Mr Ceour de Lion II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbLS7QzxEPI

I have to pay into the system here before I can get any benefits, (as I should.) But there is a lot more encouragement to be self reliant than to run to the government for every little problem.

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="Quillan"]All the French routers now have remote diagnostics but they can only connect to their side of your DMZ i.e. they can't see inside your network.[/quote] When I last contacted SFR's helpline, I was told off for having "too many computers" connected, as if that would explain the box constantly turning itself on and off. The unhelpful SFR person could see the MAC addresses of 1 iPad, 1 iPod, 1 Mac and 1 PC, listed as connected to the box. I got a bit shirty with him and asked him if they would make the box constantly turning itself on and off and told him I knew exactly what was connected as I use MAC address filtering. He reset the box to factory default from his end of the line, and I had to re-enter the MAC addresses of all our various devices (12 at the last count!), as well as cancel the pesky public network, which is turned ON by default. That little exercise taught me to export my settings! [Www] [/quote] Too many computers connected??? That's the whole point of them. And 4 devices isn't exactly a lot, is it? Jeez, we have 4 laptops, an ipod, an ipad, a wii, a wii U, and a couple of smart phones regularly connected to our network with no issues whatsoever.

lol that's quite funny. Although I can guess it would have been pretty scary at the time. I'm going to bring that up in class.

I have mentioned in both my history class and my American Government class, that the Americans should be truly grateful for the expense and manpower that went in getting the French out of the northern States (think the French still had much of the Mississippi and Louisiana which the Americans eventually bought from Napoleon later), but they should have been taxed for the bill. And really, I don't get this representation stuff. I have to pay taxes, but I am not represented. After Obama was reelected, the queen should have taken the States back for putting forward two very poor quality candidates to run her colony :) Oh yes, I have a lot of fun with my American friends. I also ask regularly, were the Americans in WW1? When they reply they came in in 1917, I simply say, ah, it was pretty much over by then. And Mel Gibson is a gimp!

I'll have to see if I can find that somehow and download it. Sounds interesting. Just studying about the French revolution at present in college. Damn, that Napoleon was a real git!

All week they've been going on about this storm. Friday comes and I need to go to social security to upgrade my status, and it's closed. No notice, no reason why. People in the car park confused as they had appointments. Can only assume that it was due to the storm. Thing is, the storm never came. We had some snowfall, but it was only a flutter if that. More typical media sensationalism.

[img]https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/66190_4288074489309_136643974_n.jpg[/img]

[quote user="Quillan"][quote user="Mr Ceour de Lion II"]Q, I use Outlook and download all my emails from Gmail, and they are automatically deleted from the server once downloaded to Outlook. [/quote] I thought you had a Apple computer and didn't like MS products? Yes there is a connector for Gmail and Hotmail (which has been replaced by Outlook and will sort of disappear in the middle of this year along with MS Messenger). The connector has to be told to delete the emails on the server. The main point is however that both Gmail and Hotmail are regularly hacked. Of course some ISP's get hacked but not for the information on customers, Orange for instance was hacked in Oct 2012 but that was it's internal servers holding it's employees emails which Nullcrew, the people who did the hacking put online for all to read. [/quote] No, I only use Apple at college. I'd been running Vista for the past 3 years, but now am running Win 8, and I like it a lot. I loved XP, and think this is probably Microsoft's best work since then. But after having experience with my families ipads, ipods and iphones, it's put me right off Apple now. I use an old bag copy of Outlook, and it's about the only major microsoft software I use apart from the OS. I do all my wordprocessing on Adobe InDesign.

Q, I use Outlook and download all my emails from Gmail, and they are automatically deleted from the server once downloaded to Outlook.

I'm enjoying The Following too. Excellent series. The Walking Dead is coming back on next week too, another of my favorites. Check out Once Upon a Time too, it's really good, although series 2 isn't as good as the first.

That's unbelievable. If it was a white doing that to a black, it would have made the news the world over. What is wrong with those people? Clearly they are not human. If that had happened in the US, you could have shot him for what he did. That's an attack and invasion of your space. I hope you get some justice out of this. People make me sick sometimes.

Thanks everyone. It's been tough, but I think it's making me a better person. Certainly made me realize that the only thing you can truly rely on is yourself. All this time I put my faith and investment into other things, and they all failed. The old adage of if you want something done properly, do it yourself is so true. Onwards and upwards, but I'll still stick my head in here from time to time. There's still a lot of France in my heart :)

I had my interview for a green card yesterday. Was very nervous, but the officer in charge of my case said it was one of the best applications she'd ever seen, and better than the applications most lawyers prepare for thousands of dollars. Got me thinking, maybe I should study law... She ended up talking mostly about herself and her family rather than asking us any in depth questions about the validity of our marriage. Ended up being a nice chat rather than an interview. The funny thing is that she is an immigrant herself, and looking at her name, I imagine she was from Russia. But it's all done and dusted, I can finally relax and get on with living life. I can now look for work, get a full social security card, and open proper bank accounts and so on. We're very happy, it's been a long 3.5 years to get both our lives back together after our respective divorces, but the tough times are the times when you grow as a person. I'm more determined and focused than I've ever been in my life and am now looking for my own American dream. Opportunities are there, even in these tough economic times. I intend finding them for mine and my families sake. Life is good :)

I used to work here. http://www.rhdr.org.uk/ We even had a dwarf who drove one of the engines. He was the perfect scale.

But it's the developing world and third world that is having the population explosions. The western world is actually breaking even or decreasing its population. These developing and third world nations barely have control as it is without adding the extra burden of population control in the mix too. And who has the right to say a couple can only have so many kids anyway? And what if that couple divorce and have new partners? How many kids can they have?

[quote user="Chancer"][quote user="Mr Ceour de Lion II"]Ever see the movie Idiocracy? [/quote] Only very recently Richard and I can tell you it shook me to the core, it reminded me so much of the populace around me, many many times during the film I saw scenes that I have experienced personally, the disbelief and incomprehension shown to the slightest sign of intelligence, treating politeness and/or correct speech with utter disdain and concluding that the person must therefore be gay spring to mind but there were many others. On a more global basis I could definitely identify with the mediatisation of mediocracy, idiocracy and celebrity. It should be required viewing for anyone considering starting a family but then its all about those that dont give the subject a moments consideration any more than they give for others. How many years ago was it written because it was frighteningly believable. P.S Due to the snow and panic buying there were near riots at Lidl today as they had run out of Freeway Cola (think Gatorade!) [/quote] I think it's about 7 or so years old, but you can see society moving that way. At least a great deal of it anyway, as thankfully there's still many intelligent people about. I posted something on facebook the other day about when you say thank you to someone, the popular comeback is 'uh-huh'. What happened to your welcome (or my personal favorite, no worries)? A couple of grunts is very ignorant, and treats the other person with feelings of contempt. Thankfully, most of the responses were in agreement, but there were a couple accusing me of being old fashioned. I like being old fashioned.

The problem with overpopulation isn't that the planet is going to be unsustainable, it's where that over population occurs. In the US for example, take away immigration, the actual population size of the natives is decreasing. More people are dieing than being born, so to take away people's freedoms and rights and limit them to a maximum of 2 children is pointless. I think even the Chinese are coming round and becoming more lenient on this. Most of the west is similar, fewer people are having so many children, but you go to developing countries and third world countries (India a classic example), they are the ones with multiple births for several reasons. One because mortality is high, secondly because there is little education about sex and pregnancy prevention. So one way to control population is through education, and the developing countries will eventually catch up and eventually the populations there will start to decrease. Ultimately, what you will end up seeing is nature coming into play. Shortage of food is only one part of the problem, as war, lack of sanitation, healthcare, quality of life and so on will also come into play and nature will take its course there. There will probably be new wars where nations fight over water supplies too, one nation cutting off rivers that flow into neighbouring nations. It's because of this, I don't see the planet ever being dramatically over populated. Nature will take over and cull.

Yeah, something like that. Ever see the movie Idiocracy?

Every dominant creature to set foot on this planet changes the climate somehow. Yeah, the climate is changing, some species will die out (as they always have done before), and new ones will evolve to be able to survive the next climate. I seriously doubt that mankind has been able to influence the planet that greatly in the tiny amount of time that he's existed here. And the planet has always been changing. It's a dynamic ecosystem. It will survive, but it will be different.

I think you're saying what I tried to say Q, just be real and be yourself, and whatever happens, happens.

I've never understood this concept. I've always gone along with if you like certain people, you spend time with them. If you don't, you don't. Doesn't matter what nationality you are, you get tossers and great people in every culture. As for integration, I don't really know what that means either. I don't really believe anyone is ever fully integrated into a foreign society, there will always be your own specific background and experiences that make you different. I will never be fully integrated into American society, as much as I never was fully integrated into Australian or French society before. There is just so much that exists in me that makes me different from the natives. I will of course try to abide by their laws and customs as much as I can, but there will always be something that makes me different. I don't mean it in a snobbish way, but basically the way I was brought up in England is always going to be different to the way people in America are brought up. Hope you can understand what I'm saying. Personally, I feel very unique as I feel I don't belong to any country now. I've become a mixture of different nationalities :)

Wonder why it would wreck one of the men's relationships? It can't be very stable if something he did in the past can affect it. Unless he was with his current partner while sowing his seeds elsewhere of course.

[quote user="idun"]Mozman, remember that unless you are retired, then you could lose your right to NHS hospital care if you are out of the UK for more than 90 days a year. I realise that GP's remain available, but last time I was at hospital there was a notice up about this. I agree about it being hard to run a business in France. Artisans for example are hit hard, and when I questioned their prices when I first moved to France, was, to my surprise, told how much they had to pay in social charges. Same for the big employers too, their costs are enormous, no wonder salaries remain so low. [/quote] Even if he is running a business in the UK, paying his taxes etc then surely he would still have the right to remain in the NHS considering he's paying for it? I don't know the rules on this, but that would be nuts if he wasn't allowed to remain in it.

As Deperdieu put it, the hundreds of thousands of euros of tax he (and the rich) has already put into the French economy isn't enough? He must pay more? Hollande must have been very short sighted not to have seen that. That's extremely poor and deluded leadership imo.