Blogaround

1. Spam bloggers get (April 27) "Some of the e-mails try to sound personal, but it’s really obvious that they are bot operations."

2. BMW Hits a Rocky Road, Apologizes for Ice Cream ‘Discrimination’ (April 21) I posted a link related to this in a previous blogaround, but I just found out that Sixth Tone also wrote about it, and Sixth Tone is definitely a better source for Chinese news.

I have one criticism of this article, though- it keeps using the word "foreigners" when what it actually means is "white people." And honestly this happens all the damn time in China and it annoys me SO MUCH. Chinese people never call me a white person (白人), they call me a foreigner (外国人) ALL THE TIME. Because I'm white! Like if that's the reason- and it affects every interaction I have with Chinese people- why can't we just say it? But anyway, nothing I can do about that, so I try not to get mad about it.

Chinese internet users are mad because BMW gave ice cream to "foreigners" right after they told Chinese people that there was no ice cream available- do you think that would have happened if these "foreigners" were, say, Indian? Korean? African American? Chinese American? (Actually, ethnic Chinese aren't generally seen as "foreigners", regardless of their actual citizenship...) If a non-white "foreigner" had showed up, would they have gotten the ice cream? I would say it's much less likely. No, this is about whiteness, so let's call it whiteness. (For more on that, see: Well I have to blog about this "don't touch foreigners" nonsense because I'm white in China.)

Another article also from Sixth Tone: A Female Comedian Gets Praised and Slut-Shamed for STI Set (April 14) About how difficult it is to get the HPV vaccine in China.

A third article from Sixth Tone: Illegal Gym Construction Leaves 240 Families Homeless in Harbin (May 4) "More than 240 families living in a 31-story building in China’s northeastern city of Harbin were evacuated Sunday after a tenant demolished most of the load-bearing walls on the third floor."

3. Cryptocurrencies II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (April 24) "The throughline in all three companies I've talked about tonight is them confidently presenting a veneer of expertise, even as beneath the surface, they were a complete shit show."

4. Gusteau’s BIG Secret Revealed | Ratatouille Pixar Film Theory (April 27) "When you're watching 'Ratatouille', has it ever bothered you that, if not for the unbelievable discovery that Remy can control Linguini with his hair, then the plot could never happen?"

5. The Light Bulb Sudoku (2021) 42-minute sudoku solve video. This is really cool- similar logic to a sudoku with A LOT of thermos and thinking about how many degrees of freedom each one has.

6. Texas Senate passes bill requiring public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments (April 22) Ugh, tell me you've never read the bible without telling me you've never read the bible. This is such a bad idea. It's like, some politicians want to pressure people into being more Christian or something, so they try to brainstorm things that seem like good symbols of being Christian, and hey the 10 Commandments sounds like it would fit that description. It's not about actually caring what the 10 Commandments are and following them... I would warn these politicians to pay particular attention to the 3rd commandment (depending on how you number them), "you shall not misuse the name of the Lord." Yeah, using God as an excuse to make laws restricting other people's rights- that's what "misusing the name of the Lord" means.