they can act to protect a free market place in Western democracies who are moving increasingly towards censorship.
Don't confuse a free market with freedom of speech/expression - Australia has a free market, at least to the same extent as the US, but does not have freedom of expression enshrined in any law, bill of rights or court ruling, and likely the only real obligation the Australian government has to protect that is the fact that Australia is a signatory and has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That does not exclude censorship, and while it's admirable that Google is raising its concerns, no politician on either side of politics will take seriously any comparisons with China, and a more nuanced approach is necessary.
And, of course, it's another little chip away at China, who are really looking like the emerging world power of the 21st Century. And their isolationist, inward-looking culture is not something you want in a superpower.
You'd prefer an expansionist, aggressive one? Many would contend the US post-WWII was, if not isolationist, certainly inward-looking - name one superpower that wasn't inward-looking in terms of its culture at its height. All powers consider themselves to be the greatest and would hardly look at other cultures and go "you know what, we should consider adapting parts of a culture which hasn't come to be as dominant as we are". Such is the hubris of power.
Though that might just be because all the other nations have the unfair advantage of not having a messed up lobbying system that results in pork-barrel inflated contracts for projects delivered years late. Just maybe.
Yep, China -> Kazakhstan -> Russia -> Ukraine -> Eastern Europe appears to be the easiest route engineering-wise. You would have to assume any route south of the Caspian and/or Black Seas would have to be a purely politically driven effort, or one geared towards the stops along the way providing more economic viability.
The cleantechnica article you cited previously probably has the most logical explanation for the discussions with India -
China is also in communication with Iran, Pakistan and India regarding development of the internal rail lines in each of those countries that would connect to the network.
... which makes sense, as it would be a significant value add to be able to use this network to connect India and China, quite apart from the benefits of connecting westwards to Europe. No doubt China would have the run of the line, but adding India to the mix makes it an even more attractive investment opportunity.
This post, which I think is based off the original South China Morning Post article, suggests the main "western network would run from Urumqi through Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, possibly connecting through Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey through to Germany". Crossing the Himalayas and then the very populated central India would make little sense.
China has been doing a lot of this bartering lately - avoiding paying cash for things in exchange for construction, trade contracts, or goods.
Uh... where I come from, that is called trade. Trading doesn't only mean exchanging cash - goods for services is a perfectly valid form of trade, and one practised for many years before the advent of exchangeable currency markets.
Virgin re-sells the Optus network, and Optus requires a $10/mo fee to enable tethering, at least last I checked. I'm not surprised they're imposing this limitation on their resellers.
I think it's well understood that Apple is imposing the restriction on sources of apps to the App Store alone, and the disk mode restriction is Apple's alone, as that is irrelevant to the carriers. The objection to AT&T was their unilateral imposition of a limitation on VoIP software causing that limitation to be imposed on the rest of the world by fiat, just because of the carrier in the home market.
I'm under no illusion that Apple is all saintly in this matter - the iPad's limitations clearly demonstrate Apple's increasing desire to control the whole user space. That's a good thing in some minds, and unsurprising in the non-software part of the consumer electronics industry. In many ways, it's a question of defining where freely tinkerable computing ends and a restricted consumer product begins, and it's something yet to be defined.
There's definitely an AT&T bias - many overseas mobile networks are quite happy to remove those restrictions as soon as Apple-AT&T agree to do so. For example, in Australia the iPhone was sold unlocked from day 1 (since the 3G came on the market), and 3 out of 4 major networks that carry it allow tethering with no extra charge. The one hold-out charges a nominal fee to enable it. Similar things apply in the UK & Europe, but the primary source of restrictions is still driven by Apple's home market (something I would hope would change with increasing international popularity).
For all of the above points, not necessarily. The reason it's stable despite job losses could be due entirely to productivity gains, as show in this post from FiveThirtyEight. Note that the source of data is from the Fed. Productivity gains could have been brought about from all manner of things, but particularly relevant would be increased automation, for which "us" nerds are at least partially to blame.
That said, the mil-ind complex certainly has a hand, and had Chrysler/GM gone down hard it would be a very different chart, I suspect.
Do note that the 14 year old does contribute to GDP, whatever the classification. Had McDonalds been reassigned from Food to Manufacturing, there would be a definite slide in the food figures. So if you can show either evidence of reclassification or the corresponding drop in the food sector, we'll believe.
Given the US is the biggest consumer market in terms of spending in the world, it's little surprise that there's an imbalance of trade, even with a strong manufacturing sector. If you can find domestic customers for all that you can produce, why go to the additional expense of exporting to countries where they're likely to pay less than the domestic customer?
When was anyone introducing languages to students at 13? There's bound to be a significant chunk of us out there who poked around our computers and went to find these things out ourselves. BASIC just kinda sold itself with the name - you knew it was a good starting point. Self-discovery and a curious mind is probably outdated in the corporatised world, in spite of the roots of many of us who learnt by screwing up an autoexec.bat file or two on Dad's computer. Nothing teaches you to pre-check your logic than having to explain to Dad why his computer doesn't work any more:)
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they can act to protect a free market place in Western democracies who are moving increasingly towards censorship.
Don't confuse a free market with freedom of speech/expression - Australia has a free market, at least to the same extent as the US, but does not have freedom of expression enshrined in any law, bill of rights or court ruling, and likely the only real obligation the Australian government has to protect that is the fact that Australia is a signatory and has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That does not exclude censorship, and while it's admirable that Google is raising its concerns, no politician on either side of politics will take seriously any comparisons with China, and a more nuanced approach is necessary.
And, of course, it's another little chip away at China, who are really looking like the emerging world power of the 21st Century. And their isolationist, inward-looking culture is not something you want in a superpower.
You'd prefer an expansionist, aggressive one? Many would contend the US post-WWII was, if not isolationist, certainly inward-looking - name one superpower that wasn't inward-looking in terms of its culture at its height. All powers consider themselves to be the greatest and would hardly look at other cultures and go "you know what, we should consider adapting parts of a culture which hasn't come to be as dominant as we are". Such is the hubris of power.
Yeah but by that measure Australia and India are both pretty damn empty too. It may just be a question of awareness or interest.
I think you'll find the US still leads by a clear margin, both in absolute terms and in percentage of GDP terms.
Though that might just be because all the other nations have the unfair advantage of not having a messed up lobbying system that results in pork-barrel inflated contracts for projects delivered years late. Just maybe.
... for now; the next renewal is due in 2016 or some such, at which point they have the option to enforce charges.
Yep, China -> Kazakhstan -> Russia -> Ukraine -> Eastern Europe appears to be the easiest route engineering-wise. You would have to assume any route south of the Caspian and/or Black Seas would have to be a purely politically driven effort, or one geared towards the stops along the way providing more economic viability.
How many pennies do you plan on carrying, exactly?
Actually, Japan and the US are pretty similar - see this map. Most of the world is 220 ~ 240V, while North America & Japan are 110 ~ 120V.
The cleantechnica article you cited previously probably has the most logical explanation for the discussions with India -
China is also in communication with Iran, Pakistan and India regarding development of the internal rail lines in each of those countries that would connect to the network.
... which makes sense, as it would be a significant value add to be able to use this network to connect India and China, quite apart from the benefits of connecting westwards to Europe. No doubt China would have the run of the line, but adding India to the mix makes it an even more attractive investment opportunity.
This post, which I think is based off the original South China Morning Post article, suggests the main "western network would run from Urumqi through Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, possibly connecting through Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey through to Germany". Crossing the Himalayas and then the very populated central India would make little sense.
China has been doing a lot of this bartering lately - avoiding paying cash for things in exchange for construction, trade contracts, or goods.
Uh... where I come from, that is called trade. Trading doesn't only mean exchanging cash - goods for services is a perfectly valid form of trade, and one practised for many years before the advent of exchangeable currency markets.
Virgin re-sells the Optus network, and Optus requires a $10/mo fee to enable tethering, at least last I checked. I'm not surprised they're imposing this limitation on their resellers.
iPods allow disk mode.
Does the iPod Touch? I don't have one so I can't verify.
...when this all goes South.
Should that be North, given it's Down Under? *ducks*
I think it's well understood that Apple is imposing the restriction on sources of apps to the App Store alone, and the disk mode restriction is Apple's alone, as that is irrelevant to the carriers. The objection to AT&T was their unilateral imposition of a limitation on VoIP software causing that limitation to be imposed on the rest of the world by fiat, just because of the carrier in the home market.
I'm under no illusion that Apple is all saintly in this matter - the iPad's limitations clearly demonstrate Apple's increasing desire to control the whole user space. That's a good thing in some minds, and unsurprising in the non-software part of the consumer electronics industry. In many ways, it's a question of defining where freely tinkerable computing ends and a restricted consumer product begins, and it's something yet to be defined.
The global mobile market? "Global System for Mobiles" and all that?
There's definitely an AT&T bias - many overseas mobile networks are quite happy to remove those restrictions as soon as Apple-AT&T agree to do so. For example, in Australia the iPhone was sold unlocked from day 1 (since the 3G came on the market), and 3 out of 4 major networks that carry it allow tethering with no extra charge. The one hold-out charges a nominal fee to enable it. Similar things apply in the UK & Europe, but the primary source of restrictions is still driven by Apple's home market (something I would hope would change with increasing international popularity).
For all of the above points, not necessarily. The reason it's stable despite job losses could be due entirely to productivity gains, as show in this post from FiveThirtyEight. Note that the source of data is from the Fed. Productivity gains could have been brought about from all manner of things, but particularly relevant would be increased automation, for which "us" nerds are at least partially to blame.
That said, the mil-ind complex certainly has a hand, and had Chrysler/GM gone down hard it would be a very different chart, I suspect.
citation/source?
Do note that the 14 year old does contribute to GDP, whatever the classification. Had McDonalds been reassigned from Food to Manufacturing, there would be a definite slide in the food figures. So if you can show either evidence of reclassification or the corresponding drop in the food sector, we'll believe.
Given the US is the biggest consumer market in terms of spending in the world, it's little surprise that there's an imbalance of trade, even with a strong manufacturing sector. If you can find domestic customers for all that you can produce, why go to the additional expense of exporting to countries where they're likely to pay less than the domestic customer?
When was anyone introducing languages to students at 13? There's bound to be a significant chunk of us out there who poked around our computers and went to find these things out ourselves. BASIC just kinda sold itself with the name - you knew it was a good starting point. Self-discovery and a curious mind is probably outdated in the corporatised world, in spite of the roots of many of us who learnt by screwing up an autoexec.bat file or two on Dad's computer. Nothing teaches you to pre-check your logic than having to explain to Dad why his computer doesn't work any more :)
sorry, sorry, I meant to say "for damage"...
I'd say... approximately 27503 LoC/Fortnight
Singin' this'll be the day that I... (rolls 2d6 to save...) die...
Nearly half a millisecond!
(1.26 * 365.25 / 1000 = 0.460215ms)
is this a serious news site?
Is this a serious news site? How long exactly have you been coming to Slashdot, mate?