I think what the author means by the black duck eggs, is that they are not a menu item usually ordered by non-Asians. The restaurant probably has alot of Chinese-national or ethnic-Chinese customers, and if these customers work at a tech company this would be a good place to recruit.
Context from "Spies Among Us":
Stan’s experience as a GRU spymaster became a major factor. With the exception of his final stationing in the United States, the rest of his GRU career was focused on China. He was even stationed in Beijing for four years.
Even knowing this, I was still confused by a call I got from Stan a day later. “Ira, there are black duck eggs on the menu’ was his cryptic comment.
“Stan, what the hell are we paying you for?” was my reply.
“Oh, my naive American friend,” he said with a smile I could feel over the telephone,’ ‘black duck eggs are a Chinese delicacy. I can hardly find black duck eggs in San Francisco, let alone this hide piece of s——— town in the middle of nowhere. And they’re cheaper than they are on the streets of Beijing.”
He went on to describe that because he saw all those Chinese-American dictionaries on the desks of the employees, he spent some time trying to find Chinese social clubs and other places where Chinese people may congregate. Stan knows the modus operandi of Chinese intelligence agents, which is to find people of Chinese descent and sift through them to see who would likely be susceptible to recruitment. Generally, these are people who have more allegiance to China than their employer or who can be coerced because of family in China. Setting up a gathering place, such as a Chinese restaurant that has hard—to—find Chinese delicacies, is a way to attract as many potential agents as possible. It is also a great place to exchange information and money.
Stan told me that he found several Chinese restaurants reasonably close to the company facilities. All but one had friendly staff that welcomed him. At the other, he walked in and saw a menu on the reception table that had only Chinese writing. He picked it up and saw that there were Chinese delicacies not normally found in other Chinese restaurants in this country. When one of the workers realized that Stan could read Mandarin, he became distressed rather than gladly welcoming toward the potential new customer who could appreciate the rare menu items.
Stan’s being followed was a fact. Whether or not this Chinese restaurant was actually one of the more than 3,000 Chinese front companies was a matter for the FBI. Stan was told that the FBI was busy doing counterterrorism work: the investigation of a restaurant was a low priority.
You didn't read my entire argument. China sells hardly any CD's, and they still have artists making music. They simply make their money in other ways, like concert tickets, posters, apparel, etc.
Music was made well before copyright existed as well: look at the Classical genre, which is full of great works, only the most recent of which were subject to copyright.
I agree 100% that the money the RIAA's member companies make gets taxed and partly funds the government.
I disagree with the implication that infringement decreases funding to the government. Money not spent on music will be spent somehow (whether saved (and loaned), or spent outright).
So what is lost when a person infringes on the government-granted monopoly that is copyright? Possibly some works would not be created, though I have never heard of a musician or a book publisher or any artist whatsoever going under due to piracy. There's no reason to pirate inferior goods, so the most pirated goods are also those that make enough money from non-pirates and from sale of tangible items (concerts, apparel, etc.). Even in a rampant piracy market like China (where perhaps a few thousand legit copies of a CD are sold), there are new musicians and new songs, etc. The musicians are apparently motivated without the copyright. That would suggest that the constitutional basis for the copyright of music is in danger: the copyright must "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". If the artists make the music without protection of copyright, where's the benefit of copyright in that instance?
Ikea has something like this called Rabalder (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20097954). I used it for my media center and it looks alot nicer having one thick silver cable going to the Plasma TV on the wall than a mess of smaller cables. The zip ties included are reversible.
The biggest advantage here is that you no longer need a planar graph as your circuit diagram (meaning, a graph were no two edges cross). The most obvious application for this that I can think of is a neural net chip, but all sorts of other designs that would require a non-planar design are opened up. Cool!
I suspect that Microsoft really could have a powerful competitor in this, but they'd have to grow a serious pair first:
1) If the song on the player isn't DRM'd, sharing it comes without restrictions (unlimited plays, unlimited retention, redistribution) 2) If it is, the restrictions are minimal (no play limit, 30 day retention, no secondary redistribution) 3) Driveby feature: you walk past someone with a zune; you can listen to the song they are listening to, streamed
AND/OR: you walk past people, you collect random songs from their zunes; now you can get a musical 'taste' of an area by walking through 4) Wireless internet access/Blackberry like features 5) Wireless internet radio streaming 6) VOIP, anyone? Maybe even add unit-to-unit and unit-infrastructure-unit walkie-talkie
If Microsoft doesn't learn to fiercly negotiate DRM terms like Apple does, their players are doomed to a mediocre DRM Disneyland.
Life is alot better if you are running on an isolated bench supply like they probably test on. One of the things that easily kills line-connected LED's is any kind of static discharge or spike. They are much more susceptible to that than any sort of regular bulb (incandescent or flourescent).
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I think what the author means by the black duck eggs, is that they are not a menu item usually ordered by non-Asians. The restaurant probably has alot of Chinese-national or ethnic-Chinese customers, and if these customers work at a tech company this would be a good place to recruit.
Context from "Spies Among Us":
Stan’s experience as a GRU spymaster became a major factor. With the exception of his final stationing in the United States, the rest of his GRU career was focused on China. He was even stationed in Beijing for four years.
Even knowing this, I was still confused by a call I got from Stan a day later. “Ira, there are black duck eggs on the menu’ was his cryptic comment.
“Stan, what the hell are we paying you for?” was my reply.
“Oh, my naive American friend,” he said with a smile I could feel over the telephone,’ ‘black duck eggs are a Chinese delicacy. I can hardly find black duck eggs in San Francisco, let alone this hide piece of s——— town in the middle of nowhere. And they’re cheaper than they are on the streets of Beijing.”
He went on to describe that because he saw all those Chinese-American dictionaries on the desks of the employees, he spent some time trying to find Chinese social clubs and other places where Chinese people may congregate. Stan knows the modus operandi of Chinese intelligence agents, which is to find people of Chinese descent and sift through them to see who would likely be susceptible to recruitment. Generally, these are people who have more allegiance to China than their employer or who can be coerced because of family in China. Setting up a gathering place, such as a Chinese restaurant that has hard—to—find Chinese delicacies, is a way to attract as many potential agents as possible. It is also a great place to exchange information and money.
Stan told me that he found several Chinese restaurants reasonably close to the company facilities. All but one had friendly staff that welcomed him. At the other, he walked in and saw a menu on the reception table that had only Chinese writing. He picked it up and saw that there were Chinese delicacies not normally found in other Chinese restaurants in this country. When one of the workers realized that Stan could read Mandarin, he became distressed rather than gladly welcoming toward the potential new customer who could appreciate the rare menu items.
Stan’s being followed was a fact. Whether or not this Chinese restaurant was actually one of the more than 3,000 Chinese front companies was a matter for the FBI. Stan was told that the FBI was busy doing counterterrorism work: the investigation of a restaurant was a low priority.
You didn't read my entire argument. China sells hardly any CD's, and they still have artists making music. They simply make their money in other ways, like concert tickets, posters, apparel, etc.
Music was made well before copyright existed as well: look at the Classical genre, which is full of great works, only the most recent of which were subject to copyright.
It is not stealing, it is copyright infringement!
I agree 100% that the money the RIAA's member companies make gets taxed and partly funds the government.
I disagree with the implication that infringement decreases funding to the government. Money not spent on music will be spent somehow (whether saved (and loaned), or spent outright).
So what is lost when a person infringes on the government-granted monopoly that is copyright? Possibly some works would not be created, though I have never heard of a musician or a book publisher or any artist whatsoever going under due to piracy. There's no reason to pirate inferior goods, so the most pirated goods are also those that make enough money from non-pirates and from sale of tangible items (concerts, apparel, etc.). Even in a rampant piracy market like China (where perhaps a few thousand legit copies of a CD are sold), there are new musicians and new songs, etc. The musicians are apparently motivated without the copyright. That would suggest that the constitutional basis for the copyright of music is in danger: the copyright must "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". If the artists make the music without protection of copyright, where's the benefit of copyright in that instance?
Ikea has something like this called Rabalder (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20097954). I used it for my media center and it looks alot nicer having one thick silver cable going to the Plasma TV on the wall than a mess of smaller cables. The zip ties included are reversible.
The biggest advantage here is that you no longer need a planar graph as your circuit diagram (meaning, a graph were no two edges cross). The most obvious application for this that I can think of is a neural net chip, but all sorts of other designs that would require a non-planar design are opened up. Cool!
Yeah, that's precisely where they lost me.
I suspect that Microsoft really could have a powerful competitor in this, but they'd have to grow a serious pair first:
1) If the song on the player isn't DRM'd, sharing it comes without restrictions (unlimited plays, unlimited retention, redistribution)
2) If it is, the restrictions are minimal (no play limit, 30 day retention, no secondary redistribution)
3) Driveby feature: you walk past someone with a zune; you can listen to the song they are listening to, streamed
AND/OR: you walk past people, you collect random songs from their zunes; now you can get a musical 'taste' of an area by walking through
4) Wireless internet access/Blackberry like features
5) Wireless internet radio streaming
6) VOIP, anyone? Maybe even add unit-to-unit and unit-infrastructure-unit walkie-talkie
If Microsoft doesn't learn to fiercly negotiate DRM terms like Apple does, their players are doomed to a mediocre DRM Disneyland.
Life is alot better if you are running on an isolated bench supply like they probably test on. One of the things that easily kills line-connected LED's is any kind of static discharge or spike. They are much more susceptible to that than any sort of regular bulb (incandescent or flourescent).