Luddie's Former Life ;)
Houston, the Shiny has landed.

Maybe we don't want to be found

By Luddie
I came across this picture and cracked up



Also, apparently I have lost the ability to write opening paragraphs (or at least ones without a link to the BBC), so here is something I thought really interesting about the Chinese economy.

Yeah, you probably don't leap out of bed and skip the cereal every morning just to read about the Chinese economy, but the tagline of the article definitely caught my eye: "Shanghai is the ultimate poster-child for the effects of globalisation on cities and regions."

Twice the foreign investment flows into the city of Shanghai alone than to the entire country of India. A million people have been displaced from the city center because of rising real estate values. And they're planning the world's largest container port on an island thirty kilometers off the coast... a thirty kilometer highway out into the sea to access it.

These are issues we see in other places in the world, but the sheer scale of the Chinese economy and population is what makes it amazing to me. It's a city of 21 million people. The mayor of Shanghai regularly makes decisions that affect far more people with far more consequences than the highest leaders of many countries.

OK, well, *I* thought it was cool anyway.

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Went to the Texas State Fair this Saturday. For a mere $12.50 ticket, I was given the privilege of paying $4 for a corndog and $2.50 for a root beer. I saw a man shot from a giant cannon, and I saw a hot air balloon basket containing a cow and sheep, sculpted in butter. I saw Charlie Brown quilts and wooden cowboy hats and ceramic Popeyes and oil paintings of Guinness and kittens and signs for things like fried funnel cakes, fried cookie dough and yes, fried Coke.



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My latest pet peeve with the GRE is the word comparisons. They pick words with completely disparate meanings and leave it up to you to figure out which definition they intend.

For example, I am supposed to figure out the relationship between "pluck" and "fawn."

Well, pluck can either be a verb about pulling feathers from a bird, or a synonym for courage. And fawn can be obsessed, twittering flattery, or a baby deer, or even the *color* of a baby deer.

And I am expected to conclude that we are speaking of courage and groveling, while completely engrossed with this new concept of pulling feathers off a baby deer...
 

3 comments so far.

  1. Spaulding Lab 10/16/2007 5:47 PM
    Those arn't available from your local Army/Navy surplus are they?
  2. Geoff 10/18/2007 10:16 AM
    "Yeah, you probably don't leap out of bed and skip the cereal every morning just to read about the Chinese economy"

    What else is there to do in the morning? Eh?

    I, for one, welcome our new global(ism) overlords and sponsored feathered baby deer.
  3. C. Bright 10/20/2007 8:26 AM
    sigh

    people, silly people (I'll stick with the baby deer, myself thank you - no plucking feathers from *him*!)

Something to say?