Ubuntu 14.04 System freezes on wakeup from suspended state

After using Ubuntu on my Toshiba Satellite notebook for 2 days, the most annoying issue that prevented me from keep using it is actually an oven-overlooked feature: suspend. The title of this post said it all (in fact, you could google it and find a post on AskUbuntu) That's how I found out it has to do with the Nvidia (display) driver. However, I didn't follow the suggestions there (there's a link to a post in which a reply listed a multi-steps complicated solution) to make Ubuntu using the Nvidia proprietary driver) Instead I use the Ubuntu built-in "Additional Driver" utility. Switched from the open source driver to the proprietary one (the first choice, see image):

After making this change and reboot, I am able to suspend and wakeup :)

Cloning hard drive with open source software

You might have listened to me griping about my misbehaving PC lately. If things go well, I might be able to make it work again by cloning my old hard drive to a new one. Cloning software existed for a long time but I have never tried any because I didn't want to pay. This article explains how to use the open source Clonezilla.

Good question, bad question?

今日見到一則圍棋新聞標題提及香港記者難倒殿堂級大師李昌鎬，原來是採訪李參加的三星杯。

記者難倒李昌鎬的三個問題是：

• 圍棋的本質是甚麼？
• 如何看待勝負？
• 對圍棋的境界如何解釋？

李昌鎬雖然外號「石佛」，倒不見得擅長說法。面對空泛的問題，他來個籠統的答案：這三個問題需要一輩子來探尋，也無可厚非；接著還使上一招順水推舟，請身旁的日本大師高尾紳路來答，高尾也高章，說如果李答不了的話，這世上都無人能答了。

為甚麼記者會問如此空泛的問題？可能根本對圍棋及棋壇動向欠缺認識吧。頗有興趣知道是那間傳媒的記者！

Jazz playlist

Just realized I haven't written a post about my Jazz playlist since Jan. I was in the mood of discovering more "new" albums and found a few good ones from the Downbeat magazine and the radio station KCSM.

I first wrote about trumpeter David Weiss last year for his big band release of Wayne Shorter's music. His 2014 album features a smaller ensemble yet equally enjoyable: "When Words Fail" which paid tributes to the jazz musicians and family members who passed away recently.

Speaking of big band, which I was not familiar with, I did listen to an impressive arrangement of "Emily" by Bob Florence Limited Edition (yes, that's the name of the band) on the 1997 release named "Earth" Interestingly, most of the reviews on Amazon praised the same piece! 

The next album is from another trumpeter named David (Dave Douglas), "Time Travel" from 2013. Very modern sounding but not hard to digest.

I saw saxophonist Melissa Aldana played at the famous Small's jazz club in the village in NYC 2 years ago. She played with the Crash Trio on this latest album. Her sound reminded me of Joe Lovano. That's a big compliment to any jazz musician!

Unlike Aldana, fellow female saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom has been a well-established voice in the scene for years. For beautiful sound of soprano sax, none could beat her 2013 release "Sixteen Sunsets." It's literally out of this world.

Last but not least, the prolific pianist Kenny Barron showed yet another side of his superb artistry in the Brazilian flavored 2013 release "Kenny Barron and the Brazilian Knights" The sound of the harmonica by one of the "knights", bossa nova master Mauricio Einhorn, fits perfectly with the mood of the album. Check out his 2007 album "Conversa de Amigos 2" for some tasty jazz played by the group he led.

Beethoven and movies

I was chatting with some friends on the topic of learning more about great artists/musicians.  My answer is simple: movies!

For Beethoven, it's easy: Immortal Beloved is critically acclaimed. The radio station WQXR actually came up with a list of Top 5 Beethoven (the composer, not the dog) centric movies.

For Jimi Hendrix, just wait til this September when "Jimi: All Is by My Side" comes out.

For Frida, obviously there is "Frida" starring Salma Hayek.

While researching this, I am surprised there's no biopic made for jazz giants like Miles and Coltrane! Well, you could always come talk to yours truly.

四個小生去Field trip之踩爆Guadalupe River Trail

週末一時興起決定和朋友由北聖荷西踩單車來回市中心的San Pedro Market Square。那段單車徑我並不陌生，當年新買Vilano Road Bike一到手就是由Alviso開始踩相連的單車徑試車，還記得有一段碎石路，顛簸得很。之後也曾用我的Downtube摺車踩過，由玫瑰園開始，在機場附近爆胎收場。今次舊地重遊，還帶了兒子，這個暑假開始和結束都讓他各踩一次「長途」（上次是18英里的溫哥華士丹利公園及獅門橋）起初7英里相當平靜，只見不少球迷前往附近新建的Levi Stadium，踩至機場，當然少不了和機場大樓那畫滿手的外牆拍照，還和大家提起上次爆胎一事。

不提由自可，一提就歷史重演！四架單車中有兩架爆了內胎，一架則是外呔破裂，結果唯有前往最近的單車舖La Dolce Velo，推車1.5英里說長不長說短也不短；換完後胎，幸好請師傅順便檢查一下前胎，才發現也被一小塊乾硬的具尖刺植物部份刺破，亦要更換。到達Market時已被原定時間遲了1.5小時，大家當然飽餐大喝一頓，Port Brewing Co的Old Viscosity Ale被評分100，飲完頓覺再辛苦也值得！回程時較大風及曬，加上友人又再爆胎，也花了好一段時間才完成全程，總之就是有驚無險！

Guitar diplomacy

40 years after the historic ping-pong (a.k.a. table tennis for American) diplomacy between US and China, John Kerry wrote a new chapter: guitar diplomacy. Check out this article with a video showing John Kerry playing guitar after his big meeting with Chinese officials. The article also included reviews of his playing by some experts, including THE instructional video guru Esteban! I agree that he played at the level of an amateur who were once a competent player. In any case, that's gutsy.

BTW, this is post #700 on this blog!

More metal. RIP Robin Williams

I checked out the MyRadio feature on Rhapsody today. So it basically plays tracks that I recently listened to, e.g. Overkill's new 2014 album "White Devil Armory" They never disappoint and always stay true to their thrash metal root. That set me in the mood for more metal: Morgengrau's "Extrinsic Pathway" and Pentacle's "Under the Black Cross" Both captured the classic death metal sound and they will be playing at Thee Parkside this month.

This is kinda metal-related: I read an article about Ozzy Osbourne thanking the late Robin Williams for visiting his wife when she got cancer. Sad to see a great actor leaving us.

The MMA Experience

I have been a fan of fight sports for years but I saw my first fight live (boxing) only last year and my first MMA event, Dragon House 17, last weekend. Kezar Pavillion was a small venue and we bought VIP seats so we got real close to the actions. I knew it won't be like watching on TV with many different angles and replays but I didn't miss much of it. 13 fights were on the card. 9 of them were KO or submission. And none of them was boring. I'm surprised by the quality of the fights given these are not big names from UFC. We were impressed by the victory of Robert Prakhantree who was taken to the ground by Alex Uribe but got on top later and ground-and-pounded to win. The Light Heavyweight Championship fight between Marcel Fortuna and Mike Ortega was another good one: Fortuna seized the opportunity to summit Ortega via rear-naked choke. Definitely looking forward to attending more local MMA events.

沒女=蝗語

想不到一星期內要鬧TVB兩鑊，我在此呼籲大家不要使用沒女一詞，老實說，用普通話讀還算語帶雙關玩字音，在香港說就真是低俗不堪了。何況有幾多人真正百無？樣貌天生無得說，但身材勻稱可靠運動，學識更是努力可得；不過有缺點不肯改善的人也多的是，電視台硬要無限放大爭取收視，實在缺德。

Sports highlights: International Champions Cup, MLB, NASCAR

I stayed home quite a bit this weekend and thus watched quite a bit of sports. First of all, MLB trading deadline was passed last week, which kinda grabbed my attention and I watched a bit of these 3 series during the weekend:
SF vs NY Mets: the Jake Peavy deal hasn't helped the team yet as he went 0-2 in the first 2 games with the Giants (he did pitch a few perfect innings in his 2nd game) Hopefully he still have something left in his tank. And ironically SF won all the other 3 games showing quite a bit of offense and power.
Oakland vs KC: the A's lost the series. Maybe trading away the All-star outfielder Yoenis Cespedes hurt them after all. The only game they won was started by Jon Lester (the pitcher they traded Cespedes for) so it's still not that bad.
Yankees vs Red Sox: Red Sox traded Stephen Drew to the Yanks at the deadline. Drew got 4 RBIs on the series finale while Cespedes hit .143 with 0 HR and 0 RBI in 2 games with the Red Sox. Enuff Said.

Even though the World Cup is over, the fever has not totally subsided. EPL is starting in 2 weeks anyway. 
Man U vs Real Madrid: I know it's a meaningless pre-season game. Still, a win is a win. (A US-record setting attendance means something too) No complaint.
SJ Earthquake vs Seattle Sounders: another record set: it's the first ever game played at the new Levi's stadium in Santa Clara. And it's won by the local team (and the underdog)  Victories would not be something I look forward to there.

I usually watch my NASCAR races tape-delayed by days. Well, finally I had time to watch all 3 on Sat and Sun! What an exciting finish of the Sprint Cup race at the Poconos! The leaders were trying different strategies: Biffle was in fuel-saving mode. Gordon got 4 new tires. Jr got no new tire. Jr managed past Biffle after the restart. Gordon was not able to get back in front while Harvick was charging hard to the front. Then another restart. I thought Harvick might be able to win it but at the end Jr held on.

俾個like陳校長，俾個dislike CCTVB

香港的電視劇，我好少承認我有睇（除左今年那些年情懷爆燈的《女人俱樂部》）期望既然不高，就算再差也懶理；但今次這套《我們的天空》離譜得令我不能不「幫港發聲」

話說香港一位陳葒校長義務為學生補習，傳媒表揚他實在應該；但無線這集《我們的天空》之《非常校長》標明以陳校長真人真事為藍本卻歪曲事實，必須譴責！劇中校長被香港人業主迫遷，受內地富商捐助支持，陳校長出post證實純屬捏造，甚麼人被刻意醜化及美化，明顯不過。

Free admission to museums

Growing up I am used to paying admission fees to get into popular museums like the Space Museum in Hong Kong or the MET in New York. Then I found out a lot of museums have free admission days (like every Wed in most museums in HK or some Sundays in SF) so I would plan my visits accordingly. Finally, there are museums that are free all the time, like the Smithsonian in Washington DC, Cantor Arts Center in Stanford, Triton in Santa Clara (which I just visited yesterday for the exhibition of 10 artists inspired by John Lennon's "Imagine" and 2014 Photography competition) BTW, the $25 admission fee people paid at the MET is actually the "recommended" amount only. I could have paid $0.01 to get in :(

What started this post though, was the HK government backed "Sport For All" day: all government-run sports facilities (e.g. public swimming pool) were open free-of-charge to the public yesterday. Inspired by this, one newspaper columnist suggested that the government should offer full-time free admission to all museums in HK to encourage creativity of its people. At a first glance this seems to be a great idea but then I read the comment sections and saw a ton of naysayers: most think such policy would be abused: those free museums would have been "occupied" by the elders or tourists who simply enjoy free A/C and also kids treating the places as playgrounds (and the displayed pieces as toys!) This is sad but true: a reflection of the quality of the people (or the lack thereof.) There's no such problem with the free museums in the US from my limited experiences.

Using Oracle SQL Developer with MySQL database

I have been using the free Oracle SQL Developer as my main "alternative" to the text-based SQL Plus client for a while. I have used TOAD before. My co-w's favorite was Golden32. Even though I work with the database quite a bit, I am actually not too picky about what client to use. After all, there are times I have to get on to the database server itself and use SQL Plus. Any GUI is a luxury compared to that. Recently I needed to work on a MySQL database so I wonder if I could "re-use" SQL Developer. I didn't have high-hope to begin with (the alternative would have been the free MySQL Workbench from MySQL.) After all, it's from Oracle and might work with Oracle DB only. MySQL was acquired by Sun which was acquired by Oracle though. It turns out Oracle SQL Developer does work with MySQL (since 2007) I learned from this page that all it takes is opening Tools > Preferences > Databases and there is a third party JDBC driver. Simply add the MySQL Connector JAR. I also opened Help > Check for updates and get the MySQL related update. Not sure if it's really necessary. These links (1,2) did not mention this step. Another MySQL tip I learned today was how to limit the number of rows it queries. In M$ SQL Server, you simply add TOP [N] after SELECT. For MySQL, it's adding LIMIT [N] at the end.

Some new (and old music)

Some of the albums mentioned here actually came from a post that I started last year but never finished :P I couldn't believe I missed the SFJAZZ concert by Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood last month (what else better could I have done instead?)Well, there's another funky group featuring guitar and organ called Organissimo that I "discovered" last year. I must have been in the mood of trio when I started that post because I was also listening to the avant-garde Tin Hat Trio's "Book of Silk" (love the instrumentation with violin and accordion) as well as the Steve Kuhn Trio's "Life's Magic" (Very interested in listening to his 2009 release of "Mostly Coltrane" with Joe Lovano on sax)

I have listened to some more old music of the recently passed away blues rock guitar great Johnny Winter. Alex Skolnick from Testament recommended "Nothing but the Blues" while "Live Johnny Winter And" (what an interesting album name!) topped the Guitar Player's Reader Poll.

Finally, time for more metal: I found Suicide Silence's brand new 2014 album "You Can't Stop Me" on the top of the Billboard's Hard rock album chart. Definitely doesn't sound like commercial B.S. though. Highly recommended.

Live Metal

After reading so much metal history and hearing my friend talked about his trip to Gothenburg (the birthplace of melodic death metal in Sweden), I started to research where to see live metal, especially in Gothenburg. Well, there has been an annual MetalTown festival but it has been cancelled this year. And there is a more melodeath specific festival called Gothenburg Sound in January. Next year the festival will feature Dark Tranquility (just released a new album "Construct" in 2013) and Dimension Zero (founded by former members of In Flames. I listened to their 2007 release "He Who Shall Not Bleed" and I am impressed) I also found an online Metal Travel Guide that lists some interesting clubs/stores in Gothenburg. And I am curious what places it lists nearby and found Thee Parkside, which seems to feature local hardcore/metal bands regularly. It reminds me of the club Metro in Oakland (both websites are very similar too!), which was surprisingly NOT listed on Metal Travel Guide. Finally, there's nothing under Palo Alto, which is sad. There used to be a good club named The Edge (check out the big names that performed there before) I have been there once or twice in the 90s (forgot who performed) and it was gone while I was away (Summer 2000, the heydays of Nu Metal. Papa Roach played the last show)

Carleton Watkins, 吳冠中, Rodin's hands @ Cantor Arts Center, Stanford

炎熱的週日下午歎免費冷氣，除了去mall，還可以去免費museums，例如Stanford的Cantor Arts Center。數月沒去，多了不少吸引的新展品展覽，最意外驚喜是攝影家Carleton Watkins：
坦白說，和油畫相比，我對攝影作品的熱情相差很遠，可能因為我經常被批評技術不濟的關係。除Ansel Adams之外，差不多無一認識；曾經在SFMOMA欣賞過Adams的原作，尤其喜歡他在Yosemite的作品；原來倒不是前無古人！這位Carleton Watkins是最早期的Yosemite攝影家，1860年代他帶著重達2000磅的自製攝影器材（包括大塊感光玻璃板，流動黑房及沖灑用品），由騾隊運載入谷兩度，認真艱巨。其成績與付出成正比，他的作品出色地展現大自然雄奇之美。除了Yosemite，影展還有兩個我都不感陌生的主題：一是三藩市的自然景觀及建築，包括Farallon Islands, Alcatraz, Cliff House等等，二是上月才去過的Columbia River Gorge，他成功地捕捉了Multnomah Falls, Castle Rock等地的神態，"Cape Horn, Near Celilo"的構圖更是特別巧妙。

"Cape Horn, near Celilo" (public domain, linked from Wikimedia commons)

另一個吸引我的是中國藝術部的山水展，既有古代傳統手法的水墨畫，也有新派如吳冠中引入西畫技巧的作品，以及最新一代的攝影及數碼圖像；世界日報原來有介紹此展覽。

最後想提的展覽是從醫學角度探究Rodin雕像中出現的各種病態之手。看過Rodin雕塑作品的朋友相信都會對其人物的獨特姿勢包括手部動作留下深刻印象，其實有部份是因為手部有病而扭曲。該展覽解釋幾種病的成因及治療方法，甚為有趣。

How to toggle input language on iPad when using external keyboard

I bought a Bluetooth keyboard to use with my old Android tablet some time ago. I didn't have a need to switch between Chinese and English because the 3rd party input method natively takes care of that. Now I am using it with the iPad and it's even easier: simply hit Command-Space to toggle between the languages that were previously enabled under Settings. Nice!

Louder than hell: 口述重金屬歷史

作為重金屬fans超過廿年，其歷史算頗為熟悉，由最早期Black Sabbath到今期流行的prog metal band如Mastodon都會留意；讀過相關書籍包括Ian Christe十年前出版的名作Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, Chuck Klosterman的Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota等等，亦看過2011年的Metal Evolution系列紀錄片。今次讀這本700頁厚的Louder than Hell又有甚麼特色呢？

其一，全書主要是節錄音樂人口述，相當authentic，只有少量「旁白」作串連，不致欠缺連貫性。

其二，全書大致以時期及風格分章，包括的範圍甚廣，連冷門風格如Industrial metal及hardcore樂隊都有提及。

其三，本書提及不少金屬樂隊荒唐生活的細節，成員之間的恩恩怨怨，很多我都聞所未聞。
希望能在圖書館到期還書前讀完！

十年棋事幾番新

由細到大，圍棋都是我十分推崇的遊戲，且在十年前有過一段頗為沉迷的日子：看漫畫，緊貼棋壇發展，當然也有下棋。不知怎的突然完全脫節，連2010年亞運會史無前例後無來者唯一一次的比賽也毫無印象！記得當時中日韓最強棋手包括常昊李世石張栩等等，最重要賽事有豐田杯富士通杯；多年沒有留意棋壇新聞，原來早已面目全非：豐田杯及有廿四年歷史的富士通杯分別於2009年及11年停辦！以上著名棋手亦不及當年雄霸國內棋壇之勇。新一代的冠軍人物如朴廷桓（韓）芈昱廷（中）都是相當陌生的名字，似乎這一代再難出到當年那些棋壇巨人如吳清源趙治勳藤澤秀行小林光一李昌鎬聶衛平。可喜的是「上一代」強手李世石依然屢有佳作，他和中國古力對下的十番棋（十盤目前只下了一半）仍然引人注目。