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China's Superior Technologies
paRcat writes "Still think China is a land too far away from everything? This article compares some of China's common uses of technology to what we're accustomed to in the West. With the genius traffic lights and the cell phone coverage... I'm kinda jealous."
In the Twin Cities.....
We have parking status as you enter downtown, accessible also via a web page. Traffic cameras blanket the freeway system, also via web page.
In St. Paul a lot of the traffic lights have countdown timers.
They are also close to have the debit cars for our new light rail line.
I was a bit disappointed with these ten points. I live in Sweden and compared to our standards this list isn't that impressive. Our mobilephones work everywhere and they cost you 10 cents to buy (honestly!). We have computer seating maps in the theaters and movie theaters. And parking signs contain the number of free spaces.
Sure, we don't have everything on the list though. I'd love to have those intelligent stop lights for instance.
I guess the bottom line is that Canada is pretty far behind.
There are a lot of things that foster innovation. One of them is culture and China may have a problem here. Confucian ideals do not foster innovation and those ideals are quite common in China. It takes a long time for people to get that kind of thing out of their bones.
Right now, the US of A is the best environment in which to innovate. In fact it is our only advantage. If we manage to kill innovation, we are toast. DMCA, Patriot Act and software patents come to mind in this regard.
About Jan Wong: She used to write a column called 'Lunch With Jan'. She would interview people and then trash them in print. She could pick up on the slightest thing; anything the victim said or did could be twisted and used to mock them. Naturally, she ran out of people stupid or desperate enough to have lunch with her. She even trashed her own family; grandmother, aunts etc.
You can't drink the water from the tap
Hocking loogies in public seems to be a national pastime
Air pollution so bad that on some days it looks foggy
Diseases like malaria and dengue fever (more a 3rd world than 1st world problem)
China may have cool tech, but the basic infrastructure sucks.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
China a "modern country"?
)
With a "government for the people"?
Hello? Is there anybody home?
In China you get into jail for saying what you think. People are imprisoned and tortured. Human rights violated. How much a nerd does one need to be in order to trade cellphone coverage for freedom?
(Amnesty International's report on China is worth a read: http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/chn-summary-eng
I was in China earlier this summer and despite their "genius traffic lights" and cellphone coverage, you can still walk behind the internet bars and savvy shopping marts and find dirt roads, people living on other's garbage and sewage in the streets.
The modernization of Chinese technology is less important than the quality of life of its people. In my opinion, they need to focus less on getting every single person in their country internet and more on getting every single person in their country fed and clean.
They are going to make the shift to nookular and hydro power much more smoothly than us. This is because:
Couple all of that with the world's largest cheap labor force and you have something that will definitely be more than competitive with the US and the EU.
I'd also say that China and the US are just as unsavory as Iran. It all just depends on from whence you're doing the observing.
...if they have reservation touch screens for their Falon Gong Reeducation Centers? Can I denounce someone to the secret police by reporting their reactionary bourgeois activities with a camera cell phone?
What about coffins and death beds? If I want to die in China of some easily preventable disease, black lung, or speaking my mind, can I reserve my place a head of time with a cell phone?
To be exact, he said : "Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera", which translates into : "when Chine will awake, the world will tremble".
Almost every developing nation is 1/50th the size of the US as well. Why not compare state by state cell phone coverage?
Jan Wong rocks! "Lunch with..." used to be my favourite feature in the Globe, her catty comments were priceless!
You would have freaked at last Saturday's Globe, where this piece originated, because the whole edition was on China, with several articles by JW. This particular article was a fluff piece tucked in a corner, but the rest of the edition was quite insightful.
As for Jan being a "bit" of a communist sympathiser - you should check out _Red China Blues_ sometime. It's her very-readable account of how she left Canada as an impressionable little proto-Maoist university student to study in Beijing, her subsequent disillusionment during the Cultural Revolution, and her return to China during the late 1980s, where she wound up reporting on the events in Tiananmen Square. Good stuff...
Hmm.... you musn't live in New York then or a living in an ideal city because:
1- Cell phone coverage sucks... no matter who you are using noone has coverage in the subway, nor in the elevator of my buildings, or even very bad coverage where some friends live.
2- yea, warning, that is different from a countdown. Do you know exactly how many seconds are left between red and green? Nope? Well in china you do...
3- Again, I live in NY and although taxis should have that (I do take taxis at least 3 or 4 times/week), I almost never take any that do accept. What they are talking about in China is the same card used for everything.
4- Park!=different from exercise machine. They have parks in China, AND exercise machines. You just don't do the same thing on those 2 things.
5- Do you live in the city with no thiefs? Lucky you... I have yet to see restaurants with hooks under the table, maybe the 2 or 3 times a week I go out to different places are not sufficient. Oh and by the way,all the places tell you that they are not responsible in case of lost item left to them.
6- They didn't say they don't have internet/phone access, I am sure they do as well... But it is in addition, because sometime it is just nice to be able to go to a Branch and have a live person.
7- Again, refer to 5, I have never seen that in NY.
8- yes, but they refer to in advance of going to the parkings. They have signs that tell you which parkings are full, how many spots left, BEFORE you even go near. How neat!
9- seating maps, I would agreed can be found at _some_ places, but can you reserve your seat in the movie theater? Haven't seen that...
10- hemming... What a pain in the neck... Buying something at Bloomingdale. "How's wednesday next week would be for you?" and that is on a Thursday... I would gladly wait 10mn to have it same day.
Poor you...
I worked in Nordstrom a while ago. As far as I remember, they'd do this.
"... always going forward 'cause we cant find reverse! "
"Let a thousand flowers bloom," is an interesting quote. This comment was made by Chairman Mao in the 1970's to see who really opposed his policies by letting everyine express themselves. There was a period of free speech and outpourings of democratic writings, especially on college Campuses, that was followed by brutal repression and jailings of many university students and professors when Mao felt like it had run it's course.
"Let a thousand flowers bloom," was more or less a political tactic by Mao to exterminate his enemies in the Communist Party. Not sure what this has to do with economic policy and such.
I think America ignored European patents in the 18th and 19th century.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Amnesty International's report on the USA is worth a read as well: http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/usa-summary-eng
Get a small clue. The fact that you can say that you do not like it shows how free you are. Do you know anyone that has been arrested? Are you really afraid? Sure standing up saying that you do not like the Patriot act "and I do not" is important but saying that that the US or the UK has the same level of freedom as China is.... Well stupid.
Yes oppose the Patriot act. Work to get it overturned. But do not equate it with China.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Do you know anyone that has been arrested? Jose Padilla? Ahmed Hamdi?
Lets be clear about this. This administration would like to have the power to keep United States citizens in detention, without access to counsel or judicial review. Why have they not been able to? Because the Supreme Court said they could not. So the system works right? We'll see. Bush named Thomas as one of his favorite justices. IIRC, Thomas was the only one of the justices that said, "Yes, the executive branch should have the ability to do this to US citizens without oversight."
The question is not whether you are too paranoid, its whether you are paranoid enough. The biggest weapon of mass destruction right now happens to be sitting in the White House.
What a silly thing to say.
Abu-gharaib was a travesty that is ending with the guilty being brought to justice...well, at least some of them. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that all the criminals have been captured. But as least the rats are scurrying for cover.
The human rights violations in China result in public acclomation and promotions.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The poster you replied to made some pretty reasonably points though that you didn't address. The US did make Usama Bin Laden who he is now. The US have supplied Saddam when it suited them. The US supported the government hit squads that murdered civilians in El Salvador. I'm not saying that other Western countries that haven't persued similarly evil foriegn policies, but you can't be blind to your own country's wrong-doing whilst trying to 'correct' the wrong-doings of other countries.
In a nutshell, all of the things the article talks about are already pretty much reality in Europe (or at least Finland). China ought to concentrate on improving the quality of life for their people instead of trying to impress foreigners with technology they've already had for decades.
If Americans are impressed with that technology but discouraged by the fact that China has immense political problems (not unlike USA ;-), just move to Finland.
I've been living in China for over 2 years, and have travelled extensively there. I hate crap articles that for the most part aren't true. I'll take this one step by step:
intro:
supermarket spills - alas, they don't bother to disenfect anything at the average supermarket. Some recent imports, Carefour etc., might do better, but simply moving the spill around with water and then drying it might not seem hygenic to some.
free head-and-shoulder massages w/ haircut: this is true. And it's an excellent service. But I usually cut my own hair cause I don't want it to look jacked. You can also get handjobs and blowjobs for 30-100 yuan more. Great services. The Chinese are way ahead of us here.
free movie ticket couriers: true. All couriers for services are free in my experience. Currently their online stores also use these couriers. You order online and a guy comes on a bike with your books and you pay him. quite nice.
duvet covers (even in rural china): yes. it's true. but, if they are freshly laundered, why do they smell so bad? Most of the time you feel like the blankets have been sitting in a smelly closet for weeks, not like they just came in off the line.
automated lockers: they're starting to use them in some stores. Most have places where you check your bag with a person.
taxis, subways, etc with panels and tv: true for about 1% of all taxis (if that much) the buses with tv are pretty annoying but they are thankfully few and far between (there are many more buses with wooden floors with holes where you can see the road)
electronic fly swatter: this is so cool! some are shaped like a small tennis racket. you push a little button and electricity runs through the wire strings. great fun killing bugs and for using on friends when they're drunk.
magnetic-levitation train: it's amazing. so is there space program. So is the realization that they are doing this despite the fact that so many of their people live in complete poverty and would love to have a better life.
1) Cellphones: coverage is extensive. prices aren't that cheap, but it is pay as you go. You pay for incoming and outgoing calls (the same for each)/ SMS messages (cheaper for incoming). on an average month I'll spend about 150-200RMB which works out to 20-25USD.(I like to SMS a lot and don't like using talking on the phone much--most of the time other people call me) It doesn't seem that much cheaper to me. Might have something to do with the Monopoly that is China Mobile.
2)Traffic Lights: this is true, and they are using them more and more. Beijing's use of them is pretty light (no more than 5% of all ligths-a VERY generous estimate as I've only seen 2 or 3), but in Southern cities like Guangzhou or Guilin, most traffic lights are of this type. Unfortunately in China red light means, "I can still go through the extension for the next five seconds."
3)transit debit cards: I haven't been to shanghai in a while, so I'll assume this is true. They do give a lot of nice things to Shanghai (they being the communist party). Taxi receipts are printed. One of the main reason is so that you can report a taxi driver who took you for a ride.
4)Adult playgrounds: true (at least for Beijing--I haven't seen them in small cities; a small city in china is still over 1million people). They also have an occasional program on TV on how to use these machinese. They range from things where you swing your legs and arms like a floating cross trainer, to weight lifting contraptions, to pull up bars, to ping pong tables in some places. And Chinese old people are more active than their western counterparts. But I'd hardly call the air fresh.
5)anti-theft slipcovers: ?????? this is to prevent theft? I never knew it was such a problem. I thought it was so that your clothes don't smell like smoke or get food on them. It's a nice touch. I like them. not in the average rundown restaurant. please note: this doesn't keep wait staff from stealing your cellphones off the table when you