Thanks for the clarification. Excuse my ignorance, I am not a US citizen and don't know so much about this. I'm curious though: what difference does it make when the Congress declares war, other than symbolic? Does it for instance mean that citizens have to participate to the war effort, or that some kind of martial law becomes effective?
If you were to target worldwide audience, the (relatively) recent wedding of the British prince would be a good choice. The football world cup is another good choice but only happens every 4 years, so I guess the Superbowl is good enough.
Didn't Obama promise to leave Iraq during his campaign? Am I the only one seeing an obvious link between bringing troops back home now and the election later this year?
Well I know at least two persons who would disagree. Both of them had terrible accidents involving them riding a motorcycle while respecting all the rules and a drunk driver in a car. They didn't die of course, one of them is mentally disabled after a 6-month coma and the other one is in a wheelchair until he dies.
Also, if the large majority has above average driving skill, then the small fraction must have very, very low driving skill. You might want to check your math skill.
Well in France such a law appeared in 1990. Sorry, it's in French, a very short English translation is available. According to the same page similar laws in Germany date from 1985 and 1994, there's no mention of a post-war law, citation about this anyone?
Anyway, the bottom line is, there is an official History in some European countries, which I believe is not the case in the US.
You're probably talking about the European court of human rights. It's usually a last resort though; national courts will typically be the first try, which can mean waiting several years before the initial (national) decision is overruled.
I have an Android smartphone (although I had a dumb phone for a long time and was fine with it) that I bought unlocked with no carrier contract. I only use prepaid on it, it costs me 30$ a month. I will even switch to a cheaper prepaid option if I can find one. I thought having to buy credit once a month would be annoying but it really isn't. Agreed, the initial price was high (500$ for a Samsung Galaxy S II a few months ago), but it's definitely worth it: I don't have to stay with the same subscription and carrier for 2 years, I didn't have to allow a company to automatically take money from my account every month and if I move to another country (I tend to do that) I won't even have to unsubscribe.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Titan (one of Saturn's satellites). I believe it took Cassini-Huygens 7 years to reach it, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini-Huygens Titan shares similarities with Earth, which makes it a good candidate for science fiction, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon) for an extensive description. It has among others lakes of liquid methane (not water, too cold there), a lot of water ice, an atmosphere with seasons, wind and rain (although not of water).
I would also emphasize social problems (as mentioned above) such as people getting along, people willing to reproduce (being attracted + having a decent libido), people not willing to kill each other. Brining genetic diversity issues in sounds good too: if 20 settlers go colonize Titan, then after a few generations they might all turn out stupid. You can even use it as a funny metaphor with any colonized country, e.g. by naming your spaceship the Mayflower. Don't forget mission members' ability to deal with common medical problems (e.g. violent toothache that requires quick surgery). And of course don't forget the totally new diseases that humans have never been exposed to such as Titan's purple death.
If you are looking for paranoid scenarios then I recommend playing the first part of the Knight Of The Old Republic II, The Sith Lords video game, where a single robot exterminates the crew of a whole mining station and turns everyone against each other in a clever and funny fashion. That is, if you can play through it without having the game cashing.
On Android when you install an app you know what permissions this app requires. For instance if you install words with friends you know that it will access your contact data information. Through information privacy is enhanced: I have several times refused to install apps because they were requiring permissions that I thought they did not need. These apps would probably have done more than I knew with my phone, including sending private information. Now I do not own an iPhone and I'm curious, maybe you or someone can answer this: when you install words with friends on your iPhone, how are you informed that it will send your contact data information to Zynga?
If they used the money that way, I doubt they'd get the donations they get now. So they do what they're good at, and that's bringing public attention to matters they deem important. Like it or not, but don't tell them what to do; if you don't like what they do, then simply do not donate.
..where people think that exposing software security flaws in order to fix them is good, but complain about the "ugly hippies" who expose a security flaw in a nuclear power plant.
Out of curiosity, what is the longest period of time you have ever used an iPhone? I don't know about you, but the iPhone users I know typically "upgrade" to the latest model when it's released. I have yet to understand why, since iPhones will last.
I won't disagree on that, but please take some perspective. First, why would I care about what China has done towards the US in particular? Why not consider all other countries? I'll let you count how many other countries China has invaded over the last, say,10 years, and compare it to how many other countries the US have invaded over the last 10 years, under a number of fallacious pretexts and while blatantly lying (e.g. about chemical weapons or WMD). You might also want to have a look at the US embargo on Iraq in the 90's and at its human cost.
If I were picky I would also add that the US cast the first stone when they supported Taiwan then when the CIA started to get involved in Tibet, about which nobody cared at that time, also awaking public opinion in favour of Tibet and against China. Of course you can probably go back even further but that's pointless, the bottom line is, from an external perspective the US are bad guys too.
Now don't get me wrong, I believe that many things are very wrong in China. But if China deserves to be compromised, tell me, what do the US deserve?
Totally agree. One might also add that in many places, a common subjective judgement would be that anything US-governement related deserves to be compromised.
Very interesting to have your informed point of view. I'm a researcher/developer and when I asked to be the one and only admin of my laptop the IT service was of course a bit reluctant. It just took a few seconds of reluctance though, then they said "ok but you solve your problems yourself". Same thing a few years ago at another workplace. So far it's benefitted me (I don't have to wait ages to get trivial stuff solved because I don't have the rights) and them (less work). What shocked me though is that they also told me that it would be nice if my laptop admin password was the same as my "email password" (i.e. the password used for email, intranet, etc). This means they know my password. In my opinion they shouldn't, and they should know better than anyone why. I'd like to have your IT support person opinion on this, is it normal practice to have access to the users' passwords?
So out of curiosity how many newspapers with no advertisement at all are read in the US? Surely you would not call "free press" a publication subject to ads for its survival, therefore subject to the good will of the people paying for the ads.
I bought an Android smartphone a month ago and had exactly the same questions. Here is my current solution: - calendar is synchronised with my caldav server; I use davical and a cheap android app to synchronise the Android calendar with any caldav server. There are alternative calendar apps that can take a caldav server too. - contacts are synchronised with my mac laptop using an external software + usb/bluetooth, I forgot its name and don't have access to it right now but it works. - all the google account knows is related to what I bought/downloaded on the android market; automatic synchronisation with my google account is disabled, the bars indicating mobile network reception in my status bar are grey, not green. I was surprised to see green bars on a colleague's phone and that's when he explained me this means you're "connected to google".
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Thanks for the clarification. Excuse my ignorance, I am not a US citizen and don't know so much about this. I'm curious though: what difference does it make when the Congress declares war, other than symbolic? Does it for instance mean that citizens have to participate to the war effort, or that some kind of martial law becomes effective?
To be fair, this also happened in England and Belgium, although both times due to English "people".
If you were to target worldwide audience, the (relatively) recent wedding of the British prince would be a good choice.
The football world cup is another good choice but only happens every 4 years, so I guess the Superbowl is good enough.
(well, not actual war as we haven't had one since WWII)
How do you define an "actual war"? What is it that differentiates WWII from Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq for instance?
Didn't Obama promise to leave Iraq during his campaign? Am I the only one seeing an obvious link between bringing troops back home now and the election later this year?
Well I know at least two persons who would disagree. Both of them had terrible accidents involving them riding a motorcycle while respecting all the rules and a drunk driver in a car. They didn't die of course, one of them is mentally disabled after a 6-month coma and the other one is in a wheelchair until he dies.
Also, if the large majority has above average driving skill, then the small fraction must have very, very low driving skill. You might want to check your math skill.
Well in France such a law appeared in 1990. Sorry, it's in French, a very short English translation is available. According to the same page similar laws in Germany date from 1985 and 1994, there's no mention of a post-war law, citation about this anyone?
Anyway, the bottom line is, there is an official History in some European countries, which I believe is not the case in the US.
Maybe some feature phones are never used to browse the Web?
Yeah, if only all western countries followed the example...
Here's a hint: it is not in anybody's interest to annoy China too much. The keyword here is "interest", just as it was with Iraq and Afghanistan.
You're probably talking about the European court of human rights. It's usually a last resort though; national courts will typically be the first try, which can mean waiting several years before the initial (national) decision is overruled.
I have an Android smartphone (although I had a dumb phone for a long time and was fine with it) that I bought unlocked with no carrier contract. I only use prepaid on it, it costs me 30$ a month. I will even switch to a cheaper prepaid option if I can find one. I thought having to buy credit once a month would be annoying but it really isn't.
Agreed, the initial price was high (500$ for a Samsung Galaxy S II a few months ago), but it's definitely worth it: I don't have to stay with the same subscription and carrier for 2 years, I didn't have to allow a company to automatically take money from my account every month and if I move to another country (I tend to do that) I won't even have to unsubscribe.
Or: Skyrim comes out, coders play Skyrim too much, don't get much sleep, write buggy code.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Titan (one of Saturn's satellites). I believe it took Cassini-Huygens 7 years to reach it, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini-Huygens
Titan shares similarities with Earth, which makes it a good candidate for science fiction, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon) for an extensive description.
It has among others lakes of liquid methane (not water, too cold there), a lot of water ice, an atmosphere with seasons, wind and rain (although not of water).
I would also emphasize social problems (as mentioned above) such as people getting along, people willing to reproduce (being attracted + having a decent libido), people not willing to kill each other. Brining genetic diversity issues in sounds good too: if 20 settlers go colonize Titan, then after a few generations they might all turn out stupid. You can even use it as a funny metaphor with any colonized country, e.g. by naming your spaceship the Mayflower.
Don't forget mission members' ability to deal with common medical problems (e.g. violent toothache that requires quick surgery). And of course don't forget the totally new diseases that humans have never been exposed to such as Titan's purple death.
If you are looking for paranoid scenarios then I recommend playing the first part of the Knight Of The Old Republic II, The Sith Lords video game, where a single robot exterminates the crew of a whole mining station and turns everyone against each other in a clever and funny fashion. That is, if you can play through it without having the game cashing.
At least the school bully won't steal his phone.
On Android when you install an app you know what permissions this app requires. For instance if you install words with friends you know that it will access your contact data information. Through information privacy is enhanced: I have several times refused to install apps because they were requiring permissions that I thought they did not need. These apps would probably have done more than I knew with my phone, including sending private information. Now I do not own an iPhone and I'm curious, maybe you or someone can answer this: when you install words with friends on your iPhone, how are you informed that it will send your contact data information to Zynga?
If they used the money that way, I doubt they'd get the donations they get now.
So they do what they're good at, and that's bringing public attention to matters they deem important.
Like it or not, but don't tell them what to do; if you don't like what they do, then simply do not donate.
..where people think that exposing software security flaws in order to fix them is good, but complain about the "ugly hippies" who expose a security flaw in a nuclear power plant.
I'd rather buy something nice that will last
Out of curiosity, what is the longest period of time you have ever used an iPhone? I don't know about you, but the iPhone users I know typically "upgrade" to the latest model when it's released. I have yet to understand why, since iPhones will last.
I won't disagree on that, but please take some perspective. First, why would I care about what China has done towards the US in particular? Why not consider all other countries? I'll let you count how many other countries China has invaded over the last, say,10 years, and compare it to how many other countries the US have invaded over the last 10 years, under a number of fallacious pretexts and while blatantly lying (e.g. about chemical weapons or WMD). You might also want to have a look at the US embargo on Iraq in the 90's and at its human cost.
If I were picky I would also add that the US cast the first stone when they supported Taiwan then when the CIA started to get involved in Tibet, about which nobody cared at that time, also awaking public opinion in favour of Tibet and against China. Of course you can probably go back even further but that's pointless, the bottom line is, from an external perspective the US are bad guys too.
Now don't get me wrong, I believe that many things are very wrong in China. But if China deserves to be compromised, tell me, what do the US deserve?
Or the occasional tree destruction: http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/welcome_to_bgt/royal_botanic_garden/gardens_and_domain/wildlife/flying-foxes/Federal_Government_approval
Totally agree. One might also add that in many places, a common subjective judgement would be that anything US-governement related deserves to be compromised.
Very interesting to have your informed point of view. I'm a researcher/developer and when I asked to be the one and only admin of my laptop the IT service was of course a bit reluctant. It just took a few seconds of reluctance though, then they said "ok but you solve your problems yourself". Same thing a few years ago at another workplace. So far it's benefitted me (I don't have to wait ages to get trivial stuff solved because I don't have the rights) and them (less work).
What shocked me though is that they also told me that it would be nice if my laptop admin password was the same as my "email password" (i.e. the password used for email, intranet, etc). This means they know my password. In my opinion they shouldn't, and they should know better than anyone why. I'd like to have your IT support person opinion on this, is it normal practice to have access to the users' passwords?
So out of curiosity how many newspapers with no advertisement at all are read in the US? Surely you would not call "free press" a publication subject to ads for its survival, therefore subject to the good will of the people paying for the ads.
I bought an Android smartphone a month ago and had exactly the same questions. Here is my current solution:
- calendar is synchronised with my caldav server; I use davical and a cheap android app to synchronise the Android calendar with any caldav server. There are alternative calendar apps that can take a caldav server too.
- contacts are synchronised with my mac laptop using an external software + usb/bluetooth, I forgot its name and don't have access to it right now but it works.
- all the google account knows is related to what I bought/downloaded on the android market; automatic synchronisation with my google account is disabled, the bars indicating mobile network reception in my status bar are grey, not green. I was surprised to see green bars on a colleague's phone and that's when he explained me this means you're "connected to google".