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!