Yeah, they're doing that too. That's the "shell company" issue I mentioned in the first paragraph, but it's not something that was addressed by the current EU finding - they've just been driving all those other iThings from across the whole of the EU (and maybe elsewhere too?) as sales that appear to be from Ireland so they can "legally" pay their taxes in Dublin at sub-1% rates instead of the normal corporate tax rates in the countries in question. Basically, the amount covers tax owed on *all* those iThings that have been processed through Ireland, so in other words Dublin gets to claim the tax on *all* the goods Apple has sold across the EU, not just in Ireland.
The only reason I can see that a country in such marginal financial straits as Ireland would not be all over that deal and sending the bailiffs around to Apple's offices first thing the following day is that some senior figures were fully complicit in the deal, including knowing that it was in blatent breach of EU legislation, and are now terrified that it's going to come out and they are going to end up going to jail.
None, but that's the wrong end of the stick many seem to be grasping. The EU laws are pretty clear; a member state can set its own taxes (with some constraints on levels), but they have to set them equally with no specific tax breaks for specific companies - that would be considered State Aid. Dublin basically decided to give Apple (and probably all of the others under investigation) a tax break in return for them setting up shop in Ireland instead of elsewhere in the EU, but didn't extend the tax rate to every other corporation in Ireland. (They also turned a blind eye to the huge scam of what is essentially a shell company operating on that discount tax rate and avoiding higher rate taxes elsewhere, but that's a totally separate issue for another court.) Hence they contravened EU law and the reason they are running scared and siding with Apple as the chances are pretty good that "tax break" could well turn into "bribe" as far as the Irish tax office is concerned, which could in turn potentially mean criminal prosecutions.
And no, Apple et al don't get off the hook. That the default tax rate a lot more than what they were paying can't have failed to escape their notice (they were probably getting bonuses based on it after all), and ignorance of the law, in this case the "no company specific tax breaks" bit, is never an acceptable defence. Of course, with so much money at stake spending a few million more - chump change by comparison - on lawyers in the hope that you can get it negated, or at least reduced, on appeal is pretty much a no-brainer so Apple's position is hardly surprising.
They generally do support multiple lines for multiple customers, but that doesn't automatically let Apple of the hook. I'd imagine that each customer has a specific and confidential contract negotiated based on guaranteed volumes, excess volumes, complexity of assembly, and so on, which would make a direct comparison problematic even if the numbers were in the public domain, so it's going to be far from clear cut. However, if it can be shown that only Apple is insisting that Pegatron (and presumably other assemblers) push the costs below what they can sustain while remaining in compliance with China's laws (which are not that great to start with), or - perhaps more likely - is doing so to a greater degree than other companies, then it's absolutely an Apple story.
Of course, regardless of Apple's culpability (or not), it's mostly a "western consumers generally don't give a crap about conditions in third world sweat shops" story. Perhaps if someone like Fairtrade, or a similar organization, started establishing and enforcing some standards, putting the brand names on a guilt trip to take more responsibility, and gaving people a choice between paying a bit extra for the peace of mind an "approved supplier" logo brings or just saving a few bucks and conscience be damned, then we might see some traction on this. Until then, it's going to be minimised costs, maximised profits, and screw the cheap labour for every drop of blood and sweat you can get away with.
Perhaps, but again, it just demonstrates that the media companies simply don't get it and having cut of their own nose have now proceeded to remove other facial features. People don't use search engines to find out what's going on in the world (e.g. the snippets of news articles of TFS), they'll go directly to their MSM site(s) of choice for that with no linking or royalties required, or go through a new aggregator. People use a search engine for news stories because they either already know what they are looking for but don't know where to look for it or are looking for an alternative take on it, and in that case having some indication of how relevant the results are (in the case of the snippets) or any results (in the case of linking in the first place) are going to dictate where their clicks go.
What the MSM sites don't seem to grasp is that this is free traffic generation for them; when a user searches for some given event/gossip/whatever and ends up on some random news site purely because it happened to pop up in the search results with a relevant looking snippet of the article, they've got an opportunity to serve up some ads, sell other services they offer, and maybe even acquire a new regular reader. Remove the snippets, let alone the links, and all of that traffic is not just going to go away - it's going to go to one of your competitors that had more of a clue about how things work. Both the search engines and MSM companies need each other for this arrangement to work, but the relative numbers of major search engines to MSM sites puts the advantage firmly in the hands of the search engines; they need *some* MSM sites, but they don't need all of them, and they certainly don't need the ones the like to haul them into the courts at the drop of a hat.
Even if it does pass, I really don't see this one being a problem for the search engines - just the opposite, in fact given the way Google responded to a similar legislative attempt in Spain. It's a "request for payment", at least in this version, so I would imagine it'll go down like this: Some media outlets "request" payment. The search engines cough up some cash for past transgressions and strip the snippets from future search results for those companies. Search engine users click on alternative links that still provide snippets. Media outlets that made the requests for payments have to go back to the search engines and beg for a new deal, which will obviously be loaded in favour of the search engines.
As a bonus, as search engine users and media consumers, we'll also get to sort out the dinosaurs in the media business (Hi, Rupert!) from those that are actually willing to try and embrace the new Internet order and make it work for them; I know which group I'd rather support...
I think the camera manufacturers all realise that, especially at the high-end. Sure, they'll play the MP numbers game at the low-end where people don't know better and it translates into sales but all the prosumer and pro models generally offer a trade-off of MP vs. ISO suitable for the model at high; e.g. high-MP/low-ISO for the Canon 5DS, mid-MP/mid-ISO for the the Canon 5D and low-MP/high-ISO for the Canon 1DX. Assuming you are competent and understand what you need the camera(s) for and how you plan on using it, you'll choose accordingly.
It's the all or nothing approach. Previously, you could read the patch notes (such as they were) and make an informed decision as to whether to "patch ASAP", "test thoroughly, then patch", "whenever", or "not required (e.g. telemetry/GWX crap)" on a patch by patch basis. Other than the paucity of real data and Microsoft's far too frequent attempts to slip a turd in there, that's really not all that different from any other patch system, on any other OS - unless you are compiling from source that you have looked personally diff'd and examined the changes, you are still trusting your patch provider to do the right thing; binary packages on *nix are no different from binary.msu or.exe files on Windows Update in that respect.
Now, while you can still defer the installation, you don't have that per-patch flexibility. That could potentially mean that you have to choose between breaking something critical to you (e.g. the USB webcam borkage of the recent Windows 10 update) and leaving your system exposed to some critical and remotely exploitable vulnerability instead of just patching the critical hole and waiting for Microsoft to fix the USB webcam issue. Yes, when it works, the new approach will be simpler, easier for everyone to manage, and will no doubt help alleviate some of the problems with Windows Update's seriously broken version control mechanisms, but Microsoft's track record on "when it works", has been pretty dire lately. It's also much easier for Microsoft to slip something nasty in there, again something their track record on has been pretty dire of late.
Frankly, I'm all for this latest brain dead move by Microsoft. Those that have a bit of technical nous can figure out some viable approach to patch management and additional security layers easily enough (they shouldn't have to, but still), while many of those that don't are inevitably going fall foul of a series of future USB webcam style screw-ups in the future. Same result in both cases; more pain for using Windows and a greater chance that alternatives will be considered, and anything that disrupts the Microsoft monoculture is fine by me.
I totally agree; there's never going to be a sweetheart deal, nor was there ever any chance of one. The EU has to look out for the EU at this point. Basically, I think it's going to come down a choice between an EEA access agreement similar to Norway's with all the strings that entails, or a full exit and having to pay trade tariffs to the EU with all the strings that entails. There will be a little give and take on the details, but pretty much everything else comes down to window dressing on the EEA terms & conditions. Obviously any EEA access agreement that includes the almost inevitable free travel precondition is going to be considered completely unacceptable to most of those who voted Brexit, so I'm really looking forwards to see how Theresa May tries to salvage this and get another term - and who she's going to throw under the bus to try and pull it off (other than David Davis and Boris Johnson, obviously).
The various unions at EDF have been less than happy with the terms of the deal for ages and have seized on this as grounds for EDF to invalidate their current agreement and re-negotiate their end of the deal on more favourable terms. Unions being what they are in matters like this, they'll probably be quite happy to sour the entire deal in the hope of getting a better deal for their members, and if a major deal between the UK and EDF goes south then that's almost certainly going to have a knock-on effect on the relationship with the French government. Yep, the same French government that is going to be taking a lead role in the Article 50 negotiations governing Brexit, already seems to be taking a hardline stance on the potential terms and, like all other members of the EU, has the ability to veto any deal that might be negotiated over Brexit. That all bodes well for a better Brexit deal with lower trade tariffs than the WTO default, doesn't it?
Meanwhile, having annoyed the Chinese, Theresa May is now apparently trying to improve relations with Russia which, while it definitely needs to happen in its own right, doesn't exactly scan well in connection with alienating the Chinese the week prior.
It's overkill for general use, certainly, but it is a good combination for physical screen size and semi-standard display resolutions which is why I suspect so many phones are using it. Compared to similar sized screens at lower resolutions like 1920x1080 and at least in my personal experience you can just about see the difference, especially for things like reading ebooks where fonts appear a little bit crisper, which makes it easier on the eyes during longer usage sessions such as on long haul flights. Put it into the compatible version of the Gear VR headset though and it might make a difference as well, as it'll only be a couple of inches in front of your eyes then. Of course, that still leaves the issue of having an app that's worth using a Gear VR for, but that's not really a hardware design issue.
Pretty much this. You basically list all your assets, creditors and debtors and then the bun fight over who gets what starts. (Spoiler: the banks and lawyers "win" so Hogan will probably get jack, although I suppose Peter Thiel already got what he wanted). I guess the New York Daily News just took a sample of entries from the top, middle and bottom of the dollar scale of identified assets, so I dare say that if he could have found a receipt for a Starbucks giftcard then that would have been listed too.
Yes, some impacts were undeniably immediate. Most obviously that Sterling dropped 10%, which is a huge loss, but despite that the FTSE lept up (probably a bubble, but still). For pretty much for every negative indicator, you can find a contrary one if you look, so hardly the doom and gloom Remain was claiming, but not quite the brave new world being touted by Leave either - the reality was somewhere between the two extremes; that shouldn't be surprising to anyone with any sense. I agree that the uncertainty obviously doesn't help at all, but until we get a better feel for what BrExit is actually going to entail, or even *might* actually entail, the best you can do is start planning for various contingencies and getting prepared to bunker down, just in case. Best get used to that uncertainty though; the golden rule of negotiation is not to put your cards on the table too soon, so I'd not expect much clarity on the revised terms of the UK-EU relationship until long after Article 50 gets invoked. Until then, what else can you do but Keep Calm and Carry On - and make sure you've got a plan if things don't work out?
Why? We still have no idea what kind of deal we are going to get when we invoke Article 50, so "Keep Calm and Carry On" seems to be a more sensible approach at this point; freaking out achieve nothing right now because there's nothing concrete to actually freak out about other than some vague thing known as "BrExit" that can't be defined. Longer term, likely at least a year away, once some details of negotiations start coming out (e.g. just how little slack the EU is prepared to cut in order to avoid other countries seeking similar deals, whether or not they insist on free travel as a condition of EEA access, Schengen as a requirement, and all the other stuff that have become mandatory membership conditions since 1975) and the markets, industry and other economic factors have had a chance to adjust, that's when it'll be time to start freaking out.
Or not. While I think Remain would have been the better choice, I don't think Leave has to be a terrible one either; just that it's probably not going to be as good in the long term and it's all down to the negotiations. Right now Germany seems to want a reasonable deal, France seems to want to stick the knife in, and the other 25 countries fall somewhere in betweeen or have yet to make their position clear, so it could easily go either way regarding the EU, and then there are deals to be struck with other countries, especially the Commonwealth, the US, and maybe even China if the delay on Hinckley Point hasn't soured the relationship.
Or you could be a little selective and just reduce the number of things that help make your fingerprint unique. That's the biggest failing in these fingerprinting sites so far; they don't really help you figure out how to do that, and what the effects on your fingerprint's uniqueness might be if you did to help you decide whether it's worth the effort or not. What I'd like to see is each parameter have a way of telling me right there what the common value options for that parameter are, they effect on your fingerprint of setting it to that value, and some suggestions as to how to go about doing that, especially where it's something as simple as downloading the US-English version of a browser intead of the UK-English one.
Yeah, that argument keeps coming up; "Net Neutratility or Common Carrier Status - just pick one already!" Seriously though, if the cable operators were to lose their common carrier status what do you think they'd do? Come down like an anvil on content and install non-optional and over-reaching filters, transparent proxy use and draconian levels of logging across the board, perhaps? Realistically, pretty much anything that will let them produce log files that pass the buck squarely onto the end user when anyone who cares to ask comes knocking seems rather inevitiable I think but, if we're lucky, I suppose they *might* insist on a warrant before they hand over the data. Probably not though; unneccessary processess and paperwork takes up employee time, and that costs money!
True, but since it doesn't actually ban the use of VPNs, a better question would be how would they *know* whether I was using a VPN to access a site they had blocked or just accessing some perfectly legal resource that they haven't proscribed like a corporate server? From the UAE's perspective VPN traffic leaving the UAE is VPN traffic leaving the UAE, no more no less - they have no way of knowing the ultimate end point, only the address of VPN server I'm connected to.
I suspect if there is an answer it's going to involve some morally bankrupt company like Blue Coat Systems, isn't it?
Same argument I apply to *any* "rights for whatever" issue; generalise it. If you are not advocating universal rights for a given field (which equally applies to gender, race, religion, and everything else), then you are really no less biased or bigoted than those you are protesting against. You want people to have a legal right to choose a third party repair of their tractors? GTFO. You want people to have a legal right to choose a third party repair of *any* vehicle they own? Where do I sign up?
Not only that, military instability in Turkey could well result in major disruption to maritime traffic through the Bosporus - political treaties not withstanding - and the one country that stands to lose the most from that is Russia since the Black Sea contains all their western deep water ports that don't freeze up in winter. When you are engaged in a military campaign and propping up the regime of an ally in Syria the last thing you'd want do is to risk losing the ability to supply them by sea.
Reuters is reporting that he was on holiday in Marmaris on the S.W. coast of Turkey, so it seems likely the backdrop was his holiday hotel or villa. While it's quite possible that his "safe location" is still in Turkey, Marmaris is well within helicopter range of mainland Greece, Crete and Turkish held areas of Cyprus so it's equally likely he could be out of the country by now. Either way, I can't see him wanting to go too far - in the event his side prevails he'll want to be seem to be visibly back in the country and condemning the consipirators ASAP.
It certainly seems to be well organized and wide spread. Extensive military presence has been reported at numerous sites across the country, especially in the capital, Ankara, and Istanbul, as you might expect, and all the airports have been closed down indicating a presence at other cities as well so this doesn't appear to be a small revolt by a handful of rogue colonels as the government is claiming. Interestingly, a heavy police presence was noticed earlier in the day and there are some reports of gunfire between units of the police and military, so it's possible someone in Erdogan's government had an inkling that something might be up and tried to do something about it.
Yeah, that's my assessment of Boris Johnson's appointment as well. The initial reaction was "WTF!?", which is pretty much the response that dominated the global media coverage of it, especially given that Theresa May's other choices seemed fairly reasonable, but when you think it over the is really just a very well crafted stab in the back for Boris. He claims to be a BrExit supporter (yet didn't actually seem to want to change much, despite his campaigning), so despite any attempts to dodge the bullets by refusing to stand for PM, he's still going to have to either demonstrate some faith in his convictions or take the heat for breaking promises. Then there's the matter of his need to go cap in hand to the various people and cultures he's insulted over the years, and all quite likely under an intense media spotlight.
Frankly, I think this is a brilliant idea by May. She's assigned Boris a position alright, and it's "useful idiot" - someone who is going to be drawing all the media attention, while the real work goes on elsewhere (it's actually Phil Hammond, Liam Fox and David Davis that will be mostly responsible for BrExit). As you note though, despite his reputation as a buffoon, Boris is also generally regarded as someone is also fairly astute, so while this could easily be seen as giving him a rope by which to hang himself, he's also been given an opportunity to actually make it all work. Only time will tell whether this makes or breaks Boris' political career, but I don't think there's much room for middle ground.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you sure you didn't give him a copy of "Fahrenheit 451" by mistake?
Yeah, they're doing that too. That's the "shell company" issue I mentioned in the first paragraph, but it's not something that was addressed by the current EU finding - they've just been driving all those other iThings from across the whole of the EU (and maybe elsewhere too?) as sales that appear to be from Ireland so they can "legally" pay their taxes in Dublin at sub-1% rates instead of the normal corporate tax rates in the countries in question. Basically, the amount covers tax owed on *all* those iThings that have been processed through Ireland, so in other words Dublin gets to claim the tax on *all* the goods Apple has sold across the EU, not just in Ireland.
The only reason I can see that a country in such marginal financial straits as Ireland would not be all over that deal and sending the bailiffs around to Apple's offices first thing the following day is that some senior figures were fully complicit in the deal, including knowing that it was in blatent breach of EU legislation, and are now terrified that it's going to come out and they are going to end up going to jail.
None, but that's the wrong end of the stick many seem to be grasping. The EU laws are pretty clear; a member state can set its own taxes (with some constraints on levels), but they have to set them equally with no specific tax breaks for specific companies - that would be considered State Aid. Dublin basically decided to give Apple (and probably all of the others under investigation) a tax break in return for them setting up shop in Ireland instead of elsewhere in the EU, but didn't extend the tax rate to every other corporation in Ireland. (They also turned a blind eye to the huge scam of what is essentially a shell company operating on that discount tax rate and avoiding higher rate taxes elsewhere, but that's a totally separate issue for another court.) Hence they contravened EU law and the reason they are running scared and siding with Apple as the chances are pretty good that "tax break" could well turn into "bribe" as far as the Irish tax office is concerned, which could in turn potentially mean criminal prosecutions.
And no, Apple et al don't get off the hook. That the default tax rate a lot more than what they were paying can't have failed to escape their notice (they were probably getting bonuses based on it after all), and ignorance of the law, in this case the "no company specific tax breaks" bit, is never an acceptable defence. Of course, with so much money at stake spending a few million more - chump change by comparison - on lawyers in the hope that you can get it negated, or at least reduced, on appeal is pretty much a no-brainer so Apple's position is hardly surprising.
In before the inevitable SJW, then:
Justice for Lucy! Hominid lives matter!
They generally do support multiple lines for multiple customers, but that doesn't automatically let Apple of the hook. I'd imagine that each customer has a specific and confidential contract negotiated based on guaranteed volumes, excess volumes, complexity of assembly, and so on, which would make a direct comparison problematic even if the numbers were in the public domain, so it's going to be far from clear cut. However, if it can be shown that only Apple is insisting that Pegatron (and presumably other assemblers) push the costs below what they can sustain while remaining in compliance with China's laws (which are not that great to start with), or - perhaps more likely - is doing so to a greater degree than other companies, then it's absolutely an Apple story.
Of course, regardless of Apple's culpability (or not), it's mostly a "western consumers generally don't give a crap about conditions in third world sweat shops" story. Perhaps if someone like Fairtrade, or a similar organization, started establishing and enforcing some standards, putting the brand names on a guilt trip to take more responsibility, and gaving people a choice between paying a bit extra for the peace of mind an "approved supplier" logo brings or just saving a few bucks and conscience be damned, then we might see some traction on this. Until then, it's going to be minimised costs, maximised profits, and screw the cheap labour for every drop of blood and sweat you can get away with.
Perhaps, but again, it just demonstrates that the media companies simply don't get it and having cut of their own nose have now proceeded to remove other facial features. People don't use search engines to find out what's going on in the world (e.g. the snippets of news articles of TFS), they'll go directly to their MSM site(s) of choice for that with no linking or royalties required, or go through a new aggregator. People use a search engine for news stories because they either already know what they are looking for but don't know where to look for it or are looking for an alternative take on it, and in that case having some indication of how relevant the results are (in the case of the snippets) or any results (in the case of linking in the first place) are going to dictate where their clicks go.
What the MSM sites don't seem to grasp is that this is free traffic generation for them; when a user searches for some given event/gossip/whatever and ends up on some random news site purely because it happened to pop up in the search results with a relevant looking snippet of the article, they've got an opportunity to serve up some ads, sell other services they offer, and maybe even acquire a new regular reader. Remove the snippets, let alone the links, and all of that traffic is not just going to go away - it's going to go to one of your competitors that had more of a clue about how things work. Both the search engines and MSM companies need each other for this arrangement to work, but the relative numbers of major search engines to MSM sites puts the advantage firmly in the hands of the search engines; they need *some* MSM sites, but they don't need all of them, and they certainly don't need the ones the like to haul them into the courts at the drop of a hat.
Even if it does pass, I really don't see this one being a problem for the search engines - just the opposite, in fact given the way Google responded to a similar legislative attempt in Spain. It's a "request for payment", at least in this version, so I would imagine it'll go down like this: Some media outlets "request" payment. The search engines cough up some cash for past transgressions and strip the snippets from future search results for those companies. Search engine users click on alternative links that still provide snippets. Media outlets that made the requests for payments have to go back to the search engines and beg for a new deal, which will obviously be loaded in favour of the search engines.
As a bonus, as search engine users and media consumers, we'll also get to sort out the dinosaurs in the media business (Hi, Rupert!) from those that are actually willing to try and embrace the new Internet order and make it work for them; I know which group I'd rather support...
I think the camera manufacturers all realise that, especially at the high-end. Sure, they'll play the MP numbers game at the low-end where people don't know better and it translates into sales but all the prosumer and pro models generally offer a trade-off of MP vs. ISO suitable for the model at high; e.g. high-MP/low-ISO for the Canon 5DS, mid-MP/mid-ISO for the the Canon 5D and low-MP/high-ISO for the Canon 1DX. Assuming you are competent and understand what you need the camera(s) for and how you plan on using it, you'll choose accordingly.
It's the all or nothing approach. Previously, you could read the patch notes (such as they were) and make an informed decision as to whether to "patch ASAP", "test thoroughly, then patch", "whenever", or "not required (e.g. telemetry/GWX crap)" on a patch by patch basis. Other than the paucity of real data and Microsoft's far too frequent attempts to slip a turd in there, that's really not all that different from any other patch system, on any other OS - unless you are compiling from source that you have looked personally diff'd and examined the changes, you are still trusting your patch provider to do the right thing; binary packages on *nix are no different from binary .msu or .exe files on Windows Update in that respect.
Now, while you can still defer the installation, you don't have that per-patch flexibility. That could potentially mean that you have to choose between breaking something critical to you (e.g. the USB webcam borkage of the recent Windows 10 update) and leaving your system exposed to some critical and remotely exploitable vulnerability instead of just patching the critical hole and waiting for Microsoft to fix the USB webcam issue. Yes, when it works, the new approach will be simpler, easier for everyone to manage, and will no doubt help alleviate some of the problems with Windows Update's seriously broken version control mechanisms, but Microsoft's track record on "when it works", has been pretty dire lately. It's also much easier for Microsoft to slip something nasty in there, again something their track record on has been pretty dire of late.
Frankly, I'm all for this latest brain dead move by Microsoft. Those that have a bit of technical nous can figure out some viable approach to patch management and additional security layers easily enough (they shouldn't have to, but still), while many of those that don't are inevitably going fall foul of a series of future USB webcam style screw-ups in the future. Same result in both cases; more pain for using Windows and a greater chance that alternatives will be considered, and anything that disrupts the Microsoft monoculture is fine by me.
I totally agree; there's never going to be a sweetheart deal, nor was there ever any chance of one. The EU has to look out for the EU at this point. Basically, I think it's going to come down a choice between an EEA access agreement similar to Norway's with all the strings that entails, or a full exit and having to pay trade tariffs to the EU with all the strings that entails. There will be a little give and take on the details, but pretty much everything else comes down to window dressing on the EEA terms & conditions. Obviously any EEA access agreement that includes the almost inevitable free travel precondition is going to be considered completely unacceptable to most of those who voted Brexit, so I'm really looking forwards to see how Theresa May tries to salvage this and get another term - and who she's going to throw under the bus to try and pull it off (other than David Davis and Boris Johnson, obviously).
The various unions at EDF have been less than happy with the terms of the deal for ages and have seized on this as grounds for EDF to invalidate their current agreement and re-negotiate their end of the deal on more favourable terms. Unions being what they are in matters like this, they'll probably be quite happy to sour the entire deal in the hope of getting a better deal for their members, and if a major deal between the UK and EDF goes south then that's almost certainly going to have a knock-on effect on the relationship with the French government. Yep, the same French government that is going to be taking a lead role in the Article 50 negotiations governing Brexit, already seems to be taking a hardline stance on the potential terms and, like all other members of the EU, has the ability to veto any deal that might be negotiated over Brexit. That all bodes well for a better Brexit deal with lower trade tariffs than the WTO default, doesn't it?
Meanwhile, having annoyed the Chinese, Theresa May is now apparently trying to improve relations with Russia which, while it definitely needs to happen in its own right, doesn't exactly scan well in connection with alienating the Chinese the week prior.
It's overkill for general use, certainly, but it is a good combination for physical screen size and semi-standard display resolutions which is why I suspect so many phones are using it. Compared to similar sized screens at lower resolutions like 1920x1080 and at least in my personal experience you can just about see the difference, especially for things like reading ebooks where fonts appear a little bit crisper, which makes it easier on the eyes during longer usage sessions such as on long haul flights. Put it into the compatible version of the Gear VR headset though and it might make a difference as well, as it'll only be a couple of inches in front of your eyes then. Of course, that still leaves the issue of having an app that's worth using a Gear VR for, but that's not really a hardware design issue.
Pretty much this. You basically list all your assets, creditors and debtors and then the bun fight over who gets what starts. (Spoiler: the banks and lawyers "win" so Hogan will probably get jack, although I suppose Peter Thiel already got what he wanted). I guess the New York Daily News just took a sample of entries from the top, middle and bottom of the dollar scale of identified assets, so I dare say that if he could have found a receipt for a Starbucks giftcard then that would have been listed too.
Yes, some impacts were undeniably immediate. Most obviously that Sterling dropped 10%, which is a huge loss, but despite that the FTSE lept up (probably a bubble, but still). For pretty much for every negative indicator, you can find a contrary one if you look, so hardly the doom and gloom Remain was claiming, but not quite the brave new world being touted by Leave either - the reality was somewhere between the two extremes; that shouldn't be surprising to anyone with any sense. I agree that the uncertainty obviously doesn't help at all, but until we get a better feel for what BrExit is actually going to entail, or even *might* actually entail, the best you can do is start planning for various contingencies and getting prepared to bunker down, just in case. Best get used to that uncertainty though; the golden rule of negotiation is not to put your cards on the table too soon, so I'd not expect much clarity on the revised terms of the UK-EU relationship until long after Article 50 gets invoked. Until then, what else can you do but Keep Calm and Carry On - and make sure you've got a plan if things don't work out?
Why? We still have no idea what kind of deal we are going to get when we invoke Article 50, so "Keep Calm and Carry On" seems to be a more sensible approach at this point; freaking out achieve nothing right now because there's nothing concrete to actually freak out about other than some vague thing known as "BrExit" that can't be defined. Longer term, likely at least a year away, once some details of negotiations start coming out (e.g. just how little slack the EU is prepared to cut in order to avoid other countries seeking similar deals, whether or not they insist on free travel as a condition of EEA access, Schengen as a requirement, and all the other stuff that have become mandatory membership conditions since 1975) and the markets, industry and other economic factors have had a chance to adjust, that's when it'll be time to start freaking out.
Or not. While I think Remain would have been the better choice, I don't think Leave has to be a terrible one either; just that it's probably not going to be as good in the long term and it's all down to the negotiations. Right now Germany seems to want a reasonable deal, France seems to want to stick the knife in, and the other 25 countries fall somewhere in betweeen or have yet to make their position clear, so it could easily go either way regarding the EU, and then there are deals to be struck with other countries, especially the Commonwealth, the US, and maybe even China if the delay on Hinckley Point hasn't soured the relationship.
Or you could be a little selective and just reduce the number of things that help make your fingerprint unique. That's the biggest failing in these fingerprinting sites so far; they don't really help you figure out how to do that, and what the effects on your fingerprint's uniqueness might be if you did to help you decide whether it's worth the effort or not. What I'd like to see is each parameter have a way of telling me right there what the common value options for that parameter are, they effect on your fingerprint of setting it to that value, and some suggestions as to how to go about doing that, especially where it's something as simple as downloading the US-English version of a browser intead of the UK-English one.
Yeah, that argument keeps coming up; "Net Neutratility or Common Carrier Status - just pick one already!" Seriously though, if the cable operators were to lose their common carrier status what do you think they'd do? Come down like an anvil on content and install non-optional and over-reaching filters, transparent proxy use and draconian levels of logging across the board, perhaps? Realistically, pretty much anything that will let them produce log files that pass the buck squarely onto the end user when anyone who cares to ask comes knocking seems rather inevitiable I think but, if we're lucky, I suppose they *might* insist on a warrant before they hand over the data. Probably not though; unneccessary processess and paperwork takes up employee time, and that costs money!
Be careful what *we* wish for as well...
Bonus points if they can get the advert posted to the Windows 10 start menu...
True, but since it doesn't actually ban the use of VPNs, a better question would be how would they *know* whether I was using a VPN to access a site they had blocked or just accessing some perfectly legal resource that they haven't proscribed like a corporate server? From the UAE's perspective VPN traffic leaving the UAE is VPN traffic leaving the UAE, no more no less - they have no way of knowing the ultimate end point, only the address of VPN server I'm connected to.
I suspect if there is an answer it's going to involve some morally bankrupt company like Blue Coat Systems, isn't it?
GBH? As in "Grievous Bullshit Hyperbole"?
Same argument I apply to *any* "rights for whatever" issue; generalise it. If you are not advocating universal rights for a given field (which equally applies to gender, race, religion, and everything else), then you are really no less biased or bigoted than those you are protesting against. You want people to have a legal right to choose a third party repair of their tractors? GTFO. You want people to have a legal right to choose a third party repair of *any* vehicle they own? Where do I sign up?
Not only that, military instability in Turkey could well result in major disruption to maritime traffic through the Bosporus - political treaties not withstanding - and the one country that stands to lose the most from that is Russia since the Black Sea contains all their western deep water ports that don't freeze up in winter. When you are engaged in a military campaign and propping up the regime of an ally in Syria the last thing you'd want do is to risk losing the ability to supply them by sea.
Reuters is reporting that he was on holiday in Marmaris on the S.W. coast of Turkey, so it seems likely the backdrop was his holiday hotel or villa. While it's quite possible that his "safe location" is still in Turkey, Marmaris is well within helicopter range of mainland Greece, Crete and Turkish held areas of Cyprus so it's equally likely he could be out of the country by now. Either way, I can't see him wanting to go too far - in the event his side prevails he'll want to be seem to be visibly back in the country and condemning the consipirators ASAP.
It certainly seems to be well organized and wide spread. Extensive military presence has been reported at numerous sites across the country, especially in the capital, Ankara, and Istanbul, as you might expect, and all the airports have been closed down indicating a presence at other cities as well so this doesn't appear to be a small revolt by a handful of rogue colonels as the government is claiming. Interestingly, a heavy police presence was noticed earlier in the day and there are some reports of gunfire between units of the police and military, so it's possible someone in Erdogan's government had an inkling that something might be up and tried to do something about it.
Yeah, that's my assessment of Boris Johnson's appointment as well. The initial reaction was "WTF!?", which is pretty much the response that dominated the global media coverage of it, especially given that Theresa May's other choices seemed fairly reasonable, but when you think it over the is really just a very well crafted stab in the back for Boris. He claims to be a BrExit supporter (yet didn't actually seem to want to change much, despite his campaigning), so despite any attempts to dodge the bullets by refusing to stand for PM, he's still going to have to either demonstrate some faith in his convictions or take the heat for breaking promises. Then there's the matter of his need to go cap in hand to the various people and cultures he's insulted over the years, and all quite likely under an intense media spotlight.
Frankly, I think this is a brilliant idea by May. She's assigned Boris a position alright, and it's "useful idiot" - someone who is going to be drawing all the media attention, while the real work goes on elsewhere (it's actually Phil Hammond, Liam Fox and David Davis that will be mostly responsible for BrExit). As you note though, despite his reputation as a buffoon, Boris is also generally regarded as someone is also fairly astute, so while this could easily be seen as giving him a rope by which to hang himself, he's also been given an opportunity to actually make it all work. Only time will tell whether this makes or breaks Boris' political career, but I don't think there's much room for middle ground.