I assume you got your information from a recent South Park episode.
FYI, nobody was lowered into a volcano. Nuclear bombs were placed into the volcanoes, 75 million people were placed around the edges of the volcanoes, and the bombs were subsequently detonated.
The rest of the story is "correct". The disembodied souls (called thetans) were then sucked up into vacuums and forced into cinemas to watch brain-watching movies.
So there you go. I guess you could say that my version of the fake truth is more true than your version of the fake truth.
As far as I know, Apple won't allow any other stores to sell songs using the iTunes DRM format. Copyright holders are required by law to protect their property, lest they lose it. Because they are therefore required by to use some DRM, and they are unable to use the iTunes format, they are unable to sell any iPod-compatible songs. They have been locked out of the most lucrative music market in the world. Antitrust anyone?
I'm no lawyer, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that was how these things work.
The Japanese have had a word for this for a long time. They're called "sokaiya". Yakuza (Japanese mafia) racketeers who dig up dirt about the company (or the executive's private lives) and then buy stock, so that they can blackmail the company at shareholder meetings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokaiya http://www.calbaptist.edu/dskubik/scandal.htm
The anti-spyware company never agreed to abide by the spyware's EULA, right? Wasn't the user the one who clicked the OK box? Shouldn't they be suing the uesrs of their program?
CRT sales are still higher than LCD sales here, but industry (see marketing) "experts" say that LCD sales will overtake them this year. (For what marketing hype is worth.)
As a side note, manufacturers have blamed fluorescent lights for the slow sales of LCD TVs here. The "big box" electronics stores like Yodobashi and Bic all extremely well lit with fluorescent lighting, and manufacturers have requested that their TVs be placed on shelves at floor level (rather than eye level) where it's supposedly a little darker, and the quality of the picture a little better. It seems counterproductive to me, because then customers have to squat to actually see the TV, but hey, what do I know. There are enough 4.5-foot tall grannies here that it might actually work.
>So, are you sure that it works in other parts of the world? 100%. FOMA is NTT/DoCoMo, and the phone I mentioned was Vodafone, so your Wikipedia quote doesn't apply. Vodafone uses CDMA2000 (the 3G protocol used in Japan and much of the rest of the world) by default and falls back on GSM (the 2G protocol used pretty much everywhere in the world EXCEPT Japan) if it cannot find a CDMA2000 network. Because Vodafone maintains a large group of partners in countries around the world, if a region has either a GSM network or a CDMA2000 network, this phone can be used.
>And back to the technology part, if Japanese phones would be technologically superior to other phones, then why Nokia is the world leader in mobile phones, and why Motorola and Samsung are the followers? Could it be that the technology in Japan isn't more advanced, and availability of certain features in phones is more contributed to Japanese consumers wanting more advanced features than to superior technological knowhow? Oh my... You're not going to argue that ubiquity equates to superiority, are you? On Slashdot, no less? VHS/Betamax, etc. arguments aside, there is at least one MAJOR reason why Japanese manufacturers haven't succeeded in the global market. Until recently, all Japanese cell phones operated using PDC, a Japan-only network protocol. The rest of the world uses GSM, a completely incompatible protocol. Most Japanese tech research takes place in Japan itself, meaning that the manufacturers have no testbed for GSM devices. Sure, you could do it, but it'd be difficult, and the results would probably not be very good. This lack of compatibility, and a desire to compete in the global market were two of the major reasons that Sony partnered with Ericcson. (Having a Japanese partner also makes things much easier for Ericcson, where, despite the huge market here, foreign mobile phones were extremely rare before the introduction of 3G.) Although their sales results have been dismal thus far, one must keep in mind that Sony Ericcson is among the least respected "Japanese" cell phone manufacturers. (Sharp and Toshiba being the most popular, I believe.) With Japan phasing out its incompatible 2G PDC protocol and switching over to the wCDMA and CDMA2000 protocols used the world over, you'll soon see a number of Japanese phones entering the market, if cell phone manufacturers can become untied from the service providers. If they can maintain their extremely low prices (comparatively), Japanese companies will be poised to take control of the market.
>Vodafone is Japan's GSM provider, so I am sure a regular GSM phone you buy anywhere should be able to provide roaming in Japan also, if your provide has a tie up to Vodafone Japan.
No. Vodafone Japan is NOT GSM. It is PDC. If you bring a Vodafone telephone from England to Japan, it WILL NOT WORK with Vodafone here. NO GSM PHONE WILL WORK IN JAPAN. Period. http://euc.jp/misc/cellphones.en.html#tech If you don't even know that much about Japanese cell phones, I don't know why I'm having this discussion.
Well, English is still a FOREIGN LANGUAGE here. We're really lucky that they provide anything at all. The number of people who speak English is quite low, certainly much lower than the US, Canada, UK, etc. There's only a very small incentive to provide even support for the language itself, let alone predictive text messaging in it.
As for the battery life, generally speaking, a Japanese phone's battery life is shorter when talking, but longer when in standby. (Although the phone I mentioned is far longer than a "Western" phone for both.)
The phone that I was referring to was a 3G phone. 3G is the new GLOBAL STANDARD. This phone DOES NOT use PDC (the Japanese-only mobile phone network to which you are referring). PDC phones have a weaker signal strength, so they are smaller, lighter and use less power. They have little, if nothing in common with the newer, (much) larger 3G phones. Did I even mention the size of the phone in my post? No. The phone is pretty big. Surprisingly big when compared to the old 2G Japanese phones. The difference is that it has almost the same features as the Nokia, and it is CHEAP. About 1/4 of the price. Plus, it has global GPS, something that is actually useful to have in a cell phone if you're going to carry it around with you to other countries.
By the way, have you ever been to Japan? There are PLENTY of places with low population density. For example, the whole coast of the Sea of Japan... Tohoku... Hokkaido... Kyushu... Shikoku. Basically, EVERYWHERE except Kanto, Kansai and Nagoya. The population density of Japan is LOWER than that of Belgium and the Netherlands, both of which, I believe use the GSM standard for cell phones.
If you've ever gone to a Japanese electronics shop, you'd know that we are FAR behind them when it comes to phones.
Yes, you are missing something. Japan uses a different cellular phone standard than the rest of the world. Most Japanese phones use PDC, a 2G protocol developed and used ONLY in Japan. PDC has its advantages, but pretty much the rest of the world uses GSM. That means that the average phone that you purchase over here is incapable of global roaming, regardless of your provider. PDC/GSM and 3G phones (capable of global roaming) are becoming more popular over here, but they usually cost significantly more. Thus, I made a point of mentioning that it is capable of global roaming.
It's completely bilingual (although I don't think it has predictive text in English mode), has a 2 MB camera, global roaming (and global GPS navigation (although only five or six countries are available at the moment)), can take video calls, communicate via Bluetooth or IR, read QR codes (very convenient in Japan). The Nokia N90 can't even vibrate when it's in silent mode. WTF? That's pretty much par for the course over here. And the Nokia is $700 more? If you can switch this phone to work on a Verizon account back home, it's almost worthwhile to buy a ticket to Japan, buy the phone and then fly back.
Even the free phones you get with a new account over here have AT LEAST a 1 MB camera. Some have 2. Some of the newer Sharp phones even have built-in optical zoom.
Vodafone is generally looked down upon by the Japanese people. NTT Docomo probably have even better phones available.
I realize that 400 W while idling isn't typical of Intel processors, but still, didn't Apple choose Intel because of their supposedly low power consumption?
So, basically, you're saying the same thing as Bush. Bush: "The American way of life is not negotiable." You: "Our use of standard time should not be negotiable."
According to many studies, switching to DST saves fuel. (I'm not going to debate whether or not that is actually true, because you basically admitted that it was.) You're saying we SHOULDN'T try to save fuel by changing to DST? Just because you don't want to give up the idea that "time is absolute"? Now THAT is stubborn.
Of course we should try to increase our fuel economy, BUT if we can use even less fuel by changing to DST, why is that a bad thing?
Oil is concrete and limited. Time is abstract (and infinite?) Which is more important to you?
I'm not playing apologetics. I said every side of the war had it's war criminals. I'm explaining the background from the Japanese point of view. I'm not denying the horrible things they did. As I said, no one was
And my original comment stands. I have NEVER met an Australian who is grateful to the Americans for saving them from Japanese occupation because there was NO occupation of Australia by Japan. PERIOD.
>For anyone who seems so 'horrified' at this atrocity, recall that the Japan and Germany initiated the war. Japan initiated war against Korea and China. After certain atrocities became apparent in American media, the American government decided to stop selling to the Japanese items that were critical to their war effort and occupation, including, I believe, oil and scrap metal. Although this was certainly the right thing to do morally, it was an act of economic war. As a highly predictable consequence, Japan moved into South-East Asia attempting to "take back" into the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" countries that were then occupied by Western powers. Because Japan wanted to the resource-rich Phillipines, which was at that time an American colony, they also attacked the American naval facilities at Pearl Harbor, hoping to destroy the West's ability to retaliate for the attacks on their suzerainities. America must have realized that by cutting off Japan's supply of raw materials that they would face some retaliation.
>Recall that Japan and Germany created a war against humanity with INDUSTRIAL genocide. And we responded in turn with our own form of genocide, with the killing of millions of Japanese civilians.
>Recall that Germany was furiously working on the nuke - if things had been differently, London and Moscow would have been targeted. But Germany had already been defeated when the bomb was dropped on Japan. There was no threat of an atomic attack against the Allies.
>Recall that millions of civillians and millitary personel were killed as part of the axis war plans . And millions of Axis civilians and military personnel were killed by the Allies. How can you simultaneously condemn their actions and justify ours? All sides of this war had their own war criminals. The Allies killed by bombing of civilian areas FAR more people than the Axis did.
>I would have been angry if the allied powers had a means to immediately end the war, even at great civillian loss, and chose not to use it for fear of later slashdot-weenies whinning about being "nice" during a war. I agree. The reason they should have considered not using the bomb was the great number of civilian casualties that it would inflict. But in actuality, the bomb was used for the very purpose of killing civilians. The stated targets: in Hiroshima, the 2nd General Army Headquarters and in Nagasaki, the Mitsubishi arms factories could have been destroyed by conventional bombing. But more importantly, these cities were selected because they hadn't yet been subject to wide-scale bombing, so they would provide a better arena to see the exact effects of the bomb. In addition to this, prior to Hiroshima, the Americans did not drop warning leaflets asking civilians to evacuate the area.
>I've been to the countries occupied by Japan during the 30s and 40s, and the people to this day go out of their way to say "thanks" for the US millitary efforts sixty years ago. Phillipines, China, Indonesia, Australia... Funny, I can't remember the occupation of Australia... When did this happen?
The use of the A-Bomb was, and continues to be, one of America's great shames.
>4) The Emperor wanted to surrender, but the Japanese military leadership refused to allow it;
That's not true. Hirohito had no intention of surrendering without: a) a way to save face b) a way to protect the national polity
In the end, Hirohito credited both the A-Bomb and the invasion by Russia for giving him a). As for b), he took a gamble in hoping that the United States could be dissuaded from prosecuting him as a war criminal, but it turns out that no dissuasion was necessary. The US never had any intention of doing so, and against the wishes of the other Allied nations and the victims of Japan's aggression, they never did.
Slashdot Mirror
I assume you got your information from a recent South Park episode.
FYI, nobody was lowered into a volcano. Nuclear bombs were placed into the volcanoes, 75 million people were placed around the edges of the volcanoes,
and the bombs were subsequently detonated.
The rest of the story is "correct". The disembodied souls (called thetans) were then sucked up into vacuums and forced into cinemas to watch brain-watching movies.
So there you go. I guess you could say that my version of the fake truth is more true than your version of the fake truth.
Insert bad Zelda joke here.
As far as I know, Apple won't allow any other stores to sell songs using the iTunes DRM format. Copyright holders are required by law to protect their property, lest they lose it. Because they are therefore required by to use some DRM, and they are unable to use the iTunes format, they are unable to sell any iPod-compatible songs. They have been locked out of the most lucrative music market in the world.
Antitrust anyone?
I'm no lawyer, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that was how these things work.
It's easy to tell if it's a real Chinese beaver or not. Real Chinese beavers are very small and they taste like salted cashews.
Can anyone say "corporate welfare"?
This is just another way to tunnel government funds into private companies under the guise of "security". The U.S. has been doing this for years.
The Japanese have had a word for this for a long time. They're called "sokaiya". Yakuza (Japanese mafia) racketeers who dig up dirt about the company (or the executive's private lives) and then buy stock, so that they can blackmail the company at shareholder meetings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokaiya
http://www.calbaptist.edu/dskubik/scandal.htm
"Fossil Duels". Best. Video game name. Ever.
Then shouldn't your subject line have read "USE VERBS"?
And doesn't it bother anyone else when people type the subject all in caps?
The anti-spyware company never agreed to abide by the spyware's EULA, right? Wasn't the user the one who clicked the OK box? Shouldn't they be suing the uesrs of their program?
"twarted"
Clearly, Cmdr Taco is the code name for former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien.
Why is this ranked as insightful? It's a dupe joke.
The site is Slashdotted.
w w.nsa.gov/snac/os/applemac/osx_client_final_v_1_1. pdf+&hl=en
Mac OS X users can view the Google cached version of the Mac OS X report here:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:hQm4gx2gJcsJ:w
I can't be bothered to find the URLs for all of the reports, so if anybody has one, please post it.
CRT sales are still higher than LCD sales here, but industry (see marketing) "experts" say that LCD sales will overtake them this year. (For what marketing hype is worth.)
As a side note, manufacturers have blamed fluorescent lights for the slow sales of LCD TVs here. The "big box" electronics stores like Yodobashi and Bic all extremely well lit with fluorescent lighting, and manufacturers have requested that their TVs be placed on shelves at floor level (rather than eye level) where it's supposedly a little darker, and the quality of the picture a little better. It seems counterproductive to me, because then customers have to squat to actually see the TV, but hey, what do I know. There are enough 4.5-foot tall grannies here that it might actually work.
>So, are you sure that it works in other parts of the world?
100%. FOMA is NTT/DoCoMo, and the phone I mentioned was Vodafone, so your Wikipedia quote doesn't apply. Vodafone uses CDMA2000 (the 3G protocol used in Japan and much of the rest of the world) by default and falls back on GSM (the 2G protocol used pretty much everywhere in the world EXCEPT Japan) if it cannot find a CDMA2000 network. Because Vodafone maintains a large group of partners in countries around the world, if a region has either a GSM network or a CDMA2000 network, this phone can be used.
>And back to the technology part, if Japanese phones would be technologically superior to other phones, then why Nokia is the world leader in mobile phones, and why Motorola and Samsung are the followers? Could it be that the technology in Japan isn't more advanced, and availability of certain features in phones is more contributed to Japanese consumers wanting more advanced features than to superior technological knowhow?
Oh my... You're not going to argue that ubiquity equates to superiority, are you? On Slashdot, no less? VHS/Betamax, etc. arguments aside, there is at least one MAJOR reason why Japanese manufacturers haven't succeeded in the global market.
Until recently, all Japanese cell phones operated using PDC, a Japan-only network protocol. The rest of the world uses GSM, a completely incompatible protocol. Most Japanese tech research takes place in Japan itself, meaning that the manufacturers have no testbed for GSM devices. Sure, you could do it, but it'd be difficult, and the results would probably not be very good. This lack of compatibility, and a desire to compete in the global market were two of the major reasons that Sony partnered with Ericcson. (Having a Japanese partner also makes things much easier for Ericcson, where, despite the huge market here, foreign mobile phones were extremely rare before the introduction of 3G.) Although their sales results have been dismal thus far, one must keep in mind that Sony Ericcson is among the least respected "Japanese" cell phone manufacturers. (Sharp and Toshiba being the most popular, I believe.)
With Japan phasing out its incompatible 2G PDC protocol and switching over to the wCDMA and CDMA2000 protocols used the world over, you'll soon see a number of Japanese phones entering the market, if cell phone manufacturers can become untied from the service providers. If they can maintain their extremely low prices (comparatively), Japanese companies will be poised to take control of the market.
>Vodafone is Japan's GSM provider, so I am sure a regular GSM phone you buy anywhere should be able to provide roaming in Japan also, if your provide has a tie up to Vodafone Japan.
No. Vodafone Japan is NOT GSM. It is PDC. If you bring a Vodafone telephone from England to Japan, it WILL NOT WORK with Vodafone here. NO GSM PHONE WILL WORK IN JAPAN. Period.
http://euc.jp/misc/cellphones.en.html#tech
If you don't even know that much about Japanese cell phones, I don't know why I'm having this discussion.
Well, English is still a FOREIGN LANGUAGE here. We're really lucky that they provide anything at all. The number of people who speak English is quite low, certainly much lower than the US, Canada, UK, etc. There's only a very small incentive to provide even support for the language itself, let alone predictive text messaging in it.
As for the battery life, generally speaking, a Japanese phone's battery life is shorter when talking, but longer when in standby. (Although the phone I mentioned is far longer than a "Western" phone for both.)
The phone that I was referring to was a 3G phone. 3G is the new GLOBAL STANDARD. This phone DOES NOT use PDC (the Japanese-only mobile phone network to which you are referring). PDC phones have a weaker signal strength, so they are smaller, lighter and use less power. They have little, if nothing in common with the newer, (much) larger 3G phones. Did I even mention the size of the phone in my post? No. The phone is pretty big. Surprisingly big when compared to the old 2G Japanese phones. The difference is that it has almost the same features as the Nokia, and it is CHEAP. About 1/4 of the price. Plus, it has global GPS, something that is actually useful to have in a cell phone if you're going to carry it around with you to other countries.
By the way, have you ever been to Japan? There are PLENTY of places with low population density. For example, the whole coast of the Sea of Japan... Tohoku... Hokkaido... Kyushu... Shikoku. Basically, EVERYWHERE except Kanto, Kansai and Nagoya. The population density of Japan is LOWER than that of Belgium and the Netherlands, both of which, I believe use the GSM standard for cell phones.
If you've ever gone to a Japanese electronics shop, you'd know that we are FAR behind them when it comes to phones.
Yes, you are missing something. Japan uses a different cellular phone standard than the rest of the world. Most Japanese phones use PDC, a 2G protocol developed and used ONLY in Japan. PDC has its advantages, but pretty much the rest of the world uses GSM. That means that the average phone that you purchase over here is incapable of global roaming, regardless of your provider. PDC/GSM and 3G phones (capable of global roaming) are becoming more popular over here, but they usually cost significantly more.
Thus, I made a point of mentioning that it is capable of global roaming.
The "West" is so far behind in mobile phone technology. For only $200, I can get this phone in Japan:v 903t/index.html
http://www.vodafone.jp/english/products/model_3G/
It's completely bilingual (although I don't think it has predictive text in English mode), has a 2 MB camera, global roaming (and global GPS navigation (although only five or six countries are available at the moment)), can take video calls, communicate via Bluetooth or IR, read QR codes (very convenient in Japan). The Nokia N90 can't even vibrate when it's in silent mode. WTF? That's pretty much par for the course over here. And the Nokia is $700 more? If you can switch this phone to work on a Verizon account back home, it's almost worthwhile to buy a ticket to Japan, buy the phone and then fly back.
Even the free phones you get with a new account over here have AT LEAST a 1 MB camera. Some have 2. Some of the newer Sharp phones even have built-in optical zoom.
Vodafone is generally looked down upon by the Japanese people. NTT Docomo probably have even better phones available.
I realize that 400 W while idling isn't typical of Intel processors, but still, didn't Apple choose Intel because of their supposedly low power consumption?
So, basically, you're saying the same thing as Bush.
Bush: "The American way of life is not negotiable."
You: "Our use of standard time should not be negotiable."
According to many studies, switching to DST saves fuel. (I'm not going to debate whether or not that is actually true, because you basically admitted that it was.) You're saying we SHOULDN'T try to save fuel by changing to DST? Just because you don't want to give up the idea that "time is absolute"? Now THAT is stubborn.
Of course we should try to increase our fuel economy, BUT if we can use even less fuel by changing to DST, why is that a bad thing?
Oil is concrete and limited. Time is abstract (and infinite?) Which is more important to you?
Yeah, kids'll get hand cancer instead of bowel cancer.
Much better.
I'm not playing apologetics. I said every side of the war had it's war criminals. I'm explaining the background from the Japanese point of view. I'm not denying the horrible things they did. As I said, no one was
And my original comment stands. I have NEVER met an Australian who is grateful to the Americans for saving them from Japanese occupation because there was NO occupation of Australia by Japan. PERIOD.
>For anyone who seems so 'horrified' at this atrocity, recall that the Japan and Germany initiated the war.
Japan initiated war against Korea and China. After certain atrocities became apparent in American media, the American government decided to stop selling to the Japanese items that were critical to their war effort and occupation, including, I believe, oil and scrap metal. Although this was certainly the right thing to do morally, it was an act of economic war. As a highly predictable consequence, Japan moved into South-East Asia attempting to "take back" into the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" countries that were then occupied by Western powers. Because Japan wanted to the resource-rich Phillipines, which was at that time an American colony, they also attacked the American naval facilities at Pearl Harbor, hoping to destroy the West's ability to retaliate for the attacks on their suzerainities. America must have realized that by cutting off Japan's supply of raw materials that they would face some retaliation.
>Recall that Japan and Germany created a war against humanity with INDUSTRIAL genocide.
And we responded in turn with our own form of genocide, with the killing of millions of Japanese civilians.
>Recall that Germany was furiously working on the nuke - if things had been differently, London and Moscow would have been targeted.
But Germany had already been defeated when the bomb was dropped on Japan. There was no threat of an atomic attack against the Allies.
>Recall that millions of civillians and millitary personel were killed as part of the axis war plans .
And millions of Axis civilians and military personnel were killed by the Allies. How can you simultaneously condemn their actions and justify ours? All sides of this war had their own war criminals. The Allies killed by bombing of civilian areas FAR more people than the Axis did.
>I would have been angry if the allied powers had a means to immediately end the war, even at great civillian loss, and chose not to use it for fear of later slashdot-weenies whinning about being "nice" during a war.
I agree. The reason they should have considered not using the bomb was the great number of civilian casualties that it would inflict. But in actuality, the bomb was used for the very purpose of killing civilians. The stated targets: in Hiroshima, the 2nd General Army Headquarters and in Nagasaki, the Mitsubishi arms factories could have been destroyed by conventional bombing. But more importantly, these cities were selected because they hadn't yet been subject to wide-scale bombing, so they would provide a better arena to see the exact effects of the bomb. In addition to this, prior to Hiroshima, the Americans did not drop warning leaflets asking civilians to evacuate the area.
>I've been to the countries occupied by Japan during the 30s and 40s, and the people to this day go out of their way to say "thanks" for the US millitary efforts sixty years ago. Phillipines, China, Indonesia, Australia...
Funny, I can't remember the occupation of Australia... When did this happen?
The use of the A-Bomb was, and continues to be, one of America's great shames.
>4) The Emperor wanted to surrender, but the Japanese military leadership refused to allow it;
That's not true. Hirohito had no intention of surrendering without:
a) a way to save face
b) a way to protect the national polity
In the end, Hirohito credited both the A-Bomb and the invasion by Russia for giving him a). As for b), he took a gamble in hoping that the United States could be dissuaded from prosecuting him as a war criminal, but it turns out that no dissuasion was necessary. The US never had any intention of doing so, and against the wishes of the other Allied nations and the victims of Japan's aggression, they never did.