Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

• 

  todd, 7 Dec 2001 @ 11:55am

  
  

  grrr....

  abso-fucking-lutely absurd. 15% of the world's population, sure, but 1% of aggregate domestic product and the lowest internet penetration numbers of any nation at that level of GDP.
  
  Oh yeah, now I read the article a bit more: put out by the ITU. That braintrust shouldn't predict anything but the demise of their weakly-established standards.
  
  

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]

• 

  Duffman, 7 Dec 2001 @ 2:15pm

  
  

  Heard this years ago, sorta

  When I was in high school (5 years ago or so), I was encouraged to take Japanese and/or Chinese and/or Mandarin (etc), as they would become the languages to know for almost anything, especially business, once I finished university. I didn't, I may sometime in the future, but for me, this prediction follows the same route most predictions follow - believe it when I see it.

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]

• 

  Tech 'N Artist, 7 Dec 2001 @ 2:23pm

  
  

  Considering the spam they put out

  It seems that about 80% of the spam I get, well Spam Cop filters it out, comes through .cn servers.
  
  China should have an intranet, not an internet. Cut the damn phone cables out of China and give other tin pot countries a chance to make money from hosting spam services.
  
  Well, I feel better now.

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • 

    msykes, 7 Dec 2001 @ 3:19pm

    
    

    ?

    Hang on, isn't China the country that censors out basically any foreign news site like CNN? (except for a couple weeks after 9/11). Doesn't sound like a country that's poised to take over the internet anytime soon. Heck, anytime.
    
    msykes

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

• 

  mhh5, 9 Dec 2001 @ 4:18am

  
  

  I'm the first...

  to criticize reports that extrapolate rates of growth that make ludicrously misleading statements like: "at their current growth rate, Mormons will become the world's dominate religion by 2015"... However, while I don't think we'll be speaking Chinese that soon, I do think globalization will have an increasing effect on us. And it might make sense that Chinese would creep up more than other romance languages since people who speak other romance languages often also speak english, while Chinese speakers may or may not convert to english.... These are all huge extrapolations, so grains of salt must be taken daily.

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]

• 

  andrea, 9 Dec 2001 @ 7:39am

  
  

  chinese

  Being reasonably bilingual is a great thing, innit?

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]

• 

  Canadian in China daily reader, 9 Dec 2001 @ 10:30pm

  
  

  Cantonese???

  You can if you want... but brushing up on your
  Putong Hua (People's Lanuage) will get you alot
  futher since it's the official language of China.
  Not Yue or Guandong Hua (Cantonese).
  
  As to all the good news being censored? Fei Hua!
  Sure I miss out on CNN from the net, but it comes
  in off the bird, same with BBC. However as a
  Canadian , I enjoy my Pluse24 and the Toronto
  Star online mei you wen ti! For the Americans
  www.nakednews.com is still wide open for CNN
  highlights that's easier on the eyes.

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]

• 

  Anonymous, 9 Dec 2001 @ 10:41pm

  
  

  Bilingualism on the net

  More people in China speak English than in the United States. Plain fact! English won't go away anytime soon on the net unless the 70% of the world that doesn't speak English as a first language wants it to.

  [ link to this | view in chronology ]