Monkey In The Jungle

fun quote ...

"Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing." - Randy K. Milholland

My MacWorld '06 favorites.

1. Apple stock. It bumped $10 on the opening day, from $75 to $85. I hope it won't come down.

2. An iPod dock integrated with toilet paper holder. Guys are real geeks.

3. Demo of the game "Wingnuts 2" from Freeverse, which reminded me the time when we enjoyed "1942".

4. Comic Life from Freeverse. That's something you will never think of until you see it.

5. A volume rendering software which take high resolution CT data and assemble them into 3D space. It is way cooler than polygon rendering. Unfortunately I forgot the name.

6. Intel CPU based apple laptop, MacBook Pro. Looking forward to upgrading my powerbook. It is pricey thought.

7. 3D modeling tools from formZ.

"never do the same thing for too long."

I came cross a post talking about whether using computer for long hours will cause vision problem. One guy commented "It is always well-agreed upon that the best therapy is to never do the same thing for too long."

Well, another guy followed " I tried to tell that to my wife... She didn't talk to me for 2 days... that IS theraputic!". It's just funny.

Pike place market.

Two days ago, I went to Seattle downtown with friends, and spent an hour in Pike Place Market. It made me realize how much I miss place like this. News stand with all the papers and managzines that you can think of, used book store full of non-best-seller books, street singers singing sad tunes, and, of course, smelly fish market. I couldn't find any of these in Sunnyvale. I am bored. Sunnyvale is a town with no characters.

I stopped by a bookstore, whose name I don't remember, bought "Science as a process".

Merry Christmas!

Being a foreigner puts me in an odd situation on Christmas, especially when Mia is back in China this year. Since I don't have family or any relative around, I guess I am one of the few people who don't need to go anywhere on Christmas.

I think Christmas is pretty much like Chinese New Year in China, a time for getting together, being happy, and getting drunk. It is kind of lonely to spend the whole holiday by myself. But it is not totally bad, at least I can get something done, otherwise I would be too busy to do. Go up to Seattle to visit a friend, finish my toy project and read the "Quick Silver".

It should be fine.

Natural selection.

Saw this article in Times Online today. It reports "SCIENTISTS have for the first time found evidence that polar bears are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf.

The researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart."

The article went on saying '“We know short swims up to 15 miles are no problem, and we know that one or two may have swum up to 100 miles. But that is the extent of their ability, and if they are trying to make such a long swim and they encounter rough seas they could get into trouble,” said Steven Amstrup, a research wildlife biologist with the USGS.'

I guess that's natual selection in paly. Be the strong one, monkey.

Best MacOS X ad I have seen.

Magicians go Mac. I like that, a flavor of mystery.

Screen shot:

I am not a whiner, but I have to say this is a shitty deal.

After google'ing half an hour, I finally realized it just simply does not work. The "menu" button on Apple remote does not have any functionality when work with iPod.

Just check Apple online store, the remote is rated 2 out of 5 by 171 reviews. Among the 10 reviews on the first page, 9 of them are complaining about this flaw. I am ok with the flaw of a product, since we all make mistake. I am even ok with getting ripped off , since I don't usually research much before I buy. What I am not ok with is, after all these complaining, Apple still didn't make it clear on their website, or in any other form.

"The Apple Remote offers play/pause, volume control and forward/back buttons. "

Nice wording, guys, leave out what it doesn't do. Come on, it is only $30. You don't expect to double the revenue just by selling a couple more of this. Plus, even you tell everyone about this problem with iPod, those who have an iMac are still going to buy the remote.

I have always thought that Apple knows how to build the image. But this move ...

Language Ability Degradation Syndrome.

Being a native chinese speaker living in the states for 5 years, I think my Language Ability Degradation Syndrome (LADS) is getting worse. For you who are not famaliar with this term, you may have it if you are loosing language skill in the you mother tongue, while seeing no sign on improvement on language of the country that you live in.

The lost of native language skill is mainly caused by lack of exersice. For me, the only time I use Chinese is talking to my parents on the phone or writing them 50-word email, which is on the basis of once a week. Also because of the lack of reading material in Chinese, I don't know the new vocabulary and slangs while I start forgetting what I used to know.

On the other hand, due the natural of my profession, software engineer, on average I spend 10 hours every day in an environment where my limited english skill is sufficient. So I don't get much learning opportunities on English either. In fact, if I plot a curve of my English skill vs. time, the curve had leveled out three years ago.

Well, I don't see anything that can stop me from forgetting Chinese, at least I hope I can improve my English a bit by writing this blog.