Anonymous: #GFW will be dead soon

Is the Great Firewall doomed?
Confession time: I’m petrified of Anonymous. As someone who is hopelessly clumsy when it comes to web hosting and IT, I know how easy it can be for an experienced hacker to ruin my day. But then again, I have nothing to hide. I — unlike Fang Binxing — did not engineer a “Great Firewall”... Read more »

Now That’s How To (Not?) Do Advertising: A Fresh (Terrible?) Take On A Classic Sign

Ad
A poster on Reddit recently saw the above in a restroom and assumed it was a public service announcement. And why wouldn’t it be? The peeing about as accurate as a Tim Tebow pass, the squatting on the rim of the toilet, the doggy-style whizzing, the blowjob… all worthy of a public reminder: AVOID. Couple wrinkles,... Read more »

Via Ministry Of Censorship’s Biggest Bitch, Government Tells China’s Internet Companies To Tighten Censorship

Mark Twain on censorship
Here’s how shitty China’s Ministry of Censorship is: instead of doing its one job — which is shitting over everything popular and good in the world, smearing puppies and daffodils with the excrement of its values, and shit — it outsources this one responsibility to private companies, and when said private companies fail to shit... Read more »

Purple Panda Scares Bejesus Out Of Children

Purple panda
At first, the kids at this daycare/kindergarten seem excited about the idea of Purple Panda from PBS Kids' Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. (Purple panda, you should know, is just a purple version of the national symbol of China.) And then, something goes terribly, terribly wrong -- Purple Panda actually shows up. Much crying ensues, because we're dealing with kids, and kids are stupid.

Beijing Emptied Out: Photos From Lucie & Simon

Silent world - Beijing Railway
Via the Beijinger, the photographer duo Lucie & Simon has re-imagined a world in which (most) people do not exist — only their monuments (to hubris?) remain. The series, called “Silent world,” comprises 29 pictures taken in New York, Paris and Beijing. Ten of the images, in fact, are set here, and judging by the... Read more »

Author Of “A Solution of the Cosmological Equations in Scalar-Tensor Theory, with Mass and Blackbody Radiation” Dies

Fang Lizhi
Via University of Arizona Fang Lizhi isn’t best known for his seminal paper on the Big Bang theory, however. As the New York Times’ obituary states: Fang Lizhi, whose advocacy of economic and democratic freedoms shaped China’s brief era of student dissent that ended with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and his exile, died on Friday... Read more »

Son Of County-Level Cadre In Henan Province Allegedly Shoots And Kills Street Vendor

Street food vendor shot
Here’s something you don’t see every day in China: an apparent manslaughter/homicide involving a gun. Unfortunately, what’s disturbingly common are disputes involving the relative of a government official and the laobaixing – “the people” – and this story’s got that. Last Thursday, the son of a county-level cadre in Dancheng county, Henan province shot and killed a mutton... Read more »

The Most Expensive iPad And iPhone In The World: It Cost A Boy A Kidney He Now Wants — But Can’t Have — Back

Boy sells kidney for iPad featured image
We're about a day late with this story that's tearing up the Chinese Internet: a 17-year-old boy sold his kidney for 22,000 yuan in Anhui province, then used the money to buy an iPad2 and iPhone (model unspecified). The AP writes, rather understatedly, "The case has prompted an outpouring of concern that not enough is being done to guard against the negative impact of increasing consumerism in Chinese society."