Alex Mak's Blog

Butane Gas Poem

2012-01-29T20:08:00.001-06:00

邊爐火鍋石油氣
一隊四名裝甲兵
常與沙茶醬為友
大火熊熊煮美味
海鮮西洋菜魚旦
毋需煮飯造晚餐
人人愛吃打邊爐

一罐火力實有限
一罐難烹一大餐
火力未完被棄之
氣罐老二當趕上
命運大都是一樣
打邊爐如大公司
用完老大用老二

Bye IE9

2012-01-25T19:44:00.009-06:00

I installed IE9 in June of 2011, because I had to. I needed it to test web apps. I've had nothing but grief with IE9. Web apps don't work in IE9, because when web apps were born, the world was in IE6. IE6 have nothing but contempt for Internet standards, yet had the most users. So the world produced web apps that still need IE6. IE is holding the world back. I'm glad I don't have to test web apps anymore. (Note: Google Web Toolkit do not work well with IE, says it does but it certainly does not.)

IE9 came with F12 emulation modes that do not work. Now who thinks it's a good idea to hide that behind F12?

Firefox was great for several years, many people had enough IE fail-ness and went to Firefox, until they got jealous of new comer Chrome and decide to go nuts with version numbers. It provoked me enough with endless annoying updates that I fired Firefox. I don't use it unless I have to.

I uninstalled IE9 today because IE9's emulators just do not work. It is possible to uninstall, join me and uninstall IE9. You don't need it.
F12 to set non-working emulators? Where are my menus?

IE9 does not make the web more beautiful. It is not any better than IE8, and many web apps do not work with IE9.

Also, I have hotmail, yahoo and gmail. Hotmail is consistently the worst - sluggish and awkward. I had a preview of Windows 8 and the tiles are just awful. I am worried about Microsoft.

The world is really starting to go with Apple.

Introducing Chinese Numerals

2012-01-11T07:21:00.004-06:00

I just published my new app for Chinese Numerals. There are at least 4 ways to represent a number in Chinese. Most kids can't write the Financial variations.
Get this app for free for your Android. Here

Introducing Simple Converter

2011-12-28T16:09:00.005-06:00

I just published my app in the Android Market.

This is a unique unit converter with 2 field inputs and Chinese units.
You will find a neat slider for temperature conversions too.

Download it for your Android.

Things Wrong with my Windows 7/Dell

2011-11-27T11:47:00.007-06:00

I have a Dell Windows 7 Laptop and I don't like it. Sluggish cheap plastic that wouldn't just go, like an Apple would.

Ignore my Control Panel setting to never ever lower the lights.
Spin endlessly on boot
Spin endlessly on Resuming Windows
Almost constantly doing Windows update, beg for reboot and then "configure"
Lameo touch pad - once you have used an Apple touch pad, you know how the touch pad can be done way better.
Harddrive cylinder light go cranking all the time
No integrated camera
Cheap plastic.
Can't be relied to burn DVD for data backup
SD card reader make no attempt to read my card sometimes - works instantly on my Mac.
No built in SSH client for 'telnet' like terminal - make people go download putty, psftp
No built in SSH client for file transfer - make people go download WinSCP and Filezilla

Windows 7 is still a miserable failure. Dell hardware no where nears the quality of HP hardware. Doubtful Windows 8 would be any better.

Android programming - Eclipse problem solved

2011-11-26T18:30:00.014-06:00

I have been programming on Android and iphone. The iphone is a joy to use but hard to program. The android phone? relative easy to program, but the hardware sucks in lots of ways. The AVD (android virtual device) is outrageously slow. My phone is way too sensitive, the bottom row of buttons are way too unresponsive. The rotation is way too sensitive. If I didn't have an iphone to compare, I wouldn't think my Android phone suck so much.

The android has more users, and development on it is free , Java is much easier to program than Objective-C IMHO. Platforms come and go, I took a graduate course to program the Palm a decade ago.

I do most of my android development on Windows. (I should really start doing android dev on my mac) Windows sucks! it takes 5-10 minutes to boot, and at least 3 minutes to recover from hibernate. Worthless Windows! The Apple wake up right away.

To develop for Android, we'd use Eclipse. I have been Google Web Toolkit. Eclipse was taking over 10 minutes to start. The Android AVD take another 5 minutes to show up. Android programming had been painfully slow. I only have a couple hours a day to write hobby code. I can't lose 35 minutes, just to get Eclipse warmed up. Windows = ALWAYS sluggish, Apple = always fast (some beach ball spinning, but tolerable)

Nope, it was not an INI file, it was not a problem of not having enough memory to it. I had 8 Gigs of memory! (unthinkable just a few years ago)

It turns out there are tens of thousands of temp files left by GWT Eclipse plugin. There were over 9 Gigs of garbage in my Temp directory. It took 30 minutes to delete them. How dare you Google, leave 9 gigs of junk around?

The problem is documented here.

Now Eclipse start right away, and I can do some programming.

Movie Review: Gulliver's Travels (2010)

2011-11-09T22:14:00.003-06:00

Kids, read the book. Too hard? read children versions of the book, you will find great adventure with the real Gulliver and the amazing worlds that he would visit.

Gulliver of Manhattan has an iphone, visits the land of micro people in the Bermuda Triangle? what? whatever, then later a woman also visit the place? what?!

It's OK to completely make a movie out of classic literature. It's OK to make light of stuffy old literature and make a comedy. Well, did it work?

Well, mostly. There is a bunch of lighthearted creativity. However, Jack Black always play this kind of goofy slacker kind of guy. Some chuckles, no big laughs here.

My grade: 2 stars

Movie Review: The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

2011-11-04T11:49:00.002-05:00

Old school Gumby, Chicken Run style stop motion animation is refreshing.

This is quite a charming film. I have only one problem with that and that the fantastic Mr. Fox is a thief. The audience was suppose to cheer for the thieves. The farmers build their empires and the fox with his friends steal. The only reason given was that the fox was a wild animal. The farmers which only try to protect what they own are made villains. Guilty of being fat, short, and lean.

Ethical issues aside, the film, which is based on a children's book is very likable.

My grade: 3 stars for achievements of creating fun stop motion characters.

Sponge Phone

2011-11-02T19:21:00.004-05:00

Anyone in the IT industry sort of MUST have a smart phone, because of the peer pressure and apps. Minutes and data plans are outrageously expensive. Mad at the bank for charging $5 using their service? Why isn't anyone marching at the phone companies?

If everyone around you have a smart phone, those with a yesteryear flip phone seems like losers. Apps are great, texting is great for discrete messages, but guess what, the phone company have all the records. Ha! ain't no discrete messages. People are sure to spy on the dialogues.

Smart phones with glass tops are fragile. They are hard to grip, the sharp edges dig on the palm. How to pick up a call? Slide the thing, what? How to wake up a smart phone who is sleeping all the time? Slide the thing, sometimes slide a piece of jig saw puzzle, totally counter intuitive.

Sponge size smart phones are not comfortable to use. So what do most people do, they'd buy covers and shells for the phones and add bulk. The mall sell the covers for over $20 for a piece of plastic. Who would buy that? smart phone users are known to be able to scan a barcode and get the best price, right? Enough people spend on those rip off cases for the countless kiosks at the mall.

At the mall, I was looking at these shells and the sales wouldn't stop yakking on the phone. Dude, I'm a customer, you're at work, drop the damn phone. Nope, I didn't buy anything from him.

Sponge phones have small screens.

Men over 50 can't see anything close, and they are the guys with the money for smart phones. How would a truly smart phone solve this problem? (some sort of Star Wars style projector?)

Sponge phones are bulky.

Most men over 35 have huge bellies, they can't find the phone under their belt, how would a truly smart phone solve that problem? (There should be huge business for smart phone clothes)

I hate Vista

2011-10-31T21:49:00.008-05:00

If I could I would like to smash my Vista computer.

Just a few things that I hate about Vista. If Microsoft had not Windows 7 under its sleeve. (which is only slightly better), Microsoft would have folded its OS business.

Unresponsive - half pointer-circle icons spin to no end
Outrageous long boot up time. After it boot up, spin a few minutes more before it's functional in its crippled ways
Awful voice recorder app. Press record and it DARE to ask to save file, and then stop recording it dare to ask again.
Blank screen and nagging dialogs - Can I do this? Can I do that?
Wouldn't work with an I-phone, like at all.

Word is defacto,, and it has some annoying defaults. It dares to auto correct. You cannot type a single quote (') or a double quote (") without it making italic. There is NO WAY to turn it off from the damn ribbons. There is a way but it is well hidden.

Mac OS is a billion times better.

Internet Creativity

2011-10-23T20:51:00.005-05:00

Before youtube, awesome creativity like this would never see light of day.

I loved this. The score is awesome too.

Only a real Transformers geek know how Omega Supreme talks.

Op-thomas-prime Ha ha ha!

Power Ranger, Unicron and Galvatron references too! Enjoy!

Flip Camera HDMI FAIL

2011-10-20T21:15:00.005-05:00

The Flip camera is dead.

It's an awesome and easy to use product - almost.

The smart phone and cameras killed it. Cisco was the sucker who bought it, and soon had to discontinue it.

Smart phones plans are costly. it takes a mountain of cash for voice and data. Cameras are a pain because of the cables and memory cards. The Flip fits a niche market for folks who like simplicity. A USB port flips out, no damn cables, and can use it like any USB thumb drive. Excellent.

The Flip HD Mini camera dare to not come with an HDMI cable. The Flip promises to be able to plug into a HDTV. An HDMI cable is not so expensive, I'm cool with that.

So I got an A to C cable, plugged in fine. I set the TV to go look into HDMI1 port with the camera. Nope, nothing.

Blank screen.

The Flip camera briefly turns on for 2 seconds and goes blank.
The TV complains No Signal!

Someone dropped the ball here, the TV? The Camera? The cable? There is really no way to tell if I don't have multiple HDMI TV's cables and devices.

This is a Hulk moment where I have the urge to smash everything. How dare you not work?

A few people in the internet have identical problems, no one have a solution.

I will never buy Flip products again, oh wait, they are already dead.

Good bye Computing Giants: Jobs and Ritchie

2011-10-13T20:56:00.006-05:00

Steve Jobs - good bye. So what if the Lisa, NeXT, and other things failed? The modern successes way, way, WAY out weigh the failures. Apple designs are about being minimalists. Almost everyone else is clutter and buttons.

I am one of the few who used a NeXT computer in my school's math lab. I programmed the Motorola 68000 assembly language in the old Macintosh's. I love my mac book and ipod. I love almost all Pixar movies. (I still hate Monsters, Inc and Cars) I wrote BASIC in the Apple IIe. I used the Quadra! I loved System 7. I loved Apples before they were cool and popular. Thanks and good bye, Mr. Jobs.

This is a reminder a billionaire can't buy one more minute in life. When it's time, it's time.

Dennis Ritchie - the father of Unix and C died this week. Thank you for giving the world C. Assembly languages really suck. C was a huge improvement. Very few people nowadays really "get" the spirit of C and why it can't return a string. I do!

Without C and Unix, there will be no modern computing. No iphone, no Android.
I have the first edition of the K+R C book! (before ANSI C). It may be worth something 100 years from now.

No News is Good News

2011-10-13T20:47:00.004-05:00

I have decided to not watch the newscast, except for a few minutes of weather.
I am sick of hearing about awful crimes and bad things. I don't need to know any of that stuff. The News is designed to waste me time with hooks and commercials (So and so would have a report of this interesting thing, right after this). The idea is to trick me to watch commercials. I will not play that game.

The newscast model is old, the internet can really replace it, hyperlink headlines, go read what you want to read.

Network TV's have nothing but news 4:30 all the way to 6:30, and again from 9:00 to 11:00 why is that? why wouldn't some one come up with something else at that time for a good alternative? e.g. good movies.

ipads, iphones, androids everywhere - Apple win

2011-10-05T17:36:00.007-05:00

I have yet to se anyone with an Android tablet. I've seen plenty of Android phones. IPads are EXPENSIVE yet I see them everywhere. Some like to have them as status symbols.

I see kids play with them as giant video games all the time. Nintendo is Japanese for toast.

Smart phones are expensive, that's fine because they are fine instruments, but the voice and data plans are very steep at over $60 for a decent plan.

There are no just wi-fi phones. Buy the voice minutes, but use the smart phones as wifi devices. A smart company would offer this and they will get A LOT more customers waiting to ditch their old Nokia domino or cheap flip phones.

Just like there are no over-the-air DVR's. Every vendor want money.

Apple ALWAYS ALWAYS win, Microsoft had early tablet PC's in early 2000's. Remember those laptops that flip? Microsoft had tablets first. Others had the MP3 player, others had cell phones. Leave it to Apple to popularize high tech and expensive gear. A product can not skim on industrial design and usability.

Nokia, Research in Motion - there is no hope for these companies in the phone market - to be dead like Palm. There is just Google (Motorola) and Apple.

Blackberry was never cool to me.

There is a slim chance Nokia would survive with Microsoft phones. We'll see.

There is a new IPhone 4 this week. Wow, these things are awesome. People whine saying it ain't Iphone 5. Well, patience folks, IPhone 5 will wow you.

Firefox: fired

2011-09-20T22:07:00.008-05:00

I am sick of Firefox, the once darling browser is now fired.
I will not use it if I can avoid it.

Firefox and Adobe angers me with constant needless and annoying major updates. Firefox 4, 5 then 6. 5 was around for like a few weeks. Mostly made up security problems.

Firefox dares to

what is that orange thing on my top left now?
Lost (hidden) menu - put my bookmarks on the right. Menus should never fan left.
"Show All Bookmarks" instead of "Manage bookmarks" - outrageously counter-intuitive
FF since FF5 will not work on my other monitor
Constant spinning, and hang up.
Unable to install older version, if you use the About box to make sure you install an older version, it will get the newer version.

Web work:

Firefox 6 will not work with Google Web Toolkit (I use that at work).
Firefox with Firebug pales compare to Chrome's awesome Inspect Element to get a good view on <div> and <span> hell that web developers deal with.

Good bye Firefox. I will never forgive - well maybe revisit at Firefox 9 or something.

I agree to almost everything this guy says about firefox and why you should dump it.

Car in the Mall

2011-09-20T21:43:00.002-05:00

Have you ever seen cars in the mall? Wait, how did they drive the car in the mall through the revolving doors? Anyway, fancy cars up for drawing! just put in your name address and phone number and have a chance to win to free car!

Yeah right, how gullible do you liars take the mall shopper? Oh wait, lots of people fill in their info. Did any drawing ever happen? Has anyone ever won a car?

The car is bait! It's bait to steal information so people can mail you more junk mail and lies.

Why would they give away free cars? Tens of thousands of dollars, people would give away for "celebration?"

Business card jars are also bogus. Restaurants say they would pick a winner for a free sandwich or so, just drop in your business card! They'd try to sell you catering.

Job postings are the same thing. 70% of jobs postings are non-existent job lies, they are there to steal your resume information. Many of the jobs refresh their post dates. Job hunters should know better not to craft a cover lever for bogus jobs.

Movie Review: X-Men First Class (2011)

2011-09-14T18:55:00.004-05:00

A thought I wouldn't like this movie because Prof. X is suppose to be bald and tall, and very unlike Mr. Tumus of Narnia.

Magneto should be a body builder. They found the perfect actor for Magneto.

There are got to be cameras on the warships, if some magnet guy can stop missiles, someone would have taken a photograph, no? You KNOW X-Men starting and stopping nuclear wars is a joke, right. You can't take this kind of story seriously. Come on.

This movie fit well as a fine prequel to the first X-Men movie. However, Professor X was WALKING as an old man in X-Men:Wolverine, did they watch the Wolverine movie? (another prequel). Prof X was also walking as an old man with friend Erik in X-Men 1. Prof X at the end of this prequel was wheel chair bound in his 20's.

So this very very evil bad guy Sebastian Shaw can absorb energy, even a grenade and a nuclear sub's energy, eh. His end was laughable, he was frozen by Prof X's mind energy, and Prof X was not even using the energy, he was just frozen.

What? Mystique (Raven) and Charles are sort of siblings? What? They don't know each other at all in X-Men 1.

I love the X-Jet. I love the 90's cartoon theme. The guitar theme is always in my head.

Great show, well done. My grade: 3 stars

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

2011-09-03T22:39:00.005-05:00

A perfect ending to 10 years of Harry Potter.

Action packed, and many things tied up nicely. What? each of the four houses have a thing that is a Horcrux? Why? Why would Voldermort split his soul into Horcrux again? so that he can have weaknesses? why? Probably explained somewhere in an earlier movie, I don't get it. Sort of contrived and very made up if you ask me.

So the teachers form a force field around the school while the bad guys attack. (Autobot city style). Many kids die. Why? why wouldn't the teachers protect the kids, evacuate the kids to the basement? Why didn't they call for reinforcement? The other two schools? The Ministry? The cops from Azkaban?

When the shield was broken why didn't the teachers make another shield? Make a shield for each kid! When Voldemort return, why is there still school? The school should have been closed.

The Room of Requirement which have the crown thing is now filled to the top with furniture? why? last time at the Order of Phoenix it was empty for the kids to practice.

The movie was also way too rushed, how did Fred and others die? Did the mouse man (Peter) die too?

What? Potter snapped the Elder Wand in half? should have returned to Dumbledore. What? didn't even cared why his family had the Cloak? (Harry must be a descendent of the third brother of course)

The books must be great, I will read them someday.

My grade: 3.5 stars - for the 3 kids and 0.5 for Snape.

Firefox 6, already?

2011-09-01T20:38:00.004-05:00

What? I JUST installed Firefox 5, now it's nagging me to install Firefox 6? That's way too often. I dislike Firefox 5. The menus do not work on my other monitor. My video driver problems or whatever nonsense, Firefox 4 worked fine, Firefox 5 do not work, for me.

What happens when you update Firefox? Adobe nag to update too.

I would wait a while to upgrade Firefox 6.

Software updates are annoying. Chrome silently upgrade, and that's the way I like it.

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I

2011-09-01T20:30:00.003-05:00

The epic novel can be made to at least 3 movies. There is just way too much going on. Many of the stuff that is happening in the wizard world were just given in radio broadcasts in Ron's radio. Great many things skimmed from the novel, it seems (I have not read any of the novels)

The kids are on the run because the bad guy's forces are after them. Wands are now dangerous weapons. Kids die! Professors die! wow.

I loved the Deathly Hallows symbol and story.

The Horcrux (what?) and the Deathly Hallow items are all so made up, yet the actors played it so believable.

Well done Harry. I will see Part II soon.

My grade: 3 stars, 1 for harry, 1 for Ron, 1 for Hermonie

HP dumping the PC and handheld

2011-08-19T20:47:00.009-05:00

IBM did the unthinkable successfully, they have dumped the PC which they invented! several years ago.

Can HP do this spin off successfully? or it is a terrible mistake?

HP made programmable calculators, printers, and not computers. HP did the unthinkable and bought Compaq the first IBM clone maker and so HP have sort of been making PCs (which I will never buy) ever since. Before HP bought Compaq, HP bought Digital!

Digital had Alta Vista (the best search engine back in the day), had the Alpha chip, the 64 bit chip! Digital was king of computing for a while.

HP have beaten Dell in the office cheapo desktops, and this week have announced that they will quit the PC and handheld businesses, waving the white flag to Apple.

HP bought Palm and didn't give it enough time grow back and give them up.

Palm was king of well, palm computing. HP had winning technologies that were WAY, WAY ahead of Apple.

HP bought all these great companies, and can't make use of them well. HP reminds me of Yang Guo. Yang Guo had all kinds of combat skills, yet beaten by 尹克西 because Yang was unorganized and distracted - any single one of Yang's skill if used well could have beaten any opponent. If HP made use of all their acquired tech, patents and people, HP is an extremely great company.

Good bye HP stuff. You have great printers and OK, so-so PC's. I probably wouldn't see you in stores soon.

Great Spring tutorial

2011-08-04T07:05:00.009-05:00

I dislike Spring in Action - the defacto books for Spring. (I like the 3rd edition a little better, but the books need a real step by step guide) I also dislike most Apress books (except Apress's GIMP book). You'd be surprised there is no good tutorial in SpringSource. Spring is BIG and evolve fast.

Watch several of these and learn by example, and walk through the best way.
I wish these videos exist a year ago so I can have an easier time learning Spring.

This give me an invention idea. A translator for accents. A machine that would do speech recognition, and produce pitch perfect accent of other English variations.

I love this guy.

Movie Review: Passengers (2009)

2011-08-03T21:04:00.002-05:00

Staring Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson - two pretty big stars, can't be that bad, right?

Passengers of a plane crash with some survivors, and some psychologist pretend to be detective to find out if there was an explosion before or after crash landing.

This "mystery" movie completely fall apart in 10 minutes. It is Lost. The so called survivors are actually ghosts wanting closure. SO unoriginal, SO not The Sixth Sense.

This Eric guy is SO creepy, if I were Clare I would give him a round house kick in 5 minutes.

Unbelievably bad, so that's why you have not heard of this bad film.
My grade: 1 star.

Movie Review: Transformers 3 Dark of The Moon (2011)

2011-07-31T09:15:00.009-05:00

I am a walking encyclopedia of Transformers G1. Anything that deviates the look and personalities of the beloved Transformers upsets me. All 3 TF movies have near zero respect to the original material. Transformers are not bug like aliens. Transformers are not cartoons (like the Animated series).

This TF movie have tons of favorite G1 named characters, and Cybertron and Space Bridge technology. However, the story is completely contrived. Megatron never take a back seat. Shockwave is not a pile of snake. Laserbeak do not talk.

I'd like to point out some horrible problems with the film.

What? Sentinel Prime crash landed on the moon with space bridge technology?
How is the space bridge going to win the war?
What? Sentinel speaks English immediately after some Matrix CPR?
What? brutally murder Ironhide and Wheeljack? (oh, that's OK I guess as that was done in the 1986 movie)
Sentinel could have taken the leadership and order Optimus whatever he wants
Optimus have a knife and tangled by wires?
Bring Cybertron to earth for rebuilding by human slaves? How can little humans help?
Where did the bug ship come from? Wait, was it from the ark?
Optimus is not a cold blooded killer, that would say something like "I would kill them all" (and actually do it). These movies got it totally wrong. Mr. Peter Cullen should have pointed that out.
New girl is not as good as Megan.
I hated all the humans. I hated Sam's mom and dad, I hated that crazy software guy. They slow down everything.
Where are the stupid twins from the last show?
Why didn't Optimus revive all the other dead/injured autobots from the last movies?
The Matrix is way too small.
The bad human guy Dillon want Cybertron to show up? to take sides to survive?
Decepticons are bad, but the have never vaporized humans before - ouch.
The flying squirrels are useless.
Forrest Gump style Kennedy, Nixon, Obama do not help the show and have obvious replacement actors.
What? Sam is struggling to find a job, and settles for the mail room?

Things done right:

Optimus have a trailer. yes!
Some 3D things are cool e.g. transforming Bumblebee with Sam in it.
A small homage to the classic Ultimate Doom where Cybertron was bought to Earth and so Megatron harvest the energy.
A small homage to one time the Autobots were put on a space ship to be sent to the sun and the space was destroyed. Thanks to Trailblazer's force field, the Autobots were saved and tugged by Cosmos. Megatron's Master Plan

My grade: 2 stars, another huge disappointment.

Transformers should have clean lines and simple transformations, never bug like (well, don't count the Insecticons), these movies got it all wrong.

Movie Review: Unknown (2011)

2011-07-29T18:28:00.004-05:00

Fine actors.
Great premise for a movie. After a coma, some guy stole my identity!

The movie fall completely flat much like so many thriller movies (e.g. Flightplan (2005)). Come on screenwriters, give your movies a little more thought.

Cold blooded bad guys do completely non-sensible things.

A laughable ending.

A let down.

My grade: 2 stars

Goodbye Borders

2011-07-20T07:22:00.002-05:00

Borders are a great place to hang out and read for free! The Borders around where I am are always clean, with a good and polite staff. Borders have lots and lots of books of all kinds. I don't buy too much from Borders because everything is full price.

Borders charge full price, so most people browse the books in the bookstores and go buy the books on Amazon with free shipping and lower price.

The internet destroyed yet another business.

All Borders would be closed soon.

Thousands more would be out of jobs. Lots of storefronts would close. The employees wouldn't be able to afford stuff. The landlords would lose lots of money. The economic chain reaction will hurt everyone.

Goodbye Borders. I have spent countless hours in your stores. I've bought plenty of books and coffee over the years.

Hello Crocs

2011-07-20T07:12:00.003-05:00

Crocs are ugly. The holes on the tops of the shoes make them ugly. Cute kids love to wear them, and the bright colors look good on kids.

The original Crocs are not all that comfortable. The marks in the shoe give an odd sensation. The folks that make Crocs are smart and have since made many other molds and now there are many kinds to choose from. Many Crocs now are without the trademark holes!

I was at first skeptical of Crocs, but a friend of mine swears that it's the most comfortable pair of shoes he's ever owned.

Crocs are great if you are near a swimming pool or the beach. They'd dry immediately, saddles take up to days to dry.

If you bought Crocs stock when they were counted out as fads, you'd triple your money. (Never buy individual stocks if you don't want the high risk)

I recently got a pair of Crocs and now I love my Crocs for the summer.

Movie Review: Tangled

2011-07-20T07:06:00.003-05:00

Disney takes way, way, WAY too much liberty here to change the children's classic Rapunzel. Rapunzel has long hair, but she is not a princess! The guy who rescues her is a prince, not a thief. What? no radishes? what? no blind prince?

This Disney show have a unique drawn and CG look to it however it's not classic-classic fairy tale with royal qualities in the ranks of Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. There is no memorable signature ballad like A Whole New World, the music is bland.

My grade: 2 stars.

Movie Review: Terminator Salvation (2009)

2011-07-09T13:21:00.002-05:00

Totally unnecessary film.

There are a Robotech style giant robot with 2 cycles, good old T-800, and may other robot monsters. In the year 2018, most humans were just well, terminated, and some resistance solders are still holding on. The evil robots make a robot who thinks he is human (so old of a Philip K Dick idea) to infiltrate John Conner and friends.

The stories of the movies and TV shows sort of completes with finding Kyle Reese and John would something send him back to be with mom to *a-hem* create him. So fate take over all the time and there is no avoiding judgement day, human go in to a time loop of sorts.

Some good action sequences, but the movie itself is sort not needed. There is no need to keep telling the Terminator story.

My grade 2 stars.

Movie Review: Toy Story 3 (2010)

2011-07-09T13:11:00.002-05:00

Pixar has done it again, yet another imaginative and well written film. Toy Story is growing a little bit old, and so is Andy. However many of the elements of the film worked.

There is something very familiar with Toy Story 3 from Toy Story 2 where there is an evil toy character. There is Lot-so Bear in TS3, he was played brilliantly as a two-face grandpa with a cane. On TS2 there was another evil toy character. TS2 had conveyer belts in the airport, TS3 had the belts from a trash dump.

I also liked Ken and Barbie, Buzz also turned into Antonio Banderas (Spanish mode) and somehow get turned back. The new toys are nice. I don't think there can be a TS4 because Andy is all grown up.

A very enjoyable show.

Toy Story IS much like The Little Brave Toaster. Check it out someday on you tube.

Firefox 5 sucks

2011-06-29T22:14:00.002-05:00

Firefox 5 on Windows 7, more specifically.

I plug in my Windows 7 laptop to an old monitor and the bookmark bar flickers! Drop down menu items wouldn't work, in my old monitor. The bookmark menu flush to the right and menu items shows up at the left. Browsers nowadays are without menus and it's wrong. I was just recently forced upgraded by nag from Firefox 3 to 4 and then too soon to 5.

Firefox 5 disappoints.

Chrome which I thought was unnecessary is my browser of choice for Windows 7 now.

Give me my old school File | Edit | Help menu!

Delayed, Cancelled, and Cancelled again

2011-06-25T21:28:00.011-05:00

Air travel is a huge hassle and very dependent on weather. A little storm here and there will cause big headaches. There was a big storm this week, just one day of the week, my luck has it that I travel on that day for work.

Taxi to the airport is ridiculously expensive. Parking to the economy lots cost about the same for short trips. Parking in the economy lot involve riding on a shuttle. On this trip, I had a man and a woman whom both look identical as Morgan Freeman. These drivers are joyless emotionless people who weren't so glad to see me.

Like a well prepared man that I always am, I got to the airport 2 hours ahead, plenty of time to find my terminal at the right concourse, and pass outrageous air port security - more on that later. The flight was on time on a somewhat clear afternoon, and then the plane didn't even bother to show up. After passing the boarding time, the plane is still not here. After a while the guy says the plane will delay for an hour. Shrug, I can wait an hour. Then an hour later a girl in uniform says my flight is cancelled, Urg! and then another one open a table full of phones, and ask us to make arrangements.

I picked up the phone, turns out it's not a phone-phone, I can't dial to my travel agent, it was the airline. The person at the other end of the phone didn't even have the current info and just says my flight was not cancelled but was just delayed. I'm like - really? I went to the monitors and saw that the flight is really cancelled and not delayed. I am not talking to another clueless folk on the phone. I had to go to the desk and book another flight the next morning. The airline wouldn't give me a free hotel room near the airport due to weather, just a worthless discount coupon, so I must go home. I went on to the shuttle ride with Morgan again and got to my car in the economy lot. The bad weather and the indecisiveness of the airline had rob me of many hours. My car stayed at the lot for several hours, so I ended up had to pay for 24 hour stay.

On the next morning, at about 4:00 AM, I am smart, and went online to see if my rescheduled flight is on time, now a clear day. The flight was yet again cancelled! And the airline dare to put me to a flight to a city in the opposite direction and then to the right direction. That ain't right, put me on a direct flight! So I had to call the airline to make it right. There was a righteous option that I don't have to wait in line, but they will call me back. I liked that. All of the airline employees I talked to have a thick foreign accent. Eventually I got a reasonable direct flight. But I would miss many hours of meetings.

I haven't flown for a few months. I know about the shoes and belts, there was no one to remind anyone for the other foolish and mostly useless security measures. No one told me to remove laptop. I thought they have scanners that work now. (Quizno's / Burger King style oven scanners). One TSA agent rudely said GOD DAMN IT and instructs me to pull the laptop out, like that's going to improve security. Can't your fancy machines look inside my laptop bag? Sheesh!

On an return flight I also did the 360 camera thing. Someone has got a good look at me. I work out, so not to ashamed of my image. It is so True Lies. Every other person went on that damn 360 machine.

Air travel sucks. Once a while is OK, all the time is not.

Eventually I got to my destination and back.

Summer Movies 2011

2011-06-11T13:10:00.008-05:00

No I am not watching the following, I may catch them on DVD years later.

KungFu Panda 2 - the first one is a complete story. Anything more is contrived and add on.
Pirates 4 - No, I stopped after 2 of them. The first one was only so-so.
Super 8 - A film name for a film name? A homage of old Speilberg films all mixed up together? If I want to watch Speilberg, I'd go watch Speilberg.
X-Men - What? Professor X is a short guy with hair?
Cars sucked period (short and, what? kissing cars?). Cars 2, how could it ever be better?
Bad Teacher - no I hate this kind of film.
Judy Moody - no to foolish shows based on kid books along the lines of Whimpy kids. Kids need confidence like arts performance and karate/kung fu, not encouraging loser-ship.

Things worth watching

Green Lantern - always a favorite of mine from Super Friends, but all kinds of other green lantern guys from outer space could get confusing fast.
Transformers 3 - I sadly didn't love the first 2. I am a walking TF encyclopedia and any deviation from G1 upset me. Transformers are not suppose to be bug like. Shockwave look like Lord Zed. The TF movies have strayed away so far from great TF material.

Chemistry is fun up to a point

2011-06-09T21:48:00.007-05:00

Teachers LOVE to make scientists out of very little kids. Young kids are bombarded with "cool" chemistry "experiments." The teacher dunks a chunk of dry ice in color water. Good old baking soda and vinegar form a boring volcano. Break some water molecules too in some test tubes while at it. That's really about it. Wash a penny with vinegar, maybe.

Kids already know the about simple compounds like NaCl, H2O and NH4, anything beyond that is super hard. Teachers for little kids never ever mention the chemical formula for sugar. Because you will need at least an undergrad degree to understand sugar.

Little kids would learn to like chemistry and they they'd go to high school to see the periodic table, and then get to know the truth is that Chemistry is not so fun. Chemistry involve endless math puzzles and endless look up of atomic weights and equations with tedious labs. Sometimes Chemistry is about the scientists guys who find some element or made some discoveries. Guys wanted to reach absolute zero lead to the air conditioner and so led to sky scrapers. Many interesting topics in Chemistry of course, but no good stuff is taught in these classes that I attended.

I say cut any and all labs. Let the kids watch a well made video, to save so much Bunsen burner gas, goggles, aprons and wasted chemicals.

I took 2 chemistry classes in college, you guessed it, I hated them.

A Typical Job Interview

2011-05-31T20:00:00.005-05:00

I haven't had a Job Interview for years thankfully - here is how it usually goes.

Weeks of applying, and 1 in 12 would result in a phone interview. 3 in 1 phone interviews will result in a on-site visit. (math problem, how many applications lead to a successful phone interview?)

10 iron shirt and tie
20 find the place
30 Greet headhunter/HR person
40 Hiring Manager with glossy literature, 401k plan, list of holidays (what? yes)
50 Tech guy 1
proof of skill - hard questions - IQ questions
ORLY? ' doubts
if time run out goto 60
goto 50
60 Tech guy 2
tech questions - explain/defend worthiness - go over resume
ORLY? ' doubts
if time run out goto 70
70 HR guy - go over 401k and literature
80 HR guy - any questions?
90 wait
95 goto 90

Why does the HR folk need to go over benefits when there is no offer? Why would there be any questions when there is no offer?

There is a 24 hour life or death period of time where you may hear from the job interview. Sometimes a thank you letter can help beg, usually it doesn't help. The success rate of an interview is very very low.

You can beg the people would call your references, they wouldn't call. You may wish they'd mail you a phoney post card saying they will put the resume in file for closure. Nope, that rarely if ever happens.

A job is the in-crowd. The applicant is the poor unpopular new kid trying to fit it. The job market is brutal. There is no way anyone would have all the skills. So don't be afraid to apply. You may get an actual interview 1 in 25 applications, you may get an offer 1 in 20 interviews. So how many resumes to send out?

Good luck job hunters.

Of the several shops that I interviewed, many have went belly up, bought or in serious trouble! So maybe it was best that they didn't extend an offer.

End of the world - not! you fool!

2011-05-21T14:10:00.007-05:00

Once upon a time, foolish idiots thought UFO's would take them away and drink poison. (here)
Today is suppose to be the end of the world according to these guys. Foolish idiots misquote and misuse the Bible. Idiots! Open it, read it! There is no formula what so ever to predict judgement day. Jesus himself(!) say no one would be able to know the day or the hour. How could fools with a 4 function calculator made up all that. It's laughable. And there are so many foolish followers. Zero IQ, Zero discernment abilities, SO gullible. Apparently this same idiot predicted 1994 was the year, and a proven idiot get followers! go figure.

2012 is a fine movie, but don't think it's real.

These end of the world lies are not new.

Hello FireFox 4

2011-05-18T19:46:00.005-05:00

To the plain old user the browser is largely irreverent. They all look the same. They all have tabs, they all have back buttons. Most people will never ever understand or use plugins.

IE is still and forever be the ugliest and most annoying. IE 9? there is no way I will download it because eventually as IE versions die, new versions will be shoved my way by the ever annoying Windows Update. I never downloaded IE7, nor IE8, suddenly these awful browsers just show up. Stop marketing IE 9, I am sure it sucks, if IE 1-8 are any indication.

I am now an Ajax and GWT programmer, IE7 just don't work. Everyone that work with browsers loathe IE and wish IE dead.

For most net savy folk, the first piece of software to download is Firefox or Chrome.

So I now have Firefox 4, and you know what, I hardly notice any difference. This is a good thing. A browser should get out of my way to the Internet. Firefox is Netscape reincarnated, that's pretty amazing if you think about it.

Firefox 3 update way too frequently. Each update hinder me! Adobe Flash, Java run time update way too often. I wish there is a way to decline these worthless updates. After the update, the stuff work exactly the same. Firefox 4, don't disappoint me.

Movie Review: Narnia 3 - Dawn Treader

2011-05-13T23:18:00.002-05:00

I read the books, I read all 7 of the books. The books are over rated and have hardly any actual literature values. Every creature is stolen and borrowed from Greek mythologies. The adventures are OK for kids. The books are good, not great, IMHO. Kids should read and stay away from too much Nintendo and Pokemon cards.

The movie made up so much stuff, rearranged islands, events and add characters. There is no green mist, there are no seven swords in the books. There was no little stowaway girl. How could Narnia fans stand for this? The producers love the old white witch, she is dead-dead, she should not show up at all in the 2nd or 3rd films.

Eustace was almost dead on with the attitude and the English accent. Caspian, Lucy and Edmund are as good as ever. The special effect are OK. Blue light saber swords? I don't think so. This movie stray way too much away from the books. Anyone who have read the books would not like this.

I give it 2.5 stars.

Movie Review: Tron Legacy (2010)

2011-05-13T20:57:00.004-05:00

Tron looks fantastic. The movie is very confusing, nothing make any sense. Nothing grows in the digital world, right? I didn't see any plants. So where do they get Chinese roast pig and string beans for supper? Who cooked it? Flynn's house have only him and that ISO girl. Does she cook? The people, programs are made of some sort of "glass," why bother eating?

Are there any children programs? Are there any pot belly out of shape guys? All athletic Frisbee loving folks? ISO's? what? what are they? genocide? explosive frisbees killed a race of ISO's? what?

The writing sucks and makes no sense. The best parts of the films are already on the trailers and clips available on the internet, no need to see this, really.

I say the 82 Tron multiple times in a "computer workshop/typing" class in high school. What lazy old fool of a teacher that show Tron on VHS and pretend that was teaching. I didn't like the 82 Tron so much, it was just a black and white film with some blue and red stuff.

My grade: 2.5 stars for great graphics and some cool scenes.

Also if you look carefully, you will see some Solaris commands in Tron. Unix guys like me would get a smile.

Goodbye Circulon Wok

2011-05-09T19:23:00.004-05:00

I have cooked thousands of meals with a Circulon wok. However, the ridges of the circulon make it hard to scrub, it's sticky and does not distribute heat well. Over the years the wok is really out of shape. After 10 years of service, I have tossed it. The little ears didn't work well. Circulon cannot be used to cook curry. The stuff would stick to the ridges, and it'd take way too much effort to scrub. Circulon cannot be used for fish either. The ridges suck, and it's not a good feature at all.

Good bye wok, hope the trash people will spot you, pull you to the side and become scrap metal and be reincarnated - you too wok-cover, good bye.

Mario Theme

2011-05-03T20:39:00.003-05:00

YouTube is worth billions because of these videos. There exist truly amazing talent.

Movie Review: 2012

2011-04-27T07:04:00.003-05:00

The best disaster film ever. Much better than Independence Day, Deep Impact, Posiden, Core, Day after Tomorrow, Volcano, Sum of All Fears or any other disaster film. The scale for this movie grand. It's global.

The producers need to go to science class. There is no way any solar flare can trigger the Deluge. If an Ark can save people, it is stupid to build them all together in China.

I wish we have a President like Mr. Danny Glover.

Great show. My Grade: 4 stars for supremely well done disaster sequences.

Movie Review: X-Men Origin: Wolverine

2011-04-27T06:51:00.008-05:00

I am not a super comic book fan, but I am familiar with X-Men. Oh what a Hugh(e) disappointment. What? Wolverine and Sabertooth are brothers? What? Wolverine had an American Indian girlfriend? (should be Japanese). Mr. Hugh Jackman play the perfect Wolverine as always, but the script is terribly bad. There are so much cold blooded slaying of good and bad people by that group of mutants, I can't bear to watch. What? they murdered Superman's kind mom and dad and missile strike their barn? Terrible reason for action. Wolvie did end up killing the bad guys but still. I hated this show.

Why is Sabertooh such a cold blooded one dimensional monster? Why did Stryker/Sabertooh need to kill off the old team? Stupid inept script, that's why.

Sabertooth and Wolverine are indestructible brothers, so why bother to fight each other? That Deadpool guy should be indestructible too, why didn't his neck heal? And what? Deadpool is Stryker's son? These guys are immortal and participated in the Civil War? Vietnam? why? An Origin show would explain, right? No it didn't. Sabertooth in the first X-men movie is not Wolvie's brother, and Sabertooth never exhibit any healing powers.

My grade: 1.5 stars for some inventive sequences with Gambit and young Cyclops. What? Logan's name is Jimmy?

Movie Review: Inside Job

2011-04-22T17:11:00.003-05:00

Now this is more like it. A well made, well edited documentary. I hated the choppy, headache inducing, endless opening with the awful music. Other than that, this is a great film that every investor and politician should see.

This movies claims deregulation in the 80's created all the problems in 2008. All presidents from Reagan to Obama hired wall street evil guys to run the money systems. These guys line their pockets very very well as board members. All truth? Maybe, I'm not sure.

With the economic collapse of 2008, these execs still enjoy millions after resigning their posts, and no one were held accountable.

This is a smart, well made movie that deserve all the praise that it got.

My grade: 3 stars.

People are essentially fools subject to predatory lending. Really? Peoples are essentially idiots because they believe in ratings of derivatives. Really?
Maybe so because schools don't teach anything economics. I for one don't believe in any Morningstar ratings for mutual funds.

Everyone go and read Ric Edleman's Truth about Money and Lies about Money, and review the Chinese proverb. There is no fat frogs jumping on the streets. (There are no great bargains)

Movie Review: Waiting for Superman (2010)

2011-04-14T20:45:00.010-05:00

A documentary of the obvious sad sorry state of the American public school system. Every president promise and want to fix education, but no one can because any savior have would their hands tied by the evil teachers' unions. Unions "support" political campaigns. Any elected President would effectively be a puppet of the evil union. Any attempt to reform school would be defeated by angry protesters manipulated by the unions - so the documentary claims.

Bad teachers cannot be fired.
Bad schools cannot be closed.
Kids forced to go to public school - can't afford private school - must win the lottery to go to a good school.
Money don't solve anything - need good teachers.

Aside: The only way to fix schools and America to have any sort of leadership in this century is to destroy the union and make schools competitive. If I were the king of the world, I would abolish public schools entirely. Couples with no kids pay high taxes for school, absurd. Couples who pay for private school also pay for public schools, absurd. Make any and all school commercial, like today's cell phone companies. Competition make the best things. This would make taxes dramatically lower, and parents have choices, and good teachers make 6 figures as true professionals, not 40k pay check to pay check cheap sport-jacket jeans guys.

I would abolish dissecting frogs, just have kids watch a gross but Hollywood quality video. There is no point to be so cruel to some poor frogs. { I dissected a frog, baby pig, star fish, a worm and a fish in high school Biology, the smell was awful, and I learned nothing }

This documentary just tell the obvious, nothing new here, except it brought to light true education champions Michelle Rhee and Geoffery Canada.

America just cannot be dead last on everything. This movie may do a lot of good and at least bring up some buzz so improvements can really start. Superman can save the school system given there are no krytonite (bad teacher unions).

My grade: B-

for pretty bland expose that is overrated, I don't even see the narrator. I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know.

Quest for WIFI Android

2011-04-10T07:59:00.014-05:00

Fixed costs are bad.

The only reasonable phone plan is pay as you go minutes. Monthly bills are bad, hidden taxes are bad. I reject those damn taxes. That's why I am free from contracts over 10 years now. But then the tech world has evolved and there is no choice but to get a smart phone - for a programmer. A portable web browser is great! a personal GPS not tethered to the cigarette socket is great. WiFi based calls are free! Why is there not exist a way to get a reasonable Android phone that only work with WIFI which are everywhere and no costly data plans?

Stores have 2 prices for smart phones. Free with 2 year contract or whopping $200-$500 for a phone without contract. However these no contract phones turns out to be locked. You cannot use WIFI at your home or coffee shop to use the smartphone's web capabilities. You must purchase a plan. That's not acceptable because I have already paid for WIFI, the coffee shop has already paid for WIFI.

On these Android phones, if you enable WIFI and try to put in a password, the small keyboard is error prone. If you got the password wrong, it would not tell you, it would spin endlessly. If you have a phone that is locked and you don't have a data plan, the web browser would keep spinning, no error messages. Andorid proof to be a poor customer experience. Show a damn error message will ya? Offer me a data plan or two, will ya? Silence is bad.

I stepped into a phone store, prepared to pay big bucks for what I thought was an unlocked phone. The clueless salesman says ya-ya! that's a great idea, you can do that, use WIFI. After hours of horrible aggravating bad experience with the Android and finding out about the sneaky data plan requirement that are not cheap, I returned the phone in frustration. Data plans are inherently bad, if you go over those plans, they charge you.

There are unlocked smart phones available on the internet that are even more outrageously expensive, double the price of a locked, w/o contract phone. OK, get one of these, and they probably wouldn't work and what a hassle to return.

ORLY?, a smart phone? or sucker's phone.

There are some dealers that would give unlimited deals, but hundreds of bucks for the smart phone and about $60 a month perpetually. That's too steep, with that kind of money, the iphone is much more appealing.

I am a vengeful customer, this mean I will not do anymore business with that carrier. Well, maybe, but not happily.

Movie Review: Eclipse (2010)

2011-04-09T07:57:00.009-05:00

Slow paced yap yap yap yap soap opera. Edward (100+ year old) asks Bella to marry. Jacob tries hard to "prove" he is a better alternative. Jacob is warm, Edward is cold. Either guys are handsome, Jacob's got pure muscle, Edward's got, what? diamond skin? yes. that's right.

So these are her only choices, Miss Bella, make up your mind already, or stay away from these boys and go for a regular boring human.

Oh one more thing about Edward who could potentially live forever. Think of his IRA portfolio! The guy could easily have millions if he reinvest his dividends!

So Victoria is back and created an army of glass "soldiers" with super speed, sharp teeth, and no mind. You HAVE TO turn off all logic to accept this kind of absurd stupidity. Victoria eats Riley, and Riley eat a bunch of others, and tell the others to seek out Bella. Team Cullen and the wolves join forces to protect Bella.

There is this fight thing near the end of the film, no one Cullen is hurt, just Jacob hurt a little bit, and the entire newbie vampire army is torn apart - every one dead. Victoria gets thrown around like a rag doll by Eddie. One small kiss to Victoria and her glass head break from her body, like a Precious Moment doll. Eddie throws a lighter and Vicky burst into a pile of flames. I didn't know clay doll vampires are so combustible. Then Jane and friends show up walking in slow motion and yap yap yap some more.

These movies are SO pretty, the actors are pretty, but yet the movie together is SO boring. The action sequences are laughable, the dialogs are not much better.

My grade: 2 stars

Sucks to be Eponine

2011-04-07T19:27:00.010-05:00

Life is hard. Eponine is a tragic character from Les Miserables. She LOVES this guy (Marius) and then Marius turns out to love Cosette. Eponine is jealous and being jealous is being in pure pain. Sure, Eponine ain't perfect, Cosette may be cuter and have a better personality. Surely Eponine shouldn't have to suffer and die like so.

I watched the play more than 10 years ago. Most people of course watch the redemption of the main character (Jean), I watch Eponine.

Eponine have very memorable songs. She eventually dies in the arms of Marius, and only wish her love to give her a little kiss on the forehead after she dies. Marius go shrug, OK, one more girl to kiss. Marius never return any love.

Eponine, Cosette, Marius live in bad times after the French Revolution. Cosette get a happy ending. The students try to do a small scale insurrection and hang out in the barricade. Eponine was shot to death by gunfire.

So be like Cosette, and don't be Eponine, move on from guys like Marius, wish them happy and move on.

Note: These Les Mis characters are fictional.

Ms. Lea Salonga (the star of Miss Saigon, singing voice of Mulan AND Jasmine) is a super star - she plays the best Eponine ever.

Goodbye Temp Techs: Blackberry, Net Book, Garman

2011-04-04T19:37:00.006-05:00

The PC stood the test of time. The PC have almost never ever changed. USB is the single most important change that replaced RS232 and the Parallel Port. Other than that, the PC is pretty much the same year after year, with progressively better processors. Microsoft have no fear, no network computer (not even Google OS) can displace the PC because the PC is a permanent tech. not a temporary tech.

The Blackberry? not so much. Anyone hip and cool would have an iPhone or an Android. Most people with a blackberry wish to have an iphone or android.

I detest Net Books, under powered machines not significantly smaller than a laptop. If your net book ain't from Google OS, a Ubuntu/Win XP of sorts, it's a temp tech that is obsolete. I declare $400 net books are out. Dell is a loser. I still hate the fact that a Dell net book wasted 1 hour of my life as it will not talk to my network. I don't ever forgive bad tech.

Cheap I Touch destroy the need for net books.

Many people have a Garmin or a TomTom, but they are obsolete as soon as the driver get a new car with integrated GPS or a smart phone. Garmin are fabulous devices for older cars.

This decade is apple or android. The others would add up to 10% at most.

The smartphone is finally done right! Palm got it first but got it wrong. Nokia got the basic Java ME phone right but late in getting the smart phone right. Too late to be relevant, I'm afraid.

Green Reusable Bag vs Grocery Bag

2011-03-29T20:54:00.007-05:00

Are these reusable grocery bags ALWAYS better? Here is another perspective. What if you only bring your grocery bags, then what will you use for your waste baskets? You'd have to purchase bags! Did you go green by buying bags? Well how about buying bags made with certain percent of old plastic? Using a grocery bag for garbage bag is 100% post consumer. Can't beat that.

Another problem, reusable bags get old too and eventually need to be thrown away. Is the bag greener than those seal strangling plastic bag?

I want my grocery bags. I reuse them right away for trash bags. Nothing wrong with that.

The world is big and yes we still have room for landfill. Week after week.

Every week I wish my plastic, glass and paper get reincarnated to be something better. Wouldn't it be nice for a lowly free newspaper to become a glossy magazine? Or that old envelope with some odd bar code on it? (chances are I made it with sofware that I wrote).
Wouldn't it be nice if the aluminum can become a part of a car? Wouldn't it be nice if the glass from a soy sauce bottle become a nice window? Good bye junk! If you are lucky you get to be melted in a furnace and recycle.

Movie Review: Ramona and Beezus (2010)

2011-03-25T18:53:00.005-05:00

I have the entire set of Ramona and Beezus books. I can't bear to read one page of that so called children literature. It's not written for old programmer men like me, that's one problem. The other problem is I just don't care so much about mischievous little girls or wimpy kids.

The movie? It stars pretty kids. It is a slow paced movie that is incredibly sweet and boring. Loving dad, loses a job, cute kids worry about moving. Blah blah. Small teen romance, cute little sister and puking baby sister, also there is a wedding of an aunt too.

My grade 2 stars for a pretty looking family.

Aluminum

2011-03-24T21:53:00.008-05:00

Aluminum is fascinating. Al is the most abundant metal, and the third most abundant element, after Oxygen and Silicon. Even though Al is abundant, it is not found by itself. Al is always stuck with other things and is minded in the form of Bauxite. It takes high heat and high powered electrolysis. Yep, that same boring technique that you see in kids science fair, to separate aluminum out know as Bayer Process.

It is of course an expensive process that happen in factories, how can Al be so cheap?
But then Al alloy wheels in cars are hundreds of dollars, now why is Al expensive then? Why do I want "sporty" Al wheels over lame old wheels? I asked the cars salesman and he says more stable, yeah right.

I never had a good Chemistry teachers so I went on with life without knowing answers.

More questions. If Al love to make Bauxite with other elements naturally, why would extracted Al not react with these other elements and make Bauxite? Al don't even rust.

On recycling. What kind of paint go on a pop can? what happens to the paint during recycling?

Al foil is amazing. I couldn't bake without it. I couldn't BBQ without it.

Grade school: lots of TV shows and books practically lure kids to go be scientists. When you go to college, every science class that I have taken are just math classes that ask the same questions over and over again. For chemistry, it's reaction equations. For physics, it's derivative = 0 max and min problems.

Note: I have sworn off pop forever. I have not have a drop of pop for months now. I used to drink at least 2 regular pops every day! Tons of life threatening sugar.

AT&T Buys T-Mobile

2011-03-21T21:06:00.004-05:00

I hate phones. I hate phone rings, I hate ear pieces. I hate it when people text while I sit with them. Did you really need to yap on the phone? How did you live before 1996?

I had AT&T phone service contract for exactly 2 years. Long ago. I hated the phone, I hated the service.

T-Mobile have the best service in my area, plus they have the most pleasant commercials. Not annoying can you hear me now guy, not a CEO, not confusing smile everybody chain reaction (US Cellular), but simple commercials. Commercials should be themed. Pink dress girl walk around saying step up to 4G. She's be out of work soon.

Aside: I also like the chubby guy in USPS commercials. There is absolutely no need to overnight packages for most companies. Chubby guy make USPS likable again.

AT&T was broken up and now it's growing again. What's going on here? My phone company used to be SBC and for many years now it's AT&T again. What gives? So now there is only AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. In reality just AT&T and Verizon. That's hardly enough choices.

I don't like this monopoly thing.

Given the past bad experience I will shop Verizon, most likely.

Movie Review: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

2011-03-18T23:42:00.002-05:00

So Alice revisits the Wonderland as a 20 year old, the cartoon was a real experience, eh. The Mad Hatter gets a super expanded role; and there is a white queen too? Hmm I don't remember that. The fat queen of hearts now have just a big head? Mr Depp mumbles, I have no idea what he was saying.

So the magical folks in Wonderland appoints Alice to be a "champion," turn her into Joan of Arc and slay the dragon. This is way off the original.

This is of course an Oscar worthy film with signature Tim Burton style and music. I also like the older Alice.

The Disney show was such a perfect magical musical show, why do we need a live action? Well, it was pretty well done.

My grade 3 stars.

Another Huge Earthquake

2011-03-14T20:44:00.005-05:00

Huge earthquakes seems to happen often. There are so many of these in recent memory.

Cars and boats wash up just like toys get washed up in the bath tub.

Earthquakes can be fierce.

Donate where you can!

Note: I am doubtful of the Pangea thing, where land masses collided to make huge mountains and undersea folds. Seriously? How fast were the lands moving to make tall mountains? Over millions of years? so mountains grow by the year? Hard to believe. A gigantic earthquake like what just happened only move in terms of feet. Sure, there are fossil records that confirms that continents are actually puzzle pieces.

Book Review: Hello Android, 3rd Edition Ed Burnette

2011-03-13T08:30:00.006-05:00

For a quick survey of the Android platform. This is the book to own. This book will build a somewhat working Sudoku game, and barely scratch the surface with SQLite, OpenGL and Google API. This is my second attempt to use this book. I was stuck early in the first edition and was discouraged, but I don't remember every having the 1st edition show me log cat.

The Android platform is incredible capable. However it's an absolute horror to work the the awful emulator.

There are two gaping lapses in the book. a) It didn't tell you to set the PATH so that you can get to adb. b) Nothing about using the keystore in JDK to get the MD5, so that to get a Google API key.

The Translate project in Chapter 7 completely did not work for me. In the forum, the author just go <shrug>. What? Maybe I'm the only other person in the hundreds of readers that have the nasty exception problems.

This book can be double, or triple in size to fully explain the Java techniques and the libraries used to make the very fine sample applications.

I liked this book. If you are interest in this book. Ge this.

Dell Hardware, Roxio, Windows 7 FAIL

2011-03-10T23:01:00.008-06:00

My PC goes into Check Disk mode often. As my PC is booted, Windows dares to not boot and complains about my hard disk need consistency check. I am the master here, computer, when I say boot, you boot! Stop spinning and don't hinder my work! What consistency problem? It happens over and over, Windows claim that it fixed the problems.

OK, fine, cheap Dell hardware need some consistency check whatever. 5-10 minutes later, Windows does its spin wheel thing after Control Alt Delete, another 5-10 minutes.

So I'd better back up my data files, eh. I can't trust lame computers to keep data around. I tried to burn DVD for keepsake of the data. The PC consumed at least 4 DVD's today, it can't burn. It touches the fresh DVD leaving worthless marks and wouldn't burn. I tried Windows's native Explorer burn way, and Roxio. Nope, denied. Perfectly new DVD's go to the trash can.

Oh computer! work! work for me! It's not rocket science, burn a DVD, can't you do that? I'm not asking a lot here. Oh, Java source code love, love, love to hide in deep deep deep packages, you now. com.blah.foo.blah.res.mvp.blah.foo.bez.foo....bar.java If the path is over 101 chars, some formats dare to not work.

My Mac just died, My PC is about to die a disk crash death.

I am always furious at ineptitude. Who dropped the ball here? (Dell, Microsoft, Roxio or Memorex?) What will avenge the death of my 4 blank DVD's?

Top 3 Annoying Things About Android Programming

2011-03-08T23:11:00.005-06:00

Every learning programmer who still want to be employed in the next 10 years must pick up Android and/or iphone. There is no choice. Well, unless go to the non-tech route up the ladder.

The easiest way to build an Android app is with Eclipse and the Android SDK. Google do not make it too easy so that just anyone can write software for the phone. One must overcome very annoying problems with the development environment.

1. Emulator - incredibly slow and buggy. 2 processors, 4? doesn't matter. Outrageously slow thing that starts in 2 minutes

2. Eclipse - The "intellisense" of Eclipse with Android is just horrible. It can spin its wheels for a minute or two. Eclipse LOVE to mess things up with and add "}" for you. (update Dec, 2011 - turns out my Helios is BAD. Eclipse Helios Release 2 fixes this problem)

3. Never ever run when you have an XML file open. Half of Android programming is XML. If you dare to work on your layout and try to see how it looks at the emulator? Eclipse DARES to to try to convert the XML file to something and create a zero length file, which requires you to delete it and Project | clean.

---
bonus annoying things:

4. All books printed are outdated. Never ever reach for an Apress or Wrox book. If there are Sam's or Pragmatic Programmer, reach for those first.

5. Binary XML. If you mess up just a little with the XML, your are dead. The error messages wouldn't help you. XML is suppose to be readable yet it dares to be "binary." And the binary XML is not in the file system anywhere.

6. You can't copy off problems from LogCat to search for solutions in Stack Overflow or something.

7. scale of the emulator. Your emulator would be BIG if you use a laptop, hiding the top and the bottom of the emulator. So you can't push the buttons! You can set the scale in a very obtuse way.

(many more to add later)

Death of my Mac G5

2011-03-06T22:43:00.007-06:00

The G5 is the last IBM Power PC based Mac. It is a beautiful white computer. Mac OS X maybe a solid OS, but the hardware is outrageously bad inside for the premium price.

Macs can go to white screen of death and light blue screen of death. The white screen of death look like liquid paper flood through your screen. Like how it is in an FPS game where the player is killed. The light blue screen of death is when the mac just wouldn't boot up anymore. I have problems similar to this guy.

There are capacitor problems on the Macs. There are large arrays of them. It is notoriously difficult to crack open a Mac case and you would need a EE degree and a hot solder iron to replace those capacitors.

My G5 Mac which I praised before here has died. I bought the useless Apple Care that was good for 3 years. Even if I have Apple Care would I want my Mac to be serviced and someone would get full access of my data?

My G5 is only 6 years old. My XP still runs after 10 years. Blue Screens of Death for PCs are no biggie, a reboot would fix almost anything. Dell have bad hardware, but not that bad. Hell, my e-machine lasted longer than 6 years. Well, I once lost all my data on my Dell laptop with a disk crash.

Even if I can recover data from my Mac. (which I should be able to) I have lost faith in Apple quality.

I need an Intel Mac so I can join the IPhone/IPad development wave.

I will still by a new Mac, but now I would only expect it to live 6 years.

iPad 2 another real winner

2011-03-02T22:41:00.003-06:00

Apple define beauty and function. Look at the amazing magnet cover in IPad2! genius!
There is nothing HP, Sony and other guys that can set trends like Apple.
Galaxy? boring. HP Slate? a joke, the promotional video is incredibly boring. Dell Streak? suck - bulky and ugly. HP and Dell promotion videos are so poorly done. Bland and boring. Apple screams elegance and thoughtful design.

The future is tablets. The PC is dead, really. The laptop has replaced the PC, and in time the table will replace the laptop.

The future is mobile and web based computing.

Pay No Attention To the Man

2011-03-02T22:26:00.006-06:00

I have not seen CBS since 1985. My cheap TV antenna has never been able to pick up CBS. Now with powered antennas and HDTV, I can with luck see CBS. I never have cable. So now that Two and A Half Men is in syndication and I occasionally have CBS, I am aware of the Two and a Half Man show.

(Update Winter 2011, my antenna broke, got an expensive one yet and I have lost CBS.)

The plot is mostly the same on every show, sensible kind loser guy has a son who lives with a more suave brother that wear bowling shirts. The bad brother only cares of himself, more attractive to foolish women. The audience is laughing at the man #1, and not with him. It is a cheap low budget comedy sitcom. How is that the most highly rated show? Oh yeah, all the other shows are just as lame, if not lamer. No studio will adapt the far superior Asian pre-defined series show model. A series end telling a complete story, not season after season of the same old repetitive thing. Like Lost, but tell a complete story in one season, not many years. That way there will be no demanding stars.

So this one guy can sink a show. Go on TV protesting and having a grand old time. What about the other guy, and the kid actor? Did they go indulge like man #1? Why hasn't anyone interview them?

Replace man #1, tell him, dude, you're fired. You have no worries because you have endless millions to spend. Continue with that life style and be happy, good luck, bye. The end, pay no attention to the man.

Windows Live Photo Gallery ain't half bad

2011-02-26T20:55:00.003-06:00

Do you have Windows Live Photo Gallery with Windows 7? probably not. And why not? It's not installed by default, you'd have to hunt for it and download and why? (there can be no good reason)

This program is an Apple iPhoto wannabe, and I am surprised that it gets the job done! I'd even say the remove red eye feature is even superior than Apple's. If you are not careful when installing Windows Live stuff, you would instead lots of other programs that you may not want/need.

I dislike Windows, I use Windows 7 now, it's still slow to boot, constantly need updating, and the interface is insanely counter-intuitive at times. The file explorer is just frustrating. I want the XP one back. I like some of Windows products such as Office and I like Visual Studio. Many people whine about the ribbons. Now I'm used to it. Explorer 6,7,8, n are still bad programs that I am forced to use and test at work. Explorer 9 should be better, but who in their right mind would ever look back at Explorer when there are fine browsers such as FireFox and Chrome?

Windows Live Photo Gallery is a winner program.

Movie Review: Karate Kid (2010)

2011-02-26T16:43:00.005-06:00

The new Karate Kid outshine the 1984 one. This is the old movie retold in a different way in a much bigger scale. So there is "nothing left in Detroit", says so Dre's mom, and Dre and mom relocates to China. What? American auto jobs just disappear, do any of the jobs get to relocate to Beijing? I have not heard of that.

So there are these nasty bullies in China, too. Dre is almost killed by these brutal kids, but Mr Han saves Dre and take him in under his wing. Oh yeah, there is a violinist girl too. In this 2010 version, the Karate kid is really a kid, merely 12, not a teenager. The bullies go to this kung fu school taught by an evil teacher, just like the old movie.

There are some pace issues with the film (It's over 2 hours long for a simple plot), other than that the movie take the audience to fantastic locations such as the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and whoa, WuDang Mountain! Mr Jackie Chan is in a great role here, not a kung fu fighting comedy guy as before, but a mature teacher role. No other action star can be more perfect than Mr. Chan here. Mr. Chan is a real kung fu master, he is no Chow Yun Fat who only play one.

Very nicely fight scenes with real kung fu, not awful usual wire work. Wire work is awful and disrespect to real Kung Fu. There are some very talented future Jet Li's here in this movie. Jaden Smith no doubt will become a super star like Will. Jacket on, Jacket off, replace Wax on, Wax off brilliant! (Of course that's all made up, you know)

My grade: 3 stars.

Space Shuttle

2011-02-24T19:50:00.010-06:00

The Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off to space for the last time today. The Discovery is of course the third real Space Shuttle. Columbia and Challenger are both destroyed, so Discovery is the big brother. Note: The Enterprise no longer exist. The Discovery is a great and important ship.

Ever since I played with the Atari 2600 Space Shuttle game, I have loved the design, and know way too much that I need to know about the Space Shuttle.

Every spacecraft before the Space Shuttle drop pieces (modules) until it is just the tip. The Space Shuttle jettison the solid rockets boosters, then the big tank and glides back. Old spacecrafts splash land in the ocean, boring. The Space Shuttle land like a plane, so cool! Did you know the Russians also have its own Space Shuttle? The Buran look just like the Space Shuttle, unfortunately no one ever flew on it and it was destroyed by a collapsed roof. oh my, why didn't I hear that on the news in 2002.

The space shuttle is an engineering marvel. It is relatively very roomy and can fit many astronauts. It has not the goofy solar panels. The space shuttle look cool!

The Space Shuttle is a glider. It has no power after it get out of orbit. The shuttle is also called the orbiter. It is never meant to fly anywhere. It is just well, to orbit around the earth.

There are at least three space shuttle robots in the Transformers show (Astrotrain, Sky Lynx, Blast Off). They are space ships that can go from planet to planet, however not the space shuttle.

Over the years, many people criticize that hey, there is no escape pod for the shuttle. Hey, what's up with the tiles that can fall and break heat shields. Hey, what's up with just having a space station, why not having a spacecraft that can set up a science station on the moon?

Some folks say, hey, what's up with solid rocket boosters? You know, solid rockets cannot be stopped once it's started.

Many of the criticisms are valid. NASA is not the perfect example of how to run projects. Over budget, and let major problems like O-ring issues pass by. To solve the falling foam problems, they just remove some pieces instead of redesigning the tank. What? That's right.

The future of space exploration for humans are not so good. For robots, not so bad.

The Constellation Program is the future. But look at the rockets, it's back to modules again, and look! it's the same big tank with the booster rocket underneath. It's not a sci-fi space ship. The tip splash down yet again to return future astronauts. Isn't it not a step backward?

When can humans make a spaceship that doesn't need to fall apart to just the top bit and can go to Mars?

Book Review: Beginning Android 2 by Mark Murphy

2011-02-21T10:35:00.009-06:00

If you follow the book to Chapter 3, you will hit a hard stop.

This is yet another disappointment with Android development and Apress books.
There is nothing in the book that show to deal with problems like this. What went wrong? This rushed to be published book certainly wouldn't tell you. The author might be in a Ubuntu environment from the screen shots, where he hacked everything by hand without the defacto Eclipse. I'm like why wouldn't you use Eclipse like everyone else?

The book encourage readers to go command line, with "ant create" and "ant install," fine. I'm all for command lines.

I am glad I didn't pay for this book. Sure the book may have good info, but if the step by step fails, then the book is no good.

I got around this problem by rejecting the bogus command lines and use Eclipse to recreate the project. The hello world program in chapter 3 finally worked.

This confirms yet again there are no good books from APress. I just ordered an Android book from the guys at Pragmatic Programmers.

Movie Review: Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

2011-02-19T20:14:00.003-06:00

Garden ornament gnomes are like Toy Story toys, they come to life when no one is looking, the go to rock mode whenever humans are present. The blues gnomes and the red gnomes had a feud. The boy is of course Gnomeo and Juliet. This is a self-conscious retelling of Shakespeare's masterpiece.

The gnomes ride lawn mowers like race cars, and the mushrooms are their dogs. What? It is a strange premise. What movie studio would sign on such crazy idea?

All through the movie, I wondered how gnomes work with poisons and since they are stone, will daggers kill them?

Oh, they thew away the entire tragedy aspect of Romeo and Juliet. There is a dance piece at the end with a happy ending.

This is a harmless kid show that is kind of cute. Daddies who like explosions on and actions would not like this.

My grade: 2 stars

Good Bye Store Names

2011-02-19T12:03:00.008-06:00

Borders go Chapter 11 this week. Ha ha, get it? a book store go Chapter 11. Borders are great, I consistently have good customer experience. I love to flip over tech books and go buy the book from Amazon, or better yet, check out from the local library. I can only afford less than $10 small books at full price. Many bookstores are closing, but two around me stays open for now. Good. Amazon and the library are the reasons that bookstores close. Borders and Barnes and Nobles destroyed most the mom and pop book stores.(as shown in old and bad You've Got Mail movie) Now it's their turn to be destroyed by the Internet. Books are still relevant. People love to read. The big box bookstore model is just not sustainable.

Giordano's deep dish pizza also go bankrupt this week.
Blockbusters, which deserve to not exist due to short sighted vision and management blunders filed for bankruptcy a while ago. The Blockbuster near me initially did not close, now it's being closed. Blockbusters missed the boat so many times!

Not long ago, Giordano, Blockbusters, Borders, Barnes and Nobles were all over the place. These places will likely to disappear completely very soon.

Deep Dish Pizza is good! They are gigantic. 60 degrees of that would be a big lunch. I have not been to a Giordano for many many years. I am not into big big lunches and dinner anymore. My body cannot afford so much calories. Good bye Giordano, I will miss you.

The landscape of stores in malls are changing.

Nokia picks Microsoft

2011-02-15T21:15:00.008-06:00

Lots of people laugh at the decision for Nokia to go Microsoft instead of Android. "Two Turkeys don't make an Eagle," they say. There are plenty of Android phone makers. The world do not need more Android. So to differentiate, Nokia choose Microsoft.

For almost everyone older than 30, the first phone is the Motorola StarTec, and then a Nokia domino, then later another Nokia phone with Java ME, or a Motorola Razor that allow you to play huge time wasters like Bejeweled. After a while people bought some kind of lame-o smart-phone like an early blackberry or a Palm clunker, so that they can check email. I'm like who needs to read email on the phone, seriously. All emails could wait. Within the past 3 years people got a touch screen like an Android or an I-phone. The upgrades are almost purely driven by peer pressure.

See, most people owned a Nokia and then moved on to something else. Not so much because Nokia phones are bad, but peer pressure. Oh, Mr. Jones have an IPhone, I'd better get one too. Aargh AT&T suck, and iphone is too costly, so sensible folks got an Android. That's exactly how Android got to be popular, from afar, when you poke on the screen, and do swipe motions, you are cool.

Will Nokia crash and burn picking a loser OS? (Well, of course Microsoft still have a loser OS) Nokia really have no choice IMHO, I think the reasoning for the CEO is sound.

The future is a still duopoly with Apple and Google. There is no room for anything else, so it seems.

Don't count Nokia out just yet.

Microsoft Live Hotmail / Messenger FAIL

2011-02-15T19:13:00.007-06:00

HTML email, Hotmail, get it? It's one of the oldest web based systems in the world. Back in the day in the 90's, only University folk get email addresses. A few years later, people had emails at work. Who'd want to use their work email for personal stuff? so people went to Hotmail, it was the neatest thing. University emails were character based like elm, pine and worst, mainframe based emails. (e.g. VM) Hotmail was a great thing.

Fast forward 20 years later. Hotmail is still around. There is also MSN messenger. If you expect an email, it's nice to have some sort of biff program to tell you that you've got mail. These were separate entities. Recently, Microsoft decide to do a poor job to integrate these two things. What ends up is utter garbage failure. If you have MSN Messenger, you will get annoying you've got mail at the corner of the screen if you got mail, it wouldn't tell you the subject or sender. OK, fine, press [x], go away. Minutes later the thing comes back again. OK, if you go to hotmail and see who send me email, hotmail tries to log in messenger, and kick you out of the messenger that you have already opened. It takes a long time to go back on messenger.

I looked through the options and there is no intuitive way what so ever to stop this bad behavior. Yahoo mail does the same thing but it is done correctly. You'd think Microsoft would have an internet strategy, you'd think they have hired some user experience folk. Nope. complete failure. Gmail and Google Talk will also fit the bill. Hotmail / MSN Messenger is integrated wrong, and there is no excuse.

MSN Messenger is best to be uninstalled and destroyed forever. Folks with hotmail accounts should tell their friends to go to either yahoo or gmail. For instant messages, there is Skype. However Skype is often unreliable and dare to not deliver messages.

Real Peanut Butter

2011-02-14T19:54:00.006-06:00

The standard peanut butter is Skippy. Skippy is marketed as "Top Good" brand (頂好牌) and the ads says there is as much protein in Skippy as in a steak. PB is suppose to be good for you right? Well don't believe ads. Yes plant protein is almost always better than animal proteins, but PB is a high calorie food.

The consistency of peanut butter should be a creamy paste, this is because Skippy was like that.

Have you looked at the label of the typical peanut butter? Hydrogenated oil! The worst kind of garbage food in the world is Hydrogenated oil.

Whole Foods and Smuckers now have these "Natural" peanut butters. The labels look a lot better. However, the natural peanut butter is separated! It has a cm of oil on top of the watery peanut butter. You are suppose to stir it. It is really gross.

Which one taste better? good old Skippy? or natural peanut butter? Skippy is more familiar, but the natural stuff taste better.

Note: There has never been any butter in peanut butter.

A Dozen Measures

2011-02-13T21:54:00.007-06:00

Have you ever been in the audience of an orchestra? I've been in the audience of serious concerts a couple of times.

Orchestra, classical music is hard to like because to like classical music is to read the booklet given in the concerts and understand all kinds of historical stuff to really appreciate the music. It's too much work for the audience. A movie would be much cheaper and much more easy to understand.

Most people focus on the conductor or the first violinist. People watch in awe the conductor's swimming movements and hair shaking is 1 or 2 seconds ahead of the music. People watch the first violinist and his amazing skills.

In concerts, I don't read the books. I look for the bored musicians. I look for french horn folks take out the middle tube and pour spit out. I look for bored bassoon players that get a few pick up notes every now and then. Some guys would clean out their oboe with the string and cloth. Whenever there is a piano recital, I sometime watch the page turner's face, and imagine how he wish to play that instead of the boring job.

I watch the percussionist at one concert, she had a whole table of drum sticks and a triangle. For the entire 2 hour concert, she played a dozen measures of very simple rhythms that a child can play. I wonder, how much life long training did she need to get on the orchestra? Being a classical musician is highly competitive and boring. Not sure if I want that kind of career.

Being in a band is SO much fun, well fun for the first chairs given something to do. Most composers write for the violins and that's not fair. Are there any pieces that feature the triangle?

Immortality

2011-02-10T19:24:00.010-06:00

To be immortal is to be published.

Twenty years ago, I worked as a graphic artist for a set of obscure math books that the National Science Foundation help fund. It was a non-grade level, more fun set of math books that encouraged problem solving and develop thinking skills. There were not much drills. Math books should not be hard cover monster books that weigh 3 pounds. These books were great. I am glad to have worked on many of them in the series. I used Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Page Maker and Quark Express. Yesterday, I saw a child using one of the books that I took part in production. Wow, what a great feeling. The main author was a Math Education professor. He was my teacher too. When I met him he was in his 60's or more. I think he might have passed away since then. His work (and mine, however small part) still live on.

To be immortal is to open source.

I have written hundreds of reusable modules, scripts and apps at work over the years. I don't horde and hide the source code like some people. I neatly comment and organize my source code into source control repositories. I have left jobs years and years ago, and I know people still use my battle and time tested apps in production. Some have successfully made modifications as necessary. Some have even removed my name in the comment block. That's not cool, but I don't mind. I don't work there, by my spirit live on in working code.

To be immortal is to build.

I spoke to a handy man that does some wood work too. He says: "I don't work an [boring] office job like you. I build stuff. I get the satisfaction of seeing my work years later still stand." Profound wisdom, my friend. Wood workers, construction workers, architects, good ones reach immortality.

To delay mortality is to work out.

"Eat less, exercise more" should be as important as "By low, sell high." Want to keep your life saving from greedy doctors that have no clue how to heal you? Work out. What do they hear in the stethoscope? nothing. What do they see from your ear, nothing. Work out diligently every single day, well, OK to rest once a week.

Your employer don't care about you! The damn pamphlets about quitting smoking and health things pretend that they care, they want you well so that you will work for them cheap. Don't need phony pamphlets. Be well for yourself so you can have a fruitful life. You will not reach real immortality, but away from mortality.

Bad News

2011-02-10T19:13:00.003-06:00

All TV News Programs are bad. I am sick of TV news. I will not watch any network TV news. e.g.

On and on and on about the botched National Anthem at the Super Bowl. The poor singer is embarrassed enough - Leave her alone.
On and on and on about the bad actress stealing some necklace. It's not news. No one cares. Leave her alone.
On and on and on about the homeless guys with the voice. Anyone can read a commercial. Sheesh. That's not a gift, that's not talent. The guy have issues to resolve on his own, cameras off him please. Peter Cullen has a golden voice. No one else.
On and on and on about the snow. We get it, there is a lot of snow. Need to tell anyone?
On and on and on about diet soft drinks have a link to heart problems. A poor sketchy study at best. A worthless headline.

On diet drinks. Come on, how can fake sugar be a good thing? How can CO2 pumped into sugar water be a good thing to drink? Soda is BAD - period. I used to drink lots and lots of pop, then later diet pop. I have given up soda for good. I have come to my good sense.

Like the newspaper. The TV news report platform will die, or be reduced to 15 minutes of real news worthy material.

我愛你我的太空飛行士 I Love You My Space Explorer

2011-02-02T21:12:00.009-06:00

我愛你我的太空飛行士, (I Love You, My Space Explorer)

This is what Luna the cat said that as her last words to the man she loved in human form. Luna was briefly transformed to a real girl by the Silver Crystal in Sailor Moon Super S Movie (1994).

The movie was about an evil ice queen who tried to turn the Earth into an ice globe, there was a sub plot where Luna falls in love with a human, oops wrong species. Luna is unable to tell the man how much she loved the man. Oh the anguish! Oh the tears! It turns out Artemis the white boy-cat has always, always loved Luna. Happy Ending!

It sounds silly, but this is a fabulous movie. This Sailor Moon movie have one of the best songs ever written in a cartoon (Moonlight Destiny cute imitators here.). Luna wishes the man she love well and gently kissed him and wished him well. See the guy always wanted to be a Space Explorer. It's hard to explain here. See the old movie in you tube.

The brutal Blizzard of 2011 here and the upcoming last Space Shuttle flight reminded me of this beautiful movie. There is an element of this flight with what's happened in Tuscon, AZ as well.

One of the characters is also an astronaut, and flies the Space Shuttle.

I loved the Space Shuttle - I adored it in the late 70's even. It looked so cool! It was reusable! The shuttle is so much more than an old rocket. A rocket become smaller and smaller, but the shuttle glides back - not just the tip landing in water like most rockets.

It turns out it was not so smart to design a big tank in front of the shuttle so that foams can fall and break the shuttle.

I named my sport team Challenger in eighth grade. That's the year when the Challenger was destroyed. It was such a sad day.

Then years later - the Columbia. I loved the Columbia, the first real shuttle - also gone. So sad.

The shuttle program is coming to an end, and there is no other space program because the US is broke. What??

Should go to Mars, should go to Moon. Not sure why go to other planets/moons, but the US must have some other rockets that can be as great as the shuttles.

The blizzard will cost billions to clean up.

Nature is fierce with power.

Board Games - Blokus, why not Xiangqi?

2011-01-27T19:25:00.006-06:00

Blokus is a great party game. It is so simple! I wish I had thought of that. Every home that I visit have a Blokus. Just pieces of plastic and the game is about $25! What a HUGE profit margin.

I was reading a good book on Javascript and visited the author (Douglas Crockford)'s website. The guy is brilliant, funny and insightful. I love his writing about weight loss and Xiangqi.

XiangQi should be marketed as Chinese Chess. The Chinese Checkers marble game is bogus, it's not Chinese and it's not checkers.

XiangQi is not popular outside of Asia because the Chinese characters are intimidating, placing the chess pieces in the corners of the squares would be weird for regular old Chess players. Mr Crockford have this awesome layout and simple graphic designs.

Toy companies could REALLY and EASILY produce this game and it would attract millions of new players.

I am an intermediate XiangQi player. I can beat most 10 year olds.

Design Patterns

2011-01-25T17:59:00.010-06:00

I DID study Design Patterns in graduate school. No one has ever believed me. Even if I had the report card. No one would believe me. Why? The report card say something like Object Oriented Modeling. The class was not so great, the teacher was a lecturer and not quite a prof, not even assistant prof. We looked at quite a bit of UML diagrams. No, I didn't retain much of anything from the expensive graduate class.

Over the years, I'd ALWAYS get asked Design Pattern questions in interviews. I'd always get stomped.

The Gang of Four book is great but it's in C++. (didn't use that in grad school though, I used a much lesser book, I sold it.). However, these patterns pretty much demand Java's interface feature. It's easiest to learn Design Patterns with Java in my humble opinion. See, Java already have an Iterator, also Observer (java.util). Want an Observer, well, go get yourself a subclass! It's hard(er) to do that in C++.

Here is how to remember the 23 classic design patterns.

These 23 can be in 3 groups:

Some people on line had created mnemonics for them. I sort of dislike some of them.

Creational { Abstract Factory, Builder, Factory Method, Prototype, Singleton}

ABFPS - A Boy's FPS (first person shooter video game, or Frame Per Second)

Structural Patterns { Adapter, Bridge, Composite, Decorator, Facade, Flyweight, Proxy}

ABCDFFP - In the tune of the song A-B-C-D-E-F-G, go A-B-C-D-F-F-P.

Behavioral Patterns { Mediator, Memento, Interpreter, Iterator, Chain of Responsibility, Command, State, Strategy, Observer, Template Method, Visitor}

MMIICCSSOTV - two (mic)rophones on TV - I didn't make that one up. but I like it.

There are many other text for Design Patterns. One is the Head First book. I own that one. It's has more silly stuff than content, 500 pages later and it dares to skip many of the 23 patterns and stuff them in the appendix. Another one is Design Pattern for Dummies. That one goes GoF said this, said that. Come on! Have your own writing and insights of the topic please. There is not one UML diagrams at all, which I like. There are quite a few trivial but illustrative Java examples.

So there, some evidence that I did study Design Patterns.

I was stomped at one interview with the Strategy pattern. Another time with Dependency Injection, which is a more modern pattern, and not one of the classics. I got asked many times Singleton, and Factory. I also got asked the four big OOP ideas (pillars). {Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, Polymorphism }

Abstraction and Encapsulation - aren't they pretty much the same thing? well, No! Don't ever confuse the Java abstract class with Abstraction the idea. There is no way to hide not truly understanding of OOP.

Why do interviewers ask academic topics? Because they want the best, they want book smarts. Go to interviews prepared!

Bears defeat - Why not be more prepared?

2011-01-24T20:10:00.006-06:00

There are lots of other news today. (Mayor race, and Moscow, Tuscon, AZ) But people would rather talk about nothing else but the Bears.

People argue rather Mr. Jay Cutler was really that injured to stop playing. Only Mr Cutler and his docs know that for sure. What troubles me is, why is the game depend on just one guy?

Why can't there be another player just as good ready to replace him at any given moment? How can the Bears be so unprepared? The Bears run like cars with small temporary spare tire. A football team need a full size spare tire.

Teamwork should not be about heroes. Heroes are great, but heroes need backup. He Man need the Masters of the Universe. Superman need Super Friends.

There is always next year.

Windows 7 - still no CD copier

2011-01-24T19:37:00.004-06:00

Windows 7 can work with ISO files. Given an ISO, it can make a CD - good - finally.
Windows 7 can burn files to CD's - good.
There is no way to copy CD. DOS had diskcopy a: b: why don't Windows 7? The Mac can do this in a goofy way - make an image first than make copies.

To get around this, you can download some who knows what shareware. Or go to a Best Buy like store and get Roxio or Nero.

This is insane. Why do these CD burner vendors still exist? Why do antivirus vendors still exist? Integrate everything to Windows already. Oh yeah, legal issues, monopoly issues, right. A Mac would have a lot less problems. I am SO getting a Mac.

I got a slightly older copy of Roxio and nope, it didn't work with Windows 7. Aargh.
I got a newer version of Roxio and now I am cooking.

Windows 7 is still such an inept OS.

Movie Review: Inception (2010)

2011-01-17T14:32:00.002-06:00

Sigmund Freud and M.C. Escher, and Morpheus from The Matrix would be proud.
This film stars Leo Dicaprio and a fine supporting cast.

This movie is about a group of thugs/thieves trying to persuade a young heir to break up his company. There are lots of way to do this kind of corporate thing, of course, but no. These guys buy all the seats of a first class 747, and while the rich guy is asleep, sedate him and everyone go inside his head and whisper "sell the company." Well not quite.

So this guy is "trained" to have defenses, a small army of soldiers and thugs to protect against just that, dream invaders. I'm like what?

So these guys go dreams within dreams, while Leo's weird wife shows up whenever she pleases to either kill people or threaten suicide. I'm like what?

Guys sleep in a van and go crashing to the lake on purpose - I'm like what?

In these dream worlds building collapse, streets fold, and things are like Escher paintings. Oh, when the van shakes people shake, when the van goes weightless as in free falling down the river, people float. Am I watching Apollo 13 or something?

Old weird worlds of shooting, and constant mayhem. Oh, the have convinced a cutie Ellen Page to do this illegal stuff too as an architect. I'm like why do you need an architect in dreams?

When you are under attack, just dream big, dream some armor, or something, or dream to be 100 foot, why not? Nope, the characters can dream a grenade launcher, but no more than that.

The idea of the film is fresh and the production is fantastic. But does it make any sense? No, none, whatsoever.

My grade: 2.5 stars - This film is a bit overrated.

He Man (2002)

2011-01-13T20:28:00.007-06:00

I saw this FANTASTIC show on Walmart's $5 bin long time ago. This is injustice. The show should be worth a whole lot more.

He Man (1983-85) is a favorite show of mine because it was different. I loved the musical theme and He Man's trademark stereo voice. I could recite the entire introduction by Adam. "I am Adam, Prince of Eternia, ..."

There had been several attempts to revive He-Man, most of them failed, this 2002 version is just fantastic.

I never had cable, so I missed the show entirely.

Kids shows of the 80's had rules against realistic fighting. There were no real fighting in the old show. This 2002 show is just right, no real violence, but had some serious display of martial arts with slow motion some times. We get to see guys like King Randall and Man at Arms as real characters AND kick butt. These guys hardly did anything in the old show. The new show had not the stereo voice or the theme, but I like it enough to say it's a good show.

Another great improvement of the show is continuous story telling instead of bogus independent episodes. They've also kept the morals at the end of the show.

The show is full of action, and fabulous.

Only two seasons? oh come on. They should make a whole lot more, and then make a She-Ra show.

Only 39 episode total, and the 40th is in the 4th DVD as a comic book. There was no ending-ending in the 40th episode. Apparently the creators of the show thought there will be more show.

Hordak the ugly bad guy is still trapped in another dimension. Great, stay there!

Computing in New Decade

2011-01-07T21:09:00.007-06:00

2011 marks another decade. What kind of computing will be in the future? Here are a few of my predictions.

Devices

There will be affordable smart phone plans at last.
GPS devices are awesome, but GPS devices market will be dead. GPS will either be integrated in cars or exist in phones.
iphones would be king of cellphones, iphone will lead the entire decade
Whatever Google comes up with for PC will be a huge success
Laptops would be designed correctly where the screen would be raised to eye level. Old claim-shell design is out.
Graphic Calculators would be obsolete as they are replaced by phones

Computing

The remaining 32 bit machines will be problems as we come closer to 2038.
IPv4 problems.
The mouse and touchpad would be obsolete - multi-touch screens would be standard
Installing software (running setup.exe) would be considered stupid. Most software if not all would be on line.
CD/DVD would be obsolete as all media is delivered on line
eBooks replace big bad medical and calculus books.

Industries

Electric cars would suck at first, but will have gradual improvements
Mail would be irrelevant, no bills would come in the mail, just insurance papers and ads.
Newspapers would be finally obsolete, magazines delivered on line.
Made in China would be a badge of cool and quality like Made in Japan

Programmers

The interview would involve the question, how many mobile apps did you sell this year?
Functional languages would still be misunderstood and not taught at all in lame colleges
Java would stabilize and not constantly beg to update its sorry JRE self again.
HTML5 would be a huge success

Movie Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

2011-01-05T21:20:00.005-06:00

The real Sorcerer's Apprentice, is of course the Mickey Mouse dancing mop thing in Fantasia. I never liked Fantasia. Fantasia is not a grand musical master piece that Disney commercials say it is. Fantasia 2000 was not either. They were pleasant, but sometimes nightmarish cartoons. Pomp and Circumstances (Graduation music)with Noah's Ark with Donald and Daisy Duck rushing to the Ark? You get the idea how wrong the pairing of music, cartoon and story. Let's not even talk about flying whales...

This 2010 movie take what little from that Mickey Mouse cartoon and contrive a movie out of it. This movie had some fine actors but why did they sign up for this kind of show?

This movie in a way is much like National Treasure movies. Take one little thing and make up fake historical back story around it. For this movie, we have Merlin, right, that Merlin, with the big wizard hat. So this guy had not one but three Apprentices, one of which is a bad guy, and there is an all evil Morgana (who?) too. One of these apprentices is evil, one is trapped in a genie bottle Russian doll with evil Morgana, and Merlin gave orders to the last one to look for the chosen one that can destroy Morgana. Um, why? she is already trapped in the bottle. He took a thousand years to find the chosen one. The chosen one is a gentle physics geek. His goofiness destroys evil and win a beautiful girlfriend too. The dancing mop sequence is obvious homage for the original material, but it was not funny, not cute, not well made at all.

There is just way too little material in Fantasia to make a movie out of it. None of that fluff make any sense. These wizards trapped for a thousand year look at modern day New York and is not surprised how it looks at all. All hell literally broke lose and there is not one other person in NYC to see what's going on.

OK, so so fake CG effects, thin story, so-so boring stun work, OK and likable actors. The Morgana character is really disturbing scary. No kid under 13 need to see her, gross monster.

My grade: 2 stars.

因果肚腩 - Cause and Effect of Pot Belly

2010-12-29T20:12:00.013-06:00

Men store most of his fat in the belly, so someday the fat can be used in case of famine. The only time where the belly fat is used as energy is famine, that means almost never.
Belly fat is unsightly and dangerous. It sends awful signals to the brain that you are still hungry. The heavy and round belly displace the internal organs! Creating heart burn, and countless other problems. Thanks to Dr. Roizen for his very informative video on PBS.

Some say the body is an equation. You eat, and you got to exercise to burn the calories. What's left over become fat. I sort of agree to that thinking. Men store all the fat in the abdominal area, women store the fat elsewhere. Many women point to the bellies of men and don't notice their own problems behind them. It's 因果 (cause and effect), a big belly means you eat wrong kinds of foods and not exercise enough. For men, the belly sticks out, beyond the belt. Like Popeye's friend Wimpy in the old cartoon show. There is no hiding the big old belly. Sweaters don't do it. Shirts don't do it. Long ago, the super VP level guy in my company was well over 400 pounds, the guy can barely move and talk. Every time the guy visited and spoke, no one listened but the weight become a distraction. So, no, business suits and tie can't hide the belly.

Well, (lucky) people got to go to work. Most workers drive 1 hr to work and sit around for 8 hours, too tired to cook and go for awful fast food answers. That's why many people are obese. Many obese folk want to change, but there is just no time in the day and no motivation to do anything about it.

The obese folk is also sick folk, all kinds of issues: back, knee, sleep-apnea, heart problems. Well of course, you are carrying an extra 100 pounds around. The health care cost is HUGE. Does the government care? no not really, they care about the money. What does the government do? useless campaigns. Outrageously stupid new food pyramid. People keep ballooning, needing bigger airplane seats and bigger cars. I recently read a whiny car review of a car with too big map pockets on the driver side door, so boo-hoo, wah wah, uncomfortable on long distance tips. I'm like, it's your problem, not the car's problem.

The only solution to the obese problem is exercise, and the general public to re-develop their taste palettes for healthy foods. The palette is trainable. If you drink regular pop, and switch to diet pop, ew, you would initially reject diet pop. After a while the palette get used to the awful fake sugar and begin to like diet pop. Pop, diet or not is really junk food. Avoid it! Junk food is well, junk! avoid them all.

How to get people to exercise? People are conditioned to sit around and watch TV. These government campaigns need to make clever commercials to exercise featuring photogenic Olympic athletes. America need to develop a healthy culture. The ad council has some talent, come on, make some good commercials!

PBS is great, how about another channel to feature exercise gurus 24/7 on free TV. People can follow along and develop exercise habits.

Any effective exercise will involve weights, cardio take at least 30 minutes, every single day. Everyone need to make time for that.

The other solution is diet. Look, a few decades ago there are very few morbidly obese folks in China. Now with completely wrong information about milk is good nutritious food and the introduction of bad fast food. Chinese folks also need to battle obesity. (See China Study by Dr. Colin Campbell).

Everyone! stay away from junk food! Shun bad food!

Another idea, government support some sort of leave of absence for 2 weeks to get medical help and gym membership discounts.

It's another new year. Let's all get in better shape. (Round is a shape, but that's not the goal)

A good workout is a 因, a good flat belly is 果.

Classics: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

2010-12-24T20:16:00.009-06:00

I took Science Fiction as English in my Senior year in high school. High school is a dreadful place. Sci-Fi was one of the bright spots of awful high school. (Someone should have shown me Noxzema and demo-ed how to lift weights in HS years). In that year the class read quite a few Sci Fi novels. I didn't read-read any of them. I'd skimmed them, and rented movies and read Cliff Notes. I didn't like to read then, and I was lazy. Now I read like a maniac. I'd read dozens of books this year. (mostly non-fiction and biographies)

One of the authors mentioned in Sci-Fi was of course Jules Verne. You will not get the movie Back to The Future III if you don't know about Jules Verne. You will not know why the name Nemo in Finding Nemo without knowing Jules Verne.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is probably one of Verne's best known novels. In there you will find Captain Nemo. Which of course the fish is named after the Captain. This is a very old Sci-Fi book, it is kind of dated. What's fantastic in 1870 ain't so awesome today.

I came across a child's version of the book. I read through it back to back in about 20 minutes. So the book is about this amazing ship that can go through the oceans like a whale with ease. The ship was electric. There is this big bad squid monster along the way, too.

The cool thing is the submarine featured in the book has not been invented yet.

I ended up being confused of what's going on with Nemo and his mysterious background, what is UP with this guy? He plays the organ in a submarine and does other weird things.

Nemo captured a couple of guys and take them along on a journey under the seas, and the book sort of abruptly ends.

I am a bit disappointed in this kid version. I may get and read the grown up version later.

Read Classics to get the references used in present.

Spring - Watch 1 Video Better Than Read 1000 pages

2010-12-22T17:58:00.010-06:00

I have flunked at least 2 interviews over the years with questions about Design Patterns and new terms like Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control. There is no way to fake knowing these in interviews.

First Dependency Injection IS a design pattern, but it is certainly not a classic design pattern. You would read up on Design Patterns for interviews and memorize them, but get asked about DI. The interviewer would argue that DI is a design pattern. You would argue it's not, and you'd lose. I did take a graduate Design Pattern class in about 2004, and DI was not mentioned.

In this day and age and with Java, you almost certainly must know Spring and Hibernate. What is Spring? well, it's a framework. What is a framework? A framework for Dependency Injection. What is a Dependency Injection? It's a very odd term, isn't it? Hibernate is not about snakes sleeping in the winter. I hate Java related project names. No name ever make any sense.

I can't explain Spring. Given another interview I'd certainly flunk it. I have read at least a half dozen books on Spring/Hibernate. I still can't explain it as good as my friend Srinivas Reddy here:

You may have trouble with the accent. But this is the best explanation of Spring ever. Thank you Srinivas. Great job. You watch the complete list of videos and now the Spring docs and books will begin to make sense.

In short, the new operator is no good. Coupling is an enemy. Use lots and lots of interfaces! Let spring "inject" "dependency."

Classics: Gulliver's Travels

2010-12-22T11:06:00.008-06:00

I recently came upon a simplified version of Gulliver Travels. I love children versions of classics. They are like Cliff Notes, only better. Better as in without the blah blah discussions of themes, literary stuff, scholarly yapping and such non-sense. It's an adventure story, satire or otherwise.

There is a new movie staring Jack Black, too. I always like to be prepared when I watch a movie.

I know about Gulliver's Travels since I was a kid, I watched cartoons and read about it. However, these versions were not complete. I know about the guy traveled to the kingdom of small humans and big humans. I didn't know about the 2 other adventures, one to Laputa and one to land of Yahoos (Houyhnhnms).

When I watch Castle in the Sky, in the late 80's. I have no idea it was the inspired by the classic book. Castle in the Sky is a master piece by Miyazaki. I don't like much of his other works. I love, love, LOVE Castle in the Sky. If possible, watch the original Japanese version with subtitles. The voice acting is superb. The English dubbed version from Disney is not nearly as good. They have a grown man playing the hero boy. He's like 10 years old, not a grown man, come on.

Some ignorant folk at work have a hard time understanding Big and Little Endian or Byte order. When you read and write to files binary, you better understand Endian. Old people who only work with Big Endian don't get it. Young people who call writing to a file serialize don't get it. Only middle age folk get Endian.

Gulliver went to visited countries where they go to war over which side of the egg to crack open first. That's the culture reference of Endian-ness. I explained Endian many times in my career but many still don't get it.

A Yahoo is synonymous as an idiot, why you Yahoo choose such a name? Every time you visit Yahoo the site, you have Jonathan Swift to thank for making that term up.

We read books, most of the time the books are great, and books take us away from the boring everyday life. Sometimes we read books because everyone else know about the book, so you need to read too.

Where is IE7/8? I hate Windows

2010-12-22T09:38:00.005-06:00

IE 6 was horribly bad, but it was KING. It was the supreme king of browsers. Many people at that time had just started on the web, and didn't know better that IE 6 was anti-standard, and bad.

Those who understand the Internet use Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari, and never look back for the past 5 years or so. However, many people are still stuck with old habits of IE.

Windows FORCE everyone to get IE7 and IE8 with sneaky Windows updates, after that, dozens of security fixes. What are those really? Are they all buffer overflow attacks? Why can't they fix it all at once and need dozens of fixes? Incompetence. And shamelessness. One or two security fixes is thank you for finding that, a dozen? incompetence.

IE7/8 are horrible too with a perverted menu system (or lack thereof).

Windows XP SP3 now HIDES the IE icon completely, so to make the "competition" possible. Which make more work for the computer user. Where is IE? Well, it's gone.

The user must jump through HOOPS to recover the lost IE. This is ridiculous, which include registry changes. This is unacceptable.
These solutions on the web are nice, but you'd have to be bombarded with damn on line ads.

If I could, I would wipe out any and all Windows on all the computers that I have.
Why IE? you ask, well, nowadays we write software, make websites for the web and need to test on IE, that's why.

I really, really hate Windows.

Note to computer programmers: There is almost no way to make money without Windows, so can't completely hate Windows.

Dell Inspiron Mini - FAIL

2010-12-18T17:00:00.007-06:00

I want to smash this worthless Inspiron mini computer - and the awful Windows 7 Starter. Where is the "My Computer" icon?

Never ever buy Dell! Never ever Buy Intel/AMD Dell

The midget PC says it connected to my wireless network with full strength. Yet it will not! it will not let me go online. I spent a good hour or two on it. I am not the clueless computer guy. I have an undergrad computer engineering degree and a master's degree or two! Every PC - Windows XP/Vista/7/Linux and Mac (even an iphone or two) can connect to my network - why can't this worthless midget PC?

That is a complete FAIL. If I could I would smash this piece of junk to a thousand pieces. Nothing, no one can waste my time like this.

I hate Dell. I will never buy Dell. I will never forgive Dell.

I hate Dell/Microsoft.

So Cold

2010-12-17T19:48:00.003-06:00

It's not winter yet and it's below freezing, week after week.
At the office, it is cold. My hands freeze, if I go get a space heater, for about $30 it'd be useful for about 2 weeks a year. Not worth it, and I will some day forget to turn it off and I'd worry about it all weekend.

Long ago I had a coffee heater, and it ended up being a thing of worry, so I got rid of it.

I ask, where is the global warming that we are suppose to have?

I pumped gas for a few minutes and it was very cold. I am not usually a weak shimmering guy that wear a winter coat indoors. Under 20 degrees week after week can drain anyone.

How much heat will cost me this month?

Movie Review: The Last AirBender (2010)

2010-12-13T23:39:00.006-06:00

I am familiar with the TV show. I watched several of them, so I checked out the movie.
I KNOW this movie will be bad because I always read reviews. I have a little faith with M. Night, so maybe the critics don't get TV show movies like I do.

This movie suffer from two big problems. Pace issues and Bad wire work. Yap yap yap with narratives. Kung Fu/Tai Chi moves move or bend elements, eh. So why so many moves some time, and so few other times? To many grand moves and nothing happen! The kung fu is so fake and only so-so stylish.

So Indian guys are Fire Nation, Chinese guys are Earth, Americans (Eskimos) are Water nation, eh. It's not like that in the cartoon show, is it? Mr. M. Night, did you watch the show first?

The movie was horribly botched. The special effects are sort of OK, but not extraordinary. There were lots of laughable moves. The dream sequences with the dragon is poorly done. The princess lived for like total of 5 minutes, come on now!

I knew it'd be bad, but not this bad. Yikes. Good material, so botched. FAIL

My grade: 1 star

The last scene which features the Fire king giving the princess a mission; and the awful actress can't act, and giggles. I'm like What? That was suppose to be a set up device for a sequel.

No one manning the phones

2010-12-12T16:06:00.002-06:00

There is nothing more frustrating then 800 numbers with no operators. I was on hold for hours and finally give up. If no one is picking up the phone, well, say so. Let users leave a message. Don't tell me my calls are important and you guys are "experiencing unusual high volumes." I don't want excuses. I want to leave a message, when you are back, call me back.

Dell/Windows Vista FAIL

2010-12-12T15:59:00.004-06:00

On a shared computer; one user forgot to shutdown. The PC went to some odd sleep mode. When the power button is pushed; The user's locked screen appeared, and allow to "switch user." Once the switch user button is pushed, all hell break lose. The PC go to a dream state.

Pushing and holding the power button and the infamous Vista logo show up for a few seconds and disappears.

Half an hour later, a guy decided to yank the power cord, and force a true reboot. That trick worked.

I don't know who to blame here, Vista's general ineptitude? or bad Dell hardware?

A second problem with Vista. I bought commercial game software. Every time anyone try to run the game. It dare ask. Do you allow? Well, I double clicked, did it? Vista, you idiot.

Every Vista box deserve to be erased and replaced by Windows 7. Windows 7 is far from perfect, but slightly better.

Good bye laptops, Hello Laptop

2010-12-10T21:19:00.009-06:00

I said good bye to two laptops this week. A very old circa 2004 Dell and a newer circa 2008 Dell. I have hacked MILLIONS lines of C, C++, Bash script and created countless powerpoints with these two laptops. These lines of code eliminated at least 2 jobs via automation of processes. My programs (or products that I worked on) have earned millions of dollars(!) but the programmer get a very small fraction.

I have bought these laptops on planes, even out of the country.

Dell make horrible cheap plastic hardware, I will never buy Dell for myself. There is not much thought in the design of the low-end corporate Latitude's.

However, these things were usable for many years. I wanted to smash the XP laptop to a billion pieces many times but resisted. The laptop became very sluggish over the years. The 2008 version came with XP and it gave me multiple BSOD a day. After I put Win 7 on it, the thing started to work.

These Dells take over 10 minutes to boot. It's pathetic.

I don't like Dells.

I have to make room for a new laptop that is quad core, but not much faster than my duo core. I hack Java EE now. How many awesome lines of code will I write in this thing?

Good Bye, laptops, rest in peace in some mountain of scrap somewhere.

---
Apple explore materials! e.g Solid Aluminum. Dell/HP/Acer are all about cheap.

So after waiting for a month and LOTS of justifications, my company ordered a 2010 laptop to replace my 2008 one. It comes with a completely unusable pointer thing smacked in the middle of the keyboard. The track pad now have a nice vertical and horizontal scroll.

I want to get a screw driver and rip out the awful thing between [G] and [H].

He Man Piano - TV show idea.

2010-12-08T19:30:00.003-06:00

He Man!

America Idol is old and tired. Now without the very essential Simon and Paula;

I like The Sing Off. I like the very talented and diverse groups.

How about a new TV show with talented musicians that play themes! e.g. Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, Power Rangers. Themes of TV shows and games. People play instruments.

How Many Super Heroes at One Time?

2010-12-06T20:47:00.008-06:00

大江東去，浪淘盡、千古風流人物。

故壘西邊，人道是、三國周郎赤壁。

亂石崩雲，驚濤裂岸，捲起千堆雪。

江山如畫，一時多少豪傑。

遙想公瑾當年，小喬初嫁了，雄姿英發。

羽扇綸巾，談笑間、檣櫓灰飛煙滅。

故國神遊，多情應笑我，早生華髮。

人生如夢，一尊還酹江月。

This poem is 念奴嬌-赤壁懷古　by 蘇軾. This is majestic poetry. Chinese Poetry at its finest that summarize the famous and grand Battle of Red Cliff. The movies are not so bad. It added extra characters but the essence is there.

Chinese is an amazing elegant language. Poetry like this last hundreds and hundreds of years because they are very clever.

The leader of this battle was this handsome strong guy who was very jealous of this other more smart guy who is a military genius. The handsome guy end up dead at 35, not in this battle, but some time after.

During the times of the Battle. Super heroes arise everywhere to join armies to end an old corrupt dynasty and start a new one. The Battle of Red Cliff is known to be the best part of the Three Kingdoms. The number of these heroes that rose up were too many to count. How Many Super Heroes at One Time?

This poet also have credit for creating a very fat pork dish. 東坡肉

Bank Websites displaces Quicken/Microsoft Money

2010-11-30T20:30:00.005-06:00

Quicken is far from perfect. Quicken has the PIN vault feature horribly and incorrectly implemented. The idea is, remember one single password and then the vault will remember the rest. What if you need to change a password or two? Change the vault, right?

NO! I turns out first you must bypass the vault first, and then the vault changes would take effect. A big fat dialog tells you to bypass. Any self respecting computer user will ignore any and all dialogs - missing this important piece of information. If you try multiple times, the bank trying to avoid a DoS attack, would disable your account, requiring the user to reset a password and jump through hoops. Quicken so waste user's time with this dumb design, and I am furious.

SaaS (Software as a Service), the things banks allow you to do on the websites have long past what Quicken/Microsoft Money can offer. So there is no need for these old last decade desktop software. The banks websites can make graphs, make reports, anything desktop software can. Sure, bank websites go off line for "maintenance."

Quicken with this awful PIN vault implementation let me down, I never forgive bad designs, and so I will never buy Quicken again.

I have long threw my Microsoft Money to the trash because it dares to force me to upgrade to download transactions. I own the software, (see, I got the box) therefore I don't need to upgrade if I don't want to.

Yes, security is a concern. SSL good enough? I am suppose to trust the little lock thing at the corner of my browser? I took a 2 quarter graduate course for Computer Security a few years back. I still don't have any answers.

Dumb terminals are making a comeback. Most people would just need a browser. People envision that in the 90's and and it wouldn't be another decade or two before this would happen.

See the trend? Office apps, on line, Calendars on line, etc, etc.

There would be dumb terminals and smart phones. Smart phones exist only because connection to the web for smart phones are so damn expensive. When smart phones connect to the web for free, "apps" would be replaces by web apps as well.

Goodbye 斌仔 BunBoy

2010-11-26T19:23:00.004-06:00

斌仔 was a typical school nerd worrying about the dreaded public test in the 80's. He was always picked on by his miser brother Jack, in the good old situation comedy Hong Kong 81-86. The show lasted many seasons. I was in Hong Kong and watched the MouSok family in the snack shop with his tenant families. The show had a very catchy theme.

The 斌仔 BunBoy character was played by this actor that is the everyday Hong Kong teen 羅君左. He died this month. The guy is only 51, had his leg chopped off due to diabetes. Poor guy. He wasn't a fine drama actor, but was always a pleasant, and chubby, comedy actor. Mr. Loo was also a voice actor too, and was about to publish a book on voice acting and production. I am happy when I see him in any TVB drama. He was in many shows.

Goodbye 斌仔, rest in peace. You will be missed by many.

SuinSo the land lady who is at least 30 years older than BinBoy is still alive! BunBoy left this world too early. MouSok died long ago. I still see Jack in some shows - without dorky classes, though.

Movie Review: iron Man 2

2010-11-22T22:15:00.003-06:00

To enjoy Sci Fi movies first you must throw out all logic.

Overall a great special effects movie with perfectly chosen cast. Well, maybe except the new Rhodey and the fat head senator.

Problems with the story:

Tony is REALLY out of character here (vs the comic book and TV Tony Stark); The real Tony is not that of a narcissist guy.

So Tony Stark's dad is Uncle Walt Disney who makes films and hides secrets to finding a new element not present in the periodic table? huh? And how do you make that? by shooting laser in a triangle?

Sure, powered whips may slice things up, but it does not protect from a car smashing into your legs multiple times where there is no armor. Car smash guy and he's not hurt, huh?

Can one guy with a toothpick in his mouth and a bird make dozens of killer robots? He'd need a factory with hundreds of people and hundreds of hours of test flight.

There is no way the toothpick guy can control all 3 dozen robots with 1 keyboard. So if the robots had eyes, they'd be able to avoid obstacles as well as Rodey's controlled robot.

My grade: 3 stars

if you factor in the hundreds and thousands of people that would be dead if dozens of robots start shooting and guy slicing up cars and dead security guys; then this movie is less fun.

Iron Man 2 is not less of a movie than the original Iron Man.

Iron Man rock, he is one of my favorite Marvel characters.

Shakespeare on Programming

2010-11-18T22:45:00.004-06:00

Taken from fantastic book JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. Good books have a quote of some sort on each Chapter.

On grammar, you know a programming language has grammar

I know it well: I read it in the grammar long ago.

William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus

On Objects

Upon a homely object Love can wink

- William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

On Functions

Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done: Mine were the ery cipher of a function...

- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

On Inheritance

Divides one thing entire to many objects; Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon Show nothing but confusion...

- William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

On Arrays

Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array

. - William Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the VI

On Regular Expressions

Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss, and is a pattern of celestial peace, Whom should we match with Henry, being a king

- William Shakespeare - The First Part of Henry the Sixth.

On Methods

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't

- William Shakespeare - Hamlet