Just go to ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases This kind of slashdot posts are often faster than their website update. But ftp servers are definitely updated when you see these kinda news on slashdot.

I do that (use OOo), but that's definitely not the majority. Most people I know don't use OpenOffice even if they don't pay for MSOffice. They'd just use a pirvated version of it. For us who're more technical, they all looks the same for word processing. But for people in school who're not technical, they just worry about this and that, and does not like OOo's look etc. etc. etc.

Let alone sometimes, those business courses etc. need to you use some MSOffice plugins, which can't be run on OOo. Simply put, OOo is an option to us, but not the majority.

Seriously, students today SHOULD know how to use a computer. You don't need to have a course to teach them. It's such basic skill. As of High School level, as you're already doing calculus etc., you're totally able to do basic programming. If you just can't, then it's not a road for you in university. High school subjects serves a purpose of introducing students into some real contents of each subjects. If it's overly basic, then you're just giving a force image of what the subject is.

Because many woman will suddenly remember they're female on subjects that "gender discrimination" benefits them. Only otherwise, they'd hold up the flag of "gender equality".

I always say, if you want me to treat you like a man, don't expect me to treat you like a girl. If you expect me to treat you like a girl, don't expect me to treat you like a man.

I haven't try all of those, but half of those you mensioned. But I can tell you that for many Chinese food, if you don't wash cleanly or correctly, then it does taste/smell very bad. If it does smell that bad, then I'd say you should rethink about the restaurant lol. I'm from southeast China. And many as you might know, Cantonese eat basically everything. We've encountered countless times that food doesn't taste as it should because it's not well cleaned/clearing-smell. It's too much work for restaurant and they don't always take the time do that well.

That Confusious thing is not even controlled by mainland China government. It's just something bought up by a small small organization formed by a few scholars. The scale is not even big enough to be paid attention to. It's really just advertised by foreign medias together with the nobel prize news.

Well, top respecting bottom and bottom respecting top is not impossible. The situation of the west is different. China has a huge system of local, provincial, and national wide exam since almost 2000 years ago. And basically all government officals have to go throuh national examination in the capital, and only the top can get in. As a result, the government is filled with scholars who do care about the people (or not). Now, China is much larger than European countries. And emperor is the head of country, but not head of government. Power of top government officals are huge compare to the west because given the country size, they can have a good base to rebel against the royal family if the government get little respect. And since most officials arises from national examinations, together with the traditoin, anything that is seriously against "the good" will likely get strong opposition from many officals, from top officals to local officals. Let alone famous "colleges/schools" who do comment on all kind of policies. This turns into a complex power game. On one side, they have to follow tradition/law at least on the surface and keep everything in harmony. On the other side, each groups with very different ideas have their own power "alliences" (we call them "party" in Chinese). That result in a situation very similar to what you see in today's parliments, parties picking on each other's fault, promoting their own ideas, etc. And in normal time, the final decision is most often made when most top officals reaches consensus. Or if one party gain majority offical support, which can add strong pressure on the emperor even if he oppose to a suggestion.

Here, the top is not neccessary respecting the bottom, but respecting the tradition, worring about their own "look" in history in the future, and affected by power of top officals/parties. But at least, because of confusious based system, they can't go too far in normal times. Chinese care a lot about how they appear in history, and want a name in history, giving pride to their family.

The bottom does not neccessary respect the top, but because all local government head are officals appointed by province or central governments, they also do not want their "bad decisions" to be known by upper officals, who want harmony in their area of control to make sure nothing block them from rising to upper level of governments. As a result, the power of the bottom is also quite powerful in normal times.

There are of course some problem with the system that was caused by reality situation of different times. But the bottom line is, there is usually a equilibium. Not neccessary by "respect", but by tradition, strong view of good or bad ruling in confusious, and government officals who arrises from national examinations.

That is why the idea of "elite government" is quite popular in Chinese cultural area. Even in democratic countries like Japan and Korea, this kind of cultural value is still embedded within voter's decision. One example is Singapore, which is always critizied by the west. Is totally not critizied by even democratic east asian countries. Why? Because it works, and it worked well before. Way better than democratic governments today in the good times. There is no absolute good between "elite" or "democracy". What you need is to identify the short falls o what you have right now and correct them with new ideas or pulling in ideas of other types of government to create your own combination that works.

I haven't tried SeaMonkey since like FF2. But if that's the case, then I definitely support you. FF4 is still eating up my RAM pretty badly. However, compare to Chrome, which also eats as much ram (if not more) and equally support multi-process, firefox is totally not responsive.

I did try FF4 on Linux. Visibly faster than on Windows. If it's not Windows problem, then firefox really need to put more strength on performance on Windows.

In fact, decendent tribals had already repeatly say that it's just to restart of the calendar.

Well, there is in fact a conflict here. But I wouldn't call it "anti-science". In fact, there is nothing to do with anti science.

A party is elected by people that care about certain things more than others at certain time. In order to maintain their position, a political party in power must adjust and design their policy/aim.

Now, everything costs money. Say, you want cleaner electricity? More money. Better health care? More money. Money is limited, and you can't do everything. So you have to put your money and force on what's currently more important.

Now comes the conflict. Say, a government's priority is on economy, and try to decrease tax. Then they can't allow things that'll clearly negatively affect the economy/taking-more-money-from-our-pocket to happen. Now, those scientists are hired by government, and hence is part of the government. How can you, as a government, allow your departments and or ministers/important-members to have conflict publicly shown without beautifying what's happening or coordinating inside? When there're conflict of interest between departments, you'll need to decide what to do, and that can take time. If a government scientist suddenly come out publically and say something strong against a public policy, then the party in power will at once be attacked by oppositions, whatever reason they use.

Government need a united voice to show a clear path of where it's going. Otherwise, it's just adding problems to the political side while policies are STILL going to be made based on political concern, or even more so if the party in power is under serious attack as they now will need to perform even more politically benefitial policies.

Right or wrong is not absolute in this case. And I personally don't think the new web site will add much since those are really not most people's concern. Or at least, so I think.

Actually, there were already some anti-Chinese situaitions inside Russia. But interestingly, in the south eastern part of Russia where most Chinese labours are, many Russians actually welcome Chinese labours for helping them making use of their land (e.g. farm). Because otherwise, their land will be totally sitting there without much being used (i.e. not bringing themselves income neither). It's not really like colonization as most Chinese there are labours and doesn't have real ownership. And they're not really fighting with local Russians for jobs neither.

As of Mexican "immigration" to USA, they're taking very low wages job. Though that might be fighting for jobs with "some" Americans, they are leaving a lot of wealth in American owner or customer pockets also. And again, many are "in the dark", having no ownership nor right, I'm not sure if you can call that colonization.

At the end, I still need to say it all goes back to the formation of the communist party. The way it's formed and structured created different power groups within the system. This generation of central government have finally reasonably successfully removed army power within the top organization of central government. But they're still fighting different power groups. The June 4 event was a classic example of power fight. The liberal group of the communist party (in power at the time, in favour of the students) failed to make the young student leaders back down before USSR leader come (that's the bottomline inside the party) even after offering them to sit down and discuss afterwards. (Most students decided to back down, but few/several leaders refused.)

Now, that event was a fight between the conservatives and liberal group within communist party. And the student's refusal to settle gave a big hit on the liberal group, and put the conservative group back in power. To date, there're still some big power groups. And doing things not carefully can destroy your "generation of leaders". Which post a difficulty of overpower the local powers. While the central government always try to get real data from provinces, the provinces decorate and promote the already fake data given by cities. So not only normal people, the central governmnet have problme getting data also.

Communist party was a military organization, and military still play a big role until the most recent time. Any careless move can bring the country extreme instability. Not a problme as simple as you think. For one thing, you don't want the military to get back into power.

I totally agree.

Though I read a lot of novels on computer, those are all "just another novel" and won't be read more than once probably. For better books, I'd still buy a physical copy directly. Not only there's a "physical feeling of ownership" and that the "book design looks good on shelf". It's actually much easier on eyes compare to looking at screen.

Any time, if i can find a relatively clean physically copy of book (say, from library), I'll borrow it instead of reading on screen. Monitors are fine for "instant information" (e.g. slash dot) or doing research about common stuff (e.g. how to fix your house's root, or CS algorithm, etc.). But for more static readings (e.g. novels, history, bibiography, etc.), physical books rules.

Agreed. I don't care if he's watching internet porn or not during any time. I only care if he's doing his job well. A politician spending all of his time working for his own benefit (or for his next election? hence doing "his job", or so it seems) might well be doing a worse and less useful job than a politician watching a bit of porn using tax payer funded systems.

I don't think it's a matter of self esteem, it's more like a generation difference that make those "news". And by the nature of "news usefulness", I personally see negative news are a lot more eyes catching than positive news, as those are the ones that might damage you or your family and neighbours or the society in some way. At the end, what's the point of reading positive news about "other people" anyway. It's another story if it's "positive news" about a "society/country" in general instead of certain youth group. When those are positive, there are "nothing to complaint about" and hence nothing really matters.

I know enough about my generation that those "negative news" are actually not "news" but "olds" that I've been seeing since I read newspaper or say, since university time. And since you're young, the people you encounter the most are people elder than you, so you are suppose to know their positives and negatives too. It's those younger ones that we in general are less involved deeply with, hence their culture is "news" to us.

--- I personally think it's less a matter about culture in terms of respecting elder people. Of course, its' part of culture. But it's also about the power and status of elderies. Today's corporation culture, they always try to boost profit. And the elder people with higher wage are always seen as the ones to chop off. One might not be chopped off the branch, but I think this kind of corporation culture have a relatively high effect on how cultures respect the elder people. Because it somewhat "hint" (right or not) the usefulness of a person, and their "place" in a family, which in turns also further affect ones view on people of certain age outside your family. If the corporations pay more respect to those elder people with experience, I'm pretty sure the society will change in this.

Sorry, I'm not too good in explaining stuff (without spending time to re-edit, lol), but i guess I have my points through. :)