Finally, American government is playing catch up

... on totalitarian policies.

If you've listened to any communist propaganda, you probably are familiar with their claim of a superior society. Eventually all other countries will follow their practice. Well, it looks like they're not all wrong:
U.S. House of representatives has approved constitutional amendment to outlaw American flag burning.

This immediately reminds me of two pro-democracy activists, Ng Kwok-hung and Lau San-ching, being fined for burning the Chinese national flag 2 years ago in China-ruled Hong Kong.

Maybe someday our first amendment will be amended to a point that criticism of the government like this will be deemed unpatriotic and thus criminal. So I'd better say it before it's too late.

MLB.TV Full Screen on Mac

...... previously not possible but I've found this solution (Credit to poster ess@Macforumz)

"You can trick Safari into playing the game in full screen using Windows Media Player.

To to this, you need to remove the Windows Media Player Plug-In from the internet plugins folder (it's located in HD-Library-Internet PlugIns-Windows Media Plugin).

After you do this, Safari will ask you if you want to us the WMP application (rather than the web based plugin for WMP) when watching a MLB.TV stream."

Then you could tell Windows Media Player to play it full screen. Problem solved!

OK. I should remove one strike against Mac.

Fight Censorship

Here is a follow-up to the article below: Adopt a Chinese Blog is a program to help Chinese bloggers by hosting their blog oversea to avoid being banned.

Well, those bloggers may still run into trouble back home as all traffic is being monitored over there.

I hope someday such program will become unnecessary.

Madeline's first swimming lesson

 

Video here

You should give credit to M$

... for criticizing themselves! See Microsoft bans 'democracy' for China web users on MSN Money. The company claimed that law required them to do so but the article pointed out no such law exists!

Well, in a country where journalist long time loyal to the ruling party could be detained for "spying", it doesn't matter what law exists.

Why should this be on the news anyway? It's capitalism at work, my friend! Apparently companies couldn't be wrong when they do things in the interest of their shareholders, no matter how immoral those are.

To Chinese bloggers: let's learn something smart from spammers: d3mocracy would do the trick.

Go SBUX Go!

What could be a better place to have the presense of this great company than the great palace?


Yes, it's the (not-so) Forbidden city in Beijing.

#1 Clueless Web hosting company

1&1 internet Inc call themselves "World's No.1 Web Host." I dunno what that means, but judging by the fact that they ban their customer's traffic for serving BitTorrent of their customer's own work, I think it probably means they're No.1 in the computer illiterate department.

PDA Nostalgia

This was a topic on my mind while I wasn't able to fall asleep during my vacation last week (as you could see I haven't blogged for a while since I was without internet access)

The chains of thought begun with my wondering about what the new Palm LifeDrive PDA would be like when it releases on 5/18. Then I trace back all PDA I've ever owned: Zire 72, Handspring Visor Prism (the first palm with color screen), Casio Cassiopeia E-110 (the 2nd gen i.e. first usable gen of PDA from Microsoft running Win CE. Also my first PDA, broken after a jam packed elevator ride)

Then I trace back to the 1st PDA in my family: my dad was a true pioneer gadgeteer himself. He bought a Casio Databank more than 15 years ago. He was still using it even though one of the key has stopped responding! Of course I got him a replacement: a brand new Sharp Organizer (with builtin English-Spanish dictionary!)

Then I trace back to the era (early 80s) when handhelds are closer cousins to calculators than organizers. They were called pocket computers and have a small but loyal followings. I could still remember computer magazine in HK having a few columns dedicated to pocket computers and published source code (mostly BASIC, some assembly) for all those primitive games that used character symbols to denote the border of a race track, obstacles in outer space, and monsters... etc. You really need a lot of imagination to enjoy those games! I'd say the graphics on GameBoy and PSP are taking away the capacity of imagination from this generation of kids! I always fancied something like Casio PB-700(which I consider the best from Casio. Casio's FX series also have a few gems) or Sharp PC-1500(Casio's major rival) but I ended up only able to convince my dad to get me a Casio FX-5200P, which has the rare combination of a look of conventional calculator and yet programmable in BASIC!

Then I still couldn't fall asleep so I switched to other more boring topics...

And what a coincidence as I come across this great history of PDA article thru Engadget today! Ernst Mulder's Calculator Collection is another great resource.

Legal invalidity? (or illegal validity)

A bunch of lawyers are going to debate the validity of the theory of evolution.

This is just totally ridiculous and could only happen in the ultraconservative Jesusland. How could you let lawyer decide whether a science theory is right or wrong? Next thing you know, Newton's laws are outlawed too: your car does not move because of force exerted on it. It moves because you love god and god loves you and made it move!

Well, they are the people who voted for President Bush. Enuff said.

King for a day

 

Maybe just for one day, but I'm on top of my fantasy baseball league, finally!

 

[Update: it's 2 days in a row already! But I suspect my bro is going to break my streak soon!]

Is Adsense going to make me rich?

Well, it depends on whether enough people are clicking the ads on my music blog.

Hey my friend, you know what to do :D

I wish this book sells

The book in question is "iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business," written by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon, and published by John Wiley & Sons, publisher of many technology books.

Why? According to various news sources, John Wiley & Sons said Apple Computer has removed all its books from Apple stores in retaliation for this upcoming biography.

If you still think Apple is the angelic company (as opposed to the evil M$), think again. I'm surprised so few gadget/tech blogs cover this story.

I have a conspiracy theory though: Mr. Jobs is actually more forgiving than you think. He just wants more buzz around this book so that it will sell!

What do you think? >:)

Blessing in disguise?

My buddy started working for this company this Monday and was let go on Friday. According to the company, it is due to mismatch between his technical skill and what the position required.

This is something you find out DURING THE INTERVIEWING process! What a smart hiring manager!

I'd rather see my friend not working for a company like this anyway. Job seekers please learn from his experience.

So sue me, Gator (oops, I should say Claria)

Biased too

Check out this title from AP: China Accuses Japan of Distorting History

Anyone would logically think that the article itself must give more details on the accusations, i.e., how and why Chinese think those Japanese history books are distorted.

Wrong!

The article is about how Chinese government have distorted their own history book. While that could be true, I don't see the connection with the title.

Talk about bias, history books probably don't come close to news media.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

That's actually the title of a book I have been spending my late-night hours reading. The secondary title is "Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" Fortunately I haven't read that much American History textbook (only 2 during the sophomore year!)

I guess the criticism about history books being biased is nothing new. Otherwise we won't have this old saying: "victors wrote the history. Losers don't" The irony is that I picked up this book right when the Japanese government's selection of distorted history textbook is causing a lot of controversy.

You may say the critics are biased too. In any case, this is something we all should know and is always true: there are many sides to every story. Don't make up your mind just because you've heard one side of it.

My new computer

... actually, just new case and CPU heatsink/fan 
I know you could check out what it looks like on Antec's website but this one is put together by myself!!!

More pic at the gallery!

Both the case (Antec SLK3700-BQE) and the CPU Heatsink/fan (Zalman CNPS6000-cu) work as advertised! Not only the noise level dropped dramatically (I hear not as much as half of the noise) but also the CPU temperature dropped from >100C to consistently <60C, with the fan running at 1500rpm only. What a big difference! Special thanks to Buildsilentpc.com and Silent PC Review for the info and recommendations.

Since this heatsink is so easy to remove (thanks to Zalman's great design and the tool they provide), I should probably try some Arctic Silver thermal compound and overclock this thing like crazy!

Jobs was right about the great music vs. video debate

You might wonder if you came to the wrong blog. Nope, this is still run by Bigland, aka. self-proclaimed part-time Apple basher.

And I only agree with one point Mr. Jobs made, i.e., music is preferable to video during commute.

I watch a lot of soccer on my notebook during my train ride but I "converted" because of my recent experience: I was disturbed approached by fellow commuters about what I was watching on my notebook, on 2 consecutive days! Man, isn't my big black headphone equivalent to a "Do not disturb!" sign? I thought that's an unwritten urban custom. I will try putting on an Oakley tmw and see if it helps.

Hey, Oakley is already making MP3 glasses, why not video glasses, aka. porn glasses?

Band banned from concert at church-owned venue

The band in question is 'Lamb of God', who was previously known as 'Burn the Priest.' More details here.

The irony is: they are replaced by Obituary, a death metal band who is probably no more God (or Christian) pleasing than Lamb of God. May be they can't figure out what John Tardy (Obituary's vocalist) sings. Even Tardy himself admitted some of the stuff he sang weren't real words.

BTW, both are awesome bands. (Personally I even prefer Obituary more.) So metal fans attending the concert shouldn't be disappointed one way or the other.

This article probably belongs to my music blog but since it's also about over-religious hypocrites, I might as well leave it here.

Advanced marketing?

I didn't go to business school and know 0 about marketing. Did they teach you simply mention the opposite of all features that your competitor has?

Maybe that's M$'s school of marketing. Check out their tips on buying MP3 players. Might as well titled "Do not buy iPod"

Family pictures

 
What do the bottles have to do with family pictures? Well, it's a family of bottles. Just kidding. :D It actually shows all bottle water we drank during our Feb Las Vegas trip. Just when we thought we bought the cheapest bottle water on the strip at the ABC store in Fashion Show mall, my dad found something even cheaper at CVS! And he proved once again nobody beats him at this :P

Napa

Las Vegas

Madeline B-day dinner

Pier 39

Misc(incl. Filoli)