Archives for 2010
Stamps from Brazil
My Talks at DragonCon 2010
DragonCon starts next week! Once again, I've been invited to speak in both the Space and Science tracks (which are over in the Hilton, across the street from the truly crazy stuff). I have three presentations: … [Read more...]
Notes on China: Natural Beauty
It's a beautiful country! Mostly, I'm going to let pictures speak for themselves on this page. If you like what you see here, don't miss the whole gallery … [Read more...]
Notes on China
It's silly to try and summarize the thoughts and lives of over a billion people by visiting a handful of spots over a ten day period. But I thought it was worth recording some thoughts on my recent trip to China, broken up into blog-sized posts. … [Read more...]
Notes on China: Random Miscellany
Things that don't fit anywhere in the rest of this series of blog posts... … [Read more...]
Notes on China: Social Darwinism
Darwinism I don't care if they call it capitalist or Communist, China is building a Darwinist society. The attitude appears in all sorts of places. … [Read more...]
Notes on China: Conclusion
I didn't expect this trip. The opportunity came unsolicited from the Hunan Provincial Department of Education and one of the local universities. But I've learned that when the Universe says "Would you like to?", the right answer is usually "Yes!" … [Read more...]
Notes on China: Relationships
Public Displays of Affection An interesting mix of public displays of affection. Lots of teenage and twenty-something girls holding hands. I suspect most of them were just demonstrating friendship, but who knows? For what it's worth, there were zero guys holding hands with each other. … [Read more...]
Notes on China: The People
Diversity One of the first things I noticed in mainland China was the diversity of the people. Not "diversity" in the sense we use it in the United States -- I saw precisely two black people on my entire trip, both in Hong Kong, and zero who we'd categorize as "Latino" -- but in the range of body types, faces, and colorations that all were … [Read more...]
Notes on China: Hong Kong
I'm going to be writing mostly about Hunan Province and its capital, the city of Changsha. But, on the way to Hunan, I was lucky enough to spend 48 hours in Hong Kong. I'm not going to focus on that other than this one page. First, lots more Westerners have already been to Hong Kong, so there's less useful ground for me to cover. And, in its … [Read more...]
