On closer inspection, it looks like it would be pretty difficult to make an actual functioning city based on this map, if for no reason than the map doesn't allow for adequate industrial development to support everything else. I count fewer than 20 inustrial sites, mostly centered arround the waterfront area.
I don't see the Flanders house in Pressboard Estates anywhere. Given the prominence of the character that seems like a pretty major omission. What gives?
Minitel began as a cool technology. However, as the international internet developed much faster it was left behind. The established proprietary standard in France then served as an obstacle to fast deployment of the internet in France because of its momentum. People had their minitels, knew how to use them, and didn't rush to embrace the now better international standard. This was compounded by the French government's insistance on keeping the technology on life-support even when it became clear its days were numbered. China has an oportunity to develop with the world, or it can adopt its own standard and eventually be left behind a la minitel.
China is now a political superpower, but it's still got a very long way to go before it is an economic superpower on the level of the US and the EU -- decades, at current growth rates.
And, they're not US standards, they're international standards. Most of those named in the article are controlled by Japanese companies. The world economy is still much, much larger than the Chinese economy. Because of this, much more research is being done on international standards like CDMA than is being done on their chinese counterpart. For example, even with China's population, tiny Japan alone still does a lot more research in the consumer electronics area. Eventually when the international standards innevitably develop beyond the chinese standards because of the disparaty in research, the Chinese will have to devote resources to catch up to the rest of the word when they could have piggybacked on the rest of the word's efforts.
Adopting standards means a greater level of both cooperation and competition with the rest of the world, and that means more economic development. While national standards may have a short-term benefit to some Chinese corporations, in the long term there will be a detremental effect to the Chinese economy as a whole.
China has the larges population, but not the largest economy. The economic potential you refer to is only potential, and the current reality is that China is not poised to overtake the US and the EU for decades, even if current rates of growth continue. Maybe in some future economy where China does indeed dominate it will have the clout to make the world adopt its standards. The vast majority of technical progress takes place outside of China, and this nationalistic hubris with regards to standards threatens China's ability to take advantage of others' advances. Closed systems retard growth.
Creating national standards is an eventual dead-end. Eventually, when the Next Big Thing overtakes the world, these national standards will only serve as an impediment to technical progress in China. Remember Minitel vs the global internet in France? If it's this kind of backwards progress they're after, they might as well invent their own alternative to the metric system.
Don't forget the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. Legend has it that on every memorial day it becomes a ghost ship and floats in the sky above the Norfolk Navy Yard.
What is it about baseball that makes it the ultimate nerd sport? I see so many articles about the physics of baseball, or the statistics of baseball, but nothing for basketball (arguably a more popular sport in the world these days). Is it that it can be devided into small statistic-friendly chunks? Football has chunks. Is it because the parabolic flight of a homerun makes it an obvious physics problem? Basketball works too for those. What gives?
Bradbury spoke at our college graduation in 2001. Most of his address was centered on the need for manned space, starting with a colony on mars. (not an actual quote:) "Now go forth, graduates, and colonize mars," pretty much sums it up. Much of the content in the article seems familiar from there, especially the part about space needing an audience. He also stressed the need for science fiction writers to act as visionaries guiding society towards space.
Many of us graduates were a little dissappointed in the speach, accurately pointing out that there were likely not any future astronauts or SF writers in the audience that day. While I thought it was kind of neat to get to hear a literary icon speak at a graduation, I am skeptical of the role that these writers should play in influencing public policy on these issues. People like Bradbury are driven by their emotions and immaginations, noble characteristics, but I think that a solid cost/benefit analysis is the only reasonable way to decide what to do with the billions of taxpayer dollars at stake here.
Still, he seems like a nice guy. It would be nice to give him his mars mission while he's still arround.
Since he can expect to make at least $1500 dollars in profit after posting the customs bail, I don't think there's enough incentive for the scammer to take the added risk of paying by stolen credit card. Cash is the ultimate anonymous payment.
I think the article greatly exagerates both the audience and the importance of this website. I live in Japan, and travel in fairly geeky circles, but none of my Japanese friends in IT had heard of the website. I also frequently read the newspapers and occasionally the tabloids, but I haven't seen it mentioned there either.
It's true that there haven't been many successful "web communities" in Japan until now (unless, of course, you count the sex sites), and most internet usage here has been business oriented or mapquest-style information searches (and of course email). However, I would suggest that was not due to any fundamental difference in Japanese society, but rather to the fact that until the recent expansion of Japanese broadband options, almost all Japanese internet access was dial-up. And in Japan, dial-up access means an expensive per-minute charge. So it's only natural that until recently most Japanese internet users would limit their use to fairly non-timeconsuming activities. After all, we all know what a waste of time Slashdot can be.
But man, that sites a mess. It makes this site seem like a super-organized fountain of relevant comentary. Somebody should point him to slash.
People get things they don't deserve all the time. In some cases, it can actually be in the common good to give some people things they don't deserve.
For instance, many people argue against free needle programs for heroin addicts, arguing that druggies don't deserve a government handout. However, if such programs reduce the overall cost of city health programs, they are in the best interest of everyone and should be done anyway, regardless of what anyone deserves. Similarly, in this case there is a negligable cost increase to MS for providing updates to pirates (unless you actually believe that the lack of a security update is going to make a significant number of them rush out and get legitimate copies). This cost will be passed on to the purchasers. However, in this case, I think the potential benefits to the users far outweigh the cost they would have to pay. So, fair or not, pirates should be given their free update.
If I recall records should theoretically last the longest, especially if they're printed on anything more durable than vinyl. Didn't they send a gold record into space with one of the probes with recordings of common earth sounds?
Yeah, but businesses spend a lot more on computers than just the sticker price. These days a lot of money is being spent on supporting virus-plagued MS windows installations. I imagine that MS's pitch to businesses will be that Longhorn is perfectly secure and stable, and they will never have to worry about the latest virus again.
Of course, some of us already fell for that once with windows2000...
Then again, mabye they'll just make it so XP machines can't read Word Longhord edition documents, and then everyone will have to bend over and drop trou for microsoft.
While I am willing to accept that this guy does indeed own this car, I can almost guarantee you that the girl riding with him in the pictures is a rental.
If I was some überhäcker who was bent on world domination through some nefarious trojan horse in the guise of a service pack, I would most certainly tell people to backup data before installng it. This is because no matter how much you tell typical users to back up before upgrading, they simply will not do it. I mean, how long can you expect them to wait to do a backup when we're talking about improved USB support here. And then once you've ravaged your system, you can tell them "I told you that you should have backed up," and you're that much more evil and your überhäcker karma goes up. Mwah ha ha ha...
Slashdot Mirror
My vote for first all-artificial movie would go to the silent cartoons of the early 20th century.
Don't miss out on this incredible offer!
On closer inspection, it looks like it would be pretty difficult to make an actual functioning city based on this map, if for no reason than the map doesn't allow for adequate industrial development to support everything else. I count fewer than 20 inustrial sites, mostly centered arround the waterfront area.
I don't see the Flanders house in Pressboard Estates anywhere. Given the prominence of the character that seems like a pretty major omission. What gives?
I was just wondering if there was anyway to make a decent Sim City 4 terrain template based on this...
Minitel began as a cool technology. However, as the international internet developed much faster it was left behind. The established proprietary standard in France then served as an obstacle to fast deployment of the internet in France because of its momentum. People had their minitels, knew how to use them, and didn't rush to embrace the now better international standard. This was compounded by the French government's insistance on keeping the technology on life-support even when it became clear its days were numbered. China has an oportunity to develop with the world, or it can adopt its own standard and eventually be left behind a la minitel.
And, they're not US standards, they're international standards. Most of those named in the article are controlled by Japanese companies. The world economy is still much, much larger than the Chinese economy. Because of this, much more research is being done on international standards like CDMA than is being done on their chinese counterpart. For example, even with China's population, tiny Japan alone still does a lot more research in the consumer electronics area. Eventually when the international standards innevitably develop beyond the chinese standards because of the disparaty in research, the Chinese will have to devote resources to catch up to the rest of the word when they could have piggybacked on the rest of the word's efforts.
Adopting standards means a greater level of both cooperation and competition with the rest of the world, and that means more economic development. While national standards may have a short-term benefit to some Chinese corporations, in the long term there will be a detremental effect to the Chinese economy as a whole.
China has the larges population, but not the largest economy. The economic potential you refer to is only potential, and the current reality is that China is not poised to overtake the US and the EU for decades, even if current rates of growth continue. Maybe in some future economy where China does indeed dominate it will have the clout to make the world adopt its standards. The vast majority of technical progress takes place outside of China, and this nationalistic hubris with regards to standards threatens China's ability to take advantage of others' advances. Closed systems retard growth.
Creating national standards is an eventual dead-end. Eventually, when the Next Big Thing overtakes the world, these national standards will only serve as an impediment to technical progress in China. Remember Minitel vs the global internet in France? If it's this kind of backwards progress they're after, they might as well invent their own alternative to the metric system.
"Hello, I'm doing a study for the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory on passwords..."
woooooo......... scary, eh kids?
What is it about baseball that makes it the ultimate nerd sport? I see so many articles about the physics of baseball, or the statistics of baseball, but nothing for basketball (arguably a more popular sport in the world these days). Is it that it can be devided into small statistic-friendly chunks? Football has chunks. Is it because the parabolic flight of a homerun makes it an obvious physics problem? Basketball works too for those. What gives?
I predict the day is nigh when human beings will be able to comunicate using their mouths.. You heard it here first.
Hey I think you just invented the next x-game.
Many of us graduates were a little dissappointed in the speach, accurately pointing out that there were likely not any future astronauts or SF writers in the audience that day. While I thought it was kind of neat to get to hear a literary icon speak at a graduation, I am skeptical of the role that these writers should play in influencing public policy on these issues. People like Bradbury are driven by their emotions and immaginations, noble characteristics, but I think that a solid cost/benefit analysis is the only reasonable way to decide what to do with the billions of taxpayer dollars at stake here.
Still, he seems like a nice guy. It would be nice to give him his mars mission while he's still arround.
Since he can expect to make at least $1500 dollars in profit after posting the customs bail, I don't think there's enough incentive for the scammer to take the added risk of paying by stolen credit card. Cash is the ultimate anonymous payment.
Quick! Invest in lightbulb manufacturers!
It's true that there haven't been many successful "web communities" in Japan until now (unless, of course, you count the sex sites), and most internet usage here has been business oriented or mapquest-style information searches (and of course email). However, I would suggest that was not due to any fundamental difference in Japanese society, but rather to the fact that until the recent expansion of Japanese broadband options, almost all Japanese internet access was dial-up. And in Japan, dial-up access means an expensive per-minute charge. So it's only natural that until recently most Japanese internet users would limit their use to fairly non-timeconsuming activities. After all, we all know what a waste of time Slashdot can be.
But man, that sites a mess. It makes this site seem like a super-organized fountain of relevant comentary. Somebody should point him to slash.
For instance, many people argue against free needle programs for heroin addicts, arguing that druggies don't deserve a government handout. However, if such programs reduce the overall cost of city health programs, they are in the best interest of everyone and should be done anyway, regardless of what anyone deserves. Similarly, in this case there is a negligable cost increase to MS for providing updates to pirates (unless you actually believe that the lack of a security update is going to make a significant number of them rush out and get legitimate copies). This cost will be passed on to the purchasers. However, in this case, I think the potential benefits to the users far outweigh the cost they would have to pay. So, fair or not, pirates should be given their free update.
If I recall records should theoretically last the longest, especially if they're printed on anything more durable than vinyl. Didn't they send a gold record into space with one of the probes with recordings of common earth sounds?
Computer! Reply to message!
Of course, some of us already fell for that once with windows2000...
Then again, mabye they'll just make it so XP machines can't read Word Longhord edition documents, and then everyone will have to bend over and drop trou for microsoft.
While I am willing to accept that this guy does indeed own this car, I can almost guarantee you that the girl riding with him in the pictures is a rental.
Does auto insurance cover accidents on the water?
If I was some überhäcker who was bent on world domination through some nefarious trojan horse in the guise of a service pack, I would most certainly tell people to backup data before installng it. This is because no matter how much you tell typical users to back up before upgrading, they simply will not do it. I mean, how long can you expect them to wait to do a backup when we're talking about improved USB support here. And then once you've ravaged your system, you can tell them "I told you that you should have backed up," and you're that much more evil and your überhäcker karma goes up. Mwah ha ha ha...