Month: June 2024

Water Truck

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On the Wikipedia page for water trucks, only Russian, Norwegian, Simple English, and Turkish are linked. After excluding the possibility of Wikipedia mistakenly not linking other languages, this means that water trucks may be rare in other language regions.

China National Radio interviewed people living in various places and found that the United States and Germany do not have water trucks, Japan and South Korea are rare, only Russia and Mexico have similar water trucks, and although Australia also has them, the volume and operating area are limited and are not used for overall urban road cleaning.

So, why are water trucks not commonly found in other regions? This question may be too complex, so let’s ask a simpler question: What can water trucks do?

In the industry standard for water trucks: QC/T 54-2023, it is stated: “Used for road watering, dust reduction, and cooling.” In earlier versions of the standard, there was also a flushing performance test: “During flushing operations, it should be able to flush fruit peels, paper scraps, leaves, and other debris on concrete or asphalt pavements to a distance of more than 4 m from the nozzle.”

Regarding the specific reason for cooling the road surface, Pacific Automotive Encyclopedia believes that it can prevent road cracking, but water trucks are also rare in hotter regions such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, so this statement is not very convincing. As for dust removal or suppression, if the ground evaporation is high and humidity cannot be maintained, the dust problem is still serious. (The part about dust removal comes from the 《Research on Water for Road Dust Removal and Antibacterial Spraying》)

It seems that perhaps water trucks are like eye exercises, with no evidence to support their necessity. Maybe it’s just a formality to show that something is being done, but it exists in people’s lives and becomes a part of their respective lives.

Postscript: In recent years, the popular fog cannons (spraying water mist into the air, which can create rainbows) are said by industry insiders to be almost ineffective against urban smog. Some places even use fog cannons to interfere with automatic air quality monitoring stations, which may be the best use of fog cannons.

The Fading Flags at the Music Festival

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At music festivals, it used to be popular for listeners to bring their own flags to show their personality and convey emotions. However, this was gradually restricted and even banned.

On July 26, 2023, the MIDI Music Festival issued the “MIDI Music Festival Fans Culture Flag Pre-inspection Notice”, which began the pre-inspection application process for “cultural flags”, i.e., a reporting/filing system. The reason may be that earlier, someone at the MIDI Music Festival raised a flag with the avatar of “Mr. Li is not your teacher”.

From March 29 to the beginning of April 2024, the Guangzhou Culture Music Festival, Xingchao Secret Realm Music Festival, Haichao Universe Music Festival, Taizhou Feilong Lake Music Festival, etc., all announced postponements or cancellations. The reasons given were all “force majeure”.

P.S.: Legally, “force majeure” is usually considered to refer to objective circumstances that cannot be foreseen, avoided, or overcome, mainly including natural disasters, such as typhoons, floods, earthquakes, etc.; government actions, such as requisition and expropriation; and abnormal social events, such as strikes and riots.

On April 11, 2024, the self-media “Music First Voice” released a report on the supervision of concerts, giving two screenshots circulating on Sina Weibo, which are the notes of Trace-free Governance and an unknown document about the MIDI Music Festival. (Cover image)

On June 9, 2024, a Palestinian flag appeared at the Xianyang Daqin Youth Music Festival and was confiscated by security.

In the early morning of June 10, 2024, the organizer of the Xianyang Daqin Youth Music Festival issued an announcement stating that they had been severely reprimanded by higher authorities, and relevant departments required that no flags be allowed tomorrow. To make up for the fans’ regret, the support flags that had been approved before can be displayed in the official WeChat official account’s article “Support Flag Collection”.

So now music festivals may not even allow flag filing, unless it is displayed in a completely controllable WeChat official account article…

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Isolation in Design

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GreatFire began monitoring Apple’s censorship in 2013. In 2019, it launched the AppleCensorship project and the App Store Monitor (ASM) to track iOS Apps that are not available in the App Store.

On June 20, 2024, AppleCensorship, in collaboration with ARTICLE 19 ASIA, released the report: “Isolation by Design: Censorship in Apple’s App Store in China and Human Rights Implications.”

The report carefully examines the intricate app censorship situation within the Chinese Apple App Store and is a fairly comprehensive censorship study.

For example, of the 100 most downloaded apps globally, only 34 are available in the mainland App Store, while only 8 are unavailable in the US. This indicates that the region is clearly isolated from the world.

Regarding the tendency to remove apps from the mainland App Store, AppleCensorship has compiled categories such as VPNs, privacy and digital security, LGBTQ+ and dating, news, media and information, social media and communication, and ethnic minorities and religions, and has detailed statistics on the number of apps removed that belong to these categories.

However, the original report is a PDF document, making it inconvenient to copy, translate, and search across multiple lines. Therefore, the PDF to Markdown tool was used for a rough conversion, followed by manual correction, so that the browser’s translation tools can be used.

HTML version of the report: ggame | Original PDF Report.

Automatically Added DNS on Mobile Phones

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On April 6, 2021, MIUI was discovered to automatically add 114 and the “Internet National Engineering Center” DNS. The specific detail is that depending on the system region, if it is mainland China, it will add mainland China’s DNS, and other regions will add Google’s DNS. Some of the code is as follows:

String dns = System.isInCnRegion() ? "114.114.114.114" : "8.8.8.8";
String dnsv6 = System.isInCnRegion() ? "240c::6666" : "2001:4860:4860::8888";

Other brands of Chinese mobile phones also have similar situations, such as vivo’s OriginOS, OPPO’s ColorOS, and Huawei’s EMUI. Even the Hong Kong version of Samsung phones.

This mechanism of built-in hard-coded DNS in mobile phones may be intended to reduce offline problems caused by user configuration errors. However, it can also lead to difficult-to-troubleshoot DNS leaks, or even incorrect DNS responses, leading to DNS pollution, and even polluting OpenWrt routers, causing other devices under the router, such as computers, to be unable to use Google and other services normally.

P.S.: “Smart TVs” have advertisements as long as they are connected to the Internet. As long as a deliberately misconfigured DNS is configured, you can use screen mirroring and other LAN functions normally, and also remove advertisements and telemetry data.
However, if the manufacturer adds hard-coded DNS, this method will fail.

P.S. 2: Some say that the automatically added DNS is to deliberately obtain DNS request records. It’s hard to say, unless more Chinese mobile phones are tested to see if they contain this secret function. However, one thing is certain, that is, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology does not care about this matter, even if someone appeals to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, they will only get the suggestion to file a lawsuit.

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Censorship of Input Methods

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Censorship on UGC platforms is easily noticeable, such as on Sina Weibo and Bilibili, where new censorship points are introduced periodically, restricting various content. However, the tools used to input Chinese characters: input methods, also undergo censorship. It is more subtle and harder to notice.

Right Angle Quotes: In 2021, it was discovered that Sogou Input Method versions after 10.4a could no longer set right angle quotes through the “custom punctuation” function, for unknown reasons. A few Sogou users who were accustomed to it found a solution by modifying the .ini configuration file.

But Sogou users who couldn’t find a solution may have to give up right angle quotes, or use a customizable user dictionary to solve the problem. And those who couldn’t find an alternative may no longer use right angle quotes.

Remembering Words: Modern Chinese input methods have a word memory function that learns newly entered words and adjusts the frequency ranking. However, Sogou Input Method cannot learn some words. Perhaps after several unsuccessful attempts, users will no longer use those words.

Pronunciation of Words: Who should decide the pronunciation of words? If many people agree that the “骑” character in “一骑红尘妃子笑 (yī qí hóngchén fēizǐ xiào)” should be pronounced as “jì”, then the input method should be able to type “骑” using “jì”. However, some input methods simply cannot.

Using the mandatory 《普通话异读词审音表》 (Pronunciation Norm Table of Mandarin Chinese Words with Variant Readings) to restrict pronunciation lacks the sense of derivation that everyone can participate in, like natural language. Instead, it is more like an artificial language, designed and promoted by an association, and others only need to follow the rules to use it.

Flags: Starting June 2, 2024, QQ Input Method, iFlytek Input Method, Sogou Input Method, and other input methods were observed to be unable to input the Palestinian flag “🇵🇸”. (The Jews have infiltrated too deeply [laughs])

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The Positive ED in Psychological Horror Games

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Usually the music in psychological horror games is more depressing, so that players can enter a state of fear. But when the game ends, this state is usually no longer needed, so the ED (ending theme) of psychological horror games is often more positive and optimistic, perhaps as a reward for completing the game? Here are some positive EDs of psychological horror games (there are some potential spoilers):

《Shin Megami Tensei》 Ending: Feeling the sun slowly rising from the horizon, illuminating the war-torn Tokyo caused by the human-demon war, people actively face all this.

《Higurashi When They Cry Kai: Matsuribayashi-hen》『Sora no Mukou』: After experiencing many hell-like plots, almost all the secrets are finally revealed, and we can finally play games with friends under the blue sky without worrying about “lingering worries”. (For now)

《Silent Hill 2》 Promise (Maria Ending ED): Maybe the player took the trouble to accompany and protect Maria, so the developer gave the player an ED with loneliness, sadness and a little hope.

《Doki Doki Literature Club!》 Your Reality: After uncovering the veil of psychological horror, it is actually still a romantic story, Just Monika.

P.S.: SIGNALIS »Schubert – Schwanengesang, D. 957: IV. Ständchen« Puzzle Ending: In order to fulfill the promise, the player did everything he could, and the developer played Schubert’s serenade for the player. Although this song itself is not positive, it may be the most positive content in SIGNALIS.