Corrupt Chinese railway official has a mansion in Los Angeles

The Chinese media has been digging into the finances of  Zhang Shuguang (张曙光), the engineer once dubbed “the grand designer of China’s high-speed rail.” Following the crash of two bullet trains that killed dozens in China, issues of railway corruption have been covered pretty heavily in some of the media in China.  This report actually did some digging into US property and tax records to discover that while he was working for $2,200 RMB a month (about $300 USD) he was able to buy an $860,000 USD house, paying cash. You can read the original article in Chinese from Caixin.cn or read a translated version from the China Media Project in Hong Kong.  ]]>

London's new Routemaster bus runs out of gas

For those who don’t follow me on Google+, I’ve talked recently about the new buses that are to be introduced in London based on the iconic Routemaster designs.  These new buses, built in Northern Ireland, will be placed into service over the new few months years and will bring a hint of the old style with a liberal dash of the new design.  Personally I think it’s a beautiful looking bus. The first bus was “introduced” to London the other day with Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, gallivanting all over town with it.  Then they decided to take it back to the HQ and it ran out of gas. I’m not mocking the new bus or the rollout, but bringing this up as an example of even the best laid plans sometimes fall apart. So many in the tech industry see a new product get launched and then go absolutely bat crazy bonkers when something doesn’t work immediately, on day one, the way it should work after three years of beta-testing.  I’ve had to deal with this as well when creating some new product or site and having little bugs pop up unexpectedly that we didn’t have the time, money or staff to debug properly. That’s kind of why whenever I see a major site like Google or Yahoo or CNN go “down” I take a screen capture of the page.  Even they have problems now and then such that my own foibles don’t seem quite as bad. Anyway, can’t wait to get to London and try out this new bus. ]]>

The 12 books I read in 2011.

I guess I should feel lucky I had time for even these 12. Basically these are the 12 books I read this year, in no particular order.

  1. Steve Jobs biography
  2. Arsene Wenger biography
  3. The Quants (Wall Street Math guys)
  4. Deadly Choices (about the vaccine / autism debate)
  5. Defence of the Realm (MI-5 History tome)
  6. The World According to Clarkson
  7. Delivering Happiness (history of Zappos)
  8. Cold Steel (the battle of steel industry giants)
  9. The Black Swan (the effect, not the ballerinas)
  10. Too Big to Fail (Lehman Brothers, the US government bailout of AIG, et al)
  11. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I was sick one day and re-read it)
  12. The Facebook Effect (history of the Facebook)
Finding time to read is harder and harder.  I managed to get a few of these in digital form rather than paper, since buying them over here in Hong Kong is such a pain in the butt.  I don’t really have a review of most of them.  They were all kind of well, interesting enough for me to buy or get them but not necessarily things that changed my life.  Delivering Happiness is something I recommend to others, and the Facebook Effect for those who want to know more than the move.
Next year I have a bunch of classics (read — past their copyright and free) e-books already loaded on to the iPad.  I’m reading some of the history of World War I, something I don’t know enough about.  I’m also going to try and read some more spy novels.  I have a Wallander book or two lying around that is about half done which I should eventually finish.  This was also the first year my science-based reading went down a bit.  Guess I didn’t have enough time to focus.
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Original MTV VJ J.J. Jackson passed away

It happened quite awhile ago, actually. J.J. Jackson, one of the original three VJ’s on MTV, passed away about seven years ago from a heart attack.  I didn’t know but it is still very sad. MTV for me, like many of my age, was an eye-opening and world expanding experience.  Now it just sucks, as most anyone will tell you. But in case you want a bit of a flashback, here are the first ten minutes of MTV captured on Youtube. Watch it quickly before the dickless pinheads that run MTV today have their lawyers take it down. Rest in peace Triple J, and thanks for showing me there was more to music than that which I heard of my radio in a tiny corner of the world. ]]>

Elephant Walk in South Korea aimed not only at the North, but all of Asia

    Over the past few years, we’ve seen the US play a more active role in Asia, primarily as a counter to China.  On July 4, 2010, the South China Morning Post, in a likely ‘leaked’ story wrote about three US Ohio-class submarines simultaneously appearing at ports throughout Asia.  In the last year the US has also decided to play a role in the South China sea / island disputes, and recently signed a new treaty with Australia on the positioning of US Marines down under. Is this just a coincidence this photo is out and on the net and getting talked about?  Possibly, but even if it is the case that this is just random, I don’t think the policy makers mind too much the connection of this photo with the other actions going in Asia today. Here is the full pic from Flickr:

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Massive crowds on hand for iPhone 4S launch in Hong Kong 24 hours prior to sale.

[/caption] I can’t begin to accurately describe the scene on the walkways outside the Hong Kong Apple Store. Last night, an unofficial line of about 400 people was broken up by police and security details as the lack of organization and chaos was leading to some tense scenes, even some fighting. Today the lines are back, and organization is being forced on those waiting by the police and security officials.  “Cattle pens” have been set up to keep the iPhone line sitters from milling about, cutting in line, getting distracted, etc.  Police using crush barricades have made nearly 45 pens along the Star Ferry walkway outside the Apple Store, and are filling each pen with about 20 people.  When someone tries to leave a pen to go to the bathroom or get some food, security officials photograph them with a digital camera so they will be allowed to re-enter their sorted pen. But this isn’t enough. The 45 pens stretch nearly the entire distance of the Star Ferry walkway to just a few hundred feet from the ferry entrance.  The surging mass of 100s who have yet to be penned are now stuck behind the last pen and the entrance to the ferry.  Security officials (including some from Apple) are now building new pens on the other side of the walkway to shepherd in the waiting masses. The scene is pretty surreal.  These are not “Apple Fanboys” by any stretch, but low income migrant workers from places like Pakistan, Indonesia, etc.  There are men, women, old grandmothers, even some infant babies who are bundled up tight for the long night ahead.  There are also plenty of wannabe-Triad boys, gathered together with funky haircuts and tattoos, many of them with their faces covered by surgical masks (and it’s not because they have a cold).  Each iPhone they are able to buy will bring a profit of about $100US, which is the same as a weeks wages in some of the lower income jobs in Hong Kong.  If the limit is 5 iPhones per person, they’ll each clear a month’s worth of work so you begin to understand while they are willing to sleep outside all night.   [caption id="attachment_3687" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="'Blue Berets' of the PTU squads arrive"] UPDATE 5:00pm:  I added some more photos from this evening.  Police have dispatched a platoon of riot police known as a PTU unit.  The line extended at one time down the ferry bridge and onto the street, but after some reshuffling of the ‘pens’ they seem to get everyone back up on the bridge.  It also appears that they are not allowing anyone else to enter the line, but I can’t tell if that was a temporary thing or permanent change (my Cantonese isn’t that good). [gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="ID"]]]>

Hong Kong iPhone 4S line starts 72 hours prior to launch.

love to line up to get it.  In fact, this line of about 150-200 people outside the Hong Kong Apple Store isn’t even “official”–it’s just people milling about waiting to get into the official line that will start “soon” according to some in the know. The local paper (paywall) reported that a scuffle broke out between some of the early liner-ups-to-line-up and some more recent professional line sitters, predominantly South East Asians hired by the iPhone smugglers of Mongkok and Mainland China. Here are some pics of the wackiness.  We’ll have more Friday when the iPhone 4S goes on sale at the Apple Store in the IFC Mall.   [gallery link="file" orderby="ID"]]]>