Although China is no more my country, I was born there. As an ethnic Chinese I understand the Chinese mentality --- that in this "space race" thing China's stance is to take one firm step at a time, no matter what others are doing
And it is evidenced in China's approach on its space program so far. China always takes its own sweet time in launching whatever they have launched. They seemed to be in no hurry at all and they seemed to be oblivious to whatever others are doing
The Japanese have launched space mission to collect comet dust
The Europeans have landed a probe on a comet
The Americans have been to many corners of the Solar System, with two of its space crafts actually outside of the perimeter already
Even the Indians have sent their space craft, and as we speak, speeding closer and closer towards planet Mars
China? Well... They tried once to hitch a hike on a Russian mission to Mars but that thing failed miserably. After that, no more mission until China can send one up by their own
So far, China prefers to stick to their space station mission and their moon mission. Nothing else matter
That's the Chinese way of doing things - gonna learn to crawl before learning to walk before learning to run
As a little toddler I already developed signs of geekiness. As I grew older, my geekiness ballooned so much so that I could not, even if I want to, deny that in this life, I am a geek
Now that I am old, as an old geek, I still think that what we geek do, what we truly enjoy doing, often goes counter to the outside rule
That is why, when that guy is telling me (and other geeks) that we live by a "failed economic commons", hey, I am not surprised
If we geeks are to live by a "successful economic commons" many of the geeky things that we do, and many of the geeky creations that we have created, would not exist
The gist of the whole thing is this --- economy, whether it be "failed" or "successful" --- is in eye of the beholder
One can say that the economy of a certain country/region is good --- but good for whom? For the general populace, or for the 0.1%?
That is why, we geek don't give a flying fuck about the economy. We do what we do because we enjoy what we do. That is all
If they (and when I say "they" I mean those who look down on the geeks) don't like it, they can go jump into the sea
Hadlock has the correct link to that 2009 meme, but that meme had existed way before the advent of the Net
The word "Grass", or in Chinese "Cao", sounds like another word, to put it in "family term", sexual intercourse
The word "Mud", or in Chinese "Ni", sounds a lot like the word that carries the meaning of "You"
The word "Horse", in Chinese "Ma", is a root-character in Chinese, for many Chinese characters has "Ma" (or Horse) embedded, including the character that represents "Mother" (also pronounce as "Ma" in Mandarin)
Bonus tip for those who do not know the Mandarin Language: The "Ma" character that represents "Mother", has "female" on the left hand side and "horse" on the right hand side
That "State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television" is nothing but a bunch of imbecile pencil pushers
If they think that they can change a culture which has 7,000 years of history behind it, with an "official edict" they better stand in front of a big mirror
Chinese history is filled with many attempt of cultural engineering - and in the 7,000 years of history, only two succeeded
I am a father of 3 girls. None of my girls call themselves "Princess", and none of them see themselves as someone who needs a "Prince" on a White Horse to rescue her from whatever trouble
I never treat any of my girls as princess. I treat them as normal human beings - normal human beings who understand the danger of this world and who are alert to the dangers around them
The "Programmer Father" is in dismay because his 4-year old girl sees herself as a "Princess", and he got nobody but himself (plus his better half) to blame - because since that little girls was an infant they kept calling her "Princess" and kept treating her as if she is not capable of doing anything for and by herself
China is not well known for high tech (or high knowledge) innovations --- at least not since the invention of paper, compass and explosive, thousands of years ago --- and the fact that a bunch of Chinese researchers could come up with the idea of using a nuclear magnetic resonance quantum compute in aiding the discovery of large factorized prime numbers shows that China's huge investment in STEM is starting to pay off
And I presume (I certainly have no idea what else will come up next) that with their continual huge investment in STEM China gonna reap lots and lots of amazing pay off in coming years
That said, why is the US of A cutting off the funding for math, science and technology?
The US of A was the world's first nation in implementing broadband, to pave the road for the "Information Highway". That was a few decades ago
Now, the US of A trails behind Korea, Japan, Estonia, and a few other countries in the availability of TRUE BROADBAND that is affordable for the masses
The US consumer not only have to pay through their noses for broadband, and what they got are miserably slow, in compared with what the Koreans (for example) are getting
US of A should learn from other countries to find out how to remedy and rectify the current pathetic situation
Schools often tell us that they are lack of fund to give our children top flight education, so we give money and more money and some more money to the schools hoping that they will have enough $$$ to properly educating the children
But when schools get the money, where do they spend it on?
On iPADs !
Instead of spending more money paying high salaries to much better quality teachers, teachers who are more resourceful, more dedicated teachers, and so on, the schools waste money on iPADs !
If TFA wants to talk about supercomputer then it should stick to supercomputers. What is the point of sticking in the following:
... climate change skeptic Ted Cruz is rumored to be in line to chair a Senate committee that oversees NASA and the NSF
1, TFA has failed to substantiate its claim that Ted Cruz is a climate change skeptic
2. Even if Ted Cruz is a climate change skeptic it still has NOTHING to do with the funding of supercomputers
3. Supercomputer can be used for many things, not only for climate pattern modelling
4. TFA also failed to prove that Ted Cruz has refused to fund the purchase of supercomputer
5. Even if Ted Cruz is such a villian, that the guy would end up destroying NSF and whatnots, why didn't the American government, led by the Obama administration and its Democratic party congress critins, before Ted Cruz arrives at the scene, fund the purchase of supercomputers?
Is TFA going to be an article about the lack of supercomputer or is TFA going to be a political character assassination propaganda against Ted Cruz?
I have no relationship whatsoever with Ted Cruz. I just can't stand this kind of below-the-belt sneak attack disguising as a Slashdot article
Nowadays they do assign names to typhoons / hurricanes, and TFA gives me an idea... why stop at branding vulnerabilities when we can branding disasters?
All we need to do is to supply a meme, a logo, a theme song,... and we can even throw in a new aerobic dance step as a bonus!
Anyone thinks such a venture might sell? How about we crowdsource our funding @ www.kickstarter.com?
First when it was found out that IRS was illegal harassing citizen groups in the USA, and an investigation was launch, IRS responded by telling the world that all the computers used by the people involved that case were mysteriously and co-incidently damaged --- so no trace of guilt could be found
Then it came the case of the records of H1B be destroyed, without letting the public to check it
Now this
I have been in America since the 1970's, and when I first landed at America, the Watergate thing was still a very hot topic
No matter how tricky that Tricky Dicky was, he paled in comparison to the wholesale destruction of evidence the Obama administration is doing
When I first arrived in America, I was a refugee from China
Now, I am an American citizen
Back when I was a refugee, I felt so awed by the American system - that even the President can be thrown out of office if he did rotten things
But now, as an American citizen, I feel rotten. I feel rotten because as an American citizen I can *DO NOTHING* about the illegal activitiess my own government is involved in
I feel so powerless, I feel so ashame
I know that, the founding fathers of my adopted country, the United States of America, told me, in the Declaration of Independence, that it is my duty, and the duty of ALL AMERICANS, to overthrow the government if the government turns rogue
The Obama administration is rogue, but as an American citizen, I have failed to carry out my duty, as has been instructed by the founding fathers
I am ashamed, man. Very very much ashamed, to have failed to live up to the expectation of the founding fathers, to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America !
I do not understand why the need to give foreign aid in the first place, I really don't
I am from China, and when I was in China, China was hit by the double whammy from Chairman Mao - in the form of great famine and cultural upheaval
Tens of millions of people perished
Despite of the suffering, China didn't receive any fucking foreign aid from nobody --- and at the end of it, China still survive, and the population of China is still over one Billion
Why then the West wants to give out money to help those "poor" countries? I mean, what the West is thinking?
They think without the "foreign aid" those poor countries will die?
For thousands of years the people of those "poor countries" were there before the "West" is known as the "West... and they never got any "Western aid" at all, and still, they survived, right?
Don't care if it's brown skin, white skin, dark skin, yellow skin or whatever shade of skin those people are, with or without foreign aid they will survive
With or without the "disruptive method", those "foreign aid" is a waste of money anyway
Not only in the corporate settings, even in the academia setting thievery thrives --- you do not even need to look far to read stories of professors stealing and patenting students' ideas from himself / herself
And I am speaking from experience... I had (at least) one idea stolen by my professor(s) and I couldn't do shit about it --- basically I had the choice of litigation (which would linger for ages) against my professor(s) and the university (which means I would never graduate)...
... or I moved on...
... by not disclosing any more ideas to anyone until I got my chance to try them out myself and patent them if they turn out to be useful
It used to be that the entire world was very scared of the Pressure from the *West* because it would be a crushing blow to whoever the West decided to punish
It used to be, no more
The West is getting weaker by the day - as their technological / military / moral advantage get plummeted - nowadays even the banana republics in Africa / Latin America / Asia do not care so much about what the *West* wants anymore
Not that long ago people were talking about the huge breakthrough the spintronics would bring - that we are going to have terabytes of DRAM which could retain their memory even when power was switched off, that we could turn on our PC and have an almost instantaneous boot-up
No one has been punished and they are still spying on us all
That's the kicker, ain't it?
No matter how much the citizens have protested, TPTB still REFUSES to listen
We call ourselves a "democratic country" but are we truly democratic?
Our government, the government of the United States of America, is behaving exactly like a tyrannical regime - in which it not only conveniently ignores the wish of the citizentry, it continues to carry out programs which are designed to undermine the validity of the democratic principles within the country
While I will agree with you that some of the NSA spooks have betrayed the United States of America, I do need to point out that it's the POLITICIANS who are the biggest traitors of all
Politicians in Washington DC, many of them, no matter if they are Democrats or Republicans, do not care about America. They only care about power (unlimited power), money (enormous amount of money), and getting re-elected, again, and again and again, ad nauseum
Although the time I have spent in the field of IT is not very long, at least for more than 30 years I have been in this field
And the 30+ years the people that I've met, and I mean, those who can be considered as productive members of the IT fields, none of them are from the "illegal immigrant" category
Yes, there are a lot of immigrants in the IT industry in America, myself included. But none that I know sneaked into America through the porous border between Mexico and the United States
In other words, what Obama just did, giving the 5 million illegals their "legality" hardly benefits the IT field, if at all
The people who choose to be spooks are ordinary people, just like you and me. Many of them choose to become spooks because of their patriotic feeling towards their respective countries, and their willingness to do everything they can (within the confine of the laws, of course) to contribute to the well being of their motherland/fatherland
Not all spooks from CIA/NSA are bad dudes either. There are conscientious people within those organizations because I do have friends (close friends) working in there
On the other hand, the politicians, whether they are the career politicians or otherwise, have no conscience. One has to have no conscience to become a successful politician
The matter on hand has illustrated one thing - that the spooks themselves have raised alarms but it was the politicians who have overruled the spooks and insisted that the illegal programs be continued, and expanded
Government needs to be able to ignore its own laws and selectively apply them as long as it benefits the 0.1% elites. That's a core function in government
... Rock Star == Prima Donna == show off glory hound...
The tag "Rock Star" isn't the tag the TRUE rock stars use for themselves
It was used by the OTHERS to describe those who are so good, so productive that an entire roomful of code monkeys can't even begin to hold a candle to them
And when I mean "productive" I do not mean in code volume alone. They are productive not only in the volume of the quality code that they produce, but also the innovative, the inventive aspects (for the lack of a better word, English ain't my mother tongue, btw) that their code brings
Plus, they are PRODUCTIVE, as I have mentioned above, in up-lifting the people around them, bring people to new heights that they never imagine they could attain
As I have mentioned above, I have have the fortune to work with several of those legendary programmers, and I benefited greatly from the experiences, and I am forever in debt !
Slashdot Mirror
Although China is no more my country, I was born there. As an ethnic Chinese I understand the Chinese mentality --- that in this "space race" thing China's stance is to take one firm step at a time, no matter what others are doing
And it is evidenced in China's approach on its space program so far. China always takes its own sweet time in launching whatever they have launched. They seemed to be in no hurry at all and they seemed to be oblivious to whatever others are doing
The Japanese have launched space mission to collect comet dust
The Europeans have landed a probe on a comet
The Americans have been to many corners of the Solar System, with two of its space crafts actually outside of the perimeter already
Even the Indians have sent their space craft, and as we speak, speeding closer and closer towards planet Mars
China? Well... They tried once to hitch a hike on a Russian mission to Mars but that thing failed miserably. After that, no more mission until China can send one up by their own
So far, China prefers to stick to their space station mission and their moon mission. Nothing else matter
That's the Chinese way of doing things - gonna learn to crawl before learning to walk before learning to run
As a little toddler I already developed signs of geekiness. As I grew older, my geekiness ballooned so much so that I could not, even if I want to, deny that in this life, I am a geek
Now that I am old, as an old geek, I still think that what we geek do, what we truly enjoy doing, often goes counter to the outside rule
That is why, when that guy is telling me (and other geeks) that we live by a "failed economic commons", hey, I am not surprised
If we geeks are to live by a "successful economic commons" many of the geeky things that we do, and many of the geeky creations that we have created, would not exist
The gist of the whole thing is this --- economy, whether it be "failed" or "successful" --- is in eye of the beholder
One can say that the economy of a certain country/region is good --- but good for whom? For the general populace, or for the 0.1%?
That is why, we geek don't give a flying fuck about the economy. We do what we do because we enjoy what we do. That is all
If they (and when I say "they" I mean those who look down on the geeks) don't like it, they can go jump into the sea
Even if one voted for the other guy the USAsians would still be ending up with a despot
American politics has turned into a tweedledee and tweedledum show
Obama's camp is not only deft at social media, their control over IRS computer are equally legendary
Until now nobody can convincingly explain why those IRS computers which contain vital information can turn belly up, almost all at the same time
Hadlock has the correct link to that 2009 meme, but that meme had existed way before the advent of the Net
The word "Grass", or in Chinese "Cao", sounds like another word, to put it in "family term", sexual intercourse
The word "Mud", or in Chinese "Ni", sounds a lot like the word that carries the meaning of "You"
The word "Horse", in Chinese "Ma", is a root-character in Chinese, for many Chinese characters has "Ma" (or Horse) embedded, including the character that represents "Mother" (also pronounce as "Ma" in Mandarin)
Bonus tip for those who do not know the Mandarin Language: The "Ma" character that represents "Mother", has "female" on the left hand side and "horse" on the right hand side
That "State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television" is nothing but a bunch of imbecile pencil pushers
If they think that they can change a culture which has 7,000 years of history behind it, with an "official edict" they better stand in front of a big mirror
Chinese history is filled with many attempt of cultural engineering - and in the 7,000 years of history, only two succeeded
Confucianism and chop-sticks
I am a father of 3 girls. None of my girls call themselves "Princess", and none of them see themselves as someone who needs a "Prince" on a White Horse to rescue her from whatever trouble
I never treat any of my girls as princess. I treat them as normal human beings - normal human beings who understand the danger of this world and who are alert to the dangers around them
The "Programmer Father" is in dismay because his 4-year old girl sees herself as a "Princess", and he got nobody but himself (plus his better half) to blame - because since that little girls was an infant they kept calling her "Princess" and kept treating her as if she is not capable of doing anything for and by herself
China is not well known for high tech (or high knowledge) innovations --- at least not since the invention of paper, compass and explosive, thousands of years ago --- and the fact that a bunch of Chinese researchers could come up with the idea of using a nuclear magnetic resonance quantum compute in aiding the discovery of large factorized prime numbers shows that China's huge investment in STEM is starting to pay off
And I presume (I certainly have no idea what else will come up next) that with their continual huge investment in STEM China gonna reap lots and lots of amazing pay off in coming years
That said, why is the US of A cutting off the funding for math, science and technology?
The US of A was the world's first nation in implementing broadband, to pave the road for the "Information Highway". That was a few decades ago
Now, the US of A trails behind Korea, Japan, Estonia, and a few other countries in the availability of TRUE BROADBAND that is affordable for the masses
The US consumer not only have to pay through their noses for broadband, and what they got are miserably slow, in compared with what the Koreans (for example) are getting
US of A should learn from other countries to find out how to remedy and rectify the current pathetic situation
Schools often tell us that they are lack of fund to give our children top flight education, so we give money and more money and some more money to the schools hoping that they will have enough $$$ to properly educating the children
But when schools get the money, where do they spend it on?
On iPADs !
Instead of spending more money paying high salaries to much better quality teachers, teachers who are more resourceful, more dedicated teachers, and so on, the schools waste money on iPADs !
USA supposed to be a democratic country. Ditto for Germany and Britain, right?
In USA, NSA spies on the American citizens while GCHQ spies on the Brits, and seems like the Germans are doing the same
Is this one of the "feature" of the so-called "Western *democracy*" ??
If TFA wants to talk about supercomputer then it should stick to supercomputers. What is the point of sticking in the following:
1, TFA has failed to substantiate its claim that Ted Cruz is a climate change skeptic
2. Even if Ted Cruz is a climate change skeptic it still has NOTHING to do with the funding of supercomputers
3. Supercomputer can be used for many things, not only for climate pattern modelling
4. TFA also failed to prove that Ted Cruz has refused to fund the purchase of supercomputer
5. Even if Ted Cruz is such a villian, that the guy would end up destroying NSF and whatnots, why didn't the American government, led by the Obama administration and its Democratic party congress critins, before Ted Cruz arrives at the scene, fund the purchase of supercomputers?
Is TFA going to be an article about the lack of supercomputer or is TFA going to be a political character assassination propaganda against Ted Cruz?
I have no relationship whatsoever with Ted Cruz. I just can't stand this kind of below-the-belt sneak attack disguising as a Slashdot article
Nowadays they do assign names to typhoons / hurricanes, and TFA gives me an idea ... why stop at branding vulnerabilities when we can branding disasters?
All we need to do is to supply a meme, a logo, a theme song, ... and we can even throw in a new aerobic dance step as a bonus!
Anyone thinks such a venture might sell? How about we crowdsource our funding @ www.kickstarter.com?
First when it was found out that IRS was illegal harassing citizen groups in the USA, and an investigation was launch, IRS responded by telling the world that all the computers used by the people involved that case were mysteriously and co-incidently damaged --- so no trace of guilt could be found
Then it came the case of the records of H1B be destroyed, without letting the public to check it
Now this
I have been in America since the 1970's, and when I first landed at America, the Watergate thing was still a very hot topic
No matter how tricky that Tricky Dicky was, he paled in comparison to the wholesale destruction of evidence the Obama administration is doing
When I first arrived in America, I was a refugee from China
Now, I am an American citizen
Back when I was a refugee, I felt so awed by the American system - that even the President can be thrown out of office if he did rotten things
But now, as an American citizen, I feel rotten. I feel rotten because as an American citizen I can *DO NOTHING* about the illegal activitiess my own government is involved in
I feel so powerless, I feel so ashame
I know that, the founding fathers of my adopted country, the United States of America, told me, in the Declaration of Independence, that it is my duty, and the duty of ALL AMERICANS, to overthrow the government if the government turns rogue
The Obama administration is rogue, but as an American citizen, I have failed to carry out my duty, as has been instructed by the founding fathers
I am ashamed, man. Very very much ashamed, to have failed to live up to the expectation of the founding fathers, to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America !
I do not understand why the need to give foreign aid in the first place, I really don't
I am from China, and when I was in China, China was hit by the double whammy from Chairman Mao - in the form of great famine and cultural upheaval
Tens of millions of people perished
Despite of the suffering, China didn't receive any fucking foreign aid from nobody --- and at the end of it, China still survive, and the population of China is still over one Billion
Why then the West wants to give out money to help those "poor" countries? I mean, what the West is thinking?
They think without the "foreign aid" those poor countries will die?
For thousands of years the people of those "poor countries" were there before the "West" is known as the "West ... and they never got any "Western aid" at all, and still, they survived, right?
Don't care if it's brown skin, white skin, dark skin, yellow skin or whatever shade of skin those people are, with or without foreign aid they will survive
With or without the "disruptive method", those "foreign aid" is a waste of money anyway
Hey, let's be frank
In technology almost everyone is a thief
Not only in the corporate settings, even in the academia setting thievery thrives --- you do not even need to look far to read stories of professors stealing and patenting students' ideas from himself / herself
And I am speaking from experience ... I had (at least) one idea stolen by my professor(s) and I couldn't do shit about it --- basically I had the choice of litigation (which would linger for ages) against my professor(s) and the university (which means I would never graduate) ...
...
... or I moved on
... by not disclosing any more ideas to anyone until I got my chance to try them out myself and patent them if they turn out to be useful
It used to be that the entire world was very scared of the Pressure from the *West* because it would be a crushing blow to whoever the West decided to punish
It used to be, no more
The West is getting weaker by the day - as their technological / military / moral advantage get plummeted - nowadays even the banana republics in Africa / Latin America / Asia do not care so much about what the *West* wants anymore
Not that long ago people were talking about the huge breakthrough the spintronics would bring - that we are going to have terabytes of DRAM which could retain their memory even when power was switched off, that we could turn on our PC and have an almost instantaneous boot-up
So where is the spintronics nowadays?
If Google is an EU corporation EU will not do _anything_ to Google
EU doesn't care if Google is a monopoly or not - they only use "monopoly" as an excuse to do what they do
What EU really wants to achieve is to break America, starting by breaking American corporations, corporations such as Google
And if they can do Google in, Apple will be next
No one has been punished and they are still spying on us all
That's the kicker, ain't it?
No matter how much the citizens have protested, TPTB still REFUSES to listen
We call ourselves a "democratic country" but are we truly democratic?
Our government, the government of the United States of America, is behaving exactly like a tyrannical regime - in which it not only conveniently ignores the wish of the citizentry, it continues to carry out programs which are designed to undermine the validity of the democratic principles within the country
They have betrayed their country
While I will agree with you that some of the NSA spooks have betrayed the United States of America, I do need to point out that it's the POLITICIANS who are the biggest traitors of all
Politicians in Washington DC, many of them, no matter if they are Democrats or Republicans, do not care about America. They only care about power (unlimited power), money (enormous amount of money), and getting re-elected, again, and again and again, ad nauseum
Although the time I have spent in the field of IT is not very long, at least for more than 30 years I have been in this field
And the 30+ years the people that I've met, and I mean, those who can be considered as productive members of the IT fields, none of them are from the "illegal immigrant" category
Yes, there are a lot of immigrants in the IT industry in America, myself included. But none that I know sneaked into America through the porous border between Mexico and the United States
In other words, what Obama just did, giving the 5 million illegals their "legality" hardly benefits the IT field, if at all
The people who choose to be spooks are ordinary people, just like you and me. Many of them choose to become spooks because of their patriotic feeling towards their respective countries, and their willingness to do everything they can (within the confine of the laws, of course) to contribute to the well being of their motherland/fatherland
Not all spooks from CIA/NSA are bad dudes either. There are conscientious people within those organizations because I do have friends (close friends) working in there
On the other hand, the politicians, whether they are the career politicians or otherwise, have no conscience. One has to have no conscience to become a successful politician
The matter on hand has illustrated one thing - that the spooks themselves have raised alarms but it was the politicians who have overruled the spooks and insisted that the illegal programs be continued, and expanded
Government needs to be able to ignore its own laws and selectively apply them as long as it benefits the 0.1% elites. That's a core function in government
FTFY
The tag "Rock Star" isn't the tag the TRUE rock stars use for themselves
It was used by the OTHERS to describe those who are so good, so productive that an entire roomful of code monkeys can't even begin to hold a candle to them
And when I mean "productive" I do not mean in code volume alone. They are productive not only in the volume of the quality code that they produce, but also the innovative, the inventive aspects (for the lack of a better word, English ain't my mother tongue, btw) that their code brings
Plus, they are PRODUCTIVE, as I have mentioned above, in up-lifting the people around them, bring people to new heights that they never imagine they could attain
As I have mentioned above, I have have the fortune to work with several of those legendary programmers, and I benefited greatly from the experiences, and I am forever in debt !