You want this CC

Came across this security article last nite. Read it and you will be amazed. Basically, all the credit cards that you can tab at a checkout counter is not secured period. Read on...

Seed cracker

Interesting concept.  The Chinese consume a lot of seeds during Chinese New Year.  As the population is growing older, here's a little device that helps the weaker teeth population to enjoy little seeds.  You place ONE seed in the cracking device and squeeze.  Done.  Interesting concept.  

It ain't what it used to be

Not a "roaring" operating system.  I upgraded to it on my 2009 Mothership-Brotherhood-Perfecto machine last week.  As a poor English writing consulting that knows nothing about anything (another story), I needed to know how "perfectly roaring" this SJ memorial piece of work was.  

Well, it must have missed something inside my Mothership-Brotherhood-Perfecto machine.  I re-installed twice.  First I got the "blue screen of death" equivalent - the spinning beach ball.  Reformatted my drive completely and re-installed.  Start-up time, getting close to it's brother from the floating colourful Windows.  Slooooowwww…. Maybe it was my hard drive.  I did diagnostic, worked perfectly.    

As I was typing this email, my Mail program crashed twice.  Third time in two days.  Ridiculous.  A search from the Google land gave me a full page of similar crashing problem.  Yikes.  

In this "roaring", my calendar now looked the same and worked the same as the Android Tablet trumping device.  Swiping is good when there was no keyboard and only touch screen.  I had a keyboard. "What gives with the same look and feel?"  A rush to market?  Cross-platform training? Or just a simple case of "this is what you need to do now because I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED" mentality.  Ummm… 

Yes, the Mail program looked exactly like the Android Tablet trumping device as well.  That was the default view.  My brain was confused what device I was using when the program first appeared on my screen.  I tried to reach over to swipe.  My fingers though were glued to the keyboard.  My brain was scrambled.  Maybe the need of a split-personality person to work this "roaring" lion now.  I had to make adjustments (or rather "Preferences...") so the Mail program appeared "normal" to me.  

What's with the Mi$$ion C0ntR0L and the L@unch p@D?  Sooo confusing.  I had to revert back to the "Snow cap" version to make it more "me" friendly.  No more Mi$$ion C0ntR0L.  Back in w/ the "----"board.  Apparently there was a list of ten annoying things that people really hate and posted instructions on how to "revert": http://gigaom.com/apple/7-lion-annoyances-and-how-to-fix-them/

The login screen.  When the wrong password was entered, the entire field should be cleared out.  All I got was a dot dot dot of the wrong password.  What's with that?  

The ever high drama {my}Cloud.  I just tested the "Where is my device" service using my 10" tablet and the version 4 mobile device.  No, no 4$ yet.  {my}Cloud found my tablet no problem.  My phone, not on a data plan connection at the moment, was not able to be located.  Yes, I had the option turned on on my phone.   Suspected another "good thinking" from the designer of the 5th generation of the mobile operating system known as {my}OS Wu.  "Wu" in Chinese means "5" 

Experience of all these bugs… escalating.  Experience of a just "turn on" and use with NO problem… decelerating.  Honestly, decelerating to the point of unacceptable.  

Get an "G"-phone?  More security risk than I would want.  Basically getting a miniaturized floating windows risky deal.  Agh….  Writing my own thing?  Maybe!!!  Consumerization of mobile devices in work place, beware.

----------

Not edited fully due to constant interruption of post Chemo support needs…………. One good day, one OK day, one bad day, the cycle of Chemo.

Code

Guess what these codes are for? Well, robbers in Shanghai are using codes to indicate if an apartment or a house should be robbed or not. Scary huh? Been happening since last Fall.

return

This was from yesterday's Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. Reported by the Phoenix Finance news, someone said: his mom subscribed to two newspaper at the beginning of 2011. She spent 180RMB. At the end of the year, she took the old newspaper to recycling and collected 206RMB. That was a gain of 14.4%. This return was better than term deposit at any bank. It beat the CPI by a lot. And this return also had better result than invested in the stock market!!! The original post author commented to people to invest in recycling old newspaper.

My question, what was the cost of shipping those old newspapers?

healthy breakfast

This was on our MU flight back to Shanghai from Beijing. Not bad, light and sweet. Very tradition Chinese. That's iron-wife's vegetarian meal. Yes, I had the same set. Not oily, not greasy and light. Just right. Sat for over 2 hours, why eat heavy food?

yummy airline food

Look at this!  Nice huh?  The food was served from my Shanghai to Beijing flight yesterday.  I had a pork dish.  Not much pork but lots of veggies.  I didn't mind.  I welcomed this clean and steamed style.  O yes, after lunch I was served w/ a plate of fresh fruit!  

OK OK, I was on Biz class.  How I got there? Our Shanghai travel agent was smart.  We bought the P class economy tickets; they were actually First/Biz class seats - for a steal.  One way for us: 1,050RMB (166USD or 169 CAD).  How could I refuse?  The price was like a one-way on Westjet or Air Canada or Southwest, to name a few more airlines.  God forbidden comparing this to United!!!  My yesterday's experience reminded me a recent Chinese traveler blog about his experience on United.  As he flew East to the good old US of A, the flight attendants getting bigger on the butt.  The planes went from clean and new to dirty and old and cramp.  The food went to nice to a slob plate of 1/2 baked something.  :-(

The airline I flew yesterday: China Eastern.  The express service between Shanghai and Beijing.  Long delay yesterday.  Heavy fog in Beijing.  I was able to get on an earlier flight.  CNY is near and the Central gov't had approved additional 14,500 flights to be put to service.  Just hope the weather will hold up.  There are only so many air corridors.   

Salt

Yes, it's a tasty little powder. Same applies to this fusion restaurant I discovered tonight.  So tasty.  Price wasn't that expensive.  Portion was smaller than our Western brains accustomed to.  Hey, with that many obese people out there I would say the portion is just right!  It's a concept of set dinner.  Two or three-item set.  Lots of varieties to choose from.

http://www.saltrestaurantbeijing.com/ 

The quality of my seafood risotto.. Wow.. The rice was done al dente, creamy with the cheese, authentic seafood you can see in big identifiable chunks.  Food presentation was excellent too.  I had a glass of NZ Souv blanc, slightly fruity.  Nice....  

The entrance getting there was fun.  We walked through a 24-hour pub and headed upstairs.  One problem with this second floor restaurant, I could smell cigarette smoke.  Give and take I guessed.  

Mongolia

We have been talking about doing this since 2007.  Iron-wife had done it once in 2005 I think - as a 42K hike.  I believe we are going to do it this year.  

http://www.ultramongolia.com/

gourmet food

Do you think you are really having pigeons?  A delicacy in China?  Look again.  Actually, you were being served rats!  Still have lots of protein.

http://group.henan.sina.com.cn/505383/thread-5024.html

wow

How did it get there? 12 story up.  

http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/pictures/excavator-on-rooftop-of-12-story-building-in-taiyuan-shanx.html

Jan 2012 calendars

These January calendars reflect the mood for each day of the month. CNY is on 23rd. People are counting down to the festivity.

Oppss

This is a big oppsss... Last month in the city of Foshan, not far from Macau, the medical staff "@ccidAnt@lly" mistaken a live B@ By as an expired one.  Worse, this supposedly expired one was thrown into the garbage collection room at the hospital.  Take a look of this video when the "expired" BB was discovered. Compensation negotiation is ongoing.  The family wanted 1.5M and the hospital facilitator countered with 70,000.  Co$t o f L !fe.  Ummm...... 

http://tinyurl.com/watch20120105

dashushijie

Dashushijie was the restaurant name of our hotel. Pretty cool meal we had last night!!! Here are the pics of all the dishes. Eggplants were made like sushi as appetizer; then we had chestnuts wrapped in pumpkin. Mushrooms tasted like shredded stir-fried beef. Tofu, lightly deep-fried, served on a hot plate. Then the Korean stone bowl rice prepared by our server. O yeah, one missing dish was the Japanese-style pork chop made by layered soy. So tasty!!! Not cheap for this meal. Average price per dish was around 60RMB. We had .... 9 dishes... 1USD = 6.29RMB and dropping.....

mushroom

We went to a high-end vegetarian restaurant last night with some friends. One of dishes we ordered was made of mushroom as an appetizer. It came out in a Martini glass. Nice and spicy. After the cooked version was presented, we were presented yet again with the raw version - second picture.

The original shape of the mushroom was round, looked like a big rock or a large beet. That was at 0C. Above 10C after about 10 minutes thawing, the mushroom expanded to the shape in the second picture - 3 sections. We ate the part on the right side. The middle part was for another dish and the right side was the remaining of the original shape.

This mushroom can be found in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.

Interesting...

yummy

With these recipes one can be a vegetarian for a week!  We tried the sweet potato and apple stew last night.  Sooooo yummy! 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/01/magazine/eat-vegan-recipes.html?ref=magazine

calm and collect

Take a look from this video.  A new recruit had a live grenade slipped off his hand.  The instructor was quick to react.   

http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/videos/chinese-soldier-almost-kills-himself-during-hand-grenade-training.html