Of course all this would end overnight if consumers just stopped watching these damn movies. But of course no one will because most people don't care, and amongst those that do many will watch anyway. The term "consumer" is quite appropriate. People are like ravenous locusts the way they devour any shred of entertainment dropped in front of them.
I largely stopped watching movies several years ago. It wasn't a conscious decision; it was a number of things that slowly turned me off. Predictable, contrived stories, poor writing, endless plot holes and the like. One of the bigger problems is just how calculating the industry is. There's all the bandwagon jumping, milking popular trends and focus group testing. Movies are selected for their ability to generate income. That they have any message to deliver is incidental, used as a selling point and nothing more.
The real reason is society at large. The problems facing actresses are no different than the average girl. The key differences are that, a) actresses are pushed even more aggressively into conforming to a certain aesthetic; and b) the have the income to be able to act on it.
The guys in high school were douchebags and as such their mentality easily dismissed. The problem is that they were equally affect by social norms and thus were simply repeating what society at large expects of these girls.
Hence the expectation that women should look like surgically augmented toothpicks. The real problems are always a lot more subtle than people believe.
The interesting is that Foxconn actually offers a better work environment than many companies in China, and especially those by Chinese. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, in case you're confused. The companies producing stuff domestically offer some of the most deplorable working environments which is why Chinese tend to flock to foreign companies. And the interesting thing is that it's been shown that many Chinese cities have a higher suicide rate than Foxconn's sprawling campus, a city in it's own right.
And the fact is that Apple is extremely unlikely to end their relationship with Foxconn. There aren't many companies out there that can manufacture electronics with such consistent quality, and be able to meet demand time and time again and likely at a decent cost. This is not a trivial skill set and certainly not something easily replaced.
This is not to say that things are ideal. But then no one wants electronics to cost double what they do now.
This gets me wondering if Lego shouldn't open up a technical division that specializes in buildable, cost-effective robots based on Mindstorms for corporate and scientific use. Tighten up the tolerance and offer parts in materials other than plastic, like aluminum or stainless steel. Obviously they wouldn't be competing with industrial robots, but I can imagine that these things could fill quite a few needs and pricing would be attractive, particularly to academia.
Can't they use scanning equipment to see what's underneath the existing painting?
I don't see the need to destroy the newer artwork merely to uncover a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting. It should be enough to know what it looks like. Maybe then hire some artist to reproduce it to display in museums.
Just because in your mind they faded into obscurity doesn't mean they weren't profoundly influential.
These games by and large predate those JRPGs. Dragon Quest, in fact, was inspired by Wizardry and Ultima. Final Fantasy also sees it's roots in those early RPGs. Both have been extremely influential, particularly amongst JRPGs, but they weren't the originators of the genre.
The Legend of Zelda is more unique because of it's arcade-like elements and reduced emphasis on conventional RPG elements. While it's been influential I don't think it's quite had the direct impact of those other games, particularly within the RPG world.
And the most important aspect of all is that this article is about COMPUTER games.
I'm sure there are some artistic photographers out there who will put the Lytro to great use. But then a good photographer can produce a compelling photo with almost any camera. Case in point: Lomo cameras. Forget technical specs, in terms of build quality the camera is total crap. And yet people manage to pull off some very cool photos with the thing.
However, that requires a good aesthetic eye and more technical skill than your average consumer possesses. Travel in Asia and you'll see guys sporting the latest and greatest DSLRs coupled to some outrageous lenses. But take a look at the photos they produce and they're all crap anyone could have shot with a cheap point-and-shoot. So it's not always about the specs.
However, specs do matter. Sure, people are producing compelling photos with something like a Lomo, but the nature of the photography limits it to a very narrow niche. From what I've been seeing of the Lytro image quality is decidedly subpar. Coupled with that is the fact that it isn't all that easy to produce a photo that looks good. Unlike most cameras where you know what you're getting the moment you shoot the photo with the Lytro you're mostly just guessing. It's very difficult to determine what kind of depth of field effect will work at the time the photo is being taken. So there's a lot of guess work involved. It's almost a step back to film except that even then you had a fairly decent indication of what you were going to get.
As far as I'm concerned, unless there are some huge leaps with the technology behind light field cameras this will always be a novelty, or at least only cater to a very specialized niche. My money on the next big thing is the new crop of mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras.
This is fascinating if for no other reason than to compare against my own workday. It's quite evident that this guy's day starts at roughly 10am and ends by about 3pm. So on average 5 hours of work per day. I wish my work day looked like that, even if it meant meant some work on the weekends.
Japan must have a ton of redundancy to be able to handle having so many reactors offline and still have enough power for everyone. I doubt the US is so well prepared.
This is Hollywood, why is anyone surprised that a beloved character would be whore'd out? This movie wasn't produced to teach environmentalism, this movie was produced to capitalize on a timely theme and the popularity of Dr. Seuss.
But then, the answer here is simple. If you take issue with what they've done don't watch the movie. Don't go to the theater and definitely don't buy or rent the DVD. Once you hand your money over you've effectively told the movie company that they've made the right decision.
It would have been more appropriate to use the Once-Ler to peddle the SUV.
A boycott in a digital space is far easier to organize than for physical businesses. The problem is that people are not principled. Far too many people, especially in the gaming and tech world, feign indignation but hand over their money anyway. For every one person who commits to a boycott there are probably 10 who complain but buy it anyway and another 50 who don't care. And the extreme convenience of the web makes it so that people are even less likely to care. But it's fundamentally no different than what you'd find in the real world.
At least online you can get a movement organized to not only organize the boycott but call attention to the problem.
I have an acquaintance who's a teacher in the New York public school system. She came from Asia recently and was shocked at the low standards here. At one point she came across a teacher who had been teaching something incorrectly. When she tried pointing that how she faced nothing but animosity.
At the other extreme, especially in upper class communities, there is a serious problem with parents coming down on the schools. Parents spoil their kids rotten, don't raise them properly, dump them on schools and then don't allow schools discipline them. And it's not just that, they take the side of their kids even when they've obviously done wrong. That's quite a lesson to teach your kids; you can get away with anything because your parents will always have your back.
And in the inner city the bad kids are pretty much ruining things for everyone. I have a friend who's taught in one of these schools and his attitude is that some of these kids are a lost cause. Too much time is wasted just trying to keep order in the class. Forcing them to go to school only ensures that their classmates are getting a compromised education.
There's this duality in the American school system that's causing some serious problems. Teachers obviously need some protection from idiotic parents. They also can't be held accountable if they're stuck teaching in a school system full of troublemakers. On the other hand, it doesn't mean they deserve a pass, that they shouldn't be held accountable for the quality of their work.
That said, I think the problems with the American educational system can be countered with good parental involvement. I've known quite a few people, particularly in the Asian community, who demonstrate that all the time. Last year I had the opportunity to move back to Asia and one of the big considerations was education. On a basic level the quality of education there is light years beyond what we have here. You're kids are more likely to learn and retain the essentials there. And it's awesome how much they value education.
On the other hand, they're taught like drones. Despite efforts to change the system, there's still an excessive fixation on passing tests. Kids spend all their time in cram schools and the fixation is all on rote memorization. But there's no real independent and creative thought. That was painfully obvious at college-level student design fairs. Impressive work would be on display, but then you'd get these people in the workplace and they were incapable of performing. It all stemmed from the fact that while in school their hands were held constantly, they were basically just repeating whatever instruction the professor was giving them.
And that mindset is so pervasive and imposing that there's really no way to effectively counter it in the home. There are schools that offer a Western-style education, but those schools are generally extremely expensive and have all the same discipline and educational problems that American schools do. In fact, from what I hear it's even worse because wealthy Asians tend to spoil their kids even worse than Americans do.
In the US, as long as your kid isn't in a school that's a total disaster, your kids should be fine. But it's essential that you're involved. You need to interact with teachers and strongly encourage education at home. And there's one essential factor I've noticed. The kids who seem to run into more trouble has a social life that revolves entirely around the school they attend. The Asian kids I've come across who excel tend to have friends and family outside of school. And in that world kids who study hard is routine. So there's less of that desperate need to fit in at school because they realize that the outside world is different. If your kid only knows his or her school and they've got friends who don't take academics seriously, which is painfully common for your average American, it's going to be a challenge.
The big issue is that Americans seem to believe that throwing money at a problem will fix it. The US already spends far more per student than any other country on Earth and it clearly isn't happening. What the US needs are some fundamental changes.
So we have one article suggesting that cyberwar is an exaggeration, and now we have another article which seems to demonstrate that it is indeed a problem. I suppose we could debate whether or not this constitutes cyberwarfare but clearly American businesses and the government are not taking these threats seriously enough.
My impression has always been that the Chinese, both on a corporate and governmental level, realize they're too dependent on the developed world. The fact is that the US has even offloaded a lot of it's R&D so they're really not much more than a middleman who own a bunch of brands. It's only a matter of time before they're another Japan or South Korea with their own independent brands. It looks like they're trying to accelerate the process. And Americans, in the desperate hunger for the quick and easy buck are willingly letting it happen.
Space exploration is one of those programs that should never be cut. It offers far too many far-reaching benefits, many of those unforeseen. Defense spending is definitely an issue, sucking money from other programs, but at least even there society at large has something to gain as we've seen many times in the past.
There's a massive amount of waste in government and I don't mean the big obvious programs. I mean in day to day operations. Walk into any government office and it's obvious. And we hear about bloat and inefficiency every single day.
My fundamental problem with social entitlement programs is that it doesn't provide a long term benefit. We absolutely need these programs, but we also need a way of educating people and discouraging dependency. There are too many people out there who just don't care, and will keep taking handouts as long as they can get them. Of course, you can't just shut down these programs overnight and pull the rug out from under these people. So it's very challenging.
But like I said, space exploration has to rank near the top for importance and value to the human race.
I don't care who's president; I fully endorse this. If anything, they're not putting nearly enough money into these programs. This sort of thing is where our tax dollars should be doing. This and infrastructure. But I don't mean the kind of crap infrastructure programs like we've been seeing these past few years that do nothing but keep a few construction workers employed and puts money into the hands of companies that would have gotten business anyway.
What I mean are public works projects like those seen in Japan, South Korea and China; programs that have a long term positive impact but that actually make sense for the region. Of course, that pointless high speed rail that's been bandied about is not one of them. Unless we were developing our own high speed train and not just buying something overseas. We don't even have the expertise in this country to build our own high speed rail.
Absolutely money should be shifted away from defense spending, but I'd also like to see less spent on wasteful, shortsighted social programs. There are people out there who need the help, but many of these programs don't provide any long-term benefit for the country and merely increase dependency. Change the cultural mindset in this country and teach these people to fend for themselves and you'll see a much more profound improvement.
Of course, a lot of jobs have moved overseas and there's no bringing them back. The real challenge is to strike a good balance, something like Japan or Germany has managed. But I think the mindset in those cultures is quite different to what we have here in the US, at all levels. Unlike the average American workers, the lowliest employees still have a strong work ethic and take pride in what they do. And at the other extreme, upper management still has a lot of pride and maybe even nationalistic tendencies. And they still have a drive to actually make something. American management, however, seems intent on finding with quickest and easiest way to make a buck at the expense of everything else. But then, sometimes you can't blame them. I've got friends who complain that you spend several times more getting someone in the States to make something, but you don't even have a guarantee of quality.
Look at something as simple of toys. The nicest, highest quality stuff routinely comes out of Japan and Germany and often it's still made domestically. Compare that to American toys which are always made in China, usually poorly conceived and where the cost-cutting is always evident. With the vast majority of "American" products it's only a matter of time before China builds brand strong enough that they can stand on their own. At that point why bother with the middleman? The middleman being the American corporation that does nothing but own a brands, logos on the box, basically.
And that's where the fundamental problem arises. Will we be able to maximize the benefit of this investment in science if we end up offloading all of the actual design and manufacture to a foreign company? Are we just going to end up making a bunch of guys at the top even more wealthy? But then, I guess we have to start somewhere.
I know an audiophile and so am privy to that world. They do care quite a lot about room acoustics, contrary to what this guy is saying. Also, serious audiophiles don't just go out and buy the most expensive equipment available. Serious audiophiles obsess over what to buy before they actually get it. The ones who go out and buy the most expensive equipment are poseurs who want something they can brag about. A lot of them are very technically inclined. I knew this guy who was an engineer and actually built his own speakers.
I thought it was very entertaining. However, it had some very glaring holes. For example, why the fixation on batteries? Why were they manufactured in such an absurdly complex manner? Why no solar power? Wind power? Tidal? Clearly, some of those decisions were made for the sake of the establishing a plot.
I did feel he did a good job of establishing tension, especially when the uprising began. I also thought he did a reasonably good job of conveying ex-pat culture from the perspective of the ex-pat. But he also overdid that, suffering too much from the noble savage mindset. Westerners were all exploitive and evil, Thai were uniformly noble to a fault and the Japanese, despite doing everything the Westerners did, somehow came off as neutral.
I really liked the world Bacigalupi created, but I couldn't get past a lot of those nagging details.
I don't know if those reasons are accurate. These are the issues I see for China with a unified Korea.
1. Think back on Germany's unification. A unified Korea will become even more of an economic powerhouse. With unification South Korea would now have a massive untapped resource in the north. For example, why outsource manufacturing as they've been doing when they now can make stuff domestically for cheap. Also imagine the massive amount of investment the north is going to enjoy. Koreans have little need for Chinese goods, relatively speaking. I'm not sure with the NK mindset will be, but South Koreans are very nationalist.
2) An economically prosperous country will now exist on China's border. Refugees are not the problem. If anything, Chinese will probably be flocking across the border for opportunities. Sure, China's economy is burgeoning, but that growth is not uniform and it certainly not the case in that corner of China.
3) A strong American ally now shares a border with China. This one is obvious.
Everything thing else is a non-issue. I'm pretty sure North Korea gives China constant headaches, but they'll never acknowledge that. I don't really see what strategic benefit they offer China beyond providing a buffer hundreds of miles wide. They definitely provide no economic value, although I'm sure what little gets into NK is Chinese made. That likely wont continue with a unified nation.
Conditions at Foxconn may not be good by our standards, but they're a hell of a lot better than at most Chinese factories, especially those manufacturing goods for the Chinese domestic market.
Another factor increasing the earth's mass is global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up.
Wait, what? Isn't the mass already there but is just being distributed differently? What am I missing here?
I like how the damn article refers to this tree being majestic but then doesn't even feature a photo of the tree. Instead they present the reader with three useless photos.
In this day and age it's inexcusable for a news site to not feature big, quality photos. It took me all of 5 seconds to do a search online and find a good photo of the tree. You mean to tell me the so-called journalist who wrote this article couldn't have done the same? And then get some intern to get in touch with the rights-holder for permission to run it?
Slashdot Mirror
Of course all this would end overnight if consumers just stopped watching these damn movies. But of course no one will because most people don't care, and amongst those that do many will watch anyway. The term "consumer" is quite appropriate. People are like ravenous locusts the way they devour any shred of entertainment dropped in front of them.
I largely stopped watching movies several years ago. It wasn't a conscious decision; it was a number of things that slowly turned me off. Predictable, contrived stories, poor writing, endless plot holes and the like. One of the bigger problems is just how calculating the industry is. There's all the bandwagon jumping, milking popular trends and focus group testing. Movies are selected for their ability to generate income. That they have any message to deliver is incidental, used as a selling point and nothing more.
That's just a lame rip off of countless bad vampire movies and Japanese anime and manga.
The real reason is society at large. The problems facing actresses are no different than the average girl. The key differences are that, a) actresses are pushed even more aggressively into conforming to a certain aesthetic; and b) the have the income to be able to act on it.
The guys in high school were douchebags and as such their mentality easily dismissed. The problem is that they were equally affect by social norms and thus were simply repeating what society at large expects of these girls.
Hence the expectation that women should look like surgically augmented toothpicks. The real problems are always a lot more subtle than people believe.
How about the common misuse of fewer and less.
The interesting is that Foxconn actually offers a better work environment than many companies in China, and especially those by Chinese. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, in case you're confused. The companies producing stuff domestically offer some of the most deplorable working environments which is why Chinese tend to flock to foreign companies. And the interesting thing is that it's been shown that many Chinese cities have a higher suicide rate than Foxconn's sprawling campus, a city in it's own right.
And the fact is that Apple is extremely unlikely to end their relationship with Foxconn. There aren't many companies out there that can manufacture electronics with such consistent quality, and be able to meet demand time and time again and likely at a decent cost. This is not a trivial skill set and certainly not something easily replaced.
This is not to say that things are ideal. But then no one wants electronics to cost double what they do now.
This gets me wondering if Lego shouldn't open up a technical division that specializes in buildable, cost-effective robots based on Mindstorms for corporate and scientific use. Tighten up the tolerance and offer parts in materials other than plastic, like aluminum or stainless steel. Obviously they wouldn't be competing with industrial robots, but I can imagine that these things could fill quite a few needs and pricing would be attractive, particularly to academia.
Can't they use scanning equipment to see what's underneath the existing painting?
I don't see the need to destroy the newer artwork merely to uncover a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting. It should be enough to know what it looks like. Maybe then hire some artist to reproduce it to display in museums.
Some of Sierra's old games are still amongst my favorites. However, there's no way they could possibly be classified as RPGs. They're adventure games.
Just because in your mind they faded into obscurity doesn't mean they weren't profoundly influential.
These games by and large predate those JRPGs. Dragon Quest, in fact, was inspired by Wizardry and Ultima. Final Fantasy also sees it's roots in those early RPGs. Both have been extremely influential, particularly amongst JRPGs, but they weren't the originators of the genre.
The Legend of Zelda is more unique because of it's arcade-like elements and reduced emphasis on conventional RPG elements. While it's been influential I don't think it's quite had the direct impact of those other games, particularly within the RPG world.
And the most important aspect of all is that this article is about COMPUTER games.
I'm sure there are some artistic photographers out there who will put the Lytro to great use. But then a good photographer can produce a compelling photo with almost any camera. Case in point: Lomo cameras. Forget technical specs, in terms of build quality the camera is total crap. And yet people manage to pull off some very cool photos with the thing.
However, that requires a good aesthetic eye and more technical skill than your average consumer possesses. Travel in Asia and you'll see guys sporting the latest and greatest DSLRs coupled to some outrageous lenses. But take a look at the photos they produce and they're all crap anyone could have shot with a cheap point-and-shoot. So it's not always about the specs.
However, specs do matter. Sure, people are producing compelling photos with something like a Lomo, but the nature of the photography limits it to a very narrow niche. From what I've been seeing of the Lytro image quality is decidedly subpar. Coupled with that is the fact that it isn't all that easy to produce a photo that looks good. Unlike most cameras where you know what you're getting the moment you shoot the photo with the Lytro you're mostly just guessing. It's very difficult to determine what kind of depth of field effect will work at the time the photo is being taken. So there's a lot of guess work involved. It's almost a step back to film except that even then you had a fairly decent indication of what you were going to get.
As far as I'm concerned, unless there are some huge leaps with the technology behind light field cameras this will always be a novelty, or at least only cater to a very specialized niche. My money on the next big thing is the new crop of mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras.
This is fascinating if for no other reason than to compare against my own workday. It's quite evident that this guy's day starts at roughly 10am and ends by about 3pm. So on average 5 hours of work per day. I wish my work day looked like that, even if it meant meant some work on the weekends.
Japan must have a ton of redundancy to be able to handle having so many reactors offline and still have enough power for everyone. I doubt the US is so well prepared.
This is Hollywood, why is anyone surprised that a beloved character would be whore'd out? This movie wasn't produced to teach environmentalism, this movie was produced to capitalize on a timely theme and the popularity of Dr. Seuss.
But then, the answer here is simple. If you take issue with what they've done don't watch the movie. Don't go to the theater and definitely don't buy or rent the DVD. Once you hand your money over you've effectively told the movie company that they've made the right decision.
It would have been more appropriate to use the Once-Ler to peddle the SUV.
A boycott in a digital space is far easier to organize than for physical businesses. The problem is that people are not principled. Far too many people, especially in the gaming and tech world, feign indignation but hand over their money anyway. For every one person who commits to a boycott there are probably 10 who complain but buy it anyway and another 50 who don't care. And the extreme convenience of the web makes it so that people are even less likely to care. But it's fundamentally no different than what you'd find in the real world.
At least online you can get a movement organized to not only organize the boycott but call attention to the problem.
I have an acquaintance who's a teacher in the New York public school system. She came from Asia recently and was shocked at the low standards here. At one point she came across a teacher who had been teaching something incorrectly. When she tried pointing that how she faced nothing but animosity.
At the other extreme, especially in upper class communities, there is a serious problem with parents coming down on the schools. Parents spoil their kids rotten, don't raise them properly, dump them on schools and then don't allow schools discipline them. And it's not just that, they take the side of their kids even when they've obviously done wrong. That's quite a lesson to teach your kids; you can get away with anything because your parents will always have your back.
And in the inner city the bad kids are pretty much ruining things for everyone. I have a friend who's taught in one of these schools and his attitude is that some of these kids are a lost cause. Too much time is wasted just trying to keep order in the class. Forcing them to go to school only ensures that their classmates are getting a compromised education.
There's this duality in the American school system that's causing some serious problems. Teachers obviously need some protection from idiotic parents. They also can't be held accountable if they're stuck teaching in a school system full of troublemakers. On the other hand, it doesn't mean they deserve a pass, that they shouldn't be held accountable for the quality of their work.
That said, I think the problems with the American educational system can be countered with good parental involvement. I've known quite a few people, particularly in the Asian community, who demonstrate that all the time. Last year I had the opportunity to move back to Asia and one of the big considerations was education. On a basic level the quality of education there is light years beyond what we have here. You're kids are more likely to learn and retain the essentials there. And it's awesome how much they value education.
On the other hand, they're taught like drones. Despite efforts to change the system, there's still an excessive fixation on passing tests. Kids spend all their time in cram schools and the fixation is all on rote memorization. But there's no real independent and creative thought. That was painfully obvious at college-level student design fairs. Impressive work would be on display, but then you'd get these people in the workplace and they were incapable of performing. It all stemmed from the fact that while in school their hands were held constantly, they were basically just repeating whatever instruction the professor was giving them.
And that mindset is so pervasive and imposing that there's really no way to effectively counter it in the home. There are schools that offer a Western-style education, but those schools are generally extremely expensive and have all the same discipline and educational problems that American schools do. In fact, from what I hear it's even worse because wealthy Asians tend to spoil their kids even worse than Americans do.
In the US, as long as your kid isn't in a school that's a total disaster, your kids should be fine. But it's essential that you're involved. You need to interact with teachers and strongly encourage education at home. And there's one essential factor I've noticed. The kids who seem to run into more trouble has a social life that revolves entirely around the school they attend. The Asian kids I've come across who excel tend to have friends and family outside of school. And in that world kids who study hard is routine. So there's less of that desperate need to fit in at school because they realize that the outside world is different. If your kid only knows his or her school and they've got friends who don't take academics seriously, which is painfully common for your average American, it's going to be a challenge.
The big issue is that Americans seem to believe that throwing money at a problem will fix it. The US already spends far more per student than any other country on Earth and it clearly isn't happening. What the US needs are some fundamental changes.
Shouldn't that be .001%?
So we have one article suggesting that cyberwar is an exaggeration, and now we have another article which seems to demonstrate that it is indeed a problem. I suppose we could debate whether or not this constitutes cyberwarfare but clearly American businesses and the government are not taking these threats seriously enough.
My impression has always been that the Chinese, both on a corporate and governmental level, realize they're too dependent on the developed world. The fact is that the US has even offloaded a lot of it's R&D so they're really not much more than a middleman who own a bunch of brands. It's only a matter of time before they're another Japan or South Korea with their own independent brands. It looks like they're trying to accelerate the process. And Americans, in the desperate hunger for the quick and easy buck are willingly letting it happen.
Space exploration is one of those programs that should never be cut. It offers far too many far-reaching benefits, many of those unforeseen. Defense spending is definitely an issue, sucking money from other programs, but at least even there society at large has something to gain as we've seen many times in the past.
There's a massive amount of waste in government and I don't mean the big obvious programs. I mean in day to day operations. Walk into any government office and it's obvious. And we hear about bloat and inefficiency every single day.
My fundamental problem with social entitlement programs is that it doesn't provide a long term benefit. We absolutely need these programs, but we also need a way of educating people and discouraging dependency. There are too many people out there who just don't care, and will keep taking handouts as long as they can get them. Of course, you can't just shut down these programs overnight and pull the rug out from under these people. So it's very challenging.
But like I said, space exploration has to rank near the top for importance and value to the human race.
I don't care who's president; I fully endorse this. If anything, they're not putting nearly enough money into these programs. This sort of thing is where our tax dollars should be doing. This and infrastructure. But I don't mean the kind of crap infrastructure programs like we've been seeing these past few years that do nothing but keep a few construction workers employed and puts money into the hands of companies that would have gotten business anyway.
What I mean are public works projects like those seen in Japan, South Korea and China; programs that have a long term positive impact but that actually make sense for the region. Of course, that pointless high speed rail that's been bandied about is not one of them. Unless we were developing our own high speed train and not just buying something overseas. We don't even have the expertise in this country to build our own high speed rail.
Absolutely money should be shifted away from defense spending, but I'd also like to see less spent on wasteful, shortsighted social programs. There are people out there who need the help, but many of these programs don't provide any long-term benefit for the country and merely increase dependency. Change the cultural mindset in this country and teach these people to fend for themselves and you'll see a much more profound improvement.
Of course, a lot of jobs have moved overseas and there's no bringing them back. The real challenge is to strike a good balance, something like Japan or Germany has managed. But I think the mindset in those cultures is quite different to what we have here in the US, at all levels. Unlike the average American workers, the lowliest employees still have a strong work ethic and take pride in what they do. And at the other extreme, upper management still has a lot of pride and maybe even nationalistic tendencies. And they still have a drive to actually make something. American management, however, seems intent on finding with quickest and easiest way to make a buck at the expense of everything else. But then, sometimes you can't blame them. I've got friends who complain that you spend several times more getting someone in the States to make something, but you don't even have a guarantee of quality.
Look at something as simple of toys. The nicest, highest quality stuff routinely comes out of Japan and Germany and often it's still made domestically. Compare that to American toys which are always made in China, usually poorly conceived and where the cost-cutting is always evident. With the vast majority of "American" products it's only a matter of time before China builds brand strong enough that they can stand on their own. At that point why bother with the middleman? The middleman being the American corporation that does nothing but own a brands, logos on the box, basically.
And that's where the fundamental problem arises. Will we be able to maximize the benefit of this investment in science if we end up offloading all of the actual design and manufacture to a foreign company? Are we just going to end up making a bunch of guys at the top even more wealthy? But then, I guess we have to start somewhere.
I know an audiophile and so am privy to that world. They do care quite a lot about room acoustics, contrary to what this guy is saying. Also, serious audiophiles don't just go out and buy the most expensive equipment available. Serious audiophiles obsess over what to buy before they actually get it. The ones who go out and buy the most expensive equipment are poseurs who want something they can brag about. A lot of them are very technically inclined. I knew this guy who was an engineer and actually built his own speakers.
I thought it was very entertaining. However, it had some very glaring holes. For example, why the fixation on batteries? Why were they manufactured in such an absurdly complex manner? Why no solar power? Wind power? Tidal? Clearly, some of those decisions were made for the sake of the establishing a plot.
I did feel he did a good job of establishing tension, especially when the uprising began. I also thought he did a reasonably good job of conveying ex-pat culture from the perspective of the ex-pat. But he also overdid that, suffering too much from the noble savage mindset. Westerners were all exploitive and evil, Thai were uniformly noble to a fault and the Japanese, despite doing everything the Westerners did, somehow came off as neutral.
I really liked the world Bacigalupi created, but I couldn't get past a lot of those nagging details.
I don't know if those reasons are accurate. These are the issues I see for China with a unified Korea.
1. Think back on Germany's unification. A unified Korea will become even more of an economic powerhouse. With unification South Korea would now have a massive untapped resource in the north. For example, why outsource manufacturing as they've been doing when they now can make stuff domestically for cheap. Also imagine the massive amount of investment the north is going to enjoy. Koreans have little need for Chinese goods, relatively speaking. I'm not sure with the NK mindset will be, but South Koreans are very nationalist.
2) An economically prosperous country will now exist on China's border. Refugees are not the problem. If anything, Chinese will probably be flocking across the border for opportunities. Sure, China's economy is burgeoning, but that growth is not uniform and it certainly not the case in that corner of China.
3) A strong American ally now shares a border with China. This one is obvious.
Everything thing else is a non-issue. I'm pretty sure North Korea gives China constant headaches, but they'll never acknowledge that. I don't really see what strategic benefit they offer China beyond providing a buffer hundreds of miles wide. They definitely provide no economic value, although I'm sure what little gets into NK is Chinese made. That likely wont continue with a unified nation.
Conditions at Foxconn may not be good by our standards, but they're a hell of a lot better than at most Chinese factories, especially those manufacturing goods for the Chinese domestic market.
Wait, what? Isn't the mass already there but is just being distributed differently? What am I missing here?
I like how the damn article refers to this tree being majestic but then doesn't even feature a photo of the tree. Instead they present the reader with three useless photos.
In this day and age it's inexcusable for a news site to not feature big, quality photos. It took me all of 5 seconds to do a search online and find a good photo of the tree. You mean to tell me the so-called journalist who wrote this article couldn't have done the same? And then get some intern to get in touch with the rights-holder for permission to run it?