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遊記

卑詩內陸酒鄉遊（上）- 酒莊婚禮

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上星期終於從印度充軍回來，早前答應了老婆回來後要放假陪她去渡假輕鬆一下。剛好這個週末老婆的同學在卑詩內陸小城市Kelowna結婚，於是我們便自已駕車旅行，去參加結禮並順道遊覽以卑詩酒莊馳名的Okanagan地區。Kelowna人口只有十一萬，是卑詩省內陸地區的最大的城市。從溫哥華開車向西出發，大約需要四至五小時車程，高速公路穿越了無人煙的森林河谷，沿途只有希落的農業小鎮。在公路離開小鎮前，會有路牌提醒駕車人仕檢查汽油，因為下一個油站在百多公里外，如果在高速公路上沒有汽車，可便叫天不應叫地不聞了。

在Kelowna住的酒店

卑詩大學Okanagan校園

在市中心柏文的私家遊艇碼頭，行出屋就可以上船。

Kelowna市建立於Okanagan湖邊，一條跨湖大橋連接城東和城西。城市坐落被群山環抱的山谷盤地中，有山有水風景十分怡人。Okanagan湖道貫通卑詩內陸幾個主要城市，四週的河流更是鈎魚勝地。在湖伴的房子大部份也有私人碼頭，湖上看見不少人在玩滑水板或風帆。可惜我沒有船牌不能租船玩，下次再去Kelowna前，一定要上BOATSmart！Canada的網站考試申請船牌。雖然與溫哥華相比Kelowna只是個小城市，但市內主要品牌的商店和餐廳一應俱全，連卑詩大學在Kelowna也有個校園，購物吃喝玩樂讀書生活也很方便。除了沿著湖伴無數的酒莊葡萄園外，市郊有十多個高爾夫球場，附近山上還有三個大滑雪場，生活悠閒是退休人仕的理想定居地。

停泊在碼頭的遊艇，這隻船大約十萬加元，比一輛車還貴。

鬼佬龍舟

超級快艇，水上的法拉利

快艇的駕駛室

第一天我們下午才從溫哥華出發，到達Kelowna已經入夜，晚上一對新人約了來參加婚禮的朋友相敘，加上駕長途車後十分累，吃過晚餐便早點回酒店睡覺，留待明天才四處遊覽。新娘自少在Kelowna長大，讀大學時結識了來自更偏遠小鎮來的新郎，決定回到相識的地方舉行婚禮。他們的婚禮十分簡單，只邀請雙方親屬和幾個好朋友，不像港式婚禮要大排筵席請一大幫人。婚禮在酒莊的花園舉行，白色的小禮堂坐落在葡萄園當中，像看浪漫電影的婚禮。新人均不是教徒，婚禮沒有任何宗教儀式，只是在證婚人前宣讀誓詞。新娘的祖先來自愛爾蘭，沒有如一般結婚在宣誓後會交換戒指，取而代之是愛爾蘭的婚禮傳統，新娘新郎拖著雙手舉起，親人和朋友逐一上前把布帶綁上，並送上祝福的說話，喻意他們永遠也連繫一起。婚禮後的招待設在湖畔酒店，在從湖上吹來清涼的微風中，看著酒店碼頭遊艇駛進駛出，享受了一頓豐富的婚宴。

 

葡萄園的婚禮場地

花園中的小禮堂

愛爾蘭婚禮的綁手儀式

湖畔酒店

相關資料：

  1. Kelowna旅遊局　
  2. 酒莊禮堂 Belgo Wedding Chapel
  3. 湖畔酒店 Hotel Eldorado
Daily Scribble

When the Problem Is the Problem

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This is the only thing I learned from my master degree. Asking the right question is half way done to get the right answer. In fact asking the right question probably more important than getting the right answer. Once you stated the question correctly, things magically fall into place and you can outsource the work to someone else.

Finding the right problem is half the solution
By Robert W. Lucky, July 2011, IEEE Spectrum

A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
– Inventor Charles Franklin Kettering (1876–1958)

We’re all fairly good at problem solving. That’s the skill we were taught and endlessly drilled on at school. Once we have a problem, we know how to turn the crank and get a solution. Ah, but finding a problem—there’s the rub.

Everyone knows that finding a good problem is the key to research, yet no one teaches us how to do that. Engineering education is based on the presumption that there exists a predefined problem worthy of a solution. If only it were so!

After many years of managing research, I’m still not sure how to find good problems. Often I discovered that good problems were obvious only in retrospect, and even then I was sometimes proved wrong years later. Nonetheless, I did observe that there were some people who regularly found good problems, while others never seemed to be working along fruitful paths. So there must be something to be said about ways to go about this.

Internet pioneer Craig Partridge recently sent around a list of open research problems in communications and networking, as well as a set of criteria for what constitutes a good problem. He offers some sensible guidelines for choosing research problems, such as having a reasonable expectation of results, believing that someone will care about your results and that others will be able to build upon them, and ensuring that the problem is indeed open and underexplored.

All of this is easier said than done, however. Given any prospective problem, a search may reveal a plethora of previous work, but much of it will be hard to retrieve. On the other hand, if there is little or no previous work, maybe there’s a reason no one is interested in this problem. You need something in between. Moreover, even in defining the problem you need to see a way in, the germ of some solution, and a possible escape path to a lesser result, like the runaway truck ramps on steep downhill highways.

Timing is critical. If a good problem area is opened up, everyone rushes in, and soon there are diminishing returns. On unimportant problems, this same herd behavior leads to a self-approving circle of papers on a subject of little practical significance. Real progress usually comes from a succession of incremental and progressive results, as opposed to those that feature only variations on a problem’s theme.

At Bell Labs, the mathematician Richard Hamming used to divide his fellow researchers into two groups: those who worked behind closed doors and those whose doors were always open. The closed-door people were more focused and worked harder to produce good immediate results, but they failed in the long term.

Today I think we can take the open or closed door as a metaphor for researchers who are actively connected and those who are not. And just as there may be a right amount of networking, there may also be a right amount of reading, as opposed to writing. Hamming observed that some people spent all their time in the library but never produced any original results, while others wrote furiously but were relatively ignorant of the relevant literature.

Hamming, who shared an office with Claude Shannon and knew many famous scientists and engineers, also remarked on what he saw as a “Nobel Prize effect,” where once having achieved a famous result, a researcher felt that he or she could work only on great problems, consequently never doing great work again. From small-problem acorns, great trees of research grow.

Like a lot of things in life, it helps to be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes all the good and well-intentioned advice in the world won’t help you avoid working on a dead-end problem. I know—I’ve been there, done that

電影

通天神探狄仁傑

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去年在香港電影金像獎中，「通天神探狄仁傑」獲得六項大獎。其中四項是技術獎，在當今香港影壇缺乏大製作下，由這套豪華陣容製作鉅資的電影奪取，完全是意料中事。徐克獲得最佳導演也實至名歸，從他初出道拍的「蝶變」開始，這類武俠科幻片是他的拿手好戲。借用古代的武俠設定，揉合懷舊復古科幻風格的發明，構成一個虛幻充滿創意的世界。至於劉嘉玲當上影后實在有點莫名其妙，戲中武則天戲份不多根本不是女主角，若她拿最佳女配角倒沒有問題，大慨這只是個豬肉獎分給陪跑了這麼多年的劉嘉玲。

徐克的電影如果沒有走火入魔，拍到觀眾不知道他想講什麼，只要他能兼顧商業元素，其實是很刺激的視覺娛樂。看徐克的電影，不要追問戲中世界的合理性，不要問為什麼古代會有機闤槍，也不要問為什麼唐代會有自由神像，只要欣賞他精彩的影像畫面便好了。故事完全天馬行空，其實看見那座超越現代建築科技的神像，已知道電影不會有多少歷史真確性。電影除了借用武則天和狄仁傑的名字，所有劇情全屬自行創作。劇本的最大敗筆，是通天神探所謂的查案，只不過是按指示一步步走下去，走到最後卻是很老土古龍式的身邊朋友才是敵人。狄仁傑如果一早聽拍檔的話，把梁家輝拉去嚴刑拷問，便不用兜一大個圈，死一大堆人可破案。還有一點想不明白，梁家輝不過是個監工，橫看豎看也不像最終壞蛋，還有他的壞蛋手下不知從那兒走出來。如果有能隊夠在京城來去無蹤，行兇殺人如入無人之境的殺手組織，便不用大費周章去讓神像倒塌，直接攻入宮中行刺武則天豈不更快捷。

歷史中的狄仁傑，也是個文武兼備的奇才，他替武則天當過宰相，也領兵打過突厥。電影中狄仁傑因謀反被判入焚字獄，歷史上他可是忠於武則天，被人誣告謀反查明是冤案後，也只是被貶去當地方官數年。電影中唯一與歷史相乎的情節，大慨只有狄仁傑勸武則天，要把帝位傳回唐室太子一事矣。

動漫

Level-E 靈異E接觸

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日本動畫界當前的危機，便是新作過份商業主導，一切都經過精心的公式計算，務求賣出最多周邊產品，從消費者身上賺取最多利潤，反而忽略了最重要的動畫本身。上一季二十多套新番動畫中，最好看的作品竟然是改篇自十多年前的舊漫畫，相比之下新作完不撼入目，不能不慨嘆日本動畫界的凋澪。

「靈異E接觸」很多年前我曾經看過，但已完全忘記了劇情內容。當年冨樫義博還未成為富奸，不會經常脫稿一年只連載三話，也不會把未完成的草稿交出來敷衍讀者。或多或少富奸是被少年Jump週刊，流水作業式的環境迫成的。當年「幽遊白書」能夠賣紙，便把漫畫拖長至爛尾，到了「Hunter x Hunter」更是死不斷氣。反而被譽為富奸代表作的「靈異E接觸」，因為風格不乎合賺錢公式，只出了三期便被腰斬了。

十多年前的漫畫，雖然現在才改篇為動畫，但完全沒有過時的感覺。富奸天馬行空的想像力，在不受少年漫畫的公式限制下，像萬花筒般不停為觀眾帶出驚喜。不得不佩服富奸扭橋的創意，出乎意料之外的計中計中計，不出章出牌玩轉常理之餘，還能夠讓觀眾到最後彷然大悟，呀的一聲叫好，還說原來是這樣為什麼我沒有想到。

動畫版只有十三話，收錄了原作的大部份的內容。每集也是獨立單完，有點無頭無尾，不過原著也是這個風格。劇情週繞著智商過人，但整天只愛捉弄別人取樂的外星王子，來到地球的故事。富奸的搞笑能力不用置疑，他不是生硬地加插笑料惹發笑，而是通過正常和不正常角色間的互動，用掩眼法故意誤導觀眾錯落產生的錯落，從而構架一個荒謬絕倫的世界，去諷刺我們熟識的現實世界。

每個故事的主題也很特出，有別於其他動畫的表達手法。其中我最喜愛是原色戰隊的故事，一口氣完轉特攝系列和電玩RPG遊戲。外星王子綁架了五個小學生，強迫他們載上變身手帶，原本要他們去對付原本是外星殺手，現在過著隱居生活他們的小學老師。事情發展當然不如王子所願，老師和學生變成十分有人情味的結局。於是王子改變計畫，送他們去RPG遊戲星球救公主打魔王。觀眾一直以為王子把小學生心儀的女同學捉了來當公主，到公主出場時竟然是王子男扮女裝，原全給富奸擺了一道。最後出場的非一般魔王讓觀眾再次吐血，成為史上唯一會反思統治世界的意義的魔王，把打打殺殺的RPG遊戲變為模疑城市般的益智建設遊戲。原色戰隊續篇的故事，他們救了被人口販子販賣的外星人魚，亦同時帶出小學生純真的友誼，故事簡單但十分感人。

很可惜漫畫存貨已差不多全被改篇，剩下來大慨只能夠拍一套ODA。富奸靠「幽白」和「HxH」早已賺夠收山上岸，加上他的老婆是畫「美少女戰士」的武內直子，不知道他以後還會不會再畫漫畫，看來「靈異E接觸」將成為富奸的絕響。

News Clips

Slaying the Cable Monster: Why HDMI Brands Don’t Matter

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I have been keep saying those who buy expensive HDMI cable are idiots and now here is the prove.

By Will Greenwald, May 13 2011, PC Magazine
For the vast majority of HDTV owners, a $5 HDMI cable will provide the same performance as a $100 one.

You’ve probably experienced this when shopping for a new HDTV: A store clerk sidles up and offers to help. He then points you toward the necessary HDMI cables to go with your new television. And they’re expensive. Maybe $60 or $70, sometimes even more than $100 (You could buy a cheap Blu-ray player or a handful of Blu-ray discs for that price!). The clerk then claims that these are special cables. Superior cables. Cables you absolutely need if you want the best possible home theater experience. And the claims are, for the vast majority of home theater users, utter rubbish.

The truth is, for most HDTV setups, there is absolutely no effective difference between a no-name $3 HDMI cable you can order from Amazon.com and a $120 Monster cable you buy at a brick-and-mortar electronics store. We ran five different HDMI cables, ranging in price from less than $5 up to more than $100, through rigorous tests to determine whether there’s any difference in a dirt-cheap cable and one that costs a fortune.

HDMI Basics

The first thing to remember about HDMI is that it is a digital standard. Unlike component video, composite video, S-video, or coaxial cable, HDMI signals don’t gradually degrade, or get fuzzy and lose clarity as the signal fades or interference grows. For digital signals like HDMI, as long as there is enough data for the receiver to put together a picture, it will form. If there isn’t, it will just drop off. While processing artifacts can occur and gaps in the signal can cause blocky effects or screen blanking, generally an HDMI signal will display whenever the signal successfully reaches the receiver. Claims that more expensive cables put forth greater video or audio fidelity are nonsense; it’s like saying you can get better-looking YouTube videos on your laptop by buying more expensive Ethernet cables. From a technical standpoint, it simply doesn’t make sense.

This doesn’t mean that all HDMI cables are created equal in all cases. HDMI includes multiple specifications detailing standards of bandwidth and the capabilities of the cable.

The current HDMI specification, version 1.4a, requires all compliant cables to support 3D video, 4K resolution (approximately 4000-by-2000-pixel resolution, or about four times the detail of the current HD standard of 1080p), Ethernet data transmissions, and audio return channels. Each of these features requires more bandwidth, and considerably older HDMI cables (and all older HDMI-equipped devices) rated at HDMI 1.3b or lower can’t handle that much bandwidth. For most users, 3D is the only feature they’ll use. Ethernet over HDMI is used mostly for networking devices instead ofconnecting viapure Ethernet or Wi-Fi (the methods most consumer electronics products use). Audio return channels are only useful in certain situations with dedicated sound systems (and the same task can be accomplished by running an audio cable to the system). And there aren’t currently any consumer-grade displays or playback devices capable of handling 4Kresolutions (the least-expensive 4K projector you’ll find is more than $75,000). In all of these cases, it’s a yes or no question: does it support these features? There is no question of clarity or superior signal.

That said, there are cases where higher quality cables and going to lengths to maintain signal quality are important. They just aren’t cases that apply for most HDTV owners. If you’re going to run an HDMI cable for lengths longer than 10 feet, you should be concerned about insulation to protect against signal degradation. It’s not an issue for 6-foot lengths of cable, but as the distance between media device and display increases, signal quality decreases and the more susceptible the signal becomes to magnetic interference. In fact, for distances of over 30 feet, the HDMI licensing board recommends either using a signal amplifier or considering an alternate solution, like an HDMI-over-Ethernet converter. When you’re running up against the maximum length, the greater insulation and build quality of more expensive cables can potentially improve the stability of your signal. However, if there’s a 30-foot gap between your Blu-ray player and your HDTV, you might want to rearrange some furniture. Or just use a technology designed for long distances.

The second thing to know about HDMI cables is that they are almost always expensive when you buy them at brick-and-mortar stores. If you walk into a Best Buy or Radio Shack, you can expect to pay at least $40 for a 6-foot HDMI cable. Even at discount stores like Wal-Mart and Target, the cheapest, most generic HDMI cables retail for $15 and more. Online, you’ll do a lot better on prices. Amazon.com and Monoprice.com (the “ancient custom installer’s secret”) slash even Wal-Mart’s HDMI cable prices into tiny bits. Both sites sell several models of HDMI cables for as little as $1.50. These are generally generic HDMI cables, or seldom-heard-of brands, but they work just fine for most HDTV users. We can be certain of this, because we tested them in the PCMag Labs.

Testing the Cables

We tested five cables including Monster Cable’s 1200 Higher Definition Experience Pack, a combination HDMI/Ethernet bundle that lists for $119.95 but we found for $79.95 at Amazon.com, the Monster Cable HDMI 500HD High Speed Cable ($59.95 list, we got it at Amazon for $52.62), the Spider International E-HDMI-0006 E-Series Super High Speed HDMI with Ethernet cable ($64.99 list price and a $45.29 Amazon price), the Cables Unlimited 6-Foot HDMI Male to Male Cable (PCM-2295-06) that Amazon carries for $3.19, and an unbranded, OEM cable from Monoprice that was shipped in a Belkin bag but doesn’t match any of the company’s own HDMI cables (and retails for $3.28, or $2.78 if you buy 50 cables or more).

We’ve left out some of the more lavishly expensive HDMI cables, like the AudioQuest series of HDMI cables, because they retail for nearly $700. Unless those cables can let me eat the food I see on the Food Network, they’re not worth the price of an actual HDTV.

Based purely on the cables’ specs, Monster Cable’s HDMI cables are superior. Of course, that’s because Monster Cable is the only company of the four to offer any notable specifications. Spider International and Cables Unlimited offered very little information in the way of the cables, and the generic cable had no specifications besides it being 28 AWG (American Wire Gauge), a number that simply references the width of the wire used in the cable (28 AWG is a standard measurement, though some cables can be slightly thicker at 26 or 24 AWG). HDMI standards require that all HDMI 1.4 cables be able to handle a bandwidth of 10.2 gigabits per second (Gbps). The Monster Blu-Ray 1200 Higher Definition Experience Pack has a rated speed of 17.8 Gbps. Again, what really matters is whether the cable is HDMI-1.4-compliant, and it can support the necessary features mentioned above. The higher bandwidth doesn’t matter for HDTV signals. It might make a difference with 4K-video, but since HDTVs currently top out at 1080p, that point is moot.

As long as the cable is HDMI-1.4 compliant and it can hit 10.2 Gbps, which is will if it’s 1.4-compliant, it will do the trick. Also, we couldn’t find a cable that wasn’t 1.4-compliant, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

For consistency, we used only 6-foot or 2-meter (6.6-foot) cables to ensure that cable length didn’t affect the results of the tests. We paired a Sony Bravia KDL-46EX720 3D HDTV with an LG BD670 Blu-ray player for all tests. The television was set to standard, default image settings, and the Blu-ray player was set to output only a 1080p video signal. We put the cables through three different tests: a technical quality evaluation, a blind video test, and a 3D-support test.

For the technical quality evaluation, we used the HQV video benchmark Blu-ray Disc. For each cable, we ran through the gamut of HQV video tests, which checks video for numerous image processing, frame-rate synchronization, and color-correction capabilities. The tests include numerous patterns and animations to expose possible display problems. All five cables passed HQV’s tests with flying colors, with a single exception, which was consistent across all of them (and thus more likely a flaw of either the HDTV or the Blu-ray player): 2:2 film pull-down looked a bit jerky, a minor issue that doesn’t affect the cables individual performance.

The blind video test involved the assistance of five volunteers in the PCMag Lab. They were shown the same scene from Predators on Blu-ray with different cables. They were not told which cable was which until the end of the test. No one saw any appreciable difference between the $3 cables and the $120 cable, or any of the cables in between. However, we did notice a curious phenomenon: the screen appeared slightly darker and a bit more saturated when connected to the Blu-ray player with the Monster Cable 1200 High Definition Experience Pack cable. The HDTV showed that it was receiving the same 12-bit color depth information through each cable, so the more-expensive Monster cable wasn’t pushing through more color detail. Again, the difference was minimal, and could be corrected by calibrating your HDTV.

Finally, we loaded the 3D Avatar Blu-ray to check that the cables could handle an HDMI 1.4 standard feature: 3D content. Again, every cable, including the cheap $3 cable, carried a 3D video feed to the HDTV easily.

If you’re like the vast majority of HDTV users and have a fairly simple setup that isn’t spread across a large area, there is absolutely no reason to spend more than $10 on an HDMI cable, never mind more than $100 on one. Any possible benefit that could come from an over-engineered, overpriced HDMI cable simply won’t show up in your home theater. If you’re running a 4K projector, or have a 25-foot hallway between your Blu-ray player and HDTV, or want to show off how big your home theater budget is, that’s one thing. If you just want to hook up your Blu-ray player, cable box, or video game system to your HDTV, bypass the big stores and big brands and reach into the Web bargain bin. Then use the money you saveto buy more electronics that need to be connected to one another.