The city of Vancouver issued a water warning today.? Due to heavy rain in the past few days, the reservior are contaminated.? The tap water is not drinkable and in fact it has brownish colour.? It is advised to boil and filter drinking water.? Actually, the tap water is not totally undrinkable, it won’t kill you.? The worse can happen is you will get sick for a few days.? Anyways, better safe than sorry, I went to supermarket to buy some bottle water after school tonight.? Not surprised, all bottle water are gone.? There are a few boxes left on the top shelf, but no one operate the fork lift to bring them down.? My water hunt turn to a nearby drug store.? Luckily the cashier was bringing out the last cart of bottle water.? I grepped two boxes immediately.? One for myself and one for pat.? So my drinking water supply is secured for at least 2-3 days.? The city should able to clean up the reservior by then.? City people like myself always take tap water for granted.? We never wonder what life will be without tap water.? Probably we couldn’t last more than a week if tap water is dry.? Water crisis is a serious threat to modern society.? I won’t mind paying the premium of regulated water company to ensure reliability.? Leaving water supply to pure market force is too risky, same argument for regulating other vital utilities like electricity or gas.? In longer term, Canada should still have adequate water resources.? Other countries will have serious shortage of water.? The next world war may not triggered by oil, which replacement energy is on the horizon.? It could triggered by regional conflicts fighting over scares water supply.

My friend in his blog wrote he treasure friends that can have deep conversation with. I totally agree with him whole heart. I don’t have many friends I can talk to with out any worries. Other than my LSC buddies, a couple of friends from primary schools and universities, I usually have some reserve about what I talk to other people. I can tell people about my opinions on various issues, but normally I won’t expose myself too much. There is a line inside my mind that I only allow the few trusted one cross over. I have made another comment about deep conversation and BS is only seperated by a thin line. I would like to clarify this statement. Deep or shallow conversation, brainful or brainless, meaningful or not are three independent variables. They are co-related in some way. BS by definition is meaningless coversation, which is difference from brainless. Usually brianless implies meaningless, but brainful doesn’t always imply meaningful. Deep conversation some times touch on topics like purpose of life, career goal, childhood dream, or even philosophical values. Those conversation defintely require lots of brain juice, but at the end it is often conclusionless and meaningless. It kinda like the analog that a undergrad knows nothing about everything and a Ph.D knows everything about nothing. In conclusion, a true friend is someone I can talk freely with, regardless whether the conversation is deep or shallow, BS or meaningful, brainful or brainless.

It is time for the 2nd annual foosball tournament at work.? Last year, I did quite bad in the foosball tournament.? I was neww to foosball.? After 1 year of practice, I think I can do much better this time.? Moreover, this year I am teaming up with Mike King, a very strong player.? Since Mike is better playing offense, so I will take care of the defense.? I can save most goals except garbage goals or shots by John Sy.? My long range attack from the back is quite effective, with some good chance turning into a garbage goal.? The combination of me and Mike had won almost every other combinations at the foosball table at least once, so we have a chance.? Somehow the foosball tournament didn’t generate as much attention as last year.? Probably those of us hang out at the foosball table knows the stregth of each other.? We can predict who has a highest chance.? Adrian, last year’s campanion, is definitely up to something.? Gota watch out for Danial and Danny as well, but at least I can block half of their shots.? The most scary shots are from John Sy and Lesile.? I can only block 25% of Lesile’s shots and almost no change against John.? If I want to win in the tournament, I gota train my blocking skills.? I wonder is my reflex too slow or I over-react.? There must be some hint before Lesile or John shots.? I have to observe carefully their hand movements to find out where they are going to shot.

Pat bough a file cabinet from Staples and naturally I am the one put it together.? On the box of the cabinet is advertised that it can be built in 12 easy steps.? It took me the whole afternoon to assemble it.? The instruction is acceptable, but not as clear as the one from Ikea.? Luckily I have experience assembling cabinet, just following the step is time consuming.? The last step to finish the cabinet is to put in the drawers.? This made in China cabinet must have some quality control problem, one of the rail is stucked.? It took me lots of effort to disassemble the drawer, take apart the rail and fix it with WD40.? It have still have some squeaky sound but at least it can open fully.? Actually the cabinet is not much cheaper compare to the one I got form Ikea.? The moral of this story is what you pay is what you get.? There is always a risk involve in buyding made in China products.

I was talking to an engineer friend today at lunch.? I discover I have a passion for automation, I just hate manual labour with a heart.? Last friday, I have to check 200 or so simulation results at work.? The reporting tool is not smart enough to take care of simulation failed on the first run but passed on the later runs.? I estimate it will take about at most half an hour to go through the simulation log files and identify the false negative results.? Since I hate brainless manual work so much, I end up spending a day writing a program to prase the log files and fix the simulation results.? The program is very elegant and compact.? I spent most of the time reverse engineer the internal data structure of the reporting tool so I can manipulate the result.? My boss also have to go through this painful and boring process fixing the report file.? He loves my small program.? Strictly speaking, it doesn’t make sense in term of time management.? Even both of us have to check the result every week, the time spent combined would still cost less time the time I spent in writing the program.? However, I find it more fun write a program to get the work done than work on it myself.