giving up

I'm giving up on blogspot. You can find me here or here.

what?

Is blogspot blocked again?

And trouble with Spaces? I can get to one, but not another. And yahoo IM signed me out and won't let me back in. Is this just China Unicom fucking around yet again? Or is something more sinister and even stupider at work?

Sir Bono

Well, Bono's been awarded a KBE, but being an Irish citizen he's not allowed the title 'sir', you'll be glad to know.

ahvjanje

So it seems that I'm facing the same situation with my main Chinese study blog as I had with this one until yesterday afternoon. I can log in to canalblog, I can post, I can do everything from the backend that you normally do with a blog, but I can't see it. It's weird, because canalblog doesn't have any kind of blogger/blogspot-style split between the backend and the front page of the blog, so this time I really don't know what's going on.

could this be true

Is blogspot really unblocked? Seems to be.

a first

(x-posted at wangbo.blogtown.co.nz and chrislzh.over-blog.com)

From a comment on this post on Peking Duck, I found this article, and it looks like maybe it'll be the first real newspaper article I decipher on my own.

Rough translation done off the cuff piece by piece as I read the article follows:

扬州市禁止市民自发在城区植绿

Yangzhou City forbids citizens to sponatneously plant green in the city area.

(Yes, I know, it's really bad English. I'm not doing this to give you a good translation, I'm doing this to see how well I understand the article.)

本报南京3月25日电(记者郑晋鸣 通讯员刘春龙)以往人们认为只要种树搞绿化总是好事情,但江苏省扬州市的新规定打破了这一传统观点。该市规定在绿化规划范围内的城区公共场所,今年不再允许个人或者单位自发植绿。

Nanjing, March 25 (Reporter Zheng Jinming, Correspondent Liu Chunlong) Formerly people believed thought as long as one planted trees to "green" [the city, I presume] it was always a good thing, but Jiangsu Province's Yangzhou City's new regulation has broken this traditional idea. This city rules that in city area public places within the scope of the greening programme, this year will not allow individuals or work units to spontaneously plant green.

扬州市园林局城市绿化办出具的数据显示,扬州市城区绿化覆盖率已达到 40%,未被植被覆盖的空地已成“稀缺”资源。现在扬州市内哪里需要种树,种什么树,种多少棵,都要经过相关部门的科学论证,市园林局已出台详细的绿化规 划。据悉,为了方便后期养护管理,扬州市绿化部门对种下的每棵树都要登记于册。如今扬州市内重点绿化工程一般都由专业绿化人员完成,只有很少部分小型绿化 工程是在绿化部门的指导下由单位或社会团体参加。

Yangzhou City Forestry Bureau Greening Office provided data that shows, Yangzhou City city area has already reached 40% green coverage. [what the hell is this: 率?!] Land that hasnt't yet been planted has become a "scarce" resource. Now in Yangzhou City which places need trees planted, plant what kinds of trees, plant how many trees, will all have to undergo scientific demonstration by the relevant authorities, the city Forestry Bureau has already published a detailed greening programme. It is reported that, for convenient maintenance later on, Yangzhou City Greening Department will register each tree planted. Now key greening projects in Yangzhou City will in general be completed by professional greening workers, work units and social organisations will take part in only a very few small-scale greening projects under the guidance of the Greening Department.

“市民动手参与绿化的热情值得赞扬和鼓励,但城市绿化也是一门科学,如果没有规划、不讲方法,胡栽乱种,不仅树不容易存活,还会造成绿化资源的浪费。”相 关绿化专家向记者表示。

"The enthusiasm of the citizens to actively participate in greening merits praise and encouragement, but greening the city is also a science, if there's no plan, let alone method, messily planting, isn't just hard for the trees to survive, it could also create a waste of greening resources." and involved greening professional told the reporter.

从国内很多城市以往经验看,因为种植方法不当以及不重视养护等原因,市民自发植树的效果并不好,一般新栽树木到来年的成活率不到 20%,所以,这些年来,扬州市倡导、引导市民用“以资代劳”、“认养绿地”等其他形式代替亲手种树。

Looking at the past experience of many cities in China, because the method of planting was unsuitable as well as reasons of not attaching importance to maintenance, etc, the result of citizens sponatneously planting trees has really not been good, in general the rate of survival to the next year of newly planted trees hasn't reached 20%, therefore, in the last few years, Yangzhou City has initiated, and guided citizens to use "Capital representing labour", "Undertake to care for green land" and other was to substitute for planting with one's own hands.

这种倡导与南京航空航天大学崔益华副教授提出的“虚 拟种树”主张不谋而合,崔副教授表示:通过改变我们的生活方式,节约木材,达到等同于种树的目的,比如:节约一张废纸,捐出一本旧书,使用“液体木材” 等。

This kind of proposal and the "Fictitious planting" view raised by Nanjing Astronautics and Aeronautics University Assistant Professor Cui Yihua happen to agree, Assistant Professor Cui explains: Having undergone a change in our lifestyle, saving timber has reached equality with the goal of planting trees, for example, saving a piece of waste paper, donate an old book, use "liquid timber", etc.

Alright, finally done. Shit, took about two and a half hours. Still, I was doing other things at the same time, like getting lunch, chatting with lzh, and other excuses. Not too hard, really. Got me a fair bit of new vocab, but not too much.

Now remember: I'm not asking for comments on my translation skills. I'm just trying to see how well I can understand a real live news report. Newspaper reading is something I've been thinking about doing for a while, but never got around to it until I followed that link and thought, hey, that article doesn't look too hard.

One character I couldn't find in the dictionary: 率

One cool word I came across as I was looking for something else: 虚无主义/nihilism.

Anyway, if you spot something that I misunderstood, leave a comment. Remember, it's my comprehension I'm testing, not my translation.

access

Here's one way to access blogspot blogs. So far it seems to work better than other proxies.