I was determined to advance my own English proficiency to a certain level, come hell or high water. I've done it.

In Roman mythology, Jupiter, the king of the gods, is also known as Jove. It appears that his beard is characteristic.

(By thisisbossi / http://www.flickr.com/photos/thisisbossi/3055427302/ / CC)

Telemarketers badger people to buy their long-distance phone call plans. No way. Most people know better to use free internet video or voice calls, perhaps.

The retirements of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates should be made ceremonial. And the two enemies should receive standing ovations for what they've done in their careers. Their efforts and competition have made our world more fantastic.

Now China is in the groove. But there are still lots of inefficiencies in China's economic and social life and fabrics. Can those inefficiencies be squeezed out gradually?

I don't understand how Intel only provides open office spaces for its employees, including its CEO, and can reach stellar results at the same time. How can the Intel workers be in the zone in their open office spaces?

貌似佛家認為，無論貴賤賢愚，每個人在自己的人生中都被 苦 所折磨。所以佛法之鵠的在於 滅苦 。

Many seasoned people get somewhat disgusted, so to speak, by counterfeit facades some people wear all the time.

Even at age one, our baby daughter typically got delighted by the presentment of blooms. Girls and boys are born to be different.

Sometime a "retrograde reader" is an intentional cultural "snob". How amusing is that people devise cultural classes and fit themselves in those.

See http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/e-books-vs-real-books/ .

When Obama inaugurated, he's fairly seasoned in enchanting voters with his inspiring speeches, in organizing communities, and in politics; but he's a total noob in managing a gigantic economy.

(Image "The Scale of the American Economy" by asecondhandconjecture / http://www.flickr.com/photos/22994175@N03/2205172655/ / CC)

There's a "great-great-great-grandson" of an American president who lives in a hovel and delivers pizza for a living.

See http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/03/nyregion/our-towns-impeachment-as-legacy-for-pizza-guy.html?ref=andrewjohnson .

That guy's presidential ancestor is Andrew Johnson, who "was the first U.S. President to undergo an impeachment trial" and "is commonly ranked by historians as being among the worst U.S. presidents". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson )

How come more and more Mainland Chinese feel tristful? Because they want more respect and love but they can't get it.

Immigrating to Canada from Mainland China offsets at least 3 years of efforts for a Chinese.

I just woke from a slumber in action on my chair moments ago. How sweet sleep is to a brain deprived of it.

'Such a deed' and 'sweet religion'

'O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words.'
--Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 4

It seems that Oracle bought Java and MySQL, and intended to create some vendor lock-in chains around those technologies, without surprise.

Well, perhaps what Oracle did is just to pluck both technologies from the open source sphere and make people who are used to them lose their way and then tell them, "well, pay me and I'll show you the way".

Personally I think that those intellectuals and others who claim that China will become the No. 1 country, GDP-wise, in the world have their heads in the clouds.

Things probably won't develop linearly in their current fashion in China before it reaches there.

Will China make a market for more sophisticated and reliable products and services than the currently prevailing ones?

Perhaps the iPhones and the like over there are going to drive up the tastes of Chinese consumers.

German quality is laudable. The quality of SAP products must be superior than that of Oracle products.

When an egg is fried in oil, it first blisters and then shrinks.

I kind of wanna study that process a bit.

Personally I like the Shakespearean simile "as flush as May".

Audiences at classic music concerts always give out indistinct applause. But still, it must be a good thing.

The window is blurred by age and rain.

Well, how nonintrusive the Quebec government has been in beginning to repair the dilapidating bridges, overpasses, and the like in Montreal. And how people love having one more thing to keep their fingers crossed for.

I'm staring at the screen of my VIM text editor program, which typically is white fonts against simple black backdrop. And the words 'wag' and 'wagon' on the screen sort of remind me some winged dragons with sharp ears from some remote fantasy films.

How does human brain work in a visual environment?

According to Shakespeare, the "blush of modesty" is graceful.

Gee, the honey badger is named as "the most fearless animal in the world". It can attack and eat bees, poisonous snakes, and even more fearful predators. Gee.

Maybe some investment analysts wag their tongues without deep knowledge about and grasp of what's really going on in the financial world which actually has been churning out complex products at breakneck speeds every year.

Apparently, many Western countries have been setting up bulwark against Islamicism.

Bravura is Apple's swift rise to dominance in recent years. But how can that single company resist the rest of the industries it's positioned in?

I guess Apple's predominance will decline gradually, eventually.

An ongoing concern, sort of, for me has been drawing analogies between the Québécois mentality and the French one.

In the production of organic foods, pesticides are allowed as long as they are not synthetic.

Personally I think that Microsoft's been unobtrusively beefing up the UI part of its Windows OS.

For one thing, the Windows Flip 3D, since the Windows Vista, is a lot handier than its counterparts of the past. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista#Windows_Flip_and_Flip_3D .

How's it going with China's regulation of downright trademark offences? Will more and more cases emerge following those of the brazen knockoff Apple and Ikea stores? It's nearly certain they will.

The delimitation of financial speculations must be being overhauled to be more subtle, sophisticated, and effective across the world. If it still isn't actually occurring, then it should do, I guess.

Tobin tax provides valuable trains of thought for that issue. Quote:

Keynes writes: 

Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the situation is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. (,[8] p. 104) 

The introduction of a substantial government transfer tax on all transactions might prove the most serviceable reform available, with a view to mitigating the predominance of speculation over enterprise in the United States. (,[8] p. 105) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax#Tobin.27s_concept

I didn't take enough care of my baby daughter the other day. And she caught a little cold. I had some guilty feelings that wrung my heart a bit.

I think there is a higher percentage of oval faces in China than in Canada.

Pinups are so retro.

See http://goo.gl/jJNiF .

What reasons essentially make the different approaches exist, which are that people should follow the orders of their betters in military while people don't in a democratic political system?

"A heart unfortified"

Your mind knows the importance of science
Yet your heart from time to time sighs
The feelings you as a human being feel
Cannot be denied and be not real

Our baby daughter, who's a little peevish sometime, clings to her mother in weekends. She seems to know that mom's available in weekends.

Maybe many British don't like rashness. On the other hand, maybe many Americans don't like conservativeness.

Music video - 李香蘭 - 張學友

The market share of a company is just a DERIVED thing. It's NOT DEEP, just superficial. The REAL DEEP THING is the competitive/uncompetitive edge of the company's product(s) and/or service(s), compared against its competitors.

Just see how swift RIM's market share, as well as its stock price, has been declining in the recent two years. Such a good case it's made.

It seems that many people in the investment field think that Carol Bartz had delivered maladroit management at the sickening Yahoo! . So she got sacked from her CEO role lately, just over the phone.

What a mess the whole thing has been. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Bartz#CEO_of_Yahoo.21 .

"He broke into her conversation" is such a good metaphor. So is "he was dressed rather vulgarly in a loud checked suit", too.

A Chinese ESL learner often feels that his or her English level wouldn't budge. That's because to acquire advanced English proficiency is a very long term enterprise.

在這個 知識爆炸 的時代裡，對知識、新知的 “弱水三千，取一瓢飲” 是非常必要的。

然而，這 “取一瓢飲” 的取法應該是有講究的吧。

[No Name] + - VIM

There are analogies between objects in OOP and those in real life. But where do those analogies end?

Twitter is about messaging. Twitter is flush.

The Japanese design has been appreciated and lauded across the world. But the core of it still looks mystic to me.

I can never escape the relish of Asian meals.

Twitter and Facebook can aggregate and channel people's emotions and actions.

See what their roles have been in the ongoing 'Arab Spring', which is a tectonic shift in the Arab world.

Whatever people have accused Microsoft for, it deserves a round of applause for what it has done for the successful democratization of modern computing.

'A tempest in a tea pot' is one of my favorite figures of speech. It's an excellent metaphor for not grasping the big picture hence making a fuss about something.

It's hard to escape pat generalizations.

In the eyes of Canadians, have the unions become more and more like a farce?

It's said that about 30% of Canadians are union members. That number reaches beyond my past imagination.

Well, I'm not sure if The New Yorker is a magazine with a human face, however sleek its design is.

Anyways, it's not really my cup of tea for now.

(By swanksalot / http://www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/516896919/in/photostream/ / CC)

I don't know. Usually I value depth over speed. So if a website or web app is deeply good, I can tolerate it if the loading speed is a little slow.

However, it seems that many, if not most, people, value snappy websites and web apps the most.

Perhaps the economy will be more efficient when the law can't be bought out by financiers.

It's said that for Nova Scotia, Canada, rum has served its turn well for quite a long time, since the province' people's involvement with rum-running in early 20th century.

Video - Two well-known figures wrangle with one another - Barney Frank tells CNBC's Mark Haines"This Interview is Over"

In the video clip, was the late Mr. Mark Haines reasonable enough?

美國的國品實在是有很高尚的一面。

It seems that many Westerners think that China was never a Communist country.

I made a mushroom-stuffed meatloaf last night. It seems that bread crumbs make a meatloaf less likely to crumble. And thyme, combined with parsley, can eliminate the odor of ground beef.

Next time around I'm gonna cover the baking pan with an aluminum sheet which is similar with a casserole in effect, in order to make the surface of the meatloaf tenderer.

K's son has got an ovate hairless head. :-)

One's knowledge is twofold. One part is public, the other private.

Maybe there are two sorts of schools for children.

One is those which really provide enlightenment and inspiration for kids. The other is those which just make youngsters kind of occupied and forestall problems which would occur if they were out of school.

Personally I think that 'Atwood' and 'Atwater' are two beautiful family names.

The pest of noises is hard to stand for thinkers.

What one spends time on badges what sort of person he's going to become.

I haven't seen yet a piece of information which can fully account for the stellar rise and valuation of Facebook.

For a man, the life debts he incurred in his wasted times can sneak up on him and wreak him into a regretful state.

So, it's advisable for a man to establish himself by the age of 45 or so.

I don't understand why the systems of law and accounting, well, especially that of law, are designed to be so esoteric and complicated.

Do those systems do more harm than good? Have they actually increased the business costs a lot than the case in which much simpler systems would be in place?

People nowadays are bound to educate themselves for lifelong term. But what will they learn over that long period?

I'm afraid that the predominant phenomenon of information overload strangles our thinking time.

What're the Canadian interests in Libya? Oil? Anything else?

Music video - Lady Gaga - Paparazzi

The late Michael Jackson, King of Pop, also had a song called "Paparazzi" around one decade ago, if I remember its name correctly. Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga both are quarry in the eyes of entertainment media. How sad.

Well, I think that maybe popular movies and TV series can really drive the labor market trends, whether temporary or not. It's been said that many students have applied to performing arts schools because of the American TV series "Glee".

Once a baby is born, and you take care of her or him by yourself, you'll be fettered and extremely occupied for at least two years.

I've never heard of a book that accounts the saga of the development of the web and its associated technologies.

Sometimes I feel that our modern life is so illaudably complex that people are extremely busy.

Take a look at this sentence on an advertisement flyer which RBC sent to me lately: "Finding the time to manage your household bills can be challenging and sometimes payments get missed." That sentence has struck a chord with me. It's so true. I believe that many Canadians feel the same way.

How to get our modern life simpler so that we don't have to juggle things all the time?

Should sovereignty states allow foreign capital, especially the speculative capital among it, to range on their lands?

If so, why? If not, do the states in the Second and Third World have capabilities to check the ranging foreign capital?

We are seeing the beginning of the end of the era in which the great sagacity of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs has pioneered.

American politicians often make plausible promises during elections, then fail to deliver afterwards.

Many people think that they've found out Obama belongs to the group mentioned above.

How many hypocrites are out there in this world?

I cast a wistful look over the past, and think time passed too fast.

The auspice of Samsung's continuous rise reveals South Koreans' capabilities and work ethic.

Pic - Nero

(By John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RemorsodeNero.jpg / United States public domain tag: PD-US)

Nero was an ancient Roman Emperor from 54 to 68. His notable wars included the British Revolt of 60–61 and the First Roman–Jewish War.

On another note, doesn't the once popular "Nero burning ROM" software, an optical disc burning program, have a fantastic yet provocative name? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Burning_ROM#Name .)

It seems that in Judaism, a human being is sinful, but he can expiate via some means.

What about in Christianity?

RIM and its critics use different extrapolations.

What the two Co-CEOs of RIM have been insisting is basically this: "look, we invented and dominated the smart phone market. We'll continue to lead the segment despite the current temporary slide in our competitive position."

On the other hand, its critics basically say, "see, RIM's market share has been sliding very rapidly since roughly two years ago. It'll continue this decline and disappear into oblivion."

You see, choosing which angle to extrapolate from is an art.

The contagion of Twitter, Facebook, and the like speeds up the transmission of information. It can speed up the dissemination of sagacity and knowledge, depending upon whether an information receiver uses his brain or not.

It may be the case that the smart gets smarter and the dumb gets dumber, in this era of social media, I suspect.

Perhaps the big Japanese electronics companies, such as Sony and Panasonic, will retreat from the TV sets market by and by.

What are they gonna focus on next? Software?

Seeking and vetting opportunities takes lots of time. But that's the price which people should pay in this world driven by competition.

If Sarah Palin ever became a president of the U.S., would she be out of her depth and the U.S. be a total mess?

There are so many wrangles in the American, Canadian, and Taiwanese parliaments. Debate, debate, debate.

It appears that democracy and wrangles go hand in hand.

I sounded several popular installed media player software programs. Among them are iTunes, Windows Media Player, and Real Player. And I still think Real Player provides the best sound quality, comparatively.

Good advertisements sort of play on people's feelings. That's a must.