Posts by Rich of Observationz
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Meanwhile, I find it amusing that the New Zealand Institute's FibreCo proposal, which has won the backing of David Farrar, Bernard Hickey and Rod Drury seems a bit, well, socialist to me.
I don't see Mr Drury as any sort of political partisan? In terms of David Farrar, it's interesting how people take a more left wing attitude on stuff they actually know anything about.
I'm just a bit sceptical about FTTP.
How flexible a technology is fibre? Will we spend $$$ on putting in 2010-generation fibre and then find it's obsolete in 10 years? (Good-quality copper has transitioned from the 3kHz analog it was installed for through to 20Mbit DSL). How many people will opt for expensive fibre over said 20Mbit copper (or won't we get a choice?). How much backhaul is this going to need and who's going to provide it?
-
Communist Russia managed to switch over without full blown revolution.
Well: there were peaceful but forceful revolts throughout Eastern Europe - only in Romania was there significant violence. Then there was the attempted coup in '91 against Gorbachev, which was defeated by popular force.
Plus, of course, there was Yugoslavia, which was never part of the Russian Empire - but the various nationalities had to fight (in the case of the Kosovans and Bosnians with Western help) to get rid of the Serb autocracy.
I think the longer the Chinese ogligarchs (they are not any kind of communists) stay in power the more likely the ending is to be messy.
-
India regards it as a major problem too:
However, the paper you quote doesn't advocate internal migration control, preferring amongst other things a mixture of improvements in both cities and rural areas. I suspect that's partly because an Indian politician wouldn't get the vote of a Gujerati by telling them they had to get special permission to move to Delhi.
I suspect there will have to be some sort of revolution before the Chinese get any sort of freedom. Hopefully this will be reasonably quick and involve limited loss of life, but the elite (who own most of the companies we're so pleased to trade with) won't give up their power and privilege easily.
I'd be surprised if when China does finally get democracy, its people will be keen to honour "agreements" with the friends of their previous oppressors.
-
hundreds of millions of people seeking better lives and jobs in the cities. It's a simply incredible problem, and not trying to control migration flows wouldn't work out well
India has never needed to do this, with almost as large a population.
Plus they let everyone vote in regular and (more or less) fair elections.
Or are we now going to be shown a cute little diagram showing how Chinese people are different and have to be locked in their home district and not allowed to vote, ever.
-
I thought the whole debate about being able to separate sport and politics was done and dusted. Apparently not.
I just find it interesting how state murder and torture becomes "politics" when it conflicts with people's desire to play games.
Would it be "politics" if one of the javelin throwers was a psychopath who'd impaled a rival sportsman when last released from jail to compete?
-
Paul: I fully agree. If you can't extract the simple numbers needed to pay your taxes, then your business is financially out of control.
The US is supposed to be a land of fiscal freedom, but their system is far more complicated - city, state and federal government all have independent tax raising powers and mostly use them.
-
Incidentally, groove is a term of art in music. You can adjust it in some sequencers - though us trance heads leave that stuff alone, mostly.
-
would any of you model for an advert showing you to be a closet P user?
How's that different from being an actor and playing a despicable character - some do little else?
(Not to mention that I dispute the premise that a drug problem makes you an unfit parent per se).
-
CRT monitors *are* corrected for hemisphere - at least some are and some can be adjusted.
When doing high-end photoshop work, people usually calibrate their monitor (LCD or CRT) against a Pantone card. This ensures that the blue that comes out the printer matches the blue that the camera saw. A photographer would know more about this.
-
But I really wish that Russel Norman of the Greens would stop speaking as if every Chinese factory is staffed by 12 year-old slaves
Exactly. 12-year olds are intractable and break things. 13 or 14 year old's are much better workers.