Pages

Showing posts with label Meta Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meta Blogging. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The Three Towers

In one of these buildings today, I enjoyed some rather tasty fish with garlic sauce, and I wasn't even at a restaurant.

Shanghai World Financial Center, Jin Mao Tower, and Shanghai Tower in Shanghai, China

When I first came to Shanghai almost a decade ago, only the Jin Mao Tower, the shortest of the three, in the middle existed. Next year, the Shanghai Tower, the second tallest skyscraper in the world, on the right will be open for all the things one puts inside a 121 story building, including food. I find they present a rather impressive sight. At least equally striking to me, though, is the number of tall buildings continuing to sprout up elsewhere in Shanghai as well.

In addition to providing a view of China greatly differing from the usual scenes I share, this is also my way of saying that I am yet again in Shanghai. It won't be long until I head to less well-known Chinese lands, but I hope to make the most of my time here by doing a series of brief posts, some of which will tie in what I have found in parts of China with far fewer skyscrapers.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

A Nanchang Scene

My trip to the US has pulled me away from blogging more than I had expected. I hope to have things back up to speed in the near future. Nanchang, the capital of China's Jiangxi province, was briefly on my mind today, so for now here is an everyday street scene from when I visited the city almost three years ago.

people on a narrow street in Nanchang, Jiangxi

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Wassup Hengyang Style

girl wearing a light jacket with the words "WASSUP SHOW OFF" on the back
In Hengyang, Hunan province

If you are wondering "wassup", despite the content of my most recent posts, I am not now in either Yangjiang or Hengyang, although I did briefly stop by Shanghai last month. More substantial and regular posting is on the way, including a mix of old and new topics and of course some highlights from my current location.

Monday, April 28, 2014

A Return With an Outdoor Cafe Scene

Here are two people sitting at an outdoor cafe in the middle of a pedestrian shopping street in Zhanjiang's Xiashan district:

two people sitting at an outdoor cafe in Zhanjiang, China

On an unrelated note, I finally have usable Internet access once more and expect to be returning to a relatively normal state. So of course that means posts about a big boat, mud worms, and mobile phones are all on the way.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

A Longer Than Planned Note About Embedded Tweets

A timeout for blog-related technical issues:

For some readers, embedded tweets from Twitter may not appear as intended and lose some of their effect. "Selfless Selfies" is an example of a post with an embedded tweet. If you didn't see a photo in that post, then you didn't see a fully rendered embedded tweet which should look like this:

A non-functional image of a fully rendered embedded tweet

Instead, you probably saw a stripped-down tweet with links to relevant material, such as images and the original tweet on Twitter, like this:
What do you call a selfie taken by someone dedicated to overcoming selfhood? http://t.co/h039cHyZ79 pic.twitter.com/1W4WoKo92t
— Chris Buckley 储百亮 (@ChuBailiang) February 24, 2014
Seeing the stripped-down version is often due to viewing the post through an RSS reader*, viewing the post on a mobile device, having JavaScript disabled, or being blocked to Twitter's content by China's Great Firewall**.

The experience isn't entirely broken when the embedded tweets aren't fully rendered, and it's not very different from simply quoting a tweet. So I use them even though I realize many readers won't see them in their full glory. Writing this, though, makes me wonder if in the future I should "pull out" images from tweets so more people can easily see them, which I think is how I did it long ago. Embedded tweets are great when they fully render but ... reality and all that.

While I'm taking this timeout, I'll mention a somewhat related topic: I've noticed that in some RSS readers the formatting of my blog posts does not appear as intended, especially in regards to captions for images, and odd spacings appear. I'm not sure whether it's an issue with the RSS readers, Blogger, me, or something else. Like with embedded tweets, one possible "fix" is to view the posts at the blog website. If you know of a fix from my side, though, please let me know.

Anyway, if you didn't know before, hopefully now you understand a bit more. If the above has entirely confused you and you weren't aware of any problems, fear not, this post is nearly finished. But seriously, feel free to contact me if you have questions. It's possible I have answers***.

Enjoy ...



* Some RSS readers, such as NewsBlur, offer a view where embedded tweets can appear as intended.

** My blog as a whole is partially blocked in China due to being hosted on Blogger.

*** Or more questions.

Monday, November 11, 2013

China's Great Firewall Says Hello

I have not be able to post here for a few days due to significant problems in using my VPN. Without a properly functioning VPN, I am at the mercy of China's Great Firewall. This means a variety of sites are blocked, including Blogger which I use to publish this blog. For reasons I am unable to completely explain, there are occasionally periods of time when I can still reach blocked-in-China sites. If this post publishes, it means I was able to take advantage of one. This actually represents an improvement from yesterday.

My VPN provider is trying to solve the problem, which at least in part appears to be the result of some crafty strategies being used by the Great Firewall, although there are other issues which also concern me. It is almost as fascinating as it is frustrating. I don't know how many others are affected by what I'm experiencing. I also don't know if it is specific to me, Zhuhai, or Guangdong province. For now, I will just add that it was a year ago when I last had so many problems with the Great Firewall.

Hopefully an effective solution can soon be found. Perhaps more on this topic later.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Pondering in Hong Kong

In Wong Tai Sin, Hong Kong

That's all for this week. I expect to be posting more frequently next week with topics ranging from online services in Hong Kong to the air in Beijing.

There is plenty to ponder.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Reading

There's much to learn in this fascinating world, and lately I have been doing a lot of what this man in Beijing was doing a few days ago:

man reading a newspaper while sitting on a stool

And now it is time to do some more writing...

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Reconnecting With Another Unexpected Connection

Yesterday, I made another unexpected connection when I was at Seoul Plaza in Seoul, South Korea.

people relaxing on the grass at Seoul Plaza


While there I was reminded of my visit to Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, US.

people relaxing on the grass at Klyde Warren Park

And in case you're wondering, yes, this post ends my longest non-posting period since starting this blog. The pause was partly due to having plenty on my plate* during my first visit to the US in several years. Another reason was that when my plate appeared empty, it seemed like a good time to keep it that way.

But now I'm back, both in terms of blogging and being in Asia. Although I am eager to return to the usual themes, while they are still fresh in my mind I will share some assorted thoughts about my several weeks in the US.

More soon. Really.


*This was meant figuratively, but the literal interpretation also holds true.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

An Even More Edacious and Potatory Post

Some readers may feel most of my posts including "edacious and potatory views" are missing a key detail: the food or drink that accompanied the view. I'm not sure if I have suitable photos for all of the examples. I'll leave sorting that out for another day (maybe). Instead, I will start afresh and share the view from where I had a late lunch today in Ho Chi Minh City:

view from a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City


And here is what I ate and drank:


I hope this was sufficiently edacious and potatory.

And now for a few notes:

1. Not only was the previous post a chance to revisit some old scenes, but it proved to be a learning experience as well. I find it curious that the words "edacious" and "potatory" capture such seemingly common and useful concepts, yet neither were familiar to me (and I suspect to most readers) and I couldn't find any other suitable single-word options. My use of the word "edacious" is even considered "archaic". I would appreciate hearing any insights readers may have about these two wonderful words.

2. Readers who follow this blog through an RSS reader may have been puzzled by a post titled "Riverside View in Kampot, Cambodia". While working on the previous post, Blogger provided a strange error message when I tried adding a location tag. After I recovered, I discovered the post had been prematurely published. I'll avoid getting into all the technical details, but when recovering from an accidental publishing, simply deleting a post doesn't necessarily remove it from RSS readers. I think this is something which could be better addressed by blogging platforms (and possibly RSS readers as well), but that's another issue. Anyways, the easiest thing for me to do was to "update" the post with an empty content area and then delete it from my blog.

So if you saw a blank post titled "Riverside View in Kampot, Cambodia", no worries. If you saw that post and it included some content, congratulations--you probably had an inside look at the early stages of a post's creation. Now please feel free to discard it at the nearest incinerator.

"Finally..."

3. Returning to the word-usage theme, I can say with no small pride that I was recently offered compensation for a pun I wrote. Especially with the recent online debate about people being asked to write for free, I found it a most encouraging sign. I eagerly look forward to my next trip to Beijing so I can collect my beer from Anthony Tao. Maybe Señor Tao can offer me some tips on how to drink it while wearing a face mask. With his experience in Beijing, he should have a leg up on me.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Another Refresher Post

As I did once before, I will share a variety of older posts that are now buried by many others but may be of interest to newer readers.

1.  A Most Amazing Payday in ShanghaiA Most Delicious Lunch Without Meat -- These are two stories about a young woman I met who moved to Shanghai to pursue some of her dreams. She could only marvel at how her life has improved since she was a child in southwest China.

2.  Discoveries Leading to Questions: "Sansumg" Computers and Bilingual Notes in Nanning -- Here I provided a light glimpse of one of the research methods I have used for companies such as Microsoft in China. It emphasizes a key point: research is not only about finding answers. It is also about finding the right questions. I followed up this topic in the next post -- A Computer at a Hair Salon in Liuzhou, Guangxi.

3.  Facebook, Taiwan, and a Waitress's Comments on Censorship in China -- This post shares an example of how knowledge about what is permissible in Taiwan can impact a Chinese person's views on censorship. Later when I was in Taiwan, I had an experience that further highlighted how Taiwan differs from the other side of the Taiwan Strait. -- Facebook Contrasts: Students in Taiwan and Mainland China.

That's all for now. For more you can find the previous "refresher post" here.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

A Woman and Baby in Changsha

A couple of months ago while taking a closer look at a street market in Changsha, Hunan province, I briefly met a woman and a baby.

a woman holding a baby in Changsha, China

Other than it being a pleasant experience, I don't have much more to say. But I do have plenty more to say about what I learned in Changsha that I have not yet covered here. Someday I will "return" to Changsha and many other places I have visited in China. But first I plan to finish some half-written posts on other topics--including a fascinating discussion I had today with Malaysian woman. She said she doesn't plan to revisit her son in the US because of her bad knee. But it sounded like she had other concerns.

More soon...

Thursday, November 15, 2012

China's Great Firewall Raised Higher for a Party

As Paul Mozur noted last week:
...in recent weeks concern about the Internet has taken primacy as access to websites – especially foreign websites and virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow users to circumvent Chinese Internet filters – has deteriorated.

The likely reason is the weeklong 18th Party Congress, a highly scripted but nevertheless critical political event scheduled to culminate with the unveiling of Communist Party’s next generation of leaders.

Chinese authorities routinely move to exert more control over the Internet around big meetings and politically sensitive dates, including by disrupting traffic to foreign websites outside the country’s censorship system, commonly referred to as the Great Firewall. But a number of users have complained of unusually frequent disruptions in the run-up to the 18th Party Congress...
See the article here for more details.

I too have had growing problems using my VPN during the past several weeks and have needed customer support from the U.S. on several occasions to resolve them. My impression is that some of the methods being used by the Great Firewall are more sophisticated than what I have experienced before.

At this moment, I can only maintain brief connections to my VPN before being disconnected. However, unlike previous times I can't rule out that there isn't a more general problem with my Internet connection. So I will apply a method that seems apt for this hour: I will go to sleep. My recent experience is that things will be either be much better or much worse when I wake up.

FYI -- without a functional VPN I am not able to post here since Blogger remains blocked in China. This and the fact that I have spent much time trying to better understand the blocking are some of the reasons I have not gotten around to several posts I had planned for this week. They're still in the pipeline though.

I will only be able to publish this post by waiting for a brief window during which I am connected to the VPN--assuming one opens again.

So far this is not working. Hopefully this can slip through on one of the tries...

More later.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Pundits and Teepees

I typically only post about U.S. politics here if it relates to China or one of my other "big" interests. Like many other people, the topic has attracted an unusually large amount of my online attention over the past few days due to the upcoming presidential election. My mind has been flooded with news reports, analyses, polls, pundits, polls of pundits, pundits on polls, pundits on pundits, and so on. I have also been occasionally distracted by other topics friends send my way such as $88 cat teepees. Although I have no plans to buy a cat teepee, it made me more aware of the benefits brief diversions can have in the midst of an information overload.

So in that spirit, during the next day or two I will do a series of very brief but more frequent China-related posts. They can serve as moments for some readers to flex their eyes on something different while allowing me to share with everyone more of what I have seen in China.

Soon, I will return to earlier themes here, such as college dormitories, and also reply to some readers' questions. In the meantime, though, I will keep things relatively simple.

More soon.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Updates for Assorted Posts: Panties, Great Firewall, and a Treadmill

I have updates for several posts that don't require a full post on their own and will be missed by many if I now append them to the original posts. So I will share them together here in a single post.

1. After a photo of a fan and hanging clothes in the post "College Dormitories in China: Central South University of Forestry and Technology in Changsha" I wrote:
If you are now fretting over me sharing a photo of the young women's underwear, don't take your panties off.
If that struck you as a peculiar choice of words, I would agree. After recently rereading the post I realized I had messed up a potentially timely use of words. I am not sure why fretting over the photo would have caused anyone to take their panties off. That sentence in the post has been edited to what was intended:
If you are now fretting over me sharing a photo of the young women's underwear, don't get your panties in a bunch.
I apologize for any misunderstanding due to my mangling of an idiom.

2. I have already made four updates in the post "The New York Times and Google Searches for 'New York Times' Blocked in China". Go to the post to read them. The gist was that James Griffiths in the Shanghaiist hypothesized The New York Times was not really blocked in China and the site was merely experiencing difficulties due to heavy traffic. I explained why that made little sense. In response Griffiths retracted his traffic problems theory and later in response to another post he also retracted his skepticism that The Times was blocked in China.

But I have yet another update now. I recently retested and The Times remains blocked, at least at my location in Changsha, Hunan province. Also, a search on Google for "New York Times" still leads to no results and only a connection reset error page (the exact wording depends on the browser used). And as before, no such blocking occurs on either Baidu or Bing and both provide results including links to The Times website.

3. Finally, in the post "A Stationary Child in Motion" I shared a photo of a young girl running on a treadmill. I passed by the same treadmill today, but it was being used very differently by a young boy.



At least he's still getting some exercise.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Back in Service and Photos Revisited

I am happy to say that I have now restored all of the 400+ photos on this blog that had become unavailable (thankfully another ~1000 photos were not affected) due to a recent online calamity. So now instead of this appearing in place of some photos:

Should Picasa use something snazzier?

All photos should properly display like this one:

Kids in Xining, Qinghai province

However if you still notice any problems, please let me know. I have not had a chance to fully explore some remaining issues so again I will refrain for the moment from commenting further about what I have learned.

Since I just unexpectedly had to revisit a variety of posts with photos, I will provide links to a few of the photo-heavier posts. They may be of interest to newer readers who have not seen them or to older readers who may feel inspired to revisit them.

1. From Guangzhou to Zhuhai to Macau -- I describe the various forms of transportation I used to travel between several cities in Southeast China. The Guangzhou South Train Station is a good example of the new "big" architecture that can be found in China.

2. Bailian Dong Park in Zhuhai, Guangdong -- Scenes including a hillside temple and youth rollerskating show some people in China enjoying their free time.

3. A Random Bus Trip to Zhuhai's Nanping -- The results of me taking a random bus led to a variety of interesting discoveries -- including some buildings from a different era and as shared in another post an Android Store.

4. Existential Threat Posed to U.S. by Chinese Tiger Mothers' Continued Relentless Training of Children -- The title says it all. So does that fact that it was written on April 1.

And now I will get back to working on some newer material.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Picasa Photo Problem

[UPDATE: I have updated the photo links for the most recent and visited posts. Still more to go. Unless you visit a certain range of posts you will not now notice the problem.]

Apparently my interpretation of certain aspects of Picasa's functionality and terminology was disastrously incorrect. Due to this disconnect, a great number of images are now not appearing on my blog. At the moment it appears a major amount of effort and time will be required to resolve this issue. I apologize for the problem.

In the spirit of helping others to avoid my mistake (and possibly getting a quick genius solution from someone), I will briefly share what I can piece together. The album containing photos for this blog was listed as "Limited, anyone with the link".  In short, I did not want people to be able to view all of my blog's photos at once in a single glance on Picasa. Some reasons for this include that I sometimes want/need to keep photos private until a post is ready for publishing and I want to encourage people to view photos through the blog where more context is provided.  My understanding was that the "Limited" setting enabled me to embed the necessary links to photos on my blog for readers to view individually, but without a special link the album would not be viewable as a whole. For a time this all seemed to be true.

But recently I noticed curious numbers in Picasa that suggested people might be able to view the album despite me having no awareness of ever sending the album link to anyone. A friend of mine checked this out and indeed she was able to "follow" my Picasa account and see the "limited" albums, despite them being clearly marked (to me) as limited. She did not have the link though. This baffled me.

On the limited album's page in my account I discovered a "Reset secret link" option. I figured resetting it might resolve the issue I was experiencing. After clicking it I received this warning:
Are you sure you want to reset the secret link to this album? This will remove access for everyone who has the current secret link.
Since I had no awareness of sending the "secret link to this album" and had no awareness of using it myself I had no worries. I was not worried about the individual photos since my understanding was that they each had their own secret link. This belief was supported by the fact that when I embed the images in my blog Picasa provides an option to "Hide album link" which I always chose. I only embedded the individual photo's link.

Needless to say, after reseting the album link it appears all the embedded links for images in my blog from that folder are now nonfunctional. That certainly was not my expectation.

*sigh*

Again, if any readers know of any quick solutions I would appreciate it. You can email me -- isidorsfugue at gmail. Otherwise, I will likely need to replace over 400 photos one by one. Again, that will take some time.

Fortunately, I have a post that will likely serve as useful for when I complete this task. More on that later.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Technical Difficulties

Two days ago, after putting my laptop into "sleep" mode it decided it did not want to wake up no matter what I tried. Since then, I have taken a ferry from Zhuhai to Hong Kong and my computer is now under expert examination.

In the meantime, I will continue to have very limited Internet access so posting will be sparse at best. Please be assured, more is on way. Hopefully, I will soon have a rejuvenated or a new laptop and life can return to normal.

Friday, February 24, 2012

From Video Mishaps to Hong Kong, Open Plan Offices, and Text Messaging Legal Woes

I had hoped to have a post today about the parade in Taiwan I mentioned here. However, I am having some bizarre problems creating the video. It looks completely fine in the edited preview, but in the final version some sections get stuck rapidly alternating between just a few frames. Other sections are fine, though. I will give it a whirl again this weekend. If all goes well I will put up the post on Monday. Otherwise, maybe I can just add some techno music to the video, and it will go viral.

For now I will do something I have not done in a while -- a quick review of some random links I had been holding onto for potential deeper commentary. Since I may never get to them, here are a few in no particular order (previous post of assorted links here):

1. I have previously discussed (herehere, here, and here) the barriers mainland Chinese face visiting Macau and Hong Kong. Bo Gu of NBC News describes her own first visit to Hong Kong. Her story about how she obtained the necessary permit highlights both some of the challenges in obtaining a permit and provides a taste of how "official processes" can work in China.

2. An article by Julian Treasure on The Sound Agency website discusses research indicating that open plan offices can hurt work productivity, even when they have been designed in the hope they can promote "creative thinking and better problem solving". I have not yet had a chance to review the original research papers, so I do not want to comment specifically. I will just say that what is reported is consistent with other cognitive psychology research I have conducted/reviewed in the past.

3. A Reuters article by Patricia Reaney warns:
Couples who may be heading for a nasty break-up should be careful about texting because it could end up as evidence against them in divorce court.
I appreciate the concern from a legal perspective, but it strikes me as somewhat ironic. I am no relationship expert, but it would seem to be that if one wants to save a marriage that reducing lines of communication may not be in a couple's best interest. Also, the advice to not put anything in writing seems easy to follow -- just speak your thoughts. However, sometimes people are better able to express themselves through written means (and sometimes very specific forms of writing). I have conducted research that... well, I cannot share details so I will just say that I think there may be some opportunities for innovations here. And they will not necessarily only apply to troubled couples.

That is all for the links. Now hopefully I can sort out the video problem.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Posts Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

I haven't had a chance to post recently and when I was ready the Internet and/or Chrome decided to go haywire. I am now using Firefox with a slow Internet connection, so I'll do a preview of what's ahead.

Before continuing on the themes started with the stories about Xiaoxin, I will take a detour early next week with a couple of Taiwan-related posts. One is a post I've already promised about Michele Bachmann. Why would this, um, "colorful" Republican member of the U.S. House Representatives come up in a discussion I had with a friend of mine in Kaohsiung? Stay tuned...

A later post will be about a parade I saw in Taipei a few months ago. It will be particularly appropriate to share at that moment since the parade was about an issue of great concern to Michele Bachmann -- although I doubt she would have agreed to participate. Again, stay tuned...

After those posts, I'll get back to the earlier theme and share a story that can add some perspective to why Xiaoxin was so excited about her payday.

To finish off this post I was going to add some gratuitous photos of cats in local Guangzhou shops. However, now Picasa is behaving very peculiarly. I'm using a VPN at the moment so I don't think my problems are related to blocking from the Great Firewall, but I can't be sure.

I'm just going to go to sleep and hope this is all magically resolved when I turn on my laptop tomorrow.

Cheerio.