update on little things that happened 15 November, 2007

… and also because I wanted to scoot down the clip art photo of the dime, which, although topical, should not be left to linger (it’s too impersonal-feeling to me). So.
There was a little forest fire yesterday near our campus. We’re tucked right up against the Pat Sin range, which were lush and vibrantly green [...]

the power of the internet, or, I didn’t get much real work done today 12 November, 2007

So I was reading an otherwise fairly unremarkable NY Times editorial today about policy decisions and happiness. And then, about halfway down the piece: “Happiness seems fairly cheap to manipulate. In one experiment, subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire about personal satisfaction after Xeroxing a sheet of paper. Those who found a dime lying [...]

what I do for fun 12 November, 2007

((Photo from wikipedia: Hong Kong Jockey Club))
It’s a sign someone is cool when they combine their academic interests with their recreational activities, right? Well, I just spent the last hour parsing this article, and, let me tell you, by the above definition, I’m pretty darn cool. For those of you not particularly interested in reading [...]

in which I go to Shenzhen 11 November, 2007

What better way to celebrate a multi-entry visa (unlimited trips in for the next six months) than to use it, right? So it was a lazy sunday afternoon (I slept in), and I figured, well, why not?
It turns out that, adding in time to pass through customs and immigration, it takes the same amount of [...]

I’m famous! 9 November, 2007

Actually, that’s not really true. But I got talked about on another blog! And by that, I mean, the friend I played mahjong with mentioned me in her blog. At any rate, what I got mentioned for *was* pretty awesome. We were playing a casual, two-player version of HK-style mahjong (which apparently already has the [...]

*sigh* of relief 3 November, 2007

Near as I can tell, I managed to avoid jinxing myself.
So, to make a relatively long story short, I managed to hear an awful lot of rumor an innuendo about Mainland China visas. I tried to do some research over the summer, but I couldn’t figure out what the rules were for transit from HK [...]