If normal people had to document / comment their normal non programming work it would have interesting results in revealing how most people are either jerks, incompetent, working mostly on irrelevant shit, or, most likely, doing nothing at all.
Aw, c'mon, if there was a problem reading it here in China, it would be about the Chinese Internet Site Blocking policies and not about Google.
Notable sites blocked to us internet users in China:
- wikipedia (accessible through proxy)
- Technorati (utterly and completely inaccessible)
- BBC (completely and totally blocked)
- Anything on angelfire domain
- Geocities (sometimes accessible through proxy)
- Google.com (quite often blocked but you can just go to google.co.uk usually)
- Google.cn (believe it... often blocked I guess because of other people's searches on your IP range)
- MSN search (sometimes blocked)
- Yahoo search (sometimes blocked or throttled)
- DrudgeReport (depending on news items)
- Just about any page about an*nymizer or pr*xy servers
- and if you try to browse to a page about f*l*n g*ng your whole internet access will just stop working for half an hour.
If anything the reason Google had to buckle to censorship demands in.cn was because if they let everything get searched people wouldn't be able access the results anyway and people would find their connections getting cut just for the google search results even if they hadn't clicked them.
-- now to hit submit and see if this gets sniffed and blocked:\
In many normal PC users' minds backing up to CD or DVD is apparently more 'safe' because their impression of hard disk storage is something magic inside their computer box which can't be moved or transplanted...
+ for avg users hard drives seem to be at risk of 'crashing' or 'dying' suddenly...
+ the data on a hdd they probably wouldn't be able to access at all if something detrimental happened to their windoze OS installation (which is pretty common and unavoidable).
Also backing up to DVD has the advantage that you just dump the data there, and then next time you want to back up you just use new media and create a new whole backup. If you were backing up everything to a backup hdd you would have to think about what you didn't want to overwrite each time.
So basically backing up to DVD makes sense for an average (i.e. low level) user taking their data off a computer and storing it somewhere else for a sense of security......the average user has no idea how to manage swapping out hard disk drives or managing portable hdds.
Bluetooth headsets are pretty popular in China, and Chinavasion
are selling bluetooth headsets like hotcakes to international markets
because of the very low production costs.
they have to follow the laws of the country they're in
There exists a card game where newcomers are not told the rules - they have to find out the rules by deduction after getting punished for their infringements. The game, absolutely appropriately, is called "Mao".
I think the galling thing for Google, if they know even a little bit about the world of business in China, is that they have *Unnecessarily* and *Entirely Avoidably* been led down a path of having to comply with "rules" which are totally un-codified, and applied inconsistently if not completely arbitrarily, much like pretty much all law-making and law-enforcing in China.
It is a sign of respect for the importance of Google that the Chinese Government has bothered to sit up and take notice of what to them is quite a hi-tech debate. Google could have held out for more - everything in China is bartering and negotiation, even the "law". Buckling under and capitulating at the first hurdle is a classic foreigner's mistake, interpreting everything too literally.
In the end it doesn't matter that much anyway since:
(1) 99% of the www is accessible from mainland China, and the other 1% is accessible using a simple http proxy.
(2) From China you can go to any other country's Google, e.g. www.google.co.uk, and get all the normal uncensored search results.
Since the censorship of Google China is so pointless, I can only assume it is about making (American) Google lose face spectacularly - which is worth more to the Chinese than any other reward!
I live in South China and it is true that most web cafe use is for IM-ing or gaming.
The majority of users..? Kids. I hardly ever see anyone my age (24) or older in a web cafe. I have never seen any attempt to enforce a ban on under-18s, obviously because that's where 90% of their income is from.
It may be the case that people care about this law in Beijing (or want people to care about it) but I see no evidence of it in the South.
On another topic, the "great firewall of china" is a bit of myth because with the simple use of a proxy I have found nothing to be inaccessible.
I'm in China and I've never seen a non-pirate version of any piece of software, including on computers of reputable companies. Not only is there no respect for copyright, there is no understanding of the concept. The increase in profit will not be that great because everyone will use the new localised software... but in pirate copies with no money going to MS... but I guess that's ok if you rate it by convenience to humanity.
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If normal people had to document / comment their normal non programming work it would have interesting results in revealing how most people are either jerks, incompetent, working mostly on irrelevant shit, or, most likely, doing nothing at all.
Aw, c'mon, if there was a problem reading it here in China, it would be about the Chinese Internet Site Blocking policies and not about Google. Notable sites blocked to us internet users in China: - wikipedia (accessible through proxy) - Technorati (utterly and completely inaccessible) - BBC (completely and totally blocked) - Anything on angelfire domain - Geocities (sometimes accessible through proxy) - Google.com (quite often blocked but you can just go to google.co.uk usually) - Google.cn (believe it... often blocked I guess because of other people's searches on your IP range) - MSN search (sometimes blocked) - Yahoo search (sometimes blocked or throttled) - DrudgeReport (depending on news items) - Just about any page about an*nymizer or pr*xy servers - and if you try to browse to a page about f*l*n g*ng your whole internet access will just stop working for half an hour. If anything the reason Google had to buckle to censorship demands in .cn was because if they let everything get searched people wouldn't be able access the results anyway and people would find their connections getting cut just for the google search results even if they hadn't clicked them.
-- now to hit submit and see if this gets sniffed and blocked :\
In many normal PC users' minds backing up to CD or DVD is apparently more 'safe' because their impression of hard disk storage is something magic inside their computer box which can't be moved or transplanted...
...the average user has no idea how to manage swapping out hard disk drives or managing portable hdds.
+ for avg users hard drives seem to be at risk of 'crashing' or 'dying' suddenly...
+ the data on a hdd they probably wouldn't be able to access at all if something detrimental happened to their windoze OS installation (which is pretty common and unavoidable).
Also backing up to DVD has the advantage that you just dump the data there, and then next time you want to back up you just use new media and create a new whole backup. If you were backing up everything to a backup hdd you would have to think about what you didn't want to overwrite each time.
So basically backing up to DVD makes sense for an average (i.e. low level) user taking their data off a computer and storing it somewhere else for a sense of security...
Bluetooth headsets are pretty popular in China, and Chinavasion are selling bluetooth headsets like hotcakes to international markets because of the very low production costs.
This product is another hi-tech release that will change our lives : Chinese Made Neural Video Headset
they have to follow the laws of the country they're in
There exists a card game where newcomers are not told the rules - they have to find out the rules by deduction after getting punished for their infringements. The game, absolutely appropriately, is called "Mao".
I think the galling thing for Google, if they know even a little bit about the world of business in China, is that they have *Unnecessarily* and *Entirely Avoidably* been led down a path of having to comply with "rules" which are totally un-codified, and applied inconsistently if not completely arbitrarily, much like pretty much all law-making and law-enforcing in China.
It is a sign of respect for the importance of Google that the Chinese Government has bothered to sit up and take notice of what to them is quite a hi-tech debate. Google could have held out for more - everything in China is bartering and negotiation, even the "law". Buckling under and capitulating at the first hurdle is a classic foreigner's mistake, interpreting everything too literally.
In the end it doesn't matter that much anyway since:
(1) 99% of the www is accessible from mainland China, and the other 1% is accessible using a simple http proxy.
(2) From China you can go to any other country's Google, e.g. www.google.co.uk, and get all the normal uncensored search results.
Since the censorship of Google China is so pointless, I can only assume it is about making (American) Google lose face spectacularly - which is worth more to the Chinese than any other reward!
Imagine George Bush, malware compromised...
I live in South China and it is true that most web cafe use is for IM-ing or gaming. The majority of users..? Kids. I hardly ever see anyone my age (24) or older in a web cafe. I have never seen any attempt to enforce a ban on under-18s, obviously because that's where 90% of their income is from. It may be the case that people care about this law in Beijing (or want people to care about it) but I see no evidence of it in the South. On another topic, the "great firewall of china" is a bit of myth because with the simple use of a proxy I have found nothing to be inaccessible.
I'm in China and I've never seen a non-pirate version of any piece of software, including on computers of reputable companies. Not only is there no respect for copyright, there is no understanding of the concept. The increase in profit will not be that great because everyone will use the new localised software... but in pirate copies with no money going to MS... but I guess that's ok if you rate it by convenience to humanity.