Sunday, July 23

周末歌曲:幸福进行曲

这星期介绍的是客家歌曲:幸福进行曲
幸福进行曲
演唱:蔡孟甫/谢宇威/林宜君/叶容妃
作词:原:陈明章/曾郁文/叶金胜 
作曲:陈明章
歌词改写:李坤城/陈明章/翁佳铭/张十三

因为你 冬雪已化成春天的花蕊
因为你 雁行千里美梦来随行
咱的青春 是一段唱未完的歌诗
咱的未来 是写伫土地的爱你


你有真情 我有信心
只要有希望 每一界咱拢会站起来
天总是会光 路边搁真呢长
不怕风雨咱真情相挺

你讲你要唱这首歌 幸福进行曲
这是咱作阵写的一首歌
温暖的家庭 清流的田园
(清流?Seriously, what does that mean?)
新的世纪 咱永远作阵行

台湾的族群意识比较强烈,客家人的声音能够在社会上表达;大陆由于大一统的要求,中央尽量抹杀地区之间的分歧,所以前段时间文化部还发文不允许各地电视台 用本地话。去年有一个记者听到“客家人”这个词,很高兴的说这个词很形象:“我也是客家人啊,我从东北到北京来闯荡,也是一个客家人。”可见客家族群的消失。客家人都以能够说粤语、普通话“乱真”为荣,不愿意让人知道自己的客家身份了。

这首客家歌听起来有点像闽南歌...比如说“爱拼才会赢”。下周我再介绍一首另一种风格的客家歌吧。

歌词摘自 台湾客家流行歌曲歌词欣赏(648首)

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Saturday, July 22

人际交往的一个问题

今天发现我在人际交往中存在的一个问题:

当我正在做一件事情的时候,别人提了一个建议(意见),我想了一想,含笑对他说:“没问题,谢谢你”,然后继续按照自己的方式做。

原因:
1,我认为我的方式是对的。
2,我认为她的方式是错的,或者没有必要,或者没有考虑完全。
3,我认为无所谓,这件事情用不着她的方式那么复杂。
4,我懒得想太多,敷衍一下他就行了。
5,我的事情,按照我的方式来做。

也许最后事情也能按照我的方式做得很完满,但是这种方式很不尊重对方,因为我没有任何解释就忽略了她的好意。其实就是把对方当白痴。

这个问题是一直存在的,还有一个变种:
别人的问题,我正好路过,提了一个建议。

Monday, July 17

Talks about Falun Dafa (Falun Gong)

July 7, there was a Stampede Parade in this cowboy city.
Stampede Parade
Falun was one entry in the parade.

Two days later, when two friends came to my home for dinner, Randy asked straightly:"I want to ask you a political question: what is the Falun Dafa?".

I said:"First of all, it is one kind of Qi Gong. Hum... Do you know what Qi Gong is?"

"Qi... Is that Tai Chi?" Randy asked.

"Yeah, Kind of." Actually, I should say Tai Chi is another kind of Qi Gong. But it is not that different.

And I kept talking about Falun Gong:"Practicing it you can get healthy, the same thing like you go sports or go to gym."

It's easy to understand that, as you think of it one kind of sport.

"But it discourage people to go to hospital when he gets sick. So a lot of practitioners refuse medical care even when they are dying. They blindly belived the Master Lee would rescue them." In the Bible of Falun, This is a very important concept: The sickness is the bad thing in your mind; Going to hospital is not the right way to get rid of it. If you trust the truth strongly, and you keep practicing the Falun Gong, the Master will help you to go through the hardness of sickness. And when you get recovered from sickness by practicing, you become stronger, and get closer to the truth.

Randy said:"What else did they do? I don't think the Chinese government banned it because of this. They should have done more than that."

Yes, Randy is right. There are also other religions in China which are not so "scientific correct". But those religions are not so aggresive to protest government.

Before the Falun Gong was banned, a magazine published an article, talking about the cases that practitioner died at home, thinking the sickness could be cured by practicing Falun. Several days later, hundreds of practitioners went to the building of the press, and the city council, asking the the press to apologize and punish the writer of the article. When they were refused, tens of thousands of practitioners paraded in front of the Chinese government in Beijing, until the Prime Minister talked to them.
So, in dozen days the Falun Gong organized a protest march with ten thousands of people in Beijing, the capital of China, without any permission. It is believed that the government feel the threat and ban the organization of 10 days.

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Sunday, July 16

Graph of my blog

websitesasgraphs

Sala built such an elegant applet to show the links of Internet. Above is the graph of my blog site, and the black dot in the middle is the main entry, http://benincampus.blogspot.com, when the grey dots around it are the blogs. Finally, one blog links to the world, and increases a colorful graph of the Net!

The code is so elaborately organized that reading it is a pleasure. Unbelievable, with the 253 lines of code, including comments, the applet can implement so many functions: web crawler, parser, tree manipulation, tree drawer, 3D animation, process control. Java is no longer a "if-for-while" language. A lot of new Classes are created to help building new programs, and that is the meaning of "Code Reuse". Same thing happenes for C/C++++, Perl, Python, when you should get familiar with the existing library before making serious program.

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Wednesday, July 12

The war of toolbar

Yahoo has inked an agreement with HP to install Yahoo toolbar in HP's new personal computers. HP users will have Yahoo services automatically. If they don't like Yahoo email, Yahoo messenger, and Yahoo search, they can uninstall the toolbar afterward. How many of them will do so?

We all know that users are lazy. Most users use tools which are easy to get. If Yahoo search is the default search engine, they don't want to change it to others, as long as the Yahoo servers are alive. To promote their services, Yahoo and Google has started a war in user's desktop: Yahoo signed contract with computer makers HP and Acer, when Google had deals with Dell, Adobe, News Corp. If you occupied user's desktop, you are the king.

Not only Yahoo and Google know this rule. Microsoft has its MSN Toolbar. A lot of spyware are designed as a toolbar too. Toolbar has gotten a little bit out of control recently. Most toolbars have similar features: Internet searching, Ad Blocking, Shortcuts to different channels. If you trust the host, and you like using those services, toolbar can actually facilitate your Internet browsing. But many PC users have many toolbars installed. Some toolbars are installed by BadWare quietly, but the users are too lazy to uninstall them: Because they may be reinstalled, if the users don't know how to prevent BadWare.

Toolbars are not only providing shortcuts to searching service of their host, but also collecting users' browsing activities. Most websites are ad-driven, and the websites wants to know users' browsing habit so that they can put corresponding advertisements to users, and increase the chance that users actually read the advertisements and purchase the items: That is how the advertisement companies and websites earn money.
In this deal, user's privacy is compromised. The websites get the browsing habits of user, and they sell this information to advertisement companies.

Some toolbars also collect user's personal information, even credit card number, social security number, bank account/password.

Be aware of your fragile security. Antivirus software and Firewall can not protect you from this kind of software, because they look like legitimate software.

If you like the s)

Κι ένα σπάνιο, αυθεντικό βίντεο:

Syd's first trip with Shine On You Crazy Diamond

(D)

Sunday, July 9

我的编程语言之路

我主页的自我介绍说,89.10,第一次摸到Computer。当时学Basic,Logo,还学了苹果机6502的汇编。
后来,学C,大学几年主要是用Turbo C/Borland C for DOS来玩。毕业后变得第一个大程序也是BC编一个在机车上的应用。
一不小心,进了“文曲星”那家公司,用6502汇编;3个月试用期没结束就跑出来,进入了Windows编程的时期。当然了用的是Visual C,做一些控件。
再后来,在网络潮最热的时候进入一家网络公司,用ASP/SQL Server从无到有实现了整个网站(当然不是我一个人,而是开发部4-5人一起做),经历了公司从20人膨胀到70人,最后缩小到5人的过程,其实也就是半年时间。
我又回到Visual C上面了。当前,前面半年我也没有放下VC,而是自己做一些小程序玩,比如说“脚气一贴灵”、“Tips Everyday”等。现在,我工作的内容是语音卡、电信通信等的编程,从driver到网络通信到数据库都有涉及。在一个程序中使用的Oracle数据 库数据量还特别大,每天增加几十万条数据,我还专门编两个月trigger来对付这些数据。
在这家公司里,印象最深的是一次我正在忙,对面两个程序员讨论什么问题,嘀嘀咕咕。忽然,有一个说“我们问Ben吧。”每个人都对自己的名字敏 感一些,我也不例外,所以我就听见这句话了,抬起头来,茫然地看他们;另一个程序员回答说:“别,再想想。确实找不到方法了再找他。”
你看,我就是这样一个“救火员”的角色。
开始学Java之后,发现Java是很纯正的面向对象的语言;许多应用如果用Java来表达,概念非常清晰。独自做了一个作业,用一个类来表示操 作系统,一个类来模拟cpu的运作;操作系统把应用程序调进内存之后,按照机器语言的规则一一送入cpu类,而cpu取得命令和数据,比如Add A, 3, 顺序操作寄存器。每个部件用分别的类来实现,很容易理解、修改。后来增加一个打印机的类,几乎不用修改现有的程序。
所以,在读研究生期间,我还跑到北京做了一段时间的基于Java的搜索引擎。Java不适合做小型客户端程序,因为它调入慢,运行也慢;但是作为服务端程序,它确实有许多优势。
自己还学了perl。比如说去年所做的新语丝的RSS,就是用perl实现的。
写程序到最后,基本上是算法的问题。最后,我毕业论文所写的基本上是算法的研究,用Java来计算BioInformatics中一些图上结点之间的逻辑距离。可是算法问题是学术问题,工业上只需要编程民工就足够了。洗脚说“唯手熟耳”,就是这个意思。

我并不是只懂编程序。比如说,做Java的搜索引擎的时候,我需要安装Linux服务器,安装Apache/Tomcat/Ant/CVS,设定域名,dns指向,全程都一手包办了。

我对各种语言都有学习,对于各种应用也做了不少,包括工业控制、网站设计、网络应用、甚至搜索引擎。但现在碰到的问题是:我无所适从,不知道自己该选择哪个方向:
  • Visual Basic: 对于VC程序员来说,VB几乎就是搭积木,就是考验手快不快而已。没有挑战性。
  • Visual C: 现在市场都变成C#了么?其实有许多应用程序不需要Web Service,不需要分布式计算的,C#根本就是浪费。
  • C for Unix: 我是向往open source的,羡慕跟microsoft作对的行列。可是给unix编程需要太多东西要学了:QT, XWindows, 安全权限...
  • Java:我没有这方面的深厚经验,而且对那些常用的swt类不熟。况且,现在的struts, hibernate等工具好像使用新的思路来实现网站设计。
  • Perl: 这个东西可以用做短短的工具,用来完成一个企业级的应用太勉为其难了。这个是系统管理员的工具,而不应该成为一个编程语言。
  • 数据库程序员:其实我蛮想做的。操作数据是我的兴趣,标准SQL我也练得纯熟。可是这世界上只有数据库管理员...

自己确切做过的完善的整个项目,一个是上面所说的操作系统的作业,用java模拟出操作系统、cpu、内存、外部设备;另一个是个dynamic dns系统,用vc写客户端的报告ip的软件,用asp+access写服务器端软件来解释dns请求。更重要的是:我完全独立构思出来,一年之后有兴趣 了,写完这个系统,发给几个朋友做beta测试,朋友才反馈说最近有这么一个dynamic dns系统跟你这个系统很相像。现在国内比较出名的“花生壳”,我都怀疑是参考我的思路写的the finger smiley

至于其他做的东西,大多数是修修补补,拿别人的程序来增加删改一些功能。当然,这样做很锻炼跟踪程序debug的能力。

项目负责、系统分析是我的努力方向,只是需要一些成绩来证明我的能力。而且,做哪方面的项目、系统,也是我需要寻找的。

我是什么都会干的万能手, 但是没有公司要这样的人,他们只要c#程序员,或者java程序员,或者网站程序员。所以我需要好好想想自己真正的路。

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Saturday, July 8

Mouse Potato

Huh, never heard of this word? Think of couch potato. A couch potato is a person sitting in the couch to watch TV all day long, so a mouse potato is a person sitting before the computer and using mouse all day long.

Don't worry about your vocabulary. It's normal that you don't know this word, because it was added into a Merriam-Webster dictionary this month. "Google" is added into this dictionary as a verb too. So, officially, you can google this word from now on.

Thursday, July 6

Calgary: Shortage of labour and increasing price of housing

Last Friday, Abbeydale Esso at 220 68 St. N.E. closed its doors, leaving only a cardboard sign in the window reading: "Closed for undetermined time due to labour shortage."

But that is not the whole story. Let's hear a manager from another store:

Masciangelo said she wrestled with shutting down the store for months before realizing she had little other choice.

"It was a three to four month process of bitter tears and anger," she said.

Masciangelo described the potential employees she interviewed as "unmotivated" and "pampered," unwilling to accept the $10 an hour pay, as well as a 25% in-store discount.

So, the reason of closing the store is not the shortage of labour. It's the shortage of cheap labour. The store owners wants to hire skilled, trained people with $10 an hour pay, when the price of housing has growing up 50% from June, 2005.

Yes, the Royal LePage reports that the price of a standard two-story resale home 54.6% to $397,867, compare to 1 year ago. The increasing of house brings up the price of food, clothes, labour, that means, people have to pay 50% more in housing and living, so how can you expect them to accept the same salary as last year's?

For example, in Calgary, you have to pay 35 cents to use the public payphone, when in most other cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Windsor, you only need to pay 25 cents. So that is 40% higher than in other cities. Why can't we expect 40% higher salary?

Saturday, July 1

About my blogs and feeds

Usually, I use this blog, http://benincampus.blogspot.com, to write down my thoughts. I assigned another domain name for it: http://blog.fadshop.net, pointing to the same address.
But because http://*.blogspot.com is blocked by Chinese Great FireWall (Don't ask me, I don't know why), I make a mirror site: http://fadshop.net/blog, copy the articles to it once every week. This mirror site is built in my own computer, so it might be slow, and sometimes it is down because I shutdown my computer. But at least, it is accessible from China.

So, I have two feeds for the same blog: http://benincampus.blogspot.com/atom.xml and http://fadshop.net/blog/atom.xml. Actually I burnt the feed using FeedBurner into the feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/benincampus. I prefer you to subscribe to this feed, if you'd like to. The best thing using the FeedBurner is: If I have to change a BSP, for any reason, you can still use this feed to get my updated blogs.

This blog is for writing what I think, and my Reading Blog is for bookmarkting my favorite webpages/articles, like del.icio.us. The link of my reading blog is http://www.bloglines.com/blog/BenInCampus, and I gave a shorter domain name too: http://read.fadshop.net. The feed is in http://www.bloglines.com/blog/BenInCampus/rss. I don't want to make it too complicate, so I havn't burn it using FeedBurner. Do you think I should?

Thanks for the Blogger and bloglines to provide space for these two blogs.

周末歌曲: 留步喂留步

《再向虎山行》《再向虎山行》是我10岁左右流行的武打电视剧,如果你没有听说过这个名字,你就当它是另一个《上海滩》好了。
这首歌是《再向虎山行》的片尾曲,每天晚上都播好几次,大家耳熟能详。可是即使如此,我们当时还是没法听出歌词来。
我们当地的粤语跟广州音、香港粤语比起来,就相当于东北话和普通话的区别,本质上是一样的,但是味道、语调有些区别。这首歌唱得特别粘糊,押韵在“后、步、露、道、补”,怪怪的,所以虽然我们每天听,也跟着吟,但是以为在唱“老豆唉老豆”,整个意思都乱了。

其实,单听这首歌,还是蛮轻快的,一开始就是很欢愉的丝竹音乐。现在我有点怀疑主旋律是从江南那边的一些小调借来的,特别是“此家小菜多鲜美 字号相当老嗟,解解饥寒当急务 请容我效劳”,但是不敢肯定,因为我太熟悉这首歌了

  留步喂留步   求你暂留步
  甜甜的姐姐稍稍留步
  姐姐呀你赶路嗟
  哎哟哎哟请息怒 我爱你齿儿露
  走出一只小花兔 原来穿花布
  姐姐本来一身雪白 你猜我点知道

  就让小生亲身陪罪
  今天作东道哩
  姐姐你看你多纤弱 你要多进补
  此家小菜多鲜美 字号相当老嗟
  解解饥寒当急务 请容我效劳
  哎哟哎哎哟
  女人不进补好易老嗟

  留步喂留步   前去便无路
  甜甜的姐姐稍稍留步
  姐姐你走错路
  应该转去东北面 问我作向导哩
  转弯经过几间铺 就是我茅庐
  今天适逢双喜日 我妈要娶媳妇
  留步喂留步
  我肯牺牲   将你娶

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