It's clear that murder is illegal in China. But if you know the right people, that doesn't matter. The one child policy isn't ambiguous. But it's like drug laws in the states. People know what the laws are, but don't always abide by them. And if you have good connections you can even get off entirely.
It's not a matter of constitutional or legislative branches, so much as influencing judges and law inforcement. I guess you could say it's a problem with separation of powers, or just plain corrutption due to a few people having a lot of power and being willing to use it in an openly vengeful way.
Since a president only serves 4-8 years, to establish a legacy a president must set the nation down a particular course that his predecessors cannot alter, even if they disagree with it. This, Bush will try to do just as Clinton established his legacy. Also, a generation from now, we will still have the supreme court justices that Bush chooses.
"Not only are there no happy endings. There are no endings" -Neil Gaimen
I read in Red Herring sometime back about a mutant gene that shows up in some women that that gives them 4 channels of vision. It allows the ones lucky enough to have it to have a much sharper perception of color tones
And their male sons have a 50% chance of being colorblind.
What is the justification for having the price of criminal defense attorneys determined by the free market. I can understand rich people having more cars, bigger houses, wives with larger racks, etc. but why should they get a better legal defense if accused of a crime?
Falun Gong sites are blocked but if you could access them, I don't think folks will show up on your doorstep.
You can be Christian in China if you choose. There's a fair bit of religious freedom now. Falun Gong is considered a cult accused of a number of murders; killings of street bums and so forth. I don't know if the accusations are true or not. It's hard to tell.
Laws are fuzzy in China. There's a one child policy, so a lot of kids just weren't reported. Government isn't that well organized. Rules are flexible. There's a saying; "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away." People can question local government, but you don't want to make personal enemies or piss off Beijing in the same way that you don't go into downtown Chicago and start using gang signs. Beijing seems to focus more on control of the mass media through censorship, but it's all a matter of respect in the end. You can criticize the government personally, but to be safe, you should do it carefully, respectfully and indirectly. Sure, thats a lack of freedom, but things CAN be said. Of course, just because things can be said doesn't mean they will be, same as in the states. Things happen more on a personal, rather than professional level in China, so you don't want to piss your superiors or neighibors off and rely on rules to save you.
If a totalitarian society is lax in enforing its laws, especially if you're well connected, is it really "totalitarian"? Family and friends mean a lot more in China, in terms of personal freedom. Power isn't quite so 'rules' based. People are flexible. It's a slightly different mindset.
The scary thing about the US is that it's so much better organized than China. It could do a much better job of being totalitarian if it really put it's mind to it.
First... people don't typically go to net bars to 'spread anti-governmental messages.' I don't know how hard the government would work to track you if you did, provided you weren't trying to organize some kind of protest. Criticism on the local level is just fine. You don't want to threaten the boys in Beijing, of course, but Beijing is a long ways away from most things and not really a very present force in the average persons life. It's a felony, for that matter, to threaten the US president, even as a joke. (yes, I know we can vote him out of office.)
I haven't heard the $500 for a porn site quote, but that seems like an awful lot. They could get away with offering $50 and it would be half many people's wages. The Teachers I worked with made $125/month plus free housing, and still managed to dress decently. It doesn't sound accurate. There was very easy access to all kinds of porn when I went there.
Second... There still is some fascist element to China. Rights of the state above the individual, and all. You don't want to pose a credible threat to the boys in Beijing. But things aren't as bad as most folks outside seem to imagine, and the government just isn't as organized as most outsiders tend to portray. People are a little edgy about talking politics, despite the relative calm considering Mao's "let so and so many flowers bloom" statement back during the CR, etc. But they do.
The government controls things like the mass media, but more through censorship than outright violence. I was on TV once while there, and it was interesting to hear things spelled out very explicitly. Don't criticize the government. Don't suggest that China has any racial problems. Don't talk about sex or use profanity. It will be edited out... can't remember if there was anything else...
Just don't trust ANY statistics that come out of China. There's no attempt made at either honesty or accuracy.
And when it comes down to it, rule of law is a little shaky for Chinese citizens. What you can get away with depends on your money and your connections. If you know the right party members, you can literally get away with murder. I was told stories about well connected folks who did. It's an open secret apparently.
I never had problem with the Gimp on a technical level. The toolbars kept falling behind the main stage. Big usability failure, and it wasn't the only one. Just the only one I remember. Maybe it's better now. I haven't tried it in a long time.
I can't find which games, in particular, were banned. The original article is pretty poor.
Here's a slightly longer perspective. http://english.people.com.cn/200205/ 17/eng20020517 _95869.shtml
I was an English teacher in Nanjing from 1 year ago to about 6 months ago.
If you'd been to China recently, you'd know it isn't at all socialistic. Newspapers don't paint a very clear picture of things. It's somewhere between oligarchic, fascist and anarchic. But it's not socialistic at all. It used to be Maoist, distinct from Marxist Lenninist and also distinctly different from the socialistic governments of Europe. But China has changed a lot recently.
Anyway, if you're 16 you can do whatever you want in a netbar. Watch porn. Play CS. Whatever.
It's fair that the previous poster brought up the notion of standards. The US has to live by the same standards it applies to other nations. In China there's no age limit on alcohol or cigarette purchases. In the US, there is. Does this make the US a totalitarian state? I don't think it does. What has happened here is as 'totalitarian' as a rigid enforcement of the US movie rating system. And it's hard to tell from the article what the situation is on the ground. Sometimes, 'crackdowns' are ignored by business owners, who comply as superficially as possible. It's hard to tell how seriously people are taking this.
Of course, the US is more tolerant of violence than some cultures. Other non Judeo-Christian cultures are a lot more tolerant of sex.
Yeah, all those articles on Tibetan independance and Falun Gong, and Tiennamen Square just blow my mind, dude. Wish they'd put them all in one place so I wouldn't have to search all over for them.
From what I've seen, OSS should have an 'Enterprise Level Version.' It'll cost $10,000 or higher and will offer support and updates and be targeted for business use. And it has to be able to put on a damn attractive presentation, using feel-good concepts like "modularizable components" and "user friendly menus" etc. Tools for distance learning and video conferenceing would be good. eLearning tools would be great. (anyone know of OSS eLearning tools or LMSes?)
I've only known a few OSS producers who have done somthing as simple as package programs for easy install and configuration sufficient for non-techs could demo them. Netscape products seem to be an exception, and netscape rates a lot higher on my usability scale than programs like 'the gimp.'
Charity is unidirectional. You give a bum on the street charity. You don't expect anything in return. If you tip a cab driver, or give money to a street performer that's not "charity." You could call these 'donations,' possibly. But an exchange is taking place, a transaction.
About 10% of people buy based primarily on the quality of the product or design. Slashdot tries to appeal to this type of person.
The rest buy based on either
2. popularity and marketing, 3. results ( I need X, this does X) or 4. Personal relationships. i.e. a good friend uses it...
In one-on-one selling situations, figuring out how a person makes their decisions can be crucial to building rapport.
If you want to get the most market share, go for marketing. If you want to sell to executives, go for results. But if you want to reach the techies, target to that 10%.
>Validation isn't locking any genuinely licensed >users out of any content;
Yes it is. I've paid for several MS products in the past that I couldn't use because I routinely reformat my hard drive and they wouldn't validate after a number of re-installs.
I know you can call MS up and get some kind of workaround, but I'm not going to let them track me.
They claim they don't take personally identifiying information, but I got one of their phone reps to admit that they routinely tracked their calls. This was 4 years ago, but I still use MS as little as possible because of the amount of software they've stolen from me.
Slashdot Mirror
This environment thing sounds dangerous.
Can we invade it?
Free and democratic planet?
Mind if I ask which one you're on?
How much are tickets there?
What color is your sky?
The blue dog democrats are as 'big government' as the republicans. Where do you think those huge campaign contributions are coming from?
Hera will be most displeased
Wonder how if the Nixon administration would have passed that test.
It's clear that murder is illegal in China. But if you know the right people, that doesn't matter. The one child policy isn't ambiguous. But it's like drug laws in the states. People know what the laws are, but don't always abide by them. And if you have good connections you can even get off entirely.
It's not a matter of constitutional or legislative branches, so much as influencing judges and law inforcement. I guess you could say it's a problem with separation of powers, or just plain corrutption due to a few people having a lot of power and being willing to use it in an openly vengeful way.
Since a president only serves 4-8 years, to establish a legacy a president must set the nation down a particular course that his predecessors cannot alter, even if they disagree with it. This, Bush will try to do just as Clinton established his legacy. Also, a generation from now, we will still have the supreme court justices that Bush chooses.
"Not only are there no happy endings. There are no endings" -Neil Gaimen
I guess now we will. Kerry just conceded.
I read in Red Herring sometime back about a mutant gene that shows up in some women that that gives them 4 channels of vision. It allows the ones lucky enough to have it to have a much sharper perception of color tones
And their male sons have a 50% chance of being colorblind.
Congrats.
You've obviously evolved eyes.
"first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers"
What is the justification for having the price of criminal defense attorneys determined by the free market. I can understand rich people having more cars, bigger houses, wives with larger racks, etc. but why should they get a better legal defense if accused of a crime?
Falun Gong sites are blocked but if you could access them, I don't think folks will show up on your doorstep.
You can be Christian in China if you choose. There's a fair bit of religious freedom now. Falun Gong is considered a cult accused of a number of murders; killings of street bums and so forth. I don't know if the accusations are true or not. It's hard to tell.
When we run out of money or when we nationalize and regulate the legal profession?
Laws are fuzzy in China. There's a one child policy, so a lot of kids just weren't reported. Government isn't that well organized. Rules are flexible. There's a saying; "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away." People can question local government, but you don't want to make personal enemies or piss off Beijing in the same way that you don't go into downtown Chicago and start using gang signs. Beijing seems to focus more on control of the mass media through censorship, but it's all a matter of respect in the end. You can criticize the government personally, but to be safe, you should do it carefully, respectfully and indirectly. Sure, thats a lack of freedom, but things CAN be said. Of course, just because things can be said doesn't mean they will be, same as in the states. Things happen more on a personal, rather than professional level in China, so you don't want to piss your superiors or neighibors off and rely on rules to save you.
If a totalitarian society is lax in enforing its laws, especially if you're well connected, is it really "totalitarian"? Family and friends mean a lot more in China, in terms of personal freedom. Power isn't quite so 'rules' based. People are flexible. It's a slightly different mindset.
The scary thing about the US is that it's so much better organized than China. It could do a much better job of being totalitarian if it really put it's mind to it.
First... people don't typically go to net bars to 'spread anti-governmental messages.' I don't know how hard the government would work to track you if you did, provided you weren't trying to organize some kind of protest. Criticism on the local level is just fine. You don't want to threaten the boys in Beijing, of course, but Beijing is a long ways away from most things and not really a very present force in the average persons life. It's a felony, for that matter, to threaten the US president, even as a joke. (yes, I know we can vote him out of office.)
I haven't heard the $500 for a porn site quote, but that seems like an awful lot. They could get away with offering $50 and it would be half many people's wages. The Teachers I worked with made $125/month plus free housing, and still managed to dress decently. It doesn't sound accurate. There was very easy access to all kinds of porn when I went there.
Second... There still is some fascist element to China. Rights of the state above the individual, and all. You don't want to pose a credible threat to the boys in Beijing. But things aren't as bad as most folks outside seem to imagine, and the government just isn't as organized as most outsiders tend to portray. People are a little edgy about talking politics, despite the relative calm considering Mao's "let so and so many flowers bloom" statement back during the CR, etc. But they do.
The government controls things like the mass media, but more through censorship than outright violence. I was on TV once while there, and it was interesting to hear things spelled out very explicitly. Don't criticize the government. Don't suggest that China has any racial problems. Don't talk about sex or use profanity. It will be edited out... can't remember if there was anything else...
Just don't trust ANY statistics that come out of China. There's no attempt made at either honesty or accuracy.
And when it comes down to it, rule of law is a little shaky for Chinese citizens. What you can get away with depends on your money and your connections. If you know the right party members, you can literally get away with murder.
I was told stories about well connected folks who did. It's an open secret apparently.
I never had problem with the Gimp on a technical level. The toolbars kept falling behind the main stage. Big usability failure, and it wasn't the only one. Just the only one I remember. Maybe it's better now. I haven't tried it in a long time.
>you think Slashdot is accessible from within the >Great Firewall? Any Chinese readers out there?
It was when I lived there 6 months ago.
Things can change, day to day.
I can't find which games, in particular, were banned. The original article is pretty poor.
/ 17/eng20020517 _95869.shtml
Here's a slightly longer perspective.
http://english.people.com.cn/200205
I was an English teacher in Nanjing from 1 year ago to about 6 months ago.
If you'd been to China recently, you'd know it isn't at all socialistic. Newspapers don't paint a very clear picture of things. It's somewhere between oligarchic, fascist and anarchic. But it's not socialistic at all. It used to be Maoist, distinct from Marxist Lenninist and also distinctly different from the socialistic governments of Europe. But China has changed a lot recently.
Anyway, if you're 16 you can do whatever you want in a netbar. Watch porn. Play CS. Whatever.
It's fair that the previous poster brought up the notion of standards. The US has to live by the same standards it applies to other nations. In China there's no age limit on alcohol or cigarette purchases. In the US, there is. Does this make the US a totalitarian state? I don't think it does. What has happened here is as 'totalitarian' as a rigid enforcement of the US movie rating system. And it's hard to tell from the article what the situation is on the ground. Sometimes, 'crackdowns' are ignored by business owners, who comply as superficially as possible. It's hard to tell how seriously people are taking this.
Of course, the US is more tolerant of violence than some cultures. Other non Judeo-Christian cultures are a lot more tolerant of sex.
Yeah, all those articles on Tibetan independance and Falun Gong, and Tiennamen Square just blow my mind, dude. Wish they'd put them all in one place so I wouldn't have to search all over for them.
From what I've seen, OSS should have an 'Enterprise Level Version.' It'll cost $10,000 or higher and will offer support and updates and be targeted for business use. And it has to be able to put on a damn attractive presentation, using feel-good concepts like "modularizable components" and "user friendly menus" etc. Tools for distance learning and video conferenceing would be good. eLearning tools would be great. (anyone know of OSS eLearning tools or LMSes?)
I've only known a few OSS producers who have done somthing as simple as package programs for easy install and configuration sufficient for non-techs could demo them. Netscape products seem to be an exception, and netscape rates a lot higher on my usability scale than programs like 'the gimp.'
Charity is unidirectional. You give a bum on the street charity. You don't expect anything in return. If you tip a cab driver, or give money to a street performer that's not "charity." You could call these 'donations,' possibly. But an exchange is taking place, a transaction.
Depends on your target market.
About 10% of people buy based primarily on the quality of the product or design. Slashdot tries to appeal to this type of person.
The rest buy based on either
2. popularity and marketing,
3. results ( I need X, this does X)
or
4. Personal relationships. i.e. a good friend uses it...
In one-on-one selling situations, figuring out how a person makes their decisions can be crucial to building rapport.
If you want to get the most market share, go for marketing. If you want to sell to executives, go for results. But if you want to reach the techies, target to that 10%.
>Validation isn't locking any genuinely licensed >users out of any content;
Yes it is. I've paid for several MS products in the past that I couldn't use because I routinely reformat my hard drive and they wouldn't validate after a number of re-installs.
I know you can call MS up and get some kind of workaround, but I'm not going to let them track me.
They claim they don't take personally identifiying information, but I got one of their phone reps to admit that they routinely tracked their calls. This was 4 years ago, but I still use MS as little as possible because of the amount of software they've stolen from me.
Third, they find out it can be used for Porn.
Forth, it proliferates out of control.
Fifth, they give up.