Expensive (by local standards) and low quality by western standards. Which is why most low paying jobs include basic accommodation. I'm paying 1500 yuan monthly for a small two room city-center apartment of high quality (by local standards). That's about $200 a month. It's a lot more than most Chinese people earn in a month, but as I said, it is city center, just off the main commercial district so my neighbors are a mix of moderately successful business owners and mistresses of even more successful rich types.
Except that eating in McDonalds here in China is a luxury treat for most folks. It's perfectly possible to eat for a whole week on the cost of one standard McMeal combo.
The Big Mac Index is not a valid measure in countries that do not subscribe to the American super-cheap-fast-food "culture".
In a large city (the one I'm sitting in) I spend 6 Yuan on my main meal of the day each day, for which I get as much as I can comfortably eat in one sitting, and I'm a big heavy-eating guy).
6 yuan is almost exactly 0.6 Euros, so about $300 these days...
> The Chinese have existed as a nation for longer than any other civilization on the face of this planet, > and they take the "long view" in such things.
Thankfully both of these are incorrect to a lesser and greater degree respectively.
There may have been people living in the areas of land now referred to as China, but any links between historical cultures and thought and the modern morass are purely fictional.
And as anyone who has done business in/with China can tell you one of the biggest problems inherent to the nation is a complete inability to plan ahead or consider delayed benefits. None of the Chinese businesses I've worked in, nor the government bureaucracy I've suffered through, have ever included any possibility of passing up 10 bucks in their pocket right now in exchange for a thousand tomorrow.
We're dealing with a cultural mindset that would unhesitatingly slaughter the goose that laid the golden eggs, not in hopes of finding lots of eggs inside (that assumption requires some logical thought and deductive reasoning), but simply to take its feed and head for picking.
There is no concept of repeat business here. Any supplier who believes they can get away with it will supply a shipment of non-functional crap and pocket the single payment rather than even bother trying to set up monthly deliveries of functional goods.
The unstable legal system is partly at fault here. There is just no way in this culture to be sure that your products won't be outlawed/super-taxed next week. Money under the mattress is the only surety.
Because, by law, to have an office in China you must have Chinese employees in high-ranking positions.
If your company is of interest then you can be guaranteed of having at least two plants in the office. One to be the obvious pro-party red-book waving decoy, and the other to save them the time and effort of having to phish someone to start the attack.
China's due some really serious shakeups in the next decade. The China of 10 years from now will be as different from current day China as current day China is from 1970's China. What will it actually be like? That's so far beyond my skills to figure that I couldn't even hazard a guess. Anyone here who cares to look can see the fuse fizzing, but as for where the bits will land... Who knows?
There are no communists in power in China, and have not been for quite some time. They have kept the title, but that's meaningless. China's government is Totalitarian Capitalist.
The red books are optional these days, unless you are Chinese, a Party member, in a significant government building and trying to impress someone. Foreigners with little red books are viewed with amusement at best, contempt and suspicion at worst.
China vs world (Us is only one player in many these days)... Unless the internal restructuring prevents it then expect to see current "Angry Letters" style face-offs continue and expand, but as for the possibility of actual physical or serious trade conflict? Not a chance. Even Bush wasn't stupid enough to countenance that.
Meanwhile I _am_ an expat, currently in China, and I can tell you your information is lacking in a few areas.
The Chinese government may not be out to detonate nuclear plants remotely (though you can be damn sure that when such abilities/openings are located that they are carefully filed against future need), but they are most certainly out to obtain every piece of hi-tech IP they can get hold of, as well as every bit of blackmail material, every bit of financial info and absolutely everything else they can find that will give them an edge in any arena over any and every other nation.
That's on top of all the internal monitoring of course.
You would, apparently seriously, compare the 4-chan/b/ crowd of bumbling perverted imbeciles thrashing around in pools of their own virtual filth to the secession of the America's from the British Empire?
It's somehow no surprise that you're unaware that that doesn't qualify as a liberation.
>> There are no leaders...willing to own up to their actions Fixed that for you.
>>reason why they were attacking Scientology... was to stir shit and create "lawlz" Fixed that for you also.
>>why shouldn't they refocus their efforts?
because their efforts are the efforts of a large group of pathetic sub-human idiots, who glory in their perceived freedom from consequences and scatter like little slimy things when their rock is overturned.
Have you perchance noticed that your "fearless leaders" have gone very quiet and abandoned all efforts to crush the scientiology cult since a mere 3 of them got fingered by various police departments for illegal attacks?
So much for "legion", "untouchable" and "unstoppable".
Anonymous is trying to cause idiocy and aggravation "for the lolz", not to actually benefit anyone other than their own immature hordes of circle-jerking failures.
The same as they always do.
Anonymous is not about rights, or justice, or indeed anything at all except causing aggravation and unpleasantness for their own sake.
The only members of Anonymous actually interested in the topic itself as a genuine cause are those that reside in Oz and understand that the random child-porn distribution through/b/ will require them to actually learn how to use proxies to access, rather than merely claiming to be "behind [over 9000] proxies!"
/b/ is feeling ignored and/or irrelevant again then.
How does this make front page, really? I man, to re-summarize "4Chan's unwashed horde of script kiddies and shy exhibitionists claim to be planning idiotic behavior in Australia".
How does this make it to the level of either "News for nerds", "Stuff that matters", or even to the level of "stuff worth commenting on beyond noting the worthlessness and sub-human qualities of the pathetic freaks involved"?
Which will certainly enrich their lives and make them a more useful and contributory member of society if they somehow remember than and the near limitless other snippets of supporting information needed to make it useful and somehow through sheer happenstance end up in a career where something they happened upon despite lack of interest because they saw it in a computer game when they were a dropout teenager...
I could continue the run-on sentence, but I think my point is made.
"Enslaving" is such a nasty word. "Indenturing" fits so much better.
"18 years in the yellowcake mines in exchange for food and accommodation, plus 18 years of education for one worker-spawn so they can get a better life/job". Seems just to me.
Sooner or later we'll be faced with that choice, and essentially it's that or leave them up on the surface to breed and fatten themselves for harvesting each new moon.
If the students in question are not interested in learning the material for the sake of their own goals (or in rarer, and even more valuable cases simply for the sake of learning) then any time spent pushing it at them is utterly wasted.
Once a few generations see their parents clawing at uranium ore work-faces barehanded (as it's cheaper to bring in replacement worker drones than supply equipment) we'll rapidly see a genuine and sustainable increase in students actually willing to learn.
>> Also wanting to run an OS which is different from the ones sold by apple and microsoft makes one cheap?
Depends entirely on the reasons for which you wish to use it. If for some reason you need a selection of C/C++ dev tools, plus several scripting languages, and an OS that is effectively a server OS on your desktop then fair enough, though what someone whose work/hobbies require such for is doing making office-style docs in any app is beyond me.
If on the other hand you just don't want to pay for your OS, and live somewhere that copyright is reliably enforced, and so choose the above OS, well, yeah, that's cheap and you're denying yourself a reasonable user experience through your cheapness.
MySQl is used by people capable of thought and pattern recognition. MySQL is an important and useful tool for people who actually work with and on computers.
OOo is a cheap and nasty (and almost non-functional) attempt to annoy Microsoft. OOo is used by people too cheap to pay for real tools to do their work.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, those torrents are all throwing utorrent into overflow territory. Negative leeches for all three.
"Eh!Hoe" to my mind.
Right up until the first well heeled warlord rolled in.
Expensive (by local standards) and low quality by western standards.
Which is why most low paying jobs include basic accommodation.
I'm paying 1500 yuan monthly for a small two room city-center apartment of high quality (by local standards). That's about $200 a month. It's a lot more than most Chinese people earn in a month, but as I said, it is city center, just off the main commercial district so my neighbors are a mix of moderately successful business owners and mistresses of even more successful rich types.
Bad examples still.
Milk is not a commonly used foodstuff here, and bread as you're thinking of it is purchased only by foreigners living here.
I can buy all I can eat in a restaurant for six yuan, and can eat for a week for 30.
Except that eating in McDonalds here in China is a luxury treat for most folks. It's perfectly possible to eat for a whole week on the cost of one standard McMeal combo.
The Big Mac Index is not a valid measure in countries that do not subscribe to the American super-cheap-fast-food "culture".
In a large city (the one I'm sitting in) I spend 6 Yuan on my main meal of the day each day, for which I get as much as I can comfortably eat in one sitting, and I'm a big heavy-eating guy).
6 yuan is almost exactly 0.6 Euros, so about $300 these days...
4chan is also, regrettably, available.
> The Chinese have existed as a nation for longer than any other civilization on the face of this planet,
> and they take the "long view" in such things.
Thankfully both of these are incorrect to a lesser and greater degree respectively.
There may have been people living in the areas of land now referred to as China, but any links between historical cultures and thought and the modern morass are purely fictional.
And as anyone who has done business in/with China can tell you one of the biggest problems inherent to the nation is a complete inability to plan ahead or consider delayed benefits. None of the Chinese businesses I've worked in, nor the government bureaucracy I've suffered through, have ever included any possibility of passing up 10 bucks in their pocket right now in exchange for a thousand tomorrow.
We're dealing with a cultural mindset that would unhesitatingly slaughter the goose that laid the golden eggs, not in hopes of finding lots of eggs inside (that assumption requires some logical thought and deductive reasoning), but simply to take its feed and head for picking.
There is no concept of repeat business here. Any supplier who believes they can get away with it will supply a shipment of non-functional crap and pocket the single payment rather than even bother trying to set up monthly deliveries of functional goods.
The unstable legal system is partly at fault here. There is just no way in this culture to be sure that your products won't be outlawed/super-taxed next week. Money under the mattress is the only surety.
Heh, I am forbidden from seeing content on that site.
Shoulda seen that one coming...
Because, by law, to have an office in China you must have Chinese employees in high-ranking positions.
If your company is of interest then you can be guaranteed of having at least two plants in the office. One to be the obvious pro-party red-book waving decoy, and the other to save them the time and effort of having to phish someone to start the attack.
China's due some really serious shakeups in the next decade. The China of 10 years from now will be as different from current day China as current day China is from 1970's China. What will it actually be like? That's so far beyond my skills to figure that I couldn't even hazard a guess. Anyone here who cares to look can see the fuse fizzing, but as for where the bits will land... Who knows?
There are no communists in power in China, and have not been for quite some time. They have kept the title, but that's meaningless. China's government is Totalitarian Capitalist.
The red books are optional these days, unless you are Chinese, a Party member, in a significant government building and trying to impress someone. Foreigners with little red books are viewed with amusement at best, contempt and suspicion at worst.
China vs world (Us is only one player in many these days)... Unless the internal restructuring prevents it then expect to see current "Angry Letters" style face-offs continue and expand, but as for the possibility of actual physical or serious trade conflict? Not a chance. Even Bush wasn't stupid enough to countenance that.
Meanwhile I _am_ an expat, currently in China, and I can tell you your information is lacking in a few areas.
The Chinese government may not be out to detonate nuclear plants remotely (though you can be damn sure that when such abilities/openings are located that they are carefully filed against future need), but they are most certainly out to obtain every piece of hi-tech IP they can get hold of, as well as every bit of blackmail material, every bit of financial info and absolutely everything else they can find that will give them an edge in any arena over any and every other nation.
That's on top of all the internal monitoring of course.
>> just wait and see what they become.
Unemployable meth-addicted man-children.
Convicts and ex-convicts.
Child molesters and rapists.
You would, apparently seriously, compare the 4-chan /b/ crowd of bumbling perverted imbeciles thrashing around in pools of their own virtual filth to the secession of the America's from the British Empire?
It's somehow no surprise that you're unaware that that doesn't qualify as a liberation.
>> There are no leaders...willing to own up to their actions
Fixed that for you.
>>reason why they were attacking Scientology... was to stir shit and create "lawlz"
Fixed that for you also.
>>why shouldn't they refocus their efforts?
because their efforts are the efforts of a large group of pathetic sub-human idiots, who glory in their perceived freedom from consequences and scatter like little slimy things when their rock is overturned.
And a happy Xenu-luvin' day to you too.
Have you perchance noticed that your "fearless leaders" have gone very quiet and abandoned all efforts to crush the scientiology cult since a mere 3 of them got fingered by various police departments for illegal attacks?
So much for "legion", "untouchable" and "unstoppable".
Anonymous is trying to cause idiocy and aggravation "for the lolz", not to actually benefit anyone other than their own immature hordes of circle-jerking failures.
The same as they always do.
Anonymous is not about rights, or justice, or indeed anything at all except causing aggravation and unpleasantness for their own sake.
The only members of Anonymous actually interested in the topic itself as a genuine cause are those that reside in Oz and understand that the random child-porn distribution through /b/ will require them to actually learn how to use proxies to access, rather than merely claiming to be "behind [over 9000] proxies!"
/b/ is feeling ignored and/or irrelevant again then.
How does this make front page, really?
I man, to re-summarize "4Chan's unwashed horde of script kiddies and shy exhibitionists claim to be planning idiotic behavior in Australia".
How does this make it to the level of either "News for nerds", "Stuff that matters", or even to the level of "stuff worth commenting on beyond noting the worthlessness and sub-human qualities of the pathetic freaks involved"?
Dammit you guys...
1984 and Brazil (movie not country) are not bloody HOWTO guides!
Which will certainly enrich their lives and make them a more useful and contributory member of society if they somehow remember than and the near limitless other snippets of supporting information needed to make it useful and somehow through sheer happenstance end up in a career where something they happened upon despite lack of interest because they saw it in a computer game when they were a dropout teenager...
I could continue the run-on sentence, but I think my point is made.
"Enslaving" is such a nasty word. "Indenturing" fits so much better.
"18 years in the yellowcake mines in exchange for food and accommodation, plus 18 years of education for one worker-spawn so they can get a better life/job".
Seems just to me.
Sooner or later we'll be faced with that choice, and essentially it's that or leave them up on the surface to breed and fatten themselves for harvesting each new moon.
If the students in question are not interested in learning the material for the sake of their own goals (or in rarer, and even more valuable cases simply for the sake of learning) then any time spent pushing it at them is utterly wasted.
Once a few generations see their parents clawing at uranium ore work-faces barehanded (as it's cheaper to bring in replacement worker drones than supply equipment) we'll rapidly see a genuine and sustainable increase in students actually willing to learn.
>> Also wanting to run an OS which is different from the ones sold by apple and microsoft makes one cheap?
Depends entirely on the reasons for which you wish to use it.
If for some reason you need a selection of C/C++ dev tools, plus several scripting languages, and an OS that is effectively a server OS on your desktop then fair enough, though what someone whose work/hobbies require such for is doing making office-style docs in any app is beyond me.
If on the other hand you just don't want to pay for your OS, and live somewhere that copyright is reliably enforced, and so choose the above OS, well, yeah, that's cheap and you're denying yourself a reasonable user experience through your cheapness.
MySQl is used by people capable of thought and pattern recognition.
MySQL is an important and useful tool for people who actually work with and on computers.
OOo is a cheap and nasty (and almost non-functional) attempt to annoy Microsoft.
OOo is used by people too cheap to pay for real tools to do their work.
There's a bit of a difference.