Basically China has immasculated the WTO, and I for one am sick of it. They want all the benefits but none of the costs of free trade. Every time America tries to protect one of its own industries, China raises a huge hissy fit and threatens the US with a trade war, although the amount of exports to China are so small we really could do without them.
I'm not sure why such vague flamebaiting by an AC was modded up so highly, but if anyone wants to examine the issues beyond nationalistic ranting, you might take a look at what the US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said on the issue U.S.-China Trade Relations in a recent speech at the Asia Society.
China is a vast nation with great diversity matched by a turbulent history. If current trends continue, sometime in the 2030s China will become the world's largest economy. Trade with China is crucial to the economic well-being of both the U.S. and the planet.
Check out CodeTek Virtual Desktop. I find it very useful, and usually run 12 desktops (each with separate wallpaper) for separating my different applications. Works well with expose, although I hope it the future there will be an option to combine the two, so that mini-views of all desktops can be displayed.
A stint in Peace Corps rewired me. I was forced to deal with people in complicated situations in an entirely new language (Korean), sing karaoke in front of 100s, joke daily with hordes of kids following me, etc. To my surprise I became a real social butterfly and developed a whole new personality that persists when traveling abroad and speaking in foreign langauges. Married a foreigner. ..
But, when back in the US, I still keep to myself and mostly don't enjoy the people around me.
Well, speaking as a long-time observer of Korea, who is non-Korean, but who lived in SK for eight years, has studied in Korean universities, and is currently teaching Korean history here in the U.S. at "a major university", most of what passes for "information" in the press on NK is totally misinformed at best and quite often FUD. Many times I just throw things at the screen in disgust.
Next time you read or hear something about Korea, just ask yourself, "does this person speak Korean?", "Has s/he lived there?" "Know anything about the history of the place?" Most often you'll find the answer is no. Would you value the ramblings of a North Korean opining on the U.S. with the equivalent understanding of English and American civ?
Mansourov (a Russian who's actually lived in NK) is a highly pleasant exception.
For a view of how Korean studies experts in the U.S. feel, check out this site.
Your view well reflects a European understanding of of the history of printing, including placing Europe in the center, but I do not believe it can sustain close examination.
Books and a wide variety of printed matter were broadly available throughout most of China, Korea, and (yes) Japan from the Sung period (i.e. late 10th century) on. Just check the catalog of any major library of East Asian materials.
Western printing technology was eagerly adopted by East Asians in the 19th century, along with new techniques of paper production, because it was far more efficient, having developed rapidly after the industrial revolution. Similiarly the www (a European/US) innovation was quickly taken up over the past decade by all the countries around East Asia. Gutenberg may or may not have independently developed his printing press, and printing did change European history, but that doesn't mean that in a very different part of the world printing hadn't develped earlier or been less transformative.
I think the reason for this is that it didn't go anywhere. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Gutenberg's press lead directly to the printing revolution that is still running rampant in the world today. What did the Korean press lead to? nothing..
"The printing revolution" began in East Asia and made books widely available to a wide segment of the population at a time when Europeans were still relying on hand-copying. To insist otherwise is to deny the existence of the vast treasure-trove of printed works in China, Korea, and Japan over the past millenium.
Xylography is a cost-effective way to print texts using Chinese characters; moveable type is not, given the formidable number of individual characters that need to be forged. Unlike in Europe, only the state had the resources necessary to create and maintain a moveable type printing press. The Chinese likely felt no economic or cultural need for it, but the Koreans did, for reasons that are debated but I believe stemmed from the political situtation in the 14th and 15th centuries.
With Ming dynasty (from 1368) China had shut its border to foreign states such as the Koreans, and it was becoming more and more difficult to obtain the quanity of books desired by the reading public. The government printing office, through use of moveable type, was able to reprint in a nimble fashion copies of imported works together with texts the state wanted to promulgate. Over the five centuries of the Choson dynasty the printing press contributed greatly to the cultural sophistication of Koreans and helped make up for the isolation imposed on it by China.
You don't have to be Korean or Chinese (I am neither) to appreciate the genius of Korean printing, a tradition now transmuted into widespead use of the web in South Korea.
Actually, it was the Koreans who invented moveable metal printing.
Like the Chinese, they used xylography (wood-block printing), acquiring the technology about a century after the Chinese developed it around the 6th century. The oldest survivng example of printing comes from Puguk Temple in Korea, thought to have been made about 750 A.D.
Chinese inventors such as Bi Sheng experimented with various kinds of moveable type using wood and porcelain during the northern Song period (11th century), but it was the Koryo dynasty Koreans who first used metal, in the 13th century. By the early 15th century it had become routinely used for state publications and many printed words from the period surive.
This was not a trivial technology, given the large number of individual characters and duplicates that needed to be forged. The famed kabin font of 1434 crafted under King Sejong had 250,000 separate characters!
For various reasons that have to do with both Euro- and Sino-centrism, the Korean contribution to printing is largely unknown and unappreciated.
Like most commentators you portray the 9/11 tragedy solely in American terms. Somehow we in the U.S. have sadly forgotten that many foreigners also died that day.
Absolutely. Let's fry everyone in Iraq who dares to resist an invading army. They all must murderers, too, right? How dare they fight the US, with its humane intentions?!
Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure why such vague flamebaiting by an AC was modded up so highly, but if anyone wants to examine the issues beyond nationalistic ranting, you might take a look at what the US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said on the issue U.S.-China Trade Relations in a recent speech at the Asia Society.
China is a vast nation with great diversity matched by a turbulent history. If current trends continue, sometime in the 2030s China will become the world's largest economy. Trade with China is crucial to the economic well-being of both the U.S. and the planet.
Check out CodeTek Virtual Desktop. I find it very useful, and usually run 12 desktops (each with separate wallpaper) for separating my different applications. Works well with expose, although I hope it the future there will be an option to combine the two, so that mini-views of all desktops can be displayed.
Same here--after a restore then reapplication all is well.
Otherwise no problems with 10.2.8 so far, but must say I miss my invisible dock background.
A stint in Peace Corps rewired me. I was forced to deal with people in complicated situations in an entirely new language (Korean), sing karaoke in front of 100s, joke daily with hordes of kids following me, etc. To my surprise I became a real social butterfly and developed a whole new personality that persists when traveling abroad and speaking in foreign langauges. Married a foreigner. . .
But, when back in the US, I still keep to myself and mostly don't enjoy the people around me.
Well, speaking as a long-time observer of Korea, who is non-Korean, but who lived in SK for eight years, has studied in Korean universities, and is currently teaching Korean history here in the U.S. at "a major university", most of what passes for "information" in the press on NK is totally misinformed at best and quite often FUD. Many times I just throw things at the screen in disgust.
Next time you read or hear something about Korea, just ask yourself, "does this person speak Korean?", "Has s/he lived there?" "Know anything about the history of the place?" Most often you'll find the answer is no. Would you value the ramblings of a North Korean opining on the U.S. with the equivalent understanding of English and American civ?
Mansourov (a Russian who's actually lived in NK) is a highly pleasant exception.
For a view of how Korean studies experts in the U.S. feel, check out this site.
Your view well reflects a European understanding of of the history of printing, including placing Europe in the center, but I do not believe it can sustain close examination.
Books and a wide variety of printed matter were broadly available throughout most of China, Korea, and (yes) Japan from the Sung period (i.e. late 10th century) on. Just check the catalog of any major library of East Asian materials.
Western printing technology was eagerly adopted by East Asians in the 19th century, along with new techniques of paper production, because it was far more efficient, having developed rapidly after the industrial revolution. Similiarly the www (a European/US) innovation was quickly taken up over the past decade by all the countries around East Asia. Gutenberg may or may not have independently developed his printing press, and printing did change European history, but that doesn't mean that in a very different part of the world printing hadn't develped earlier or been less transformative.
I think the reason for this is that it didn't go anywhere. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Gutenberg's press lead directly to the printing revolution that is still running rampant in the world today. What did the Korean press lead to? nothing..
"The printing revolution" began in East Asia and made books widely available to a wide segment of the population at a time when Europeans were still relying on hand-copying. To insist otherwise is to deny the existence of the vast treasure-trove of printed works in China, Korea, and Japan over the past millenium.
Xylography is a cost-effective way to print texts using Chinese characters; moveable type is not, given the formidable number of individual characters that need to be forged. Unlike in Europe, only the state had the resources necessary to create and maintain a moveable type printing press. The Chinese likely felt no economic or cultural need for it, but the Koreans did, for reasons that are debated but I believe stemmed from the political situtation in the 14th and 15th centuries.
With Ming dynasty (from 1368) China had shut its border to foreign states such as the Koreans, and it was becoming more and more difficult to obtain the quanity of books desired by the reading public. The government printing office, through use of moveable type, was able to reprint in a nimble fashion copies of imported works together with texts the state wanted to promulgate. Over the five centuries of the Choson dynasty the printing press contributed greatly to the cultural sophistication of Koreans and helped make up for the isolation imposed on it by China.
You don't have to be Korean or Chinese (I am neither) to appreciate the genius of Korean printing, a tradition now transmuted into widespead use of the web in South Korea.
Actually, it was the Koreans who invented moveable metal printing.
Like the Chinese, they used xylography (wood-block printing), acquiring the technology about a century after the Chinese developed it around the 6th century. The oldest survivng example of printing comes from Puguk Temple in Korea, thought to have been made about 750 A.D.
Chinese inventors such as Bi Sheng experimented with various kinds of moveable type using wood and porcelain during the northern Song period (11th century), but it was the Koryo dynasty Koreans who first used metal, in the 13th century. By the early 15th century it had become routinely used for state publications and many printed words from the period surive.
This was not a trivial technology, given the large number of individual characters and duplicates that needed to be forged. The famed kabin font of 1434 crafted under King Sejong had 250,000 separate characters!
For various reasons that have to do with both Euro- and Sino-centrism, the Korean contribution to printing is largely unknown and unappreciated.
Like most commentators you portray the 9/11 tragedy solely in American terms. Somehow we in the U.S. have sadly forgotten that many foreigners also died that day.
"All told, nearly 500 foreigners from 91 countries lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attack."
This was an attack on the World Trade Center, not just against the U.S.
Rather than recognize the significance of this crucial fact, we treat the matter as if it had been a strike against 3000 Americans in Omaha.
As opposed to the smiling and dancing in the streets after Bush loses the next election?
Absolutely. Let's fry everyone in Iraq who dares to resist an invading army. They all must murderers, too, right? How dare they fight the US, with its humane intentions?!
According to the Sydney Morning Herald:
Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald.
"Dead Bodies Everywhere"
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/21/10477
I don't know about the rest of you, but watching the bombing of Baghdad depressed me horribly.
A dark day for the United States of America. .
$500,000,000 spent on cruise missles today alone
What have we become?