Volpe

No it's not. Because I WANT spam protection... I don't want ads.

Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.

But google DO go through every message to sell ads. How is this pathetic? Some people don't like the fact that their emails are used in that way, so focusing on that is just marketing.

No different to google running ads for chrome saying "it's faster"... it IS, and some people care about that.

Could you point me to an example of Chrome "UI rearranging itself at random"?

The only time I've had issues with chrome, is when I switched to the dev stream... Stable has always been, well, stable.

erm... right... but the EU doesn't collect taxes from all of that... they are individual countries.

If the GP is advocating that ideas and their expressions shouldn't be 'private' if expressed publicly, then comparing it to stealing is incorrect.

> Just because it's possible to steal something, you/society should allow it to happen?

A closer comparison would be: you heard me tell a story. You don't think society should allow you to tell it to someone else because I 'own' it, and to tell someone else is to 'steal' from me.

> We should all put in the most amount of time to our lives and passions

Should we? Is that the ultimate goal here? The problem with trying to tell people what their life is about, is that you are wrong as soon as you start.

> how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?

Subsistence is 'surviving' (like, not dying, not not unable to pay rent).

Well given you can't know what your family would be like, or your kids education levels would be without home schooling... your can't make too many meaningful observations.

From all the reading I've done on educational outcomes for kids, the number one predictor of educational outcome, is socio-economic status of the parents. Sometimes exceptional teachers can move kids outside of that, but most of the time, it's what (socio-economic) 'class' you are in, not classroom.

EDIT:

Surprisingly this doesn't hold true in Asia, their focus on education is amazing at bridging socio economic gaps (though the above observation still holds true, but to a much lesser degree).

I feel like this is equivalent to: "how to fix a bug when you don't know how to program"... I could write as much as you like but there is an explanatory gap...

Right, that's exactly the other citation I needed.

I think that explains why the US is so hostile to the activities of china (and vice versa)

Dictators... Are you saying wen jiaobao is a dictator?

Given the vast improvement in the way of life for Chinese since deng xiaoping, and their continuos prosperity. Are we really sure that's the "best" thing to do.

That was my point.

If it takes 20 years to see a 'benefit' is it that bad now, that they should go through that kind of mess?

I was implying it could be an American newspaper... As it stands if I 'hacked' HN and routed through china, I reckon the news would be: "HN hacked by Chinese Government!"

> One journalist from China I met long ago in a place far away commented well in advance of the Internet age that if the Communist Party of China ceased censoring mass media that its rule would be gone "in a week."

Is that a good thing?

Would it's replacement be better?

Arab spring has kind of taught us that things aren't as simple as: "Break status quo and things get better".

China pushes an alternative world view[0] to the US, it doesn't involve individual rights, and free markets. It seems the majority in the west (primarily the U.S) view this as a 'menace' or a 'threat' to their way of life... hence the constant propaganda.

EDIT: Just in response to the down votes, I thought maybe it was due to no citation.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy

I've found that's the case with any hack... for all we know it could be a competing newspaper routing through China.

But nationalism/xenophobia trumps reason.

Strange that they would hack NYT when NYT's source for the WenJiaobao article seemed to be public financial records and info from wikileaks (state department cables).

What is the strategic gain from hacking NYT? Identify potential other sources (within china) perhaps?

because people have olive oil already...

Didn't the "original" seeder, pay for the copy?

Seems to be that rather than pay taxes to buy content for the library, one can just contribute directly to that library.

Yeah... but they weren't producing anything, which caused the crash.

So everyone should stop throwing around this 35 number... because it was 2. ?

I don't think it's a win. These underage workers likely weren't doing it against their will. So really we just fired a bunch of poor people, because we think they are too young to work... Win!

Do we really think these underage workers are going to go home and play Xbox, or go to school?

But would have they been in this case?

No it isn't, I can think of heaps of counter examples where the assumption of guilt is a good way to act...

I thought the 35 years was false.

Sentences aren't cumulative like that... or was my understanding wrong?

Yeah I agree with most of your points. Australia never had the gun culture the US had (even before the Gun buy back). Most people in urban areas did not own guns, it was (and remains) mostly farmers.

I don't have a citation, but I remember reading a justification for suicide prevention fences on bridges, that found that it didn't just stop suicides from that bridge, it did so without raising suicides in any other way (i.e it lowered the total suicides).

I've always found it difficult to think of a solution to America's "Gun Problem"... It is codified in their laws, and from that is deeply engrained in their culture. Any reform has to first start reforming the culture, in my mind.

> Many of us laowai in Beijing get depressed in the winter because of the poor air quality.

I'm confused about the implication here. Are westerners (laowai) more prone to getting depressed from poor air quality? Chinese (native/migrant) aren't affected?

Really, you are upset by his JSTOR connections... not the fact he is an MIT Professor?

This is not an impartial investigation... Whether he has connections with JSTOR makes no difference to that fact.

Umm it's a book, and the piece was written by The Guardian... So not sure what you are talking about...

Also, there are 2 Koreas, you talk as if there is only 1. No one is suggesting that South Korea is crazy or belligerent. I didn't even see that assertion with North korea... What are you referring to?

Also I'm quite sure the standard of living is not better in North Korea (than in the US), or are you referring to the south? if so, why?

It's still a misleading stat, The North Korean stats are essentially a "Total War" stat (as that reservist number is the ~ number of Males). To suggest that any countries are scared of another's simply by it's population is ridiculous. Let alone suggesting that "The West"s combined forces would be intimidated by that...

"Human Wave" [1] Tactics didn't work very effectively in the Korean war, they would work even less in a modern combat theater.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack

Except that North Korea is a bordering country to China (by a land border no less). A little different to Vietnam, not very close to the US.

From my own reading, it seemed that China's involvement was largely due to the Russian, and Chinese push for more "Red States" (which is why they were also involved in Vietnam). There was the notion that Capitalism would fall by the hand of "Global Revolution"...