So I talked to my wife and got the refresher course on the maglev.
So the short version is that the Pudong Airport train is their prototype for long-distance transit infrastructure. Like the United States, China has vast tracts of land to get supplies around. Unlike the United States, airplanes are uneconomical due to the huge per capita cost of an air system (China has a lot more capita than the United States, y'know). So the next idea is to do a maglev. Thus, the airplane-like seating arrangement; this is not intended for short subway-like commutes ultimately.
There are two high-speed (400km/h-600km/h) maglevs: The Japanese one and the German one. The German one has the higher setup cost, but the lesser maintenance cost, so they chose that one.
Now the tracks need to be built within a couple of cm of spec for the German high-speed maglev. Metal is easy to fashion this way. Concrete is cheaper, but in order to get concrete to flow into useful shapes, you have to use more water, which weakens the concrete. Her uncle's foundation's innovation was a concrete additive that makes the concrete flow into place much more easily, so that you get quick-flowing concrete without as much water. That part of the Pudong train succeeded.
The problem was that the German train rusted and wore out much more quickly than advertised. At the speeds this thing travels, a little bit of bad maintenance can lead to a lot of kaboom. So China is still planning on using maglev trains, but only ones in the 200km/h-300km/h speed range. They're not as high-end, and more easily maintained.
This reminds me of China's ability to build its new Shanghai rail based on the magnetic levitation system, while other well-established rail-using nations like Singapore may find it difficult to switch. Talk about right place right time.
Well, I think you're right about the pre-existing infrastructure being a problem. Another problem you can face is that building something new ticks off the general population.
Shanghai's maglev to Pudong Airport wasn't a walk in the park. The biggest thing is that they had to build the tracks using concrete instead of metal (I forget why, but I think it had to do with the fact that Pudong is basically a man-made island? or the cost of the metal? Crap, I forgot). The problem with concrete is that it doesn't expand and contract freely the way metal does. They had to develop an entirely new form of concrete for the rail as a result. Now note: This is not just your typical "new tech has to be developed" thing; trying to get concrete to have the properties of metal is really trying to get a zebra to change its stripes. We're talking, "Hi, would you please revolutionize the field of materials science for us?" Now while many vital details slip my mind (it was in a conversation a few years ago with my wife's uncle, who led the concrete development, and what little I remember was what my wife translated for me), "developing a new form of concrete to use instead of metal" is up there in degrees of difficulty along with "ditching existing infrastructure."
More importantly, if you look at what China's done to Beijing for the Olympics, where all of the old neighborhoods and streets are being scrapped in favor of ten-lane streets and high-rise grids as far as the eye can see, you'll see that China has absolutely zero qualms about eliminating existing infrastructure to replace it with a different one. It's easier when you don't have an electorate to report to and don't have to worry about the people you're displacing voting you out of office.
So I think your example is a better example of this than it is an example of pre-existing infrastructure being a problem.
The USA has both of these problems, so it's always going to be the last to get major infrastructure improvements.
I didn't actually know, so I had to look it up before I posted... so I was pretty confident that saying Tupac was a NTAC would get you killed in the Bronx.
You know, you may make the claim that (for example) Tupac Shakur was not a talented enough artist to deserve the fame he receives post mortem. You may even make it intelligently and persuasively. Absolutley nothing wrong with comparing his work to the work of other hip-hop artists and giving it a run-down as its relevance pertains to the medium, various marks of quality that it may or may not meet...
But if you start pasting up signs all around the Bronx that say, "Free lecture: Tupac was a no-talent assclown and I'm going to show you Tupac fans why you're a bunch of imbeciles," well, you deserve whatever happens next.
He doesn't have to be reverent to any religion. He can make fun of it. But saying that the people who believe it are idiots doesn't make you more "right."
All in all, it's not about what you believe but how you believe in it, and that applies just as much to those who don't believe as those who do.
Oh, it was my fault, and there's no need for you to apologize; as you can see by the large number of replies you're clearly not the only one getting that impression. I made a claim, and then I utterly failed to back it up with anything remotely resembling facts. And I'll be the first one to jump on someone else's ass if they ever do that, so all the worse for me to have done it the wrong way. I should've known better.
Your point is valid and I was absolutely wrong to conjure up that example. The example I came up with was just some stupid BS I pulled out of my ass; I don't read, listen or watch any "rightwing religious propaganda" (unless you consider NPR newscasts rightwing religious propaganda). Even the people who do are intelligent enough to pick out the lies from the truth; they believe what they hear because they choose to, not because they lack the ability. Calling what they read "rightwing religious propaganda" then only pisses them off... at you, not at the fact that they've been lied to.
So this talk about "rightwing religious propaganda" really detracts from what is a very well-made and accurate point. Even though I know you're right, you don't need to make it so difficult for me to agree with you.
In theory, yes. They should be supporting the civil rights of everyone.
They're quick to defend the rights of an artist who has created something that some people find objectionable...provided that it's not a Christian nativity scene on someone's front lawn that non-Christians find objectionable. The ACLU is strangely silent when that happens.
One of my civil rights as a law-abiding citizen is my right to own a gun. Why do we have the NRA? Because the ACLU doesn't defend this right; we need another organization to pick up the slack.
The problem isn't their mission, but the selective way they pursue it.
Ahh, but you could say the same about the Germans and Japanese in WW2, and where are those holdings now? They lost the war, and the holdings they'd conquered along with it. If your holdings don't survive the war you acquire them, it doesn't count. Now if you lose 'em at some point later, that's a different thing.
Compare this with what Ying Zheng (aka Qin Shi Huang) accomplished. The lands he conquered, stayed conquered. The borders he defined by his empire ca. 200BC pretty much remain to this day.
As for faith, what you describe (humility and courage) is not faith. Faith is merely accepting fact that cannot be proven.
That does seem to be a more commonly-accepted definition of what faith is.* Under that definition, if you believe in a proven theorem, it is not faith, even if you don't understand and cannot verify the theorem on your own. What's more, with this definition, one could believe without questioning that the universe was sneezed out of the Great Green Arkleseizure, despite any evidence or suggestion that this is or could possibly be the case, would be "faith."
Just as a large ego is an indication of insecurity, where the egotist overcompensates for their lack of self-confidence, I see arrogance as being an indication of a lack of faith through overcompensation.
Even when you talk about things that have proof, there is always a possibility (no matter how improbable!) that there is an error in the proof.** As you talk about things that are provable but difficult to understand (e.g., the recent discovery that P=NP in Computer Science) people's acceptance is more commonly what you'd describe as faith.
I agree that your definition is more commonly given than mine. I think you'll also agree that, as given, it can cover things that people would not commonly describe as faith, and things that commonly are considered to be called faith are not covered by it. So it's not a very useful definition for describing the idea itself. I've found my definition to be much better in that regard.
So we agree about Stallman, I guess. We don't totally agree, at least if you stand by your statement that '"GNU/Linux" is not a distinction'.
The message I was trying to convey is that he uses the distinction "GNU/Linux" for marketing purposes, not because "GNU/Linux" is necessarily more accurate.
*It's worth mentioning that I find this definition is frequently quoted by people who would use this definition to denigrate people who have faith in e.g. God, largely because it can imply that anyone who has faith is doing so irrationally. I'm not saying you're attempting to denigrate or imply that faith is irrational, only that such uses of this definition are common. That is to say, it is a proscriptive definition of how the term is used, not a descriptive definition, much like the term "GNU/Linux." Which was my original point.:)
**Now for those who would tell someone who believes in God that he can't use the experience of millions of others who claim to have experienced God's presence as evidence that God exists, they cannot also use the argument that a proof has been peer-reviewed by however many millions of others and is thus beyond question, either; both arguments are equally invalid: The experience of knowing that the sky is blue by seeing it for oneself is just as much a proof as formalized predicate logic.
Of course I can imagine using a system without the GNU toolset; you simply replace the GNU tools with functionally equivalent tools. 90% of the world uses such a system today......unfortunately for them.
We agree, then. The reason I say that is because I feel that you're responding to me as if my point (that what he's doing is for marketing and publicity) is a criticism of Richard M. Stallman.
If it's a criticism of anything, it's a criticism of those who believe that the truth speaks for itself.
The truth doesn't speak for itself. If you have what you believe to be the truth, you have to package it so that people will accept it; you have to make the truth public; you have to sell the idea to an audience of skeptical and deeply dug-in people. If you don't, people will choke the truth until it has no room to breathe. Above all, you must remember that what you believe may not be the truth, because no matter how right you think you are, you may still be wrong. Having the humility to accept this while also having the courage to promote and defend your beliefs is called Faith.
You don't expect people to accept lies blindly; why would you expect them to accept the truth blindly? This is an all-or-nothing proposition; you cannot expect them to know when they are to blind themselves.;) So marketing, promotion and salesmanship are as vital to defending the truth as logic and reason.
Asking people to call it "GNU/Linux" is not a distinction. It's marketing. He wants his organization to receive credit for the contributions they made that made Linux development possible.
The Linux kernel couldn't have been developed without GNU tools, but you don't call something developed under Windows with Microsoft tools "MS-whatever" do you?
Although the GNU tools are still a healthy part of this complete Operating System, it's just rude to assume that everything that isn't part of the Linux kernel is GNU. KDE isn't GNU. The YUM package maintainer is not GNU. Most of the GUI system management tools are not GNU. Apache is not GNU. The drivers and kernel are not GNU. It's not the case that the bulk of your typical distribution is Linus' kernel wrapped around nothing but GNU software.
What does this have to do with wrapping foil around his RFID tag? Well, it's all about drawing attention to him and his organization. The things he does are not about being "right" (aluminum foil isn't necessarily going to have an effect on RFID) as they are to get exposure for GNU and the FSF.
They can see that Google has found the new computing business paradigm.
They can see that Google is very successful at the new paradigm.
They know that they have to adapt or end up losing their stranglehold on the market.
They know that they have to play catch-up to do it.
But they don't really understand yet what they need to do to themselves to achieve that aim.
Right now they recognize that Google's basically an advertising business that uses search technology for targeted results, and so they're looking into what would happen if, once they develop their own search/targeted-ad tech, where they could put that technology to generate revenue. It's a blind shot in the dark from a company that is lost, confused and still trying to find direction.
On the flip side, PC gaming's been on a rapid decline ever since the most recent generation of consoles.
If you think that the only kind of game worth buying is a sequel to an RTS, FPS or MMORPG, then you probably haven't noticed.
So Mac gaming may not be healthy compared to PC gaming, but it's not orders of magnitude worse off in the way that both PC and Mac gaming are compared to consoles.
The fact is that in the last election cycle the Dems got their asses handed to them due to their inability to uphold the status quo, which is (was) being able to rely on the main stream media to play the role of gatekeepers w/ regard to the message being put forth by a candidate or organization.
DingDingDingDingDingDingDingDing!!! We have a winner.
The bloggers ended up usurping the message for Kerry. The Democrats were no longer in control of their own message. And since the "guys in pajamas" (as you so eloquently put it) were largely loudmouths who couldn't sell a life preserver to a drowning man, the message was loud, rude, obnoxious, and basically turned off the small portion of the electorate that didn't already have its mind made up.
The Democrats were killed by their own supporters.
If the EU or the UN wish to set up their own root servers at their own expense, or circumvent things as they see fit, they are certainly welcome to. Perhaps they can even standardize on IPV6! But they're not actually doing anything.
So far, it's the standard UN, "Oh, someone should do something about this..." while their eyes all slowly turn and rest on the USA.
We're not handing over our root servers. Want to make your own? Great! Do it! I dare you to.
I double dare you.
With chocolate sprinkles on top. And whipped cream. And a cherry. mmm, sundaes.... sorry, where was I?
If the UN and EU are serious, let their actions suit their words. If they lack the resolve to act, then they demonstrate that they do not have the ability or focus necessary to administer the root DNS servers, either.
Slashdot Mirror
"In today's news, Diebold announced that they would be pulling out of Carolina. A frustrated Carolina could not be reached for comment."
So I talked to my wife and got the refresher course on the maglev.
So the short version is that the Pudong Airport train is their prototype for long-distance transit infrastructure. Like the United States, China has vast tracts of land to get supplies around. Unlike the United States, airplanes are uneconomical due to the huge per capita cost of an air system (China has a lot more capita than the United States, y'know). So the next idea is to do a maglev. Thus, the airplane-like seating arrangement; this is not intended for short subway-like commutes ultimately.
There are two high-speed (400km/h-600km/h) maglevs: The Japanese one and the German one. The German one has the higher setup cost, but the lesser maintenance cost, so they chose that one.
Now the tracks need to be built within a couple of cm of spec for the German high-speed maglev. Metal is easy to fashion this way. Concrete is cheaper, but in order to get concrete to flow into useful shapes, you have to use more water, which weakens the concrete. Her uncle's foundation's innovation was a concrete additive that makes the concrete flow into place much more easily, so that you get quick-flowing concrete without as much water. That part of the Pudong train succeeded.
The problem was that the German train rusted and wore out much more quickly than advertised. At the speeds this thing travels, a little bit of bad maintenance can lead to a lot of kaboom. So China is still planning on using maglev trains, but only ones in the 200km/h-300km/h speed range. They're not as high-end, and more easily maintained.
This reminds me of China's ability to build its new Shanghai rail based on the magnetic levitation system, while other well-established rail-using nations like Singapore may find it difficult to switch. Talk about right place right time.
Well, I think you're right about the pre-existing infrastructure being a problem. Another problem you can face is that building something new ticks off the general population.
Shanghai's maglev to Pudong Airport wasn't a walk in the park. The biggest thing is that they had to build the tracks using concrete instead of metal (I forget why, but I think it had to do with the fact that Pudong is basically a man-made island? or the cost of the metal? Crap, I forgot). The problem with concrete is that it doesn't expand and contract freely the way metal does. They had to develop an entirely new form of concrete for the rail as a result. Now note: This is not just your typical "new tech has to be developed" thing; trying to get concrete to have the properties of metal is really trying to get a zebra to change its stripes. We're talking, "Hi, would you please revolutionize the field of materials science for us?" Now while many vital details slip my mind (it was in a conversation a few years ago with my wife's uncle, who led the concrete development, and what little I remember was what my wife translated for me), "developing a new form of concrete to use instead of metal" is up there in degrees of difficulty along with "ditching existing infrastructure."
More importantly, if you look at what China's done to Beijing for the Olympics, where all of the old neighborhoods and streets are being scrapped in favor of ten-lane streets and high-rise grids as far as the eye can see, you'll see that China has absolutely zero qualms about eliminating existing infrastructure to replace it with a different one. It's easier when you don't have an electorate to report to and don't have to worry about the people you're displacing voting you out of office.
So I think your example is a better example of this than it is an example of pre-existing infrastructure being a problem.
The USA has both of these problems, so it's always going to be the last to get major infrastructure improvements.
Tupac's Bio
Born in the Bronx, grew up in New York.
I didn't actually know, so I had to look it up before I posted... so I was pretty confident that saying Tupac was a NTAC would get you killed in the Bronx.
You know, you may make the claim that (for example) Tupac Shakur was not a talented enough artist to deserve the fame he receives post mortem. You may even make it intelligently and persuasively. Absolutley nothing wrong with comparing his work to the work of other hip-hop artists and giving it a run-down as its relevance pertains to the medium, various marks of quality that it may or may not meet...
But if you start pasting up signs all around the Bronx that say, "Free lecture: Tupac was a no-talent assclown and I'm going to show you Tupac fans why you're a bunch of imbeciles," well, you deserve whatever happens next.
He doesn't have to be reverent to any religion. He can make fun of it. But saying that the people who believe it are idiots doesn't make you more "right."
All in all, it's not about what you believe but how you believe in it, and that applies just as much to those who don't believe as those who do.
I don't know... why did you just say, "flbgrtyu?" Why did I just say it? We each must have had a reason.
Oh, it was my fault, and there's no need for you to apologize; as you can see by the large number of replies you're clearly not the only one getting that impression. I made a claim, and then I utterly failed to back it up with anything remotely resembling facts. And I'll be the first one to jump on someone else's ass if they ever do that, so all the worse for me to have done it the wrong way. I should've known better.
Your point is valid and I was absolutely wrong to conjure up that example. The example I came up with was just some stupid BS I pulled out of my ass; I don't read, listen or watch any "rightwing religious propaganda" (unless you consider NPR newscasts rightwing religious propaganda). Even the people who do are intelligent enough to pick out the lies from the truth; they believe what they hear because they choose to, not because they lack the ability. Calling what they read "rightwing religious propaganda" then only pisses them off... at you, not at the fact that they've been lied to.
So this talk about "rightwing religious propaganda" really detracts from what is a very well-made and accurate point. Even though I know you're right, you don't need to make it so difficult for me to agree with you.
The ACLU supports civil rights.
In theory, yes. They should be supporting the civil rights of everyone.
They're quick to defend the rights of an artist who has created something that some people find objectionable...provided that it's not a Christian nativity scene on someone's front lawn that non-Christians find objectionable. The ACLU is strangely silent when that happens.
One of my civil rights as a law-abiding citizen is my right to own a gun. Why do we have the NRA? Because the ACLU doesn't defend this right; we need another organization to pick up the slack.
The problem isn't their mission, but the selective way they pursue it.
Because France only conquered most of Europe :-P
Ahh, but you could say the same about the Germans and Japanese in WW2, and where are those holdings now? They lost the war, and the holdings they'd conquered along with it. If your holdings don't survive the war you acquire them, it doesn't count. Now if you lose 'em at some point later, that's a different thing.
Compare this with what Ying Zheng (aka Qin Shi Huang) accomplished. The lands he conquered, stayed conquered. The borders he defined by his empire ca. 200BC pretty much remain to this day.
...A frustrated North Carolina could not be reached for comment.
...and not just any state, but corporation-friendly anti-activist Texas.
This is the equivalent of seeing Ralph Nader drive a Corvair around town.
That's Kansas with a K, not Texas with a T.
You speak as if this laziness is a bad thing.
As for faith, what you describe (humility and courage) is not faith. Faith is merely accepting fact that cannot be proven.
:)
That does seem to be a more commonly-accepted definition of what faith is.* Under that definition, if you believe in a proven theorem, it is not faith, even if you don't understand and cannot verify the theorem on your own. What's more, with this definition, one could believe without questioning that the universe was sneezed out of the Great Green Arkleseizure, despite any evidence or suggestion that this is or could possibly be the case, would be "faith."
Just as a large ego is an indication of insecurity, where the egotist overcompensates for their lack of self-confidence, I see arrogance as being an indication of a lack of faith through overcompensation.
Even when you talk about things that have proof, there is always a possibility (no matter how improbable!) that there is an error in the proof.** As you talk about things that are provable but difficult to understand (e.g., the recent discovery that P=NP in Computer Science) people's acceptance is more commonly what you'd describe as faith.
I agree that your definition is more commonly given than mine. I think you'll also agree that, as given, it can cover things that people would not commonly describe as faith, and things that commonly are considered to be called faith are not covered by it. So it's not a very useful definition for describing the idea itself. I've found my definition to be much better in that regard.
So we agree about Stallman, I guess. We don't totally agree, at least if you stand by your statement that '"GNU/Linux" is not a distinction'.
The message I was trying to convey is that he uses the distinction "GNU/Linux" for marketing purposes, not because "GNU/Linux" is necessarily more accurate.
*It's worth mentioning that I find this definition is frequently quoted by people who would use this definition to denigrate people who have faith in e.g. God, largely because it can imply that anyone who has faith is doing so irrationally. I'm not saying you're attempting to denigrate or imply that faith is irrational, only that such uses of this definition are common. That is to say, it is a proscriptive definition of how the term is used, not a descriptive definition, much like the term "GNU/Linux." Which was my original point.
**Now for those who would tell someone who believes in God that he can't use the experience of millions of others who claim to have experienced God's presence as evidence that God exists, they cannot also use the argument that a proof has been peer-reviewed by however many millions of others and is thus beyond question, either; both arguments are equally invalid: The experience of knowing that the sky is blue by seeing it for oneself is just as much a proof as formalized predicate logic.
Of course I can imagine using a system without the GNU toolset; you simply replace the GNU tools with functionally equivalent tools. 90% of the world uses such a system today... ...unfortunately for them.
We agree, then. The reason I say that is because I feel that you're responding to me as if my point (that what he's doing is for marketing and publicity) is a criticism of Richard M. Stallman.
;) So marketing, promotion and salesmanship are as vital to defending the truth as logic and reason.
If it's a criticism of anything, it's a criticism of those who believe that the truth speaks for itself.
The truth doesn't speak for itself. If you have what you believe to be the truth, you have to package it so that people will accept it; you have to make the truth public; you have to sell the idea to an audience of skeptical and deeply dug-in people. If you don't, people will choke the truth until it has no room to breathe. Above all, you must remember that what you believe may not be the truth, because no matter how right you think you are, you may still be wrong. Having the humility to accept this while also having the courage to promote and defend your beliefs is called Faith.
You don't expect people to accept lies blindly; why would you expect them to accept the truth blindly? This is an all-or-nothing proposition; you cannot expect them to know when they are to blind themselves.
Asking people to call it "GNU/Linux" is not a distinction. It's marketing. He wants his organization to receive credit for the contributions they made that made Linux development possible.
The Linux kernel couldn't have been developed without GNU tools, but you don't call something developed under Windows with Microsoft tools "MS-whatever" do you?
Although the GNU tools are still a healthy part of this complete Operating System, it's just rude to assume that everything that isn't part of the Linux kernel is GNU. KDE isn't GNU. The YUM package maintainer is not GNU. Most of the GUI system management tools are not GNU. Apache is not GNU. The drivers and kernel are not GNU. It's not the case that the bulk of your typical distribution is Linus' kernel wrapped around nothing but GNU software.
What does this have to do with wrapping foil around his RFID tag? Well, it's all about drawing attention to him and his organization. The things he does are not about being "right" (aluminum foil isn't necessarily going to have an effect on RFID) as they are to get exposure for GNU and the FSF.
Microsoft keeps looking at Google.
They can see that Google has found the new computing business paradigm.
They can see that Google is very successful at the new paradigm.
They know that they have to adapt or end up losing their stranglehold on the market.
They know that they have to play catch-up to do it.
But they don't really understand yet what they need to do to themselves to achieve that aim.
Right now they recognize that Google's basically an advertising business that uses search technology for targeted results, and so they're looking into what would happen if, once they develop their own search/targeted-ad tech, where they could put that technology to generate revenue. It's a blind shot in the dark from a company that is lost, confused and still trying to find direction.
On the flip side, PC gaming's been on a rapid decline ever since the most recent generation of consoles.
If you think that the only kind of game worth buying is a sequel to an RTS, FPS or MMORPG, then you probably haven't noticed.
So Mac gaming may not be healthy compared to PC gaming, but it's not orders of magnitude worse off in the way that both PC and Mac gaming are compared to consoles.
Actually, if you RTFA, isn't that one of the very things he says?
The fact is that in the last election cycle the Dems got their asses handed to them due to their inability to uphold the status quo, which is (was) being able to rely on the main stream media to play the role of gatekeepers w/ regard to the message being put forth by a candidate or organization.
DingDingDingDingDingDingDingDing!!! We have a winner.
The bloggers ended up usurping the message for Kerry. The Democrats were no longer in control of their own message. And since the "guys in pajamas" (as you so eloquently put it) were largely loudmouths who couldn't sell a life preserver to a drowning man, the message was loud, rude, obnoxious, and basically turned off the small portion of the electorate that didn't already have its mind made up.
The Democrats were killed by their own supporters.
Well, let's see how the Revolution's controller feels on an FPS or RTS.
We need both PA members debating him on O'Reilly. Just to make it MORE unfair. :)
If the EU or the UN wish to set up their own root servers at their own expense, or circumvent things as they see fit, they are certainly welcome to. Perhaps they can even standardize on IPV6! But they're not actually doing anything.
So far, it's the standard UN, "Oh, someone should do something about this..." while their eyes all slowly turn and rest on the USA.
We're not handing over our root servers. Want to make your own? Great! Do it! I dare you to.
I double dare you.
With chocolate sprinkles on top. And whipped cream. And a cherry. mmm, sundaes.... sorry, where was I?
If the UN and EU are serious, let their actions suit their words. If they lack the resolve to act, then they demonstrate that they do not have the ability or focus necessary to administer the root DNS servers, either.