I was in SZ a few months ago and will go back in the Fall. My girlfriend is there and she just got her new ID card. For the casual visitor the last thing anyone thinks of is that one is in a police state. There are security and police everywhere, but they mostly look bored and, as far as I could tell, they didn't have much to do. One is very safe walking around, even late at night. Try that in Philly, or Miami, or any large American city. Of course the population is mostly homogenous--they are all Chinese and, as such, have a common ground. The only thing keeping the Chinese from taking over the world is the communist party. The red tape (no pun) makes doing business very awkward. If they can kick the CCP we will all be speaking Mandarin in a few generations. I'd much rather live in SZ than, say, the Middle East or even Europe, now. My impression was that, in general, they really like Americans. Not many places in the world can say that. I'd suggest people go there and spend a month or two. Get your own ideas and make up your own mind.
I just came back from a month in Shenzhen. On the street you could buy a copy of XP (in a very official looking package) for about 10 yuan, which is a dollar and some change, I guess. Now, on a good day, a copy of XP might actually be worth a couple of dollars, so this could have been a bargain, but even then no one seemed too interested.
I doubt it. I just spent the last month in Shenzhen. The only remnant of Mao is his picture on the Yuan, and an image on an ashtray I saw in a flea market. What a legacy. Corruption issues are the Party trying to get a handle on the economy which has exploded. But, from what I could tell, corruption is rampant. I guess you just need to know who and when to bribe. BTW, no sign of Linux on the desktop, but it's there in the back end. FWIW, a knock off copy of XP or Vista can be had on the street for less than 10 yuan ( less than a couple of dollars), and in a very official looking package. I don't know how they deal with the authentication issues if you try and install it, though. Most of the PCs sold appear to be a mix of XP and a little Vista. No one seemed to care about Vista--XP was the highway.
Sadly, you are correct. But somewhere along the line programming for Windows became a game of "anyone can do it." Maybe it would be the same if Linux, or OSX were the standard. On the other hand, the basic Windows OS has become so corrupt that we now suffer insult with injury.
At home I run Linux. It is a pleasure to be relieved from the MS way of dong things. At the same time, Linux (with either KDE or Gnome) has become sluggish. Where is the basic progress? My PC is is respectable: 2 gigs of RAM and a dual core Pentium (not to mention a graphics card with more RAM than I thought possible 10 years ago). But, for basic tasks it is no "faster" than my very old Pentium 60 w/Win 3.1.
We are going backwards.
I am sick and tired of this "Windows Vista may or may not have problems..." line. Of course it has problems. It has a LOT of problems, not the least is that it offers less for the user than what it replaced.
This whole Windows thing is a bad joke. I work in a massive federal agency. We use XP and a ton of custom software. Nothing works. Our PC's are so bloated and slow it is difficult to get any work done. The system crashes several times a week. Our local PCs become so bogged down they become unusable. What is IT's solution? Reboot your desktop. Great thinking!
I am glad we will not be going to Vista anytime soon. God knows what it would be like using MS's latest wunderkind. The truth is, we are going backwards. But no one cares.
I don't know what's more pathetic: someone actually paying for an RMS autograph, or someone actually taking time to comment on someone who actually paid for an RMS autograph. Wait a minute...
The LIS robot was the only one on the show that had a sense of humor and the only one that had any sense, whatsoever. And in spite of moving around on tracks, the guy could go anywhere.
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Maybe they can go to the Feiss household next, and help Ellen recover her homework.
I was in SZ a few months ago and will go back in the Fall. My girlfriend is there and she just got her new ID card. For the casual visitor the last thing anyone thinks of is that one is in a police state. There are security and police everywhere, but they mostly look bored and, as far as I could tell, they didn't have much to do. One is very safe walking around, even late at night. Try that in Philly, or Miami, or any large American city. Of course the population is mostly homogenous--they are all Chinese and, as such, have a common ground. The only thing keeping the Chinese from taking over the world is the communist party. The red tape (no pun) makes doing business very awkward. If they can kick the CCP we will all be speaking Mandarin in a few generations. I'd much rather live in SZ than, say, the Middle East or even Europe, now. My impression was that, in general, they really like Americans. Not many places in the world can say that. I'd suggest people go there and spend a month or two. Get your own ideas and make up your own mind.
I just came back from a month in Shenzhen. On the street you could buy a copy of XP (in a very official looking package) for about 10 yuan, which is a dollar and some change, I guess. Now, on a good day, a copy of XP might actually be worth a couple of dollars, so this could have been a bargain, but even then no one seemed too interested.
I doubt it. I just spent the last month in Shenzhen. The only remnant of Mao is his picture on the Yuan, and an image on an ashtray I saw in a flea market. What a legacy. Corruption issues are the Party trying to get a handle on the economy which has exploded. But, from what I could tell, corruption is rampant. I guess you just need to know who and when to bribe. BTW, no sign of Linux on the desktop, but it's there in the back end. FWIW, a knock off copy of XP or Vista can be had on the street for less than 10 yuan ( less than a couple of dollars), and in a very official looking package. I don't know how they deal with the authentication issues if you try and install it, though. Most of the PCs sold appear to be a mix of XP and a little Vista. No one seemed to care about Vista--XP was the highway.
Probably as close as a fat guy who looks like he just woke up after 40 years of suspended animation will ever get to a hot Asian chick.
There was a time (maybe around DOS 5?) when people were more interested in the upgrade than worrying about contractions. Great going, Microsoft!
Sadly, you are correct. But somewhere along the line programming for Windows became a game of "anyone can do it." Maybe it would be the same if Linux, or OSX were the standard. On the other hand, the basic Windows OS has become so corrupt that we now suffer insult with injury. At home I run Linux. It is a pleasure to be relieved from the MS way of dong things. At the same time, Linux (with either KDE or Gnome) has become sluggish. Where is the basic progress? My PC is is respectable: 2 gigs of RAM and a dual core Pentium (not to mention a graphics card with more RAM than I thought possible 10 years ago). But, for basic tasks it is no "faster" than my very old Pentium 60 w/Win 3.1. We are going backwards.
I am sick and tired of this "Windows Vista may or may not have problems..." line. Of course it has problems. It has a LOT of problems, not the least is that it offers less for the user than what it replaced. This whole Windows thing is a bad joke. I work in a massive federal agency. We use XP and a ton of custom software. Nothing works. Our PC's are so bloated and slow it is difficult to get any work done. The system crashes several times a week. Our local PCs become so bogged down they become unusable. What is IT's solution? Reboot your desktop. Great thinking! I am glad we will not be going to Vista anytime soon. God knows what it would be like using MS's latest wunderkind. The truth is, we are going backwards. But no one cares.
I, for one, welcome our new free speech overlords, Jesse 'hymietown' Jackson and Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton.
I don't know what's more pathetic: someone actually paying for an RMS autograph, or someone actually taking time to comment on someone who actually paid for an RMS autograph. Wait a minute...
The LIS robot was the only one on the show that had a sense of humor and the only one that had any sense, whatsoever. And in spite of moving around on tracks, the guy could go anywhere.
When a version of Windows on a Dell PC can humble a world class chess master then I'll start taking Ballmer seriously.