This certainly isn't a reason to suddenly delete your Dropbox account. Based on the previous actions of Dropbox regarding their TOS, I'm sure they will come out and clearly explain to users exactly why this change was instated and what it means for users, and I honestly doubt it's anything too serious for us to worry about.
What matters is what it says, not how Dropbox spins it. It says pretty clearly that I'm granting them unrestricted rights to do just about anything they want with my content INCLUDING performing it and making derivative works.
What about the language barrier? Is English prominent enough in Amsterdam to easily get through everyday interactions or would you need to learn an entirely new language in order to truly enjoy the city?
If you approach someone in Dutch speaking with a (non-middle eastern) accent, people will switch to English without asking. It's horribly annoying really, learning the language (and thus really picking up the oh so important subtleties in professional and private life) is made really difficult this way.
People often explain it as kindness, but it's really just plain rude laziness: for many Dutch people, speaking slow and clear Dutch requires a lot more energy than upspeed English. Let alone listening to and trying to understand broken Dutch.
I wouldn't call it rudeness, it's more a habit, you might find it rude, but that is your interpretation. Holland is a really small country that survives by trading with other countries. The countries around it are all much bigger and tend to want to speak their own language (German, French, English) so it has become common that the Dutch person adapts instead of forcing the other person to speak Dutch.
Though funnily enough I will (during the summer) quite often get addressed in German when I enter a shop, at which point I haven't even said anything yet nor do I speak German.
I'm sorry if you consider it rude, but have you considered the people you're speaking to may have something better to do than to spend their time teaching you Dutch, or alternatively, may just believe you actually want to discuss the subject at hand rather than practice your Dutch?
If you want people to take the time and trouble to speak Dutch, consider asking them, preferably in a context without time constraints.
yep, the broken-dutch vs clear-english appears to be my experience too - if I'm in the right mood, I'll tease dutch people by speaking full speed english around them when they don't want to speak dutch ;)
I don't really think it's rude. It's sort of the opposite of Japan, where lots of people study English, but are too shy to speak it openly. I'm sure it's more complicated than that in both cases.
Typical anecdote in that respect: we have a German and a Greek developer on our team in Amsterdam. They practice Dutch by speaking it to each other, because everyone else will automatically switch to English.
Amsterdam is absolutely english friendly. I have been living here for more than one year and I still don't know dutch. I know people who have been living here for years without learning the local language.
Everybody everywhere speaks english: shops, public transport, you name it. Even children, since the TV shows are in english with subtitles. Movies at the cinema are not dubbed and have subtitles as well.
As the umpteen other comments say, yes: Amsterdam is extremely English friendly.
That said, outside of Amsterdam, some rudimentary Dutch helps a lot, especially if you're using public transport. Also, even just trying will automatically garner you a little respect with the locals, they're a bit sick of people who don't even try. ;)
You can survive with English in Amsterdam and the Netherlands as well. Children learn english from the age of 9-10, TV programs are typically not dubbed so the odds are that you can have conversations in English with everyone you encounter.
I've never lived in Amsterdam, but I have spent time there as a tourist (and not in the Center, where you expect people to interact with tourists all day long). Everyone spoke excellent English, even older and crustier looking Dutch whose English was obviously rusty.
The only time I needed to use any of the Dutch I had learned before coming was with some immigrants for whom English would be their third language.
The only barrier you will encounter if you actually want to settle there is dealing with paperwork. Companies and official authorities will gladly help you in English, but the paperwork is in Dutch. People often seem to forget the implications of that tiny detail when they move here.
What I've noticed during meetups is that if there is even one non-Dutch speaker in the audience everyone switches to English. Amsterdam is very touristic and I think you won't miss out on anything in Amsterdam without knowing our native language.
This python script is communicating with the bitcoin program (the one available from the bitcoin website which is running in headless mode) via JSON-RPC. It's asking the program which is communicating with all the other nodes for work, performing that work and returning an answer eventually to the bitcoin program which then will propagate it to other nodes. This python script is simply performing the work in python instead of (in parallel?) the bitcoin headless server performing the work.
Essentially, attempting to implement the communication protocol of bitcoin, it's piggy backing off the bitcoin application and just attempting to perform the work. If you've ever looked at the "specification" of the communication protocol you can certainly emphasise going with this route.
