[editor's note: this has nothing to do with web development, programming or fermentation. but, it is my blog, so... yeah.]

Every year since I’ve been able to, I’ve grown a beard for the winter. Having grown up in Maine, and having spent a few years in Colorado, it was the natural thing to do. Keep it tidy during the warmer months, and when the leaves started to fall, make sure I started on my personal protection from the cold.

This year, however, was a bit different. I had grown a fairly sizable beard this past winter when a request was placed. My good friend Jake’s lovely fiance (at the time) couldn’t bear the thought of the whiskers not making an appearance at the wedding.  So, she asked if I’d keep the beard. Not wanting to raise the ire of a bride to be, I said I would do my best. Keeping the beard wasn’t much of a stretch, as I really take pride in my facial hair. As the wedding approached, the temperatures began to rise. People began to doubt whether I’d be able to make it.

Such little faith.

Then came July 31st, the day Jake and Allie were to marry. Before the ceremony, I took a little good-natured ribbing for having such a ZZ Top-esque face at a wedding. It was easy to brush off, “The bride requested it,” I said.

That was a couple of days ago.  During these last few days, I’ve been hemming and hawing about keeping the beard. Should I cut it off? Should I keep it? I couldn’t make up my mind. But, then it dawned on me, fall was approaching rather quickly. If I didn’t cut it now, I’d have to keep it into next winter.

Alas, the bearded jig was up.

just kidding… not kidding. »

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In a blog post from Google, released yesterday, the company explains that they have implemented the new plan regarding how they will deal with China. In January of 2010, they made the announcement that they had to develop ‘a new approach to China’.  This new approach was necessitated when Google detected highly sophisticated attacks on their networks.  After some research, they determined it was indeed originating from China, and were generally, but not exclusively, targeting the GMail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Basically, the new plan is to reroute requests for google.cn to google.hk.  The Hong Kong version of Google has simple Chinese implemented and, most importantly, is uncensored.  If you’ve followed any of the news surrounding Google’s relationship with the Chinese government, you know it has focused almost solely on censorship.  Google wants the Chinese traffic and business, but the not-so-democratic Chinese government isn’t cool with an open internet.

I, personally, applaud the efforts of Google in working with China.  While I realize it isn’t entirely altruistic (ad revenue, etc.), I can only imagine how hard it must be to censor what is already a highly complex database. Furthermore, they’ve taken a ton of flack for bending to the demands of the Chinese government.  But really, I think it’s better that the Chinese people have censored access to Google than no access at all.

As a side note, Google has created a page to allow everyone to see what services are currently allowed in China. Check it out here.

What are your thoughts?  Please let me know in the comments!

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Ahhh, yes… it feels good to be back up and running.  thehokie.com has been offline for a while now, but I figured it was just about time to revive the beast.

I’ve been getting into many new things since I last posted on this site.  I’ve started developing applications for the iPhone.  I have been doing some freelance web work.  Most recently, I’ve been working on a larger project, creating online shopping software for buying clubs.

Off of the computer, I’ve been spending a lot of time fermenting many things.  My friend Jake and I have been homebrewing now for about a year.  I’ve had several successful batches of sauerkraut and kimchi.  Throw in some exploding mead, a few tasty sour pickles and about two quarts of pickled beets and there have been a lot of things bubbling in my apartment.

The one thing that unifies everything above is that, for the first time in my life, I’ve continually ran into a lack of resources on the web.  If I Googled, “fermentation with whey”, I’d get a few sites, but nothing very specific.  Changing the color of several elements in a view-based navigation style iPhone app?  Again, nothing very useful.

Through stringing information from a few random websites, coupled with trial and error, I’ve figured out most of the things I was searching for.  But then I realized I should probably be writing this stuff down, lest someone else is searching for the same things to no avail.

And there you have it.  As the title indicates, I hope to make this website a resource for all things web development, programming and fermentation.  We’ll see how it goes!

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