pavanred

Opera now has a free VPN mode built into the browser, making it very easy to switch VPN to different countries and requiring just a flip of a switch in the settings.

China

I used to do .Net programming a few years back and I used to love Jon Skeet's answers for any .Net question on SO. Precise, informative and simple explanations.

It's been a few years since, but if I remember correctly, it was an interview of Jon Skeet on an episode of Scott Hanselman's podcast where he spoke about reading the C# spec, and as a young beginner in programming I loved that advice because when I did read the spec, I was pleasantly surprised, perhaps naive, that all the information I needed to learn the language was right there, available for free when I thought I had to purchase books etc. to learn more. :)

What is the top news link, isn't part of the problem that what I see when I search for 'final election results' is different from what any one else would see, personalization, in other words?

I think its the other way around, there's a dominant two party system because of the simple majority requirement. If there's a requirement absolute majority, then neither major party wins and the smaller parties and independents that are currently considered spoil sports become very important to form coalitions. That then gives rise to more parties catering to specific interests, demographics and minorities which enable more representation in the senates/parliaments fighting for their primary causes, instead of having to choose either of two always, and any other option basically relegated to a spoil sports.

Just curious, why is the concept of absolute majority not used a criteria? For example, to win an election in India, you require an absolute majority (if there are 3 candidates and A wins 40%, B wins 30% and C wins 30%, A is still not a winner because a total of 60% voted against A). I see it in this election and in the Brexit vote, a major decision is based on a simple majority with <5% difference.

How do you invest in land/gold without paying taxes? And, one is required to have the PAN (Permanent Account Number) to transact in gold/land, no?

This is an absolutist view, while it is quite a compelling argument for certain extreme cases, I am afraid the world is never that black and white. Since we are talking about regulating/banning substances, let me try to point it out with a relevant example. While it might seem fair to say that if someone wants to ruin their own life by substance abuse, why should it be my (or the government's) responsibility to keep them from doing it. But, consider this, one of the growing problems right now in the US is opioid dependence and addiction. In these cases, these opioids are medication that is prescribed by doctors to treat acute pain. But, along with providing pain relief, this medication can cause opioid dependence and addiction over time. A sizable population of regular people who were just seeking treatment for their illness, unfortunately ended up with opioid addiction. This could just as easily happen to any of us or our loved ones. I can't speak for you but I would definitely want the government to step in, fund relevant research to study the problem, based on that perhaps regulate (or ban, if necessary) the availability and/or prescription of such medication because though it provides pain relief, it has unintended consequences that ruin lives of unsuspecting people.

Government regulation isn't necessarily always bad. There is no absolutist one-size-fits-all solution for all problems. Would I like the government to tell me what I can and cannot do, absolutely not. I would protest with you if I think government is overreaching. But, would I concede that there are certain issues (which might not affect me, but might affect lot of others) where the government has to intervene, of course, yes.

Well, here's how I see it. I understand what you are trying to say, it is not your (or anyone's) business to decide what other people should do with their lives, specially if it doesn't affect others. And, so no one (or governments) should intervene and regulate/ban sale of cigarettes. Would you feel absolutely the same way about all banned substances? If not, well you should agree that different people would draw the line differently.

As if they don't tell you what you should do with your life in the US.

I really wish we can think beyond nationality when we face a problem that is not going to see border lines.

> There is nothing we can do, as long China and India get a pass, 3.2 billion people in 2 country doing nothing.

This is what the OP said. I honestly don't get it, then why is India's (and China's) responsibility for climate change dragged in whenever the topic of climate change is brought up. Is it because, as you mentioned India has ~16 times less CO2 emissions (per capita, but still way less than US) and ~15 times less GDP?

Isn't there a fair responsibility to spearhead dealing with climate change problem when you are polluting more and have more resources to deal with the problem. While India and China, having their own problems are making efforts in this direction and US is still dealing with denial, conveniently.

Population(Billions): US 0.3 - 1.2 India

CO2 emissions per capita(metric tons): US 16.4 - 1.6 India [0]

I see numbers like this, and I am surprised that in 2016, in the face of evidence and danger, we still have arguments like I will not do anything because you didn't do enough according to me. Let it all burn down.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

It is a complex problem. As far as I understand, in the criticism to any work on climate change in the west (at least in the US) is that people are still debating if it is real or not, in the face of evidence; hence there's lack of political will. And, in countries like India or China, the criticism is that lots of people need cheap fuel to get out of poverty and imposing restrictions would impede that. Though, the per capita consumption is way less compared to countries like US. That said, I wouldn't say these countries are not doing anything. I can speak for India, for example, there is the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission[0] that is a goal to achieve 100,000 MW of solar power generation by 2022 and I see developments underway in many states in India. There are similar initiatives in other areas like Wind energy etc.

And, the defeatist attitude that no one takes it seriously, lets just do nothing and hope it works out is dangerous. As far as I can tell, the island nations will be the first affected, not to mention harsher weather, more storms, followed by massive shortages of food and water. I wouldn't be surprised if that leads to more wars than funding research and innovation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru_National_Sola...

And, we came up with an emulation of a product of billions of years of evolution in this case.

Is errorism a typo, an intended pun or a conscious effort to not say the word, because you never know who is watching for it.

I think the term natural selection is sort of a misnomer, makes it easy to misinterpret it as if many are let to die while few are selected. It just happens creatures that with certain traits are more adapted to survive and reproduce (not having tusks in this case), where as some other creatures are not and die. Hence those specific traits tend to be preserved in subsequent generations while the others just didn't survive to reproduce.

And, the extinction events, its not like nature is cruel and killed off most species. As you see in the list of extinctions, the reasons mostly are that the environment (or nature if you will), changed too drastically and quickly that most species couldn't adapt fast enough to survive.

Why sad? Why should elephants have tusks. Elephants perhaps evolved tusks because they were useful weapons and tools in the past, but for generations of elephants now the tusks are the reason they are killed. So, they are evolving without tusks to counter the biggest threat for their survival, humans.

Can any one explain how this anti-vaccination thing started in the US, and how is it continuing?

I do not know much but I know that anti-vaccination and climate change are heavily politicized in US, if I am not wrong. How did this don't trust the experts in the field, I know better thing start?

No matter which side you lean politically, I would like to believe most people would want the best for the kids, and essentially if its health related most people would take their doctor/pediatrician's advice. So, why are there so many people not vaccinating their kids? Is there a portion of doctors who believe in this and advice against vaccinations to the parents? Or are the parents just ignoring doctors advice and choosing to not vaccinate by themselves? Or anything else?

May be a noob question, but if we can lay down cables for internet across the ocean floor connecting the entire world, why not lay down cables to connect all electricity grids. Half the earth always faces the sun. We shouldn't need batteries at all then, right? And we always have the traditional power stations (renewable and non-renewable) to augment the load. (At least in theory?)

"...most Indians probably see this as a laudable step toward modern comforts...", a comment from someone who is not an Indian, while I see a few following comments by Indians (seemingly) who fondly reminisced about the experience. Its funny, the conviction that over a billion people of a different country/culture would see the world like you would.

Besides, "modern comforts" are there for the taking if one wants it. One can always travel first class in these trains, where you have multiple tiers to choose from ranging from air conditioned private cabins to A/C car coaches. Otherwise, you can travel the other classes and tiers where you get a chance to explore what is talked about in the article. To each his/her own.

Edit: I think the author is speaking about the experience in the cheapest 2 classes of Indian railways. Here are the fare class codes in Indian Railways [0]. There are at least 6-7 other tiers of fare classes above these.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways_coaching_stock...

I recently stayed at an AirBnB. The host used a keybox that was next to the main entrance of the property which had the key to the house and shared a code with me, so that when I get to the property I can use the code to get the key. The problem I saw with this is that the code was extremely weak. And I suspect, based on the the nature of the code, that the host perhaps doesn't change the code for each guest. I hope they do. Just using a digital lock wont help if people use weak passcodes etc. and use bad security practices.

I do not think it is crazy for people of villages to think moving to the city is a good idea. It might seem pristine and like paradise to a person from a city visiting a village but for a person living in a village its a different story. It's not the environmental paradise they are trying to escape from, its mostly lack of opportunity. Most villages in India are agriculture based, and most of central and southern India does not have perennial rivers and solely depend on monsoons for irrigation. So, if monsoon fails (less or more than expected), so does their income for he year. Not to mention lack of education, transport, banking etc. I have been to villages where even now if you need education beyond middle school, you need to leave the village for a neighboring town. Not to mention the social pressures such as not having equal opportunities for women in villages where as in a city, it is common place and generally socially accepted for women to have jobs and careers.

I agree about smoking though, and specially the prevalence of the cheap cigarettes called "beedis", these are simply tobacco rolled over in a tobacco leaf and do not even have filters. Being very cheap, it is consumed by the poorer people and when coupled with lack of education, I assume does contributes to lot of smoking related diseases.

It definitely is dangerous, but the video seems to be running at 2x, perhaps to make it seem more dangerous than it is actually. The pedestrians walking around are a give away.

beta.speedtest.net does the same but without flash.

The article mentions, Gilead licensed 11 companies in India to make generics. I don't see how licensing to make generics make it stealing intellectual property.

Besides I am curious how $1000 in USA compares to $4 (about ₹ 265) with the per capita income in perspective, as a measure of affordability of the drug.

I feel there is definitely an element of generalization and survival bias in this article. There has been a recent Patidar reservation agitation [1] in Gujarat, India. The Patidar community, people with the surname Patel (Patels are one of the communities that is mentioned in the article extensively), are losing opportunities in education and government jobs due to the reservations in Gujarat and are calling for reforms with reservations. One of the reasons being the survival bias of the Patel community, that everyone generalizes the community to be very entrepreneurial and successful while ones that are not so fortunate in the community are marginalized with lack of opportunity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patidar_reservation_agitation

I don't think it is. But that said, I guess perhaps we as human beings are biased towards our species and/or empathize better with the human condition.

I used to flash different ROMs on my HTC Desire frequently a while back. I was experimenting with MIUI ROM and accidentally flashed a Chinese ROM. And, it so happened that I had to travel and I wasn't able to flash an English ROM back for a couple of days. I was surprised that I could manage just fine for a couple of days with a Chinese ROM (I don't know Chinese), I remember thinking about the UX because though I couldn't read the menus, I could manage just fine using the icons, for example a trash can in messages menu is definitely delete message.

rgl library for R can be used to make such plots.

One thing I have noticed during a recent job search - I used the cost of living calculator from bankrate.com[1], relocation from city A to city B from wolframalpha [2] and the salary information available on websites like glassdoor, indeed and salary.com to get an estimate of a par salary at different locations for a particular position. In these websites, I noticed that indeed.com has extremely optimistic estimates of the salaries for most positions when compared to glassdoor or salary.com, so much so that I stopped using data from indeed.com e.g. here are the salaries for a software engineer in Chicago, IL

- glassdoor.com ( avg $74,426 ) [3]

- salary.com ( median $62,257 ) [4]

- indeed.com ( avg $114,000 ) [5]

Even when verified by converting the par salaries from 2 different locations using bankrate or wolframalpha the indeed estimates were quite high. Since, the author used data from glassdoor and indeed, I wonder how accurate the analysis is considering the underlying data from indeed isn't necessarily accurate.

[1] http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-l...

[2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+seattle...

[3] http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/chicago-software-engineer-...

[4] http://www1.salary.com/IL/Chicago/Software-Developer-I-salar...

[5] http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Software-Engineer-l-Chicago,-...