Just realised I spend a lot of time chatting with interesting people while out travelling, or just taking a taxi in Shanghai. There are often interesting comments and stories told. Therefore I plan to start sharing some, and maybe can there also be some insights.

On December 30, after a burger and beer with an american friend, I took a taxi back home. The taxi drivers are usually happy to chat and this one was no exception. He told me how he has worked as taxi driver since 1983, and when he started he had to spend 10 months getting a driving license, this compared to the few weeks needed today in Shanghai. We could both agree that it is clearly visible that most drivers in Shanghai today would benefit from some additional training.

The discussion continued with cars, and the disappointment that there were no good Chinese cars. My joke that Volvo now was a Chinese car company was not fully comprehended.

He kept on complaining about the airplane industry and that you cannot trust Chinese airplanes. However, the trains are good. It was clear he was proud over China’s achievements when it comes to high-speed trains. And it reminds me how often I hear strong comments on subjects, that internationally are being questioned, clearly in line with what I assume is the official opinion. To mention that the current high-speed trains are all based on German and Japanese technology and there are talks about infringements was better to skip.

Going forward we also entered military equipment and the coming aircraft carriers, the first one launched maybe already next year (soviet-era one bought from Ukraine).  I was told that China is very good in making artillery, something I was not aware of, although I know that the small neutral Kingdom of Sweden is excelling in this area as well. Doing some research today I did notice that China is one of the few nations still maintains artillery divisions, and one of the largest and best equipped ones are stationed on the coast opposite Taiwan. Apparently, the American Aircraft carriers that has been in the area to discourage an attack on Taiwan has prompted China to develop invest heavily in technology. Just two days ago, it was reported that China is stepping up testing on a space missile that could sink American aircraft carriers in the Pacific.”The DF 21D’s uniqueness is in its ability to hit a powerfully defended moving target with pinpoint precision”. “Latest DF-21 models in development are believed to be armed with 300kt nuclear warheads and will be the world’s first and only anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM).” (Source) The name DF, is an abbreviation for Dong Feng meaning East Wind, and maybe is that what the west will feel the coming decade – the wind from east.

An article in the SPIEGEL ONLINE tells the story of an Argentinean writer, Ricardo Coler, who decided to find out how a matriarchy really work and spent two months with the Mosuo in southern China. 

“Men live better where women are in charge: you are responsible for almost nothing, you work much less and you spend the whole day with your friends. You’re with a different woman every night. And on top of that, you can always live at your mother’s house.”

Who is reading a personal blog anymore?

I mean, with facebook and services like twitter all posts are delivered so convenient to you so why go and look around at different websites if anything has been posted?

Subscribing to feeds are still to technical and mainly for nerds (like me). Starting to use my blog again I realised: why so many different platforms and why is twitter segmented into “microblogging”? Of course, first twitter was supposed to be based on cellphones and therefore the limitation on characters, but today I almost dare to claim it is not the main usage. Most of my “friends” are posting links and news from other sites, not really the “what are you doing?” thing that you share from your cellphone. And with the huge amount of friends, who want to have all those posts sent to your cellphone?

So why cant blogging be like twitter? That you only press “Follow” and then you get that persons postings. Instead you have to chose RSS or Atom and what software to use to subscribe to the blogs feed etc etc…A perfect example of a solution made by an engineer without adoption in mind