tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4754110167027017862024-03-14T02:36:08.087+08:00The Plus SidePutong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-85574732949122401562010-07-20T07:08:00.004+08:002010-07-20T07:39:09.017+08:00The Top 10 Reasons Why That Biker isn't Getting Out of Your WayI'm writing this because it only just now occurred to me that many drivers don't actually realize that the vast majority of bikers on the road aren't vindictive assholes trying to ruin their day, but actually have legitimate reasons for being in front of their car. So in the interest of greater understanding and daily-commute-tranquility, I present here the top ten reasons that you can't slam alternately on the gas and then brakes. <br /><br />10. Have you noticed any potholes? Yeah, they make your car ride a little bumpy--but if they could shred your tire or wheel and send you hurtling into oncoming traffic, you'd dodge them too.<br /><br />9. When was the last time you thought "I wonder if there's a biker coming down the bike lane" before opening your car door? Biker's think about how often drivers have this thought all the time. We're in your head.<br /><br />8. The light is red. Calm down. <br /><br />7. Did you know it's actually <span style="font-style:italic;">the law</span> that bikers have to be in the road?<br /><br />6. Don't worry, we're just trying to spare you the unbearable pain of tailgating the car that's directly in front of us.<br /><br />5. Are you about to turn right? Surprisingly, when asked, most bikers <span style="font-style:italic;">do not</span> prefer to have to slam on the brakes when you make that un-signaled turn.<br /><br />4. Fact: the biker is not <span style="font-style:italic;">actually</span> in your way; you're just not that used to having to pay attention. <br /><br />3. Actually, we're very concerned for your gas-mileage. Did you know your car is much more efficient at 15 M.P.H.?<br /><br />2. You don't want to go home to your hollow suburban life, anyway. We know the best part of your day is rockin' out to some Led Zepp on the commute home. <br /><br />And the number one reason why that biker is in front of you:<br />1. We're all vindictive assholes, and this is how we get back at you for dumping a bunch of carcinogens into our lungs, destroying the global climate, ruining urban environments, and for all the strip-malls across the country.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-34783960655594535602010-05-13T11:32:00.000+08:002010-05-13T11:33:15.890+08:00In Four Dimensions, We're the Fourth World.Leave it to a Yale man to determine that the most just solution to climate change is to increase consumption:<br />"A third alternative would be a Rawlsian perspective that societies should maximize the economic well-being of the poorest generation. The ethical implication of this policy would be that current consumption should increase sharply to reflect the projected future improvements in productivity."<br />William Nordhaus, A Review on The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate ChangePutong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-69641964532866207472010-05-08T05:05:00.007+08:002010-05-13T11:38:03.288+08:00The Four Freedoms, or Why I Still Don't Know Where Laura Merideth's Party Is.Facebook is a great tool for inviting people to parties. It saves you all the time of going to evite.com, thinking about who you want to invite, and looking up their email addresses. It also makes me want to tear my face off. My latest unnoticed facebook strike is over the social quantification of what was previously a free-space for data entry. Your profile data entries previously linked to a search for the same string. If you had put "Cooper Union" in for "School," facebook's lame-ass search engine searched for "Cooper Union." If you put "I did not attend school, rather I was raised by wolves," facebook split this into two distinct searches for two distinct nonsensical and unique terms: zero results. For those of us who would rather not have webcrawlers persistently aggregating our name, birthdate, and personal and institutional associations, this was a swell system--those who wanted to be listed were, those who didn't weren't. The recent and subtle change has been to replace the search link with one to a distinct facebook social page. While this preserves one's ability to enter garbage and fend off the webcrawlers, it creates trackable pages for every line of garbage. Now, "rather I was raised by wolves" will be a social facebook page, cached by google, bing and whoever else, forever to remain accessible to anyone bothering to look. Given that it's garbage, there's no particular concern over this except that it's stupid. <br /><br />What <span style="font-style:italic;">is</span> disconcerting is the notion that any particular string can only have one meaning. Par Example, my previous interests include "Red Guard, Constant Revolution, and The Four Freedoms." Astute sinologists will recognize each of these as propaganda terms from the cultural revolution in China. Facebook recognized these as three social groups that I 'like'. The first was appended to "Redguard" and linked to a group of people discussing something about airsoft guns. The last linked to a group of people who were really excited about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms">Roosevelt's Four Freedoms</a>.<br /><br />The urge to break things down into quantifiable chunks is one endemic to the engineer's mind, and I sympathize with those facebook programmers who spend all day dreaming and scheming about what they can do with their truly impressive wealth of social data. But in their efforts to macify the user experience of the social internet, facebook is recklessly tossing not only user privacy but also space for individual expression to the wind. <br /><br />Also, it's just stupid.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-47699623837706149852010-04-20T11:00:00.003+08:002010-05-08T05:27:28.734+08:00TradeAt dinner tonight with a physician from Cleavland--one who couldn't help but question the Canadians in company on the quality of their healthcare--the topic of "the reality of the situation" came up. It turns out, son, that "the reality of the situation" is increased taxes, lower quality of care, less choice, and untold other horrors. I'm not looking to discount these fears, but I really resent the notion (one powerfully insinuated and openly accused at the Boston Tea Party) that being young implies that I just <span style="font-style:italic;">don't know</span> about how genuinely horrible taxes are--I paid self-employment tax last year, for Pete's sake! So here's the trade:<br /><br />If you voted for Bush, you get to pay Medicare Part D, the Trillion-Dollar War, and the bank bailouts. Oh yeah, and you can go ahead and start by making up for the tax cuts...<br /><br />I'll pay for healthcare. Hell, I'll even chip in for Afghanistan.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-47713461648594109682009-09-11T23:03:00.002+08:002009-09-11T23:12:11.639+08:00A CorrectionThose who've been around me while drinking may know there's no end to my disdain for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stata_Center">Stata Center</a> at MIT; Frank Gehry's notorious abuse of a generation's developmentally-rooted fealty to cartoonishness.<br /><br />But MIT, it turns out, has a subtly <a href="http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/peimit/peimit3.html">handsome little quarter</a> that's grown on me over the last two weeks. As it turns out, the unobtrusive livability and stoic beauty are the brainchildren of I.M. Pei. My favorite is the Landau building, but their all beautiful (though these photos don't do justice to the Green building, whose base is open on two sides, and goes up two floors).Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-46537242483630536602009-09-10T05:39:00.003+08:002009-09-10T05:51:56.471+08:00Glenn Beck stole LG logo?Not that I'm a fan of licentious application of copyright, but with Rush Limbaugh's recent <a href="http://sweetness-light.com/archive/was-pelosi-so-wrong-about-swastikas">capricious comparison</a> of the OFA health-care logo to the Nazi standard, I think it's not too too cynical to question the creative sources of Glenn Beck's 'Danger! I'm as dangerous to a political debate as radon in your basement!' logo. Judge whether LG may have actionable grounds for filing suit for yourself. Evidence:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X1KsBcfasG8/SqgivyDx7oI/AAAAAAAAAPY/-XPKPheZ_GA/s1600-h/lg.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X1KsBcfasG8/SqgivyDx7oI/AAAAAAAAAPY/-XPKPheZ_GA/s320/lg.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379587959180881538" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_X1KsBcfasG8/Sqgivbc-PmI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/S1kEhM7vmLQ/s1600-h/gb.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 233px; height: 271px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_X1KsBcfasG8/Sqgivbc-PmI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/S1kEhM7vmLQ/s320/gb.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379587953112530530" /></a>Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-1800691614128230492009-08-21T19:02:00.002+08:002009-08-21T19:19:03.381+08:00"All Wee Wee'd Up." .comPerusing through my daily links, I got to TPM's <a href="http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=3242847">day in 100 seconds</a> including Obama's 'wee wee'd' quote. More specifically:<br /><br /><blockquote>"There's something about August going into September where everyone in Washington gets all 'wee-weed' up"</blockquote><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4IGqeLY-YUY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4IGqeLY-YUY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />These days, you can't hesitate too long after hearing an obscure turn of phrase without thinking '...com?', especially when it falls off the lips of one of the most beloved men in the world. To be honest, Obama's been throwing out a lot recently, but ruckus.com has already been used (free streaming music for college students...). <br /><br />Before the clip was finished, I was already checking for availability of www.allweeweedup.com. Taken. But to be sure it was because of Obama, I needed to know <span style="font-style:italic;">when</span> it was taken. From the whois:<br /><br /><blockquote>Domain Name: ALLWEEWEEDUP.COM<br />Registrar: MONIKER<br /><br />Registrant [5950]:<br />Gregg Ostrick dns2@gnomailbox.com<br />GNO, Inc.<br />P.O. Box 43353<br />Birmingham<br />AL<br />35243-3353<br />US<br /><br />. . .<br /><br />Record created on: 2009-08-20 20:14:38.0<br />Database last updated on: 2009-08-20 20:14:37.84<br />Domain Expires on: 2010-08-20 20:14:38.0<br /></blockquote> <br /><br />August 20th at GMT 20:14, which in EDT is 4:14 PM. According to the helpful C-Span ticker, Obama uttered the phrase at 2:53 PM, EDT. <br /><br />Now, I don't see any use, or any profit in www.allweeweedup.com, but you never can tell. What we really ought to look for is when the timing flips. Which Obama intern will start registering Obama phrases he hears in the hallway before he even says them? It's not really that far off...Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-78823187231803791712009-06-20T22:04:00.000+08:002009-06-20T22:06:22.769+08:00Give it up for ... 'the Sipper?'After watching Joe Scarborough's self-assumption of elder-statesman status on last week's episode of (the much-declined) Meet the Press with David Gregory (much, much declined), it occurs to me that the man who has spent his time in between supporting Obama's most rational policies writing books about how he is different from the wacky republicans who don't may be considering himself the man to fulfill his own perscription. At least the thought of a 2012 run had to have crossed his mind (a narsicistic television personality? Gasp!) Okay, it's a long shot, i know--there's a lot of baggage that comes with nearly daily presence in front of a video recording device for several years, but hell, we've already had The Gipper, and The Governator (get to the chopper, now!), and at least Scarsdale has held elected office before...<br /><br />At this point, the only worry would be that between Scarborough, Eric Cantor, and my previously mentioned potential candidate, George Pataki there'd be too much chin on stage at any early debates. <br /><br />Post Script: For the last couple months, blogger has been blocked in china, which i naturally used as an excuse to completely quit updating this blog...sorry about that. As far as China goes, there are several important topics which I have been mulling over, and which someday, perhaps some lazy budapest morning, I will compose into the longer, essayish sort of posting. For now, suffice it to say that the semester is almost up, I will be in Budapest next Sunday, and I have mastered enough chinese to confuse the overworked McDonalds manager with my insistence that he refill my used coffee cup rather than throw it out and give me a new one.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-35332534444813722792009-05-05T17:51:00.001+08:002009-05-05T17:53:10.131+08:00Try This Overseasclick here, search an artist/song:<br /><a href="http://mp3.baidu.com">mp3.baidu.com</a>Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-89122824769507324692009-05-05T17:43:00.002+08:002009-05-05T17:47:06.492+08:00Research I'd Like to See Done.I've been wondering why it is music gets old. New music teases your mind with wacky sounds in familiar frameworks like the rock and roll beat. If you listen to a song enough times, the interest fades, in a process I can only assume is biophysically akin to memorizing something. I wish someone would take a bunch of people and look at what their brains do the first time they hear some song, and what they do after they've listened to it five times a day for a month or so. But then again, I don't have an MRI machine. Yet...Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-84108719965460719852009-04-22T12:13:00.007+08:002009-04-22T12:53:43.077+08:00Again, why the Internet is Good.Sometimes when I get to feeling like too many people are agreeing with me, I mosey on over the National Review's website. I try to keep up the habit of reading contrary opinions on matters, just like everyone says you should, and somewhere I got the idea that the National Review was the zenith of enlightened conservative intellectualism. But if this is the case, conservative ambitions to power will be stuck in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_of_Calcutta">black hole of Calcutta</a> a lot longer than anyone is predicting (snap!). <br /><br />Take for example Andrew McCarthy's 'expose' on the torture memos called <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzI2ZTA1MDUzYjU0MjVhMDFiOWIwMzFhNjIyYmRjOTE=">The Real Interrogation Scandal</a>. <br /><br />A two-page ramble to confuse whether or not it's okay for the U.S. Government to "shock the conscience" in it's dealings with foreigners, Mr. McCarthy manages to confuse not only the meaning of the word law, but also this tragic misquote. From his article: <br /><br /><blockquote>In fact, back then, when it was expedient to be tough on terror, Holder was telling anyone who would listen that these al-Qaeda savages who murdered Americans absolutely did not deserve Geneva Convention protections.<br /><br />To carp now about the rule of law is shameful. The rule of law hasn’t changed. But they have. <br /></blockquote><br />He links to a <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzFjZWNkZDAyZTE2MTNmZjBkOWQwYjQ4NmE5ZjEwODU=">NRO Corner Blog post</a>, which in turn quotes this <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122731301791449521.html?mod=djemEditorialPage">WSJ page</a> which finally quotes (without link) Eric Holder on CNN on January 28th, 2002 as saying:<br /><br /><blockquote>One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that you can elicit from people.<br /><br />It seems to me that given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohamed Atta had survived the attack on the World Trade Center, would we now be calling him a prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not.</blockquote><br />Now, the WSJ post is simply a quote, with the attribution "Eric Holder (Barack Obama's choice for Attorney General), on the question of whether unlawful combatants captured in the war on terror are entitled to prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Convention. From an interview on CNN, January 2002." <br /><br />Even though the full transcript also exists online, they have chosen not to link to it. As this is an archival page, it makes a little bit of sense, as you don't want broken lings on archival pages. The real problem is that each layer of linking assigns slightly less context and slightly more subtext. The WSJ purports to present Holder's response to a question, even though they did not his whole (and arguably meaning-changing) response. The NRO Corner Blog post is simply titled "Holder On Geneva Conventions" and introduces the quote with "Eric Holder on CNN, January 2002:" using brevity not only to imply that this is the full extent of what he has said, but linking to the WSJ page rather than the full CNN transcript to reinforce the finality and certainty of his opinion at the time. Finally, we come to the "Real Scandal" article, which merely links to the NRO Corner Blog post as it frames the quote in an entirely different meaning, using this tertiary-source material as proof that Eric Holder did not believe suspected-terrorist detainees "absolutely did not deserve Geneva Convention protections." <br /><br />Of course, that's not at all what Eric Holder said. The <a href="http://premium.edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0201/28/ltm.03.html">complete response from that question</a> follows: <br /><br /><blockquote>. . . Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of war? Again, I think not.<br /><br />And yet, I understand what Secretary Powell is concerned about, and that is we're going to be fighting this war with people who are special forces, not people who are generally in uniform. And if unfortunately they somehow become detained, we would want them to be treated in an appropriate way consistent with the Geneva Convention.<br /></blockquote><br />So it seems the NRO has shielded itself under several layers of both literal and metaphorical meta-content (nerrrr!). No wonder their thinking is so limited and insular--they are trapped under a blanket several links deep. How long did it take to find the original transcript? Try googling "eric holder geneva cnn 2002 interview." <br /><br />All of which brings me back to my original point. The Internet is Good. Newspapers are suffering, which is bad. We need newspapers. But the solution is not necessarily roped-off pay-per-content. Eric Holder's response is important. He's the Attorney General. Newspapers can manipulate it. If google's webcrawlers can't get to your content (are you hearing me, scientific community? how about you, authors of books published by large publishing houses?) how will people know it exists? Of course, I mean my generation of people who know how to use the internet. Not <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_C._McCarthy">Andrew McCarthy</a>'s generation who apparently only know how to read other things in the National Review.<br /><br />Remember Kids, the Embedded Link is a tool, not a toy. Use it responsibly.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-91201927530371228802009-04-16T13:20:00.002+08:002009-04-16T13:32:15.239+08:00Hey Mcconnell, Deficit Spending Much?Despite Mitch Mcconnell's terribly convincing <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/03/mcconnell-obama.html">rant</a>ing about Obama's unsustainable growth of the national debt, it seems he's been up to a little deficit spending himself. According to reports, the honorable Senator from Kentucky <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/254/story/57458.html">still owes $2 million</a> from his 2008 campaign. Something about charity begins at home... oh wait, maybe he could ask <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/politics/16obama.html?_r=1&hp">Obama</a>.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-68816888572316112712009-04-15T18:38:00.001+08:002009-04-15T18:39:13.398+08:00We've got a black president, so it's cool to go after Thomas...no commentary, just sayin'<br />http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/us/14bar.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=clarence%20thomas&st=csePutong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-27965176112987692352009-04-14T15:45:00.004+08:002009-04-14T16:04:10.482+08:00A slightly less modest proposal...Frankly, I thought the question of overpopulation and all it's Malthus-obsessed prophets of doom had been satisfied by Mr. Swift's <a href="http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html">classic treatise</a> on the matter, but it seems many in the U.S. are still concerned with the matter. More importantly, they (like so many) are reveling in blaming the immigrants (at least according to <a href="http://www.fairus.org">this</a> slick new campaign). <br /><br />But perhaps (say it ain't so!) their ire is misplaced. There's a right-quick way to tamp down population growth (which, were one to do so, it would only serve to exacerbate the growing fiscal crisis that is medicare, medicaid, and social security) and raise more tax revenue for the shit-storm it would create (see last parenthetical note):<br /><br />Stop subsidizing children. <br /><br />Why should families get paid $3500 to have a kid? Once the cost of child ownership goes up, people will be less inclined to have them (or so the strictures of neo-liberal economics would insist), and production will decline. It's just like corn and gasoline. <br /><br />In any case, illegal immigrants come into the country at prime working age, unsubsidized, often pay into social benefits without ever receiving them, and in many ways prop up the country without taking very much besides a chance for a better life from it. Plus they constitute an essential part of our national ethos (unless we choose to abandon it before they can get here). <br /><br />Happy Tax Day, Everyone!Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-90991469850294236172009-04-13T15:18:00.002+08:002009-04-13T15:20:08.156+08:00Transgenerational means..."We do not want the old to be sharper than we. It is bad enough that they were there first and got the best things." (from Burr)<br /><br />Oh, Gore Vidal, how you would love us to believe that you were young once, too...Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-27223102660106015062009-04-12T17:33:00.004+08:002009-04-12T17:40:46.106+08:00If anyone tells you a Carbon Tax is more efficient...Sorry I've been so blog-irregular recently, but I swear I'm putting together a great piece on Dandong. Instead, I've read a few rants recently about how a greenhouse gas Cap-and-Trade scheme is the height of democrat-interfere-in-the-market-edness, and how a carbon tax would provide a much simpler solution. I disagree with this idea ferociously, but won't go into it now. Rather, take a gander at this paper by an MIT lab I'd love to work for: <a href="http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=992">http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=992</a>Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-54808450205965229932009-04-04T11:11:00.002+08:002009-04-04T11:17:13.863+08:00Qu DanDongIn a few hours I'm leaving to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandong">Dandong</a> for a few days. I should be pretty incommunicado, but if no one hears from me by Thursday the next I could very well be <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/19/n.korea.us.journalists/">locked in a North Korean detention center</a> eating congee and kimchee. <br /><br />Just kidding, they would never give me their kimchee.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-29240490831180897382009-04-04T10:24:00.004+08:002009-04-04T11:11:50.134+08:00Lobotomy or Appendectomy?As you may know, at least a part of why I've undertaken this trip to China rose out of an interest in discovering how an economically and culturally dynamic society can coexist with a politically repressive government. I've had many suspicions, but I still hadn't gotten down to the nuts and bolts of it with a real Chinese student until meeting a guy named Jack yesterday. <br /><br />The first thing to know is that the government is very popular. More popular than Obama. That's not skewed polling, and it's not propaganda, the communist party is extremely popular. <br /><br />And they have an excellent reason to be. Every person in China has seen the material conditions around them vastly improve in their lifetime. Jack was ready to jump into this discussion, as I didn't even ask when he explained, "Most westerners think that china is not democratic, because we have this one-party system, but what most don't realize is that we want the communist party." This from 21-year-old Business Administration student. <br /><br />Indeed, China has grown into every other aspect of a (until-recently) fast-developing economy. Local media is huge, the night-life is almost indistinguishable from many other places I've been, with the exception that I can afford cabs (even if the environment can't). Saturday morning, young folks stroll through the park to watch the old folks dance. People go about their daily lives, working, shopping, eating. <br /><br />In the west we are afraid of fear. We have been ever since FDR declared fear our mortal enemy. And life in fear--the Stalin years or the Mao years or the Hussein years or the Nazi years--these are our demons. But people do not live in fear here. How is this possible? It is still common (if you look in the right places) to read of excessive repression of free speech in China. Indeed, there are still many awful instances of brutal, violent, and frightening human rights abuses. But the vast majority is in an entire generation of politically-anesthetized Chinese.<br /><br />There are plenty of instances of politically-active Chinese citizens, and there are plenty more citizens with some opinion or another, but 'the situation on-the-ground'--as a presidential candidate might say--is a people that have learned to live and enjoy life and otherwise ignore politics all together. And frankly, it's not half bad...<br /><br />The problem may come when an otherwise politically infantile opposition gains power. But hell, that's years down the road. <br /><br />This is a topic I hope to continue to develop in the future, so let me know your thoughts in the comments.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-26884583546179284582009-03-25T00:25:00.002+08:002009-03-25T00:41:07.616+08:00Hairman BernankeClipped from MSNBC's live feed of Ben Bernanke correcting Ron Paul's economic history.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_X1KsBcfasG8/SckM0LylohI/AAAAAAAAAOw/BePNbMfrL3E/s1600-h/hairman.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 319px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_X1KsBcfasG8/SckM0LylohI/AAAAAAAAAOw/BePNbMfrL3E/s400/hairman.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316794925745283602" /></a>Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-43085780415504998162009-03-23T16:25:00.004+08:002009-03-23T16:32:52.137+08:00Nate Silver Creates Map of Racist BackwatersNate Silver (of 538 fame) made this <a href="http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/presidential-results-by-congressional.html">map</a> highlighting congressional districts in which the 2008 presidential party vote was greater than 9% different than in 2004. But what shows up is a bright red map of those places Americans overseas like to talk about least... and Arizona.<br /><br />Oh yeah, and their were Riots in Tibet the other day. The only reason I noticed was because the nytimes.com was blocked for five minutes and I checked BBC to figure out what was going on.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-34456892750101174352009-03-23T16:15:00.003+08:002009-03-23T16:23:25.866+08:00I'm FatOr at least that's what the folks in charge of sizing underwear around here say. I was at Carrefour looking for some suspiciously hard-to-find size 'M' undies, when it dawned on me that there sure were a lot of 'XXL' and '3XL' options, and absolutely no 'S.' Rather than try to make sense of the numbers that followed each size (not metric, some other weird system) I found some loose pairs and determined that I had walked right into a different cultural norm. I am presently wearing some comfortably snug 3XL boxers. <br /><br />But what's interesting isn't what you would expect--we all know Chinese folk tend to the slightly smaller-on-average frame. Rather, it was that the most common sizes (based on shelf-space) were 'XL' and 'XXL.' Now I know this happens quite frequently in America, but there is no obesity epidemic here. These are definitely smaller sizes. Perhaps it's an element of hip-hop culture (the NBA and Rap are up-and-up scenes, with their plethora of 'X's), or maybe it's just subconscious compensation, but I don't think I've ever felt quite so large.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-18700748358509085452009-03-18T11:49:00.003+08:002009-03-18T14:43:37.573+08:00L'Hopital's RuleWell, I haven't gone yet, but a surprising number of my friends urged me to go to the hospital yesterday. It seems the Wolf Mary was not as trustworthy a steed as she at first appeared, and after a serious technological failure, I, and my sack of groceries, were thrown over the handlebars and somersaulting through the air. Yippee.<br /><br />But what is remarkable is the readiness in which the word Hospital came out of their mouths. I've done this sort of thing before (twice in fact, both times featuring more blood), but never in America has anyone blurted out "hey! you should go to the Hospital!" Perhaps I am just in a "In America, we ..." state of mind, but I am drawn to the comparison because the willingness to <span style="font-style:italic;">go to</span> a doctor has significant influence over the quality of one's health care, and I cannot help but wonder to what extent an entire generation of Americans has been subtly taught that health care is outside of their reach.<br /><br />While I'm almost certain my ankle is just sprained, I don't know, and can't know until a doctor looks at it. And since seeing a doctor here costs all of 3kuai (less than 50cents), there's absolutely no need to. In the U.S., I could pay a couple hundred at the hospital (yes, with insurance), or save money by making an appointment with my primary care physician. Of course I'd have to wait a week.Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-3240873846074319772009-03-08T23:13:00.003+08:002009-03-08T23:15:07.499+08:00A good summary of Net Neutrality issues.I guess I'm a little single-track-minded tonight, but here's yet another link to NetNeutrality stuff. Google's released a tool that will tell you if you're ISP commits bandwith banditry. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2235313/google-offers-net-neutrality"><br />http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2235313/google-offers-net-neutrality</a>Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-37994423053990860852009-03-08T23:07:00.005+08:002009-03-08T23:12:56.794+08:00Google Got BlockedEarlier today, Google was blocked. The outage was brief, though I'm not sure on the total duration. I tried posting, but couldn't get it to work, and in true Chinese fashion, distracted myself with material concerns. Here's the text of the attempted post:<br /><br /><blockquote>The big one. This means google search, gmail, and even blogger (yes, this humble blog) cannot be accessed in China. Painful, to say the least; like losing your right arm (wikipedia was the left). If you're wondering how I'm posting this, it's through the use of a subscription VPN service, but one which strips JScript and Flash content from pages (so no fun stuff).<br /><br />What could have brought on such wrath? Perhaps it was <a href="http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-technology/google-yahoo-microsoft-urged-not-to-censor-search-20090307-8rnc.html">this</a>, but I like to think it was my persistently subversive blog posts and Chinese research. After all, anyone trying to translate "Rush Limbaugh deals ecstasy" into Chinese is clearly up to no good.<br /><br />At least Wikipedia is back...</blockquote><br /><br />Had it been longer, I might have started a democratic revolution....Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-475411016702701786.post-8940863003608192612009-03-08T14:12:00.005+08:002009-03-08T14:48:38.071+08:00Better Than Any Horror MovieOn any given day, the live-feed global log of deteriorating rights via electronic networks that is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Deeplinks Blog provides a serious chill down one's spine. From Australia's soon-to-be-implemented country-wide internet content filter, to Ireland's capitulation to the Irish Recorded Music Association's demands that it can, without review, demand that certain websites be blocked, the blog demonstrates the absolute worldwide incompetence of legislators in handling digital media.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archive">http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archive</a>Putong-Konghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12315274145981960817noreply@blogger.com0