On a completely irrelevant sidenote, Mr English's domestic credit rating has sunk into a new low after the his housing allowance saga.

And here's the list.

10 The Auckland Airport now has a cinnabon
9 We have the loosest slot machines in the Pacific Rim
8 Only a convenient 20-hour flight away
7 It’s like England without the attitude
6 Down there Leno’s on at 9 o’clock
5 Get the whanau together, stay in a bach, crack open the chilly bin and slap on your jandals
4 Visit in the next 30 days, I’ll pick you up at the Airport
3 70% of our energy is generated through renewable hydropower – look they don’t all have to be jokes
2 We drive on the left side of the road, like the British and Lindsay Lohan
1 Unlike most of the world, we still like Americans

Number one is clearly my favourite:)

One curious Chinese bloger wondered, how many days in a year are outlawed by "local laws"? He worte a script and found out that, out of 366 days, 11 of them will result the censorship notice on the search result page, these are:

* 13 January
* 31 May
* 4 June
* 13 June
* 20 June
* 25 June
* 30 June
* 5 July
* 19 September
* 13 Octorber
* 18 December

The rationale behind some of these censored dates are quite obvious, like 4 June is the date symbolises Tiananmen Square Massacre and the recent riots in China's Uyghur dominated Xinjiang Region started on 5 July.

However, even as a politically minded Chinese, I don't quite get why the rest of dates are considered "sensitive". I checked Wikipedia, there are some past events related to China, however, most of them are quite normal and can be hardly considered as sensitive events.

The related story can be found here.

I'm living in The Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. Welcome!!!

We all know those twitterers are fake, because we know for a fact that Chairman Mao cannot tweet from the below (or above, as some may still prefer), and for those who are still breathing, they don't need a twitter account as they don't have to go through the general election process.

But in New Zealand and other countries like the States, politicians need get up to date with all the internet new techs although they are usually a bit behind. It is important nowadays for politicians to at least set up a facebook page (although the politician may never have visited "his/her page", as it was done by the employees).

Everyone wants to get their hands on youth votes, but does a facebook page really means those politicians "understand" WWW ? I always feel pity for anyone who thinks they do - the fact is that Section 92A  was passed by all major parties, except two that are, in my opinion,  sometimes genuinely connected with youth - Maori and Greens.

So no surprise on how John Key was tricked by a twitter impostor on  the April's Fool.

Australia, hurt feelings of

An Australian couple has upset Kiwis with an online expat guide which warns that Auckland is a "horrible soulless city" and its inhabitants are "hobbits" who cannot dress properly. (Via New Zealand Herald)

Well I have spent a bit of time to read that guy's blog. I'm not a serious traveller therefore I can only comment on Auckland. What that blogger blogged is indeed bit over the top,but most of the comments, although somewhat exaggerated, are also facts.

Auckland indeed lacks a bit of culture, that's how I feel at least. By "culture" I mean not just the presence of culture diversity, but ... how do I put this, a community that respect, cherish, and upholds "serious" culture (not just the culture of get drunk in a pub every Friday evening.) as one of the important life aspects.

What I was really surprised about is not the whines from this Aussie expat, but how Kiwis reacted toward those comments. I mean, it's just a blogger, like myself (possibly you as well), everyone is entitled to have, and publicly express he or she's opinion, and it is a fact of life that no matter how beautiful the Big Sister Helen or the land of Aotearoa is, it is not possible to win a 100% approval rate - that only happens in North Korea, even the Chinese parliament got more nay votes nowadays.

It's not even a news, there are more than a million blogs out there and I believe a fair amount of them is about New Zealand. Single this blogger out only means that 1) marks the new low of NZ journalism, 2) maybe the view of that blogger is not uncommon and there's a need to discuss it on a higher public forum.

So I was really surprised that many "serious" organisations, like Destination Rotorua or New Zealand beer brewery , treated the comments that seriously, even " took exception to an open letter on the site" ... oh I just see a short cut for bloggers who want to get famous. I actually quite liked the smell of Rotorua, but if I badmouth them once maybe I can generate a bit of traffic to my site as well, but I'll only do that after I put up Google Adsense:)

BTW, wonder where's the sense of humour, or it's just like the Nationalists can make fun on everyone else, but when others make fun of Nationalists, their feelings are hurt.

I also added an interesting widget:

I always say, as a language, Chinese does more than just a tool for conversations, it is also the carrier of Chinese traditions,  philosophy, and ideas - that's why the culture lasted thousands of years, as long as the language is still present, we all remember that you cannot spell crisis（危机） without opportunity（机） in Chinese.

a dangerous world(click for full image)

I was searching stuffs for my essay this morning, and suddenly this happened. In fact, every single result was flagged by Google as a site with "malwares". The glitches lasted for about half an hour.

Google fixed and explained what was hapened quite fast. According their blog, when they were updating the blacklist, the value " / " was accidentally checked as an identifier for sites with malwares, and of course, every URL got that slash.

http://en.akinator.com/

My friend forwarded me this site today. It's an interesting mind-reading type of game, the computer asks questions on what character you have in  mind and then tries to guess it. It's amazingly accurate, I tried like twenty times, and the character I had in mind ranged from auntie Helen Clarke to Lin Daiyu (an character in Dream of the Red Chamber)  - the computer never missed a shot and can usually done the guessing within 20 questions.

It's not a mindreading game, seriously, it works more like a decision tree in statistics. It's fun to play though.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.

Most of us should have no problem with this kind expression, but let me remind you that in Asia, there's a hyper-sensitive country with fragile feelings, which its regime still insists that communism is the only way forward

China's state television, CCTV actually broadcasted Obama's inauguration live on its news channel. If my memory serves me right, this is the first time they have done such thing, and I think CCTV should be praised for that.

However, its hyper-sensitivity eventually kicked in. The live pictures were cut moments after Obama mentioned "Communism". The relative paragraph in Obama's speech is also removed in the "full text" of the speech published on most Chinese websites.

Even as a Chinese, I have great difficulty of understanding where this hyper-sensitivity comes from. When he mentions communism, he clearly means Soviet Union. Well, we all know China is more of a capitalist country anyway. If Ministry of Truth has problem on how Obama weights communism and facism as kind of the same thing ... if you can read Chinese,have a look on how Minitrue finds an "appropriate place" for the CCP.

Despite the hyper-sensitivity thing, I think Chinese media generally did well this time. Yes they removed parts from the "full text" of the Obama's speech, but most of them were forced to do so. But look at the brighter side, Obama's remark made to the public airwave tells me that Live pictures on CCTV probably are in fact, live pictures and not delayed - now that's quite rare, especially for political events.

Courtesy of David Letterman's the Late Show.

The collection isn't inclusive at all. There were about like 380 individual moments broadcasted on the show, but many were taken out of context for comedy effects.I also collected some of best Bush moment  in my Chinese blog, I'm pretty sure my picks there were within the context.

He brought us so many joys and laughs in the last 8 years, and I always say when you feel kind of low or in blue, Bush is where you should turn to. You'll realise that in this world, every thing is possible, even Bush can be the most powerful man in the world, you have no excuse to give up on anything.

I think I'm going to miss President Bush terribly. If he wasn't responsible for starting several wars, I secerely hope that American people can give Bush another 8 years.

I think its time to go off topic a bit. What I usually do in my Chinese blog is to dig up some video clips from youtube, and introduce them here. I tend to turn my attention to the ads on TV ... for no apparent reasons.

------

First one is a promo from National Geographic Channel Australia. If you watch other versions of the channel, the chance is, you have never seen the following clip before as it is for the Australian version only.

This is the most beautiful, in fact, most elegant piece of art I've ever seen on all the television channels you can get in New Zealand. But sadly, as a lot of wonderful things in New Zealand, this promo is also made in Aussie.

Second one is an ad of gorilla drumming and trying to sell you ... Cadbury Chocolate.

I understand this "gorilla campaign" débuted in the United Kingdom some time in 2007, and New Zealanders saw this ad on their tellies a year later. The ad was a huge success in the UK and it was so prominent, there is even a Wikipedia article for it. In New Zealand, the ad helped the song in the ad (Phil Collins, "In the Air Tonight") re-enter the NZ singles chart and briefly reached #1.

However, I am still having difficulty of understanding how this ad is suppose to work. What's the connection between a gorilla drumming and chocolates? This ad appeared on TV many times but I still cannot recall which brand the ad is for before the brand name appears at the end.

Third one is a Kiwi classic - "we don't know how lucky we are". I doubt if there is need for me to introduce this song to New Zealand audiences.

This is a remake version as no original version is available on youtube at the moment. Sadly, again, as a lot of good things in New Zealand, they are either made in Australia, or become Australian later like John Clarke.

The last one is an example of how not to do your TV ads. It's in Chinese so I'll explain it a bit later.

If you were suspecting your computer crashed like how a video tape jams a player, you are far from alone. It's in Chinese, and there are basically three parts:

恒源祥，北京奥运会赞助商，龙龙龙！

Heng Yuan Xiang, sponsor of the Beijing Olympics, dragon dragon dragon !

First part is the brand name, second part is very self explanatory. The phrase has been repeated 12 times in the ad, and only the last part is different in every loop. Like in the example, the ad went on to read every Chinese zodiac animal three times in every 'loop". Hardly innovative, but highly annoying. When this ad first appeared on Chinese TV, most people I know got up from their couch and had a very close inspection of their TV just to make sure it is still working.

There were also people who went further and called their local TV Stations, besought the station to take off the ad. I wasn't in China at the time but I understand for the business, it was a huge campaign and the ad appeared in almost all channels.

But if the is named  "Chinese democracy" ... well, the word "democracy" itself is enough to draw attention from the most sensitive government in the world, the Chinese government.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang was asked by BBC China correspondent, James Reynolds about the music, he replied:

"According to my knowledge, a lot of people don't like this kind of music - because it's too noisy, and too loud. James, I think you are a mature adult, aren't you?"

Actually I would agree the first bit, Classic and country music are far more gentle than rock, that's why I liked them rather than rock. But I just find it hard to believe that a foreign ministry spokesman, who frequently attacks others "hurt the feelings of Chinese people", to label rock lovers as "immature".

I don't think this smug, ignorant spokesman would never realise how many "immature" people out there who loved the band for more than two decades.

This sure adds to my collection of jokes from Chinese Foreign ministry. I have chinese blog entry on their laughable comments on human rights, if my collection accumulates to a reasonable level, I'll translate them to English or maybe create a hall of fame for them.

But I just keep feeling creepy every time this ad appears on TV. Last line of the ad reads something like "...you know you can trust Helen Clark and Labour." I don't know whether it's just me feeling this way, is this some kind of brainwashing ad with a hidden subliminal message "you should trust Helen Clark"?

I mean the wording of the last line is bit strange. How come they know that I know Helen Clark is more trustworthy? It made me quite scared that they may possess some kind of mind reading secret technique.

But if not,  then don't tell me what I suppose to or not to know. I know (well, everybody knows) Auntie Clarkie signed paintings which were done by someone else.

"trust" and "politician" are just two very incompatible words and I think Clark is quite stupid to set the tone of the election in this way. The ad itself also played a very stupid logic game: any fully minded person should know that an "untrustworthy John" does not logically equal to the statement "Labour is trustworthy".

BTW ... here's a story about two Helens ...

1. The Green Party - 73%
2. The Progressive Party - 73%
3. The Labour Party - 72%
4. The United Future Party - 70%
5. New Zealand First Party - 62%
6. The National Party - 55%
7. The Act Party - 35%

Except Rodney Hide's far right Act Party, I was quite amazed that the difference between National and Labour is just about 20% - I guess that's the down side of a short quiz - there's not enough questions to fully separate the beliefs held by each party.

But despite of that, the quiz also got an amazing level of details. It is capable to tell you the similarity between you and each political party for each issue, like this:

NZ political quiz

It's a nice quiz, recommended to everyone.

The stamp is a parody of the tainted milk scandal in China. Chinese characters in the picture means "this blog does not contain melamine. Approved by General Administration Responsible to Grant Quality Supervision Exemption(a parody of China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision).

Related news(Chinese): To restore consumer confidence, a "no melamine was found in this product" sticker is added to the cover of all dairy products produced before September 18th.

Aftershocks were seem to be finally dying out in just few weeks ago. But If a demon like creature really exist, it sure knows when to come out - there were at least 3 M 4.0+ aftershocks recorded since yesterday, the largest one happened early this morning, measured Mb 5.4 in northern part of Sichuan Province.

And my friends and family members in the province also reported countless number of small shocks - none of them were destructive, but sure reminded people what was happened four month ago.

Those aftershocks really worried me. The epicentre of one aftershock yesterday was only about 50km from the provincial capital, Chengdu(pop ~11m. , 4m. metropolitan), being the closest so far(it was first reported of being only 30km from Chengdu).

If a strong aftershock happens in the area the consequences would be catastrophic ... given that most people are tired of aftershocks and no one bothers to walk out of buildings when an aftershock happens.

The biggest one, Mb 5.4 this morning,  depth of that earthquake was only 6 km below the surface - it's an extremely shallow yet relatively strong quake, and I'm glad that the magnitude wasn't anything higher than 5.5. The region just cannot bear that kind of shallow quake again.

About the title ... according to many, tomorrow, 10th September, is the end of this world. Yeah you hear that right, end of our world. A black hole, or strange matter, will appear on Earth tommrow, and destroy the whole planet, possibly the whole universe.

All the fuss is about Large Hadron Collider(LHC). It is a particle accelerator located somewhere near Geneva, Switzerland. It is aimed to study many ultimate questions of physics such as the mechanism of the big bang and dark matters - but critics say that this machine may also be the ultimate suicide machine of the man kind ... there is a risk of a black hole or strange matter being created, and can effectly make the whole earth disappear.

That machine will operate for the first time tomorrow.

I like observational astronomy but has very little knowledge on cosmology - so I cannot tell you how the accelerator works ... just read wikipedia, please.

As many physicists, I personally think that there is a very, very remote chance that a micro blackhole created by the accelerator may swallow the whole earth. I don't know anything about stranglets.

That "remote" chance largely due to out lack of knowledge on the machanism of how the universe works. Although based on our current knowledge, because of the relatively low energy generated by the accelerator(compare with the bing bang),  it is not very likely to create a balck hole.

Even if a micro black hole is created, the consensus of science community is that black hole will soon vaporise because of its size. Well unless there is a mechanism we have absolutely no understanding kicks in and did something very bad.

No good scientists will guarantee you the outcome of something nobody has ever done before. All we do is make the best assumption  base on our current knowledge - it usually matches the outcome, but no professionals will rule out that 0.0000...% possibility of other outcome.

But sadly, that "slight chance" sometimes got exaggerated by some people and media. That remote risk of total destruction is worth to take for us to understand how the big bang happened.

BTW ... just for fun, if the worst happens, the black hole would still take few hours, a day or longer to suck every matter from earth. So you will have enough time to actually see how the black hole looks like before it tears you down into particles:)

Oh actually I wish that really happens tomorrow, so I don't have to hand in my assignment next week - that would be a good relief.

PS. the title is name of one of soundtracks from The Simpson Movie. Always good to spend more time to with your family ... you never know when the disaster might happen - it usually comes at the time no one expeceted it.

Auckland University Students Association(AUSA) has offered a bounty of $5,000 for any student who can make a successful citizen's arrest of Rice.

I like this idea but this $5,000 bounty is unlikely to be claimed by anyone as it is very unlikely to make a "successful" citizen's arrest of a high level diplomat.

And for $5,000 it is really not worth to risk your own life, but I reckon there will be at least one attempt if there are students who actually work in the hotel where Rice stays.

Just hope no one gets hurt ...

BTW, when I was searching this news in AUSA's site, I accidentally found out that there is a large number of spam links hidden at the bottom of each page. Anyone know how to do this? I need a bit of PageRank boost as well, haha.

For those who are still struggling to keep themselves awake in the chamber in this harsh winter, this is quite a good way to pass time:

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej passes the time folding a paper crane during the censure debate in parliament yesterday.(Source:Bangkok Post)

I doubt if Auntie Helen got the skill to fold one of those.