I like Boucher and he's done some other stuff that I'm too lazy to go look up, but he's pretty much serving the special interests of the internet... it just happens to align with most of/.ers personal convictions.
Re:This sounds like a fricking joke.
on
LindowsOS Marches On
·
· Score: 3, Funny
"Also, Lindows screenshots look surprisingly good, apparently it runs IE and MS Word, something no Linux GUI has yet been able to do to my knowledge"
Oftentimes Windows barely manages to run them itself!
Looking at those screenshots of outlook running...
Oh joy! Here I was, reading my email in linux and feeling all left out when one of those little email worms hit and my friends using outlook were panicking! Now I'll be able to join in on the fun...
Assuming that's not just windows with a few GUI mods.:-)
No, but then again, I think Chinese characters are beautiful. Writing them is considered an artform and many styles of calligraphy have been developed for it. From a utilitarian standpoint, the roman alphabet is more efficient. But utility isn't everything in life. While I've found studying Chinese to be very difficult and frustrating at times, I still love the script which is one of the things that got me learning the langauge in the first place.
If thats the one child policy then it's complete bull. My wife, a mainland chinese, is the oldest of six. Her younger brother has three kids, and he works for the chinese government.
The one child policy is a fiction which is applied close to Beijing, but not in other places.
It also depends on when she was born. My ex-girlfriend (Mainland Chinese) was born in 1980, a year after the one-child policy was enacted. She has no brothers or sisters. On the other hand, I know a few Chinese people who were born before 1979 and have one or two siblings who were also born before 1979, but they don't have anymore after that. I believe in rural areas the policy is only sporadically enforced. Also, if you work for the government... well, not to cast aspersions on your family, but you can get perks.
Or, I hate to use this example, because I think the central figure should have visited a gas chamber some years ago, but imagine a Chinese cop gets murdered. How big an internet campaign would there be over there to make a folk hero out of his killer? In other words, imagine a Chinese Mumia. Would he give graduation speeches from death row the way the real Mumia does here?
He would have been tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed in a very short amount of time. Personally, the speed of execution in China is something that appeals to me; but their due process is something that I have not looked deeply at and would have grave doubts about.
I don't know if you've ever read Tom Clancy's latest bore, _The Bear and the Dragon_. If you have, how much truth is there to his description of their population-control policy? It's consistent with info from some other human-rights groups, but if you've been there you're a first- or second-hand source which beats the crap out of the third- and fourth-hand sources that I've seen thus far.
I've never read the book, but there are alot of myths about populations control. In the large cities, such as Tianjin, Beijing, and Shanghai, the one child policy is enforced pretty rigorously. However, in the countryside where much of the work involves manual labor, the one child policy is only sporadically enforced. I didn't really visit the countryside though; that is second-hand information from my ex-girlfriend (Chinese national) and a few Chinese friends. And while I'm at it, I want to kill another myth about Chinese babies; I didn't see a single abondoned girl baby in China. Maybe I went to the wrong places though. China is an interesting country in that the cities are very advanced while the countryside is lagging far behind. We have it in the US too, but it seems to be on a larger scale there.
Capitalism, alas, doesn't necessarily imply freedom-loving. The vast majority of the Pacific Rim economic powerhouses (Singapore, Japan, California) prove that well enough IMHO. I personally think they should go hand-in-hand, but there are enough governments on this planet that only recognize freedom when it involves the freedom to make a buck (and pay taxes on it).
I agree, I didn't mean to confuse the official Chinese government policy or the idea of personal liberties and economics. It was an observation of mine that still amuses me... if you're white; eg: western, you are percieved as having alot of money. And I suppose most do in comparison to the average Chinese citizen, so the stereotype is not unfounded. What happens then is that people will try to enthusiastically sell you overpriced things. I had to tell more than a few people "Bu yao, jiu bu mai." (I don't want it, so I won't buy it.) So my perception is that the individual Chinese is very capitalistic, but they have a weird mix of Socialism, Fascism, and Capitalism.
Mao tried to get Chinese people to drop their Character system for a romanized alphabet. He failed miserably and the result is the simplified character set used in the PRC. I doubt the West will have much more luck getting the language to evaporate.
Yeah, it's precisely that attitude that causes foreign people to view the west with more than a bit of trepedition. We come off with the attitude that we don't care about other cultures, other languages, and are too lazy to speak anything other than English but still want to do business with non-English speakers.
By the way, Chinese happens to have quite a bit of elegance to it and is really quite beautiful. I'm glad I study it. English, otoh, is the nasty bastard step-child of an amalgamation of other nasty languages.:-D
"There are plenty of countries where that's not an option. You WILL get your news from politically-acceptable sources. You WILL view only acceptable web sites. And if you don't, then you can be dragged off to die in a slave labor camp or shot with your spouse billed for the ammunition. And China is exactly that kind of fascist rathole."
Hmmm... you know, when I was in China... I had absolutely no problems reading/., going to the drudgereport, or accessing my mail. That's not to say that censorship does not exist in China, and their TV news shows most definitely present a slanted view of the world; especially the US... BUT, I think that the Western world gets its own healthy dose of propaganda and whenever I hear stuff about China that is of the ilk "China is a big, nasty evil country.", I question it now. Ofcourse, my ex-gf's father would tell her that certain topics could not be discussed safely over the phone, but then he would send it to her over mediaring...:-/ Perhaps I didn't stay there long enough, but my short stay there made a couple impressions on me... (1) We have alot of propoganda about China that is misleading or downright false (2) Chinese are some of the most capitalistic sobs I've ever met.
A majority of people who speak Chinese might be Chinese, but there are some of us who are NOT Chinese who do speak it. Other than that, your basic premise is correct.
Since when has the slashdot crew ever claimed they were objective? Yeah, I agree,/. editors are rather immature at times about *nix vs MS. I read their comments with that in mind even if I do agree with them sometimes. You are perfectly free to continue reading/. and to continue bitching about the constant MS editorializing by the crew, but my opinion is that if you don't want to read it, then don't read/. because I don't think that they're going to change.
Okay, I admit, I love using LaTeX now. It's not easy to learn, but once you do, you find that M$ Word is just nasty to work with... BUT recently, my roommate and I had to both redo our resumes. Mine had originally been in Word and I wanted to redo it in LaTeX. My roommate just needed to put a few changes and stuff on his resume. Doing a complete rewrite, I produced a resume that looks better (IMO) than his, and did it in less time. I remember laughing when he kept cursing word for putting things where he didn't want them etc etc etc... I know, I'm just biased. Wah.
At Drexel U, most of us CS students walk the walk and talk the talk. I haven't used word in 3 years. My papers are all in latex, emacs is my word processer emailer and newsreader, gimp is my image editor, galeon is my browser of choice, followed by mozilla, gaim is my IM client, etc etc... most of my CS friends are the same. But then again, most of my CS friends are smart. The IT students on the other hand all swear by Microsoft and IIS, believe that everything can be solved in the next service pack, and think that microsoft tech support rules. I can't blame them though, that's what they teach in the School of IT. Microsoft is what most of the university uses, including our Information Resources and Technology dept. Perhaps the reason why the CS students are different is that almost from Day 1 as a CS major, you are told that Unix is the preferred way to do your work. Although, I've been getting the sense that this is changing with the younger crowd. As they say, shit rolls downhill.
I know it's a trite and overused term, but you got to concede that the Simpson, aside from being one of the best shows on tv, has influenced almost an entire generation of 20-something adults. I remember when it first came out when I was in 4th grade and people were up in arms about the content of the show. The language was too raw, the themes were risque, etc, etc. My own dad said that he would not let his children watch the show because it was horrible. These days, it's considered family entertainment and even my dad enjoys it. It might not be particularly wholesome, but it offers some real insights into American society. I think the religious theme of the class is interesting though. I had never really considered the importance that religion plays in the series, but thinking back, they have a point.
Besides that, the simpsons is funny as hell offers quotes for every occasion from "D'oh!" to "Ahhh the Navy, see the world and all the free gay sex you can handle.":-)
The simpsons first season is now on DVD.. I'm getting them all when they come out.
It's a nightmare getting linux to use chinese. But I have done it, at least partially... you can install language packs for mozilla/netscape to read websites, and also hack your.emacs file to make emacs able to handle chinese.
Those of us for which chinese is a second language would like to see better support for multi-language platforms. That said, I have gotten java to do Chinese using unicode. The biggest weakness tho, is input. Chinese has like 2 or 3 different ways to input characters. The only method I know how to use effectively is the pinyin method, however from what I've seen, none of the methods are supported very well. It's the same old story though, software is written in english and then translated, usually through a serious of ugly hacks.:-)
One thing I'd really like to see is something for latex that would allow me to do typesetting and printing of characters...
(Incidentally, I've had MREs (the "edible" variety), and I actually don't think they're that bad, although that might be because I only had mess hall food for comparison at that point.;) )
They're not that bad until you have to eat them 24/7. You spend the next month clearing them out of your system.:-/
Surprisingly, MREs have gotten much better. The "food" I dread most now are the Jimmy Deans. Most soldiers I know are of the opinion that Jimmy Dean should be located, hogtied, and force fed the half-frozen pieces of crap the army bought off him.
Instilling discipline, basic tactics, and getting recruits to understand just how much punishment their bodies can take.
SEAL, Munitions, Howitzer, Tank and Sharpshooter training is for...?
Small unit tactics, basic skills.
This dude deserves a "DUH!" award, if there was one.
What "this dude" is talking about when he refers to rehearsals is mission specific rehearsals. A unit rehearses a mission as much as possible so that people know their jobs and everyone else's and the mission as well as possible. The examples YOU cited are more general tactics and skills training.
'Army of One' is referring more and more to the average IQ of new recruits, not the sense of fellowship. (This isn't an attack at the military, just an observation about the people I know who have signed up in the last 2 years.)
Unfortunately, the Army is still of the mindset that quantity is better than quality and has repeatedly lowered standards to pump up the numbers. Intelligence/Education is just one of the many victims of this mindset. This, at a time when the tasks of the average soldier are becoming increasingly more complex, both technologically and politically. Soldiers can no longer just be considered automotons that mindlessly follow orders... they have to be aware of the ramifications their actions can have. IE: How does a soldier fix the wireless networks of a group of tanks when his MOS is for radio communications? How does a soldier respond when confronted by the media? I hope the Army learns quickly, but history indicates otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
MOD THIS UP!
/.ers personal convictions.
In a nutshell: follow the money!
I like Boucher and he's done some other stuff that I'm too lazy to go look up, but he's pretty much serving the special interests of the internet... it just happens to align with most of
"Also, Lindows screenshots look surprisingly good, apparently it runs IE and MS Word, something no Linux GUI has yet been able to do to my knowledge"
Oftentimes Windows barely manages to run them itself!
Looking at those screenshots of outlook running...
:-)
Oh joy! Here I was, reading my email in linux and feeling all left out when one of those little email worms hit and my friends using outlook were panicking! Now I'll be able to join in on the fun...
Assuming that's not just windows with a few GUI mods.
No, but then again, I think Chinese characters are beautiful. Writing them is considered an artform and many styles of calligraphy have been developed for it. From a utilitarian standpoint, the roman alphabet is more efficient. But utility isn't everything in life. While I've found studying Chinese to be very difficult and frustrating at times, I still love the script which is one of the things that got me learning the langauge in the first place.
The one child policy is a fiction which is applied close to Beijing, but not in other places.
It also depends on when she was born. My ex-girlfriend (Mainland Chinese) was born in 1980, a year after the one-child policy was enacted. She has no brothers or sisters. On the other hand, I know a few Chinese people who were born before 1979 and have one or two siblings who were also born before 1979, but they don't have anymore after that. I believe in rural areas the policy is only sporadically enforced. Also, if you work for the government... well, not to cast aspersions on your family, but you can get perks.
He would have been tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed in a very short amount of time. Personally, the speed of execution in China is something that appeals to me; but their due process is something that I have not looked deeply at and would have grave doubts about.
I don't know if you've ever read Tom Clancy's latest bore, _The Bear and the Dragon_. If you have, how much truth is there to his description of their population-control policy? It's consistent with info from some other human-rights groups, but if you've been there you're a first- or second-hand source which beats the crap out of the third- and fourth-hand sources that I've seen thus far.
I've never read the book, but there are alot of myths about populations control. In the large cities, such as Tianjin, Beijing, and Shanghai, the one child policy is enforced pretty rigorously. However, in the countryside where much of the work involves manual labor, the one child policy is only sporadically enforced. I didn't really visit the countryside though; that is second-hand information from my ex-girlfriend (Chinese national) and a few Chinese friends. And while I'm at it, I want to kill another myth about Chinese babies; I didn't see a single abondoned girl baby in China. Maybe I went to the wrong places though. China is an interesting country in that the cities are very advanced while the countryside is lagging far behind. We have it in the US too, but it seems to be on a larger scale there.
Capitalism, alas, doesn't necessarily imply freedom-loving. The vast majority of the Pacific Rim economic powerhouses (Singapore, Japan, California) prove that well enough IMHO. I personally think they should go hand-in-hand, but there are enough governments on this planet that only recognize freedom when it involves the freedom to make a buck (and pay taxes on it).
I agree, I didn't mean to confuse the official Chinese government policy or the idea of personal liberties and economics. It was an observation of mine that still amuses me... if you're white; eg: western, you are percieved as having alot of money. And I suppose most do in comparison to the average Chinese citizen, so the stereotype is not unfounded. What happens then is that people will try to enthusiastically sell you overpriced things. I had to tell more than a few people "Bu yao, jiu bu mai." (I don't want it, so I won't buy it.) So my perception is that the individual Chinese is very capitalistic, but they have a weird mix of Socialism, Fascism, and Capitalism.
Mao tried to get Chinese people to drop their Character system for a romanized alphabet. He failed miserably and the result is the simplified character set used in the PRC. I doubt the West will have much more luck getting the language to evaporate.
Yeah, it's precisely that attitude that causes foreign people to view the west with more than a bit of trepedition. We come off with the attitude that we don't care about other cultures, other languages, and are too lazy to speak anything other than English but still want to do business with non-English speakers.
:-D
By the way, Chinese happens to have quite a bit of elegance to it and is really quite beautiful. I'm glad I study it. English, otoh, is the nasty bastard step-child of an amalgamation of other nasty languages.
"There are plenty of countries where that's not an option. You WILL get your news from politically-acceptable sources. You WILL view only acceptable web sites. And if you don't, then you can be dragged off to die in a slave labor camp or shot with your spouse billed for the ammunition. And China is exactly that kind of fascist rathole."
/., going to the drudgereport, or accessing my mail. That's not to say that censorship does not exist in China, and their TV news shows most definitely present a slanted view of the world; especially the US... BUT, I think that the Western world gets its own healthy dose of propaganda and whenever I hear stuff about China that is of the ilk "China is a big, nasty evil country.", I question it now. Ofcourse, my ex-gf's father would tell her that certain topics could not be discussed safely over the phone, but then he would send it to her over mediaring... :-/ Perhaps I didn't stay there long enough, but my short stay there made a couple impressions on me... (1) We have alot of propoganda about China that is misleading or downright false (2) Chinese are some of the most capitalistic sobs I've ever met.
Hmmm... you know, when I was in China... I had absolutely no problems reading
A majority of people who speak Chinese might be Chinese, but there are some of us who are NOT Chinese who do speak it. Other than that, your basic premise is correct.
YAY KARMA PLUMMET! :-D
Generally, he's actually very competent at using word.
Okay, I admit, I love using LaTeX now. It's not easy to learn, but once you do, you find that M$ Word is just nasty to work with... BUT recently, my roommate and I had to both redo our resumes. Mine had originally been in Word and I wanted to redo it in LaTeX. My roommate just needed to put a few changes and stuff on his resume. Doing a complete rewrite, I produced a resume that looks better (IMO) than his, and did it in less time. I remember laughing when he kept cursing word for putting things where he didn't want them etc etc etc... I know, I'm just biased. Wah.
At Drexel U, most of us CS students walk the walk and talk the talk. I haven't used word in 3 years. My papers are all in latex, emacs is my word processer emailer and newsreader, gimp is my image editor, galeon is my browser of choice, followed by mozilla, gaim is my IM client, etc etc... most of my CS friends are the same. But then again, most of my CS friends are smart. The IT students on the other hand all swear by Microsoft and IIS, believe that everything can be solved in the next service pack, and think that microsoft tech support rules. I can't blame them though, that's what they teach in the School of IT. Microsoft is what most of the university uses, including our Information Resources and Technology dept. Perhaps the reason why the CS students are different is that almost from Day 1 as a CS major, you are told that Unix is the preferred way to do your work. Although, I've been getting the sense that this is changing with the younger crowd. As they say, shit rolls downhill.
Besides that, the simpsons is funny as hell offers quotes for every occasion from "D'oh!" to "Ahhh the Navy, see the world and all the free gay sex you can handle." :-)
The simpsons first season is now on DVD.. I'm getting them all when they come out.
"Are you sure it's evil to say such a thing? That would be news to me."
It might not be evil per se, but I challenge you to walk around Chinatown calling people "Chinaman"
I don't mean to start a flamewar, but...
Chinaman is a racial slur like nigger, chink, gook etc. He should have used Asian or Chinese Man.
Well, I'm in mainland US. Not too many CLE distros available that I've seen. :-)
I've been trying to get KDE to do the locale thing, but I apparently don't have things setup all the way.
It's a nightmare getting linux to use chinese. But I have done it, at least partially... you can install language packs for mozilla/netscape to read websites, and also hack your .emacs file to make emacs able to handle chinese.
:-)
Those of us for which chinese is a second language would like to see better support for multi-language platforms. That said, I have gotten java to do Chinese using unicode. The biggest weakness tho, is input. Chinese has like 2 or 3 different ways to input characters. The only method I know how to use effectively is the pinyin method, however from what I've seen, none of the methods are supported very well. It's the same old story though, software is written in english and then translated, usually through a serious of ugly hacks.
One thing I'd really like to see is something for latex that would allow me to do typesetting and printing of characters...
I'm rambling, I'll stop.
They're not that bad until you have to eat them 24/7. You spend the next month clearing them out of your system. :-/
Surprisingly, MREs have gotten much better. The "food" I dread most now are the Jimmy Deans. Most soldiers I know are of the opinion that Jimmy Dean should be located, hogtied, and force fed the half-frozen pieces of crap the army bought off him.
I always thought the worst were the "Five Fingers of Death". That and the "Brick of White Rice".
Instilling discipline, basic tactics, and getting recruits to understand just how much punishment their bodies can take.
SEAL, Munitions, Howitzer, Tank and Sharpshooter training is for...?
Small unit tactics, basic skills.
This dude deserves a "DUH!" award, if there was one.
What "this dude" is talking about when he refers to rehearsals is mission specific rehearsals. A unit rehearses a mission as much as possible so that people know their jobs and everyone else's and the mission as well as possible. The examples YOU cited are more general tactics and skills training.
Unfortunately, the Army is still of the mindset that quantity is better than quality and has repeatedly lowered standards to pump up the numbers. Intelligence/Education is just one of the many victims of this mindset. This, at a time when the tasks of the average soldier are becoming increasingly more complex, both technologically and politically. Soldiers can no longer just be considered automotons that mindlessly follow orders... they have to be aware of the ramifications their actions can have. IE: How does a soldier fix the wireless networks of a group of tanks when his MOS is for radio communications? How does a soldier respond when confronted by the media? I hope the Army learns quickly, but history indicates otherwise.
I'm not a big fan of socialism and definitely not of communism; however, the phrase "Opportunistic Capitalist Pigs" comes to mind.