Yes, it was in a rural area. Most of my stories reflect rural China. I have been to Shanghai several times. It is very different than the city I live in
Hell, that was probably me, an American taxpayer. $36 for a single article is a lot of money when a university professor is making about $300-$600 per month. And there is no way I can expect my students to pay that much for one article.
I do not see what post you are commenting on; or, if you statement is an independent statement. Because I can not see the context, I am left with a question about your statement.
When you sat "they" do you mean Americans, the people who attacked the WTC, or the people who just happen to live near the people who attacked the WTC?
Similarly, when you say "here" do you mean the US, or the nations that the US is occupying, or engaging in military activities in?
I looked on Baidu (China's version of Google). Yes, I did my search in Chinese. The stories are there. Yes, the spin is a little different; however, the facts in the stories are consistent with what is found in the English version of China Daily.
Your list is a bit out of date. This article in China Daily http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-05/02/content_12429037.htm reports that the number of crimes that can receive the death penalty has been reduced. Further, all cases of capital punishment must be reviewed by China's Supreme Court. The simple facts are that China, unlike the US is moving away from Capital punishment.
Further, China, unlike the US is instituting measures that call for greater police openness and accountability, as seen in this article http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/06/content_12456521.htm . The facts bear out the truth that China is striving toward the Ideal society that America once claimed to be reaching toward at the same time as America has moved away from the pursuit of that same goal.
It is true that the Chinese study for the test, and only the test; but, they also cheat at levels that would make an Americans head spin. I could tell many stories; but, they would be dismissed as the anecdotes of teaching in China since 2006. However, enough anecdotes and a trend becomes apparent.
I remember on class that declared that we no longer needed to prepare for a particular national level exam because they had pooled their money and purchased the answers. I was incredulous, I asked them who they had purchased the answers from.
They told me that there was a man near the school gate that had a friend in the testing office and he was selling the answers. They had paid quite a bit of money for this list.
I asked them the obvious question, do you think he is going to be at the gate to give you your money back if those answers turn out to be wrong? Let alone the personal loss that you will suffer if you fail one of your, only, two chances to pass this test?
I then told them that I can sell them a list of randomly selected As', Bs', Cs', and Ds'; but, I I wouldn't because the list would be worthless. Just as worthless as the list they had purchased.
I then went on with the lesson to prepare them for the exam, as if nothing had happened. Several of them stopped coming to class as they no longer need the information. After all, they already had the answers.
You know where this ends; and that is exactly where it did end. The ones who stayed in class, less than a quarter of them, passed the test. The others, who stopped coming to class because they already had the answers, failed.
I tell this story at the beginning of each Sophomore year (the test is in the second half of the Sophomore year). Yet, every year, a tremendous number of students fall for the same scam, and fail the test. Cheating is so deeply ingrained in the culture that they can not see any other way of doing things.
Again, this is just one of so many stories. Further, note, in class the students told the teacher that, and and how, they were going to cheat. The teacher, me reported it, and no one cared. the school would have been perfectly happy if the students had successfully cheated because it would have bumped up their pass rate.
The trouble is that the employers want very specific degrees to get the job in the first place. Without that, you can not ever display your "engineering mindset."
In my case I have over over ten years of experience in technical service work: fixing large copiers, high volume printers, and the like. Of course I also have the IT training and experience that goes with that skill-set.
I then returned to college and got my MBA. The result is that I am virtually unemployable. People who want technical workers specifically DO NOT want people who understand the business side of business; and people who want MBAs' do not want technical experience.
I happen to know that I am not alone. There are a surprisingly large number of people who have "good degrees" that are, at best, working for near minimum wage.
There is a Linux QQ client. However, it is only in Chinese. To make it worse, it is terribly (unusably) unstable.
I have tried to use it However, it crashes constantly and I can not plan on completing a chat session of just a few messages without needing to restart it at some point.
The lack of a, working, QQ client for Linux is one of the reasons (really the main reason) that I use windows on my desktop.
"Do you know what the prize is for second place in air combat? A tombstone."
You dial to mention that it is not just one tombstone, it is many. The entire US battle doctrine assumes air superiority. Even air parity would lead to significantly more US combat deaths in nearly all operations. I am not just talking about twice as many, I am speaking of several orders of magnitudes.
Further, there are savings that can come from an environment of assumed air superiority. As an example, a recent article in the peer reviewed Air and Space Power Journal called for the increased purchase of the BT-67.
For those who do not know, the BT-67 is an updated DC-3. That's right, a plane introduced in 1936 is still in service and production. Further, we are buying more. The fact that this aircraft is projected to see over 100 years of service life is made possible because it faces no significant air superiority threats. Having only air parity, and not superiority, has hidden costs that must be considered in the discussion of the cost of air superiority, not only now; but, into the future.
Just to clarify, in the end I was not out any legal fees and I agreed to remove the review and never mention the author, or publisher, in writing, again. It was still a rather lengthy and annoying ordeal for telling the truth. As it is said, no good deed goes unpunished.
I wrote the review, and posted it to my blog, in China; but, the suit was filed in California, USA. The grounds for choosing a US court was that the internet is international.
Within China the publisher tried to file a criminal charge of "interfering with a trade good." However, it basically got laughed out along with the admonishment that the standard for a review is not even truth, it was a lower threshold than that. The threshold that I had to meet was that I honestly believed that I was was truthful at the time that I wrote it. Seeing as what I wrote was truthful, there was no way to get the complaint past initial review in China.
As a teacher I reviewed a book that I tried for one semester in one of my classes. The review was quite mixed. It wasn't terrible; but I definitely had no intention of using the book again. You notice that I am not naming the book here. That was part of the final agreement.
This has definitely put a damper on my willingness to provide honest comments about the books used in my classes. It has also impacted my willingness to experiment with different materials. I pick a safe book used by other teachers and I never recommend experimentation. In a litigious society, the safe way really is the best way.
Sorry I took so long to answer. The Ruiji Supplicant is most commonly used on campuses (pretty much all College campuses). It is also used by many of the ISPs'. One of the main uses by ISPs' is to keep people from running LAN access to the internet.
I am not a programming major, I am an MBA; however, I have spoken to the computer students and campus staff about this. The staff is very proud that hey have a system that is so effective at keeping people, and unauthorized OSs' off the network. The students have been so ineffectual at defeating this program, or even getting the client to run, that the general consensus is that Linux does not work.
I mention this to the Linux crowd and of course they all start beating their chest and proclaiming that "I would be able to make it work," or," they must not know (insert favorite obscure procedure here)." However, the truth remains, the Chinese college students are not dumb.
I have NEVER seen Linux successfully connected to a campus network in China (or any other Internet connection). The consensus of the computer professionals and students that I have spoken to In China is that it can not connect to the internet. I do not think that every last one of them are stupid.
Of course there is the final problem encountered when attempting to advocate Linux in China. The question of, "why?"
It is quickly pointed out that windows has many advantages. Further, it too is free. Face it, if the Microsoft products were entirely free in the US, do you really think that Linux would have been as successful?
Remember the MBA part; in my professional opinion, a huge step toward Linux gaining popularity in China would be a functional and installable, Ruijie Supplicant client. As it is, there is none. However, it would still be an uphill battle fighting an installed Windows base and a price of Free.
Living in China I saw Re Flag Linux running once. Yes, I was looking for it, and had been looking for it for over two years. It was on a machine in a shop in Xian. I was playing with it a little and a sales man came over. I commented that this was the first computer I had seen running Red Flag.
The first thing he said was, "don't worry, if you buy the computer we will take that off and put Windows on it."
One problem with Linux in China is that the universities use a program called Ruijie Supplicant for authentication in order to access the network and internet. The Linux client does not work and has never worked (OK, there is one person that claims to have gotten it working, I tried copying his process and it didn't work for me or for the campus IT staff).
The internet is the killer app (not really an app, I know) for personal computers. If it can not be used to connect to the internet, it has no future in China.
I will also add that I consider the 90% number t be suspect. I do not believe that 10% are using fully licensed software. I base this on having lived in China since 2006.
First, I think ideas, like language, should be able to stand on their own merits, not needing to be legislated.
Second, I travel between the US and P.R. China (US citizen, Chinese resident). I have actually found it quicker to send text messages on my phone in Chinese than English. The words, typically, require less characters and the pinyin > Chinese quick lists work quite well.
All the same, I see legislation as a silly approach. That being said, I can see why it is being done. Frequently, in conversation, an English word is substituted, even by native Chinese speakers, were there is no easy Chinese substitute. This leads to conversations that have a fluid mix of Chinese and English being spoken.
While I see no problem with this, I can see how it could perturb a purist of either language.
We all agree that the best, long run answer would have been to say, "shit happens, carry on," while pursuing small scale, extremely targeted activities using CIA an military special operations personnel.
However, would this have sold well to the American people?
Sure, huge bounties and letters of marque would have been cheaper. But, without the huge loss that followed going it the "hard power" way is there any way people would have known it was cheaper?
If back in 2001 the presidents response had been, "shit happens," carry on, there is no possibility the he would have win re-election. Further, whoever did win would win because they would have promised to do what we are doing right now. We would be no better off.
I am not much of a programmer; so, this is not too relevant to me. However, I am saddened to see the last vestiges of Psion go.
I had several Psion PDA's and they were great. I used the early, and later generation palm devices, the windows CE and windows PDA devices along with the Psion. The keyboard on the Psion 5 series could not be beat in that form factor. It would have been interesting to see what they would have become if they had made it into the current era of wireless internet communications.
The PDAs are pretty much all replaced by smartphones. I even have a smartphone. I have discovered that they are not as good as the old combo of having a dedicated PDA and a dedicated cellphone. The simple fact is that smartphones are not that good as a phone. Further, they, needing to also be a phone are not optimized for use as a PDA. They are a classic example of a compromise device; or a multi-tool, they are not great ant any given function.
I have run into the, "single page of notes," option many times. I have to say that it is extremely helpful to me as I have a poor memory of things like formulas and names. This is due to a named and diagnosable cognitive issue. Being in my final semester of an MBA program (with no cheating, mind you), I make up for it in other ways.
I remember one instructors comment on the idea of books during exams and tests. It was during my undergrad yeas sin on of my engineering classes. His comment was, "no one is ever going to ask you to do anything significant and tell you that you can't use the book." In fact, I have found the opposite, people love it when they can come me with a question and I am able to, quickly, give them a referenced answer.
Returning to the point of note sheets in exams; one thing I do not like doing is giving people copies of my exam notes. The reason for this is simple. There is tremendous value in making the note sheet. Further, it is personalized in regards to style. I tell people asking for a copy that, of course, they can ave a copy; however, to do well on the exam, they should use it as a basis for forming their own note sheet, not to use the one I had written as it was.
That advise evolved to small study groups helping to insure that all at the study group had written a note sheet, and understood how to use what they had written (slightly off topic, running these groups is a great way for nerds to pick up on impossibly hot woman). I have sense taken this process to another step in my classes, I ask that all study sheets be written in the students own hand, to be turned in with the test for comparison to the handwriting on the exam. It should come as no surprise that there is a direct correlation between extensive note sheets and not only the students exam performance; but with, admittedly based on conversations with students, the students, overall, grasp of the subject.
Right, I haven't purchased a new game in years. I enjoyed Baulders gate series, mechwarrior 3 and the Fallout series. Then I tried half-life and was never able to get more than half way through, even with the cheats. I tried a few games after that and discovered that in the effort to wow people who do nothing but play games, people like me had been left behind.
The last game that I purchased, and still play is Sim City. I also play an online game, Pardus. Very simply, the games got too hard and they lost me as a customer.
I happen to know that I am not the only one. I look at what my friends are playing and I see them playing Diablo I & II again or replaying through Mechwarrior 3. Many people play games for relaxation, not a bout of frustration.
There is a profit to be made in satisfying that market.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it was in a rural area. Most of my stories reflect rural China. I have been to Shanghai several times. It is very different than the city I live in
Hell, that was probably me, an American taxpayer. $36 for a single article is a lot of money when a university professor is making about $300-$600 per month. And there is no way I can expect my students to pay that much for one article.
I do not see what post you are commenting on; or, if you statement is an independent statement. Because I can not see the context, I am left with a question about your statement.
When you sat "they" do you mean Americans, the people who attacked the WTC, or the people who just happen to live near the people who attacked the WTC?
Similarly, when you say "here" do you mean the US, or the nations that the US is occupying, or engaging in military activities in?
I looked on Baidu (China's version of Google). Yes, I did my search in Chinese. The stories are there. Yes, the spin is a little different; however, the facts in the stories are consistent with what is found in the English version of China Daily.
In truth, there are two headlines on this topic. The first is: Police arrest 25 to quell unrest in S China town http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-06/12/content_12678431.htm .
The Second is: Unfounded rumor sends local crowd into frenzy http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-06/13/content_12679447.htm .
These are just the English news sources.
I just did this search http://www.google.com/search?q=China+Riot&hl=en&newwindow=1&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&tbs=,qdr:w and came up with plenty of hits about the supposedly blocked subject. I am in central P.R. China.
This particular claim of censorship is nothing but lies by people who aim to discredit China. Again, the story is false, as a simple test will show.
Your list is a bit out of date. This article in China Daily http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-05/02/content_12429037.htm reports that the number of crimes that can receive the death penalty has been reduced. Further, all cases of capital punishment must be reviewed by China's Supreme Court. The simple facts are that China, unlike the US is moving away from Capital punishment.
Further, China, unlike the US is instituting measures that call for greater police openness and accountability, as seen in this article http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/06/content_12456521.htm . The facts bear out the truth that China is striving toward the Ideal society that America once claimed to be reaching toward at the same time as America has moved away from the pursuit of that same goal.
It is true that the Chinese study for the test, and only the test; but, they also cheat at levels that would make an Americans head spin. I could tell many stories; but, they would be dismissed as the anecdotes of teaching in China since 2006. However, enough anecdotes and a trend becomes apparent.
I remember on class that declared that we no longer needed to prepare for a particular national level exam because they had pooled their money and purchased the answers. I was incredulous, I asked them who they had purchased the answers from.
They told me that there was a man near the school gate that had a friend in the testing office and he was selling the answers. They had paid quite a bit of money for this list.
I asked them the obvious question, do you think he is going to be at the gate to give you your money back if those answers turn out to be wrong? Let alone the personal loss that you will suffer if you fail one of your, only, two chances to pass this test?
I then told them that I can sell them a list of randomly selected As', Bs', Cs', and Ds'; but, I I wouldn't because the list would be worthless. Just as worthless as the list they had purchased.
I then went on with the lesson to prepare them for the exam, as if nothing had happened. Several of them stopped coming to class as they no longer need the information. After all, they already had the answers.
You know where this ends; and that is exactly where it did end. The ones who stayed in class, less than a quarter of them, passed the test. The others, who stopped coming to class because they already had the answers, failed.
I tell this story at the beginning of each Sophomore year (the test is in the second half of the Sophomore year). Yet, every year, a tremendous number of students fall for the same scam, and fail the test. Cheating is so deeply ingrained in the culture that they can not see any other way of doing things.
Again, this is just one of so many stories. Further, note, in class the students told the teacher that, and and how, they were going to cheat. The teacher, me reported it, and no one cared. the school would have been perfectly happy if the students had successfully cheated because it would have bumped up their pass rate.
The trouble is that the employers want very specific degrees to get the job in the first place. Without that, you can not ever display your "engineering mindset."
In my case I have over over ten years of experience in technical service work: fixing large copiers, high volume printers, and the like. Of course I also have the IT training and experience that goes with that skill-set.
I then returned to college and got my MBA. The result is that I am virtually unemployable. People who want technical workers specifically DO NOT want people who understand the business side of business; and people who want MBAs' do not want technical experience.
I happen to know that I am not alone. There are a surprisingly large number of people who have "good degrees" that are, at best, working for near minimum wage.
"- Skype is the only instant messaging app that doesn't integrate well with multi-network libs like purple from Pidgin."
Wrong, QQ also will not work with Pidgin.
There is a Linux QQ client. However, it is only in Chinese. To make it worse, it is terribly (unusably) unstable.
I have tried to use it However, it crashes constantly and I can not plan on completing a chat session of just a few messages without needing to restart it at some point.
The lack of a, working, QQ client for Linux is one of the reasons (really the main reason) that I use windows on my desktop.
That was supposed to say, "you fail to mention," not, "you dial to mention."
"Do you know what the prize is for second place in air combat? A tombstone."
You dial to mention that it is not just one tombstone, it is many. The entire US battle doctrine assumes air superiority. Even air parity would lead to significantly more US combat deaths in nearly all operations. I am not just talking about twice as many, I am speaking of several orders of magnitudes.
Further, there are savings that can come from an environment of assumed air superiority. As an example, a recent article in the peer reviewed Air and Space Power Journal called for the increased purchase of the BT-67.
For those who do not know, the BT-67 is an updated DC-3. That's right, a plane introduced in 1936 is still in service and production. Further, we are buying more. The fact that this aircraft is projected to see over 100 years of service life is made possible because it faces no significant air superiority threats. Having only air parity, and not superiority, has hidden costs that must be considered in the discussion of the cost of air superiority, not only now; but, into the future.
Just to clarify, in the end I was not out any legal fees and I agreed to remove the review and never mention the author, or publisher, in writing, again. It was still a rather lengthy and annoying ordeal for telling the truth. As it is said, no good deed goes unpunished.
I wrote the review, and posted it to my blog, in China; but, the suit was filed in California, USA. The grounds for choosing a US court was that the internet is international.
Within China the publisher tried to file a criminal charge of "interfering with a trade good." However, it basically got laughed out along with the admonishment that the standard for a review is not even truth, it was a lower threshold than that. The threshold that I had to meet was that I honestly believed that I was was truthful at the time that I wrote it. Seeing as what I wrote was truthful, there was no way to get the complaint past initial review in China.
As a teacher I reviewed a book that I tried for one semester in one of my classes. The review was quite mixed. It wasn't terrible; but I definitely had no intention of using the book again. You notice that I am not naming the book here. That was part of the final agreement.
This has definitely put a damper on my willingness to provide honest comments about the books used in my classes. It has also impacted my willingness to experiment with different materials. I pick a safe book used by other teachers and I never recommend experimentation. In a litigious society, the safe way really is the best way.
All those lovely verbs for the taking and you choose the non-word "gotten".
Got Dictionary?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gotten
Its a word.
Sorry I took so long to answer. The Ruiji Supplicant is most commonly used on campuses (pretty much all College campuses). It is also used by many of the ISPs'. One of the main uses by ISPs' is to keep people from running LAN access to the internet.
I am not a programming major, I am an MBA; however, I have spoken to the computer students and campus staff about this. The staff is very proud that hey have a system that is so effective at keeping people, and unauthorized OSs' off the network. The students have been so ineffectual at defeating this program, or even getting the client to run, that the general consensus is that Linux does not work.
I mention this to the Linux crowd and of course they all start beating their chest and proclaiming that "I would be able to make it work," or," they must not know (insert favorite obscure procedure here)." However, the truth remains, the Chinese college students are not dumb.
I have NEVER seen Linux successfully connected to a campus network in China (or any other Internet connection). The consensus of the computer professionals and students that I have spoken to In China is that it can not connect to the internet. I do not think that every last one of them are stupid.
Of course there is the final problem encountered when attempting to advocate Linux in China. The question of, "why?"
It is quickly pointed out that windows has many advantages. Further, it too is free. Face it, if the Microsoft products were entirely free in the US, do you really think that Linux would have been as successful?
Remember the MBA part; in my professional opinion, a huge step toward Linux gaining popularity in China would be a functional and installable, Ruijie Supplicant client. As it is, there is none. However, it would still be an uphill battle fighting an installed Windows base and a price of Free.
Living in China I saw Re Flag Linux running once. Yes, I was looking for it, and had been looking for it for over two years. It was on a machine in a shop in Xian. I was playing with it a little and a sales man came over. I commented that this was the first computer I had seen running Red Flag.
The first thing he said was, "don't worry, if you buy the computer we will take that off and put Windows on it."
One problem with Linux in China is that the universities use a program called Ruijie Supplicant for authentication in order to access the network and internet. The Linux client does not work and has never worked (OK, there is one person that claims to have gotten it working, I tried copying his process and it didn't work for me or for the campus IT staff).
The internet is the killer app (not really an app, I know) for personal computers. If it can not be used to connect to the internet, it has no future in China.
I will also add that I consider the 90% number t be suspect. I do not believe that 10% are using fully licensed software. I base this on having lived in China since 2006.
First, I think ideas, like language, should be able to stand on their own merits, not needing to be legislated.
Second, I travel between the US and P.R. China (US citizen, Chinese resident). I have actually found it quicker to send text messages on my phone in Chinese than English. The words, typically, require less characters and the pinyin > Chinese quick lists work quite well.
All the same, I see legislation as a silly approach. That being said, I can see why it is being done. Frequently, in conversation, an English word is substituted, even by native Chinese speakers, were there is no easy Chinese substitute. This leads to conversations that have a fluid mix of Chinese and English being spoken.
While I see no problem with this, I can see how it could perturb a purist of either language.
We all agree that the best, long run answer would have been to say, "shit happens, carry on," while pursuing small scale, extremely targeted activities using CIA an military special operations personnel.
However, would this have sold well to the American people?
Sure, huge bounties and letters of marque would have been cheaper. But, without the huge loss that followed going it the "hard power" way is there any way people would have known it was cheaper?
If back in 2001 the presidents response had been, "shit happens," carry on, there is no possibility the he would have win re-election. Further, whoever did win would win because they would have promised to do what we are doing right now. We would be no better off.
I am not much of a programmer; so, this is not too relevant to me. However, I am saddened to see the last vestiges of Psion go.
I had several Psion PDA's and they were great. I used the early, and later generation palm devices, the windows CE and windows PDA devices along with the Psion. The keyboard on the Psion 5 series could not be beat in that form factor. It would have been interesting to see what they would have become if they had made it into the current era of wireless internet communications.
The PDAs are pretty much all replaced by smartphones. I even have a smartphone. I have discovered that they are not as good as the old combo of having a dedicated PDA and a dedicated cellphone. The simple fact is that smartphones are not that good as a phone. Further, they, needing to also be a phone are not optimized for use as a PDA. They are a classic example of a compromise device; or a multi-tool, they are not great ant any given function.
I have run into the, "single page of notes," option many times. I have to say that it is extremely helpful to me as I have a poor memory of things like formulas and names. This is due to a named and diagnosable cognitive issue. Being in my final semester of an MBA program (with no cheating, mind you), I make up for it in other ways.
I remember one instructors comment on the idea of books during exams and tests. It was during my undergrad yeas sin on of my engineering classes. His comment was, "no one is ever going to ask you to do anything significant and tell you that you can't use the book." In fact, I have found the opposite, people love it when they can come me with a question and I am able to, quickly, give them a referenced answer.
Returning to the point of note sheets in exams; one thing I do not like doing is giving people copies of my exam notes. The reason for this is simple. There is tremendous value in making the note sheet. Further, it is personalized in regards to style. I tell people asking for a copy that, of course, they can ave a copy; however, to do well on the exam, they should use it as a basis for forming their own note sheet, not to use the one I had written as it was.
That advise evolved to small study groups helping to insure that all at the study group had written a note sheet, and understood how to use what they had written (slightly off topic, running these groups is a great way for nerds to pick up on impossibly hot woman). I have sense taken this process to another step in my classes, I ask that all study sheets be written in the students own hand, to be turned in with the test for comparison to the handwriting on the exam. It should come as no surprise that there is a direct correlation between extensive note sheets and not only the students exam performance; but with, admittedly based on conversations with students, the students, overall, grasp of the subject.
I started to read the article and got distracted. . .
I'll finish it later.
Right, I haven't purchased a new game in years. I enjoyed Baulders gate series, mechwarrior 3 and the Fallout series. Then I tried half-life and was never able to get more than half way through, even with the cheats. I tried a few games after that and discovered that in the effort to wow people who do nothing but play games, people like me had been left behind.
The last game that I purchased, and still play is Sim City. I also play an online game, Pardus. Very simply, the games got too hard and they lost me as a customer.
I happen to know that I am not the only one. I look at what my friends are playing and I see them playing Diablo I & II again or replaying through Mechwarrior 3. Many people play games for relaxation, not a bout of frustration.
There is a profit to be made in satisfying that market.