This is actually the 23rd anniversary of the event. The numbers don't get much attention if outside of late May-early June. A few days ago, a shanghai index closed at 2,389.64, which could be interpreted as 23 (anniversary) of June 4, 1989... It still could be co-incidence, but the chances get lower to what I personally think is a really small chance this happened purely by coincidence.
It's quite widely speculated here that some trader somehow managed to manipulate the market to arrive at this figure.... It does sound crazy, but I think it's not that far away from claiming all these coincidences are pure coincidence...
Perhaps this is a really stupid question, but why would companies *pay* their employees to study a degree (that also distracts them from their day job) but which doesn't really teach the employee anything new?
It seems like a total waste of resources unless somebody in your company had a backdoor deal with the universities to rack up applications for admissions or something.....
The government of Singapore builds flats for its people not because the government of Singapore likes to, but it had to
Tell that to people like us who live in Hong Kong. Honestly we're dying to have that kind of government "subsidy" (even if the government there makes money from it).
Geographically Hong Kong is pretty much like Singapore -- limited land mass, large population, and basically an "island state" by being administratively separated from mainland China.
Here, the government basically colludes with property developers to push up the price of housing beyond the means of the average citizen. Government officials routinely retire to become a "consultant" of land developers. The economic policy of the current administration is to keep the economy afloat by producing and maintaining a massive housing bubble.
The government terminated their subsidized housing program about a decade ago, basically because the property developers and speculators were "not earning enough" or that they'd been badly burnt by the housing bubble of 1997 (of course they'd never admit to this). Instead of allowing the average citizen to get a share of the pie when property prices are high, the government and the large property developers are reaping all the profits and all we get are unaffordable housing at inflated price that is basically shit. Heck, I come from a relatively wealthy family living in an apartment with a market price of USD$1million+, but honestly you probably wouldn't want to live in my home.
And what does the government say in response to these hardships (that they artificially created by restricting the use of land)? "Just work harder, you'll be rich someday" or "the purpose in life is not to buy an apartment", that sort of crap (yes, that's what they really say, literally).
In reality, people are forced to rent "beds" (not apartments, not rooms) for exorbitant prices. "How many poor Hong Kong people can you fit into a tiny apartment?" The answer could surprise you. I think a hundred miles north in some foxxconn factory the living conditions are probably better (I'm not kidding).
I'm "lucky" to have a room of my own with a bed and a desk. That's what you call luxury around the area.
*Still* think the Singaporean government had to build houses? The puppets in our government beg to differ. You'd be surprised how much of a shitty job they can get away with. Singapore, for all its anal restrictions about free speech and chewing bubble gum, are actually doing more than is "necessary" in welfare.
I don't know, by your logic, it sounds something like:
If you gave a fuck about the well-being of your friends, you'd dump your poor friends and make friends with the rich and wealthy people (who make their first world laws to protect themselves from "exploitation"), instead of giving assistance to your less well-off friends.
I'm not saying companies that choose to employ a workforce in cheaper countries are doing "charity", but then it's totally insensitive for you to just shunt off the world's problems by pretending the third world doesn't exist. Yeah you try to go to Shenzhen and convince those workers to leave their current jobs because it's just a shitty job (or better, convince Apple to to really ditch foxconn and move manufacturing to the US). You'll find that the workers' alternative is working in even worse environments. Not _your_ problem, right? As long as it makes *you* feel good that the jobs are finally coming home and your "1st world laws" are protecting (read "entitling") the people around you to all sort of benefits for doing the same quality of work that could be fairly done for a fraction of the cost, right?
I mean, solving poverty is easy. Just ask all the third world countries to legislate away poverty by mandating a minimum wage of $1000 an hour. See, lawyers in new york make at least that much and they're barely human! The shitty governments don't do that only because they're corrupted and greedy, otherwise poverty will be solved in a day!!
In fact, why don't you set up a zero-world country in an artificial island on international waters and make your own laws that mandate the minimum wage is a million dollars an hour. I mean, anything less is exploitation!!!! I'm sure all you ethical moral do-gooders will flock to this island and live happily ever after.
You see this one word and then irrationally jump onto a guy you don't even know and call him a fucking moron. OK maybe you're not an "Apple hater" (though I wouldn't bet any money on this), but you sure are a "Danaris Hater".
I guess you're a "sydneyfong hater" too, you're very welcome to be one.
You need to grow up and realize that slashdotters posting here are just another bunch of random people who likes to express their own views (even if it doesn't align with some pet peeve of yours) and do NOT (generally) exploit labor. It's generally not part of etiquette to "criticize" people with words like "fucking moron", but hey, if you want to really act like one by calling people names, that's your choice really.
PS: How old are you really? I mean I can see why some people around here don't like the business practices of Apple, but to take it _personally_ and attack other people who like their products, it's sounds like you guys have been dumped by a girl who ran away with an Apple fanbois or something, or got beaten up by the school bully for "not-being-cool-enough-to-own-an-iphone" or some stupid shit like that...
If you don't know the disease, stop judging as if you knew it all.
A lot of people with depression have tried all conceivable ways to cure their disease. Some people found their fix, some have tried everything yet it keeps coming back or even becoming worse. If "changing environment" is really sufficient, would you think they would be willing to have their brains drilled open just for the giggles?
IIRC Oracle accuses Google of directly copying a bunch of core Java APIs without license. The APIs are of course part of the Java language, thus the issue of whether a "language is copyrightable".
Emails are cached in a lot of intermediate servers and stuff. The logs are routinely backed up. Undelivered emails get forwarded to all sorts of addresses and admins. Even if nobody was maliciously scooping on you, the passwords could land on some random person's hands.
It *is* more secure over the phone in that sense.
And it's not a common practice to log down telnet traffic. Anyone who gets your telnet password is probably sniffing maliciously.
Not to say it's a sane policy to use telnet, but there are these differences in "levels" of safety (both levels are of course very very low). To a security conscious person it may be equivalent, but practically you have less chance a random John Doe will get your password this way. Maybe it matters, don't ask me....
Well, frankly I agree with your points on stigmatization of suicide, but that's another thing...
Back to the original point: the comparison between the suicide rates of Foxconn and Japan is just to highlight the suicide rates may have nothing to do with the working conditions. If the suicide rate is better than Japan, and Japan has "pretty good" working conditions, you really can't logically conclude that Foxconn is really much worse. I mean, the actual conditions could well be worse, but the suicide numbers are neither here nor there in this case.
A digital copy of a music file has value to the recipients because they may enjoy the music... or they may not.
A digital copy (photo) of a bank note may have value to the recipients so far as they enjoy the photo... and seriously, does any of us have doubt that the MPAA/RIAA guys enjoy looking at bank notes?
Don't give out your time for free if you're not willing to entertain the possibility that people will just take the fruits of it without paying back.
Don't allow commercial software packages to use your code if you don't want that to happen. Use GPL if you care about your source code staying open, or use a non-commercial license if you're against commercialization in the first place.
Choosing to release your work under a OSS license is just an option -- it may be a popular one, but nobody's saying you must take it (particularly if it's a matter of "survival"). Not even RMS is going to hunt you down because you're not using the GPL...
Your whole post assumes that the people in developing countries are making non-optimal decisions (i.e. they have the capability/skills to develop their own high end industries) because someone in a first world country is providing them low wage jobs.
Hint: Most of them are not that stupid to take $1/hour jobs if there are any better alternatives.
I don't think any run of the mill lawyer would be able to explain the GPL better than what you'd find on the first page of googling "GPL".
Unless said lawyer regularly deals with software licensing issues, it'd probably take that lawyer more than an hour to read and understand the GPL himself/herself (possibly poorly), before he/she'd be able to explain it back to you.
What you'll get is a warm and fuzzy feeling that you've spoken to a lawyer and got expert legal advice, but in reality it's like asking slashdotters to explain P?=NP (because they're related to computers, right?)... sure there are some people who know what they're saying, but the others simply have no clue.
Slashdot Mirror
This is actually the 23rd anniversary of the event. The numbers don't get much attention if outside of late May-early June. A few days ago, a shanghai index closed at 2,389.64, which could be interpreted as 23 (anniversary) of June 4, 1989... It still could be co-incidence, but the chances get lower to what I personally think is a really small chance this happened purely by coincidence.
It's quite widely speculated here that some trader somehow managed to manipulate the market to arrive at this figure.... It does sound crazy, but I think it's not that far away from claiming all these coincidences are pure coincidence...
Perhaps this is a really stupid question, but why would companies *pay* their employees to study a degree (that also distracts them from their day job) but which doesn't really teach the employee anything new?
It seems like a total waste of resources unless somebody in your company had a backdoor deal with the universities to rack up applications for admissions or something.....
The government of Singapore builds flats for its people not because the government of Singapore likes to, but it had to
Tell that to people like us who live in Hong Kong. Honestly we're dying to have that kind of government "subsidy" (even if the government there makes money from it).
Geographically Hong Kong is pretty much like Singapore -- limited land mass, large population, and basically an "island state" by being administratively separated from mainland China.
Here, the government basically colludes with property developers to push up the price of housing beyond the means of the average citizen. Government officials routinely retire to become a "consultant" of land developers. The economic policy of the current administration is to keep the economy afloat by producing and maintaining a massive housing bubble.
The government terminated their subsidized housing program about a decade ago, basically because the property developers and speculators were "not earning enough" or that they'd been badly burnt by the housing bubble of 1997 (of course they'd never admit to this). Instead of allowing the average citizen to get a share of the pie when property prices are high, the government and the large property developers are reaping all the profits and all we get are unaffordable housing at inflated price that is basically shit. Heck, I come from a relatively wealthy family living in an apartment with a market price of USD$1million+, but honestly you probably wouldn't want to live in my home.
And what does the government say in response to these hardships (that they artificially created by restricting the use of land)? "Just work harder, you'll be rich someday" or "the purpose in life is not to buy an apartment", that sort of crap (yes, that's what they really say, literally).
In reality, people are forced to rent "beds" (not apartments, not rooms) for exorbitant prices. "How many poor Hong Kong people can you fit into a tiny apartment?" The answer could surprise you. I think a hundred miles north in some foxxconn factory the living conditions are probably better (I'm not kidding).
I'm "lucky" to have a room of my own with a bed and a desk. That's what you call luxury around the area.
*Still* think the Singaporean government had to build houses? The puppets in our government beg to differ. You'd be surprised how much of a shitty job they can get away with. Singapore, for all its anal restrictions about free speech and chewing bubble gum, are actually doing more than is "necessary" in welfare.
(Sorry for the rant.)
I don't know, by your logic, it sounds something like:
If you gave a fuck about the well-being of your friends, you'd dump your poor friends and make friends with the rich and wealthy people (who make their first world laws to protect themselves from "exploitation"), instead of giving assistance to your less well-off friends.
I'm not saying companies that choose to employ a workforce in cheaper countries are doing "charity", but then it's totally insensitive for you to just shunt off the world's problems by pretending the third world doesn't exist. Yeah you try to go to Shenzhen and convince those workers to leave their current jobs because it's just a shitty job (or better, convince Apple to to really ditch foxconn and move manufacturing to the US). You'll find that the workers' alternative is working in even worse environments. Not _your_ problem, right? As long as it makes *you* feel good that the jobs are finally coming home and your "1st world laws" are protecting (read "entitling") the people around you to all sort of benefits for doing the same quality of work that could be fairly done for a fraction of the cost, right?
I mean, solving poverty is easy. Just ask all the third world countries to legislate away poverty by mandating a minimum wage of $1000 an hour. See, lawyers in new york make at least that much and they're barely human! The shitty governments don't do that only because they're corrupted and greedy, otherwise poverty will be solved in a day!!
In fact, why don't you set up a zero-world country in an artificial island on international waters and make your own laws that mandate the minimum wage is a million dollars an hour. I mean, anything less is exploitation!!!! I'm sure all you ethical moral do-gooders will flock to this island and live happily ever after.
WTF is a 'hater'?
You are.
You see this one word and then irrationally jump onto a guy you don't even know and call him a fucking moron. OK maybe you're not an "Apple hater" (though I wouldn't bet any money on this), but you sure are a "Danaris Hater".
I guess you're a "sydneyfong hater" too, you're very welcome to be one.
You need to grow up and realize that slashdotters posting here are just another bunch of random people who likes to express their own views (even if it doesn't align with some pet peeve of yours) and do NOT (generally) exploit labor. It's generally not part of etiquette to "criticize" people with words like "fucking moron", but hey, if you want to really act like one by calling people names, that's your choice really.
PS: How old are you really? I mean I can see why some people around here don't like the business practices of Apple, but to take it _personally_ and attack other people who like their products, it's sounds like you guys have been dumped by a girl who ran away with an Apple fanbois or something, or got beaten up by the school bully for "not-being-cool-enough-to-own-an-iphone" or some stupid shit like that...
Are you one of those "economists" who really believe the free market is rational and able to see beyond the next financial quarter?
I believe you are missing some quotation marks around your last word.
Just click on the URL on my user info and you've sent information to Google.
If you don't know the disease, stop judging as if you knew it all.
A lot of people with depression have tried all conceivable ways to cure their disease. Some people found their fix, some have tried everything yet it keeps coming back or even becoming worse. If "changing environment" is really sufficient, would you think they would be willing to have their brains drilled open just for the giggles?
That's sort of sad. Do you know why she switched careers?
IIRC Oracle accuses Google of directly copying a bunch of core Java APIs without license. The APIs are of course part of the Java language, thus the issue of whether a "language is copyrightable".
The blog http://www.fosspatents.com/ tracks these lawsuits quite closely and is quite informative (and accurate).
Google v Oracle specific information can probably be found here http://www.fosspatents.com/search/label/Oracle
This has got to be a belated April Fools joke.
Slashdot, circa 2002!!!
Yeah right.
http://coupmedia.org/terror-threats/british-tourists-on-terrorist-watch-list-over-a-twitter-joke-0302
Emails are cached in a lot of intermediate servers and stuff. The logs are routinely backed up. Undelivered emails get forwarded to all sorts of addresses and admins. Even if nobody was maliciously scooping on you, the passwords could land on some random person's hands.
It *is* more secure over the phone in that sense.
And it's not a common practice to log down telnet traffic. Anyone who gets your telnet password is probably sniffing maliciously.
Not to say it's a sane policy to use telnet, but there are these differences in "levels" of safety (both levels are of course very very low). To a security conscious person it may be equivalent, but practically you have less chance a random John Doe will get your password this way. Maybe it matters, don't ask me....
Well, frankly I agree with your points on stigmatization of suicide, but that's another thing...
Back to the original point: the comparison between the suicide rates of Foxconn and Japan is just to highlight the suicide rates may have nothing to do with the working conditions. If the suicide rate is better than Japan, and Japan has "pretty good" working conditions, you really can't logically conclude that Foxconn is really much worse. I mean, the actual conditions could well be worse, but the suicide numbers are neither here nor there in this case.
It's not like anybody is advocating to "fix" Japanese culture given that it encourages suicide.
It's a "hellhole" if there are suicides in places you don't approve of, and it's a "cultural thing" if you have a positive view of it.
Hypocrisy much?
"I'd defend anyone from what I believe is abuse"
Anonymously. On an internet forum.
What's it like to be the bravest man on earth?
Says the anonymous coward who tries to character assassinate an allegedly anonymous person......
Depends.
A digital copy of a music file has value to the recipients because they may enjoy the music... or they may not.
A digital copy (photo) of a bank note may have value to the recipients so far as they enjoy the photo... and seriously, does any of us have doubt that the MPAA/RIAA guys enjoy looking at bank notes?
Don't give out your time for free if you're not willing to entertain the possibility that people will just take the fruits of it without paying back.
Don't allow commercial software packages to use your code if you don't want that to happen. Use GPL if you care about your source code staying open, or use a non-commercial license if you're against commercialization in the first place.
Choosing to release your work under a OSS license is just an option -- it may be a popular one, but nobody's saying you must take it (particularly if it's a matter of "survival"). Not even RMS is going to hunt you down because you're not using the GPL...
Your whole post assumes that the people in developing countries are making non-optimal decisions (i.e. they have the capability/skills to develop their own high end industries) because someone in a first world country is providing them low wage jobs.
Hint: Most of them are not that stupid to take $1/hour jobs if there are any better alternatives.
Sorry, I play alliance (when I was playing, that is).
What's wrong with people valuing better design?
I don't think any run of the mill lawyer would be able to explain the GPL better than what you'd find on the first page of googling "GPL".
Unless said lawyer regularly deals with software licensing issues, it'd probably take that lawyer more than an hour to read and understand the GPL himself/herself (possibly poorly), before he/she'd be able to explain it back to you.
What you'll get is a warm and fuzzy feeling that you've spoken to a lawyer and got expert legal advice, but in reality it's like asking slashdotters to explain P?=NP (because they're related to computers, right?)... sure there are some people who know what they're saying, but the others simply have no clue.
This is for WOW GOLD. Imagine what it will be like if it is for THE FATE OF NATIONS.
I'm not sure. It seems there are plenty people more concerned with their WOW gold than the fate of their nation and of nations.
Unless you mean the nation of naked dancing night elves that is....