The full quote is "there isn't an official test suite that exhaustively tests whether you comply with the standard or not." And that is true. A test suite cannot tell you if an implementation is compliant or to what degree an implementation is compliant.
Maybe a test suite cannot tell you if an implementation is compliant, it sure can tell if it isn't - it only takes one breaking test case.
If Microsoft delivers with IE7, and that's a big if, then they will likely regain some market share.
I doubt that. They may be able to slow down the _losing_ of market share, but I hardly see them _regain_ anything significant. Because, as you put it, even _if_ they do deliver, it would be _catching up_ with other browsers, rather than surpassing them, as in the case of previous battle against Netscape.
It may be emotionally effective to use Katrina as an analogy here, but not logically. Katrina was something that happened all of sudden, while this running-out-of-oil thing isn't.
That's because China is my motherland, you self-righteous idiot.... I've only lived in this country for less than 10 years
Why do I not believe you?
Because you don't want to face that you didn't know what you were talking about? Well I'm not going to post personal info just for somebody like you, but here's another post I made a couple of months back on a similar subject: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=181697&cid=150 29110
Of course, feel free to keep denying it or to say that I started making all this up long way back. Up to you.
No, douche, I was talking about what you said. I'm ending this thread, as it's obvious you're not able to focus on fact.
Yeah, I know, blaming others "not able to focus on fact" is a very strong straw to cling onto when one can't find any real argument.
That's because China is my motherland, you self-righteous idiot.
I never said any such thing. The desperation for you to win is driving you to invent things to be angry at. How sad. All I did was to point out that your statement presumed American values over Chinese values.
What's it like being unable to admit an error?
My statement presumed American values over Chinese values? What statement? Make sure you know who you are replying to and who replied to you next time.
What's it like talking but not knowing what you are talking about?
And thank you for admitting that "All I did was to point out that you statement presumed American values over Chinese values," because what I'm angry at is exactly you claiming that you know about Chinese values, and by admitting that you just showed I did not invent things to be angry at.
I never said any such thing. Remarkably, people can want to think and speak and know, and still be worried about external cultural pressures eliminating their own culture, just as we've done to Japan.
Would you agree that the issue on topic here, the Great Firewall of China, is about a government not letting its people have some fundamental rights that they should have had - such as the rights to think, to speak, and to know? If you do agree, what does the fundamental rights have to do with the Chinese "own culture"? Oh, now don't come and tell me those are only "American standards," what are Chinese then? pigs? not entitled to think or to speak freely?
Someone who's been there, and asked. You haven't been, have you?
Ah, that's it, is it? Been there for couple of times, as tourists? business trips? And you think you know about China, and even blatantly claim that you are already "deeply familiar with both their culture and history"? Give me a break. I've only lived in this country for less than 10 years, and I feel I'm far from saying I'm familiar with the 230 years of her history and culture.
Why don't you go to China, not as a foreigner staying in those luxury hotels or special apartments where you have direct Internet and satellite TV, but actually live there for, say, 5 years? Oh, and before you do that, give up your US citizenship and get yourself a passport issued by People's Republic of China. Then you can come back and tell people "don't impose your standards on ours."
Er, I've done no such thing. You, sir, are the one who wants to change Chinese behavior according to American standards. All I did was to point that out. Funny how you've now managed to convince yourself it's the other way around, when I've said nothing even remotely to that end.
Oh, you have not? Who did you refer to by "the self-important plutocrats and warmongers who need justifications behind which to hide do"? And who's "Banging the drum and screaming freedom?"
And to say that the Chinese people should be able to access the Internet freely(all that's being talked about on this thread) is "to change Chinese behavior according to American standards?"
That said, I never made any statements about China, so you can get off of your soapbox. The only origin I talked about was you. Stop trying to invent things I said to be angry at me.
You never made any statements about China? You are posting on a topic about the Chinese government denying information and other fundamental rights to most of its people, and you go:"Part of valuing freedom is valuing Chinese self-governance" and "...not a good reason to go tell the Chinese they're running their own country wrong." And I replied to question how much you know about China to say that the Chinese is self-governing, or that they are running their own country? How is that something I invented?
Where in that do you see me talking about Chinese?
I know I already posted a reply, but a few page-downs later I found my rage hardly contained so here more comes - I just can't stand people like you who think you are the only ones understanding the "true meaning of valuing freedom", and who have to come out and waggle your moral/culture relativism dick from time to time. Who do you think you are to assume the Chinese - "the Chinese" as in "the Chinese People" instead of "the Chinese in the Party core" - do not want the freedom to think, to speak, and to know? Who do you think you are to assume the way China is run now is actually what most of the Chinese want?
Next time before you try and piggy back your own US domestic agenda in that relativism crap, just remember this - YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT CHINA.
Part of valuing freedom is valuing Chinese self-governance. It's not freedom if we step in and replace it every time someone disagrees with us. Banging the drum and screaming freedom is not a good reason to go tell the Chinese they're running their own country wrong.
Are you baiting or just plain ignorant? Which part of the "when the people aren't told about things and can't freely vote on things it can never be self-governance" do you not understand?
You hit the nail on the head. That's exactly the point of Geek Squad and similar repair/upgrade services. It's all too easy for slashdotters to pile on Geek Squad, since they don't do much that's very difficult (and I doubt they pay enough to to attract top-notch techs anyway, so they have to send things out a lot, duh). But the typical home or business computer user is NOT a geek.
I can't say I disagree you in principle, but you are just missing the point of this discussion and the sarcasm in the GP.
The point here, and what most of us including the OP are questioning, is not how simple the Geek Squad's tasks are, but rather, how they are not doing even those seemingly simple tasks well. Repairing a laptop battery being a trivial task is one thing, doing that while what's really broken is the fan/heatsink is a whole different one.
It is irresponsible for people to post ways of bypassing the security restrictions a sovereign nation has enacted upon its people.
You do realize that, without knowing any way of "bypassing the security restrictions", a lot of (most, I'd say) Chinese people would not be able to read the rest of your post to begin with, do you?
What you said was exactly my first reaction, too. But then I realized that IBM had taken over Lotus Notes for over a decade by now, so maybe it's IBM who f'ed up Notes, instead of Ozzie, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody.//grin
Unless, of course, you were describing your experience with pre-1995 Notes.
You could define any protest as an active disruption of SOME lawful activity. Once again the first amendment is subject to caveats that render it a polite, warm fiction.
Uhm, no, the First Amendment only guarantees you the right to voice your opinion, it doesn't gurantee you the right to do so however you want.
How would you like me to invoke your version of the First Amendment and start shouting right into your ears?
I think main problem with languages and their definitions is that they
don't define always reasonably well what does exists.
Many times the concept and definitions that are in words are
simply unaccurate. They fall short or don't exist for something we need.
Well, would you agree that the solution (or at least a reasonable approach) to the problem is _to deal with it_, i.e., to communicate and sort out an accurate definition/concept, and _then_ move on? Instead of just pretending the problem is not there, and asking people not to be so "nit pick", only to cause more confusion later on?
How do you for example say precisely that something is not microkernel nor monolith
but has lot of common with both? You don't, unless you figure out an accurate definition
for it - which has to be shared by other people too .
Technial people sometimes miss this diffrence and difficulty.
I don't know why it's so hard to understand that "suggesting to deal with a difficulty" does not equal to "miss the difficulty".
We are _not_ missing the difficulty. Like I said before, it is EXACTLY because we realize this difficulty, that we always suggest to "figure out an accurate definition", _and_ properly communicate it to other people, and then use that as a solid ground for any further communication.
Your example shows exactly that - without accurate definitions, any communication is meaningless. How would _you_ propose to solve it? "Let's figure out a term for it?" or "let's all talk in our own terms and keep flaming each other until we all realize we've been talking about different things?"
The gift of abstractions is that, unlike computers, we can deduct from incomplete
information complete solutions and answers. Why not use it then?
Because, by the very definition of "incomplete information", _everybody_ can feel free to fill in the missing parts however they think reasonable during the deduction. And again, I don't know how hard it is to understand that it is very likely that "however they think reasonable" actually produces different results with different people.
Yes, the ability to abstract, to reason, and to deduct is a gift to the human being, but that doesn't mean each of us just run off and do "our own little thinking", and come back and point finger at others for "not getting what I was talking about."
Why act like a computer?
We are not talking about writing a poem or so much as our daily life. We are talking about developing _computer_ systems. Whatever creative brainstorm you do, at _some point_, we have to convert our ideas to some form that computers can understand, and guess what, at that point, we have to act like a computer.
The report, published in the most recent issue of the journal Nature, estimates that final break between the human and chimpanzee species did not come until 6.3 million years ago at the earliest, and probably less than 5.4 million years ago.
Come back after you pushed it down to 5.4 years ago!
The story is quite different in China. No one is imposing authoritarian rule on China. If the Chinese people wanted to enjoy the same democracy and human rights that we have in the West, then the Chinese people could get democracy and human rights tomorrow.
You talk as if they never "wanted" it - It's not like they (at least some of them) didn't try it, you know.
While I tend to agree with your point in this "kernel categorization" mini-debate, I have big (big big) problem with your following comment -
One of the biggest problems I continually have with technical people (whether that's computer techs or engineers) is that they tend to overemphasize the syntax and semantics of what people say. They tend to latch on to a specific phrase and then rip it apart rather than taking the meaning of the whole (which is the important part) and finding problems in the whole. Most particularly, they tend to find it incomprehensible that a single phrase might have multiple meanings.
It's rather presumptuous (and in your own word, "arrogant") to assume that we (the tech people) "latch on to a specific phrase" simply because we don't understand that a single phrase might have multiple meanings. Most technical people, including myself, I have worked with understand perfectly that a phrase can have multiple meanings.
HOWEVER, most of the time technical talks are NOT just casual chatting, guess what, most of them end up being documented and becoming requirements/designs/testing plans - in short, things that can be used against people later. Now, you can use a phrase in some talk, meaning A, and maybe all the people in the talk understand you perfectly (or they think they do) that you meant A but by the time it gets put on paper, it will no longer carry this "I meant A" badge, because people like you don't like to "apply strictness of meaning to everyday language". Well, guess what, days/weeks/years later, some clueless guy is gonna have to pick up that piece of technical document of yours, nonetheless written with the latitude of "everyday language", and try to figure out what the hell you meant by saying XXX. And he's not going to be able to, because, exactly, "a phrase can have multiple meanings."
That's also why I find it ironic that you are actually criticizing tehcnical people on this aspect - if you understand "a phrase can have multiple meanings," how can you assume that all your audience, not only those at present, but also those in the future, must automatically take that phrase you said as you meant it, without any clarification?
Part if this is doubtlessly due to exposure to highly precise technical jargon, but it is inappropriate to apply strictness of meaning inherent to, say, Python, to everyday language. Even in a technical debate.
We don't try to apply this "strictness of meaning" to every phrase people said. We only do this to certain key phrases.
Stop complaining about the language and forcing labels on things. Labeling is not understanding.
No, it's not, but proper labeling helps communicating, which in turn helps understanding. So, please, stop complaining about people questioning you what the hell you meant by saying X, realize and actually understand "a phrase can have multiple meanings," communicate to those people what exactly you meant, and then start worrying about "the meaning of the whole."
Your post is ignorant and illogical on so many levels I don't even know where to start.
Funny how everyone (mainstream soceity atleast) thinks it is so evil when other cultures impose their values, but completely OK when we impose ours.
What makes you think that "everybody should think the way the government wants them to" is part of the "values" in the Chinese culture?
What makes you think that a government (Chinese or not) has any rights whatsoever to interpret the "values" of any culture, let alone "imposing" that interpretation on the people?
And, what makes you think that everybody living in a particular culture has to have the "values" imposed on them?
Don't even try to come back again with your cute "IP lawyers are imposing it on everyone" analogy. That's not "values from a culture", those are laws. You don't like the IP laws? In this country, if you can find enough people having the same opinion, you can change the laws. In a country where speech is constantly sensored, you won't even have a chance to find those others.
You realize this does not suffice to support your initial claim about "the growing number of educated and PhD.'d who subscribe to the notion of intelligent design", do you?
Saying that it is undefined doesn't take away the legimitate question what existed before the Big Bang.
You are still missing the point - what the GP is saying is exactly that the question is not a legitimate one (or "moot", more properly put). So, restating that it is a "legitimate question" does not make it one.
Absolutely there are human rights problems in China. More so than the US, IMHO. In terms of foreign policy I'm not so sure. What foreign policy does China exhibit a problem with? Invading Middle Eastern states, or objecting to invasions then doing nothing when they take place?
OK, help me out here - how does pointing out something wrong with the US foreign policy prove that China is not problematic in terms of foreign policy?
Well that's the crux. I live in China, and have done for the past 6 months or so, and in my work and personal life I have predominantly Chinese friends. It certainly has sone rough edges, but the US is regarded by most people as a successful country with extensive personal freedom (this is interpreted in one of 2 ways - the first being that 'Westerners' are more 'free with expression' the second that a richer economy allows one greater personal space, for example children can move out of home before marriage quite easily), good businesses (in a very admiring way), but has a somewhat autocratic government - ask a CEO, a student or a taxi driver, this is their usual reply. How about you spend some time over here (and check out some of my other posts for statements also stating that I live in China, if you don't believe it)?
I often find it amusing (and offensive in some cases) that some Americans, after having lived in China for 6 months (in big cities no less), think that they can assert on things in China with qualifiers like "most people in China". I was born in China, grew up there, and lived there for 25 years. I read Chinese Web sites and communicate with my friends and family in China every day. And I still don't think I know what a lot (and I mean "a lot") of Chinese people think of things.
As for what you hear from your friends, I'm sure it's true, and they meant what they said. But is it everything, or is it just the nice side? If you were asked "what do you think of China" by a Chinese friend of yours, would you tell him to his face that "I think there are lots of human rights problems in China?"
So, no hard feelings, but, how about you really spend some time over there?
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't want your dollars sitting in the bank doing nothing, why would you want your bytes to?
It may be emotionally effective to use Katrina as an analogy here, but not logically. Katrina was something that happened all of sudden, while this running-out-of-oil thing isn't.
Of course, feel free to keep denying it or to say that I started making all this up long way back. Up to you.
Yeah, I know, blaming others "not able to focus on fact" is a very strong straw to cling onto when one can't find any real argument.The fact? The fact is you started with this:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=190287&thresho ld=2&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=15658215
And where and what did I say anything before that? How about trying and focusing on that fact?
That's because China is my motherland, you self-righteous idiot.
My statement presumed American values over Chinese values? What statement? Make sure you know who you are replying to and who replied to you next time. What's it like talking but not knowing what you are talking about? And thank you for admitting that "All I did was to point out that you statement presumed American values over Chinese values," because what I'm angry at is exactly you claiming that you know about Chinese values, and by admitting that you just showed I did not invent things to be angry at.
Would you agree that the issue on topic here, the Great Firewall of China, is about a government not letting its people have some fundamental rights that they should have had - such as the rights to think, to speak, and to know? If you do agree, what does the fundamental rights have to do with the Chinese "own culture"? Oh, now don't come and tell me those are only "American standards," what are Chinese then? pigs? not entitled to think or to speak freely?
Ah, that's it, is it? Been there for couple of times, as tourists? business trips? And you think you know about China, and even blatantly claim that you are already "deeply familiar with both their culture and history"? Give me a break. I've only lived in this country for less than 10 years, and I feel I'm far from saying I'm familiar with the 230 years of her history and culture.
Why don't you go to China, not as a foreigner staying in those luxury hotels or special apartments where you have direct Internet and satellite TV, but actually live there for, say, 5 years? Oh, and before you do that, give up your US citizenship and get yourself a passport issued by People's Republic of China. Then you can come back and tell people "don't impose your standards on ours."
Oh, you have not? Who did you refer to by "the self-important plutocrats and warmongers who need justifications behind which to hide do"? And who's "Banging the drum and screaming freedom?"
And to say that the Chinese people should be able to access the Internet freely(all that's being talked about on this thread) is "to change Chinese behavior according to American standards?"
You never made any statements about China? You are posting on a topic about the Chinese government denying information and other fundamental rights to most of its people, and you go:"Part of valuing freedom is valuing Chinese self-governance" and "...not a good reason to go tell the Chinese they're running their own country wrong." And I replied to question how much you know about China to say that the Chinese is self-governing, or that they are running their own country? How is that something I invented?
Next time before you try and piggy back your own US domestic agenda in that relativism crap, just remember this - YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT CHINA.
Do you often make your "best judgement" without checking out what's nextdoor to Best Buy first? ;-)
Unless, of course, you were describing your experience with pre-1995 Notes.
How would you like me to invoke your version of the First Amendment and start shouting right into your ears?
People can just go and host their web sites overseas. I'm sure the European or Australian ISPs will be happy to take over all the new business.
HOWEVER, most of the time technical talks are NOT just casual chatting, guess what, most of them end up being documented and becoming requirements/designs/testing plans - in short, things that can be used against people later. Now, you can use a phrase in some talk, meaning A, and maybe all the people in the talk understand you perfectly (or they think they do) that you meant A but by the time it gets put on paper, it will no longer carry this "I meant A" badge, because people like you don't like to "apply strictness of meaning to everyday language". Well, guess what, days/weeks/years later, some clueless guy is gonna have to pick up that piece of technical document of yours, nonetheless written with the latitude of "everyday language", and try to figure out what the hell you meant by saying XXX. And he's not going to be able to, because, exactly, "a phrase can have multiple meanings."
That's also why I find it ironic that you are actually criticizing tehcnical people on this aspect - if you understand "a phrase can have multiple meanings," how can you assume that all your audience, not only those at present, but also those in the future, must automatically take that phrase you said as you meant it, without any clarification?
We don't try to apply this "strictness of meaning" to every phrase people said. We only do this to certain key phrases. No, it's not, but proper labeling helps communicating, which in turn helps understanding. So, please, stop complaining about people questioning you what the hell you meant by saying X, realize and actually understand "a phrase can have multiple meanings," communicate to those people what exactly you meant, and then start worrying about "the meaning of the whole."What makes you think that a government (Chinese or not) has any rights whatsoever to interpret the "values" of any culture, let alone "imposing" that interpretation on the people?
And, what makes you think that everybody living in a particular culture has to have the "values" imposed on them?
Don't even try to come back again with your cute "IP lawyers are imposing it on everyone" analogy. That's not "values from a culture", those are laws. You don't like the IP laws? In this country, if you can find enough people having the same opinion, you can change the laws. In a country where speech is constantly sensored, you won't even have a chance to find those others.
You realize this does not suffice to support your initial claim about "the growing number of educated and PhD.'d who subscribe to the notion of intelligent design", do you?
As for what you hear from your friends, I'm sure it's true, and they meant what they said. But is it everything, or is it just the nice side? If you were asked "what do you think of China" by a Chinese friend of yours, would you tell him to his face that "I think there are lots of human rights problems in China?"
So, no hard feelings, but, how about you really spend some time over there?