builders are now able to build with incredible precision with robots
from Monocle
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Study says: leave the multitasking to your computer
it took an average of 15 minutes to return to the task they were working on after being interrupted
our context-switching penalty is extremely high
Even a small distraction such as a noticeable sound playing in the background can hamper the formation of "declarative memory," which is necessary for a full understanding of a new idea.
our context-switching penalty is extremely high
Even a small distraction such as a noticeable sound playing in the background can hamper the formation of "declarative memory," which is necessary for a full understanding of a new idea.
Yu Qiuyu: why book reading is a waste
Unlike the yearnings of literati of old, I do not believe that reading is an important affair. Investigation, travel, experience, and creativity are more important for cultural insight.:
"Literature is somewhat different, but the American author Singer said that one sign of a mature writer is that he no longer reads books. For the highest plane of writing is consulting one's own soul and facing the silence of nature."
"Literature is somewhat different, but the American author Singer said that one sign of a mature writer is that he no longer reads books. For the highest plane of writing is consulting one's own soul and facing the silence of nature."
Saturday, March 24, 2007
黑社会 Election
I was really impressed by this movie. The knife fight scene(probably the only real fight scene in the whole movie) is intense in an movie that is filled with battles fought with wit.
I did not imagined the sequel: 黑社会2以和为贵 - Election 2 could best the first movie, but it surprised me. The ending message is just chilling. Just imagine that everything you do is really the whim of a greater power.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The unbearable weariness of being
=( on recruiting. My self-esteem right now is like an old man who keeps yelling, "Oiy-my knees!"
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Amazon's Series of Fortunate Events
Computing power finally becomes a commodity
"...a high school student can rent one of the best, most proven, storage platforms of them all -- for a little less than $.50 per month. If he or she is willing to lay off the occaissional candy bar, he/she can be on an equal web infrastructure footing with the richest technology companies in the world. If I was an investor in MSFT, I might even ask if investing $200 million in Amazon makes more sense than $2 billion on your own technology and starting from scratch."
"...a high school student can rent one of the best, most proven, storage platforms of them all -- for a little less than $.50 per month. If he or she is willing to lay off the occaissional candy bar, he/she can be on an equal web infrastructure footing with the richest technology companies in the world. If I was an investor in MSFT, I might even ask if investing $200 million in Amazon makes more sense than $2 billion on your own technology and starting from scratch."
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Netvibes RIP
Google finally puts its weight behind personalized homepage, and the result is beautiful.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
sorrowing, as water streams without
I could speak to her on a day like this,
on a day when it rains as heavily.
You can open your heart on a day like this –
when you hear the clouds as the rain pours down
in gloom unbroken by light.
Those words won’t be heard by anyone else;
there’s not a soul around.
Just us, face to face, in each other’s sorrow
sorrowing, as water streams without
interruption;
it’s as if there’s no one else in the world.
on a day when it rains as heavily.
You can open your heart on a day like this –
when you hear the clouds as the rain pours down
in gloom unbroken by light.
Those words won’t be heard by anyone else;
there’s not a soul around.
Just us, face to face, in each other’s sorrow
sorrowing, as water streams without
interruption;
it’s as if there’s no one else in the world.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Chinese financial magazines and media
From personal experience, Chinese magazines, TV talk shows regarding finance are much more technical than their U.S. counterparts.
The financial magazines and talk shows in China engages with the audiences very well. In this regard they mix investigative reports, common people reactions from the street along with technical exposés by famous financial figures in the U.S. It is no wonder then, these finance magazines and talk shows are ranked rather highly in the reader and viewer ratings.
In some aspect, this detailed technical focus reflects a tremendous curiosity and desire on the part of the audience to learn everything about the market.
The financial magazines and talk shows in China engages with the audiences very well. In this regard they mix investigative reports, common people reactions from the street along with technical exposés by famous financial figures in the U.S. It is no wonder then, these finance magazines and talk shows are ranked rather highly in the reader and viewer ratings.
In some aspect, this detailed technical focus reflects a tremendous curiosity and desire on the part of the audience to learn everything about the market.
Gmail outages
What is with the erratic outages lately? If Gmail turns out to have the same amounts of problems as blogger has, it is really going to hit Google's reputation. I couldn't access Gmail for over 30 minutes in just the past week. That puts Gmail's reliability around ~99.8%. This means I wouldn't want to use Gmail to communicate if I were the Navy or doing anything important, like pulling a major presentation that is worth 30% of my grade on Gmail for backup... oh wait, I just did that. Luckily I have a backup on flash drive.
Perhaps I am paranoid, but I see cracks everywhere on Google's services. Google spreadsheet being out competed by best of breed applications like EditGrid down the road. Lack of progress on natural language search and vertical search (although Google blog search is a good start). Blogger still remains behind the curve in terms of offering features that its competitors have for a long time. Now Gmail is having weird problems. Blogger and Gmail both have reliability issues. So instead of buying into Google when the stock price were at $440, I put my money into the S&P index.
Google really needs to refine its products now that they are mainstream, and focus on providing value added services for these products. It needs to do so in order to differentiate itself from all the upcoming startups, and must offer quality in order to survive.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Things
Things. In deluges.
Openings and closings, some are just the way I imagined them to be. I always smirk about the saddest things.
Time will pass you and this post by, and you would have gained nothing but a sense of your own mortality. Could there be a more sorrowful thing in the world?
Openings and closings, some are just the way I imagined them to be. I always smirk about the saddest things.
Time will pass you and this post by, and you would have gained nothing but a sense of your own mortality. Could there be a more sorrowful thing in the world?
The Hardest Heart - Blank and Jones
Let the morning sun proclaim
The light of the world
Let the golden day unfurl
On every wave
On every hill
Each angered fist uncurl
Caress the hardest heart
Stir the sleeping earth
Each stone
Each blade of grass
The soul of the world
Ignite a brand new day
Let the morning sun proclaim
A brand new start
Caress the hardest heart
Caress the hardest heart
The soul of the world
Ignite a brand new day
A brand new start
A brand new way
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Search engine arbitrage and the decline of Google
R/W mentions that California is home to quarter of top 100 alt search engines. What is amazing about this news is not that California is the center of web innovation, rather, it is striking that there are 100 alternative search engines (and them being mentioned).
Other search engines like Naver are gaining strength in the local and vertical search markets. What puzzles me is that there are so few news about Google's search engine innovation in comparison to the torrents of startup specialized search engine companies. If Google fails to keep up in areas of natural language searches and vertical search, then it will loose its technology leadership. Furthermore, this might pave the way for best of breed products to replace Google in different industries. Result: erosion of Google market share.
Other search engines like Naver are gaining strength in the local and vertical search markets. What puzzles me is that there are so few news about Google's search engine innovation in comparison to the torrents of startup specialized search engine companies. If Google fails to keep up in areas of natural language searches and vertical search, then it will loose its technology leadership. Furthermore, this might pave the way for best of breed products to replace Google in different industries. Result: erosion of Google market share.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Liechtenstein invaded!
Fri Mar 2, 8:51 AM ET
ZURICH, Switzerland - What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.
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According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.
A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.
"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.
Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.
Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.
Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.
Fri Mar 2, 8:51 AM ET
ZURICH, Switzerland - What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.
ADVERTISEMENT
According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.
A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.
"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.
Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.
Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.
Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
雷场相思树
1986年电影《雷场相思树》片段 - 胡亚捷媒体资源
The Lives They Left Behind is the title of the movie.
Low quality, heavily abridged version. The files are in Real Player format.
http://kmyc.gbaopan.com/bt/e0/e07b622a92214cbe938a6e62aacfc25f.torrent
http://kmyc.gbaopan.com/bt/12/1267099c5eb44c9e8f9b4876533cf4aa.torrent
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