ImageThief stops by Dalian to dive with the whale shark at Tiger Beach:

Full post here, with links to previous dive videos and more underwater photography.

The US State Department just put out another warning about travel in Xinjiang. When in doubt, don't be dumb:

The State Department alerts U.S. citizens to safety and security concerns in the city of Urumqi in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This Travel Alert expires on August 10, 2009.

On July 5, 2009, ethnic violence erupted in Urumqi. The unrest continued in the following days, with Chinese state media reporting over one hundred and fifty deaths and more than one thousand injured. There is a significant increased security presence in Urumqi and its environs; sporadic outbreaks of violence may still occur.

There are no indications that this violence is directed at U.S. citizens; however, Americans in Urumqi and throughout Xinjiang are advised to avoid areas where demonstrations and large gatherings are taking place. U.S. citizens in Urumqi should remain indoors and avoid unnecessary movement within the city. Americans planning a trip to Xinjiang are advised to defer travel to the region at this time.

NPR follows a group of Dalian bureaucrats and cadres learning how Los Angeles runs its government:

Each year, the Chinese city of Dalian flies government officials to Los Angeles to learn about American-style democracy. The teacher is Joaquin Lim, a former mayor of a suburb east of Los Angeles.

The full story is here, or download the segment.

Just received this alert from State:

The Department of State alerts U.S. citizens to the quarantine measures imposed by the Government of China in response to the 2009-H1N1 pandemic that may affect travel to China. This Travel Alert expires on September 30, 2009.

Current quarantine measures in China include placing arriving passengers who exhibit fever or flu-like symptoms into seven-day quarantine. Although the proportion of arriving Americans being quarantined remains low, the random nature of the selection process increases the uncertainty surrounding travel to China. The selection process focuses on those sitting in close proximity to another traveler exhibiting fever or flu-like symptoms or on those displaying an elevated temperature if arriving from an area where outbreaks of 2009-H1N1 have occurred. We have reports of passengers arriving from areas where outbreaks have occurred (including the U.S. and Mexico) being placed in precautionary quarantine simply because they registered slightly elevated temperatures.

Super obvious update: This site is working again. As Alex notes in the comments, we're on a new server. Apologies again for the down time.

Apologies to anyone looking for bars, restaurants or news about Dalian. The site is down with a bad case of DOS.

We (by which I mostly mean Alex) are looking into the matter, which may or may not involve new hosting.

In a comment on yesterday’s post about making news easy to find and easy to share, Alex reminds me that he and I have had this conversation before. Now that I think about it, we’ve had this conversation a lot, especially about finding relevant news based on location.

I come back to this thought again and again in my head:

I don’t need more video, or more multimedia of any kind, or even databases or forums or yet another social network. All I want, as a reader, is news that is easy to find and easy to share. It’s what I want in the sites I build and the newsrooms I work for, too.

Is this too much to ask?

From Joe Grimm, until recently of the Detroit Free Press, in his most recent (and always-excellent) Ask the Recruiter column:

We imperil our companies and our own careers when we do not listen closely to young people, whose experience with media is so different than our own and whose ideas may hold some of the solutions. Invite them into the strategy sessions, encourage them to really brainstorm and explain — and then try some new ways.

Joe also has a blog.

When I arrived in Dalian, most of what I knew about the city came from word of mouth. I’d spent a few months hanging around a local expat forum, reading blogs, emailing people who lived there.

When I arrived in Dalian, most of what I knew about the city came from word of mouth. I’d spent a few months hanging around a local expat forum, reading blogs, emailing people who lived there.