Christian pastors are being tortured JUST for talking about Christianity? No offense, but I'd like to see some proof for this. Christianity is not one of those things that the CCP goes crazy over...
It seems like torturing Christian pastors would only be done if they were also major democratic reformists (which is pretty damn bad too); doing it just because of religion seems like an incredibly retarded PR move especially considering the way the US voted in 2004.
I'd recommend using gcc/g++ to learn the languages. Using Visual C++ lets you make certain mistakes without punishing you for them; gcc/g++ WILL let you know when you haven't initalized a variable; Visual C++ - most of the time - will assume it's been set to zero and let you work from there. It makes bad habits easier to form.
Also, code written in gcc/g++ is pretty much guranteed to work in VC++; the reverse is not always true.
This is also the same argument that supporters of the 2nd Amendment give. Guns are needed to protect them against a more intrusive police state.
Odd how those people at the same time support American strong-arming other nations. Keep in mind that America is the only nation in the history of the world to have used nuclear weapons in war.
Yeah, no argumemnt there. America has more freedoms than Saudi Arabia, Libya, and North Korea. It even has more freedom of speech that most parts of the developed world.
But you know what? American PRIDES itself as the home of the free; the American President used the word "freedom" in fucking every other sentence in the State of the Union/Campaign 2004. American is a "beacon of light, a "defender of freedom." Implying of course all other countries are benighted heathens in need for the saving grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
So excuse the rest of the world for holding America up to the standard its' current administration has set of itself. Please excuse the fact that right-wing pundits have "impugned the honor" of anyone finding the LEAST fault with the country; excuse the journalists with principles for holding America up to the standards that the right has set.
I think you've just described America's current political climate. We have people on the right watching Fox News/listening to Michael Savage, and people on the left watching Michael Moore.
When you're convinced you're right (no pun intended), and that those who have different viewpoints are idiots, what's there left to discuss?
(btw, I'm not equating racism with liberal/neocon views; racism IS wrong, nothing left to discuss).
"plan to recoup their R&D expenses largely from other consumer multimedia devices and NOT from selling Cell processors or Cell processor based computers, meaning they will be surprisingly inexpensive. Yeah!!!"
However, from the press release: Prototype die size of 221mm2
When it comes to chip manufacturing, the cost of a chip is basically a direct function of the area. A 221 mm^2 chip size is pretty damn big; this thing isn't going to be cheap. Even considering IBM's extensive fabrication experience, Sony will probably have to sell this at a significant loss to make the PS3 palatable to gamers.
Granted, this is a prototype, so they can probably shrink it further by production, but it still won't be something cheap. Don't count on being able to buy these cheaply to make your own parallel supercomputer.
I just tried out Sunbird, and it's pretty nice. It's also a bit too complex/takes up too much screen estate. Not saying it's a bad program, but just that I don't need that much functionality in a day-to-day environment.
I like to keep my to-do list on my desktop constantly along with a small calendar, and I think Rainlendar is the perfect tool for that. Takes very little memory and is Open Source. You can only run it in Windows though. Skinnable too so it looks pretty.
Here's a link to the website: http://www.ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=pr ojects&pro ject=rainlendar
(I'm not affiliated with the author in any way...just like the product.
"The people that work for the government are still just regular joes like you and me who will try their best to be good and do their jobs well. Even if you're one of those left-wing wackos who believes that President Bush is the antichrist, remember that the hundreds of thousands of people who work for him will make their own decisions about right and wrong."
Ahh, but that's not neccesarily true. Once individuals become a part of a larger group, they take less personal responsibility. There was a study down at Stanford where a group of students were split up into "prisoners" and "guards," and the "guards" were told by the project leaders to basically mistreat their fellow students mere hours ago. Most complied. Same for the WWII Holocaust Camps; most of the soldiers there knew the difference between wrong and right, but it's far more difficult to resist an entire system when you're part of it (I'm not equating the US gov w/wartime Germany, btw.) Also, Bush DOES pick the leaders of each agency and they pick subordinates with similar political views. If you know your boss, and your boss's boss share a certain view and wouldn't mind some "left-wing wacko's" being spied on, the pressure is far greater to ignore your conscience.
"If you do business that crosses into our country, you need to be held accountable by our laws, whatever they may be."
Exactly. That's what SHOULD happen. Too bad the US doesn't follow it. America doesn't like the lack of effective patent-protection legislation in China, and American companies lobby like hell to have the government pressure China to change it; it's working too, "IP protection" is brought up every damn time someone speaks about China. Also, I think America is one of the few nations that're not signatory to the International War Tribunal in the Hague, sharing in the joy with countries like Sudan. just stuff to think about.
This part is ironic, and I saw the video clip on the Daily Show last week:
Bush (when asked about repressive regiemes like Saudi Arabia after he said he wanted to bring democracy to everywhere in the Middle East): "Well, it's not an either or proposition, you know..."
Bush (2001 - post 9/11): "You're either with us, or against us..."
"Because, you should be allowed to show maimed, bleeding iraqis and american soldiers on television, but not burn certain pieces of cloth."
Actually, given the recent developements in embedded American jouranlists, mutilated bodies of Iraq's and American troops are expressly forbidden; the major news networks self-censor graphic violence or any attempts to quantify civilian casualities. When was the last time you saw a dead American soldier or Iraqi civilian on domestic TV? While this isn't directly government censorship, how quickly do you think an embedded reporter is going to get kicked out if he reports about numerous Iraqi dead or broadcasts pictures of mutilated American soldiers? This is why the networks self-censor war news.
For those in the states (like myself), try watching BBC News, Deutsche Welle, or even Al-Jazeera (yes i admit they're biased, but no more than Fox News is to the rest of the world) sometimes. It puts a totally different image of the war to you; not because they're extremely biased, but because I think many Americans are beginning to lose sight of the cost of the war in human lives.
It's irresponsible of domestic news organziations to not broadcast graphic images from Iraq; war should not be filtered through lenses of political correctness - the American public deserves to see and know what's happening in the name of freedom and democracy. I'm not saying broadcast blood and gore at prime-time, but on cable news networks we at least deserve to know what's being done in our name.
From your own article:, "The Saudi-born fundamentalist's response is unknown. He is thought to have rejected earlier Iraqi advances, disapproving of the Saddam Hussein's secular Baathist regime."
Bin Laden doesn't like Saddam because it directly opposes what he wants: a new Middle East governed by an Islamic fundamentalists theocracy. Saddam represented a direct contradiction to that - Saddam hated Islamic fundamentalistm because he was afraid it undermined his authority with the people. Look, if you were in total control of a country, would you WANT your subjects to believe that there is a HIGHER power, with moral laws above YOUR laws? Think about it.
Sorry for this off topic post, but anyone who thinks Saddam had ANY part in 9/11 or that Osama and Saddam were allies has been watching too much Fox News or is too gullible to filter out the neo-con propoganda.
"So the Chinese Army did not send in tanks to stop students protesting?"
Very true and tragic; the students at Tian An Men truly were heroes. Nothing I can say about that. Hopefully one day those who ordered the massacre will be put on trial.
"So those executions I saw where they had the people kneel and put a bullet in their brain never happened?"
Injecting people with poison or frying them with high voltage isn't exactly humane either. America and China are in similar places when executing people.
"So there really is freedom of religion and speech in China?"
Westerners seem to single out Falun Gong; one of the big reasons the government has a problem with Falun Gong is because it advocates spiritual treatment over medical treatment. I agree their handling of it is wrong, but many in Chinese cities have died because they refused medical care and just meditated. The means are wrong, but I think it's also wrong to lie to poor rural peasants and tell them that they don't have to go to the hospital when they have life-threatening illnesses.
"So the Chinese government does not make huge amounts of money from prison labor?"
This is true. Conditions in Chinese jails are truly terrible. There've been stories circulating from the 1960's and 1970's that food was so scarce that inamtes began to kill fellow inmates and eat them. I can make no excuses about this.
"And the Chinese did not lob missiles over an island full of people to keep them in line?"
You mean the Taiwan problem. I agree lobbing missles over Taiwan is dumb and counter-productive. China, however, has a right to ensure it's territorial integrity. I believe in peaceful eventual reunification with Taiwan - BY the will of the people of Taiwan. The pro-independence movement in Taiwan is not a majority among the populace there. If Hawaii or Alaska tried to break away, the US government would do the same. In fact, the US just bombed another country for no reason than simple suspicions and neo-conservative politics. Interesting, huh?
Freedom? Freedom from? Freedom to? None of these concepts are core to Chinese philosophy. You are not born free according to traditional Eastern philosophy; you are born into a complex web of social interaction and obligations.
"Democracy is not an incompatable world view."
Yeah it is.
Democracy is completely alien to the Chinese worldview; it only came through Canton/HK after the Western powers invaded in the 18th/19th centuries. Chinese philosophy, especially Confucius and Mencius, advocated human existence as simply a set of key relationships. There's no such thing as a formal developement of individualism in China; traditional Chinese philosophy views the basic unit of society as the family, not the person. Your obligations to society define your role; try reading up on it sometime. Collective good >> individual; has been so for the past 3000 years in China. Communism is not at all incompatible with Chinese tradition.
"Human rights are not an incompatable world view."
The concept of inalienable human rights is totally foreign to China. You are not born with rights in traditional Chinese society; you are born with obligations you parents, your family, and your (historically) Emporer.
"Equality under the law is not an incompatable world view."
This one is interesting. Chinese history is full of specific examples of law and philosophy that espouse DIFFERENT punishments for DIFFERENT classes of people; this has been the case since the existence of the Tang Code - the predominant legal system in ALL of ASIA. Japan's law system up until the Meiji era was based on this system. This system specfiically CODIFIED different punishments depending on if you were related to the Emperor, whether you were an official, or had money and could pay to have your punishments reduced.
This was not arbitrary and evil; it was based on specific philosophy from Confucious. the Confucian school of thought held that Junzi, or those educated elite, should not be held to the same laws as the peasants; moral law should guide them and terrestrial law should be limited to application to peasants.
Your view is purely that from a Western society; freedom, by it's very nature, cannot be forced down a society's throat - witness Iraq. You must have a tradition of open thought and philosophy to set the stage for democracy to even start. It's foolish to think you can export your 3 branches of government to China along with the Bill of Rights (or what's left of it after Patriot Act I) and expect everyone in the world to be jolly. China WILL become a democratic society, but expecting overnight change from a country with 4000+ years of contrary philosophy and traditions is naiive.
"Having the ten commandments in front of the courthouse is a government endorsement of christianity. Not having the ten commandments in front of the courthouse is not an endosement of athiesm."
Absence of proof is not proof of absence, my friend. Or in this cause, absence of the 10 Commandments is not proof that an opposing view is being endorsed.
The lack of ANY religious monument in front of a courthouse means the government is not condoning ANY belief; if we followed your argument, then not having the 10 Commandments present would mean the government is endorsing atheism, agnosticism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto-ism, etc... But it's not. Not having a plaque of the 10 Commandments in front of the building just means the government is actually following the establishment clause of the Constitution.
How pissed would YOU be if we had a scripture from the Korean or Torah in front of a courthouse? How pissed would YOU be if before every court-session, the presiding Judge recited a passage from the Koran?
Think about that; now why is it suddenly ok if we replaced the word "Koran" with the word "Bible" in the preceding sentence?
On repeated double-blind tests on very expensive equipment, even audiophiles are unable to distinguish between CD quality and LAME encoded 192 kbps MP3 files. Those who say they are able to aren't using double-blind tests or have super-human mutant ears. If you go check over at Hydrogen-Audio (where audiophiles and people who care far too much about LAME settings hang out), most of the forum posts indicate that anything above 192 kbps is transparent even to their equipment, which is pretty above average.
On regular equipment, PC World did a small test a while ago on standard equipment: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,64123,pg,1,00.asp. Their results found that ~192 kbps is pretty much transparent as well.
mp3-tech.org also has a listening test availible. On their run, they found 192 CBR kbps to be nearly transparent (*feels* different, but don't know why), and 256 kbps CBR to be completely transparent (can't tell compressed from source CD).
This test was also done a while ago on an older mp3 compression program( c. 1998), so current LAME encoding probably allows for complete transparency at 192kbps or so.
"Again, what if you don't agree with your family's religion? Are you suggesting we curtail freedom of religion, one of the most basic principles this country was founded on?"
Not to be nitpick too much, but freedom of religion as originally specified in the Bill of Rights was only meant to prevent the Federal government from trampling on religious freedom/establishing a state religion. Later amendments to the Constitution allowed more progressive members of the court to use those later amendments as a filter to apply the 1st Amendment to the individual states (this was actually a fairly late developement). Not too sure, but I think around WWI was the first time the Supreme Court "incorporated" the 1st Amendment. Family members/interpersonal relationships aren't bounded by the 1st Amendment at all.
"I chose to run windows. I also chose to run OS/2 and i also chose to run Linux and Solaris."
The average American (or European) consumer is completely unaware of what OS/2, Linux or Solaris are. The very fact that you've even heard of these and have even gone as far as to try them out excludes you from the average consumer pool. The average consumer is only aware of MS, and if MS is allowed to proceeed in it's tactics, will only be aware of Windows Media Player for playing mp3's/video files, and only IE for browsing. How many people at your workplace/University equate the internet with iexplore.exe?
"I chose to use Internet explorer and i chose to use Netscape and now i choose to use Firefox."
See argument above. There's a huge barrier to entry for Netscape/Firefox given that iexplore comes bundled with the OS and sits on the damn Start Menu. Most consumers, perhaps up until now, have equated the WWW = iexplore.
"I also chose to use windows media player over everything else and i agree that the media player should be fully integrated with the OS because that is a feature we as in windows users request just as sound in kde/linux is done."
That's a false analogy. There are hundreds of Linux distributions and they all CHOOSE what media player to install with their distribution. Also, the Linux kernel itself doesn't even include a media player. It's possible to get a Linux distribution with 4-5 media players installed or none; is that possible with Windows?
"I don't want the EU suing so anoter crappy business (Real Audio) can get in with spyware and take over my pc..."
That's fine. Don't install it then; that's your choice. Give the rest of the consumers the choice not to have WMP installed also.
"Please tell me how microsoft has and continues to stimmy competition, the market and harm consumers?"
MS HAS harmed consumers by effectively killing Netscape and stopping browser innovation since basically Firefox came out. It has bullied small businesses using the BSA; get busted if you don't run an entirely MS shop, or have even one unlicensed computer? Thousands of computers riddled with spyware and worms because consumers are unaware of a viable choice?
"Tell me again how the government suing microsoft in this case and the others will benefit the tax payers paying for these suits?"
I'm pretty sure the final verdict that's in the hundreds of millions of Euros will cover the cost of this verdict. The increased competition and innovation as a result of MS no longer being allowed to abuse it's power in at least one continent I'm sure has economic benefit also.
Yes, you can buy the same books that Universities use to teach, but you will never learn from someone who's been in the field you want to pursue for 20-30 years at least. That's the key difference.
Also, there are certain subjects that require a good Professor to explain. C/C++ syntax, basic Verilog, can all be picked up by reading a book and trying things out. It is MUCH harder to design RF systems, high-speed digital systems (where you basically have to being modeling analog effects into digital systems), and apply the various EE-theory classes that you thought were useless. You can't just go into the lab and tinker around and come out with a stability compensated high-frequency amp...it requires years of schooling and theory courses.
This is not to belittle digital designers; designing cost-effective and fast digital systems is also extremely difficult, but it's easier to learn the ropes of.
Digital systems are indeed possible to learn by yourself. It is much harder to learn the compensation, stability-analysis, and frequency response of analog chips however.
Industrial quality mixed-signals systems still require rooms of MSEE's or PhD's to design.
This title implies that the designer also has knowledge of analog systems. Fine, you can design logic/FPGA's. Digital systems are possible to learn by reading a book or two; Analog/mixed-signals design requires intensive schooling.
Let's see you design a moderate-gain opamp with even a decent bandwidth that doesn't go into crazy positive feedback.
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Christian pastors are being tortured JUST for talking about Christianity? No offense, but I'd like to see some proof for this. Christianity is not one of those things that the CCP goes crazy over...
It seems like torturing Christian pastors would only be done if they were also major democratic reformists (which is pretty damn bad too); doing it just because of religion seems like an incredibly retarded PR move especially considering the way the US voted in 2004.
Can you give me a link/article?
I'd recommend using gcc/g++ to learn the languages. Using Visual C++ lets you make certain mistakes without punishing you for them; gcc/g++ WILL let you know when you haven't initalized a variable; Visual C++ - most of the time - will assume it's been set to zero and let you work from there. It makes bad habits easier to form.
Also, code written in gcc/g++ is pretty much guranteed to work in VC++; the reverse is not always true.
This is also the same argument that supporters of the 2nd Amendment give. Guns are needed to protect them against a more intrusive police state.
Odd how those people at the same time support American strong-arming other nations. Keep in mind that America is the only nation in the history of the world to have used nuclear weapons in war.
"USA is actually better than some other places"
Yeah, no argumemnt there. America has more freedoms than Saudi Arabia, Libya, and North Korea. It even has more freedom of speech that most parts of the developed world.
But you know what? American PRIDES itself as the home of the free; the American President used the word "freedom" in fucking every other sentence in the State of the Union/Campaign 2004. American is a "beacon of light, a "defender of freedom." Implying of course all other countries are benighted heathens in need for the saving grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
So excuse the rest of the world for holding America up to the standard its' current administration has set of itself. Please excuse the fact that right-wing pundits have "impugned the honor" of anyone finding the LEAST fault with the country; excuse the journalists with principles for holding America up to the standards that the right has set.
I think you've just described America's current political climate. We have people on the right watching Fox News/listening to Michael Savage, and people on the left watching Michael Moore.
When you're convinced you're right (no pun intended), and that those who have different viewpoints are idiots, what's there left to discuss?
(btw, I'm not equating racism with liberal/neocon views; racism IS wrong, nothing left to discuss).
"plan to recoup their R&D expenses largely from other consumer multimedia devices and NOT from selling Cell processors or Cell processor based computers, meaning they will be surprisingly inexpensive. Yeah!!!"
However, from the press release:
Prototype die size of 221mm2
When it comes to chip manufacturing, the cost of a chip is basically a direct function of the area. A 221 mm^2 chip size is pretty damn big; this thing isn't going to be cheap. Even considering IBM's extensive fabrication experience, Sony will probably have to sell this at a significant loss to make the PS3 palatable to gamers.
Granted, this is a prototype, so they can probably shrink it further by production, but it still won't be something cheap. Don't count on being able to buy these cheaply to make your own parallel supercomputer.
I just tried out Sunbird, and it's pretty nice. It's also a bit too complex/takes up too much screen estate. Not saying it's a bad program, but just that I don't need that much functionality in a day-to-day environment.
r ojects&pro ject=rainlendar
I like to keep my to-do list on my desktop constantly along with a small calendar, and I think Rainlendar is the perfect tool for that. Takes very little memory and is Open Source. You can only run it in Windows though. Skinnable too so it looks pretty.
Here's a link to the website:
http://www.ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=p
(I'm not affiliated with the author in any way...just like the product.
"The people that work for the government are still just regular joes like you and me who will try their best to be good and do their jobs well. Even if you're one of those left-wing wackos who believes that President Bush is the antichrist, remember that the hundreds of thousands of people who work for him will make their own decisions about right and wrong."
Ahh, but that's not neccesarily true. Once individuals become a part of a larger group, they take less personal responsibility. There was a study down at Stanford where a group of students were split up into "prisoners" and "guards," and the "guards" were told by the project leaders to basically mistreat their fellow students mere hours ago. Most complied. Same for the WWII Holocaust Camps; most of the soldiers there knew the difference between wrong and right, but it's far more difficult to resist an entire system when you're part of it (I'm not equating the US gov w/wartime Germany, btw.) Also, Bush DOES pick the leaders of each agency and they pick subordinates with similar political views. If you know your boss, and your boss's boss share a certain view and wouldn't mind some "left-wing wacko's" being spied on, the pressure is far greater to ignore your conscience.
"If you do business that crosses into our country, you need to be held accountable by our laws, whatever they may be."
Exactly. That's what SHOULD happen. Too bad the US doesn't follow it. America doesn't like the lack of effective patent-protection legislation in China, and American companies lobby like hell to have the government pressure China to change it; it's working too, "IP protection" is brought up every damn time someone speaks about China. Also, I think America is one of the few nations that're not signatory to the International War Tribunal in the Hague, sharing in the joy with countries like Sudan. just stuff to think about.
This part is ironic, and I saw the video clip on the Daily Show last week:
Bush (when asked about repressive regiemes like Saudi Arabia after he said he wanted to bring democracy to everywhere in the Middle East): "Well, it's not an either or proposition, you know..."
Bush (2001 - post 9/11): "You're either with us, or against us..."
Interesting stuff.
"Because, you should be allowed to show maimed, bleeding iraqis and american soldiers on television, but not burn certain pieces of cloth."
Actually, given the recent developements in embedded American jouranlists, mutilated bodies of Iraq's and American troops are expressly forbidden; the major news networks self-censor graphic violence or any attempts to quantify civilian casualities. When was the last time you saw a dead American soldier or Iraqi civilian on domestic TV? While this isn't directly government censorship, how quickly do you think an embedded reporter is going to get kicked out if he reports about numerous Iraqi dead or broadcasts pictures of mutilated American soldiers? This is why the networks self-censor war news.
For those in the states (like myself), try watching BBC News, Deutsche Welle, or even Al-Jazeera (yes i admit they're biased, but no more than Fox News is to the rest of the world) sometimes. It puts a totally different image of the war to you; not because they're extremely biased, but because I think many Americans are beginning to lose sight of the cost of the war in human lives.
It's irresponsible of domestic news organziations to not broadcast graphic images from Iraq; war should not be filtered through lenses of political correctness - the American public deserves to see and know what's happening in the name of freedom and democracy. I'm not saying broadcast blood and gore at prime-time, but on cable news networks we at least deserve to know what's being done in our name.
You're wrong.
From your own article:, "The Saudi-born fundamentalist's response is unknown. He is thought to have rejected earlier Iraqi advances, disapproving of the Saddam Hussein's secular Baathist regime."
Bin Laden doesn't like Saddam because it directly opposes what he wants: a new Middle East governed by an Islamic fundamentalists theocracy. Saddam represented a direct contradiction to that - Saddam hated Islamic fundamentalistm because he was afraid it undermined his authority with the people. Look, if you were in total control of a country, would you WANT your subjects to believe that there is a HIGHER power, with moral laws above YOUR laws? Think about it.
Sorry for this off topic post, but anyone who thinks Saddam had ANY part in 9/11 or that Osama and Saddam were allies has been watching too much Fox News or is too gullible to filter out the neo-con propoganda.
"So the Chinese Army did not send in tanks to stop students protesting?"
Very true and tragic; the students at Tian An Men truly were heroes. Nothing I can say about that. Hopefully one day those who ordered the massacre will be put on trial.
"So those executions I saw where they had the people kneel and put a bullet in their brain never happened?"
Injecting people with poison or frying them with high voltage isn't exactly humane either. America and China are in similar places when executing people.
"So there really is freedom of religion and speech in China?"
Westerners seem to single out Falun Gong; one of the big reasons the government has a problem with Falun Gong is because it advocates spiritual treatment over medical treatment. I agree their handling of it is wrong, but many in Chinese cities have died because they refused medical care and just meditated. The means are wrong, but I think it's also wrong to lie to poor rural peasants and tell them that they don't have to go to the hospital when they have life-threatening illnesses.
"So the Chinese government does not make huge amounts of money from prison labor?"
This is true. Conditions in Chinese jails are truly terrible. There've been stories circulating from the 1960's and 1970's that food was so scarce that inamtes began to kill fellow inmates and eat them. I can make no excuses about this.
"And the Chinese did not lob missiles over an island full of people to keep them in line?"
You mean the Taiwan problem. I agree lobbing missles over Taiwan is dumb and counter-productive. China, however, has a right to ensure it's territorial integrity. I believe in peaceful eventual reunification with Taiwan - BY the will of the people of Taiwan. The pro-independence movement in Taiwan is not a majority among the populace there. If Hawaii or Alaska tried to break away, the US government would do the same. In fact, the US just bombed another country for no reason than simple suspicions and neo-conservative politics. Interesting, huh?
"Freedom is not an incompatable world view."
Freedom? Freedom from? Freedom to? None of these concepts are core to Chinese philosophy. You are not born free according to traditional Eastern philosophy; you are born into a complex web of social interaction and obligations.
"Democracy is not an incompatable world view."
Yeah it is.
Democracy is completely alien to the Chinese worldview; it only came through Canton/HK after the Western powers invaded in the 18th/19th centuries. Chinese philosophy, especially Confucius and Mencius, advocated human existence as simply a set of key relationships. There's no such thing as a formal developement of individualism in China; traditional Chinese philosophy views the basic unit of society as the family, not the person. Your obligations to society define your role; try reading up on it sometime. Collective good >> individual; has been so for the past 3000 years in China. Communism is not at all incompatible with Chinese tradition.
"Human rights are not an incompatable world view."
The concept of inalienable human rights is totally foreign to China. You are not born with rights in traditional Chinese society; you are born with obligations you parents, your family, and your (historically) Emporer.
"Equality under the law is not an incompatable world view."
This one is interesting. Chinese history is full of specific examples of law and philosophy that espouse DIFFERENT punishments for DIFFERENT classes of people; this has been the case since the existence of the Tang Code - the predominant legal system in ALL of ASIA. Japan's law system up until the Meiji era was based on this system. This system specfiically CODIFIED different punishments depending on if you were related to the Emperor, whether you were an official, or had money and could pay to have your punishments reduced.
This was not arbitrary and evil; it was based on specific philosophy from Confucious. the Confucian school of thought held that Junzi, or those educated elite, should not be held to the same laws as the peasants; moral law should guide them and terrestrial law should be limited to application to peasants.
Your view is purely that from a Western society; freedom, by it's very nature, cannot be forced down a society's throat - witness Iraq. You must have a tradition of open thought and philosophy to set the stage for democracy to even start. It's foolish to think you can export your 3 branches of government to China along with the Bill of Rights (or what's left of it after Patriot Act I) and expect everyone in the world to be jolly. China WILL become a democratic society, but expecting overnight change from a country with 4000+ years of contrary philosophy and traditions is naiive.
bad form to reply to my own post, but i jumped the gun here...my post agrees with your (parent) post, but not with the GP.
Typical slashdot reader here, huh?
sorry.
"Having the ten commandments in front of the courthouse is a government endorsement of christianity. Not having the ten commandments in front of the courthouse is not an endosement of athiesm."
Absence of proof is not proof of absence, my friend. Or in this cause, absence of the 10 Commandments is not proof that an opposing view is being endorsed.
The lack of ANY religious monument in front of a courthouse means the government is not condoning ANY belief; if we followed your argument, then not having the 10 Commandments present would mean the government is endorsing atheism, agnosticism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Shinto-ism, etc... But it's not. Not having a plaque of the 10 Commandments in front of the building just means the government is actually following the establishment clause of the Constitution.
How pissed would YOU be if we had a scripture from the Korean or Torah in front of a courthouse? How pissed would YOU be if before every court-session, the presiding Judge recited a passage from the Koran?
Think about that; now why is it suddenly ok if we replaced the word "Koran" with the word "Bible" in the preceding sentence?
I second that.
3 ,pg,1,00.asp.
:
On repeated double-blind tests on very expensive equipment, even audiophiles are unable to distinguish between CD quality and LAME encoded 192 kbps MP3 files. Those who say they are able to aren't using double-blind tests or have super-human mutant ears. If you go check over at Hydrogen-Audio (where audiophiles and people who care far too much about LAME settings hang out), most of the forum posts indicate that anything above 192 kbps is transparent even to their equipment, which is pretty above average.
On regular equipment, PC World did a small test a while ago on standard equipment: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,6412
Their results found that ~192 kbps is pretty much transparent as well.
mp3-tech.org also has a listening test availible. On their run, they found 192 CBR kbps to be nearly transparent (*feels* different, but don't know why), and 256 kbps CBR to be completely transparent (can't tell compressed from source CD).
"The listening equipment is the following
* Teac VRDS 25 CD reader
* MIT T2 cables
* Yamaha AX 1050 amplifier
* Denon PMA 960 amplifier (for frequencies 50Hz)
* Celestion speakers"
This test was also done a while ago on an older mp3 compression program( c. 1998), so current LAME encoding probably allows for complete transparency at 192kbps or so.
The Chosunilbo is the largest and oldest newspaper in Korea. The website you linked to was the English online version of the paper.
If it's in there, I'm pretty sure it's solid; they don't just publish random crap.
"Again, what if you don't agree with your family's religion? Are you suggesting we curtail freedom of religion, one of the most basic principles this country was founded on?"
Not to be nitpick too much, but freedom of religion as originally specified in the Bill of Rights was only meant to prevent the Federal government from trampling on religious freedom/establishing a state religion. Later amendments to the Constitution allowed more progressive members of the court to use those later amendments as a filter to apply the 1st Amendment to the individual states (this was actually a fairly late developement). Not too sure, but I think around WWI was the first time the Supreme Court "incorporated" the 1st Amendment. Family members/interpersonal relationships aren't bounded by the 1st Amendment at all.
" Apparently you don't have an iPod -- it's quite happy to do that for you."
The iPod can do this, but it requires a media card reader from Berkins. I checked the price a few months ago and it was ~100 dollars. So:
iPod (20 Gb): ~300
Berkins Media Attachment: ~100
Total: approx. $ 400
That's not very cheap.
Considering the 2004 US Presidential Elections, it'd be pretty damn ironic if it hit Ohio.
Wonder how the Christian fundamentalists in America would spind THAT.
Linux worship?
Mac zealots?
GPL fanatics?
I think the choice is obviously "cult propaganda."
"I chose to run windows. I also chose to run OS/2 and i also chose to run Linux and Solaris."
The average American (or European) consumer is completely unaware of what OS/2, Linux or Solaris are. The very fact that you've even heard of these and have even gone as far as to try them out excludes you from the average consumer pool. The average consumer is only aware of MS, and if MS is allowed to proceeed in it's tactics, will only be aware of Windows Media Player for playing mp3's/video files, and only IE for browsing. How many people at your workplace/University equate the internet with iexplore.exe?
"I chose to use Internet explorer and i chose to use Netscape and now i choose to use Firefox."
See argument above. There's a huge barrier to entry for Netscape/Firefox given that iexplore comes bundled with the OS and sits on the damn Start Menu. Most consumers, perhaps up until now, have equated the WWW = iexplore.
"I also chose to use windows media player over everything else and i agree that the media player should be fully integrated with the OS because that is a feature we as in windows users request just as sound in kde/linux is done."
That's a false analogy. There are hundreds of Linux distributions and they all CHOOSE what media player to install with their distribution. Also, the Linux kernel itself doesn't even include a media player. It's possible to get a Linux distribution with 4-5 media players installed or none; is that possible with Windows?
"I don't want the EU suing so anoter crappy business (Real Audio) can get in with spyware and take over my pc..."
That's fine. Don't install it then; that's your choice. Give the rest of the consumers the choice not to have WMP installed also.
"Please tell me how microsoft has and continues to stimmy competition, the market and harm consumers?"
MS HAS harmed consumers by effectively killing Netscape and stopping browser innovation since basically Firefox came out. It has bullied small businesses using the BSA; get busted if you don't run an entirely MS shop, or have even one unlicensed computer? Thousands of computers riddled with spyware and worms because consumers are unaware of a viable choice?
"Tell me again how the government suing microsoft in this case and the others will benefit the tax payers paying for these suits?"
I'm pretty sure the final verdict that's in the hundreds of millions of Euros will cover the cost of this verdict. The increased competition and innovation as a result of MS no longer being allowed to abuse it's power in at least one continent I'm sure has economic benefit also.
Yes, you can buy the same books that Universities use to teach, but you will never learn from someone who's been in the field you want to pursue for 20-30 years at least. That's the key difference.
Also, there are certain subjects that require a good Professor to explain. C/C++ syntax, basic Verilog, can all be picked up by reading a book and trying things out. It is MUCH harder to design RF systems, high-speed digital systems (where you basically have to being modeling analog effects into digital systems), and apply the various EE-theory classes that you thought were useless. You can't just go into the lab and tinker around and come out with a stability compensated high-frequency amp...it requires years of schooling and theory courses.
This is not to belittle digital designers; designing cost-effective and fast digital systems is also extremely difficult, but it's easier to learn the ropes of.
Digital systems are indeed possible to learn by yourself. It is much harder to learn the compensation, stability-analysis, and frequency response of analog chips however.
Industrial quality mixed-signals systems still require rooms of MSEE's or PhD's to design.
Chip designer?
This title implies that the designer also has knowledge of analog systems. Fine, you can design logic/FPGA's. Digital systems are possible to learn by reading a book or two; Analog/mixed-signals design requires intensive schooling.
Let's see you design a moderate-gain opamp with even a decent bandwidth that doesn't go into crazy positive feedback.