It seems that someone didn’t get the Christmas gift they wanted, as Google is now blocked in China. Totally! I’m not just talking about the (often) useless Google Docs, or some maps of Goverment resources…I’m saying that everything on the Google.com (http and https) is now blocked!

Google blocked in China
That means China has blocked access to Gmail! It means I can’t access search! It means…well…we have been here before, so right now it doesn’t mean much. If it lasts more than a few days, then it’s time to get scared.
Why is Google blocked in China? A recent story in the Global Times said that there might be a shutdown if the company didn’t comply with moving maps servers to the mainland next year…but few thought that it would happen this quickly.
As a site-block-veteran ™, I would expect full service to resume in the next 48 hours. Until then, time to get on your China VPN and resume normal service. I’ll try to keep this post updated for any news about the Google China block – if you hear any news or gossip then please share in the comments!
Most people in Shanghai believe that the economic capital of China is, in fact, the centre of the Earth. They think that leaving the city limits is like going back in time, or stepping from civilization into the countryside.
在上海的大多数人认为,中国的经济中心其实就是地球的中心。他们认为,离开这个城市的范围就像是回到过去,或从文明走向农村。
Well I can now reveal that Kunming, in Yunnan province, is ACTUALLY more advanced technologically than anywhere else. But don’t just take my word for it, see for yourself:
那么现在我可以透露,在云南省的昆明,实际上有着比其他任何地方都先进的技术。但是,不要只相信我说的,自己看看:

ROBOT POLICEMEN!
机器人警察!
It almost seems inevitable at this point – Google will be pulling out of China. It is unclear about what exactly will still be available to the millions of people who use Google’s services every day here, but staff at Google.cn were rumoured to have spent yesterday watching Avatar and eating a farewell meal, before either joining the US office or finding new employment.
看来这已经成了不可避免的事实 – 谷歌将撤出中国了。目前还不清楚究竟在这里的数百万每天使用谷歌的人还能使用什么谷歌的服务,但Google.cn的员工有传言说,昨天在他们决定要么加入美国办事处或找新的工作之前,他们去看了阿凡达,吃了散伙饭了。
It’s true that Google wasn’t making huge amounts of money in China, and it’s true that they were not the number one search engine – but let’s be realistic: 2nd place in a market of a billion people is still pretty damn good. They will be missed by a lot of people…and yesterday mourners gathered to pay their respects at Google’s offices.
的确,谷歌在中国没怎么赚钱,也确实,他们不是头号搜索引擎 – 但是让我们面对现实:在一个10亿人口的市场第二名仍然相当好了。它仍然将被很多人怀念…昨天在谷歌中国办事处门口有很多人来表示哀悼了。
[Pics from http://ziboy.com and http://yy.766.com/yykd/bgqw/2010-01/13/571821.shtml]













It’s not goodbye – just au revoir!
这不是再见-只是‘下次再见’!
It’s been confirmed that Baidu was in fact hacked by the funnily named ‘Iranian Cyber Army’ earlier today.
已经确认了今天早上百度确实被‘伊朗Cyber Army’给黑了。
Kaixin001 now reports that the Chinese were quick to give something back to the ‘community’ :)
开心001报道了中国人很快给予的反击。 :)
(All text taken from Kaixin001.com)
(所有文字来自开心001.com)
——————————————–
http://www.downling.net, the biggest entertainment website in Iran was rendered unavailable – and some cool slogans were written on their website.
伊朗最大的娱乐下载站被入侵。http://www.downling.net/ 挂了很酷的国歌
An Iranian medical website http://www.diabetes.ir/home/
伊朗医药网站 http://www.diabetes.ir/home/
I still have no idea what this website is for…
还有个不知道什么网的网站 http://room98.ir/
———————————————————-
THIS MEANS WAR! I CALL SOFA!
这意味着战争!快抢沙发!
Reports on Kaixin001 (The Chinese equivalent of Facebook) suggest that Baidu (The Chinese equivalent of Google) was hacked early this morning by Iranian cyber terrorists! This might be a hoax, but I think if it was then….they would have made a better PS picture!
来自开心001的报道,百度今早被伊朗恐怖分子所黑!这可能是个闹剧,但是我觉得如果是……他们可以PS得更好一些!
Check out these screencaps of the Baidu hack!
快看这些百度被黑截屏!


The message left by the Iranian Cyber Army (and translated into Chinese above) mentions Israel, websites spreading false information and outsiders interfering in Iranian domestic and foreign policy.

I don’t know how it happened, but reports suggest that the first decade of the second millennium is about to finish. Crazy! I spent a year in France, two years in China, two years in Warwick University and five years in London – it all seems a bit of a blur! Some things, however, have been constant: Movies, music, video games, my computer and watching TV series. And booze.
不知道搞什么鬼,报道说第二个千年的第一个十年地球就要毁灭了。大概疯了!过去我花了1年待在法国,2年在中国,2年在英国Warwick大学,还有5年在伦敦 – 到现在很多记忆都已经有些模糊了!不过有些事情还是一如既往的,比如:看电影,听音乐,打游戏,操电脑和看电视连续剧。以及喝酒。
With this in mind I want to present to you my awards for the ‘Best of the decade…’, in various categories. Some may be obvious, some controversial, some a bit stupid…but so be it.
想到这里,我想让你看看我给这些不同类别颁发的’十年度最佳…’奖项。有些可能是显而易见的,有些会有争议,有些有点愚蠢…但本来就是这样。
I also invite you to put your own nominations in the comments in each category! Just copy and paste this in to the box before you type:
在这里我也希望你在回复里为每个类别写下你自己的提名!只要把这个复制黏贴到方框里:
Best movie of the decade 十年度最佳电影:
Best album of the decade 十年度最佳唱片:
Best drink of the decade 十年度最佳饮品:
Best website of the decade十年度最佳网站:
Best PC game of the decade 十年度最佳电脑游戏:
Best Console game of the decade 十年度最佳家庭电视游戏机:
Best TV series of the decade 十年度最佳电视剧:

Ok this might be a controversial choice, but hear me out. People often like films because of the atmosphere in which they first enjoyed them, and I think I’ve watched this movie more times than any other, with more cExercise/”>Lose friends, in more places…and each time I never got bored or stopped half-way through. It’s the ultimate brainless dude comedy – and I love it.
这个答案确是会有争议,可是请听我说完先。人们喜欢电影的原因是因为很享受第一次看的时候的那种气氛。这个电影我看的次数比什么都多,和好朋友看,在很多不一样的地方看…每次看我都不觉得无聊或者看到一半不看了。我想这是最不用大脑的喜剧了 – 我喜欢它。

The best rapper alive, the best beats, the best lyrics, the best mixture of radio / club / fight music ever put together. No need for guests (except Eminem, who compliments the mood perfectly), just hot hot hot music!
尚在人间的最棒的说唱歌手,最棒的节奏,最好的歌词,最佳的广播/舞厅/打斗音乐的混合。无需观众(除了赞美到位的阿姆),只是很棒的音乐!

Also known as ‘WoW juice’ or ‘PVP fuel’, the sickly sweet and alchoholically potent brew is what hazed my mind for approximately three years and helped me develop (at age 25) an almost-immunity to alchohol. Good times. Three – glorious – years. (A cExercise/”>Lose second is the Raspberry Mojito).
也称’WoW果汁’或’PVP fuel’,怪怪的甜味和烈性酒精调配而成,让我的大脑晕眩了将近3年并且帮我发展成(在25岁)几乎能免疫酒精。好时光啊。三个 – 辉煌 – 年。 (紧随其后的是Raspberry Mojito)。

After I left University in 2003, I became addicted to using Friendster and then Myspace. They were so refreshing – a new way to chat with and meet people from ANYWHERE in the world, almost instantly. They were fun for a long time, but both sites suffered from their own popularity and eventually became too full of flash widgets and glitter graphics. Facebook changed social networking by taking it back to its essence – communication. Now five (real) years on, it’s still #1 FOR A REASON!
2003年我离开大学,我开始沉迷于Friendster和Myspace。他们是那么新鲜——一种全新的快速的方式与世界各地的人交流和会面。我沉迷其中很长一段时间,但它们最终都由于过高的网站知名度,接受了过多的Flash和图片而遭殃。Facebook利用本质改变了网络社交 – 沟通。现在已经5(真的)年了,它仍然是最棒的!

What can I say? It’s so good that you think about it all of them time. I mean…all of the time. Like when you’re at work. When you’re in bed. When you’re working in bed. When you’re in bed at work. All the time. If you play WoW and can control yourself, congratulations! If you’re in remission like me, just remember the good times…
我能说什么?它好得让你无时无刻不想着它。我是说,无时无刻。比如你在工作的时候,你在床上的时候,你工作在床上的时候,你在床上工作的时候。所有的时间。如果你打魔兽并且能控制好自己,那恭喜你了!如果你像我一样没缓过来,却只是记得那些美丽时光…

When I lived in Leamington Spa, I played THPS2. The first game I ever queued up for (and got a free mini-skateboard for it!), it was (and still is) infinitely replayable. So, so good – it made me fall in love with a sport that I have still never tried (and probably never will).
当我住在Leamington Spa的时候我就玩THPS2了。我第一次排队打的游戏(还免费获得了一个迷你滑板!)是可以(现在仍然是)无限次重复打的。非常非常棒 – 它让我爱上了这个运动,我从没玩过的(而且可能永远也不会)。

If you haven’t seen The Wire, then you won’t be able to understand why it’s not just the best show of the decade, but the best show ever. If you have seen it, you also know that every TV show you watch now is measured against it – and none of them measure up.
如果你还没看线人,那么你无法理解为什么这个片子不仅是十年度最佳电视剧,而且永远都是最棒的。如果你看过,你也应该知道你现在所看的电视剧都没法跟这个比-没一个达标的。
It seems like Google is getting ready for its new Chrome OS operating system, and changes are happening quickly! They recently announced that it was opening the doors to its ‘Developers Area’ for Google Chrome Extensions (addons and plugins for its browser), and today I noticed another message at the bottom of the screen:
貌似Google已经为它的新的浏览器操作系统做好了准备,很多东西都在迅速地改变!他们近期称Google浏览器扩展(浏览器的插件)正是为‘软件开发者’打开了一扇门。今天我注意到了屏幕下面的另一个信息。
Bookmark sync within Chrome browser! I had to click…
浏览器里有同步收藏!我要看看…

So now I can have the same bookmarks on any computer I use (as long as I’m using Chrome) – and guess where they’re saved – you got it – inside Google Docs. Why is this important? More and more of your information is heading into ‘the cloud’ – or at least onto the big G’s servers.
这样的话我用的所有电脑都会有同样的收藏了(只要我都用Chrome)-猜猜他们都保存在哪里-你答对了-在Google文件里。这有什么重要的?你越来越的多的信息都到了网络上-至少都到了Google的服务器上。

Chrome OS (which I downloaded last night and will be trying out later today) fully integrates with the internet through Gmail and Docs to save all of your data – so why not get your bookmark info in there now?
Chrome操作系统(我昨晚下载的,今天等下我试试)在网络上通过Gmail和文档保存完整统筹了你的所有档案-所以为什么不把你的收藏夹信息也放上去呢?
Ps, I will be trying to do a ‘how-to’ guide about installing Google Chrome extensions in the next few days, but until then you can look here for a guide → Chrome extensions
Ps, 之后的几天我会试着写一个‘如果安装Google浏览器插件’可是现在你就先看看这个吧 → Chrome extensions
I think I was the last person to get access to Google Wave, however now I have it I want to use up ALL of my invitations to other people before it become OPEN and everyone can use it!
我想我大概是最后一个得到Google Wave邀请的人,不过我现在有了然后我想用所有的邀请给大家,在它开放以前,每个人都可以用它!

So if you want an invite, just leave a comment here saying so (as well as a joke) and then I’ll add you. If you don’t want an invitation, feel free to leave a joke here anyway!
所以如果你要邀请,只要在这里留言(或者说个笑话),然后我就会加你。如果你不想要邀请,那就在这里讲笑话吧!
Happy Christmas! (nearly)
圣诞快乐!(差不多了)
ps, it takes a while after the invitation is sent to arrive (like a week) – be patient!
ps, 在发送邀请以后要过一段时间才能收到(大概一个礼拜)- 耐心点!
I have Google adverts on a lot of the pages on my website. These ads are very clever, because they ‘scan’ the page that they’re on to see what sort of content it is about, and then put adverts up there accordingly. Theoretically, if I talk about buying turkey in Shanghai in an article, then if there’s a company who advertises with Google selling turkeys in town….the ad will be there.
我网站上有很多Google广告。这些广告都很聪明,因为他们总是出现在和他们广告内容相关的页面上。理论上说,如果我的文章里提到在上海买火鸡,那么Google里面卖火鸡的公司的广告….就会出现在那儿。
One small problem, however, is if Google doesn’t know what you’re talking about on a page (or if nobody wants to advertise on a page which talks about McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy looking like Iran’s leader). In this case, they will either put a solid colour (no ads) or PSAs (Public Service Ads). These ads are generally pretty plain and served on behalf of charities and other community groups – and usually are nothing to do with what is on the page.
不过还是有个小问题,如果Google搞不清你的页面是关于什么内容的(或者如果没人想在讨论‘实习医生格蕾’中的McDreamy长得像伊朗领导人的网页上刊登广告)。这种情况下,他们可能会放全色(无广告)或者PSAs(公益广告)。这些广告通常都很平淡无奇,为一些慈善机构或者其他社会团体服务。
Sometimes though, even a PSA can be relevant…
不过有时,即使是公益广告,也能做得很深刻…

Google really knows how to fix EVERY problem in the world!
Google真的无所不能!