Book Report: Original Copies
It's a book about new housing developments in China, specifically those which have been made "Western-style". Why put up a copy of the Eiffel Tower in a newly developed Shanghai suburb? Why not? Ther...
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Book Report: Inside the Red Mansion
This is sort of an investigation of Lai Changxing, a Chinese smuggler tycoon from a few years back. By the time you're done, you've explored corruption in modern Chinese life. There might not be a wa...
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Book Report: China 3.0
I picked up this anthology of essays because it showed up in an author search for Michael Anti. Thus, I expected to have my pro-free-speech views reinforced. It turns out that Anti wrote just one ess...
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Book Report: Beta China
I follow many feeds; I used to follow the tech news site PandoDaily. I ignored most of it; modern tech reporting has problems and PandoDaily illustrated plenty of those. But for a while, there was so...
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Book Report: The Party
If you're an American and you read this primer on China's Leadership Transition, you might be surprised that it says that party leadership and army leadership are more important than government leade...
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Book Report: China Underground
I hoped that this book was about subversives and criminals in China: reporters, human rights lawyers, whistleblowers... I read news about China's internet censorship measures; I can follow the inter...
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Book Report: The Internet in China (Zixue Tai)
It's going to sound like I'm slamming this book, like it's bad. It's not bad. I just chose the wrong book, is all. The thing is: this is an academic work. [It might also sound like I'm obscurely refe...
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Book Report: American Shaolin
Yestere'en, I watched the Chinese New Year's parade. I'm not into parades, but I visit a fair number of parades. Why show up an event I'm not into? A non-trivial fraction of my friends are photograp...
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Book Report: The Man Who Loved China
Back in 2002, I went to the British Museum where an old illustration maybe showed a punch-card controlled loom from ancient China--long before such were invented in the West. Bookish fellow that I a...
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Book Report: My Country Versus Me
A scientist suspected of mailing out Anthrax commits suicide. Which brought up a newslet, a reminder of a recent lawsuit: Hatfill, another scientist sued the FBI after they leaked footage to the med...
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Book Report: China: Fragile Superpower
This book is about China. This book makes me want to hide my eyes and say "I hope you're wrong." It paints a discouraging picture. The Chinese government fears overthrow by popular uprising. The g...
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Book Report: The Middle Kingdom
I didn't plan to spend today filling out an alternative minimum tax form for my friends at the IRS, but they insisted. I thought maybe I'd write something. But I didn't write anything. Except numb...
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Book Report: Eight Skilled Gentlemen
Must pack. Must pack for Hogwarts playtest. Meanwhile, you can consider this book report for Eight Skilled Gentlement: It's a novel. It's swashbuckling fun set in a fantasy world based on kinda-...
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Milestone: 6 Million hits
Today, this website enjoyed its six-millionth hit. That hit was all about Amazingly Big things up in the Seattle area. I'm talking about the Pier 86 Grain Terminal and Microsoft. Let's take a look...
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Book Report: One Billion Customers
I could mention that I'm over my cold, but that's not as interesting as the book One Billion Customers. Not even close. It's a book about doing business in China in recent times a la the 90s. Jame...
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Book Report: 400 Million Customers
(Yes, I received some puzzle-hunt-related clothing tips in my snail mail. But aren't you getting a little tired of reading about puzzle hunts? It's been so long since we had a book report. Let us n...
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Book Report: Zachary's Chicago Pizza Newsletter vol. 5 Winter/Spring 2005
I have nothing original to say about the unfolding disaster in New Orleans. All I know how to do is point out interesting reading material. One more reason to free Tibet: We can make it easier for h...
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Book Report: Cyber China (part two)
Notes on a couple more chapters from Cyber China: Françoise Mengin: The Role of the State in the Age of Information This paper mentioned a few topics: hackers, Taiwan, Democracy. It implied that th...
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Book Report: Cyber China (part one)
This book is a collection of papers about the intersection of society and computers in present-day China. Karsten Giese; Speaker's Corner or Virtual Panopticon: Discursive Construction of Chinese Id...
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Book Report: Cyber China (part four)
Two more essays from the book Cyber China Barry Naughton The Information Technology Industry and Economic Interactions Between China and Taiwan This article had an interesting factoid. A large part ...
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Book Report: Cyber China (part five (last (whew!)))
Two last essays in Cyber China... Ngai-Ling Sum: Informational Capitalism and the Remaking of "Greater China": Strategies of Siliconization This interesting paper talked about how various government...
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Book Report: Cyber China (part 3)
Yet more essays in Cyber China... Patricia Batto; Government Online and Cross-Straits Relations This paper gives an overview of some China- and Taiwan-related web sites.Something interesting perhaps...
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