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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the sanity-takes-flight dept.

The four-lane highway leading out of the Sri Lankan town of Hambantota gets so little traffic that it sometimes attracts more wild elephants than automobiles. The pachyderms are intelligent — they seem to use the road as a jungle shortcut — but not intelligent enough, alas, to appreciate the pun their course embodies: It links together a series of white elephants, i.e. boondoggles, built and financed by the Chinese. Beyond the lonely highway itself, there is a 35,000-seat cricket stadium, an almost vacant $1.5 billion deepwater port and, 16 miles inland, a $209 million jewel known as "the world's emptiest international airport."

Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, the second-largest in Sri Lanka, is designed to handle a million passengers per year. It currently receives about a dozen passengers per day. Business is so slow that the airport has made more money from renting out the unused cargo terminals for rice storage than from flight-related activities. In one burst of activity last year, 350 security personnel armed with firecrackers were deployed to scare off wild animals, the airport's most common visitors.

Projects like Mattala are not driven by local economic needs but by remote stratagems. When Sri Lanka's 27-year civil war ended in 2009, the president at the time, Mahinda Rajapaksa, fixated on the idea of turning his poor home district into a world-class business and tourism hub to help its moribund economy. China, with a dream of its own, was happy to oblige. Hambantota sits in a very strategic location, just a few miles north of the vital Indian Ocean shipping lane over which more than 80 percent of China's imported oil travels. A port added luster to the "string of pearls" that China was starting to assemble all along the so-called Maritime Silk Road.

Sadly, no travelers came, only the bills. The Mattala airport has annual revenues of roughly $300,000, but now it must repay China $23.6 million a year for the next eight years, according to Sri Lanka's Transport and Civil Aviation Ministry. Over all, around 90 percent of the country's revenues goes to servicing debt. Even a new president who took office in 2015 on a promise to curb Chinese influence succumbed to financial reality.

Empire building is expensive, even when you're Chinese, and is especially expensive for the junior partners in the process.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by andersjm on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:01AM (25 children)

    by andersjm (3931) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:01AM (#570085)

    Looks like Brook Larmer has written a very interesting article for NYT.

    But no, Phoenix666 did not write this. Please stop the misattribution.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Fluffeh on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:34AM (4 children)

    by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:34AM (#570089) Journal

    It's attributing the article submission to Phoenix666, not the actual article itself. All the submitted articles on the site do this.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:04AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:04AM (#570094)

      No, as written it doesn't. And that many (not all!) of the articles here do that doesn't make it any better.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:09PM (2 children)

        by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:09PM (#570203)

        Especially annoying because Phoenix only ever copy-and-pastes the first 3 or 4 paragraphs verbatim.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:15PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:15PM (#570291) Journal

          Especially annoying because Phoenix only ever copy-and-pastes the first 3 or 4 paragraphs verbatim.

          Which is infinity more original content that I ever post in my submissions....

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:55AM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:55AM (#570491) Journal

          It's the story's author's job to summarize the gist of the article in the opening paragraphs. They usually do an adequate job of that, so why re-process what they wrote at the risk of introducing errors or inaccuracies?

          Occasionally the first couple of paragraphs do not convey that, in which case I try to fold the article with ellipses to bring up paragraphs further down in the story that do contain the punchline, or material that I think would be of most interest to Soylentils like technical specs or somesuch. I might further link the source of the story to a relevant phrase in the article to draw the eye and make the gist clearer to the reader.

          That process takes me a couple of minutes per story and permits me to contribute to a healthy story pipeline for SoylentNews. If you are expecting knowledgeable chemists to munge stories in their subject area of expertise and dumb it down to laymen's terms for you, and so on, then SN's story queue will instantly dry up. Who would go to that level of effort for a story summary and subject line that most of the community would skim over and might not comment on? Nobody, that's who. What I do I can over my morning coffee, and sorry, but I have a job and a family and civic responsibilities and you're not getting any more of my time than that, and certainly not for free.

          The real answer for you, and those who don't like the story submissions on the site, is to jump right in and do a better job. Double the number of stories I have submitted. Surpass them by an order of magnitude. The editors can eschew the (apparent) dross I send in for your excellent work, and yours will become the new standard in the SN community.

          I'd be fine with that. I look forward to your superlative story submissions with anticipation.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:46AM (15 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:46AM (#570147) Journal

    The site is hardcoded that way. The submitter doesn't control it.

    Submit it as a change request in the next site release.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2, Redundant) by andersjm on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:13PM (13 children)

      by andersjm (3931) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:13PM (#570263)

      The site software forced you to start the submission with an over-long quotation? The site software forced you to bury the link to the original deep in the quoted text? I don't think so.

      Here' how you could do it; start like this:

      The New York Times has an interesting story about China's international investment strategy [nytimes.com], exemplified by the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport in Sri Lanka:

      And then quote 1-2 paragraphs from the article.

      Alternatively, you could have two (or more) quotes, each introduced by a sentence or two that you write. E.g. one quote about the airport, and another quote with Chinese foreign policy musings.

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:34PM (11 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:34PM (#570272) Journal

        You sound like you have a great handle on how to craft the perfect submission. Look forward to seeing 2,679 submissions from andersjm.

        In the meantime, I submit stories the way I do because overly processing material to pablum is something I will only do for an infant, never for an adult. If you don't like it, do it yourself.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:39PM (8 children)

          by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:39PM (#570275) Homepage Journal

          It's generally good practice to attribute your quotes.

          In my experience, the editors will usually do so if you don't. But apparently not in this case.

          I imagine it's confusing to some that the link attributing the quote is 3/4 of the way into the quoted material, especially since many folks don't read TFA (and some don't even read TFS either) anyway.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:54PM (6 children)

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:54PM (#570280)

            In my experience, the editors will usually do so if you don't. But apparently not in this case.

            Then maybe you should go complain to the editors instead of whining here where it's off-topic. Your beef is obviously with the way the site is run and the editors.

            • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:12PM (5 children)

              by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:12PM (#570310) Homepage Journal

              I'm not whining about anything.

              Merely making a suggestion to Phoenix.

              As for complaining to the editors, I am an editor here [soylentnews.org], so there's no need for me to complain to anyone about it.

              As such, my statement wasn't a knock on the editors, rather it was to point out what normal practices are around here.

              Thanks very much for your opinion, I'll store it in a place especially desighed for it.

              --
              No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
              • (Score: 3, Touché) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:30PM (2 children)

                by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @07:30PM (#570316)

                As for complaining to the editors, I am an editor here, so there's no need for me to complain to anyone about it.

                Well if you're the editor, then it's your own dumb fault for approving his submission as-is instead of correcting it to your editorial standards. So why are you bitching about it here? Go complain to your fellow editors.

                As such, my statement wasn't a knock on the editors, rather it was to point out what normal practices are around here.

                The normal practices that you apparently completely fail at doing your job to uphold. Once the story is accepted, the discussion is supposed to be about the story, not about editorial incompetence.

                Thanks very much for your opinion, I'll store it in a place especially desighed for it.

                Fuck you too. You're the one who's blatantly incompetent here, and you're complaining about someone doing a supposedly lousy job with their submission, when it's *your* job to exercise editorial control to make it conform to whatever editorial standards you may have. Instead, you fucked that up, and now you're bitching to the submitter about it in the comments? Take your shitty attitude and shove it.

              • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:38AM (1 child)

                by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:38AM (#570483) Journal

                As such, my statement wasn't a knock on the editors, rather it was to point out what normal practices are around here.

                But they aren't 'normal practices' because the way I do it is the way it was done on Slashdot for 20 years. There's also an argument to be made that the way I do it is 'normal' on SN, too, given how many stories I've submitted.

                Grishnakh does rather have a point, though, that it's odd for an editor to knock a submitter for not doing better copy editing. If you guys don't like the job you're doing as editors, then change. Me, I think it's easier to modify the story submission form to require the story source in a separate box, and then output it as something like "From this source:" instead of "[submitter] writes:". But that's on you guys.

                What I'm not gonna do is worry about how I'm attributing the story, because I can't bring myself to care. A community site like Soylent is about the discussion anyway, so who gives a crap what the exact source of a particular story is? Nobody RTFA's the stories anyway, and anybody who doesn't know that must be new here, eh?

                --
                Washington DC delenda est.
                • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 20 2017, @02:31AM

                  by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Wednesday September 20 2017, @02:31AM (#570502) Homepage Journal

                  Me, I think it's easier to modify the story submission form to require the story source in a separate box, and then output it as something like "From this source:" instead of "[submitter] writes:". But that's on you guys.

                  What I'm not gonna do is worry about how I'm attributing the story, because I can't bring myself to care. A community site like Soylent is about the discussion anyway, so who gives a crap what the exact source of a particular story is? Nobody RTFA's the stories anyway, and anybody who doesn't know that must be new here, eh?

                  Let me clarify and be very direct. I tried to do so with Grishnakh, but he's apparently having a bad day and decided to take it out on me.

                  My comments, specifically this:

                  It's generally good practice to attribute your quotes.

                  In my experience, the editors will usually do so if you don't. But apparently not in this case.

                  I imagine it's confusing to some that the link attributing the quote is 3/4 of the way into the quoted material, especially since many folks don't read TFA (and some don't even read TFS either) anyway.

                  were based on my thoughts and experiences. I wasn't telling you (or anyone else) what to do or say or how to do/say anything. They were (as I subsequently pointed out) suggestions. Use them, ignore them, create a powerpoint from them and teach a course. Print them out and put them on your dart board. It's all the same to me.

                  --
                  No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:20AM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:20AM (#570475) Journal

            It's been done that way in the Slashdot and Soylent communities for 20 years. Links to the source material are placed within an excerpt of TFA to emphasize a pertinent point or underscore the title. I remember being thrown by it when I was a young(er) Slashdot reader in the late 90's, but eventually it became the standard because Slashdot was setting the standard for such online communities then. (Ever heard the term, "that site has been Slashdotted?" That's why.)

            If you and others want to change that, then submit a change request to the Soylentils maintaining the codebase such that instead of "[submitter] writes:" the story submission form asks for the link to the story source in a separate box and outputs that in the story as "According to this:", with "this" hyperlinking to the source.

            That's a much more productive way to address your concern than to complain to a submitter who couldn't care less about the Chicago Manual of Style. And honestly, I couldn't give a rat's ass if I should have italicized when quotation marks were called for, nor if it ought to be underlined because it's most analogous to a magazine or somesuch. Such minutiae are tedious and utterly superfluous to me.

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by andersjm on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:13PM (1 child)

          by andersjm (3931) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @10:13PM (#570397)

          Just trying to be constructive and help you grow as a writer.

          But if you don't want that, if that's too much processing, then I suggest you start your submissions with a single line like this:

          New York Times story: [nytimes.com]

          There! Proper attribution, clear link to source, and no undue effort to write.

          • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:26AM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:26AM (#570477) Journal

            I am perfectly comfortable with my writing, thanks. What you're talking about is copy editing, and about that I could give a rat's ass. If better copy editing matters to you, then address your remarks to the site editors, or much better, to the guys maintaining the code base so that story submissions are outputted differently.

            In the meantime, you can be the change you want to see and become a prolific submitter who shows us all what proper attribution looks like (according to what standard...?). You can. Nobody needs to give you permission. There's no special process. No training is involved. You can just do it. Click 'Submit story' in the left nav and you're off to the races.

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:16PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @06:16PM (#570292) Journal

        It's called a 'news aggregation' site, welcome to the internet!

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by andersjm on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:14PM

      by andersjm (3931) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @11:14PM (#570425)

      The link to the source article is buried in the quoted text. That's a very unusual place for it. Usually a link in the middle of a quotation either comes from the source, or has been added to provide more information about the particular detail that is linked. That is not the site software's fault.

      You didn't mention the name of the source, neither site nor author. That is not the site software's fault.

      You don't control the first line, understood. But you do control the next one. And when the next thing after "submitter writes:" is a blockquote, then it looks like the submitter wrote the quoted content. As a submitter who is aware of that, you can avoid an unintentional mislead by not starting the submission with a quote. If you do that anyway, that is not the site software's fault.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:34PM (3 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:34PM (#570221)

    WTF are you talking about? It's clearly indicated that the only thing that Phoenix666 wrote is the very last line ("Empire building is expensive..."), as that's the only part that's not blockquoted and has a white background. The rest is clearly blockquoted. EVERY article on this site is exactly like this.

    We need a "-1 Horribly Ignorant" moderation for posts like this.

    • (Score: 2) by andersjm on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:33PM (1 child)

      by andersjm (3931) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:33PM (#570270)

      It's clearly indicated

      No.

      "foo writes: blargh" usually means that foo is the author of the "blargh" part. At least it used to mean that. Maybe the world has been taken over by Facebookers who are conditioned to express themselves through Like'ing other peoples works, and the line between something that you wrote yourself and something you are incorporating by reference is getting blurred.

      We need a "-1 Horribly Ignorant" moderation for posts like this.

      Unnecessary ad hominem.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:52PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:52PM (#570279)

        No.

        Yes, it is. Maybe you need to get your eyes checked. The quoted text is clearly blockquoted, and has a gray background. It's been like this on this site ever since it started. WhyTF are you complaining about it now?

        If you don't like it, complain to the site owners. It's stupid to be whining about it here.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:30AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday September 20 2017, @01:30AM (#570481) Journal

      WTF are you talking about? It's clearly indicated that the only thing that Phoenix666 wrote is the very last line ("Empire building is expensive..."), as that's the only part that's not blockquoted and has a white background. The rest is clearly blockquoted. EVERY article on this site is exactly like this.

      Exactly. And every article on Slashdot was exactly like that, too. It threw me on occasion there, at first. But it quickly became apparent that nobody RTFA'ed or RTFS'ed anyway. In fact it became a joke when people would come along with quibbles like this: "You must be new here." That reply was an instant classic. I haven't seen it on Soylent in a long time, so perhaps it bears reviving:

      He must be new here.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.