Funny dreaming dog

Peugeot BB1

Comme un Smart, mais pour 4 personnes!

Driving a car with an iPhone

Tea classes anyone?

http://www.worldteanews.com/index.php/20091110797/People/A-Dozen-Tea-Sommeliers-Emerge-From-New-Canadian-Program.html

Offered in conjunction with the Tea Association of Canada, the program began as individual events geared toward tea enthusiasts. It evolved into a formalized program consisting of two parts: four courses covering an introduction to tea, tea regions, and preparation and consumption; and four technical and business-focused courses covering menu, sensory development, service training and tea garden management. (For a complete curriculum, see the program's Web site.) In addition to these 140 hours of course work, graduates had to complete a 20-hour internship.

These Apartment Hunters Are the Happy Renters

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/realestate/13HUNT.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

When the LeCounts moved in this summer, they felt a huge weight lifted. If anything goes wrong, “we don’t have to shell out more money to have it repaired,” Mr. LeCount said. They no longer worry about parking, but drive right to their door. If they have many grocery bags, they wheel them up in a cart provided by the building.

Need a container ship?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession.html

You may wish to know this because, if ever you had an irrational desire to charter one, now would be the time. This time last year, an Aframax tanker capable of carrying 80,000 tons of cargo would cost £31,000 a day ($50,000). Now it is about £3,400 ($5,500).

Google I/O 2009 - The Myth of the Genius Programmer

Tellement vrai... À voir par tout les programmeurs (et revoir pour ceux qui comme moi ont un gros égo...)

They Might Be Giants - Podcast for kids

Dans le genre vidéo éducationnels pour enfants, le band "They Might Be Giants" a les meilleurs vidéos. Dommage que l'équivalent français n'existe pas autant que je puisse savoir.

Pour plus d'exemples:

http://www.youtube.com/theymightbegiants

Google Voice is the shiznit!

Art?

Mes pieds

Nouveau concept de Dr Scholl qui fait des recommendations basees sur la mesure de la pression de la plante des pieds.  Malheureusement, le CF120 recommende n'etait pas disponible...

French: The Most Productive People In The World

http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8

The real message here is that the French are likely some of the most productive people in the entire world.

France has $36,500 GDP/Capita and works 1,453 hours per year. This equates to a GDP/Capita/Hour of $25.10. Americans, on the other hand, have $44,150 GDP/Capita but work 1,792 hours per year. Thus Americans only achieve $24.60 of GDP/Capita/Hour.

Warren Buffett's Secret Millionaire's Club (MoneyTrack on PBS)

Trop cool, dommage que ça va probablement prendre un bout de temps avant que ça soit traduit en français...

Ugly

Widely copied story, author as of yet unknown - extremely touching:

Everyone in the apartment complex I lived in knew who Ugly was. Ugly was the resident tomcat.

Ugly loved three things in this world: fighting, eating garbage, and shall we say, love. The combination of these things combined with a life spent outside had their effect on Ugly.

To start with, he had only one eye, and where the other should have been was a gaping hole. He was also missing his ear on the same side, his left foot has appeared to have been badly broken at one time, and had healed at an unnatural angle, making him look like he was always turning the corner. His tail has long since been lost, leaving only the smallest stub, which he would constantly jerk and twitch. Ugly would have been a dark gray tabby striped-type, except for the sores covering his head, neck, even his shoulders with thick, yellowing scabs.

Every time someone saw Ugly there was the same reaction. "That's one UGLY cat!!"

All the children were warned not to touch him, the adults threw rocks at him, hosed him down, squirted him when he tried to come in their homes, or shut his paws in the door when he would not leave.

Ugly always had the same reaction. If you turned the hose on him, he would stand there, getting soaked until you gave up and quit. If you threw things at him, he would curl his lanky body around feet in forgiveness. Whenever he spied children, he would come running meowing frantically and bump his head against their hands, begging for their love. If you ever picked him up he would immediately begin suckling on your shirt, earrings, whatever he could find.

One day Ugly shared his love with the neighbors huskies. They did not respond kindly, and Ugly was badly mauled. From my apartment I could hear his screams, and I tried to rush to his aid. By the time I got to where he was laying, it was apparent Ugly's sad life was almost at an end.

Ugly lay in a wet circle, his back legs and lower back twisted grossly out of shape, a gaping tear in the white strip of fur that ran down his front. As I picked him up and tried to carry him home I could hear him wheezing and gasping, and could feel him struggling. I must be hurting him terribly I thought.

Then I felt a familiar tugging, sucking sensation on my ear - Ugly, in so much pain, suffering and obviously dying was trying to suckle my ear. I pulled him closer to me, and he bumped the palm of my hand with his head, then he turned his one golden eye towards me, and I could hear the distinct sound of purring. Even in the greatest pain, that ugly battled-scarred cat was asking only for a little affection, perhaps some compassion.

At that moment I thought Ugly was the most beautiful, loving creature I had ever seen. Never once did he try to bite or scratch me, or even try to get away from me, or struggle in any way. Ugly just looked up at me completely trusting in me to relieve his pain.

Ugly died in my arms before I could get inside, but I sat and held him for a long time afterwards, thinking about how one scarred, deformed little stray could so alter my opinion about what it means to have true pureness of spirit, to love so totally and truly. Ugly taught me more about giving and compassion than a thousand books, lectures, or talk show specials ever could, and for that I will always be thankful. He had been scarred on the outside, but I was scarred on the inside, and it was time for me to move on and learn to love truly and deeply. To give my total to those I cared for.

Many people want to be richer, more successful, well liked, beautiful, but for me, I will always try to be Ugly.

The oldest reference I can find for this story is "Ugly" by Karen Stone in 2002 on the Independent Institute of Living but confusingly, although she claims copyright on the page, she also has this after the story:

I wish I knew who wrote this awesomely moving piece, a piece that will probably become a classic fable in due time.

Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175101/chalmers_johnson_dismantling_the_empire

According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our military bases around the world, our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories. We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. military forces living and working there -- 49,364 members of our armed services, 45,753 dependent family members, and 4,178 civilian employees. Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan

Eclipse 6 year old feature request for word wrap

(Eclipse is an Integrated Development Environment for Java development that I've used and I'm using)

[misc] Text Viewer and Editor needs to support word wrap

...with one valiant attempt from Ahti Kitsik through Google Summer of Code but with no completed results and the following proposal:

Companies who are interested in sponsoring word wrap implementation with some cash -- please contact me directly ahti@codehoop.com for more details. It would be all-or-nothing deal -- sponsorship would be collected only after feature gets into platform codebase.  I'd be happy to come up with a more complete solution if platform team is ready to introduce required API changes and we get enough interest from other companies too. I'm pretty familiar with the codebase and related problems (at least I was ~2 years ago).

MV: the start of Silicon Valley

Sign on San Antonio road next to the shopping mall.

Site of first silicon device and research manufacturing company in Silicon Valley. The research conducted here led to the development of the Silicon Valley. 1956

The old building now houses a mexican grocery.

SFO airport taxis are a ripoff

"This is America, you need to give 15% tip" said the Black & White checker taxi driver as we got off the taxi. Sorry buddy, I don't think America is about government enforced monopolies, stifling free competition and ripping off customers. Although maybe unmitigated greed probably is part of the American ethos and certainly this new immigrant learned that lesson fast.

Not only did he want us to pay cash (or face a 10% hike) but he was charging us 150% the metered fare as allowed by the monopoly on taxis at the airport - which came up to 91$ (plus a 6$ tip we gave him)! 91$ is a third as expensive as the 678 miles plane ride we had just taken! Oh yeah, and thanks for pointing out the surcharge once we had left the airport.

Unbelievably expensive for a 25.2 miles (40km) taxi ride home and absolutely unacceptable when compared to decent public transportation (usually less than 10$) available in every metropolis we've been to outside of North America that brings us almost door to door quickly.

In this area, they have trouble maintaining weekend service for the single train line...

Every experience with the taxis waiting in line at the SFO airport has been horrible. They know nothing about the area (you have to provide them step-by-step instructions), their taxi are poorly maintained, they love chatting on the phone and they don't really want to help you get your luggage in and out their crappy car.

You're better to stick with the unsanctioned drivers: at least they are polite, friendly, helpful and their cars don't suck. Or find a driver that you like and call him when you get off the plane...

FareStart restaurant in Seattle

FareStart restaurant is both a school for the unemployed and a restaurant run by volunteers and students to finance their charitable programs.

Public transportation in Seattle

Public transportation is unreliable and coverage is spotty. Every morning I took the 26 or 28 to get from 7th (1 block from the hotel) to 34st and Fremont. Whatever time was on the schedule didn't matter it seems as every buses made its way at random times. It seems I never was able to wait less than 15mn for a bus...

They also have a surcharge during rush hour... It's small but why? Isn't it better to have more people taking public transportation?

In addition, the bus lines "transform" into other bus lines which can be confusing especially if bus drivers don't call it out.

On the plus side, the downtown area is in a free zone and the clientele is diversified which makes for a nicer experience.

In comparison, San Francisco buses smell like piss with many passengers who haven't showered for weeks. No one that can scrape enough money for a car would be caught dead in a bus in Silicon Valley.

We are very far from Munich and London where "regular" people take the bus...

Portage Bay Cafe

Yet another restaurant that comes with the cafe designation but works and looks like a restaurant.

The Portage Bay Cafe was referred to us for breakfast by the hotel, located 3 blocks from the hotel and it is enormously busy. Seeing the large set of people at the door we were worried that we would have to wait a long time.

The hostess told us the wait was 15mn but strangely as soon as wrote down our name she decided that we could sit down immediately. It looks like most of the people waiting were large groups.

Service was prompt but we had to wait a while for the food which wasn't unexpected considering. We ordered cinnamon twist french toast and Swedish pancakes and got huge portions (twice what we could eat)... Food is mostly from organic sources and the restaurant has a close relationship with the producers. The price is reasonable (33$ for two) considering the food quality, but the restaurant is very noisy (due to the cement ceiling) and the one stall toilet and one urinal for a restaurant that serves 191 persons is ridiculous.

The contrast in the ethnic composition is noticeable compared to Mountain View with a mostly white clientele with a few Asians sprinkled throughout and what seems to be a large amount of well-paid blue collars. The area around reminds us of the international district of Montreal just before the boom and the empty but very attractive leasing space.

Arrival in Seattle

The two hours flight with United went without a hitch and thanks to Min Lin membership in the Lufthansa/Star Alliance "Miles and more" silver status we got priority boarding and extra leg space on the flight. The only trouble was the fact that the plane left at 6h15am meaning we woke up around 4am.

Our ride from Tacoma to Seattle was with an Indian Sikh driver that played typical Indian music clip with the hypnotic dance move.

Our hotel, Pan Pacific, looks luxurious but they didn't have a room for us ready so early so we went on a 1h quest to find a breakfast place and ended up at a cafe next to the towering Space Needle.

After we ate we bought a Seattle City Pass and started by visiting the adjacent Science-Fiction Museum and Experience the music with a fun bonus Jim Henson exhibition.

We then proceeded to a Lebanese cafe on Blanchard (looks like most eating place are also cafes!) - the alternative lunch places was an endless series of brunch for weekends. The gyro was good but Min Lin's falafel were a pale and tasteless version of the excellent falafel place in San Jose that Matt made us discover.

Going down to the water on Blanchard, we are overwhelmed by the odor of urine at every corner. Undesired bonus: a used condom on the sidewalk.

Not surprisingly, the city is hostile to people with small bladder as old reliable pee stations such as Starbucks and libraries have locked toilets "for customers only". Is it worth a smelly and disgusting city? Sounds to me like businesses shoot themselves in the foot collectively...

As it is the Seafair parade, some streets are lined up with chairs since early in the morning. The parade is a huge event but we only stopped for a glimpse.

We had dinner at the Wasabi Bistro on 2nd and Bell (an area with many restaurants): king crab soup, garden roll and bay scallop roll. Very good but expensive - 46$. Luckily, Min Lin printed a 25$ gift certificate for the restaurant she got through the airlines miles program of United so the actual total was closer to 20$.

Social network "viruses"

From a friend:

Beware Netlog !!

I strongly suggest that you NOT click on anyone's Netlog sight should one come across your computer screen!! Through some highly deceptive ploy on their part, it will sign you up to join (even though you have not officially done so), and the result will be that your e-mail address book has been opened up and quite literally tapped into. Everyone in your e-mail address list will receive an "invitation" to look at your sight, thus setting off a chain reaction that taps into YOUR address book!!

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet - Trailer HQ

"Michel Gagné was born in Québec, Canada. He studied animation at Sheridan College School of Visual Arts in Ontario, Canada and in 1985, began a highly successful artistic career. "

http://www.gagneint.com

http://michelgagne.blogspot.com/

Its Time for Real / Eat Local, Eat Real

Home: documentaire disponible jusqu'au 15 juillet

Home: un documentaire à propos de notre maison à tous.

An inspiring women: Mary Lou Jepsen

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1733748_1733754_1736211,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

Jepsen is a veteran of the MIT Media Lab, where she co-created the world's first holographic video system in 1989—back when computer imaging meant straight lines on a cathode screen. In 2005 Jepsen and Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte launched the nonprofit, open-source One Laptop Per Child program, which, as the name suggests, was an attempt to get a computer to every child in the world who needs one. The machines would have to work in extreme climate, amid spotty power and Internet connectivity, and be readable in direct sunlight.

[...]

Within two years they succeeded, creating a computer that can run on solar power, with five times the screen resolution of other laptops and a wireless system that creates its own network. The $100 price point has not been met, but $188 has. Jepsen did all that 12 years after receiving a diagnosis of a brain tumor in 1995 that had gone undetected for five years. She beat the disease but must take a dozen pills every day to keep her hormone output stable. Something of a self-taught expert on hormones, she now offers her insights to others who are diagnosed with the same illness. Jepsen is known among her friends as the "light lady" for her work with computer imaging. But the kind of light she's shedding goes far beyond the screen.

Soy Story

http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/2009/08/is_soy_healthy

So what's the bottom line? If you're a woman who has been diagnosed with or has a family history of breast cancer, it's probably safest to avoid soy. Men hoping to father children should probably limit the amount of soy they eat, and parents would be advised to follow the Israeli guidelines in serving soy foods to their kids, especially infants and toddlers.

[...]

When it comes to soy and health, there isn't much consensus. But there is one thing that both the anti- and pro-soy camps seem to agree on: Fermented soy is good for you.

How to Find Work You Love and Live the Time of Your Life

"Do what you Love and the Money will follow!" ==> "Do what you Love and Life will follow!"

"Why do you Love your job?" ==> "No correlation between income level and loving your job"

"Life can follow any income level"

"What is happiness?"

"Define success without a dollar sign"

Further reading: Passion at Work

Another good inspiring talk: Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Delicious lead... Délicieux plomb...

WARNING: The Red Wine Vinegars and Balsamic Vinegars on these shelves contain lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_65_(1986)

I still bought a big bottle of balsamic vinegar...

J'ai quand même acheté une grosse bouteille de vinaigre balsamique...

Best of Mountain View 2009

We've voted for Best of Mountain View 2009:

Restaurants
Best Chinese restaurant: Chef Liu's
Best coffee house: Neto Cafe & Bakery
Best Mediterranean restaurant: Mediterranean Grill
Best sushi/Japanese restaurant: Sushi Tei
Best vegetarian restaurant: Passage to India

Services
Best massage: Massage Envy

Food/Drink
Best noodle place: Ramen House Ryowa
Best pizza: Madonaldo's Pizza
Best place to buy fresh produce: Mountain View Farmers' Market
Best small (non-chain) grocery store: Mi Pueblo

Retail
Best bike shop: Performance Bike
Best new business: 99 Ranch Market

Fun stuff
Best entertainment: Computer History Museum

Theme Category
Best place for a Hero-Villain battle: Castro street
Best rooftop to shine the bat light from: Mountain View City Hall
Best superhero headquarters: Googleplex

Really, 64% for Public Enemies?

ROTTEN TOMATOES: Movies - New Movie Reviews and Previews!

64%


Public Enemies

I like to rely on Rotten Tomatoes because they gather and summarize the rating of many critics.

On opening night, Public Enemies had 64% so we decided to go see that.

Although the acting was good and the cinematography was great, it wasn't entertaining or emotionally appealing.

I think Rotten Tomatoes still works, as long as you look for something that has >75% (3/4 of critics like it).

Best of Mountain View 2008

Best business:
http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=833

Best eating and drinking:
http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=832

2009 Summer concerts in Mountain View

Free Thursday evening concerts from 6:30 to 8pm:

http://www.ci.mtnview.ca.us/city_hall/comm_services/recreation_programs_and_services/community_events/summer_concert_series.asp

Mountain View Farmers' Market

Every Sunday from 9am to 1pm, there is the popular Farmers' market in Mountain View. You can find all kind of organically grown, fresh fruits and vegetables in addition to various homemade products. It's great and Min Lin has her favorite stand to buy really inexpensive Chinese vegetables.

At the entrance there is a huge basket sampling many of the products of the market. The woman at the stand told us: "Go ahead guys, fill it out - you have a great chance to win since there are few people that filled it out!".

So we did.

And we won.

They called us up a few minutes later while we were going to buy additional vegetables from the Chinese grocery on Castro. They told us "You won! Please fetch it in the next 45 minutes... oh, and don't come by bike, there's just too much!" - "...but...but"

... oh boy, trouble...

So now we had to figure out who to call up to share our new bounty. We eventually reached Wenbo; his family had just landed a day ago so were indeed in need of food. Even after just picking up the stuff we wanted and leaving him with a very heavy basket and bag of oranges, we filled out both of my bike saddle bags!

Karen, the person who had encouraged us to participate, was nice enough to help us with additional plastic bags to split the stuff. She also gave us the basket!

We talked for a bit; she works as an assistant-manager for the California Farmer's Market Association and they organize many markets in the region. She also mentioned to look out for the number on stickers of fruits and vegetables; #4 is conventionally grown, #8 is genetically modified and #9 is organic.

What was in the basket:

Shitake mushrooms, salads with edible flowers, baby spinach, zucchinis, Chinese eggplants, baby eggplants, lettuce, tomatoes, corn, broccoli, carrots, celery, various herbs, bok choy, strawberries, cucumbers, plums, peaches, apricots, oranges, potatoes, onions, blueberries from Triple Delight, organic fresh black raspberries from Prevedelli Farms, wildflower honey from Morganic Hilltop, sweet jalapeño marinade from Bolani, dried apricots from Apricot King and much more!!

Here's a summer garden soup made by Min Lin with fresh vegetables and herbs from the basket:

Recipe of Min Lin's summer garden soup:

Ingredients:

• 1 big tomato
• 1 baby green zucchini
  
• 1 yellow zucchini
  
• some fresh basil
• some fresh coriander
• some water, salt, pepper, ginger powder and extra virgin olive oil

Cooking directions:

• cut all vegetables, put all in a pot and gently cook until vegetables gets soften
• serve with a few drops of lemon juice
  
• good for 3 servings
  

Ricky + Min Lin Photos

Photos prises par un professionnel dans un studio à Taipei. Pas mal non?

Pictures taken in a studio in Taiwan by a professional photographer. Not bad right?

The place we took Glamor pictures is at a studio in Ximen Taipei (http://www.flower-waves.com.tw/personal/about.asp - website in Chinese only). Min Lin has negotiated the package and scheduled the photo session 3 weeks in advance. The package we paid was around US$400 with 20 photos and a nice album with our 20 photos of 6x8 size, package includes 3 styles, one on one photographer and stylist. The studio also have a selection of cloths, but it's recommended to bring your own cloths.

It took us around 4 hours for the glamor pictures session and after that it took us 2 hours to choose 20 pictures out of 120 pictures (the photographer and his assistants took at least 1 hour trying to convince us to buy extra pictures, US$25/photo for only digital version and US$40/photo with printed + digital version + nicer album). Overall, it was a nice experience, the only drawback was that final pictures and album was done only a month after.

Debunking Canadian health care myths

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Coffee Drinks Illustrated

http://www.flickr.com/photos/two-eyes/1285147549/sizes/o/

Typing it old skool

My birthday gift from Matt: a "new" IBM Type M keyboard from the original mold but with a USB interface! Love the taka taka taka of the hard springs inside - reminds me of programming on an IBM PS/2!

Min Lin however is not so happy with the noise... Mouahaha

I'll have to bring it at work to try it out on my colleagues!

HTC Hero - First Look

Taiwanese (HTC) are really good at making lickable user interfaces for mobile phone ;-)

Mac Book Pro, Mac OS X 10.5.7 crashes and Ubuntu 9.04

UPDATE: After a little bit of research, I found this:

http://www.pjentrepreneur.com/2009/01/21/update-mac-book-pro-blank-screen-problem/

I've had a Mac Book Pro air laptop since June 2007, one of the 3,1 model.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B07
SMC Version (system): 1.16f11
Serial Number (system): W8722D1NX91
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

My experience with it has been relatively good and I've been happy with an OS that straddles ease of use with the power of Unix under the hood. I spend hours every day at the computer (probably around 3000 hours on this one since I've bought it) so it is important that it works and although I love figuring out stuff at work I want my computer at home to help me relax.

Since the update to Mac OS X 10.5.7, my computer has been acting up in weird ways. Of course, I'm all out of luck since I did not renew my warranty. I'm not the only one as Min Lin had to change her hard drive for another one when the SMART monitoring started indicating imminent failures. Luckily that was pretty cheap to do in Taiwan.

I've always had display problems of some kind in previous releases. I have a dual-monitor setup (MBP 15 inch display with a Dell 2405FPW 24 inch display) and sometimes one of the display would start flickering for a while, or one of the display would not come back from sleep (with Detect displays resolving that issue) or...

But with the latest update, this went from annoying to disastrous. The OS' WindowServer (equivalent to Xserver) will completely freeze (not even a killall -HUP WindowServer from an ssh shell will recover it) with very abstract artwork being displayed. Using Skype now is a guaranteed crash.

I call this one "windows in the snow"

What is more annoying is that at reboot the boot up process will eventually crash indicating that you need to reboot once again (and again, and again...). The only way to recover from this one seemed to be to boot in single user (Cmd-S at boot) and run a fsck -fy that would ALWAYS find that /var/run/pcscd.pub (incorrect block count for the file pcscd.pub (should be 16 instead of 17). "pcscd is the Unix daemon that handles smartcards for OS X so this appears to be due to some built-in problem in the OS where that particular process file is always open.

I've been researching these issues, but opposite to certainly Linux and sometimes Windows, Mac OS X users are proud of being able to be generally ignorant of anything "technical" and so when confronted with an actual problem they are less than helpful at describing bugs and resolving them instead of just blindly trying things. Apple's help is similarly suited to users that don't know much so you are pretty much stuck figuring the issue yourself. Not only that, but I've read in some places that Apple was aware and may be working at solving these issues but they haven't and will not say anything publically.

From what I gleaned, all this seems to be due to a long present issue with the NVidia GeForce 8600M GT and similar video cards - an actual firmware bug that from release to release gets worked around differently. So under that nice aluminium casing there is actually a lemon! Of course, they probably have/had code to work around the issue which explains the generally satisfying experience but as the OS code evolves so do regressions appear making using Mac OS X on this defective hardware unsustainable in the long term. Which is really sad because when you invest 2K$ in a computer you expect it to last for more than 2 years... Any other company would see itself a subject of a class action suit, but of course fans of Apple are generally more fanatic and can afford to swap a lemon after a while....

So just for kick, I've downloaded Linux Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (Jalopy!) 9.04 LiveCD. Surprisingly, this boots and works straight up from the CD-ROM. Surprising since the last time I looked into it you had to jump through all kind of hoops to get it to run on the special EFI architecture that the MacBook have.

Ubuntu has its own problems of course and some of those issues that have been known for a long time (such as the inability to drive the Dell 2405FPW higher than 1280x1024 when it is a 1920x1200 display), the very jumpy touchpad that I had to disable or other subtle user interface bugs (such as an invisible force field that prevents dragging windows from one display to the other). These of course will just get ignored if I report them as they are always working on the next generation instead - most of my bugs related to Linux distros have been closed in the past as deprecated in new releases even when they are very easy to reproduce.

But at least I get hope that it is possible to run this hardware without crashing all the times. It also seems to strangely help with resetting whatever issue is occuring on the Mac OS X side...

Comparaison d'engins de recherche

"BlindSearch" permet de faire une comparaison entre plusieurs engins de recherche sans etre biaise par nos preconceptions.

Si vous trouvez des mots-cles qui donnent les meilleurs resultats que celui de notre compagnie, n'hesitez pas a me les envoyer avec une explication du pourquoi un est meilleur que l'autre!

Pirates sur la piste cyclable

Un cycliste avec son perroquet blanc sur son epaule...

Taiwan: A Fruit Lover's Paradise

If you love tropical fruits, you should definitely visit Taiwan in June-July, it is the best time to taste the most delicious tropical fruits in the world!! You will find lychee, mango, papaya, guava, pineapple, watermelon, sugar cane, carambola, longan, passion fruit, sugar apple, etc... I could eat just fruits all day long ;-)

Other than fruits produced in Taiwan, I also like the exotic taste of durian, imported from Thailand. It's smelly and sweet ;-)

The O'Reilly Procedure

Roger Ebert: The O'Reilly Procedure

Sometimes O'Reilly is compared with Father Coughlin, a popular far-right radio commentator in the 1930s who fanned the flames against Roosevelt and warned about immigration and "foreigners," by which it was understood he meant primarily Jews. O'Reilly objects to such a comparison, and certainly there is no reason to consider him anti-Semitic.

[...]

What were those "same techniques?" The Indiana team quoted an earlier study:

The seven propaganda devices include: * Name calling -- giving something a bad label to make the audience reject it without examining the evidence;
* Glittering generalities -- the opposite of name calling;
* Card stacking -- the selective use of facts and half-truths;
* Bandwagon -- appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to follow the crowd;
* Plain folks -- an attempt to convince an audience that they, and their ideas, are "of the people";
* Transfer -- carries over the authority, sanction and prestige of something we respect or dispute to something the speaker would want us to accept; and
* Testimonials -- involving a respected (or disrespected) person endorsing or rejecting an idea or person.

Action Discrète - Le buzz du ministre !

Le futur de la promotion politique sur Internet... La fin est vraiment drôle! Google, PageRank, Lapin Crétin, blogues...

Artisan Wine Depot

Dégustation de bières avec quelques bières Allemandes et Belges au nouveau Artisan Wine Depot à Mountain View.

Nous avons rencontré un des cofondateurs de Eye-Fi (carte SD avec transmetter WiFi!) Ziv Gellat qui a démontré son produit en prenant des excellentes photos de nous:

Mountain View ranked as 4th "America's Top 25 Towns to Live Well"

http://www.mv-voice.com/story.php?story_id=5131

Of all the cities and towns in the U.S. with populations under 100,000, Mountain View has been ranked by Forbes magazine as the fourth best to live in and the best in the Bay Area.

A May 4 Forbes story titled "America's Top 25 Towns to Live Well" states that, compared to most cities, Mountain View is more likely to rebound from the economic recession and has the sort of business environment often seen only in large cities.

The top 25 list was created by San Francisco-based ZoomProspector.com, which factored in data such as business environment, cultural attractions, average commute time, entrepreneurs per capita, the number of educated professionals between 25 and 34 years old and median income.

Picnick online photo editing

I found a pretty cool online photo editing tool called Picnik, it's free and fun!

Before adding effects:


After adding some effects:

You can also create photo collage:

The free version has limited choices of effects and collage templates. It is possible to upgrade to Premium edition by paying an annual fee...

Discover Taiwan - the treasure island

Here's some links for travel in Taiwan:

Taiwan tourism bureau
Taiwan Map
Taiwan Festivals
Tastes of Taiwan

Transportation
Taiwan Railway Administration - train schedule

Places to visit
Green Island
Taroko National Park
Yushan National Park
Shei-Pa National Park
North Coast & Guanyinshan National Scenic Area
Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area
Maolin National Scenic Area
Siraya National Scenic Area
Orchid Island (Lanyu)
Penghu County
Liji Lunar World
Yehliu Park
Longdong South Ocean Park
Danshuei Old Street
National Palace Museum
Taipei 101

Accommodation recommendation
Accommodations around Hualien and Taroko
Grand Formosa Taroko (Tien-Xian)
Hotel Bayview (Chishingtarn Coast Scenic Area)
Rainbow hotel (Jiben)
Shiacarl B&B - English version coming soon! (Green Island)
Burgary hotel - Chinese (Taipei)

The crusade for a Christian military

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488

They had commissioned the Special Forces interpreter, an Iraqi from Texas, to paint a legend across their Bradley’s armor, in giant red Arabic script.

“What’s it mean?” asked Humphrey.

“Jesus killed Mohammed,” one of the men told him. The soldiers guffawed. JESUS KILLED MOHAMMED was about to cruise into the Iraqi night.

The Bradley, a tracked “tank killer” armed with a cannon and missiles—to most eyes, indistinguishable from a tank itself—rolled out. The Iraqi interpreter took to the roof, bullhorn in hand. The sun was setting. Humphrey heard the keen of the call to prayer, then the crackle of the bullhorn with the interpreter answering—in Arabic, then in English for the troops, insulting the prophet. Humphrey’s men loved it. “They were young guys, you know?” says Humphrey. “They were scared.” A Special Forces officer stood next to the interpreter—“a big, tall, blond, grinning type,” says Humphrey.

“Jesus kill Mohammed!” chanted the interpreter. “Jesus kill Mohammed!”

A head emerged from a window to answer, somebody fired on the roof, and the Special Forces man directed a response from an MK-19 grenade launcher. “Boom,” remembers Humphrey. The head and the window and the wall around it disappeared.

Qu'est-ce qu'un BBS?

Hier, j'ai été obligé d'expliquer à mes collègues de travail c'était quoi un BBS (Bulletin Board System)!

Ils étaient complètement étonnés d'entendre qu'il y avait dans les années 80 et jusqu'au milieu des années 1990 des (centaines dans la région de Montréal) ordinateurs connectés à une banque de modems (4-32) auxquels les utilisateurs se connectaient de la maison. Ils étaient aussi sceptiques d'entendre que ces BBS offraient des services de forums de discussions, de téléchargement de fichiers, de jeux et de chats avec des limites de temps (1 heure) enfin que plusieurs personnes puissent se connecter à tour de rôle.

Un des deux, un nouveau stagiaire d'origine Chinoise avait entendu parlé du terme BBS en Chine à son université - mais pour lui c'était un serveur un Internet auxquel les étudiants se connectaient pour échanger.

Je pense que je suis trop vieux... Moi et Min Lin on a commencé notre relation sur le babillard électronique du Cégep du Vieux Montréal. J'étais aussi un sysop (system operator) du système et j'en profitait pour donner du temps d'extra à ma blonde ;-).

Taiwan May 2009 2 weeks travel Costs for 2 persons

After reading posts about our trip in Taiwan and looking at our nice pictures, I think lots of people are curious to know how much did the trip cost?

Here's the breakdown (Taiwanese dollars, conversion at the end):

Note: we stayed 2 nights at my brother's apartment in Taipei.

The total cost excluding round-trip airfare is US$1725.62 (1901.76$CAD), round trip plane ticket San Fran-Taipei is US$865 per person, so the real total is $3455.62 for 2 persons 2 weeks travel in Taiwan. It is possible to reduce the cost if you travel in low season (probably March-April and October-November), airfare can be 30% to 40% cheaper and if you don't mind staying at cheaper accommodations, you can save another 20% to 30%.

Want to have an unforgettable trip? What are you waiting for? Start planning your trip to Taiwan! ;-)

My Tracks Taiwan

Android My Tracks recorded GPS information for our Taiwan trip:


View Tracks: Taiwan May 2009 in a larger map

Egg standing up on Dragon boat day

Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 12:25:08 +0800

Lucky year!

Actually, my niece Jessica made an egg standing up by
12:25 and it was still up until 22:00.
Maybe getting lucky by doing this is true, because the
same night my niece won the First Price at Dragon boat
festival organized by our community!

Je suis sur StreetView / I'm on StreetView!

View Larger Map

Je suis dans la pyramide! J'ai posté ça l'été dernier mais l'image n'était plus valide. J'ai vérifié que je suis encore là...

I'm in the pyramid! I had posted that last summer but the image wasn't valid anymore but I'm still there ;-).

No room for bigots

http://www.newint.org/features/2009/05/01/no-room-for-bigots/

As for the much-derided Muslims (580,000 in the 2001 census, but now estimated at 750,000) – they are a satisfied lot, according to a poll done for the Trudeau Foundation in Montreal. They register higher levels of pride in Canada than the population at large. They are less likely than Muslims in Britain, France, Germany or Spain to feel that their fellow citizens are hostile to Islam. They did cite discrimination as a problem, but ‘the thing Muslims least like about Canada is the cold weather’, just like all other immigrant groups.

Burgary hotel 寶格利時尚旅館, Ximen, Taipei, Taiwan

The Burgary hotel 寶格利時尚旅館 is just next the busy Ximen area on the busy Zhonghua road.

Ximen is ideal for shopping, food an ideal to catch a movie with its numerous movie theaters (we saw Star Trek on a large Imax screen).

The rooms are expensive (3680NT$ or around 120$US), the entrance is unimpressive, the free breakfast is the worse we've had. The bed is so-so, better then the plywood hardness in other hotels, although we would have hoped for better and more sheets.

Where the Burgary really shine is in the bathroom with an enormous bubble bath with colored lighting effect and nice shower with a standard showerhead and a rain type overhead showerhead. Next to the bath is a TV screen.

Overall, a good experience and we would come back for a night or two to be in the happening area.

Olympia bakery, Taipei, Taiwan

Olympia bakery (3 places in Taipei, including one is Ximen) has surprisingly good cream puffs for 30NT$ (1US$) each. They are also very filling so you can't really eat more then one. Another surprise are the dim sum who are tasty and fresh.

Olympia (http://www.olympiafoods.com.tw)

Baiyang trail 白楊步道, Taroko National Park 太魯閣國家公園, Taiwan

A few minutes walk in the hot sun from the Grand Formosa hotel was the Baiyang trail 白楊步道.

From the start, Min Lin was worried when we had to walk a few hundreds meters in a straight tunnel where the light at the other end was only a dot.

She got more worried when we got to a curved tunnel where we couldn't see the light until we walked to the curve a few meters in.

But she got really worried when we had to walk a few meters in yet another tunnel in total darkness! That last experience was exactly like being blind even with our eyes wide open, the convenient rail our only guide.

Dragging Min Lin through it all was worth it for the sights of the roaring canyon river on one side of a rope bridge (limit 10 persons) and waterfalls on the other. Absolutely gorgeous!

In addition, the trail ends with the water curtain tunnel, where a river flows fed by water leaking abundantly from the ceiling. If you go through, be ready to get wet and watch out for the frogs.

All of this is framed by vegetation covered cliffs, huge boulders at the bottom of the canyon and mountains peaking through the clouds. It is also an easy trail, apart from the scary tunnels. A flashlight is recommend except if you like to have your significant other hold on tight to yourself...

Grand Formosa Taroko Western Restaurant, Taiwan

The decor is wood and a large slab of rock next to which are placed the various salad dish. Two more islands have most of the meat dishes and a chef speciality area. Tucked in a corner the desserts are layed out.

The staff is very accomodating and prompt, offering us good seats and are quick at picking up the steady stream of dishes.

The desserts are all delicious and include a mango mousse, an angel cake, fruitcake and more. There is also some watermelon and if you want to go French style you can get some of the tasty smoked gouda cheese in addition to a Min Lin's favorite, matcha (green tea) ice cream. The chef was nice enough to bring an extra plate of cheese when we scavenged the last piece.

Wait you'll say, what about the main dishes? Sadly, they are all messed up in their own special way with an uniform abuse of pepper in all dishes. The supposedly French style onion soup is an insult to France and even the spaghetti ranks as the worse I've had.

The buffet food is 590NT$ plus a 10% service charge. We recommend stuffing yourself on the afternoon tea (250NT$) and going for some stinky tofu next door for dinner.

Grand Formosa Taroko 天祥晶華度假酒店, Tien-Xiang 天祥, Taiwan

Ma-Lu-Su? ("How are you?" in the language of the Atayal, a local aboriginal mountain tribe)

Nested in the mountains and only reachable by an half hour drive in the sinuous and narrow roads through the tall mountains is the Grand Formosa Taroko hotel 天祥晶華度假酒店.

Years ago, the Japaneses during the occupation were the first to turn the region from a dangerous mountain path hanging dangerously on the cliff of the mountains to a tourists destination.

Now, tour buses of mostly Taiwaneses and mainlanders with a few westerners and Japaneses sprinkled throughout negotiate a not much larger road, stopping to admire the beautiful sights of the high, jungle covered mountains and bare cliffs that drop to the rivers.

Some, like us, stop at the amazingly affordable five stars hotel Grand Formosa Taroko with all the modern facilities in the middle of it all. Two restaurants (one western style buffet and one chinese style), indoor and outdoor (roof) swimming pools, spa facilities and a gamut of entertainment choices (ping pong, billiards, video games, bowling). The dinner buffet looks delicious although expensive even by the standards in North America.

You can get a room with a view on the courtyard or overlooking the river and cliff outside. We switched to the second choice so we could run naked in the room with the windows opened.

At night, huge insects (including an enormous wasp that made it in the room) are attracted to the light and land on our window. A bat profits of this by flying again and again next to our window to eat them.

The rooms are decorated tastefully with some inspirations from the mountain tribes while the friendly employees wear uniforms with slight additions that reminds us of traditional aboriginal tribes.

Amazing, if not slightly nauseating, that this mountainous and remote area went from tribes getting necessities from nature to hydroelectric dams to the comforts found in any large city of the world in the span of less than 75 years with the help of a few generations of murdered natives or exploited labor.

All of this so that I can make a call sitting on the toilet by using the convenient phone handset there or watch HBO while lounging on the bed...

Thank you doesn't seem enough.

The only thing left to do then is to complain about how hard the bed is, how the hotel corridors are smelly and how few towels there are.

S-Wa-Yai Da Da! (goodbye in Atayal)

Hike in mysterious valley, Shakadang trail 砂卡礑步道, Taroko National park 太魯閣國家公園, Taiwan

The staff at the hotel Taroko warmed up to us and we warmed up to them. We were going to leave for the next hotel but they convinced us to try at least one trail, the Shakadang trail 砂卡礑步道.

So after breakfast (fried egg sandwich) we did a 8 km hike through the 1 km tunnel that goes to the "mysterious valley", then following a trail built into one cliff and finally the mostly dried river bed with just enough water for miniature waterfalls and small fishes.

There are a few aboriginal people still living in the valley and they grow a kind of vegetable consumed for its leafs in addition to raising a few chickens.

We then came back to Taroko village and had lunch, mostly gathered from the local 7 Eleven store.