In October 2010, America was once again beaten by the Chinese. When the National Computing Center of China in Tianjin unveiled the Tianhe-I, the worlds fastest supercomputer. At 2.5 petaFLOPS (Im not even going to bother trying to explain what that means) it beat out America's former top contender, the Cray Jaguar which ran at 1.75 petaFLOPS. But now even China has been out done, by their neighbor. Earlier this month, Fujitsu of Japan unveiled the K Computer, which runs at a whopping 8 petaFLOPS.
America and Japan have been neck and neck for the last decade in the race to see who can build the worlds fastest supercomputer. But now China is entering the race, and its proving to be a powerful contender. The International Supercomputing Conference releases its list of fastest computers twice a year. I'd be interesting to see if China reappears on the list come November.
at least thats what National Geographic says according to world statistics. A study by National Geographic says that the typical human is a right handed, 28 year old Han Chinese male who lives in or near the city, is literate and works in the services industry.
Did I just blow your mind?
Even so, that composite image does not represent humanity as a whole. It was made from over 7000 Chinese men. The reason it was only Chinese men is because there are more Chinese men than the men of any other single ethnic group. While no ethnic group makes up the majority of all humans, Chinese outnumber any other individual ethnic group. If you wanted to see what the average human would look like all ethnic groups considered, it would probably look like the cover of TIME magazine Fall 1993:
Ok, America ≠ The World, but I don't think you can find a better example as the US is definitely the worlds most diverse nation.
I found an article on Chinese genetics and what makes them unique. Its kind of tl;dr, but its divided into topics like "Yellow skin" and "Northern vs Southern". Read it here.
It appears there is some misconception on the status on nuclear weapons in China. Id thought I should clean things up.
China’s nuclear weapons program began shortly after the PRC’s founding. Mao Zedong believed China would never be taken seriously without nuclear warheads, and that they would be under constant “nuclear blackmail” from the US. With the help of the Soviet Union, China built its first nuclear reactors. They also relied on the Soviets for nuclear materials such as yellowcake. After the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960’s, China had lost its assistance from the USSR, but was determined to “break the west’s monopoly on nuclear weapons”. On October 16, 1964 China detonated its first atomic bomb, code named ‘596’, in Lop Nur. Within a few years, they tested their first hydrogen bomb and created warheads for ICBM’s.
Today, China is one of the five recognized nuclear powers. Its current stockpile is believed to be about 250 warheads. For comparison, the UK has just over 200, France about 350, the US has over 10,000 and Russia has almost 12,000 (enough to destroy the earth ten times over).
China has signed and ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. China is also the only nuclear state with a ‘no first use’ policy, meaning they promise not to use nuclear weapons against any country unless nuclear weapons are used on China first. As seen in my very first post, China has ICBM’s that can carry warheads anywhere in the world except South America.
The ROC/Taiwan currently does not possess nuclear weapons. However in 1967, shortly after China’s hydrogen bomb test, the ROC began a secret nuclear weapons program. Out of the facade of creating energy, Taiwan was able to acquire nuclear materials from the US and Canada. By the 1970’s Taiwan was able to produce weapons grade plutonium in large enough quantities for a bomb. But the US soon found out about the program and pressured Taiwan to dismantle it in 1976.
There is currently no intelligence of Taiwan possessing a bomb, yet they do have the resources to construct one. The PRC has stated that possession of nuclear weapons by the ROC would be grounds for immediate military action. With that kind of threat breathing down their necks, I highly doubt the ROC would risk having a secret nuclear weapons program.
And now for some delicious footage.
Apparently this is from Trinity and Beyond a documentary on the atomic bomb. I have no idea if actual footage of the test exists. If this is real you can easily see the huge propaganda aspect of it.
Just thought I'd ask, What exactly is YEET HAY in English and How come it is only Chinese people who get it? Don't White people get it also or do they just not realize when they are ?
And what can you do if you do feel Yeet Hay
Ricky Wu
Dear Ricky
Uh oh, I was wondering when this would come up. Yeet Hey (熱氣) is a highly contentious issue which Chinese parents will tell their children constantly about. Strangely it only affects Chinese people. Caucasians, Mexicans, black people and everybody in between no such thing. Apparently there is Yin and Yang in food meaning anything which is hot is bad for you, i.e. anything baked fried, toasted, in fact anything slightly tasty or spicy. Koreans of both varieties north and South appear to be immune to it though for some strange reason.
A KFC Bucket of Chicken = Yeet hey and bad for you even if you opt for the non spicy variations
Did I say Spicy? Strangely enough Koreans AFAIK don't suffer from this and everything they eat is like eating lava.
My trek to Seoul last year after riding around Guri wondering where the centre of Seoul was I stopped exhausted and found a stand selling Tteokbokki. Which looked ok, one bite and it was like an a ball of fire in my gob. Seeing as everybody was eating it fine and not wanting to look like a pussy I ate another piece which was hotter than the first piece. I slowly put it down and had a sip of the soup, which was even hotter and I sort of lost it to the heat.
Korean Tteokbokki, Yeet Hey like nothing else, otherwords known as fire on a plate
At which the old Korean woman behind the stand crapped her pants laughing at me...(then again you can tell I am not Korean due to the way I had a massive beard. I have NEVER seen a Korean person with a beard ever).
Firey Korean burgers
Ok so I go get a hamburger a Bulgogi (beef) burger from the ubiquitous family mart in Seoul and one bite and again I am eating molten lava as the inside is filled with spicy green paste (maybe Wasabi).... Slightly annoyed now and still hungry as the Tteokbokki wasn't finished, nor was the burger. I go out yet again for something safe, some 700krw cup noodles (not as bad as the 300krw noodles which shorten your life significantly) and again I am eating lava. I go back to my hotel room and throw up.
Korean Biological weapons in case the PLA ever attacks
When Park took me out to dinner we again ate molten lava. This happened throughout my Korean experience, Kimichi, Hanjeongsiketc. I found I could only eat Bimibap. Though this was more to do with the fact of walking into restuarants seeing the menu was completely written in Korean and realising I only knew bulgogi and Bimibap.
While Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim and Park in the hostel would continuously eat fiery spicy things yet exhibit no ill effects. Unlike myself, must be a different Korean evolutionary path that they can eat fire.
Young the girlie I became acquainted with in Seoul and I really do mean acquaintance (as she is now apparently a famous actress in Korea now). We'd go out regularly to Hongdae and she would eat her weight in fried foods and spicy foods which would send me thermonuclear just looking at it. And yet she suffered not ill effects at all and kept her ghostly pale skin.....Oddly she never got fat either, while my arrival in Korea was 7stn I left Korea considerably fatter at 7.5stone from the illnesses I got in Siberia. I think it must have been the cookies you can buy in Family Mart everywhere as the spiciness upset my stomach badly and I would throw up daily.
I bet this sauce would sell well in S Korea.
However this has often led to a great feeling of conspiracy within the Chinese youth in that coincidentally everything which is Yeet Hey always happens to be tasty. While everything which is non tasty is non Yeet Hey. I lived through years of not being able to eat good stuff, Pizza? Pies? Bacon sandwiches, even toast, pop tarts, chocolate, crisps, even frigging cornflakes ALL forbidden.... damnit my youth was just eating boring things, there sure was a hell of a lot of rice. Though curiously I drink loads of milk too most Sinotypes can't drink milk.
I discovered later on it IS (sometimes) used as a controlling mechanism by Chinese parents to control what their children eat as with the last post about Feng Shui the advice is completely inconsistent. Anything they don't like the look of is instantly labelled Yeet hay... which makes children think what the fuck? I'm getting old and my dad still pesters me about this.
But anyway where was I before I got completely sidetracked in my little anecdote.
Yeet Hey is used in Chinese medicine as a state of being too hot. As an antithesis you can also be too cold, wet or dry too. yeet Hey is bought on by eating lots of hot foods, spices and or lack of sleep can all imbalance the body and affect the Qi in the body. Symptoms of uber Yeet Hey are sore throats, break outs of zits big juicy ones which lurk under the skin. Ulcers, nose bleeds and when you take a whizz golden showers or it smells bad (hold on does piss ever smell good?) It varies from person to person. Some people are much more vulnerable than others. While others are completely invulnerable to it as per the Koreans as described above.
So what's the cure doc? Chinese mythology and medicine is dominated by the idea of balance so the cure is to re balance the imbalance. When you are too hot you eat or drink something cold. Common cures as many children of Chinese migrants will attest to are cool drinks:
leurng chahs" (literally meaning "cool teas") such as Chrysanthemum tea,
yah-sei mei" (24-flavor tea)
gum mo cha" (influenza tea).
green bean soup,
sour plum soup
beer ~ yes BEER which is why caucasian people don't suffer from Yeet Hey at all!
A good night's sleep also goes a long way in helping someone who is yeet hay.
24 flavor tea is this black paste type stuff which tastes utterly foul, kind of like your 8th beer it tastes incredibly bitter but is supposed to make you better.
24 flavor tea (which tastes as good as it looks) = good and Leung
In a nut shell the basic theory is that you should eat enough hot and cold things to balance out the yin and yang elements of your diet else your health will suffer. The problem is there are severe inconsistencies in this. Lychee's for instance are considered to be Yeet Hey, when they are a watery fruit (I hate the damned things though). While other watery fruit like melons, grapes oranges ya pears etc are considered to be cooling (Leung). Which is terribly confusing especially as people give conflicting advice.
Another inconsistency is that curiously how come you can't have too much Yang yet at the same time can have too much Yin? Or the other way round. My dad when he is around will regularly point out things are too Yeet Hey, but at the same time doesn't tend to point out too much cold in my diet aside from beer.
However I think the best way to define what this is though is simply this:
To eat and drink things in moderation, as excess of anything is bad....
Koreans excepted as they sure do like they spicy food oh and Soju. The Kims and Park drank that stuff like water....
Though I'm sure Korean folks have their own local things too, as I remember being fed full boned ginger chicken by Young one day. Also that Kimichi has um issues.
Still everything causes cancer these days so what's new?
Is a form of mysticism which some people believe in and some people don't.
Essentially the gib is supposed to be that you can improve energy flow of Chi by moving things around, the critical thing is have no sharp objects or edges pointing at you like ceiling lights and stuff like that. I mean it is just common sense right? In your car you have a steering wheel which does not have a sharp spike sticking out of it right?
Though you know this would increase road safety so much, and it'd stop all my friends being killed while biking.
A really bad Feng Shui type of bed to have. Even if it is on sale.
However TCG's dad puts it much better, if it looks neat and tidy to the eye then it has good Fung Shui. I.e. if your home doesn't look like level 7 out of contra (in the UK we call this probotechor)
My personal belief is that it is semi psychosomatic. The mind being the most powerful organ in the body can change things psychologically.
It is one of those things people consult JUST in case. You know the kind, in the UK we've had loads of fuel shortages due to protesters blockading the refineries. You always get some smart arse who says we are all suckers for panic buying petrol.. When he himself gets home he goes and buys some petrol JUST in case he needs it. Or the people who don't believe in bad luck yet refuse to walk under ladders or take a baseball bat to a mirror.
Which is why it still has a place in modern day Chinese life. People consult such things just in case, as doing it and practicing it costs relatively little compared to the negative outcomes which can occur. In ALL Chinese villages you'll have a second hand tale about somebody not consulting a local shyster the feng Shui man and falling on hard luck.
Though Chinese people can be somewhat gullible, for instance there was a Taoist master who performed a complex ritual for a HK model to change her luck. Which involved sex some people have called fuckshui quite recently a few people in HK being tricked into buying perpetual motion machines. However considering 419 scams are still landing in my email boxes everyday there is a sucker born everyday.
Big buildings and such like also have such a master come take a look and give advice. I mean you're going to give him $2000HK or so, when your building is going to cost $100 million HK the $2000 is insignificant.
Hey man this building's gonna cost us $1billion US$, think we should pay off this bloke claiming to be a Feng Shui master his $10000 fee?
Ordinary people see this happening and copy them. As they must have done something right to become wealthy.
Follow the more successful thief and steal his ideas. - "The Book of Cataclysm"
On the other hand people can use it to extort the government too! In Hong Kong villages on Feng Shui grounds denied the HK government permission to build a radar system for HKG airport. What they really meant is we want bigger compensation packages for having a big radar system in our village. The HK government told them to get lost and decided to cancel it till 2015.
Though this is somewhat at odds with the generally held idea that in some areas of China that fortune and luck are what matter above hard work, qualifications and talent (TCG is writing a book in collaboration with others about this keep your eyes peeled).
What some clever so and so in the 1990s thought of was applying this to western cultures. In that hey look those Chinese folks tend to live longer than us. It must be something they do (forgetting stuff like diet, work and psychological support though in truth I think this generation of Chinese ants are going to die much younger than their parents and grandparents). And they built a whole industry around it selling books, advice etc.
In the UK such people are considered to be entertainers the UK government recognises them as entertainers because they need to buy entertainment permits before being allowed to 'practice'.
All of this changed a small superstition in Chinese society into a whole industry which gives out inconsistent advice and has no industry standards. Penn and Teller exposed this when they asked several people who were said to be masters and all of them gave inconsistent advice.
Therefore to me it is a mere curiosity and I take it like my dad says, as long as it looks neat to the eye it is good. Which works for me just find since I live like a bum and live under a big stack of papers everywhere for the work I do. But because there are no sharp edges it's A-OK!
Its a question many always wondered but thought it was too racist to ask. What makes asian eyes look the way they do? The cause is a small skin fold in the corner of the eye called an epicanthic fold. It produces sort of an arch over the inner corner of the eye. Take a look at these comparison photos.
The true evolutionary purpose of the fold is not known. Some scientists believe it may be a neutral trait that simply arose in certain populations with no benefit or handicap. Others attribute it to the climate conditions of populations with the folds. It is believed that people with the folds have their eyes better protected from UV rays, a trait that would be useful in environments with bright landscapes or strong winds, like say ones you may find in Mongolia?
The degree of the fold can also vary. Those of mixed race or those further or closer to the center of the sinosphere can have more mild or extreme folds. For example below, the picture on the top shows a girl from Central Asia, where the fold is barely noticeable. The one on the bottom shows a girl from Korea, where the folds are extreme, causing a “fish eye” appearance.
The fold also may occur in some non-asian ethnic groups, such as those in Oceania, Central Asia, Native Americans, Inuit, certain tribes in Africa, and certain Scandinavians such as the Saami.
Another question is wether or not the folds restrict vision, while in fact it does not. It just causes them to view alignment differently, outlined in this article.
There is also a cancer spreading in China and East Asia. As the Korean pointed out some time ago, many people are getting plastic surgery. One of the surgeries that is quite popular is the East Asian blepharoplasty, where the exterior around the eye is reshaped to give a double eyelid look. This does not remove the fold, but still makes the eye look less… asian. The removal of the fold is called an Epicanthoplasty and is still uncommon. Below shows the before and after pics of an Epicanthoplasty.
Such surgery in not recommended even by plastic surgeons, as it could risk damaging the tear duct, plus many feel the result looks unnatural.
There are also ‘eyelid pastes’ that are sold that allow someone to temporarily hide their fold without surgery.
Of course if you really want people to notice, one could buy those anime eye contacts that make you look like a possessed zombie and scare the shit out of people.
A KFC Bucket of Chicken = Yeet hey and bad for you even if you opt for the non spicy variations
Firey Korean burgers
Korean Biological weapons in case the PLA ever attacks
Though you know this would increase road safety so much, and it'd stop all my friends being killed while biking.
A really bad Feng Shui type of bed to have. Even if it is on sale.
Hey man this building's gonna cost us $1billion US$, think we should pay off this bloke claiming to be a Feng Shui master his $10000 fee?
