Date: Tag: Website
And so the work on this page slowly continues. On a better note, recently I discovered AppFog and gave it the free account a try. In case you have not heard about it, AppFog is a PaaS(Platform as a Service). Basically, PaaS is similar to a fancy free hosting, but a bit different. The workflow is as follow: create an app/project, select a service (PHP, NodeJS, Rail, etc), select a cloud service to create a VM, done! Unlike a free hosting, you don't transfer files via FTP. You need Ruby command line to install "af" command line tool. Using af, you can upload your code for the project to the host. Another difference is the app/project/service system. On a free hosting, you own a folder and manage everything under. In PaaS, each project is its own folder.
Anyways, give it a try and see how you like it. In fact, I have setted up a personal MediaWiki on it.
Date: Tag: Website
So GoFreeServe took down my site after a month of inactivity, just like most free host... So, I am back to hosting static pages with CSS and javascript. Just few weeks ago I heard about Site44 web hosting. However, it is unique than other free hostings because it is free hosting via *your* DropBox's public link. But since I am using DropBox for something else, I ended up using a similar service but with Google Drive. The service is called http://gdriv.es/. You can find more details at http://gdriv.es/massmind
Date: Tag: C++, Blog
So, the last couple weeks I have been somewhat occupied with Olympics (and the lack of coverage by NBC). In the mean time I finally got around to writing base64 encoding and decoding (see [1] and [2]) in C. These functions only take the input chars and split out the values. You can extend this to be a class that takes a file or a stream (as a filter).
As for this site, it is a work in progress. You can see it here -- http://kainr2.gofreeserve.com/blog/latest
[1] Encode base64: Show | Hide
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/// Convert given 3 bytes of characters to 4 chars in base64
///
/// @args[out] output An array for storing the output
/// @args[in] input An array of chars (3 bytes)
/// @args[in] nBits How many bytes of valid input
///
/// @return Number of bytes written
///
int encode64(char output[], const char* const input, int nBytes)
{
// Define binary map for each of the three chars
// 0000-0011 1111-2222 2233-3333
// * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64
static const int BYTE0 = 252;
static const int BYTE1A = 3;
static const int BYTE1B = 240;
static const int BYTE2A = 15;
static const int BYTE2B = 192;
static const int BYTE3 = 63;
static const char TERM_CHAR = '=';
static const int MAX_OUTPUT = 4;
// Error check: Check for how many bytes are going to be read
if (nBytes < 1 || nBytes > 3) {
printf("Error: incorrect amount of bytes (%d)\n", nBytes);
return 0;
}
// Error check: size of output
if (sizeof(output)/sizeof(char) < static_cast(MAX_OUTPUT)) {
printf("Insufficient amount of output buffer (%d)\n",
sizeof(output)/sizeof(char));
return 0;
}
// Read each char input
int nBytesOut = nBytes+1;
if (nBytes>=1)
{
output[0] = (input[0] & BYTE0) >> 2;
output[1] = ((input[0] & BYTE1A) << 4) + ((input[1] & BYTE1B) >> 4);
output[2] = output[3] = TERM_CHAR;
}
if (nBytes>=2) {
output[2] = ((input[1] & BYTE2A) << 2) + ((input[2] & BYTE2B) >> 6);
}
if (nBytes==3) {
output[3] = (input[2] & BYTE3);
}
// Convert to base64 -- five sets
// (1) 0-25 [A-Z]=[65-90]
// (2) 26-51 [a-z]=[97-122]
// (3) 52-61 [0-9]=[48-57]
// (4) 62 [+]=[43]
// (5) 63 [/]=[47]
// * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64
// * http://www.asciitable.com/
for (int i=0; i < nBytesOut; i++)
{
if (output[i]<=25) {
output[i] += 65;
} else if (output[i]<=51) {
output[i] += 71; // 97-26
} else if (output[i]<=61) {
output[i] -= 4; // 48-52
} else if (output[i]==62) {
output[i] = 43;
} else if (output[i]==63) {
output[i] = 47;
}
}
return nBytesOut;
}
[2] Decode base64: Show | Hide
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/// Convert given 4 chars to original 3 bytes
///
/// @args[out] output Output buffer (3 bytes)
/// @args[in] input An array of chars (4 chars)
/// @args[in] nBytes How many bytes to read from input
///
/// @return Number of bytes written
///
int decode64(char output[], const char* const input, int nBytes)
{
// Define binary map for each of the three chars
// 0000-0011 1111-2222 2233-3333 -- output-input bit map
// 7654 3210 7654 3210 7654 3210 -- bits index of output
//
// 000000 001111 111122 222222 -- input-output bit map
// * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64
static const int BYTE0 = 63;
static const int BYTE1A = 48; // 32+16
static const int BYTE1B = 15;
static const int BYTE2A = 60;
static const int BYTE2B = 3;
static const int BYTE3 = 63;
static const char TERM_CHAR = '=';
static const int MAX_OUTPUT = 3;
// Error check: Check for how many bytes are going to be read
if (nBytes < 2 || nBytes > 4) {
printf("Error: incorrect amount of bytes to read(%d)\n", nBytes);
return 0;
}
// Error check: size of output
if (sizeof(output)/sizeof(char) < static_cast(MAX_OUTPUT)) {
printf("Insufficient amount of output buffer (%d)\n",
sizeof(output)/sizeof(char));
return 0;
}
// Convert from -- five sets
// (1) 0-25 <- [A-Z]=[65-90]
// (2) 26-51 <- [a-z]=[97-122]
// (3) 52-61 <- [0-9]=[48-57]
// (4) 62 <- [+]=[43]
// (5) 63 <- [/]=[47]
// (*) Skip terminal char
// * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64
// * http://www.asciitable.com/
char buffer[4];
for (int i=0; i < 4; i++)
{
buffer[i] = (i < nBytes) ? input[i] : TERM_CHAR;
if (buffer[i]>=65 && buffer[i]<=90) {
buffer[i] -= 65;
} else if (buffer[i]>=97 && buffer[i]<=122) {
buffer[i] -= 71;
} else if (buffer[i]>=48 && buffer[i]<=57) {
buffer[i] += 4;
} else if (buffer[i]==43) {
buffer[i] = 62;
} else if (buffer[i]==47) {
buffer[i] = 63;
}
}
// Read each char input
int nBytesOut = nBytes-1;
output[0] = output[1] = output[2] = 0; // clear the buffer
if (nBytes>=2)
{
// Take th lower 6 bits from buffer[0] to highest bits 7-2 of output[0]
output[0] = ((buffer[0] & BYTE0) << 2)
+ ((buffer[1] & BYTE1A) >> 4);
}
if (nBytes>=3 && buffer[2]!=TERM_CHAR) {
output[1] = ((buffer[1] & BYTE1B) << 4)
+ ((buffer[2] & BYTE2A) >> 2);
}
if (nBytes==4 && buffer[3]!=TERM_CHAR) {
output[2] = ((buffer[2] & BYTE2B) << 6)
+ (buffer[3] & BYTE3);
}
return nBytesOut;
}
Date: Tag: Documentary, Health
Earlier this week, I saw part of the three hours BBC documentary called 'The Men Who Made Us Fat' on youtube. This documentary looks into the causation of why obesity is spreading rapidly among the British (and American) people. Looking at U.S. stat alone, the percentage of obese adults (age: 20 to 74) rises from appoximation 10% in 1950s to 30% early 2000s [See Wiki:Obesity_in_the_United_States]. Here are some of the key highlights I have seen so far:
In my opinion, this documentary is pretty bias against corporations and in favor of more government oversight. It doesn't ask much for a personal accountability, but this IS a U.K. documentary afterall. The European philosophy of safety net is pretty strong. Anyways, this documentary is still worth taking a look. You can check it out on youtube also!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE-H__aIEFE&list=PLA0E2B2461B536A26&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Date: Tag: Zend, PHP
I think most people has this experience before. There you are in a classroom furiously writing down what the physics professor had on the board, while trying to understanding his explanation of an abstract physics theory. Every once in a while he provides examples that give a glimp of hope to understanding it. More often, everything just look confusing and incoherent. Your mind already give up after 10 minutes into the session. When you look around, other students are doing EXACTLY the same things -- taking notes and look confused. At the end of the class, the professor gets up and goes back to his research.
For the last few weeks I have been learning Zend Framework for PHP. After hearing so much praises about its MVC framework, and how so many companies uses it, I decided to try it out. The concept and theory I read in the introduction were great -- MVC, convention overs configuration (a concept from Ruby on Rail), bootstrap, etc. Learning practical examples turned out to be a bad experience.
index.php is linked to a controller. Assuming you can get it working, you still have no understanding about why MVC framework without knowing how or why it worksAdding to these problems, the documents are not updated. Comments from 2009 pointing the flaws and complains on the poor documents are still valid. To be honest, giving how much it is being used in the industry, I am surprise that no one tried to create a better document for them yet. So, how is this relate to the story I mentioned earlier? You should know by now, Zend is like the Physics teacher that students that nobody quite understand. Zend's official document is like those ambiguous lessons that students merely follow but not master. I could on with my analogy, but it only going to sound bitter.
In the past, Zend was the only big MVC framework in town, so people were forced to adopt it. However, serveral new PHP framework are popping up and gaining lots of momentum (See CssReflex.com). They are leaner, faster, and better documented. Any hope to redeem Zend is almost pointless. If Zend really want to compete and stay in business, they better fix all these document issues in Zend Framework 2.0.
Hi, my name is Kittipong. Each month, I will try to bring my (near zero) insight on a different aspect of life and different points in programmings. And today, I will write a bit about Yahoo! Search. Specifically, about the different little features that many people might have seen once or twice, but not quite sure about it.
You may wonder why on earth I pick Yahoo! Search for feature on this blog. Well, the fact is that everyone knows about all the google-fu for Google Search. There are so many people talking and using it, which led to publication of books dedicated to hacking of Google search engine: Google Hacking for Penetration Testers, Google Hacks: Tips & Tools for Finding and Using the World’s Information, etc. You can find them on Amazon. All of this is great; except there is nothing about it on Yahoo! or Bing search engines. In fact, did you know that Yahoo! first have the mini-drop-down keywords suggestion? When I first saw it, I thought, “What a great idea!!”, except… nobody talks about it. When Google copies the feature few months later, there were a slew of articles and comments congratulating Google for its innovation. At that moment, I saw Yahoo! in a different light. In the public eyes, Yahoo! was like the unwanted child. The one that the parents have no expectation, or really care for. The one that can do no right. Over time, Yahoo! has come to believe the public’s opinion that it is not worthy of being great. Thus, it sold part of its soul.
But…
All the great things that has been done, should not be forgotten. Here is a little something to show for…
(A) Do you remember Google’s original search box (before the tab or the crazy Google+ drop down menu)? No fat, no frill. Yahoo! decided to get one too.
(B) Search for a specific car brand and model, and you should get a full auto review.
(C) Celebrity is one of Yahoo!’s prime features. There are few ways the results can be returned. It depends on who the celebrity is (singer, actor, politician), and the current trend.
(D) Enter a metropolitan name (or any famous city), and there will be a little box with the name, the current weather, a photo-op, and little details about the city.
(E) Golf tournament?! Seriously? Anyways, search for a golf tournament, and you get the score. Although, to be honest, I am not sure why would anyone use Yahoo! search for it.
(F) Search for a local brand or a restaurant name, and you should see a mini map with location. Nothing exciting. Personally, I would use yelp with Google map.
(G) Oh, boy. This is something I see a Google search also. You do the math.
(H) Mobile app was something they added a year ago. Enter an app name, and you will see it. Probably useful on a mobile device.
(I) This seems pretty standard for me. A movie title, a poster, and a little box to search for play time.
(J) A query for a music band search produces albums and songs lists. I was going to enter Justin Bieber for the heck of it. But I think we had enough of him AND his songs… ~~Baby baby baby Ohhhh~~~ Baby baby baby NOOOO!!!~~~
(K) Blah, blah, blah. News
(L) If you ever enter product name, or an auto parts, you may get Yahoo! shopping results in a slideshow.
(M) Before internet, we all eats food, but majority of the people don’t know how to cook. Unfortunately, internet still does not solve the biggest cooking problem — cooking skill.
(N) Sport player. Sport team. One will give you the score. Another will give you the recent statistics.
(O) If you enter a stock symbol, you can get the stock price. But more likely, you will find yourself looking at news…
So, there you go. I have revealed Yahoo!’s hidden features that so many people never bother to look at, or share with the world! Some of you may question, what do I gain from sharing these functionality of a second-rated search engine? And the answer? No, it is not acknowledge; certainly, not respect nor personal ego. It is simpler, but deeper than that. Sometimes when I get to know a person or watch an entity that shares a similar experience, I begin to cheer for it too.
End of messages
Hi, my name is Kittipong, and this is my blog. It is a blog about my insight into life, and programmings. Each month, I will try to bring my (near zero) insight on a different aspect of life, or different points in programmings. And if you have any comment, feel free to comments.
Since this is my first blog, I probably should give a back history. I started working on a website back in late 1990′s. If I am not wrong, it was 1998 when I was still in high school. Back then I was not sure why anyone need a website, so even though I learned HTML couple years earlier, I did not create a personal site until 1998. So, what changed my mind back in 1998?
If you think it was for a humanitarian cause, then you thought too much of me. If you say curiosity, then you are in for a disappointment. It was for a simpler cause. It was for love. No, it was not for the love of technology. In fact, there probably was no love involved. One day during the autumn of my junior year, I was talking to couple girls in my class. They were smart and quite literate in computer, and one of the topic involved a website. When I told them I know HTML & CSS, one of them encouraged me to start one. And like any young blind teenager, a whisper from a girl was enough to made me started a website. Tada!!!
I started with Geocities. Yes, the same Geocities that is no longer around anymore. Tokyo, Palace, 4409. That was my Geocities address. And it lasted many, many years. Until I graduated and got a degree. Oh, the memory of simpler days. And, oh the realization that Geocities had no plugins for scripting languages, or DB. That was a big problem when I tried to get a job, and my Geocities failed to impress. This was back in 2005. So, in the end, I registered another host that allowed PHP & Mysql combo. All were rosy, until I realized one thing… it was hard to backup mysql.
The free host did not provide any backup. So, I had to perform manual backup — display all posts and save the HTML. Hmmm… In addition, with all the programming works on the site, I hardly use site for blogging anymore. Actually it came pretty close to being a revision README file. Another problem I faced was the need to visit the site every weeks, or it could be closed. Yeeeaaaa!! NOT!
Just to speed up. It did get closed. I started a blog on Google (eBlogger). It was filled with posts that made me look like I had a mid-life crisis every other weeks. Since I did not have anyone to complain to, it ended as new posts every so often. After two years of tween-life crisis, I took another shot at PHP & Mysql site again. And SURE enough, I got lazy for a while, and it was closed down. Geeez. So, here we are with wordpress. Hopefully, I can do better this time.
| 2011-07-30 SAT // 美術學校的廣告 |
* 美術教育，對孩子們的成長非常重要。
美術教育是一門必修課，沒有美術教育，就沒有素質教育。 * 我們的文化藝術的夏令營，為學生彌補了這重要的一課。 夏令營特安排每天上， * 下午都有一節美術課， 這也是我們文化藝術的夏令營是其它暑期班不可比的。 * 如您想讓您的孩子，這個暑期， 在加強英文，數學，中文的同時， * 還想在繪畫技能和創意方面得到強化訓練， 請家長們千萬不要錯過， * 每年只有這一次的大好機會， 請參加江老師美術學校舉辦的文化藝術夏令營！ * Art is an important to children's growth. It is an essential course, without art is to be without an inner quality. * Our art summer class allow students to make up for this important course. The summer class is prepared daily, * every afternoon's art class is our non-summer class(?) * If you are interested in letting your child join this summer, which reinforce English, Math, and Chinese at the same time, * and expand their art skill and creativity, head of the household, do not miss this opportunity, * each year this is the big oppportunity, please join teacher Jiang's summer art class! |
| 2011-07-05 TUE // 少林功夫【一】 |
說起功夫，人們就會想起少林寺以及功夫高強的僧人。 少林寺和倍的寺院不同的地方，就在於功夫。 可是念經的僧人怎麼會和武術聯繫在一起呢？ 關於少林功夫的起源有多種說法，其中一種是： 沙林寺僧人打坐，坐累了， 就站起來活動活動的身體，打打拳練練武， 他們發現，這也可以得到一種精神上的修煉。 後來，少林的僧人結合，獸，鳥，魚，蟲的各種動作 以及民間武功的精華，逐步形成了少林獨特的功夫 少林功夫是中國寶貴的文化遺產， 有拳術，刀術，槍術，劍術，棍術 以及氣功等多種套路和功法。 它剛健有力，變化無窮， 所以學習功夫不僅可以鍛煉身體， 而且還可以修身養性。 1500多年來，少林功夫吸引了千千萬萬的愛好者， 成為中國廣為流傳的一種健身方法 少林功夫很早以前就流傳到國外。 現在世界上很多地方都有少林功夫愛好者， 很多人還不遠萬里道少林寺參觀學習。 |
| 2011-06-27 MON // Nothing Loss |
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There are days, where I just sit and think seriously -- morally and philosophically. I did not have much times or chances to do so in last few years, but this passed weekend I had one. Nothing earth shattering, or even revelational. However, the mental recognition of "I am alive" is refreshing even if physically, I did nothing.
In Taoism, there is an idea that actively pursing happiness results in emptiness, but a passive mind can find fulfillment. It is similar to the feeling from a long meditation. |
| 2011-02-19 SAT // California Public School |
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Over the past two weeks, I got a chance to watch some interesting documents regarding public schools. First is a documentary movie called Waiting for Superman (2010), and another was shown on PBS called Not As Good As You Think - The Myth of the Middle Class School. Both documentaries point out some of the problem in the current education system, the inability to reform the current education system.
Waiting for Superman focuses on union contract of teachers that prevent firing of inept or bad teachers. One major problem is teacher-union organizations that holds political power, and pushes against any change in the system. Not As Good As You Think looks at one of the school district in Orange County, where district education administrators misappropriate the money. It started with public criticism from the community when they found out that administrators were using public money to build administration building($52 million), while schools were laying off teachers. And when the people from the community tried to change, they were black-listed by the school board. The board even go so far as to creating flyers asking local to fight back against these activists -- with names, phone numbers, and home addresses. After watching those documentaries, I thought back about how teacher unions went crazy when LA Times did a study and publish a teacher-ranking list of Los Angeles public school teachers. So, with only internet, I figure it would be interesting what can parents do to find out more about their local schools:
Well, anyways, that is it for me. All comments are welcome. My email is shown on the navigation menu... |
| 2011-01-08 SAT // Digital Afterlife |
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Yesterday I thought that you would never leave me But I feel that yesterday is now gone -- Lyric from Yesterday by Miss Destiny Today I got an opportunity to read an article about digital afterlife on NYTimes. The article digs on the impact of Mac Tonnies -- a scifi author in his 30s, a blogger of scifi-related stuff with several online followers and friends. So, when he suddenly went to bed and passed away, many could not believe it. His online friends pull together to preseve his works and materials, Mac's digital footprint. However, some content cannot be retrieved because they have no access to his online accounts. His parents also don't have access to Mac's digital life. They never used computer before his death, and wasn't involved with Mac's digital presence. So, what about myself? What kind of message am I leaving here? When I look back, it certainly started out noble and experimental. Before the term "blog" was used, I would create log entries. There were lots of things I tried out. It took a lot of effort and as you can see... none ever stick around. At times, I would complain and babble about stories that only I would know. At present, I am somewhat at my digital peace. I couldn't write much anymore. I don't know who to write this for. I don't know what to write anymore. Certain things in life, even after you gave your best, and it did not amount to anything significant. But, nevertheless, you keep moving on. Article: Cyberspace When You're Dead |
| 2010-10-19 TUE // Jury Duty | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Nobody here wants knowingly want to convict him. I want to do so only with a clear conscious." -Jury #12 This past week to today, I was at Los Angeles County Criminal Appeals serving as a juror. I was with a man that looks a bit like Hugh Grant (work for FedEx), a guy who look like an ex-Harley biker (work at an antique shop near Whittier College), a female day-time trader, a real estate agent (Los Angeles & Las Vegas), a film production crew (in Santa Monica), and more. It is possible to talk about it now, but it would be depressing to do so. Instead, I will list the food I ate during those days. Yes, it is irrelevant, but that is my exact intention.
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| 2010-09-26 SUN // Zero Sum Market | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Stock Market is a zero-sum game. For every dollar you gain, someone else loses. -RF If you didn't know by now, let me repeat it -- Stock market is a zero-sum game. It is a knowledge gambling. There is no guarantee of gain (excluding bond, note, treasury, etc). The economy could turn sour and the company goes out of business, which will leave you with zero cent. In fact, the company can still be in business, and the stock can worth few pennies, which still leave you nearly broke. Some may call a stock exchange an investment institution, but in the larger context it is for the most part... a casino. When you buy a stock, you are not buying a share of what the company is worth. You are buying into the potential that the company could worth in the future. In another words, you are buying into the potential. Hopefully, this explains why a company's stock price is not more static, and fluctuates along with the market. The higher the hype, the greater it can fluctuate. Let's take GOOG(Google) for an example:
If you did not find these numbers to be wrong on the surface, then you have to two options -- get educated. Let's look at the two basic numbers first: revernue per share and total cash per share. When you combined these two numbers together, you have $176.88/share (82.56 + 94.32). This is to say, if Google decides to close the door tomorrow, each share of Google is worth around $176.88 (it could be more from selling asset). That is right, the true price is closer to $176 and NOT +$500 that you see. So, why would anyone pay $527 for it? If you look at Quarterly Revernue Growth, you can see that the company revernue has grown 23.50% this quarter comparing to the same quarter last year. If the trend continues, then you can see why people are pricing GOOG stock over $500 instead of $176. The temptation is too irresistable --- 176.88 * 1.23 = 217.56 * 1.23 = 276.60 * 1.23 = 329.15... Where else would you find something that return 23% on yearly basis? This is based on a faith that Google will continue to give 23% every year, which is illogical beyond any common sense. And like all good things, it will come to an end eventually, and whoever hold on to those shares at the end are the losers. The house win (government and trading firms), and plenty of... unfortunate share holders. I would talk more, but it would only depress people. Hopefully, I have given you enough of a reason to learn more about economic, business, and investment before blindly "invest" in things you don't understand. Happy educating. :) |
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| 2010-09-06 MON // POV - Identify Self | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
On Sunday, I flipped through the different channels on TV, and stumbled on a show about adopting Chinese kids on KCET (a PBS channel). The show was an episode of POV series. This is one is called 我愛你媽媽 // Wo Ai Ni(I Love You) Mommy.
This documentary followed an eight year old girl named Fang Sui Yong from China who was adopted by a Jewish-American family, the Sadowsky family. The story started with Fang leaving her foster family in China, speaking no English, and going with her new mother that do not understand a word of Chinese. If you want to watch it, it is available online until November 30, 2010. At many points in the documentary, I was quite annoyed by Donna Sadowsky(the mom) who aggressively tried to assimilate the child to the American-Jewish culture, language, and life-style. One scene in particular upsetted me the most was when Mrs. Sadowsky delightfully talking about how Faith(Fang's American name) got angry at her younger sister in GuangZhou. She repeated Faith's words about loving her new younger sister(Sadowsky's youngest adopted daughter) more than the younger sister in China. In another scene, 14 months after the adoption, was quite dis-heartened. Faith was in front the web-cam, facing her foster family. Beside Faith was a woman who was there to translate Cantonese & Mandarin for both ends. It seems Faith has lost almost all her ability to speak and understand Cantonese and Mandarin. Needless to say, Faith struggles with own identity throughout the entire process. Although, the parents did try their best to help her, IMHO their actions fell quite short. I went to sleep with those thoughts. However, I thought about my own experience about when I moved to United States over night, and woke up with a different perspective. I, like many others who criticized them, never have or adopted a kid. I tried to shift my perspective to the point-of-view of the parents. Most parents usually realize their mistakes only after the fact. There are parents out that never able to listen and understand their own biological children. This family took a chance to help a child that won't have a bright future in China. They could have adopted a new born that would bypass most problem altogether. Parents are people that can make mistake. My criticisms were nothing but unhelpful judgements. A language can be learned. A culture can be explored. Both items do not identify a person. Children with a limited view may misunderstand the two as an identity. What may be more critical to her self-identity are acceptance from the family members, the feeling of belonging, and the love from her parents. Everything else are secondary components that add to her own identity. I believe Faith won't truly identify herself as a true Jewish, a real Chinese, nor an average American. It will be a conglomerate of the three cultures with acceptance, belonging, and love as catalysts. |
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| 2010-09-01 WED // Repeating Scenes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" -Winston Churchill The great things about life is the unexpected. For good and for bad. For every projects there are obstacles and unpredictable factors. It can be frustrating and very tire-some. It is easy to get caught in the emotions of these bad situations: fear, panic, anger. So, what do I do when it turned out to be a bad one? I would shut up and go for a run. Take my mind off the moment. I would remind myself, nothing in life ever run its course according to the original plan; no plan and event in life is foolproof. Reading too much into failures and signs does not help. |
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| 2010-08-28 SAT // Not Nineteen Forever | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Today I was going through the garage and found a stack of old newspaper. To be accurate, the was mostly comic strips section, from 1997 to 1999. This was back before any comic strip archive on internet. So, I skim through and found several interesting articles: January 1994 Norththride earthquake, Chicago Bulls won 6th NBA title over Jazz (MJ made the last shot over Stockton, 87-86), a heat wave in So.Cal, an ice-freezing East coast, etc. However, what I also found were my high school newspapers during my senior year.
Each volume of these newspapers was a four page of 11x17. The pictures were mostly fuzzy beyond recognition, except for few close up pictures. I flipped through some of them, and saw an article with a cartoon drawing. The drawing show two images side-by-side: one shows an image of a student in a nice suit with a caption "how you are," and another was image of a baby with "how an adult see you" caption. (I will try to scan it next time) The article was about how most adult view them as kids that need help all the times. Adults sometimes would worry about them doing the inappropriate things, and essentially have no confidence in the ability of these high school students. It was revelational to me. Merely 11 years later, and I have already forgotten how college kids feel and think. Basically, I have become the adult in the article. I went for walk to think more about it. This resonate with me, because I do talk to 18-19 years old students in college class that I am taking. In my view, these students still haven't learn the way of people, business, and the world. They have the freedom to do anything in a semi-protected environment. For them, they are still full of pride, freedom, and a belief that they understand almost everything around them. As a friend, I tried to correct their misconception, and pointed them to the right way. Unfortunately, I over did it. If you do not allow them to make mistake, they won't understand their own flaw, and more importantly experience and learn from their own mistake. For myself, I went through colleges with few supporting people and little guidance... and yet I turned out alright. From a hindsight, I want to re-do certain things better. But from my perspective as a student, I would rather make a mistake than taking advices from others. My pride pushed me to walk five miles each way to and from college than taking a bus. My freedom allowed me to study Computer Science at Cal Poly Pomona than went to UCLA, UCI, or even better. In fact, I didn't even bother to apply to another school, in spite of ace-ing almost all my computer-related courses. These mistakes made me a better person. It changed my understanding of people, and I had to prove myself beyond the given in order to change the perspective of others on me. What I did incorrectly was trying to help when they were not looking for it -- regardless of whether they needed it or not. Trying to help is not wrong, but only when they are looking for it. I need to do that instead of blindly insisting. I have to obseve, listen, and analyze a bit more. It was a long walk today. Nine miles in total. But I feel better from understanding people a little bit more. My college class is starting Monday, and I hope to do things a bit better this time around. |
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| 2010-08-26 THU // Modern Irrationality | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This month I am somewhat agitated:
Although, there were couple good things that happenned: went to see Inception at AMC theater, and got a chance to try black cod steak at Shiki in Studio City (it is one of the better fish place). Okay, enough with life. I thought I share an interesting TED video about a natural flaw within ourselves that lead us to continually repeating the same irrational patterns. To prove her point, Laurie Santos, had to teach monkeys how to use money. The idea of monkey using money is very fascinating(enough to get me to watch it), and IMHO her approach is quite brilliant. Anyways, enjoy this presentation by Laurie Santos Laurie Santos: A monkey economy as irrational as ours |
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| 2010-08-22 SUN // Move again! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London (1876-1916), American writer and novelist After visiting my site on FortuneCity last week, I noticed numerious amount of advertisements: banner ads, popup ads, and the most hated embedded-link ads (when your mouse moves over certain keywords, a small video ads popup). I do not mind banner ads, but these in-your-face tactics are unacceptable. FortuneCity is acting like warez sites that have virus-infested scripts popping up. I missed the simplicity of Geocities, but nothing will bring it back from the dead now. So, I decided to move my site again after few months in FortuneCity. After some research, I found HelioHost with various praises from many reviewers. Best of all, there is a CMS (Content Management System) with plenty of plugin modules. So, I moved my site to here. Let's see how long this will last! Thanks HelioHost!! :) |
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| 2010-08-17 TUE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Beloit College Mindset List Today, I read an article on Yahoo! about Beloit College Mindset List. This list is compiled each year by the college staff containing around 50 short facts showing college freshmen's general understanding of the world. Mostly, it shows the generational-gap information between the professors and the students. Just for fun, I decided to look at my year, 2003 (even though I graduated a bit later...):
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| 2010-08-16 MON | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I have been writing Perl lately, and I am trying to summarize the problems with Perl on scalability:
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| 2010-08-01 SUN | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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We want to live the carefree days in the past but we know better than to do so that those feelings and good times can never last The weather this year has been quite odd. The rain and storm came pouring earlier in this year, as if to make up for the last few years. The summer heat along with a rare humidity came earlier than usual. Then autumn season just follow when it should have been an extreme temperature. This month should be interesting. Let's see if there will be a lunch with some friends from college. |
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| 2010-07-25 SUN | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Going in Spiral This week I felt a little down, and got back to reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. At one point, I came to a section about value-based action, where you stop worrying about what others think of you, stop being a person that solely based on others' preception of you, stop letting environment dictates your action/ response/ initiative, and start taking actions that will bring values to ourselves and others. I have been quite tire and passive lately, so I planned to for a trip to Alhambra Historical Museum today, and it almost did not happened. In the last few weeks, I just felt tire. This morning is not different. It would have been easier to sit at home and watch TV. It would have been easier to read and not practice. But at 2 PM, I went. The uneasy feeling was there, but I started to feel good when I was there. Going through the antique items, and looking at pictures from the early Alhambra has lifted me up. Obviously, the final destination was Alhambra yearbooks. They have added more yearbooks in the 90s since my last visit in 2009. I got to see picutres of friends from high school. I wanted to recall all memories in those years, and wanted to know about events when I was no longer there. Looking through those times brought back the curious personality that I used to be full of. I think each one of us feel the need belong somewhere, and in order to do that we look into our own past, our own ancestrial heritage, and our hometown's heritage. We feel the need to understand ourselves better by looking at the past. It may not solve anything looking into these things, but the calm feeling and inspiration are irreplacable. I am determined to march forward again. I am not going in circle, but expanding in a spiral motion. |
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| 2010-07-22 THU | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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UTF-8 Editor เคยเป็นไหม ไม่รู้ว่าพรุ่งนี้ตื่นมาจะทำอะไร So I finally found an editor that supports UTF-8 display with HTML syntax color. Beside Visual Studio Express, which is an overkill app, I found EditPad Pro (a rip-off from TextPad Pro?). Anyways, I am trying out the free demo, and so far it is looking pretty good. It contains the usual functionalities: macro, syntax highlight, block selection, s, text folding, regex search & replace, etc. Couple features that I enjoy: UTF-8 display, character map, unsaved file diff, search term highlighter. Now to the bad: no keyboard shortcup mapping, no VI-style navigation (TextPad seems to be the only visual editor that does this), fewer script library. Anyways, we will see how it will work out |
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| 2010-07-18 SAT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Restoring the Old Site It is always hard to make the old code co-existing with the new one. I guess it is the cost of maintaining legacy source code. In this case, it is a mix of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Also, converting PHP to the old fashion HTTP is pretty darn tiring. Anyways, I managed to get this done for now. More to update laters. Still need to find a good editor that supports Unicode. |
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| 2010-04-08 THU | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Returned To Where It Began Geocities is no longer alive, and blogspot from Google is not exactly interesting. So, here I am, back to where I first started, FortuneCity -- my second site after Geocities. Works on this site will begin slowly as I am trying to put back everything I had written. |
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| 2007-12-26 WED | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Moving OnWell, it has been a while since my last update. Work, school, hobby, exercise chore, and life have occupied pretty much most of my time. In order to reduce maintainence, I decided to move on to a new website, a blog webpage at http://kainr2.blogspot.com/. Hopefully, I can get more time to do the blogging there, and less on server maintainence. |
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| 2007-11-08 THU | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Color UpdateLast week, I came to check on this site, and to my surprise, SiteBurg was down. Not a 404 Down, but a Connection-Refused Down. This gave me quite a scare, since it could have been shutdown for all I know. Just to be safe, I decided to look around the net for another free host. After few days of comparing, I signed up with www.HelioHost.org, and was ready to start again. Luckily, SiteBurg came back couple days ago, and so this site continues.And to celebrate the return of this site, I redo the coloring scheme of this site. Hopefully, you like the more brighter color of this page. |
