Monthly Archives: February 2009

The Fun of "What Are You Doing?"

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Every software developer has a dream, dreaming that one day people's life can be changed due to his/her contribution, so do I. I used to think that my killer application must be like a superman, who can save the world from hunger or disease or any other tough issues——or we can't say it changes the world.

But, you know, toys change the world of children, so why can't e-toys change the world of internet? A friend who worked as a PM in Microsoft for nine years told me that a wonderful product can be very very simple, just to solve one simple problem accurately and elegantly. I have not been able to imagine such a software toy until I found Twitter.

First of all I have to declare this post is not ad, I'm just telling you my feeling. What is Twitter? It is a so-called mini weblog, one user sends update of what he's doing, all the other users see it. Twitter is quite simple and even a bit of crude, but it's free and open to all users and developers. Whenever and wherever you have access to internet, you can tell people what you're doing via Twitter. Recently, Twitter has become one of the most popular applications. Someone may ask you, "don't your thumbs hurt yet?", that does not mean sending SMS via mobile, they really want to know if you're crazy on mobile Twitter.

Someone who's not using Twitter may wonder why it's so hot, and someone who's new to Twitter may find it not interesting at all. Obviously not everyone loves to share life with others, follow or get followed, they prefer to stay alone. While more and more people are joining one or several SNS communities, different people would choose to stay in different places. For instance, young undergraduates join xiaonei.com to find friends from same school, while kaixin is the first choice for white collars to kill spare time by playing web page games, and job-seekers and head-hunters love LinkedIn.

So what are those guys hanging around Twitter all day? What can I gain from being a Twitterer? I have several reasons, but may not be suitable for you.

  • Another card of you, just like an email address or a blog url, part of your profile.
  • Faster sharing. If you're a Twitterer you will see many people are sharing interesting posts or videos from various sources by pasting urls from time to time, it's faster and of more freedom.
  • Getting up-to-date news. More and more organizations have their Twitter accounts in order to make a promotion and publish information. In this way, Twitter can be a "Google Reader". For example, I've followed IBM Research and a clinic research institution for tech news, and followed hoopchina.com to get the latest NBA rumors, find it really useful.
  • The last may be where the biggest fun comes from. Famous people also tweet, we fans follow. Politics enthusiasts can follow Obama, soccer lovers will find C.Ronaldo, metal music fans may chat with Kaiser Kuo. Think how sina blog make its promotion by inviting all kinds of stars to set blogs at blog.sina.com. In compare with blog, Twitter brings grass roots and big shots even more closer.

These days I've been introducing Twitter to my friends, most of them start to get the fun of   "What Are You Doing?" and fall in love with this e-toy. It may not fit you, but why not have a try?

Few words from newcomer

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I’m writing this article with the title of "Few words from newcomer" for this is my first time of publishing article on ifgogo. But actually, I have been paid close attention to its updates since last May – when I knew AW via our university BBS. I think maybe due to my openness towards different cultures and long-term internship experience abroad, AW kindly invited me to be an author of ifgogo.

At the beginning, I considered ifgogo as a platform of introducing Chinese culture to Foreigners who're fascinated by its long history and rich heritage. Later, I found its authors focus more on describing the ways of life and inside thoughts of modern Chinese. After face-to-face talking with AW last week, I got more in-depth understanding toward the purpose of this website. As he told me, ifgogo is a freely-communicating platform which you can deliver whatever you want on it without restrictions of article styles or contents.

In terms of personality, I'm an outgoing person who would like to try everything that is fresh to me and share affecting details in life with friends. If you want to know more about me, just search "Monica Gao" on facebook or favourite this page.

Haha, I found what I have wrote already far ran out of “few words”!

So, hope to have nice talking with your guys on ifgogo and I will be OFFICIALLY starting my ifgogo-writings in the near future:), I promise!

The following is my pic which took in Wroclaw of Poland, 2007.

Hello Everyone @ ifgogo

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Hi, this is Joshua Guan from Wuhan, China, now a graduate student of Computer Science in Huazhong University of Science And Technology. I'll spend last few months at school then go to Shanghai to start my career this July. So maybe my good days left won't be long :)

As an engineering student, most of my time is on technical things, but I don't wanna be that technical but more social, as a result I am also doing a lot of other interesting things, like BBS, SNS and blogging. Love all kinds of music, from Jazz to extreme metal music. Seldom watch TV, except for my favorite NBA. Used to read and write a lot, have dreamed to be a novelist. I have lots of interests, lots of dreams and lots of passions, so it won't be hard for anyone to find something in common with me, and be friends.

Seeing old friends and new friends here,  I'm willing to share my life and ideas with you all.  Many thanks to aw again for his hard work.

In the next post I will share something on using Twitter for fun.

Welcome to my Chinese blog:

Blogger (Blogspot) - newutopianblue

Also welcome to follow me on Twitter:

My Twitter

Bu Zhe Teng

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"Bu Zhe Teng" is a slogan (buzzword?) proposed recently by the Communist Party leader, Hu Jintao. In Chinese, it is usually used in Beijing dialect (yes, Beijing dialect is different than Mandrin, even they share most of the vocabularies)

There are some translations for this weird word. For instance, here are some from Xinhua News:

Do not toss
No dithering
Do not flip flop
Don't mess around
Do not sway back and forth
Do not bugger about pointlessly
Do not do much ado about nothing
Do not do something over and over again, and to little effect

I guess you get the idea.

Well, I just want to say a very "Zhe Teng" (Bu in Chinese means no) thing I encounted recently.

I was planning a trip to China with my girlfriend this summer. She is American, so she needs a visa. Here is the policy for Americans [1].

Ⅱ.How to apply
1.You may submit the application to the Visa Office of the Embassy or Consulate -General which holds consular jurisdiction over the state where you reside;
2.If you cannot come in person, you may entrust someone else or a travel/visa agent to drop off your application at the visa office of the Embassy or Consulate -General which holds consular jurisdiction over the state where you reside;
▲No appointment is required.
▲Mailed applications are not acceptable and will be returned.
▲Mail back service is available (make sure you read INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLICATION MAIL SERVICE) .

And the obnoxious table [2]:

Ⅳ.Visa fees
1.Please pay by Visa, MasterCard, Money Order, Cashier's Check, Company Check or Cash.Personal checks are not acceptable.
2.Please make the check or money order payable to the Chinese Embassy or Chinese Consulate-General.
3.Fee list:

Number of Entry

American

Citizens of other countries

Single Entry

$130

$30

Double Entry

$130

$45

Multiple Entry for 6 Months

$130

$60

Multiple Entry for 12 Months

$130

$90

Multiple Entry for 24 Months

$130

$90

My girlfriend was really frustrated because for her, she never has to go to the embassy to get the visa. She has been to several countries, and China is the only one that needs "in person" visa application.  Also, she asked me, were there any differences between U.S. citizens and the citizens of other countries? Why American needed to pay $130 and they only needed to pay $30 for a single entry?

I told my girlfriend that China does not welcome you, and she told me that "your government is messing around". What an excellent translation of "Bu Zhe Teng"!

[1,2]: http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/hzqz/zgqz/t84246.htm

Family Day in Edmonton

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The second weekend of February is the Family Day in Canada. This festival reminds people to cherish the time sharing with their families. Therefore, there are kinds of activities you can bring your whole family in. 

This year, the Edmonton Folk Arts Council (EFAC) held a dancing show named "Dance From Around the World" to celebrate the Family Day with families from different countries. Since I myself is my "whole family" in Canada, I also went to the Winspear Center at the downtown to watch people dancing.

theater

theater2

Althghou this show was free and opened to everybody, it was not crowded as I imagined in the theater. Look, there were even some empty seats at the second floor. 

lady

The lady said "Let's celebrate the Family Day!" So I would say "Let's look at beautiful dancings~" :P

openning

The first dance,  every dancing group sent a few actor or actress to dance in this part. Since they wears different traditional clothes, it looks like "People from all of the world are one family." That's nice~ :)

spain

Spainish dacing

chinese

This one...hmmm... the Chinese dancing, which is in Xinjiang style.

india

A Dance presented by India children. They are the youngest actresses in today's performance, but they really danced very well.  :D

Huge fire burning near CCTV headquarter building on Feb 9

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It's Chinese Lantern Festival today, but we've got a very bad ending tonight: A huge fire striked the CCTV (China Central Television) headquarter buildings (actually the North wing building), around 9:10 PM. Chinese Twitter users reported this and uploaded photos to Google docs at the very first time.

Update: This video is from Youku, a very important evidence by a witness at the very first time:

Here're some photos from the Google Doc.

 

People were watching and worried about the situation:

Two video clips from Youku:

Well, if you've been living in China, especially in Beijing, you would heard of the custom about fireworks/firecrackers – it originated thousands of years ago, and it's still very popular among elder Chinese people. I can even hear firecrackers from almost everywhere when I write this post in Wuhan, 10PM, Feb 9.

As the population goes up, the security issues are also a big problem! Cat Chen, an author of us also wrote something about this early in 2008. I'm also looking forward to some more reasonable but restricted policies for the firecrackers in China.

Wish everyone a safe, happy Chinese Lantern Festival!

Update:

Zhang Jianyong, a fire fighter from Hongmiao Fire department died in this accident. He was born on Feb 26, 1979, from Shenyang, capital of northeastern Liaoning Province. It is really a big sorrow that there're only weeks to go for his 30th birthday!

May He Rest In Peace!

I ... LOST... my homework

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Maybe most of us told our teachers some lies about our homework when we were kids,  such as "My dog ate my homework" or "I left it at home" , or even more simple one "I lost it". When a little pupil becomes a college student,  what would he say to his TA if he found he can not answer some questions?

When I was grading assignments of my students, I saw an answer to one question like this:

"I have no idea where to start here and I didnt go to my lab because Lost is on that night and we all know that Lost is god and if you dont take a holiday when it is aired the Island will smite you. If however you could send me an email about interpreting the word with more clarity than the question hint you would be cool and stuff."

I could not keep myself from laughing though I knew I was in the lab that should be a quiet place. It seems after years of school training, students can make much "better" excuses for their assignments, although sometimes these excuses make me feel a little ... lost.

Unfortunately, I had to write a comment to this Lost fan: I am afraid you will lose mark of this question because you are really LOST. :P

How the Chinese bloggers use a creative way to express

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It's been discussed that the censorship in China would come to a climax for some special reasons this year. And actually, the anti-vulgarity movement early in 2009 has showed how they can dominate our internet. Even Google was branded as the most vulgar site in China due to its image search results. It sounds ridiculous but that's the very current situation here: if you got some naked girls on your web page, no matter where it is from (eg, uploaded by registered users or externally back-linked in search results), your site could be judged "vulgar".

As our servers were host in China, I have to check and review the posts and comments on ifgogo carefully to avoid "being harmonized", but some smart bloggers here found some very interesting way to express their attitude to this ridiculous anti-vulgarity movement, here're some interesting pictures from Douban:

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