End of Decade Note

Today is last day of the decade. Much has happened this decade (as with any decade as people-and-things will change multiple times). The world has seen terrorism hit hard and we are still living under the cloud of terror. Much of the decade is war on terror with little success. Disasters strike with huge tsunami in Indonesia and big earthquake in Sichuan. On the other hand we have seen China propser with the spectacular Olympics and lots of advancements in technologies. We have seen the rise and fall of stocks, auto industry, bank industry, and seen unemployment pass 10%...
The world is changing.

In 2000, I hand edit HTML to do my blog now it gets easier. In 2000 I bought my LAST playstation game: Capcom vs SNK. That's it. No more games! They get too hard (and expensive) to play.

Personal note: I have changed jobs several times, mostly involuntarily due to lay off. I bought my first (and brand new) car at 2001 and seen it run and have problems and now traded-in and probaby don't have much timeline left. I have turned from single to married AND with kid! It's about time. This just need to be done in the decade of 20s, or at the 30s at the LATEST. I bought a home and have a life time of debt.

The next decade (and rest of my life) will be raising kid and maintain a living and the spotlight will be on the next generation.

The main character Kwok Jing in Condor Herores didn't get much attention in the Condor Heroes II, because the spotlight has gone to his (evil) brother's son.

In the next decade, I hope the world work hard to maintain peace and focus less on endless violence && I stay employed.

New Camcorder

I got one of these for my family for Christmas. The Flip Video Recorder.

It is a sleek video recorder slightly bigger than a typical digital camera. It makes much better videos than my (old) digital camera. It can record up to 2 hours. But yikes, it uses AA batteries? No charger? That means I need to go radio shack for rechargable batteries? Eew.

About buying camcorder, I don't want to fuss with little tapes, I want it to go straight to a computer. well nowaday there is a lot of choices for these now. And I don't want to pay a lot. This one just seems fun to own and easy to use...

Yes, easy interface, and it creates MP4 files. Sure, the program that comes with the Flip can view them.

Ok, MP3 is for music, so MP4 is for video... especially for streaming, the Flip is ideal for people who post things onto Facebook.

Let me open MP4 files by double clicking in Windows Explorer. RealPlayer comes up and say, [ding!] I can play this file if you pay me. Buy Real Player Plus. Come on. :(

Let me open it up in Windows Media Player. It simply can't play. MP4 is in the Files formats that are not supported list. Ok, I am not going to pay a lot for a muffler, nor viewing video files.

Fortunately I go to download.com and got some Codec pack and now Windows Media Player can play it.

Terrorist and Pope attack

Oh my, a plane heading to Detroit almost got blown up by a Nigerian young man on Christmas. Waita minute I thought we only have Iraq and Afganistan to worry about. Just what is on this young man's mind? What purpose is there to blow himself up along with 300 innocent people? This is the horror of terrorism. This man act on his own? I think not. Gotta be controlled by something greater, perhaps al Qaeda. Look, young man (kid), they USED you. They push you out like I push out a pawn out e2-e4.

Sure, Obama (and everyone) wants a report on why he got passed security. Just like your product manager wants to know why a certain bug is released in your code. Evil people know how to beat the system. There are just too many bags to search and scan.

It is a blessing that America hasn't been attacked since 911. Yikes, we just revealed to al Qaeda that our security system is vunlnerable!

Another news: the Pope got knocked over by a woman in red jacket! She just jumped over and knock him down. Yes, there are bishops and securities around him he still got pulled down. I wish the Pope actually knows some kung fu and fended off the attack. If one of the security able to defend the Pope with a fast reacting dragon punch or something he would be instant celebrity.

I'm glad the Pope is doing fine, but did he say something about it during his Christmas Service, like "don't worry folks I am fine." I don't think so because otherwise I would hear that in the news. Popes (and most preachers) tend to just read off prepared scripts.

On OS

Windows 7's ads are everywhere: billboard, buses, etc, featuring common people that says something like "I want it easier, and I got it." Trying to approach the regular people here, instead of techical jargons like yea you can do 64bit now.

Why bother all that advertising? PC users basically have no choice in the OS. If you buy a computer, chances are you will get Windows 7 already installed. I can't specify hey I WANT Windows 3.1 or I WANT Windows 95, probably still possible to get a Windows XP machine now.

But there is no good reason to shell out hundreds to upgrade your Windows XP to Windows 7 either. Keep using that old computer with old OS until you need a new computer.

Don't worry Windows I WILL be your customer, although I avoid to pay you as long as I can. I can't stand the one-mouse button Apple even if it is pretty. I can't stand an interface where I can't open 2 programs side-by-side. I also can't stand "Delete" meaning backspace and NO way to actually delete the way it SHOULD be doing: the mouse pointer stays and delete words after it.

I am not going through pain of making Linux work either. No one has time for that. Basic things should start working right away (like mouse moving, monitor not burning, printer driver working) when I turn on the computer and I am not hunting through HOW-TOs.

Saab dies

Here is a news item about death of Saab.

I haven't seen a Saab on the road for so long, wondering what happened to it. Oh it was sold to GM and then GM lets it die? I didn't even know GM has it.
Um, I think GM can barely handles its own line of cars why bother dealing with Saab? Saturn was designed to be new hope for GM alas it didn't catch on.

To win, you just need one good car. I've heard good praise about the Malibu, focus on that one then, market it a lot! Lines and lines of worthless cars is just bad business.

My fellow Americans, mediocrocy just doesn't cut it!

Hybrid Cars

I predict one day all cars would be hybrid and gas cars will be a thing in the past. The world's fuel supply is depleting fast; fuel-efficient car is the way of the future. Gas car will be gone like dot matrix printers.
However, I am not so sure if everyone will park in their garage with their cars plug into wall outlet like you would with your electric toothbrush. I can't forsee that happening yet.

The Prius is cool looking, but it is a few thousands more than the size-comparable Corolla. How many tanks to fuel to make up that? You may have sold your car already before you have some savings. Even for environment's sake many people won't shell out that money to buy a environmental friendly car.

Another car I looked at is the Honda Insight. Good looking and good price! But YIKES what the heck is up with the rear seat? If you are above 5'7" you won't be so comfortable, probably as little room as the Beetle. Come on (E.)Honda, I expect you can do better than that!

Another one is the Chevy Volt. This is the opportunity for Americans to buy American if this is done right. Ok, it isn't even launched yet. I saw some concept pics, yikes it is ugly, looking almost like a 60s muscle car. Whoa, $7500 tax credit? STILL will cost you $32,500. and I thought the Prius was just a tad more expensive than what I want to pay. This is bound to fail, Chevy.

Here is what people want: a great eco-friendly car, reasonably sized, cool-looking design and reasonably priced. The Prius is almost there. The price must come down a bit more in order for a economy booming car-change revolution to take place. Unfortunately, I haven't seen an American car making this happening.

If ink jet printers and laser printers are a few hundred dollars more than the noisy dot matrix printers, we would still be hearing the long-time-no-hear sound of the dot matrix, or the even more noisy daisy wheel.

Wacky C#: the ?? operator

The "??" is an operator. Yuck. Ugly syntax. What is in the mind of the designers??
See here for details.

Sure it doesn't encourage readable code. It IS ok to use an if statement for more readable code, or use the good old "?:". I can comprehend 1 question mark, but not multiple.

You decide which is more readable
1. foo ?? bar
2. (foo == null) ? bar : foo
3. (foo != null) ? foo : bar

"var" ought to stay in Javacript and Pascal

Strongly typed language is an evolution step forward. Ok, in reality, there is only ONE type: bits and bytes. See, it is abstraction that makes programming easier. In there beginning there are number type, then string type aand of course now structs and all sorts of classes that built upon strong types.

Perhaps a decade ago there is COM in Microsoft thing and all these variant types, types are no longer so explicit. Yuck.

Look at this thing in C#. The implicit variable declaration var. C# stole this from javascript! Look, javascript is a script, intended just to add some power to plain o HTML. It is ok to have weaker types there.

"var" is of course the variable declaration section of Pascal. VB stole so many things from Pascal.
For example, Dim i as integer looks just like var i: integer?

I see 0 advantage of the "var".

C# has even more fun construct: the lambda.

Documentation: Javadoc vs MSDN

Javadoc was the revolutionary documentation tool that Sun themselves used to generate documentation for its API. Brilliant idea of the comment /** */ that anybody can use to generate their own documentation.

Ok, later on that annotation thing @ got into java and alas annotation has got into the language and (polluted the simplicity of Java since 1.5.

On the Microsoft programming world there is MSDN. Sure MSDN, contains a lot of info but it is inferior compared to javadoc in presentation quality. Javadoc is so clear about what's in a package, and what are the fields, methods of a particular class.
MSDN has that too but isn't so clearly layed out. (Javadoc wins)

Most of MSDN has sample code too, but yikes, sometimes those are too long and too complex to demonstrate a concept, sometimes the sample code is incomplete, formatted incorrectly and just too big too wild.

Ok, java API lacks sample code, but you can almost google any Java thing in question for an example.

When Microsoft copies Java into C# how come it doesn't copy this useful feature?

* * *

Waita minute, C# actually can generate documentation, but not good old HTML but XML.
(Did I say how much I hate XML?)

Here is the MSDN documentation. Some of the links on this page are BROKEN!
Look for /doc for documentation generation.

The world's biggest software monopoly can't even maintain its own documentations.

杯水車薪

Here is a good use of "杯水車薪", in a news item about the climate summit. Who is going to give up profit for good of mankind? Will such meetings ever accomplish anything. Even if the president signs something is it really going to help the environment?

A carload is on fire, and you got 1 cup of water.

The world can only be saved if people are financially motivated to reduce CO₂. How? reward industry with $ for improvement? If I know I would be the speaker a the conference.

I live near a park and in there. Once upon a time, there was a recycle bin. I dump used plastic bottles in there. Whoa! One day it is gone! I am now forced to dump it as regular trash. Who stole it?! Should I ask Daley to give the park another one?

My (new) workplace has such bins, but whoa! people put regular trash in there too! HOW DARE. If I am the office manager I FIRE anyone who misuses recycle bins.

Want to attend Harvard?

I saw this ad on the CTA:



That lady in traditional clothing seems to be learning computer graphics on C++. That cout thing... that matrix, and the wording that says "digital media art."

cout is a unique beast of C++. No other languages have this << pipe thing. printf of C makes a comeback in the latest Java.
cout writes to the console. The computer class this lady is taking is a toy class that teaches you basic things but charges you hefty tuition. Graphics apps ought to jump out of that console.... In a semester or two, your school (even Harvard) isn't going to teach you some Windows API or Unix graphical environment API to draw cool things, but merely teach you some theories. Matrices is such important tool for computer graphics.

To most people, computer graphics means rocking great things you see in movies. Schools in a semester or two can't teach you that. It can teach you foundations such as turning 3D into 2D and that mathematics is too tough for most people. Bezier curves, I am sure, will scare the daylight out of most people.

Another meaning of computer graphics is able to tweak pictures with difficult-to-use programs such as Photoshop. I suppose the guys who tweak with photoshop does not need to know the math behind Bezier curves.

So is it a rewarding experience to take a class or two in software engineering and computer graphics? yes.

Are you going to find computer graphics work just by knowledge obtained in the classes? no.

Computer graphics work (there are almost non-existent) means very good art skills and able to use those that professional graphics memory-hog software. It means ultra smart programmers who are much better than the average guy doing database and simple web programming.

That matrix stuff are very interesting math topics, however, modern computer graphics engines such as OpenGL actually does all that work for you and your less math capable classmates don't have to know any of that.

Classical Gem for a few bucks

Babies demand feeding every few hours around the clock, they don't care if it is 2AM and again on 5AM. One thing that may help them and beautifying your baby room scene is the sweet lullaby sound. Classical music is great for that. I found a great gem Baby Einstein Lullaby Clssics for just a few dollars at the department store. Beautifully done. These are truly classics. It takes tremendous coordinations of an orchestra to make this happen (or is it done on some high tech computers?). Most people take classical music for granted, such as using it for space filler on that on-hold phone call. If given opportunity, everyone should learn a musical instrument or two so that music, and great classics can be appreciated.

Word 2007 Equation Editor

My first reaction with Microsoft Word 07 was: Argh! where are the menus! I can't even go Help->About* to reveal what the heck I am using.

Look, I used Microsoft Word since 2.0 on Windows 3.1 and it had menu since. The very fact that Windows is better than DOS is the menus. Without "File" how the heck am I going to open anything. Ok, that Microsoft button is for that purpose. Modern Windows also have that Microsoft button in lower left corner for your Start button. Confusing isn't it? It will take a while to get used to the new menu system. However, if you have NEVER used any previous Microsoft Word, perhaps you will actually LIKE the new organization.

My favorite new feature is the equation editor. It is so easy now to enter an equation. Math teachers would love it to author tests. My high school teacher used to hand write an integral symbol or a summation sigma on an early word processor. Sure, previous Word versions has equation writer but it was such hassle to use, and most likely you don't have that installed. Click on that Equation dropdown in 07 I see a bunch of familiar and well known equations.

Ah, but I'm not so familiar with this Trig Identity.



I remember (and most have probably forgot) the addition formula and the double angle formula. I just don't recognize this one. Is it really necessarily to write the familiar simplified expression in LHS to become more ugly in RHS?

Rest assured students: you probably don't need to know this identity. But do remember this: sin²θ + cos²θ = 1, for any θ (why?)**

Among the sample equations in Word is e^x. Isn't that great looking? (How do we get that? dig out your calculus book's section on Taylor Series). This e^x is also the only function that can boldly say: derivatives! I am not afraid of you!


*To get to the About screen, now we do Microsoft button->Word Options->Resources->About button. This is definitely not intended for you to go there often.

**The Pythagorean Theorem. Don't trust me? play on your calculator to verify sin²θ + cos²θ = 1 (I don't care if you are in degree or radian mode).

Chicago Tribune Redesign

Yesterday I saw a copy of Chicago Tribune lying around. I haven't read a paper of Tribune for a while, so I decided to pick it up and flip around. Oh, it opens sideways like Sun Times! Gone are the original top down layout!
The layout has changed since when? Oh it has been like that for a couple months. Did people complain the original layout?

Why justifies the layout change? Does it cost money to redesign and get new machines to crank those out?
Don't you want to be different from Sun Times? The fact that I don't notice the layout change for a few months means I never even buy the paper in either format. Sad (old) news for the newspaper industry: nowadays people get news on the web.

Chess Titan

I remembered Windows 3.1 come with a few games: Solitare, Mineweeper. Later version came with Hearts. Good addition! Then there are more solitaire like games (which are a bit boring). Later, games jump out to 3D and there was Space Cadet Pinball! Nice.

Vista added Chess Titan. Of course, chess is THE all-time classic board game.
I am glad this now comes with Windows so it can be enjoyed by even more people. I suppose Microsoft wanted to show Window's new 3D capability with this.
Recently I played it on Windows 7. I am glad there are difficulty settings from 1 to 10. It won't be so fun if I lose all the time. I am a very amateur player (and probably will always be).

I am able to beat level 6 a couple times (I haven't tried higher levels yet). The statistics screen say how many games I win and how many games I play. It didn't say "How many games you lost". That's nice :)

I have a few minor suggestions.
1. That board can spin nicely, how come it doesn't let the player to spin around the board for fun?
2. How come there are no move list? Expert players go back to study their moves and see what mistakes they made.
3. I'd like a few more choices of chess set scheme.
4. I'd like a Hint mode to suggest move (for players who can't decide what to do next)
5. No chess clock? (Expert players use this, but I never think more than 30 secs per move)


Some chess games are too hard for me even at the easiest setting.
For example, this iGoogle gadget beats the heck out of me even at level 0 and even I take back multiple times.

Wacky C#: yield return

Right off from the canonical "C# Language Specification".

static IEnumerable Range(int from, int to) {
for (int i = from; i < to; i++) {
yield return i;
}
yield break;
}
static void Main() {
foreach (int x in Range(-10,10)) {
Console.WriteLine(x);
}
}

What the heck is "yield return"? The purity of return statement is whacked. It seems each yield return is for each of the items in that IEnumerable.

I saw this example too, in another place, where Fib is of course the (fabulous) Fibonacci numbers:

public static IEnumerable Fib(int a, int b)
{
yield return 1;
yield return 1;
yield return 2;
yield return 3;
yield return 5;

}

static void Main()
{
foreach (int i in Fib(1, 5))
{
Console.WriteLine("{0} ", i);
}
}

I'll list more wackiness when I see them

Weight conversion

American medical professionals have dual modes in weight and measurement. When they are at work, they use metric, when they are out of work, they use the old British system that British themselves abandoned. So my baby has a whiteboard that has his weight... and today he is at 2000g! Gee, I failed to comprehend this number. Ok, 1 kg is about 2.2 pounds... 4.4 pounds is 4 lb and how many ounce? Ok, the 16 oz in a pound is not so easy to convert. Sure go to the web you say? They give me decimal pounds, not pound and ounce. Gee I need to write my own code.


<form name="theform">
grams: <input type="text" name="grams">
<input type=button name="btnConvert" value="Convert" onClick="javascript:doConvert()">
<div id="result"></div>
</form>

<script language="Javascript">
//1 gram = 0.0352739619 ounces
function doConvert() {

var ounce = (document.theform.grams.value-0)*0.0352739619;
var lb = Math.floor(ounce / 16)
var remain = Math.round(ounce % 16)

var result = document.getElementById("result");
result.innerHTML = lb + "lb "+remain+" oz"
}
</script>


I AM smarter than a 5th grader

I bought an authentic "Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader" game at TJMax's discount bin for just $5. It has 3D images of students and Jeff Foxworthy and a 3D studio that you can view around, and of course a lot of questions. I won! I AM smarter than a 5th grader.



Ok, I have to admit sometimes I don't win, I may even flunk out with $0.

The million dollar topic was English, and the question was:

What kind of verb is "grow" in the following sentence:
"The flowers grow."

The million dollar question has no kids to help you and no multiple choices. Are YOU smarter than a 5th grader?

I love that theme song, that purity of kids singing is so great.

Ok, you can also play online here.

* * *

Going to a job interview is like playing that game, LUCK is involved in the type of questions you get.

I am a FATHER

I am now a proud new father!

I haven't ask permission of baby so I won't post his pics here.
I am not going to put his pics on things like Facebook either. That is too public.

I think baby pics should not be tossed around in public on the internet. I will only send pic if someone I trust requests.

Who reads this don't-really-have-a-theme blog?
I don't have any web analytic, you may land on this blog on some random search.

Girl found with amnesia

Here is an interesting news. A girl found in New York who don't know who she is.

Ok, elderly folks suffering from Parkinson's diseases may actually forgot who they are and how to get home. But for a teenage girl? This is news to me.

Perhaps she is hiding something? How about let's put her in hypnosis, then ask her?

I tend to think a much more fun idea: this girl is from the future or outer space, warping here from somewhere. Waita minute, even if that's the case she should know who she is. Hmm, perhaps she is illegal immigrant? Oh well, this news item will drop off "Top Stories" lists very soon, replaced by one of the following categories

1) Endless political fights 2) tough situation in Afghan/Iraq 3) Reckless killers leaving behind bodies 3) helpless against H1N1. 4) jobless claims numbers go up or down beyond clueless estimators' numbers from thin air.

Sun cuts jobs

Here is news about job cuts in Sun. Oh is Oracle buying Sun? Yes it is. Ok, I must have lived under a rock.

Sorry, Sun. I used java since its debut in 1995. I didn't pay you a dime. I did pay you $150 x 2 for each of that certification tests, that's about it.

But yikes, I paid your arch rival Microsoft many times in authentic copies of Windows when it came with my machines...

The Strange Job Market

Something is fundamentally wrong with the way people place job ads and search jobs.

First of all, people don't put the company name out.
In a sensible world, you would see "HELP WANTED - waiter" poster at the window of a restaurant, or a classified ad that says "HELP WANTED - Planet Pizza - waiter". Potential waiters knows exactly which restaurant to work with and apply if interested.

However, what I see is third party recruiters that says "My pizza restaurant client is looking for waiters, if interested, call Pizza Waiters" ads. Why is Planet Pizza so shy to put their own ads out? Why pay the middle man?

Another strange happening is there can be more than 1 pizza waiter recruiters putting out the same ad for Pizza Planet. Though wording may not exactly the same.
So if you see 5 ads, they may all point back to just 1 ad.

More strange happening is that Planet Pizza will post ad, along with third party recruiters posting for the same job too. My theory is this, the pizza recruiter would call Planet Pizza that says "hey, i got a pizza waiter" and try to sell the body to Planet Pizza. I prefer contacting Planet Pizza directly.

This is non-sense. Why can't just Planet Pizza place their own ads? Potential waiters would then know exactly which restaurant to work for. Planet Pizza also does not need to pay the third party recruiters. Win-Win.

Remove the middleman. Direct is better.

Open Source vs Microsoft

If you are doing programming for a living, chances are: you are using Java or using .NET.

Java is really about open source (and free) things. You can download the SDK, download IDE (Eclipse most likely), and you download everything else, including database (such as MySQL, HSQL), even your servers (Tomcat, JBOSS, etc). You didn't pay anyone.

But wait, there's more. You can download all sorts of frameworks, and all sorts of libraries from Apache. That impressive list of stuff keeps changing. I am sure everyone has hard time to keep up.

Waita minute folks, if it is open source, do you MUST know it? do you MUST use it?
Ok, ANT helps you make builds (pretty much with a batch file written in XML), something else came up: Maven, do you must use it? See, you will forever be SLAVE to open source.

One time I was denied a job interview, reason being "this guy do not have a lot of experience with open source things". Now that is an outrageous reason. Open source things can be downloaded and studied, but I am fortunately unlike you who is a slave to that. What one should look for is programming skills, not obsession.

If it is popular, does it make sense? Are you really sure using some wacky open source query language and crank out objects per table && XML description tables is actually better than the tried-and-true SQL? Oh well, go ahead get obsessed, your clueless company is willing to pay you $ to play with it.

My 2 cents about open source: experiment with those things, see if it fits your need. If so then use it, the goal is to make things help you. i.e. make it your slave. Not being a slave to it. Java is great for those who want freedom from the giant Microsoft.

Microsoft of course is the arch rival of everyone else making less $. Its one .NET platform, many languages is really redundant. VB has to be upgraded very significantly to work with .NET. Its difference with C# is really syntactical superficial. I am sure someone can write a code translator and convert between C# and VB.NET verbatim easily. The Visual Studio IDE makes it so easy to connect to DB and one can crank out a web application so fast. But I don't like the way it does AJAX. AJAX is really easy. Write an asynchronous call and wait for it to come back and then you do something with it. That's it!. Microsoft wraps it with so many layers. Visual Studio is so powerful, but it does come with hefty price tag but you can download trial version.

Java and Microsoft play catch ups. Java got portlets? Microsoft got Web Parts. Java got MVC frameworks? Microsoft now plays with its own MVC.

Which is better? You decide. But a programmer should not be bounded to a particular tool.

I have a dream, that one day programmers are not judged by mere experience with a particular (perhaps obscure) tool, but by programming skills and ethics. I have a dream, that interviewers don't ask obscure questions, but rather judge someone on their ability to learn.

Nobel Suprise

Mr. Charles Kao won 1/2 of the nobel prize on Physics on his work on fiber optics.
See here or any Chinese newspaper for details. I have watched some TV documentary about him some years ago, as far as I know, fiber optics is making super thin fiber from glass so light can go through through reflection (and transmit data). Technology today owe a lot to his work. Waita minute, he worked on this how many years ago? MANY. Unfortunately he has Alzheimer's disease now, can't remember any of that stuff. This award comes so late? Only now he gets recognized (and only half of the prize).

In contrast, Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, he was surprised himself. Sure, he has done some beginning work in trying to maintain peace, but we are not there yet (a long way to go). Even if there is peace, to be consistent with Mr. Kao, should Obama be in 70s to get that prize? Some say this award for Obama has weakened the meaning of the Nobel Peace prize, and I agree.

All in One Printer

I have lived without a printer for many years, how often do you need to print anything?

Most people prefer reading on a screen anyway. But there are times that you do need to print, such as a coupon, or just some personal things.

I bought a printer, an HP Photosmart. The catches for modern printers are 1) inks are expensive, won't be cheaper than 29 cents per copy unless you print a lot 2) no cables provided. Well, you don't need cable if you have a wireless network. The big wide printer cables are things in the past, nowadays it is USB, both are expensive(!)

It is hard to find a regular printer now. Modern printers are all-in-one; they can copy and scan too.

The catch is: copy means scan it and then print it on a inkjet, not quite as fast and crisp like a xerox machine.

Modern printers can print photos without a computer. I like that.
I like this HP because interface are intuitive. Some printers give me wheels to spin and very few buttons like a phone with soft keys.

Fibonacci Jacket

The beauty of Fibonacci deserves a jacket
http://www.mathstyle.com/sc/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=19&idproduct=28.

Sybase guys know this number. Hmm, they used to include that spiral in their logo.

But yikes, I am NOT going to pay $300+.


The most fun numbers that I know of are π, the golden ratio φ and e... There must be other very fun things out there, but may be too hard for me to comprehend.

Tour de Flex

Flash has revolutionized the web from plain old HTML... but it wasn't so easy to learn. 1. the tool isn't free, 2. it seems so graphic oriented, it isn't write-compile-run like the typical programmer is used to.

Flex is a very cool Rich-Internet-Application tool. It is not so new anymore, now in version 3 (soon version 4). It also creates SWF files. What I like about Adobe is that it encourage you to learn its tools, with tutorials nicely available and Flex doesn't look so hard to learn. Its compiler is free, yea, the Flex Builder will cost you some money but you don't have to have it.

See the Tour de Flex to see its features.

It is much like HTML combined with javascript, so the web programmer should find it fairly easy to master. It's got all sorts of animation things that are hard to do built in, such as fading, glowing, zooming, etc

It is NOT just a sandbox like java applets, it can communicate to other urls or webservices, making rich application possible...

What's wrong with this chess set?

I saw the Barnes and Nobles' classic wooden chess set. (Here is the link).
Hmm, seems like a good looking set that is reasonably priced.

But what's wrong with the package?


This photographer NEVER played chess. The lower right hand corner should be WHITE!
I have seen more than 1 set that has the wrong set up.

Though I think an elegant chess set is a nice-to-have item, but no one plays with me && I can't afford a very elegant set.

Studying Spring

Just got the book Spring in Action. Short term goal is to read it and understand it. Spring/Hibernate is now a must have skill for Java developers. No Spring => no work => starvation.

Yes, there are plenty of resources on the web, but nothing beats in depth discussion on paper.

Spring has been around for a while and introduces 2 buzz terms: Aspect Oriented Programming and Inversion of Control. But the real accomplishment is acceptance. People want it.

Opinion: In the ideal world, there should be NO XML configs. Everything can be configured using a UI tool. Perhaps someone (ME perhaps) should come up with it and further simplify programming.

The Mαth βook

This Mαth βook is an awesome work. It is one-page-a-topic, listing milestones of discoveries. It is colorful and well laid out. Of course, given one page a topic, it can't go a lot in depth. This is a perfect gift item for math enthusiasts. I have only heard of perhaps half of what's in there when I skimmed through it.

Math does not have to be boring. Colorful pages helps. When is the last time you saw a colorful math book?

Real math often demand only 1 color: the chalk on the board (and often ugly looking notations and equations)

Goodbye Sam

Sad news: Patrick Swayne died. This is the news link.

I rarely watch any movies. Ghost was memorable and just was very very good.
You are a legacy, Mr. Swayne. His quote: "My work ... is my legacy."

Do YOU have a legacy item?

When human go, they want to leave behind name (legacy). Sparrows go, they leave behind their sound. 人去留名,雁去留聲

Virus Attack and Registry Corruption

A long time ago I may have got a boot sector virus and other evil things. McAfee is quite worthless (ok, although not completely worthless). It simply isn't adequate.

So I went to a list of free anti-virus software to see if anything that is free and effective.

I tried one of the anti-virus product AVAST. After I installed it, it whacked my IE.
I can't open IE, it says there are permission issue. Fine! I don't need IE. Firefox works for me. Then later on I *HAVE TO* use IE for a site that I must go to, ok, I'll try to fix it by installing new IE8. Nope, can't. Same permission issue. Then I clicked on the help html for IE8. ooh it tells me to clean my registry with a command. Ok I obey. I *trust* Microsoft. So Start->Run and paste in the command. It says it is cleaning up the registry... Then it says there is an error and must restart. Ok, fine, restart.

Then BOOM. Can't start Windows anymore. BLACK screen of death, just the mouse pointer can move. Safe mode you say?, BLUE screen of death with the error below:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0XF7C9B524,0XC0000034,0X00000000,0X00000000)

Safe Mode with previous working setting you say? BOOM. BLACK screen of death.

The theoretical solution of course is follow more crap such as
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=307545

How can I trust it? I am NOT going to follow! What will I do to the crippled machine?

I will buy a hard disk enclosure, back up the files I need on another computer, and do a clean new install on the crippled one! It is good that the file system isn't broken, just the windows registry.

Lessons Learned
1. Back up often, especially when you suspect you have virus.
2. Save your install CDs
3. Use something better than McAfee

Yahoo! Mail and workaround

I have been using yahoo mail for years. I like it most out of hotmail, yahoo and gmail. However, recently yahoo mail is SLOW. no, don't blame yahoo but blame on those who put ads. These guys put heavy flash things that crashes my browser.

Fortunately there is a workaround: use igoogle, add a Yahoo Mail gadget.

You can read yahoo mail WITHOUT yahoo (and annoying ads). Ok, I have minor complain of the Times News Roman font otherwise I like it.

Portal: beauty of programming a page: 1 chunk at a time.
I used to do JSR168 Portlets for a living.

Joy of ...

Ever since "Joy of Sex", people come up with Joy of this and Joy of that books, such as Joy of Cooking. One math book I saw was "Joy of Sets". The author must be thinking of the first "Joy of" book I mentioned above when writing that.

Recently I saw an advertisement on a magazine: the Joy of Mathematics. It is some lectures on DVD. Ok I have not seen it myself and I can't tell you how good or bad it is. But this ought to be on TV! The only math program I ever see are ADULTS learning fractions.

Perhaps most educated in math agree that one of the most fun number series is the Fibonacci numbers (and the relationship to the golden ratio &phi). This author even came up with this:

I think Fibonacci is fun;
We start with a 1 and a 1.
Then 2, 3, 5, 8,
But don't stop there, mate!
The fun has just barely begun.

Ok, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. add previous two numbers to get the next one, just what so fun about it?

The fun is.... as n grows large, divide any pair of neighbors, it.. it will reach the golden ratio (1+sqrt(5)) / 2! Well, what's so golden about the golden ratio? MANY. Even Mona Lisa was based on it. There are many book length discussions of this number (um, some of these books contain a lot of fluff). See this list on Amazon if you don't believe me.

My book devoted a few pages on it.

Good tutorial

Most technical computer books today talk talk talk and only offer really brief real info at hefty price and huge paper waste. Fortunately there are good people that put out good tutorial. Bookstores itself is shrinking marketplace (how sad). I will not buy a book unless I actually flipped through the papers and like its presentation. $ is a terrible thing to waste.

Found another good tutorial for skills that people want to hire: Spring, Hibernate, etc: http://www.vaannila.com/.

Spring looks promising, especially if there are plugins to generate stuff. In ideal world, no one should mess XML by hand. Spring+Hibernate seems to be easier than hibernate itself.

But more important question is: what do you gain by object-orienting databases using wrappers? You will have endless nightmare with XML fighting to make it crank out the query you want.

World Population

Article in CNN says world population will soon reach 7 billion.

People should think: am I going to be able to afford the children before having them. For outrageous expensive cost of living and health care that's why USA has so few people.

But the most alarming is the last paragraph

By 2050, India is projected to be the world's most populous nation at 1.7 billion, overtaking current leader China, which is forecast to hit 1.4 billion. The United States is expected to reach 439 million for No. 3 on the list

Look at the size of map in China vs India: whoa you can imagine how packed India would be.

What a big gap between second place and third place!

瑜 vs 亮

You may remember that 夏雨 came up with the phrase 有口也是和，無口也是禾, meaning 大家要和和氣氣。 in 《溏心風暴》.
This is actually a spin off of a famous poetry competition of 周瑜 vs 諸葛亮

See this link for details.

This is a big game of 形聲字!

Elements of a winning restaurant

This weekend I visited two new restaurants.
Both restaurants have good interior design, ok, one of them has rather too luxurious design.

Yikes, both restaurants fail to make me come a second time.
1. food from both of these are bad. Come on, I come not to eat your designs, but your food. Some way too salty and some under-marinated. TASTE it yourself and determine if you want to pay money for this first.

2. unskilled waiters. You do not take orders using my table as writing pad. One waiter even delivered stuff to the wrong table.

3. wrong words in menu indicate lack of any knowledge of food industry or your own written language.

Oh, and you don't have printed menus for me to take home? (You're not ready for opening then) Also, all Chinese/Asian restaurants should give chopsticks. For example, My Thai only give you chopstick when you ask for it (they pull it from their pocket). I WANT chopsticks in Chinese restaurants and I shouldn't need to ask. If you are going to serve egg roll, give me sweet and sour sauce (I don't have to remind you)

The elements of winning restaurants are
1. good atmosphere. If you are not comfortable, I am not comfortable. Set temperature at 70°F. Outrageous cold isn't getting you anywhere: you just pay more. Keep it clean. Ok, new restaurants pass this criteria.
2. food. Focus on a handful of items that you are GOOD at, have a special dish that nobody else is as good as you. If you have 100 items on your menu and you have 1 chef you are not going to be able to fill your orders. Work on the taste. It must taste good to earn my $10 if you put such price tag.
3. have experienced staff. Remember people come for service.

Running a restaurant is easier said than done.

All American Tragedy

This is a horrible piece of news about grandfather shooting wife and grandchild.

"This was an all-American family" says the police. The article ends with "All I know is ... depression. Who knows?"

Look, guns in the house can lead to family violence, whatever reason it may be, "who knows?". This really is an all-American tragedy. If a burglar comes in, let him take the cash and call the police ok? Not very likely you can defeat a well prepared burglar anyway. (He is in the LIGHT, you are in the DARK)

Gun control will never proceed in congress because congressman are supported by guys who are pro guns. Congressmen cannot afford to lose their votes. We can simply HOPE gun violence doesn't happen to you.

JSP vs JSTL

JSTL is java standard tag library. Trend of modern programming: it is not cool if it does not look like XML. (I beg to differ).

I found an excellent book covering features of Java. This is what copied right of there, about JSTL:

Using scriptlets <html> <head> <title>simple example<title> </head> <body> <% for(int i=0; i<5; i++) { %> <%= i %> <br/> <% } %> </body> </html> The above JSP code is hard to read and maintain.

Using JSTL tags <%@ taglib prefix=”c” uri=”http//java.sun.com/jstl/core”> <html> <head><title>simple example<title></head> <body> <c:forEach var=”i” begin=”1” end=”5” step=”1”> <c:out value=”${i}”> <br/> </c:forEach> </body> </html> The above JSP code consists entirely of HTML & JSTL tags (in bold).

About the comment in the left: I BEG TO DIFFER.
Look, JSP looks like java, and it should be.

Lost of Math Section

At Borders on State street, on 3rd floor, there used to be a small bookshelf dedicated to mathematics. Some are study guides (practice problem books), some are "All You Ever Need To Know About Math" books with very elementary school stuff, some are very advanced stuff that I can hardly make any sense of. (Yes, for most people, elementary school stuff is really all you need)

A few weeks ago I went there all the books are gone, the shelf is there with a sign saying "this section is under re-arrangement" or something like that. A few days ago, the shelf is totally gone, replaced by a bench. Looks like they simply get a carpenter and turn the shelf into the bench. I can't find the math section anymore. It is gone. Oh, are the books in the discount bin? Nope, didn't see either.

That means there are so few customers for that section that the bookstore decide to eliminate it. Oh well. I'll look elsewhere.

Outrageous Corruption

Here is shocking news to me about big-scale corruption in New Jersey. These guys are "washing money", black marketing kidney and more.

Is it tip of iceberg?

Some guys are just greedy and evil.

Excellent Spring Tutorial

Java programming on the web used to be simple and you can have lots of freedom: create your own servlets and jsps. Every programmer should know the MVC pattern (at least know how to talk about it in an interview)

People want frameworks, that usually means a single entry servlet. XML configuration so that it will direct to your controller class. Your controller class feed some data, and the view worries about how to display it.

Spring is a popular framework, but yikes it has a lot of things and looks tough to master.

Fortunately, I found an EXCELLENT tutorial!
http://maestric.com/doc/java/spring

Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen

I finally get to see the new Transformers movie. Before the movie, what I've heard is this: it is just Megan Fox running around and nobody even would care about robots clash. Well it wasn't that bad.
Actually I think it is better than the first movie. The first movie has so many useless human characters. This time the humans have better chracters. Yes, this movie's storyline is a lot of nonsense.

The first movie was all about the "All Spark" cube, this time we have the leadership matrix! Yikes, this matrix looks like a boomerang or some sort, or the symbol of a hurricane, oh and this thing is not inside Prime?

Yes, a lot of actions take place but it is so hard to see who is fighting whom when all look like scrap parts. Look at the original cartoons! The transformers do not look like scrap metals.
The autobots have a symbol and the Decepticons have a symbol: they are clearly marked. Ouch they just have to kill Optimus Prime in the movie. It is wrong for Prime to go alone in that forest scene (Prime should know better). Primes' death deserves slow motion, and tears of Daniel in 1986 movie and the shaking head of Perceptor. The music of the 1986 movie was so remarkable. New movies neglect that.
I am so glad that Prime came back alive. I would be depressed for two years until the next movie if he doesn't come back.

The autobots
There are SO FEW autobots in the movie! Yikes, don't blow up Arcee! Besides Bumblebee and Prime there are two annoying idiots who follow Bumblebee. That's about it. Come on! There should be more autobots. The movie guys don't get it: the autobots is a great team, each one has its own powers and characteristics, along with a caring and powerful prime.

The bad guys
"The Fallen" is roughly equivalent to the Quintessons? It is a prime? Come on! "Prime" is the title of the autobot leader! They misused this sacred title. Megatron in this movie has no character. Starscrem is so ugly.
What makes the Decepticons evil is that they can be hostile to each other, what about Starscream's never ending desire to overthrow Megatron? I don't see that in the movie. Yikes Devastator looks so ugly like an ant-eater! Deavastor should be BIG and FEARSOME.

The humans
The military guys in the first movie runs around for nothing in the first movie, and of course, human weapons are supposedly useless against the Transformers. After all, why do you need the autobots if you can fight the Decepticons yourself? This time the human weapons have got much better. But the movie guys don't get it: we want to see Autobots fight the Decepticons. Stay out of the way.
Mikaela is beautiful, and her lipsticks never run out of color. Sam's classmates are beautiful too(except that Decepticon girl)! You will never find this many pretty girls in Astronomy 101. How come my university does not have this many pretty girls :)
Yikes, a decepticon can transformed into a girl? This is so wrong! Look: the them is Robots in Disguise, in the form of cars, trucks, even radio, or planes, not girls.

We want straight answers, candidate for Supreme Court

News is all over the first hispanic candidate for the supreme court.

The constitution's Check and Balance system demands senate approval of the president's pick. So senators ask her questions, straight questions: such as what is your view on abortion? She side stepped and side stepped. (like playing the games like Tekken or Soul Edge). Come on!

Well Obama didn't ask? Well the rest of the nation ask.

No straight answer => a no to nomination, if I can vote

CNN's list of Best Place to Live

Let's see how Chicago compares with the Best Places to Live
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2009/snapshots/PL1714000.html

Yikes, our job growth is so low, yikes our reading and math scores are so low!
Yikes our crime is so high!

Urumqi Unrest

There are currently riots in Urumqi, the western minority city of China.
The name sure doesn't sound so Chinese isn't it? because it is not the Han ethnic group who mostly live there. These "Chinese" have Turkish origin.

This unrest seems pretty major, but is not a top story of CNN, which only contain things that Americans are interested in.

You may read about the details in Time, or read about it in some other news

Frequently there are separatists, unjust arrests, riots, revenges.... there are never ending conflicts. No way Beijing will allow any part of China to separate. Can we live peacefully together?

Goodbye Michael

I only watched some of Michael Jackson's memorial service on CNN during lunch at my workplace yesterday.
Oh, Michael Jackson has a 11-year old daughter? I wasn't even aware.
I am sure her speech touched the heart of millions.

No doubt, Michael Jackson is the king of pops. No one even come close to his achievement. His songs, videos, performances in the 80s are just too excellent. His music shred all boundaries across regions and across ethnic backgrounds.

But after the 80s, his face... look so different! Is it plastic surgery? Just what is going on...
All the cases against him for child sexual abuse... did Michael actually do it? Why would he do such things.
His Neverland... he built one because no one take him to the playground when he was a kid?

I learned one thing about Michael in one interview I watched... his dad abused him a lot... Tied him up and beat him with belt! Ouch. The horrible childhood he had... must have had horrible consequences on his life.
Even millions of dollars and worldwide fame cannot mend the pain of child abuse.

* * *
No one disputes that Michael Jackson has amazing talent. His 1982 Thriller is still the all time best seller. However, in today's digital world, does anyone actually buy albums anymore? Most people now just download. Perhaps one day there will be a singer near the ability of Michael Jackson, will that singer sell as many CD as him?

No one buy CD -> no profit -> no good production -> No one buy CD... This is a vicious cycle.

Jury Duty

I got called to Jury Duty again, last time I got called was at least 7 years ago. Last time it was a court close by, and nobody got called and I got released early.

This time I got called to Markham, IL court, way south of Chicago. 159th Street exit of highway 57! So when I got to the jury assembly room I picked a number... after waited about 2 hours my number got called! I watched some Oprah and read a few issues of Times during that 2 hours. Not many Chicagoans are interested in that Scientific American magazine there.
I went to the court room! Then in the court room the judge took attendance, gotta say "here". The last time attendance took place was when I was in high school. Then lunch break took place. There is no restaurant nearby, I grabbed a basic sandwich from a gas station. After the break, 14 individuals got picked to sit on the Jury row. I was the LAST ONE to be called! Then, individually, the judge asked the same set of questions: who do you live with, what do you do for a living. Can you be fair, etc. Quite inefficient if you ask me. Then another break took place. The judge then called out 7 names... I was called, also the last one to be called! Ah it turns out that the ones getting called are not selected. I got out of the court and awarded $17.20. I felt a sense of joy. :) The case was a DUI case, the people vs that driver...

More virus attacks

I got virus attack again. McAfee only knows how to charge me, it is so ironic to see Windows Defender reported a problem in one window while McAfee says everything is fine.

Unfortunately even Windows Defender can't defend me this time, at least it identify it.

The wacky behavior I saw was: I lost file extensions in Explorer, and there is no Folder Options under the Tools menu!

When I use regedit, it tells me I am not allowed to use it!

I followed links from Windows Defender and end up in Windows Live OneCare that scanned my machine for hours and found many things and it can remove some of the malware things.

McAfee didn't. I am about to delete it.

I THINK I salvaged the machine, Live One Care still says can't fix several things.

The malware hacked my registry quite a bit.

I learned that there is a gpedit command that can be run on Windows->Run that launches the management console and you can tweak settings. Can you believe there is an option to turn OFF Tools->Options->Folder Options? There is never ever a reason to turn that off.

Arithmetic Borrowing

I saw a TV documentary about a special school, for teenagers who get into trouble and got sent to this school by a judge. These kids already reached high school age but still don't know their basics, such as arithmetic.

There is a teenager kid who asks the teacher: how do you do this subtraction! There is nothing to borrow! The problem is 505-27.

Of course, first step is to line them up vertically and right-aligned (already done for the student). Kids should know why we should stack them up (do you know why?)

My dad used to help me with arithmetics, he would say, 5 - 7, not enough, what do you do? you BORROW. Then what is 15-7?

When I was about 6, I get confused. Ok, It is STILL 5-7 in the ones place, dad!

Then he told me a rocking technique:

Dad: never mind the 5 for now. Use 10. What is 10-7?
Me: Ok I can do that: that's 3.
Dad: Add that 3 into the 5 that you ignored before: what do you get?
Me: I get 8.
Dad: That's it! 15-7=8.

Dad would proceed with the rest of problem:

Dad: Ok, that's the one's digit, what about the rest? see you borrowed 1 from 50. How much left?
Me: 49.

Dad: so you have 49-2, what do you get?
Me: 47. So the answer is 478.

* * * * *
Thanks Dad.

What dad actually did was this: Let's say we want to subtract digits y from x, and that there are previous digits to borrow. It is then 10+x-y = 10-y + x.

10-y will be easy to do, and guarantee no borrowing.

Dad was using the associative property of addition and subtraction.

Borrowing actually never took place. It is conversion. 505 was turned into 490 + 10 + 5.

As a kid, I was already uneasy to borrow something and never return it.

Shame on you, governor

Recently, news is all about the whereabouts of the SC governor. He simply disappeared for a day, his aides say he is in Appalachian mountains after some rough political fights but actually in a secret "exotic" trip to Argentina. Now we know: he has an affair.

It is irresponsible to walk out of a job, especially an public office.
It is irresponsible to your spouse and your kids to have an affair. Yikes, there SO MANY high office guys with affairs. Your affair is your business, but it is still shame on you because you are a public figure!
Only way to top that irresponsibility is to have an affair AND walk out of your job.

The republicans need a better candidate for 2012.

Marriage just work like this: you cannot have another woman after that. Don't like the rules of this game? Then don't get married in the first place.

Tossing out Green Onions

I mourn for the death of my batch of green onions that I bought about a week ago.
They don't stay fresh for long in the fridge, even if you put in the "keep fresh" drawer in a plastic bag.

Green onions always come in batches wrapped by rubberband, maybe 6 in a batch.
Yikes, Dominicks is outrageous expensive* at $1.50 even if you have that "fresh card".
Not all my recipes require green onions, and maybe I use at most 1 in a dish.
I don't cook enough green onion dishes in a week, inevitably the green onion grow old and I found myself tossing them out.

Why green onions have to come in batches? When can't I buy 1 piece at a time.
Does that rubber band anger environmentalists yet?


*I don't understand why Dominicks is still in business at outrageous prices.
Often they put a red sign saying discount prices but at the automatic cashier it is the same pre-discount outrageous price and of course there are no sales clerks that you can actually talk to.

H1N1 at Level 6

So I have heard that H1N1 reaches Level 6, the highest level of warning of a pandemic that WHO can give. Oooh should you be alarmed.

Nope, I don't see much difference here in Chicago, nobody seem to actually care a bit. After a week or so nobody even mention it.

Look folks, statistics say there are thousands of cases worldwide.
But most seems to be treatable and not so deadly for now. (Yikes, what if that Tamiflu stops working when the virus adapt to it?)

But my question is this. What are you going to label something even more serious, like the black death or chicken pox and other deadly things before?

Pehraps H1N1 can be much more serious if WHO didn't start labeling it such way...

However, WHO can you rely on for help? Only yourself: clean your hands often.

No Justice

I saw an Red-Eye article that says most of the disputed parking tickets are simply thrown out.

People get ticketed even if there are still time in the already expensive meters and no way to fight back.

Thankfully, didn't happen to me yet. The poor guy even contacted the alderman and of course no response.

Ok it is just $50 bucks, so nobody cared. But 1 unjustified dollar is 1 dollar too many.

America has declined to the point where justice no longer exists.

Surrounded by ads

The mobile phone market has fierce competition? How they compete? with Ads.
On CTA trains, riders are surrounded by ads of Verizon, Cricket, US Cellular. Each company buys ads for the entire car, to ensure you are surrounded. Ads are even at the ceiling! There is no escape unless you look down or play games on your phone.

Of course each company boasts best value, best service, etc. Customers deserve proof. Is there a Consumer Report or something that objectively compare head to head with features, services, price, annoyance of spokeperson icons, etc?

Here is what customers want:
1) COVERAGE. I used to have Verizon and I can't get calls in Chinatown, COME ON. Even if they improved it now, it is too late, I switched.
2) PRICE.

Chinese Cars Coming to America?

News says GM selling Hummer to Chinese Company.

Almost EVERY product you buy in America is made in China. Don't believe me? look around, find the label of your shirts, labels under your office supplies. What about cars? Today we have Japanese and Korean cars, why not Chinese cars? Will one day American's roads be saturated with Chinese cars?

Americans must come forward to make a car that Americans (and everyone else) want to buy! This means: cool design, fuel efficient, low maintenance. Combine all 3 car companies! Get the best engineers to do a joint design! Have a nationwide contest of car design! We need more positive energy into the auto market, instead of bankrupt, bankrupt, bankrupt.

Nuclear Tests

So the world has concern over nuclear tests: especially conducted in North Korea or in Iran. When it happens, presidents and prime ministers condemn them with harse words (which the nuclear testers couldn't care less about) and then the world focus on other news as if nothing ever happened the next day.

Perhaps sanctions will be placed, sure, but I am also sure the nuclear testers are well aware of the consequences. No sanctions ever seem to make any nuclear testers give in. Just what *can* be done with them? shoot nuclear weapons at them? that's exactly what we want to avoid. Ok, I guess we will have to do that when it decides to strike their neighbors.

Fraction and beyond

Today I saw an Nestle ad today targeting against Starbucks's instant coffee. The headline says something like "more taste for a fraction of the price of Starbucks".
Hmm, this is an negative ad, why you must say you are better than others? Ok, I have not tasted either products. Instant coffee just can't be better than real thing.

The word "fraction" is here is notable... so "at a fraction" usually mean "smaller". Well there is no indication of how much here. Is the fraction 99/100?
What if it is an improper fraction? Ok, improper fractions probably freak out some 5th graders. I wish all 5th graders can
tell me why they must use common denominators when adding and subtracting but not multiplying or dividing. Kids should be able to tell me why "cross-multiply" works.

Fraction is the elementary school student's term. High school students and beyond call them rational numbers.
Hmm, fractions seem to be able to represent any number. We can be as precise as we can be by tweaking the numerator and denominator.

But no! a little right triangle's hypotenuse simply can't be represented by a fraction! They... they are... irrational.
That freaks out of Pythagoras. OMG, the guy who discovered irrational numbers was killed because of that!

Even the roots are not enough to represent the circumference of a circle! Even more mysterious... they are transcendental. Ok, I know but I can't prove π and e are transcendental. Yes, you can find proofs on the web, if you can understand it that says a lot about your math ability: I am a small fraction of your ability.

Further study requires even more: the complex numbers originating from the square root of -1.

Most students stop here. (but not those who make a living as mathematicians)

Need another Impeachment?

News says Todd in Tax Trouble*.

Is this guy responsible for all that high taxes around here? and this guy evaded tax himself? This is outrageous. Ok, even if he pays up it is still not enough. The people deserves honest individuals to well spend our hard earned dollars paid in tax.

*Why not use his last name in headline instead? To play will alliteration, I think.

Greatest Cantopop singers

Greatest singers: 左麟右李

Found a link to samples of their great concert.

I should buy their CDs! Unfortunately I don't have CD player in my (old) car. Listening to these two great singers will make any long trip short and enjoyable.

Modern HongKong kid singers don't even come close to their ability.

Pyramid Tea Bag

In the pack of 100 Lipton (regular) Tea Bags I get a free gift of 1 Green Tea Bag. Ooh the shape is different! It is not shaped like regular tea bags...
It... it is a pyramid! It tastes good, although I like red tea with cream more than green tea.

Ok, so pyramid bag is new trend to tea bags to get more flavor. Innovation can still occur for established products.

This type of pyramid has a triangle bottom. Who can tell me the exact name for this shape?

Yes, it is the tetrahedron!
High school geometry students should know this. Ok, wiki provide a ton of formulas for it. I admit I have never seen most of these listed there.
Tetrahedrons don't come up that often in a typical math education, and the formulas probably shouldn't be too hard to derive.

The tetrahedron is part of a family known as the Platonic Solids.
People are stunned by the beauty of these shapes since the beginning of mathematics (I am not exaggerating)

The aesthetic beauty and symmetry of the Platonic solids have made them a favorite subject of geometers for thousands of years.

Kepler even associated that with the known planets. He was wrong with this. But his laws are foundation of the world we live in! (This amazing set of 3 laws are often eclipsed by the Newton's laws of motion)

Watch and Phone

Since I got a phone with time telling ability, I almost never wear a watch... It is HARD to find a watch that I like.
99% watches have metal wrist bands, and I have to pay extra to cut it to fit me. It is hard to find a leather wristband watches that look cool.

My phone tends to SLOW down a minute or so every few days. I expect modern electronics can do better that.

Ancient watches (such as the one my grandpa has) have no battery... they run by WINDING... It uses potential energy in the coils.
Your watches and clocks probably says "quartz" on it...
I think this is fairly amazing discovery. Batteries itself is quite an revolutionary invention.

My FAVORITE watch was a shake-and-charge watch. It charges by motion. No batteries! That's environmental friendly... but gosh it broke.

Very ancient people don't have good time telling devices. Yes there was sundial (but what do you use at night?)
Of course, there is the hourglass (but isn't it tiresome to flip it?) Most ancient people use dripping water devices to measure time.

"Normalcy"

This headline is good news:
Fears of flu rebound as Mexico seeks 'normalcy'.

Although H1N1 is widespread... and everyone is sad for the unfortunate kid who died, H1N1 seems not as deadly as previous pandemics.
So people began to relax a bit as we return to "normalcy". But everyone should continue to wash hands and keep things clean. Avoid the animals if you can.

The term "normalcy" may not be a formal English word, but it has some background in US History. It was the slogan of Warren Harding, the 29th US president.
See here for details. Candidates sometimes invent words to reach out to their audience.

Survey 100 college students. I am not sure if you can find many who can identify Harding as a former president.

For many students, history are learned and forgotten as life return to their normalcy after their education.

However, learning history doesn't mean we need to become a database ready to retrieve odd historical fact and figures.
So Harding was in 1920s students ought to at least know what "abnormalcy" the country was in.

Yes, it was the Great War (World War I).

Unfortunately, the world didn't not have a long period of peace before another great war emerge.

H1N1 in HK

So the Swine Flu needs to be more accurately named H1N1, and there is now a confirmed case in Hongkong. See this News item.

This H1N1 seems to be spreading in more countries than SARS in 2003. But during SARS it seems like we are totally clueless to such flu... This time factories crank out more Tamiflu. But is Tamiflu the magic solution?

This time it seems like people are more experienced dealing with pandemics and smartly closed schools to clean up as pre-caution... One kid (or grown-up) lost is one lost too many. H1N1 also seems to be not quite as deadly as SARS, I hope it stays that way.

I really hope this will be over soon.

What is least talk about is: what is the origin of this? I heard stories about a really bad sanitial condition at a pig farm in Mexico causing it. Yikes, come on people, clean up!

Alarming numbers from pandemics

I got the following info from this links.

What does a pandemic mean in terms of the death rate? Would it necessarily be severe?


Pandemics can vary quite a bit in severity. The 1918 pandemic killed many more Americans than an ordinary flu, while the 1968 version killed about 34,000 people — about the same number killed each year by seasonal flu, according to CDC statistics.

The world generally experiences at least two flu pandemics each century. Historically, the 20th century saw 3 pandemics of influenza:

• The 1918 influenza pandemic caused at least 675,000 U.S. deaths and up to 50 million deaths worldwide.
  
• The 1957 influenza pandemic caused at least 70,000 U.S. deaths and 1-2 million deaths worldwide.
  
• The 1968 influenza pandemic caused about 34,000 U.S. deaths and 700,000 deaths worldwide.
  

In 1957 millions die because of influenza pandemic, oh my!
34,000 deaths each year killed by seasonal flu?
How many deaths in Iraq so far? Diseases sometimes kill more than guns do.

Swine Flu

Yikes, the Mexican swine flu is getting serious! It has made headline on top of unemployment news and other economic woes.

SARS in 2003 was such nightmare in China and Hong Kong. America was miracously not affected. But this time it is much closer. Consider the number of people traveling to and from Mexico. I hope it will be contained... Perhaps we must kill off those pigs like those chickens that were destroyed during SARS... It is brutal but that may be the only effective way.

America's health care system is all about hungry money grabbing doctors and hospitals. No money no insurance no talk. If it hits poorer folks who can't afford doctors they will continue to spread it. I can't imagine seeing heroic doctors trying to risk their lives saving patients especially those with no money.

Diseases can certainly hurt the already weak economy even more... US should take as much as action as possible to prevent another global disaster.

Ice Mountain bottle

You may have notice Ice Mountain bottled water is leaner in size compared to bottles before. Kudos for helping the environment.
No one should indulge in bottled water, come on, drink tap water, boil it filter it if you want it cleaner.
Those who refuse to drink that deserve to pay tax on that environmental hazard plastic even if it is reduced in size.

Today I notice the size of the bottle. It says .5 L (1pt and 0.9 oz).
Ok, first I notice the inconsistency of .5 and 0.9. It is mathematical lazy not to include a 0 in front of the decimal point.

The 0.9 oz is rather interesting. Why not give you a full oz but 0.9 oz?

Waita minute let me convert 0.5 liter to see how many oz there are:
Go to google and type in "0.5 l in oz". It says 16.9070114 oz. I think it is a bit confusing to say 1pt 0.9 oz, it is better to say 16.9 oz.

So bottled-water goes metric. But some old-British system values are here to stay. For instance, yards in football (it will never convert to metric), 8.5" x 11" paper, no one will convert that to metric either.

Hawking is ill

One of today's news item: Stephen Hawking is ill.

If you have never heard of Hawking, you live under the rock in the world of science. He is one of the most accomplished scientists of our times. He is comparable to giants such as Einstein, Newton, Gallileo and all that. Yet he is paralyzed. Thanks to technology that he is still able to talk and write.

He is most famous for writing books for the layman on cosmology. A Brief History of Time is a must read! It is easy to read and I find it so interesting! There are now full-colored illustrated versions of this famous book.

His professional works are of course only understandable by experts... Besides Brief History of Time, he also collected and wrote commentaries for famous works from other all-time important mathematicians in God created the integers. It shows that Hawking has such enthusiasm toward (pure) mathematics, although he is generally considered a scientist.
Though this 1000+ page book is not for beginners, it is a collection of classics. Not many people understand all of it.

Understanding is one thing, able to teach it to another is a higher-level achievement. As a person with disabilities, Hawking is even more amazing.

囧

Recently I discovered that some people use this almost obsolete Chinese word 囧 as an emoticon like :) Originally, this word is an equivalent form of the first word in the phrase 炯炯有神.

See this wiki article for detail.

It is difficult (if not impossible) to create your own Chinese words. Sure you can write (draw) your own word, but how do you get it to Unicode? In alphabet language such as English, anyone makes any word anytime... so it is fairly interesting that people make new use of a pictograph as an emoticon.

My take is also 有人認為應該尊重漢字，用來惡搞不雅 有損中華民族文化的厚重感

13.25% Tax on that Soda

Chicago has the highest sales tax in America at 10.25% (and this is old news).

I do realize there is a bottled water tax, which I support, to curb excessive use of plastic.

I rarely pay attention to the calculation of taxes on my receipts, I just noticed that there are 3 additional percent on soft drinks. That means 13.25% tax on the soft drink! Isn't that outrageous?

There are tax on cigarette and alcohol, well only those addicted are affected.
But soft drink is such common thing! Is it designed to curb excessive sugar and aluminum? No it is just outrageous new burden on common people! Parking meters increased too. Now 1 quarter only buy you 15 minutes of parking in Chinatown... Property tax is of course also outrageous.

The government better make good use of that tax money. But yikes, is there any watchdog on how that money is spent? There better be.

Too many programming languages

Got my hand on a copy on a few months old MSDN magazine.. I am impressed with paper quality of this magazine. Smooth paper! It has nice layout. If you are not anti-Microsoft tools I think you'll like this magazine...

In the magazine I learned about that there is IronRuby as one of Microsoft's .NET language for its CLR. (CLR reminds me of this cleaning product in department stores). Ruby starts out as a toy language for enthusiasts and now Microsoft grab it and include it in its own language packs.

Microsoft likes to have lots and lots of languages doing similar things for its .NET platform. Sure, it has its own Java-like C#, and Visual Basic has major face lift to fit that platform... There are so many! The world does not need too many programming languages really, unless it is a breakthrough. Since Java's breakthrough out of hairy C++, I really don't see new breakthroughs needed....

Oh my, in the list of CLR languages, there is a Spanish oriented one (called Lexico), there is even a language called Boo... Boo is a Super Mario ghost character!

Spanish Billboard

I live close to the highway. Pro: easy access to it. Con: noise from late night trucks. Ok, the noise is fairly minor, I am not complaining. Every time I go home, I see is a billboard for the highway. This is a Budweiser billboard. Besides that name Budweiser, all other words are Spanish.

That means I live in a Spanish speaking neighborhood? Perhaps so. But the billboard is denying all non- Spanish readers to understand. I am sure not all highway users come from Spanish speaking neighborhoods.
It is not being fair to speakers of other languages, such as English.

Although most countries have official language (or languages), United States does not. (See the wiki article if you don't believe me). Although I won't go as far to say Spanish is for ghettos, it just feel uncomfortable to see a public sign I don't understand.

If I go to an ethic town in Chicago, such as Greek town or Korean town, and see a restaurant with signs and menus written only in the ethnic language, I won't mind going in and have an authentic meal.

The difference is this: I volunteerly go inside that restaurant, but I involunteerly see the billboard. Budweiser does not seem to care rather any non-Spanish speaker drink their beer or not.

Opinion: public billboards should at least contain English in America.

"Spring" needs to be revisited

March 20 or Vernal Equinox as first day of Spring?
This needs to be revisited. Three inches of snow fell last night, and it is a few days into April.
It is not random aberration. Frequently we get snow in April. I don't associate "spring" with snow.
I remember in college days, during Spring Break we get snow: perhaps it is better named as Winter Break II, or Almost Spring Break.

Is it because of Global Warming that weather go out of whack? We had 60's days before the so-called first day of Spring.

Well the label on the calendar is not so important, just test the temperature outside and dress accordingly.
Who cares what the calendar says? Perhaps the farmers do, to plan when to put seeds in and all that.

I am glad I am not doing the hard labors of farming.

More shooting in America

Another gunmen shoot innocent and shoot self. This time in New York where people taking citizenship exam. See this news.

This is happening way too often in America! and only America.

The president ought to say something about it. Enough talk about the economy.

What is justice? Oh someone do something bad? They get punished: restrict their freedom in jail or take away their life in extreme case.

But what do you do to crazy people with guns who didn't want to live anyway? There is nothing to do after they start shooting.

Please, put gun control in America. Crooks will always have guns you say? Well it is not the crooks that is often doing the killing, but the psychologically troubled guys that are doing it.

Putting up with things that don't make sense

Everyday on public transportation, I see people punching text messages on their phone. This is unseen a few years ago when phones were just used for talking.
Phones no longer have 12 buttons and a few arrow keys and 2 soft keys, almost all modern phones have a rice-krispie keyboard for people thumbing messages with the QWERTY keyboard.

QWERTY makes no sense! Keys should be layout as ABCDE... At one point I thought maybe people has done analysis so that the least used keys such as Q and Z are further away. Um, is the semicolon used so often that it is in the home keys?
No, QWERTY is the old typewriter keyboard designed that way to slow down people and prevent jamming.

Of course you have also heard of the Dvorak keyboard which is designed to type faster, but of course you gotta learn it first.

Most of use are trained to PUT UP with non sense rather than bother to fight them.

iGoogle theme

iGoogle is such great thing, you can add your own portlets onto your own page.

You can set your own themes. Some are sensitive to time-of-the-day.

I am now set to this Street Fighter theme.

jQuery: don't let the name fool you

Today I came across JQuery, a very cool javascript library. At first I thought it may have something to do with database and java, like hibernate or something, but it is not! I am impressed with its UI ability.

I have also used dojo.

A lot of people invented a lot of wheels.

Find x

A while ago someone forward me this fun pic:



Can you really say the student is wrong? He did find x!

A better worded task is "Find the value of x in the following diagram."

What's the answer? of course, it is the 3-4-5 Pythagorean triple!
The student better write "5 cm", "5" is not correct.

The image above came from this link.

That funny "Expand" question for Peter is testing the Binomial Theorem, another important theorem for Algebra 1 students.

To be precise, "a" and "b" needs to be specified as any real number. If "n" is not a positive integer, we can't expect Algebra 1 students able to handle.

Newton even came up with a negative binomial theorem.... which I haven't found a very easy-to-understand proof yet.

The binomial theorem is not just true for positive integers, but for real numbers, even complex numbers!

Distasteful bonus outrage

So the AIG chairman says their millions in bonus "distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them"
See this link for details.

What does it mean to be "distasteful" but "must proceed", now that's non-sense.

However, it is easy to stop this nonsense. Threaten to stop giving them money until they give the money back, and promise they will never get any more bailout money.
Or tax the heck out of them so they give it back.

If they don't comply, don't help them. Let them fail.

CEO is boss? let the know there are bigger boss and stockholder: the American public.

Amazing robot

Human-like robots as we have seen in Terminator (and other science fiction) is getting more real. See this link. The robot is used in fashion show! Amazing.

I hope no one use robots for world domination (nor the robots themselves think world domination) as evil people in science fictions do.

150 Years in Prison

One of the biggest recent news is the Wall Street criminal Madoff, who is accused of frauds totalling billions of dollars. This man was formerly chairman of Nasdaq and was once well respected... Greed... corruption... we've heard too much of this theme for fall-of-man, that's too common of human weakness.

So this man is 70 years old, and he can be sentenced up to 150 years in prison.

Wow, who can live 150 years? This is such a joke.

It is fairly amazing if you can live just 100 years. How about life-in-prison?

If there are some ultra medical breakthrough that makes him live pass 220. Are you going to actually release him in 2009+150=2159?

TV Aspect Ratio

TV and monitors have always come in screen size measured by inches: 17", 19", 21", 25" etc. Waita minute, elementary school students know that rectangles ought to be measured with both width AND height. So is 25" the width or height? Oh it is the diagonal that it is measured. Waita minute even diagonal does not determine exact width and height.
You can have a 25" x 1" TV and still be called 25".
Oh to ensure uniqueness, there is also the aspect ratio of 4:3 in older TV sets.

Ok, if you got a 25 inch TV, the height and width is 9 and 16. (Remember the 3-4-5 triangle and the Pythagorean theorem!
This theorem is profound... as it is the passage to irrational numbers... integer Pythagorean triplets are so neat..)

Newer wide screen TV have 16:9, compared to the older 4:3. Curiously 16=4² and 9 =3². I wonder if there is any relation. Ah there is, as explained in the wiki article.

Another life lost to reckless guns

Shocking news over the weekend: Illinois small town pastor mysteriously killed by unknown person during sermon.
On Monday this news item got bumped off headlines... replaced by pretty much same old news of more signs of sinking economy.

There is no apparent motive.

Even if the guy has intense hatred toward the pastor, he could have choose a better time and place where he can escape. He did not intense to escape. He would have killed himself if his gun is not jammed. Obviously this guy has some psychological issues.

People with mental issues are dangerous. Guns are dangerous. Add them up you can get disastrous results.

This news should get a lot more attention. Debates over stem cell research can wait. Gun control never get enough attention.

Unemployment rate

Latest news: unemployment reaches 8.1%. Whoa. 25 year high.

That's the national average. See here for state averages. Ok, this data is not so recent, but some states reaches almost 10%.
Biggest unemployment is in Michigan, where auto plants are... well not even Toyota can sell a lot of cars these days.

The unemployment rate sounds bad, and it is probably going to cause more DOW loss. But we have seen worst. When? um, 25 years ago! How did we get out of that? Is there any econ history lesson to be learned? Cycles of boom and bust seem inevitable.

We gotta be innovative to get customers... build a better and cheaper car and I will be glad to buy one!

Wyoming has lowest unemployment... what do they do over there? Everyone just maintains Yellowstone?

Math Behind Toys

Recently I glanced through this rather professional book: Adventures in Group Theory, which explains the math behind the Rubik Cube and other games. Abstract algebra and Groups are not high school Algebra 1.
Part of the difficulty of abstract algebra is that most of the time it lacks answer to the question: "so what?"... and gosh, most books are too formal too tough too boring. This book seems to be more approachable. I like the "Adventure" in the title. Math... ought to be an adventure of some sort.

No, I didn't buy it and dive into it yet although I have some curiosity. There are two quantities to balance: 1) curiosity 2) laziness. if (1) > (2), then I will buy and read. But laziness often overcomes effort, making (2) a low value, especially for non must-do items.

Ok, does the word "abstract" in abstract algebra scare you? Well, you already deal a lot of with abstraction. In children's learn-number books, you see pictures of things: pencils, apples, etc. Children needed those solid objects in the beginning. When you grow older you can deal with numbers (an abstraction of quantity) directly. Then you deal with "solid" operations: add, substract, multiply, divide and you can invent your own operations. In elementary school you deal with actual numbers, beginning in high school you deal with variables which stands for some numbers (more abstraction here). Well how about deal with operands and operations in general? (even more abstraction) Ok, we observe: some operations are communtative, you can switch the order of operands a+b = b+a, some are not, such as matrix multiplications. Some operations are associative, you can do one first then another (a+b)+c = a+(b+c), but some operations are not... That is my introduction talk of abstract algebra. :)

When my curiousity > laziness, I will learn new things.

Big numbers

We usually have problem comprehensing big numbers. Scientists estimate the universe is about 13 billion years old, recorded history of human is only a few thousand years. The Big Bang was long, long, gosh long ago.

The Economic Stimulus plan involves big numbers: $800 billions to $1 trillion. Now how much is that money?

Here is a very interesting analogy:

If you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn't have spent $1 trillion.

Now you have better idea how much that Stimulus Plan is. And let me remind you, the birth of Jesus Christ was 2000+ years ago, and the United States is only around for 200 some years. That's quite unthinkable isn't it.

Jin Yong is humble

Well-known martial art novel author Mr. Leung Yue Sang passed away. See this news item.

The great author Jin Yong humbly says, "I only followed him".

I have never read Mr. Leung's works, only watched some TV productions. Perhaps the TV series can't release the full power of the written works... I enjoy Mr. Jin Yong's stories much more.

"To be a great martial art author, you must know Chinese history". Indeed. The master writers should be able to provide history background so the reader can feel they are in that era. Go ahead, you can play with actual historical people too, but don't alter real history.

Martial art writing is not just about kung fu, which are mostly exaggeration anyway. Please also inject true heroism in characters like Kwok Jing!

Most modern martial-art TV productions are about tired theme of good clans with evil guys within vs evil clan with some good guys within, copied from Mr. Jin Yong's Smiling Wanderer. Be original!