Hello Objective C World

I did it! I followed this link: here. NSLog? "NextStep" stuff is within. #import and not #include? I thought it is C...

Knights in chess

Look at this great short classic game (known as Légal Mate) of queen sacrifice and "unpinning". (Oh and I love chess.com's chess moves player)

Look at that brilliant knight move as it joined by other minor pieces!

I learned about this game from this great book: Checkmate Tactics by the world champion Garry Kasparov. Look this guy is the grandmaster who played with the Deep Blue yet he still writes beginners books to promote this great game.

I especially respect great achievers teaching others, be in chess, in academic, or in anything.

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It is hard to get minor pieces such as the 2 knights to win. Even in Chinese chess... seasoned players should know about 雙馬飲泉

What's wrong with the Macintosh

Just about everyone likes the Macintosh like cult followers. One good reason to like it is it is not as prone to virus attacks and that there are no Blue Screen of Death. Ok, let's be fair to Windows, the BSOD doesn't appear that often isn't it? (unless your machine is really screwed up). Before the Unix merge for the Mac, there is no way to go to a prompt where I can tell it specifically what to do instead of click and click to find the options. The Unix within is good. Ok, the good stops here.

I really don't like the always on top menus for one program. This doesn't translate well when you have dual monitors. Just what program am I running? I have to look at the main monitor. and when you have a bunch of windows open, the windows you are seeing may have absolutely nothing to do with the menu on top.

Unfortunately, I don't have a full keyboard with numpad. Excuse me? Even in smaller keyboard, where are the good buttons page up, page down, home and end? They don't exist! Fortunately there is fn-up arrow for page up, fn-down arrow for page down. There is Ctrl-left arrow for home, Ctrl-right arrow for end. Is Apple supposed to be as few button as possible? Here is what I see at the left side of my short space bar: fn, control, option, command. Excuse me?? Why so many? Ok, once upon a time there is even the wacky Apple button.

If you need to insert a CD (or floppy) in old days, how do you eject it? no button! In floppy days I am supposed to drag it to the garbage can. How do I do it now. Ah, now there is an eject button on the upper right of keyboard. Excuse me?

The mouse: just ONE button. How do you right-click? Excuse me? Control-click. Did some one tell me it is a friendly product? how the hell am I suppose to know. Fortunately for the Magic Mouse, you can tap on the right side and even scroll like a GOOD-HOW-IT-IS-SUPPOSED-TO-WORK wheel mouse.

Ok talk about the wheel on the mouse, or the imaginary one on the Magic Mouse. Let's scroll. EXCUSE ME? when I scroll down the text moves the OPPOSITE direction I expected. Fortunately this is also fixable.

Ok, let's play with Unix prompt. I am glad I can do vi, emacs, grep, etc. Ooh it even have java and python built in? Even ruby. Ok what about cc. Not there. HELLO???

Ok, what's the equivalent for Notepad in Mac. Ah, TextEdit. Ok, let me for fun type up an html file... ok, < b > hello < /b >. Gee, how do I open it from the prompt? Sure I can vi but I like to do File->Save and other UI feature ok? Ok, it is "open -e foo.html" Wait it is wysiwyg! I want to see the html! Nope, can't do that! I need to download a wysiwyg editor.

Ok, Mac is supposed to be the premier awesome graphical platform. How do I screen shot? can't alt-print screen. ah, command-shift-3, HELLO? How intuitive is that. How do I make a simple picture, something like paintbrush in windoze. HELLO? NOTHING OUT OF THE BOX. Although that Preview thing can let me annotate the screenshot.

I want to like the Macintosh like the rest of the world.

How to write a Mac program? XCode is a free download. Good. Objective-C? Yuck. and no sample programs come with it? HELLO?

Street Fighter x Hello Kitty

This is interesting. Street Fighter and Hello Kitty can mix. See here.

I think with anything Japan, "X" means "and".

And while I think Hello Kitty and Street Fighter cross over is cute, it is about 20 years late.

4th of July and the Higgs Boson

Fourth of July! Time to burn those fireworks!

Look, every year somebody gets hurt. See here for example.

It is best just to watch fireworks, and not deal with that dangerous explosives.

And this year it is HOT. It is best to stay in doors.

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That's it! People have found the long sought Higgs Boson! See here for example. How many people actually know something about that Standard Model? This is not for the faint of the heart. This is some heavy duty stuff beyond the realm of most people.

Most people I know (with a college degree) don't even remember sin/cos/tangent from elementary math. Some people I talked to have absolutely no clue why is the volume of a cone 1/3 π r^2 h... One time some person dare to mock me with "tell me one use of calculus" I shake head at these folks' cluelessness.

When I look at that Standard Model and its confusing arrays of particles and heavy duty mathematics I am just as clueless as those folks.

Higgs Boson found... we now know where "mass" come from. Please don't mock the scientists with "tell me one use of knowing where mass come from", nor mock someone who wants to climb the highest mountain in the world.

Ok BILLIONS spent to find such particle... is it worth it? Should that money be spent to rescue some countries on brink of financial collapse or feed the hungry? Now are you tempted to say, "tell me one use of spending all this money?"