PandaPassport.com – China Blog

Made by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s first locally developed processor is known by many names. The Longxin (??) or Dragon Chip as it’s called in China, is otherwise known as the Loongson.

Oddly enough, it’s been dubbed with the English name of — get this — Godson.

No joke.

All the same, it’s possibly a fitting moniker for the potential savior that could deliver China’s tech reputation into the realm of respectability. There are also the implications that a home-grown processor will have on military technologies and national security, hence the funding and support from the Chinese government.

Can they compete with Intel’s performance? Hardly… But given the fact that AMD lost $611 million (check under the sofa cushions guys!) and has only $1.2 billion left in the piggy bank — well, it might be time for another player to jump on the CPU scene, no matter how small they might seem.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that PC maker Zhongke has expressed interest in using the Godson, and has pitched the idea to the One Laptop Per Child ($100 Laptop) project.

In any case, making computers more affordable in China is certainly a positive step. In fact, a Sichuan PC maker has already released a 1000RMB desktop (which converts to about $130US). Godson seems to get along best with a Linux OS, which will cut costs even further since a non-pirated Windows purchase might require more cash than the PC itself! Indeed, with some exceptions, the Godson won’t even be able to run a Microsoft OS since it uses an instruction set based on MIPS.

The first Godson to enter the market is the Godson 2E, and the 2F or the Second Coming of Godson, is reportedly not far off…

MySpace.cn launches today, and is doing so very quietly with very little warning on the english blogosphere. Today on MySpace’s main page, there’s a big over-animated flash banner which just goes to show that MySpace is already down with Chinese internet practices (most Chinese sites have enough Flash to make you seasick!).

Their slogan is ????. This is kind of a play on words, of ????, but ? (friend) takes the place of ? (have)? to give a nice warm and fuzzy?yet dual-edged sword slogan.

It’ll be interesting to see exactly how long Myspace takes to catch on with Chinese netizens, since they’ll be competing against Sina Blog, Bokee, BlogCN, Sohu Blog, just to name a few.

Of course everyone’s trying to take advantage of the China market these days, and it was inevitable that MySpace would cross the Great Wall eventually. But this move makes a lot of sense when you think about the demographics of China’s internet users – that being, in a nutshell, students.

Whether or not MySpace catches on with kids in the Middle Kingdom is certainly a key question. But possibly even more key is how more social network platforms will affect the evolution of China’s online society. And how that in turn, will affect society as a whole.

Whatever they decide to talk about, giving China another platform to discuss and spread ideas certainly cannot be a bad thing.

Here is the latest installment of Weekly China Links:

Beijing Cabbies Wanted: Patti & Selma out of Luck

Accoding to Weird Asia News, spitting is not the only no-no that Beijing is trying to clean up before the Olympics. Smoking, big hair, and big earrings are also banned according to their new rules.

Video: Something is Rotten in Dandong

Well, near Dandong anyway. Just upriver from there, there’s a little known island where tensions between rural Chinese and North Korean soldiers are increasing. The apparent murder of a Chinese man is documented by a Japanese camera crew, and is available here with english subtitles.

Boingboing: Google partaking in Cultural Genocide?

Quote: When content filtering targets a race of people for purely political reasons, and an American company provides the technology to enable that filtering, then it’s time to shame the enablers. To date, Google has been criticized solely for providing China with the means to censor the Internet. read the whole article here on Boingboing.com

Are you a slow Chinese Learner?

Many foreigners often find it hard to grasp the Chinese language. Well, this might just be the excuse you’re looking for: Chinese Dyslexia. via Chinesepod Blog

Found on Techcrunch: This new Stumbleupon plugin seems really cool. It allows you to stumble through one website, and land on random posts, like so.

Download it here

All the same, I thought this plugin could do with some icons. Techcrunch has one, but I thought I’d whip up a few more using Flash. For colors, I thought it would be best to bring in the web 2.0 color template, as those colors all over the place these days. Mouse hover over the icon to see which 2.0 site that particular color comes from, along with it’s hex-code.

Just right click, and SAVE AS to download your favorite:

…or download the whole pack as a zip file

When you’ve chosen the one you’d like to use, you can upload that pic to your UPLOADS folder. Then you can take this code, and slap it on your website to insert your neato Stumble button!

Of course, replace the gif name with the one you’ve chosen.

This post is what happens when I drink too much coffee.

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: 24 Season 3

To go along with Season 1 and 2 that I posted a while back, here are the continuing adventures of Jack Bauer in Season 3 of 24. All of this pirated goodness comes from our buddies over at youku, the Chinese youtube knock-off.

Anyone notice that they stream way faster than youtube?

Wow. Like, really really faster.

I posted a while back that I was gonna spend all this month studying Japanese like a mad bastard. While I have studied quite a bit, I haven’t stuck to my ambitious schedule as I’d hoped. Who’dha thunk it?

But it seems I have more things to worry about besides my Japanese language proficiency. My girlfriend is of the opinion that I simply can’t go to Tokyo dressed in the same clothes that I wear here in China everyday:
“Nobody wears pants like those in Japan!”
“We need to get you new shoes.”
etc, etc…

Tokyo just doesn’t seem to be a t-shirt and jeans kinda city, apparently.

Fashion aside, my main concern going there is that I’m gonna get run over by cars driving on the wrong side of the road. Not only because they’re driving on the wrong side of the road, but because I’ve picked up the habit of wandering out into 4 lane highways Chinese style, with total disregard for traffic signals.

From what I hear, that just won’t fly in Japan:

It is OK to cross the street against street lights at night but not during the day. The nearest car could be miles away, but as long as that cross walk sign says “don’t walk” you should stay put. If you cross, you risk confirming every horrible stereotype Japanese hold about foreigners. I’m sure this is a regular conversation in Japan:

Wife: You know what I saw today?
Husband: No, what?
Wife: I saw a foreigner cross the street against the cross walk sign, in broad day light in front of at least three other people including myself.
Husband: Jesus! are you OK?
Wife: I told you this was a bad neighborhood! Why oh why did I ever let you move us here? I want a divorce! Source: illogical operation

Well, I’m only gonna be there for 4 or 5 days, so as long as I come back in one piece I’ll be alright. I’ll be picking up some books for sure while I’m there. There are still a few Murakami novels I need to read.

This trip will hopefully also be marked by my long-awaited re-union with Leo. For those of you who don’t know, Leo is a 3-inch tall action figure who’s been travelling the globe, and is just getting back from Croatia (via Tokyo). Next on his travel itinerary is either a dart to the Amazon, or possibly Madagascar.

China Stolen-Video-of-the-Day: Tokyo Drift

My brother Jeff will like this one. Check out the 3rd installment of The Fast and the Furious, Tokyo Drift, all here in streaming youtube-like video.
The Fast and the Furious, Tokyo Drift
(Note, if the above link doesn’t stream continuously, try these: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

UPDATE: This post was the winner of the 2007 China Blog Awards Best Advice Post. Hooray for me!

Well, the easiest way to find pirated movies and tv shows on the Chinese internet is to come to this site (more specifically here). But if you’re looking a particular movie or show that I haven’t listed yet, you might wanna give this a try:

5 Steps to Finding Stolen Media on the Chinese Internet

(Note: you will need to have chinese character display on your computer)

1. Go to Google China, i.e. Google.cn

2. Type the name of the movie or tv show you want to find. Today I’m searching for South Park. Be sure to click the ???? radio button.

If you speak/write decent Chinese, maybe you could whip up the title off the top of your head. Or you could ask a Chinese friend.

3. Find the Chinese title. If you don’t read Chinese well enough to be able to identify the title, look for some characters in double brackets (like so: ??????), that’s most likely your title.

4. Copy and paste the name of the show (without brackets) into the search bar of any Chinese video site, and click enter. The big websites are: youku, tudou, 56.com, and 6rooms.
You’ll find a more complete list fo Chinese video sites on Danwei.com, if you need.

5. You’re done! Assuming that your desired media has been pirated, you should be seeing some search results right now.

Will this work for every movie or tv show?

Unfortunately not. But if you are looking for something pretty mainstream, your chances are pretty good.

I had planned to put up a few China-related links, but I’m going defer to something that actually matters for the time being. One of the strange things about being in China is that very often news doesn’t get to you as soon as it should. And on days like today, I hope that everyone that needs to be aware of the news, is made aware as soon as possible.

So just in case some of you here in China have not heard yet, there is some pretty tragic news coming out of Virginia.

Here are the links, so you can read for yourself:
33 dead in ‘horrific’ campus shooting in Virginia via CBC
Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor Describes Incident
Virginia Tech Shooting Sounds- Cell Phone Video
Officials: Gunman dead after bloody campus rampage via CNN
Statement by Virginia Tech President Steger (mp3)
Virginia Tech Shooting Pool Flickr
“Always Remember Virgina Tech” Facebook Group
???????????????

Update: Well, these might be China links after all

One alleged witness told news commentators on the scene that the shooter was a young Asian man, but Virginia Tech University police, nor the FBI were releasing any information as to the identification of the shooter.

The students and faculty were barricading themselves in their classrooms after what one person described as an Asian student wearing a vest opened fire.

CCTV was–of course–all over this story (sickeningly giddy, really) during the morning newscast with plenty of images of the violence in the USA. I do wonder if CCTV will continue to be so excited if it turns out the shooter was actually from China…

No Chinese students found among victims in Va. Tech shootings

Update #2: A Virginia Tech senior from South Korea

Accoring to yahoo news, it was a South Korean student.

BLACKSBURG, Va. – A Virginia Tech senior from South Korea was behind the massacre of at least 30 people locked inside a campus building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university said Tuesday.

The Virginia Tech Police Department identified him as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior in the English department.