Music of the day: Phantasia

What was that background music used by Patrick Chan (Canadian Figure Skater)? That's the question I had when it was on TV. And I was not the only one who asked the same question!

Tech of the day: Dockstar as print server

It seems that one major use of embedded device/plug computer is print server. Setting up printers on Linux was not known for being a user-friendly process though. It has changed a lot thanks to CUPS. (I wrote about it before for my Arch Linux install)

For Debian, I found its Wiki entry very useful. What I did was very similar:
1) apt-get install cups cups-client hplip
I used hplip because I have a HP PhotoSmart printer.

2) I edited cupsd.conf as suggested.
So I was able to administer CUPS on port 49631 from other PCs (which is necessary 'coz I am not running X on my Dockstar!)
Then I added my HP printer as a local printer by picking one of the choice listed: HP photosmart 7350 USB MY25S3308N3Y HPLIP (HP photosmart 7350)
However, I was not able to add the printer on my Windows 7 PC using HTTP URL.

To do that, I followed the steps from CUPS Mini-HOWTO at LinuxFoundation and edited /etc/samba/smb.conf.

Finally my Win7 box was able to see the printer on Dockstar automatically when I chose to add a network printer. The only remaining step is to manually pick the driver in the Generic section labeled MS Publisher Color Printer as suggested by the aforementiond Debian Wiki.

I found lots of info from other links like 1 and 2 but these are kinda outdated.

BTW, my root partition became full quickly halfway through installing CUPS and became unusable. My fix was to move /var and /usr out of it (by following the instructions found here):
1) use fdisk to create a new partition. Don't forget to format with mke2fs or it won't mount.

2) mount the new filesystem in /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/new
# mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/new

3) tar up /var/*

4) untar in /mnt/new

5) Rename the /var directory (to make sure this has worked before deleting it!)
# cd /
# mv var var.old

6) Make new var directory
# mkdir var

7) Unmount the new partition
# umount /dev/hda3

8) Remount it as /var
# mount /dev/hda3 /var

9) Edit /etc/fstab to include the new partition, with /var given as the mount point

I also did something similar for /usr. Instead of a primary partition, I created an extended partition (sda4) and then a logical partition out of it (sda5, which is the one to be formatted and mounted) (or I would have used up the maximum of 4 primary partition and won't be able to create any other partition in the future)

Tech of the day: Dockstar w/ Debian file sharing

Before we could share anything, we need to mount the drive(s) first!

I have some NTFS as well as FAT32 formatted drives in USB Enclosures. To mount them, first find out the "name" (sdb1 or sdc5) of your attached drives by:
fdisk -l

For NTFS, I installed NTFS-3G:
apt-get install ntfs-3g

Then mount as:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 [dir name]

For FAT32, simply mount as:
mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 [dir name]

Next, install and configure samba following these steps. Basically we need to add a user to the server (useradd) and add a SMB password for this user (smbpasswd -a) Then edit the followings accordingly:
/etc/samba/smb.conf
/etc/samba/smbusers

[Update] After the above steps, I was unable to move/add/delete any file on the USB drive if I'm not logon as root to Dockstar, which isn't very useful. I google quite a bit and got many suggestions:
- chmod 777 [the mount point]
- add writeable = yes to smb.conf
- add the mount point to fstab with umask=000 in the 4th column
Well, I did all 3 and it works for me now (not sure which one is the key though)

Tech of the day: Debian on Dockstar

I bought a Seagate Dockstar (for fear of it being discontinued soon! Amazon is pushing its newer replacement) last week. I have no intention to use the remote file sharing service PogoPlug (requires payment after the 1st year) And Dockstar cannot be used without PogoPlug unless you modify the firmware. I might as well run Debian (or OpenWRT) on it. Here are my steps:
0) Connect it to a PC running Linux (e.g. booted from a Live Ubuntu CD) with an Ethernet cable. Turn off internet on the PC.

1) Find out its IP by following Alexander Holler's instructions.

2) Plug in a flash drive and mount it
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

3) Backup the stock image to /mnt
Using the instructions from the same link as (1)

4) Disable PogoPlug's daemon so that it won't attempt to phone home
killall hbwd
killall hbplug
mount -o remount,rw /
vi /etc/init.d/rcS
press "i" (to get into insert mode)
change the line "/etc/init.d/hbmgr.sh start" to "#/etc/init.d/hbmgr.sh start"
[esc] and ":wq" (write & quit)

After shutting the Dockstar down, it would be a good time to copy the backup images by unplugging the flash drive and plug to the PC.

5) Now the Dockstar is ready to be connected to the internet (by plugging the Ethernet cable to the router)

6) Follow Jeff Doozan's guide to install Debian (on a flash drive)
In case you couldn't find fdisk, it is under /sbin. Delete any existing partition. Hit 'n' to add the first Linux partition as primary partition 1. Accept the default first cylinder and +512M for the last cylinder.
Make it bootable.
Hit 'n' again to add the 2nd partition as primary partition 2. Also accept the default first cylinder but +256M for the last cylinder.
Hit 't' to change the system type of the 2nd partition. The Hex code is 82 (for Linux Swap)
Finally hit 'w' to write the partition to the drive (and wipe out everything you had originally!)
Now the drive is ready for Debian installation (just follow the rest of Jeff's steps)

Next I'll configure it for Samba and file sharing.

Music of the day: David Tanenbaum & SFCM Guitar Ensemble

I went to this concert today. Judging from the description and the organizer (San Francisco Chamber Orchestra), I expected a program of old and new classical guitar materials, probably from the likes of Fernando Sor and Leo Brouwer. What a surprise I was in! First of all, I saw the co-host holding a Samick acoustic (folk) guitar. Then another performer (turns out to be Mr. Tanenbaum) holding a resonator guitar (best known for its appearance on the cover of Dire Straits' classic album: Brothers In Arms) Also, the show was not in the format of your traditional concert. Instead, it was in the style of a variety show, with music-related games in between performances, not to mention detailed explanation given by performers/composers. Mr. Tanenbaum told the story of his resonator guitar. This type of guitar originated in 20s and is made of steel and consists of "speaker cones" to make it sound loud. The brand of his is National and it came from National's factory in the lovely city of San Luis Obispo. And his is not your "ordinary" National Steel Guitar but one custom fretted in Just Intonation (the alternative to equal temperament, which most musicians are more familiar with. You could see how unique the guitar frets look) Tanenbaum teaches classical guitar at conservatories. You might wonder why he didn't play it at the concert. It was because he has asked composer Lou Harrison to write a piece for him for a long time. Finally Harrison wrote one, not for classical guitar but a National Steel guitar with Just Intonation. He wanted to write something special and it turned out to be his last work before he passed away. It's called "Scenes from Nek Chand" which is based on the sculpure and architecture of Nek Chand in northern India and was indeed very Eastern sounding.

Another guest on the program was violinist Jeremy Cohen. I didn't know he was the founder of Quartet San Francisco, of which the music I really enjoyed! He played a violin solo piece and a viola duet (Tango #8, with himself and Ben Simon, SFCO's director, both on viola) piece from his etude books and also the jazz standard Honeysuckle Rose (with himself and Julian Smedley both on violin) What a versatile player! (in terms of instruments and styles)

Topic of the day: Parenting advices (with a hidden agenda)

This article started off making a lot of senses: who, as a parent, hasn't receive contradicting advices from different sources before? (e.g, the grandparents, the friends, the media......) It suggested parents shouldn't be frustrated when facing those contradicting advices as long as they love the kids (and do 9 other things on their list of 10) Well, it turns out to be religious propaganda!

9. Religion. You support spiritual or religious development and participate in spiritual or religious activities.

So I am a bad parent if I'm not religious? This is ridiculous. Fortunately I'm not alone in identifying the hidden agenda (read the comment section)

Sports highlights: Golden Gate Park to Golden Gate Bridge Ride

Normally I don't talk about my own sports activities here. For one thing, I don't do that much. The only things I like are golfing and biking. I still haven't played my annual 18-holes (not even 9-holes) this time of the year. Doesn't seem like it's gonna happen. I used to do a few hours of bike ride about once a month and I've tried almost all flat trails in the Bay Area but my biking has been reduced to mostly 15 minute trips between Caltrain and office. Nothing really interesting to share, until today. Well, everything changed in August when I thought my folding bike was broken (and thus gave me a perfect excuse to buy a long-wanted road bike as a replacement) I started with some easy routes (like this) and then some harder ones. Finally I have the most fun bike ride in years. I took me 4 hours to hit all these landmarks: Conservatory of Flowers, Palace of Fine Art, Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, Legion of Honor, Cliff House and back to Golden Gate Park (photo).

Music of the day: Telemann Viola Concerto in G

On Aug 30th 2010, 103 violists played this piece together in Berkeley (this ViolaMania was probably a record breaking event)


Too bad I hadn't started on viola at that time yet. The event allowed everyone who could play the piece to bring his/her viola and play!

Sports highlight: 由1993等到2002，等到星期一

講的當然就是新科棒球World Series冠軍三藩市巨人隊。我由92年左右開始追Baseball，看得最多的是Rangers, Astros, Braves, White Sox, Cubs。（前四隊都在近十五年打入決賽。）不過92年球季最令我印象深刻的是當時在Pirates的年輕巨星Barry Bonds，在季後賽對Braves失利無緣打入決賽！此後Bonds加盟巨人隊，由於經常到SF/Oakland遊玩，也漸漸對巨人隊及A's產生好感。該球季初至中段，巨人隊勢不可擋，暑假我在香港，最期待姐姐寄來巨人隊及A's新聞的剪報(Thanks!)，誰知季尾竟然又被Bonds的死敵Braves追過，連季後賽也無法打入！2002年WS Game6功虧一簣，又再次失望。今季不被看好，竟然就是成功的一季。要分析，十萬字也寫不完，還是看專家Peter Gammons吧（我覺得很有見地）

Topic of the day: the digital music business

As a long time Rhapsody subscriber/listener, I didn't even know the company was spinned off. Doesn't sound like good news. I guess it's really hard to make money there. A former player in this business, Imeem's founder Dalton Caldwell, explained why. Of course, current players like startup MOG's founder David Hyman sings a different tune. I recommend reading
this. It's an interesting read because what the author said about MOG was rather negative.

Tech of the day: java.util.HashMap

I used to think of HashMap as a easy-to-use class. You put a key-value pair in. Get a value out using the key. How complicated could it be? Oh well, apparently it's more complicated that I gave it credit for. I learned 2 things in the past few days. I tried using objects that I defined as keys. I knew for sure I need to override the boolean equals(Object obj) method so that two keys that are different objects but representing the same data will be treated as the same key. What I didn't know was that I also needed to override the int hashcode() method! Without overriding it, keys that are different objects but representing the same data will have different hash code and thus treated as different keys. One simple way (not always distributes the objects well in the Hash, depending on your data, but it will work) is to keep a running total starting with 0. Multiply by a prime number and add the hashcode of a data field to the running total. Repeat for all data fields you use for representing the same data. Another mistake I made was that I needed to iterate through all the keys and remove some of them depending on its value, I got a java.util.ConcurrentModificationException. The fix? Instead of removing keys from the HashMap, simply call remove() on the iterator to remove the element last seen. (Yes, the underlying HashMap will reflect this removal)

Musician of the day: Chrissy Steele

I just "discovered" this female metal vocalist. The track was actually from her album released in 1989. She has left the music business (and guess what? worked as a computer programmer!) already. Too bad. The track sounded awesome. I thought I heard Vixen or Lita Ford. Once again it showed how important luck is.

BTW, I heard the track on Radio IO's hair band channel. Yes, I actually enjoy hair band music (because it's guaranteed to have guitar solo) It was also useful to block out co-worker's voice :P

Topic of the day: Caltrain unfriendly to folding bike users

I like my folding bike a lot 'coz I could carry it in my car without a bike rack (and worry about the bike falling off or scratching the exterior of my car) I used to like the idea of taking my folding bike to ride Caltrain and then bike to where I work (without my bike, I need to walk 30 minutes) but it doesn't seem to be a good idea anymore after a few incidents:

1) This happened a year or 2 ago: a Caltrain passenger/cyclist told me I had to fold up my bike instead of parking it in the bike car like every other cyclist do, so that a space could be "saved" for other cyclist with non-foldable bikes. The intention was good but where am I supposed to put my folded bike? Caltrain's rule says that folded bike should be put under the seat (which is not possible for mine or most other reasonably sized bikes) or on luggage rack (which is 3 cars down. Dragging my bike through 3 cars was a workout that I didn't need) so I declined and that dude wanted to continue to argue with me but stopped by other fellow passengers. I didn't say another word and problem solved.

2) This happened today: instead of asked by a passenger, I was asked by a Caltrain conductor to do the same. To make things worse, this time another passenger (a 架兩) actually chimed in to support the conductor! I explained the problem again. And the conductor gave me permission to violate the aforementioned rule: she told me to put my bike on the seat! (And allowed me to seat in another one) Well, how was I supposed to refuse such a good offer? Since the aisle is too narrow for me to push my bike thru, I have to pull it off the ground and carry all the way to the empty seat in the back of the car. And this was the by-product:



Oh yeah, I told the 架兩 it's none of his business.

[Update: the bike chain grease stain on my pants were safely removed by Shout (Triple Action Stain Remover)]

Sports highlights: Iowa, NASCAR, F1, LCS

What a weekend for sports fan like me! The Saturday didn't get off to a good start: Texas was upsetted by Iowa State after upsetting Nebraska the week before. I guess this team is just inconsistent. Wisconsin beat the other Iowa team though, in a really close game. Then came the news that the Giants has finished off the Phillies in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series. Finally, while waiting for the rain-delayed Korean Formula 1 GP, I have time to watch my taped NASCAR Nationwide race, featuring Danica Patrick and Justin Allgaier, who drove very well but couldn't win because of poor pit stops. It's sad to see that he might not get a ride next season. I thought with his good image and talent he should have been signed for the Sprint Cup series for next season already! I heard it has to do with his sponsor (Verizon Wireless) has to drop out because NASCAR has exclusive sponsorship deal with Sprint! BTW, Danica had another solid finish (22nd place)

I have waited and waited for hours for the start of the F1 race. Finally it's green flag and the championship leader Webber crashed with Rosberg and yellow flag flew again. Then I gave up and went to bed. I like the outcome though. With 2 races remaining, the championship is still wide open.

Nothing could have been more surprising than the Oakland Raiders beating up its rival Denver Broncos though. The Raiders was leading 38-0 in the 2nd quarter! I was interested in this game enough that I turned it on while driving (not enough to stay home and watch though)

Finally, I watched another taped NASCAR race. Fell asleep at the 400th lap (out of 500) Again, I like the outcome: Denny Hamlin won and is only 6 points behind 4-time defending champ Jimmie Johnson. So there's no guarantee that JJ will win it all again (boring!) but I think he's still the favourite (BTW, I read some fans comment that NASCAR helped JJ to win by choosing race tracks that favors him last week. I don't agree at all. JJ was simply GOOD! Last week he spun and got a flat tire. He didn't panic at all. All he did was patiently got in and out of the pit and gradually move up to the front again. I haven't seen another driver like that. Not even Jeff Gordon today)

Sports highlights (and lowlights): football, auto racing, baseball and golf

It has not been a very good weekend because almost every team/player I rooted for lost:
Texas losing to Oklahoma was kinda expected but they dropped out of Top 25 for the first time since 2000!
Wisconsin losing to Michigan State was not too surprising because they usually had a good start and then start losing to some semi-decent teams.
Will Power losing the IndyCar Racing League championship was not too surprising either given his not-too-great performances on the oval. It was disappointing to see his car hitting the wall and was not even able to finish the race.
As far as US losing the Ryder Cup to Europe is concerned, I wasn't even sure which team was the favourite. I was glad that Tiger won a few of his matches though. Give him some time and he will be back.
I didn't feel too bad to see St. Kilda losing the Aussie Rule Football grand final to Collingwood because I didn't root for either of them. It was just that the loss was too lopsided.
Man U didn't lose, but tying Sunderland while Chelsea beat Arsenal equalled to 2 points loss in the standing.
For a while I thought the Giants would suffer the same fate. In fact, they lost the first two games of the San Diego series to pave way to the dramatic finish: winning the division by winning the last game of the regular season! It was their first title since 2003. To be honest, before the season starts, it's hard to predict them to win without a premier hitter, which make this title an even bigger achievement!
Another exciting event was Chinese fighter made history in MMA in US. Tiequan Zhang, nicknamed the Mongolian Wolf, won his debut fight in WEC in US. Wish him more success!

Topic of the day: Taylor Guitar and GE Commercial

I was watching Ryder Cup coverage (on the background) and this commercial caught my attention: It's about Taylor Guitar got money from GE and one of GE's employee played their guitar at the factory, and played very well!

Oh well, too well! She didn't actually play it. It was achieved by clever videoediting.



The "real" guitarist was Marija Temo. Here is a video of her:

香港有史以來八間發鈔銀行

係邊八間？
答案在此

九龍地名剖析

亞皆老街、勝利道、自由道等等都是我們小時經常出沒的地方。這篇港台好文介紹了這些街名的由來。有趣的是，身為官台，卻公正地批評政府為了抬高價值而把地皮「搬區」。（九龍城說成在九龍塘）

Musician of the day: Edgar Meyer

Thanks to my wife, I got tickets to the opening concert of New Century Chamber Orchestra's new season, featuring double bassist Edgar Meyer. I have seen many great jazz bassist but this was the first time I saw a classical concert featuring bassist as soloist. Meyer definitely has the dazzling chops for that. He was not only exciting to listen to (making use of the whole range of the instrument from the booming bottom all the way up to the highs using harmonics) but also to watch: his fingers moving up and down and across the fingerboard is not unlike heavy metal guitar shredder at work. It turned out the piece he played was written by Giovanni Bottesini, aka "The Paganini of the double bass"

I was also the first time I heard Adagietto from Mahler's 5th live. I didn't know it could be performed by a chamber orchestra!

In addition to performing, Meyer is also a prolific composer. I am listening to his quintet right now(performed by Emerson String Quartet and himself. I find a bit unusual to listen to Emerson playing contemporary music. You would think this should have been a Kronos Quartet album!)

Tech of the day: anti-censorship tool

Unfortunately, this post is not introducing any. On the contrary, I just want to help debunk the myth of Haystack, which is a piece of software that was supposed to achieve this goal for people in countries in which the government heavily censor their citizen's internet usage. Check out this article, titled "The Great Internet Freedom Fraud". This is yet another case of hype over substance. To be a hero, you don't need to act like one. Instead, just sound like one.

Music of the day: Public Domain Music

I am listening to music from the MusOpen project right now. The goal of the project is to "set music free." A lot of recorded music are protected, meaning you can't just use them wherever you like (say, as the background music of a movie you shot) You might think it's OK if the music was written way back but it's not. It's because a piece of recording is protected by at least 2 copyrights: one for the underlying composition and one for the performance. For example, if you have the mp3 of a Beethoven Sonatina, you still might not be able to use it because even though the composition is not protected, the performance might still be. Currently the project is raising money to hire orchestra to record music such that both the composition and the performance itself are free. I saw someone criticized that the project should not focus on old/established works (aka warhorses) because one could easily buy such recording real cheap online but they missed the point. No matter how cheap those recordings are, you can't use them freely.

Sports highlights: Road course specialists

For IndyCar and NASCAR, road course expertise is certainly different from that of oval tracks. 4 time defending NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson has not won on road course until this year at Sonoma. In fact, he raced in other competitions at road course in order to prepare himself better and that paid off. At the other end of the spectrum is Juan Pablo Montoya, who has raced in Formula 1 before and now in NASCAR. He won two times so far in his NASCAR career, both on road course! There was a roughly half-half split between road course and oval for this IndyCar season. And IndyCar had its last road course race of the season the weekend before. Will Power was crowned the king of road course (for having the highest point total in all road course races. There will also be a champion for oval only and of course an overal champ) Power was also the overall point leader. However, his closest competitor, Dario Franchitti, was considered a better driver on oval than Power and could make up the difference in the remaining races. For a while during the race last weekend, Power proved that he was not just a road course driver but he could do as well, if not better than, Franchitti on oval. Unfortunately his car ran out of gas and Franchitti took a risk by not taking any tire at the pit to get to the front, and won!

For NASCAR, there was a different story: a group of drivers branded road course specialists race exclusively on the road course races of NASCAR (which is held much fewer than oval races) Boris Said is arguably the most famous among them (also because of his hair-do) In fact, some NASCAR drivers learned road racing skills from him. Last weekend NASCAR's 2nd tier Nationwide series raced on the Montreal road course. Said was one of the favourite again (many predicted him to do well in previous road races too but he has not won before, not counting his lone victory in NASCAR truck series) And he had to compete with the local favourite, the Canadian and former F1 champ, Jacque Villenevue. After the frontrunners all having trouble (bad battery, broken track bar and running out of feul), he took the lead and won the race. That's a feel good story. And I guess he didn't mind being a road course specialist last weekend.

Star of the day: Peter Lenz

Peter Lenz, a 13 year old motorcycle racer, died when he crashed at an Indy race last weekend. It was sad. I am sure he was a talented driver, competing this young at this level. RIP.

Topic of the day: Google = Invincible?

Well, Google is no longer selling Nexus One, once consider the iPhone killer. The sad part is, it wasn't even on my radar screen when it was announced a month ago!

Topic of the day: Canada to ban MMA

Canada has one of the best MMA fighter in the world, George St. Pierre! Ironically, British Columbia Medical Association is seeking to ban MMA in Canada. This link has a good analysis that showed why BCMA's arguments were bad. For one thing, there were more fatality involved in soccer. Canada might as well banned soccer!

Topic of the day: how my folding bike was saved

When I was riding my Downtube folding bike the other day, the chain all of a sudden fell off. And the 2 pieces of the chain guard (one on each side of the chain ring) were not held together anymore. I had to push it all the way home. I took it off after I got home:

Without this piece, the piece on the other side of the ride would not stay on either.

After further examination, I found one link of the chain is broken too:


I almost wanted to give up because I thought it would cost me quite a lot to buy a new chain as well as replacing the chain guard. Fortunately I didn't. Turns out the whole "repair" costed $6! I bought a few nuts/bolts/washers to reattach the remaining half piece of the chain guard to the chain ring. And with the help of Performance Bicycle in Mountain View, that 1 broken link in the chain was replaced. Now it works again :D

Music of the day: Jazz Organ Fellowship Gala

In the spectrum of popular jazz instruments, I'd say organ probably falls somewhere between violin and guitar. Joey DeFrancesco and Jimmy Smith are as big names as any other jazz greats but for some reason organ is not getting the attention it deserves. Only if someone would take action! And that someone is Pete Fallico, Founder and Executive Director of JOF (Jazz Organ Fellowship.) I really admire his efforts in raising the awareness of such a wonderful instrument and its players. I attended its 2nd annual gala/concert last night and saw wonderful performances by 3 organists: Tammy Hall, Atsuko Hashimoto and Trudy Pitts. Pitts is this year's JOF honoree. I am a fan of the organ trio format because most of them features a guitarist. And this performance featured the great (and local guitar hero) Mimi Fox as well as Yukata Hashimoto from Japan (husband of Atsuko)

This event was very inspiring. Maybe I should organize one for jazz violin some day!

Topic of the day: NIMBY

Just learned this new term (well, it's new to me) today because of the eviction of Ike's. Long story short: Ike's is a sandwich shop in the (SF) Castro neighbourhood. It was so successful that there were long lines outside the shop. And that caused problem with the people living upstairs, who complained about garbage and noise. Not sure if the complaint worked but turns out Ike's does not have the required license for its operation, according to the City. Anyway, it is facing eviction. Is this an act of "Not-in-my-back-yard"-ism? I dunno.

Sports highlights: Silva vs Sonnen, former F1 drivers in NASCAR

I have not watched any of Anderson Silva's fight live before this Sat but I'll make sure I do next time. The fight last Sat just added some more to his already legendary status. He was taken down and was dominated all 5 rounds and did not look like he had anything left to fight back. And then he did it! He submitted Sonnen. I guess that's why he's a legend.

Three former F1 drivers (that I know of) competed in NASCAR races this weekend. Both Villeneuve (the former F1 champ) and Piquet Jr did well in the Nationwide race (finished 8th and 7th, respectively) but they were 1-uped by Juan Pablo Montoya, who won his 2nd Sprint Cup races in his career. Both times he did in on a road course rather than oval. I guess he hopes Sprint Cup has more road course races than just 2 times per year!

Music of the day: Legend of the Ring

Just read an article about "Legend of the Ring", a condensed version of Wagner's masterpiece (consist of 4 operas) This is a funny quote from that review:

[it] resembles nothing so much as a PowerPoint mockup of one of the opera world's richest and most majestic creations. This is opera as performed by recent business school graduates; it feels as though the libretto is studded with "net-net," "bottom line" and "at the end of the day.

Well, I'm still curious enough that I might watch it some day!

Topic of the day: Simkins Hall renamed

I remember this dorm. One of our good friends from Texas used to live there. And it was the center of a recent controversy. For all these years we were at UT, we didn't know the name was dedicated to a former law professor who was a Klan member. I can't imagine being an African American knowing that fact could live in that dorm happily.

Star of the day: England World Cup team captain

His name is Mark Reynolds, a computer programmer. His team will start playing today in Lacrosse world championship hosted in Manchester. This event is just like its soccer equivalent, played every 4 years. Still, I will root for Team USA to recapture the title from Canada. I watched Team USA played against Major League Lacrosse All-Star team last week. Those guys are GOOD.

Topic of the day: NASCAR x Transformers

As a fan of both, I'm really excited that the next Transformers movie will feature NASCARs! From this link, you could see both #88, 48 and 42 (in NASCAR, they are driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr, Jimmie Johnson and Juan Pablo Montoya, respectively) I can't imagine Junior and JJ's cars to be decepticons but the #42 car fits that image!

香港 vs 美國

在香港，打警察一巴，上到法庭，官考慮判感化。
在美國，警察槍殺人，上到法庭，官已輕判了事。

Sports highlights: UFC, NASCAR at Daytona, CFL Kickoff, World cup

When Fedor lost the week before, naturally the attention turned to: who will be the next Fedor? Well, I am pretty sure both UFC heavyweights that fighted this weekend: Lesnar and Carwin, did not want to suffer the fate of Fedor, losing to a lesser opponent or be submitted. Lesnar almost did the former in the first round but Carwin was the one submitted in the second round. It was exciting to watch.

I am not a fan of Dale Earnhardt Jr (or his dad) but I was happy to see him winning the Nationwide race at Daytona running the number (3) that belonged to his dad. It was emotional. And the Sprint Cup race at Daytona was equally good. Hate to say this but the big wrecks were something to watch.

And of course, there were world cup quarter finals that featured quite a few instant-classic moments. The top one gotta be Suarez's handball save of the goal that would have sent his team out of the tournament and the subsequent missed PK by Gyan.

With all these events going on, I didn't realize it's CFL's kick off weekend! Thanks to CFL's official site, I caught the highlight of an exciting (high scoring) comeback win by Saskatchewan Rough Riders over the team that beat them in last Grey Cup, Montreal Alouettes.

Sports highlights: Fedor, F1, NASCAR, World Cup

What was the biggest upset of the week? I would say it was the top ranked MMA fighter Fedor losing to Werdum in their StrikeForce fight, not to mention, in the first round, by submission. It seems to me that Fedor was caught off guard and made a bad mistake. And he summed it up the best: "The one who doesn't fall, doesn't stand up." This perfectly described another fighter on the same card, Cung Le: he rebounded from his first loss in MMA, by beating the same opponent Scott Smith. He looked to be in a much better shape than the last time, when he just came back from a hiatus to acting in movies. His kicks were as spectacular as ever. I guess StrikeForce would be especially happy to see Cung Le back to his form after their biggest star Fedor fell.

Not much of an upset in F1. It was shown after the England vs Germany WC match so I almost missed it (and it's on FOX, a channel available at home!) When I tuned in, Webber has crashed already. Vettel had a good lead on Hamilton while Kobayashi was hogging up the traffic. I also saw Hamilton got "penalized" for passing the safety car. His was a pit drive-through penalty. How much position did he lose after he took the penalty? None! That was actually quite amazing and showed how far ahead he was in front of Kobayashi. Another highlight of the race was Kobayashi delayed the mandatory pit stop (for tire changing) until the last few laps of the race. When he came out of the pit, he was behind former champ Alonzo and the move he made to pass Alonzo was a pretty good one. That's Asian power on display!

Talking about Asian power, we saw Japan and South Korea advanced to the round of 16 in WC while traditional power houses (and recent champs) France and Italy went home. Although no one predicted either France and Italy would did great in the tournament, the way they went down could be considered as minor upsets too.

Finally, the upset I was rooting for in NASCAR didn't happen. It seems like Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson win every weekend (the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series, respectively) Danica finally returned to the Nationwide series but has yet another dissappointing finish. Looking forward to her next race in 2 weeks!

Topic of the day: Happy Father's Day

Well, actually it was a whole weekend: started with Dim Sum at Koi Palace on Saturday and ended with crepes at U Ave in Palo Alto. Of course, there were more in addition to food in between! The highlight was Palo Alto World Music Day (I know the website left a lot to be desired. I wasn't able to find the schedule/map on it at all) Basically the musicians played scattering throughout U Ave and you won't miss them if you just walk down the street. I enjoyed the performance of "Sound of China" (4 Guzheng + Pipa/Erhu), Palo Alto Jazz Quintet and Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra.

The organizer planned to have this as an annual Father's Day event. I'm looking forward to the next one!

Sports highlights: Green, Zito and Allgaier

Barry Zito beat his former team, the A's, for the first time on Sat, and has now defeated every MLB team, which I think is quite an achievement! According to Sportsnet Central, his record was 109-6 when he has 4 or more run support. His overall record for the current reason is 7-2. So, I feel bad for rooting against him in his down years as a Giant. He might not deserve that huge contract but he probably deserves more credit than given to him.

I think giving English goalie, Robert Green, a green jersey for the England vs. USA world cup match was a big mistake. He didn't need the constant reminder for his inexperience. Maybe the Apple Daily analyst is right: the best goalie on this team is worse than the worst one on the German team.

I don't have much time to watch sports this weekend but I did catch the NASCAR Nationwide race. Can you believe a pro racer would shift to a wrong gear? Well, Justin Allgaier did that in his #12 car by shifting from 2nd to 1st when he meant to shift to 3rd! Too bad 'coz he could have done much better than finishing 8th.

Finally, a big applause to NBC for broadcasting the first ever NCAA Rugby 7 championship. I think they did a good job in educating the audiences about the game. I have been watching for almost a year but still learned a great deal. Congrat to the Utah Utes for upsetting the Cal Bears in OT and won it all. What an exciting game!

Topic of the day: if you are a sports star, it is taking instead of stealing

I am referring to this incident: a Seattle Donut shop employee called 911 to report someone came in and stole some donuts. And that someone was not charged by the police. Well, that someone is Seattle Seahawk's new receiver Golden Tate. Don't try this unless you're a sports star (doesn't have to be that good as Tate hasn't even played a pro game yet)
BTW, the donut shop has recently signed a deal to sell donuts at Seatle Seahawk's stadium. I bet no one want to jeopadize that relationship, right?

Topic of the day: Foreigner to headline pre-race concert at Atlanta

My first reaction to this NASCAR.com headline is: Why is this news? Do we have to hire local bands to do the concert since this is in the South?

Then I remember: Foreigner is the band with the hit song "I want to know what love is"
Well, I was not the only one with this reaction. Check out the comments on my link. Some people do think the concert should feature country musicians.

Musician of the day: Pat Martino

Pat Martino Live at Yoshi's was one of my favourite jazz guitar CD. He was playing with organist Joey DeFrancesco and drummer Billy Hart on that disc. Finally I have seen the "real" thing: Martino played at Yoshi's in a trio setting again this week. This time was in SF though. (The CD was recorded in Oakland in 2001. The SF branch didn't exist back then.) And the organist was Tony Monaco. I liked his playing so much that I bought his CD, A New Generation: Paesanos On the New B3, back in 2004. Interestly, that CD also featured Joey DeFrancesco as guest.

I don't need to sing more praises for Martino's playing. Just want to mention the story he told: back when he was 16 years old, he played in a club call Small's Paradise in Harlem (BTW, I just read from a biography of Jimi Hendrix that he has also played there before he was huge.) And there was another nearby club in Harlem called Count Basie's. Wes Montgomery was playing there. Martino was close to Les Paul then. He was a fatherly figure to Martino. Martino took Les Paul to Harlem to see Montgomery during his break at his gig at Small's Paradise. During Montgomery's break, he came over to Martino and Les Paul and introduced himself. He said his 2 biggest influence was Charlie Christian, and guess who else? None other than Les Paul! Les Paul stayed there the whole night and Martino got back to his gig. When he was done and back to Count Basie's, 5 guitarists were hanging out outside the club. Who are the other 2? George Benson and Grant Green!

Star of the day: Armando Galarraga

Let's all urge MLB to do the right thing and credit Armando Galarraga with the perfect game that he deserved. Detroit Tigers' Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game against Cleveland Indian into the 9th inning with 2 outs. The 3rd one should have been an out too but the umpire screwed up the call (even he admitted it!)

I root for Galarraga especially because he was on my championship winning team in the fantasy league a few years ago (I picked him up as a free agent!) BTW, he is really a class act. He didn't even go into any heated argument with the umpire.

Sports highlights: UFC, F1 and mostly racing

It was Super 14's final last Sat. I couldn't watch the 2nd half but I guess I didn't miss much. The Bulls was leading at half time and went on to beat the Stormers and successfully defended their title. There won't be Super 14 next year as the league has expanded to 15.

The Rampage-Evans fight turned out to be not bad. Rampage looked passive in the beginning but he showed a bit of his old explosiveness at round 3. Evans did a great job trying to dominate.

The weekend was mainly about auto racing though: I watched both NASCAR races, Indy 500 and F1. I can't remember when was the last time the F1 race was actually more dramatic among all of them! I mean, the dominating driver in the beginning didn't win! The TV commentators mostly agreed that Vettel ruined teammate Webber's day but it wasn't so clear cut according to post-race analysis. After that crash, there was another close battle between teammates, Hamiton and Button. And that was just spectacular: Button passed the race leader Hamilton and the latter was able to regain his lead and went on to win. Another great finish I watched was the GT class of American Le Man Series at Laguna Seca Raceway at Monterrey. The Porsche passed the Bimmer at the final restart. These cars are more stock than those race for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (yeah, that's NASCAR) and they didn't need double file restart to have exciting passes during restart! It deserved to be more popular than it currently does. The coverage was not typical (wasn't even live). Instead, it's more like a documentary, which served as a great introduction to uneducated fans like me. As predicted, hardcore fans didn't like it but I agree with the posters here that it would have got even fewer audiences if the full 6 hour race was broadcasted. Kudo to CBS for showing it.

Congrat to Danica Patrick for her 6th place finish at Indy 500. It was much better than expected!

Star of the day: Barry Alvarez, newly elected college hall of famer

In my book, he is the best football coach ever (on a 2nd thought, maybe tied with Mack Brown and Jimmy Johnson :P) Congrat to him for being elected to the hall of fame! It is an amazing feat for him to turn around the Wisconsin football program that had been losing for a long time into a three-time Rose Bowl winner in a decade.

Music of the day: Purpose Built

This is an album by jazz bassist/band leader Michael Janisch. This album reminds me of Dave Holland's recent works. I believe that is a big compliment. Here is the line-up:
Michael Janisch: acoustic bass (1, 3-7, 9-11), electric bass (2, 8, 12); Aaron Goldberg: piano (2, 3, 9, 10); Jim Hart: vibraphone (1, 4, 6, 11); Jason Palmer: trumpet (2, 7, 8, 11); Paul Booth: tenor saxophone (1, 2, 6); Mike Moreno: guitar (2, 8); Patrick Cornelius: alto saxophone (5, 11); Phil Robson: guitar (5, 9); Walter Smith III: tenor saxophone (1, 8, 11); Johnathan Blake: drums.

And to be honest with you, I have not heard of any of them before but they all played impressively on this album.

Tech of the day: My非佛

鑑於富士康近月接連發生多名員工跳樓事件，本人建議各位iPhone用家下載「非一般唸佛機」App，南無阿彌陀佛。

Music of the day: Rainbow in the Dark

RIP Ronnie James Dio. The legendary heavy metal vocalist and band leader died on May 16th. I did not realize he was 67 as he always appeared so energetic. His work with Black Sabbath and his own band were amazing as he never sold out to the mainstream.

Tech of the day: Slingbox and Pace TDC577X DVR

I was trying to configure my Slingbox to use the new DVR we got from Comcast. For some reason this model does not show up from Slingbox's list. Fortunately, with the help of the great Google search (and more importantly, its cache) I found that I could tell Slingbox I am using a standalone DVR, then choose Comcast as the brand and DCT34XX as the model. (I should have thought of this since Comcast uses the same remote for all boxes anyway)

Star of the day: Viswanathan Anand, the world chess champion

Anand has just successfully defended his title from challenger Veselin Topalov, a former world chess champion as well. They were all tied through 11 games. Anand won the 12th and final game of this title match.

Star of the day: Dallas Braden

Another no-hitter from Bay Area's baseball team (Giant's Jonathan Sanchez did it last year)! And this one is even better: a perfect game (where 27 batters are all retired.) I was happy to see Mark Burhle threw a perfect game for White Sox last year. This one is certainly more surprising since Braden was not as highly regarded as Burhle. I hope the A's and Braden do better than the Sox and Burhle did the rest of the reason though (basically they went downhill from that game on)

Topic of the day: Progressive Insurance lives up to its name

Kudo to Progressive for being brave enough to go against conservatism in the States by making a commercial that feature a gay couple (not explicitly stated but a lot of people think so):


It's sad that so many businesses either pretend gay people do not exist or bow down to the extremely conservative/religious groups. I would sing more praises for them if the marketing guy at Progressive admit that's a gay couple (instead, he said they are modelled after Joey and Chandler from Friends but Friends expert like me know they are not) Besides, I really find that Progressive ad lady very annoying (my buddy agreed with me too)

Topic of the day: It's hard not to like SF

The title sounds like an old jazz standard but it's not (That would be "I left my heart in San Francisco") For one thing, you could always count on hearing live music somewhere. I went to Fishermen's Wharf earlier this week. Saw a guy playing classic tunes on violin and another guy playing blues guitar and harmonica. It was good entertainment. And during one of my regular bookstore trip, a gentleman saw me skimming through Michael Lewis' latest book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" (about the current recession and its cause: sub-prime mortgage) and started chatting with me. He was a teacher and had met Lewis in person at his school and gave high rave about this book.

The only disappointment in SF this week was actually not its fault: my buddy, a visitor, wanted to buy a Sony product so Sony Store immediately came to our mind. The Metreon (a complex with shops and movie theater) had a big Sony presence. It was a "flagship"-type of store that showcase Sony's great products (like TVs, camcorders and most prominently, video games) Too bad they were all gone! What a pity! There was a time that people flock to Sony Store. That's when people ridicule that Apple was trying to open its own retail stores!

Sports highlights: Champions League semi, Stanley Cup playoff, NASCAR

Who would have guessed it is Bayern vs Inter in the final 3 months ago? Most of our friends didn't even give Inter a chance 3 weeks ago! In order not to jinx the team I root for (like I did so many times on this blog before,) I am not going to mention which team it is.

I haven't watched much of Stanley Cup playoff so far. So glad that our local team, the Sharks, at least made it to the 2nd round, unlike last year. They won the President's Trophy (best regular season record) but lost in the first round so unexpectedly. Well, this year another President's Trophy winner got eliminated in the first round. I am not a fan of the Canadiens but it was exciting to see them beating the high-powered Washington Capitals. (In fact, 3 out of the last 5 President's Trophy winner were ousted in the first round! I guess no one wants to win it in the near future >:)

Last but no least, what an exciting finish for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Talladega last Sunday. As expected, there were a few big wrecks. And Kevin Harvick barely beats Jamie McMurray at the finish line, literally, at the 3rd green-white-checker restart. It is race like this that gets me addicted to NASCAR. For every boring race, you get something like this. Not a bad deal!

Tech of the day: HP bought Palm

In the storied history of Palm, one of the mobile computing pioneer, another new chapter has been written today: it was acquired by HP. As a gadget lover/user, Palm always has a special place in my heart. In the past I have owned 3 PDAs that run Palm OS (though only 1 was made by Palm. The other 2 were Visor made by HandSpring and the Watch PDA made by Fossil) Although many companies faded away quickly in the tech industry, it is still sad to see Palm going from having a really dominant product like Palm III, Palm V to having also-runs like Palm Pre (which probably has some good technologies but no one really cares) Almost everyone uses a Palm PDA 12 years ago. Now I do not know anyone that uses Palm Pre. The newest Palm I have seen my friends used was a Palm Centro! And Palm hasn't really have any game changing product since Treo 600, which was THE first successful smart phone with PDA and phone functionality integrated properly.

On the other hand, it seems fitting that Palm went to HP, who has made quite a few legendary mobile computing devices themselves, like the HP-71B, a handheld computer that runs BASIC and HP-200LX, a handheld that runs MS-DOS Even though HP seems to have lots its edge in building such devices, evident in the fact that they dropped their own Jornanda-line of Windows CE/Pocket PC in favor of the iPAQs from their acquisition of Compaq.

Will Palm ever be able to come up with another game changing/domainant device? Let's keep our finger crossed.

Movie of the day: Crazy Heart

I seldom watch Oscar but I did this year and saw Jeff Bridges won something for his performance in this movie. I like the Bridges brothers because of The Fabulous Baker Boys, a movie about a jazz piano duo (played by them) and drama caused by the addition of a female vocalist (played by Michele Pfeifer) It was one of my all-time-favorite movie. For some reason, I didn't realize Crazy Heart was also about music until I read about it from the cover story of the latest issue of Guitar Aficionado. From the same article I also learned that Jeff Bridges was actually a decent musician (he learned playing guitar for a long time) No wonder he was able to portray musicians so well in both movies.

Unlike the role of a jazz pianist from The Fabulous Baker Boys, Jeff Bridges played a country guitarist/singer in Crazy Heart. Country is not really my cup of tea so I have some doubts whether I would buy/rent it. Fortunately, it was available on my flight and there was no reason not to watch it for free. And I enjoy it a lot. I even enjoy the music to a certain extent. On the other hand, I'm not sure the movie is that great. For example, his relationship with his student (also a bigger star than himself) seemed a bit superficial.

Topic of the day: Cinderellas in college sports

From my experiences, college sports are full of upsets (well, at least I feel that it happens more often than pro sports. Maybe it's because pro teams are more consistent. Sometimes a heavy favourite is indeed much better than its opponents and thus no surprise. And the rest of the games are usually quite evenly matched and no surprise there either)

Butler, who made it to NCAA Basketball final as a #5 seed, was certainly the "Cinderella" that is getting a lot of attention this year. However, I would argue Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) was even more deserving because their hockey team went to final 4 as a #15 seed (among the 16 teams in the tournament) before losing to my Wisconsin Badgers.

According to this article, their players are "ordinary" science/engineering students (just like yours truly!) and didn't receive scholarship like the student athletes from schools in major sports conferences did. On the other hand, it actually helped the team to stay together longer instead of losing good players every years to pro leagues.

Sports highlights (and lowlights): MLB Opening week, Champions League, F1

Last weekend was not as eventful as the previous one but it was special because it was the opening week of the new baseball season, started with none other than Yankees vs Red Sox! The funniest thing was, the commentators mentioned this was supposed to be the year of defense but the offense exploded in the first game! Also on the next day, 3 games ended with winning teams scoring 11 runs (1 scored 16!) Another funny incident was that our own Giants, Eugenio Velez, made the news because his jersey has "San Francicso" misprinted on it :D

As far as boxing/MMA went, the "big" fight was Bernard Hopkins vs Roy Jones Jr and it was booooooring! Both of them looked way past them prime and have nothing left. None of them showed any stuff that could knock another down except low blows. I literally fell asleep during the final rounds, which was good for me 'coz I got some good sleep before watching F1 from Malaysia, which was not that exciting either but it was fun to see Alonso trying so hard to pass the car in front of him and ended up blowing his engine. BTW, the Taiwanese ESPN commentator was really good. He kept saying Alonso's car was problematic quite a few laps before the problem materialized.

Even though I tried hard not to watch the Man U vs Bayern Munich Champions League quarter-final 2nd leg, I got regular updates thru IM from my 2 friends (1 Man U supporter and 1 hater!) That's certainly heartbreaking to see them going from hopeful to hopeless for a Man U fan like me.

Caught a few minutes of NCAA Hockey Final 4 actions. Glad to see Wisconsin advanced to the final. Go Badgers!

Topic of the day: Cloud computing and pollution? Blame Apple!

A few years ago Greenpeace admitted that they picked on Apple so that more people were aware of the environmental impace of computer technology. You might think they won't do that anymore. Wrong! Here is a headline from AppleInsider: "Greenpeace criticizes Apple for carbon footprint of iPad cloud"

I am not trying to defend Apple/iPad but all computing "gadgets" (e.g. smartphones, netbooks) these days are constantly making use of the internet (call it the cloud if you insist)

However, I do agree that our world will be less polluted without the cloud. Consider this, if everything is stored locally on your HD:
1) it uses less energy since you have to pay your own electric bill and more likely to turn off your computer (and thus the HD) when you're out.
2) you would be constantly deleting unnecessary data instead of simply adding yet another HD. On the contrary, with all these providers offering high limit free storage in the cloud, you won't bother to delete the junk.

Trivia of the day: honey and golf

I learned this from radio yesterday: in the past, golf ball manufacturers used honey as the core of golf balls!

Sports highlights: GSP, F1, Hong Kong 7 plus more

Last weekend began with an NRL game. Then there were a couple of big events during the weekend: George St Pierre totally dominated in his UFC fight against Hardy. Gotta give some kudos to Hardy though 'coz he really defended hard and avoided submission (his arm was twisted really bad twice but he survived!) The F1 race in Australia was much more excited than expected, probably because of the rain. It was exciting to see Hamilton quickly catching up near the end of the race, which caused Webber to crash (and he couldn't pass Alonzo either) Of course, the home team winning the Shield in Hong Kong Seven Rugby was huge too. (It was not the Cup, but we were happy for the team no matter what)

Both the IndyCar race at St. Petersburg and NASCAR at Martinsville were delayed from Sunday to Monday because of rain. Both were exciting! My idol Danica Patrick had a decent showing by finishing 7th. And Denny Hamlin's surge from 3rd to 1st during the final restart (with 2 laps remaining) at Martinsville was simply unbelievable! Everyone thought he was done when he went to the pit and gave up the lead a few laps earlier in the race.

Also catched an Aussie rule football match, a bit of NLL and NCAA Hockey (Go Badgers!)

Tech of the day: turns off iPhone data

You might think the title sounds stupid: the whole point of having a smartphone like iPhone is for its data capability (i.e., web surfing) What's the point of having one if you turn that off? Well, some people (not me) unlock their iPhone to be used on other networks, which might not have an all-you-can-eat data plan like AT&T. To avoid being charge for data usage at all, it is a good idea to turn it off altogether. Unfortunately, phones like mine that are bought from AT&T, such option is not available. In this case, faking the APN would be your workaround.

To access a data network, iPhone uses something called APN (access point name) The idea is to give it a bad APN so that data would be "turned off." There is a website that allows user to download a profile for that purpose but I had a problem with it (no data access even after I remove the profile! I had to "Reset network setting" to have it back)

Fortunately, there is another tool called FakeAPN (available from iSpatio's Cydia repo http://ispaziorepository.com/) which is an add-on to SBSettings.

In case you haven't installed SBSettings, it is another great app available on Cydia. Basically it gives you a panel that you could access anywhere (simply swipe the top edge of your screen) The panel contains button for toggling 3G, Bluetooth, Wifi, Power/Reboot...... etc. So you don't have to go thru the tedious Settings anymore.

BTW, there is another useful SBSettings add-on called UAFaker, which allows user to toggle between Mobile Safari's default user agent and a custom defined one. I wrote about the need to switch user agent before. After it is installed, you will also need to put your custom user agent string in this file on your iPhone:
/var/mobile/library/SBSettings/Toggles/UAFaker/UAFaker.plist

Tech of the day: tells VLC not to fix your AVI

The video I shot with my Canon TX1 is in a unusual video codec: MJPEG. Whenever I play them in VLC, VLC will detect the index of the AVI file is incorrect and ask if I want to fix them. Of course I'd rather leave the file as-is. There is a way to turn this off:
In VLC, choose Tool->Preferences
Check the radio button for showing all settings.
Then choose Input / Codecs -> Demuxers -> AVI
And select "Never fix" from "Force index creation"

Topic of the day: Tai Chi or Christian?

Christians are not allowed to practice Tai Chi, according to this church. In fact, they have banned the Tai Chi class that used to take place at their church. My understanding of Tai Chi is quite limited but I thought it is more related to Taoism, the philosophy, rather than the religion with the same name. I had never worshipped any Tao deity while practicing Tai Chi! (Maybe that's why I was no good!?) Shaolin Kung Fu probably has more influenced from Budhism than Tai Chi from Taoism (the religion) Still, it's perfectly normal for non-Budhist to practice Shaolin Kung Fu. Once again it shows how ignorant and close minded these people could be.

Topic of the day: GoDaddy stop going in China

Another high-profile tech company (coincidentally, it also starts with a G!) is pulling out its business from China. GoDaddy is well-known for its racy commercials and hot spokeswomen (one of them is my idol, race car driver Danica Patrick) In case you don't notice, their main business is registering domain names (also sells cheap web hosting service)

I'm not sure how popular it is in China though. Maybe it does not hurt them that much by not offering .cn domain names? I don't know.

Musician of the day: John H. Clarke

I just came back from Pier 39 and saw Spanish/Classical guitarist John Clarke playing there. Very creative playing.

Even though it was just him and his guitar (a cool looking thinline nylon string acoustic guitar), it sounded like he has percussion backing him up. His trick was: in the beginning of each song, he will tap/scratch his guitar and "save" it to his Boss RC-50 looping station, which will play it back, controlled by the foot switches. He also used a Yamaha MagicStomp for acoustic guitar effect.

Musician of the day: Svend Asmussen

Mr. Asmussen is a 94 years old jazz violinist. During his long and still on-going career, he has played with the best of the best in jazz, including Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington! I have been listening to his albums (Still Fiddling, Makin' Whoopee!... and music!) and enjoyed them very much.

Joke of the day: What is a string quartet?

My teacher taught me today:

A good violinist, a bad violinist, a failed violinist, and someone who hates violinists.

Music of the day: The Melody of Rhythm

It was a collaboration between tabla player Zakir Hussian, double bassist Edgar Meyer, banjoist Bela Fleck, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Hussian and Fleck are both the most well-known players of their respective instrument but Edgar Meyer's playing is eqaully amazing. I forgot it's a double bass! This is refreshing music. Here is an interview by NPR (the public radio station)

Sports highlights: NRL, Pacquiao, IndyCar

It was the opening weekend of National Rugby League (Australia/New Zealand.) I watched one game, of course.

The biggest event was Pacquiao vs Clottey. Not a particularly interesting fight since the Clottey was blocking his head most of the time and did not try that hard to fight Pacquiao back.

The best one was Indy Car's season opener in Sao Paolo, which featured a whole lot of lead changes! And you seldom hear people praising sports coverage these days (see the comment section)

Musical of the day: The Phantom of the Opera 續集

讀了才子陶傑今天在《蘋果日報》的專欄，方知Andrew Lloyd Webber有新作，更是我至愛的The Phantom of the Opera 續集！本來想為本文標題《老貓燒鬚》，但怕人誤會我指的是Andrew Lloyd Webber，其實我想話陶傑！

以下節錄自原文：

新作是《歌聲魅影》的續集。戲名Love Never Dies，略嫌白了一點，不像《貓》（Cats）、《棋》（Chess）、《星光快車》（Starlight Express）一樣有遐想的餘地，但今天是網絡世代，八十後的觀眾，不喜歡咀嚼含蓄，只求一Q到位。......韋伯最叫座的音樂劇像顧嘉煇和黃霑，都由添萊思（Tim Rice）填詞。

看上文下理，相信你也會和我一樣，以為Chess也是Andrew Lloyd Webber的作品，其實作者是前ABBA成員Björn Ulvaeus 和Benny Andersson才對。

最後一句也有問題，Andrew Lloyd Webber最叫座的音樂劇是Phantom和Cats，但兩者都不是Tim Rice填詞；反而之前提過的Chess卻是。

我作為一名棋迷，竟然不知有Chess這部音樂劇，也多得他的錯誤，我才會去Wikipedia認識一下該劇！

Topic of the day: Weaponizing Mozart

When you see some teenagers gathering outside your place, what's the best way to drive them away? I've just learned of one way from UK.

Remember it has been reported that US blasted Metallica's music in Iraq? Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica, even protested about it. I guess blasting Metallica to teenagers in UK won't work though. You gotta find some music they absolutely do not like. (Metallica got themselves disqualified by releasing their comeback album "Death Magnetic" last year) So, some UK cities are blasting Beethoven and Mozart instead!

What's wrong with those people?

Musician of the day: Gyan Riley

I saw guitarist/composer Gyan Riley's show at Yoshi's this Monday. What an amazing solo (classical) guitar performance! He played Bach's Suite for Lute and his own composition inspired by that piece. Followed by a piece by Agustín Barrios. Then he played 4 of his own etudes that addressed 4 different guitar techniques.

As a (no good) guitarist, I enjoyed his playing very much and liked the way he explained his techniques. Also, it's interesting to hear classical musicians playing their original compositions instead of the standard repertoire over and over again.

When I got home, I found from his website that he has played worked by Terry Riley so I finally realized he is Terry's son! Also listened to his non-classical (fusion/jazz) CDMelismantra on Rhapsody. He is one versatile player!

Finally, I want to mention this show is part of the bay area classical radio station "KDFC @ Yoshi's" monthly concert series. According to them, the goal is to bring live classical music into a more relaxed environment where people can have a drink and "don't need to worry about clapping in the wrong place." I think this is indeed an interesting idea. In fact, Gyan Riley did tell us we could clap anytime between movements and didn't need to wait 'til the whole suite was performed! As far as drawing new listeners to classical music is concerned, I'm not too sure. I mean, before I became a fan of classical guitar and was just your typical jazz fan, I checked Yoshi's schedule from time to time but I doubt I would be attracted by this show. On the other hand, any guitar player would have enjoyed this performance no matter what style s/he plays.

Game of the day: Kisei Game 5

It was actually played last week. Cho U (張栩) defeated Yamashita Keigo to win his first Kisei (棋聖) title, to complete his career grand slam (won all major Japanese titles in Go) Only Cho Chi-Kun (趙治勳) has done that before!

Topic of the day: alcohol, so what?

This is another story related to "moral police" and Olympics, after the foul language incident I wrote about last week: the Canadian women hockey team beat US in the gold medal game yesterday. Afterwards, they came back to the ice to celebrate with champagne, beer and cigar. They were criticized for disrespect to their country and the Olympic spirit. Take it easy, people! Let's not blow things way out of proportion. The only issue I have with this incident is that Marie-Philip Poulin, who scored both goals for Canada, doesn't turn 19 -- legal drinking age in British Columbia -- until next month. And she was seen with beer in her hand. Well, the legal drinking age is 18 at Alberta, where the team trains. Maybe she's not aware of the higher age limit in B.C.

Music of the day: O mio babbino caro

I know playing opera tunes on violin sounds kinda cheesy. Well, Joshua Bell did it (on his Romance of the Violin album) too so it feels a bit more justified. I gotta admit I like it a lot when I heard it on the radio yesterday. I've got the sheet music and this will be the song I practice next!

Animal of the day: Komodo dragon

My son taught me something new today: Komodo dragon is the biggest and heaviest lizard in the world.

Sports highlights: Super 14 Rugby, Winter Olympics plus more

My weekend began with Super 14 Rugby on Friday night. Saturday morning, Man U vs Everton was on ESPN. Then Inter Milan vs Samdoria. NASCAR Nationwide Series (yes, I watched because of Danica) UFC (What a quick knockout) NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. And winter olympics (curling and hockey) of course!

Life is not bad after super bowl.

Topic of the day: foul language, so what?

Nowadays media is ruled by moral police. There are so many things you can't say on TV, as if TV is the only place people could hear foul language.

So it is a rarity to see a piece from mainstream media (Yahoo) that is brave enough to go against this. Here is the story: NBC showed Shaun White, who won a gold in Winter Olympic's halfpipe competition, chatting with his coach. And the conversation involved lots of foul language. The writer of that piece said that it's not wrong for White and his coach to have that conversation. It's NBC's fault for showing it. I couldn't agree more.

Tech of the day: Windows Server 2008 and WiFi

I played with a Windows Server 2008 (64 bit) laptop today. It is totally vanilla without any driver installed (not even Ethernet!) So I got my hands full. The first thing to do is, of course, google "windows server 2008 wifi driver" And I found 2 useful links:

1) Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation
It introduced to me a useful shareware Lavalys Everest Ultimate Edition This tool was able to tell me which Wireless Controller I have. And I just googled and downloaded its driver for Vista 64 bit.

This link also showed me how to open up Server Manager (and then Device Manager) to pick the Network Controller device and install its driver from the previously downloaded file.

2) Windows Server 2008 and WIFI
This showed how to open Server Manager and "Add Features" to add the "Wireless LAN Service"

After that, viola, the familiar WiFi connection icon magically appears!

Topic of the day: teleprompter vs handprompter

Republican superstar Sarah Palin criticized President Obama for using teleprompter before. Now we all know why. She uses the more environment friendly handprompter instead! Please check out the picture in this link.

Topic of the day: Pac 12

Just read an article about the possibility of expanding the Pac 10 conference to 12 teams (i.e., Pac 12) The 2 ideal additions would be Utah and BYU. I guess it would be a good move for them as well as the stronger teams in Pac 10. They all could get more high quality opponents, at least for football. I would welcome our local TV showing Stanford vs. Utah and California vs. BYU!

Topic of the day: Boredom can kill you

Literally! It's not a joke, according to this study. Even if your life is full of mundane chores and you barely have any time left for yourself, there are still plenty of possibilities, for example, take an online class from your nearest college. Or it could be as simple as reading a book from a famous author you have never read. Don't let boredom kill you.

Topic of the day: Facebook and Hong Kong politics

The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) is a Communist China leaning political party in Hong Kong. A Facebook group named 《我相信可以召集１００，０００ 個厭惡民建聯的人！》(which means I should be able to find 100000 people who dislike DAB) was established in July 2008 to condemn the questionable practices of this party. Facebook removed this group this morning, when the group has over 84k members and inching closer to the 100k goal.

The membership of this group has been growing steadily since it was established and it grew rapidly from 30k to 84k since last October because of the hi-speed rail controversy.

A lot of Hong Kong netizens are wondering why Facebook did this. It would be absurd if it was pressured by the party itself or even the Chinese government.

A new group has been formed as a replacement.

Stars of the day: 2010 NFL Pro bowler

A lot of fans complained that it is dumb to have pro bowl a week before the super bowl because the players from the super bowl teams won't be playing.

Well, I have no complaint. In fact, I think I'll enjoy this pro bowl a lot because both Vince Young and Tony Romo will be playing! They were both selected to replace other injured QBs.

Topic of the day: Dictionary = book banned in school

And it happens in (Southern) California! The Menifee Union School District has pulled the Merriam-Webster's 10th edition dictionary from school shelves because it includes the term "oral sex" and a parent complained about it. What's wrong with you SoCal folks?

五千年文明古國?

無意之中見到一篇質疑中國為五千年文明古國的文章，是對是錯，我對中史認識不足以判斷，不過讀讀也無壞。

Topic of the day: Personal finance advices

Normally I don't read these type of articles. There are tons of "Top 10 things you should avoid to save money" articles flying around. Usually the no.1 has to do with not buying coffee from American's favourite coffee shop and make your own at the office instead (I don't even drink coffee myself. I just own their stock)

And I have just read the worst ever this morning, a Top 6 this time. Two of them are just plain obvious: avoid withdrawing from ATM that would charge you a fee and cancel your credit card that charges you annual fee. Come on! Who doesn't know that? Another "advice" is not ordering soda when eating out with your family. Assuming a family of 4, that amounts to $624 per year and I quote:

If you invest $624 at the market average of 9% a year every year, you would have almost $32,000 at the end of 20 years.

If your investment returns 9% a year every year, why bother about the cost of soda?

Topic of the day: Earthquake at Haiti

It is sickening that someone try to blame the disaster on the local people! Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson claimed the Haitians had made a pact with the Devil to drive out the French who occupied the country in 1791 and thus cursed. The earthquake was the result of the curse. This article gives more details on what happened back then and why Robertson's claim actually made his Christian god looks bad.

This is actually the third pieces of negative news related to Christian I read this week. It has been reported that World Vision, a highly regarded Christian charitable organization, discriminates against non-Christian job applicants but it receives $250 million grant from US government and thus different from other religious entities like churches. Finally, Vatican criticized the blockbuster hit movie Avatar for promoting human's love of the nature. To be honest, it really doesn't make much sense. Even for those believe in the Christian God, shouldn't they also love the nature, which is supposedly their God's creation?

50後阻住60後上位

最近常常聽見香港人談論50後阻住80後上位，新一代沒有機會云云。其實這個不是甚麼新鮮事，在位的如果坐得太舒服，又怎肯離開座位？美國電視界剛剛就有一單：話說NBC的老牌深夜清談節目The Tonight Show，自92年起由50後棟篤笑藝人Jay Leno主持，04年他和NBC續約五年，NBC當時已安排Leno約滿後該節目由60後的Conan O'Brien接任。09年六月，該節目按協定換人。滿以為Leno會退休或轉到另一個電視台，原來NBC已安排他主持一個較早時段性質相近的節目，並於九月啟播。不過三個月後，謠傳公司將再安排他重掌The Tonight Show。

坦白講，誰人主持和我關係不大，皆因我甚少看該節目。雖然以前Leno主持時期我會偶爾一看，但從不少網民的評價看來，Conan實在做得不錯。上位的機會得而復失，我想很多人會替他不值。

新晉小提琴家Ann Marie Calhoun

這位可能是繼Vanessa Mae後另一位將會紅起來擁有亞裔血統的女小提琴家。她有份參與荷里活大製作福爾摩斯的配樂，亦是Yanni及Steve Vai樂隊的成員。

和另一位小提琴家Samvel Yervinyan比試：


為搖滾結他大師Steve Vai的live performance伴奏：

Book of the year: The Rescue Artist

To be more precise, it's my book of 2009. It was not the best book I read last year but I spent almost the whole year to finish it! The subject itself is very interesting: it's about the theft of the famous modern painting "The Scream" Still, to fill up a whole book, the author had to pull in a lot of related and not-quite-related stories. The ones about the personalities/anecdotes of the detective who recovered it could get boring some times. On the other hand, the ones about other famous paintings that have been stolen before were mostly interesting. For example, I learned about Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by its worker named Vincenzo. The theft itself was not as interesting as the scam related to it! Allegedly, an Argentinean con artist named Eduardo de Valfierno convinced Vincenzo to steal the Mona Lisa. According to Wikipedia, Valfierno commissioned the French art forger Yves Chaudron to make copies of the painting so he could sell them as the missing original! He actually made more money by doing this than selling the stolen piece. If you are interested in other famoust art theft, check out this link. Of course, you could also read this book :P

I just dug out my original post that I wrote when I bought the book a year ago. It's the 2nd and also the last book I bought from Stacey's. Can't believe this iconic bookstore has been closed for about a year! It will be missed.