Happy Diwali and a great start for Richie

October 28th, 2008 at 23:05 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family, Holidays · 2 Comments 

First, our warm wishes to all our Indian friends a very Happy Diwali. Nothing special over the weekend and on the Diwali itself yesterday. Except we watched a Hindi movie, “Om Shanti Om”, on Sunday night. Yesterday, we visited Dmitry’s classmate and her parents who were celebrating Diwali. At night, we watched a Tamil movie, titled “BOSS”.

Today? Richie went to school for the first time to get him familiar with schooling life so that he can accustom easily when he starts his school officially next year. It was quiet at home with only LA, Nik and I. Nik was able to enjoy quiet moments without Richie bullying or disturbing him.

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摧心取脑

October 27th, 2008 at 11:08 · Filed Under Chinese, Classical, Karate, Kata and Bunkai, Martial Arts, Training Journal · 2 Comments 

好久没写关于空手道和武术的文章了。上星期和学生谈到了一些练武心得。最近也有一些新领悟。这一领悟，和我先前所写的一篇文章有很密切的关系。在此记录一下：

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Finder hang in Leopard

October 23rd, 2008 at 21:49 · Filed Under Call Me a Geek, Hacking, Mac OS X · Comment 

When I returned home this evening, LA told me her applications had hung. I checked and found not only that, the Finder was not responsive too. I had no choice but to power off and to restart the Mac Mini again. This had also affected my user account. The Finder had failed to launch after login and the Dock did not appear as well. But fortunately root user account was not badly affected.

I Googled and found some articles and solutions here, here and here. I exhausted all the methods and I did not have DivXNetworks and ApplicationEnhancer.bundle in the directories mentioned in these links. I decided to go my own way.

What I did was to delete everything that was related to DivX. Since I did not have DivXNetworks, so I removed DivX folders in “/Library/Application Support” and “~/Library/Application Support” and also the DivX programs in Applications.

After the deletion, Finder still could not launch properly. I launched Console.app to examine system logs and found some errors in cache files com.apple.LaunchedServices*. I removed everything with com.apple.LaunchedServices in /Library/Caches.

Viola! Everything is back to normal again. DivX is a third party enhancement software and is not very stable. It seems like DivX has messed up with the system caches and somehow prevented Finder to launch.

I have spent two and half hours mingling with this problem. I hope my experience will save some of your time if you have the same problem as mine. I am going to take my supper.

Good luck!

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龍蝦戲

October 18th, 2008 at 14:32 · Filed Under Chinese, Classical · 2 Comments 

龍游淺水，蝦戲之。龍氏文化，夏始。蝦豈辱之？

巫国有馬，為相治國二十餘。立鴨為相。鴨政不振，不公，不務德而傷百姓。諸侯百姓多叛。華之安還，百姓樂也。若不闕鴨，將焉取之？

巫伯圍鴨，鴨即知亡矣！然立雞為相。雞資私，損民益。求國無危，不可得也。民侯欲闕雞。若不闕雞，百姓苦也！

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English, a deterrent tool

October 9th, 2008 at 10:39 · Filed Under Blogging, Education · 9 Comments 

Yesterday, I met an Indian lady who was a retiree. We had a little chat and we both agreed to many things, like the education and English in Malaysia. She was in banking and now she works as a part timer to fill her time and to gain experience in some other fields. I told her about my plans to further my study and she gave me some useful advice.

She has a few children, they are in Australia, working and/or studying. She too finds our English standards, as well as our education system, are deteriorating precipitously. One interesting point she mentioned was the English language tests like the IELTS and TOEFL are used as a tool to daunt immigrants, whether studying or working.

After 911 incident, countries like US and UK have implemented measures to deter immigration. One of the deterrent is to increase the requirement of English proficiency test. Let’s put aside those Iranians and Iraqis who take these tests in Malaysia because their passing rate is extremely (pathetically) low. Even some Malaysians who are English educated during the British era and those younger Malaysians who speak very good English can’t even pass the requirement test. Many of them have taken the test over 5 times but still fail to meet the overly stringent requirement.

After talking to her, it has become clearer in my head, the direction I am heading to and am better aware of the requirement and challenges lurking ahead.

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More night views at KLCC

October 9th, 2008 at 10:08 · Filed Under Architecture, Blogging, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Photography · Comment 

There were some downpours on that evening so the weather at night was cooler. I really needed to get online to check my emails and to get some information from the Internet. My hotel did not provide complimentary Internet connection and I had to pay for RM40+ for 24 hours use. Who would use the Internet the whole 24 hours? What a stupid 5 stars hotel!

I learned that there was a Coffee Bean down P. Ramlee road which opened till midnight. After dinner with my sister, Jenny, I took my gears and headed to P. Ramlee. On the way, I took a picture just outside KLCC.

It was almost midnight when I heading back to hotel. I saw clouds passing across the tips of KLCC. I was taking the picture with my phone so the pictures were not as good as those taken with DSLR.

It was a nice walk because of the cool weather. But walking in KL was risky. You might sprain your ankles if you were not careful. The pavement was not event and some were protruded. I almost sprained mine a couple of times. So, if you ever come to KL, beware and watch your steps. Pedestrian safety and comfort are not the city’s interest.

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Night view at KLCC

October 7th, 2008 at 22:51 · Filed Under Architecture, Blogging, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Photography · 5 Comments 

I passed by outside KLCC this evening and saw this magnificent view. I always wanted to take a shot of this magnificent building but did not manage to do it. This was a great opportunity but unfortunately I only had my phone (with camera) so I couldn’t get a nice picture of it. I like to take architecture photograph. Next time, I will take my DSLR with me.

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Against All Odds – The Rise Of An Industrious Country

October 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Education, Humanity, Japan, Philosophy, Social · 1 Comment 

It was two weeks ago, if my memory served me right, my kids were playing around the dining hall. One of them, took a hard-boiled egg and put it into a basket of uncooked eggs. LA was getting crazy about this. I heard the incidence and I came out of my working room.

“This is the great opportunity to show the kids about science I learned when I was in lower primary.”, the thought emerged quickly. At that age, I used to read science comics for kids published by a Hong Kong publisher. I never had any chance to use that knowledge. My mom would do the cooking and I did not mess around her kitchen so there was no chance to mix up the cooked and uncooked eggs. This time, my kids gave me an opportunity to show off. ;)

I took the two eggs in my hand and LA gathered the boys around the dining table. Mom told D, “Look, daddy is going to demonstrate science.”

I took one egg at a time, stood it on its broader end and then spun it on the table, One egg would spin standing until it lost its angular momentum. The other egg couldn’t hardly spin on its end for a fraction of a second. The cooked and uncooked eggs had been determined. The boys, especially D, were astonished.

Well, what is the relationship about this egg tale and the rise of an industrious country?

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