iPhone whoring continues unabated

This is, ahem, from PCWORLD. Look like the iPhone stands up pretty well. (iPhone stress test)

I'm not the fartman, from 9to5mac.com

Tripod and Ball Head

Finally, finally, I got my first tripod legset and my ballhead. I can die a happy man now.

Lesser photographers talk about Nikon vs. Canon, better ones talk about tripods. I think there is some truth to it ....

(Tips for better writing: If you can't write or finish your thought, the punctuation ellipsis comes in handy. Also, if you can't write anything exciting or mildly interesting, try to use the exclamation mark like !!!! to perk it up. Or to kick up things even another notch, mix the punctuations, like !?!?!?, it sure helps.)

Readings ...

This is from Philip Greenspun's weblog. They are required readings for my intellectual or pseudo-intellectual friends, you know who you are.

Note for cheapskates (you know who you are)
The New Yorker's articles are free, you can print them out to read when you are driving (yes, driving), riding on a train, or doing your business in the confine of your bathroom.

Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard

It's Friday late afternoon. I was off from work. It was a beautiful afternoon. Plenty of sunlight and it wasn't cold or hot. It's a perfect day to hang out in the city or one is so inclined, wait in line to get the iPhone. Since I don't like to wait in any line whatsoever, so I go to check out some cinematic old fart like Bruce Willis.

What can I say, it seems to be good but then again, never as good as I want it to me. I seriously think I have outgrown my love for any action movie.

I haven't seen a lot of movies, but the few I saw regarding computer hacking always leave me wondering Is it real? Are you fucking kidding me? Why the hell the screen is so fancy? With all these whirling bold face messages? I long for some hardcore hacking scenes with UNIX like terminal screen, not that I know a lot of what hacking is like, but those fancy screens are just way too fancy for me.

In Live Free or Die Hard, Apple spokeperson Justin Long is supposed to be the smartie pant hacker who acts as Bruce Willis' sidekick to foil a bunch of baddie cyber terrorists. I think Justin Long does a fine job as far as not coming across as off putting like he is in some Apple ads. But the movie just doesn't have the time or bother to show off any supposedly computer skills that earn him to be on the FBI's list. Kevin Smith plays Long's on screen buddy Warlock, another hacker, supposedly. Again, no hardcore computer skills are portrayed, just a caricature of hacker being someone who lives in his mom's basement.

Live Free or Die Hard is rated PG-13, so essentially is for teenagers or the like. And McClane doesn't curse nor does he smoke anymore.

iLine, iWait, iEat

I feel somewhat sorry for those Apple and at&t employees who have at 6PM to serve some iPhone whores who haven't taken a shower for days.

More photos for linesitter Greg Packer at Gizmodo.

iPhone Unlimited Data Plan

Notice posted outside an at&t store at 5th Avenue and 41st Street.

Unlimited, all you can eat plan. I am pleasantly surprised. To me, the unlimited data plan is crucial and I think at&t is really doing the right thing to the iPhone users. As I don't have any friends to text or to call, all that matters is the data plan, the web browsing feature.

On June 29, at&t stores close at 4.30 and reopen at 6PM till 10PM to sell iPhones.

Official Propaganda:-
http://www.apple.com/iphone
From the priviledged (tomorrow's news today):-
The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype, David Pogue for The New York Times
Testing Out The iPhone, Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret for the Wall Street Journal

The Muffin Man

This post is inspired by blogger mad dog.

The (in)famous Choco-Lowfat Muffins recipe is from Hershey's, though I didn't use anything from Hershey's, the cocoa powder I used wasn't even the one shown on the picture. I bought the Nestle but I ended up using whatever I have in the pantry, some brand Jin bought from BJ's (it's not what you thought, it's Beverley Jean).

Here is the cut-n-paste recipe from Hershey's I repost here, my own comments in red:-

QUOTE
Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used whatever in the pantry, whole wheat flour, tasted too healthy and weird?)
  
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa (some brand from BJ's, doesn't bother me)
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup vanilla lowfat yogurt
• 2/3 cup nonfat milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Powdered sugar(optional)
• (NO EGGS, NO OIL as one of the commenters from mad dog's original post pointed out .... I wonder if it would taste any better if say 2 eggs and oil are added ...)
  

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 400°F. Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter, I used 3-1/2 inches) with paper bake cups.

2. Stir together flour, granulated sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl; stir in yogurt, milk and vanilla just until combined. Do not beat. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter.

3. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool slightly in pan on wire rack. Remove from pans. Sprinkle powdered sugar over tops of muffins, if desired. Serve warm. Store, covered, at room temperature or freeze in airtight container for longer storage. 14 muffins. (I made only eight I think)

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Here is my setup.
Mix the dry ingredients first. Then add the wet ingredients. Try not to overmix. (I am trying to sound professional you know)
Pour mixed batter into baking cups (lined with baking parchment paper). Put cups on a baking sheet. And slide them into oven. Now grab a beer and watch TV. Or whatever, let the oven do the work.

Voila, after some 18 minutes in a 400F over, the muffins are done.

Tasting Test: I was prepared for the worst but they turned out not too bad. They weren't as sweet or chocolate-ty as I would like them but they are definitely edible. Again, I wonder if they would taste any better if I have added eggs, butter and oil ... essentially take the low out of low fat.

[The photographer in me talking: the flash pictures are so so but that's no excuse. Shot with a Nikon D70, with a Nikkor 50mm f1.4 mounted, flash set at manual at 1/16 power. Adjust f-stop and shutter speed by chimping.]

Spring 2008 Menswear

All pictures from http://men.style.com.

From left (the pictures are left aligned and wrapped to next line automatically)
Burberry Prorsum. Can you handle the colors? The ninja footwear? Photo: Don Ashby & Olivier Claisse;
Dries van Noten. Black and hot pink. Photo: Marcio Madeira;
Dries van Noten. Green fluorescent highlight pen colored short trench - hot color this season. You just can't be ignored. Photo: Marcio Madeira;
Neil Barrett. Just beige, black and white and gray. Photo: Marcio Madeira;
Prada. Looks oddly familiar a few seasons back. Photo: Marcio Madeira;
Burberry Prorsum. The colors seem more convincing and wearable, similar to what van Noten does. Photo: Don Ashby & Olivier Claisse.
Dsquared. Similar to what Neil Barrett is doing. Add a touch of punk to a traditional Summer suit or Spring? The three button closure is somewhat a turn-off. Photo: Marcio Madeira;
Dsquared. Very clean looking silhouette. Photo: Marcio Madeira;


Other collections aren't shown here, because they are incredibly boring or repetitive or both. And the McQueen collection is just too lad driven, so boy man even by men's fashion standard.

Harry

I think I am a bit obsessed with Nikon lens shades now. I bought a couple of used ones for my MF 50mm and MF 24mm. And I love them. I wear eyeglasses so I know lens shades aren't totally bull. They do keep stray light out and hence make the image more contrasty. Those lens shades I got are good old metal ones. The above was taken with a MF 50mm, no filter but with a lens hood HS-9. The exposure was an chimp-n-adjust, as no metering for MF lens on a D70. I found manuel exposure works better than I thought. Actually, I think once you are happy with the exposure, set it to manuel, instead of letting the camera do it for you on Program, Aperture, or Shutter auto. If the lighting doesn't change at all, manuel metering is the way to go.

Face of Slave Labor in China

"Who is responsible for the shit that I went through?"

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images (from NYTIMES.COM). Kudos to the AFP photographer

No. This is not a movie still from some hot-shot director to expose China's migrant laborers.

This is a gut-wrenching picture from AFP, depicting freed kiln forced laborers in Shanxi Province, China.

Reported by AFP via Yahoo! News (being a z-list blogger, I don't have original news; but at least I try to give attribution ... )

A total of 351 people -- including 22 children -- were freed from 3,700 brick works and coal mines in Shanxi while 217 -- including 29 children and 10 mentally handicapped people -- were released in Henan, Xinhua said.

You just can't make this shit up even if you want to.

China Kills Your Pet And Retards Your Kid

The string of China related news as reported by the western media can only point to one conclusion: the Overlord in China kills your pet with contaminated pet food*, retards your children with lead coated Thomas train sets**, and then kills you and you with cough syrups***. World domination accomplished.

Footnotes:-
* if you like to share cat food with your pet, you die too.
**Aren't we stupid enough, already?
***From a business perspective, it's just bad decision making, why kill your customers if you can keep them alive to buy more and fatten your wallet further.

Sunday Evening Cookout

I wasn't prepared to have BBQ in the evening but the weather was nice so I just went to the supermarket to buy some ingredients to have a quick cookout.

BBQ Whole Chicken

Ingredients:-

• One small whole chicken;
• Some sprigs of sage;
• One lemon;
• A few cloves of garlic;
• Olive oil, salt and pepper.

Procedure:-

• Wash and remove extra fat from chicken. Dry with paper towel. Put chicken into a big glass bowl;
• Roughly cut up the sage, put some underneath the chicken skin if preferred, put some inside the chicken cavity;
• Cut lemon in half, squeeze juice onto chicken. Put left over lemon halves in chicken cavity (or put some slices underneath chicken skin if preferred);
• Remove the rough ends of the garlic cloves, give a light smash with back of your knife. Put them inside chicken cavity. Don't worry take out the rough skin of the garlic (I am going for a rustic look here);
• Coat chicken with olive oil, salt and pepper with tender loving care;
• Let it seat for an hour before grilling.

Squash with Dill Weed

Ingredients:-

• A couple of squash;
• Few cloves of garlic;
• Some dried dill weed;
• One lemon;
• Olive oil, salt and pepper;
• Aluminium foil to make pouch for steaming on the grill.
  

Procedure:-

• Cut squash in 3 sections, then cut them up length wise in sticks, keep them in equal size. Not that you want to show off your cutting skills but equal size allows them to cook through at the same time;
• Cut the hard ends of the garlic out, lightly smash cloves with back of your knife, don't worry about removing the rough skin;
• Sprinkle salt and pepper, dill weed and olive oil and lemon juice (or sprinkle fresh lemon juice when serving);
• Put everything into a self made aluminum pouch to steam in the grill.

(Note: the squash looks much better if you saute this dish on a pan instead of steaming it with an aluminum pouch as the green discolors when steaming inside the pouch.)

Grilled Shrimps

Ingredients:-

• A handful of shrimps (head or headless);
• A bunch of cilantro;
• One lemon;
• Olive oil, salt and pepper.

Procedure:-

• Clean and devein shrimps, remove the legs if preferred;
• Roughly chopped up the cilandro;
• Put shrimps in a bowl, mix in cilandro, add olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, let it sit for 30 minutes or an hour before grilling.
  

Grilled Salmon Steak


Ingredients:-

• Fresh Salmon Steak;
• One lemon;
• Olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Procedure:-

• Clean salmon, and remove bones if preferred, dry with paper towel;
• Season with salt and pepper and coat with olive oil;
• Cut a few lemon slices to grill for garnishing, sprinkle lemon juice when serving.

[photography note: pictures taken with a Canon G3, manual macro focusing or something]

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Life is real and surreal and stranger than fiction sometimes.

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Movies are a great escape. You lock yourself in a dark movie house and forget the world outside, rain or shine, it doesn't concern you ... for a couple of hours. Some people prefer to see movies with certain somebody, I am just fine to be by myself. I haven't gone to a movie that I am the only one in the movie house, there is always someone who shares the same movie interest at a particular time on a particular day. Father liked to share his movie experience with me. I got to get some air, to get away from the small apartment. I bet that was what he wanted too, to escape from the mundane, the daily grind.

Father would grab some banknotes from his white work jacket's patch pockets and then he would ride his bicycle, with me in the backseat to the main road where we would the 14-seat mini bus to town. The bicycle wasn't one of those popular big black ones. It's a man's model, greenish color but on the petite side, Father was not a big guy, he was a small fellow, good looking in his own way, he was quite charming when he smiled. The bicycle was fitted with a headlight which got its power from the back wheel through pedaling. It's one of those machineries that intrigued me. The apparatus was shaped like a miniature Coca~Cola bottle, when locked to the spinning back wheel, it sent electric power to light up the headlight, it was simply magic. I can't find any bicycle headlight anymore. One time I was in a bicycle shop and the new bicycles have warning label telling owner not to ride in the dark.

The bike ride to the main road didn't take long. And if Father brought my sister T along to the movies, which he did quite often, then we simply walked. It was not uncommon to just walk 30 minutes to get to the bus stop on the main roadway. My two older sisters used to do that every day when they started working in the factories in their early teens. And when I was a bit older I rode my bike to pick one of sisters Y up in the evening when she returned from work. I would get there early, waited for her, did my little bike tricks, like turning and braking to spin the back wheel or whatever stunts I made up. I just felt like I belonged there, me and my bike, the quiet dirt road and the open sky all in perfect harmony. When sister Y started dating, I would ask her if her boyfriend could buy me something. Soon they got married. After some fifteen years and two children later, their marriage dissolved. Sister Y have custody of the children. She divorced her husband but she didn't divorce her in-laws. I heard they play mahjong's together.

We had the 2.30PM show usually. Father and I would wait in line to get the tickets, and I only paid half price or admitted for free. Back then we got to pick our own seats. To go to the movies meant to have Romntrees Fruit Gums. Father would buy me a roll of Romntrees Fruit Gums from the confectionery stand before the movie began. I just loved those gummy sweets. They were very chewy and very delicious. I could never not chew on them when I ate them.

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It was Father who introduced me to cinema, smoking and booze.

He was a quiet person, he didn't talk much in the family. I never really knew my father, not that well anyway. Sartre was right, it was a spiritual snobbery to think that one can be happy without money. Father was neither a snob nor a happy person.

Father liked to smoke somewhat. After dinner, I would light his Viceroy and he would quietly drag and puff under the greenish fluorescent tubes. Grandma was a smoker too. It was my job to run to the neighborhood store to buy them Viceroys. And in the summer, a can of cold beer to go with dinner. One time, I put one of his San Miguel's in the freezer longer than it's necessary, and it came out all frozen and bloated. He was pretty mad. He wasn't big or tall or anything, but I certainly didn't want to see him mad. Though he wasn't the primary punisher in the household, but he certainly could and did step up if needed to. One time he hit me with a leather belt when I was horsing around in bed. He must have a bad day. He could have waited for the beer to thaw and grabbed another one but he just wanted to take that opportunity to blow off some steam. So he was putting the frozen beer to the kerosene burner. I didn't remember the can blowing up but it wasn't pretty.

By and large, Father loved me, maybe not in a modern or contemporary kind of way. Though we seldom really sat down and talked. Maye except twice. Once on our way to a wedding banquet in a bus where Father mentioned how bad he felt he treated or shortchanged Mom. The other time was in a taxi ride from Kai Tak airport.

There wasn't much going on in the household. Life was boring and uneventful except for the perennial complaints between Mom and Grandma and quibbles among us children.

The only quality time I had with Father was going to the movies. I didn't remember if that was something I looked forward to but it certainly beat sitting at home doing nothing at all. Back then there weren't movies specifically catered for children, even if there was, I doubt father would take me to those. It was always those Mandarin dialog Wuxia features that we went to see. The fight scenes were incredulous brutal, gut spilling out, limbs and heads flying everywhere. Those were pre-Jackie Chan Shaw Brothers. Father never liked fist fight, he was a die-hard sword fight kind of guy.

... to be continued

Apple Store Offline

When Apple Store goes offline, you know what that means, new products. Jobs is delivering his keynote address in his tired black mockneck and Levi's combo as I type now.

UPDATES:

• But there is actually NO new products except some make over on the store and Apple.com. Instead of bluish looking menu, now it has grayish looking menu. Big deal. So to say the least, it's a bit of a letdown to most Macnatics. The is no brushed metal iMac as initially rumored. New iMac probably later this year or beginning of next year.
• Safari on Windows.
• iPhone development using Web 2.0 and AJAX, whatever that means, but there's no SDK(?). From 9to5mac, iPhone is running on Intel platform, and by the time it got rolled out to Europe and Asia, iPhone will probably fully 3G, you know with video call. The America iPhone debut is like what beta testing.
• Leopard shipping in October for $129. One version. I like the idea, less confusing.
• By the way, mac mini is still selling for $599 and $799. I thought there will be a fire sale given that most other product lines have upgraded significantly. Apple got to be kidding. Why, why, why? Just so it can maintain its overprice status?
  

Overall, a relatively disappointing keynote comparing the last one. And Wall Street agreed. Apple closed down almost $6, at $120.19.

Practicing Piano

Video with audio, 1'11" long.

How I Spent My Saturday

(Or otherwise known as who the f.u.c.k cares.)

I spent about 30 minutes to prepare today's lunch. These are totally home cook dishes by yours truly. Inspired by what I had and saw before. Except baking which I prepare more like science experiments, I usually just cook by estimate.

Shrimps with Scrambled Eggs.
Ingredients:-

• 3 eggs, scrambled, add salt and pepper to taste
• a handful of shrimps, peeled and deveined, roughly diced or served whole
• Some onions, wedged and peeled
• Some chives, chopped in inches
• Some olive oil

Procedure:-

In a hot cast iron skillet (10 inch), add olive oil, saute onions until translucent, then add chives and shrimp. Stir until shrimps are cooked. Add a pinch of salt. Stir in the eggs, move eggs around. Don't overcook the eggs. Turn off the fire once eggs start to curd.

Sauteed Sliced Chicken with Okra In Brown Sauce
Ingredients:-

• Chicken breast, sliced. Marinated with salt, black and white pepper, some olive oil, some soy sauce or whatever turns you on. Some corn starch if you like.
• Fresh okra, washed and cut off stems. Cut lengthwise then halve. You may put them in water to cut down on the slime factor.
• Some minced garlic.
• Brown Sauce, a teaspoon of cornstarch in a small bowl, add some cold tap water, add some soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, some white pepper which goes well with the chicken I think, some oyster sauce if you have it. Mix them well.
  
• Some olive oil.

Procedure:-
In a hot cast iron skillet (those cheap ones), add olive oil, then chicken, add half the minced garlic, cook till barely done then remove. Clean skillet (or not).
Add olive oil, add the okra, add the minced garlic, saute until is done.
Add the prepared sauce, cook to boil in high heat, return chicken to coat.

Sauteed Watercress
Ingredients:-

• A handful of watercress.
• Minced garlic (don't tell me you don't know how to mince garlic)
• Some olive oil

Procedure:-
In a hot cast iron skillet, add olive oil and garlic then the watercress. When wilted, in two minutes or so, add salt and pepper to taste.


After lunch we drove to the Barnes & Noble in Bayside. I always enjoy spending some time at B&N, flipping through books and magazines. And sometimes even buy myself a cup of coffee. I haven't had a Starbucks for a long time so I decided to treat myself one. I ordered a small one and the price was 1.70 + 0.14 sales tax, a total of $1.84. On the receipt it says Coffee Tall. It didn't look tall to me. I am no expert in coffee but it didn't disappoint. I don't know or care enough that Starbucks has its own set of coffee size vernacular, tall is small, grande is medium and venti is large, a testament to my Starbucks ignorance . Anyone who wants to talk the Starbucks talk can use some help from this page, I especially like the fact that the graphics link is broken, it looks so early 90s, Web 0.0 ....

In the end, Mr. Alex bought 2 Pokemon related books and Mr. Harry being an ardent fan of bodily functions jokes chose a handful of Captain Underpants, in the end we talked him down to buying just two as for the others we either actually have them at home or read them before from the library.

Yahoo Down?

At this moment, I can't access anything that's Yahoo, what's up?

Canon Lens

A friend of mine asked me about Canon lens nomenclature, for that I am not really familiar, except for a Canon G3, I don't shoot Canon. But Google is my friend.

Here is what I wrote him:

regarding Canon, L might really stand for luxury, that's pretty ridiculous.
IS, image stabilization
USM, ultrasonic motor

If you are really going to get 70~200, IS would be a great help
shooting hand held. Especially if you are in the late stage of
Parkinson or you can still get sharp pictures when you are having a
seizure. Nikon calls it VR as in vibration reduction, you know girls
don't like it, that explains Canon got a bigger market because it got
the women's vote.

I own the Nikon 80~200 f2.8 and sometimes it isn't that easy to get sharp pictures shooting handheld. Sometimes, I am afraid the old one I once rented from Adorama actually got better picture quality than the spanking new one I bought .... Rationally speaking, I think they should be the same. With that rental experience, it kind of gives me more confidence in buying used lenses. The rental looked old but the picture quality was good.

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