1 Manufacture Bliss Helmets in some Oriental sweat shop.
2 Sell helmets on Internet
3 Profit! ...er, there appears to be some flaw in this model, an event which has never happened before. I offer my sincerest apologies to the meme police.
Where I come from in Scotland we have large numbers of cameras, particularly in the city centre where the intention is to reduce crime that is a by-product of drinking. The cameras are part of crowd control and very little else. I worked in a bar in the town centre and I can promise you nobody really took much notice of the cameras. Violence and breaches of the peace were reduced but people continued to consume drugs, misbehave and have sex in doorways. I remember once a guy, on his stag night was stripped butt naked, tied to a lamppost and whipped by his mates and although all of the cameras rotated to watch it, the police didn't arrive until it was all over and they were back in the pub (dressing him in a nappy, I might add for surrealistic effect).
I lived in what was considered the roughest area of the city and at a community council meeting, where some residents were a) demanding camera surveillance and b) drawing comparisons between how they were treated and the how more affluent areas of the city were treated, I suggested that we not only have the cameras but they could pipe it in to all our TV's and we then would could all see who the criminals were. It was roundly applauded, but we never did get the cameras.
Where I live now in South Germany, there are very few cameras apart from traffic control, you can drink for almost 24 hours a day and I have never witnessed street violence on par with my native country. You can drive your car at almost any speed you want on the Autobhan and Germany has the lowest level of Road Traffic Accidents per kilometre in the world - if you are like me tootling along in your truck at a snail's pace of 110 kph and stream of cars pass you with after-burners blazing at + 200 kph, this sounds rather surprising but it is true. If you do speed in the restricted areas and are caught on camera, you can request the photo. The photo is always a full frontal of you in the car with your face clearly visible. Some kids wave and legend has it, they get fined extra for lack of respect. My partner was hilariously caught speeding in a 15kph (!) zone, doing 20 and her employers presented her with the snap.
When I lived in Miami, I couldn't help but be impressed by how quiet the bars were and how friendly the Miami people were - and it's a party town, the bars are pretty wild. Both South Germany and Florida are dynamic economies and trading hubs. Scotland is neither or more accurately, there is less money in the economy. Florida has concealed gun laws and even the poorest South German has a remarkably high standard of living. In Switzerland almost everyone has a gun and for the purposes of civil defence were compelled to have one, and to generalise, they are fairly well off, have almost no crime and no cameras. Now I won't for a moment claim that my observation are anything other than anecdotal, but I also cannot help noticing the paucity of valid evidence either way. So I might dare to suggest that crime fighting cameras have more to do with poor economic performance - which is subject to the market and difficult to affect - and the symbolic effect they have on the electorate - and for that reason we might be looking in the wrong place for the evidence that either supports or demolishes the argument.
Slashdot readers interested in the news that the NYT is "free" might be interested in other free as in beer newspapers. Who could possibly resist the temptation to visit the best newspaper in the English language - The Sun. http://www.thesun.co.uk/ You can check out if it is going to be a Zoe McConnell day, which legend has it, augurs good luck.
The Miami Herald http://www.miamiherald.com/ is free too and available in a Spanish edition. Speigel (the English version) http://www.spiegel.de/international/ is free too, and the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/ and the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ are also free. Oh and the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/ which could once claim to be the finest newspaper in the English language is free also. Robert Fisk appears in that one, I believe he finds some sympathy with some slash dotters. Private Eye http://www.private-eye.co.uk/ remains annoyingly non-free for cheapskates like myself and neither is Viz http://www.viz.co.uk/- which used to be funny once. Top Tip number eleven is quite funny. A very brief trawl of the internet should probably result in an appropriate newspaper for every possible shade of opinion.
We have been through all of this Red Herring before and it won't make any difference. There is no point trying to understand how unimportant this discussion is if you don't understand today's Germany. Germany is the biggest exporting nation on Earth and it is the biggest player in the EU - which is the biggest market on Earth. Post war Germany actively chose the social democrat model for their economy and political system. It has the finest constitution in Europe (modelled on the US but containing substantially more pages!) the welfare state supports everyone and the growing economy provides the work that creates the wealth that pays for all this. It is normal for such a society to create a bunch of laws odd to English speakers - but then my own country doesn't even have a written constitution and our councils tax the individuals home. The present day German is focussed on career, personal improvement and health and very little else.
It is an unusual characteristic of Germany that everyone suffers from angst (fair enough, they invented the word) but the angst is all about really unlikely events (acrylimide in barbeque food causing cancer for example) and yet they throw caution to the winds the moment they get in a car.
This angst condition is so endemic I have christened it "Fright Club". Only a few weeks ago they were obsessed with "wifi smog" people were switching of their routers and phones to protect themselves from this new scourge. It didn't appear to stop them from watching television or listening to the radio, but there you go - science and magic confused or just interchangeable.
Coupled with this angst is another curious condition called Gründlichkeit or thoroughness. Gründlichkeit is just so much part of the German character. Back in Scotland you could read the important parts of the Blue Book tax guide in the bookshop and easily identify any new legal tax avoidance strategies. You couldn't do that with the German Tax Books because there are about 127 of them (the last time I tried to count them). My accountant just photocopies pages out and sticks them in the tax return. You have to pay canal tax but there's no canal and you don't get one either.
In Germany when you change your address, you have to inform the special municipal department -Wohnamtmeldegung- (department of names and addresses)of the change and fill in three forms. A group of students could not understand how this did not exist in Britain or USA. "What's to stop you getting on a plane, flying to the UK, robbing a bank and then flying home?" was their completely serious question and my answer: "Even German bank robbers don't normally use their identity cards or leave a forwarding address during the robbery," leaves them completely unconvinced.
Conversation with Wohnamt Official:
Official:"What is your father's occupation?"
"He's dead, what difference does it make?"
Official:"I have a space in the form for it"
"which job would you like?"
Official:"His last one..."
Official:"What religion are you?"
(proudly) "Agnostic"
Official:"You can have: Catholic, Protestant or atheist."
"But I'm an agnostic"
Official: Ticks 'atheist'
As for thoroughness, Non-German partners are often very surprised when they clean the entire house from top to bottom only to have their partner point out that they forgot the single cup they drank their post cleaning coffee in which is standing on the immaculate sink - dirty. There is no mention of all the good work, because the concept of balancing good things against negative things (one good thing outweighs loads of bad things) is rather specific to English speakers. German anthropology uses the concept of a linear measure of perfection (or distance from it!) and the streets are so clean you could eat your dinner off them. Well, almost but this is the real reason behind this action, more national character than conspiracy.
Germany has these laws and they pale into insignificance compared to the UK's
Spock: Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans.
feel free to label me a leftist-libertarian. If only Karl Marx had spent a little less of his time wandering into tailor's shops enquiring after the prices of cloth...
actually they did. During the "Cultural Revolution" Mao declared birds responsible for crop damage and village cadres were soon fighting over who had exterminated the most birds. The following year and for a quite a few years after that, the crop damage from insects was fairly substantial. They gave that up and took on the challenge of small scale steel production - see previous sentence and replace "exterminated" for "produced" and "birds" for "useless slag". This resulted in no trees, which were used to fuel the smelting operations and virtually no iron pots, tools, utensils or bits off the nearest site of important cultural and scientific interest (easier to melt). Other enlightened activities from the People's Paradise included the public humilation and beating of teachers and academics (those well known threats to the very fabric of society) in the streets.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads slashdot that a) the Chinese concept of government is a rather loose term and b) that regular news scraped from msnbc about Bhuddism, the Chinese and er.. religion is somewhat short of the mark as far as news for nerds goes. It should be common knowledge amongst this readership and if not shouldn't you be listening to the Skeptics podcast? http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ or even reading other material?
Oh, and I am surprised at the absence of a surfeit of comments mentioning how all of the vitriol here is counter to almost everything the present Dalai Lama has said on... well everything really.
I can tell you that it won't make any real difference. In fact it is firstly a gift question and secondly a marvellous time-waster that helps avoid more apposite questions. The candidates answer should be "That's a very interesting question and I am glad you asked it." followed by something along the lines of "one of the great priviliges we have as democracy is our freedom of expression".
The great advantage to any candidate of such single issue questions is that they can appear to respect "either side of the debate" (and call it a debate too - introducing an element of uncertaintity) which is a characteristic of leadership and appear to be honest and committed to their beliefs - also a characteristic of leadership.
Single issue questions are always very easy for planners to deal with because they don't challenge the interviewee to respond in a way that will demonstrate decisiveness and leadership.
The political history of the West has always reinforced the generally observed scenario where the ruling political party loses power because they lose the support of a majority of the population. Usually as a direct result of something that directly impacts the voter socially, economically or both. It is therefore incumbent on those who support the party that stands to gain power to do everything they can to promote that positive message. Flogging a dead horse is not politically purposeful and no matter how much you may desire alternatives the very best form of revenge is success.
What voters want is a sense of stability in their lives, so that they can better plan their own individual futures. A better question might be "What direction will your career take when Hilary Clinton becomes the first woman to be President of the United States?
What a concept! Obviously dreamed up by an ad executive. Well it won't make any difference because even though these people drown websites and search engines with drivel I won't be buying or clicking or even looking if it gets past adblock. Come to think of it despite the fact that I watch television, go to the cinema and read magazines and newspapers there are few products advertised that I want. I mean I never want anything promoted by Carol Vodermann but she is never off the screens. Ocean Finance apparently offers the answer to life, the universe and everything in addition to a big house where men fall over scooters - but surprise surprise I'm not buying so I guess that means all those Ocean Finance customers are paying for me to watch Fox News!
There's a moral there somewhere.
I am a UK citizen and the last time I counted, I had approximately 72 cousins (Pre-war families were large and post war families weren't much smaller) all of my cousins and their respective parents (my aunts and uncles) have been emailing me to declare their utter outrage at this decision of the BBC. My children have emailed me, my grandchildren have emailed. My extensive set of nieces and nephews including the German side of my family who have only ever heard of the BBC World Service, have emailed me. Friends and acquaintances have been emailing me and even a guy I met in the pub in 1994 who lived in the bottle bank with his dog, in Irvine Place emailed me. An elderly woman I once shared a rather amusing conversation about the British Weather, while waiting on the number 55 bus emailed me. All two thirds of my old High School,(approx 2000 people - including cousins) whom I knew well enough to greet by name emailed me. The 162 members of my University computer science course emailed me. The entire fan base of New Youth who are very familiar with me, as the manager who sold them out to the man, emailed me. All the people who organised the street party for the Royal Wedding in 1981 in my old street, emailed me, they were outraged too.
We have been through all of this Red Herring before and it won't make any difference. There is no point trying to understand how unimportant this discussion is if you don't understand today's Germany. Germany is the biggest exporting nation on Earth and it is the biggest player in the EU - which is the biggest market on Earth. Post war Germany actively chose the social democrat model for their economy and political system. It has the finest constitution in Europe (modelled on the US but containing substantially more pages!) the welfare state supports everyone and the growing economy provides the work that creates the wealth that pays for all this. It is normal for such a society to create a bunch of laws odd to English speakers - but then my own country doesn't even have a written constitution and our councils tax the individuals home. The present day German is focussed on career, personal improvement and health and very little else.
It is an unusual characteristic of Germany that everyone suffers from angst (fair enough, they invented the word) but the angst is all about really unlikely events (acrylimide in barbeque food causing cancer for example) and yet they throw caution to the winds the moment they get in a car.
This angst condition is so endemic I have christened it "Fright Club". Only a few weeks ago they were obsessed with "wifi smog" people were switching of their routers and phones to protect themselves from this new scourge. It didn't appear to stop them from watching television or listening to the radio, but there you go - science and magic confused or just interchangeable.
Coupled with this angst is another curious condition called Gründlichkeit or thoroughness. Gründlichkeit is just so much part of the German character. Back in Scotland you could read the important parts of the Blue Book tax guide in the bookshop and easily identify any new legal tax avoidance strategies. You couldn't do that with the German Tax Books because there are about 127 of them (the last time I tried to count them). My accountant just photocopies pages out and sticks them in the tax return. You have to pay canal tax but there's no canal and you don't get one either.
In Germany when you change your address, you have to inform the special municipal department -Wohnanmeldegungamt- (department of names and addresses)of the change and fill in three forms. A group of students could not understand how this did not exist in Britain or USA. "What's to stop you getting on a plane, flying to the UK, robbing a bank and then flying home?" was their completely serious question and my answer: "Even German bank robbers don't normally use their identity cards or leave a forwarding address during the robbery," leaves them completely unconvinced.
Conversation with Wohnamt Official: Official:"What is your father's occupation?" "He's dead, what difference does it make?"
Official:"I have a space in the form for it" "which job would you like?" Official:"His last one..."
Official:"What religion are you?" (proudly) "Agnostic" Official:"You can have: Catholic, Protestant or atheist." "But I'm an agnostic" Official: Ticks 'atheist'
As for thoroughness, Non-German partners are often very surprised when they clean the entire house from top to bottom only to have their partner point out that they forgot the single cup they drank their post cleaning coffee in which is standing on the immaculate sink - dirty. There is no mention of all the good work, because the concept of balancing good things against negative things (one good thing outweighs loads of bad things) is rather specific to English speakers. German anthropology uses the concept of a linear measure of perfection (or distance from it!) and the streets are so clean you could eat your dinner off them. Well, almost but this is the real reason behind this action, more national character than conspiracy.
Colin normally has only has one 'L'. Adding an extra 'L' is a common mistake made by native German speakers. Since almost 95 per cent of Americans are of German descent one can appreciate how extensive the difference in language is between those who speak English and those who speak US English. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin 'Collins' with two 'Ls' is a surname common to Scotland and Ireland. Mr William Collins was a famous Scottish language dictionary publisher (now part of HarperCollins empire) and possibly contributed to the origin of this confusion.
If 'Collin' really was Irish he would be 'Colin'. As to the circumstances surrounding the identity of his father, I shall have to leave that to more informed sources...
It is a fundamental principle of Post-Modernism that all art is replicated. Selling us the same thing over and over again is much more cost-effective than making anything new. We have already had the remake of Andy Pandy. How long before Muffin the Mule makes a CG comeback? Replicated tasteless remarks may follow. What if we have exhausted the planet's Narativium supply? Global Boredom will be a frightening reality. Damn you Hollywood. Damn you all to hell! (to be really dadaist I guess I should cut and paste all of that twice - but you get the picture, television is meant to be repetitive.)
and this is why she is so succesful. Books of her peers are far more elaborate in their fantastical worlds - Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials series weilds a grander foil almost the antonym to CS Lewis' Narnia novels while Artemis Fowl is a sort of junior Agatha Christie. JK has colonised the most obvious of territories - the school and all its works. A school for wizards could not be more distant to the reality of the grinding hell-hole that is school (copyright Bart Simpson) and Buffy has already covered that area to the full. In many ways JK's fantastic ideas are reminiscent of all those Enid Blyton novels where posh grammar school girls (I suppose I should say "young ladies") would have midnight feasts in their pyjamas and spend the daytime solving mysteries that usually involved at least one foreign national spying, organising elaborate practical jokes, commenting on the differences between classes "Toffs and Toughs" and winning the spelling competition. I should image JK's books will continue to sell, in much the same way that Enid Blyton manages millions of sales per annum even now. Sadly I recall the immense sense of disappointment I felt when I found that her novel "The Naughtiest Girls" failed to live up to any of my childhood expectations.
altruistic ideals (in the main). Young people are very practical when there own self-interest is involved. Students, especially in the USA where, according to Dr Gil Grissom, the degree is worth $1 million and almost costs $1 million, tend to choose course that will provide a cost benefit appropriate to their needs. They need to pass a course and be awarded a degree worth having (in relative terms). In the past a degree in law was the opportunity to earn high salaries. Now of course there are far too many lawyers and not enough cases to supply them. Science and engineering degrees are not as popular, perhaps because some work involving measurement, assesment and being able to look up a book or a dictionary using all of the letters of the alphabet is a requisite. Degree courses go through fads, witness the number of marketing graduates in the late 80's early 90's most of whom are not employed with a stone's throw of any marketing activity. Science is presently akin to magic and prospective students are surprised to discover that membership of Slytherin, is not part of the enrolment procedure. Nor are they given a magic wand or a tricorder along with the university calendar. The necessity to provide some evidence of achievement in the form of science papers and test results is a pale shadow to the ease of making an extended exposition on man's obsession with himself in lawyer school. Thank goodness there is no stand alone course concept in Web Design - lecturing staff would be crushed in the stampede as so many students (when asked to express a preference) often suggest that they intend a career in PR (the discipline of mixing a rather tasty Bucks Fizz.) or Web design. When you are paying for your education by working in The Golden Arches or as an exotic dancer, it becomes rather important to you, to choose a career path that you expect to be rewarding, at least in the financial sense if nothing else.
I can quite categorically claim to have had more sex with chicks. Of course then I just had a poxy 386 running that thing wot Alan Sugar invented that looked like Neanderthal OS2. Now with our giant home network of Ubuntu driven master servers, modded Xbox running Xbmc, laptops hooked up on XP, Nintendo DS with it's comic anthropomorphic wifi system, my antique Ipaq x4700 running putty and the giant office Komputor waiting for the first 1 terrabyte raid box to store all our multimedia and, then, there are those clients who expect me to turn in a database within two years deadline. Well... Sheesh, I guess I'll have to leave the country forever too. If there is any correlation between processor power and rumpy-pumpy on this scale I'm going to need heart pills. My wife may wish to comment too! Now where is that map of Amsterdam?
and found that IE gets 67%, FF gets 22% Opera is at 4.4% and everything else is less than 0-5% (probably our geeky staff using obscure browsers!) So I am guessing that the last time I actually looked at those stats, FF was a lot lower.
feel hungry. I wonder what's in the fridge? Oh, lard! Mmmm! Is there anything less interesting than a blame list? These culprits in the War On Obesity have merely changed nouns. I remember way back in the early seventies when my then somewhat less than nimble father in law attributed his vast bulk to his big bones. I was more convinced that the real culprits were all of the bones in his right arm and his jaw. So nothing has changed, the culprits are always outside the remit of human responsibility - whether they are destiny or multinational corporations. People have a right to choose what to eat. It's up to them to afford it and the responsibility for their weight, their health and anything else of the person - that's theirs too. All this BS about whatever has nothing to do with anything. Fructose, Schmuctose. Who are all these food police? People are allowed guns but not corn syrup? Oh, wait, what's that I see yonder? Not windmills by any chance and fresh for tilting at too. You know what they'll be cracking down and baccy and beer next. And then, what will we do?
are in 2nd Life. Those who choose to spend their time in the cardboard cut-out of 2ndL are either living with their mom or have never heard of Europe - or both. You don't need to buy a knob here.
Aren't they all just so useful and cigars are so enjoyable, especially those from that island next to G'tmo. American white Marlboro's are so tasty too that when I returned to the UK in 1996 and tasted those disgusting Euro-Cigs - I quit. White US Marlboro's are always appreciated in the UK. Personally I would rather have some snus to deliver my nicotine - just like those health-conscious Swedish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus
Hey, saw a dude with that Apple sticker on his 15 year old VW Polo the other day. Always wondered where you were supposed to put that, spent a while looking all over an IMac for the space too. Rule number one: A phone is not an accessory. Don't wear it around your neck or on your belt. You know I can't remember the last time I had a contract for a mobile phone that didn't offer a cheap upgrade within two years. I just swapped a nokia 6310i for an e65 costing me 130 euros. It was even cheaper back in the UK but the monthly costs were slightly higher, here my deal is currently 18 euros a month although missus Vorlich's is a wee tad higher than that. So 600 bucks for a mobile phone, that kills me, that does, you could buy a Xbox 360 and spend a year sending it back to Microsoft for repair and still have enough change to buy a Wii too. I mean, what does any need a mobile phone for, apart from taking pictures, telling the time, timing things like pasta and rice and getting grocery lists by sms? Oh, yeah people call me about business and it can detect a hidden wifi or a nintendo ds. Can't wait until Hackaday has something on that. It's so useful... Beam me up, Scottie.
The puppies gag always makes me laugh. Seven is such a quality number. I get slash modded ever since I put a rather entertaining quote from the bible in my profile. I guess people are taking it seriously! Funniest part was - I read it first on slashdot.
It would make a damn fine movie as it stands, but perhaps the French would have to do it! Jean-Jacques Beineix or Luc Bresson. Ringworld was optioned for a movie and - allegedly - by the Sci-Fi channel. The various screenplay treatments of Ringworld were unadulterated dog food and I don't think the websites that used to have them, exist anymore - probably a good thing. Tanj!
Slashdot Mirror
Damn Babelfish!
1 Manufacture Bliss Helmets in some Oriental sweat shop.
...er, there appears to be some flaw in this model, an event which has never happened before. I offer my sincerest apologies to the meme police.
2 Sell helmets on Internet
3 Profit!
Where I come from in Scotland we have large numbers of cameras, particularly in the city centre where the intention is to reduce crime that is a by-product of drinking. The cameras are part of crowd control and very little else. I worked in a bar in the town centre and I can promise you nobody really took much notice of the cameras. Violence and breaches of the peace were reduced but people continued to consume drugs, misbehave and have sex in doorways. I remember once a guy, on his stag night was stripped butt naked, tied to a lamppost and whipped by his mates and although all of the cameras rotated to watch it, the police didn't arrive until it was all over and they were back in the pub (dressing him in a nappy, I might add for surrealistic effect).
I lived in what was considered the roughest area of the city and at a community council meeting, where some residents were a) demanding camera surveillance and b) drawing comparisons between how they were treated and the how more affluent areas of the city were treated, I suggested that we not only have the cameras but they could pipe it in to all our TV's and we then would could all see who the criminals were. It was roundly applauded, but we never did get the cameras.
Where I live now in South Germany, there are very few cameras apart from traffic control, you can drink for almost 24 hours a day and I have never witnessed street violence on par with my native country. You can drive your car at almost any speed you want on the Autobhan and Germany has the lowest level of Road Traffic Accidents per kilometre in the world - if you are like me tootling along in your truck at a snail's pace of 110 kph and stream of cars pass you with after-burners blazing at + 200 kph, this sounds rather surprising but it is true. If you do speed in the restricted areas and are caught on camera, you can request the photo. The photo is always a full frontal of you in the car with your face clearly visible. Some kids wave and legend has it, they get fined extra for lack of respect. My partner was hilariously caught speeding in a 15kph (!) zone, doing 20 and her employers presented her with the snap.
When I lived in Miami, I couldn't help but be impressed by how quiet the bars were and how friendly the Miami people were - and it's a party town, the bars are pretty wild. Both South Germany and Florida are dynamic economies and trading hubs. Scotland is neither or more accurately, there is less money in the economy. Florida has concealed gun laws and even the poorest South German has a remarkably high standard of living. In Switzerland almost everyone has a gun and for the purposes of civil defence were compelled to have one, and to generalise, they are fairly well off, have almost no crime and no cameras. Now I won't for a moment claim that my observation are anything other than anecdotal, but I also cannot help noticing the paucity of valid evidence either way. So I might dare to suggest that crime fighting cameras have more to do with poor economic performance - which is subject to the market and difficult to affect - and the symbolic effect they have on the electorate - and for that reason we might be looking in the wrong place for the evidence that either supports or demolishes the argument.
Slashdot readers interested in the news that the NYT is "free" might be interested in other free as in beer newspapers. Who could possibly resist the temptation to visit the best newspaper in the English language - The Sun. http://www.thesun.co.uk/
You can check out if it is going to be a Zoe McConnell day, which legend has it, augurs good luck.
The Miami Herald http://www.miamiherald.com/ is free too and available in a Spanish edition. Speigel (the English version) http://www.spiegel.de/international/ is free too, and the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/ and the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ are also free. Oh and the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/ which could once claim to be the finest newspaper in the English language is free also. Robert Fisk appears in that one, I believe he finds some sympathy with some slash dotters. Private Eye http://www.private-eye.co.uk/ remains annoyingly non-free for cheapskates like myself and neither is Viz http://www.viz.co.uk/- which used to be funny once. Top Tip number eleven is quite funny. A very brief trawl of the internet should probably result in an appropriate newspaper for every possible shade of opinion.
We have been through all of this Red Herring before and it won't make any difference. There is no point trying to understand how unimportant this discussion is if you don't understand today's Germany. Germany is the biggest exporting nation on Earth and it is the biggest player in the EU - which is the biggest market on Earth. Post war Germany actively chose the social democrat model for their economy and political system. It has the finest constitution in Europe (modelled on the US but containing substantially more pages!) the welfare state supports everyone and the growing economy provides the work that creates the wealth that pays for all this. It is normal for such a society to create a bunch of laws odd to English speakers - but then my own country doesn't even have a written constitution and our councils tax the individuals home. The present day German is focussed on career, personal improvement and health and very little else.
It is an unusual characteristic of Germany that everyone suffers from angst (fair enough, they invented the word) but the angst is all about really unlikely events (acrylimide in barbeque food causing cancer for example) and yet they throw caution to the winds the moment they get in a car.
This angst condition is so endemic I have christened it "Fright Club". Only a few weeks ago they were obsessed with "wifi smog" people were switching of their routers and phones to protect themselves from this new scourge. It didn't appear to stop them from watching television or listening to the radio, but there you go - science and magic confused or just interchangeable.
Coupled with this angst is another curious condition called Gründlichkeit or thoroughness. Gründlichkeit is just so much part of the German character. Back in Scotland you could read the important parts of the Blue Book tax guide in the bookshop and easily identify any new legal tax avoidance strategies. You couldn't do that with the German Tax Books because there are about 127 of them (the last time I tried to count them). My accountant just photocopies pages out and sticks them in the tax return. You have to pay canal tax but there's no canal and you don't get one either.
In Germany when you change your address, you have to inform the special municipal department -Wohnamtmeldegung- (department of names and addresses)of the change and fill in three forms. A group of students could not understand how this did not exist in Britain or USA. "What's to stop you getting on a plane, flying to the UK, robbing a bank and then flying home?" was their completely serious question and my answer: "Even German bank robbers don't normally use their identity cards or leave a forwarding address during the robbery," leaves them completely unconvinced.
Conversation with Wohnamt Official:
Official:"What is your father's occupation?"
"He's dead, what difference does it make?"
Official:"I have a space in the form for it"
"which job would you like?"
Official:"His last one..."
Official:"What religion are you?"
(proudly) "Agnostic"
Official:"You can have: Catholic, Protestant or atheist."
"But I'm an agnostic"
Official: Ticks 'atheist'
As for thoroughness, Non-German partners are often very surprised when they clean the entire house from top to bottom only to have their partner point out that they forgot the single cup they drank their post cleaning coffee in which is standing on the immaculate sink - dirty. There is no mention of all the good work, because the concept of balancing good things against negative things (one good thing outweighs loads of bad things) is rather specific to English speakers. German anthropology uses the concept of a linear measure of perfection (or distance from it!) and the streets are so clean you could eat your dinner off them. Well, almost but this is the real reason behind this action, more national character than conspiracy.
Germany has these laws and they pale into insignificance compared to the UK's
Because we are all Vulcans!
Spock: Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans.
feel free to label me a leftist-libertarian. If only Karl Marx had spent a little less of his time wandering into tailor's shops enquiring after the prices of cloth...
actually they did. During the "Cultural Revolution" Mao declared birds responsible for crop damage and village cadres were soon fighting over who had exterminated the most birds. The following year and for a quite a few years after that, the crop damage from insects was fairly substantial. They gave that up and took on the challenge of small scale steel production - see previous sentence and replace "exterminated" for "produced" and "birds" for "useless slag". This resulted in no trees, which were used to fuel the smelting operations and virtually no iron pots, tools, utensils or bits off the nearest site of important cultural and scientific interest (easier to melt).
... well everything really.
Other enlightened activities from the People's Paradise included the public humilation and beating of teachers and academics (those well known threats to the very fabric of society) in the streets.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads slashdot that a) the Chinese concept of government is a rather loose term and b) that regular news scraped from msnbc about Bhuddism, the Chinese and er.. religion is somewhat short of the mark as far as news for nerds goes. It should be common knowledge amongst this readership and if not shouldn't you be listening to the Skeptics podcast? http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ or even reading other material?
Oh, and I am surprised at the absence of a surfeit of comments mentioning how all of the vitriol here is counter to almost everything the present Dalai Lama has said on
I can tell you that it won't make any real difference. In fact it is firstly a gift question and secondly a marvellous time-waster that helps avoid more apposite questions. The candidates answer should be "That's a very interesting question and I am glad you asked it." followed by something along the lines of "one of the great priviliges we have as democracy is our freedom of expression".
The great advantage to any candidate of such single issue questions is that they can appear to respect "either side of the debate" (and call it a debate too - introducing an element of uncertaintity) which is a characteristic of leadership and appear to be honest and committed to their beliefs - also a characteristic of leadership.
Single issue questions are always very easy for planners to deal with because they don't challenge the interviewee to respond in a way that will demonstrate decisiveness and leadership.
The political history of the West has always reinforced the generally observed scenario where the ruling political party loses power because they lose the support of a majority of the population. Usually as a direct result of something that directly impacts the voter socially, economically or both. It is therefore incumbent on those who support the party that stands to gain power to do everything they can to promote that positive message. Flogging a dead horse is not politically purposeful and no matter how much you may desire alternatives the very best form of revenge is success.
What voters want is a sense of stability in their lives, so that they can better plan their own individual futures. A better question might be "What direction will your career take when Hilary Clinton becomes the first woman to be President of the United States?
What a concept! Obviously dreamed up by an ad executive. Well it won't make any difference because even though these people drown websites and search engines with drivel I won't be buying or clicking or even looking if it gets past adblock. Come to think of it despite the fact that I watch television, go to the cinema and read magazines and newspapers there are few products advertised that I want. I mean I never want anything promoted by Carol Vodermann but she is never off the screens. Ocean Finance apparently offers the answer to life, the universe and everything in addition to a big house where men fall over scooters - but surprise surprise I'm not buying so I guess that means all those Ocean Finance customers are paying for me to watch Fox News! There's a moral there somewhere.
I am a UK citizen and the last time I counted, I had approximately 72 cousins (Pre-war families were large and post war families weren't much smaller) all of my cousins and their respective parents (my aunts and uncles) have been emailing me to declare their utter outrage at this decision of the BBC.
My children have emailed me, my grandchildren have emailed. My extensive set of nieces and nephews including the German side of my family who have only ever heard of the BBC World Service, have emailed me.
Friends and acquaintances have been emailing me and even a guy I met in the pub in 1994 who lived in the bottle bank with his dog, in Irvine Place emailed me. An elderly woman I once shared a rather amusing conversation about the British Weather, while waiting on the number 55 bus emailed me. All two thirds of my old High School,(approx 2000 people - including cousins) whom I knew well enough to greet by name emailed me. The 162 members of my University computer science course emailed me. The entire fan base of New Youth who are very familiar with me, as the manager who sold them out to the man, emailed me.
All the people who organised the street party for the Royal Wedding in 1981 in my old street, emailed me, they were outraged too.
Not.
I guess they must have all missed it?
Bummer!
We have been through all of this Red Herring before and it won't make any difference. There is no point trying to understand how unimportant this discussion is if you don't understand today's Germany. Germany is the biggest exporting nation on Earth and it is the biggest player in the EU - which is the biggest market on Earth. Post war Germany actively chose the social democrat model for their economy and political system. It has the finest constitution in Europe (modelled on the US but containing substantially more pages!) the welfare state supports everyone and the growing economy provides the work that creates the wealth that pays for all this. It is normal for such a society to create a bunch of laws odd to English speakers - but then my own country doesn't even have a written constitution and our councils tax the individuals home. The present day German is focussed on career, personal improvement and health and very little else.
It is an unusual characteristic of Germany that everyone suffers from angst (fair enough, they invented the word) but the angst is all about really unlikely events (acrylimide in barbeque food causing cancer for example) and yet they throw caution to the winds the moment they get in a car.
This angst condition is so endemic I have christened it "Fright Club". Only a few weeks ago they were obsessed with "wifi smog" people were switching of their routers and phones to protect themselves from this new scourge. It didn't appear to stop them from watching television or listening to the radio, but there you go - science and magic confused or just interchangeable.
Coupled with this angst is another curious condition called Gründlichkeit or thoroughness. Gründlichkeit is just so much part of the German character. Back in Scotland you could read the important parts of the Blue Book tax guide in the bookshop and easily identify any new legal tax avoidance strategies. You couldn't do that with the German Tax Books because there are about 127 of them (the last time I tried to count them). My accountant just photocopies pages out and sticks them in the tax return. You have to pay canal tax but there's no canal and you don't get one either.
In Germany when you change your address, you have to inform the special municipal department -Wohnanmeldegungamt- (department of names and addresses)of the change and fill in three forms. A group of students could not understand how this did not exist in Britain or USA. "What's to stop you getting on a plane, flying to the UK, robbing a bank and then flying home?" was their completely serious question and my answer: "Even German bank robbers don't normally use their identity cards or leave a forwarding address during the robbery," leaves them completely unconvinced.
Conversation with Wohnamt Official:
Official:"What is your father's occupation?"
"He's dead, what difference does it make?"
Official:"I have a space in the form for it"
"which job would you like?"
Official:"His last one..."
Official:"What religion are you?"
(proudly) "Agnostic"
Official:"You can have: Catholic, Protestant or atheist."
"But I'm an agnostic"
Official: Ticks 'atheist'
As for thoroughness, Non-German partners are often very surprised when they clean the entire house from top to bottom only to have their partner point out that they forgot the single cup they drank their post cleaning coffee in which is standing on the immaculate sink - dirty. There is no mention of all the good work, because the concept of balancing good things against negative things (one good thing outweighs loads of bad things) is rather specific to English speakers. German anthropology uses the concept of a linear measure of perfection (or distance from it!) and the streets are so clean you could eat your dinner off them. Well, almost but this is the real reason behind this action, more national character than conspiracy.
Colin normally has only has one 'L'. Adding an extra 'L' is a common mistake made by native German speakers. Since almost 95 per cent of Americans are of German descent one can appreciate how extensive the difference in language is between those who speak English and those who speak US English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin
'Collins' with two 'Ls' is a surname common to Scotland and Ireland. Mr William Collins was a famous Scottish language dictionary publisher (now part of HarperCollins empire) and possibly contributed to the origin of this confusion.
If 'Collin' really was Irish he would be 'Colin'. As to the circumstances surrounding the identity of his father, I shall have to leave that to more informed sources...
It is a fundamental principle of Post-Modernism that all art is replicated. Selling us the same thing over and over again is much more cost-effective than making anything new.
We have already had the remake of Andy Pandy. How long before Muffin the Mule makes a CG comeback? Replicated tasteless remarks may follow.
What if we have exhausted the planet's Narativium supply? Global Boredom will be a frightening reality. Damn you Hollywood. Damn you all to hell! (to be really dadaist I guess I should cut and paste all of that twice - but you get the picture, television is meant to be repetitive.)
Nice One, Squirrel!
and this is why she is so succesful. Books of her peers are far more elaborate in their fantastical worlds - Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials series weilds a grander foil almost the antonym to CS Lewis' Narnia novels while Artemis Fowl is a sort of junior Agatha Christie.
JK has colonised the most obvious of territories - the school and all its works. A school for wizards could not be more distant to the reality of the grinding hell-hole that is school (copyright Bart Simpson) and Buffy has already covered that area to the full.
In many ways JK's fantastic ideas are reminiscent of all those Enid Blyton novels where posh grammar school girls (I suppose I should say "young ladies") would have midnight feasts in their pyjamas and spend the daytime solving mysteries that usually involved at least one foreign national spying, organising elaborate practical jokes, commenting on the differences between classes "Toffs and Toughs" and winning the spelling competition. I should image JK's books will continue to sell, in much the same way that Enid Blyton manages millions of sales per annum even now. Sadly I recall the immense sense of disappointment I felt when I found that her novel "The Naughtiest Girls" failed to live up to any of my childhood expectations.
altruistic ideals (in the main). Young people are very practical when there own self-interest is involved. Students, especially in the USA where, according to Dr Gil Grissom, the degree is worth $1 million and almost costs $1 million, tend to choose course that will provide a cost benefit appropriate to their needs. They need to pass a course and be awarded a degree worth having (in relative terms).
In the past a degree in law was the opportunity to earn high salaries. Now of course there are far too many lawyers and not enough cases to supply them. Science and engineering degrees are not as popular, perhaps because some work involving measurement, assesment and being able to look up a book or a dictionary using all of the letters of the alphabet is a requisite.
Degree courses go through fads, witness the number of marketing graduates in the late 80's early 90's most of whom are not employed with a stone's throw of any marketing activity. Science is presently akin to magic and prospective students are surprised to discover that membership of Slytherin, is not part of the enrolment procedure. Nor are they given a magic wand or a tricorder along with the university calendar. The necessity to provide some evidence of achievement in the form of science papers and test results is a pale shadow to the ease of making an extended exposition on man's obsession with himself in lawyer school. Thank goodness there is no stand alone course concept in Web Design - lecturing staff would be crushed in the stampede as so many students (when asked to express a preference) often suggest that they intend a career in PR (the discipline of mixing a rather tasty Bucks Fizz.) or Web design. When you are paying for your education by working in The Golden Arches or as an exotic dancer, it becomes rather important to you, to choose a career path that you expect to be rewarding, at least in the financial sense if nothing else.
I can quite categorically claim to have had more sex with chicks. Of course then I just had a poxy 386 running that thing wot Alan Sugar invented that looked like Neanderthal OS2. Now with our giant home network of Ubuntu driven master servers, modded Xbox running Xbmc, laptops hooked up on XP, Nintendo DS with it's comic anthropomorphic wifi system, my antique Ipaq x4700 running putty and the giant office Komputor waiting for the first 1 terrabyte raid box to store all our multimedia and, then, there are those clients who expect me to turn in a database within two years deadline. Well... Sheesh, I guess I'll have to leave the country forever too. If there is any correlation between processor power and rumpy-pumpy on this scale I'm going to need heart pills. My wife may wish to comment too!
Now where is that map of Amsterdam?
and found that IE gets 67%, FF gets 22% Opera is at 4.4% and everything else is less than 0-5% (probably our geeky staff using obscure browsers!) So I am guessing that the last time I actually looked at those stats, FF was a lot lower.
feel hungry. I wonder what's in the fridge? Oh, lard! Mmmm!
Is there anything less interesting than a blame list? These culprits in the War On Obesity have merely changed nouns. I remember way back in the early seventies when my then somewhat less than nimble father in law attributed his vast bulk to his big bones. I was more convinced that the real culprits were all of the bones in his right arm and his jaw.
So nothing has changed, the culprits are always outside the remit of human responsibility - whether they are destiny or multinational corporations.
People have a right to choose what to eat. It's up to them to afford it and the responsibility for their weight, their health and anything else of the person - that's theirs too.
All this BS about whatever has nothing to do with anything. Fructose, Schmuctose.
Who are all these food police? People are allowed guns but not corn syrup?
Oh, wait, what's that I see yonder? Not windmills by any chance and fresh for tilting at too.
You know what they'll be cracking down and baccy and beer next. And then, what will we do?
are in 2nd Life. Those who choose to spend their time in the cardboard cut-out of 2ndL are either living with their mom or have never heard of Europe - or both. You don't need to buy a knob here.
Aren't they all just so useful and cigars are so enjoyable, especially those from that island next to G'tmo. American white Marlboro's are so tasty too that when I returned to the UK in 1996 and tasted those disgusting Euro-Cigs - I quit. White US Marlboro's are always appreciated in the UK. Personally I would rather have some snus to deliver my nicotine - just like those health-conscious Swedish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus
SLASHDOT
He told me enough! It was you who killed him.
CLARK FRIES
No. I am your father.
Hey, saw a dude with that Apple sticker on his 15 year old VW Polo the other day. Always wondered where you were supposed to put that, spent a while looking all over an IMac for the space too.
Rule number one: A phone is not an accessory. Don't wear it around your neck or on your belt.
You know I can't remember the last time I had a contract for a mobile phone that didn't offer a cheap upgrade within two years. I just swapped a nokia 6310i for an e65 costing me 130 euros.
It was even cheaper back in the UK but the monthly costs were slightly higher, here my deal is currently 18 euros a month although missus Vorlich's is a wee tad higher than that.
So 600 bucks for a mobile phone, that kills me, that does, you could buy a Xbox 360 and spend a year sending it back to Microsoft for repair and still have enough change to buy a Wii too.
I mean, what does any need a mobile phone for, apart from taking pictures, telling the time, timing things like pasta and rice and getting grocery lists by sms? Oh, yeah people call me about business and it can detect a hidden wifi or a nintendo ds.
Can't wait until Hackaday has something on that.
It's so useful...
Beam me up, Scottie.
The puppies gag always makes me laugh. Seven is such a quality number. I get slash modded ever since I put a rather entertaining quote from the bible in my profile. I guess people are taking it seriously! Funniest part was - I read it first on slashdot.
It would make a damn fine movie as it stands, but perhaps the French would have to do it! Jean-Jacques Beineix or Luc Bresson.
Ringworld was optioned for a movie and - allegedly - by the Sci-Fi channel.
The various screenplay treatments of Ringworld were unadulterated dog food and I don't think the websites that used to have them, exist anymore - probably a good thing.
Tanj!