stlplaceThis is a good one. I got this from a programmer friend. Open a new document from Microsoft Word, type in the following:
=rand(100,2)
then hit “enter” or “return”. What did you got?
There are many similar interesting hacks in the software we use daily. I think it’s just a way for programmer to express themselves during their daily boring work 🙂
Just for fun…
The power you desire lives in your heart. (yesterday)
Next week at this time, something good is coming your way! (today)
I did not realized my cell phone did not ring until yesterday. I was suspicious of my missing calls in past a few days. But as I normally set it to “vibrate” mode and it did vibrate when I wear it, it disguised the real problem. Basically my Motorola V600 did not ring and the speaker phone is broken.
I decided to get a new phone. I don’t need a fancy phone, as long as it works, I mean, it rings when somebody calls. But soon I found out I need to either sign up for a two years plan or pay high fees for a new phone. That sucks. So what did I do? eBay. I went to eBay and bought this Nokia 6010 phone for $54.00.
Meanwhile, while I am anxious waiting for my new phone, I have to wear the phone more often now.
PS (Aug 29): got the phone for a few days now and loved it. I remember my first cell phone is also a Nokia (candy bar style). I liked its simple user interface. The sound quality is also good. There are many fancy cell phones on the market these days, but do I really need those features?
There are a lot of hype about Web 2.0 lately. As I learned more about it and I believe some are not just hypes, e.g., the RSS, XML, and the del.icio.us bookmarking site with social networking and tagging capabilities. I have 5 computers (3 at home, and 2 at work), and I used 3 of them frequently. I would like to have the same bookmarks (or favorites in Internet Explorer). del.icio.us solved this problem for me. And its registration, install and use are fairly staightforward.
Besides keeping all my bookmarks (or good article) in one place. I can add “tags” which helps me to identify the content. So far I don’t have anyone in my network. But from the bookmark I can find out people with similar interest, etc.
del.icio.us is currently owned by Yahoo, as is the flickr photo sharing web site (also features the tags). Don’t overlook this “tag” thing, it’s like put your own key word for the content (the alternate way is let computer figure out), which I believe is more semantically correct in most cases.
Shortky after I wrote the web 2.0 article, I got comment from Andy and he mentioned his new site hnlhousing.com. I checked it out and it was cool. As I said when I first saw the housingmaps.com about a year ago, I thought it was a very useful tool. Basically it combines the listings on Craigslist with the Google map, and list the house/apartment by date or price. That’s the mashup. Interestingly after two maps, St. Louis was not on either of them. So I guess there is still some value to create one map for St. Louis.
Just kidding. The web 2.0 thing is really heating up, especially on the other side of the ocean, you know it’s China. I came across douban a while ago and I registered it lately. Douban is a web site which lets people review books, movies and music, and more importantly, it connects people with similar interest by “group” or “neighbours”. If you are curious, here is one article from do news which talked about its founder Yang Bo. But I think the real impressive thing is its clean user interface, unlike its big brother sina, sohu, netease, its web page is simple and easier to use. There are links for “buying books” or “compare prices” (I believe that’s where their revenue comes from), but it’s not annoying. Anyway, the web site claims 190,000 registered users as of lately, and is getting a lot attention from the news media and competitors (sina and mop).
I also checked out another web site called “mipang” (米胖) which means “pop rice” in Chinese. It lets people share about their hometown or places they have been, by words or pictures. It’s at a much earlier stage than the douban 豆瓣, but I think it’s equally fascinating (if not more) because there is Chinese proverb “learn more travelling 1000 miles instead of readinging 10 thousands books”.
Here is an article from China Web 2.0 Riview.
Because they make the game look easy. When I saw No. 8 Kaka took the ball, not in a hurry, hit it with ease and confidence, I know it’s going to be a goal because he hit a curved ball (using baseball terms). Of course we can not forget Ronaldeno’s smile no matter the game is tight or not.
I appreciate Australia and Korea’s efforts too, because they both had historical win today. For Australia, first win in world cup; for Korea, first win outside their home country in world cup. Both come from behind.
Of course nothing is complete without US and China these days. Team USA played a so-so game yesterday, although God knows how many people back home care about the world cup, it was a loss caused by “lack of energy”. As to my national team, they can not even make it to the world cup. I remember they did go to world cup 4 years ago, with a record of “zero goal” in 3 games.
I think in a way this reflects the real life well. We all dream to be Brazil in our work or life: winning with style. If that’s too hard, how about be Australia or Korea: winning with the dog fight style. If that is not possible, let us at least pass the qualifiers and attend the world cup, like USA. If all options are off, we can just sit at home, just like the Chinese national team.
I started watching Detriot Pistons when they beat the Lakers in 2004 NBA finals. I liked the players and their coach Larry Brown. At that time Detroit team was good but no one was selected as NBA all star (this year 4 of them, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, Rich Hamilton and Chauncy Billups, were selected). Besides a good coach, overall skills of the players, they won the championship because they play as a team. Nobody is super star; everyone listened to the coach and play for one goal.
Not any more. Did you noticed Ben Wallace publicly criticized the current coach Flip Sanders, and Rashsheed Wallace did not want to listen to the coach in the time out and did not even clap the hand with the coach. Even the soft-spoken Tashaun Prince second guessed coach’s substitution arrangement. Fortunately Chauncy Billups, their team leader, did the right thing: he said he still believed in coach.
Monday morning, 8:45 AM, when I turned the car key, it barely clicked and could not start. I was not panick but I started wondering what to do: call my neighbour to give me a jump because my car is stuck in between theirs, not a good idea, it’s too early and I barely know them; call AAA but it will take a while; work at home? It’s OK but I really want to have the freedom of the car.
I opened the hood, started looking at the battery, the negative side was fine, how about the positive side under the cover? All kinds of green stuff. Ha ha, I found the root cause. I had this problem before. Last time (long long time ago) the mechanic showed me how to clean it. I got the toolbox, and used to screw driver to clean up the battery connection. After that, when I turned the key again, it worked! I was able to rock and roll again.
This is not a hard problem. I was able to figure it out because I had similar experience before. I believe many car problems are not that hard if we can learn step by step. Last time I tightened the bumper using a washer. I paid $0.16 for the materials. Initially I was asking the car shop people but they seemed don’t care (to do this small job), so I did it by myself.
I started to watch Steve Nash when he was playing for Dallas Maverick a few years ago. I guess I watched Dallas because of Wang Zhizhi. Recently Steve Nash got the MVP award and his team, Phoenix Suns, beat LA lakers and entered second round of Western conference. It was fun to watch Steve and Kobe face to face, shouted at each other on the court; and for me it was more fulfilling to see Steve won because I like him better. Unlike Kobe, Steve looks just like an ordinary person. I heard he lets his girl friend decide his hair style. On the court, he is the leader. When other guys are cold, he makes the shots; when other guys are hot, he makes them better. From physical condition, he definitely can not match with most guys in the NBA. He also has some back injuries which prevents him to sit down during break. But all these did not stop him doing the amazing things.
Will the Sun rise to the top? I don’t know. But I hope they will.
I was looking for some information on “Multithread programming” lately and I happened to find the Chinese version of the book “Practical UNIX programming” by Kay A. Robbins and Steven Robbins. Since my friend brought it from China, it has been sitting on my desk. I was glad I could find some use finally.
But it did not work out. I found it’s difficult to read a translated technology book, because my computer knowledge is larged acquired in past 8.5 years in the States (through English), not to mention the loss of semantics when the book was translated from English to Chinese.
I am not trying to criticize the translation work done by my wonderful Chinese colleagues. I have done technical translation work from time to time, and found it’s always a challenging task if I want to make it real good. The thing is sometimes we just can not translate things from one language into another: no corresponding words, background information, etc.