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Comment False dichotomy ... (Score 2) 444

I really wonder how you got modded up like that.

The military are not elected, and have destabilized the country several time by staging coupes, executing elected prime ministers and such.

Protecting the country against something unpopular is always a pretense to dictatorship and corruption.

The solution to elected radicals in power is preparing for an alternative via the political process, NOT by supporting miltiary dictatorship against elected officials.

Shame on an American advocating the miltiary toppling an elected government, no matter how repulsive it is.

Comment Delicacy (Score 1) 733

Pigeons are a delicacy in certain parts of the world.

If you ever visit Egypt's country side, you will find that it is dotted by tower like structures, which are actually nests for domestic pigeons. The chicks are "harvested" and eaten all over Egypt, before they fly and the muscles harden.

Comment Same in Egypt ... (Score 4, Interesting) 249

The same principle holds in Egypt: if you discover anything interesting while digging, you have to report it to the Department of Antiquities. They may take over the site and do a dig, or whatever they see fit.

This is why I know people, from Alexandria, who found Roman era amphorae while digging the foundation of their apartment building just take them home and never tell the authorities.

I myself have seen Roman earthenware come out on a government owned building when digging for a data center power cable. The managers just said keep quiet, otherwise it will delay our own project.

The stuff is not even sold or goes on the black market, it sits in storage at someone's balcony or dumped as rubbish.

Comment New contributors, expanding ecosystem, and cash (Score 4, Informative) 20

The best product of Summer of Code is new contributors to open source projects.

An example from the Drupal community. The current maintainer for Drupal 8 Core, Angela Byron, was a student back in Summer of Code 2005, the very first year it was done.

Another example is the code for installing modules in Drupal 7 Core, which started as a Summer of Code project for Drupal 6.

There are other examples within this community of people who came and contributed and continued to contribute, or established their own consultancies, hence expanding the ecosystem.

Not every project goes to be a big thing, but the as a whole it is termendously useful.

Another benefit is that open source projects get some cash too from Google, in addition to cash going to the student.

Disclosure: I mentored for Summer of Code for several years. I got a T-shirt every year for the years I participated.

Comment Re:Why Australia and not Canada? (Score 1) 612

Climate: granted.
Beaches: everywhere, just fresh water. Lookup Wasaga, Grand Bend and Sauble Beach for example.
Multicultural food: everywhere, from Sushi to Vietnamese/Thai, to whatever.
Nice population: I will dispute this one. The beach fights against the Lebanese is not something that happens around here.
Wildlife: not much dangerous stuff here. Only rattlesnake that keeps to itself.
Politics: equally messed up.

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