China isn't Socialist unless you use the broad definition that defines Fascism as Socialism.
There are few practical differences between the various franchises of collectivist tyranny. Socialist, Fascist, call it what you like.
China is going to fall like the Soviet Union because its system is inherently "inferior" to the west.
No, the ChiCom regime is going to fall in its own way, and this has nothing to do with comparisons to the west. There are similarities to the Soviets of course, since the Red Dynasty tried to follow the Soviet model.
I'll eat my keyboard if either happen in the next two decades.
I guess I have more faith in the Chinese people than you do.
You ignored my point that people with a rising standard of living and affluence are unlikely to risk their new found possessions through insurrection.
People with more to lose are less willing to allow an arbitrary government that can part them from their posessions at will. Socialism is always more appealing to destitute peasants than to a prosperous middle class.
The only thing likely to bring them down such a power is war.
No, what will bring them down is the loss of popular support, just like the Soviets. The effect of internal communication on this, is that the party will lose the ability lie effectively, which is crucial for maintaining a tyranny.
The third-party accessories will be around for years. There are a lot of iPod minis out there. As for Apple's support, iTunes 5 works fine with my old 10 gig iPod.
That was true for quite a while, but with half a billion songs sold, I don't believe it's the case anymore. Apple still makes more money on the iPods than the music store, but the music store passed the break-even point quite some time ago.
These guys are still shooting too low. I've said the same thing to every other bunch of guys who were working GUIs for UNIX, all the way back to VISIX Galaxy: if you aim to only match the status quo, you lose.
That is very unlikely though Westerners keep deluding themselves on that score, especially right wingers.
I think you underestimate the growth of communcations capabilities in China. Take a look at the anti-Japanese riots they had a couple of months ago. People found out where to rally via SMS, e-mail, etc, etc.
The Red Dynasty believes that all they need to do is build the Great Firewall of China, and keep people like me from filling their people in on the news the Party doesn't want them to hear. What they fail to realize is that it's internal communcation that will bring them down. The days when they could truck in completely uninformed soldiers from way out in the sticks to put down an uprising in Beijing are coming to an end.
What there is to gain is convenience for the consumers and sales for Apple.
Nope.
A big part of any product design at Apple is deciding what not to pile on. This is why Apple's consistently kicking the other MP3 player's asses: it's not about "feature packing", it's about the product doing what it should, and not doing what it shouldn't.
They kid themselves that China is slowly going to transition to democracy just because it is transitioning to sham private ownership of capital.
Well, there's a little more to it than that. Mao, like Hitler before him, gained power by telling the masses that he could alleviate their misery and squalor. Not seeing much in the way of alternatives, the masses got behind the dictator. Take away the squalor and the misery, let people actually have something to lose, and the appeal of totalitarianism is drastically undermined.
The Red Dynasty will fall, and it will fall when it loses the ability to control the flow of information within the country. That time ia rapidly approaching. I just hope they go down with as little bloodshed as possible. In an idea world, the casualties would be pretty much limited to the Politburo and high-ranking apparatchiks.
Aiding a dictatorial government in oppressing its people
Oh, come on now... Why, there must be half a dozen senile Mandarins in the politburo who are personally responsible for the political prisoners that they murder by deliberately infecting them with tuberculosis! That's a murderous oligarchy, not a dictatorship. China hasn't had a dictator since Mao kicked the bucket.
I'd boycott them, but the only time I've even thought about Yahoo since Google came out was to block mail from Yahoo in my procmail script a few years back...
And of course, there's still no point to including Ogg Vorbis in the iPod. The number of additional sales that Apple would get from people who are emotionally committed to a particular file format isn't even a rounding error in a monthly sales report.
Slashdot Mirror
BINGO!
Got it on the first guess.
-jcr
Maybe we could all pitch in and hire an out of work TV actor to be our open source spokesperson
Sounds good to me. What's this guy doing?
-jcr
China isn't Socialist unless you use the broad definition that defines Fascism as Socialism.
There are few practical differences between the various franchises of collectivist tyranny. Socialist, Fascist, call it what you like.
China is going to fall like the Soviet Union because its system is inherently "inferior" to the west.
No, the ChiCom regime is going to fall in its own way, and this has nothing to do with comparisons to the west. There are similarities to the Soviets of course, since the Red Dynasty tried to follow the Soviet model.
I'll eat my keyboard if either happen in the next two decades.
I guess I have more faith in the Chinese people than you do.
-jcr
You ignored my point that people with a rising standard of living and affluence are unlikely to risk their new found possessions through insurrection.
People with more to lose are less willing to allow an arbitrary government that can part them from their posessions at will. Socialism is always more appealing to destitute peasants than to a prosperous middle class.
The only thing likely to bring them down such a power is war.
No, what will bring them down is the loss of popular support, just like the Soviets. The effect of internal communication on this, is that the party will lose the ability lie effectively, which is crucial for maintaining a tyranny.
-jcr
How does Joe Sixpack back up 500Gb?
I don't know about Joe, but I'd do it with a second drive of the same size.
-jcr
what everyday user needs a half-terabyte of space?
Anyone who wants to rip his DVD collection?
-jcr
The third-party accessories will be around for years. There are a lot of iPod minis out there. As for Apple's support, iTunes 5 works fine with my old 10 gig iPod.
-jcr
I'd be willing to sacrifice a little more space to have it in flash memory.
Indeed. There's a lot to be said for eliminating moving parts wherever possible.
-jcr
That was true for quite a while, but with half a billion songs sold, I don't believe it's the case anymore. Apple still makes more money on the iPods than the music store, but the music store passed the break-even point quite some time ago.
-jcr
However for a "mainstream" GUI, where should GNOME/KDE/Commercials be aiming?
They should be trying to beat Apple. That's the long and short of it.
-jcr
KDE's now-default Plastik theme is clean and attractive, much more so than any default Windows option.
Now, that's what I call damning with faint praise.
-jcr
It looks like MS windows.
These guys are still shooting too low. I've said the same thing to every other bunch of guys who were working GUIs for UNIX, all the way back to VISIX Galaxy: if you aim to only match the status quo, you lose.
-jcr
That is very unlikely though Westerners keep deluding themselves on that score, especially right wingers.
I think you underestimate the growth of communcations capabilities in China. Take a look at the anti-Japanese riots they had a couple of months ago. People found out where to rally via SMS, e-mail, etc, etc.
The Red Dynasty believes that all they need to do is build the Great Firewall of China, and keep people like me from filling their people in on the news the Party doesn't want them to hear. What they fail to realize is that it's internal communcation that will bring them down. The days when they could truck in completely uninformed soldiers from way out in the sticks to put down an uprising in Beijing are coming to an end.
-jcr
What there is to gain is convenience for the consumers and sales for Apple.
Nope.
A big part of any product design at Apple is deciding what not to pile on. This is why Apple's consistently kicking the other MP3 player's asses: it's not about "feature packing", it's about the product doing what it should, and not doing what it shouldn't.
-jcr
They kid themselves that China is slowly going to transition to democracy just because it is transitioning to sham private ownership of capital.
Well, there's a little more to it than that. Mao, like Hitler before him, gained power by telling the masses that he could alleviate their misery and squalor. Not seeing much in the way of alternatives, the masses got behind the dictator. Take away the squalor and the misery, let people actually have something to lose, and the appeal of totalitarianism is drastically undermined.
The Red Dynasty will fall, and it will fall when it loses the ability to control the flow of information within the country. That time ia rapidly approaching. I just hope they go down with as little bloodshed as possible. In an idea world, the casualties would be pretty much limited to the Politburo and high-ranking apparatchiks.
-jcr
So did the USSR and we weren't doing billions of dollars of business with them.
Umm... Ever hear of Nixon's wheat deal? The USA was doing business with the commies to the tune of tens of billions of dollars by the mid 1970's.
-jcr
As soon as a Communist government showed a bit of liberalization
Then it ceased to be a communist state.
A non-authoritarian communist state was a very dangerous precedent
A non-authoritarian communist state is a contradiction in terms.
-jcr
Aiding a dictatorial government in oppressing its people
Oh, come on now... Why, there must be half a dozen senile Mandarins in the politburo who are personally responsible for the political prisoners that they murder by deliberately infecting them with tuberculosis! That's a murderous oligarchy, not a dictatorship. China hasn't had a dictator since Mao kicked the bucket.
-jcr
I'd boycott them, but the only time I've even thought about Yahoo since Google came out was to block mail from Yahoo in my procmail script a few years back...
What line of business are they in again?
-jcr
And, of course, no Ogg (again!).
And of course, there's still no point to including Ogg Vorbis in the iPod. The number of additional sales that Apple would get from people who are emotionally committed to a particular file format isn't even a rounding error in a monthly sales report.
-jcr
am I the only one who thinks they could make it a little thicker and include a simple point & click camera?
They could, but why would they? It's an excellent music player, and there's nothing to gain from adding a mediocre camera.
-jcr
$199 for 4GB?
Sure, why not? If you don't want to pay that much, wait six months.
-jcr
I used to work for Ameritech (one of the Baby Bells), and I was making $53.5k/yr... in 1997.
Yeah, I got peanuts when I worked for Nynex. Around $40K in 1990.
Consultants make a *lot* more (figure 25% more).
25%? Dude, you're thinking way too small...
Around '97, I was billing AT&T WIreless about $100/hr + the body shop's markup (around 20%, I believe.)
-jcr
It does not feel so good when your master puts you on the outside, now does it?
I wouldn't know. I've never been into the S&M scene, so I'll just have to take your word for it.
-jcr
If you are not gifted you can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and produce nothing.
I think it also bears mentioning that even if someone is gifted and hard working, but incompetently led, they can still produce nothing of value.
-jcr