Kevin Miller: GeneralThis is the general category for items to be postedYunnan Coffee tastes like sherry wine- May 29, 2003 (For the title reference, see: http:www.doctorjazz.freeserve.co.ukpage17.html and see the paragraph right after the picture of Jelly Roll Morton). One of my discoveries this trip is Yunnan Coffee, packaged by the Yunnan Coffee company (http:www.sinohost.comyncoffee) and sold in the large supermarkets in Beijing that sell exotic foreign goods like paper towels. They sell vacuum-packed bags of ground coffee; I've only gotten the espresso roast and made it in a French press coffee-maker, but..http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/29.html#a41 5-25 Self-esteem holiday- May 29, 2003 The picture below comes from the May 25th Self-esteem holiday, something that's less popular than the May 1 Workers' Day or the June 1 Children's Day holidays. The sign says: May 25, University psychological health holiday group counseling recruiting I saw a videotape of the activity itself, although I didn't see it in person. Faculty and groups of students sat at tables along the main street students pass to go to meals or the post office. I'm not completely clear on what they were doing,...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/29.html#a40 Attribution in the wired world- May 29, 2003 Below is the cover of a magazine I bought a few years ago in Changsha, Hunan. It's a good example of malicious translation (the Chinese title means something like "Weekend Literature Collection" or more colloquially, "Readers Digest", although that name might be taken). I use that image in a slide in courses where I talk to students about plagiarism. I've recently discovered that it's easy to use Google to search for someone else's Powerpoint slides on a given topic, by including "ppt" with a..http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/29.html#a39 The pause that refreshes- May 28, 2003 One problem with email is that it's too fast. Chris Sells describes how to set up an automatic pause before email is sent (e.g., 1 or more minutes), which is pretty straightforward (http:www.sellsbrothers.comspoutsavingYourCareer) If you use Outlook XP, the procedure works like this: Tools->Rules Wizard New Start From A Blank Rule Check messages after sending Which condition(s) do you want to check -> None This rule will be applied to every message you send. Is this correct -> Yes.http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/28.html#a38 The mystery of the Passby bar (continued)- May 26, 2003 I've now posted some pictures of the pailou outside the PassBy Bar in Beijing, a very pleasant courtyard bar, restaurant, internet bar, and lending library. It appears that it really, though, is a front for a child clinical psychology operation. Here's the picture: The sign on the left says: "Chinese Academy of Sciences Psychology Research InstituteCounseling psychology research training center" The sign on the right is partially occluded, so here's a picture just of that side: It says:...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/26.html#a37 It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future- May 26, 2003 The quote is attributed to Yogi Berra (http:www.famous-quotes-and-quotations.comyogi-berra-quotes.html). It comes to mind because of two books I've been reading. One is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling (I wouldn't recommend them), but I was struck by this passage in a story featuring an automobile: "A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away. Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, and the door of the...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/26.html#a36 Language learning- May 25, 2003 Friday night we went to dinner with two friends who work at the Institute of Psychology. Because of SARS, we haven't seen them nearly as much in the last month as usual, and they've mostly stayed at home and worked from there. Their Institute is being extensively renovated during this time, so it would have been closed anyway. But many of their students have gone back to their home towns and the rest have not had a good place to work or much to do. For some reason, they'd gotten the impression..http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/25.html#a35 Strange Convergence- May 25, 2003 One of the interesting things about living in China is the ready access to recorded music and video. Certainly some of it is pirated, although it's a bit difficult to figure out. I think the US recording industry is really making a mistake in pricing its products as high as they do -- I think people in the US would be happy to buy DVDs of their favorite movies and TV shows instead of renting them. Perhaps they do and I just missed out on it, just like it took me a long time to figure out that...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/25.html#a34 Update- May 23, 2003 UPDATE -- Last night I found a great billboard to go with the comments at the end of this, so it's now enclosed below: With every passing day, life in Beijing is slowly getting back to normal. Yesterday, my wife and I biked downtown and came back along the second ring road, in the midst of the sort of traffic jam we haven't seen for a month. I can think of two exceptions. The first is that young children are really seldom to be seen on the streets (there was a good article describing...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/23.html#a32 Life in China -- courtesy of John Pasden of www.sinosplice.com- May 20, 2003 For reasons perhaps best left unexplained, I found the page below to be completely hilarious. The pictures were taken from the "ready.gov" anti-terrorism preparation site in the U.S., and adapted to local conditions by John Pasden, an American teaching English at Zhejiang University in beautiful Hangzhou. http:www.sinosplice.comchinapictguide.html Given the way the pictures were chosen, I found the entry corresponding to "If you're coming to China, I hope you're not too tall. That can be...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100066/categories/general/2003/05/20.html#a31 |