No they don't. Foreign students (outside the EU) don't get free anything in France. They pay tuition fees and hospital bills.
For students from other EU coutries it is free but you get the same deal if you go to another EU country. French students in Scotland get free Education and medical care too. Quid pro quo.
I know I'm trolling a bit by making this statement but I actually feel strongly about it. I'm sick of hearing about China this and China that. China does not play by a fair set of economic, safety, and environmental rules. I have a hard time lauding any Chinese progress. They artificially manipulate their currency and sell goods at below market value which hinders the world's economy. I wonde how safe this train really is!
I know I'm trolling a bit by making this statement but I actually feel strongly about it. I'm sick of hearing about America this and America that. America does not play by a fair set of economic, safety, and environmental rules. I have a hard time lauding any American progress. They artificially manipulate their currency, printing money whenever they feel like it and engage in trade protectionism which hinders the world's economy.
I'm British and I've been on high speed trains in Europe and China. The other side of the pond is right to be jealous. America needs to play catch up on this bit of tech.
Why keep it going? Because I live in China and I like it.
Actually no, I always use Baidu.com to download my music. Google flopped because it just doesn't provide what Chinese people want. It keeps thinking that providing American preferences to Chinese people will be successful. Baidu's search and other services like music are way behind Google's but Baidu understands the Chinese marketplace and provides services tailored to match.
Living in China I see that pirated versions of Microsoft Windows and Office, are the norm not the exception. It is actually difficult to buy the legit software. I remember hunting all over several cities looking for a real Windows 7 CD when it first came out to no avail. If you want the real software, there are only a few PC suppliers who ship with it pre installed. Small local dealers will use pirated software. But the problem is exacerbated because of peoples love for the familiar. Most people in China still like windows XP. I have seen new machines arrive with Windows 7 installed only to see the owner take it to a shop and have a pirated Windows XP installed instead.
The story also missed that while the pirated Windows comes pre-installed with malware, it also it comes pre installed with antivirus and firewalls that have been modified to ignore/allow the malware.
I am an engineer, though now teach at University. I've been using AutoCAD and originally it's lighter 2D version, Auto Sketch since 1990. I use Inkscape and my home desktop is Ubuntu. I can tell you first hand that Inkscape is nothing even remotely like AutoCAD. Not even close to the original AutoCAD from twenty years ago when I was a engineering student. Even twenty years ago AutoCAD was 3D. Inkscape more closely resembles Corel Draw. It is a vector drawing package for creating art not a CAD package for designing a house or a car.
GIMP is fine for amateurs to edit photos but it just doesn't have all the plugins that a pro must have and so must use Photoshop. The same goes for every other major field. In Linux there is no AutoCAD. There are other CAD apps but if you are an engineer it must be AutoCAD. Same goes for accounting software, education software, publishing, and so on.
Market segmentation is treated to simplistic in the article. It queries only why Linux has not taken hold in the desktop market but desktop subdivided into office users, and home users. Then these sub divide again. The Windows plus Office monopoly only applies to certain sections of the desktop market. For example a home user might not care about office if their main interest is games and internet. The real reason Linux hasn't taken off is that it has never been the best at anything other than servers where it met the simple requirement of not crashing too often and rarely needing a reboot against windows of ten years ago which needed rebooted every time you changed anything. Linux has never been the best office system, never the best games system, never the best photographer's system, etc. If it's not the best, why would anyone switch to it. This of course is not really Linux's fault. It is the lack of 3rd party offerings. If Linux convinced just one big name software to produce a Linux version, then it would have half a chance. For example, to get Adobe Photoshop natively on linux. Without a big name 3rd party offer on Linux it will never succeed.
The banking is tied to IE but any version will work. My GF uses the banking online here in China as well as buying on Taobao and such like. I have her using win7 with the latest IE version installed.
You're absolutely right on the money here. I've been living in China for 6 years now. My job back home was for some time in PC repair and later server admin so when I got here people naturally asked me to fix their PC's. When I encounter a freshly installed XP box here I run my AV on it instantly before connecting to the web because the pirated XP comes with malware and backdoors pre installed. The People making the pirated disks are getting thousands of ready to use zombie machines that they can then use to hack into your bank and servers back in the USA or send you all that spam that fills you inbox.
When my girlfriend inherited my old laptop last year, she wanted the Chinese language version of windows on it. She first went and got XP. After a few months it croaked and died so I wiped it and went to the shop with her to get a new install. The guy in the shop wanted to put on XP again. I insisted on win7. He said the laptop was too old and slow for win7 and it wouldn't work as well as XP. I told him I had used win7 on that laptop, in English, since the first beta and that win7 was faster than XP even on old systems and so on and so on. He didn't believe me but eventually installed win7 - which he clearly had never used before. When I looked at it, he had installed a hacked version of win7 beta - not the full version.
China is still 5 or more years behind us in many aspects of computing. It is a compulsory part of every university student to learn some basic computing skills. They are taught MS World/Excel, Dreamweaver, Flash and Visual Basic. The students find it boring and generally hate the class. There's no impetus to advance. They just want there computers to remain in 2001 status.
I signed up for Weibo last week, having lived in China for 6 years. After the signup process I decided never to use it as it was obviously insecure. During the signup/login you are asked, as usual, to create a username and password. I usually use some nice secure passwords, ten or more letters with caps, numbers and punctuation. However, Weibo popped up a error message saying that I must only use lower-case letters a-z. This massively reduces the number of password combinations.
There's actually quite allot of porn available behind the Great Firewall of China. One thing that westerns don't understand about China is that the whole country is corrupt to the core. If you have enough money, you can get around almost any law. Just bribe a few officials and you can sell porn quite openly in the shops.
So what I reckon happened was that 41% of website failed to pay their bribes on time.
I signed up for a Weibo account last week. I've had a Renren account (Chinese Facebook clone) for over a year now. I can't effectively use either of them due to language difficulties. Really need to practice my Chinese reading. So this gives some insight into how Chinese people view western sites. They just can use them - so they don't care that they are blocked. Why would you worry that Youtube is blocked when you have all the videos you need on Youkou or Tudou.
Complete nonsense. Nobody is forced to use any particular browser in China. Though almost everyone here runs Win XP with IE6 it's because they are pirated copies of windows and so blocked from windows update by MS. There's nothing to stop people using Firefox or Chrome if they wanted.
I'm also in China. Never been any problem getting Slashdot in the last 6 years. However, the Great Firewall isn't so great. I can update my Facebook, Twitter and I'm watching Youtube right now. Their not normally available. You just have to know how to jump the wall.
Your argument is only valid if the customer knows the level of security. If the bank tells me the money is in a steel vault but is in fact in a wooden box, the the bank is liable for losses. What this ruling has done is wooden boxes as adequate when everyone knows they are not.
What is required is some well publicized hacks of bank systems which would cause a run on the bank involved. What all banks fear most is all the investors withdrawing their money all at the same time. If people feel their bank is not secure, then a run will happen. That will give the banks the financial insentive they need to put security to the forefront of their business.
...it feels like I've just found out that the police man investigating a burglary at my house is really in the pay of the thief.
Of course, as a foreigner living in China, I'm all to aware of the reality and hypocrisy of police corruption. It is as rife here in China as corporate corruption is in the US. The key difference is that the Chinese people know their system is corrupt where as the US populace seems blinkered. Not that it makes any difference as both groups, Chinese and US, advocate the continuation of their own systems to the damnation of all others. Neither facing the truth that both systems are two sides of one coin, abet a fake coin that looks like gold but is filled with tin, lead, false dreams and lost hope.
The equator is useful for launching. But what goes up must come down. You need to land as well as take off. There are rumors that NASA designated Machrihanish airport as an emergency landing site for the Shuttle. Though never used for that purpose to date. Machrihanish is over 3km long and remote from populations. Lossiemouth would have similar advantages with the addition of up to date modern facilities.
Contrary to popular conceptions, the North East of Scotland actually enjoys quite good weather most of the year round. It's only the west of Scotland that gets really heavy rain. Ref: Met Office map of UK average rainfall
Well itunes prooved that if you have the legit version in the right marketplace and at the right price then people will pay rather than pirate. I'm sure it would be the same here in China. The problem is not only about the price though. It's also about the "added features". I know you probably think the pirate will cut out the addons, well the do sometimes, but they also add more. One rather essential one is changing the subtitles to chinese.
The comment about a better pirated version being due soon probably meant that there would be a dubbed chinese or better sub titled version coming soon. I've often had the traders appologise to me that the sub titles are not in English. Why I need English sub titles when the audio is in English, I don't know.
The traders must love me though. I'll buy all the ones with Japanese sub titles or Rusian menus. As long as the audio is English, that will do just fine. So I'll buy all the stock they can't shift to the locals.
To market effectivly you need both product and price to be correct. People want the Hollywood movies, but not in the origonal format (they want in chinese) and not at the US $ price.
Seriously, what makes China that different? Piracy is rampant pretty much everywhere. It's just that pirated material is sold there. Good for those who're lazy enough, but I can't say it's hard to let a computer stay on over the night and spend a few minutes burning your own high quality pre-release DVD.
I buy the pirated DVD's. Not because I'm lazy. But because the blank DVD's where I am actually cost more than the pirate disks that include all the packaging. So why would I burn my own?
If they sold the legit version here, then maybe people would buy it. But here in China, only the pirated versions exist. You just can't get the original even if you wanted. Amazon will not deliver to my door. (wish they would, I need some new books)
It's not only the back street markets. The main shopping malls, and the supermarkets all sell the dodgy versions. Difference with the supermarket is that you get the box as well as the cardboard sleeve.
IMHO, reading the article. The author was ripped off. The low quality disks should only cost 4 yaun. For 6 yaun you should expect the pirate to be the equal of the original. Including even the holograms. Off Course I don't buy. I rent for 2 yuan a day. And yes - I make a copy of the pirate if I like the film.
This is a problem created by the film companies themselves. They made the regions on DVD's so they could sell a disk for $15 in the USA, and for £20 in the UK and not have any issues with "grey" imports. But the price difference is exactly what makes the pirating worth while.
There are 1.3 billion people in china. That's a big market. They love DVD's. So there is money to be made selling them here. However, $15! Nobody in china is able to pay $15 for a DVD. Not even me and I earn westerner's wages. That's a 1.3 billion person market that the main film producers have cut themselves out of. It's there choice. They'd rather sell to a 120 million person market in the US for $15 than to a 6 yaun (80 cents) market in china with 1.3 billion potential customers. They made there choice and they have to live with the consequences.
So it's only natural capitalism that the Chinese fill the home market themselves by making pirates. If you had 1.3 billion potential customers, you'd be doing the same.
Slashdot Mirror
No they don't. Foreign students (outside the EU) don't get free anything in France. They pay tuition fees and hospital bills.
For students from other EU coutries it is free but you get the same deal if you go to another EU country. French students in Scotland get free Education and medical care too. Quid pro quo.
I know I'm trolling a bit by making this statement but I actually feel strongly about it. I'm sick of hearing about China this and China that. China does not play by a fair set of economic, safety, and environmental rules. I have a hard time lauding any Chinese progress. They artificially manipulate their currency and sell goods at below market value which hinders the world's economy. I wonde how safe this train really is!
I know I'm trolling a bit by making this statement but I actually feel strongly about it. I'm sick of hearing about America this and America that. America does not play by a fair set of economic, safety, and environmental rules. I have a hard time lauding any American progress. They artificially manipulate their currency, printing money whenever they feel like it and engage in trade protectionism which hinders the world's economy.
I'm British and I've been on high speed trains in Europe and China. The other side of the pond is right to be jealous. America needs to play catch up on this bit of tech.
Aren't Amazon's "most helpful" reviews simply reviews of reviews and thus suffer the exact same issue as you complain about?
Why keep it going? Because I live in China and I like it.
Actually no, I always use Baidu.com to download my music. Google flopped because it just doesn't provide what Chinese people want. It keeps thinking that providing American preferences to Chinese people will be successful. Baidu's search and other services like music are way behind Google's but Baidu understands the Chinese marketplace and provides services tailored to match.
Living in China I see that pirated versions of Microsoft Windows and Office, are the norm not the exception. It is actually difficult to buy the legit software. I remember hunting all over several cities looking for a real Windows 7 CD when it first came out to no avail. If you want the real software, there are only a few PC suppliers who ship with it pre installed. Small local dealers will use pirated software. But the problem is exacerbated because of peoples love for the familiar. Most people in China still like windows XP. I have seen new machines arrive with Windows 7 installed only to see the owner take it to a shop and have a pirated Windows XP installed instead.
The story also missed that while the pirated Windows comes pre-installed with malware, it also it comes pre installed with antivirus and firewalls that have been modified to ignore/allow the malware.
I am an engineer, though now teach at University. I've been using AutoCAD and originally it's lighter 2D version, Auto Sketch since 1990. I use Inkscape and my home desktop is Ubuntu. I can tell you first hand that Inkscape is nothing even remotely like AutoCAD. Not even close to the original AutoCAD from twenty years ago when I was a engineering student. Even twenty years ago AutoCAD was 3D. Inkscape more closely resembles Corel Draw. It is a vector drawing package for creating art not a CAD package for designing a house or a car.
GIMP is fine for amateurs to edit photos but it just doesn't have all the plugins that a pro must have and so must use Photoshop. The same goes for every other major field. In Linux there is no AutoCAD. There are other CAD apps but if you are an engineer it must be AutoCAD. Same goes for accounting software, education software, publishing, and so on.
Market segmentation is treated to simplistic in the article. It queries only why Linux has not taken hold in the desktop market but desktop subdivided into office users, and home users. Then these sub divide again. The Windows plus Office monopoly only applies to certain sections of the desktop market. For example a home user might not care about office if their main interest is games and internet. The real reason Linux hasn't taken off is that it has never been the best at anything other than servers where it met the simple requirement of not crashing too often and rarely needing a reboot against windows of ten years ago which needed rebooted every time you changed anything. Linux has never been the best office system, never the best games system, never the best photographer's system, etc. If it's not the best, why would anyone switch to it. This of course is not really Linux's fault. It is the lack of 3rd party offerings. If Linux convinced just one big name software to produce a Linux version, then it would have half a chance. For example, to get Adobe Photoshop natively on linux. Without a big name 3rd party offer on Linux it will never succeed.
You say "(we're certain it's a disgruntled former employee)" and also, "The thing is... we're not using illegally copied software."
I'd say you almost certainly have illegal software and said disgruntled former employee is probably the one who installed it without your permission.
The banking is tied to IE but any version will work. My GF uses the banking online here in China as well as buying on Taobao and such like. I have her using win7 with the latest IE version installed.
You're absolutely right on the money here. I've been living in China for 6 years now. My job back home was for some time in PC repair and later server admin so when I got here people naturally asked me to fix their PC's. When I encounter a freshly installed XP box here I run my AV on it instantly before connecting to the web because the pirated XP comes with malware and backdoors pre installed. The People making the pirated disks are getting thousands of ready to use zombie machines that they can then use to hack into your bank and servers back in the USA or send you all that spam that fills you inbox.
When my girlfriend inherited my old laptop last year, she wanted the Chinese language version of windows on it. She first went and got XP. After a few months it croaked and died so I wiped it and went to the shop with her to get a new install. The guy in the shop wanted to put on XP again. I insisted on win7. He said the laptop was too old and slow for win7 and it wouldn't work as well as XP. I told him I had used win7 on that laptop, in English, since the first beta and that win7 was faster than XP even on old systems and so on and so on. He didn't believe me but eventually installed win7 - which he clearly had never used before. When I looked at it, he had installed a hacked version of win7 beta - not the full version.
China is still 5 or more years behind us in many aspects of computing. It is a compulsory part of every university student to learn some basic computing skills. They are taught MS World/Excel, Dreamweaver, Flash and Visual Basic. The students find it boring and generally hate the class. There's no impetus to advance. They just want there computers to remain in 2001 status.
Maxthon id's as IE6 because it is IE6 with some plugins attached. A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Newer versions of IE do run on XP but if you have a pirated XP you can access windows update to download and install them.
I signed up for Weibo last week, having lived in China for 6 years. After the signup process I decided never to use it as it was obviously insecure. During the signup/login you are asked, as usual, to create a username and password. I usually use some nice secure passwords, ten or more letters with caps, numbers and punctuation. However, Weibo popped up a error message saying that I must only use lower-case letters a-z. This massively reduces the number of password combinations.
There's actually quite allot of porn available behind the Great Firewall of China. One thing that westerns don't understand about China is that the whole country is corrupt to the core. If you have enough money, you can get around almost any law. Just bribe a few officials and you can sell porn quite openly in the shops.
So what I reckon happened was that 41% of website failed to pay their bribes on time.
I signed up for a Weibo account last week. I've had a Renren account (Chinese Facebook clone) for over a year now. I can't effectively use either of them due to language difficulties. Really need to practice my Chinese reading. So this gives some insight into how Chinese people view western sites. They just can use them - so they don't care that they are blocked. Why would you worry that Youtube is blocked when you have all the videos you need on Youkou or Tudou.
Complete nonsense. Nobody is forced to use any particular browser in China. Though almost everyone here runs Win XP with IE6 it's because they are pirated copies of windows and so blocked from windows update by MS. There's nothing to stop people using Firefox or Chrome if they wanted.
I'm also in China. Never been any problem getting Slashdot in the last 6 years. However, the Great Firewall isn't so great. I can update my Facebook, Twitter and I'm watching Youtube right now. Their not normally available. You just have to know how to jump the wall.
There was an outcry when google first launched GMail. A senator form CA even proposed a bill to curb GMail's scanning abilities.
Your argument is only valid if the customer knows the level of security. If the bank tells me the money is in a steel vault but is in fact in a wooden box, the the bank is liable for losses. What this ruling has done is wooden boxes as adequate when everyone knows they are not.
What is required is some well publicized hacks of bank systems which would cause a run on the bank involved. What all banks fear most is all the investors withdrawing their money all at the same time. If people feel their bank is not secure, then a run will happen. That will give the banks the financial insentive they need to put security to the forefront of their business.
...it feels like I've just found out that the police man investigating a burglary at my house is really in the pay of the thief.
Of course, as a foreigner living in China, I'm all to aware of the reality and hypocrisy of police corruption. It is as rife here in China as corporate corruption is in the US. The key difference is that the Chinese people know their system is corrupt where as the US populace seems blinkered. Not that it makes any difference as both groups, Chinese and US, advocate the continuation of their own systems to the damnation of all others. Neither facing the truth that both systems are two sides of one coin, abet a fake coin that looks like gold but is filled with tin, lead, false dreams and lost hope.
The equator is useful for launching. But what goes up must come down. You need to land as well as take off. There are rumors that NASA designated Machrihanish airport as an emergency landing site for the Shuttle. Though never used for that purpose to date. Machrihanish is over 3km long and remote from populations. Lossiemouth would have similar advantages with the addition of up to date modern facilities.
Contrary to popular conceptions, the North East of Scotland actually enjoys quite good weather most of the year round. It's only the west of Scotland that gets really heavy rain. Ref: Met Office map of UK average rainfall
Well itunes prooved that if you have the legit version in the right marketplace and at the right price then people will pay rather than pirate. I'm sure it would be the same here in China. The problem is not only about the price though. It's also about the "added features". I know you probably think the pirate will cut out the addons, well the do sometimes, but they also add more. One rather essential one is changing the subtitles to chinese.
The comment about a better pirated version being due soon probably meant that there would be a dubbed chinese or better sub titled version coming soon. I've often had the traders appologise to me that the sub titles are not in English. Why I need English sub titles when the audio is in English, I don't know.
The traders must love me though. I'll buy all the ones with Japanese sub titles or Rusian menus. As long as the audio is English, that will do just fine. So I'll buy all the stock they can't shift to the locals.
To market effectivly you need both product and price to be correct. People want the Hollywood movies, but not in the origonal format (they want in chinese) and not at the US $ price.
I buy the pirated DVD's. Not because I'm lazy. But because the blank DVD's where I am actually cost more than the pirate disks that include all the packaging. So why would I burn my own?
If they sold the legit version here, then maybe people would buy it. But here in China, only the pirated versions exist. You just can't get the original even if you wanted. Amazon will not deliver to my door. (wish they would, I need some new books) It's not only the back street markets. The main shopping malls, and the supermarkets all sell the dodgy versions. Difference with the supermarket is that you get the box as well as the cardboard sleeve. IMHO, reading the article. The author was ripped off. The low quality disks should only cost 4 yaun. For 6 yaun you should expect the pirate to be the equal of the original. Including even the holograms. Off Course I don't buy. I rent for 2 yuan a day. And yes - I make a copy of the pirate if I like the film. This is a problem created by the film companies themselves. They made the regions on DVD's so they could sell a disk for $15 in the USA, and for £20 in the UK and not have any issues with "grey" imports. But the price difference is exactly what makes the pirating worth while. There are 1.3 billion people in china. That's a big market. They love DVD's. So there is money to be made selling them here. However, $15! Nobody in china is able to pay $15 for a DVD. Not even me and I earn westerner's wages. That's a 1.3 billion person market that the main film producers have cut themselves out of. It's there choice. They'd rather sell to a 120 million person market in the US for $15 than to a 6 yaun (80 cents) market in china with 1.3 billion potential customers. They made there choice and they have to live with the consequences. So it's only natural capitalism that the Chinese fill the home market themselves by making pirates. If you had 1.3 billion potential customers, you'd be doing the same.