刘若英

今天听刘若英的专辑，想到一个有趣的问题。
如果有可能，你会娶一个象刘若英一样的女人为终身伴侣吗？别误会，我不是说才女嫁不出去。
只是有一种人，可以说各方面都是完美的，非常值得欣赏，但是如果从寻找结婚的对象的角度，却让人望而却步。

How TV Exploits its Audience

In a 1958 speech, legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow said about TV, "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is nothing but wires and lights in a box." Imagine if Murrow were around today with all talk shows full of hot air, vitriol and salaciousness. That box is a delivery system for media corporations to sell eyeballs, audiences, to other corporations called advertisers. That's the political economy of TV. Viewers are bombarded with ads wrapped around inane programming. The box has great potential as Murrow says, but it is barely approaching it. TV is more of a device to get people to buy things they don't really need. Sut Jhally Sut Jhally is Professor of Communications at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is the founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation and the author of The Codes of Advertising. He co-directed the critically acclaimed documentary, Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire.

crazy

hy今天说道一个同学在军队被逼疯了。我只能理智的说出如何解决眼前的问题，但是当我放下电话，觉得这个世界才是真正的疯狂。

在正常的世界中，人与人之间的关系应该是怎样？
当他人遇到不幸，我们应该伸出援手，帮助他脱离困境。

First night with Leopard

I had to admit that my expectation for Mac wasn't very high. I bought the mini mostly to save some on the power bill. But this little box really rocks.
Having been a Windows/Linux user for the past 17 years, I am totally impressed by the treat of Leopard. Whoever designed this operating system is someone who really cares about user experience.

The "Bonjour" really works seamless with my PC and linux boxes. ITune automatically discovers all the music I stored in my NAS. If there is AI in this world, I would say Bonjour is really close to AI.
Anyway after 2 hours with Leopard, I am never going back to windows, especially not Vista.

DNS-323, best thing ever (well, since iPhone)

I get a hold of a network storage server D-Link DNS-323. Just plug-in two hard-drives, and you got a raid-1 file server that can do all kinds of downloads. From now on, I won't need to keep my PC on. Just config it from a web interface.

There are all kinds of hack that can be done to this slim-box. Eventually, it can be used as a Linux server with 18 Watt power consumption.

My story with DNS-323 goes on as I spend more time with it. Like any relationship, you get bitten by misunderstanding. DNS-323 out-of-the-box was using firmware 1.03 which doesn't support Chinese filename. So when I dump my life storage on it. Those Chinese filenames got messed up. Fortunately the open source community saved my life again. And now DNS-323 is on new firmware and samba supports any unicode filename. :-)

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Another power sink at home are the 4 windows PCs, totally 8 cores. So I started looking for alternatives for them. Turns out Mac Mini has pretty low power consumption (around 23 Watt when idle, and 110 Watt at peak). That's still much better than my Windows PC. So I am going to get one.

Yeah!!! Leopard, go go.

Dealing with this ever-changing world

Many years ago, I echoes with Cui Jian's rock&roll song "This world is changing fast".
I have seen too many people looking for eternal safety haven, that just doesn't exist and have never existed.

Here is a quote of the day from Eric Hoffer:
"In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find
themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer
exists."

So keep learning, and keep yourself sharp, that's the ultimate safety you can get.

are you driving or drifting

Today I am reading the book "Now what" and the book mentioned the difference between

1) Do what you feel like to do

2) Do what you said you will do

 

The first is automatic mode that any creature will do, sit back, relax and enjoy the 77F degree sunshine. The 2nd is the self-driven mode. It usually involves hard-work, commitment and risking what you already have.

 

I think what the book is missing is an even worse mode, that is the puppy mode, where you are doing what others told you to do, following the crowd. That will give you the safety or shall we say illusion of safety.

Because let's face it, the crowd is almost always wrong. See that stock market crash? What was "the crowd" saying the day before?

 

To live a real life, one should listen to the voice within, and ALWAYS take the harder the choice instead of the easier one.

 

discovered flock

This might have been old news to many, but I am definitely thrilled.

Introducing FLOCK!

What is Flock? It's a web browser, with all the social network tools built in. Just using it as a browser was already quite impressive for me. It's fast, reliable and virus-free (so far). I am still learning all the cool features in there.

As I am writing, I am typing into a flock browser window in Flock, because AKIK, the MSN blogging functionality is in beta test. Blame MS for not introducing an API until very recently.

终极的平等

今天听Tavis Smiley Show 采访他的一个朋友Eddie Glaude , 讲到即将到来的Valentine's day，Tavis说Eddie年轻时候有一次写诗给一个他暗恋的女生，结果被那个女生嘲笑。
这个细节让我再次理解，黑人也不光是R&B和rap, 也有细腻的感情，就和所有人一样。这种通过诗来感受爱的权利，是终极的平等。

说道今年的Valentine's day, Eddie Glaude引用了一首聂鲁达的诗，摘自《100首愛的十四行詩》

你將記得那條奔躍的溪流，
在那兒甜甜的香氣上揚、顫動，
有時候飛來一隻鳥，穿著
水色和悠然：冬天的衣飾。

你將記得那些大地饋贈的禮物：
永難忘懷的芳香，金黃的泥土，
灌木叢中的野草，瘋狂蔓生的樹根，
利如刀劍的奇妙荊棘。

你將記得你採摘過的花束，
陰影與寂靜之水的花束，
彷彿綴滿泡沫的石頭般的花束。

那段時光似乎前所未有，又似乎一向如此：
我們去到那無一物守候的地方，
卻發現一切事物都在那兒守候。

Biggest Sailboat ever

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Tom Perkins, the venture capitalist behind such companies as Google, Genentech, Amazon, and AOL, doesn't do things halfway. When he collected vintage cars, for instance, he had the world's largest collection of Bugatti automobiles. And when he decided to pursue a lifelong dream and build a sailing yacht, he went the whole nine yards: He decided it would be the world's largest yacht--big enough to fit Noah's Ark on its deck. He wanted it to sail at a record 26 knots, under unprecedented physical forces. And, he thought, having built this marine wonder, why not use it to try to smash the 155--year--old world sailing record from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn?
Thus the Maltese Falcon--the largest private sailing vessel ever constructed--was born.
Perkins is a sailor as well as a dreamer, and he loves the romantic idea of sailing--and the magnificent ships of yore with names like Cutty Sark and Sea Witch that conjured up images of speed and danger. So Perkins set out to build "the perfect yacht"--as long as a football field, 42 feet wide, and with three masts so tall they will just fit under the great suspension bridges of the world. The Maltese Falcon, as he's dubbed his ship (since its home berth will be Malta), will use technology no clipper skipper ever imagined--a rig with no sheets, no stays, no halyards--just free--standing, rotating carbon fiber masts with 18 sails surging freely in the wind. At $87 million, it will be a technological marvel--as complex as the man himself. The famed Perini Navi yard in Turkey put the Falcon in the water in 2006, ready for sea trials.
There is some competition to the title of the grandest yacht of all--the Athena (being built by Netscape founder Jim Clark) and the Mirabella V (being built by Avis Car Rental magnate Joe Vittoria). Athena will be the largest sloop, and Mirabella V the largest schooner. But the Maltese Falcon will be a marvel of mechanics, engineering, and techonology, married with the romance of the age of sail, dressed out in the finest accommodations money can buy and the human mind can imagine. More than just the story of the boat, The Falcon is a broader profile of the combination of ambition, recklessness, bravado, and achievements of a 21st century entrepreneur and his time.
http://www.amazon.com/Mines-Bigger-Pe...
http://www.kpcb.com/

Life is very short, so live it with thoughts and care

There are so many meaningful things to do; so little time. Why would people waste their time on meaningless things, or even hurting each other along the way.

I have a hard time convincing myself that there is Satan in this world. But from time to time, I get indirect proof of Satan's existence.
I believe people should all be aware of him, and his various ways of attacking innocent people.

Most of the conflict is not from evil people grasped by Satan, because they are so obvious and easily avoided. It's the self-righteous people who become tools of the evil people that's most damaging. They thought their correctness is higher than anyone else's correctness; and they are willing to impose that on others by all means.

Found someone who has found IT

As I said in my testimony the purpose of this blog is to help me finding the meaning of life. Although I haven't convinced myself that I did, I happened to find someone who appeared to have found the meaning of his life.

I was looking for a visualization tool and a random link point the author of RRDtool, Tobi Oetiker. Reading his 800 words bio, I can almost see his life unfolding like a colorful yet tranquil epic.

Aside from his humor, I learned from him that happiness comes from perfecting his own craft and use the skills to contribute to the people. Of course, living in a neutral country (Switzerland) also helps a lot in finding peace.

 

WTOD: Bail out or Bale out

BAIL OUT

[Q] From Ian Woofenden, USA: “How about a segment on the phrase bail out, meaning to escape from some difficult situation? I'm guessing it is spelled that way, but I don't know why. I wonder if it was originally used for leaving an aircraft before landing, or if there is some other origin.”

[A] Presumably you’re in part unsure whether it’s bail out or bale out? In this, you join lots of other people who are unsure when to use which spelling in several of the senses of both words. Is it a bale of hay, or example, or a bail? Do you bail water out of the bottom of a boat, or do you bale it? You can easily find examples of both spellings in both these senses. When you’re referring to an emergency exit from an aircraft by parachute, or the sense you give, the position is even more complicated, because British and American usage differs.

Let’s clear the ground a bit. Bale is the correct spelling when we’re referring to a large bound parcel or closely pressed package of some substance, such as cotton, hay or paper. This comes ultimately from an old Germanic word that’s related to ball. On the other hand, when we’re clearing water from the bottom of a boat, we correctly bail it out, from French baille, a bucket. And if we’re speaking of the temporary release of a person from prison while awaiting trial, that’s bail, too, but it comes from yet a different source, an Old French word meaning custody or jurisdiction, itself from Latin bajulare, to bear a burden: when someone bails a person from prison, he’s taking on the responsibility of ensuring that the accused person will turn up for his trial. Among other senses, British readers will know that the crosspieces bridging the stumps in cricket are also called bails; this is from the Old French baile, meaning a palisade or enclosure, perhaps from Latin baculum, a rod or stick. The common figurative sense of getting somebody or something out of trouble (“the government had bailed the company out with the equivalent of 2.7 billion euros in aid”) most probably comes from the legal sense, since it usually involves paying over money.

And that hasn’t exhausted the various senses of the two words by any means. No wonder people get confused.

There’s little doubt in anybody’s mind about the legal or cricket senses: both are always bail. There’s more confusion about the “tote that bale” and “bail that boat” senses, though dictionaries are clear those spellings are the correct ones. The aircraft one is rather more of a problem, perhaps because its connection with the other senses is less than obvious. There’s little doubt from the early evidence that aviators were thinking that telling the crew to escape from an aircraft in danger was like bailing water out of a boat, the important image being that of throwing the water over the side. For example, Eric Partridge, in A Dictionary of Forces’ Slang, published in 1948, gives this as the origin. However, to muddy the waters still further, he spells the term as bale out. The Oxford English Dictionary concurs in that spelling, and suggests that people may have been influenced in spelling it that way by the image of an escaping airman being a bale or bundle thrown through the aircraft door. (Or could it be that the parachute itself was viewed as such a bundle?)

The current position is that when the idea concerns escaping from some potentially difficult situation, American English virtually always uses bail out, perhaps under the influence of the legal sense of bail. British English seems to be divided about 50:50 between that and bale out, and it’s easy to find examples of baled out in the English press: “Von Brauchitsch threw the steering wheel out of the car and baled out” (Independent, 18 Feb. 2003); “‘He was heading for a stone wall and I didn’t fancy jumping that so I baled out,’ he said after the horse had been caught and returned safely” (Daily Telegraph, 11 Feb. 2004). Most, but not all, British dictionaries give this form either as the main one or an acceptable alternative.