Aftermath: Population Zero

I watched a movie tonight on CTV HDTV channel. "Aftermath: Population Zero".  It's a sci-fi movie or future projection, about the changes and evolve of earth after all the human beings disappear in one day.  This movie is quite thought provoking.

There is no cast in this movie, only a narrator explains what's happening.

Within the first couple of hours, power outage everywhere. After backup power depleted, most of the cities will be out of electrical power in a few days.  The nuclear power plan may last longer with diesel backup generators.  However, they will end up with disasters after the diesel run out.

Power outage, nuclear power plans explosion, industrial plants explosion, those won't damage the earth too much, just the related areas.  Animals will thrive and rule the earth again.  They are evolved to live on the earth in most of the conditions for thousands of years.

Most of the human built building or constructions will be collapsed or damaged in two centuries. The remaining parts ironically include the Great Wall in China and other ancient buildings like the Pyramid.
The carbon oxides generated by human beings will be absorbed by mother nature in less than a hundred years.  The movie also projects the world without human beings after 1000 years. There is no obvious sign of human being on earth anymore. The next ice age will hit the earth after maybe 25,000 years.

It takes human beings 10,000 years to establish the civilizations and put our signs on the earth. Compared to the 4.5 billions years age of earth, it is just a blink of eye.

Dream of Red Chamber

Dream of Red Chamber
Originally uploaded by tqhh

I uploaded the photos I took this September when we were watching the "Dream of Red Chamber" dance in The Center in Vancouver.
The dance was based on the traditional classic Chinese Novel, written by an author in Qing Dynasty. The novel was claimed the best four classic in China. Almost everyone in China knows the basic storyline of the novel.

The show was performed by Beijing Dance Group. It's a good show with fantastic stage design, fabulous light effect and music. However, I was expecting the music would be familiar to us, but it wasn't. Maybe because of the copyright issue, they didn't use the the music from the popular TV drama of the same story.

The show was great. It is divided into several scenarios, from DaiYu entering the House of Jia, Grandma Liu and her grandson, the complex relationship among BaoYu, DaiYu, and BaoCai, till the poem party, flower funeral, marriage of BaoYu and DaiYu, ended with the death of DaiYu and BaoYu went to temple. It's a complete story and will be most enjoyable if you are familiar with the original novel.

Most of the audience there were Chinese. That's totally understandable. For oversea Chinese, the dance is like a cultural feast.

New Year Gathering

We had a new year gathering with friends last night in Richmond.  We visited Nancy and her newborn baby girl before the dinner.  The baby girl is so cute and lovely, looks very similar to her dad.

We talked about new year's resolution during the dinner, seemed nobody had really come up with any real or practical resolution in the 2010.

When I was running outside today, I found my iPod touch sucks. The volume down button won't work and the shuffle doesn't work as well. This new iPod touch is not a good buy.  Control is too much trouble, although it seemed innovative in the first impression.  I'd rather use a reliable control system like before.

English Writing

As I write more and more blog posts, I found it is necessary to learn more about English writing.

The following is a book review I read recently, which I found it's a good example of writing.

"With the increasing number of Linux programming books on the market, the new Linux coder is left in a bit of a muddle.
Information about Linux is spreading—a good thing in terms of the open-source model and the community that supports it. The influx of new Linux authors also tends to decrease the odds of finding literacy and technical expertise in the same place. Numerous would-be writers ride the popularity wave of “Penguin Power!”, resulting in increasing numbers of Linux “bibles”, most of which are just as difficult to follow as the original and not nearly as imaginative. In either case, the context is most often distorted, if presented at all. Then again, there are exceptions."

Running changed my life

When I was running today, I was pondering my running habit. It's the end of 2009 and a good opportunity to retrospect my life, especially the running habit.

I started running from about 2007, to prepare for Vancouver Sun Run.  That's the first time I seriously start running and preparing for a race.  Before that, I was running in gym during work-out as a warm-up.  I used to run 3 times a week with 30 minutes covering 5k, on and off.  I trained together with Kenneth, a pretty good long time runner in our company.  We ran every Monday at lunch time.  My plan was to finish Sun Run within 60 minutes. We followed the training plan created by Kenneth, ran about 15-25 minutes each session, plus warm-up and cool-down.  During the training session, my confidence was built up gradually.  One night, I tried to run 10k on the treadmill in the gym of our apartment and I made it.  I can still remember how excited I was and I was anxious to tell Kenneth that I had made my first 10k in my life on treadmill.  I really believed that I can finish Sun Run 10k. The Sun Run wasn't too bad and I made it in 56:56 the first time.

I wasn't a runner at all in my early time.  I run sometimes in the morning, usually 2k, urged by my parents in middle school.  I was bad at running, jumping, because I had no interest and I thought I had no talent in them.
In my university, one roommate who is an avid runner run for 10 years.  He went out for a running almost every night.  He didn't inspire me but his persistence had impressed me.  I found the first time that running can be so addictive to a person.  I started running at the fourth year after I recovered from a severe headache due to nose inflammation and lack of activities.  I ran couple of times at night.  I don't remember the details, but I thought that it wasn't too bad as I had no bad memories.

The second time I tried to run was during my GRE preparation.  As Mr. Yu Minhong mentioned, you may run 2,400m every night to encourage you to score 2,400 during the GRE test, which is the 100%.  I am a kind of guy easily motivated and I started running again.  I don't know how much I ran every night, but I do remember that I ran at least half an hour in the humid and hot summer night, almost every night.  At that time, I found running not boring to me, as my brain wasn't rest and I can think of anything during the running.

My interest in running resumed after the first Sun Run, but hadn't yet formed a habit of running.  The second year I attended Sun Run with a better time of 51:56.  That's a bit improvement to me and my interest in running was ignited eventually.  I was very confident that I can do a better job in running.  I decided to pursuit a higher goal of running.  I registered the Victoria Half Marathon in the Fall.  And I then attended the running clinic of the running room.  I was training for the half marathon in the summer time.   I did couple of long run from 12k to 16k.  I was confident again that I could made the half marathon.  At the same time, I had purchased the Garmin 305 running watch and two pairs of professional running shoes.  I checked the runner's forum daily to get inspired by other runners' stories. I went to Victoria with my parents to attend my first half marathon race in my life.  The experience was great to run a race with thousands of runners, in a beautiful city full of scenic views during the race. I made the race in 1:56:xx, which gave me a good boost of running enthusiasm as I could finish my first HM in 2 hours.

I kept running after the race and I had attended the Harley to Harrison 100K relay together with other 7 runners.  I was the first leg of the relay.  I got up at 4am in the morning and started the race around 6am. Our team did pretty good, ranked No. 5 in non-professional runners.  Like a miracle, I hadn't had any serious injury in my running, maybe because I hadn't pushed me too hard. :-)

The beginning of 2009 unravel the climax of my running habit for my 34 years of life.  I had registered the Vancouver Marathon 2009 after I finished the Victoria half marathon.  I started training with my own plan, a confident and aggressive plan.  I planed to finish my first marathon in 4 hours, which is not impractical based on my time of half marathon.  I started my training in January, when the road were still covered with snow. I ran downhill from the top of Burnaby mountain, which is really a bad idea.  I injured my left knee in the second time I ran downhill.  The injury turned out to be the first serious injury of running, ITBS.  I felt the pain during my training on Burnaby lake and I had to cut my training plan.  I heavily cut back my mileage and run very slow with Ying in the lunch time to get a slow recovery.  I did massages and bought supplements to help the recovery of the knee.  I did a long run in March for about 20 miles. I did it slowly and did no harm to my knee.  After that, I had confidence again to finish my first marathon, although my goal had been adjusted to just finish strong, instead of 4 hours.  The Sun Run added some more confidence in my running. I finished my 3rd Sun Run within 50 minutes.

The Vancouver Marathon was my first marathon.  The journey had been covered in my previous post "Vancouver Marathon".

My running interest kept going high after the first marathon. I then registered the Okanagan Marathon in Fall. This time, I didn't want to be too aggressive.  I strictly followed the Hal Higdon's 18 weeks marathon training plan. I only missed 2-3 times running in the whole 18 weeks' plan.  I can still remember that how I got up very early in the morning to finish my 12k, 20k running plan during my vacation to Ucluelet, how I stayed late to run 11k watching the sunset, how I managed to finish the 20 miles running on treadmill, how I run freely in the downpour of rain...  I am still amazed at my capability to finish the 18 weeks' plan rigorously. It's a life changing experience and the training really paid off.  I exceeded my best estimate during the race. The details of the race is recorded in my post "Okanagon Marathon PR'ed".

My life is completely changed after two marathons.  I am now a very confident person in running.  I also believe that with proper plan and preparation, people can reach targets that they can't even think of in the beginning. I learned a lot from running and it benefits me both physically and mentally.  Running changed my life forever.

Boxing day

We went out today to check out the busy boxing day.   There is as many people as before this year, due to the impact of financial crisis.  Still a lot of people in Walmart and Superstore.  Guess people are in favor of bargain store in this situation.

Urban Network Down again

Last night, the Internet at my home was down again.  I left a message to urban network.  They called me that the network was recovered last night around 2am. I hate Urban network.  It's network is really unstable.  Down once a month.  I hate it.  I'll switch to Shaw cable soon.

Interesting English Idioms

When you read books or watch movies, you sometimes bump into some interesting English idioms.  I'd like to record some idioms or phrases I learned in this post.

Those idioms or phrases can't be interpreted literally.  Some of them are just daily English that I don't know of.

white elephant: expensive but useless stuff
cut the cheese: fart
bowel movement: pooh
smooch: kiss and hold each other closely

Survivor, RCMP and Boxing Day

Survivor:

I missed the seasonal finale of the latest Survivor: Samoa last night.  I thought it is on TV tonight, but I am wrong.  Anyway, I have downloaded the latest episode and will watch tomorrow.

(updates)

I just watched the seasonal finale of the Survivor: samoa with Linda  this morning.  As I expected, Russel entered the final three.  However, he didn't win the million dollar eventually, instead, Natalie won it.  This is somehow out of my expectation, but it still makes sense.  The producers pushed Russel  as the most controversial and debatable player in this season.  Russel is "evil", but he is really a seriously player in this show.  I can understand that most of the jury don't like him as he had introduced a lot of negative impact to the game.  However, it is his way of playing this game.  He entered the final three because of his strategic playing and he lost because he had offended other players.  Nobody likes be played or manipulated by a single powerful player in the show and they revenged eventually by voting for Natalie.  Interesting, for audience like me, Russel was voted the player of the show and won 100k.  Anyway, this season is interesting.  Everyone was played by Russel, actually, by producers.  Producers love to see this kind of players in the show as they are provocative and eyeball attractors. I guess producers intentionally broadcast a lot scenes of the "evil" behavior of Russel.  Anyway, as audience, we love the dramatic moment and uncertainty of the show.  That's the main reason I love watching reality show.


RCMP:

I've checked the application procedure of RCMP as I am interested in this type of career.  You have to pass a sort of physical assessment, just like the military entrance exam.  I think that I am capable of passing the assessment after my work out this year.

The basic measurement includes:

* run 5 km in 22 minutes
* push-up 20
* pull-up 6
* bench press 100% weight

The superior standard is:

* run 5 km in 19 minutes
* push-up 70+
* pull-up 18+
* bench press 150% weight

You will be paid $500 per week during the 22 weeks cadet academy training. After the training, if you can pass all the exams, you will be employed.  The starting salary is about $46,000 annually and will increase to $76,000 in three years.  Basically, $10,000 raise each year, which is not bad at all.  Think about it, you are guaranteed $76,000 per year after 3 years.  With all the benefit and retirement pension plan, it is quite a good career direction once you are both physically and mentally ready for this job.  RCMP is like FBI in the states.  The job could be quite interesting, better than the boring corporate jobs.

Boxing Day:

I've ordered a portable harddrive from bestbuy.ca.  My wishlist includes:

* external card reader
* some books
* a lamp for reading

New year's resolution

To discuss the new year's resolution in this post.

* Get ready for the baby girl
* Fitness workout, try to lose 20 lbs, think about fitness trainer certificate
* Vancouver marathon 2010, and one more in fall
* New job opportunity
*

merry X'mas

Today is the X'mas eve.  I worked from home this morning, as usually we can go home after the lunch.

I worked out this afternoon in the gym downstairs.

I cooked a delicious dinner tonight and had wines with my in-laws.

I had vacuumed my apt tonight and cut my hair myself.

Seems a pretty busy Xmas eve. :-)

got my sony ebook reader

I received my Sony Ebook Reader PRS-600 last night and I was eager to play with my new toy.  I've downloaded a lot of ebooks to my reader.

The "calibre" ebook program is an excellent program.  I used it on my Windows and Linux platform.  The original Sony library program sucks.  It won't allow you modify the meta information of the ebooks.  The "calibre" supports most of the popular ebook readers on market. It easily detects your device and connect to it.  It support modification of the meta data and provides fetch news function and convert the news to ebook format, which is pretty convenient.

Another tool useful is the "chm2pdf" under Linux.  I can use it to convert the chm book to pdf format and download it to my reader.

Under Windows, if you have Acrobat (not reader) installed, you can virtually convert any document to pdf format by printing to the Acrobat printer.  I actually realized this point after I managed to install another universal document converter, which is not more than a very slow virtual printer device.

Anyway, I love my book reader, although it is a bit slower than my expectation.

Phoebe and Mike's wedding

It's Phoebe and Mike's wedding yesterday.  I was the "official" photographer. :-)


The wedding started from 4pm in the indoor garden of Best Western Coquitlam. It's a nice place for wedding, with a lot of green plants and a special arch.

The wedding was well planned by Phoebe.  She looked beautiful with the white wedding dress.

We then went to the Executive Hotel for the reception.  The food was great and I ate too much.
After the reception, the DJ arrived and the dance started. I actually danced for a while to burn some calories.

After weight loss, I found that I can dance better than before. :-)

Calcium

We went to see Dr. Zhang yesterday.  During the visit, we were discussing about the calcium. Dr. Zhang mentioned that spasm at night is usually caused by the shortage of calcium.  (My research shows that short of magnesium can also cause spasm.) The remedy is to take calcium supplementary plus magnesium.

Calcium exists in many food.  However it is not easy to absorb them by human body.  That's why children may take extra Vitamin D to help absorb calcium.  Runners needs more calcium, thus running under the sunshine is a good method, so long as you have sun cream covered.  Sunshine will help form Vitamin D in human body.

Many Chinese old ladies broken their bones easily as they are short of calcium.  After my research, I found many bone related problem are actually caused by short of calcium, like bone spurs.

It is very important to drink milk everyday to get enough calcium and regular exercise to beef up the strength of bones.

Baby's party

We went to the baby's first month party of Andrew's.  It's a nice and well-organized party.  In total, around 60 people, including Andrew's friends, Lynn's friends, and families.

What's interesting is I met my co-worker in the party, as his wife is a friend of Lynn.
The world is so small.  You may meet people from different background in un-expected places.

Also, there are couple of new babies in the party. One baby girl, and two baby boys, including Ryan.

The food was great.  All my favorite.

All the best wishes to Ryan and Andrew, Lynn and families.

experience of weight loss

I've recorded the lowest weight this morning since my weight loss program, 160.4 lbs.  It's 30 lbs less than my previous heaviest weight.

It's a good milestone to reach 160 lbs.  I am only 0.4 lbs away from my goal of 2009, although this goal wasn't set for a long time. :-)

The secret for my weight loss is exercise + diet plan.
You have to maintain a negative energy balance, which means less intake than consumed.

I am a workout fanatic now.  The body felt uncomfortable if no work-out everyday.
Weight training is the most effective way to lose weight as more muscle means hight metabolism, which will burn more calories after work out.  Cardio is also important.  It is very healthy.  As a runner, I am addicted to Cardio.

The diet plan is not complicated.  I am taking a low carb, low GI diet plan.  And I have to stay away from sugar.  For each food, I'll read the nutrition information, if the percentage of sugar is high, it won't be on my shopping list.

That's my experience and it worked well.

flashforward

I watched 10 episodes of the Sci-fi drama "Flashforward" last weekend.  It's the best Sci-fi drama I watched recently.   I would rate it as 4.5 out of 5.

The plot was based on the "Flashforward" novel written by a Canadian novelist. All human beings had experienced 137 seconds of loss of consciousness, due to some physics experiment.  20 millions people lost their life in these 137 seconds. Almost everyone seemed having some vision of the future 6 months later.

Everyone's life has been changed some way due the vision of the future.
FBI agents Mark and their colleagues are trying to figure out the reason and have unraveled some secret plan under the table.  Characters in the drama have also presented different personal issues, like drinking, unfaithful, post war syndrome, ...
The plot went to pretty tight and seemed plausible so far.

I believe that it had borrowed some element from Heroes, where main characters are people with super powers. The similarities are obvious. They both had some vision to the future.

I love the discussion of future and their impact in sci-fi novel, tv.  The dream and vision to the future may be the eternal topic of sci-fi.

kernel upgrade and merge

Come back to the office and worked a busy day today.

I have fixed the kernel module loading problem by fixing the bootmemheap module.  The kernel initialization code had changed the order.  As the bootmemheap has to be setup before the slab is setup and after the mmu is initialized, we have find a proper place to setup the bootmemheap.  It was setup in the timer initialization procedure, but now the timer initialization is moved after the slab initialization.  So, we have to use a early boot parameter to initialize the bootmemheap.  This fix is actually proposed by Dave and I ported it back from another branch to the 2.6.32 kernel.

I re-discovered the vmlinux.lds linker script and studied it again for the proper initialization order of the functions.

I have merged the changes from the main branch to the new chip supporting branch.  Will upgrade the kernel for the new chip tomorrow.

Agony of the toothache

I was fighting with the toothache and headache since last Thursday.  The ordeal is the most painful experience I ever had in my life. It's a "good" experience and lesson to me.

The pain started from a small crack in one tooth.  I wasn't aware of the crack maybe a month ago.
The slight pain caused by the crack was classified by me to the sensitivity problem of the teeth, which was a known problem to me. Until the teeth hygiene procedure was done on last Friday morning, the dentist had noticed the crack and asked me whether it was painful or not.  I wasn't 100% sure about the pain and had ignored it.  So, I stupidly answered no.  It wasn't painful at that moment actually. I won't realize the revenge of the ignorance will come that soon.

I had since made an appointment with my dentist to fill the crack on Monday morning.  Thus, I thought I am settled and the treatment wasn't too far from Friday. I got a cold in the meantime. The toothache was getting worse since Friday night.  I had to take Advil to help the sleep.  Daytime in Saturday wasn't that bad.  I felt the pain a little bit, but the night after the party is really the climax and nightmare.  I went to TK's X'mas party with Linda. We had great food and I drank a glass of red wine, which is the best catalyst of the toothache.  The party was filled with fun and it was the best company X'mas party I ever had. During the trip back home, the toothache and the following headache finally strike me down in the cab and the whole night was ruined. I can't help moaning in the cab because of the sharp and lasting pain in my left face.  I held a tight fist and the whole body to resist crying out of the pain.

The pain was originated from the deep bottom of the tooth with crack and it spread to the upper part till the top of the ear.  I felt like someone was pulling my nerve relentlessly, the pain come and went like tide.  Sometimes strong and sometimes weak.  When I got home, I had tried all kinds of methods to help resist the pain, like massage the head, ice the face, or play dead. I had only a few minutes for a short recover and I had to prepare the next wave of pain.  I can hardly sleep on Saturday night.  The urge of calling 911 to get immediate treatment popped up from my head couple of times in the night.  Only till the dawn of Sunday, I fell asleep eventually with the help of Advil and Tylenol, or the exhaustion helped it. Oh, my God.  I will convert myself into a devout Christan if God had helped me that night.

I didn't go out on Sunday and just stayed home watching TV.  The daytime was somehow not too bad. The pain attacked me several times.  After the dinner, the pain was coming precisely every hour, lasting 5-10 minutes. I had to sit idle and withstand the pain until it receded.  The better part was I knew that it will last 10 minutes and come again one hour latter.  That gave me a small hope of one hour's painless life.  The next hour, the pain come back again and the life was suffering again.

When I laid down on the bed that night, the pain was coming sooner than ever.  Almost every 10-15 minutes, I had to hold my hand tightly, grab my arm or leg, moan a little bit to relief the pain.  I had cursed why the night was so long.  I had to sit up and the pain was slightly better when my body was up. The whole left face was numb and hot. Man, I sympathize now why some patients had to seek for solace from pot.  The marijuana may temporarily relief the unbeatable pain of those patients. I took Advil and it didn't help at all.  I finally fell asleep again for a few hour early this morning.

The dentist told me that I had to do the root canal treatment to get rid of the bad tooth nerves on that cracked tooth.  The pain was caused totally by the dying tooth nerves.  My tooth nerve, it punished me as I had abandoned it at first without proper treatment of them in the first place.  After sitting on the operation chair in a stationary pose uncomfortably for two hours, the root canal treatment was finally finished. During the treatment, I had made my mind that I have to be very careful with my teeth afterward, be very gentle to them, to take good care of them, to cure them for any small problems.  They will treat you they way you treat them.

I don't want to endure the agony of the toothache anymore.  It's unforgettable in my whole life. I just need to "enjoy" it once and that's more than enough.

kernel upgrade

I am working on kernel upgrade to 2.6.32 today.  Ported all our patches and working on API changes.  Looks promising and I hope I can finish it by tomorrow.

I interviewed 3 applicants today.  Two of them are pretty good and ranked No.1 and 2 so far.

some misunderstood sayings

I was discussing the six most misunderstood traditional sayings in China with Linda tonight.  I searched the Internet and found the original sayings.


Sometimes, people only know a part of the original sentence and make use of it, regardless of the original meaning of the whole sentence.  That's how the misunderstanding happens.


原句：“或曰：‘以德报怨，何如？’子曰：“何以报德？以直报怨，以德报德” ————《论语 宪问》 

原句：。“子曰：兴于诗，立于礼，成于乐。子曰：民可使由之，不可使知之。”——————《论语·秦伯》 


原句：量小非君子，无度不丈夫。——————民间谚语联对 

原句：吾生也有涯，而知也无涯，以有涯随无涯，殆已 ——————《庄子·养生主》 


原句：相濡以沫，不如相忘于江湖——————《庄子·大宗师》 

原句：天地不仁，以万物为刍狗，圣人不仁，以百姓为刍狗——————《道德经》 

Weather, Amazing Race, and Final Destination

Today's highest temperature is around 1 degree and the lowest is as low as -6 degree.  It's quite a cold winter, at least in December.  This week the temperature is forecast to be high 0 and low -7.  It's like Calgary in Vancouver.

The climate is changing so fast every year.  Last year, we got snow as early as later November.  This year, the November is full of rains.  It's sunshine since the first day of December, but the weather is getting colder. Who knows what gonna happen each year with the global climate changed faster than ever.

I watched the seasonal finale of "Amazing Race" last night.  As I expected and forecast, Meghan and Cheyne won the 1 million dollars. They had won a lot of legs in this season.  It is said that they are the one of the winningest in the history of amazing race.  That's great and I am fan of them.  This couple are intelligent, hard working and quite cooperative.  They deserve the winning.

I had also watched the "Final Destination IV" yesterday.  It's the fourth one of the film series.  As the previous three, it's filled with various brutal and bloody death scenes.  I guess audiences are entertained with the various death scenarios, and was trying to challenge the director's imagination and creativity on the death events.  This one has introduced something a bit different.  The main character seemed relieved and saved his girlfriend by saving life of a lot others.  However, the destination is destined.  They can't escape it at the end.  As said by the character, "we probably shouldn't be here from the very beginning", and they died.

long run

I did my first long run in the winter season.  Today is a day with nice weather.  Sunny but not very windy in the morning.  I got up at 8:30am and went out without any breakfast.  I ran 10 miles in 1:26:39. The running was great.  I covered myself with gloves, head band, and a windshield jacket.  It's cold, but running was smooth.  I actually met several runners on the road. After the running, I had recorded the lowest weight since my training, 162.6lb.  That's the weight after long run without drinking and snacks.  So, it is the next record for me to break.

I need to start the 18 weeks running from the end of Dec.  So, I have 3 more weeks to lose more weight before the start of the training. I had a brunch buffet this noon, and I really felt guilty of having too much food in the lunch.  I have to skip the dinner for this.

My goal of the next marathon is 3:30:00. Based on the McMillan Running calculator,  I should set my long run pace to 5:18 to 5:55 minutes per km.  My marathon pace is 4:59 minutes per km.  I decide to set my long run pace to 5:20 from beginning.

Linux Kernel, Xmas Party, and Shopping

Too late last night to post an entry. So, this one is a bit longer then.

Three things to talk about.

The first thing is that, with the release of Linux kernel 2.6.32. Broadcom's Bcmring SoC is officially support in Linux Kernel.  And my name is officially imprinted as the maintainer of this architecture in Linux kernel's history.  :-)  I had made 1.2% line of code changes in this version of kernel and ranked 11th, among all the kernel developers in the whole world.  I didn't write those code, but I served as the gate keeper and liaison of the open source community and our developers.  Broadcom actually didn't not a bad job in support Linux kernel in this release.  It ranked No. 4 among all the companies that supported this version of kernel.

We had the Xmas party last night at Radission Richmond.  This party is saved at the last moment.  It's fun as we got people involved to play games after the dinner, instead of the old casino games.  The only issue is that less people were involved in the post dinner games.  It would be better to have more people involved in games. like team competition, that would be more fun.  Anyway, this kind of after dinner activities are not bad.  Ying won the second prize of the lucky draw.  Good to her.  But, she may have made the biggest joke of 2009, but answering question of how many transistors in our latest released chip.  She estimated about 1000, which is a huge joke, as of today's technology, the chip normally has transistors in the order of millions.  You can't believe that the answer is coming from an engineer working in semiconductor industry. What a shame. :-(

Went out for shopping this morning and met three friends in Metrotown.  What a small village of Vancouver. One is my alumni, one is my classmate in SFU, and one is my coworker.  Incidentally, all went to shopping in Metrotown/crystal mall at the same period of time.
I went to SonyStyle store to check out the ebook reader PRS600. This reader is a bit heavier than I thought.  The E-ink screen is interesting, which looks exactly like a paper.  Anyway, maybe my expectation was a very light weight book reader, or maybe the commercial of ebook readers looks so attractive, I was slightly disappointed about the book reader.  But I still decided to get one, for no other reason, just the convenience of carrying around a lot of books you can read.  That's the beauty of the ebook readers.

legal courses

I took two online legal courses today offered by the company regarding EEA (Electronic Espionage Act) and foreign business bribery.  Those are short courses, each took about half an hour to finish.

I think it is good to educate employee on those sensitive legal topic, especially for high-tech companies like us.  Employee will get some better idea on those legal topic with a short course, which is good enough to convey the basic concept and serves as a heads-up.

I learned that you are not only illegal to spy on competitors' trade secret, but also you have to be careful not leak our trade secret accidentally or unintentionally.  The foreign country business bribery, I've learned that the bribery can have a variety of forms, not confined to cash, offer of employment, special discount, or stocks are all considered some kind of bribery.

It's better to learn those legal issues if you want to do business in or with the US companies.

Busy day and "Never give-up"

I was working on the new toolchain today.  I've created scripts to build the buildroot-2009 toolchain and modified our build system to take this new toolchain as an option.  I've tried to build an image and the image built successfully with the new toolchain, although I haven't yet tested it.

I just sit there and working on my program the whole day, not much time to even get up for some water, before I realized that I was quite thirsty then.

Anyway, I can get an initial version to start with.

Just another discussion tonight with Linda about how to make thing happen when there is a lot of red tapes or hurdles.  The scene from my favorite movie "Shawshank's Redemption", when Andy received the first bunch of books from the government after he kept writing letters to them for a couple of years, jumped out of my brain immediately.  There is a lot real cases happened in our life or we learned from our friends that you can really facilitate some thing like immigration, visa application, or make things possible from seemingly impossible, like getting a job by keep trying and trying.  I believe that it is the spirit of insistence that eventually worked.

To overcome hurdles, to bypass red tapes, to pursuit girls, to overturn the initial refusal, if you keep trying and insist, you may eventually turns things from impossible to possible.  That's the power of "never give-up", which is also the spirit of Xu SanDuo in "Solder Sortie" Tv drama.

Sometimes, miracles may never happed, but most of the times,  you will gain something.  After all, you have nothing to lose if you got the refusal already.

I've also learned from running marathon, that if you keep running and have a good preparation, for a man like me who had never demonstrated any telnet or interest in sports, can eventually finish the marathon with a time I am proud of.

But don't forget a good preparation is also the foundation of the final success.

“不抛弃，不放弃”, 这是钢七连的精神，也是值得我们每个人学习的。

Thought from Insurance

I had attended the benefit seminar held in the company yesterday.  I had been pondering about the benefit and the insurance after the seminar.

As a permanent employee in a sound company, your employer will normal buy all kinds of insurance for  you, like life insurance, long term disability insurance, extended health care and dental care, travel insurance, and so on.  The consultant revealed yesterday that company averagely paid about $4,000 premium per year per employee.  It's a big number, out of my initial imagination.

With all kinds of benefit provided by your employer, you and your dependents are usually insured to stop you from worrying about any incident or misfortune happened.  It quite a humane protection of employees.  I believe the benefit is usually available to permanent employees. The self-employed or contractors may have to buy the insurance themselves.

The availability and coverage of insurance to working people is a remarkable difference between developing countries like China, Indian, and developed countries, like the US, Canada.  Although I am not knowledgeable enough to further discuss the details of the insurance and the difference, I feel like your life is a bit more secured in developed countries.  BS, that's sure.  That's why people immigrate to Canada from China, from India, leaving behind all their connections and relatives in their old countries.

Chinese traditional wisdom of life influencers

I read a blog post today regarding the Chinese traditional wisdom of life influencer.

It says:

One is fate, two is luck, three is fengshui;
Four is good merit, five is study;
Six is name, seven is looking, eight is god worship;
Nine is making friends with good persons, ten is health.

In the original form:

一命二运三风水，
四积功德五读书，
六名七相八敬神，
九交贵人十养生。

This little poem is the concentrated old wisdom of Chinese about what may impact your life.
They are ordered in the poem.  I think the order represents either the importance or the weight of the influence factors.

The explanation:

1. People are born in different time and place in the world. Your life won't be easy if you are born in a poor country or in a troubled zone.  You can't change where and when you were born.  So, it is the number one.

2. Someone has good luck and someone has not. You don't know and you can't control your luck anyway. Without luck, you life may be full of obstacles.  You may be just lucky to win something or not losing something.  You can't control it, either.

3. Fengshui is everywhere.  You don't want to go to "bad" places very often.  I believe it is more about your environment. A good living environment can be very beneficial.  You may choose where  you live.  You may get more opportunities living in a big city like Beijing, Shanghai, New York City, and so on.  Even in one city,  you may choose where you live as well. You have some more control over your life now.

4. To do good things, like donation, helping others, or be kind, will reward you eventually, either materially or spiritual. This is what you can do in your daily life. To help others is like to help yourself.  Our ancestors have long belief in it.

5. To study and learn, this is what you can also do to change your life.  A lot of people have changed their by studying. You may not be excellent academically, but you have to learn more than just knowledge in books.  To obtain more knowledge is what emphasized in this point.

6. Your name may affect your life.  It may be true somehow. Your name is the first impression to others. It will accompany your whole life and used by others mostly.

7. Your looking, your body shape, your standing/seating pose, etc. are the next important things that may affect your life.  It is absolutely true.  Good-looking people usually get more opportunities than others. But you can change it yourselves by doing exercise, by beautify your face.

8. God worship is somehow interesting.  Although I am not a Christian, I sometimes do believe there may be some god some where who is overseeing what we are doing in every moment.  To worship a God, you may not do something bad, I think.  Otherwise, you may do anything you want without any reservation.

9. Making friends with good persons may change your life too.  Friending with bad guys may get yourself into trouble as well.  I guess everyone believe this.

10. Health is the last but not the least thing for your life.  You can't enjoy a quality life if you have no healthy body.

This is the best epitome I recently read.  The traditional wisdom may still serve a good needs in modern society.

Ice Age 2: Meltdown

I watched the movie "Ice Age 2: Meltdown" last night.  It's an interesting animation movie. I've watched the Ice Age 1 before, but not the sequel.

In this movie, Manny found his love and Sid got a lot of followers.

The main plot of the 2 is still a long journey of the friends to seek for an escape of the basin, which will be flooded by the melting ice surround. They met two opossums and another female mammoth Ellie who thought she is an opossum as well. Manny felt the responsibility to save his race and he fell in love with Ellie. The journey is filled with funny stories happened between these two groups and Manny's pursuit of his love, maybe the only possible love. He finally won the heart of Ellie at the end of the movie by saving the life of Ellie from an enclosed cave.

There are also evil part in the movie, but not much. Only two stupid seemingly strong fishes. Anyway, this movie is good for kids, so there shouldn't be much violence.

Sid had a show in this movie as he got a group of followers who worship his ability of making fires. There isn't much show of Diego in this movie.  I thought he had enough performance in the first one anyway.

I read an article the other day about the sequel of movie.  It said that based on two studies of university professors, the sequel movie will usually make 30% more money than a standalone one. It makes sense to me as Hollywood will only create the sequel of a box office winner, not a loser.  So, it already has a good chance of winning again, as the first one has gathered some fans already.

Well done work

I have done a good job today.  It wraps a good week of hard work for me.

I have successfully created a new svn branch, and delivered all my changes to support the new chips into the new branch.  I had been working on the changes in my local git tree this week. I have also figured out the kernel linking problem of overlapping .bss section and .text section.  .BSS section contains uninitialized static variables and .TEXT section is used to store code instructions.  The kernel has two configuration variables to specify the starting address of these two sections.  I just moved the addresses and the job is done.

I have also fixed the symlink creation in kernel to support the new chip, by adding directory skeleton structure of csp and generalize the function in makefile. So, the overriding mechanism of kernel configuration files should be in place now.

As the main maintainer of the new branch, to ensure the new branch is developed smoothly, I'd monitor it with automated tools, including:

* coding style check
* dos ending check
* license scanner
* auto build and nightly build
* pay attention to the configuration changes

The future work includes:

* synchronization with SV's development
* buildroot cortex-a9 toolchain
* simple hello_world program for csp
* kernel code coding style clean up
* upgrade kernel version to the latest
* create a kernel version of the nightly git tree to make sure our code will survive the kernel development

Messy build

Today's work environment is kinda messy.  I was about to create a new branch this morning to start work on the new chip support.  However, there was one broken build in last night's nightly build.  I was waiting for the developer to fix the problem.  In the mean time, another developer delivered a big change to the Ethernet driver and the build is broken again.  He tried to deliver the fix couple of times.  Only till the late afternoon, the build is finally working.  I have to postpone the creation of the new branch to tomorrow.  I don't want to merge fixes from the mainline to my branch just after the creation.

I am not fruitless today.  I've managed to add our new board support mechanism to the new chip directory.  The new board support mechanism is a beautiful design, with each board only initialize special devices and the common devices are initialized in a common function.  We can also support multiple board in one kernel image by using a smart function alias.

I have tried to enable initramfs and resulted in a linking error of .bss section overlapping with .text section.  I'll have to fix that tomorrow.

The workout this noon is great and I can still feel the soreness of my ab and back muscle right now.  The metabolism has been improved and the calories are still burning. Check out my fitness blog for some more info. Fitness Blog

Kernel porting and new chip support

It's another busy day today.  I ported our kernel to 2.6.31-rc2, cleaned up drivers, and ported all patches. I can boot to busybox with my 1107 board and ethernet is working fine.  So, basically, I have finished porting to the kernel 2.6.31-rc2.

I then working on the new chip support.  I grabbed the whole set of the maui code.  It basically contains their patches to the kernel and added core code.  I enabled the new chip configuration in our build system and then duplicated the directories and files in the kernel.  By using their default configuration, I can then build the kernel.

Looks like the progress is quite promising.  What's left include:

* use our new board support template and file
* verify the build of initramfs
* verify the kernel configuration, properly split the kernel configuration
* create the new branch and deliver the code
* a possible test on the FPGA with serial port, initramfs

then I'll work on the buildroot toolchain again, to get the cortex-a9 toolchain built on filer and then work on the external eglibc support in buildroot.

Just another busy day

I got up a bit earlier today to pick up my car from the Firestone Tire workshop.  They had replaced the bearing, brake stuff to eliminate the noise I found since last week.  It costs me $600+.  What a costly repair, and I have to replace the timing belt later on, which may cost another $400. Seems I have to drive this car at least one more year, so as not to waste my money spend on the car.

I got the air care checked in the lunch time.  Everything passed.  The carbon is higher than average, which may be a weak point next time.

I renewed the auto insurance after work and bought some grocery then.

What a busy day today!

Actually, I was quite busy today at work and had no time to workout this afternoon.

I cloned the git repository from mobmm group and figured out the baseline of the kernel version they used.  I then ported our patches to the new kernel baseline, in my local git tree.
The porting is done and I am still working on the kernel configuration and cleaning up the added files for the new kernel.  I think I should be able to get 11107 boot to busybox tomorrow.  Then, I can start to port the hana code.

I love git now, although I am not an expert yet.  But git is quite a great tool to manage distributed repositories.  I just haven't had much experience in merging, which is actually the essence of the git.  I mostly use git locally to keep track of the work.  It's convenient to create multiple branches.

ebook readers

[UPDATE: Dec. 15, 2009]: I have accumulated enough airmiles, so I have ordered my first ebook reader.  I am waiting for the delivery now.  I hope it may come before the new year, so that I can enjoy my reading during the holiday season.

I have added an ebook reader to my wish list.  Coincidentally, last Saturday's Vancouver Sun has a comparison of various ebook readers, including Amazon's Kindle and Sony PRS-600.

All popular book readers nowadays are using the EInk technology.  The EInk display technology can display content using no power.  The only power is used when you change the content displayed.  So, it is perfect for a book reader, as you won't need to display dynamic content very often.  The latest EInk display supports up to 8 degree of gray scale, which makes it possible to display some graphs or photos.

My choice for now is the Sony PRS-600. It is the second generation of Sony's ebook reader. I have done some research on this device.  The touchscreen really rocks. It also has SD card slot, which I can store a lot of books for reading. The built-in dictionary is also a must-have feature to me.  I've ruled out the PRS-300 version as it has no built-in dictionary support.

Compare to Kindle 2, the Sony eReader supports PDF format, and more other text formats. Kindle 2 is cool with wireless transmission, but I think that it won't be too much useful for me, as I have already downloaded tons of ebooks in PDF or other formats.  Kindle DX would be good to read newspapers, however, it is too expensive and too big to carry around easily.

I am accumulating airmiles to redeem my eBook reader.  It's only about 500 miles away from my first ebook reader. I am really anticipating it.

Zoe's Tale

I finished reading the fourth book of the "Old man's war" series - "Zoe's Tale", written by John Scalzi.  Zoe is the adopted daughter of the "Old man", John Perry.  This novel describes the story happened in the same storyline of the "The last colony", just from Zoe's perspective.  My first impression is that it's like the "Ender's shadow" to the "Ender's game".  Exactly, the author mentioned the "Ender's shadow" at the epilogue of the book. He also mentioned another novel in the same style as the "Ender's shadow", which I don't remember.

"Zoe's tale" revealed some hidden plot lines that not elaborated in "The last colony". I am mostly interested in the part about the Consu and the journey of Zoe to the Conclave.  The Consu alien is one of most interesting alien races depicted in all the sci-fi books I've read.  It's a race that worship fighting, with advanced technology.  But they fight with other races with fair technology. So, the fighting is like part of their life.

The series of the "Old man's war" is not bad.  Among the four books, I love the "Old man's war" most, and "The last colony" followed. I love the concept of implant the Brainpal computer into your brain and you can communicate with it at anytime.  That's one of my most wanted feature in the future, if possible. :-)

I am working on another classic war sci-fi book, "The forever war".

Fringe, Sous Vide, and Survivor

I watched 4 episodes of "Fringe" last night. "Fringe" is a Sci-fi Tv series, a sort of "X-files" with a stronger main thread (the pattern) and more open threads.

The main characters consists of a blonde FBI agent, a genius of MIT drop-out, and an old Dr. Frankenstein, who is the father of the genius. They are trying to figure out the reason behind the weird case in each episode, using "fringe" science, developed by Dr. Frankenstein 30 years ago.  There is an unknown "pattern" waved all those cases together.

The plot seems quite complicated with many myth to be discovered, such as the pattern, the secret of agent Scott, the "massive dynamic" company (sounds familiar with the company in Heroes?), etc.
It is an okay Tv series to me.  I would give a 3.5 out of 5. It is not as appealing as the first season of "Heroes".  Maybe it has too many open myth and has confused audiences.
"Fringe" also implies pseudo science here.  Most of the science used in the program to interpret the mystery phenomenon seems a bit too shallow to me. It's so easy to use the science. The writers didn't try to incorporate too much science into the program, after all, it is a sci-fi Tv series, not for real.

Anyway, I may keep watching this Tv series later in the weekend. BTW, the music of Fringe is good, not as scary as the X-Files.

The Vancouver Sun today talks about the "sous vide" cooking method.  "Sous vide" is a cooking method to cook foods sealed in vacuum bags in lukewarm water for a long time.  This method gives chef precise control of the temperature and time in cooking.  It is applauded by a chef as "the future of cooking".  I had heard of this cooking technique before, sounds interesting.  The food cooked by "sous vide" must be very tender with special taste.  I just remembered the way I cooked the "Salty duck" with little boiled water and low oven temperature, which resulted in tender and smooth taste duck.  Aha, I had somehow tested this cooking technique myself. I may employ something from this "future" cooking technique into domestic cooking more. It may be interesting to find out the results.

Last note is about the last episode of "Survivor: samoa" show on Thursday night.  Russell found the 3rd immunity idol.  When I saw that scene, I almost cried out "Unbelievable!".  This guy found 3 idols. It really stirs the tribute vote and makes the show very interesting! When John knew that he was chosen as the false voting target, I knew immediately that he may do something to revenge the other Galu people.  I can sense his fury.  Nobody want to be put into a possible dangerous position, especially without consultation and agreement at first. Russell is a powerful player in this season and the show is fun to watch with this guy.  I really anticipate the next episode.

United Way Week Done

Today is the last day of the United Way week.  We had the Rockband competition this noon.  After my encouragement and repetitively advocate, our team has more than needed players for the Rockband.  Including me, 6 players volunteered to join in our band of the team.  Anyway, our performance is not bad, but we didn't get a high score as we didn't dress up for the Rockband.  It's a lot of fun as you can see a lot of team members come out for this event.

I figured out there is another song of Oasis I knew in the Rockband, besides the "Dead of live" of Bon Jovi.  I may try this one next time.

I played the "toss loonie for liquor" game and I won it again!! I frankly didn't mean to win the game as I had won the liquor last year.  I prepared to toss 10 loonies for the game and was ready to donate all of them.  The first 2 went wildly nowhere, but the 3rd coin got very close to one liquor located in the middle.   I then tossed the 4th one to the bottle on the left. And you know what happened, it made very close to the bottle again.  I thought a bit and decided not to toss my loonie for the 3rd bottle, as I felt that I should give other people chances to win.  What happened next is dramatic.  Ying tossed her 3rd coin and it hit the middle bottle, but then bounced right to the bottom of the 3rd bottle.  Aha, accidental win of her.
I don't know why, maybe I am good at tossing loonie/toonie to win the bottle. :-)
I eventually won 2 out of 3 bottles.

The United Way week has finished today with merely 41% of donors in the office, much less than last year.  The economy crisis really hits us. :-(

(Post for Nov. 20th)

iPod Shuffle looks cool, but it is just so-so.

I have bought the iPod Shuffle couple of weeks ago as I had won $50 futureshop gift card. So, I am a user of the ipod nano for a couple of weeks now.

I think iPod Shuffle looks cool, but it is not a very quality product.

The good thing of iPod Shuffle.

* It looks good with quality outlook.
* I love the clip. It is easy to clip it on my coat when I was running outside or in the gym.
* VoiceOver is good.  It speaks English as well as Chinese.

The not so good thing.
* The battery is not good.
* The sound quality of headset is not good.
* The inline control is not as good as Apple claimed.  Many times it doesn't work at all.
* The charging is cool but stupid.  Not convenient.  You have to use a PC to charge the battery.

I've also read a lot of post regarding the quality of iPhone.  In general, I fell that Apple's product has cool industrial design and cool outlook.  But the quality is not a strong point of Apple.  They are not designed to be robust or for long life.  They are just consumer product and you have to discard them in 1-2 years.

Other small music player may not be as good as the iPod Shuffle.  The Sandisk's player looks like a cheap product.  Zune has no smaller one. There ain't many choice in this small market segment.

V 2009

 I just watched the first 3 episodes of the sci-fi Tv drama "V".  It is a remake of the 1984 Tv drama.  Seems that it is popular to remake the classic Tv or Movie recently.  Are those writers out of creativity?

Anyway, this one is okay.  I would give it a score of 3.5 out of 5.

The visitors are not as beautiful as claimed in the program.  They are just normal looking guys/girls. The main thread is their secret plan, which hasn't been revealed.  The people's anti-V organization seems just formed, with one FBI, one priest, one alien, and one punk. They haven't yet presented any hope of fight back the aliens.  Nothing fancy and high-tech have been demonstrated other than the mothership and the surveillance jacket.  The surveillance jacket is really stupid.  If the alien's technology is so advanced that they can come across the universe to visit Earth, why can't they just filter all the information on Internet and intercept all the useful images/videos?  What's the use of those stupid surveillance jacket?

Another question about the alien, is that if they have the body of insect inside human's skin, how can they pass the X-ray or other scan monitors like in airport or other facilities?  I don't think they have mimic all the inner organ and skeleton of human, based on the fact that their body inside are not human.

Anyway, this Tv drama seems interesting, but it is not as good as I thought.  I may still keep an eye on it and download the new episode, if I am available then.

Tower building for United Way activities

This noon we had a tower building competition as part of the United Way activities in this week.

Each team was given 15 pieces of newspaper and one scotch tape and you have to build a tower as high as possible with an empty Coke can on top.  This is a fun event for engineers.
Some team builds "X" shaped tower, some team uses complicated small column like structure. I used the same strategy we used last year to build a tower of cone shape. It looks like one column standing on the floor.  The challenging part is how to make it stand free as it is just one long stick.  Basically we just roll one or two pieces of newspaper into a tight roll and band them together using the tape to form a long stick.  The lower part of the stick should be stronger than the upper to support the tower.

I built the tower about 2 meters high.  Then I tried to create a strong base for it to stand free.  The base is quite challenging as it has to be strong and stable.  I created a triangle cone structure and tried to get it balanced with the upper long stick.  However, it failed to stand free as the base is not level.  The upper part tilt left and right. When the time was up, my tower still can't stand free. It's quite frustrating when you had built a beautiful tower with known working structure but it can't stand free. :-(  I eventually made it stand free by removing the stupid base I created.  The tower itself with the leveled lower part can stand free!!  However, as the time was over.  I had only earned 20 points for our team for building a tower, not earned the bonus points of height.  Anyway, our team had built another second highest tower among all and got 30 bonus points.  As a team, we didn't lose anyway. :-)

Actually, the email I sent out yesterday to provoke participation worked well as our team had 4 people showed up this noon and some other teams didn't even participate in the game.
See, the economy crisis hits everyone and people have no mood to take part in this fun United Way activities.  I remember that past several years we had more people working on the competition. The donation we got so far is way less than last year I believe.  The charity will have to go through a tougher winter.  I have made my contribution with 30% more than last year.

Best wishes to all charities.

btw , all facebook users can vote for their favorite charity to help them get $50,000 from a community giving program.

Some links here, to support Chinese children.

http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/784680
http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/963678
 http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/263934
 http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/670139
 http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/264316
 http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/388171

Salty Duck

I have made a salty duck (盐水鸭) again tonight.  This is my second try and it's a success.

Just got the recipe from Internet. Here is the version I used, maybe the first English version. :-)

* A fresh duck 2lbs, better to get a smaller duck without too much fat.
* Prepare the salt.  Put 100g salt and 20g Sichuan pepper into the pan and heated until the salt turns a bit brown and you can smell the pepper.
* Marinate the duck thoroughly both inside and out with salt and Sichuan pepper. Put into the lower chamber of fridge for 24-48 hours.  The longer, the salty. So, it's up to you.  My first try was 48 hours and a bit salty for me.  So, this time is around 36 hours and it's just okay for me.
* Wash the duck to get rid of all salt and pepper after 24-48 hours.
* Boil a pot of water and put the duck into the pot when water is boiled.  The duck should be submerged into the water totally. Put the lid on.  You may put a slice of ginger and some cooking liquor in the water.
* Turn the oven to low, like 2, for 10 minutes, after the water is boiled again.  The water shouldn't be boiled too much, just a little bit.  In this case, the skin of the duck won't be damaged.
* Turn off the oven and keep the duck in the pot for 20 minutes. The duck is still being cooked by the boiled water.
* Take out the duck and cool the duck with ice water or put into the upper chamber of the fridge for 5-10 minutes.
* You can now cut the duck into pieces and enjoy. :-)

No time to take photos, so I just paste a picture found on the Internet here.

ppstream box

I went to a friend's place last night and watched a movie with his newly built entertainment center.  The main working horse of his entertainment center is a PC running ppstream.  I have known for a long time that ppstream is a very popular p2p media streaming client with huge amount of content in China. He can choose any channel and watch movie in ppstream and project them using a projector.  What's surprised me is the quality of the movie.  It looks like HD quality, maybe 480/720p.  It's not bad when it is projected to a big screen.  The network experience is smooth, no lagging or any noticeable artifacts for one and half hours. Maybe this is due to the movie we watched is a quite hot one recently with a lot of seeds available.

Although I am not a big fan of ppstream, as it stupidly requires Chinese version of Windows to be installed,  the simplicity and smooth network performance did impress me.  As an embedded engineer, I thought that it would be interesting to come up with a simple box wrapped the ppstream or other kind of media player and sell them to North American Chinese community.  But the OS has to be Windows. All you need is just a network cable and you can go watching thousands of Tv programs and movies online.  However, the content is not legally provided by content providers.  So, I have no idea how can you sell those kind of product in NA. Maybe to port ppstream to some other platform, say arm, is not a bad idea if the source is available.  I just found that ppstream does provide a Linux version using mplayer as the player.  Let me give it a shot.

Run 400m

Not thrilled by the chilly weather this morning, I went out around 11am for an interval training today.  A bit of tiny hail assaulted the field during the warm-up. A team of high schooler is training on their game that I can name it. Everyone has a stick with net and throw/catch the ball with the net.

I decided to try the "Yasso 800" cruise interval today.  This is to run 800m in 3:30 minutes if your target marathon time is 3:30:00, which is my next target.  I did 4x800m, with 400m jogging in between.  Haven't yet checked the heart rate.

I then tried to run a 400m. It is the first time I tried to test my 400m running.  The first loop takes about 1:23 and the second loop takes 1:29.  Holy, the 400m is truly a challenging distance.  I felt exhausted just after 200m and struggled to keep breathing in the last 100m.  The second try was even worse.  I almost gave up after 200m.  I breathed heavily and my legs were sore.  Man, it's definitely a hard training to run an all-out 400m.  I checked the heart rate monitor at the end of the 400m.  It reached almost 168 bpm.

I just checked the mcmillan running calculator.  If I can finish my marathon in 3:42:00, which I believe is a reasonable time given I ran extra 400~600 meters last time in 3:44:00, I can run my 400m in 1:21.  That's a perfect prediction.   Vice versa, if I can run 400m in 1:21, I should be able to finish marathon in 3:42:00.  This calculator works like magic.   It's totally based on my current fitness level.  I will definitely use it as a reference to guide my further training. 

What's disappointing is that it predicts that my 10k will be finished in 47:19.  However, I have set my goal of the next 10k to 45:00.  Looks like that I have to improve my fitness level and train harder to reach this goal.  Maybe do some more VO2max trainings.  If I can finish my 10k in 45:00, it predicts that I should be able to finish the marathon in 3:31:xx, which is my target as well.

Body building anatomy and heart rate zones

I took today off following the Remembrance day statuary holiday. Tomorrow will be off as well. Wow!

Got up at around 10am this morning, I felt a bit guilty as I had just tried to establish a new habit of getting up earlier last night.  My excuse is that I worked out last night and was excited reading couple of body building books. Leg felt a bit of soreness this morning and I decided to listen to my body when I was laid on the bed. Anyway, it is obviously hard to get rid of an old habit, even for just a day. :-)

I tidied up my home this morning.  Everything had been messed around for a while. In the noon, I went out to for a run. My plan was to run 8 miles. But I had to come back home after 4 miles due to the strike of my intestine. A bio-break is not bad, anyway.  I kept running for another 4 miles. Not fully recovered from the 8 miles run yesterday, my pace is noticeably slower than yesterday.  Anyway, it's an easy/recovery run. You are supposed to run most of your mile in a week easily as today.

The sun shine really lighted up my run today.  I met a lot of runners along the road.  Seems the sun shine did a good job of alluring people out of their offices.

Last night, I was reading the following body building anatomy book.  It addresses some of my questions hovered for a while. I will try some new moves tonight to exercise my muscles.

I started to used the heart rate monitor to monitor my training recently.  The heart rate of today and yesterday's easy runs fall into the 60%-70% heart rate zone.  That's the zone of typical easy/recover runs. I also checked the heart rate of the so-called "interval" run of last Tuesday. The faster pace did boost the heart rate to the 70%-80% zone. That worked.  However, I was doubting why the interval training wasn't as hard as I expected.  The heart rate explained that the interval run I performed was just a tempo interval, not a full sprint interval, which should set the heart rate to 80%-90% zone.  The heart rate zone is quite actuate and useful in measuring the running effort. Here is a useful link of the Heart rate zones. I'd keep using the heart rate monitor to monitor my training in a more scientific training, I hope.

Based on my research and the current fitness level, I'd list my running pace and heart rate zone here for record.

Rest heart rate: 60 bpm
Maximum heart rate: 188 bpm
Weekly mileage: 25-35 mile per week

• Recovery run
• pace: 6:00 min/km
• heart rate zone: < 70% (<150 bpm)
  
•  Easy run, long run
• pace: 5:00 - 6:00 min/km
  
• heart rate zone: 67%-77% (146-159 bpm)
• 80-90% of the weekly mileage
  
• Tempo run, tempo interval, Cruise interval
  
• pace: 4:00 - 4:15 min/km
  
• heart rate zone: 77%-83% (159-166 bpm)
• Tempo interval is for beginners, Sprint interval is of experienced runners
  
• Sprint, Sprint interval
• pace: 3:30 - 4:00 min/km
  
• heart rate zone: 82%-88% (165-173 bpm)
• No more than once a week, no more than 10-15% of the total mileage.
• 2.5-4.5 miles a week.
  
• All out
• pace: ??
• heart rate zone: 95%-98% (182-185 bpm)
• No more than once a week, no more than 4-8% of the total mileage.
  
• I haven't yet tried this kind of training.
• 1-2 miles a week
  

The above list is based on my estimate and only a few data collected, especially the Tempo run and Sprint run, as I haven't done much these two kinds of training.  I'd collect more data later and update this list.

The power of habit

Quickly read a translated book called "The power of habit" today, I decide to write something about my thought.  I have long believed that good habits will shape the thoughts and characters of a person.  A proverb, don't remember who said, but I believed is "a action will become a habit, a habit will become a character, a character will become a success".  This book spurs my action immediately.  This post.

To create a new habit to overcome an old habit. I think that I should take some actions. One step at a time.  The following is a short list of what I don't like to do but I thought it should be good to do.

* get up earlier, at least no late than 8am (I get up at around 9am everyday, too late)
* write something/blog everyday (I don't like writing since I was a kid)
* my own business plan and action (I have planned for a long time but the action is far behind the plan)

To encourage myself, I listed some of good habits I recently created.

* exercise everyday (running, weight, or ab)
* have breakfast
* eat less in dinner time
* weight watching
* reading books

I'll start with get-up earlier and writing at first. Let me insist for at least 21 days and see the results.

To do something that you usually hate to do.  Like reviewing my writing, I hate it but I just did it with this post and it is really useful to correct the errors.  I just remember an episode in "Seinfield" that George decide to do the opposite of what his initial response.  It's funny and interesting.  His anti-self action landed him a dreaming job in NY Yankee and a girlfriend. :-)  The reality may not be that dramatic, but we could at least learn something from it.

A nice run this noon

Just come back from a 8-mile lunch break run, feel so relaxed sitting in the office.

It's the raining season of Vancouver. The rain just stopped before lunch time. The sky is still cloudy and a little breeze.  I dragged my co-worker, G, to run with me.  He run 4 miles and go back.  I did the same route again to finish my 8 miles in 68 minutes.

This is the 3rd week after my marathon and I feel that I am totally recovered now.  Last week, my right feet was hurt, maybe due to a faster run too early.
But this week, I feel very good.  I made a 4 mile tempo run on Monday in 30'43" and 8 mile run on Wednesday in 66'. I feel all recovered although the feet is still a bit uncomfortable in the beginning of the run.  When my body gets warmer, all uncomfortable feelings are gone.

I run about 30 sec. faster per km now than before the race. I don't know whether it is because the marathon gave me more confidence or because the nice cool weather is a booster.

Anyway, the cool autumn is really a good season of running. Keep going!

futureshop sucks!

I put my order on futureshop.ca as I got two futureshop gift cards recently. Not to mention that the website is difficult to use, my web order was unable to be processed by the stupid futureshop. I called the web support. The same stupid support guy told me that my phone number registered with the credit card provider doesn't match the record. That's really ridiculous! I shopped online for a long time using my credit card. This is a very stupid verification and reason of rejection.

People can have multiple phone number, like home phone, work number, cell phone. Who indeed remember the phone number I put on my credit card application long time ago? I gave them my cell phone number and it failed again. I have to finally cancel the order. I have to get to the store to buy my item there. The store sometimes have no stock. Futureshop is doomed to death sometime, with the really bad customer shopping experience. I doubt it is the bestbuy's strategy to let down the futureshop. Anyway, I never had a good shopping experience with futureshop. It really sucks!

Just hope I won't get any gift card from futureshop anymore.

Okanagan Marathon PR'ed

Just drove back from Kelowna, where I have finished my second Marathon in Okanagan and PR'ed the Sunday (Oct. 11).

First of all, gun time, 3:44:50, chip time, 3:44:00, with negative split: 1:54 + 1:50.

It's a small race, with less than 400 full marathon runners. The course is pretty flat, so people are coming for the qualification. Due to the negligence of the organizer, most of the marathon runners run about extra 550 meters in the course. I heard one guy missed BQ with only 5 seconds and he was so mad at the organizer. Anyway, I am very satisfied with my time and it's my PR. My estimate was 3:45 to 4:00 and I beat my strongest estimate even with the extra half km. My first Marathon was finished in this May in 4:27:22. It's a big leap and I feel so great.

The morning was very cold, around 5 degree. I have to put on my long shirt and pants. The gloves are quite helpful to keep the warm. I actually took off the gloves around 30Km.

I started with a pace of 5:23 min/km for the first 2 km. After the warm-up, I picked up my pace gradually to 5:15. Around 7k, I found the 3:45 pace bunny was just in front of me, so I was glad to run with him and hoping to make my best time of 3:45. The bunny run a bit faster pace around 5:10 and we walked a minute in each water station.

At 18k, the full and half runners have a diverged course. We got less runners now. About 15 persons run with the pace bunny initially, and it ended up with only 3 persons to about 28k.

The weather is getting warmer with nice sunshine. I found I was still full of energy after 32k. I decided to pick up my pace and wish for a negative split. I run at 5 m/km or less, which was my pace of 10k race I did in April this year. But I didn't feel exhausted until around 38k and I felt the wall. I passed many runners after 32k and no one passed me. That's just a great feeling and I feel more excited. The last 4k was grueling. My left leg and right feet were painful and I had to breath harder in order to bypass other runners. I sprint the last 150 meters with a pace of 3 m/km. I didn't hear the calling of my name when I rushed off the finish line, but I did hear spectators calling my bib number at the end. That's the most wonderful running experience of my life so far. I love it.

Some lessons/experience I learned in this race.

1) Training is the king. I strictly followed Hal Higdon's 18 weeks intermediate 1 training plan. I only missed 1 easy run and replaced 2 easy run with hiking when my friends were visiting us. No miss of any long run. I was running alone in the sunset, running in a down pour, running on treadmill for 2.5 hours, running in 6am during my vacation... I lost 15 lbs during the 18 weeks, which help boost my performance.

2) Carb loading is important. I had a big pasta with bread and banana the night before. Even though I didn't feel hungry Sunday morning, I still have a sandwich and a banana. In this case, I didn't feel depleted before 38k. During the race, I had 2 energy gu and I stopped by every water station except for the last two.

I learned a lot from this board and was inspired by many race reports. My goal is now set to 3:30 for my next marathon, probably in Vancouver 2010.

Option Trading Strategies

Bear spread

Assuming B's current price is 300 and you are looking moderate bearish on B in the short term. The current month is May.

you can:

1) buy one contract of Jun 330 Put at $35, cost $3,500
2) sell three contract of Jan 230 Put at $11, gain $3,300

your cost is only $200.

1) if the stock price of B goes up to more than 330 before Jun, your long put contract will be worthless and the short position won't be exercised as well.
2) if the stock price of B remain close to 300 before Jun, you can sell the long contract for a price of around $30, then you have profile of $3000-$200 = $2800 immediately.
3) if the stock price of B goes below 300 before Jun, you will make money on the long position, if it is not goes below 230, the short put won't be exercised.

Vancouver Marathon

Just finished my first Marathon ever in Vancouver. This is my virgin run of Marathon and I did it in 4:27:22 (chip time). This is in the range of my expectation, although I had hoped to be able to push to 4 hours.

I feel so great and so proud of myself to accomplish the first Marathon in my whole life. I can't even think of any running race when I was in school, coz I was so bad at sports at that time. It just proved that everyone can accomplish something if only had goal, did proper training and persistence. A quote from Mr. Yu Minhong, "My life is once again complete now".

Anyhow, let me review this fantastic experience.

Get up at 5am this morning. I get to the starting area around 7 o'clock. After the first 6 km, I have to take off my long sleeve shirt as it's getting warm and I was sweating with both long and short sleeve shirts on. The first 10k was around the stadium area and I took a biobreak around 9k. When I met Linda around 10k, I have to take off the long pants and with only short pants and short shirt on to continue my race.

We ran through downtown east side area and ran to Stanley Park. It's an unprecedented experience running around downtown in the forest of the building. The GPS didn't give me accurate results in the forest. The weather is gorgeous when we reach Stanley park, sunshine with breeze, not hot at all. I'd take the chance to enjoy the scenic view when running in the park. I realized that I was a bit slow as it takes around 2 hours 20 minutes for me to reach the mid-point of the 42.2 km. I was running among old ladies and big guys and girls. I have to speed up a bit to make up the time I wasted in the first 10k. I adjusted the pace to 5:45-6:00 and I started to pass people.

After Stanley park and we ran up to the Burrard bridge, I saw Edwin was taking photos. He told me that his wife was just passed through and about 10 meters ahead of me. "Caught up!", he said. I felt a bit embarrassed as I was slower than his wife. I caught up with her in about 30m and said hello to her. Then I speed up a bit again when we rush off the bridge.

The so-called "wall-hitting" didn't hit me when I reached the 30km sign. I'd reached the longest run of my life. Every step is a new record for me. I still feel energetic from 30k to 35k, although I felt the side of my hip is getting sorer and a bit pain. I passed the 4:30 pace bunny around 33k, so I knew that I should be able to make it less or equal than 4:30.

I stopped by every water station and gel station, walk a few steps and sketched twice along the race. The race becomes harder after 35k. Both sides of my hip are getting sorer and more pain. It may be the so-called "wall-hitting", but it is easier than I thought. After all, I'd never done a long run longer than 30k before.
The last few km are really challenging physically, mentally I feel good though, coz I knew that I can do that.

I speed up again and curse the long slope of Burrard bridge around 38km. People started walking and I passed more and more runners. Running off the bridge is fantastic as only 3km left. I encouraged other runners and felt encouraged by the cheers of audiences. I smiled and kept running. I ran faster and faster from 300m to the destination and passed other runners again. Audience were applauded for me and others. I felt never better than ever passed the finish line.

My legs felt very stiff afterward and I drink a lot water and gatorade then. As I said before, I should push a bit harder in the first half, but maybe that's the reason I didn't get any knee injury and hurt in the race. The Advil I took this morning may have helped as well.

This is my virgin marathon race and I will definitely keep going. Next time I should strictly follow the training schedule and incrementally increase the weekly mileage to avoid injuries.

I feel so satisfied and still excited.