Among other things the article demonstrates that Bill Clinton's dream of the Internet bringing democracy to China will face some serious challenges. Apparently the Communist leadership sees the Internet as a great way to keep tabs on people and to nip dissent in the bud.
I really like the BBC World Service but I'm sick of hearing that the BBC is somehow more objective than CNN or ABC (or whatever evil American news source you dislike).
The only difference between the BBC and CNN is that BBC is British-biased wheras CNN is American-biased. In fact, in the UK, the BBC is notorious for its rabidly pro-English bias; just ask anyone in Scotland or Wales.
Now, I know this isn't going to win me any friends on Slashdot, which draws many of its stories from the BBC, but the BBC also has a real problem with publishing sensational stories. It's far worse than CNN.
Take the NASA cyber attack story. The BBC publishes a story claiming that hackers/crackers endangered the lives of astronauts during a shuttle mission but it never properly bothered to interview any NASA officials until after the initial story hit the airwaves. Of course, Slashdot lapped the story right up and nary a soul was around when CNN published an article that set things straight.
Frankly, I think there are a lot of people on/. who confuse their own anti-American and anti-Microsoft biases with objectivity.
It's like you didn't read my post at all. I don't even like McDonald's; I and plenty of French eat there out of caloric necessity.
I ate plenty of French food when I was in Paris, just not enough to keep my stomach full.
Speaking of packets of crisps, I had the misfortune to enjoy British "cuisine" during the Mad Cow crisis and the tinned bean battle between Sainsbury's and Tesco. Before I went to Britain I used to complain about the low quality of American food, but not anymore. London, as far as I could tell, didn't contain a single decent glass of orange juice or even a morsel of fresh fruits or vegetables. Not surprisingly, the whole native population is pasty and perpetually constipated.
And here's a tip for you Brits: if you want to serve a decent "American-style" meal, include free refills on drinks. And "salad" isn't just lettuce...
Yeah, McDo in Paris is great. In fact, good old McDonald's probably saved me from starvation when I was studying in that fine city. Problem was I lived in a dorm with no kitchen and my stipend only paid enough for 14 meals a week. Fourteen meals sound like a lot, but you should've seen how small the portions were at cafes and in the student cafeteria. I'm sorry, but a cheese sandwich is _not_ a meal. And no, I'm not fat, but at 6' 4" and 180 lbs I'm a bit larger than the average Frenchman. Anyway, the only cheap, high-volume food I could find was McDonald's and other American chains. The French love McDo too, despite their ceaseless complaining about it. There are plenty of McDos and KFCs in the non-tourist arrondisments. What's more, the French have their very own McDonald's knockoff: Quick. It's not as good as McDo in terms of taste or price, but for those who care, it's not an evil American multinational. This brings me to another point. If Jose was so upset about multinationals, why didn't he go after a French one? Airbus Industrie? Vivendi? Pugeot? And if he hated foul-tasting food so much, why not knock down a Quick or two?
Wierd ???? Microsquash Word would've caught that one.
But seriously, this makes me nostalgic for the 1980s?
Does anyone remember which 1980s word processing spellchecker was the one that employed the "'I' before 'E' except after 'C'" rule? Every time I wrote "weird" it would suggest "wierd."
To be fair, it was kind of innovative; instead of relying on a library containing every common English word and matching the document's words to the library's words, the spellchecker relied on an algorithm based on spelling rules. This saved a lot of space.
Only problem is that the "'I' before 'E' except after 'C'" rule is refuted by science. (chuckle)
I've heard this a lot lately: if we can interbreed two feline species, then we're not all that far from doing the same for primates. Problem is that that the two species involved had the same number of chromosomes whereas most primates do not.
But if we do figure out how cross species with different numbers of chromosomes I'll be glad to see my tax dollars support a human-chimp hybrid project.
I'm aware that there are serious religious and moral objections to crossing humans with any other species, but crossing chimpanzees (or other primates) with humans would yield a treasure trove of information about the origin of our species and the nature of our so-called intelligence.
For instance:
Geneticists would have all sorts of new information about the heritability of certain traits. Seeing which and to which degree (human or chimp) phenotypes get passed along would be fascinating.
Psychologists could learn loads about the nature of reason, emotions, creativity, etc if they had a hu-chimp handy. Imagine the fun they'd have poking around the thing's brain.
Linguists could learn about the nature of language; perhaps they could train a hu-chimp to communicate abstract ideas, perhaps not. Could it communicate vocally?
Breed several dozen hu-chimps and let the sociologists loose.
Evolutionary Biologists might get good hints for finding the "missing link".
Anthropologists would have something to compare their subjects to besides other humans.
Medicine would surely benefit and not necessarily by performing cruel testing on the hu-chimps. How would a hu-chimp react to the common cold? Everyday bacteria? Ageing?
-- Anton Voyl
Say, do mammoths have the same number of chromosomes as elephants?
Slashdot Mirror
See "Wired China" at The Economist.
Among other things the article demonstrates that Bill Clinton's dream of the Internet bringing democracy to China will face some serious challenges. Apparently the Communist leadership sees the Internet as a great way to keep tabs on people and to nip dissent in the bud.
The only difference between the BBC and CNN is that BBC is British-biased wheras CNN is American-biased. In fact, in the UK, the BBC is notorious for its rabidly pro-English bias; just ask anyone in Scotland or Wales.
Now, I know this isn't going to win me any friends on Slashdot, which draws many of its stories from the BBC, but the BBC also has a real problem with publishing sensational stories. It's far worse than CNN.
Take the NASA cyber attack story. The BBC publishes a story claiming that hackers/crackers endangered the lives of astronauts during a shuttle mission but it never properly bothered to interview any NASA officials until after the initial story hit the airwaves. Of course, Slashdot lapped the story right up and nary a soul was around when CNN published an article that set things straight.
Frankly, I think there are a lot of people on /. who confuse their own anti-American and anti-Microsoft biases with objectivity.
Good-bye karma...
I ate plenty of French food when I was in Paris, just not enough to keep my stomach full.
Speaking of packets of crisps, I had the misfortune to enjoy British "cuisine" during the Mad Cow crisis and the tinned bean battle between Sainsbury's and Tesco. Before I went to Britain I used to complain about the low quality of American food, but not anymore. London, as far as I could tell, didn't contain a single decent glass of orange juice or even a morsel of fresh fruits or vegetables. Not surprisingly, the whole native population is pasty and perpetually constipated.
And here's a tip for you Brits: if you want to serve a decent "American-style" meal, include free refills on drinks. And "salad" isn't just lettuce...
Yeah, McDo in Paris is great. In fact, good old McDonald's probably saved me from starvation when I was studying in that fine city. Problem was I lived in a dorm with no kitchen and my stipend only paid enough for 14 meals a week. Fourteen meals sound like a lot, but you should've seen how small the portions were at cafes and in the student cafeteria. I'm sorry, but a cheese sandwich is _not_ a meal. And no, I'm not fat, but at 6' 4" and 180 lbs I'm a bit larger than the average Frenchman. Anyway, the only cheap, high-volume food I could find was McDonald's and other American chains. The French love McDo too, despite their ceaseless complaining about it. There are plenty of McDos and KFCs in the non-tourist arrondisments. What's more, the French have their very own McDonald's knockoff: Quick. It's not as good as McDo in terms of taste or price, but for those who care, it's not an evil American multinational. This brings me to another point. If Jose was so upset about multinationals, why didn't he go after a French one? Airbus Industrie? Vivendi? Pugeot? And if he hated foul-tasting food so much, why not knock down a Quick or two?
But seriously, this makes me nostalgic for the 1980s?
Does anyone remember which 1980s word processing spellchecker was the one that employed the "'I' before 'E' except after 'C'" rule?
Every time I wrote "weird" it would suggest "wierd."
To be fair, it was kind of innovative; instead of relying on a library containing every common English word and matching the document's words to the library's words, the spellchecker relied on an algorithm based on spelling rules. This saved a lot of space.
Only problem is that the "'I' before 'E' except after 'C'" rule is refuted by science. (chuckle)
But if we do figure out how cross species with different numbers of chromosomes I'll be glad to see my tax dollars support a human-chimp hybrid project.
I'm aware that there are serious religious and moral objections to crossing humans with any other species, but crossing chimpanzees (or other primates) with humans would yield a treasure trove of information about the origin of our species and the nature of our so-called intelligence.
For instance:
-- Anton Voyl
Say, do mammoths have the same number of chromosomes as elephants?