Go to the classics for name ideas

Congrats to the HK multi-millionaire who gets THREE new grandsons... from a surrogate mother.
News here. The father specifically wanted sons to inherit that big business. Ok, let's put aside moral debates of whether this is right or not right (legnthly heated debates if we go there)

I'd like to talk about the names: 智信、智仁、智勇. This comes right off of Chapter 1 of the Art of War, 孫子兵法, the 5 qualities of a general.

將者，智、信、仁、勇、嚴也

These are PERFECT names!

That's among the list of names I wanted to use for my son. But I only get less than lukewarm or even negative feedback when I say it out loud. The classics is source for excellent names. Unfortunately today's people are uneducated.

Ok, these kids will grow up to have EVERYTHING... except there is no mother. Will they ever attempt to look for their birth mother when they grow up?

Lost Classic

The classic 文理和合本 聖經 is here. I have never seen a paper copy.

For example, look at the beauty of Psalm 23 here... the use of "兮"

耶和華爲我牧、我不匱乏兮、
使我臥於草場、導我至憩息之水濱兮、
甦我之魂、爲己名導我於義路兮、
我雖經陰翳之谷、不虞遭害、因爾相偕、爾杖爾竿、用以慰我兮、
爾於敵前、爲我設筵、以膏沐我首、我杯盈溢兮、
恩寵慈愛、必隨我於畢生、我永居耶和華之室兮

維基文庫 Wikisource has a TON of classic stuff!

Slideshow creation: Microsoft vs Google

If you have a bunch of pictures to show off to a crowd, what do you do?
Sure you can do a Powerpoint, insert pictures and all sorts of animations and text to make it cool. It is a VERY time consuming to do so if you have more than a handful pics.

Much quicker is just run a program to works with a certain directory and create slide show automatically, preferably with music background.
Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft's photo viewer has basic slideshow ability. That one has very basic functionality, just image changing, no other effects, hard to even tweak how many seconds per picture.

Windows 7 is supposed to be much better in everything. Yes its slideshow viewer is much more sophisticated than XP! But the only problem is this: it doesn't let you sort by date created. The slideshow is in some order that I dont' even know what this is. Come on, I sort by Date Created, and hit the slideshow button in Explorer: FOLLOW IT!!! Your predecessor XP can do it, why not you!

There is also Windows Media Center thing that looks fancy but do wacky things that freezes my machine. Windows 7! Enough praise about you.

Sure go online to see what I can tweak? Some says Windows Power Toy, some says tweak registry. You just have to tweak registry, huh?

Enter Google Picassa, a fairly quick download and it does things right. It organizes your pics and can do slideshow easily. It even lets you tweak your pics. This is a great app to have.

Two reasons to get a new game console

OMG, there is now a Super Street Fighter IV. Long lost characters such as T.Hawk are now back, also there are SFIII chars whom I am not so familiar with. This would be a lot of modern punching kicking action! SFIII: what a disappointment, only ONE super? SFIII series should be skipped altogether.

Look at this game, what the 3rd Transformers movie SHOULD be: Transformers: War on Cybertron. Check out the videos... Omega Supreme is here! But look folks, transformers (especially Optimus Prime) primary weapon is not an AX! He only used it once in the cartoon. Let me see his signature gun/cannon! Transformers: drop the pretty girl, focus on the robots!

Games are fun if you have time to play and you have people to play with, with I don't have now.

Google AJAX playground

This is a fun playground. It is fairly easy to add translation, mapping and much more on your little websites! You can even learn a thing or two about Javascript. Google earth... I am impressed.

Mom's lesson and Pentagon bullets

Bullets were shot in the Pentagon, fortunately no one is killed, and no one seems to know what happened. Come on, this is the Pentagon, it should be the most secure place in the world? While it is hard to prevent a plane crash into it like 911, but at least there should be security camera and stuff that recorded surroundings to see what happened or even see who shot those bullets.

When I was a kid, my mom told me this: "don't ever throw anything out the window or do bad things! so many eyes are out there, somebody will know happen and catch you!"
This is a great lesson for kids, but unfortunately has a bit of distance from reality.
I assure my mom I won't throw things out the window and hit somebody.

Never mind solar panels on the White House, install more security cameras around the important buildings!

...for Dummies

I saw Differential Equations for Dummies at a local bookstore, a few steps from there I saw String Theory for Dummies.

Sure the Dummies book are humorous and actually have some very good information.

But look, Differential Equations IS NOT FOR DUMMIES. String Theory IS FOR THE EXTREME SMARTIES.
Differential Equations is for college students (who survived a couple semesters of calculus). String Theory is for some exceptional bright students who already have good understanding of classical and quantum physics and not afraid of multi-dimensions.

If you're really a dummy, stay out of these topics.

"A Reference For the Rest of Us" should be aimed at poorly written documents, such as the DOS manuals. But is ANYONE still using plain DOS?
I find it a bit of insulting to see Dummies titles for advanced topics (though the content is very good).

For a real differential equation book, gee, I can't even recommend one. Any advanced calculus text should have a section on that.... Differential equations come in when you deal with tough engineering problems and stuff, only the pros need it. For a famous $1 million unsolved differential equation, take a look at Navier-Stokes

For a gentle introduction to string theory, go to Brian Greene. But I have to admit I don't understand much of his work!
Most people will faint if they see professional mathematics involved.

John Machin's formula

Found an excellent article on the John Machin formula.


Most people merely list formulas without proof. Thanks to the author of that pdf!

239... is an odd number to be in a formula isn't it.

Revolt!

Now that's Revolt against tyranny.

But this is just a brief vent against the outrageous expensive parking fees. The guys (heroes) doing this may be caught, and penalized even more.

Google Autobots

Cars that drives themselves.
News here.

Which insurance company will accept these?

Are they absolutely sure they have all the "test case", such as boys rushing out to pick up their balls, potholes, etc.

Oh my, the autobots (or Stunticons) are almost here?!

I think the world does not need cars that drive themselves yet...

Java Web Services with Java6 SE

Web Service is the modern buzzword. Do you really need it? Classic answer is of course "depend on your business need." It is like some sort of Remote Procedure Call.. The idea is nothing new.

You may be daunted if you attempt to open a book or read on the web about this. There is a sea of SOAP, WSDL, libraries and XML madness to read about, and some resources may tell you to download additional SDK. It is changing so fast, what you are reading may be superseded by another thing. What used to be hard may now be easier.

The real problem is that some of the stuff you see don't compile, or that EXE that you are supposed to run is not even there?
You are out of luck if you don't have someone to ask.

Here is what I want to do: create a web service for fun, without NetBeans, Glassfish, without a specific IDE or a specific server. I prefer things done in pure Notepad and Tomcat as my server if needed.

Theoretically, Java 6 makes webservice easy. Just use annotation to mark a WebService and voila. See here for official tutorial. I have JDK1.6 SE downloaded and it has all the ingredients I need to build a simple web service.

Yea, I compiled that CircleFunctions WebService, and I used "wsgen" to generate the web service. and even without tomcat, that WSDL thing does show my webservice deployed locally.

Ok, how do I test it with a client? Boom, it tells you to use NetBeans, come on.

Here is another tutorial.

Oh, to write a client the service needs to be "wsimport" first. This thing would generate a bunch of classes including a "Service" class that you can get the "Port" so you can invoke the methods.

Opinion: THIS IS NOT EASY ENOUGH. Should be simply load it up and call like regular methods. (EJB2 is even more stupid in invoking methods, but that's an ugly past)

I'll let you experient with it to see if you can create a service and call it. Do you agree that such tutorials can be written a little bit more clearer, better with downloadable code? I am not doing web services with objects yet, will try when I get more time.

Another note, around a year ago, I attempted Axis2 with some success.

Coffee Cups

If you buy coffee-to-go, you typically get 3 delivery methods.
1. Cup delivered to you with coffee, creams added for you (McDonald's)
2. Cup delivered to you with coffee, you add cream yourself (Starbucks, Dunkin)
3. EMPTY cup, you walk over to the pots and pour your own coffee. (Corner Bakery, some BK)

I don't like empty cup given to me. Come on, I have to do that work myself? What is it to prevent me from taking my own cup to pour? or do a refill? (Ok, it doesn't look good to go to the police station for this)

For the sake of environmental friendless, if coffee places gives me a 10 cent discount if I bring my own cup, that should instantly bring you more publicity and business!

I don't need that paper sleeves... it is unneeded garbage.