While you may have some objections to giving away such expensive gear to journalists - why not just let them use if for a little while and then return it, which would be less complicated - there was full disclosure on many blogs. They told their readers from where they got the laptops, and that’s fine.

Let’s say Edelman and Microsoft even explicitly told bloggers to be open about where they got the laptops from. It would have been the right thing to do, and I believe both companies are smart enough to know and do that.

Even then, they would still have committed a big mistake. If you have the current history of online scandals, like Edelman do, and the reputation of Microsoft, you shouldn’t be doing things that are even remotely near something that could be criticized.

That lack of analysis is the real scandal.

An interesting passage in the article deals with the difference in censorship of local and foreign language sources:

The ONI [OpenNet Initiave - an organization mapping Internet censorship] has also documented a more concentrated effort among states to target content in local languages, such as Vietnamese, Mandarin, Arabic and Farsi. […] Although determining the motivation for such variation is difficult, one might surmise that political authorities may want to target that web content which hits closest to home while leaving English speaking visitors to the country (e.g., journalists, Western human-rights activists) with the impression that censorship is rare.

It is indeed very easy to forget the censorship when you can reach most any English language web site you want to (Wikipedia being a notable exception). You simply don’t see it. It’s sometimes good to get a reminder.

(The Economist also recently published an article on the subject, with a few more examples of methods to bypass the filter.)

“You get to a point where you feel a bit sickened by it.”

Said by a friend visiting Beijing, after having spent around 10 000 RMB shopping cheap clothes, shoes, bags and more.

By the way, the average monthly income in Beijing is around 1 800 RMB (and growing with every high-spending tourist).

According to the survey, both men and women have a lot more free time today compared to twenty years ago. How do they spend it? Consuming media, sleeping and staying away from the kitchen.

They also spend 21 minutes more commuting between work and home. All of them in black Audi A6 4.2l cars, it seems.

Which is one of the reasons this is what I see when I look out my window today; a light grey fog, made worse by pollution from cars and coal-fired heating systems.

Reuters reports this has caused “the closure of highways across an area as large as Britain“.

What I see today.

What I see on a clear day.

The stunt is part of the campaign to launch their updated logo: the Colonel had his double-breasted suit replaced and is now wearing an apron. Updated restaurant designs, advertising, point-of-sale and more to come, according to the KFC press release.

One can wonder if the giant logo is such a good idea.

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