大話新聞/頭家來開講

One suggestion made by many 大話新聞 viewers is:

Show reruns of the program during other time slots of the day

鄭弘儀 replies that he would convey this idea to the managers.

I suggest:

1. 鄭弘儀 explain to his audience that, even without reruns, they can
   
   • watch the program online at many web sites such as http://www.southnews.com.tw/, http://taiwanyes.com/tvfilm.htm, http://www.southnews.com.tw/, or http://taiwanus.net, or
     
   • watch a video recording of the program by downloading it from the above sites (in wmv or mp4 formats) and watch on your PC offline. This means that your computer needs not be connected to the Internet when you watch the video, or
     
   • Download the mp4 file (from http://taiwanyes.com/tvfilm.htm) to your iPod or MP3 player, so you can listen to it anywhere you go, such as when you are driving or walking your dog.
2. Anyone who can provide such viewing opportunities to common folks actively help out. For those people who are running for offices, they should set up gathering spaces offering such video.
   
   

San Diego is planning to close libraries!!!

I received this very alarming message:

Did you know that our city is planning to close several branches of the public library? This includes my very own branch in Ocean Beach. I know there are budget problems, but in my opinion this is not a good solution.

If you are also concerned you could email your city council person and/or mayor sanders to protest. I just did so. If your branch is one of the ones that may be closed there may also be local protests. I will be protesting in Ocean Beach on Saturday at noon. I think the mayor is claiming that the branches to be closed are not heavily used. I can't speak about the other branches, but for the Ocean Beach branch, this is simply not true. If you go in there are always lots of people there. (I think they may not all be checking out books, but they are there reading newspapers, magazines and books and using the computers. For many in Ocean Beach, this may be the only place they have computer access.)

Libraries are places where children, senior citizens and low income people can access books. For some in these groups traveling further to get another branch is not a good option.

To find out who your council person is and their email go to http://www.sandiego.gov/citycouncil/

To email the mayor JerrySanders@sandiego.gov

野草莓學運/TAIWAN Wild StrawBerries Movement goes international

See their English site at http://taiwanstudentmovement2008.blogspot.com/
The site just started, but already choke full of information. Please visit to show your support.

Protestiert Gegen Polizeibrutalitaet!! Verteidigt Freiheit und Menschenrecht. (Statment in German)

Angefangen am 3. November, mit dem Besuch von Chen Yunlin, hat die Polizei zahlreiche Aktionen gegen Demonstranten durchgeführt, darunter die Beschlagnahmung und Zerstoerung von Eigentum, physische Gewalt, und sogar Verhaftungen. Die große Mehrheit der betroffenen Demonstranten befand sich nicht einmal in der Nähe von Chen Yunlin.

Durch Berichte in den Medien haben wir den Ernst der Situation erkannt. Es geht nicht nur um Details bei der Strafverfolgung, noch handelt es sich einfach um einen Konflikt zwischen Anhaengern verschiedener politischer Parteien. Es geht vielmehr um Polizeigewalt, die vom Staat gefördert wird und die die Zivilgesellschaft beschaedigt.

Alle diese Aktionen, die Menschenrechte und demokratische Werte ignorieren, erinnern an das Kriegsrecht. Aber der Premier Liu weicht seiner Verantwortung mit unklaren Entschuldigungen aus. Diese Reaktionen der Regierung empören und beschaemen uns.

Wir fragen uns: Muss Taiwan seine Standards bei Freiheit und Demokratie bis auf das Niveau von China senken, um mit China wirtschaftlich kooperieren zu können?

Innerhalb weniger Tage sind Freiheit und Demokratie, für die die Taiwanesen so hart gekaempft haben, durch die Polizeiaktionen ernsthaft beschaedigt worden. Unsere Regierung ignoriert dies und veranstaltet stattdessen Empfaenge und Bankette für den Gast aus China.

Wir sind eine Gruppe von Universitaetsprofessoren, Studenten, und Bürgern, die sich Sorgen um die zukünftige Entwicklung Taiwans machen. Unser Protest ist überparteilich und unabhaengig von anderen politischen Organisationen.

Wir werden weiter friedlich demonstrieren, bis unsere Forderungen erfüllt werden. Unsere Forderungen sind:
*

Präident Ma Ying-Jeou und Premierminister Liu Chao-Shiuan müssen sich öffentlich bei allen Bürgern für die Vorkommnisse entschuldigen.
*

Der Generaldirektor der nationalen Polizei, Wang Cho-Chiun, und der Direktor der Staatssicherheitsbehörde, Tsai Chao-Ming, müssen zurücktreten.
*

Das Parlament muss das Versammlungsgesetz, das die Versammlungsfreiheit der Menschen einschränkt, revidieren.


翻譯. chiaokovsky
Read more!

Informationen auf Deutsch / Information in German

Einige Informationen über die Ereignisse auf Deutsch (Information in German):

Was im Vorfeld passierte:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,588782,00.html

Der Polizeistaat (der Blog eines NDR Journalisten):
http://taipeh.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/der-polizeistaatsbesuch/

Proteste gegen das Versammlungsgesetz:

http://www.china-observer.de/index.php?entry=entry081110-045850
Read more!

Posted by RememberSacharow at 5:25:00 PM 0 comments

野草莓學運: using technology to make good thing happen IIHong Kong students support 「野草莓」

學聯理大靜坐撐台灣「野草莓」

2008-11-14

【明報專訊】台灣近日認真熱鬧，前總統陳水扁(相關)被扣手銬嘅鏡頭，已經為關心兩岸人士增添不少話題，此外台灣嘅大學生亦發起「野草莓」行動（寓意學生係壓不扁嘅草莓）抗議，不但引起台灣人關注，連香港學生都舉手參加。

「野草莓」發言人李立偉，噚日同Emily嘅台灣同事講，香港專上學生聯會今日會同50個大學生，喺理工大學靜坐，聲援台灣學生。李立偉又話，美國哈佛大學法學院都已經聯署支持「野草莓」學運。

學生口中嘅「學運」，係抗議早前大陸海協會會長陳雲林訪台期間，台灣警察執法時侵犯人權，大家決定發起「學運」要求總統馬英九(相關)道歉。

其實「學運」又好，抗議又好，台大學生講明，今次要同唔同地區嘅大學生搞「網絡串連」，實行藉着網絡世界一呼天下應，今日就要睇吓啲學生係咪咁齊心連成一線。

Summary:

1. 香港專上學生聯會今日會同50個大學生，喺理工大學靜坐，聲援台灣學生
2. 美國哈佛大學法學院都已經聯署支持「野草莓」學運
3. 靜坐逾200小時野草莓明大會師
   聯合新聞網 - 3小時前
   野草莓學運已超過二百小時，靜坐學生昨晚討論明天全台大集結的方式和內容，請來學者與學生座談，文藝工作者則發表「拒絕沈默，捍衛表達自由」連署，作家李昂、演員戴立忍等人都參與連署。 昨天下午野草莓在自由廣場前演出行動劇，三名學生手持草莓氣球，遭飾演「波麗士 ...
   野草莓遍地開花高雄聲援 臺灣新浪網
4. 藉着網絡世界一呼天下應

Be sure students put cell phones away on exams

I got this email message. it is self-explanatory.

There is now an application for iPhones called SpaceTime Mathematics which does symbolic calculus.

The ad says:

"Solve limits, derivatives and integrals with MobileCAS, the first computer algebra system ever developed for iPhone that includes over 200 functions.

Graph 2D function, parametric, polar, vector field, implicit and contour plots. Move, pinch and trace 2D graphs in real-time!

Graph 3D function, parametric, spherical, and cylindrical plots. Rotate, pinch and move 3D graphs in real-time!"

If that isn't enough, you can also animate graphs.

Better be sure the students put their cell phones away on exams.

野草莓學運: using technology to make good thing happen

野草莓的學運 web2.0的學運

【聯合新聞網╱陳英珊 2008.11.11 03:55 pm

MSN、Twitter、Plurk、Ptt、Yahoo!Live、3.5G、YouTube......，成為野草莓學運的集結管道與發聲選項，學生們充分運用了現代網路科技，有別於傳統的樁腳動員方式，這是屬於web2.0新世代的學運。 twitter.msn網路動員 鄉民的社會參與 1106的圍城抗爭中，上街抗議群眾主要仍是透過黨部、樁腳、主流媒體來動員發聲，但同時開始進行的野草莓學運，組織動員方式卻有很大不同，學生與鄉民主要是透過括Ptt、MSN、Twitter等網路管道動員參與，他們也架設部落格宣傳抗議訴求，部落客也紛紛撰文支持。 野草莓運動部落格中，除了表達抗議訴求以外，還有相當豐富的資訊，包括現場直播、相關影片、部落客評論等，由公民記者Rousseau製作的野草莓運動聲 音影片中，參與靜坐的學生充分表達了自己的聲音，有人對擔憂自己的母親喊話，「媽，我知道你很擔心我們....，媽，我真的知道我在做什麼，我們在做對的 事情。」也有人表達參與活動的理念，「來這裡是為了要證明，民主對台灣人來講，不只是香水而已，民主對我們來講，是很重要的價值，而我們正捍衛 著...」。 相較於傳統媒體的聲音，部落格、MSN、Twitter、Plurk、YouTube的訊息更多元，發聲管道更多重，對傳媒報導內容的指正，似乎也再度驗證傳媒真實的不真實性。 Yahoo!Live現場直播 全台各地串聯 遊覽車集結北上？這是老一代的活動方式，新世代的野草莓充分發揮網路跨地域的特質，除了台北自由廣場的主線，還延伸了新竹場、台中場、台南場、高雄場等抗 議現場，串聯與轉播的方式是Yahoo!Live、宣傳小貼紙、網上連署，用幾台NootBook無線上網，巧妙的運用了Yahoo!Live做為現場直 播功能，讓大家隨時在網路看到全台的靜坐情形，還有學生用國台語、英語講解現場狀況。 野莓之聲 我不是溫室花朵... 「我不是溫室花朵，你也不用假裝溫柔」，「我們有屬於我們的夢我們有我們的話想說」沒有愛國歌曲與古板教條，野草莓學運中被傳唱，甚至改編 成MV的歌曲，是由網友nelleven創作的「野莓之聲」，nelleven在個人部落格上表示，支持學生獨立思考與實行精神，還幽默的說，「我野草苺 永遠不會是野百合，因為我們搾成汁之後，是還可以喝的」。 ‧野草莓運動網站 ‧野草莓學運現場直播 ‧ 野莓之歌 ‧野草莓學運重要連結懶人包 ‧ 野草莓運動聲音影片

A Picasa Mystery

A friend of mine was mystified that he could not add captions to his PicasaWeb album pictures. He added captions and saved the changes. To his surprise and dismay, the published album did not change a bit - the captions he added just refused to show. I didn't know what happened when he called, because he was in a different town. But I had an idea. I believed the program he used to add picture captions did so on his PC, but not on the album that resides on google's server machine. This was easily confirmed when I asked him to first sign in google. From here on I can be sure whether changes will happen on his machine or on the server. In this case, he first logged into gmail. Then on the first line, he clicked the photos link to go to PicasaWeb. Once there, he was able to add captions to pictures and more and see the effect of such changes immediately.

Computer Literacy for Experts

The title sounds self-contradictory. An expert should be literate, so should not need Computer Literacy education, right? Perhaps you can help me come up with better terms.

In the sumer of 2008, I taught a course to a group of outstanding computer science students at ITESO, Guadalajara. The topics I covered included:

1. The tabbing and extensible browser Firefox. Extensions.
2. Google family of software, such as Gmail, Groups, Doc and Spreadsheet, PicasaWeb, Blogger, etc.
   
3. Server-side and Client-side web authoring.
4. Emacs.
5. Python programming.
6. Functional Programming.

These topics were selected to instantly empower the students. At the same time, they present fundamental concepts of:

1. extensible software such as Firefox and Emacs
2. client/server technology
3. publishing and collaboration
4. procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming

I called this special course Computer Literacy for Experts.

Make photos available at high resolution

Here is an amazing picture of 830 Anti-Ma rally. It is rather small at 400 x 243 and 48K. I wish a very high resolution version is available on the web, but I have not found one. With this entry, I am calling for photographers to make their high resolution pictures available by publishing albums using software such as PicasaWeb or PyAlbum.

Here are stamp-sized pictures from 809 Anti-Ma rally: http://albums.tomoro.net/Jerome/809/index4.html
At this thumbnail size, you cannot see much detail. Now, click on the third picture from the top row, and you get a low resolution picture at http://albums.tomoro.net/Jerome/809/html/IMG_1320.html. Do you recognize this celebrity at this resolution? Most don't. Finally, if you cilck on the lower half of this picture, you get the full resolution picture at http://albums.tomoro.net/Jerome/809/html/IMG_1320_f.html.
At this size: 3888x2592, 12.8MB, any Taiwanese will recognize her.

Don't email pictures, publish albums instead

To share more than one or two pictures, it is easier to publish an album than to use email. For publishing photo albums, I recommend Google's PicasaWeb, whose use requires no computer expertise and using which albums can be published in a matter of minutes by unsophisticated users. There are many highly usable album software that make it easy to automate album creation such as making it easy to annotate pictures, arrange them in different orders or hierarchies, etc. I have been using Python-based PyAlbum.

Since the amazing 830 Anti-Ma rally, I received tons of 830 pictures through emails. One batch was unreadable by most recipients because the pictures had been uuencoded and few knows what to do with them. I uudecoded the files and created a PicasaWeb album at http://picasaweb.google.com/lubyliao/830. For another 830 album created using PyAlbum, see http://albums.tomoro.net/Jerome/830.

Resetting/Changing Mac Password

Among the many computers that John owns is a MacBookPro that sits on his bookshelves gathering dust. "Why are you wasting such a beautiful piece of machinery?", I asked. John was embarrassed: "I forgot my password, tried so many different combinations, but none worked."

I searched google, found this article: Mac OS X Password Recovery | Elliot Lee and did the following as instructed:

1. reboot while pressing Cmd-S
2. type the following commands at prompt:
   

   /sbin/fsck -y
   /sbin/mount -uw /
   /sbin/SystemStarter

This unfortunately did not work. SystemStarter never returned on this Mac OS X 10.5.x machine and did not respond to ctl-C or ctl-Z. But it turned out that I could change John's password with just two commands:

/sbin/mount -uw /
/usr/bin/passwd john

Here, john was John's username.

What Price Computer Illiteracy?

When traveling, I frequently run into sub-optimally working computer systems that

1. waste people's time, day in and day out
2. are awfully under-utilized
   

A typical example is a computer with a powerful Intel Pentium 4 CPU, yet absolutely inadequate internal memory (such as 512 MB), or harddrive space (such as 20 GB). Another example: in a family of many computers, with a DSL conection, both wired and wreless Internet access and a very high-end HP network color printer, the printer was connected to a desktop computer using a USB port, instead of directly connected to the network and used as a network printer. Why? Because the owner or the installer did not know any better.

When I upgraded the Pentium 4 system to two Gigabytes of memory costing less than $45, the speed improvement was immediate. In the second scenario, when the printer was properly installed as a network printer and all household computers were set up once to use the printer, all compuers started to print conveniently to the network printer. The owners are left wondering how they had suffered for years from snail-like slow speed and from the great inconveniences with printing.

Why you should use Firefox

For two reasons:

1. It is a tabbing browser. Everybody should be using a tabbing browser, which enables one to display n web pages simultaneously using n tabs in one single browser window. In contrast, for a non-tabbing browser such as old IE, this opens up n browser windows cluttering your precious desktop space. This used to be reason enough to use Firefox, but no longer. Firefox makes it necessary for any browser to be a tabbing browser to survive in the market place.
2. The most important reason to use Firefox is that it is extensible. There are many extensions or add-ons that you can install on your copy of Firefox to add functionalities to it. For myself, all of my client computers run Firefox with different sets of add-ons installed. The intersection includes:
   
• Answers
• Clipmarks
  
• FEBE
  
• Firebug
• iMacros
  
• Live HTTP Header
• WebMail Notifier
  

Microsoft owns Taiwan

It is widely known that Microsoft owns Taiwan. Here is a news that says that Microsoft has over 98 percent of market share in Taiwan. How frightening is this?

1. More than 98% of computers in Government offices, schools, companies, and families pay hefty sums to Microsoft for software licenses. This adds up to monies that boggles the mind.
2. Even more frightening is the fact that many Taiwanese simply identify computing with Microsoft technologies. In many universities, for example Tamkang University (淡江大學), the distinction between computer science and Microsoft technologies becomes unclear: computer education is Microsoft software training.

What to do?

1. Use better and free software such as Linux distributions and Google family of programs (Doc & Spreadsheets, Calendar, Picasaweb, ...)
2. Teach fundamental Computing principles. Refrain from software training of particular vendors.