if you don't understand the little icons, then maybe you need a little help- all my friends in the US now regularly use this service with no trouble since I introduced them to it. Click the icon of headphones to listen, and the sheet of paper for lyrics (unless it has a pencil over it- that means it doesn't have lyrics yet and you can then add them) and the icon of a cell phone for a ringtone version.
well... it's more direct than that- the reason they are suing Yahoo China is in my sig (last I checked it was, otherwise go to http://music.yahoo.com.cn/ to see what I mean)- click the link and use it to look for an MP3- direct link, no clicking through loads of spam or ads- click the result and a media player will pop up with a download link too. I hope that Yahoo wins- I couldn't possibly bear to lose this valuable resource.
I'd subscribe to Rhapsody or Y! Unlimited, but Rhapsody doesn't carry any Japanese tracks, and Yahoo! doesn't either (If their unlimited subscription carried over to their Japanese site, I would, but their Japanese music service uses Sony DRM. Solve the problem of international music purchases, and I'm all in. Until then, Yahoo China's the only way to go for me (at least, between my trips to Japan- otherwise I buy the CD when I get to go there). Heck, check out my sig- if you understand Chinese (or get an online translator) Yahoo's music download service in China is 100% FREE- no subscription fee, no pay-per-download, no payment at all!
Well... In fact, Chinese cars do cut costs by removing safety features. I know- the local taxis don't have seatbelts for the back row, and don't have airbags for the front row. For that matter, I'm sure that they'd break emissions regulations in the US- when I can SEE the exhaust gases coming out of the car, there must be SOMETHING wrong.
I'm just stepping in to give a foreign (I'm currently living in Asia, around China and a couple of other countries) point of view on your response to his points.
1. I'm living in China, so ICT will most likely not be a problem for me (It's not implemented yet, but that doesn't mean it will never be- thank goodness for me living where I can get modchips easily).
2. In China, practically any TV over $1000US is "goddamn expensive". And if you get any HDTVs that aren't expsnseve, then you risk the chance of non-working ports (happened to my friends- tried to save money when they bought an HDTV, got one with non-working component and S-Video and no HDMI (turns out that they were there because they would enable or disable those ports depending on how far up the model line (how close to top-of-the-line) you bought it.
3. I agree with you here, mostly because if such a problem came to be, there will most likely be a modchip available to get around the ICT.
4. I am not enough of a geek to get into this one.
5. I see your point in this- though Linux adoption is starting to get more widespread here, it may take something like this to give Linux a jump-start in the market (People see that Linux can be simple as a game console, they will definitely try it on their desktops, so the logic goes from a local friend).
6. Yes, a Kirby game had it, as well as a couple of GBA games whose names escape my mind right now.
7. I have a PSP. I used it until it broke, and now, with the DS lite and all of the new games (mainly Sawaru Made in Wario/WarioWare Touched and Gyakuten Saiban/Phoenix Wright, as well as a couple of other Japanese titles), I want a DS really badly. So, the PSP connectivity isn't going to do it for me, especially since the PSPs here are all going for over $300 (making lots of money off of 1.5FW PSPs) and the DS is less than half of that, about $225US for the lite and about $125US for the standard (although a lady tried to sell me a refurbished DS as a new one, not realizing that the red label "Refurbished Product" would give her trick away.)
Sorry if this was unwarranted, but I felt like getting my point of view about PS3 vs Wii to the Slashdot masses.
What's with this whole rootkit thing that everyone's been babbling about?... Oh, been living between China and Japan too long then, looks like a non-Asian issue (Sony has never used DRM in China, and they haven't used DRM in Japan since 2004). Nice joke, now that I get it, though.
Really? I'm Chinese, living in China, and I can say that it still matters. Really, losing face just means that you are making yourself look like a fool. However, maybe you don't think it actually exists anymore because you are a foreigner living in China, and think that you are singled out for this sort of thing. No, it happens to Chinese too, like me. Actually, "losing face" seems to be interpreted more as loss of dignity nowadays, at least in my family.
How about getting a Japanese or Korean Phone? My Sharp V902SH serves me well as a multifunction device, to the point that I have scrapped my plans to get an iPod and a separate digital camera. If you can find it, a V904SH has a better camera, optical zoom, and anti-shake functions. In a similar vein, quite a few Samsung and LG phones have more than 2 megapixels, with optical zoom (Samsung is the only company with a decent 10-megapixel cameraphone).
Not quite. Panasonic sells their MD players (well, OK, just three) in China, too (although there is a redused Sony presence in the MD market in China).
There's a secret to this- Their best-made computers are kept in Japan. Buy one Made in Japan (The ones on the US market are labeled "Made in the USA" from Dynamism or some other way and you will find the quality to be MUCH better. For example(from personal expierience)- US model PCG-V505- that broke after a bout of condensation. Japanese model PCG-TR5EB- still works just fine even after spilling water on it (if it didn't, their Japanese 3-year warranty covers that).
How about "guilt by association"? Really, I would be worried too if I had been conclusively linked to some horrendous research that I in reality had nothing to do with, without the evidence to prove my innocence (whether that is because it is hidden, destroyed, or otherwise) to anyone.
Let me guess- Japan? Japan is so far the only country I know of with DSL that fast without a cap. That, or Korea, or one of a couple of Scandinavian countries. It couldn't possibly be any other part of the world , because I have never heard of DSL that fast from any of those countries...
Seems that the Japanese people have their cellphone design down pat- a simple phone that only makes phone calls and nothing else(see here for what I mean) for those who want no-nonsense basics, phones that can switch between "simple mode" and full-function mode for people who want to use all the functions, but want a little help, and full-function phones for the total geeks (I fall into this category). On my phone I have 5 ringer levels, not counting silence, and I can select Light only (flash on my cameraphone), ringer and light, vibrate only, or ring and vibrate with any volume setting, simply because vibration is a separate setting. Never seen it done this way on a non-Japanese cell phone.
Well... They are most certainly not the same company in China and elsewhere- NEC is a Japanese company, Packard Bell is not (I hope not)- NEC produces handphones (mobile phones), Packard Bell produces mildly reliable PCs- NEC has a reputation for being innovative, Packard-Bell doesn't- the only similarity is that they both seem to be targeting the low-end of their markets (NEC now produces quite a lot oc cheap handphones, Packard-Bell produced some of the cheapest PCs I have ever used).
As I have said before, I have seen plenty of street vendors in my area give up selling pirated Windows in favor of Linux. This generally means that uptake of Windows is low (if even $.50 is too much to pay for a copy, then how are you going to get Windows dominance in the market?)and people are getting into Linux. Again, I cannot represent all of China (or heck, even all of Shanghai) but at least a small part of China is starting to see the light of open-source (or turning away for the darkness that is Windows).
It used to be that in my area of Shanghai I could see people selling pirated copies of Windows everywhere (about 16 stands of CDs in a 5km radius). Now, about half of those stands have stopped selling Windows, and are now selling Linux. Coincidence, I think not- MS activation is getting so annoying that they're giving up and going to Linux.
Even Snopes has said that this is true- it is no longer a hoax if THE resource on urban legends deems this true, and I have friends that have seen the video in question, leading me to believe that there is no doubt of the truth of this video.
I've heard from lots of my friends who have watched this video, and it is indeed real- obviously there would be problems when you are trying to show STILL SCREENSHOTS of a VIDEO, that is supposed to MOVE. Heck, when I try to take a screenshot of a video at the wrong moment, it looks like a bad photoshop job too, so just blame it on ineptitude on the part of the person getting the screenshots.
Sorry- it just makes me angry to see that people actually refuse to believe that such a thing could happen, or instantly dismiss such things as fakes without WATCHING the actual video, like a lot of people I knwo have.
Why not use a Hong Kong SIM for data roaming? Three HK only charges about HK$.11 per kilobyte (about $.01US) for data roaming in other countries. I do that in certain countries-get a HK SIM card and use that to surf the web when I'm in France/Italy/wherever in Europe/Asia (Except for China where I have a data plan that is about $1 for 25MB data and overage of $1.25 per megabyte)
Questionably done? I have never had any problems with movies that I buy on the street stands (except when I got a movie titled "Pacyfikator" for $1... still can't figure out what the title is in English, or the movie for that matter- seems to be a European language of some sort, with the English subtitles being quite horrible). And, 75 cents is the high end of possible prices. If you go to the right places, you can find well-done bootlegs for half that price. (odd that all my 35cent DVDs never have problems while the $1 DVDs at a stand next to my school do).
Well... Maybe not. For the release of the new Harry Potter movie, my local theater (in Shanghai) posted signs that said "due to popular demand, this movie is being played in English with Chinese subtitles. So, what might happen is that at least a few movies will be in English with mandarin subtitles.
I live in Shanghai, and the situation is a bit different: In certain places, prices are quite high (next to my school, which is an international school, DVDs are about $1 each, local or not, while at the subway stop near my home, about 5km or so away, DVDs can be bought for 3RMB (about 35cents if my math doesn't fail me). Then, official DVD releases are practically nonexistant here (there are VCD releases that are supposedly official, but those are 120RMB (about $12) each, and I don't have that kind of spendng money when I keep spending over 75$ a month on PSP games (an official PSP game here costs about 320RMB, or about $37).
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if you don't understand the little icons, then maybe you need a little help- all my friends in the US now regularly use this service with no trouble since I introduced them to it. Click the icon of headphones to listen, and the sheet of paper for lyrics (unless it has a pencil over it- that means it doesn't have lyrics yet and you can then add them) and the icon of a cell phone for a ringtone version.
well... it's more direct than that- the reason they are suing Yahoo China is in my sig (last I checked it was, otherwise go to http://music.yahoo.com.cn/ to see what I mean)- click the link and use it to look for an MP3- direct link, no clicking through loads of spam or ads- click the result and a media player will pop up with a download link too. I hope that Yahoo wins- I couldn't possibly bear to lose this valuable resource.
I'd subscribe to Rhapsody or Y! Unlimited, but Rhapsody doesn't carry any Japanese tracks, and Yahoo! doesn't either (If their unlimited subscription carried over to their Japanese site, I would, but their Japanese music service uses Sony DRM. Solve the problem of international music purchases, and I'm all in. Until then, Yahoo China's the only way to go for me (at least, between my trips to Japan- otherwise I buy the CD when I get to go there). Heck, check out my sig- if you understand Chinese (or get an online translator) Yahoo's music download service in China is 100% FREE- no subscription fee, no pay-per-download, no payment at all!
Well... In fact, Chinese cars do cut costs by removing safety features. I know- the local taxis don't have seatbelts for the back row, and don't have airbags for the front row. For that matter, I'm sure that they'd break emissions regulations in the US- when I can SEE the exhaust gases coming out of the car, there must be SOMETHING wrong.
I'm just stepping in to give a foreign (I'm currently living in Asia, around China and a couple of other countries) point of view on your response to his points. 1. I'm living in China, so ICT will most likely not be a problem for me (It's not implemented yet, but that doesn't mean it will never be- thank goodness for me living where I can get modchips easily). 2. In China, practically any TV over $1000US is "goddamn expensive". And if you get any HDTVs that aren't expsnseve, then you risk the chance of non-working ports (happened to my friends- tried to save money when they bought an HDTV, got one with non-working component and S-Video and no HDMI (turns out that they were there because they would enable or disable those ports depending on how far up the model line (how close to top-of-the-line) you bought it. 3. I agree with you here, mostly because if such a problem came to be, there will most likely be a modchip available to get around the ICT. 4. I am not enough of a geek to get into this one. 5. I see your point in this- though Linux adoption is starting to get more widespread here, it may take something like this to give Linux a jump-start in the market (People see that Linux can be simple as a game console, they will definitely try it on their desktops, so the logic goes from a local friend). 6. Yes, a Kirby game had it, as well as a couple of GBA games whose names escape my mind right now. 7. I have a PSP. I used it until it broke, and now, with the DS lite and all of the new games (mainly Sawaru Made in Wario/WarioWare Touched and Gyakuten Saiban/Phoenix Wright, as well as a couple of other Japanese titles), I want a DS really badly. So, the PSP connectivity isn't going to do it for me, especially since the PSPs here are all going for over $300 (making lots of money off of 1.5FW PSPs) and the DS is less than half of that, about $225US for the lite and about $125US for the standard (although a lady tried to sell me a refurbished DS as a new one, not realizing that the red label "Refurbished Product" would give her trick away.) Sorry if this was unwarranted, but I felt like getting my point of view about PS3 vs Wii to the Slashdot masses.
What's with this whole rootkit thing that everyone's been babbling about? ... Oh, been living between China and Japan too long then, looks like a non-Asian issue (Sony has never used DRM in China, and they haven't used DRM in Japan since 2004). Nice joke, now that I get it, though.
What are you talking about? I had to pay $100 for a 256MB stick for my laptop (Sony VAIO TR5EB)!
Really? I'm Chinese, living in China, and I can say that it still matters. Really, losing face just means that you are making yourself look like a fool. However, maybe you don't think it actually exists anymore because you are a foreigner living in China, and think that you are singled out for this sort of thing. No, it happens to Chinese too, like me. Actually, "losing face" seems to be interpreted more as loss of dignity nowadays, at least in my family.
They make TVs? On an off-topic note, Mitsubishi makes some of the best cell phones I have used (4-megapixel camera- in a SLIDER form)
Well... With Mac OS x86, they can still be Macs- just takes a bit more work, that's all!
How about getting a Japanese or Korean Phone? My Sharp V902SH serves me well as a multifunction device, to the point that I have scrapped my plans to get an iPod and a separate digital camera. If you can find it, a V904SH has a better camera, optical zoom, and anti-shake functions. In a similar vein, quite a few Samsung and LG phones have more than 2 megapixels, with optical zoom (Samsung is the only company with a decent 10-megapixel cameraphone).
Not quite. Panasonic sells their MD players (well, OK, just three) in China, too (although there is a redused Sony presence in the MD market in China).
There's a secret to this- Their best-made computers are kept in Japan. Buy one Made in Japan (The ones on the US market are labeled "Made in the USA" from Dynamism or some other way and you will find the quality to be MUCH better. For example(from personal expierience)- US model PCG-V505- that broke after a bout of condensation. Japanese model PCG-TR5EB- still works just fine even after spilling water on it (if it didn't, their Japanese 3-year warranty covers that).
How about "guilt by association"? Really, I would be worried too if I had been conclusively linked to some horrendous research that I in reality had nothing to do with, without the evidence to prove my innocence (whether that is because it is hidden, destroyed, or otherwise) to anyone.
Let me guess- Japan? Japan is so far the only country I know of with DSL that fast without a cap. That, or Korea, or one of a couple of Scandinavian countries. It couldn't possibly be any other part of the world , because I have never heard of DSL that fast from any of those countries...
Seems that the Japanese people have their cellphone design down pat- a simple phone that only makes phone calls and nothing else(see here for what I mean) for those who want no-nonsense basics, phones that can switch between "simple mode" and full-function mode for people who want to use all the functions, but want a little help, and full-function phones for the total geeks (I fall into this category). On my phone I have 5 ringer levels, not counting silence, and I can select Light only (flash on my cameraphone), ringer and light, vibrate only, or ring and vibrate with any volume setting, simply because vibration is a separate setting. Never seen it done this way on a non-Japanese cell phone.
Well... They are most certainly not the same company in China and elsewhere- NEC is a Japanese company, Packard Bell is not (I hope not)- NEC produces handphones (mobile phones), Packard Bell produces mildly reliable PCs- NEC has a reputation for being innovative, Packard-Bell doesn't- the only similarity is that they both seem to be targeting the low-end of their markets (NEC now produces quite a lot oc cheap handphones, Packard-Bell produced some of the cheapest PCs I have ever used).
As I have said before, I have seen plenty of street vendors in my area give up selling pirated Windows in favor of Linux. This generally means that uptake of Windows is low (if even $.50 is too much to pay for a copy, then how are you going to get Windows dominance in the market?)and people are getting into Linux. Again, I cannot represent all of China (or heck, even all of Shanghai) but at least a small part of China is starting to see the light of open-source (or turning away for the darkness that is Windows).
It used to be that in my area of Shanghai I could see people selling pirated copies of Windows everywhere (about 16 stands of CDs in a 5km radius). Now, about half of those stands have stopped selling Windows, and are now selling Linux. Coincidence, I think not- MS activation is getting so annoying that they're giving up and going to Linux.
Even Snopes has said that this is true- it is no longer a hoax if THE resource on urban legends deems this true, and I have friends that have seen the video in question, leading me to believe that there is no doubt of the truth of this video.
I've heard from lots of my friends who have watched this video, and it is indeed real- obviously there would be problems when you are trying to show STILL SCREENSHOTS of a VIDEO, that is supposed to MOVE. Heck, when I try to take a screenshot of a video at the wrong moment, it looks like a bad photoshop job too, so just blame it on ineptitude on the part of the person getting the screenshots. Sorry- it just makes me angry to see that people actually refuse to believe that such a thing could happen, or instantly dismiss such things as fakes without WATCHING the actual video, like a lot of people I knwo have.
Why not use a Hong Kong SIM for data roaming? Three HK only charges about HK$.11 per kilobyte (about $.01US) for data roaming in other countries. I do that in certain countries-get a HK SIM card and use that to surf the web when I'm in France/Italy/wherever in Europe/Asia (Except for China where I have a data plan that is about $1 for 25MB data and overage of $1.25 per megabyte)
Questionably done? I have never had any problems with movies that I buy on the street stands (except when I got a movie titled "Pacyfikator" for $1... still can't figure out what the title is in English, or the movie for that matter- seems to be a European language of some sort, with the English subtitles being quite horrible). And, 75 cents is the high end of possible prices. If you go to the right places, you can find well-done bootlegs for half that price. (odd that all my 35cent DVDs never have problems while the $1 DVDs at a stand next to my school do).
Well... Maybe not. For the release of the new Harry Potter movie, my local theater (in Shanghai) posted signs that said "due to popular demand, this movie is being played in English with Chinese subtitles. So, what might happen is that at least a few movies will be in English with mandarin subtitles.
I live in Shanghai, and the situation is a bit different: In certain places, prices are quite high (next to my school, which is an international school, DVDs are about $1 each, local or not, while at the subway stop near my home, about 5km or so away, DVDs can be bought for 3RMB (about 35cents if my math doesn't fail me). Then, official DVD releases are practically nonexistant here (there are VCD releases that are supposedly official, but those are 120RMB (about $12) each, and I don't have that kind of spendng money when I keep spending over 75$ a month on PSP games (an official PSP game here costs about 320RMB, or about $37).