Windows好好用

Windows很好用，對不對？它特別好用因為你從來沒有用過其它作業系統，所以你根本沒有辦法比較，對不對？而且，你真要感謝Bill Gates因為他給你那麼好的系統。

Hmm... 不過，為什麼Bill Gates本身好像不太有辦法比較順利使用Windows？為什麼像安裝Movie Maker這麼簡單的一件事好像並不簡單？不過，這麼好用的系統你一定會繼續用吧...

George Carlin走了

糟糕，又少了一個知道腦袋有什麼用途的人。

我會手術

你不知道了？我也最近才發現。但是我會。真的。你看，我以前在學校有學生物學，而且學了幾年了。所以，我的手術能力有一個很穩定的基楚。什麼？我沒有讀醫學就不算？怎麼可能！你這樣講的話，那些讀過一個語言或某個國家的文學的人也不能說他們專長包含口譯跟筆譯……

而且，我在電視上有看過：手術其實只是拿個刀子，然後在一個人的身體裡這裡切一切，那裡剪個東西就好。那，我不只有理論基楚，我也有實在的經驗！我手上已經拿過很多各種各樣的刀子。而且，我雖然沒有在人身上做過手術，但是我有拿過刀子在一支鵝的身上剪一些東西！

好吧…… 我承認它之後沒有再走，但是不是因為我能力不夠！是因為它之前已經被別人殺，然後上過烤箱一個小時…… 所以，不是我的錯！我剪地還蠻漂亮，如果那支鵝有看到，它一定很高興。

你看，我有基楚，也有經驗，而且刀子拿得很專業！誰還敢懷疑我？不然你也可能要懷疑一下，一個讀過某國文學的人怎麼自動地也變成口譯的專家。不過，這樣想…… 一個學過某種語言的人應該也自動地對那個語言／國家的文學很專業，對不對？或者，會騎腳踏車的人其實也會開大卡車。差不多……

所以，我會手術。別懷疑……

Subversive Musik

Also, ich wußte ja, daß die beste Band der Welt nicht jedermanns Sache ist, und daß diverse ihrer Lieder wegen nicht ganz jugendfreier Texte auf dem Index gelandet sind, aber daß ihre Lieder jetzt sogar schon von Unternehmen gefürchtet werden...

Anders kann man es sich wohl kaum erklären, daß Antenne Bayern eines ihrer Lieder (Lasse redn) nur in kastrierter Form spielt...

電腦專家：騙人也需要一定的智慧

我常聽台灣人說“台灣的小偷很聰明”。我的答案平常是“不會，他們暴力而已”。不然，為什麼在台灣到處都看得到鐵窗？聰明的小偷會有辦法開門，暴力的才要在外面爬上去，打破窗戶進去。

看起來，類似的專家有考慮發木馬中別人電腦，然後控制它們或得到一些私人資訊（信用卡、帳號等）。只是…… 這個專家真的太專業：他在PDF檔裡面沒有裝木馬，他裝幫他在PDF可以裝木馬的工具，然後為了測試上傳到線上掃毒服務。厲害……

Conference fun (NKFUST)

It was time again for a conference, this time the "2008 Conference on Technology Enhanced Foreign Language Instruction". It got an excellent kick-off with a MS Word-created HTML page announcing the conference at the wrong place, but then things stabilised.

For me personally there were two very interesting acts, one being a keynote speech, the other a presentation. The interesting keynote was done by Dr. Hans Werner Hess from Hongkong. Surrounded by all the forced optimism regarding e-learning and all, he dared to criticise that concept. He has a very interesting similar paper on-line.

Why would I find such criticism interesting? Because I have to say that I share his views. Yes, I consider myself a "geek", and there even was a time when I would have called myself a "hacker" ("hacker", not "cracker", mind you that), something I'm missing a bit now. 

Exactly because I understand these devices I am dealing with, I know that they are not the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. I am not blinded by the light, as so many seem to be. Let them get used to the light (may take a year or two), and they too may notice that gadgets can be really nice and shiny, but that they are just that: gadgets. They can help, but they will not replace you.

The interesting presentation was by Dr. Mark Lim (oh, transcription...), who indeed hacked two bash scripts to automatically retrieve news from the NHK website and strip them off text and video. Just bad the NKFUST network didn't like his Knoppix live CD.

And then there were two things I couldn't really understand: One was a product presentation, done by a publishing house. It was indeed a nice gadget that they introduced, but still... I thought this was a scientific conference, not Computex. I would have expected such products being demoed outside in the foyer.

And the other... May I just say: I know how to use iTunes, thank you very much! Maybe I should write a paper on how to use AdiumX and call it "Language skill improvement through interaction between students and teachers by synchronous internet communication using AdiumX". Then in my presentation I will spend 30 minutes going through the AdiumX manual...

OOXML - 慢慢沈下去？

真奇怪… 微軟為了讓自己的OOXML格式升等國際標準花了不少錢跟人力，但是現在呢？好像微軟突然針對自己的格式沒有任何興趣。完整的規格到現在還沒有出來，所以現在不只是南非申訴，巴西跟印度也是。如果再多一些國家睡醒，也許我們近期內可以看到一個“國際標準”消失…

反正，微軟本身還不打算支援自己的格式，可能要等到 - 2010年？看起來，ODF還是比較可靠…

更新：現在已經有四個國家…