stupandaus

Beyond being impressed by Taobao's scale, I would caution HN readers not to fall into the trap of thinking about China as a monolithic unit. Assuming that China is homogenous is just as foolish as assuming America is homogenous. Taobao's success is also tied to their ability to understand the drastic cultural differences between different areas of the country, and understanding how to market to these "countries within a country." If you are unfamiliar with China, I would highly suggest reading about Patrick Chovanec's "Nine Nations of China."

1. http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/the-nine-nations-of... 2. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/11/the-nine...

Based on what I've heard from friends at Samsung Austin Semiconductor, Apple has already moved to swap to TSMC once Samsung's supply contract is done.

I think the point is to show that stereotypes generate anxiety that subsequently affects performance, something which most people who do not face stereotypes in their day to day lives take into account.

It would be really interesting to see if positive stereotypes like the Asian model minority stereotype have the opposite impact of improving test performance.

"Huawei has too much to lose from spying..."

I think this assumption is pretty much incorrect. Corporate liabilities in China are not like corporate liabilities in the western world.

Spending a significant amount of time in Shanghai the past few years, I've frequented the Shanghai fake market many times. While some portions sell knockoff goods, the fabric section is quite spectacular. I can get a bespoke 2 piece suit for $100 or 3 piece for $150. I get custom dress shirts for $10. The material and craftsmanship is high and the primary market is expatriates (read: non-Chinese) living in Shanghai.

The way it's set up, is there are maybe 50-100 booths set up in the fabric market area. Each of the booths is rented out by a proprietor, and they are in business for themselves. Most operate by relying on an economy of scale behind the scenes. The sole proprietor would take your measurements in the shop, then send them to a behind the scenes system which processes hundreds of suits a day.

It is not uncommon to have your custom clothing done within 24 hours and shipped directly to wherever you are staying. Very interesting way to manage the economy of scale.

Supercooled water for example could stay in liquid form if it was in a vessel with no imperfections. All it takes is one imperfection or seed to be thrown in, and the entire mixture will suddenly turn to ice, even though the temperature has not changed. Plenty of videos on Youtube showing it happening.

This exists for offline Gmail: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ejidjjhkpiempkbhmp...

The thing about China is that outsiders fundamentally do not know the inner workings of the PRC Politboro. In recent years, there have already been major changes in the structure of the system (see: Xi Jinping, Bo Xilai, etc.) that were unforeseen.

Coming from a poker background, ship it has the connotation of "shipping the pot" or winning the pot. Oftentimes players will yell "SHIP ITTTTT!!!" when they have won a large pot. This gives this phrase a little more positive connotation for me.

Definitely very telling when you see Czech or other very obviously non-French languages.

According to the zdnet article linked by recoilednsake:

Update: A spokesperson is now saying the reason for this Metro de-emphasis is not related to any litigation. (I asked if it is related to any kind of copyright dispute that hasn't yet gone to litigation and was told there would be no further comment.)

The spokesperson added:

“We have used Metro style as a code name during the product development cycle across many of our product lines. As we get closer to launch and transition from industry dialog to a broad consumer dialog we will use our commercial names.”

I think he meant that if you want to avoid paying U.S. taxes, you have to give up citizenship, which is true to my understanding.

While this is certainly a significant issue, I will say that experience has a significantly larger impact than a diploma in China. Specifically, when multinational companies hire in China, they value work experience much more than the diploma, as the diploma itself is not worth as much in China. For example, a 4 year US engineering degree is considered by our HR group to be equivalent to a 4 year Chinese degree + 3-4 years experience.

There were studies done that showed that he gains some advantages from springs in long, straight sections, but also has disadvantages in starting and turning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#Dispute_over_pr...

The title is a little bit ambiguous, so here's a clarification. This is China's first manual space docking, not the first one ever performed. The US first accomplished this in 1966. Nevertheless, it is a big stepping stone for the Chinese space program.

Small Chinese correction: 元 is yuan2. Kuai4 is 块. Kuai4 is just a measure word for Qian2 (钱).

The misguided assumption here is that we live in a meritocratic world, which is simply not the case.

Furthermore, even in a meritocratic world, there are many things an "old money" student will be able to offer that others will not.

As someone who has worked in manufacturing in China and the US, the safety standards across China are extremely variable. The closer you get to the coast, the more Western standards are applied. My understanding is that Foxconn and other similar caliber manufacturers in Shenzhen exceed standards of many American manufacturing facilities.

If you're doing your best at what you're best at, but in a field that gives you no pleasure, will success even be enough?

Doubtful.

It's a delicate balance. You need to be be emotionally detached enough to not let your decisions be affected. However, you also need to know how to be passionate about your project for any potential investors or colleagues to drive the project to succeed.

Chinese people often refer to those like the author as "Losers Back Home." It is exceedingly common to run into Westerners who couldn't hack it in the West that think they are minor gods in Asia because of their native English speaking ability and sudden attractiveness to large throngs of females.

The success

Caveat emptor?

1. They do not convey the same amount of information. Take 发 for example. This is now a split tone word which can mean either 發 or 髮. The information density has been reduced and it's now ambiguous without context which character this represents.

2. People in Mainland China and Taiwan most certainly do not speak the same. There are a litany of spoken differences between 普通話 and 國語. As someone who travels frequently between the two countries, I am constantly shocked how much the two have deviated. There are numerous idioms that are completely unused on either side. Many very basic terms such as the terms for SMS (短信 in China, 簡訊 in Taiwan) are completely unrecognized outside of the respective areas.

One big problem with this analysis is that the information conveyed per word cannot be compared exactly like this. The Chinese language as a whole is very idiomatic, and often 'words' are combinations of 2-4 characters. Analysis on a per character basis doesn't make much sense. What really should be analyzed is an 'Ideas per Minute.' Perhaps the best way would be to have parties from both languages who are fluent in a 3rd language try to summarize a passage in the 3rd language as succinctly as possible into Chinese and English respectively and see which language is more efficient in this manner.

While the post does note that he is in Taiwan, I suspect that there are large differences in reading speed between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese for a few reasons:

1. Simplified Chinese has less information density per character

2. Simplified Chinese combines more character and uses less characters overall

3. Traditional Chinese uses more 'old-fashioned' vocabulary and idioms which are nearly gone from the Mainland Chinese vernacular

Really my only complaint here is that he should specify that he is talking about Traditional Chinese.

I wrote a blog post related to this here: http://theagilepanda.com/2011/10/07/chinese-consumerism-deat...

This post was in response to a relevant article here: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-fake-phones-2011...

The problem with these laissez-faire systems is that there is no regulation. Wenzhou is known for speculating a lot in housing and real estate, which has pushed development of the Chinese property bubble.

How long will it be before we see the following headline?

Apple sues Chinese hacker for counterfeit tablet

I've been in China recently and noticed I was having trouble establishing VPN connections after just a few hours. I would have to find new VPN servers to connect to every 3 or 4 days.

I have not noticed any drop off in connectivity when using my company's VPN, but I'm sure this is because this is an authorized VPN.

The most notable blow here is that people using solutions like FreeGate are getting heavily affected by this. Most Shanghainese people use this to connect to the outside world.

You are indeed correct. I was searching for inauspicious. Hah.

I've added this link to the post now. Thanks.