I started a new blog

I've noticed that I haven't updated my blog for a long long time. And I looked back all the posts in this blog and found that most articles were not the reason why I started this blog. I decided to start another new blog, and post irrelevant posts in another new blog.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas everybody! It is a really nice holiday, many of you should have a great day with family or friends. However, I have to finish my stupid PBL report. That is the worst Christmas gift ever!

PBL questions are about DNA methylation. I don't care if DNA methylation is age-dependent or not. I don't care if DNA methylation is the reason why we get cancer. I don't care what the paper is saying. I just want to have a normal holiday, but it's impossible.

It's really boring to be a graduate student. I shouldn't be here. This is not what I can bear. Damn it! Well, I am sorry that I say this word in this beautiful holiday, but my life really sucks.

I am tired of reading papers, just come here and complain a while. I think this is the shortest article that I have ever write on this blog. Who cares!

Mobile template is available for Blogspot

Blogger have launched a new function of mobile template which makes people much more easier to read articles on blogger. However, this function is still in beta state so anyone who uses blogger and wants to activate this function should sign in from this website: http://draft.blogger.com to make this option show up. After that, you can change the option from "setting" > "Email & mobile". There should be a "Show mobile template" option.

I don't have iphone or android phone or other smartphone so I don't know how it feel to browse my blog in mobile template, even there is a "mobile preview" bottom in the setting. preview could be different with the reality.

Speaking of smartphone, I really want one. Unfortunately, smartphones are too expensive for me to have one. Recently, I think HTC desire Z is pretty good. If I am rich, I will definitely buy one.

Welcome Arjunan to join this blog!

The main reason that I set this blog is to practice my English writing, and my dream is that there are many people who join my blog and practice English together. I am very glad that Arjunan join my blog, and also shared some very useful information of how to improve English. I have to say thank god that I made a great step to my goal, even I don't believe god.

I was so happy that I couldnt' wait to write a welcome article for Arjunan on this blog. Therefore, I wrote this while I was preparing my presentation for the next day. Honestly, I planned at first to write this article in the next next week because I would be a little bit freer in those days. I am sure that the more people there are in this blog, the more motivation I will get to practice English writing.

Arjunan's joining really encouraged me a lot. Now, I am very sure that there is at least one person who will read my articles, or share good experiences, or even discuss things with me. I am so excited about it.

In the end, I would like to thanks Arjunan for the two wonderful articles and I hope he will write more and more great articles on this blog. Anyway, welcome to join this blog, Arjunan!

Lame experience with Asus

It is a really long story about my notebook. I bought a  Asus U35jc in the beginning of July. I was really excited because this is my first notebook. The feeling is just like the first time I got my own computer. However, one month later, it was broken. It couldn't be turned on after a crash. The broken timing  was very awful. It was the time that I was preparing moving and getting really for lab. So, I couldn't fix it in my home town, I had to take it and fix in another place where is near my new house. That would make me have no computer to use for about a week so I had to move my old computer with me.

Anyway, this didn't bother me the most. The thing that bother me the most is that my notebook couldn't be fixed for a month. In this period, the laptop was fixed three times but none of these times it was completely fixed. Of course, Asus service officially claimed it was fixed every time when I got my laptop back but actually it wasn't. There were still problems every time. Finally, the service couldn't find the the way to fix the problems so they said that the problems were caused by installing incompatible software. I was very angry about that because if I installed incompatible software the problems should be showed up immediately not a month. Obviously, they were finding excuses.

Therefore, I told them if they couldn't fix the laptop, they should give me a new one not making excuses. Because I didn't want to waste my time on a broken computer. Fortunately, they agreed to change a new one for me at last ,but it still took a long time to get a new one.

I am using new one to blog my experience ,and I am hoping that my new notebook can be fine for a long long time, at least two years. I have to say Asus service is not bad actually. At least they would inform you the status. Nevertheless, the way they handle problems is not good at all. This may be caused by the useless repairer or the fact that they actually don't care about users' feelings. I am not sure I would give Asus another chance. I would like to say Asus is the last choice that I consider if I want to buy a laptop again.

You know, we can download hundred millions personal data on facebook via BT torrents!

 I am not bluffing. This is truth. There is a person named Ron Bows who provides a torrent which has hundred millions of personal data that he search from facebook on his blog.

Bows claimed that this torrent contains:

• The URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile
• The name of every searchable Facebook user, both unique and by count (perfect for post-processing, datamining, etc)
• Processed lists, including first names with count, last names with count, potential usernames with count, etc
• The programs I used to generate everything

 This is horrible! I can't believe that our personal data is so easy to get if we use facebook. We can say there is no privacy in facebook. Honestly, sometimes I am considering to delete my facebook account. However, most of my friends using facebook, and I think this is the only way that they share their lives. The advantage for me to use facebook is that I can know what my friends doing recently if they volunteer to share, and it makes it easier for me to meet them in the future because even we didn't meet each other often, we still know something in common.

I know that this attitude is not healthy at all. We should interact with people in a normal way, not on the Internet all the times. This is one of my things which needs to be changed.

My first interview.

I have never had an interview before. Today is the day when I have my first interview. It is an interview of applying a graduate school. And this is a really long story.

Long time ago, I decided to apply for graduate schools so I went to cram school preparing the exams. However, I don't really want to go to graduate school so I stopped studying after chinese new year. Before I took the exams, I just finished less than one fifth of all books. I never expected to pass.


I was freaked out when I took the exams. Most of the questions are questions and answers, not multiple choice, so rationally, I did it very bad. All I answered were only one third of whole questions and I was not sure for half of my answers. I took them very easy.

The consequences showed that I failed in two school, and passed in one school. I was really surprised that I can pass for the exams. I can't believe it at all. Therefore, I got a chance to interview. If I make it, I will go graduate school. The interview was not easy to prepare. I need two recommendation letters, and a report card, and my autobiography. The report card are easy because I can just apply one, but the others are difficult. First, I don't know how to write a good autobiography. I don't know what are needed in an autobiography so I searched in the internet, asked some people, and even copy some templates. I wrote one finally, but it seemed not good enough. Anyway, it is much better than nothing. Second, I have to ask two professors who is willing to write me an recommendation letter. Wow, I didn't know who should I ask because there are some records that professor would turn students down in letter, or even refuse to write one for students. Whereas, I was lucky to have two letters in the end.

Last but not least, I don't know what should I wear to be proper enough. Some people said I should wear very formally, some people said I don't need to wear too formally. besides, it cost me a lots of money to prepare what I wore. That is really a big deal!

When I was interviewing with professors, they asked many questions which is not related directly to the graduate school. They were like chatting. They didn't ask any professional questions. That made me really relive indeed but I just have a bad feeling of this interview. And the worst things is that I finished this interview much earlier than the other candidates. Dose it mean that I don't have any hope to go to that graduate school?

About the future

The things I see in future of my life are miserable, depress, and dilemma. I don't know why I am so pessimistic. There should be some light in the dark. As the saying goes, "When god closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." But, I just can't find the window.

In Taiwan, people get high graduation with high degree. Too many people got master degree or PhD. Therefore, we have a myth that people who have higher degree will find better jobs. I can't deny all of these words. A good job with high payment and respect can only be done perfectly by people with excellent abilities. However, a person who got higher degree doesn't mean they have better abilities. Nowadays, many people in Taiwan went to a postgraduate school just for degree. That is ridiculous.

I don't like research very much so I don't really want to get a master degree right now. But, if I don't go to postgraduate school, I have to get a job. It is really difficult to get a job in this economical depress. Even if I go to postgraduate school just because I don't want to find a job now, I would face the same problem when I got a master degree. What am I supposed to do then? Should I face the music and find a job, or keep avoiding to get a PhD? And what should I do when I have gotten PhD? These are really hard questions for me. But there is one thing I am sure is that when I got PhD, there will be less things that I could choose.

The reason is simple. If I got a job after I finish junior high school, I can do everything as long as the job can feed me and this kind of jobs are pretty many. However, if I am a PhD, I may not be like a waiter for living. I should be supposed to be a professor or a researcher, and if I don't good enough, I will not have any job.

I get very lazy recently.

I really don't know why I get lazy recently. The thing is that I am going to have exams for applying postgraduate schools, and there is no any power for me to study. Besides, I am also too lazy to do what I am interested in, like computers, movies, playing balls, or going outside. I don't want to do all of them at all. The worst thing is that I don't want to stay at the room either. This make me feel like I am wasting my time, and the true it is.

I should find something to cheer me up, but I just don't know what things can work. Maybe I can start some project of some interesting things. That would make me find some things to do. However, I have a feeling that I will give up at last.

Honestly, I went to a fortuneteller couples of weeks ago. He told me that I would be lazy and not satisfying for anything. Therefore, I would have a lot of big changes in the next ten years, but all of these changes are not going to help me in the future. When I heard that, I felt very frustrated. If this is the truth, I would be very very pathetic.

But, what can I do? If this is my fate, I can do nothing but accept this. Don't tell me that I can fight with fate because I don't, and I won't. I have heard many stories about people wanted to change their fate, and they truly worked very hard, but they failed at last. The things they did are too hard. I would rather accept it than fight against it. It is not worth at all.

Avatar

I went to see Avatar few days ago, and it really impressed me a lot. I watched 3D version, and it makes me felt these sceneries and creatures are so real, thank to the technology nowaday. In addition to the special effects in Avatar, the whole story does mean something to us,even I think it is felt like one movie, The Last Samurai. Human broke the eath and tried to find another planets for living, but still are breaking the new planet.

Avatar in this movie represents a kind of biological machines that is combined human's DNA and Navi's together, and human can control this machine through mind transforming. However, what does avatar exactly mean in the dictionary? It defines avatar that is a picture of a person or an animal representing a person on a computer screen, especially in a computer game or chat room. So, I think I can explain that avatar is a form of human beings in Pandora, and that could means Navis are also human beings. Both of them are creature in a planet, and both of them try to use all resources in the planet for living, but the most different thing I think between them is that Human beings in the movie take all resources only for themselves, however, Navi use resources for the whole planet.

I think this movie, Avatar, is trying to tell us about environmental issue, and tell us what we are doing may cause the extinction of human beings. If we don't protect our environment, maybe we will find other planets someday for living. Besides, there is a really interesting dilemma between environment protection and economy in this movie. Because human want to increase economical benefit, they consume more resources, and that causes damage to the environment. Sometimes, we can't have our cake and eat it. We have to make a choice.

This is a great movie, I think. At least, it is worth for me to think.

The Oldest Veteran Passed Away

I accidentally read a news about an veteran, Henry Allingham, who participated in WW1 and has died aged 113. It is no doubt that he has lived for a long long time. He had been in so many historical event which includes WW1. Mr Allingham had so much experience but he seldom mentioned them to others until few years ago, he started making public appearance to share his own memories. All of them are treasure not only for people but also for the countries.

The news said that the primary minister of UK also show tributes to this great man, and called him a "tremendous character". I don't know Mr Allingham actually, but I can feel how amazing he is through this news. At the end of the news, it tell us that there are only two British survivors of WW1, and they are Harry Patch, 111, and Claude Choules, 108, now living in Australia.

After I finished this news, I start to think about how would I be if I were aged 113. Am I great as Henry Allingham? The answer is obviously unsure because no one know the future. But, is there any possibility that I can live until aged 113? I think it is possible. Thanks to the improvement of medicine, people live much more longer. When I read histories, it was very long if some one has lived for 50 years, but now, so many people died at age of eighties or nighties. Reasonable to assume, people around my aged can live more than a hundred years.

Well, it is kind of good news to people if we can live longer, but I have a different idea about this. People live longer which means they would work longer. Then it will have a problem that old people occupy the jobs so that young people cannot find one. In social welfare, it will be a burden if old people are a lot. I did say living longer is bad, but to say that it is worth for us to think about it.

link of the news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8157447.stm

Call Me Strawberry

Strawberry is a kind of fruit which is easy to get hurt. As everybody knows, strawberries cannot be pressed and put in an inappropriate environment. If you do so, strawberries would be rotten very soon. In Taiwan, people use strawberry to describe a person who cannot suffer pressure and adapt different environments. It seems like strawberry is a disparage word to describe some one. However, is that true?

In these days, the world change fast, and everybody should work harder than before to catch up the changing speed. Therefore people have to suffer more pressure to make themselves improve, otherwise they will be eliminated by times. These are thoughts of eastern people who afraid to lose to others since the day before world war two. At that moment, westerners were stronger than easterners, the former invented many weapons to conquer other countries of the latter. Easterners suffered not only pressure but also losing freedom from ruled by westerners, so easterners worked hard, trying to catch up even exceed westerners, in order to live in a comfortable life. There was only one country almost did so, it was Japan, but technically, they did not success.

In the eastern Asia, the thought of be better than others to live in a comfortable life has hand down to nowadays. People try to work very hard to exceed other so that they can live in a life of ruling others, not ruled by others. They think this kind of life is the greatest life. So, if you want to be better than others, you have to work harder. What if you want to be the best? Even working hardest cannot be proved to be the best. Some people worked very hard all of their life but cannot be the best. It tell us that being somebody is very difficult because somebody are only some of people can be. Therefore, to be the best is not the comfortable life for people to live.

Westerners found it hundred years ago, they raised up evolution of democracy fight for human rights after Industrial Revolution which is the time when people worked very hard. After the democracy evolution succeeded, people can live in a freedom, casual life. In Taiwan, people live in this kind of life will be called strawberry because they only do what they like, what they want. Most of people think that there is only work hard to catch up the advanced country, but they forget that why the advanced countries called advanced is because people in advanced countries have more human rights, and can do what they want, what they like in their countries, but work hard all days. The time of Industrial Revolution had passed, and the time of human rights has came. If you still only work hard, it will not help your country improve.

In my opinion, we cannot say strawberry is a disparage or praise word. It's just a word which symbols human right. Strawberry is expensive, rare, and not easy to plant, just like our life which is priceless, none is the same, and not easy to take.