My noise cancellation headphone arrived today. The principle of noise cancellation is using a DSP processor, generate pink noise and out of phase sounds to cancell the incoming sound wave sample by the microphone on both side. This type of headphone used to cost over $100, some high end model made by Bose even cost over $300. My headphone is made by Creative Labs, only cost me $30 ordering on eBay. According to PC Magazine, it has 90% performance of the Bose headphone. Probably the advance and cost reduce of DSP make cheap noise cancellation headphone possibly. The sound quality is pretty good, it filters out the annoying air conditionor noise at work. The only complain is the headphone is a bit hot, since it has to cover the whole ear.

Another good news for me today. I just received the notice that my paper is accetped by the IWCMC conference. I have my first, probably the only, paper published. The paper is just a truncated version of my master thesis. Both of my supervisors are the co-author of the paper. I guess the more well known names on the paper, the easier it is to be accepted. I am surprise to see the reviewers’ comments difference alot. Some say my paper is yet another of the same kind, some say it make signification contribution, and some are in between say it make a small step. To take an average, my paper is good enough to be accepted. This conference is the annual IEEE conference for wireless and mobile communication. It happened to be in Vancouver this year, so I will have less trouble attending it. The next question I have to convince my boss PMC will pay for the conference. Since it is local and I have a paper published, I think it should not be a problem. I wonder how does those conference looks like, I never been to one myself.

I am finally officially a certified ski instructor of the Canadian Ski Instructor Alliance. I just passed my CSIA level 1 instructor exam and qualified to teach beginners up to easy blue runs. I have been quite nervous about this course for the past week. I know my skiing is not perfect, so there is a chance I may fail again. I had took the course two years ago and failed. At that time, I just did it for fun companied a friend, didn’t expect I would pass. However I failed so miserably and make me itchy to fix that black dot in my life. My ski definitely improved alot in the past two weekends, and I think I barely pass the skill test, having standard rating all along. I did pretty good on the teaching portion, I got above average rating. The exam is not only physically but also mentally challenaged. The exam ended at 2p.m., I thought I could have a few more runs while waiting for the instructors writing the report card. I found I couldn’t even turn properly on the first run, I had completely drained my energy and mental power in the morning. So I joined other classmates to have beer in the pub instead. The instructors posted a list of name who had passed the exam. My heart was pounding when I am reading down the list. Luckily, I found my name at the 2nd last line. It really scared me. Since I am now a ski instructor, I plan to will give some free lessons to my friends. If any one interested, just drop me an email or give me a call.

A friend at work just bought a Mercedes B class yesterday. He did it on impulse buying although he has been shopping for a new car for a while. The B class is on sales until the end of the month and having a 20% discount. My first impression on the car is it doesn’t look like a Benz. It looks more like a Matrix to me. Although he has the Mercedes logo in the front, with very nice interia, I can’t help thinking is the B class a true Benz, or merely a Crysler with Benz logo. The special feature of the B class is the sun roof. Instead of one piece sun roof, it can fold up like window binds. This design looks really cool and gives a large sun roof surface. However I worry about the sealing will leak between each pieces of the sun roof. I can pretty sure this type of design can’t use in Winnipeg or Toronto. The plastic sealing would crack under the harsh winter of -40 degrees. To me, the B class is not a true Mercedes. It lacks the charms of traditional C, E or S class. I wonder will the B class actually dilute the brand of Mercedes Benz by lowering its image? Is it a sound business decision to gain short term profit on entry level cars by sacrficing the long term permium of the luxury lines? Only times can tell.

I am not a crazy sport fans. I like watching hockey and socceer, but I won’t follow the score of every game in the season. I would start watching when the team is in the playoff or in international tournament. I won two tickets to watch Canucks games, which is the 2nd last game of the season. This year Canucks is having a close call on getting into the final and the game I am going to watch is life or death match, should be quite exciting. I was discussing the chance of Canucks going into playoff with colleagues during lunch. I just couldn’t understand why they can be so crazy about watching hockeys. I can understand watching the game as a social event to have good time with friends. I can also understand watching the game as an entertainment like watching movies. I can understand watching the game to support your national team. But the city teams in the major league are merely business, how can you attached to a company whose solely purpose is to profit from you? The thing puzzle me most is the thrill of unknown when watching the game. What is the difference between this thrill than the thrill from gambling? Maybe I am too logical to be a sports fans, I can only be a sports spectator.