...for me, at least. Bear with me for a minute, because it's going to get weird.
I don't give a shit about evil or not evil per se. In my world, good taste begets goodness, and poor taste, or lack of taste at all, necessarily leads to evil. For example, respect for the user in providing a tasteful environment is the direct result of an awareness of the designer's humility towards others, and that implies a sense of one's own place in nature. On the other hand, a developer who flings feces at you via his software probably won't have much respect for you in the non-binary world either.
As for the article, it screams shit taste. The page layout reminds me of the Los Angeles freeway. The content appears to have been vomited out of Microsoft's press organ. I think I'll pass, and pass judgment on those who imagined it'd reflect well.
There's a 1080p24 format, which as the name implies is a native 24 fps format. This is an improvement from NTSC or PAL, both of which run at fixed frame rates, neither of which divide evenly into 24, and so require telecine using a variety of pulldown techniques and introduce noticeable judder.
No source on earth is inexhaustible. Even the sun will flame out someday, if you want to extrapolate to absurdity. If nuclear's the best we have today, let's use it, and maybe tomorrow we'll discover how to delay the end by another fifty years.
All life is staving off the inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
That's funny. From what I've seen, it's the self-important ones who stay. The casual contributors--the ones who actually improve articles, instead of fighting with one another on talk pages--are the ones who no longer bother editing.
Well, I'm a first-generation Japanese raised in America, so I'm certainly under no illusions that Western concepts are suitable or even welcome everywhere. I didn't mean to imply China's recasting itself as a clone of the West, but rather that it's introducing greater accountability (perhaps through democracy) and greater openness in government, which everyone seems to want. I'm under the impression--correct me if I'm wrong--this is already starting to happen, even, indeed, through democracy, at the local level and also within the Party. This is where things are headed, aren't they?
A friend of mine just got back (to HK) from a trip to Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. He says it's a chaotic place.:-)
I'm just trying to speak in terms comprehensible to Westerners. Try pointing out that submission to concepts like privacy are not and need not be universally applicable, and you'll be modded down for excessive postmodernity. This occurs in topics related to privacy, sexuality, guanxi, etc.
Assuming you're more familiar with China than me, can you tell me if I'm more or less on the spot otherwise? All I know about China comes from my friends and the worldwide media, basically. I'd appreciate any corrections.
I wonder where you've been for the past 20 years, because China's been liberalizing in fits and starts for pretty much that whole time. As bad as government repression is now, it's nothing compared to the Cultural Revolution or even the years immediately following Mao. Nowadays you can pick up all the major foreign dailies at any newsstand and flip to almost any channel on satellite TV. To be sure, random pages get ripped out of Newsweek, and CNN cuts to black every now and then. But for the government to permit even this limited degree of openness would have been unthinkable not too long ago.
The more China opens up, the more hope there is for the rule of law to replace the rule of guanxi (what we in the West would perceive as corruption), so long as people on both sides of the border keep pushing for free speech and open politics.
Nowadays the government calls it "socialism with Chinese characteristics," not because they think they're fooling anyone, but as a pretense to legitimacy. Socialism is being redefined as something roughly along the lines of Nordic-style welfare capitalism. It's not even clear that the burgeoning urban bourgeoisie would care if the Party apparatus were to repudiate socialism once and for all.
Certainly we should petition for greater freedoms in mainland China and in particular for the rights of imprisoned journalists, political opponents, and religious leaders. Still, considering how terribly China's citizens suffered under previous incarnations (Mao) of the present post-Tiananmen regime, I'm optimistic for the future. I believe the Party will continue on its path of liberalization as a younger, more cosmopolitan generation of Oxford- and Columbia-educated Chinese accedes to power. Who needs revolution, after all, when you can build democracy from within?
"Apple... encourage[s] it by making their products as conspicuous as possible."
What do you want them to do, start slapping "intel inside" stickers all over their computers just to blend in? If Apple's products stand out, it's for looking good in a sea of ugliness. Don't complain that Apple stands out--complain that Dell is still pumping out slabby turds festooned with garish, useless blinkenlights and "Genuine Microsoft" labels.
I agree with you that all the "I use a Mac and therefore I'm creative" posers, recent switchers one and all, are getting annoying.
"That's how it is in China. There are many, many people there who have no idea that Tienamen Square ever happened..."
What are you talking about? Do you have any basis for this belief, or are you just talking out of your ass?
Visit Beijing, visit Shanghai, hell, visit the rural countryside. I challenge you to find anyone in China who doesn't know about how their government put down the pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989. Even almost everyone in the Party considers it to have been a mistake (though you'll never hear it in an offical communiqué) and a continuing source of shame.
China suffers enough already at the hands of government repression without people like you inventing shit to make it sound like Chinese citizens are brainwashed, or uninformed about events in their own country.
I still get messages from people adding me to facebook once in a while, but honestly the only one I ever sign into anymore is myspace--'cuz that's where the action is.
As for why MySpace is so popular, it has everything to do with its customizeability. Backgrounds, colors, giant images. Bring on the fancy. Facebook, Friendster... sure, you won't get <BLINK>ed in the face, but they just look so blurgh. I think most of us get enough of that in our day jobs.:-)
i don't know...they may be cool...but it just makes me shudder and go "yech" to picture in graphic detail what they might be doing in their bedroom when i'm not there...
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I just can't get that horrible, horrible imagery off my mind. Whenever I catch myself thinking about dirty ol' hetero sex, all I can do is try to block it out with hot cock-anus action.
I only go there to rent stuff. They've got a lot of good 29 day rentals, though it's only 13 days for some of the computer and AV equipment. And you can't beat the price.
"You [want] to be gay? Fine. Why do you have to announce that in a game where odds are you'll never even meet any of these people?"
Reminds me of a comment from a few weeks ago (apologies to babydaddy):
Both the gay guilds I play in have several heterosexuals as members. At first, I just wished they didn't have to constantly throw their sexuality in my face, ya know? They're always like, "My wife this, my girlfriend that." Ugh.
But after a while, I realized it's kinda cool to have a straight person in your guild. You can learn a lot about straight life from them. And they're not all boring, either. Some of them are really bright, funny, and creative. In the end, you find out they're not so bad, after all. In a lot of ways, they're just like we are!
Wasn't that the entire point of the guild--so that like-mindedly tolerant and accepting people could play a game together, without the crap from second-graders who think "gay" is a slur?
"And just how many people in China do you think have ANY idea what 'Back Dorm Boys' is?"
Oh, only all the officeworkers, students, and anyone else with access to a net connection in the countryside, in addition to probably every last person in burgeoning urban China. When it comes to stupid internet memes, I imagine the West retains its crown. How many Americans do you think saw Hampster Dance?
"... Chinese society is NOT opening in any significant way, nor is the government adopting ANY liberalization policies."
Say what?
If this is sarcasm, I don't get it. Forgive me for being blunt, but have you been paying any attention during the past twenty years?
If there's one thing on which everyone agrees, it's that China's ongoing economic reform, for better or for worse, is greatly opening the country to the outside world. Has been since the '80s. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, regular people like you and me are growing up reading Newsweek, watching bootlegs of "The Phantom Menace," and downloading mp3s of Ladytron's "Soft Power" and--oh yes!--the Backstreet Boys. It's still China, so you'll find pages ripped out of your New York Times from the corner newsstand, and CNN will cut to black for minutes at a time. But even if the censors were perfectly thorough (which they're not), you and I as Chinese citizens are nonetheless intellectually richer, and all the more cosmopolitan, for having access to these resources beyond our borders. We see how the political process works in foreign democracies. We wonder why we shouldn't enjoy the same freedoms.
Don't you dare doubt that the foreign presence in China's economy really does encourage positive social change. Compared to even just ten, fifteen years ago, there's been an enormous shift in attitudes towards and expectations of personal freedom. Citizens and authorities alike are beginning to consider privacy a basic human right. There is more overt dissent within official media, and though China has a long ways to gobefore making the RSF's good-guys list, the culture is such that even the Party itself has begun experimenting with small-scale elections and greater transparency in administration. Rule of law is slowly taking over for rule of guanxi. Citizens are holding their government accountable (see, e.g., recent rural protests and government reaction thereto).
I tire. I've been inarticulate, and for that I apologize. The question is basically this: Should Newsweek and CNN pull out of China because they are censored? Not if they want to continue encouraging Western-style freedoms. Should Google and Yahoo? No, because the "fuck you" attitude I mentioned before is only of help to those whose interests are threatened by easy access to information and freedom of thought.
Slashdot Mirror
...for me, at least. Bear with me for a minute, because it's going to get weird.
I don't give a shit about evil or not evil per se. In my world, good taste begets goodness, and poor taste, or lack of taste at all, necessarily leads to evil. For example, respect for the user in providing a tasteful environment is the direct result of an awareness of the designer's humility towards others, and that implies a sense of one's own place in nature. On the other hand, a developer who flings feces at you via his software probably won't have much respect for you in the non-binary world either.
As for the article, it screams shit taste. The page layout reminds me of the Los Angeles freeway. The content appears to have been vomited out of Microsoft's press organ. I think I'll pass, and pass judgment on those who imagined it'd reflect well.
Oh, my God. Please seek therapy.
(I'm not kidding, it might do you some good.)
Ah, I see now what you meant in your original comment. Good point.
There's a 1080p24 format, which as the name implies is a native 24 fps format. This is an improvement from NTSC or PAL, both of which run at fixed frame rates, neither of which divide evenly into 24, and so require telecine using a variety of pulldown techniques and introduce noticeable judder.
No source on earth is inexhaustible. Even the sun will flame out someday, if you want to extrapolate to absurdity. If nuclear's the best we have today, let's use it, and maybe tomorrow we'll discover how to delay the end by another fifty years.
All life is staving off the inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
That's funny. From what I've seen, it's the self-important ones who stay. The casual contributors--the ones who actually improve articles, instead of fighting with one another on talk pages--are the ones who no longer bother editing.
Really? Boy, my roommate will be glad to hear her Westernized name is "Chang Karen." Thanks for setting us straight.
I know dozens of people with the family name "Chang." I know none with "Chang" as a given name. Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
Well, I'm a first-generation Japanese raised in America, so I'm certainly under no illusions that Western concepts are suitable or even welcome everywhere. I didn't mean to imply China's recasting itself as a clone of the West, but rather that it's introducing greater accountability (perhaps through democracy) and greater openness in government, which everyone seems to want. I'm under the impression--correct me if I'm wrong--this is already starting to happen, even, indeed, through democracy, at the local level and also within the Party. This is where things are headed, aren't they?
:-)
A friend of mine just got back (to HK) from a trip to Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. He says it's a chaotic place.
Hasn't it always run like shit? Install Safari and some decent plugins instead; you'll be much happier.
All the best applications are. :-)
</unnecessary>
I'm just trying to speak in terms comprehensible to Westerners. Try pointing out that submission to concepts like privacy are not and need not be universally applicable, and you'll be modded down for excessive postmodernity. This occurs in topics related to privacy, sexuality, guanxi, etc.
Assuming you're more familiar with China than me, can you tell me if I'm more or less on the spot otherwise? All I know about China comes from my friends and the worldwide media, basically. I'd appreciate any corrections.
I wonder where you've been for the past 20 years, because China's been liberalizing in fits and starts for pretty much that whole time. As bad as government repression is now, it's nothing compared to the Cultural Revolution or even the years immediately following Mao. Nowadays you can pick up all the major foreign dailies at any newsstand and flip to almost any channel on satellite TV. To be sure, random pages get ripped out of Newsweek, and CNN cuts to black every now and then. But for the government to permit even this limited degree of openness would have been unthinkable not too long ago.
The more China opens up, the more hope there is for the rule of law to replace the rule of guanxi (what we in the West would perceive as corruption), so long as people on both sides of the border keep pushing for free speech and open politics.
Nowadays the government calls it "socialism with Chinese characteristics," not because they think they're fooling anyone, but as a pretense to legitimacy. Socialism is being redefined as something roughly along the lines of Nordic-style welfare capitalism. It's not even clear that the burgeoning urban bourgeoisie would care if the Party apparatus were to repudiate socialism once and for all.
Certainly we should petition for greater freedoms in mainland China and in particular for the rights of imprisoned journalists, political opponents, and religious leaders. Still, considering how terribly China's citizens suffered under previous incarnations (Mao) of the present post-Tiananmen regime, I'm optimistic for the future. I believe the Party will continue on its path of liberalization as a younger, more cosmopolitan generation of Oxford- and Columbia-educated Chinese accedes to power. Who needs revolution, after all, when you can build democracy from within?
"Apple ... encourage[s] it by making their products as conspicuous as possible."
What do you want them to do, start slapping "intel inside" stickers all over their computers just to blend in? If Apple's products stand out, it's for looking good in a sea of ugliness. Don't complain that Apple stands out--complain that Dell is still pumping out slabby turds festooned with garish, useless blinkenlights and "Genuine Microsoft" labels.
I agree with you that all the "I use a Mac and therefore I'm creative" posers, recent switchers one and all, are getting annoying.
I bet you think UserFriendly is funny too.
It doesn't matter how many nines you have, if you're just going to take the open-source "mediocrity is sufficient" attitude to administration anyway.
What are you talking about? Do you have any basis for this belief, or are you just talking out of your ass?
Visit Beijing, visit Shanghai, hell, visit the rural countryside. I challenge you to find anyone in China who doesn't know about how their government put down the pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989. Even almost everyone in the Party considers it to have been a mistake (though you'll never hear it in an offical communiqué) and a continuing source of shame.
China suffers enough already at the hands of government repression without people like you inventing shit to make it sound like Chinese citizens are brainwashed, or uninformed about events in their own country.
I still get messages from people adding me to facebook once in a while, but honestly the only one I ever sign into anymore is myspace--'cuz that's where the action is.
:-)
As for why MySpace is so popular, it has everything to do with its customizeability. Backgrounds, colors, giant images. Bring on the fancy. Facebook, Friendster... sure, you won't get <BLINK>ed in the face, but they just look so blurgh. I think most of us get enough of that in our day jobs.
Oh yeah, and the music helps.
-
-
-
-
I hope you found this as enlightening as I found it surprisingly boring to write.Friendster was old-school, lovable, slow. Wrinkled. Crammed with ads. The album of photos you burned the summer before school.
thefacebook: Fratboys, sorority girls, other assorted meatheads. Oh, it had its day, all right, which lasted about a week.
MySpace, the site for "the rest of us." Music and art.
Evites are king, now and always.
I only go there to rent stuff. They've got a lot of good 29 day rentals, though it's only 13 days for some of the computer and AV equipment. And you can't beat the price.
Reminds me of a comment from a few weeks ago (apologies to babydaddy):
That doesn't make sense to me. How could you be so anxious to install Windows that you were stabbing Return Return Return through the install?
Wasn't that the entire point of the guild--so that like-mindedly tolerant and accepting people could play a game together, without the crap from second-graders who think "gay" is a slur?
If this is sarcasm, I don't get it. Forgive me for being blunt, but have you been paying any attention during the past twenty years?
If there's one thing on which everyone agrees, it's that China's ongoing economic reform, for better or for worse, is greatly opening the country to the outside world. Has been since the '80s. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, regular people like you and me are growing up reading Newsweek, watching bootlegs of "The Phantom Menace," and downloading mp3s of Ladytron's "Soft Power" and--oh yes!--the Backstreet Boys. It's still China, so you'll find pages ripped out of your New York Times from the corner newsstand, and CNN will cut to black for minutes at a time. But even if the censors were perfectly thorough (which they're not), you and I as Chinese citizens are nonetheless intellectually richer, and all the more cosmopolitan, for having access to these resources beyond our borders. We see how the political process works in foreign democracies. We wonder why we shouldn't enjoy the same freedoms.
Don't you dare doubt that the foreign presence in China's economy really does encourage positive social change. Compared to even just ten, fifteen years ago, there's been an enormous shift in attitudes towards and expectations of personal freedom. Citizens and authorities alike are beginning to consider privacy a basic human right. There is more overt dissent within official media, and though China has a long ways to go before making the RSF's good-guys list, the culture is such that even the Party itself has begun experimenting with small-scale elections and greater transparency in administration. Rule of law is slowly taking over for rule of guanxi. Citizens are holding their government accountable (see, e.g., recent rural protests and government reaction thereto).
I tire. I've been inarticulate, and for that I apologize. The question is basically this: Should Newsweek and CNN pull out of China because they are censored? Not if they want to continue encouraging Western-style freedoms. Should Google and Yahoo? No, because the "fuck you" attitude I mentioned before is only of help to those whose interests are threatened by easy access to information and freedom of thought.