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Guilty pleasures

Do you get Quora Digest? I think you automatically get signed up to it when you open a Gmail account, because I get mailings from them to each of my several Gmail addresses. Interestingly, the topics on each are slightly different, which either means they try different versions at random, or they’re targeting my topics based on which account I was logged into when I clicked something.

Yes, I click. Quora is one of my guilty pleasures. I’ve always been a sucker for ordinary people telling me pointless stories. I never realized until just now, though, how hard they make it to link to an individual story directly. Phew!

Have a look at the picture. It’s an overhead shot of something in China. For scale, the objects on the right hand side are electricity pylons. It is not a crop.

You’ll find the story here. For maximum amaze, scroll slowly past the pictures as the camera moves closer and closer to the subject.

And do read the article. The sheer scale of what happens when things go fuckup in China is astonishing.

Happy Monday!

Comments


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: May 10, 2021, 9:14 pm

Ack! Color me amazed and horrified at the same time. And surprised, too, that the bicycles have not been parted out and melted down already.

Re: Quora. It’s my favorite way to burn off time.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: May 11, 2021, 5:57 am

Bikesharing, and other brilliant socialist ideas that run afoul of human behaviors.

“Commies”, they’re everywhere, pretending people will be different this time, if we only can educate them.
And it will never cost the taxpayers one dime, because there’s no such thing in the world as any costs but those the kiddies predicted in their computer simulated model, loaded with sunshine, daisies and fuzzy warm kittens.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/rise-fall-dockless-bike-sharing-dallas/


Comment from Tonycc
Time: May 11, 2021, 11:04 am

I loved bike sharing in China when it first started. It made getting short distances very easy. Then the problems began; couldn’t walk because so many bikes were clogging the sidewalks, bikes didn’t work due to lack of maintenance. I eventually lost my Ofo deposit.

As the collapse started, two of the biggest companies Ofo (yellow) and Mobikes (blue) merge into one company called Mofo Green Bikes. True Story, honest! 😉


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: May 11, 2021, 6:58 pm

Interesting, Tony. How long did you live in China, or do you still?


Comment from Tonycc
Time: May 12, 2021, 12:52 pm

I didn’t live there, just bounced back and forth for a few weeks at a time over several years. My last trip was in Dec 2019, just before the Wu… flu, er… covid hit. I got really sick with a “cold” on that trip. Never got tested for antibodies.

Overall China is not a bad place to visit, as long as you don’t mind not having air to breathe and water to drink. Forget about eating any fresh vegetables. The first thing I ate on every return was a big salad. I managed to avoid any major problems, just a few minor instances of Mao’s revenge.

The only thing that really bothered me was the government’s constant monitoring of the citizens. There are cameras everywhere, even on hiking trails in the woods. You can’t check into a hotel or get on public transportation without your passport. It is unsettling to realize if the government decided to have all foreigners report to a detention center, reporting was the only choice you had. Kind of like what happened last spring. I will never return to China.

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