Typepad has closed down, so this site has been migrated to WordPress and it all seems to have gone smoothly (the security certificate went missing, but is now working). However, some things may well be broken, and feel free to point out anything particularly bad and I’ll try to fix it.

Two stories from the Substandard about people using QR codes to get discounts on the MTR ‘Discounted rides’ for HK transportation are being sold online (10 March) Fare cheats exploit digital loopholes in MTR system (20 March) The concept is that you use one payment platform (e.g. WeChat Pay) to enter the MTR and another…

Sad to hear of the death of Ho Kwok Wing, an Australian who came to Hong Kong many years ago and became the most famous gweilo actor on TV.  This follows the death of his wife a few months ago. I remember that he used to have a blog writing about his life in Hong…

Cultural insight alert: Chinese consumers “prefer a hot, rice-based breakfast to cold cereal.” Chinese company buys 60% of The Weetabix food company.  Less than five years later, they sell it on to a large US firm.  Seems like an everyday tale of international commerce.  But that’s too dull.  No, it’s because the Chinese company failed…

I should have known better – I had read the terrible reviews of Windows 8.  But Microsoft had responded to the criticism and improved the user interface in 8.1, hadn’t they?  Well, up to a point.  Or to put it another way:  not really – they still think they know best.      I have been using…

Kudos to Spike, who is writing his life story (I'm so Smart).  I first read his old blog when he was being magnificently indiscrete about his life as a typical expat in Hong Kong – without taking much effort to disguise his identity.  That had to stop, but I seem to recall that for a…

Good work…a puzzle on the front page of The Guardian website: Yes, OK, it’s their beta site, but that was made publicly available several weeks ago.

A few weeks ago the Spotify (Windows 7) application started working normally.  Then it started freezing again (and when that happens you can’t restart it without restarting Windows). Now, to add to my frustration, the web app can’t create playlists.  Or rather it creates them, but they “contain no playable tracks”.  Which makes them useless.…

When did websites start playing audio without asking first?  I can’t be bothered to find what I have to do to stop the noise, so I just close the page.  Is that what they want?  

Interesting piece from Gweipo about newspapers: Buy a newspaper – save a journalist? I've been subjected to a barrage of emails of late by the IHT.  And the Wall street journal.  And the NYT. [..] Why did I resist?  A few main reasons.  I just hate all that paper coming into the house – even…