That underwear bomber was a failure not only from Schiphol.
It was a transit passenger; so cleared another airport's security already. Fail.
His father notified the US security forces about this man, but this warning was completely ignored. This point I consider the worst fail even in this case. When a person arrives at an airport armed with a hidden bomb intent to blow up a plane, especially when there are people that know about his twisted mind and warned authorities about it, then something went wrong already. Secondly he should never have been allowed on that plane without extra checking, being such a clear and known security risk. His father even warned about it! Not just some random person, but a direct family member. That's worth a serious red flag at least.
Myself I've been thinking of another leak in the Schiphol model: it seems quite easy to me to get liquid explosives on board through that airport. Here's how.
Step 1. Take your liquids in a check-in bag, take them with you while you check in and clear immigration (or just ID check for Schengen area flights).
Step 2. Buy some tax-free alcohol, 1l bottles or bigger, whatever available and convenient. They have to be sealed in a plastic bag of course! But that isn't going to stop a determined criminal. They come prepared.
Step 3. Go to a toilet, there open those just purchased bottles of liquor, empty them, put your own liquid in it, close the bottle, and re-seal. It's of course a no-brainer to prepare some identical seal bags before going to the airport!
Step 4. Walk with those bottles of contraband, nicely sealed in official airport seal bags, shop receipt in hand, to the gate.
Step 5. Board plane.
Step 6. Kaboom!
This will work great unless they have scanners at the gate that not only see the outline of the goods in a bag (and those bottles of course are not suspected as they are a normal purchase, sealed, etc), but also check for the actual content of those bottles. But then if they were checking for actual content, the whole no-liquid rule would become moot.
Getting a job in the restricted area makes it only easier indeed. Direct access to those sealable bags, plenty of goods transported in every day (presumably less thoroughly checked than passengers), and all the time over to check stuff out because when working there you belong there. Passengers are not supposed to be in the terminal for longer than a few hours, and definitely not day in day out.
Anyway to come back to Schiphol airport, that belongs to the larger airports in the world, with around 100 gates, something like that. Can't be bothered to look up the numbers. It's big. And yet indeed the security is at the gate only. They have those naked scanners, but not sure whether it's at all gates or just some.
When flying with my then-1-year-old, I got an extra seatbelt on the plane that connected to my own seatbelt. During take-off and landing I had to hold him on my lap, strapped to that belt.
In case of turbulence there are two scenarios: the first is unexpected severe turbulence where everyone and everything starts flying around the cabin; the second is expected and announced turbulence where you have time to prepare and strap the child in as well.
In other words, it's not more dangerous for an infant to not have their own seat; and you probably never have been flying with an infant.
In Schiphol, Amsterdam airport, the final screening (metal detector etc) was done at the gate. That airport has a shared area for both incoming and outgoing passengers. So also transit passengers.
Having airliners themselves do the screening becomes fairly easy to organise with such a layout.
While scalable from a computing pov (data exchange, addressing, whatnot) I can imagine that it's not scalable from a physical pov: power supply, size, heat dissipation, and getting your signals to and from the chip over longer and longer distances.
The last part is getting an issue already due to the long cable problem: at 3 GHz, a signal travels only about 10 cm before the next signal is produced. One core communicating with another over a distance of just 5 cm would have the problem that the data from one core arrives only halfway the cycle to the next core.
No I didn't read this WP article but I did just use the card on my way to work. I read the daily newspaper, more info than a WP article will ever give you.
I don't have my personal details registered - so they can not sell mine. The issue you mention is exactly why. This has happened now; it cost the chief of Octopus her job immediately, and has resulted in proposals (likely to become law) on stricter laws on privacy protection; potentially even stricter than those found in Europe.
The EPS issue - that's a stranger one. For some reason indeed it was found that users tried to charge up their cards, but that the money was not added to their card but deducted from their bank account still. They checked for the last seven years (the period records are kept), and it apparently happened more, and affected card holders have been refunded. Very likely the problem is even older. I don't understand this: I would think people would notice soon enough. One or two may miss it once but not so long term. Most people will top up their cards when (almost) empty - so you will know when a transaction went wrong, and it's not hard to realise that you have a deduction from your bank while your card failed to recharge. So what's really going on there, I don't know. Since then the EPS recharge function has been disabled and I believe still so (I always go to a convenience store to recharge).
It's not perfect, but I've never encountered a better system so far. It's really not going to do away with cash (I can't pay my cleaner by octopus, for example), but for many small transactions it's very useful. Even for visitors, as anyone can go and get a card. Anonymously.
Hong Kong solved that very much with the Octopus card (see this wikipedia page). An electronic contact less card, designed originally for payment of train rides (typical fees USD 0,30-2,00), later expanded to buses (similar fees). Currently accepted as well in convenience stores, super markets, car parks, vending machines, fast-food restaurants, etc. And transactions are usually small. Taxis still not, unfortunately. This due to practical, not technical problems as vehicles are usually shared between two or more drivers.
It's fast, convenient, and (unless you register with Octopus) anonymous: it's a stored value card. As such it takes up the payment amounts under the credit/debit card minimum.
The typical problem of lawyers working on "no cure, no pay" basis. It is very close to police officers being allowed to keep (part of) the fines they hand out to people. They lose their integrity.
Lawyers have a very bad name on/., I believe that has a lot to do with those stupid lawsuits in the US, typical medical related (person is doing something stupid, gets hurt, sues maker, gets awards, and now irons come with warnings like "do not iron clothes while taking a bath"). Suits that are primarily started by "no cure no pay" type lawyers.
In many country that whole practice is outlawed, for good reason. Lawyers have an important role to fulfil in our society, but those kind of actions gives them a very bad name.
Yes, China is still a disaster in that respect. But it's not a dictatorship: there is no single dictator in power, they have a premier and president that rotate regularly. Indeed no democratic elections or anything, but still not really a dictatorship.
Mainland politicians do know that they have to change, though. But it's hard to do it "orderly and gradually" as they like to call it. You see it in the tiny RMB/USD rate changes. You see it in the bits and pieces of RMB accounts in Hong Kong. They try to open up. And a moment later they put some dissident in jail again.
We geeks know that it will be Android due to its open source nature
That's what you "geeks" kept saying about Linux on the desktop. Never happened.
OK I shouldn't have said "source" there.
At the moment the only two serious smart-phone OSes are iOS and Android. iOS is available on the iPhone. Android is available on the rest. Unless Apple can dominate the mobile phone market as they dominate the music player market, Android will have more devices out there. Android is open: any mobile phone maker can take it and use it. Little restriction.
Thinking of the desktop, Windows vs. Mac OS: same point. OS/2 was the only serious contender, until MS killed it off in favour of Win 95. Mac OS, currently OS-X, is for Apple hardware only. Windows can be taken by any desktop computer maker, and installed on it. Yes a license fee has to be paid, but MS will sell a license to anyone willing to pay. And now they have so much critical mass on the desktop that it's really hard for newcomers to break in.
On average people buy a new phone every six months (and no I don't make up that number, it's widely reported in the newspapers and other sources)
That's wrong. It's never been less than a year, because so many people swap phones at the end of contract periods, and they are almost always a year or longer. Google quickly shows US average replacement time is 20.5 months, and globally as 14 months.
OK Hong Kong may not be representative... here it's something like a six-month cycle. Japan is not far behind. And the US is still pretty much a mobile backwater with limited options, and phones linked to specific carriers and so restricting choice even further.
I replied, so that perhaps your eyes (and your fellow country men & women) are opened, and you don't believe the propaganda,
I live in the place; am not a native; and am like many around me highly critical of both the Hong Kong and central government.
corruption *perception* not sure how it's measured, but I presume it's not the same as actual corruption rates,
Agreed. However Hong Kong is worldwide considered as a really clean city when it comes to corruption; largely thanks to the great work done by the ICAC.
How does Hong Kong rank for democratically elected government, how does it rank in freedom of speech, freedom of press?, civil liberty?
Press freedom, as I wrote already, is nr 34 in the world. Not great, but not bad at all too. And it's defended vigorously. I have yet to hear about someone put behind bars for saying something the government doesn't like. And I hear so often the government complaining about criticism by the press - not that they dare to do anything about it, it does indicate the press is doing their job.
And for democracy: half of legco is now democratically elected, that must improve. But with the freedom of protest people power works: serious discontent and the 2003 pro-democracy march is what toppled the then-CE Tung Che-Hwa. That was a major embarrassment for the central government but they had no choice. So maybe not direct elections, the people have a voice and it's listened to. Soap-box democracy you could call it.
1) it is written in the Basic Law (called a mini-constitution) that Hong Kong will move to direct election of the Chief Executive (head of the SAR government) and legislative council (think UK lower house). That was a "parting gift" of the colonial government, making it a legal requirement.
2) the discussion is going on, and constitutional reform is taking place, albeit slowly. Talk is now for 2017/2020 to have direct elections.
3) Hong Kong can keep it's capitalist system for 50 years from the 1997 handover, after which it will fully become part of China.
On the last point, many people say that this is to allow China to catch up with Hong Kong, not the other way around. It's also in China's interest to allow Hong Kong to develop towards democracy: they need Hong Kong badly economically (payments for China trade largely involve Hong Kong banks), and Hong Kong this way can act as "testing ground" for democracy in China.
Children are being taught Mandarin in schools, just like they learn English (and that's a good thing of course, both languages are important). The main language however remains Cantonese - if schools were to switch teaching language then English is the more likely candidate. Not Mandarin. There are already lots of international schools teaching in English, very few schools are teaching in Mandarin.
Hong Kong may be a lot like Shanghai in 10, 20 years from now - they have a lot in common already (high rises, traffic jams, air pollution). But that will be mainly Shanghai catching up with Hong Kong. And as long as the RMB is not going to be freely convertible (which is presumably a long long time off), Shanghai as an international financial centre is just not going to happen. Besides, Shanghai may have the hardware, they miss the software: strong and stable banking organisations, little corruption, strong rule of law, transparent government, experienced bankers/lawyers/economists, etc. It just isn't there to the level it's in Hong Kong already.
Sorry previous one went wrong; now with paragraph breaks!
Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place.
If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country.
Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8).
It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171).
It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US.
Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.
Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place.
If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country.
Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8).
It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171).
It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US.
Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.
Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place.
If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country.
Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8).
It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171).
It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US.
Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.
Welcome to the free world - over here (Hong Kong) we have plans, usually no contracts. Discounts on phones (for those who opt for it) are given in the form of pre-payment and discount later on your monthly bills.
Phones and plans are not much related. Sim cards are freely exchangeable, and you can switch easily between carriers (it takes only a few days to port over your number).
And yes Hong Kong people are known to buy, on average, a new phone every six months. Crazy I agree, but that's the reality. After all, you don't want to be seen with the previous generation iPhone, do you?
Who cares, really, whether a phone is running Android or iOS or Symbian or Wee-Go or whatever embedded OS?
The underlying OS is irrelevant.
It's the user interface that counts. That and only that. The underlying OS just has to be good enough, that's all. That's what made Windows win over other OSes. And that's what's making iOS so popular at the moment in the phone world.
Most people don't care which OS it's really running. They care what you can do with it, and how easy this can be done. That's it, and that's all about it.
In case of phones the underlying hardware even doesn't matter much any more, except maybe for the screen (integral to the user interface of course). Current phones are mainly using ARM based processors, but for the end user it could have been anything. It could have been an Intel or AMD as far as they are concerned. Oh well they'd complain about battery life probably. And for the rest buyers tend to look at stuff like built-in bluetooth, GPS, camera - those parts "are there" or "are not there", no-one knows or really cares about the maker of those parts, as long as it works.
And as soon as a phone builder comes out with a phone that looks at least as good as an iPhone, that has a user interface that is more responsive and easier to use, then they may eat the iPhone's lunch. And that's got nothing to do with which OS they're running from the user's pov. We geeks know that it will be Android due to its open source nature, but there may be other candidates out there as well.
And Apple had better be careful not to get too arrogant. They're now on top of the game, but the mobile phone market is moving way faster than the personal computer market. On average people buy a new phone every six months (and no I don't make up that number, it's widely reported in the newspapers and other sources), and they expect to find interesting new models by then, while a personal computer or laptop is replaced only every three years or so, and even then buyers are mainly looking at hardware specs over software features.
And referring to all those job ads asking for more years of experience in a certain tech than that the tech is around. This has been featured several times here.
I bet experience is the key here. Only candidates with at least 8 years experience in managing cloud computing in a virtualised environment will be considered.
And don't forget to list your four years experience with administering Windows 7.
Get the Apple Peel for the iPod Touch and it's a mobile phone too. GPS not sure though.
Disussion all in all is interesting. I bought myself an LG smart phone the other day... use it as camera, GPS, etc - but not the phone. I haven't put the SIM of my main number in that phone yet. It's in an older SonyEricsson, much easier to make phone calls. That stupid smartphone needs a few clicks just to get to the dialer:( haven't figured out how to change the menus yet, should be possible! Right away get rid of those Google Mail icons on the main screen and so.
Reading the font is also made easier by virtue of it being a text many of us would recognize.
From other comments I understand this is the US declaration of independence - which maybe a large fraction of US born and educated people would recognise, but most of the rest of the world not. I'm one of those. It being such a text makes it only harder to read for me, not easier.
It does give a new dimension to "the fine print" though...
Slashdot Mirror
That underwear bomber was a failure not only from Schiphol.
It was a transit passenger; so cleared another airport's security already. Fail.
His father notified the US security forces about this man, but this warning was completely ignored. This point I consider the worst fail even in this case. When a person arrives at an airport armed with a hidden bomb intent to blow up a plane, especially when there are people that know about his twisted mind and warned authorities about it, then something went wrong already. Secondly he should never have been allowed on that plane without extra checking, being such a clear and known security risk. His father even warned about it! Not just some random person, but a direct family member. That's worth a serious red flag at least.
You just give another gaping security leak.
Myself I've been thinking of another leak in the Schiphol model: it seems quite easy to me to get liquid explosives on board through that airport. Here's how.
Step 1. Take your liquids in a check-in bag, take them with you while you check in and clear immigration (or just ID check for Schengen area flights).
Step 2. Buy some tax-free alcohol, 1l bottles or bigger, whatever available and convenient. They have to be sealed in a plastic bag of course! But that isn't going to stop a determined criminal. They come prepared.
Step 3. Go to a toilet, there open those just purchased bottles of liquor, empty them, put your own liquid in it, close the bottle, and re-seal. It's of course a no-brainer to prepare some identical seal bags before going to the airport!
Step 4. Walk with those bottles of contraband, nicely sealed in official airport seal bags, shop receipt in hand, to the gate.
Step 5. Board plane.
Step 6. Kaboom!
This will work great unless they have scanners at the gate that not only see the outline of the goods in a bag (and those bottles of course are not suspected as they are a normal purchase, sealed, etc), but also check for the actual content of those bottles. But then if they were checking for actual content, the whole no-liquid rule would become moot.
Getting a job in the restricted area makes it only easier indeed. Direct access to those sealable bags, plenty of goods transported in every day (presumably less thoroughly checked than passengers), and all the time over to check stuff out because when working there you belong there. Passengers are not supposed to be in the terminal for longer than a few hours, and definitely not day in day out.
Anyway to come back to Schiphol airport, that belongs to the larger airports in the world, with around 100 gates, something like that. Can't be bothered to look up the numbers. It's big. And yet indeed the security is at the gate only. They have those naked scanners, but not sure whether it's at all gates or just some.
When flying with my then-1-year-old, I got an extra seatbelt on the plane that connected to my own seatbelt. During take-off and landing I had to hold him on my lap, strapped to that belt.
In case of turbulence there are two scenarios: the first is unexpected severe turbulence where everyone and everything starts flying around the cabin; the second is expected and announced turbulence where you have time to prepare and strap the child in as well.
In other words, it's not more dangerous for an infant to not have their own seat; and you probably never have been flying with an infant.
In Schiphol, Amsterdam airport, the final screening (metal detector etc) was done at the gate. That airport has a shared area for both incoming and outgoing passengers. So also transit passengers.
Having airliners themselves do the screening becomes fairly easy to organise with such a layout.
While scalable from a computing pov (data exchange, addressing, whatnot) I can imagine that it's not scalable from a physical pov: power supply, size, heat dissipation, and getting your signals to and from the chip over longer and longer distances.
The last part is getting an issue already due to the long cable problem: at 3 GHz, a signal travels only about 10 cm before the next signal is produced. One core communicating with another over a distance of just 5 cm would have the problem that the data from one core arrives only halfway the cycle to the next core.
No I didn't read this WP article but I did just use the card on my way to work. I read the daily newspaper, more info than a WP article will ever give you.
I don't have my personal details registered - so they can not sell mine. The issue you mention is exactly why. This has happened now; it cost the chief of Octopus her job immediately, and has resulted in proposals (likely to become law) on stricter laws on privacy protection; potentially even stricter than those found in Europe.
The EPS issue - that's a stranger one. For some reason indeed it was found that users tried to charge up their cards, but that the money was not added to their card but deducted from their bank account still. They checked for the last seven years (the period records are kept), and it apparently happened more, and affected card holders have been refunded. Very likely the problem is even older. I don't understand this: I would think people would notice soon enough. One or two may miss it once but not so long term. Most people will top up their cards when (almost) empty - so you will know when a transaction went wrong, and it's not hard to realise that you have a deduction from your bank while your card failed to recharge. So what's really going on there, I don't know. Since then the EPS recharge function has been disabled and I believe still so (I always go to a convenience store to recharge).
It's not perfect, but I've never encountered a better system so far. It's really not going to do away with cash (I can't pay my cleaner by octopus, for example), but for many small transactions it's very useful. Even for visitors, as anyone can go and get a card. Anonymously.
Hong Kong solved that very much with the Octopus card (see this wikipedia page). An electronic contact less card, designed originally for payment of train rides (typical fees USD 0,30-2,00), later expanded to buses (similar fees). Currently accepted as well in convenience stores, super markets, car parks, vending machines, fast-food restaurants, etc. And transactions are usually small. Taxis still not, unfortunately. This due to practical, not technical problems as vehicles are usually shared between two or more drivers.
It's fast, convenient, and (unless you register with Octopus) anonymous: it's a stored value card. As such it takes up the payment amounts under the credit/debit card minimum.
The loser pays winners fees is not a given: that's in most if not all jurisdictions on a case by case basis.
The typical problem of lawyers working on "no cure, no pay" basis. It is very close to police officers being allowed to keep (part of) the fines they hand out to people. They lose their integrity.
Lawyers have a very bad name on /., I believe that has a lot to do with those stupid lawsuits in the US, typical medical related (person is doing something stupid, gets hurt, sues maker, gets awards, and now irons come with warnings like "do not iron clothes while taking a bath"). Suits that are primarily started by "no cure no pay" type lawyers.
In many country that whole practice is outlawed, for good reason. Lawyers have an important role to fulfil in our society, but those kind of actions gives them a very bad name.
Yes, China is still a disaster in that respect. But it's not a dictatorship: there is no single dictator in power, they have a premier and president that rotate regularly. Indeed no democratic elections or anything, but still not really a dictatorship.
Mainland politicians do know that they have to change, though. But it's hard to do it "orderly and gradually" as they like to call it. You see it in the tiny RMB/USD rate changes. You see it in the bits and pieces of RMB accounts in Hong Kong. They try to open up. And a moment later they put some dissident in jail again.
That's what you "geeks" kept saying about Linux on the desktop. Never happened.
OK I shouldn't have said "source" there.
At the moment the only two serious smart-phone OSes are iOS and Android. iOS is available on the iPhone. Android is available on the rest. Unless Apple can dominate the mobile phone market as they dominate the music player market, Android will have more devices out there. Android is open: any mobile phone maker can take it and use it. Little restriction.
Thinking of the desktop, Windows vs. Mac OS: same point. OS/2 was the only serious contender, until MS killed it off in favour of Win 95. Mac OS, currently OS-X, is for Apple hardware only. Windows can be taken by any desktop computer maker, and installed on it. Yes a license fee has to be paid, but MS will sell a license to anyone willing to pay. And now they have so much critical mass on the desktop that it's really hard for newcomers to break in.
That's wrong. It's never been less than a year, because so many people swap phones at the end of contract periods, and they are almost always a year or longer. Google quickly shows US average replacement time is 20.5 months, and globally as 14 months.
OK Hong Kong may not be representative... here it's something like a six-month cycle. Japan is not far behind. And the US is still pretty much a mobile backwater with limited options, and phones linked to specific carriers and so restricting choice even further.
I replied, so that perhaps your eyes (and your fellow country men & women) are opened, and you don't believe the propaganda,
I live in the place; am not a native; and am like many around me highly critical of both the Hong Kong and central government.
corruption *perception* not sure how it's measured, but I presume it's not the same as actual corruption rates,
Agreed. However Hong Kong is worldwide considered as a really clean city when it comes to corruption; largely thanks to the great work done by the ICAC.
How does Hong Kong rank for democratically elected government, how does it rank in freedom of speech, freedom of press?, civil liberty?
Press freedom, as I wrote already, is nr 34 in the world. Not great, but not bad at all too. And it's defended vigorously. I have yet to hear about someone put behind bars for saying something the government doesn't like. And I hear so often the government complaining about criticism by the press - not that they dare to do anything about it, it does indicate the press is doing their job.
And for democracy: half of legco is now democratically elected, that must improve. But with the freedom of protest people power works: serious discontent and the 2003 pro-democracy march is what toppled the then-CE Tung Che-Hwa. That was a major embarrassment for the central government but they had no choice. So maybe not direct elections, the people have a voice and it's listened to. Soap-box democracy you could call it.
really starting to risk off-topic mods here :)
Anyway:
1) it is written in the Basic Law (called a mini-constitution) that Hong Kong will move to direct election of the Chief Executive (head of the SAR government) and legislative council (think UK lower house). That was a "parting gift" of the colonial government, making it a legal requirement.
2) the discussion is going on, and constitutional reform is taking place, albeit slowly. Talk is now for 2017/2020 to have direct elections.
3) Hong Kong can keep it's capitalist system for 50 years from the 1997 handover, after which it will fully become part of China.
On the last point, many people say that this is to allow China to catch up with Hong Kong, not the other way around. It's also in China's interest to allow Hong Kong to develop towards democracy: they need Hong Kong badly economically (payments for China trade largely involve Hong Kong banks), and Hong Kong this way can act as "testing ground" for democracy in China.
Children are being taught Mandarin in schools, just like they learn English (and that's a good thing of course, both languages are important). The main language however remains Cantonese - if schools were to switch teaching language then English is the more likely candidate. Not Mandarin. There are already lots of international schools teaching in English, very few schools are teaching in Mandarin.
Hong Kong may be a lot like Shanghai in 10, 20 years from now - they have a lot in common already (high rises, traffic jams, air pollution). But that will be mainly Shanghai catching up with Hong Kong. And as long as the RMB is not going to be freely convertible (which is presumably a long long time off), Shanghai as an international financial centre is just not going to happen. Besides, Shanghai may have the hardware, they miss the software: strong and stable banking organisations, little corruption, strong rule of law, transparent government, experienced bankers/lawyers/economists, etc. It just isn't there to the level it's in Hong Kong already.
Sorry previous one went wrong; now with paragraph breaks!
Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place.
If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country.
Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8).
It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171).
It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US.
Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.
Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place. If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country. Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8). It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171). It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US. Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.
Very much, it's the free world. Not sure whether you're trolling or not but some explanation appears to be in place.
If you think it is the same as China, think again. It belongs politically to China but for the rest in practice it's more like an independent country.
Hong Kong is one of the free-est countries in the world, ranking nr. 1 in the Heritage Foundation list for economic freedom (this compared to the US which comes in at nr 8).
It's a free port, little restrictions to capital flow with a freely convertible currency, open immigration policy, with a government that is maybe even more pro-business than the US is (and yes that government is a major problem but luckily it stays mostly out of the way). Hong Kong also has press freedom (a decent nr. 34 on the Reporters without Borders 2010 list - China is near the bottom on nr 171).
It's also a place with a strong rule of law and a fair, highly respected justice system and police, and one of the lowest corruption rates in the world, ranking 15th on the "corruption perception index 2010", two places higher than the US.
Furthermore Hong Kong is slowly but surely moving towards full democracy, so that government thingy will be solved too. Freedom of press is also being protected furiously - remember 2003 when about half a million people (or a full 7% of the total population!) went to the streets to protect those freedoms.
You're from US?
Welcome to the free world - over here (Hong Kong) we have plans, usually no contracts. Discounts on phones (for those who opt for it) are given in the form of pre-payment and discount later on your monthly bills.
Phones and plans are not much related. Sim cards are freely exchangeable, and you can switch easily between carriers (it takes only a few days to port over your number).
And yes Hong Kong people are known to buy, on average, a new phone every six months. Crazy I agree, but that's the reality. After all, you don't want to be seen with the previous generation iPhone, do you?
Who cares, really, whether a phone is running Android or iOS or Symbian or Wee-Go or whatever embedded OS?
The underlying OS is irrelevant.
It's the user interface that counts. That and only that. The underlying OS just has to be good enough, that's all. That's what made Windows win over other OSes. And that's what's making iOS so popular at the moment in the phone world.
Most people don't care which OS it's really running. They care what you can do with it, and how easy this can be done. That's it, and that's all about it.
In case of phones the underlying hardware even doesn't matter much any more, except maybe for the screen (integral to the user interface of course). Current phones are mainly using ARM based processors, but for the end user it could have been anything. It could have been an Intel or AMD as far as they are concerned. Oh well they'd complain about battery life probably. And for the rest buyers tend to look at stuff like built-in bluetooth, GPS, camera - those parts "are there" or "are not there", no-one knows or really cares about the maker of those parts, as long as it works.
And as soon as a phone builder comes out with a phone that looks at least as good as an iPhone, that has a user interface that is more responsive and easier to use, then they may eat the iPhone's lunch. And that's got nothing to do with which OS they're running from the user's pov. We geeks know that it will be Android due to its open source nature, but there may be other candidates out there as well.
And Apple had better be careful not to get too arrogant. They're now on top of the game, but the mobile phone market is moving way faster than the personal computer market. On average people buy a new phone every six months (and no I don't make up that number, it's widely reported in the newspapers and other sources), and they expect to find interesting new models by then, while a personal computer or laptop is replaced only every three years or so, and even then buyers are mainly looking at hardware specs over software features.
Very.
And referring to all those job ads asking for more years of experience in a certain tech than that the tech is around. This has been featured several times here.
I bet experience is the key here. Only candidates with at least 8 years experience in managing cloud computing in a virtualised environment will be considered.
And don't forget to list your four years experience with administering Windows 7.
The next thing you know is some DRM in your TV that disables the mute function during ads :)
Great but they miss the marketing push and existing mind share Amazon has.
Like not so long ago was mentioned again: there is only room for monopolies on the Internet.
Get the Apple Peel for the iPod Touch and it's a mobile phone too. GPS not sure though.
Disussion all in all is interesting. I bought myself an LG smart phone the other day... use it as camera, GPS, etc - but not the phone. I haven't put the SIM of my main number in that phone yet. It's in an older SonyEricsson, much easier to make phone calls. That stupid smartphone needs a few clicks just to get to the dialer :( haven't figured out how to change the menus yet, should be possible! Right away get rid of those Google Mail icons on the main screen and so.
Readability not bad; the biggest problem I have is to find the beginning of the next line. What you do not focus on is just a grey blob.
Reading the font is also made easier by virtue of it being a text many of us would recognize.
From other comments I understand this is the US declaration of independence - which maybe a large fraction of US born and educated people would recognise, but most of the rest of the world not. I'm one of those. It being such a text makes it only harder to read for me, not easier.
It does give a new dimension to "the fine print" though...