Which is why Iraq is rapidly stabilizing, the local government and police are the main source of identifying the terrorists, people are moving back to Iraq by the millions, and the casualty rate of coalition forces is at an all time low?
Well, Switzerland is about 1/10th the size of California. It's pretty small, actually, even 1/3rd the size of Washington state. In general, Western Europe is pretty small overall compared to the Western US.
OH, and of course California has a small problem with earthquakes. And those are pretty hard on tunnels and such. Switzerland doesn't have much of a problem with those. Japan does, but how many long tunnels do they have? And in general Japan - including all of its islands - is still smaller than California, and not nearly as mountainous.
Oh, and there's around 6 mountain passes between Seattle and LA to deal with.
So let's assume you can maintain that 200 km/h from San Diego to say, SFO. That's around a 4.5 hour trip versus a 1 hour flight. LA to Seattle? That's around 10 hours of train ride if you can sustain 200 km/h for the entire duration. Versus a 2.5 hour flight.
Look, I'm not anti-train. I use them when in Europe (I lived in Brussels for a year), and I use them extensively in China (when it makes sense, mainly Nanjing to Ningbo and the general Shanghai area). East coast? I've ridden from NYC to DC, and points in between. Subways - NYC, Chicago, DC, Shanghai, HK, Paris, Munich, etc - are very useful, too. But in the case of the Western US, trains just don't make sense.
And in many cities out here - specifically, Seattle - light rail doesn't make sense, either. Steep grades, loose soil, earthquakes, and lots of water just don't make light rail a good option. Bus rapid transit makes sense since it obviates the tunnels, allows for rapid redepolyment of routes for when (not if) the next earthquake hits, and is highly flexible for the changing commute patterns of our growing area.
Rail can be fun, it can be modern, but it's not a panacea. Applying rail in locales like the Western US isn't cost or time effective. Western Europe is not even the size of the continental Western US, yet has about 8 times the population. Western Europe has two significant mountain ranges (over 1500 meters): the Alps and the Pyrenees. The Western US has the Rockies, the Sierra Nevadas, the Cascades, the Olympics, the Black Hills, the Blue Mountains, and another half dozen ranges.
I know, I spend one third of my life living in Shanghai...
Seattle is not suited for light rail, either. Most of our hills around here have a grade WAY too steep for even light rail. Even buses bog down, but at least they can climb the hills! So rather than going with buses, our wonderful traffic planners have chosen to TUNNEL under hills so we can have a grade suitable for light rail. And that brings massive costs AND extra concern as we're in the middle of Earthquake zone (just had a tiny 4.0 last night near Seattle).
Additionally, the Sounder (our heavy rail transport) regularly shuts down 10-15 days each winter thanks to mudslides over the tracks. We get a bit of rain around here in Seattle, and slides and washouts are a fact of life. So we end up disrupting our heavy rail transit for 16-20% of the winter season.
The problem is that too many people are infatuated with rail or rail-based solutions. If Seattle wanted to solve its transit issues, it would run buses in a highly decentralized system. Half of all commutes in Seattle run counter to the main "into the city in the morning". We have huge working populations outside Seattle thanks to Boeing, Microsoft, and other large employers. So we have a lot of cross-highway commuting.
Rail simply does not make sense in the Everett-to-Olympia corridor. We don't have enough population density (or even population; I think more people live in the Minhang District of Shanghai, where my Chinese apartment is, than live in the entire Seattle metropolitan area!), we do not have enough of a consistent commute pattern, and our geography makes rail nearly impossible to site than other on a few narrow right-of-ways (which already have freight rail lines).
Sometimes, rail just doesn't make sense. Using buses works really well as a substitute. Many here in Seattle demand that we get rail so we become "a world class city". Silly me, I always thought being a "world class city" meant being smart and using the transit solution that ACTUALLY works!
Here in Seattle, we're paying over 3 times that for a light rail system getting built now. And looking to pay 5 times that to add another 2 mile spur (yes, $300 million and $1.5 billion). Maybe in perfectly flat Nebraska could you build for $100 million per mile, but anywhere where the topology is "interesting" in the least you're looking at a LOT more.
One of the big stumbling blocks to long, high-speed rail out here in the West of the US are all these bumps we have called mountains... There's several mountain chains that run parallel with the West coast, and those seriously impact the ability of rail to maintain speed.
Additionally, these mountains tend to have pretty steep pitches, meaning that low-enough grades for rail transport are few and far between.
Out East, where the density of population is higher and the land considerably flatter, trains can maintain speed. It can make sense in that case. But here, where a lot of the daily flights are literally one-day business trips, spending 6 hours each way on a train between Seattle and San Francisco turns a one-day trip into at least a 3 day affair.
In the US, they've been used by the police for at least 10 years in some jurisdictions (about 8 years in the Seattle Police Department). With a population of 300,000,000 and 10 years of use, the actual annual death rate of tasers is pretty low.
See, here we don't actually CHECK (by law) if you're a citizen or not, when you register to vote. When you sign up for your drivers license - citizen or not - you're given the opportunity to register to vote, so anyone with a US driver's license (which only requires proof of address and identification - a credit card and a cell phone bill will suffice for those two items) can register to vote.
And in fact, by LAW we're prohibited from even checking to see if you are who you say you are when you go to the polls to vote. Because after all, requiring people to bring an identification card with them when they are going to vote is "racist" and "totalitarian"...
Heck, you can just show up at a polling place, say that you're supposed to vote EVEN THOUGH YOUR NAME IS NOT ON THE LIST, and be handed a provisional ballot that you can fill out, and have a good chance of having it counted. Never actually registering OR showing proof of identification.
And now we're actually MAILING the ballots to you, so you can fill them out and mail them back. Never mind that you may not get a ballot, or can register as many times as you like and fill them all out. Or take your neighbor's ballot out of their mail box and vote for them...
The "problem" with American elections isn't the machine used, or butterfly ballots, or "evil corporations" like Diebold. The problem is that we have ZERO control over who becomes a registered voter, and who actually votes. Until that problem is solved all the huffing and puffing about machines being used to steal votes is worthless. It's a LOT easier to steal an election if you cannot control the voter rolls to start.
We need to wipe clean ALL voter rolls, then rebuild them only with names of people who can prove they are legally allowed to vote - citizens. And then when you DO vote, you have to show up at an actual polling place and prove you are who you say you are.
Otherwise, pencils, pens, electronic, pull levers - none of the actual ways votes are cast - matter. The most critical part of voting begins with the voter rolls, not with the actual casting of the ballot.
For the record, I am a US citizen, registered in the state of Washington (where I live when I am in the US), and we have an on-going problem in the biggest county in the state (King County) where it's quite common to have more votes than voters (voters being people who signed in at the polling place), and more voters than registered voters. Or to have a lot more voters than actual votes (meaning lost votes), depending upon the political leaning of your particular district. Oh, and don't forget that we have ballots "found" weeks after the election, yet still counted...
Cleaning the voter rolls and controlling access to the ballot box are the two most fundamental steps towards a secure election. Worrying about what the ballot box actually IS - that's just a diversion to make the public think something's being done about the elections messes...
You're a male posting on/. - if you don't have them now, don't worry! Sitting in your parent's basement drinking lots of Mountain Dew will get you your own set any day now...
No, with a lease, if the lessor decides they do not want to extend, you don't get to keep it. And improvements you made to the property are left for the benefit of the lessor.
There was a big issue about 6 years ago, on the Tulalip Indian Reservation that is North of Seattle. The tribe leased a lot of prime waterfront lots back in the 60s and 70s, for 30, 40, and 50 year terms. Well, the leases are expiring, and the tribe has decided they don't want to renew the lease. Oh, and they won't issue a construction permit so you can demolish your house. So off you go, leave your house to us...
Leasing land does NOT guarantee you ownership - or even the right to transfer ownership. It's at the desire of the lessor, and I'm willing to bet that in 30-50 years, as those Mexican beach leases expire there's going to be a LOT of leases not renewed, and a lot of multi-million dollar homes being assumed by local politicians and power movers. All for free.
No, I'm not kidding... Look at what you get when you "buy" a house in Mexico that's within 100 km of border, or 50 km of the beach. You get a lease to the land - that's it. You do NOT own the land, just a long-term lease from the government. Mexican law prohibits foreign ownership of soil in these areas. All those beach houses? Long term leases.
In China, when you buy a house (or farm, or whatever) you get an actual deed to the property that you can sell, trade, give, etc. It can stay in your family for generations, just like here in the US.
Thanks for the update - I last checked the laws in 2006, when I set up my company, and those were the numbers that applied. I know the move was to open things up more, but didn't think they would take place until 2008.
For a manufacturing company, you as a foreigner can own - and control - 100% of a company. For a technical/service firm, you can own 60%. For a trading company, you can own 40%. So it really depends upon what the type of company is.
China's also opened up so that foreigners can now outright own houses or apartments, something even Mexico doesn't allow...
Africa? Go to the Sudan or Ethiopia or Egypt and proclaim that Mohammed was a goat raping homosexual. Or go to Germany and proclaim that Hitler was the best thing that ever happened for the Fatherland. Or go to France and proclaim we should exterminate all the stinking Jews. Or go to Canada and proclaim that your morl beliefs say that gays shouldn't be married.
Then write back from your prison cell about the evils of censorship and the lack of free speech in the US...
TPSA covers the country; I know it worked for me when in Warsaw and Gdansk.
For Russia, I know I got coverage in St. Petersburg and Moscow. I'd consider those pretty important cities for coverage.
As far as the cost of coverage, to me it's more than worth it for my clients to be able to reach me anywhere, by just dialing one number. A cell phone is now a worldwide "800 number" to use. I use a Gionee H6 in Europe and Asia with local SIMs to return calls, but I need my CDMA on since it's the number everyone already knows.
SO I guess you didn't know your country as well as you thought?
I'm pretty sure building a new coal or natural gas isn't pocket change, either... With a 8-10X reduction in cost of production, I think you'll make up a few hundred million well before the lifespan of the powerplant expires.
Funny, I travel extensively for a living, and my CDMA-only phone (LG "The V") works in China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, India, Australia, Chile, Brazil, Columbia, Argentina, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Philippines, Taiwan, Russia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Mexico and a host of other countries...
In fact, it's really only Western Europe that is GSM-only (barring Portugal, Iceland, Ireland and those listed above). The rest of the world is pretty much dual-standard supporting both CDMA and GSM.
Kapton is near perfect for wiring; it's a very high temperature material that will bubble and smoke but not flash over. Having designed and built speakers for over a decade, and used literally miles of Kapton to make formers, and seeing what happens when you completely smoke a driver, I can tell you Kapton is not the concern.
Usually when a Kapton-former voice coil in a speaker dies, the wire will literally fuse itself, melt the varnish, melt the glues and even the wire itself - copper - melt down before the Kapton significantly degrades.
Kapton is a great high-temp, high resistance, ultra-lightweight material. Perfect for aircraft assemblies where you want isolation without weight. It's also used in transformers everywhere for the same reason.
Why the military doesn't use it? Well, I was told (back when I did mil/aero work) Kapton nicks too easily, so for regularly serviced assemblies they prefer silicone or rubber jackets. With buried assemblies like you have in commercial aircraft, though, it's a non-issue.
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Yeah, I guess we're losing, huh...
OH, and of course California has a small problem with earthquakes. And those are pretty hard on tunnels and such. Switzerland doesn't have much of a problem with those. Japan does, but how many long tunnels do they have? And in general Japan - including all of its islands - is still smaller than California, and not nearly as mountainous.
Oh, and there's around 6 mountain passes between Seattle and LA to deal with.
So let's assume you can maintain that 200 km/h from San Diego to say, SFO. That's around a 4.5 hour trip versus a 1 hour flight. LA to Seattle? That's around 10 hours of train ride if you can sustain 200 km/h for the entire duration. Versus a 2.5 hour flight.
Look, I'm not anti-train. I use them when in Europe (I lived in Brussels for a year), and I use them extensively in China (when it makes sense, mainly Nanjing to Ningbo and the general Shanghai area). East coast? I've ridden from NYC to DC, and points in between. Subways - NYC, Chicago, DC, Shanghai, HK, Paris, Munich, etc - are very useful, too. But in the case of the Western US, trains just don't make sense.
And in many cities out here - specifically, Seattle - light rail doesn't make sense, either. Steep grades, loose soil, earthquakes, and lots of water just don't make light rail a good option. Bus rapid transit makes sense since it obviates the tunnels, allows for rapid redepolyment of routes for when (not if) the next earthquake hits, and is highly flexible for the changing commute patterns of our growing area.
Rail can be fun, it can be modern, but it's not a panacea. Applying rail in locales like the Western US isn't cost or time effective. Western Europe is not even the size of the continental Western US, yet has about 8 times the population. Western Europe has two significant mountain ranges (over 1500 meters): the Alps and the Pyrenees. The Western US has the Rockies, the Sierra Nevadas, the Cascades, the Olympics, the Black Hills, the Blue Mountains, and another half dozen ranges.
Trains in the Western US just don't make sense.
Seattle is not suited for light rail, either. Most of our hills around here have a grade WAY too steep for even light rail. Even buses bog down, but at least they can climb the hills! So rather than going with buses, our wonderful traffic planners have chosen to TUNNEL under hills so we can have a grade suitable for light rail. And that brings massive costs AND extra concern as we're in the middle of Earthquake zone (just had a tiny 4.0 last night near Seattle).
Additionally, the Sounder (our heavy rail transport) regularly shuts down 10-15 days each winter thanks to mudslides over the tracks. We get a bit of rain around here in Seattle, and slides and washouts are a fact of life. So we end up disrupting our heavy rail transit for 16-20% of the winter season.
The problem is that too many people are infatuated with rail or rail-based solutions. If Seattle wanted to solve its transit issues, it would run buses in a highly decentralized system. Half of all commutes in Seattle run counter to the main "into the city in the morning". We have huge working populations outside Seattle thanks to Boeing, Microsoft, and other large employers. So we have a lot of cross-highway commuting.
Rail simply does not make sense in the Everett-to-Olympia corridor. We don't have enough population density (or even population; I think more people live in the Minhang District of Shanghai, where my Chinese apartment is, than live in the entire Seattle metropolitan area!), we do not have enough of a consistent commute pattern, and our geography makes rail nearly impossible to site than other on a few narrow right-of-ways (which already have freight rail lines).
Sometimes, rail just doesn't make sense. Using buses works really well as a substitute. Many here in Seattle demand that we get rail so we become "a world class city". Silly me, I always thought being a "world class city" meant being smart and using the transit solution that ACTUALLY works!
Here in Seattle, we're paying over 3 times that for a light rail system getting built now. And looking to pay 5 times that to add another 2 mile spur (yes, $300 million and $1.5 billion). Maybe in perfectly flat Nebraska could you build for $100 million per mile, but anywhere where the topology is "interesting" in the least you're looking at a LOT more.
Additionally, these mountains tend to have pretty steep pitches, meaning that low-enough grades for rail transport are few and far between.
Out East, where the density of population is higher and the land considerably flatter, trains can maintain speed. It can make sense in that case. But here, where a lot of the daily flights are literally one-day business trips, spending 6 hours each way on a train between Seattle and San Francisco turns a one-day trip into at least a 3 day affair.
In the US, they've been used by the police for at least 10 years in some jurisdictions (about 8 years in the Seattle Police Department). With a population of 300,000,000 and 10 years of use, the actual annual death rate of tasers is pretty low.
And in fact, by LAW we're prohibited from even checking to see if you are who you say you are when you go to the polls to vote. Because after all, requiring people to bring an identification card with them when they are going to vote is "racist" and "totalitarian"...
Heck, you can just show up at a polling place, say that you're supposed to vote EVEN THOUGH YOUR NAME IS NOT ON THE LIST, and be handed a provisional ballot that you can fill out, and have a good chance of having it counted. Never actually registering OR showing proof of identification.
And now we're actually MAILING the ballots to you, so you can fill them out and mail them back. Never mind that you may not get a ballot, or can register as many times as you like and fill them all out. Or take your neighbor's ballot out of their mail box and vote for them...
The "problem" with American elections isn't the machine used, or butterfly ballots, or "evil corporations" like Diebold. The problem is that we have ZERO control over who becomes a registered voter, and who actually votes. Until that problem is solved all the huffing and puffing about machines being used to steal votes is worthless. It's a LOT easier to steal an election if you cannot control the voter rolls to start.
We need to wipe clean ALL voter rolls, then rebuild them only with names of people who can prove they are legally allowed to vote - citizens. And then when you DO vote, you have to show up at an actual polling place and prove you are who you say you are.
Otherwise, pencils, pens, electronic, pull levers - none of the actual ways votes are cast - matter. The most critical part of voting begins with the voter rolls, not with the actual casting of the ballot.
For the record, I am a US citizen, registered in the state of Washington (where I live when I am in the US), and we have an on-going problem in the biggest county in the state (King County) where it's quite common to have more votes than voters (voters being people who signed in at the polling place), and more voters than registered voters. Or to have a lot more voters than actual votes (meaning lost votes), depending upon the political leaning of your particular district. Oh, and don't forget that we have ballots "found" weeks after the election, yet still counted...
Cleaning the voter rolls and controlling access to the ballot box are the two most fundamental steps towards a secure election. Worrying about what the ballot box actually IS - that's just a diversion to make the public think something's being done about the elections messes...
Yep - damn shame that it's now mainstream to listen to jazz...
You're a male posting on /. - if you don't have them now, don't worry! Sitting in your parent's basement drinking lots of Mountain Dew will get you your own set any day now...
There was a big issue about 6 years ago, on the Tulalip Indian Reservation that is North of Seattle. The tribe leased a lot of prime waterfront lots back in the 60s and 70s, for 30, 40, and 50 year terms. Well, the leases are expiring, and the tribe has decided they don't want to renew the lease. Oh, and they won't issue a construction permit so you can demolish your house. So off you go, leave your house to us...
Leasing land does NOT guarantee you ownership - or even the right to transfer ownership. It's at the desire of the lessor, and I'm willing to bet that in 30-50 years, as those Mexican beach leases expire there's going to be a LOT of leases not renewed, and a lot of multi-million dollar homes being assumed by local politicians and power movers. All for free.
In China, when you buy a house (or farm, or whatever) you get an actual deed to the property that you can sell, trade, give, etc. It can stay in your family for generations, just like here in the US.
Thanks for the update - I last checked the laws in 2006, when I set up my company, and those were the numbers that applied. I know the move was to open things up more, but didn't think they would take place until 2008.
For a manufacturing company, you as a foreigner can own - and control - 100% of a company. For a technical/service firm, you can own 60%. For a trading company, you can own 40%. So it really depends upon what the type of company is.
China's also opened up so that foreigners can now outright own houses or apartments, something even Mexico doesn't allow...
Then write back from your prison cell about the evils of censorship and the lack of free speech in the US...
Maybe the fact you can't find a candidate who represents you says more about the reality of your positions than it does about the political system?
For Russia, I know I got coverage in St. Petersburg and Moscow. I'd consider those pretty important cities for coverage.
As far as the cost of coverage, to me it's more than worth it for my clients to be able to reach me anywhere, by just dialing one number. A cell phone is now a worldwide "800 number" to use. I use a Gionee H6 in Europe and Asia with local SIMs to return calls, but I need my CDMA on since it's the number everyone already knows.
SO I guess you didn't know your country as well as you thought?
I'm pretty sure building a new coal or natural gas isn't pocket change, either... With a 8-10X reduction in cost of production, I think you'll make up a few hundred million well before the lifespan of the powerplant expires.
You know, a thin cotton skull cap is great under the tinfoil. It really cuts down on chafing around the ears.
OR... MAybe I HAVE a CDMA phone and can actually check these things? At the very least you could do a quick check of the capabilities of your own country.
In fact, it's really only Western Europe that is GSM-only (barring Portugal, Iceland, Ireland and those listed above). The rest of the world is pretty much dual-standard supporting both CDMA and GSM.
Brings a new meaning to the phrase "Whistle while you work"!
Women. Can't live with them, and it's illegal to kill them.
Somehow, though, I thought his viewpoint was a bit jaded...
I'm sorry, what were we talking about?
Yeah, their's was a bit bigger, but ended up being a one-shot wonder...
Usually when a Kapton-former voice coil in a speaker dies, the wire will literally fuse itself, melt the varnish, melt the glues and even the wire itself - copper - melt down before the Kapton significantly degrades.
Kapton is a great high-temp, high resistance, ultra-lightweight material. Perfect for aircraft assemblies where you want isolation without weight. It's also used in transformers everywhere for the same reason.
Why the military doesn't use it? Well, I was told (back when I did mil/aero work) Kapton nicks too easily, so for regularly serviced assemblies they prefer silicone or rubber jackets. With buried assemblies like you have in commercial aircraft, though, it's a non-issue.