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That wallThat wallPosted Feb 28, 2008 3:49 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165)Parent article: A Beijing trip report
As an aside, the image at the bottom shows our friends in front of a wall, conventionally identified as a fragment of "The Great Wall". Amusingly enough, "The Great Wall" itself does not exist. China certainly has an abundance of walls, some running over many miles, but no single project was ever conceived as "The Great Wall" until long after all such wall construction ceased. Each wall was an investment against the need to pay tribute to the nearest raider tribe. If "The Great Wall" is to be identified as a singular construction, the product is not of masonry, but of public perception, attributing to Chinese culture an illusory continuity of effort not actually attempted. When Nixon famously insisted "This is truly a great wall", we may recognize it as one more falsehood. You may now return to your hacking.
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That wall Posted Feb 28, 2008 3:54 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Actually, there was a relatively late emperor who made a point of pulling all of the segments together into a single wall. The tour guide told us about it, so it must be true. It was definitely an "integrate the pieces" affair rather than a "design from the beginning" situation, though.
That wall Posted Feb 28, 2008 8:28 UTC (Thu) by alex (subscriber, #1355) [Link] It was definitely an "integrate the pieces" affair rather than a "design from the beginning" situation, though.There is an analogy for FLOSS somewhere in there.
That wall Posted Feb 28, 2008 9:27 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Of course "all" is a slippery term in the mouth of a tour guide. What does it mean to integrate two walls -- segments, if you like -- that run more or less parallel, a hundred miles apart?People who don't believe Neil A. walked on the moon nonetheless happily believe The Great Wall is visible from there. That's some crackerjack marketing. No doubt you'll come away from reading this still sort of believing in it; it actually takes practice to stop. Compared to that, accepting that Kentucky Fried Chicken's "seven secret herbs and spices" were really just salt and pepper is easy.
That wall Posted Feb 28, 2008 19:52 UTC (Thu) by utoddl (subscriber, #1232) [Link] Eleven. Not seven. Otherwise, yeah.
That wall Posted Feb 29, 2008 3:29 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] >The Great Wall is visible from there. I thought the claim was that the wall is visible from earth orbit, not the moon.
That wall Posted Feb 29, 2008 5:30 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Everything's visible from (low) earth orbit -- canals, roads, smoke plumes. The claim was that the Great Wall was the only man-made feature that could be picked out from the moon. Of course it's completely false -- none of the walls are visible at that distance -- but the clouds enshrouding Beijing do look distinctly brown.
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