Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-...)
It talks about what makes a good team, how powerful they can be, and also gives some insight on team dysfunction.
Readit NewsSlansitartop commented on Ask HN: Books you should have read when you start a career in SE / CS? · Posted by u/DDerTyp
Slansitartop commented on China Plans $47B Fund to Boost Its Semiconductor Industry wsj.com/articles/china-pl... · Posted by u/yazr
> The Wassenaar Arrangement bans the export of many high end equipments necessary for chip making to China. While all the other countries/regions can specialize in one part of the semiconductor industry, China has to do all of them by itself, since it has no external help.
Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Eventually, one way or another, Chinese will master the state-of-the-art. A few good examples here - LCD industry, weapons.
It also worth pointing out that the existence of the Wassenaar Arrangement relies solely on the fact that the US is the biggest economic and military power in the world. Not sure how long the US can continue to maintain it.
> Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Eventually, one way or another, Chinese will master the state-of-the-art. A few good examples here - LCD industry, weapons.
Not if your enemy has a habit of reverse engineering and copying everything they buy.
I recall that China was has a competition for foreign companies to sell them attack helicopters. They had trials and evaluations, and settled on a South African one. You'd assume they made a big order, right? Wrong. They placed an order for a single copy, which the South African company wisely declined.
I can't seem to find a source for the above story, but I think I read it in Wired maybe 5-10 years ago.
Slansitartop commented on China Plans $47B Fund to Boost Its Semiconductor Industry wsj.com/articles/china-pl... · Posted by u/yazr
>> China is based on communism
China is no longer about communism any more than the U.S. is about the Enlightenment. China today is about Gilded Age-type capitalism with a strain of collectivism running through it.
Every Chinese today is caught up in a mad scramble for personal enrichment, often at the expense of his fellow man. Most American Marxists would shrink back in horror at the capitalist fever that grips the average Chinese. Even most of those on America's political right do not have the stomach for the level of Gordon Gecko-ness that animates many Chinese. While many on the American right prefer to retreat to dens, family, and countryside, Chinese capitalists are busily trying to get rich any way they can (ethically or otherwise).
The Chinese Communist Party functions the same way Chinese government has functioned for thousands of years. Anyone can join, if he can pass the necessary tests. Passing tests to gain a coveted spot in the government has been a national priority since before Confucius's day, 2.5 millennia ago, and continues to be today.
China does not have legally enshrined freedom of speech. But at a societal level, the 'real' freedom of speech is greater than what I've experienced in America. In America, you must very carefully watch your words, lest you offend any of a number of easily offended groups. You won't go to jail for it (unlike certain parts of Western Europe - Germany and Britain, for instance), but you will lose friends and you may lose your job. The result is that while speech may be legal in America, it ends up stifled nevertheless. Large chunks of American society no longer value free speech, and there is actual debate in many corners of the country about whether certain speech ('hate speech') should be outlawed. In China, so long as you do not loudly criticize or subvert the Chinese government, you are free to speak your mind - and won't be harassed by the government OR be James Damore'd / Donglegate'd out of a job.
As for the "10s of millions dead", there's extremely good reason to be skeptical of these claims.[1] They become harder and harder to swallow the more older, Mao-era Chinese you talk with - most of whom, no matter where in the countryside they hail from, know of no one who died of starvation or malnutrition. The press is the propaganda arm of a nation's powerful - whether in China or America. Don't believe it just because they tell you to.
[1] http://www.unz.com/article/mao-reconsidered-part-two-whose-f...
> China today is about Gilded Age-type capitalism with a strain of collectivism running through it.
From what I gather, this is unfortunately true.
> The Chinese Communist Party functions the same way Chinese government has functioned for thousands of years. Anyone can join, if he can pass the necessary tests. Passing tests to gain a coveted spot in the government has been a national priority since before Confucius's day, 2.5 millennia ago, and continues to be today.
Nah. I don't think you have to pass any tests. You get into the party if you or your parents have the right connections or are willing to bribe the right people.
> China does not have legally enshrined freedom of speech. But at a societal level, the 'real' freedom of speech is greater than what I've experienced in America. In America, you must very carefully watch your words, lest you offend any of a number of easily offended groups.
China doesn't have "real" freedom of speech because you can voice your personal prejudices with fewer social repercussions. China is literally throwing defense lawyers in jail because they have the temerity to defend their clients against the government prosecutors! https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/magazine/the-lonely-crusa... There is no "real" freedom of speech in China in any way.
Try to organize a protest march against Xi Jinping in China and let me know if you still think that "the 'real' freedom of speech is greater in China."
Slansitartop commented on China Plans $47B Fund to Boost Its Semiconductor Industry wsj.com/articles/china-pl... · Posted by u/yazr
That’s a false dichotomy. China is ostensibly commmunist but free market is alive and well (with heavy doses of state directed influence, but so as in other western countries, witness the military industrial complex)
A truer dichotomy would be between a rigid semi-dictatorship and quasi-democracy... given that even China has token democracy at some levels despite now essentially having a rubber stamped dictator, and many western states are a long way from true democracy - the voting system in the US hardly allows representative democracy and special interest groups are adept at manipulating voting blocs very effectively, and is 2 party democracy really democracy? Other countries do better jobs (ie Australia’s preferential voting, germany’s Proportional representation) but you can argue that till the cows come home
>> Maybe communism vs freedom?
> That’s a false dichotomy. China is ostensibly commmunist but free market is alive and well (with heavy doses of state directed influence, but so as in other western countries, witness the military industrial complex)
"Freedom" does not mean only the "free market." China is certainly against many things Westerners would consider necessary for freedom:
> Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they have been told, unless the party eradicates seven subversive currents coursing through Chinese society.
> These seven perils were enumerated in a memo, referred to as Document No. 9, that bears the unmistakable imprimatur of Xi Jinping, China’s new top leader. The first was “Western constitutional democracy”; others included promoting “universal values” of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civic participation, ardently pro-market “neo-liberalism,” and “nihilist” criticisms of the party’s traumatic past.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lea...
The Chinese communist party literally opposed to constitutional democracy (meaning checks on its power), human rights and accurate, nonpartisan history.
Slansitartop commented on China Plans $47B Fund to Boost Its Semiconductor Industry wsj.com/articles/china-pl... · Posted by u/yazr
Can they though? China isn't some totalitarian dictatorship that some of the west seem to think they are. If they ceded this 'business as usual' measure, it was because the jobs, investment, and technology that results is worth it. China likes Tesla, and alternative energy. Their alternative energy investments have been substantial for a number of years.
> China isn't some totalitarian dictatorship that some of the west seem to think they are.
You do realize that they're closer to being a dictatorship now than they've been for decades? Xi has purged most of his rivals and has recently abolished term limits for his positions, so he could rule indefinitely.
Slansitartop commented on China Plans $47B Fund to Boost Its Semiconductor Industry wsj.com/articles/china-pl... · Posted by u/yazr
I'm still wondering why there should be an economic, political or commercial conflict between China and the rest of the world esp. US. Such conflicts are wasteful with when we all should work together on common goals - space exploration, fighting against diseases, climate change etc.
> I'm still wondering why there should be an economic, political or commercial conflict between China and the rest of the world esp. US. Such conflicts are wasteful with when we all should work together on common goals - space exploration, fighting against diseases, climate change etc.
I know! The US should just resign itself to being a provider or raw materials to the Chinese party-state, so we can focus on China achieving those glorious common goals!
China is rising to fight common perils such as "'Western constitutional democracy'; others included promoting 'universal values' of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civic participation." (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lea...)
More seriously now: your perspective is embarrassingly naive, and forgets, many, many significant areas of difference between the US and China. China's leadership, now, is committed to am authoritarian, autocratic path. No amount of progress in "space exploration" is worth throwing support behind that kind of government.
>Choice of seven papers across four subject areas, from which students select freely
Biblical studies Systematic theology and ethics History of religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism) Religion and religions (Contemporary Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Hinduism)
Within my choice of words, I would call this religious studies. I'm reserving theology for when you focus on a specific religion, and the idea is that that religion is actually true (as opposed to studying many religions like you'd read many authors in an English degree.) Still, if Oxford disagrees with me about the dictionary then it is probably me who is abusing language. ;)
> Still, if Oxford disagrees with me about the dictionary then it is probably me who is abusing language. ;)
I'd say so. Esoteric personal definitions for established terms, even if they make a lot of sense to you, don't typically lead to productive discussions. It's probably best not to wade into one, correcting people, unless you actually understand the vocabulary.
Theology is not present in universities, religious studies is (edit: by theology I meant the study of God, not the study of religion: that's not quite right as you can see in my replies). Theology is taught in special schools, because it fundamentally does not work the same way as other studies. In Universities, there is an expectation that no specific category of ideas should be preferred above any other unless it beats out its competition on the grounds of convincingness or support by evidence. Learning new theology is quite close to learning anything else, but research is very different!
In fact, there's also a little gap inside the universities, between people who primarily rely on evidence (the sciences), and people who primarily rely on being convinced (the humanities). So you've got faith, evidence, and convincingness, and their followers find it difficult to talk.
> Theology is not present in universities, religious studies is. Theology is taught in special schools, because it fundamentally does not work the same way as other studies
Your comment demonstrates a profound ignorance of what you claim to be talking about. Theology was one of the most prestigious subjects taught in the original medieval universities (many of which are the most prestigious contemporary ones, e.g. Oxford), and continues to be taught in them today.
Theology's existence in universities is easy verify: https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listin...
Slansitartop commented on Walking While Black lithub.com/walking-while-... · Posted by u/hownottowrite
Perhaps you aren't familiar with Jane Jacobs' work. Her position was that eyes on the street was the key to safety in urban areas. This is that mechanism in action.
> Her position was that eyes on the street was the key to safety in urban areas.
I'm sure that's true. However, the unbelievable part was the influence you ascribe to yourself. I do not believe that you, personally, set in motion a chain of events "wherever [you] live" that "lowers crime" and causes "healthier plant life."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_North_Dakota