The Shrill Voice of False Western Hope

The Olympics have ended, but that doesn’t mean that the hopes and dreams that came with it have. At least, not the hopes and dreams that the “West,” or at least the western media had for China.

Yes, the Olympics have ended but that doesn’t mean that the population has suddenly “awakened” or is now “agitated” or any other of the popular descriptions that the press is using to say why it must be “inevitable” that democracy must sweep across China, or at the very least, the Communist Party would have to make concessions—after all, if memory serves, isn’t that what they used to say about China even before the Olympics?

The fact of the matter is that the Chinese population, upon the end of the Olympics, now feels a sense of pride and confidence that they did not have before. Beyond that, they feel proud of their achievements and what they showed the world during the Olympics—compare that to before when even the population was scared that upon China’s grand entrance into the world stage would be marked more by embarrassing laughter instead of crowning awe.

No, it’s not likely right now that the Chinese are very angry or “agitated” against their Communist “masters.” (more…)

Posted on August 27th, 2008
Filed under: Politics by James Wang

The Buzz

Source: Wikimedia Commons

There’s been quite a bit of discussion on the blogosphere about Google’s recently launched service, Knol.

Basically, Knol is meant to be a Wikipedia-like site where users post articles. The difference is that these articles feature authors (who have a persistent identity on the site) prominently—thus encouraging authorities on various subjects to write about them.

However, the current complaints about Knol have primarily been some variation of these two:

1. Knol is a Wikipedia killer, and is meant to start knocking wiki results off of Google top searches.
2. Google is attempting to self-promote and is placing its own Knol content above other, longer-standing, and more authoritative content in searches.

I have little doubt, personally, that the first point is true. (more…)

Posted on August 8th, 2008
Filed under: Science & Tech by James Wang

Major Sitework

Google Analytics tells me that a surprising number of people (more than I expected, anyhow) are actually visiting and reading this blog, so I feel that I should let everyone know that I’m trying to do some major sitework at the moment, so posting has been slow.

Overall, my main goals in this overhaul are these:

1. Make it easier to find interesting articles, especially I write more. This is my overarching goal in this rework.
2. Create a front-page with major categories, recent articles, and featured content. This goes along with the first point, though is more specific.
3. Update the sidebar to be more useful in navigation and finding interesting articles. Perhaps have Adsense be less prominent or deemphasized, especially since I’m not looking to make much off of it (originally, I was hoping it would offset some hosting costs).

After this, I expect to be posting at a far more rapid clip, especially since I’m deliberately designing the site in a way where it will look very odd if I do not. Think of it as self-motivation, on my part. (more…)

Posted on August 7th, 2008
Filed under: Off-Beat by James Wang