【 以下文字转载自 SanFrancisco 讨论区 】
发信人: perse (盐), 信区: SanFrancisco
标 题: 不用吵了. 2009湾区最佳餐馆
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Mon Feb 15 03:41:00 2010, 美东)
网上评选活动圆满落幕...
粤菜前三: 顺峰, 富毫, 鲤鱼门
川菜前三: 川聚一堂, 麻辣诱惑, 五粮液
江浙菜前三: 上海人家, 名厨, 苏杭
台湾菜前三: 台湾小馆, 小刘清粥, 丰裕清粥
北方菜前三: 小肥羊, 一条龙, 状元楼
最佳用餐环境: 红翻天
主办: 北美新浪美食, "品" 杂志
1986年11月，三个当年的右派分子许良英、刘宾雁和王若望，联名发起开一个“反右运动历史学讨论会”，向一些人发出了邀请信。邀请信说：“1957年的反右运动，即将满三十周年了。反右运动是值得研究的，...“费孝通收到邀请信后，在1987年1月初举行的一次民盟的会议上要求民盟全体成员不要参与刘宾雁等发起的反右三十年纪念活动，要求大家“汲取1957年的教训“，并把他收到的这封邀请信交给中共中央。
朱正 1957：知识分子的解构与重组，读书 2008 年第 1 期
Koi Palace
Serramonte Plaza
365 Gellert Blvd
Daly City, CA 94015
650-992-9000
Koi Garden
Ulferts Center
4288 Dublin Blvd, #213-217
Dublin, CA 94568
925-833-9090
Koi Palace
Thunder Valley Casino
1200 Athens Ave
Lincoln, CA 95648
916-408-7777
Just Koi
Ulferts Center
4288 Dublin Blvd, #120
Dublin, CA 94568
925-833-3938
清真老北京
3232 Vicente Street, San Francisco, 94116 415-564-3481
At 43rd Avenue. Two blocks north of SF Zoo. A few blocks from the coast.
Recommended for some event. I didn't try it.
Exit I-80 at San Pablo Dam Rd, turn West. About 1 block, a shopping complex on North of street. Food is OK. 700 San Pablo Towne Ctr Ste 700 San Pablo, CA 94806 (510) 965-1788
Good for lunch; under $10. Within 1 or 2 blocks of the Powell BART station. On the north side of Powell street.
A violent thunderstorm is going on as I'm writing now, right here in Chicago. I'm enjoying the safty of the not-yet-wireless internet and take some time write down a few words of reflections, as I'll have to return the book tomorrow.
I first came to know the name Georgia O'Keeffe in summer, 2002, when I
was interning at Los Alamos National Lab.
The artist has a high level of visibility in Sante Fe and Taos.
Connected to her name is the place called Abiquiu,
which I have yet to visit.
Unfortunately I was so ignorant that I only drove into town in one or
two weekends and saw a tiny, tiny fraction of the
fabulous art collection of Santa Fe.
It was only a moment ago that I learned there is a museum in Sante Fe
that is dedicated to O'Keeffe.
The book lacks in both depth and breadth, but it contains nice pictures.
I really like her reductionist style.
There is a water color Red Canna that looks like Chinese
painting, which is unique in the book.
I've found several examples on the web.
The quality is terrible, of course, compared to fine printing. And yes,
even the most rigorous printing is second hand at best.
I really should go see it in the museums.
The book sketchingly touches on her relationship with Stieglitz. From the brief mentions one gets some sense of the artist couple's relationship, which is different from our non-artist people.
The artist once said, Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time---and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
GU Weijun (顾维钧) left behind a 13-volumn memoir, audiotaped in English, and gifted it to Columbia University. This memoir was translated into Chinese in early 80s as some sort of a governmental archive project. At the beginning of the memoir is a short account of his early years up to the time he finished studies at Columbia University and returned to China to work in the government.
During the Columbia years happened his first marriage. He was the third son and the only one not yet married. His father, in a typical, traditional urge, got more and more concerned and eventually arranged for a marriage for him and ordered him to come back and finish the wedding. Having been soaked in western thoughts and far from settled in heart, Gu firmly rejected the arrangement. His insistence saddened the old dude greatly, who actually refused to eat (for a day or so). At that time Gu's older brother persuaded him to accept the arrangement on the grounds, in addition to the woman being a fair lady, that one is obliged not to keep ones aging parents too worried. Gu receded, and the wedding went ahead, with the groom acting like an onlooker. After a day of ceremonials, Gu slipped away to sleep in his mom's rooms---not so much a show of rebellion but, alas, he was just totally detached from the whole thing! This continued peacefully and his mom showed understanding. Eventually at his father's insistance, he brought the lady to the States. Once in the U.S. Gu helped find a host out of New York for her to stay with, and helped her start learning English. According to Gu, the 'couple' were friendly to each other, only that they were never husband and wife; he went to see her often and treated her like a friend or sister. A couple of years later the two made official the non-existence of the marriage, without any incidents. The lady hung on for a few more months and then returned to China.
That is Gu's first marriage.
Years ago at PKU I borrowed the memoir by Gu's wife (also divorced; but not the one above), who was the heiress of an extremely well-off Chinese businessman (or entrepreneur) in the Philippines (or Malaysia or Indonesia, forgive my memory). The memoir was entitled 天下没有不散的筵席(There is an End to Everything). I didn't read the book carefully. One of my buddies did and seemed to have some thoughts triggered by the exaggerative rituals described in the book. Around the time the two of us suggested that each would send a human-sized cake to the other's wedding. Now that his wedding is a months away, I guess I'll just go there with empty hands, hoping he has long forgotten those promises.
Switched to Blogger's new 'Layout' scheme. It didn't really help me, and I ended up hacking webpage design again. But the new scheme provides more possibilities than the 'classic' one. I'll make small changes latter but for now I should stop fiddling with this thing. Added a contact at the bottom of the page. Still don't want to allow comments. After all it's not meant to be commented on, or even read, in the first place.
About ten years ago, 陈寅恪的最后二十年 broke into the desert called Chinese book market and was an instant classic. I read it from cover to cover only twice and was shortsighted enough not to secure a copy. Last summer during my visit to Beijing, I looked through several booksellers only to find, much to my disgust, a bunch of books all so uniformly and unimaginatively titled 某某某的最后XX年. I only recall one about 郭沫若 with the title, guess what, 郭沫若的最后二十九年. Needless to say, the original classic by 陆健东 was not among them.
That disappointment almost held me back when I saw 沈从文的最后四十年 in Regenstein's East Asian Collection. However it was one of just two or three relevant titles, so I took it home.
It isn't too bad.
Although falling far short of depicting the historical context, the book does reveal, in Shen's own thoughts and words, some of the reasons for his abrupt departure from literature, a career he had so deeply loved and in which he had risen to be among the masters of all time. In a sense, his decision to switch profession is surprisingly wise---it saved him much trouble, including betrayal to one's own integrity, which happened to so many, in the years to come. In a correspondence to a biographer of him who was trying to put together an international conference on studies of his works and life, Shen offered the following arguments:
《秋水篇》：“大块载我以形，劳我以生，佚我以老，息我以死。”孔子云：”血气既衰，戒之在得。“这两句话，非常有道理，我能活到如今，很得力这几个字。但愿你也能记住这几个字，一生不至于受小小挫折，即失望。你目下的打算，万万走不通，希望即此放下痴心妄想。你只知道自己，全不明白外面事情之复杂。你全不明白我一生都不想出名，我才能在风雨飘摇中，活到如今，不至于倒下。这十年中多少人都成为古人，我亲见到的。应知有所警戒。你不要因为写了几个小册子，成为名人，就忘了社会。社会既不让我露面，是应当的，总有道理的。不然我那能活到如今？你万不要以为我受委屈。其实所得已多。······
There is a short essay circulating on the Internet a few years ago (I did a search just now and found it still available online), entitled 如果是祖国让你流泪, that tells an episode about Shen after the Cultural Revolution. Briefly, the story goes like this: at the end of a relaxed, uneventful interview, the female correspondent caressed Shen and said, "I understand you suffered ill-treatment." These soft words, meaning to comfort, all of a sudden sent Shen into an uncontrollable cry.
While extremely cautious and low-key, Shen occasionally expressed disagreement with things he observed. For example, in a private correspondence in 1964, he complained:
北大史学系副主任周一良正在率领师生于海甸区掏粪，一定要这么做才算是思想进步，我目前就还理解不够。······Amusing to read today. Isn't it?
I became interested in reading Shen's biography because I couldn't understand his career switch while reading his family correspondences (or love letters, that is), 从文家书.
As always, the man's most tender words appeared before the woman even realized he deserved her consideration. Cold as she was, he said, 如果我爱你是你的不幸，你这不幸是同我的生命一样长久的。
Like many, he believed sincerely that she was something superior, something perfect, something certainly more valuable than his life, something that leaves all his talents, however exceptional they are, easily in the dust. Unlike many, his illusions were rewarded in the end. This eventual recognition of the precious makes the admirations all the more worthwhile and, above all, beautiful:
生命都是太脆薄的一种东西，······使我不能不觉得热情的可珍，而看重人与人凑巧的藤葛。在同一人事上，第二次的巧合是不会有的。我生平只看过一回满月。我也安慰自己过，我说，“我行过许多地方的桥，看过许多次数的云，喝过许多种类的酒，却只爱过一个正当最好年龄的人。我应当为自己庆幸，······
It's only because of this recognition that one doesn't feel foolish to continue admiring, dreaming,
山水美得很，我想你一同来坐在舱里，从窗口望那点紫色的小山。我想让一个木筏使你惊讶，因为那木筏上面还种菜！我想要你来使我的手暖和一些······
and caring,
我船又在上一个大滩了，名为“横石”，······这时船已到了大浪里，我抱着你同四丫头的相片，若果浪把我卷去，我也得有个伴！
As years passed by, strong emotions receded, and more and more small chats of everyday trivia found its place, as lovely as
仿佛他们怎么活下来永远不易理解。特别是那些大大的房子中在进行的事情，以及极小的弄堂，挤满了大小人怎么过日子，怎么做梦，永远不易理解！还有那种随处可见的“摩登女”，进出商店带了一大包东西是怎么回事？那么多东西用得了？······I always wonder, in this day and time when people have lost the ability and patience to write, "What will we have as tangible witness of the good, old days when we finally reach the age of more memories than plans?" Many a time one in unimaginable desperation regains the strength to carry on simply because there is one other human being on the planet who cares. Endless hardship as we may have to go through, more often than not it's a small thing that warms, assuring us that the life has been worthwhile to live. 张允和 (elder sister of 张兆和) tells a story that happened in 1969, when 张兆和 was already away from home; 沈从文 was about to leave home and join the labor exile; and there was zero certainty about whether the couple could meet again, how much time they would be able to spend together, and whether they could ever return home.
屋里乱得吓人，简直无处下脚。······我问他：‘沈二哥，为什么这样乱？’他说：‘我就要下放啦！我在理东西。’可他双手插在口袋里，并没有动手理东西，他站在桌边，我也找不到一张可坐的椅子，只得站在桌子边。我说：‘下放！？我能帮忙？’沈二哥摇摇头。我想既帮不了忙，我就回身想走。沈二哥说：‘莫走，二姐，你看！’他从鼓鼓囊囊的口袋里掏出一封皱头皱脑的信，又像哭又像笑对我说：‘这是三姐（他也尊称我妹为三姐）给我的第一封信。’他把信举起来，面色十分羞涩而温柔。我说：‘我能看看吗？’沈二哥把信放下来，又像给我又像不给我，把信放在胸前温一下，并没有给我。又把信塞在口袋里，这手抓紧了信再也出不出来了。我想，我真傻，怎么看人家的情书呢，我正望着他好笑。忽然沈二哥说：‘三姐的第一封信———第一封。’接着就吸溜吸溜地哭起来，快七十岁的老头儿像一个小孩子哭得又伤心又快乐。
Shen died in 1988. Before his 100th birthday in 2002, the 32-volume 沈从文全集 (The Complete Works of Shen Congwen) was published. Zhang was the editor-in-chief. Their second son did much work.
我们相爱一生，一生还是太短。
said Shen.
I had the following observations regarding the formatting details of BibTeX database files as I was writing a script to format these files. The script was abandoned later in favor of a tool I found that was developed by Nelson Beebee. But the observations are still valid.
Everything is treated as plain text comment and is ignored. Nothing with cause trouble.
However, a sequence of ' @ singleword {' will be assumed to be lauching an entry and will cause trouble, if not properly finished.
In the entire bibTeX file, spaces and blank lines behave identically. Neither will cause trouble. When I say 'blanks' below, I mean both unless otherwise noted.
The entry can be surrounded by text, with or without spaces seperating out the entry.
Obviously, 'entrytype' needs to be a word (i.e., un-interrupted).
All five components, '@', 'entrytype', '{', 'key' and ',', can be seperated in-between by blanks.
However, VIM's coloring has trouble if '@' is preceded by non-blanks on the same line or 'entrytype' and '{' are separated or 'key' and ',' are separated.
Fields are separated by a single ','. This separating ',' can have blanks before and after it, but they are not required. If a field is not followed by ',', everything that follows in the same entry is ignored. A ',' after the last field of the entry is optional.
Any non-blanks (other than ',') between fields will make whatever follows in the entry ignored. The LaTeX commen symbolt '%' does not help.
Blanks surrounding '=' are optional. However, VIM's coloring has trouble if '=' does not follow 'fieldname' on the same line.
'fielddata' should be enclosed in properly paired double quotes or '{ ... }'. Single quotes can not be used for this purpose.
If 'fielddata' is a single number, e.g. 1995, the enclosure is optional. Page range like '417-432' is not a single number.
'fielddata' can be a single word abbreviation, not enclosed, that has been defined by '@STRING{...}'. Abbreviations can only be used this way, that is, standing alone without quotations as the whole data of a field. Abbreviations are typically used for journal titles but can be used for other fields just as well.
Blank lines, just like spaces, do not start and finish paragraphs. To force line break, use '\newline' or '\\'. To create a blank line, use '\newline\newline'. To create two blank lines, use '\newline\newline\newline'. And so forth. Of course this should be used only in fields 'abstract', 'comment', etc., although it is effective in other fields as well.
Math displays enclosed by
'\[ ... \]'
or
'\begin{equation} ... \end{equation}'
work as expected. They do not need the help of '\newline'.
Math mode enclosed by '$ ... $' works as expected.
LaTeX commands like '\textbf{ ... }' work as expected.
'{' and '{' are grouping symbols and have to be properly paired. They cannot be excaped by using '\{' or "{" or $\{$. I haven't found a way to make them ordinary characters.
'\' and '/' are special. I haven't found a way to escape them.
']' and ']' (not '\]' and '\[') are ordinary characters. So are '(' and ')'.
If the field uses '{' and '}' for overall enclosure, then double and single quotation marks can be used freely. Their proper pairing and nesting are required by language, but not by the bibTeX format or LaTeX.
If the field uses duoble quotes, ", for enclosing, then within the field single quotes and LaTeX quotes (`` and '') can be used freely. Any other double quote, ", will finish the field. Escape the double quote by put it in a group: {"}.
either
^@entrytype{key,$
or
^@entrytype{$
^key,$
^ *fieldname *= *{
},$
Came across these on the web.
((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0
A Dozen, a Gross and a Score
plus three times the square root of four
divided by seven
plus five times eleven
equals nine squared and not a bit more
--John Saxon (an author of math textbooks)
\int_(1)^(sqrt(3)) z^2 dz cos(3pi/9) = ln e^(1/3)
The integral of z squared dz
from 1 to the square root of 3
times the cosine
of 3 pi over 9
equals log of the cube root of e
--unknown author
呂著中國通史第二十五章古代社會的綜述
．．．此即孔子和其餘的先秦諸子所身逢的亂世。追想前一個時期，．．．再前一個時期，內部毫無矛盾，對外毫無競爭，則即所謂大同了。在大同之世，物質上的享受，或者遠不如後來，然而人纇最親切的苦樂，其實不在於物質，而在於人與人間的關係，所以大同時代的境界，永存於人纇記憶之中。
It has been an issue how to order the functions in a source file. There are several intuitive ideas, for example, by functionality (data I/O, graphics, etc), by the level of importance/abstraction. This is a problem once the source file has been put in version control (say, Subversion) because from that point on the ordering should be kept as stable as possible, otherwise it's hard to 'diff' different versions of the file.
Alphabetic order is not feasible as one often want to change the name of functions.
I've just got some ideas while programming in R. This applies to other languages that does not have a specific requirement of the order of functions. Supposing we're at the point to add a function to an existing source file, make a decision in the following steps:
O'Reilly's excellent UNIX CD bookshelf has ben put on the web at http://www.sm.luth.se/~alapaa/file_fetch/unixcdbookshelf/ I suspect it's illegal but it's very handy. (If you go up the directory tree of that person you'll see two other highly regarded books.)
An older version of the "bookshelf" is also available here, along with a bunch of other books.
I want to maintain one Google account only and don't like to keep track of a separate set of username/password for Blogger.
The switch was easy and I tested one key feature and like the outcome: the 'search' function really works now.
Deleted a dozen of old posts.
On my walk back from Noodles House, I dropped by the bookstore and had some interesting finds.
There's a book series called Images of America, of which a dozen Chicago-land titles were on display, subjects including Hyde Park, New Year's Parade on State Avenue, and so on. They're all light weight books, priced around twenty dollars each. The pictures are historical rather than contemporary.
It will be no surprise if places rich in culture and history get their way into this series quickly. A moment ago I googled 'images of america' and Amzaon showed me a bunch of hits led by San Francisco's Chinatown. There's even one for Mountain View. Had the series come out when I lived there, it would be a pleasure to flip through. Or maybe it was out, only I didn't notice?
The search also reminded me that Amazon is changing their way to display content of books.
There's another series that bear some similarities to this one, called Postcard History Series.
I was amused by an Out of Office Countdown Calendar 2007, which makes fun of George W. Bush with his photos and quotations. One quotation goes something like, Our enemies never stop thinking of new ways to harm our economy and destroy our country, and neither do we.
I grew up in a small village south of Tianjin at a distance where the radio spectrum was dominated by broadcast from the nation's once third-largest city. The pop music of the day was the so-called "traditional style of singing", represented by 李雙江, 于淑珍, 李谷一, and so on. Lee (SJ) had many beautiful songs for the sodiers, probably one of the most popular being 再見吧媽媽 (Goodbye Mom). Lee (GY) delivered the bad-mood-arousing 妹妹找哥淚花流 (In Tears I'm looking for You my Brother), theme of the movie 小花. I think Yu was notably senior than the other two, and her songs were played on the radio at least as often as the others, although she is less known among younger people these days. I liked her songs like 邊疆的泉水清又醇 (Clear Springs in the Frontier) very much. If I saw her CD today, I would buy one for sure.
(Elementary school: Zhang Mingmin, Cheng Lin, Yin Xiumei, cartoons 'Yi Xiu' etc)
For middle school I moved to the tiny town that administrates our village. Every day I walked between the middle school and the high school, which was where my dorm was, and the two schools were separated by a big sports court (操場). It was all the more spacious in my eyes since it was the most formal (actually not at all) and the biggest I had ever seen. There were poles along the road north of the court, holding light bulbs and speakers. As I was on my way home each noon the rainy first week, hopping around small rain water ponds with hardly anyone in view, those big poles were sending out a somewhat penetrating female voice that sang:
沒有花香
沒有樹高
我是一棵
無人知道的
小
草
The program was 每周一歌 (One Song a Week), a type that was loved for years to come. The singer, believe me at your own risk, was 房新華.
(BREAKING NEWS, just heard on the phone from my mom: in a few days the town is celebrating its 50th anniversary as a county-level governmental unit, 農場, which manages an area about tenth of a typical county in the region. They have sealed streets in preparation for grand ceremonies which will take place centered on, well, the sports court. The national television station will come to make a special program of; star singers have been invited; some will come and some others won't, for disatisfaction with the compensation, according to rumor. People are busy fighting, in some cases by force, for tickets and things. End of breaking news.)
(Middle school: Xu Liang - Wang Hong, Lv Nianzu, Chen Rujia, Cheng Fangyuan, Guo Feng, Liu Huan 'the police in plaine clothes', Fei Xiang, ...)
(High school: Na Ying, Zhang Yusheng, Luo Dayou, Piano, Jiang Yuheng,...)
(Xinyang: Zheng Zhihua 'fisherman', Carpenters)
(Under: Zhou Huajian 'hua xin', Zhang Xueyou 'kiss you goodbye', Shen Qing 'youth', Lao Lang 'tong zhuo', Xie Dong 'xiao lian' 'yi lu deng hou', Michael Bolton 'said I loved', Luo Dayou)
(Grad: Zhang Huimei 'jian ai', Wang Fei, Zhang Yu 'the moon is to blame...')
(to be continued, hopelessly)
451 Plainfield Road Darien, IL 60561 630-789-6666
McFetridge Sports Center (California Park)
3843 N. California Ave Chicago, IL 60618 Phone: 773-478-2609
6152 W. Grand Ave, Gurnee, Il. 60031 847-856-1064
This is from the creaters:
The VimDoc project at http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net (or vimdoc.sf.net for short) maintains a hyper-linked version of the help files that are integrated into the current version of the software.
Most likely you'll want to go directly to he HTML version.
An Introduction to Display Editing with Vi by Bill Joy, the creater of VI. This is the best page to start with if you're new to the business. Probably after reading this one only needs to read VIM help, which is what I did. I started using VI in 2001 or so.
Seven habits of effective text editing by Bram Moolenaar, the main author of VIM.
To open several files at once and put each in a separate tab, use the
Check out the full
To turn it on and off:
To turn it on automatically for certain types of files, add this to the
Then create a directory
Once turned on, use -p option and all the file names on the command line while launching vim to vim -p.
vim documentation on tabs. The essential commands are the following:
:tabnew
:tabe[dit]
:tabnew {file}
:tabe[dit] {file}
:tabc[lose][!]
:tabc[lose][!] {count}
:tabo[nly][!]
:tabn[ext]
:tabp[revious]
:tabn[ext] {count}
{count}gt
:tabfir[st]
:tabl[ast]
:tabm[ove] [N]
:tabs
The new integrated spellcheck feature in
vim 7.0
:set spell
:set nospell
.vimrc file:
autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *.txt,*.tex,README set spell
~/.vim/spell for vim to hold personal word lists.
]s and [s to move to the next and previous misspelled words. Here is the vim documentation for spell checking.
Is there a way to mignrate this blog to under my Google account? I'm tired of keeping a bunch of separate accounts.
At lunch I checked out www.sina.com.cn, wondering how disgusting it has become. Well, to be fair SINA shouldn't be blamed for all the disgust, such as these ads in the most eye-catching corner of the font page:
北京大学人力资源总监班
北京大学CEO总裁EMBA班
北大财务总监班今日开学
北京大学市场营销总监班
... ...
... ...
Around 1993, when I as an under, a student questioned on a seminar,
I can't see the difference between Beida and an engineering school (我看不出北大和一所技校有什么区别)!
SINA has a section with links to blogs. The name that caught my eye was 胡因梦, the link under whose name directed me to a memoir episode titled What is true love? (Of course the link on the front page of SINA has a different title, which incidentally reads Why human beings need sex? Anyway, that's the price I pay for even visiting this website.) To my suprise Hu has become a spiritual mentor; the lastest piece on her blog is her introductary foreword to a collection of Krishnamurti's talks, which reminds me that this Indian philosopher appears to be in fashion right now in China, as I saw a series of his books (or compilations of his works) on display in a bookstore in Beijing two months ago. At the sight I was somewhat amazed, because I can't imagine one reading a translated Krishnamurti. (Let's put aside the quality of the translation, in which I have no confidence whatsoever.)
More than 10 years ago there was a room in Beida's library called "Social Sciences in Foreign languages (文科外文资料室)" or something similar. It was actually a small room hosting a small, unfocused collection. I visited the room many times due not in a small part to the several rather slim books by Krishnamurti (克里希那穆提). It was those books that let me for the first time appreciate the type of English writing that is extremly elegant and eloquent, packed with long setences of complex structures. (I'm not sure I will still find the sentences long if I read them today.) The thinking was deep, too, but the language itself was enough to keep me revisiting. A while later I deliberately avoided the shelf that held his books, for I was afraid I was reading too narrowly. I also liked a small book by the Harvard professor and John F. Kennedy's Ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, who died this April.
Around the same time there was a Taiwanese book show in Beijing. After the show, the books were conveniently gifted to Beida, which dedicated a room for the books. The room, called the Collection of Hongkong and Taiwan (港台文献室), was on the 4th floor of the north side of the library. One day, a visitor showed up and was stopped by the door-keeper, because she was not a member of the University. The girl apparently had no specific target books to check out, but rather was just curious about these books from Hongkong and Taiwan. She begged literally, Can you let me take just ONE look?
The door-keeper said, No.
There was another room in the library, called the Collection for American Studies (美国研究文献资料室), also on the 4th floor. The collection was managed by a female professor seemingly in her fifties, who did research on history of women's rights movement and the like. Sometimes it was a male door-keeper who was there, and he treated (and genuinely regarded, I guess) students as if they were his subordinates. Upon entering the room, the reader would be asked to register, on a log book, his ID number, name, and department. There might be one more entry for "purpose of the visit" but I'm not sure. One day I was so pissed off by this stupid thing that I walked ahead as though the registration book did not exist. The woman professor stopped me and reminded me to register. I asked,
What are you doing this for?
We're doing a survey, like readers from what departments are interested in these books, ...
she answered. And I said,
But you've been doing this survey for more than two years now.
Ah... the survey is still ongoing, ... ...
I don't remeber what else she said. I registered and got in.
Writing this I recall an ad published on magazines in the period of hightened security measures after 9/11. One high profile controversial measurement is that libraries should submit a reader's reading list at the authority's request. The full page ad is dominated by the figure of an elderly man with the help of a stick, marks of the elements on his face. The top of the page reads in striking fonts,
WE ARE NOT AMERICANS
After a suprise reading this, you'll find at another location on the page in smaller fonts, who have to read in fear. WE ARE AMERICANS who...
In my memory, managing the room with Krishnamurti's books was a very kind gentleman who had some minor problems with his legs. Occasionally a woman sat in for him, and she was nice, too. I think the gentleman retired sometime when I was still an undergrad there.
The blogger 胡因梦's introduction to Krishnamurti concludes,
读者在阅读本书时如果能放空既往的成见和认知，可能更容易和克氏的言语相应。若是能合一相应，你将会发现意识活动所形成的甲胄，在克氏无情的洞见之下一层一层地被卸除，而无染的本觉就这么自自然然地显现了。
What a pile.
My blog was praised by a friend, yes! I feel obliged to keep it alive. As Willie Nelson answers the question about "tip of longevity:"
Keep breathing!
My tip for a better-than-dying blog is, (sorry,)
Keep posting!
For quite a few times, I was disappointed by Google's Blog Search. The problem is it doesn't update it's search results. If I edit, rename, or remove an old post, the search result of its content before the change will still be there, and updated content will not be found at all. I reported this bug but the report got nowhere, which is annoying indeed.
I purchased some very nice books of (mostly Chinese) paintings recently. One of my favorite is 李可染. Li started with oil painting and was already a professor of that when he turned to Chinese paintings under two masters, 齐白石 and 黄宾虹.
(to be continued, hopefully)
Spent a couple hours cleaning the sensor of my Canon 20D. It's quite easy. I didn't practive before dong the real thing. Repeated three or four times. The success was obvious, although not complete. So I think it's responsible with my first-hand experience to recommend the now-popular Copper Hill method:
http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/ccd_cleaning
Related sites:
http://www.photo.net/equipment/digital/sensorcleaning/
CleaningDigitalCameras.com
Image Sensor cleaning Tips and Techniques
NetLib archive of free numerical routines
www.netlib.org
It is worthwhile to explore this website and know what's available there.
Some more comprehensive and useful (to me) packages include
The DOE ACTS Collection
http://acts.nersc.gov
Free, reliable, mostly open-source.
Strong on large scale linear systems, optimization, etc.
There seems to be no statistical routines.
NR: Numerical Recipes
www.nr.com
The source is known (as is printed in the books), but is not allowed to be posted in public.
The C and Fortran editions of the books are available online
as an excellent resource for learning about the problems and algorithms.
StatLib
archive of statistical software
Many specialized programs.
Learned from http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/~rking/R/help/05/07/9319.html">this thread in the R Help Archive. This is actually not an issue for R at all---R just saves a series of images, which is regular work.
convert -delay xxx ... xxx.gif
or convert -delay xxx... xxx.mpg
to bundle them into an animated GIF image or a MPEG video.
While creating animated GIFs with EPS images,
use the -page letter option for convert.
The utility convert is part of ImageMagick.
Creating MPEG requires mpeg2encode in your system.
This is freeware that can be downloaded.
animate,
again part of ImageMagick.
Play MPEGs with animate (I didn't get it work)
or xine (I don't have it),
or RealPlayter.
There's also a program called jpegtoavi.
I failed to compile it.
It is only a viable option if the resultant AVI file is smaller than MPEG,
but I doubt it.
10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday, Monday, and Friday;
10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, Saturday (if there's a private party; 10 p.m. otherwise)
312-742-5222
I hope to find an alternative. This one is too crowded in the weekend.
For any writing heavy on math, it's hard to do better than LaTeX (or TeX proper).
I first used the prosper LaTeX style for presentations two years ago
and wrote a custom style, called altai, on top of that.
The major annoyance of prosper to me is its mysterious overall layout
and its hard-coded A4 paper size.
Recently I spent some time on a new style file based on the
seminar document class.
I also compiled a documentation file
to demonstrate its usage.
I'll be happy to share it, if you know how to reach me.
This bookstore, launched in 2004, ships books from China and sells them at a price about 150 percent of the original price. For example, a book for 80 RMB may sell for $15. This is very good news for Chinese readers.
Besides the online bookstore, www.soyodo.com, which is being developed, they have mortar-and-brick stores in L.A., the San Francisco Bay area, N.Y.C., and Chicago. Several other locations are in the plan.
SOYODO Chicago Store:
St. James Crossing Shopping Center, Bldg #212, Unit 14&15
832 E. Ogden Ave. Westmont , IL 60559
630-321-9288, 10am-8pm, seven days a week.
Exit I-294 to West Ogden, past IL-83, on the right.
In Southeast Wisconsin: http://www.anythingwisconsin.com/secctrails.htm
With first-hand experiences:
(This plan will be updated, possibly greatly modified, around Dec 22.)
Warming-up cross-country somewhere on the road.
Downhill at
Granite Peak Ski Area at Rib Mountain
http://www.skigranitepeak.com
3605 N Mountain Rd
Wausau, WI 54402-5010
715.845.2846
Cross-country, or something new like snow mobile or sleighride, somewhere.
Downhill (tubing is also available here) at
Cascade Mountain Ski & Snowboard Area
http://www.cascademountain.com
W10441 Cascade Mountain Rd
Portage, WI 53901-9633
800.992.2754, 608.742.5588
Possibly some cross-country somewhere on the road.
I thought it would be good to take a look at the sample trailers of Animusic volume 2, while green beans were being heated in the pot, but was welcomed by an almost-empty page with this message:
Hello! Due to overwhelming interest triggered by New York Times writer David Pogue, our web site and online store are incapacitated.
Please check back tomorrow...
We appreciate your interest in Animusic!
That says something about the influence of New York Times. Missing the days with free NYT to read every day...
Maggiano's Little Italy
175 Old Orchard Shopping Ctr
Skokie, IL 60077
847-933-9555
516 North Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60610-4207
312-644-7700
Watched the movie Himalaya tonight. According to the organizer, it's a joint product of China and France and is a candidate for Oscar. But these may not be accurate. (I googled and found them wrong. It's a Nepalese film made by French and scored a best-foreign-language film nomination or the Oscar in 2001.)
The story, set in a Tibetan tribe, is very simple for even me to follow. The small village, Dolpo, lies deep in the Himalayas mountains. There's no vegetation---actually a monk, Nuobi, says he has never seen a tree. Before the onset of winter, the villagers would have to trek a long way to trade their salt for grain. The trip in the snow mountains is an exhausting and dangerous one, and it needs a capable leader. Problem is, there's a conflict this year.
The tribe leader died accidentally on the last trip. Since his death, his father Tinle, the retired former leader, firmly (but unfoundedly) believed that his son was killed by the deputy leader, Karma, in an attempt to assume leadership. Although most people agreed that Karma was the best and only person to lead the trading team, Tinle insisted that he lead and his grandson, Passang, be trained in the practice to eventually succeed his deceased father. No compromise was reached, and as a result two teams embarked on the journey. The team led by Karma is big and young, whereas those who followed Tinle are few and weak, mostly elderly.
The elderly team set out four days after the young, strong team but caught up from behind because Tinle decided to take a short-cut "route of death." In pursuing this surprise catching-up, they avoided a casualty only out of luck. Later, Tinle collapsed in a snow storm without being noticed by his team. Fortunately he was save by Karma, whose team was slightly lagging behind after a two-day rest. In the end, Tinle openly blessed karma as the new leader, and then died on the trip.
The movie has two selling points. One is the grand landscape of the Himalayas. The other is the primitive living conditions and the ancient way of fighting the cruel nature for the very basic needs of survival.
Recommended for the visual stun.
Seated in the dining hall, I opened the paper I grabbed at the doorway and was surprised to read the tile of this loverly, greenish paper: REVOLUTION voice of the revolutionary communist party, usa. What's more surprising, and amusing, is the fine print on the reverse side:
Revolution (ISSN 1557-413X) is published weekly, except for the 1st week of January, 4th week of February, 2nd week of April, last week of May, last week of June, last week of July, last week of August, 1st week of September, 1st week of November, 1st week of December, and last week of December by RCP Publications, 1103 N. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60622.
Prompted by a search about Trellis Graphics, I'm now reading a page on Edward Tufte's website about presentations and presentation software. There're comments by various people. Some are interesting.
Sarah Green emphasizes the usefulness and uniqueness of a large blackboard. But, alas, they're out of fashion nowadays and are simply nonexistent in many conference settings!
David Glover:
[On handouts:]
I like to hand them personally to students as they arrive at a lecture, especially if it's the first or only lecture I'm giving to a particular group.
Good idea.
Tufte advocates giving out handouts before the talk. Some disagree, concerned that they are a distraction. But I would prefer handing out in advance. If the speech is not captivating, nothing can prevent the audience from reading "alternative" materials, as one admits to have been bringing to every event.
Tufte recommends an essay from the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Scholarly Lecture: How to Stand and Deliver.
I didn't finish the page. The comments started in 2001 and continue to this day. It should be worth a look.
The Academic Job Search Handbook
by Mary Morris Heiberger
UPenn Press, 3rd ed. 2001, 227 pp; ISBN 0812217780
Reg has 2nd ed. at LB2331.72.H450 1996
Reading 2nd ed. online through UChicago at
http://www.netlibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summary&v=1&bookid=17282
Last Tuesday I drove to Ann Arbor from Chicago. It seemed to be the best time for fall color. I drove along I-94. The best part I saw is around the southeast corner of Lake Michigan, bordering Indiana and Michigan.
I drove back on Friday by M-12, then I-69, then I-90. On I-90 I dropped by the University of Notre Dame near South Bend. The place is nice. Feels like an oasis beside the big road. (I believe I felt that way simply because I didn't have a bigger picture of the area.) Buildings on the campus have a distinct religious feel. No surprise---ND is a Catholic university, "founded in 1842 by the Congregation of Holy Cross."
The 26th annual Humanities Open House, Saturday, Oct. 22 from 9:30 am to 4 pm.
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/openhouse/
This longish article was written for the translation and publication of an old book by the Russian anthropologist Sergei Mikhailovich Shirokogorov (Chinese name 史祿國) some seventy years after the book appeared. I found it a nice memorandum.
Shirokogorov advised Fei for two years, from 1933-1935, at Tsinghua University before Fei moved on to study in England.
Every time I think of you
I always catch my breath
And I'm still standing here
And you're miles away
And I'm wondering why you left
And there's a storm that's raging
Through my frozen heart tonight
I hear your name in certain circles
And it always makes me smile
I spend my time thinking about you
And it's almost driving me wild
And there's a heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight
Chorus
I ain't missing you at all (Missing you)
Since you've been gone away (Missing you)
I ain't missing you (Missing you)
No matter what I might say (Missing you)
There's a message in the wire
And I'm sending you the signal tonight
You don't know how desperate I've become
And it looks like I'm losing this fight
In your world I have no meaning
Though I'm trying hard to understand
And it's my heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight
Chorus
And there's a message that I'm sending out
Via telegraph to your soul
And if I can't bridge this distance
Stop this heartbreak overload
Chorus
Every time I think of you
I always catch my breath
--Tina Turner, Missing You. Written by C. Sandford, John Waite & M. Leonard
Several years ago on my visit home, I watched TV and the singer 郭峰 was performing his earlier-years hit, 讓我再看你一眼. He changed the originally slow, heartfelt song to a quick, light one, calling on the audience to join him making small, cheap twists to the otherwise plain melody. I was completely pissed off. Couldn't stand his insult to himself.
Having a hard time going asleep last night, I rolled up to read a chapter of Reading the Analects Today and was (somewhat) chilled to come across a passage that seemd to be talking just about a problem I have. I'm not going to cite that, though. But here are several other items I like (all from 論語：裡仁第四):
子曰：“人之過也，各於其黨。觀過，斯知仁矣。”
子曰：“父母之年，不可不知也。一則以喜，一則以懼。”
子曰：“古者言之不出，恥躬之不逮也。”
Finally, under the well known 朝聞道，夕死可矣,
the author comments:
“總而言之，生煩死畏，真理豈在知識中！ 生煩死畏，追求卓越，此為宗教；生煩死畏，不如無生，此是佛家； 生煩死畏，卻順事安寧，深情感慨，此乃儒學。”
-- 李澤厚【論語今讀】（１９９８）一零七頁
Success is not achieved by winning all the time. Real success comes when we rise after we fall. -- Muhammad Ali
Not refreshing at all, but not bad either.
In his memoir, The Soul of a Butterfly, Muhammad Ali tells how he came to find Islam. Basically, a friend in Chicago invited him to an islamic meeting and the talks aroused his 'black pride.' This pride built up as he went to more meetings. I find this rather unconvincing because I don't think the pride of being black is something religious or needs to be taught through religion.
By the way, Ali has an interesting paragraph about 'black pride.' I'll re-listen to that part and jot it down later.
Most books in libraries are cataloged following the Library of Congress. Here's the link:
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco.html
If you google "library of congress classification" this should be on the top of the hits.
I came across good things over the years. A few have become my daily assistants, e.g., OALD and M-W. Some have been put on the back burner of my hard drive.
Certainly, good learning materials abound on the web. Here I'm talk about resources that target learners or are of interest to them. Particular attention is given to those still attractive to me (I'm no longer quite a beginner).
British:
American:
Muhammad was an orphan and was under the protection of his uncle, Abu Talib, in the tribal system. When Muhammad's preaching increasingly threatened the economy of Mecca, which relied on trades and tourists attracted to the traditional gods worshiped at Mecca but dismissed in Muhammad's islamic message, the Meccans went to Abu Talib and asked him to turn Muhammad over to them. Abu Talib, who was not a muslim and knew that Muhammad would be killed if turned over, asked his nephew to stop spreading his message. Muhammad told his uncle that
If they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand, I would not stop preaching until this message is conveyed or I die conveying it.
At that point he began to weep.
Abu Talib looked at him and realized the depth of the conviction of this man,
and said, Say whatever you want. You have my protection.
PBS tonight aired a documentary titled The Sixties, which has several scenes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. giving speeches, as well as Jessie Jackson talking about their activities on the evening when Dr. King was assassinated.
This reminded me of the King Papers Project at Stanford University,
which has been assembling and publishing King's works.
Its goal is
to publish a definitive fourteen-volume edition of King's most significant correspondence,
sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts.
Five volumes have came out so far, and I saw a few in the bookstore.
The project's website has made some materials available. My guess is that they're putting King's writings online as much as permitted by the law as their work proceeds. I noticed their website several years ago but didn't read it. It should make a great reading if the books are out of your reach.
Wget is very useful, but its man page is filled with options a usual person wouldn't bother to use. Below I've pruned it back to a more useful help page.
The basic syntax is:
wget [option]... [URL]...Wget will simply download all the URLs specified on the command line. Wget recognizes the URL syntax as per RFC1738.
http://host[:port]/directory/file ftp://host[:port]/directory/file
You can also encode your username and password within a URL:
ftp://user:password@host/path http://user:password@host/path
Either user or password, or both, may be left out. If you leave out either the HTTP username or password, no authentication will be sent. If you leave out the FTP username, `anonymous' will be used. If you leave out the FTP password, your email address will be supplied as a default password.
Every option has a short form and a long form. You may freely mix different option styles, or specify options after the command-line arguments. Thus you may write:
wget -r --tries=10 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/ -o log
The space between the option accepting an argument and the argument may be omitted. Instead of `-o log' you can write `-olog'.
You may put several options that do not require arguments together, like:
wget -drc URL
-rH -Dxxx.com -l# -E -k -np -p
m suffix, in hours using h
suffix, or in days using d suffix.
Specifying a large value for this option is useful if the network or the destination host is down, so that Wget can wait long enough to reasonably expect the network error to be fixed before the retry.
Note that quota will never affect downloading a single file. So if you specify `wget -Q10k ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/ls-lR.gz', all of the `ls-lR.gz' will be downloaded. The same goes even when several URLs are specified on the command-line. However, quota is respected when retrieving either recursively, or from an input file. Thus you may safely type `wget -Q2m -i sites'---download will be aborted when the quota is exceeded.
Setting quota to 0 or to `inf' unlimits the download quota.
Note that filenames changed in this way will be re-downloaded every time you re-mirror a site, because Wget can't tell that the local `X.html' file corresponds to remote URL `X' (since it doesn't yet know that the URL produces output of type `text/html'. To prevent this re-downloading, you must use `-k' and `-K' so that the original version of the file will be saved as `X.orig'
See man page for details.
wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/*.msg
By default, globbing will be turned on if the URL contains a globbing character. This option may be used to turn globbing on or off permanently.
You may have to quote the URL to protect it from being expanded by
your shell. Globbing makes Wget look for a directory listing, which is
system-specific. This is why it currently works only with Unix FTP
servers (and the ones emulating Unix ls output).
Recursive retrieval of HTTP and HTML content is breadth-first. This means that Wget first downloads the requested HTML document, then the documents linked from that document, then the documents linked by them, and so on. In other words, Wget first downloads the documents at depth 1, then those at depth 2, and so on until the specified maximum depth.
When retrieving an FTP URL recursively, Wget will retrieve all
the data from the given directory tree (including the subdirectories up
to the specified depth) on the remote server, creating its mirror image
locally. FTP retrieval is also limited by the depth
parameter. Unlike HTTP recursion, FTP recursion is performed
depth-first.
By default, Wget will create a local directory tree, corresponding to the one found on the remote server.
You should be warned that recursive downloads can overload the remote servers. Because of that, many administrators frown upon them and may ban access from your site if they detect very fast downloads of big amounts of content. When downloading from Internet servers, consider using the `-w' option to introduce a delay between accesses to the server. The download will take a while longer, but the server administrator will not be alarmed by your rudeness.
Of course, recursive download may cause problems on your machine. If left to run unchecked, it can easily fill up the disk. If downloading from local network, it can also take bandwidth on the system, as well as consume memory and CPU.
Try to specify the criteria that match the kind of download you are trying to achieve. If you want to download only one page, use `--page-requisites' without any additional recursion. If you want to download things under one directory, use `-np' to avoid downloading things from other directories. If you want to download all the files from one directory, use `-l 1' to make sure the recursion depth never exceeds one.
Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:
Example: if the downloaded file `/foo/doc.html' links to `/bar/img.gif', also downloaded, then the link in `doc.html' will be modified to point to `../bar/img.gif'. This kind of transformation works reliably for arbitrary combinations of directories.
Example: if the downloaded file `/foo/doc.html' links to `/bar/img.gif' (or to `../bar/img.gif'), then the link in `doc.html' will be modified to point to `http://hostname/bar/img.gif'.
Note that only at the end of the download can Wget know which links have been downloaded. Because of that, the work done by `-k' will be performed at the end of all the downloads.
The argument to `--accept' option is a list of file suffixes or patterns that Wget will download during recursive retrieval. A suffix is the ending part of a file, and consists of "normal" letters, e.g. `gif' or `.jpg'. A matching pattern contains shell-like wildcards, e.g. `books*' or `zelazny*196[0-9]*'.
So, specifying `wget -A gif,jpg' will make Wget download only the files ending with `gif' or `jpg', i.e. GIFs and JPEGs. On the other hand, `wget -A "zelazny*196[0-9]*"' will download only files beginning with `zelazny' and containing numbers from 1960 to 1969 anywhere within. Look up the manual of your shell for a description of how pattern matching works. The quotes are to prevent expansion by the shell.
The `--reject' option works the same way as `--accept', only its logic is the reverse; Wget will download all files except the ones matching the suffixes (or patterns) in the list.
The `-A' and `-R' options may be combined to achieve even better fine-tuning of which files to retrieve. E.g. `wget -A "*zelazny*" -R .ps' will download all the files having `zelazny' as a part of their name, but not the PostScript files.
Note that these two options do not affect the downloading of HTML files; Wget must load all the HTMLs to know where to go at all--recursive retrieval would make no sense otherwise.
Regardless of other link-following facilities, it is often useful to place the restriction of what files to retrieve based on the directories those files are placed in. There can be many reasons for this--the home pages may be organized in a reasonable directory structure; or some directories may contain useless information, e.g. `/cgi-bin' or `/dev' directories.
`-I' option accepts a comma-separated list of directories included in the retrieval. Any other directories will simply be ignored. The directories are absolute paths. So, if you wish to download from `http://host/people/bozo/' following only links to bozo's colleagues in the `/people' directory and the bogus scripts in `/cgi-bin', you can specify:
wget -I /people,/cgi-bin http://host/people/bozo/
`-X' option is exactly the reverse of `-I'---this is a list of directories excluded from the download. The same as with `-A'/`-R', these two options can be combined, e.g. if you want to load all the files from `/pub' hierarchy except for `/pub/worthless', specify `-I/pub -X/pub/worthless'.
The simplest, and often very useful way of limiting directories is disallowing retrieval of the links that refer to the hierarchy above than the beginning directory, i.e. disallowing ascent to the parent directory/directories. The `--no-parent' option (short `-np') is useful in this case. Using it guarantees that you will never leave the existing hierarchy.
Ordinarily, when downloading a single HTML page, any requisite documents that may be needed to display it properly are not downloaded. Using `-r' together with `-l' can help, but since Wget does not ordinarily distinguish between external and inlined documents, one is generally left with "leaf documents" that are missing their requisites.
For instance, say document `1.html' contains an <IMG> tag
referencing `1.gif' and an <A> tag pointing to external
document `2.html'. Say that `2.html' is similar but that its
image is `2.gif' and it links to `3.html'. Say this
continues up to some arbitrarily high number.
If one executes the command:
wget -r -l 2 http://site/1.htmlthen `1.html', `1.gif', `2.html', `2.gif', and `3.html' will be downloaded. As you can see, `3.html' is without its requisite `3.gif' because Wget is simply counting the number of hops (up to 2) away from `1.html' in order to determine where to stop the recursion. However, with this command:
wget -r -l 2 -p http://site/1.htmlall the above files and `3.html''s requisite `3.gif' will be downloaded. Similarly,
wget -r -l 1 -p http://site/1.htmlwill cause `1.html', `1.gif', `2.html', and `2.gif' to be downloaded. One might think that:
wget -r -l 0 -p http://site/1.htmlwould download just `1.html' and `1.gif', but unfortunately this is not the case, because `-l 0' is equivalent to `-l inf'---that is, infinite recursion. To download a single HTML page (or a handful of them, all specified on the commandline or in a `-i' URL input file) and its (or their) requisites, simply leave off `-r' and `-l':
wget -p http://site/1.htmlNote that Wget will behave as if `-r' had been specified, but only that single page and its requisites will be downloaded. Links from that page to external documents will not be followed. Actually, to download a single page and all its requisites (even if they exist on separate websites), and make sure the lot displays properly locally, this author likes to use a few options in addition to `-p':
wget -E -H -k -K -p http://site/document
To finish off this topic, it's worth knowing that Wget's idea of an
external document link is any URL specified in an <A> tag, an
<AREA> tag, or a <LINK> tag
other than <LINK REL="stylesheet">.
Wget's recursive retrieval normally refuses to visit hosts different than the one you specified on the command line. The `-H' option turns on host spanning, thus allowing Wget's recursive run to visit any host referenced by a link. Unless sufficient recursion-limiting criteria are applied depth, these foreign hosts will typically link to yet more hosts, and so on until Wget ends up sucking up much more data than you have intended.
The `-D' option allows you to specify the domains that will be followed, thus limiting the recursion only to the hosts that belong to these domains. Obviously, this makes sense only in conjunction with `-H'. A typical example would be downloading the contents of `www.server.com', but allowing downloads from `images.server.com', etc.:
wget -rH -Dserver.com http://www.server.com/You can specify more than one address by separating them with a comma, e.g. `-Ddomain1.com,domain2.com'.
If there are domains you want to exclude specifically, you can do it with `--exclude-domains', which accepts the same type of arguments of `-D', but will exclude all the listed domains. For example, if you want to download all the hosts from `foo.edu' domain, with the exception of `sunsite.foo.edu', you can do it like this:
wget -rH -Dfoo.edu --exclude-domains sunsite.foo.edu http://www.foo.edu/
wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/
wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg
wget -t 45 -o log http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg &The ampersand at the end of the line makes sure that Wget works in the background. To unlimit the number of retries, use `-t inf'.
wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg
wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/ links index.html
wget -i fileIf you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from standard input.
wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog
wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.htmlThe HTML page will be saved to `www.server.com/dir/page.html', and the images, stylesheets, etc., somewhere under `www.server.com/', depending on where they were on the remote server.
wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload http://www.server.com/dir/page.html
wget -S http://www.lycos.com/
wget -s http://www.lycos.com/ more index.html
wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/
wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.gif http://www.server.com/dir/More verbose, but the effect is the same. `-r -l1' means to retrieve recursively, with maximum depth of 1. `--no-parent' means that references to the parent directory are ignored, and `-A.gif' means to download only the GIF files. `-A "*.gif"' would have worked too.
wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/
wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@unix.server.com/.emacs
wget -O - http://jagor.srce.hr/ http://www.srce.hr/You can also combine the two options and make pipelines to retrieve the documents from remote hotlists:
wget -O - http://cool.list.com/ | wget --force-html -i -
Exploring the Elements of Design
by Mark A. Thomas and Poppy Evans
Thomson Delmar Learning, 2003. pp. 256
ISBN: 1401832865
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401832865/102-8002436-7796936
Exploring Interface Design
by Marc Silver
Thomson Delmar Learning, 2004. pp 352
ISBN: 1401837395
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401837395/102-8002436-7796936
Exploring Web Design
by Jeremy Vest, William Crowson, and Shannon Pochran
Thomson Delmar Learning, 2004. pp. 192
ISBN: 1401878385
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1401878385/ref=pd_sbs_b_2/102-8002436-7796936?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
I didn't like the way some posts looked, so I changed the setting today such that returns are not automatically transformed to line breaks. This means I have to use the paragraph tags manually to delineate text blocks. Most previous posts have been thrown into a mess. It will take some time for me to clean them up.
Lee Ao (李敖) was born in Harbin in 1935 and moved with his family to Beijing when he was two years old. He spent his childhood there until 1949, when he moved with family again to the island of Taiwan, out of which he would never step an inch for fifty-six years.
I believe Lee is not a good novelist, although I didn't read the two or three fictions he wrote. A historian by training, he clearly has little interest in making up stories. However, his memoir, 李敖自傳与回憶, a small, plain book in my memory, is a literary work. Perhaps his most intimate memory of Beijing is this:
最令我魂牵梦萦的，是在新鲜胡同小学中，有我神秘的初恋。这女孩子叫张敏英 . . . 我只看她哭过一次，是一次考试没考好，我一路安慰她，看她泪眼、看她楚楚可怜，非常喜欢她。我做图书馆长的时候，她做我副手，有一次犯了小错，我开玩笑，拉住她的手，轻打她手心，她装得很疼的样子，给我的快感，令我毕生难忘。对张敏英，我从来没有表示出我对她的情爱，我把一切都遮盖住了，我不知道她是否知道她是我魂牵梦萦的心底的情人，我一直把她视同我的初恋情人，虽然这次初恋，实在没有什么实绩可寻，但它一直在我心底，充满了美丽的回忆。我一生忧患，所存美丽的回忆无多，但是对张敏英的每一件，都是令我最感温馨、最感神往的。人生一世，能有这样清纯的、单一的回忆，而不掺杂任何俗情与尘网，洵属罕见，而它却是罕见中的极品。我一生中的许多经历，都不想重过。但是如果时光倒流、少年可再，我梦魂所依，除此而外，却无复他求。—只为了她是我第一个小女生、只为了她是我永恒的小情人、只为了那一段少年奇情、只为了那一场春梦无痕的初恋，我愿在时光倒流中停止，在停止中死去，我并不希冀她做我的朱丽叶（Juliet），但我若能长眠在她怀里，我就宁愿不活十三岁以后的我了。
Ten years ago I recommended it to a friend and he agreed that this is the most beautiful page of the book.
Embarking on the historic visit after more than half a century, knowing it is most likely his first and last time at once, Lee's desire to contribute to his homeland something consequential must be unbearable, Several months ago when the trip was confirmed, he said on the pro-independence island, 這是一次國內旅行
(This is a domestic trip.
) The witty directness, which touched me deeply. is hardly understandable to young people on the island who have no physical link to the land. Just like I would hurt if California or Chicago were attacked by military actions---once your home, forever special.
His speech at Peking University is a piece of wisdom and courage. The wisdom is, I would say deliberately but also only very lightly, camouflaged with occasional excursions to irrelevant stories. The courage is backed by careful preparations and a masterful grasp of a delicate timing. Lee is in such a unique position and has such a unique reputation that he at the moment was a perfect figure to let out those words of mostly common sense, which is so hard so say in Beijing.
Several good places for quick help on HTML and CSS:
W3C's Index of HTML Elements
CSS 1 Recommendation
CSS 2.1 Specification
Dave Raggett's intro to CSS. A bonus of this page is a list of colors with their RGB values.
La Sardine: frenchrestaurantschicago.com
$25 Tuesday dinner special: you choose any starter, any entree, and any dessert. (Not the $22 as posted on their webpage.)
Tentative schedule
Main target is one night camp overlooking the big river, several parks along the River and interesting small towns.
Leave Chicago by 2:30 pm. Camp on the River.
Mississippi Palisades State Park
Route 84
Savanna, IL 61074
(815) 273-2731
'official' site
review
review
photos
Instead of the direction provided by Google, we'll largely follow the state trail/national scenic byway:
Chicago -- Tollway 88 --> Rochelle -- IL 38 --> Dixon --> Gap Grove --> Prairieville --> Sterling --> Emerson --> Agnew -- IL 30 west --> Fulton -- IL 84 north --> Savanna.
We'll do some hiking either Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning.
Enter Iowa, going north along IO 52:
Savanna -- IO 64 west --> Sabula -- IO 52 north --> Bellevue -- IO 52 north --> Dubuque.
At Dubuque, we cross the River and turn back into IL:
This weekend's USA TODAY has a piece titled 10 great places to dine on fine Chinese food.
Although I don't think such things are worth hunting for, it includes one in the Chicago area: Bob Chinn's Crab House, Wheeling, Ill. bobchinns.com
Before our average writing capabilities degenerated with the advances of electronic technologies, people would write beautiful letters. Letters can not only be beautiful, they can be read time and again, by the person or by others, at the time or years later. For example:
July 14, 1861
Camp Clark, WashingtonMy very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more . . .
I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt . . .
Sarah my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battle field.
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness . . .
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again . . .
Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later after writing this letter, which was never mailed, at the first battle of Bull Run. (Oh unlucky boy!) Fifty years later, an equally beautiful letter was written by a Chinese:
意映卿卿如晤：
吾今以此书与汝永别矣！吾作此书时，尚为世中一人；汝看此书时，吾已成为阴间一鬼。吾作此书，泪珠和笔墨齐下，不能书竟，而欲搁笔。又恐汝不察吾衷，谓吾忍舍汝而死，谓吾不知汝之不欲吾死也，故遂忍悲为汝言之。
吾至爱汝！即此爱汝一念，使吾勇于就死也！吾自遇汝以来，常愿天下有情人都成眷属，然遍地腥云，满街狼犬，称心快意，几家能够？司马青衫，吾不能学太上之忘情也。语云，仁者“老吾老以及人之老，幼吾幼以及人之幼”。吾充吾爱汝之心，助天下人爱其所爱，所以敢先汝而死，不顾汝也。汝体吾此心，于悲啼之余，亦以天下人为念，当亦乐牺牲吾身与汝身之福利，为天下人谋永福也。汝其勿悲。
汝忆否四五年前某夕，吾尝语曰：“与使吾先死也，无宁汝先吾而死。”汝初闻言而怒，后经吾婉解，虽不谓吾言为是，而亦无辞相答。吾之意盖谓以汝之弱，必不能禁失吾之悲，吾先死留苦与汝，吾心不忍，故宁请汝先死，吾担悲也。嗟夫，谁知吾卒先汝而死乎！
吾真不能忘汝也！回忆后街之屋，入门穿廊，过前后厅，又三四折有小厅，厅旁一室为吾与汝双棲之所。初婚三四个月，适冬之望日前后，窗外疏梅筛月影，依稀掩映，吾与汝並肩携手，低低切切，何事不语，何情不诉！及今思之，空余泪痕！又回忆六七年前，吾之逃家复归也，汝泣告我：“望今后有远行，必以告妾，妾愿随君行。”吾亦既许汝矣。前十余日回家，即欲乘便以此行之事语汝，及与汝相对，又不能启口；且以汝之有身也，更恐不胜悲，故惟日日呼酒买醉。嗟夫！当时余心之悲，盖不能以寸管形容之。
吾诚愿与汝相守以死。第以今日事势观之，天灾可以死，盗贼可以死，瓜分之日可以死，奸官污吏虐民可以死，吾辈处今日之中国，国中无地无时不可以死！到那时使吾眼睁睁看汝死，或使汝眼睁睁看我死，吾能之乎！抑汝能之乎！即可不死，而离散不相见，徒使两地眼成穿而骨化石，试问古来几曾见破镜能重圆，则较死为苦也。将奈之何？今日吾与汝幸双健；天下人人不当死而死，与不愿离而离者，不可数计；钟情如我辈者，能忍之乎？此吾所以敢率性就死不顾汝也！吾今死无余憾，国事成不成，自有同志者在。依新已五岁，转眼成人，汝其善抚之，使之肖我。汝腹中之物，吾疑其女也，女必像汝，吾心甚慰；或又是男，则亦教其以父志为志，则我死后，尚有二意洞在也，甚幸甚幸！
吾家后日当甚贫，贫无所苦，清静过日而已。
吾今与汝无言矣！吾居九泉之下，遥闻汝哭声，当哭相和也。吾平日不信有鬼，今则又望其真有。今人又言心电感应有道，吾亦望其言是实，则吾之死，吾灵尚依依旁汝也，汝不必以无侣悲！
吾生平未尝以吾所志语汝，是吾不是处。然语之，又恐汝日日为吾担忧。吾牺牲百死而不辞，而使汝担忧，的的非吾所忍。吾爱汝至，所以为汝谋者惟恐未尽。汝幸而偶我，又何不幸而生今日之中国！吾幸而得汝，又何不幸而生今日之中国，卒不忍独善其身！嗟夫！巾短情长，所未尽者尚有万千，汝可摹拟得之。吾今不能见汝矣！汝不能舍吾，其时时于梦中寻我乎！一恸！
辛亥三月念六夜四鼓，意洞手书。
家中诸母皆通文，有不解处，望请其指教。当尽吾意为幸！
1911年3月26日
The two letters, which served the same purpose, bear striking resemblance in structure, content, and even in length. Perhaps it's only natural for someone facing permanent parting from his beloved by death to explain the righteousness of his cause, to relive, on paper and in mind, the happy times spent together, and, lastly, to resort to the existence of afterlife for reunion. O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights . . . always, always . .
If there's language that can soften stone, here it is. If there's one justification for ghosts, this it is. 吾今与汝无言矣！吾居九泉之下，遥闻汝哭声，当哭相和也。
Unfortunately, beautiful letters in such circumstances do not always have desirable effects. (Do you want to mistreat a deceased person? Do you want to dissappoint your loved one by ignoring his very last wish?) The wife of the Chinese martyr would drown herself in tears, re-reading the deadly beautiful letter again and again, and die before long. Ballou's wife, 24 when her husband died on the battlefield, would live out her life till the age of 80, and never re-marry. It is reasonable to think that people facing a peaceful end can approach the matter differently. The Chinese writer and robust thinker Lu Xun (魯迅) told his wife in his will to forget me, re-marry, and start a new life; otherwise you're a real fool . . .
Of course, wise words were not followed. His wife spent her remaining long life writing memoirs related to the great man that her husband was. Come on! Memoir is an undertaking for spare time when no grander things are possible.
A La Turka -- Turkish Kitchen
Web: http://www.turkishkitchen.us
Email: info@turkishkitchen.us
Phone:
773-935-6101
773-935-6447
Fax:
773-935-8894
Address:
3134 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657
Today I opened my dictionary and saw a photo of a handsome man. The item goes:
Pierce, Franklin. 1804-69. The 14th US President (1853-57).
Never heard this name before.
The late professor Elizabeth Mann Borgese delivered an honored lecture (Nexus or some name like that) in 1999, entitled The Years of My Life, which was included in the Ocean Year Book volume 18 (2002 or shortly after; because the volume momerizes her, who died in 2002).
Professor Borgese opened the lecture by recalling her memories as a kid of one year old (oh my!), when her father, the great German writer Thomas Mann, with Elizabeth on his lap being fed with whatever food she remembered but I don't, received a call about the death of her great grandmother. The one-year-old, yet unable to speak, conceived a picture of death as something analogous to the stopping-of-work of a clock.
Professor Borgese went on to tell a story when she was three years old ... That's still well beyond me. Shame on me! (No wonder she's a professor.)
A Handbook for Scholars
by Mary-Claire van Leunen
Oxford Univ Press, 1992, Rev Ed. pp 348
PN146 .V360 1992. Regenstein Library.
Despite an unattractive title, this book is original. Arranged as topic items half page to several pages long, none of the items is copied directly from a wholesale manual. Attention is paid to some things not attended to elsewhere. Some topics may appear small, but always relevant, and the suggestions to the point.
In the two-page-strong item devoted to "let's", the author argues that "let's" is not a contraction of "let us" and shouldn't be spelled out that way. Yet I saw many occurrences of "let us" in technical papers, which have the convention of not using contractions. I'm not sure what to follow.
Today I read the appendix on vita and found many good suggestions on specifics ignored in other books. For example, Some schools need place designations,
the example being Trinity College, Burlington, Vermont,
while Some do not,
the example being Johns Hopkins University.
The author puts a lot of weight on the relevance of the information. For example, in teaching experiences, the topics taught need emphasis, whereas the term (year, semester, etc.) of the experience do not.
She briefly touches on the mechanics and alerts the reader to be on your guard against flashy typesetting, lest you look like a professional job applicant.
The effect to aim for is sobriety, even severity, and extreme understatement.
There are two points I'm not sure I want to follow. The first is the suggestion that, in an academic vita, plain chronological order is better than the reversed chronological order, which is usually recommended for business vitas. The second is her recommended format for publications. I tend to simply pick one journal bibliographic format that looks good.
The author stresses that there should be no omission or censorship whatsoever in the list of professional publications. This reminds me that some people have a list of "selected publication," which I suspect is actually a complete list.
The author is strongly against the idea of an "impressive coverletter." She says, It would in fact be more rational just to mail your vita off by itself, but for some reason that's not done. There's no such thing as a good coverletter, only one that avoids being bad. Here are a few things to avoid . . . . . . What's left. Very little. . . . Sincerely yours, the end. . . . Let your vita, over which you've labored long and hard, speak for itself.
I tried to write impressive coverletters for the several applications I did. Now I think they likely got trashed pretty fast.
Communicating in Science: Writing and Speaking
by Vernon Booth
Cambridge Univ Press, 1985. pp 68.
Q223 .B66. Crerar Library.
the revision has a longer title:
Communicating in Science : Writing a Scientific Paper and Speaking at Scientific Meetings
by Vernon Booth
Cambridge Univ Press, 1993. 2nd ed. pp 94
This is a classic. Short. Direct. Practical.
Elements of Style
by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White
Longman, 2000. 4th ed. pp 105.
This small book has, according to my guess, never been out of print since its debut in 1959. From time to time the publishers would do it a moderate rewrapping in order to attract new students, which is unnecessary since both authors are long dead. Just reprint. Presumably every American between the ages of seventeen and seventy knows this book.
I didn't remember the book as magnetic. Actually, short as it is, I didn't finish it. Now I have a copy from a book clearance sale. So, will re-read sometime.
The very first version of this classic is now online at http://www.bartleby.com/141/.
White was a world federalist and once said (copied from Wikipedia)
Government is the thing. Law is the thing. Not brotherhood, not international cooperation, not security councils that can stop war only by waging it...Where does security lie, anyway - security against the thief, the murderer? In brotherly love? Not at all. It lies in government.
Primer of Mathematical Writing
by Steven G. Krantz
American Mathematical Society, 1997; 223 pp.
QA 42 .K73 1997 Eck
The writing style is informal, easy to read. It follows no formula. The author is opinionated, and many of the opinions appear to be out of personal experience in a long career.
How to Write & Publish a Scientific Paper"
by Robert A. Day
Oryx Press, 1994. 4th ed.
T11.D330 1994. Crerar Lib.
(There is a 5th edition, which is not allowed to be taken out of the John Crerar Library.) The author is a professor of English but is a veteran in scientific publishing and education of scientific writing. See a previous post
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
by William K. Zinsser
HarperResource 2001. 25th Annv ed. pp. 320.
This is a classic and required text for varopis writing classes.
Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing
by John R. Trimble
Printice Hall 2000. 2nd ed. pp 198.
Easy Writer: A Pocket Guide
by Andrea A. Lunsford and Gerald J. Alred
Bedford Books 2002, 2nd ed., pp 310.
Mainly about mechanics and citation formats.
Pocket Style Manual: Updated With Apas 2001 Guidelines
by Diana Hacker
Bedford/St. Martin's 2001. 3rd ed.
The Little English Handbook: Choices and Conventions, with MLA Update
by Edward P. J. Corbett, Sheryl L. Finlke
Longman 1998. 8th ed. pp 273.
I liked this small pocket reference. As I remember, it's mainly on mechanics and formats.
The Gregg Reference Manual
by William A. Sabin
McGraw-Hill/Inwin 2000. 9th ed
This is an authoritative, complete reference for minutes in grammar and formats, things like: how to write numbers in text (when to spell out, when to use arabic?), format of letters (margins, components, etc.), to hyphenate or not to hyphenate, blah, blah.
It's been awhile since I turned to my copy for help last time. I'm confident the answer is in there whenever I need it. I hate its spiral binding.
Comes in handy at a much more friendly scale than the Chicago Manual of Style.
Words into Type
by Marjorie E. Skillin, Robert Malcolm Gay
Prentice Hall, 3rd ed. 1974, 585 pp, ISBN 0139642625
The Writer's Presence: A Pool of Readings
Donald McQuade and Robert Atwan, eds
Bedford/St. Martin's; 4th ed., 2003; 944 p.
Short essays on a broad ranges of topics.
