Despite all the talk, all the late night sweats in Beijing, and all the curses from VPN-lagging China-based twitterers; it turns out Twitter and the PRC see more eye-to-eye than either side would have you believe.
The following is a screen capture by Nick (@riceagain), a Kiwi splitting his time between Taiwan and the Mainland, who noticed a peculiar phrasing when attempting to set the Twitter tweet location to “Taiwan”:
As I write this, I am listening to Radio Free Asia, a podcast which I subscribed to on iTunes with no hassle. After I finish writing this, I plan, just for shits and grins, to run a Google search on Liu Xiaobo and proclaim my love for a free Tibet on Twitter. When I first [...]
In my previous two posts I outlined how to get your computer connected to your TV and where to get some good media centre software, as well as the setup I’m using. I continue in this part with where to find things to watch on your newly setup HTPC (or how to justify the purchase of a new 2TB hard drive).
All of this setup was for naught if you don’t have decent stuff on your computer to watch. Here are a few sources to get you started in the wonderful world of digital media.
In my last post I explained how to get your computer connected to your TV and where to get some good media centre software. Before I share a few resources for getting content for your newly configured media centre, I thought I would talk a bit about my home setup and some of the more “advanced” tweaks you can make to get even more functionality and convenience from your HTPC (or HTMB, if you will).
First though, I’ll explain what I had been using until recently for a matter of comparison and diversity; as I’m sure many are stuck in apartments, like I was, without a decent TV.
If you’re like me you probably long-ago did away with the bland programming of CCTV9, the endless carousel of period dramas, and ever-more-annoying variety shows that China’s cable providers offer up. For some that means getting outside and getting a life. For people like me, that means finding better ways to get the entertainment I want when I want it.
This is part one of a three-part series I’ve wanted to put together for a while now outlining how to get better sources of entertainment while living in China. It intends to walk you through hooking up your computer to your TV, installing some media centre (HTPC) software, dishing out what my current HTPC setup is (so you may want to wait and read that before you rush out and buy any of the gear mentioned below), and finding some good sources of media.
This is clever.
So a few years ago Google enters China and is put under a global grilling lamp on whether or not it will adhere to local laws regarding censorship and its search results. Don’t Be Evil held for a little while, but 300+ million Chinese Internet users was bound to make anyone check their morals at the gate eventually. But then, after floundering around in the country for a few years, they largely said, “F this, we’re out!“.
So a few years ago Baidu enters the US market. That the search engine filters search results to suit Beijing goes relatively unnoticed, as does actual usage of the company for anything other than investment purposes. Routinely noise gets made about Baidu distributing copyrighted this and that, and Baidu just as routinely starts blocking access to those functions for visitors coming from outside of China. Happy medium.
Then today a couple folks in Flushing, NY, get a smart idea — if Google was forced to adhere to the laws of China while operating inside the country, shouldn’t Baidu have to adhere to the laws of the US while operating there?
Qiyi app for Android, shown on a Galaxy Tab
I’ve been enjoying my past few months of being a new Android user; but residing in China entails some frustrations and difficulties in getting the most out of your Google-powered smartphone – especially with regards a lack of paid apps support, and some popular apps missing from the Chinese version of the Android market. Here are a couple of solid – and legitimate – ways to tackle these two annoyances…
Usually I love living in China, thirstily drinking the kool-aid that this place is changing for the better, improving a little bit every day. Sure it has its warts, but compared to 5 years ago, 15 years ago, 35 years ago… it’s definitely improving — right?
Then Youtube gets blocked, Facebook and Twitter follow, as do pretty much all major UGC/SMS sites. Ok, ok, it’s a complete pain in the ass, seems totally backwards and is making the country look more like its paranoid DPRK neighbours than a major player on the world stage. But maybe things were getting a little too out of hand with free speach 2.0, and the whole system needed to be throttled a bit to keep Zhongnanhai comfortable with modernization.
But this is just getting ridiculous:
Shanghai Daily: The Chinese regulator has declared Internet phone services other than those provided by China Telecom and China Unicom as illegal, which is expected to make services like Skype unavailable in the country.
Back in 2008 I added a new feature to Lost Laowai called the “China Blog Network”, with the simple premise of creating a Webring for China blogs.
Membership consistently grew over the next year and a half, but the script that was handling the CBN was beginning to buckle under the pressure. Wanting a more stable environment, as well as a more expansive and expandable set of features, I began work in my free time on migrating the CBN to its own Web site.
And while I am still flattening a few kinks and shooing a couple assiduous gremlins out of the system, I’d like to officially announce the launch of The China Blog Network (dot com).
I was randomly browsing the Apple App Store and came across “China Trip Planner“. The app is put out by the state-run China Radio International (CRI), one of China’s oldest media institutions.
By its own words, “It is widely acknowledged that the CRI English Service provides the world with one of the most efficient and convenient ways of learning about China.”
That they have taken their deep and intimate knowledge of China and are sharing it with would-be travellers is commendable. But, can anyone else see the problem with this picture?
Laowai Answers
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