Facebook new interface?

20 Jun 2008

Facebook went out for my user, and after a bit of snooping around I found this…

Coming soon?

Political optimism, censorship, and modernity

17 Jun 2008

A somewhat-long, but generally fascinating paragraph regarding ‘the future’ in the eyes of (particularly) 18th and early-19th century Evangelical moralists and their political counterparts. The “Society for the Suppression of Vice” originated in 1787 with a corresponding piece of legislation and is particularly associated with Wilberforce in the volume quoted here.

Fortune-telling, for example, was one surprisingly salient target. It was one of the social evils identified by the 1802 Society for the Suppression of Vice, and in 1824 the Vagrancy Act made it punishable by a fine or three months imprisonment. Numbers of plebian women and men were prosecuted, on the understanding that their claims to predict the future were a form of fraud or ‘gammoning’ money from the gullible. Other methods of telling the future such as weather prediction, dream visions, and prophecy attracted similar suspicion, indicative of the fact that the ruling classes were coming to see the conceptualization of the future as a matter of great significance. While vulgar millenarian prophets such as Richard Brothers were predicting an imminent time of suffering, leading to redemption, governments were eager to hold out the promise of progress. The future was to be conceived as new and better—fatalism and fecklessness needed to be eradicated. Like the similar conceptual shift in the meaning of the term ‘revolution’ from astronomical return to total transformation, the future was now cut free from the past, notwithstanding the irony that industrial capitalism demanded a considerable degree of forward planning. In suggesting that it was possible to see the future, popular predictive or ‘superstitious’ practices threw an unquantifiable factor into this planning. If indeed the flow of time was not as equable as Newton’s definition had claimed it to be, then the outcomes of scientific experiment, political policy, and technological advance were dangerously uncertain.

from McCalman, I. & Perkins, M. “Popular Culture”. An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776-1832. (1999) p.216

The Society were duly attacked in periodicals and all manner of other public forums, as we anticipate they would also be today, for bringing their ‘moralising’ influence to bear upon wider society. But, here at least, the ‘suppression of vice’ does not stem from any overbearingly ‘moral’ source. Certainly, fortune-telling, etc., is decidedly out of step with Abrahamic faith of most flavors (including that of late-18th century Evangelicalism), but the cause given is ostensibly something quite different from that held by these faiths. Particularly, it is on the grounds of fraudulent business conduct that such practices are outlawed. In doing so, there is the tacit acknowledgment that such activities could amount to more than idle entertainment, as most in the West today consider these practices. Yet it is for the preservation of stability, in broader terms, that this probition is made.

In consideration for the ‘future’, we are told, the promise of modernity was held out by censorship.

For what it’s worth, I am against censorship, equally against fortune-telling (considering it either false, accidental, or evil), unconvinced of the necessity of modern-day prophecy but receptive to it insofar as it does not claim that it is, and hesitant to malign Wilberforce, etc. I am also not so much of a modernist as to arrogantly presume the future will bring endless improvement, that people are good, or that humanity at this moment in history is at it’s peak.

All of which leaves me in something of a pickle making sense of this particular episode in history. Thoughts?

China L visa post-May 2008

10 Jun 2008

Regarding Chinese L class visas, which are supposedly (post-May 2008, even) still not that difficult to get, at the Sydney embassy.

Some things that your average travel agent and TRAVCOUR visa processing probably either don’t know, or won’t tell you. Unless you’re booking through a China specialist, but hey, more info out there can’t hurt. The few travel agents I’ve spoken to this time around were happy to admit they didn’t understand what was happening, so nothing too bad to report on that front!

1. Only tick the bare minimum. If you’re going for sightseeing, just tick that box. If you tick the relatives box you’ll have to prove they exist. You need to prove everything exists. The whole process is an existential nightmare!
2. A certain security guard at certain consulate (hint: I haven’t been outside of Sydney since February and have been told in the last month to do this, which certainly narrows it down a bit!) will not let you in without perfect documentation. He’s not Chinese (they use a private security firm at least for public areas), and not very understanding. If you’ve filled in a form before you get there, pretend you haven’t. If you need to go inside and try to talk to someone this is probably the best strategy. Call me naive, but this is preferable to faking documents using a travel agent, which was the course of action he recommended. I kid not. Let it be noted: The other security guard at the embassy is fantastic and nice and helpful… but only speaks English. Must be hellish for Hua Ren (with not-great-English) trying to get in!
3. Don’t actually fake your papers if you can avoid it. I was (again, probably naively) shocked at being essentially instructed to lie as a matter of process, and obviously this isn’t a course of action that actually should be recommended by anyone. The process is difficult enough without added complication brought about by fraud!
4. If your travel plans are uncertain, don’t worry about documenting other cities too much.
5. If you need double-entry, for example because you’re traveling to Hong Kong and back into China, be aware that you will need to document a destination back inside China. Again, the specifics of this don’t matter too much — but you are meant to produce tickets for travel along with your visa application. Specifically speaking of Hong Kong, you can circumvent this requirement by writing in the itinerary field “Destination (by train)” or similar method of transport that is very unlikely to be documented months in advance. You will need proof of accommodation at your first destination, but beyond this it doesn’t seem to much matter.
6. If you’re staying with family/friends that may complicate matters. You may or may not need booked accommodation for the duration of your stay… I didn’t test this one out!
7. Hong Kong SAR isn’t a problem at all re: accommodation or anything else if you’re an Aussie. So don’t bother with this for your visa application… it’s part of China, sure, but not for the purposes of complicated bureaucracy!
8. The actual Chinese staff at the embassy are really nice and really helpful, once you get past the trollish security guard and figure out at least roughly what paperwork you need! If in doubt, figure out a way to get inside and stand in the visa queue and ask them, and they’ll probably be able to help you with whatever question. That’s how I discovered the (by train) itinerary flexibility!

Finally, this is just my experience in one place in Australia, and will probably change. Even in 悉尼 :P

Erasure

03 Jun 2008

many of these things will not last, should not be expected to last. the lack of permanence is characteristic of volatile information, preserved only fleetingly even at a minus 25 degree boiling point.

we forget.

sometimes not soon enough, painlessly enough, loudly enough. as though our protest will make it sooner, easier, clearer. clearing these clouds to what end? dispelling an illusion alone? concentrating precipitation at some other time, in some other place? seeding rainfall is an imprecise science, you know. beijing would like to think otherwise — will have the world think otherwise, but we will have to wait until the eighth hour of the eighth day to learn — or at least observe the culmination of many factors not totally understood.

our control is at best imprecise.

rumours of tesla weapons and unheeded seismologists and toads are one thing, but the burial of thousands and grief to families and subsequent suicides and infertilities and abandonments are quite another. as, too, are rescues and outpourings of compassion and global relief efforts and prayers of thousands, at least some of which are being heard.

the opportunists? the profiteers?

“no man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death” (Ecc 8:8) — so let them lie and cheat. let the cheaters lie. they are digging their own pit.

why do good things happen to evil people?

it was not always like this. it will not remain like this.

“he [Jesus of Nazareth] is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42)

but he, too, makes us at peace with him through paying the price for us on the cross. “[God] reconciles to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Col 1:20)

“Surely I am coming soon.” (Rev 22:20)

come, Lord Jesus!

Not an outage

24 May 2008

Google.cn search queries for May 19th at 2:27pm took a bit of a hit, as follows:

Three minutes of national mourning for earthquake victims. Taken seriously and moving in a way that is a little difficult to imagine an analogue for in Australia — tongue-in-cheek about re:cessation of Google-ing… but intended as a broader comment on national displays of stuff in all seriousness. Perhaps unfair as Australia hasn’t really had any disaster of this magnitude in recent times, I know.

Everyone was outside as traffic stopped to remember and share in the grief of millions. Some things are more important than search.

[Google post via]