It is my turn to be the PMC Idle. My old project is finished and the whole term is not assign to new project. There are rumors that the company is going to have another restructure next month. Right now, the executives are waiting other projects to finish, so they can realign the engineers and shuffle people between departments. Since we have almost nothing to do, we start collecting verification statistics and benchmark from the previous project, which is something never done before. In the past, we were rushed from one project to another, never have the time to do a proper postmortem analysis. In the project, we have run over 20000 simulations, combined CPU time is over 6 years. Ironically, the simulations spent 20 years sitting in the server farm waiting for CPU become available. I am not the only one out of work, my boss has nothing to do as well. He called a meeting trying to figure out something for us to work on. At the end, we decided we should just relax and take this time to learn something new. I have assigned myself read management books borrowed from the library and proposed a few verification infrastructure projects. The problem is we will have to go through a few hoops to get those pet projects approved by the upper management. In this company, we don’t have any system setup for personal research or development work. We can only envy those in 3M or Google who can spend 20% of their time working on fun pet projects.
Treo 680
Finally, it is time for my trusty old Nokia cell phone to retire. I am probably the only person amoung my friends still using a black and white phone. My old Nokia has been abused by me so much that the volume button is no longer functional and there is a big crack on the screen. I wanted to get a new cell phone for quite some time, but I hang on to my old Nokia since I havn’t seen any phone I like. I want an all-in-one cell phone with PDA and camera, mp3 player. I personally dislike Microsoft, so the Pocket PC phones are out of question. The Treo 650 released a couple years ago almost meet my requirement, except I don’t like the atenna. Now the new Treo 680 exactly matches all my criteria.
I have been a long time Palm Pilot user, owned 3 generation of Palms . I only stop using after my Palm V broke down and I sometimes I still missed it. The Treo 680 runs Palm OS, so I feel right at home. The setup follows the good Palm tradition, which is very easy. After I insert the sim card, the Palm is up and running in no time. Treo 680 has a known bug that the camera does not know how to turn off itself and keep draining the battery. There is a patch avaiable on the Palm website, download and install the patch solves the problem. I have another delimma, I switched to Thunderbird to store my contacts a while ago. Luckily there is an extension that sync the Thunderbird address book with my new Palm. However, I still cannot sync up my calender and tasks list from Sunbird. That is just some minor nuisance, I don’t use the calender and tasks list that often anyways.
After I get done with the basic setup, it is time to install extra software. It took me a long time searching the net for a Chinese OS with crack. It is the most important software on Palm, without it I can’t use Chinese applications. I also need a dictionary, a Chinese / English bible, a scientific calculator, star chart and some games. I havn’t download other programs yet but I don’t worry about that too much, since there are freeware or open source aviable. With all those programs in the configuration, my new Palm is pretty much has the same stuffs as my old Palm.
I can download all the software for free, but I will have to pay for the extra hardware I need. The Treo 680 comes with a wired hand free headset, but I want to have a wireless blue tooth headset. I need an 2.5mm to 3.5mm audio jack converter so I can connect the Palm with my car stereo or headphone. At last, I also need a 2G SD card to store music and photos.
The only complain I have about my new Palm is that it is locked with my wireless carrier. After I finish setting it up, I will search for ways to unlock my Palm so that I can use it in Europe or HK.
New look
I proudly present the new face of my blog. I have been developing this wordpress theme for the past two weeks, experimenting with AJAX and PHP. The new layout greatly improved the aesthetic and function of my blog. On every page, I added a drop down menu and a left side bar with widgets on recent posts, and comments for easier navigation. On the front page, I added more information about my blog on the right side bar. This theme is not yet complete and the rennovation of my site is only half done. Here is the short term and long term to-do list for my blog.
Short Term:
- Package the theme for download and create a documentation page for the theme. I still have to figure out where to submit theme.
- Add a profile box on the front page with brief introduction of myself
- Write the page about myself
- Write the page explain the meaning of “Philosophy’s Camp” and some background history of horace.org
- Add comment sections for pages.
Long Term:
- Rework the CSS style sheet, consolidate the style elements. My current style sheet is based on the wordpress default theme, so it still contains with many useless elements.
- Add post preview on the search result page, category and archieve index page.
- Think about what to put in the place of the right side bar in single post page.
- Use collapsable tree for the page widget and archive widget
- Make the theme true AJAX compliant, only refresh the updated portion of page instead of refreshing the whole page
- Add a database to display quotes from my favour philosophers.
Feel free to leave me comments to let me know your opinion on the new design. Tell me what new features you would like to see and what current feature is hard to use. I will incoporate the suggestion in the next release.
Borat 波叔出城
香港廣管局會因為「秋天的童話」中船頭尺爆粗發出警告﹐會因為「鏗鏘集」討論同性戀的節目不夠持平而發出強烈警告﹐不知道廣管局會如何評審這套「波叔出城」呢﹖這齣電影完全政治不正確﹐主角在劇內到處宣揚反猶太﹐反同性戀﹐男人沙文主義。而且內容充滿偏見﹐粗口橫飛﹐還有大量祼露鏡頭。大慨廣管局那些天真純潔的官員﹐一定會看到爆血管心狀病發﹐不是給氣死便是給嚇死。
「波叔出城」的英文原名很長﹐叫Borat: Cultural Learnins of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan。故名知義這電影是套虛構記錄片(Mockumentary)﹐主角波叔份作哈薩克(前蘇聯分裂出來的一個小國)國營電視台的記者﹐在美國到處找名人閒人訪問﹐騙他們說是來美國取經學習文化﹐其實卻是暴露美國文化荒謬反智的一面。波叔原本只是英國電視節目Ali G Show的一個環節﹐透過Scahan Cohen飾演波叔的古怪行徑﹐瘋狂搞笑地諷刺美國文化。波叔說很一口鄉音極濃的英文﹐思想上則是極端白人男性主義。受訪者往往因為波叔的惡搞訪問﹐而不自覺的說出些認同波叔的極端想法﹐又或者抱著政治正確的想法包容多元文化﹐而給波叔弄得哭笑不得。
雖然明知這齣戲是假 ﹐但拍得真的很像共產黨的政府宣傳片。片頭字幕用哈薩克文﹐配樂一聽就知到是蘇聯音樂﹐兩個主角戲內嘰哩咕嚕大講克薩克話。開場拍波叔在哈薩克的家鄉﹐完全配合西方人對前蘇聯破爛落後的印像﹐若來毫無幽默感的哈薩克政府跑來嚴正抗議。這電影說不上有什麼故事﹐波叔在美國訪問吸取文化﹐戀上電視中看見Bay Watch的波霸彭美拉﹐於是穿洲過省由紐約去到荷里活﹐誓要取她為妻。整套電影就是把波叔在美國的經歷串連一起﹐其實很低俗無聊﹐大玩下流不文笑話﹐香港爛片王黃晶也相形見拙﹐不過真的十分抵笑好笑﹐每個鏡頭都是笑位。波叔在紐約街頭親善地找路人作蘇聯式抱﹐當然地給人粗口問候。波叔去學餐桌禮儀談吐技巧﹐明明按照導師指示照做﹐卻可以適得其反鬧出笑話一大籮。波叔去德洲鬥牛場唱國歌﹐發表偉論支持布殊殺光伊拉克人﹐換來是全場歡呼拍掌。波叔經歷千辛萬苦卒之見到彭美拉﹐想用哈薩克式求婚婜她﹐原來是出動麻包袋擄人。最經典那戲場是波叔與他助手的肉博戰﹐打真軍全祼上陣﹐由酒店房打到樓人會議廳﹐百幾人面前一絲不掛跑來跑去﹐鏡頭前那些不知情者的反應真精彩。
這齣電影說不上諷刺時弊﹐劇中拿來挖苦的美國文化﹐太多太散全是人所共知的樣板偏見。不過波叔狂踩政治禁區的勇氣倒是值得一讚﹐現今傳媒總是很四平八穩地怕開罪別人﹐波叔這類題材不可能通過政治正確的自我意識審查。波叔的想法雖然極端另類﹐披著開明進步外衣的現代社會道德﹐卻日常生活中壓制言論自由﹐隨便無傷大雅地說說也不可以。 這齣電影在美國票房叫好叫座﹐男主角還奪得金球獎最佳喜劇演員。這期我公司也很流行這電影﹐很多同事無啦啦會學波叔口音﹐引用幾句他的極端言論來互窒。戲中波叔的哈薩克英文聽得我很辛苦﹐不過看這套戲要留文聽原聲才原汁原味﹐中文字幕翻譯很難準確地傳達波叔的神韻。不知道波叔會不會有機會來中國﹐用半鹹淡的中文﹐挑戰中國五千的醬江文化呢﹖
Military service
I was talking to a colleague from Taiwan today. This poor guy cannot go back to Taiwan, not even visiting, or he will be throw into jail once he landed. He came to Canada to study highschool and university hence escaped the 2 years military service. Although he is now a Canadian citizen, he cannot renounce his Taiwan citizenship until he had served his term. As long as he is a Taiwan citizen, he will be subject to the Taiwanese law once he set foot on Taiwan. He said that even changing his name cannot escape the military service, somehow the Taiwan government know you are the same person. I feel sorry for him that he can’t even go home to visit his parents back in Taiwan. Military service a very unproductive policy. Young men wasted two years in the army, not learning anything particularly useful. The talented who study aboard won’t come back to the country since the cost of spending two years in the army is too high. People should not forced to join the army. The army should just hire its soilders like the police hire policemen. Making it a true profession instead of forcing the unwilling young men to join will improve the quality and fighting power of the army. Military service is a thing of the past when the number of men determine the outcome of a war. In future wars, technology and elite soldiers can make up with a smaller army by fighting more efficiently. The army will only have soldiers who control the weapons and the technicians and engineers who supporting the weapons. There is no need for the foot soldiers, except maybe a small team of special operation force.