XLIX

I rarely watch any sports... but I decided to checkout the latest Super Bowl. XLIX.. at least some of it. I watched Katy Perry (and others) great performance on the half time. Wow, how do you turn the football field in such great stage of 3D stuff and change so fast. How does Katy Perry's clothes change so fast? How can her eyes be so widely opened?

So I have noticed XLIX. Is that some form of Linux? No it is the Roman Numeral. I remember Super Bowl 30 had an exotic title of XXX. I had some trouble interpreting XLIX at first... oh what does "L" stand for? It is 50.

So the Roman Numeral evaluates to: (50-10)+(10-1) = 49. Now that's wacky... Next year it would be Super Bowl 50 or Super Bowl L?

But No. NFL is actually not going to go "Super Bowl L". See http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/06/nfl-super-bowl-50-roman-numerals-l.

Now before you say Roman are dumb, it just isn't so obvious how to create a number system. You take the Hindu-Arabic system for granted because you're taught that way. In the old times such system does not even yet exist or known. The Romans just didn't come up with the place-value system like we use today. But I see that they want to prevent keep using I to represent 1's. Like for 4 they use IV to prevent IIII and for 9 they use IX instead of VIIII. See, using a symbol to represent 5 is quite intuitive (number of fingers you have in 1 hand). So numbers... is an human invention, and gosh, the invention of zero and negative numbers are such important milestones of mathematics.

Hello London

Over the past 20 years of working I never get sent to business travel. For most of my career I maintain things. Even when I make new things clients either are local or they come talk to me instead of me going to meet them.

So I get to meet a client in London... to see how their product currently works and see how to integrate that into the things I am working on. I met some fine gentlemen with some British/French accent. It is a challenge to understand everything they say perfectly. My trip lasted just 2 days.

London, Great Britain has such great influence around the world. Why do Americans (mostly) speak English? Even the history biggest don't-carers know that the original colonies belong to the British. There were so many British colonies all over the world but seems no one need to fight a war to gain independence besides the Americans. Oh well that's another topic. These guys took over Hong Kong for close to 100 years and able to develop it into a great city (at least it used to be). But that wasn't their original intent! let's not forget the Opium wars! I despise those uneducated Chinese people I met who have not even heard of this piece of history.

Now London is a great classic city with Gothic style architecture all over. Houses are generally not as modern as those found here. Unfortunately I only get 2 hours to tour around. I got off at the Westminister stop of the Underground to see the Big Ben (the clock tower) and the big ferris wheel London Eye, then walk along to see the front door of the National Gallery and saw the Big Blue Chicken . Then end up in the Convent Garden for dinner at the Union Jack.

Look, it all started here. The Industry Revolution is kicked off in Great Britain. The United States is started here as British colony and so was Hong Kong. Newton is from same place. Much of the world is influenced by UK. We are surrounded by Indians because of that Great Britain influence on them.

People from Hong Kong may feel right at home at the roads... it is on the left. There is the red-yellow light before the green light. The road sign designs are just like those in Hong Kong. The double decker bus look like the oldie Kowloon bus in Hong Kong. Yes they use 220 volt and you will need an adapter to use North American electronic devices.

Here are some interesting observations of small cultural shocks.

• The emergency signs such as Fire Exit are green, not red
• The men's room have the guys icon open legs not close legs
• Besides cookie is called biscuit...they also call potato chips differently, the call it "crisps"
• Their coffee shop have no half-and-half! Only skim milk! Man they are health conscious.
• The taxi have 4 seats facing each other and no trunk!
• Some British coins use SEVEN sided figures! Now that's difficult to counterfeit. But who is counterfeiting 20 pence and 50 pence?