Standby requires very little power. Couldn't they just put a battery in the computer that keeps giving power to the computer in standby? By the time the battery wears out, most users will have gotten a new computer, anyway.
I just got back from living in Japan not too long ago. Over there, we got 100 mbps up AND down for about ~$40/month. Near the end of my stay there, I got a letter from my ISP stating that they're going to start implementing a bandwidth cap, and that no user can upload 500gb/month, but downloading is still unlimited.
This year, I read on Slashdot that AU/KDDI is unrolling a 1gbps line for a similarly cheap price.
If you want my sympathy for ISPs in America, get back to me when I get even one tenth of the service I got in Japan. I'd like to extend a big middle finger of gratitude to all American ISPs. No one is spouting the gloom and doom over in Asia, and meanwhile, they're shooting ahead into the future of the internet. Asia's been rolling out fibre-optics, at great cost to them, but with spectacular results. Conversely, we sit on our asses and wonder how we can charge more money to more users to put them through the same amount of pipes without upgrading infrastructure.
**** you, American ISPs.
Signed, Someone who's seen the other side of the world, and it was better.
Perhaps no Chinese study science in Canada (or wherever Victoria University is), but at Purdue (Indiana, USA), you'd have to be blind to miss the Chinese studying in all fields of science. There's nearly as many Chinese students as there are black students, and lots of Chinese professors, too.
Some games just aren't as good or are totally different games in 3D. Sonic, Mario, Metroid, Secret of Mana, etc... Seriously, who wouldn't want to play a good Super Mario World 3? And let's not forget the atrocities that happened when Capcom brought Mega Man into 3D (X7, X8)...
Nearly every time I see someone driving outlandishly stupid on the road, they're using a cell phone. However, there are more stupid things that you can do while driving that are more distracting than a cell phone: changing the radio, eating, drinking, looking for something, reading directions. None of these things are illegal, merely discouraged.
Outlawing cell phone use while driving is futile; there are always ways to get around it, e.g., hands-free links. If there is no way to enforce a law, it shouldn't be a law in the first place.
I think if we stopped trying to ban it and merely strongly recommended not using cell phones while driving, we would see an effective drop in the number of people using cell phones while driving. Seat belts, for instance, weren't enforced until this past decade (at least in my state). However, advertising, education, and signs asking you to buckle up made it so the vast majority did buckle up. Was it illegal to drive without a seat belt on? No. Was it safe? Yes, so most people did it. Why can't we approach the cellphone problem like we approached the seat belt problem? Why are we so gungho about laws and declaring everything unsatisfactory illegal nowadays?
At least in my opinion, it's a lot nicer to just click a button and browse privately, and then click it again after you're finished than to have to open up a whole new window like in Chrome. I really think the "open new Incognito window" would be more usable if it was an "open new Incognito tab", instead. Although maybe that's just my opinion.
The govt should have no part in this. This isn't a Microsoft-enforced monopoly. There is nothing stopping vendors from offering Linux laptops (though if you want to talk monopoly, vendors aren't allowed offer Mac-based laptops). The only reason other OSes haven't caught on is because they're not profitable. It's a socially-enforced monopoly, if no one ones to use anything other than a Microsoft computer (and the Microsoft eeePCs have been more popular than the Linux ones, if I'm not mistaken) then the vendors aren't going to offer anything other than a Microsoft PC. That has nothing to do with Microsoft monopolistic tactics, that has everything to do with consumer opinions and their confidence in being able to use a different OS.
I'm currently living and Japan and would like to note that for all of the notoriously computer-ignorant people in America, Japan's computer ignorancy problem is ten-fold. Computers simply aren't used as a part of every day life in Japan as they are in America, and there aren't even basic use classes is most schools through college. IE6 is still the big web browser, and the most important factor in buying a computer (which is terribly overpriced because of Japan's tendency to use only Japan-made products for everything) is how cute it is.
I might add that it is interesting you mention that about the Philippines, though. Considering a supposed 70% of Philippines think that Japan has a positive influence on the world, I'm a bit surprised to hear that the old people still have such a grudge.
But then again, I guess there's still old people in America that don't like Japan. Can't be helped, as they say.;-)
The Yasukuni Shrine I think has always been a scapegoat. 2.7 million Japanese died in WWII. 2.46 million are enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine is, more or less, a shrine to all those that died in the war. And of those enshrined there, 1086 were convicted of war crimes. That means 0.04% of those enshrined there are war criminals. But yet, the Japanese should be apologetic to other nations for visiting the shrine? Or they shouldn't visit the shrine to honor the other 2,464,932 people enshrined there? Does it not just seem like an excuse to be angry at Japan?
And the biggest reason China and Korea hate Japan still, I think, is those governments have been the most proactive in spreading anti-Japanese propaganda, until recent years when relations have finally improved a little. It wasn't the freedom of the press that made Chinese people angry enough at Japan to refuse earthquake aid from them, it was because they, and their parents, and even their grandparents have always been brought up being told that Japan is evil, they've committed atrocities, and the country is vile. So now that China is finally opening up, it's very easy for a Chinese person to look on the internet and see that, in fact, Japan DID commit atrocities. But Japan has forgiven America for the atomic bomb, because the Japanese people haven't grown up being told that America is a spawn of hell that heartlessly destroyed two cities filled with civilians. Chinese, on the other hand, have grown up being told that, so when they see facts showing that such atrocities did happen, it just reaffirms their anger that they've been taught to have. And even with little to no propaganda now, the damage has been done, and the hatred will stay for the next 50 years until the current generation is old and begins to die.
We have nothing on China. According to the BBC's annual poll of nations opinions of other nations influence, 90% of Chinese think China has a positive influence on the world. Ninety percent. That's not only provocative, but outrageous. That's surely similar to 1940s-era America, hardly like now, where only 56% of Americans believe that America has a positive influence on the world.
China has an unquestionable horrifying nationalism problem. This can be seen in issues such as Tibet and Taiwan. What's troubling isn't that Chinese want Tibet and Taiwan to be part of China, I can view that as acceptable. What isn't acceptable, however, are such obvious propaganda-induced lines of reasoning such as "Tibet has always been a part of China and forever will be a part of China." Not only is that false -- Tibet was its own country until China marched in there 50 years ago and took it, but that's how it works in war; winner takes all. But then the Chinese government proceeded to educate their entire 1+ billion population that, indeed, Tibet had always been a part of China, and that anyone who questioned otherwise was not Chinese and was siding with the Dalai Lama, who isn't even human.
Another Nationalism-brought issue outlined by the BBC poll is its hatred of Japan. There are only two important countries in the world that hate Japan -- China and South Korea. One might argue that it's because of Japan's war-time atrocities that they never properly atoned for. They have apologized many times, however poorly, and Japan is not elegant in international relations. That said, my argument is, East Asia was hugely and negatively affected by the Japanese Empire. China and South Korea aren't the only countries affected with horrendous atrocities. But why then, have all of the other South-East nations forgiven Japan, but China and South Korea haven't? Only 12% of Chinese carry a positive view of Japan's influence on the world -- not opinion of Japan, but opinion of the positiveness of Japan's influence on the world. Whereas in Taiwan, Japan's very popular culturally, even though many elderly people still speak Japanese from being forced to learn it during occupation!
And my last argument -- Anti-Anti-Chinese protests? VIOLENT Anti-Anti-Chinese protests, with prevalent stalking and death threats of anyone that criticized China? C'mon, that's pitiful.
And to any Chinese that might be reading this, my message would be that there's nothing wrong with being proud to be Chinese. There's nothing wrong with wanting the Chinese people to be united and patriotic. But people and government are separate. Just because you're Chinese doesn't mean you have to defend your government for no other reason than that it's my government, just how Americans don't have to defend President Bush just because he's my President. Nationalism is good in small doses for the morale of a country, but in large quantities like currently present in China, war is almost certainly inevitable. Think about the nationalism of 1940s America, 1940s Japan, 1940s Nazi Germany (hah, Godwin's law strikes again!). Unchecked Nationalism only brings horror and foolish decisions, all for the sake of being Chinese, or being American, or being Japanese, or being German.
This is really a golden opportunity for the open source community, I think. I've never switched to Linux -- never wanted to, never needed to, and Linux never offered me anything that I wanted that I couldn't get on Windows. But with the advent of Windows Vista, a great many people are unhappy; with the notion of cheap laptops running Windows Vista laughable, and with Windows 7 looking to be like more bloat on top of Vista, there's a huge hole that's opening up in the cheap laptop and computer market.
Once Windows XP is phased out, then cheap laptop market will have no choice but to switch almost fully to Linux, or else force their users to use a horribly slow version of Vista on hardware that it's not meant to be run on. In the next coming months and years, I hope the prospect of a huge adoption of Linux on laptops could spur excitement in the Open Source community, and the community as a whole can then work together (seperately, but with a common goal) of making an OS that is truly mass-market ready and ready to be rolled out on exactly the kind of laptops that OEMs are looking for -- less PC and more gadget.
As you say this, I'm enjoying my 100mbit uncapped fiber connection in Japan for less than $40/month, and that includes the fiber connection (NTT) AND my provider, OCN (here in Japan, the actual internet company and the providers are different, and there is much competition in the providers).
No Child Left Behind is very harmful to intelligent kids. When I was in middle school, I learnt close to nothing and the only thing that was widely regarded was improvement, not achievement. At the end of the year, the school always handed out awards to exemplary students, and there were maybe 10 awards for various kinds of improvement, and then maybe one award for achievements or grades.
Having been home schooled until second grade, we finally decided to quit school and begin homeschooling again after 7th grade. This is when I was 12. At 13, we found that IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) offered a program called SPAN, which basically allows you to take any college course for both college credit and equivalent high school credit. And since college work is much harder than high school work, they're sometimes worth more credits, too. In other words, I was able to completely replace all of my public middle school and high school, and all of my home schooling with full-time college. Doing so, I entered college at the age of 13.
IUPUI isn't the only college doing this, though. America has many of the best colleges and universities in the world, and its public school system is among the worst (down near the likes of Mexico last I saw a report on it, and that was years ago when schools were better). The universities here are increasingly growing weary of having to teach freshman what they used to learn in high school. Universities now love home schoolers because they have a much better education, and they are usually more disciplined and ready for college than their public school counter-parts.
The American school system is steadily moving towards a point where if you want your child to attend college, you can't enroll them in a public school.
And on reviewing the original article, I don't see anything that implies that it comes from an unnamed official. The whole article is reported as though this is a fact, so I'm guessing it is.
Based on fact or not, this article has reasonably solid-backing -- this story was run a couple day ago in the Yomiuri Shinbun, which is not only a major newspaper in Japan, but it has the highest newspaper circulation in the world.
Every time I see an article about CAPTCHAs being broken, I always think, "Why not try animated CAPTCHAs?"
Surely something this simple has been thought of before and tried; is there any reason it wouldn't work? Or would it just have the same effectiveness as a static-image CAPTCHA, and so there's just no reason to put forth the effort to make one?
Might I add that Japan has one of the lowest child abuse rates in the world, but lolicon is available quite freely. Viewing images of fake children and fucking a toddler are unrelated, just as pro Counter-Strike players playing Counter-Strike everyday doesn't lead them to go out, buy sub-machine guns, and kill people.
If there's anything I've learned from living in Japan, it's that if a Japanese company says that something's not good, most of the time it's because it won't allow said Japanese company to screw the consumer.
I'm going to be cheering for ASUS on this one, for sure.
My personal boycott is because they open my god-damn games. You can't go into Gamestop to buy anything without them having taken off the plastic wrap (or for PC games, cut or torn off the seal), opened the game up, and sloppily thrown the game disc(s) into crappy paper sleeves to store in a cabinet.
What if someone were to buy a game as a Christmas present, only to find out that someone else had already bought it? As soon as they walk out the Gamestop door, that game is now worth the $5 trade-in value, even if you've never opened it and still have the receipt; because the plastic-wrap is no longer on the game, you can't prove that you didn't open it.
It's bullshit policy. I want my "new" games, "new", not "mint" condition.
Slashdot Mirror
Standby requires very little power. Couldn't they just put a battery in the computer that keeps giving power to the computer in standby? By the time the battery wears out, most users will have gotten a new computer, anyway.
Our rules are usually never quite as strict as yours, but similar rules are in place for US passports (head location and size, background, etc...)
I just got back from living in Japan not too long ago. Over there, we got 100 mbps up AND down for about ~$40/month. Near the end of my stay there, I got a letter from my ISP stating that they're going to start implementing a bandwidth cap, and that no user can upload 500gb/month, but downloading is still unlimited.
This year, I read on Slashdot that AU/KDDI is unrolling a 1gbps line for a similarly cheap price.
If you want my sympathy for ISPs in America, get back to me when I get even one tenth of the service I got in Japan. I'd like to extend a big middle finger of gratitude to all American ISPs. No one is spouting the gloom and doom over in Asia, and meanwhile, they're shooting ahead into the future of the internet. Asia's been rolling out fibre-optics, at great cost to them, but with spectacular results. Conversely, we sit on our asses and wonder how we can charge more money to more users to put them through the same amount of pipes without upgrading infrastructure.
**** you, American ISPs.
Signed,
Someone who's seen the other side of the world, and it was better.
Perhaps no Chinese study science in Canada (or wherever Victoria University is), but at Purdue (Indiana, USA), you'd have to be blind to miss the Chinese studying in all fields of science. There's nearly as many Chinese students as there are black students, and lots of Chinese professors, too.
Some games just aren't as good or are totally different games in 3D. Sonic, Mario, Metroid, Secret of Mana, etc... Seriously, who wouldn't want to play a good Super Mario World 3? And let's not forget the atrocities that happened when Capcom brought Mega Man into 3D (X7, X8)...
Nearly every time I see someone driving outlandishly stupid on the road, they're using a cell phone. However, there are more stupid things that you can do while driving that are more distracting than a cell phone: changing the radio, eating, drinking, looking for something, reading directions. None of these things are illegal, merely discouraged.
Outlawing cell phone use while driving is futile; there are always ways to get around it, e.g., hands-free links. If there is no way to enforce a law, it shouldn't be a law in the first place.
I think if we stopped trying to ban it and merely strongly recommended not using cell phones while driving, we would see an effective drop in the number of people using cell phones while driving. Seat belts, for instance, weren't enforced until this past decade (at least in my state). However, advertising, education, and signs asking you to buckle up made it so the vast majority did buckle up. Was it illegal to drive without a seat belt on? No. Was it safe? Yes, so most people did it. Why can't we approach the cellphone problem like we approached the seat belt problem? Why are we so gungho about laws and declaring everything unsatisfactory illegal nowadays?
The Distrust extension for Firefox DOES remove flash cookies, and it sits as a convenient toggle-button in the status-bar.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1559
At least in my opinion, it's a lot nicer to just click a button and browse privately, and then click it again after you're finished than to have to open up a whole new window like in Chrome. I really think the "open new Incognito window" would be more usable if it was an "open new Incognito tab", instead. Although maybe that's just my opinion.
The govt should have no part in this. This isn't a Microsoft-enforced monopoly. There is nothing stopping vendors from offering Linux laptops (though if you want to talk monopoly, vendors aren't allowed offer Mac-based laptops). The only reason other OSes haven't caught on is because they're not profitable. It's a socially-enforced monopoly, if no one ones to use anything other than a Microsoft computer (and the Microsoft eeePCs have been more popular than the Linux ones, if I'm not mistaken) then the vendors aren't going to offer anything other than a Microsoft PC. That has nothing to do with Microsoft monopolistic tactics, that has everything to do with consumer opinions and their confidence in being able to use a different OS.
Why not both?
I'm currently living and Japan and would like to note that for all of the notoriously computer-ignorant people in America, Japan's computer ignorancy problem is ten-fold. Computers simply aren't used as a part of every day life in Japan as they are in America, and there aren't even basic use classes is most schools through college. IE6 is still the big web browser, and the most important factor in buying a computer (which is terribly overpriced because of Japan's tendency to use only Japan-made products for everything) is how cute it is.
I might add that it is interesting you mention that about the Philippines, though. Considering a supposed 70% of Philippines think that Japan has a positive influence on the world, I'm a bit surprised to hear that the old people still have such a grudge.
;-)
But then again, I guess there's still old people in America that don't like Japan. Can't be helped, as they say.
The Yasukuni Shrine I think has always been a scapegoat. 2.7 million Japanese died in WWII. 2.46 million are enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine is, more or less, a shrine to all those that died in the war. And of those enshrined there, 1086 were convicted of war crimes. That means 0.04% of those enshrined there are war criminals. But yet, the Japanese should be apologetic to other nations for visiting the shrine? Or they shouldn't visit the shrine to honor the other 2,464,932 people enshrined there? Does it not just seem like an excuse to be angry at Japan?
And the biggest reason China and Korea hate Japan still, I think, is those governments have been the most proactive in spreading anti-Japanese propaganda, until recent years when relations have finally improved a little. It wasn't the freedom of the press that made Chinese people angry enough at Japan to refuse earthquake aid from them, it was because they, and their parents, and even their grandparents have always been brought up being told that Japan is evil, they've committed atrocities, and the country is vile. So now that China is finally opening up, it's very easy for a Chinese person to look on the internet and see that, in fact, Japan DID commit atrocities. But Japan has forgiven America for the atomic bomb, because the Japanese people haven't grown up being told that America is a spawn of hell that heartlessly destroyed two cities filled with civilians. Chinese, on the other hand, have grown up being told that, so when they see facts showing that such atrocities did happen, it just reaffirms their anger that they've been taught to have. And even with little to no propaganda now, the damage has been done, and the hatred will stay for the next 50 years until the current generation is old and begins to die.
We have nothing on China. According to the BBC's annual poll of nations opinions of other nations influence, 90% of Chinese think China has a positive influence on the world. Ninety percent. That's not only provocative, but outrageous. That's surely similar to 1940s-era America, hardly like now, where only 56% of Americans believe that America has a positive influence on the world.
China has an unquestionable horrifying nationalism problem. This can be seen in issues such as Tibet and Taiwan. What's troubling isn't that Chinese want Tibet and Taiwan to be part of China, I can view that as acceptable. What isn't acceptable, however, are such obvious propaganda-induced lines of reasoning such as "Tibet has always been a part of China and forever will be a part of China." Not only is that false -- Tibet was its own country until China marched in there 50 years ago and took it, but that's how it works in war; winner takes all. But then the Chinese government proceeded to educate their entire 1+ billion population that, indeed, Tibet had always been a part of China, and that anyone who questioned otherwise was not Chinese and was siding with the Dalai Lama, who isn't even human.
Another Nationalism-brought issue outlined by the BBC poll is its hatred of Japan. There are only two important countries in the world that hate Japan -- China and South Korea. One might argue that it's because of Japan's war-time atrocities that they never properly atoned for. They have apologized many times, however poorly, and Japan is not elegant in international relations. That said, my argument is, East Asia was hugely and negatively affected by the Japanese Empire. China and South Korea aren't the only countries affected with horrendous atrocities. But why then, have all of the other South-East nations forgiven Japan, but China and South Korea haven't? Only 12% of Chinese carry a positive view of Japan's influence on the world -- not opinion of Japan, but opinion of the positiveness of Japan's influence on the world. Whereas in Taiwan, Japan's very popular culturally, even though many elderly people still speak Japanese from being forced to learn it during occupation!
And my last argument -- Anti-Anti-Chinese protests? VIOLENT Anti-Anti-Chinese protests, with prevalent stalking and death threats of anyone that criticized China? C'mon, that's pitiful.
And to any Chinese that might be reading this, my message would be that there's nothing wrong with being proud to be Chinese. There's nothing wrong with wanting the Chinese people to be united and patriotic. But people and government are separate. Just because you're Chinese doesn't mean you have to defend your government for no other reason than that it's my government, just how Americans don't have to defend President Bush just because he's my President. Nationalism is good in small doses for the morale of a country, but in large quantities like currently present in China, war is almost certainly inevitable. Think about the nationalism of 1940s America, 1940s Japan, 1940s Nazi Germany (hah, Godwin's law strikes again!). Unchecked Nationalism only brings horror and foolish decisions, all for the sake of being Chinese, or being American, or being Japanese, or being German.
This is really a golden opportunity for the open source community, I think. I've never switched to Linux -- never wanted to, never needed to, and Linux never offered me anything that I wanted that I couldn't get on Windows. But with the advent of Windows Vista, a great many people are unhappy; with the notion of cheap laptops running Windows Vista laughable, and with Windows 7 looking to be like more bloat on top of Vista, there's a huge hole that's opening up in the cheap laptop and computer market.
Once Windows XP is phased out, then cheap laptop market will have no choice but to switch almost fully to Linux, or else force their users to use a horribly slow version of Vista on hardware that it's not meant to be run on. In the next coming months and years, I hope the prospect of a huge adoption of Linux on laptops could spur excitement in the Open Source community, and the community as a whole can then work together (seperately, but with a common goal) of making an OS that is truly mass-market ready and ready to be rolled out on exactly the kind of laptops that OEMs are looking for -- less PC and more gadget.
As you say this, I'm enjoying my 100mbit uncapped fiber connection in Japan for less than $40/month, and that includes the fiber connection (NTT) AND my provider, OCN (here in Japan, the actual internet company and the providers are different, and there is much competition in the providers).
No Child Left Behind is very harmful to intelligent kids. When I was in middle school, I learnt close to nothing and the only thing that was widely regarded was improvement, not achievement. At the end of the year, the school always handed out awards to exemplary students, and there were maybe 10 awards for various kinds of improvement, and then maybe one award for achievements or grades.
Having been home schooled until second grade, we finally decided to quit school and begin homeschooling again after 7th grade. This is when I was 12. At 13, we found that IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) offered a program called SPAN, which basically allows you to take any college course for both college credit and equivalent high school credit. And since college work is much harder than high school work, they're sometimes worth more credits, too. In other words, I was able to completely replace all of my public middle school and high school, and all of my home schooling with full-time college. Doing so, I entered college at the age of 13.
IUPUI isn't the only college doing this, though. America has many of the best colleges and universities in the world, and its public school system is among the worst (down near the likes of Mexico last I saw a report on it, and that was years ago when schools were better). The universities here are increasingly growing weary of having to teach freshman what they used to learn in high school. Universities now love home schoolers because they have a much better education, and they are usually more disciplined and ready for college than their public school counter-parts.
The American school system is steadily moving towards a point where if you want your child to attend college, you can't enroll them in a public school.
And on reviewing the original article, I don't see anything that implies that it comes from an unnamed official. The whole article is reported as though this is a fact, so I'm guessing it is.
Based on fact or not, this article has reasonably solid-backing -- this story was run a couple day ago in the Yomiuri Shinbun, which is not only a major newspaper in Japan, but it has the highest newspaper circulation in the world.
Here's the original article for those that read Japanese:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/net/news/20080529nt05.htm
Here's a translated article for those that don't:
http://www.excite.co.jp/world/english/web/?wb_lp=JAEN&wb_dis=2&wb_url=http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/net/news/20080529nt05.htm
Every time I see an article about CAPTCHAs being broken, I always think, "Why not try animated CAPTCHAs?" Surely something this simple has been thought of before and tried; is there any reason it wouldn't work? Or would it just have the same effectiveness as a static-image CAPTCHA, and so there's just no reason to put forth the effort to make one?
Might I add that Japan has one of the lowest child abuse rates in the world, but lolicon is available quite freely. Viewing images of fake children and fucking a toddler are unrelated, just as pro Counter-Strike players playing Counter-Strike everyday doesn't lead them to go out, buy sub-machine guns, and kill people.
I predict if this comes to pass, child pornography will be brought up in defensed of warrantlessly spying on people using this technology.
If there's anything I've learned from living in Japan, it's that if a Japanese company says that something's not good, most of the time it's because it won't allow said Japanese company to screw the consumer.
I'm going to be cheering for ASUS on this one, for sure.
Why not just use the Wiimote itself as a remote control? It seems more fun and practical.
Except that on Digg, this story was posted, then buried, and more accurate information was posted shortly after.
My personal boycott is because they open my god-damn games. You can't go into Gamestop to buy anything without them having taken off the plastic wrap (or for PC games, cut or torn off the seal), opened the game up, and sloppily thrown the game disc(s) into crappy paper sleeves to store in a cabinet.
What if someone were to buy a game as a Christmas present, only to find out that someone else had already bought it? As soon as they walk out the Gamestop door, that game is now worth the $5 trade-in value, even if you've never opened it and still have the receipt; because the plastic-wrap is no longer on the game, you can't prove that you didn't open it.
It's bullshit policy. I want my "new" games, "new", not "mint" condition.