Daily Scribble

De-bug

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Every night when we come back to the guest house after dinner, we have to de-bug. No, I am not meaning we are so hard working that we are still fixing our code at night. I mean de-bug literally. Since the beginning of this week, we have serious bug problem in the guest house. We are seeing 3 inches big cockroach every night. So far Mark is more popular among the cockroaches, 3 cockroaches have shown up in his room, only one showed up in my room.

The three cockroaches are murdered brutally by Mark. Mark seems to develop a very efficient and fun method to de-bug. First we need an old magazine and a Mag-Lite torch. Mark will use the magazine to play with the cockroach until it flips upside down. Then he will cover the cockroach with the magazine and pound it hard using the handle his torch. After pounding repeatably for 30 to 40 times, we have a very nice minced cockroach and cockroach juice on the marble floor.

Mark brutally murder Mr. cockroach with his Mag-Lite. Victim number 1

Mark's 2nd victim. Victim number 2

The third victim. Victim number 3
Tonight we tried a different approach. Instead of killing the cockroach on spot, we decided to capture it. Capturing it is much easier than killing it, since if you don’t hit it, it doesn’t run away. You just have to cover it up with a food container and place the lid once it is inside. Now, we have captured a cockroach, but we have no idea what to do with it. There are a few suggestions: from taking it out and pound to its death, to flush it down the toilet, to drop it off from the balcon, to nuke it in the microwave. At the end, we decide to spare its life for another night and leave it on top of the table. I think Mark is thinking about keeping the cockroach as his pet, since he has already named the cockroach, Sammy.

We captured Mr. Cockroach. Sammy the cockroach.

Mark is saying hello to his new pet. Mark is saying hello to Sammy.

電影

The Golden Compass 黃金羅盤

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The Golden Compass Philip Pullman的「黑暗物質」三部曲是套讓我愛不釋手的小說。雖然這套小說的名氣不及「哈利波特」響亮﹐故事卻比後者更深刻感人。「黑暗物質」的主角是小 女孩﹐但它不只是兒童讀物﹐更可以讓不同年齡的讀者反思世界。「黑暗物質」第一部「黃金羅盤」搬上大銀幕﹐我自然很熱切期待著電影上映。原本期望電影改編 可達「魔戒」的級數﹐保留原著神髓又不失娛樂性。可是拍出來卻像「哈利波特」電影版﹐故事內容大致齊全﹐可是就是欠缺作品的靈魂﹐淪為徒具外表面的空殼。

「黃金羅盤」的背景設定其實十分很吸引﹐特別是對小孩子觀眾。那個世界人類的靈魂不是在腦內﹐而是以不同動物的形態倍伴在身旁。教會以神權政治統治那個世 界﹐任何對教會權威的質疑皆是異端邪說。主角Lyra是被大學校長收養的小孤女﹐在一連串偶然的事件推使下﹐她與她的靈獸展開橫跨大陸勇闖地極的冒險。在 旅途中以她為中心串聯反起教會勢力﹐有為尋找世界真理而挑戰教會權威的學者﹐有要拯救孩子被教會綁架去做實驗的吉甫賽人﹐有流亡荒野預言主角來臨救世的女 巫﹐還有很生鬼懂話說的武裝北極熊族﹐。

原著小說的故事驚險很有趣﹐改篇為劇本也很難失手。「黃金羅盤」在娛樂性十足﹐會說話的動物﹐飛天女巫﹐武裝熊大戰﹐無一不是吸引小朋友入場的元素。小說 在故事言語之間﹐隱含對宗教權威主義的批判﹐在電影版中則沒法表達出來。電影名稱是指看起來像黃金羅盤的真理探測儀﹐這個儀器可以解答任何人的任何問題。 問問題的方法很特別﹐需要依靠靈感解讀表面的圖案。在小說中主角學習如何和黃金羅盤溝通﹐一步一步理解她身處世界的秘密﹐與讀者一同解開平衡世界與塵之謎 ﹐是小說牽引讀者的一條重要主線。可是在電影中的黃金羅盤太易用了﹐講出問題答案就自動浮現出來﹐變成好像魔鏡一樣的普通魔法道具﹐失去原著中謎樣的魅力。

不論是電影還是小說﹐「黃金羅盤」的主題意識也像燈光招惹昆蟲一樣﹐引來很多來自宗教的批評。故事中的教會是百份百壞人﹐自以為擁有神賜與無上的權威﹐恣 意踐踏任何反對的聲音﹐儘管教會往往與真理背道而馳。故事很明顯取材自中世紀黑暗時期的教會﹐並無意影射現代經過文明洗禮的教會。小說中帶出歷史的教訓﹐ 可以作為對教會善意提醒﹐有則改之無則小心妨範。可是總是有些心虛的宗教團體自行對號入座﹐說小說是惡意攻擊宗教。其實那些感覺被冒犯的教會﹐會否正正就 如小說中的教會一樣﹐濫權力打壓異己﹐才會對小說如此敏感﹐反射性作出的自我保護的批評呢﹖

Daily Scribble

Hawkers in India

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Hawkers in India are really annoying.  They swamp you at any tourist attraction, trying to sell you junks and spoil your traveling mood.  From our experience in Mystore, we learned that the best way to deal with hawkers is to ignore them.  We also found that my ignoring is more effective than Mark’s ignoring.  Somehow I sense there is a subtle difference between my ignoring than Mark’s.   As engineers, we have the observation, now we have to find a theory to explain the observation.  After some insightful discussion with Mark, we come with a even more effective method dealing with the hawkers.  To avoid hawkers, you have to think like a hawker.  To think like a hawker, you have to understand the Indian culture

First of all, let me explain why say NO won’t work.  When you are saying NO to the hawker, you are talking to them, you are more or less treating them in equal terms.  Even you are yelling at them, the fact that they got your attention is a signal to encourage them try harder.  When you ignore the hawkers, you have to ignore them like they are the untouchables.  They are no difference than a swamp of flies.  No only you have to ignore them, you have to show you are despising them.  Once you establish your superiority over the hawkers, they will feel shameful about themselves and stay away from you deal to their instinct in the Indian caste system tradition.

When you ignore the hawker, you should not ignore them passively.  If you show any sign of noticing their existence, such as change your path to avoid them, you are inviting them to swamp you.  Instead you should ignore them actively, make the hawkers avoid you instead of you avoiding them.  You should focus on your destination, walk straight ahead like no one is there.  Magically the swamp of hawkers approaching you will yield a road for you like Moses dividing the Red Sea.

In the civilized world, we teach our kids to treat every human equally.  Unfortunately, this ideology only works if every one is educated or at least know some basic manner.  It is sad the only way to deal with the street hawkers in Indian is to treat them like dirt.  At first I felt a little bit guilty about this.  Hey! What the hack!  The hawkers are so annoying.  They are not deserved to be treat like a human!

Daily Scribble

10 hours rule

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Conference calls at night is one thing that makes working in Bangalore though. There is a 12 hours difference between India and Vancouver. When Bangalore in the morning, it’s the evening in Vancouver. It is necessary to keep in touch with the Vancouver team, however it is very important to pick the right time to have the meeting. You don’t want to have the meeting too early, since that’s the time you are having dinner. Restaurants won’t start serving dinner until 7p.m. or 7:30p.m., plus the time in transportation, a 9:30p.m. meeting is very tight. Having a quick dinner is NOT an option. Lunch at work is crappy, you need a nice meal at night to keep your sanity.

On the other hand, you don’t want to have meetings too late. You have to wake up at 7:30a.m. to come to the office for morning meeting. Late meeting cut into your sleeping time. The only sweet slot for having conference call is from 10p.m. to 11p.m. Last night we have a 10:30p.m. meeting that runs until 12:a.m., and this morning I have a 9:30a.m. meeting. I end up feeling tried the whole day because of lack of sleep.

We try to implement a 10 hours rule for the day. No, we don’t mean working 10 hours a day. We mean having at least 10 hours of rest between work. We should have 10 hours of rest from the moment we hang up the conference call at night until we get on the car and go to work the next morning. We need 1 hour to get ready to bed, 8 hours of sleep and 1 hour to get up and have breakfast, 10 hours is the barely minimal.

Daily Scribble

A few lessons I learn from Mysore

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I have learn a few valuable lessons from my Mysore trip. I would like to share with anyone who may visit India. One a side note, I highly discourage anyone to visit India. There are much better places on Earth to travel than India.

The First Lesson: Stay away from the tourist guides approach you at any tourist attraction. Those tourist guides are hawkers in disgust, even they have whatever permission from the government. We learn it the hard way. In the first Hindu temple, we naively follow a tourist guide to see the temple without negotiate his fee first. We were charged a ridiculous fee of Rs600 per person at the end of a 30 minutes tour.

In the second Hindu temple, we learned from our experience, we negotiate the tourist guide fee Rs200 for two people. After the tour, he still want to ask for more. He said he brought us to see two temples, which is really two building of the same temple, so the fee should be Rs400 in total. Unfortunately, visiting Hindu temple require taking off your shoes. With our shoes as hostages, we agree to pay him Rs100 more at the end. In the Mysore Palace, we just say screw the tourist guides. I won’t remember whatever the tourist guide told us anyways. If I really curious about something, I can find the information in internet later. We just make up stories and tell each other when we see interesting things in the Palace. It is more fun and it’s free!

The Second Lesson: Stay away from Hindu temples. Taking pictures from outside is fine, but don’t bother going in. First, no photography is allowed inside the temple. Without the pictures you won’t remember what you saw. Second, they try to bless you by putting stinky stuff on your forehead. Luckily I avoided the blessing, but it took Mark quite some time to wash off the stinky stuff. Never mind they also ask for donation from giving you the blessing. Finally, they make you take off your shoes. Ok, if you ask people to take off their shoes, please keep the floor clean. If you can’t keep it clean, at least please keep it dry. The bottom of my socks become sticky brownish yellow after the temple visit. It’s kinda gross.

Take shoes off in some places, like Taj Mahal, actually make sense. No shoes allows for the sake of keeping the place clean or from damaging the floor are reasonable requests. Come on, the Hindu temple is no where near historical and it has a concrete floor! The idea of taking off shoes equals to respecting the God is simply stupid! If the shoe is dirty, the temple floor is even dirtier, the temple keeper must really disrespecting their Gods. On a second thought, why don’t they make people take off their pants to symbolize the respect to Gods? Then I search the Wiki and found out in fact some Hindu template actually ask you to take off your pants for entering the temple. Some one got to fix these stupid rules in Hindu temple, or people will start thinking Hinduism is a stupid religion.

On my way out, I talked to Mark that if one day I start my religion and build my temple, I will make much better rule than the stupid Hindus no shoes rule to symbolize the respect of God. In my temple, no watches or any time keeping devices is allowed. My argument has two folds. On the theory front, measuring time is disrespecting the God of eternity, who transcend above time. On the practical front, isn’t it nice to forget about time and the trouble of life inside a quiet temple where you can pray to God or meditate? Somehow Mark agree that the no watches rule is a good idea! Maybe I really should invent a new religion just like the Scientology guy.

The Third Lesson: The best way to deal with hawkers is ignoring them. Hawkers is every where in India and they are very annoying. They try to sell you junks at ridiculous price outside of any tourist attractions. We were swamped a hawkers after hawkers, and there are so many hawkers standing in front of us that they block our view to find our car. Refuse them politely is a waste of breath, since most of them couldn’t understand more sophisticate English sentence. You can say NO to the hawkers, but they keep following you until you almost yell at them. The best way is simply ignore them. No eye contact, not even saying a word, just pretend they don’t exist. That is the fastest way to stop them from bugging you.

Sometimes, the hawkers will ask you where are you from, trying to establish a conversation and then sell your their junks. If you want them to get lost, don’t answer. On the other hand, I find it kinda entertaining asking the hawker to guess where am I from. He just couldn’t guess it right even we gave him lots of hints. Canada must be a not very well known country in India. At the end, we buy some crappy postcards from him for Rs30 after he entertained us for almost 5 minutes. Well, the hawker is a kid, so we won’t feel bad making fun of him and teach him some geography at the same time. If the hawker is an adult, screw you, get out of my way.