How to Change the world

Guy Kawasaki's blog

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

Learn to enjoy simple things in life and face the music

Browse through Elliot Bay Bookstore on a Sunny day and smell the ancient hardcovers.
Watermelon
超强卡丁车
Jogging along Elliot Bay Park
Hacking
Blogging and free to say what you want without worrying about PA from nowhere.

It's also very amazing that people have the ability to keep a big smile even when facing various kind of difficulties in life. I always thought other people's life must be perfect, otherwise how can they be so happy. Well, it turns out everyone has his own trouble and being happy has nothing to do with having a perfect life. :)

武汉话四级考试完整正式版

单选题:
1.“老特”是什么意思？（4分）
A.老特产 B.老特务 C.发语词，无实际意思 D.爸爸
2.“蛮扎实”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.很结实 B.很厉害 C.很野蛮 D.垃圾
3.”麻木”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.麻木不仁 B.人力三轮车 C.木头 D.森林
4.“灵醒”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.神灵显灵 B.神气活现 C.睡醒了 D.整洁、好看，也有聪明之意
5.“称透”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.称唿太客气了 B.透明 C.整洁，好看 D.称职
6.“条举”是什么意思？（4分）
A.扫帚 B.油条 C.旗杆 D.举止文雅
7.“灶妈子”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.赵家的阿姨 B.蟑螂 C.厨娘 D.妈妈
8.“外外”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.外国人 B.外星人 C.外甥 D.外甥女
9.“豆里”（4分）
A.里面 B.大豆 C.黄豆 D.豆子坏了
10.“浮子”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.一位武汉的古代名人 B.孔夫子 C.毛巾抹布 D.测浮力浮球
11.“裹筋”是什么意思（4分）
A.给裤子上皮筋 B.纠缠不清 C.坚持不懈 D.穿袜子
12.“鬼款”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.胡说乱讲 B.鬼吓人 C.付款 D.给死人烧的纸钱
13.“嘀哆”是什么意思？

（4分）
A.逗小孩的话 B.象声词，形容滴水的声音 C.感叹词 D.罗嗦烦人
14.“装精”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.精品服装 B.强打精神 C.特别自以为是 D.假的精品
15.“是说唦”是什么意思？
（4分）
A.表示赞同 B.实在是说啊 C.是在说啊 D.在说什么，表疑问

是非题:
1.老马对老王说：“他这个人几怀哦! 你蛮闪咧!”
这句话是在夸老王吗（2分）
A.是 B.否
2.“拐子早，吃了冒？”
这句话是要请人吃饭吗？
（2分）
A.是 B.否
3.老张：“帮我个忙好不好？”
老刘：“冒得话说唦。”
老刘会不会帮忙？（2分）
A.是 B.否
4.武汉足球队和天津队比赛的时候，火爆的武汉球迷们高喊“陈方平，洗了睡”
球迷是在叫对方的教练下课吗？（2分）
A.是 B.否
5.“我屋里有点事，帮我挑土好不？”
“好的”
他们可能是在打麻将吗？（2分）
A.是 B.否

问答题:
1.代一过核区妈区低晚上，投兰一资老虎蹦鸟渠来，把李扑代地上但冒把李其他。为么
斯？它冒把李其他咧?因为它四回轴低，不其居楼！仔细阅读以上一段话请问，这段话
的目的是委婉的骂阅读者为一样什么东西？_____（10分）

理解题:
1.如果别人说“我拐子麽昂麽昂厉害……”,你该回答:
（4分）
A.那四那四 B.打赤巴 C.扁担 D.瞎款
2.如果别人说”7饭聊冒?”,你该回答:
（4分）
A.摸司 B.7聊啊 C.搞笑 D.7豆丝饿
3.如果别人说”莫不耳我撒?”,你该回答:
（4分）
A.对不锯啊,恩,哪敢啊 B.么昂 C.等哈子 D.苕吃哈胀
4.如果别人说”我抬你嘀庄啊”,你该回答:

（4分）
A.翘胯子 B.岔巴子 C.谢鸟唦 D.搞么斯
5.5.如果别人说”您阿屋里的猪养得好肥呀，么时候杀您阿?”,你该回答:
（4分）
A.铆起来搞 B.您阿真讲胃口 C.正满攒就尬事您阿 D.敲死
--

Poem: "Falling Asleep in a Garden"

by David
Wagoner from Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems. © University of
Illinois Press, 1999.

Falling Asleep in the
Garden

All day the bees have come to the garden.
They hover,
swivel in arcs and, whirling, light
On stamens heavy with pollen, probe and
revel
Inside the yellow and red starbursts of dahlias
Or cling to
lobelia's blue-white mouths
Or climb the speckled trumpets of
foxgloves.

My restless eyes follow their restlessness
As they plunge
bodily headfirst into treasure,
Gold-fevered among these horns of
plenty.
They circle me, a flowerless patch
With nothing to offer in the
way of sweetness
Or light against the first omens of evening.

Some,
even now, are dying at the end
Of their few weeks, some being born in the
dark,
Some simply waiting for life, but some are dancing
Deep in their
hives, telling the hungry
The sun will be that way, the garden this
far:
This is the way to the garden. They hum at my ear.

And I wake up,
startled, seeing the early
Stars beginning to bud in constellations.
The
bees have gathered somewhere like petals closing
For the coming of the cold.
The silhouette
Of a sphinx moth swerves to drink at a flowerhead.
The
night-blooming moon opens its pale corolla.

quote of the day

你无法用垄断者的规则在游戏中与垄断者竞争。垄断者拥有财力，分销渠道，研究开发力量；总之，他们占据了太多的力量。如果你将游戏的规则更改成另外一套模式再与垄断者竞争，那么这些规则就能够支撑你的力量……

----Red Hat创始人之一Robert Young's <开源：来自开源革命的声音>

The Final Days of Google (ZT from I, Cringely is the blog of Robert X. Cringely)

The Final Days of Google

Back
in the 1990s Bill Gates said the company that would eventually beat
Microsoft probably had yet to be founded, by which he meant that
Microsoft was in such a strong position that only something truly
disruptive -- a whole new business -- would have a chance to unseat
Redmond. Some people think the company Bill was describing back then
might be Google. I don't know if that's the case or not, but it leads
me to ask this question: If Google, itself, is to be eventually beaten
by some other company, does THAT company yet exist? I don't think so.
But unlike the scenario envisioned by Gates, I have a pretty good idea
where we'll find the founders of that Google-beating start-up. I think
they are working right now at Google.

Google is an amazing entrepreneurial petri dish. Yet at the same
time, it is doomed to disappoint nearly every entrepreneurial type who
works there. This is key: Google is sowing the seeds of its own
eventual destruction. It can't help doing so.

For those who don't know these details or have forgotten them,
here's the simple background: Google has made a huge effort to hire the
best technical people it can find. Thousands of PhDs are now working in
various Google labs, and many of these people were hired from other
successful businesses. Google has also acquired a number of smaller
companies, many of them for either their technology or their technical
talent, and these companies bring yet more entrepreneurial DNA into the
mix. The company has created a potent combination of
straight-from-university geniuses, straight-from-start-up geniuses, and
straight-from-Microsoft/IBM/Yahoo/wherever geniuses. These bright folks
work individually and in teams and 20 percent of their time is supposed
to be devoted to pursuing new technical ideas of their own. Google
founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are sure (and for good reason) that
their crew will generate in this 20 percent time thousands of ideas and
technologies that the company can commercialize for decades to come.

It is a brilliant strategy and one that would appear to be almost
foolproof. Alas, that's not so, for Google's strategy for business
immortality is fatally flawed and will ultimately kill the company.

The flaw is simple and is composed of three parts. First there are
those thousands of ideas and technologies that are being developed by
Google employees in the 20 percent of their week devoted specifically
for that purpose. That number of new ideas is far too high to be
practical and too high even to be considered safe.

Say the Google Geniuses come up with 4,000 business ideas or
technologies per year, which is probably around the current number.
Let's guess that one percent of these ideas are truly great -- boffo
ideas that one could easily build a company around. That's 40
world-beating ideas. And after the 40 absolutely top ideas, let's say
there are another 360 ideas that are pretty darned good -- certainly
good enough to pitch to the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road. The
remaining 3,600 ideas are, of course, crap, and can be forgotten by
everyone except their inventors, whom I'll get back to in a minute.

Assuming Google executives have the insight to know which of their
4,000 proffered ideas are world-class, they then have to decide which
40 to pursue. Such an assumption is giving even Google too much credit,
believe me. No matter how smart they are, issues of loyalty, prejudice,
and the odd hangover will result in some less-good ideas making it
through but mainly great ideas being eliminated. But this doesn't
really matter because the larger question is: How many good ideas can
Google pursue vigorously per year? The number isn't 40. It isn't even
20. The number of ideas that a company the size of Google can throw all
its weight behind per year is about 10, of which five will probably not
be the right ones.

Google is no different from any other big tech company in this
respect. Go to ANY Google competitor and ask top management how many
$100 million new ideas can they afford to pursue this year, not so much
in terms of money but in terms of mindshare and human resources. The
number will always be in single digits. Allowing 10 projects for Google
is giving the company the benefit of the doubt.

Google quite properly will pursue 10 projects per year and five of
those will fail both because they are expected to and also because they
were never worth pursuing in the first place. This leaves 390 orphaned
projects of which 35 are absolutely stunning but unrecognized and 355
are pretty darned good. What happens to THOSE ideas?

They fester.

Google has designed a working environment that provides almost
everything their technical people need except a guaranteed sense of
satisfaction. By design each worker is no more than 100 feet from a
bathroom or food and drink (at Google the food is always free). This
creates an environment where people tend not to go home, which
Microsoft discovered and leveraged decades ago. But nobody works every
minute they are AT work, which means the Google Geeks are constantly
talking with each other, team building, bonding, and goofing off. And
for 20 percent of that goofing-off time I'll guarantee you that many of
these people are discussing their pet projects, 99.75 percent of which
have been REJECTED by the company.

While it is possible that a few Google Geeks may talk about how
lucky they were to have been saved from their own bad idea, most of
them will take exactly the opposite approach, seeing the company as
misguided.

Now a word about stock options and vesting. Google employees get
stock options that vest over a period of four years. In any high-tech
company there is an employee change of attitude that comes with being
fully vested. At Microsoft in the 1980s some people wore buttons that
said "FYIFV," which stood for "F**k You I'm Fully Vested." At companies
that have gone public, as Google has, there is often also an outflow of
employees around that four-year anniversary. We'll see that at Google,
too, no matter how cushy it is to work there.

Google has even made it easier for its employees to leave the
company by instituting a program in partnership with Morgan Stanley
where Google employees can sell their vested, but unexercised stock
options. There are instances where the intrinsic value of a stock
option (the strike price compared to the current share price) places
those shares "under water," meaning they would appear to have a
negative value. At other companies employees who want to leave simply
walk away from these options, leaving them unexercised. But the program
at Google allows employees to sell their unexercised options for the
difference between their intrinsic (sometimes negative) value and their
"time value" -- the presumed value at the time the options expire,
typically five years after vesting. Time nearly always has value when
it comes to Google shares (the question being asked is, "Will the
Google share price be higher than it is today at any point between now
and when the options expire in X years?"). Of course the price will be
higher, so the options have positive value, often $100 or more per
share, even when the stock is down a bit.

With hundreds -- and soon thousands -- of Google employees vested
and solvent, we'll shortly see a dribble, then a river, then a flood of
former Google employees with time, money, and experience, and some of
them will have the drive to realize the dreams of those thousands of
ideas that were rejected by their former company.

Of course good ideas alone are not enough. There are always plenty
of good ideas. The real money is in taking existing ideas and twisting
the idea just far enough to make it work in a fantastic new way. Think
Google vs. AltaVista; Apple vs. all previously existing laptops and mp3
players; YouTube vs. all previously existing video sites, etc. In
addition to ideas, you need creativity, resources, connections, and
luck -- none of which appear to be in short supply among Google worker
bees.

Much of the next influx of ideas to Sand Hill Road will come not
just from former Google employees, but also from groups of former
Google employees who are planning their future companies over free
sushi and Diet Coke late at night in Google cafeterias. And based on
the quality of the thinkers and the likelihood that Google will have
missed at least half of the best ideas, the founders of the next Google
are eating yellowtail tonight.

Slashdot bookreview: Myths of Innovation (关于创新的种种误解)

The myths of innovation is about how innovation happens in the real world in companies, universities and garages around the company. The first two chapters really draw the reader in by showing the twin fallacies of the epiphany moment and the historically clean line of innovation. Learning that innovation doesn't just come as a flash, and that lots of successes have come out of copious failure encourages us to try to innovate, and to keep trying even when we believe we have failed.

This short book (147 pages of content) is presented in ten short chapters. The first two show you how anyone can be an innovator. You can think of those as the debunking chapters. The third chapter is where the author starts helping you to build some techniques to innovate. He presents how there are some reasonable methods to spur innovation and shows examples from Apple, Google, Edison, Craiglist and more.

In chapter four he shows how to overcome peoples fears of innovation and overcome the common problems with the adoption of new technologies. Chapter five, "the lone innovator", debunks the legend of, well, the lone innovator. It sounds good, and plays into our noble story of the hero, but it's not common in reality. Chapter six talks about ideas and surveys where innovators have found the ideas that they start out with. Of course, where you start is often not where you end but that's ok, since innovation is a lot more about failure than it is about success.

Chapter seven covers something I think most of us can relate to, which is that managers aren't often the innovators. Chapter eight talks about how we believe that the "best ideas always win" but that's least often the case. This sounds pessimistic, but it's actually an interesting study in how the biggest product with the most feature isn't always the best for the customer. Chapter nine, "problems and solutions", talks about framing problems to constrain the creativity and innovation. The final chapter, "innovation is always good", is at the same time the most amusing and disturbing. It covers innovations from the automobile to DDT and presents that innovation, no matter what, is always good. Agree or disagree the points are well presented.

As I say I really enjoyed this book. It's an easy read that is hard to put down. What's more it's really motivating. After reading this book you will want to dig right back into those crazy ideas lurking around in the back of your mind and give them another shot. With this book, you will have a few more tools at your disposal to turn your ideas into reality.

Perfectly broken

Earlier today I saw a wine glass standing beside the window. I thought someone left it there. Looking at the Sunshine going through the glass, it's almost perfect.

Just now, I went to the water cooler again and looked closer at it. I found it's actually broken. There is a large crack on the side of the glass.

There are so many things that looked perfect from a distance, but they are actually broken, if you look closer.

SIFF is next week!

享受待在西雅图的福气。
这里的Film Festival 还是很不错的。

原谅

今天我学到, 过去的不愉快的事, 永远不会再伤害我，除非我自己不肯把它放开。
愤愤不平的心情所造成的伤害，远比那些让人愤愤不平的事本身造成的伤害更大。

所以忘记那些事，原谅所有的伤害过你的人。生活就会更美好。

一炉多用

想足不出户, 就享受桑拿的乐趣吗?
推荐你把烤炉开到350F, 然后打开炉门。唯一的注意事项是要随时转身，要不然就成了一面焦了。

对了，为了充分利用能源，可顺便在烤炉里放几个红薯，又增添香味。（免得只有烤猪皮的味道）

a photography related poem

Poem: "American Image" by Sebastian Matthews, from We Generous.

American Image

I want to be Walker Evans
or Robert Frank setting up shots

in the street—renegades
in Brooks Brothers suits

with Leicas draped on their chests
snapping shots of the downtrodden,

of churches, bits of billboard, bored
debutantes at posh parties

you'd have to fast-talk your way into;
or aboard an ocean liner, itching

to disembark; down in the boiler room
waiting for the foreman to look away

so you can frame his profile
with an arabesque of pipes

and release valves. I'd want to be out
on assignment taking far fewer rolls

than I'm being paid for, down
south alongside sharecroppers

and the sunburnt poor—trying to steal
moments, not souls, to find the past


inside the present, catch the already
falling out of fashion.

discovering Roz Chast

Roz Chast



这幅漫画的现实意义有两重：
1）刚看完杨渡的《三两个朋友》, 讲述年轻时代的理想，如何成为泡影。
2）刚炖了一锅free range chicken的鸡汤。

Everything is a technology.

The only difference is when they were invented.
From that point of view, why should we biased towards newly invented ones?

Here is a good article on this topic:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/05/14/070514crbo_books_shapin

some cool firefox tricks

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/15-coolest-firefox-tricks-ever.html
I found the article through digg.com, which is close to slashdot. But different.

firefox tricks

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/15-coolest-firefox-tricks-ever.html


I found the article through digg.com, which is close to slashdot. But different.

New Yorker Cartoon Caption contest #98

                       

                       















                       















                   

               















               































               















               















                   















                       















                       































































































                       

                                   















































































































































































   















   















































































































































































































   















   















       















   































   















   















       































       















       































           















           















               































               















                   















                   















               































           















               































               















                   















                   















               































           































       































   































   















       















   















































                               

Entries for Contest #98, drawn by P. C. Vey, will be accepted through Sunday, May 13th.

Enter the Contest

And my entry is






Boss:  You are looking at my double right now.
John:   I am trying to figure out what he and Ms. Jones are looking for under your desk.


Check back on Monday, May 21, 2007 to vote on caption finalists.

病了，又好了

经过前几天和感冒的斗争，我终于又有力气站起来了，又可以去上班了。
总结一下：
中药吃了见效很慢，反而令肚子难受 (板蓝根，午时茶，银黄含片 )。
还是西药管用，一片见效 （Alka-Seltzer Plus）。

感冒了会影响食欲，所以多吃些软的，易消化的，比如粥，煮梨子；少吃辛辣的。


可怜的是，我好了，老板却开始打喷嚏了，//think hard, 我这几天也没见他呀？

IBM needs Second Life

Eric's comments: given that they are laying off 100k US workers, they could probably put them into the virtual world.

Newsmaker: 

IBM's virtual pioneer

Second Life is much more than a chat room--it "changes everything," says IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger.

By








Stephen Shankland





Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: December 18, 2006, 4:00 AM PST

newsmaker
Irving Wladawsky-Berger has overseen IBM's efforts to catch waves
that have swept over the computing industry--e-commerce, Linux,
open-source software, grid computing. His new responsibility: guiding
Big Blue into virtual-reality realms such as Second Life.

Wladawsky-Berger was exposed to high-end 3D visualization technology from his supercomputing background. He believes that Second Life--even
though its computing infrastructure is "painfully slow" today--is an
example of how graphical interfaces will transform how humans deal with
computers and with each other.

Rather than slowly processing information from e-mail and Web browsers,
immersive 3D environments communicate on a deeper level--what
Wladawsky-Berger describes as "broadband into our brains."

He's involved in IBM's January launch of a new business focusing on what he described as IBM's "3D Internet and virtual-world efforts."




IBM plans to open 12 new islands of Second Life
real estate to the public by Monday, and Wladawsky-Berger has high
hopes that the property will be helpful for training, meetings,
commerce and other business activities.

The only IBM site in Second Life, a mock-up of its Almaden Research Center, offers helpful pointers for Second Life
newbies who want basic control of their virtual representations, called
avatars. Tips include how to handle objects, chat with others, gaze
around a room or teleport to new locations.

The virtual incarnation of Wladawsky-Berger spent an hour in CNET's Second Life offices talking to News.com's Stephen Shankland and fielding questions from the audience.

To start, why don't you tell us what you do at IBM and how you came to be interested in Second Life.

Wladawsky-Berger: I am vice president of technical strategy and
innovation at IBM. I have been very interested in visualization for a
while now because of my association with supercomputing, where
visualization is commonly used. As game technologies have become
increasingly popular for advanced visualization, including MMOGs
(massively multiplayer online games), I have become very interested in SL.

Our brains are wired for sight and sound--that is what makes Second Life different from chat.

I have seen a lot of sophisticated visualization in science and
engineering applications, but they have not been immersive in the sense
of (having) people and avatars in the picture. The appeal of Second Life and similar environments is that they are both visual and immersive.

When I first heard about Second Life, I was skeptical that
it was more than a glorified chat room. But now having tried it, I feel
like there is a bit of a sense of place--more than just me sitting
behind a keyboard. Do you agree?

Wladawsky-Berger: Yes, totally. There is something very human
about visual interfaces. I almost think of text-based interfaces,
including browsers, as "narrowband" into our brains, whereas visual
interfaces are broadband into our brains. Our brains are wired for
sight and sound--that is what makes Second Life different from chat.

How long have you been in Second Life?

Wladawsky-Berger: I have been in it for a couple of months now. I saw
it in use for a few months beforehand, and then I took the plunge
around October or so.

Do you have an official role at IBM, trying to bring others in--either other IBM employees or others in the industry?

Wladawsky-Berger: Not really an official role, but I have been
playing a strong role in helping us start our 3D Internet and
virtual-world efforts. We are launching a new EBO in this area in
January--that is, emerging business opportunity--much like we did with Linux and grid (computing).

In the Second Life area specifically?

Wladawsky-Berger: Second Life is one of the main
areas, but not the only one. I really believe that highly visual and
collaborative interfaces will become very important in the way we
interact with all IT (information technology) applications in the
future.

This may be one of the most revolutionary changes in IT because it changes everything and transforms the applications. Second Life is a very good platform for collaboration, but there will be other styles of visual applications as well.

How will Second Life be integrated with other parts of the Internet? Right now, there's not too much overlap.

Wladawsky-Berger: It has to be integrated. We need to make it easy to
interoperate with other virtual worlds on the Internet and be able to
go back and forth between virtual worlds and Web sites in an easy way.
The problem now is the lack of standards like we had with HTTP, HTML
(languages for sending and describing Web pages), etc. We need to
create them across virtual-world platforms as well as Web sites.

You oversaw some of IBM's early work with the Internet, correct? E-commerce for example. Do you think that Second Life is just an extension of that, or is it qualitatively different?

Wladawsky-Berger: I think that virtual worlds and collaborative worlds like Second Life are a major extension to the Internet. That is what it reminds me of the most. Do you agree?

I see it as an extension--the revolution already happened.

Wladawsky-Berger: You mean the Internet revolution?

Yes, the Internet revolution. The real change was moving to online communities and virtual communication. A virtual presence.

Wladawsky-Berger: I honestly think that as we learn more about
visual interfaces, we will have another very serious revolution in
field after field and industry after industry, because changes in
interfaces invariably are followed by major changes in applications.

I'm willing to be persuaded.

Wladawsky-Berger: Well, it takes time for these things to unfold. The
tools are still very primitive. We are just learning at this stage, but
I am pretty convinced that profound changes will come in science,
business, engineering, medical, learning and training and, of course,
entertainment.

IBM's Almaden island is open to the public, and I understand that
you'll open up a dozen more in the next few days. What will Big Blue
use all those sites for?

Wladawsky-Berger: We will use them for a variety of purposes:
some internal, to hold internal meetings among people with IBM--the
"intra-islands"; some external to have meetings with clients. Some will
be for experimentation. We wanted space for all kinds of activities.

We have some audience questions that are relevant here. Gwyneth
Llewelyn asks: Can you give a good example of a "killer application"
that could be deployed by IBM inside Second Life?
I understand that internally, it's being used for employee training.
Would training or e-learning be the killer application for Second Life?

Wladawsky-Berger: For sure, learning and training will be one of the
major killer apps, but not the only one. For example, we like the idea
of creating virtual branch offices for our people in the field. Close
to 50 percent of our work force is mobile--mostly sales or field
people. That is very efficient, but it can be lonely. It would be nice
to have something like the old branch office, where people can
congregate to work, chat and just plain hang out.

usual route

title:
"Usual route" - originally published
5/4/2007

the lab couch

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