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There Is No Maker Movement in China

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Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#81

Post by chaostheory »

v-yadli wrote: post #53
rdtsc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok as the gp pointed out. Where are the thousands of open source projects on Github written by Chinese? > China has 1.35 billion people, and it seems incredibly unimaginative and frankly egotistic Surely, by your own suggestion, there should be countless examples of open source projects driven from there. Otherwise, their point (even in its generalized form) still stands.

You have to make them speak English first. I mean, for the majority of Chinese people, they don't care about your Github thing... Edit: I'd suggest you do some research on this: where's all the information hiding in the Chinese internet? - An interesting example is this: http://www.pudn.com/ It works different. Yes you can download stuff for free there, but you have to upload your own stuff to gain credit. It's just…

> All the things you talk about, you have to think whether they stand, first.

I'm pretty damn sure I know what I'm talking about. For one thing, I'm not blinded by pride. (Going on a tangent, I don't even understand why people seem offended, since this isn't about talent or skill that a lot of mainlanders possess, this is simply about their culture.)

Pudn is a horrible example of Chinese 'open source' because it's not really Chinese open source. It's really just a Chinese search engine for open source projects of which a lot aren't even Chinese.

1. Like you said, you can't even download anything unless you upload something. Why is this important? Because you can't just build something for the sake of building something and sharing, it still has to be out of self interest and self gain.

2. A lot of the serious projects there aren't even projects that are hosted there. Most of them are just other non-Chinese people's projects that are really hosted on github, sourceforge, google code, or some other open source repo site like code plex (i.e. Pudn's users aren't even uploading their own work.) which makes the 'you have to upload something to download something' even more ridiculous.

3. Of the projects that are really hosted there, most of them just look like the result of small homework assignments.

4. It's not really a place for people to collaborate. It's more of file share and search where people find examples to help finish their upcoming trivial homework assignments. They upload their own completed homework assignments so they can download other people's homework. There's nothing special there.

My point stands. Chinese open source is near non-existent, not because of talent; it's because of culture.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#82

Post by VLM »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #27
[deleted] wrote: post #19

[deleted]

The central premise of this article was not that the maker community doesn't exist in China, the central premise is that because it "never went away" the maker culture of China has evolved further than what you might find elsewhere. But even that I disagree with. Not on the impressive infrastructure that China seems to have for makers (which is worthy of envy, in my opinion), but on the "never went away" point, becau…

I agree with your remarks in that I have noticed on ham radio sites some of the hams publicly not being very happy to be told they had gone away and what they spent the 70s, 80s, 90s doing didn't exist. "I'm a ham radio home brewer and I'm not a maker" and stuff like that.

I would disagree, or at least extend your remarks in an alternate direction, in that the modern maker movement from the outside looks like kids and art is the new addition to the mix (the rebranding you refer to, at least as I see it). Find an old QST or QEX or other electronics magazine from the 90s and look at proud pix of projects and for the vast majority WRT appearance its at best early leather and steel man cave and at worst if you don't have a technical background it totally looks like junk and its all adult with adult risks and adult tools. Modern maker is all about the art and the kids and you're only going to see bright colors and flowing lines and proportions and whimsy on maker stuff, not old school ham radio / electronic dude stuff. Some machinist hand made steam engines do look beautiful in my opinion but that also drifts into the non-technical public probably thinking it looks like junk.

I've been to maker fair, and I've been to too many ham radio fests to count. Just looking at the tables, at the artistic style of stuff and the tools you can tell if you're at a maker fair or a ham fest.

I feel less confident about camp and "not real". Maker seems to be a lot of self referential "learn some skills to do something real" "make believe" type of stuff. So you get a laser cut robot that kinda walks and is very whimsical and artsy and kids can safely assemble it, but it doesn't really do anything and its unclear what you'd do with it after its made. The ham culture is more like here's a 1500 watt linear amplifier and yes the power supply is quite easily capable of killing you if you aren't careful in design, construction, operation, and maintenance so kids are totally not allowed and once its done you talk to the other side of the planet using morse code on 20 meters or bounce digital waveforms off the moon on 2 meters, and not being a maker project it will have all the artistic appeal and style of a beige box PC or a filing cabinet, even if it does have technologically cutting edge intermodulation and linearity specs. Or old school non-maker is like a table saw that almost demonically wants to rip your hand off at the wrist but if you're a sober and careful and methodical adult it makes beautiful carpentry projects, but from an art perspective, its an ugly metal table with a spinning blood hungry saw wheel of death in the center, and thats about it, not exactly "maker" in kid-safety or artistic style.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#83

Post by SavvyGuard »

rdtsc wrote: post #51
taurath wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main reason I've always remembered this man is because he's one of the few Chinese people in China (that I'm aware of) who actually enjoys making for the sake of making, and not just as a livelihood. China has 1.35 billion people, and it seems incredibly unimaginative and frankly egotistic to think that you can make generalizations about overall Chinese culture and then just call it a day. The fact is that even…

Ok as the gp pointed out. Where are the thousands of open source projects on Github written by Chinese? > China has 1.35 billion people, and it seems incredibly unimaginative and frankly egotistic Surely, by your own suggestion, there should be countless examples of open source projects driven from there. Otherwise, their point (even in its generalized form) still stands.

You've got to be kidding right? Are you really surprised that an English language site that is sometimes blocked in China and lacks a Chinese language interface doesn't have obviously Chinese contributors? Do you expect a conical hat on the profile pics of all the Chinese contributors? How exactly do you expect to see who's Chinese and who's not on a site like Github?

You can easily check out Chinese language code hosting sites, like

https://code.csdn.net/explore/projects?tag_name=python

Of course, I'm pretty sure that's not going to convince you of anything.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#84

Post by chaostheory »

gbog wrote: post #65
chaostheory wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to but I don't have time and there's a lot of articles and content for this that already exists. The gist of it all is that China is a low trust society. Everyone has a price and rules are only rules unless you have the resources to bend them for yourself. Yes this happens in Western culture as well, the big difference is the both degree and how prevalent it is. e.g. it is much harder to bribe a police offic…

The problem with China is that whatever you say about her is true, and it's opposite is true too. For example, businesses rely very highly on trust in China, precisely because you can't rely on laws to protect you. But it is another kind of trust. Also, Chinese are quite optimistic too, that's why they never stop creating restaurants, businesses, etc. And pragmatism: it is a strange pragmatism that who bring one bill…

> For example, businesses rely very highly on trust in China, precisely because you can't rely on laws to protect you. But it is another kind of trust.

I'm not sure this makes any sense, unless you're referring to the way companies and businesses can rely on being able to bribe people.

> Also, Chinese are quite optimistic too, that's why they never stop creating restaurants, businesses, etc. And pragmatism: it is a strange pragmatism that who bring one billion of people to fire crackers and spent thousands of rmb in smoke and noise

Regardless of what people say, the true type of outlook is reflected in the types of business ventures that are undertaken. Yes, there are always 1 or two exceptions but as a whole, most mainland Chinese only undertake safe cookie cutter businesses and cookie cut products that are already proven. This is even more evident when the end goal is a race to the bottom for pricing. All of this is pragmatic.

> And pragmatism: it is a strange pragmatism that who bring one billion of people to fire crackers and spent thousands of rmb in smoke and noise

This is called tradition, and when you think about it; it's also safe and old compared to snow boarding, surfing, rock climbing or whatever new is in fashion in the West. Conversely US culture is primarily about rebellion in spirit, which helps explain our near constant need to do things that are new and experimental.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#86

Post by chaostheory »

ximeng wrote: post #76
chaostheory wrote: post #18

I strongly disagree with this post and the author's opinions on Chinese culture. He's missing something really big that's a core of Chinese culture. > the "We here in the Maker movement could not be more pleased with ourselves" vibe. This is another of way of saying that we enjoy making here beyond earning a living. Yes it's work, but it's also recreation and art. In places like SV and NY, people make because mainly…

http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/videos/wind-powered-electric-... http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/pictures/chinese-man-builds-h...

I can only hope that there will be a lot more Zhenping's and Yulu's in the future.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#87

Post by chaostheory »

msie wrote: post #64
chaostheory wrote: post #18

I strongly disagree with this post and the author's opinions on Chinese culture. He's missing something really big that's a core of Chinese culture. > the "We here in the Maker movement could not be more pleased with ourselves" vibe. This is another of way of saying that we enjoy making here beyond earning a living. Yes it's work, but it's also recreation and art. In places like SV and NY, people make because mainly…

> the "We here in the Maker movement could not be more pleased with ourselves" vibe. This is another of way of saying that we enjoy making here beyond earning a living. I didn't see it that way. To me it meant: "we are pleased with ourselves that we are not just helpless consumers but also creators and self-reliant". We are smug with our technical know-how. Another form of machismo.

If that's what cshirky meant, he's is just totally and completely wrong on several major things.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#88

Post by chaostheory »

newhouseb wrote: post #55
chaostheory wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China has 1.35 billion people, and it seems incredibly unimaginative and frankly egotistic to think that you can make generalizations about overall Chinese culture Ok I'm open to being wrong. How about proving me wrong? What parts of my description of Chinese culture are wrong? For one thing it's a pessimistic society hence the photocopy culture (why take a crazy risk for something unknown and original when I can j…

> the photocopy culture I used to spout this phrase (or ones like it) back when 校内／人人 used to look like a pixel-perfect clone of FB. But I think China is growing beyond this phase. There are small things (like the touch to talk in iMessage? WeChat/微信 has had that for ages) and bigger things like the emergence of drones - the FAA just recently allowed filming of TV shows but some of China's most popular shows are alre…

I don't disagree with you concerning the exceptions here and there, since I'm talking about China as a whole. Hopefully one day the small exceptions become the overall norm instead.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#89

Post by chaostheory »

1stop wrote: post #68
pavelrub wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems incredibly unimaginative and frankly egotistic to think that you can make generalizations about overall Chinese culture Why? What does it mean "generalizations about overall Chinese culture"? Are you claiming that in China there is only a collection of small, unrelated cultures, and no shared core? The whole point of the concept of "culture" is to observe that such generalizations do exist, and they drive…

> Are you claiming that in China there is only a collection of small, unrelated cultures, and no shared core? Are you implying it isn't? I mean there are more than the Han chinese (ethnic culture), and even within that there is are quite varied cultures within the Han. Most people's "chinese generalisations" are generalising about upper-middle class Chinese from the Big 3 cities + Hong Kong. Because they are the majo…

> there are more than the Han chinese (ethnic culture), and even within that there is are quite varied cultures within the Han. Most people's "chinese generalisations" are generalising about upper-middle class Chinese from the Big 3 cities + Hong Kong. Because they are the majority that migrate.

There's not a huge, ginormous difference between the Han sub-cultures. I know because I'm descended from both a less populous Han subgroup as well as a larger one, and so are my friends and family by marriage. Usually when Chinese people speak of the 'differences', they are just referring to popular stereotypes.

As for the other non-Han ethnic groups, they make up less than 9% of the population. Most of them also don't really consider themselves as Chinese or part of Chinese culture at large (since they aren't really integrated with it - nor are they treated as Chinese) like the Uyghur's which are closer to Turkish people, and the Tibetans and Koreans. In China's defense, this isn't much different from what happens in Japan.

Re: There Is No Maker Movement in China

#90

Post by chaostheory »

SavvyGuard wrote: post #83
rdtsc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok as the gp pointed out. Where are the thousands of open source projects on Github written by Chinese? > China has 1.35 billion people, and it seems incredibly unimaginative and frankly egotistic Surely, by your own suggestion, there should be countless examples of open source projects driven from there. Otherwise, their point (even in its generalized form) still stands.

You've got to be kidding right? Are you really surprised that an English language site that is sometimes blocked in China and lacks a Chinese language interface doesn't have obviously Chinese contributors? Do you expect a conical hat on the profile pics of all the Chinese contributors? How exactly do you expect to see who's Chinese and who's not on a site like Github? You can easily check out Chinese language code ho…

Unlike Pudn, csdn.net seems pretty legit. However it looks like there are only about 8000 projects give or take. Compare this with github which has a few million projects and that's just one repo service I'm not even counting stuff like bitbucket and google code. Again I'm not pointing out a deficiency in skill or talent, this is just about culture.
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