68c12c16

Awesome! We now identified someone, other than our own politicians, as an alternative who can be blamed for all the problems that have undesirable effects...

Here we might be able to get a glimpse into part of the problem that the US is having with its immigration system, that certain jobs are linked directly with certain immigration status (in a sense of semantic interdependence). And thus, whenever someone who is a current US citizen loses his job, entirely (e.g. layoff) or partially (e.g. wage cut or reduced working hours), then an assumption based on equivalence arithmetic can easily arise for him that the part of the job he loses would be occupied by another person, who is very likely an immigrant, due to that 2nd degree link (from his perspective in reasoning) between job and immigration status. But the root cause for his job loss can be much more complicated (if we thinks a bit harder), and more real, than someone who was born in another country and fresh-off-boat took that job away (or stole, if the process was not a concrete thing that could be touched or seen)...Then suspicion, hatred, and sometimes even aggressiveness naturally follow...

But the job market, in its traditional sense, can still shrink, as long as there is increasingly more automation and growing average productivity in our society, even if we chase away all the workers born outside the United States who are not US citizens, and build a wall to create a certain physical separation between us and them. But would we hate and become aggressive towards our new machines and our more productive way of working? Sometimes we would...But it's still much easier to do that towards a living person, especially when he is more vulnerable, legally, than us on our land...

Perhaps the most interesting point here is whether such exclusion, expulsion or isolation could eventually solve our problem...Admittedly, they really work sometimes, for us, and for certain other nations throughout the history, for this or other problem or "question" -- and this indeed is our problem (or at least we have a share in the overall situation) -- and perhaps it's not our responsibility to worry about what that would leave those who are not the "same" as us to...

But is this really the best solution? And best in what sense, and best for whom?

i remember reading another report by washington post on this issue a year ago...i am posting the report link here and perhaps it could provide us with a bit more details regarding the problem...

  news title: China used to harvest organs from prisoners. 
              Under pressure, that practice is 
              finally ending. 
  date: 2017/09/14

shadowsocks is on their radar now...and they have been able to detect its usage with some success, unfortunately...

i.e. The Random Forest Based Detection of Shadowsock's Traffic, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8048116/

I don't really understand what kind of scientists would do such researches to help the government carry out the censorship more efficiently, over their fellow people...it's either those intellectuals have no brain, or no heart...

that's true...they have been studying the packet flow patterns for a while -- such as this research,

http://security.riit.tsinghua.edu.cn/share/classify_encrypte...

But if the government completely blocks out VPN uses in the country, lots of international business operating there will suffer and then they will complain, which is not something the government can ignore (at least not always)...VPN whitelist could be a solution, but I don't know how well that is implemented (if it has been implemented) -- not to mention keeping a perfect consistent whitelist at that scale would be difficult...in addition, there is always some false positive/negative in their flow pattern analysis -- those are statistical approaches after all...so there is some grey area here...

Anyway, back to that openvpn experiment I did with my friend, many websites were still accessible with my openvpn tunnel -- although Google was not among those sites -- this seems to imply that they were doing some package semantic analysis (i.e. deep packet inspection)...

FYI, the great fire wall engineers have already found ways to inspect packets sent through OpenVPN...

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by a friend who was traveling in China at the time to set up a VPN for him so he could use Gmail and other Google services there...I went for the easy way and used the OpenVPN for him, but to our disappointment, with that VPN tunnel, he still could not access google search page while many other pages on other domains were fine...I spent a few hours trying to figure out why, and then I came across these discussion,

https://superuser.com/questions/1187525/vpn-to-avoid-the-gre...

https://www.quora.com/Can-Openvpn-still-bypass-the-GFW-of-Ch...

My friend and I haven't experimented further; but I think one way that might work is to chain multiple VPNs or perhaps obfuscate your protocol a bit (i.e. make some minor customization yourself)...

Yes, I heard that the Great Fire Wall in China treats network traffic differently when one is on T-mobile data roaming...A friend of mine could use her T-mobile phone to access google, gmail and instagram in china directly, without using a VPN...But you can only access 2G or 3G network (not 4G) in most of the areas there...

Sure...You are welcome! And if you are interested in processor level parallelism, here is a very good article to read for start...

http://www.lighterra.com/papers/modernmicroprocessors/

Good writeup!

Don't mean to be nitpicky...but I noticed some minor issues in your article, which I will list them below...

* the instructions for CPU are in bare ISA binary code, and not assembly. Although there is generally a 1-1 mapping between assembly and binary code (assuming they are well-formed), but you cannot run assembly code directly on CPU. You have to assemble them into ISA binary code first...

* at this assembly level, their corresponding ISA binary instructions are only atomic with regards to the regular users...but for CPU, the binary code would be broken down into microcode and then they will be executed...

don't worry about those downvotes...if they want to downvote, then let them downvote...

Just look at those HN karma point votes in the past few years, the upvotes for those really awesome hacking technical articles have been frequently outpaced by those downvotes for those petty trifles...If we take that as a measurement, in a certain aspect, we can see that people's hatred and acrimony grow faster than their kindness and sympathy these days...

so I've stopped worrying about those points...for the knowledge value of their corresponding text, they do not reflect as much as they used to reflect....

Is there any way that we could receive similar settlement compensations from the President of the US for his morning tweets? I personally lost a few thousands of dollars due to the sudden stock/cryptocurrency market crash as a result of his tweets in the past few months this year...

It depends on one's perspective...

In terms of time and money, indeed, the difference is as what you said...

But in terms of information flow, the difference would be quite huge...

At the time of the drone strike, perhaps to the remote drone pilots, conceptually, the 16-year old kid was not an American citizen but merely someone who was different than they were...

It would be nice if someone could come up with an algorithm that automatically tell which posts are astroturfing, just like fakespot.com But apparently this would be much more difficult than the algorithm used by fakespot, and seem to be less domain specific...

But at least, perhaps, we could do some information clustering, as comments written by independent individuals are more likely to have greater variances -- and quite often, difference is what makes an individual human so valuable...

sorry...analogy quite often can cause confusions...I will try to make more intuitive and relevant ones in the future...

It's just that the current situation between China and the U.S. bears a lot of similarities as that between Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and Athenian Empire during the Peloponnesian War. At the time, Sparta was an oligarchic society and Athens was a democratic one. Thucydides considered the cause of the war was because Sparta was worried about the rise of Athens could threaten its own way of life, and Athens wanted to spread democracy to other city states. There seemed to be no intrinsic conflict between the two states...the problem was that they did not trust each other, only because they were different. I personally feel this situation is quite like the current situation between US and China...There is no intrinsic conflict; they just don't trust each other (sometime even a bit phobic of each other), only because they are different...

I think the reason why Chinese government would execute defected officials, instead of putting them in prison for life, is because historically defected officials often caused very serious losses to the chinese communist party. For instance, one of the most damaging defectors in their history was Gu Shunzhang, who led to the arrest of hundreds of their underground communists (many of those arrested were executed by the KMT government at the time). In those early days, the Chinese communist party was very weak and had to fight for its own survival. So as a result, Zhou Enlai ordered the assassination of almost Gu's entire family, as warning and revenge [1]...

I think this bears a certain similarity to the rationale of that IRA members assassinated their defectors and French executed their traitors in WWII...

It's just sad to see that certain traditions still remained unchanged with the Chinese government (or more specifically, their communist party) ...but at least we can see how much they hate defectors; and we can find some common root of that in all humanity...

Perhaps things will change when they value human life more, which I think they will do when their individual's economic condition continues to improve...When the existence of an average life makes little difference to a society, statistically, life would be socially regarded as cheap...

--

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/03/weekinreview/the-world-15...

I was just doing a categorical mapping, which you might call it analogy...

How is that "lumping" relevant to the current discussion initiated by King-Aaron?

lots of discussion on this same topic can be found here,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17762067

I think what we call the skill of "analysis" is to divide an abstract object into a set of its containing elements, and then differentiate those elements and treat each element for its own different case.

China is one such abstract object...It's never about pro-china or anti-china -- after all it is a society of 1 billion individuals who are all differentiable from each other (and we have to differentiate a random chinese people from their government)...if we find a certain aspect of China appealing and potentially benecial to our own society, then why not just "like" that aspect and learn from them?

In the last few decades of the 5th century BC, Sparta and Athens fought a war with each other, which Athens had lost...but this did not prevent Plato (who was an Athenian) from praising certain aspects of Spartan society.

  > the author of the piece you link to formerly worked for 
  > the China Daily in Beijing, run by the Publicity 
  > Department of the Communist Party of China.

  > Finally, you do realize that skulls are easily 
  > obtained via death by natural causes, right? 
  > Especially before the adoption of antibiotics 
  > and vaccination?
  > 
  >  Tibetans practice sky burial, where bodies are 
  > left out in a charnel ground and picked clean by 
  > wildlife. (Probably because digging graves is 
  > difficult and cremation would be a waste of scarce   
  > fuel.) I suspect they have a different attitude 
  > about the dead and their parts than you.

  There are trumpets made of human thigh-bones, 
  the bones of criminals of those who have died a 
  violent death being preferred for this purpose.

  the bones of Father Brieux killed in 1881 [happened 
  in Tibet] were 1881 were taken from his grave, and 
  his skull was made into a drinking-cup.

My point is the matter could be more complicated than either you or I currently think...I am not an adherent of the Chinese government propaganda...but as averse to those propaganda as I am, this does not mean that there is no information or valuable points in their propaganda...I also hate to have to dig out knowledge from propaganda, but if that helps me to get closer to any fact or truth, then I feel I have to do that, instead of simply throwing all their words away without any discretion...

BTW, the article [2] I cited was published in 1923 by Berthold Laufer , supposedly before CCP's Propaganda Division became full-fledged enough to be capable to have any influence on that...

  > The victors right the history to justify 
  > their actions, whether it is true or not, 
  > or even reasonable.

  > And to muddy that further, it isn't unreasonable 
  > to think that the PLA's invasion of Tibet was simply 
  > territorial in nature and had nothing to do with the 
  > condition of its people (like the Siege of Changchun 
  > that wound up killing more people than they liberated).

  > But this is all par for the course for 
  > the human history of conflict

sigh...to all the indignant replies that my previous comment might evoke, I just want to clarify that,

1. my original comment was not an attempt to justify the current policies by the Chinese government in Tibet;

2. I was just saying it is a complicated matter, with lots of historic elements in it;

3. I agree that lots of things need to be improved there.

4. I do not know a good solution to this problem at this time; but please do share with us if you do...

I am not trying to justify the current situation in Tibet...I am just saying it is a complicated matter...and I agree that lots of things need to be improved there -- and I honestly do not know exactly how...

The commuism is an umbrella term, that covers many great details...I personally don't like the totalitarian way of ruling by almost all existing or past communist governments...But I do think the social collaboration and universal fraternity among all human beings are good things -- but those aspects seems to have certain totalitarianism in themselves as well...so I honestly do not know a good solution about this too...

I feel the human rights issue in Tibet could be more complicated than you think...For instance, there was an article from the Guardian describes some aspects of the old traditional system in Tibet before the Chinese government took control of the region in 1950s [1],

Some extreme cruelties were practiced in Tibet before 1950, including mutilation as punishment and using human body parts for constructing religious instruments. The latter is documented in an article published in 1923 [2].

--

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-...

[2] https://library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/skulls.pdf

perhaps someone took it too literal and thought, htaed fo guh != hug of death

I upvoted your comment to make it up for you...hope you have a good one...

  > The purpose there was to demonstrate the lure of evil, 
  > how it can seduce you with simultaneous appeals to 
  > reason, emotion, and pride.

But the reason why I feel Satan is a little against western tradition is that -- I might understand it in a wrong way -- Satan is supposed to be everything that is opposite to God, who is the perfection and absolute virtue. In other words, Satan is utterly and absolutely bad...In this sense, Satan is different than Iago, as Iago is human after all...For instance, this absolute evilness of demon could somewhat be observed in this poem by Pushkin,

  By gates of Eden, Angel, gentle, 
  Shone with his softly drooped head,
  And Demon, gloomy and resentful
  Over the hellish crevasse flapped.

  The spirit of qualm and negation 
  Looked at another one – of good,
  And fire of the forced elation
  First time he vaguely understood.

  “I’ve seen you,” he enunciated, –
  “And not in vain you’ve sent me light:
  Not all in heaven I have hated,
  Not all in world I have despised.”

But Milton's characterization of Satan with a certain heroic and empathetic element shows that there is still some benign side for him, which if that is opposite to a corresponding aspect of God, then what God would be?

I feel another place in Measure for Measure that also indicates the depth and the subtlety of Angelo's character is that his monologue in Act II Scene IV,

  When I would pray and think, I think and pray
  To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words;
  Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
  Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
  As if I did but only chew his name;
  And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
  Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied
  Is like a good thing, being often read,
  Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
  Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride,
  Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
  Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
  How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
  Wrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls
  To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
  Let's write good angel on the devil's horn:
  'Tis not the devil's crest.

  And there's a lot of that in Milton's Satan too. He's   
  undeniably colourful, but seriously, complaining to his
  companions how crappy it is to reigned over while at the 
  same time declaring his own ambition to reign over them.

And also, he is having a conference with his comrades in Pandæmonium, right? In this sense, his power over his comrades -- if he is superior -- is not absolute, as at least he consults them, unlike that in heaven...

Thanks for helping me to better get that message.

I agree and that's what I have always been feeling a bit puzzled about, as in 17th century England, religious correctness is still not a trivial thing.

But in a certain sense, Satan is not absolutely evil and not having no good characters at all. For instance, as the example mentioned in the article, Satan is quite empathetic towards his fellow fallen angels -- and this empathy, would often invoke reader's empathy to a certain extent.

So perhaps Milton hopes to create a Satan that has some subtle and mixed characters, with depth, with a spectrum of shades. I feel this method is similarly employed in many Shakespeare's plays (such as Angelo in Measure for Measure), which were written even earlier than Paradise Lost.

I am also a non-native speaker...

my method to read those old English text is to first read a summary or outline (in modern English) of the original work, and then perhaps find some more modern English material on the subject to deepen my understanding...but eventually, I would try to read the original work, as the melody (they call meters; but I feel it is essentially isomorphic to rhythm in music) and the rhyme in those works written by Shakespeare, John Donne, or John Milton (as well as many other great writers) are really really superb, and not that different than the corresponding parts in literary works in other languages.

Reading a summary and outline would help you to gain some contextual information, and then you could use some redundancy in human language to get better the intended message the writer hopes to convey...

Milton's depiction of Satan is really against the established western tradition in many ways...

For instance, in Homer's The Odyssey, someone as great as Achilles would say,

  By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man
  some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive
  than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

  we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
  Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: 
  Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
  to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
  Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

[update: edited the line form for Milton's poem]