Most meaningful post so far. I don't understand why people feel so threatened by China, when in fact the vast majority of young generation of Chinese are in awe of American culture.

The WSJ? Really, a bunch of conservatives writing about the demise of a country they perceive as a threat. LOL.

I'm in China and all I can tell you is that you still haven't even seen half of what's coming. The only issue I see is the high cost to acquire real estate, but the Chinese being what they are, just tackle the issue by making it a top priority or a must in a family to buy the house first and then get married. So the main thing is that they are used to a lot of hardships Western people would not be able to endure for a week, especially the jobs where they treat you like crap and only pay 3000 yuans. But by basically eating 10 yuan noodles every day and actually saving as much as they can, the Chinese thrive. Sorry but humankind need to go through periods of crap to become better and the Chinese had their fair share and now they will just keep going up for at least two more generations from what I see. Even the 1-child policy had the unintended effect of making a large portion of the population a lot more educated since families poured all the resources in their single child instead.

So again dude, you still haven't seen the half of it. If you want to get a glimpse, go to Chengdu, the New Century Global building and you will see what I'm talking about.

Violent crime rate in Venezuela is horrendous, there is a whole culture of violence far worse than what you have in the US simply because institutions do a miserable job and are ridden with corruption and extreme bureaucracy. Sure, there is no lone gunman in Venezuela killing people because he is crazy, but who cares when you have people that will hit you or even kill you in extreme cases just to get your cellphone, car or cash you got in a bank.

On the other hand, Venezuela is doing rather well when it comes to social justice and inequality, something that sadly is way too familiar in Latin America. And the way you see this in the street is that the government is very tough on businesses, to the point where it can actually be bad for the economy, but it is really good for the workers.

The main issue is their exchange control that is creating economic chaos, with hyperinflation being a very real problem. This was entirely the current government fault for two reasons: eliminating a system Chavez left in place to ease imports (SITME) and not having the balls to get rid of the currency exchange control and prevent the shortages and the massive contraband of goods and fuels taking place in the border with Colombia.

I tried a lot to like GW2, with its fancy graphics and good pvp, open world progression, no level requirements for a lot of stuff, but to be honest, in my case it just wasn't as fun as WoW. To the point where I actually started playing WoW again, and one of the things that really shine are the professions, even if you play WoW solo the game delivers in a very simplistic manner one hell of an experience.

I don't agree with Google's octopus policies regarding privacy but you are very right about the Nexus 5. It has single-handedly managed to make any prospective iPhone buyer look like a complete fool.

And here I thought that the big thing about using 64-bit was to be able to access more RAM in the future. Since we are rapidly approaching the point where phones will have more than 4GB of RAM, I don't really see your point there. A quad-core does use more power than a dual-core, which is a good advantage in mobile. I think Apple has the right balance in the hardware (screen included) except the outrageous prices.

Me, I'm perfectly happy with a ZTE V965 and its very fast for what I need Mediatek 6589. I think a lot of people would save a lot more money if they only get what they really need instead of the latest and the greatest. That whole argument of because I don't need to buy another phone for a couple of years is a moot point as well btw, especially when I purchased said ZTE phone for $82 unlocked.

You should try Gentoo when you get the chance. The install process alone will make you understand a lot more about your computer than you ever wanted to know.

Wait I must be on drugs or something, but during the brief period I used Slackware, I thought you were supposed to create Slackware packages yourself from every source install, which is extremely easy to do and one of the major reasons I liked Slackware in the first place. Hell, there was even a website called Linux Packages or something like that, where you could just share whatever packages you created if anybody didn't want to go through the process.

In my case I ended up using Gentoo for personal use even if the install is burdensome, Debian or OpenBSD on servers and Ubuntu for desktop installs.

Let's see, on Android there is no way to stop apps from using your personal info unless you install cyanogenmod with it's honeypot scheme. You might be able to log all the traffic but I really dare you to block all of that and see what happens, not only it isn't pretty but the internet feels broken. I should know since I live in China. Plus don't forget how Google is locking down android, totally forgetting they are leeches profiting from free software and only giving back breadcrumbs. Without Linux and efforts like webkit, a company like Google would not have had a chance to compete against Apple the way they are doing it right now.

So I don't know why you feel like defending an advertiser that data mines you even after you paid good money for a device like a Samsung S4. Apple is equally horrible for the overpriced hardware and Microsoft lock-in tactics. So far the only good thing I have seen coming out from all this mess is companies like Xiaomi that gives fantastic deals on powerful hardware and with a custom Android with no gapps, or maybe even the Oppo N1 which includes cyanogenmod preinstalled.

You really haven't worked with government before. Sorry to be so blunt man, but you are being too naive.

You must be insane. Running your own web server from a Mac is as easy as going to System Preferences and activate Web Sharing. While you are at it, I honestly beg you to try the share internet checkmark and then choose to broadcast the WiFi signal you are using over bluetooth to another device. Try to do the same in Linux and let me know if it is a walk in the park. Hell forget about that, using Ubuntu, try to install a Wi-fi card that does not have the driver precompiled by Ubuntu and again, let me know how that goes.

I think Ubuntu has done a fantastic job at making Linux easier, but don't kid yourself, the closed source OSX is vastly superior and just taking a look at their App Store should remind you that. That being said I will always use Linux for work stuff, especially servers where it really excels, but even in that field Linux is getting a run for its money with OpenBSD. That BSD that you said that never took off. Once you realize how awful iptables is compared to what OpenBSD gives you, I believe you will stop bullshitting yourself about the supposed virtues of a holy grail system.

I think you really should read the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification

I think it will clear your doubts about the subject at hand.

DRM might be a bit bad, but in general we have so many choices today that I truly feel that even if I have two lives I wouldn't be able to consume everything that is out there. Sure there were a lot of gems back then, but don't be too nostalgic and try to enjoy what you have today as well. And today you have stuff like Bioshock Infinite, Civ V, Anno 2070, racing games like Grid 2 or any NFS, and don't even forget about things like World of Warcraft, Battlefield et al. I mean, Doom was fun but that doesn't even compare to the rush you can feel when you use a freaking aircraft then eject, use your parachute and try to land in a hard to reach spot, and then use your sniper rifle to take down targets at extremely long distances.

And this is without even mentioning true gems like Journey on the PS3, Super Mario Galaxy, and Halo 4. So I'm really happy how things are today actually :)

You forget that the true smash hit was Warcraft II. But to say that Warcraft was like Dune 2 is totally forgetting what the two main rivals represented, and by rivals I mean Westwood Studios and Blizzard. So with Dune/Command and Conquer you had the nameless unit, weak soldiers but strong vehicles. In Warcraft, you had badass units that sometimes only the sight of an enemy mage or catapults near a bridge crossing would make you stop.

And the thing about Diablo is that it was a combination of the fantastic music (I still listen to Tristram from time to time), amazing graphics, one of the first Windows 95 games, top-notch story (I mean the hero sacrifices himself in the end, wow) that made it feel so immersive that you can still play today and have fun with it.

And even today that bar is being raised all the time. Multiplayer games in Battlefield are something to behold, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 are a thing of beauty, Bioshock Infinite has got to be the best violent and artsy game ever. Plus you get indie stuff like The Cave, Don't Starve and you suddenly realize that it is really cool to live in this time and age, especially for not having to deal with autoexec.bat and himem/memmaker stuff just to play your goddamned X-Wing.

It's not even the marketing that bugs me, more of an issue with DRM taking down whole games like Anno 2070 for instance. One hell of a game but so screwed up by DRM that in my case there was a gamesave file corruption that wouldn't go away even if I reinstalled the whole PC, since it was in their cloud tied to my account. And for some strange reason they would even refuse to reset my account back to normal.