Over the last 10 years, there has been a roaring trade between the west and China. Ordinarily, this would be a great thing, but so far trade has been completely one sided. The fact is, the west has very little that the Chinese actually want to buy, or cannot manufacture themselves. Individual companies have been making short term gains by relocating their businesses to China; but in the long term, Chinese competitors (generally state subsidised) quickly emerge and dominate the local market and then the export market. For short term gain, western companies essentially write their own death warrants.
I don't blame them for threatening to pull out, its likely that whoever attacked Google was on some form of Chinese government payroll. Over or under the table.
Maybe. But never underestimate the ability of a freelance nationalist, doing "what's best" for China.
And this is devastating for the Chinese government. After keeping their populace docile and stupid,
Clearly, you've never met an actual Chinese person. Do you honestly think they don't know what's going on? No, they know. They just don't care. They're lives have been massively transformed for the better. Especially for those on the coast. (The western interior is another story.) They don't want to rock the boat. Everything is going swimingly for them. Why change?
what they want more than anything else is to be taken seriously as an economic player, sit at the big boy's table and rake in some of that fat global trade cash.
As the world's largest exporter, and fastest growing economy, aren't they already?
So, when one of the biggest companies around says China's market is more hassle than it's worth, it shows them up for the bumpkins that they still are.
Yeah, but Google isn't the biggest in China. It's Baidu. Blogging? That's MSN Spaces. I've yet to meet a Chinese student that does not have an MSN Spaces account. Twitter? I'm sorry. Did you mean Plurk?
Seriously, it's a whole other world outside the US, and you don't seem to know its players.
But we knew this was coming (and hopefully Nixon did too). Can't have all the benefits of capitalism without losing some of the "benefits" of totalitarianism. You can have some of one and lots of the other (like most Western democracies), but not lots of both.
Well that's the line Wall Street sold us back in 1989 while the Tianamen Square was still damp wasn't it? It's been 20 years. While some may argue the jury may still be out on that one (I wouldn't.); it's been long enough to get some indication of how its leaning, Let's examine the facts shall we?
China's GDP growth was at 11% last quarter, for year-over-year growth of about 8%, and just now replaced Germany as the world's leading exporter. (Funny, how does a "Socialist" European Free Market(tm) democracy be former world's largest exporter, but the US can't be? The mind reels. Oh wait. No it doesn't.) Now China is luring back it's top talent, by offering them better opportunities. Allow me to quote from that article:
These scientists were not uniformly won over by the virtues of democracy, either. While Dr. Rao said he hoped and believed that China would become a multiparty democracy in his lifetime, Dr. Shi said he doubted that that political system “will ever be appropriate for China.”
As a Tsinghua student, Dr. Shi joined the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. As a registered Democrat in the United States, he participated eagerly in elections. “Multiparty democracy is perfect for the United States,” he said. “But believing that multiparty democracy is right for the United States does not mean it is right for China.”
orget everything. Get a focus group of our target demographic and ask them what they want. Get a committee of corporate hack writers to write what's going to sell." Hollywood is lazy and incredibly risk-averse. They do not create art, they create vapid, bland, and safe pablum for the masses. They take art, and turn it into raw sewage
Well given the quality of facebook's ads, the problem isn't the lack of privacy, it's the inability to leverage the info they already have. For example, they serve gay dating ads to straight men. That's just full of fail.
They have smart guys working there. I know. I know some. However Mark Zuck is a child that doesn't know how to leverage what he has. He is leaving so much money on the table, it isn't even funny.
A automated, networked, accelerometer-based quake detection process may be more reliable. Sure, a lot of mobile phones would be moving around, but if enough phones in the same areas showed synchronised movements, maybe this could work.
I agree. For all the problems of that the space shuttle has (over budget, the bizarre requirement to return satellites from orbit, the constantly shifting requirements during development in the 70s), it was an honest to god space ship. It wasn't a rocket. It had cargo. It had a big crew. It had robot arms. It flew like an airplane. Orion or Ares or whatever they're calling the new rocket and capsule, just seems like a step backwards. We've done rockets. Yes they work. Yes they're cheap and good enough. But damn it, they're not romantic. The CEV isn't the 1960's version of 2010, the the space shuttle was.
Where's my space plane? Where's my single stage to orbit launchers? Damn it. Maybe they're not practical. I don't know. But I do want my space plane, even if at the same time, I've become quite skeptical of the whole idea of manned space exploration. (Robotic exploration on the other hand, I'm a big fan of.)
I wouldn't. It's not even full size. It's way too short, making it look like it's a shuttle for Very Special missions.
Enterprise on the other hand made actual test flights (landing), and was originally intended to be retrofitted for launch. Pathfinder, well... let's just say that it's lucky that it found its way to Huntsville.
. Maybe in the future the law will go so far that the "One Drop Rule" will mean that anyone with *any* White blood will be considered White. Maybe in the future the law will go so far that the "One Drop Rule" will mean that anyone with *any* White blood will be considered White.
Personally, I liked the Cat-vs-Dog Adult Swim election parody of talking heads a la Hannity and Colmes. Cat said something like, "Obama is going to be our first black president," and Dog retorted, "Why do you do that? Oh, he's 'black.' He's equally white. But you want to call him black. You racist." And you know what, Dog is right. He is equally white. So while some might hail Obama as our first black president, to me he's just the 44th cracker in a row.;)
-- 120 characters ought to be enough for anybody. - Cmdr Taco
95% of all Slashdot.sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Other than that a lot of those textbooks suck? (Written by the lowest bidder, remember)
Given that there is a relatively heathy industry in publishing textbooks, it's clear that pure price isn't what dictates adoption. Nor do states solicit bids for a textbook to be published.
Primary and secondary education textbooks tend to be written in accordance to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (the Texas state approved curriculum). This is because Texas, is the largest market for textbooks, and most states have similar state approved curricula. Problems with the curriculum tend to be due to political influence (e.g. creationism and abstainance-only sex ed). In most states, once a textbook is certified to meet the state's curriculum for a particular grade level, school districts are then allowed to purchase it.
I'd trade most of my textbooks for a knowledgeable teacher every time.
True, but where do you think where they get their knowledge?
A 50 year old book *today* would have been published in 1960, so of course it won't have Vietnam and probably won't have Korea, and will likely have a hefty dose of cold war Rah Rah USA USA (assuming this is a school in the US, of course)
My high school World History textbook ended with the Camp David Accords.
I think that claiming that if most people wont be white then it will be a catastrophe, is simply racism
Rated -1 flamebait. Wow. Simply wow. One can only assume that the mod agrees that if most people aren't white then it is a catastrophe. Glad to see that racists and/or juvenile trolls are represented in the mod community.
Of course, if history is any guide, "White America," will just redefine "white" and regain the majority.:P
Computers in the class room have been around at least 25 years. There was an Apple ][ in every classroom when I was a kid. We used it to die of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. Did we learn anything about history? No. We learned to that all that settlers needed was a 99 rounds of ammunition.
Computers in the classroom are just the latest incarnation of the whiz-bang technology that would magically make improve education and test scores, without requiring any more work on the child's, parent's, or teacher's part. Just like television, movies, and filmstrips were hailed as an educator's silver bullet generations before. (Stoll wrote about this 14 years ago, and it stills holds true.)
Anyone that has attended class in any "e-learning" classroom, can attest that of the regular occurrences of projectors that don't work. Video and audio links that fail. Overly sensitive microphones and the like. The amount of time wasted trying to just set things up before instruction can begin is non-trivial, and easily can accumulate to entire missed days of instruction. No thank you.
Watching passively, and just clicking "next" is not education. The reason why it's used for occupational training, is that because no one wants to acutally teach, nor learn. It's indemnification.
If you really want to improve education, how about removing the distractions, and actually teaching out of the book?
So you're saying that disciplinary actions taken 20 years ago weren't enough, yet were enough to enable to him to go on to:
Serve as faculty the Rio Hondo Police Academy Join the FBI and special agent focusing on counter-terrorism and counterintelligence Join the FBI SWAT team Become Deputy Director for Critical Infrastructure Protection of the California Office of Homeland Security Become Associate Director of Special Programs for CREATE, Become Adjunct Professor of Homeland Security and Public Policy in the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development. Become Chief of Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism for the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) Police Department. Be internationally recognized as a one of the world leaders in counter-terrorism measures in Canada, Great Britain, Israel and China, Serve as counterterrorism advisor to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Yeah. Fuck that shit. I, for one, would feel much safer with someone with somewhat less stellar credentials in charge.
Let's be honest about this. We have a guy 20 damn years ago, doing what is essentially googling his newly ex-wife's boyfriend. If you don't think every cop was doing that then, and still doing that today, I've got a bridge to sell you.
I'm sorry, but if this is the worst dirt someone can drag up on him, he's squeaky clean.
My point about him not caring about some random person on the Internet, is the simple fact people only look up people they find interesting. Like people they personally know, or celebrities. Any slashdotter that thinks that that the head of TSA is going to take time out of his schedule to go snooping on some him has delusions of grandeur.
I'm tired of the politics of personal destruction by dragging up minor isolated incidents (and yes, it was minor and isolated if he's still a cop) to try and take down political appointment nobodies just to make whoever the current is president look bad. This isn't about him. It's about trying to score points in an election year.
2) It's not that the people won't work- it's that it's not being offered in the first place and they're claiming a "shortage" of workers (even though there's not...) and getting the H1B's in here
If H1Bs are such a threat, explain this: Given this time of cost cutting and layoffs, you'd expect companies to fire all their expensive American workers, and replace them with cheap foreign imports, yet this year it has taken eight months to reach the quota of 65,000, instead of two days, like the past 4 years.
Also explain this, why would you not want to siphon off the best and the brightest of the world?
It might not be an undue burden to Amazon, but what about smaller online companies? You could use software to manage the collecting of sales tax for everything but the real problem comes to sending off that money to every town, county, and state that collects sales tax. Someone buys something for a couple bucks and suddenly you have to send payments of a few cents to three different places. Even if you save it all up and send it bi-yearly you could be looking at thousands of separate payments based on how widespread your client base is.
Sounds like a business opportunity! Or actually something that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, and eBay can easily provide through their checkout services.
Slashdot Mirror
Over the last 10 years, there has been a roaring trade between the west and China. Ordinarily, this would be a great thing, but so far trade has been completely one sided. The fact is, the west has very little that the Chinese actually want to buy, or cannot manufacture themselves. Individual companies have been making short term gains by relocating their businesses to China; but in the long term, Chinese competitors (generally state subsidised) quickly emerge and dominate the local market and then the export market. For short term gain, western companies essentially write their own death warrants.
But don't you know, a huge trade imbalance is a good thing! Yeah, and monopolies offer choice, and real income decline and a widening income gap is a sign of a healthy economy and democracy.
Pff. So can Monaco. Call me when you have a real F1 Race.
Fixed that for you. ;)
I don't blame them for threatening to pull out, its likely that whoever attacked Google was on some form of Chinese government payroll. Over or under the table.
Maybe. But never underestimate the ability of a freelance nationalist, doing "what's best" for China.
And this is devastating for the Chinese government. After keeping their populace docile and stupid,
Clearly, you've never met an actual Chinese person. Do you honestly think they don't know what's going on? No, they know. They just don't care. They're lives have been massively transformed for the better. Especially for those on the coast. (The western interior is another story.) They don't want to rock the boat. Everything is going swimingly for them. Why change?
what they want more than anything else is to be taken seriously as an economic player, sit at the big boy's table and rake in some of that fat global trade cash.
As the world's largest exporter, and fastest growing economy, aren't they already?
So, when one of the biggest companies around says China's market is more hassle than it's worth, it shows them up for the bumpkins that they still are.
Yeah, but Google isn't the biggest in China. It's Baidu. Blogging? That's MSN Spaces. I've yet to meet a Chinese student that does not have an MSN Spaces account. Twitter? I'm sorry. Did you mean Plurk?
Seriously, it's a whole other world outside the US, and you don't seem to know its players.
But we knew this was coming (and hopefully Nixon did too). Can't have all the benefits of capitalism without losing some of the "benefits" of totalitarianism. You can have some of one and lots of the other (like most Western democracies), but not lots of both.
Well that's the line Wall Street sold us back in 1989 while the Tianamen Square was still damp wasn't it? It's been 20 years. While some may argue the jury may still be out on that one (I wouldn't.); it's been long enough to get some indication of how its leaning, Let's examine the facts shall we?
China's GDP growth was at 11% last quarter, for year-over-year growth of about 8%, and just now replaced Germany as the world's leading exporter. (Funny, how does a "Socialist" European Free Market(tm) democracy be former world's largest exporter, but the US can't be? The mind reels. Oh wait. No it doesn't.) Now China is luring back it's top talent, by offering them better opportunities. Allow me to quote from that article:
Such is the sweet taste of liberty, eh?
No, I believe that China has found it's third way. Not only "To be rich is glorious", but "Sometimes when we [Chinese] have the faith we have to take different approaches to realize our beliefs. The ultimate goal is the common prosperity, but we have to let a group of people to get rich first." Or as Slate put it, "How do you say 'trickle down' in Mandarin?"
orget everything. Get a focus group of our target demographic and ask them what they want. Get a committee of corporate hack writers to write what's going to sell." Hollywood is lazy and incredibly risk-averse. They do not create art, they create vapid, bland, and safe pablum for the masses. They take art, and turn it into raw sewage
Sounds like Space Pocahontas.
Well given the quality of facebook's ads, the problem isn't the lack of privacy, it's the inability to leverage the info they already have. For example, they serve gay dating ads to straight men. That's just full of fail.
They have smart guys working there. I know. I know some. However Mark Zuck is a child that doesn't know how to leverage what he has. He is leaving so much money on the table, it isn't even funny.
The whole "Evil Bill" thing got old too. Perhaps we could make a new enemy?
You're right. Hating Microsoft is like hating the Ottoman Empire or Prussia today. They're irrelevant. The real threat today is Larry and Sergie.
A automated, networked, accelerometer-based quake detection process may be more reliable. Sure, a lot of mobile phones would be moving around, but if enough phones in the same areas showed synchronised movements, maybe this could work.
Those are called "seismographs."
I agree. For all the problems of that the space shuttle has (over budget, the bizarre requirement to return satellites from orbit, the constantly shifting requirements during development in the 70s), it was an honest to god space ship. It wasn't a rocket. It had cargo. It had a big crew. It had robot arms. It flew like an airplane. Orion or Ares or whatever they're calling the new rocket and capsule, just seems like a step backwards. We've done rockets. Yes they work. Yes they're cheap and good enough. But damn it, they're not romantic. The CEV isn't the 1960's version of 2010, the the space shuttle was.
Where's my space plane? Where's my single stage to orbit launchers? Damn it. Maybe they're not practical. I don't know. But I do want my space plane, even if at the same time, I've become quite skeptical of the whole idea of manned space exploration. (Robotic exploration on the other hand, I'm a big fan of.)
I wouldn't. It's not even full size. It's way too short, making it look like it's a shuttle for Very Special missions.
Enterprise on the other hand made actual test flights (landing), and was originally intended to be retrofitted for launch. Pathfinder, well... let's just say that it's lucky that it found its way to Huntsville.
Ask yourself this: When was the last time you watched anything and said, "You know what? This is good, but it would better if it was in 3D."
. Maybe in the future the law will go so far that the "One Drop Rule" will mean that anyone with *any* White blood will be considered White. Maybe in the future the law will go so far that the "One Drop Rule" will mean that anyone with *any* White blood will be considered White.
Arguably, redefinition has begun.
Personally, I liked the Cat-vs-Dog Adult Swim election parody of talking heads a la Hannity and Colmes. Cat said something like, "Obama is going to be our first black president," and Dog retorted, "Why do you do that? Oh, he's 'black.' He's equally white. But you want to call him black. You racist." And you know what, Dog is right. He is equally white. So while some might hail Obama as our first black president, to me he's just the 44th cracker in a row. ;)
--
120 characters ought to be enough for anybody. - Cmdr Taco
95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Other than that a lot of those textbooks suck? (Written by the lowest bidder, remember)
Given that there is a relatively heathy industry in publishing textbooks, it's clear that pure price isn't what dictates adoption. Nor do states solicit bids for a textbook to be published.
Primary and secondary education textbooks tend to be written in accordance to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (the Texas state approved curriculum). This is because Texas, is the largest market for textbooks, and most states have similar state approved curricula. Problems with the curriculum tend to be due to political influence (e.g. creationism and abstainance-only sex ed). In most states, once a textbook is certified to meet the state's curriculum for a particular grade level, school districts are then allowed to purchase it.
I'd trade most of my textbooks for a knowledgeable teacher every time.
True, but where do you think where they get their knowledge?
A 50 year old book *today* would have been published in 1960, so of course it won't have Vietnam and probably won't have Korea, and will likely have a hefty dose of cold war Rah Rah USA USA (assuming this is a school in the US, of course)
My high school World History textbook ended with the Camp David Accords.
It was 1992.
I think that claiming that if most people wont be white then it will be a catastrophe, is simply racism
Rated -1 flamebait. Wow. Simply wow. One can only assume that the mod agrees that if most people aren't white then it is a catastrophe. Glad to see that racists and/or juvenile trolls are represented in the mod community.
Of course, if history is any guide, "White America," will just redefine "white" and regain the majority. :P
Or that a rich banker will always win the game no matter his/her skill level :(
Now there's a lesson for today, and always, if I've ever heard one. :S
Computers don't emit "smartness radiation."
Computers in the class room have been around at least 25 years. There was an Apple ][ in every classroom when I was a kid. We used it to die of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. Did we learn anything about history? No. We learned to that all that settlers needed was a 99 rounds of ammunition.
Computers in the classroom are just the latest incarnation of the whiz-bang technology that would magically make improve education and test scores, without requiring any more work on the child's, parent's, or teacher's part. Just like television, movies, and filmstrips were hailed as an educator's silver bullet generations before. (Stoll wrote about this 14 years ago, and it stills holds true.)
Anyone that has attended class in any "e-learning" classroom, can attest that of the regular occurrences of projectors that don't work. Video and audio links that fail. Overly sensitive microphones and the like. The amount of time wasted trying to just set things up before instruction can begin is non-trivial, and easily can accumulate to entire missed days of instruction. No thank you.
Watching passively, and just clicking "next" is not education. The reason why it's used for occupational training, is that because no one wants to acutally teach, nor learn. It's indemnification.
If you really want to improve education, how about removing the distractions, and actually teaching out of the book?
How about we let the American public vote on these important offices rather than let a president that over 47% of the population opposed appoint them?
You're right. How dare a 53% majority rule in a democracy! Where's my ballot for Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy. Screw you Marilee Fitzgerald! I never voted for you!
Are you saying that being the head of the TSA, being responsible for the safety of millions of flyers, will be less stressful?
Actually, yes.
So you're saying that disciplinary actions taken 20 years ago weren't enough, yet were enough to enable to him to go on to:
Serve as faculty the Rio Hondo Police Academy
Join the FBI and special agent focusing on counter-terrorism and counterintelligence
Join the FBI SWAT team
Become Deputy Director for Critical Infrastructure Protection of the California Office of Homeland Security
Become Associate Director of Special Programs for CREATE,
Become Adjunct Professor of Homeland Security and Public Policy in the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development.
Become Chief of Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism for the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) Police Department.
Be internationally recognized as a one of the world leaders in counter-terrorism measures in Canada, Great Britain, Israel and China,
Serve as counterterrorism advisor to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Yeah. Fuck that shit. I, for one, would feel much safer with someone with somewhat less stellar credentials in charge.
Let's be honest about this. We have a guy 20 damn years ago, doing what is essentially googling his newly ex-wife's boyfriend. If you don't think every cop was doing that then, and still doing that today, I've got a bridge to sell you.
I'm sorry, but if this is the worst dirt someone can drag up on him, he's squeaky clean.
My point about him not caring about some random person on the Internet, is the simple fact people only look up people they find interesting. Like people they personally know, or celebrities. Any slashdotter that thinks that that the head of TSA is going to take time out of his schedule to go snooping on some him has delusions of grandeur.
I'm tired of the politics of personal destruction by dragging up minor isolated incidents (and yes, it was minor and isolated if he's still a cop) to try and take down political appointment nobodies just to make whoever the current is president look bad. This isn't about him. It's about trying to score points in an election year.
It's an argument that he shouldn't have the job he has now, much less be promoted into a job with access to even more sensitive information about us.
Except for the fact that he doesn't give a shit about you, because he doesn't know you exist.
1) The recession is partly DUE to this practice.
Really? Everything I heard was that it had to do with too much debt and too much access to cheap credit, and an era of deregulation and mergers.
2) It's not that the people won't work- it's that it's not being offered in the first place and they're claiming a "shortage" of workers (even though there's not...) and getting the H1B's in here
If H1Bs are such a threat, explain this: Given this time of cost cutting and layoffs, you'd expect companies to fire all their expensive American workers, and replace them with cheap foreign imports, yet this year it has taken eight months to reach the quota of 65,000, instead of two days, like the past 4 years.
Also explain this, why would you not want to siphon off the best and the brightest of the world?
I fail to see why that means kids are pussies. Kids are kids. Always have been. Sounds like their parents are the ones over reacting.
It might not be an undue burden to Amazon, but what about smaller online companies? You could use software to manage the collecting of sales tax for everything but the real problem comes to sending off that money to every town, county, and state that collects sales tax. Someone buys something for a couple bucks and suddenly you have to send payments of a few cents to three different places. Even if you save it all up and send it bi-yearly you could be looking at thousands of separate payments based on how widespread your client base is.
Sounds like a business opportunity! Or actually something that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, and eBay can easily provide through their checkout services.