Who the fuck cares about the hypothetical performance of the plane in some scenario that didn't come to be? What we have is a track record of A-10 performing a stellar job in the wars that have actually happened, from Iraq in 1991 onward. And with ISIS it looks like there will be more of that kind of thing in the future. Retiring a highly successful piece of military hardware when there's clear need for it now and in the future, and no suitable replacement, is just retarded.

They don't really rely on skilled immigration to a significant extent. And for what they do, they have states in EU itself to cover it (Poland, Romania etc).

Even if you look at per capita numbers, US does beat Canada, which I would argue to be the most skilled immigration-friendly country.

The mistake that is often made when estimating said quality is looking at the averaged stats. Thing is, if you're immigrating for the sake of a good job, you need to look at what that job (and others like it) will give you, as opposed to the average or the median. In US, the average is indeed lower than most other western countries because of the wealth gap and piss-poor welfare policies. But people coming here for high-paid jobs (like IT) are getting a deal that's much better than average. And with enough money, you can absolutely have a great experience in US - a good house safe low-crime neighborhood, a great school for your kids in the same neighborhood, solid healthcare, and a private pension fund for retirement. And plenty of jobs to pick from.

Of course, if you seriously advocate that people take responsibility for their networks, their equipment, and their decisions and realize the part they play in enabling the problems they complain about, you'll be accused of "blaming the victim".

Still, unlike the harsher laws that vary by jurisdiction (of which some have no extradition treaties), this actually stands a chance of working. On a hostile network like the Internet, nothing other than hardening the targets is going to actually improve security. It would also be nice for the rest of us not to have to contend with botnets and other problems made possible entirely by the clueless who want all the benefits of a general-purpose global network but don't want to put forth the effort to learn how it works and how to use it responsibly.

They strongly resemble the child who wants a pet cat but doesn't want to feed it and change its litter box because that part isn't fun.

That last sentence is false and shows you don't fully understand what you're discussing. The merchant is charged a fee, usually a small percentage of the transaction, each time you use your credit card. Even if you never personally pay interest because you pay in full each month, the bank issuing the credit card is making money from your use of that card.

Incidentally, this is also why some small, local, mom-and-pop stores won't accept a credit card unless your total purchase exceeds a certain amount. The fee they must pay isn't worthwhile to them if the transaction is too small. Larger stores are better able to absorb it and just consider it a cost of doing business.

Decent rant, but he contradicts his own argument about how the USAF only likes sleek, fast air-to-air planes when he rambles on about how they loved the ugly, slow, air-to-ground F-117.

Bullshit.

The only operational US missile to have sort of range was the Phoenix, which was carried by neither the F-15 nor the F-16.

It was launched exactly twice in its service history on the F-14 with no hits scored.

I've flown first class before, but the value proposition isn't really there. Given the choice between flying first, or flying economy and keeping the price difference, I'd pick the latter (I'll happily fly first when someone else is paying and I don't have the choice of taking the money though). Economy (well, Economy Plus, but it's United, so Economy on any other airline) on the 787 was the first time I've been sufficiently comfortable in an economy seat to get productive work done - usually I just sleep or zone out and watch bad movies. The interesting thing was that the first and business sections didn't seem any different from the 777, only the cheap seats improved.

We need communism. US imprialists are salivating at another nuclear holocaust, the workers must stop them.

Factabunga, dudes!

If this works the same way that it does in Europe, then even after you've gone through this you get a code valid for 30 days that you can give to another operator to port your number. This gives them a little window to try to change your mind and is a fairly good way to protest.

Apple got a lot of bad press a few years ago for massively overestimating their battery life and is now quite a bit more conservative. They've gone from claiming 6 hours to claiming 8, but at the same time they've shipped lower power CPUs and doubled the size of the battery. There was a Kickstarter for an open source compatible laptop with very similar specs to the MBP floating around last week: they were also claiming 8 hours on battery, but they were shipping a battery half the size of the MBP. I guess they think Linux users keep the screen turned off.

Adjusting the brightness has a big impact on battery life for the MBP. Cutting it to 50% can give you another hour or two. I have gfxCardStatus installed and so disable the nVidia card if I'm going to be using it on battery for a while.

A big part of the reason for short battery lives is people who don't realise that LiIon and NiCd are not the same and think that they get the best battery life by completely draining the battery then charging it. LiIon prefers partial discharge and then full recharge, although the controller typically wants a complete discharge cycle every month or so for calibration.

The 787 has more legroom than any other plane I've flown in and this is aimed as a 787 competitor. Note that it depends a lot on the airline though - they get a lot of say in the exact layout of seats, so you'll see different amounts of legroom for different carriers and the same aircraft.

The A380 is really huge. A lot of the long-haul flights that I've been on in the last couple of years haven't been full, even when they're the one flight of the day between two points and are on a plane with half of the capacity of the A380. It's a very economical plane to fly if you can fill it up, but if it's likely to be under half full then it's very expensive. The big-planes, infrequently model doesn't really work with the hub-and-spokes model popular in the USA, because it either needs more coordination with short-haul spoke routes, or layovers (and the cost of near-airport hotels means that these can often make it cheaper to book a different airline's flight).

I flew on the 787 (LHR - IAH, both directions) for the first time this year and it was such a massive improvement over earlier models that I actually enjoyed flying for the first time in ages. Even in the cheap seats, there was lots of legroom, lots of overhead space (so you didn't feel cramped), the air pressure stayed good for the entire flight, the seats reclined comfortably without invading someone else's space. I managed to get more uninterrupted work done on the outbound flight than any other time over the surrounding few months. I'm really looking forward to airlines using similar craft on all long-haul routes.