>> For that to be viable it would have to add a real benefit that people would be willing to pay for. does not necessarily mean: >> [I have little hope for a] commercial desktop office that is not Microsoft. Companies…
Because OpenOffice is hugely outdated and gets barely any updates. That's a problem for various reasons: - MS Office compatibility, which Libreoffice invests heavily in. - Security: from what I remember OpenOffice…
Oh come on, let's stop it with the CEO bashing. Especially around he salary. You need a CEO, and Bay Area salaries are high. Just to illustrate the numbers: a fresh graduate with no experience will easily get more than…
Honestly, it varies. Rust seems to have a strong community of voluntary contributors, and could probably be run without company backing. Similar stories if you look at major FOSS projects such as KDE and Gnome -…
When it comes to Mozilla, "community project" is often equivalent to dead project. There are exceptions - Thunderbird appears to be doing OK - but my experience with Mozilla is that community is an afterthought - a…
>> Thank you for being a patron of the Dallas Morning News. Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitors Please learn some basic geography. Norway (and Switzerland) are not in the EU.
That's actually how large parts of Switzerland count their votes. (Some areas count/weigh ballots.) This e-voting system is optional, can't be used for more than 1/3rd of voters in a given district, and is only being…
Using France as a representaiton of Europe isn't really sensible. And Europe as a representation of life outside the US even more so. Travelling to France feels similar to travelling to the US to me. Horrible…
You are completely wrong. Customs officials in most countries do not open packages, they use the customs sticker declared value. (Source: I actually receive international packages regularly. I've had one opened…
You don't need anything near as complex. You just need to give visa-holders (A) job mobility, (B) the right to stay in the country for some amount of time when not employed (this doesn't have to be unlimited...), and…
NIN is rarely used in the UK. You need one for student financing... and later for your employer to correctly relay your taxes to HMRC. Certainly it's not needed for banks/credit cards/phones/brokerages/etc.
Incorrect. You can open accounts as a non-resident. However if you're afflicted with USA citizenship they'll generally tell you to get lost unless you have a lot of money. You will have to pay fees, correct, that's just…
Schwab are great if you only want to keep USD. They're terrible otherwise, including the fact that they charge 1% currency conversion if you send them a non-USD wire. And they're not a bank, meaning your cash isn't…
Maintenance. Some countries invest a lot in active maintenance (Japan, Switzerland), some invest a bit (Germany, UK), some just don't or throw away their money (USA).
India is big enough to do that easily. Other countries with sane laws can also group together to scale. Think banking secrecy, but for cloud data.
Customs agents are supposed to do that. How else do you think smuggling gets stopped? It's pretty much universal that your belongings can be searched (then there are some countries expand that to searching digital data,…
Germany? Switzerland? Both are welfare states (even if not as extreme as some places), and have low unemployment.
So much this. The average Swiss person eats Fondue 1x per year, similarly Raclette.
lol. Ever heard of Singapore? Hong Kong? Switzerland?
Plenty of people earn more than that, that's barely anywhere near the level of a typical software engineer in many locations. And at that point there's a lot of paperwork to correctly attribute the foreign taxes. Even…
Ah, that classic list of countries that only contains USA and Eritrea.
Meanwhile in the developed world: TGV takes 2 hours from Lyon to Paris, google maps claims a car takes 4 hours. The French do like their train strikes though. Maybe let's try Japan. Tokyo to Kyoto: 2.5 hours train, 5…
They always board A380s through multiple doors. But they probably had a flight full of Germans - Americans tend to take a lot longer to get themselves sat down than most Europeans do, and spend a lot more time faffing…
Correct. And they're essentially acting as outward immigration, since the airline's passport records are used to mark the unwanted/foreigners (like me) as departed. But the system is quite flaky, my arrival/departure…
At least they're no longer blocking non-EU European countries (had that issue a few weeks back).
>> For that to be viable it would have to add a real benefit that people would be willing to pay for. does not necessarily mean: >> [I have little hope for a] commercial desktop office that is not Microsoft. Companies…
Because OpenOffice is hugely outdated and gets barely any updates. That's a problem for various reasons: - MS Office compatibility, which Libreoffice invests heavily in. - Security: from what I remember OpenOffice…
Oh come on, let's stop it with the CEO bashing. Especially around he salary. You need a CEO, and Bay Area salaries are high. Just to illustrate the numbers: a fresh graduate with no experience will easily get more than…
Honestly, it varies. Rust seems to have a strong community of voluntary contributors, and could probably be run without company backing. Similar stories if you look at major FOSS projects such as KDE and Gnome -…
When it comes to Mozilla, "community project" is often equivalent to dead project. There are exceptions - Thunderbird appears to be doing OK - but my experience with Mozilla is that community is an afterthought - a…
>> Thank you for being a patron of the Dallas Morning News. Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitors Please learn some basic geography. Norway (and Switzerland) are not in the EU.
That's actually how large parts of Switzerland count their votes. (Some areas count/weigh ballots.) This e-voting system is optional, can't be used for more than 1/3rd of voters in a given district, and is only being…
Using France as a representaiton of Europe isn't really sensible. And Europe as a representation of life outside the US even more so. Travelling to France feels similar to travelling to the US to me. Horrible…
You are completely wrong. Customs officials in most countries do not open packages, they use the customs sticker declared value. (Source: I actually receive international packages regularly. I've had one opened…
You don't need anything near as complex. You just need to give visa-holders (A) job mobility, (B) the right to stay in the country for some amount of time when not employed (this doesn't have to be unlimited...), and…
NIN is rarely used in the UK. You need one for student financing... and later for your employer to correctly relay your taxes to HMRC. Certainly it's not needed for banks/credit cards/phones/brokerages/etc.
Incorrect. You can open accounts as a non-resident. However if you're afflicted with USA citizenship they'll generally tell you to get lost unless you have a lot of money. You will have to pay fees, correct, that's just…
Schwab are great if you only want to keep USD. They're terrible otherwise, including the fact that they charge 1% currency conversion if you send them a non-USD wire. And they're not a bank, meaning your cash isn't…
Maintenance. Some countries invest a lot in active maintenance (Japan, Switzerland), some invest a bit (Germany, UK), some just don't or throw away their money (USA).
India is big enough to do that easily. Other countries with sane laws can also group together to scale. Think banking secrecy, but for cloud data.
Customs agents are supposed to do that. How else do you think smuggling gets stopped? It's pretty much universal that your belongings can be searched (then there are some countries expand that to searching digital data,…
Germany? Switzerland? Both are welfare states (even if not as extreme as some places), and have low unemployment.
So much this. The average Swiss person eats Fondue 1x per year, similarly Raclette.
lol. Ever heard of Singapore? Hong Kong? Switzerland?
Plenty of people earn more than that, that's barely anywhere near the level of a typical software engineer in many locations. And at that point there's a lot of paperwork to correctly attribute the foreign taxes. Even…
Ah, that classic list of countries that only contains USA and Eritrea.
Meanwhile in the developed world: TGV takes 2 hours from Lyon to Paris, google maps claims a car takes 4 hours. The French do like their train strikes though. Maybe let's try Japan. Tokyo to Kyoto: 2.5 hours train, 5…
They always board A380s through multiple doors. But they probably had a flight full of Germans - Americans tend to take a lot longer to get themselves sat down than most Europeans do, and spend a lot more time faffing…
Correct. And they're essentially acting as outward immigration, since the airline's passport records are used to mark the unwanted/foreigners (like me) as departed. But the system is quite flaky, my arrival/departure…
At least they're no longer blocking non-EU European countries (had that issue a few weeks back).