Well, I guess one can get used to ads if you see enough of them.
I, however, didn't: no TV. No Radio. Always, always an Adblocker on the net. German highways: no adverts allowed.

And... why should I allow advertisers space on my monitors? I buy high-res systems because I need that, and see no sense in giving a good part of that away for some stuff aimed at morons...

Well... it's been about 25 years since I heard about the Paperless Office Coming Real Soon. High time we hear about it again.

Look, we don't really *need* all these printouts. But our bosses do. They print out everything, put it in binders, place these in a huge bookshelf, and are happy. When a program is done, they print another copy of all that stuff, and give it to the customer, who's bosses are also happy. Bingo.

Besides... I am officially an Old Fart, and thus use LaTeX to write all letters and reports ;)

Ciao,
Klaus

While I do agree with you, it has certain advantages: when I buy this game for real cheap in two years, my PC is powerful enough to set it to max/max/max.
Then I have a nice game with good graphics for a low price.

What, you think I'd buy a brand-new game? Full of bugs? Idiotic copy protections? Ridiculously high prices? Needing much more CPU/GPU power than my high-end PC offers?
You must be joking.

All it means that there will be even more pirated versions of a 'proper' Windows 7 going around...

> When I spent time in Germany, I noticed that their homes really are quite similar to ours.

They are?

Well, I lived for quite some time in Africa, USA and America.
And the one thing I really noticed was the american housing - you guys use a *lot* of wood, while the europeans use stones or concrete. Stones are quite a bit better in insulation than wood, and insulation as such is a very major thing in Europe, and apparently of no particularly high interest in the USA...

Yes... but as all things these days, profit this quarter is the only thing which matters.

And thus we see horrible data on the so-called safe storage of used rods, a long list of near-accidents in the stations themselves, and several rather nasty accidents, with Chernobyl being just one of them.
Yes, yes, we were told that the chances of such a thing happening are minute. Well, they did happen. And if they happen again (this time in the US), you'll be kinda upset if you have to clear about half of a state, declaring it completely useless for the next few thousand years.

Thinking in a purely profit-orientated way, nuclear power is even more dangerous than before.

Furthermore, the most basic problem is that these nuclear rods are a limited resource. Yes, there are quite a few around, for a while still - but they're limited, like oil. Find something unlimited today, such as sunlight, wind and water movement. Yes, lots more to do, but these are the only definite power-sources for our future.

Well, the americans have always been a little, um, weird about sex.

If your US-version of amazon starts getting all worried about sex information, how about skipping to an european one? For example. the german version (www.amazon.de) also sells english books, and you don't need to know german at all to be able to order it...

(And yes, the english version of "Virtually Normal" showed up on the search)

Hmmm... I don't see your point.
Yes, GWB was the worst president you guys have ever had, but - was his rule incompetent?

Look at the whole thing from his side. Imagine that he couldn't care less about the blindly obedient, nicely patriotic public. What DID he want?
Help out his friends by making them stinking rich? Getting himself stinking rich? Worked great, really well, probably quite a bit better than could be expected.

So... while he appeared to be pretty low-IQ, his whole group made an exceptional amount of money. If you look at the $ per minute earned, it was spectacular.

No true sign of incompetence, just different work than expected by the gullible public.

Or a beheading? After all, when the french revolution was so very busy killing people left, right and center, they found the guillotine to be the most efficient and quick system...

> I'm quite glad, as an European, that the US didn't have the same revenge and hate mindset back after WW2.

Actually, they did.
No, this is not taught in history lessons these days, but back then there were long, serious discussions on what do with the eeeeevil german citizens.
Amongst the (quite seriously discussed) ideas were things like country-wide castration to make sure they died out. Or removing/destroying every and all industry, forbidding their recreation, making sure the entire country turns into farmers.
What saved us in the end was - the industry. Coca Cola and friends simply made sure that this nice, large market was not destroyed.

Don't believe me? Read some Joachim Fernau, he's created some very nice and well-written history books: "Disteln für Hagen", "Rosen für Apoll", "Deutschland, Deutschland... über alles", "Cäsar lässt grüssen", "Goethes letzte Liebe", "Sprechen wir über Preußen", and so on. Sorry, german titles - don't know the english translations.

It was even better for me - "Flash 10 required".

A website which actually refuses to show you absolutely anything unless you have Flash 10. Well done.
At least it made sure I didn't have to see myself how ugly this site is ;)

While I fully agree that we (or rather, you - medicare is rather different and quite a bit more efficient here in Germany) need NICE, I do not quite agree with your point on poor cancer treatment.

See, some people respond to certain cancer treatments better than others - and being promised twice as much life *is* something very valuable.
And, yes, I do know what I'm talking about. In 2003 a diffuse Astrocytoma was found in my brain. I am still alive today, doing very well (no, really), but have suddenly realized that every single day is a gift. Enjoy it. You have a certain number of days, and then you're gone. Do something with them, don't just let them pass in boredom and a bone-standard-every-day-is-the-same kind of life.

Thus: I'd agree to pain if it gave me three more months.

The one I have my hands on right now: 3. Feb. 1989
I have seven of them. One at work, one at home, and the rest as spares, just in case.

Some of my cow-orkers came into my office: "Wow, that keyboard is noisy". "Yes." And that was it.
I tried all kinds of fancy (and quite expensive) keyboards, and I always came back to the M. Thus now I'm sticking with it, and do not wish to try anything else.
I also truly approve the lack of Windoze-keys, which use I have never really understood (instead of merely wasting space on a relatively tight area).

They do have the faint disadvantage that you have to clean them once a year instead of simply throwing them away, but that's kinda worth it ;)

> police can enter the domain without judges under certain circumstances

However, getting a judges permission is absolutely trivial. I read an interesting number as in the percentage of such requests approved by a judge - I do not remember the exact number, but it was over 95%.

From politicians with quotes like "How can we stop people from accessing websites outside of Germany?", what do you expect?

And, no, this wasn't some door watchmen, it was Ms Zypries, one of the (so-called) leaders.