My experience is many Russian cities still have a Lenina street. A Lenin statue in the main square is also still common. In Ulan-Ude is the world's largest Lenin head (a google image search shows several examples). When we cycled through Krasnoyarsk, someone had fun and had papered over one of the "Lenina" signs to make it "Putina".
The year before I bicycled through Ukraine and then via Kursk, Tambov, Penza to Samara. In Western Ukraine there were not (no longer) Lenin statues. However, it was interesting as we got close to Kiev and then beyond suddenly Ukrainian towns had their Lenin statues and Lenin streets.
Which parts of West Siberia were you in? We cycled across all of Russia from St Petersburg to Vladivostok going via Kazan, Ekaterinburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Krasnojarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan Ude, Chita, Khabarovsk mostly on the larger roads. Five months in total. Almost no insects before Kazan at end of May. Also, not as many insects after Krasnojarsk in mid-July. Thats why I singled out Western Siberia though there is also a time component.
We typically camped not too far from the road, and there is a lot of low marshy ground. Typical procedure when we stopped for the day was to wear rain gear and mosquito net head gear while setting up tents. Once tents were up, we climbed inside, smashed bugs that had gotten in and didn't get out until morning.
Not married, no kids. Own a duplex, have tenants to take care of it when I'm gone. Work in tech which pays fine and have had an employer that has been willing to allow an occasional LOA. Live frugally and save money rather than rely on sponsors.
Russia is a relatively expensive country, but bicycle travel and camping is not that expensive. It is also a good way to experience a country since it brings you in out of the way places without as many tourists.
That is a little more severe than I encountered when bicycling across Russia last summer.
Between end of May and mid-July, we traveled through the West-Siberian plain. We generally encountered four major types of flying insects there:
Big biting flies, 2-3cm; could keep up with a 20km/hr cyclist. Got situated before biting, so if you were quick enough, could swat them away. Seemed to be gone if it was too cold.
Mosquitoes; did not keep up with a 20km/hr cyclist. Particularly active in morning and evening.
Small biting flies; not a problem when traveling but a problem when camping
Small non-biting flies; not a big problem
Depending on where we camped, we also had problems with ants.
The density of the mosquitoes and biting flies were approximately the same as I've encountered on previous bicycle trips in northern Yukon and Alaska. However, they were much more widespread and much more continuous, day after day. Every place we camped for a month and a half, we had insects. Sometimes worse, but always present. (That was not the case in Alaska.) If one were working in one place or traveling slower than 20km/hr, I could see why that would be even worse.
However, either the situation is even worse where RockDoctor was at than where I cycled or there is (slight) exageration here, e.g. I encountered biting flies that could do 20km/hr but not mosquitoes.
Avoid depopulation. 16 million people in Russian Far East and decreasing. 2.4 people per km2 vs 80 people per km2 across the Amur River in China. The idea is to get skilled manufacturing jobs.
Use existing base of Uglegorsk. Keeps it from being shut down and has past experience with launching satellites.
Leverage other infrastructure such as roads and railroads.
As I stated in the parent posting, Putin's motivations for announcing something now likely also include the upcoming December 2nd parliamentary elections, so don't expect anything to happen quickly.
I strongly believe they will deliver on this given their track record.
Note that the announcement comes one week before the Russian Parliamentary elections set for December 2nd. Putin is term limited as President but has vowed to run for Parliament and speculated that he could continue to rule as a strong prime minister.
What has actually been announced is a feasibility study to decide a location by 2010, and intentions to build start in 2018. The Amur Region that is named is the same one where Putin announced on February 26th, 2003 that he was opening a new road across Siberia and that 2008 it would be paved. That was coincidentally three weeks before the last Russian Presidential election. I have been across the Amur Highway this year (2007) and while a lot of good work has been done, there is no way the Amur Highway will be entirely paved in 2008, nor for that matter by 2010 (Putin's last announcement on the topic in 2006) or in my opinion by 2018.
So when I think of "track record" and I think of some of the engineering difficulties of the Amur Region (think permafrost, little infrastructure,...) and I put it in the context of Russian politics, then while this may eventually be built, I doubt it will be done by 2018 mentioned in the article. All that is promised so far is a study in 2010.
I spent six weeks bicycling through South India in 2002. Similar to the Uruguay example above, I found internet cafes in many of the towns that I came through. I didn't notice them in the smallest villages but it was surprising how prevalent internet cafes were there in 2002.
I'm not sure how Indiana works, but in some places, the overall tax rate is set based on the total assessed value. Having that $400M valuation may have meant that everyone elses taxes were set lower, not that there was an extra windfall of tax income.
SGI also carries ~$265 million in debt. While not part of the purchase price, assuming this debt makes it a more expensive proposition for purchasers...
Here is some more information about this topic from the: Fedora FAQ
I believe there is also an option to up2date to turn off signature checking (--nosig). I don't understand the full implications but this behavior is new in Fedora Core 4, and I thought earlier versions of Fedora Core also had signed packages but an implementation that worked...
Unfortunately it seems like the author is too intent on slamming Cormack for his review to fit my description of an "Excellent Review". I wish he had toned this down as he could still have delivered the same technical message in a more credible fashion.
I've used a pocketmail device, for this purpose. Pocketmail sends and receives email over an accoustic coupled modem, but I also use it to log notes. The keyboard is small, but goes pretty well with my thumbs. When done, I send the notes to myself via email.
Don't remember encyclopedia salesmen knocking on your door lately
Unfortunately, I remember encylopedia salesmen a bit too well. During mid 1980s I received an offer that said "free desk reference set if you respond". I responded and when the salesman went to schedule a sales appointment, I told him "you are welcome to come, but I have no intention of buying encyclopedia Britanica." He said then he wouldn't come. I pointed out that their offer still said, "free desk reference set" and this seemed like a fraudulent business practice. His response was, "then take it up with the FTC."
So, I wrote the FTC and the local BBB. I also sent a copy in care of "Presidents office, Encyclopedia Britanica". My letter didn't get any visible response from FTC or BBB, but I did get a phone call from the legal office at Encyclopedia Britanica. They carefully explained that what happened was not their policy. Shortly thereafter a local rep of Encyclopedia Britanica called to apologize, indicated that the salesperson had been fired and came to provide both a sales call and desk reference set. I listened politely, said "no thanks" and still feel bad for causing someone to lose their job.
Having an extra 100,000+ votes clearly stands out as an error. I would have been more concerned if it was a small enough number not to be detected, but a big enough number to affect close races.
...they have less than a third of the prison population that the US has...
According to web sites such as this and this, the prison population in Australia was approximately two orders of magnitude less than that in the US. The total population is also an order of magnitude less.
If I get this right, 10 Lakh Rs == 100,000 Rs ~= $2300. So how powerful is this machine touted as a supercomputer? Anyone see a product pointer with further specifications?
After a set of favorable press coming from disclosure that the Queen of England surfed the web and ran Linux on her dual PII boxes, several other royal families quickly followed suit with press releases of their own:
It was revealed that Queen Beatrix of Netherlands is an avid Perl programmer, generating her own cgi-bin scripts.
King Harold of Norway casually let it slip at a state dinner that he recently moved from awt to swing for his new Java interfaces.
Unconfirmed reports surfaced that Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia has been one of the top contributors to distributed.net. He denied all reports and points to his seti@home scores in defense.
King Simeon II is testing the waters for a decree declaring Bulgaria as the first "Open Source Republic".
King Carl XVI Gustaf of Norway was revealed to be secretly posting replies to slashdot.org with subject titles of "Beowolf", "First Post", "who cares about RAM prices in Taiwan" and "Microsoft sux".
Royal families around Europe are uniformly denying that the rash of recent press reports were designed to make them appear more "common" and similar to the regular people.
Slashdot Mirror
Last year I bicycled across Russia.
My experience is many Russian cities still have a Lenina street. A Lenin statue in the main square is also still common. In Ulan-Ude is the world's largest Lenin head (a google image search shows several examples). When we cycled through Krasnoyarsk, someone had fun and had papered over one of the "Lenina" signs to make it "Putina".
The year before I bicycled through Ukraine and then via Kursk, Tambov, Penza to Samara. In Western Ukraine there were not (no longer) Lenin statues. However, it was interesting as we got close to Kiev and then beyond suddenly Ukrainian towns had their Lenin statues and Lenin streets.
We typically camped not too far from the road, and there is a lot of low marshy ground. Typical procedure when we stopped for the day was to wear rain gear and mosquito net head gear while setting up tents. Once tents were up, we climbed inside, smashed bugs that had gotten in and didn't get out until morning.
Not married, no kids. Own a duplex, have tenants to take care of it when I'm gone. Work in tech which pays fine and have had an employer that has been willing to allow an occasional LOA. Live frugally and save money rather than rely on sponsors.
Russia is a relatively expensive country, but bicycle travel and camping is not that expensive. It is also a good way to experience a country since it brings you in out of the way places without as many tourists.
Between end of May and mid-July, we traveled through the West-Siberian plain. We generally encountered four major types of flying insects there:
Depending on where we camped, we also had problems with ants.
The density of the mosquitoes and biting flies were approximately the same as I've encountered on previous bicycle trips in northern Yukon and Alaska. However, they were much more widespread and much more continuous, day after day. Every place we camped for a month and a half, we had insects. Sometimes worse, but always present. (That was not the case in Alaska.) If one were working in one place or traveling slower than 20km/hr, I could see why that would be even worse.
However, either the situation is even worse where RockDoctor was at than where I cycled or there is (slight) exageration here, e.g. I encountered biting flies that could do 20km/hr but not mosquitoes.
- Avoid depopulation. 16 million people in Russian Far East and decreasing. 2.4 people per km2 vs 80 people per km2 across the Amur River in China. The idea is to get skilled manufacturing jobs.
- Use existing base of Uglegorsk. Keeps it from being shut down and has past experience with launching satellites.
- Leverage other infrastructure such as roads and railroads.
As I stated in the parent posting, Putin's motivations for announcing something now likely also include the upcoming December 2nd parliamentary elections, so don't expect anything to happen quickly.I strongly believe they will deliver on this given their track record.
Note that the announcement comes one week before the Russian Parliamentary elections set for December 2nd. Putin is term limited as President but has vowed to run for Parliament and speculated that he could continue to rule as a strong prime minister.
What has actually been announced is a feasibility study to decide a location by 2010, and intentions to build start in 2018. The Amur Region that is named is the same one where Putin announced on February 26th, 2003 that he was opening a new road across Siberia and that 2008 it would be paved. That was coincidentally three weeks before the last Russian Presidential election. I have been across the Amur Highway this year (2007) and while a lot of good work has been done, there is no way the Amur Highway will be entirely paved in 2008, nor for that matter by 2010 (Putin's last announcement on the topic in 2006) or in my opinion by 2018.
So when I think of "track record" and I think of some of the engineering difficulties of the Amur Region (think permafrost, little infrastructure,...) and I put it in the context of Russian politics, then while this may eventually be built, I doubt it will be done by 2018 mentioned in the article. All that is promised so far is a study in 2010.
I spent six weeks bicycling through South India in 2002. Similar to the Uruguay example above, I found internet cafes in many of the towns that I came through. I didn't notice them in the smallest villages but it was surprising how prevalent internet cafes were there in 2002.
I'm not sure how Indiana works, but in some places, the overall tax rate is set based on the total assessed value. Having that $400M valuation may have meant that everyone elses taxes were set lower, not that there was an extra windfall of tax income.
SGI also carries ~$265 million in debt. While not part of the purchase price, assuming this debt makes it a more expensive proposition for purchasers...
I believe there is also an option to up2date to turn off signature checking (--nosig). I don't understand the full implications but this behavior is new in Fedora Core 4, and I thought earlier versions of Fedora Core also had signed packages but an implementation that worked...
When calculating the percentage of processors, is AMD counting a dual core as one or two processors?
Unfortunately it seems like the author is too intent on slamming Cormack for his review to fit my description of an "Excellent Review". I wish he had toned this down as he could still have delivered the same technical message in a more credible fashion.
"Excellent counterattack" might be more fitting.
I've used a pocketmail device, for this purpose. Pocketmail sends and receives email over an accoustic coupled modem, but I also use it to log notes. The keyboard is small, but goes pretty well with my thumbs. When done, I send the notes to myself via email.
Unfortunately, I remember encylopedia salesmen a bit too well. During mid 1980s I received an offer that said "free desk reference set if you respond". I responded and when the salesman went to schedule a sales appointment, I told him "you are welcome to come, but I have no intention of buying encyclopedia Britanica." He said then he wouldn't come. I pointed out that their offer still said, "free desk reference set" and this seemed like a fraudulent business practice. His response was, "then take it up with the FTC."
So, I wrote the FTC and the local BBB. I also sent a copy in care of "Presidents office, Encyclopedia Britanica". My letter didn't get any visible response from FTC or BBB, but I did get a phone call from the legal office at Encyclopedia Britanica. They carefully explained that what happened was not their policy. Shortly thereafter a local rep of Encyclopedia Britanica called to apologize, indicated that the salesperson had been fired and came to provide both a sales call and desk reference set. I listened politely, said "no thanks" and still feel bad for causing someone to lose their job.
Having an extra 100,000+ votes clearly stands out as an error. I would have been more concerned if it was a small enough number not to be detected, but a big enough number to affect close races.
...they have less than a third of the prison population that the US has...
According to web sites such as
this and this, the prison population in Australia was approximately two orders of magnitude less than that in the US. The total population is also an order of magnitude less.
Invented more than 100 years ago and still going strong.
Hopefully the lawyers will get paid with copies of Microsoft Bob.
If I get this right, 10 Lakh Rs == 100,000 Rs ~= $2300. So how powerful is this machine touted as a supercomputer? Anyone see a product pointer with further specifications?
(1) Creation and adoption of x10 window software
(2) PCC, the portable C compiler
(3) Berkeley networking
Don't know precise events to attach to each, but all seem to have significant impact.
After a set of favorable press coming from disclosure that the Queen of England surfed the web and ran Linux on her dual PII boxes, several other royal families quickly followed suit with press releases of their own:
It was revealed that Queen Beatrix of Netherlands is an avid Perl programmer, generating her own cgi-bin scripts.
King Harold of Norway casually let it slip at a state dinner that he recently moved from awt to swing for his new Java interfaces.
Unconfirmed reports surfaced that Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia has been one of the top contributors to distributed.net. He denied all reports and points to his seti@home scores in defense.
King Simeon II is testing the waters for a decree declaring Bulgaria as the first "Open Source Republic".
King Carl XVI Gustaf of Norway was revealed to be secretly posting replies to slashdot.org with subject titles of "Beowolf", "First Post", "who cares about RAM prices in Taiwan" and "Microsoft sux".
Royal families around Europe are uniformly denying that the rash of recent press reports were designed to make them appear more "common" and similar to the regular people.