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Comment: Re:Don't get it (Score 1) 315

by hjf (#46463305) Attached to: New Jersey Auto Dealers Don't Want to Face Tesla

As a south american, I've always been confused about the US policy against us. I really don't understand why the US has, since the end of WWII, crushed Latin America again and again and again, and they keep doing is to this day.

The US had at least two good options with LATAM:

1. Let LATAM develop, have healthy capitalist economies, get us to be in the NATO Thug Club, and sell us their flashy iPhones and cars.
2. Let LATAM develop, under their rules, and make us become their own China, much nearer and in the same timezones.

As it is now, Latin America is basically useless to US interests. We don't have a developed industry. Pretty much the only thing US buys is oil from Venezuela and copper and lithium from Chile. Other than that, latin america is still poor. We have slow internet (so netflix can't grow), we have really high prices vs. salary (so the flashy iphones are reserved to a tiny fraction of the population), and other things are considered "luxuries" (like an XBOX360 which is 4-5X the US price, since: if only the rich can afford it, they might as well charge what the rich can pay).

US has been in bed with China for too long. China is now heavily investing in LATAM. I think the US really needs to take a strategical leap, unify LATAM, and make the "American Bloc" to compete against the Eurozone and Russia/Asia. But this is not going to happen. If it hasn't happened in 60 years, it's not going to happen now. Which is a shame. The potential of Latin America is simply unbelievable:

  • Almost 1 billion people
  • Infrastructure already in place (Argentina alone had over 30.000km of railways)
  • Natural resources to spare thanks to the unexploited Andes and the VAST reserves of all sorts of minerals
  • Endless coastlines to place strategic ports
  • Political stability(*) and a peaceful, tame population
  • US Military presence already in place, and underdeveloped local armies

(*): The political instabilities in Latin America have been caused by CIA and friends over 40 years. LATAM naturally steers left because the (many) poor that feel "left out" of the system. Piñera in Chile was right-wing and his party lost to the same left-wing candidate (Bachelet) who was the president before him, because the breach between the "rich" and "poor" is rather high there. Middle class people can barely afford to go to college.

The best course of action would be for the US to let us "naturally develop". It will be a slow process, taking at least 50 years for LATAM to reach higher status (and leave behind the "south american shithole country" stigma), enough time for the US to figure out a new course of action. Development will allow US companies to move production here, and decrease chinese dependency.

But the "paradigm shift" needs to be real. The US only wants Latin America to sign free trade agreements with countries that WILL NOT benefit from them. For example: US wanted a FTA with Argentina. Our main export was, at the time, beef (exports of interests to US, not counting,for example,soybean). The problem is that while the FTA was "free", later "regulations" weren't. Argentina can't export beef to the US (because the US wants to protect its own market). Our industry doesn't produce anything that the US wants so that's another problem. But, the US had a *LOT* to sell to us. If we signed the FTA, it means 0 tariffs for US products, and eventually, destroying our own local economy.
Chile is more flexible in this regard. Chile does not have factories or farms. Their economy is solely based in raw mining exports, no value add. The US now gave them the Visa Waiver program. So the US buys copper from them, and chileans fly to the US for vacations and "return" the USD. Chile benefits in no way, but they are OK with that since their president is a right-wing billionarie.

As it is now, the US unstoppable monetary emission will eventually cause a crash and take 3/4 of the world's economy with it, leading us to a "New World Order" with China on command, and the final victory of "Communism".

Comment: Re:You'd wish to have such a box up a tree... (Score 1) 20

by hjf (#46379385) Attached to: Open Source Tech Providing Mobile Communications In Developing Nations

This is completely irrelevant for your application. If you're in the Middle Of Nowhere, you'll just use a basic radio. VHF can go for tens of kilometers in open space. This "box" you talk about will give you ISOLATED cell phone coverage, it will not connect to the rest of the system. And if we're into that, we might as well use regular analog handhelds that just work.

Any handheld radio can go for days without a charge. Your iphone, if looking for a signal, will drain the battery in just a couple of hours.

Comment: Re:"Is This News"? (Score 1) 206

by hjf (#46378091) Attached to: How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33%

I meant to say: without justification. A low level tech can't schedule a tech's visit without a good justification. Their performance is measured in how quickly they can "dispatch" the clients, and how little house calls they schedule. Their performance isn't measured in how accurately they can solve a client's problem.

That's why sometimes if your problem is taking too long to solve, they put you on hold and hang up.

This applies to outsourced call centers. They bill by the hour of calling, so it's not in their interest to solve your problem, but rather, have you keep calling so they can keep billing.

Low level techs do have access to statistics of your modem (noise level, disconnections, etc). So they can easily see if you're lying when you say you've "already unplugged everything" (people lie about this all the time). Seasoned techs will see the statistics and just schedule a visit. Newbies will walk you through the script, even if it's not necessary.


by hjf (#46375165) Attached to: How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33%

Was there competition in your area?

There are two ISPs in my city. Arnet, who's bee here since 2001 (well, since long before, cause they're the phone company, but in 2001 they started selling ADSL), and Fibertel, since 2007.

Whenever I had a problem with Arnet, it was almost "oh yea? what are you going to do? cancel your service? LOL".

Once fibertel arrived, the game changed. I ordered Fibertel and had it running, so I called Arnet. They were more like "PLEASE SIR WE WILL GIVE YOU 6 MONTHS FREE!".

The funny thing is: I signed up for Fibertel in the first place since my phone line is busted and ADSL can't keep sync anymore. Arnet refused to properly fix it for so many years, i just went away. Now they're still refusing to fix it (I filed a complaint against the CNC - the FCC equivalent for you americans).

Comment: Re:"Is This News"? (Score 2) 206

by hjf (#46375147) Attached to: How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33%

I have a friend working at a call center and he tells me this is how it's done. Low level tech just follow a script, but the "cancellation" representative is different. It also works for when you don't want to follow a script. If you know your problem is your modem (and you want a new one, or a tech to come and change it), and the drone wants you to unplug it, plug it back, connect your computer directly to it,etc, you just tell them you want to cancel service. The cancelation rep also can schedule a tech's visit for no reason.

There are other off-the-record details. Such as: the low level techs are usually young men (nerdy gamer type), while the cancelation reps are women or (hehe) gay men. It's been tested that young men are more "technically inclined" and the women (and gay men) are more "motherly and understanding". Of course, this is just something the HR person knows. It's not written anywhere in the company policy.


by hjf (#46373501) Attached to: How I Cut My Time Warner Cable Bill By 33%



Comment: Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system (Score 1) 265

by hjf (#46294245) Attached to: Math Models Predicted Global Uprisings

The problem with these uprisings, particularly in Ukraine and Venezuela, is that they're not fueled by food prices. I don't know the fine details about the Ukrainian case but I've been reading quite a lot about Venezuela. And I happen to live in Argentina so I see a lot of parallels between the Venezuelan case and the Argentinian (Venezuela is a little window to the future for us Argentinians).

Basically, Chavez got to power through a coup in the 90s. Since then, Venezuela has been going downhill. Like all "socialist" countries, Venezuela has failed to establish a solid industry, financial sector (obviously), and "free trade" concept. In Venezuela, like in Argentina, everything has to be approved by the government. Many private businesses close, and to keep the unrest, the government hires those people, to create idle "Ministries". Following Castro's example (and leadership, since Venezuela now is effectively governed from Havana), venezuela has armed militias "to defend the revolution" (the estimated number is 300.000). They openly acknowledge this fact and the militias themselves say they will defend the revolution "by any means". Their army is also co-opted by Communists, and the intelligence services by Cuban agents (according to Venezuelans they're easy to spot, as they don't have a venezuelan accent).

Venezuela has also jailed the opposition leader, accusing him to be a CIA mole, instigating protests.

Obviously a system like this can only be sustained by corruption at all levels. Venezuela's government managed to destroy PDVSA, the country's oil company, and because of this, they destroyed all their economy (since they're completely based in oil and never bothered to diversify, since Venezuela had so much of it, fuel was cheaper than bottled water). Elections were "tight", and the other candidate lost by 1.8%, amongst accusations of burned ballots.

What's happening now is simply that a good portion of the population sees the country becoming a satellite of Cuba. Chavez signed an agreement giving Castro 53.000 barrels of oil a day, a number that's since been increased. In exchange, Castro sends "doctors" to Venezuela (and among those, a good deal of intelligence agents to indoctrinate the population and forces). People protesting are simply demanding the corruption to stop. The government is answering to this violently, claiming this is all a coup orchestrated by the CIA. They're just trying to hold on to power by the force.

I see this happening in Argentina soon. The government is using all of Venezuela's tactics (a little more subtle, but essentially the same). Food prices are high but not unaffordable. People protesting aren't the poor, it's the "middle" classes. The 50% of the country that didn't vote for this government, and through taxes, they have to support all the people living off government subsidies or working for the government, while having no benefits for themselves (in Argentina, the government is sticking its hand up the retirement funds to pay for subsidies for the "poor", essentially pissing your future).

What I see in both cases (Venezuela and Ukraine) is that protests start normally but they're later turned violent by communist chaos agents (Cuba in the venezuelan case, and Russians in Ukraine). While I don't think Russia is looking to become communist again (since the country is now ruled by the rich that made their fortune after 1991), they still use the same tactics they used in the USSR era.

Comment: Re:Cellular is the business model (Score 1) 424

by hjf (#46261005) Attached to: Time Warner Deal Is How Comcast Will Fight Cord Cutters

I live in Argentina. There were 3 cable companies in my city, but one bought another. So now there are only 2. There are 2 "main" cable...cables? one for each company. There used to be 3.

I could take a photo but i guess it would be difficult to see which ones are power wires and which are coax.

Phone is different. it's just a monopoly.

Comment: Re:Irony (Score 2) 337

by hjf (#46077315) Attached to: Is the West Building Its Own Iron Curtain?

Some countries (i think the US) have laws against sex tourism. So if you go to another country, where it's legal, and have sex with a prostitute, you could be prosecuted for that. Yes, I know, the point of the law isn't that. It's about discouraging sex tourism to places like cambodia where people go to have sex with children. But really, even with that, it's really a bit too far fetching. The intentions of the law may be good... but punishing people for what they do outside their own sovereignity isn't the way.

The problem with laws is that they're just words written in paper. And the constitution is just another law. They could just as easily make an ammendment to the constitution allowing for "secret laws" you have to follow, but you can't know about (based on the principle that ignorance of the law is not a defense). Like the soviets did.

Comment: Re:eh, it's not that bad (Score 1) 459

by hjf (#45998601) Attached to: Stop Trying To 'Innovate' Keyboards, You're Just Making Them Worse

It's worse in spanish. For some reason, there are TWO Spanish variations: Spain and Latin America. I have absolutely no idea why. Sure, the spanish keyboard includes the Ñ key (which is dumb, as ñ is not so often used. It's not really difficult to type ~ then n to make ñ. You still have to pres ' then a to make á. And you use áéíóú more than ñ).

But anyway, spanish vs latin is just dumb. In one, to make an @, you have to type AltGr-Q, in the other is AltGr-2 (there are two Alt keys...). One would guess that the latin american keyboard would include the ç symbol, used in portuguese. But ç is also present in the Spanish keyboard, because it's used in some regions of Spain (and obviously in Portugal).

The problem? You can get either keyboard. You can never know what you'll get. The people in charge of buying them just ask for a "spanish keyboard". They see the ñ is there, and call it a day.

And yes: many, MANY systems come with the wrong layout out of the box (spanish keyb vs latin setup and vice versa).

And don't let me get started on the layout. To make curly braces you have to use AltGr. Parentheses are shifted 1 key. + symbol is up and uses no shift, ; needs a shift (or you get just ,). ñ is where ; is supposed to be... It REALLY SUCKS for programming.

1 Sagan = Billions & Billions