Monthly Archives: June 2009
Obama loves his Blockberry
I don’t have the strength or wherewithal to blog about yet another block, so instead of talking about the blocked/not-blocked status of Google today in the PRC, I thought I’d go instead with a bit of levity. Fortunately China’s shanzhai culture never leaves a man wanting for a chuckle, and it is especially amusing when …
Green Dam Youth Escort: A Summary of the Holey Harlot
Not since the release of Windows Vista has such a poorly designed, expensively developed, non-mandatory but strongly encouraged, scenically sounding piece of software created such a buzz as has Green Dam Youth Escort.
The new was-said-to-be-mandatory-but-now-isn’t-and-maybe-never-was software, produced for the Chinese Government as a way to protect the world’s most massive population from the evils of fairer skin tones, has everyone up in arms.
Harmonization goes one step further, soon to be on all Chinese PCs
Well, it’s June 9–five days after that anniversary of events that “never happened”–and Internet access is limping back to normal here in the PRC. Twitter is unblocked and Flickr is… erm… flickering back to normal. YouTube and Blogspot are still out, but maybe those switches are in a different GFW building or something. I’ll be patient.
And just as the sun was beginning to shine on my online experience, I get this news:
Chinese block darn near everything ahead of Tiananmen Anniversary
I intentionally try to keep things apolitical here on The Tech Dynasty. This is a tech blog, and politics have little to do with the wonderfully utopian world of technology.
However, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention what an absolute pain in the butt living in China can be when anything remotely controversial pops up. This Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the violent suppression of the student-led demonstrations of 1989, putting everyone in the upper echelons of Chinese politics on edge.
Blog redesign, take 5-ish
As will be apparent to everyone reading this, sans feed readers, the blog is undergoing a bit of reconstructive surgery. Please bear with me as I juggle the redesign of the site with “real” work. I had nothing against the last design (despite it borrowing 5 bucks and not paying it back), but after having …
