Timely Snow

In late 2000, we started a project that involved working extensively with digital video, featuring multiple languages, multiple (ok, two) synchronized video, and transcripts. We learned how to get such video onto computers, do light editing, compress it into formats tractable with then-current computer technology.
Right now, one of the decisions is problematic in hindsight. [...]

This article discusses the new English name for the Goubuli (狗不理) chain of steamed bun restaurants, centered in Tianjin (but also in Beijing, and probably elsewhere). The name is striking because one translation would seem to imply that this is something not even a dog would eat. Apparently that’s not the right one, though. The [...]

Every year, during Lent, we try to use up as much as possible of the food that we’ve accumulated over the years (things bought in too-big amounts, or for some long-lost purpose). I’ve finally used up a very large container of caraway seeds that must be at least seven or eight years old (by putting [...]

Mayhill Fowler: TX: Bill Clinton Takes Aim At Obama - Off The Bus on The Huffington Post
“Bill Clinton is our modern-day Sitting Bull, replaying old victories for the bleachers in a new kind of Wild West Show.”

seems about right.
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Kevin Kelly, of Cool Tools fame, wrote a very thoughtful article on economic issues related to funding intellectual work in an age of free digital content. The basic question is, “what’s worth paying for when copies are free?” His answers (but read the whole article here) involve a set of “generative” qualities that add quality [...]

…has an interesting article in the forthcoming Newsweek about the issue of “experience” in the Democratic Presidential selection: The Wrong Experience.
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The Bush administration entered office prepared to devote their foreign policy energy toward containing China. It didn’t work out that way; as someone who works in China, that’s not altogether a bad thing, but it’s clear they weren’t prepared for the challenges that faced them. Hillary Clinton claims that she is. If she really believes [...]