Ryu2.mind

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Back to MT...

The path of love is never smooth
But mine’s continuous for you
You’re the upper bound in the chains of my heart
You’re my Axiom of Choice, you know it’s true

But lately our relation’s not so well-defined
And I just can’t function without you
I’ll prove my proposition and I’m sure you’ll find
We’re a finite simple group of order two

I’m losing my identity
I’m getting tensor every day
And without loss of generality
I will assume that you feel the same way

Since every time I see you, you just quotient out
The faithful image that I map into
But when we’re one-to-one you’ll see what I’m about
‘Cause we’re a finite simple group of order two

Our equivalence was stable,
A principal love bundle sitting deep inside
But then you drove a wedge between our two-forms
Now everything is so complexified

When we first met, we simply connected
My heart was open but too dense
Our system was already directed
To have a finite limit, in some sense

I’m living in the kernel of a rank-one map
From my domain, its image looks so blue,
‘Cause all I see are zeroes, it’s a cruel trap
But we’re a finite simple group of order two

I’m not the smoothest operator in my class,
But we’re a mirror pair, me and you,
So let’s apply forgetful functors to the past
And be a finite simple group, a finite simple group,
Let’s be a finite simple group of order two
(Oughter: "Why not three?")

I’ve proved my proposition now, as you can see,
So let’s both be associative and free
And by corollary, this shows you and I to be
Purely inseparable. Q. E. D.

Forwarded by a local friend: a survey of Shanghai salary levels for a variety of professions.  I found this to be a interesting read... just how much are the supposed low wages of China?  And for folks here in SH, how much are you being over/underpaid in this market?

Interesting stuff...

Project's end and the national October holiday are just around thecorner, and I still haven't started thinking of where I might want togo.  As I was pondering this tonight, I thought of how severalfolks have those little "countries or US states visited" maps from this site.  I quickly browsed through there, and found the middle kingdom glaringly omitted!  The horror!

Two hours and some Photoshop and PHP coding later...presenting my little contribution to the world of viral blog diversions.  Enjoy. =P

create your own China map

There you have it, everywhere I've actually visited in GreaterChina (not counting places passed through on trains, etc.).  Asfar as my own travels, well, I'm taking suggestions as always... =)

Sometime in the past, I found a document on a blog of a sister from back home entitled "How Do You Know If You're In Love?"  [Addendum: the entire document for those of you interested]  Of particular help in guidance was a section called "Is It Love Or Is It Infatuation?" excerpted below.  The points it spoke and the questions it asked have prompted me in the past to think long and hard whenever I've had an "interest" in certain people... reflecting on whether said interest was genuine for the right reasons.

And now I wonder as well, is my "interest" for this country able to be viewed and examined through a similar framework?  What would it look like?  How valid would the analogies carry forward? 

It's far from perfect, but I find that examining my "relationship" with China using such a  paradigm can still spark some interesting questions for long and serious thought... especially as the two year mark rolls around.  My own thoughts and musings in italics...

Test #7 – PROBLEM SOLVING

A couple in love facesproblems frankly and attempts to solve them. If there are barriers to theirgetting married, these barriers are approached intelligently and removed. Suchas cannot be removed may be circumvented, but with the knowledge that what is doneis deliberate circumvention. In infatuation, problems tend to be disregarded orglossed over.

Do I brush aside the country's problems in various aspects?  Am I engaging my local friends in discussing them and challenging them in finding solutions?

Test #8 – DISTANCE

Love tends to beconstant. Infatuation often varies with the distance between the couple.

I do think about this country when I'm gone... but in what sense?  Do I miss my friends, and the relationships, or just the superficial stuff (cf two entries ago)?

Test #9 – PHYSICAL ATTRACTION &INVOLVEMENT

Physical attraction is arelatively smaller part of their total relationship when a couple is in love, arelatively greater part when they are infatuated. When a couple is in love, anyphysical contact they have tends to have meaning as well as be a pleasurableexperience in and of itself. It tends to express what they feel toward eachother. In infatuation, physical contact tends to be an end in itself. Itrepresents only pleasurable experience devoid of meaning.

I like to think of the equivalent of physical lust as that of the material variety, living like kings here, and letting the "novelty" of the so-called "expat" lifestyle get to me.  I certainly have not been immune to this...

Test #10 – AFFECTION

In love an expression ofaffection tends to come relatively late in the couple’s relationship. Ininfatuation, it may come earlier, sometimes from the very beginning.

Do I have an "affection" for this place?  Has the reason behind it become more well-defined as I've lived here?

Test #11 – STABILITY

Love tends to endure.Infatuation may change suddenly, unpredictably.

If this country suddenly reverted to the way it was back in the 1970s, would I or my other friends still be so gung ho about being here?

Test #12 – DELAYED GRATIFICATION

A couple in love is notindifferent to the effects of postponement of their wedding and do not prolongthe period of postponement unless they find it wiser to wait a reasonable time;they do not feel an almost irresistible drive toward hast. Infatuated couplestend to feel an urge toward getting married. Postponement is intolerable tothem and they interpret it as deprivation rather than preparation.

Am I sowing the seeds here in China, without being under a results-oriented mentality waiting for them to bear fruit immediately? Am I disappointed if the Bride does not come immediately in the way I imagine she would be?

 ｩ 2000 Chip Ingram

Adapted from Marriagefor Moderns by Dr. Henry Bowman

While I'm not a dog owner myself, and probably will never be, this was rather disturbing nonetheless.   In dog fancying Shanghai many of my local coworkers and other friends have pet dogs of their own (contrary to what many believe, eating dog is relatively uncommon in most of China), and it's hitting really close to home, despite all this happening thousands of kilometers away.  Our company's internal BBS as well as public sites are abuzz with discussion amidst an air of horrified disbelief.

Almost as astonishing, however, is the reaction from the central government-run media and its mouthpiece, Xinhua.  It's extremely rare for the Chinese government to criticize anything internal so openly and publically, and that fact alone indicates that it's not something that will just blow over and be quickly forgotten.

As long as the economy is heating up and life is good, the car-driving, iPod-toting folks that are my peers here in China do acknowledge, but at the same time dismiss the imperfections of local or national government... after all, protests from the disaffected rural poor are viewed as something far and disconnected, and anything political like "six four" or Taiwan are simply never publically discussed.

But when it affects something concrete and personal like their pet dogs, people are seeming to wake up and start to realize when government heavy-handedness and fiat get too close for comfort.

Will this whole incident spark a renewed sense of thinking and introspection?  Or will some county-level bureaucrat "apologize" and pay some more money (hopefully more than 5 yuan) to the owners?

Beyond the economy and the development, it's the things like these are what make being along for the ride right here right now so interesting in a way... no matter where it all ends up.

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T-40 days and counting...

This weekend, we're preparing for a major roadshow for our game, as well as several key US and Europe publications visiting our studio in Shanghai to get hands-on with our project.  After that it'll be the final stretch until we go "gold" -- the finish line in this crazy two year adventure.  If you don't see me for the next month or so, don't be surprised.

But enough about me -- check out my friend dlu's new creation, which just went live three days ago:

Social networking and community meets shared bookmarking -- think Friendster/Orkut plus del.icio.us.  An rather interesting concept, and it gives me the perfect diversion while I'm rebuilding code amidst this craziness.  Join the fun!

You can find me there, at the usual username... =)

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