Simon World

That time of the week

It's time for the end of week round up of what's worth your precious time over the weekend. To increase the prestige of this I am going to single out a single post of the week that managed to stick in my mind for longer than the time it took to read it. This post will be granted pride of place over each weekend at top of this under-appreciated corner of the web. Bribery is gleefully accepted and there's a whole Amazon wishlist to choose from.

Finally stay tuned for Monday where I will attempt a live blogging experience like no other.

Without further ado, this week's winner of best post is this effort from Bill where he manages to link to me, agree with me and add me to his blogroll. He's set a high standard for you all to aspire to.

As for what else is worth your while around the blogosphere:

Languor

I don't like being busy at work, especially when all the stupid people decide it's great to ruin Friday by asking all their dumb-arse questions at once. It deprives the world of my insight and wit for hours at a time. Please try and cope as best you can.

Contrasts

What a day of contrasts yesterday was in Hong Kong. From the SCMP:

Police were keeping protesters at bay outside the Central Government Offices early today after about 300 people broke through a police barrier and tried to storm the government complex. The protesters were trying to get through the gate in Lower Albert Road to support about 30 others, mostly from the Federation of Student Unions, who had successfully entered the complex earlier to protest against the forthcoming interpretation of the Basic Law by the National People's Congress Standing Committee.

As the rain came down in Central last night, it provided a fitting backdrop to scenes of mourning by fans of Canto-pop star Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing. Thousands of devotees from across Asia flocked to candlelight ceremonies to mark the first anniversary of the death of the star, who jumped to his death from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

No sh!t

Literally Australia's spies will no longer take any sh!t.

Australia's main spy agency will screen users of ammonium nitrate fertiliser...Miners use about 850,000 tonnes of the fertiliser annually to make explosives, while farmers use 50,000 tonnes for crops. Under the plan, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation would screen such users to monitor the use of the chemical.

The plan would require buyers of ammonium nitrate to show a genuine and legitimate need for the fertiliser and the ability to safely and securely store and handle it. "There will also be an investigation into the viability and cost of alternative fertilisers with a view to an eventual ban of ammonium nitrate if that is possible," Ruddock said.

It's good to know Australia's spies are going to be carefully monitoring almost 1 million tonnes of cr@p instead of keeping an eye on the various loonies who could actually use the stuff for nefarious purposes. It's like my football coach used to say: "Play the man, not the ball." I still have no idea what that means.

Now if you'll excuse me I have some fertiliser to watch.

Compromise

There is a simple reason that Formula One racing is losing fans at a rapid clip, and it has nothing to do with Ferrari and Schumacher. Indeed Schumacher's dominance is one of the highlights of the sport. In years to come you can tell your kids you saw the greatest driver of the modern era ply his trade. No, Formula One is losing fans because it is, more than usual, giving into the crass commercial interests that have always lurked in the background. It is not a cheap sport and has always been more about advertising than winning, but at least for a while it retained a good claim to being a true sport. It sold itself as being about fast cars, scantily clad women, champagne and the high life.

Not any more. In one of those hair-brained pieces of logic Formula One is selling out, again:

Drivers have been banned from spraying champagne during the traditional podium celebration at Sunday's inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix...Bowing to local sensibilities, the girls will dress modestly, and race organizers have created a special non-alcoholic drink for the podium celebrations which mixes locally grown fruit with rosewater.

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has gone to huge lengths to host the Grand Prix. Bahrain built a world-class racing circuit in 483 days. The king even offered to put up Schumacher in a royal palace. Yet the official drive to stage big sporting events, win foreign investment and turn Bahrain into the Gulf's banking centre is running up against a rising Islamist tide across the kingdom.

A fortnight ago, 100 men armed with knives burst into a restaurant in the capital, Manama, and threatened diners who were drinking alcohol. The twisted wreckage of a customer's car, petrol-bombed by the gang, still sits outside the restaurant, which is closed and guarded by police armed with tear-gas grenades.

Worthy Post of the Day

Adam rightly comments on Six Apart's response to the blocking of Typepad by China. The Six Apart response is hedged and pleads ignorance, which is probably the right response for them, although it seems obvious to most China bloggers that this is a permanent block ala Blogspot. To be fair they seem to be trying to get to the bottom of it, although I can't see the Chinese Embassy in Washington promptly responding to Six Apart's queries. Adam's theory that they should rely on reports from bloggers themselves is telling but Six Apart really don't (yet) understand what they are dealing with. It is outside their usual frame of reference.

Besides it is mostly irrelevant. Already the China blogging community is coming up with its own solutions to the problem. John has started with the new adopt a blog idea. I've already offered Munu's services as part of the great invitational. Please help spread the word.

That day

April Fools Day is stupid. People got to extreme lengths to play practical jokes on one another, trying things they would normally never get away with. You know, things like this:

Joker: "John, just got a call your father died." John looks shocked.
Joker: "April fools."
John: "That's a really stupid one, Dad."

It's a vain attempt by normally un-funny people to prove how funny they are. If someone's a good practical joker, they don't need to wait for a single day of the year to pull off their stunts. It's all about building credibility and trust and then abusing it by spinning complete bullcrap at random moments. Just look at these guys. Like the time we were in the hospital carpark and I told Mrs M about the special non-slip concrete they were using now as we squeaked and squealled around the place. Her inquisitive "Really?" was worth it, even though she was in labour.

Make every day an April Fools Day. The world will laugh or you'll be bashing into submission when your jokes wear thin, but either way the world is a better place for it. And this has nothing to do with the fact that I couldn't think of anything good this year.

Steering

My home town of Sydney is planning to introduce "driving licences" for dim sum* restaurants. Although road drivers in Hong Kong are abysmal, the dim sum kart drivers are world class.

*_{Note the date the regulations are due to begin.}

Low IQs

Some Americans are stupid. Advertisments like this prove it. America is the only nation that has to have 4 years of college to get students up to standard to enter university. Students in countries such as the UK and Australia are able to jump straight in. I guess we're much smarter than Americans, with very few exceptions.

PS: If anyone knows how to get in touch with Cracker Barrel Philosopher and make him aware of the great Munuviana invitational please let me know.

Slipping

For non-Australians it may have passed unnoticed that Ian Thorpe slipped off the blocks in the Olympic qualifying event for the 400 metre freestyle swimming. This lead to an automatic disqualification and has been a major news story since. In Australia sports stars are deified and none more so than Ian Thorpe, world record holder and Olympic gold medallist as well as marketing gold. There has been much debate since on the merits of the second qualifier, Craig Stevens, and if he should stand down in favour of Thorpie.

I'm going to make some bold predictions. Stevens is already under a lot of pressure. Some are taking the moral high ground, saying that rules are rules and all that. But that's bullcrap. We're talking about the Olympics here, and we need our best man there on the day to win a gold medal so we can continue the Australian tradition of being 5th or so in the medal count (and so reclaiming some pride over the English following the Rugby). Here's some potential solutions:

Taxis

Typical HK moment: Giles and I were heading for our sort of weekly squash trashing game. I open the taxi door on my side and notice that Giles hasn't gotten in because some woman had cut in and opened the door before him. She looked at me like a rabbit caught in the headlights. She did not know what to do as she stood there, frozen in terror at what these two gwielos might do. Her small mind couldn't deal with the situation. So we helped her out by getting in the next taxi and proceeding to tell the guy we had to cut off that cab in front. Which we did.

Moral: don't get in taxis that aren't yours.

Blessings

The latest edition of the China Blog Block has again had the opposite effect. Indeed China can be thanked for in the past getting most of the local China bloggers off Blogspot. What will happen now? The beauty of blogging is it has very low barriers to entry. Typepad being blocked? Go and set up with any one of hundreds of cheap hosting services. Getting set up again takes little effort, although your archives may be lost. As many people as China employs to watch the net, with new blogs popping up all the time it is impossible for them to clamp down on them all. China's point isn't to block to divert attention to blogs. It is far less subtle: it is to prevent the blog being read. It will raise international awareness, but internally I doubt there's going to be much difference to the average Chinese blog reader. Especially as Typepad blogs and others tend to be in English.

Adam points out that China is blocking blogs that are China lovers. But obviously it is an unrequited love. Internet censors aren't going to delve into nuances such as which blogs "love" China, especially those that show love by sometimes pointing out what's wrong with the place. The current trend of black backgrounds as a form of protest is pointless. Tilting at windmills can certainly make the jouster feel better, but the windmill keeps turning over oblivious. While the ban is bad, it is ultimately useless on the part of China and useless to protest on the part of blogs. Deal with it, set up a new one (I'm happy to help with hosting if need be) and move on. Even with 40,000 censors China cannot stop blogs from continuing to pop up, many of which will not be to its liking. If something is worth saying then finding a way to say it is, these days, not hard despite the best efforts of the CCP.

Cats and Dogs

From the SCMP:

The Hong Kong Observatory issued the first amber rainstorm warning of the year late last night, heralding the arrival of seasonal rains. The observatory said it recorded 60.9mm of rain yesterday until 11pm. It issued its first thunderstorm warning for the day at 3am...Another warning was issued at 5.30pm as conditions remained poor.

Next time I'll be taking an umbrella.

Joke

Hong Kong public servants enjoy an enviable life. Historically they have been well-paid, which some have argued has lead to the least corrupt civil service in Asia. Additionally in the days of British rule expat (read English) civil servants enjoyed great perks to compensate them for their "hardship" post. When the locally employed civil servants complained they did the only thing they could think of: they threw open the benefits to everyone.

Switches

China's going to pop an artery in response to re-elected Taiwan President Chen's comments in this article. Again Chen has stated the obvious and for his troubles he will cop it from all sides: from his opponents in Taiwan for being honest, the CCP for being honest, and the USA for disturbing the status quo. That's the problem with common sense: people don't want to hear it. What is also ridiculous with the China/Taiwan question is the ongoing diplomatic battle they wage for recognition:

Just days after Chen's narrow election to a second four-year term that faces an opposition challenge, China further isolated the island it claims as a rebel province by winning over one of Taiwan's few diplomatic allies, Dominica. Only 26 countries now recognize Taipei and not Beijing.

Elephants

China's economy dominates headlines and political debate (even if much of the worry about outsourcing is just plain wrong). However many seem to forget there's a rival clipping at China's heels, India. Most interesting is this assessment:

Even by 2050, China's GDP per head will still be half that of Britain, and less than 40 per cent of the United States. India's will be less than 30 per cent and 20 per cent of Britain and the United States respectively.

Seeing and believing

This afternoon we're off for an ultrasound of Ubul. This will allow the doctor to tell us the baby has two arms, two legs, two eyes and that everything is where it should be. In Hong Kong the norm is for people to be told the sex of their child. We are traditionalists - we will find out when Ubul decides it's time to join us. But these ultrasounds are great, they allow you to know that your baby is healthy and your doctor's Ferrari repayments will be met. You go into a darkened room, where a machine sits humming quietly. The doc applies a gel and proceeds to poke around to try and find the baby. Eventually the screen turns from one shade of static to another and the doc exclaims "there it is!" He proceeds to tell you that he can see fingers, there's the head, oh look, it's sucking its thumb. It is polite in these circumstances to go along with the doctor, even though you've got no idea if he's telling the truth. Indeed it may well be a replay of the static from the video player you can't quite tune. You'll never know the difference.

In Hong Kong you have an ultrasound every time you visit the doctor. Now I'm vaguely aware of the science of ultrasound: it sends a ping and looks at the echo. But surely sending this many pings is going over the top? I don't want my baby saying "ping, ping, ping" every 30 seconds like on those submarine movies. In Australia for both JC and PB we had a couple of scans and that was it. From what I recall in history classes many generations have been born without constant ultrasounds. So methinks this is a scam to make these machines really pay their way. Looking at them they can't be cheap. They've got so many buttons and dials. They can print pictures or even record the ultrasound on videotape. Although like wedding photos, no-one is going to look at that video once it has been made. Unless they're trying to tune the VCR.

So these machines can print out photos of static and maybe your baby. The really advanced (read the extortionately expensive) ones can now give you a 3 dimensional image of the baby. This is not good. There is a reason why babies stay inside a womb for 9 months. Because they don't look human for most of the time. The stages are: tiny pin-prick; amoeba; little tadpole; bigger tadpole; alien; alien sucking thumb; fish; frog and finally baby. These are not meant to be seen. However that's not the worst part. People ask for these 3-D prints so they can put them on their fridge. I can think of no better diet technique than putting a half-formed 3-D image of a foetus on a fridge door. And when guests come you just know they're not going to raid the fridge that's got that on the door. Best thing to do is to make sure the guests know it's there by showing them as soon as they walk in. That way they won't want to eat anything, and you can just scatter a few stale biscuits instead safe in the knowledge that soon your guests will make their excuses and leave.

So we'll be asking for the 3-D print today. Anyone want to come to our place?

Healing

Mrs M wasn't feeling the best this morning. It's to be expected sometimes given she's 20 weeks pregnant and looking after 2 lively kids. So I did the responsible modern Dad thing. I got the kids up, gave them their milk, changed the nappies, gave them their cereal and toast, had them watching TV, took the dog out, gave the dog her breakfast, pills and eye drops, ate my breakfast, shaved, showered, skimmed the paper, made a drink for Mrs M in bed while listening sympathetically to her ails, cleaned the girls' breakfast and faces, washed the dishes, dressed in my suit, took JC to school and got a kiss and a "You're not my friend, Daddy. I love you," for my trouble. I got on the bus feeling slightly smug about handling all of this with such aplomb.

Until it dawned on me Mrs M does it every day.

Java

Ever since an Ethiopian goat herder noticed his flock got frisky when they ate some berries, coffee has become a way of life. This vile, putrid liquid has become part of modern life, evoking rituals as detailed and intricate as the Japanese tea ceremony. It has spawned the ubiquitous coffee shop, especially the Starbucks variation, which recreate the coffee experience in a mass commoditisation way.

The ceremony itself is simply and oft-repeated each working day. It begins when does that cannot face the working day under their own accord appeal to fellow workers to join in the first run. Often this person calls in on their way into the office to enable the slothful early birds to remain entranced by their computer screens. Each person quickly establishes their "regular" drink, which usually involves a baffling combination of milk, sugar, chocolate or anything else that can disguise the taste of the vile black scum. All important is to quickly abbreviate one's order into the "lingo", including latte, short blacks (for those with no concept of taste), caps, moccas and so on. For the healthy there is the skinny variety, where watery skim milk replaces full cream milk in a vain effort to save one's health.

Once the first run has been consumed it becomes a waiting game for the second run. Finally someone's caffeine addiction overcomes their hesitation and they announce they're off for a coffee. This seems to release the appropriate chemicals in fellow addicts, because suddenly a second coffee becomes a must for everyone. And so the procession continues, several times a day, much in line with the rise in Starbucks' share price. There is a reason the place is named for the boat in Moby Dick - although it seems the boat has overtaken the whale in size.

There can be breaches of etiquette. Should one show enough gumption to go and get a coffee alone, any return to the office will be met with howls of protest from fellow addicts who lament the opportunity to feed their disease. This only has to happen once or twice before this enterprising person learns that being different is a sure recipe for disaster, and they too are quickly dragged into the group coffee run net.

For those of us who despise the stuff this leads to a murky morass of moral dilemmas. To sit out run after run sets us apart from these lesser mortals. In order to enter into the espirit d'corps occasionally we have to shout (i.e. pay) and make the run, substituting hot chocolate or a juice. Instead of enjoying our superior status we need to drag ourselves down to the level of these desperate addicts in an attempt to fit in, to join in with the hoi polloi.

It demeans us but it is the price we have to pay - otherwise I see a diversity training course in my future. I hate coffee.

Summary

For those unsure of the current state of play in Greater China, I humbly present a summary of recent events for you.

1. Common sense ceases to be a factor for Taiwan's opposition.
2. China decides one country, one system is far better than the previous effort.
3. 40,000 gweilos are nursing sore heads today.

We report. China decides.

Luck

My apartment building slavishly avoids bad luck by not having a 4th, 13th or 14th floor. In Cantonese the number 4 sounds very similar to the word for death. Not good. 13 is unlucky for Westerners. And 14 sounds like 'certain death' to Cantonese ears. But in fact the poor people on what is called the 5th floor are actually on the 4th, and those on the 16th shouldn't buy lottery tickets, being on the 13th. Those on the 17th shouldn't make long term plans at all, being on the very unlucky 14th.

You can't trick Feng Shui, even if you play with the numbers.

Space and time

Hong Kong car parks exist in a warped space-time continuim that bears no resembelence to the rest of the known universe.

Ellis Island

The host with the most, Pixy, has throw open the gates of Munu to all the blogosphere's needy to celebrate Munu's 1 year anniversary. For those looking to move off blogspot, or those under the thumb due to China's recent blocking of Typepad and so on, please leave me a message in the comments and we'll get you switched over to the MT based Munu server. Follow the link for the strict (not) entry requirements. If you know of blogs you'd like nominated, let me know.

Science news

Finally the world of economics comes to grips with one of the pressing issues of our times: faking it. Scroll down to The Economics of Ecstasy. Good to see at least some PhD students applying their minds for practical rather than theoretical problems.

(Finally, something useful via the SCMP)

Closure

Hong Kong has nothing to fear but fear itself. Now that China's parliament, the NPC, has decided that they are the begining and end of the review of Hong Kong's basic law. The good news is

The National People's Congress Standing Committee will not be ``tyrannical'' when it begins interpreting the Basic Law later this week, SAR Basic Law Committee member Ng Hon-man said yesterday...``It won't give Hong Kong people a feeling that it is tyrannical or that [the NPC Standing Committee] is forcibly imposing the interpretations on Kong Kong people,'' he said.

Meanwhile in Taiwan the faux-crisis continues. President Chen remains entirely sensible in asking the opposition to follow the law and then he will order a recount. It really is extremely difficult to see what objections the pan-blue alliance can maintain to Chen's actions so far. Certainly he has come out of all this looking much the better choice.

Welcome to another week in the glorious Far East.