We might see Arnold "the Governator" Schwarzenegger in the next Terminator movie! He is not going to act in it. Instead, the movie studio will make a digital model of him and use that in the movie! Isn't that cool?
Terminator II is still my all-time favourite Sci-Fi movie (probably tied with the Matrix) However, when I watched it in the movie theater for the first time, I actually fell asleep! I think I watched it during Summer break. I forgot if it was because I had a jet lag or I stayed up all the night the night before (or both!) Those were the good 'ol days.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Book of the day: A Romance on Three Legs
Does the title remind you of "The Romance of the Three Kingdom"? Well, it's a complete different topic. See sub-title: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano
You might wonder how interesting a book could be if it is all about a particular piano. I am with you since I quit reading a somewhat similar book ("A Devil to Play," in which the author covered his personal experiences learning French horn, interspersed with history of the instrument. It would have made a good blog post but I think he drags on too much about the former. And his writing styles, which tends to jump around a lot, did not help.)
I have skimmed through this book at the bookstore and found it really interesting. The first chapter is your typical musician (Glenn Gould's) biography: what kind of genius and how weird he was. It gets more interesting starting the 2nd chapter, which is about the blind piano tuner Charles Verne Edquist, who worked with Gould on his "Perfect Piano." This piano was actually one that has been owned by the Eaton Department store in Toronto for a long time and played by many. Eaton was about to return it to Steinway and exchange for another one! I definitely want to find out more.
You might wonder how interesting a book could be if it is all about a particular piano. I am with you since I quit reading a somewhat similar book ("A Devil to Play," in which the author covered his personal experiences learning French horn, interspersed with history of the instrument. It would have made a good blog post but I think he drags on too much about the former. And his writing styles, which tends to jump around a lot, did not help.)
I have skimmed through this book at the bookstore and found it really interesting. The first chapter is your typical musician (Glenn Gould's) biography: what kind of genius and how weird he was. It gets more interesting starting the 2nd chapter, which is about the blind piano tuner Charles Verne Edquist, who worked with Gould on his "Perfect Piano." This piano was actually one that has been owned by the Eaton Department store in Toronto for a long time and played by many. Eaton was about to return it to Steinway and exchange for another one! I definitely want to find out more.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Game of the day: the 6th Ing Cup has a new winner!
The 24 year old Choi Cheol-han has defeated the former champ Lee Chang-ho in Game 4, coming back from losing the first game in the best-of-5 series. Ing Cup is the highest paid Go competition in the world (winner takes home US$400k)
Another interesting fact is that the losers of the past 2 tournaments (2000, 2004) all become winners next time. Is this an indication that Lee Chang-ho will win again in 2012 (after winning it in 2000)? On the other hand, there has not been a repeating winner in the short history of this tournament. Oh well, it will all make the 2012 Ing Cup even more interesting!
Another interesting fact is that the losers of the past 2 tournaments (2000, 2004) all become winners next time. Is this an indication that Lee Chang-ho will win again in 2012 (after winning it in 2000)? On the other hand, there has not been a repeating winner in the short history of this tournament. Oh well, it will all make the 2012 Ing Cup even more interesting!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tech of the day: no demand if Apple does not make it
The title pretty much sums up whatever Apple has to say when asked about new products on the market. I still remember Steve Jobs said that people didn't want to watch video on their portable player when everybody else is making such player except Apple. Of course he sang a different tune when Apple released the video iPod.
Apple's Tim Cook claimed that Apple is not going to make a netbook because iPhone and iPod Touch do a better job. Typical arrogance from Apple. And it just doesn't make much sense to me! Can you watch flash video on an iPhone/iPod Touch? No! Can you type at full speed on them? No! Watching streaming video and blogging are 2 of my top activities and I can't do them on my iPhone. There are some reasons that netbooks are selling like hotcakes. I gotta admit these days I leave my notebook at home while carrying the iPhone all the time but I am knowingly making a sacrifice.
Apple's Tim Cook claimed that Apple is not going to make a netbook because iPhone and iPod Touch do a better job. Typical arrogance from Apple. And it just doesn't make much sense to me! Can you watch flash video on an iPhone/iPod Touch? No! Can you type at full speed on them? No! Watching streaming video and blogging are 2 of my top activities and I can't do them on my iPhone. There are some reasons that netbooks are selling like hotcakes. I gotta admit these days I leave my notebook at home while carrying the iPhone all the time but I am knowingly making a sacrifice.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Topic of the day: Susan Boyle, Oracle and the beauty of the web
The hottest topic in showbiz right now gotta be the Susan Boyle phenomenon while the hottest topic in tech biz is Oracle buying Sun. What do they have in common? Read on!
If you pay any attention to the news, you would know that Susan Boyle was a participant in a British talent contest. A YouTube video of her singing got amazingly popular (over 12 million hits!) You could read about people singing her praises almost every where! And not surprisingly, there are backlashes: tons of comments about her being overrated could also be found (and I am in this camp. For those who think it's her true talent (without good look) that leads her to her current success, I hate to burst the bubble: the brilliant one here is the producer of the show, who is so masterful at manipulating the audiences! She may have a nice voice, but it can't be THAT great.)
The beauty of the web is that you could find comments from every different angle. The same can be said about Oracle buying Sun too: I have read a lot of positive ("good fit") comments thinking as well as negative ones ("what are they thinking?") IMO, the most ridiculous one said Oracle wanted to be like Apple. Gimme a break! Surely Apple dominates the digital music market but they have a big mountain to climb in the computing market! I think Oracle is doing better than that already.
Well, this is the web and everyone is entitled to his/her opinion!
If you pay any attention to the news, you would know that Susan Boyle was a participant in a British talent contest. A YouTube video of her singing got amazingly popular (over 12 million hits!) You could read about people singing her praises almost every where! And not surprisingly, there are backlashes: tons of comments about her being overrated could also be found (and I am in this camp. For those who think it's her true talent (without good look) that leads her to her current success, I hate to burst the bubble: the brilliant one here is the producer of the show, who is so masterful at manipulating the audiences! She may have a nice voice, but it can't be THAT great.)
The beauty of the web is that you could find comments from every different angle. The same can be said about Oracle buying Sun too: I have read a lot of positive ("good fit") comments thinking as well as negative ones ("what are they thinking?") IMO, the most ridiculous one said Oracle wanted to be like Apple. Gimme a break! Surely Apple dominates the digital music market but they have a big mountain to climb in the computing market! I think Oracle is doing better than that already.
Well, this is the web and everyone is entitled to his/her opinion!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Tech of the day: Arch Linux full update trouble (Part II)
Remember I forced installation of Xorg in my last post? Turns out this new version (1.6) of Xorg is causing more trouble!
My X windows, which uses vboxvideo driver (from VirtualBox Guest Addition, aka GA), refused to start (from /var/log/Xorg.0.log):
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)
This time the solution is a bit harder to find (under the responses to this post) but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense: we need driver files that is compatible with verison 1.6 of Xorg. One source that include them gotta be the Guest Addition installer! Indeed, here is the command to tell the installer just dump the files to a target directory without installing:
sh VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run --noexec --target [directory name]
The target directory will contain vboxvideo_drv_16.so and vboxmouse_drv_16.so
Simply replace /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vboxvideo_drv.so and /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/vboxmouse_drv.so with the above. The driver versions won't mismatch anymore where X starts!
My X windows, which uses vboxvideo driver (from VirtualBox Guest Addition, aka GA), refused to start (from /var/log/Xorg.0.log):
(EE) module ABI major version (4) doesn't match the server's version (5)
This time the solution is a bit harder to find (under the responses to this post) but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense: we need driver files that is compatible with verison 1.6 of Xorg. One source that include them gotta be the Guest Addition installer! Indeed, here is the command to tell the installer just dump the files to a target directory without installing:
sh VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run --noexec --target [directory name]
The target directory will contain vboxvideo_drv_16.so and vboxmouse_drv_16.so
Simply replace /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vboxvideo_drv.so and /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/vboxmouse_drv.so with the above. The driver versions won't mismatch anymore where X starts!
Tech of the day: VirtualBox shared folder
I run Linux on my XP box as a guest OS using VirtualBox and prefer to use the guest more than the host (XP.) Still, sometimes I need to move files between the guest and the host and VirtualBox's shared folder feature comes in handy. Here are the steps to set this up:
0) create the shared folder on your host (or skip this to use an existing one.)
Also create a mount point (a unix dir that will be mapped to the above) on the guest.
1) Choose the Shared Folder option from the Devices menu on your VirtualBox. Use the folder from (0) as "Folder Path" and enter a "Folder Name" you like.
2) install VirtualBox guest addition by:
- Choose the option from the Devices manual on your VirtualBox, which makes the guest addition installer available as a CD
- mount /media/cd (to mount the CD rom)
- cd /media/cd
- sh
- shutdown -r 0 (reboot)
3) mount -t vboxsf [the folder name from (1)] [the mount point from (0)]
Note: for some reason mount gives me "Protocol error" after I used it for sometime (I've performed a full-update, i.e., pacman -Syu, and move the files to a new PC in the mean time) The solution was to performed all of the above steps again.
0) create the shared folder on your host (or skip this to use an existing one.)
Also create a mount point (a unix dir that will be mapped to the above) on the guest.
1) Choose the Shared Folder option from the Devices menu on your VirtualBox. Use the folder from (0) as "Folder Path" and enter a "Folder Name" you like.
2) install VirtualBox guest addition by:
- Choose the option from the Devices manual on your VirtualBox, which makes the guest addition installer available as a CD
- mount /media/cd (to mount the CD rom)
- cd /media/cd
- sh
- shutdown -r 0 (reboot)
3) mount -t vboxsf [the folder name from (1)] [the mount point from (0)]
Note: for some reason mount gives me "Protocol error" after I used it for sometime (I've performed a full-update, i.e., pacman -Syu, and move the files to a new PC in the mean time) The solution was to performed all of the above steps again.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Tech of the day: Arch Linux full update trouble
One thing I like about Arch is that it uses rolling release, i.e., components within the OS are updated and released continously, instead of having a fixed release like Ubuntu (BTW, I think Ubuntu drops support way too soon. Feisty was released on 19 April 2007 and support was ended on 19 October 2008! Now I have a completely unupdateable installation sitting on my workstation waiting to rot.)
And it could be done with 1 command: pacman -Syu
However, I tried updating just now and ran into this:
error: could not prepare transaction
error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so exists in filesystem
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
The solution (courtesy of this Arch Linux forum post) is so simple:
pacman -Sf xorg-server
Then run pacman -Syu again.
And it could be done with 1 command: pacman -Syu
However, I tried updating just now and ran into this:
error: could not prepare transaction
error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so exists in filesystem
xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
The solution (courtesy of this Arch Linux forum post) is so simple:
pacman -Sf xorg-server
Then run pacman -Syu again.
每週冷飯: History Repeats Itself
摘自2002年:
不幸的是，此等惡法可能越來越有市場！
且看看兩則近期新聞：藝人成龍指香港及台灣太自由，所以變得很亂 ，認為「中國人是需要管的」。
較早前又有在港讀大學的內地生為當權者六四暴行開脫，居然有網民附和，指當年學生和市民參與六四乃係叛國及顛覆政府。
對於以上言論，已故偉大領導人鄧小平有一名句，我可以贈他們，那就是：「胡說八道」！
筆者是一個超級金庸迷﹐不停地重覆閱讀金庸所有作品是我的「癖好」﹐最近又輪到第N次(N>10)重讀「鹿鼎記」這本筆者心目中金庸最出色的作品-- 皆因他成功地把實在的歷史和虛構的創作世界融成一體。不過每次重讀「鹿鼎記」﹐其中有些片段總是令筆者「慘不忍讀」﹐惻隱之心油然而生﹐最甚者莫過於吳之榮興起《明史》文字獄這一段。
可能對不少朋友而言﹐韋小寶的風流搞笑故事遠遠比《明史》文字獄一案印象深刻得多(某些所謂改編自「鹿鼎記」的電視劇索性把這一段完全省略﹐認真不知所謂。這些編劇難道以為自己的創作本事比金庸更高嗎﹖) 據筆者在網上查閱清朝歷史﹐《明史》一案真有其事﹕話說康熙年間小人吳之榮窮途末路之際﹐發現由富商莊家公子編輯的《明書輯略》多處用了前明的年號，於是到京師向權傾朝野的大臣鰲拜告狀﹐謀求升官發財。
『鰲拜以軍功而封公爵、做大官，向來歧視漢官和讀書人，掌握大權後便想辦几件大案，鎮懾人心，不但使漢人不敢興反叛之念，也令朝中敵黨不敢有甚麼異動，當即派出欽差，赴浙江查究。這一來，莊家全家固然逮入京中……在明史上列名的文學之士，無一不鋃鐺入獄。』
『最慘的是，所有雕版的刻工、印書的列工、裝釘的釘工，以及書賈、書鋪的主人、賣書的店員、買書的讀者，查明後盡皆處斬。據史書記載，其時蘇州滸墅關有一個李尚白，喜讀史書，聽說蘇州閶門書坊中有一部新刊的明史，內容很好，派一個工役去買。工役到時，書店主人外出，那工役便在在書鋪隔壁一家朱姓的老者家中坐著等候，等到店主回來，將書買回。李尚白讀了几卷，也不以為意。 過了几個月，案子發作，一直查究到各處販書買書之人。其時李尚白在北京公干，以購逆書之罪，在北京立即斬決。書店主人和奉命買書的工役斬首。連那隔壁姓朱老者也牽累，說他既知那人來購逆書，何以不即舉報，還讓他在家中閑坐？本應斬首，姑念年愈七十，免死，和妻子充軍邊遠之處。 』(節錄自金庸小說原文)
今日重讀這一段﹐感受尤其深刻﹗不知各位有否如筆者一樣立刻想起香港特區基本法第二十三條中的煽動叛亂及隱匿叛國罪﹖這些封建時代的不合理惡法竟然會在廿一世紀自詡文明先進的香港特區政府出現﹐又怎能不叫筆者慨嘆一句﹕"History repeats itself!"
不幸的是，此等惡法可能越來越有市場！
且看看兩則近期新聞：藝人成龍指香港及台灣太自由，所以變得很亂 ，認為「中國人是需要管的」。
較早前又有在港讀大學的內地生為當權者六四暴行開脫，居然有網民附和，指當年學生和市民參與六四乃係叛國及顛覆政府。
對於以上言論，已故偉大領導人鄧小平有一名句，我可以贈他們，那就是：「胡說八道」！
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)