The thing with blog is you can do anything you want. So I am not going to talk about Cinelerra because I really can't do much with at at this point...plus I am not at my dungeon.
I was at a PTA fund raising dinner party last night. 90% of the attendees were women. Being a somewhat responsible father and husband, I somewhat support the PTA not only by saying so but actually participated in their activities like by taking a whole day off so I can go to some trips with the kids and also this dinner party.
The venue was in some country club golf course setting somewhere on Long Island. If you take the LIE, it would be on exit 37. Nice place, very decent. We had raffles, auctions, buffet and dancing. I won two auctions, a basket of tea, and another basket of coffee. I guess it just shows how much I love caffeine. I got this addictive personality which is actually not very good. I was somewhat enjoying the dance too. Just some exercise. I wasn't much of a dancer but who cares, the bottomline to me is since I went I might enjoy myself as well, and who really really gives a flying fuck how good or bad you are dancing anyway. Most of the people there are just having fun. And what fun we all had.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Byrant Park And Other Random Bull Shit From Me
Bryant Park is soon to be overrun by office drones. Let's bring back the drug dealers and crack whores. And Times Square too.
Apple is up more than 3 dollars at 188. The stock is freaking awesome. You got to believe in the Apple brand. People are going to pay a premium just to look like Justin Long. You know even movie mogul Drew Barrymore is attracted to this Mac guy. Apple's propaganda machine is working in full throttle. What can I tell you? The new 3G iPhone's debut is imminent and Jobs can't do no harm. I expect the stock to reach $200 later this year. But if you lose your shirt and underwear don't blame it on me. In the interest of full disclosure, like I even have my pictures somewhere here, I personally own a few shares of Apple stock because I believe people are generally gullible (no, because I like the idea of living dangerously as in owning stocks).
I finally was able to install Cinelerra. This is some piece of software. Looks to me it's some hardcore video editor designed by engineers for engineers. If you have some room temperature IQ that's really not for you. My very first impression is fuck, this shit is overwhelming. Anyway, my initial founding is this is unlike other Linux video editors which are like too easily broken toys, I wasn't able to crash it by randomly selecting a feature. My major problem though was when I load a dv (from my previous capture from Kino), the video and audio aren't playing in synchronization. The video to my aging eyes looked slower. So I have this huge problem right off the bat. I am not even talking about editing, cutting and pasting, or making Star War IX. I mean this shit doesn't play my dv right. I am an humble person, I tend to blame anything on my own shortcomings. And I don't know if I have to configure something to make it right. As in Kino, I didn't have to do shit to capture and play the dv with audio and video in sync. I don't know if there is anything to do with the fact that the dv was captured in Kino but not in Cinelerra, my hunch is it shouldn't matter. But what do I know?
Enough BS, let me grab something to eat first. My dear ghost readers, you just have to wait for me, just don't hold your breath now.
Apple is up more than 3 dollars at 188. The stock is freaking awesome. You got to believe in the Apple brand. People are going to pay a premium just to look like Justin Long. You know even movie mogul Drew Barrymore is attracted to this Mac guy. Apple's propaganda machine is working in full throttle. What can I tell you? The new 3G iPhone's debut is imminent and Jobs can't do no harm. I expect the stock to reach $200 later this year. But if you lose your shirt and underwear don't blame it on me. In the interest of full disclosure, like I even have my pictures somewhere here, I personally own a few shares of Apple stock because I believe people are generally gullible (no, because I like the idea of living dangerously as in owning stocks).
I finally was able to install Cinelerra. This is some piece of software. Looks to me it's some hardcore video editor designed by engineers for engineers. If you have some room temperature IQ that's really not for you. My very first impression is fuck, this shit is overwhelming. Anyway, my initial founding is this is unlike other Linux video editors which are like too easily broken toys, I wasn't able to crash it by randomly selecting a feature. My major problem though was when I load a dv (from my previous capture from Kino), the video and audio aren't playing in synchronization. The video to my aging eyes looked slower. So I have this huge problem right off the bat. I am not even talking about editing, cutting and pasting, or making Star War IX. I mean this shit doesn't play my dv right. I am an humble person, I tend to blame anything on my own shortcomings. And I don't know if I have to configure something to make it right. As in Kino, I didn't have to do shit to capture and play the dv with audio and video in sync. I don't know if there is anything to do with the fact that the dv was captured in Kino but not in Cinelerra, my hunch is it shouldn't matter. But what do I know?
Enough BS, let me grab something to eat first. My dear ghost readers, you just have to wait for me, just don't hold your breath now.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Quick Post
Obama clinches the Democratic Party nomination. Clinton is toast.
The French Open or Roland Garros is a non-event in the US, sadly so. American tennis is just dead now, and more dead when it comes to the red clay in Roland Garros.
I just found out lately that a lot of cable channels are now offering HD, including Foodnetwork TV. But most of time they are just widening the picture so Rachael Ray just looks bloated. And Mario Batali in re-run just a bit obese.
The French Open or Roland Garros is a non-event in the US, sadly so. American tennis is just dead now, and more dead when it comes to the red clay in Roland Garros.
I just found out lately that a lot of cable channels are now offering HD, including Foodnetwork TV. But most of time they are just widening the picture so Rachael Ray just looks bloated. And Mario Batali in re-run just a bit obese.
Coffee Mug
At work, I drink my coffee using a Made in China coffee mug. I don't clean my mug obsessively, sometimes I just rinse it and sometimes I leave my mug unwashed overnight. I think whatever residue there just adds another layer of flavor or many layers actually to whatever freshly brewed.
That's how I drink my coffee at work. Pretty disgusting, eh?
That's how I drink my coffee at work. Pretty disgusting, eh?
Monday, June 02, 2008
Windows Vista Service Pack 1
I have the service pack installed for a few days. So far so good.
The below is totally anecdotal without any scientific backing or even tried to be scientific.
My hp 6910p used to be very sleepy, when it slept it didn't wake up the first time I pressed the power button. So I ended up pressing the button three times which was two times too many. The first one which supposedly wake the computer, but it didn't, so I pressed it again, to turn the computer off which was actually in sleep already, and then press the third time to wake it up.
After SP1, the wake up thing works the way it's supposed to work or what I think it should work.
Before SP1, the Wifi was iffy at best. Every too often, the wifi would just stop working for no good reason. It was just terrible. All browsers I have would just refuse to go out to see the web. Anything I tried to fix the problem was futile until I did a reboot. After SP1 for a few days already, the problem disappeared, hopefully for good.
These are the only two things I've noticed.
The below is totally anecdotal without any scientific backing or even tried to be scientific.
My hp 6910p used to be very sleepy, when it slept it didn't wake up the first time I pressed the power button. So I ended up pressing the button three times which was two times too many. The first one which supposedly wake the computer, but it didn't, so I pressed it again, to turn the computer off which was actually in sleep already, and then press the third time to wake it up.
After SP1, the wake up thing works the way it's supposed to work or what I think it should work.
Before SP1, the Wifi was iffy at best. Every too often, the wifi would just stop working for no good reason. It was just terrible. All browsers I have would just refuse to go out to see the web. Anything I tried to fix the problem was futile until I did a reboot. After SP1 for a few days already, the problem disappeared, hopefully for good.
These are the only two things I've noticed.
Video Editor
So far I am not too happy with Kino in Ubuntu. For sometimes peculiar reason, some the dv clips in the project would just speed up. I remember the last time I used it in Ubuntu 7.10 the same thing happened. And the sound mix doesn't work well at all.
I wonder if I did anything wrong. No, I didn't. Wonder what's out there. The last time I tried another editor, it was so bad, every time I opened a clip and the program just closed, it's as if I quit the program, so basically it's unusable.
Look like I have to download another program other than kino. Hope the learning curve won't be steep. Well, if anything, the slow motion with pan and zoom works pretty well.
I may have to try Cinelerra?
UPDATE 6/3/08
Oh yes. So after all AMD is not Intel, it's better. I just needed to pick the right binary for my AMD processor which is cinelerra-k7gl and now I can run the application OK. Before that I tried some other Linux video apps, except for Kino which isn't all that bad, the rest are just simply unusable, the program just closes by itself. Now comes the hard part, actually using the program to edit video. Gosh, I want to edit some HD, but then I need to buy a HD camcorder, a new workstation and oh well, you got the picture.
I wonder if I did anything wrong. No, I didn't. Wonder what's out there. The last time I tried another editor, it was so bad, every time I opened a clip and the program just closed, it's as if I quit the program, so basically it's unusable.
Look like I have to download another program other than kino. Hope the learning curve won't be steep. Well, if anything, the slow motion with pan and zoom works pretty well.
I may have to try Cinelerra?
UPDATE 6/3/08
Oh yes. So after all AMD is not Intel, it's better. I just needed to pick the right binary for my AMD processor which is cinelerra-k7gl and now I can run the application OK. Before that I tried some other Linux video apps, except for Kino which isn't all that bad, the rest are just simply unusable, the program just closes by itself. Now comes the hard part, actually using the program to edit video. Gosh, I want to edit some HD, but then I need to buy a HD camcorder, a new workstation and oh well, you got the picture.
Blogger Outage
Millions of my readers were welcomed with a 502 Server Error or whatever Google server spilled out and got turned away. My red hot blogger traffic brought Blogger to its knees, again.
Between 9AM to 10AM Eastern standard time, Blogger was suffering some serious gray out and most people can't reach blogspot.
Seems like things are returning to normal now.
From the horse's mouth
Between 9AM to 10AM Eastern standard time, Blogger was suffering some serious gray out and most people can't reach blogspot.
Seems like things are returning to normal now.
From the horse's mouth
Blogger and Blog*Spot had very high page load times and server errors for about an hour this morning, from 6–7 AM PDT. We’ve fixed the problem. Everything should be operating smoothly now.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Taekwondo
note: with repeat slow motion and zoom in.
(52 second video with audio, if you use Firefox 3 or even 2 under Ubuntu 8.04, it may crash your browser. Notice that it takes two guys to hold the board when Harry strikes, he generates so much force with his pint sized body.)
This is done by Kino. Unfortunately the interface and functionalities leave something to be desired. I was trying to mix a sound track, but alas, it wasn't doing it right. The video was slowing down even I didn't check the speed and the sound became garbled. And when I went back to edit mode, the speed of the whole project went up. So that was weird. I closed the entire project and re-opened and it at least then played normal. So forget about mixing a sound track and do the opening and closing credit, I just rendered the the dv to MPEG. I did the first run IN MPEG1, which gave me a smaller file 8MB but longer rendering. And this MPEG2 took shorter to render but got a much bigger file, 23MB. Enjoy.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Pelagos on Bell Blvd
Yesterday the whole gang went to this Pelagos on Bell Boulevard.
We started with some grilled octopus and shrimp. The octopus was nicely charred, not chewy at all, the same was with the shrimps, very nicely done. Then between the appetizers and the main course, we waited at least 15 minutes and the dining room wasn't all that busy at all. That was pretty annoying especially when you have young children who expect the continuous flow of food and won't sit still just enjoying the ambiance. Just like the name would have it, the color scheme of the place is mainly blue and the decor reminds people of the Aegean (I made this part up). At the end of the dining room is the open kitchen with some seafood on display.
When the main course came, the long wait was kind of forgotten and forgiven. We had grilled sardines, some Greek hamburger, chicken kebab, and seafood pasta. Everything was fresh and savory. The pasta was cooked al dente, with ample of seafood, very well seasoned, I say worth the $25 price tag. The hamburger was juicy and the fries were good too. We had the lemon potato and horta for sides. No ice cream for the kids but they did have some sweet dessert on the house and I ordered a cup of Greek coffee to go with the dessert.
Service was decent and the food was very good.
In the end with 18% tips thrown in, the check came to a grand total of about $120. Nowadays, 18% or even 20% is the new 15%.
Pelagos Seafood
38-11 Bell Blvd
Bayside, NY 11361
We started with some grilled octopus and shrimp. The octopus was nicely charred, not chewy at all, the same was with the shrimps, very nicely done. Then between the appetizers and the main course, we waited at least 15 minutes and the dining room wasn't all that busy at all. That was pretty annoying especially when you have young children who expect the continuous flow of food and won't sit still just enjoying the ambiance. Just like the name would have it, the color scheme of the place is mainly blue and the decor reminds people of the Aegean (I made this part up). At the end of the dining room is the open kitchen with some seafood on display.
When the main course came, the long wait was kind of forgotten and forgiven. We had grilled sardines, some Greek hamburger, chicken kebab, and seafood pasta. Everything was fresh and savory. The pasta was cooked al dente, with ample of seafood, very well seasoned, I say worth the $25 price tag. The hamburger was juicy and the fries were good too. We had the lemon potato and horta for sides. No ice cream for the kids but they did have some sweet dessert on the house and I ordered a cup of Greek coffee to go with the dessert.
Service was decent and the food was very good.
In the end with 18% tips thrown in, the check came to a grand total of about $120. Nowadays, 18% or even 20% is the new 15%.
Pelagos Seafood
38-11 Bell Blvd
Bayside, NY 11361
Friday, May 30, 2008
Weekend Fodder
MUJI is grand opening its store in Times Square on Eighth Avenue today. My source told me that there would be freebies handed out at 12PM when the store opened to the public. And everything turned out to be true. I was there and I got the gift without any hassle or waiting in any spirit crushing long line. I was frankly surprised that at 12.20PM, I was still able to get the giveaway which by the way was a nice paper organizer and a nice pencil.
The most anticipated movie Sex And The City, which comes like four year late finally opens today. Reviews have been negative and the more than 2-hour long movie was universally panned by critics and audience alike. The premiere held a couple of days ago at Radio City Hall was mostly described as a disaster, ticket holders were turned away because there simply weren't enough seats for the long line of people waiting to get in. One woman, surprise, from Singapore was credulous enough to pay $19,000 to be part of the SATC premiere, please.
The Sichuan Earthquake claimed another victim, sort of. Sharon Stone faces the wrath of the Chinese people when she kind of misspoke at the Cannes Film Festival. She name dropped Dalai Lama, Tibetans, Karma and then before she got the chance open her legs or mouth again, she was dropped by Dior, like for good. The Chinese people, the overlord of Dior, who is the overlord of Stone, dropped the actress as spokeperson for the brand and Sharon Stone is probably forever and ever banned in China. Chinese people are pretty fierce now. A force to be reckoned with and not messed with.
UPDATE:
This is the latest from The New York Times. A piece written by Cathy Horyn (released online on 5/30 and on paper 6/1). I had my doubt about Stone's alleged apology released by Dior Shanghai. Dior, with double digit growth in China was quick to appease knowing full well they couldn't afford to make enemy with money or its overlord in China. The NYTimes piece is more in her own words. Apparently and by her own admission, she had misspoken but the later shitstorm created by the press and the blogsphere largely took the first part of her speech without even bothering to mention the second part where she said she was humbled that the Tibetans offered to help Sichuan disaster relief effort so on and so forth. The emphasis was on brotherly love or love your enemy that kind of theme. Alas, what came out was more like karma retribution because of what Ms. Stone thought as the maltreatment of Han Chinese to Tibetans.
UPDATE 2:
Now, I hope fans of Ding Dong or Doraemon won't get offended.
Rachael Ray, the celebrity chef on foodnetwork tv plays terrorist in a Dunkin' Donut ad, that's what some folks were alleging. In a bid to avoid any controversy, Dunkin' Donut pulled the ad. Well that only stoked the controversy. Rachael Ray, the ever happy goes lucky girl next door, mini Martha Stewart home entertainment pint sized mogul and cunning linguist who coined EVOO and Yummo can't be promoting terrorism? But hey, you never know.
The most anticipated movie Sex And The City, which comes like four year late finally opens today. Reviews have been negative and the more than 2-hour long movie was universally panned by critics and audience alike. The premiere held a couple of days ago at Radio City Hall was mostly described as a disaster, ticket holders were turned away because there simply weren't enough seats for the long line of people waiting to get in. One woman, surprise, from Singapore was credulous enough to pay $19,000 to be part of the SATC premiere, please.
The Sichuan Earthquake claimed another victim, sort of. Sharon Stone faces the wrath of the Chinese people when she kind of misspoke at the Cannes Film Festival. She name dropped Dalai Lama, Tibetans, Karma and then before she got the chance open her legs or mouth again, she was dropped by Dior, like for good. The Chinese people, the overlord of Dior, who is the overlord of Stone, dropped the actress as spokeperson for the brand and Sharon Stone is probably forever and ever banned in China. Chinese people are pretty fierce now. A force to be reckoned with and not messed with.
UPDATE:
This is the latest from The New York Times. A piece written by Cathy Horyn (released online on 5/30 and on paper 6/1). I had my doubt about Stone's alleged apology released by Dior Shanghai. Dior, with double digit growth in China was quick to appease knowing full well they couldn't afford to make enemy with money or its overlord in China. The NYTimes piece is more in her own words. Apparently and by her own admission, she had misspoken but the later shitstorm created by the press and the blogsphere largely took the first part of her speech without even bothering to mention the second part where she said she was humbled that the Tibetans offered to help Sichuan disaster relief effort so on and so forth. The emphasis was on brotherly love or love your enemy that kind of theme. Alas, what came out was more like karma retribution because of what Ms. Stone thought as the maltreatment of Han Chinese to Tibetans.
UPDATE 2:
It was only after reviewing the video in her home toward the end of the interview that it seemed to dawn on Ms. Stone why her comments had caused such an uproar. “I had absolutely no intention of saying that, which I did say,” she said, “and now, looking at it on the tape, I look like a complete ding-dong.”
Now, I hope fans of Ding Dong or Doraemon won't get offended.
Rachael Ray, the celebrity chef on foodnetwork tv plays terrorist in a Dunkin' Donut ad, that's what some folks were alleging. In a bid to avoid any controversy, Dunkin' Donut pulled the ad. Well that only stoked the controversy. Rachael Ray, the ever happy goes lucky girl next door, mini Martha Stewart home entertainment pint sized mogul and cunning linguist who coined EVOO and Yummo can't be promoting terrorism? But hey, you never know.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Rants
The only reason I have home delivery of The New York Times is because I don't have electricity at home. No. Just kidding. Because my daily commute is only the time that I can do some reading offline which I happen to enjoy. So it annoys me to no end if the paper comes late after I leave home for work. Anything that comes late is no good, like if your significant other tells you Honey, I am late. You know that's no good. If the paper is late one more time, I am going to unsubscribe it for good. I am going to be an online free loader.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
It's Summer Out There
Holy cow, it's hot out there.
The sun is out and the temperature is like in the 70s (the Internet says it's 82, I am way off) I think. I finally relented when I passed the Starbucks downstair. I bought myself a grande iced coffee, for a grand total of $2.60. Now I am sipping it, with guilty pleasure and conscience knowing full well that I just spent way too much on some fancy coffee that I don't need. I reasoned that I have been having free Starbucks coffee for the past few weeks (because I got a free coffee card from the New York Times) so it's just fair that I paid for one now.
The sun is out and the temperature is like in the 70s (the Internet says it's 82, I am way off) I think. I finally relented when I passed the Starbucks downstair. I bought myself a grande iced coffee, for a grand total of $2.60. Now I am sipping it, with guilty pleasure and conscience knowing full well that I just spent way too much on some fancy coffee that I don't need. I reasoned that I have been having free Starbucks coffee for the past few weeks (because I got a free coffee card from the New York Times) so it's just fair that I paid for one now.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Banal Suburban Life Continues
Yesterday we went to the Ikea on Long Island. We haven't been to the store for quite some time and I wanted to get some picture frames to hang some of my enlargements. If I don't like my own pictures who would? But before I could tell you that story I have to tell you this story.
We decided to have an early dinner before we went to Ikea or other stores. We wanted to check out Macaroni Cheese on Long Island again but when we got there the place got a sign put at the door saying the place was closed for business forever. So we walked to the nearby Chili's instead. That was our first Chili's experience. We waited for about 10 minutes before we got seated. Me and Harry were just sitting at one of those benches outside to wait for our turn, shooting the breeze, teasing each other and talking about the nuanced plot points of The Iron Man. He insists that he doesn't like Pepper even she is a good guy. The food wasn't bad but wasn't exceptional (how could that be?). Price wise, I think it was pretty reasonable and definitely cheaper than Outback, though I do think Outback has better food overall. In the end, we paid $60 tax and tips included for the five of us.
After we were done eating, it was around 8PM already, and the nearby mall was closed so we went to Ikea for real as it closes at 10PM every day. We hit the lower check out floor right away instead of just walking aimlessly around, I picked up a few frames for my 8x10 and 11x14 enlargements and a reading lamp along the way. The frames as I later found out were not cheap at all, around $15 each. Oh well. I needed those to hang the pictures. As we proceeded to the check out area, I noticed that they were all self service checkout now. I could be wrong but I didn't see one check out line that was manned by a real person. And now they charge 50 cents for a shopping bag. So I let Mr. Harry use the laser gun to scan the barcodes and of course he was thrilled to use anything that is laser, and ended up paying and grabbing everything myself.
The following day, I went to Home Depot and there were those self servicing checkouts again. Though Home Depot has those for quite some time already.
The cashier kind of job is fast disappearing.
Regular gas price over the weekend was more than $4 a gallon. And crude oil is over $130 a barrel. A lemon costs $0.99 at Walbaums.
After we were done eating, it was around 8PM already, and the nearby mall was closed so we went to Ikea for real as it closes at 10PM every day. We hit the lower check out floor right away instead of just walking aimlessly around, I picked up a few frames for my 8x10 and 11x14 enlargements and a reading lamp along the way. The frames as I later found out were not cheap at all, around $15 each. Oh well. I needed those to hang the pictures. As we proceeded to the check out area, I noticed that they were all self service checkout now. I could be wrong but I didn't see one check out line that was manned by a real person. And now they charge 50 cents for a shopping bag. So I let Mr. Harry use the laser gun to scan the barcodes and of course he was thrilled to use anything that is laser, and ended up paying and grabbing everything myself.
The following day, I went to Home Depot and there were those self servicing checkouts again. Though Home Depot has those for quite some time already.
The cashier kind of job is fast disappearing.
Regular gas price over the weekend was more than $4 a gallon. And crude oil is over $130 a barrel. A lemon costs $0.99 at Walbaums.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
A Day In The Life of A Suburban Dad
I have been waiting for Alex to ask me to see Iron Man. And today he finally asked if we could go see it. I've heard a lot of good things about the movie so I am a bit excited to see the movie as well. Harry was a bit hesitant, I think he liked to see it but he was a bit scared by it. Anyway, with promise of pop corn and Coke, he went along with us.
We went to see the first show at 10.30 in a multiplex in Whitestone which is about 20 minute drive. The first show was $8.25, I just can't believe it. And the large soda and pop corn was $10.30. How was the movie? Maybe I expected too much so I thought it wasn't as exciting as I would like it to be. I was thinking in terms of Transformers kind of excitement, alas, it wasn't even close. The plot was kind of flimsy, the action was all right. The acting was decent. The trailers have some of the very best scenes already. Looking back, I think Transformers was really exceptional as far as robot like fighting is concerned. Still it wasn't a bad movie at all. The movie was more than two hours long, I was surprised that Harry was able to sit through it with the help of soda and popcorn. So I guess it was good enough.
Glaring inconsistency: Robert Downey Jr, or Tony Stark, in the last scene, preparing for his press conference, was seen having a pocket square, but when he was out at the lectern, the white pocket square was gone.
Movies to see:
Indiana Jones
Batman
Hulk
Kung Fu Panda
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
NYPL Eminent Domain Exhibition
I just went to have a quick look after work. I don't think I spent more than 15 minutes there. I have to go back again.
They look like snapshots but taken as a group, they become very meaningful. I like them especially the series taken in Chinatown by Thomas Holton. They are very documentary looking because they are. The project is not overtly poignant, or being condescending or melodramatic about its subject which is a family with young children living in Chinatown.
The online exhibition is here. I don't know if it's a permalink or not. Admission is free and donations are welcome.
Sichuan After Shock in Flushing
Holy cow, Flushing is in the news. Although not exactly like in New York Times as I have come to conclude that basically New York Times don't care about Chinese in New York City.
I have been living under a rock and I really didn't know there had been some altercation which led to councilman John Liu's intervention, and police arrest, happening in downtown Flushing right next to the public library where Kissena Avenue and Main Street intersects. The public library was nearly shut down because of the commotions and the library security officials had to secure the premise for its patrons. Wow, that's good news, because those security guards were finally doing their jobs instead of just shooting the breeze and harassing patrons who falls asleep at the desk or people merely waiting near the foyer so on and so forth. I digressed.
I just found out days later via ESWN that indeed the aftershock in Sichuan is finally hitting downtown Flushing, an immigrant enclave in Queens county that has nothing to do with Sex and the City. Falung Gong was doing its usual sidewalk show, probably with the recent quake in Sichaun thrown in to update their political and human rights agenda and whatnot. Usually most people really don't give a flying hoopla to their sidewalk propaganda show. Until allegedly three or four days ago when some Chinese people took offense and started to take matters in their own hand, arguing that during this particular juncture, that China is ravaged by a category 8 or 7.9 or 7.8 quake, some 50,000 people died and millions are homeless, FLG has the nerve to hold protest s against the Chinese Communist Party. Now, I am no fan of FLG nor CCP. And I have seen FLG's perennial complaints and the slogan "Heaven Destroys CCP" long before the quake. So what the heck is the problem? You can't beat up people just because you don't agree with you? Unless it's your 7 year old kid brother. This is really the last thing I want to see in Flushing or actually anywhere else. Live and let live people.
Go home, go home eat rice.
I have been living under a rock and I really didn't know there had been some altercation which led to councilman John Liu's intervention, and police arrest, happening in downtown Flushing right next to the public library where Kissena Avenue and Main Street intersects. The public library was nearly shut down because of the commotions and the library security officials had to secure the premise for its patrons. Wow, that's good news, because those security guards were finally doing their jobs instead of just shooting the breeze and harassing patrons who falls asleep at the desk or people merely waiting near the foyer so on and so forth. I digressed.
I just found out days later via ESWN that indeed the aftershock in Sichuan is finally hitting downtown Flushing, an immigrant enclave in Queens county that has nothing to do with Sex and the City. Falung Gong was doing its usual sidewalk show, probably with the recent quake in Sichaun thrown in to update their political and human rights agenda and whatnot. Usually most people really don't give a flying hoopla to their sidewalk propaganda show. Until allegedly three or four days ago when some Chinese people took offense and started to take matters in their own hand, arguing that during this particular juncture, that China is ravaged by a category 8 or 7.9 or 7.8 quake, some 50,000 people died and millions are homeless, FLG has the nerve to hold protest s against the Chinese Communist Party. Now, I am no fan of FLG nor CCP. And I have seen FLG's perennial complaints and the slogan "Heaven Destroys CCP" long before the quake. So what the heck is the problem? You can't beat up people just because you don't agree with you? Unless it's your 7 year old kid brother. This is really the last thing I want to see in Flushing or actually anywhere else. Live and let live people.
Go home, go home eat rice.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
A Trip To Adorama
Just when I was about to leave work yesterday, I got an email from Adorama telling me that my prints were ready for pickup.
The weather was surly with depressing rain and spring chill. I saved some $5 and probably a few days when I chose to pick up the prints myself on 18th street between 5th and 6th Avenue where the store is located. I placed the order the night before after 10PM, so the turn around was impressive. I had some prior experience with Adorama and they were quite good, I didn't feel like I got ripped off or anything.
The prints came out all right, I picked the metallic paper kind of material and I think they are supposed to be the best, I can't be sure but they do cost more than the regular paper. Prints and JPEGs on monitor are different animals. I like the JPEGs on monitor better especially looking hrough my HP 2207. Oh well. I asked one of the staff if they still process film or slide, the answer was no, not unexpected.
I got the chance to play with some higher end DSLRs when I was there, the D300 with the 18~200 and the Canon 5D with the 24~105. Both are well-built even I always read from forums that the 5D is not professionally built but I say it's still very good, probably better than my Nikon D70. The D300 has the edge in terms of user experience, a large LCD monitor, quick response, bright view finder, snappy focusing and a zillion AF focusing little points. The 5D is not bad but just not as good. But then here is the big "BUT," in terms of absolute out of the camera JPEGs, the 5D really rules, judging from my second hand experience looking through JPEGs comparison between the two. I can argue ad nauseam which one is better, or some people can, but the point is it all depends on what is important to you.
The weather was surly with depressing rain and spring chill. I saved some $5 and probably a few days when I chose to pick up the prints myself on 18th street between 5th and 6th Avenue where the store is located. I placed the order the night before after 10PM, so the turn around was impressive. I had some prior experience with Adorama and they were quite good, I didn't feel like I got ripped off or anything.
The prints came out all right, I picked the metallic paper kind of material and I think they are supposed to be the best, I can't be sure but they do cost more than the regular paper. Prints and JPEGs on monitor are different animals. I like the JPEGs on monitor better especially looking hrough my HP 2207. Oh well. I asked one of the staff if they still process film or slide, the answer was no, not unexpected.
I got the chance to play with some higher end DSLRs when I was there, the D300 with the 18~200 and the Canon 5D with the 24~105. Both are well-built even I always read from forums that the 5D is not professionally built but I say it's still very good, probably better than my Nikon D70. The D300 has the edge in terms of user experience, a large LCD monitor, quick response, bright view finder, snappy focusing and a zillion AF focusing little points. The 5D is not bad but just not as good. But then here is the big "BUT," in terms of absolute out of the camera JPEGs, the 5D really rules, judging from my second hand experience looking through JPEGs comparison between the two. I can argue ad nauseam which one is better, or some people can, but the point is it all depends on what is important to you.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Love And Sympathy And more
And with love and sympathy to the people of China from the people of the United States.
-- Laura Bush
So Laura Bush speaks for me already.
People who have problems with G.W. Bush generally don't have a problem with Laura Bush. The same can't be said about Senator Obama's wife Michelle Obama. Senator Obama warned or pleaded on network TV that "people should lay off my wife." Would-be-first-lady Michelle Obama was criticized for remarking that "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m proud of my country" when Obama was doing well in the Democratic party. Another first-lady-wanna-be and ghostly beer lady Cindy McCain, wife of senior citizen John McCain, quickly seized the opportunity and bitch-slapped Michelle Obama by stating that "I am proud of my country. I don’t know about you? If you heard those words earlier, I am very proud of my country." Meanwhile president-wanna-be and ex-first lady, senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is fighting for her Democratic nomination. What impresses me is she flats out states that she would support Obama and hopes her supporters will do the same, should he be the nominee of the party. There is no if's or but's, I think that shows some class.
-- Laura Bush
So Laura Bush speaks for me already.
People who have problems with G.W. Bush generally don't have a problem with Laura Bush. The same can't be said about Senator Obama's wife Michelle Obama. Senator Obama warned or pleaded on network TV that "people should lay off my wife." Would-be-first-lady Michelle Obama was criticized for remarking that "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m proud of my country" when Obama was doing well in the Democratic party. Another first-lady-wanna-be and ghostly beer lady Cindy McCain, wife of senior citizen John McCain, quickly seized the opportunity and bitch-slapped Michelle Obama by stating that "I am proud of my country. I don’t know about you? If you heard those words earlier, I am very proud of my country." Meanwhile president-wanna-be and ex-first lady, senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is fighting for her Democratic nomination. What impresses me is she flats out states that she would support Obama and hopes her supporters will do the same, should he be the nominee of the party. There is no if's or but's, I think that shows some class.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Untitled
A History of Violence
Shot in the kitchen. Natural lighting. Nikon D70, Nikkor 50mm f1.4 manual focus, manual exposure.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Nikkor 70~200 Review by Rockwell
Ken did his own evaluation on the Nikkor 70~200 f2.8 VR and again his findings are largely in line with what has been concluded by many others: edge sharpness suffers on FX sensor. However, he proclaims that it really doesn't matter all things considered. At the end of the day, you really need to make your own decision depending on what matters to you the most. And to Mr. Rockwell, the edge softness doesn't bother him the least.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
CNNHD
Wow, CNN, the bellwether of cable news is finally broadcasting in high definition. I don't know when they started to have it but I just found out moments ago. Is that why Larry King is retiring soon? Is that why more anchors are getting their faces done? I am just making things up. I think not all the contents are in HD yet, in fact, most aren't. I am watching Larry King Live now, it's just not in HD.
UPDATE:
So silver fox Anderson Cooper's AC360 got the HD treatment while the sedentary senile Larry King still got stuck in standard broadcast.
John Edwards is endorsing Obama, so he wants to capitalize on Obama's momentum and to be a vice president.
UPDATE:
So silver fox Anderson Cooper's AC360 got the HD treatment while the sedentary senile Larry King still got stuck in standard broadcast.
John Edwards is endorsing Obama, so he wants to capitalize on Obama's momentum and to be a vice president.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Untitled
Viewing pictures at 100% sometimes is pretty discouraging. You find all the faults and warts in focusing, and camera shake. Life was better when people are just printing 4x6.
All pictures shot using my aging D70, Nikkon 80~200 f2.8, processed using UFRaw via GIMP under Ubuntu 8.04.
Friday, May 09, 2008
The Crest Finally Hit Me
LET it be noted without contention that the crest of the flow of recent films from the "new wave" of young French directors hit these shores yesterday with the arrival at the Fine Arts Theatre of "The 400 Blows" ("Les Quatre Cents Coups") of Françcois Truffaut.Bosley Crowther, November 17, 1959, The New York Times
With tax payers money hard at work, I borrowed the DVD from the library and talked myself into watching it. The crest of the "new wave" finally reached my basement, and hit me in full force, 49 years after its debut. This is not some overtly intellectual film reserved for the film critics and cultural elites. I found it enjoyable and satisfying; it has certain ferocity, unadorned earnestness and poignancy that I appreciate and find lacking in contemporary cinema.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Internal Card Reader
SYBA PCI USB 2.0 & FireWire/1394a combo card Model SD-COMBO-02
A 10-pin USB header. Cut the yellow pin, i.e. pin 9, so it can take a 9-pin connection cable. If you screw up, don't blame it on me. You've been warned.
JPEG from Adeltek
This is a continuation of my Crappy PC hardware that works in Ubuntu
[WARNINGS: If you follow any of the instructions on this blog and cause some major or minor screw-up, like, but not limited to, PC blow-up or bodily harm or death, it's not really my problem. You have been warned.]
The Koutech thing can read like 1,000 different cards. Actually "card reader" is an understatement. This thing can write between media as well. I tested that at least on two different media types. I was able to copy and paste a 5MB file between a 4GB CF card and a 4GB USB drive, which took no time at all.. The thing comes with a mini CD and no paper documentation whatsoever.
Installation:
Let's get the Kingston 4GB USB drive out of the way. The thing doesn't need any installation. It's just plug and play. It's a FAT32 file system so I guess Linux is just fine with it. I am not that technical.
The Koutech card reader is a bit involved, meaning I have to open my beautiful big ass beige box. To secure it on my empty 3.5" bay and connect the USB cable to my existing USB card.
The reader has a USB cable that needs to plug in some USB header which I know I have but not exactly sure how. My USB card is the legendary SYBA PCI USB 2.0 & FireWire/1394a combo card Model SD-COMBO-02. Turns out the card has a 10-pin USB header. And the reader USB cable is for 9-pin. So I don't know which pin to cut in order to plug the cable into the header. The SYBA site generally lacks those information but they do have some not so active forums and someone is nice enough to post a link that leads to a picture indicating what pin to cut. You know a picture is really worth a thousand words. With that picture, I cut the extra 9th pin. And I plugged in the USB cable onto the card. I plug the USB card back onto the motherboard on a different PCI card slot which is closer to the card reader. Power up the box. And everything just works. Instead of using my D70 as a mass storage device to read my CF card, I can now just remove the CF card and plug that into the reader. The D70 is just USB 1.1 (12Mbps) so I am gaining some serious USB 2.0 (480Mbps) speed too. Plus the reader has the a front USB so that's convenient for some iPod and thumb drive action. My hp w2207 has two USB ports on the left side, access is not very good as I can't really see sideway.
Story Time: A Man Like Him
A Man Like Him by Yiyun Li, is loosely based on or inspired by an online fodder happened in China some time ago: a daughter using her web sites to expose her father's alleged infidelity and seeks justice online. Li's short story, appears on the May 12 New Yorker, centers on a retired elementary school art teacher, Teacher Fei, who unlike most other online netizens, takes the side of the father. Fei eventually meets up with the father and forms some kindred relationship the brief moment they share in a little diner before they part their way to return to their own places where there are actually nothing worth to return to. The protagonist insists "He has nothing to say about this world." Not so for Li. She seems to be just warming up. She has plenty to say about this world, the Chineseness of Chinese people, their past and present in China and in foreign lands.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Iron Man
Iron Man has scored huge over the weekend. It has grossed more than 100 million. It's just an unbelievable box office success. Perhaps this time around, Robert Downey Jr. can really become a box office draw. Condition: he has to be in that iron man suit, just like Johnny Depp in his pirate costume. Robert Downey Jr. from young promising actor to Oscar nominated actor to junkie to box office success.
Yahoo!
Over the weekend, Steve Ballmer came to his senses, which doesn't happen too often, and withdrew his hostile bid on Yahoo!. Jerry Yang has a lot to answer to now, shareholders lawsuits for one.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Nikkor 70~200 Review at dpreview
Dpreview, over the weekend, published its own Nikkor 70~200 review. The result is largely in line with what others had found out. The lens, despite its 35mm design, is really performing at its best under Nikon's own smaller DX sensor. So the next question is not if but when Nikon is going to update this once legendary lens. Of course, some owners still stand by the lens, brushing off or happily oblivious to, all its drawbacks if mounted on a FX camera, the one and only one D3. It is just like before Nikon has full frame and low noise high ISO performance, most Nikon die-hards wrote off full frame and low noise and then right after D3, most did an about face and raved about how good FF and low noise are. I expect the same thing with the Nikkor 70~200 and its successor.
I will never find out first hand how a 70~200 perfoms. I have a 80~200 f2.8, and I am pretty happy with its performance on my D70. Sometimes it's hard to get a sharp image due to its longer focal length. But with proper technique and lighting, it's very much doable.
I will never find out first hand how a 70~200 perfoms. I have a 80~200 f2.8, and I am pretty happy with its performance on my D70. Sometimes it's hard to get a sharp image due to its longer focal length. But with proper technique and lighting, it's very much doable.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Link
The Web is about links, without links there won't be any Web as we know it. I believe in links though I don't have a lot of them as I am not all that promiscuous. Also link is the way to go if you can't write anything better.
Here is a link that I find pretty interesting, though not interesting like I can read it in one go. If you are interested in translation, and you know who you are, this one is really for you in case you've missed it.
This is a translation of Leung Man To's essay by Snowdrops at http://crisapples.blogspot.com. If I didn't know it's a translation, I would have thought that it's originally written in English. I hope the fact that the post got linked here, a conglomeration of nonsense, doesn't reflect poorly on her part.
Here is a link that I find pretty interesting, though not interesting like I can read it in one go. If you are interested in translation, and you know who you are, this one is really for you in case you've missed it.
This is a translation of Leung Man To's essay by Snowdrops at http://crisapples.blogspot.com. If I didn't know it's a translation, I would have thought that it's originally written in English. I hope the fact that the post got linked here, a conglomeration of nonsense, doesn't reflect poorly on her part.
gtkpod and xmms
It's always one thing leads to another, and before you know it you almost forget why you are doing this in the first place.
I was trying to get my first generation 512MB gum stick iPod shuffle to load and play songs.
I got the gtkpod to work in Ubuntu 7.10 okay so this isn't exactly new to me. However, you know there is always a catch or something is wrong, otherwise life in the Linux world would be boring. Though Ubuntu claims to just work, I just don't believe it.
I got the song loading okay but when I try to right click the song to play it just says xmms command not found. So that begins my quest to find out what the heck that xmms is. For the die hard, it's the only audio player that should be on the machine. Anyway. I found some good sources and was able to follow the blow by blow installation instruction, i.e. getting the source and compiling the program, which I don't get to do too often. Of course, my newly minted Ubuntu 8.04 doesn't have the C library or the GTK+ to compile, so again it took me quite some time to figure out what ingredients I actually need and from where to get them.
Here is an excellent write up, this is especially helpful for a Linux newbie like myself. Here is another one that is like what should have been there but not there in 8.04 kind of write-up.
Monday, April 28, 2008
iMac Ups Spec
Apple just refreshes its popular all-in-one iMac line on Monday, a day ahead of what others have speculated to be a Tuesday announcement.
The souped up iMac can be configured to max out with a 3.02GB Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB L2 cache and 1066Mhz front side bus, 4GB of RAM, 1TB of SATA HD, and a Nvidia card with 512MB of memory.
Meanwhile, Apple's stock price has been slowly digging itself out of the cold dark ditch, trading now around $170.
Macrumors sums it up nicely.
The souped up iMac can be configured to max out with a 3.02GB Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB L2 cache and 1066Mhz front side bus, 4GB of RAM, 1TB of SATA HD, and a Nvidia card with 512MB of memory.
Meanwhile, Apple's stock price has been slowly digging itself out of the cold dark ditch, trading now around $170.
Macrumors sums it up nicely.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Queens Botanical Garden
Japanese cherry blossoms have done wonder to the parks.
This image is captured using my standard tools. It's monkeyed with using GIMP and UFRaw plug-in. Gimp comes with Ubuntu 8.04 but not UFRaw, I downloaded UFRaw via Add/Remove Program, but Gimp can't invoke that so something wasn't right. OKAY, I should have downloaded gimp-ufraw plugin not just the stand-alone version, so UFRaw can be invoked from gimp.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
I got my Vista to download the iso ... don't you think Vista is good for nothing. md5 to check sum and burned the image onto a CD-R. All by following Ubuntu's instructions which are usually are OKAY if you can find them. I find their site generally pretty hard to navigate.
My rig is a dinosaur machine with two harddrives with Ubuntu 7.10 running pretty well from the smaller 40GB drive. My whopping 160GB drive was pretty much unmolested. (The other earlier post using Update to update from 7.10 to 8.04 was for another machine all together. This is done via a CD-R burned LiveCD installation)
wifi using Realtek 8180, resolved.
So I decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 onto my whopping 160GB drive and see what happens. The installation takes about 15 minutes and it all went well except I still can't get my wifi works out of the box. My cheapo wifi PCI card uses realtek 8180 chipset and never worked out of the box. I was hoping the ndiswrapper (Windows wireless driver program) would be automagically installed in 8.04 to make life less painful. Alas, life is not a bed of roses when it comes to Linux. And how the hell am I going to get the 7.10 ndiswrapper back....I really forgot how I found this one out even though it was only yesterday. It's via Synaptic manager of course. I just need to put the LiveCD into the drive and let it be a source and then search for the string "ndis". Then installed the packages from the CD. I mounted my 40GB drive and find the INF file I downloaded from way back when I did Ubuntu 7.10 and copy it to my drive (what was I thinking? I could have just installed the INF from there why did the copy and paste). I then run the Windows wireless driver program from the System Administration menu and it's almost painless. I got my network connection back. Once I got the Internet under my thumb, I rule.
GRUB error 18, resolved.
Well things went kind of downhill and straight to hell when I tried to get the ATI graphics driver to work somewhat better like in 7.10. For some peculiar reason, after a couple of add and remove, my system or actually GRUB can't even boot to 8.04 nor 7.10 any more. That's major.
The error was like GRUB error 18 and the system just stopped cold.
Again I somewhat forgot how to fix it ... even it's only yesterday.
OKAY I will try to recall ...
I even tried to re-install the system again. But to no avail, thank goodness it took about 15 minutes....
Okay, more Googling....
Boot up from the LiveCd again,
get to the terminal
type some crap like
>sudo grub
grub>root (hd0,0)
grub>setup (hd0,0)
grub>quit
then reboot system
and magically, now grub gives me back my 7.10 boot menu.
But I am not happy with 7.10. I was but once you got it, you wanted to be at 8.04...
So more trial and error and more Google.
I tried to change hd0 to hd1 but again no good. I tried to re-install the system again, no good.
OKAY, re-installed again, but this time after some Google and some insights or sixth sense actually, when in partitioning, I clicked on the advance button, and changed the default hd0 to hda from the drop down and went through the rest of the 15 minutes installation process. Reboot, now I am in business, the GRUB menu now gives me the option of picking 8.04. I have yet to fully understand the mistake I've made and how I actually got it corrected. My primary drive is the hda where the boot takes place. My second drive is where 8.04 is. So far after 24 hours, a half dozen reboots, GRUB is still working properly so I guess I must have fixed the problem.
Now I have to go on solve the display problem...the thread I got for it didn't quite help.
UPDATE 4/27/2007
Display, nvidia-glx-new, resolved.
At least I got my display back to 7.10 performance.
The nvida-glx-new package was I guess never installed. Under System, Administration, Hardware drivers, the nvidia-new was marked enabled, but not used. It's really the pinnacle of message, what the hell is it trying to tell you? I have no idea. I googled a bit, and some easy but doesn't make sense solution was like unmark to disable. Reboot. Then mark enable. I tried a few times wouldn't do anything. And I even monkeyed with Synaptic manager to change the Repository to Other and let the manager find the fastest servers for download. But no go. BUT, the strangest thing happened. After I actually shut it down, and boot up, and marked it enable, actually the system went to download the package nvidia-glx-new this time and got the sucker installed. And now with a system reboot, I got my 1600x1000 back at least where it was. I could never get my 1680x1050 back and I read maybe I have to use the non-dvi plug for the HP w2207. So I am always 400 pixels short.
UPDATE: 4/28/08
Finally I unplugged the dvi cable and used the vga cable instead. And guess what, I got my 1680x1050 pixel back but the refresh rate is either 50 or 51hz, that's a bit mind boggling, why the 1 hz difference? The ideal 60hz is unattainable as of now. The DVI is supposed to give better graphics but I can't tell the difference. So I will stick with the VGA cable.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: 4/30/2008
Via Add/Remove, I got the Nvidia server and the System Info. And System Info I can configure using the Nvidia Server to make the display on spec, that is 1680x1050 @60hz. But I have the impression that it might not be very stable. Why, because I was doing that in Ubuntu 7.10 and for some inexplicable reason, or things I don't know enough I call inexplicable, when I changed it to 1680x1050@60hz, between users, the screen blackout. I haven't do a few reboots in 8.04 so I don't know if the setting will stay and reliable, but it's doable.
YET STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: 5/5/2008
Seems like the 1680x1050 @60hz is sticking just fine in Hardy Heron. Well, I haven't tested it when I switch between users as I don't have any other users setup there.
YET YET STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: 8/2/08
the 1680x1050 @60mhz is doable but you have to use the VGA plug. The DVI plug wouldn't work. That's my experience with my LCD monitor. That's not a new piece of information, just to recap.
YET YET STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: 3/11/09
The video card is GeForce FX 5500 with 128MB, the DVI just max out at 1600x1000
First impressions
The fonts look better from Firefox 3 in Hardy Heron, actually much better, much better.
Even got yahoo! blog display correctly.
You still need to download Gstreamer extra plugins to simply play mp3.
My rig is a dinosaur machine with two harddrives with Ubuntu 7.10 running pretty well from the smaller 40GB drive. My whopping 160GB drive was pretty much unmolested. (The other earlier post using Update to update from 7.10 to 8.04 was for another machine all together. This is done via a CD-R burned LiveCD installation)
wifi using Realtek 8180, resolved.
So I decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 onto my whopping 160GB drive and see what happens. The installation takes about 15 minutes and it all went well except I still can't get my wifi works out of the box. My cheapo wifi PCI card uses realtek 8180 chipset and never worked out of the box. I was hoping the ndiswrapper (Windows wireless driver program) would be automagically installed in 8.04 to make life less painful. Alas, life is not a bed of roses when it comes to Linux. And how the hell am I going to get the 7.10 ndiswrapper back....I really forgot how I found this one out even though it was only yesterday. It's via Synaptic manager of course. I just need to put the LiveCD into the drive and let it be a source and then search for the string "ndis". Then installed the packages from the CD. I mounted my 40GB drive and find the INF file I downloaded from way back when I did Ubuntu 7.10 and copy it to my drive (what was I thinking? I could have just installed the INF from there why did the copy and paste). I then run the Windows wireless driver program from the System Administration menu and it's almost painless. I got my network connection back. Once I got the Internet under my thumb, I rule.
GRUB error 18, resolved.
Well things went kind of downhill and straight to hell when I tried to get the ATI graphics driver to work somewhat better like in 7.10. For some peculiar reason, after a couple of add and remove, my system or actually GRUB can't even boot to 8.04 nor 7.10 any more. That's major.
The error was like GRUB error 18 and the system just stopped cold.
Again I somewhat forgot how to fix it ... even it's only yesterday.
OKAY I will try to recall ...
I even tried to re-install the system again. But to no avail, thank goodness it took about 15 minutes....
Okay, more Googling....
Boot up from the LiveCd again,
get to the terminal
type some crap like
>sudo grub
grub>root (hd0,0)
grub>setup (hd0,0)
grub>quit
then reboot system
and magically, now grub gives me back my 7.10 boot menu.
But I am not happy with 7.10. I was but once you got it, you wanted to be at 8.04...
So more trial and error and more Google.
I tried to change hd0 to hd1 but again no good. I tried to re-install the system again, no good.
OKAY, re-installed again, but this time after some Google and some insights or sixth sense actually, when in partitioning, I clicked on the advance button, and changed the default hd0 to hda from the drop down and went through the rest of the 15 minutes installation process. Reboot, now I am in business, the GRUB menu now gives me the option of picking 8.04. I have yet to fully understand the mistake I've made and how I actually got it corrected. My primary drive is the hda where the boot takes place. My second drive is where 8.04 is. So far after 24 hours, a half dozen reboots, GRUB is still working properly so I guess I must have fixed the problem.
Now I have to go on solve the display problem...the thread I got for it didn't quite help.
UPDATE 4/27/2007
Display, nvidia-glx-new, resolved.
At least I got my display back to 7.10 performance.
The nvida-glx-new package was I guess never installed. Under System, Administration, Hardware drivers, the nvidia-new was marked enabled, but not used. It's really the pinnacle of message, what the hell is it trying to tell you? I have no idea. I googled a bit, and some easy but doesn't make sense solution was like unmark to disable. Reboot. Then mark enable. I tried a few times wouldn't do anything. And I even monkeyed with Synaptic manager to change the Repository to Other and let the manager find the fastest servers for download. But no go. BUT, the strangest thing happened. After I actually shut it down, and boot up, and marked it enable, actually the system went to download the package nvidia-glx-new this time and got the sucker installed. And now with a system reboot, I got my 1600x1000 back at least where it was. I could never get my 1680x1050 back and I read maybe I have to use the non-dvi plug for the HP w2207. So I am always 400 pixels short.
UPDATE: 4/28/08
Finally I unplugged the dvi cable and used the vga cable instead. And guess what, I got my 1680x1050 pixel back but the refresh rate is either 50 or 51hz, that's a bit mind boggling, why the 1 hz difference? The ideal 60hz is unattainable as of now. The DVI is supposed to give better graphics but I can't tell the difference. So I will stick with the VGA cable.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: 4/30/2008
Via Add/Remove, I got the Nvidia server and the System Info. And System Info I can configure using the Nvidia Server to make the display on spec, that is 1680x1050 @60hz. But I have the impression that it might not be very stable. Why, because I was doing that in Ubuntu 7.10 and for some inexplicable reason, or things I don't know enough I call inexplicable, when I changed it to 1680x1050@60hz, between users, the screen blackout. I haven't do a few reboots in 8.04 so I don't know if the setting will stay and reliable, but it's doable.
YET STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: 5/5/2008
Seems like the 1680x1050 @60hz is sticking just fine in Hardy Heron. Well, I haven't tested it when I switch between users as I don't have any other users setup there.
YET YET STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: 8/2/08
the 1680x1050 @60mhz is doable but you have to use the VGA plug. The DVI plug wouldn't work. That's my experience with my LCD monitor. That's not a new piece of information, just to recap.
YET YET STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: 3/11/09
The video card is GeForce FX 5500 with 128MB, the DVI just max out at 1600x1000
First impressions
The fonts look better from Firefox 3 in Hardy Heron, actually much better, much better.
Even got yahoo! blog display correctly.
You still need to download Gstreamer extra plugins to simply play mp3.
The Forbidden Kingdom
It got a user rating of 7.6/10 at imdb.com. So it has a real appreciative audience out there. As for me, I am most likely not their demographic audience. I think the movie looks like some low budget B movie with second rate action, third rate acting and fourth rate production. (I know the action was supposed to be choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping, and filmed by Peter Pau. Oh well, not their best works) OK, maybe Jackie Chan and Jet Li are sort of A-list foreign actors in Hollywood. The only reason I went to see the movie was because I wanted to have some father and son experience with the kids.
Alex kind of likes it. Since Alex kind of likes it, Harry says the same thing. But I know both were a bit scared throughout the movie and I didn't hear them laugh once maybe except when Jet Li was doing the unthinkable to Jackie Chan in the dessert. They think Transformers is better, that I agree. The C-word for Chinese were uttered more than once in the beginning of the movie. For a movie of this nature, I don't think it's all necessary.
First show, $8 each. Big popcorn and big soda, $10.75.
One more thing, I find it quite disconcerting to see the male villain has such heavy application of bluish black eye shadows.
UPDATE 4/30/2008:
I talked to another guy who happened to have seen this movie and he too heard the word "chink" a couple of times. I really feel the movie has no right to use that word. Jackie Chan and Jet Li should really know better. Why use an offensive, derogatory ethnic slur for a PG-13 movie, knowing full well that kids are going to see the movie. I can understand if it's a R-rated movie, in the proper context that would be acceptable. As it is I found its use totally unnecessary, stupid and offensive, more so coming from a mainly Chinese cast and crew.
Alex kind of likes it. Since Alex kind of likes it, Harry says the same thing. But I know both were a bit scared throughout the movie and I didn't hear them laugh once maybe except when Jet Li was doing the unthinkable to Jackie Chan in the dessert. They think Transformers is better, that I agree. The C-word for Chinese were uttered more than once in the beginning of the movie. For a movie of this nature, I don't think it's all necessary.
First show, $8 each. Big popcorn and big soda, $10.75.
One more thing, I find it quite disconcerting to see the male villain has such heavy application of bluish black eye shadows.
UPDATE 4/30/2008:
I talked to another guy who happened to have seen this movie and he too heard the word "chink" a couple of times. I really feel the movie has no right to use that word. Jackie Chan and Jet Li should really know better. Why use an offensive, derogatory ethnic slur for a PG-13 movie, knowing full well that kids are going to see the movie. I can understand if it's a R-rated movie, in the proper context that would be acceptable. As it is I found its use totally unnecessary, stupid and offensive, more so coming from a mainly Chinese cast and crew.
Cycling In The Playground
Look Mom, no training wheels.
Training technique adopted from a friend of mine, Raul.
Kid's legs should be able to duck walk comfortably with butt firmly planted on the seat.
With butt on seat, upper body leans forward, duck walks to push bike forward, once got some momentum, pedal. Every now and then give a slight push from behind on the seat. For the most part, I just stayed away. It took less than two hours to get him pedal by himself.
Training technique adopted from a friend of mine, Raul.
Kid's legs should be able to duck walk comfortably with butt firmly planted on the seat.
With butt on seat, upper body leans forward, duck walks to push bike forward, once got some momentum, pedal. Every now and then give a slight push from behind on the seat. For the most part, I just stayed away. It took less than two hours to get him pedal by himself.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Summer Movies
What's better than watching some mind blowing and mind numbing summer movies? Watching them free with your kids and eating lots of popcorns and drinking super sized sodas or slurpees till you burp, much to the annoyance of other people around you, just kidding ... or not. Watching them free is pretty much a pipe dream so scratch that, but the rest holds true.
Here is a list from the Coming soon of IMDB:
So there you have it.
Here is a list from the Coming soon of IMDB:
- Made of Honor, if you can watch him on TV, why bother paying $11 to watch him doing almost the same thing on big screen. More importantly, not my summer kind of movie;
- Iron Man. Oh Yes, flying robot and lots of explosions. Though Robert Downey Jr. isn't exactly the super hero type. Well I heard he's a good actor and Oscar worthy;
- Son of Rambow, some arty stuff I guess;
- Speed Racer, the whatever brothers' follow-up since the Matrix trilogy. Plenty of cutting-edge FX margins on looking absolutely comics. Perhaps that's the idea, playing tribute to the genre;
- The Incredible Hulk. This time around with Edward Norton. I don't think the last time was that bad.
- The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Kids probably love it.
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Senior citizen AARP eligible Harrison Ford is reprising his role as Dr. Jones. And what's his name from Transformers is his son. I remember how I was so blown away by the first one the first time I saw it. I was a teenager, didn't know better or it was actually that good. I guess kids would love it.
- The Forbidden Kingdom. This is not coming soon, it's been showing since last week and was number one in the box office. It got 8/10 from imdb's users reviews, I think most of the reviewers must be 16 years old or something. I think I will see it too. My kids would love to see it. This is like Ha Jin's immigrant novels, the Chinese characters actually talk in English, you really have to suspend your belief to a whole new level. We will probably check it out tomorrow.
- Hancock. This one seems to be major, starring Will Smith as some super human. Just saw a promotional clip on TV. Seems interesting. The last one what's the name "I am Legend" was a letdown and I was being generous already. Though it wasn't really Smith's fault. Smith is probably the only action hero left that can carries a movie, like a solid opening.
So there you have it.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04 Is Here
Perhaps it's time to crank up my hardware just a notch so I can have a better experience with the OS and the applications.
I am doing the upgrade now ...
For packages:
65 are to be removed.
193 to be installed.
903 to be upgraded.
[I began this upgrade at 9.30AM]
And together 702M to be downloaded. It goes on to estimate that it will take 2 hours and 2 minutes. Wow, how does it get to the 2 minutes part?
But of course, that was an overly optimistic estimate, with the traffic and unpredictable nature of the Internet, now it says it's going to take more than a day to download the packages. The download speed varies quite somewhat, from 70kb/s to 200kb/s. So there you have it.
This one is code named Hardy Heron, and it's LTS, WTF is LTS? Well, it's long term support, meaning for server it's 5 years free upgrade and desktop 3 years from Canonical. Wow, that kind of make it a must have upgrade, isn't it?
[2.20PM]
It took about 3 hours to download the packages. Now it's installing the upgrades.
[3:48PM]
The system is done and needs a reboot.
So the entire upgrade didn't take 2 hours 2 minutes or did it take a day. It took 6.5 hours in all. The whole process went so smooth that it seems rather unreal. Most notable change is the default desktop picture. Other than that Firefox is now version 3 Beta 5. Oh, I am so shallow in Ubuntu. I think I will upgrade my other monster Ubuntu rig when I have more time or maybe when their server is faster, I don't know. Maybe 6.5 hours isn't bad I really don't know.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
hp Compaq 6910p
The notebook is chugging along pretty nicely. The pointing blue nipple thing fell off already even though I am not known as a rough nipple player ... but I can always put it back, though it isn't like secured anymore. On the other hand, my century old Thinkpad's red nipple is still firmly, snugly and securely erected in between keys like the first day I got it. Note, hp calls it a "pointing stick," how inappropriate to refer a thingy this length a stick?
Of Garage Door And Banal Suburban Life
My garage door broke a few months ago and I always thought I will be able to fix it. Only the lowest panel was broken and it seems easy enough .... When the weather gets warmer I will get to it. I know I was not the handy man type so I was in denial, I was just delaying the inevitable: to hire someone to fix it, or better yet, not to fix it at all. Jin and I had gone to Home Depot to check out the doors and the experience wasn't entirely positive, I noticed they use the same HP monitor I do, so we had something in common. But that was the only connection we had. And it just reinforced my denial that I was going to fix it myself. Some day.
Anyway, one day I got myself into the garage and the door just dropped. And it stuck and I couldn't pull it up so I was locked inside. In the end I was able to climb out from the broken panel. So Jin and I headed to Sears the following weekend. Except the fact that they didn't carry the actual door in store, surprisingly the Sears experience was pretty positive. I got the ball rolling by requesting call back online and I got a call back and was given a quote right away. Then a Sears contractor came to take the actual measurement and reconfirm the quote. It went like $60 higher as the door needs to cut down from the standard 8 x 7 and blah blah blah. Through out the transaction I got emails confirmation of the quote so I felt comfortable. The door came much faster than promised, and two guys came to install it in the morning, arrived even earlier than promised, and got the door installed in about an hour. Was it an absolutely perfect installation? Not quite, but given the experience I had with prior contractors, I was quite happy with this rather painless experience and was pleasantly surprised by how quick the whole thing was done from beginning to end.
I paid about $750, about half goes to labor and the door is just the very basic model, no insulation no nothing. I am glad it's over.
Apple Thinks Different Again
Apple thinks different again. Apple is buying P.A. Semi, a fabless semiconductor company (as if you will know what fabless is? at least 5,679,902 clicks through this link, and the website is overwhelmed by my post and temporarily out of service, how lame) for $278 million according to Forbes. Apple would not comment on the purchase, but most analysts think the purchase is an effort to differentiate Apple products in the increasingly crowded mobile computing space. P.A. Semi is known for its power efficient chips based on the IBM's Power architecture which Apple abandoned in favor of Intel, just like the rest of the industry, for its line of desktop and notebooks just a few years ago. Chances are P.A. Semi might have some very efficient chip in the offing and that would further differentiate and cement Apple as the leader in the cellular market and other mobile devices, notably the rumored re-issue of the Newton tablet.
Apple is to release Q2 results at 5 P.M. Eastern time after market close.
Apple is to release Q2 results at 5 P.M. Eastern time after market close.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Clinton Won Pennsylvania
The tenacious, unwavering Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary. Essentially Obama asked those small town bitter voters not to vote for him. According to most political pundits the win in Pennsylvania does give Clinton reason to go on but it doesn't drastically change the political outlook of the Democratic primary, i.e. Obama still has a better chance getting nominated.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Things to Look Forward To This Summer
Other than the usual childish summer blockbuster movies that I love to loathe, this summer is shaping up to be a good season for Nikon users. Rumor is going rampant that Nikon is releasing its 24MP D3x in June together with a consumer grade D90, a successor to the D80. Rockwell, not known as a rumor monger, even has a picture of the alleged D3x on his website. It's really an exciting time for Nikon and its user base, that's myself included, though I couldn't imagine myself actually using a D3x to shoot family snapshots. But if I have the money, I don't see why not.
Another major event is going to be the Summer Olympics that is going to be held in China. I childishly believe in the Olympics ideal, that is people compete on a level playing field and let sports transcend religion, politics and race.
From Gizmodo.
Another major event is going to be the Summer Olympics that is going to be held in China. I childishly believe in the Olympics ideal, that is people compete on a level playing field and let sports transcend religion, politics and race.
From Gizmodo.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
More boring pictures ...
Happy Family I
Happy Family I
Happy Family II. Where is Mr. Harry?
Happy Family III
Japanese Flowering Cherry. Continuous shooting, manual macro focusing, exposure. Nikkor 35~105 at f5.6.
Mr. HarryBrooklyn Botanic Garden. Unlike the one in Queens, this one is bigger and badder: no free admission and no picnic. Admission for adults are $8 per person and children are admitted for free. Japanese Cherry Festival or however it's called is on May 3, and 4, we will probably come again.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The chili and chicken vegetable soup from the cafe are pretty good.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The chili and chicken vegetable soup from the cafe are pretty good.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Philoxenia
Last night, Jin and I sticked to our Queens root and didn't bother to be one of the bridge and tunnel crowd in the City. But still we needed to get on the highway to reach Philoxenia but definitely a better driving experience than it would have been should we choose to drive all the way to anywhere in the City on a Friday night.
Philoxenia is really what it says it is, "Greek hospitality at its finest" and some more. The wait staff is all round very courteous which seems surprisingly a dying art in the restaurant business nowadays. We ordered a bottle of fancy water Aqua Panna ($5.5) which is non carbonated and non Greek, but hey it's Mediterranean, so it's close enough. We ordered a few sharing small dishes: Greek Salad (it actually comes in a big bowl, $6?), Grilled Octopus (one long tentacle chargrilled, $11.50), Bekri Mezi (or cubed veal and pork in tomato sauce and feta, $13.5), Mussels in Ouzo (I made up the name, isn't it good or what? Anyway, it's mussels in some light tomato sauce and feta) and for dessert we tried the Greek yogurt with grape toppings ($5.5). Total for the night, tips included, around $73.
Overall both the food and service are very good. The clientele is on the older side, you have guys in their 50s dressing like lawyers and doctors with their spouses on a causal Friday night. And most customers bring their own bottles. The neighborhood is not bad but not much to look around before and after dinner.
Philoxenia's website (it got silly background music, you may want to mute your speakers if you are at work, and or if you are (un)lucky not to have speakers at work, you know who you are, then no need to bother).
Friday, April 18, 2008
Queens Botanical Garden At Noon
All macro shots. Nikon D70, Nikkor 35~105. Manual focus and exposure. All hand-held shooting around 125s to 200s, aperture set at f5.6 or f8 or something else, give or take here and there.
Nikon D3 Review
All armchair photographers rejoice.
Actually, it's called in-depth review which was credited to Simon Joinson and Phil Askey at dpreview.com. As noted, the review was done with firmware v.1 prior to the first firmware upgrade which allegedly could corrupt image files in certain circumstances and was hence pulled from distribution. Nikon screwed up.
After reading the comparison, and seeing with my own eyes and recalling what Ken Rockwell's early review, I have to conclude that, all things being equal, based on out of the camera unmolested JPEG, Canon delivers visually cleaner and sharper images.
More Trouble in Paradise
As if the firmware upgrade blunder wasn't bad enough, Nikon suffered another embarrassment. The latest review on its once class leading, pro grade lens Nikkor AFS-VR 70~200 f2.8 was deemed to be largely poor when shot using Nikon's own FX sensor D3 camera. Digital Loyd says"Its optical performance is without a doubt the very worst I’ve yet to see on the D3 from any lens." Long time Nikon shooter Bjorn declares that "the covering power of this slim design simply is not adequate for a good performance across the entire FX frame." And I have heard Nikon is going to sell newly designed nano coated lens. Could that be a marketing ploy? The 70~200 is up for an upgrade.
UPDATE
4/25/08
Just as promised, Nikon re-released the D3 firmware update.
Actually, it's called in-depth review which was credited to Simon Joinson and Phil Askey at dpreview.com. As noted, the review was done with firmware v.1 prior to the first firmware upgrade which allegedly could corrupt image files in certain circumstances and was hence pulled from distribution. Nikon screwed up.
After reading the comparison, and seeing with my own eyes and recalling what Ken Rockwell's early review, I have to conclude that, all things being equal, based on out of the camera unmolested JPEG, Canon delivers visually cleaner and sharper images.
More Trouble in Paradise
As if the firmware upgrade blunder wasn't bad enough, Nikon suffered another embarrassment. The latest review on its once class leading, pro grade lens Nikkor AFS-VR 70~200 f2.8 was deemed to be largely poor when shot using Nikon's own FX sensor D3 camera. Digital Loyd says"Its optical performance is without a doubt the very worst I’ve yet to see on the D3 from any lens." Long time Nikon shooter Bjorn declares that "the covering power of this slim design simply is not adequate for a good performance across the entire FX frame." And I have heard Nikon is going to sell newly designed nano coated lens. Could that be a marketing ploy? The 70~200 is up for an upgrade.
UPDATE
4/25/08
Just as promised, Nikon re-released the D3 firmware update.
Weekend Fodder
This is going to jumpstart your weekend.
To my Irish blog friend Snowdrops who lives in Ireland. You have been warned.
image pilfered from here.
Emails Found From The Gutter
In reverse chronological order. Read from the bottom up. Only if you are really bored.
I notice [redacted]'s got great birthing hips, too.
[redacted]
My grandfather's 1st wife died when my grandfather was relatively
young, left him 2 daughters but she was very kind enough to find a
young girl for my grandfather before she died, the girl was my
biological grandmother, who then made 6 to 8 kids for my grandfather,
one is my Dad.
I never seen my Grandfather before, not even a pic, I only know his
name and some relatives told me he's a slow motion person like my Dad
and me. Too bad I didn't inherent his gene.
My Dad has one wife and made 4 kids, I am the worst in my [redacted] family
[redacted]
--------------------
For my part, I have been making enquires. I am very receptive to the idea.
[redacted]
it's in Texas. All men should love living there. I don't know why they could do it for so long, men practicing polygamy and nobody really cares. They have child bride, arranged marriage, anything you can think of. And the women are brainwashed that they believe that's what god want it. Holy cow. I didn't read up on this though, but I know it's in Texas. Can you believe that, it's God's way to live a polygamy life. God I love that kind of shit.
>
is it the one recently fuck up in US ? I forget which state, the motherfucker with many "wives", or sex slave age 14 to 16 ? how come the Amercian girls so stupid for many years
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Or the Fundamentalist Church of Latter day Saints.
Communisum is not longer a threat to the west, [redacted] should give up his communism though and switched to Islamic
You have been spending too much time reading penthouse. You need to understand how the modern globalised economy works. Don't just look at the PICTURES. You have to look at the big picture.
-------------------------
I like her without her bikini on.
I like Guo Jiang Jiang too, in her Bikini
[redacted]
Guo jing jing is also from that town.
[redacted]
> For your reference, guys. [redacted] is pretty [redacted] from 石家庄。
> [redacted]
Jared also wrote a book called 'why is sex fun?'
This guy is very original. I like his books.
I'm and horny and I know why.
---------------------------
已 婚 男 子 與 情 婦 合 謀 迷 姦 好 朋 友 的 Ｖ 太 案 ， 陪 審 團 裁 定 男 被 告 兩 項 以 虛 假 藉 口 促 使 他 人 作 非 法 性 行 為 的 罪 名 成 立 ， 但 強 姦 罪 名 不 成 立 ， 案 件 押 後 至 明 天 判 刑 。
this motherfucker is lucky, how come these silly women so stupid
[redacted]
------------------------------------------------------
They don't tell you: "[redacted], I think I'm horny."
You've got to get to know a woman better and figure that out for yourself.
In Jared Diamond's words, women don't "advertise" that they're being
horny. The female human being is the only species among primates
[including chimps and gorillas] that do not make love in the public.
Chimps and gorilla do. [IMHO, perhaps they don't build homes with
doors.]
There's evolutionary reasons for that and it benefits the human
society. But that's a long story.
-------------------------------------
Don't bother about them. By natural selection, these women will
be weeded out and become extinct pretty soon.
By the same token, natural selection will allow horny women to have
lots of offspring and their horny genes will flourish in humankind and
there's always the chance that a hornier mutant gene will pop up from
nowhere in a woman and hornier women will flourish and beget more
hornier women.
It goes on and on like this and women therefore will generally become
hornier and hornier until the horniest woman [again a mutant] came
about and she will have the most offspring and these offspring will
have a greater chance of becoming the horniest women who will again
have the most offspring. As a result, humankind prevails over all
other species. This is known as evolution. It is able to
explain why women are generally horny and why they enjoy sex.
Got it. Please read Charles Darwin's books or Jared Diamond's
books. The book Third Chimpanzee: the Evolution and Future of the
Human Animal by Jared Diamond has a very interesting chapter analysing
[the need for] different lengths of penis between man, chimp and
gorilla, as well as their relationship with the depths of vagina of
woman, female chimp and female gorilla.
[redacted]
I wonder there's some women in this world didn't need any sex at all,
like [redacted]
[redacted]
Thursday, April 17, 2008
If I Can Only Have Three Alphabets
If I can only have three alphabets, IBM is it. This company is doing everything right in a troubled market.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Bored
a 5-minute long video
At 2 minute and 18 second, this self-described so cool, albeit at time boring 17-year old utters the magic word "bored." Then again at 3:29. You decide whether it sounds exactly like "board" or not.
The shirt-optional Iggy Pop proclaims that he is bored, probably a dozen times.
In reference to comments exchange between Hong Kong Big Uncle, also
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