Chinese TV is blurring out the ears of men wearing earrings. It's not clear if this is coming from Chinese regulators or if TV stations are reacting to a shift in what is considered culturally appropriate. According to CNN, last year China's media regulator bannedTV stations from featuring actors with tattoos and anything to do with "hip-hop culture, sub-culture." The country's regulations previously nixed any content that expresses "overt admiration for Western lifestyles", or jokes about Chinese traditions. The country's censors have also blacked out content on LGBT issues. "The poor sod whose job it is to find all the earrings and put a blur circle over them," quipped a commenter on Boingboing.com. "The censorship and surveillance industries are basically China's version of lifetime full employment, aren't they."
Building case against US wall
Amy Patrick is a a court-accepted expert on walls and on Facebook she explains why Trump's wall is a bad idea. She says it will mess with the United States' ability to drain land in flash flooding. "Anything impeding the ability of water to get where it needs to go (doesn't matter if there are holes in the wall or whatever) is going to dramatically increase the risk of flooding." She says it will also stuff up things ecologically and the costs will blow out - it does not account for rework, or complexities beyond the prototype design. She says when it all goes wrong (and it will) they will need a structural forensicist, many of whom are immigrants, or even if they're not these experts won't gamble their reputations on political footballs. She also suggested we are not far from the day when drones will be able to carry someone. "This will happen in the next 10 years, and it's folly to think that the coyotes who ferry people over the border won't purchase or create them. They're low enough, quiet enough, and small enough to quickly zip people over any wall we could build undetected with our current monitoring set-up." Read full post here.
2. "The insults of age had been piling up for so long that I was almost numb to them. The husband (when I still had one): "You're not going out in that sleeveless top?" The grandchild: "Nanna, why are your teeth grey?" The pretty young publisher tottering along in her stilettos: "Are you right on these stairs, Helen?" The flight attendant at the boarding gate: "And when you do reach your seat, madam, remember to stow that little backpack riiiight under the seat in front of you!" The grinning red-faced bloke who mutters to the young man taking the seat beside me: "Bad luck, mate." …Really, it is astonishing how much shit a woman will cop in the interests of civic and domestic order," writes Helen Garner. Read more here.
Video Pick
Russian work crew removing large icicles from the front of a building and it does not go as planned...
On boarding a recent flight to Sydney, Peter writes: "First they called the business class to board, next the premium economy, then the platinum plus types, the frequent fliers, the bronze whalers, the purple sash diamond encrusted cockroach eaters, closely followed by families with young children. Finally the last four losers, me included, were able to board. I realised why people have often said I lack class."
