> "If the West is wrong about our ideals being universal, then our society is no better than others anyway and it doesn't matter (in the long run for the overall good of humanity) if the Chinese conquer us."
If our ideals are relative or subjective, wouldn't that make it all the more important to speak out, as to do otherwise would be conceptual-suicide?
Even if other cultures don't hold my values, I still must value them.
I don't disagree about educating foreign students, by the way. Barring empirical evidence to the contrary, my feeling is that exposure to foreign cultures ought to dampen nationalism in the long run.
> And I was dealing with all walks of life. Holiday makers of all kinds. From backpackers, to ... they were all affected by the truthful claim that almost everybody bought the package from me.
Wow, everybody falls for the pitch? Gee, I guess I'm convinced that social proof works.
We can laud the achievements Apple has accomplished without refraining from criticism where they fall short. Furthermore, even taking what you say for granted, these past achievements do not validate the approach Apple is taking today with their new in-app subscriptions policy.
That they are free to make this choice doesn't mean the community needs to roll over in accepting it. A response to this news that doesn't indicate displeasure would lack integrity.
Woah, I just noticed that when the mouse hovers over "Close tabs to the right" or "Close other tabs", the tabs that will close start to flash. (Chrome 9.0.597.67 beta, Windows) When did that happen?
My own anecdotal observations suggest most laptops don't have a dedicated middle-click button, though most do emulate a middle click when the right and left buttons are simultaneously pressed.
That a loose analogy can be drawn between network neutrality and newspapers does not mean both cases have equal merits.
One of the merits of each case must be their practicality, and at least to me, net neutrality seems relatively straightforward compared to newspaper regulation. It is more-or-less the default state of the internet today, I believe, while newspaper regs appear harder to craft.
Regulators could fail to discern the right vs. wrong places to intervene, as you say, but that's all the more reason we ought to point them out.
I'm surprised by the domination of Western Europe by iOS, and that Symbian's share there is so low. Even Android's numbers are double that of Symbian. Compare East Europe, where Symbian is roughly half the market. Was I just naiive?
Also, one annoyance: why did they have to switch around the colors between graphs?
I found it myself just yesterday through a completely unrelated channel. Didn't catch the author at first glance! Seeing Yudkowsky linked to FF.net on HN made me do a double-take. I wonder how long it would have taken me to catch on if I hadn't stopped to finish work. Guess I must go back and finish it now!
Were all 10 of these suicides from FoxConn's Shenzhen plant (population 330,000)?
If so, perhaps a fair basis of comparison would be the suicide rate at other manufacturing plants, along with the general suicide rate for working employees.
I imagine anyone with work and employment is less likely to commit suicide than the general population (though I haven't seen the statistics). The question is, is working at FoxConn more stressful than other comparable employers?
“If we did not act, we faced a draconian future. Where one man, one company, one carrier was the future.”
– Google Vice-President of Engineering Vic Gundotra explains why the company made Android.
That sounds to me like Gundotra committed the fallacy of backdating present justifications/motivations to the original act. I assume this was in a speech at Google I/O? It does read a tad pretentious.
Though, while I don't think cognitive backdating is a healthy habit (keeping in mind it's a common mistake, one we all actually fall prey to), it also seems a bit grandiose to call this a "Microsoft moment".
It's good to keep Google on its toes, of course, but Gundotra's misspeak doesn't strike me as sufficient reason to draw all manner of parallels to Microsoft. Google's actions to date do not seem equivalent, in my estimation. And hopefully, by catching such misconceptions, we'll remind them not to actually make mistakes in the future like Microsoft has made.
Logically, this does not imply that ISPs have to start filtering for illegal content, but that is nevertheless what people started worrying about.