This is the first in a two-part series from Summit presenter and Red Hat/Fedora engineer Bill Nottingham. It is based on the talk he gave at this year’s Red Hat Summit. Part two will be published later this week.

One of the most-asked questions in the software world is:

“What’s coming in the next release?”

Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® is no different. You can wait for the beta, and pore over the release notes and the package changelogs. You can corner a product manager at the right moment. But the easiest and best way to get the scoop on what’s coming up in future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases? Take a look at Fedora.

Fedora, for those that don’t know, is a freely available and distributable Linux-based operating system that showcases the latest in free and open-source software. It’s developed globally within the Fedora project community, and is where Red Hat innovates. Read on as we describe some of the innovations in Fedora that will be headed for future Enterprise Linux releases.

Handling of displays

Have you ever tried to configure a projector on your Linux box? How much swearing was involved?

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, configuring a projector can be complicated. It might involve editing your Xorg configuration file to add archaic configuration directives, and then restarting your session, losing anything you have open.

Fedora improves on this with the introduction of the new XRandr extension. XRandR stands for X Resize and Rotate, and it’s a mechanism for dynamically changing the screen’s resolution and orientation at runtime. What’s more, it includes support for dynamically changing the attached displays at runtime. So all you need to do is attach your projector, open up the Screen Resolution utility in the Hardware Preferences menu, and you’re ready to go. You can configure the displays to be mirror images, or arrange them in any configuration you like.

Package management

If you’ve used Fedora lately, you may have noticed the ‘bug’ icon in the notification area. This is part of PackageKit, a new distribution-neutral package management system that abstracts away the machine’s packaging system (in our case, yum and RPM) to provide a simple, usable, interface for the user.

PackageKit is implemented in a client-server fashion–all the package installations and removals are done in a privileged backend, while the user interface code runs unprivileged, and talks to the backend over d-bus. Fedora (and later Enterprise Linux) uses a yum backend for PackageKit; other backends (for Debian or Ubuntu packages, for example) also exist.

If I click on the applet, I can easily review what updates are available, and which bugs each update will fix. I can then choose the ones I want and apply them.

Not only will PackageKit notify me when updates are available, but it can be configured to automatically install updates. This is especially useful for security updates.

PackageKit also comes with a general software installation tool. With it, I can browse the software on my system, and pick out packages to install. Once I select a package, I can check which files are included, what the package depends on (or what depends on it), and even visit the package’s homepage for more information.

In the future, we’re working on refining and cleaning up the PackageKit UI, and extending its use. New features might include automatically finding available codecs needed for multimedia files, or finding and installing office software like OpenOffice when you’re sent an office document. For more information on PackageKit, see the PackageKit website.

Privileged apps for non-privileged users

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you may be familiar with this dialog:

This dialog is part of userhelper, a graphical authentication system. However, it’s a system that has various issues:

• It’s rather inflexible
  • The only configurations available are root or user password
  • It cannot be reconfigured so that only certain users or groups are authorized
• Once they are authorized, any commands run as root
  • This is obviously bad. One of the fundamental tenets of computer security is to limit the amount of code running with elevated privileges. For some of the apps launched by userhelper, the code running as root can include entire graphical toolkits.

In Fedora 9, we set out to solve this with PolicyKit. PolicyKit is a framework for defining system policy to allow unprivileged apps (such as end-user UIs) to talk to privileged code (such as application installers, or configuration systems).

Let’s look at an example. If I right-click on the clock applet, I see the option to ‘Adjust Date and Time.’ If I choose that, and adjust the time, I see a PolicyKit authorization dialog. Once I enter the proper authorization, PolicyKit then invokes the privileged backend with the necessary data, and sets the clock. This was all done without running any part of the clock applet as root.

Now, to the user, the interface is much the same as before. For the administrator, however, PolicyKit opens up a wealth of new possibilities. This can be seen in the ‘Authorizations’ tool in the System Preferences menu. If I choose ‘Setting the system time’, we can see the authorization I just used. I can edit it, or add new authorizations for other users. I can even add implicit authorizations–for example, I could set it so that any user in an active console session can reset the clock.

Of course, to edit these also requires authorization via PolicyKit. And the package update we did earlier? That was authenticated via PolicyKit, too.

In Fedora 9, we have a limited number of tools authorizing via PolicyKit, but in future releases, we intend to expand this across the OS. For more information on PolicyKit, see the PolicyKit reference manual or David Zeuthen’s LCA talk (PDF).

Power management

Another issue we’ve been working on is power management. A recent article in NetworkWorld showed that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 used as much as 12% less power than Microsoft® Windows® on identical hardware. But we didn’t stop there–we’ve made it even better in Fedora.

The first improvement is the tickless kernel. One of the best ways to save power is to keep the CPU as idle as possible. In older kernels like the one used by Enterprise Linux, there is a timer that ticks a certain number of times per second. When that timer fires, the kernel looks around to see if there’s anything to do. Generally, this timer runs anywhere from 100 to 1000 times per second. Obviously, the kernel waking up that often isn’t very conducive to staying idle. With the recently-introduced tickless kernel, it only wakes up if prompted by something that needs attention.

Obviously, that won’t help you if you have lots of kernel threads or userspace apps that are keeping the kernel busy. To combat this, we worked with a userspace tool called ‘powertop,’ originally written by Intel. Powertop tracks the number of kernel wake-ups, and associates them with hardware devices, kernel threads, or userspace programs.

Since powertop was introduced in Fedora, we’ve been constantly running it looking for misbehaving applications. Some examples:

• pidgin would ask the X server if it supported the XScreenSaver extension every five seconds… even though the answer would never change
• ntp would wake up more than once per second to do work
• media players would send silence to the sound card after playback was stopped, keeping the sound card active

There have been many more discoveries–like apps that poll much too frequently for changes or kernel drivers that are too busy. We’ve been working on fixing these, and and so far we’vemoved from Enterprise Linux 5 having over 1500 wake-ups per second and consuming over 18W when idle (without wireless) to about 50 wake-ups per second, consuming less than 16W.

Further work to reduce power consumption is being done. For laptops, there are things like backlight control for the LCDs, and X tricks that compress the framebuffer so it takes less juice to refresh the display. But it’s not just laptops–reducing the number of wake-ups and decreasing other unnecessary power usage is just as useful in the datacenter. Less power usage means less heat generated and less cooling needed, lowering energy bills all around.

About the author

Bill Nottingham is an engineer at Red Hat.

dbanotes posted a photo:

前几天我给几个做开发的朋友发了个消息，请他们帮我再次在Google Reader中共享了一篇旧招聘启事，可能他们的Gtalk好友都在Google Reader中看到了。
一篇文章在Google Reader中的确有过时很快的现象，超过1天后可能就被一片被淹没到数百篇未读文章列表后面了。而被好友较多的Blogger分享的时候还会带来一些新的阅读和传播机会；所以Google Reader的好友推荐是这个新的传播渠道已经被很多人运用的很好了，因为大部分人还不知道如何退订Gtalk好友的分享（难道要删除好友？） 也有很多朋友（ 比如Fenng）采取在发表文章几天后自我推荐的方法再次“提醒”自己的好友。

Google Reader的LifeStream机制:
其实Google真的没有必要收购digg的： Google Reader中的共享（收藏可以看作是匿名digg）已经是一个很好的内容推荐来源；
和DIGG相比： 缺少的是一个加注释/评论功能和一个频道聚合首页；
Google Reader更容易和GTalk组合起来的，如果有个给”XXX分享“：在线回复的接口可以增加更多交互和反馈；

Shared by Fenng
目前能看到最好的写 IT 历史的文章，IT太史公?

《瞭望东方周刊》记者柴爱新／北京报道

中央电视台是如何审查电视剧的

《激情燃烧的岁月》因为要修改的地方太多,片方很为难。最后,此剧错过了中央电视台,只能到地方台播出,结果在地方台一炮走红。为此,中央电视台的一些人深感遗憾。但也有一些老同志坚持认为此剧缺点很大

2008年7月6日,中央电视台办公大楼内的一个房间,昏暗的灯光,四个工作人员专注地盯着一个大屏幕。

这是中央电视台总编室审片组第四组在做电视剧审查。

“我们每天要看十几集,最多的时候一天看16集,每周看两三天,大约每个月看四部片子。”审片组专家冯万友接受《瞭望东方周刊》采访时说。

三年前冯万友从中央电视台总编室退休,后接受中央电视台返聘,回来从事审片工作。

一部电视剧推荐到中央电视台,首先要经过影视部责任编辑和主任初步筛选,然后再到总编室的审片组进行细致审查。

包括冯万友在内,中央电视台总编室的审片组共有15人,分成四个组,每个组分别审看不同的片子。

审片时,每人手里有两个初审表格,第一张表格上面有思想表达、艺术水准和收视预测三项,分别打分。第二张表格上要求写1500字左右的评价,涉及故事梗概、艺术评判、修改意见和最后的建议等四个部分。最后每组根据各项打分,算出平均分,或者经过充分讨论后给出一个平均分。

经过上述程序后,达到90分的电视剧可以在中央电视台播出。

如果是在央视一套黄金时间或八套黄金时间(晚上七点半到九点半)播出,片子在修改后,还需要再看一遍。

到2008年,中国电视剧走过50年历程。本刊记者走访了中央电视台负责电视剧审查的部分专家,试图从这一特殊的角度,回溯中国电视剧的曲折道路。

我们不是挑毛病,是找出瑕疵

采访话题从一度热播的电视连续剧《激情燃烧的岁月》开始。

“《激情燃烧的岁月》是个有缺点的作品,写老干部(战争结束后感到)不适应的地方太多了,看不惯新的东西,主动发挥晚年作用的方面太少,不够昂扬。可能有些老干部看了会不高兴。”当年负责该剧审查的中央电视台总编室审片组的陆善嘉接受本刊记者采访时说。

陆善嘉1990年就进入中央电视台总编室的审片组,直到两年前退休,其间一直从事审片工作。

审片组对《激情燃烧的岁月》的意见是修改,但因为要修改的地方太多,片方很为难。最后,此剧错过了中央电视台,只能到地方台播出,结果在地方台一炮走红。为此,中央电视台的一些人深感遗憾。但也有一些老同志坚持认为此剧缺点很大。

数年后,对在2005年热播的连续剧《亮剑》的审片意见,在中央电视台内部又产生了很大的分歧。

“(中央电视台)影视部的责任编辑觉得好,我觉得要改,他们说可以改,改十分之一,我说要改十分之三。反复地拉锯战。”陆善嘉也是此片审查的负责人。

陆善嘉对本刊记者提起自己审查时对片中粗话较多的意见:“骂帝国主义还允许,但片子里从彭德怀、李云龙到普通小兵都把粗话当成口头语,去电影院买票也和观众吵架对骂。首长这样表现自己的个性不合适。”

他当时的建议是:粗话和一些不文明的细节拿掉;在战地医院里李云龙和另外一个领导同时喜欢上女孩田雨,争风吃醋,拿掉;李云龙去未来的丈人家,丈人是民主人士,说了一些对共产党不满的话,拿掉;在鬼子兵的形象上,有的地方把鬼子写得太好,彬彬有礼,拿掉。

片方据此改了一次,审片组再审,然后建议再改。反复三次,才通过。

“有人说我们是马列主义老头老太,拿着枪专门找靶子打,其实不是这样,我们不是挑毛病,是找出瑕疵,帮它完善。我们很有原则,很人性化的。”陆善嘉对《瞭望东方周刊》说。

最后,《亮剑》在央视一套黄金时段播出的版本是24集,八套播出的相对宽松,28集。而在市面上可以买到的完整版光碟是30集。

色情及导向问题

在电影审查中,色情是重要的针对性要素,电视剧审查也不例外。

陆善嘉告诉《瞭望东方周刊》,电视剧在这方面比电影尺度还要严格,因为黄金时段播出的电视剧,会有很多未成年人在看。

2007年在各地方电视台热播的电视剧《金婚》,就没有推荐到中央电视台。

陆善嘉表示,《金婚》如果在央视播出肯定也有问题:里面由张国立扮演的男主角有一段婚外恋,虽然是柏拉图式的,但从头贯穿到尾,肯定要删。还有大量的以床为背景的戏,虽然没有肢体的暴露,但有色情的意思。

之前本刊记者在采访电影审查专家时谈到这方面的问题,获悉电影的尺度是露点不能露正面,露背面可以,但不能是特写。而这些在电视剧中基本都绝不允许出现,长时间的接吻镜头都要删掉,甚至有的镜头中有墙上的裸体照片都要作模糊处理。

涉嫌“情色”的镜头被删掉后,为了保持电视剧情节的连贯性,一般保留人物对话,画面放空镜头,或者切换到室外的镜头。

在中央电视台提供的2007年热播电视剧《闯关东》的具体修改意见中,可以看到:“第8集,涉及黄色小调‘十八摸’,虽做变形,还是不妥,请做修改,只要表达出五爷要在肉体上霸占鲜儿就行了;第15集,红姐的一些话,如卖大炕、赶大炕等过于露骨,请做修改;涉及窑子的戏和语言请做调整和删改;第24集,夏掌柜抽大烟的戏包括传文说怎么这么香的话,请做删减。”

其中,最后一条主要涉及对青少年教育的导向问题。

冯万友告诉《瞭望东方周刊》,他审查过的某部片子中有这样的细节:几个小青年在别人汽车油箱里偷了点汽油,放在一个塑料袋里面,拿一个吸管,吸里面的气,像吸毒一样,很享受的样子。“虽然不是真正吸毒,但是要删掉,对青少年不好。”

宣传导向也是审查的另一个重点。

“我们看过一个电视剧写日本轰炸重庆,蒋介石和宋美龄去一个中学视察,对学生非常亲切,表现得像我们的亲民总理似的,现实中可能有这种情况,塑造人物不能像过去一样脸谱化,但是我们在中央电视台播出,如何宣传才好,应该慎重考虑。”冯万友说。

“还有一个日本兵,在快战死的时候,从身上掏出一个祈福牌,上面写了一个‘死’字,是他妈妈在他离开日本到中国打仗的时候给他的,让他到中国抱着必死的决心。这个一定要删掉,日本国民真的这么支持战争吗?这样宣传也不好。”

即使如此,导向性问题常让审查组专家们防不胜防。

在中央电视台曾经播出的一个涉及香妃的片子里面有一句不起眼的台词,“香妃,是叛将的女儿。”结果播出后,新疆有很多观众打电话到中央电视台表示不满。

“我们谁也没想冒犯香妃。像这些细节(审查时)不好判断,弄不好就引起矛盾。”冯万友对《瞭望东方周刊》说。

比例控制

“不管是现实生活题材,还是重大题材的片子,都有一个比例的问题(比例可以说明导向)。” 冯万友根据自己多年的审片经验告诉本刊记者。

有的电视剧写一个县委班子,一把手住院了,二把手当政,班子五个人里四个有问题:贪污腐化的、强奸的、黑社会头目,就一个正直的副书记孤零零支撑着。

“现实中可能存在这样个别的情况,但在中央电视台的一套黄金时间如果播出这么一个片子,外界一看,好像中国共产党已经这样啦,不合适,必须改。”冯万友对《瞭望东方周刊》说。

他又举了几个例子。有的电视剧中,五个当年的同学,四个都有婚外恋,两个家庭破裂,剩下那一个还打算只恋爱不结婚;还有,三个家庭的孩子都在早恋,两个家庭的家长表示默许,只有一个家庭是反对的,而默许的家长是有文化的,反对的家长没文化,态度很粗暴……

“这些情节,褒贬倾向很明显。现在的一些青年导演、编剧比较有个性,说现实就是这样的,为什么不能反映啊?最后我们还是让他们修改了。我们强调家庭幸福、社会和谐,如果有一个家庭因为婚外恋破裂,可以理解,但要让人感觉大多数家庭还是好的。”冯万友说。

还比如,一些剧中的盗贼都讲河南话。

“不合适,有几个电视剧我们让它改成了普通话,(改了后)艺术感染力可能会差一点,但不能因为(方言问题)造成地方之间的矛盾。”冯万友说。

他最近审查了一部关于赛车手的片子,“主要的四个赛车手都有思想问题:目的不在比赛,有为了钱,有为了报仇,有为了做给女朋友看。阴暗心理太多了,不光明,看了很压抑。”冯万友说,“现在的原则是尽量修改,让它播出时不会出现问题。”

但也有没法修改、不能通过的片子。

他曾经审查过一部电视剧,一个市委书记一直“疑似”强奸犯,前20多集种种线索都指向他,最后一集才揭示出来,不是他,是一个跟他长得很像的人。

“前面20多集,(如果播出)10多天里这个人(市委书记)都会被骂:共产党的干部怎么这么坏?但这个又不好修改,如果删掉太多,或者前面就露出谜底,又会影响效果,最后我们只能说不适合在中央电视台播。”冯万友说。

一年比一年宽松

在审片组工作了17年的陆善嘉,根据自己切身体验,感觉中国电视剧审查尺度在逐步放宽。

“过去的电视剧主要写领袖人物、改革开放等重大革命题材,政治性比较强。我们把关,自觉不自觉地把政治关,讲导向、主题思想、宣传口径,而对艺术性、可视性不是很关心。”

后来陆善嘉渐渐发现,“如果只抓了政治性、思想性,没有观赏性,架空了,也没有人看。有的电视剧在导向性上挑不出毛病来,但是很平庸。”

陆善嘉至今记得,多年前他审过的一个写中国造船的片子,“从头到尾都是开会,工厂内部开会,外部也开会,丈夫和妻子在床头上还是开会,都是政治性的对话。”

但当时有的领导部门比较看好那部片子,因为“导向很好”,最后播出了。陆善嘉对此有点耿耿于怀,因为那部电视剧“艺术上是苍白无力的”。

“总是喊口号,影响收视率。我们应该为观众审片,让大家看了又高兴,又没有不良影响。”陆善嘉说,“后来慢慢发展,审片在政治、思想和观赏性三方面把握平衡。”

在十几年的审片生涯中,有几部片子的审查让陆善嘉记忆犹新。

1999年,热播的一部讲婚外恋故事的电视剧《牵手》是由陆善嘉把关的。

“我当时看了眼前一亮,倾向很明确:最后第三者退出了;片子对家庭中有点把握不住的一方,持一种善意的批评和帮助态度。艺术上也很细腻,是思想性和艺术性的高度统一。”陆善嘉说。

2003年,陆善嘉负责审查了女特警生活题材的电视剧《铿锵玫瑰》。

“主题很好,但她们有点奇装异服,还穿高跟鞋。”当时推荐在黄金一套播出。陆善嘉心里还是有些嘀咕,“如果有人提意见怎么办?”他甚至做好准备,如果有人提意见,就马上把片子撤下来。

结果,《铿锵玫瑰》成了第一部收视率超过新闻联播的电视剧。

2005年央视八套播出的《武林外传》也是陆善嘉的得意“审查之作”。

当年陆善嘉看完了片子,“很多人被武林小说吓怕了。我看了后觉得样式很特殊,想了一想,这里面有文学功底,像《唐吉诃德》,讽刺揶揄那些武林小说;主调乐观、积极,不血腥,也没有特技,艺术品味上也不错。”于是,推荐到八套黄金时间播出。

后来的一次会议上有领导把《武林外传》和《阳光灿烂猪八戒》相提并论,批评“太恶搞”,陆善嘉听了很认真,生气地问领导:“你认真看了没有?”

两年后,《武林外传》获飞天优秀电视剧奖,这让陆善嘉颇为自豪。

冯万友和陆善嘉颇有同感,认为中国的电视剧审查“一年比一年宽松,因为思想意识和审美都在发生变化”。

“七八年前,枪打过去血就出来、刀扎进去刀尖出来、接吻、露肚脐(等镜头)都不行,现在放宽多了。”冯万友对《瞭望东方周刊》说,“现在审查不合格(不适合在中央电视台播出)的并不多。”

为了保证在思想意识和审美上能跟上时代步伐,中央电视台审片组也在吸收年轻人参加,前不久,包括陆善嘉在内的超过65岁的几位老同志都离开审片组,退休了。

此外,冯万友认为从审查程序的角度来看,中国的电视剧审查也在随着市场发展变得逐步开放。

一部电视剧在开拍前将剧本送到广电总局立项备案,拍摄完成后,基本上是“谁播谁审”。

“立项时候就是个剧本,实际上电视剧拍出来和剧本有的差别很大,包括情节和人物走向。中央台播出的,由中央台总编室来审,各地方台播出的,由地方台自己把握,这也是开放的一种表现,权力下放了。”冯万友说。

陆善嘉告诉《瞭望东方周刊》,中央电视台审查标准最严格。“地方台‘上星’(通过卫星,覆盖全国)的审查相对宽松一些,不‘上星’的地方台最宽松,很多不能在中央电视台播出的电视剧都直接进入了地方电视台。”■(本文来源：新华网 作者：柴爱新)

Should I stay or should I go?

As August 8 approaches, it's time for Beijing residents to decide where they'll spend the games, if they haven't already: will they stay in the city and experience the Olympics first-hand, or escape to someplace quiet and wait out the three weeks of madness in relative calm?

Yuan Yue, a consultant and columnist whose unique blogging style involves including a poem, a photo, and a recipe alongside each blog post, has come up with justifications for either decision:

At last the Olympics have arrived. We all hope that the Olympics will be an untroubled success, but as a professional who spends a lot of time living and working in Beijing, should I remain in the city during the Olympics, or should I hide out elsewhere? Below, allow me present five reasons to stay in Beijing and five reasons to leave.

Five reasons to stay in Beijing: (1) This is a once-in-a-century opportunity that we ought to personally experience. When your grandchildren ask you about it, you should be able to say that you personally witnessed the spectacle, or else they might look down on you. (2) Lots of friends are coming to see the Olympics, so if you run off to avoid them, they'll think that you're not welcoming. I've even got some foreign classmates who are set to watch the Olympics. (3) There'll be swarms of celebrities at the Olympics, and for many people, this will be their only chance to see them. And you'll be able to see lots of superstars all at once, so you can really satisfy your hunger. (4) Many people will be able to employ their skills, to some degree. For example, there'll be even more foreign reporters than athletes, so those of us who know English can go around giving interviews so they'll have a more well-rounded understanding of China. We're always going off to far-off countries to promote China, but this time they've come here, so why not make a contribution? (5) The Olympics are the Olympics, and work is work. Athletes fight for the glory of the country in the arena, so we should continue to work steadily at our jobs so we don't fall behind. We should do what we need to here in Beijing, rather than let the Olympics delay the work at hand.

Five reasons to leave Beijing: (1) The Olympics don't need us. We have a huge, dedicated team, and the on-site volunteers are all set. Competitions on TV are clearer than in the stadiums, so let's not add to the mess by staying in Beijing and crowding out the international guests. (2) Everything will be inconvenient during the Olympics: cars use the even-odd system, roadways come under frequent control, and many places aren't easily accessible because of the need to look after foreign guests. Even many familiar bathhouses, massage parlors, and KTV joints have been closed. So with convenience and practicality in mind, we should go elsewhere for our activities. (3) During the Olympics, Beijing has substantially fewer meetings and professional, many of which have been moved to other places. Some international guests are even hoping to host events outside the country after being unable to obtain a visa for this period, so we ought to go where we're needed rather than remaining here idle. (4) During the Olympics, everything will be done for the service of the games and everyone will be focusing on the Olympics. But in fact, the things that people focus on are not necessarily the most important, and it is precisely during this period that many other thing require our attention. The victims in the Sichuan disaster areas, for example: we need to take this time right now to conduct another round of surveys of the needs of those victims. (5) The company's headquarters is located in Beijing, and I typically use that as a reason to spend most of my time here. Now there's finally a good reason to check up on my colleagues, clients, and partners in other areas.

So I've decided to spend half the time - particularly the beginning - in Beijing, especially to take care of friends and special guests who have come to watch the Olympics and to do what I can to contribute as needed. But the other half of the time I'll go elsewhere rather than postpone my work, both revolutionary and otherwise. So what's your choice?

Beijingers are being inconvenienced not just by traffic restrictions and shuttered entertainment venues. As journalist Zeng Pengyu relates on his blog, the Games are being used as a reason to temporarily close markets and athletic complexes:

Eating breakfast this morning, my mother told me, "Starting tomorrow, the market will be closed. From then on, if we want fresh vegetables, we'll have to buy they from some place more expensive." I was shocked. Why? She said that it was because of the Olympics. The market would be closed until 1 September.

After this news, my meal didn't taste quite right. Close to home, the market has been there for years and affects the lives of more than 10,000 people in the surrounding neighborhoods. Every morning my mother and father get up early to buy fresh fruits and vegetables there. The prices and quality are much better than the stuff sold at supermarkets, but this morning there was a notice posted: To create a good environment for the Olympics, the vegetable market will be closed until September.

This is not the first time that something has announced its departure from our lives because of the Olympics, even if only temporarily. But it is ridiculous precisely because it is temporary. Who knows how they came up with these policies? Did they ask for the opinions of the common people? Smacking my forehead, I realized the reason: a place as intimately connected with the lives of the common people as the vegetable market gets temporarily closed because of a sporting event, so what do foreigners see? Us Chinese common people going to the supermarket every morning to buy expensive stuff that's not fresh? That's how we live our lives - stupid much?

Two weeks ago, without any warning, I received a notice saying that the fencing hall would temporarily close, to reopen on 1 September. The news was a bolt out of the blue, and there too the reason was the Olympics. Truly inexplicable, for what is the main idea of the Olympic Games? The hope that through athletics, humanity will have the will and the courage to advance toward a higher goal. But now, even the largest fencing hall in Asia open to the public has to shut down. This....can this really be explained?

No, there's no explanation. I heard that the coaches spent the day calling up members to notify them and express their apologies. More than a thousand of them. And those busy kids who had wanted to train up over the summer holidays - just great, the summer's plans have all evaporated.

I do think that most of the common people support the Olympics' emphasis on security - no one wants anything bad to happen when they host a banquet. But the games haven't even begun yet, so how is it that to some people it seems that the sky has already fallen? Sure, there are more than enough reasons to increase the standard of security inspections at major public transport and civil aviation locations, which have to do with public security, but it's kind of far-fetched and not at all thought through to close vegetable markets and fencing halls, which have little to do with the Olympics but much to do with the common people.

Here's the only way I can explain it: some of those policy-makers simply unqualified. They don't know how to handle an unpredictable future or how to resolve potential dangers, so they resort to these crude measures - can problems be solved like this? So much past experience proves that there are some things obstruction just won't solve!

One day the foreign ministry spokesperson said in answer to a reporter's question that policy would strike a balance between Olympic security and convenience for the public. That statement still echoes in our ears, but the vegetable market is gone. What next, bathhouses? Restaurants? The post office?

Really, it's obvious that all this is to let foreigners have a laugh at the expense of the Chinese!

Some of these policies appear to be the work of overzealous local law enforcement rather than directives from the city government. According to an article in the Mirror on 17 July, Beijing's district Bureaus of Commerce announced that vegetable markets are not to be closed without reason during the Olympics; shuttered markets will be found during city-wide inspections and returned to normal operation.

This article is from Danwei.org