Universally, Western leaders profess their belief in freedom and democracy. As a person who grew up in a closed China, I still am not capable of fully comprehending and appreciating that particular belief.

In addition, what are the differences between freedom and liberty?

The other day, the Canadian Air Force deployed 6 McDonnell Douglas CF-18 fighter jets overseas for the Libya issue. More than 120 Air Force personnels were embarked for the mission.

(Pic from http://goo.gl/tFY5a)

I had never thought before that a fighter jet, whose crew is only 1 or 2 persons, needs to be equipped with more than 20 soldiers for its mission.

Briefly after the name "Steve Jobs" had invoked my attention, he, apparently received as a wizard then, began to be on and off with medical leaves. Sigh. Good luck.

(Image from http://goo.gl/j7niK)

In my ignorant years, I didn't requite many kindnesses.

I personally doubt that China's economy is in a tenable position in the long term.

Quiet environments are good friends of my mind.

It seems that the temperature of regular coffee drink is crucial for it to taste the best.

By the way, the "Nabob" Gourmet Blend coffee is not bad.

If you think the fact that Bill Gates' father being a prominent attorney and his mother being an influential businesswoman had facilitated the ascent of Bill Gates as a legendary biz icon, then what do you think about the fact that Bill's two sibs, Kristianne Gates and Libby Gates, are obscure?

In the ever expanding vast sea of SNS and UGC, it's consequential for every participant to ask this question: What are the information needs of my followers?

In the perception of many, high finance resembles sorcery and is just paper pushing and doesn't create real value for the economy whatsoever.

Sometimes I tend to gape at the phenomenon that some people aren't aware that their actual disrespect for others is apparent and writ large on their behaviors. Well, of course, not all of them care about that.

(Image from http://goo.gl/RfH4L)

I guess Flickr's API open to the public isn't very comprehensive.

I like the sable color.

Halloween is for children. What children do on Halloween is for businesses.

The Shins' lyrics often look sibylline.

Even if we consider them as poems, they still seem difficult to understand by the standard of poems.

I've never been clear about the hierarchy of prefectures of Japan.

The Windows Shell Common Dll is still dumb in Windows 7.

Two tidbits about garbage

• The prevalent automatic garbage collection was invented as a solution in Lisp.
• (Data) Garbage in, garbage out.

TIER (try, import, except, raise)

A lovely snippet of code pattern:

try:
    import service
    except Error:
        raise

In web apps, every step or user choice is a solution.

In excellent articles or texts, every sentence is an instance of mind stretching, informing, questioning, or problem solving.