This doesn't answer the question, just changes the medium. Finding extra mini-CDs on vacation doesn't come close to the convenience of film. It also doesn't address my qualms about the instability of the storage medium.
And in any case, I inserted one of those things in my DVD-ROM a couple of months back and it never came out again. Took a visit to a technician to remove it. No thanks.
I could put for close to 200 images on the card, not 90.
Personally, I have no idea. Ninety was the claim of the message I was replying to.
for most people making this calculation (and especially most slashdotters), the computer is already present.
But of course most/.ers aren't "most people". But if you prefer, I'll rephrase: Digital requires at least $2300 worth of equipment -- and that doesn't include the price of the camera.
Photoshop is not needed for dealing with digital photos.
Photoshop seems to be the universal choice of digital proponents in this forum, so that's what I went with (though I highly suspect most of them didn't pay a red cent for their copies).
there's no need to own a photo-quality printer or ink.
Except that I don't know anyone who owns a digital camera and a computer who hasn't also dropped the money for a "photo-quality" printer and ink. Do you?
And if you run out of flash cards on vacation, you have several options... Admittedly, neither of these solutions are perfect
Or, for that matter, terribly practical. The first requires me to lug a laptop (together with all its support equipment, such as extra batteries, power supply, and voltage converter) around just to store my digital photos. Conversely, a plain brown paper sack will store all my 35mm film and, to my mind, much more securely. As for the second option, I don't know what you mean by "it's increasingly easy to find computers with burners", but most of the travelling I do doesn't allow sufficient time for potty breaks, let alone trotting off to try to find somebody with a PC and burner in a country whose language I don't speak just so I can drop a couple hours toasting CDs. While it's true there are a fair number of photo outlets that'll do the transfer for you, they generally have a two- or three-day turn-around, and by then I could easily be a half a continent away.
I am by no means anti-digital. Some day the format will overcome sufficient of my objections that I'll probably enter the fray myself (though even then, until technology addresses the storage issue, I'll continue to shoot all my important stuff on film). But as things stand today, it's got a long way to go.
Which has a shelf-life of, say, three years before requiring upgrade/replacement -- cost per annum: $400. Conversely, my photo albums have a shelf-life (quite literally) of, oh, a generation or two with a maintenance cost of perhaps five minutes' dusting time a month.
Jasc's Paint Shop Pro is looking pretty good, another $700 off
The current version of Paint Shop Pro will still set you back $100.
Photo quality printer, Lexmark Z65, or it's upcoming replacement, another $250 off.
See above re: the computer. Factor in the printer, it's "upcoming replacement" and a couple of years from now a replacement for the replacement. Next, throw in cost of inks (which quickly exceed the price of the printer, especially for photo-quality) and photo paper. Indeed, ink and paper alone will easily run you triple the cost of a 35mm reprint.
Meanwhile, my photo albums are doing just fine.
I get the added benifit of being able to e-mail or other wise electonicaly distribute them at negligable extra cost.
OK, now toss in the cost of your Internet access. Really, even at 25 cents per reprint, I figure I'd have to distribute on the order of 5,000 copies of the latest baby pics to even begin to justify the cost of all that hardware. At last count, that comes out to somewhere near 125 copies per family member.
Toss in the uncertainty of the media. I've had CDs go bad on me less than a year out of the box; indeed, I've completed apparent successful burns which next day turn out to be unreadable -- inconsistencies in the media, idiosyncracies in reader hardware/firmware, and constant evolution in storage formats make such disasters all but inevitable over time. Your average CD (not your Ultima Golds) indeed now appear to have a shelf-life in the vicinity of five years. And sometime in the next couple of years I'll have to contemplate transferring all my archives (again! this time to DVD, as soon as the industry has settled on a format) at a time when I'm still trying to pull stuff off tape. Each time new archival format introduces new dangers of loss of data. Quite apart from the commitment of time, labor and expense involved in maintaining my data across multiple media formats, I have no interest in committing valuable family photos to the vicissitudes of high tech storage.
And STILL no one has answered my question: what happens when my flash card fills up while I'm on vacation? This actually happened to some fellow travellers in the middle of the Australian outback, one week into a 4-week Australian tour. They had to tote around a useless camera for three weeks, and ended up with no photos of most of their Australian experience. Out of sympathy I sent them reprints of mine.
Of course, as digital increasingly supplants film in the mainstream consumer market, some of the price differences will be overcome; it may even be, in the future, that 35mm becomes more expensive on a print-by-print basis as film transitions to a niche market. But even once that happens, I'll still put my trust for long-term preservation in old-fashioned hardcopy.
BTW, I digitize a lot of my photos, both for archiving and sharing. There's just no way in hell I'll ever throw away the negatives.
If you're out in the field and need to get the pics back to base, then doing so with film is a major PITA, compared to connecting the camera to your laptop and emailing them.
Assuming your laptop has broadband. I'm not sure what I'd call uploading a hundred 30mb files at 56k, but I think PITA comes pretty close.
The cameras these days are good enough so that you can identify almost every passenger in the car
Granted, though that wasn't the case twenty years ago, which is why they through out the citations. The salient point, however, is the constitutional right to face one's accuser. When one's accuser is a machine, how does one excercise that right?
In a city that purchases my systems, only one person out of 100 that tries to get from one end of town to the other will be able to do so without having at least one ticket logged against them. I will make city revenue problems a thing of the past.
This should be modded -1 Stupid. If 99 out of 100 citizens get ticketed every time they drive cross-town, you can bet both the system and the politicians that were stupid enough to implement it will be collecting unemployment within a month. Make that a week if the mayor is the first one tagged.
BTW, whatever happened to the right to face one's accuser? I seem to remember 20 years or so ago a Minnesota district court tossing out thousands of automated speeding tickets on that basis (the accuser being an automated system that was acting as judge, jury and jailor), and that fact that one could prove the car was speeding, but couldn't prove who was driving it.
There isn't even a consensus as to whether there is a "'92 consensus" to be agreed to.
Wait a moment. You say below that until recently the KMT believed in "one China".
I was referring specifically to the '92 consensus, a document allegedly negotiated between and agreed to by Beijing and Taipei. That the KMT believed in the general idea of "one China" is indisputable. That a joint statement was negotiated is not.
If Taiwan were to return to the situation before Lee's declaration of two states, it's likely that Beijing would return to the talks
But Taiwan has no interest in returning to that state. Why should we? If those are the only conditions under which Beijing is willing to negotiate, then I'm afraid the PRC blew its window of opportunity. Taiwan is no longer willing to think of itself as a second-class state just to please Beijing.
Those talks were broken off....
By Beijing, not Taipei. It is Beijing who is unwilling to negotiate. Taipei is still waiting. Why must Taipei agree to "one China"?
I could think of many "forms"... Beijing would not accept...
But if Taiwan were to put them on the table, then would allow talks to begin.
Taipei has repeatedly said everything -- including "one China" -- is on the table. Yet Beijing still refuses to sit down. It is not Taipei which is placing pre-conditions or demands on talks.
Because without normalized trade relations with the Mainland, Taiwan's economy is likely to get worse and worse over time.
Perhaps. No one can predict the future. However, being as a member of the WTO, China is already required to provide Taiwan with much of those normalized relations; regulations of which Beijing is already in violation.
Even the concept of "one country, two systems" gets 5-10% support (I'm guessing mainly old Mainlanders).
Actually higher. The figures I've seen bounce around between the low 20s and 30 percent, with a brief surge a few months ago up to 33% in one poll.
The problem is Beijing has a history of heavy-handed government, and most Taiwanese don't think it can be trusted under a "one country, two systems" arrangement to keep its fingers out of Taiwan's affairs. The only model we have is Hong Kong and, frankly, that doesn't seem to be going very well.
Surely you would not have me believe that there is zero support for agreeing to the '92 consensus as a precondition for talks
There isn't even a consensus as to whether there is a "'92 consensus" to be agreed to. All Beijing has produced to document its claims to a 92 consensus is copies of some old faxes between some (relatively) minor Taipei officials and Beijing. Taipei has no records of having agreed to any such thing.
Beijing's preconditions for talks is acknowledgement of some form of the one China principle
No. Beijing's preconditions for talks is agreement to (not "acknowledgement of") Beijing's definition of the "one China" principle. After all, until recently, the KMT still believed in "one China" (albeit with the ROC at its head), yet Beijing refused to sit down at the table anyway.
I could think of many "forms" of "one China" I'm sure Beijing would not accept, such as, say, making Beijing an SAR of Taiwan. But why should Taiwan even want to negotiate while being forced to stare down the barrel of Beijing's gun?
Before 1995, "hard unification" were the strongest opponents of the PRC, and the fact that the PRC now has some support from "hard unification" is very significant.
Not terribly significant. Even assuming your claim were true, if significant numbers have defected to the mainland it means they're no longer voting in Taiwan, and thus they're of no political significance. In addition, they're aging rapidly; in another ten to twenty years there will be precious few left, even in Taiwan. So even granting your claim, I don't see that it's of any great relavance.
and it is in the process of getting the soft support among businessmen
First I should ask you to define 'soft support'. If you mean businessmen are increasingly inclined to turn Taiwan over to Beijing, I strongly dispute your claim. If you simply mean, say, a softening of rhetoric for the purpose of fostering business opportunity, then we're in a different ball game.
When I meant youth, I meant people in the 25-35 range.
Three responses: first, I don't at all see a lesser attitude amongst the 25+ crowd than I see amongst my students; I simply have immediately access to a greater number of teenagers, and thought it would make an enlightening excercise.
Second, the 15-17 year-old crowd follows closely on the heels of the 25-35ers, and will themselves begin to vote in the very near future, which means their opinion now will be significant even before the current administration comes up for re-election.
Third, if China is looking 30 years down the road as you claim, it is today's 15-year olds, not 35 year olds, who will be running the show, so in that sense their opinions are actually of greater significance than today's 30-somethings.
Much of this is due to the fact that they now see their economic future as being linked to the PRC.
Politics and economics are hardly the same thing, and recognizing the inevitability of greater economic links cannot be confused with a desire for greater political ties.
Sentimentally, they might be attached to the idea of an independent Taiwan, but economics is overwhelming sentiment.
But I have been unable to locate any data which support this claim. Most of the poll results indicate that not much has changed in the last eight years vis a vis relations between the two countries. For example, look here, or here.
The trouble with that is that the PRC has already enough military power to keep Taiwan from declaring independence now and the United States has made it clear that it will not like Taiwan starting a crisis.
The U.S. has made it equally clear that it will not like the PRC starting a crisis. That is, at least, the point of the Taiwan Defense Pact and the continued arms sales to Taiwan.
And geopolitically Beijing is *not* stuck in the Dark Ages.
Sorry. I should have been more clear. Any country which uses its military muscle to threatan, browbeat and terrorize others is, by definition, stuck in the Dark Ages. The fact that Beijing not only refuses to denounce such tactics but in fact still enthusiastically embraces them indicates it has not yet entered the community of civilized nations.
Beijing is not going to drop the threat of force for the very simple reason that if it did Taiwan would declare independence tomorrow.
Translated, this means Beijing does not respect the right of a sovereign people to self-determination, a right enshrined in the constitution of the United Nations of which Beijing is a member state. My personal opinion is that any government which does not respect my rights does not deserve my allegiance.
so that it can invade Taiwan in 30 years if it has to, not causing an immediate crisis, and to get the support of some sectors of the Taiwanese population. It has the strong support of the old KMT soldiers
I dispute your usage of the adjectives "strong" and "support" here, and would ask you to define your meanings. Do you mean the old KMT soldiers, as a demographic group, are largely of the opinion that Taiwanese sovereignty should be handed over to Beijing? Or do you simply mean that a noticeable number have decided, in their declining years, to return to the homes they were driven from half a century ago, and are willing to tolerate living under PRC rule in order to do so?
Either way, all these old KMT soldiers will be dead in 30 years (most of them much sooner), which makes any political opinions they may or may not have largely irrelevant as well.
Part of the problem of pro-independence on Taiwan is that they are vastly overestimating Beijing's stupidity and vastly underestimating Beijing's ability to change in order to get its objectives.
There are, of course, those of us who think it is impossible to overestimate Beijing's stupidity, but that's a different argument:-).
Nonetheless, if Beijing does institute significant political change, it may well be that eventually the majority of Taiwanese will come to favor unification with the mainland. If Taiwanese freely choose unification, then so be it. That is our right as guaranteed under international charter. And that is the crucial difference: Beijing doesn't give a rat's ass about the rights of the Taiwanese, whereas all the Taiwanese are asking for is the right to make our own decision.
Taiwan has past the point of no return. It hasn't shown up in the opinion polls but it will in a few years.
This is, of course, pure speculation on your part, based on, near as I can tell, nothing more than the anecdotal evidence of your in-laws. This started out as a discussion of the opinions of the Taiwanese population. It's usually hard enough to predict the present; let's not even bother trying to prognosticate on the future.
I am defining pro-PRC to mean agreeing to Beijing's terms of one China for opening political discussions on the status of Taiwan.
We'll start with the last comment first. This is where you have precisely misread public opinion. I see absolutely zero support for agreeing to Beijing's preconditions for talks. Indeed, it would be the height of stupidity, as "one China" is precisely the whole point of any talks between China and Taiwan. There is, and always has been, willingness to discuss the "one China" issue; but little enough support for being forced to agree to it beforehand.
Well maybe we just know different families. What makes you think that your family is more representative than mine?
First, you seem to be making the mistake of equating "pro-unification" with "pro-PRC". The two are quite different, but more on that later.
Based on your assertion that pro-PRC sentiment is growing amongst Taiwanese youth, I conducted a quick survey of my students today. The questions I asked, and the results I obtained are as follows:
1. Should Taiwan and China
A. be one country 8
B. be two countries 72
C. maintain the status quo 14
D. don't know 9
2. If you answered A. to question 1, which should be the government of a united China?
A. the ROC (Taipei) 8
B. the PRC (Beijing) 0
3. If you answered C. to question 1, why?
A. Threat of war 14
B. Other reason 0
4. Do you like
A. the ROC 25
B. the PRC 0
C. both 0
D. neither 0
Things to note are first, of course, this is simply a quick sampling, not a scientific poll. Second, numbers do not always add up both because not every question was asked in every class, and because not every student responded to every question. I surveyed 112 students, ages 15-17, and made every effort to be objective and encourage even students with unpopular opinions to express them. The numbers above are the actual results.
Even on the face of the survey, 64% of my students favor Taiwanese independence, by more than a 5-to-1 margin over second-place status quo sentiment, and nearly a 10-to-1 margin over fourth-place pro-unificationists, who chimed in at 7%.
But scratch a bit deeper, and Beijing's cause worsens: question 2 shows that amongst those favoring unification, all chose Taipei over the PRC as the government of a united China. And question 3 demonstrates that even the status-quo-ers are really just pro-independence votes in disguise, held in check only by threat of violence from Beijing. Removing that threat would push pro-independence sentiment past 75%. (BTW, question 3 was asked open-ended, allowing the students to supply their own answer; they all said the same thing.)
And finally, question 4 speaks for itself.
In short, no matter how I slice the numbers, I am unable to discover literally a single vote in favor of the PRC amongst my students. Even the pro-unificationists are looking for a China united under the ROC, not the PRC. If you're interested, I can continue the survey through the week. By week's end, I could supply you with the opinions of nearly a thousand students; but I doubt the results would vary significantly.
My family is old mainlanders.
Just to be sure we're talking on the same wavelength here. When I refer to "old mainlanders", I mean those who came over with the KMT in '49-51, not just anyone whose parents or grandparents were mainland-born.
In any case, the operative word is "old"; that generation is dying and being replaced by a generation of young Taiwanese whose sympathies are further from Beijing than ever.
Beijing *has* figured out that using too much stick and too little carrot alienates people in Taiwan.
But what Beijing hasn't figured out yet is that an enlightened government doesn't bully, browbeat and terrorize others into doing its will. The problem is that, despite having finally figured out where the world's at economically, geo-politically Beijing is still stuck firmly in the Dark Ages.
I should mention that my wife is native Taiwanese and most of my opinions are based on knowing people in her family.
Then you know the wrong family. My wife's family also has strong economic connections to the mainland (Shanghai), but there's little favorable sentiment toward the PRC.
The heavy investment of Taiwanese on the PRC is changing political opinions.
Economic ties may be changing opinions toward the mainland (thought not in the way you think), but it is not changing opinions toward the PRC, which is a heavy-handed political regime whose authority has never extended to this island.
which is why the PRC is not about to drop that threat.
It is precisely such barbarism which increased anti-PRC sentiment, not decreased it, and not just in Taiwan, but throughout the regin. Beijing tried a show of force in '96, and Taiwan elected Lee Teng-hui, the most independence-minded candidate, as a result. Beijing rattled its sabers again in 2000, and got Chen Shui-bian for its efforts. Beijing has yet to figure out that its 19th century attitudes are largely responsible for anti-China feelings in Taiwan.
As for young people's attitudes, I'm an educator by profession, who works with young people, and I don't see any of the pro-PRC sentiment you claim is growing amongst the young. Nada. Zip.
The hope of pro-independence groups is that the PRC will self-destruct
The hope of pro-independence groups (i.e., the majority of Taiwanese citizens) is that the PRC will begin to reform politically as it already has economically, and eventually become a government Asia (not just Taiwan) can live with.
And your assessment of the "old mainlanders" is wrong.
Really? Tell me, how many "old mainlanders" do you know?
The New Party is dead, but that's because all of the New Party people figured that the PFP is a better bet.
Ah yes, the PFP -- another rising Taiwanese political star. The PFP would be dead as well, if it weren't continuously propped up by the KMT.
In the most recent national elections the KMT was hindered by accusations with secret collusions with Beijing, but it was not the kiss of death as it would have been ten years ago.
Seems you have a thing or two to learn about Taiwanese politics. Ten years ago there was only the KMT in Taiwanese politics, which therefore got to do precisely what it wanted without concern for political consequences. It is precisely in the last ten years that the DPP -- with its pro-independence plank -- has risen to the top, eclipsing the more unification-minded KMT. It is only since '96 that the KMT has even had to worry about political fallout. Kiss of death? Increasing PRC sentiment? I don't even know any Taiwanese who like the mainland, let alone want to join it. As I said, not in this universe, sir.
Or perhaps you can supply something more than mere anecdotal evidence to support your claims.
How about invading Taiwan and taking over the plants?
By the time China finished invading Taiwan, there wouldn't be any plants -- or animals, or people -- left; just a pile of ash 70 km off the coast of Fujian.
But then, there wouldn't be much of an economy left on the mainland, either. The real reason China doesn't invade Taiwan is that it knows it can't afford it.
Not too bad for an embedded processor?... In the mid-1990s, the Western world's technology sector was doing just fine with 486s and Pentiums in their desktops.
IIRC, in the mid-1990s the world's best-selling processor was still the venerable Z80, which continues to sell so well today that its manufacturer, Zilog (which most of you young-uns probably thought went belly-up decades ago) still ranks amongst the top chip producers in the world. After retiring as a CPU in the mid-80s, it made appearances in everything from TI calculators to Nintendo's GameBoy, to televisions (yes, if you've bought a TV in the US in the last ten years, there's a one-in-five chance it's got a "Zilog Inside" powering the CC system). And considering that embedded processors account for 94% of the processor market, it should come as no surprise that there are more than a few industrial programmers still making a living off the Z80 here at the dawn of the 21st century.
So you're right, a PII for embedded processing is way overkill. But then, so is the 8086.
Having taken lots of trips to Taiwan, I've noticed that pro-China sentiment (especially among young people) has increased considerably in the last two years (particularly in the last year).
As a resident of Taiwan, I can tell you that you definitely need to get your vision checked.
Pro-China sentiment increasing in Taiwan? Not in this universe, sir. As the old Mainlander population passes on, the Taiwanese are becoming progressively less interested in the Mainland -- except as a business opportunity -- not more. The only reason 70% of Taiwanese favor maintaining the current status quo is because of Beijing's continued military threats. Absent that, I guarantee you pro-independence numbers would easily top 80%.
This is not surprising, considering that less than 15 percent of Taiwanese even consider themselves Chinese, and most of those are the old mainlanders who came over with the KMT.
You may have also have overlooked the fact that the ruling political party happens to be the one with the pro-independence platform (while conversely, the only officially pro-unification party, the New Party, has been tottering on the brink of political extinction for at least the last two years); that the last two Taiwanese presidents have openly advocated Taiwanese independence (are are immensely popular); or that in the most recent national elections, the KMT's bid for a return to power was significantly hindered -- not helped -- by accusations of secret collusions with Beijing. Far from increasing, pro-unification sentiment in Taiwan has in fact found itself increasingly politically isolated in recent years.
And your suggestion that pro-unificationists in Taiwan are increasingly pro-PRC is especially entertaining. It is precisely amongst the most strongly pro-unification Taiwanese -- the old Mainlanders -- that anti-PRC sentiment is the highest.
Have you developed an SI unit for scientifically quantifying unhappiness?
Forget about quantifying happiness, I'm still waiting for a viable means of defining it. As you've already pointed out, we can hardly "scientifically quantify" a thing until we can precisely define what it is.
The problem with hedonism/utilitarianism (or is that hedonistic utilitarianism?) is that it always comes back to a subjective definition of happiness: no one can decide for me what makes me happy. If it so happens that I derive the greatest happiness precisely from others' pain, what's a utilitarian to do?
If we're going to start weighing the unhappiness generated by 5 million copies of that "Hot Teen Virgins Await!" UCE, let's not forget to add in the happiness I just finished deriving from it in the privacy of my bathroom.
BBS owners in California were jailed for three years for violating obscenity laws in Tennessee after a Memphis-based postal inspector downloaded images over a modem connection.
The postal inspector did not download the images for free. He paid a membership fee to join the BBS, then used a credit card to order obscene videos. Once the Thomases had taken the money and delivered the goods (whether by allowing access to a privileged downloads area, or through delivery via the US mail makes no matter) business transactions were completed which were governed by the laws of the recipient state. This was no different than your garden variety mail order business, except that the catalog was perused online rather than in the privacy of your bathroom.
The WA anti-spam laws do little more than declare that when conducting business in the state of Washington one is not exempt from truth-in-advertising simply because one solicits via a non-traditional medium. If your product is honest and your UCEs non-deceptive, you have nothing to worry about from the Pacific northwest.
Doubting whether the PRC censors beyond the web? Ask a Chinese about Tibet.
Or Taiwan? In Chongqing just last week I spent nearly an hour listening to a Chinese acquaintance telling me why Taiwan should be independent. Anyone who thinks the Chinese are unable to form independent opinions overestimates the reach of Chinese censorship and propoganda.
Aside from the fact that the article you linked to reaches exactly the opposite conclusion, the fact is Taiwanese sovereignty is still held in trust by the U.S. government, which never fulfilled its promise to return it to the ROC, partly due to the fact that the U.N. never fulfilled its promise to discuss the issue.
The ROC being the successor government to the Ming Dynasty -- together with the Cairo Declaration's explicitly stated intent to return the island to the ROC (not the PRC, which, despite its blustering, has never had a credible claim to the island) -- makes the ROC's claim the only legitimate one. In addition, Taiwan's right to self-determination, as spelled out in the U.N. charter, means but one thing: China does not own Taiwan.
This sounds like a good way to add fast-forward to the old car radio.
Never did think those kay-sets had much of a future. Down here in the Bayou, we're wait'n on the 8-track version, so all us good ole boys can transfer our Roy Orbison collections. Ain' tha' right, Billy Bob?
according to Goodwin's Law, the first party in a discussion to mention "Hitler" or "Nazi" has lost the discussion.
Not at all. Godwin's Law merely observes, it doesn't proscribe:
As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
While the implication is that, once this point has been reached, the discussion has outlived its usefulness, Godwin's Law itself does not say so much. In its accepted form it merely observes that, given enough time, any Usenet discussion will eventually degenerate into Nazi name-calling.
While by way of application of the Law it has become accepted Netiquette in many places that the Nazi comparison ends the conversation (the Nazi reference being the bellweather indicating the discussion had already burst into flames anyway) -- and that the one making the comparison ipso facto loses the discussion -- this is not a requirement of the Law itself, which is not proscriptive at all.
Slashdot Mirror
This doesn't answer the question, just changes the medium. Finding extra mini-CDs on vacation doesn't come close to the convenience of film. It also doesn't address my qualms about the instability of the storage medium.
And in any case, I inserted one of those things in my DVD-ROM a couple of months back and it never came out again. Took a visit to a technician to remove it. No thanks.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
Personally, I have no idea. Ninety was the claim of the message I was replying to.
for most people making this calculation (and especially most slashdotters), the computer is already present.
But of course most /.ers aren't "most people". But if you prefer, I'll rephrase: Digital requires at least $2300 worth of equipment -- and that doesn't include the price of the camera.
Photoshop is not needed for dealing with digital photos.
Photoshop seems to be the universal choice of digital proponents in this forum, so that's what I went with (though I highly suspect most of them didn't pay a red cent for their copies).
there's no need to own a photo-quality printer or ink.
Except that I don't know anyone who owns a digital camera and a computer who hasn't also dropped the money for a "photo-quality" printer and ink. Do you?
And if you run out of flash cards on vacation, you have several options ... Admittedly, neither of these solutions are perfect
Or, for that matter, terribly practical. The first requires me to lug a laptop (together with all its support equipment, such as extra batteries, power supply, and voltage converter) around just to store my digital photos. Conversely, a plain brown paper sack will store all my 35mm film and, to my mind, much more securely. As for the second option, I don't know what you mean by "it's increasingly easy to find computers with burners", but most of the travelling I do doesn't allow sufficient time for potty breaks, let alone trotting off to try to find somebody with a PC and burner in a country whose language I don't speak just so I can drop a couple hours toasting CDs. While it's true there are a fair number of photo outlets that'll do the transfer for you, they generally have a two- or three-day turn-around, and by then I could easily be a half a continent away.
I am by no means anti-digital. Some day the format will overcome sufficient of my objections that I'll probably enter the fray myself (though even then, until technology addresses the storage issue, I'll continue to shoot all my important stuff on film). But as things stand today, it's got a long way to go.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
Which has a shelf-life of, say, three years before requiring upgrade/replacement -- cost per annum: $400. Conversely, my photo albums have a shelf-life (quite literally) of, oh, a generation or two with a maintenance cost of perhaps five minutes' dusting time a month.
Jasc's Paint Shop Pro is looking pretty good, another $700 off
The current version of Paint Shop Pro will still set you back $100.
Photo quality printer, Lexmark Z65, or it's upcoming replacement, another $250 off.
See above re: the computer. Factor in the printer, it's "upcoming replacement" and a couple of years from now a replacement for the replacement. Next, throw in cost of inks (which quickly exceed the price of the printer, especially for photo-quality) and photo paper. Indeed, ink and paper alone will easily run you triple the cost of a 35mm reprint.
Meanwhile, my photo albums are doing just fine.
I get the added benifit of being able to e-mail or other wise electonicaly distribute them at negligable extra cost.
OK, now toss in the cost of your Internet access. Really, even at 25 cents per reprint, I figure I'd have to distribute on the order of 5,000 copies of the latest baby pics to even begin to justify the cost of all that hardware. At last count, that comes out to somewhere near 125 copies per family member.
Toss in the uncertainty of the media. I've had CDs go bad on me less than a year out of the box; indeed, I've completed apparent successful burns which next day turn out to be unreadable -- inconsistencies in the media, idiosyncracies in reader hardware/firmware, and constant evolution in storage formats make such disasters all but inevitable over time. Your average CD (not your Ultima Golds) indeed now appear to have a shelf-life in the vicinity of five years. And sometime in the next couple of years I'll have to contemplate transferring all my archives (again! this time to DVD, as soon as the industry has settled on a format) at a time when I'm still trying to pull stuff off tape. Each time new archival format introduces new dangers of loss of data. Quite apart from the commitment of time, labor and expense involved in maintaining my data across multiple media formats, I have no interest in committing valuable family photos to the vicissitudes of high tech storage.
And STILL no one has answered my question: what happens when my flash card fills up while I'm on vacation? This actually happened to some fellow travellers in the middle of the Australian outback, one week into a 4-week Australian tour. They had to tote around a useless camera for three weeks, and ended up with no photos of most of their Australian experience. Out of sympathy I sent them reprints of mine.
Of course, as digital increasingly supplants film in the mainstream consumer market, some of the price differences will be overcome; it may even be, in the future, that 35mm becomes more expensive on a print-by-print basis as film transitions to a niche market. But even once that happens, I'll still put my trust for long-term preservation in old-fashioned hardcopy.
BTW, I digitize a lot of my photos, both for archiving and sharing. There's just no way in hell I'll ever throw away the negatives.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
At $40 a pop for flash cards, it's more like "how many times can you reuse those 12 rolls of film?"
More to the point is: how much does it cost to look at your pictures (all prices in US dollars)?
Digital
Flash card (90 pictures): $40
Computer (w/CD Burner): $1200
Adobe Photoshop 7.0: $600
Photo-quality printer: $400
Photo-ink: $40
Total: $2280
Film
Film (108 pictures): $10
Processing (3 rolls): $15
Total: $25
That's a lot of reusing to make up for. And I still want to know what happens if I run out of flash cards on vacation.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
Whoa! Are you serious? The Ultima Golds are the only disk I use. But this can't be right -- I'm still buying them here in Taiwan.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
Assuming your laptop has broadband. I'm not sure what I'd call uploading a hundred 30mb files at 56k, but I think PITA comes pretty close.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
Ten bucks'll get you three rolls of film. How much for that flash card? And if I run out of flash cards when I'm on vacation, I'm SOL.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
Oops. Make that "threw out".
Granted, though that wasn't the case twenty years ago, which is why they through out the citations. The salient point, however, is the constitutional right to face one's accuser. When one's accuser is a machine, how does one excercise that right?
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
This should be modded -1 Stupid. If 99 out of 100 citizens get ticketed every time they drive cross-town, you can bet both the system and the politicians that were stupid enough to implement it will be collecting unemployment within a month. Make that a week if the mayor is the first one tagged. BTW, whatever happened to the right to face one's accuser? I seem to remember 20 years or so ago a Minnesota district court tossing out thousands of automated speeding tickets on that basis (the accuser being an automated system that was acting as judge, jury and jailor), and that fact that one could prove the car was speeding, but couldn't prove who was driving it.
Lee Kaiwen Taiwan, ROC
Wait a moment. You say below that until recently the KMT believed in "one China".
I was referring specifically to the '92 consensus, a document allegedly negotiated between and agreed to by Beijing and Taipei. That the KMT believed in the general idea of "one China" is indisputable. That a joint statement was negotiated is not.
If Taiwan were to return to the situation before Lee's declaration of two states, it's likely that Beijing would return to the talks
But Taiwan has no interest in returning to that state. Why should we? If those are the only conditions under which Beijing is willing to negotiate, then I'm afraid the PRC blew its window of opportunity. Taiwan is no longer willing to think of itself as a second-class state just to please Beijing.
Those talks were broken off....
By Beijing, not Taipei. It is Beijing who is unwilling to negotiate. Taipei is still waiting. Why must Taipei agree to "one China"?
I could think of many "forms" ... Beijing would not accept...
But if Taiwan were to put them on the table, then would allow talks to begin.
Taipei has repeatedly said everything -- including "one China" -- is on the table. Yet Beijing still refuses to sit down. It is not Taipei which is placing pre-conditions or demands on talks.
Because without normalized trade relations with the Mainland, Taiwan's economy is likely to get worse and worse over time.
Perhaps. No one can predict the future. However, being as a member of the WTO, China is already required to provide Taiwan with much of those normalized relations; regulations of which Beijing is already in violation.
Lee Kaiwen
Taiwan, ROC
Actually higher. The figures I've seen bounce around between the low 20s and 30 percent, with a brief surge a few months ago up to 33% in one poll.
The problem is Beijing has a history of heavy-handed government, and most Taiwanese don't think it can be trusted under a "one country, two systems" arrangement to keep its fingers out of Taiwan's affairs. The only model we have is Hong Kong and, frankly, that doesn't seem to be going very well.
Surely you would not have me believe that there is zero support for agreeing to the '92 consensus as a precondition for talks
There isn't even a consensus as to whether there is a "'92 consensus" to be agreed to. All Beijing has produced to document its claims to a 92 consensus is copies of some old faxes between some (relatively) minor Taipei officials and Beijing. Taipei has no records of having agreed to any such thing.
Beijing's preconditions for talks is acknowledgement of some form of the one China principle
No. Beijing's preconditions for talks is agreement to (not "acknowledgement of") Beijing's definition of the "one China" principle. After all, until recently, the KMT still believed in "one China" (albeit with the ROC at its head), yet Beijing refused to sit down at the table anyway.
I could think of many "forms" of "one China" I'm sure Beijing would not accept, such as, say, making Beijing an SAR of Taiwan. But why should Taiwan even want to negotiate while being forced to stare down the barrel of Beijing's gun?
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
Not terribly significant. Even assuming your claim were true, if significant numbers have defected to the mainland it means they're no longer voting in Taiwan, and thus they're of no political significance. In addition, they're aging rapidly; in another ten to twenty years there will be precious few left, even in Taiwan. So even granting your claim, I don't see that it's of any great relavance.
and it is in the process of getting the soft support among businessmen
First I should ask you to define 'soft support'. If you mean businessmen are increasingly inclined to turn Taiwan over to Beijing, I strongly dispute your claim. If you simply mean, say, a softening of rhetoric for the purpose of fostering business opportunity, then we're in a different ball game.
When I meant youth, I meant people in the 25-35 range.
Three responses: first, I don't at all see a lesser attitude amongst the 25+ crowd than I see amongst my students; I simply have immediately access to a greater number of teenagers, and thought it would make an enlightening excercise.
Second, the 15-17 year-old crowd follows closely on the heels of the 25-35ers, and will themselves begin to vote in the very near future, which means their opinion now will be significant even before the current administration comes up for re-election.
Third, if China is looking 30 years down the road as you claim, it is today's 15-year olds, not 35 year olds, who will be running the show, so in that sense their opinions are actually of greater significance than today's 30-somethings.
Much of this is due to the fact that they now see their economic future as being linked to the PRC.
Politics and economics are hardly the same thing, and recognizing the inevitability of greater economic links cannot be confused with a desire for greater political ties.
Sentimentally, they might be attached to the idea of an independent Taiwan, but economics is overwhelming sentiment.
But I have been unable to locate any data which support this claim. Most of the poll results indicate that not much has changed in the last eight years vis a vis relations between the two countries. For example, look here, or here.
The trouble with that is that the PRC has already enough military power to keep Taiwan from declaring independence now and the United States has made it clear that it will not like Taiwan starting a crisis.
The U.S. has made it equally clear that it will not like the PRC starting a crisis. That is, at least, the point of the Taiwan Defense Pact and the continued arms sales to Taiwan.
And geopolitically Beijing is *not* stuck in the Dark Ages.
Sorry. I should have been more clear. Any country which uses its military muscle to threatan, browbeat and terrorize others is, by definition, stuck in the Dark Ages. The fact that Beijing not only refuses to denounce such tactics but in fact still enthusiastically embraces them indicates it has not yet entered the community of civilized nations.
Beijing is not going to drop the threat of force for the very simple reason that if it did Taiwan would declare independence tomorrow.
Translated, this means Beijing does not respect the right of a sovereign people to self-determination, a right enshrined in the constitution of the United Nations of which Beijing is a member state. My personal opinion is that any government which does not respect my rights does not deserve my allegiance.
so that it can invade Taiwan in 30 years if it has to, not causing an immediate crisis, and to get the support of some sectors of the Taiwanese population. It has the strong support of the old KMT soldiers
I dispute your usage of the adjectives "strong" and "support" here, and would ask you to define your meanings. Do you mean the old KMT soldiers, as a demographic group, are largely of the opinion that Taiwanese sovereignty should be handed over to Beijing? Or do you simply mean that a noticeable number have decided, in their declining years, to return to the homes they were driven from half a century ago, and are willing to tolerate living under PRC rule in order to do so?
Either way, all these old KMT soldiers will be dead in 30 years (most of them much sooner), which makes any political opinions they may or may not have largely irrelevant as well.
Part of the problem of pro-independence on Taiwan is that they are vastly overestimating Beijing's stupidity and vastly underestimating Beijing's ability to change in order to get its objectives.
There are, of course, those of us who think it is impossible to overestimate Beijing's stupidity, but that's a different argument :-).
Nonetheless, if Beijing does institute significant political change, it may well be that eventually the majority of Taiwanese will come to favor unification with the mainland. If Taiwanese freely choose unification, then so be it. That is our right as guaranteed under international charter. And that is the crucial difference: Beijing doesn't give a rat's ass about the rights of the Taiwanese, whereas all the Taiwanese are asking for is the right to make our own decision.
Taiwan has past the point of no return. It hasn't shown up in the opinion polls but it will in a few years.
This is, of course, pure speculation on your part, based on, near as I can tell, nothing more than the anecdotal evidence of your in-laws. This started out as a discussion of the opinions of the Taiwanese population. It's usually hard enough to predict the present; let's not even bother trying to prognosticate on the future.
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
We'll start with the last comment first. This is where you have precisely misread public opinion. I see absolutely zero support for agreeing to Beijing's preconditions for talks. Indeed, it would be the height of stupidity, as "one China" is precisely the whole point of any talks between China and Taiwan. There is, and always has been, willingness to discuss the "one China" issue; but little enough support for being forced to agree to it beforehand.
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
First, you seem to be making the mistake of equating "pro-unification" with "pro-PRC". The two are quite different, but more on that later.
Based on your assertion that pro-PRC sentiment is growing amongst Taiwanese youth, I conducted a quick survey of my students today. The questions I asked, and the results I obtained are as follows:
1. Should Taiwan and China
A. be one country 8
B. be two countries 72
C. maintain the status quo 14
D. don't know 9
2. If you answered A. to question 1, which should be the government of a united China?
A. the ROC (Taipei) 8
B. the PRC (Beijing) 0
3. If you answered C. to question 1, why?
A. Threat of war 14
B. Other reason 0
4. Do you like
A. the ROC 25
B. the PRC 0
C. both 0
D. neither 0
Things to note are first, of course, this is simply a quick sampling, not a scientific poll. Second, numbers do not always add up both because not every question was asked in every class, and because not every student responded to every question. I surveyed 112 students, ages 15-17, and made every effort to be objective and encourage even students with unpopular opinions to express them. The numbers above are the actual results.
Even on the face of the survey, 64% of my students favor Taiwanese independence, by more than a 5-to-1 margin over second-place status quo sentiment, and nearly a 10-to-1 margin over fourth-place pro-unificationists, who chimed in at 7%.
But scratch a bit deeper, and Beijing's cause worsens: question 2 shows that amongst those favoring unification, all chose Taipei over the PRC as the government of a united China. And question 3 demonstrates that even the status-quo-ers are really just pro-independence votes in disguise, held in check only by threat of violence from Beijing. Removing that threat would push pro-independence sentiment past 75%. (BTW, question 3 was asked open-ended, allowing the students to supply their own answer; they all said the same thing.)
And finally, question 4 speaks for itself.
In short, no matter how I slice the numbers, I am unable to discover literally a single vote in favor of the PRC amongst my students. Even the pro-unificationists are looking for a China united under the ROC, not the PRC. If you're interested, I can continue the survey through the week. By week's end, I could supply you with the opinions of nearly a thousand students; but I doubt the results would vary significantly.
My family is old mainlanders.
Just to be sure we're talking on the same wavelength here. When I refer to "old mainlanders", I mean those who came over with the KMT in '49-51, not just anyone whose parents or grandparents were mainland-born.
In any case, the operative word is "old"; that generation is dying and being replaced by a generation of young Taiwanese whose sympathies are further from Beijing than ever.
Beijing *has* figured out that using too much stick and too little carrot alienates people in Taiwan.
But what Beijing hasn't figured out yet is that an enlightened government doesn't bully, browbeat and terrorize others into doing its will. The problem is that, despite having finally figured out where the world's at economically, geo-politically Beijing is still stuck firmly in the Dark Ages.
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
Then you know the wrong family. My wife's family also has strong economic connections to the mainland (Shanghai), but there's little favorable sentiment toward the PRC.
The heavy investment of Taiwanese on the PRC is changing political opinions.
Economic ties may be changing opinions toward the mainland (thought not in the way you think), but it is not changing opinions toward the PRC, which is a heavy-handed political regime whose authority has never extended to this island.
which is why the PRC is not about to drop that threat.
It is precisely such barbarism which increased anti-PRC sentiment, not decreased it, and not just in Taiwan, but throughout the regin. Beijing tried a show of force in '96, and Taiwan elected Lee Teng-hui, the most independence-minded candidate, as a result. Beijing rattled its sabers again in 2000, and got Chen Shui-bian for its efforts. Beijing has yet to figure out that its 19th century attitudes are largely responsible for anti-China feelings in Taiwan.
As for young people's attitudes, I'm an educator by profession, who works with young people, and I don't see any of the pro-PRC sentiment you claim is growing amongst the young. Nada. Zip.
The hope of pro-independence groups is that the PRC will self-destruct
The hope of pro-independence groups (i.e., the majority of Taiwanese citizens) is that the PRC will begin to reform politically as it already has economically, and eventually become a government Asia (not just Taiwan) can live with.
And your assessment of the "old mainlanders" is wrong.
Really? Tell me, how many "old mainlanders" do you know?
The New Party is dead, but that's because all of the New Party people figured that the PFP is a better bet.
Ah yes, the PFP -- another rising Taiwanese political star. The PFP would be dead as well, if it weren't continuously propped up by the KMT.
In the most recent national elections the KMT was hindered by accusations with secret collusions with Beijing, but it was not the kiss of death as it would have been ten years ago.
Seems you have a thing or two to learn about Taiwanese politics. Ten years ago there was only the KMT in Taiwanese politics, which therefore got to do precisely what it wanted without concern for political consequences. It is precisely in the last ten years that the DPP -- with its pro-independence plank -- has risen to the top, eclipsing the more unification-minded KMT. It is only since '96 that the KMT has even had to worry about political fallout. Kiss of death? Increasing PRC sentiment? I don't even know any Taiwanese who like the mainland, let alone want to join it. As I said, not in this universe, sir.
Or perhaps you can supply something more than mere anecdotal evidence to support your claims.
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
By the time China finished invading Taiwan, there wouldn't be any plants -- or animals, or people -- left; just a pile of ash 70 km off the coast of Fujian.
But then, there wouldn't be much of an economy left on the mainland, either. The real reason China doesn't invade Taiwan is that it knows it can't afford it.
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
IIRC, in the mid-1990s the world's best-selling processor was still the venerable Z80, which continues to sell so well today that its manufacturer, Zilog (which most of you young-uns probably thought went belly-up decades ago) still ranks amongst the top chip producers in the world. After retiring as a CPU in the mid-80s, it made appearances in everything from TI calculators to Nintendo's GameBoy, to televisions (yes, if you've bought a TV in the US in the last ten years, there's a one-in-five chance it's got a "Zilog Inside" powering the CC system). And considering that embedded processors account for 94% of the processor market, it should come as no surprise that there are more than a few industrial programmers still making a living off the Z80 here at the dawn of the 21st century.
So you're right, a PII for embedded processing is way overkill. But then, so is the 8086.
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
As a resident of Taiwan, I can tell you that you definitely need to get your vision checked.
Pro-China sentiment increasing in Taiwan? Not in this universe, sir. As the old Mainlander population passes on, the Taiwanese are becoming progressively less interested in the Mainland -- except as a business opportunity -- not more. The only reason 70% of Taiwanese favor maintaining the current status quo is because of Beijing's continued military threats. Absent that, I guarantee you pro-independence numbers would easily top 80%. This is not surprising, considering that less than 15 percent of Taiwanese even consider themselves Chinese, and most of those are the old mainlanders who came over with the KMT.
You may have also have overlooked the fact that the ruling political party happens to be the one with the pro-independence platform (while conversely, the only officially pro-unification party, the New Party, has been tottering on the brink of political extinction for at least the last two years); that the last two Taiwanese presidents have openly advocated Taiwanese independence (are are immensely popular); or that in the most recent national elections, the KMT's bid for a return to power was significantly hindered -- not helped -- by accusations of secret collusions with Beijing. Far from increasing, pro-unification sentiment in Taiwan has in fact found itself increasingly politically isolated in recent years.
And your suggestion that pro-unificationists in Taiwan are increasingly pro-PRC is especially entertaining. It is precisely amongst the most strongly pro-unification Taiwanese -- the old Mainlanders -- that anti-PRC sentiment is the highest.
Pro-PRC sentiment increasing.... {chuckle}
Lee Kai Wen
Taiwan, ROC
Forget about quantifying happiness, I'm still waiting for a viable means of defining it. As you've already pointed out, we can hardly "scientifically quantify" a thing until we can precisely define what it is.
The problem with hedonism/utilitarianism (or is that hedonistic utilitarianism?) is that it always comes back to a subjective definition of happiness: no one can decide for me what makes me happy. If it so happens that I derive the greatest happiness precisely from others' pain, what's a utilitarian to do?
If we're going to start weighing the unhappiness generated by 5 million copies of that "Hot Teen Virgins Await!" UCE, let's not forget to add in the happiness I just finished deriving from it in the privacy of my bathroom.
Lee Kai Wen, Taiwan, ROC
The postal inspector did not download the images for free. He paid a membership fee to join the BBS, then used a credit card to order obscene videos. Once the Thomases had taken the money and delivered the goods (whether by allowing access to a privileged downloads area, or through delivery via the US mail makes no matter) business transactions were completed which were governed by the laws of the recipient state. This was no different than your garden variety mail order business, except that the catalog was perused online rather than in the privacy of your bathroom.
The WA anti-spam laws do little more than declare that when conducting business in the state of Washington one is not exempt from truth-in-advertising simply because one solicits via a non-traditional medium. If your product is honest and your UCEs non-deceptive, you have nothing to worry about from the Pacific northwest.
Lee Kai Wen, Taiwan, ROC
Or Taiwan? In Chongqing just last week I spent nearly an hour listening to a Chinese acquaintance telling me why Taiwan should be independent. Anyone who thinks the Chinese are unable to form independent opinions overestimates the reach of Chinese censorship and propoganda.
Lee Kai Wen, Taiwan, ROC
Aside from the fact that the article you linked to reaches exactly the opposite conclusion, the fact is Taiwanese sovereignty is still held in trust by the U.S. government, which never fulfilled its promise to return it to the ROC, partly due to the fact that the U.N. never fulfilled its promise to discuss the issue.
The ROC being the successor government to the Ming Dynasty -- together with the Cairo Declaration's explicitly stated intent to return the island to the ROC ( not the PRC, which, despite its blustering, has never had a credible claim to the island) -- makes the ROC's claim the only legitimate one. In addition, Taiwan's right to self-determination, as spelled out in the U.N. charter, means but one thing: China does not own Taiwan.
Never did think those kay-sets had much of a future. Down here in the Bayou, we're wait'n on the 8-track version, so all us good ole boys can transfer our Roy Orbison collections. Ain' tha' right, Billy Bob?
Not at all. Godwin's Law merely observes, it doesn't proscribe:
As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
While the implication is that, once this point has been reached, the discussion has outlived its usefulness, Godwin's Law itself does not say so much. In its accepted form it merely observes that, given enough time, any Usenet discussion will eventually degenerate into Nazi name-calling.
While by way of application of the Law it has become accepted Netiquette in many places that the Nazi comparison ends the conversation (the Nazi reference being the bellweather indicating the discussion had already burst into flames anyway) -- and that the one making the comparison ipso facto loses the discussion -- this is not a requirement of the Law itself, which is not proscriptive at all.
For more information on Godwin's Law, check out The Godwin's Law FAQ.