Ideas have been percolating in my mind. And I've been gradually executing and evolving them.

The true power only comes from the above second sentence, not the first one.

Historically, Russia sent tributary wealth twice to the Qing Dynasty, the then China. How history turned drastically afterwards, regarding the relative levels of power of the two countries.

Besides, one thing I don't quite understand is why Great Britain sent tributes to China for four times between 1793 and 1816, given that Great Britain must have become one of the super powers in the world back then.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tributaries_of_Imperial_China#Qing_Dynasty.

Among the most crucial tasks which higher education needs to accomplish are to develop in students a knack of thinking deeply and to pass on to students the value system which regards intellectualism highly.

Nevertheless, the two above tasks often fail. We can see the traces of that failure in some people who hold university degrees.

Ice isn't a traditional foodstuff. But if you can find a machine to mash it nicely and then infuse some delicious cold drink into it, then you've made a good potential drink for hot sale.

And that's how fast food chain restaurants and coffee houses serve their customers in the summertime.

Iced cappuccino is an example of such at Tim Horton's.

An excellent quote

"Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords."
--King Richard, as in King Richard II by Shakespeare

"Couscous" is a unique name, I think.

I don't know how much trepidation China actually holds for the following mounting problem. But I think it should hold some.

The increasing aging demographic is a global phenomenon. For countries like the U.S. and Canada, it's not really that threatening, I guess. After all, developed countries which are not very crowded, which the U.S. and Canada are, can always just loosen their immigration threshold a little bit, and more young immigrants, potentially from all corners of the world, will just file in due to the attractiveness of many aspects of building a life in those rich countries.

But China playing the immigration card? Isn't the Middle Kingdom already quite crowded? Can it really attract many young immigrants from abroad?

And, with the ubiquitous domestic feeling that the living costs in China have climbed so high and to almost unbearable levels, coupled with the lack of good social welfare programs targeting to help families raise their children, can China spawn enough young people by itself?

HP computers have done me a yeoman's service these years. I like them.

But I should've bought models equipped with larger memories. For that matter, I mean memories twice as large as in mainstream models at any given time.

I think the word "impediment" is one of the words which sound the most crispest among those ones ending with the suffix "-ment".

Blessed are those who deserve implicit trust.

Theoretically, there are many rogues and jerks in this world. One has his share of meeting them.

Also theoretically, there are many good people in the world. One also has his fair share of meeting them.

I think it's almost impossible for people who hadn't experienced being attacked severely during the Cultural Revolution to really understand the baseness of it.

Nowadays a lot of novel writers in English crank out fictions very quickly, individually, every year.

Essentially, many, if not most, of those books are the MacDonald hamburger equivalent in the book world, I'm afraid.

My work progress has been clogged by the taking care of my toddler daughter, which is much more to be done than expected from looking on the surface.

But that's life. In half or one year, I'll be much freer.

When a biz owner needs to do some big changes to his already successful biz, it's natural for him to have trepidation.

Life's never easy. When you're not successful, you want to become. When you're already successful, you still have to overcome enormous difficulties, both expected and unexpected, otherwise you would fail easily down the road.

Along the way, I'm apt to consider that Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple have played fair, although I don't know all the details of what they've done all these years.

Music videos - 心的祈祷 - 臧天朔 / 张行

歌词：

心的祈祷
作曲：臧天朔
作词：黄小茂（主持人李静的老公，华纳前总监）
--------
我祈祷 那没有痛苦的爱
却难止住泪流多少
我祈祷 忘记已离去的你
却又唱起 你教的歌谣
我没有怨你
我心里知道 我知道
我祈祷 留下孤独的我
走向天涯 走向海角
我祈祷 带上无言的爱
从此失去心里的笑
我与影同行
我心里知道 我知道
----
我知道 天涯路漫漫
我还要去 海角遥遥
我知道 失去的是什么
我又启程 却不是寻找
我心里明了
我心里知道 我知道
我像那一支火鸟
无声地燃烧
我要唱那 那一首歌谣
伴我天涯海角
----

黄小茂的词好，臧天朔的曲好！

In Canada, Tim Horton's is very notable at the $5-7 price point for lunches.

It seems that there's no big difference between a salmon fillet and a salmon steak in the ways I cook them.

I've seen a few relatively weak businesses act as if they are playing by the axis of capital, which they actually somewhat lack or completely lack. I consider their outlooks, let alone prosperity, to be problematic in the long run.