First Try of My D3X

Year End CD Shopping Spree

Now that Tower Record has officially closed their stores, I don't have the luxury of browsing newly released classical music CDs in store any more. The year end's "Gramophone Award" becomes my shopping list. Here are some highlights of this year's winners:

Label of the Year
ECM
Not a surprise. I think I owned at least half of the CDs they produced. From Andras Schiff's Bach to Keith Jarrett's Vienna Concert, and numerous Arvo Pärt.

Editor's Choice
I didn't know Pianist Stephen Kovacevich had a stroke two years ago. Now he's back with a new recording of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Like Murray Perahia, who suffered from some finger illness, he cherished the time he could play more. I still have Mr. Kovacevich's previous recording of Diabelli Variations. Maybe it's time to listen to it again.

Young Artist of the Year
A young lady named Yuja Wang. Will she be another "Lang Lang"?

Baraque Vocal
Apparently "The Sixteen" is the new hot choral group for Baraque vocal now (where are Opus111 and the Tallis school now, ok maybe I am old). Just listened to their sample tracks on Amazon, their CD (Handel's Coronation Anthems) is in the shopping cart now.

Concerto
I noticed pianist Steven Osborne because of his wonderful Rachmaninov Prelude CD (really reminds me Richter). Well, that CD didn't win the "Instrumental" category, but his Britten Piano Concerto CD did win this one. I have to admit I was not too interested in Britten's music, but after listening to the samples I added it to the shopping cart (since Britten's piano concerto is missing from my discography anyway).

Instrumental
Another wonderful pianist from France. Bavouzet's Debussy is fresh. Though I will still cast my vote to Osborne's Rachmaninov Prelude, his complete Debussy CDs are on my shopping list already.

Orchestra
Techaikovsky's Manfred Symphony by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic won the game (it's by Naxos, so the CD is low price too). However, I bought the Mahler No 4 (Ivan Fischer) instead, which was short-listed.

Solo Vocal
Another "Dichterliebe" (Gerald Finley, Hyperion). Will he be as good as Wunderlich? (Sample track tells me no.) Wait a minute. Where is my Wunderlich CD? Horror of horror, now I need to get it back. I also noticed the late Mezzo-Soprano Lorraine Hunt's Brahms and Schumann CD was short-listed. How come beautiful singers often died young?

Recording of the Year
Another Debussy/Faure/Ravel string quartets! (I forgot how many "Gramophone awarding winning" Debussy/Ravel string quartets I had bought.) Surprisingly, previous years' favorite Takacs quartet didn't win this time. (Look out, the new generation has arrived.) The Schuman violin CD (Carolin Widmann, ECM) on the short list also looks interesting.

A few more images from the Thanksgiving trip

Pebble Beach

Not the one you play golf, but a very interesting state beach full of strange rock patterns.

Movie: The Road

Forget about "2012". If there is only one end-of-the-world-family-survival movie you are going to watch this season, it will be "The Road". (Compared to it, "2012" is like a family trip to Disneyland.) However, it's not for the light-hearted. It is dark, bleak, and you will feel you are walking through hell with the protagonists (a father and son). It shares some common theme with 2007's "The Children of Men", but the view here is much more pessimistic. While in "The Children of Men", a new born baby was treated as the hope of the dying world, in "The Road", children are cattle to be slaughtered.

The whole movie was shot with minimal colors. Dark brown, grey, yellow, and black comprise most of the color palette like a late Goya painting. Some of the scenes were shot in places I had visited (e.g. the high rise bridge where the father and son slept in a trunk was on the way to Mount St Helens), which made it even more realistic, and haunting.

(Warning, spoiler below)
Surprisingly, the ending, compared to another McCarthy adaptation, "No Country for Old Men", seems optimistic. While "No Country for Old Men" ends with Tommy Lee Jones's mumble-jumbo monologue, "The Road" ends with the boy meeting a new family. It seems, to McCarthy, though there is no country for old men, the fire is carried, even in hell.

P.S. The "glorious" tone of the trailer doesn't match the movie at all. I wonder if the editor of the trailer had ever watched the whole movie.

On Thanksgiving Day

Receding Tide

Yesterday was not a good day for the kind of photography I had in mind. First, the weather was bad, clouded, with a 30% chance of rain along the California coast. Then it was the "severe weather alert", warning me of "big waves". However, I picked up my camera and headed for the coast, believing that I could still find subjects to photograph, and, since it was Thanksgiving day, there would be no people on the beach, it would be just me v.s. Nature. How wonderful it would be!

Wrong. I forgot the beach I wanted to photograph was composed of yellow, and gray rocks. While during sunset the distorted rock formations might look surreal and magical, under a clouded sky, they were just messy. My idea of photographing wild life was also off target. Even animals (harbor seals, pelicans) knew to stay put in bad weather. After spending hours of composing bad photos (which directly went to the "delete" key after I came home), I was frustrated and very disappointed about my ability as a photographer.

Before I called it a day, I noticed the "waves" had left very interesting marks. The marks only lasted a few seconds. By next wave, they were gone. Though the weather was against me (very windy and very wet, my glasses were all foggy and I had to wipe my lenses once in a while), I decided to give it a try. The result was not perfect. But these photos reminded me the possibilities of photography.

Untitled

A Stroll On the Beach

I hadn't touched my camera for months. After so many weeks of hard work, I knew I had to go out shooting or I would lose my sanity. It was quite windy on the beach and I felt kind of rusty after being out of practice for so long. As expected, not that many good shots. However, at the end of the day, I sat in my car, watching the afterglow and listening to my Kate Royal CD. After all, life is good.

(Mysterious light after sunset.)

Most Beautiful Waitress In Town

One restaurant I often went to recently hired a beautiful young waitress. Before, the restaurant hired a few poker faced overweight ladies (whose attitude implied they were probably paid minimum wages). Though the food there was delicious, the service was definitely not something you would remember. But, boy, what a difference this new waitress made! Not only she's beautiful (too beautiful to be a waitress in Bay Area, the first time I saw her I thought I was in Hollywood), she is genuinely warm and polite, always starting a small conversation with you. After you pick up your food and are ready to leave, she will wish you "have a beautiful day". The words are spoken so sincerely. Looking at her smiling face, you feel your whole day just light up.

Now I visit that restaurant more often because of this new waitress. To be greeted by her and hear her saying "have a beautiful day" have become the high point of my weekend. Alas, I don't even know her name yet!

P.S. for those who are interested in how she really "looks". The lady had very gently denied my photographing her, so for now you will have to use your own imagination.

Got My New Chair

My "Embody" chair finally arrived at noon. This expensive Herman Miller chair costs me a fortune, but does it worth it? You bet! The back support is excellent and I can rock back and forth while I think (the resistance is adjustable). Now I just want to sit in it and continue coding; even Miti seems satisfied with her test sit.

Is Economy Picking Up?

Exactly one year ago, I went to a small start-up for a job interview. I was doing well in the interview, but nothing happened, so I moved on and eventually joined my current company. Today I received an email from the VP of engineering (he was from my Alma Mater), asking me if I would still be interested. (He explained that they had a hiring freeze last year due to bad economy, but had released the product this year and needed to do some rapid hiring.) Wow, apparently you could get an interview response one year after the interview, what a lovely surprise. Does this mean the economy is getting better? I don't know, but I certainly hope so.

Whip It!

OK, I confess: I didn't even know things like "Roller Derby" existed before I watched "Whip It". But I liked Ellen Page's performance in Juno (she looked just like my college classmate W) and was curious what kind of movie Drew Barrymore would direct, I went to it any way. It turned out to be a perfect relaxation. In fact, given the work stress I had recently, even I wanted to go on the derby ring and hit somebody. Hmmm, let me think of a derby name first...

Did Work Make Me Dumb

Today a coworker of mine asked me to add a feature, so I had to go over some code I wrote six months ago (when I just joined my current company). I was shocked to find that the code I wrote then was more daring and more inventive. There were more designs in the code. The code I write now is more cookie-cutter, decent yet lack of imagination, a bad imitation of its previous self. Work stress also makes me less experimental, just want to get things done instead of exploring different ways of doing them. No wonder I am bored!

Jell-O Chair

Had a weird dream last night. I was invited by my college classmate C (which I haven't seen since graduation) to her apartment. It was in an old complex composed of crooked rooms with water leaks and smells of mildew. Every room was dark and small and full of junks. She introduced me to her two artist friends (they were a couple). Their latest work was this "Jell-O" chair. It looked like those no-back ergonomic chairs, but the seat was made of an orange Jell-O type of material (a kind of memory-foamed Jell-O). It vibrated and moved and there was a tiny video camera installed under the seat to record your butt movement. (I remembered thinking "no doubt this is called creative with bad taste".)

Well, don't know what Freud would say, but apparently all work and no play make me dream weird things.

Video of "My Stroke of Insight"

I am always interested in how our brain functions affect our perception and find the book "My Stroke of Insight" quite an unusual case study. With this video I can see the author describe her experience first hand. It's a much more powerful experience than just reading the book.

D700x, Where Are Thou?

Now that Sony had announced Alpha 850 (in a shockingly low price) and Canon announced the 7D (with a 18MP APS-C sensor), all Nikon users got was yet another rumor. I have to say being a Nikon user really feels like waiting for Godot now. Will D700x ever arrive? Or will we get yet another fabulously unaffordable camera (D4)? I am losing my patience. Life is too short to be a Nikon user.

P.S. found this "Waiting for Gadot" video on YouTube:

Almost Lost My Kindle Books

I was reading The Atlantic Monthly on my Kindle, wireless off. Suddenly my Kindle shut itself down. After reboot I noticed all my books were gone (including the pdf files). I knew I could still download them from Amazon but I was not very happy with the inconvenience and started to question the stability of the device. Things went worse when I found I couldn't download any of the archived books. After a few tries, I gave it up and started to write an email to the Amazon tech support. Before finishing the email, I turned on my Kindle again and found all the books (including pdfs) were magically restored. (I guessed it took Kindle a while to do the file system check after crash.) What a scare!

Got My New DELL monitor

I was pretty happy with my laptop display and never felt the need to get a large LCD monitor. Lately, I got a 24 inch monitor at work and found it worked very well as a photo display, so I took the plunge and bought a DELL 2309. The monitor arrived today. The resolution is amazing (2048X1152). I haven't bought the HDMI cable, so I am just using the VGA cable, but it already shows a lot of more details. The colors are also more saturate (a bit over the top to me, definitely need some color calibration). Overall I am very happy with it. Not bad for a $250 purchase.

First Try of My Nikon 14-24mm

I got my new Nikon 14-24mm lens two weeks ago, but was too busy to go out shooting. Things didn't improve this weekend, but I decided to take a break, or I will break (all work and no play make me a very unhappy person).

Summer is not the best time to take photos along the California coast. It's is usually foggy, and the light is just too bright (and very dull). After some scouting, I decided to stay at this hidden beach. (Somebody named it "shark's fin" beach, can you tell why?) I had been here a few times so I knew when the light hit the cliff in the magic hour, it would be dramatic. I hadn't been practicing photography for a while and had felt quite rustic. The 14-24mm is such an amazing lens and I hope some day I will really do it justice.

Mid-Life Crisis or No-Life Crisis

My Ideal Vacation

"Enchanted April" is one of my all time favorite movies. Like the story, the movie has a wonderful restorative power. If you can't rent a beautiful villa and have a perfect one-month vacation, watching the movie will be your next best thing.

For some unknown reason, the DVD version of the film was not out till lately. I guess this 8-minute you-tube version is as good as it gets.

So, You Always Want To Be A Teacher

Sarah Dunant's New Book: Sacred Hearts

I hadn't read "The Birth of Venus" yet, but I was deeply moved by Sarah Dunant's "in the Company of Courtesan" (so much so that I started dreaming which actor/actress should play the lead roles. Naturally, Scarlet Johanson is my first choice for Fiammetta). This new book completes her "Renaissance Trilogy". A lot of so called "historical" novels are just romance novels in another name. Dunant, however, managed to catch the Zeitgeist. It is moment of reading books like "in the company of courtesan" reminds me that I am still alive.

CLI and Swiss Army Knife

Recently I have been in charge of building our product's CLI (command line interface). It is a low profile project because the management team of our company put their focus on our super-cool-super-easy-to-use-and-fun GUI (our CEO wants it to be the iPhone of enterprise software). The lack of attention turns out to be a good thing, because the user-interaction focused approach may actually be a very bad thing for the CLI (after all, a CLI is run most of the time by the machine through scripting, not human interaction). It also gives me a freer hand at negotiating features and choosing the technologies used. I thoroughly enjoyed building it.

Yesterday we did a first end-to-end integration demo of our product using the CLI. Since we only finished integration two hours before the demo, I was quite nervous and worried if we would run into issues during the demo. I didn't focus much on the CLI (that was not the purpose of the demo anyway). Only after I was done with the demo I realized I forgot to mention some of the "cool" features. For example, a general problem with CLI is there are too many options, so I add a "history" feature to record the user typed commands to a file. The file can later be executed by the CLI so it will save the typing (and becomes very handy for cron jobs.) Things like this are small, but they can be combined to make the CLI a very useful tool.

I remembered an interesting conversation with an ex-coworker. (I was trying to recruit him to our company to no avail.) We were talking about software design. He said if you planned to design a perfect system (or language) which did everything, most likely it would fail (anybody still remember Ada), but if you focused on some design principals such as simplicity and adapability, you might build a system that lasted longer than the "big-bang" solutions (he used the UNIX system as an example.) Looking back at the CLI design choice I made, I realized that it might not be an iPhone, but it might well be a Swiss Army Knife!

First integration demo done in my new job

After weeks of toil (and midnight oil burning), finally I can have a weekend without working. The first end-to-end integration demo was done today and quite well received. (It's probably the most stressful integration I had done. We had the demo scheduled at 4pm, but I only got things working at 2pm.) Now my adrenaline level has nose dived and I feel totally collapsed, but it's great to see my efforts paid off, even just for a moment.

To Elisabeth (a very bad poem)

How much I have missed you, dear friend.
The mountains are still there,
yet all the fortunes in this world
are not enough
to exchange a glimpse of your smile
(then what is the use of them?)

Yet you are with me, I know,
and I can hear you whisper:
Live this life
and we shall meet again.

P.S. my roommate T.F. died young. I used to send her my writing. I hope she wouldn't mind this bad poem.

Things I want to do (whether I am rich or not)

One of the driving force for start-up employees is the dream of becoming rich some day. Every day I hear my coworkers talking about things they want to do (buy a fancy car, own real estates all over the world, get a flying license, etc) once they "make" it. (No doubt without the day dreaming it's hard to endure the start-up life.) Though I don't share much of their enthusiasm about "making it" (you can say I am older and wiser), I can't but think what I really want to do. (I took 6 months off to sort it out without much success, but my mind seems to be more clear now.) My wishes are small. I am surprised that some of them are even doable whether I am rich or not.

1. driving around the country with my camera, in the footsteps of many great photographers I admire (Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Edward Western, you name it.) Personally I think it's a rite of passage for every would-be photographer.

2. learn to sing. My best friend had proposed this idea many times. She has a soprano voice and I am probably a mezzo. It will be fun to sing duets with her. Also, I'd love to sing the aria "Mi Lusinga il dolce affetto" (Alcina) with my full voice.

3. learn Italian. I have always wanted to read The Divine Comedy in its original, and, Gosh, being able to listen to my favorite opera without translation, that's divine.

4. visiting England, listening to Kate Royal in Covent Garden, eating oyster in Whistable. England to me is like Italy to 19th century writers (so you get the idea). I doubt if my Anglophile can survive a real visit, but at least that will be a cure for my buying countless books about the subject.

OK, enough daydreaming, back to work. Now I will be happy if I can finish everything and go home in 2 hours.

Guardian Interview with Kate Royal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/24/kate-royal-opera

Interesting, she took one month off every year (no singing). I wish I could do that with my job.

Received My Kindle DX Today

Finally, my kindle DX arrived! In the few hours of owning my newest gadget, I had downloaded (i.e. bought from Amazon.com) 3 ebooks!!! Here is my first impression:

content (integration with amazon.com browsing): ***** (5 stars)
wireless speed: ***** (works better than my home internet connection)
easy to use: *** (it's not iPod, the buttons are not very well balanced)
feature: **** (native pdf support is pretty handy)


Now with my new Kate Royal CD, I am in heaven (almost).

Midsummer Night - Kate Royal's New Album

On stage (if you are lucky enough to see her perform), soprano Kate Royal has the look of a Bond girl and the grace of a princess, with a rich voice melting in your ear like dark chocolate. Attending her recital last year at Berkeley was an event of lifetime to me.

Since event of lifetime doesn't happen every day, I am more than happy to find that her new album just came out lately. Better yet, she's singing the arias of 20th century English operas (something rarely recorded). Usually I don't like 20th century English operas (I prefer the more melodramatic Italian ones), but Ms Royal's performance of Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" in her previous album convince me to reconsider. So now I am more than happy to try new things and broaden my horizon.

Still, I am eagerly waiting for her Strauss album, but I know for that I have to be patient. No soprano before a certain age can really sing Strauss's last four songs and Ms Royal definitely hasn't reached that age yet. Right now, she's just too young and too beautiful!

P.S. I don't know who did the promotion at EMI. Her last album's promotion photos were bad enough, the new ones are even worse. For heaven's sake, do they really think making her look like Keira Knightly will sell the CD?

P.P.S Just finished listening to this CD. It's wonderful, even better than Ms Royal's debut. One thing is for sure, Ms Royal has graduated from the "rising star" status to be a true star now. Her singing sometimes reminds me the great German soprano Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. (Yes, I know, another unbelievably beautiful soprano.)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Be Careful What You Are Reading!

Some books are dangerous. They reminds you how ridiculous and absurd things often are and you start to question them and eventually become a discontent (at least secretly). Often that's not a good thing, it conflicts with the single-minded "focus" (I sometimes think it's a form of lobotomy) demanded by most jobs. That's why I put away "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" when I started working. The free spirit of the protagonist Poloma makes me sad about my current life.

Grand Illusion

Almost all my friends know I had a crush on a writer many years ago (just a minor crush, nothing happened). I had never seen her in person or heard her talking. Lately I found some video clips (thanks to YouTube) of her giving speeches or doing interviews. I was quite surprised that in person she was neither as smart nor as witty as the "writer" I found in her writing. In fact, had I seen her in person, I would probably think her too boring to talk to. I find this experience quite amusing. (Many years ago I might be heart broken, but now I am older and wiser.) How many times are we fooled by our imagination and find reality fails to match our perception? No wonder Buddism treats the whole world as a grand illusion. But, never a Buddist, for us Romantics we just need another grand illusion to pursue. When we are out of illusions, we are also out of life.

Glad I Am Not Secretary of the State

Taking a break from my work, I read on the Chinese newspaper that Hilary Clinton said she hadn't read a book or went to a movie in the past 100 days. Poor Hilary, at least I got time to watch a few DVDs in the past 30 days. Am I glad I am not Secretary of the State!

My Father's New Poems Published

In my opinion, my father is not a very good poet (sorry, Dad), but nothing stops him from self publishing his poem collections once in a while. He never sells his books, just gives them away as gifts to families and friends. (My mother tells him it is a waste of time and money, he just shrugs it off. I wish I had inherited his positive attitude.)

This week I received his newest book. (Guess who shot the cover!) It also includes a poem I wrote 14 years ago (again, I am not a good poet either). Since I have contributed to his newest work, I feel like doing some promotion here. If anybody is interested in a limited edition (250 copies only) poem collection signed by the author (and the photographer), let me know.

Getting Used To My New Working Life?

First week in my new job, I asked a coworker how he could bear with this crazy working schedule. He told me, you just got used to it. I didn't believe him. Now, four weeks after that, do I get used to it? Well, yes and no. I still hate this "all work, nothing but work" life, but I am getting better at pacing myself. I try to find time to exercise even if it's only for 15 minutes. I bite the bullet to work after dinner and learn to take breaks so my eyes won't be too tired after long hours of working. I don't have time to read books or go to movies, so I start to read short poems (when I am so sick and tired of reading computer related stuff). Now I feel like going on vacation when I go to sleep.

Now I know how precious my past 6 months were. Totally idle. All time belongs to myself. Have time to be with friends. Looking back, it felt like heaven.

Busy

A couple of days ago, my ex-coworker Dan asked me how was my new job going. I told him: one word, busy. How busy? Believe it or not, I was so busy that I didn't even have time to complain till now! When I went home, my eyes were burning, my neck hurt, I barely had time to eat and went to gym (which I forced myself to do). I manage to blog now because I am too tired to write code. I am afraid the posts here will be very short from now on until things are more under control.

First Week at Work (very depressed)

Though I only started working last Friday, I have already missed my "good old jobless days". Why? Because all of my coworkers work 6 days a week and at least 12 hours a day, driven by the dream of becoming rich and the fear of being jobless if product not delivered on time. Sadly, neither the carrot nor the stick motivates me. If I make any effort to conform to this crazy schedule, it's because I can't face the shame of letting people down. Deep inside, I feel the playful and joyful me I found in the past half a year is dying. I try to remind myself the AA (Alcoholic Anonymous) motto: one day at a time, but God knows how long I will last.

Sarah Waters's New Novel Is Coming!

I can't believe it. A new Sarah Waters novel is coming! So far, no info on what it's about yet(though Waters did hint in a previous interview that her next book would be set in the 40s or 50s). According to Amazon.com, it's about 480 pages (sigh, I always think Waters's novels need some trimming) and will be out on April 30th. I can hardly wait.

Now if only Stephen Daldry and David Hare can adapt "The Night Watch" to big screen, I will be in heaven...

P.S. more Google search indicates this novel is a ghost story set in the 1940s and no lesbian character this time.

Free Coffee at Peets Today

Forgot to mention it. Today is Peet's Coffee's 43th birthday. You may be able to get a free coffee there after answering a question correctly (they will give you enough hint for it), so check it out.

Books, Books, Books

I think it's Marcus Aurelius (or is it Alexander the Great?) who once said he had only eleven days of happiness in his whole life. Well, consider today one of my eleven days, for the books I ordered last weekend had arrived! What is more fun than knowing you can indulge yourself in books with full abandonment, even just for a few days?

OK, no more talk, time for my book orgy. We can always practice Stoic afterward.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The depiction of Hmong people in the movie "Gran Torino" reminded me Anne Fadiman's great work "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" (a classic which should be studied by every would-be journalist).

I first noticed Fadiman's writing in the now defunct "Civilization" magazine. Her monthly "common reader" column was my favorite. Every month, I would copy and mail her column to my best friend (she was then in Texas working on her Ph.D.). Over the phone, we would read it together and sometimes laughed into tears.

The writings were later collected in the book "Ex Libris", but the funny comics associated with the columns were gone. Somehow in book form, they looked more serious and lost some of the charms. (I still keep the magazines and secretly hope someday they will be re-united in a new edition.) Nevertheless, it's one of my favorite books. I'd rather buy you a copy than lend you mine.

I should have listened to myself

Against my better judgment I went to the movie "Watchmen" today (even after being warned by the New Yorker review). I knew I should have followed my own advice, but I was lulled by the big screen charm. What a mistake! Now I finally know why people can fall asleep watching movies. (The only reason I didn't do so was because I forgot to use the restroom before the movie started.)

I managed to stay awake till the end just to see how Ozymandias's big snow leopard lynx looked like on big screen. Yet another disappointment. Not only it looked fake, the animation was so badly done that the big cat walked like a crippled dog. That, really made the movie beyond redemption.

P.S. the preview of the new Terminator looks good, but the movie apparently steals a lot of ideas from the new Battlestar Galatica.

Curious Cat

Miti Stole My Chair

Miti has her own "sleeping chair", but for some reason she likes to "steal" mine. Whenever I am away from my desk for a while, soon I will find her sleeping on it. Her look tells me not to mess with her.

Active-Passiveness

"In a critical sense, doing nothing can mean doing something. Inaction can be action, and embracing this paradox can save your life."*

Recently I had lunches with a few friends. Though they all survived the recent round of layoffs in their companies, they were not very happy. They felt unsure about the future, tired from the now heavier workload, and helpless to do anything to change their current condition. I tried to think of something to say to encourage them, but couldn't find anything that was not a cliche.

Then I spotted the term "active-passiveness" from the book "The Survivors Club". It's a term used in psychology; scientists found survivors of crises were usually people who waited for the worst to pass (instead of getting panic or fighting it directly). The preserved energy was then used when the situation was not so dire and eventually saved their lives.

Since we are "officially" in crisis now, applying some "survival" psychology may help. In the mean time, spending some time reading "Lao-Tse" or "Chuang-Tse" while biding your time may not be a bad idea. :-)

*This sounds like Lao-Tse, but is actually from the book "The Survivors Club". It contains a chapter which is a good digest of the "luck factor" book (even better than the original).

The Tao of Software Development

In the pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added,
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

-- Lao-tse*

I know my college Chinese professor will be laughing her head off if she knows I am reading Lao-Tse (and her beloved Chuang-Tse) through the English tranlation of someone who doesn't even know Chinese. Well, since Tao is "unnamable", "undescrible", who knows the English translation is not truer to the Tao? (Also, if my college professor can be a huge Dostoyevsky fan without knowing any Russian, why can't I read Lao-tse in English? After all, I can always go back to the original.)

Back to the topic. When I read the chapter 48 of TTC, I suddenly realized, Lao-tse was actually talking about software development! Think about it. When we start learning software engineering, we start by learning basic data structures and algorithms. As we become more knowledgable, we add more and more complex tools (data structures, algorithms, languages, design patterns, etc) into our tool box. However, when you are doing software development, if you just keep adding complexity, pretty soon you will have a chuck of unmaintainable code or a very tangled architecture that is out of your control.

So what do you do? Well, you simplify it, you take away things. That's the essence of refactoring. That's why we have design patterns (and why you need to know how to use them wisely). After you have cleaned up you code, used an easier to understand yet more efficient data structure or algorithm, seen the patterns in your code and made them flexible, after you have done them again and again and finally nothing can be done, you know it's the time you put it down. It is time to move on. You may have to revisit it someday, but there's nothing you can see or do now. Some day, you may have a new metaphor, a paradigm shift, which allows you to see the problem in a different light, to find a solution even simpler, but until then, you are done with the work, nothing is left undone.

Such, is the Tao of software development.

*This is from Stephen Mitchell's translation of "Tao Te Ching", the most readable and enjoyable English translation so far. Mitchell had some Zen training, so his "unfaithful" translation is actually a mix of Zen Buddhism and Taoism. However, whatever his translation loses in authenticity, it gains from his poetic use of the English language.

Feeling Lucky?

Ever think how to improve you luck? If Feng-Shui doesn't work, maybe you can try the principles suggested in this book. Based on the author's "scientific research"*, they are:

1. "Lucky people create, notice, and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives."

So don't shy away from your chance encounters. Don't get tunnel visioned by anxiety and fail to see new solutions.

2. "Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings."

If you have read the book "How We Decide"(another interesting read), you know gut feelings are actually our subconscious mind working. They can recognize patterns much faster than our "logical" mind, so listen to them, but double check your facts.

3. "Lucky people's expectations about future help them fulfill their dreams and ambitions."
If you think you are lucky and destined to something, setbacks won't stop you. On the other hand, if you think you are always unlucky, you won't even try. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

4. "Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune."
In short, they fail smart. Instead of blaming on their luck, they learn from their mistakes.

Do they work for me? I don't think I have more good fortunes when I adopt some of these principles, but I do learn to cope with setbacks better. Who knows, maybe that's enough to be called lucky.

* Like most of the psychology experiments, I found these experiments too primitive to be called "scientific". Most of the time they measure correlation , but cannot prove any cause and effect, so don't take the "science" part too seriously but treat it like a different perspective.

Once

This morning I woke up with a song playing in my head. I must have a dream, but by then the dream was lost. Like entering a movie theater where the movie had end but the sound track kept playing, I tried to put back the story by the song I heard. It evoked a sense of yearning, the smell of the sea, the feel of rain dropped on your face, taste slight salted. (How wonderful the human brain works.) The dream was hopelessly gone, but I realized where I had heard the song. It was at the end of the movie "Once".

To many film critics, "Once" is on their top 10 best movie list of 2007 (and Bob Dylan is a huge fan). It's not hard to see why. Like "Before Sunrise", it is a love story where the boy and the girl met for a short time then each headed life their own way. (You probably have seen these stories so many times in real life and have one of your own.) It is plain, yet it has a kind of truthfulness and authenticity a Hollywood love story never able to create. But that's not enough. A plain movie can be boring. What save the story (and distinguish it from the others) are the songs composed by the actors themselves. (It won the 2008 Oscar for best original film music.)

But don't rush to download the soundtrack yet. For what is a song without the story? Watch it. It will be the 85 minutes you remember forever, even in your subconscious.

Blog Separation Plan Abandoned

I was thinking of separating this blog into 3 (book, movie, and home) and creating a navigation menu to easily link them. (OK, I was reading too much CSS lately so my hands got itchy.) After a few tries, I decided against it. Two reasons:

1. The navigation to another blog is just too slow. I was hoping it would be fast and smooth so I could "fake" that they were the same blog. I was wrong. The transition was too obvious.
   
2. I don't update my blog often enough (I know, my bad). If I separate them, readers will have to click each one to find out if there's any update. Most of the time, they will be disappointed. It's a waste of their time.

That said, I was having fun enhancing the blog template. Here is the "prototype" blog I created. Can you tell what I was trying to do? Tell me what you think.

P.S. on further investigation, it seems if I use wordpress (a free online publishing software) I can achieve the effect I want after some customization. However, it means I have to host my own website. Though it's fun to learn wordpress and php (on my to-learn list for a long time), I once again decided against it due to the cost.

A Cat Gives You A Good Reason To Wake Up Every Morning

Miti's incredibly cute expression can hardly be caught by the camera (she hates it). Fortunately she's not too against me drawing her. This is what Miti looks like when she wants her morning massage.

Watchmen

If you think superheroes are a bunch of costumed weirdos, welcome to the world of "Watchmen". Here you will find quite a few (warning, spoiler alert): someone who can see the future and move in space by will but is an emotional zombie, someone who won't hesitate to kill a pregnant woman, someone who makes money by selling super hero models based on himself, oh, and some sort of wonder woman who's only purpose seems to be sleeping with the other superheros (I have actually spared you a few characters, I am sure the movie will cut out some of the politically incorrect scenes).

Still think it is interesting? Then 03/06/09 is your day to watch it on big screen. Yes, it's visually stunning (I had seen the trailer on big screen, very impressive), but just don't ask me why this is the "most celebrated graphical novel of all time". After reading the original, it sounds more like an advice to avoid them all.

Battlestar Galactica

I thoroughly enjoyed the old Battlestar Galactica when I was a kid (more than StarTrek). Lately I discovered there was a recent remake. I am glad to see the remake is also quite enjoyable too (and with Mary McDonald as the president, really loved her performance in John Sayles's "Passion Fish"). For the "fifth grade" sci-fi fans (you know whom I am talking about), check it out.

P.S. after watching a few more episodes, I am afraid I have to say the pilot was in fact the best one. How disappointing! such a promising beginning.

Endurance

In August 1918, Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 embarked on an expedition of Antarctic. Their goal was to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent. Before they even reached the continent, their ship, Endurance, was trapped in the Weddell Sea. The ship eventually crushed under the ice. The crew had to make two near-fatal attempts, rowing their small boats across 800 miles of chopping water, before they could get rescued. Their twenty-two month ordeal became one of the greatest survival stories of 20th century.

Thanks to their on-ship photographer Frank Hurley, the Endurance story was vividly captured through Hurley's Kodak camera. (In Hurley's time, photos were captured on glass plates so they survived the harsh weather pretty well. You can see more about the story here.) We can now witness their amazing survival story first hand. (Hurley, like Dorothea Lange, is one of my photography heroes.)

Looking at those photos, I can't but think about the similarity between now and then. (Not so long ago in the dot-com bust, the Endurance story was "rediscovered" by the media, but it was narrowly focused on the leadership of Sir Ernest Shackleton.) Maybe it's time to read the story and get inspired by it again. After all, the lesson may come in handy this time.

P.S. if you are interested in the Endurance story, I highly recommend Caroline Alexander's book and the HBO mini-series "Shackleton" (played by Kenneth Branagh).

Last Chance Harvey

I doubt I would ever enjoy this movie if I were ten years younger, but, alas, after harboring enough life's experience, regret, and disappointment, "Last Chance Harvey" suddenly becomes a movie I can appreciate. And what a performance Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman gave (especially Thompson)! Like the protagonists, I felt dark and moody when the movie started, but when it end, I felt lifted and cheerful even though the future is still uncertain. After all, don't we all need a second chance sometime?

P.S. I always know Emma Thompson is a good actress, but her performance in this film is so good it totally surprises me. Now she tops my favorite actress list.

Losing Another Great Writer

2009 seems to be the year many great writers facing their own mortalities. Today we lost another great writer. John Updike, the American literature giant, just passed away. A lot of people reading his latest novel, "The Widows of Eastwick", wondered why it was full of ruminations and read more like a travelogue than its plot-rich prequel, "The Witches of Eastwick". Now we know it's Updike's contemplation on life and his valediction to the three memorable characters he had created. Farewell, Mr. Updike. And farewell, Alexandra, Sukie, Jane...

Bye, Bye, Rumpole

Today I heard Rumpole's creator, Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), had passed away on Jan 16th. In recent years, reading Rumpole with a peppermint mocha in hand had become my favorite pastime in Christmas (just like Rumpole enjoyed his small cigars). It's sad to see Rumpole finally retired from the Old Bailey. Bye, Bye, Rumpole, I certainly will miss you (and She Who Must Be Obeyed).

Interesting Quote

"Working at a job you don't like is the same as going to prison every day."

from "The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry"

Napkin Notebook

Found this interesting napkin "notebook" while reading Joe McNally's blog (apparently very useful to him). You can even buy different brands (i.e. with different company logos) on the web.

The Element

When I was a kid in school, the only "career" advice I ever got (from anybody who bothered to give it) was to be practical. Well, if I had a time machine and could go back twenty years to meet my younger self, I would give her a copy of this book and hope she would have enough trust in herself to find her element. (Chances are she wouldn't listen to me.) Too bad I didn't get to meet the older, wiser me, so now I have to do the damage control by finding my element twenty years late! At least I have learned something from the past twenty years: it's better late than never.

P.S. you will read many interesting stories in this book, but this one particularly struck me: to prevent their son from becoming a writer, Paulo Coelho's parents had him committed to a psychiatric institution repeatedly and subjected to electroshock therapy. Ain't I glad my mom hasn't heard of that story!

Must Read Economic Book in 2009 - The Black Swan

Though published in 2007, the key point of "The Black Swan" rings more true now than ever. Why? Because the economic meltdown we had witnessed in late 2008 is a perfect example of the black swan, something highly improbable yet has a high impact. Why couldn't someone detect it or predict it before it happened? Will we be able to predict it now that we have "learned"? Sadly, the answer, according to the author, is No. If you want to know why, pick up this fascinating book. At least, the time you spend reading it will be enjoyable.

Lighting Technique

Since I can't go to photography school to learn studio lighting technique, I try to learn it from books and magazines. This article(click here) from the Digital Photo Pro magazine is really a very useful one. It really shows why photography means "light painting".

My Hometown in Recession

Sadly that the first time I ever noticed my hometown in the news it was bad news. Apparently my hometown was hit badly by the recession and a lot of the "lamb stew" (a delicacy my hometown is famous for) restaurants were closed as a result.

Notable Books on Photography in 2008

Photography is actually more about seeing than taking photos; the insights of others can greatly enhance your own vision. That's why I always enjoy reading books by photographers or photo critics. Here are some interesting books I read in 2008. Again they are not in any specific order.

The Moment It Clicks (by Joe McNally)
This is the most useful photography book I read in 2008. It also gives you a good feel of how a photographer's life is like (tough, very tough). Unlike other photography books, the book is organized as episodes (each one about two pages). In each episode, Joe showed you a photo (most of them published in magazines like National Geographic, Life, etc), told you the story behind it (usually very funny), and the techniques he used to get the shot.

I learned a lot about lighting (especially the use of flash) from this book. Now it's still among my piles of bed time reading books.

Landscape Beyond (by David Ward)
I used to think David Ward is a better writer than photographer, but this book does showcase some of his best work so now I revise my earlier opinion. Still, Ward is one of those rare landscape photographers who can write eloquently and with great insight. Reading this book is like having a conversation with a seasoned photographer and hearing about his practice.

The Americans (By Robert Frank)
Like so many classics you had only heard about but never really seen, Frank's "The Americans" had been mentioned in so many books (e.g. Sontag's "On Photography") but was out of print for years. The reissue of this photo book is great because it also restores the order of those photos as Frank intended. Reading this book is like thumbing through an old family album of a road trip in the 50s. Did that America really exist?

Ways of Seeing (By John Berger)
This is another classic I had missed. It's based on the BBC series John Berger had helped made in the 70s. Berger's view on image and advertising is still fresh to read.

Equus (By Tim Flach)
No, not that play, but I am sure Tim Flach is just as obsessed. This book contains the most beautiful images I have ever seen about horses. It's also a great meditation on how a theme or subject can be approached in many different ways. After Yann Arthus-Bertrand's great images in "Horses", I thought nobody can do a better job, but Tim Flach has proved me wrong.

Notable DVDs from 2008

It seems everywhere everybody is busily listing their "best XXX of 2008", so I decide to create my own list for the DVDs I had watched in 2008 (according to my Netflix record, I rented 90 DVDs, I also rented about 10 from Blockbuster). They are not in any specific order.

1. The Life Before Her Eyes (see my blog)
   
2. XXY - really challenge the gender definition
   
3. Transsiberian - finally a good thriller in a long time
   
4. The Visitor - friendship in the time of illegal immigration
   
5. Water Lilies - best coming of age movie this year
   
6. The Life and Work of Sally Mann - what it takes to be a great photographer
7. The Savages - what really happens in unhappy family
   
8. Before The Devil Knows You're Dead - a great drama like Shakespeare's King Lear
   
9. Rivers and Tides - it's amazing to see Andy Goldsworthy working
   
10. Away From Her - Julie Christie's glowing performance as an old lady with Alzheimer

Last Day of 2008

Another photo taken at Gazos Creek on the last day of 2008.

Moon

Two Images digitally combined to show the aura and the shape of the moon. Though to our eyes the moon is not very bright, to the digital camera it's much brighter than the sky and will look like a light bulb if metering is against it (as seen in the second photo).