HAHAHAHA(HAx4)'s Limerick

Zeitgeist

2008-06-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

For those who favor conspiracy theories and those who like to read mystery fictions, this is THE documentary for them. Unfortunately I've lost appetite for both of them after the celebration of new millennium.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com (It even offers Chinese subtitles).

How this movie caught my eyes is another story, which I tend not to share at this moment. Perhaps this would serve to pique more interest for this flick. :-)

Earthquake and Hindsight

2008-06-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

Mother Nature is fickle and science falls short on earthquake forecast. 05/12/2008 was no doubt a tragic day, especially for those who lost their loved ones.

Human being refines himself by drawing lessons from past setbacks. I have to admit that Japanese did a good job on that :

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20080529TDY04302.htm

Despite all the shortfalls of science, I wish the high price we had paid could help us mend the system and reduce any possible losses in the future.

(L) China

2008-04-17T01:05:00.000-07:00

Patriotism in China surged fairly recently while the stock is still in doldrums. On my MSN list, the sign of (L) China mushroomed overnight. Just like those in US who adopt the "supporting our troops" bumper sticks, a MSN emotion can be the ticket for patriotic bandwagon.

French are the most idiosyncratic folks you would be able to find on earth, as Uncle Sam can attest. They have a gift to launch the torpedo at the most inopportune moment you can ever imagine. And our young patriots are not gonna let them get away so easily this time. As one beautiful young patriot suggested to me, Carefour Market is French evil and shopping there is gravely harmful to our national security.

But life is full of dilemma. Minutes later I helped her unmasked another French evil market. And surprisingly the latter evil has already infiltrated into an area super close, super accessible and super convenient to where she lives. Seems our young patriot is facing the greatest challenge ever posted by French evil. I've know this beautiful young patriot very well. I am sure she would be willing to go extra miles in order not to be comprised by such French evil. Kudos to our young patriot and I keep my fingers crossed in the meantime :-)

Congratulation to Z.N

2008-04-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

Doctor Z.N no longer holds the Bachelor degree!

Congratulation and Best Wishes!

Documentary on Tibet Riot

2008-03-22T01:00:00.000-07:00

In addition to CNN, MSNBC and The Economist

Free Tools on the Internet

2008-03-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

*) Wire Shark, Network Traffic Monitor
http://www.wireshark.org/

*) Putty, SSH client
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

*) FileZilla, SFTP
http://filezilla-project.org/

*) CoreFTP
http://www.coreftp.com/

*) Convert Text to PNG
http://www.zituyuan.com/

*) Convert Chinese Characters to Unicode
http://www.pinyin.info/tools/converter/chars2uninumbers.html

*) Convert other file format to pdf
http://www.pdfonline.com/

*) Almost anything you can think of
http://www.cygwin.com/

*) Whois
http://www.whois.sc/

Tibet

2008-03-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

It is regretful that Tibet was moored in violence again. I understand some people there admire Dalai Lama more than anyone else. But to be honest, I think Tibet is better off with China instead of being against China. Where is Dalai doing at this moment in addition to banging his followers' heads against gun barrel? He is nothing but "a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes". (Ref [1]) And I am sure Chinese government will be working hard to make sure he fails and fails miserably.

By the way, the 'Free Tibet' also did a lousy PR job (Ref[2]) . These four nuns are so ..., let me just say they at the un-favored end of my beauty spectrum. And this is one of the worst propagandas I have ever seen.

References

[1] BBC News : World: Asia-Pacific, Anger over Murdoch's Tibet comments
[2] CNN Video, 'Free Tibet' Movement

Clock Divider

2008-03-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

Clock divider is widely used in the digital design. The following is a summary of this cliche topic:

(1) divide by an even number (n = 2k)
A simple counter will do it

(2) divide by an odd number (n = 2k + 1)
If apply a counter that only triggers on rising clock edge, 50% duty cycle can not be obtained. To maintain 50%, the counter has to be triggered on both rising dege and falling edge

(3) divide by fractional n = (2k + 1 ) / 2
The same "triggering on both edge" idea applies here. Triggering on both edge is close to double the clock frequency. To do this in Verilog, two "always" statement can be used. One is hinged on rising edge and the other is on falling edge. Each always statement can produce one pulse train with correct phase and the two pulse trains can be OR-ed together to achieve the goal. 50% duty cycle is obtainable in this special case.

(4) divide by m/n, (m, n) = 1, m > n > 2
It is next to impossible to get 50 % duty cycle. And jitter is also unavoidable. A counter with step n and wrapping at m or (m/2) might be considered.

Text 2 PNG

2008-03-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

Despite its dominance on the Internet, JPG falls short when it comes to the TEXT and Line Arts. In the eyes of spectrum analyzer, those sharp angles in the TEXT and Line Arts are interpreted as high frequency components, which is the soft belly of JPG since it sacrifices high frequency components in favor of better compression ratio.

Another shortcoming of JPG is that it does not support 1 bit black and white format. But for TEXT, 1 bit is probably good enough for the legibility.

PNG, on the other hand, does a better job if the picture content comprises mostly of TEXT, since it is a lossless format and supports 1 bit black/white format.

A side by side comparison can be found at zituyuan ( http://www.zituyuan.com, Ref[1] ), this is a Chinese website that converts text to PNG format online. GFW might have to consider adding OCR to its web patrol's arsenal.

References:

[1] http://www.zituyuan.com/t2p.php?mode=8

Happy Valentine's Day, and the Science of Romance

2008-02-13T20:36:00.000-08:00

Love is a nut science may never fully crack. (Ref [1])

A comprehensive examination on Love has been carried out by Time Magazine (Ref[1]) in an effort to offer the best scientific explanation possible on this subject that dates back to the moment when Eve took a bite on an apple. I'm not majored in that part of the science, but if it's any help, I love to be a guinea pig for the science of romance, once for all.

// The following engineer notes are made at the service of love:
// +) Apache's default directory can be changed with modification to the .htaccess file:
// Options +Indexes
// IndexOptions Charset=GB2312
// IndexOptions NameWidth=*

// The above setting will make the Chinese file name to be seen correctly by browser. It will also accommodate for long file names.

// +) "embed" tag can be used to embed things like flash into the HTML page. Use its hidden attribute for things like background music.

Latest laboratory data shows that love could impel someone to expand his scope of knowledge, like figuring out how to place soft-tune background music into his blog.

Latest laboratory data also shows that love could turn someone into a loopy state as well, like placing soft-tune background music into his blog and running the risk of being called sissy or odd.

Last but not least, good luck to all of those who are under the spell of love! Happy Valentine's Day!

References:
[1] Time Magazine, U.S. Edition, Jan 28, 2008, Vol. 171, No. 4, Annual Mind & Body Special Issue

[2] Spicing up directory indexes with Apache

[3] Apache Module mod_autoindex

My Lost Theory

2008-02-05T23:35:00.001-08:00

As a long time 'Lost' fan, I am glad to know that writer strike has not stopped Season 4 from spinning. Last Thursday just made things more convoluted and people started to act wield, like throwing a walkie-talkie into the ocean without any obvious reason.

More 'Lost' theories surfaced on the Internet. Here is one I came up with yesterday: The 'Lost' story lines imploded!

My best bet is that when the 'Lost' was still piloting, writers couldn't care less about what 'The End' would be like. The only thing got into their mind is to find a way to glue more viewers to the small screen every Wednesday night. (Or shall I say Thursday from now on. I guess 'Lost' might have benefitted from writer strike.)

So they threw any spicy oddness and mystery they could ferret into the story line, like that magic lottery number / secret code, like the divine priest gobbled by some dark mass. Now the plots are so dispersed that it is beyond my imagination to get a scientific answer. (One is tempted to say that the 'Lost' is a sci-fi in the first place.).

With the writer strike, probably the ABC would throw a lame grand finale and bow out in haste. I wish that would never happen. Please let the show continue to bog those logical minds.

Lab Notes - SRL16 Initialization

2008-02-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

Shift Registers have ample presence in things like FIR filters. Xilinx FPGA has built-in SRL16 primitive for this purpose. Close look at its pin layout reveals one peculiarity of this device (Ref[1]): It has no reset pin.

So it seems that the only way to initialize this device is to pump 16 zeros into it before taking any values out from its register chain. Lessons learned in the hard way show that the device would simply return zero for any of its registers when the initial data is not fully propagated through, even when none-zero data is actually present in part of its register chain.

Thus due consideration must be given during FPGA reset phase or at the end of FPGA configuration. A possible solution is to add a SRL16 init state into the Finite State Machine with a 4-bit counter in order to properly initialize SRL16.

References:
[1] 16-Bit Shift Register Look-Up-Table (LUT)

Somebody pledges:

2007-12-28T07:36:00.000-08:00

He would treasure those moments for the rest of his life!

On the Doorstep of 2008

2007-12-15T17:47:00.000-08:00

(Limerick Practice)

Any defiance of destiny comes with a price tag.

I have learned firsthand through many encounters that the fickleness of life trumps any planning done by human being. Life is full of compromise, improvisation and adaptation. I know I've procrastinated for too long to evade this truth.

Like always, almost everything seems fuzzy, murky and volatile. Sure good things would happen in the coming days, such as ... Olympic Games. But like any other Olympic Games, those glory moments are bound to be ephemeral.

Story 1 of 1001

2007-12-04T22:41:00.000-08:00

I was told recently that somebody somewhere in this world got a windfall. Consequently, I would be able to order something nice from http://www.dianping.com. Who says money can not buy happiness?

I swear to god that I would pray for world peace when I am enjoying the meal.

On a different topic, book mark for Bible in the kitchen.

Dear Lord, thank you for this gift of food
You are about to place upon my table.
And help me to do your work
In any way I'm able.

Lenovo ThinkPad T61

2007-11-29T22:25:00.000-08:00

The latest business news is that Lenovo's 4th quarter revenue is up by $x,xxx.

My first laptop is a ThinkPad and I've been a ThinkPad fan ever since. Unfortunately I've successfully managed to dislodge its screen half off and made it a bench player at some point.

I wish T61 could be more tough this time. For T61, the only thing I don't like so far is that it does not have a Vista Installation CD. Nowadays Lenovo stores all factory default data image on the hard disk, so there is no companion CD at all.

The good thing is that it still has a RS-232 !

Process Variation

2007-11-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

(Limerick Practice)

At the grand opening of this blog, I once envisioned recipes to be part of this blog. So far I have recorded none, which speaks volumes of my cooking skill.

Preparing food takes time. Chinese food is well known for its palatability. Less well known is the fact that Chinese fast food has never hit any home run. Even back in China, the idea of fast food is largely associated with the likes of KFC and McDonald. So it begs the question: Why couldn't Chinese food go faster?

Through my personal observation, the answer might be four folded:

1) Too Many Varieties: Chinese food tends to provide a wide variety of dish choices, which has its logistical disadvantage.

2) None-standard operation: Chinese food is more of an art and less of driving a car. Many dishes are hand-crafted. Instructions vary from book to book. This none-standard practice inevitably causes trouble for quality control, which leads to poor sanitation or taste variation.

3) Lousy cooks like me

4) Picky epicures like me

Confucius once suggested all the gentlemen in this world to stay away from the kitchen. Now I know why and I couldn't agree more.

Quiescent Current

2007-11-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

(Limerick Practice)

Lately I was nagged for not being able to update my blog as often as often can be. The truth is that after living in this world long enough, I feel an adult man would be better off NOT letting everything out from the bottom of his heart. Certainly it is not entertaining, which is a regretful side effect of aging. (By the way, slight entertainment may be found at my blotter)

The fringe benefit of being an EE is that you always get to talk about technology, which makes it a suitable substitute for weather in terms of chitchat topic, since technology, as well as the weather, has no heart.

But the good news is that I can always tell stories, or fairy-tales if you will. Therefore please be advised that the contents distributed here at this blog are, as GNU may suggest, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. (In other words, it could be totally none-sense, just like those words you've just read above.)

No Title

2007-10-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

I don't know if Mr. Ren is truly the author of the following article. But I always hold deep respect to those who started their businesses out of thin air, although often times they leave the impression of being eccentric, cranky or ruthless. So do many other great figures in the history of human being.

http://www.tianya.cn/techforum/Content/516/10962.shtml

Enjoy the Moments You Have

2007-09-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

*) 10/27 last year, what I want to say on that Tram was: "Cut the baloney! You know nothing about life! You are misleading and misinforming!" ( Ref [1] )

*) And that still holds true up to this point. But what I want to add is that those moments passed are the moments would never come back. Enjoy them while you still can.

References:

[1] Nancy Chen, "Easterlin: Money won't buy happiness", Daily Trojan, 10/27/2006

Save the Street Due

2007-09-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street clan is notoriously avaricious. So when it comes to their journal, as you can imagine, they are conditioned to hoard those so-called premium contents which are only accessible to subscribers. Scientifically, I believe they are genetically hard-wired to surcharge.

But those dinosaurs do adapt to Internet age. The folks at WSJ online even know things like RSS feed. However, often times, those feeds would lead to a "Free Preview". That's where the 'free' part ends.

However, I just found out yesterday that WSJ Online is so, for the lack of better words, "Search Engine Friendly" that it is willing to give out its premium content if the referral link is from Google News. WOW, Google is truly Wall Street's new darling!

So here are a few tips to save you $79 plus tax if you haven't paid your due to Wall Street Journal yet: (Hey, a penny saved is a penny earned!)

1) Install Firefox (free, I suppose)

2) Go to Firefox add-on page (http://addons.mozilla.org), search an add-on called RefControl (by James Abbatiello) and install it ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/953 )

3) Go to news.google.com, search whatever you with wall street journal, such as "dinosaur source:wall_street_journal", copy what's left in the Navagation bar, which should be something like " http://news.google.com/news?xxxxx..."

4) In Firefox, on the menu bar, open tools\RefControl Options, click "Add Site", in the "RefControl Site Properties" dialogue: Fill "Sites" with "online.wsj.com", and set "Actions" to "Custom", fill it with what you have just copied from (3)

5) Go to the page that you have trouble with at online.wsj.com. Please note that usually every URL at online.wsj.com would end with something like "online.wsj.com/xxx/xxx/xxx.htm?mod=xxxxx", please replace the "mod" part with "mod=googlenews_wsj". Press the "Enter" key, now the magic is supposed to happen in front of your eyes. (If it doesn't, get in the line and pay your due at Wall Street. Ask Mr. Murdoch for discount if you can :-)

Last Fortune Cookie in LA

2007-09-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

(For the sake of bookkeeping, as years of engineering training has made me conditioned to anything printed on the paper.)

"Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else."

Afterthoughts on the Trip to Shanghai

2007-09-02T01:07:00.000-07:00

*) The past few days made me realize that I am still deeply attached to this city, where I grew up and spent the first 25 years of my life. This city and I both have changed a lot since then. I am so anxious to be part of this city again in the future.

*) I entered the foray of telecomm recently despite all the odds against me. I believe Y has been in this business long enough to know that it has never been an easy job. I am glad he is still holding his post so far. We were both lured into being engineers long ago. It is probably too late to quit at this point, although now I know for fact that what's behind one desert is just another desert and oasis is hard to come by.

*) Blogspot and google page were once again blocked from China. However, I am getting numb to all the inconvenience. I'm just a mundane folk who can not move mountains. Life is not perfect and I've already got enough to worry about.

*) Last but not least, she entered my life. ( To MAS: I didn't let you down this time :-) (Ref[1])

References:
[1] Happy Valentine's Day, 02/14/2007
[2] Trip to Shanghai, 01/04/2007

What Lies Ahead ?

2007-08-06T01:20:00.000-07:00

Years of engineering training has turned me into a steadfast atheist, although God's word is often quoted in an effort to conceal my lack of intelligence. It is hard to fathom God's intention of creating me into being. In fact the existence of such intention itself is also arguable, as God "works in mysterious ways".

So the question is still left unanswered: "What lies ahead?"

Movie - Transformers

2007-07-09T01:36:00.000-07:00

Teen-ager romance and mechanical violence account for large part of this flick. I also saw a handful of familiar faces on the human side, such as Mr. Danny McCoy from Vegas and Mr. Fernado Sucre from Fox River. A typical Hollywood movie is thus made.

However it harps on the nostalgia chord. More than two decades ago when I was still in the elementary school, the correspondent cartoon was among the most popular ones in China, which glued me to TV every Sunday afternoon. Since it's about good vs evil, it didn't take much IQ to be politically correct under that circumstance. Regretfully for a while the TV schedule was in conflict with my Computer class, thanks to which I missed quite a few of episodes. I learned the first hand that trying to be a nerd is uncool :-(

Unfortunately this time Mr. Bay bungled it with cheesy romance and garbed robotic sound track. I no longer had that kick in me when I watched the robots from both sides having the Armageddon. Maybe I've already got used to being left uncool. :-(

References:

[1] Yahoo Movie, Transformers (2007)