Vinko’s Thoughts On…

Last evening (May 7) my hosting provider (HP) informed me that my site has been assigned a new IP address (May 7, 2008, 20:00). I then found out the IP address assigned is a dedicated IP for my site. This is so that my HP can isolate my site from the rest of the sites hosted by the server.

This all came about after I reported an issue with my ability to access services on my site/domain. As a result they pointed to my article on the Tibet issue and all other articles about China as the reason for their precautions.

They are worry that the China government’s firewall will block my site, hence, IP address. Causing all the sites and services on the said server to be block from access within the mainland China border. In directly, they also pointed out that I should have known better.

Not exactly sure if this is related, but my site and services since Thursday, May 8, 00:30 had been much faster than ever.

So if my sites is indeed blocked by the China government’s firewall, it will be unfortunate, and my friends in mainland China will have to go without the insights and articles I post to Vinko.Com, see all the photos I've taken in my photo albums, read the movie reviews before they go to the theatre, or shop at my online store, Vinko Treasures. But my site and services will be much faster.

China’s going to launch their own mobile TV technology in time for the Olympic games’ opening ceremony on August 8, 2008.

Mobile TV standards have been largely incompatible, with systems in the North America, South America, South Korea, Italy and Japan. Now we see yet another incompatible system to be introduced in one of the largest potential user based. Shall we keep starting these standards wars? We saw the battle of BetaMAX and VHS. We recently saw the HD disk format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

China had always wanted to come up with their own standards. They attempted to do so with WiFi, but failed drastically when the Chinese businesses complain that the China WiFi system would not be compatible with 802.11, hence forcing all Chinese businesses to equip their staff; who travels outside of China, with connected devices compatible with dual WiFi system.

Then China choose a HD TV standard that is incompatible with the rest of the world’s HD TV standard, but this time there are no Chinese businesses available to fight the decision for the consumer. So due to business survival, TV manufactures are making converter boxes that will sit between their HD TV sets and the signal coming at Chinese cities. For what have to be a patriotic decision, Hong Kong choose to go with the China standard rather than the standard that is use in majority of the countries outside of China.

Standards wars are never good for the ultimate consumers. I call for the technology decision makers and government officials, to consider the ultimate consumers in their decisions.

This Olympic torch relay around the world has now become such a controversy that the International Olympic Asscociation is considering terminating the relay. If this decision is final, it will become the first world record obtained by China in this year’s Olympic.

The people at “Torch Relay Beijing 2008” has created an animation to show their disguss of the recent events.

So far most sites who had talked about this or mentioned Tibet has been banned from China. I suppose mentioning these facts will also cause my site to be banned from China. After over 16 years of Internet presence for my site, I have finally dragged myself into a political topic that will cause me to loose the readership of fellow Chinese in China.

Hopefully, the well informed any Internet savy readers will find the usual techniques to circumvent the Chinese government’s censorship.

Beijing, China today introduced the new “Virtual Policeman and Policewoman” cartoon figures who will constantly monitor the web sites Chinese citizen visits. At the moment the Virtual Police is only monitoring 13 Chinese web sites and will eventually covers every domains registered in Beijing, China.

These Virtual Police would periodically appear on Internet surfer’s browser window reminding surfers not to visit porn sites, illegally download music and applications. If the surfers need further assistance, they just have to click on the Virtual Police figure and the surfers will immediately be redirected to the Beijing Police web site.

This is a perfect example of the cultural difference between mainland China and other western countries; particularly United States.

If this sort of government monitoring happens in Canada, United Kingdom or United States there will be a major up roar and citizen revoke. Of course, this is not to say that these government (particularly UK and USA) are not currently monitoring what their respective citizens are doing. In most cases, they are doing it much more subtly. It is well know that United States’ NSA (National Security Agency) monitors Internet traffic. In most cases, they justify the monitoring as domestic security reasons.

I think people, particularly governments, need to stop forcing their own principals onto other countries. Instead they should learn how to work with the local culture and improve the respective lives of their citizens.

read more | digg story

Repost from: Vinko’s Satellite Blog

In recent months many of the products manufactured or grown in China had found to contain poisonous materials or chemicals. This problem was reported in many countries: United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, etc. With most of the cases reported in the United States.

China’s responds to these accusations have been a mix of spontaneous defense of China’s manufacturing, accusations of American companies not conducting proper quality control, and the media for exaggerating the serious of the problem. (more…)

Much hype had been surrounding the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland tomorrow. Many have talked about the number of tourist from mainland China and elsewhere in Asia to Hong Kong, which suppose to result in economical benefit of Hong Kong. I personally do not have this same believe.

For one, the size of Hong Kong Disneyland is between 15 - 19 hectare, when considering the 30,000 maximum capacity, that equates to 2.5 square meters per person. It is currently the smallest Disneyland in the world. Hong Kong Disneyland spokesperson speaks of the Disneyland Hotels and resort facility as a whole when talking about the size of Hong Kong Disneyland, but how many of the visitors would even care or for that matter see these other facilities.

Everything at Hong Kong Disneyland is smaller than the rest of its brothers and sisters in Paris, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Orlando.

In particular the Cinderella castle for some reason looks more like Cinderella’s cottage. It lacks the dominance that a castle should instill. May be it has to do with the mountain that is its backdrop. This so call mountain on Lantau island is the size of a hill in most fairy tales. This is the only Cinderella castle that has a mountain as its backdrop, but to make the castle smaller just to give a better proportion to the mountain is ridiculous.

Disneyland has delivered the Disney magic for years to visitors for years to visitors around the world, but with the behaviours of the mainland China visitors to Hong Kong Disneyland, they have tainted this magic. Until Hong Kong Disneyland spend more effort to prevent these behaviours the Disney magic will never be successful in Hong Kong.

My recommendation to all, is to save the money and go to Tokyo Disneyland / Disney Sea instead, then reconsider Hong Kong Disneyland again in 4 - 5 years from now.