@samuelwa.de
2.7K followers 1K following 710 posts
Vancouver-based editor at @chinadigitaltimes.net, a Berkeley-based nonprofit publishing news and translation about human rights and censorship in China. Knows changes aren't permanent, but change is. Will stand on the ocean until I start sinking.
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samuelwa.de
I spoke with @whiskeyocelot.bsky.social and @chinafile.bsky.social's Jessica Batke about their recent Locknet report, which provides a brilliant, concise, detailed but accessible overview of China's online censorship system.
chinadigitaltimes.net
Interview: Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on China’s “Locknet”

"Just because there are gaps, that doesn't mean the system as a whole is not effective. The human psychological component to this is that for most people, most of the time, as long as it's inconvenient, that's enough."
Interview: Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson on China’s “Locknet”
In June, ChinaFile published a new report, "The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters"—the product of 18 months’ work by Jessica Batke, ChinaFile’s senior editor for investigatio...
chinadigitaltimes.net
samuelwa.de
Is any of this answered somewhere?
samuelwa.de
Is it odd that China redacted the plans they submitted for their London embassy, instead of just lying? Is it standard, a flex, deliberate antagonism? Why not just say that bit's a table tennis hall?
samuelwa.de
Odd situation. Which is more unusual here, the request or the refusal?
sensehofstede.nl
UK expects to have full sight of China embassy plan before decision, housing minister says – Reuters: ‘The government has said it expects to make a final decision by October 21 after it pushed back an August deadline, blaming Beijing for withholding detail on the blueprints.’
UK expects to have full sight of China embassy plan before decision, minister says
The British government expects to have full and unredacted access to China's plans for a huge new embassy in London ahead of its decision on whether to approve the project, its housing minister said on Tuesday.
www.reuters.com
samuelwa.de
We do get monarchy, Nietzsche, and pre-civilisational masculinity, but you wouldn't exactly get soaked if you shook those before opening them.
samuelwa.de
"One of the main reasons the young are drifting to the radical or even far right is its intellectual energy—a fresh fizz of ideas about the ways we organise society. And while there are plenty of prominent theorists on the right offering radical ideas …."

Some examples would have been nice. Or one.
samuelwa.de
OK, random sign-out feature, you win.
samuelwa.de
I don't know why I can't do this, but I genuinely can't. I have no idea how many times I've looked it up.
samuelwa.de
Is Stoller entirely separate from Stancil, or are they different aspects of the same entity? Do they manifest in series or in parallel? Are they pronounced differently?

Don't worry, it never sticks anyway.
samuelwa.de
Lib Dems are weird, man.
yougov.co.uk
On the centenary of her birth, Margaret Thatcher is Britons' top choice for best PM of the last 50 years

Margaret Thatcher: 29%
Tony Blair: 12%
Harold Wilson: 6%
Boris Johnson: 4%
Gordon Brown: 3%
David Cameron: 3%
John Major: 2%

yougov.co.uk/topics/polit...
samuelwa.de
Still, good thing we've deftly navigated history without accruing moral duties toward anyone but Hong Kongers! Right, Anakin?
samuelwa.de
"It’s understandable to think that such moral duties are luxury beliefs, that it’s the kind of largesse that wealthier countries with fewer economic pressures can afford."

This is like Bill Gates arguing that of course *Elon* should pay higher taxes.
samuelwa.de
"Our national panic over immigration will have gone too far."

Gosh, can you imagine?
kjoules.org
“If Britain has no space for a group like the Hongkongers, then our national panic over immigration will surely have gone too far. This country needs some immigration, and if it is not the productive & educated exiles from Hong Kong, to whom we also have a moral duty, then who will we let in?”
Hong Kong’s migrants are the ones we need
Tightening the rules makes life harder for 160,000 highly educated and employable refugees
www.thetimes.com
samuelwa.de
There's a Nobel waiting for the first scientist bold enough to show that dogs are also a form of cabbage, and vice versa.
samuelwa.de
Why go to Greece when you can simply slap yourself?
sardonicus.eu
"Why travel all the way to Italy when you can visit a place much closer by that is shaped like Italy?"

bigthink.com/strange-maps...
poster of great western railways visit cornwall it better than italy advertising campaign
samuelwa.de
I don't know. Now I think about it, I'm not sure it works eggwise, even allowing for poetic licence.
samuelwa.de
I was probably even more annoying, but only if you were within a few feet.
samuelwa.de
There was a thing earlier this year—a TikTok trend that breached containment?—of people still dripping yolk indignantly explaining that things cost more on the shelves than they do to manufacture, and I'm sure there was a time when I didn't realise that, but I hope I was less annoying about it.
dieworkwear.bsky.social
The store is also in the business to make a profit. Their typical mark-up is 2x (many stores nowadays operate on 2.2x or 2.5x). This covers their cost of rent, utilities, maintenance, packaging, visual merchandising, fixtures, payroll, etc.

That means the consumer will pay $180 for the shirt.
A clothing store. There are some shirts hanging on the wall.
samuelwa.de
If you say "just works," they're allowed to get mad. This was clearly stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.

Strange sort of person who uses Alzheimer's as a punchline, though.
Reposted
leonenglish.bsky.social
Been thinking about this in the context of my elderly, member of her county Democratic Party aunt who the news managed to convince, in 2020, that antifa was a threat. You can't pull that off if half the people on the news are wearing cartoonish costumes and just hanging out.
golikehellmachine.com
the inflatable costume thing is an extremely smart tactic
golikehellmachine.com
my father (a retired white engineer who has been in oklahoma for 40 years) is my weathervane for what normal people who just watch the news periodically think, and he was like “so, they want to call the guard out on a bunch of kids wearing frog suits? is that true?”, the admin is losing the PR war
samuelwa.de
just a quick post
samuelwa.de
please consult relevant department

title that *really* matters

tank man survived actually

omg they have food
impavid.us
In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.
samuelwa.de
The bit before the fade-out is ferociously silly, but I'm sure that's just setting the scene for its later brilliance.
sallyjenx.bsky.social
This is really smart. Amazed at the hysteria over the ascendance of a woman entrepreneur who clearly knows how to cover and sell news and who's not afraid to take on a mob. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss
The new editor in chief of CBS News triumphs over her critics.
www.theatlantic.com
samuelwa.de
Got curious, looked him up, found him arguing that French people with tattoos is an example of American cultural influence. I guess all those guys in The Water Margin must have been big USA fans, too.