A $1.45 billion loan guarantee is not $1.45 billion in cash. It's only an underwriting of the loans which Abengoa Solar will be taking out to build the solar plant. A sovereign guarantee reduces the cost of the loans since the banks face a much lower risk of default. The actual cost to the Government will be close to zero until and unless Abengoa Solar defaults on the loans, in which case the cost to the Government will be whatever proportion of the loan the banks are unable to recover.
Well, you have time to hit/., so there's obviously *some* spare time in your day. Learn to be more efficient in your use of time. Spend time on Lifehacker and 43folders instead of Slashdot.
Then find a job you want to go for, and go for it. If you need to take time off for an interview, do it. Right now you're sacrificing long-term interests for short term crises. That's not smart.
I've been working on a project in the A&N Islands the last couple of years so I know a bit about this:
There are a couple of reasons the islands have been off-limits. The main one is defence security. If you look at a map of the Indian Ocean, the A&N Islands are at the opposite corner of the ocean from mainland India - much closer to Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. As a result a significant chunk of India's navy and air force are stationed there - think forward positioning. One of the first major casualties of the tsunami was the Indian Air Force base on Car Nicobar islands in the extreme south, which was totally wiped out. Even now, foreigners are allowed to visit the northern Andamans, but are prevented from travelling to the southern Nicobars unless they have special permission.
Protecting the native tribes is a much less significant concern. There are around 300-400k mainland Indians living in the Andamans now (plus a bunch of migrant Burmese and Bangladeshis) so preventing the transmission of diseases isn't really an issue anymore, with the possible exception of the 200-odd Sentinelese living on North Sentinel Island.
my local 5'Sec laundry in Kuala Lumpur has a similar gadget that's made out of an inflatable canvas sack attached to the steam generator they use for all their industrial irons.
The Bangladeshi guys running the laundry use it more for long dresses and ballgowns rather than shirts.
I'd take a picture to show you, but I'm in India right now and it's a helluva long way to go for karma points;-)
Be warned that some companies (e.g. IBM) won't accept online payments using an overseas credit card if you order through their US site - even if you're having it delivered to a US address.
I was visiting my brother in Michigan last summer and tried ordering a spare battery for my Thinkpad. The system accepted the order, but I got a call a couple of days later from a sales rep saying that they couldn't accept that credit card (even though it was from Citibank, the account was overseas).
In a dazzling bit of human interface engineering, the people developing the Malaysia smart card (teething problems and all) have used the blank, printable surface of the card to record in human-readable plaintext and bitmap graphics the name, address, DOB, mugshot, etc. of the cardholder. (/wry sarcasm)
So the bouncer in my local club doesn't need a card-reader, since he is the card-reader. (Yes, Ethel, I know how bad that pun was...)
The card readers would be restricted to agencies and organisations that need them, while Joe Bouncer reads the basic data off the front, just like with the existing National Identity Cards.
y'want genuine Made-in-Malaysia religion cards? No problem - just let me stock up on ink carts for the bubblejet, and you can have them in any colour you like - say $2.99 apiece? Lamination two bucks extra...:-)
"Maybe there is there some kind weirdo fringe group behind it."
there is - we call them politicians. And yes, we have drug problems, and loony fringes who occasionally stock up on guns, but you must realise that video game arcades are a much more attractive problem for the politicians because they're *easy to deal with*. Much harder to take on the drug lords or loonies who are willing to die for their beliefs.
It's like a kindergarden playground - it's always the little kid who gets picked on, not the big beefy hulker with the scowl. That's how small-minded bullies (who grow up to be politicians) operate...
nah, tape's hardly ever used anymore here in Malaysia. VCDs are the bootleg material of choice, though I wouldn't say no to a DVD copy. Skip the 'few thousand' copies - d'you want to just send me one? I promise to be suitably influenced by the subtle analogies...:-)
Muslims aren't allowed to *gamble* by law. Games per se are fine, it's wagering money that's not allowed for Muslims. And it's a little harder to get around than saying "I'm not Muslim" since Malaysians carry compulsory identity cards which (amongst other things) help to distinguish Muslims and non-Muslims.
Knee-jerk reactions like this are typical of the Malaysian Government, unfortunately. We use the traditional approach to selecting Cabinet members - it's an intellectual race and the slowest ones win...
I cringe to see Malaysia listed under 'equally dreaded countries', but with the way our politicians c**p on I guess we've been asking for it. But, as my $0.02 worth, don't worry about our 'secret agencies' doing Echelon-type stuff - right now the technology here is so bad our ISPs lose entire server-loads of email for days on end - and I have wet dreams about 99% uptime!
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A $1.45 billion loan guarantee is not $1.45 billion in cash. It's only an underwriting of the loans which Abengoa Solar will be taking out to build the solar plant. A sovereign guarantee reduces the cost of the loans since the banks face a much lower risk of default. The actual cost to the Government will be close to zero until and unless Abengoa Solar defaults on the loans, in which case the cost to the Government will be whatever proportion of the loan the banks are unable to recover.
Well, you have time to hit /., so there's obviously *some* spare time in your day. Learn to be more efficient in your use of time. Spend time on Lifehacker and 43folders instead of Slashdot.
Then find a job you want to go for, and go for it. If you need to take time off for an interview, do it. Right now you're sacrificing long-term interests for short term crises. That's not smart.
I've been working on a project in the A&N Islands the last couple of years so I know a bit about this: There are a couple of reasons the islands have been off-limits. The main one is defence security. If you look at a map of the Indian Ocean, the A&N Islands are at the opposite corner of the ocean from mainland India - much closer to Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. As a result a significant chunk of India's navy and air force are stationed there - think forward positioning. One of the first major casualties of the tsunami was the Indian Air Force base on Car Nicobar islands in the extreme south, which was totally wiped out. Even now, foreigners are allowed to visit the northern Andamans, but are prevented from travelling to the southern Nicobars unless they have special permission. Protecting the native tribes is a much less significant concern. There are around 300-400k mainland Indians living in the Andamans now (plus a bunch of migrant Burmese and Bangladeshis) so preventing the transmission of diseases isn't really an issue anymore, with the possible exception of the 200-odd Sentinelese living on North Sentinel Island.
my local 5'Sec laundry in Kuala Lumpur has a similar gadget that's made out of an inflatable canvas sack attached to the steam generator they use for all their industrial irons. The Bangladeshi guys running the laundry use it more for long dresses and ballgowns rather than shirts. I'd take a picture to show you, but I'm in India right now and it's a helluva long way to go for karma points ;-)
Be warned that some companies (e.g. IBM) won't accept online payments using an overseas credit card if you order through their US site - even if you're having it delivered to a US address. I was visiting my brother in Michigan last summer and tried ordering a spare battery for my Thinkpad. The system accepted the order, but I got a call a couple of days later from a sales rep saying that they couldn't accept that credit card (even though it was from Citibank, the account was overseas).
In a dazzling bit of human interface engineering, the people developing the Malaysia smart card (teething problems and all) have used the blank, printable surface of the card to record in human-readable plaintext and bitmap graphics the name, address, DOB, mugshot, etc. of the cardholder. (/wry sarcasm)
So the bouncer in my local club doesn't need a card-reader, since he is the card-reader. (Yes, Ethel, I know how bad that pun was...)
The card readers would be restricted to agencies and organisations that need them, while Joe Bouncer reads the basic data off the front, just like with the existing National Identity Cards.
y'want genuine Made-in-Malaysia religion cards? No problem - just let me stock up on ink carts for the bubblejet, and you can have them in any colour you like - say $2.99 apiece? Lamination two bucks extra... :-)
"Maybe there is there some kind weirdo fringe group behind it."
there is - we call them politicians. And yes, we have drug problems, and loony fringes who occasionally stock up on guns, but you must realise that video game arcades are a much more attractive problem for the politicians because they're *easy to deal with*. Much harder to take on the drug lords or loonies who are willing to die for their beliefs.
It's like a kindergarden playground - it's always the little kid who gets picked on, not the big beefy hulker with the scowl. That's how small-minded bullies (who grow up to be politicians) operate...
nah, tape's hardly ever used anymore here in Malaysia. VCDs are the bootleg material of choice, though I wouldn't say no to a DVD copy. Skip the 'few thousand' copies - d'you want to just send me one? I promise to be suitably influenced by the subtle analogies... :-)
Muslims aren't allowed to *gamble* by law. Games per se are fine, it's wagering money that's not allowed for Muslims. And it's a little harder to get around than saying "I'm not Muslim" since Malaysians carry compulsory identity cards which (amongst other things) help to distinguish Muslims and non-Muslims.
Knee-jerk reactions like this are typical of the Malaysian Government, unfortunately. We use the traditional approach to selecting Cabinet members - it's an intellectual race and the slowest ones win...
I cringe to see Malaysia listed under 'equally dreaded countries', but with the way our politicians c**p on I guess we've been asking for it.
But, as my $0.02 worth, don't worry about our 'secret agencies' doing Echelon-type stuff - right now the technology here is so bad our ISPs lose entire server-loads of email for days on end - and I have wet dreams about 99% uptime!