All posts by hevangel

Daily Scribble

People’s Radio Hong Kong

Leave a comment

Today I come across an interesting on-line radio station. It has been operated for quite some time, and apparently ignored by the main-steam media in Hong Kong. I get to know about it because a forum I often visit is introduced by one of their programs, with a link provided to download the recording. The name of the radio station is very grass-rooted, even a bit misleading. It is not a communism party mouth piece, rather it is organized by a group of enthusiastic independent minded in Hong Kong after the last year’s shutting up of famous talk-show hosts incident. The programs has a lot of variety, but mainly focus on different kind of talk shows. Among the hosts of the programs, there are some well known names like council members or writers on newspapers, usually the name you can associate with those who represent the less fortunate to fight against the unjust authorities. So far I had only sampled a few programs, the quality varies. I would probably give follow it a while and if time permits, I may could become a loyal listener of some programs. The radio station is a non-profit organization and its operation expense rely solely on private donation. There is no commercials in the programs and refuse to accept money from business or political groups. If I like the program, I’d probably donate a small amount via paypal to show my support.

Please follow this link to visit their website.

Daily Scribble

Apple and intel

Leave a comment

The only big news for all the geeks around the world happened today is that Apple annouced it will ditch IBM/Freescale and switch to Intel processors in the future. That could means the Macintosh strike back after it lost the OS war to Microsoft. Every analyst said there will be a hugh risk for Apple to migrate its the software which is the major differentiating factor between a Mac and a Windows machine. Those guys defined lacks technical insight of how OSX works. OSX is just an UI layer sitting on top of the a FreeBSD kernel. It is not that complicate to port OSX to x86 machines, probably it only have recompiling all the libraries. I can already sense that Steve Jobs is trying to get even on Bill Gates. Here is my prediction, somehow the OSX for x86 will be hacked to work with non-Mac Intel machines. There will be a version someone leaked into all major peer-to-peer download sites. Once OSX for x86 had gathered enough momentum in the underground world, Apple will launch it as an alternative to replace Windows. The battle of OS is getting interesting once again. Windows, OSX or Linux, who can domain the desktop market?

Daily Scribble

dog in house

1 Comment

Today finally Charlie conquered my home. I was sick last night and slept for 16 hours straight skipping dinner. This morning Pat prepared some chicken rice soup for me and came to visit me with Charlie. It was Charlie’s first time taking an elevator, it was so scared that it refused to get inside. I have to kick its butt to get it moving. Charlie went into my place and sniff around. We put Charlie in the balcony while we were having brunch. After lunch we walked Charlie at the park next to the golf course near my place. Charlie was so happy that it can visit so many new places. Lucky that I wake up early this morning, or Pat was planned to have Charlie to use its licking attack to wake me up.

Daily Scribble

hiking

1 Comment

Today is the 2nd faith formation session of the WYD team. In order to prepare for the long walk in Koln, we went to do hiking in Lynn Headwater Park. The first half of the hike is pretty nice, just flat gravel trail along the river. The second half is a bit tough, we have to go up and down on the hill side and even hike up to the peak viewing points. I volunteered myself prepared lunch for the group, so I made everyone a sandwiches last night. Pat complains about QC problems on her lunch, but at least no one is sicked. At one of the look out area up in the hills, we have a good view of Vancouver. Between us and the city, there is a huge forest area. I wonder, how did Vancouver look before all the trees are cut down, the land are turned into roads and buildings. Everyone enjoy the hike with praise and worship, station of the cross and faith sharing, except me. I’m fine with the church stuff, and I’m also fine with the long walk. What really bothers me is my running nose during the whole trail. Partly it is because I caught a cold last night, and partly it is due to hey fever from the trees and grass. I also have sour knees haven’t recovered from last week’s fun run. The hike is not really fun for me. On my way home, my eye libs feel so heavy. I guess after I finish writing my blog, it’s time for me to take a nap. I had a feeling that I will sleep all the way until tomorrow.

Daily Scribble

The Economist

Leave a comment

Today when I was reading Economist, one of the colleague walked by cube, peaked his head and asked me what makes me read the Economist. That gets me start thinking how did I get start in this magazine. I have been known as the sole reader of the copy subscribed by the company library for a long time. Actually, tell you all a little secret, I also know the company’s password of the online account to access the Economist’s website. I first encounter with the Economist back in high school, I believe we are required to research on an article for the history course. Maybe my memory is a bit flickery, what does history has to do with the Economist? I start picked up reading it regularly when my dad had a subscription. At first I found the English of it a bit difficulty, not a surprise since it’s a London based magazine. After reading it for so many years, I had been accustomed to its style of writing. Presumably, if I’m given two paragraph from two different magazine, I could probably tell which one is from the Economist. One of my long term goal is to write like the Economist, a style that is clear, concise and yet sophisticated. Despite of the name of the magazine, it only has about one third of contain on business and economy. Its nature is a news magazine, with comments and analysis from the view point of an logical minded economist. The articles are more in depth than Times or Newsweek, with focus on the cause, reason and effects of current events than what had happened. Each article is well edited that takes me only 5-10 minutes to read. On average, it takes me 2-3 hours to finish an issue, depending on whether it has an interesting survey. There are so many good magazine out there, I used to read more periodic in university days when I lots of time. Now I can barely keep up with reading one magazine a week. My ideal reading list of each week would be, the Economist, IEEE Spectrum, Scientific America, National Geographic, New Yorker (I haven’t start on this one yet, due to its English is even more scary), PC Magazine, Next Magazine (chinese), Harvey Business Review, IEEE Computer, IEEE Communication, and last Computer Gaming World