Monthly Archives: February 2010

電影

Fireproof 搶救愛情40天

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現今社會離婚率很嚇人﹐據說每兩對結婚的夫婦﹐就會有一對離婚收場。教會作為捍衛家庭價值的先驅﹐深明預防勝於治療的道理﹐最有效防止離婚的方法﹐便是多做增進夫婦感情的輔導工作。今年情人節教堂搞了個夫婦電影欣賞晚會﹐看完電影後有例牌的男女分組討論﹐最後神父替參加的夫婦更新結婚時的誓詞。我被老婆捉了去參加晚會﹐反正是情人節便順她意思﹐當作陪她看一部浪漫電影也好。

「搶救愛情40天」是套很感人的電影﹐講述一對感情出現問題的夫婦﹐整天為生活各種事吵架﹐妻子還在工作的醫院有外遇﹐兩人的關係涉臨離婚邊沿。在丈夫正想放棄同意簽字離婚時﹐他的父親給了他一本舊日記﹐叫兒子按照日記所說每天改變自己一點﹐用四十日時間去作最後努力挽救這段婚姻。這套電影應該十分感人﹐我見大部份女士看到眼濕濕在抹眼淚﹐不過也有看見不少男士(包括自己)在打呵吹。

這套電影的票房和口啤也不錯﹐更成為零八年最賣座的獨立電影。戲中那本四十天愛情日記﹐更榮登阿馬遜二十大暢銷書。男主角在四十日的旅程中﹐學懂了何謂愛情﹐學懂愛是無私的奉獻﹐學懂愛是原諒和寬恕﹐令妻子回心轉意重新開始。這套嚴格來說是福音電影﹐除了男主角在四十日之旅中﹐忽然信了耶穌突變開竅懂得去愛外﹐倒沒有講耶穌硬銷信教惹觀眾反感。不過男主角信教並非主要劇情﹐換過其他方法讓他領悟愛情也能說得通。

電影也很照顧被拉來看的男性觀眾﹐適量地加入喜劇元素﹐男主角肥仔下屬便很好笑。另外男主角去醫院找奸夫攤牌那場戲﹐更讓人看得大快人心拍手叫好。男主角是消防員﹐劇中有幾個烈火雄心的場面﹐小成本制作沒有特技﹐但拍出生死懸於一絲的緊張感。我還預計結局會是醫院發生大火﹐男主角衝進火場勇救老婆。可是結局有點反高潮﹐老婆發現了丈夫的秘密日記﹐大家相擁而哭便雨過天情大團員結局。

荷里活電影販賣的所謂浪漫愛會教壞人﹐以為要有感覺才是算是愛﹐讓人活在那些不切實際的電影幻想中。這電影的愛情是真實的愛情﹐現實生活中那來這麼多刻意的浪漫情節﹐其實在平凡之中也可以找到浪漫。愛情是夫婦之間的一個承諾﹐正如男主角的消防員守則﹐在火場中永遠也不能丟下同伴不管﹐夫婦在婚姻中不管有什麼問題﹐永遠也不能丟下伴侶輕言離婚。

雖然這套始終是女人戲﹐不太適合男性觀眾看。不過既然男人一定要陪女人看電影﹐看這套總比看那些荷里活垃圾愛情電影好。至少看完能夠增進夫妻感情﹐而不是總給老婆質問﹐為什麼我不像荷里活愛情片男主角般浪漫。

Product Reviews

HP All-in-One Officejet J4580

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My Espon all-in-one printer is about time to retire. The printer is running out of ink and the replacement cartridge is ridiculously expensive, probably cost more than what the printer is worth. The scanner is also dying, the scanner head making squeaking noise and is struggling to move across the page. It is time to buy a new printer.

I come across the HP All-in-One Officejet J4580 on sales in Staples. This $59 machine has color inkjet printer, fax machine and scanner with a 20 sheets document feeder. I know the ink cartridge will cost me a fortune in the long run, but since I have another laser printer, I won’t print from this inkjet printer very often. What really attracts me is the document feeder. I hate constantly changing pages when scanning documents. I think the scanner and feeder alone already justify its price tag.

The installation is pretty straight forward, just like any other HP printer. Withing 15 minutes, my new printer is up and running. The print quality is acceptable, can’t really compare it with the color laser printer at work. The scanning software, HP document manager, comes with the printer is very easy to use. I can scan many pages of document and save them into a PDF file just like I expected. I can even run the built-in OCR program to make the PDF file search-able or output the page content into a text file. The scan speed is not very fast but it does get the job done.

With the new printer, I can finally get rid of my old fax machine. No one use fax nowadays, I am only keeping the old fax machine and wasting space just in case I need to send or receive a fax. This printer can save the received fax to my computer instead of printer the pages. It saves paper and ink if I don’t need a hard copy of the fax. I don’t have a phone line around my computer, so I could not test the fax function until I move into my new house.

My only complain is the paper tray design. The printer does not have a output tray, the printed pages just fall on top of the blank paper. The printed page falls off from the tray if I didn’t extend tray, but the paper tray in full extension is a bit too long for my desk. With its $59 price tag, I am very happy with what I got. If the ink cartridge last longer, the scanner scan faster, this printer would be perfect. I guess I can’t ask too much for a low-end printer.

News Clips

Maria Cantwell and the politics of global warming

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The cap-and-dividend plan to control carbon emission and fight global warming seems to be the best and fairest among all approaches. Auction off the thing in conflict to the highest bidder, then divide the earning among all citizens. It would be even better if we can extend the cap-and-dividend approach to solve all other social conflicts.

Continue reading Maria Cantwell and the politics of global warming →

Daily Scribble

How to build a small table (part 1)

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I am half way into my wood working class. My small table slowly comes into shape. I finally caught up with my mistakes and rebuild the two pieces that are too short. I am the fastest student in the class with everything ready to go. Since I am leading the class, the instructor usually uses my pieces and me for demonstration. He inspected all my pieces and I have got one on one teaching time. I bought my camera the class tonight and here is a step by step photo guide on how to a small table.

1. Here is a piece of raw lumber bought from wood suppliers. All the edges are rough and unfinished.

2. Use the radiant saw cut the lumber to rough length plus 1/2″ margin.

3. Use the jointer and joint two flat surface width a 90 degree edge.

4. Use the table saw to cut the piece to rough width plus 1/2″ margin

5. Use the planner to plan the piece to the exact width and height

6. Use the miter saw to cut the piece to the exact length

7. Drill dowel holes

8. Dry fit the pieces

9. Glue the table top together and hold it tight with cramps
ps

10. Sand the pieces to remove burn marks, pencil marks and smooth the surface

11. Before and after sanding

I have done 5 classes and there are 3 more to go. I am not too worry about my progress. I have confidence I can finish my table in class. The remaining tasks are assemble the legs with the table top, build the drawers, more sanding and paint the table to give it a finishing touch.

Daily Scribble

PMP Exam

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After 200 MC questions, 4 hours exam, I got the PMP credential.

Seeing how my department is run compare to the other department downstairs, I definitely support the value of project management. Everyone can tells the difference between a smooth sailing project apart from a badly ran project. But many people choose to ignore the up front planning and on going monitoring work due to their focus on short term gain. The most common excuse I heard is we don’t have time. Project management is not a waste of time, it’s provide a framework to save time in a long run, although you may have to invest in the extra work up front.

Most of the concepts and knowledge in the PMP exam are just common sense repackaged in fancy language. Passing the PMP exam won’t make you instantly a good project manager, but at least you can speak like one. The exam is more difficult than I expected. The definition and calculation questions are easy, you just have to study and know the exam materials. The long answer questions are tricky. Each question has four answers, two are totally non-sense but the other two are vague. I can only make a 50-50 guess and hope I got the right answer.

I got good marks on all sections except social responsibility and ethics, which I thought should be the easiest section. It is not that I am not ethical, rather I would blame my poor performance on the exam questions. The questions are have no black or white answers and the most intuitive answer that you would normally choose in real life is probably the wrong answer. You have to guess which of other dumb answers meet PMP’s retarded ethical standard. As a philosophy student major in ethics and moral theory, I am pretty sure I always have the most ethical answer, since I cannot be wrong in moral sense. The only conclusion is whoever set the PMP exam questions are not ethical, so he is blinded to picked the immorally answer as the required answer.

My study plan works well. I would say a month of time is more than enough to prepare the PMP exam. I finished reading all materials in first three weeks, didn’t do any study on the forth week and worked on 3 full length practice exams over the last weekend. I pretty much run out of stuff to study on the night before exam so I only flip through chapter 3 quickly as my final revision. My PREP book “The PMP Exam, How to Pass on Your First Try” by Andy Crowe is really good, highly recommended. The structure and layout of the book is easy to follow and the practice questions are relevant. On the other hand, the official PMBOK is totally useless, it is a complete waste of money.