http://blog.totoshi.com discovering asian technology Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:37:25 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The argument that there is no culture of innovation in China is quite often cited in the literature. For the purpose of my thesis, I am mainly using this argument to provoke a discussion. However, the observation itself is not totally arbitrary. Many Westerners in China seem to perceive that ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/12/13/innovation-in-china-from-copycats-to-masterminds/ Yay, I made it to Barcamp Bangkok 2! It was absolutely great, best barcamp ever: 400+ people, amazing talks and discussions, thai food, free beer, cool T-shirts, and funky stickers. Thank you so much to the organisers and sponsors for making this event happen. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/09/01/barcamp-bangkok-2/ "What you say sounds great, but honestly, how can we make money with FOSS?" This is a question I have been frequently asked since I have come to China. It's the kind of question which made think a lot about FOSS and it's business model. It's a question which seems ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/08/08/how-to-make-money-with-foss/ I have spent a bit over three months in China, trying to find out how FOSS is organised and how it's different in China from what we see the West. When I met Basile two weeks ago in Beijing, we have come up with the following hypotheses: Language is an ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/08/06/foss-in-china-hypotheses/ Technical objects define in their configuration a certain partition of the physical and social world, they attribute roles to certain types of actors - humans and non-humans - and exclude others, they authorise certain modes of relations between these different actors [...] in such a way that they participate as ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/08/06/about-modifiability/ I have participated in the First Beijing City Aesthetic Marathon today, running for about 20 minutes through the hutongs and markets around Tianshuiyuan. The Beijing City Aesthetic Marathon is an art project initiated by HOIO (Samuel Herzog). It's a sportive challenge and a way to discover Beijing at the same ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/07/14/first-beijing-aethetic-marathon-calling-for-runners/ Despite the fact that nobody is willing to pay for software and that proprietary software is free as in free beer, there are some points to be considered: FOSS is legal to use, copy, modify, and distribute. Especially in China, where new laws can be enforced within little time, this can ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/07/09/free-open-source-software/ I have been in China for almost three months now. I have attended quite a number of FOSS-related events, have spoken to many people, and observed everyday programming at Exoweb. I have taken notes, asked questions, actively participated, and helped organising events. I now have a large pile of important-looking ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/07/08/random-thoughts/ The next Beijing Open Party will take place on July 19th at the Thoughtworks offices in Beijing. If you want to give a talk, you can propose it on the Beijing Open Party google group. Alternatively you can also just show up at the party and propose your topic. The ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/07/06/beijingopenparty-july-summer-daydreams-%e4%bb%b2%e5%a4%8f%e6%a2%a6%e8%88%9e/ While we were implementing the GNOME.Asia summit website (will be available on www.gnome.asia soon), we were confronted with the problem of captcha accessibility. Despite Recaptcha's claim of being accessible by providing sound captchas, the sound quality turned out to be rather poor and I actually did not succeed in using ... http://blog.totoshi.com/2008/07/06/accessible-captchas-in-django/