That, too. Infrastructure projects like the high-speed rail to Guangzhou and (even more so) the Hong Kong - Macau - Zhuhai bridge (mostly paid for by Hong Kong, which stands to have the least, if any, benefits from the project) are a prime example of that.

The reform package offered by Beijing is worse than what many thought would be a worst-case scenario. As it stands, there is no chance for it to be implemented. Keeping the existing system is a more favourable option for many, as at least in that case it's obvious who's selecting the CE. A public vote on Beijing-sanctioned candidates would give the CE a faux legitimacy.

At the moment it appears the HK and Chinese governments have decided to play the waiting game: hope that the protesters get tired, hope that the people inconvenienced by the protests turn against the protesters, and that the protests will die out naturally. Of course, this will eventually happen, however it's anyone's guess how long the governments are willing to play this game. For the moment the pro-democracy movement appears to have overwhelming public support, some businesses even explicitly allowed their staff to take time off "to do things more important than work".

How it's going to end, I really don't know. I'm quite sure it's not going to be pretty. No matter what, it will be a milestone in Hong Kong's political development.

As said by a true outsider. You're obviously not in Hong Kong.

Some 200 bus routes affected: cut short or completely out of service. MTR services (which have to take over all those bus passengers) become overloaded - there's already barely any spare capacity left. Many people have problems going to work, or just to travel around town. For tourists it's even worse, some major hotels like the Mandarin Oriental and the Grand Hyatt being in the middle of the protest zones. Well over 100 schools and kindergartens have been closed for a few days already due to the blockades, with students and teachers not being able to get to the schools. Dozens of shops, restaurants and banks had to close (losing income), ATMs running out of money as delivery vans can't get there.

There is effectively NO traffic possible in Mongkok, Central, Admiralty and parts of Wan Chai and Causeway Bay. Roads affected include Argyle Street and Nathan Road, two main arteries of Kowloon, and Connaught Road Central in Hong Kong, a key artery connecting all the main business districts there.

It's China National Day today. The fireworks display in Victoria Harbour has been cancelled (that was announced yesterday), this usually attracts hundreds of thousands of people. The official flag raising ceremony this morning, one of the main parts of the official celebrations, lasted less than 10 minutes, with a bunch of protesters in the crowd turning their backs to the flags while they were being raised. Honestly I don't know how those officials actually managed to get to Golden Bauhinia Square, but wouldn't be surprised if helicopters were used (there happens to be a heliport right next to it). It'd be really hard for them to drive there as they usually would do.

And you say they're not inconveniencing anyone?

All they are really careful about is to not give the government any excuse to go after them. The grass around the cenotaph on Chater Garden was kept completely free, no-one set foot on it. There's only a 20-cm tall wire fence around it, and signs saying to stay off the grass. The protesters regularly collect garbage, leaving no trash behind. A police van got stuck in the middle of the Mongkok protest zone, recovered by police a day later - completely unharmed. Some bus drivers even donated "their" buses to help block off roads, confident the vehicles will not be damaged.

Encryption doesn't make sense as currently all conversations on this app are public. So even if it's all encrypted, all your adversaries would have to do is connect to the app, and they're able to see whatever you see. Encryption is great for keeping private stuff, private. The app makers say they'll add encryption the moment they add private chat rooms.

Now the thing of these big demonstrations is that you have tens of thousands of people connect at the same time to one chat room. Even if that's a private, encrypted chat room, at such numbers it's impossible to keep any eavesdroppers out - you can't vet just everyone, so the police and others may just pretend to be a protester and connect.

The requirement to create an account online, that's a whole different matter. That's irritating at best. However as soon as you're using the app through the regular mobile data networks ("on the grid") you can still be tracked down - albeit a whole lot harder.

As a Hong Kong resident, I can confirm this part.

This government's arrogance and repeated insults towards its own people (the currently offered reform package I consider one of such insults, there've been many occasions of the government not taking the people seriously before - "we're the government, we know what's best, so you may shut up now") is part of what makes these protests so big.

What I've heard about those multi-resistant strains is that they can only survive in the squeaky clean environments hospitals provide.

So it seems all you have to do is make hospitals a little less clean, and those multi-resistant strains can't survive there any more and only the more environmentally robust bacteria and viruses remain.

Wonder why they don't use this idea to actually treat those infections. Regular drugs don't work, but a change in environment does... that's an interesting notion, I'd say. Now how to translate this to actual treatment, I wouldn't know, I'm not a doctor.

The US system makes much more sense security-wise (note: this is purely security POV, not meant as opinion on effectiveness or so).

What they're trying to do is keep the airways safe: prevent hijackings of planes, planes flown into buildings, whatnot. For a terrorist it doesn't matter too much whether they hijack a small 50-seater turboprop or a massive 747 or A380. Such a smaller plane would have set fire to the WTC just as well, it may have been a bit less of a fireball on impact but there's enough fuel on board to set it on fire (especially if you plan the hijack and final target to be not too far out, so lots of fuel still on board), and it was the fire that caused the structures to collapse in the end.

If you only screen international flights thoroughly, but not your local flights, the local flights become a weak spot, and the obvious target of a terrorist seeing to hijack a plane. It is only as safe as your weakest link, and by not screening domestic flights (well), these domestic flights become a high security risk relative to the international flights. I'm sure a terrorist can really cause lots of mayhem even with smallish airliners!

No matter what, with encryption enabled they'll have to first convince a judge to issue a warrant. That's a respectable hurdle when compared to automated dragnet searches.

They know what they're driving: a train.

Contrary to say driving a truck or a car, the length of the vehicle doesn't change it's behaviour. So it's really easy for a driver to hop on a 8-coach train and drive it like a 6-coach train without feeling there's more behind him - maybe his train is normally a 6-coach vehicle, but as the normal train is in maintenance, they used an 8-coach one this time. With a truck you feel whether you're laden or not, whether you have that second trailer attached or not.

Once I've seen a train arriving in the station, with two engines, the second of which producing massive amounts of smoke. The train conductor went upfront to warn the driver of this, the driver, operating the train manually, hadn't noticed anything - the conductor noticed the smell of the burning brakes. What happened: the brakes of the second (inactive) engine were locked, and for the past 12 km or so the train had been pulling not only the 6 or 8 coaches, but also an engine with the brakes full on. The smoking hot brakes were released, and with a few minutes delay the train continued its journey.

The solution of having them pull up to the far end, is of course a failsafe option, while also being clear to passengers on where to expect the train to stop. Having the length of their train written somewhere in the cab as reminder may also be a good idea.

Depending on the size of your trains, these things are best done by a bunch of cameras keeping an eye on the full length of the train, obstruction detectors in the doors themselves, and platform staff. The cameras can be watched from a central location (could be central to the city, the line or to the station) with one person watching the complete train and keeping an eye on the crowds on the platform, while the obstruction detectors can give off an alarm to the automatic train control system and/or the station staff.

Not sure about your area, but I'm used to trains of 8-12 coaches in length, four sets of doors on each side per coach. A driver all the way in the front of the train is in a pretty poor position to see it all (no space for enough monitors) or to offer help (it's several minutes walk to the 12th coach along a crowded platform, and the trains are normally running at 2-minute intervals meaning many trains would be delayed just by the driver having to walk up and down his train - not to mention the increasing crowds - those trains run that frequent for a reason - making such a movement pretty much impossible, and that's no joke).

As that's so long time ago, you may even have to take into account the population at large. Selling 1,000 tickets to a population 10,000 in size is much more impressive than slling the same number of tickets in a population 1,000,000 in size. Plus of course the lack of competition by television or more recent developments such as The Pirate Bay.

China has a closed capital account, putting all kinds of limitations on businesses. All those yuan they get from listing in China is hard to exchange to other currencies, which they want for future expansion. The USD they collect now, they can however quite easily channel back into China as "foreign investment".

Also note that in fact Alibaba first looked at the Hong Kong stock market for listing. Again outside of China, but a lot closer to home. They were rejected by the Hong Kong board, as they could not fulfil certain requirements on financial openness and stability (details I don't know - I'm not a financial guy - however I got this part of the news as I live in Hong Kong and follow the local news). Alibaba even tried to have the Hong Kong stock exchange change the rules just for them, and when that didn't work they went to New York, where the stock exchange is apparently more lax in their rules for companies to list, or they were more willing to make an exeption for this big fish.

There are quite some local investment analysts that believe the financial basis of Alibaba is not sound, especially their payments services platform (something similar to PayPal), and that there is a risk of the company coming crashing down, again based on the unclear financial situation of the company.

Now at least they have a new feature to talk about: the thinness of the device. Something to make a difference with the existing models.

It is more than E85 a year, as this is only the upfront cost, excluding renewal of licenses.

The amount is small on a per-employee basis, however that E6 mln that the city saves can now be used for other purposes. If there's no benefit of using Windows over Ubuntu, this E6 mln (or more, over time) becomes a waste of money. Explain that to your voters, why you'd throw millions of Euros to some foreign company for some unnecessarily expensive product!

And why all or nothing? Because it makes the work of the IT staff a lot easier. Standardise computers, give them all the same hardware and software, and the bulk of the office can do exactly what they have to do. Maybe put in some non-standard (higher end, different OS, whatever) machines in the mix for the people that really need this - this are probably also the people that need the least support, so not much of an issue there.

Well, Apple make me Uncertain about the actual existence of the product, Doubtful on when it's really going to be released (now they'll have to; they can't delay much or they'll really use their reputation), and anyway I Fear it has not much use anyway - not just because my phone happens to be not an iPhone.

So that'd be UDF. Not FUD. But that's just a minor detail.

I didn't say the glance at the notification is not the interruption, however it does show that you are prepared (and, in a way, planning) to interrupt the meeting.

Besides, how often does it really happen to you that your wife takes the kid to hospital? Just be realistic here. Hasn't happened to me in eight years of having a kid. If it's really that important a message they can call someone at the company, and you can concentrate on the meeting instead of looking for messages all the time.