Hopefully 2009 will be a smooth year!

爆竹聲中一歲除, 春風送暖入屠蘇,
千門萬戶曈曈日, 總把新桃換舊符.

(宋 王安石）

My translation attempt:

A new year arrive with the sound of the firecracker,
People can feel the spring breeze the carries the smell of the wine;
Families eagerly put on the new year couplets under the sunshine.

(Don't use this for your homework or essay, you will probably get a failed grade.)

Love it and hate it

Montreal's winter is harsh compare to Vancouver. Montreal is much colder and has very heavy snow fall. The worst thing is the temperature stays low after the snow fall, which turns the snow/slush to ice. Walking on the street requires careful attention or else one can slip. I think this is the first time I experience a "real Canadian winter."

I do enjoy looking at the falling snow, but I really hate the icy road afterward. There is always a light and dark side to everything

Aluminum MacBook Mini-review

I got the new metal body Macbook two weeks ago. Strictly speaking, it is my first mac computer. Just want to share my thoughts about it. I have the low end model of the new metal body macbook



Pros:

I love the aluminum body of the macbook. Every laptop these days should be built with aluminum. It feels more solid and sturdy. It is also easier to clean metal than plastic. It is also a lot more resistant to scratch.

The usability of the multi-touch trackpad really surprises me. It makes using a trackpad to control the computer a lot more comfortable. Other laptop manufacteur should really consider implementing something similar.

13inch is a perfect form factor. It is very portable and the screen is not too small to read.

Battery life seems decent. I didn't actually test it out, but it seems like it can last 4 hours with WiFi turned on.

The battery and the hardisk can be easily replaced. I haven't check the RAM slot yet.

Other minor things like the magsafe power connector makes this laptop unique.



Cons:

The pricing of the new Macbook is a little too high in my opinion. It cost 1349 CDN after education discount. It does have a decent hardware spec, but 1349 is a lot of money for an entry level laptop in my opinion. 1000 CDN would be a more reasonable price since mac uses almost identical hardware components to PC these days.

The use of mini-display port as the display output is very annoying. It makes me have to purchase an extra 30 dollar adaptor to connect my laptop to external monitor and projectors. Almost no montiors on this world uses a mini-display port input. Apple should just include the adaptor with the purchasing of the laptop or at least use a normal display port instead of the "mini-display port." What the hell is the point of using a mini plug?

Most Beautiful Poster in My Collection

Nothing else needs to be said, no other posters beat these 3.

It will only get worst?

I know it is not correct for any legislative member to behave this way in the legislature, but I don't feel sympathetics towards the chief executive (CE) at all for some reason.

Probably because 黃毓民 is actually elected by his constituent, but the CE is only elected by a non-representative election committe that only listens to the Beijing government.

Mr. Wong has the authority from the people to represent them in the legislature, the CE is "appointed" by Beijing through a tightly controlled and manupilated election. 

I hope Hong Kong's legislature would not become like Taiwan's legislature. In Taiwan, fights break out between members from different party. Sometimes the opposition even lock up the speaker to barricade the legilative process.

The only way to prevent this is to have the chief executive elected by the general public. This way he is not at a disadvantage when attending sessions in the legislature.

I doubt the Beijing government will understand what I posted here though.

What an irony...

It was still not too ago that I watched the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic.

I remember there was a scene where the children were bringing the flag to the pole with the music " A Hymn to the Motherland" playing in the background. I felt very emotional and moved when I first saw this scene.

The government seems to want to imply that it is under the current regime that these children will have a bright future after many years of civil wars and chaos in China.

However, in less than 2 months, many brands of milk produced it China was found to be contaminated with Melamine. It is not caused by any accident. It happened because of greed. Some bastards want to make more money.

Many children and babies (estimated now to be at least 53000) are fallen ill due to acute kidney failure. There has been 4 deaths already. Many more cases probably go unreported.

A postive image that took many years to build for the olympics is now completely shattered. I don't know how I can trust the commuist party to govern China anymore. 

Shopping

I went to China town to do some shopping last Saturday. I was planning to buy moon cakes but retreated from the plan after seeing the price. I end up getting a hair cut and only bought one thing:

I really like the message on it!

Hong Kong Legislative Assembly Election

Some of my thoughts:

-I am pleased to hear the pro-democracy camp (泛民主派) has managed to keep 23 seats in the assembly. This will at least allows the pro-democracy parties to veto controversial government bills such as article 23.

Dude, don't give any honorable excuses to make yourself feel better.
You know you are just too lazy to bother to vote.

-I am disappointed at the low voter turnout. Only 45.2% of the voters voted in this election. I find some of the response from the non-voters very laughable. If you are not happy with any of the candidates, you should at least cast a blank ballot to show your dissatisfaction. It is a citizen's responsiblity to vote in a democratic society. If you don't care about voting and voicing your opinion, maybe you should move to the mainland, where one doesn't have to "worry" about voting.

Either HK people are really forgetful or they fear revenge from the Beijing government

-I can't believe Regina Ip (葉劉淑儀) is elected. Do some people forget about her attitudes on pushing article 23? She doesn't seem to regret it even today. I would never consider supporting a candidate that would support or not attempt to stop the passing of article 23.

-The pro-democracy camp should consider merging the parties together into one uniform party. This will helps strenghts the votes and will allow them to gain more seats. Of course in reality it is easier to be said then done...

It is too bad that I can't vote in this election because I am in Canada. Hopefully I will be back to vote on 2017 when Hong Kong will have universal suffrage for electing the chief executive. Meanwhile, Canada is going to have an election on Oct 14th. I wonder if Stephen Harper will win a majority government? I need to research before I cast my ballot on the 14th.

Samsung T220HD - My mini review

I finally ordered Samsung T220HD TV/monitor couple of days ago. I got if from NCIX. Their express shipping option is a real deal. I ordered it on Monday morning before 1pm PST and received the monitor on Tuesday morning!

Why can't there just be one input for everything?

It is probably the best smaller size TV/monitor combo on the market right now. It features one component input (with R/L audio input), one DVI and one VGA input, one PC audio input, a DTV tuner and best of all, two HDMI input!

The monitor is 22inch in size and has built in speaker. The speaker's quality is a little better than most monitor's built in speaker. It is still far from ideal though. Samsung is smart to include a headphone output and a SPDIF audio out on this monitor.

I connected my PC to the monitor using DVI connection. I am not a professional reviewer so I can't comment much aboutthe picture quality, but everything looks great on to me.

I also connect my PS3 to the monitor using HDMI. The PS3 recognizes the monitor can accept 1080p signals, despite the max resolution of the monitor is 1680x 1050. It doesn't have any problem down scaling PS3's signal. Games and Blu-ray look great at 16:9 mode

The monitor has several mode for scaling images: 16:10, 16:9, 4:3 and Zoom. It also comes with a remote control

Too bad the 24inch (T240HD) and 26inch (T260HD) versions are not available in Canada. This monitor is perfect for students like me that has a PC and two gaming system (PS3 and XBOX360. The XBOX is still in Vancouver) living in a small place. I am suprised Samsung is the only company that make such an "adaptable" monitor.

Montreal's 出前一丁?

I passed by this noodle house near Villa-Maria station. I wonder if they actually obtained permission to use the boy logo of 出前一丁 (a very well known instant noodle in Hong Kong). I wonder how their noodles is compare to 出前一丁 ? Seeing this makes me feel a little bit home sick.

Radiation Safety Training

A view of downtown Montreal from the McGill campus

Another nice and sunny day in Montreal. I don't have to go to work today because I have to attend the radiation safety training course offered by McGill University. It is a mandatory course for all personnel that would use radioactive materials at work.

Safety office safely in disguise

It took me quite sometime to find the building where the course would take place. Probably because I didn't expect the safety office would be at a building that looks like a regular housing apartment. It seems like the university desperately needs extra space for expansion.

The course started from 9:30am and ended at 4:45pm. I took a similar safety course several years ago at UBC. I have to say that the UBC radiation safety course is way more demanding. UBC's safety course exam is closed book and has a practical session. McGill's course only has one full day of lecture and an open book exam in the end. It is a piece of cake compare to UBC.

I was surprised by how small the class was. There were only 15 people in the class. I am assuming this is because it is still August and a lot of new students and researcher still hasn't arrived campus. Some students seem to be quite stressed by the material at the beginning due to the physics and chemistry component of the course. I am sure they feel much more relaxed after realizing those materials are only a very small part of the exam.

Back to work tomorrow! Hopefully I will get my novels tomorrow through the courier. Maybe I will write up my thoughts about Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars (星界の紋章/星界の戦旗) novel after I finished reading them sometimes. I've been longing to discuss and share my thoughts about many things (Hobbies, interest, science, politics) on a blog for a long time.

Liu Xiang has fallen...

I was a little shocked today hearing Chinese Olympics athlete Liu Xiang (劉翔) has to withdraw from the competition due to injury. Looking at Liu Xiang's condition through the photos of the event, I was surprised he didn't withdrawn from the competition before it has started. He was clearly in a lot of pain.

Maybe the reason he can't withdrawn is because he bears the hope of 1.3 billion people, people hoping that he will win the gold medal again. This burden is just way too heavy for anyone, not only Liu Xiang to bear.

Hopefully he will recover soon and I look forward to watch him on the field again in the 2012 Olympics.

Montreal's metro

I went to Walmart near the Namur station today using the metro. It took me about 30-40 minutes to get there from my home.

It runs on tires!

Montreal's metro system is pretty good if you live around the center of the Montreal island. It will get you to most places no problem. I would say it is almost as convenient as Hong Kong's MTR subway system.

Pretty large place compare to Vancouver's skytrain stations

There are only few cons I can think of about Montreal's metro

1.) There is no air conditioning in the train at all! It is pretty stuffy on a summer day like today. It gets worst when the train is pack full. I hear the city is looking to buy new trains for the metro. Please get trains that has air conditioning, this is year 2008 already.

2.) They only make announcements in French! Almost all the information postings are in French only too. I understand Quebec is a society where French is the majority, but this is extremely inconvenient for travelers and newcomers that know very little French. Even China, Japan or Hong Kong's metro system have English information available for tourist. Montreal is a major metropolis in the world. The signs and announcements in the public transportation system should be in both French and English.

I luck out with this shot, the train was actually moving quite fast

STM probably doesn't offer English services due to political reasons. They are probably afraid they will offend some of the Quebecois... When will these people understand that English is pretty much the standard international language for business and traveling. I agree that French culture should be protected and treasured in Quebec, but sometimes I think Quebecois go way over board to "protect" it. I just can not agree and understand with some of the principles in Quebec's Charter of the French Language. Do they understand that they are isolating themselves from Canada and the rest of the world by doing this?

Starting in a bright sunny day

After reading so many people's blog, I finally decided to start writing my own. I am not very sure what I am going to write about on the blog at the moment, but I will keep writing.