I agree that our kids should not be exposed to dangerous violence in the school. However, there are all sorts of people in this world. Some good, some bad, and some just weird. I'd much rather my kids learn to deal with the varieties of people in school, than later on when they're trying to make their way in life.
Secondly, they would be exposed to the views and life experiences of a much greater variety of people in school than just sitting at home. This may be be considered a detriment by some, but I consider it an essential part of reaching maturity as long as we can maintain communication and keep them from straying too far.
You've put it perfectly. It's not that Brazailians are less racist than Americans. It's just the the system of expectation and judgements are different. When one moves from one set to another, then the unspoken rules are made obvious.
Most (perhaps all) countries around the world are racist to a degree. Japaneses and Chineses can be among the worst offenders. That's just the way it is now.
What IS a problem is when people ignore clear evidences and perpetuate a myth that no such behavior and attitude exist.
"Honestly, look at how racial diversity is crammed into everything. You almost never see an advertisement that doesn't include a black person or an asian person right up there with white people."
Let's see here:
- How many female, non white in congress ?
- Any female or non white President yet ? don't think so.
- How many fortune 500 CEOs are female or nonwhite ?
- How many major metropolitan media are owned by female, nonwhites ?
- How many females in the Supreme court ? or lower court?
- How many nonwhites is anchoring for a major news network?
Stop belly aching - racial attitudes are real and still persists. They are perhaps not overt, but still present.
Travel to a country like Brazil where centuries of mixing have produced a wide range of skin colour and you will feel a very different attitude. It's not better, just different.
"People asked how I kept them separate and I pointed out throughout all of the time I took the languages, Japanese was MW, and Chinese was TR."
They are not that similar really. The phonetics is certainly very different. In contrast, Vietnamese sounds fairly similar to Chinese (at least some dialects).
The writing is the only part that overlaps. Confusion can arise when Kanji phrases mean something different in Japanese relative to Chinese.
It's helpful to remember that Japan adopted the Chinese writing system after the development of their speech system. Hiragana and katakana are relatively recent additional to the writing systems. Japaneses of 2-3 generations ago could write without using kanas' at all.
If the government patents an invention funded by our tax dollars, it would prevent others coming along later to claim it as their own. There would be no need to fight about prior arts and such. As long as it's freely licensed, this could be a good thing.
to differentiate among the homonyms. Koreans had the same problem when they went to a phonetic alphabet. We should keep in mind that what's phonetic today may be not phonetic 100 years later. Languages WILL evolve.
I don't know about the cheating part. But look in Japan, Taiwan, Singaport, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia...
There is intense competition in all these places in order to enter a decent college. Consequently, the students go to cram schools and devote most of their high school years in preparing for the exams.
This gives a good grounding in the basics and select people who tests well. It doe NOT mean that they can be good researchers, enterpreneurs, corporate workers or teachers. The US system probalby is better preparation in those areas. OTOH, I don't think the US schools' low expectation in sciense, history/cultural studies, and math is very smart either.
It is helpful to remember that the vast majority of the populace in Indian and China still live in the rural regions surviving more or less on subsistence farming. To move these farm laborers into the industrilized economy, a tremendous # of jobs have to be created. This is an ENORMOUS transition in the history of a country which England and US have made about 100 years ago. That is why the demand for jobs are so high which helps keep the wages down. Even so, Chinese wages have quadrupled in the past 5-10 years. So things are slowing improving there.
A MUCH greater concern for me is workplace safety and environmental polution. For example, many coal mines operate illegally in unsafe conditions in China. They also pollute to boot.
Regulatory agencies are inadequate and too easy to bribe. So the only really practical means to combat these illegal and dangerous practices is to empower the worker to form REAL unions and allow civil suits with real enforcement mechanisms.
This may pain some of you to hear it; China really need a strong court system with MANY MORE LAWYERS.
"For the record, I had a legal dispute with SBC, so I ended up going with a local company for DSL (although I still had to pay for a landline)."
You only had that choice because the regulatory rulings and laws required SBC to ALLOW a local company to offer DSL over SBC's landline. Otherwise, do you really think SBC would offer you that choice?
It's an intriguing paradox that a certain amount of regulating is necessary to allow the consumer more freedom, i.e. antiturst laws, etc.
is my current favorite for a very well rounded anime experience. Not only are the visuals stunning, there are some serious grappling with the puzzle of identity and how it is to be controlled or to control others. I suspect that it's been underrated in the west because it's primarily viewed through the cyberpunk filter and the more philosophical aspects overlooked.
There are thousands of small colleges and school far from the major universities that will benefit from the MIT materials. It is much more afforable for them to get power and internet access than to amass a collegiate level library. There are also many English speaking teachers in China who can craft courses to suit the level of their students. You're right that few studentls can use the materials on their own. But it is a great resoure for teachers.
The author started his journey fixated on an 'absolutist' stance on freedom of speech, much as you are demonstrating. In the course of developing the article, he came to see that there ARE gradations in such freedom and that insisting on jummping instantly to an imagined 'pure' state may not be that productive. It's so easy to look pious rather than make the hard choices as Google did.
The most exciting behavior that I read in the article is the exploding level of voluntary participation, expression, and personal choice to take more risk. It is NOT the technologies themselves, but the behavior and perception changes that they enable that will make the biggest difference.
You and I know that no democrats' program will go anywhere when both houses of congress are controlled by the GOP. That is why you won't hear about them on the news too much. But people have been working hard on ideas and programs if you would only look for them. Try this for size:
There are no doubt many other proposals and the problem is that they can't agree on tactical choices yet. My guess is that they have about 4-5 more months to shape the media sound bites and select simple themes that will poll well.
.. that's the real problem. They can't agree yet on a set of themes that they feel will win.
Remember that this is an election year. Expect partisan bickering and lots of it. I bow humbly to the GOP masters who've been able to use 9-11 for partisan gains on whatever issue they wish to push at the moment. It's truely awe-inspiring.
It is also interesting that you do not demand of our president and majority party in congress real solutions for solving pressing problems like: energy waste and dependence, fiscal burden of the entitlement programs, etc.
You would be entirely right if the goals for these laptops were to support the technological infrastructure of a country. But that is NOT their purpose. They are meant to be simple tools for teaching, communication, and management for individuals and small communicities.
What you've failed to consider is that half the world lives in rural area where reliable electricity is questionable. It's pointless to talk about rich clients and broadband when you never know when the lights will go out.
While I can understand your feeling of frustration and disappointments over the less than perfect and effective programs of some charities, I would suggest that you've thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
When you set out to achieve something in private business, in local charities, in anything that demands cooperation of large groups of people, do you expect it to happen perfectly and without waste? I would suspect not. Rather it seems that you've set an impossibly high bar for foreign aid programs to meet.
Secondly, I completely agree that all donors SHOULD understand an organization and its achievements before sending any money. In this context, it is important to remember that there are many motivations behind forein aids. Some use it to get rid of surplus food. Some use it for political ends. Some use it to subsidize exports. Some are enriching the middlemen. Some actually succeeds in helping the receipients! It is indeed critical to understand who and what one is donating to. Because of this, I do not donate to telephons and only give directly to groups with established record of effectiveness: Oxfam, Care, etc.
Thirdly, you are dead wrong that the people of the world have no hopes and don't care about their children. By and large, people everywhere wants to improve their own living conditions and that of their children. Cheap computing CAN be a small part of creating more opportunities for them. No, it won't feed those bordering on starvation. Yes, it CAN help small enterpreneur to better manage their business and provide education where few teachers are available.
Lastly, I do agree that changes in US policies can greatly benefit many people around the world. But please bear in mind that many programs are best done people to people, bypassing governmental involvement (less chance for corruption too). Secondly, US policies are the way they are due to very powerful vested interests. They would not be easily changed and it could take a long time. Just look at the environmental movement and how long it took to change policies and how much resistance persists. If you are working on such policies changes, I applaud your efforts. That, however, does NOT preclude the need to support sustainable development assistance in parallel. From you post, I believe that you care too much to leave this entirely to the politicians. So please DO support people to donate responsibly and hold the charities accountable.
It is no longer difficult to arrange oversea trips or immigration AS LONG AS YOU HAVE SOME MONEY. Those hiding in the container cargo are doing so because they could not get a legal visa to enter the USA!
While it used to be the case where many graduate students from China choose to stay in the US. Now a days, there are many who have returned to China due to greater work opportunities. Of course, this applies to those with applicable education or a head for business. Those who are sneaking into the US tend to have less education and fewer opportunities there.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that our kids should not be exposed to dangerous violence
in the school. However, there are all sorts of people in this world.
Some good, some bad, and some just weird. I'd much rather my kids
learn to deal with the varieties of people in school, than later
on when they're trying to make their way in life.
Secondly, they would be exposed to the views and life experiences of
a much greater variety of people in school than just sitting at home.
This may be be considered a detriment by some, but I consider it
an essential part of reaching maturity as long as we can maintain
communication and keep them from straying too far.
only the well off will get decent education.
This is already somewhat the case due to disparate quality of neighborhood schools.
It would be much worse if the schools were all private.
It would be wholesale Disinvestment into our future human capital.
A very bad idea indeed.
You've put it perfectly.
It's not that Brazailians are less racist than Americans.
It's just the the system of expectation and judgements are different.
When one moves from one set to another, then the unspoken rules are
made obvious.
Most (perhaps all) countries around the world are racist to a degree.
Japaneses and Chineses can be among the worst offenders.
That's just the way it is now.
What IS a problem is when people ignore clear evidences and perpetuate
a myth that no such behavior and attitude exist.
"Honestly, look at how racial diversity is crammed into everything. You almost never see an advertisement that doesn't include a black person or an asian person right up there with white people."
i ling.html
Let's see here:
- How many female, non white in congress ?
- Any female or non white President yet ? don't think so.
- How many fortune 500 CEOs are female or nonwhite ?
- How many major metropolitan media are owned by female, nonwhites ?
- How many females in the Supreme court ? or lower court?
- How many nonwhites is anchoring for a major news network?
Stop belly aching - racial attitudes are real and still persists.
They are perhaps not overt, but still present.
Check out the site below for some glass ceiling charts based on EEOC data:
http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/glassce
Travel to a country like Brazil where centuries of mixing have
produced a wide range of skin colour and you will feel a very different
attitude. It's not better, just different.
"People asked how I kept them separate and I pointed out throughout all of the time I took the languages, Japanese was MW, and Chinese was TR."
They are not that similar really. The phonetics is certainly very different.
In contrast, Vietnamese sounds fairly similar to Chinese (at least some dialects).
The writing is the only part that overlaps. Confusion can arise when Kanji phrases
mean something different in Japanese relative to Chinese.
It's helpful to remember that Japan adopted the Chinese writing system after the
development of their speech system. Hiragana and katakana are relatively recent
additional to the writing systems. Japaneses of 2-3 generations ago could
write without using kanas' at all.
If the government patents an invention funded by our tax dollars, it would
prevent others coming along later to claim it as their own.
There would be no need to fight about prior arts and such.
As long as it's freely licensed, this could be a good thing.
to differentiate among the homonyms.
Koreans had the same problem when they went to a phonetic alphabet.
We should keep in mind that what's phonetic today may be not phonetic
100 years later. Languages WILL evolve.
They are the maximum estimates of military expenditures of PRC and USA respectivelyg et
from Wikipedia.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China's_military_bud
Also From CIA Factbook !
PRC $81.48 billion (2005 est.)
USA $518.1 billion (FY04 est.) (2005 est.)
Surely you are the kettle calling the pot black.
Hey! we'll always have sockets
I don't know about the cheating part.
But look in Japan, Taiwan, Singaport, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia...
There is intense competition in all these places in order to enter a
decent college. Consequently, the students go to cram schools and
devote most of their high school years in preparing for the exams.
This gives a good grounding in the basics and select people who tests well.
It doe NOT mean that they can be good researchers, enterpreneurs,
corporate workers or teachers. The US system probalby is better preparation
in those areas. OTOH, I don't think the US schools' low expectation in sciense,
history/cultural studies, and math is very smart either.
They've been at it since 2001. Looks like they're getting even more serious now.
0 3.cfm?nav03=45720&nav02=43603&nav01=43092
See below:
http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/chinainstitute/nav
Your points are right on.
It is helpful to remember that the vast majority of the populace in Indian and China
still live in the rural regions surviving more or less on subsistence farming.
To move these farm laborers into the industrilized economy, a tremendous # of jobs
have to be created. This is an ENORMOUS transition in the history of a country which
England and US have made about 100 years ago. That is why the demand for jobs
are so high which helps keep the wages down. Even so, Chinese wages have quadrupled in
the past 5-10 years. So things are slowing improving there.
A MUCH greater concern for me is workplace safety and environmental polution.
For example, many coal mines operate illegally in unsafe conditions in China.
They also pollute to boot.
Regulatory agencies are inadequate and too easy to bribe. So the only really practical
means to combat these illegal and dangerous practices is to empower the worker
to form REAL unions and allow civil suits with real enforcement mechanisms.
This may pain some of you to hear it; China really need a strong court system
with MANY MORE LAWYERS.
From the CIO article below, median wage across China is around $120 USD/m.
= 2
http://www.cio.com/archive/101505/china.html?page
Financial Times reported Shenzen minimum wages around $100 USD/m according to this link:
http://www.danielgross.net/
So your # seems a little high. But the $50 USD/m quoted in the parent article seems too low. It would be illegal.
"For the record, I had a legal dispute with SBC, so I ended up going with a local company for DSL (although I still had to pay for a landline)."
You only had that choice because the regulatory rulings and laws required SBC to ALLOW a local
company to offer DSL over SBC's landline. Otherwise, do you really think SBC would offer you
that choice?
It's an intriguing paradox that a certain amount of regulating is necessary to allow the
consumer more freedom, i.e. antiturst laws, etc.
The only jewelry item with liquid commodity value is gold.
"Laws? We don't need no stinking laws!"
c les/2006/01/04/bush_could_bypass_new_torture_ban/
Check out the article below on why GWB has not vetoed a SINGLE bill in his 6 years of presidency.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/arti
The answer: "why bother when we can just ignore them...."
is my current favorite for a very well rounded anime experience. Not only are the visuals stunning, there are some serious grappling with the puzzle of identity and how it is to be controlled or to control others. I suspect that it's been underrated in the west because it's primarily viewed through the cyberpunk filter and the more philosophical aspects overlooked.
There are thousands of small colleges and school far from the major universities that will benefit from the MIT materials. It is much more afforable for them to get power and internet access than to amass a collegiate level library. There are also many English speaking teachers in China who can craft courses to suit the level of their students. You're right that few studentls can use the materials on their own. But it is a great resoure for teachers.
The author started his journey fixated on an 'absolutist' stance on freedom of speech, much as you are demonstrating. In the course of developing the article, he came to see that there ARE gradations in such freedom and that insisting on jummping instantly to an imagined 'pure' state may not be that productive.
It's so easy to look pious rather than make the hard choices as Google did.
The most exciting behavior that I read in the article is the exploding level
of voluntary participation, expression, and personal choice to take more risk.
It is NOT the technologies themselves, but the behavior and perception changes
that they enable that will make the biggest difference.
Yes! Our fearless leader will be decisive for us and our children.
That sure makes me feel warm and macho.
Ron-bo for president!
You and I know that no democrats' program will go anywhere when both houses of congress are controlled by the GOP. That is why you won't hear about them on the news too much. But people have been working hard on ideas and programs if you would only look for them. Try this for size:
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=139
There are no doubt many other proposals and the problem is
that they can't agree on tactical choices yet. My guess is that they have about 4-5 more months to shape the media sound bites and select simple themes that will poll well.
.. that's the real problem. They can't agree yet on a set of themes that they feel will win.
Remember that this is an election year. Expect partisan bickering and lots of it. I bow humbly to the GOP masters
who've been able to use 9-11 for partisan gains on
whatever issue they wish to push at the moment. It's
truely awe-inspiring.
It is also interesting that you do not demand of our president and majority party in congress real solutions for solving pressing problems like: energy waste and dependence, fiscal burden of the entitlement programs, etc.
You would be entirely right if the goals for these laptops were to support the technological infrastructure of a country.
But that is NOT their purpose. They are meant to be simple tools for teaching, communication, and management for individuals and small communicities.
What you've failed to consider is that half the world lives in rural area where reliable electricity is questionable. It's pointless to talk about rich clients and broadband when you never know when the lights will go out.
While I can understand your feeling of frustration and disappointments over the less than perfect and effective programs of some charities, I would suggest that you've thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
When you set out to achieve something in private business, in local charities, in anything that demands cooperation of large groups of people, do you expect it to happen perfectly and without waste? I would suspect not. Rather it seems that you've set an impossibly high bar for foreign aid programs to meet.
Secondly, I completely agree that all donors SHOULD understand an organization and its achievements before sending any money. In this context, it is important to remember that there are many motivations behind forein aids. Some use it to get rid of surplus food. Some use it for political ends. Some use it to subsidize exports. Some are enriching the middlemen. Some actually succeeds in helping the receipients! It is indeed critical to understand who and what one is donating to. Because of this, I do not donate to telephons and only give directly to groups with established record of effectiveness: Oxfam, Care, etc.
Thirdly, you are dead wrong that the people of the world have no hopes and don't care about their children. By and large, people everywhere wants to improve their own living conditions and that of their children. Cheap computing CAN be a small part of creating more opportunities for them. No, it won't feed those bordering on starvation. Yes, it CAN help small enterpreneur to better manage their business and provide education where few teachers are available.
Lastly, I do agree that changes in US policies can greatly benefit many people around the world. But please bear in mind that many programs are best done people to people, bypassing governmental involvement (less chance for corruption too). Secondly, US policies are the way they are due to very powerful vested interests. They would not be easily changed and it could take a long time. Just look at the environmental movement and how long it took to change policies and how much resistance persists. If you are working on such policies changes, I applaud your efforts. That, however, does NOT preclude the need to support sustainable development assistance in parallel. From you post, I believe that you care too much to leave this entirely to the politicians. So please DO support people to donate responsibly and hold the charities accountable.
You're a bit behinds the times.
It is no longer difficult to arrange oversea trips or immigration AS LONG AS YOU HAVE SOME MONEY.
Those hiding in the container cargo are doing so because they could not get a legal visa to enter the USA!
While it used to be the case where many graduate students from China choose to stay in the US. Now a days, there are many who have returned to China due to greater work opportunities. Of course, this applies to those with applicable education or a head for business. Those who are sneaking into the US tend to have less education and fewer opportunities there.