Jack of All Blogs » History

Chinese Wikipedia Blocked. Yes It Matters!

The Sheriff — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 10:17:01 +0000

The Blog Herald reports that the Chinese version of Wikipedia has been blocked again. It’s the Great Firewall of China in action once again.

But Tony Hung thinks this is no big deal, for these reasons:

The Great Firewall is now allowing access to the English version, anyway.

The English and Chinese versions sometimes have different depictions of “facts.”

Knowledgeable Chinese nationals are editing the English edition and updating it with their version of the “truth.”

If you ask me, issues like history are a big deal. These are sensitive issues that can even tend to spark fights among groups of people and even wars between nations. History, though, differs, when viewed from different perspectives. And what do you know, these different perspectives probably also come from across language barriers.

So, this means news like this matters. I mean, not all Chinese nationals can read English! English Wikipedia users are different from Chinese Wikipedia users. And the same goes for Chinese Wikipedia users who can understand English and those who don’t. The Chinese language Wikipedia may be blocked, and those who can understand English probably won’t give a damn. But those whose could only understand Chinese will probably have reason to be concerned.

And hey, there are about a dozen spoken Chinese languages (but with common writing, but not always common meanings). I guess this makes things more complicated than it already is!

[tags]china, chinese wiki,mandarin, chinese wikipedia, great firewall,chinese wikipedia blocked[/tags]

When Insults Had Class

The Joker — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 04:49:23 +0000

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
– Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.”
– Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
– Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
– William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
– Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
– Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
– Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
– Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
– Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one.”
– George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second…if there is one.”
– Winston Churchill, in response

“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.”
– Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
– John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
– Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.”
– Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
– Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.”
– Walter Kerr

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
– Jack E. Leonard

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
– Robert Redford

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
– Thomas Brackett Reed

“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.”
– James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”
– Charles, Count Talleyrand

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
– Forrest Tucker

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
– Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
– Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
– Oscar Wilde

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.”
– Andrew Lang

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
– Billy Wilder

[tags]winson churchill,insults,billy wilder, oscar wilde,mae west,class,mark twain,robert redford, ernest hemingway[/tags]

Top 20 Jacks. No.11- Jack Kevorkian

The Joker — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 14:00:20 +0000

“The American Medical Association says the humane way is to let people starve and thirst to death. If you did that to an animal, you’d be put in jail immediately … In the face of such insanity masquerading as authority, who wouldn’t be strident?”

“[The prosecutor] calls it a crime, a murder, a killing, ... I call it a medical service. Youk came to me and said, ‘Please help me.’ The aim was a final solution to incurable agony.”

“All we have to do to solve the whole controversy is have the medical profession come forward (and) lay the guidelines down, ... The guidelines say only certain doctors can do it, and if you don’t, we’re going to punish you.”

“I intended to do my duty. Not murder,”

“This could never be a crime no matter what words are written on paper… just like it was never a crime to drink beer, even though words on paper said it was, and that women were too dumb to vote,”

“The public can tolerate a Nazi America.”

“I did, ... But it could be manslaughter, not murder. It’s not necessarily murder. But it doesn’t bother me what you call it. I know what it is. This could never be a crime in any society which deems itself enlightened.”

“Either they go or I go, ... If I’m acquitted, they go, because they know they’ll never convict me. If I’m convicted, I will starve to death in prison, so I will go.”

[tags]doctor death, euthanasia,suffering,famous jacks,life issues, ethics[/tags]

Top 20 Jacks. No.10- The Union Jack

The Joker — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 01:08:18 +0000

The first use of the name ‘Union’ appears in 1625. There are various theories as to how it became known as the ‘Union Jack’, but most of the evidence points to the name being derived from the use of the word ‘jack’ as a diminutive. This word was in use before 1600 to describe a small flag flown from the small mast mounted on the bowsprit, and by 1627 it appears that a small version of the Union flag was commonly flown in this position. For some years it was called just ‘the Jack’, or ‘Jack flag’, or ‘the King’s Jack’, but by 1674, while formally referred to as ‘His Majesty’s Jack’, it was commonly called the Union Jack, and this was officially acknowledged.

In the 18th century the small mast on the bowsprit was replaced by staysails on the stays between the bowsprit and the foremast. By this time the Ensign had become the principal naval distinguishing flag, so it became the practice to fly the Union Jack only in harbour, on a specially rigged staff in the bows of the ships, the jackstaff. It should thus be noted that the jack flag had existed for over a hundred and fifty years before the jack staff came into being, and its name was related to its size rather than to the position in which it was flown.

It is often stated that the Union Flag should only be described as the Union Jack when flown in the bows of a warship, but this is a relatively recent idea. From early in its life the Admiralty itself frequently referred to the flag as the Union Jack, whatever its use, and in 1902 an Admiralty Circular announced that Their Lordships had decided that either name could be used officially. Such use was given parliamentary approval in 1908 when it was stated that “the Union Jack should be regarded as the National flag”.

Quoted from the article on the flag’s name at the website of the Flag Institute, by Cdr Bruce Nicolls OBE RN (Ret’d)

[tags]union jack, england, OBE, flags, scotland, famous jacks[/tags]

Top 20 Jacks. No.8- Jack Kerouac

The Joker — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:47:59 +0000

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”

“Maybe that’s what life is…a wink of the eye and winking stars.”

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

“What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.””

“All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.”

“My witness is the empty sky.”

“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion”

[tags]people, celebrities, jack[/tags]