Now I drink brewed ground coffee almost everyday.

One thing I remember from my childhood is, thanks to a relative of mine, I drank coffee which was made by boiling coffee beans in water, once or for few times. It tasted good.

E. G.'s old father, who's over 70 years old, has got anus cancer since the end of last year. E. G.'s description made me almost cringe.

How fragile life is. And how critical health is.

News about an abnormal slander case

Well, this is eye-popping.
See Anonymous commenters slammed with $13 million slander ruling.

The inevitable grime under the computer mouse is another reason to get rid of the mouse and use keyboard commands only, yet?

The word "chuff" means "peasant", "a rude or insensitive person".

Interestingly, there are similar indications for the Chinese word equivalent of "peasant".

Excerpt from the poem "The Ballad Of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde "is also well known for his humorous and intelligent remarks, and for being homosexual. In 1895 he was sent to prison for his homosexuality, which was illegal at the time. He described his prison experience in the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. After he was released he lived the rest of his life in France and Italy."
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/oscar-wilde


"This long ballad poem published in 1898 was Wilde's last artistic effort. The poem is a social commentary against the deplorable and inhuman conditions existing in Reading jail."
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/PoemsbyOscarWilde/chap84.html



An excerpt of the long poem:
"
V


I know not whether Laws be right,
Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
A year whose days are long.


But this I know, that every Law
That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother's life,
And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
With a most evil fan.


This too I know - and wise it were
If each could know the same -
That every prison that men build
Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
How men their brothers maim.


With bars they blur the gracious moon,
And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
Ever should look upon!

...


For they starve the little frightened child
Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.


Each narrow cell in which we dwell
Is a foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
In Humanity's machine.


The brackish water that we drink
Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.

...
"

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/PoemsbyOscarWilde/chap84.html



Personally I think it's a first-rate poem which sounds pretty. Well, "pretty" isn't the most suitable word here. My words fail me.

A company's baseline output is different than its final output.

How to create best values during the process between, so to speak, them? (Although the development of them may very well be somewhat parallel and intertwined, so to speak.)

Always attractive is the towering passion for entrepreneurship in the Silicon Valley. Its environment, its surrounding, its silo, its atmosphere...

Three Bs in classic music: Bach, Bethoven, and Brahms.

In the interim between two consecutive successes, however small they seem to be, there lie trials and errors for one to work through and see through.

Huawei isn't helped by the portraiture and perception of it as a telecom technology giant from a country where the authoritarian government can exert any influence and force upon any business identity.

See http://business.financialpost.com/2012/04/18/boosting-foreign-ownership-in-telecoms-threatens-national-security-ottawa-warned-in-secret-letter/ .

It appears that one of the advantages of SSD over traditional HDD is that the latter has a mandatory requirement of persisting data from memory into HDD where the former doesn't need that step at all.

For instance, on my Windows 7 computer, if I shut down the computer without saving my data in my open applications, that data will be lost. By contrast, on my Android phone, I just need to simply turn off the phone without having to save my data in my open apps, and that data will remain intact in my phone.

I am not sure if the sorts of financial speculation activities should be called cankers.

And, how can financial speculation be distinguished from financial hedging? For instance, you are a producer, and you want to hedge against the potential price increase of one of your key raw material inputs and to control the risks of costs. Or, you are an exporter, and you want to hedge against the potential rise of your domestic currency.

To kowtow to pressures is not good. But to compromise with them is.

Everyday, cars crash. But people still drive.

Everyday, companies go bankrupt. But aspiring entrepreneurs still start up.

The cozenage of the so-called MLM (i.e. Multi-level Marketing) is still well alive in the U.S. and Canada. And I suspect it's apt to get stronger in economically difficult times.

Yesterday I was approached by a woman in her fifties or so and she tried to lure me into one seemingly popular MLM scheme. And that left me a strange and bizarre feeling for the day. What a world this one is.

Only after about 10 years of living in Canada, we began to use a masher and make mashed potatoes.

And I expect it will take at least another 10 years for me to begin to like mashed potatoes. I inherited a Chinese stomach, and I suspect that's in my genes. :-)

A designer coffee drink is at its best when you are sitting inside or outside a designer coffee house and experiencing it.

English appreciation - a quote

He has wronged me and deceived me enough, he shall not cozen me further; let him go his own way, for Jove has robbed him of his reason.

- The Iliad by Homer

Modern Chinese is apt to be less subtle than its English counterpart.

For example, there's a distinction between "slander" and "libel" in modern English, where there's no such thing in today's Chinese.