It's a nice day

It's a nice day
Please don't fxck it up

That's what I saw today. Let's have a nice new year, and don't fxck it up.

神们

在传统中国，神的社会其实是俗世社会的投影。人们嘲笑玉皇大帝的平庸无能，鄙视太白金星的诺诺无为，赞扬孙悟空、哪吒对自由的追求，崇拜菩萨普救众生的心肠。人们对神的期望在《封神演义》表达得最清楚：“坏”的神得到惩罚，“好”的神得到Promotion。固然有“成王败寇”的因素在里头，但是也表达了人们的喜怒爱憎。朴素、善良（软弱）的人们期望“好”神是站在自己一边，而且“好”身最终总是胜利。

同时，通达人世的中国人还是会在年末灶王爷上天汇报工作之前敬给祂粘嘴的麦芽糖，并在“请”了一副年画之后骂：“这玩意儿，八毛！”。他们并没有虔诚地（盲目地）信任什么东西，在求子的时候总是一个个庙宇拜过去，绝不会在一棵树上吊死。

古希腊的神们经常为了私欲带领祂的信众与另一个神开战。宙斯的“神王”地位的确立都是复杂的政治争端的结果。而特洛伊战争的起源是爱神阿佛洛狄忒承诺给特洛伊王子一个“全希腊最美丽的姑娘”，所以唆使特洛伊王子在访问斯巴达时诱拐了斯巴达的王后海伦。作为尊严典范的“阿喀琉斯的愤怒”，指的是半神人物阿喀琉斯所应得的一个女俘被统帅夺去了，就决定退出战争。己方节节败退。等到祂的兄弟被对方杀死之后，祂又投入战场，马革裹尸。在这些争执中，你看不到正义，看不到人类的尊严，只有那些神通广大的神在无聊时掀起的风浪。

犹太／伊斯兰／天主教／东正教／基督教的神也无所谓正义。祂并不是因为正义而成为神，而是因为创造万物而成为神。因此祂的所作所为，不管多么残忍，多么不可理喻，祂的信徒总是可以说：“不可轻易揣测神”，“他在下一盘很大的棋”，进而更加崇拜祂。神爱世人，但是祂爱的方式并不是俗世所定义的爱。企图用理智和情感来理解他的爱是南辕北辙，必不得其门而入。信徒能做的事情就是：接受所有发生在自己身上／世界上的一切，努力做好自己的事情。前半部分就是“麻醉人民的精神鸦片”的源泉，也是社会安定的因素；后半部分既可以发展成十字军式或Al Qaeda 般的狂热，也可以发展成通达人情的中国人品性（包括基督教老太太的善良和律师、经纪的奸滑）。

西方魔幻的神分为正义秩序和黑暗混沌两个阵营，但是正义阵营中的骑士总有一些卑鄙的代表，而混沌阵营中的兽人每每是勇猛的典范。即使是死亡之神的信徒死亡法师，也只不过是追寻生老病死的秘密来完成生命的轮回。一大堆的神，有点像希腊的多神教，但是背后往往有创始神（父神）的影子，还是基督教的神的模式。


dell3000 (dimension)对本文有贡献

DocumentCompleted Event of WebBrowser

MSDN said "the DocumentCompleted event occurs, the new document is fully loaded". That is NOT TRUE. When visiting my blog using WebBrowser, the event was fired up 5 times. When visiting another page, the event was fired up 3 times. It might have something to do with IFrame or Javascript.

In the previous 4 times when the event was fired up, the ReadyState was "Interactive". In the last time, the ReadyState is Complete. So we should modify the function as (VB.NET):

Private Sub WebBrowser1_DocumentCompleted(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs) Handles WebBrowser1.DocumentCompleted

If WebBrowser1.ReadyState = WebBrowserReadyState.Complete Then
DoSomething()
End If

End Sub

Boulevard of Broken Dreams ：一张CD

今天刻了一张CD，甚为满意。标题： Boulevard of Broken Dreams

1. 梁朝伟 - 你是如此难以忘记
2. Beyond - 农民
3. 张国荣 - A Thousand Dreams of You
4. 张国荣 - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
5. 张学友 - Corazon De Melao
6. 谢宇威 - 一侪
7. 张国荣 - I Honestly Love You
8. Hugh Grant / Haley Bennett - Way Back Into Love
9. 周华健 - 不愿一个人
10. 许冠杰 - 沧海一声笑
11. 张学友 - 给朋友
12. 陈明 - 寂寞让我如此美丽
13. 张国荣 - 寂寞夜晚
14. 陈果 - 有空来坐坐
15. 张国荣 - 为你钟情
16. 张国荣 - 我
17. 张学友 - 月半弯
18. 赵传 - 我终于失去了你

共78分钟的歌曲，包括5首英文歌曲，6首粤语歌曲，1首客家话歌曲；3个台湾歌手，5个香港歌手（Beyond算一个），两个大陆歌手。

Install ML-2010R printer in Ubuntu

I bought a Samsung ML-2010R Monochrome Laser Printer yesterday. It's only $80, a nice deal. Then it takes me 3 hours to install it in Windows 2003 computer and print from Ubuntu.

I have one Win2003 computer sitting in basement. It already has an HP printer connected, and shared for other computers in the network. In second floor there are 2 laptops running Windows XP Home/Pro, and one desktop running Ubuntu 7.10. They are connected as WORKGROUP, not DOMAIN. The HP printer has been serving all the printing jobs nicely, and the installation was an easy snap.

After taking the ML-2010R printer from the box, I inserted the cartridge and connected it into USB port of the Win2003 server. BTW, this $80 printer doesn't include a USB cable. It will take about $20 to buy it from Futureshop. Inserted the driver disk and run the autorun.exe. Everything was good. After I shared it from Win2003, the Windows XP laptops could easily install it as network printer and print test page.

When it comes to my Ubuntu desktop, that is another story. The first page I Googled gave me negative message:

I believe the Samsung ML 2010 is a GDI printer which means the rendering is done on the host PC - I don't think they can be shared between XP and Ubuntu as I could not share them via a Linksys print server between 2 XP machines

I have no idea what "GDI" is, but I decided not to listen to this post. I tried installing it the old way, the pdp way, lpi way, cups way... Finally it works and here is the conclusion:

1. Install UnifiedLinuxDriver from Samsung's website and install it following instruction.
2. Install the printer as ML-1750(SPL II). Don't ask me why, because the ML-2010(SPL II) driver doesn't work for me.
3. Use smb:///win2003/laser as driver location (pic), and input user name, password to access the Win2003 server.
4. The printer doesn't come with paper manual, but you can download it from the website. Anyway, if you hold the "Cancel" button in the printer to 2 seconds, you will get to the Toner Saver mode. If you hold it for too long, you will get a testing page :(

The Linux CUPS test page doesn't tell you anything about the driver or the submitted time. So in the final stage of my installation, I installed several printer drivers already and printed several test pages. When I went downstairs to the basement and saw one success test page, I didn't know which printer driver is the correct one. That really pissed me off. Then I have to keep walking through the second floor and basement to locate the correct driver.

《黄金罗盘Golden Compass》

今天晚上开映的《黄金罗盘Golden Compass》电影受到天主教的抵制。本地号角报报道，由于一些家长提意见，本市天主学校委员会决定讨论该书；在得出结论之前，先把学校图书馆的存书收起来。这纯粹是书籍审查制度，不符合老毛的百花齐放百家争鸣的方针，所以舆论纷纷。市图书馆的30本存书忽然抢手起来，接受到150个预定。

报纸刊登了一些读者来信，其中一个母亲说：“作为一个天主教徒，我看过这本书，但是觉得它很有趣，是很普通的奇幻小说”，不明白天主教社区为什么有这么大意见。今天下午电台才解答了我心中的疑虑：《黄金罗盘》是奇幻三部曲的第一集，而第三集将会出现一个人物，与天主教所描述的一模一样，所以美国天主教抵制这个电影。这样也太没逻辑了？！