is it possible that some China-haters might actually hate China not because OMFG THEY R TEH YELLLOOWWWW!!!, but because of things China has done/continues to do that they find morally repugnant?
Nope. Xenophobia and righteous indignation are both factors, but not they main ones. If so, there would be just as much angst over less powerful nations where people look and think differently. And also, we wouldn't be discussing China's moon program; we'd be discussing how to use our diplomatic and economic influence to redeem China from their moral failings, which we're not.
No, mostly China phobia is just naked fear at the rise of an economic and military competitor.
I hope Sony doesn't start charging for online - I'm seriously considering dumping my XBox 360 just because of XBox Live fees. I play online so infrequently the flat rate is a horrible deal for me, easily more than $1 / hour, but I'd still like to be able to play online once in a while.
When someone tells you to jump off a 200-foot cliff, and someone else tells you not to jump of a cliff, you apparently compromise by jumping off a 100-foot cliff.
The goal of hearing both sides isn't to blindly pick the median; sometimes one side of the story is much more convincing than the other, other times there isn't even much overlap in what stories they choose to report on. But without variety it's hard to know you're covering all the bases, and informed enough to choose sides (or a middle position).
I agree, I don't think the older 3 Star Wars films stand up as modern sci-fi because they feel small (due to the lack of CGI), and the new ones just aren't that interesting.
The first two are still very good when viewed as vintage films (which they are). But splicing in CGI here and there (and, I predict, adding 3d) makes them uneven and a pushes them into areas where they can't compete against contemporary films.
I could be wrong, but most conservative stations I've tuned in are selling gold as if the end of humanity was just over the horizon.
Humanity won't end, but this gold bubble will, and these ATMs are the surest possible sign.
Remember those round-the-clock commercials for mortgages, and the reality shows about flipping houses, the last year or two before the mortgage bust that wrecked the economy? This is that, but for gold. When half the teenagers in shopping malls adopt your investment strategy, it is time to sell.
Now, I have to give the gold standard guys some credit, they said it would go up, and it did, bigtime. But you only profit from getting in on time if you also get out on time, and IMHO that could be any day now.
This is more evidence supporting the "Race to the Bottom" argument. China isn't known for environmental protections.
Another interpretation is that China is a bastion of freedom for free enterprise. Isn't this what people want, for Big Government to stay out of the way and not hamper job creation, and not force people to do stuff like using catalytic converters and CFL lightbulbs? When people use those words, we must be cognizant of what they are advocating (if unwittingly).
A sad sad story...
The fact that this is even a news.
Perhaps, but I applaud slashdot for bringing us "the rest of the story" (as Paul Harvey would say). To often, the media only report the outrageous part of a story ("person files crazy lawsuit") then don't bother with the outcome if it is not also outrageous ("crazy lawsuit dismissed"). Over time, people are left with an exaggerated perception of everything going to hell in a handbasket.
In twenty years time, there'll be less tradies and more demand. Guess which way their rates will be going?
It's hard to say. A plumber in the US doesn't do anything different than a plumber in India. The reason they make more money than Indian plumbers is because they live among other people who do not have peers in India. If the day arrives that America isn't doing anything that India isn't doing, then living standards between the two will be pretty similar. (We still have some advantages, like a lower population density and more natural resources, which do add to our quality of life).
Certainly waiting for shipping can be inconvenient - then again neither is shopping at Akihabara:)
But OK, everybody has his price. I admit to spending the saturday before the Super Bowl last year scouring every big box store in town for a nice flat screen at a competitive price. I really wanted one THAT DAY. But I didn't find one, and got a really good deal on a refub Sony Bravia from ebay instead. It was still an enjoyable game on the old Trinitron, and I saved something like $400 on the new LCD.
And so help me, I will never buy cables at a local retailer, strictly on principle even if I win the lottery, unless they quit charging 1000% markup on them.
But why do we need a big electronics bazaar nowadays? You can buy anything anywhere, including from home.
When I went to Disneyland recently I was disappointed all the Main Street shops are just the same, full of Disney trademark Chinese-made trinkets, with little differentiation even between themselves. I thought, 'is it just that I'm a grownup now?' But no, my kids didn't care for it either. Why? Maybe because they're a Disney store at every local mall, and because searching 'Disney' on ebay returns over half a million results. I really think physical location has become less significant in the last 30 years.
Similarly, when I visited the Guang Hua Market in Taipei, I saw nothing I couldn't have shopped for much more easily online.
I thought there were already laws forcing cell companies to share towers, so there aren't multiple sets of towers in place wasting space and trashing the skyline? If there aren't, there certainly should be.
Who cares? The people affected by this are the very people who voted for it. If their desire for better cellphone reception outweighs their dislike of ugly cell towers in a couple years, then they can vote differently next time. The decision to NOT build the towers is much more easily reversible than the decision to allow them.
Is what surprising? After reading the linked articles, they don't support the blurb, particularly the claim Crossley is "admitting that he is running a scam job, sending out thousands of frivolous legal threats on the premise that a percentage pay up immediately to avoid legal hassles." He does come across as something of a jerk, but then, a lot of people probably say things about ex-wives.
No. Mixing a song is a professional art, and wanting to take out of part of it is like taking out one parts of speech from a novel, or removing one color from a painting.
Yeah, I'm sure Moby got straight A's at Juilliard.
You there, creating art without a license, halt, I say!
Although many may consider over the air television & radio to be bloated, outdated and unnecessary. One should consider that they offer one advantage over IPTV, etc - there are no constraints upon the quality/availability of the service when there is significant demand. When a tornado is eminent, when a 9/11 happens or something along those lines - people will flock to them en masse
Tornado schmornado - the real challenge to IPTV is the Super Bowl. You must admit, when over 100 million people (in the US alone) want the same live HD video stream, broadcasting makes a lot of sense!
I wouldn't want to lose broadcast TV now because it has the best picture quality short of blu-ray - better than DVDs, digital cable, satellite TV, and current IPTV.
Granted, IPTV has been improving so fast it'll probably dominate in 3-5 years. Netflix' HD streams on an internet-enabled TV look better than DVD to me.
PS the article says texts are "40 cents each, only four times the piece rate for cell phone." That's way too much, just as 10 cents for a regular text is a complete ripoff. 40 cents each works out to around $3000/MB, whereas (non-texting) satellite data on the same phone costs $5/MB. It really makes me wonder how they come up with these prices.
It's true that almost all young people in America firmly believe they will be rich one day. This is factually false and leads to bad public policy, but it's also good because it makes the economy more vital and entrepreneurial. That is, optimism doesn't make us as successful and we imagine we'll be, but it does make us more successful than we would otherwise be.
But that's not the only reason we protect the rich. A lot of people buy into the notion that the rich and powerful are the engine of the economy, and the rest of us should just be thankful if they employ us (Atlas Shrugged). I think that's largely myth, although in extreme cases (such as the redistribution of farmland in Zimbabwe to redress racial inequality), the results have been disastrous.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. Xenophobia and righteous indignation are both factors, but not they main ones. If so, there would be just as much angst over less powerful nations where people look and think differently. And also, we wouldn't be discussing China's moon program; we'd be discussing how to use our diplomatic and economic influence to redeem China from their moral failings, which we're not.
No, mostly China phobia is just naked fear at the rise of an economic and military competitor.
I hope Sony doesn't start charging for online - I'm seriously considering dumping my XBox 360 just because of XBox Live fees. I play online so infrequently the flat rate is a horrible deal for me, easily more than $1 / hour, but I'd still like to be able to play online once in a while.
The goal of hearing both sides isn't to blindly pick the median; sometimes one side of the story is much more convincing than the other, other times there isn't even much overlap in what stories they choose to report on. But without variety it's hard to know you're covering all the bases, and informed enough to choose sides (or a middle position).
It's selection bias. I intentionally visit salon.com and foxnews.com back-to-back to make sure I've covered both extremes.
The first two are still very good when viewed as vintage films (which they are). But splicing in CGI here and there (and, I predict, adding 3d) makes them uneven and a pushes them into areas where they can't compete against contemporary films.
Humanity won't end, but this gold bubble will, and these ATMs are the surest possible sign.
Remember those round-the-clock commercials for mortgages, and the reality shows about flipping houses, the last year or two before the mortgage bust that wrecked the economy? This is that, but for gold. When half the teenagers in shopping malls adopt your investment strategy, it is time to sell.
Now, I have to give the gold standard guys some credit, they said it would go up, and it did, bigtime. But you only profit from getting in on time if you also get out on time, and IMHO that could be any day now.
Well, that sounds good to me. If the shoe of criticism fits, wear it. But if not, don't.
Another interpretation is that China is a bastion of freedom for free enterprise. Isn't this what people want, for Big Government to stay out of the way and not hamper job creation, and not force people to do stuff like using catalytic converters and CFL lightbulbs? When people use those words, we must be cognizant of what they are advocating (if unwittingly).
It's not just solar, China has 24 nuclear power plants under construction, not to mention the world's most powerful hydroelectric power plant. So, they are embracing energy sources besides fossil fuels.
Perhaps, but I applaud slashdot for bringing us "the rest of the story" (as Paul Harvey would say). To often, the media only report the outrageous part of a story ("person files crazy lawsuit") then don't bother with the outcome if it is not also outrageous ("crazy lawsuit dismissed"). Over time, people are left with an exaggerated perception of everything going to hell in a handbasket.
It's hard to say. A plumber in the US doesn't do anything different than a plumber in India. The reason they make more money than Indian plumbers is because they live among other people who do not have peers in India. If the day arrives that America isn't doing anything that India isn't doing, then living standards between the two will be pretty similar. (We still have some advantages, like a lower population density and more natural resources, which do add to our quality of life).
But OK, everybody has his price. I admit to spending the saturday before the Super Bowl last year scouring every big box store in town for a nice flat screen at a competitive price. I really wanted one THAT DAY. But I didn't find one, and got a really good deal on a refub Sony Bravia from ebay instead. It was still an enjoyable game on the old Trinitron, and I saved something like $400 on the new LCD.
And so help me, I will never buy cables at a local retailer, strictly on principle even if I win the lottery, unless they quit charging 1000% markup on them.
When I went to Disneyland recently I was disappointed all the Main Street shops are just the same, full of Disney trademark Chinese-made trinkets, with little differentiation even between themselves. I thought, 'is it just that I'm a grownup now?' But no, my kids didn't care for it either. Why? Maybe because they're a Disney store at every local mall, and because searching 'Disney' on ebay returns over half a million results. I really think physical location has become less significant in the last 30 years.
Similarly, when I visited the Guang Hua Market in Taipei, I saw nothing I couldn't have shopped for much more easily online.
I thought there were already laws forcing cell companies to share towers, so there aren't multiple sets of towers in place wasting space and trashing the skyline? If there aren't, there certainly should be.
Who cares? The people affected by this are the very people who voted for it. If their desire for better cellphone reception outweighs their dislike of ugly cell towers in a couple years, then they can vote differently next time. The decision to NOT build the towers is much more easily reversible than the decision to allow them.
Is what surprising? After reading the linked articles, they don't support the blurb, particularly the claim Crossley is "admitting that he is running a scam job, sending out thousands of frivolous legal threats on the premise that a percentage pay up immediately to avoid legal hassles." He does come across as something of a jerk, but then, a lot of people probably say things about ex-wives.
Yeah, I'm sure Moby got straight A's at Juilliard.
You there, creating art without a license, halt, I say!
Second, the vinyl "resurgence" is based on fad rather than utility, so it won't last.
Tornado schmornado - the real challenge to IPTV is the Super Bowl. You must admit, when over 100 million people (in the US alone) want the same live HD video stream, broadcasting makes a lot of sense!
I wouldn't want to lose broadcast TV now because it has the best picture quality short of blu-ray - better than DVDs, digital cable, satellite TV, and current IPTV.
Granted, IPTV has been improving so fast it'll probably dominate in 3-5 years. Netflix' HD streams on an internet-enabled TV look better than DVD to me.
Well, what if we just fixed our defense spending to twice that of our nearest competitor? That would be a 2/3 reduction from where we are now.
I agree completely. Why somebody felt compelled to invent a bastardized version of email in the first place is beyond me.
PS the article says texts are "40 cents each, only four times the piece rate for cell phone." That's way too much, just as 10 cents for a regular text is a complete ripoff. 40 cents each works out to around $3000/MB, whereas (non-texting) satellite data on the same phone costs $5/MB. It really makes me wonder how they come up with these prices.
Voice via satellite is still too expensive; instead they should offer satellite texting at a reasonable price. At least then you're still connected.
In America, 1% of the population takes 24% of the income. So actually, a policy affecting those few people can have a huge impact.
But that's not the only reason we protect the rich. A lot of people buy into the notion that the rich and powerful are the engine of the economy, and the rest of us should just be thankful if they employ us (Atlas Shrugged). I think that's largely myth, although in extreme cases (such as the redistribution of farmland in Zimbabwe to redress racial inequality), the results have been disastrous.