I shot some pictures last weekend in Beijing’s 798 art zone. It’s an area filled with decommissioned military factory buildings that has become a thriving art community. Here are a few of the highlights: Thanks to the Esnaola sisters for bringing me here and showing me around, as I never would have found it on my own.
For those of you who were surprised to see from the last post that I’m in Law School, check the post author! It was my good friend James Spector, who will be occasionally entertaining us with some guest posts. I originally introduced James here.
The river. The bridge looks like a copy of the Zakim Bunker Bill Memorial Bridge: More river, looking the other way: Our hotel: More hotel: Flying a kite: Sunset. You can see the Canton Tower in the background: The street at sunset: The Canton Tower, which is the 7th tallest structure in the world: View from the top of the Canton Tower: Another view from the top. The city looks like some futuristic space colony: From the river: Another bridge:
Via The Big Picture, like this:
The Understatement has very clearly laid out why the New York Times digital subscription plan that goes into effect next week probably won’t work: As you can see from the chart, it’s absurdly more expensive than other digital subscription plans. And the different options are needlessly complex. I read news from many sources, and would be hesitant to pay for any online news subscription, but I have to admit that I was contemplating subscribing to the NYT. It’s probably the only reporting source that I consistently read each day. Now that I know the price, I most certainly won’t subscribe. Think about this: it’s an additional $65/year to add smartphone app access to the NYT subscription plan. But the app obviously provides
Before: After: Before: After: After Again: Before: I’ll let you guess whether or not we went for it.
More awesome XKCD: And this:
I’m working my way through Keith Richards’ autobiography, ‘Life’, which has been a surprisingly great read so far. It’s helped me to really appreciate what the Stones contributed to the evolution of blues rock, as I previously knew little about their early days, and it has been very entertaining. Keith was a completely ridiculous individual for many years. Here are a couple representative passages about some of his crazier years: “One time in Chicago there was a big party in my room…I was getting sick of it, and I kept telling them to go and they wouldn’t. I wanted to clear the room and no one would listen to me. Get the fuck out. For five minutes I tried. So
Excellent choice of words in the translation:
I’ve been having problems accessing my Gmail from China. I thought it might have been my internet connection. Or me. But I was wrong.