Aster la mo nepli kav akces koobec@F (lir drwat a gos) akoz banla p kontrol internet. Tout sa ban espes pr0xi, VPN gratis, lozisiel pu evit blokaz nepli marser. Ek letan mo akces ban sit dehor, souvan paz la pa load ou bizin esey plizir foa. Se ki fe ki mo penser zot p mari fer zefor evit nimport ki nuvel ki pou fer la Sin paret vilein.

P priyer banla pu moinss sever apre fet, me mo kroir koobec@F in kaput. Mo p koncider VPN peyan, me pa koner ki kaliter la vi internet pu eter apre. Mo p tap sa post la an kreol akoz mo pa envi banla kompran ek ban mo sit.

Sinon mwa mo p al pas conze dan Hainan. Repoz mwa ene ti p dan bor la mer. Bien kontan mo pa Pkin kot tou dimoun p inkomoder ek ban larmee ek gablou zot aktion.

Ale, bai!

As such, I will be even more quiet these days. :P

For info, Youtube has been blocked for months, Twitter got blocked last month or this month (no precise date since I don’t use it), and Facebook 2 days ago. Obviously many blog sites got blacklisted at the same time.

The Facebook shut out reason is ludicruous. I forgot to copy the link since at that time I didn’t know how to circumvent the blockout. Apparently the Uighurs in Urumuqi, Xinjiang province (hope I got these names right) have been using it to communicate between themselves and plan rebellion or whatever. Yeah, right …. they’ll choose Facebook over the dozens of stupid Chinese ones such as kaixinwang, xiaonei (good imitation of Facebook), etc. Internet was not even readily available there before all this shit happened.

Wondering is if FollowTA (’ta’ can mean he/she/it in Chinese), the Chinese version of Twitter, will also suffer the same fate.

Mafia Wars by Zynga

The game’s Mafia Wars, and you start by being a street thug making your way to be the big boss. For that you need to do jobs and fight rivals. It’s not really an interactive game, but you need to make friends with complete strangers so that your mafia can grow in size and thus be more powerful and resistant to attacks.

After about 2 weeks of play, I’m now level 57 and should reach level 58 when I continue playing after work tonight. I’ve got so far 197 members in my group, and increasing in size by 10-20 per day. Not that much, but I’m not really in a hurry to get the maximum 500 players that I can use when fighting. AFAIK, the highest level player is at 1512, although most of my top mafia members are around 300-500.

Mafia Wars profile

Top mafia in my group

Some loot items in Mafia Wars

I’ve decided to cut on the hours of gameplay, and will only play 2 level increases per day instead of 3. Otherwise I won’t have any life and won’t be able to work properly.

Anyway, as my msn finally got reconnected after several attempts, a window suddenly popped up. I thought it was an offline message from one of my friends. But no, this one is supposed to come from Windows Live itself. It basically tells me to go and change my sign-in ID if I want to keep using msn.

From the linked webpage mentioned on the offline message I read:

Important changes to Windows Live Messenger

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As part of this service enhancement, you must now change the ID you are using for signing into Messenger in order to continue using this service.

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Frequently Asked Questions
:: How will I be notified that I need to change my Messenger sign-in ID?

You may receive an instant message from the Windows Live Messenger Service Staff.

The corporation that owns the domain you are using has reserved it for its company’s instant messaging system. If you receive an important service announcement from the Windows Live Messenger Service Staff that says you must change your sign-in ID in order to continue signing into Messenger, then you’re affected by this change. We recommend that you take this action immediately upon receiving the notification. The process to change your sign-in ID is simple. If you don’t make this change in the near future, you’ll receive an error message when signing in, and won’t be able to use the Windows Live Messenger Service until you change your sign-in ID.

You may receive an error message when signing in to Messenger.

The corporation that owns the domain you’re using is reserving it for its company’s instant messaging system.

WTF does that mean? The corporation that owns the domain you’re using? You mean Microf*ckingsoft’s Hotmail? I know it’s doing me a “favour” by letting me chat with people through its software, but I feel so pissed right now. This account, I created it barely a few months ago, at the beginning of the year in fact. It bloody looks like poor planning from msn.

So now I’m supposed to log in through
http://g.msn.com/5meen_ms/95
and change what? In fact my personal details in it are all FAKE! I think I called myself “Unexpected Event” or some similar crap in Chinese (Looks like it was foresight by me. Haha). I’m going to check all these out later when I get to the office. I need to get ready. I am getting more annoyed with Windows Poorpiss Live Messenger with this new crap. I already hate the fact that it removed status like “out to lunch” and especially the “Enter” on the chat panel. Now I can’t click on an icon and send it directly with my mouse. I bloody have to use my keyboard. Bastards.

WLM change ID

Sharing a little something with you (better if you can understand Chinese, but you can read the subtitles):
Laowai’s Job Interview (Laowai meaning foreigner)
Youtube - Laowai lai le 3
Laowai’s Valentine’s Day
Youtube - Laowai lai le 4
Laowai the Expert Translator
Laowai lai le 5

I was surprised this morning to find a mail from the admin of the group, which I have reproduced therein:

Dear All,

This is only the third time I have ever sent out a group message, and the first time since the group has grown beyond 1,000 members. This group started with 4 people in the summer of 2006, as we were trying to use the remaining credits on our pre-purchased Internet cards at BLCU. Now that the group is nearing 4,000 members, the administration at BLCU is demanding that they be given complete control of the group. One dean in particular, Li Wenmin, has even gone so far as to threaten me with the following message sent about two hours ago:

“do something or I will report you to the creators of facebook with help of government of People’s Republic of China!”

The “something” he wants me to do is make him the administrator of this group, so that he can control the flow of information being distributed to students. I only want to do what is in the best interest of everyone here, however I am extremely uncomfortable with the thought of PRC/BLCU-based administrators having complete control of all content in this group. The only deletions/edits I make currently are when people post pornographic notes and images, or when commercial entities attempt to use the group for mass advertisements.

If BLCU has complete control the content, I fear that they will delete any comments critical of the university, housing situations, analysis of the neighborhood, offers of help with tutoring (because they have their own in house), and many other discussions that they may not want to see take place.

I will create a group topic, and would like your opinions on how we should proceed. Let me know if you think I’m taking too strong of a position, and should give them the group, if you like the current structure, or if you’re interested in receiving notes and emails on a weekly basis (which is what BLCU wants to do).

Thank you all for your time, Ken.

This is interesting food for thought. Should BLCU be given access to the group because the group is about BLCU? Should they be allowed to intimidate people? Should the group refuse to give ground at all cost? What are the possible consequences? Can they really get FB banned? Who is that Mr Li? Does the letter and said content really exist?

In some ways it reminds me of our dear island blocking FB for a short while while they petitioned to get our dear beloved ‘honest’ politicians’ fake profiles removed from it. Bunch of w*nkers who think others are below them, and can’t take a joke or accept differences in opinions.

I’ll follow the events about the group’s future, although I don’t expect much/any change there.

Orange.mu's 'ki news' webpage

As you can see, in the picture taken just a few moments ago, the latest article dates of Nov 27th. How come nobody has rectified it? Is the portal so bad that nobody (except me and maybe a few others) bother to try and catch some news of the island via orange.mu?

I don’t want to bookmark l’express or other newspapers from home…. Oh, sucks.

In fact, at the time I was taking my ACCA exams in London, more than ten years ago, this was already common. We would have Malaysian students calling their friends at home, or receiving calls from them, telling them what topics came out. Due to the time difference the Malaysian would then have about 2-3 hours to revise said topics.

Of course, as we came aware of such events, the Mauritian students would try and find Malaysian friends who would pass on such valuable information. It was thought more as a levelling the ballgame between foreigners than cheating together. Evidently, it was not fair to other candidates.

However, there’s only so much it can help you with if you had not seriously studied before. The 3hrs cramming of main points can help achieve a pass mark if you’re a borderline failure, but if you’ve been a lazybum for the whole semester, you can’t expect miracles (normally). These students were more concerned with a passmark rather than winning the top prize remitted to the world’s best students.

Anyway, it is interesting that they’ve been using Facebook as one of the means of transmitting the tips. I guess the users must by now have changed all their personal data and probably deleted personal pictures. But how successful would the Mauritian government be in tracking them and what kind of punishment would be meted out to them? I still remember the government last year blocking the site and having the site administrators pull down the fake profiles of senior local political figures.