Masterfade

Now we have the Japanese PM resigns over the decision to keep the American base in Okinawa, a decision that was reportedly made after the North Korean attack. And the South Korean ruling party suffers setbacks in local elections, which BBC claims "seen as a blow for Mr Lee's tough stance on North Korea, accused of sinking the Cheonan". You have to admit Mr.Kim and his cronies are pretty good at creating political earthquakes for their neighbors.

Whether democracy is good for a country should be decided by the people themselves, and without the constant Western brainwashing about universal value and such. When people really want democracy, they'll fight and die for it. Otherwise, they value something else higher.

To be fair, South Korea's decision to only include first world nations in the investigation ain't making it easier for for China to accept the findings. It has been most puzzling to me how the South came up with the list of "U.S., Australia, U.K. and Sweden". It will be much harder to ignore the report if, say, South Africa and Brazil were involved.

I'd say North Korea is just about the smartest country in the world. Without any real economy to speak of, armed with outdated WWII era military hardware and despised by just about every nation on this planet, it managed to make the world greatest powers (U.S, China, Japan, Russia) dance to its crazy tune. Had any other country in human history been able to pull off such feat?

Ah, self appointed mods, what praytell offends your delicate sensibilities? The post quote from Boo that explains a very select act predominately executed by Asians? Seriously? Careful, Hurlshot may puke on you. Maybe it's just the mods having enough common sense to know a Southeast Asian cultural phenomenon has nothing to do with a discussion on events happened in East Asia?

North Koreans solved it! It's official!

I see this more as a communist thing than an asian thing.

As an absolute sum spent on a headphone setup, I'd say you're still within the realm of the sane. I might have spent more on Headphones and less on the electronics, but just a good headphone amp is going to set you back a bit. Oh, I roll with Sennheiser HD 580 Precisions.... That have lasted me 10 years, albeit with one ear cushion and two cable changes. Yeah, the amp's the most expansive component. The problem I see is most amps on market nowadays is made by either 1) established brands try to make a quick buck selling outrageously overpriced products (cough, Rega Ear, cough) or 2) small family business/one-man workshop that lacks economies of scale. When will budget hi-fi heavyweights like Cambridge, NAD or Marantz take notice of the headamp market...

Guess I must be mad. After buying a $200 headphone I've spent another $700 on a DAC and an headphone amp...

I'm surprised that NZ is dirtier than the UK. Gotta show this to my kiwi friends.

Glad you're only borrowing it. Never buy any wireless headphones!

I bought a Shure SRH840 recently (200 or so Aussie dollars). Was considering Grado/Alessandro but I've heard they don't rank particular high in the comfort department. Sonically, the Shures are not my favourite type as they have a slightly boosted bass and rolled off high (I'm addicted to sparkling treble), but they're pretty comfy and no-fatiguing (which, ironically, has something to do with the rolled off treble), so I'm quite happy with them. I do feel, however, the audio output of ThinkPad is holding my headphone back. I have a cheapo tube amp (50 AUD included shipping from Hong Kong) arriving after Easter. Gonna see how that works out. I'm also considering getting a USB DAC. I've set my eyes on a Music Streamer II+, but that will set me back for another $400...Which I'll have to finance by giving up sushi for lunch and settle for cheap apples

Eagerly awaiting Obsidian's secret bishoujo game since 2003.

Lock 'em up for life, then it will not matter if they go worse. Oh, and lock up their parents too.

Haven't and not going to see Avatar as I find the notion of wearing recycled 3d glasses repulsive. But I'd pick either District 9 or Inglourious Basterds over the Hurt Locker, which to me is a boring propaganda film seemingly drags on forever.

There are already small tablets running full-fledged Linux distro (Ubuntu) so maybe we'll see real Linux phone in the future.

Just like anime kids porn are illegal so the Supreme Court may one day rule in a United States vs Mr.Pervert case to jail people for sexually abusing robots.

It's incredible Americans managed to beat the Japanese on this. They're even developing an Japanese version! I'm now utterly confident in Obama's grand plan on doubling American export to Asia.

I'm sure Beijing would become at least as progressive as Canberra once Tibetans count for less than 3% of the total population in their homeland.

True for the original XCOM but Apocalypse is rather serviceable graphics-wise.

More like appeasing the Vatican, I'd say. The Vatican is the only Western state recognizing Taiwan and it just so happened most countries with diplomatic relations with Taiwan are predominantly Roman Catholic, according to my quick wiki searches anyway. I'd be surprised if such correlation is incidental.

More like appeasing the Vatican, I'd say.

Having a certain degree of residual Britishness hardly makes countries 'mostly democratic' when they're ran by either an unelected government (Hong Kong) or a government with so much control over the electoral process that's deemed not free by most international observers (Singapore).

Isn't it ironic the top two freest economies in the world both feature an authoritarian government.

Nope. Friends in RL often say I have a weird taste for sarcasm, that's all.