Not particularly surprising when you consider that Japanese robot manufacturers have generally focused on manufacturing, healthcare or the consumer sector. And they produce legions of relatively worthless robots. I'm not sure why they haven't quite linked their prowess to more practical applications. At least they make them prettier than the robots Americans produce.
In my region most corporate offices are located in higher income areas. This means most employees, excluding middle and upper management of course, can't afford to live close to where they work. It's not even close to being an option, no way in hell could I afford to live closer than the 15 miles I currently live from work. Coming from the other direction I probably couldn't afford to live within 30+ miles of my job. But then oftentimes upper management lives within walking distance of the office.
Interesting... But China is not going to annex Taiwan. No need. China and Taiwan's ties are closer than they've ever been before.
Taiwan's current administration has been particularly friendly towards China, whereas the previous president was a bit antagonistic, but this has been a long time in coming. Countless Taiwanese companies have factories and offices in China. A few years ago direct flights were opened up between the two nations. This is a big deal as previously anyone wanting to travel between the two countries had to fly through Hong Kong.
Most Taiwanese are ambivalent towards China. They like to be recognized as an independent nation, but ultimately the desire to accumulate wealth wins out.
And would be the constructive purpose of annexing Taiwan? They'd just wreck the Taiwanese economy. All China has to do is wait.
The only scenario where I'd see China getting openly aggressive would be if their economy collapsed. People would rise up against the government. And the government would resort to getting the people rallying behind a cause. And given that scenario the government could easily perceive that there would be a benefit to invading Taiwan.
The spats that occur between the two nations are mostly political and are face-saving gestures. One thing China does well is not rock the boat. Let everyone else, namely the US and Europe, get involved around the world, draw the ire of other nations, while China is doing business on the side. Like they're currently doing in Africa. They're smart, but they're not going to be able to keep this up forever. Nations are going to start expecting more of them, and it's already been happening.
Given how far north Chicago is, and the kinds of winters they get, I'm curious to know if it will be worth the effort. And it it will deliver on the energy claims. I'm curious to know what kind of power they'll get from that amount of surface area compared to the same installation somewhere in the southwest.
Who's talking about that? While those claims of what happened at the super dome are untrue there certainly was a lot of looting. There's plenty of photographic evidence of it. And I guarantee you a lot of Americans would not patiently stand in line for hours. They'd start pissing and moaning and eventually just rush the store, grabbing everything they can.
Hell, several years ago I was hanging out with a friend. The power goes out for a good hour or two. I leave for home when the power is restored, drive past a some shops and notice that several of them had smashed windows and had been looted. That's the kind of mentality we're dealing with this country. But there are many more far reaching problems than that.
It's interesting how many people choose to walk or cycle home so far. But then, there's an important reason why it's feasible in Japan, and many Asian nations, and not in the United States. You don't have to worry about walking through bad neighborhoods; it's a safe trip all the way home. Yet another of the many frustrating things with this country.
While the Western media is truly sensationalizing this, attitudes in Asia are different than those in the West. Americans and Europeans are far more cynical of technology, corporations and government than Japanese are. So they're far more likely to question everything. Japanese, on the other hand, are more likely to trust that the experts have the situation contained. Just because they aren't worried, doesn't mean there isn't a real problem there.
Whatever the advantages of good supervision in the home are, they are outweighed by the lack of day long interaction with others.
I'm not really fan of homeschooling, although I have no problem with people who want to do it. Americans place far too much importance on socializing, especially at the expense of academic excellence. I guarantee you the top academic performers aren't wasting their time interacting with classmates.
Everyone loves to blame somebody else for problems with America. I do agree that corporate American, and our government, to a large extent are responsible for many of our problems. If faced with a possible meltdown an American company, marketing idiots would decide, "releasing information makes us look bad" and would keep it secret until things had gotten totally out of control. But long before that point, the idiots with business degrees would have decided it was too expensive to do things the right way and would have skimped during construction.
But as I've said, it isn't just the fault of corporations and government. The American people are also at fault. If you haven't been to Japan you don't know what work ethic is. Has anyone seen the footage inside the supermarkets during the earthquake? The first thing store employees did when it was over was make sure the products were secure and started cleaning the place up. In the US, they'd run for the doors and probably wouldn't go back to work. If there was a mess on the floor they'd say it was someone else's responsibility. Japanese are dedicated to their jobs on a level many Americans can't imagine.
How about the people waiting in lines to be able to buy food and supplies? Everyone's respectful, courteous and follows the rules. In America there would have been a mad rush with everyone grabbing what they could. Worse than that, there would be looting.
Too many Americans have this obnoxious sense of self-righteousness and an obsession with being iconoclasts. No sense of pride and no sense of respect or responsibility.
And the thing is that these attributes aren't unique to Japan, although it's definitely much more concentrated there. Travel to South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore or even China and you'll see this. Walk into any convenience store, and there are hundreds of them in any Asian city and the aisles are nearly stocked and the store always clean. I've been to malls where employees were on their hands and knees scrubbing the threshold of an entrance to the mall. I don't recall ever being in a bathroom in a shopping center that wasn't pristine. Good luck seeing that in an American mall.
Employees are almost always courteous and do a consistently good job. They don't need managers breathing down their necks, but they also know that management isn't going to tolerate bullshit. Walk into a supermarket in the States and employees are routinely whining that they've had to work 5 minutes late. Or they're chatting with friends. Or moping. Or simply jerks. Then there are the patrons who don't have a respect for anyone, including employees who do work hard to keep things clean and organized. The problems are everywhere.
I didn't really appreciate any of this until I lived in Asia. And now I find it frustrating to no end; at times I question why I continue to live in the States. The problems exist at every level. But then you can't feel self-righteous if you acknowledge your own part in all this.
You hate a technology that has been a massive boon to humanity. It may not be perfect, but then what is? Those imperfections are what people are trying to address on a daily basis.
This vehicle might seem pointless on a superficial level. I bet there were people who also thought launching Sputnik into orbit was pointless. But look at what it's brought us. A lot of technological advance, probably most, came about via indirect routes. It's not like someone sat around one day and decided out of the blue we're going to build a mobile phone, an airplane, or a car. A lot had to happen beforehand to enable these things.
I'm curious to know if you would consider the entertainment industry a waste of money and resources. While, I firmly believe that entertainment is vital to the human existence I could easily argue that the American entertainment industry is massively wasteful, far more so than most other industries. And the vast majority of innovations within the entertainment industry, the few that exist, are mostly self-serving.
One amusing thing about Wikipedia is how many articles on things that are visual in nature often feature perhaps a single photo, a second if you're lucky. But anything related to sex gets one gratuitous image after another. It's almost comical.
With the occasional exception in some areas the Nobel prize has long since ceased to stand for anything. Routinely the conditions for winning the prize seem to come down to one of two things: 1) a nominee is a high profile figure and holds a political view compatible with that of the prize committee, 2) the committee has determined that they can use a nominee to make a political statement. And despite evidence to the contrary they seem to continue to hold the delusion that they can affect change by awarding the prize to a particular individual.
For now I'd say it's a fluke. You're not likely to find any of these problems even in a cheap Dell computer. In all the years I've owned and happened to open a computer or some other bit of electronics I can't say I've seen improperly assembled components. The only exception being toys where it's an absolute disaster how things get put together.
It is possible that in the rush to anticipate demand that factories are forgoing some quality control and maybe even overworking their employees.
Use it to market the value of open source. Perhaps feature a whole section with tips on switching and cover the basic challenges a user might face. A resource where new users aren't going to be judged for their ignorance about Linux.
A domain like this shouldn't be wasted catering to a community already sold on the concept.
Blind surveys have shown that people could only tell the difference between SACD and DVD Audio at uncomfortably loud volumes. And the difference between those formats and CDs are larger than what Apple is going to offer.
I still prefer CDs for listening enjoyment at home. But I can certainly appreciate the convenience of AAC. CDs give me a permanent backup and the freedom to rip music for any other device I choose.
I can absolutely hear a difference between Apple's 256kbps and CDs. But then, I don't normally listen to the poorly mixed, over-produced junk that is most pop music. Even on CD a lot of that stuff isn't particularly good, so it's not like you're losing much by going with compressed audio.
Most people can't hear a difference because they're not paying attention. Kind of like people who claim you can't see a difference between 720p or 1080p. I will acknowledge, however, that quality doesn't get in the way of enjoying music. But for me it does. Not that I consider myself an audiophile, nor have I invested an obscene amount of money in audio equipment. I have a 15+ year old amp and a pair of decent speakers.
Certainly a lot of it is subjective. But within a reasonable price range you can get speakers that comfortable offer 90% - 95% of the quality of the really high end speakers. But if you really get crazy, it gets to a point where people start looking at treating their rooms to maximize audio quality. And I've seen first hand how that can have a dramatic impact on quality. Of course, a good set of headphones can also accomplish this, but then you lose the physical impact.
Serious audiophiles are well aware that $5000, even $100 cables can be a scam. The ones throwing away that kind of money do so simply so they can brag they've spent that kind of money. It's like the so-called wine connoisseur who can only enjoy high-priced wines. If you've got someone telling you that the only good wines cost over $80 a bottle then you can be certain he doesn't know a damn thing about wine.
I've been noticing that images of Assange in the media have been growing increasingly messianic. He's essentially been turned into this dapper stud. I think Wikileaks is great, but I have a huge problem with the way this one twit, who seems to have a massive ego, is getting all the credit.
I find it pathetic that people can't help but glorify an individual for something scores of people have worked towards. It's not just those who built Wikileaks, but all the personal risks people have taken to leak all that information.
Culturally, Americans seem to have a problem with leaders. They have a strong inclination to rally behind the underdog, or at least whoever manages to continue effectively marketing themselves as such.
The perception is that Google is a leader, so it's inevitable that we're starting to hear that their best days are supposedly behind them. I don't know how the hell Apple pulls it off, but they continue to maintain this perception that they're an anti-establishment underdog.
I can appreciate the desire to root for the small guy, but people sometimes take it to the point of being irrational, especially when people are completely ignorant about the reality behind all the marketing.
It already fits in my pocket, although it doesn't quite cost $20 yet. It's called a Smartphone. Get on the internet, use a search engine and I can find information on anything I want. Granted, the answers don't come as quickly and the device isn't answering anything on it's own. But still, the principle is similar.
While I appreciate the implications of this sort of thing I don't see the problem in this situation.
If I purchased directly from the publisher wouldn't I be providing that information anyway? If I were a publisher I'd definitely like to know who's buying from me so why should I be blocked from getting that info?
Slashdot Mirror
Not particularly surprising when you consider that Japanese robot manufacturers have generally focused on manufacturing, healthcare or the consumer sector. And they produce legions of relatively worthless robots. I'm not sure why they haven't quite linked their prowess to more practical applications. At least they make them prettier than the robots Americans produce.
Explain how this is fair?
In my region most corporate offices are located in higher income areas. This means most employees, excluding middle and upper management of course, can't afford to live close to where they work. It's not even close to being an option, no way in hell could I afford to live closer than the 15 miles I currently live from work. Coming from the other direction I probably couldn't afford to live within 30+ miles of my job. But then oftentimes upper management lives within walking distance of the office.
Interesting... But China is not going to annex Taiwan. No need. China and Taiwan's ties are closer than they've ever been before.
Taiwan's current administration has been particularly friendly towards China, whereas the previous president was a bit antagonistic, but this has been a long time in coming. Countless Taiwanese companies have factories and offices in China. A few years ago direct flights were opened up between the two nations. This is a big deal as previously anyone wanting to travel between the two countries had to fly through Hong Kong.
Most Taiwanese are ambivalent towards China. They like to be recognized as an independent nation, but ultimately the desire to accumulate wealth wins out.
And would be the constructive purpose of annexing Taiwan? They'd just wreck the Taiwanese economy. All China has to do is wait.
The only scenario where I'd see China getting openly aggressive would be if their economy collapsed. People would rise up against the government. And the government would resort to getting the people rallying behind a cause. And given that scenario the government could easily perceive that there would be a benefit to invading Taiwan.
The spats that occur between the two nations are mostly political and are face-saving gestures. One thing China does well is not rock the boat. Let everyone else, namely the US and Europe, get involved around the world, draw the ire of other nations, while China is doing business on the side. Like they're currently doing in Africa. They're smart, but they're not going to be able to keep this up forever. Nations are going to start expecting more of them, and it's already been happening.
Given how far north Chicago is, and the kinds of winters they get, I'm curious to know if it will be worth the effort. And it it will deliver on the energy claims. I'm curious to know what kind of power they'll get from that amount of surface area compared to the same installation somewhere in the southwest.
Who's talking about that? While those claims of what happened at the super dome are untrue there certainly was a lot of looting. There's plenty of photographic evidence of it. And I guarantee you a lot of Americans would not patiently stand in line for hours. They'd start pissing and moaning and eventually just rush the store, grabbing everything they can.
Hell, several years ago I was hanging out with a friend. The power goes out for a good hour or two. I leave for home when the power is restored, drive past a some shops and notice that several of them had smashed windows and had been looted. That's the kind of mentality we're dealing with this country. But there are many more far reaching problems than that.
It's interesting how many people choose to walk or cycle home so far. But then, there's an important reason why it's feasible in Japan, and many Asian nations, and not in the United States. You don't have to worry about walking through bad neighborhoods; it's a safe trip all the way home. Yet another of the many frustrating things with this country.
While the Western media is truly sensationalizing this, attitudes in Asia are different than those in the West. Americans and Europeans are far more cynical of technology, corporations and government than Japanese are. So they're far more likely to question everything. Japanese, on the other hand, are more likely to trust that the experts have the situation contained. Just because they aren't worried, doesn't mean there isn't a real problem there.
You forgot one: I don't understand this, so it must suck.
I'm not really fan of homeschooling, although I have no problem with people who want to do it. Americans place far too much importance on socializing, especially at the expense of academic excellence. I guarantee you the top academic performers aren't wasting their time interacting with classmates.
Everyone loves to blame somebody else for problems with America. I do agree that corporate American, and our government, to a large extent are responsible for many of our problems. If faced with a possible meltdown an American company, marketing idiots would decide, "releasing information makes us look bad" and would keep it secret until things had gotten totally out of control. But long before that point, the idiots with business degrees would have decided it was too expensive to do things the right way and would have skimped during construction.
But as I've said, it isn't just the fault of corporations and government. The American people are also at fault. If you haven't been to Japan you don't know what work ethic is. Has anyone seen the footage inside the supermarkets during the earthquake? The first thing store employees did when it was over was make sure the products were secure and started cleaning the place up. In the US, they'd run for the doors and probably wouldn't go back to work. If there was a mess on the floor they'd say it was someone else's responsibility. Japanese are dedicated to their jobs on a level many Americans can't imagine.
How about the people waiting in lines to be able to buy food and supplies? Everyone's respectful, courteous and follows the rules. In America there would have been a mad rush with everyone grabbing what they could. Worse than that, there would be looting.
Too many Americans have this obnoxious sense of self-righteousness and an obsession with being iconoclasts. No sense of pride and no sense of respect or responsibility.
And the thing is that these attributes aren't unique to Japan, although it's definitely much more concentrated there. Travel to South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore or even China and you'll see this. Walk into any convenience store, and there are hundreds of them in any Asian city and the aisles are nearly stocked and the store always clean. I've been to malls where employees were on their hands and knees scrubbing the threshold of an entrance to the mall. I don't recall ever being in a bathroom in a shopping center that wasn't pristine. Good luck seeing that in an American mall.
Employees are almost always courteous and do a consistently good job. They don't need managers breathing down their necks, but they also know that management isn't going to tolerate bullshit. Walk into a supermarket in the States and employees are routinely whining that they've had to work 5 minutes late. Or they're chatting with friends. Or moping. Or simply jerks. Then there are the patrons who don't have a respect for anyone, including employees who do work hard to keep things clean and organized. The problems are everywhere.
I didn't really appreciate any of this until I lived in Asia. And now I find it frustrating to no end; at times I question why I continue to live in the States. The problems exist at every level. But then you can't feel self-righteous if you acknowledge your own part in all this.
Did you actually read through the link you posted?
Nuclear is somewhat more expensive than coal and gas, but cheaper than nearly all alternative energy sources; wind, solar and tidal.
Of course, the money saved by no longer operating the Shuttle isn't going back into the space program.
You hate a technology that has been a massive boon to humanity. It may not be perfect, but then what is? Those imperfections are what people are trying to address on a daily basis.
This vehicle might seem pointless on a superficial level. I bet there were people who also thought launching Sputnik into orbit was pointless. But look at what it's brought us. A lot of technological advance, probably most, came about via indirect routes. It's not like someone sat around one day and decided out of the blue we're going to build a mobile phone, an airplane, or a car. A lot had to happen beforehand to enable these things.
I'm curious to know if you would consider the entertainment industry a waste of money and resources. While, I firmly believe that entertainment is vital to the human existence I could easily argue that the American entertainment industry is massively wasteful, far more so than most other industries. And the vast majority of innovations within the entertainment industry, the few that exist, are mostly self-serving.
Don't computer games, Madden and others, basically already do this? At least on a simplistic level?
So what? Might as well say, modern technology is used to draft constitution for all the relevance this has to anything.
How many important things have been done on a variety of computers? How many more have been done with pen and paper?
Is this the new thing? To be a brand whore every chance you get?
One amusing thing about Wikipedia is how many articles on things that are visual in nature often feature perhaps a single photo, a second if you're lucky. But anything related to sex gets one gratuitous image after another. It's almost comical.
The irony is that nearly all consumer cameras are designed and built in Asia.
With the occasional exception in some areas the Nobel prize has long since ceased to stand for anything. Routinely the conditions for winning the prize seem to come down to one of two things: 1) a nominee is a high profile figure and holds a political view compatible with that of the prize committee, 2) the committee has determined that they can use a nominee to make a political statement. And despite evidence to the contrary they seem to continue to hold the delusion that they can affect change by awarding the prize to a particular individual.
For now I'd say it's a fluke. You're not likely to find any of these problems even in a cheap Dell computer. In all the years I've owned and happened to open a computer or some other bit of electronics I can't say I've seen improperly assembled components. The only exception being toys where it's an absolute disaster how things get put together.
It is possible that in the rush to anticipate demand that factories are forgoing some quality control and maybe even overworking their employees.
Use it to market the value of open source. Perhaps feature a whole section with tips on switching and cover the basic challenges a user might face. A resource where new users aren't going to be judged for their ignorance about Linux.
A domain like this shouldn't be wasted catering to a community already sold on the concept.
Blind surveys have shown that people could only tell the difference between SACD and DVD Audio at uncomfortably loud volumes. And the difference between those formats and CDs are larger than what Apple is going to offer.
I still prefer CDs for listening enjoyment at home. But I can certainly appreciate the convenience of AAC. CDs give me a permanent backup and the freedom to rip music for any other device I choose.
I can absolutely hear a difference between Apple's 256kbps and CDs. But then, I don't normally listen to the poorly mixed, over-produced junk that is most pop music. Even on CD a lot of that stuff isn't particularly good, so it's not like you're losing much by going with compressed audio.
Most people can't hear a difference because they're not paying attention. Kind of like people who claim you can't see a difference between 720p or 1080p. I will acknowledge, however, that quality doesn't get in the way of enjoying music. But for me it does. Not that I consider myself an audiophile, nor have I invested an obscene amount of money in audio equipment. I have a 15+ year old amp and a pair of decent speakers.
Certainly a lot of it is subjective. But within a reasonable price range you can get speakers that comfortable offer 90% - 95% of the quality of the really high end speakers. But if you really get crazy, it gets to a point where people start looking at treating their rooms to maximize audio quality. And I've seen first hand how that can have a dramatic impact on quality. Of course, a good set of headphones can also accomplish this, but then you lose the physical impact.
Serious audiophiles are well aware that $5000, even $100 cables can be a scam. The ones throwing away that kind of money do so simply so they can brag they've spent that kind of money. It's like the so-called wine connoisseur who can only enjoy high-priced wines. If you've got someone telling you that the only good wines cost over $80 a bottle then you can be certain he doesn't know a damn thing about wine.
I've been noticing that images of Assange in the media have been growing increasingly messianic. He's essentially been turned into this dapper stud. I think Wikileaks is great, but I have a huge problem with the way this one twit, who seems to have a massive ego, is getting all the credit.
I find it pathetic that people can't help but glorify an individual for something scores of people have worked towards. It's not just those who built Wikileaks, but all the personal risks people have taken to leak all that information.
Culturally, Americans seem to have a problem with leaders. They have a strong inclination to rally behind the underdog, or at least whoever manages to continue effectively marketing themselves as such.
The perception is that Google is a leader, so it's inevitable that we're starting to hear that their best days are supposedly behind them. I don't know how the hell Apple pulls it off, but they continue to maintain this perception that they're an anti-establishment underdog.
I can appreciate the desire to root for the small guy, but people sometimes take it to the point of being irrational, especially when people are completely ignorant about the reality behind all the marketing.
It already fits in my pocket, although it doesn't quite cost $20 yet. It's called a Smartphone. Get on the internet, use a search engine and I can find information on anything I want. Granted, the answers don't come as quickly and the device isn't answering anything on it's own. But still, the principle is similar.
Not to trivialize what IBM has done...
While I appreciate the implications of this sort of thing I don't see the problem in this situation.
If I purchased directly from the publisher wouldn't I be providing that information anyway? If I were a publisher I'd definitely like to know who's buying from me so why should I be blocked from getting that info?