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Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

newrepublic.com

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Re: Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

#61

Post by xvector »

SiVal wrote: post #59
RandomBacon wrote: post #14

The last sentence is odd: > You can’t blame other countries for wanting to tell the American 250s to 0748. 250 = idiot 0748 = go die Which translates: > You can’t blame other countries for wanting to tell the American idiots to go die. I'm not sure why the author felt the need to include that. (Edit: Am I wrong for questioning the article?)

It's the New Republic, an intellectual fashion magazine for the American Left. As it says at the bottom of the article, the author is one of their staff writers. Comments about American hegemony and how other countries can't be blamed for wanting American idiots to go die are the kinds of intellectual fashion statements that the New Republic expects its staff writers to make.

I am leftist myself, but these people are insane.

"Yeah, let's just go ahead and hand over control of internet standards gift-wrapped to some of the worst human rights abusers in history. What could possibly go wrong?!"

If Russia and China were sane, reasonable states that cared for any semblance of human rights, yeah, sure, maybe it'd make sense to make this not American-centric. But as it stands, the author just comes off as naive.

Re: Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

#62

Post by wholien »

I remember going to 4399 for games when I was an elementary student.

Part of the reason why numbers are so pervasive, in the 51job.com sense, is that if you were to type out the pinyin for "i want a job" in Chinese... the url would be insanely long and unwieldy. 51job.com is easy to type and remember (also they have a billion ads everywhere). This means if you dont have numbers, you will try to use the initials for all the pinyins in your name. Jing Dong becomes jd.com

4008-517-517.com for McDonald's delivery is from their delivery phone number, which they had years before the URL. You would hear 4008 517 517 with a jingle on the radio all the time. The last time I heard it was probably 10 years ago but funny how the tune of these oft-heard ad jingles never fully leave your consciousness.

Re: Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

#63

Post by schuke »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #52
kev6168 wrote: post #18

Another reason I think is in China the search engines have been terrible since the beginning. For example even if your search query is as specific as "ACME inc. of AAA city in BBB province" , it would be your lucky day if the first two result pages have that company's web site. What you get mostly are paid ads and shitty seo stuff. It's been like this to this day. So not being able to rely on search, people have to m…

> Google please come back, it will be a net gain for humanity. I'd rather them wait until they are no longer required to censor their results and track their users on behalf of the state security apparatus.

Most people would rather want this because you don’t have to bear the consequences. To simulate the experience, I suggest you start using a censored Bing exclusively while dialing down its search relevancy 30-40% for a start. Make sure you also realize the political reality that your rulers would rather go North Korea than giving up censorship.

Re: Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

#64

Post by bmn__ »

xvector wrote: post #61
SiVal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the New Republic, an intellectual fashion magazine for the American Left. As it says at the bottom of the article, the author is one of their staff writers. Comments about American hegemony and how other countries can't be blamed for wanting American idiots to go die are the kinds of intellectual fashion statements that the New Republic expects its staff writers to make.

I am leftist myself, but these people are insane. "Yeah, let's just go ahead and hand over control of internet standards gift-wrapped to some of the worst human rights abusers in history. What could possibly go wrong?!" If Russia and China were sane, reasonable states that cared for any semblance of human rights, yeah, sure, maybe it'd make sense to make this not American-centric. But as it stands, the author just co…

> If Russia and China were sane, reasonable states that cared for any semblance of human rights

America holding internet standards hostage can't be the answer to that, arrogant selfishness comes across as the motivation.

Telephony interoperability standards are managed just fine by an international committee; this can serve as a role model how to govern control of internet standards. http://ITU.int/ITU-T

Re: Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

#65

Post by wodenokoto »

kev6168 wrote: post #18

Another reason I think is in China the search engines have been terrible since the beginning. For example even if your search query is as specific as "ACME inc. of AAA city in BBB province" , it would be your lucky day if the first two result pages have that company's web site. What you get mostly are paid ads and shitty seo stuff. It's been like this to this day. So not being able to rely on search, people have to m…

That’s interesting. In japan they’ve gone the complete opposite route:

Instead of telling you the web address they tell you which keyword to type into search, sometimes even with an animation of it being typed into the search bar.

Re: Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

#66

Post by 000DC47F »

kev6168 wrote: post #34
eiliant wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bing is ok, it’s no google though but much better than say baidu

yeah, my default search engine is bing. But sometimes you have the feeling it probably has less stuff in its database than what baidu has crawled and collected. Out of habit I rarely use 360 or sogou so I don't know how they fair compared to baidu or bing.

Yeah, I've found Bing to the best option when I'm in the mainland, only because all the local search are even more terrible at english.

When I need to search in Chinese, baidu is the least terrible (but still really bad). Sogou isn't too far behind, but it's index is not as fresh, in my experience.

Re: Chinese Number Websites: The Secret Meaning of URLs (2014)

#67

Post by rtkwe »

govg wrote: post #22
Mirioron wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you input a number like that?

A lot of phones come with the English alphabet on the 12 keys, three letters to a key. Similar to older phones that had a physical dialpad. You could then dial the "word" you want by looking at the number on which the correct letter is. That's one way these systems could work.

That's close, in the US it's 2-9 with 7 and 9 getting 4 letters for PQRS and WXYZ respectively.
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