"C'mon yourself. That last bit is a hyperbolic reduction meant to provoke a negative response and justify the whole "religious fanatic" analogy. I'll take it otherwise the day somebody sets off a bomb"
This has already happened. Remember the uni-bomber? In all, the guys writings were right in there with main stream environmentalism. After reading up on that, take a moment to observe that many of the terrorist groups, and activities, in the US are related to environmentalist groups.
I am not saying that they are wrong; but, to deny that they exist is just plain dishonest.
"Besides, I'd be surprised if we aren't doing the same thing to China, at least I'd hope we are. It's a bit more difficult in our case, since we don't have tens of thousands of American engineers and students flooding Chinese companies and schools."
You have two issues in this paragraph. the first is "Besides, I'd be surprised if we aren't doing the same thing to China, at least I'd hope we are."
To that I say, "no way." For one thing, it is so much easier in the US. The Chinese people are fiercely nationalistic, in the US we practically consider being called nationalistic to be an insult. Here in China, shopkeepers and schoolteachers frequently report my location and activities to the police for fear that I may be a spy.
I know men who have gone to the US in order to observe (I hesitate to use the word study only because too many people associate that word with something that is done in school) US methods and practices in various industries. That simple does not happen in China. A visa would not be granted for that purpose, it is called spying and for philosophical purposes (which the Chinese think is proof that we are stupid and weak; thus, thus deserving to become a vassal state)the US encourages others to spy on it, while the Chinese punish it severely.
The second issue that you raise is, "we don't have tens of thousands of American engineers and students flooding Chinese companies and schools."
As far as companies, the reason is twofold. First, it is nearly impossible for a foreigner to get a work permit (They are almost limited to import/export companies and education. Remember, a foreigner can not own a business in China) , remember the fiercely nationalistic part? Even if a foreigner did get a work permit, the racism within China would severely limit the foreigners job opportunities (the racism applies within groups of Chinese and severely limits the non-Han Chinese also).
The second reason is simply that westerners would not work under the Chinese system for long. I know people who have worked at Chinese import/export firms and once their contracts were up they left. While the stories often featured physical and sexual abuse, the biggest single complaint is being treated like property. Which, of course, for the term of the contract, they are.
I have sat through a Chinese business meetings, where management spoke to employees, and just observed (yes, written about somewhere in my blog) The style is simple, management gives orders and workers say, "yes sir" in unison while standing at attention (then the workers later grumble about not having the tools to follow the orders; but, no one says that to the manager). There are very good things to say about the Chinese labor system; however, there are reasons that westerners do not work for Chinese.
As far as not attracting students, the University that I work for has played with this idea; the idea of attracting western students. Not only would it add great prestige to the University; but, it woulds also aid their students in learning about western countries (not to mention that Western students would pay 5-10 times the tuition of a Chinese student).
The trouble with this is both the quality of the instruction and the conditions. I have about 150 computer science and information technology students. They are studying windows 2K. In a lecture on another subject, I pulled up a spreadsheet (open office calc) and asked them what kind of a program it was (I teach English within computer science at a university). The answer they gave me was, "Excel." There was no understanding that Excel was the name of a program, not a type of program (they understand the concept, we had already done several similar lessons).
Even the upperclassmen are hindered by school policies. A simple example is that they have to pay for computer time, even as CS majors. This means that writing and debugging is done on paper and computer time is limited to typing and running. This limits experimentation (as does the entire cul
"Most Windows software has already been replaced with equivalent or better free software apps."
Case in point: The ranch management software (Lions Edge Ranch Manager) that my wife uses is not available in anything but windows. That is one of the main reasons that she has not migrated to OS X or Linux (aside from a bad experience when I was first using Linux in the 90s'). I have tried WINE (Yes, in the 90s') and was never able to get it to work.
I understand the Linux communities, "well, then write a program that will do what you want to do, by yourself." I do not have the time, interest, or skill to write all the software that I want to use by myself. The computer is no longer a hobby to me, it has moved down to the level of "tool" as such, I want it to work.
"Sitting on a dusty shelf in an old Boulder Creek, California, barn owned by programmer and author Bruce Damer, the Macintosh SE 30 1891 T at first appears to be a standard all-in-one Mac from the mid-1980s."
It isn't just once but all through the story; so, I have to take it that they meant to write what they did. I am just amazed that there were computers in 1891 that were functionally similar to those of the 20th century.
As I read this, my wife is playing Geneforge III. Hee mother is also playing it. The near total abandonment of story driven RPGs has resulted in a lot of women, that I know, sticking to older games.
Yes, but in my experience, the way that employers get around this is by asking, "Are you to any non-compete agreements or contracts." If you are then you will not be hired due to the new company wanting to avoid potential legal battles. This has the effect of black balling people who leave your company.
Rather obviously, you do not have an answer. Instead you spew the fanboy answer of, "anyone who doesn't agree with me is a troll." However, that does not answer my question.
I have owned several gameboys, starting with the black and white, than the GBA followed by the folding GBA, which was a huge improvement. I have not replaced it because I have seen no compelling DS games.
I used to enjoy games like Castlevania; however, I grew bored with the side scrolling "jump" games. Metroid is tempting and it shows that the parts to make a non-childish looking game are there; but, nothing was done to continue that concept. Instead, they returned to the over sized head, cartoon, characters that are characteristic of Nintendo.
So, is it just that the dev packs make this style of characters unusually easy, is it that about 75% (number based on your sample) of the authors of nintendo games like that style, or is there some other reason... not a troll, a question
I played Fire emblem and Zelda and I have seen Wii Sports. They have childish looking cartoon characters. Out of the four that you named, one has non children cartoon looking characters, that is 25%. I do know what I am talking about and you are only supporting my point.
Is there a reason that nearly all of Nintendo's games have such silly looking characters? I have to say that it really turns me off from Nintendo products. I do not need photo-realism. I really like the Bioware Infinity Engine based games, such as Fallout and Baldur's Gate. The cartoon characters are just too hard for me to enjoy (stats, over 40, married, male).
1. The average security guard/police officer is not involved in electronics. If they were, they would more likely seek jobs that have better pay in these fields.
I think that if you bother to look, you will see that Police and Airport security make more than electronics types. The supposed low pay of these jobs is a hoax that keeps people willing to constantly hand them more and more money, whenever they ask for it.
I used to do a lot of caving. However, I moved and the people in the new area are too secretive. They are so afraid of people finding out where the caves are that they wont let anyone join, the Forest service will not allow entry unless you are a member of the group. So, Caving in this area (Siskiyou County, Northern California, is totally dieing.
A tremendous amount of sites are blocked. Many of them are barely political at all. I can not even get to my own blog. I can post but not view. Of course, there is wikipedia; but then, there is also VOA. It is incredible, the students are tested on a standardized test using material from VOA; however, they can not go to the site. To download the mp3s of the VOA broadcasts there are back door ways of doing it; but, it is just plain stupid. It is part of the TEM4 exam.
I am not going to bother listing the NON-PORN sites that I can not access. Rest assured that I hit one of these sites almost daily. Most Chinese are not aware of the firewall, this is true, they just think that this is the way the Internet works.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Asus Eee PC. I have been looking for a "modern Tandy 100" for some time. I just want small, light, cheap and able to do simple writing and spreadsheet. I do not want a game machine. As far as formatting, I can do that later on an apple when I get back. I just want something for field notes. This looks like it may be it
To the folks who say "forgive and forget," that the arrestee wasn't harmed or should drop the case - remember that, in most cases, today, the public entity you've just been arrested by is a municipal corporation, and carries many of the protections of a business corporation. Cities generally act as corporations do - to deny wrongdoing, and to put up a lawyer front. That leaves only one way to combat wrongful arrest: sue. The city won't apologize, that's tantamount to admission of wrongdoing. It is up to the arrestee to assert that wrong was done, and prove it in court.
Many people also forget that being arrested for any reason, even if the charges are later dropped, or the arrestee found to be not guilty or innocent can and will leave you being denied certain employment and privileges. An example is this from "Teach For America's" website Criminal records/proceedings
Teach For America reserves the right to deny admission to or dismiss any corps member who has been involved in a criminal proceeding other than a minor traffic violation, regardless of the outcome.
It will also limit (read make impossible) a persons ability to work as a social worker, ability to foster children, and make it much harder to adopt. If this person is ever involved in a CPS investigation, he will be assumed to be a "high risk" individual, greatly increasing the likely hood of having his children detained by the state. There are plenty of "non-punishments" packed into the system.
Putting normal people, not geeks, in front of the computer and asking the to preform tasks. Then record what they do, and try to do. Then fix the things that frustrate them, change the things that they try to do in the wrong order so that the order the computer wants is th eorder that the typical user tries.
Sorry, you are completely out of touch with business majors. I chose business for two reasons, first, I am not good at math (understand that not good does not mean that I can not add, it just meas that calculus and advanced algebra left me looking for help in the math lab) and rote memorization; that pretty well lets out the sciences.
There was also the purely mercenary reason, that you allude to, that I wanted to be able to earn more after going to college than before going. As it turned out, I completely failed at this goal. After finishing college (seven years now) I have never earned, not even in real dollars, totally ignoring inflation adjusted dollars, as much as I was earning before college. However, the hope of improving myself financially and eventually having money to retire (I see that goal slipping away on a daily basis) was the reason for not going for a easy major (which I have later learned pay more than Business, heck, being a welder or electrician pays more than being a business major; when I return to the States I expect to be left looking for a job bagging groceries or pumping gas [thank God they still have gas pumping jobs in Oregon]).
So, ignoring the last rant, your caracature of a business major does not hold. Business majors have passions (bicycling, motorcycling, caving, photography, and painting in my case); however, there is also the training to temper passion with thought.
I just find myself offended by the portrayal of a business major as an ignorant frat boy. While I am sure that all majors have their fair share of that type (and not all Frat members are ignorant louts) most were serious and wanted to be able to plan and function in business better. This is where it goes back to Linux, they are not sure that they can plan on Linux.
I am not too sure what government office you have looked at and seen something other than Microsoft; but I have not seen it. The Public Security Bureau (PSB) is what I think of as a government office (The police, which, in comparison to the US, is very nationalized)uses Microsoft exclusively. The schools use only Microsoft.
There are only a handful of occasions that I have seen non-Microsoft products in use in what has now been over a year of living in China. I have seen Apple computes in two places, the first is in Hostels, where they are very popular with foreigners, and the second is in stores that cater to foreigners (of course there is a third place, I have an Apple computer that I can not connect to the Internet where I live and work because the school I am at is married to Microsoft through the use of "Ruijie Supplicant" authentication software, which only runs on Windows platforms).
I also saw Red Flag Linux once, and only once, on a computer at a computer store. It was not garnering much attention because, as it was told to me, it will not run any software (of course by this, they meant games written for the Windows platform).
The Chinese, even the computer majors I have spoken to, are pretty much unaware of any alternatives to Microsoft, they have heard of Apple; but, in general, have not even heard of Linux.
I have a similar situation here in China. I purchase my phone. Thats it, no contract or anything. I hand the sales person my cash (almost all business is done in cash here) and they hand me the phone. No contract or anything else.
I then take the SIM card out of my old phone and pop it in; or, if I want to, I take the new phone to the phone company (China Mobile) and get another SIM card.
I do not doubt that the service would be even less if there were competition; however, the point here is that the phone and the service are separate transactions. It seems more expensive the first time but when you work out the costs it is less. It is less because the cost of the phone is stated, and negotiated, instead of being hidden in the contract. If I do not like the cost of a particular phone then I purchase another model or go to another sales person who is selling the exact same phone and may have it for less.
I thought the article was pretty good, written from a newbie point of view. Still, I think the above qoute is a little harsh. If the instructions are clear, I really do not see this as a big deal. I think most people would be relatively comfortable with doing this as long as the steps are clearly outlined.
1. Open file xyz
2. Find the section that reads xxx
3. Replace xxx with xxy
4. Save and close the file.
I think it is a reasonable standard. I remember when I was trying to use Linux, I gave it a two year try from about '99 to '01, and whenever I had a problem, if I got any help at all, which was seldom, th eadvise consisted of, "you just need to edit your.conf files." Well Hell, I can sort of figure that one out! which one! This system has a zillion of them.
I finally gave up on Linux because I needed to do some work on the computer and not just play on it. The idea of spendiong hours or days tinkering on files is fun in school but annoying to the point of being unusable when trying to be productive. You make th eprocess seem easy, it was anything but easy. I still have boxes of Linux books in my garage from my attempts to make Linux work.
Go ahead and try to look at Google Earth in China. The closest you can zoom into is a drawn outline with major rivers. Satelite imagry is totaly forbidden. This is the country that, this year, outlawed private mapping activities.
Same here, when my family came to America my Grandmother forbade my father from speaking French and refused to teach us, the grandchildren, French. Her reasoning was simple, you are in America, you will be Americans. The device part is that after our family worked hard to become Ameticans, other imagrants are seen coming over and trying to make America the place they just left.
Of course, the counter point is that learning a new language is very hard and takes time. Having been in China about nine months I am just begining to be able to communicate on a VERY basic level. The residents need to be very patient with people that are learning (and the Chinese are) and offer assistance instead of rudeness.
It can not succeed as "just another tech-toy" it has to meet a need. That is where the linked articl was very thin. Will it replace my Pocket PC and is it better? Just running Linux is not enough.
Slashdot Mirror
"C'mon yourself. That last bit is a hyperbolic reduction meant to provoke a negative response and justify the whole "religious fanatic" analogy. I'll take it otherwise the day somebody sets off a bomb"
This has already happened. Remember the uni-bomber? In all, the guys writings were right in there with main stream environmentalism. After reading up on that, take a moment to observe that many of the terrorist groups, and activities, in the US are related to environmentalist groups.
I am not saying that they are wrong; but, to deny that they exist is just plain dishonest.
"Besides, I'd be surprised if we aren't doing the same thing to China, at least I'd hope we are. It's a bit more difficult in our case, since we don't have tens of thousands of American engineers and students flooding Chinese companies and schools."
You have two issues in this paragraph. the first is "Besides, I'd be surprised if we aren't doing the same thing to China, at least I'd hope we are."
To that I say, "no way." For one thing, it is so much easier in the US. The Chinese people are fiercely nationalistic, in the US we practically consider being called nationalistic to be an insult. Here in China, shopkeepers and schoolteachers frequently report my location and activities to the police for fear that I may be a spy.
I know men who have gone to the US in order to observe (I hesitate to use the word study only because too many people associate that word with something that is done in school) US methods and practices in various industries. That simple does not happen in China. A visa would not be granted for that purpose, it is called spying and for philosophical purposes (which the Chinese think is proof that we are stupid and weak; thus, thus deserving to become a vassal state)the US encourages others to spy on it, while the Chinese punish it severely.
The second issue that you raise is, "we don't have tens of thousands of American engineers and students flooding Chinese companies and schools."
As far as companies, the reason is twofold. First, it is nearly impossible for a foreigner to get a work permit (They are almost limited to import/export companies and education. Remember, a foreigner can not own a business in China) , remember the fiercely nationalistic part? Even if a foreigner did get a work permit, the racism within China would severely limit the foreigners job opportunities (the racism applies within groups of Chinese and severely limits the non-Han Chinese also).
The second reason is simply that westerners would not work under the Chinese system for long. I know people who have worked at Chinese import/export firms and once their contracts were up they left. While the stories often featured physical and sexual abuse, the biggest single complaint is being treated like property. Which, of course, for the term of the contract, they are.
I have sat through a Chinese business meetings, where management spoke to employees, and just observed (yes, written about somewhere in my blog) The style is simple, management gives orders and workers say, "yes sir" in unison while standing at attention (then the workers later grumble about not having the tools to follow the orders; but, no one says that to the manager). There are very good things to say about the Chinese labor system; however, there are reasons that westerners do not work for Chinese.
As far as not attracting students, the University that I work for has played with this idea; the idea of attracting western students. Not only would it add great prestige to the University; but, it woulds also aid their students in learning about western countries (not to mention that Western students would pay 5-10 times the tuition of a Chinese student).
The trouble with this is both the quality of the instruction and the conditions. I have about 150 computer science and information technology students. They are studying windows 2K. In a lecture on another subject, I pulled up a spreadsheet (open office calc) and asked them what kind of a program it was (I teach English within computer science at a university). The answer they gave me was, "Excel." There was no understanding that Excel was the name of a program, not a type of program (they understand the concept, we had already done several similar lessons).
Even the upperclassmen are hindered by school policies. A simple example is that they have to pay for computer time, even as CS majors. This means that writing and debugging is done on paper and computer time is limited to typing and running. This limits experimentation (as does the entire cul
I'd mod the parent up; but, that might land me on a "watch list."
"Most Windows software has already been replaced with equivalent or better free software apps."
Case in point: The ranch management software (Lions Edge Ranch Manager) that my wife uses is not available in anything but windows. That is one of the main reasons that she has not migrated to OS X or Linux (aside from a bad experience when I was first using Linux in the 90s'). I have tried WINE (Yes, in the 90s') and was never able to get it to work.
I understand the Linux communities, "well, then write a program that will do what you want to do, by yourself." I do not have the time, interest, or skill to write all the software that I want to use by myself. The computer is no longer a hobby to me, it has moved down to the level of "tool" as such, I want it to work.
That story is utterly amazing.
"Sitting on a dusty shelf in an old Boulder Creek, California, barn owned by programmer and author Bruce Damer, the Macintosh SE 30 1891 T at first appears to be a standard all-in-one Mac from the mid-1980s."
It isn't just once but all through the story; so, I have to take it that they meant to write what they did. I am just amazed that there were computers in 1891 that were functionally similar to those of the 20th century.
As I read this, my wife is playing Geneforge III. Hee mother is also playing it. The near total abandonment of story driven RPGs has resulted in a lot of women, that I know, sticking to older games.
Yes, but in my experience, the way that employers get around this is by asking, "Are you to any non-compete agreements or contracts." If you are then you will not be hired due to the new company wanting to avoid potential legal battles. This has the effect of black balling people who leave your company.
I have owned several gameboys, starting with the black and white, than the GBA followed by the folding GBA, which was a huge improvement. I have not replaced it because I have seen no compelling DS games.
I used to enjoy games like Castlevania; however, I grew bored with the side scrolling "jump" games. Metroid is tempting and it shows that the parts to make a non-childish looking game are there; but, nothing was done to continue that concept. Instead, they returned to the over sized head, cartoon, characters that are characteristic of Nintendo.
So, is it just that the dev packs make this style of characters unusually easy, is it that about 75% (number based on your sample) of the authors of nintendo games like that style, or is there some other reason... not a troll, a question
I played Fire emblem and Zelda and I have seen Wii Sports. They have childish looking cartoon characters. Out of the four that you named, one has non children cartoon looking characters, that is 25%. I do know what I am talking about and you are only supporting my point.
Is there a reason that nearly all of Nintendo's games have such silly looking characters? I have to say that it really turns me off from Nintendo products. I do not need photo-realism. I really like the Bioware Infinity Engine based games, such as Fallout and Baldur's Gate. The cartoon characters are just too hard for me to enjoy (stats, over 40, married, male).
I travel frequently in China. The train stations all have baggage scanners and the trains have police stationed on them.
I think that if you bother to look, you will see that Police and Airport security make more than electronics types. The supposed low pay of these jobs is a hoax that keeps people willing to constantly hand them more and more money, whenever they ask for it.
I used to do a lot of caving. However, I moved and the people in the new area are too secretive. They are so afraid of people finding out where the caves are that they wont let anyone join, the Forest service will not allow entry unless you are a member of the group. So, Caving in this area (Siskiyou County, Northern California, is totally dieing.
A tremendous amount of sites are blocked. Many of them are barely political at all. I can not even get to my own blog. I can post but not view. Of course, there is wikipedia; but then, there is also VOA. It is incredible, the students are tested on a standardized test using material from VOA; however, they can not go to the site. To download the mp3s of the VOA broadcasts there are back door ways of doing it; but, it is just plain stupid. It is part of the TEM4 exam.
I am not going to bother listing the NON-PORN sites that I can not access. Rest assured that I hit one of these sites almost daily. Most Chinese are not aware of the firewall, this is true, they just think that this is the way the Internet works.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Asus Eee PC. I have been looking for a "modern Tandy 100" for some time. I just want small, light, cheap and able to do simple writing and spreadsheet. I do not want a game machine. As far as formatting, I can do that later on an apple when I get back. I just want something for field notes. This looks like it may be it
Many people also forget that being arrested for any reason, even if the charges are later dropped, or the arrestee found to be not guilty or innocent can and will leave you being denied certain employment and privileges. An example is this from "Teach For America's" website Criminal records/proceedings Teach For America reserves the right to deny admission to or dismiss any corps member who has been involved in a criminal proceeding other than a minor traffic violation, regardless of the outcome.
It will also limit (read make impossible) a persons ability to work as a social worker, ability to foster children, and make it much harder to adopt. If this person is ever involved in a CPS investigation, he will be assumed to be a "high risk" individual, greatly increasing the likely hood of having his children detained by the state. There are plenty of "non-punishments" packed into the system.
Putting normal people, not geeks, in front of the computer and asking the to preform tasks. Then record what they do, and try to do. Then fix the things that frustrate them, change the things that they try to do in the wrong order so that the order the computer wants is th eorder that the typical user tries.
Repeat until using linux is easy
Sorry, you are completely out of touch with business majors. I chose business for two reasons, first, I am not good at math (understand that not good does not mean that I can not add, it just meas that calculus and advanced algebra left me looking for help in the math lab) and rote memorization; that pretty well lets out the sciences. There was also the purely mercenary reason, that you allude to, that I wanted to be able to earn more after going to college than before going. As it turned out, I completely failed at this goal. After finishing college (seven years now) I have never earned, not even in real dollars, totally ignoring inflation adjusted dollars, as much as I was earning before college. However, the hope of improving myself financially and eventually having money to retire (I see that goal slipping away on a daily basis) was the reason for not going for a easy major (which I have later learned pay more than Business, heck, being a welder or electrician pays more than being a business major; when I return to the States I expect to be left looking for a job bagging groceries or pumping gas [thank God they still have gas pumping jobs in Oregon]). So, ignoring the last rant, your caracature of a business major does not hold. Business majors have passions (bicycling, motorcycling, caving, photography, and painting in my case); however, there is also the training to temper passion with thought. I just find myself offended by the portrayal of a business major as an ignorant frat boy. While I am sure that all majors have their fair share of that type (and not all Frat members are ignorant louts) most were serious and wanted to be able to plan and function in business better. This is where it goes back to Linux, they are not sure that they can plan on Linux.
I am not too sure what government office you have looked at and seen something other than Microsoft; but I have not seen it. The Public Security Bureau (PSB) is what I think of as a government office (The police, which, in comparison to the US, is very nationalized)uses Microsoft exclusively. The schools use only Microsoft.
There are only a handful of occasions that I have seen non-Microsoft products in use in what has now been over a year of living in China. I have seen Apple computes in two places, the first is in Hostels, where they are very popular with foreigners, and the second is in stores that cater to foreigners (of course there is a third place, I have an Apple computer that I can not connect to the Internet where I live and work because the school I am at is married to Microsoft through the use of "Ruijie Supplicant" authentication software, which only runs on Windows platforms).
I also saw Red Flag Linux once, and only once, on a computer at a computer store. It was not garnering much attention because, as it was told to me, it will not run any software (of course by this, they meant games written for the Windows platform).
The Chinese, even the computer majors I have spoken to, are pretty much unaware of any alternatives to Microsoft, they have heard of Apple; but, in general, have not even heard of Linux.
I have a similar situation here in China. I purchase my phone. Thats it, no contract or anything. I hand the sales person my cash (almost all business is done in cash here) and they hand me the phone. No contract or anything else.
I then take the SIM card out of my old phone and pop it in; or, if I want to, I take the new phone to the phone company (China Mobile) and get another SIM card.
I do not doubt that the service would be even less if there were competition; however, the point here is that the phone and the service are separate transactions. It seems more expensive the first time but when you work out the costs it is less. It is less because the cost of the phone is stated, and negotiated, instead of being hidden in the contract. If I do not like the cost of a particular phone then I purchase another model or go to another sales person who is selling the exact same phone and may have it for less.
I think it is a reasonable standard. I remember when I was trying to use Linux, I gave it a two year try from about '99 to '01, and whenever I had a problem, if I got any help at all, which was seldom, th eadvise consisted of, "you just need to edit your .conf files." Well Hell, I can sort of figure that one out! which one! This system has a zillion of them.
I finally gave up on Linux because I needed to do some work on the computer and not just play on it. The idea of spendiong hours or days tinkering on files is fun in school but annoying to the point of being unusable when trying to be productive. You make th eprocess seem easy, it was anything but easy. I still have boxes of Linux books in my garage from my attempts to make Linux work.
Go ahead and try to look at Google Earth in China. The closest you can zoom into is a drawn outline with major rivers. Satelite imagry is totaly forbidden. This is the country that, this year, outlawed private mapping activities.
Of course, the counter point is that learning a new language is very hard and takes time. Having been in China about nine months I am just begining to be able to communicate on a VERY basic level. The residents need to be very patient with people that are learning (and the Chinese are) and offer assistance instead of rudeness.
It can not succeed as "just another tech-toy" it has to meet a need. That is where the linked articl was very thin. Will it replace my Pocket PC and is it better? Just running Linux is not enough.
...inertia...