A Lovely 10C Site!

@matigo Yes, there will be, in the very long term: Beijing thinks the solution to the protests is to ramp up "patriotic" and "national history" education (Xi has been working hard to rewrite the books to depict Mao in a more positive light).

Read: Annihilate this generation and brainwash the next. 2047 isn't far away if you consider the long view: lose the small battles to win the overall war.

matigo.ca.

@matigo I don't think they will, for the foreseeable future.

• The police are power-hungry, heavy-handed, emotionally driven, and groupthink-afflicted. The entrance requirement, academically, is astoundingly lenient: you barely need to have finished secondary school. Their training doesn't really involve any sort of "keep calm", based on their actions in recent times, so, like that worst stereotype of the US cop, they have come to rely on their weapons and basic intimidation. (This evening, a man was arrested after being searched: police found a green chopping board in his bag.)
• The principal slogan for the protestors is "Five demands, not one less" which is hardly conducive to healthy negotiation, since that involves compromise of some sort from both sides.
• China has a history of very bloody revolutions and, to my knowledge, relatively few peaceful ones, at least since Mao.

matigo.ca.

Up until about half a year ago, seeing police in HK was a "yeah whatever" kind of event, and from my understanding that's how it has been since the late-1970s when the ICAC cracked down on corruption within the force. The worst they really did to annoy most people was give a fine for jay-walking.

Now, it's a "safety glasses at the ready and be on full alert because they have a habit of using pepper spray on people who answer back to them" kind of event.

Once upon a time, I thought seeing angry protestors (some of whom are fully equipped for arson) would have me more worried.

This city's gone to the dogs.[^1]

[1]: Coincidence: the HK police are currently nicknamed "dogs", because that's an offensive thing to call someone in many Chinese-language regions, and HK's becoming a police state. I don't think the protestors intended for that term to work in both languages.

@matigo That's not as bad as I thought then.

/@phoneboy

matigo.ca.

@phoneboy what is Deep Packet Inspection?

phoneboy.info.

@matigo That, mouse trails, and custom cursors were my early forays into making the family computer (what a quaint term today) look really alien to my parents.

matigo.ca.

My checklist before I go out for a walk:

• Phone
• Wallet
• Keys
• Ballistic sunglasses (Oakley SI only, thanks)
• Respirator

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
> Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
> But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
> And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.

— Dulce et decorum est, Wilfred Owen

@matigo I've avoided getting chained to any one OS so far. Dropbox handles my photo uploads (even though the background upload on iOS is basically not functional).

matigo.ca.

@matigo The lack of ability to "delete all" from the main camera roll is surely evidence that they've given up on the Photos app.

matigo.ca.

@JeremyCherfas @hazardwarning Most unfortunately, the last update I got was that, because the CEO's email wasn't compromised — my friend simply didn't notice it was the same username but a different domain — the company may not be able to provide any reimbursement.

My hope is that the CEO (she's only the regional CEO) just needs time to consult with the head office.

jeremycherfas.10centuries.com.