Well, apparently, my host service screwed up the MySQL database of this blog. I guess it is a good chance to give it a refresh start. I do have some entries backed up and I might re-post some of those old entries if I think they might be useful.
Archive for category misc
A refresh start
Oct 19
My neighbor shows me this article from East Bay Express. Those stories sound very familiar. My personal feeling is that such academic system should be fixed soon. The academic society should give more recognition to postdocs.
As a postdoc, you don’t get those benefit to students. You are not considered as a formal employee. You don’t get any benefit and you are paid low in the name of science. I still remember that I felt so absurd when I was told I could not pay my monthly parking fee by automatic deduction from my paycheck, because I was a “temporary worker” in the school I had being working for a few years.
Well, I can not say that my career is not benefit from my postdoc research. But, I can not say I totally enjoy being treated by the school as “temporary worker” for an indefinitely amount of time. One should treat the real “working horses” in the academic research industry a little better. Without these working horses, there will be no “super-star” in research communities. Anyway, there is not much point for me to complain anymore. Industrial R&D can be fun too.
Tomorrow
Jul 22
Tomorrow, a new day with new challenges! What a great feeling for entering the next stage of my career! Although I have to make a tough decision, it is indeed time to move on. I am really feeling the excitement of a new environment and a new career path now.
Maker Faire 2007
Jun 24
I went to Maker Faire yesterday. I have been a Make magazine subscriber since its debut and I like to hack and make things. Although I have been working some project for my work (in systems biology) last year very hard to a degree that I did not feel to do anything anymore. Since the project is near the end and I am in a position trying to seek new opportunities in my life, it might be a good time to revive some hacker/maker sprit in my heart. So, I could not miss the second Maker Faire,.
My families and I arrived the faire around 10 o’clock. We first spent some time on the Robot Pavilion to see quite a few different interesting robot. Some of them are quite extraordinary, e.g., robots driven by steam engine, self-balancing robot, and home-made Segway, etc.
Although there was a schedule for different presentation and demonstration, with a less than two years old toddler, we were just doing random walk in the faire ground afterward.
The largest Maker demonstration was at ___. Half of the hall was for “Maker” and half of the hall was for “Crafter”. Joy was joking about that most women can stay in the crafter part and most of men can stay in the maker part and this made the “Maker/Crafter Faire” as a great event for family. One can found some of those projects in Make demonstrated in the maker part. There was also a DIY lab to make a “Ybox” provided by Yahoo as sponsor. It was interesting to see that Yahoo seemed putting more effort for this “Maker” event. Compared to Yahoo, Google only put a few computers demonstrating Sketcher. On the other hand, Microsoft did demonstrate some of their cool lab technologies. I talked to a engineer showing me their new web mash-up tools, popfly. It seemed quite interesting, but I had yet to tried it out by myself. Well, at least, my daughter liked their “ducks”.
In the main Make demonstration, what I found quite interesting was the 3D Metal sculptures by Bathsheba. This was my first time to see the results of a 3D printer using metal as the material. It just is amazing to see new technology combining the beauty of math and science. Although I had seen some of the mathematical surfaces on a computer screen, it was just more exciting to see them as “real things”. It was very tempting to buy one of the sculptures and I would probably eventually order one sometime. Or, make one myself for myself in the future. I think I can do it by joining the TechShop and I can use their 3D ABS printer to construct some 3D sculptures too.
There were also all kind of bikes and human powered machines and quite a few DIY activities for kids and adults. Well, my one-and-half years old daughter, Emily was still too small for most of those activities but she seemed like the faire a lot. Oh, she liked the Wii remote controlled RC cars. Ha, this might be a good excuse to buy a Wii, for her and for me (to hack).
Later on, I found the booth Sun demonstrating their Java-power embedding system developing gadget “Sunspot”. The “Sunspot” seemed a cute and powerful little machine for all sorts of purposes, but it was a little bit expansive.
Overall, my families and I had a fun and inspiring day. All I hope is that I will be able to get time to develop some cool projects myself in the near future.
What are interesting:
IMG_3502.JPG
3D Metal sculptures by Bathsheba — exploring how math, science and sculpture meet (web site). ProMetal is the company which make the sculptures by a technology that can “print” metal layer by layer.
TechShop — A club which the members can use their machines for prototyping and DIY. The membership costs $100 per month. I find it is very attractive. If I decide to make something cool, no doubt I will get a membership and learn to use all cool machines they have. They have a 3D ABS printer (from Scicon?) that can be used for fast prototype.
Lots of robots.
Sunspot
Popfly
Moto labs
STL file format for 3D sculpture/prototype.
Pick the nose!!
IMG_3511.JPG
Yahoo, Ybox.tv
puzzle maker
some pictures
math jokes
Oct 9
Teacher: “Who can tell me what 7 times 6 is?”
Student: “It’s 42!”
Teacher: “Very good! – And who can tell me what 6 times 7 is?”
Same student: “It’s 24!”
I have been there
Sep 24
Python Challenge!! I got to level 23. It was fun, but quite time consuming. Well, it is time to go back to work.
鋸箭療法二
Aug 20
Original Link
Adobe 最近釋放出 7.0.3 的 Adobe Reader。愚蠢的蟲依舊，不過現在 Adobe 所提供的療法到是真的鋸到箭了，而不是只鋸到箭影了。不過鋸箭療法還是鋸箭療法。面對這樣的解法，用戶能不 Orz 嗎？
鋸箭療法
Jun 28
這是 Adobe 提供的一個解決 Adobe Reader 在 Mac OS X Tiger 一個惱人的 bug 的方法。這個 bug 會在你跑 Adobe Reader 時，以每秒上百行的速度把一個沒用的錯誤訊息寫到 console log 中。用的越久寫的越多，很快你就會有一個莫名其妙變得很大的 console log 檔。基本上，Adobe 沒有說正在研究解決這個問題，只是叫你自己每次用 Adobe Reader 後都要乖乖地把 log 清除掉，以避免超大的 log 檔造成的問題。真看不出來 Adobe 到底有沒有誠意解決這個重大的問題。事實上，這個從 7.0 就存在的大蟲，一直到最近剛釋放的 7.0.2 都沒有改掉。我看 Adobe 乾脆告訴大家別用 Adobe Reader 算了，這樣還可以省掉清 log 的動作。
By clearing the Console.log window, you reduce the size of the log file, preventing potential system issues that a large log file may cause.
更絕的是，如果你照 Adobe 的說法去清理 console log，根本連箭都沒鋸到，只是鋸到箭的影子。在 Console.app 中，clear button 只是清除在 Console.app 中的顯示，並沒有真的去動 console 的 log 檔案，所以檔案根本不會變小。這寫 Knowledgebase 的人難道不會簡單地試看看嗎？還是眼不見為淨？
今天看到這個 hack，實在了不起。下載了這位仁兄所錄的 iPod 之音來聽了聽，不僅讓人聯想到在若干年前，有多少對科技（或是打電玩）充滿期待的一代人，拿著錄音帶（過不了多久，就會有人問那是甚麼東西？），接到碩大無比的『微電腦』上，花了個二三十分鐘，儲存檔案，或是把電玩程式傳進那小小的記憶體裡。現在隨便一台不到一兩百美元的電話，Game boy，iPod，相機等等，都比當年的 Apple （and Apple clones） 有強太多的計算能力，但是現在的這些平台就不像當年的平台對 hack 友善了。有時候還真希望自己有精神花上數個小時來錄 iPod 之音！
The Sound of iPod:
http://www.ipodlinux.org/stories/piezo/ http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/weblog/nb.cgi/view/vitanuova/2005/02/25/1
My one day trip to Lugradio, San Francsico, 2008
Apr 12
Posted by Jason Chin in comment, misc | No Comments
從 PingYeh 那聽到有 Lugradio 這週末在 San Francisco 舉行, 一時興起,決定和老婆女兒告假一天去看看熱鬧。
雖然我在 1993 還是 1994 安裝過 Linux with kernel version 0.97 後，有幾年是非 Linux 不用的人，參加 Linux / open source 社群的活動倒是第一次。台灣的 open source 活動開始熱絡的時候，我人已不再台灣，而人在米國的時候，因為學業和懶的關係也沒有看看過有沒有甚嘛好玩的活動可以參加。所以對我來說，這一次湊熱鬧的感覺是很新鮮的。
我約十一點多到達會場，當場交了米金大洋十塊錢，註了冊，拿了名牌和有贊助商的小禮品的小袋子就進到會場裡逛逛。會場是在 San Francisco Metreon 戲院的頂樓的 CITY VIEW，從前到 Metron 時從來沒聽過有這麼個地方可以辦活動又還有不錯的 city view 的地方。同一時間內，會場會有三場演講進行，你可以選擇比較有興趣的來聽。不想聽的話，就可以逛逛廠商地展示。我隨意聽了幾個演講：其中有 Second Life 的人來說他們 open source 的策略，有 Bungee Connect 的人示範他們的發展平台，有 VMWare 的人展示 Virtual Machine 的 Streaming，也有 Humanized 的 Aza Raskin 討論使用者介面等等。 大部分都還滿有趣，但並沒有在很多技術上比較有深度的討論，大多的討論都在比較形而上的層次。但這樣也好。而從其他聽眾的提問看來，很多參與的人很重視 open source 的發展。
在其他廠商展示方面，我跑去收集了不少 linux 廠商提供的 live CD。而在眾多的廠商展示裡，對我來說最有趣的卻是兩個硬體的廠商。其一是 TI 可以跑 Linux 的單晶片電腦 beagleboard 。看來等 TI 六月出了這東西，我可能會受不了灑點錢買來玩玩。
另外一個有趣的是我終於看到傳說中的 OLPC，的確是很可愛讓人會不住把玩的東西。可惜這有趣的 laptop 只能看看而已。
今天最後一個演講到五點，本來要 skip 晚上的 party，已打算要回家了。在離開會場前，一個對 amateur biotech 有很大興趣的軟體工程師在得知我在一家 biotech 公司工作後，興高采烈的和我討論有沒有甚麼可以在家裡做的 biotech 的計畫，聊了一個小時後才放我回家。
明天 Lugradio 還有一整天的活動，不過我有其他事要做，不能去了。但今天的一日行倒是收穫不少。意外地得了不少在工作上或是家中得不到得 inspiration 和平常不容易看到的 San Francisco City View!!
