>>1)Taiwan has not been governed by China since 1895, when the Japanese added it to their empire... >>2)The real thing that holds them back from taking over Taiwan by military force is the same >>thing that has kept them from doing so since 1948: the United States Navy. I see some very contradicting logic here. Taiwan was occupied by Japan from *China* during the expansion period before WW2, then US Navy stop the Chinese from taking Taiwan back. Are you suggesting that do something wrong twice will make something correct? It is just like France had been overrun by the Nazi in WW2. Then it is acceptable for the Americans (or Russian or whoever) to split France into halves for n years, then tell the French to accept the independence of these provinces after n years because these people are now very "americanized", "russianized" or whatever. It is called penalising the victim.
Unification can be carried out in more than a single context. It is not good to put the people in Taiwan under the direct rule of communist. But, there should be other ways to sort that out. Even the Chinese Communist Party are suggesting the "One country, two system" as a model. May be some kind of confedaration or republic will work...
>>play dead and let the PRC move in and take over,muzzle their press, appoint a governor, and take >>away their democracy, just as they did in Hong Kong. That would solve that problem very neatly. Are you trying to suggest there was real democracy in Hongkong before the return in 1997? The governor was appointed by the Ministry of Foreign affairs in UK ("elected" by not quite representative 800-member council at this moment, which is the main concern nowadays). Only 24 out of the 60 seats in the Legislative council were directly elected (30 out of 60 now). I agree the rate of democratization in HK should be faster, but being kind of an activist in the 80's I am surprise to "learn" that HK was a democratic society before.
>>Seriously, Taiwan needs to get a hold of some >>nuclear weapons. Since they're so close to >>mainland China they don't even need ICBM to deliver them.
Seriously, Palestine/ Syria/ Cuba/ Quebec/ NorthIreland needs to get hold of some nuclear weapon. Since they're so close to Isreal/Isreal/US/Canada/UK, they don't even need ICBM to deliver them.... You start seeing the flaw of above analysis. More nuclear weapon is not a solution to every single problem. If you assist your friend to get that, your foe can assist their mates to get that as well....
It is a good introduction. Unfortunately, it forgets to mention any background before Chiang Kai-shek withdrew in 1949. Many westerners tend to think mainland China and Taiwan are two completely unrelated regions and should be considered as two countries. I hope the following summary can help the reader to decide themselves.
First, we need to make clear about the population profile in modern day Taiwan. Only 1 % are aboriginal people (more similar to polynesian living around the Pacific islands), about 20% come to descended from parents came to Taiwan in around 1949, with the rest came from mainland in 1600-1900. But, anyway, most of them have a clear Chinese origin.
Second, there were foreign occupations during 1624-1661 by the Dutch and 1895-1945 by the Japanese (a pretext to the WW2). According to Cairo Conference of 1943 the allied powers agreed to have Taiwan be handed over to the Republic of China after the surrender of the Japanese. The 20th century wisdom is no one should gain more land from an invasion. Japan is a counter example. Okinawa was Ryukyu Kingdom with different language and culture before 1879. Many Chinese think that it is crazy for a separated Japan-leaning country just right outside China. The end of the WW2 should mean a restoration of the old border.
Third, many people in Taiwan blame KMT (Chiang Kai-shek's party) for everything after the 1949 withdrew. However, there is an often overlooked fact. Where is the national reserve of China end up to (the currency is partially back up with gold that time)? Also, during the last days of KMT rule in mainland, they have forced the mainlanders to pay 30years of taxes in advance. Basically, confisticating all the available capital before retreating... It is therefore hard to claim there is no link between 2 sides...
>>second, china built the three gorges dam. they >>power. and, it is impssible to defend from air or >>missile attack. we could take it out in about 10 >>minutes. and they're fscking toast. Please forget about it... It is a blind spot that somehow developed, first from critics within China who opposed the building of the dam (I don't think it is a good idea environmentally, but we are talking about military at this moment...), then spread to the newsgroups to Taiwan and blow out of proportion.
First, the three gorges dam is about 1000km inland... A Tomhowk cruise can only do 880km/h The closest US base is not right next to China. I don't know where does the 10 min respond time come from... Also, whether you can use cruise missile to destory a gravity dam which is enforced with with 100 m of solid concrete is another question...
More importantly, the main "advantage" of bombing three gorge dam is the potential to kill tens of millions downstream by the subsequent flood. If the tactic is successful, I recommend everyone run for the nuke bomb shelter. Other than a first strike nuke attack, there is another very likely trigger for a nuke war: massive killing of civilian population by whatever mean. Just imagine Canada bombed New York with thermobaric bomb or whatever non-nuclear and killed 5 million people thru the initial blast and subsequent fire... Do you think US will think twice before using nukes?
You can actually order that from bookshops around China. It is Y$118, around US$15. http://www.fjqi.gov.cn/SHUDIAN/9shu.htm
If you are a member of the relevant IEEE communication standard committee, you can view the translated version online... http://grouper.ieee.org/.../Meeting_doc uments/2003 _Sept/ 18-03-0055-00-0000_wapi-translation-members-only.d oc
I have no access to either. I don't think it is wise to comment too much before reading the relevant technical documents...
It is pretty pathetic to deal with some big software company like Microsoft when reporting bugs... There is no simple way. A friend of mine did some scripting and discovered an obscured w2k bug (no big deal just causing yet another blue screen) by pure chance. He did some detective work and nailed down to the exact condition that triggers the problem. Since we are not doing security or serious low level programming, we don't have links with any relevant person in MS. When contacting the local MS office (we are in a small country, btw), the guy on the other end of the phone had no clue and put us thru technical support. Read: demanding $$$.
At the end, we did not bother. After a few more months, it was made public (not by my friend though). Nowadays, reporting MS bug becomes a dangerous maneouver... If MS is really serious about security and good quality software, they would put a contact on the front page and offer reward for anyone who spots a new major bug. Before then, I don't see why we need to be nice to MS.... They say they are capitalist. We should respect their value and don't do any free work for them...
Of course not. The cell phone air time in Hongkong is so cheap that even schoolchildren don't text that much... Competition is the key.
Here in New Zealand, schoolchildren text a lot. University students text a lot too... Reason is simple: NZ$1.4/min at daytime on the prepaid plans, which is what most people on budget are in. If you talk just 30 min in NZ on that plan, you can get a 1500 min plan in HongKong.... I guess it is more than sufficent for most.... In fact, quite a few of my friends in HK have now ditched their home telephone lines....
You may find that weird why the Chinese govt behaves in such a contradicting way: supporting its own linux company while signing another contract from Sun. The main reason is the economic autonomy is fairly high over there, especially for the few affluent regions (eg. Beijing, Shanghai and GougZhou province govts). It is not that diffrent from, say, California obtains winXP license from MS for every children and his/her dog while Ohio adopts a complete Mac option for secondary school right at the same time. No one thinks that is contradicting
Also, the number of license does matter. Suppose their govt want to spend $50M for licensed software this year. They can either go for 1 million linux desktop support license from Sun, or, less than 100k licenses from MS. Here is the outcome.
Think about that as if you are the guy in charge of the government IT policy. Option 1: transform the whole xyz dept to linux and free from the control of the evil MS, which matches the agenda of the central govt. Option 2: waste $50 million to replace 1/10 of the pirated MS copy while the outsiders still blame you for pirating (9/10 of the copies are not legal after spending all the budget).
If I were running IBM, I would hire a team of college students, give them some nice laser printers and *tonnes* of paper. Then, tell them to start printing every single line of code and message in kernel 1.x-2.x, and all the related archives (like kernel traffic).
"SCO's Stowell said his company provided about a million pages of documents in response to IBM's requests. " Being the once biggest and nastiest company in the world, hevay weight champion IBM should do more than that:-)
That's a good idea as long as your phone supports that... I return from my Taipei/Hongkong trip last month (I am in New Zealand, btw)... I just bought a prepaid SIM at each place with zero hassle...
However, all the places use GSM900MHz... Many phones can do dual bands; not many phones support triple band, which is necessary in US. It is the big problem for infrequent travellers.
I am about to finish my PhD in robotics, just returned from one of the major international robotics conference
My view about robotics is quite a bit different. On the AI side, there is no major breakthrough in the last n years. The humanoid robots are impressive (notably the Honda series), but only for the hardware... The mentioned domestic robots are so far quite dumb (e.g. the "robotic vacuum cleaner" and "robotic lawn mowing machine" moves through either highly repeatitive pattern like zip-zap or random walk, with sensors to prevent bumping into big obstacles).
It leads to an unavoidable consequece, happened many times in the past: nothing in robotics works, nothing that work remains in robotics. Robot dog (Aibo) is now a toy. Robotic lathe/ mill becomes the CNC machine. If the robotic vacuum cleaner really takes off, it will become yet another home appliances in a very short time... The funding agency complained the lack of performance from robotic research... The claim from the robotic community always seem to be exaggarated. Before a major breakthrough in AI, I would like to say the impact of robotics would be subtle.
I don't know where did you get the information from. The Chinese missile program has a much stronger influence from the Russian, esp in the 50's, than from the American. The bulk of the satellite launching infrastructure had been done largely on their own when they were embargoed by both, ie between 1960-80.
China launched its first satellite on Apr 1970. First geostationary communications satellite on Apr 1984 (and first ICBM DF-5 finished testing in 1980. A bit offtrack, but we all know ICBM's design is not that different from satellite launching). All these are prior to the alleged illegal missile technology from Hughes etc in early 90's... In fact, even before the first commercial Chinese satellite launching in 1995.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-00u.html h ttp://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/icbm/df-5.htm
I had a good chat with my secondary school classmate about the idea of education voucher, who happens to be an economist, a few days ago. I argued that it is one of the ideas that makes good economic sense, but will fail in the real world. While the schools can introduce say, scholarship, to help the poorer students, the immense feeling of disparity in the society....
The e-education for basic education is not that health. What will the village children think about the teacher? Are we so untouchable that even the teacher do not want to be with us? It is really bad for the children mentally. Although retaining highly qualified teacher is hard for rural community in developing world, you don't really need a university graduate for teach rural primary school either...
The answer is simple: time to lookup SCO under the www.fuckedcompany.com:-)
Re:Somebody smack these people
on
Is SARS From Mars?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The masked palm civet cat in Southern China is largely a herbivore. When I was scouting in many years ago, the rangers in Hongkong forest park taught me how to spot these animals. They leave indigested seed/fruit skin with their faeces. They are dubbed as "fruit ferret" in the local language.... Having said that, when transforming to a largely urban life, there are lots of habits that needs to be given up. Some activities make perfect sense in farming society no longer apply in industrial region... I think the consumption of wild animal is one of the example... Hunting is probably the other... Both western and oriental society need to go through these phases.... give us some time.
Info on Civet Cat, Found to Have SARS * TRAITS: Of the family Viverridae, the civet cat is a primarily nocturnal animal closely related to the mongoose. There are several species. Some are carnivores that live on the ground, while the animals with SARS in China are masked palm civets, which live in trees and eat fruit.
Do we need a gun license for this?
on
T-Shirt Cannon
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I am not quite sure about US, but, if you are living in UK or other countries with similar law, you may need a gun license to operate this.
Usually, a gun is defined as a device which can fire a projectile/bullet with an energy of greater than 2J measured at the muzzle.
Assuming the weight of a T-shirt is 40 g, the max height it reaches is 50m, ignoring all the loss due to friction/air resistance, the min energy is mgh=0.04*9.81*50=19.6J...
I have watched that. The dumb reporter used the term "SARS"--the direct English pronouncation "sa-see" and asked the locals. It is known as atypical pneumonia over there, the Chinese equivalent term of course. You can scare the butt off everyone....
>>but their governments have been both forthright >>and, at least in the case of Singapore, have been >>pro-active in their raising awareness about SARS As I had said in my original post, the Guandong province govt has done a very bad job in handling this event. But, the biggest accusation is not pro-active enough, rather than restricting information. In case of big crisis, there are 2 worst approach you can take: 1) complete denial. 2) free information but no instruction/action. In both cases, people tend to take random and potentially harmful action.
It should be pointed out the importance of synchronisation between information release (or leakage) and action. The third wave of infection in Hongkong is partially caused by information spreading faster than the govt can reaction. In the second wave of infection, many people in an apartment block (Amoy Garden) suddenly become sick. The govt planned to move all the health ones to an isolation center for further monitoring. The condition of Amoy Garden leaked to media in the mean time. About 60% of the Amoy Garden occupients had already abandoned their home and lived with relatives by the time govt was ready after 48 hrs. Needless to say, it accelerates the spread of virus.
I have read the news articles in Hongkong and the mainland China newsgroups closely since Feb this year.
In terms of the timeline, it is not too fair to blame the Chinese govt of covering up for 4 months before reporting. SARS is a new virus, which is not too different from a nasty pneumonia. The Novmember index case is traced back from the medical records after they noticed something very unusual at around the first major outbreak in mid Feb. That outbreak was occurred in Guangdong province and has notified WHO on 11 Feb. It was known as atypical pneumonia by the time.
It sparked some social chaos in a number of citis in Guangdong, fuelled by rumours.... There were a few facts: 1) the medical staff knew that there were probably more people got infected by visiting the ER of the most affected hospital then thru other channels. Most of these patient rushed to ER unnecessarily -- they may just have normal cold to start with. 2) many people think that boiling vingear can "clean" their homes. At least, two person were killed by carbon monoxide when boiling that in closed rooms. It is part of the reason why they want to tone that down later on (in late Feb to March). Of course, we cannot discount the more selfish motivation of the officials/govt...
Chinese govt, esp for the officials in Guangdong, has a lesson to learn in the whole event. It is arguable whether 100% openness is the best way to go in crisis. For example, if I were the mayor of a city which was going to be flatten by a major earthquake in 4 hrs, I would seek special power from the central govt, mobilise all the police/troop, arrange transport before telling people to move. In any case, those in the power will definitely need to be more reactive. There are good ways to cooperate with WHO more fully in an early stage without causing further panic to the people...
Spreading via droplet is technically airborne. But, in the context of contagious disease, the definition is a bit more strict. Airborne is defined as a virus/bacteria which can be transmitted through particles with a size of less 0.3 um (or 3um..., can't remember the exact figure). Below that threshold, the particle can be suspended in the air for a long time, pass thru most less capable masks and is considered much more difficult to contain.
The other way round. Before registering with the patent office, the standardization process disclose what they come up with as their proposed standard at the final stage.
In a sense, they are at a special patent pending stage. If you feel your existing patent is being offended, say so. It is a fair go for everyone.
I think standardization process is one of the area patent rule must be reformed on. For "important enough" standard, which can be classified as say ANSI, ISO etc, they should be able to register with the patent office.
A deadline (e.g. 1 yr) is set for patent holders who think their patent has been violated in the process. If they don't actively defense their patent in that process, tell them to forget about it.
I know some readers may worry about some companies may start abusing the system. But, this won't bring obvious advantage to them. These people don't actually do research/invention. They don't have material to copy at that stage. Even so, there is no money return if they succeed to block the standardization process.
PNG is a very good picture format. However, you cannot simply replace JPEG with PNG. Both PNG and JPEG compress images, but PNG is lossless while JPEG is lossy.
While for say, web graphics PNG may be as good as JPEG, The compression ratio for JPEG is in general much much better for natural images (eg photos). If the patent issue turns out to become very nasty, we may have to adopt the next one (JPEG2000). Situation is similar to the gif->png story.
Usually those who post these illegal ads are outright criminals: including loan sharks, fake passport/document seller, drug trafficker or those who control prostitutes etc...
If the police do follow the procedure (ie ring up first), it is not too possible to affect the innocent. How do you normally answer you call, "Hello this is Tom speaking" or "Hey bro, I can sell you some Speed!!!".
Making fun on those bastards was one of our favourite in the past (early 90's) when we were young. We wasted the bastards' time (and money--only listener paid the call that time) by calling those sticker numbers and striked fake deals with them. To stop being traced back, we normally use public free phone, eg those placed in school for local calls. Well, I grow up in Hongkong but I am quite sure the mainland criminal network has picked up all the tricks in sticker business even before unification...
Around 1995, most of the "war" related games are turn-based, ie those with hexagon grids. Not very different from the board games but with computer opponents. The Panzer General series and many other WW2 games released by SSI are the examples...
But, after RTS taken off, good turn-based game seems to disappear. I really miss these turn based ones...
Slashdot Mirror
>>1)Taiwan has not been governed by China since 1895, when the Japanese added it to their empire ...
>>2)The real thing that holds them back from taking over Taiwan by military force is the same
>>thing that has kept them from doing so since 1948: the United States Navy.
I see some very contradicting logic here. Taiwan was occupied by Japan from *China* during the expansion period before WW2, then US Navy stop the Chinese from taking Taiwan back. Are you suggesting that do something wrong twice will make something correct? It is just like France had been overrun by the Nazi in WW2. Then it is acceptable for the Americans (or Russian or whoever) to split France into halves for n years, then tell the French to accept the independence of these provinces after n years because these people are now very "americanized", "russianized" or whatever. It is called penalising the victim.
Unification can be carried out in more than a single context. It is not good to put the people in Taiwan under the direct rule of communist. But, there should be other ways to sort that out. Even the Chinese Communist Party are suggesting the "One country, two system" as a model. May be some kind of confedaration or republic will work...
>>play dead and let the PRC move in and take over,muzzle their press, appoint a governor, and take
>>away their democracy, just as they did in Hong Kong. That would solve that problem very neatly.
Are you trying to suggest there was real democracy in Hongkong before the return in 1997? The governor was appointed by the Ministry of Foreign affairs in UK ("elected" by not quite representative 800-member council at this moment, which is the main concern nowadays). Only 24 out of the 60 seats in the Legislative council were directly elected (30 out of 60 now). I agree the rate of democratization in HK should be faster, but being kind of an activist in the 80's I am surprise to "learn" that HK was a democratic society before.
>>Seriously, Taiwan needs to get a hold of some
>>nuclear weapons. Since they're so close to
>>mainland China they don't even need ICBM to deliver them.
Seriously, Palestine/ Syria/ Cuba/ Quebec/ NorthIreland needs to get hold of some nuclear weapon. Since they're so close to Isreal/Isreal/US/Canada/UK, they don't even need ICBM to deliver them.... You start seeing the flaw of above analysis. More nuclear weapon is not a solution to every single problem. If you assist your friend to get that, your foe can assist their mates to get that as well....
It is a good introduction. Unfortunately, it forgets to mention any background before Chiang Kai-shek withdrew in 1949. Many westerners tend to think mainland China and Taiwan are two completely unrelated regions and should be considered as two countries. I hope the following summary can help the reader to decide themselves.
First, we need to make clear about the population profile in modern day Taiwan. Only 1 % are aboriginal people (more similar to polynesian living around the Pacific islands), about 20% come to descended from parents came to Taiwan in around 1949, with the rest came from mainland in 1600-1900. But, anyway, most of them have a clear Chinese origin.
Second, there were foreign occupations during 1624-1661 by the Dutch and 1895-1945 by the Japanese (a pretext to the WW2). According to Cairo Conference of 1943 the allied powers agreed to have Taiwan be handed over to the Republic of China after the surrender of the Japanese. The 20th century wisdom is no one should gain more land from an invasion. Japan is a counter example. Okinawa was Ryukyu Kingdom with different language and culture before 1879. Many Chinese think that it is crazy for a separated Japan-leaning country just right outside China. The end of the WW2 should mean a restoration of the old border.
Third, many people in Taiwan blame KMT (Chiang Kai-shek's party) for everything after the 1949 withdrew. However, there is an often overlooked fact. Where is the national reserve of China end up to (the currency is partially back up with gold that time)? Also, during the last days of KMT rule in mainland, they have forced the mainlanders to pay 30years of taxes in advance. Basically, confisticating all the available capital before retreating... It is therefore hard to claim there is no link between 2 sides...
>>second, china built the three gorges dam. they
>>power. and, it is impssible to defend from air or
>>missile attack. we could take it out in about 10
>>minutes. and they're fscking toast.
Please forget about it... It is a blind spot that somehow developed, first from critics within China who opposed the building of the dam (I don't think it is a good idea environmentally, but we are talking about military at this moment...), then spread to the newsgroups to Taiwan and blow out of proportion.
First, the three gorges dam is about 1000km inland... A Tomhowk cruise can only do 880km/h
The closest US base is not right next to China. I don't know where does the 10 min respond time come from... Also, whether you can use cruise missile to destory a gravity dam which is enforced with with 100 m of solid concrete is another question...
More importantly, the main "advantage" of bombing three gorge dam is the potential to kill tens of millions downstream by the subsequent flood. If the tactic is successful, I recommend everyone run for the nuke bomb shelter. Other than a first strike nuke attack, there is another very likely trigger for a nuke war: massive killing of civilian population by whatever mean. Just imagine Canada bombed New York with thermobaric bomb or whatever non-nuclear and killed 5 million people thru the initial blast and subsequent fire... Do you think US will think twice before using nukes?
You can actually order that from bookshops around China. It is Y$118, around US$15.
c uments/2003 _Sept/ 18-03-0055-00-0000_wapi-translation-members-only.d oc
http://www.fjqi.gov.cn/SHUDIAN/9shu.htm
If you are a member of the relevant IEEE communication standard committee, you can view the translated version online...
http://grouper.ieee.org/.../Meeting_do
I have no access to either. I don't think it is wise to comment too much before reading the relevant technical documents...
It is pretty pathetic to deal with some big software company like Microsoft when reporting bugs... There is no simple way. A friend of mine did some scripting and discovered an obscured w2k bug (no big deal just causing yet another blue screen) by pure chance. He did some detective work and nailed down to the exact condition that triggers the problem. Since we are not doing security or serious low level programming, we don't have links with any relevant person in MS. When contacting the local MS office (we are in a small country, btw), the guy on the other end of the phone had no clue and put us thru technical support. Read: demanding $$$.
At the end, we did not bother. After a few more months, it was made public (not by my friend though). Nowadays, reporting MS bug becomes a dangerous maneouver... If MS is really serious about security and good quality software, they would put a contact on the front page and offer reward for anyone who spots a new major bug. Before then, I don't see why we need to be nice to MS.... They say they are capitalist. We should respect their value and don't do any free work for them...
Of course not. The cell phone air time in Hongkong is so cheap that even schoolchildren don't text that much... Competition is the key.
Here in New Zealand, schoolchildren text a lot. University students text a lot too... Reason is simple: NZ$1.4/min at daytime on the prepaid plans, which is what most people on budget are in. If you talk just 30 min in NZ on that plan, you can get a 1500 min plan in HongKong.... I guess it is more than sufficent for most.... In fact, quite a few of my friends in HK have now ditched their home telephone lines....
You may find that weird why the Chinese govt behaves in such a contradicting way: supporting its own linux company while signing another contract from Sun. The main reason is the economic autonomy is fairly high over there, especially for the few affluent regions (eg. Beijing, Shanghai and GougZhou province govts). It is not that diffrent from, say, California obtains winXP license from MS for every children and his/her dog while Ohio adopts a complete Mac option for secondary school right at the same time. No one thinks that is contradicting
Also, the number of license does matter. Suppose their govt want to spend $50M for licensed software this year. They can either go for 1 million linux desktop support license from Sun, or, less than 100k licenses from MS. Here is the outcome.
Think about that as if you are the guy in charge of the government IT policy.
Option 1: transform the whole xyz dept to linux and free from the control of the evil MS, which matches the agenda of the central govt.
Option 2: waste $50 million to replace 1/10 of the pirated MS copy while the outsiders still blame you for pirating (9/10 of the copies are not legal after spending all the budget).
The answer should be clear.
If I were running IBM, I would hire a team of college students, give them some nice laser printers and *tonnes* of paper. Then, tell them to start printing every single line of code and message in kernel 1.x-2.x, and all the related archives (like kernel traffic).
:-)
"SCO's Stowell said his company provided about a million pages of documents in response to IBM's requests. "
Being the once biggest and nastiest company in the world, hevay weight champion IBM should do more than that
That's a good idea as long as your phone supports that... I return from my Taipei/Hongkong trip last month (I am in New Zealand, btw)... I just bought a prepaid SIM at each place with zero hassle...
However, all the places use GSM900MHz... Many phones can do dual bands; not many phones support triple band, which is necessary in US. It is the big problem for infrequent travellers.
I am about to finish my PhD in robotics, just returned from one of the major international robotics conference
My view about robotics is quite a bit different. On the AI side, there is no major breakthrough in the last n years. The humanoid robots are impressive (notably the Honda series), but only for the hardware... The mentioned domestic robots are so far quite dumb (e.g. the "robotic vacuum cleaner" and "robotic lawn mowing machine" moves through either highly repeatitive pattern like zip-zap or random walk, with sensors to prevent bumping into big obstacles).
It leads to an unavoidable consequece, happened many times in the past: nothing in robotics works, nothing that work remains in robotics. Robot dog (Aibo) is now a toy. Robotic lathe/ mill becomes the CNC machine. If the robotic vacuum cleaner really takes off, it will become yet another home appliances in a very short time... The funding agency complained the lack of performance from robotic research... The claim from the robotic community always seem to be exaggarated. Before a major breakthrough in AI, I would like to say the impact of robotics would be subtle.
I don't know where did you get the information from. The Chinese missile program has a much stronger influence from the Russian, esp in the 50's, than from the American. The bulk of the satellite launching infrastructure had been done largely on their own when they were embargoed by both, ie between 1960-80.
h ttp://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/icbm/df-5.htm
China launched its first satellite on Apr 1970.
First geostationary communications satellite on Apr 1984 (and first ICBM DF-5 finished testing in 1980. A bit offtrack, but we all know ICBM's design is not that different from satellite launching). All these are prior to the alleged illegal missile technology from Hughes etc in early 90's... In fact, even before the first commercial Chinese satellite launching in 1995.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-00u.html
I had a good chat with my secondary school classmate about the idea of education voucher, who happens to be an economist, a few days ago. I argued that it is one of the ideas that makes good economic sense, but will fail in the real world. While the schools can introduce say, scholarship, to help the poorer students, the immense feeling of disparity in the society....
The e-education for basic education is not that health. What will the village children think about the teacher? Are we so untouchable that even the teacher do not want to be with us? It is really bad for the children mentally. Although retaining highly qualified teacher is hard for rural community in developing world, you don't really need a university graduate for teach rural primary school either...
The answer is simple: time to lookup SCO under the www.fuckedcompany.com :-)
The masked palm civet cat in Southern China is largely a herbivore. When I was scouting in many years ago, the rangers in Hongkong forest park taught me how to spot these animals. They leave indigested seed/fruit skin with their faeces. They are dubbed as "fruit ferret" in the local language.... Having said that, when transforming to a largely urban life, there are lots of habits that needs to be given up. Some activities make perfect sense in farming society no longer apply in industrial region... I think the consumption of wild animal is one of the example... Hunting is probably the other... Both western and oriental society need to go through these phases.... give us some time.
Info on Civet Cat, Found to Have SARS
* TRAITS: Of the family Viverridae, the civet cat is a primarily nocturnal animal closely related to the mongoose. There are several species. Some are carnivores that live on the ground, while the animals with SARS in China are masked palm civets, which live in trees and eat fruit.
I am not quite sure about US, but, if you are living in UK or other countries with similar law, you may need a gun license to operate this.
Usually, a gun is defined as a device which can fire a projectile/bullet with an energy of greater than 2J measured at the muzzle.
Assuming the weight of a T-shirt is 40 g, the max height it reaches is 50m, ignoring all the loss due to friction/air resistance, the min energy is mgh=0.04*9.81*50=19.6J...
Take care!
I have watched that. The dumb reporter used the term "SARS"--the direct English pronouncation "sa-see" and asked the locals. It is known as atypical pneumonia over there, the Chinese equivalent term of course. You can scare the butt off everyone....
>>but their governments have been both forthright >>and, at least in the case of Singapore, have been >>pro-active in their raising awareness about SARS
As I had said in my original post, the Guandong province govt has done a very bad job in handling this event. But, the biggest accusation is not pro-active enough, rather than restricting information. In case of big crisis, there are 2 worst approach you can take: 1) complete denial. 2) free information but no instruction/action. In both cases, people tend to take random and potentially harmful action.
It should be pointed out the importance of synchronisation between information release (or leakage) and action. The third wave of infection in Hongkong is partially caused by information spreading faster than the govt can reaction. In the second wave of infection, many people in an apartment block (Amoy Garden) suddenly become sick. The govt planned to move all the health ones to an isolation center for further monitoring. The condition of Amoy Garden leaked to media in the mean time. About 60% of the Amoy Garden occupients had already abandoned their home and lived with relatives by the time govt was ready after 48 hrs. Needless to say, it accelerates the spread of virus.
I have read the news articles in Hongkong and the mainland China newsgroups closely since Feb this year.
In terms of the timeline, it is not too fair to blame the Chinese govt of covering up for 4 months before reporting. SARS is a new virus, which is not too different from a nasty pneumonia. The Novmember index case is traced back from the medical records after they noticed something very unusual at around the first major outbreak in mid Feb. That outbreak was occurred in Guangdong province and has notified WHO on 11 Feb. It was known as atypical pneumonia by the time.
It sparked some social chaos in a number of citis in Guangdong, fuelled by rumours.... There were a few facts: 1) the medical staff knew that there were probably more people got infected by visiting the ER of the most affected hospital then thru other channels. Most of these patient rushed to ER unnecessarily -- they may just have normal cold to start with. 2) many people think that boiling vingear can "clean" their homes. At least, two person were killed by carbon monoxide when boiling that in closed rooms. It is part of the reason why they want to tone that down later on (in late Feb to March). Of course, we cannot discount the more selfish motivation of the officials/govt...
Chinese govt, esp for the officials in Guangdong, has a lesson to learn in the whole event. It is arguable whether 100% openness is the best way to go in crisis. For example, if I were the mayor of a city which was going to be flatten by a major earthquake in 4 hrs, I would seek special power from the central govt, mobilise all the police/troop, arrange transport before telling people to move. In any case, those in the power will definitely need to be more reactive. There are good ways to cooperate with WHO more fully in an early stage without causing further panic to the people...
Spreading via droplet is technically airborne. But, in the context of contagious disease, the definition is a bit more strict. Airborne is defined as a virus/bacteria which can be transmitted through particles with a size of less 0.3 um (or 3um..., can't remember the exact figure). Below that threshold, the particle can be suspended in the air for a long time, pass thru most less capable masks and is considered much more difficult to contain.
The other way round. Before registering with the patent office, the standardization process disclose what they come up with as their proposed standard at the final stage.
In a sense, they are at a special patent pending stage. If you feel your existing patent is being offended, say so. It is a fair go for everyone.
I think standardization process is one of the area patent rule must be reformed on. For "important enough" standard, which can be classified as say ANSI, ISO etc, they should be able to register with the patent office.
A deadline (e.g. 1 yr) is set for patent holders who think their patent has been violated in the process. If they don't actively defense their patent in that process, tell them to forget about it.
I know some readers may worry about some companies may start abusing the system. But, this won't bring obvious advantage to them. These people don't actually do research/invention. They don't have material to copy at that stage. Even so, there is no money return if they succeed to block the standardization process.
PNG is a very good picture format. However, you cannot simply replace JPEG with PNG. Both PNG and JPEG compress images, but PNG is lossless while JPEG is lossy.
While for say, web graphics PNG may be as good as JPEG, The compression ratio for JPEG is in general much much better for natural images (eg photos). If the patent issue turns out to become very nasty, we may have to adopt the next one (JPEG2000). Situation is similar to the gif->png story.
Usually those who post these illegal ads are outright criminals: including loan sharks, fake passport/document seller, drug trafficker or those who control prostitutes etc...
If the police do follow the procedure (ie ring up first), it is not too possible to affect the innocent. How do you normally answer you call, "Hello this is Tom speaking" or "Hey bro, I can sell you some Speed!!!".
Making fun on those bastards was one of our favourite in the past (early 90's) when we were young. We wasted the bastards' time (and money--only listener paid the call that time) by calling those sticker numbers and striked fake deals with them. To stop being traced back, we normally use public free phone, eg those placed in school for local calls. Well, I grow up in Hongkong but I am quite sure the mainland criminal network has picked up all the tricks in sticker business even before unification...
Around 1995, most of the "war" related games are turn-based, ie those with hexagon grids. Not very different from the board games but with computer opponents. The Panzer General series and many other WW2 games released by SSI are the examples...
But, after RTS taken off, good turn-based game seems to disappear. I really miss these turn based ones...
It can't be real ;-)