Yearly Archives: 2009

The future according to Microsoft

I’ve a confession to make: I’ve always been a bit of a sci-fi realist. I was the kid who would sit around debating with his friends why ships always met on the same horizontal plane in Star Trek: TNG.I think this is why Microsoft Office Labs’ new “2019” video does well to impress me. Though …

March 4, 2009
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SXSW Shanghai lit me on fire!

I am a pretty gregarious person. I love meeting new people, catching up with old friends, and especially talking tech. So when events like last Saturday’s SXSW Shanghai @ M1NT event come around, I was on it like an Apple fanboi on a new feline-monikered OS X. Organized by The China Business Network and The …

March 2, 2009
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In Sanya – Final Thoughts

Alright, I could pretend like the week and a half since we returned from Sanya was used to properly reflect on the vacation before I post final thoughts about China’s only tropical destination. But that would be a lie. Every time I go on vacation I think to myself, “Hey, why the hell am I …

March 2, 2009
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Thomas Crampton on social media in Asia

Thomas Crampton, sometime correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, is usually the one pointing the camera and reporting the wisdom of others, not gracing a lens and sharing it himself. So when he does, it’s almost always worth a listen. Such was the case with a recent short and insightful …

February 24, 2009
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The buzz about Youku Buzz

“TV? We don’t need no freakin’ TV… We got Youku!” Such is the unofficial catchphrase of Youku Buzz, an English-language blog put out by one of China’s leading (if not the leading) video-sharing sites–Youku.com. The Youku Buzz blog, and its affiliated Twitter stream, was created to act as a bridge between the mostly Chinese content …

February 20, 2009
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In Sanya – Da Dong Hai Sucks

As I mentioned in my previous post, Mags and I are down in Sanya for a vacation and to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. Yesterday we finally managed to get off our asses and go further than the beach across the road. We headed down to Da Dong Hai – a beach we had heard was …

February 15, 2009
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In Sanya – Holiday… celebrate…

There’s something entirely appealing about blogging while looking out over a sunny palm-lined beach and the sea beyond. It has a quality I could definitely get used to. Mags and I are down in Sanya, Hainan, for a week-long sun and fun vacation to celebrate our second anniversary. Long-time readers will remember that we got …

February 12, 2009
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Beijing’s Boot Burns in Real-Time

For the last hour-and-a-half, as Chinese Lantern Festival fireworks mark the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations, Twitter has been alive with chatter about a fire at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Beijing, which upon opening this year would have been one of the city’s most exclusive and luxurious hotels. Located directly behind the …

February 9, 2009
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I’m sorry, Mac, I was wrong

Two months ago, at the end of this post, I mentioned I had bought a MacBook. I took delivery of it about a week-and-a-half ago and wanted to share my thoughts on it. I’m not exactly “new” to Macs as my college’s journalism department ran on them, but that was a decade ago and my …

February 2, 2009
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Hi, I’m China and I like to blow shit up

As a foreigner, it’s impossible to live in China for any length of time and not develop some sort of Chinese New Year strategy. Most, the rich and clever ones at least, leave the country. Getting the frack out well before the world’s largest human migration takes place and starts blowing shit up is ideal, …

January 30, 2009
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