Yes, OSCE refused to take any part in this circus, because the poll was illegal under Ukrainian law and was conducted under "protection" of Russian armed forces posing as local militia.

While I do believe that these figures are closer to reality, but given a complete lack of evidence, I agree this "leak" is not very useful.

First, any public poll with close to 90% outcome should be suspect.

There are 10% Crimean Tatar and 25% Ukrainian nationals in the Crimea, that makes Putin's figures unbelievable.

And even people who identify with Russia do not necessarily all want to actually join it under Putin's regime.

So, even though there are no proofs for this story and you are right to doubt it, too, you should doubt the official results more.

Also, regardless of any poll results, the poll was illegal under Ukrainian law, and you cannot legally come to another country, conduct a regional poll, and take a part of the territory.

Modded insightful by other "Russian World" enthusiasts, apparently.

Putin's annexation of Crimea repeats Hitler's early annexations one for one, including the "referendum" part.

"Right Sector", the hardcore right-wing faction, is low in head count and public support (1-3%) and has zero representation in the current government. The more moderate but still nationalist-driven "Svoboda" has about 5% support and also not much power. The rest are normal politicians by Western standards.

The current government was temporarily appointed by the parliament, which was the single possible solution after the previous president had failed to suppress the protests and fled the country. A real election is scheduled on May 25, and Russia is trying hard to prevent it in order to prolong the current suspended state.

No-one was "abolishing equal rights". There was a move to revoke a controversial language law introduced by the previous administration, but the temporary president (whom you criticize) has blocked the move, demanding that a new, better version of the law should be negotiated and accepted by the parliament first.

Please stop trolling here.

There have been many sci-fi novels about virtual worlds and their economy, and they inspire a lot of people. I have spoken to people eager to "relocate" into virtual reality with most of their business and even personal life. I guess it's because virtual worlds simplify or ignore many boring details of life.

Even the current, far from perfect, simulations like Second Life, WoW or Lineage have so many fans that it shows the potential for adoption.

If Facebook and other vendors make it right, it can be a smooth continuum of shades of VR, from games, through virtual art galleries, shows and meeting places (like Second Life or Minecraft), and to 3D chat and augmented reality.

And of course porn.

I hope it gets broader adoption than Kinect or those Wii sports novelties.

Maybe they can use VR to help Slashdot editors visualize the summaries. Or the crowds of disappointed readers.

To be fair, a lot of people were still using VB6 for Windows frontend programming as recently as 10 years ago. Now it looks like it is finally dying off, although I'm pretty sure a lot of legacy projects are still in use.

One has to be prepared.

The whole thing reminded me of a fashion model interview in Bruno:

How many of them are happy?

I think we have several technologies (some ready, some getting there) which could gradually make this realistic in more areas:
- passenger apps for route planning and cab calling
- smart traffic scheduling/dispatching systems
- self-driving cars

Maybe if you add modern computer-assisted routing both for cars (intellectual central dispatch) and for passengers (smart phone apps), and add self-driving small cars to the mix, it can become more realistic. And we don't have to replace all cars overnight. This can happen gradually, extending the network reach and usefulness area by area.

I hope that eventually logic will prevail and properly organized mass transit (including maybe self-driving taxi cabs) will replace most of the private cars. Then we will not have to argue about the little details like individual vehicle range, styling or retail price.

Agreed. It's a shame; if the submitter did not use the word "rich" so inappropriately, we could have a meaningful discussion about why people with a degree used to work less and now have to work more, and maybe what could be done about that.

I think the reasons are the consumerism (also in regards to homes and college degrees) and unpaid overtime, and the solution is to actively run away from both if your time is valuable to you. Buy what you can afford, don't waste money excessively only because credit is available, and switch jobs until you find one with suitable time balance.