David Cohen

@kmichaelwilson @KaiserKuo @jwassers It seems so weird that was his breakout book—Liu seems so bored that he's writing plot and characters when he just wants to tell people about his cool idea for a space war. And he can write mood! See Wandering Earth, or almost any of the stories it's collected with.

@kmichaelwilson @KaiserKuo @jwassers The first book was about a man taking taxis around Beijing so people could incrementally spool out to him the premise of a decent short story; the second had the word "manganese" three times its first graf and that was end of it for me.

Got strong opinions about the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin's "Three Body Problem" trilogy (yes, I know that's not its real name)? DM me. Collecting some perspectives ahead of a podcast about it.

@Jeff23Wang @neilthomas123 @BeijingPalmer @rzhongnotes @ByChunHan Have a link to a current page with him? When I try to verify the entire activities page seems to be missing.

@neilthomas123 @BeijingPalmer @rzhongnotes @ByChunHan Weird thing is there is still no any search result about Qin Gang

UPDATE: Qin Gang is back on the MOFA website! Could mean political investigation ongoing. Could mean Qin is simply ill. Could mean nothing more than tech difficulties, as suggested @ByChunHan. We still have no updates on Qin and his last activity on the website is still 6/25.

How much weirder is that than a mentor figure handing you a red pill and a warning? And what a great metaphor for enlightenment; I’m a little surprised Buddhists aren’t more obsessed with eggs.

But then one day it hits you: “This is not all that there is.” And you begin bashing at the walls of reality with your face until they crack and light and cold pours in and you tumble out into a vast and unfamiliar world in which you have to learn to breathe air.

Have you ever considered what it must be like to hatch out of an egg? It seems a lot trippier than the Matrix. (1/…)

@TheNatlInterest Missed opportunity to print the headline: “Rarely is the question asked: is our machines learning?”

Some experts have begun expressing doubt about machine learning's role in AI's future development.ow.ly/AZmO50OAfGO

After six years, I’ve left @SixthTone. Or conditions were created for me to leave after publishing a project that criticized “zero-COVID,” which landed multiple people in hot water. It’s been bittersweet leaving a place we’ve built over the years but it was time. (A long 🧵)

Quite worrying that you can just buy F-22 eggs on the street here. Still, Happy Easter, @LockheedMartin !

Inevitably, @technodechina finds China’s “ChatGPT is my boyfriend” crowd. Curious why the people in these stories are almost always women — are women doing more exploration of new kinds of dating in China, or just more open to talking about it? technode.com/2023/04/07/lov…

A great @SixthTone story about people who seem pretty sad but also delightfully willing to cruise right past a lot of rules about how you’re expected to gender. sixthtone.com/news/1012605

@peiyue_jess reports on the hard core dating game fans who hire actors—almost always also women—to go on dates as their virtual crush. For enough money, you can go exclusive, but maybe it’s better to save your cash for your real (digital) boyfriend.

@gwbstr @jorge_guajardo The Maple is Due on Monsters Street?

“Trapped inside the cul-de-sac” could be the title of a pretty scary dystopian novel. 😬

Numbers! They're really hard to find

@onglynette @MuniraMustaffa @CFR_org @JoshKurlantzick @munkschool @MunkEvents @AI_UofT @CFR_Asia Also interested in viewing during Asian hours!

@MuniraMustaffa @CFR_org @JoshKurlantzick @munkschool @MunkEvents @AI_UofT @CFR_Asia we will endeavour to do so, thanks for your interest!

Join us next Tuesday, March 21, 4pm for a virtual book talk featuring @CFR_org's @JoshKurlantzick's latest book, Beijing's Global Media Offensive. I will moderate & provide commentaries. Plenty of time for audience interactions. Register: bit.ly/3lpivBD @munkschool

@MariaRepnikova @AndrewSErickson @TravelGov @StateDept Level 3 with reference to “arbitrary enforcement of local laws” goes back at least a year (probably more but I don’t have updates saved from farther back), not sure if dual citizens and Chinese descent warning is new? Today’s email says it adds “updates to COVID-19 information.”

@AndrewSErickson @TravelGov @StateDept When was the last time we had such travel advisory in China?

Concerning! #China #Travel Advisory—Level 3: Reconsider Travel—@TravelGov/@StateDept: "Reconsider travel to the People’s Republic of China (#PRC), including the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of #HongKong & #Macau due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws. ...wrongful detentions ...exit bans ...Relatives, including minor children ...propaganda campaign" travel.state.gov/content/travel…

@freefader Why didn’t I pay the extra 2 kuai for Harbin, the climber asks, mid-retch.

@freefader Turn it 90 to the left and it is more or less the feeling of attempting to drink a can of snow — crawling on all four up a mild incline, under a heavy pack.

Ditto Snow Beer and technical mountaineering Sidenote: Massive pet peeve that the climber on the label is wearing absolutely the wrong gear.

There are dragon dances, and then there’s this. Dozens of people leading a huge *electrified* dragon through a volley of fireworks and firecrackers.