Posted 6:04 AM by Jian Shuo

Something strange and interesting

1. Microsoft.com cannot be accessed via Great Wall Broadband Network and some China Telecom users in Shanghai. It reports the same error when Google.com is banned. However, this only affects Shanghai. This has lasted for 4 days in GWBN. I am not sure if it is the preface of the another ban or just some technical difficulties with the ISP. It is strange I can access all the other website I tried, but not this one. What happened?

2. Heavy rain today in Shanghai. There is no empty taxi on the road. I walked 1 mile in the rain and catch a crowded bus to office. Actually, the concept of taxi seems different between China and U.S - especially the eastern part. I have been to Seattle serveral times and I cannot find a taxi on the road. I need to call a taxi and wait for 15 minutes to get one. But in Shanghai, taxi is everywhere - in every street and every corner of the city. If you want to a taxi, extend your arm and a taxi will stop immediately before you - about 1/5 of all the cars on the road seems to be taxi in Shanghai. That is the reason why it is so terrible when I cannot find a taxi here.

3. Too many things to do and I struggled to complete only half of the to-do-list on my PLOG (Isaac's term = paper-log = notebook). I have to complete the second half tomorrow, since it is already deep 1:30 AM in the night. Life is tough here.

Another news for me is, today, I was interviewed by Forbes magazine. The interview is also tough because most the questions are unexpected and hard to answer. [They interviewed Jian Shuo about his work for Microsoft. He was identified as a representative of the young generation of information technology people in China. What a VIP we have here! -RG]