No problem there - you need to count like a journalist.

He started in 2003 (the 2000s) and stopped in 2013 (the 2010s) ... that 2 decades which more than a decade - easy !

In senior IT roles, yes !

Age may not determine ability in technical roles ie code monkeys but experience sure as hell matters in senior roles.

I think you'll find China is much more annoyed with US forces being in SE Asia and are currently working to exert their own influence in that region - particularly the South China Sea. For example: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/27/china-military-south-china-sea/2023947/

I think they would be delighted if US had to pull forces out of South Korea to de-escalate the situation - which, despite reported threats against the US mainland, is actually the key thing the North Korean keep saying - "get of out Korea - none of your business"

I don't know why you'd assume China would be an ally in this battle - the US doesn't actually have many of those left after testing the limits in Iraq/Afghanistan and most of the world seeing that China is clearly the #1 superpower within the next 10-20 years.

On the contrary, basically every threat has been at South Korea.

The western media is picking up on and only reporting the little bits at the end that say "Guam, Pacific an mainland US bases" ... Much like every other pre-war the media is clearly trying to sensationalise and polarise.

In reality, the North Koreans are saying get US forces out of South Korea and stop military exercises because it is none of your business. The secondary message is that is US uses exercises (and further UN sanctions) to invade or destabilse North Korea further that they will attack US forces anywhere - primarily South Korea but also the mainland US if needed.

North Kores may not be the most stable regime in the world but cut through the propaganda and you can see their point - if China started military exercises in Mexico (or Cuba) and flying stealth aircraft there, what do you think the response would be? Probably exactly the same the North Koreans now !!!

Huh? That is exactly what I said along with 4 other factors that all point in the same direction.

Not exactly sure what you think you are disagreeing with ... you can not attack a nuclear armed opposition like USSR (or N Korea) but instead have to erode their capability - economically in both cases of USSR and N Korea.

- Iraq has oil
- Bush & co had a lingering revenge motive from the Kuwait days
- US did not have allies within real striking range of Iraq
- US had a trigger with the war on terror and WMD
- Iraq has low-tech weaponns

- N Korea has no oil
- There is no personal grudges to be settled
- Seoul is only 20 miles from N Korea
- N Korea is all talk and have not triggered a real reason for invasion & no-one believes WMD arguments anymore
- N Korea has rocketry and air or ground deploy able nukes

The risk-reward trade off is quite different ... more akin to the cold war with USSR where you need to slowly erode capability not just attack.

That great mantra "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" applies quite well here.

No evidence of being anti-Korean is not evidence that they are pro-Korean as American propaganda would have you believe ... in fact, evidence seems to suggest that China is remaining quite neutral in this process and maintaining relationships with both side - this evidently is quite a shock to Americans who expect every country to unconditionally support them

There is a new superpower in the world ... welcome to the new post-cold war geopolitical world !

I'd concur with most of that ...

We have a decent number of Prius taxis in my part of the world ... with heavy city driving and hence a lot of battery cycling, the battery seem to last between about 200,000 and 350,000 miles - I'd say 300,000 miles is a fair estimate of average life ... very much in line with a typical gasoline engine anyway

Replacement costs seems to be even less than $4k ... often under $3k

Overall running costs (fuel and maintenance) is said to be roughly half of the typical large sedans used

However, I am genuinely curious from the original poster's rant about subsidies - who is subsidising the Prius? Is it a rant at US motor companies and their subsidies, or US hybrids (Tesla & Volt), or hybrids in general which is the why it was phrased??

Its a grey area, but I'd call it a hybrid due to:

It is not just KERS and it is electrical not mechanical ... IMHO, a hybrid but barely so ... although i understand other peoples definitions given it cant run electric only

My money is on 2nd and 3rd choices:

Styx - a river in Greek mythology that formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld
Kerberos - a multi-headed hound which guards the gates of the Underworld, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping

These form a nice pair and are themed on the transition from Earth to another world (the underworld) ...

Pluto is very much a transition from our planetary system to interstellar space (or at least the Oort cloud)

Astronomers do see still the romance in the skys and are quite apt to draw these parallels.

IAU has the final say and would be likely to reject this name I would think for scientific consistency with their previous naming conventions.

And the discovers are not even saying they will propose this name to IAU - just that they will consider the voting.

So dont hold your breath !

There is so much wrong with that ...

"If you raise the minimum wage by 10%, I raise the prices by that same 10%" ... How does that work given only a small percentage of customers will be on minimum-wage and getting the 10% increase?

"That means that my million dollar salary increased by $100,000" ... But by your previous logic, your cost of living has now increased by 10% or $100,000 anyway

In reality it is something like 2% of the workforce at or below minimum wage ... So a 10% increase in minimum wage will cause a 0.2% increase in the labour component of production and lets say 0.1% increase overall (assuming 50% labour / 50% materials, etc)

You increase prices and profit by 0.1% - so an extra $1,000 on a million dollar income !!! And from that you need to cover the slightly increased costs of products you purchase

Actually, with a bit more analysis ... All our Microsoft expert is really doing is taking the betting markets and adjusting for historical biases:
- favourites are more likely to win than markets imply
- long-shots are less likely than implied

Perfectly normal in betting markets where people back sentimental long-shots and chase the odds

So having a guess from our Microsoft Research expert's blog:
1. Grabs the odds from Intrade, Betfair and HSX
2. Sources data from 'user generated data' ie social networks
3. Does a little a maths
4. Claims to be a forecasting guru

And with no real detail on #3 beyond being heavily weighted towards the betting/prediction markets and effectively just picking the favourites in every market, this is kind of useless.

The only interesting aspect is that the certainty for high likelihood winners is higher than any individual predictor ...

For example, Spielberg for Best Director with Lincoln:
Intrade: 75%
HSX: 51%
Betfair: 76%
User-data: 81%
Forecast: 88%

That suggests either:
- historically these prediction markets have under-estimated the numbers for popular favourites, which is consistent with inefficient betting markets where people will back long-shots more than they should due to the perception of good odds
- his model concludes that if 4 data points to a win, then the likelihood is even stronger

Nah - its all easy to reconcile

NK does not screw with foreigner because they need the cash, and in fact is becoming more accommodating for that very reason. You are not going to get locked up for saying the wrong thing and would need to provoke a response but deliberating seeking out things that to embarrass them as a number of aid workers have.

And in all likelihood you are not going to be spied upon 24/7 and have your electronics copied/monitored because most tourists are just not that interesting !!!

But foreigners are given a very sanitised version of the country with limited scope to venture outside the major cities - so do not see a lot of what really happens.

But I concede, there is also some NK tourist propaganda out there too - may or may not be what you saw.

Long story short - stay out of NK politics and it is safe for westerners to visit