Russian here. First, it might seem to you that powers that be can simply fabricate whatever data they want, but this is not the case. The elections are presented as democratic, they are monitored to some extent, and this year monitoring was more efficient than in any previous elections, so fraud is non-trivial. The most typical method is ballot stuffing and it is detectable using statistical methods.
Second, you're overestimating the "political machine". There was no properly designed fraud with some super-intelligent planning at the top. It would require proper coordination and commitment on all levels, not to mention some real skill, while in a corrupt government lower levels always try to reap whatever they can for themselves, while pulling the wool over eyes of upper levels. That's how the whole thing eventually falls apart. What upper levels care most about? Local election results. So the lower levels clumsily try to fabricate them.
The fraud wasn't even that blatant. By different estimates, only 1/3 to 1/5 of the votes United Russia got were fraudulent.
These other "historical events" are a creation myth. Think the Bible, or Talmud, or Quran (if you are a Christian, Muslim or Jew, choose the one you don't believe in). There are many people in this world who think these books are historically accurate, and they were used used so many times to decide who is right and who is wrong. Used to claim the status of a god chosen nation. Used to justify endless wars.
I don't know if you noticed, but in this book all mentions of "Eru" are literally equivalent to phrases with the words "god" ("praise Eru", "in Eru's name", "Eru is his witness", "Great Eru", "Almighty Eru"), and "Morgoth" is directly equivalent to "devil" ("devil's tricks", "devil's spawn").
I'm pretty sure Yeskov (like an overwhelming majority of Russians) is an atheist, while Tolkien was very religious.
Base addresses of DLLs in an application are typically chosen to avoid conflicts with system DLLs and between each other, so these conflicts are relatively rare. When they happen, the DLLs can be manually rebased.
If you could not refute any argument whatsoever by simply refusing to use deductive reasoning because "this is a special case", refusing to use analogies because "this is a special case", and surely refusing to use inductive reasoning because "this is a special case", you might have a point.
The most important reason is: why not? I suppose you're one of those guys thinking private property is a god given right. It is not. If the government would not stop me, I could just come with a bunch of well-armed guys and take what's yours. Private property right is given to you by government because it has been shown to be beneficial for economy. Also, market economy is not a god chosen system, as opposed to planned economy. It just works better. Copyrights, patents and trademarks are also government provided rights, and it is done because it is thought it is beneficial for the economy if author receives due compensation for his work.
Now, you see, while material goods are constantly produced, consumed and destroyed in this society in necessary quantities, having limited use and limited lifetime, useful information is not destroyed. Accumulating information forms certain concepts called "culture" and "science", and this process is called "progress of human civilization". Everything we do is based on ever-growing heap of information, and if the cost of using this information grows together with the size of the heap, our progress will eventually grind to a halt. However, appropriate compensation for creation of this information is necessary to stimulate production of this information, so some middle ground must be found here. Middle ground, and not perpetual government enforcement of some weird god-given right you say you have.
You could say "don't buy my book if you don't agree with my license", but the government could as well just say "don't distribute this book if you don't agree with my copyright enforcement rules". And if not for government there would be no protection.
As far as I understand, in the US copyright violation is prosecuted in a civil action and the holder has to press charges. In Russia it can be prosecuted under civil as well as criminal law. It is an offense under the Criminal Code of Russia and the criminal prosecution does not have to depend on the victim pressing charges, much like e.g. in cases of battery or theft.
Yes, this is a rather stupid idea, and yes, cases like this are very rare.
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1977 Odessa, having taken the place of one of the MID clerks and denied an exit visa for Yakov Naumovich Pokhis. Let a free world rejoice!
It will probably include not only gluttony (bloat), sloth (crappy performance), envy (poorly reimplemented stolen ideas), pride (disregard for customer satisfaction), and greed (exorbitant prices), but also wrath!
I just hope it also comes with lust (a good collection of pr0n).
Litigate! In Rainbows was just released, topping all the album charts and getting universally positive reviews. Where's the latest album by U2? Riiight.
The cost of marketing relies on the existence of a limited number of huge and expensive pipes shoved down people's throats. As soon as the majority realizes there's a innumerable series of tubes out there in the interwebs, driven not by corporate greed but by interests of like-minded people (blogs) or by your own interests (collaborative filtering similar to last.fm), marketing will suddenly become free for any good stuff.
Huge FOV like that makes sense for VR/games. If you just want to watch a movie, THX recommended FOV is 36 degrees, which matches this device precisely. Actually, for a mobile device I would not want the virtual screen to obscure my field of view completely. I'd still like to see what's happening around me. And increasing FOV does not make much sense for crappy resolution, it just makes things worse.
Desirable to whom?
That's akin to saying "if making Mac OS X/Photoshop/etc free and opening the source was such a desirable thing, it would be done by
now".
Corporate taxes are low. Personal taxes are almost nonexistent (13% flat tax across the board! Hell Yeah!!!)
As far as I remember, Russia has NDS (VAT) and income tax (both personal and profit tax for corporations) and ESN (unified social tax). In general, I would not call the taxes "low". And taxation is generally shifted towards the employer, which stimulates illegal untaxed employment.
Slashdot Mirror
Russian here. First, it might seem to you that powers that be can simply fabricate whatever data they want, but this is not the case. The elections are presented as democratic, they are monitored to some extent, and this year monitoring was more efficient than in any previous elections, so fraud is non-trivial. The most typical method is ballot stuffing and it is detectable using statistical methods.
Second, you're overestimating the "political machine". There was no properly designed fraud with some super-intelligent planning at the top. It would require proper coordination and commitment on all levels, not to mention some real skill, while in a corrupt government lower levels always try to reap whatever they can for themselves, while pulling the wool over eyes of upper levels. That's how the whole thing eventually falls apart. What upper levels care most about? Local election results. So the lower levels clumsily try to fabricate them.
The fraud wasn't even that blatant. By different estimates, only 1/3 to 1/5 of the votes United Russia got were fraudulent.
The terrorists aren't using the government, the government is using the terrorists.
These other "historical events" are a creation myth. Think the Bible, or Talmud, or Quran (if you are a Christian, Muslim or Jew, choose the one you don't believe in). There are many people in this world who think these books are historically accurate, and they were used used so many times to decide who is right and who is wrong. Used to claim the status of a god chosen nation. Used to justify endless wars.
I don't know if you noticed, but in this book all mentions of "Eru" are literally equivalent to phrases with the words "god" ("praise Eru", "in Eru's name", "Eru is his witness", "Great Eru", "Almighty Eru"), and "Morgoth" is directly equivalent to "devil" ("devil's tricks", "devil's spawn").
I'm pretty sure Yeskov (like an overwhelming majority of Russians) is an atheist, while Tolkien was very religious.
Base addresses of DLLs in an application are typically chosen to avoid conflicts with system DLLs and between each other, so these conflicts are relatively rare. When they happen, the DLLs can be manually rebased.
If you could not refute any argument whatsoever by simply refusing to use deductive reasoning because "this is a special case", refusing to use analogies because "this is a special case", and surely refusing to use inductive reasoning because "this is a special case", you might have a point.
IPS, PVA and MVA panels are much more expensive than TN.
Now, you see, while material goods are constantly produced, consumed and destroyed in this society in necessary quantities, having limited use and limited lifetime, useful information is not destroyed. Accumulating information forms certain concepts called "culture" and "science", and this process is called "progress of human civilization". Everything we do is based on ever-growing heap of information, and if the cost of using this information grows together with the size of the heap, our progress will eventually grind to a halt. However, appropriate compensation for creation of this information is necessary to stimulate production of this information, so some middle ground must be found here. Middle ground, and not perpetual government enforcement of some weird god-given right you say you have.
You could say "don't buy my book if you don't agree with my license", but the government could as well just say "don't distribute this book if you don't agree with my copyright enforcement rules". And if not for government there would be no protection.
As you suggest, unrestricted free VoIP over 3G might cause your web and e-mail mobile experience to suffer
If you compare the average bandwidth of a youtube video with the average bandwidth of a voice call, you will understand that's rather unlikely.
A phone number identifies a phone, not a person.
A postal address identifies the location of a building, not a person.
Mathematics was created as a backend for modeling the universe, why are you surprised it has an "uncanny ability" to do what it is supposed to do?
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice...
Yes, this is a rather stupid idea, and yes, cases like this are very rare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponosov's_Case
Drug Czar Toppled By Drug Bolsheviks
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1977 Odessa, having taken the place of one of the MID clerks and denied an exit visa for Yakov Naumovich Pokhis. Let a free world rejoice!
It will probably include not only gluttony (bloat), sloth (crappy performance), envy (poorly reimplemented stolen ideas), pride (disregard for customer satisfaction), and greed (exorbitant prices), but also wrath!
I just hope it also comes with lust (a good collection of pr0n).
Litigate! In Rainbows was just released, topping all the album charts and getting universally positive reviews. Where's the latest album by U2? Riiight.
Mitt Romney runs attack ad about self
The cost of marketing relies on the existence of a limited number of huge and expensive pipes shoved down people's throats. As soon as the majority realizes there's a innumerable series of tubes out there in the interwebs, driven not by corporate greed but by interests of like-minded people (blogs) or by your own interests (collaborative filtering similar to last.fm), marketing will suddenly become free for any good stuff.
Huge FOV like that makes sense for VR/games. If you just want to watch a movie, THX recommended FOV is 36 degrees, which matches this device precisely.
Actually, for a mobile device I would not want the virtual screen to obscure my field of view completely. I'd still like to see what's happening around me. And increasing FOV does not make much sense for crappy resolution, it just makes things worse.
Desirable to whom? That's akin to saying "if making Mac OS X/Photoshop/etc free and opening the source was such a desirable thing, it would be done by now".
Moreover, in some Slavic languages Q just never appears, as this letter does not exist in Cyrillic alphabet.
Not much at all, $30M only.
In Russia, "caucasians" usually refers not to "caucasian race" but to (mostly darker-skinned) peoples of the Caucasus.