Earth Day

Today is the Earth Day in the northern hemisphere. Above is the Earth day logo from Google.
Just to remind myself, there are a lot of things we can do for mother earth.

I plan to visit Antarctica after retirement, ya, it is still a long time from being able to. This is the question popped in recent years: If ice on Antarctica land melted, I will not be able to see any penguins there!

Some of my friends say it is not bad either because it will be much warmer. But to me, I would rather want it be what it was. Even its travel season is limited to 3~4 months in the winter, the cost is much higher, and cold weather is a risk to a retired software engineer, I STILL WANT ANTARCTICA AS IS.

好心的路人捐個錢吧

看到這個新聞不由自主的想掉淚ㄋㄟ, 所以打算捐點錢共襄義舉, 我想我老婆應該會支持我才對~~
找了一下才找到捐款資訊, 它在第二則新聞最後面呦

http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2008/new/jan/26/today-north13.htm
http://blog.udn.com/yangmei320/1567663

1/26新聞

癌末老師周珮珊，往生

〔記者廖雪茹／竹北報導〕去年底放棄治療、捐出一百萬元推動國語文教育的新竹縣三十三歲癌末老師周珮珊，已於二十一日晚上往生。她的父親周朝基未發訃聞，僅訂了三百本星雲法師寫的佛書，送給前往弔唁的親友，與大家結緣。

生前在新竹縣竹仁國小任教的周珮珊，九十四年七月進修拿到國立台中教育大學語文教育研究所碩士學位，卻意外發現罹患直腸癌末期。周女治療兩年多未見好轉，去年底決定自然面對死亡，並捐出醫療費用一百萬元，盼成立「感恩基金會」，提昇學子的語文教育。

「往生，是另一個人生的開始！」周珮珊的父親周朝基，收起哀傷向親友說，女兒生前生活儉樸，但一生卻很精采，尤其是她捐出醫療費的做法，讓父母深感驕傲。她在臨走前，嘴角都掛著微笑，相信是圓滿完成了人間任務，才含笑離世。

周家以邀請函取代訃聞，請親友參加追思會，以懷念代替悼念。同時改以星雲大師的著作「星雲法語」，取代喪禮毛巾。

去年底頒發「榮譽縣民」給周珮珊的縣長鄭永金，昨弔唁時強調，將落實周老師的遺願，將每一分錢用在推動縣內國語文教育上。

教育處代理處長姜秀珠表示，礙於全國性基金會門檻需要一千萬元，縣府決定先以周老師捐出的一百萬元本金孳息，作為兒童文學獎金，再尋求社會資源。目前已獲多位竹仁國小老師響應。

1/25新聞

【新 竹訊】直腸癌末、捐出一百萬醫療費作為新竹縣政府教育基金的新竹縣竹仁國小周珮珊老師，廿一日晚間往生，縣長鄭永金、議長張碧琴、縣議員黃齡慧、縣府教育 處長姜秀珠等人廿五日上午前往吊唁，讚許周老師的愛心是社會的典範，鄭縣長表示會落實周老師的遺願，將每一分錢用在推動縣內國語文教育上。

周老師的父親周朝基說，女兒生前善解人意，生活儉樸，衣櫃裡都是簡單 T恤、牛仔褲，但她的一生卻很精采，珮珊去年底決定停止醫療、捐出醫療費的做法，讓他感到很驕傲。

周老師的父、母親指出，珮珊從往生到入殮嘴角都掛著微笑，相信是圓滿完成了人間任務，才含笑離世。

周老師離開人間，家人不發卜文改以邀請函的方式，邀請大家參加追思會，一般喪禮會發的毛巾，也改以星雲大師著作「星雲法語」與大家結緣。

原本周老師捐款一百萬元打算成立基金會，但基金會的門檻需有一千萬元，縣府決定先以本金孳息，作為兒童文學獎得獎作品的獎金，再尋找社會資源，讓更多人能為教育盡一分心，目前已獲多位竹仁國小老師響應。

教育局請周爸爸空出一本存褶，作為民眾捐款響應周老師的專戶，每一筆捐款縣府都會開立收據，供抵稅之用，善款請匯「渣打銀行竹北分行013200801935周朝基」。

TransConnect Introduction

INTRO

As many users don't have the need for a proxy. Many applications are designed without considering the scenario that indirect connection may be needed, even NAT connections may be limited.

In the company I work for, it is a must to tunnel networked applications through a proxy server that supports CONNECT method.

The CONNECT method is a specially reserved method by HTTP, as you can see in RFC 2616. It's design was for TLS based HTTPS protocol to pass proxy servers correctly. However, it actually can be used by and is used by other protocols and applications.

If an application supports proxy server, congratulations, you can set it up and everything works happily. But if it happens to be hard to setup the proxy (like git), or the application I am about to use just don't have proxy support in it. What can I do?

Here comes transconnect.

It can be built and used without root privilege. This is nice when a certain application meets one of the two criterion:

• Proxy setup is a nightmare
• Doesn't support proxy at all

There are limitations, however.

• The application has to be TCP based. (I guess, not verified.)
• The application shall not be something like SIP, which is very bad designed for its dependency of an application layer protocol to its layer 3 address and layer 4 port number.

INSTALLATION

The download can be done within one nano-second. No configure needed. Just "make"
and "make install". It is installed in a user's home directory. "/usr//" installation is not needed and the default build works in this way, no "PREFIX" needed, either.

After it is installed, a shared object can be located "~/.tconn/tconn.so". Edit the "~/.tconn/tconn.conf" to provide transconnect the knowledge of your internal subnet setting and proxy server address .

To use it, just do the following:

LD_PRELOAD=~/.tconn/tconn.so git clone git://xxxx yyyyy

The LD_PRELOAD forces tconn.so be loaded and makes the application "git" to link its socket operations into tconn.so instead of standard socket library. "git" needs not be modified or proxy configured to be able to work from now on. Isn't it great?

CONCLUSION

Even applications support proxy, they will have to implement either refer to some environment variables for proxy setting or will have to implement a Preference to set and store it. That is one example of reinventing wheels. No matter how convenient the wheels can be made, struggles like Gnome and KDE still remain a burden for a regular user like me to be confused where to set up to make every thing moves like a charm.

Typically, I have to setup Firefox, Gnome, wget, ssh, git, svn, and so on, Synaptics Package manager just to get my Internet applications all working properly. Hope this will all end some day.

If the idea of transconnect can be adopted as part of the platform, my sleep can be tight and maybe nightmares won't come back.

Our Time is Borrowed

Along the way, day to day, we are lucky that can choose what to do or not.
We do not need to fight against the void, like many poor people in third-world countries do. We do not worry about being starved tomorrow. We are responsible for our life and what we do.

We all pass away some day, big CEO, U.S. President, Bill Gates (richest). Fame doesn't go six-feet-under with us, so is shame. Make peace with the natural and stay away from extremism. It is our obligation to leave no track in the non-stop river of time.

Our time is borrowed from eternity and we all pay it back someday. And hopefully, we will have no regret if we can.

對總統大選說 NO

自從有投票權以來以來, 一直對選舉這碼子事不熱衷, 倒不是覺得自己的一票沒有價值, 而是幾乎沒有看到值得去投票的政治人物。

每次的大小選舉帶來的是噪音的汙染 (選前是拉票廣播車, 選後變成謝票), 環境的污染 (旗子, 看版, ...), 漫天的政論節目 (每一台都有預設立場), 以及各種手段 (選前一夜放走路工黑函, 翻祖宗十八代, 槍擊, ...)。

唯一我關心的是政見, 所以, 花了一點時間畫了這個圖 "No Vote", 一點都不專業, 也一點都不可愛, 顏色也不好看 (但至少避開了幾個主要政黨的顏色).

就像菜價太高我們可以不買一樣, 我們不一定要挑爛芭樂, 不選不吃也是一種主張。

如果有哪位路過的朋友有美感, 可以提供更好看一點的圖, 小弟可以請吃一頓便飯。 :)

A Note for Myself - Linkin Park tour, Taiwan, 2007/11/16

It's a pity I couldn't join this concert. But we got too many things to pity for in our short life. So, I can still enjoy the fun part. That is, buy their album and enjoy.

The playlist:

1.No more sorrow
2.Lying from you
3.Somewhere I belong
4.Wake+Given up
5.From the inside
6.Don't stay
7.Papercut
8.Petrified
9.Point of authority
10.Shadow of the day
11.What i've done
12.Numb
13.Push me away 《抒情版》
14.Hands held high
15.breaking the habit
16.In the end
17.Crawling
18.One step closer
19.The little things give you away
20.Cure for the itch(Mr.Hann超屌刮碟秀)
21.Bleed it out(rob 神之鼓技+chaz與大家互動 hey ho~ oh ho ~)
22.Faint+加長版ending

莒光日

莒光日 is a brainwash lesson we have to take during the military service. Obligatory or non-, you have to join it.

Some says the company I am working for (its name can not be told) has military-like administration. I don't quite agree with that.

1.a. 莒光日 take place on Thursday morning. Which is a waste of military service time.
1.b. The company whose name can not be told takes 莒光日 on Saturday morning. It effectively remove the burden of 莒光日 from our daily job.
2.a. 莒光日 starts at 8:00am, we usually need to leave the dorm at 7:45 so we will not be late.
2.b. The company whose name can not be told takes 莒光日 at 8:00am, too. But, as a difference, I am healthier because I always wake up before 6:30 and catch the bus at 7:00am so I won't miss any piece of lesson.

That's the advantages I can found so far. Will update if found anything new.

We can do something!

Just saw a sign on the greenpeace blog:

When the last RIVER is POISONED.
When the last TREE is DEAD.
When the last FISH is CAUGHT.
then we realize we CANT EAT MONEY.

It is one of the reasons I ate fewer fishes these days, ... etc.

We all can do something, for mother earth.

Ubuntu Desktop

The key question for the Linux community has been asked since the Linux appeared is: When will Linux be on regular user's desktop?

There is no immediate answer for this question. It is like asking when *someone* will be grown up. The question itself doesn't make any sense to us. It only makes sense to business men who want to make money from it.

I think we should refine the problem to be: When will Linux Desktop be mature enough for (non-technical user) daily use? I am not qualified to answer this question since I am in technical industry. But I think Linux is just one-step away from it. It is capable of doing most of my daily routines and it looks cute (friendly).

For years, I've been waiting for a Linux distribution similar Ubuntu. Ubuntu is by far the most excited distro to me. I have no access (and lazy) to any formal statistics. But to now, the most widely used distros around me are: Fedora and Ubuntu. SUSE is not popular here but shall be strong in the desktop Linux.

Fedora is popular mostly because many RedHat Linux has been there for years and most engineers (who has no interest in specific OS) had experience with some RedHat Linux generation back to their years in school.

Ubuntu is more friendly than other distros and is best rated among users. Its default sudo only superuser design is way better than others. But the engineers mentioned in previous paragraph just will not give it a chance because people tend to use what they were used to, but not keep trying everything new. Another positive strategic for Ubuntu is (if you ever visited Canonical's hiring page) the embedded distro it is developing. However, the relationship with chipvendors is more important to deliver a quality BSP with lowest (maybe $0) royalty.

SUSE is backed by the agreement with Microsoft. As we can easily see in news, it is getting a good result from enterprise market. But the natural of being so commercialized could imply a strategy for making most milk out of its Linux distro, which in terms could imply it is not going to fully support poor users like me.

I predict Ubuntu to be the overwhelming one in Linux desktop market, as long as it doesn't try the server market. At the same time, I predict Microsoft to be the loser in the Linux competition as people has found out: Re-invent the 5th wheel of a van that Microsoft did is a waste of brain cells.

Ubuntu needs to keep its focus on strengthening an idiot-proof platform and making an GUI-only user be able to live happily with Ubuntu. And maybe creating a platform for users to customize their Ubuntu as easy as Firefox's Add-on management. (This one is what I want most.)

Hard to agree? Let's wait and see.

What Will You Do?

Omega is a legendary rocker. I haven't seen him in a couple years. But, he is the kind of person you will never forget if you know him. Why? Maybe it is because I've known him for so long. Maybe it is because he is just the kind of person. Maybe it is because of him!

We studied in the same university. Though we major in very different departments, we knew each other through the Rumors, rock N roll, club. No, that is not true, actually, I knew him before we both joined the club. I firstly met him at ChengKung Camp as we both served our obligatory short-term military service after passed college entrant exam.

Not only our majors differ, Omega is very different from me, too. He is an ACTION HERO. This says Omega joined many off-campus activities to prompt Rock N Roll. He created at least one annual activity that was later took over by Freddy (閃靈樂團). I can still remember the days I helped moving speakers, AMPs, and other intruments down/up stairs just to perform an hour long show to the public.

Maybe Omega has accumulated enough thoughts. He later becomes active in writing articles. The articles he wrote are very impressive and straight to the point of problems. He does not write bullshits. (I am trying to make this blog post as concise as possible. But I just can't do it well like Omega did, sorry.)

I could rarely trust a friend like Omega. He doesn't try to be a famous person, never try to control of anything. But he had always played his role best. As a rocker, Omega will remain in the history of rock in Taiwan. It is never his tend to be in any history, but he will.

What (significant) will you do? I am not asking you but myself.