thijsterlouw

The image quality seems a bit low (low contrast/greyish, lots of grain), but the concept is very cool. I also see lots of artifacts (horizontal lines) in several of the demo images:

http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery

Or for example chachaba.com (in Shenzhen):

http://sz.chachaba.com/location.action?placeId=221a75f1-bcfc...

They had problems with providing a mapping service in China without a license though. They were forced to shutdown for a very long time + redesigned their website to survive. Make sure you get the right license first in China!

It's extremely busy in the chapel and you will have no time to smell anything. The guards will also try to keep the masses moving along, so there is very little left of the serene atmosphere you expect. That being said, it's still very beautiful.

These slides were part of a "lightning talk" on ZeroMQ (video here: http://streaming.fosdem.org:8000/ferrer/0mq.ogv ). So I think Pieter just wanted to make the audience curious and not dive into the details. I do agree that it might be better to use more slides for patterns and use cases and fewer generic/actor-slides. Also the argument that it's not taught in university was a bit weak.

Just yesterday here in Shenzhen "Escalator malfunction injures 24". Anything can break unexpectedly...

src : http://szdaily.sznews.com/html/2010-12/15/content_1360566.ht...

In the presentation it was mentioned they will release some software in 2011. He also mentioned there are papers + pseudo-code on the website for research purposes to play with. So for people really interested in it (and it does sound very interesting and promising), it should be possible to make those kind of demos/comparisons. Though I have to agree with you that one demo would have been nice.

The opening slides (even though they are impossible to read) are fantastic. Very funny!

  Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at kwf.dyndns.org:5821.

well, I guess that was expected for a website that is hosted on an alarm clock :)

I found this article quite readable and the trick from the researchers smart.

They assume that galaxies are oriented randomly (from our viewpoint). In actual observations this does not appear to be the case. They then compensate for it to make all orientations as you would expect (random); The force that caused this distortion can then be calculated and it indicates the existence of dark energy.

1) as far as I know, 5-day workweeks are the norm. I don't know companies that require you to work 6 days. The boss of course doesn't mind if you come in the weekend, but it's not required.

2) we have quite a lot of holidays. Everyone has the national days off + some annual holidays that you can use whenever you want.

I'm a programmer yes. I took part in an innovation contest, got the job that way. Was lucky :) Working in a Chinese company is not easy, it's better if you first learn at least some Chinese.

I work at Tencent in China and here more than half of the people take a nap in the midday. We have a lunchbreak from 12 to 14h and around 13h the lights get turned off and lots of people get their foldable beds out (others just use q cushion and sleep in their chair) and sleep for 30 minutes to 1 hour in their cubicle. Personally I still don't take a nap, probably still my western inhibitions :)

I wrote an article about the cost of living in Shenzhen a while ago: http://www.startinchina.com/shenzhen/life/cost_of_living_in_...

Getting a visa for China is much simpler than getting a visa for Europe (and I imagine for the USA). I get a 1-year multiple-entry visa every year without problems, though with help of my employer.

I live in Shenzhen and work in the IT myself (Tencent/QQ), but I cannot fully recommend it for startups: 1. GFW, you absolutely NEED a VPN to get access to Facebook, Twitter many blogs, YouTube etc etc 2. There are very very few Western IT people in the city. There is no community with meetings etc. 3. Though more and more people speak English, many people speak still very little English. Especially all official documents, all practical matters... all in Chinese 4. House prices are very very expensive, offices also. You say rents are cheap,... not really. Perhaps compared to Western cities, but even then the gap is narrowing quickly.

On the plus side: - many Chinese study Computer Science and there are many very bright young students eager for a job. - salaries are still relatively low (though higher than you perhaps would expect) - weather ain't bad if you can stand the summer heat :) - food is cheap, I eat in restaurants every day. - Shenzhen tries to focus on innovation and high-tech, I think you can apply for some subsidies

I don't think those bosses have so much more risk than the programmers, yet they earn substantially more than the programmers according to the article.

Actually it lists in Hong Kong. Tencent has always shown good growth figures (see http://tencent.com.hk )

I'm very glad that KLM is pushing to lift the flight bans! From what I understand, is there are no strict rules to decide when not to fly due to volcanic eruptions. The current bans are just based on calculations and now the KLM (and the two German airlines) have done tests and it shows it's safe to fly. I want to catch my flight to the Netherlands from Hong Kong this Saturday and I have full confidence in the integrity of KLM.

Arrington is indeed ..hmm.. how to put this nicely... I have no idea. I'm totally with this guy. For example when cars run a red light with people crossing the street and then they don't understand why you block their way. Such selfless egocentric people!

no, one of the major problems in China is drought and heat. Beijing suffers from both of them and each year the desert is moving closer to Beijing and the sandstorms are getting worse. Increasing global warming will also make the situation worse in China.

Hope this will be one of those rules that is never really going to be implemented/enforced, but if some websites are really already unavailable, that doesn't bode well...

it is illegal in china to check the sex of an unborn child (of course if you pay enough at private clinics, you can still do it). Public hospitals probably will not dare to do it.

did anyone already do performance tests? I'm especially interested in memory and cpu usage. Any limitations?