Posted by Will on May 27th, 2010
It’s symptomatic of something that most of the regular comments to this blog now seem to come to the version that syndicates on my Facebook page. I mention this because in response to yesterday’s post on the worthy Chinfographics blog, I received this comment from an old and sharp-eyed friend, Bob:
[T]he front page [...]
Posted by Will on May 26th, 2010
I have a soft spot for really cool data visualizations and well-executed infographics. They are often wonderful ways to tell stories or help people truly grasp complex issues or statistics. That’s why I’ve long liked the very cool Information is Beautiful blog (their latest post, visualizing “touristyness”).
Now China might be getting something like that for [...]
Posted by Will on May 23rd, 2010
I’d like to thank the London 2012 Olympic committee for creating mascots that actually make me nostalgic for the Fuwa:
Surrender earthlings, or meet the claws of death!
As near as I can tell, these guys are apparently the result of cross breeding the Teletubbies:
With Ultraman’s archenemies, the Baltans:
The claws are the giveaway. You can visit [...]
Posted by Will on May 23rd, 2010
Here is my son Zachary prancing (prancing, mind you) in front of seven women and girls outside the terracotta warriors exhibit in Xi’an:
I'm too sexy for my extremely small shirt.
This wasn’t the only time something like this happened on this trip. It was just the most photogenic. He got dragged into other people’s family [...]
Posted by Will on May 23rd, 2010
Regular readers will have noticed that I’ve been a bit below-the-horizon the last few weeks. Sorry about that. There are two main reasons. First, my father was here for three weeks so I spent a fair amount of time with him and the rest of my family, on a trip to Xi’an among other things. [...]
Posted by Will on May 15th, 2010
The latest Sinica podcast is up. In this episode, hosted by Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei.org, Forbes Beijing bureau chief Gady Epstein, Chinese journalist Qin Liwen and I discuss the recent rash of school attacks in China. It was great to have Liwen on board both because she has recently written about this issue and becase [...]
Posted by Will on May 1st, 2010
It’s a few days old, but I loved this New York Times article about about the problems arising from the use of PowerPoint in military briefing in Afghanistan:
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke [...]
Posted by Will on May 1st, 2010
To listen to people moan about the fact that China has sixty “Confucius Centers” in the US to America’s zilch-nada in China you’d think the Chinese were wrapping up hearts and minds around the planet while America gets relegated to the public diplomacy junk-heap alongside the usual despotic malcontents. While I’ll concede that China has [...]
Posted by Will on May 1st, 2010
Once again I joined Kaiser Kuo and repeat offenders Bill Bishop, author of of Digicha and Sinocism, and Forbes Beijing bureau chief Gady Epstein for the Sinica podcast. This week’s blurb:
Huang Guangyu, the richest man in China, went on trial last week in Beijing. The founder of home electronics chain Gome was brought up on [...]