That's actually 100% correct. Ground military is specifically assigned on rotations far away from their home province. I have a little brother-in-law in the military, and I can tell you that the military is tightly under the government's control -- you see, Xi has been consolidating..not losing control of, many military/police/investigative (see, gestapo) forces under his thumb, and whereas in the past there was significant volatility between the PLA and the party (like DXP times) currently that's not the case at all. It may change, but there are no obvious signs to me or anyone I know of that being the case - it'll more likely be a party&PLA vs. migrant worker/peasant class clash, which is why China invests so heavily in a ground force to begin with.

He's foolish, not worth replying to misinformed anonymous cowards :D More important keys to refute his silly points are: Japan controlled the islands since the 19th century, and the post-ww2 treaty to determine which islands were part of the 'hand back' was fully endorsed by both ROC and PRC without any disagreement about the Senkaku islands - and up until 1970s PRC maintained that Senkaku did belong to Japan according to their own maps. Unfortunately, in the 70s, when potential for large oil reserves near the islands was discovered, they began to cry foul and demand that the islands belonged to them since 'ancient times'. It's all bullshit, just like their bullshit creation of fake islands in the middle of the southeastern archipelagos to try to lay claim to bunches of islands neighbouring other countries. They just draw huge lines on maps and say "OURS" like children, just like Russia is trying to do with their borders and, more importantly, the North Pole.

China in this instance, is so ridiculously hypocritical - their entire argument about the Senkaku(Diaoyu) islands is that Japan has only controlled them in modern times, and China has laid claim (based on little evidence, and they're uninhabited) since ancient times. Yet, here, they're claiming these islands from all these other countries, and have only laid claim since 1940 -- a claim that seemingly hasn't been supported except by China themselves. Which way they want it? All ways. China has a big 'face' problem so can't look weak to it's oppressed masses for fear of social unrest, and like Russia, thinks the whole world around it belongs to them. Really tired of this bullshit.

Burn. Not only does exploring the universe develop innovation along the way of figuring out _how to explore the universe_, which can often be repurposed to impact individual's daily lives, but the possibilities of learning and expanding our fundamental knowledge of physics/etc by putting things on other planets and watching/analysing data is enormous. I repeat: BURN.

Left the company? How about you pay attention. He didn't go anywhere. He stepped down as chairman of the board, and is taking a much more hands on approach, his new title (february 8th, 4 days after he 'stepped down') is "Founder and Technology Adviser" (to directly advise the new CEO). In his own words, he will be "substantially increasing time at Microsoft" in his new role. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us...

It's a terribly ugly bike - and seems it would be awkward to ride. I have no idea how this made it to Slashdot (seems to be a recurring theme). Please stop using this to drum up funds for some dudes crappy ideas who already failed horribly on kickstarter, years ago..because their product sucks.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.. I mostly disagree with this point: "you're not paying for services or goods" -- sure, you *could* say that, but if that were a valid *legal* argument, it would work in any similar circumstance. I don't think it takes a terrible amount of thought to figure out how obviously this could be abused if it were an actual scenario that worked out in the eyes of the law...

I don't know why you think that because in "the country in which you reside" tips are non-taxed, they're not taxed elsewhere. In fact, in the USA, ALL tips are taxable income. Including this fictitious scenario's $20. So - to digress back to the original argument on this thread, yes - it's breaking the law. In addition, using "lets assume" with a randomly pulled from your ass percentage as a counter-argument which you have labelled as isolated incidents because they (also assumed) came from the news is hardly convincing.

At least then when the smart enough people involved in the process to determine whether FAT PEOPLE are disabled and deserve protection, they can say "What the fuck is wrong with you" to their coworker or boss that proposed it - and not get fired for doing so.

OH... MY... GOD... You mean people drive TO the airport, BACK from the airport, and TO the airport again? And..... let me guess, BACK again???? Oh no, you say, carrying passengers for less than us fellow cabbies extort? It's a disaster. Quick - get on social medias and tweet out to our fellow cabbies, get our lobbyists on the phone and let our representatives know they wont be getting that whopping $1500 campaign donation check to do our bidding any more if they don't shut this shit down ASAP.

Tried tested and failed. China constantly cracks down on new 'evasive' methods of communicating. This year they used tons of other phrases, and were promptly blocked, like "this day" or "may 35th" or "that day" or "spring to summer" or other various 'elusive' terms...blocked. In addition they tried to hide messages in porn. This is all part of the tit-for-tat that, well, often just ends in more and more blockage and nothing more.

Don't feed the troll mate. :D Regardless of the connection package, our VPN restriction (I'm assuming you use a European or North American server) largely comes down to geography..so the 1Mbit 8Mbit 20Mbit 100Mbit packages offered by the telecoms here largely end up with similar ping and sometimes similar bandwidth over VPN at the end of the day. In-country direct connections, however, the advertised speed is much closer to being realized..

Ok back to the facts - you want strong environmental laws? How about EXECUTION for heavy polluters in violation of regulations? Yes, China will execute company heads who are involved in pollution violations. Just like China executed heads of the melamine milk scandal. I don't see US executing corporate heads - or prosecuting anyone from any corporation who constantly breaks the law / regulations out the window / laughs at the country as they drive profit and buy politicians, and sneer at regulations as being 'for the small people'... want to talk about tough? I think we know who wins that one. :D

Some set up constant tunnels. Personally I use StrongVPN when not at my office or on office network, so it's sorta like this: Most of my internet use does not involve a proxy OR VPN, and is perfectly fine. When I need YouTube or Hulu or something, I open StrongVPN L2TP through San Fran. When I'm at work I'm typically going thru a proxy for common services we use like google services or whatever and need no configuration on whichever device I am using. My network connection at home is 20mbit fibre, typically when I'm NOT on VPN I can download torrents or stream videos from non-youtube sources fast, when I AM on VPN I can typically stream high quality YouTube/Hulu without buffering issues..gotta have me some Shark Tank! I've been primarily in China since 2003, and can tell you - for anyone slightly technically inclined, the GFW is not an issue, and never really has been.. the occasional biggest problem is when they try to disrupt encrypted traffic and it grinds VPNs to a snailmail pace.

Essentially agree, the slippery slope is once prioritization is allowed, the regulation and management of that belongs to _someone_ -- and whomever that is, is going to be highly susceptible to monetary interests. How we control that aspect of prioritisation is the question...