| Title |
Excerpt |
Author |
Date |
Total Comments |
Recent Comment |
| The Story of Stuff |
A very meaningful and easy to understand 20-minute flash video (also available for download) about crisis of the materials economy. |
Administrator |
07/13/08 |
0 |
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| WoW Insider |
This is the site where I've been working for a while now, writing columns and blog posts about [World of Warcraft][1]. If you'd just like to read the articles I have written myself, you can click [here][2]. [1]: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ [2]: http://www.wowinsider.com/bloggers/david-bowers/ "WoW Insider posts by David Bowers" |
Administrator |
07/11/08 |
0 |
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| Brightwind is back! |
Brightwind returns today! For a long time I haven't been sure where to go with this site. Ever since my mother got cancer way back in 2005, I've had all sorts of ambiguous feelings about what I should do with my life and even more ambiguous feelings about how in the… |
Administrator |
07/11/08 |
0 |
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| Site Currently Half-line. |
Thank you for visiting Brightwind. Please be patient this week while the site undergoes changes according to the new management. |
Administrator |
04/04/06 |
0 |
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| You know what? What do you know? hmmm.... |
A strange thing has happened! I’ve suddenly realized why I haven’t updated this website since February. I’ve changed. That’s to say: the things that have happened to me, the questions I’ve asked, and the truths I’ve been exploring in my life this year have made me understand that the previous Brightwind… |
Administrator |
01/18/06 |
4 |
01/22/06 |
| another change of direction... |
I haven’t known how to say this, so I haven’t said anything for a long time. I suppose I still don’t know how to say this, but I should really say something… My fear is that I’m going to sound depressed and upset and I’m going to make other people feel… |
Administrator |
04/06/05 |
720 |
06/20/09 |
| The Bright Wind Blows... |
My time in America has been fulfilling and good for me, but I've been learning that it's not the place I need to be right now. On one hand, coming back here was like a kick in the face, while on the other, it was like a sweet honey. For a… |
Administrator |
12/31/04 |
2 |
03/28/05 |
| The Only Thing We Have to Fear... |
Probably the most noticeable change since the last time I lived in the U.S. is the heavily charged environment of public fear. The experience of 9/11 has so traumatized the country of my birth, that it leaves many Americans in the constant fear that something like this could happen again. Usually… |
Administrator |
09/14/04 |
0 |
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| A Stranger in a Familiar Land |
I've been back in the United States for a couple weeks now, and I'm surprised how much is the same, and how much is different. I had been reading, during my time in China, about how America has been changing during the four years that I've been away, but now that… |
Administrator |
09/12/04 |
0 |
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| More New Directions |
This last month and a half have reordered so many things in my life. I hope you will pardon my absence. Some people say that change is hard, and while that’s true, I feel that my particular changes this time are very good indeed. I would rather not say directly what… |
Administrator |
08/01/04 |
0 |
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| New Directions |
Brightwind has been running for several months now, and it’s given me a lot of chance to think about what it could become in the future. I’ve tried posting everything from inspiring essays to film reviews, and from short stories to photo galleries. All this experimenting has given me a better… |
Administrator |
06/04/04 |
2 |
06/16/04 |
| Chessmaster |
This man was playing chess, as if for the millionth time. I saw him one day, when some friends of mine and I stumbled upon a beautiful garden in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. There were a pagoda, a tea shop, and lots of old people sitting around, filling up… |
Administrator |
05/31/04 |
3 |
09/23/04 |
| Living in China |
an excellent and frequently updated collection of views about China |
Administrator |
05/22/04 |
0 |
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| Old Woman, New World |
This is my favorite photo out of the 500 or so that I took last winter in Yunnan. It’s not the most beautiful from an aesthetic point of view, but it has a symbolic meaning to it that I was extremely lucky to catch. I was just walking down the street… |
Administrator |
05/21/04 |
1 |
07/11/04 |
| Taking Humble Steps |
As long as I don’t understand why I’m behaving in a certain way, I tend to feel guilty about it. I’ve felt guilty for not updating as often as I have wanted to in the last few weeks. Thinking about why this happens sometimes, I can of course blame it on… |
Administrator |
05/21/04 |
0 |
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| Old Man Tree |
Many trees in the Forbidden City, and elsewhere in Beijing’s historic sites, are so old and weak that they need to be supported by these big green crutches. This one looks like an old man trying to bend over without falling over. It’s pitiful, and beautiful, too, in an old and… |
Administrator |
05/05/04 |
0 |
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| The Shanghai Taxi/Shopping Problem |
The thing about Shanghai is that it’s not quite like what you’d expect China to be. Standing on the pedestrian overpass, you see just how much light there is down there in the intersection and you wonder how China got to be this way. Major shopping centers, such as this one,… |
Administrator |
05/03/04 |
0 |
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| Gateway at the Great Wall |
The beauty of China is ancient and glorious, yet everywhere you go, you can see the marks of modern life scratched onto its ancient surface. On the sides of this doorway, for example, you can see the names of various Chinese tourists who have been to that spot over the years.… |
Administrator |
05/02/04 |
0 |
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| What's This? |
Some things look rather alien when you see them close up. I took this photo at my friend’s house when he was so kind as to let my mom and I stay there during our travels last winter. You’ll find it in a kitchen. |
Administrator |
05/02/04 |
0 |
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| What happens when you tell a lie? |
Examining virtues from a practical point of view. |
Administrator |
05/01/04 |
0 |
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| McGurk-effect |
A weird audio-visual illusion. Are you hearing the same sound that you’re seeing? (thanks: firda) |
Administrator |
05/01/04 |
0 |
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| How Steep It Is |
In China they have a saying that: “If you don’t make it to the Great Wall, you aren’t really a good man.” I always chuckle when I think of that because I think “wow, women really got it made!” but I have to admit that the intention of the saying is… |
Administrator |
05/01/04 |
0 |
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| Wonderful Hope |
These last few days I caught a bad head cold, which then progressed, for various reasons, into worse things. Of course, when you are sick, you can’t think of many things, and updating a website seems like a monumental task. Yet I’ve seen other websites’ authors deal with sickness bravely, with… |
Administrator |
04/25/04 |
2 |
04/26/04 |
| Glorious Blue |
Once again, Brightwind is blessed with a suitable design. I am pleased. I can rest… But first let me share: one of the things I have learned from designing my own websites is that you have to be very patient with your computer. Sometimes you come up against strange problems, where… |
Administrator |
04/19/04 |
0 |
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| The Writer's Almanac |
a daily fountain of inspiration to anyone who enjoys or creates literature. |
Administrator |
04/17/04 |
0 |
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| Working on a Redesign |
I have been using a lot of my free time over the last two weeks developing a new design to celebrate Brightwind’s transfer over to a new hosting service and a new weblog publishing system. I struggled for a long time before finally finding something I was happy with. You can… |
Administrator |
04/17/04 |
0 |
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| Excellence |
I learned something about myself yesterday, and maybe something about human nature, too: putting your heart into something is what makes it meaningful to you. As you already know, I have recently become a graduate student at Nanjing Arts Institute, and so far I’m enjoying it tremendously. Whenever I go there,… |
Administrator |
04/09/04 |
2 |
04/26/04 |
| The Meatrix |
A flash animation about where your meat comes from. |
Administrator |
04/04/04 |
0 |
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| chrisruzin.net |
has lots of neat ideas, and also uses expression engine, just like me. |
Administrator |
04/04/04 |
0 |
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| World Changing |
a site about changing the world |
Administrator |
04/04/04 |
0 |
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| Mostly Updated |
Okay, I think that the site is basically about ready. I have fixed a number of the major problems, such as broken links and so on. In the coming week, I’ll still have to upload all the old pictures and adjust the coding behind a number of old entries, but overall,… |
Administrator |
04/03/04 |
0 |
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| First Entry on the New Site |
Welcome to the future of Brightwind—on a brand new server, and with brand new software! For the time being, the site is really raw, but I got all the old entries imported alright. Now I need to work on changing the colors and the look of the site, as well as… |
Administrator |
04/01/04 |
0 |
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| Bleeding Edge |
Here it is, the bleeding edge new version of Brightwind (also accessible from China), hosted on a different server and powered by a different weblogging engine. Right now, it’s very raw (and pink, too), but I’m just so excited and I want to let you know that Brightwind is still alive… |
Administrator |
04/01/04 |
0 |
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| Beautiful Homework |
Another big news is that I’ve officially signed up to get an MFA in graphic design from Nanjing Arts Institute (where I happen to be writing this evening). My dream is write my own stories and illustrate them. As it is, I’ve been drawing pictures of my story ideas for years… |
Administrator |
03/22/04 |
2 |
03/23/04 |
| Back in Business |
I haven’t written for Brightwind for over a month. In the meantime, a group of American students from my old high school came for a school-sponsored trip to China. The school here where I teach hosted them for a while, and during that time, they met with Chinese students here, danced,… |
Administrator |
03/19/04 |
0 |
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| Walking |
All you have to be is what you are—not the you that you were in that present moment which has just escaped and fallen into the past, nor the you that will be a long time from now. Very soon, you will have a chance to be the you that you… |
Administrator |
02/18/04 |
0 |
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| Your Wings |
During the vacation I just spent with my mother, so many of the veils over my understanding have disappeared, and the eyes of my soul feel as if they can see more clearly. Of course, every advance in one’s own understanding reveals more clearly that vast oceans of mysteries lie beyond… |
Administrator |
02/16/04 |
3 |
03/02/04 |
| One Month, Two New Years |
The fireworks burst all around, rising up between the apartment buildings and all around them, firecrackers booming into the earliest hours of the morning. The land where fireworks were invented has little fear of using them to full effect when the occasion calls for it, and for centuries, there has been… |
Administrator |
01/21/04 |
0 |
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| Pandora's Hope |
In a previous entry, I wrote about how rare it is that someone really finds “true love” in this world. For a long time, I had cherished the idea that I might be able to create a truly happy and successful family, but after some disappointing experiences, I began to believe… |
Administrator |
01/12/04 |
0 |
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| Imagine |
Ever since the turn of the millennium, each New Year’s Day has felt like a leap into the future. Here it is: January 7, 2004— already seven days into the third year since 2001: A Space Odyssey became alternate history rather than a possible future. We still have no monoliths, aliens,… |
Administrator |
01/06/04 |
0 |
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| Christmas Changes |
The history of Christmas has been something like the “telephone game” we played as children, whispering a sentence from ear to ear and finally ending up with something quite different at the end of the line. Millennia before Christ was even born, people had already been celebrating the winter solstice in… |
Administrator |
12/24/03 |
1 |
01/04/04 |
| How Long, How Dark, is the Road to Peace? |
Japan is the only country whose constitution prohibits war (as far as I know). Now, however, Japan is planning to send some defensive troops to Iraq to engage in unwarlike activity. Such offshore movement of Japanese forces would have been unthinkable in the past, and many are afraid of what this… |
Administrator |
12/13/03 |
0 |
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| Worth a Thousand Happy Romances |
Many people have advice for me about love. Another teacher who works in my school confided in me one day, telling me how she loved a young man in high school once, but since there was so much pressure for her to focus on her studies, she said nothing to him… |
Administrator |
12/09/03 |
2 |
03/02/04 |
| No Words to Describe It. |
Although I majored in religious studies in College, I found that the most spiritually inspiring class was Astronomy 101: Stars, Galaxies and Cosmology. Each class was a slide show of the most beautiful photography available to the human race, and each picture dared us to believe that such massive and beautiful… |
Administrator |
12/05/03 |
0 |
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| 3 Interesting Resources |
These days I’m battling a head cold… my whole world feels a little bit dizzy and slower than everyone else’s. Even though it has all but arrested my brain, I still entertain high dreams for this website. Lately I’ve been experimenting with everything from the style of the content I write… |
Administrator |
12/04/03 |
0 |
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| The Birth of the One Who Gave Birth to You |
My mother was born on a day with the same name as this one, December First, with no idea that someday her body could become the vehicle for my soul’s ascent into this world. Yet before her, there were millions of women stretching into the darkness of the past, each one… |
Administrator |
12/01/03 |
0 |
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| Depends on Your Point of View |
What if you could see all the world’s sunsets and all the world’s sunrises—all at the same time? Such a thing is possible, if you travel to the moon on May 4, 2004. On that day, the earth will eclipse the sun, and the only sunlight reaching the moon will pass… |
Administrator |
11/26/03 |
0 |
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| Butterfly Kings |
You may imagine that monarch butterflies are so named without reason, but in fact they are the steeds of the Faerie Kings, who flitter about on their mighty beasts with sublime aimlessness. To a Faerie, indeed, it is a sin to pretend that you know where you are going. You cannot… |
Administrator |
11/24/03 |
0 |
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| The Wonderland of Science Fiction (and the Matrix) |
The Matrix: Revolutions is playing in Shanghai. If you’re in town, I recommend that you stop by and see it. It’s in English with Chinese subtitles. I invited one of my best Chinese friends to see it with me last weekend. She happened to take the English name Alice before I… |
Administrator |
11/23/03 |
0 |
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| Writing Itself |
Sometimes, when I am writing something, I really hit on the essence of the words and it comes out nicely the first time. Other times, I write for a long time about something I like very much, but I keep on missing the right mark by just a little bit. Sometimes… |
Administrator |
11/21/03 |
0 |
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