just FYI: I've had MCP2200 stop working for whatever reason. One day, boom, bye bye MCP. No idea why.
Also you have to manually install drivers for them, which may or may not be something important to you.

i'm pretty sure it refers to IBM's inability to deliver enough chips (powerPC), which caused problems for Sony, and was the reason Apple moved to Intel.

No, it's because if they release a firmware that just refuses to work, the people that made these fakes will just release hacked drivers, based on FTDI's.
FTDI wants to destroy your hardware so you, as a consumer, will go to the manufacturer of your device. This will eventually teach them to follow the "pedigree" of their chips, and buy them from reputable sources. And not from "the cheapest seller in china".

Huh? This is criminal? But "impersonating" a chip isn't?

I'm pretty sure DMCA or friends WON'T let you, legally, make a chip that pretends to be another chip. Especially if it's not marked "compatible" but it's just a plain FAKE.

So some company makes a fake Ford, which has acceleration problems. It crashes, kills someone, and Ford is to blame because it had a Ford badge? ...

Carrefour does this in Argentina. People don't really understand the concept but they're starting to get used to it. Most banks have been doing it for a long time as well.

"Hyper-efficient" McDonald's and Walmart? Nope.

I find this interesting. I'm in Argentina, and my cable HD is better than TV 720p rips. It looks just incredible.

I guess maybe it's because we only get about 30 HD channels and the remaining 120 are SD.

seriously? gmail as disposable address? Haven't you heard of Mailinator? or bugmenot?

Argentina paid to repsol MORE than its market value estimation.
And what they did was not "illegal". If it was, they couldn't have done it.

You may want to see what a Routerboard can do for less than $50. Try the RB750 or 950 (751 or 951 if you want wifi too)

A $50 RouterBoard can do tens of thousands of connections. My trusty old RB333 (7 years non stop) can handle, according to its GUI, 90720 max entries in the CONNTRACK table.

Argentina has VAST reserves of gas and oil. They just don't have the money to exploit them.

the images I see on google maps, from my city, are (C) 2014. GSV are dated june/14

Error, I'm not blaming others for the problems of my country. I am 100% convinced that ALL of my country's problems are caused by CORRUPTION. But as I stated earlier, whenever we try to do something about it, it's questioned as if it was a totalitarian regime move. In the meanwhile, companies continue to be emptied.

As for the other countries: keep in mind that:
1. Brazil may be in the top 10 world economies but their social problems are way greater than Argentina's. Look at the distribution of income and you'll see only a few "extremely rich" people skewing the total percentage.
2. Chile has a lot of natural resources and their economy is simply based on exporting, basically, copper. Chile has more mines than Argentina (because of their geography) and only 1/3 of the population. Do the math.
3. Chile doesn't have a public university system. Thousands of their students come to Argentina to graduate here.
4. Bolivia and Paraguay don't have any serious public health system. Their citizens come to Argentina for treatment. For free.
5. Argentina has ENORMOUS shantytowns with populations that sometimes reach 40% foreigners.

It's very convenient to be a neighbor of Argentina, since we take care of your people for free. Due to "human rights" associations it's impossible to even put this issue up for discussion. You're called simply a RACIST if you talk about charging foreigners for healthcare or education. And only now someone's been talking about deporting criminals...

As for paying what we owe, well, I see this as a sacrifice. You see, you say the consequences of a default are worse. This isn't true. If Argentina pays now, we're forced to pay $200B more - money Argentina doesn't have, and can't borrow, and yes, it will be a REAL default with REAL consequences. The only thing we can do is wait in a "partial default" until january and negotiate then, after the RUFO clause expires. It's pretty obvious the government is doing all this loudmouthing now, but they will be paying in january. Let me explain again: Argentina, right now, CAN NOT pay. Our central bank reserves amount only to $28 billion.

The solution for argentina's short term economic probems is simple:

Wait until january and pay the debt.
Take a huge loan, to be used to develop the very needed:
- roads: there has been a project to do this for over 20 years - it even includes eliminating all toll roads
- railways: Argentina has over 35.000km of railroads of which only about 1700km are active
Eliminate "social aid" programs in a period of several years. Starting with men in working age. If they can't find a job, they should be assigned to building the roads or railways. Then continue with women - hundreds of thousands of "cleaning ladies" quit their job once they started getting government aid. There is now a shortage of this service.
Eliminate the shantytowns, deport all illegal immigrants (maybe with an amnesty for those who can prove they've been actively working in the past years and not just "living here"). Relocate all Argentinians to their original cities.
Forced labor for prisoners: in Argentina, prisoners actually get government aid for being in jail AND their wives too. This needs to be eliminated. Prisoners oughta work cleaning the sides of roads or whatever.
Instauration of the Death Penalty. Criminals have turned extremely violent in Argentina - high profile rape and murder cases are in the news every day. Lawyers say we can't do this because we are subscribed to the Costa Rica treaty - Interesting: Argentina is a sovereign state when it comes to not paying debts but apparenly we can't unsubscribe from a treaty.
Reinstauration of conscription. There are now MILLIONS of youths that left school and never had a supportive family (a consequence of indiscriminate social aid). This is a time bomb, and crime rates are expected to soar to incredible levels because of these people.
These are just a few points. I could go on for days about this. But sadly, for all things to happen, what Argentina needs right now is, unfortunately, violence. Argentina is in serious need of a violent, bloody revolution - with politicians lynched. This is an extreme situation caused by what i call the "naturalization of corruption". People don't become politicians to be politicians. They become politicians to be CORRUPT. That is their main target. And because of this, you have higher rank politicians that never go away and are senators for decades. The same also happens with unions. There are union leaders (like Barrionuevo) who have been doing this for over 30 years. These guys aren't going away - and the only way to remove them is by violence. The justice is not going to.

So in short: Argentina's problems are definitely NOT caused by the debt. And argentina's problems DON'T go away by paying off the debt. So it makes no economical or strategical sense to pay it right now, or to take any more loans to be wasted in more social aid.

Most people understand "follow the rules" as "laws can't be changed". That's the problem.

Dude, in the end, you give money to a stranger. It can go right, or terribly wrong. And you're only lending a few bucks.

The point i'm trying to make is this: America is "the land of opportunity". Anyone there can start a business easily, make it grow, get rich. You can actually get some sort of loan (are you telling me you can't get a $5K loan from your bank?). There is a big advantage there.

In the rest of the world it's definitely not like that. Someone in the Philippines can't just start a business, and expect it to grow. You can't easily take a loan (and if you can, the sum is ridiculous and the interests are sky high). Third world countries run at a huge disadvantage.

The problem is pretty obvious here: you're serving people who don't really need the money. It's just a convenient place to do it (and I bet sooner or later banks will be suing Kickstarter for "providing financial services without a license"). What these kind of sites need to do is work outside Comfortable America and do something worth doing.

You know what disgusts me the most? A random idiot in the US can start a kickstarter project for "potato salad" in the US and get millons thrown at him, for fun. While some farmer in india has to go through all sorts of processes to get a "microcredit" (a $50 loan) from some agency, AND THEN he has to pay that $50 back + interests. Come on.