Themeless Ramblings

Twitter Wordles!

2010-01-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

Some fun word graphics made from my Twitter messages. The bigger a word, the more often it's been used in things I say on Twitter. Apparently I'm posting a lot of pictures. twitter.com/415 to find me there, or I think I'll go find a sidebar widget to add now... I found this by using tweetstats.com which lead me to wordle.com... thanks @dacort!

More Facinating Map Data

2010-01-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

A friend forwarded me a remarkable heat map interactive article from the NY Times the other day, layering Netflix rental queue data to United State Post Office zip code for a display of movie popularity. The article is here. What's interesting to me about this is what the rental trends say about socio-economic data, and how big enough computers with the right data sets can know far too much about us. I don't think most organizations public OR private, are entirely that clever yet about how they target their marketing spend (corporation) or analysis cycles (three-letter government agency), but I bet I would be shocked to see the level of detail this data IS currently being analyzed under. Makes me want to sleep with a tin-foil hat on to protect my thoughts!

I looked over the Netflix developer API site briefly I don't think this is public data on rental trends, so Netflix must have collaborated with the article author to show us all something interesting. Also, you have to take into account this si RENTAL data... so a movie may have been extremely popular in the theater for a zip code's population, but very seldom rented.

Here is an example from the article map mash up. This is a picture of the movie, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and it's popularity in the Bay Area. The more red a zip code, the higher it rated on the collective Netflix queue's of that zip code's population. If a zip code is white, the movie did not appear in the top 50 movie queues for that zip.

So this is already pretty interesting. Based on what demographic information I know about the area simply by living here, I can easily WAY over-generalize this and say this movie was vastly more popular with Caucasians. Of course the more meaningful analysis is when you can interpret the other direction, saying zip code XYZ is going to be interesting in movie ABC. Movie studios spend tons of money on this kind of data. Even more meaningful is when you can infer some things about one map, use that inference to make politically incorrect over generalizations, then apply those same over generalizations to another set of zip codes.

More interesting are other movies which are telling on other dimensions. I'm not very politically correct anyway, so I'm happy to suggest that this picture of rental trends from the movie, "Milk" tells us interesting things about public opinion of homosexuality:

Especially as compared to say, the same movie and it's respective popularity in Dallas for example:

Or this picture of the Bay Area, which counter-intuitively tells us the movie, "The Proposal" was not very popular with well educated single people:

Cyrillic Alphabet

2010-01-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

After traveling to places in the last year like Egypt and China where I listen to the language and honestly can't even tell where one word starts and the next one begins - let alone decipher any meaning whatsoever... it's surprisingly easy to get along in Moscow with zero Russian language knowledge at all. There are certain tricks that any experienced traveler knows (such as buffet restaurants can be your best friend), and many of people at least in urban Moscow actually speak pretty good English. But as strange looking as the Cyrillic alphabet is to the English speaker's eye it's actually not that complex. There's a one to one mapping of many characters to our alphabet, and if you simply ignore the extra letters they have (Cyrillic has 32 letters) - you can sound out the word and hazard a pretty good guess at what's the meaning much of the time. Between Raffy's Swiss-German, my (abysmal) Spanish, and our collective English - there's plenty of overlap with Russian nouns if you keep it phonetic. (see above how "coffee" translates... circle with a line through sounds like "fee").

Anyway back to California tomorrow - excited to not have to wear six layers of clothes to head outside in minus 10 C weather! What a great trip!

Merry (Orthodox) Christmas from Russia

2010-01-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

I guess I didn't really realize until this trip to Moscow how recently - in relative terms - religious freedom was expressed in Russia. Only in 1992 was Christmas first (again) openly celebrated. Prior to 1992, Christmas was banned from open/public celebration since the communist rule took over in 1917. So only for the last twenty years has Christmas been openly celebrated, which makes it interesting to be here at this point.

January 7th is the date Christmas is celebrated because of a discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. While most of the world today runs on the more accurate Gregorian calendar, until Pope Gregory XIII put this forth in 1582 most of the world ran on the Julian calendar. The America's adopted the Gregorian calendar in the 1800's, the Russian government adopted the Gregorian calendar in the early 1900's. The older Julian calendar is still the one the orthodox church follows - hence Christmas is celebrated on January 7th.

We went to an Orthodox mass last night which was pretty cool. It's mostly singing and chanting in Russian language which we did not understand but was very beautiful to listen to. Interestingly most of the Russians attending service did not understand the language either. The formal church language is a much older version of Russian language which is mostly not spoken today and is not understood by most Russian people. I gather this is like attending a Roman Catholic service in the United States where the priests talk in Latin.

Christmas is otherwise much the same in Russia, presents and meals with family and the Christmas Tree. Kids get presents from a "Grandfather Frost" called Ded Moroz. Much like Santa, except he wears blue, and has a helper/assistant who is in fact a blond attractive young woman purportedly his granddaughter Snegurochka. While Europe and elsewhere have a "father winter" character - Snegurochka is uniquely Russian (former USSR-wide actually).

So it's a special treat for me to have one Christmas in the United States this year with my family in Seattle, and another in Russia with the people of Moscow (and my friend/ travel buddy Raffy). It was snowing all day today and was a beautiful day and a white Christmas. Merry Christmas from Moscow!

Московский Кремль (The Kremlin)

2010-01-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

Saw the Kremlin this afternoon. It's primary attractions are a museum, a cluster of maybe 10 different cathedrals you can kinda make out on Google Maps here, and the grounds overall. You can't get very close to where Dmitry Medvedev lives, but it is one of the buildings within the walled campus area. You can see the senate building, but from where you can see it there were 15 armed guards (that I could see)... so they are pretty serious about, "you're not coming near here."

The museum, "The Armory" has actual carriages from 1600's and 1700's which were pretty cool to see, and suits of armor from 600 years ago, but photographs are not allowed. Same with the cathedrals, no photos. Being one who enjoys evaluating controls and countermeasures first hand (also someone who doesn't understand the "no cameras" signs when they are written in Russian), I did take some pictures anyway - but got kicked out of a cathedral yesterday due to non-compliance with the no camera rule and also the no gloves rule I kinda missed at the entrance. SO, I have only a few pictures from the outside of the Kremlin to show you from today. You'll have to come check it out yourself sometime! (I recommend July... brrr....!)

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

2010-01-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

Pretty interesting this cathedral we visited today was entirely deconstructed during the communist rule after the death of Lenin, and rebuilt from scratch starting in 1994. To look at it today it would appear a several-century-old building, but in fact the site spent 60 of the last 80 years as a swimming pool. Wikipedia is my best friend when I travel. Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It is interesting to visit a place as tourist, experience it with sounds, smells and sight that a camera can't capture - then look it up back in the hotel and read about it's history.

Red Square

2010-01-03T18:21:00.000-08:00

It has become painfully obvious that I have to invest in a new compact digital camera to replace the Leica D-LUX4 I decided to crash test last year - by seeing how well holds up to falling out of your backpack on the freeway and getting run over by a F250 (not well). However my currently... um... seven or so year old Pentax Optio S5i does still manage a moderate picture about once every three tries... so here's a couple pictures from Red Square last night.

Moscow is gearing up for Christmas on January 7th, Russian Orthodox follows the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar adopted by much of the West and also the Russian government. So the city feels like Christmas, with trees and lights and shoppers out.

Hi There Moscow

2010-01-03T05:36:00.000-08:00

Just got into Moscow, Russia this morning for a week of vacation. It's going to be around zero degrees Fahrenheit all week, not sure if this was well timed from a weather perspective BUT I fortunately have brought nearly every sweater, scarf, mitten, coat and stocking cap I own... so I should be set. We got in this morning, took a train to the hotel right next to Red Square, shuffled out to get lunch (hot soup tastes exponentially better when it's freezing) and are napping before heading out to ice skate in Red Square this evening.

Moscow is shockingly expensive (that's saying a lot - I live in San Francisco). Four coffees cost 1,400 Rubles ($60 USD), cheap lunch for three was about $45, a maybe eight minute cab ride was $40. Fortunately I flew here for free using miles, and hotel was also paid for with points... so I might end up for the week about what it would cost to spend a week at home if I am careful.

The city strikes me as terribly modern as any US or European city. High end retail, very expensive cars, road infrastructure is difficult to gauge since the entire city is covered in ice and snow... ha, ha. I am surprised by the European influence on architecture. My mind's eye pegged Moscow for very drab buildings with little windows, concrete everywhere and simple block forms. Instead there are curves and mixed modern with several hundred year old buildings, a beautiful city on a river... feels a lot like Prague but stretched out with more space between everything. Excited to check out some of the beautiful bridges tomorrow. If I can figure out how to get a camera driver downloaded over this paltry Internet connection I'll post up pictures tomorrow too.

Mail Data Charted

2009-12-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

Some interesting albeit fairly useless graphs detailing my corporate mail behavior. Since I'm typically actually communicating most of the time via several additional channels: personal email accounts (x3) , twitter messages, SMS, phone/voice... this is really only one angle on my overall productivity, however it's fun to look at nonetheless. Clearly I started my current job in about May, and didn't really get going for a couple weeks, and from there have continued to ramp productivity. December data is a little strange too since the holidays and also we're only half through December as of this post. This data comes from Outlook plug in xobni (inbox backwards), the free version. I'm going to start tracking these statistics more often and see if I can plot any of this is more meningful ways to reveal insights about how I communicate, or productivity enhancing strategy. For example I clearly hang up the computer around 5PM, eat and or go running, then jump back on email for a bit between 7 and 10. But perhaps I can find more time in the early AM? Looks like I'm taking a while to get going in the morning... or is this simply because my earliest 6AM meetings are typically web conferences where I'm not sending mail... Time and further analysis will tell. For now? Here's some charts!

More Map Data

2009-12-19T09:32:00.001-08:00

The owner/creator of wheredoyougo.net sent me a note on Twitter, telling me he fixed some bugs and I could run my maps again for different result, which proved to be true, so I made more maps of other cities. I present Miami, Chicago and Plano for your enjoyment. It would be fun to see the whole US, or have the ability to mash up the entire Foursquare database (all users or all users opted in to wheredoyougo.net anyway), or selectively layer two users onto each other. I'm real excited about all the convergence of social media and location based services, there is so much more to do here. Location aware services like Latitude, Brightkite, Loopt, Foursquare, even possibly Twitter - wherever someone can assemble the platform and mostly the community - there are so many cool, intersting and mostly profitable things to do with currently disparate data.

Playing with Foursquare Data

2009-12-18T17:42:00.001-08:00

Possibly the coolest thing I've seen in a while, or maybe I've had too many cookies today and the sugar is overwhelming. Either way, here are maps provided by wheredoyougo.net mashing up Google Maps and my Foursquare check in data. Which raises all kinds of privacy questions about public data, but fortunately I'm not checking in to Foursquare when making crimes happen, so I'm in the clear. Really though, say you've got the Patriot Act giving you rights to all kinds of non-public data, and the computing power and programming staff of Fort Meade, and the budget of the defense department...

I've hypothesized for ages about GPS cell data getting into the wrong hands. Think insurance companies deciding I'm a single man, living in the Bay Area, so my insurance premiums should be higher because statistically I'm more likely to be gay than someone living in say Kansas, so therefore higher risk for HIV statistically, so my health insurance premiums should be 9x higher. *shudder* These are heat maps, obviously showing my favoritism for San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) neighborhoods!

Cutting Apples Out of Your Diet

2009-12-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

Let me start by saying I'm technology agnostic, and have no special place in my heart for Microsoft or Google, but I'm just plain tired of trying to avoid Apple's stranglehold. My primary beef with Apple is their philosophy of "pretty but restricted" delivery of technology. I will give the user a simple software and player to deliver music, but I will control it with digital rights management limitations, and I will force you onto my platform.

I bought my first .mp3 player in 2003 to run with my music. iPod's were nowhere at the time, and to load files onto my player I simply dragged .mp3's onto the player drive and viola! Oh, and it had an FM radio. Then Apple comes onto the market and I can hardly find good players like the original SanDisk Sansa's out there any longer. Transferring, synching and organizing my music in the iPod universe stipulates that I use iTunes. Thanks, I don't need a software application to load music onto a (portable) hard drive. A friend just spend two days trying to figure out how to back up and migrate a music library HE PURCHASED legitimately to a new home media server.

The biggest challenge getting off Apple creates to me personally is the ecosystem they have created around their devices. If all my friends use iPhones, it's must harder for me to live in an iPhone world and simply make my own mobile device choice and co-exist with everyone around me. I loathe restrictions. Simply. Period. I don't want to be locked down to any service plan, application controls, synching/ loading software, etc. I have owned an iPhone and a 3G iPhone, but find my current Blackberry Bold better in many ways. And none of these gave me the mobile computing features that plain old Windows 5 on my Blackjack or Blackjack II gave me. And none of these gave me the simply pleasurable user experience that I had with my old Motorola Razr.

I guess my basic point is this: I'm elated to see the suite of new mobile devices emerge on the market lately: Droid and Pre and Pixie and HTC touch phones and others. I think I am starting to feel the "walled garden" approach to Apple's stranglehold lessen. The basic philosophy of, "I will limit you but make your user experience very nice" has always seemed very, "master planned community" and very, "dumb it down for the masses with cute icons" and, "mediocre is good enough for you because I'll make it simple." It's like eating at Applebee's... it's never going to completely fail, but it's also guaranteed to never be a 10 out of 10. And I personally find mediocre very boring.

Technology follows trend, and we saw a similar approach to Internet access with AOL in the early days of dial up. "let me control your experience but make things simple for you" eventually gave way to, "hey, I don't need you to get on the Internet and I rather an unrestricted experience, thank you very much." I'm watching from the sidelines and silently praying for a flight to quality, and this either driving draconian technology philosophies away, or giving birth to a new era of diminished controls. I'll be watching, eating my popcorn, cheering the release of each new Android phone release, hoping for a comeback of Windows Mobile, and periodically dusting off my pile of discarded iPods I refuse to sell on eBay because it's my duty to keep them out of circulation in the spirit of liberating the music and general freedom from oppression.

Quitting Your Mailbox

2009-12-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

Much to the amusement of my creditors, I maintain a virtual Post Office Box in another state that has no physical mailbox attached to it. This is a service I pay for (about $5/month...) that receives my hard copy mail for me, scans it into an account I can view online, and I can click to make payments. Where e-payment can't be set up, they will print a physical check and mail it out to creditors. Besides the security advantages of using a different billing zip code from my physical address that is semi-secret, and the security advantages of not having to shred all the sensitive mail that comes to my USPS mailbox, there is a significant time and headache saving to not having mail show up at my house any longer! I've used this service for maybe ten years after getting turned on to it by a friend, and it's still the best $5 I spend every month. Also, having just moved... there were surprisingly few monthly statements I had to migrate addresses for (and most of those I was able to perform a quick five minute online address update for).

Oh, Silly Technology

2009-12-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

Recently moving 15 miles North, in effort to get closer to SFO and the city San Francisco itself, I'm also starting to migrate my phone number to a Google Voice interface. Basically how it work is I get a call to this virtual number, it then calls all the other numbers I have registered with it (cell, home, office, home office, etc.) at the same time. Then I answer the call wherever I am. This is all configurable from a web-based user interface. I also get a transcript of the voice messages left either via email or text message - whatever I configure on the web interface. All in all pretty cool, Google likes this (free) service because they can now add voice dialog to their advertising platform, and intelligently serve me links and advertisements based on content I exchange via voice.

Voice to text transcription technology came first onto the market in the 90's. Hollywood gave us dreams of simply talking to our computers (think Star Trek) in full duplex and having intellectual intercourse. Then the PC became quite ubiquitous and we all learned to type probably as fast or faster than we talk, or at least harness our thoughts with (fewer) characters than syllables, and enter the era of text communication, IM, SMS, social media and other latin character visual letters trading. However this technology never really evolved to the point of reliability. We have all spent time talking to customer support queues through the phone yelling, "AGENT!" to try and get a live human on the phone, as the computer fails to properly recognize our words when spoken.

Now the security and privacy implications of this, particularly in a corporate setting, are an entirely different topic for another day. I would however like to share (a) one amusing exchange, and (b) one useful exchange I've had in the last 24 hours:

Amusing: My friends voice messages always sound like a two-year-old talking jibberish. Last night a caller said, "I called you back on your Google Voice but don't trust it so calling here. I'm home now. Bye." Now the text message I got was, "Can you give me back in your google voice but thanking courses. It's a good tax. Misfigure started now I'm home. Bye." The irony of this error is not lost on me.

Score: hilarity - ONE; usefulness - ZERO.

Useful: While on a conference call this morning I dodged a call to my cell phone. One minute later I got a text message, with a transcription of the voice message I had just been left:

"Hi Good Morning Quinton, This is [landlord's assistant] calling from [landlord's company] in South San Francisco. I am just calling because [landlord] was leaving. How many notice that your car was parked on the right side of. I guess Dayton avenue today and it's street. We need to face will give you a ticket if you don't move your car before they get there. Anyway, I hope you get this message before then. If you have any questions give me a call back (yyy) zzz-xxx and my extension is 101. Thanks. Quinton bye bye."

As you might guess, this is not quite exactly what the message said verbatim, but was enough for me to get the point, "move your car ASAP or you're getting a ticket." I raced out and moved my car, and avoided getting a parking ticket for street cleaning.

Score: Google Voice, transcription technology, SMS technology, [landlord & assistant] and Quinton - ONE; parking ticket police - ZERO.

Online Dating

2009-11-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

I guess I have to back up at some point and explain online dating, how we got here, what that experience has been like. I started with online dating when this was a very taboo thing. Before television adds and billboards to help make this mainstream, probably it was 2001. At that point, this was a very fringe activity, and surely my friends who I told thought I was surely going to end up being the victim of human trafficking. Which amuses me - I mean meeting random people happens all day in my regular routine: cab drivers, people on the airplane, people I meet at the grocery store...

Meeting them via online methods doesn't really change much related to safety. Actually, if anything I might argue having an online window into someone is perhaps more insightful to safety issues than meeting them via brick-and-mortar methods in many cases.
I've tried most of the major online dating sites over the years. Mostly this has been interesting when I've moved to a new area and wanted to meet more people generally - for friends or activity partners or for dating if there happened to be chemistry. Hotornot, eHarmony, Match.com, Plenty of Fish, Dating DNA, Ok Cupid. I've met some great people, had fun dates, occasionally met someone who I ended up dating, others who I just became friends with. All in all it's been extremely positive experiences. Also some fun (and crazy) stories.

One of the most interesting things to come of online dating lately is from my overall favorite online dating site: Ok Cupid. They have all kinds of interesting data on their users, and they have started publishing some very interesting metrics at their blog: blog.okcupid.com This is one of my favorite blogs to read lately. Also I get these clever emails with random facts about my preferences or compatibility. The latest installment of this is shown in this post - they've mapped my compatibility scores with the averages across US States and also other countries, taking into account my stated "must haves" and "can't stands" and also other dimensions of preference I have specified (likes dogs or education levels or whatever). Look out South Korean women... here I come! Ha, ha, ha.

AFM Round 7 Race Results and Season Recap

2009-09-24T06:34:00.001-07:00

The final round of the AFM season was this last weekend at Sears Point aka Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. Reflecting on the race season, I can't help be feel overwhelmed with gratitude for my fortune and blessings to have means, health and luck to complete a race season with such success. Though the year I saw a couple very experienced racers cease their season-campaign due to life circumstance changes or unlucky track events, and many first year racers like me make race weekend appearances but not be able to consistently get out and compete. I didn't win any races this year - not a single one, and it may be some time before I could realistically compete at the level needed to podium in the varsity level races, and in no way does this hamper my feeling of success with this season overall. I was able to participate in 6 of the 7 total race weekends, and actually race in 5 of the 7 weekend races (missed one due to bike failure when I shattered my clutch at the Buttonwillow round early in the season). I'm healthy, learning safely how to ride quicker, finding people my same speed to compete with, making friends at the track, motivating some of my Saturday riding pals to get off the street and join me on the track, and amassing a great collection of race photos up here to share with you all!

So here's the performance stats. Last weekend at Sears Point I maintained 1:53's pretty much all weekend. Not my best laptimes at Infineon, but given the sordid state of my suspension rebuild and adjustment this was a great performance. For the season overall, I ended up with:

Clubman Heavyweight: 2 of 35
Open Production: 24 of 31
Open GP: 51 of 63

Keeping in mind that for the Open classes I only had two race weekends where I actually gridded up and competed, and this was my first race season... these stats are great year long rankings to build on for next year.

Next post will be about my quest for sponsorship and compiling my race goals for next year...

Exhilaration and Humility

2009-09-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

I guess the crash pictures I posted a couple weeks ago could be misleading if you don't ride bikes. I did have to do some minor repairs on my bike, but it was quite an insignificant wreck. If you ride for any length of time, eventually you're going to have a spill. My off lately was probably the 100% most ideal way to go down - low speeds and really not much damage to the bike.

I met a very fast kid at the track who's 20 years old and easily five seconds faster than me. He races at a national level. It's mind boggling to me how such a young guy could be so drastically faster than I am. I must have some 200,000 miles more than him under my belt in just general driving cars on freeways. If I ever think I'm starting to get fast on the track I'm going to think of this kid and realize how much I have to learn at this sport.

The final AFM race of this season in this weekend, wish me luck and if you live in Northern California come out to watch the races!

Doing a wheelie is not particularly fast, but it sure is funnnnnn! (pictures by Ditto at gotbluemilk)

Bikes, Bikes, Bikes

2009-09-02T07:09:00.001-07:00

Trying to satiate my interest in riding motorbikes lately - with business school over I'm getting out to the track quite often. I tried the famous-for-Nascar track Auto Club/ California Speedway in Fontanta, California two weeks ago, which was fun. I have one race left in the season back at Infineon Raceway September 20th and a few friends will be coming out to also grid up for their first race. Whatever will I post to my blog about after September and the riding season starts to go on ice till early 2010??? Here's a picture from Buttonwillow last weekend - I have somehow figured out how to keep my eyes open in pictures now. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

AFM Round 6 - Infineon Raceway

2009-08-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

Great race weekend. Last time I was at this track I bested 1:55, I got down to a 1:51 in the Open Production race which is my best ever. For Clubman Heavyweight I place third, which is also my position for the year in the class. With one race left this year mid-September I have a chance at finishing in the top three for the year in Clubman Heavyweight class. While this class is like the junior varsity for new racers, I feel pretty good about the race season so far having gotten out to the track as much as I have given the school and work commitments I've kept up. If I can put together a top three finish in the next Clubman Heavyweight race I will have a top three spot for the year - then it's on to strictly the varsity races next year (and a residency at the back of the pack... LOL). Here are some pictures from the weekend and a shot of the scoreboard which gets posted to afmracing.org after a couple days.

Anatomy of a Crash

2009-08-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Great weekend at Sears Point aka Infineon Raceway this weekend for AFM Round 6. I'll put up another post with more race results, I did quite well in two of my three races... I also laid the bike down in the Formula GP race. Pretty simple crash, I was on the front brakes too long into the turn trying to trail brake and the front washed out. Low speed tip over - no injury to person whatsoever and the bike is basically okay save small cosmetic blemishes. Joe at 4theriders photography got a great sequence of my sliding off the track which I submit here for your viewing pleasure! (Mom, don't watch!)

AFM Round 5 - Thunderhill

2009-08-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

Last race was at Thunderhill Raceway on July 12th. I'm now experiencing the aftermath of the dilemma I faced at the start of the season, knowing I would be too distracted with new job and finishing business school to really get competitive - and debated if I should start racing this year or just wait till next year. The two weeks leading up to this race I was stuck in Texas and Orange County for work, and China for business school - so didn't get the practice I wanted. Nevertheless I made good progress in laptimes and relative rank and finished mid-pack in the Clubman Heavyweight race! I learned I'm actually quite good at race starts, and got first off the line and led the race for three quarters of a lap till the leaders could get around me. The next race this weekend at Infineon should be exciting because if I can duplicate that start, I should be harder to get past on this tighter course. These screen shots show the race results and the lap time comparisons between me and the two leaders in the Clubman Heavyweight standings for the year.

Click here for race results from AFM round number 5

Click here for pictures from AFM round number 5

Language Barrier

2009-07-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

The Great Wall in China is about two hours outside downtown Beijing. The best way to get there is to hire a private driver. The cars are nicer than the cabs, very inexpensive (roughly $40 USD gets you a driver all day) and you have a better experience than a tour bus. But private drivers are less likely to speak English than a bus driver. In fact this was true in most of China - very little English spoken. And I do not speak any Mandarin. Which really isn't a problem, you simply have someone like the front desk at your hotel write out - in Chinese - directions to where you want to go on a slip of paper you hand to your cab or driver. But this doesn't really cover you when about one hour into a two hour trip you have to pee. And have no way to communicate this information to your driver. Well, unless your artistic ability is equal to mine, and you are capable of drawing a stick figure going pee. Showing this to your driver is bound to produce both laughter and a stop soon where you can have a brief biological break. Really quite funny.

Pictures from China - The Great Wall

2009-07-24T22:57:00.003-07:00

I'm back from China and have a couple posts in my drafts about the AFM race #5 and further posting about Beijing and Shanghai, for now here are a couple quick pictures from the Great Wall...

Enroute To Beijing

2009-07-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

-- Posted After Returning From Trip --

In Beijing for the next couple days then going to Shanghai Monday. Currently in taxi headed away from airport - the smog/haze is intense. It's roughly 100 degrees Ferenheit temperature. I'm strictly a tourist through the weekend, Monday is spent traveling, then next week I'm in a class at Fudan University.

My first impression of Beijing is surprise at how modern it is. I guess the GDP per capita stuff you read about is proof that numbers can lie... or at least they don't tell the whole story of this city. Beijing is very wealthy, on par with any US or European city I've visited. Clean, expensive cars, great roads, sprawling urban planning, a GREAT many tall buildings (there are 26B people in Beijing afterall), parks and greenways beside the roads.

I keep getting these travel books before I leave the country, then crack 'em open for the first time on the airplane. Which makes the first couple hours of my flight always very fun as I get excited for my trip. Here's what excites me about China:

- China sends 220 billion text messages a year
- It's probably illegal but I bet panda bear tastes good
- The terrain variety is baffling, from mountain borders shared with Nepal to the Muslim (yeah, when I think of China my mind doesn't jump to Muslim either) regions to the West borders shared with the -stans, desert/ tundra with camels toward Russia, sub-tropical rain forest to the East... it's boggling
- Would probaly like to spend five weeks here in a row at some future point to actually make a dent in the list of things one should see/ do/ eat/ experience in China - it's that big
- Agricultural areas with water buffalo and straw hat wearing rice farmers
- Old men who play mahjong and smoke pipes

Things I'll blog about in the next few days:

- Tienamen square
- Great wall
- Forbidden City
- Getting custom shirts for $15
- Getting a massage for $15
- The ensuing debauchery of 65 MBA students in their final school obligation

Access Denied (which in Chineese sounds like, silence)

2009-07-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

Just back from a week in China for a class at Fudan University - I have to post some updates soon but I'm behind since blogging is prohibited in China! Pictures to follow later this week...

This is not like the blocking in Dubai where you are presented with a blocked page and a link to the acceptable use policy. This is a much more sinister blocking. There's no error message or
little note acknowleging the Internet's success in connecting you but China's denial of your access. Pages simply do not resolve with no error message. Of course instantly upon figuring
this out I began testing other sites which are blocked, and how to get around this blocking.
Here are a couple other sites apparently China does not want Chinese people visiting:

- YouTube
- State Web for Nation of Taiwan (stat.gov.tw)
- Web for US Courts (uscourts.gov)
- This blog (race.fm) and all blogs actually
- US Marines (usmc.mil)
- UN News (unitednationsnews.com)

Proxying out encrypted does work, but since I'm not interested in testing exactly how much they care and what they do to you if detected, I'll skip sneaking around for this short trip.