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Comment Re:Private security theater is no better than publ (Score 1) 585

First I must call BS on Mumbai. National and international flights throughout India have one security feature in common: Royal pain in the arse. Further down you will see people complain about Frankfurt. I can personally attest is is a horrid airport with hour waits to pass through poorly placed customs checks between terminals. Connecting the Frankfurt is it's own hell ... never fly Luftansa if you have to connect in Frankfurt.

Nope the easiest in/out international is Hong Kong and Singapore.
The easiest domestic (which is what we are really talking about) is Indonesia. Only a 25% chance they will check your ID for a domestic flight at check in. Yeah there is a metal detector that goes *beep* and sometimes they scan your carry on (looking for contraband).

Now if we can just get back to the 1990s when I used to pick people up at the airport by walking to their gate ... almost like I was living in a civilized society.

Comment Re:A lot later than that. (Score 1) 585

Thanks for the recommendation.

http://aa.usembassy.or.kr/jun2008/in20.pdf is a good copy. At least one other copy online is of very poor (OCR-resisted, raster) quality.

tl:dr - Terrorists foot soldiers are the the hopeless socially isolated looking for camaraderie. Basically the same pool of idiots that *every* organisation pulls from.

Solution A: Infiltrate the terrorist organisation and sew paranoia or otherwise breakdown the organisations internal solidarity.

Problem A: Easily self corrected by use of 'secret police' within such organisations.

Solution B: Be their friend before the terrorists, gangs or whoever puts them to use doing something anti-social. This deprives the leaders of these anti-social organisations of resources.

Problem B: The fix is not just impractical it is not possible to provide a social group for everyone.

Comment Re:Microsoft destroyed linux on cellphones (Score 5, Informative) 1027

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

During the period from 1936 to 1950, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines—with investment from GM, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation—bought over 100 electric surface-traction systems in 45 cities including Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland and San Diego and converted them into bus operation. ...

GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies.

Comment Bring your own ... (Score 1) 362

Regardless of what the state of version control and bug tracking and development tools are used within a company I always have my own available. If the company I am working with has a suitable suite of tools then I use them. When no such suite exists mine is available as either a standalone or server installation on my own workstation or laptop.
If I am working with a team that has nothing I generally offer to setup and deploy a basic infrastructure if the existing one is missing or broken. Normally a suite of Trac/SVN works reasonably and only takes an hour or so to setup.

As a consultant for many years I have seen the full range from none to a full suite of tools supporting a rigorous development process. I've help with roll outs of CVS, SVN, AccuRev, and ClearCase. Personally Trac and SVN do everything thing I need and do it really well. That said I normally augment those tools with my preferred setup of RabbitSVN + meld or TortoiseSVN and WinMerge and some personal scripts for diffing and merging.

Comment Re:Name a single computer manufacturer (Score 1) 346

It's worked wonders in the garment industry for years.
Many tier 1 retail corps inspect and verify to ensure their products and good name are not trashed.

I think Apple is an excellent example of the type of corporation that is very susceptible to open protest and well as the quiet protest of not buying from companies that do not work with reputable manufacturing partners.

Make no mistake. We are hearing about Apple because they are one of the worst offenders, not just because they are popular at the moment.

Comment Re:Yes! (Score 1) 201

Sort of.
AT&T used to be a large player in Rogers (Canada). And if you think the US is bad, Canada is worse. Rogers is easily the worst GSM provider in the world. As compared with AT&T (USA), T-Mobile, Orange (Spain), TIM (Italy and Brazil), Vodafone (Hong Kong and S. Africa), China Moblie (China), China Unicom (China), and Telkomsel (Indonesia).

I am strongly of the opinion that if/when AT&T swallows T-Mobile in the USA they will quickly be in competition with Rogers for worst in the world. Interestingly WIND in Canada (Running a T-Mobile freq) appears to be a much better option in the Great White North) and comparable to T-Mobile USA.

Comment Re:US cell system (Score 1) 201

With regards to subways, there is a vast difference between NYC / Chicago which can be very sketchy vs San Francisco, D.C. and Boston. It has a lot to do with the culture of the cities and the age of the system.

In my personal experience I lump (worst to best).
NYC, Chicago, Mexico City, Barcelona, Paris roughly together.
Sau Paulo with Rome
San Francisco, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen
Hong Kong and Singapore
And finally Athens as the best public transport I've used.

Comment Re:New fundamental rights test (Score 1) 728

Yes, but prior to 9/11, how plausible would it have struck you that a group of Islamic Extremists could hijack four commercial airliners and perform kamikaze attacks with them?

It was a known and planned for scenario.

ny times

In 1994, two jetliners were hijacked by people who wanted to crash
them into buildings, one of them by an Islamic militant group. And
the 2000 edition of the FAA's annual report on Criminal Acts Against
Aviation, published this year, said that although Osama Bin Laden 'is
not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation
and the wherewithal to do so,' adding, 'Bin Laden's anti-Western and
anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant
threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation'.

Comment Re:Treating symptoms instead of disease (Score 1) 565

Unfortunately that slightly higher rate needed to make up for China's absence is a 'death spiral' where the interest rate offered to sell will quickly push the short term debt beyond the amount likely for the US tax base being able to pay, which drives the rate higher, which ... yeah, death spiral, no more debt issuance for you. Yikes.

Nope, the US and China are tied together in this game of chicken. It's not going to end well.

Comment Re:Damn Skippy! (Score 1) 565

Actually, as a comparison to when I worked in a factory in high-school vs the factories I've visited in China (very, very many) it looks to me to be about the same level of work, or a little less work, for about the same pay and benefits relative to what I got back then. At least on the East coast of China, I hear the middle/west is not as nice but I have not had any dealings out there.

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