It is no doubt sexist but girls who reach puberty are very attractive to a large age range of men. Boys of the same age, only to Catholic priests. For women, it is looks that count. For men, it is success, power, confidence. Not saying that all women are gold diggers only after a wallet but confidence is something you gain overtime, with success, with power, with age. And when you couldn't get a 18yr old at 18, why would you date that girl who is now 40 when she has been used up and now desperate when with your status gain, you can get a nice young girl?
Put simply,
Men want sex.
Women want security.
In prehistoric times, security meant being able to beat up the other males. Over history this changed to people with influence, now it means money. If you want to date hot women, you simply need to be over that wealth threshold. As to what that threshold is, it depends on the woman. It's not surprising that a lot of people date women from poorer nations (talking about legit dating, not mail-order brides which is a lot more of a myth then people think). I also notice that Thai-Oz and Phil-Oz marriages last longer then Oz-Oz marriages, this I attribute to the fact that both sides are more willing to take care of each others needs and there is less of an entitlement complex present in the girl. Out of all my friends (which is a pretty diverse group) not a single marriage to an Australian girl survived and most of my friends aren't 30 yet.
Not to say that all Australian women are selfish and self entitled, but those who aren't have been snapped up years ago. there's basically a line up just to meet them.
It is true after all, normal people don't need dating sites. That does NOT mean you will only find freaks on dating sites. It means if you are using one, you are a freak. Accept this, take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself: "What is wrong with me that I have to use this".
I'll say this isn't true.
What is the difference between meeting a girl on a dating site and meeting a girl in a pub?
Not much at all. A lot of "normal" girls are now using online dating simply because it allows them to vet people before they date them. I know 3 girls who are very attractive and very socially active who use dating sites for this very reason (If you're an IT guy with a modicum of social skills, you'll find a lot of people will talk about these details with you). These 3 girls have no trouble getting dates off-line but have just had too many horrors, although it's worth mentioning that 2 of the 3 girls are divorcees (as mentioned above).
So there's nothing wrong with using online dating sites as long as you can act like a normal person. You can meet other normal people on there the same as you can meet them in a pub, shopping centre, cafe or any other area where people socialise. Its the "socialisation" part that is key, being able to talk to and relate to another human on a human level.
That being said, some dating sites are thinly veiled fronts for freelancers (prostitutes who aren't affiliated with a brothel or pimp) but some people use them for just this purpose.
Many people with Androids are not using a single smart-phone feature. I guarantee you that every iPhone user is using a smart-phone feature. Apple still may have more smart phones actually used as smart phones than Android.
Actually the opposite is true. Most Iphone users tend to use it as a dumb device compared to Android users who tend to use more features.
It's just that Android has more features built in, rather then having to be made up by third party applications.
People mocked Apple for not including 4G in the iPhone 4S,
We mock Apple because they pretend to be ahead of the competition in technology, when in reality they are far behind the bleeding edge.
When Apple fanboys stop pretending Iphones aren't old tech, we'll stop mocking you for it.
Android is an early adopter, we perfect new tech so by the time Apple is floundering with the introduction of LTE, Android will be running it well. Remember that Apple had trouble implementing 3G when everyone else could do it properly. As yet, Iphones still dont have HSPA+, which has been around since the Iphone was first released. The Iphone 4S does not even have 3.5 G tech (Sorry, no other country in the world thinks HSPA+ is 4G and even Australia had HSPA+ before the US).
I'm typing this on a MacBook Air, which gets about 3x the battery life of my previous laptop. And the room I'm in has CFL bulbs which are about 1/4 as power hungry as the old fashioned bulbs.
So no, newer electronics don't *always* use more power.
Your macbook cant do what an old P4 Laptop couldn't.
Your macbook gets a higher score on the battery because it gets a lower score on everything else.
I had an Asus U30SD. The U30SD has the Optimus graphics chipset, this is a GF520M and an Intel 3000, if I want to play games, I have to use the GeForce chip which gives it a battery life of 6 hours, if I use the Intel IGM, I get a battery life of 10 hours. I now have a U46SV with a GeForce 540M and the discrepancy is worse. Do you see the inverse relationship between processing power and battery consumption?
Now the reason LTE phones use more power then HSPA phones is that the LTE transmitter is not integral to the SoC, it is it's own chip. Once the new ARM line is released (mid this year IIRC) we'll see battery life improve significantly as LTE chips will be integrated into the SoC like HSPA chips currently are.
To elaborate, the Intel graphics chip in your laptop is integrated into the CPU die, so it's powered from the same source as the CPU rather then being a seperate chip with a seperate power supply, do you honestly think you'll be getting the same battery life if you had a discrete graphics card?
The iPhone - and it really was the first in this category - got people to charge their phone every single night.
That's not the case.
I've had and iPhone since the first one, and I've usually only gone to charge it every three days or so. That's with moderate email/web/app use.
Clearly you never use it.
I have to carry an Iphone 3GS for work, I have to charge it every day and all it does is receive SMS's. I make a call on it about once a month yet requires charging once a day. My Android phone (HTC Desire Z running Cyanogen 7) lasts two days on one charge as well as having a replaceable battery and I use that for voice calls, SMS and web use.
Iphone 4's I've seen require more charging then the 3GS did. There's a reason every Iphone owner has a charge cable at their desk.
To my knowledge Australia is still going to buy the F-35, they just bought 24 F/A-18E as well. I think this is particularly dumb, Australia should have gone either with Eurofighter or Sukhoi, at least with the interim order to keep America on its toes.
Actually, this would have cost a lot more then the F/A-18's. We would have to import the entire support infrastructure from Europe. We've got three defence contractors established in Australia that can handle this kind of thing, 1) QANTAS Defence Systems (QDS), 2) Lockheed Martin Australia (LMA) and 3) Boeing. These three pretty much look after our airforce. We would literally have to pay EADS to set up a support infrastructure for the Euro-fighter, same with Sukhoi even if we got the fighters at the same price. Not to mention extensive retraining of our pilots. Penny wise, pound foolish.
They did make a serious inquiry about the F-22, which would have been a useful plane, but when it was rebuffed on national security grounds,
What does Australia need with a dedicated air-superiority fighter? We have a doctrine based around multi-role fighters.
Now the F35 will fulfil those requirements but what we really need is the introduction of drones that can be operated from our existing ANZAC class frigates, Collins class subs and upcoming Canberra class assault ships without extensive modifications.
This is what makes the French German cooperation in starting the European Union all the more impressive. It was a recognition that the past could not keep repeating.
Yes but the main French rival was always England. No matter how much France hated it's neighbours, it would ally with them in a second if it were against England.
The cash strapped French monarchy bankrupted itself sending men and material to the American rebellion, just to hurt England.
You information is false. T-34 had multitude of innovations granting it advantages, and sloped armour was just one of them. Others included excellent main gun,
This was actually the original T34's biggest flaw. The 76.2 mm gun it was originally equipped with was meant to fight Panzer II and III's. It remained effective against Pz IV's but against Panthers and Tigers they were not up to the task.
The soviets responded by equipping the T34 with a larger turret capable of holding the 85mm ZiS gun. The 85mm was roughly the equivalent of the German 88mm and US 90 mm. The T34 was desgined in the 1940 to fight known tanks from the 30's, it was upgraded to be effective against tanks that were designed years later.
The Main Battle Tank happened after WWII when improvements in metallurgy made a fast, heavily armed, and well armoured tank possible.
As a direct result of the T34.
At the end of WWII, the writing was on the wall for the heavy tank. Just like battleships they weren't cost effective. Why build 1 heavy for the cost of 2-3 mediums when the medium could mount a gun big enough to be a problem to heavies. It was the T34 and to a lesser extent the Panther that showed that mediums were just as capable as heavies in addition to being cheaper to build, cheaper to run and a lot more mobile.
"And the T-34 and Stalin series of tanks were hardly junk." You are right, they were 'hardly junk', that is because they were total garbage. Otto always was a bit generous.
You might want to read up on that.
The T34 had the few technical problems unlike the German tanks to which "over-engineered" was an understatement. Whilst the Tiger, Panther and Panzer IV went through several production models to fix flaws, improvements to the T34 were mostly about reducing cost to build. The first T34 production model cost 260,000 Roubles to build, the 1943 model cost 130,000 roubles. The first production models were near impervious to German infantry weapons of the time with the 57mm PaK being the mainstay.
The T34 had one really glaring oversight, the 76.2 mm gun was underpowered for taking on heavy German armour. Whilst the T34 could go toe to toe with anything up to a Pz IV, they couldn't penetrate anything bigger. The T34's 76mm gun was designed to counter German Panzer III's, this oversight was corrected by outfitting a larger turret and 85mm ZiS-8 gun to the T34 (T34-85). Apart from this, most of the complaints from T34 crews were about ergonomics (the tank had no turret basket).
The IS series was simply delivered too late to make any difference with the IS-2 being produced from 1943 onwards. The IS-2 which was the most prolific IS model managed to stun US tank designers who often criticised Soviet tanks for being crude. Like the Sherman and T34 the IS had a very rounded hull which helped deflect hits and a 122 mm gun which had the same penetration as a panther gun with more kinetic force. The IS-2 simply arrived too late, when the IS-2 had enough numbers to be effective the Germans were in full retreat.
Up to a point. But the Battle of 73 Easting is a good example of what can happen when superior technology is used against superior numbers
Leadership and training are the number 1 influences to a battle. German tanks may have been able to take out US tanks an a high ratio (10:1 is an exaggeration but you get the idea), but Nazi Germany's problem was always Hitler. Hitler messed with the military without oversight. He made it easy for troops to be surrounded and cut off, had his best commanders tried and killed out of paranoia, prevented the army from making good strategic moves without orders (the panzer divisions arrived too late to affect the Normandy landings because they refused to move without Hitler's orders). Worse yet, he opened two fronts he had no chance of winning, Russia and the US.
"Quantity has a quality of its own" is countered by something Winston Churchill once uttered "Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre, the more a general contributes in manoeuvre the less he demands in slaughter".
The training and leadership of a US force is far superior to a demoralised enemy who's leaders are determined by nepotism rather then ability. Whatever one may think of the US generals, a tank brigade commander does not get to his position because he's incompetent.
As a consumer, I notice that I see far fewer unresponsive apps on my Nexus than I did with my iPhone 4. This is probably partly due to the fact that the Android OS is so quick to intervene and offer to forcibly close an app -- which turns an unresponsive app into a crash and would contribute to Android apps crashing more than iOS apps.
This,
Android is very quick to catch programs that will never return to a functioning state. I only have one program that freezes (Touchdown for Exchange, a hell of a lot more functional then the in built exch client) and Android will either catch this (The force close or wait dialogue box) or it will return to a functioning state within a few minutes.
You have nobody to thank for this but a: the carriers and b: apple.
It is they, who in collusion, raised the price of buying a phone to astronomical levels. Remember when the highest price for an unlocked phone was usually $200? What phone broke that trend? Iphone.
Well, either that, or you didn't notice expensive phones before the iPhone, since unlocked Treos were $600 in 2006. But sure, you dislike Apple so it's probably Apple's fault.
Actually Apple didnt, Android did.
Disclaimer: I live in a nation where I can buy a phone outright and am not forced into a contract, so the mentioned prices are for a handset outright.
An Iphone is still $900, Winmo phones like the TYTN were $900 before but today the Iphone is still $900. Android bought competition to the market, not only competition they leveraged increased buying power to decrease costs and passed this saving onto the purchaser. Apple may be able to command lower costs, but they sure as hell aren't pass that on to their users. An Iphone remains $900, Android phones cost $500 (WP7 phones too, but that's mainly due to lack of demand).
I'd say Penguinchris's comment above is pretty spot on. Foxconn jobs may not be cushy by N.A. standards, but they're better than village life.
So basically you're saying I'm right.
These aren't good jobs, they are just better then being a subsistence farmer.
The GP's assertion was that working at Foxconn was a good job, one they'd like to have. I pointed out it was preferable to the alternatives and they take it because they dont have any better choices.
The lines of people applying for jobs are likely a combination of people who quit their previous jobs after getting their annual bonus, as well as normal villagers coming into the cities to look for work.
So basically, you're telling me it's seasonal.
Well I also pointed this out. My company has factories in Thailand and the Philipines. The same thing happens there. In Thailand the workers go home around Songkran (somewhere around mid April) and sometimes Buddhist Lent, we aren't just talking about a day off as most factories are over a days travel from the homes of many workers (Macha Buccha is a public holiday in Thailand, but the surrounding days are not, same with Songkran). After this we get an influx of new workers, both those who have quit previous to spend a few weeks back home and a few new ones.
In the Phils, this happens around Holy Week (Easter).
What I said is, they dont get annual leave, paid or otherwise. So if an employee goes back to see their family for a week or so, they have to leave their jobs to do so. The reason they give bonuses over Chinese New Year is that so many workers do leave in this time and they dont want to shut down the plant. We have the same problem in the PI so we do the same thing, we essentially pay double wages around Easter and Christmas to keep enough staff to remain operational.
Because Apple is their highest profile customer. They're raking in massive profits while utilizing a company that leverages the low pay of Chinese laborers and the lack of real labor laws, which has had some high profile incidents.
In other words, Apple makes billions each quarter and refuses to relocate to somewhere with better working conditions.
There are better working conditions in other factories China, let alone Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Korea and we're not even considering Eastern Europe despite the fact Apple could turn a profit building in Australia and Western Europe with the highest labour prices in the world..
With the cash Apple has, they could build a factory complex in Thailand which has the necessary supply chain (quite a lot of electronic and computer goods are made in Thailand) and quite good labour laws yet still being quite cheap. Do they? No.
Foxconn suicide rate: 3 per 100,000.
US suicide rate: 10 per 100,000.
Chinese average suicide rate: 35 per 100,000.
Sigh, break those three down by age group and and economic circumstance.
You're comparing the suicide rates in two nations which includes the two largest groups (11-17 and 75+) to one demographic that is traditionally the lowest suicide rate.
If you're going to compare suicide rates, compare like for like. Teen and elderly are the biggest age brackets for suicides in both western and eastern nations.
Foxconn wage: $17 per day.
Chinese average wage: $5 per day.
So you'd like to get paid $17 a day?
I think all you've proven here is that Chinese people are desperate enough to take horrible jobs for a pittance. $17 is what most Australians earn in 40 minutes.
Indeed. It's a shame that companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and HTC have to charge the same price for their "Made in the US" products that Apple charges for their Chinese-produced goods./facepalm
Here's the thing, Dell, Asus, HTC and others dont charge the same high price as Apple. I can buy a HTC phone outright for A$500, an Iphone still costs A$900. If you cant do this in your country, it's an issue with your countries terrible telco system, not the price of phones.
I bought an Asus U31SD for A$750, a Macbook starts at A$1100 for the 11" and doesn't have or a dedicated video card. If I put a 128 GB SSD into the Asus, I'm still up $200 on the Mac.
BTW, HTC products are made in Taiwan. Asus products are Made in Taiwan and Chinese and Thai factories operating under Taiwanese laws. Dell's are made in China and Malaysia depending on which model you buy. Chances are if your Dell cost as much as a Mac (business line Latitude) then it was made in Malaysia (where Dell makes it's Latitudes). Malaysia has some of the strongest labour laws in Asia.
Yes, you implied that work is scarce in China. Which it is not. Good jobs are scarce. And in China, a Foxconn factory position _is a good job_.
What you mean to say is "other jobs are worse".
This does not make it a good job. To properly godwin this thread, Stalin was better then Hitler, but that does not make Soviet Russia a good place to live.
I take it you're a nice, comfortable American who's never really ventured outside their own country. You have a nice house, multiple cars, all your idevices so forth and so on. You dont really need for much do you.
This is not the case in China, The average Chinese person doesn't have multiple cars, they dont even have a car, they'd be lucky to have an old motorbike. A lot of villages dont even have 24 hour power in their homes. This is where your Foxconn workers come from. They have the choice between being a farmer or being a factory worker and the factory worker is not a subsistence job (I.E. it pays). Now the Chinese worker can buy things, namely things for their family being no old age pension in China and it's hard to save up a retirement fund when you have been a subsistence farmer all your life.
So stop deluding yourself that a factory job is a good job, it's a job that pays better then their other options. Being better by default does not make it good.
Now that I've made that point, The reason that people are lining up for Foxconn jobs is because they went back to their ville's and families for Chinese New Year. They dont get paid annual leave in China, so in order to do this they quit before Chinese New Year and now come back and get another job after CNY. So the article is a complete and fallacious troll and a belated Gong Xi to Parent.
The police in this case have stated that the customers of these USB keys (The list being compiled from information collected at the raid) will be persued by police and treated as “receivers of stolen property."
I really want to see how that bullshit plays out in court.
Probably exactly as the police expect. You may have notices that the Australian Courts are even more on the
side of big media than the US courts.
You dont live in Australia do you.
Australian courts tend to side against big media. Feel free to look up AFACT vs iinet.
Now the NSW Police haven't said they will do anything against the customers, the law views them as victims of fraud. In order for them to be receivers of stolen goods they must have had prior knowledge the goods were stolen.
Just because the guy choses a USB stick with an Apple logo on it (that's not even made by Apple) doesn't mean it has *anything* to do with Apple or Apple TV. Was he somehow spoofing iTunes accounts?
Actually, it's selling fraudulent goods.
The USB sticks were being sold _as_ Apple products when they were not. Just because the purchaser was dumb enough to buy them (first dumb enough to buy Apple, then dumb enough to buy fake Apple products) does not excuse it.
FTFA: “Customers of this criminal enterprise are not unintended beneficiaries of the digital revolution, they are receivers of stolen property,” he said.
Unless the USB keys themselves were stolen, to which there appears to be no mention of (and you can be sure they would mention it), there is no transfer of property.
We need to (I realize easier said than done) get the media to start correcting ridiculous statements.
Indeed, the "customers" were victims of fraud. The fraud being committed by the one who was arrested for selling fraudulent goods.
Also please note, the person who the article quoted was Michael Speck, A copyright "specialist" working for "international entertainment networks" not the NSW police.
As for receiving stolen goods, legally "The Crown must prove that, at the time of receipt of the goods, the accused knew or believed them to have been stolen." So if the Crown (what the state is called in court in Oz) cannot prove the purchaser knew the goods were stolen at the time of purchase, they cannot be charged with receiving stolen goods. Thus the customers are victims of fraud and this copyright "specialist" is full of shit.
Yes. Neck craning for open spots doesn't currently distract drivers from the road at all:-P
Still gives them a hell of a lot more awareness then having their nose buried in a phone. Not to mention they still have both hands on the controls.
I've had 3 near misses in the last 2 weeks. All of them involved another driver who was on the phone. All of them completely oblivious to my presence until I sounded my horn. Even then only two became aware of my car after that.
Judging by who his successor is I'm not actually convinced that Sony believed Stringer ever made any mistakes as CEO.
Promoting Mr Gaffe Prone Failwhale himself to CEO seems to be the quickest way to finish Sony off, is this really what they had planned? Is this some kind of financial scam that I'm missing the point of where they're making money from Sony's demise?
As a result, all Sony TV's will now be sold with big block V8 engines attached to the back but only 3 cylinders will be usable at any one time. Petrol can be bought from the Sony Petrol Network only. Six months later, Sony will release a "Slim" TV that has a regular V6 engine and as an "Upgrade" to "phat" TV users, Sony will disable 2 of the cylinders and the alternator on the big block V8's.
Slashdot Mirror
It is no doubt sexist but girls who reach puberty are very attractive to a large age range of men. Boys of the same age, only to Catholic priests. For women, it is looks that count. For men, it is success, power, confidence. Not saying that all women are gold diggers only after a wallet but confidence is something you gain overtime, with success, with power, with age. And when you couldn't get a 18yr old at 18, why would you date that girl who is now 40 when she has been used up and now desperate when with your status gain, you can get a nice young girl?
Put simply,
Men want sex.
Women want security.
In prehistoric times, security meant being able to beat up the other males. Over history this changed to people with influence, now it means money. If you want to date hot women, you simply need to be over that wealth threshold. As to what that threshold is, it depends on the woman. It's not surprising that a lot of people date women from poorer nations (talking about legit dating, not mail-order brides which is a lot more of a myth then people think). I also notice that Thai-Oz and Phil-Oz marriages last longer then Oz-Oz marriages, this I attribute to the fact that both sides are more willing to take care of each others needs and there is less of an entitlement complex present in the girl. Out of all my friends (which is a pretty diverse group) not a single marriage to an Australian girl survived and most of my friends aren't 30 yet.
Not to say that all Australian women are selfish and self entitled, but those who aren't have been snapped up years ago. there's basically a line up just to meet them.
I'll say this isn't true.
What is the difference between meeting a girl on a dating site and meeting a girl in a pub?
Not much at all. A lot of "normal" girls are now using online dating simply because it allows them to vet people before they date them. I know 3 girls who are very attractive and very socially active who use dating sites for this very reason (If you're an IT guy with a modicum of social skills, you'll find a lot of people will talk about these details with you). These 3 girls have no trouble getting dates off-line but have just had too many horrors, although it's worth mentioning that 2 of the 3 girls are divorcees (as mentioned above).
So there's nothing wrong with using online dating sites as long as you can act like a normal person. You can meet other normal people on there the same as you can meet them in a pub, shopping centre, cafe or any other area where people socialise. Its the "socialisation" part that is key, being able to talk to and relate to another human on a human level.
That being said, some dating sites are thinly veiled fronts for freelancers (prostitutes who aren't affiliated with a brothel or pimp) but some people use them for just this purpose.
Many people with Androids are not using a single smart-phone feature. I guarantee you that every iPhone user is using a smart-phone feature. Apple still may have more smart phones actually used as smart phones than Android.
Actually the opposite is true. Most Iphone users tend to use it as a dumb device compared to Android users who tend to use more features.
It's just that Android has more features built in, rather then having to be made up by third party applications.
Deal. I've wanted this for years.
As have I,
I already buy my phones outright and I dont buy Apple.
People mocked Apple for not including 4G in the iPhone 4S,
We mock Apple because they pretend to be ahead of the competition in technology, when in reality they are far behind the bleeding edge.
When Apple fanboys stop pretending Iphones aren't old tech, we'll stop mocking you for it.
Android is an early adopter, we perfect new tech so by the time Apple is floundering with the introduction of LTE, Android will be running it well. Remember that Apple had trouble implementing 3G when everyone else could do it properly. As yet, Iphones still dont have HSPA+, which has been around since the Iphone was first released. The Iphone 4S does not even have 3.5 G tech (Sorry, no other country in the world thinks HSPA+ is 4G and even Australia had HSPA+ before the US).
I'm typing this on a MacBook Air, which gets about 3x the battery life of my previous laptop. And the room I'm in has CFL bulbs which are about 1/4 as power hungry as the old fashioned bulbs.
So no, newer electronics don't *always* use more power.
Your macbook cant do what an old P4 Laptop couldn't.
Your macbook gets a higher score on the battery because it gets a lower score on everything else.
I had an Asus U30SD. The U30SD has the Optimus graphics chipset, this is a GF520M and an Intel 3000, if I want to play games, I have to use the GeForce chip which gives it a battery life of 6 hours, if I use the Intel IGM, I get a battery life of 10 hours. I now have a U46SV with a GeForce 540M and the discrepancy is worse. Do you see the inverse relationship between processing power and battery consumption?
Now the reason LTE phones use more power then HSPA phones is that the LTE transmitter is not integral to the SoC, it is it's own chip. Once the new ARM line is released (mid this year IIRC) we'll see battery life improve significantly as LTE chips will be integrated into the SoC like HSPA chips currently are.
To elaborate, the Intel graphics chip in your laptop is integrated into the CPU die, so it's powered from the same source as the CPU rather then being a seperate chip with a seperate power supply, do you honestly think you'll be getting the same battery life if you had a discrete graphics card?
The iPhone - and it really was the first in this category - got people to charge their phone every single night.
That's not the case.
I've had and iPhone since the first one, and I've usually only gone to charge it every three days or so. That's with moderate email/web/app use.
Clearly you never use it.
I have to carry an Iphone 3GS for work, I have to charge it every day and all it does is receive SMS's. I make a call on it about once a month yet requires charging once a day. My Android phone (HTC Desire Z running Cyanogen 7) lasts two days on one charge as well as having a replaceable battery and I use that for voice calls, SMS and web use.
Iphone 4's I've seen require more charging then the 3GS did. There's a reason every Iphone owner has a charge cable at their desk.
Actually, this would have cost a lot more then the F/A-18's. We would have to import the entire support infrastructure from Europe. We've got three defence contractors established in Australia that can handle this kind of thing, 1) QANTAS Defence Systems (QDS), 2) Lockheed Martin Australia (LMA) and 3) Boeing. These three pretty much look after our airforce. We would literally have to pay EADS to set up a support infrastructure for the Euro-fighter, same with Sukhoi even if we got the fighters at the same price. Not to mention extensive retraining of our pilots. Penny wise, pound foolish.
What does Australia need with a dedicated air-superiority fighter? We have a doctrine based around multi-role fighters.
Now the F35 will fulfil those requirements but what we really need is the introduction of drones that can be operated from our existing ANZAC class frigates, Collins class subs and upcoming Canberra class assault ships without extensive modifications.
This is what makes the French German cooperation in starting the European Union all the more impressive. It was a recognition that the past could not keep repeating.
Yes but the main French rival was always England. No matter how much France hated it's neighbours, it would ally with them in a second if it were against England.
The cash strapped French monarchy bankrupted itself sending men and material to the American rebellion, just to hurt England.
You information is false. T-34 had multitude of innovations granting it advantages, and sloped armour was just one of them. Others included excellent main gun,
This was actually the original T34's biggest flaw. The 76.2 mm gun it was originally equipped with was meant to fight Panzer II and III's. It remained effective against Pz IV's but against Panthers and Tigers they were not up to the task.
The soviets responded by equipping the T34 with a larger turret capable of holding the 85mm ZiS gun. The 85mm was roughly the equivalent of the German 88mm and US 90 mm. The T34 was desgined in the 1940 to fight known tanks from the 30's, it was upgraded to be effective against tanks that were designed years later.
The Main Battle Tank happened after WWII when improvements in metallurgy made a fast, heavily armed, and well armoured tank possible.
As a direct result of the T34.
At the end of WWII, the writing was on the wall for the heavy tank. Just like battleships they weren't cost effective. Why build 1 heavy for the cost of 2-3 mediums when the medium could mount a gun big enough to be a problem to heavies. It was the T34 and to a lesser extent the Panther that showed that mediums were just as capable as heavies in addition to being cheaper to build, cheaper to run and a lot more mobile.
"And the T-34 and Stalin series of tanks were hardly junk." You are right, they were 'hardly junk', that is because they were total garbage. Otto always was a bit generous.
You might want to read up on that.
The T34 had the few technical problems unlike the German tanks to which "over-engineered" was an understatement. Whilst the Tiger, Panther and Panzer IV went through several production models to fix flaws, improvements to the T34 were mostly about reducing cost to build. The first T34 production model cost 260,000 Roubles to build, the 1943 model cost 130,000 roubles. The first production models were near impervious to German infantry weapons of the time with the 57mm PaK being the mainstay.
The T34 had one really glaring oversight, the 76.2 mm gun was underpowered for taking on heavy German armour. Whilst the T34 could go toe to toe with anything up to a Pz IV, they couldn't penetrate anything bigger. The T34's 76mm gun was designed to counter German Panzer III's, this oversight was corrected by outfitting a larger turret and 85mm ZiS-8 gun to the T34 (T34-85). Apart from this, most of the complaints from T34 crews were about ergonomics (the tank had no turret basket).
The IS series was simply delivered too late to make any difference with the IS-2 being produced from 1943 onwards. The IS-2 which was the most prolific IS model managed to stun US tank designers who often criticised Soviet tanks for being crude. Like the Sherman and T34 the IS had a very rounded hull which helped deflect hits and a 122 mm gun which had the same penetration as a panther gun with more kinetic force. The IS-2 simply arrived too late, when the IS-2 had enough numbers to be effective the Germans were in full retreat.
Quantity has a quality all it's own.
Quantity has a quality all it's own.
Up to a point. But the Battle of 73 Easting is a good example of what can happen when superior technology is used against superior numbers
Leadership and training are the number 1 influences to a battle. German tanks may have been able to take out US tanks an a high ratio (10:1 is an exaggeration but you get the idea), but Nazi Germany's problem was always Hitler. Hitler messed with the military without oversight. He made it easy for troops to be surrounded and cut off, had his best commanders tried and killed out of paranoia, prevented the army from making good strategic moves without orders (the panzer divisions arrived too late to affect the Normandy landings because they refused to move without Hitler's orders). Worse yet, he opened two fronts he had no chance of winning, Russia and the US.
"Quantity has a quality of its own" is countered by something Winston Churchill once uttered "Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre, the more a general contributes in manoeuvre the less he demands in slaughter".
The training and leadership of a US force is far superior to a demoralised enemy who's leaders are determined by nepotism rather then ability. Whatever one may think of the US generals, a tank brigade commander does not get to his position because he's incompetent.
Does this mean that social media will now be the blame for all the evils of society? Finally replacing D&D, and "violent video games."
Nope, it now means it will be taxed like tobacco and alcohol.
As a consumer, I notice that I see far fewer unresponsive apps on my Nexus than I did with my iPhone 4. This is probably partly due to the fact that the Android OS is so quick to intervene and offer to forcibly close an app -- which turns an unresponsive app into a crash and would contribute to Android apps crashing more than iOS apps.
This,
Android is very quick to catch programs that will never return to a functioning state. I only have one program that freezes (Touchdown for Exchange, a hell of a lot more functional then the in built exch client) and Android will either catch this (The force close or wait dialogue box) or it will return to a functioning state within a few minutes.
You have nobody to thank for this but a: the carriers and b: apple.
It is they, who in collusion, raised the price of buying a phone to astronomical levels. Remember when the highest price for an unlocked phone was usually $200? What phone broke that trend? Iphone.
Well, either that, or you didn't notice expensive phones before the iPhone, since unlocked Treos were $600 in 2006. But sure, you dislike Apple so it's probably Apple's fault.
Actually Apple didnt, Android did.
Disclaimer: I live in a nation where I can buy a phone outright and am not forced into a contract, so the mentioned prices are for a handset outright.
An Iphone is still $900, Winmo phones like the TYTN were $900 before but today the Iphone is still $900. Android bought competition to the market, not only competition they leveraged increased buying power to decrease costs and passed this saving onto the purchaser. Apple may be able to command lower costs, but they sure as hell aren't pass that on to their users. An Iphone remains $900, Android phones cost $500 (WP7 phones too, but that's mainly due to lack of demand).
So basically you're saying I'm right.
These aren't good jobs, they are just better then being a subsistence farmer.
The GP's assertion was that working at Foxconn was a good job, one they'd like to have. I pointed out it was preferable to the alternatives and they take it because they dont have any better choices.
So basically, you're telling me it's seasonal.
Well I also pointed this out. My company has factories in Thailand and the Philipines. The same thing happens there. In Thailand the workers go home around Songkran (somewhere around mid April) and sometimes Buddhist Lent, we aren't just talking about a day off as most factories are over a days travel from the homes of many workers (Macha Buccha is a public holiday in Thailand, but the surrounding days are not, same with Songkran). After this we get an influx of new workers, both those who have quit previous to spend a few weeks back home and a few new ones.
In the Phils, this happens around Holy Week (Easter).
What I said is, they dont get annual leave, paid or otherwise. So if an employee goes back to see their family for a week or so, they have to leave their jobs to do so. The reason they give bonuses over Chinese New Year is that so many workers do leave in this time and they dont want to shut down the plant. We have the same problem in the PI so we do the same thing, we essentially pay double wages around Easter and Christmas to keep enough staff to remain operational.
In other words, Apple makes billions each quarter and refuses to relocate to somewhere with better working conditions.
There are better working conditions in other factories China, let alone Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Korea and we're not even considering Eastern Europe despite the fact Apple could turn a profit building in Australia and Western Europe with the highest labour prices in the world..
With the cash Apple has, they could build a factory complex in Thailand which has the necessary supply chain (quite a lot of electronic and computer goods are made in Thailand) and quite good labour laws yet still being quite cheap. Do they? No.
Foxconn suicide rate: 3 per 100,000.
US suicide rate: 10 per 100,000.
Chinese average suicide rate: 35 per 100,000.
Sigh, break those three down by age group and and economic circumstance.
You're comparing the suicide rates in two nations which includes the two largest groups (11-17 and 75+) to one demographic that is traditionally the lowest suicide rate.
If you're going to compare suicide rates, compare like for like. Teen and elderly are the biggest age brackets for suicides in both western and eastern nations.
Foxconn wage: $17 per day.
Chinese average wage: $5 per day.
So you'd like to get paid $17 a day?
I think all you've proven here is that Chinese people are desperate enough to take horrible jobs for a pittance. $17 is what most Australians earn in 40 minutes.
Indeed. It's a shame that companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and HTC have to charge the same price for their "Made in the US" products that Apple charges for their Chinese-produced goods. /facepalm
Here's the thing, Dell, Asus, HTC and others dont charge the same high price as Apple. I can buy a HTC phone outright for A$500, an Iphone still costs A$900. If you cant do this in your country, it's an issue with your countries terrible telco system, not the price of phones.
I bought an Asus U31SD for A$750, a Macbook starts at A$1100 for the 11" and doesn't have or a dedicated video card. If I put a 128 GB SSD into the Asus, I'm still up $200 on the Mac.
BTW, HTC products are made in Taiwan. Asus products are Made in Taiwan and Chinese and Thai factories operating under Taiwanese laws. Dell's are made in China and Malaysia depending on which model you buy. Chances are if your Dell cost as much as a Mac (business line Latitude) then it was made in Malaysia (where Dell makes it's Latitudes). Malaysia has some of the strongest labour laws in Asia.
Yes, you implied that work is scarce in China. Which it is not. Good jobs are scarce. And in China, a Foxconn factory position _is a good job_.
What you mean to say is "other jobs are worse".
This does not make it a good job. To properly godwin this thread, Stalin was better then Hitler, but that does not make Soviet Russia a good place to live.
I take it you're a nice, comfortable American who's never really ventured outside their own country. You have a nice house, multiple cars, all your idevices so forth and so on. You dont really need for much do you.
This is not the case in China, The average Chinese person doesn't have multiple cars, they dont even have a car, they'd be lucky to have an old motorbike. A lot of villages dont even have 24 hour power in their homes. This is where your Foxconn workers come from. They have the choice between being a farmer or being a factory worker and the factory worker is not a subsistence job (I.E. it pays). Now the Chinese worker can buy things, namely things for their family being no old age pension in China and it's hard to save up a retirement fund when you have been a subsistence farmer all your life.
So stop deluding yourself that a factory job is a good job, it's a job that pays better then their other options. Being better by default does not make it good.
Now that I've made that point, The reason that people are lining up for Foxconn jobs is because they went back to their ville's and families for Chinese New Year. They dont get paid annual leave in China, so in order to do this they quit before Chinese New Year and now come back and get another job after CNY. So the article is a complete and fallacious troll and a belated Gong Xi to Parent.
The police in this case have stated that the customers of these USB keys (The list being compiled from information collected at the raid) will be persued by police and treated as “receivers of stolen property."
I really want to see how that bullshit plays out in court.
Probably exactly as the police expect. You may have notices that the Australian Courts are even more on the
side of big media than the US courts.
You dont live in Australia do you.
Australian courts tend to side against big media. Feel free to look up AFACT vs iinet.
Now the NSW Police haven't said they will do anything against the customers, the law views them as victims of fraud. In order for them to be receivers of stolen goods they must have had prior knowledge the goods were stolen.
Just because the guy choses a USB stick with an Apple logo on it (that's not even made by Apple) doesn't mean it has *anything* to do with Apple or Apple TV. Was he somehow spoofing iTunes accounts?
Actually, it's selling fraudulent goods.
The USB sticks were being sold _as_ Apple products when they were not. Just because the purchaser was dumb enough to buy them (first dumb enough to buy Apple, then dumb enough to buy fake Apple products) does not excuse it.
FTFA: “Customers of this criminal enterprise are not unintended beneficiaries of the digital revolution, they are receivers of stolen property,” he said.
Unless the USB keys themselves were stolen, to which there appears to be no mention of (and you can be sure they would mention it), there is no transfer of property.
We need to (I realize easier said than done) get the media to start correcting ridiculous statements.
Indeed, the "customers" were victims of fraud. The fraud being committed by the one who was arrested for selling fraudulent goods.
Also please note, the person who the article quoted was Michael Speck, A copyright "specialist" working for "international entertainment networks" not the NSW police.
As for receiving stolen goods, legally "The Crown must prove that, at the time of receipt of the goods, the accused knew or believed them to have been stolen." So if the Crown (what the state is called in court in Oz) cannot prove the purchaser knew the goods were stolen at the time of purchase, they cannot be charged with receiving stolen goods. Thus the customers are victims of fraud and this copyright "specialist" is full of shit.
Yes. Neck craning for open spots doesn't currently distract drivers from the road at all :-P
Still gives them a hell of a lot more awareness then having their nose buried in a phone. Not to mention they still have both hands on the controls.
I've had 3 near misses in the last 2 weeks. All of them involved another driver who was on the phone. All of them completely oblivious to my presence until I sounded my horn. Even then only two became aware of my car after that.
Judging by who his successor is I'm not actually convinced that Sony believed Stringer ever made any mistakes as CEO.
Promoting Mr Gaffe Prone Failwhale himself to CEO seems to be the quickest way to finish Sony off, is this really what they had planned? Is this some kind of financial scam that I'm missing the point of where they're making money from Sony's demise?
As a result, all Sony TV's will now be sold with big block V8 engines attached to the back but only 3 cylinders will be usable at any one time. Petrol can be bought from the Sony Petrol Network only. Six months later, Sony will release a "Slim" TV that has a regular V6 engine and as an "Upgrade" to "phat" TV users, Sony will disable 2 of the cylinders and the alternator on the big block V8's.