i'm all for this, on the "exposing echelon" front, but given that france is notorious for using its intelligence serivice to benefit french companies, the irony is really killing me here...:)
why do people keep falling for this? i mean, jeez, this is a troll so blatantly obvious that the "leeto script kiddie" at the bottom isn't even remotely necessary, and people are still reading it straight.
and whassup with that, anyway? used ta be there was subtlety in the trolls. not anymore. is there a contest to see who can be the most blatant and still get the desired response?
personally, i give ya 6/10, with points off for incoherency and lack of subtlety. you get kudos for a certain genuine-seeming rabidness.
the last post didn't read to well. what it says, specifically, is that normal, well-adjusted, attractive people of both genders are discouraged from going into science or computer science (women more than men, i think).
now, a lot of *american* cs girls are ugly, but then a lot of american cs guys are ugly. cs people are just aesthetically challeged.
now, a lot of the international students in CS are surprisingly normal (oh yeah, cs people are also normality challenged). i'm not saying that this implies anything about the perception of computer people in us culture but....er, it does.
they're not. at least, if you compare today to 1994, they've lost ground. they've lost quite a bit. i think we're safe for the moment. you just need to have a little faith;)...
...gutenberg didn't invent the moveable-type press. that was done by some chinese guy in the 600's, i think. he probably invented the first practical one, though.
all-in-all, i like the article, except that *my* case is much better than the one they picked:).
i like ya jon, i really do. i read pretty much everything you post, and i mostly enjoy it. a small tip, though:
given your stature, and at this point in your career, the fact that XXX reputable news outlet called (early in the morning, no less) to get your opinion on something is a memory and accomplishment you should hold near and dear as a heart-warming little secret.
i.e., it's not something to put near the lead of your column. it just makes you look kind of pretentious and a bit amateurish. gauche, even. in the future, let people assume that a lot of reputable news outlets called you for your opinion. after all, we assume they call Pundit Rob. it's more subtle, you see. it works better.
i'd say the PRC is a fair bit worse than the countries you mentioned, but they're damned sure not the worst on the block. just the next duly elected enemy.
also, you left out 7. a sovereign government might not want all of their critical computers running on software from another country, and one that has proven itself profoundly unfriendly, to boot.
a radical idea, i know, but i think if microsoft were a PRC company, we might concievably (hear me out on this...) not want to run all of our computers on their software. just a guess. maybe pat buchanan would disagree.
5) Will there be a huge US/Microsoft backlash against this? The *potential* market in the PRC is huge.
(We're not looking at another Opium War (although the analogy between W2k and powerful foreign narcotics has undeniable appeal, no?), but there could be repercussions.)
6) If Microsoft were a PRC company, don't you think that the US would be a bit leery of having all of their computers run on their software?
(*shrug*)
I hate to point out the blindingly obvious...
on
China Banning Win2k
·
· Score: 1
...but it looks like half the people here didn't actually read the story.
China is not banning W2k. China is banning W2k for government use, in much the same way that there was talk of W2k being banned in Germany.
Also, according to the article, they're mandating that the government standardize on Red Flag Linux. This is sort of like the library I work at (a state agency) mandating that I use NT4 on their machines.
There is no freedom issue here, that I can see. If the US government came out tomorrow and said that no government agency would be allowed to purchase W2k, and that all government agencies would be required to run Linux, not a single lawyer could raise a constitutional hand, and i don't hesitate to predict that there would be a great rejoicing right here on this site. The PRC does the same thing, and this is what you get. Hypocritical bastards.
The sad part is, nobody is bothering to really debate any of the interesting questions raised by this:
1) Will there be exception vouchers? No operating system has thus far shown itself to be the best tool for every job. (My Take(tm): idunno, but it's an important question. also, if there are vouchers, will Linux become the PRCs equivalent of Ada, where everybody just gets a voucher?)
2) Will the cost savings from purchasing software and administrative savings (if nothing else, from the effects of standardization itself) outweigh the costs incurred by not using the OS used by most of the rest of the world?
(MT: You could save a loooooot of money. Maybe enough to make homegrowing a lot of apps worthwhile. I wonder if Chinese programmers will pay as much attention to i18n as American programmers? I'm going to be missing out on a lot of apps if they do. Maybe they'll be more like the European programmers, tho:).
3) Will the PRC honor the GPL?
(Maybe.)
4) Will the PRC insert little bits of government-friendly code into their version, counting on the same OOB mentality that gave use IE popularity to ensure that their versions get used, instead of newly-compiled versions without pro-PRC code being installed? (pro-PRC meaning that the code is for some prolly-malevolent reason more desirable to the government than the "stock" code)
(Probably.)
Also, if anybody else calls the PRC government "communist" again, I'm gonna hurl. Go out and buy a f*cking poly-sci book, and then consult any basic fact-source about the PRC today. "Fascist?" Sure. "Authoritarian?" No problem. "Communist?" An insult to the ideals of communism, regardless of whether or not you agree with those ideals.
(I personally think that communism is stupid and bad. I think the same about authoritarian types of government. I also make some token effort to differentiate between the two. To do anything less is just inelegant, and therefore offensive.)
Re:Don't pretend to be Taiwanese, you dumbshit
on
China Banning Win2k
·
· Score: 1
somebody oughtta mark this 'informative', at least.
well, then, would you care to let the rest of us in on your little secret?
of course, if you've had an uptime of four years, then you probably aren't using NT4 (was it out at the beginning of 1996?), and you didn't apply any service packs. a lot of people don't have an option not to do that.
i hate microshaft as much as the next guy, but this crap with the "hey, there's no crime here, why's the NYPD doing the hegemon's footwork?" is just ridiculous.
there is no crime committed:
when a cat gets stuck in a tree.
when someone loses their sub-$1 million-dollar car.
when someone's car breaks down.
...and yet, i don't hear anyone complaining about the police helping out in those circumstances.
the simple truth of the matter is that microsoft probably wanted their package back ASAP, and the NYPD was the quickest, surest way to do that.
maybe MS thought that the guy would more easily surrender the package to the NYPD than some MS rep. so what? believe it or not, the guy doesn't have a right to the prototype. he didn't buy it.
to use an earlier analogy: if you sell somebody a picasso at your garage sale for $3, you don't have a right to get it back. if, however, you sell a velvet elvis painting for $3, and accidently hand the guy a picasso instead, then you did not make a bargain for that painting, and it's still yours, even if the other guy has committed no wrong.
on the other hand, of course, you still owe the guy a velvet elvis painting.
Learn to use the new tools that NT provides instead of spending countless hours window-shopping, trying to turn NT into X. It cannot be done. If you want X, you know where to find it.
Keep your old tools. Use the new ones. Also, get GNU bash for NT. Do this, and you shall be one with the tao.
Yah, but you'd think that if this case is as laughable as it appears, there'd be some (prolly goodish) lawyer out there willing to file a counter suit on a contingency basis.
Basically, by running with your lights set up right, you give off the same ambient light level as the sky, or close enough, and you become very hard to pick out.
Just painting the plane doesn't have the same effect, because you can't reflect 100% of the available light, so you turn up darker. In the case of the bottom and most of the visible front of the aircraft, most of the light you're reflecting has already lost intensity by being reflected off of the ground.
That is a problem: can you libel an organization instead of an individual? Plus, to boot, political speech is correctly more highly protected than any other.
However, I'm not sure if (legally or morally) this gives you the right to try to convince people that the government is liable for a specific wrongdoing for which it is not.
Besides, didn't the DoD threaten to sue ABC or somebody over a story they did about wiping out roundeyes in North Vietnam with Sarin gas or something, a few years back?
Slashdot Mirror
i'm all for this, on the "exposing echelon" front, but given that france is notorious for using its intelligence serivice to benefit french companies, the irony is really killing me here...:)
why do people keep falling for this? i mean, jeez, this is a troll so blatantly obvious that the "leeto script kiddie" at the bottom isn't even remotely necessary, and people are still reading it straight.
and whassup with that, anyway? used ta be there was subtlety in the trolls. not anymore. is there a contest to see who can be the most blatant and still get the desired response?
personally, i give ya 6/10, with points off for incoherency and lack of subtlety. you get kudos for a certain genuine-seeming rabidness.
then they probably shouldn't have moved to a damned island in the first place. sheesh. :)
the last post didn't read to well. what it says, specifically, is that normal, well-adjusted, attractive people of both genders are discouraged from going into science or computer science (women more than men, i think).
no. that's not true.
now, a lot of *american* cs girls are ugly, but then a lot of american cs guys are ugly. cs people are just aesthetically challeged.
now, a lot of the international students in CS are surprisingly normal (oh yeah, cs people are also normality challenged). i'm not saying that this implies anything about the perception of computer people in us culture but....er, it does.
they're not. at least, if you compare today to 1994, they've lost ground. they've lost quite a bit. i think we're safe for the moment. you just need to have a little faith ;)...
...gutenberg didn't invent the moveable-type press. that was done by some chinese guy in the 600's, i think. he probably invented the first practical one, though.
:).
all-in-all, i like the article, except that *my* case is much better than the one they picked
i like ya jon, i really do. i read pretty much everything you post, and i mostly enjoy it. a small tip, though:
:)!
given your stature, and at this point in your career, the fact that XXX reputable news outlet called (early in the morning, no less) to get your opinion on something is a memory and accomplishment you should hold near and dear as a heart-warming little secret.
i.e., it's not something to put near the lead of your column. it just makes you look kind of pretentious and a bit amateurish. gauche, even. in the future, let people assume that a lot of reputable news outlets called you for your opinion. after all, we assume they call Pundit Rob. it's more subtle, you see. it works better.
'til next time, keep using that spell checker
-k. ^-^
i'd say the PRC is a fair bit worse than the countries you mentioned, but they're damned sure not the worst on the block. just the next duly elected enemy.
also, you left out 7. a sovereign government might not want all of their critical computers running on software from another country, and one that has proven itself profoundly unfriendly, to boot.
a radical idea, i know, but i think if microsoft were a PRC company, we might concievably (hear me out on this...) not want to run all of our computers on their software. just a guess. maybe pat buchanan would disagree.
5) Will there be a huge US/Microsoft backlash against this? The *potential* market in the PRC is huge.
(We're not looking at another Opium War (although the analogy between W2k and powerful foreign narcotics has undeniable appeal, no?), but there could be repercussions.)
6) If Microsoft were a PRC company, don't you think that the US would be a bit leery of having all of their computers run on their software?
(*shrug*)
...but it looks like half the people here didn't actually read the story.
:).
China is not banning W2k. China is banning W2k for government use, in much the same way that there was talk of W2k being banned in Germany.
Also, according to the article, they're mandating that the government standardize on Red Flag Linux. This is sort of like the library I work at (a state agency) mandating that I use NT4 on their machines.
There is no freedom issue here, that I can see. If the US government came out tomorrow and said that no government agency would be allowed to purchase W2k, and that all government agencies would be required to run Linux, not a single lawyer could raise a constitutional hand, and i don't hesitate to predict that there would be a great rejoicing right here on this site. The PRC does the same thing, and this is what you get. Hypocritical bastards.
The sad part is, nobody is bothering to really debate any of the interesting questions raised by this:
1) Will there be exception vouchers? No operating system has thus far shown itself to be the best tool for every job. (My Take(tm): idunno, but it's an important question. also, if there are vouchers, will Linux become the PRCs equivalent of Ada, where everybody just gets a voucher?)
2) Will the cost savings from purchasing software and administrative savings (if nothing else, from the effects of standardization itself) outweigh the costs incurred by not using the OS used by most of the rest of the world?
(MT: You could save a loooooot of money. Maybe enough to make homegrowing a lot of apps worthwhile. I wonder if Chinese programmers will pay as much attention to i18n as American programmers? I'm going to be missing out on a lot of apps if they do. Maybe they'll be more like the European programmers, tho
3) Will the PRC honor the GPL?
(Maybe.)
4) Will the PRC insert little bits of government-friendly code into their version, counting on the same OOB mentality that gave use IE popularity to ensure that their versions get used, instead of newly-compiled versions without pro-PRC code being installed? (pro-PRC meaning that the code is for some prolly-malevolent reason more desirable to the government than the "stock" code)
(Probably.)
Also, if anybody else calls the PRC government "communist" again, I'm gonna hurl. Go out and buy a f*cking poly-sci book, and then consult any basic fact-source about the PRC today. "Fascist?" Sure. "Authoritarian?" No problem. "Communist?" An insult to the ideals of communism, regardless of whether or not you agree with those ideals.
(I personally think that communism is stupid and bad. I think the same about authoritarian types of government. I also make some token effort to differentiate between the two. To do anything less is just inelegant, and therefore offensive.)
somebody oughtta mark this 'informative', at least.
well, geez, i guess that means they can't read it, end of story.
*pbbllllt*. that's just silly.
well, then, would you care to let the rest of us in on your little secret?
of course, if you've had an uptime of four years, then you probably aren't using NT4 (was it out at the beginning of 1996?), and you didn't apply any service packs. a lot of people don't have an option not to do that.
i That's fire department, not police
:)
Didn't you ever see Police Academy?
i hate microshaft as much as the next guy, but this crap with the "hey, there's no crime here, why's the NYPD doing the hegemon's footwork?" is just ridiculous.
there is no crime committed:
when a cat gets stuck in a tree.
when someone loses their sub-$1 million-dollar car.
when someone's car breaks down.
...and yet, i don't hear anyone complaining about the police helping out in those circumstances.
the simple truth of the matter is that microsoft probably wanted their package back ASAP, and the NYPD was the quickest, surest way to do that.
maybe MS thought that the guy would more easily surrender the package to the NYPD than some MS rep. so what? believe it or not, the guy doesn't have a right to the prototype. he didn't buy it.
to use an earlier analogy: if you sell somebody a picasso at your garage sale for $3, you don't have a right to get it back. if, however, you sell a velvet elvis painting for $3, and accidently hand the guy a picasso instead, then you did not make a bargain for that painting, and it's still yours, even if the other guy has committed no wrong.
on the other hand, of course, you still owe the guy a velvet elvis painting.
just my $2000.02,
*groan*. now i'll be subjected to thousands of comments about the first line of a silly article.
maybe i'll just pour hot grits down my pants and be done with it.
That's because you are bound by nostalgia.
Learn to use the new tools that NT provides instead of spending countless hours window-shopping, trying to turn NT into X. It cannot be done. If you want X, you know where to find it.
Keep your old tools. Use the new ones. Also, get GNU bash for NT. Do this, and you shall be one with the tao.
Yah, but you'd think that if this case is as laughable as it appears, there'd be some (prolly goodish) lawyer out there willing to file a counter suit on a contingency basis.
Hmmm....maybe, maybe not.
I wonder if EToy could file a countersuit? I mean, this lawsuit appears to be so silly that it *must* have been brought in bad faith...
The human visual system is an odd thing.
Basically, by running with your lights set up right, you give off the same ambient light level as the sky, or close enough, and you become very hard to pick out.
Just painting the plane doesn't have the same effect, because you can't reflect 100% of the available light, so you turn up darker. In the case of the bottom and most of the visible front of the aircraft, most of the light you're reflecting has already lost intensity by being reflected off of the ground.
That quote from the principal, the one with the "label psycho" bit, it seems very very very unlikely to me that that's non-bogus.
...hate literature isn't protected by the Constitution
care to shepardize that one?
That should have been "a governmental organization..."
That is a problem: can you libel an organization instead of an individual? Plus, to boot, political speech is correctly more highly protected than any other.
However, I'm not sure if (legally or morally) this gives you the right to try to convince people that the government is liable for a specific wrongdoing for which it is not.
Besides, didn't the DoD threaten to sue ABC or somebody over a story they did about wiping out roundeyes in North Vietnam with Sarin gas or something, a few years back?