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The taskbar had 7 icons in the notification area in addition to the ones from the OS, plus a useless battery power gauge that took up another big chunk of real estate

You don't understand. In the Land of China, clutter is beautiful. More icons > fewer icons.

Don't believe me? Check out a few popular Chinese websites

The "Great Firewall", authorities texting website admins, and regular meetings with a few dozen major websites aren't going to solve the PRC's information control problem. IP blocks can be circumvented. Filters can be tricked. And even if they have 10,000 'Net police texting website owners, they won't be able to remove more than a handful of messages from the millions of forums and comment threads that have been created. There's only one solution that *might* work for them if Internet discourse gets too uncomfortable, and that's pulling the plug on the Internet, just like their Burmese pals did a few weeks ago. But China has a far more developed 'net infrastructure and industry, a huge SMS network that has been used to spread news of protests, and stronger business and personal connections with the outside world. They may have to batten down the hatches for the upcoming party congress, but they also have to look open and friendly in the runup to the Beijing Olympics.

Thanx for the info. It is always good to get differing viewpoints. I try to flip every so often through a couple of chinese news sites, but these are like reading Fox news or Pravda; You know that about half of it is gov. propaganda.

"Processed soybeans are the largest source of protein feed and vegetable oil in the world. The United States is the world's leading soybean producer and exporter." from http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/SoybeansOilCrops/

Also

"China's annual grain production is expected to hit a new high of 520 million tons in five years but rising consumption will still leave a shortfall"
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/24/conte nt_4221719.htm

You can argue vegetables or meat, but the vast majority of the world gets almost all their calories from grains.

I believe the US exports at least a sizable portion of any grain it produces, but I could be wrong.

Try to find a manufacturer making a profit anywhere outside of China ... they only make a profit there by expoiting their workers

The Chinese workers aren't making as much as First World workers make, but they aren't being exploited. Sure the pay isn't as good but then again the cost of living is a lot lower too. Chinese who are employed in one of these factories make more than those who can't get a job at one, and if they can't get one it's because they aren't looking or trying hard enough to get work. Or they live in the wrong place. There is a real estate boom in China because workers there can afford to buy homes. And more and more are buying and driving cars. Heck, an American can move to China and live like a king by teaching ESL, English as a Second Language. This is because many, many Chinese want to learn English.

or despoiling the environment.

Pollution and despoiling the environment has been a problem however there is an active Chinese environmental movement in China and the Chinese authorities are becoming aware of just how important it is to cut down and stop pollution:

New rules to curb "rampant" violations of pollution laws
HEFEI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China's environment chief on Thursday unveiled a set of tough new rules to tackle worsening lake pollution while lambasting the country's "bumpkin policies" that encouraged local officials to turn a blind eye to environmental hazards.

The regulations follow findings showing "rampant" violation of environment rules by almost nine in ten of the country's industrial parks and two fifths of companies.

Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), said the new rules covering China's three major lake areas -- the eastern Taihu Lake, Chaohu Lake and the southwestern Dianchi Lake -- included:

-- A ban on all projects involving discharges containing ammonia and phosphorus, and the turning down of existing applications to establish such projects.

-- A ban on the production, use and sales of detergents containing phosphorous around the lake drainage areas.

-- The removal of all fish farms from the three lake areas by the end of 2008.

-- A ban on fishponds, vegetable and flower farms that may involve the use of fertilizers within one kilometer of the lakeside.

Zhou outlined the measures at a special meeting on lake pollution in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province.

In the last two months, blue-green algae outbreaks have been reported in the three lake areas, endangering domestic water supplies. On July 4, water supplies to 200,000 people in Shuyang County, Jiangsu Province, were halted for more than 40 hours after ammonia and nitrogen were found in a local river.

"Environmental problems, if improperly handled, can trigger major social crises, and improving water quality has become our most urgent task," Zhou told environment officials.

He said illegal activities that harmed the environment were "rampant".

SEPA investigations showed 87.3 percent of the 126 industrial parks in 11 provinces had violated environment rules, allowing environmentally harmful companies into their parks.

They also showed half of the 75 wastewater-processing factories failed to properly process water or were not operating at all. Of 529 companies that SEPA inspected, 44.2 percent were violating environment rules.

"Hazards are everywhere, and environmental accidents are very likely to happen," he said.

Some local officials often relied on companies for GDP contribution and their own promotions, and failed in their responsibil

Good point unfortunately. If now in the US companies have to deal with stringent environmental regulations and in China they can pollute and get away with it, that's one more reason to close US plants and open plants in China.

Ya but now the Chinese are learning what it means to allow businesses to pollute. They are finding out heathcare costs, which the government pays, are going up. China just executed Fuchsia Dunlop, who was responsible for ensuring the safety of China's food and drugs for not doing his job. And now this: China's environment chief on Thursday unveiled a set of tough new rules to tackle worsening lake pollution while lambasting the country's "bumpkin policies" that encouraged local officials to turn a blind eye to environmental hazards."

I'm not sure what makes you think the ratio should be 1 to 33 of Asian to non-Asian victims let alone why anyone "should" eat your shit if a single Asian was killed, but there is this for you to contend with: BLACKSBURG, United States, April 16 (Xinhua)--No Chinese students have been found among the dozens of victims in Monday's shooting rampage on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), in the eastern U.S. state of Virginia. Ray Wang, a board member of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars (ACSS) at Virginia Tech, told Xinhua that he was not at the scene of the shootings, but he had contacted quite a number of Chinese students and had so far got no word that Chinese students were injured or killed in the incident. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-04/17/conte nt_5986983.htm

Actually, I do know your spacecrafts, very well. I have followed your program with interest for some time. I have worked on NASA projects as well as have worked for other US gov. groups (during mid 80's and then post 9/11), so I have a very strong interest in China and other groups (of coruse, back in the 80's, it was USSR). Even now, I still read some of your papers (it is a bit like reading foxnews or pravda, but still worth trying to understand the leadership of china).

In addition, I have taught and worked with a large number of Chinese over the years. Almost all were mainland, not Taiwanese ( but a few were ). I noticed that they were all hard workers and bright, but also found a few who were very interested in getting info that they had no reason to obtain; I found it most interesting when a "taiwenese" restaurant owner was willing to invest over a million dollars into a start-up provided that we in turn secured it with a classified piece of equipment. The interesting part was that several times one of our guys overhead him discussing set-ups of visits to mainland, when he was telling us that he was going to taiwan (one of our guys could understand Cantonese, but he was not aware of that; sloppy on his part). Needless to say, the deal fell through.

But coming back to my students and co-workers. There are many concepts that are different from our 2 cultures. For starters, they like that I want us to stay out of Chinese business. They felt that China had plenty of freedom and that the Chinese gov. was not too harsh. I differ with that, but I also believe it is NOT our place to interfere with.

A few that I got to know better had told me that our concepts of patents and copyrights flew in the face of the good of society. Personally, I tend to agree. What our funding fathers did was to offer limited time IP rights, from which society could take advantage of. That was actually a good idea. But China simply believes that IP rights should not exist at all. They are now in the process of instilling these ideas in the citizens. That will take a generation or 2, or it will take a few bullets to speed up the process.

So, please tell me. what exactly am I missing? I would certainly like to learn more. It is never too late to learn more about another.

At http://news3.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-10/08/cont ent_5176989.htm
This cite doesn't single out the recent folks that prompted this thread. The roots of it begin there. The Chinese gov't feels porn is amongst the four usual suspects responsible for 90% of juvenile delinquency.
"The statement announced that technical methods would be explored and applied to prevent teenagers from being harmed by unhealthy on-line information and help teenagers out of Internet addiction."
"The authorities would also help set up more rehabilitation and treatment agencies for addicted youth. Response centers would be established to deal with complaints and reports of unhealthy on-line behavior."

The roots of this proclamation have been set so that "unhealthy information" actually takes precedent.
Looking at naked pictures of women, when you have been raised for the past 15 years in a society that has now gotten itself in a quandry with more males than females in many towns can be just the crime tossed against you when someone has decided you have accessed other "unhealthy information".

--It would certainly go a distance in explaining the actions of some of the supposedly fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in the prelude to the grand 9-11 performance acting in ways most un-Islamic. (Booze and Cocaine and Women [gnn.tv] won't win the devout many points with Allah.) So what's the story here? Were they fundamentalist terrorists, or were they dupe mercenaries who didn't know what they were signing up for, and who were allowed to bring off their clutzy plan while the US secret services conveniently looked the other way [tvnewslies.org], while the secret/shadow government [washingtonpost.com] provided access to the remote controlled [911review.com] jets actually capable of performing the precision flying which badly-trained mercenary goof-balls could not have been asked to manage, and while the Israeli-owned security companies [whatreallyhappened.com] which held contracts at each of the airports involved during 9-11, gave them fast-lane service at the boarding check points?

There is a great antidote to some of that confusion: Debunking 9/11 Myths

Dudes with bombs and box-cutters working independently is still the false reality which needs to be understood here. The myth of terrorists is the preferred tool for building the fascist state. Luckily, this is increasingly well understood. It's the 'How' which seems to be causing some hiccups.

Here are some victories the good guys won against terrorism around the world in the last couple of weeks (this list doesn't include terrorist attacks):

11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals arrested in S. Afghanistan
Police Claim Arresting Taliban Commander in Ghazni
Pakistanis Arrest 90 Afghans at Border
Saudi detains 139 suspected militants
Security forces scrambled to disrupt Asian summit terror plots
Court freezes Islamic group's bank account
Top aide of Qaeda chief in Iraq killed
Morocco jails 14 Islamists
Eight French Islamists Returned To France
4 Dutch Muslims Convicted of Terror Plan
and another trial: Denmark: Muslim terror trial begins
Terrorist plot targeting Illinois mall foiled
Man accused in Taliban arrest ordered held without bail
And reaching back just a little further just to inc

Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?

Given enough time, you get these guys to say anything you want.
Why waste all that effort to find the guilty, when you can just pick someone and beat them until they admit their guilt or agree to testify to someone else's guilt?

Why you clever fellow, that is an interesting solution: just manufacture it all with torture. There is a minor problem in that real torture isn't legal. It also has the disadvantage of getting you absolutely no useful information about real terrorists if you are just picking innocent victims to torture to confession, doesn't it? That could be a problem if there really are terrorists in the world, because they will be making plots, blowing up things, and getting away while you are working over some poor innocent bastard you picked up off the street. If there really is a terrorist problem in the world, you are doing worse than nothing about it.

So what if the actual terrorists blow up a few more things, it only confrims that you need even more power to persue them!

Well, until the voters figure out you are a bunch of knobs and put the other party in power. Democracies tend to be rather practical in that way. And when the other party comes into power, your problems are just beginning. If you've been wasting the governments efforts on torturing the innocent, instead of performing real counterterrorist investigations, the terrorists will be likely be worse off as well. See how long you are out of power then.

I'm not necessarily saying that's what happened here, but when you look at the big picture, it sure looks really bad.

Then what the hell did you write this crap for? "Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?"

How about this for an answer: Because there are real terrorists and screwing around is only going to get people killed!

Well, don't worry your pretty head too much. If we don't win, there are some folks, our would be overlords, so to speak, who will straighten out society. We may not care for it so much, but at least the rules will be clear. Torture will definitely be in the new OK list, along with beheading, stoning, amputations, crucifixion, whipping, and all of that. The underpinnings of it, Sharia, is already getting some traction in Britain: Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes. We'll have to see how the whole Londonisan thing works out.

By the way, for your edification, here are a few incidents from the last couple of weeks from all over the world where the good guys won in some fashion (I know some of you are snickering) (Note that I didn't list the ones in which the bad guys won.). What do you think this means for the question of the existence of terrorists?

11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals

What also got to me while trying to get through downtown is how the embassy is allowed to eat up a lane of traffic for their precious concrete walls, as if there was ever a real danger in Canada.

Fabuloso, dude, but I wasn't talking about sharing music with another human, I meant just being able to beam tunes to the device, from your PC, *without* plugging the damn thing in. I can't speak for the rest of the rabble, but that capability would certainly appeal to me.

But it's a moot point; Zune blows and everyone knows it, even communist China:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-11/28/conte nt_5402323.htm

Well what about NEC? http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-10/11/conte nt_5189776.htmChip. Been there done that last month. Any players with it yet? It won't be that easy.

Already posted this a couple of times but this is really really odd... Theres something fishy going on here. Whats this?

BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than half of Chinese middle-aged men show symptoms of depression, irascibility, aching joints, excessive sweating as well as a fading interest in sex because of a lack of testosterone, a recent health survey suggested.

Are testosterone salesmen shilling the world now? I call shenanigans...

Exactly... Theres something fishy going on here. Whats this?

BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than half of Chinese middle-aged men show symptoms of depression, irascibility, aching joints, excessive sweating as well as a fading interest in sex because of a lack of testosterone, a recent health survey suggested.

Are testosterone salesmen shilling the world now? I call shenanigans...

USA what? Theres something fishy going on here. Whats this?

BEIJING, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- More than half of Chinese middle-aged men show symptoms of depression, irascibility, aching joints, excessive sweating as well as a fading interest in sex because of a lack of testosterone, a recent health survey suggested.

Are testosterone salesmen shilling the world now? I call shenanigans...

A whole ball could actually hold at least a few thousand digits if not more. In a lot of places in China (usually near tourist attractions), there are artists who write your requested messages on rice. After some googling, I could only find these two pretty bad photos. The first seems to be not as good as most I've actually seen, the second just shows an artist working. Another one can give one a real idea of what the masters can do: 42 US presidents on rice.

If you don't like the Sun why don't you read the story in the Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_techno logy/article1771872.ece Or maybe Xinhua http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-09/29/conte nt_5155160.htm ? What about the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5388482.stm ?

The chinese press distorted the news:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-06/04/conte nt_4644754.htm

Well, lets just take a look at what Americans did when we were going to invade Iraq:

http://www.basetree.com/thumbs/theprinceofbombs.jp g
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/d30-30/free-republic- protest-3.jpg
http://truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.probush.082705.g rab.jpg
http://www.beyondsatire.us/files/Pro-war.jpg
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www. brumm.com/antiwar/feb16/images/032-DefeatEvilProWa r2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.brumm.com/antiwar/feb1 6/032.html&h=480&w=640&sz=103&hl=en&start=6&tbnid= Z_lFLjYPEHUHrM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq %3D%2522pro-war%2522%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3 D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/d30-30/free-republic- protest-1.jpg
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/28/xinsr c_5620802281138515300128.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~bobbyfoto1/sitebuilderc ontent/sitebuilderpictures/wegavepeace.jpg

Of course, that's not nearly as bad as what you see in Israel. There was the October 2000 riots which involved thousands of Jews chanting "Death to Arabs" while they ransacked arab property, for example. Oy, I could go on for hours about the sort of stuff you get in Israel. Tons of speeches by all sorts of politicians and army leaders referring to them as vermin, worms, cockroaches, a disease, etc. Sh'a Tova even carried a comic strip for children which said "Yes, a good Arab is a dead Arab." Here's a nice article, although it's only a start.

Brilliant piece of hardware.

Agreed. I bought mine shortly after launch after a 5 minute demo by someone down at my local. It was an easy sell, but I was curious to see how the platform would grow, having watched the lifespan of the PlayStation and the PS2 up to that point.

99% of the games suck

I have to disagree here. I regularly play and enjoy Everyone's Golf (The old Hot Shot franchise), MVP, Burnout, Namco's Portable Island Resort, World Tour Soccer 2, FIFA World Cup 2006, SOCOM and Puzzle Bobble. I am checking out a couple of interesting RPGs as well and looking forward to Ridge Racer 2 when it does come out. There are other titles that I've played and enjoyed and many that I haven't seen (maybe they all suck, I don't know). But if it is only 1 percent that don't suck, that seems to be working out fine for me.

im not stupid enough to buy my movies over again

Nor am I. I did buy one UMD movie when I got my PSP, just for the novelty. I didn't think I would likely be picking up another one, and imagined that if that was the prevailing attitude it would not be living long as a portable movie format. But the UMD's success or failure in the movie arena is irrelevant to the console as a gaming device. UMD movie cessation just doesn't mean anything for games. Period.
Before I picked up my PSP, however, I noticed a program called PSPWare. It let me easily drag and drop movies to be converted and transferred to my PSP. It also let me sync photos from my iPhoto library and MP3s from my iTunes library if I wanted. In addition to this it automagically backed up my save games off my memory sticks when I synced so I always have a backup of every save. It seemed like 15 dollars well spent and it was. I wanted to watch video on my PSP, but like you I wasn't going to be repurchasing content. I use my PSP numerous times per week as PSP and it rocks for that as well.

and its too freakin big for an mp3 player

Well, maybe for your pocket, but as a docked MP3 player it's just the right size. I didn't buy it to replace my iPod. The MP3 playback is a nice extra. The fact that you can set it up in the kitchen in a dock and stream audio to it wirelessly is pretty damn neat. A nice portable AirPort Express audio player.

And then there's emulation. That was one of the reasons I did pick it up and have not been upset with all. Retro gaming rocks my world and it is a superb platform for that, whether Sony likes it or not.

After seeing the photos of Mylo the other day http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-08/09/conte nt_4941966.htm I saw some features that would have been really nice to see in PSP (and are likely to see in some future PSP device). And that bodes well for the future.

If someone can mod parent down, please do, because the parent poster doesn't know sh** about Economy.

Public investment in Education will provide in the short term social movility, and in the long term, more production. This will result in a greater Product per Capita, and if the investment in education remains, it becomes a virtuous circle. Of course, where will you get teachers? By teaching them. Education breeds Education. It's not wasted like money.

Developed countries invest AT LEAST 8% of the Gross Domestic Product in Education, while the developing countries don't. The Singapore Minister said yesterday: "A sound and robust education system plays an important role in Singapore's economic development... In fact, the education sector has been the second largest recipient of government funding for many years, averaging 5 percent of Singapore's GDP (gross domestic product) annually".

More and better education always results in the benefit of the country, so your comparison of building more schools with printing money is at least ridiculous.

The real problem with Education is that some governments DON'T WANT IT. Why? Because the corrupted leaders and dictators know that an educated country is not easy to manipulate. It's much cheaper for the people in power to invest a couple million dollars in buying the people with free food, and to keep the rest for themselves. Don't forget that the people who protested in the Tiananmen Square in China were STUDENTS. Education is a very dangerous weapon against dictatorships.

Yes, exactly! First I read about the article on the digg, then on slashdot and then even on Tom's hardware! How redundant is that?

That's just like Bush's surprise visit; I can read about it on CNN, the BBC, Al Jazeera and on Xinhua. Imho they should all spice up things and report different news, make up stuff if need be...
</sarcasm>

What?

in the United States, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD,) gives an estimate of the "full-employment unemployment rate" of 4 to 6.4%.

US unemployment rate is at 4.7%.

.. So while the Americans are at it, they should ban all forms and uses of paper, cardboard, and paper-like materials (like dollar bills!) by Registered Terrorists too!

1. alan greenspan's "new economy" lie... when productivity wasn't growing when alan thought it should, he fudged the numbers (see hedonic pricing and chain weighted dollars). did you know that up to 50% of "productivity growth" came from fudging the numbers by adding money that didn't exist? for example, a computer that sold for the same price as a computer the year before, but was twice as fast, was counted as twice as valuable when figuring gdp. they didn't measure dollars, they measured "characteristics." the problem is that *if* the characteristics actually added value to the economy it would've shown up later on during its use... but it didn't. so they added nonexistent money to goose american productive growth numbers - and didn't mention the numbers were fake.

alan's faked the numbers and chanted "new economy" repeatedly. eventually people bought into the idea based on alan's "credibility" and mass ignorance of what actually transpired.

2. people are greedy. i disagree that most folks knew it could end. they thought everyone else was right and these business would take over the world and, every time the price went up, their view was reinforced. everyone can't be wrong - and i'm gonna get mine.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20010414/397211. htm

good lord! this guy had a windfall of $6+ million and was so intent on not paying taxes he lost it all and is $700k IN DEBT due to the amt.

this site was created by a guy who wateched his millions evaporate into debt - just so he could avoid paying regular tax rates...

http://www.reformamt.org/

he even knew his break even point for his exercised options... i think he owes $1 million in taxes. like every good american, he won't take personal responsibility for his greed - he wants the law changed. he doesn't care if that would allow billionaires to avoid billions in taxes...

i guess he thought cisco was really a $500 billion company. maybe he tought it was a trillion dollar company.

3. ignorance. anyone who cared to know would've found out about the faked productivity numbers based on fudged numbers. greed caused folks to not really want to know and, if they did know, to not tell anyone.

5. lack of critical thinking ability. the #1 component of corporate profit is consumer ignorance. perfect knowledge drives down margins (the vast majority of the time, especially for true commodities). the internet reduces consumer ignorance and would obviously reduce margins on many items as folks could easily shop for the lowest price. it has been almost a decade since this was obvious to me.

remember dow 30k? it was book. that was its title. the ignorati actually bought this thing.

i missed out on most of the bubble. some of my small caps did well with the rising tide - so i can't complain. then again, i didn't get torched when the buble crashed. my investments are up nicesly since 2000. i recieved a $35k severence package in 2000 that i used to pay off a condo while everyone else was making mass money in the market. until it stopped. one friend made $500k in a year... only to lose $500k the next. he was fully taxed on the $500k and only gets to deduct $3k above gains for the losses... OUCH!

th emarkets represent psychology more than rationality - and people with money are entirely screwed up in the mind.

there are other issues - like monetary inflation that pushes more and more money (which cheapens each dollar) into the hands of the wealthy and they have to put it somewhere, right? low interest rates weren't appealing, so they "invested" it, hence part of the rising tide.

the problem is that this money is basically debt financed... and that game will crumble.

some people think 2000 was a boom / bust cycle.

imho, that's naive.

the bust has yet to reveal its ugly head. when it does, it will stress the very fabric of the world.

the Tibetian Plateau has elevation that makes it unique in the world. There's a new one million square mile hole forming in the ozone over that area, believed due to air ciculation and not cfc

By the way, just figure out how to turn this into gold with a friend running blog site in China. China on one hand wants to monitor the Internet and on the other hand wants to ensure the college graduates Internet proficiency. So, the business model is to run joint blog service with schools and ask school to mobilize their young communist parties members to monitor the blogs as well as posting blogs. This serves to increase the traffic and register bloggers and VC only look at number. So, the profit is actually possible.

Now, I wonder if this is how China will get to have 100 millions bloggers in 2007

And in other news,"Scientists investigating the mass disappearance of the Australian male have received confirmation today that it was indeed the Aussie males and their robots friends who stole the space shuttle. The space shuttle is currently heading towards a region of the galaxy known as W3(OH) ."

"King Kong" box office record

Big budget epic "King Kong" has generated 100.3 million yuan (about 12.5 million U.S. dollars) on the Chinese mainland, becoming the box office king among imported films in the past five years.

"King Kong," with a 207 million U.S. dollars budget and 540 million U.S. dollars in global box office revenues, has received four 2006 Oscar's nominees -- Art Direction, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Visual Effects.

So a 200% return on investment in the first year alone, not counting merchanidising, not counting DVD sales, DVD rentals, TV licensing and Hollywood accounting practices, isn't enough?

There's another thing as well - lower budget doesn't mean lower quality. I don't mean that you can get by with spending less on equipment, hiring unknown actors, etc, I mean that if tomorrow's average budget for films is a tenth of what it is now, you wouldn't notice from watching the films.

Drop the salaries across the board, and you won't get lesser performances. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie aren't going to stop trying so hard because they get paid $1 million per film instead of $20 million per film. Hell, you might get big name actors to work a bit longer before retiring.

Drop the advertising budget across the board, and you won't get less demand. You won't get any more competition from the low budget films because whatever Hollywood spends on advertising would still far outstrip people with limited budgets, even after massive reductions.

The only reason so much money gets spent on advertising and actors is because there's always somebody in Hollywood willing to spend more. It's a tragedy of the commons. If people weren't so eager to get the #1 name or the most airtime, the same films could be produced for a fraction of what they are at the moment.

If you can read Chinese, the original article suggests there will still be Latin-based URIs, and they will be used in tandem with the new, Chinese-based URIs. I think it should be interpreted as an alternative provided for those who don't understand English.

The original article (in Chinese) is here: http://news.xinhuanet.com/ec/2006-02/25/content_42 25973.htm

There were statements by government officials here in Hong Kong to that effect which is something that almost will never happen given the bias against chinese medicine here in Hong Kong at the governmental level.

see http://www.china.org.cn/english/scitech/68118.htm

Trumpeting?

see http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-06/12/conte nt_917113.htm

I live in Hong Kong and I know what I am talking about. I also personally know one Chinese medicine practitioner who was formerly a surgeon. He was in ER before he moved into Internal medicine and after all that, he chose chinese medicine. When he was still working in a hospital in China, his patients were all top brass and only a few 'lowly' ones ever got his service. He joined his wife here in Hong Kong which is the reason why he gave up his career in China.

BTW, chinese medicine does NOT cure illnesses. It only serves to adjust our immune system and our bodies do its work against whatever the pathogen is. That is where it excels over western medicine, which is mostly putting poisonous chemicals into our bodies or other destructive methods but some do become necessary, since it is rarely poisonous and even where it is a physical problem (tendons, slipped disks and so on) you will find superior 'traditional' pratices when compared to results you get from western medicines in all but the most extreme cases. This I can tell you from personal experience (except the most extreme case part but I guess we would all agree knee replacements and heart defects are beyond any non-surgical type of treatment).

In case anyone doubts the fake eggs story, here's a photo of one of the phony eggs: http://news.xinhuanet.com/photo/2004-12/28/content _2387255.htm The shell is made from calcium carbonate and the internals are mixed up (there's no defined yolk) and made from a mixture of gelatine, starch, alum, and a variety of other things.

China is saying "I know nothin'". I'm thinking "ye, right...."

Who even cares about some little "cyberattacks"? Our annual trade deficit is pushing a trillion dollars per year. For good or bad, that's what will even out the global balance of power.

* San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth research and "nonvolcanic" tremors.
* Earth is potentially out of new farm land.
* New insights into the rate of ozone recovery.
* Southeast Asia faces another danger of a large tsunami in the next few decades
* Cassino spots icy plumes on Saturn

The report is a "pre-announcement" of the railway, and has all the credibility of undiluted Chinese Propaganda. See ChinaView.CN's article http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/15/conte nt_3620072.htm for the unadulterated Chinese-English report of the ceremony - the government newsagency report is worth reading for the payout to the projects opponents.

The railway could be a wonderful feat of engineering - but you can't tell from these kind of reports. The railway traverses very inhospitable earthquake prone territory. How many slashdotters were aware that the day before the 8th October Pakistan Earthquake there was a large 5.0 richter scale earthquake with epicentre just 6 km from a mountain pass traversed by the railway http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_dxbv.html ?

For a google earth placemark of the location see http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Numb er/139349/an//page//vc/1 ?

I couldn't find any media reports of the earthquake - and certainly no mention of any impacts or lack of impacts on the railway.

If the railway survived this unscathed, it would be a great credit to it. So why no report from the Chinese or Western media ?

The Chinese might be good at building monuments, and certainly can spin wonderful propaganda. But until they've built a hint of democracy, can you really give any credit to their claims ?

Sorry, here it is.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/17/conte nt_3623214.htm

You missed the link to the chicks http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/15/conte nt_3618725.htm at the bottom of the page.

With these two accomplishments added to the Slashdot article about them having pasta first makes for a very big week for the Chimese. I have seen some speculation that some of the xinhua photos may have been fakes. They do look impressive. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-10/17/conte nt_3623214.htm

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the H5N1 bird flu strain is mutating into a new subtype which could be transmitted among humans

Xinhua as the story too. Interesting quote: The public will help information departments at all levels supervise news sites. Anyone who finds unhealthy online stories can visit http://net.china.cn/ and report.

Rather than quoting quotes about 'the story'...why not just go see it.

China tightens supervision over online news services
BEIJING, Sept. 26 -- Online news sites that publish stories containing fabricated information, pornography, gambling or violence are facing severe punishments or even shutdown.

These new measures were part of a new regulation on online news services, jointly introduced yesterday by the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Information Industry.

"We need to better regulate the online news services with the emergence of so many unhealthy news stories that will easily mislead the public," said a spokesman with the information office at a press conference yesterday.

Services that provide online news stories, that have bulletin board systems (BBS) or have the function of sending short messages containing news contents to individual mobile phones are all subject to the regulation.

News sites set up by news organizations but publishing not just their own stories, and sites by other organizations featuring news stories must get approval from the State Council Information Office. Sites by news organizations that only carry their own stories should register at the main office or provincial information offices.

The regulation also spells out that media attached to the central government or directly under provincial governments are not allowed to provide any stories to other online news sites without approval.

A temporary regulation on online news services was published in November 2000. But according to the spokesman, "it has lagged far behind the development of online news services, in technology, content and form. So it is necessary to have an updated version."

The public will help information departments at all levels supervise news sites. Anyone who finds unhealthy online stories can visit http://net.china.cn/ and report.

Reuters article quote:
"PARIS (Reuters) - A Paris-based media watchdog released a handbook on Thursday to help cyber-dissidents and bloggers avoid political censorship in countries as far apart as China, Iran, Vietnam and Cuba."

Xinhua article quote:
"BEIJING, Sept. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- A Paris-based media watchdog released a free guide Thursday to help bloggers and cyber-dissidents avoid political censorship in countries as far apart as Iran, Vietnam and Cuba."

Definitely culture. When I first got the chance to taste sashimi (raw fish), I had to fight 28 years of American culture in my mind telling me that I wanted to vomit. The fish did not taste bad and did not feel bad at all. After almost losing it several times, though, I decided to call it a success for a first try, rather than create an embarrassing situation. I have eaten sashimi on different occassions since then, though I still have to fight my culture sometimes.

I also remember eating rabbit as a child (my father raised them). I remember it being saltier and more greasy than chicken. I remember liking it. I also remember the time we took a bunny in as a pet. I remember not being comfortable eating rabbit after that. ;>

Here is an interesting twist on this 'mind over matter' issue. People can be convinced that they do not like a certain food.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/03/conte nt_3302779.htm

random links pulled off of google news just now

http://pakistantimes.net/2005/07/05/top6.htm

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=stor y_4-7-2005_pg7_27

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,15 815164%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8424511/

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-07/08/conte nt_3195248.htm

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?t ype=internetNews&storyID=2005-07-08T133115Z_01_YUE 843230_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-TELECOMS-PAKISTAN.XML

With all the more pressing issues for which supercomputers can be used, I don't believe that China is using the 18th fastest computer for weather forecasts. At least not the ones they publish in Xinhua, anyway. Is there any verifiable way to tell what that machine really does?

You do realize that most of those countries actually have national healthcare systems?

Actually I know little about the healthcare in any of these countries. I would assume China has national healthcare, being communist and all. All I know about healthcare in India is the reports of leprosy and meningitis. Our healthcare system may not be great, but at least you don't see much of this.

As far as the Russians, I googled their healthcare system and found this:

The newly restructured Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development has announced modernization of the Mandatory Medical Insurance system in Russia as one of its primary goals. The current Mandatory Medical Insurance system is inadequate and unable to guarantee access to the population not only to quality, but in some cases to basic healthcare treatment.

That's because those programs are a hybrid where the government pays money into the current patchwork private system. It combines worst of both worlds, but it's not the only way to do it.

Sure, there are other ways to run healthcare, but I'm willing to wager that whatever the US Government comes up with will be worse, not better. Actually, come to think of it there is currently a healthcare system the US Government does run right now. Good old Uncle Sam provides healthcare for all of our military people - and I'm sure we've all hear horror stories about them, but I'll go ahead and share one.

I have a relative that married a girl in the US Navy. While on active duty the US government generously provided the 'depo' shot as birth control. What they didn't tell her is they only administer it at half strength to keep costs down - so surprisingly she got pregnant. Why would the US government run a national healthcare system for all of it's citizens any differently?

Unless you can show that no nation besides the USA and a few third-world countries are economically viable, your assertion is proveably false.

Ummm... no. There is no way to determine if a country that is currently socialist would be more economically successful if they were more capitalist. It's all speculation. My point was, and is, that any time the US government gets involved in any system, the system becomes less economically viable. I'm not saying that we couldn't improve our healthcare system, but in this country, I don't think government run healthcare is the answer.

Concerning the North's efforts to contain bird flu, the ROK has been asked to help/send assistance to the North. The threat of bird flu (H5N1) and the resulting destruction of an important food source does not bode well for the DPRK.

Perhaps the South's robot technology can lead to robots that can spray disinfectants in the big chicken farms the North Koreans have (or had). Humans have to wear protective suits to do that.

Check out what one scientist says about bird flu killing 1 billion people.

Hope North Korea gets the aid it needs to contain the virus for a while longer.

The US is sending testing kits needed to determine the scope of the problem.