I would add the same for less cosmopolite [sp?] parts of south america. Try going to non-major/non-touristic cities around here and you'll be hard pressed to find english speakers.
One time I've been to Tokyo, and the lack of english skills among the populace (not counting hotel folks and clerks at big store chains) took me by surprise, since I've always been told that you could make your way in english pretty easily around there. (good thing I was there to learn japanese)
I guess (by experience) that people will change to whatever language they feel confortable with, as soon as possible, unless they're on an effort to learn a new language at the time.
It seems that my school happens to have a pretty renowned Bioninf laboratory. Altough it's not my area, it seems that they have achieved some interesting developments in the genome project. If you want to check:
www.lbi.ic.unicamp.br
Even if you don't have interest in coming to Brazil, the lab's professors could point you towards other good schools "abroad", and how to dig up scholarships for those. Try and mail them.
Personally, I find that moving from where you are, wherever that may be, is a nice experience that broadens your horizons. So far I have been too to Japan and the US, and I'm aiming for a PhD somewhere in Europe. More due to the personal experience of knowing many different cultures and languages than for being in some bigname university.
When I hear SOMEONE WHO PLAYS VIDEO GAMES describe him/herself as a "gamer" it sounds to me like they're trying to wrap their fun hobby in a veil of credibility, as if it has social merit or importance. It doesn't. You play games because they amuse you.
You know, I used to think like you and many who are replying on this thread on this point, saying that videogames are not like sports, et cetera. I still personally have this idea that gaming is just a personal hobby, but I have come to realize that this is really just cultural prejudice, and not something really inherent to games.
Case in point: South Korea. I'm on an exchange program, and my roomate is from there. Regularly he downloads television programs from his home, which are about, of all things, Starcraft matchs.
Up in that part of the world, starcraft is a real national sport, with star players, yearly championships, tv shows, comentators, cheers, fans, advertisers, everything you could expect from other "regular" games. At first it scared the hell out of me... but then... why not? There is a "brain vs brawl" debate further down the thread, but you can have such discussions about any two given sports...
In the end it isn't really something about the games themselves, but our perception about them. I'm pretty sure other sports/hobbies have had similar starts.
If you've ever seen two native Chinese or Japanese speakers talk to each other they frequently will "write" kanji in the air or on the palm of the other person's hand with their fingers because their spoken language is imprecise.
And I call bullshit:-)
Having been living in Japan for one year now, I'm yet to see this curious behaviour you spoke of. (coincidentally, a group of chinese live in the same building as me, and they don't seem to draw kanji to each other while speaking either)
However, you are right to say that romanization may lead to lost information. There is indeed a lot of phonetical redundancy (in Japanese at least), but most homophones can be solved by context, which is not the case in the short internet addresses.
OTP works by having a completely random key that is as long as the data itself.
Exactly. And that really is the catch. The two sides have to have the key, and since the key is the same size as the original data, then transmitting it securely is exactly the same problem as transmitting the original data securely.
That's why OTP is unpractical. Unless you have someone on a gray coat to take a bible inside a black suitcase chained to his arm to the recipient of your message.
Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers.
Whithout entering the merit of piracy itself, isn't this argument a fallacy? Aren't only high-profile actors/diretors/etc rewarded a percentage of the movie income, while all the others receive the same no matter what?
Don't want to enter the issue "but piracing will make movies spend less money" (which I doubt, based on current trend), but I got curious by this part.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but how is this going to stimulate the industry if there is no money to be made for the software "companies"? Surely this will damage the software industry?
Unless by "software industry" you mean only "on the shelf" software companies (which, in Brazil, are mostly companies from other countries), no way, but even if you do...
Brazil has already some companies on the open source paradigm of software industry (support, local solutions, etc). A big example is Conectiva, which even ships its own distro.
Also, checking some brazillian tech news you'll find lots of small consulting companies that work off putting computers on small businesses where things are still on the "age of paper". For these companies, they'll be able to provide more hand-tailored solutions for their clients at a lesser cost.
So... all M$ would have to do would be to distribute free copies of their software to the Brazilian government in order to solve this, correct?
Actually no. The issue of FS in Brazil, altough being shown to the media as "cutting costs", is also largely political.
Until recently, Brazil's politics scenario was largely dominated by right-wing parties, with the only significant left wing party, the "Worker's Party" (PT), housing all kinds of people who wanted to protest against "the system" in one way or another. Altought there were obviously a lot of radicals in the bunch, since the party itself was quite open to new ideas, the FS folks (specially those with other political worries in their agendas) found a nice niche to stay on.
Even before Lula made it to the presidency we could see, in recent years, states ruled by PT's governors to support pro-FS laws and projects. Most notably RS (Rio Grande do Sul). Seing those efforts on a federal scale now that PT attained presidency is not that surprising. (Well, actually, for me it kinda is, for they had to make lots of strange alliances to make it there. But I disgress).
Who knows? I'm in a exchange program there right now, and for as much as I was interested in Japan before coming here, I find that the more I learn about its culture, the less I understand about it.:-) (btw, I'm not american either)
But talking to a friend of mine in the same program, one good trait of these folk seems to be that they're never afraid to try new things, no matter how strange they are, and I'm not talking only about technology. (embracing them after trying is a whole new matter though)
Anyway, as an interesting sidenote, robotics in eastern asia goes a long way back in time, in a way. In ancient China (~ third century) a great general of the time employed contraceptions in the shape of cows to transport supplies. Maybe those robot making folks are descendants of Zhuge Liang?;-) (btw are there "robots" more ancient than those anywhere?)
There are four major humanoid robot projects; (...), Waseba University,(...)
It's WaseDA University, for those looking for it, and it's called Wabian:-).It's quite a nice fellow, but now we're working on wabian 2 (which still has only torso and legs so far).
Yeah, Thats basically it. Besides, the 2 arms/2 legs/body head configuration should have about the same proportions as a real human (tm).
The basic idea, as the article pointed out, is that most tools we have today are made with the humanoid design in mind. So general purpose robots should be able to use those tools.
You need a lot of greys on your post as well, I'm afraid;-)
The problem is not that China standing alone would be a better Sole Superpower (tm) than the States, but that 2 or even more "Big Ones" that could keep each other in check would leave me a bit little more at peace...
(...)does not use it to repress people as we would be afraid China will.
More gray here? The chinese government certainly isn't the best thing in the world, but they still do not eat children (or do they? It's been a while since I've been to America).
There are many forms of repression, you know? Like students being taken of their life savings by ruling companies or scientists being arrested in conventions for spouting some technology against some of the ruling lobbying class.
If THAT isn't also some kind of repression...
People in the world do not seriously worry about American planes coming tommorow night, unless they've openly declared themselves to be America's enemies.
BEEP - wrong answer. It's the other way around - until America declared them to be their enemies. More black here... the article itself ("they have space technology, they'll use it to bomb us") show this mentality.
And that's the point of competing superpowers... you can't declare yourself enemy, or even annoy very much, someone who would then turn to your competitor... of course, three or more superpowers might allow us to avoid another cold war (which I personally find unlikely, in spite of all this talk), but that seems better than having one giant that you never really know when he will awake on a bad mood.
Afterall, the country I used to live proved some decades ago that all you need is one bad president and one or two years to turn a "nice democracy" into a "military token dictatorship".
But this tinfoil hat is weighty, let me go back at hoping for good things from one more player in the space party.
Slashdot Mirror
Hah! Longterm thinking! Are you crazy! Longterm thinking has no meaning in the US =P
:-D
That's why these are news from Japan
And they're good looking. :-)
I would add the same for less cosmopolite [sp?] parts of south america. Try going to non-major/non-touristic cities around here and you'll be hard pressed to find english speakers.
One time I've been to Tokyo, and the lack of english skills among the populace (not counting hotel folks and clerks at big store chains) took me by surprise, since I've always been told that you could make your way in english pretty easily around there. (good thing I was there to learn japanese)
I guess (by experience) that people will change to whatever language they feel confortable with, as soon as possible, unless they're on an effort to learn a new language at the time.
Me too. How about an RPG FPS? :-)
There were some, a long long time ago: Ultima Underworld{, II}
It seems that my school happens to have a pretty renowned Bioninf laboratory. Altough it's not my area, it seems that they have achieved some interesting developments in the genome project. If you want to check:
www.lbi.ic.unicamp.br
Even if you don't have interest in coming to Brazil, the lab's professors could point you towards other good schools "abroad", and how to dig up scholarships for those. Try and mail them.
Personally, I find that moving from where you are, wherever that may be, is a nice experience that broadens your horizons. So far I have been too to Japan and the US, and I'm aiming for a PhD somewhere in Europe. More due to the personal experience of knowing many different cultures and languages than for being in some bigname university.
Cheers,
Claus
When I hear SOMEONE WHO PLAYS VIDEO GAMES describe him/herself as a "gamer" it sounds to me like they're trying to wrap their fun hobby in a veil of credibility, as if it has social merit or importance. It doesn't. You play games because they amuse you.
You know, I used to think like you and many who are replying on this thread on this point, saying that videogames are not like sports, et cetera. I still personally have this idea that gaming is just a personal hobby, but I have come to realize that this is really just cultural prejudice, and not something really inherent to games.
Case in point: South Korea. I'm on an exchange program, and my roomate is from there. Regularly he downloads television programs from his home, which are about, of all things, Starcraft matchs.
Up in that part of the world, starcraft is a real national sport, with star players, yearly championships, tv shows, comentators, cheers, fans, advertisers, everything you could expect from other "regular" games. At first it scared the hell out of me... but then... why not? There is a "brain vs brawl" debate further down the thread, but you can have such discussions about any two given sports...
In the end it isn't really something about the games themselves, but our perception about them. I'm pretty sure other sports/hobbies have had similar starts.
C.
If you've ever seen two native Chinese or Japanese speakers talk to each other they frequently will "write" kanji in the air or on the palm of the other person's hand with their fingers because their spoken language is imprecise.
:-)
And I call bullshit
Having been living in Japan for one year now, I'm yet to see this curious behaviour you spoke of. (coincidentally, a group of chinese live in the same building as me, and they don't seem to draw kanji to each other while speaking either)
However, you are right to say that romanization may lead to lost information. There is indeed a lot of phonetical redundancy (in Japanese at least), but most homophones can be solved by context, which is not the case in the short internet addresses.
OTP works by having a completely random key that is as long as the data itself.
Exactly. And that really is the catch. The two sides have to have the key, and since the key is the same size as the original data, then transmitting it securely is exactly the same problem as transmitting the original data securely.
That's why OTP is unpractical. Unless you have someone on a gray coat to take a bible inside a black suitcase chained to his arm to the recipient of your message.
Remember, movie piracy doesn't just hurt actors, but also camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers.
Whithout entering the merit of piracy itself, isn't this argument a fallacy? Aren't only high-profile actors/diretors/etc rewarded a percentage of the movie income, while all the others receive the same no matter what?
Don't want to enter the issue "but piracing will make movies spend less money" (which I doubt, based on current trend), but I got curious by this part.
--
No sig yet. Bear with it.
Pick a date.
I'm sure SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE has predicted an apocalypse to that date.
Not that it doesn't make some interesting reading, though. (or searching, for those who like it)
Claus
Correct me if I'm wrong, but how is this going to stimulate the industry if there is no money to be made for the software "companies"? Surely this will damage the software industry?
Unless by "software industry" you mean only "on the shelf" software companies (which, in Brazil, are mostly companies from other countries), no way, but even if you do...
Brazil has already some companies on the open source paradigm of software industry (support, local solutions, etc). A big example is Conectiva, which even ships its own distro.
Also, checking some brazillian tech news you'll find lots of small consulting companies that work off putting computers on small businesses where things are still on the "age of paper". For these companies, they'll be able to provide more hand-tailored solutions for their clients at a lesser cost.
Claus
So... all M$ would have to do would be to distribute free copies of their software to the Brazilian government in order to solve this, correct?
Actually no. The issue of FS in Brazil, altough being shown to the media as "cutting costs", is also largely political.
Until recently, Brazil's politics scenario was largely dominated by right-wing parties, with the only significant left wing party, the "Worker's Party" (PT), housing all kinds of people who wanted to protest against "the system" in one way or another. Altought there were obviously a lot of radicals in the bunch, since the party itself was quite open to new ideas, the FS folks (specially those with other political worries in their agendas) found a nice niche to stay on.
Even before Lula made it to the presidency we could see, in recent years, states ruled by PT's governors to support pro-FS laws and projects. Most notably RS (Rio Grande do Sul). Seing those efforts on a federal scale now that PT attained presidency is not that surprising. (Well, actually, for me it kinda is, for they had to make lots of strange alliances to make it there. But I disgress).
Claus
Who knows? I'm in a exchange program there right now, and for as much as I was interested in Japan before coming here, I find that the more I learn about its culture, the less I understand about it. :-) (btw, I'm not american either)
;-) (btw are there "robots" more ancient than those anywhere?)
But talking to a friend of mine in the same program, one good trait of these folk seems to be that they're never afraid to try new things, no matter how strange they are, and I'm not talking only about technology. (embracing them after trying is a whole new matter though)
Anyway, as an interesting sidenote, robotics in eastern asia goes a long way back in time, in a way. In ancient China (~ third century) a great general of the time employed contraceptions in the shape of cows to transport supplies. Maybe those robot making folks are descendants of Zhuge Liang?
Claus
There are four major humanoid robot projects; (...), Waseba University,(...)
:-).It's quite a nice fellow, but now we're working on wabian 2 (which still has only torso and legs so far).
It's WaseDA University, for those looking for it, and it's called Wabian
Claus
Yeah, Thats basically it. Besides, the 2 arms/2 legs/body head configuration should have about the same proportions as a real human (tm).
:-)
The basic idea, as the article pointed out, is that most tools we have today are made with the humanoid design in mind. So general purpose robots should be able to use those tools.
Or so my advisor wants me to believe
Claus
You need a lot of greys on your post as well, I'm afraid ;-)
The problem is not that China standing alone would be a better Sole Superpower (tm) than the States, but that 2 or even more "Big Ones" that could keep each other in check would leave me a bit little more at peace...
(...)does not use it to repress people as we would be afraid China will.
More gray here? The chinese government certainly isn't the best thing in the world, but they still do not eat children (or do they? It's been a while since I've been to America).
There are many forms of repression, you know? Like students being taken of their life savings by ruling companies or scientists being arrested in conventions for spouting some technology against some of the ruling lobbying class.
If THAT isn't also some kind of repression...
People in the world do not seriously worry about American planes coming tommorow night, unless they've openly declared themselves to be America's enemies.
BEEP - wrong answer. It's the other way around - until America declared them to be their enemies.
More black here... the article itself ("they have space technology, they'll use it to bomb us") show this mentality.
And that's the point of competing superpowers... you can't declare yourself enemy, or even annoy very much, someone who would then turn to your competitor... of course, three or more superpowers might allow us to avoid another cold war (which I personally find unlikely, in spite of all this talk), but that seems better than having one giant that you never really know when he will awake on a bad mood.
Afterall, the country I used to live proved some decades ago that all you need is one bad president and one or two years to turn a "nice democracy" into a "military token dictatorship".
But this tinfoil hat is weighty, let me go back at hoping for good things from one more player in the space party.
Don't worry... At this point I'm waiting to see when they'll start a sco.slashdot.org section here... :-P