Topic of the day: how to write a headline

There is an old saying: "A picture worths a thousand words" And I might add: "A good headline worths even more" This is the case of a Slashdot article titled: Mars Robot May Destroy Life It Was Sent To Find. At a first glance, I thought this is what it meant (quoted from an excellent writeup by another slashdotter)

it destroyed all life on the planet (the "life it was sent to find").

What actually happened was:

its life detector destroyed signs of life in the samples it's testing.

The latter is obviously much less attention catching!

Tech of the day: Bing Is Not Google

Those who follow tech news have probably heard of yet another search engine from Microsoft: Bing.

Why Bing? The secret has been deciphered by this Slashdot commenter: Bing Is Not Google

And I couldn't agree more with another commenter about Google's page being no-nonsense. When I visited Bing.com, I got a huge coming soon graphic and then a video! Not a good sign.

Topic of the day: sports in US

Most people would think US is probably the most sports crazed country in the world. After all, we have many 24 hour sports TV network (4 from ESPN alone) Behind the glory though, you will find many struggling franchises. Even among the so-called Big 4 sports: baseball, basketball, (American) football and ice hockey, there are teams in financial trouble, like the Phoenix Coyotes (hockey team) Whenever I saw many empty seats in televised games, I always think how come teams could afford those big salaries of big name stars. I guess the answer is: they can't. Of course, teams that sold lots of tickets could still make bad financial moves and got themselves in trouble.

I guess the ones that got hit the hardest during the recent economic crisis were non-mainstream sports. Arena Football is shutdown for the 2009 season (god knows if it will be back in 2010) Major League Lacrosse has folded 5 of the 10 teams from last season (and added 1 back) I promised to take my kids to a Lacrosse game but sadly our local team was among the folded ones. I guess we will have to wait 'til the indoor league (NLL) begins this December!

The more I thought about this, the more I appreciate the management/owners who put winning teams on the field on a regular basis.

Topic of the day: The New Yorker pulled off a publicity stunt

I bet the New Yorker's website has got a ton of hits lately thanks to this story: New Yorker Cover Drawn Entirely on an IPhone using an App called Brushes.

The first thing I did was, of course, trying to find out what the cover looks like. Initially I was quite dissappointed when the New Yorker link only shows this video:


However, I agree it's a brilliant idea to show how the cover is made rather than just the end product.

I don't think Adobe should be afraid of the maker of Brushes (who has got a ton of publicity from this too) yet but the latter did open up a lot of new possibilities.

Music of the day: Castelnuovo-Tedesco Works For Guitar

The name of the piece is Variazioni Attraverso I Secoli for Guitar, Op.71. The composer was Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

What I found interesting about the composer was that he was a pioneer in movie music and influnced the likes of Henry Mancini and John Williams. To me, that is a great achievement.

Stars of the day: the "My Name Is Earl" gang

This is one of the very few TV shows I still watch regularly. It's sad to see it get canned by NBC. This is yet another unexpected move by a media company in one week (smooth jazz was ousted by Clear Channel from its KKSF radio station) Apparently it is less popular than I expected. I know I tend to like non-mainstream stuff so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised to see them go. I bet I wasn't even counted as a viewer by NBC's standard as I skipped all commercials.

Once this show is gone, my 17+ year streak of watching at least one show on NBC's must-see TV lineup is over. I'm actually quite amazed by this fact. Those shows included Wings, Mad About You, Seinfeld, Friends, Joey, The Office and of course My Name is Earl. These are some awesome shows!

Will I miss it? Probably not much. To me, TV shows are for killing time/filling gaps (mostly during commute) Nevertheless, I would be glad to see it being revived on another network.

每週一噏：老闆vs打工仔

最近在香港討論區發現幾個經常出現的話題，其中一個是新一代（尤其是大學生）對選擇工作非常挑剔，對人工及工作性質要求太高，寧可失業也不願屈就，以至不少空缺請不到人；吊詭的是，另一個常見話題卻是求職者無論如何降低要求也找不到工作，僱主理由是怕他很快會另謀高就！

真相到底如何？只有當事人才知！恒久不變的是：老闆永遠希望以最低人工請到最能幹又忠心的員工；打工仔當然希望負出最少辛勞得最大收獲。最終雙方只能meet somewhere in the middle.

有不少網友就指出：那些久久請不到人的空缺很多都是待遇太低，這個我有理由相信。另一方面，新一代心態有問題亦是事實，曾經有一個post指她新上班當會計，但不喜該工作，考慮辭職，其中一個原因竟然是工作需要每天致電銀行查詢利率，覺得很煩！