(define QuARC-v0.19
'((pronouns it/its)
(profile-pic-by @guigui)
(description "beep boop, am robot. Not much more to that.")
(website x86cu.be)
(new-temp-manual x86cu.be/new-io)
(old-manual x86cu.be/manual)
(topics (robots tech programming math (politics #:behind-cw) hong-kong))
(political-leaning "some flavour of leftist")
(18+ "potentially, behind CWs")
(inactive-accounts @quarc @quarc @quarc)
(tags #yesbot #noindex #noarchive #nobridge)
(follow-requests "Feel free to send them; if your profile is not in English/Cantonese/Mandarin I may have trouble vibe checking")
(note "confused by my output? see x86cu.be/new-io")))
Location
Vancouver, BC, Canada age
21+
gender
What are you, a cop?
cube
https://x86cu.be
interactions
welcome+encouraged
signal
quarc.8380
I managed to have it last 4m04s somehow?
mine seems to last 2m46s
edit: got 3m13s
and 3m10s
found a fidget spinner in one of my drawers
time to be mesmerized by it again
quick question: does anyone actually use the steam FPS counter and does anyone use it without the high contrast mode
stainless steel
looks outside
stain
unsolicited advice
@ninafelwitch like I did think of breaking up my flight with a stop in japan, but vancouver-tokyo is still like 9h so it's still gonna be painful
and obviously breaking an asia-europe flight up isn't an option for queer people
unsolicited advice
@ninafelwitch I hate long distance flights like that a lot
especially dealing with customs immediately after
even as someone who does one of those about every half-year I'm still very anxious about them, and being tired is a great combo on top of that
I strongly prefer redeye flights, combine that with melatonin and I basically get a full day's sleep on the plane when heading to asia from NA
idk how it works for asia-europe tho
I also prefer the longer flights and window seats as that gives me the best chance to get a full 8h of sleep (no need to be anxious about my seatmate needing the toilet or whatever)
it's still painful regardless, but it's more tolerable
if Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo, do winged Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo
hmm
how many buffalo wings are on a buffalo
why is webserial a thing
I know the answer is electron, but why
retrospring answer
What are you doing to protect your online privacy? (If the answer is "nothing", I'm happy to provide some advice!)
I have my own nextcloud instance and get email hosting from a small-ish provider, but those are more out of a desire for powerful features than privacy
I need at least a new search engine and a new keyboard on Android (that has Cangjie and Jyutping as input methods, so that is pretty tricky; I use Trime on my keyboard phone but it's janky)
retrospring.net/@QuARC/a/112380621438646315
very long, legal/preferred names, hong kong posting
the ways that hongkongers handle names is super weird now that I think about it
Legal Names
most hongkongers have a chinese name, a legal english name, and a western english name, for example:
Chinese Name: 王一心
Legal name on IDs: Wong, Yat Sum
English Name: Chris Wong
That is usually how it goes, but sometimes someone's legal name is "Wong, Yat Sum Chris" or "Wong, Chris Yat Sum" or just "Wong, Chris".
Non-ethnically chinese people sometimes have a Chinese name and English name that are completely distinct from each other, which also adds onto the confusion.
Some hongkongers don't have english names and we sometimes just take their legal given name, pronounce it as below and use that as an english name.
Usage of Names in a Cantonese context
Sometimes just the surname along with an honorific is used, sometimes the full name is used, but rarely is the given name used on its own, afaik. In more casual conversations, we code-switch and use their English names anyway.
Usage of Names in an English context
For more casual contexts we probably use English names. For more formal / legal contexts we seem to use legal names.
Cantonese is a tonal language and the governmental romanization scheme is really weird, so the way we pronounce them is also really weird. We're generally aware of what they should sound like in Cantonese, so we approximate it, discard all the tones and then follow the following conversions (roughly):
vowels generally stay the same, except that /ɐ/ may either be replaced with /a/ or /ʌ/.
consonants generally stay the same, except p, t, k are always aspirated. "Ts" sometimes gets turned into "Ch".
monosyllabic "Ng", a common surname, is still pronounced that way.
sometimes "eu" gets written as a "u" "Chun" or "Chui" and we'd still use the correct pronunciation (/ɵ/ in this case). Other irregularities exist like "Sze" and "Tsz".
How it works in documentation
It depends. Sometimes there's a dedicated field for an English name, sometimes there isn't and we just have to remember / use their Chinese name. most interactions happen in Cantonese anyway.
How it works when we move to the West
Most of our English documentation is in our legal name so that's not too weird, but I usually have my English name registered as a preferred name because I genuinely prefer that. (... I mean, I prefer QuARC and do use it in real life with some people, but not with normal people.)
It still annoys me that DoorDash doesn't/didn't let me set a preferred name so my deliveries ended up with a name I'm not familiar with.
Conclusion
So... yeah. Plenty of people violate the assumption that everyone has one name. I mean, even "normal" western people have nicknames. So if someone is complaining about preferred names I don't know what's wrong with them.
(-) pol (general), protests
pro-establishment HKers generally accuse any white person who's within a 10km radius of a protest of being from the CIA but, like, now that I think about it
Asian-Americans exist
many probably work for the CIA (thanks, model minority myth)
the CIA could just send one of those instead of a sunburnt guy who sticks out like a sore thumb
(-) pol (general), protests
China has had one, the May 4th movement (that's today in China's timezone, coincidentally), but I don't know much about it
(-) pol (general), protests
on an unrelated note about the narratives of protests, Hong Kong hasn't really had, like, a defanged protest like the civil rights movement or the abolitionists
closest we got is the 1967 riots and even then that was cast as negative until very recently, even though the 1967 riots did bring meaningful change to the british HK government (can't just say 'colonial' because both of them are)
I still don't think we have any, like, heroes out of that story yet
(-) pol (general), protests
to elaborate more on the first point, the whole thing that triggered this rant is that I saw the rhetoric of outside, professional agitators again
because god forbid students or marginalized groups or, you know, people with a conscience at all have any agency of their own
or exchange ideas or knowledge with each other
or use the internet
In hong kong it's the CIA paying off protesters (where's my check, US government), in the west it's some mysterious outside force
(-) pol (general), protests, immigration
I don't think I'm making a coherent point here it's just that
1. I see the same shit against protests happening everywhere and I'm sick and tired of it
2. Immigration systems are deeply fucked and do not fulfill the humanitarian obligations to the world, even our supposed "allies" like Ukraine and Afghans; they're also deeply cynical and "meritocratic" (for the lack of a better word)
(-) pol (general), palestine, more hong kong posting, wars, brief ukpol cameo
I brought up these examples because Canada has had a response to Afghanistan and Ukraine, they're just temporary (unless you have family here)
whereas the ones for hong kong allow for permanent residence
and Palestine made it into international news and the oppressors are being actively funded by the West
I'm sure there are plenty of wars and genocides going on that don't make it into the news, but you get my point
you could argue the refugee system does that but, like, that comes with its own set of problems and is deeply ineffective
and then you get deported to Rwanda when there are too many refugees
(-) pol (general), palestine, more hong kong posting as usual, wars
context: the UK, canada and australia offered humanitarian visas to certain types of hong kong residents after the 2019 protests
it'd be funny if china started doing the opposite
I still think it's deeply hypocritical and cynical of the west to offer such visas when they're doing the exact same shit to local protesters, especially when (at least) Canada isn't offering similar visas to Ukraine, Afghanistan and Palestine
but I'm on one rn so I'm not complaining, I just think the offer should be extended to others
(like at the end of the day we hongkongers are just dealing with the same shit protesters in the west deal with all the time, whereas those places are dealing with wars and genocides)
(~) pol nonsense, palestine
plot twist: china starts offering humanitarian visas to pro-palestine protesters in the west (especially the US)
