Tuesday, December 26, 2006

悲しい〜〜

上實驗課,我的實驗partner一直在旁邊唱 Wham 的 "Last Christmas"
又一個失戀受害者
とても悲しいてすね...

今日嬉しい

搖搖頭小綿羊
真是個可愛的禮物^^

與德技的水球紀錄 :P

★hansjoerg Hmm [12/16/2006 23:32:27]
To hansjoerg: hmm... [12/16/2006 23:32:37]
★hansjoerg Ha [12/16/2006 23:32:45]
To hansjoerg: Ha [12/16/2006 23:32:59]
★hansjoerg uh [12/16/2006 23:33:19]
To hansjoerg: Ah [12/16/2006 23:33:44]
★hansjoerg o [12/16/2006 23:33:56]
To hansjoerg: e [12/16/2006 23:34:22]
★hansjoerg ...... [12/16/2006 23:34:28]
To hansjoerg: mm... [12/16/2006 23:34:52]
★hansjoerg 你太閒或你真無聊的英語要怎麼說? [12/16/2006 23:35:24]

沈默寡言這玩意兒

人家說我沈默寡言,但這是表象,其根本原因是大腦語言區不發達。
真的覺得我不擅長表達自己。

常常跟朋友在一起時,沒聊個幾句,就腦中一片空白,不知道該說些甚麼了。
這在社辦時尤其明顯。除非有很熟的人,否則都只有當聽眾的份,人家講十句,我大概只插個幾個字。最後,自討無趣,順手拿起桌上的雜誌、型錄開始看。在別人眼中這行為有點自閉吧!

出活動時也是。見到不熟的新生都不知道該說甚麼,結果最後就一直泡在老人聊天團中,要不然就自己一個人飆到大隊前端,新生都不熟。真的不知該如何展開話題。以前還會學學種馬的老招:「什麼名字阿?甚麼科系阿?為何會想來騎車阿?」然後,三句問完後不知該說甚麼,尷尬的安靜之後,就自顧自的往前狂飆。

有時會羨慕一些話題永遠講不完的人。他們總是有無限多的生活小故事、有趣的經驗、新知識可以跟大家分享。曾經想說,要把自己變成一個相處起來更有趣的人,就多看一些報章雜誌、網站,並試著細細品味人生中有趣的點點滴滴。最後發現,我的人生歷練並沒有比別人無聊,只是那些記憶都鎖在一些不容易打開的抽屜中。

發現要暢所欲言,只有在一些特別要好的朋友,或者有特定共同經歷的人面前。尤其是同樣領域出身的,如系上同學,生物相關的東西有很多可以聊。有相似興趣的,如德技這種科技狂,也是特別聊的開。但也有一些特別的人,我們可以無所不聊。這些特別的人有何特點可以讓我放開心胸呢,我也不知道。總覺得自己的內心還有不少我自己都不了解的東西,還要花很多心力去聊解自己。

除了跟不熟的人聊天時常會腦袋空白外呢,有而還有語言障礙。有些東西必須要用英文解釋,我不會用中文講;有些東西則要用中文講,我不會翻成英文;也有些東西要用台語表達,不然也不知道怎麼講。但要找到三個語言的程度都跟我相似的人實在不簡單,於是,溝通障礙就出現了。

能夠使用語言互相溝通,是人類比其他動物多的一項優勢,但卻也產生了一些新的煩惱呢。

Sunday, December 24, 2006

這就是人生阿

沒甚麼好抱怨的
尤其當結果完全是自己的疏忽造成的

挫折與不如意是常有的事
這就是人生

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

New Blogger!

I've moved to the new Blogger system!
Let's see what's new...
When I have time that is.

喜好、人生階段與生活品味

那天在實驗室跟學長一起喝咖啡時,聊到了人在不同的階段下會喜歡不一樣的東西。
就以咖啡來說好了。大部份人一開始都比較喜歡那種加很多糖的咖啡。可能是便利商店的超甜罐裝咖啡,可能是即溶三合一咖啡。不過,我現在每次去實驗室都跟學長們一起品嚐新鮮現磨的黑咖啡。他們自己烘豆子,現磨現泡,每一個步驟都像做實驗一樣的一次一次的慢慢調整各種變因,以測出最好的處理方式。咖啡的味道講究層次感,剛入口可能先有點苦,接著有咖啡豆天然的酸,然後慢慢的把那淡淡的甜味帶出來。香味則依豆子的不同有各種香味,焦味、花果香... 各種奇特的味道都有。我現在發現淺培的咖啡,味道淡淡的卻口感滑順,真的很棒。

這讓我想到我高中時,本來都喝甚麼麥香紅茶、或檸檬紅茶,總之都很甜。然後有一次喝到無糖的烏龍茶,那淡淡的甜味感覺比過重的人工加糖的飲料別有一番風味。那種天然的淡淡的甜味總是可以在舌頭上停留很久,再那裡慢慢的變化。體會過那種感覺後,都會避免喝加糖的紅茶。烏龍茶、綠茶、日式煎茶、香片都有其特別的感覺,只要不要加糖去破壞那種感覺,就會多很多樂趣。

對於音樂的喜好,也會隨年齡改變。中、小學生喜歡的偶像歌手、重口味的情歌都會讓我覺得聽不慣。輕搖滾、爵士、新世紀,都各有適合聽得心情狀態。重搖滾,心情不好的時候偶而也會聽一下。講人生經驗的歌曲也總是比情歌耐聽。

以前,對於喜好跟自己相反的人多少會有點反感,但現在想想,也許人生歷練、心境的不同,都會影響一個人的喜好吧。

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Christmas cards sent

要寄出去的聖誕卡終於搞定了
週一寄出9張,今天寄出3張
不過USPS開始放聖誕假期了,所以今天寄到美國的兩張會被卡到1月1號才寄 T_T
真是晚兩天寄,晚半個月到達

這次狂寫卡片有幾個心得

  • 我的字還是一樣草,還會一行字越寫越往右上方飄...
  • 然後我得手腦並沒有同步,腦中想著一個字,手卻寫出一個長相只有20%類似的另一個字。(如:「過」=>「個」)結果寄出去的東西裡有塗改、有劃掉,還有利可白/帶... (我對不起大家)
  • 莫名其妙的,英文的寫的比較順:中文的構思比較久。阿~從小學的跟幼稚園學的語言使用上還是有差的。
  • 然後,可以理解的,給特別的人的卡片最難寫...
對了,信封上的收件者我都沒寫先生小姐耶,應該ok吧XD
---
小心的貼上漂亮的郵票,然後把信封們一一投入那紅色或綠色的鐵桶,感覺自己的感情與心意隨之掉到筒底,發出響亮的撞擊聲。人們的感情就這樣躺在筒中等待郵差來把他們送到各個收件人的手中。

Apoptosis

細胞生死學老師對細胞自死的說明很有趣XD:
「一個細胞受到外在刺激後,內疚皺縮而死!」

我也喜歡老師對考試的看法:
「考試不是用來打敗學生的。」
偏偏還是有一堆老師喜歡故意刁難學生...

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Infection 很有趣?

剛剛在台大醫院地下室員工餐廳吃午飯,聽到一個穿著醫師袍的醫學生說:「我覺得 infection (感染)還滿有趣的......」

恩,以一個生醫學生的觀點來看,若剛好學到這方面得東西,覺得念得很有趣,可以理解,而且我有同感。

不過,這句話可不能在病房隨便講,若給一個受院內感染之苦的病人聽到這句話,他大概會不寒而慄,狂冒冷汗吧 orz

我以後若要說病毒研究很有趣,也要小心聽眾是誰呢。

Saturday, December 16, 2006

自由電子報-愛上台灣 日女留學生漫畫紀實

自由電子報-焦點新聞

以日本人的眼光來看台灣的男女關係總是很訝異:「台灣的男生對女生這麼好?」這,在台灣已經是常態,所以,眾多好人在競爭激烈之下,加倍溫柔......(抖)

不過,台灣的女性主義者還是舉著歐洲的例子,大聲呼喊著台灣男女不平等。我是覺得,台灣現在已經是個接近平等的社會了。(甚至有些地方,如大學的體育課,還會「重女輕男」呢XD)大家就好好的以互相體諒的態度去生活就可以了吧。

唯一想到需要改進的,就是公廁的女廁不夠大了吧。

Adobe reader 8

Get Acrobat Reader

For all the people that don't know yet, Adobe reader has been updated to version 8. Previous versions had always been slow, such as Acrobat reader 6, which once took 2 minutes to launch on my old computer. And I hated reader 7, too, which loaded a resource hungry "speed loader" every time you boot into Windows, which slows down your whole computer, but didn't speed up the launch of the reader it self a lot. Reader 7 also installs Yahoo toolbar for IE on your system, which is ugly and useless, and has a Yahoo search box in the reader it self...

Now, Reader 8 is different. It's the first version that I will be happy to urge everyone to download.

First of all, the download is still to large in size to be happy with, that's because it still comes with Photoshop album starter edition. I urge everyone to stop the installation of that junk as soon as it starts to install.

But that's just about the only annoying stuff of reader 8.

This version is blazing fast, you can finally open PDF files in the blink of an eye! And I am really happy that no Yahoo junk is bundled with this version. But with the experience of previous versions, the speed is the biggest and best new feature of this version.

Go get it, trust me, you'll love the speed.
*note: Mac users get the English version, the Chinese version is not out yet. However, PDF support is built into the MacOS, so that's not a big deal :)

UCLA databank hacked

UCLA Identity Alert
Federal Bureau of Investigation Los Angeles Division - Press Release
FBI website to aid UCLA hacker probe - Los Angeles Times
UCLA break-in puts data on 800,000 at risk | CNET News.com

Great, I got the mail, I am a victim!!!
Yeah, no news is good news, and so it's usually not good to be part of the news incident.
What? I am just an applicant, just submitted my file this month, in fact, the deadline was just yesterday. And my data was leaked already!!!

Hope this won't be the beginning of a nightmare years later...

On the incident, I am really surprised that the hacker had access to the database from October 2005 till November 2006, when they finally noticed the break in. That's over a year's access!!!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

起きて、起きて...!

昨天,不,應該是今天清晨,BCT報告打完一部分後想説先去睡好了。結果又有人要我看SOP,在對方說deadline是15的情況下我心軟了,又幫他看完才關電腦。
看完、要去睡時,又被放在床頭的那本村上春樹吸引...
好,2am才睡。

今天本來跟同學約好早上9am要到學校去收拾昨天BCT的實驗, 結果於7am我再度、一連按掉了3個鬧鈴,繼續睡。
40min後被媽吵醒,發覺又爆炸了,衝出門,然後我那爛雨傘風一吹又自動解體了(囧),只好在路邊停下來組裝。然後修好雨傘後遠遠看到一班公車跑了...

明天我要把鈴声換成ハチクロ第一集中竹本的聲音:「森田起きて、森田起きて、森田起きて、起きて...」
XD

'07 車社花東之旅...

這次花東是怎樣阿?
還沒開始宣傳就已經報名人數爆滿,報名提前截止了
而且這都是在強烈要求社上老人不要佔新生名額的狀況之下

是台灣現在的騎車風氣變盛了嗎?還是我們花東已經做出口碑了,光口耳相傳的宣傳就夠了?
這狀況真的很誇張,我完全無法提出合理的解釋。

PTT版宣只 po 了一點,教室版書還沒開始,聯網站上都還沒出現真正的宣傳圖或動畫(只有一個有點正式的活動公告網頁)
這麼重大的活度卻免宣傳,有點空虛的感覺。
好像車社本學期少了甚麼重要的慶典似的。

Whatever,現在社上人才輩出,我已經呈現死老人狀態了
台9 花東段也已經騎爛了,花東也不是很想去,頂多亂入個幾天吧
我比較喜歡探險,開拓沒騎過的新路線
不過對於寒假還是不知道要去那...
但想玩克難一點,比較有冒險的刺激感與成就感。在平日的城市生活中已經過的夠安逸了,幹麼出去玩還要住高級飯店、民宿?也許像環島時那樣騎到那住到那,隨便找廉價旅社,或若有帳篷也很棒。

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Lorenz butterfly plot



Oh, Yeah! Lorenz function 終於用 Matlab 跑出來了,終於看到 3D 立體蝴蝶圖了!

不過呢,ㄜ,喉嚨跟頭都在痛,BCT 報告還是不想動。

Seminar & Murphy's law

今天真是 Murphy's law 大體驗阿
今天報 seminar ,結果早上開始感冒、喉嚨痛

用教室電腦的 office 2003 修過的 Powerpoint file 圖片不見了,害我報告中斷,臨時換成 Apple Keynote 直接輸出的檔案。當初就是因為 windows 上的 powerpoint 中的字體大小跟 mac 上的不同,特別用 windows 上的 powerpoint 把檔案修過。結果反而是非微軟的軟體作成的檔案問題比較小。好啦,微軟的程式在每一台電腦上跑得結果都不一樣,難道是 chaos 系統?!

碰到這麼多問題,老天對我真是照顧阿~~

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回到 seminar 本身。本來因為時間不足,拿掉很多東西,留了一堆漏洞等著大家問問題(簡直就是填充題)。結果,用英文報完,全班八成以上的人都呆著一張臉看著我,問題沒幾個。也不知道是我的英文不容易懂還是論文本身較複雜。重點是:我留的漏洞都沒被問到~~

不爽。

Sunday, December 03, 2006

通車3天!機場地下道單車男摔死-Yahoo!奇摩新聞

通車3天!機場地下道單車男摔死-Yahoo!奇摩新聞


有人騎單車在台北松山機場復興北路地下道內摔車就直接爆頭掛了。新聞跟家屬都一付是政府工程單位設計不良的樣子。老實說,我覺得有人頭這麼脆弱有點驚訝,不過就假設車速真的很快,而水泥很硬好了。那麼,責任該歸誰?我覺得死者自己要負罪大責任。沒戴安全帽還高速狂飆,真的很沒概念。當然,若硬要說的話,政府的責任在於:沒有宣導騎車要戴安全帽的觀念,也沒有立法規定。

台灣社會中,死者最大的觀念是個不合理的陋習。這次要申請國賠,就像以前有人闖紅燈被撞死還要人家賠錢一樣沒道理。

總之,騎車要戴安全帽是個必須要具體實行的基本常識。

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Christmas cards

December, Christmas is right around the corner. That means it's time to send out the cards again.

Last year, I was still kind of in the blues of the lost relationship of the Christmas before, so I sent out none. This year, with many good friends and many people to thank, I 've got the biggest amount of cards to send out in my life. I usually only send to my cousins, but this year, I've decided to expand my target to good friends, and the professors that wrote recommendations for me. As for friends, I've got classmates, club mates, and even new friends that I met in the US this summer. Now, it's kind of hard to decide who to include in the list...

So I made the list, and went card shopping on Thursday. I had to say that it was not a good experience. About 60% of the cards were either too ugly or low in taste. 80% were too cute in design, looks like they are either for middle school girls or couples. Like, hay, I don't want that much glitter, cute animals, or hearts, dude. This is Christmas, not Valentines!!! What's more, I even see reprints of the cards that I bought, and sent two years ago. Do you make new designs??

So, sifting through the junk, I just got half of the amount that I needed. Guess I would need to do more card shopping elsewhere in the weekend.

There were these cards that cost 40NT (ouch!), and there were discount cards that seem like left over stocks from previous years for only 4NT each (err...). Picking discount cards for friends makes me feel a little guilty, but hay, some of them had better design then the newly printed 30NT cards, and the ultra low price really saves a lot. I could get 10 of those for the price of one expensive card! So, yeah, I did get some 4NT cards, and some others are in the 10~20NT price range. No matter how cheep these cards are, I feel that they are a lot better then "e-cards". Those on-line "e-cards" are flashy and free, but are too easy to send, need almost no effort, and feels more commercial then friendly; in other words, they feel more like spam. With paper cards, you at least get to open the envelope, and touch the handwriting. You really feel that the sender cares about you.

Sure, I'm a geek that use modern digital tech to do many things in every day life. I adapt these tools more then most people. But in some parts of life, I still like the old fashioned way.

柴咲コウ actuality

actuality
柴咲コウ又出新歌了,這次似乎是聖誕節應景歌。看MV似乎是有點孤獨的歌,可惜找不到歌詞,努力聽聽看好了。
上一張專輯,「ひとりあそび」我也聽快一年了。快點出新專輯吧,單曲很貴的耶。

MV,當然還是要用Youtube大神找啦

Friday, December 01, 2006

X-post from PTT2: Creative commons

作者: intellidryad (Ubergeek) 看板: YuFeng
標題: Creative commons
時間: Sat Dec 2 01:49:16 2006

Main site:
http://creativecommons.org/

Creative Commons (CC) is an organization that promotes legal sharing of
intellectual property (IP), founded by Stanford Law school professor
Lawrence Lessig. They provide an alternative kind of licenses that allows
the free sharing of IP, given that it is for noncommercial use.

You can read about it here, with links to free MP3s under the CC license:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/sample
(For anyone who would like to read it on paper, I still have the magazine
, and the free CD that came with it)

The CC website has links to sites that provide content under the CC license.
Look around.
For example: http://www.opsound.org/genre/newage/

--
~myblog>> http://www.intellidryad.blogspot.com/ <<~
~Get Firefox! http://www.moztw.org/firefox/ ~

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※ 發信站: 批踢踢兔(ptt2.cc)
◆ From: 59.115.159.28

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

事情解決了真好

今天解決不少事
其中最重要的就還是感情問題。
雖然對方不接受,但這也有點是意料中的事。

不過解決後的心情也讓我自己嚇了一跳。我竟然忽視了自己失去甚麼,而因為保全了一個很棒的友情而感到高興。

沒有可以喜歡的對象,卻也沒有自暴自棄的理由,總覺得不像我,不過這也算是一種成長吧。無論單身與否都可以自在的自處,心理才是真正的健康完整。

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另外,deadline 12月1日的學校全數解決!!!
小有成就感。

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Self note

Real good friends are hard to find
Treasure it.

Monday, November 27, 2006

幫女生處理電腦問題就是好人?

據說PTT上有個好人的stereotype:專門幫女生修電腦,然後最後被發卡

恩,有個前提,那個主角是個對女生有興趣的正常男人
如果說,去修電腦的是個geek,對電腦比較有興趣,對女生反而比較沒興趣呢?

Geeks rejoice!
I saved this beloved computer!

XD
胡思亂想過頭了

--

我個人倒是去幫過不少人處理電腦問題,不過都是男生 LOL

但現在,除非是非常好的朋友,不然我是比較不想去處理這種問題了
PC just don't work, get a Mac, dude!
明知道PC就是個會出問題的東西,還去花錢找罪受,幹麼?
Windows可以輕易的讓你修東改西,狂處理問題一整天;在那同樣的時間裡,Mac使用者可能已經打完幾篇編排漂亮的報告了。
It does the job.

What the hell?

Something has resurrected from deep down in the subconscious, and started to pester my moods and friendships. I want to bury it even deeper, beyond the subconscious, into oblivion, never to surface again.

Yeah, I picked the easy way out, but it seems to be the only way out if I don't want to crash.

---

Oh, maybe I should really go get a big fluffy pillow...

Sunday, November 26, 2006

龍門露營回來

photos
從宜蘭頭城走宜一&雙太產業道路,經雙溪到十分後切瑞芳回基隆,7pm回到家。
連爬三坐山,陡上陡下,還要趕時間。
同伴中,有人走錯路,有人爆胎,有人摔車。

回到家累癱,又餓又渴,又發生那麼多事,有種冒險回來奇妙的刺激與滿足感。
很少有活動者麼操,但也很少有活動可以像這次讓我有這種感覺,好像回到第一次從花東回來時那種又累又爽的感覺。

這次出活動,有很多都是跟我比較熟的朋友,很高興。

感謝曉嫚帶這學期唯一的大活動,第一天真的規劃得很棒。第二天(今天)真的是辛苦大家了。
不明顯的叉路前還是先收個隊會比較好,而其他的意外,我只能說運氣吧。

曉嫚辛苦了。

Friday, November 24, 2006

社員大會現況


車社社員大會......好空曠
一陣冷風吹來,呼~~~

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Dreams of the future

Life in the near future still comes in various possibilities. I admit that I am someone who likes day dreaming, and to the point that I would be logging it here.

I guess 2 factors affect my projections greatly: my job determines what I do, and relationships define my lifestyle.

First of all, it comes to my grad school applications, if I am accepted, I would be devoting most of my life to scientific research. It's pretty much what I have been trained to do in the 4 years in college. If I am rejected by every program, then I will be finding a job, maybe a biotech sells, or something related, jumping into a totally new way of life. I am now working on the way to grad school, hope I could succeed, yet predict that I would have a 60% possibility of getting admitted, and a 40% possibility of jumping into the employment market.

The other main aspect is love. Actually, I predict a 90% possibility of staying single into the next few decades. In that case, other then my job, I would be focusing wholely on my self. I would be geekier then ever, devoting most of my income to "tech toys", think Honda, Sony, Apple, Cannondell... Maybe even get a small condo of my own, furnish it up with style. The other 10% possibility? I have no idea, yet as a guy, of course I really hope to have a soul mate to share my life.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Application package mailling

其實郵局還是不錯的
國際快捷 (Express Mail Service, EMS) ,300g 以下每件300元 (含掛號)
寄美國4~5天到

郵局到處都有,很方便的

若沒那麼趕,大可不必去花那600~700 給 UPS 寄
UPS 主要是速度快 (2天) ,而且可以上網查進度
但真的超貴的

至於FedEx,只是換個品牌,感覺不出來跟UPS有何差
畢竟競爭激烈,各公司會把價格控制在跟同業價差不超過20元而服務一樣好是可以理解的

不過UPS有捷進留學顧問公司(感謝實驗室學長推薦)代辦
(也就是說請補習班幫你交寄UPS的意思)
大客戶簽約有優惠價,UPS 運費600變400
缺點是你要把你的資料交給那個公司,登錄會員。
我想,這種公司把你的email和電話交給行銷公司的可能性很大。省錢的代價。

總之,早點寄就不必多花錢在高級快遞公司上XD (心虛)
不過,在3間學校距離deadline 10 天的狀況下,我還是寄了郵局的國際快捷
管他的,就跟他賭了,申請「備胎學校」就是這樣用的,若全沒上,那大不了直接就業。以前都被灌輸狂唸書賺好生活,但現在覺得,人懂得越多,責任越重,壓力也越重。社會上中產階級一堆也生活幸福阿~~ 念博士是對於好奇心與新知的追求,想要用學位混個輕鬆好生活錢又多的,醒醒吧!

Prolink chain lube & stuck links

After 2 months in California, I came back home this summer to see that my bike's got a stiff chain with links rusted stuck. I thought it was because I was using Prolink's chain lube, which doesn't have much oil in it, and left it there without use for 2 months. It's said that Prolink chain lubes don't contain oil, but contain "metal protectant particles" and "lube particles".... So I thought, maybe next time I leave my bike a long time without rides, I should add some normal "wet oil" to keep rust away. I also blamed it on my busy schedule before going to LA: I went on a long ride for 5 days, and soon after I came back home, I was off to the US, leaving me no time to clean my chain.

Yet, after a month of busy school work, grad school applications, lab work, and no rides, my chain links got stuck again: this time, even the main gears rusted. Then it struck me: It was the salty moist air! When I kept my bike at my dorm in Taipei, I could keep my bike there with no ride nor oil, yet no rust occurred. Yet, here at home, in Keelung, it's right next to the sea, so while sitting at home, it was actually exposed to the salty sea air everyday.

OK, so what could I do? Maybe just lube it more often, I guess.
---
As for applying for the dorm this semester, the lady at the desk told me "Not yet!" when she saw me, faster then I could walk to her desk. I guess by going in to ask every week, she now recognizes my face. Like: "I seem so eager, so why don't you just assign me a dorm room ??" :D

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Crash

My Clie TH55 crashed in picsel viewer today. It crashed when it was in my backpack, and, due to a test I had to take and a report to type on my Macbook, I didn't notice the crash until 5 hours later. The baby was already overheating all over after being on for 5 hours, and be it soft reset, hard reset, or warm reset, I could not help it as the reset button was simply dead. The battery died out about 10 minutes later.

I was scared. It was never apparent how you are dependent on something before you really lost it. And sure enough, this handheld is the companion that I am most attached to in the whole world. A true geek I am, I am not attached as much to any family member nor friend nor girl as my Clie. In some ways, it's even more important then full sized computers. It truly goes everywhere I go, does everything almost instantly, stores truly personal stuff, and was ultra reliable for the past 6 months.

I went home worried, sad and anxious to recharge my TH55, and see if I could save it. On the way, I contemplated the possibilities. I could send the TH55 to repairs and revert to my NX73, which is really unstable from all the damaged wire, and only capable of PIM and MP3 playback from the CF slot; I could also try to get a 2nd hand TH55; or I could get a Palm TX which is only half as stable, half the battery life, and don't support the Japanese software I use. But yeah, 2 years after the Clie TH55 came out, nothing on the market is as good.

After I plugged it in and restored the data, my TH55 now seems alive and kicking. Thank god! Hope it can still be my best companion for at least another 3 years.

On communication

糖果在版上說,他以後要減少上B時間,增加真實見面的人與人互動。這讓我有以下的想法。

我們高中時代,基本上人與人的互動不受重視,除了同學之間外,大家都是自閉的書呆子,只有唸書考試受到重視。上大學後,想恢復跟人之間的互動,不過現在卻主要透過電腦網路:PTT、MSN、email...... 透過網路,其實都是跟平常不太一樣的自己。少了肢體語言、表情、語調(情侶的話,還少了費洛蒙呢XD),只剩文字來傳達訊息。而且,網路溝通(套用電腦術語)就好像多了一層「保護層級」(protected layer),人們可以更輕易的隱藏自己不為人知的一面。

也許,活在網路時代的我們,應該更加重視 in person 的面對面人與人接觸吧。雖然說網路可以節省未了見面所需的交通時間與費用,不過 face to face interaction 才能真正滿足人類對於群體生活的需求吧。

Saturday, November 04, 2006

好人與宅男們要加油阿!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love-shy
真是慘烈阿,還好我不完全符合這種人的特徵 :P
不過,我曾經當過這種人呢,恐怖阿(抖)

另,原來暗戀有礙健康是吧
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4240579.stm

Sunday, October 29, 2006

單車國片:「單車上路」,一段蘇花上的故事


台灣竟然出現了以單車為主題的電影了,而且還是在我們一旦騎過就絕對忘不了的蘇花公路上拍的喔!身為單車社的一份子,又在環島時親身騎過蘇花,這部電影當然一的要去看的。

蘇花公路是個令人又愛又恨的路段。有自然美景、有可以高速飆車的下坡+髮夾灣、有刺激的隧道;但也有危險的砂石車、消磨體力與意志力的陡上坡和凹凸不平的破碎路面。那辛苦的三座山,有痛苦也有挑戰。據說這部片中有配合蘇花各斷路況語特色而發展的劇情、已荒廢的蘇花歷史路段,還有高成本空拍片段,更增加了整部片的可看性並突顯了導演的用心。

這部片11/10晚場上映,真的很期待。到時一定要去看看在電影中的寶島是否也跟我參加車社騎了2年的體驗中一樣的美麗。


一段清新動人的心靈之旅---預告片登場




30sec 空拍美麗的蘇花公路---預告片 請大家"用力"點閱
播放第二次就會更順暢了
預告片原始連結

電影首頁連結
放映週報專訪-- 一些電影的關鍵命題

Re: On the future of Taiwan - US relations

軍購不過 「美台關係螺旋下降」
http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/061028/2/5tef.html

恩,今天美國政府出現了跟我上一篇相同的論調。基本上,不管是誰,只要站在美國的立場用常理判斷,都會有類似的反應。請問,你若被一個朋友耍了五年,其中被欺騙感情60次(軍購案五年中被擋了60次),你還會想陪他玩嗎?人家熱情想幫忙你,你不領情那當放棄嚕。

不過,我上一篇是希望美方再觀察2次選舉,確認這是民意還是純政治操作。不過美方不耐煩啦,今年不解決就放棄了。

---

希望我在這個地方生活的最後一年不會是臺灣自由民主的末日。希望有看到我這篇的朋友下次選舉能選出真心為國家做事的人。

Friday, October 27, 2006

On the future of Taiwan - US relations

press conference (pdf transcript) - stephen m. young, director of the American institute in taiwan, october 26, 2006
video
(From AIT)

Stephen Young's press conference on the blockage of Taiwan's weapon deal with the US has made an impact on the Taiwan's legislature, a negative impact, in fact, when you consider the reactions of the KMT (Chinese National party) and PFP (People's First Party). But the blame isn't on director Young, it is, instead on the irrational response of these two parties. They have been irrationally blocking the budget of Taiwan's national defense for the past 5 years for their own political benefit.

From the view point of a American living in Taiwan, I would sadly propose the following. As Taiwan is a democratic nation, the irrational legislatures are all voted for by the people of Taiwan. Thus, the US government should keep an eye on the next 2 elections of Taiwan. If, after all these irrational moves of these two parties, and the people are still supporting them, then that means that these moves are supported by the people. In that case, the US government should drop all supports of Taiwan's national defense. Although this may have a negative impact on the overall security to the Asian Pacific area, in this case, it no longer makes sense for the US to focus on this part, and the US should find an alternative, such as strengthening defense relations with the Philippines. The US government should save it's resources and focus them on more effective approaches.

If the Taiwanese people doesn't resist Chinese take over, then the US should give up on Taiwan. Of course in the future, they might regret the communist take over after it happened, just as what Hong Kong has experienced; yet if they give up on their selves now, there is no way the US or anyone else can help.

---

Changing my point of view, as a person of Taiwanese ethnicity, I strongly propose that we should show strong pressure to our legislators, that national security is something of great importance, not something to joke with. One approach is to avoid voting for anyone who opposes the security bills. Most of us Taiwanese have not voted wisely, and I hope, after all the turmoil of lousy politics, more people would have put more thought into voting in the future: choosing the candidates that really care about the future of the country, not the one that only care about our enemies.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

World's fastest bike

Human Powered Vehicle 24 hour distance record

A bullet shaped bike that easily goes up to 80mph!
Cool!

Firefox 2


Firefox 2 has just been released, and after using it for 24 hours, I want to say that this is the fastest browser that I have ever used. The acceleration is especially apparent in MacOS, where Firefox 1.5 used to be sluggish. Every thing felt snappy and instant, only your internet bandwidth limits your speed now!

Other notable changes includes a built-in spell checker (yeah!!!), a new default theme, antiphishing, and a close tab button on every tab. But still for the speed alone, you MUST upgrade!!! :D

Some caveats, though. I now have many unsupported extensions, and there was a crash or two from time to time. But Firefox now recovers right from where you crashed, showing what you left open before the crash, so that makes things a little easier.

Read more:
Mozilla CEO: Firefox -- Moving the Internet Forward
Mozilla Firefox site

Saturday, October 21, 2006

夜衝

剛剛約10:30pm跟人家用MSN聊,才發覺有流星雨;簡單查了一下新聞,就很嗨的帶著柚子、水(看流星雨也要吃柚子?!)到我家頂樓去看。恩,柚子吃完了,光害太強,啥也沒看到。

不甘心,拖著我妹就一同夜騎到約一公里外的社區小公園去,想說那邊光害較少。躺在地上很涼很舒服,空氣很好,也沒甚麼蚊子。
妹:「阿看到了!」
我:「啥?」(正想開PDA的相機拍照...)
...
我:「靠腰,手機圈外!」
(正擔心父母會不會半夜爬起來發現我們不見了,檢查手機有沒有收訊)
妹:「又看到了!」
我:「阿?」
...
我:「じゃ、帰ります」(很晚了,想回家了)
妹:「又看到了!」
我:「............」
...
於是
我妹看到約4、5顆流星
我看到約4、5隻飛蛾從頭上飛過

Friday, October 20, 2006

語言的感覺

在台北生活久了,習慣了純粹只有中文(官方稱為國語,其實是滿州話)的生活。只要不在家裡,就只用中文。逐漸的,台語開始有他的特殊意義。現在,只要在偶然的機會,聽到台語,就有莫名的「家」的親切感。雖然說中文每天都在用,跟別人用中文溝通,還是比台語多了一層距離感。中文,是官方語言,有官方權威的味道;而台語之於我就代表著台灣人的人情味語家鄉味。也所以,每次出去騎車,總是很喜歡那種用台語跟各地的人聊天的感覺。

而英文,是我兒時的語言,也有那麼一點特別的感覺。雖然久沒用了,偶而會吃螺絲,但還是有那麼一點正面的感覺在裡面。

暑假在美國跟台灣朋友一同開車出去玩時,其中兩個一直用台語吵架,雖然有點吵,卻心裡也有點開心說。沒想到,若家人不算的話,在美國兩天之內聽到的台語,竟然比在台灣一週內聽到的還多呢!而跟我們一群台灣人一同出遊的那個廣東人竟然也逐漸通懂台語了,後來聯CD PRO2的KUSO台語影片都看的懂了說^^

今天沒去騎車

昨天晚上才收到一封邀請我今天去一同騎鶯歌的活動。晚上了,來不及借車,而且還是自己的車騎起來比較習慣。早上6點起床,不知道要如何把車弄到台北,看著閃耀的陽光,好像是在對我這個沒宿舍的基隆人的嘲笑。怒,回去睡回籠覺。

可惡的GRE subject,不知要如何準備,沒時間念,而且准考證一直沒寄來......

Friday, October 13, 2006

Walkman S700 series release | もっと、音楽とひとつに

WALKMAN
NW-S706F
Sony Japan announced the new Walkman S700/S600 series, anouncing that with "clear base", "clear stereo" and built in noise canceling with better supplied headphones(S700 only), these would be provide the best sound quality in Walkman history. New features also include ATRAC advance lossless support, line in recording from any music source (eg, from your CD walkman), and FM radio tuner(S700 only). Also, as with previous Sony Walkmans, it has the "3 minute charge for 3hours play" rapid charge function and 50 hours long battery life. The new design has a metalic plastic lid on a die cast metal body, and a color OLED display which can show you the album cover art. The models include the S700 with 1,2 & 4GB varients, and the S600, which lack the FM tuner and noise canceling, in 1 & 2GB sizes.

If I have extra money, I would definitly go get one; alas, I don't have the extra dough. Also, it's a shame that thus far the iPod (which I really don't like) is still the only portable music player that truely supports the Mac.

More reports:
So-Mo (Japanese)
Mobile01 (Chinese)
ATRACLife(English)

New GSM Treo: the Treo 680

Treo 680 photo
Palm just announced their new product: the Treo 680, a lower priced GSM PalmOS smart phone with an emphasis on the simplicity of use, nice try. They made the phone number dialler app better by integrating it in to the application launcher. Also, it look better now without the antenna and the new rounded look, athough there were reports of decreaced signal reception with the Treo 750v, which was the first Treo to get the antenna-less new look.

The marketing they gave this thing, with the big anouncement event and the nice website intro movie, is something we haven't seen from Palm for a long time. Although Sony is doing this kind of marketing campaign for almost every major product release, it's a good start for Palm to take a page out of Sony's book.

But still, the product it self doesn't attract me that much. It's still a Treo, with not much change since the Treo 600. Give us a design like the TH55, of the Sony Ericsson M600, then you'll get everyone drooling to get one.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Google buying out YouTube

Here's how the 2 founders of YouTube put it:
(Original link)

Sunday, October 08, 2006

What to love in life

Sure, life sucks, and sucks badly. But there should be something to love in life, and I thought: "what in life do I love most?" I'm sure to most people, there should be some name of someone special as the answer. However, in true geek fashion, this is what came to my mind:

My Sony Clie TH55 handheld (some people call it a PDA...)
It's beautiful, lightweight, goes where ever I go, shows me the news, and plays my favorte tunes. But best of all, it does everything I expect it to do, and does it smoothly and fast. Since PDAs have limitations to what it can do, I once thought I would like a MacBook better then this. But turns out my MacBook is heavy, overheats, shuts down automatically, and some 3rd party software does freeze from time to time. While my MacBook auto shuts down, and my PC is going sluggishly with frequent crashes, my TH55 has already showed me today's news, while playing great music with that. While all my computers, PC or Mac have problems, my TH55 runs crash free for weeks.

The 2nd best thing in life should be my bike. It take me to amazing places with no need for gas, and no additional pollution for me to breath. It's in second place because the derailers screw up from time to time, and you have to take care of it a lot.

Is there anything else in life to love other then these 2? I hope so. But as life sucks badly, I haven't found anything else, yet.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Replication...

If the average marrage age continues to rise, there would be some day when over 90% kids would be defective in someway; when all of the parents are over age 50; when kids never get to see their grandparents.

If more and more of the highly educated population choice to give birth at an older age, or even avoid having kids, then the knowledge and book loving charectors of humans would soon be extinct.

It's an age when the people who consider their selves "smarter then average" are actually "dumbber then average" .

下週一放假

喔,所以人事行政局「忽然」想到說下週一可以彈性放假,形成5天連假。
WTF?
難道大家給個月前定好的行事曆都是搞笑的?週一的工作/課程移到那個週六,難道大家週六原本都沒事?真是方便阿!
很好很好,現在學校也不知道是否跟進,沒消息。真不知道上BCT週六班的要怎麼辦。

第一次看到政府官員可以理直氣壯的說:「人都是事到關頭才想到。」那官員的薪水可不可以月底才「突然」想到說沒預算?

Cyclub site renewal & addition of English version

lang-bar It all started last semester, just before the finals. Our club director found out that our school, in order to promote "globalization", is doing a "club site English translation" program, and is offering each club an award of 3000NTD for accomplishing that goal. At the time I simply agreed to do it, assuming I'd have some free time in the summer. But as a sentimental guy, my feelings once again got the better of me.

I was in a high mood at first, posting questionairs and plans on our BBS system board. But then, turns out that no one cares about that god damn web site, my postings were practically ignored, except for 1 or 2 close friends who did respond. I felt isolated and neglected. In summer, in the US, turns out I don't have that much free time, and I relented. Actually, it was some technical problems that were the last straw to brake the camel's back: I can't figure out how to set the upper side mergin of webpage elements, and thus, can't get the newly designed language selection bar to stick gaplessly to the top. So, tired, neglected and fed up, I gave up.

The submission date came and went by, but I didn't resume work on the site, since no one cared. I wanted to do something that'll make me feel that I'm needed in this world, not doing something that no one cares about.

Then, several things came up. By playing with the HTML file that Apple's iWeb generated, I learned how to use layers. With this new tool, most of the restrictions of web design were gone, and that previous technical obsticle was accidentally solved. Since the program deadline was long gone, I just did some minor experiments on the original page. Tired with the worries of the grad school application, I started to do more and more tweeks to the site; with layers, HTML coding was once again fun and challenging. And also, a new Japanese friend told me that he learned about our club from our website, my work was proved useful, at last!

Two days ago, someone told me that the program deadline was extended farther back (not much clubs signed in I guess), and asked me to do it. In a good mood at the time, I went : "OK", and the work started. Me and my helper worked for hours on this project, going to sleep at 3am for the last 2 days. At last, yesterday (should be early this morning), it was finished. I was excited, and posted a notice on our BBS board to let everyone know before going to bed.

Sure enough, only the one who asked me to do it cared. Like what were we working day and night, and sacrificing our time for? Like yeah right, I did all this so you guys have more money to throw pizza parties? Great!

Sunday, September 24, 2006

ARRRRRRG! SOP!

SOP General outline

What and why I want to study at grad school

  • Simple introduction or what in my life pointed me toward my intrest in this field of research
Experiences in the field
  • College experiences relevant to my intrest
  • Research experience, what I learned from them, the responsibilities I had, who I worked for. How I think this research experience is relevant to my research field of application
(Short comment on GRE or GPA scores, explain)

Future goals
  • Goals in grad school, what I hope to learn, and why I am confident to be successful in grad school.
  • Why the program in question is a good choice for my career goals, what is especially appealing about the school/program to me. (change this according to the school/program in question)
  • Mention what type of work I wish to do after grad school, list the possibilities. (focus on the program in question)
Summarized from all the outward links from the Wikipedia entry on SOP.

Friday, September 22, 2006

嘉年華?同樂會?工地秀?

昨天到醫學院去參加Lab Meeting。台上有學長姐在報paper、報data,窗外有一群人用大聲公、大喇叭跟他們比大聲。

有演講、有口號、還有唱歌、露天卡啦OK咧......

那歌也很奇怪:「阿扁你快下台,阿扁你快下台......」
吵死人,你以為這樣忘我的喊阿扁下台,他就要下台喔?憑甚麼?

那是個娛樂節目。
各種節目一個接著一個上場,24/7 non stop entertainment,有得吃、有得看、有得玩,一整群人很high。

原來一人捐100是娛樂費。

老闆說:「他們在唱KTV喔?」

台大醫院的病人全部不用休息,學生全部不用聽課,倒扁秀場最大。

---

「我們反貪腐,不過民進黨的陳水扁無論定案與否,罪該萬死;國民黨的許財利就算被判刑了,他市長還是做不錯阿!」

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Yet another computer battery explosion

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2069019

This time it's a Think Pad, and it exploded RIGHT IN LAX airport!!!
What's more, it's said that no police nor TSA official showed up, that's strange...

Since the battery's all burned out, it's still not clear if the battery came from Sony, but either way, Sony is already in deep shit.

Monday, September 18, 2006

The end of summer (柴咲コウ/invitation)

一個精彩的暑假,就這麼隨著開學而結束了。
用一首充滿夏天的感覺的歌:柴咲コウ/invitation
來悼念這個充滿回憶的夏天。

(video from here | Official site )
接著的這一年也會充滿挑戰,加油吧!

Sunday, September 17, 2006

06 Fall semester time distribution

School has yet again started, but this time, my last year both in university & Taiwan. This time, I should be really careful of my time management.

Main:
1. BioTech lab class assays
2. Other class assays
3. GRE subject test prep
4. Grad school application
5. Paper reading
6. Other reading
7. Lab work

Leisure:
8. Part-time job
9. Hokkaido trip planing
10. Rest & Contemplating
11. Excersise

Should cut back:
12. Cyclub activities
13. Reading geek sites & other computer/internet related time waisting

Flexible, but should limit:
14. Socializing

This is really crowed, maybe I shouldn't take Intermediate Japanese class?

Friday, September 15, 2006

Bizzare Ad of the Zune

Maybe you've heard that Microsoft has come out with an answer to Apple's iPod, and dubbed it the Zune.
Looks nice, but I 'd like to see it in person before I decide if I like it or not. The user interface, looks cool; but I don't think it'll work with a Mac, so, not for me, I guess.

Anyway, the Ad is really cool(and it did gave me a good laugh), check it out!

Original page

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Day of new software testing

Yesterday was a day fo playing with new software :)

1. iTunes 7 (for Mac and Windows)
-Seems like many people have been reporting lags and sound quality problems with the windows version of iTunes 7. So, windows user please don't update untill a newer version is avaliable!-
With Steve Job's anouncement of the new iTunes movie store and new iPods, Apple also released a new version of iTunes. My favorite new feature is: CoverFlow. Although Apple bought this from a 3rd party developer (there was a iTunes plug-in called Cover Flow), but it's still really cool, reminds you of those huge 100 CD changer Jukeboxs.

Other then that, the sidebar is now more organized, and there are minor face lifts, such as the buttons and scroll bars. And there's the new iPod related updates to drive the new functions of the new iPods (which really doesn't matter to me). Oh, and one more thing, the icon is now blue, instead of green.

2. Skype for Mac 2.0 Beta
Another update of Skype. Seems like they're focusing on the Mac version this summer. This update seems to be touting the video call function, which is already in the 1.5 video beta that I was using. So, I don't see any change other then a number change. But there could always be those "minor bug fixes"...

3. yep (Mac only document organizer)
They say it's the iPhoto for your PDF files. I like the idea of an organizer for my PDF documents, but I still find the tagging management system a little clutter some. And it's a little hard to delete stuff. But it's a free beta, so maybe it'll be great in the future. It is a great concept!

Some thoughts on viral genome research

Here's some important notes from reading a paper:

To examine the function of a viral gene:

  1. See when (eg. stage of gene expression) & under what conditions/environments is the gene expressed, by testing the transcribed RNA
  2. Confirm the above by examining the protein expression
  3. Do a gene knockout:
    -Choose a gene inhibition/knockout method, double check the method to see of it works by testing the RNA/protein output
    -Use that method to examine the viral infection after knockout (Positive and negative controls are essential here)
In a simple flowchart, that's examining the following levels in order:
RNA expression -> Protein expression -> Phenotype

---

This is starting to make sense. Doing virology, we could more easily do the 3rd step in the flowchart, and get some real data. In contrast, immunologists are often stuck in the 2nd step, and can't make farther sense out of their discovery. (Could you knock out IL-2 in a real human?) Guess this is the kind of stuff I should to put on my statement of purporse: why I like virology over other things.

Monday, September 11, 2006

罷工?

若是電視新聞媒體要罷工,我舉雙手贊成

要是某水果日報搞罷工,我更高興

讓大家靜一靜,也讓洋基隊能好好的打求,免受搔擾

老天不允許作亂

有群人唯恐天下不亂,想要無止盡的在總統府前面作亂

雖然說總統做的不是很好,不過現階段我們需要的是穩定的社會。
對總統不滿可以陳情,可以抗議;希望他下台,可以依法定民主程序罷免
罷免不成功,代表支持他下台的人不夠多,應該理性的接受,大不了下次選舉再努力

---

不過至少,靜坐的目前不多
已經連續兩天了,都被豪雨伺候
後面還有個颱風等著要來

Have fun!

Friday, September 08, 2006

Knowing more about my self

I started this summer vacation with a goal of contemplating many questions, trying to know more about my self. I wanted to grow stronger, internally. With the belief that changes and adventures make people learn more, that is just what I did this summer.

First of all, I planned an independent group on a biking trip to Wuling, the highest point of Taiwan's roads. We took a route that has never been taken in the cycling club's history. I now have the experience and confidence to plan adventurous biking trips, and I now am very sure that I love bicycle tourism.

Then the trip to UCLA for research. I originally wanted to get more research experience, and another bullet point to put on my CV. But I got lots more. I made sure that my favorite field is virology, instead of immunology, and I have a more clearer idea of what it's like to be a grad student in the US. Farther more, by living in the Co-Op, I now know how students, with the enthusiasm and confidence, can do a great job in operating an institute such as the Co-Op housing association. I know a little more about countries and cultures around the world, and I can clean bathrooms and paint walls better now :D

Finance and credit arangement in the US is sophisticated, you may need help at first, but it's really not as hard as it seems on paper, and I'm glad I get to try it a year before I move over to the states. Also, taking a driving trip is easy and enjoyable. Maps, guides, Google earth and Earthcomber on a handheld may all come in handy, but Google earth is by far the best. Making random itinerary changes also adds to the fun and excitment.

The future no longer seems so uncertain, since I've got a taste of what to expect. I guess the point is making sure what you love. The topic of research, the work, the place you love determines what you'll do, where and what grad school you'll apply for. In addition, as a geek, I also have an idea of what car, what computer, what handheld I love. Now there's one question of the future left, relationship. Should I once again try my best in finding a mate? What I can do with a relationship? Now that's really hard questions, but one worthy of contemplating on.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Back in TW

恩,2天前回來了。
Oh, the heat! 亞洲島嶼國家的24小時高溫蒸汽浴真的很難受;LA就算太陽再大,整個暑假都還是有涼風吹的說。
回來大致上都滿順的,天氣都不錯,飛機一路上都不太晃。從美國到日本的路上,旁邊坐了一對日本母女,試著交談了一下,不過又證明了自己的日文辭彙認識的不夠多。基本上在美國、日本都火速通過行李、證照&海關檢查。一直到回到台灣,碰到以下照片中的景象:

我們偉大的政府不是常常在喊要拼觀光嗎?喊的陣天架響,結果在人家還進不了國門就以這種方式迎接觀光客,真是高招啊!通關時,似乎境管局的官員都在吃中飯,3~4班飛機的乘客一次擠在那。(一班飛機約200人吧,自己算一下吧!)我到時,至少有1~2班飛機的人已經卡在那了,等了半小時後,直到後面又來了2批人(包括我這批)後,才開始增加人手。人家美國和日本都有派人只揮「你排這裡比較快」,我們就沒有。本來想說,是不是跟美國一樣,外國人比較慢;仔細觀察下,台灣人、外國人都卡在那... = =|||

過海關前,有台灣精品展覽:Giant TCR(是Advanced嗎?沒看清楚),T mobile粉紅塗裝
台灣海關也是就可一場。本來看到申報單上說行李總額超過2萬就要報稅(沒錯,2萬!),啥?我光一台MacBook就爆了喔?結果行李提領區寫著:6萬元。很好,申報單沒有update...

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回家隔天,想說兩個月沒騎車了,來運動一下吧。很慘的是,號稱很乾淨的Prolink似乎不能像溼油那樣一直黏在鍊條上。兩個月沒上油,練條約有超過30%死目... (阿KMC原廠的黃油都跑哪去了?) 在上油又擦掉3次循環後,終於把鍊條完全救回來了,不過變速管線也卡卡的T_T

僑車僑很久之後終於上路了,在看了一個暑假的頭文字D並買了新的水袋的情況下,很熱血的以均速24殺到瑞芳,然後,我在上北106前的緩坡就虛掉了。兩個月沒騎車果然很慘,超緩坡竟然以時速7龜上去,體力恢復成新生等級。還好沒去衝環島,否則搞不好光到北宜就滑下來了;亂入泛舟團大概也免了。在真正開始爬得時候,速度有起色,不過是消耗膝蓋的那種暴力騎法,轉速完全帶不上來。爬了2/3之後,我餓了,沒帶補給品... 速度又掉到5km/hr,真慘。最後還是給他撐到106的最高點,開始往下滑。過彎時,腦中竟然出現頭文字D的台詞:「流して...」(應該是叫人家用慣性甩尾滑出去吧) 心裡驚了一下,單車若真的滑出去,不得了啦,要下山谷了。結果,壓車過彎變得怕怕的,煞車按很多... 我壓車也退步了T_T

Friday, September 01, 2006

Camera & GPS module for PSP released in Japan

PlayStation.com(Japan) | お知らせ | “アソビが変わるぞ。”PSP®「プレイステーション・ポータブル」向けカメラ、GPSレシーバー発売

Great. Now, in addition to the world's heaviest portable music player and one of the heaviest portable games, you could also get to have the heaviest crappy camera. 1.3 Megapixels with that kind of weight and price? No thanks.

As for the GPS. The only PSP map software I know of is for Japan only, so it's still useless out side of Japan. Also, I think using a touch screen would be easier than a joy stick to control the map. A similar case with mobile web browsing.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

綺麗なウォークマン Sシリーズ ・ The beautiful Walkman S series

Here comes the new S series.
It's waterproof, includes FM radio and step counting funcitons, and supports MP3, AAC, WMA, ATRAC3, a broad format support that's not normally expected from Sony.
Best of all, it's got an alluminum casing, and the shape and jog controls are all just like the in-line remotes of previous Sony CD walkmans. Now this is a looker.
Also, you get the "3 min charge, 3 hour playback" and 18hours long play time as with previous Sony Walkmans.

If only it supports Mac OS, I'd likely buy one. But before it does, I'm still sticking with my Sony Clie :)

Links:
ソニ☆モバ posting
Sony's press release
Official website

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Google's online Office softwares

Let's see what you get with your ordinary MS Office package... Do you know Google has an online version of most of them? (And this is what made Microsoft nervous about Google) The point of using online applications is that 1)It's free 2)Can do group editing, where everybody contributes, great for team works(How I with I had these when I was doing experiment course reports) 3)The files are online, accessible from any computer, with cross platform support. However, some of them are still not as powerful as desktop applications.

1. Word: word processor | Google's answer: Writely
Writely Home
Most of the essential formatting tools are there; table cell size relatively hard to control.
May upload files from your computer, and download them when you're done.
Because this app is accuired, integration with Gmail is not good, yet.
User account is also a seperate account of it's own.

2. Excel: spreadsheet | Google's answer: Google Spreadsheets

Most of the essential formatting tools are there; doesn't support hyperlinks.
May upload files from your computer, and download them when you're done.
Requires a Gmail account.

3. Powerpoint: presentation slideshows | Google has no answer to this
(Hay Google, want to try this one?)

4. Outlook: mail & schedule | Gmail & Google calander
Gmail
First of all, I guess everybody knows Gmail by now, the famous email service with always growing storage (it's recently about 2.7GB), simple and intuitive UI, integrated IM & calender & mapping, great spam filter, and real time notificaiton via the Gmail notifier application avaliable as a download. If you want one, I have invitations :)

This has a similar UI as Gmail, and also offers event notifications via the downloadable notifier.
May import data from Outlook and iCal.
Supports Calender sharing.
Requires a Gmail account.

Also, for notes, I'm happily using Google Notebook
Google Notebook

Are computers causing us more problems then it's solving?

This morning, someone in our lab asked me to help him send some pictures to his daughter. I thought it's just attach and send, so I went ahead to show him. First, he needs to find the photos he wants to send. The photos are on the lab intranet server, so he went to download them. But then, his connection kept disconnecting and reconnecting to the server every 10~20 minutes. It took him like half an hour to find the ones he wanted and get them on to his desktop. Then, I have to help him find the attach button in his Outlook tool bar. I have used Netscape mail, Thunderbird and Outlook express, and am recently just using Yahoo and Google's webmail UI, in all those cases, the attach button/link is relatively easily spotted. (Except Outlook express, which my junior high computer teacher telled us where it is...) However, I've never seen such an interface nightmare as I've seen today. Outlook launch this "Word email editor" window when you compose a new mail, and on top of the window, there's 3 whole lines of button icons there, most of them, of course, are stuff you'd never use. I felt like finding a needle in a haystack, but eventually found the "paper clip" icon, which I vaguely remember from Outlook express that means attach file (I'd never know what a paper clip means if I never used Outlook express). So there goes Microsoft's trick at it's best, using unsuggestive icons, and burying often used functions deep in a pile of junk.

But the nightmare does not end there. I don't know the outgoing mail size limit of UCLA's mail server, but he just attached 3 photos, reaching a size of about 7MB, and maxed out the size limit: mail blocked. After a futile attempt of compressing the photos into a zip file (size still near 7MB), we decided to send then photos one by one. But then his mail box it self maxed out. Maybe he didn't have the habit of cleaning his mailbox...

Should this be that hard? He just wanted to share some moments of joy of his life with his daughter. And our computing environment made this simple wish extreemly hard to acomplish. In the end I just gave him a Gmail account, which has a simple but useful user interface, constantly growing mailbox size, and 10MB outgoing size limit.
---
One other night, a friend at the Co-Op wanted to log on to MSN messenger to chat with another friend. But her ACER notebook, also, kept connecting and disconnecting from the WIFI connection. I told her never buy an Acer again, and just let her use my ultra stable MacBook.
---
Yet another friend, who also has an Acer, one day found out that his notebook somehow deleted it's CD/DVD burning drive's driver files, automaticaly, all by it self. The driver couldn't be found on Acer's support site. And the driver from someone else's Acer of the same model somehow didn't work either. After 2 days of trying, he gave up and recovered to the original factory settings.
---
Computing should never be that hard, but we do have a lot of idiots in the IT industry.

With my MacBook and Clie TH55, my rate of having something crash in my face is less then once a week. However, it takes a geek like me to know to choose MacOS and Palm OS. It also takes a geek to know to stay away from Microsoft and wisely use Google's great services. Hope more people would get the know how to avoid computer problems and get their work done, not wasting their time solving stupid problems.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

水袋入手!!!


一個月前買了個很棒的Jansport登山背包,來代替我原來的破爛Outdoor廉價品。因為想預留空間裝水袋,就選了個H2O compatable的。其實我之前的Outdoor就已經是Hydration compatable了,只是因為Walmart壓低價格,迫使製造商比需用很差的材料,用半年就已經破洞一堆了。Anyway,買了新的Jansport之後,我開始認真尋找水袋。主要的選擇有Camalpak和Nalgene,其中Camalpak很明顯是為自己的背包設計的;而Nalgene則是Jansport的御用水袋牌子,也是有名的塑膠水壺品牌。不過呢,兩家都很貴,1L的要20$;2L的要25~30$。

不過今天讓我不小心找到了最便宜的,Outdoor水袋小背包附贈2L水袋共20$,特價15$,比單買水袋還便宜!!!爽啊!Outdoor水袋小背包不是很好看,不過若要騎短程的路,只需要帶水的時候還滿方便的,而且透氣背帶和靠背導風溝都有。不過呢,若要出大活動,當然就用Jansport輕便登山包啦,只要把水袋裝過去就行啦^^

哈哈,Jansport登山包 + Outdoor水袋,可是台灣找不到的組合呢!以後我也可以當懶人喝水族了。

Saturday, August 26, 2006

呆丸共和國

過去一直覺得台灣是個美麗的地方。風景漂亮,水果多,食物好吃,有人情味。不過最近覺得它已經成為一個解體中的國家。中國共產黨越來越聰明,以前採取鴨霸強硬手法,得到台灣人團結的反效果。現在靜靜的,暗中給新聞媒體和某些政治人物一些好處;他們就自行作亂,把台灣搞垮。真的是生於憂患,死於安樂,以前李登輝時代,有飛彈試射,台灣人就知道要自我保護。現在,共產黨裝乖,就靜靜的等你自殺。

台灣兩大亂源:
政治、媒體

政治:
國親兩黨把台灣視為中國的一部份;民進黨將台灣視為「政治實體」(那是啥?)沒有人心中有國家,自然就不會有愛國,肯為國家做事的。民進黨當中每個人都只想讓自己權力坐大,而頭頭老扁只會到處討好別人,沒有在做事,反而得罪自己原來的支持者。「有夢最美,希望相隨」只是個選舉口號,老扁當選後,沒有夢,更沒有希望。而反對黨也不做好監督的工作,「為反對而反對」的立場一路走來始終如一,只有一心想把在位者鬥下來,跟幾十年前的共產黨權力鬥爭差不多。每個人心中只有權,沒有國。以前想說呆丸人怎那麼呆,都選些垃圾出來執政;現在發現,怎麼選都一樣,大家都是垃圾。

媒體:
媒體本來應該扮演另一個監督執政的角色,但是他們只知道作亂。新聞亂報,不實傳言捕風捉影,任何雞毛蒜皮都可以編成偉大的獨家。(不過從另一方面來看,某T字頭新聞共產黨轉投資的港商,作亂不就是其任務嗎?)但是這樣亂來也有收視率,只因為呆丸人懶得動腦,電視報什麼都照單全收,放任自己被洗腦。例如,新聞叫你去捐100塊倒扁,你就去捐?有沒有想過,施明德要那麼多錢幹嘛?倒扁靜坐需要那麼多資金嗎?又,有多少人想過倒扁後誰當總統?台面上幾乎每一個都跟老扁一樣爛,甚至更爛;有必要花那麼多社會資源去搞一個更爛的總統嗎?台灣音樂工作者陳明章說得好:「關電視救台灣」,不過有多少人民肯花腦筋去了解這句話的意含呢?為何向劣質媒體宣戰需要一個王建民出來發表聲明才做得到呢?為何出來宣戰的還只是以王建民球迷為主體呢?為何反媒體只有幾天的熱度,比那唯恐天下不亂的施明德倒扁運動還虛弱呢?

人在國外,反而看得更清楚。全世界在進步,台灣在解體。連住在這裡的中國人都覺得台灣很悲哀。我可能提過很多遍,不過台灣真的需要一個敢改革、有理想的英雄,一個能夠像小泉純一郎那樣把國家從解體邊緣救回來的人。把國會的垃圾一次清掉,政府官僚也一次清掉,換一批肯做事,心中有國家的人;全民關電視,讓劣質媒體一次倒光。有大破壞才有大建設,唯有把癌細胞清掉,才能把這個癌症末期的國家救回來。

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Lab work comming to the end

As the end of summer vacation is closing in, the day when I need to leave the lab is also closing in on me. 2 months have past and not much accomplished. I'm gradually getting a clearer picture of my project with each week, and as I got the whole picture in my mind, I started to speed up my work progress. And now, I'm in the last 2 weeks of my project. Still not much accomplished, and I'm getting anxious. Time is running out, my presentation is closing in, the pressure growing, and I'm trying harder.

The last 2 weeks for a summer research program is always the hardest. All the expectations and anxiousness builds up, and under the presure that you apply onto your self, you start to crack. Tasks forgotton, worse planing in search for faster results, fetigue... all add up to screw ups in your experiments. And then the normal bad lucks and unexplainable random faillares seems to be hardder to cope with when you're really anxious.

Hope my luck would be much better for the next week. Give me all the clones!!!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

A car from Silicon valley: Tesla Motors

And you thought Silicon valley is all about computers, yeah it WAS. But now, a start up from Silicon valley is making really cool cars. Tesla Motors, an electric car company, is now introducing their first product, and it's a roadster. It has zero emission, runs sillent, never needs gas, and no, unlike previous electric cars, it doesn't need to be recharged after every commute (the GM EV1 can only go 60 miles per charge), and it doesn't look ugly. It runs on a high proformance motor that is sufficiently powered, and accelerates faster then a Porsche, silently. It's got lithium-ion batteries that allow it to run 250 miles per charge, and be fully charged over night. And, it's designed by a designer that previously design Lotus sports cars, guaranteed to be cool. This might be the coolest American car since the downfall of Detroit's big 3.

Feel the weather getting warmer each year? Hate the bad air? Get a high proformance electric car. And although most of our electricity is from burning fuel also, those power generators are much more efficient than internal combustion engines.

You might not be able to afford a stylish sports car, but stay tuned, an economic, affordable electric car is in the works.

Read more:
Tesla Motors
Wired mag: Batteries included

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Useful sites for education...

Online class:
Click to launch Berkeley on iTunes U
UC Berkeley on iTunes U
UC Berkeley is providing some of their class lecture recordings through iTunes, you could simply download the lectures you wish to listen, and listen at will. For those who wish to get a taste of how classes are in American universities, those who'd like to learn more, or those who simply want to practice English listening abilities, you'd really want to try this.


Grad school planing:
Peterson's Graduate Planner
This free site gives many suggestions on planning for grad school application, including what to expect in grad school, making sure that you really want to go to grad school, and preparing for the tests and application process.

CTJ/Coast line

Continue the Journey
This is University of California's introduction booklet to grad school programs on UC campuses. In addition to the information that the Peterson site provides, it also has a brief introducion to avaliable UC grad school programs, with application info, financial ad and scholarship info, tips on life as a graduate student and much more.
(There used to be an HTML version, but they just updated it to the '06 version, and only the pdf file is avaliable now.)

Monday, August 14, 2006

Mood: 懶與累

最近真的很累。

周一到周五做實驗,整天要耗精神的小心工作,然後精神耗光,累了,就一直 screw up,然後要找出原因,重做直到作好為止。
住Co-Op要每天注意公告和條規,一不小心又要被罰錢。
週末出去玩,也很累。要規劃路程、要找便宜一點的deal,也要注意時間分配。
還要注意理財,信用卡的錢是否要繳了、帳戶裡剩多少錢、手機的通話加值餘額剩多少。
台灣那邊也有得擔心,何時要選課,要排什麼課,何時要繳學費......。

還要擔心未來。
是否真的要去申請研究所?同樣要研究病毒與免疫還是要換個科目玩玩?要找什麼program?哪個學校?該準備什麼?該申請碩士班還是直接衝博士班?

累了,就開始懶惰。
研究所,找了一些program的網站,就堆到瀏覽器的書簽中,懶得去看。
實驗,強迫自己去認真做,實驗做到忙了,動力反而就出現了。
出去玩,懶得規劃了,上周隨性坐車逛;下週直接跟旅行社。
欠社上一個網頁改版和一個英文版網站。做了30分鐘就不想做了。反正社上對網站也是興趣缺缺,not much people appreciate it. 英文版本來想po版拜託大家幫忙翻譯,不過想想,大概沒什麼人會理我,反正獎金歸社費,幫忙的沒有回饋,當然不會有人幫忙。
最近開始懷疑我是否要終身拿著pipette龜在小小的實驗室中研究看不到的東西。把各個實驗結果統整出的結果的確很有趣,不過總覺得單一實驗和the big picture有段距離,連不太起來。

真的不知該選什麼課。除了生技實驗和專題討論兩個必修課以外,我只要再隨便修個一學分就可以畢業了。那麼,我該修什麼?似乎有趣的也被我修的差不多了。

懶了,累了,開電腦上網。
MSN線上沒什麼人,時區不同;就算有人,也不知道該聊什麼,似乎沒有什麼共同話題。
暑假的PTT和PTT2都很無聊,沒什麼文章。
就算開了瀏覽器,也不知該看什麼網頁。新聞,千篇一律,看都看膩了。共享軟體,也都完膩了。

什麼都提不起勁,完全是個糟糕的生活。

Sunday, August 13, 2006

San Diego trip 心得

首先呢,最大的心得當然是對開車比較有感覺啦。每種機械要操控的得心應手都是要練習的。對於單車,我已經大致可以隨自己的意思去控制我所要騎的軌跡、速度與韻律。但車子就比較難操控。駕駛對於車子的狀況必須經由油門、車速、儀表板、後照鏡間接知道,視力範圍也小很多;不像操控單車那樣可以很直覺的靠自己的平衡感去隨意操控。速度的控制,是由油門力道、引擎轉速表和速綠表,去感覺的。尤其是油門力道和加速度所構成的曲線,每台車都有所不同,必須花些時間去體會。另外,每台車過彎的半徑、可操控速度範圍等,都是要花些時間去了解的。還有,就是如何在加州的高速公路網中生存。在什麼情況下、哪個線道的速度應該是多少;怎樣不要超速的太離譜,又不太慢當路障;怎樣判斷四周車子的狀況,是否即將要變換車道、加速或減速;什麼時候切入carpool lane,什麼時候切到最外線準備換到另一條高速公路?開車長途旅行非常方便,但也有很多需要學習的東西。

這是美國,不是台灣,凡事還是不要太隨性。租車和訂旅館房間都是last minute才搞定,結果都只能接受最貴的價格。
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來點美國旅遊tips吧
1. 信用卡真的很重要,不過每刷一筆都要記下來,不然不小心就會刷爆(差點...)
2. 租車時所有的條規都要看清楚,租車公司可以罰你錢的名堂多的是。(如還車前需要先加滿油)
3. 哪條高速公路在哪裡要接哪一條要先在地圖上弄清楚,只要不小心太晚變換車道就會來不及上交流道。最好先在Google mapsGoogle earth先作好行程規劃,然後在路上也要有地圖或GPS or 有Earthcomber的PDA更好。Earthcomber可以把地圖上附近的intrest point(如加油站、餐廳、旅館、ATM、交流道、觀光景點)全部找給你,真的超方便的。
4. 路上各線道的標示要看清楚,有時某些線道是"right turn only"或甚至是不同線道將接到不同地方。等到你發現開錯時,"No U Turn"的牌子總是會出現。
5. Carpool lane("搭便車"高承載專用道)有時很好開,不過在你準備下高速公路前記得早點出來,因為Carpool lane可以出來的路段不多,幾乎都被雙黃線圍住。不要到時你的交流道接近了才發現自己被雙黃線所在裡面,出不來,欲哭無淚。
6. 路上想上廁所請找麥當勞。加油站的廁所有些要錢,幾乎都要跟店員界鑰匙才能上。
7. 同理,加油站的打氣機也要有消費或投錢才給你用。
8. 在加州開車沒墨鏡會死人的(陽光太閃,會瞎)
9. 高速公路上,大家集體超速很常見,不過還是要小心高速公路警察,他們出現時,大家會集體緊急減速。
10. 有些樂園或動物園的門票在超市買比較便宜。
11. 汽車旅館不提供牙刷、牙膏,請自備。
12. 到旅館不要太high,太大聲時,隔壁不會跟櫃台抱怨,而是很不客氣的用力敲牆壁抗議。

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最後,呵呵,我的外觀改造似乎有一點點成果了,感謝美聿的意見。我自己是覺得好的牛仔褲和襯衫能穿出讓我自己覺得很棒的感覺。不過呢,這次發現,只要頭髮剪好,加個有色鏡面墨鏡就很棒了......orz

本來想說,穿好看一點應該可以讓自己更有自信。多多少少有,不過若EQ太差,還是會破攻。所以,還要想辦法改善情緒管理嚕。

A note on ad posting...

Investigating deeper into how Google Adsense ad banners work, I decided not to add ads to my blog. First of all, the traffic here isn't that large, so revenue would accumulate really slow. Also, Google only sends out checks when your account revenue excedes 100$, so it might take a while to get the money. Last, Google sends out your revenue via checks in the mail, and I realized that I might not be in the US to recieve it and cash it.

So, I choose to give up, and keep this blog cleen. Thank you for all your support!

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Driving trip to San Diego ~ part II

Read part I | Photo album
It was a nice sleep at the Super 8 Motel. Although expensive, it's nice to have a place to stay, since everywhere else is full. A simple breakfast is provided in the lobby, the service is named "Super start (TM)", but it is extremely simple. There is a choice of doughnuts and crescents, and drinks of black tea, coffee and juice. There is also apples. I didn't like the oily feel of crescents, so I got my self a glazed doughnut, getting a taste of ultra sweet american breakfast, and to dilute the sweetness, took that with tea.

First thing in the morning, we went to Vons to get discount tickets (which we found the day before when we went for supplies) for San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. For 25$ each ticket, we saved 3.5$ each person. Then we were back on the road to the zoo. Since there is free WIFI in the motel, I already got all the driving directions for today, the the drive over is straightforward. 9am on a Sunday morning, there is not much traffic on I-10. Going along with the flow of traffic, I can easily get a speed of 80mph. Yes, I know that's speeding, but when everyone's doing it, why be a law-obeying road block? There is a limit to speed, though, that is the van's own system. From a previous inspection of what's under the hood, I knew that the van has quite an empty engine space: big space, tiny engine. Also, the van is heavy, and the transmission is laggy. Already apparent during yesterday's drive, the gas paddle has quite a strange correlation to engine power input, the line is not linear. From the first bit of your step on the paddle, you get a little to much power, resulting in a jumpy start from a stand still, so you've got to get used to the high sensitivity if the paddle in this part. Then, as you push more on the paddle, the response lapses, you see no acceleration, and you start to see the rpm drop. Then, if you floor it, you feel a jump of the transmission - after a lag, that is - and then power comes in, but slowly. So it's a combination of insufficient power, laggy transmission, and nonlinear acceleration. I could manage to get by on normal highways, but on I-15 to the zoo, there is many hills, and whenever we go up hill, you see the majority of the near by traffic pass by, throwing us behind... Man, if I were driving a civic, I'd sure be the one cutting people off :D

Anyways, we got it to the zoo wildlife park in a reasonably short time, though, thanks to the good traffic (80mph, no sweet :) ). Parking is 8$. And the tickets from Vons requires no farther exchange, it itself is the ticket, and you just walk in. The Zoo got much better then the last time I got here. Seems like attractions have more then doubled. We originally planed half a day for this, but realized that it could not be finished within 2 days, so we skipped a lot of places and shows. As for the animals, I'm sure picture convey the message much better, so be sure to check out my photos on Zoto (link at the end of the post). Worthy of notice, there's these cute little mammals called merkats, furry little social animals with sentries that stand on high places on the look out, while the others dig holes all around. To me, those sentries look more like they're "musing". Also, there's the interesting gorillas, that just seem like over sized kids in black fur. Some times they're climbing the rocks, sometimes chasing each other, sometimes fighting, sometimes just sitting under a tree. And while sitting under a tree, it really seems like it's thinking, or just plan lonely.



There was this new ride that's a big yellow balloon that takes people up for a panorama of the whole valley. But each ride costs 15$. We really wanted to take it, but it was pretty damn expensive. Next to the balloon, there's lions just behind a glass, so you could see it real close. The mother is usually staying in the lier caring for the young, but we lucked out and saw a cub ran out to play, with it's mom coming out and biting it back into the cave. There's also a camping ground next to the lions and balloon, we really should camp there, if we did enough homework before going... Lunch is expensive burgers and sandwiches. Nice, but too expensive, and a little too much in amount. I got this weird "greek chicken wrap" that is literaly chicken sandwich (minus the bread) in a red soft wrap. It's nice that it's cold (good for a hot sunny day), but really doesn't have much taste, it's quite dull.

The must-go-attraction of the park is a monorail that takes you around the whole park, explaining, teaching and telling stories of the park and the animals, a tour of 45 minutes. When we first got in line, there is some kind of medical emergency on a train halfway on the track, resulting in a prolonged delay. So we got out and went to see a bird show instead. After lunch, the emergency is cleared, but another train broke down on the track. This time, we waited, we did get on the train, but we ran out of time, and couldn't leave the zoo on time for our next stop: aircraft carrier USS Midway museum in downtown San Diego, which stops selling tickets at 4pm. We left the zoo at 3:50pm, I guess. what a shame.

Anyways, we still went to the aircraft carrier in the San Diego bay: at least we could see the outside. Highway 163 to downtown is a small route of only 2 lanes, winding in the mountains. With the curves, the ups and downs, less traffic and high speeds, it's a real pleasure to drive, and best of all, it takes you directly into downtown SD. Downtown San Diego is a clouded city full of one-way streets. there are road names of 1st, 2nd~11th street, and also, crisscrossing with witch, A street, B street..., F street.... Also, each of the streets are one-way, with interchanging directions, this one going to the left, the next one to the right, and the next to the left, and vice versa. Eventually, with the help of Earthcomber, we got to the shore of the bay, where USS Midway is permanently anchored.

Having never seen an aircraft carrier, it sure is magnificent. No matter how large you previously think it was, you'd never imagine it to be this big. You could easily see the hangers under the deck, the huge lifts that lift planes from the hangers to the deck, and there's also a fleet of planes on the deck. As we got there, we were just in time to see the last of the visitors unboard the ship, and the staff locking the door to the ship. Now I really want to be here sometime next year. The bay it self is also beautiful, with the sun going down the horizon, sail boats sailing past, and a big island out there in the distance. There's also a big wooden ship with sails on a far dock, but we can't get there because of a lack of parking space.

Then we went to the Gaslamp Quarter for a walk in San Diego's streets. Bicycle cabs are everywhere. Since it's a crowded city with narrow streets, bikes are apparently the way to go. Many of them are even very nice bikes, like a Specialized MTB with a trailer of 2 seats connected behind on the seat post. But rides are for 10~20$ each person, yet another ride that we can't try. This part of city is crowded with high-end restaurants, crowding my Earthcomber map with spots. There's also some interesting stores, such as a really shinny yet cheep jewelry shop, an Oklay shop, a Quicksilver shop next to a Puma shop, and also a city souvenir shop with "I love SD" shirts. There's also this hip shop full of clothes but also with strange book. We found a book called "Fuck this book", full of photos with every verb substituted with the F word, making it really funny.

Dinner was Tai-food, since we can't afford steaks nor lobsters. The food is like Chinese food with a twist of special sauces. The original price was OK, but there's a tip, a state tax and a city tax. Ouch!

The drive back to LA was via 163 -> I-15 -> 78 -> I-5 -> 405. This is finally my time to sleep, and I tired from worrying about car burglars all night. So contrary to the previous drives, I didn't drive, nor track the route in Earthcomber for everyone. I slept and just answered questions when my friends don't know which way to go. But I was still awake half of the way, I guess I was just too tense and worried too much to sleep well. As far as I know, it was all nice and fast untill we got to I-5, where, as usual, it's jammed badly, and jammed all the way till 405. Then it got exciting on 405, as the gas level closes in on the empty line. We got back to the Co-Op with barely anything left in the gas tank, was that close.

After photos of us all back at the Co-Op, we all gathered to exchange photos, then to bed.
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The next day, I drove the one who's just here in CA for the weekend and is going
on to another place to the airport, and also to return the car. We returned the car with an empty gas tank, resulting in a gas charge, ouch. Also, I left my own keys in the car all together with the car keys... RATS...

Spear keys of the Co-Op cost 18.5$ each, and I lost 2 of them, CRAP.

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Photos of the trip on Zoto

Adding Ad's?

I'm considering to add some google ads here on my blog.
The travals, trips and mistakes of this summer is getting expensive, and I've got to save money for next summer's biking trip to Hokkaido.

So what do you think? Do you hate ads on blogs, or are you willing to click on it to help me out? (Ad payments are on a per click basis) Please do post comments, thanks.

我在考慮要在這個blog上放google的純文字廣告,這暑假花太多錢了,明年還想去北海道。當然,開學後也要開始打工/找家教了。大家覺得如何呢?無論你是討厭廣告,還是願意點廣告幫我,請務必po個回應。畢竟這個blog要有大家在看才有意義。

Monday, August 07, 2006

Driving trip to San Diego

It all started last week. A friend here living at the Co-Op said that a friend of his is coming to the US on the weekend, and they may have no chance to meet again in the next 4 years. So we started to plan a trip to San Diego in the weekend, to give his friend an experience of her life.

We searched on the net for points of interest, hotels and ways of going there, almost working every night, but it's very sophisticated and confusing. The bus is inconvenient, the train is too slow and the schedule isn't good, car rentals are very expensive and inconvinent in terms of age restrictions and insurance. Almost every affordable hotel, hostel and motel is shown as full on their website. So we gave up planing, and just go.

The mess started Friday night. We took a bus to LAX, to pick up the girl who's coming, just to find out that our guy here doesn't know her flight number, only vaguely knows her approximate arrival time and what airline she "might" take. We learned the hard way that her plane delayed an hour, and it took really long to get through the customs. We waited 2 hours in the arrival terminal. During the long wait, we called several car rentals. Most aren't even picking up the phone, also, a total of 6 people means that a minivan is needed, which is really expensive and hard to find. With all of us under age 24, it gets even harder. Eventually, Budget agreed to provide a deal for a minivan, an international driver's license and drivers of age 21. But things get even more complicated when our friend finds a problem with his credit card. In the end, the rent is on me, who has a CA driver's license, an American bank issued credit card
a US address and US phone numbers, making the situation simpler for the car rental, but putting the burden on my self. We got a Pontiac Montana. It is a minivan, so it need some getting used to. The parking brake is foot operated, the shift is located on the dash board, and it's really hard to see what's going on in the back. However, with some help and advice from my friend, after not driving for 2 years, and only been on the highway once, I managed to get the car back to the Co-Op intact, and fast. The feeling of driving is slowly getting back to me.

Next morning, all 6 of us got together and loaded into the van. We planed to get going at 9:30am, but ended up leaving at 11... So much for getting up early. Because my friend got his license in Taiwan, and is using an international license, he forgot that it's illegal to park near a curb. And a police car just went by when we are preparing to leave. Crap, we've started to trip with a ticket. It was a grudging traffic jam on the 405. Getting inpatient, and with insufficient driving experience, I made thousands of dangerous lane changes just in one morning. After 1~2 hours, I gradually got better with dealing with highway traffic, drove more smoothly and decreased my lane changes dramatically to increase safety. We got from the 405 to I-5 around noon, and made a stop at a Subway restaurant for lunch. This is also where I exchanged seats with my friend, letting him drive the rest, for fear that I might fall asleep after prolonged driving.

Halfway, we stopped at Oceanside to go play at the beach and take a walk on the pier.It was a nice sunny day, with a fine sandy beach and many people. It feels so great to get wet in the sea water. But once the water gets into your mouth, it's so salty that you could hardly take it. After getting out of the water, I got a pair of cargo pants with pockets of salt and sand, leaving me with salty pants pockets to deal with for the rest of the trip. The pier is much simpler then Santa Barbara or Santa Monica. It's just a plain long wooden pier with less then 3 stores on it, and the rest of it filled with people fishing. It is a simple public beach, all fun, less places to waste money, and free parking.

Another mess came our way after we leave Oceanside and head on towards San Diego. We started our search of hotels in Oldtown, which is near Seaworld. But what we got is: "full, full, full, no vacancy, full..." One even told us that as far as they know, every hotel in San Diego is full. Just as we are starting to get desperate, I fired up my Clie PDA, launched Earthcomber, set up our location, and zoomed out the map, taping randomly to find a hotel/motel, thinking, any vacancy is good enough. Luckily, on my first tap on a place with sufficient spots on the map, I got a Super 8 Motel, with their phone number listed right there in my Clie. I called, and got their last available room. Never thought Earthcomber could save my ass, but it sure did this time. Over the phone, the operator said that 6 people is OK, but we opened the door to find a room for 2. After realising that it's the last available room, we packed in. One interesting point is that the bathroom took half the size of the entire room. The twin bed consists of a mattress on top of another, so we split the to layers and there we've got a nice but clouded bed. We went to the near by town for dinner. The surrounding area is near the intersection of I-15, I-8 and highway 163, and the roads are very confusing, full of left/right turn only lanes, no U-turns and narrow roads with occasional road side parking. We often missed turns, encounter "no U-turns" and, as a result, drove on in the wrong direction for a long distance before we could turn back. I originally expected to have fast food or a dinner, but, with 5 Taiwanese and 1 Chinese on board, and most of us feed up with the junk food at the Co-Op, we went to a Chinese restaurants.

So that concludes our first day...

Photo album | Read part II

Monday, July 31, 2006

Monster House 3D

Monster House
今天在還搞不清楚這部電影在演什麼的情況下就去看了Monster House。想說GRE考完了,就跟一群共同住Co-Op的台灣朋友一起去看電影。

It's really a very special movie. It's a slightly scary movie, for kids. But all those childish behaviors seem very cute to us adults, so I think people of all ages could enjoy it, although in different ways. The animation is so great, with THX sound systems and 3D effects, you really feel that you are some where in there. All the charectors' movements seem lively and smooth, showing all the power and activity you'd expect from a growing kid. But I love the first scene most, where you see a leef drop to the floor, drifting with the wind, simply beautiful, although seems more like a show-off scene to show how good the animator is.

It's an original story, full of immagination, and certainly no trace of your run-of-the-mill Hollywood script formula. No expected hero, no expected kisses, every development of the plot would surprise you if you expect it to be a benal Hollywood movie. It's simply full of unexpected excitment. But it's still sad that most people still like no-brainer formula compliant cliches, since when we got into the theator, it's almost empty (and add the point that we got in in the last minute). What a waste of this great work.

The 3D gives the screen depth, instead of making the things come out at you. It's not as realistic, but less likely to make you feel dizzy. You can feel which things are far away, which are close. It's really feels good to have a feeling of depth.

What suprises me is what I found on the net about this film. It's produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, director of "Back to the future"! Also, it's premire is here at Westwood, the Fox theater where we saw it, why didn't I know? Finally, the director is a new director, who just graduated from UCLA! Scroll down to the bottom of this post to read more from the links. This movie is expected to be in theaters by Aug 25 in Taiwan, you'd definatly got to watch it. (Yes, expecially you, who wanted to study animation in UCLA...)
A model of the Monster House in the theater

All of us Taiwanese friends who went

Links:
UCLA DAILY BRUIN: A Monster Opportunity
Trailers on Apple's site
Official site

回應7月31號的PTT2...

可魯...
1138984435408s.jpg
支援時也慘遭閃光彈攻擊的可魯
(以上來自http://komica.dyndns.org/wiki/?%E5%8F%AF%E9%AD%AF )

BX 版實在是太閃了啦

北海道地圖 網站 介紹

作者: chroma966 (找回遺忘已久的感動) 看板: chroma
標題: 北海道地圖 網站 介紹
時間: Sat Jul 29 13:11:52 2006

http://www.rickstudios.com/hokkaido/map/map.htm

http://domestic.hotel.travel.yahoo.co.jp/special/hokkaido/index.html

japan national touriest organization
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng

住宿--------------------------------------------------------------------
(便宜住宿)

北海道的yh
http://www.youthhostel.or.jp/chinese/menu.htm
辦證 約3000日圓一宿

天氣-------------------------------------------------------------------

北海道當地天氣
http://www.stv.ne.jp/weather/index.html
日出日落時刻
http://www.njwa.jp/weather/cgi-bin/sunmoon.cgi

交通-------------------------------------------------------------------

其他--------------------------------------------------------------------

在札幌火車站及地下街
很容易就可以看到一台粉綠的電話機
它可以免費打電話
只能打日本本土
打手機 1min
打室內電話 3min

--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢兔(ptt2.cc)
◆ From: 61.62.79.138

How I got to LA: @Narita

(Continued from this post)

Just after we got out of the airport at Narita, we took a free shuttle bus to Hotel Nikko Narita, the Japan Airlines owned hotel, where you were offered a free night's stay for transit. On the road, I see lot's of bikes on the side walks, I even spotted a beautiful white Specialized, which doesn't seem to be locked...


Because I'm going back to Taiwan later then my family, our tickets aren't reservered together, and thus, I was arranged to have a room to my self.

It's a nice small room, but the bath room is big, since it took half the space of my room.

As always, we got on the free hotel bus bound to Narita city, and went to the small city for dinner. A tiny japanese Ramen shop is always our first stop: Ramen Bayashi (ラメンばやし, which means Japanese noodles master). They serve delicious ramen and fried dumplings(餃子/ぎょうざ). Although expensive (about 700yen a bowl), the noodles are very good. It's slightly chewy but still soft (咬起來很Q), and you'll know that it's great noodles just by the feel of bitting on it. I like the Tenmen (天麺, vegetable noodles), which has a simple salt based soup with a generous ammount of fresh, crisp vegetables. You could actually hear that sound "crunch" when you chew. The down side of it is that the soup is different this year. Last time I went, the Tenmen is lightly flavered, but this time, it's a little over salty. My sister's fried rice and dumplings are also good but very salty.


After dinner, we walked around, going to the supermarket to get Japanese big peachs and Japanese instant noodles(which, as I realised a week later, is also very salty). We also went to a book store, to see what comics and novels they read. The Japanese verson of "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" are in easily spoted spots, they are pocket sized, and each cut into 3 volumns, nice to bring around.

Then, it's back to the Hotel. Since our flight is in the afternoon, we were planning on a more in depth tour of Narita next morning...

(My roommate just turned off the lights, to be continued...)

Sunday, July 30, 2006

[單車] 北海道計畫002--裝備&路線

作者: chroma966 (找回遺忘已久的感動) 看板: chroma
標題: [單車] 北海道計畫002--裝備
時間: Sat Jul 29 15:56:35 2006

自行車後掛袋*2。
Topeak單車修理工具(補胎片、多用途工具組);潤滑油;內胎*4
;打氣筒。
安全帽;遮陽帽;單車手套*2;墨鏡。

(露營裝備)
帳篷、睡袋。
snowpeak瓦斯爐;鈦鍋具;打火機、瑞士刀、頭燈。

(衣物)
Gore-Tex外套;Gore-Tex長褲。
保暖外套,保暖長褲。
自行車衣褲*2。
運動涼鞋。
其他衣物 (T恤*1、短褲*2、長袖上衣*1、長褲*1、泳褲)。

(個人用品)
盥洗用具、防曬用品、護唇膏。
醫藥包(外傷和一般疾病用藥、中藥按摩藥膏)。
繩子和曬衣夾、洗衣粉。
針線包。

(記錄用品)
日記;文具包;色鉛筆;計算機。
數位單眼相機 ( CANNO 800 )。

(重要財物)
隨身護照袋 (護照,機票,旅行支票,日元現金)
錢包(當地貨幣,信用卡)。

(其他)
地圖;Lonely Planet旅遊指南。
聯絡簿、名片、外交部駐外單位名冊。
隨身書籍。
文房四寶、小禮物。
旅行用泡茶組、茶葉。

--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢兔(ptt2.cc)
◆ From: 61.62.79.138

作者: chroma966 (找回遺忘已久的感動) 看板: chroma
標題: [單車] 北海道計畫002--路線
時間: Sat Jul 29 14:57:15 2006

慶典

6/14-16 北海道神宮祭
6月第三個週日 阿寒湖火花大會 阿寒湖
6/28 葡萄酒祭

7月中 薰衣草祭
7/20 海洋祭
7/20-22 釧路霧祭 釧路
7/28-30 小樽潮祭
7月最後一個六日 層雲峽峽谷火祭
7/28-29 北海道肚臍祭

--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢兔(ptt2.cc)
◆ From: 61.62.79.138

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Stupid automated systems

"That tree ate my kite!"
Nah, I'm not Charlie Brown, but my ATM card was eaten by the mechine.

今天生平第一次使用ATM。因為剛收到Co-Op的statement,要交這個月的租金,提領金額頗大,於是提心弔膽的,深怕被搶。

中午,豔陽高照,來到Westwood一個十字路口的 ATM mechine。
拿出沒用過的全新ATM card插進去,接著輸入密碼。輸入第二個碼時不小心按錯,找不到backspace,就按了cancel,沒想到卡被吐出來了!!!很好,那我再推回去,重來。結果它就只是一直叫,叫我把卡拿走。但此時卡已經被我推的太進去了,拔不出來了,也沒有任何退卡鈕,我只好推的更進去,結果機器還是一直叫我把卡拿走。

怒,我拔不出來你也不吐給我。

此時,叫聲停了。

卡鏘!

卡被吃了...

此時忽然想到小冊子上說的,卡片忘記帶走時會被機器自動回收,以免被撿走...囧rz

今天不知罵了幾十萬個「ㄍ.ㄢ.ˋ」...

---

服務小姐曰:「We're sorry for you're inconvenence, and I'm very sorry that you're check card was eaten...」

不過更不爽的是,用手機打銀行的1-800 number (等同於台灣的0800),竟然還扣我6分鐘通話時數!又多一個東西要argue了。

Monday, July 24, 2006

Email, bloging and shopping

My Gmail account is fixed, so it's working now. (Thank god...)

I've got tons of storys to blog about, but this week, my blogging time is alocated to GRE score damage control, so, no storys this week :)

If any of you in Taiwan wants anything that could only be bought in the US, you may send an email to my Gmail account, with your name, and a clear discription of what you wish to get. submissions would be accepted from Aug 1st thru Aug 24th.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

The heat

It's so hot here in San Bernadino. The wind outside is like what comes out of a oven: you've got scorching hot air blowing in your face. It's so hot that you practically just want to sit around and do nothing. There's a cloud pattern in the sky, making the air a little more humid, and locking the heat in.

The TV news seems more like horror story shows, with extream heat all around Southern California, electric outages here and there, and the highest temprature in Los Angeles county history: 119 fahrenheit!

One good thing, it's still much dryer here then in Taiwan, where you are all sweaty and sticky.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Yam Map

在美國這邊習慣了Google Map/ Google earth 的方便
(Google只有美國有地址/地圖資料,其他國都只有衛星圖)
要找哪裡都上網查,還一步一步告訴你怎麼走
就開始想,為什麼台灣都沒有像美國這麼方便的免費網路地圖
(之前找到的都要交錢加入會員,而且很難用)

不過,剛剛亂逛亂逛,讓我發現蕃薯藤有地圖服務!
http://maps.yam.com/
而且使用界面還跟Google有點像,同樣都用了快速的AJAX技術
真高興,終於不用依賴PaPaGo了

不過呢,搜尋功能還有待加強
搜尋「台大」,第一個回傳值竟然是「台大加油站」
不過正宗台大正門,還可以在右邊的列表中找到
連台大Burger King都找到了^^

接著嘗試地址搜尋,打了自己家裡的地址
可惜的是,它只找得到「街」的層級,巷弄都沒資料
不像Google 查美國的地址,它可以把方位準確的指出來,還能在衛星圖上看到你要找的建築物

不過呢,這樣,已經很棒了
以後出去騎車,規劃路線又多一個工具了
希望它繼續壯大,大家多支持本土的蕃薯藤吧^^

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Email down notice

!!!
I screwed up on my Gmail account, I changed the password, which, some how doesn't work after the change. So now I'm locked out of my account. I forgot the secondary email I entered in the account info, but it's likely to be one of the emails accounts that I no longer use and is deleted (such as Netscape).

Thus, I'll keep trying to recover my account, but I can't get your messages from that gmail account before I recover it. In this period, please send any messages to my old Yahoo mail box (the one I use for MSN regestration)

Good thing I have a 2nd Gmail account, which is working as my web drive. I just invited myself to a 3rd account and would switch to that one, if I unfortunatly can't recover my original Gmail...