Stupid question for us plebes in the US... where is a good place to get started learning Chinese, both written and conversational?
If you are an adult English speaker, learning Chinese is going to be REALLY hard. Three reasons:
1. The characters. You need to memorize 1500 for basic literacy, and 3000 to match a college educated Chinese citizen. 2. The tones. Inflection changes the meaning of words, and it is really hard for an adult brain to adapt to this. 3. The idioms. English has idioms like "raining cats and dogs" that you just have to memorize. Chinese has WAY more. Personally, I think the idioms are fun to learn, but there are a lot of them.
Ask yourself WHY you want to learn Chinese. Unless you go to China, it is not very useful. Any Chinese speaker you meet in America will also speak English. It is not an international language like Spanish or French, which are spoken in dozens of countries. If you are just a visitor to China, you can get by with English pretty easily.
I learned Chinese for 2 reasons: 1. The company I worked for had an office in Shanghai, and I wanted to go work there. 2. I think Chinese girls are irresistibly cute.
The first reason worked well. I worked in Shanghai for several years, and I now rotate there for 3-4 months every year from our main office in San Jose.
The second reason, not quite so well. I did indeed find a very cute Chinese girl, but I met her in San Jose, and she speaks perfect English. Nonetheless, my Chinese language ability helped her family to accept me, and there is no way you can marry a Chinese girl if her family doesn't like you.
playing games where they trade renewable energy that they produce during the day for non-renewable energy that they consume at night.
Since that results in real CO2 reduction, how is it "playing games"?
Storing enough renewable energy to let you actually run exclusively on renewable energy is much less so.
This is just plain stupid. Why in the world should they store energy in expensive batteries when there are people on the grid that can use it RIGHT NOW? Storing is wasteful of energy due to charge/discharge inefficiencies, and wasteful of money that could be spent on even more PV panels or turbines.
It is the amount of CO2 reduction that counts, not the "purity" of how it is done.
They'll be powered by the same grid mix as everyone around them.
Sure, but THE MIX WILL CHANGE. Electricity is fungible. Pull a watt from the grid, and you can't say where it came from. But Facebook's dollars are going to a clean power company putting watts into the grid, and the amount of clean energy will go up as clean providers expand capacity.
Actually, if you think there were more than two viable candidates...
You refuse to vote for them because they are not viable, yet they are not viable because people like you refuse to vote for them. Ergo, you are the problem.
It is silly to vote for what you don't want, and then complain when you get it.
Most people in USA can't even speak English properly. Good luck teaching them Chinese.
If you learn Chinese as a child, it is easier than English. The grammar is simpler, there are no irregular verbs, and the pronouns are drop-dead simple. You don't need regionalisms like "y'all" to make up for a lack of a second person plural, or singular "their" to make up for the lack of a gender neutral third person pronoun. There is no difference between subjective pronouns (I, we, they, who) and objective (me, us, them, whom).
I speak both. Chinese is better for haggling and insults. English is better for technical discussions and for expressing nuanced opinions. English is faster to write. Chinese is faster to read.
TFA is not news for nerds either. A Chromebook is fine if all you want is a browser-in-a-box. But it is inappropriate for almost anyone who wants to create anything digital.
Also, how dense do you have to be to need 10 years to figure out that a computer at a tenth the price of a MacBook is good enough to meet all your needs?
Disclaimer: I bought a Chromebook for my kid. When he breaks it, I am only out $149.
In America, a scammer can use semi-public information such as your name, DOB, SSN and/or credit card numbers to take money from your account, or incur debt in your name.
Chinese banks are more sensible, and identity theft is a non-issue there.
Are you suggesting there isn't a set of rules regarding what is allowed?
Yes. There is no fixed set of rules, nor any published set of rules.
The censoring is very different depending on location, time, and forum. Filtering is most strict in Beijing because it is the political center of China, but also in Xinjiang and Tibet. In a 2nd tier city like, say, Wuhan, there is much less monitoring. Censorship is stricter around sensitive dates, especially June 4th, but also May 4th (On May 4th, 1919 there was rioting in China after the publication of the Versailles Treaty). So even using the numbers 64 or 54 might get a post deleted in a political forum, but not in a math forum.
a hotmail address shows that you've actually got some experience
Nope. It just shows that you are old. If a younger person has the same knowledge and skills as you, then it is reasonable to conclude that you are a slow learner.
How many rich people own factories? Answer: Nearly none.
Apple is the most valuable public corporation in the history of the world. This is how many factories they own: 0.
You seem to be assuming anthroform "Rosie the Workerbot"s, or similar automation
Nope. I am assuming that manufacturing is 15% of the American economy and will continue to decline. I am also assuming that the falling cost of automation will continue to fall.
Inequality may be a worse problem in the future, but it will not be because "only the rich will have robots".
It will be restricted simply because most people won't be able to afford it.
A decade ago industrial robots were heavy, rigid and expensive, because that was the only way to make the repeatedly accurate. Today they are light, flexible, and cheap, and the accurate is achieved with low cost cameras and software. The cost of automation is declining rapidly.
Right now, there are no restrictions on industrial robots, but none of my friends have one.
This has nothing to do with "affordability". You can buy a nice industrial robot on eBay for the cost of a new refrigerator.
I am not "rich", yet I have a CNC mill, lathe, and XYZ router in my garage. Most people do not have any of these, but that is because they don't know what to do with them, not because of affordability.
If it's so popular, then implementing it with legislation should be a snap.
Not necessarily. Politicians do plenty of unpopular things if the money and/or passion are on the other side.
Would you vote for a politician based on NN, even if you disagree on other issues? Would you donate money? For nearly everyone, the answers are "no" and "hell no".
American corporations are not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people, and at least for now they consider their rapidly rising standard of living to be a reasonable tradeoff for the CCP's censorship.
Google can play a positive role in China, and it is better for them to engage than to leave the market to companies like Baidu that will be even more compliant censors.
The petitioners are insisting on a worse outcome because it is more ideologically pure.
Slashdot Mirror
Stupid question for us plebes in the US... where is a good place to get started learning Chinese, both written and conversational?
If you are an adult English speaker, learning Chinese is going to be REALLY hard. Three reasons:
1. The characters. You need to memorize 1500 for basic literacy, and 3000 to match a college educated Chinese citizen.
2. The tones. Inflection changes the meaning of words, and it is really hard for an adult brain to adapt to this.
3. The idioms. English has idioms like "raining cats and dogs" that you just have to memorize. Chinese has WAY more. Personally, I think the idioms are fun to learn, but there are a lot of them.
Ask yourself WHY you want to learn Chinese. Unless you go to China, it is not very useful. Any Chinese speaker you meet in America will also speak English. It is not an international language like Spanish or French, which are spoken in dozens of countries. If you are just a visitor to China, you can get by with English pretty easily.
I learned Chinese for 2 reasons:
1. The company I worked for had an office in Shanghai, and I wanted to go work there.
2. I think Chinese girls are irresistibly cute.
The first reason worked well. I worked in Shanghai for several years, and I now rotate there for 3-4 months every year from our main office in San Jose.
The second reason, not quite so well. I did indeed find a very cute Chinese girl, but I met her in San Jose, and she speaks perfect English. Nonetheless, my Chinese language ability helped her family to accept me, and there is no way you can marry a Chinese girl if her family doesn't like you.
Why do the miners deserve more compassion?
Because they live in swing states.
Nope. The biggest coal mining states are:
1. Wyoming
2. West Virginia
3. Kentucky
All are solid Trump territory.
Pennsylvania is swing, but the coal there is metallurgical anthracite.
Because it doesn't scale.
Just because a solution won't work in 2060 doesn't mean it isn't a good solution today. We are a long long way from "too much clean energy".
playing games where they trade renewable energy that they produce during the day for non-renewable energy that they consume at night.
Since that results in real CO2 reduction, how is it "playing games"?
Storing enough renewable energy to let you actually run exclusively on renewable energy is much less so.
This is just plain stupid. Why in the world should they store energy in expensive batteries when there are people on the grid that can use it RIGHT NOW? Storing is wasteful of energy due to charge/discharge inefficiencies, and wasteful of money that could be spent on even more PV panels or turbines.
It is the amount of CO2 reduction that counts, not the "purity" of how it is done.
I only hope that the people pushing these changes have some compassion for those less fortunate than myself.
Why should they? Coalminers may lose jobs, but solar panel and wind turbine manufacturers will create jobs. Why do the miners deserve more compassion?
They'll be powered by the same grid mix as everyone around them.
Sure, but THE MIX WILL CHANGE. Electricity is fungible. Pull a watt from the grid, and you can't say where it came from. But Facebook's dollars are going to a clean power company putting watts into the grid, and the amount of clean energy will go up as clean providers expand capacity.
1) New York is a city. Has a high-density downtown core which most people live in.
Nope. NYC metro area has a population of over 20M. Only 8.6M live in the city itself, and only 1.6M of those are in Manhattan.
NYC has a strong NIMBY movement, and it is very difficult to get building permits for new downtown housing.
Chicago is a city. Has a high-density downtown core which most people live in.
Nope. Chicago is even more skewed than NYC toward suburban sprawl into "Chicagoland", extending into Indiana and Wisconsin.
Actually, if you think there were more than two viable candidates ...
You refuse to vote for them because they are not viable, yet they are not viable because people like you refuse to vote for them. Ergo, you are the problem.
It is silly to vote for what you don't want, and then complain when you get it.
Many cities restrict downtown development, so you end up living in the endless suburban sprawl even if you would prefer a downtown condo.
Most people in USA can't even speak English properly. Good luck teaching them Chinese.
If you learn Chinese as a child, it is easier than English. The grammar is simpler, there are no irregular verbs, and the pronouns are drop-dead simple. You don't need regionalisms like "y'all" to make up for a lack of a second person plural, or singular "their" to make up for the lack of a gender neutral third person pronoun. There is no difference between subjective pronouns (I, we, they, who) and objective (me, us, them, whom).
I speak both. Chinese is better for haggling and insults. English is better for technical discussions and for expressing nuanced opinions. English is faster to write. Chinese is faster to read.
The liquid cooled Crays were the coolest thing
Cool for their day, but my iPhone has way more compute capacity today. Custom CPUs can't compete with a 14nm fab, and never will again.
it appears to be a huge pile of Dell blades
It is more than that. What makes it a "supercomputer" is the fast interconnects between the blades.
It'd be nice to see some specs: Intel or AMD CPUs?
Who cares? Most of the compute capacity is in the GPU, not the CPU. The press release mentions Nvidia.
This is just a funding announcement. It is likely light on tech details because the details haven't actually been ironed out yet.
not news for nerds, and not stuff that matters.
TFA is not news for nerds either. A Chromebook is fine if all you want is a browser-in-a-box. But it is inappropriate for almost anyone who wants to create anything digital.
Also, how dense do you have to be to need 10 years to figure out that a computer at a tenth the price of a MacBook is good enough to meet all your needs?
Disclaimer: I bought a Chromebook for my kid. When he breaks it, I am only out $149.
As opposed to the US where we've repeatedly had a choice between two truly awful candidates.
If you think there were only two candidates, you are the problem.
China's middle class is about 400 million, the world's largest. At least 130 million of them can afford to stay in a nice hotel.
In America, a scammer can use semi-public information such as your name, DOB, SSN and/or credit card numbers to take money from your account, or incur debt in your name.
Chinese banks are more sensible, and identity theft is a non-issue there.
Are you suggesting there isn't a set of rules regarding what is allowed?
Yes. There is no fixed set of rules, nor any published set of rules.
The censoring is very different depending on location, time, and forum. Filtering is most strict in Beijing because it is the political center of China, but also in Xinjiang and Tibet. In a 2nd tier city like, say, Wuhan, there is much less monitoring. Censorship is stricter around sensitive dates, especially June 4th, but also May 4th (On May 4th, 1919 there was rioting in China after the publication of the Versailles Treaty). So even using the numbers 64 or 54 might get a post deleted in a political forum, but not in a math forum.
So you suggest seeking a better outcome through more reprehensible means? While I see your point, that doesn't excuse evil.
An imperfect improvement is better than none.
If Google search goes back to China, a billion people will have another choice, and no one will be worse off. How is that "evil"?
Is this a suggestion that the Chinese government is willing to allow Google some leeway or breaks in their implementation of the firewall?
Yes. The GFWOC is much less monolithic than you seem to believe.
Have you ever been to China? You seem to have some naive ideas about how things work there.
Disclaimer: I have an ulterior motive for wanting Google back in China: Baidu's English language search engine sucks.
a hotmail address shows that you've actually got some experience
Nope. It just shows that you are old. If a younger person has the same knowledge and skills as you, then it is reasonable to conclude that you are a slow learner.
I'm not sure why an employer would want that
Perhaps because obsessive paranoid people don't get much work done.
How many poor people own factories?
How many rich people own factories? Answer: Nearly none.
Apple is the most valuable public corporation in the history of the world. This is how many factories they own: 0.
You seem to be assuming anthroform "Rosie the Workerbot"s, or similar automation
Nope. I am assuming that manufacturing is 15% of the American economy and will continue to decline. I am also assuming that the falling cost of automation will continue to fall.
Inequality may be a worse problem in the future, but it will not be because "only the rich will have robots".
The Internet is Common Carrier, by act of Congress.
Bullcrap. Cite the "act of Congress".
It will be restricted simply because most people won't be able to afford it.
A decade ago industrial robots were heavy, rigid and expensive, because that was the only way to make the repeatedly accurate. Today they are light, flexible, and cheap, and the accurate is achieved with low cost cameras and software. The cost of automation is declining rapidly.
Right now, there are no restrictions on industrial robots, but none of my friends have one.
This has nothing to do with "affordability". You can buy a nice industrial robot on eBay for the cost of a new refrigerator.
I am not "rich", yet I have a CNC mill, lathe, and XYZ router in my garage. Most people do not have any of these, but that is because they don't know what to do with them, not because of affordability.
If it's so popular, then implementing it with legislation should be a snap.
Not necessarily. Politicians do plenty of unpopular things if the money and/or passion are on the other side.
Would you vote for a politician based on NN, even if you disagree on other issues? Would you donate money? For nearly everyone, the answers are "no" and "hell no".
American corporations are not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people, and at least for now they consider their rapidly rising standard of living to be a reasonable tradeoff for the CCP's censorship.
Google can play a positive role in China, and it is better for them to engage than to leave the market to companies like Baidu that will be even more compliant censors.
The petitioners are insisting on a worse outcome because it is more ideologically pure.