Monday, April 23, 2007

City ranking by quality of MY life

If HK is 100 and Singapore is 0, then:

HK: 100
Shenzhen: 93
Guangzhou: 90
Taipei: 86
Hangzhou: 85
Xiamen: 84
Tokyo: 83
Shanghai: 82
Beijing: 74
Vancouver: 52
LA: 48
SF: 45
San Diego: 38
NYC: 30
Boston: 22
Singapore: 0
Hawaii: -5
Chicago: -25
London: -30
Las Vegas: -45
Manila: -120
Paris: -180
Rome: -200
Mexico City: -400

I've lived in 5 of these cities, and visited most of them, except 4.

g vs g

google vs god:

The comments are pretty fun to read. It represents what most (mostly US, i think) "nerds" think about this topic. I particularly like #83 and #89.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

一集日剧

(本来是兔屋那边的留言,顺便在这里recycle+expand一下)
最近刚好看了一集日剧。开始的时候,男女主角都只是11岁的小孩子。女孩父亲早年过身,家里很穷。她妈要出卖肉体,还为了还债,要求女儿让一个中年男人‘玩’ (不太知道到底玩了什么。不过至少男人要女孩脱光让他拍照)。这个男人就是男孩的爸。

后来男孩无意中撞破,一时冲动就杀了他爸。 之后女孩为了要保护男孩,就设计让警方以为是凶手时她妈,而且安眠了她妈一起自杀. 后来女孩得救了,所以她算是杀母了。

几年前也看过这种感觉的日剧,高校教师2。

这类黑暗的主题,可以属于日本的主流文化。 在美国就很罕见,因为社会保守。
美国的商业片,大部分的深度停留在日本幼童动画程度。

又,日本很多动画作品都有个主旨,就是大人世界都是自私,虚伪,唯利是图的。 主角如果不是小孩子,也是保留了‘童心’的。

又又,香港其实有不少谈‘颓废’,‘无奈’的作品。可是真的黑暗邪恶绝望的片子也很少见。

Friday, April 06, 2007

LCDs @work

At work I have two 24in LCDs for my linux workstation and one 20in for my notebook. Recently, I'v seen some new hires getting 30in LCDs (those at resolution 2560x1600, requiring dual-DVI interface). I'm sure I can get one of those too if I make a request. I'd think we're likely the first company to move towards 30in LCD as standard equipment for all engineers. (I'm sure some graphics-rendinerg places full of power mac pro's got these a year ago though.) .
This is in comparison to most valley companies still stuck with 17-20in LCDs.

This is actually a major reason that I don't have any faith in Hongkong's software industry (aka IT). I heard many HK IT companies are still stuck with 15in-17in LCDs. The managers (and bosses) there won't approve a 20in LCD (probably just HK$3K these days?), for emplyees earning HK$20-30K/month. (It will pay for itself in 10 months, only if that 20in LCD improves productivty by 1%.) These managers just don't care about the 'productivity' of the employees. Or they might think that employees just have constant productity regardless of any external factors, and the only measure they care is the number of hours in office?

At one point, I even considered interviewing for a pretty big and well-known IT place in HK (where I have some friends), try to get an offer (probably not too hard), and then tell them people who've worked at a good company in US won't join them, just because of their ridiculously primitive office computers. The screen size of LCDs matters a lot to me personally. I don't think I'd join any company that force me to use sub-20in LCDs, ever. Just like I won't consider any pure-windows company, as well.

PS. Engineers are considerd 'first-class citizen' at my company. For example, only engineers can request those 30in LCDs. Non-engineers like sales, HR, and marketing have to live with smaller LCDs.