The Iroha Project - blog - Latest Comments

Re: Server hacked (again) – and fed up with Blue Host

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 07:11:15 -0000

I work with both Bluehost and Dot5Hosting and the customer service of dot5hosting definitely exceeds that of Bluehost 1000 times. In my six years with both companies, I have been attacked once on Dot5Hosting and their customer service jumped on it as they always do for all my inquiries within 24 hours or sometimes a few hours depending on what time zone I am in.

Re: Server hacked (again) – and fed up with Blue Host

Thomas J. Raef — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 08:41:23 -0000

I understand your frustration, but keep in mind that many, many hosting providers face the same issue. I applaud BlueHost for their continued efforts in getting malicious websites cleaned. They have a strong policy and want all their websites safe and secure.

I have not worked with Dot5Hosting, but at some point all hosting providers will have issues. It's how they deal with it that makes one better than another.

Re: Chinese tap water is SAFE

The Strange Laowai — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:29:33 -0000

Very very interesting. Thanks for that. A few points I'd like to add, though.

1. In many rental buildings in Taiwan, there is a communal "RO" water machine (not sure what "RO" stands for). It's just a machine that boils water for you. Usually there are different faucets. The one in my current building has a faucet each for hot, warm, and cold, so although I'm told not to drink water from the tap, I'm also told that I don't need to go out and buy it either.

2. The largest bottled water companies will not go under because they sell other things, like caffeinated beverages, for example. If nobody buys bottled water, then yes those companies would definitely stop selling something that nobody is buying, but that doesn't mean that they would definitely go out of business.

3. By far the bottled water industry's most valued profit centre is global events: G20, Olympics, World Cup, etc. At these locations, security is usually tight enough that your own water is not permitted to be carried through security checkpoints. This is the only (extremely artificial) situation in which one company can control the entire water supply for an entire population (i.e. the global event participants). The companies are trying to get people convinced that this is the way of the future, but people like you and me, we can't be fooled.

Spread the word, my good friend! Ain't no better water than what comes out of the tap! (Srsly tho, if/when tap water tastes bad, it's usually because of the pipes in the building...)

Re: Contest: What is this?

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:58:48 -0000

Another blog tip: if you ask for comments then be sure to have the comments turned on. Since upgrading to 3.0 for reason the comments were all set to off so that is why I am re posting this - with comments ON. So this time let me know what is pictured above.......

Re: What is this?

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:56:16 -0000

What's wrong? Too difficult? Don't know how to post a reply? The game is still open... and will be until people comment!

Re: Yulin dialect – video

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:54:05 -0000

The reason all you get is a YouTube link here is because I accidentally deleted my whole blog and I am slowly getting it together again. Unfortunately, I can't get the YouTube embed code for this video to post it here because I can't access YouTube from mainland China. If you do see this maybe you could grab the embed code from the above YouTube link and post it here and I will be happy to embed it again. Sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Re: Linguistic personalities

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 04:34:20 -0000

I would be interested in knowing if you have also had similar experiences. Please comment and let me know. Thanks

Re: Street view video: PingXiang, Guangxi

Google-Street-View — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:53:12 -0000

Nice streetview :) More here http://www.streetviewfunny.com

Re: A brief history about the town of Ningming

Kai Boutilier — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 01:40:07 -0000

Thank you very much for the political insight. Now I just want more pictures! Don't let the bastards grind you down!

Re: When asking for directions on the street…

Kai Boutilier — Fri, 28 May 2010 03:06:31 -0000

Oh please, I've been given both good and bad directions from different people in every country I've been to. This post is oversimplified and stereotyped. To add my own oversimplified and stereotyped comment, I've *generally* found that young men give better directions in any country than any other demographic, but it's not a 100% rule by any means.

Re: When asking for directions on the street…

jolenesiah — Thu, 27 May 2010 20:33:23 -0000

hahah
if the Japanese telling me the location, I'll confused with left and right :D

Re: Minority languages

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Tue, 18 May 2010 07:05:33 -0000

i say fuck business

Re: 山水 (San Shui): Why tourism?

Kai Boutilier — Mon, 17 May 2010 22:36:43 -0000

MASS tourism is only necessary to the extent that some busybodies in the northern countries wish to spend freely some of their capitalist-earned money and time in the southern countries. Mass tourism (think overpriced, bland hotels, blatantly overmarketed and non-authentic tourist food, and entirely unnatural "natural" settings like seaweed-free beaches, etc) only exists to give something back to the ignored people in the ignored countries, because the boring, uncultured busybodies in the north desire to do so. For example, I wouldn't want to take away the income of "Alex", a server in Acapulco who brought Corona beers to my brother and I as we relaxed on a perfectly maintained beach. We tipped him well!

In a perfect world, sustainable economies would be distributed evenly across the globe to the point where anybody with enough means to be a tourist somewhere else would also find it highly useful to pick up some real language, culture, and customs of the destination before departure.

Will this ever happen? I don't know, man. Your guess is as good as mine.

Re: Minority languages

Kai Boutilier — Sun, 16 May 2010 20:02:29 -0000

I understand the sentiment very well and there is certainly a need to strengthen the rights of minority languages, but you know as well as I do that Mandarin and Spanish are also languages of business as well. I can only assume that for the sake of the consistency of your argument, you'd have to argue against teaching Mandarin and Spanish as well. Anyways, if I heard a comment like the one you heard, I would reply, "fucking learn Mandarin; it's the least you can do. After that, we'll get you started on the harder, vernacular ones that are actually WORTH learning."

Re: The “Arts” for lack of a better word

Kai Boutilier — Sat, 08 May 2010 19:24:04 -0000

The world will need less consumers and more producers. In time, this will happen out of necessity.

Re: The “Arts” for lack of a better word

Kai Boutilier — Sat, 08 May 2010 19:23:22 -0000

The world will need more producers and less consumers. In time, this will happen out of necessity.

Re: Public wireless internet

The Strange Laowai — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 23:08:23 -0000

I've never met anybody who has said that Canada is RICH, but those in the know understand that this fact could not be false! Accordingly, I totally agree that Canada embarasses itself by not providing free wifi services to its airport clientele. Anything less would be a national embarssment, but Canada is not the kind of country that will admit to national embarassments even when they factually exist!!!

Re: Consumption

The Strange Laowai — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:31:14 -0000

You must come out to the Powell Street Festival every summer (usually August I think) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The songs and dances are diverse and captivating and the consumption elements are practically an afterthought.

Re: Overdevelopment

daniel Stark — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:37:05 -0000

I find the most wonderfull books by Christopher Alexander- 4 in a series "THE NATURE OF ORDER" about how the built world can be allowed to "Unfold" and create natural living architecture. I think he is a genius and well worth reading. There is a website "Creating Living Neighborhoods" that has lots of on-line info.

Re: Chinese Zodiac Signs

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:18:52 -0000

Thanks for retweeting I never thought this would be a popular post!
2010.2.12 23:00JST Update: I am very sorry that the link was down. I just re uploaded a fresh script and tested it it and works well http://www.projecth2o.org/c...

Re: Nihongo de Kurasou (Video 2 – Paying Compliments)

robbyinjapan — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:26:32 -0000

Hi,

I agree that さすが is often used to praise someone, but it can also be used in this way:　それはさすがにダメでしょ！ It's a bit difficult to translate for me though. Maybe "THAT has to be wrong" or something like that?

Re: Culture Clash

The Strange Laowai — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 01:42:45 -0000

Harper, to his credit, learned French as a second language, just as the last Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney did. It's a political reality in Canada that Anglophone prime ministers must bone up on their French. At the same time, it seems to me that most Anglo-Canadians have very little interest in any politics beyond "personal" politics. That is to say, Anglo-Canadians are very comfortable speaking only one language and politicians across the country have an easier job this way. The system feeds itself.

Re: Taxi!

The Strange Laowai — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:07:18 -0000

No, in Taiwan, a taxi is a 計程車 (ji4cheng2che1) in Mandarin. On the part of the mainland where Mandarin could be called "the vernacular language" (Beijing, Jiangsu province, etc.), yes, 出1租1 chuzu is apparently the word they use. Never heard of dadi, but I HAVE heard of 的士 ("deksi"). However, deksi is Cantonese and therefore rather unrelated to your current discussion.

I will ask my Taiwanese friends if 黃車 huang2che1 might be the word for taxi in TAIWANESE.

Re: Traditional Japanese entertainment – Rakugo

Ben Sanami (FB Liangcha) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:35:31 -0000

Rakugo podcasts are here http://odeo.com/channels/10...

Re: Happy New Year!

xtaaxtq — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 03:00:43 -0000

happy nuw year,and it is the tiger year in chinese zodiac.
http://world-culture-resear...