Let's be realistic for a minute. Any same person would agree, but this is Sony we're talking about. The company that makes a cock-up of almost everything when it comes to the consumer year after year. Look at how they fucked up the Vita, but no one knew the anti-customer crap they had until it launched. Once people knew, the console flopped.
This is Sony, the same Sony with a legion of fanboys who wont buy anything else.
Personally I hope MS doesn't backtrack and the XBone is a failure, I'm sick of consoles trying to be PC's and holding PC gaming back... the gaming rig I built in 2009 hasn't been pushed to its limits yet.
The reason why we see so many dash-cam videos of Russia isn't because the Russians like recording their drives because they are so eventful, but rather insurance fraud is such a rampant problem that most insurance companies require them. So until the insurance companies start requiring HD dashcams, we might not see them since the demand for them nearly anywhere else is naturally going to be weak.
Everyone should get a dash cam because it cuts down on those he said/she said insurance fights. This has the effect of reducing your insurance premiums.
Of course it's a double edged sword, it will show if an accident is your fault but if you're a good driver you dont need to worry about this. If you're a bad driver, get one anyway because no doubt you've convinced yourself your a good driver and the Dunning-Kruger effect has kicked in (unskilled and unaware of it).
1080p Camera's have been around for a while, cheap (sub US$150) 1080p cameras have been available for a year, most have been Chinese copies so this has filtered through to name brands (who are just buying the Chinese made cameras and branding them), to be honest the Chinese copy cameras aren't that bad.
I think you'll find the market for dashcam's increasing as they do work in most drivers favour. Especially as drivers become lazier, stupider and more complacent (automatics and driver assist technologies have pretty much made people forget how to drive properly, few drivers know what to do when aquaplaning or recover when they lose the back wheels, most cant even drive a manual to save their life). They also let you make awesome track videos without having to drop $300+ on a GoPro. My $80 camera paid off for me, a Mum-Tank (SUV) crashed into the side my old Honda Civic (he drifted out of his lane). When the cops got there he started a huge tirade about "fucking P-Platers" and claiming I pulled in front of him. I let him finish his rant and said quietly "Officer, I have a dashcam" and pointed to the box in front of my rear view mirror. The SUV drivers jaw dropped. Needless to say he changed his tune now he knew I had footage, paid for the repairs to my Civic and got a nice dangerous driving fine to boot thanks to the footage of me going perfectly straight.
Since then, I've bought a better dashcam that you can actually read number plates on. DOD GSE550, excelent day footage although the night footage leaves a little to be desired.
He was always fake and annoying, it's just taken most people this long to realise it. You can dump Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller into the same annoying category.
I saw the preview for The Intern whilst watching Star Trek... I could tell how badly it was going to suck in the first 30 seconds.
Really, so you haven't spent enough time there to figure out that the prime minister is a woman.
The PM is a Shinawatra, sister of deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra. She also wasn't elected, rather installed after a series of "protests" removed the elected government (Abhisit).
You have to be pretty stupid not to be able to put two and two together and figure out that Thaksin is pulling the strings, especially since she called for a pardon for Thaksin 2 weeks after getting into office.
It is more in the military's interests to promote the king than the king himself. The military wants to marginalized democratic (read money) influence in national politics. The king isn't that long for this earth...
The Thai military already has a huge role in the nations politics.
Thailand is a "democracy" that has had one prime minister complete their entire term in 50 years. Many were deposed via military intervention.
So tell us genius, if the king is so popular and harmless, why does he need an entire branch of the military to look after his online reputation?
What makes you think the King ordered this?
If you bothered to read the GP's post, "genius" you'd have figured out that the King's image is used more by the political powerbrokers like Thaksin Shinawatra than the King himself. They use the King's image to curry favour with the people (well, the King is highly respected, unlike the Shinawatra's).
The King of Thailand has no real power, he couldn't order the military to do anything. At the very worst, this is just a bit of hero worship from an overzealous general.
Thailand is a dictatorship only in as much as the people want it to be. I've spent a lot of time there, and aside from some really rediculous laws concerned with disrespecting his likeness (which are more institutional rather than by his command) the Thai monarchy is hardly what I would call dictatorial. If you go spit on the King's picture in a resturaunt they'll call the police, but its not becuase the King himself decreed it or would give a shit, its just on the books. The PM (currently some guy named Shinawatra, which is like "Smith" in Anglo countries) hold way more power.
The government in Thailand is dictatorial for all intents and purposes.
However the King of Thailand has as much real power as the Queen of England, as you pointed out the Shinawatra family alone holds much more power and they are not the only powerful family in Bangkok. Pretty much the entire country is run by these families who tend to own most of the companies in Thailand.
Thailand is pretty much a non-functioning democracy (if the wrong person is elected, there will be a coup) but the King is not part of it. He's a figurehead and cult of personality but far from having any real power.
You know you can remote wipe it... BEFORE they blacklist it... right?
You mean, you have to wait until the device checks in before you can wipe it.
This is not rocket science.
It's almost as if you made that statement with no knowledge of how these systems work.
Except they won't... because they share the same database...
Never been to Europe.
That was a statement, not a question. Germans cant even get stolen cars back from Poland, so much so they never even bother trying to change or even obscure the VIN and engine number.
Even then, if Poland isn't far enough, try Latvia or Romania or Russia. Once outside the EU, your fucked. Even inside the EU you're still pretty fucked. Besides this, do you honestly think US and Canadian telco's will share info? What about Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic... Lets not even consider states that aren't friendly with the US like Cuba.
And Ebay will put an end to that when they get tired of refunding paypal transactions for stolen phones.
No, they wont.
Why, because a buyer in Brazil or China doesn't give a crap that it's stolen because it wont be locked in their countries.
This entire idea fails because it puts too much faith in criminals following instructions.
Also, carrier locks are country based. I can buy a phone locked to AT&T in the US, bring it to Australia and it will work on every telco here. Legitimately.
Specialist IT recruiters barely know enough to turn their PCs on. All they do is wait for the software to look for keywords, filter out any applicants with names like Gomez or Singh, copy/paste requirements from other similar jobs and then try to bullshit both you and their client into getting together. As long as you really do have the skills to do the job don't be afraid of bullshitting them too.
Fixed that for you.
Oh, they'll also reformat your CV into their standard and remove all your personal contact details.
Interviews with recruiters are 100% personality interviews. They dont give a crap about your professional skills, as we've both said they have no idea what they mean in the real world. The interview with the recruiters is just to size you up personalty wise, figure out if you fibbed (very obviously) on your resume and get permission to contact your references.
Take samples of your work to the actual interview. There you'll meet the technical interviewer although the non technical interviewers will be more interested in how you do things, not what you know (this is good because as a sysadmin, I cant cart a server farm around).
this why IT need more trades / apprenticeships that have ways to letter people learn. The trades schools are nice but should be more drop in to learn X skill.
IT moves way too fast for that.
I didn't learn SQL until I was 5 years into my career. Virtualisation didn't start to take off until late last decade, now it's everywhere. The versions of Windows and Linux I would have done my apprenticeship on would have been obsolete a year after I finished. A carpenter almost never needs to update their skills after their apprenticeship, sysadmins always needs to be updating theirs.
IT education needs to be more focused on how things work, then extrapolate what you need to do, not how to do things by rote memorisation. In this regard it's more suited for the university style of education as opposed to an apprenticeship.
That being said, more companies need to offer paid internship (as opposed to an apprenticeship) for new sysadmins to get experience. Taking on juniors and giving them enough real world experience to turn them into seniors in a few years. This is the way it works in Australia where unpaid internships are illegal (The ATO and FWA will nail you to the wall for not paying staff).
cut them off at the network... NYC are talking to the wrong people they need to speak to GSM and CTIA.
they do it in Europe as well the USA is very slow about this...
This is a bit of a step backwards in actual security. A phone cut off from the network wont receive the wipe command from the MDM (Mobile Device Management).
Granted that in an ideal world users would not keep any vital data on a mobile device so all we have to worry about is locking the device out from accessing the data by remote but unfortunately we live in the real world where users think it's a good idea to store half the file system and 90% of their mail on these devices, so killing all network access is pointless.
And it wont deter thefts either. In Europe, if all German carriers block a stolen phone, they'll just hock it over the border in Poland. This wont be that much harder from the US given things like Ebay and cheap international shipping. Also you're seriously underestimating the number of suckers out there who will buy "Cheap Iphone, Network unlocked (not lying)".
I think most would consider the licence fee a sort of tax.
I think you'll find most British consider the BBC to be a valuable service, well worth the license. In fact, they would feel sorry for any nation without something like the BBC, having to be held victim to the whims of large media corporations with no alternative.
Remember, in Asia, this all derived from the old school British system where exams basically set you on your path through life - basically the final exams at the end of high school was The Final Exam(tm). Score well, and you'd go to university. Score not-so-well, you got to a second-rate college. Score less and you're a lowly tradesperson. Score even worse and you're an unskilled labourer.
I'd like to point out that this is the _OLD_ school British system. This hasn't been the case in almost 50 years. The Modern US system developed hand in hand with the modern British system (as well as its colonies at the time). In a way this system still exists because its a good idea (well, to go to university you need to be able to cope with study at a university level and universities have limited placements), the only thing the US does differently are sports scholarships which to me seem completely retarded as it takes away university places from people who could make use of those resources. Sporting students should go to a sporting institution, not an education institution.
Now the problem in India is most likely to be that someone is being paid to tamper with grades (yep, this is a big problem in most Asian nations) to ensure that they can get a better job than the person next to them. Paying for your grades to be improved is considered a lot more legit than paying for a qualification outright.
Interestingly, I think in China one district is forcing all test-takers through a very sensitive metal detector and forcing them to strip - just one step below forcing test-takers to be stark naked during testing. The metal detector is extremely sensitive and basically won't allow anything metal in.
Which is kind of pointless as rich parents can simply pay for grades to be improved. This is more of a show.
A computer built in the US and shipped via American carriers is significantly less likely to be tampered with in transit. In China, you're trusting that there are no "stops" between the factory and the dock.
As someone who's had to follow DSD (Defence Signals Directorate) security policies, no OEM software ever survives. For sensitive computers we bought new hard drives and DBAN'd them before running up our SOE. We even had our own management cards (ILO/DRAC) for servers. To make sure the hardware wasn't suspect, random samples were disassembled. It didn't matter where the computer came from, it was made secure by us.
Mandating that the secretaries computers in the department of land management cant be purchased from China is just to make the jingoists Feel Good(TM). DSD/DOD/MOD policies are implemented by the departments who have to follow those policies.
There is no way to replace capitalism or free markets without using force and the threat of violence to scare every single human being into submission and eliminate those who won't submit.
Then, you're right back to the system of haves(the enforcers) and have-nots(everyone else) that you were trying to replace.
Not true,
Social systems get replaced when they no longer make sense. Which capitalism (completely separate idea to the free market) wont in a post scarcity society. In this scenario, the only way to prevent the capitalism from being replaced is to use force and violence to keep the old system in place.
Also stop trying to confuse capitalism with the free market. Capitalism can survive and even thrive in controlled markets (see: China) and is more often than not a control on the market itself (see: Monopoly), the difference between a monopolist controlled market and a state controlled market is only who is controlling the market. Capitalism in it's purest form struggles in a truly free market, which is why most western economies operate on mixed ideologies.
How have you not "seen" that if you don't own a Mac? It's pretty obvious you do not, nor would you even if it were the better system for you.
I had to support them for years. I've seen brand new Macbooks get nowhere near the claimed battery life because I had to test them and the first complaints I got from Mac users were "Why do I only get 5 hours of battery life, the ads said 7". I got the same thing when the ads said 10.
There are good reasons I flat out say to new employers, "I dont work with Apple products".
So I know full well they are the worst system for everyone. Also, dont make assumptions about people.
What exactly is "maintaining"? I've spent nothing on "Maintaining" my PC for some six years. And you can buy four PC's for that fee. And you can get a techie at $20 an hour for five hours a month every other month, so call it $500 per year. (Skipping currency games.)
Their considering boot times to be costs. That should tell you how much bollocks is in the article (I, like any true/.er haven't read it).
Actual overheads are probably much lower.
Also which government department, the amount of security around any MOD installation would easily reach or exceed 6000 GBP in overheads, but very few departments would have this onerous requirement.
In what period of modern history did the British keep the main part of their Army in the home Islands?
Almost all of it.
The British empire kept a very, very small army. the 18th and 19th century was before the day of the professional army. Armies were raised as needed, as was the case in the Napoleonic war where soldiers were recruited for a shilling.
The professional fighting force the British kept was almost entirely in their navy, most of their land fighting force was in the Marines which served on ships and at naval bases. The Navy was the centre of British power up until the 20th century. Local governors recruited local forces unless there was a war on.
I'd say this is pretty strong evidence he does. This should be both unconstitutional and illegal by all publicly known laws. If it's legal by secret laws that's pretty much the definition of ruling by fiat.
"There was no ice at the polls, no glaciers, and a lot more carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere."
Dear editors, please do something to stop the spread of typoitis. This terrible disease continues to horrify the grammar nazis among us and I've had it with their moaning.
Somewhere in here is a proper noun you failed to capitalise.
Say what you want about Apple, one thing you cannot (rationally) debate
The only reason you cannot rationally debate that is because Mac fans are so irrational.
I've never seen a Mac get within 2 hours of it's advertised battery life, you'd be lucky to get within 3 hours of it under normal usage. Iphones/Ipads are even worse for advertised battery life vs reality.
Yet I fully expect rabid Mac fanboys flame me for saying this. Ad Hominiem is the first thing I expect.
Much like advertised fuel economy, advertised battery life is a huge lie. It's done in controlled conditions and deliberately disables or hobbles things people want to use (I.E. screen brigtness). The advertised fuel economy depends on you spending x minutes at highway speeds, less than y minutes idling and always accelerating at the vehicles optimum rate, conditions that can never be replicated in the real world, battery life is the same. They assume you will not use the optical drive, you will perform less than x writes to the disk, you will use the screen at 25/30/40% brightness, you will never use more than y% of the CPU, the video codecs used will be the most efficient etc... again conditions that can never be replicated in the real world. All manufacturers do this, from Toyota to Toshiba.
Advertised battery life is an exercise in lying by marketing and if I have to praise Apple, it's that they are excellent at marketing, I'll even say they are unmatched in that field.
Hmm, that analogy doesn't seem very relevant. A Communist dictator who kept himself in power by brutal means and exported all of his country's resources for his own personal gain vs. a democracy with a 2 term president, checks and balances, and media that scrutinizes and publicizes every dump a politician takes?
Plus the US president doesn't rule by fiat. This would have had to go through the Senate and House of representatives (Not sure what you call them, I'm from a country using the Westminster system).
As history has shown, the only realistic way a remotely successful revolt can happen in the US is when it's on extremely divisive and more importantly GEOGRAPHICAL boundaries (which allowed the military itself to organize along *local* loyalties - as you said, friends and neighbors)
As history has shown.
Revolutions that dont have military support tend to fail more often than not. Even the US war of independence wasn't the American people rising up against the British but the Colonial army of American rising up against the British. The British empire kept very few English soldiers anywhere except the British isles. Mostly they trained locals under British or local governors.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony must be loving this.
Let's be realistic for a minute. Any same person would agree, but this is Sony we're talking about. The company that makes a cock-up of almost everything when it comes to the consumer year after year. Look at how they fucked up the Vita, but no one knew the anti-customer crap they had until it launched. Once people knew, the console flopped.
This is Sony, the same Sony with a legion of fanboys who wont buy anything else.
Personally I hope MS doesn't backtrack and the XBone is a failure, I'm sick of consoles trying to be PC's and holding PC gaming back... the gaming rig I built in 2009 hasn't been pushed to its limits yet.
> the used game resale options are in the hands of the game developers
Which is funny because were I live it's in the hand of the law. The law that says "I can resell my own games."
Good luck with that. Microsoft has upheld the notion that you cant re-sell OEM copies of Windows in court for over a decade now.
The reason why we see so many dash-cam videos of Russia isn't because the Russians like recording their drives because they are so eventful, but rather insurance fraud is such a rampant problem that most insurance companies require them. So until the insurance companies start requiring HD dashcams, we might not see them since the demand for them nearly anywhere else is naturally going to be weak.
Everyone should get a dash cam because it cuts down on those he said/she said insurance fights. This has the effect of reducing your insurance premiums.
Of course it's a double edged sword, it will show if an accident is your fault but if you're a good driver you dont need to worry about this. If you're a bad driver, get one anyway because no doubt you've convinced yourself your a good driver and the Dunning-Kruger effect has kicked in (unskilled and unaware of it).
1080p Camera's have been around for a while, cheap (sub US$150) 1080p cameras have been available for a year, most have been Chinese copies so this has filtered through to name brands (who are just buying the Chinese made cameras and branding them), to be honest the Chinese copy cameras aren't that bad.
I think you'll find the market for dashcam's increasing as they do work in most drivers favour. Especially as drivers become lazier, stupider and more complacent (automatics and driver assist technologies have pretty much made people forget how to drive properly, few drivers know what to do when aquaplaning or recover when they lose the back wheels, most cant even drive a manual to save their life). They also let you make awesome track videos without having to drop $300+ on a GoPro. My $80 camera paid off for me, a Mum-Tank (SUV) crashed into the side my old Honda Civic (he drifted out of his lane). When the cops got there he started a huge tirade about "fucking P-Platers" and claiming I pulled in front of him. I let him finish his rant and said quietly "Officer, I have a dashcam" and pointed to the box in front of my rear view mirror. The SUV drivers jaw dropped. Needless to say he changed his tune now he knew I had footage, paid for the repairs to my Civic and got a nice dangerous driving fine to boot thanks to the footage of me going perfectly straight.
Since then, I've bought a better dashcam that you can actually read number plates on. DOD GSE550, excelent day footage although the night footage leaves a little to be desired.
And what happened to Vince Vaughn anyway?
When was Vince Vaughn ever funny.
He was always fake and annoying, it's just taken most people this long to realise it. You can dump Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller into the same annoying category.
I saw the preview for The Intern whilst watching Star Trek... I could tell how badly it was going to suck in the first 30 seconds.
Really, so you haven't spent enough time there to figure out that the prime minister is a woman.
The PM is a Shinawatra, sister of deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra. She also wasn't elected, rather installed after a series of "protests" removed the elected government (Abhisit).
You have to be pretty stupid not to be able to put two and two together and figure out that Thaksin is pulling the strings, especially since she called for a pardon for Thaksin 2 weeks after getting into office.
It is more in the military's interests to promote the king than the king himself. The military wants to marginalized democratic (read money) influence in national politics. The king isn't that long for this earth...
The Thai military already has a huge role in the nations politics.
Thailand is a "democracy" that has had one prime minister complete their entire term in 50 years. Many were deposed via military intervention.
So tell us genius, if the king is so popular and harmless, why does he need an entire branch of the military to look after his online reputation?
What makes you think the King ordered this?
If you bothered to read the GP's post, "genius" you'd have figured out that the King's image is used more by the political powerbrokers like Thaksin Shinawatra than the King himself. They use the King's image to curry favour with the people (well, the King is highly respected, unlike the Shinawatra's).
The King of Thailand has no real power, he couldn't order the military to do anything. At the very worst, this is just a bit of hero worship from an overzealous general.
I, for one, welcome our new 50 Cent Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party Overlords (Thailand Branch).
Surely that would be the "Ha Sip Satang" party.
Thailand is a dictatorship only in as much as the people want it to be. I've spent a lot of time there, and aside from some really rediculous laws concerned with disrespecting his likeness (which are more institutional rather than by his command) the Thai monarchy is hardly what I would call dictatorial. If you go spit on the King's picture in a resturaunt they'll call the police, but its not becuase the King himself decreed it or would give a shit, its just on the books. The PM (currently some guy named Shinawatra, which is like "Smith" in Anglo countries) hold way more power.
The government in Thailand is dictatorial for all intents and purposes.
However the King of Thailand has as much real power as the Queen of England, as you pointed out the Shinawatra family alone holds much more power and they are not the only powerful family in Bangkok. Pretty much the entire country is run by these families who tend to own most of the companies in Thailand.
Thailand is pretty much a non-functioning democracy (if the wrong person is elected, there will be a coup) but the King is not part of it. He's a figurehead and cult of personality but far from having any real power.
passenger - do you want to restrict them, too?
Passengers know when to shut up.
People on the other side of the phone dont.
You mean, you have to wait until the device checks in before you can wipe it.
This is not rocket science.
It's almost as if you made that statement with no knowledge of how these systems work.
Never been to Europe.
That was a statement, not a question. Germans cant even get stolen cars back from Poland, so much so they never even bother trying to change or even obscure the VIN and engine number.
Even then, if Poland isn't far enough, try Latvia or Romania or Russia. Once outside the EU, your fucked. Even inside the EU you're still pretty fucked. Besides this, do you honestly think US and Canadian telco's will share info? What about Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic... Lets not even consider states that aren't friendly with the US like Cuba.
No, they wont.
Why, because a buyer in Brazil or China doesn't give a crap that it's stolen because it wont be locked in their countries.
This entire idea fails because it puts too much faith in criminals following instructions.
Also, carrier locks are country based. I can buy a phone locked to AT&T in the US, bring it to Australia and it will work on every telco here. Legitimately.
"The head of the messaging application Viber has said people in Saudi Arabia have had basic freedoms taken away, after his service was blocked there.
OK, they only figured that the Saudi's have taken away basic freedoms from people after they blocked viber?
Specialist IT recruiters barely know enough to turn their PCs on. All they do is wait for the software to look for keywords, filter out any applicants with names like Gomez or Singh, copy/paste requirements from other similar jobs and then try to bullshit both you and their client into getting together. As long as you really do have the skills to do the job don't be afraid of bullshitting them too.
Fixed that for you.
Oh, they'll also reformat your CV into their standard and remove all your personal contact details.
Interviews with recruiters are 100% personality interviews. They dont give a crap about your professional skills, as we've both said they have no idea what they mean in the real world. The interview with the recruiters is just to size you up personalty wise, figure out if you fibbed (very obviously) on your resume and get permission to contact your references.
Take samples of your work to the actual interview. There you'll meet the technical interviewer although the non technical interviewers will be more interested in how you do things, not what you know (this is good because as a sysadmin, I cant cart a server farm around).
this why IT need more trades / apprenticeships that have ways to letter people learn. The trades schools are nice but should be more drop in to learn X skill.
IT moves way too fast for that.
I didn't learn SQL until I was 5 years into my career. Virtualisation didn't start to take off until late last decade, now it's everywhere. The versions of Windows and Linux I would have done my apprenticeship on would have been obsolete a year after I finished. A carpenter almost never needs to update their skills after their apprenticeship, sysadmins always needs to be updating theirs.
IT education needs to be more focused on how things work, then extrapolate what you need to do, not how to do things by rote memorisation. In this regard it's more suited for the university style of education as opposed to an apprenticeship.
That being said, more companies need to offer paid internship (as opposed to an apprenticeship) for new sysadmins to get experience. Taking on juniors and giving them enough real world experience to turn them into seniors in a few years. This is the way it works in Australia where unpaid internships are illegal (The ATO and FWA will nail you to the wall for not paying staff).
cut them off at the network... NYC are talking to the wrong people they need to speak to GSM and CTIA.
they do it in Europe as well the USA is very slow about this...
This is a bit of a step backwards in actual security. A phone cut off from the network wont receive the wipe command from the MDM (Mobile Device Management).
Granted that in an ideal world users would not keep any vital data on a mobile device so all we have to worry about is locking the device out from accessing the data by remote but unfortunately we live in the real world where users think it's a good idea to store half the file system and 90% of their mail on these devices, so killing all network access is pointless.
And it wont deter thefts either. In Europe, if all German carriers block a stolen phone, they'll just hock it over the border in Poland. This wont be that much harder from the US given things like Ebay and cheap international shipping. Also you're seriously underestimating the number of suckers out there who will buy "Cheap Iphone, Network unlocked (not lying)".
I think most would consider the licence fee a sort of tax.
I think you'll find most British consider the BBC to be a valuable service, well worth the license. In fact, they would feel sorry for any nation without something like the BBC, having to be held victim to the whims of large media corporations with no alternative.
I'd like to point out that this is the _OLD_ school British system. This hasn't been the case in almost 50 years. The Modern US system developed hand in hand with the modern British system (as well as its colonies at the time). In a way this system still exists because its a good idea (well, to go to university you need to be able to cope with study at a university level and universities have limited placements), the only thing the US does differently are sports scholarships which to me seem completely retarded as it takes away university places from people who could make use of those resources. Sporting students should go to a sporting institution, not an education institution.
Now the problem in India is most likely to be that someone is being paid to tamper with grades (yep, this is a big problem in most Asian nations) to ensure that they can get a better job than the person next to them. Paying for your grades to be improved is considered a lot more legit than paying for a qualification outright.
Which is kind of pointless as rich parents can simply pay for grades to be improved. This is more of a show.
Graft is an economy all of its own in China.
A computer built in the US and shipped via American carriers is significantly less likely to be tampered with in transit. In China, you're trusting that there are no "stops" between the factory and the dock.
As someone who's had to follow DSD (Defence Signals Directorate) security policies, no OEM software ever survives. For sensitive computers we bought new hard drives and DBAN'd them before running up our SOE. We even had our own management cards (ILO/DRAC) for servers. To make sure the hardware wasn't suspect, random samples were disassembled. It didn't matter where the computer came from, it was made secure by us.
Mandating that the secretaries computers in the department of land management cant be purchased from China is just to make the jingoists Feel Good(TM). DSD/DOD/MOD policies are implemented by the departments who have to follow those policies.
There is no way to replace capitalism or free markets without using force and the threat of violence to scare every single human being into submission and eliminate those who won't submit.
Then, you're right back to the system of haves(the enforcers) and have-nots(everyone else) that you were trying to replace.
Not true,
Social systems get replaced when they no longer make sense. Which capitalism (completely separate idea to the free market) wont in a post scarcity society. In this scenario, the only way to prevent the capitalism from being replaced is to use force and violence to keep the old system in place.
Also stop trying to confuse capitalism with the free market. Capitalism can survive and even thrive in controlled markets (see: China) and is more often than not a control on the market itself (see: Monopoly), the difference between a monopolist controlled market and a state controlled market is only who is controlling the market. Capitalism in it's purest form struggles in a truly free market, which is why most western economies operate on mixed ideologies.
I had to support them for years. I've seen brand new Macbooks get nowhere near the claimed battery life because I had to test them and the first complaints I got from Mac users were "Why do I only get 5 hours of battery life, the ads said 7". I got the same thing when the ads said 10.
There are good reasons I flat out say to new employers, "I dont work with Apple products".
So I know full well they are the worst system for everyone. Also, dont make assumptions about people.
What exactly is "maintaining"? I've spent nothing on "Maintaining" my PC for some six years. And you can buy four PC's for that fee. And you can get a techie at $20 an hour for five hours a month every other month, so call it $500 per year. (Skipping currency games.)
Their considering boot times to be costs. That should tell you how much bollocks is in the article (I, like any true /.er haven't read it).
Actual overheads are probably much lower.
Also which government department, the amount of security around any MOD installation would easily reach or exceed 6000 GBP in overheads, but very few departments would have this onerous requirement.
Almost all of it.
The British empire kept a very, very small army. the 18th and 19th century was before the day of the professional army. Armies were raised as needed, as was the case in the Napoleonic war where soldiers were recruited for a shilling.
The professional fighting force the British kept was almost entirely in their navy, most of their land fighting force was in the Marines which served on ships and at naval bases. The Navy was the centre of British power up until the 20th century. Local governors recruited local forces unless there was a war on.
Secret laws?
So secret that everyone knows that they exist.
Or do you mean the double secret laws.
Dont ever take off the tin foil hat.
From the article:
"There was no ice at the polls, no glaciers, and a lot more carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere."
Dear editors, please do something to stop the spread of typoitis. This terrible disease continues to horrify the grammar nazis among us and I've had it with their moaning.
Somewhere in here is a proper noun you failed to capitalise.
Say what you want about Apple, one thing you cannot (rationally) debate
The only reason you cannot rationally debate that is because Mac fans are so irrational.
I've never seen a Mac get within 2 hours of it's advertised battery life, you'd be lucky to get within 3 hours of it under normal usage. Iphones/Ipads are even worse for advertised battery life vs reality.
Yet I fully expect rabid Mac fanboys flame me for saying this. Ad Hominiem is the first thing I expect.
Much like advertised fuel economy, advertised battery life is a huge lie. It's done in controlled conditions and deliberately disables or hobbles things people want to use (I.E. screen brigtness). The advertised fuel economy depends on you spending x minutes at highway speeds, less than y minutes idling and always accelerating at the vehicles optimum rate, conditions that can never be replicated in the real world, battery life is the same. They assume you will not use the optical drive, you will perform less than x writes to the disk, you will use the screen at 25/30/40% brightness, you will never use more than y% of the CPU, the video codecs used will be the most efficient etc... again conditions that can never be replicated in the real world. All manufacturers do this, from Toyota to Toshiba.
Advertised battery life is an exercise in lying by marketing and if I have to praise Apple, it's that they are excellent at marketing, I'll even say they are unmatched in that field.
Hmm, that analogy doesn't seem very relevant. A Communist dictator who kept himself in power by brutal means and exported all of his country's resources for his own personal gain vs. a democracy with a 2 term president, checks and balances, and media that scrutinizes and publicizes every dump a politician takes?
Plus the US president doesn't rule by fiat. This would have had to go through the Senate and House of representatives (Not sure what you call them, I'm from a country using the Westminster system).
As history has shown, the only realistic way a remotely successful revolt can happen in the US is when it's on extremely divisive and more importantly GEOGRAPHICAL boundaries (which allowed the military itself to organize along *local* loyalties - as you said, friends and neighbors)
As history has shown.
Revolutions that dont have military support tend to fail more often than not. Even the US war of independence wasn't the American people rising up against the British but the Colonial army of American rising up against the British. The British empire kept very few English soldiers anywhere except the British isles. Mostly they trained locals under British or local governors.