Sounds like "走火入魔", a mental state mentioned in many Wuxia/Chinese-Kongfu-Fantasy novels when a rigorous 内功修炼(internal training/meditation)goes bad, which I thought was a myth.

Yes, and this article itself has been blocked too.

It worries me that this thread could get our beloved Hacker News blocked. I cross my fingers, as you might see, I'm from inside the w@ll.

Is there any way I can buy a Chinese VPS to see the impacts of the blocks myself?

There's a bunch of providers listed on https://www.exoticvps.com/ .

Try vpngate:http://www.vpngate.net , Hope you join vpngate network too :)

Actully, it isn't. Better not to tempt fate.

I can't visit the link. (https://zh.greatfire.org/blog/2014/nov/china-just-blocked-th...) And I'm in mainland China. What can I suppose?

I'm a Chinese software developer. In China, VPN or other proxy tools are essential for anyone who need look up serious technical materials online. We call it "翻墙"(Go Over the Wall), which is a basic skill.

And about the reason why these sites are blocked: just BECAUSE THEY CAN! (They even blocked github for mysterious purpose once!) There is no public rule/law/principle to tell us why a foreign site is blocked. The just kill sites silently and pretend nobody cares.

Fortunately enough, HackNews has not been blocked, yet.

(Sorry for my bad English)

Do you think this harms new engineering students in China when they don't have access to tools and knowledge that the rest of the world does? I can't imagine having Github blocked.

Does there seem to be a pattern to the blocks? Or is it just completely random?

Maybe it helps weed out the lesser engineers. Step one is trying to work out how to get the information you need.

> Maybe it helps weed out the lesser engineers.

Problem is VPNs require money, not just skills and tor can be dead slow.