People aren't all that afraid of google's advertising. They are afraid of other uses of such detailed, effectively aggregated information, such as that for spying, abuse, blackmail and so on.
WP7/8 isn't gaining because of OS. It's gaining in countries where Nokia is extremely popular and people don't ask for a "windows phone". They ask for a "nokia phone". That is why nokia sells most of the windows phones.
And as nokia makes nothing but windows phones for anything other then low end, people end up with windows phones. And from experiences I've had talking to such people, it's likely going to be their last nokia for many.
NATO's classic long term strategy is to encircle its strategic enemies. This was done with USSR, and this is being done with China. There will be an equally cold day in hell when USA will pull out of South Korea with importance of China's encirclement increasing rapidly in near future.
Indeed. When the region's only superpower comes into a local war between two small countries, it's pretty much expected that smaller country with no backup will lose.
US had just recently crushed the only regional superpower, Japan. It had significant bases all across the region, and heavy military presence against what essentially was a rag tag army of a country in ruins after long occupation. And it still struggled for a while.
To belittle this is not just stupid - it shows a lack of understanding of entire concept of "military might". This is an infantryman with a pistol managing to stand up face first to a modern MBT for a while before calling for help. Such ability is not something to be underestimated.
The cost of going to war against China would be the loss of most of the Asian continent and North American continent to nuclear, biological and chemical WMDs. I'm quite certain that US cannot afford such a cost.
Even without this option, China is the most populous nation on the planet. And while its military isn't all that modern (yet), it's using tried and true russian tech, much of which is being or has been recently modernised. This is not going to be Iraq/Afghanistan where a nation massively crippled by sanctions for decades has to fight a far technologically and numerically superior enemy. This will be a nation with moderate technological inferiority and significant numerical superiority that has enjoyed an unprecedented boom and supplies much of materials necessary for its opponent to fight the war in the first place.
It's not a war you can win. Even a victory would likely be a phyrric one, nuclear weapons or not.
Exactly my point. Original claim was that NK was somehow weaksauce. Yet 1v1 they all but crushed the opponent, and not until a much more powerful enemy that already crushed the region's only superpower Japan came that they had to ask China for assistance. And even before that, the war of NK vs US was bloody and fairly slow considering the massive difference in forces.
Point being that one should not underestimate NK's military power even without Chinese direct military support.
You're thinking in terms of current strategic situation. Country-toppling is long term strategic issue. China is clearly headed for a strategic alliance with Russia (as shown with state visits of new government) and on a direct collision course with NATO in some decade or two. At this point, small scale territorial conflicts between giants will become feasible, in the style of Sino-Soviet conflict. NATO will likely do what it always did, use a proxy through which war will be fought. South Korea makes for one of the best candidates here, and as a result, importance of North Korea keeping it in check and buffering it from mainland China is of paramount long term strategic importance.
The fact that NK also functions as an exceptional drain on NATO forces in the region on constant basis is a short term strategic cherry on top of the long term pie.
And get thrown back into the sea within days because of lack of resupply and ground support. There is a reason why every before single invasion US has performed so far, ground based supply lines were painstakingly negotiated. And that was against countries that didn't actually have a capability to completely cut off any beachhead from resupply. Chinese have such capability in droves, all it takes is a one small fast low profile missile/torpedo interceptor boat to sink several supply ships. And China has those in thousands.
And regardless, as was shown with cold war, you need a beheading strike capability before engaging a nation with strategic nuclear weapons. That means as many functional access paths to nations capital and military bases. You're not going to be capturing those from marine beachheads - their artillery alone will ensure that no beach head can be established in reasonable range.
NK army essentially won the war first, to the point where McArhur was insisting on nuclear solution because South Korea was for all bits and purposes taken except for small patches in the South. Then US hit with entire post-WW2 force, so NK was defending against US with no meaningful manpower support from USSR/China. And even in such an unbalanced scenario, they lasted about half a year.
They are pretty useless in modern theatre, which is why no one really objected to their destruction. They were originally meant as tactical weapons, as they have very low range, to take out massed tank forces. They became utterly inefficient as armour on tanks became thick enough to effectively prevent terminal effect of neutron bombardment around 70s-80s.
They could still be used against uncovered enemy, but their low range makes them largely unfeasible for this purpose. If you're willing to use nuclear weapons, you're much better off with conventional nuclear warheads that produce the destructive effect through combination of high temperature and pressure shockwave.
He's not talking about consumerism. He's talking about adding one extremely powerful player to the table that is very much full already. And he is as correct as you are naive.
NK has value of a buffer. Neither South Korea nor NATO who's bases it houses are friendly towards China. North Korea is near Chinese heartland.
This is the same issue as "holy shit, USSR has tactical nukes in Cuba" for USA. Only imagine if Cuba had land access to US mainland. And USSR put their best tanks and tactical bombers in there as well.
There will be a cold day in hell before China lets North Korea fall to the West.
That's not quite correct. While there was no direct collision course, Stalin's politics actually put USSR firmly on everyone's map as a rising giant. It's very difficult to deny that Stalin's policies weren't the main drive behind the massive rise of USSR from post-civil war ruined country to an industrial and agrarian powerhouse over just a few years. The main reason why it wasn't as scary as it was after the war was that fascist Germany was rising from similar situation even faster.
For example, did you know that at the same time as "USSR's bread basket" Ukraine suffered from holodomor, the hunger that killed millions, USSR was exporting millions of tons of grain? Stalin judged that dead ukrainians were worth the fund injection he used to build up the industrial base of USSR.
Get a PC. Sadly it will likely have on par or better graphical fidelity by the time PS4 is released, and playing FPS like bioshock on a controller is a task for teens who just don't know better. Or don't remember the whole "PC vs consoles in the same game, bad PC gamers being gods destroying console players with their terrible control scheme".
Being an idiot does not automatically revoke rights to things like privacy and property. Else you could argue that stealing from people who don't lock their doors is not a crime.
What happens in US is fairly common only in US, Canada and a few Western European countries + Australia and to extent Japan and South Korea. Rest of the world is very much like Russia in this regard (and I say this as someone who has either travelled to or personally lived with people from all continents in the world except Antarctica).
All together well over 3/4 of the world has the situation similar to Russia. And yet Russia, China and other similar nations have AAA games fully localized for them, which costs a lot of money, in spite of this massive piracy, which is essentially immune to DRM schemes. Because it's profitable.
These people will visit the local market in Russia and buy a pirated game for about a euro. I used to do it myself when visiting the place about ten years ago, when I was a cash-strapped student.
The real reason behind DRM is likely the mindset more then anything. "This is ours, we want to control it".
AAA games sell quite well in Russia, to the point of justifying full localization including voice acting for many titles, just like in Germany, France and so on. In spite of MASSIVE piracy.
Why? Because they're sold in many local shops at lower price point then in the West (and even on Steam).
Did this happen because russians weren't buying? No. They were buying them in droves, but pirated versions. Did it happen because russians wanted the games, couldn't afford them, and bought pirated versions instead. Yes.
Idealistic bullshit. Reality is that piracy is the only viable way of resisting enroachment of DRM. Not buying it? Then clearly you're not a buyer and don't matter.
Massive piracy? Time to lower prices, reduce/remove DRM and make content as accessible as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Something one should remember when disseminating such information: source is an interested party.
Remember the Iraqi in exile who told USA leadership that they would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq?
People aren't all that afraid of google's advertising. They are afraid of other uses of such detailed, effectively aggregated information, such as that for spying, abuse, blackmail and so on.
They're not. They're using it as a beta version. Implemented one will be more efficient.
WP7/8 isn't gaining because of OS. It's gaining in countries where Nokia is extremely popular and people don't ask for a "windows phone". They ask for a "nokia phone". That is why nokia sells most of the windows phones.
And as nokia makes nothing but windows phones for anything other then low end, people end up with windows phones. And from experiences I've had talking to such people, it's likely going to be their last nokia for many.
NATO's classic long term strategy is to encircle its strategic enemies. This was done with USSR, and this is being done with China. There will be an equally cold day in hell when USA will pull out of South Korea with importance of China's encirclement increasing rapidly in near future.
Indeed. When the region's only superpower comes into a local war between two small countries, it's pretty much expected that smaller country with no backup will lose.
US had just recently crushed the only regional superpower, Japan. It had significant bases all across the region, and heavy military presence against what essentially was a rag tag army of a country in ruins after long occupation. And it still struggled for a while.
To belittle this is not just stupid - it shows a lack of understanding of entire concept of "military might". This is an infantryman with a pistol managing to stand up face first to a modern MBT for a while before calling for help. Such ability is not something to be underestimated.
The cost of going to war against China would be the loss of most of the Asian continent and North American continent to nuclear, biological and chemical WMDs. I'm quite certain that US cannot afford such a cost.
Even without this option, China is the most populous nation on the planet. And while its military isn't all that modern (yet), it's using tried and true russian tech, much of which is being or has been recently modernised. This is not going to be Iraq/Afghanistan where a nation massively crippled by sanctions for decades has to fight a far technologically and numerically superior enemy. This will be a nation with moderate technological inferiority and significant numerical superiority that has enjoyed an unprecedented boom and supplies much of materials necessary for its opponent to fight the war in the first place.
It's not a war you can win. Even a victory would likely be a phyrric one, nuclear weapons or not.
Exactly my point. Original claim was that NK was somehow weaksauce. Yet 1v1 they all but crushed the opponent, and not until a much more powerful enemy that already crushed the region's only superpower Japan came that they had to ask China for assistance. And even before that, the war of NK vs US was bloody and fairly slow considering the massive difference in forces.
Point being that one should not underestimate NK's military power even without Chinese direct military support.
You're thinking in terms of current strategic situation. Country-toppling is long term strategic issue. China is clearly headed for a strategic alliance with Russia (as shown with state visits of new government) and on a direct collision course with NATO in some decade or two. At this point, small scale territorial conflicts between giants will become feasible, in the style of Sino-Soviet conflict. NATO will likely do what it always did, use a proxy through which war will be fought. South Korea makes for one of the best candidates here, and as a result, importance of North Korea keeping it in check and buffering it from mainland China is of paramount long term strategic importance.
The fact that NK also functions as an exceptional drain on NATO forces in the region on constant basis is a short term strategic cherry on top of the long term pie.
And get thrown back into the sea within days because of lack of resupply and ground support. There is a reason why every before single invasion US has performed so far, ground based supply lines were painstakingly negotiated. And that was against countries that didn't actually have a capability to completely cut off any beachhead from resupply. Chinese have such capability in droves, all it takes is a one small fast low profile missile/torpedo interceptor boat to sink several supply ships. And China has those in thousands.
And regardless, as was shown with cold war, you need a beheading strike capability before engaging a nation with strategic nuclear weapons. That means as many functional access paths to nations capital and military bases. You're not going to be capturing those from marine beachheads - their artillery alone will ensure that no beach head can be established in reasonable range.
NK army essentially won the war first, to the point where McArhur was insisting on nuclear solution because South Korea was for all bits and purposes taken except for small patches in the South. Then US hit with entire post-WW2 force, so NK was defending against US with no meaningful manpower support from USSR/China. And even in such an unbalanced scenario, they lasted about half a year.
They are pretty useless in modern theatre, which is why no one really objected to their destruction. They were originally meant as tactical weapons, as they have very low range, to take out massed tank forces. They became utterly inefficient as armour on tanks became thick enough to effectively prevent terminal effect of neutron bombardment around 70s-80s.
They could still be used against uncovered enemy, but their low range makes them largely unfeasible for this purpose. If you're willing to use nuclear weapons, you're much better off with conventional nuclear warheads that produce the destructive effect through combination of high temperature and pressure shockwave.
He's not talking about consumerism. He's talking about adding one extremely powerful player to the table that is very much full already. And he is as correct as you are naive.
Well, McArthur was suggesting nuclear bombardment. I suppose in comparison, the meatgrinder that was Korean war was probably pretty tame.
NK has value of a buffer. Neither South Korea nor NATO who's bases it houses are friendly towards China. North Korea is near Chinese heartland.
This is the same issue as "holy shit, USSR has tactical nukes in Cuba" for USA. Only imagine if Cuba had land access to US mainland. And USSR put their best tanks and tactical bombers in there as well.
There will be a cold day in hell before China lets North Korea fall to the West.
That's not quite correct. While there was no direct collision course, Stalin's politics actually put USSR firmly on everyone's map as a rising giant. It's very difficult to deny that Stalin's policies weren't the main drive behind the massive rise of USSR from post-civil war ruined country to an industrial and agrarian powerhouse over just a few years. The main reason why it wasn't as scary as it was after the war was that fascist Germany was rising from similar situation even faster.
For example, did you know that at the same time as "USSR's bread basket" Ukraine suffered from holodomor, the hunger that killed millions, USSR was exporting millions of tons of grain? Stalin judged that dead ukrainians were worth the fund injection he used to build up the industrial base of USSR.
PCSX2 emulates a lot of games properly on PC.
It's compatibility list currently stands at 78.25% of games:
http://pcsx2.net/compatibility-list.html
Get a PC. Sadly it will likely have on par or better graphical fidelity by the time PS4 is released, and playing FPS like bioshock on a controller is a task for teens who just don't know better.
Or don't remember the whole "PC vs consoles in the same game, bad PC gamers being gods destroying console players with their terrible control scheme".
You already have a lot of redundancy through multiple operators running the cables. That is not a problem.
Latency on the other hand is a huge factor. So are costs of laying and maintaining the cable.
With modern cable ships, it's actually pretty routine work. They get damaged by ship anchors on regular basis.
Being an idiot does not automatically revoke rights to things like privacy and property. Else you could argue that stealing from people who don't lock their doors is not a crime.
What happens in US is fairly common only in US, Canada and a few Western European countries + Australia and to extent Japan and South Korea. Rest of the world is very much like Russia in this regard (and I say this as someone who has either travelled to or personally lived with people from all continents in the world except Antarctica).
All together well over 3/4 of the world has the situation similar to Russia. And yet Russia, China and other similar nations have AAA games fully localized for them, which costs a lot of money, in spite of this massive piracy, which is essentially immune to DRM schemes. Because it's profitable.
These people will visit the local market in Russia and buy a pirated game for about a euro. I used to do it myself when visiting the place about ten years ago, when I was a cash-strapped student.
The real reason behind DRM is likely the mindset more then anything. "This is ours, we want to control it".
AAA games sell quite well in Russia, to the point of justifying full localization including voice acting for many titles, just like in Germany, France and so on. In spite of MASSIVE piracy.
Why? Because they're sold in many local shops at lower price point then in the West (and even on Steam).
Did this happen because russians weren't buying? No. They were buying them in droves, but pirated versions. Did it happen because russians wanted the games, couldn't afford them, and bought pirated versions instead. Yes.
Idealistic bullshit. Reality is that piracy is the only viable way of resisting enroachment of DRM. Not buying it? Then clearly you're not a buyer and don't matter.
Massive piracy? Time to lower prices, reduce/remove DRM and make content as accessible as possible.
Just ask music companies.