It's an interesting question then; the situations I see are the opposite: MySQL is the compatible solution already functioning, and a user would have to choose to change to Postgres.
Hey ("barely able to read"), thanks for being childish. It adds humour.
Maybe I misread your post -- you were asking why we don't change from MySQL to Postgres, since MySQL is the default server in most cases.
You were also converting a question about MySQL into an argument of "Postgres vs MySQL"; I was trying to explain why we don't change to Postgres. See, change-to-Postgres is an important part: there's no obvious benefit that outweighs the cost of changing. The cost of changing is also the cost of changing all of our dependencies to use Postgres.
So "why don't we change to Postgres?" Because it works, it's wellknown (we don't have to explain it), it has more compatibilities in the products our areas use.
Better than Postgres? Who cares? Maybe it is. We haven't had a reason to consider that, we're too busy getting to work, getting things done.
p.I don't expect you to read this far; I expect you to take apart small subtle spelling mistakes, but you can take my lack of response to mean "hey, he's working, rather than wasting time debating bike shed paint colour options"
Many of us MySQL users see your Postgres question the same way: why use Postgres? There's 10 users of Postgres, and if I randomly toss both names into a room, I don't have to explain what MySQL is. Hell, half think I said "postfix" and leave the room.
What's MS SQL? OK, I'm kidding, but it makes me wonder if you've checked MySQL lately. I haven't had a reason to check Postgres, so I maybe just-as-satisfied with MySQL as you are with Postgres.
MySQL works for many of us. We don't want to switch to a different database in this tier of performance/cost. Plus, it's well-known outside of its fan-base, and is supported by a host of servers.
I'm not inviting a Postgres-vs-the-world fight here, I'm pragmatic, and the one that works and has better compatibility TODAY is MySQL. Maybe next year, that'll be Postgres among the circles I work in. Today, that tier is held by MySQL, smaller to SQLite, and larger to Oracle.
Work experience can be faked, and everyone knows that. Degrees are harder to fake.
Now's a bad time to limit your options to "can only work in home country". Internationally, I see more countries require higher degrees to get work visas.
Two years of experience is not weak, by any means, but academic achievement is externally-verifiable.
For any international thoughts, go with the degree: Minimum degree for British Tier-1 Visa is Masters. Chinese see Ph.D as we see Masters, and a simple B.Sc is "well, OK, but weak".
While you're in the academic mode (no sleep, lots of study, brain like a sponge) use that to soak up a few more diplomas.
Re:At least for software developers
on
My Job Went To India
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You're exactly right -- there's some (sic) whining about experience having no value, but this is the value of experience: not only knowing the syntax, but knowing in-depth about a language.
Unless you've worked to maintain code over a very long term, often you don't know the impact of poor coding, or have the insight from that to fix your final deliverable. At the same time, work cannot be outsourced to body-houses based on maintainability, only on functionality at time of payment.
Experience only generates deliverables that are comparatively better in the long-term, but you need to be an employee, rather than an outsource-body, to leverage the benefit of ease-of-maintenance.
The act of shopping by price alone gets you software that will require more work to maintain. Iterative shopping means that you'll get repeated slap-together quick-jobs to get paid. resulting code quality can only degrade, but how can we truly make that known?
I think you're describing something between CORBA and CMIP.
SOAP was simpler to setup (no broker and associated config), easier to grasp publication of servants, and the data packet can be debugged on-the-wire, so you can code-test-debug until it goes. CORBA is a binary format that is more optimal on the wire, but harder to debug. There's Other Issues, but These issues are Mine.
Even thought I can sit in my figurative armchair and say "seen it before", in truth these concepts co back and forth (or iterative cycles, take yer pick) and feed off each other to evolve. Maybe Son-of-CORBA is on our horizon: a better, leaner, easier RPC.
Critical Mass: The perl/python/php/ruby/etc/etc extensions didn't come for CORBA quickly enough:)
For me, there's the SOAP-to-CORBAbridge. Maybe someday I'll have time to hack on that a bit:)
CMIP-to-SOAP-to-CORBA bridge? That would be fun. More hack, less Slashdot. Don't need to find a hidden cache of German tanks to realize even that might be a bridge too far...
Even court victories cost time; Filibustering is like Linux (was): free if your time is free.
I want to be sure you're actually saying: "I would prefer loss of my time/salary/peace for a few years, followed by filing bankruptcy, followed by 7-year loss of credit, to the option of a settlement with the RIAA for a fraction of the cost"
It's like comparing a broken knee to an amputated foot: both suck, but which can you heal from?
I'd take the knee (settle) probably, but maybe I'm just a wimp: this decision depends on my age (time to recouperate) and my dependents' ability to withstand poverty for a while (I'm currently sole breadwinner). If you have a young child, tell him or her "Santa's not coming for a year or so" -- try it, tough guy. The question is not whether you deserve it; in the US, the law is sometimes not about right/wrong, but more about economic choices and Pyrrhic Victories.
Totally agree with your point: look up the facts, and make up your own mind....except in the SCO/IBM thing, because PJ knows everything and is completely unbiased[1]
There's a wealth of argument that we're actually entering a "chill" time, and it's not completely motivated by government. There is some science that shows no real global warming over the longer period, just over the recent past.
---
[1] PJ, who cannot be traced to a location, to a salary, and whose site was registered initially by the same address as an IBM lab, is actually a rotating committee of 14 IBM interns working from the free wifi at a local starbucks and sworn to secrecy. You heard it here first.
...and since we know that stem-cells are at the root of cancer, the key is to attack those stem cells. Obviously, putting it as a platform point on a ballot, and a quick "November" in a Diebolt Mixmaster, and voila: Stem cells get voted out with gay marriage. Democracy in action!
(!RTFA)(!Biologist)
Hmmm. And how would you find the next open proxy? Wardialing, or a listing service that the Great Firewall cannot also see? Also, any proxy outside China that passes "bad" things is automatically filtered as well. TOR has a listing or lookup, preserves anonymity, switches to a new channel every new connection, can be tuned to be "gentle" on the server-side, and it's easy to use. In fact, fragmentation is TOR's only problem:
suppose: 3000 people run TOR 2000 people run open Squid 4000 people do something else
TOR would still suck, and these other ways would never be found except for wardialing, so they wouldn't be used, and if they were used, the user would be wardialing for a new proxy every connection because he or another user saw "bad" content there. If we all chose the same solution -- ie 9000 people running TOR -- something like TOR would have the mass of servers to be acceptible.
There might be something else to consider: the auto-blocker system that CHina uses might be blocking the foreign site, but that site might not be permanently on a block-list. Bear with a sec.
When anyone in China hit a "bad" page (something with amoral content, but probably anything that makes China's history look in a way it prefers to avoid) the filters send TCP_RSTs in both directions of the connection; that IP is also black-holed for 15 minutes, apparently -- enough for the user to lose interest and move on.
If that blocking system merely considers the word "wiki" to be bad, or "blog", then wikipedia is not permanently blocked per-se, but the Chinese public is mercifully protected from the profane words "wiki" and "blog". Isn't that a good thing?
So... someone eneds to ask these representatives whether "wiki" and/or "blog" are profanity, according to the filters, the same way it protects us from Falung... KJHHGH3J493O2K^ NO CARRIER
Maybe the Spanish Inquisition worked in Base 13; that would add obscurity to its three main weapons: fear, surprise, 13, and a maniacal devotion to the cause. Fear as a base? Nay -- unlucky numbers as the base, fear as the sum! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition to use 13...
I'm concerned about any license involving sex, fettered access, and gnus or antelopes.
--
cat: alt.OpenSex.gnu.swedishchef.bork.bork.bork: SEGFAULT: sharing violation
I'm not a visa service, but the visa is 200rmb (USD24), I applied in Beijing both times through my travel agency, adding 4% to the air ticket cost. Foreign diplomats and foreign media are not permitted access. All others are OK, from what I've seen.
China Mainland includes all except HK, Macau, and Taiwan (even though TW is where the Kunming retreated to, TW is Greater-China, in BJ's eyes -- tough love for an errant child). There are also 4 cities in China that have rules like District of Columbia in the US: the municipality is federally-run (BJ, TJ, SH, and SZ?). Tibet is an autonomous region: Beijing allows it more latitude to run itself right now. Tibettans can vote for some levels of government, actually, according to Xinhua articles.
You need an additional visa to Tibet, but it's not too difficult nor expensive. If you visit Zhumolangmashan, you'll also need an additional visa: 600rmb (UDS75) for foreigners, 35rmb (USD5) for your guide and driver if they are PRC citizens, and we were also charged 100rmb (USD12) for our vehicle.
The point of my original article was: take a look before you render such a strong opinion, and I will help you get that look if you really want to. Visa discussions are a bit of a rat-hole tangent, best chased by skinny little terriers.
Yeah. My ATM uses a touch screen, and it gets activity pretty solidly from 4pm to 11pm; the other one I use is near the bars, in a country (China) that is predominantly cash-based, so that bank (pun intended) of ATMs gets solid usage on some days until 3am. The users range from 4-foot-and-a-bit girlies to over-6-footers (DongBei guys are HUGE), gloves and not (China is actually very clean-psycho). After this serious level of usage, they don't seem to "skew".
You might want to be in China, and visit Tibet, before you say this.
I agree with parts of what you say, but you seem to have an extreme point on this. Please, come visit Beijing, and I can take you to Tibet, and you can see things with your own eyes. I want to stress that I -- a geek from Canadian, not a politican from China -- do not argue with you, only the extremity of your opinion, and the moral highground from which you opine.
China suffers the double-edged sword of restricted journalism, but it's a country that is only 2 generations from open civil war. There are soldiers still alive today from a war that put this country almost back to stone clubs. Unrestrained growth would be like the US colonization, wild-west, and similar lawlessness, which you would also argue against.
Coyotes disappeared from Yellowstone, which -- as the first park -- shows that some errors are mistakes, not malice. Meanwhile, nowhere in Lhasa did I see a "rat-bounty" on Tibettan dogs. Based on your in-depth knowledge of China, can you tell me the density (animals per person) of stray dogs, and the cost of a dog-license? How about in your hometown? Yes, canine is tasty, a bit like bear meat, but slightly gooey. Maybe you're right, and this strain of Canine is indeed extinct, and only due to the brutal slaying on Beijing's orders, and had noting to do with an impoverished, hungry culture that recently had a civil war.
The "trainloads of ethnics" is actually "in Tibet, no One-Child Family Restriction". The new railway to Lhasa is not exactly bursting with immigrants.
I can summarize the US history to sound like your perception of China; it's not the complete truth, though, and we both know it. To do so would be bad journalism, which -- in the US -- the president can now order you captured and detained forever on suspicion of terrorism. Discussing Katrina and 0911 is pretty terrible, away you go!
"DHS" and "KGB" are similar definitions.
Shoot, even my own country -- Canada, whom no one seems to hate -- has had issues: Oka, Rwanda, Ipperwash. We once clubbed seals (which are now devouring suppressed fish-stocks like Yellowstone Ungulates devouring fauna)
I only urge you to read more -- especially the historical mistakes of your home country -- before mounting the high horse, setting the lance, and charging at the mistakes of another. My oldest friends know this is from my past misadventures with my own tired horse and well-worn lance.
Allan -- DongChengQu, Beijing, China FWIW: today: google.com: partially-filtered; wikipedia.org: filtered
This may seem obvious, but this is a very strong use-case of legal P2P. Let's get the "duh!" part outta the way.
There should also be an eMule/aMule/eDonkey link.
Problem is that I don't know of any P2P with a "recall" system -- how can you revoke an image if it's a bad one? Just because I don't know it doesn't mean it's not there... perhaps revocation is done by providing a successor version and handling it like a security bugfix.
Looking for a mod_donkey -- www.mozilla.(org|com) runs Apache/2.0.52, might be a case of making it bone-simple, but I think these guys are smart enough to provide Donkey/Mule ed2k:// links.
Seriously good comments. djupedal basically argues for looking at the bigger picture, and judge China by China, not as another country.
So often, we commit the sin of judging one civilization by the standards of our own. In China, we eat feet and heads, dogs and frogs; other countries might shudder at the thought of fish-head burrito! I mention this to show that China is not the US, not the UK, not the EU.
China has seen some very bad times: it's one of the most recent countries to have a war in our lifetime, and surely it's the single largest economy of which the "ruling class" (Royal Family, President, or Party Members) personally remember things like zero education, short food, competing for jobs and resources, having to forge alliances just to keep various services running. There's a reason that GuanXi is so important, even today.
A few short decades ago, China was as Irag is today -- not exactly, but closer to it than to developed countries. It regressed in evolution and in standard-of-living, as all wars do to a nation (many developed countries forget what it's like fighting a war in their backyards -- any surprise that the resistance to Iraq came from Germany, France, et al?). China is returning to civilized stature as it does after every new Dynasty is established.
Even if moving towards Capitalism, and Opening Up are good for China, volatility -- changing too quickly -- is bad for any (*cough* Iraq *cough*) country.
Censorship always makes me as "what are you hiding?"; Wikipedia is a benefit to China, but that's not my decision to make. I've only been here a short time, I barely understand it, but I know that I don't know enough to judge. That seems to be djupedal's point.
djupedal, I'd offer virtual beer with my kudos, but this is China. How about virtual fish-head burritos (yu tou bin?) and ducks' feet?
There, I've said it. Step one of 12 is done. Step 2 is where I call all the people I've pissed off, and apologize. Hell, I'll never make it past that step.
Seriously. I filed my taxes late. Late for the extension. That's still 4 days away, but I haven't sent it back yet to my accountant. With the bad cheque I'll write him.
I read all of my email, and when I smell bullshit, I ask questions. I think I just caused the next Jihad in Accounting. Rise Up, beancounters!
When the cookies are free, I take two. I step on ants. I eat dog meat. If I had a car, I'd double-park. I'd double-parallel-park. In the fire lane. With a "media/press" pass in the window and twin "I love Chairman Mao" and "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. And a bobble-head of GW Bush.
Damn, now (with that 5-letter T-word) slashdot will be "protected" from Beijing by the Great Firewall of China. I've nailed all the slashdot readers in China. I'm an Asshole.
Imagine trying to tell the Ghostbusters that you're not a ghost. Now try it while they ignore your ghostly words since they don't talk to ghosts. Next, try it while they ignore your goulish prose since they don't talk to ghosts from which they're saving the world, the world which should give them praise and parades and icecream. Even if your prose is, well, poetic.
As a "spammer" in their eyes, and trying to cause them to reconsider, I was quickly changed from a supporter to someone who recognizes the futility of arguing with a Zealot.
Let me explain it for the Slashdot crowd: until impacted by DRM, DRM is perfectly great to you. Until Windows has a virus, it's a blissful day or so, and everything runs on it. So is the quality service you get from Spamhaus, but you don't understand until you get bitten....and I'm still not a Spammer, but don't bother trying to convince Spam-"we'll change our evidence to fit the crime"-haus
Linux is not as easy as you think -- sure, there's the initial kernel and such done for you, but few F/L/OSS projects/groups recognize the existence of others. Interoperability is a lottery ticket lost in the back of your sofa. The "plays well with other children" checkbox is resolved at great expense by integrators such as Samsung and Motorola. The smallest malfunction risks a dreaded handset return -- or we the community sue them for the smallest error.
Consumers just want something that works, uncaring what's under-the-hood. As an engineer and architect, I want components that play well together, and will over the next five years of continued integration and development. As a geek, FOSS is cool, and maybe I'll get the podcast-receiver built for my A1200-over-PAN/BT.
My provider is LinuxLabs, a good bunch of guys so far as I know. The guy who runs it, he has gone out of his way to tailor a smaller package for my and my little server. Very good people to work with.
They have to move subnets, which I recall was because they ran out of IPs. Their new subnet included one reclaimed from a spammer a long time before. So we all moved like good little duckies, but my mail was bouncing. I complained to Spamhaus, but my complaints were bounced since I only have one email address, and apparently they protect their own servers, including "support@". I asked LinuxLabs, and as I remember, they were told to ask MCI to prove to Spamhaus that LinuxLabs was good guys. Meanwhile, Spamhaus suddenly had data that showed that this spammer was affiliated for a long time with Linux Labs.
So, in summary, it wasn't my activity, my provider's activity, nor the provider's customers' activity, but a history that my provider had to "disprove" connection with, and while disproving, Spamhaus added to their "proof of guilt". Meanwhile, my provider had to placate customers who were losing money due to lost connection with clients, and didn't know who or what Spamhaus was (of 120 or so RBLs at the time, if they did know).
based on your response, I don't think you've had the pleasure of their hospitality and attention. I have. Subnet blocked. No response. Ignored me and my provider. Yes, it was Spamhaus.
I think you confuse "go out of their way" with "get out of my way as I charge my high-horse of righteousness down upon your peasant village of innocent bystanders who are in the same zipcode as a spammer"
Your idealism is respectable; my lost groceries due to carpet-bombing a subnet, well, I worry about that a bit more.
Slashdot Mirror
It's an interesting question then; the situations I see are the opposite: MySQL is the compatible solution already functioning, and a user would have to choose to change to Postgres.
Hey ("barely able to read"), thanks for being childish. It adds humour.
Maybe I misread your post -- you were asking why we don't change from MySQL to Postgres, since MySQL is the default server in most cases.
You were also converting a question about MySQL into an argument of "Postgres vs MySQL"; I was trying to explain why we don't change to Postgres. See, change-to-Postgres is an important part: there's no obvious benefit that outweighs the cost of changing. The cost of changing is also the cost of changing all of our dependencies to use Postgres.
So "why don't we change to Postgres?" Because it works, it's wellknown (we don't have to explain it), it has more compatibilities in the products our areas use.
Better than Postgres? Who cares? Maybe it is. We haven't had a reason to consider that, we're too busy getting to work, getting things done. p.I don't expect you to read this far; I expect you to take apart small subtle spelling mistakes, but you can take my lack of response to mean "hey, he's working, rather than wasting time debating bike shed paint colour options"
Many of us MySQL users see your Postgres question the same way: why use Postgres? There's 10 users of Postgres, and if I randomly toss both names into a room, I don't have to explain what MySQL is. Hell, half think I said "postfix" and leave the room.
What's MS SQL? OK, I'm kidding, but it makes me wonder if you've checked MySQL lately. I haven't had a reason to check Postgres, so I maybe just-as-satisfied with MySQL as you are with Postgres.
MySQL works for many of us. We don't want to switch to a different database in this tier of performance/cost. Plus, it's well-known outside of its fan-base, and is supported by a host of servers.
I'm not inviting a Postgres-vs-the-world fight here, I'm pragmatic, and the one that works and has better compatibility TODAY is MySQL. Maybe next year, that'll be Postgres among the circles I work in. Today, that tier is held by MySQL, smaller to SQLite, and larger to Oracle.
Bad advice.
Work experience can be faked, and everyone knows that. Degrees are harder to fake.
Now's a bad time to limit your options to "can only work in home country". Internationally, I see more countries require higher degrees to get work visas.
Two years of experience is not weak, by any means, but academic achievement is externally-verifiable.
For any international thoughts, go with the degree: Minimum degree for British Tier-1 Visa is Masters. Chinese see Ph.D as we see Masters, and a simple B.Sc is "well, OK, but weak".
While you're in the academic mode (no sleep, lots of study, brain like a sponge) use that to soak up a few more diplomas.
You're exactly right -- there's some (sic) whining about experience having no value, but this is the value of experience: not only knowing the syntax, but knowing in-depth about a language.
Unless you've worked to maintain code over a very long term, often you don't know the impact of poor coding, or have the insight from that to fix your final deliverable. At the same time, work cannot be outsourced to body-houses based on maintainability, only on functionality at time of payment.
Experience only generates deliverables that are comparatively better in the long-term, but you need to be an employee, rather than an outsource-body, to leverage the benefit of ease-of-maintenance.
The act of shopping by price alone gets you software that will require more work to maintain. Iterative shopping means that you'll get repeated slap-together quick-jobs to get paid. resulting code quality can only degrade, but how can we truly make that known?
I think you're describing something between CORBA and CMIP.
SOAP was simpler to setup (no broker and associated config), easier to grasp publication of servants, and the data packet can be debugged on-the-wire, so you can code-test-debug until it goes. CORBA is a binary format that is more optimal on the wire, but harder to debug. There's Other Issues, but These issues are Mine.
Even thought I can sit in my figurative armchair and say "seen it before", in truth these concepts co back and forth (or iterative cycles, take yer pick) and feed off each other to evolve. Maybe Son-of-CORBA is on our horizon: a better, leaner, easier RPC.
Critical Mass: The perl/python/php/ruby/etc/etc extensions didn't come for CORBA quickly enough :)
For me, there's the SOAP-to-CORBA bridge. Maybe someday I'll have time to hack on that a bit :)
CMIP-to-SOAP-to-CORBA bridge? That would be fun. More hack, less Slashdot. Don't need to find a hidden cache of German tanks to realize even that might be a bridge too far...
Even court victories cost time; Filibustering is like Linux (was): free if your time is free.
I want to be sure you're actually saying:
"I would prefer loss of my time/salary/peace for a few years, followed by filing bankruptcy, followed by 7-year loss of credit, to the option of a settlement with the RIAA for a fraction of the cost"
It's like comparing a broken knee to an amputated foot: both suck, but which can you heal from?
I'd take the knee (settle) probably, but maybe I'm just a wimp: this decision depends on my age (time to recouperate) and my dependents' ability to withstand poverty for a while (I'm currently sole breadwinner). If you have a young child, tell him or her "Santa's not coming for a year or so" -- try it, tough guy. The question is not whether you deserve it; in the US, the law is sometimes not about right/wrong, but more about economic choices and Pyrrhic Victories.
Totally agree with your point: look up the facts, and make up your own mind. ...except in the SCO/IBM thing, because PJ knows everything and is completely unbiased[1]
There's a wealth of argument that we're actually entering a "chill" time, and it's not completely motivated by government. There is some science that shows no real global warming over the longer period, just over the recent past.
---
[1] PJ, who cannot be traced to a location, to a salary, and whose site was registered initially by the same address as an IBM lab, is actually a rotating committee of 14 IBM interns working from the free wifi at a local starbucks and sworn to secrecy. You heard it here first.
...and since we know that stem-cells are at the root of cancer, the key is to attack those stem cells. Obviously, putting it as a platform point on a ballot, and a quick "November" in a Diebolt Mixmaster, and voila: Stem cells get voted out with gay marriage. Democracy in action! (!RTFA)(!Biologist)
Hmmm. And how would you find the next open proxy? Wardialing, or a listing service that the Great Firewall cannot also see? Also, any proxy outside China that passes "bad" things is automatically filtered as well. TOR has a listing or lookup, preserves anonymity, switches to a new channel every new connection, can be tuned to be "gentle" on the server-side, and it's easy to use. In fact, fragmentation is TOR's only problem:
suppose:
3000 people run TOR
2000 people run open Squid
4000 people do something else
TOR would still suck, and these other ways would never be found except for wardialing, so they wouldn't be used, and if they were used, the user would be wardialing for a new proxy every connection because he or another user saw "bad" content there. If we all chose the same solution -- ie 9000 people running TOR -- something like TOR would have the mass of servers to be acceptible.
TOR is really, really slow, and has lag that'll make elephants impatient. Otherwise, it's pretty cool...
There might be something else to consider: the auto-blocker system that CHina uses might be blocking the foreign site, but that site might not be permanently on a block-list. Bear with a sec.
When anyone in China hit a "bad" page (something with amoral content, but probably anything that makes China's history look in a way it prefers to avoid) the filters send TCP_RSTs in both directions of the connection; that IP is also black-holed for 15 minutes, apparently -- enough for the user to lose interest and move on.
If that blocking system merely considers the word "wiki" to be bad, or "blog", then wikipedia is not permanently blocked per-se, but the Chinese public is mercifully protected from the profane words "wiki" and "blog". Isn't that a good thing?
So... someone eneds to ask these representatives whether "wiki" and/or "blog" are profanity, according to the filters, the same way it protects us from Falung... KJHHGH3J493O2K^ NO CARRIER
Maybe the Spanish Inquisition worked in Base 13; that would add obscurity to its three main weapons: fear, surprise, 13, and a maniacal devotion to the cause. Fear as a base? Nay -- unlucky numbers as the base, fear as the sum! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition to use 13...
I'm concerned about any license involving sex, fettered access, and gnus or antelopes. -- cat: alt.OpenSex.gnu.swedishchef.bork.bork.bork: SEGFAULT: sharing violation
Heya;
I'm not a visa service, but the visa is 200rmb (USD24), I applied in Beijing both times through my travel agency, adding 4% to the air ticket cost. Foreign diplomats and foreign media are not permitted access. All others are OK, from what I've seen.
China Mainland includes all except HK, Macau, and Taiwan (even though TW is where the Kunming retreated to, TW is Greater-China, in BJ's eyes -- tough love for an errant child). There are also 4 cities in China that have rules like District of Columbia in the US: the municipality is federally-run (BJ, TJ, SH, and SZ?). Tibet is an autonomous region: Beijing allows it more latitude to run itself right now. Tibettans can vote for some levels of government, actually, according to Xinhua articles.
You need an additional visa to Tibet, but it's not too difficult nor expensive. If you visit Zhumolangmashan, you'll also need an additional visa: 600rmb (UDS75) for foreigners, 35rmb (USD5) for your guide and driver if they are PRC citizens, and we were also charged 100rmb (USD12) for our vehicle.
The point of my original article was: take a look before you render such a strong opinion, and I will help you get that look if you really want to. Visa discussions are a bit of a rat-hole tangent, best chased by skinny little terriers.
The original tangent:
http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Beijing_Subway -- unfiltered today
http://myspace.com/ -- unfiltered today
http://northbound.com/ -- unfiltered today
http://google.com/ -- unfiltered today
Yeah. My ATM uses a touch screen, and it gets activity pretty solidly from 4pm to 11pm; the other one I use is near the bars, in a country (China) that is predominantly cash-based, so that bank (pun intended) of ATMs gets solid usage on some days until 3am. The users range from 4-foot-and-a-bit girlies to over-6-footers (DongBei guys are HUGE), gloves and not (China is actually very clean-psycho). After this serious level of usage, they don't seem to "skew".
So far, I don't think any have voted Republican.
Maybe it's because they're Chinese.
Allan
You might want to be in China, and visit Tibet, before you say this.
I agree with parts of what you say, but you seem to have an extreme point on this. Please, come visit Beijing, and I can take you to Tibet, and you can see things with your own eyes. I want to stress that I -- a geek from Canadian, not a politican from China -- do not argue with you, only the extremity of your opinion, and the moral highground from which you opine.
China suffers the double-edged sword of restricted journalism, but it's a country that is only 2 generations from open civil war. There are soldiers still alive today from a war that put this country almost back to stone clubs. Unrestrained growth would be like the US colonization, wild-west, and similar lawlessness, which you would also argue against.
Coyotes disappeared from Yellowstone, which -- as the first park -- shows that some errors are mistakes, not malice. Meanwhile, nowhere in Lhasa did I see a "rat-bounty" on Tibettan dogs. Based on your in-depth knowledge of China, can you tell me the density (animals per person) of stray dogs, and the cost of a dog-license? How about in your hometown? Yes, canine is tasty, a bit like bear meat, but slightly gooey. Maybe you're right, and this strain of Canine is indeed extinct, and only due to the brutal slaying on Beijing's orders, and had noting to do with an impoverished, hungry culture that recently had a civil war.
The "trainloads of ethnics" is actually "in Tibet, no One-Child Family Restriction". The new railway to Lhasa is not exactly bursting with immigrants.
I can summarize the US history to sound like your perception of China; it's not the complete truth, though, and we both know it. To do so would be bad journalism, which -- in the US -- the president can now order you captured and detained forever on suspicion of terrorism. Discussing Katrina and 0911 is pretty terrible, away you go!
"DHS" and "KGB" are similar definitions.
Shoot, even my own country -- Canada, whom no one seems to hate -- has had issues: Oka, Rwanda, Ipperwash. We once clubbed seals (which are now devouring suppressed fish-stocks like Yellowstone Ungulates devouring fauna)
I only urge you to read more -- especially the historical mistakes of your home country -- before mounting the high horse, setting the lance, and charging at the mistakes of another. My oldest friends know this is from my past misadventures with my own tired horse and well-worn lance.
Allan
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DongChengQu, Beijing, China
FWIW: today: google.com: partially-filtered; wikipedia.org: filtered
This may seem obvious, but this is a very strong use-case of legal P2P. Let's get the "duh!" part outta the way.
There should also be an eMule/aMule/eDonkey link.
Problem is that I don't know of any P2P with a "recall" system -- how can you revoke an image if it's a bad one? Just because I don't know it doesn't mean it's not there... perhaps revocation is done by providing a successor version and handling it like a security bugfix.
Looking for a mod_donkey -- www.mozilla.(org|com) runs Apache/2.0.52, might be a case of making it bone-simple, but I think these guys are smart enough to provide Donkey/Mule ed2k:// links.
Allan
Wow. Mod Parent UP!
Seriously good comments. djupedal basically argues for looking at the bigger picture, and judge China by China, not as another country.
So often, we commit the sin of judging one civilization by the standards of our own. In China, we eat feet and heads, dogs and frogs; other countries might shudder at the thought of fish-head burrito! I mention this to show that China is not the US, not the UK, not the EU.
China has seen some very bad times: it's one of the most recent countries to have a war in our lifetime, and surely it's the single largest economy of which the "ruling class" (Royal Family, President, or Party Members) personally remember things like zero education, short food, competing for jobs and resources, having to forge alliances just to keep various services running. There's a reason that GuanXi is so important, even today.
A few short decades ago, China was as Irag is today -- not exactly, but closer to it than to developed countries. It regressed in evolution and in standard-of-living, as all wars do to a nation (many developed countries forget what it's like fighting a war in their backyards -- any surprise that the resistance to Iraq came from Germany, France, et al?). China is returning to civilized stature as it does after every new Dynasty is established.
Even if moving towards Capitalism, and Opening Up are good for China, volatility -- changing too quickly -- is bad for any (*cough* Iraq *cough*) country.
Censorship always makes me as "what are you hiding?"; Wikipedia is a benefit to China, but that's not my decision to make. I've only been here a short time, I barely understand it, but I know that I don't know enough to judge. That seems to be djupedal's point.
djupedal, I'd offer virtual beer with my kudos, but this is China. How about virtual fish-head burritos (yu tou bin?) and ducks' feet?
Allan
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Beijingshi DongchengQu
I'd like to raise my hand here.
I'm an Asshole.
There, I've said it. Step one of 12 is done. Step 2 is where I call all the people I've pissed off, and apologize. Hell, I'll never make it past that step.
Seriously. I filed my taxes late. Late for the extension. That's still 4 days away, but I haven't sent it back yet to my accountant. With the bad cheque I'll write him.
I read all of my email, and when I smell bullshit, I ask questions. I think I just caused the next Jihad in Accounting. Rise Up, beancounters!
When the cookies are free, I take two. I step on ants. I eat dog meat. If I had a car, I'd double-park. I'd double-parallel-park. In the fire lane. With a "media/press" pass in the window and twin "I love Chairman Mao" and "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. And a bobble-head of GW Bush.
Damn, now (with that 5-letter T-word) slashdot will be "protected" from Beijing by the Great Firewall of China. I've nailed all the slashdot readers in China. I'm an Asshole.
Imagine trying to tell the Ghostbusters that you're not a ghost. Now try it while they ignore your ghostly words since they don't talk to ghosts. Next, try it while they ignore your goulish prose since they don't talk to ghosts from which they're saving the world, the world which should give them praise and parades and icecream. Even if your prose is, well, poetic.
...and I'm still not a Spammer, but don't bother trying to convince Spam-"we'll change our evidence to fit the crime"-haus
As a "spammer" in their eyes, and trying to cause them to reconsider, I was quickly changed from a supporter to someone who recognizes the futility of arguing with a Zealot.
Let me explain it for the Slashdot crowd: until impacted by DRM, DRM is perfectly great to you. Until Windows has a virus, it's a blissful day or so, and everything runs on it. So is the quality service you get from Spamhaus, but you don't understand until you get bitten.
Linux is not as easy as you think -- sure, there's the initial kernel and such done for you, but few F/L/OSS projects/groups recognize the existence of others. Interoperability is a lottery ticket lost in the back of your sofa. The "plays well with other children" checkbox is resolved at great expense by integrators such as Samsung and Motorola. The smallest malfunction risks a dreaded handset return -- or we the community sue them for the smallest error.
Consumers just want something that works, uncaring what's under-the-hood. As an engineer and architect, I want components that play well together, and will over the next five years of continued integration and development. As a geek, FOSS is cool, and maybe I'll get the podcast-receiver built for my A1200-over-PAN/BT.
My provider is LinuxLabs, a good bunch of guys so far as I know. The guy who runs it, he has gone out of his way to tailor a smaller package for my and my little server. Very good people to work with.
They have to move subnets, which I recall was because they ran out of IPs. Their new subnet included one reclaimed from a spammer a long time before. So we all moved like good little duckies, but my mail was bouncing. I complained to Spamhaus, but my complaints were bounced since I only have one email address, and apparently they protect their own servers, including "support@". I asked LinuxLabs, and as I remember, they were told to ask MCI to prove to Spamhaus that LinuxLabs was good guys. Meanwhile, Spamhaus suddenly had data that showed that this spammer was affiliated for a long time with Linux Labs.
So, in summary, it wasn't my activity, my provider's activity, nor the provider's customers' activity, but a history that my provider had to "disprove" connection with, and while disproving, Spamhaus added to their "proof of guilt". Meanwhile, my provider had to placate customers who were losing money due to lost connection with clients, and didn't know who or what Spamhaus was (of 120 or so RBLs at the time, if they did know).
based on your response, I don't think you've had the pleasure of their hospitality and attention. I have. Subnet blocked. No response. Ignored me and my provider. Yes, it was Spamhaus. I think you confuse "go out of their way" with "get out of my way as I charge my high-horse of righteousness down upon your peasant village of innocent bystanders who are in the same zipcode as a spammer" Your idealism is respectable; my lost groceries due to carpet-bombing a subnet, well, I worry about that a bit more.