Playing with Icerocket Blog Search | 03 Sep 2005

23:07 If Super Voice Girl were on CCTV... » Danwei RSS 1.0

Translated from a BBS post that started circulating last month:

If "Super Girl" were run by CCTV...

The competition starts. Hosts Zhu Jun and Zhou Tao come onstage.

Zhu Jun: The spring breeze of reform blows throughout the land, and happiness descends from the heavens in waves. Viewers, through the great attention of leaders at all levels, the cooperation of local television stations across the country, and with the generous support of our sponsors, we bring you the CCTV - #6 Pharmaceutical Power Pill Super Girl Competition!

Zhou Tao: The land is filled with reform's spring breeze, and super girls must test their wills. Viewers, the Super Girls competing in today's competition have been selected by local TV stations across the country. Passing through stringent political investigations, they are red-rooted and upright, they are actively moving forward, they work hard to closely organize, they are both red and professional, and they can be completely trusted.

Zhu Jun: First let me introduce our judges for today's competition - in no particular order, they are: noted vocalist, educator, and vice-chairman of the China Musicians' Association Wang Kun; noted vocalist, educator, and vice-chairman of the China Musicians' Association Li Shuangjiang; noted vocalist, educator, and Central Academy of Music professor Jin Teilin; noted lyricist, writer, author, and vice-chairman of the China Musicians' Association Yan Su; noted vocalist, educator, and vice-chairman of the China Musicians' Association Li Guangxi;...and...

Zhou Tao: The judges for today's competion are senior comrades with whom we are all familiar. When I see them I get a special feeling; back in the 1980s when I was a middle-school student, the judges I saw on CCTV singing competitions were yourselves, and now you are hear as well. Without a list I can still remember all of your names.

Zhu Jun: The competition now begins. Will contestant #1, Zhang Liangying from Sichuan TV, come on stage.

Zhang Liangying comes on stage dressed in an old-style dress from the 1950s.

Zhou Tao: Viewers, the contestants for today's competition and the songs they will be singing are as follows:

Contestant #1: Zhang Liangying, singing Homeland, Homeland, I Love You to Death.
Contestant #2: Zhou Bichang, singing Super Girls Race to a Well-off Society.
Contestant #3: Li Yuchun, singing Family Planning Brings Wealth to All Villagers.
Contestant #4: He Jie, singing I Want to be a Screw in the Development of the West.
Contestant #5: Ji Minjia, singing Drink a Sweet, Sweet Mouthful of the Yellow River.
Contestant #6: Ye Yiqian, singing Peasant Farmers Visit Paris.
...........

Zhu Jun: Viewers, now it is time for the quality assessment segment. Mr. Yu Qiuyu, noted author and scholar...

[inane pun section omitted]

Zhou Tao: The results for the final competition are in: in first place, the contestant from the PLA General Political Department Dance Troupe _____; in second place, the contestant from the Central Conservatory of Music ______; in third place, the contestant from the Central Academy of Dance ______....honorable mention to Zhou Bichang and Li Yuchun.

Zhu Jun: Viewers, we have another piece of good news to tell you. According to the results of a CCTV Sofres sampling, the ratings for this Super Girl competition reached 98.75%, setting a Guiness World Record for television viewing.

16:54 Firefox的怪毛病 » 未完成 - Incomplete

前两天因为换了部电脑，重新安装了系统以及各种软件，不过Firefox（1.0.6中文版）却出了两个奇怪的毛病： 1、使用del.icio.us的bookmarklet的时候，居然每次都要我重新登录一次，而我直接浏览美味书签的页面却是正常的已登录状态，实在是严重影响工作效率（Furl和Flickr的bookmarklet好像也存在同样的问题）； 2、在WordPress中写blog，选择“保存并继续编辑”，虽然可以正常保存，但却回不到输入和编辑的页面，出来一片空白，同样很影响效率。而在IE和Maxthon中都不存在这几个问题，而以前系统中使用的FF也没有这样的毛病。 ps.因为重装bookmarklet，发现Flickr的bookmarklet页面好像被删了，幸好从chedong的blog那里找到代码用上。

16:32 Secret lesbian clubs to go public in Beijing » Danwei RSS 1.0

Shaking up "China’s conservative moral arena"

Beijing Today (nicknamed 北京土豆 by its staff) is an English language weekly newspaper published by Beijing Media Corporation, whose editorial operations are owned by the state, although the newspaper group's advertising division is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange allowing them to enjoy the fruits of Hong Kong capitalism at the same time as benefiting from Mainland socialist media laws.

This is from yesterday's Beijing Today:

A secret underground community is preparing to step up and out of the shadows to fight for the acceptance and equality...Beijing’s lesbias (sic). Dubbed the lala (lesbian) group, a small but growing number of gay females in the capital will go public tomorrow (Saturday) and hold their first “open” meeting. The city’s pioneering lesbians are say they are prepared to push the boundaries of acceptance in China’s conservative moral arena.
Prior to tomorrow’s meeting, the locations of lala salons were kept a closely guarded secret.

The gathering will be in a “bright comfortable” bar, revealed organizers. But such is the trepidation among members, a secret website is being used to reveal the exact location.

The first lala salon was held last November and thanks to its growing popularity, leaders believe it is now time to stand up and be counted as worthy members of Beijing’s multinational, multicultural and diverse society.

And organizer An Ke says it is time Beijing learnt more about lesbians.

Links and Sources

Beijing Today: We are just the same
Image from Bingfeng Teahouse: "Chinese lesbian"

16:01 三问“怪癖” » 未完成 - Incomplete

怪癖依然在延续，而作为内地怪癖病毒源头之一的蚂蚁昨天对怪癖现象提出了三个很好的问题，转贴如下： 1. 為什麼「怪癖」遊戲的傳播路線大致是：台灣 –> 香港 –> 內地？ 2. 為什麼內地bloggers研究「怪癖」遊戲的，多數只集中在談內地的傳播路線，卻不談前面的？ 3. 為什麼關於「怪癖」遊戲的跟進研究，內地似乎比台灣和香港都要積極？感觉其中的第1和3两个问题，尤其是第三个问题实在是有趣，我对这三个问题的简单回答是（与在蚂蚁那里的留言有所不同）： 1、台湾的blog圈常常会产生各种各样有趣blogging idea，比如这次的怪癖，比如之前的夏日的Blog传说等等；台湾blog似乎更加喜欢这种blog圈中的串联与传播活动 2、为什么研究不谈前面的，一来是因为工作量太大，会导致路线还未到内地就因为工作量而要放弃了，而对于RSShow的怪癖收集活动，由于可以自行提交，我就建议他们增加港台的来源，二来很多港台blog会遇到GFW的问题，不方便 3、内地blogger更注重事件的意义与blog的媒体性，港台blogger关心的是事件的趣味性与blog的个人（personal）的特性。其实我的回答基本上只是对蚂蚁所提问题的延伸，并没有触及内在的原因，不知道大家是如何看待这三个问题？而且也很想知道blog与媒体很有研究的只说会怎么解释这些问题呢？发现自己又在做第三个问题里所说的“跟进研究”了。

14:14 Google Purge: Chinese bloggers fooled by Onion hoax » Danwei RSS 1.0

Google executives burning books... NOT

America's satirical website The Onion is occasionally mistaken for a serious news source by Chinese newspaper. In April 2004, Wired reported the following:

The article in the Beijing Evening News told a shocking story of American hubris: Congress was behaving like a petulant baseball team and threatening to bolt Washington, D.C., unless it got a new, modern Capitol building, complete with retractable roof.
There was a problem with the story. Rather than do his own original reporting, Evening News writer Huang Ke had cribbed, nearly word for word, his text from an American publication. And as if that wasn't bad enough, Ke hadn't bothered to vet the source he had plagiarized: The Onion.

At first, the Evening News stood by its story, demanding proof it wasn't true. It finally did apologize, but stubbornly tried to deflect blame for having been duped.

It wrote: "Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them with the aim of making money.

It seems that some Chinese bloggers have been similarly duped by an Onion article about "Google Purge":

Google Announces Plan To Destroy All Information It Can't Index
Executives at Google, the rapidly growing online-search company that promises to "organize the world's information," announced Monday the latest step in their expansion effort: a far-reaching plan to destroy all the information it is unable to index.

"Our users want the world to be as simple, clean, and accessible as the Google home page itself," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt at a press conference held in their corporate offices.

A Chinese blogger picked up on the news item, translated it, and published it as a news item on Donews.com, the blog and forum portal that describes itself as an "IT community and media platform". There is some common sense about though: the third commentor on the story warns that the information is false.

Links and Sources

The Onion: Google Announces Plan To Destroy All Information It Can't Index (from where the image was taken)
Donews — Zhishuo soucang blog (Chinese): Google Purge: Excavating Information that can't be indexed on the Internet
365key.com (Chinese): Exceprt of the above
Wired News: Onion taken seriously
Thanks to Sam Flemming for the links

13:31 Post-Katrina images of New Orleans on Google Maps » Google Blog

Posted by Bret Taylor, Google Maps Product Manager

Satellite imagery of New Orleans taken on Wednesday, August 31st is now available on Google Maps.

Enter “New Orleans” in the search field at the top of the page, or drag and zoom the map to the area. A red "Katrina" button will appear at the top right of the map, next to the existing map buttons. Older images for the area are still available too - click the "Satellite" button to switch to those.

API developers can also access this new imagery, which should aid the development of hurricane relief sites. Find more details at the Google Maps API discussion group.

07:03 Seeing what Katrina has wrought » Google Blog

Posted by Bill Kilday, Google Earth team

A natural disaster brings out the need for up-to-the-minute maps and images, and Google Earth community members have created more than 100 overlays in the last 24 hours that tell the story of Hurricane Katrina's effect. These overlays drape on top of existing satellite images, and NOAA has been posting these flyovers so people can actually see the incredible devastation.

If you don't already have Google Earth, download it to see some of the overlays that illustrate the change from previous images to the way things are now. Click on any of the overlays, which will open the application.

Here's an aerial "before" image of the Superdome area.

When you're in Google Earth, use the slider function at the bottom of your Places on the lefthand side (shown in this screen grab) to move the image from the left (before) to the right (after). More viewing and navigating help is here.

When you use the slider, much of what was light before is now dark -- with water.

We hope you'll find all the images useful. Please note you'll need a good video graphics card to handle the graphics.

UPDATED: Clarification on seeing the Google Earth images.