tyng

I don't know, work never leaves my mind even when I'm not working

Perhaps after two months I will think differently :D

I appreciate the thought, life is a matter of choices

It's not a permanent lockdown... just for a few weeks (so far)

Absolutely, I don't represent everyone. I'm sure there are people losing their income because they cannot go to work. The government - which has enforced the lockdown, should definitely do a better job in caring for the individuals who are the most affected, no doubt in that.

There are definitely lots of complains: the consequences on the economy, not able to travel, etc. On a personal level everyone is affected, but is the lockdown worth it? On a country level I think it's understandable. Shanghai is a city of 25m population and it has one of the best medical system in China, if COVID cannot be contained in Shanghai then it'll be a nightmare to spread to other cities, towns and villages, where basic medical care is still not readily available. Shanghai is also the economic and financial centre of China, locking it down definitely comes at a great cost to the country, so I don't think the government has made this decision lightly. If Omicron is really like a cold/flu then no it's not worth it, but do we know this for sure?

I don't have the big picture data but all the people I know (locals and expats) have been vaccinated. China and the Western world are taking different approaches to COVID, I don't believe in anything said from either side, there is simply not enough scientific and trustworthy data, only time will tell which approach is better.

Schools are closed, and for good reasons. If I'm the parent I wouldn't want my kids to get COVID. The gospel of online education may be coming true? Jokes aside, it's not as miserable as many people may think.

I work 12 hour days no matter where I am :D

I'm in the lockdown in Shanghai, feel free to ask me any questions. Things you read on the internet is mostly true (but may be exaggerated):

Life: Yes we can only buy food through WeChat groups to organise wholesale deliveries (2000 eggs, 200 cabbages minimum order) on hiked prices, but it's easier than you might think; No one has died from starvation (yet), but there had been a few cases of death due to not getting medical help in time; The city's resources are stretched - it's a city with 25m population.

Work: I'm still working 12 hour days online (we're a design & project management firm). I get to wake up 10 minutes before a morning meeting and be in my pajamas the whole day.

So on a personal level, life isn't that miserable. But it's definitely a very difficult time to the elderly and the ill.

Will I (or anyone in my shoes) leave China permanently because of this? I guess not, even though I have the means to do it. There are harder problems to solve in life than feeling terrified by a lockdown.

RIP, his book Delivering Happiness was such an inspiration early in my career

I have worked in many overseas development projects run by Chinese companies. It's not that the Chinese companies only want to hire their own workers, but the fact that the local workforce do not have the skill/equipment/capital to handle large scale development projects.

Some countries require by law that the Chinese developers have a minimum number of local workers. This mitigates the problem somewhat and hopefully over time the locals will develop the skills to run their own projects.

In the long run, infrastructure investment benefits local communities and opens up more opportunities for the local workforce. It's almost always better to have the infrastructure built than not, earlier than later, and foreign money is a good source of capital for it.

I like this idea for its simplicity, a commercial problem with negative externality to the public can generally be solved with taxation.

If a cartoon character is still in commercial use and being further developed, I'm not sure if it's good practice to turn it into public domain. I don't think there had been corporations/artists that have had the longevity of Disney, and the fact that Disney has continued to invest in and develop the characters over the years makes this somewhat of a special case (compared to other literature characters where the author stops developing them after they are published).

I'm no copyright lawyer nor do I know much about copyright laws, but one should recognise the positive effects of copyright protection, which encourages innovation and investment. Those incremental investments Disney has made should be acknowledged.

But of course, the danger in this argument is that in the future someone can just make tiny face-value 'investments' into their copyright to argue for an extension, that would be detrimental to the whole copyright vs innovation balance.

Good point. I'm not familiar with the American copyright law, but you're right, nowadays in most countries even if a piece of art is sold to another person, the artist still holds the copyright (the right to make copies) unless copyright transfer is specified in the contract.

But another way to look at this is, if the artwork is commissioned by the company for commercial purpose - much like if someone is commissioned to create a logo for a company - then the copyright is generally transferred to the company.

In the absence of a written contract, one can argue both ways, which I think is why the lawyers didn't think there was a strong case.