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Artificial algorithms on the open web. 杂七杂八，英中夹杂。 Sharing ≠ Endorsement. 联系请发送消息至 @tombenbot
From ‘I Do’ To Divorce: The Glamour of Chinese Wedding Photos
https://radii.co/article/chinese-wedding-photos
With this year’s OS updates, users will be able to share entire sets of passwords with friends, family, and other trusted users. That’s a big deal because, in prior OS versions, that limitation was one of the most common reasons why many of our readers are still using a third-party password manager.
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出自申报（上海）1934 年 2 月 9 日第 14 版的广告
https://archive.org/details/shenbao-1934.02-37
这是单建伟先生英文原文中的描写。
Shan, Weijian. 2019. Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America. Hoboken: Wiley. https://www.wiley.com/Out+of+the+Gobi:+My+Story+of+China+and+America-p-9781119529491
On January 1, 2017, Daniel Bell 贝淡宁 was appointed dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University 山东大学（青岛）政治学与公共管理学院院长—the first foreign dean of a political science faculty in mainland China’s history. In The Dean of Shandong, Bell chronicles his experiences as what he calls “a minor bureaucrat,” offering an inside account of the workings of Chinese academia and what they reveal about China’s political system. It wasn’t all smooth sailing—Bell wryly recounts sporadic bungles and misunderstandings—but Bell’s post as dean provides a unique vantage point on China today.
Bell, neither a Chinese citizen nor a member of the Chinese Communist Party, was appointed as dean because of his scholarly work on Confucianism—but soon found himself coping with a variety of issues having little to do with scholarship or Confucius. These include the importance of hair color and the prevalence of hair-dyeing among university administrators, both male and female; Shandong’s drinking culture, with endless toasts at every shared meal; and some unintended consequences of an intensely competitive academic meritocracy. As dean, he also confronts weightier matters: the role at the university of the Party secretary, the national anticorruption campaign and its effect on academia (Bell asks provocatively, “What’s wrong with corruption?”), and formal and informal modes of censorship. Considering both the revival of Confucianism in China over the last three decades and what he calls “the Communist comeback” since 2008, Bell predicts that China’s political future is likely to be determined by both Confucianism and Communism.
2021 年，贝淡宁被山东人民政府外事办公室推选为「山东省人民友好使者」。
Bell, Daniel A. 2023. The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691247137.
You can now use Pixelmator Pro as a PDF editor.
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我写了半年的 Keyboard Maestro 教程今天在少数派上线了！
这个教程一共超过 6 万字，系统地介绍了我使用自动化工具 Keyboard Maestro 的技巧。如果你使用 macOS，相信通过这个教程，一定可以帮助你提高日常工作学习的效率。即日起至 9 月 17 日，可享上架优惠八折，欢迎购买，感谢支持。
https://sspai.com/series/350
Discussions of involution – a culture of overwork in China – have grown especially rife on the Chinese Internet, reinforced by a dismal outlook on employment. Translated from an academic term ‘involution,’ ‘neijuan’ 内卷 references a contemporary structure of alienation experienced primarily by college students: a sense of being entrapped in a society without opportunities, yet having to endure an endless series of stressful competitions to carve a respectable life.
Drawing from fieldwork and interviews, this paper examines the culture of involution through self-study rooms 自习室, places where people pay to study. Rapidly expanding in number since 2019, self-study rooms have become a popular tool used by youths to cope with involution. Modulating attentional capacities through design, these rooms assure users that they could study better, and excel in competitive exams and certification processes to find progression in life trajectories.
However, in doing so, self-study rooms also normalize an alienated learning and work culture in China, framing the attentional discomfort of forced learning as gain, and the privacy of self-study rooms as forms of individualistic therapy. Users learn not only to push their bodies within these rooms, they also use it to weep privately, expelling pressures to return to ‘gainful’ behavior.
To cite this article: Chen, Changwen, and Renyi Hong. 2023. “Business of Involution: Self-Study Rooms and Work Culture in China.” Journal of Cultural Economy, September. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2023.2246988.
不明白最新一期，笑料满满，喜感十足🤣不过话说话来跟那哥们儿差不多的人挺多的。乍一看人五人六，实则自私自利，只会钻营，说他精致利己都相当客气🤣
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秦晖 2012 讲座：知青运动中的民族命运与个人使命
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_e6ue5wiwPE
https://once.com
Once upon a time you owned what you paid for, you controlled what you depended on, and your privacy and security were your own business. We think it’s that time again.
前些天就看到《治安管理处罚法（修订草案）》第34条规定的内容。老实说，我有些不敢相信，今天特地到中国人大网上查了草案的内容，才知道确实是真的。草案目前正处于征求意见阶段，可以在人大网“ 法律草案征求意见 ”栏提意见（ www.npc.gov.cn/flcaw/ ）。
对于第34条第2-3项的规定，我持反对意见，建议删除为妥。主要理由是：
其一，“有损中华民族精神、伤害中华民族感情”是内涵极为模糊的概念，不同的人会有完全相异的理解与把握，将其作为法律上的处罚标准，必然面临处罚标准过于模糊的问题，容易造成任意扩张行政处罚的范围。
其二，由于处罚标准模糊，势必导致行政权力的选择性执法，容易出现滥权现象，从而为腐败的滋生创设新的空间，并且可能激化警民矛盾，给社会稳定带来新的风险。
其三，国家权力直接干预公民个人的日常穿着领域，明显有过度干预之嫌。民族精神与民族感情属于文化精神层面的事务，国家可以进行倡导，但不应通过法律强制的方式来推行。
其四，这样的立法规定可能会刺激民粹主义或极端民族主义情绪的肆意蔓延，进一步恶化公共领域的舆论环境，不当压制个人在日常穿衣与言论的自由空间。同时，也可能加剧与一些国家的对立情绪，导致外交上的被动。 source
希望大家都能去 人大网 提交意见，复制上面的文字即可，耗时用不了1分钟。
个人信息可以随意填写不需要实名。
劳东燕老师的这段文字在微信已经被屏蔽。
别跟我说“这根本没用”，至少在未来你可以聊以自慰：“我当时是出过声的，不是沉默的群氓之一”。
李慶麐. 1933. 屯墾青海與開闢西北. 大公報 (天津), 1933-10-04, 第 11 版.
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Open Interpreter
Let language models run code on your computer.pip install open-interpreter
The changes happened in China for the past four decades were physical rather than chemical in nature.
https://twitter.com/yashenghuang/status/1698496629035209173
#App
💻 或许是我购买过最超值的收费软件 —— Pixelmator Pro
📮 最近刚刚收到 Pixelmator Pro 更新至 3.4 版本的邮件，也让我意识到，这个在当初刚刚推出半价时候购入的 App 也不间断的更新了三年有余了。今天说说为什么觉得它超值吧。
🎨 我的工作流刚需
首先我并不是一个图片或者图像工作者，也不算这里领域的创新从业者。但我又是一个「闲不住的」人，有时候也要处理这样那样的图片工程。所以我对于这类工具的要求就是，体验需要好、轻型不累赘、macOS 主力平台，Pixelmator Pro 恰好完美的匹配这些需求，其实在三年前 Pixelmator Pro 推出之前，我也是一直在使用 Pixelmator 的，所以在 Pro 刚推出之际就毫不犹豫的购入了。
并且，它的使用体验也是优秀的，具有非常原生和轻巧的特性，对于 Apple 生态特性的支持也迭代及时和全面，作为图像处理软件功能本身也很强大。
🧩 多样化功能的支持
Pixelmator Pro 支持常见的 JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PSD, HEIF, SVG, PDF, GIF, BMP, TGA, WebP, JPEG-2000, AVIF, MP4, MOV 等媒体文件格式，这几乎意味着它对于图像（甚至是视频）的处理拥有无限可能性。
其次，Pixelmator Pro 引入了非常多机器学习驱动的编辑能力，例如我高频使用的自动增强图像（包括 ML 增强、匹配颜色、超分辨率、去噪、去带和裁剪），早在 OPENAI 引发的 AI 热潮前，这些功能就具备高可用性（我的意思是现在如果有此类需求，可能会有更多的解决方案）。
🙏 开发团队令人敬佩的精神
这可能也是我非常愿意支持他们最重要的一个因素。在近年来，很多诸如像 Ulysses、Notability、GoodNotes 的生产力工具，也已经从当初的买断制转成了订阅制，而 Pixelmator Pro 依然坚守在买断制阵营中，并保持着毫不松懈的迭代能力。列举几个他们的更新点吧：
🔹 在 2022 年 9 月 22 日推出 3.0 大版本，支持了超过 200 款的模板和设计模型，并通过智能替换、元素更换和配色方案等功能大大降低了模板和设计模型的自定义成本；
🔹 在 2022 年 11 月 2 日推出 3.1 版本，支持文件快捷预览，兼容了 AVIF 格式的图片文件；
🔹 在 2022 年 12 月 6 日推出 3.2 版本，增加了视频编辑功能，可以像编辑图像一样使用所有熟悉的图像编辑工具来添加和编辑视频图层；增加了新的视频控制功能，可以轻松控制视频的播放、时长、选择海报帧、静音或取消静音音频等；支持 MP4、QuickTime Movie 或其他流行的视频格式，并且可以编辑动画 GIF；增加了视频模板，可以快速将你的视频放置在电影封面和社交媒体帖子中；
🔹 在 2023 年 2 月 28 日推出 3.3 版本，新增了移除颜色调整，可以快速从图像和视频中移除任何颜色；新增了清晰度、选择性清晰度和纹理调整，可以智能地增强图像中的细节；新增了描边样式和更多自定义描边的选项；新增了侧边文件的保存方式，可以在保留所有非破坏性编辑和图层的同时，将图像保存回原始格式；
🔹 在 2023 年 9 月 11 日推出了 3.4 版本，新增了全新的 PDF 引擎，可以选择和打开多页 PDF 文档中的单独页面，支持矢量 PDF，编辑使用 Safari、Keynote 和其他 iWork 应用创建的 PDF。
❤️ 希望 Pixelmator 团队能够继续保持迭代速度（主要是别转订阅制别涨价），也盼望着有更多优秀的团队和类似良心的软件继续涌现。
Stephen R. Mackinnon 总结了 20 世纪 30 年代中国新闻行业的 4 个特征：
- 盈利性企业办报
- 有政治势力的资助
- 与西方的共生关系
- 受国家的审查和宣传
作者认为 20 世纪 90 年代的中国和 30 年代类似，是一个言论和新闻相对自由的时代。那么今天和哪个时代类似呢？
Mackinnon, Stephen R. 1997. “Toward a History of the Chinese Press in the Republican Period.” Modern China 23 (1): 3–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/009770049702300101.
这个米老鼠的广告真可爱
https://twitter.com/MOFBACN/status/1702843859162865982
https://twitter.com/FreiheitYu/status/1703089149220192645
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小县城体制内工作 10 年（2012–2022）
https://fxtwitter.com/whyyoutouzhele/status/1702305038918393950
Land Ownership Makes No Sense
The problem with the right to land is that it’s all been taken. Long before our births, every inch of habitable land in the United States was claimed. Historically, the ethics of land ownership were probably shaped by a sense that it was always possible to find more land somewhere.
The fact that we all need land to live, and that there’s no more land available, is the crux of the immorality in profiting from it. You’re renting someone’s rights back to them.
Thomas Paine had it exactly right back in 1797: “Man did not make the earth … it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor therefore of cultivated land, owes to the community a ground-rent … for the land which he holds.”
会员畅读 | 完全上手顶级 Mac 自动化工具，用 Keyboard Maestro 拯救效率 [by 数字工具组]
https://sspai.com/post/82854
China Seeks to Broaden iPhone Ban to State Firms, Agencies
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On registering WeChat pay for foreigners. An absolutely ridiculous situation…
https://fxtwitter.com/edsander/status/1699528005389844480
治安管理处罚法（修订草案）征求意见
http://www.npc.gov.cn/flcaw/userIndex.html?lid=ff8081818a22132f018a499710595932
China ordered officials at central government agencies not to use Apple’s iPhones and other foreign-branded devices for work or bring them into the office, people familiar with the matter said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-bans-iphone-use-for-government-officials-at-work-635fe2f8
今天读到 1933 年《大公报》上的一篇文章，标题是《屯垦青海与开辟西北》，作者 李慶麐 在文中说了一段话有点意思：
> 要想使中国人人有饭吃，有衣穿，过人的生活，并且更进一步使人人得享受欧美人的生活，惟有两种方法可用。第一种方法是节制生育，第二种方法是移民。
虽然时代背景不同，但如果把这段话单独拿出来，放在 90 年后的今天似乎也同样适用，甚至可以说人们正在践行他的这一主张。
ChatGPT, GPT-4, and Other Large Language Models: The Next Revolution for Clinical Microbiology?
In this opinion article, I describe how chatbot technologies work and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT, GPT-4, and other LLMs for applications in the routine diagnostic laboratory, focusing on various use cases for the pre- to post-analytical process.
https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciad407
Fendou: A keyword of Chinese modernity
This article analyses the modern historical trajectory of the word fendou (奋斗, ‘struggle’), from its emergence in the early twentieth century to the present. Originally embedded in a Social Darwinist philosophy of struggle, fendou was later co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As one of its key ideological shibboleths, it was typically used to mobilize the Chinese people to ‘struggle’ for the goals of the nation. However, as these goals varied significantly in the course of the history of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the actual meanings and uses of fendou evolved accordingly, following shifts in the ideological paradigms that characterized the different eras.
By studying how this term was used as an ideological keyword over time, it is possible to observe the continuities and discontinuities in the visions of struggle, and the relevant ‘pedagogies of struggle’, promoted in different periods by the Chinese state.
The article, in particular, analyses the use of fendou in both contemporary official discourse and popular culture, suggesting that in promoting the formation of a competitive subject in line with the aims of the ‘socialist market’, fendou still, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, expresses and disseminates a predominantly Social Darwinist world view.
To cite this article: Fumian, Marco. 2021. “Fendou: A Keyword of Chinese Modernity.” Modern Asian Studies 55 (4): 1268–1314. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X20000128.