They backed out of the deal. And everyone just moved on.

From a company's perspective, how to avoid jading its software developers?

In the current economic climate, if something happens to the economies of the so-called BRIC nations, will the world go into a long-standing funk?

That would be tough.

Well, I don't know how galled many middle-aged and old-aged Canadians are with lay-offs. Some of them must be fairly galled.

You iterate, you recur. Over time, you develop.

I don't know. The value of many people's lifetime work just goes astray time and time again in the highly volatile securities markets in which the pension funds and pensioners themselves heavily invest into. Has the value vaporized or been turned into the hands of speculators, market middlemen, or some other party?

How will the possible eventual dismantlement of RIM look like? Anyway, what a loss for Canada as a nation.

It's been reported that beside the presence of an Apple store knockoff in China, there's also a knavish Ikea store copycat in China. Gee.

I want to study orbs and orbits, from the mathematical perspective.

Are those termed as "spheres" in Mathematics? I did my high school in China, so I don't know the exact English names of those mathematical objects.

Pic - Tellus (a.k.a. Terra)

(By ortygia / http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_ulrich/4187205643/ / CC)

"

Ara Pacis: Tellus Relief

From the east side of the Augustan altar of Peace (Ara Pacis) in Rome. Roman marble relief of "Tellus" (the identification is controversial). A velate female holds two babies; personifications of winds (aurai) flank her.

Date: 13-9 B.C. Set up in honor of Augustus.

"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_ulrich/4187205643/

In Roman mythology, Tellus, a.k.a. Terra, is a goddess personifying the Earth.

By the way, I suspect that the Telus Corporation, one of the few big telecom carriers in Canada, is named after the ancient Roman goddess Tellus.

Old age comes anon. That for sure will be how I'll feel.

I'm especially intrigued by the notion of the dissipation of economic rents in Economics. That must be positively related to competition in the marketplace.

In addition, the economies of scope also somewhat intrigues me.

It's been said that lots of people experienced glee when they saw Murdoch is in trouble due to the scandal of his News of the World paper.

Has Sohu.com always been a mere knockoff?

Economic recessions and uncertainties have been mantling our Earth during last several years. Is there a proper attitude to face them?

After all, our world is a set of highly interdependent nations and individuals. People's demands for goods and services are always there to be met. People just postpone the placement of orders which would fulfill their demands sooner or later.

It's reported that Edmonton, Alberta has become the capital of crime of Canada. And it's said that many of the offenses having happened over there are related to drugs and young people from elsewhere seeking opportunities in the booming Alberta.

Well, why is the fluid group of mobile job seekers associated with drug problems?

Wry and (somewhat?) unclean industries

To some or a large degree, the Canadian government controls the gambling and lotteries industries because by doing so, it can supplant illegal activities in those areas which surely would happen due to the human nature and would usually be gang-related and gang-controlled otherwise. So the government runs those industries which inherently aren't clean. Think about the wryness of that.

裝B不是你的錯。但裝B裝到讓人有看到大海的感覺就是你的錯了。

People use tropical expressions to illustrate their points. How logical or accurate is that process?

Money is an inanimate thing. It's a token of value, or economic value, so to speak.

"But you ...", K squealed a bit, raising his voice.

I think that every programming language textbook should introduce a little bit of the stored-program concept, which is very fundamental.

Once the myth that one can get a lot of rewards from pursuing an MBA degree is debunked further and further, one can deallocate at least two years of his life by not getting into a B school.

I feel that in the moments other than now, we human beings live in our own feelings instead of in the physical world.

For instance, how much do our possessed feelings and emotions distort the memory of our real past years?

It seems that one's plasticity is negatively proportional to his path dependence. Is it correct?

Liquidity, liquidity, liquidity.

In a person's young years, he can while away much of his time because he doesn't have much responsibilities. But at the same time, his pleasures are not very sophisticated.

Forced or not, the proportion of impiety among the Mainland Chinese people is uniquely very high.

Language is a double-edged sword. It can reveal and convey truth, wisdom, and true love. Yet on the other hand, it can mislead and beguile.

Well, that is accidental complexity.

(By Arianna_M(sea time) / http://www.flickr.com/photos/53690113@N05/5385486043/ / CC)

Quote:

"Order must exist before it can be broken in order to create the
anomalies and uncertainties".
(Robert Venturi_Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture) 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53690113@N05/5385486043/

(By J. Star / http://www.flickr.com/photos/jstar/32486696/ / CC)

I don't know. It seems that the capitalism system is blessed and accurst at the same time. The recessions occurring every 7-11 years or so seem to be unavoidable.

I'm positive that there must be many economists who are doing research on why China has been an exception to the periodical recessions during its past two booming decades.

By the way, does the name "7-11" of the Japanese chain convenience stores have something to do with the economic cycle mentioned above?

Our baby daughter has been a little cranky and sleeping poorly because of her teething.

J's child isn't accepted by that daycare facility for this September. J's become wry.

The world economy has been so sick of late. People are sick of it.

八風不動

Does one get beguiled more often by the world than by himself? How should he get disillusioned?

One consumes. One puts some money down the drain.

Be a wise consumer, then.

Money dilapidates. Truth and wisdom doesn't.

中美之間的衝突在將來可能會升級嗎？雙方在 cyberspace 中的衝突沉默而巨大。

Recursion vs. Iteration is an interesting and deep comparison.

Once I saw in a news video that a horse to be killed in a Canadian slaughter facility was thrashing its head up and down, allegedly because it was in a mentally unstable state due to abuses or fears.

Animals beside dogs also do have emotions and feelings.

Ah, the collegial and harmonized Chinese society.

I haven't been able to find a good pic of Hymen, the Greek god of marriage who must be a male, on Flickr.

The notorious Operation Shady RAT, the lately uncovered multiple-year-long cyber attacks series discovered by McAfee, possibly comes from China.

See the below excerpt from Wikipedia as of August 9, 2011:

The report suggests that the targeting of various athletic oversight organizations around the time of the 2008 Summer Olympics "potentially pointed a finger at a state actor behind the intrusions". That state actor is widely assumed to be the People's Republic of China. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Shady_RAT

In China, it seems that loneliness is squeaking in many young people's life.

How important is the liquidity of financial markets?

Furthermore, how important is the liquidity provided by financial traders?

The scientific approaches are unimpeachable. Everyone should be immersed in them for a while in their life. People get that mainly through their science and math courses in their education.

On the other hand, also invaluable is the way of thinking and feeling incarnated in arts and humanitarian subject matters.

It seems that China's economic ambitions bull ahead, with its political ambitions astray.

A nation's long-term prosperity and political advancement go hand in hand, I discovered.

Maybe the sheen of the solar panel industry will dim a bit in the short term due to overcapacity.

Wire transfer is also called wire payment.

Pic - Neptune (Poseidon)

Neptune (sort of analogous to Poseidon in Greek mythology) is a Roman god of water and the sea.

(Photo by G.dallorto / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DSC00363_-_Mosaico_delle_stagioni_(epoca_romana)_-_Foto_G._Dall%27Orto.jpg / CC)

As the labor force in China is attempting to become more plastic, are we gonna see over there the increase of influences from Taiwan as well as the decrease of influences from Hong Kong?

在我小時候，人們的麻煩是沒有信息，需要的是信息。現在，人們的麻煩是信息太多太多，需要的是 情報 和 比普通信息更有價值的重要信息。

Pigs squeal when they are in fear. Pigs are smart animals.

Driven by desire

The electric fan extorts artificial breezes from the summer air
The baby is gibber-jabbering and speaking "eye" and "hair"
You say life is too hard and most of times unfair
and why the biting flying mosquitoes always dare

Even the proverbial hand pointing to the moon is hard to see sometimes.

Against the backdrop of the lack of modern science, the ancient Roman people associated the sun with a god named "Phoebus" (a.k.a. "Apollo" in Greek mythology).

Well, science is a newly found layer of human beings' cognition of the universe, from the human society development perspective.

In addition, it's said that Phoebus drives around in his chariot. Well, why doesn't he fly about instead, like other gods? Because the sun is too heavy for a god to carry around?

Far things stand as beacons and metrics. Blended together with pragmatism, they also make the road underneath.

In many stores in Montreal, there are little packs of tamarind balls brand-named as "Chappie's Treats". The main customers of that product are women and girls, I suppose.

A quite smart brand name it is.

How many years had it taken for the Magna Carta, of the Great Britain, to develop?

教育，分成 学校教育 和 自我教育。对现代人来说，两者你中有我，我中有你。

Are there metrics for predictability / certainty?

Posies of enlightenment normally only come when your mind actively seeks them.

A lot of cash. A lot of liquid assets.

People demand. People diss. People ditch.

I don't really know why some penmen among Chinese immigrants write slightly poetic articles over the poor and run-down Verdun area in Montreal.

Intriguing is the development of Morality Plays, following that of Mystery Plays, in the Middle Ages' Europe. I'm not sure how the relationships between them and Shakespearean dramas are.

"Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, they (Morality Plays) represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_play

(By David Blackwell / http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilestreetlife/4954319481/ /CC)

You know that man. You know he puts on a pious face. There are more people who know that than who don't.

(Continuum & spectrum) vs. (black and white)

"Good" and "bad" ... stand at opposite ends of a continuum instead of describing the two halves of a line
--Wayne Shumaker
--Excerpted from the item "continuum" in the Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Dictionary

RIM failed to escape its own echo chamber and missed the boat.

"May I have your name please?" J said to the assistant.

Well, the dilapidated state of Montreal's transportation infrastructure will cause tax hikes eventually, I suppose.

When a sovereignty government commits activities which would be capital crimes if they were done by civilians, how legitimate can the government be?

The brute fact is that a man needs money to survive. Anyone who ignores that fact, which rules their biz partners, is doomed to fail.

"Men turn, and see the stars"

The Odyssey's epigram, which was written by A. Lang, is so sublime.

Excerpt:

MEN TURN, AND SEE THE STARS, AND FEEL THE FREE        10
    SHRILL WIND BEYOND THE CLOSE OF HEAVY FLOWERS     AND THROUGH THE MUSIC OF THE LANGUID HOURS, THEY HEAR LIKE OCEAN ON A WESTERN BEACH   THE SURGE AND THUNDER OF THE ODYSSEY.

When two or more people collaborate, some efforts will go down the drain, why? Think about that.

Will the epilogue of the current economic recession spell the shrinking of the pattern of consumption on credit?

Americans and Canadians like to cram pizzas. Well, it's not my cup of tea, yet(?).

Our infant daughter likes to cuddle her teddy bear, naturally.

Berlin has been called "a chameleon city" by some people due to the importance of its international culture.

Are most free-range chickens free-range capons?

Only years and years of smart labor in an industry can thrash out wisdom and competitive edges.

How well known are the whiskeys of Canadian provenance?

The finiteness of the number of steps is the key requirement of recursion.

Actually, finiteness must be crucial in the theory of computability.

「其小者不能奪也。此為大人而已矣。」

「耳目之官不思，而蔽於物。物交物，則引之而已矣。心之官則思，思則得之，不思則不得也。此天之所與我者。先立乎其大者，則其小者不能奪也。此為大人而已矣。」
--《孟子‧告子上》

By being presumptuous, some people lose their potential opportunities.

Respecting others and their labor is a deep lesson to be learned.

How effective are the express signs "No loitering" which we tend to see here and there?

When a conversation is put into a book, it becomes a dialogue. When an idea is put into execution, it becomes an endeavor.

Oh, the modern seeming of the Shanghai city.

("Old Shanghai in New Hong Kong" By PAPYRARRI / http://www.flickr.com/photos/papyrist/3223211398/ / CC)

Too many people, especially the Chinese, are riveted by investing, or speculating, their spare moneys in the securities markets.

They are being too proud and actually looking down on formidable yet largely invisible Western investment firms, hedge funds, and the like, whose sophistication reaches far beyond the imagination of mom and pop investors, I suppose.

Manufacturers even weave 20% polyester into baby wash cloths, the other 80% of which is cotton. Gee. I guess the polyester industry has been booming in the past decade.

I've sifted through the newsletters of the Future Shop and decided to unsubscribe them. There's too much mundane advertising stuff in them.

The almost new fridge's door voices squeaks while it turns and closes.

In theory, the dialogues and negotiations between Israel and Palestine should occur on the platform of UN. But why has it been the U.S. which provides that sort of platform instead?

The No. 1 country on the Earth possesses inherited interests in allying with Israel, mainly for two reasons:
1. Many influential Jewish people and Zionists live and work in the U.S.
2. Christianity, the de facto religion of the U.S., has a very closely knitted relationship with Judaism, which is the religion of Israel.

If Palestine were much more powerful, which platform of dialogues would it choose? The U.S., UN, or an influential Arab country?

Do you like listening to singers who have squeaky voices? I don't, I think.

What's going to be caused by the groundswell of the Chinese people who hold PhD degrees from Western universities?

Sourcing good technologies takes many years.

Always figuring out sales channels.

I don't know if I can trust George Soros as a fount of philosophical wisdom, which he apparently has promoted as the silver bullet for his financial investments successes.

Willfulness is a double-edged sword.

I kind of suspect that Mr. Obama may personally be more interested in social justice, disseminating democracy across the world, Israel vs. Palestine, and so on, than he's interested in the economy.

As the holder of the top job in the U.S., he's got to manage the most important issues.

Maybe he's not naturally interested in managing the economy. But when the recession has been making nearly everyone frown for several years in a row, man, he's got to remember that for average American voters, "it's the economy, stupid."

Text and pics - Vulcan

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Andrea_Mantegna_045.jpg)

Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking.

(By rhiannonstone / http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhiannonstone/5213808680/ / CC)

Quote: "Vulcan, the bare-assed god of the forge, is the largest cast-iron statue in the world and a beloved symbol of the city of Birmingham(, Alabama, U.S.A.)."

(By IvorF/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivorf/3878904096/ / CC)

Quote: "Vulcan bomber in silhouette at the Shoreham Airshow 2009."





"
Vulcan is the patron God of the English steel making city of Sheffield. His statue sits on top of Sheffield Town Hall.

A Vulcan Statue located in Birmingham, Alabama is the largest cast iron statue in the world.

The word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn originates from Vulcan.
"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(god)#Legacy