yc1010

There is another scary explanation, is that they have collected enough dirt on him and other politicians to become "untouchable"

IMHO Square has more of a real business than Facebooks and Twitters of this world do and actually have solved real world problems.

Well "Made in Germany" brand took on a hammering, the only other country manufacturing planes en masse is Russia, but their plane safety record speaks for itself.

It will be a steep hill for China to climb, the question really is how much technology and knowhow was "appropriated"

Cheap toys and phones is one thing, planes are another

They had the PADDs on star trek more than decades before tablets where released, yet another example of star trek being ahead of its time

as for your "Utopian" comment, in the last few decades we have entered the era of plenty, the main problem encountered by startups we see here in HN is not that they are not innovative its that their products/services get drowned out in a sea of plenty

Given a few hundred years and plentiful+cheap energy it is not beyond the realm of imagination to imagine replicators, hell on a recent cruise i nicknamed then soda vending machines "the replicator" because the thing could spit out hundreds of different drinks with a few taps.

So a world of the future would be fairly "socialist" as machines and cheap energy allow people to devote their times towards science, exploration, art etc, we are already seeing this happening today and further mechanization and robotics will only speed up the trend

You are correct and at $3000/month the tenants would be better off getting a mortgage and buying own property

Here in Ireland there is now calls to cap rent increases which is stupid, the reason for recent rent price rises is the lack of building after the Great Recession from which the country is only now emerging, making property investment pointless by putting a cap on rent rises at inflation levels would mean even less homes being build. And of course the state and counties dont have any money for Social housing, the only way they can get more money is by raising taxes to even more absurd levels or cutting public services even more, neither is an attractive option for politicians of course.

I live on the far west edge of Europe, unfortunately a lot of the population have a screwed stereotype vision of Americans and the US.

Some of it might be deserved (the Bush years done incredible damage to the reputation of the US) a lot of it is not, and this is coming from my multiple experiences over the years of visiting almost every one of the lower 48 states.

As for Texas its probably one of my more favourite locations in US (behind Arizona, Utah and Georgia), these Norwegians should stereotype less and travel a bit more they be in for a pleasant surprise and the place aint that crazy ;)

6 months would have pretty much destroyed his life, especially when it comes to getting a job

Seem to suggest? SEEM TO SUGGEST! fuuuuu....

Look my grandparents died a few years ago in a small tiny village by the Volga, once you travel outside of Moscow and Leningrad(StPetersburg nowadays) you may as well be time travelling into the past. The place had no paved roads leading to it had to travel couple of says on grotty trains to get there. The farming being done is subsistence with remnants of old Soviet coop in the village, alcoholism is rampant so is depression. It is understandable how one who might never has left Moscow doesn't realise how truly and incredibly poor the rest of the country is

Now rural US or UK may as well be on a different planet when compared to that.

This is all from personal experience, what has happened and is happening in Russia is beyond tragic.

Now go ahead and come up with another "But but the US"

US and Europe have all sorts of issues and are not perfect and no one claims they are, but they are damned better places for my kids to grow up in.

I was there till the middle of 90s i see the worst of the post-collapse, yes things got worse but Putin is not some genius savior who rode in on a white horse to save Russia from evil capitalism as is the prevailing narrative nowadays. Rising oil prices and modernization of the oil industry by a certain oligarch whose company was then taken from him by Putin is where most of the money came from, money then used by Putin to grab more power.

What followed the USSR was a wild west free for all bringing out the worst of capitalism, with even more corruption and organised crime taking over daily lives of just about everyone. It is tragic and sad that Russia could not transition to a modern economy like some Eastern European countries done.

Putin loves to push the story that without him Russia will go back to the bad old days of "democracy and capitalism" of the 90s, and that his way is the only way forward. The whole thing is awful similar to what was argued in Germany in 30s btw.

Ah "America does it" strawman, there must be a handbook on internet trolling or something made back in the old country now. Every single time, every single time, same crap gets regurgitated.

"Why are we invading yet another country? Oh because America did it too!"

"Why are our rights being eroded? Oh because America does it!"

and so on...

I been back to Russia and crisscrossed the US over the last decade, I would pick the US for all its problems over Russia any day as a place to live. Anyways I am quite happy here in Europe for now.

It was never communism back in USSR, it was authoritarianism where all power flowed to the Kremlin marching under the Socialist banner, 30 years its the same shit but to the tune of Nationalism. The economy still remains resource extraction bound (more so now), corruption goes all the way to the top (see Sochi).

One quote from my mother sums it up when we moved here in middle of 90s when she learned that in Europe this thing called welfare exists "So we were building Socialism for 70 years, and they had it here all along"

BTW they didnt fall for propaganda back then, it was mocked if anything, but the modern take on it by the Russian state controlled media is actually incredible to behold in how it works, hell just look at some of the replies above that my post attracted to see it in action.

I was born in the Soviet Union during its dying years back then everyone knew the system was corrupt, inefficient and basically a pile of bullshit and thankfully it all fell apart.

I still remember having to queue hours to get bread from bakery, and not seeing toilet paper, milk or meat for some time... Anyone who wants to go back to those days is insane imho :(

My parents and older generation of relatives mostly watch Russian news and entertainment channels via satellite, and the unashamed propaganda and brainwashing is incredible to behold, whats worse is how my parents/relatives believe everything they hear even if it is absolutely absurd or borderline conspiracy crazy.

We often argue nowadays about the direction Russia has taken, but usually the arguments end once i ask "where would you want your grand children to grow up, here in the western Europe or back home", that's when they go quiet.

They truly believe that Putin is some sort of a genius (ignoring the rise in oil prices that helped him) and this is actually downright scary :( at least in the Soviet days people didn't buy the propaganda, now a lot of people seem to actually believe all they hear and see, and live under a sort of a massive reality distortion field where the world is out to destroy Russia and its people.

aside: interestingly enough back then the collapse of USSR was partly prompted by low oil prices and a stupid war with Islamists, fast forward 30+ years and economy is even more reliant on resource extraction and Putin is boldly marching into another quagmire

We do not know if "German image forensics expert Jens Kriese" who is interviewed by Spiegel was paid off or threatened in one form or another, especially if he happened to come from East Germany where the Soviet backed regime had files on everyone back before reunification.

Spiegel.de != Jens Kriese

Well it is not like Russian state is not known for hiring paid trolls and having a well oiled propaganda machine + control of media whose main duties include seeding doubt, spreading fud, and fueling conspiracy.

Well its possible with nginx for sure, havent used apache in about 10 years now (first lighttpd then nginx) i think, after switching to nginx no going back.

Haproxy btw is fantastic too, useful for hiding real location of web server from attacks

That's Vegas for you, shinny on outside, grotty on the inside

"The estimated cost of the police presence is more than £12m."

So who should get fired for such a waste of police resources?

Wasnt the world of Star Trek as depicted in tv series basically communist/socialist where technologies such as replicators, warp drives and very cheap energy making the "Federation way of life" possible, freeing people to explore space/art/science etc

Basically it depicted world(s) of plenty, tho' yes it did have wars and trade etc, which is what made Deep Space 9 and the Ferengi so interesting :)

On localbitcoins.com or paxful.com you can buy bitcoin with prepaid vouchers, prepare to lose 20% for keeping your identity secure.

I use Bitcoin every day, and these steps will rule out 99.999% of users from being able to get any etherium (and hence buy this music)

The biggest problem with bitcoin is getting "normal" people to acquire even small amounts without going thru too many hoops, Coinbase and Circle are doing a good job there

I see Stripe, Paypal, Visa/Mastercard

all centralized companies that do restrict access to their systems for all sorts of reasons (often not shared with the person being blocked)

all are "pull" methods where your account can be charged in an unauthorized manner

bitcoin, prepaid cards (such as paysafecard), cash and bank transfers are "push" methods giving the owner more control and cheaper fees for that manner

Not sure how practical paypal would be if you only want to spend a few cents (or more interestingly fractions of a cent!)

That is all well and good if you can use Paypal (As per screenshot in article)

Some of us can not use Paypal (and are not being told by paypal as to why after being banned) so have to use bitcoin, bank transfers, prepaid cards and cash for day to day transactions.

"On average, two-thirds of the claimed gains in CO2 emissions and fuel consumption since 2008 have been delivered through manipulating tests"

How deep does this rabbit hole go :( Here in Ireland the motortax for cars newer than 2008 is based on CO2 emissions, if motorists find their tax rising due to cheating by car manufacturers thats an unexpected and direct cost to their wallets.

These guys are not terribly bright in some cases

One could also buy amazon.com giftcards with cash in shops in US (no questions asked) then sell them on localbitcoins.com (go check it out > https://localbitcoins.com/buy-bitcoins-online/usd/amazon-gif...) for bitcoins losing about 20-30% in fees to get bitcoin.

Once you have bitcoin....

See my 2nd comment below, this is definitely happening in electronics section where Amazon fees are smaller.

Losing ~20% is not too bad when clean money from a reputable source arrives in your bank account, if you are reselling lets say hard drives or phones.

Well 23 million is a bit of an overkill and I am sure Amazon would raise flags at some stage!

but if you look on amazon for products in the 500-1000 range such as electronics (where amazon only takes 6-8% commission) there are plenty of examples of 3rd parties SOMEHOW selling new electronics below amazon itself!

These guys are willing to lose 6-8% on lets say a hard drive and another few % to undercut Amazon from whom they would buy in first place

Everyone is missing the point, this is an example of money laundering

1. Get dirty cash from drug sales, prostitution, etc and buy amazon.com giftcards in shops in US

2. Input the codes into various amazon buyer account(s)

3. Buy the book(s) from these account(s)

4. Amazon takes a cut and pays clean money into authors bank account.

I wonder how many problems in the middle east would be solved by bringing em' easy access to porn...

Why not? if Mars is colonized then there be 2 white dots on this flag (not sure why the moon is white)

It looks quite good actually

Some nginx configuration files are very project specific, especially when you have projects using some of the modules they offer.