How a $500 Craigslist Car Beat $400K Rally Racers
I don't care if this is real or not (too lazy to fact-check, so I'm just going to assume it is). It's one of the best stories I've read in a long time.
... and, strangely, here's the exact opposite story, nevertheless an interesting read.
Mar 16
This is a geek post, so if you're here looking for anything else, just look away now. The title up there is the result of Google Translate... "Get your shit together" (English) -> Chinese -> English. Endlessly fun.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm constantly surprised by how much easier it is to get things done online illegally rather than legally.
Case in point: my "FREE Windows 7 UPGRADE" that I was supposed to be supplied by Lenovo for my Thinkpad X200s laptop. The laptop cost about $1500, plus some upgrades, and I was looking forward to getting Win7 on it to see if it would be worthwhile switching my Thinkpad T61 over as well, or whether it was more or less the same as Vista.
Well, I can't say, because it's impossible to submit payment (for my "FREE" upgrade). As I stated on Lenovo's support forums, I've never had to work this hard to give someone money for something they promised they'd give me for free. I've gone through the process multiple times, each with some kind of error on their server's part.
Each time there's an error, apparently they have to manually reset the process (what are they using, punch cards?), so I have to wait about two days to get a new link to their broken payment portal, only to get another error.
The icing on that crap cake came the last time I went to submit my 87RMB payment for shipping (in a country where shipping anything <500g across the country via express courier service costs about 10RMB). I was presented with a new error, to the effect that I had to submit proof of purchasing for them to even consider taking my money.
There's no mention of what form this proof of purchase should take, there's no link to find out, and there's no mention of how to even submit this information when I find out what it's supposed to be. That, and they already have my proof of purchase in the form of my goddamn serial number, order number, and model number.
Gravy. So I send off an email to their support staff, and I am promised a response within 10 business days. This was 12 days ago (they have 2 more days).
Even more gravy, the expiration for the "free" offer is... oh yeah, yesterday.
Contrast all the above with how I could obtain an (actually) free upgrade of Windows 7:
- Visit any one of a number of internet portals.
- Download an image file -- in a matter of hours, if I'm on a particularly slow connection.
- Install, along with any activation cracks necessary.
That's right. One day, and I wouldn't have to deal with any mouth-breathing support staff or send support requests to a black-hole email address.
Take note, Lenovo: a couple 15-year-olds with hex editors and broadband have you beat all to hell, and it would actually be for free, as you promised.
Get your shit together.
As it is, I'm giving them their ten business days to resolve it, then I'm filing with the BBB to see if they can get Lenovo to excrete my copy of Win7. If there isn't a class action suit in the works somewhere -- I am sure there are a few law firm IT department heads out there foaming at the mouth -- I'd be really surprised.
Mar 10
JingJing and I had a spare afternoon over the Chinese New Year's holiday, so we made these. Responses ranged from laughing while eye-rolling (her little brother) to eye-rolling (just about everyone else). Click here if you don't get it, just be prepared to lose the next few hours, or maybe days, of your life.
I never noticed the design of these windows in one of the back rooms before. No wonder it's always cold in there.
This guy's... uh, restaurant... is just down the street from us. If you haven't had naan fresh from the oil drum (front right), you haven't really lived. Yeah. I was surprised too, but it was undeniably naan, and undeniably scrumptious -- and believe me, I do NOT use that word lightly.
PBR is cheap crap, even over here... without the benefit of hipsters going for irony.
Mar 9
An interesting story was narrated to me today. Interesting not so much for its content, which was admittedly a rather common framework of a story, but for the reader, and the context in which it was delivered. The story went something like this:
Some time during the Japanese invasion of southern China, a young Chinese villager, Xiao Er (lit. "Little Two"), is taking care of his family's two water buffalo. During an uncharacteristic fit of unwatchfulness, the bulls escape his care and run off into the woods near the village.
Xiao Er, ever mindful of his duty, treks off into the woods in search of the wayward animals. Unluckily, rather than the buffalo, he happens upon a Japanese patrol, which spots him and starts harassing him. Just at the point where they've decided to impale him upon their bayonets, a Chinese army patrol spots them and promptly charges, killing the Japanese soldiers and saving the day.
I think we can all admit, it's a fairly common story of this type, and unlikely to win any points for originality. What struck me, though, was that the person who read the story to me was my friend's seven-year-old daughter, and the book from which she was reading was one of her Chinese language primers. Complete with illustrations of Japanese soldiers poking Xiao Er with their bayonets, and valiant Chinese soldiers (complete with red armbands) blowing the brains out of their Japanese counterparts, it was a startlingly blunt example of xenophobic propaganda.
After reciting this story to me, this little girl beams up at me and says, "See? You guys lost! Again!"
I was speechless.
As Americans, we got things like Peter Pan, Little Red Riding Hood, and G.I. Joe. I guess the only real difference here is that our marketing was more subtle. Whereas the feared "Other" in our stories was a falsetto-voiced supervillain in a skin-tight bodysuit, a talking wolf in a nightdress, or Dustin Hoffman in a wig -- wait a sec... were we just being taught to fear cross-dressers? -- this story (and I can only assume others, in similar primers) kind of clubs you in the face by stripping away all the metaphors (and the G rating).
Although, when I think about it, the only difference between a story and political propaganda/commentary is just that... the degree of abstraction. An American story about a never-ending war in a far-flung Asian country is quite obviously about Vietnam, whereas put that story in SPACE, and you get Starship Troopers (no, not the movie)... or The Forever War.
I can't speak for her classmates, or her contemporaries all across the country, but after a few gently probing questions, I'm fairly confident that little -- if any -- of that propaganda has really sunk in. For her, these are just a series of stories. They're somewhat more relatable and have some more visceral... spice... because of the common history (however remote), but they're still just stories.
It just strikes a strange, dissonant note to have this little girl read such a thoroughly jingoistic story to me with obvious enjoyment, make that kind of "us versus them" comment, then turn around a minute later and beg the German volunteer at the front desk to give her a piggy-back ride to the kitchen to make her some spaghetti.
Yup... multinationalism is here to stay, whether the school system likes it or not.
Also:
A painting of me from Molly; a clay teapot/cups set from XiXi; lunch, dinner, a couple cakes, and a Benchmade knife from Yang Guang (as she put it, "well yeah, obviously it's fake, but what do you need to do besides peel apples?"); a paper crown from Yang Guang's daughter Cloris; a "Van Gogh" photo album from Lucky; two giant teddy bears from YingYing (not sure what that's all about); a Tupperware cup from Man Ni and Huang; one as-yet-unopened gift from ShiTou and ZhangLiang; a little knit-bag thingy (that she just made) from Xiao Fang; and a belt and a set of Rollies from Jing Jing.
They kind of went overboard over here; but as much as I can't get used to getting presents, I have to admit this was a pretty good 31st.
Dammit, I'm old.