So... May it be fair to say piracy might stop when hollywood accounting does?

If you don't mind living close to an airport (or at least a suiteable airstrip), an old aircraft might be a cool idea. At Stockholm Airport in sweden a 747 has been converted to a hotel. http://www.jumbostay.com/ And I've read about a pilot wanting to do the same for a home. A 747 might be a bit large, and limit your location more than something a bit smaller of course. But the pilot reconned it wouldn't actually cost all that much. Once the plane is in place a lots of the equipent, like engines and hydraulics can be sold off. He estimated paying around $50.000 for the stripped down fuselage. And given that they spend a lot of time in -50C air, aircrafts are pretty well insulated. (But as pointed out elsewhere, local building codes and be problematic.)

Read recently about an airline pilot wanting to convert a 747 into a house. Remember that aircrafts fly in -50C, so there is plenty of insulation in those thin walls. (There is also a 747 converted to a hotel in Sweden. Construction-wise a hotel shouldn't be too different from a home.) Getting a reasonably sized fuselage to anywere but next to sufficiently large airstrip will of course be a problem.

Three comments on that video...

1. Margin of turn-radius for that hairpin turn. Or was that set up to be exceedingly narrow, or even impossible just to make sure the result wouldn't "work" ?

2. The angle of the camera seemed a bit low? Been a while since I played much racing games, but it seemed to me that there was a somewhat larger than usual blind zone in front of their truck.

3. As pointed out in the article, how about steering with a game-controller instead of a steering wheel? I know that when I got a wheel-controller for gaming, I actually had to change the POV to inside in games. Even in games the 3rd person view was annoying when using a steering wheel and pedals!

I don't know how nasty copper mines are in comparison to other mines, so I can't comment on that. But given the disregard of the safety of their own workers at home in China, I can't imagine them treating African works *better* than a western capitalist would. Of course, that would mostly be due to the western capitalists having significantly different safety standards depending on country of operation more than the Chines lack of such.

Certainly there are benefits. Not saying there aren't any. After all it creates jobs as well.

I don't think roses would necessarily be more stupid than any other crops for export just because you can't eat them. But using land that could be used to feed the locals obviously raises some questions, and dumping chemicals into the local environment clearly sends it over the top.

Another thing I was told in Ethiopia was that what had happened (simplified) was that after centuries of European rule, and decades of guilt based (and ineffective) aid from the West, locals saw the Chinese as an interesting alternative for building their nations. However, after about a decade of massive Chinese involvement, they realized that the Chinese were actually worse than the Europeans in taking the actual resources for themselves, while leaving minimal positive impact. (Also, by now better and more sustainable ways of improving standards of living has been figured out, though they of course are not without problems of their own...)

Norway would probably disagree. Before oil was discovered it was at best average for Europe. (In fact, a hundred years ago it was one of the poorest. Not entirely sure how things in the last decades without oil.) But as others have pointed out, already having a stable government by the time of discovery seems critical. Having a smallish populations also certainly seems to help.

Someone else posted this article in another story recently. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=full Seems like it's mostly in the last few decades killing has surpassed development...

Of course, I can only imagine the Chinese is doing the same thing in afghanistan as they are doing in Africa when "building countries"... Half a year ago I was back in Etiopia. Like several other African countries they had let China invest money. Sure, some of it went to building roads (using Chinese equipment and leadership.) But other "projects" included wast greenhouse areas for growing flowers. What they didn't care about was the chemicals used in the greenhouses leaking out into the rivers that local farmers used to water they crops. Inevitable the results were poor/failed crops. But Europeans get the fuzzy feeling of "supporting development" by buying roses "grown in Africa"... (Indian businessmen was starting to do the same for growing spice to be sold in India.)

Of course they are monitored, so freedom of interaction with them will be severely limited. But unless they meet someone from the outside they are even more likely to believe the government propaganda that the rest of the world is even worse off than their great country is. Question is if the few drops that might hit the regular worker makes up for throwing a bucket at their bosses...

At the top of my mind I can see 3 ways to end the current political situation. Military invasion, leadership collapse, and major uprising from the inside. Yes, heavily restricted commercial dealings is highly unlikely to be a major contribution to the 3rd option, but it might at least prepare some people for what awaits when once either of them has happened. (PS: Not saying doing business with them is right, but cornering a wild animal even further usually isn't wise either...)

Letting more N. Koreans meet/interact with foreigners (even if limited) and realize for themselves that the government propaganda is wrong about how evil westerners are can be a good thing in the long run. Just a shame money has to be fed to the wrong people to do so. Same double-edged sword that applies to tourism essentially.

Might have to do with consumer rights seeming to be in general weaker in the US that Europe?

Don't think they would make an exception just because it would be unusually expensive for them. Also, Ryanair tried to get out of it, by claiming it was "ridiculous" to pay hundreds of euro or more in compensation to people who pay less than 10 for their tickets. (And Ryanair seems to have as an official policy "be the biggest jerks around"...)

As for people sleeping in airports... I guess factors include: Too many people to process for a limited staff. Not enough hotel capacity in the area. Nobody knowing how long it would last, so official closure was only a day at the time usually. Also, if it's their first flight, the airline is likely not responsible yet, as was my experience one time 10 years ago.

Going back to college after xmas I had a 2 flights. My connection (late evening) was canceled without any reason given. As I (as some friends) had flown to that airport, the airline had to up us up in a hotel for the night, while some others that were only flying the last leg were on their own, despite having traveled a couple of hours by bus and/or boat to get to the airport and couldn't get back home that evening. The key apparently was that we "had started our journey with the airline".

Of course you can't change to another airline just because that would be convenient for you. They'll have their own planes (or at least an alliance partner) flying your destination sooner or later, and will eventually be able to put you on one of those... This January I missed my connection in Frankfurt, party due to the heavy snow. Lufthansa didn't care if I was waiting until late evening to fly their plane directly home, or if I took flights (via a 3rd airport) with their Star Alliance parter S.A.S. earlier in the afternoon.

Nobody seemed to tell the airlines that when the ash hit Europe recently...

But do you want them to block the escape routes for the rest of us?

So, Intel or ARM is still not decided, but that it will run Windows is? Guess that must be WinCE? But why not put Android on it? To make a real alternative to those cheap/underpowered chinese android pads floating around, and give the WePad a run for it's money?

Notice that he points out "as long as I don't spread it further". At least a couple of european countries still have copyright laws that permit "sharing with friends" in one way or another, which has been a really nice loop-hole... And updating them to the Internet age they narrowed it down to one-way laws regarding file-sharing, meaning it's allowed to download stuff, but not upload... (In theory you're legally permitted/required to be a jerk and keep your ratio at 0.00 and never seed at all...)

(One-way in the same way that buying sex is illegal in some countries, while selling isn't, as the hookers are considered victims rather than criminals, while the costumers are considered contributing to organized crime....)