Mystery Monday: Was Jesus Chinese?

Chinesus? Chesus?

Whilst keen to avoid my usual opening gambit of saying "no" and then going on to explain why in slightly more words, I find it tricky to actually have an opinion on this. I don't care if Jesus existed or not and whether he was Arabic, Indian or whatever. The only reason I even got started on this article was because the wife asked "Was Jesus Chinese?" and actually expected an answer.

It turns out that you can pretty much ask "Is X Chinese?" and find someone that says X most definitely is - and that fascinates me. So is there any kind of decent theory out there that can make a reasonable case for Jesus being Chinese?

Well, it turns out that not only was Jesus Chinese, but that he's back and he's a Chinese woman this time round. Game on.

This fine artwork by Christine Till is available to buy here

Professor Gong Yu Hai, who's previously published works about the Analects of Confucius, reckons that the Shan Hai Jing, a classical Chinese text reveals that not only was Jesus a real person, but that he was Chinese.

According to the prof, Jesus was really called Zhuanxu (顓頊) and was born almost 3,000 years BC, which is a little earlier than most scholars would place his birth. Oh and he was one of the "Five Emperors" from those ancient days.

Professor Gong Yu Hai says that at the birth of Zhuanxu there was an empire that was the centre of politics, economics, science and culture for the entire planet (I wonder whom he could mean?). Zhuanxu set up his own manor (in present day Jilin) at the age of 10, inherited the position of emperor at 20 and went to preach in the west at age 30.

The policy of that empire was to unify religion and politics and this Zhuanxu did through the creation of Christianity. So that's that then. The professor gets a little vague at this point both seeming to suggest that Zhuanxu was literally Jesus but also that he was the "prototype" for the Christian Jesus.

Well if that doesn't sound convincing, I don't know what does.

Christianity is relatively new in China. Although there have been annoying missionaries for a while now, Christianity just hasn't been that popular. Mainstream religion in China is a mish-mash of different ideas, customs and traditions picked by the individual. And Chinese religious customs are so interwoven into the calendar that it's hard to turn one's back on them by joining some 'modern' religion.

Since China opened up a bit more to the rest of the world, some of the first people across the border were Christians looking for converts. Apparently we're all too used to them and bored by their religion that it's jolly hard to score converts amongst our population. Christians have always been keen to exploit (in all senses of the word) closed societies and cultures unexposed to their doctrines. So yeah, they were straight through the door when China opened up. This hasn't entirely gone in Christianity's favour however as the Chinese have got ideas of their own and have never had organised religion. Quite a number of Christian cults have formed all over the country, taking Biblical teaching as their basis but adding some wacky new elements of their own and running off out of the reach and authority of the Christian church. Bugger.

Did they get their logo from Star Trek?

There's a sect called the Church of Almighty God and they're mental. According to them, they have 300,000 members (though observers say they might be closer to tens of thousands). They're also known as Lightning from the East, Dongfang Shandian, Seven Spirits Sect, Second Saviour Sect, New Power Lord's Church, True Light Sect and True Way Sect. Whatever they're called, their origins are pretty vague. Their central tenets include that "the great red dragon" from the Book of Revelation ( 12:3 onwards if you care to look) is China and that Lightning Deng (a quiet woman in her 30s from Zhengzhou, Henan) is the second Christ. Oh and she's written a book called Lightning From the East which is the third Testament of the Bible. Ha ha ha, no wonder the Christians are annoyed.

What's especially good is that the Church of Almighty God have the most ingenious recruitment techniques. Figuring that it's easier to convert people that already believe 90% of the same rubbish that they do, they've targeted Chinese Christians and they've not exactly shy about it. Kidnap is regularly used, but they're also partial to a bit of torture and brainwashing. They especially like to target religious leaders reckoning that if you can convert them, you'll probably get their followers for free.

So Jesus is back, he's a Chinese woman and he/she's written a whole new bit of the Bible. And the sect that's following him is coercing people into their congregation to the point where they're a serious threat to other Christian groups in China. Traditional Christian authorities have no control over them and yet are desperate to try and limit their influence in order to promote their official flavour of Christianity. But with no power base of their own in China, it leaves them in the uncomfortable position of having to seek the help of the Chinese government.

Whilst this painting is obviously ludicrous, is it any more stupid than
those of a white-skinned, fair-haired Jesus?

The Chinese government aren't terribly keen on any large organised group outwith their control as they pose a real threat to the country. China has a long history of rebellions and they've almost always come out of such groups, so they tend to stamp on them quite hard. After all, if a group only appeals to 0.1% of people, that's still over 1,500,000 members thanks to the sheer size of the Chinese population. This is why groups like Falun Gong (whose billionaire leader lives in New York), various qigong sects and Lightning from the East are all banned in China. It's not what they're preaching or even how they're doing it - it's all about their size and the lack of government oversight. After all if some guy can make you turn your back on thousands of years of Chinese tradition in order to believe his interpretation of a magic Jesus book, then you'll probably rail against the Chinese government if he asks. Not good.

So the Christian Church is in the uncomfortable position of having to ask the Chinese government to sanction one group over another. The government isn't particularly interested in helping any Christian group, so the official Christians have to be willing to put up with all kinds of restrictions in order to get their seal of approval. Christian groups and churches have to register with the state and there are restrictions on proselytising and public preaching, especially for foreigners. This is particularly galling for the Catholics who are used to interfering in national affairs, but that shit just doesn't fly in China.

All this wacky fun has led to the arrest of thousands of 'illegal' Christians in China and all with the collusion of the Christian Church. Ha ha ha. So keen are they to protect their official brand of Christianity that they're happy to be complicit in persecution of other religious groups, even though they're members of the same faith. I don't like organised religion, so I'm extremely pleased to see them adopting this position.

I'd love to finish off this article by showing you a picture of the Chinese Jesus, Lightning Deng, but no pictures of her exist. Her followers go to great lengths to hide her and make sure she is never photographed. Ironically, the underground Christian networks in China (encouraged for so long by the Christian Church) formed to avoid persecution in less tolerant days have proved equally effective in keeping cults and sects like Lightning From the East hidden these days.

Free Game Friday: Unusual game control systems

This week is a little different in that I've not been playing free games, but I've been controlling them with unusual methods (which are all free). None of this keyboard and mouse stuff for me.


FaceTrackNoIR is a face detection uh... thing. It detects your face in order to follow your head movements and it transmits this data to the game. You can lay out £150 for a TrackIR device or you can use a webcam and FaceTrackNoIR.

Who is that handsome devil?

It actually works surprisingly well for something that's a bit cobbled-together. It uses the free non-commercial faceAPI from Seeing Machines to monitor the position of your face and it does a good job even if you have a beard and a busy background.

Although I initially used it for a flight sim, it worked equally well in driving games and, in the video above, you can see it being used for a first person shooter. Quite impressive.

There are obvious limitations like not being able to look directly behind you or too far off to the side, but seeing as you don't have a monitor over there, it's not going to be a problem. I haven't tried it with a game that supports multiple monitors yet, but I think that could be quite interesting.

Try it for yourself here:

http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/home/default.htm

There's a list of games that support it here:

http://facetracknoir.sourceforge.net/compatibility/games.htm

GlovePIE has been around for a while and basically allows you to control anything with anything. Originally designed to allow the use of those awful 'virtual reality' gloves, it's gone a bit further than that.

I decided to see if I could use my Nintendo Wii controllers with a flight sim and it was a breeze. The only other thing I needed was a Bluetooth adapter for my PC, but they can be picked up for pennies from ebay or Amazon (I had some spare Amazon credit). Here's a guy controlling Google Earth with a Wiimote:

In my case, it wasn't a total success. The Wiimote worked perfectly, but it wasn't actually any better than just using a joystick. I did try it with a driving game and that was a lot better although my arms did get a bit tired of holding it in the air all the time. But then I cam across this video and realised that I could do more with it.

Voice commands, eh? Well I've got several driving games where it's jolly difficult for me to perform certain functions because my hands are busy. He's playing rFactor 2 and I play the similar Race 07. I have difficulty arranging my pitstops because I've got two hands working the keyboard already, so when do I have time to navigate the menu to arrange my pitstop?

Voice command worked brilliantly. I play with headphones on, so there was no problem isolating the voice commands from the game noise. It uses the speech recognition engine built into Windows 7

I know there's a lot more that can be done with GlovePIE and writing scripts for it isn't terribly hard.

Get it here:

http://glovepie.org/glovepie.php

What worked especially well was combining the two. I played Race 07 using FaceTrackNoIR to track my head and GlovePIE to handle voice commands and that just let me get on with the driving. Entering a corner, I can look to the apex as I turn the car towards it, whilst telling my pit crew that I want different tyres on my next stop. Neither were particularly hard to set up (although I was using games with which I knew they already worked). Have a go yourselves and if there's any other unusual control method out there, let me know.

Programmable microchips weren't cute enough for Japan

asdasd

Check it out, it's an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array)! What do you mean, "what's that?" - are you retarded? FPGAs are a programmable alternative to using ASICs. Still not with me? Oh my.

Non-ignorant readers can skip these bits:
In certain hardware there is a need for ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit). For instance in an MP3 player it might be better to have an ASIC chip dedicated to decoding MP3 files rather than leaving it to the CPU. CPUs operate in a very general way and aren't the best solution for any one task. An ASIC designed purely to decode MP3 data will be much more efficient than using the CPU and leaves the CPU free to deal with other tasks and increases battery life through reduced power consumption.


The main drawback with ASICs is that they're custom designed for each task. This can lead to long delays as the chips have to be designed and tested and the set-up costs before manufacturing the ASIC can be very high.


FPGAs are a step back from ASICs. They're designed to be configured and programmed after manufacturing. Thus a company can buy FPGAs off the shelf and start manufacturing whilst still working on the setup for the FPGA. They can even be programmed once the product has been deployed or sold to a customer. They're very flexible and their low pre-production costs can make them a good alternative to ASICs, especially in items that aren't going to have very high production runs.


Or, for complete idiots:
An ASIC is a chip designed and created to do a task. An FPGA can be programmed to do anything.

The picture above shows the logical layout of a particular FPGA made by a Japanese company. You can see how it's laid out and how it works. The only problem is that this is Japan and that's way too dry and non-kawaii, so it need improved.

This is the circuit-board itself. You can see the yellow power connector on the left, the two simple LED displays, the USB connector at the top in the middle and the two black interface connector on the right - allowing you to use this board to control just about anything. And here's the back of that board:

Way to go, Japan! I've seen various circuit board and chip companies hide small logos and graphics on their stuff before, but never an entire board given over to an image. And just in case you think this is arbitrary, the layout is perfectly functional and logical and has barely been altered to accommodate the design. There's a video that explain everything... in Japanese... with extremely cheerful j-pop music.





I really want one of these. Really, really want one of these. I still want a Raspberry Pi, which is an entire computer on a single little board, but bloody hell, Japan, you've really managed to made a relatively interested bit of electronics into an object of desire.

Even the documentation is manga-ed up to the max

Snooker: Is Cao Yupeng a cheat or is Mark Allen a racist?

There was a bit of drama in the snooker on Monday. Mark Allen of Northern Ireland was facing Cao Yupeng of China in a first round match of the 2012 World Snooker Championship. Although Allen was seeded 10th and holds a world ranking of 11th, he was thoroughly defeated 10-6 by the unseeded Cao Yupeng whose world ranking has never been higher than 81.

During the match, with Cao leading 5-4, there was an incident that Mark Allen called as a foul, but only after the match was over. Allen alleged that Cao has "pushed" the ball. When playing a stroke, one is required to strike the white ball cleanly such that it immediately loses contact with the cue and no further contact is made. Allen is alleging that Cao didn't strike cleanly (due to the awkward angle) and either that there was prolonged contact between the white ball and the cue tip or that the cue touched the white more than once.




Having watched the replay many times, I don't agree. You can see it above. The white ends up in a group of red balls requiring a difficult hand position and the white definitely bounces about a bit, although whether it makes a second contact or there's some kind of push, I simply can't tell. I can see nothing wrong with the shot, but I'm no expert so I can't categorically say that there is nothing to see.

The commentators at the time were Terry Griffiths and John Virgo - both ex-players.

Griffiths: "I thought he fouled that then. I thought he hit the white twice; did he, John?"
Virgo: "Mmm. Referee Paul Collier was having a good close look.... mmm."

Although Griffiths was quite clear that he thought something had happened, Virgo was non-committal.




At a press conference after the match, Mark Allen was quite clear:

"I thought the big turning point of the match was at 5-4. He was in among the balls and Paul Collier [the referee] missed a blatant push (shot). It was quite obvious to me… anyone at home could probably see that.

"It was a big stage of the match considering I had put him under pressure last night to get back to 5-4. If the referee rightfully calls a foul there, I have a good chance of going 5-5. He [Cao] went on from there to pull away to 7-4."

Now if he'd left it at that, then it would just be a small disagreement over a possible foul. Rather than mention it at a press conference and have it sound like sour grapes, he'd have been best to whine about it to his mates in the bar.

When a player commits a foul that the referee doesn't spot, it's expected that the player will be honest enough to say so. Their opponent is also free to raise the matter with the referee. At the time, neither player said anything.

This kind of thing's all over the Chinese internet... probably

But Mark Allen went on to say:

"It seems to be a bit of trait for the Chinese players. There’s been a few instances in the past…fouls…and blatant cheating going on. It needs to be corrected because he [Cao] is a good enough player. He doesn’t have to do that.

"He did look at the referee as soon as he done it as if to say: you’re not calling a foul here? I looked at Paul and Michaela (Tabb) who was marking the match and Griffiths who was commentating on it. Anything that Terry says, I trust.

"He [Griffiths] pretty much confirmed it at the interval. It is a pretty sad state of snooker if it has to come down to that. Its not the first time. Marco Fu and Liang Wenbo have been known for it in the past. Maybe it is just a Chinese thing."

Ouch. Did he really have to say that not only did Cao cheat, but that Chinese players are known for it and suggested that Marco Fu and Liang Wenbo are cheats too? Oh he certainly did not. There's been some suggestion that his remarks are racist. I'm not sure about that. If one replaces the word "Chinese" with "black", then yeah, it all sounds pretty racist.

Luckily, pretty much every Chinese person I've ever met is much more racist than that so they're hardly likely to call foul. However he's managed to suggest dishonour on the part of all Chinese which is likely to arouse the astonishing levels of nationalism in many Chinese youths. You should read the Chinese internet any time Japan fails to mention the Nanjing Massacre in a history textbook. Boy, do they ever get pissed off and say so.

Last time he had to apologise, Mark Allen thought that sticking tape across his mouth would help his case

Worse still, Mark Allen's got a bit of a history of mouthing off and has even made disparaging remarks about China before. When in Hainan for the China Open earlier this year, Mark Allen sent out a tweet saying the following:

"Dead cat found this morning. Any wonder why this place stinks? Must be dead cats all round the town. This place is horrendous. It just baffles me how world snooker continuously go out of their way to put tournaments on in the middle of nowhere. Journey a nightmare. People are ignorant. Place stinks. Arena’s rubbish, tables poor, food is horrendous. Other than that I love China."

Now, to be fair, most of that is just a statement of fact. Other than a possibly unwise bit about people being ignorant, I can't actually see anything there that's unjust. Outside of cities like Beijing, China can be a bit... well filthy. Heck, even in Beijing it's not a great idea to sit on a public bench without wiping it down thanks to the pollution. But Mark Allen got into trouble for this and ended up being fined as well as having to issue an apology. That seemed a bit harsh, but China influence in snooker is now great enough that snooker's governing body wanted to make sure that it sent the right signals.

Today's outburst is just awful. I don't expect snooker players to necessarily be intellectual giants, but Mark Allen does come off as being a bit of a thicky.

I watched that match. I didn't see either player look to the referees or suggest anything untoward at the time. All I heard was one commentator express his opinion that a foul may have occurred. That Terry Griffiths is Mark Allen's coach is somewhat suspicious. Allen does say that he talked to Griffiths during the interval and "he pretty much confirmed it". And that to me suggests that he was pissed off he was losing, had some doubt about that foul, but had stewed about it after talking to his coach and then said something unfortunate when he talked too much at a press conference.

But there was more to come. Barry Hearne, head of world snooker appeared on TV to condemn and play down Allen's remarks and Allen was sent a letter informing him that disciplinary action would be coming. Chances are he'll get a fine and told to apologise again. There is the potential to ban him for a while, but doing so would probably just exacerbate the problem and encourage people to take sides over what is really quite a minor issue. But China must be satisfied.

If Chinese companies were to withdraw their sponsorship, there would only really be around half the snooker contests there are now. Whilst the governing body has tried really hard to improve the popularity of the game in other countries, they haven't had much success. Even in mainland Europe, snooker is a pretty nice interest. So no one can afford to piss off the Chinese. Over matters of honour and face such as this, Chinese companies are a lot more ready to vote with their feet than their Western equivalents.

There are four Chinese players in the world championship this year. Ten years ago there were none. After Ding appeared, there were a couple of other players and now there are several. And they'll all have heard what Mark Allen said.

He's a delight, isn't he? Obviously I'm picking pictures showing him in a negative light,
but he really makes it easy.

So Allen has now issued an apology before he's forced to:

"Following my recent comments in the press conference after my first-round defeat to Cao Yupeng, I would like to formally apologise to anyone who may have been offended.

"Having taken some time to reflect on my comments I can appreciate that I overstepped the line at a time when I was heavily influenced by the emotions of a disappointing defeat.

"I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Cao Yupeng if he felt that my comments were insinuating he were a cheat."

It's a shitty apology, but par for the course these days. One of the first articles I wrote for this blog was about non-apologies. That's a link right there. Don't go saying that you would like to apologise and then not actually apologise. Saying you would like to isn't the same as saying you're sorry. Saying " if he felt that my comments were insinuating he were a cheat" isn't the same as saying you're sorry you called someone a cheat - you're saying that you're sorry that they feel that way; it's almost as though you're saying that you're upset because of them.

Again, to be fair, I'm pretty sure Mark Allen didn't write that apology. He didn't even say it. That was a statement released by his management company. Looking through his tweets, I don't think Mark Allen's really capable of writing something like that without help. Hopefully it'll be enough.

But maybe Mark Allen isn't quite so stupid. This is his last post on his Twitter account.

The Slovak Batman

Dunajská Streda is a town in southern Slovakia. Approximately 80% of the local residents at Hungarian and for many life is quite tough. But Dunajská Streda has something (or rather someone) that makes their town stand out: they have their own superhero.

Én vagyok Batman

26 year-old Zoltan Kohari lives in a derelict house without water, heat or power, but this hasn't stopped him from becoming the Slovak Batman. Having assembled his own costume from leather, Zoltan also builds gadgets to help him in his crusade.

Ez a nyitó konzervdobozokat

Unlike the 'real' Batman, Zoltan has a social conscience (billionaire Bruce Wayne never thinks of offering the Gotham police the same kind of body armour that he wears, etc, etc) and decided to make a difference in his local community by doing whatever he can to help.

Fighting criminals really isn't on the agenda much although Zoltan liaises with the police to keep them informed of what's going on around town. A lot of Zoltan's time is spent picking up litter and clearing rubbish as well as watering plants and cutting the grass on lawns.

Nézni. Várakozás...

Although Zoltan receives no payment for his activities, he's remarkably popular with the locals and they like to reward him with gifts and food. Personally I find it rather delightful that there is a real life superhero who actually helps people. There's a sudden rash of costumed superheroes in the States and they seem to concentrate on trying to intervene in crimes so it's charming and refreshing that the Slovak Batman picks up litter and waters plants. As someone once said in some comic or other "Thanks for saving us from the supervillains, but I can't help but think there weren't any round here until you guys showed up."

Az a titok biztonságban van velem, Batman

China wins the snooker

Jimmy White really did play the bad guy in a Hong Kong snooker movie versus Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer)

It's the World Snooker Championship at the moment. This annual contest is in the first round and will continue for three weeks. I'll be watching a lot of it regardless of whether I want to or not, because China is playing.

My wife's Chinese, from Taiwan. The political situation out there is complicated, but no matter what, she'll always regard herself as Chinese and cheer on the Chinese participants in... well, pretty much anything. And snooker's pretty popular in China these days thanks to Ding Junhui. Ever since DingDing (as he's known in my household) appeared, snooker has been changing.

Being female and attractive are important
qualities in a snooker referee

In 2001, professional snooker was in decline. The banning of tobacco sponsorship had hit snooker especially hard and there were problems with trying to attract new sponsors. One thing the WPBSA (World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association) tried was to bring in a female referee to uh, spice things up (they imagined). Although Michaela Tabb has proved popular with both fans and players and her refereeing has been solid, her rapid elevation caused a lot of ill-feeling with other snooker officials. Not for her the five year apprenticeship required of all other referees and, when the WPBSA needed to sack two of its ten referees to cut costs, she was oddly exempt from the last-in-first-out rule that had always applied. Oh and she attracted neither new fans nor sponsors.

In 2003, Ding Junhui turned professional after winning many under-21 competitions and becoming China's number one player. When DingDing appeared on our televisions, it wasn't obvious just how much snooker was about to change. There had been other Chinese-ish players before - Marco Fu of Hong Kong had been playing professionally for a few years for example - but Ding was the first player from mainland China to break into the professional game. Ding was living in England in order to better practice his game and he was already famous among the other Chinese living in the north of England. As soon as Ding appeared on television, yellow faces appeared in the crowd at his matches. Chinese TV channels began to cover the sport and there was a sudden influx of Chinese sponsorship. The mere arrival of Ding had rescued the game of snooker pretty much overnight.

It's a few years since then and there's isn't a player's waistcoat that doesn't have Chinese characters on it. Many tournaments are sponsored by Chinese companies you've never heard of. The China Open was revived and suddenly the Shanghai Masters competition was created. Every player benefited from new sponsorship, new prize money, new tournaments and a whole new audience. And still the commentators couldn't pronounce Ding's name (丁俊晖 - Dīng Jùnhuī - ding june-whey). But they really had better start practising their Chinese names as Ding's success didn't just create new fans, but a whole new generation of players and even a referee.

Zhu Ying - professional snooker's newest referee

Michaela Tabb might be officiating the finals of the World Championship this year, but Zhu Ying will be refereeing several matches and is younger, prettier and, being Chinese-ier, appeals to a much bigger audience. Oh and no one cheated or bent the rules to get her a job.

There's a whole bunch of Chinese players suddenly appearing in the competitions too. Appearing alongside Ding Junhui in the 2012 World Championship are Cao Yupeng, Liang Wenbo and Liu Chuang. Marco Fu's in it too, but as my wife puts it "No Chinese wants to see his ugly Cantonese face. He's a Hong Kong bastard - he's not real Chinese!"

Liang Wenbo and Ding Junhui - one lives in Romford, the other in Sheffield

And the new crop of Chinese players aren't slouches. On Saturday, Liang Wenbo took number one seed John Higgins down to the last frame before missing a crucial shot. Sunday saw Cao Yupeng beat world number seven, Mark Allen. (Note to commentators: it's pronounced ts-ow you-pung whereas you're calling him "cow" or "sow" which both mean "fuck" in Mandarin). Although Liu Chuang is unlikely to beat Mark Williams on Wednesday, Ding will likely beat Ryan Day leading to a match between him and Cao Yupeng.

As well as those in the World Championship, there are a whole lot of other Chinese players zipping up the rankings. You can expect to see Jin Long, Li Hang, Li Yan, Liu Song, Lu Ning, Mei Xiwen, Tian Pengfei, Xiao Guodong, Yu Delu, Zhang Anda on your TV shortly and it'll be hilarious listening to the commentators stumble over their names.

One of the main differences with the Chinese players is the approach they take to their snooker careers. As well as being a professional snooker player taking part in all the main contests, Ding also has to take part in every major Asian event as he's got to be China's number one guy in as public a manner as possible over there. A further demand on Ding's time is that he's a student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University studying Business Administration and Management. Oh and he now has a chain of snooker clubs across China (although this tends to be the kind of thing you let your family run if you're Chinese, heck it was probably their idea). He's easily the busiest of the pro players and it's interesting to see just how much Ding is concentrating on securing his future after snooker; something that many other players would do well to emulate.

It turns out that many Chinese actually are inscrutable

Ding Junhui is a quiet and gentle man with the extraordinary burden of being a national hero from a country where that means much more than the chance to appear on ballroom dancing shows. Reading his (Chinese language) blog shows Ding going out to play in the English snow with his friends and it's quite touching to see how he shares details of his student life, encouraging his Chinese fans to study as much as they can (Ding will post pictures of things like his enrolment certificates and class schedules so his followers can see exactly what university is like). It's quite astonishing how quietly dignified Ding is. I'd be freaking out if I had the kind of pressures that he does and I definitely wouldn't be able to bear them with such serenity.

My wife fucking loves Ronnie O'Sullivan for the respect he shows to Ding

Ding rarely shows any emotion in any of his matches and, although he is very polite, you don't get much hint of friendship between him and other players. Other non-yellow players that is. Amongst the Chinese players, Ding is god-like. He opened the door to international snooker for China and it's doubtful that any of the new generation of players would be there without him. Liang Wenbo was the next guy to make it up to the top ranks of world snooker and it's clear that he and Ding, both living in England for a few years now, are genuinely friends. But emotion is clearly something to keep private. Occasionally a small smile might be visible when he wins, but there's really only one time that Ding's been seen to emit an actual feeling and that was when a match with Ronnie O'Sullivan went badly wrong and Ding walked off thinking it had finished when it hadn't. I was very impressed that O'Sullivan was the first to go after him and spent time calming him down and cheering him up enough to return to the table. They're clearly stayed fairly close friends since then.

There are snooker soap operas in China now, there's even a cartoon series specifically about Ding (no kidding)

Ding's status as a legend is assured, but what's less certain is the future of snooker. It's already slightly weird that the majority of the money and TV audience comes from China and yet most of the competitions are in England. Luckily most of the players are still English, but with waves of eager young Chinese players on the way, how long is it before they're in the majority? And when that day comes is snooker going to be a game where all the audience, money and players come from China and yet the games continue to be played in England? Well, goodness knows what's going to happen, but I'm going to be watching it (I don't have any choice in the matter).

Proper writers like to do a little trick to round off articles where they make reference back to the opening sentence or the title, even if it means fudging in a semi-pun, telling a lie, saying something slightly pretentious or even merely repeating a word or two. My wife glanced over at the television earlier today after a non-yellow match and asked me "Who won the snooker?" China did, oh wife of mine, China won the snooker...

People think that Confucius is the great philosopher sage of China, but actually it's Jimmy White

"Legend of the Dragon" 1991 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100047/

Mystery Monday: Is this the tomb of Jesus Christ?

Is this the tomb of Jesus Christ? Nope.

This mystery solving is a lot easier than it looks, huh? So what's the story here?

Once upon a time, there was a television station dedicated to showing documentaries and other factual programmes. It was quite a good channel, but the executives in charge decided they would like it to have mass market appeal and started adding populist crap like Shark Week and American Chopper. Soon the channel decided to forego education and accuracy in favour of controversy and ratings.

So when an ossuary with a tenuous link to Jesus turned up in 2002, the Discovery Channel jumped at the chance to host a press conference with the Biblical Archaeology Society. The ossuary (a box for storing skeletal remains) had an inscription on the outside saying "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus". That the Biblical Archaeology Society are amateurs and that the owner of the ossuary had been suspected of forging biblical antiquities many times before didn't seem to bother them at all. The Discovery Channel were only too happy churn out a series of documentaries even whilst the owner, Oded Golan, was investigated and then arrested for forging antiquities.

Back in 1980, a tomb (yeah, that one in the picture at the top) was found in East Talpiot, Jerusalem. It contained ten ossuaries, six of them with inscriptions. The tomb was investigated by archaeologists under the aegis of the Israel Department of Antiquities (now called the Israel Antiquities Authority). The tomb had been found whilst digging foundations for an apartment block and, after the archaeological investigation was completed, the block was finished and the tomb carefully covered.

The entrance to the tomb as it is today

After the ossuary gained publicity in 2002, there was a relatively thorough investigation by the IAA (Israel Antiquities Authority) which concluded that the box was genuine, but that the inscription was a modern addition. It all became a lot more confusing when the Israel Geological Survey tested the box and found that the box had a patina consistent having been in a cave for a long time, but they also concluded that the same patina covered the lettering. So was it fake or not?

At the end of 2004, Oded Golan and four others were arrested on suspicion of faking antiquities for the last 20 years. They were charged with 44 counts of forgery, fraud and deception including the ossuary inscription. So you'd think the Discovery Channel would be keen to distance itself from any claims as to the origin of the ossuary until there was some consensus. Nah.

There was some suggestion that the ossuary had come from the Talpiot tomb, so a film crew gained access and filmed inside the tomb. Originally there had been ten ossuaries in there, but this time there was one missing and it corresponded neatly with the James ossuary, leading to speculation that, if the ossuary was genuine, that the tomb contained the members of Jesus's family and possibly even some relics of Christ himself.

Oded Golan and the James Ossuary

As is typical with pretty much all religious antiquities cases in the Holy Land, it's now descended into a clusterfuck. The IAA aren't able to produce any experts that are willing to conclude with 100% certainty that the ossuary is a fake, but maintain a public stance that it is so. Oded Golan has been mixed up in countless dubious finds of antiquities, there's even a picture of his home from several years before the ossuary was officially discovered showing what very much looks like the James Ossuary sitting on a shelf. Annoyingly uncritical TV stations like the Discovery Channel and the History Channel keep shoving out lazy, ill-informed speculation disguised as documentaries. Golan was finally tried and acquitted of forging the box, but the judge was very careful to point out that just because no one had proven the inscription to be a forgery didn't mean that it wasn't one; after all, no one had proved it genuine either. The judge was also scathing of the Israeli police forensics labs saying that the way they'd handled the box had made it impossible to run further tests. Golan continues to shoot his mouth off and it's surely only a matter of time before he "finds" another important religious artefact.

And that's where the story grinds to a halt. There was some DNA testing carried out on the remains in the tomb and it concluded that the bones that were maybe Jesus and the bones that were maybe Mary Magdalene (yeah, really) weren't related maternally. In other words, they didn't have the same mother. The Discovery Channel documentary (the uncritically-named The Lost Tomb of Jesus) claimed this showed they were husband and wife, but no one really believed them, apart from credulous TV viewers. But the confusion is great for business and the deluge of books and TV shows about Jesus's tomb will continue for the foreseeable future. Sigh...

Game Friday: Botanicula

Yeah so it's normally about free games, but today it isn't. Because I'm chuffed silly that Botanicula has been released. It's the new game from Amanita Design, otherwise known as Jakub Dvorský, the author of Machinarium and the Samorost games. And not only has it just been released, but it's the core of a new Humble Bundle. So you can trot along and pick up the brand new Botanicula, the frigging excellent Machinarium and Samorost 2 by paying as much or as little as you like. And if you pay more than the average (currently $8.68), you'll get Kooky and Windosill thrown in too.

So what's Machinarium, Botanicula and uh, Jakub what? Well that just means we're not friends any more. Machinarium is a beautiful puzzle game in the style of a point and click adventure, but oh... the artwork is charming and unique and ooh, the puzzles are tricky, but not impossible. You'll never feel stupid trying to solve a puzzle in Machinarium. And yet, somewhat ironically, you will do by the time I've finished insulting you for not playing one of the best games ever. And if you've played the original Samorost games, then I'll give you special bonus points and induct you into my secret club for super-elite top humans. My mate Zane's played them and... well - you'd probably at least want to think of yourself as being as good as him in terms of homo sapiens - that's all I'm saying. He dresses like Adam Ant for goodness sakes.




Look! It's Machinarium. It's beautiful and maybe it's just a little too good for the likes of you, eh?

Isn't that nice? It's pretty, it's clever and it's age and language neutral. I played it with my wife. My wife! A computer game that wasn't Mario Bros with my wife! And we both had just as much fun. And she contributed almost as much as I did to the solution. Obviously she wasn't as good at it though. You can ask her if you don't believe me. But don't ask her because she tends to lie.

Just like Machinarium, Botanicula features lovely and unique graphics and features a range of point and click puzzles. There's no text in it at all, so you can play with foreigners or children. The developers are decent people and don't use any DRM and they even release versions for Mac and Linux too. And the music is bloody charming too. Gah, haven't I said enough to convince you yet?

Oh look, it's the moon. Hasn't that got a quirky hand-made sensibility to it as well a a hint of an Eastern European aesthetic? And check it out, there's a tiny dude in a space-ship. Go and buy this game. Pay whatever you like for it.

Wow, it's a... a... well, I'm not quite sure what it is actually. Looks like an ovum perhaps. Whatever it is, it's frigging charming. Buy this game now.

Hmm, they're brown and pendulous. Nope, no idea what they could be. Just enjoy it. It'll make you laugh, make you cry, it'll change your life. Buy it now.

Woo, some plants and a crab and everything. How delightful. Buy it!

There's a video below of actual gameplay. Don't watch it. The joy of discovery in Botanicula is just frigging awesome so don't go spoiling it by watching a video or reading a proper review. Buy!





Go here to visit the author's site and see his other cool stuff too.
http://amanita-design.net/

Go here to pay as little or as much as you'd like and get two other fab games too as well as the chance to pick up one other fab game and one that's well... all-right-ish. But some chairty or something gets some money, so that's probably a good thing.
http://www.humblebundle.com/

PS Zane is a very dear friend whom I respect greatly. It's only his chums who get to call him names.

Windows 8 editions announced

I've been running Windows 8 as a secondary OS for some time now and I've decided that I don't like it. I feel it offers very little improvement over Windows 7 and several new features that will frustrate many users. But Microsoft announced the different versions of Windows 8 the other day and, in that respect, they've certainly taken a step in the right direction.

There are only going to be two main versions: Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro and they might as well be called Home and Office as that's what they are. The Pro version adds drive encryption, group policies and remote desktop stuff and that's pretty much that. There's a version of 8 for ARM processors called Windows RT which will be for certain tablets and netbooks. And there's also Windows 8 Enterprise which is for volume licensing only and has one or two extra features like "advanced security, virtualisation, new mobility scenarios and much more" whatever that means.

So pretty much everyone will be running the same version of Windows 8. Pro and Enterprise are pretty much only for corporations and RT is for specific hardware.

One feature I'm delighted to see in every version of Windows 8 is the ability to switch between interface languages. Microsoft bang on about how "excited" they are to offer this feature, but it's something they should have done over ten years ago. I know quite a few people who would like to have their PC be able to use multiple languages and I've experienced frustration with this myself. This has been possible since Windows 2000, but required a specific version of Windows (usually Enterprise) and perhaps only offered languages from one region so hasn't been useful or even accessible to most users. That all versions of Windows 8 will be able to change interface and input language is a welcome relief.

A more unusual decision is that to drop Windows Media Center. It will instead be available as  "an economical media pack add-on" which sounds awfully like DLC to me. Apparently there's a whole host of license fees for stuff in Media Center that Microsoft has to pay for and hardly anyone uses it (only 6% of Windows 7 users have run Media Center and only 25% use it for more than 10 minutes at a time).

Windows RT for ARM processors is quite interesting in that it comes with Microsoft Office - well sort of. It sports ARM customised versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (dreadful multi-user notepad thing that you've never used) but lacks Outlook and Access.

Prices haven't been announced by Microsoft yet, but they are promising to do so "soon". I'm not enthused by Windows 8, but I am pleased that pretty much everyone will be running the same version. Here's a table denoting the difference between versions:

Feature name	Windows 8	Windows 8 Pro	Windows RT
Upgrades from Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium	x	x
Upgrades from Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate		x
Start screen, Semantic Zoom, Live Tiles	x	x	x
Windows Store	x	x	x
Apps (Mail, Calendar, People, Messaging, Photos, SkyDrive, Reader, Music, Video)	x	x	x
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)			x
Internet Explorer 10	x	x	x
Device encryption			x
Connected standby	x	x	x
Microsoft account	x	x	x
Desktop	x	x	x
Installation of x86/64 and desktop software	x	x
Updated Windows Explorer	x	x	x
Windows Defender	x	x	x
SmartScreen	x	x	x
Windows Update	x	x	x
Enhanced Task Manager	x	x	x
Switch languages on the fly (Language Packs)	x	x	x
Better multiple monitor support	x	x	x
Storage Spaces	x	x
Windows Media Player	x	x
Exchange ActiveSync	x	x	x
File history	x	x	x
ISO / VHD mount	x	x	x
Mobile broadband features	x	x	x
Picture password	x	x	x
Play To	x	x	x
Remote Desktop (client)	x	x	x
Reset and refresh your PC	x	x	x
Snap	x	x	x
Touch and Thumb keyboard	x	x	x
Trusted boot	x	x	x
VPN client	x	x	x
BitLocker and BitLocker To Go		x
Boot from VHD		x
Client Hyper-V		x
Domain Join		x
Encrypting File System		x
Group Policy		x
Remote Desktop (host)		x

Tottori Sand Sculpture Contest

In Tottori, Japan, there is a Sand Museum. I don't know too much about the museum's exhibits, but I do know that every year they have a sad sculpture competition. Each contest has a theme and this year's is 'Great Britain' which has proved interesting. As well as the Japanese teams, there are fourteen foreign sculptors taking part.

My favourite is the last image showing a rainy day in London. What do you think?