zp.z

2009湾区最佳餐馆

2010-02-17T21:40:00.003-06:00

【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

上海国韵宾馆

2010-01-23T20:07:00.002-06:00

上海市闵行区漕宝路3138号预订电话：020-84062055、84065545、13724884527 经济实惠。位于七宝古镇。近虹桥机场。

费孝通小事一件

2008-08-10T12:14:00.007-05:00

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 鲤鱼门 (Chinese restaurant)

2008-08-10T12:08:00.003-05:00

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

www.koipalace.com

Old Mandarin Islanmic Restaurant

2008-07-24T20:37:00.003-05:00

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.

Empire Buffet at San Pablo, CA

2008-07-12T20:00:00.002-05:00

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

Thai food at Powell and Ellis, San Francisco

2008-07-12T19:56:00.001-05:00

Good for lunch; under $10. Within 1 or 2 blocks of the Powell BART station. On the north side of Powell street.

takes time

2007-07-18T23:23:00.000-05:00

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.

the first marriage of Gu

2007-07-17T14:52:00.000-05:00

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.

tennis stringing machines

2007-07-09T07:35:00.000-05:00

EAGNAS appears to be a good one. Will consider buying one later.

layout update

2007-07-01T20:58:00.000-05:00

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.

我们相爱一生，一生还是太短

2007-06-22T22:26:00.000-05:00

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.

BibTeX format trivia

2007-03-13T22:53:00.000-05:00

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.

Between entries

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.

Entries '@entrytype{key, fields }'

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.

Between fields

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.

Fields 'fieldname = fielddata'

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.

Within a field

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: {"}.

My format recommendations

Entry

either
^@entrytype{key,$
or
^@entrytype{$
^key,$

Field

^ *fieldname *= *{
},$

math poems

2007-01-06T16:09:00.000-06:00

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

大同

2006-12-05T21:52:00.000-06:00

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。

order of subroutines in source code

2006-11-05T15:14:00.000-06:00

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:

Start from the beginning of the file and stop before the first function that calls this new function. If no such function is found, we end up at EOF. The new function should be put somewhere between BOF and the current point.
In its permissible range, if there is a block that this new function apparently belongs to, for example, in terms of functionality (data processing, graphics, I/O, etc), put the new function in that block. If there's no clearly good spot in the block, put the new function at the end of the block.

UNIX CD bookshelf

2006-10-30T10:01:00.000-06:00

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.

switched to Blogger Beta

2006-10-16T15:35:00.000-05:00

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.

images of America

2006-08-27T14:56:00.000-05:00

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.

the pop winds that blew on me

2006-08-25T22:15:00.000-05:00

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)

ice skating for Chicagoans

2006-08-20T16:47:00.000-05:00

Year-round indoor

Darien Sportsplex

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

Rink Side Sports

6152 W. Grand Ave, Gurnee, Il. 60031
847-856-1064

Winter outdoor

vim documentation

2006-08-20T12:37:00.000-05:00

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.

vim 7.0 tabs and spellcheck

2006-08-20T01:35:00.000-05:00

Using tabs to work on multiple files simultaneously

To open several files at once and put each in a separate tab, use the -p option and all the file names on the command line while launching . Consider aliasing vim to vim -p.

Check out the full 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


To turn it on and off:

:set spell
:set nospell



To turn it on automatically for certain types of files, add this to the .vimrc file:

autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead *.txt,*.tex,README set spell



Then create a directory ~/.vim/spell for vim to hold personal word lists.


Once turned on, use ]s and [s to move to the next and previous misspelled words. Here is the vim documentation for spell checking.



Krishnamurti
2006-08-19T14:46:00.000-05:00

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.



李可染的畫
2006-08-19T00:54:00.000-05:00

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)


sensor cleaning
2006-07-16T16:44:00.000-05:00

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



resources for scientific computing
2006-02-03T22:51:00.000-06:00

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

ATLAS
BLAS
LAPACK
random: random number generators, distribution, in Fortran and C.
SLATEC: Common Mathematic Library in Fortran77. Fortran90 version available on the web.
TOMS: algorithms published in the Transactions on Mathematical Software.



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.



Lahey's Fortran source code checker



movies or animations with R
2006-01-29T17:20:00.000-06:00

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.





  Save a series of images in EPS, PNG, or JPEG formats.

  Use 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.

  View the result.
  This is a non-issue on Windows and Mac.
  On Linux, view animated GIFs with 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.



許三觀
2006-01-08T21:15:00.000-06:00

許三觀賣血記 by 余華, 1995


Finished today. Recommend it.



Millenium Park ice skating rink
2006-01-08T21:09:00.000-06:00

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.



slides with LaTeX
2006-01-08T14:09:00.000-06:00

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.



SOYODO Chinese bookstore
2006-01-02T11:08:00.000-06:00

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.



cross country skiing for Chicagoans
2005-12-21T11:04:00.000-06:00

In Southeast Wisconsin: 

http://www.anythingwisconsin.com/secctrails.htm



With first-hand experiences:




Petrifying Springs Park

The biggest in Kenosha. 
Entrance is at 31st and A.

North into Wisconsin by I-94, exit at #399 (Hwy E) east toward the lake,
turn left at 31st, turn right at A (7th Street), entrance at right.
No grooming the time I was there.



2005 winter break snow trip
2005-12-03T14:36:00.000-06:00

(This plan will be updated, possibly greatly modified, around Dec 22.)

Skiing trip in central Wisconsin, December 27-31

12/27, Chicago --> Stevens Point


Google direction


Warming-up cross-country somewhere on the road.


12/28, --> Wausau


Google direction


Downhill at

Granite Peak Ski Area at Rib Mountain

http://www.skigranitepeak.com

3605 N Mountain Rd

Wausau, WI 54402-5010

715.845.2846


12/29


Cross-country, or something new like snow mobile or sleighride, somewhere.

12/30, Portage


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


12/31, --> Chicago


Possibly some cross-country somewhere on the 
road.



Animusic and David Pogue
2005-12-01T20:49:00.000-06:00

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...



Italian restaurant
2005-11-25T00:21:00.000-06:00

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



Himalaya
2005-11-20T01:02:00.000-06:00

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.



weekly
2005-11-14T13:50:00.000-06:00

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.



presentations
2005-10-28T17:07:00.000-05:00

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.



job search book
2005-10-24T14:12:00.000-05:00

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



fall color
2005-10-22T13:23:00.000-05:00

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."



humanities open house
2005-10-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

The 26th annual Humanities Open House, Saturday, Oct. 22 from 9:30 am to 4 pm.

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/openhouse/



費孝通憶史祿國
2005-10-16T14:02:00.000-05:00

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
2005-10-16T13:38:00.000-05:00

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.



朝聞夕死
2005-10-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

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



real success
2005-10-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

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.



swimming website
2005-10-08T10:48:00.000-05:00

http://www.chinaswim.com



book classification
2005-10-03T23:10:00.000-05:00

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.



online English resources
2005-10-02T12:12:00.000-05:00

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).



Highlights


British:



BBC World Service

Read news and listen to some.

BBC World Service -- Learning English


BBC Chinese -- Learning English




American:



NPR

A wonderful source for normal speed English listening.

VOA Chinese -- Learning English

Excellent short lessons for idioms, short dialogues, and everyday English.



Language elements




Dave's ESL Cafe

I saw there an idiom page which is good.


The Idiom Connection

This used to be a Geocities page several years ago.
Now that it's got its own domain name, we may count on its being around for a long time.


Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab

Seems to be useful to beginners. I never used it.


ESLnotes

They pick classic movies and explain notable phrases, idoms, and structures
 that occur in the script.
Very good for movie lovers.
I noticed this resource several years ago but never used it (sorry again).


english-to-go





Reading and writing




Project Gutenberg

I noticed this place several years ago but never read anything off of it.
As I checked it again today, 
I saw a better-looking front page with some welcomed function additions.
But the meat is basically plain text just as before.


bartleby

Quite a bit selected good reading.



References




OALD

Get a print copy as well. 
The paper cover edition, which is cheaper, will do.
This is the first, least, and best investment by a learner of English as a foreign language.


M-W

Its two most useful features I found are 
1) audio pronunciation; and 
2) approximate match, that is,
when you're not sure of the exact spelling, input the best you know and it'll find similar words for you.
Also consider shelling around 20 bucks for a local installation on your laptop.


Roget's

thesaurus.com

Thesaurus. I don't know wich of these two is better.
The second may be more up to date.




Muhammad's uncle
2005-10-01T16:04:00.000-05:00

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.



King papers
2005-09-30T00:17:00.000-05:00

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.



rhythm of drum
2005-09-29T00:20:00.000-05:00

The Drum Club: http://www.drumallnight.com/



wget
2005-09-26T23:37:00.000-05:00

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.

Syntax


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


Most Useful Options

-rH -Dxxx.com -l# -E -k -np -p



Basic and Miscellaneous Options



`-w seconds'
`--wait=seconds'

Wait the specified number of seconds between the retrievals.  Use of
this option is recommended, as it lightens the server load by making the
requests less frequent.  Instead of in seconds, the time can be
specified in minutes using the 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.

`--random-wait'

Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval programs
such as Wget by looking for statistically significant similarities in
the time between requests. This option causes the time between requests
to vary between 0 and 2 * wait seconds, where wait was
specified using the `-w' or `--wait' options, in order to mask
Wget's presence from such analysis.

`-Q quota'
`--quota=quota'

Specify download quota for automatic retrievals.  The value can be
specified in bytes (default), kilobytes (with `k' suffix), or
megabytes (with `m' suffix).


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.

`-E'
`--html-extension'

If a file of type `text/html' is downloaded and the URL does not
end with the regexp `\.[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]?', this option will cause
the suffix `.html' to be appended to the local filename.  This is
useful, for instance, when you're mirroring a remote site that uses
`.asp' pages, but you want the mirrored pages to be viewable on
your stock Apache server.  Another good use for this is when you're
downloading the output of CGIs.  A URL like
`http://site.com/article.cgi?25' will be saved as
`article.cgi?25.html'.


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' 



Time-Stamping


`-N'
`--timestamping'

Turn on time-stamping.
The remote server is scanned in
search of new files.  Only those new files will be downloaded in
the place of the old ones.


See man page for details.




FTP


`-g on/off'

Turn FTP globbing on or off.  Globbing means you may use the
shell-like special characters (wildcards), 
like `*', `?', `[' and `]' 
to retrieve more than one file from the same directory at once, like:

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


`-r'
`--recursive'

Turn on recursive retrieving.  
`-l depth'
`--level=depth'

Specify recursion maximum depth level depth.
The default maximum depth is 5.


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.  


`-k'
`--convert-links'

After the download is complete, convert the links in the document to
make them suitable for local viewing.  This affects not only the visible
hyperlinks, but any part of the document that links to external content,
such as embedded images, links to style sheets, hyperlinks to non-HTML
content, etc.


Each link will be changed in one of the two ways:



The links to files that have been downloaded by Wget will be changed to
refer to the file they point to as a relative link.


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.


The links to files that have not been downloaded by Wget will be changed
to include host name and absolute path of the location they point to.


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'.


Because of this, local browsing works reliably: if a linked file was
downloaded, the link will refer to its local name; if it was not
downloaded, the link will refer to its full Internet address rather than
presenting a broken link.  The fact that the former links are converted
to relative links ensures that you can move the downloaded hierarchy to
another directory.


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.

`-A acclist --accept acclist'
`-R rejlist --reject rejlist'

Specify comma-separated lists of file name suffixes or patterns to
accept or reject. 


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.

`-I list'
`--include list'

Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to follow when
downloading.
Elements of list may contain wildcards.
`-X list'
`--exclude list'

Specify a comma-separated list of directories you wish to exclude from
download.
Elements of list may contain wildcards.
`-np'
`--no-parent'

Do not ever ascend to the parent directory when retrieving recursively.
This guarantees that only the files
below a certain hierarchy will be downloaded.


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.


`-p'
`--page-requisites'

This option causes Wget to download all the files that are necessary to
properly display a given HTML page.  This includes such things as
inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.


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.html


then `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.html


all the above files and `3.html''s requisite `3.gif'
will be downloaded.  Similarly,

wget -r -l 1 -p http://site/1.html


will 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.html


would 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.html


Note 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">.


`-H'
Span to any host.
`-D'
Limit spanning to certain domains.
`--exclude-domains'
Keep download off certain domains.


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/


`--follow-ftp'

Follow FTP links from HTML documents.  Without this option,
Wget will ignore all the FTP links.



Simple Examples



Say you want to download a URL.  Just type:

wget http://fly.srk.fer.hr/



But what will happen if the connection is slow, and the file is lengthy?
The connection will probably fail before the whole file is retrieved,
more than once.  In this case, Wget will try getting the file until it
either gets the whole of it, or exceeds the default number of retries
(this being 20).  It is easy to change the number of tries to 45, to
insure that the whole file will arrive safely:

wget --tries=45 http://fly.srk.fer.hr/jpg/flyweb.jpg



Now let's leave Wget to work in the background, and write its progress
to log file `log'.  It is tiring to type `--tries', so we
shall use `-t'.

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'.


The usage of FTP is as simple.  Wget will take care of login and
password.

wget ftp://gnjilux.srk.fer.hr/welcome.msg



If you specify a directory, Wget will retrieve the directory listing,
parse it and convert it to HTML.  Try:

wget ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/
links index.html





Advanced Examples




You have a file that contains the URLs you want to download?  Use the
`-i' switch:

wget -i file


If you specify `-' as file name, the URLs will be read from
standard input.


Create a five levels deep mirror image of the GNU web site, with the
same directory structure the original has, with only one try per
document, saving the log of the activities to `gnulog':

wget -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog



The same as the above, but convert the links in the HTML files to
point to local files, so you can view the documents off-line:

wget --convert-links -r http://www.gnu.org/ -o gnulog



Retrieve only one HTML page, but make sure that all the elements needed
for the page to be displayed, such as inline images and external style
sheets, are also downloaded.  Also make sure the downloaded page
references the downloaded links.

wget -p --convert-links http://www.server.com/dir/page.html


The 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.


The same as the above, but without the `www.server.com/' directory.
In fact, I don't want to have all those random server directories
anyway--just save all those files under a `download/'
subdirectory of the current directory.

wget -p --convert-links -nH -nd -Pdownload  http://www.server.com/dir/page.html



Retrieve the index.html of `www.lycos.com', showing the original
server headers:

wget -S http://www.lycos.com/



Save the server headers with the file, perhaps for post-processing.

wget -s http://www.lycos.com/
more index.html



Retrieve the first two levels of `wuarchive.wustl.edu', saving them
to `/tmp'.

wget -r -l2 -P/tmp ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/



You want to download all the GIFs from a directory on an HTTP
server.  You tried `wget http://www.server.com/dir/*.gif', but that
didn't work because HTTP retrieval does not support globbing.  In
that case, use:

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.


Suppose you were in the middle of downloading, when Wget was
interrupted.  Now you do not want to clobber the files already present.
It would be:

wget -nc -r http://www.gnu.org/



If you want to encode your own username and password to HTTP or
FTP, use the appropriate URL syntax.

wget ftp://hniksic:mypassword@unix.server.com/.emacs



You would like the output documents to go to standard output instead of
to files?

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 -





books on design
2005-09-26T00:19:00.000-05:00

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



format change
2005-09-25T22:27:00.000-05:00

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.



courage and wisdom
2005-09-25T21:05:00.000-05:00
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.



HTML and CSS links
2005-09-25T18:36:00.000-05:00

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.



Max Design's CSS tutorials



a Chicago French bistro
2005-09-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

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.)



the city and the campus
2005-09-20T17:38:00.000-05:00
The Orientation 2005 issue of the 
Maroon has some useful pointers.


Mississippi River camping trip
2005-09-17T17:24:00.000-05:00

Tentative schedule



Main target is one night camp overlooking the big river, several parks along the River and interesting small towns.


10/8, Saturday



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.



10/9, Sunday



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:



Dubuque -- IL 20 --> Rockford -- Tollway 90 --> Chicago



Chinese restaurants
2005-09-17T17:15:00.000-05:00

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



Sullivan Ballou letter
2005-09-17T15:15:00.000-05:00

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, Washington



My 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.



Turkish kitchen
2005-09-16T23:33:00.000-05:00

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




Franklin Pierce
2005-09-15T17:36:00.000-05:00

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 memory of a one-year-old
2005-09-14T16:17:00.000-05:00

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.)



books on writing
2005-09-12T23:48:00.000-05:00

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.



C/C++ books
2005-09-11T16:29:00.000-05:00

Here I'll collect some C/C++ book recommendations, thereby freeing part of my hard drive (and passing the burden to Google). Titles everyone knows or I already own are not urgent to be typed here.


First of all, ACCU has a "Book Reviews" section with a "Highly Recommended" subsection, which is a good place to visit for choosing a book to read.


C: A Reference Manual

by Samuel P. Harbison III and Guy L. Steele Jr.

Prentice Hall, 2002, 5th ed. pp 560

(Clean and complete. But most of the stuff should be availabe on the web.)


Programming in C++

by Stephen C. Dewhurst

Prentice Hall PTR, 1995, 2nd ed. pp 320

(I'm not sure this 10-year-old book continues to be good; but it gets nice reviews.)


C++ Gems: Programming Pearls from The C++ Report

by Stanley B. Lippman (ed)

Signature Sounds Recording, 1997. pp 625

(Not for the novice.)


C++ Standard Library From Scratch

by Pablo Halpern

Que, 1999. pp 351.


Generic Programming and the STL: 
  Using and Extending the C++ Standard Template Library

by Matthew H. Austern

Addison-Wesley, 1998. pp 576

(Quite theoretical probably because the author is also one of the authors of the STL. 
I read a small part of it. It makes things clear, but I may not need to be so clear about them.)


Ruminations on C++: A Decade of Programming Insight and Experience

by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo

Addison-Wesley, 1996. pp 400


Scientific and Engineering C++: An Introduction With Advanced Techniques and Examples

by John J. Barton and Lee R. Nackman

Addison-Wesley 1994. pp 671

(This book is old, probably a little too old, but good. 
I read part of it. It doesn't have a new edition. It clearly prints out many good conventions to follow.)


The Elements of C Programming Style

by Ranade and Nash

McGraw-Hill. pp 338


Writing Solid Code: Microsoft's Techniques for Developing Bug-Free C Programs

by Steve Maguire

Microsoft Press, 1993. pp 256.

(This is not just for C programming, although the examples are in C.)


C++ Common Knowledge : Essential Intermediate Programming 

by Stephen C. Dewhurst

Addison-Wesley, 2005; 272 pp; SBN 0321321928



Accelerated C++: Practical Programming by Example

by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo

A good text.



C++ in a NutShell

by Ray Lischner

O'Reilly, 2003.

An excellent reference. Candidate for purchase.



attention to China
2005-09-10T17:35:00.000-05:00

Recently I noticed some mention of China. First I saw a book titled China: The Gathering Threat, then the latest issue of Foreign Affairs has a special section featuring several articles on China by (in-China) Chinese scholars, including Wang Jisi, and an author from Singapore. The 1st column on Thursday's Wall Street Journal (this column must have a convenient name that I don't know) is about a China-related Pentagon official who have undergone some sort of shift of stance. The online BBC News had a report before Presedent Hu's US visit that claims the China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship.



By the way, Friday's Wall Street Journal had an article on the winery tasting choices in the Wine Country of Napa Valley and arround. I didn't read it through, but it should be helpful for anyone who's visiting north of San Francisco. I was there only once, with several friends from the college years, but didn't taste wine because it was closed for the day.



GNU make book
2005-09-09T18:17:00.000-05:00

The 3rd edition of Managing Projects with GNU Make
 came out last November and, in the spirit of its open-source subject, is online at



http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/make3/book/



little old lady & little boy
2005-09-09T18:16:00.000-05:00

Little old lay, riding a bus. Little boy, can you tell me how to get off at Pasadena Street?



Little boy.  Just watch me, and get off two stops before I do.



-- A joke cited by Donald E. Knuth in his 
The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1, Fascicle 1: MMIX -- 
A RISC computer for the New Millennium.



I learned about Knuth's annual lecture at the Stanford CS Department only in my final year on The Farm and therefore didn't get a chance to attend. It's said that the lectures always drew an overfull room of listeners.



Fortran's array manipulations
2005-09-09T14:35:00.000-05:00

I was impressed by the strength in array manipulations introduced in Fortran 90 and Fortran 95. 
Two aspects particularly useful for scientific computing are:




Flexible array slicing, or "sections", very similar to Matlab. For example, 

A(2:4, :)
A( (/10, 99, 1, 7/) )
A(10 : 1 : -1)



Intrinsic "elemental" functions, that is, operating element by element in arrays. 
All basic math functions like sin, log, ..., 
in addition to the fundamental operators +, -, *, /, **
 are of this kind. Again, very similar to the way Matlab works.



Moreover, user-defined functions can be elemental, starting with Fortran 95.



As far as I know, C++ is not as elegant or flexible in this regard.



puff ... puff ... puff ...
2005-09-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Saw an entertaining piece on the current issue of The ONION, 
I'm a Cloud Factory!
by A Smokestack, making fun of the the Bush administration's environment policy.



BTR: Ansel Adams biography
2005-09-08T20:38:00.000-05:00

(BTR means "book to read".)



The Eloquent Light 
is a "classic" biography of Ansel Adams by his friend and cooperator Nancy Newhall. 
I saw a picture of the author taken by Adams in another book and thought This is a strong woman!



A peak in the 11,000+ feet on the border of the Yosemite National Park was named Mount Ansel Adams the next year after his death.



Apart from being a 20th century master of photography, Adams was an enthusiastic preservationist. 
Another artist I recall energetically campaigning for the environment is the legendary country singer John Denver, 
who died in an accident in the 1990s while riding his private plane.



Eliot Porter's Greek World
2005-09-08T20:24:00.000-05:00

I saw this book, The Greek World, 
with photographs by Eliot Porter and text by an Oxford professor, today at Powell's. 
I thought it was 25 dollars and intended to buy it, until found out it's 45, the list price. 
But this book may well be out of print.



I first borrowed this book from the Los Alamos public library when I was an intern there in the summer of 2002.
 I loved it. 
The photographs of broken arches, granite pillars, relics of amthitheatres. . . all convey an immense feel of age. 
One can only imagine their scale. 
The ancient people, 
who put unthinkable efforts into building these monumental structures that would transcend time, 
must be perfectionists in the harsh living conditions--this seems to be the case with other ancient cultures as well. 
And the structures have a life, 
a vivid life demonstrated in the green grass and tiny flowers sticking out of the cracks of the stones.



The acompanying text was written by an Oxford professor of classics (I don't remember his name). 
He wrote about the places and the people at the same time. 
At one point, I recall, he told the story of a fierce battle on the peninsula. 
Soilders from one place known for fighting were hired to protect another people's place. 
They confronted a much stronger emeny and fought to death. 
They were so loyal to their job that they refused to flee. 
Truly professional warriors.



When I cleared my library card before leaving Los Alamos, 
the lady in the lovely library asked whether I would come to the place again. 


I said, maybe not.



Why, Mr. Zhang?
the lady asked in a bit disappointment.



Well, it's not that I didn't like the place--I just couldn't control where I'd end up the rest of my life.



Journel's geostat simulation book
2005-09-08T15:46:00.000-05:00

Andre Journel published a new book as a result of his research on geostat simulations in recent years, 
as the latest addition (as of now, I think) to the "Applied Geostatistics Series":


Evaluation of Mineral Reserves: A Simulation Approach

by Andre G. Journel, Phaedon C. Kyriakidis

Oxford Univ Press, May 2004

0195166949 (hard cover), pp 232.



At the time Andre attended my defence in August, 2004, 
I didn't know of this new book. 
He was the only professor present on my defence besides my committee and the chairman. 
He asked the only question in the public session. 
It is regretful that I didn't have much opportunity to work or interact with him after the first year's course work.



By the way he was the one responsible for my starting to use the LaTeX typesetting system. 
At one point (about half a year since arriving in the U.S.) I said 
(MS) Word is enough [for typesetting the homework] 
and he replied, LaTeX is much better.
Later on I heard that he's not good at computer, which is totally understandable for his age.



He encouraged me on one thing and criticized me on another. I thank him for both.



template rewritten
2005-09-07T02:19:00.000-05:00

Wrote a template of my own. Still ugly, but will live with it for now.



Solzhenitsyn
2005-08-30T13:27:00.000-05:00

The Gulag Archipelago

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first published in Paris in three volumes (1973-75).

HV9713.S7104, Regenstein and Harper.



After the first volume was published, the author was arrested and exiled from the country in February 1974.



I saw the books in Powells but didn't buy. It was about $6 per copy. 
The author's photos on the back covers are very impressive.



like a politician
2005-08-29T16:22:00.000-05:00

The [noise-corrupted] measurement is like a politician. 
We can use the information that it presents to a certain extent, 
but we cannot afford to grant it our total trust.



-- Dan Simon, Kalman Filtering, 
in Embedded Systems Programming, June 2001, p.72-79.



舊夢
2005-08-28T20:04:00.000-05:00

山下綠叢中，

露出飛簷一角，

驚起當年舊夢，

淚向心頭落。

對他高唱舊時歌，

聲苦無人懂。

我不是高歌，

只是重溫舊夢。



﹣胡適： 【舊夢】



The first time ever Chinese is typed into my Mac.



Ken Burns' "Lewis & Clark"
2005-08-27T23:04:00.000-05:00

Ken Burns' 1997 documentary 
Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery 
is a remarkable piece, beautiful and touching.
Its being beautiful was largely demanded and ensured by the subject. 
It gets touching towards the end when Lewis tragedily took his own life.



The writer Dayton Duncan, one of the narrators in the film, was great. 
He put a lot of emotion into the story, 
at one point almost breaking into tears while telling about Lewis' illusion, on the eve of his suicide, 
 that his lifetime friend Clark would be coming to his help. 
(Clark was several hundred miles away and knew nothing about the situation.) 
It's no surprise after I googled out that Duncan authored a book entitled 
Out West: An American Journey (Viking Penguin 1987), 
which chronicles his retracing of the Lewis and Clark trail.



The background music is beautiful, too. And that is important.



a quintessential American moment
2005-08-26T23:04:00.000-05:00

November 1805, after one and half years' excruciating journey through the vast uncharted West, 
the Lewis & Clark expedition were in the mouth of Columbia River and faced with a decision: 
where to spend the winter. 
They could stay north of the river, 
where the Indians charged high prices for everything; 
they could stay south of the river, 
where the other Indians were supposed to have a great wealth of food and clothing; 
they could also sail back up the river to where they could count on drier weather.



On November 24, the captains, 
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark collected everybody and told them they were going to make the decision by a vote. 
One by one. Every member of the crew. 
Including York, Clark's black slave. 
Including Sacagawea, an Indian woman, who was not even American.



This was Lewis and Clark at their best. 
The brilliant leaders were a century ahead of the time.



from LaTeX to PDF
2005-08-26T18:25:00.000-05:00



Here's a post detailing the process from LaTeX to PDF.


There's another post called 

Creating High Resolution PDF files for book production with Open Source tools
that appears to be overkill. Kept here for reference.


Do embed subsets of fonts used. 
But do not embed the entire fonts. 
To see the effect of font embedding, 
disable "Use Local Fonts" in menu "Document" of Acrobat Reader.


Use dvipdfm to generate both DVI and PDF; 
use pdflatex to generate PDF directly. 
dvipdfm takes EPS figures only. 
pdflatex does not accept EPS figures directly but takes rastered formats such as JPEG and PNG; 
one has to convert EPS to PDF using eps2pdf.
With dvipdfm, use option -e to embed the fonts.



Later on I saw some comments again dvipdfm and dvipdf. 
Now I use the a script I wrote for myself.



hate quotations
2005-08-26T16:46:00.000-05:00

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. 
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson



position floats in LaTeX
2005-08-26T12:02:00.000-05:00

Override the ill-chosen default float positioning parameters by the following (copied from

here):

% Alter some LaTeX defaults for better treatment of figures:
% See p.105 of "TeX Unbound" for suggested values.
% See pp. 199-200 of Lamport's "LaTeX" book for details.

%   General parameters, for ALL pages:
\renewcommand{\topfraction}{0.9} % max fraction of floats at top
\renewcommand{\bottomfraction}{0.8} % max fraction of floats at bottom

%   Parameters for TEXT pages (not float pages):
\setcounter{topnumber}{2}
\setcounter{bottomnumber}{2}
\setcounter{totalnumber}{4}     % 2 may work better
\setcounter{dbltopnumber}{2}    % for 2-column pages
\renewcommand{\dbltopfraction}{0.9} % fit big float above 2-col. text
\renewcommand{\textfraction}{0.07} % allow minimal text w. figs

%   Parameters for FLOAT pages (not text pages):
\renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}{0.7} % require fuller float pages

%   N.B.: floatpagefraction MUST be less than topfraction !!
\renewcommand{\dblfloatpagefraction}{0.7} % require fuller float pages

% remember to use [htp] or [htpb] for placement




The arguments in brackets tell LaTeX where it's possible to put the float; their order is unimportant. 
The default, [tbp], omits [h], 
which is not usually what you want.



Badlands
2005-08-25T21:27:00.000-05:00

As I am watching a "Lewis & Clark" video 
and the Corps of Discovery have now reached the Dakotas and are about to press ahead through the high mountains, 
I dug out a picture of the Badlands I took last fall:





It was October 1, 2004. 
Were it not a freezing morning, when the not so fast-moving air literally cut into the skin, 
I could have stayed a little longer with this post-nuclear-looking wild beauty.



Incidentally, the next day's (Friday, 8/26) 
NYT 
features a travel log in the Blackhills region of South Dakota. 
It covers not only natural and historical attractions, 
but also pointers to lodging and eating services, with address, number, and pricing. 
The description of a cold-war era nuclear control center, now a historic memorial, is particularly interesting. 
Recommended reading for anyone traveling to the southwest corner of South Dakota. 
The photos in this web version
South Dakota to the Extreme>
are apparently not nearly as striking as in the print version.

    (This paragraph added August 26, 2005.)



learn to write
2005-08-25T21:19:00.000-05:00

How to Write & Publish a Scientific Paper

by Robert A. Day, 4th ed., Oryx Press, 1994. 

(There is a 5th edition, which is not allowed to be taken out of the John Crerar Library.) 

T11.D330 1994. Crerar Lib.



I started with the concluding chapter, A Personalized Summary, 
and came across this:


To learn to write, you must learn to read. 
To learn to write well, you should read good writing. 
Read your professional journals, yes, 
but also read some real literature.



Can't agree more.



riting wrules
2005-08-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

A humorous yet pertinent list:
Selekted Riting Wrules



Such things are not to be memorized. Just for a light moment.



she's a flight risk
2005-08-21T23:03:00.000-05:00

This appears to be an intriguing story, or at least the very idea is creative: 
http://shes.aflightrisk.org



I was pointed to this site by a dead page dated 2003. 
Apparently this girl is soldiering on two year later. 
She must have a moderate audience to keep her morale up. 
If you're curious enough to read and find it interesting, 
maybe you can let me know and I'll try to find some time ...



circum-Lake Michigan trip itinerary
2005-08-20T12:13:00.001-05:00
Friday, 9/2


Leave Chicago at 2:00pm. 
Drive 6 hours to camp at the
 J. W. Wells State Park of Michigan, 49887, 
1 mile south of Cedar River, 25 miles north of Menominee. 
Dinner on the road; setting up tents after dark (which is no prooblem).



This leg of the trip: 

http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=4.109100,7.629456&saddr=60608&daddr=cedar+river,+mi+49887&hl=en



The campsite: 


http://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/ParksandTrailsInfo.aspx?id=432





http://www.savvycamper.com/exp-04.html


N7670 Highway M-35

Cedar River MI 49887

Phone Number: (906) 863-9747

30 miles south of Escanaba, or 25 miles north of Menominee on M-35: 

1 mile South of County Rd. G-12 and Cedar River
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=n7670+highway+M-35,+cedar+river,+michigan+49887&ll=45.385431,-87.429199&spn=.130341,.214937&num=1&start=0&hl=en



Reserved sites #2 and #101 for Friday night.



Menominee is a "Historic Waterfront District." 
We may try to have dinner there. Just have to hit the road early, hopefully before 2pm.


Saturday, 9/3


Leave campsite by 8am, absolutely! 
Drive 3 hours to Munising, Michigan 49862, the west end of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. 
Enjoy the lakeshore. 
Leave the lakeshore by 4:30pm and drive 3.5 hours to Mackinaw City, Michigan 49701. 
Actually we'll drive to Saint Ignace, Michigan 49781; but Google refuses to do the map.



This leg of the trip:
http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=.965721,1.766464&saddr=cedar+river,+mi+49887&daddr=munising,+49862&hl=en


http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=.984173,1.907364&saddr=munising,+mi+49862&daddr=mackinaw+city,+mi+49701&hl=en



The lakeshore:


http://www.epinions.com/park-Parks-All-MI-Pictured_Rocks_National_Lakeshore/display_~reviews


http://www.nps.gov/piro/


http://www.picturedrocks.com/index1.html


http://community.webshots.com/album/45478653BZFKAR



We probably want to boat to view the colored cliffs from the water, 
which is the best way to see this so-called world famous thing. 
There're narrated cruise, guide tours, etc. 
We'll see if there're affordable, self-operated, boating opportunities.



The highway 2 from Naubinway to St Ignace is an AAA-designated scenic drive. 
(AAA is not a battery size here.) 
There are, I believe, vista points along this stretch of coastal road.



Saturday night we'll either camp or motel in the St Ignace - Mackinaw City area. 
I'll bring along camping and lodging materials.


Sunday, 9/4


It can be a good idea to get up early and see sun-rise on Lake Huron. 
We take the 8:20 or 8:30 ferry to the Mackinac Island, 
walk the island (which is in Lake Huron), 
get back ashore to our cars  before noon and cross the Mackinac Bridge, 
the greatest engineering accomplishment of Michigan. 
Then we take the AAA-designated scenic coastal drive, highway 31, to Traverse City, 49684, 
where we have lunch or more likely a post-lunch break. 
Go to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, 49630, after noon. 
Go camping in the Interlochen State Park, Interlochen, MI 49643 (Michigan's first state park).



This leg of the trip:


http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=.496991,.953682&saddr=mackinaw+city,+49701&daddr=charlevoix,+michigan&hl=en


http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=1.003219,1.907364&saddr=charlevoix,+mi&daddr=traverse+city,+49684&hl=en


http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=.251830,.476841&saddr=traverse+city,+49684&daddr=empire,+49630&hl=en


http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.736268,-86.119698&spn=.243271,.469013&saddr=empire,+mi+49630&daddr=Frankfort,+MI+49635&hl=en


http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.644720,-86.011963&spn=.243656,.469013&saddr=Frankfort,+MI+49635&daddr=Interlochen,+MI+49643&hl=en



Mackinac Island is a motor vehicle-free (for over a century now) island 
of a 8.3 miles perimeter with a 500-600-people Victorian community 
(I don't know what that means). 
http://www.mackinac.com/index.html



The Mackinac Island ferry service:

http://www.mackinawferry.com/

$18.00 round trip each adult. Takes 16-18 minutes.



The Mackinac Bridge:
http://www.mackinacbridge.org/



Traverse City has many water sports and things. 
We may look around quickly. 
This is a possible place for a long-weekend ski trip next spring.



Sleeping Bear:


http://www.epinions.com/park-Parks-All-MI-Sleeping_Bear_Dunes_National_Lakeshore/display_~reviews


http://www.nps.gov/slbe/



Interlochen State Park:


http://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/ParksandTrailsInfo.aspx?id=460


http://www.epinions.com/park-Parks-All-MI-Interlochen_State_Park/display_~reviews


M-137

Interlochen MI 49643

Phone Number: (231) 276-9511

15 miles SW of Traverse City on M-137. 
Take US 31 W. of Traverse City for 7 miles to Interlochen, 
then go S. on M-137 for 2 miles.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=49637&ll=44.620044,-85.767174&spn=0.066047,.107469&hl=en



Reserved sites #300, #302, #303 for Sunday night. (#303 cancelled.)


Monday, 9/5


After a quick appreciation of the park we have slept in 
and exchanging contact, garbage, and promising each other digital photos, 
we take on the 7-hour drive home.



This leg of the trip:


http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=3.998602,7.504211&saddr=Interlochen,+MI+49643&daddr=Chicago,+il&hl=en



As you see on the map, after passing Grand Rapids we get closer to the lake 
so we'll have opportunities to take breaks on the lake.



Backup shops on the road:



Wal-Mart near Green Bay, WI

Wal-Mart map


Wal-Mart Green Bay map detail


Wal-Mart details



Wal-Mart near St Ignace, MI


Wal-Mart map


Wal-Mart details



Wal-Mart near Traverse City and Cadillac, MI


Wal-Mart map


Wal-Mart Traverse City map detail


Wal-Mart Cadillac map detail


Wal-Mart details



Driving times:

Chicago -- Green Bay:               208 mi,   3 : 45
Green Bay -- Marinette:                       1 : 07
Marinette -- Rapid River:                     1 : 30
Rapid River -- Munising:             55 mi,   1 : 35
Munising -- Mackinaw City:          123 mi,   3 : 21
Mackinaw City -- Traverse City:     105 mi,   2 : 50  (along coast)
Traverse City -- Empire:             25 mi,   0 : 37
Empire -- Frankfort:                 27 mi,   0 : 46
Frankfort -- Interlochen:            25 mi,   0 : 38
Interlochen -- Chicago:             330 mi,   6 : 15




The Not So Big House
2005-08-18T23:19:00.000-05:00

Creating the Not So Big House

by Sarah Susanka

The Taunton Press, 2000.



The author uses 25 Not So Big houses selected from 200 submissions from all over the nation 
to illustrate concepts and ideas of function layout, space use, decoration, etc. 
Emphasis is on appreciation of aspects of the architecture design that are visible, tangible to the dweller. 
Floor plans of each house are included.



The book is hugely educational; the pictures, tons of them, fabulous.



The author has another best-selling book 
The Not So Big House. 
I didn't see that one. 
The guess is that the earlier one is theory whereas the later one is examples.



I borrowed the book from the Daley Library in Bridgeport.



install fonts for LaTeX
2005-08-18T19:05:00.000-05:00

Finally got the new font installed. 
Now my documents should look somewhat better. 
I mainly used Eddie Kohler's LCDF Type Software
and the wrapper script 
autoinst. 
autoinst was not as good as it claims, but it helped.


In the end, 
TeX Unbound 
by Hoenig and 
The LaTeX Companion 
were the ultimate references. 
I also checked the four-volume 
TeX in Practice 
by Bechtolsheim and Rogers and found some things lucidly explained. 
Despite being rarely mentioned, this set is worth looking at when you're in trouble with some minute points. 
The book is a little bit wordy.



A guide to LaTeX font installation on OS X is

here



This is the procedure I took:



  Get LCDF Typetools and install.


  Put all the .otf files in a directory.
  Put the basic encoding files ly1.enc, lorn.enc, t1.enc, ts1.enc
  in the same directory.
  Set environment variables, for example,
    TEXMFCONFIG=$HOME/Library/texmf; export TEXMFCONFIG
  TEXMF=$HOME/Library/texmf; export TEXMF
  


  Since autoinst doesn't appear to do the job automatically, so run

  terminal> autoinst --manual *.otf

  This creates xxx.bat, xxx.sty, and several .fd files. 'xxx' stands for the font name.


  Edit xxx.bat, removing option --pl for the otftotfm command.
  This causes it to create TFM and VF files instead of PL and VPL files.

  
  Then

  source xxx.bat
 
  to generate a bunch of files in the current directory.


  Move the generated files to proper folders. Refer to the 
  otftotfm manual.
  Basically,
    tfm    -->  texmf/fonts/tfm/foundry/family/
  pfb    -->  texmf/fonts/type1/foundry/family/
  vf      -->  texmf/fonts/vf/foundry/family/
  map  -->  texmf/fonts/map/dvips/foundry/
  enc    -->  texmf/fonts/enc/dvips/foundry/

  fd      -->  texmf/tex/latex/foundry/family/
  sty     -->  texmf/tex/latex/foundry/family/
  


  After all these files are ready in the place they ought to be, run

   terminal> texhash

  and

   terminal> updmap [--enable Map xxx.map]
 

There're other problems that have been solved by me in a ad-hoc way.
My tetex is installed through fink,
and mysteriously it set the two folders in my home directory---.texmf-config/
and .texmf-var/ to be owned by root and therefore un-writeable.
I had to change that. 
Also, updmap complained that it could not find a certain map file.
In this case I either editted .texmf-config/web2c/updmap.cfg 
to get the path right (to be accurate, removed the path before the map file name,
then the barebone file name can be found in the ls-R file name database.)



After having accidentally succeeded in getting this done on my Mac laptop, I wanted to migrate the new font to my office Linux box.
In order to maintain only one customer texmf folder,
I really wanted to simply copy things from my laptop to my Linux machine
make only absolutely necessary changes.
I found that all the font-specific files I created on the Mac
were also good on Linux; 
I guess they're all text files.
The only extra step needed on the Linux machine is to run
texhash and updmap.



However there were some permission issues with updmap.
What I did is this:




Found a system default updmap.cfg 
and copied it to texmf/dvips/;

Ran
updmap --cnffile ./updmap.cfg --outputdir ./   --enable Map adobe/AParamondPro.map



And that finished the work.


LaTeX font wisdom
2005-08-12T09:14:00.000-05:00


Do NOT use the default Computer Modern fonts, DO use Times Roman or Lucida Bright.


To Use Times Roman with MathTime:
\usepackage[LY1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[LY1,mtbold]{mathtime} 

or
\usepackage{pslatex}




To Use LucidaBright for text/math:
\usepackage{lucidabr} 




To use Helvetica (good for slides)
\usepackage{helvet}




Another combination recommended is Adobe Garamond for text and 

eulervm for math:
\usepackage{AGaramondPro}
   \renewcommand{\bfdefault}{sb}
\usepackage[small, euler-digits, euler-hat-accent]{eulervm}
   \newcommand{\bm}[1]{\mathbold{#1}}
   \renewcommand{\mathbf}[1]{\mathbold{#1}}
    % eulervm must be loaded AFTER default text fonts are redefined.
    % while using eulervm, use 'mathbold' instead of 'mathbf'.




Do NOT use the default bitmapped fonts, 
DO use Type1 fonts, which makes the document smaller and look better.
To do this, use the -P pdf option with DVIPS.


Do NOT mix other text fonts with Computer Modern math fonts, 
DO use math fonts specifically prepared for use with particular text font. 
If no proper math font is available, 
stick to CM because it goes well with its math font, which is the TeX default. 


A nice TeX Font Guide.


The default LaTeX documentation has a font sampler file called sampler.tex 
and sampler.pdf that showcase free, ready-to-use fonts coming with LaTeX.


Another link that might be useful: 
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~csuros/latex.html




劉曉楓
2005-08-11T14:30:00.000-05:00

這一代的怕和愛 (The Fear and Love of This Generation), 

by Liu Xiaofeng, 1996, San Lian Books.



This is a collection of short articles previously published individually, 
mostly on the scholarly magazine 讀書 (Reading). 


The pieces that I have managed to finish are hard to read. 
One reason is his inadequate language skills. 
The flow is far from smooth and vivid. 
A second reason is his occasional use of imported terms which obviously have not become natural Chinese.



He has some revealing accounts of armed fight (and death of young students) in Chongqing (重慶)
during the (later part of?) Cultural Revolution,
 in the piece 記戀冬妮婭 (In memory of Don Ni Ya).


I saw him once on a seminar he gave at PKU around 1993. 
It was in a staircased classroom, but I can't recall which one. 
The room including the walkways were filled. 
He was introduced by professor Yue Daiyun (樂黛雲). 
My impression of him was quite a charming scholar focused on unworldly thinking. 
He spoke well. I think at one point he mentioned that he spent eight years in Switzerland studying theology.



the Cardinal Hotel in downtown Palo Alto
2005-07-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

235 Hamilton Avenue

Palo Alto

CA 94301

650.323.5101



Rooms with shared showers in the hallway around $60 per night.



photographing
2005-07-28T02:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (7/26/05) around 6:30-8:00 PM, took some pictures at Stanford, around the Main Quad.



The lawyer James Wagstaffe said in his Public Speaking
 class in the summer of 2003, 
Stanford is the best.---I'm biased.



also a blogger now
2005-07-28T02:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Grant advocated web blogging to me and I though it could be interesting, 
since I'm a person technical enough to design and keep a personal web page, 
but not enthusiastic enough to keep it up-to-date. 
I saw a couple such things before but dismissed it as a playground for self-important people 
who have a lot of time to kill.



One of the first uses I thought of for this blog is as a journal of things I may need to check later. 
For example, last winter I took a few pictures after the first snow in Chicago. 
The film was developed recently. 
Unfortunately I can't recall the exact dates of the shooting, 
therefore the slides can't be labeled clearly with the date and time as preferred by my labeling scheme.



I've tried out several time management tools. 
I used a journal/diary book in 2003. 
I bought a desk calendar sometime in 2002,  2003 or 2004. 
Late 2004 after moving to Chicago I bought a biggish calendar/planner and an expensive jacket for it. 
None of these was used regularly to form a habit.



Let me try blog now.



The above thoughts on the functions of this blog has proven daydreaming. (May 6, 2007)