Wednesday, December 22, 2010

瞼書找台灣人麻煩嗎?
Is Facebook giving Taiwanese trouble? II


I heard so much accusation that Facebook was collaborating with Chinese KMT to silence Taiwanese that I wrote 瞼書找台灣人麻煩嗎? Is Facebook giving Taiwanese trouble?

I hoped to use it to collect evidences of such alleged atrocities.  Thus far, only three people stepped forward to leave comments.  This is my second call for help.  Anyone can help in the following ways
  • If you have been unjustly persecuted by Facebook, please leave a comment
  • If you read accounts of such persecution, please leave a comment including references

Friday, December 10, 2010

One more reason to leave your point-and-shoot at home: geotagging

Read this New York Times article that hinted at the demise of point-and-shoots: In Smartphone Era, Point-and-Shoots Stay Home.

I want to add one more reason: geotagging.  Smartphones can write the coordinates, latitude and longitude, of a photo to the picture file.  When these pictures are uploaded to sites such as http://picasaweb.google.com,  you can choose to have a google map automatically showing the location of the picture.

See http://picasaweb.google.com/lubyliao/TaichungScenery# for an example.  These pictures were taken with a HTC Desire HD android.  I uploaded the pictures to Picasaweb, and Google maps are shown without any work on my part.

In contrast, the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/lubyliao/zcgniG# were taken with a point-and-shoot that carried no geo info.  We can manually add geotags as I did here.  But it is extra work that discourages me from using my point-and-shoot.

Pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/lubyliao/TaichungScenery#
show some interesting features of the HTC Desire HD camera app.  Note that IMAG0184.jpg has geo info, but IMAG0185.jpg doesn't. Likewise, IMAG0179.jpg does and IMAG0180.jpg doesn't.  In between shots, I did not change camera setting to turn off geotagging.  So who did?

Even more serious is the fact that the geo info for IMAG0178.jpg is completely wrong.    IMAG0125.jpg and IMAG0144.jpg have distinct geotags even though they are the same place.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Thoughts on the September 2010 Amsterdam WASET multi-conferences

The following is from a private correspondence, with minor editing:
I was at the September Waset conference in Amsterdam, ...
 
I was worried about the real existence of this Waset conference.  All web searches for Waset was positive at this moment, but, like you, I had many questions.   For example, why didn't they accept credit card payment ...
The conference included many different symposiums.  I am in industrial engineering and systems management.  All talks were entirely in one room.  My presentation was at 9:00 AM. There are at least 20 papers to be presented in a 2 hour slot... and all the topics were different.
 

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

三元在《自由聖火》 指控諾貝爾獎評委會和劉曉波 的啟示

  1. 兩個荒謬絕倫的臆測正在網路流傳.  一個説瑞典人將要合法化公民與河馬通婚.  第二個更可怕.   它説胡錦濤和馬英九可能因為他們創造了台海和平的假象而得到諾貝爾和平獎.  不要説不可能.  ISO 不是稱我們的國家 Taiwan, a province of China, 使台灣既是國又非國嗎?   希望三元先生在《自由聖火》的努力使人類免於這個橫禍.  不要像施明德説是要反貪腐, 其實幫助中國國民黨來消滅台灣人.   
  2. 三元先生一開始這麼寫:
    百年以來,我們在不斷地努力,努力洗刷我們民族的恥辱,但是舊辱沒去,又添新辱。劉曉波代表中國人獲取諾貝爾和平獎,就是我們中華民族新的恥辱。
    作者像是一個義和團式的中華民族  族本主義者. 他覺得中華民族受辱, 湏要努力洗刷. 那麼圖搏民族受中華民族的欺凌屠殺要不要洗刷?
  3. 如果三元先生對劉嘵波的指控屬實. 我覺得這是一個重要的貢獻. 它將使諾貝爾獎評委會更慎重地調查受獎人. 使人類不再憂慮它會頒獎給希特勒.
  4. 如果三元先生對劉嘵波的指控屬實, 我希望他把事實詳細地公諸於世. 為什麼下面他這個在網路上流傳的文章不這麼做?
In our Internet age, any lie and evil-doing will be uncovered and exposed. At this point, I have far more confidence in 劉曉波 than 三元.

讓我們共同努力 揭出諾獎評委會的黑幕
三元 (首發稿)
文章摘要: 中國底層人士在漫漫的黑夜中艱難行進,之所以一線希望尚存,就是因為世界上還有占絕大多數的國家是自由、民主的國家。人們希望他們關注中國人權,希望他們能對中國產生影響促進中國的民主化。諾獎評委會將和平獎送給劉曉波這樣的人,無異於對中國苦難民眾冷水澆頭,是一種助紂為虐的行為。

作者 : 三元,

發表時間: 10/9/2010
百年以來,我們在不斷地努力,努力洗刷我們民族的恥辱,但是舊辱沒去,又添新辱。劉曉波代表中國人獲取諾貝爾和平獎,就是我們中華民族新的恥辱。
劉曉波作為一個作家,曾經為傳播民主知識寫過文章,也撰文抨擊過中共侵犯人權的行為。對這些,我們一直是尊重和肯定的。但是,進步作家是一回事,獲諾獎是另一回事,不是每一個進步作家都可以拿諾貝爾獎,他的貢獻和獲諾貝爾獎相差太遠。何況,他還是一個品格和道德有著嚴重缺陷的人,中國怎麼能讓一個道德上有嚴重問題的人當舉旗人?
1989.事件發生後,天安門廣場血跡未幹,劉曉波就匆匆忙忙為中共屠殺背書,聲稱天安門廣場沒有死人。這之後,劉又在他的文章中說:六四提供了一個以謊言來撈稻草、自我貼金的良好時機。各種人,懷著不同的動機,說著各異的謊言......。政治性謊言、道德性謊言、求生性謊言、官方謊言、精英謊言、民間謊言......,‘六四被謊言打扮得一塌糊塗,也被謊言強姦得人老珠黃。這其中雖然也說了官方的謊言,但無疑重點是在說.受難者製造謊言。
一些人在讀了劉介紹.的《末日倖存者的獨白》一書後,感到的不是心理痛苦,而是生理痛苦:胃受不了,要嘔吐。(見鄭義《這算什麼懺悔》)
把諾獎給劉曉波,就等於承認劉說的是對的,在中國不存在所謂的.鎮壓,.受難者在集體造謊。
近些年來,中國因言論和信仰被判入獄的政治犯成千上萬,這些人中的知名人士幾乎都表示他們曾遭受過中國員警的虐待,只有劉表示在監獄受到柔性化的管理,在押人員提享受到了人性化的生活環境,感到溫暖。
把諾獎給劉曉波,那就是在承認劉說的是對的,中國的所有政治犯都在詆毀中國已經進步了的監獄管理
在諾獎揭曉前夕,有數百人簽名的《呼籲頒諾貝爾和平獎給劉曉波》的公開信送交諾委會,事後經人揭發,此信很多人在不知情的情況下被別人代簽,這種不公正的行為已經在網路上成了人們傳播的醜聞。
把諾獎給劉曉波,就竺於承認這種不公正的簽名行為是值得信任的。
2005年底,良心律師高智晟律師站在人類道德高度上為法輪功群體呼籲,發起了全球接力絕食維權抗暴運動,此時,劉一夥卻不斷地干擾破壞高的這個正義行動;2006年在美國總統布希接見中國維權人士時,劉一夥卻製造了讓人感到不可思議的余王排郭事件2007年中國維權英雄楊春林先生與3000多農民、上海700多上海訪民發出不要奧運要人權的急切呼籲,劉等急切出來打橫炮,發出了所謂要人權更要奧運。在近幾年的中國人維權活動中,人們都可以看到劉干擾破壞的身影。
把諾獎給劉曉波,就等於宣佈高智晟、胡佳、陳光誠、高耀潔等都不具有獲得諾獎的資格,打壓中國正當的維權活動,而支援同北京和作的所謂溫和派的改良活動。
劉曉波是一個首先上倍受爭議的人物,作家鄭義說劉從來鄙視民眾有意與尼采媲美,並且是一種毫無理論品質的鄙俗與淺薄的鄙視。劉還是爭名奪利之徒,鄭義形容說:八九年春夏之交的劉曉波,每一動作甚至每一眼神都充滿了對名利權勢的渴求。劉對高智晟等人的打壓,在很大程度上也是由於他的爭名奪利的心所驅使。
08憲章》是何人起草?到現在也還不太清楚,但無論是誰起草,有一點是肯定的:不是由劉曉波起草。當時我看到《08憲章》的時候,感到很奇怪,因為這個憲章同劉的一慣思想主張一點也不一樣。
幾年前,劉曾寫過一篇《從俞可平、吳思、劉軍甯看普及民主》的文章,劉說:俞文對民主的理解與目前大陸自由知識界的理解,基本上沒有區別。俞文所講的民主常識,不僅早已成為民間自由主義者的共識,也早已成為黨內開明派的共識。
看過俞可平《民主是個好東西》這篇文章的人都知道,俞的這篇文章是講社會主義民主的,曾經在國內包括新華社在內的多家大型媒體上刊載。這篇文章中沒有自由、人權、三權分立等民主社會最基本的東西,可是劉卻認為俞文對民主的理解與目前大陸自由知識界的理解,基本上沒有區別。其實這個思想才是劉真正的思想,由此我們可以斷定《08憲章》不是由劉起草。
諾獎評委會在很多事情都沒有基本搞清的情況下草草把諾獎給了劉曉波,這其中肯定有不為外人所知的內幕。
諾獎送給劉必然會對中國民主事業造成極大的破壞,中國的民主事業必然會因此分列成眾多的派別,相互之間的爭訌在所難免。在以後的日子裏,中共所布的這個棋子可能會找一個藉口放出來,分列民主陣營的隊伍,利用其掌控的資源破壞中國的民主事業,這也可能正是諾獎評委會所要達到的目的。
在此,希望真正有志於中國民主化的仁人志士、受苦受難的中國國內民眾、海內外一切良心尚存的組織和個人,以及西方關注中國人權的中國底層人的外國朋友行動起來,揭出諾貝爾獎評委會的黑幕。
在漫長的歲月裏,中國有緣獲諾獎的人寥寥無幾,正因為如此,中國人普遍把諾獎看得很神聖,他給中國造成的影響不可低估。
中國底層人士在漫漫的黑夜中艱難行進,之所以一線希望尚存,就是因為世界上還有占絕大多數的國家是自由、民主的國家。人們希望他們關注中國人權,希望他們能對中國產生影響促進中國的民主化。諾獎評委會將和平獎送給劉曉波這樣的人,無異於對中國苦難民眾冷水澆頭,是一種助紂為虐的行為。
我相信,中國人有能力揭穿諾獎的評選黑幕,如果中國人不能做到這一點,那中國的民主化到底還有希望嗎?
(《自由聖火》首發 轉載請注明出處並保持完整)

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Why couldn't I copy this web page?

When a page is not responsive to your mouse movement or keyboard press, it is because of the JavaScript running in the page.  Just disable the JavaScript. 

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

瞼書找台灣人麻煩嗎?
Is Facebook giving Taiwanese trouble?

如果你有類似的經驗, 請你留一個comment, 或寫一個 email 給我.

綠營政治人物臉書帳號紛傳出被停用!


(巳知受害者: 陳致中、謝長廷、賴清德、游錫堃)

日前李登輝前總統也跟上年輕人的腳步,開始玩起網路社群工具Facebook(臉書),但說來也奇怪,最近綠營政治人物的Facebook帳號卻紛 紛因為不明原因而遭到停用。目前已經傳出謝長廷、游錫堃、賴清德、陳致中等人的帳號因遭檢舉,而被停用,但向Facebook投訴後,也都沒有得到回應。

今年六月份時高雄市議員參選人陳致中因為遭到「冒牌陳致中檢舉正牌陳致中」,導致臉書帳號被無法使用,還大費周章地向網友解釋帳號遭盜用。

而在父親節當天,有網友反應無法在Facebook上搜尋到前行政院院長謝長廷的帳號,經了解之後,證實謝長廷本人的臉書帳號確實被停用,連同一帳號管理的謝長廷臉書粉絲專頁也不見了。

正當網友們懷疑是否這一切都是「阿共仔的陰謀」的時候,大台南市長參選人賴清德的臉書粉絲專頁竟也因為不明原因停用,競選總部只好在第一時間宣布,另外成立新的臉書粉絲專頁,號召網友重新加入。

不過農曆七月發生的怪事不只這一樁,今(25)日上午前行政院院長游錫堃也在噗浪上發難:「為什麼Facebook停用那麼久?已 經三天了!信也寫了!毫無回應?不知有誰能夠幫助我?」,原來臉書帳號被停用的綠營苦主又多了一位,還有網友忿忿不平地說:「現在是逼著大家用中國的微博 嗎?」

民進黨中央網路部主任林閣雍表示,去年民進黨的所設立的Facebook個人帳號Dpponline也因不明原因被幹掉。他建議可 以先寫信向臉書抗議,再成立新粉絲專頁同步處理,而新設立的新粉絲專頁,可以多設幾位管理員,以防止因個別帳號停用,造成粉絲專頁也停用的情況發生。

這些遭到停用的綠營政治人物,賴清德已經再成立新的粉絲專頁,而陳致中也在臉書成立了「陳致中後援會」,但現在只有261人加入; 游錫堃則考慮另外在 Facebook成立粉絲專頁,取代原先的個人帳號;而謝長廷目前則暫時以噗浪(Plurk)經營為主,保持和網友們的互動。

Monday, September 20, 2010

ISO insists on calling Taiwan a province of China
Knowing full well that it is absurd and unjust
ISO sets an exmple of diminishing human morality


(中央社記者謝佳珍台北9日電)台灣控告國際標準組織(ISO)侵害姓名權,外交部今晚表示,雖然瑞士聯邦法院以無管轄權為由不受理,但外交部仍將繼續努力,以維護台灣合法權益。
外交部發布新聞稿表示,瑞士聯邦法院於台北時間9日晚間針對台灣控告國際標準組織(ISO)的民事案件作成判決,5名承審法官再次肯定台灣有權作為訴訟當事人之一造,符合國家要件,具有國際法人地位及訴訟當事人能力。
外交部說,瑞士聯邦法院另以外交承認與否的政治考量,而作出本案無管轄權的不受理判決,認為台灣所提出的民事訴訟具有政治目的,致使台灣訴求有關民法上的姓名權保護未被受理。
外交部表示,本案因ISO對台灣的不當稱呼,經外交部及相關駐外館處一再與ISO交涉未果,才循瑞士民事司法途徑尋求救濟。
外交部指出,這次案件為民事訴訟案件,並無所謂政治意圖。雖因瑞士聯邦法院以無管轄權為由不受理,但外交部仍將繼續努力,以維護台灣的合法權益。
總部設在日內瓦的非政府組織ISO 在它所訂定的「ISO 3166」國名與地區編碼表中,將台灣稱為「中國台灣省」,廣為國際沿用。台灣於民國96年7月20日在日內瓦提起訴訟,要求正名為「中華民國(台灣)」。

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Thoughts on the August 2010 Singapore WASET multi-conferences

On 2010-02-11, I submitted a paper Some questionable web construction approaches and practice to WASET August 2010 International Conference on Internet and Web Engineering.   This conference is one of some ten conferences of the WASET multi-conferences held at the River View Hotel, Singapore, from August 25 to August 27.  I could no longer find the list of the conferences for this WASET multi-conferences, but it is similar to the 2011 International Conference on Information, Communication, Electrical & Computer Engineering in Singapore that consists of eleven conferences.

I discovered WASET conferences from Google search. They looked impressive. I submitted the paper to WASET's August Singapore conference because during the summer months I will be in Taiwan, an easy four hour flight to Singapore.

Before I went to the Singapore meeting, I wrote about WASET in I will be presenting a paper Some questionable web construction approaches and practice at WASET Singapore 2010.

On 2010-08-25, I checked in at the WASET registration desk in the River View Hotel, Singapore.  I was given a lunch voucher, my name tag, a receipt of registration fee, with my name and 600 [sic] handwritten,  a copy of the conference proceeding (WASET year 6 issue 69 August 2010),  and a conference CD.  I read my paper starting around 4:15 PM.  Even though my talk was well received,  it was unclear anyone was interested in the topic.  

Some thoughts on WASET's conference:
  1. Paying for WASET conference registration feels more like paying for ransom than paying for a conference.  Wiring 450€ to an unknown account in Dubai, UAE to register for WASET conference is a good source of anxiety for many and will make others think twice about registering.    I was relieved to see that there was really a WASET conference in the River View Hotel, Singapore.  I advise WASET to accept credit card payment like everyone else.
  2. WASET must answer authors' messages instead of ignoring them.   Read I will be presenting a paper Some questionable web construction approaches and practice at WASET Singapore 2010 to see how they ignored my messages to them.
    The following private correspondence from IIT Roorkee, India, suggests a general pattern:

    ... then I wrote this things to  alerts@waset.org. But they did not respond. Finally I send my paper as attachment to alerts@waset.org. But still they didn't respond. ...
  3. I wish WASET great success in bringing conferences to such cities as Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Rome, Tokyo, Singapore as advertised in http://www.waset.org.  This would offer scholars more conferences to choose from, a wonderful contribution.  Judging from my experience with the Singapore conferences, WASET has much work to do to make its conferences useful.  I see the following serious problems:
    1. The WASET Singapore multi-conference program lists 257 papers in 11 conferences with an average of 23 papers per conference.  Out of 257, 44 are posters listed in the e-Sessions (page 11 of the PDF program).  There are two parallel sessions in Halls A and B.  The posters are supposed to be in Halls A and B during all three days, but I did not see any in Hall A.  I hope other attendees can share their experience by leaving comments.  Excluding posters, each conference has an average of 19 papers.   The audience is small, around 30,  in the afternoon of 2010-08-25 in Hall A.   That is on average less than three attendees per conference.  With this small number of attendees, the likelihood is small that one will meet people in one's field, or potential collaborators.
    2. One way to get a sense whether a conference offers good value is to see how many papers are of interest.  I invite you to read the conference program to decide.  Leave a comment as a service to others.
    3. There were no free Internet connection in the conference halls.  I borrowed a hotel Wi-Fi account from a WASET lady staff immediately before my talk.   It worked when I began, but soon started asking for a password.
    4. Each talk is 20 minutes.  Yet in session III (see picture below) which went from 3 to 5 PM, there were fourteen talks scheduled, arithmetically could take up a total of nearly four hours. How can this impossibility be achieved?




    5. The conference program lists 257 papers, the conference CD contains 245, but the hard copy conference proceeding contains only 25.  Why are 232 papers excluded from the proceeding?  What is the criterion for a paper to be included in the proceeding?
    6. I had the misfortune of having a 100 % failure rate interacting with WASET's web (PHP) programs while submitting my paper and while submitting registration.  WASET must fix these web programs right away.
    7. Conference programs should not be published as PDF files as they shape up.  Such practice is ineffective and does not engender professional respect.
    8. WASET papers are published to the web at http://www.waset.org/journals/waset.  As of today, 2010-09-05, the most recently published papers are those from the April 2010 conferences at http://www.waset.org/journals/waset/v64.php.  Only 8 such papers are visible with the rest labeled under construction.  Assuming WASET had published 2010 April conference CD,  it should be little or no work to also have these papers published to the web.  Likewise, there is no excuse not to publish August 2010 conference CD to the web site immediately.  Not publishing papers timely, WASET hurts its credibility and authors' visibility.
If WASET can improve to offer genuinely useful conferences, I will not hesitate to attend its other conferences in exciting cities such as Paris, Tokyo and Rome.  I wish it success.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Microsoft and I

I use very little Microsoft software.  For the last four years, my main machine is a MacBook Pro that only very occasionally runs Windows XP  on a VMWare virtual machine.  Before that, my main machine was a Dell notebook that ran Redhat Linux most of the time, and only very rarely did it boot into MS Windows for special needs such as when I was traveling in Mexico.  Most of my life,  I do not need Microsoft software.

I advise people to stay away from Microsoft.    Here is why:
  • Microsoft Windows purposely leave out or play down the most powerful and most important software, viz a terminal program that lets you control your machine and other servers.     The terminal program that Microsoft operating systems offer used to be called MS-DOS, and is now called cmd.    The MS terminal program does not include a most important suite of programs that allow your PC to communicate with other machines.  I am talking about programs such as ssh, scp and sftp.   To illustrate, a straightforward way to transfer files between a PC and an iPhone would be to use scp.  True, one can install cygwin to turn a Windows PC into a Unix machine.  Or, one can install a ssh client such as PuTTY.  But this begs the question as to why Microsoft chooses not to give users the most fundamentally powerful terminal program, out of box.
  • My guess is that Microsoft believes most users do not need a powerful terminal program.   Instead,  they need a word processor such as Word, a spreadsheet program such as Excel, a personal data manager such as Access, and a presentation tool such as PowerPoint.   I agree these programs can be useful.   But I find no use for Word except when a paper I publish needs to conform to the style set in a Word template.   PowerPoint has been faulted to divert people's attention from essence to trivial and flashy presentation tidbits.  See US military: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint.    I do not ever use PowerPoint even though I give many talks.  My slides are always themselves web pages such as those generated by a Google Docs presentation (Here is an example).  I do not use Access unless a client makes me.  For relational DBMS, my favorite is Postgresql.   I use Excel for very simple jobs. 
  • Microsoft software has caused a lot of grief for the world.  This bullet addresses the problem caused by its client-side computing model.  This means, Microsoft's programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access save user data to the user's PC, instead of a server machine such as in the case of a Google doc.  Many years ago, my teaching assistants would keep the students work record in an Excel spreadsheet.  When I ask for it, they would email me the spreadsheet file.  I would be helpless if my TA was not responding to my requests for the Excel file, or worse if my TA had taken off vacationing in the Himalayas, thinking she had sent me the file which never arrived.  Clearly, client-side based computing makes information sharing and collaboration difficult and problematic.  Nowadays,  my TAs and I share class grades using Google spreadsheets.  I collaborate with coauthors using Google docs.    Microsoft offers similar service in its software SharePoint.  Since I do not use Microsoft software,  I have not found any use of it.   Finally, I like to mention Evernote, which as a note taking software saves user data to both the user's PC and Evernote's servers, all transparently. 
  • Consider the afore-mentioned problems of Microsoft software,  you might think people will have second thoughts about Microsoft.  Here is the frightening fact that boggles the mind: Microsoft owns Taiwan   

Sunday, August 1, 2010

ISO is absurd and immoral
when it calls Taiwan a province of China

 
ISO (International Organization for Standardization) calls Taiwan a province of China in ISO 3166.  See English country names and code elements.

I consider this alone a crime against humanity, as bad as Hitler or worse (most certainly from Taiwanese point of view):
  • What gives ISO the right to claim Taiwan a part of China against all historical facts and political realities?
  • If Taiwan were a province of China, then it is not a country.   Why then does ISO list it as a country?
  • If Taiwan were a province of Taiwan, why do people obtain visa from Taiwan, NOT China,  to go to Taiwan?  When in Taiwan, why do they use Taiwan dollars and NOT RMB?
All I ask from ISO folks is FAIRNESS!  Whatever country you are from, do you appreciate this:
Yo, Swiss, you are from a province of china. 
We Taiwanese resent ISO for its extreme insensitivity towards 23,000,000 Taiwanese.

Many of the 23,000,000 Taiwanese are devastated by this ISO 3166 madness that calls Taiwan a province of China, but they don't understand how extremely damaging ISO 3166 is.

A consequence of ISO 3166 is that tons of software have been written based on this standard.  As a result, ISO helps spreading the Chinese lie Taiwan is a province of China like wildfire.

With ISO 3166, ISO has made many angry Taiwanese write to companies asking them to stop calling Taiwan a province of China.  Most of these Taiwanese do not understand that the real culprit is ISO.   Otherwise they would have condemned ISO, instead of writing to companies that are simply using software based on ISO 3166. 

To clarify, I hereby show a response of a letter I wrote Moodle protesting its web site listing Taiwan as a province of China:
Thank you for contacting us regarding this matter.

Moodle uses the International Organization for Standardization list on moodle.org and in the software (see http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/english_country_names_and_code_elements.htm). We do not decide what countries are included or the naming conventions. The administrator of a Moodle site can modify this list. For more information, see this thread: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=117990

Regards,
Michael Blake
Operations Manager
Moodle.com
ISO folks, what inspiration caused you to hurt 23,000,000 Taiwanese calling Taiwan a province of China? Why don't you say:
Switzland, a province of China
 or
China, a province of Taiwan
To the latter, Taiwanese will surely protest. Because Taiwanese have no territorial ambition towards China.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

I will be presenting a paper
Some questionable web construction approaches and practice
at WASET Singapore 2010

2010-08-12: I wrote the following about WASET in a correspondence:
WASET's management is a huge problem.  WASET may have some good ideas, but their web sites and management styles are ineffective and easily raise suspicions about their competence and credibility.   Some examples:
  • Registration should be done online with a credit card.  The current practice of requiring wiring money must be abolished.
  • Final conference program should not be published as a PDF file.  Such practice is ineffective and does not engender professional respect.
  • Owing to the same ineffectiveness, as of today,  post-April 2010 WASET papers remain invisible on the Net.  See   http://www.waset.org/proceedings.php
2010-08-09:
I searched Google for WASET Singapore 2010 and could scarcely find any information.   It appears that the original web pages that announced and attracted me to WASET August 2010 International Conference on Electrical, Computer, Electronic & Communication Engineering mega conferences in Singapore have been taken off line.  To promote the conference, more information about the conference should be available, instead of less or none.  If WASET is not promoting the conference in which I am presenting a paper, then I feel I should.  Thus, this update.
2010-08-03: An update:
I took this entry off line after I finally received a response from WASET on 2010-07-29, as follows:
Dear Delegate,
The Updated Singapore Conference Program is available at http://www.waset.org/programs/Singapore10.pdf

Best regards,
B. Brojack
Reading the pdf, you can see my paper Some questionable web construction approaches and practice is scheduled to be read on the first day of the multi-conferences, Wednesday, 2010-08-25.

WASET does not respond to my request for refund, so I assume it will not happen.

I decided to bring this entry back online after I received inquiries about it.  Many people are as anxious and curious about WASET as I.

A friend wrote:
I hope for your sake that WASET turns out not to be a fraud. Do Tweet or ILT [meaning, send updates to the I Love Taiwan google group] the updates on the situation as you have them. 
I too hope WASET offers genuinely useful conferences for scholarly presentation and publication.   If I go to WASET August 2010 Singapore multi-conferences, I promise the world an update.]  

After a paper I submitted to the August 2010 WASET (World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technologyconference in Singapore was accepted for presentation and publication,  I began to suspect that WASET is a fraud.  To my surprise,  before mid-June 2010, repeated google searches for waset resulted in no negative comments against WASET, save for one web site I could not take seriously.   I will explain later why I suspected WASET a fraud.

I decided not to pay the $450 Euros registration fee until I received an email from alerts@waset.org, stating
the Tentative SINGAPORE 2010 Conference Program is available at http://www.waset.org/programs/Singapore10.pdf
I was not impressed with the conference program.  But it changed my mind about not registering because it appeared to show some real people presenting papers.  I am a University of San Diego professor.  I submitted a paper to WASET August 2010  Singapore conference because I will be in Asia at that time.  I had invested a significant amount of time with WASET after I made a decision to submit paper to it, and made my paper conform to its required layout, format and style.   If I had made a mistake, let me bite the bullet.

As a prerequisite to register online, I needed to wire 450 Euros to an account in Dubai, United Arab Emirate.  This felt more like paying a ransom than paying for a conference.   Why couldn't WASET accept a credit card, like anyone else? Worse, my bank charged me $35 for the international wiring.

Interesting, yet most unpleasant things began to happen after I wired the 450 Euros. Here is a summary
  • registration for the conference at http://www.waset.org/author.php failed using whatever browser and whatever file format the registration page instructs.
  • To date, I sent more than fifteen requests to WASET  for help.  They ignored most of them.   When they did respond,  they wanted me to try http://www.waset.org/author.php again and again.
One response was promising.
Dear Author,
Thanks for registration! We have received your documents.
Best regards,
B. Brojack, Secretariat
Editor-in-Science
http://www.waset.org/
In this message, Brojack, Secretariat assured me that I had finally registered.  But her/his next message asked me to try http://www.waset.org/author.php again, even though I complained repeatedly that this registration page always failed with  the same error message.

Finally, I wrote B. Brojack, Secretariat of WASET, for either straightening out my registration impasse, or else refunding my 450 Euros.   No response!

To summarize, I wired 450 Euros to an account in Dubai, UAE to pay for the registration fee for a WASET conference in Singapore.  I was instructed to register for the conference online at http://www.waset.org/author.php, which always failed. I wrote WASET to request for help. They ignored me.  I asked for refund, they also ignored. 




Thursday, July 22, 2010

一分鐘破陳致中 疑召妓案

既然有召妓的時間和打到應召站的電話通話記錄, 用通連記錄來追查不是馬上水落石出嗎? You might be interested in reading a related true story on the same blog: Alibi everywhere.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Can we rely on Google for critical missions?

  1. In the last post, I mentioned that my Google site [I Love Taiwan] Google Group stopped working for about a month now.   Repeated requests to Google Inc for help produced no useful response.  A friend asked:
    Do you have any idea what they think you did, or why they think they are justified in cutting off service?
    Nope.   I am confident the site became inaccessible not because of the content of the site, or anything I have done.
    For the near term, I think you need to come up with a good, clear, concise explanation of what happened leading up to the suspension of service, and why Google might have suspended your account.  Then explain why Google was wrong to do what they did.   Finally, you should lay into Google for being unresponsive and stonewalling, in apparent violation of their prime directive not be be evil.
    Nothing I can think of can justify disability of my Google site; it just happened out of the blue.  Google is not suspending my account.  In fact, all of my Google apps continue to work perfectly except my existing Google sites.  A far-fetched speculation is that China made Google Inc disable my site because one of its subsite is Taiwan is not a part of China.  If this is true, then Google Inc is helping China silence people and the whole world should be prepared to fight not just China, but also Google Inc.
  2. Consider an even more serious disruption of Google service, and even more serious loss of years of historical data for Taiwan.  The following is copied from http://taiwanyes.com/tvfilm_201007.php; The most shocking is that an youTube (a Google company) account twyes2 has been eliminated. As a result, so went all the videos Taiwan Yes 2 had uploaded to youTube over the years.  These include many years of the recordings of the daily talk shows 大話新聞 and 新台灣論壇 that constitutes a faithful recording of the history of Taiwanese' struggle for democracy.   
    7/13/2010 - 在 Youtube 的 twyes2 帳戶被 Youtube 刪除了,所以連帶其他節目也被刪除了。而且另一帳戶 twyes 也收到 Youtube 的第一次通知 。
    還有不知是否與下列新聞有關 「蘇麗 媚搶進中國 公開迎合馬英九 有線電視買賣大戰引關注
    7/12/2010 - 今天收到 Youtube 的第二次通知
    "...這是他人第二次對您的帳戶提出版權抗議。只要有人再次對您的帳戶提出申訴,我們就會終止您的帳戶。...(按此看內容)"
    看來我必須把舊的三立電視節目從Youtube刪除了。
    7/11/2010 - 貼出別的Youtube網友上載的大話新聞。
    7/6/2010 - 由於收到如下Youtube和三立電視通知 "侵權聲明 您所上傳的影片已侵害三立電視之權利,例如大話新聞....,請立即下架避免觸法!" 所以不再上載三立電視之節目。 
Are the two things related?  If they are, it is too frightening for humanities. It means China and other evil forces can make Google Inc silence dissenters,  prevent truth be told, and hide things they wish censored.

Friday, July 9, 2010

When Google messes up your life
and ignores your request for help

Google has become a very important part of my life.  For example, I count on Google to make sure my Google site [I Love Taiwan] Google Group  work smoothly 24/7.  When an important Google service stops working and Google would not help fixing it, it is a very serious problem.

Here is an example. For more then three weeks now, my Google Sites have become disabled while all other Google Apps continue to work. I wrote many times to ask for assistance, getting no useful response, and the Sites continues to be disabled.

When we rely on Google for important services such as Email, Sites, Calendar, Blogs, Google Apple Engine, etc., any disruption of these services is a disruption to our lives. Google Inc must be sensitive to users' needs. Internet users should ask Google Inc whether they can rely on its services.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Taiwan president's office: we will not watch youTube videos for fear of getting virus

 
拒連民眾陳情網址 馬政府:怕中毒 【7/6 18:39】


竹南大埔自救會成員代表下田把遭怪手輾倒的稻子扶起,並高喊 「反對徵收、農民團結」。(記者彭健禮攝)
竹南大埔自救會成員被警方與國安局人員組成的人牆隔離。(記者 彭健禮攝)
苗栗縣竹南大埔自救會不滿縣府強徵民地,且侵權施工,再度攔阻 施工,警方擔心發生衝突,圍起人牆將自救會成員與施工人員隔離。(記者彭健禮攝)
〔本報訊〕馬總統到底有沒有苦民所苦?還是認為眼不見為淨呢?苗栗縣先前發生的的大埔農地徵收事件,就有網友寄e-mail向馬政府陳情,當中附上一段 youtube的陳情相關網址,但府方看到後居然回信表示,為防止駭客入侵或擔憂電腦中毒,因此無法連結不明網站。許多網友知道後,直呼太誇張!

這段youtube影片內容是,政府為了徵收大埔農地將怪手無情的開入並毀壞農田的影片。有網友將這段影片上傳至youtube,並將網址寄給府方,希 望馬總統能看到也能夠正視這個問題。

而府方收到後回信表示,由於網路病毒與駭客惡意攻擊層出不窮,為了維護總統府工務電腦的安全,故無法連結至提供網站。

總統府發言人羅智強表示,從民進黨執政時期開始,基於治安考量,總統府所受理的信件,原則上不擷取所附之連結,若民眾有意見,總統府會再與相關人士做進 一步研究。

有網友們聽到後直呼這真是太扯了,因為不止總統府網站本身在youtube就有連結,youtube也是全球最大的影音分享平台,怎麼會是來路不明的網 站呢?有網友直接表示說,現在全球的政府紛紛與社群網站接軌,馬政府不想看就算了,怎麼可以說網站有毒呢?雖然府方事後回應,即便是知名網站,都有資訊安 全的疑慮,但不排除未來以更彈性的處理方式。但馬政府面對民眾陳情的處理態度,不免令人質疑是不是謹慎過了頭呢?

相關影音檔請見:
苗栗縣政府不等府院裁定 硬挖大埔稻田
怪手開進農田大肆破壞

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

High school math education can be harmful

Every time I teach Calculus, I am pained by how students are so successfully trained by their high school math teachers to use slope-intercept form for finding equations of lines, even when point-slope equation should be used, such as in the typical problem of finding the tangent line of a curve y=f(x) at x=x0.
Some students continue to use slope-intercept form in such context during the final.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Everybody, including Nobel Laureates, should blog

Please read
How Chinese KMT media fabricate news; 李遠哲:台灣應歡迎陸生

to learn that
... 管碧玲昨天在自己的噗浪上PO訊息說,「李遠哲來電告訴小英主席,說他有關應歡迎中國學生的報導,是 被聯合報和中國時報斷章取義的」。管碧玲質疑「媒體怎麼可以這樣?」
If 李遠哲 is willing, he could blog on this.  It would take him just seconds to tell the whole world what actually happened.

US military: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint

The damage caused by an atomic bomb is instantly appreciated.  The damage caused by calculators and PowerPoint are hotly debated, but calculators and PowerPoint are potentially more dangerous than atomic bombs because they destroy many minds of a few generations. 

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint


A PowerPoint diagram meant to portray the complexity of American strategy in Afghanistan certainly succeeded in that aim.



WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.

“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter.

The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

In General McMaster’s view, PowerPoint’s worst offense is not a chart like the spaghetti graphic, which was first uncovered by NBC’s Richard Engel, but rigid lists of bullet points (in, say, a presentation on a conflict’s causes) that take no account of interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces. “If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise,” General McMaster said.

Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making. Not least, it ties up junior officers — referred to as PowerPoint Rangers — in the daily preparation of slides, be it for a Joint Staff meeting in Washington or for a platoon leader’s pre-mission combat briefing in a remote pocket of Afghanistan.

Last year when a military Web site, Company Command, asked an Army platoon leader in Iraq, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, how he spent most of his time, he responded, “Making PowerPoint slides.” When pressed, he said he was serious.

“I have to make a storyboard complete with digital pictures, diagrams and text summaries on just about anything that happens,” Lieutenant Nuxoll told the Web site. “Conduct a key leader engagement? Make a storyboard. Award a microgrant? Make a storyboard.”

Despite such tales, “death by PowerPoint,” the phrase used to described the numbing sensation that accompanies a 30-slide briefing, seems here to stay. The program, which first went on sale in 1987 and was acquired by Microsoft soon afterward, is deeply embedded in a military culture that has come to rely on PowerPoint’s hierarchical ordering of a confused world.

“There’s a lot of PowerPoint backlash, but I don’t see it going away anytime soon,” said Capt. Crispin Burke, an Army operations officer at Fort Drum, N.Y., who under the name Starbuck wrote an essay about PowerPoint on the Web site Small Wars Journal that cited Lieutenant Nuxoll’s comment.

In a daytime telephone conversation, he estimated that he spent an hour each day making PowerPoint slides. In an initial e-mail message responding to the request for an interview, he wrote, “I would be free tonight, but unfortunately, I work kind of late (sadly enough, making PPT slides).”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates reviews printed-out PowerPoint slides at his morning staff meeting, although he insists on getting them the night before so he can read ahead and cut back the briefing time.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and says that sitting through some PowerPoint briefings is “just agony,” nonetheless likes the program for the display of maps and statistics showing trends. He has also conducted more than a few PowerPoint presentations himself.

General McChrystal gets two PowerPoint briefings in Kabul per day, plus three more during the week. General Mattis, despite his dim view of the program, said a third of his briefings are by PowerPoint.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was given PowerPoint briefings during a trip to Afghanistan last summer at each of three stops — Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif and Bagram Air Base. At a fourth stop, Herat, the Italian forces there not only provided Mr. Holbrooke with a PowerPoint briefing, but accompanied it with swelling orchestral music.

President Obama was shown PowerPoint slides, mostly maps and charts, in the White House Situation Room during the Afghan strategy review last fall.

Commanders say that the slides impart less information than a five-page paper can hold, and that they relieve the briefer of the need to polish writing to convey an analytic, persuasive point. Imagine lawyers presenting arguments before the Supreme Court in slides instead of legal briefs.

Captain Burke’s essay in the Small Wars Journal also cited a widely read attack on PowerPoint in Armed Forces Journal last summer by Thomas X. Hammes, a retired Marine colonel, whose title, “Dumb-Dumb Bullets,” underscored criticism of fuzzy bullet points; “accelerate the introduction of new weapons,” for instance, does not actually say who should do so.

No one is suggesting that PowerPoint is to blame for mistakes in the current wars, but the program did become notorious during the prelude to the invasion of Iraq. As recounted in the book “Fiasco” by Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin Press, 2006), Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, who led the allied ground forces in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, grew frustrated when he could not get Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander at the time of American forces in the Persian Gulf region, to issue orders that stated explicitly how he wanted the invasion conducted, and why. Instead, General Franks just passed on to General McKiernan the vague PowerPoint slides that he had already shown to Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary at the time.

Senior officers say the program does come in handy when the goal is not imparting information, as in briefings for reporters.

The news media sessions often last 25 minutes, with 5 minutes left at the end for questions from anyone still awake. Those types of PowerPoint presentations, Dr. Hammes said, are known as “hypnotizing chickens.”

Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

How to download youTube movies?

There are many good movie clips in youTube that I would really like to keep before it becomes unavailable. Do you know how to do it?

A google search on youtube download produced 470,000,000 results, some of which should be useful.  One of my favorites was to use a bookmarklet, one click of which used to add a download link in the youTube's movie page I was watching.  Unfortunately, this bookmarklet ceased to work when youTube renovated its web site just a couple of weeks ago.

I will offer two solutions that work as of today:
I am unable to find an extension for Google Chrome that works, but I am sure it is a matter of time.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

How computer addiction turns people into zombies

Thanks go to 戰地記者 for these pictures:











Sunday, March 7, 2010

Make Taiwanese more computer literate and better persons

As I listen to 大話新聞 or 新台灣論壇 and hear viewers called-in to request that the program be re-played to allow people more opportunities to watch the program, I hope the viewers could be advised to go to sites such as 南方, http://taiwanus.net/, http://taiwanyes.com/, or http://www.youtube.com/ to watch the program archives.

Better yet, download them to your iPod so you can listen to them anywhere you go, including walking, running or driving. To listen to iPod in your car, one should get a FM transmitter for iPod, costing about $10.

Don't lie or hide in the Internet age

This is what happened after 郝龍斌 blocked hostile plurkers and deleted unfavorable comments.
自由電子報: 郝龍斌封鎖噗友挨轟 「郝杯杯」惡搞 【2010/3/7 19:10】

有自稱「郝杯杯」的噗友,以穿將軍服的郝柏村手抱著3歲郝龍斌的照片當作個人照,在噗友間引起熱烈討論。(畫面擷取自「郝杯杯」噗浪站)
〔本報訊〕台北市長郝龍斌前日首次開設噗浪(Plurk)帳號,但因為一晚封鎖400多名網友以及刪除大量留言,遭噗友批評為排除異己,引發爭議,事隔一 日,噗浪上出現署名「郝杯杯」的網友,針對郝封鎖網友一事極盡諷刺,並以穿將軍服的郝柏村手抱著3歲郝龍斌的照片當作個人照,在噗友間引起熱烈討論,質疑 是「郝伯伯─郝柏村」。對此,郝龍斌7日做出回應,表示「郝杯杯」並非父親郝柏村。

 名為「郝杯杯」的噗友,以穿將軍服的郝柏村手抱著3歲郝龍斌的照片當作個人照,加上名字與「郝伯伯」有異曲同工之妙,話題性十足,在噗友間引爆人氣,目前朋友已經高達76人,比郝龍斌多出好幾倍。

 至於「郝杯杯」到底是不是郝柏村本尊?郝龍斌回應,父親郝柏村的確有上網習慣,但並未上過噗浪,否認「郝杯杯」就是郝柏村。郝龍斌:「我知道我父親上網,可是我想,他還沒有在噗浪網上回應。」

 儘管「郝杯杯」只是網友故意惡搞取的名字,但仍吸引大批遭到郝龍斌封鎖的網友上門尋求慰藉,網友:「被郝呆斌封掉的,來跟『郝杯杯』告狀吧!」「郝杯 杯」則諷刺地說:「我不肖兒聾斌最近幹了啥壞事啊?」噗友你一言、我一語,就是要給郝龍斌一個震撼教育,讓他不敢再亂封鎖網友、刪留言。
Even today, KMT 中國國民黨 still tries to hide and whitewash its atrocities in Taiwan that started with 1947-02-28 massacre and followed with white terror and the longest-running martial law. Can KMT 中國國民黨 get away with murder? Here is a hint: on 2010-03-07, a google search on white terror taiwan produced 176,000 matches. In the Internet age, only fools can be fooled.
鄭麗真: 歷史詮釋權

 「二二八事件」 「霧社事件」「礁吧年事件」「「美麗島事件」等所有曾經發生在台灣的重大慘事,最重量級的用字都是僅以「事件」稱之;「五卅慘案」「廬溝橋事變」「文化大革命」「南京大屠殺」發生在中國大陸的不幸,卻都以特別嚴重的字眼命名。你注意到了這些差別嗎?

 「歷史名詞」在台灣教科書裡五十年來就一直存在著如此雙重標準的敘述,因為這是高級外省人由於國共戰亂落敗到台灣來,獨裁專制地操控台灣人要跟他們一樣仇視日本及中國共產黨。一九五○年代起,中國國民黨教育台灣民眾,要跟隨蔣政權一起反攻大陸,現在馬政權卻極盡所能傾向中國並朝國共終極統一目標前進。

 美國國家檔案期滿三十年,資料就可解密對外公開;中國國民黨黨史館至今仍封鎖一九四七年台灣二二八慘案的真正史料,且認為當年國府殺害無辜民眾的舉動是時空環境下的「必要之惡」又極力褒揚黃彰健的論述說二二八僅六七三人死亡及國軍在當年三月八日登陸基隆港時,基隆港已淨空,不可能有民眾被射殺。教育部近日正重修歷史科九八課綱,學者憂心台灣史恐成為兩岸友好關係史,中國史倍增,世界史減半,將嚴重扭曲台灣高中生的史觀。

 自一九九八年陳列在台北二二八館的常設展將於今年三月底走入歷史,四月一日起閉館八個月重新更換展場資料,擬於二○一一年元月重新開館。清明祭祖掃墓是四月份裡民間重大的節日,當普羅大眾在緬懷祖先之際,會有幾許人「將心比心」想到仍然有多少二二八受難者遺屬至今還不知他們先人的遺體在何處呢?

 紀念國殤日二二八的同時,請仔細獨立思考與判斷……到底是誰在操控台灣歷史教育的詮釋權?敬請全民對該館改展前與後做誠摯面對歷史的客觀比較吧!

(作者為台北二二八紀念館解說員)


Saturday, February 27, 2010

$5 a year for 27GB Gmail storage

When I used up my 7GB free Gmail storage, I was prompted to
  • Delete some mails, or
  • Purchase more storage
At first, not knowing how much it would cost me, I deleted mails, created new accounts, and set up filters, etc to free up spaces.

I soon found out that $5 per year bought me another 20 GB mail storage for a total of 27GB.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Use emails efficiently and effectively

Could you please teach me how I can block abc@def.com's e-mails from my gmail account?
From your gmail screen, click on Settings, which is the third link from the right of the top line. Then click on Filters, which is the fourth link from the left on the top line. Follow the instructions to filter messages. I would recommend not only setting up filters to block undesired messages, but also to forward messages automatically to other accounts, etc.
I am overwhelmed by the number of messages of a google group, but does not want to unsubscribe from it because I find the group important to me. What can I do?
There are many options. For example, you can access the google group site and set your delivery option to one a day.