So last week my hard drive stopped working right before the deadline for my semantics/pragmatics paper. I was able to get an extension, but “I had computer troubles” is the “dog ate my homework” excuse of the modern age, so, conscientious student that I am, I felt the need to get documented “proof” of my computer troubles. I had the computer shop that fixed my hard drive write up a note and put the company seal on it.
Yeah, the …
Yesterday I saw this logo plastered on the wall of a construction site. It’s the logo for a new office tower in Shanghai.
Apparently the recipe for their English name and logo went something like this:
I’m guessing that getting a sexually charged name like “Oriental Virgin” was pure …
Wednesday my hard drive died. When I tried to boot my computer, I got this message:
OS not installed
Yikes! Luckily I had my Ultimate Boot CD, but even that is of little use when your system has decided that your main hard drive (the one with Windows installed on it) is no longer there.
That hard drive was only three months old, so the company I bought from will replace it free of charge, but they …
It was early evening, shortly after dinner. I was on the outskirts of Shanghai trying to find a cab to get home. As I walked the streets I was vaguely aware of a guy standing facing a wall, having a conversation with another nearby guy in a car. I’ve learned that (especially in China) it’s best not to pay attention to guys facing walls on the side of the street, so I never gave him more than a glance. As …
In Chongqing my wife’s cousin gave her a Buddhist pendant as a gift. On one side was a form which consisted of four Chinese characters blended together. Can you see them?
The four characters together actually form a (Buddhist?) saying. For the answer, see below.…
China finally came up on my one of my favorite blogs, Sentient Developments:
When stripped of all its historical and social baggage, however, ‘eugenics‘ can be used to describe two general philosophical tendencies: 1) the notion that human hereditary stock can and should be improved, and 2) that such changes should be enforced by the state (or other influential social groups such as cults or religions).
These two concepts are not married to one another. Transhumanists tend
…
Love can be a motivation. I’m not talking about learning how to say enough for “one night love,” I’m talking about this:
I am learning [language] so I can tell you how much I love you and have it mean more than if I told you in English.
I wonder how many years of study it will take…
Post Secret is still cool.…
John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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