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Darth Various posted:Gogo Sweden. And Romania, apparently? Seriously, what is it with Romania being an island of supersurfers? At least Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia have almost as fast neighbours all around?
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Nov 22, 2013 19:57
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Why are Italians moving to Romania, exactly? Is it because the languages are mildly similar? 
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Nov 22, 2013 20:08
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computer parts posted:There's a map in that post about Gini per county; I couldn't find a Chinese one with a good legend but here's internet penetration by province as of 2012: What's up with Inner Mongolia?
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Nov 22, 2013 20:34
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Koramei posted:Like a third or so, iirc? Yeah many are urbanized, but it's still a major cultural thing. Not like Kazakhstan is some last bastion of civility, but there is more to it being bright blue than everybody being poor. It just seems more plausible to attribute Kazakhstan's coefficient to some sort of Soviet cause, judging from that map all the post Soviet Republics are pretty similar, well except for Russia. I tried checking how many Kazakhs are still pastoralists too, btw. It's surprisingly hard to dig up statistics on the issue but as a point of comparison, only 30% of Mongolians work in agriculture/animal husbandry, source, and the percentage that could be called pastoralists should be somewhat smaller than that figure. Only 25% of kazakhstan's labor force participates in agriculture, many or most of whom grow wheat and cotton or other crops. Sources I found dealing with issues relevant to pastoralists hardly even mentioned Kazakhstan, which would be odd if it had one of the highest percentages of modern pastoralists in the world. Traditional pastoralists were collectivized by Stalin in the 1930s and animal husbandry was conducted in accordance with principles of Soviet central planning until the 1990s when much of the economy was privatized. In any case, I'm not convinced pastoralism limits economic inequality. The accumulation of livestock can produce large inequalities of property between individuals, from which cultural justifications for inequality can arise.  Note this map is out of date, today Russians only represent 23% of the population of modern Kazakhstan, due mostly to massive emigration since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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Nov 22, 2013 20:42
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QVC Drinking Game posted:What's up with Inner Mongolia? Not a lot of people and a shitload of mining. The Beijing Hillbillies is coming soon to a TV near you.
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Nov 22, 2013 20:51
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QVC Drinking Game posted:What's up with Inner Mongolia? A population that isn't too high combined with a whole lot of resource extraction probably makes its GDP per capita come out higher than it otherwise would be. It's not as developed or urbanized as the richest eastern provinces though. e:beaten Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 20:52
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Amused to Death posted:A population that isn't too high combined with a whole lot of resource extraction probably makes its GDP per capita come out higher than it otherwise would be. It's not as developed or urbanized as the richest eastern provinces though. It's the same idea as Wyoming: 
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Nov 22, 2013 20:57
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 Google Street View coverage in Europe. In Germany it was possible for house owners to make Google pixelate their property, which eventually led to hundreds of thousands of people writing letters to Google. Instead of cutting out the house images (what they only did in major cities), they actually stopped the project in Germany.
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Nov 22, 2013 21:01
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I love the corridor there between St Petersburg and Moscow. e: To also post a map: http://www.kbr.be/collections/cart_plan/ferraris/ferraris_nl.html This is the Atlas Ferraris, a huge map of what is now Belgium made by the Austrian military. Although it might look that way, it is not detailed to the level of a single house. The black rectangles that look like they denote a single house actually mark a 'built-up area'. Antwan3K fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Nov 22, 2013 |
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Nov 22, 2013 21:05
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Faber posted:
People in Japan also flipped their poo poo about street view and got the government involved and Google eventually ended up having to redo large areas of the country with the camera at a lower height to avoid photographing peoples' backyards over their walls. They got in trouble again the year before last for tracking Wi-Fi activity data, which led to MIAC sending a curt, yet veiled warning to knock it off and purge their records or face legal action for non-compliance with the telecommunications secrecy provisions of the Telecommunications Business Act.
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Nov 22, 2013 21:37
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Antwan3K posted:I love the corridor there between St Petersburg and Moscow. Very little has changed in Russia in the last century, it seems.
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Nov 22, 2013 21:43
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Protocol 5 posted:People in Japan also flipped their poo poo about street view and got the government involved and Google eventually ended up having to redo large areas of the country with the camera at a lower height to avoid photographing peoples' backyards over their walls. They got in trouble again the year before last for tracking Wi-Fi activity data, which led to MIAC sending a curt, yet veiled warning to knock it off and purge their records or face legal action for non-compliance with the telecommunications secrecy provisions of the Telecommunications Business Act. Similar thing with the Wifi poo poo also happened in Germany.
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Nov 22, 2013 22:04
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Is there a reason why Google has street view for all of Switzerland, except for Zurich?
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Nov 23, 2013 02:07
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QuoProQuid posted:Is there a reason why Google has street view for all of Switzerland, except for Zurich? What are you talking about? Zürich is covered and it's clearly to the north of that empty blob. The areas not covered in Switzerland are not covered because there's no point in covering bumfuck nowhere mountain regions.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:02
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Skeleton Jelly posted:What are you talking about? Zürich is covered and it's clearly to the north of that empty blob. The areas not covered in Switzerland are not covered because there's no point in covering bumfuck nowhere mountain regions. It looks like I misread the map. Sorry.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:13
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Darth Various posted:Gogo Sweden. And Romania, apparently? Seriously, what is it with Romania being an island of supersurfers? At least Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia have almost as fast neighbours all around? The internet in Romania has had a somewhat unique history. Even since communist times we've had a pretty large population of nerds who would self teach themselves about computers, programming, etc; then in the 90s and early 00s when the only internet available to most was lovely dial-up from the state owned phone company, these nerds started creating thousands of the so-called "Retele de cartier" (neighborhood networks) which were basically a group of guys buying broadband wholesale and then selling it to neighbors, these mini-ISPs had subscribers ranging from a few dozens to thousands. And since copyright-infringement is a national sport around here, those neighborhood networks were a huge hit cause you only needed one guy to download something from the outside internet for the others in the network to have access to it at LAN speeds. Then this Romanian company called RCS/RDS, which was the biggest cable operator in the country, started offering internet through their cable infrastructure and they expanded by buying all those neighborhood networks. Then since about 2006 they started pouring all the money they could borrow into upgrading their infrastructure to FTTH (while spending nothing on marketing and keeping prices very low) and that strategy worked since today they have over 50% of the internet market share and their fiber service is available in pretty much all urban Romania and even some rural areas. Western ISPs tried entering the market, but they brought ancient tech like DSL at hilariously high prices, and when they realized they can't compete with RDS they too had to invest in fiber and lower prices. Anyway, to understand why we have some pretty fast internet you only have to take a look at the 4 data plans that RDS offers to it's 50% market share: 1Gbit at $18/month 500Mbit at $15/month 100Mbit at $12/month 50Mbit at $9/month I'm pretty sure if we only had western owned ISPs, the internet here would be way slower and more expensive, so we just got lucky I guess. SWITCH HITLER posted:Why are Italians moving to Romania, exactly? Is it because the languages are mildly similar? Most of them own shops or other small businesses or are involved in agriculture, I guess for those Italians looking for opportunities and a much cheaper life in Eastern Europe it's way easier to learn Romanian rather than Bulgarian, Polish or whatever.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:32
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Donkwich posted:Alabamans won't pass up the chance to slap a black thing around. Sorry for jumping in so late, but the amount of classism in Alabama and the South in general is easy to miss what with all the racism and so. I grew up north east of Birmingham and one would be quite shocked to hear how often the phrase "a good one" is still used. Here's a hint, if 'they' are middle class or above they get honorary white status. Yes, it is actually that ugly sometimes. And white people who are poor get accused of 'acting black.' Moralizing poverty is one of the best defenses for not fixing structural problems.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:39
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Faber posted:
I may sound weird but that is really dumb. Do they have a giant shower curtain in front of their house too?
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Nov 23, 2013 03:50
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Peanut President posted:I may sound weird but that is really dumb. Do they have a giant shower curtain in front of their house too? They just have different views on privacy in Germany. First the Gestapo, then the Stasi. It's all a little understandable. You too would probably find it disconcerting that a private company is essentially conducting a massive intelligence gathering operation.
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Nov 23, 2013 04:06
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Amused to Death posted:A population that isn't too high combined with a whole lot of resource extraction probably makes its GDP per capita come out higher than it otherwise would be. It's not as developed or urbanized as the richest eastern provinces though. Right, and GDP per capita can be somewhat misleading as it only denotes the value created in a certain region. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of this wealth flows back to the people who actually live in that region, nor does it say anything about income equality.  That's why the capital regions on this map are mostly dark, while usually also having higher unemployment and poverty rates. Source: Eurostat's Statistics Explained, which is a goldmine for this type of map. Antwan3K posted:This is the Atlas Ferraris, a huge map of what is now Belgium made by the Austrian military. Although it might look that way, it is not detailed to the level of a single house. The black rectangles that look like they denote a single house actually mark a 'built-up area'. I got this for my dad's birthday a couple of years ago, it's a very interesting atlas.
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Nov 23, 2013 04:12
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Phlegmish posted:I got this for my dad's birthday a couple of years ago, it's a very interesting atlas. I looked it up. It's so loving expensive 
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Nov 23, 2013 04:18
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I am a good son.  But I would imagine it's not very interesting if you're not from or familiar with Belgium, so you can actually compare it with the current situation.
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Nov 23, 2013 04:30
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3peat posted:Internet speeds! (from speedtest, so probably not completely accurate) If the UK is anything to go by this thing is kinda too simple to really illustrate the state of telecom infrastructure. In the UK you have the choice of either ADSL over old copper wiring, fiber in selected areas or Cable again in selected areas. Our cable companies have changed a few times and the current survivor gave up expansion and has basically said it will never ever expand coverage. Yes it failed to cover a tiny country like the UK. Broadband of any type has been horrifically slow expanding outside of cities and despite the small size of the country it seems companies just arbitrarily won't expand into areas labeled "rural". Rural in the UK is 10 feet outside a city limits or whenever you see the first sheep. If you do live in a fiber area then you have to hope that the last mile line is up to scratch. BT, the countries one line operator, hasn't upgraded the copper wiring........ ever. The fiber goes to the local green box but if the wire to your house, which will still be copper wiring from 1805, is hosed then you're screwed. The cable operator provides the best speeds but is known for their heavy handed traffic shaping. tl;dr The UK is bad at everything including the internet.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:38
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Regarde Aduck posted:If the UK is anything to go by this thing is kinda too simple to really illustrate the state of telecom infrastructure. The same things happen in the US although at least our definition of rural is slightly farther out.
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Nov 24, 2013 18:39
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Regarde Aduck posted:If you do live in a fiber area then you have to hope that the last mile line is up to scratch. BT, the countries one line operator, hasn't upgraded the copper wiring........ ever. The fiber goes to the local green box but if the wire to your house, which will still be copper wiring from 1805, is hosed then you're screwed. BT do actually offer fiber-to-the-premises in a few areas, which is fantastic if you can get it, but obviously it's even more geographically limited than their FTTC coverage. I'd post a map here, but there don't seem to be any up-to-date maps showing which exchanges are enabled for FTTP vs FTTC vs stuck in the dark ages, thanks to BT being aggressively protective of the data.
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Nov 25, 2013 00:21
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I remember this from Tim Worstall a couple of years ago: Attention metal thieves: Buy BT, get 75 MILLION miles of copper (Telco is worth less than its expensive assets).quote:British Telecom is, as a telecoms company, worth minus £30bn. Yes, that's a negative number there. And yet it is literally sitting on top of billions in assets.
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Nov 25, 2013 02:21
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http://publicradiomap.com/  These aren't definite reception zones, just approximations from station power, geography, and antenna direction (apparently there's some magic you can do to attenuate signals in certain directions?) I get two stations that I'm outside the zones for and tend to get lousy reception on my local public affiliate.
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Nov 25, 2013 06:21
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  Stolen from the UK megathread.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:03
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Farecoal posted:
So who exactly do those three Canadian cardinals minister to if Canada has no Catholics? Or is that top 10 also?
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Nov 26, 2013 22:09
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Farecoal posted:
So...the Catholic Church is pretty racist, apparently.  Badger of Basra posted:So who exactly do those three Canadian cardinals minister to if Canada has no Catholics? Or is that top 10 also? Quebec. 12 million Catholics in Canada, so not enough to put them in the map apparently. I mean, all of the South American countries have millions of Catholics.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:14
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DarkCrawler posted:So...the Catholic Church is pretty racist, apparently.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:21
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I didn't think that India of all places would be overrepresented in the College of Cardinals.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:25
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Kainser posted:I didn't think that India of all places would be overrepresented in the College of Cardinals. India has almost 20 million Catholics. I mean, they're overrepresented sure, when compared to countries that don't seem to have almost any Cardinals but a lot more Catholics. But India has surprisingly many Catholics, more then Canada on that map.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:29
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It's also apparently a list of voting cardinals for a papal conclave, which is to say those under 80. I think this is presently about half of the total list of cardinals, so if you counted all of them it would look different. I imagine South America and Africa will still be really underrepresented compared to Europe, possibly even moreso, but there's still a distinction between how many places have cardinals and how many of those at any moment are allowed to vote for a pope.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:32
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Perhaps if that poo poo was proportional, South America wouldn't be going Evangelical. Would have to appoint a ton of cardinals to make it proportional though.Kainser posted:I didn't think that India of all places would be overrepresented in the College of Cardinals.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:32
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To be fair, the enthusiasm for tying your church to the Roman Curia is probably heavily tied to your church's actual local threats. If you are in an area where being Roman Catholic is as controversial as breathing air and drinking water, then there's not much point trying to nab the support of Rome. You'd just as easily get Roman interests trumping your own instead.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:34
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Cardinals#Cardinals_by_nationality Europe is pretty ridiculously overrepresented. Nearly 60% of Cardinals but less then 30% of Catholics.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:38
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Kainser posted:I didn't think that India of all places would be overrepresented in the College of Cardinals. They might have a couple who used to be from the Portuguese Empire but are now part of India.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:42
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ronya posted:To be fair, the enthusiasm for tying your church to the Roman Curia is probably heavily tied to your church's actual local threats. If you are in an area where being Roman Catholic is as controversial as breathing air and drinking water, then there's not much point trying to nab the support of Rome. You'd just as easily get Roman interests trumping your own instead.
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Nov 26, 2013 22:47
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A Buttery Pastry posted:But isn't the Roman Curia made up of people from the Catholic community of their respective countries? I don't see why it would be so terrible for Latin/South America to be tied closer to Rome, if it meant Rome was much more receptive to the interests of Latin/South American Catholics. Because it can't be receptive enough to beat the opportunity to exercise the de facto doctrinal independence created by the absence of democratic legitimacy of Rome. If your community of Catholics is ideologically rather different from the ideology of Catholics worldwide, then there's not much point aggressively promoting a democratic authority of the cardinals. Why let John Paul II lecture you on adhering to the Western side of the Cold War, or joining third-way neoliberalization thereafter, when you can instead remain comfortably in a populist-socialist sphere?
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Nov 26, 2013 22:57
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