From Yulin

[Randy W]

This is what that strip looked like a few years ago

 

 

 

[Randy W]

[Greg.D.]

Nice. Great depth of field for a night time shot.

 

Is that peaches? Or, mango's? Or, both? Neither?

[Randy W]

The improvement in camera firmware over the last ten years is nothing short of incredible. For night shots, it takes as many as four shots and averages them together to reduce noise, while detecting motion to determine if that's even feasible. I always just leave it on the automatic mode, since it's so good at determining the best processing.

 

I bought this camera (a Sony A5100) as a replacement for a $200 pocket camera. The pictures it takes are so good I wish I had looked into spending more for features like a viewfinder and a more flexible view screen.

 

Those are lychees.

[Randy W]

A loud discussion erupts when a restaurant owner needs to back his equipment truck up to the curb where his restaurant opens around 9PM to 2AM.

The street vendors occupy the street positions until around 9-10PM.

The truck stays there until they re-load the equipment at 2AM.

Watch the lady with the small-ish cart.

[Randy W]

So Bank of America deactivated my account. They claim they had sent me a letter in March and again in April, but my mail forwarding service has no record of that. I only found out when I tried to pre-pay my American Express bill for next month (it was declined)

 

They only needed to speak to Jiaying, and get her present address. Somehow, they thought she was living at her mother's address.

 

As far as I know, the only time I used that address was when I wired money to her account in 2010 before we moved into the new place.

 

Fortunately, we were able to get a good connection at 9PM our time (9AM their time), and got it taken care of with a Chinese interpreter at their end, who somehow couldn't figure out the address until the lady FINALLY let me speak - she had the address right in front of her (on the account), and I knew what format I had had to use to enter it into their crummy computer in the first place.

 

Now all is well, and I have a month to try to figure out how to pay my $10.88 at AmEx (the declined payment threw their online payment thing out of whack).

[Randy W]

from me on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/randy.walser/posts/1978960755469347

 

Does her blouse really say what I THINK it says?

 

Album Chenxi's Childrens Day

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

A couple of new actually GOOD restaurants have opened up in Yulin, and they're only a block or two from home. This one is called the Art Exploration Restaurant (Italian, or ee-Dali as my wife says)

 

 

 

This equation and graph was one of the artworks. Nerd that I am, I had to check their equation when I got home.

 

 

 

I didn't find it in my old CRC handbook, so I plotted it in Excel. Looks good to me!

 

 

 

They've opened a new branch downtown in an old revolving restaurant that hasn't been open in maybe 15 years

 

 

New equations (I had to look this one up also - it's been a while) e^(ic) = (cos c) + i(sin c)

 

 

. . . and a nice view. Jiaying's old home is somewhere in this picture, but she wasn't sure where)

 

 

. . . and good food

 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Betcha can't eat . . . TWO!

 

[Greg.D.]

"A couple of new actually GOOD restaurants have opened up in Yulin, and they're only a block or two from home. This one is called the Art Exploration Restaurant (Italian, or ee-Dali as my wife says)"

Things like that must change the math in the back of your brain re "when, if ever, is it time to relocate back to the U.S.?"

 

Seems like Yulin is more than good enough and is still not a tier 1 city and remains very livable.

 

Re e^(pi * i) - I am stumped; I can only think of "i" as a place holder in code indicating an iterative process ... though Wolfram says lower case "I" is " .. used to refer to the imaginary unit square root of -1" - but, then, that doesn't work ... I don't think.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Greg.D. (see edit history)

[Randy W]

 

"A couple of new actually GOOD restaurants have opened up in Yulin, and they're only a block or two from home. This one is called the Art Exploration Restaurant (Italian, or ee-Dali as my wife says)"

Things like that must change the math in the back of your brain re "when, if ever, is it time to relocate back to the U.S.?"

 

Seems like Yulin is more than good enough and is still not a tier 1 city and remains very livable.

 

Re e^(pi * i) - I am stumped; I can only think of "i" as a place holder in code indicating an iterative process ... though Wolfram says lower case "I" is " .. used to refer to the imaginary unit square root of -1" - but, then, that doesn't work ... I don't think.

 

 

 

Correct - I had come across e to imaginary powers in college as a Math major, but I all I could think of at the restaurant was that e^(Π) would be about 10 - THAT doesn't work, but sin(Π) = -1, -1 + 1 is 0, so that somehow must be it.

 

When I got home, I looked it up here - https://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/questionCorner/complexexp.html, where it explains why e^(ic) = (cos c) + i(sin c), so e^(Πi) = cos Π + i (sin(Π)) -> -1 + 0i = -1

 

So that sign just says "-1 + 1 = 0"

 

It's interesting to find higher math at a restaurant here in Yulin.

[Greg.D.]

Well done. I'd be a little leery that an Italian and math themed restaurant opened that close to me, if I was a retired math teacher like you. Next, they'll advertise "free beer".

[Randy W]

The first one even offered "western delicacies" like silver-dollar sized waffles with a little bit of syrup on them - lol.

[Randy W]

I'm not sure what this beer is, but it was quite good, definitely better than their other choice (PBR). My favorite is still the Monchschof Schwarzbier, though.

 

Dan identified the plane as a World War II JU-87 Stuka Dive Bomber, the Chinese name is [/size]斯图卡 - si tu ka, and another comment that "'[/size]Hefe-Vollkorn Bier' is a wrong translation, so likely not German", although it seems to translate as yeast whole grain (searches for Vollkorn turn up German bread).[/size]

 

 

Yulin's "beer girl" sells a case. 12 bottles for ¥80, with 2 free cans for dinner. Part of the deal was that we would display them on our table while eating, before taking the box home

 

 

 

 

[Allon]

I guess we have all read where China got tired of their beer being criticized and brought in a bunch of German brewmeisters. Tsingtao and some other brands began doing this around early 1900's. It explains why the beers are described as a "European flavor" or that "deep, dark lager."

 

But they are excellent beers, when I used to drink. (Well, I will take a toot every now and then.)

 

Then of course, the Chinese government took some of them over (Tsingtao). Snow beer, described by local drinkers here as a little better than armadillo piss is the most popular beer in the world.

 

The Stuka brand looks to me like a joke either on the German beer makers or one made up by the Chinese themselves and not atypical, a little off in terms of propriety. A lot of humor comes to mind with a brand like that, and maybe that's what was in mind as well.

 

Randy, you make China an inviting place to live. Cheers.