China makes a super computer

As here .



However China's NVidia GPU based machine is only top of the pops in regards to peak performance, not sustained performance like the American top dogs. So much as news is made of this it's like China's space program which had made in Russia stamped all over it. Not to mention that the technology (the chips) are of US design and origin, but the linking of them together and software is native to China though. So thats something I suppose.

In fact no its worse! It is like the tallest building in the world dick waving contests. The petronas towers and Taipei 101 are particularly guilty of this. The Empire state and the Jin tower in Shanghai too. In that they are tall because they put a massive spike on top. Which is cheating! And tbh does not wash...

I mean if I went and put a tooth pick on the end of my dick could I claim it to be 8+ inches? Of course not!

Question is can it run the nuts 3 mod (12000 monsters) on doom 2? (yeah still a die hard jockey of doom 2)

Another ask type blog

http://askaromanian.blogspot.com/

For everything you wanted and didn't want to know about Romania home of the Nosferatu legends.

UK pm goes to Beijing

In the news.

This prat

Is going to Beijing to attempt to seal vital business deals..... to talk about human rights and to improve exports.

Human rights? Erm the UK doesn't exactly have a stellar record of human rights anymore you know, we have a policy of torture we have extra judicial executions. We have detention without trial, thought crimes and as of 2 years ago we also have political prisoners. Pot kettle black?

Also I hope when he says exports he doesn't mean an export of more UK jobs, the economy is already bad already!

It'll polish out

Meh.....

Just gives more fuel to the fire Chinese drivers are shit. TCG isn't a shit driver though as I have 5 years no claims and 0 points on my licence (I've never had points on my licence). But this is balanced out Yin yang style by TCG's dad who does not understand what mirrors are, what indicators happen to be. Back in the 1990s when we lived together the number of times he'd nearly run me over on the drive way, or the number of times he hit my motorbikes. Thankfully TCG's dad does not drive anymore...... though worryingly he is currently on a fishing trip somewhere near Shanghai.... TCG awaits SAS troops to come kick down his door..... and thus may well be absent from this blog for a while.

Introduction to Pinyin

Before one can start to learn Chinese, it is critical that one learns Hanyu Pinyin. Pinyin is the standard Romanization system for Chinese. It is used to help students pronounce Chinese characters. It is mostly the same as phonetic English with some exceptions.

Below are the letters of the alphabet along with the way they are pronounced in Pinyin in bold inside a sample word.

• a       father
• c       its
• e       hen
• i        pin [and in some contexts] he
• o       go
• q       cheat
• r        urn
• u       July
• x       sea
• z       bits

Combinations of some letters can change the overall sound, they include:

• ao       how
• ch       church
• ei        hay
• ou       no
• sh       shit
• ui       wait

In some cases ‘i’ can be silent when coming after a “c” “q” “s” or “z”.

As in:

• ci       its
• qi       chip
• si       swing
• zi       bits

That’s mostly all there is to it, except for accent marks that are used for tones. If you’re a beginner, you shouldn’t worry about tones till later.

• ā       First tone
• á       Second tone
• ă       Third tone
• à       Fourth tone
• å or no mark Fifth (neutral) tone

We're buggred now

Anybody remember those bear demotivational posters?




Oh dear it appears as if we are buggered.



Wushu bear in Japan.

Bears may well seek some revenge on Chinese people as Chinese people can be terrifically cruel to bears regarding captive bile milking of bears. Here is a excerpt (still happens). Its so cruel even my dad thinks it's cruel.

"The cruelty of sucking gallbladder juice from live bears in China"

A few months ago while on a business trip, I had a chance to visit Angel Bridge at the foot of Long Day Mountain in China. At that time, we also went to explore a large bear farm which is surrounded by forest and beautiful scenery --- it is truly an isolated paradise. All of sudden I saw about fifteen large cages with bears in them. The farm owner told me this is a gallbladder farm, the purpose of which is to continuously extract fluid from the bears' gallbladders. Because of the high demand, it is an extremely profitable business.

When we arrived at the farm, the bears and the caretaker seemed to be getting along very well, all was calm. Suddenly four huge men showed up and the bears suddenly started screaming fearfully and rocking their cages hard as if they saw a ghost. The caretaker told me every morning at eight o'clock liquid is drawn from their gallbladders. Around seven-forty-five, the bears become agitated and have no appetite to eat and they start screaming and crying desperately for help.

In white uniforms, and without any emotion on their faces, the four men went into one of the cages. They quickly used a steel wire to snatch the bear by the neck, at which point the bear's eyes bulged out and it started gnashing its teeth and crying. They are so scared to death and this trauma causes them to defecate at the same time.

In the bear's stomach, there is a hole with a steel tube inserted directly into the gallbladder. Outside the area there is a plastic tube connected to the steel tube for drawing the liquid. The area is covered tightly with surgical tape. When the time comes, the tape and cover are removed and a syringe is used to withdraw the green liquid from the gallbladder. Three big men went in and pressed bear's 4 legs with force and inserted a syringe into plastic tube. When the dark green gallbladder juice was sucked from bear's body, the poor bear opened her mouth so big, her two eyes were bulging and her entire body was trembling so hard throughout the whole procedure.

This kind of severe torturing went on for about two hours until all the bears had been subjected to the same torture. The crying and screaming was so hard and loud and echoed the entire mountain and valley. It frightened me so much, my heart ached and my head started spinning.

After this unthinkable torture, the bears used their paws to hold their stomachs. They curled up and shivered and I could see tears in their bright little eyes...

Around 10:30, someone cried out that there had been an accident in cage number 5. We followed the owner to rush into the bear farm and were shocked at what we saw. A brown bear had managed to pull out his own intestines and was holding them up in the air, roaring and screaming, as if he were madly "protesting" the cruelty and insanity of the humans. There was blood all over the cage. It was so difficult to watch such a suicidal scene. Never in my life had I been in such shock or so devastated. At that time, someone rang the security alarm, immediately people rushed into the bear farm and waving the sharp ax and big steel hook. The owner shouted :"Hurry to 'rescue' the bear paws!" The man in the cage was reluctant to continue to go forward. But the owner stamped his feet and kept yelling: "You have to cut them off while the bear is alive. That is the only way they are saleable!" Right after that, I saw the sharp ax swung and the number 5 bear's paws were immediately chopped off with blood gushing out.....

Perhaps the killing smell filled in the cage number 5. The other bears then suddenly started to cry and scream sadly and desperately again and had the tendency to be violent. It shook the whole island. The farm owner had a butcher background. When the bears appeared ready to act violently and workers were panicking and running away, the owner stopped them and ordered them to put "steel jackets" on five of the most aggressive bears and give them a shot of morphine. As soon as the bears saw the "steel jackets", they immediately became quiet. It seemed the bears all got the painful lessons from the "steel jackets", otherwise they would not calm down so quickly.

This whole unbelievable incident affected me so deeply that their sad and innocent faces haunted me day and night and will continue to haunt me until the day I die. I felt a strong need to expose this incident to the world. Please widely distribute this true story and hope that everyone who reads this will do something to stop this kind of insanity from Chinese bear farms and to help these desperate poor creatures. Definitely, the Chinese Animals protection law needs to be improved, urgently.


Reference: Vicky Ho Lynn, founder of "Asians for Humans, Animals & Nature(AHAN)".

email address: AHAN@worldnet.att.net
Tel: 415-379-9937 , Fax: 415-379-9938
Address: 3739 Balboa Street, Suite 228
San Francisco, CA 94121 U.S.A.

Copies of the article in Chinese may be obtained by contacting Ms. Lynn

Reprinted from:
Rudi4Animals/action4.html

Rice for when you fancy 3000 of something...

Dear TCG

Reading your blog and visiting Beijing I was surprised that Chinese people don't all eat rice. Where does this myth come from that all Chinese people eat rice?

D

Dear D

I'm not exactly sure where this myth came from tbh. However I have some good theories about this about why westerners tend to view that Chinese people eat rice when really they don't. Wheat oats and potatoes are mostly eaten in the north. Although rice does grow in the northern bits it is inefficient. Probably why rice is so rare in Korea and Koreans quite like some well cooked rice..... TCG can barely taste anything these days, but apparently rice has different tastes to it.... I don't taste any difference even though you get bags of the stuff labelled Jasmin or fragrant rice. Though they grow shorter grain varieties in Japan and Korea. Anyhow rice doesn't really do much for me, it has no specific flavor I enjoy and to me it is just a filler material. TCG likes everything on this list


A light afternoon snack for TCG, I mean look at it a whole pig maybe two had to die to make this burger!


A whole cow had to die to make this. While a big ass bowl of rice does not have the same effect, as sticking two pieces of bread on each side of a cow and calling it a burger.





A rather big burger



The double pounder. I mean think about it, with a colossal burger found in the USA Verde's Dies Irae is completely appropriate to demonstrate the sheer size of the thing. The same can't be said about a massive bowl of rice.




Note TCG advises consumption is moderation and TCG only weighs a pissy 11stone anyway and thus does not consume such foods on a daily basis.

Anyway firstly:

Chinese people who migrated overseas, there was a huge wave of Chinese from the south, these people ate rice. They went overseas and they ate rice there (though my dad mostly eats bread because he is obsessed with sandwiches). So when they opened up their take out places they too served rice. People made a connection ah Chinese people must all eat rice. A little like the impression many Europeans get of British people that we are all drunks and yobbos. Namely because many tourist destinations are filled to the brim with British drunken louts like Ibiza. This is exemplified by the southern Hakka and Cantonese, lets eat said before eating is literally eat rice.

Secondly colonisation

In that the Qing were a weak dynasty and they were ganged by loads of countries regularly who wanted to open up exploitation of new realms, that old gig. If you look at my maps which I forget where I got them from. Most of the opened up major coastal ports are in the central and southern regions. These regions are generally much wetter than the north and thus better suited to growing rice rather than wheat, oats or potatoes. That is not to say rice doesn't grow in the north it does but it takes more effort and the north is drier than the south. Though advanced irrigation means this is no longer the case such as the south north water project



Thirdly a lot of Chinese culture from South i.e. Hong Kong has appeared overseas. In which features Chinese people eating and thus rice.





Opps substituted rice for bullets there

That's my theory anyway, but this is changing as Chinese people grow richer this food stuff is starting to appear everywhere. Quite conveniently for the Americans a hell of a lot of rice is grown in the USA.

not the US election

So Obama got put into a prison cell with a massive bloke called Bubba......

However the election is a good time to bury bad news.

The bigger issue is Bernanke. He or his masters announced $600bn more of QE, quantitive easing. Which is a euphamism for printing money. You know Zimbabwe style. If you haven't noticed Zimbabwe printed money and they are totally fucked. Oh and everything in Zimbabwe is now stamped property of China....

So how has this got anything to do with China? Well China holds $853bn US or there abouts.... or claims to hold 800bnish of US dollars. So while their dollars don't decrease the purchasing power of their dollars is going to decrease a fair bit. The first time this happened I was in Zhuhai and there were lots of people complaining in to those phone in radio shows. It was mostly about how China gifted the US a shed load of Aircraft carriers because of the devaluation. The Ford class carriers are supposed to cost $15bn dollars btw. Japan and Russia hold a shed load of US$ too which pisses them off no end too, when in Siberia Russians would curiously ask for US$ then Euro first then grudgingly accept Roubles.

Tbh it can only end in tears printing more and more money unless the US pulls a fast one with New American dollars whereby only Americans in the continental US can exchange them leaving China holding the bag.

Which is dangerous because many such paths lead to war..... although a great amount of firepower exists in the US currently does it mean anything anymore? For instance the IDF vs the anti tank missile a comparatively cheapo missile taking out a very expensive tank.



Ot the 2002 Milenium challenge war games incident here

It takes balls to guard a Princess, oh wait...

Nestled in a hidden part of Beijing, there is a museum dedicated to those who suffered a punishment worse than death. It is the Beijing Eunuch museum. Eunuchs were male servants and protectors of female members of the royal family. At a young age, these servants were castrated. This was done to ensure that they would not sleep with members or concubines of the royal family (though I don’t see why they couldn’t just use female servants). This practice of castration dates back into ancient China. It peaked during the Ming Dynasty before finally ending with the fall of the Qing in 1911. The museum is located at the tomb of Tian Yi, a eunuch from the Ming Dynasty, it is one of the most well preserved eunuch tombs in China. 

The museum features many artifacts excavated from the tomb as well as a realistic diorama of the castration process. The victim would be held down by several men while another did the procedure. This was all done with no anesthesia, and it would take months to heal before one could even walk again. However most of the time they just died of blood loss, infection or the extreme pain. The boys “package” was then wrapped up and placed in a case which was then placed on a roof beam in the boy’s house. When he died, his goods were then buried with him. One of the most famous Eunuch’s was Zheng He, the famous Chinese explorer. 

Another section of the museum is dedicated to Sun Yaoting, the last surviving Eunuch from the Qing Dynasty who died in 1996. 

So next time you’re looking for an interesting place to go in Beijing, check out the Eunuch museum! Unfortunately, I was unable to find the exact address. If your into this sort of thing, you might want to check out the Icelandic Phallological Museum as well.

Counterfeit China

Ok so China is often accused of being counterfeit capital of the world. And tbh this is actually a fairly justified point of view of the world since you can get copies of anything you want. Strangely though how a bad is just a bag until you put a little logo on it though. Curiously I do own some 'fake goods' made in China..... funnily enough they come out of the exact same factory too.... how about that then..

Anyway these people in the USA take the biscuit a fake court and judge. You'd get shot for that in China (amongst many things).

Of course this ignores the fact that society doesn't really exist, it's really just a cabal of people with guns who seek to steal your stuff where there is no opportunity to say no. Also that the entire western world has been over a barrel since 1694..... no wonder the original American founders of the USA resisted central banking so harshly.

China total war!

Nigh on ten years ago I wrote a guide for Shogun total war, then wrote something else for Medieval total war too. 3 years ago I got paid for it even though it wasn't the original intent but always thought hmm wouldn't it be utterly awesome to have China total war too?

And lo and behold a decade later some clever so and so's have made a three kingdoms mod for total war... work and lack of time means I don't really have the patience for total war games anymore. It was probably the pope being an asshat in MTW who kept on excommunicating me over and over it was worse in MTW2.

Here is a video



This is the link to the project home page here

Politics raises its ugly head again

Miss world competition held at Hainan Island over the weekend. Congrats USA contestant Alexandria Mills, miss world 2010.

However politics has tainted miss world this year as described here which is bollocks! I mean we have to get back to the ideals of Miss world competitions. I.e. to oggle appreciate the talent and the skills um..... of the participants and consider if you'd tap dat!

American politics time out!

The onion

Struggling Americans Forced To Work Extra-Dimensional 4th Shift....

Time for a time out of these politics things.... hope people are open minded enough to laugh at themselves... I frequently do anyway.

Ass hat put in prison

Finally for manslaughter Kelsey Michael Mudd got 4.2 years kind of light if you ask me, but nobody asked me anyway.



But the fact that his dad played the racism card, then said he was stitched up then shifted blame onto the dead taxi driver accepting no responsibility at all, then lying about the car rolling away which it didn't. I mean watch the video you can clearly hear the car revv its balls off (note HK taxis have gear sticks on the steering column) UK cars are mostly manual/stick shift btw (TCG misses manual gear boxes because the piece of crap automatic I am driving now changes gears slowly and inappropriately).

Now if only HK prisons were more like this. (HK prisons are merely overcrowded underfunded and lack any rehabilitation processes)



Or this:

Medicine update

This is no longer relevant as the HK government has had a bit of a crack down on self medication, therefore many pharmacies do not accept a $100 note as a script.

All this means is go into a doctor's surgery type place for an appointment ask for something hand over a $100 to the doctor and then take it to the pharmacy. Some dodgier pharmacies will of course still sell you direct though.

China space program?

Dear TCG

What is the status of the Chinese space programme?

K

Dear K

TCG does not actually know. Namely because you have to separate the wheat from the chaff regarding such subjects. There is a hell of a lot of chaff out there which looks like wheat and a lot of wheat which looks like chaff.

Propaganda and Chinazis do not help either when they make big bold claims about things. Things such as the DF21 missile. Chinazis will say it can sink carriers specifically Nimitz and Ford class carriers. The thing is it has never been tested in combat. Much like when the USN says the Tico and its AEGIS system can stop any missile. But the AEGIS system has never been tested in combat too. Added to the fact it is in the interests of opposing forces to exaggerate the capabilities of the enemies weapon systems this means more funding for them to counter this major threat. For example the T72 was seriously exaggerated by the US intelligence community as a death machine that it could take out any US made tank. Though this was potentially true when the tank first came about since the US only had the M60A2. Which an ex tank driver who chatted to me in a bar in Mongolia told me was a piece of shit. However the T72 was a death machine..... for its own crew...

Anyway I'm going way off tangent here (whats new?)

Also there is a big difference between saying something and doing something, therefore Chinese officials want to go to Mars by 2040. But that's 30 years in the future who knows what;ll happen round the corner let alone 30 years? Ok so there are some things like the North South Water project which Mao promised the people about 50 years ago. This is finally coming online.

Also the fact that China is currently run by engineers and leaders who say make it so rather than kowtowing to accountant types such plans more credence than plans western leaders might happen to have.

IIRC the next big thing is a skylab type space station by 2017.

Day light saving time?

Dear TCG

Does China have to change its clocks back and forth as we do in England?

Maxine.


Dear Maxine

China abandoned this silly practice decades ago. We have recently put the clocks back in the UK, it's a pain as I used to end up at work early or late when I forgot about it. Still when I did go to work it mattered very little in winter anyway. As I used to go to work in the dark, work in an internal windowless office all day and would not go out because of a power trip crazy security guard. I would then leave work 5.30pm in the dark too. I hate that. It is one of those things which is hard to argue rationally about. Namely as people who think it is a good thing will use emotive arguments like.

"But think of the children!"

Meh hate that.

Anyway I digress

In Hong Kong and Macau they abandoned this practice in 1980. In China they played around with it for a few years then thought bugger this and decided to keep it as China standard time even though it is a massive country and thus spans many time zones. Heh while riding a motorbike in Siberia I would often pass time zones and not realise it.... but Siberia was funny because I was so far north at times the sun stayed just above the Horizon and I had a habit of riding 'till the sun went down' those were some long riding days I can tell you. I even managed to get stuck in no mans land between Russia and Mongolia because of this...

But simply no China does not even though almost every country in the region does move the clocks back and forth.

A taste of American Politics Part 3

With all of the squabbling and political mudslinging, there seems to be a trend of making China as a scapegoat for America's economic problems. While Chinese outsourcing is certainly a major part of the massive decline in US manufacturing jobs, you can't pin the collapse of the housing market or Wall Street market dives solely on them. Thank God this will be over in a few days. If Im not mistaken, political TV ads are banned in the UK and many other countries. We need those laws here.

First, some Pics:

And lets finish off with some NMA Win

Chinese beer

Dear TCG

Is Chinese beer safe to drink? I heard they put Formaldehyde in it.

Lucid

Hi CG

Why does Chinese beer give such bad hangovers? Its like worse than red wine!

Colin

Dear TCG

How come Chinese beer tastes you know a little off?

Lukien


Dear All

Chinese beer is safish to drink in small quantities, you see in China they put preservatives in their beer. While in the UK and USA after a long day at work I sometimes crack open a beer and relax a bit before eating etc. They put in such preservatives to give beers a longer shelf life. They put this in as the culture of get home and crack open a beer thing isn't really done in China as much as in western countries even though purchasing power wise the price of beer is pretty darned cheap. Even in Beijing and Shanghai, this is as long as you stay out of the touristy areas. We managed to find a bar in Pingyao where the beers were about 2RMB for a litre.

Even going out for a meal and having a beer or two isn't done too often, people look at me wide eyed as I have a pint with a meal in HK and in China.

"What is this crazy person doing drinking in the middle of the day!" Or they'll share a big bottle between loads of people.

Heh but then in HK I did used to live near a gigantic Carlsberg factory (this factory is now gone)

Thus this (adding of preservative) extends the shelf life massively especially since they can stick the beers on long distance cargo lorries and trains all around the country. Tsingtao for example (note Tsingtao is a copy of a German beer btw when the Germans were forced out of the port of Qingdao). They do this because it is cheap and effective., hence the taste.

This has some nasty side effects. I.e. killer killer hangovers. More than once I had to go home (friend's flat) to have a lie down because of the horrible throbbing hangovers such beers and the preservatives induce. The people there do not feel this because they don't drink enough for it to affect them as big bottles are shared and thus they only get small doses. The bender we had in Beijing last year was insane..... we made a pile of Tsingtao to rival the hotel of doom

We paid for this dearly though all being immobilised completely by incredible pumping beer hangovers though, like having a demon inside your head with a chainsaw. While being punched by a gorilla constantly, which was how I felt... those Israelies though for some reason who went out with us seemed not to be affected and they were drinking shit loads of it.

This is made more evident by the beers which advertise no formaldehyde! These days. It like when McDonald's advertised its Chicken Nuggles as now made with 100% Chicken...... it makes you think hold on what the hell were they made of before then?!



Also in the western world we've had a marketing trend of no MSG! I remember something what was it. It was Newmans Salad dressing. They put on the front NO MSG! In big red text..... instead they put yeast extract in it instead. Yeast extract happens to be pretty much MSG.... So makes you wonder what the hell they put instead of formaldehyde into the beers these days? Since those things still keep find on the shelves for years!

Another theory is that the ingredients are piss poor too the hops, malt and water being polluted to hell as described here thus they are filled with harmful chemicals too to boot. You can read about it here


This is of course changing. But at what rate and scope I have no idea. But of course as TCG recommends.... always have things in moderation and you ought to be fine.

GET OFF YOUR CHAIR'S NOW!

From Gizmodo:

Well, stories don't get much worse than this. A 14-year-old boy in China was killed when his chair exploded, sending chunks of metal into his rectum. The bleeding this caused killed him.

The alleged explosion came from the gas cylinder that was in the base of the chair, the part that allowed the user to adjust the seat up and down. The canister gets compressed when you sit on it, but can it actually create enough energy to make the seat cushion explode like that and kill a man? I doubt it, but this is what people are reporting.

In other news, I am working from a beanbag from now on. Sweet merciful crap.

Apparently the air piston in some Chinese teenager's chair exploded and sent him to a brutal, bloody death. The piston shot out through the chair straight up his rectum. He ended up bleeding to death.

If you brought your computer chair for less then $50, Id buy a new one. Especially if it was made in China.

Shrapnel retrieved from his colon