscule if you discount police and military and the suchlike who carry weapons for duties of state.
We have a different philosophy of society in many countries here; it's not so much an irrational fear of firearms rather than a rational philosophical stance that differs from the US approach. I suppose the lesson for us both is that we should remember that just because somebody does something differently from us where they live, it doesn't mean that it's irrational and driven by fear.
You'll find higher gun ownership in countries that have larger rural areas and stronger traditions of hunting, less so in more urban cultures. I don't think carrying guns for self-defence is seen as legitimate in any European country (though I welcome being corrected). The general approach here is that outside of hunting or tightly regulated sporting environments there is no need for anybody to carry guns, and by there being less guns around less people will be hurt by guns. Given that some criminals have guns, we're happy that some of our police have guns so can respond in these situations. But I think there's less fear of gun crime here than in the USA overall.
It costs a lot of money and a lot of time to digitise a lot of books. That's why.
They are getting 3 miles of books every year. Yup, they can use the mile as their unit of measurement because the numbers are that great. I think it's something like 250,000 books a year. We're in the middle of a recession and huge economic cuts in the UK, the public sector is being asked to make cuts right now rather than expand operations.
One of the things the British Library is interested in is keeping books, not data. Books are valuable not only for the content but also may be of interest to future generations because of their typography, layout, binding, other aspects of their physical construction. Also it takes a lot more time and money to scan a book rather than putting it on a bookshelf.
Sounds more lawyer speak than anything else to me..... check your local lawyers out and any legal documents you've signed of significance (mortgage etc).
Depends on what you consider moral or immoral in your culture.
A lot of folk howled with laughter in Europe when middle America made a fuss about Janet Jackson showing off her body during Superbowl one year, in mainland Europe you'll see advertising hoardings promoting perfume, moisturisers etc with half naked models and nobody even blinks. While on the other hand a lot of Europeans freak out at aspects of US gun culture that pass without comment across the Atlantic. All over the world people have different opinions on what is right and what is wrong.
You want to use a Libyan DNS, I guess you have to abide by Libyan rules.... A classic case of a global economy confronting local norms and attitudes. Who is right and who is wrong? how do you decide? (wish I had the answer but alas I don't.....)
You've come up with some figures that cover the costs of the firefighters going out for 3 hours to fight a fire. You're forgetting the other overheads involved, the cost of running a business has to cover more than just the actions of the moment.
- Training of firefighters
- Equipment for firefighters (wear and tear on clothes and kit, need to be replaced every year or so)
- Fire station for housing the fire truck and firefighters kit
- Running costs of fire station (water, electric, ongoing maintenance, etc)
- Admin overhead to pay for the billing and manage the fire department staff
The cost of fighting a fire has to also in some part cover the cost of when there is a fire truck sitting in a fire station not fighting a fire, say the next 24 hours before the next fire, not just the 3 hours when it's out on a call.
As others have noted the USA is so screwed up by a legal culture then you probably have to factor in the "lawyer on year round standby" charges to cover the fact that some of the people who are charged then try to get out of paying the charges and have to be taken through the courts to recoup the money.
Plus the fire dept. will need to pay for its own insurance to cover itself in the shortfalls that occur when they turn out to fight a fire and bill the residents and the residents don't or can't pay and the fire dept. needs to be covered for the $20,000 or so lost.
My guess is that a man who refused to pay 6.25 / month before the event would be unlikely to freely hand over 10,000 or more after the event even if he claims he will. He'd probably claim he was forced to sign under duress as his house was burning down and would try to hire a lawyer and try to get out of paying. I can understand the fire chief making the decision that as nobody was at risk of injury or death, and the homeowner had decided not to pay for the fire protection service, his first priority was to protect the lives of his own firefighters and stand off and just check the fire didn't develop further but rather guard it and let it burnt out.
I assume you're trolling but I'll bite anyway.... Allowing pets to die in a fire and claiming animal cruelty? Presumably only in America....
Setting fire to animals or putting animals in a burning building, yes that's animal cruelty. Perhaps even watching a cat stuck up a tree while you have a ladder on hand and nothing to do and could rescue it and you choose not to.... might be considered animal cruelty.
But risking the death or permanent disability of humans (the firefighters) to to save pets from an out of control fire? that's not cruelty, that's a rational decision taken by the firefighters that their lives are more important than a dog or cat's (or a goldfish, or whatever the pets were) given the local conditions.
It's a philosophical discussion whether you consider not acting to save an animal from a situation you find it in that you had not created yourself is an act of cruelty.
Most people consider human lives more valuable than pets lives, however, so if that situation endangers the humans then many people would consider the safety of the humans takes precedence.
Weird thing is I've just come back from the supermarket and I noticed on the side of some kids party novelties that the box advertising had the slogan "Hours of fun and safety!". How depressing. The last thing I wanted as a kid was *safety*. Whatever happened to "Hours of fun and excitement"?
UK just as bad as the USA sometimes....
Here in the UK we're lucky if our intercity trains get much over 200km/h so I'd be happy with a mere 300km/h on the regular London to Glasgow route.....
Wow these slashdot posters are getting younger every day!
You used to read crazy posts about employment that made you suspicious that the poster hadn't actually ever had a job so was probably a university student. Occasionally there were posts with wild suggestions about university life that made you suspect that the poster was a teenager still at school.
Now I've read a post which asks "...Have you ever ridden a bike on the street?.." . By heck, I think the under 10s are now posting ....
US business and lawyers - just like peas in a pod. Better sue the Oxford English Dictionary while you're at it.
"People are cheap and don't want to spend more for an eBook than the mass market paperback version"
Sounds like you've got shares in an eBook company, my friend!
Perhaps, people are *sensible* and weigh up the cost-benefit analysis and take the best option. "Hey buddy, I've got 2 identical products here, one costs $5 and one costs $15. Which one do you want?". Err.....
Probably people are looking at similar priced products and weighing up which one works best for them. There's a huge number of people once you step out of the computing and shiny-shiny ooh new geek toy communities that are unlikely to be interested in ebooks for a long time if ever. They'll be considering the whole technology package and how it fits into their lives. Most people in developed countries have come across a lot of technology in their daily lives now. They'll compare ebook readers to other technologies and factor that into their purchases of books in whatever format. "So if I want my book in ebook format, I've got to put down a couple of hundred dollars on another device before I can even open the first page of my ten dollar book, and it will probably last only a couple of years then break and I'll have to get another one, I am going to have to think about chargers and batteries, if it breaks will I be able to get all my books off the old one onto the new one in five minutes, can I read it on the beach?" - a lot of factors in there before ebook formats as technical packages get as good as 5 dollar books.
Wow, and I feel guilty enough about reading and posting on slashdot when I should be writing my PhD thesis. Building a human powered ornithopter, that's a whole other level of displacement activity!
Yeah, and what do Tea Party people make their tea in? My mate who moved over to the States said it was near impossible to buy a kettle there (in NYC). I suppose if the Tea Party people improve the quality of tea in the USA then that's one positive aspect to their existence...
A bit like "ay-lan ruah" apparently but yes, let us know if we're supposed to prounce that in an Irish accent, an American accent, or a Martian accent..... ;-)
Cheap advertising for McDonalds or does it transcend merely being a company and is more like a cultural identification in the USA?
Probably in France the equivalent would be "how far are you from a Michelin starred restaurant?"
Mind you here in the UK it might be "how far are you from the nearest chippie?" to be fair.....
Where in the world is there 50 foot of topsoil? a few inches is more the usual, I thought.
The first speaker claims to have a PhD from "Calamus International University, London, England". Speaking as somebody working within the UK higher education system I can tell you that there is no such recognised university operating within the UK higher education system. Looks like it might be one of these fake colleges that runs from the upstairs of a shop.