Because Romania tends to have really good software developers that chose to go work abroad despite a lot of international corporations being present in the country and offering competitive prices.

It's a measure taken to increase growth in the local tech sector and improve the overall place Romania holds in the European tech area (a lot of awesome work is being done at Adobe Romania for example, which is an amazing story as they have started as their own company, then got a contract working with Adobe, and then got bought by them but still do their own research and development).

It's extremely similar to the grants the UK is giving to game and software developers (be they individuals or companies), only instead of paying actual money they chose to not tax it.

So, let's assume the pay and benefits are actually commensurate:
1) It's clearly not working all that well
2) It's intrinsically unfair as all hell... seriously, doesn't everyone hate the fuck out of people who don't pay taxes and earn a high income... oh fuck wait, I'm from the US, I guess they don't...

It actually is working well as long as you meet their fucked up and not clearly stated criteria (basically as long as you finish university in the country and work in the country).

If you want something that's really not working here's one for you: companies (no matter the field) are obligated under law to increase your wage after you graduate if you're working in the field you've graduated on (so if you grad in IT and work in IT you'll have a higher salary than if you're working in advertising); the only catch is that your job description must be a perfect match with the specialization you finished in order for that to apply: so if you finish an electronics and telecommunications course (which still counts as IT), but work as a programmer (which still counts as IT), you won't get the automatic raise once you graduate.

They don't really hate them because there are other people who earn a metric shit ton more but scam the system and don't pay taxes. That and people who are (really) smart tend to be respected. There are a few other jobs that don't have income tax AFAIK, but couldn't name them on the top of my head.

As for it being unfair, I can see how that might be seen as so, but would you rather have that person work abroad and not give anything back to the state/country or stay here and still pay health insurance and give money to the national pension fond (both of them which cover all people in Romania)?

The benefit to the state (and the rest of the population) is higher if those individuals chose to stay in-country and pay the rest of the taxes, as well as keep international companies interested in having a regional presence which means more jobs available for people.

Yeah with the broken down car I had to stay almost two weeks at my gf's place without a chance to reach my own flat. Of course on the first day of my leave the postman apparently didn't reach me at home to deliver some package. I don't even know what package this would have been but after 7 days at the post office it was returned to the sender again... I remember ordering some hard copies of the whole introversion catalog a few weeks ago. So chances are my games have been returned to someone in the UK. I guess I won't be hearing about them anymore... OTOH I got digital downloads too, so not all the money was wasted.

* angry *

I was called a scammer just because i offered Steam keys on the Steam forum .
I was called a scammer just because i didn't want to send the keys ( yes , someone wanted to ask about 6 ) first .

1, Tele van a tököm egyes felhasználókkal .
2, Úgy érzem , hogy már a GOG fórumon sem bíznak meg bennem annyira mint régen . :( Ezért lépek le egy időre .

Kellemetlenül hangzik, az biztos. Viszont szerintem mindenhol vannak idegesítő felhasználók, itt az átlaghoz képest meg kifejezetten kevés tűnt fel nekem.
A bizalom hiánya meg meglepő, főleg a repedet nézve. :\

Ha viszont tényleg lelépsz, várlak (és ez szerintem nyugodtan mehetne többesszámban is) vissza. :>

Starting to feel really burned out by gaming and everything computer related these days. What once was fun, nowadays feels like work and too much to think about. Updating / managing the machines at home and my dad's work place don't really feel rewarding right now, instead I am very bored by that.

Gaming doesn't feel that much fun anymore either, unless I'm playing competitively against someone I know, or with someone I know. My backlog is still, haven't bought a game in a long time, except for D3, which also starts to bore me from time to time (playing on Nightmare difficulty).

Maybe it is the hot weather, and me finally having some time off from university (I graduate next month), but I feel really bored / burned out. I think I need a few days off, away from technology, with a clear mind to decide whether I want to pursuit a career in software development or music production.

TBH, I also feel really pressured, my dad always puts in face the money I've been spending, even though I try to buy only the things to survive (haven't bought new clothes more than a year now because of the crap I have to put up with every day), and my girl has 3 more years in university, yet I want to leave the country as soon as possible, but don't want to leave her. She hasn't put any thought in leaving, I know that she wants to first finish university and then leave... but, what am I supposed to do these three years!? :/

Oh, and we're supposed to go on vacation together this summer, I honestly have no idea whether I will have the money, considering that there are so many expenses that I need to cover first, and I know my family will bitch heavily about the whole situation.

EDIT: At least I am not starving, some people are in worse crap than me.

Dude, what do you expect? You were at the Steam forums. You will never find a more wretched hive of trolls and idiots. You must be cautious there.

Stupid NTFS (or Win32 API) 259-character path length limitation. Why can't Windows be more like Linux/Unix, ie. good?

after the washing machine broke down,
the dryer broke down,
the other washing machine broke down,
the car broke down...

what breaks down next? the f'**in coffee machine... I don't really care any more. I know there is no appeal for vendors to create durable stuff. They don't care for the inconveniences they impose on their customers as long as we keep replacing all the broken stuff... I remember times where one would repair stuff that is broken. Not so much any more i fear...

Actually you can go up to 32,767 characters (which is AFAIK more than *nix) as long as you're using the UNC name. See here for more information.

But in practice that's not what happens, you try and expand a deep archive on your desktop and it fails. It's lame and was a constant annoyance for years...
I know you might not want to hear this but:

When my washing machine broke down it was the coupler (and this is the most common thing to go providing you didn't burn up the motor), the part is 20 dollars and a moron could do it with any half decent pair of pliers. I know because I did it, even found pictures on the internet of how to remove the outer parts of my machine (seriously my exact model).

The dryer, can't help you, but they're really simple inside, if you didn't burn up the motor you should be able to fix it (you probably could switch to motor too, it's just so expensive it might not be worth it).

Other washing machine: ditto.

The car, eh, it's weird in America we usually have places we can work on our own cars and Hayne's manuals are 20 bucks, parts stores are common and the staff knows what they're talking about. You really can do repairs yourself, it'll take you five to ten times as long as a guy with a shop, if you know very little, but you can do it for the price of a manual, wrench set, and parts. I can see that not being the case in lots of places over there. Still, some repairs are cheap and most people actually don't do the maintenance they should on their cars, therefor when shit breaks it's unexpected, whereas if you do your maintenance the chance you'll suddenly need a tow for a snapped belt is low. So, basically, do your maintenance, if you don't know what it is check with a dealer or a trusted mechanic, they'll tell you everything your car needs and how soon it must be done. Do safety issues NOW, everything else can wait a month or two for saving.

My coffee machine is a Cuisinart, it was 100 USD, but it won't break (though some hoses and filters need replacing every so often) and if it does, Cuisinart has got my back. The same goes for a lot of appliances, or even shoes, if you buy good stuff, it costs more in the beginning but lasts, should it not last the company will make it right at as low a cost as they can manage.

Sorry for the diatribe, I do take issue with the idea that no one makes anything to last, some companies do, and what's more most people can afford products from said companies most of the time. For the rest repairs are possible some of the time. You also feel really good when you repair something yourself.

I agree that it sucks, but that's really the developers fault; if they don't give enough of a fuck to properly code their application, especially in certain cases (archiving software, backups, scanning, recovery etc.) then yes, it'll break.

I mean, most users will never in their lifetime encounter that problem, and there is already a way around it.

The washing machines and dryers were made by who?