I always get annoyed by some people who ask "why not" whenever I ask "why". While there're things with alternate ways to execute, or alternate ways to think, "why" is the correct way of asking if one have no intention to do something "extra" or "meaningless" etc.
"Why do you have tattoo?""Why not?"
Er... that's just not an answer, you do something for a reason, no matter if it's for a logical reason or psychological reason.
As a Cantonese, I think he's being too simple on his description.
Cantonese culture starts a bit more than 2000 years ago from the mix of ancient Chinese and people of the southern barbarian country(ies) (å--èS, or "Southern Yue") whose land includes Guangdong and Guangxi of today's China and northern and center part of today's Vietnam.
Those southern places are all mountains, rivers, forests, etc subtropical landscape. Hence having lots of insects. And those barbarians treat insects as a food source. So any insects that can fill their stomach (and is not harmful, of course) becomes their food, which later become one of Canontese food sources as its culture form.
So... it's easier for him to say "anything that fills stomach, except human" than trying to describe only living things with "4 legs" and "2 wings". That said, many insects or part of them are materials to make Chinese medicine. So in terms of medicine, then it's not just Cantonese, but likely the whole Chinese cultural circle (China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam).
I agree with you that using IE Tab extension is good enough.
I cannot see a reason to use a browser that allows the use of that many different rendering engines unless you're a developer. But then each browser acts a bit differently. As a developer, I always think it's the best to test in the "real browser" to get the "real feeling" of what the users can actually see in their view.
According to what I know about, the original intention of the law is actually not about "carpooling" itself. It's actually about public transit like bus, taxi, etc. And by defining carpooling, they try to eliminate the problem of unregulated/illegal "taxi"s (etc.).
But then, of course, time has changed. And the original rule definitely seem non-sense. The problem was just hidden until today because no one brought up a law suit all along until now that some public transit feels threatened by those carpooling sites and try to sue them with current law.
Friend, nightlies is working build. It's sometmies very very stable. But sometimes, especially during some massive checkin period, it can be extremely unstable and may even be dangerous.
I definitely won't recommand it to you. I remember there was an incidence in Firefox(bird?)'s history when some guy's C:\Progra~1 is deleted while installing an early testing build (can't remember if it's mindfield, but it's early testing build for sure).
Personally, I usually start using new version of Firefox during Beta 1 for small version jumps like 0.1; and for those 1.0 version jump, I usually start using it after at least beta 3 (which, in my experience, is not stable enough for my taste neither). But then, it's just personal preference.
It doesn't make it "right". But it doesn't make it "wrong" neither. You're judging history with "your today's view and philosophy". Right and wrong changes with philosophy and culture employed.
Much like those human right organizations in Europe, Canada etc. going against death penalty. But most people in fact strongly support the existance of death penalty in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore etc. In fact, I know many non-Singaporian Chinese who support and are in favour of the more harsh penalties in Singapore than say, the penalties in Taiwan.
Those human right organizations think they're right, with their philosophy that's developed through their history and culture. And we think we're more correct because of our philosophy, history, and culture.
I am against slavery. But using the same reasoning, I won't say it's right nor wrong because it's in *another culture/country*. And it's none of other culture/country's business. Some western people really got to understand this if you want to avoid "anti-western" feelings from other cultures because they can feel your cultural invasion.
And also, most people's health problem in modern societies are control or avoidable. Doing some exercise, sleeping in natural hours, eat a bit more healthily and avoid to get fat, don't smoke, etc. You name it.
If those people who don't care about these get sick, why should I spend my money to help them. Again, one is responsible for their own doing.
Actually, every decision that everyone makes determines what your next "outcome" will be. If I "get sick, and savings are rendered worthless when the great Free Market has one of its funny turns" like you said, I can only blame on myself. Nobody else is responsible for my own decision to jump into it.
Sure, some people really have no chance because of sickness since they're born. But, at least in cities where there are reasonable education system, most people do have their chance. If they make the decision not to work themselves up, then I see that as their decision, and they deserves to stay in that condition.
Helping others may be a plus. But nevertheness, nobody is responsible for other people's life or decision that hurt themselves. The most natural side of fairness is, I don't need your help, and don't ask for my help.
The situation is a lot more complex than just the protest itself. The root of the protest was originated from the corruption in the communist governments. And the protesting students are definitely not the only people who're so deeply angered by that. In my prespective, there are three main factors that affected this event.
1) There're protential riots everywhere in the country. And of course, if someone started one in the capital, it can bring the whole country into chaos as the others follows. (Yes, you're right that the protest is relatively peaceful along the way, but the situation near the end, and the situation around the country, is not as peaceul as you think.)
2) President (or however you wnat to call him) of USSR was going to mainland China soon, and the communists set the day before that as the last day of cleaning up the crowd.
3) There are fights inside the communist party between the liberal camp and the conservative communist/absolutist camp.
Originally, the liberal camp was in a stronger position because they are (theoretically) leading the government. They are granted the power Deng Xiao-Ping (the real leader, and the leader of army) to use any peaceful method to clean up the crowd. So their leader, Zhao Zi-Yang lead a talk with the student leaders. After some discussion and making some promise, he finally convinced most of the students (leaders) successfully to step back. However, I believe student leaders of four universities later announced a open letter that they will step back. That letter strongly strengthen the "against-government" attitude of the students of those few universities.
Unable to clean up peacefully, and unexpectedly worsen the situation, these students "successfully" brought down the liberal power in the communist party on the night of the "due date". The more absolutist group got into full power every since (weakened today it seems, but still very strong), and then you know what happened.
Point 2 may not be a good reason to use force (well, actually, it is a good reason in my personal view because I do not want an important big power's leader come to the capital and see this kind of situation, but then that depends on your view). However, point 1 is strong enough for the government to use force to effectively lower the possibility of completely losing control of the situation (all over the country, not only in the square).
Should, or should not, that depends on your view (of course, it's the communist's bad to have all those corruption problems). But in a government prespective, I don't think there is any other choice unless you want to risk bringing the country into the era of riots.
That might be useful if the sytsem allow the input and provide records of trouble makers.
For mainland China and Taiwan, I do know there are some net game addits who bring net game conflicts to real life, resulting in violent crimes. As net games are "the gaming way" in east asia these days, and many people in mainland do not have internet at home, that can create a lot of problem. Of course, there can be other trouble makers, but that kind of information can be useful to other cafes. (Not that I agree with what the communists is doing...)
No, actually, they'll let you vote. But they'll only give you the options (or option) they want.
Quite a while ago (may be last year), I went to their offical site before trying to look for some "news" they have on some topic. And there, I see them conducting some polls/votes. So, as a Chinese, I'm curious on what's there and see if I can contribute my opinion in the polls. Then I see bunch of funny votes.
For example, one of the poll question asks what do you think about a specific government administration move. The question is good. Then I see their 4 options. All four options express an "I agree" opinion. The only difference between the four options is the level of agreement (agreed, good, great, excellent).
Another poll example listed in the same place ask you what do you think about soem other specific government action. Just like the poll above, all the options are "agreed". This time, the differences between the options is not the level of agreement. This time, they all start with something like "support" or "agree", and then each list out a reason of why you support or agree.
So... I think you're wrong. They can let you vote. Just that they won't give you an option they do not want. (In fact, there are actually election test points in some very small low level municipalities. Not saying those are successful... but... there are...)
When one first learn driving, he'd concentrate more on trying to master the basics skill of driving and "get the feel" of turning, speeding up, stopping, etc. That can easily result in a overly concentrated situation where he's not paying enough attention to the outside environment, especially when he's doing "special moves" like turning corner instead of on a straight road.
I don't know about you, but I can still remember I'm overly concentrated like your son when I first started to learn driving. And that does NOT mean his ability to scan a real life scene is actually not as good as you. You've been driving for years, the basic driving techniques have all become "natural movements" for you, allowing you (and me) to pay much attention outside. However, for a first learner, controlling a car is definitely not natural. It is very natural that he paid most of his concentration on something he's trying to learn and missed the "external" environment (which is very important, of course).
Oh, and it's actually not a space walk. He actually use his hands to hold the handles on the ship to move towards the target. So it's really not a walk at all.
The space walk was actually not the main point of this mission. The actual reason of the guy doing this space walk is to take back two experiments (container, I think) from outside in which these results will be used for their next mission.
The space walk is, well, a symbolic thing that's really not the main point. Their scientist actually say that the general public and medias mistakenly identify this space walk as the main point. But it's actually not because Russia and USA etc. already carried out a few hundred of these missions anyway.
They're just using C's speed to compare whatever they can do. It's not like they're saying they are "as powerful as C", they're just saying the goal is to get the speed "as close to C" as possible. Since C is seen as the "root" and the fastest of those higher level languages, I guess it's reasonable to use it as a comparison?
I think they're not just reselling copies of Mac OS. I think Apple also accuses them of providing modified copies of the OS and modified copies of patches (updates).
I'm not sure if the license allow them to distribute OSX on non Apple computers. But I'm pretty sure they won't allow them to resell a modified version without any extra agreement with Apple.
Actually, from what I heard from friends in China or were in China, people just don't really care about jokes about that guy these days except some communist officals in more offical events. I've seen soft jokes (in the form of pics and text) about the communist leaders passing everywhere online amoung Chinese communities even on forums in mainland China. I just don't think those people cares at all.
People who care about information/knowledge in mainland China actually install softwares to bypass the firewall. And people who post in forums actually used many different methods to bypass the stupid software censors.
When the no. of people going on line is in such huge number, it's impossible to check it all. And as people's understanding and caring on their rights granted by laws increases over time, with the no. of people online, it'll become unstopable force. In fact, you can see that force growing in China... (Yeah, they made good laws and make it better time after time. The thing is just that the communist government is not using the laws... and local governments hold powers of local courts so that problems are hard to track down in federal level.)
They really have plan to do it. But right now, they're busy with lots of stuff.
After the Olympics, they'll be on their track to start the big reorganization of federal departments and department structures. A lot of departments and bureaus will be merged.
The position of Environmental Protection Bureau will then be rised to become the Environmental Protection Department, which will grant it with a much higher position and power compare to right now.
I've heard that they're actually planning to attract people out of the inner city and build new "central" areas. They've also planned to start controlling building's colours, theme, and height in the inner city trying to rebuild the original atmosphere.
To be marked as a Chinese dialet, you must be able to write most of the words in the dialet in Chinese words (note that there is no "character", only "word" in Chinese). And if you cannot figure out the word, you'll create a new Chinese word. Also, each word have exactly one single pronounciation that can be split into 4 parts. Only if the above points are matched, Chinese will see the language as a Chinese dialet.
Though Japanese used to use Chinese for writing, and still uses a lot of Chinese character (Kanji) today, it's basically a totally different language that's not Chinese words centric. I doubt any Chinese people will really see it as a dialet or try to learn it that way.
As of you think you can learn faster than many Chinese, it can be becuase of the mother dialet of those people. Japanese gets most influence from China when China's offical language is now labeled as middle-Chinese.
Now, Mandarine is a very young dialet that resulted from losing sounds and tones from middle-Chinese and ancient-Chinese, and getting influence by foreign civilizations that successfully invaded Northern China (or the whole China, in terms of the last dynasty). Huge no. of Chinese moves southwards every time China weakens and slowly (or quickly) lose the Northern part of China. The result is that the more south the Chinese is, the more ancient/middle Chinese characteristics it retains. In fact, scholars labled Quan Zhou (a place right above GuongZhou Province, very close to Taiwan) dialet as the living example of "middle Chinese".
Now, all I want to say is, Japanese get influence from middle-Chinese and Shanghai (the place where Japanese back then enters China). So anyone who speak languages that belongs to middle-Chinese-class or Shanghaiese should be able to learn Japanese (and Korean) easier than mandariners because our dialets retain many sounds and tones that are lost in Mandarine (Mandarine has 4 tones, middle Chinese has 8 tones, and ancient Chinese are said to have 13 tones).
Not saying the Mandarine people can't learn Japanese, it's just harder since the sound of Japanese terms evolved from Chinese is very close to middle-Chinese but quite different from Mandarine.
And of course, you'll definitely learn faster if you play Japanese games or watch their animates... (um... sorry for the long long comment that's off topic)
Slashdot Mirror
I always get annoyed by some people who ask "why not" whenever I ask "why". While there're things with alternate ways to execute, or alternate ways to think, "why" is the correct way of asking if one have no intention to do something "extra" or "meaningless" etc.
"Why do you have tattoo?""Why not?" Er... that's just not an answer, you do something for a reason, no matter if it's for a logical reason or psychological reason.
As a Cantonese, I think he's being too simple on his description.
Cantonese culture starts a bit more than 2000 years ago from the mix of ancient Chinese and people of the southern barbarian country(ies) (å--èS, or "Southern Yue") whose land includes Guangdong and Guangxi of today's China and northern and center part of today's Vietnam.
Those southern places are all mountains, rivers, forests, etc subtropical landscape. Hence having lots of insects. And those barbarians treat insects as a food source. So any insects that can fill their stomach (and is not harmful, of course) becomes their food, which later become one of Canontese food sources as its culture form.
So... it's easier for him to say "anything that fills stomach, except human" than trying to describe only living things with "4 legs" and "2 wings". That said, many insects or part of them are materials to make Chinese medicine. So in terms of medicine, then it's not just Cantonese, but likely the whole Chinese cultural circle (China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam).
I agree with you that using IE Tab extension is good enough.
I cannot see a reason to use a browser that allows the use of that many different rendering engines unless you're a developer. But then each browser acts a bit differently. As a developer, I always think it's the best to test in the "real browser" to get the "real feeling" of what the users can actually see in their view.
According to what I know about, the original intention of the law is actually not about "carpooling" itself. It's actually about public transit like bus, taxi, etc. And by defining carpooling, they try to eliminate the problem of unregulated/illegal "taxi"s (etc.).
But then, of course, time has changed. And the original rule definitely seem non-sense. The problem was just hidden until today because no one brought up a law suit all along until now that some public transit feels threatened by those carpooling sites and try to sue them with current law.
The definitely got to review this law.
Friend, nightlies is working build. It's sometmies very very stable. But sometimes, especially during some massive checkin period, it can be extremely unstable and may even be dangerous.
I definitely won't recommand it to you. I remember there was an incidence in Firefox(bird?)'s history when some guy's C:\Progra~1 is deleted while installing an early testing build (can't remember if it's mindfield, but it's early testing build for sure).
Personally, I usually start using new version of Firefox during Beta 1 for small version jumps like 0.1; and for those 1.0 version jump, I usually start using it after at least beta 3 (which, in my experience, is not stable enough for my taste neither). But then, it's just personal preference.
It doesn't make it "right". But it doesn't make it "wrong" neither. You're judging history with "your today's view and philosophy". Right and wrong changes with philosophy and culture employed.
Much like those human right organizations in Europe, Canada etc. going against death penalty. But most people in fact strongly support the existance of death penalty in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore etc. In fact, I know many non-Singaporian Chinese who support and are in favour of the more harsh penalties in Singapore than say, the penalties in Taiwan.
Those human right organizations think they're right, with their philosophy that's developed through their history and culture. And we think we're more correct because of our philosophy, history, and culture.
I am against slavery. But using the same reasoning, I won't say it's right nor wrong because it's in *another culture/country*. And it's none of other culture/country's business. Some western people really got to understand this if you want to avoid "anti-western" feelings from other cultures because they can feel your cultural invasion.
And also, most people's health problem in modern societies are control or avoidable. Doing some exercise, sleeping in natural hours, eat a bit more healthily and avoid to get fat, don't smoke, etc. You name it.
If those people who don't care about these get sick, why should I spend my money to help them. Again, one is responsible for their own doing.
Actually, every decision that everyone makes determines what your next "outcome" will be. If I "get sick, and savings are rendered worthless when the great Free Market has one of its funny turns" like you said, I can only blame on myself. Nobody else is responsible for my own decision to jump into it.
Sure, some people really have no chance because of sickness since they're born. But, at least in cities where there are reasonable education system, most people do have their chance. If they make the decision not to work themselves up, then I see that as their decision, and they deserves to stay in that condition.
Helping others may be a plus. But nevertheness, nobody is responsible for other people's life or decision that hurt themselves. The most natural side of fairness is, I don't need your help, and don't ask for my help.
Sorry, found a mistake as I re-read. The student leader of those four university announce in the letter that they will *not* step back nor compromise.
The situation is a lot more complex than just the protest itself. The root of the protest was originated from the corruption in the communist governments. And the protesting students are definitely not the only people who're so deeply angered by that. In my prespective, there are three main factors that affected this event.
1) There're protential riots everywhere in the country. And of course, if someone started one in the capital, it can bring the whole country into chaos as the others follows. (Yes, you're right that the protest is relatively peaceful along the way, but the situation near the end, and the situation around the country, is not as peaceul as you think.)
2) President (or however you wnat to call him) of USSR was going to mainland China soon, and the communists set the day before that as the last day of cleaning up the crowd.
3) There are fights inside the communist party between the liberal camp and the conservative communist/absolutist camp.
Originally, the liberal camp was in a stronger position because they are (theoretically) leading the government. They are granted the power Deng Xiao-Ping (the real leader, and the leader of army) to use any peaceful method to clean up the crowd. So their leader, Zhao Zi-Yang lead a talk with the student leaders. After some discussion and making some promise, he finally convinced most of the students (leaders) successfully to step back. However, I believe student leaders of four universities later announced a open letter that they will step back. That letter strongly strengthen the "against-government" attitude of the students of those few universities.
Unable to clean up peacefully, and unexpectedly worsen the situation, these students "successfully" brought down the liberal power in the communist party on the night of the "due date". The more absolutist group got into full power every since (weakened today it seems, but still very strong), and then you know what happened.
Point 2 may not be a good reason to use force (well, actually, it is a good reason in my personal view because I do not want an important big power's leader come to the capital and see this kind of situation, but then that depends on your view). However, point 1 is strong enough for the government to use force to effectively lower the possibility of completely losing control of the situation (all over the country, not only in the square).
Should, or should not, that depends on your view (of course, it's the communist's bad to have all those corruption problems). But in a government prespective, I don't think there is any other choice unless you want to risk bringing the country into the era of riots.
That might be useful if the sytsem allow the input and provide records of trouble makers.
For mainland China and Taiwan, I do know there are some net game addits who bring net game conflicts to real life, resulting in violent crimes. As net games are "the gaming way" in east asia these days, and many people in mainland do not have internet at home, that can create a lot of problem. Of course, there can be other trouble makers, but that kind of information can be useful to other cafes. (Not that I agree with what the communists is doing...)
No, actually, they'll let you vote. But they'll only give you the options (or option) they want.
Quite a while ago (may be last year), I went to their offical site before trying to look for some "news" they have on some topic. And there, I see them conducting some polls/votes. So, as a Chinese, I'm curious on what's there and see if I can contribute my opinion in the polls. Then I see bunch of funny votes.
For example, one of the poll question asks what do you think about a specific government administration move. The question is good. Then I see their 4 options. All four options express an "I agree" opinion. The only difference between the four options is the level of agreement (agreed, good, great, excellent).
Another poll example listed in the same place ask you what do you think about soem other specific government action. Just like the poll above, all the options are "agreed". This time, the differences between the options is not the level of agreement. This time, they all start with something like "support" or "agree", and then each list out a reason of why you support or agree.
So... I think you're wrong. They can let you vote. Just that they won't give you an option they do not want. (In fact, there are actually election test points in some very small low level municipalities. Not saying those are successful... but... there are...)
When one first learn driving, he'd concentrate more on trying to master the basics skill of driving and "get the feel" of turning, speeding up, stopping, etc. That can easily result in a overly concentrated situation where he's not paying enough attention to the outside environment, especially when he's doing "special moves" like turning corner instead of on a straight road.
I don't know about you, but I can still remember I'm overly concentrated like your son when I first started to learn driving. And that does NOT mean his ability to scan a real life scene is actually not as good as you. You've been driving for years, the basic driving techniques have all become "natural movements" for you, allowing you (and me) to pay much attention outside. However, for a first learner, controlling a car is definitely not natural. It is very natural that he paid most of his concentration on something he's trying to learn and missed the "external" environment (which is very important, of course).
Oh, and it's actually not a space walk. He actually use his hands to hold the handles on the ship to move towards the target. So it's really not a walk at all.
The space walk was actually not the main point of this mission. The actual reason of the guy doing this space walk is to take back two experiments (container, I think) from outside in which these results will be used for their next mission. The space walk is, well, a symbolic thing that's really not the main point. Their scientist actually say that the general public and medias mistakenly identify this space walk as the main point. But it's actually not because Russia and USA etc. already carried out a few hundred of these missions anyway.
They're just using C's speed to compare whatever they can do. It's not like they're saying they are "as powerful as C", they're just saying the goal is to get the speed "as close to C" as possible. Since C is seen as the "root" and the fastest of those higher level languages, I guess it's reasonable to use it as a comparison?
I guess the real factor that determines if you're pirating or not is your intension, not the cracking action itself.
I think they're not just reselling copies of Mac OS. I think Apple also accuses them of providing modified copies of the OS and modified copies of patches (updates). I'm not sure if the license allow them to distribute OSX on non Apple computers. But I'm pretty sure they won't allow them to resell a modified version without any extra agreement with Apple.
Actually, from what I heard from friends in China or were in China, people just don't really care about jokes about that guy these days except some communist officals in more offical events. I've seen soft jokes (in the form of pics and text) about the communist leaders passing everywhere online amoung Chinese communities even on forums in mainland China. I just don't think those people cares at all.
People who care about information/knowledge in mainland China actually install softwares to bypass the firewall. And people who post in forums actually used many different methods to bypass the stupid software censors. When the no. of people going on line is in such huge number, it's impossible to check it all. And as people's understanding and caring on their rights granted by laws increases over time, with the no. of people online, it'll become unstopable force. In fact, you can see that force growing in China... (Yeah, they made good laws and make it better time after time. The thing is just that the communist government is not using the laws... and local governments hold powers of local courts so that problems are hard to track down in federal level.)
There is a sky in Beijing? XD Not at some times, unfortunately.
They really have plan to do it. But right now, they're busy with lots of stuff.
After the Olympics, they'll be on their track to start the big reorganization of federal departments and department structures. A lot of departments and bureaus will be merged.
The position of Environmental Protection Bureau will then be rised to become the Environmental Protection Department, which will grant it with a much higher position and power compare to right now.
I've heard that they're actually planning to attract people out of the inner city and build new "central" areas. They've also planned to start controlling building's colours, theme, and height in the inner city trying to rebuild the original atmosphere.
To be marked as a Chinese dialet, you must be able to write most of the words in the dialet in Chinese words (note that there is no "character", only "word" in Chinese). And if you cannot figure out the word, you'll create a new Chinese word. Also, each word have exactly one single pronounciation that can be split into 4 parts. Only if the above points are matched, Chinese will see the language as a Chinese dialet.
Though Japanese used to use Chinese for writing, and still uses a lot of Chinese character (Kanji) today, it's basically a totally different language that's not Chinese words centric. I doubt any Chinese people will really see it as a dialet or try to learn it that way.
As of you think you can learn faster than many Chinese, it can be becuase of the mother dialet of those people. Japanese gets most influence from China when China's offical language is now labeled as middle-Chinese.
Now, Mandarine is a very young dialet that resulted from losing sounds and tones from middle-Chinese and ancient-Chinese, and getting influence by foreign civilizations that successfully invaded Northern China (or the whole China, in terms of the last dynasty). Huge no. of Chinese moves southwards every time China weakens and slowly (or quickly) lose the Northern part of China. The result is that the more south the Chinese is, the more ancient/middle Chinese characteristics it retains. In fact, scholars labled Quan Zhou (a place right above GuongZhou Province, very close to Taiwan) dialet as the living example of "middle Chinese".
Now, all I want to say is, Japanese get influence from middle-Chinese and Shanghai (the place where Japanese back then enters China). So anyone who speak languages that belongs to middle-Chinese-class or Shanghaiese should be able to learn Japanese (and Korean) easier than mandariners because our dialets retain many sounds and tones that are lost in Mandarine (Mandarine has 4 tones, middle Chinese has 8 tones, and ancient Chinese are said to have 13 tones).
Not saying the Mandarine people can't learn Japanese, it's just harder since the sound of Japanese terms evolved from Chinese is very close to middle-Chinese but quite different from Mandarine.
And of course, you'll definitely learn faster if you play Japanese games or watch their animates... (um... sorry for the long long comment that's off topic)
They actually allow access to internet recently (well, actually, a while ago) for some higher level staffs in some corporations and government.