I don't understand all the negativity such as the above that I see all the time in the western media. Admit it, the west simply hates the greatness, success, and influence that Russia has achieved in the last 10 years. The only image of democratic Russia that the west loved was that of crumbling and chaotic Russia that was run by a drunkard Yeltsin. Back then Americans, EU, and NATO could come close to Russia's borders and take a proverbial dump with little response from Russians. Things have now changed a lot, haven't they?
Anyways, setting politics aside, the games are incredibly well organized and are just marvelous to watch on TV. I am an avid skier and hope some day to visit the ski resort at Sochi. Wait, did I hear that someone stole something when building it? I don't know, all I can say is "thanks for the party" because there is now a great world class ski areas in Sochi.
You don't seem to understand Russian geography. No, the European Russia does not have many mountains, except for the North Caucasus where Sochi is. Moreover, the rest of North Caucasus is too politically unstable to hold games over there. As for Siberian Russia, there are no large population centers near mountains there and it would have been even more expensive to build up an area for Olympics over there.
You don't seem to understand what Sochi was and what it has become now. Yes, some money got stolen, so what? This is Russia. Did you know that days ago the USA congress passed $100 billion a year farm bill that will mostly be helping well to-do farmers and corporate agribusiness? Ponder how many summer and winter Olympics you could hold with that money.
But back to Sochi, do you think it's easy to build all the infrastructure from effectively scratch? It's relatively easy to hold Olympic games a places like Vancouver or London. Those cities got the best airports in the world, hotels, much of sports venues, and public transport infrastructure. Sochi had none of that. In the early 90s this was a crumbling summer resort that even Russians refused to visit. This place was basically a giant village and a dump. Now it has modern highways, airports, light rail, hotels, and sports venues. And now that all of those facilities are there, Russians and other tourists are going to use those facilities because the Sochi area is a spectacular location for vacations.
There is no separatism in Sochi. Sochi is in Krasnodar region of Russia, which is predominantly Russian populated. I think you're confusing Sochi with the neighboring predominantly Muslim populated russian republics such as Chechnya and Dagestan.
It's not ridiculous. It would have been cheaper to go to Helsinki, but Helsinki already has some transport infrastructure, probably some hotels, and some sports venues. For Zeus's sake, it's the capital of a country. Sochi had none of that. The old Soviet infrastructure that hasn't been maintained for 20 years, had to be torn down the rebuilt again. Airports, hotels, highways, light rail, etc, no to mention the sports venues. Sochi had zero previous sports infrastructure. Yes, a lot of the money got stolen, but holding such games in Sochi instead of say Moscow, has a huge investment potential because it's a great destination and people will visit after the Olympics again. Moscow is already a great city and doesn't need a spending boost from the Olympics.
You clearly don't understand Russia's geopolitics. The European Russia doesn't have many mountains, except in the North Caucasus. Much of North Caucasus territory belongs to predominantly Muslim populated Republics such as Chechnya and Dagestan. Chechnya has undergone (and lost) two devastating wars with Russia. The wars started as an independence movement, but by the end, thanks to influx of foreign Arab fighters and money has taken increasingly Islamist character. Even though the war is over and Chechnya is rebuilding, the instability spread into the neighboring Russian republics. The area is relatively poor, with bad infrastructure, corrupt local governments, and political instability. Therefore, sadly, much of the North Caucasus is off the limit for Olympics. It's very unfortunate because North Caucasus mountains are incredible, basically Russian Alps. Sochi made sense because it's mostly Russian populated and located farther from unstable Muslim republics (well, a stone throw away). Sochi is near the Western tip of the Caucasus mountains and overall the surrounding area is incredibly beautiful.
So anyways, this explains why Sochi is the only place in all of European Russia that can hold winter Olympic games right now. What about Siberia? There is little infrastructure. The entire Russia west of Ural mountains (which is like the size of USA) has something like 15 million population. The large population centers there are not necessarily close to the mountains. It would be incredibly stupid and even more expensive to build up for Olympics an area somewhere in Siberia. Well, I don't exclude the possibility of Winter Oympics held some place in Siberia in future, but Sochi was the most obvious place for this event. At least, people will continue to use the infrastructure of Sochi. It used to be a major vacation resort in the Soviet times, but kind of crumbled in the 90s. The place is worth visiting, so all those roads, airports, and hotels will see a good use. On the other hand, no one would ever visit a former olympic village in Siberia, because most European Russians think that European Russia is already cold enough for them. Most of them want to travel south, and Sochi is an obvious destination for them.
And looking at the ski events on the games on TV, there seems to be plenty of natural snow on the mountains even now. The area looks beautiful and it was known for years by some extreme skiers in the west as a "secret destination".
The cost of the Farm Bill approved by the US Congress days ago, budgets about $100 billion, most of that to be spent on farm subsidies, which disproportionately favor wealthy farmers and agribusiness corporations. The cost of bill is nearly, $300 per person, including children and retired people. If surveyed everyone in the USA, asking if they would be willing to pay $300 per year out of their pocket for farm subsidies, most of them would have said no.
On a bad year (for snow), sometimes you can see snowmaking operations in full force even on the big ski resorts in Colorado and California. Nothing new.
You don't seem to appreciate what Sochi was and what it has become now. Yes, some money got stolen, so what? This is Russia.
However, do you think it's easy to build all the infrastructure from effectively scratch? It's relatively easy to hold Olympic games a places like Vancouver or London. Those cities got the best airports in the worlds, hotels, much of sports venues, and public transport infrastructure. Sochi had none of that. In the early 90s this was a crumbling summer resort that even Russians refused to visit. This place was basically a giant village and a dump. Now it has modern highways, airports, light rail, hotels, and sports venues. And now that all of those facilities are there, Russians and other tourists are going to use those facilities because the Sochi area is a spectacular location for vacations.
Fake accounts? Come on. I got sick when I saw high school students and then all kinds of random people being able to sign up to facebook. In the early days of Facebook, around 2003-2005, the Facebook used to be social network equivalent of slashdot. Only people with valid university accounts could sign up, and that sort of raised the bar for the social circles you're in. For the most part, these were the people you interact with in real life, as well as their friends, at best. Now days, a bunch of vampires and zombies try to kill you, your uncle Jacob and a few other people you have been avoiding for the past 20 years want to be your friends, as well as your mom, your dog, your officemate, and so on, and 25 or so other fake online identifies. Maybe that's the reason I now login to facebook about once a year.
Well, my observation is that older Pentium 4 systems are kind of slow, even for simple web browsing. The issue is not with the CPU, but that a lot of PCs from that era come with little memory, like 250-500MB. I have seen a few friends neighbors upgrade because of that. But PCs from the time when Core 2 was around normally came with more memory, enough for office productivity or web browser.
So at this rate, Windows 8 and its derivatives will have less than 20% market share even after two full years since the release of Windows 8. That's a terrible statistic for Microsoft. Granted, another issue is that people who just use web browser and office productivity apps really don't have any reasons to upgrade if they already have an Intel Core 2 based system or better.
Soviet Union handled its radioactive materials quite carelessly. I have heard of many stories of people finding radioactive materials in the junk-yards or somewhere out in the woods. Once was a story of a farmer finding a metal device that seemed to emanate warmth when approached. It turned out to be a piece of a portable nuclear powered power station used in the military, and I guess just abandoned somewhere. The guy who allegedly poisoned Russian dissident Litvinenko in London left a radioactive train on the planes he flew TO and FROM London. The Chernobyl meltdown incident first became known in the west not from news, but from traces of radioactive contamination somewhere in Sweden. So picking up radioactive contamination in USSR sometimes was not as hard as some think. Anyways, considering this, I think it's quite plausible some of the group members could have picked up the radioactivity somewhere on the way to the trip, such as at a train station or in the train or at work. Who knows. Because of this hypothesis, I wouldn't want to discount the Dyatlov Pass theories that don't involve nuclear weapon blasts or aliens.
It always cracks me up when the Republicans are whining about how much the Federal government spends on social welfare completely ignoring the "welfare states" like this one. Just take a look at this list
There are many strange circumstances under which group died, but the simple "death from avalanche" theory is still quite plausible, and that's the one described in the first paragraph here:
The traces of radiation on some clothes could be something that the group picked up on the way to this trip, though the train or train station. (Soviet Union always treated its radioactive materials quite carelessly. There have been instances of people finding dangerously radioactive devices, such as portable electricity generators, out in the wild left out there by the military many years ago.) As for the missing tongue and dark skin, that's something that can happen to a dead recomposing body out in the wild and in freezing temperatures.
The issue is that you can't live in a car or live underwater for months or years. Likewise, almost anyone probably could spend a few hours on a space station without much ill effects. The issue with spending a very long time on the space station.
Everyone can spend a few hours in a car or a space station, but you can't stay in a moving car for days. The issue is with staying on a space station for months or years.
This is bad analogy. Space exploration has benefited the basic science, so its certainly important. Sending robots to Moon and Mars can also help to answer tons of questions. The issue is not about ending space exploration. It's about using robots instead of humans.
I am surprised that something life five have already been built. It's a development prototype. Now is the time to voice the concerns, introduce modifications, etc. By the way, how much is the India input in the development, besides the money?
AMD Catalyst drivers are garbage. The other day I installed the latest version (13.something?) on my Samsung notebook and then decided to uninstal them and go back to the old factory video driver version. What happened? Firefox stopped working with some strange errors, IE, and a lot of other applications. It's unbelievable that nearly two decades after Windows 95, there still exist device drivers that can destroy your OS install and force you to install everything. You hear me AMD developers? Your drivers age GARBAGE, both on Windows and Linux (The Linux NVidia drivers were easier to install 13 years ago). Next time I need a good GPU, I just buy Nvidia.
Ahaha. USA Buying SAABs is like Microsoft ordering all of its employees to switch to Mac OS X, since Windows 8 is currently broken. Besides, Gripen can't land on aircraft carries. Perhaps it came make up for it with its ability to land, take off from, and be serviced at an ordinary highway.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand all the negativity such as the above that I see all the time in the western media. Admit it, the west simply hates the greatness, success, and influence that Russia has achieved in the last 10 years. The only image of democratic Russia that the west loved was that of crumbling and chaotic Russia that was run by a drunkard Yeltsin. Back then Americans, EU, and NATO could come close to Russia's borders and take a proverbial dump with little response from Russians. Things have now changed a lot, haven't they?
Anyways, setting politics aside, the games are incredibly well organized and are just marvelous to watch on TV. I am an avid skier and hope some day to visit the ski resort at Sochi. Wait, did I hear that someone stole something when building it? I don't know, all I can say is "thanks for the party" because there is now a great world class ski areas in Sochi.
You don't seem to understand Russian geography. No, the European Russia does not have many mountains, except for the North Caucasus where Sochi is. Moreover, the rest of North Caucasus is too politically unstable to hold games over there. As for Siberian Russia, there are no large population centers near mountains there and it would have been even more expensive to build up an area for Olympics over there.
See my detailed answer to this question below:
http://science.slashdot.org/co...
You don't seem to understand what Sochi was and what it has become now. Yes, some money got stolen, so what? This is Russia. Did you know that days ago the USA congress passed $100 billion a year farm bill that will mostly be helping well to-do farmers and corporate agribusiness? Ponder how many summer and winter Olympics you could hold with that money.
But back to Sochi, do you think it's easy to build all the infrastructure from effectively scratch? It's relatively easy to hold Olympic games a places like Vancouver or London. Those cities got the best airports in the world, hotels, much of sports venues, and public transport infrastructure. Sochi had none of that. In the early 90s this was a crumbling summer resort that even Russians refused to visit. This place was basically a giant village and a dump. Now it has modern highways, airports, light rail, hotels, and sports venues. And now that all of those facilities are there, Russians and other tourists are going to use those facilities because the Sochi area is a spectacular location for vacations.
There is no separatism in Sochi. Sochi is in Krasnodar region of Russia, which is predominantly Russian populated. I think you're confusing Sochi with the neighboring predominantly Muslim populated russian republics such as Chechnya and Dagestan.
It's not ridiculous. It would have been cheaper to go to Helsinki, but Helsinki already has some transport infrastructure, probably some hotels, and some sports venues. For Zeus's sake, it's the capital of a country. Sochi had none of that. The old Soviet infrastructure that hasn't been maintained for 20 years, had to be torn down the rebuilt again. Airports, hotels, highways, light rail, etc, no to mention the sports venues. Sochi had zero previous sports infrastructure. Yes, a lot of the money got stolen, but holding such games in Sochi instead of say Moscow, has a huge investment potential because it's a great destination and people will visit after the Olympics again. Moscow is already a great city and doesn't need a spending boost from the Olympics.
You clearly don't understand Russia's geopolitics. The European Russia doesn't have many mountains, except in the North Caucasus. Much of North Caucasus territory belongs to predominantly Muslim populated Republics such as Chechnya and Dagestan. Chechnya has undergone (and lost) two devastating wars with Russia. The wars started as an independence movement, but by the end, thanks to influx of foreign Arab fighters and money has taken increasingly Islamist character. Even though the war is over and Chechnya is rebuilding, the instability spread into the neighboring Russian republics. The area is relatively poor, with bad infrastructure, corrupt local governments, and political instability. Therefore, sadly, much of the North Caucasus is off the limit for Olympics. It's very unfortunate because North Caucasus mountains are incredible, basically Russian Alps. Sochi made sense because it's mostly Russian populated and located farther from unstable Muslim republics (well, a stone throw away). Sochi is near the Western tip of the Caucasus mountains and overall the surrounding area is incredibly beautiful.
So anyways, this explains why Sochi is the only place in all of European Russia that can hold winter Olympic games right now. What about Siberia? There is little infrastructure. The entire Russia west of Ural mountains (which is like the size of USA) has something like 15 million population. The large population centers there are not necessarily close to the mountains. It would be incredibly stupid and even more expensive to build up for Olympics an area somewhere in Siberia. Well, I don't exclude the possibility of Winter Oympics held some place in Siberia in future, but Sochi was the most obvious place for this event. At least, people will continue to use the infrastructure of Sochi. It used to be a major vacation resort in the Soviet times, but kind of crumbled in the 90s. The place is worth visiting, so all those roads, airports, and hotels will see a good use. On the other hand, no one would ever visit a former olympic village in Siberia, because most European Russians think that European Russia is already cold enough for them. Most of them want to travel south, and Sochi is an obvious destination for them.
And looking at the ski events on the games on TV, there seems to be plenty of natural snow on the mountains even now. The area looks beautiful and it was known for years by some extreme skiers in the west as a "secret destination".
The cost of the Farm Bill approved by the US Congress days ago, budgets about $100 billion, most of that to be spent on farm subsidies, which disproportionately favor wealthy farmers and agribusiness corporations. The cost of bill is nearly, $300 per person, including children and retired people. If surveyed everyone in the USA, asking if they would be willing to pay $300 per year out of their pocket for farm subsidies, most of them would have said no.
On a bad year (for snow), sometimes you can see snowmaking operations in full force even on the big ski resorts in Colorado and California. Nothing new.
You don't seem to appreciate what Sochi was and what it has become now. Yes, some money got stolen, so what? This is Russia.
However, do you think it's easy to build all the infrastructure from effectively scratch? It's relatively easy to hold Olympic games a places like Vancouver or London. Those cities got the best airports in the worlds, hotels, much of sports venues, and public transport infrastructure. Sochi had none of that. In the early 90s this was a crumbling summer resort that even Russians refused to visit. This place was basically a giant village and a dump. Now it has modern highways, airports, light rail, hotels, and sports venues. And now that all of those facilities are there, Russians and other tourists are going to use those facilities because the Sochi area is a spectacular location for vacations.
Fake accounts? Come on. I got sick when I saw high school students and then all kinds of random people being able to sign up to facebook. In the early days of Facebook, around 2003-2005, the Facebook used to be social network equivalent of slashdot. Only people with valid university accounts could sign up, and that sort of raised the bar for the social circles you're in. For the most part, these were the people you interact with in real life, as well as their friends, at best. Now days, a bunch of vampires and zombies try to kill you, your uncle Jacob and a few other people you have been avoiding for the past 20 years want to be your friends, as well as your mom, your dog, your officemate, and so on, and 25 or so other fake online identifies. Maybe that's the reason I now login to facebook about once a year.
Well, my observation is that older Pentium 4 systems are kind of slow, even for simple web browsing. The issue is not with the CPU, but that a lot of PCs from that era come with little memory, like 250-500MB. I have seen a few friends neighbors upgrade because of that. But PCs from the time when Core 2 was around normally came with more memory, enough for office productivity or web browser.
So at this rate, Windows 8 and its derivatives will have less than 20% market share even after two full years since the release of Windows 8. That's a terrible statistic for Microsoft. Granted, another issue is that people who just use web browser and office productivity apps really don't have any reasons to upgrade if they already have an Intel Core 2 based system or better.
Soviet Union handled its radioactive materials quite carelessly. I have heard of many stories of people finding radioactive materials in the junk-yards or somewhere out in the woods. Once was a story of a farmer finding a metal device that seemed to emanate warmth when approached. It turned out to be a piece of a portable nuclear powered power station used in the military, and I guess just abandoned somewhere. The guy who allegedly poisoned Russian dissident Litvinenko in London left a radioactive train on the planes he flew TO and FROM London. The Chernobyl meltdown incident first became known in the west not from news, but from traces of radioactive contamination somewhere in Sweden. So picking up radioactive contamination in USSR sometimes was not as hard as some think. Anyways, considering this, I think it's quite plausible some of the group members could have picked up the radioactivity somewhere on the way to the trip, such as at a train station or in the train or at work. Who knows. Because of this hypothesis, I wouldn't want to discount the Dyatlov Pass theories that don't involve nuclear weapon blasts or aliens.
It always cracks me up when the Republicans are whining about how much the Federal government spends on social welfare completely ignoring the "welfare states" like this one. Just take a look at this list
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2...
There are many strange circumstances under which group died, but the simple "death from avalanche" theory is still quite plausible, and that's the one described in the first paragraph here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
The traces of radiation on some clothes could be something that the group picked up on the way to this trip, though the train or train station. (Soviet Union always treated its radioactive materials quite carelessly. There have been instances of people finding dangerously radioactive devices, such as portable electricity generators, out in the wild left out there by the military many years ago.) As for the missing tongue and dark skin, that's something that can happen to a dead recomposing body out in the wild and in freezing temperatures.
Someone has to design those too.
The issue is that you can't live in a car or live underwater for months or years. Likewise, almost anyone probably could spend a few hours on a space station without much ill effects. The issue with spending a very long time on the space station.
Everyone can spend a few hours in a car or a space station, but you can't stay in a moving car for days. The issue is with staying on a space station for months or years.
This is bad analogy. Space exploration has benefited the basic science, so its certainly important. Sending robots to Moon and Mars can also help to answer tons of questions. The issue is not about ending space exploration. It's about using robots instead of humans.
I am surprised that something life five have already been built. It's a development prototype. Now is the time to voice the concerns, introduce modifications, etc. By the way, how much is the India input in the development, besides the money?
AMD Catalyst drivers are garbage. The other day I installed the latest version (13.something?) on my Samsung notebook and then decided to uninstal them and go back to the old factory video driver version. What happened? Firefox stopped working with some strange errors, IE, and a lot of other applications. It's unbelievable that nearly two decades after Windows 95, there still exist device drivers that can destroy your OS install and force you to install everything. You hear me AMD developers? Your drivers age GARBAGE, both on Windows and Linux (The Linux NVidia drivers were easier to install 13 years ago). Next time I need a good GPU, I just buy Nvidia.
This is what we really needed to fight terrorists in Afghanistan.
Ahaha. USA Buying SAABs is like Microsoft ordering all of its employees to switch to Mac OS X, since Windows 8 is currently broken. Besides, Gripen can't land on aircraft carries. Perhaps it came make up for it with its ability to land, take off from, and be serviced at an ordinary highway.
I wonder if any people are angry that they didn't buy Google or Apple stock shares when they were $100 a decade ago.
I wonder if any people are angry that their high tech portfolios evaporated in 1999.
I wonder if any people are angry they didn't sell their overpriced house before 2007.
I wonder if any people are angry they didn't buy a house at the height of housing crisis of 2008-2009.
I wonder if any people are angry they didn't buy S&N 500 stocks at the height of housing crisis.
I wonder if any people are angry that they didn't sell/short their Enron/GM/whatever portfolios soon enough.