Another thing about the SX70 film was that you could squish the goo in the picture before it had set to get an interesting impressionistic effect: SX70 Polaroid Manipulation Images.
It's nothing you couldn't do today with software, but for the time it was pretty cool.
Oh, and the government recently RESCINDED an apology for forcing Korean women to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during WWII. Why did they do this? BECAUSE "THE KOREANS VOLUNTEERED."
Hmmm... I was curious about this, so I did some digging. It looks like an official apology was issued in 1993, but that in 2007 Japan's PM Shinzo Abe made some comments indicating that the services of the "comfort women" were voluntary. Abe refused to re-issue a new apology, but did ultimately say that he stands by the 1993 statement.
That's true, but it's often the case that the subject is already obvious, especially in the middle of a thread (not the case here).
I think starting a sentence in the subject line can be an effective rhetorical technique. It can definitely be overused though.
Re:Sorry, but I have to consider the source
on
UN Attacks Free Speech
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· Score: 4, Insightful
That's pretty interesting, considering that it's already against the law in Canada to incite hatred on the basis of religion (as well as race, sexual orientation, etc). Here's a link, and some info from a page on Wikipedia. What part of the UN proposal does Ottawa object to?
I'm not arguing that omission is always bias. It is, as you say, necessary for proper reporting. We rely on journalists to write articles of reasonable length, and make choices about what belongs in them. My point is just that it's possible to report "just the facts" and still end up with a biased article. You might disagree with my example, but surely you agree there is such a thing as biased omission?
I think that bias creeps in most often in the form of omission. To continue with the Democratic convention, for example, someone who supports the Democratic party may choose not to report so much on the protesters outside the venue, or place this coverage closer to the end of the article. Newspaper articles are limited in length, so only the "most significant" information makes it in. Often the selection of what is important (by the reporter or his editor) allows for bias to creep in, however unintentionally.
This has already happened, article here. Basically the dude ordered some manga from Japan, and the postal inspector had a look at it when it arrived in the US. When the guy went to pick up his delivery, police followed him home, seized his comics and charged him with possession of child porn.
I'm inclined to take a cynical view of government too, but how do you explain King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan who oversaw reforms to transform his country from an absolute monarchy to a democracy?
NPR's On The Media ran a great story about the media in China a few months ago. Well worth a listen. One of the interesting things they noted was that while reporting on national issues is often self-censored due to fear of reprisal, on the provincial and local level it is possible to do hard-hitting investigative reporting on neighboring areas.
Not much of this stuff ever hits the Western mainstream media, but it is there, and it's made an impact. Censorship on a national level is still a huge problem in China, but there are reporters out there doing good work, and getting that work published.
Here is a link to a partial transcript of the show.
For the fellow who dissed Chinese for having no cognates with English: were you surprised? English is part of the Indo-European language family. Chinese is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family. While Chinese is distantly related to Navajo and Apache, it has no connection whatever with English. The only words in common English usage derived from Chinese are "ketchup/catsup" and "yen" (to desire strongly, as in "I have a yen for strawberry ice cream.")
Do you really think it's as bad as all that? If you go the other way, looking for Chinese words that have roots in English or some other European language, there are lots. For example, this page has a few.
Especially if you want to learn vocab related to technology, there are lots of words that aren't simple phonetic translations, but are pretty much word-for-word translations of the equivalent in English. For instance, the word for internet in Mandarin is hu lian wang, which literally translated means something like "mutually connected network."
I'm not saying that it's easy. Pronunciation (especially "tones") presents a big hurdle for many, and the writing system... don't get me started. You definitely start with a leg up going from English to say, French or Spanish. But the similarities, even if not as obvious, help a great deal when trying to learn new vocabulary.
The Model M style buckling spring keyboards often don't have the Windows key. I have one myself. Also, someone mentioned Unicomp above, they have several keyboards that fit the bill.
I think there's yet another category: those Chinese that believe that censorship contributes to a more stable society. There's still lots of Chinese alive today that remember civil war in their country, who may gladly support censorship if it helps to keep the country stable.
Actually, Russia has lately been sliding back into old Soviet ways recently. Putin is ex-KGB, and his hand-picked successor recently became president. Most media outlets are very fearful of criticizing the government. I wouldn't exactly point to Russia and call it a success story.
Indeed, the hop shortage is really bad. The place where I get homebrew supplies won't sell the hops by themselves, only as part of a complete recipe, to prevent people from hoarding.
If the barley problem gets worse, I can only imagine that it could get harder for homebrew shops to stay in business, which would be a shame.
Second, doing shit like this only makes it worse. If there really was any concern over privacy then this is by far the worst thing you could do to protect it.
It's true that the Streisand Effect is in play in the short term. But in the long term, if Google loses the suit, they will be more likely to respect a "Private Street" sign when it's encountered---not just for the Borings of Franklin Park, PA, but everywhere. If their goal is to change Google's policy, then a lawsuit is a logical way to proceed.
Third, I would love so hear how taking pictures of a property devalues it.
Their neighborhood being on a private street, one of the selling points of the houses there is increased privacy. If perspective buyers can just go over to Google Maps and see a picture of all the houses in that neighborhood, the perception of privacy is diminished. Some buyers will pass on that neighborhood, others may ask a lower price.
I think it's kind of silly myself---touting increased privacy because of a "private street" sign seems pretty tenuous to me---I think their argument runs something along those lines.
A Chinese colleague of mine explained a simpler way that some Chinese have used to get past the censors. For instance, the character fa of "Falun Gong" gets split into two characters. The left part (the three dots) represents water, so shui is used instead. Without the three dots, fa becomes qu. So rather than write Falun Gong, a message board poster might write Shui-qu-lun Gong. This could be figured out by a person reading it, but wouldn't be found by computer search.
This was a while ago, and I assume that such a simple substitution would get figured out pretty quickly, but I thought it was neat.
wouldn't it be awful if, because everybody was expected to know English, people who didn't speak it natively were an underclass?
If that were the case, wouldn't the corollary be true? That those who, regardless of their background, could manage to achieve a degree of fluency in English could be a part of an upper class? Is that such a bad thing?
don't you think that that would lead to the death of all those languages and cultures that you say would be nice to preserve?
It's not necessarily true. In China, there are dozens if not hundreds of dialects local to a particular city or region. These dialects are spoken at home between family members, and by locals to one another. Mandarin (the official language) is taught in schools, and is pretty effective in allowing all Chinese to communicate with one another, for the most part. The local dialects do not appear to be in any danger of dying out.
I agree that language can be used as a tool of oppression, for instance, if a particular group is forbidden from using their native language, as the Kurds were in Turkey for a time. Provided that a universal language is promoted not by discouraging minority languages, but by promoting it in a positive way, through education, what is the harm in more people being able to communicate with one another?
I agree that having a universal language is a nice idea. But I don't see how the web was a missed opportunity in this respect. Do you think that early on the web should have been restricted to English-only content?
Not sure why the parent has been modded flamebait. It's probably the phrase "alien Latin-English characters", but it's actually an accurate description of how a domain name might appear to speakers of non-European languages.
I wasn't aware that China had already began experimenting with Chinese characters in domain names, so I did some Googling. Here is a link (in English) that describes how to register a Chinese Domain Name (CDN). It makes for a pretty interesting read. It includes the predictable clause that you can't register CDNs that "harm the glory of the state." Users of CDNs are encouraged to use "Official Client-end CDN Software" to make access more convenient. I wonder exactly what this does.
In general I think it's pretty cool to be able to have non-ASCII characters in domain names, but it seems to introduce a lot of extra compexity into DNS. Also, it seems like it could open the door for more governmental control of the internet, as TFA mentions.
Slashdot Mirror
Another thing about the SX70 film was that you could squish the goo in the picture before it had set to get an interesting impressionistic effect: SX70 Polaroid Manipulation Images.
It's nothing you couldn't do today with software, but for the time it was pretty cool.
Hmmm... I was curious about this, so I did some digging. It looks like an official apology was issued in 1993, but that in 2007 Japan's PM Shinzo Abe made some comments indicating that the services of the "comfort women" were voluntary. Abe refused to re-issue a new apology, but did ultimately say that he stands by the 1993 statement.
Still... pretty shocking.
That's true, but it's often the case that the subject is already obvious, especially in the middle of a thread (not the case here). I think starting a sentence in the subject line can be an effective rhetorical technique. It can definitely be overused though.
That's pretty interesting, considering that it's already against the law in Canada to incite hatred on the basis of religion (as well as race, sexual orientation, etc). Here's a link, and some info from a page on Wikipedia. What part of the UN proposal does Ottawa object to?
I'm not arguing that omission is always bias. It is, as you say, necessary for proper reporting. We rely on journalists to write articles of reasonable length, and make choices about what belongs in them. My point is just that it's possible to report "just the facts" and still end up with a biased article. You might disagree with my example, but surely you agree there is such a thing as biased omission?
I think that bias creeps in most often in the form of omission. To continue with the Democratic convention, for example, someone who supports the Democratic party may choose not to report so much on the protesters outside the venue, or place this coverage closer to the end of the article. Newspaper articles are limited in length, so only the "most significant" information makes it in. Often the selection of what is important (by the reporter or his editor) allows for bias to creep in, however unintentionally.
It is Pitch Black, video by MC Frontalot.
They use the Miller Test, which takes into account "community standards" to determine what is obscene. So stick figure drawings wouldn't make the cut.
This has already happened, article here. Basically the dude ordered some manga from Japan, and the postal inspector had a look at it when it arrived in the US. When the guy went to pick up his delivery, police followed him home, seized his comics and charged him with possession of child porn.
I'm inclined to take a cynical view of government too, but how do you explain King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan who oversaw reforms to transform his country from an absolute monarchy to a democracy?
It's probably a monthly fee, and not a per-message charge?
NPR's On The Media ran a great story about the media in China a few months ago. Well worth a listen. One of the interesting things they noted was that while reporting on national issues is often self-censored due to fear of reprisal, on the provincial and local level it is possible to do hard-hitting investigative reporting on neighboring areas.
Not much of this stuff ever hits the Western mainstream media, but it is there, and it's made an impact. Censorship on a national level is still a huge problem in China, but there are reporters out there doing good work, and getting that work published.
Here is a link to a partial transcript of the show.
Do you really think it's as bad as all that? If you go the other way, looking for Chinese words that have roots in English or some other European language, there are lots. For example, this page has a few.
Especially if you want to learn vocab related to technology, there are lots of words that aren't simple phonetic translations, but are pretty much word-for-word translations of the equivalent in English. For instance, the word for internet in Mandarin is hu lian wang, which literally translated means something like "mutually connected network."
I'm not saying that it's easy. Pronunciation (especially "tones") presents a big hurdle for many, and the writing system... don't get me started. You definitely start with a leg up going from English to say, French or Spanish. But the similarities, even if not as obvious, help a great deal when trying to learn new vocabulary.
The Model M style buckling spring keyboards often don't have the Windows key. I have one myself. Also, someone mentioned Unicomp above, they have several keyboards that fit the bill.
I think there's yet another category: those Chinese that believe that censorship contributes to a more stable society. There's still lots of Chinese alive today that remember civil war in their country, who may gladly support censorship if it helps to keep the country stable.
Actually, Russia has lately been sliding back into old Soviet ways recently. Putin is ex-KGB, and his hand-picked successor recently became president. Most media outlets are very fearful of criticizing the government. I wouldn't exactly point to Russia and call it a success story.
Indeed, the hop shortage is really bad. The place where I get homebrew supplies won't sell the hops by themselves, only as part of a complete recipe, to prevent people from hoarding.
If the barley problem gets worse, I can only imagine that it could get harder for homebrew shops to stay in business, which would be a shame.
It's true that the Streisand Effect is in play in the short term. But in the long term, if Google loses the suit, they will be more likely to respect a "Private Street" sign when it's encountered---not just for the Borings of Franklin Park, PA, but everywhere. If their goal is to change Google's policy, then a lawsuit is a logical way to proceed.
Third, I would love so hear how taking pictures of a property devalues it.Their neighborhood being on a private street, one of the selling points of the houses there is increased privacy. If perspective buyers can just go over to Google Maps and see a picture of all the houses in that neighborhood, the perception of privacy is diminished. Some buyers will pass on that neighborhood, others may ask a lower price.
I think it's kind of silly myself---touting increased privacy because of a "private street" sign seems pretty tenuous to me---I think their argument runs something along those lines.
whoosh
A Chinese colleague of mine explained a simpler way that some Chinese have used to get past the censors. For instance, the character fa of "Falun Gong" gets split into two characters. The left part (the three dots) represents water, so shui is used instead. Without the three dots, fa becomes qu. So rather than write Falun Gong, a message board poster might write Shui-qu-lun Gong. This could be figured out by a person reading it, but wouldn't be found by computer search.
This was a while ago, and I assume that such a simple substitution would get figured out pretty quickly, but I thought it was neat.
Wait a sec. Are you advocating that people place cellphones farther away from their head only to put them closer to their crotch?
I voted in NH, and all the major Democratic candidates were on the ballot, and many others. Maybe the parent is thinking of Michigan.
If that were the case, wouldn't the corollary be true? That those who, regardless of their background, could manage to achieve a degree of fluency in English could be a part of an upper class? Is that such a bad thing?
It's not necessarily true. In China, there are dozens if not hundreds of dialects local to a particular city or region. These dialects are spoken at home between family members, and by locals to one another. Mandarin (the official language) is taught in schools, and is pretty effective in allowing all Chinese to communicate with one another, for the most part. The local dialects do not appear to be in any danger of dying out.
I agree that language can be used as a tool of oppression, for instance, if a particular group is forbidden from using their native language, as the Kurds were in Turkey for a time. Provided that a universal language is promoted not by discouraging minority languages, but by promoting it in a positive way, through education, what is the harm in more people being able to communicate with one another?
I agree that having a universal language is a nice idea. But I don't see how the web was a missed opportunity in this respect. Do you think that early on the web should have been restricted to English-only content?
Not sure why the parent has been modded flamebait. It's probably the phrase "alien Latin-English characters", but it's actually an accurate description of how a domain name might appear to speakers of non-European languages.
I wasn't aware that China had already began experimenting with Chinese characters in domain names, so I did some Googling. Here is a link (in English) that describes how to register a Chinese Domain Name (CDN). It makes for a pretty interesting read. It includes the predictable clause that you can't register CDNs that "harm the glory of the state." Users of CDNs are encouraged to use "Official Client-end CDN Software" to make access more convenient. I wonder exactly what this does.
In general I think it's pretty cool to be able to have non-ASCII characters in domain names, but it seems to introduce a lot of extra compexity into DNS. Also, it seems like it could open the door for more governmental control of the internet, as TFA mentions.