Blog Renovation

Today I did some renovation work on my blog. For one thing, the Cluster Map server that I used has been defunct for several months, so I have to re-do everything.

More importantly I have changed the title of my blog into ‘eSpace’ and the definition of ‘e’ has been overloaded:

1. ‘e’ as in ‘e-commerce’. This reflects the original intention of this blog – subjects on IT, computing, technical, nerdy etc. So all my existing blog entries will still fit – making my blog backward compatible so to speak.
2. ‘e’ which is the pronunciation of the Chinese character ‘艺’or ‘藝’, meaning ‘art’ or ‘skill’. For a while I have been reviving my childhood passion for fine-art and also taught myself piano playing. So I should dedicate some of my blogs on arty stuff.

Although eSpace is anagram of ‘escape’, that is one thing that this blog is not.

Magical Strings

When I read about a text message that can cause iPhones to reboot, I couldn’t wait to try it on my son’s iPhone 5. So I sent this string to his phone through SMS.

Power لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗

However, nothing happened. Maybe I missed a couple of returns, i.e.

Power
 لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ
冗

So I will try again tonight.

Talking about magical strings – where can you find the most magical strings? The Magical Kingdom of course! Yesterday was the 26th anniversary of the Beijing TianAnMen Square Crackdown that happened in June 4 1989, known in Chinese communities as the ‘6.4 Event’ or simply ‘6.4’.

In 2012, the ShangHai Composite Index fell 64.89 points on the anniversary of the event and created quite a stir in the country. So this year the government has gone extra miles to make sure that nothing of this sort can happen again.

In addition to increased security measures in the streets, they also blocked anything that can remotely remind people of the event in the cyberspace. For example, if you tried to transfer money over WeChat with certain amounts such as 6.4RMB, 89.64RMB, 89RMB, 0.89RMD, etc. you will be greeted with an error message ‘unusual transaction, please try again later’.

Not only strings are banned, certain imagery are also blocked – for example, candle light pictures, yes, candle lights! Ironically, they had to unban it soon after the ferry capsized in Yangtze River just a few days ago and over 400 people are feared dead.