I was thinking already "then they are making a really good salary". And that I mean serious. Really. When it comes to money, if that amount is true, they have nothing to complain about.
You should not just look at "what can you buy in China for this amount" (in China your money lasts maybe 3-5 times longer than in western Europe when it comes to basic expenses such as food, public transport, clothing, etc - I find it really hard to guess). You also have to look at what the typical salaries are in a country. For example a self-cooked meal costs you maybe 1 Euro while a similar meal costs 1.5 Euro in a restaurant in China. In Europe that same self-cooked meal may cost you a bit more at 2 Euro, but a similar meal in a restaurant easily sets you back 12 Euro. Much bigger difference. Driving a car in China may even be more expensive than in Europe: the purchase price of a new car is way higher in China due to the high luxury taxes. Gas on the other hand is way cheaper. Trains and buses are also pretty cheap. As you see lifestyle matters when it comes to comparing expenditure.
Back to the salary mentioned here. This number indicates 4.50 RMB per hour, or (15 hours a day, 30 days a week) 2025 RMB per month.
Your run-of-the-mill factory worker is happy with half that. Common salaries (and they are still going up fast) are about 800-1000 RMB per month for unskilled factory work. And that is up from some 600 RMB per month just a few years ago (so we're talking about a 50% salary increase in a few years time!), and set to continue to rise, particularly in the Pearl River Delta area. A textile worker in the Yangtze River Delta area could make some 300 RMB per month, that is now also up to around 500-600 RMB.
If that salary number is true, then it is hardly "sweatshop work". It contradicts what I expect from the combination of "sweatshop", "15-hour working days" and "16-17 year olds".
Oh and for more comparison: a university graduate can expect a similar income. Not working 15-hour shifts of course, but with a diploma under their belt, while these mice builders presumably have no more than basic secondary education.
And then the photos of sleeping Chinese... they do not have to be exhausted to sleep. Chinese sleep everywhere and anywhere. Really interesting behaviour.
A few days ago I browsed Apple's web store (looking at their current laptop offerings), and there the battery life was listed for "wireless browsing" as activity.
So indeed relative low overall CPU usage, sometimes working hard (loading page) and mostly idle (reading).
And I bet they will dim the screen when measuring those battery lives.
Buffy started off with a "monster of the week" formula as well, the first season at least, I don't remember exactly how long they kept that up but many many episodes had a "monster of the week". Similar concept. Worked out very well for that show.
And on top of that it's all sounding highly opportunistic, good chance that the people in these parties prove poor politicians I have seen that happening in The Netherlands around the party founded by the late late Pim Fortuyn - the result was a lot of infighting and five, six parliamentary elections in 8 years time. His party gained some 15-20% or so of the votes, out of nothing. By then we had had the murder of Mr Fortuyn already and the party started to resemble a wrestling ring more than a proper political party. They were big enough alltogether to completely mess up the government, resulting in several cabinets since - slowly cleaning it up.
This "pirate party" movement is different because it is more in the fringes so won't cause this kind of upsets but on the other hand I don't think much will really come out of it.
You average consumer does not care what OS is running on the phone. They care about the phone only.
99% of the iPhone buyers won't even know that it is powered by this software package called "iPhone OS". And the rest doesn't care as long as it works.
Same for Android. The only reason for Android to appear on more phones than say Windows or PalmOS or whatever OS there is for phones, is that manufacturers like it. Not because consumers walk into a phone shop asking for "an Android-powered smart phone". Just like they will not ask for an "iPhone OS powered phone". They will just pick up an iPhone instead.
The Android runs on maybe dozens of phones by now. It would be sad of those dozens of phones together could not keep up with the iPhone.
Imagine this: the iPhone is one in a market of in total just ten different smartphones, 1 of them running iPhone OS, 2 of them WinCE, and 7 of them Android, then it would become no surprise if Android is #1 in market share, WinCE #2 and iPhone OS #3.
Now say that in this market iPhone OS has 30% market share, Android 50% and WinCE 20%. Android is the largest in market share. But actually iPhone OS powered smartphone is doing really well (10% of the models with 30% market share). And Android phones are doing worse (50% market share on 70% of the models) than WinCE phones (20% market share and 20% of the models).
By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.
Thanks for the advice. I'll pass on the Nexus One then.
A phone just has to work, that's it. Make phone calls, take photos, keep tel. numbers and maybe appointments. If it's not good out of the box then it's not good.
That is the first thing I thought when I read this article. Oh and please note I'm not a fanboi or so. I like my iBook, use it now, works fine, serves me well. I also love the Ubuntu box connected to the other side of the KVM switch.
Back to Apple.
It started basically with the iPod (though that took a while): Apple enters a new market with a new device - that hardwarewise is not spectacular but looks nice and so. A few years later it was the reference player - as if there was no other.
Then after a year or so of rumours there it finally was: the iPhone. Yet another smartphone in a saturated market. Weeks later, sorry days later, the iPhone was the smartphone against which all other smartphones were compared. Within weeks we were talking about "iPhone killers".
Now the iPad has been released. Not the only computer in this format, not the first one. Half a year or so ago at some major conference this new format got the name "slate". It is all but forgotten. Apple has released the iPad and with all it's shortcomings it is already the reference device.
It has been released for just weeks now. And already it's apparently so dominant in the market that "Google [is] preparing [a] iPad rival". No they are not bringing out a "slate-device", but it's an "iPad rival".
Apple's marketing is really beating Microsoft's here, and then I'm talking about the best times of MS marketing (I think around 1995 and the release of Win 95). I'm really impressed by what Apple has pulled off again.
MS is a software company. OK they build some game console and are known for their mice, but that's about it hardware wise.
So no wonder MS is "no-where to be found", other than as the primary operating system driving almost all other "pads" or "slates" or how-ever you want to call them.
[...]allowed euthanasia for the terminally ill, under certain conditions and with a lengthy process.
That law was then probably designed with both parties in mind: giving those that want euthanasia something to look out for, and those that are against it way to delay it so long that it is not necessary any more.
How about the update servers? Most installations are automatically set up to regularly check for updates. Just count the number of unique IP addresses for a reasonable estimate.
In the discussions about China's hacking here on/. it was mentioned that the US government probably has a back door into Gmail. And Yahoo and the rest as well of course. This as there is supposedly some law over in the US that requires telecom companies to provide means for wiretapping. Originally meant for telephone only, this was rumoured to be extended to webmail providers, some posters even going as far as claiming that telcos (including webmail providers) must provide a direct back door for government access.
No hard evidence was given, of course.
And then there is something like the PATRIOT act that (also according to/. comments) allows the government to subpoena communications (e.g. the contents of a gmail account) and on top of that require this subpoena to remain secret from the person whose data has been subpoenaed.
In other words: if someone says the US government has accessed private data stored on gmail (or yahoo mail, or hotmail - why are this kind of discussions always about gmail anyway? There are more webmail providers out there) then I would take their word for it. Even if the US gov't would claim never to have done such things I wouldn't believe them, thinking of the illegal wiretapping scandals under Bush. That part of trust is lost, and the funny thing about trust is that it is gained hard and lost easily.
In this case, from what I know about scary laws in place in the US, I would give gmail the benefit of the doubt and simply assume that they do share data with the US government.
They mention India also has a No First Use policy: only use it when being attacked with nukes in the first place.
Nukes are scary enough as they are, it would be great if Obama would adopt a same NFU policy. He has plenty of other firepower and the backup of nukes to keep sufficient deterrent.
Besides these days warfare is more and more towards relative small, highly targeted attacks. And that are not two words that I think of when I'm thinking of a nuclear attack. As such nukes are totally useless against modern targets such as terrorists.
Sorry too lazy to look for references but not so long ago I read in a news paper that China has a no-first-attack policy when it comes to nukes. They have them but will only use them in retaliation. That is the official policy at least. Whether you believe them is up to you.
So not only is Obama not the fist in a policy like this; China seems to go even further and use it retaliation-only, without further conditions sas far as I know. Which leaves enough loopholes as we have seen with Iraq: "if we don't have the proper intelligence to use nukes we will just invent it".
Now re-read GP. Your post may be true but not applicable to this case.
The spider gathers a lot of bits and pieces of data (you may call it facts: bits and pieces of information that users have posted) from the Facebook web site, and then this guy produces a new collection of said data. Which in turn may well be copyrighted.
Slashdot Mirror
I was thinking already "then they are making a really good salary". And that I mean serious. Really. When it comes to money, if that amount is true, they have nothing to complain about.
You should not just look at "what can you buy in China for this amount" (in China your money lasts maybe 3-5 times longer than in western Europe when it comes to basic expenses such as food, public transport, clothing, etc - I find it really hard to guess). You also have to look at what the typical salaries are in a country. For example a self-cooked meal costs you maybe 1 Euro while a similar meal costs 1.5 Euro in a restaurant in China. In Europe that same self-cooked meal may cost you a bit more at 2 Euro, but a similar meal in a restaurant easily sets you back 12 Euro. Much bigger difference. Driving a car in China may even be more expensive than in Europe: the purchase price of a new car is way higher in China due to the high luxury taxes. Gas on the other hand is way cheaper. Trains and buses are also pretty cheap. As you see lifestyle matters when it comes to comparing expenditure.
Back to the salary mentioned here. This number indicates 4.50 RMB per hour, or (15 hours a day, 30 days a week) 2025 RMB per month.
Your run-of-the-mill factory worker is happy with half that. Common salaries (and they are still going up fast) are about 800-1000 RMB per month for unskilled factory work. And that is up from some 600 RMB per month just a few years ago (so we're talking about a 50% salary increase in a few years time!), and set to continue to rise, particularly in the Pearl River Delta area. A textile worker in the Yangtze River Delta area could make some 300 RMB per month, that is now also up to around 500-600 RMB.
If that salary number is true, then it is hardly "sweatshop work". It contradicts what I expect from the combination of "sweatshop", "15-hour working days" and "16-17 year olds".
Oh and for more comparison: a university graduate can expect a similar income. Not working 15-hour shifts of course, but with a diploma under their belt, while these mice builders presumably have no more than basic secondary education.
And then the photos of sleeping Chinese... they do not have to be exhausted to sleep. Chinese sleep everywhere and anywhere. Really interesting behaviour.
By being dedicated it is very good at doing a special task, and that means using far less power than the CPU would for the same task.
A few days ago I browsed Apple's web store (looking at their current laptop offerings), and there the battery life was listed for "wireless browsing" as activity.
So indeed relative low overall CPU usage, sometimes working hard (loading page) and mostly idle (reading).
And I bet they will dim the screen when measuring those battery lives.
I have to agree with that. Uma was pretty good as Emma Peel but no match to the original.
Buffy started off with a "monster of the week" formula as well, the first season at least, I don't remember exactly how long they kept that up but many many episodes had a "monster of the week". Similar concept. Worked out very well for that show.
I was also deeply disappointed after reading the first lines of TFA... plus there is a movie of The Avengers already, and it's pretty good even.
I agree with that.
And on top of that it's all sounding highly opportunistic, good chance that the people in these parties prove poor politicians I have seen that happening in The Netherlands around the party founded by the late late Pim Fortuyn - the result was a lot of infighting and five, six parliamentary elections in 8 years time. His party gained some 15-20% or so of the votes, out of nothing. By then we had had the murder of Mr Fortuyn already and the party started to resemble a wrestling ring more than a proper political party. They were big enough alltogether to completely mess up the government, resulting in several cabinets since - slowly cleaning it up.
This "pirate party" movement is different because it is more in the fringes so won't cause this kind of upsets but on the other hand I don't think much will really come out of it.
But, according to TFA, "they didn't crash". That should be a selling point for those phones, no?
Or is it more of an indication on the general state of modern smart-phones that not crashing every other hour is becoming a selling point?!
Don't worry.
You don't have to rent if you don't want to. You even don't have to buy it if you don't want to.
You average consumer does not care what OS is running on the phone. They care about the phone only.
99% of the iPhone buyers won't even know that it is powered by this software package called "iPhone OS". And the rest doesn't care as long as it works.
Same for Android. The only reason for Android to appear on more phones than say Windows or PalmOS or whatever OS there is for phones, is that manufacturers like it. Not because consumers walk into a phone shop asking for "an Android-powered smart phone". Just like they will not ask for an "iPhone OS powered phone". They will just pick up an iPhone instead.
The iPhone comes basically in one model.
The Android runs on maybe dozens of phones by now. It would be sad of those dozens of phones together could not keep up with the iPhone.
Imagine this: the iPhone is one in a market of in total just ten different smartphones, 1 of them running iPhone OS, 2 of them WinCE, and 7 of them Android, then it would become no surprise if Android is #1 in market share, WinCE #2 and iPhone OS #3.
Now say that in this market iPhone OS has 30% market share, Android 50% and WinCE 20%. Android is the largest in market share. But actually iPhone OS powered smartphone is doing really well (10% of the models with 30% market share). And Android phones are doing worse (50% market share on 70% of the models) than WinCE phones (20% market share and 20% of the models).
By the way, I own nexus one, and with the right firmware (latest cyanogenmod with UV kernel), it's a great phone.
Thanks for the advice. I'll pass on the Nexus One then.
A phone just has to work, that's it. Make phone calls, take photos, keep tel. numbers and maybe appointments. If it's not good out of the box then it's not good.
The iPhone OS has a user interface that is designed for just that task.
Android's user interface by and large has to be designed by the user (as in the tablet/phone producer that installs it on their devices).
Designing a good user interface is hard to say the least. And it's something Apple is simply doing well.
That is the first thing I thought when I read this article. Oh and please note I'm not a fanboi or so. I like my iBook, use it now, works fine, serves me well. I also love the Ubuntu box connected to the other side of the KVM switch.
Back to Apple.
It started basically with the iPod (though that took a while): Apple enters a new market with a new device - that hardwarewise is not spectacular but looks nice and so. A few years later it was the reference player - as if there was no other.
Then after a year or so of rumours there it finally was: the iPhone. Yet another smartphone in a saturated market. Weeks later, sorry days later, the iPhone was the smartphone against which all other smartphones were compared. Within weeks we were talking about "iPhone killers".
Now the iPad has been released. Not the only computer in this format, not the first one. Half a year or so ago at some major conference this new format got the name "slate". It is all but forgotten. Apple has released the iPad and with all it's shortcomings it is already the reference device.
It has been released for just weeks now. And already it's apparently so dominant in the market that "Google [is] preparing [a] iPad rival". No they are not bringing out a "slate-device", but it's an "iPad rival".
Apple's marketing is really beating Microsoft's here, and then I'm talking about the best times of MS marketing (I think around 1995 and the release of Win 95). I'm really impressed by what Apple has pulled off again.
MS is a software company. OK they build some game console and are known for their mice, but that's about it hardware wise.
So no wonder MS is "no-where to be found", other than as the primary operating system driving almost all other "pads" or "slates" or how-ever you want to call them.
[...]allowed euthanasia for the terminally ill, under certain conditions and with a lengthy process.
That law was then probably designed with both parties in mind: giving those that want euthanasia something to look out for, and those that are against it way to delay it so long that it is not necessary any more.
The saddest part maybe is that it was an iPod Classic, not even a Touch version, which is simply used as external USB hard drive.
How about the update servers? Most installations are automatically set up to regularly check for updates. Just count the number of unique IP addresses for a reasonable estimate.
In the discussions about China's hacking here on /. it was mentioned that the US government probably has a back door into Gmail. And Yahoo and the rest as well of course. This as there is supposedly some law over in the US that requires telecom companies to provide means for wiretapping. Originally meant for telephone only, this was rumoured to be extended to webmail providers, some posters even going as far as claiming that telcos (including webmail providers) must provide a direct back door for government access.
No hard evidence was given, of course.
And then there is something like the PATRIOT act that (also according to /. comments) allows the government to subpoena communications (e.g. the contents of a gmail account) and on top of that require this subpoena to remain secret from the person whose data has been subpoenaed.
In other words: if someone says the US government has accessed private data stored on gmail (or yahoo mail, or hotmail - why are this kind of discussions always about gmail anyway? There are more webmail providers out there) then I would take their word for it. Even if the US gov't would claim never to have done such things I wouldn't believe them, thinking of the illegal wiretapping scandals under Bush. That part of trust is lost, and the funny thing about trust is that it is gained hard and lost easily.
In this case, from what I know about scary laws in place in the US, I would give gmail the benefit of the doubt and simply assume that they do share data with the US government.
References at least in Wikipedia.
They mention India also has a No First Use policy: only use it when being attacked with nukes in the first place.
Nukes are scary enough as they are, it would be great if Obama would adopt a same NFU policy. He has plenty of other firepower and the backup of nukes to keep sufficient deterrent.
Besides these days warfare is more and more towards relative small, highly targeted attacks. And that are not two words that I think of when I'm thinking of a nuclear attack. As such nukes are totally useless against modern targets such as terrorists.
And seemingly they are not even the first.
Sorry too lazy to look for references but not so long ago I read in a news paper that China has a no-first-attack policy when it comes to nukes. They have them but will only use them in retaliation. That is the official policy at least. Whether you believe them is up to you.
So not only is Obama not the fist in a policy like this; China seems to go even further and use it retaliation-only, without further conditions sas far as I know. Which leaves enough loopholes as we have seen with Iraq: "if we don't have the proper intelligence to use nukes we will just invent it".
Now re-read GP. Your post may be true but not applicable to this case.
The spider gathers a lot of bits and pieces of data (you may call it facts: bits and pieces of information that users have posted) from the Facebook web site, and then this guy produces a new collection of said data. Which in turn may well be copyrighted.
At least this story made me seriously think WTF and even made me smile. A bit.
And with that it beat the rest of this year's April Fool's stories hands down. The rest wasn't even remotely funny. Let alone believable.
If you click the link it's obvious that it's not an April fools joke. The article was published on 31 March.
But I do admit it's sometimes hard to tell from the face of it whether it's true or not.
If only /. would limit itself to one and only one joke article... it may even be a good one... it seems to get worse every year...
I want those ponies back!
At least that was a decent April Fools prank - so good it resulted in a meme.
I don't think "Pirate Party Australia" has any seat in the European parliament, nor will they have in the near future.