I saw a similar system in operation in a UK fulfillment centre (for another company) around 6 years ago. The advantage was that one picker could pick from around 14,000 low volume items from one location.

Unfortunately your post demonstrated more about your propensity to believe everything you read in the Western press than the reality of modern Russia.

Putting personal opinion to one side on the subject of gay rights, there is no "war" on gay people in Russia, and certainly not a "private war". The recent legislation is actually extremely popular in Russia, and is almost identical to a UK law which was only recently abolished by Tony Blair. Both leaders were simply reflecting the will of their electorate as Britain becomes more liberal, and Russia worries about the moral decline and disintegration of the family they percieve as happening the West.

Part of the problem is that Western society simply doesn't recognise the values of other countries. Russia has a very conservative population, who have a perfectly reasonable stance that they don't take well to people on the other side of the world trying to impose foreign values inside their own borders. In much the same way, American and British foreign policy seems to be based on the absurd notion that if everyone in the world was free to have what they wanted, they would want to be like the USA and Britain. It's simply not true.

As someone who spends my time between London and Moscow, I can assure you that you are no more or less likely to see protests in either city.

I've been in the centre of Moscow when there have been pro-government and anti-government demonstrations on the same day, and they weren't anything particularly remarkable compared to anything I've seen in London. I was also in London on the day of Margaret Thatcher's funeral, where there were plenty of news crews desperately trying to find some protesters to film to support their own narrative. In the whole day, I saw one anti-Thatcher protester, and a large group protesting about the death penalty in some ex-colony somewhere or other. The news will generally find someone to film to back up their own narrative, as rabble-rousers can always be found on all sides. Unfortunately as most Westerners don't speak Russian, it's hard from them to get a balanced view. I read the Russian press from all sides and somewhere in the middle lies the truth - in much the same way as in the UK - filtering out the opinion pieces in the Telegraph and the Guardian gives you a much better idea of the facts than a quasi-state broadcaster like the BBC.

The notion that Russians are an oppressed people is as outdated as the Cold War. They are a democratic country with no more allegations of electoral fraud than the UK (yes, it happens in all countries to some extent, and we're not exempt simply be being "western"). The Western press only ever talks about Putin, and ignores the widely respected Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Perhaps the fact the President and Prime Minister having a good working relationship together doesn't suit the narrative of a country like America which seemingly can't keep their own government running despite wanting to run everyone else's country for them.

What matters to most people my age in Moscow are the same things which matter to most people my age in London. Concerns about the effect of an ageing population. Suspicion that the generation before us are the last ones who will have decent pensions to support them in their old age. Worries about house prices increasing faster than wages. What they don't tend to be overly concerned about are laws which reflect the overwhelming sentiment of the public, and which are only concerned with the protection of minors. In modern Russia, grown-ups can do what they please, including visiting gay bars if they so desire.

When you begin blogging / posting is fairly irrelevant, but someone posting when they have nothing to say is definitely worse than having no online presence.

I'm in a similar situation. I'm in my late 30's, self-employed, and get most of my work (projects and contracts) by networking in the old-fashioned sense - phoning contacts every once in a while, taking people out to lunch, keeping in tough with agents and hiring managers. Lately though, many of the people I maintain relationships with in this way are increasingly asking for my website / linkedin / facebook details.

I'm not a fan of any of the major social and business networking sites, as I don't necessarily wish to be publicly associated with everyone I know. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned (I am almost 40 years old, after all), but having bought in to the "share everything online" mentality on the AOL chatrooms in the mid 1990's, and having run a personal website from then until the early 2000's, I soon realised that too many people had easy access to my personal information, and retreated from these services.

Now I'm in the process of setting up an online personal presence for the first time in a while (I have a company website which is fine for my existing clients). I've decided to shun LinkedIn and Facebook as I don't trust their privacy policies, so I'm going with a blog instead. I had been about to start coding my personal website from scratch, but I've decided to use Wordpress for now, and see how I get on with it first. I figure if I can write my own plugins for WordPress to get my pages looking the way I want them to, then I have the benefit of any security updates to the WordPress Codex.

Like the original submitter, I'm keen to see what other people's opinions are on this matter.

The author only compares America to other "developed" countries, but if I wanted the best Internet access, I would go so somewhere like South Korea, or anywhere in the Middle or Far East where the uptake of IPv6 and build-out of high speed access leaves Europe and America looking a bit last century.

The whole article seems to be missing the fact that the developing countries are setting the pace these days.

FTFY

My understanding is that American's use the term "metric ton" to refer to what most of the English and French speaking world term a "tonne". (to avoid confusion with the short / long "ton" used in the UK and USA).

Personally, I disagree that stating "metric" these days is redundant, particularly in a discussion thread about precision. In common speech (in the UK) where we pronounce a "ton" and a "tonne" the same, I generally refer to 2,240lbs as a "ton" in speech, and a metric tonne as "one thousand kilos". There is a definite generation gap though, and I've noticed younger people in the workforce are much more predisposed to use metric over imperial measurements.

So it would seem, according to the Unites States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, although the point is a moot one in light of the fact this particular fund appears to be sufficiently funded.

Actually, one of the many things I like about Moscow and St Petersburg is the presence of a decent free wifi in almost every place you can buy a coffee (such as Coffee House in the picture, and Shokoladnitsi mentioned in the article). Plus the fact there are no annoying splash screens, proxy logins or registration required - just select the access point and browse away.

I tried to use the "free WiFi" in a McDonalds in the UK today as I had a poor mobile reception - I selected their access point, was prompted for my cellphone number, and then redirected to a login page which required the code which never arrived via SMS to my cellphone. It would be a real shame if the much more user-friendly and useful service in Russia (ie. one that actually works!) is legislated out of existence. (although the likelyhood of such legislation ever being enforced is another matter)

It's been a while since I've been over to the USA, so can't comment on the situation there, but there are certainly things that Russia does better than the UK - and public WiFi is one of them. Bookstores that open through the night is another. I'll be glad to be back in Moscow later this week.

Whilst I find the 'joke' to be far from funny, and posting it on the "Find April" page of Facebook in particularly poor taste, I am increasingly concerned by the enthusiasm with which the Crown Prosecution Service seek criminal convictions for posting bad taste jokes, or unpopular opinions, when these could be quickly and easily removed by the moderators of the forum in question.

I'm not a Facebook user personally, but most online forums have some means of moderation in their online forums - I would be extremely surprised it wasn't possible to report the comment to Facebook, and have them take action against the user concerned (such as removing the comment and blocking their account).

As someone else has commented, there are "comedians" who specialise in this kind of joke. Personally I don't find them funny, so I don't go to see them. Likewise, I know when I go on to an internet forum (even those of the broadsheet newspapers), I am likely to come acrosss offensive material (although I am more usually offended by the lack of originality and intellect than the comments themselves).

A country where the State legislates to prevent people from being offended is only a small step from a country where the state legislates to prevent people from voicing politically unpopular opinions. As a UK citizen, one is increasingly concerned at the level of routine surveillance and intervention by the Authorities in day to day life.

20 years ago, I was running a DX 386 with a Hercules graphics card. It ran at 720 x 348 in mono. When I went to University in the early 1990's one of the perks was getting to use the latest NeXT workstations with the "MegaPixel" display at 1120 x 832.

Towards the late 1990's, 1600x1200 would have been considered a very high end monitor, my first monitor which could handle such a resolution was the eye-wateringly expensive Iiyama Vision Master Pro 450 when it came on the market around 1998 - 1999 in the massive 19" format. The thing I remember most about that monitor wasn't the amazing flat screen, or the super sharp resolution - it was the weight... that thing practially had it's own gravitational field!.

The first machine I recall running a widescreen resolution was my Mac Powerbook G4, which I purchase in 2005 (it's still running and in regular usage!). Given that Apple pretty much blazed the trail for widescreen displays, I'd be surprised if anyone was running 1920 x 1200 even 10 years ago.

I think the parent...

...was making a witty retort to the grandparent:

It made me chuckle anyway, the thought of a nation of possums. I didn't see any offence intended towards Americans at all, just a play on words.

As for your wider question:

I think you'll find that's for the same reason many American's think it's ok to force their political ideals on to other countries without stopping to question whether it's an appropriate course of action. Call it ignorance, if you will. The world isn't short of people who believe their country is the best and everyone else is beneath them, any more than it's short of people who believe theirs is the "one true religion".

As someone who's lived and worked in America, Europe and Russia, Xenophobia and nationalistic insecurity often seem to me to be the views of those who have seldom experienced the world beyond their own borders. There's a difference between the business world, which pretty much gets on with it all, regardless; the political world, which huffs and puffs and spouts endless rhetoric according to when the next elections are; and the opinions and insults of those who have never visited the country in question. I wouldn't get too wound up about the latter two if I were you.

The problem with most ideological stances, is that they only work if the ideolody is applied to everyone else

Hence, Wikileaks stands for openness and public scrutiny of everything and everyone except Wikileaks. How much money has Wikileaks received in donations, and how much of it went in to Assange's pockets? Maybe an insider could post the answer on Wikileaks. No, wait...

Communism works great if everyone is equal and everything is shared equally... unless you happen to be a Party Member, in which case you have have all the trappings of Capitalism

Democracy is great idea, giving everyoe an equal say in how things are run. Until you get elected, then you don't need to worry about the electorate for another 4 or 5 years.

Dictatorships work well unless you disagree with the ideology of the dictator

Freedom of Information is a great idea, until you realise that all governments and companies need to undertake certain discussing in private in able to function effectively.

I do find it rather worrying that my home country has developed a propensity for locking people up because "they said things" over the past few years.

In general, the kind of things which are said I would view with disdain at best, or more often than not deem them pitiful. I do worry, however, about the level to which UK law is prepared to intervene to stop people from hearing things they might not agree with.

There are plenty of things I don't particularly like to hear or see - swearing in front of children, for example, or pontificating extremist views be they political, religious or racist. I am extremely uneasy, however, at the State deciding what is and isn't offensive on my behalf. The irony appears to be lost on our elected representatives, when they object to other countries enforcing the moral values of the state (eg Sharia Law) on to the general populace.

When I was a youngster, the standard response to any spoken insult was "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me". Sadly over the course of the last 30 years, we seem to have been taught to take offence easily, instead of feeling pity for the ignorance of someone who can only communicate in insults.

In the case of blatent harrassment, there is an argument for striking the balance between maintaining the right to free speech, and the desire to regulate - but recent over regulation has resulted in a culture where even when there is genuine reason to highlight an issue or question which relates to a "minority", it is impossible to speak freely for fear of being charged with a "hate crime"

I personally consider I probably have fairly conservative (small "c") views on most things, but I regard the risk of being offended by the opinion of others as simply the price of freedom. It wouldn't be a very free country if everyone had to think the same as me.