Occasional Tales

Let’s say stupid things. I’ve just been reading Meeting signals pressure on microblogs from the China Media Project. It’s about the new State Internet Information Office and its antics. This paragraph is classic Doublespeak At yesterday’s meeting, Wang Chen emphasized that “[we] must thoroughly apply a series of guiding spirits of the central Party in regards to internet construction, development and management, keeping to the guiding principle of ‘positive use, scientific development, management by rule of law and ensuring safety’ …” Wang said the government must “thoroughly give play to the positive role of microblogs in serving society, taking concrete steps to develop and manage [them], working together to preserve a healthy and orderly online communication order, serving the overall work of the government and the Party, and serving the masses.” Which is basically saying, “We must utterly control everything to the sub-atomic level as usual”. Don’t even get ...

Dose of the flu? I did a little experiment last night, posting to WordPress using IE9, Firefox and Chrome. Apart from the WP toolbar being quirky with Firefox and Chrome, there were no further problems. Live Journal has remained quirky today. From home I still can’t access LJ or if I can, it’s temporary. I can see some parts of the site, but not others, and then the former join the latter. From school I was able to edit an entry, but when I tried to post a new entry, I hit a brick wall. The odd thing is, it doesn’t matter whether I’m using Freegate or not: I can’t post new entries on my LJ blog. When I did manage to see the LJ status page, it claimed all was well. Mind you, that may be like Windows saying, “This device is working properly” when you rather suspect it’s probably doing no such thing. I’m hoping the current situation is temporary although I don’t know where the problem lies. Of the various blog hosts, what’s still accessible from this darkest of dark holes o...

Server maintenance. This morning things have gone from bad to server maintenance. I was able to see my WordPress blog, but when I tried to go to the dashboard, there was a lot of wheel spin before a message popped up saying that some work was being done on the server. Over on Live Journal, I cannot still see the blog at all and get an unhelpful error message. In fact, the entire site is now inaccessible; unlike last night, I can’t even access the page for deleting unwelcome comments. So as usual, I’m left scratching my head wondering whether it’s coincidence that the only two accessible blog hosts have been buggered (one blocked, the other apparently malfunctioning). I was able to post an entry on WordPress a little later this morning, but after some initial success from school with Live Journal, the service is inaccessible. I can see my LJ blog, I can’t do any­thing else. Later. Now trying Chrome. Access to LJ possible but painful without my little helper. Access to Wor...

Another victim falls to self-delusional paranoia. I was at school this afternoon when Linda told me that she’d been unable to access my WordPress blog ( Green Bamboo ) all day. I checked and yes, sure enough, without that little program to help me get past the big, bad wolf, WP had been blocked. I’m surprised that the service has been accessible for so long because in the past it’s been one of the victims. If blogspot has been buggered, then WP has probably also been buggered. What’s the deal this time? Well, it might be mainly because of the spat about a Mr D. Lama of Tibet trying to visit South Africa for his friend’s birthday only to be prevented from going for the most doubtful reasons. That’s top of my list, but I have also seen stories about the imperial government getting even more paranoid about social media. Although that might specifically refer to Weibo and other Twitter rip-offs, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nanny was skimming through the list of blog hosts and found ...

Last post for the next two years? I’m hoping that I’ll be returning to the Empire with some means of circumventing the Great Wall of Paranoia, although whether such means work depends on just how exceedingly paranoid the imperial government is. I’d like the Internet back, thank you very much. As I said, Spaces got transferred to WordPress, which first got crippled while the mandarins had their conference, and then got sent to intensive care – behind the locked door. So much for my main blog. That forced me to switch to Live Journal ( Green Bamboo ) and basically begin again because five years’ worth of blogging was no longer accessible. I assume that Live Journal has been left alone because it’s popular with the Russians, and since the imperial government views the Grand Duchy of Muskovy as safe (i.e., corrupt, paranoid, and authoritarian), such people aren’t likely to care about those little inconveniences such as human rights, the rule of law, freedom of speech, and democracy. Anyway...

And I'm pissed off. After a somewhat arduous trip this weekend, I'm in New Zealand where I'm able to get onto blogspot for the first time since that day in August last year when the site was temporarily unblocked. My suspicion is that blogger and YouTube are blocked because of their affiliation with Google rather than their alleged threat to the imperial government's raging desire to ensure the ignorance and stupidity of the Empire's citizens. Have at you, Critical Thinking! Away with you, Independent Thought! Rather annoyingly, after Spaces was transferred to WordPress, that site was partially crippled when the Party boys were having some conference, and then completely blocked long after that at about the time Ai Weiwei was serving crabs. Whether there was some link between that and the disappearance of WordPress, I don't know, but I wasn't surprised. So, now that I'm away from the Dismal Empire, I'm going to try and set up a VPN so that I can bl...

Getting around that pernicious block. For anyone who's stuck behind the Great Firewall, Nanny and her antics regarding blogspot, wordpress, and Live Journal are a sodding great nuisance. Fortunately, if you're using Firefox, there's a fix available at Lost Laowai which allows you to view blogspot and wordpress blogs. And BTW, obviously, I'm back, but see the full story of my adventures (including the parts about which I forgot) over at Green Bamboo . Actually, one thing I failed to mention was the amount of Chinese that I saw in Auckland. There were a lot more signs in Chinese than I was expecting to see, although the one which amused me the most was for a Vietnamese restaurant called 漢山 hàn shān which means "Han (as in 'Han Chinese') Mountain". There was a Chinese takeaway near the motel where I was staying called The Great Tong (大唐 dà táng ), the second character referring to the Tang Dynasty.