Chinese food as Linux :)

I had planned a post on learning and teaching languages, but i'm not happy with it yet and at this point i'm considering just doing an open thread where i can answer your questions. But while procrastinating and doing research i ran into this faaaaabulous talk by Jennifer 8 Lee on Chinese food and Fortune Cookies. Basically she compares it to Linux because the Chinese food that's eaten outside of China, in no way resembles the Chinese food eaten inside China and the homes of Chinese in the diaspora (unless you live here).

So have you lived abroad and found your favorite foods from home completely unrecognizable? When i lived in China i learned to love cold salads with mayonnaise on them. Pizza was always an adventure. They used knife and fork to eat it in Shanghai and Pizza Hut was fiiiine dining!! My students also thought Americans ate hamburgers, exclusively. It was fun when i tried to explain to them that hamburger was a type of sandwich and that it wasn't the shape, but the meat that made it a hamburger. LOL.

What are your stories??

Source:

http://groupthink.jezebel.com/chinese-food-as-linux-1492031839

Samsung decides 56 smartphones a year is too many, will cut lineup by 30%

Samsung has been in a pretty tough spot lately. After several quarters of record profits in 2012 and 2013, the company has crashed back down to Earth. The low point for Samsung came last quarter, when it reported a 49 percent drop in profits. At the high end of the market, the company currently has to fight off Apple, which just released a phablet of its own. At the low end, it's going up against a flood of cheaper Chinese OEMs, led by Xiaomi and Huawei.

To try to get out of this slump, Samsung is taking a "less is more" approach. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company said it would cut its 2015 smartphone lineup by 25-30 percent. The company will work on the internals, too, saying during its last earnings call that it will "increase the number of components shared across mid- to low-end models, so that we can further leverage economies of scale."

Full article:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/samsung-decides-56-smartphones-a-year-is-too-many-will-cut-lineup-by-30/

Samsung Smartphones Lose Ground In 2014

Samsung's smartphone marketshare retreats as Chinese vendors turn up the heat.

Samsung's galaxy of smartphones contracted sharply during 2014. The company may still own the market, but the decline is notable after Samsung enjoyed several years of strong growth. Apple and several other competitors maintained their positions in the market, but Chinese handset makers are nipping at their heels.






Worldwide smartphone shipments reached 1.17 billion units during 2014, according to data from TrendForce. Of those, 453.4 million -- 40% of the total -- came from Chinese vendors, which represented six of the top ten phone makers. Samsung shipped about 326.4 million units, giving it 28% of the global market. That represents an annual growth rate of only 8.4% and a drop from its 2013 market share of 32.5%.

Competitors pummeled Samsung from every direction. Apple challenged Samsung's leading Galaxy Note phablets with the iPhone 6 Plus, while Samsung's entry-level and mid-range devices were sidelined by low-cost Chinese brands. Samsung reduced smartphone shipment forecasts several times during 2014, recorded a 60% drop in profits during the third quarter, and warned of a similar drop for the fourth quarter. The turn of fortune has caused some soul-searching in Seoul. The company rearranged its electronics business units late last year, folding its mobile software unit into the phone business and shuffling dozens of executives.


Source:
http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-business/samsung-smartphones-lose-ground-in-2014/d/d-id/1318664?itc=edit_in_body_cross