Author Archives: dontai

Negative Effects of China’s Migrant Population to Cities

Recently there was a fire in a Beijing suburb. The fire was located in an area and building that housed migrant workers. This trigger sparked not only the fire but the legal expulsion of a large number of migrant workers and their businesses from Beijing. These expulsion movements are not new and have occurred with regularity in the past. Use and abuse of migrant workers in China has long been a point of contention. This article also mentions the migrant workers, poverty and the hukou program. Chinese intellectuals have spoke out against the mass evictions in the middle of winter.

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Feedly: Somewhat Schizophrenic so Please Settle Down

A dear friend uses Feedly to monitor my site. He complained that he was getting 403s Banned, and asked why. Well, I have found that Feedly usually only takes my RSS feed, but sometimes, not often, it scrapes me mercilessly. Once I see a bot start scraping, I ban it. I moved him over to the more well behaved Feedburner by Google.

Here are the Feedly user agents:

Feedly/1.0 (+http://www.feedly.com/fetcher.html; like FeedFetcher-Google)
FeedlyBot/1.0 (http://feedly.com)

The latter, FeedlyBot, runs off WZComm, and had previously scraped me, so I banned it. WZComm also runs the surdotly bot, which is also banned. The former, Feedly/1.0, runs off Level 3, and seems well behaved.

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China’s Tactics of Influence in Foreign Countries

China is a sovereign country, the same as any other independent and the world must respect this. What is unique about China is their willingness to use any means to exert their influence far beyond Chinese jurisdiction. I see that here in Canada, but there are reports of the same tactics being used in Australia and New Zealand.

Tactics include:
Funding education programs that have a pro-Chinese viewpoint
There is great concern here in Canada about their funding tactics. While it is great to encourage the study of Mandarin language, China is using this platform to teach a pro-Chinese viewpoint to very young kids. More than worrisome, this is meddling in the internal affairs of Canada. The Toronto District School Board had signed an agreement with this group, but the decision was reversed.

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Buying Chocolate Truffles in China: Fakes Aplenty

Truffettes de France brand truffles marketed on a Chinese web site as French truffle chocolate. Actually made in Canada

Truffettes de France brand truffles marketed on a Chinese web site as French truffle chocolate. Actually made in Canada

A friend has asked me which French chocolates are best: Defeisi 德菲斯松露 or Feiluolun songlu 费罗伦松露. It was clear that she was confused and needed help. In providing her help it was clear that much deception occurs with Chinese suppliers and fakes are everywhere. As it turned out, neither are from France, and they may not be truffles, and one is only available from Chinese web site. These Chinese web sites are pretty sketchy. Add to this that Google search is unavailable in China, so Chinese people are not able to cross-check products, and the low level of English in China, makes it pretty easy to cheat Chinese consumers.

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Guangdong Province, Kaiping City, Changsha District, Lougang/Nanyang: Maps

China, Guangdong Province, Kaiping City, west 8km, Nanyang Village (Lougang). Google Maps

China, Guangdong Province, Kaiping City, west 8km, Nanyang Village (Lougang). Google Maps

A friend said his ancestral village was in China, Guangdong Province, Kaiping City, Changsha District and mentioned something about Lougang as the village name. The Google map he sent me was confusing, in that yes, it was Guangdong Province, but not exactly close to Kaiping City. I investigated.

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Toronto Snowfall 2017 November 10

This is the first snowfall of the winter season for Toronto, Canada, and a blustery -10C, a far cry from yesterday’s +6C, and also colder than the expected +6C next week.

Snowfall in Toronto, 2017 Nov 10. Photo by Don Tai

Snowfall in Toronto, 2017 Nov 10. Photo by Don Tai

By mid-day the snow had melted from my driveway, but there was still icy patches in local parking lots. Since tonight will go down to -8C if there were more accumulation I would shovel. Tomorrow and the next 4 days are all above zero.

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Mountain Equipment Co-Op MEC Merchandising Fail

I’m in MEC looking for a windshell and arrive at the cycling section. They have a lower and upper rack. You need to be at least 6′ tall in order to get items on the upper rack, ones that hang on a clothes hanger. I had to go to the nearby canoeing section in order to “borrow” a canoe paddle so I could retrieve items from the upper rack.

When customers need to scour your store for tools in order to retrieve your merchandise, that does not promote a positive impression of your store.

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Kidde and Garrison Fire Extinguisher Recall in Canada: 2017 Nov

Yes, there is a fire extinguisher recall from Kidde and Garrison, but I found finding the list of affected models difficult to find. News agencies seem to relish reporting the news but do not provide the necessary links to look up your model.

US Government Kidde Recall notice: Includes something about “in ocnjunction with Canada”

Canadian government Recall notice for Kidde and Garrison fire extinguishers. Of course the health Canada site, referenced by most news agencies, has nothing about the recall, so this is a dead end.

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Ikea JANSJÖ LED Lamp Review : Great lamp, terrible light switch

Ikea JANSJÖ desk lamps are inexpensive LED lamps that have excellent light, a solid base and flexible neck, but the switches may make the light flicker.

Ikea JANSJÖ desk lamps are inexpensive LED lamps that have excellent light, a solid base and flexible neck, but the switches may make the light flicker.

I have two from Ikea and use them with my computer. The light they cast is a pretty pleasing combination of blue and yellow, neither too much of either. They are also very reliable, with the exception of the light switch. These were thrown out because they would not turn on. The issue was the utter cheapness of these switches.

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