Month: February 2023
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Harry and Meghan + more things
Harry and Meghan Disclaimer: not much of a royalist I don’t care that much about the comings and goings of the Royal Family, let alone minor players like Harry and Meghan. I am a citizen of a republic not a subject of the Windsors. I can remember watching the first wedding of Princess Anne on…
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Francis Fukuyama + more things
Francis Fukuyama Political theorist and author Francis Fukuyama wrote one of the mis-understood books of the late 20th century. The End of History (And The Last Man) was written in 1989 and the title and Francis Fukuyama have been misquoted endlessly since. At the 2020 Munich Security Conference Francis Fukuyama gave a talk about the…
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Dark Side Of The Moon 50th anniversary + more stuff
Dark Side Of The Moon 50th anniversary Pink Floyd released their seminal album The Dark Side of The Moon in 1973. The album went on to be very influential in the decades to come. I first heard of the album in primary school, Mr Garrett talked about seeing Pink Floyd perform The Dark Side Of…
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China Renaissance Holdings + more things
China Renaissance Hong Kong Stock Market filing – the Company (China Renaissance Holdings – *added this for clarity) has been unable to contact Mr. Bao Fan (“Mr. Bao”), Chairman of the Board, Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer and the controlling shareholder of the Company. The Board is not aware of any information that indicates that…
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NORA
Last week I heard the acronym NORA mentioned with regards the kind of problems that Microsoft’s algorithm could solve. NORA stands for no one real answer. Search is already pretty good at answering questions like ‘what time is it in Osaka’ or ‘what is the capital of Kazakhstan’. In the mid-2000s NORA would have been…
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Patriotic Alternative + more things
Patriotic Alternative Patriotic Alternative wasn’t a name familiar to me when I first heard about them instigating a riot in Liverpool on Saturday night. It doesn’t take that much to create a ruckus in some of the poorer areas of Liverpool. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the burnt out police van; it sounds like a…
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Forbidden movies
The phenomenon of forbidden movies The idea of forbidden movies for me started as a child. There were certain things that I wasn’t allowed to watch. It was a big deal when I was allowed to stay up late on a Saturday night and watch Starsky & Hutch. But movies that appeared later, were never…
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CNY 2023 the the rear window
Chinese New Year or CNY 2023 in online shorthand meant that for many people through Asia and beyond we are now in the year of the rabbit. You may see CNY 2023 also called lunar new year or ‘spring festival’. This post is later than I usually do for Chinese New Year, but that delay…
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Expat dissatisfaction + more things
Expat dissatisfaction China reopening: companies try to lure back expat staff with bigger pay, allowances after pandemic exodus | South China Morning Post – the thing that most of these companies don’t get is that COVID was the catalyst for expat dissatisfaction to be crystallised around. In fact expat dissatisfaction runs far deeper: China Chartbook #194…