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Beijing Police To Launch Animated Web Patrols
Reader geoffrobinson notes an AP story on a new initiative by the police in Beijing to put a visible police presence on the screens of Chinese citizens. Starting Sept. 1, little animated cop figures will wander across the displays of users of a baker's dozen of Chinese Web portals. The program is set to expand by year's end to all sites "registered with Beijing servers," according to the report. The point of the anime-like figures seems to be to remind citizens that their Web usage is being monitored, not to actually implement any further monitoring themselves.
Bonzi Buddy got a new job!
What is next, an animated goatse reminding us of the horrors that are to be found on the internet?
If you google Tiananmen does a little animated tank come out and crush your cursor?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Big Brother is Watching You
During college I took a SOC or PSYC class (I forget which) and as part of the class you were required to "volunteer" as a subject in a study on campus. The one I was part of was doing data entry and every so often a little head would appear in the top corner that was to signify that a "supervisor" was watching what you did.
They wanted to see if your data entry slowed/sped up, if your errors increased/decreased, etc. While I don't know what the end result was, I was shown my results and found that when the "supervisor" was in the corner I was less attentive and my data entry slowed.
What if a majority of students/researchers in China are working on their Internet (yes, their) and the "virtua-cop" fucks up their work? I can't imagine that this will do anything but be ridiculous and annoying.
Waste your time on something else, seriously.
You look like you're trying to access the Real Internet! Would you like me to:
-block the sites you're trying to access
-uninstall your proxy software
-report you to the authorities for re-education
-subtly rewrite your search results
I assume that you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution. And it was not a revolution in the way that we normally understand it. From the article:
It was launched by the Communist Party of China's Chairman, Mao Zedong on May 16, 1966, officially as a campaign to rid China of its "liberal bourgeoisie" elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. It is widely recognized, however, as a method to regain control of the party after the disastrous Great Leap Forward led to a significant loss of Mao's power to rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and would eventually manifest into waves of power struggles between rival factions both nationally and locally.
Many people did die, but the net result was that some people who already had power got more, and some people that had power lost it (and frequently their lives).
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
This should streamline running Vista. Now whenever you are prompted for Allow/Deny the character will go ahead and choose Deny for you. Every time.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Maybe you should consider that a country can be fucked up even if it isn't the worst on Earth. Sure, we might be doing better than China based on some criteria, but that doesn't mean there aren't quite a few things seriously wrong. "If you don't like it, leave." No thanks. If I don't like it I'll do what I can to fix it. Pointing out what's wrong is the first step.
I live in China, and I can tell you that it's certainly not in a "death-like state like that the of Chinese government oppression". Sure, censorship exists, the government is quite corrupt and abusive, especially on the lower levels, and it can be hard to find a good book. It drives me up the wall sometimes, just how flat the popular culture is- anything controversial gets dropped like a hot rock.
On the other hand, there are raunchy popular novels (printed by half-legal vanity presses) being sold right outside my door. There's tons of (bad) modern art expressing the pain of living in Chinese society, and (bad) rock 'n roll expressing the pain of being young and unloved. Although there are fewer than 100 movies released to theaters each year on the mainland, every film ever made is sporadically available on DVD, from Deep Throat to To Live to They Live. Chinese people can find every sort of approved and forbidden idea under the sun if they're curious, and they're mostly free to discuss it in private. Publishing is another thing, but the Cultural Revolution is over, and you can pretty much say whatever you want to your friends.
China is booming, and the authorities can barely keep it under control. I won't defend their actions (although cartoon cops are hardly the worst things they do....) but the notion that China in any way resembles 1984 is absurd. While the government is sliding from totalitarian Communism towards plutocracy, the people are getting away with everything they can, and it's a lot. I don't hold out a lot of hope that we'll have big D Democracy here anytime soon, but to imagine that this country, or the US, or anyone else would somehow be better off in a Massive 3rd World War is insane.
You are insane.
Whoever the guy with the fastest missiles hates most ?
Please understand that having 9960 nuclear warheads in no way stops 130 enemy warheads from reaching you. While 130 nuclear warheads is not sufficient to carpet bomb a country the size of the USA, it is quite sufficient to take out large cities, industry, food production and central administration. The end result is likely massive death toll from starvation and plague, and collapse of the USA as a nation, or at the very least its removal from its world power status.
So no, no one dares attack China.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.