What makes a MaDonald's Chicken McNugget ?

The following article link comes from Digg News. Just amazing. You would never guess there would be 56 ingredients in McNugget and one of them is even killing. No wonder we have so many cancers, diabetes and all kinds of other disease these days. Remember the 42 years CEO of McDonald just died several years ago ?

http://www.alnyethelawyerguy.com/al_nye_the_lawyer_guy/2007/03/so_what_really_.html

Science vs. Faith

This simple picture says it all.

Wikipedia Baby

Another episode about my daughter ---- She can use wikipedia to check the things she wants to know, at a 5.5 years old. Above is an image she found from the site.

This may not be unique, but still a wonderful thing to be recognized by her parents.

After we unpurposely showed her once, she adopted the method and use it to check her favorite names such as "Rhinoceros","Porcupine", "Octopussy" and many many others. She doesn't write very well yet, but she knows the spelling of these words. A lot more than I expected. Sometimes she typed the words into the search dialog box by copying them from her books. I think mostly she wants to see the photos.

Now she starts to transit from fancy nouns to adjectives: "beautiful", "happy", "wonderful"...
As always, she likes words with multiple syllables.

What a joy when she clicks the "Go" button !

3D

丫头小小的， 已颇有空间想象力。她自己从书本上学了 "Cylinder", "Regular Box", "Cone", "Pyramid" 这些单词和图画， 时常念叨。 今天我考她， 给她一个杯子， 她便讲：＂Cylinder＂； 又一本书， 那自然是 ＂Regular Box＂， 讲时斜眼瞧我，见笑， 便知道对了，自己也好高兴。她弟弟又忙不迭地赶过来鹦鹉学舌。

Bicycling

最近的一次， 是还在读书的时候吧。和先生每人买了一辆二手自行车，周末兴致勃勃地出去郊游，也是辛苦生活中的一种慰籍吧。那时常有的感想便是：＂囊中羞涩都无恨， 难得夫妻俱少年。 ＂

现在好些了吧，虽然年华似水。骑上我新买的 Bike,带着头盔，仍能有些如飞的感觉。每天蹓达一圈，不觉间精神大进呢。

许多时候，财富并不能给人带来更大的快乐。生命的很多快乐，还是源自那些基本的体验。

Happy Pi day

Today is march 14, also known as Pi-day. Some people thinks it is the most irrational day of the year! Interestingly, it is also Albert Einstein's Birthday.

A brief math refresher: Pi, a simple concept, the relationship between a circle's circumference and diameter: Multiply the diameter by pi — 3.14159, to use a crude approximation that would make many of the people in this story blanch — and you get the circumference.
It is is about a curious group of people with an almost religious zeal for a mind-numbing string of numbers. Actually one number, made up of a chain that is known — so far — to be more than one trillion digits long. They are the acolytes of the church of pi.

When I read the stories about "Pi-day" fans, I am so glad that I am not a Pi-fan :
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070312/ap_on_fe_st/the_church_of_pi

Fine Arts

I mentioned in one of my blog articles that there is a convenient road from home to the company. Yes, it is this beautiful path that I walked every day.

Also, there is a pretty lady on the road I met almost every day. Usually she would wear a straw hat with a special but pleasant disposition.We would smile at each other, as warm breeze brushing away.

Finally we stopped and talked with each other today. She is also Chinese ( not surprisely ), works nearby. She just got laid off and her job is outsourced to India. She does web design and Ad design for a local newspaper ( They outsouce too ?). Also she told me her major is "Fine Arts" and she has stayed in US for more than 20 years.

Not sure if I could help her out, but it feels good to make aquitance with a gorgeous lady.

Daytime Savings

It has caused trouble in our corporate calendar. Now meetings appear in lunch hours. Old meeting schedule need to be one hour earlier but new meeting schedule is correct. Corporate leader says the meeting owner need to manually adjust their meetings but direct manager states we must not make time changes as this may cause room conflicts. Is there anything more confusing than this ?

Congressmen are really idiots. What is the point to have the daytime saving one month earlier ? Do we really experience any production boom from it ? There are only 24 hours per day. "Daytime Saving" is another stupid example that how human wants to fight with TIME in vain, in the human history.

It might be another millennium bug. The difference is that we are not prepared this time. Think about those flight schedules. God bless America !

Will IT industries benefit from it again? Maybe.

评＂林妹妹＂出家

网上已经评论够多，猜测纷纭：有觉得她是没有子女而出家的，有说因为她的公司欠税款而避世的。这些都是为了让俗世中人有一个可以理解的理由。要知道陈晓旭的千万身家和事业，可是好多人梦寐以求的。我求都求不到，你居然说不要就不要了？而且，历来的文学作品，都让人感觉人必需走投无路了，或是遇到很大的情伤幻灭譬如宝玉，才会选择出家的。

佛家讲求因果，＂佛渡有缘人＂。以前看陈晓旭的小诗和拍摄红楼梦的记叙，觉得她是一个很有灵性的人，也可以说是有＂慧根＂吧。她的出家，也似乎是自然而然的。出世和入世，都不过是人内心反应的一种形相而已。佛祖释伽，原本王子，也曾如花美眷，似水流年。 他还育有一幼子，后来度化出家，做了座前罗汉。曾看过一佛度幼子的雕塑，依稀仿佛些人世间的温情。

我佛慈悲，普渡众生。

广告无处不在

１。 大清早的就有广告电话，硬是留了个电话录音，with very high sales pitch. 而我， 是登记了 "National Do not Call" 的。 平日里时不时的有商业电话来， 好多还是从古老的印度打来的，带着有趣的口音。

２。 打开email, 至少有３个 commercial email, 还是过滤过的， 也不知我的电邮如何被辗转得知的，一向很小心不留给商业用途的。 这还不算太坏， 我有个已经弃用了的旧电邮地址， ９５％装的是垃圾邮件， 碰到实在摆不掉的就以此搪塞。

３。流览网页，自然地广告少不了，有时还 Popup, 逼着人看。现在 Ｅｎａｂｌｅ Ｐｏｐｕｐ Ｂｌｏｃｋｅｒ， 清静多了，ｇｍａｉｌ 文字形式的广告也能令人忍受。

４。家中邮件， 每天的信用卡银行贷款广告少不了， 照例扔掉。 Ｃｏｕｐｏｎ特别是当地的有时会有用，快速看一遍扔掉。。（ 美国贷款的一大好笑处： 不需要时非得借钱给你， 说 你 Ｑｕａｌｉｆｙ； 真需要时，＂ｓｏｒｒｙ, Blah Blah Blah....＂）。


５。另外，逛 Ｍａｌｌ买菜吃饭办事总是碰到各种各样的广告标语，这些 并不太烦我。

最最讨厌的就是家中电话广告。我们用了ＣａｌｌＩＤ，看到不认识的电话号码就挂掉，也不知有没有错伤好人过？

Chinese New Year Parade

Yesterday we went to San Franicsco downtown by the train. It is a public transportation for bay area people, known as "BART" ---Bay Area Rapid Transmit.

Every year there is traditional Chinese New Year Parade in Chinatown, a big event for Chinese folks in SF. When we got there ,it was already crowded, with cheerful atmosphere. Some people wore the traditional clothes, buying those jade jewelry, silk skirts, lanterns, fans or some other arts crafts which are commonly available in Chinatown. The streets are still dirty, with a lot of booth tents left from the daytime commercial fair.

Restraunts were crowded. Finally we picked a Vietnam restraunt for dinner ---just because it is quieter. It was kind of funny in a forest of Chinese restraunts.

Finally the parade:

1. Miss Chinatown

"风姿倬约"----


"巧笑嫣然"----


象不象＂巩俐＂？ ---



2. Dragon Dance




3. 孙文: "天下为公"

地震了

昨晚大约 ８：４０左右， 忽有些地动山摇的感觉，当时正要将一只锅放到桌上，所以一时有些恍惚以为是锅掉到了地上震的，但又是那么的不对劲，脚上的地板被来回拉扯了好几下。

也就一愣神的功夫，地平静了。感觉有些惊惶，开了电视，讲以Lafayette为震心，刚过一 4.2 级地震， 而我们离 Lafayette 不过 5 Mile.

加州多震，但昨晚是感觉最大最真切的一次，后来据报也是本地二十五年来最大的一次地震。

阿弥陀佛，不要让两孩子和我们碰到什么更大的才好。