That I got the McCain and the Iraqi US deaths questions wrong clearly shows we do not have enough posts on either topic.

But seriously, I was surprised that I got 10/12 considering Mefi is my only American news source.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 8:54 AM on July 19, 2008

This is a pretty big embarrassment for the Chinese government--they saved money by building schools that were structurally inadequate.

It's more like they didn't have enough money to build structurally sound buildings in the first place. Not enough concrete? Well, we'll have to made do with adding more sand. Can't afford to hire experience workers from out of town/city/province? We'll hire the local farmers too. Can't make the deadline or afford... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 3:52 PM on June 1, 2008

Samuel Farrow: Does anyone know which way around the months and dates are listed in China?

If you see something like 6/4, it's month/day.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 3:53 PM on June 1, 2008

How can they? You have whole generations who grew up with the affect effects of the Cultural Revolution. A lot of people were (and still are) just trying to get by, nevermind a proper education.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 11:42 AM on May 25, 2008

Which big bridge is that at the beginning, just before the Hong Kong skyline shot?
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 10:45 AM on April 19, 2008

nathan_testke: looks like it. The shot in the ad was so damn gorgeous with all the clouds that I thought it was CG. Thanks!
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 11:07 AM on April 19, 2008

I had actually forgotten the plot to the Goonies and had to read the wiki link, it's been so damn long. The Japanese friend must've been literally a kid when she saw the movie, I'm surprised she's still so attached to it.

And I wish there were more links to short stories and lighted-hearted essays on mefi.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 6:39 PM on March 15, 2008

There's also the pirate puzzle:

There are five rational pirates, A, B, C, D and E. They find 100 gold coins. They must decide how to distribute them.

The Pirates have a strict order of seniority: A is superior to B, who is superior to C, who is superior to D, who is superior to E.

The Pirate world's rules of distribution are thus: that the most senior pirate should propose a distribution of coins. The pirates... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 10:13 AM on February 15, 2008

HK starlets sell on the wholesome, modest, chaste character. Thus the gossip magazines live on photos and talks of these starlets breaking character.

Gil was specially clean in particular and she kept her image well all these years. Last year (or was it the year before?), some magazine had a picture of her in her bra while changing and there was societal backlash against the magazine; Gil did the whole looking distraught and crying press statement thing and the one... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 5:24 PM on February 12, 2008

Oops, my bad klangklangston.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 5:37 PM on February 12, 2008

Well, there are other aspects to this that make it a bit more than sex photos feeding the HK media. ESWN covers most of these:

the police force was quite quick to raid people's homes and make public arrests; some of those people arrested have been released without charges and some have been denied bail but at the same time have not been charged and have been kept in custody for weeks now
this has promoted the perception that the police... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 6:27 AM on February 13, 2008

Also, I'm just going to come right out and say it... Their sports teams are going to kick the snot out of every other school in the district. Well, maybe not hockey.

It's Toronto, hockey nation! How can they not be good at hockey?
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 8:58 AM on January 30, 2008

Yeah! The Wiimote is awesome! I'm using aone with my Mac (via RemoteBuddy) and I'm really loving it. That remote Apple throws in is useless in comparison.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 5:25 PM on December 22, 2007

mammary16: I subscribed to the Economist for two years and finally got fed up with how every article is basically an editorial that is skimpy on details.

Hear, hear. I also never did get why they have a page on the leader and then half a page on the page on the leader. It's almost like if they like hearing themselves, or in this case, reading themselves trying to be witty.

Just curious, what do you read in its... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 4:00 PM on November 29, 2007

Did anyone else noticed that Kingsley looked so much older and tired in the interview than in the photos? He didn't look too happy either.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 2:15 PM on October 15, 2007

It so spectacularly killed Safari and my system that I had to do a hard reset. Seriously.
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 6:08 AM on October 6, 2007

Would I be crazy if I said Bering sea crabbing looks like an awesome thing to do?
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 5:47 PM on August 15, 2007

Needless to say ... far easier to wire up (and wi-fi up) a small-ish country.

I don't get this argument either. Why can't companies pick out densely populated areas and in just those areas, provide cheap, generous Internet service?
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 5:56 AM on July 20, 2007

delmoi: I tried to write what you wrote and it's not bad actually if you speed it up from its default settings.

When the iPhone comes out and some sort of SDK comes available, either official or unofficial (a la BackRow SDK), MacKay should get Dasher ported to it. Imagine just surfing the side of the screen at high speed with your finger to write out a sentence, a hell a lot of faster than taping small areas on the screen representing a virtual keyboard.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 10:04 PM on June 2, 2007

Muddler:
The real question is whether, absent those ranked lower on the list, the higher ranked countries would have the luxury of not getting involved while maintaining their sovereignty, freedom, and stability. My guess is that places like Hong Kong (ranked 23) would be ranked around 120 without the U.S. backing that is keeping it from being swallowed up and spit out by China.

According to their methodology, military and foreign policy... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 3:59 PM on May 30, 2007

(Ah crap, didn't mean to post that so soon; should've been a preview.)

Anyhow, meant to say look at Singapore which is pretty much like HK but with high military spending and lots of more effort on maintaining its sovereignty and freedom. And it doesn't have good relationship with all its neighbours yet it did pretty good either, (23 for HK vs 29 SIN).

So I'm inclined to think the smaller countries would do well without US/UK as long as it's not... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 4:08 PM on May 30, 2007

Muddler;

I think if asked, most people would describe a peaceful country as being a country where they don't have to worry about being attacked or having no where to live. They can go about repeating the same routine of life everyday without having to worry much about the country's foreign policy. The fact that the country's peace could be a result of some other country's actions and not of its own is ignored. And I think that's the type of peacefulness that the study... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tksh at 4:46 PM on May 30, 2007