Can't wait until some Horde guild grabs a world first with only Pandarens. :)

Funny, but a Chinese person would reply an egg, because the all that is in the universe was born out of an egg in Chinese mythology. See Pangu.

Agreed the university are a oligopoly and have enough clout to price discriminate. The issue is that when you take away the subsidy the university wouldn't downward price match the same drop in available resources.

In fact a lot of Universities will give you very aggressive Financial aid packages when you are applying to lure you in and then each year reduce the aid significantly. It is highly possible that the Universities will price match the drop for only the first year.

Agreed, all countries censor, just to a different extend. China does it much more so and openly than most other nations out there.

Of course blocking twitter and other social media that is not state controlled is a great idea for China. When you have to manage over 1.2 billion people, it's very very hard to make everyone happy. The US only has 300+ million and it's already hard for congress to agree on anything. Now if you make that 4 times as many people, it's even hard to agree. And as a single party state, you must make it as hard as possible for people to riot and try to brainwash them into being complacent. This leads to all sorts of Human Rights violations, but what kind you do if you don't want a social meltdown?

A lot of people talk about "democracy" for China as if China can just jump to a multi-party system and everything will magically be better. However, reality doesn't work like that. Switching forms of government will always create large amounts of turmoil, both socially and economically. Socially because not everyone will be happy with the new form of government and the policies instituted. This will often lead to splitting of the state given a weak central government. Economically because businesses do not know what policies the new government will implement and the social turmoil. Business tend to be very conservative given economic uncertainty (you can see if very well currently in the US and Europe, businesses are not hiring and not spending on acquisitions).

Agreed. Smoking and Cancer researches are funded by politics, so there will always be politics in science.

No, the Taiwanese government (aka the Nationalists) lost the civil war against the communists. If anything, they have lost their legitimacy.

I don't think Taiwan can claim legitimacy anymore than PRC, I mean it started out from the Boxer Rebellion. How can one successful rebellion be more legitimate than another?

Now the question on whether or not Taiwan is part of PRC is how different ball game, a debate that I don't wish to get into.

I just asked a friend in Beijing over QQ and he's able to access it fine. Could be a local ISP issue? Sometimes I get the connection reset error on Slashdot in the US too.

You have some options here:
1. Get an unlocked Quad Band GSM phone. If you are on AT&T, well you're phone is probably locked. But if you had an unlocked phone, then iPhones and Blackberries definitely work everywhere in China. The vast majority of China is covered with GSM and UMTS so any phone that works on T-mobile will work in China. I have no idea why AT&T decided to use a frequency that no one else uses... The good thing about this is that the Phone is in English, and is easy to use if you are not fluent in Chinese. Once there, like so many other people have said, just by a sim card. If you have an unlocked iPhone 4 like I do, you'll also need a Sim Cutter tool (available on ebay and the likes for around 20 dollars).
2. Buy a phone there. Some smart phones carry multiple languages in the system by default and all you have to do is get someone to help you change it to English.

You want to note that in China, they don't have "nation-wide" calling. Calling a local number and a long-distance number makes a huge difference on the price. However, a text message to any cell phone in China is always the same price. And texting is very cheap compared to US standards, so most people will send lots of text messages.

Also, I wanted to say that like any international traveling, you should consider using VOIP where possible. You certainly don't want to make an international call on your cell in China, it's absurdly expensive. Skype is accessible within China. The premier Instant Messaging Network in China is QQ, there is an English edition that you can get as well so chat with Family at home with. But I would recommend Skype over that since many people already have Skype in the US.

I also want to dispel some of the rumors that people have and the fear mongering. Every time I've flown in, I've never seen anyone get their cell phones confiscated or searched. The only time this will happen is if the Chinese government has a record of you do something "disruptive of social harmony". (This means don't bad mouth the government and you'll be OK. Also "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" is quite applicable here. However, it's not like there is a listen device in every room either. You should feel fairly save from unwanted invasions of privacy. As they say, the dog will bite you if you kick it.) The person saying that he had 3 colleagues who had their phones searched or confiscated probably works for a human rights organization, works for something else that China doesn't like, or did something suspicious during their entry. Most people will go through customs without any issues. (Oh there is additional scrutiny if you going to an area like Tibet or where there is currently social unrest. But for most of the big tourist spots (I'm assuming you're going for leisure since you are taking pictures and stuff) should be OK).

Also, the rootkit issue. In order to install a rootkit, the attacker must either have physical access to your phone or get you visit a malicious link. Buying a new phone wouldn't mean there is a rootkit installed on the phone either, it's just to practical to install a rootkit on every phone. Of course if you some how managed to get the Chinese secret service to tail you, well then all bets are off ;)

I just don't see why this is such a big deal. I've never found it difficult to switch between the two... I just automatically do it. You're brain is not so limited in that it can only remember to do one thing. If you use different fingers when you're using different things, you end up with three distinct sets of spatial/muscle memory that does not conflict.

For calculators, I use both thumbs
For phones, I use my index finger on the phone number pad. To type, I use both thumbs, I think this is left over from my TI-89 days in High School
For computer's number pad, I use Index, Middle, and Ring fingers for the 3 columns.

Of course it doesn't help if you're one of those people who only use their index finger to type everything....

Doesn't gmail "scan" your email to get the ad keywords for the ads on the side?

First of all, there is no need for you to defend your qualifications. A sound argument should carry it's own weight, most people would agree. The fact that you spend all that time defending your own point of view really detracts from your argument.

Second, under the US law, Car Rental agencies are liable as owners of the vehicle regardless if the driver was doing something irresponsible. Thus, ISPs are not quite like Car Agencies, in that they not usually liable for infringements of its users. Additionally, allow me to add to the Judge's argument and hope that it makes some sense. Car Agencies rent out physical goods owned by the car rental itself, namely the vehicles. Therefore, the car agency will have liability as it was something owned by the agency that caused damage. Whereas, the ISP is a routing service. It does not own the data sent nor received. In that sense, it is more like USPS or any other mail/package delivery service. If someone mails some a DVD with copyright infringing materials on it, is USPS liable? Most likely not, whoever sent the package should be liable, along with the recipient of the package if they acquired the DVD to circumvent copyrights. Here USPS does not own anything that caused damage. Similarly, the ISP does not own anything that caused damage. The IP address certainly didn't do any damage to VPR. Hence ISP is not a potential defendant in the lawsuit where as the car agency would be. Hence it's not a very good analogy. VPR should have made the argument that you can subpoena the post office for where the mail was going to and where it was from. But then it's also against federal law to look at mail that wasn't intended for you, you wouldn't know about the copyright infringement.

Third, your vote-off terms are quite one sided. You have failed to summerize Judge Baker's argument correctly. It's not because you can sue the Car Rental in order to subpoena the identity of the driver, but rather, Car Rental agencies could be codefendants where as the ISP are not. This is a critical distinction in law since these two different firms have different legal protection in place. Not to mention if the ISP was a defendant, then the ISP would have to yield the identity of the customer during the adversial process. There would have been no need for a subpoena!

Fourth, you say that the Judge's writing is incoherent, what about this sentence you wrote? "If some customers in similar situations have had their identities made public by other circumstances, the judge's ruling gives no reason why that should be relevant at all, in a situation where the customer's identity is not public." I am going to ignore the fact that sentence is poorly constructed, but explain why the Judge's ruling actually supports his claim. He is using this sentence to support the fact that car agency analogy doesn't apply to the ISP. In the Car Rental case, there are also public records of the customer's information, and in the ISP's case there are not. Hence this is an additional fundamental difference between the two scenarios, so any analogy is not apt.

Fifth, about the whether or not IP subscribers are at fault, you claim that even if the defendant is not guilty, that could be proven in court. Unfortunately, that not how most of these cases work. Once VPR subpeonas the customer's information, they end settlement letters threatening very expensive law suits unless the "defendant" settles out of court (usually for several thousand dollars). Many users cannot fight this because they cannot afford a lawyer to do legal battles for a whole year. And at the end of the day, even if proven innocent, they could still be down even more money because they had to pay the lawyer. Unlike a criminal trial, this would be a civil suit and you do not have the right to a lawyer. Hence, a trail may not even happen, in which case you are punishing the wrong people. That aside, you claim that the court must believe that there is a reasonable probablity that the plaintiffs will win; in reality is quite unlikely. It's highly possible (>90%) that the infrindger does not actually live in the jusrisdiction of the court, so the case would be thrown out before it goes to trial.

Sixth, you make the claim that IP are assigned to IP specific trackable users. First of all, you are more than likely to be behind a NAT at corporations and universities. Only a few of university have enough unique IP address for its users. So the IP address you have is most likely a router at the university or corporation. The next question is then can you still trace it to the user. Maybe. Sometimes it is still possible to see which packet is routed to which user, but ISPs and routers don't have to keep a running log of where each packet is from and going. Additionally, many universities have unsecured wi-fi networks on campus for its students and faulty to use. Sure you may have to sign on, but it's often easy enough to acquire a username and password by sniffing thanks to the fact that the network is often not encrypted. As some of the users have already pointed out the linkage between IP Address and users is not actually unique in any direction. One IP Address can be shared by multiple users and one user can even have multiple IP Addresses. The important fact is that IP address does not link to users. I think you've watched to many CSI episodes where the police have super advanced tracing or facial scanning technologies. In reality, we are no where near that kind of sophistication. This is reality: Gateway IP Address -> Router Mac Address -> NAT -> Computer Mac Address -> Computer -> User(s) There is problem here though. MAC address are not necessarily unique. Not to mention there could be multiple users. Hence that Gateway IP that VPR has will most likely not be able to pin point anyone.

Seventh, you are correct in that the John Doe's only defense is to quash the subpeona. However, the quash doesn't actually protect the Doe defenant, because the adversarial process continues. As the adversarial process continues, even is the subpeona is quashed and as long as defendants are found guilty, the Doe who filed the motion for quash will be found guilty. Reason: motion to quash is public records, you have now identified yourself to the plaintiffs.

Eighth, You claim that the adding of 900 additional Doe defendants have nothing to do with the case, but it does. The issue is that if the plaintiffs get the first 100 users' information in a subpeona. Then when the plaintiffs add the 900 more defendants, the new defendants will have an opportunity to quash the subpeona. If the subpeona is quashed, the first 100 user's name should not be available to the plaintiffs either since it is the same lawsuit. However, the personal information has already been revealed to the plaintiffs. This is not acceptable.

Nineth, you are correct in that dismissing defendants is the right thing to do. But that's the judge's lead in to his next point. There are a lot of out of court settlements which is often used as a scare tactic. The Judge's job is to protect the people from abusive lawsuits like these.

Tenth, again you are correct that Judge Baker doesn't really point out why the the issue is more pronounced in a lawsuit against 1,000 John Does. But he should not need to spell it out for you. It's clear from the earlier sentence that significant number of John Does ends up coerced into a quick settlement.

Eleventh, the judge notes that the subpeona is clearly a "fishing expedition" in all intents and purpose. It is not healthy to promote such practices in court, as it opens the flood gates for companies to coerce people into settlements for no wrong doing.

Finally, the judge also points out that the court doesn't actually have juristiction over any of the John Does at this point in the legal process, since none of the defendants have been served. Sure this could be a shortcoming of our legal system, but at the same time, it protects us from large corporations from using the lawyers to be abusive towards the less legally equipped individuals.

I think it'll be OK. Just look at what happened with Australia. Just give it fifty years or so.
OK, jokes aside, I don't think convicted murders have the mental capacity to stay focused to survive on Mars.

It's probably true that Chinese names are slightly more diverse in Chinese, but the moment you use PinYin or Giles-Wades to romanize it, they have have the same spelling. And also, Chinese people also tends to pick very common English names if they have them (yeah I have one of them too); compounded with the fact that there aren't that many Chinese last names (especially within one geographic location*), everyone has the same name in English. Now for my Chinese name in Chinese, I'm fairly certain that no one else in the world has it, and I have very good confidence in it. But using PinYin shares my first name with a Taiwanese actress/singer. * In rural China, there are entire villages where everyone has the same last name. It's kinda hill billy out there.

:( /. killed the Chinese characters in my post... >_