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ljpliceaseI was reading about the Great Wall of China on Wikipedia. Why? Because there is this ad on TV that I sometimes see out of the corner of my eye[1],
where a young boy is asking his father why "they"[2]
built the Great Wall. The father obviously not knowing the answer says, "To keep the rabbits out." My first reaction when somebody asks a question like this is to type it into Wikipedia[3]
to get the answer. Don will ask a question and then say, "I don't know the answer," which then takes me about ten seconds to answer using Wikipeida, which leads me to ask, "did you really want to know?"
Naturally you have to be careful with the 'pedia, because anyone and his Uncle Fatty can just go in and write all kinds of nasty libel they please. On the other hand, historical structures like the Great Wall aren't particularly contentious or controversial. I think on that one we are pretty safe. For George Bush, or John Howard, maybe we need to put the old sceptical coloured glasses on.
Anyway, my researched produced the following results: apparently the Great Wall was super expensive to construct or maintain, and was not, in the end, militarily viable. The invading hordes sort of went around it, effectively nullifying it from the start, much as the Germans did when they went around the Maginot Line in the Second World War. It's pretty easy to laugh at the stupidity of the French for falling for that old trick, but imagine how embarrassed they would be to have failed to learn the lesson of the Great Wall, which has to be one of the oldest in the proverbial book.
So, my brain, connected this tangent with another thread wherein I was playing around with the new version of Google Earth,[4]. I remember reading about Google Earth and China in the Economist, where they stated:
[1] I hardly ever watch TV, but sometimes I see something that Don is watching
[2] The giant ants, no not really
[3] I often skip Google now a days, which has a lot of cruft mixed in with the good stuff, and often directs me to Wikipedia anyway
[4] Which, to be honest, without more full colour 3d building models doesn't offer all that much to write home about. My friend springem works on Google Sketchup which can be used to create those models, so I hope to see more of them in the future.
Naturally you have to be careful with the 'pedia, because anyone and his Uncle Fatty can just go in and write all kinds of nasty libel they please. On the other hand, historical structures like the Great Wall aren't particularly contentious or controversial. I think on that one we are pretty safe. For George Bush, or John Howard, maybe we need to put the old sceptical coloured glasses on.
Anyway, my researched produced the following results: apparently the Great Wall was super expensive to construct or maintain, and was not, in the end, militarily viable. The invading hordes sort of went around it, effectively nullifying it from the start, much as the Germans did when they went around the Maginot Line in the Second World War. It's pretty easy to laugh at the stupidity of the French for falling for that old trick, but imagine how embarrassed they would be to have failed to learn the lesson of the Great Wall, which has to be one of the oldest in the proverbial book.
So, my brain, connected this tangent with another thread wherein I was playing around with the new version of Google Earth,[4]. I remember reading about Google Earth and China in the Economist, where they stated:
Chinese officials were horrified last year when they discovered that users of Google Earth, a free satellite-imaging facility, could direct the software to display buildings inside Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party's high-walled headquarters, together with their precise latitude and longitude. Chinese maps do not even mention the compound.Sometimes Google and Yahoo help the old government out by using webmail to send people to prison, and sometimes, well, they don't. Once again, the good old Chinese government has constructed a wall to keep the invaders out, but I think we all know what happens when you construct "impenetrable" walls, right?
The Economist http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6838596
[1] I hardly ever watch TV, but sometimes I see something that Don is watching
[2] The giant ants, no not really
[3] I often skip Google now a days, which has a lot of cruft mixed in with the good stuff, and often directs me to Wikipedia anyway
[4] Which, to be honest, without more full colour 3d building models doesn't offer all that much to write home about. My friend springem works on Google Sketchup which can be used to create those models, so I hope to see more of them in the future.
