The jet propelled wheelchair.
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Archive for August, 2004
I have nothing but just two things to say about the Olympics.
1. Most participants are way too young to know the true meaning of sports and do not know how to lose.
2. It is way too political and commercial to be truly sportsmanlike.
This might be the last Formula 1 blog I write for sometime to come. Cable TV has lost the broadcasting rights for Star Sports which carries F1 to NOW TV, so I didn’t get to watch last night’s F1 race and therefore I have nothing on the race to blog.
NOW TV wants HKD$88 per month for ESPN and Star Sports, which I am not prepare to pay for I only watch F1 within these two channels, and Cable TV is not lowering their monthly subscription for losing these two channels and with nothing as replacing. I might get rid of Cable TV all together and wait until the next F1 season before I make a decision. In the meantime, I have changed the “Formula 1″ category here to “F1 and Sports”.
Anyway, congratulations to Kimi for winning last night’s race and to Michael for winning the Driver’s Championship.
For several decades, every year at this time of the year, just a couple of days before the start of the new school year and way after everyone had bought at least most text books, you would hear news on people urging the government to do something about the over-weighted school bags for primary school students. Every year, I suppose it was because of the timing of the news, it was either too late to do anything about it or simply nothing was done or even was meant to be done about it. This year is no different.
In a region where just about everyone strides and talks much quicker than most other regions in the rest of the World, we get timely news such as these that leave no one anytime to be able to do anything. Which shows that these news are simple done for the sake having some news to report only.
And for decades, I have had a very simple solution for the problem of over-weighted school bags which no one would implement - have all text books published on plain paper leaflets rather than glossy books, so students could bring only the immediate chapters of the immediate subjects in a binder in lieu of all the books for the day.
Unfortunately, this region is a business and politics driven region rather than a problem solving driven region, and no doubt I can’t even tear off the chapters of every book for Alec without his teachers giving him shit for doing so. So, like most other problems within the region, this one remains.
I have had about 6 notebook computers so far, a DV camcorder, several digital cameras and lately a digital photo bank which use Lithium Ion batteries. Although I love the fact the Lithium Ion batteries do not self-discharge nearly as fast as NiMH or NiCd batteries do, which means I could keep a set of charged up Li-Ion battery as spare and can be sure I’d always have enough juice for the day, most of these Li-Ion batteries die around one and half year after purchase.
I have just found out from here and here that what I have been doing to maintain these Li-Ion batteries as I would with NiMH or NiCd batteries was completely wrong. Which explains why I have been running through notebook Li-Ion batteries every one and a half years, but the one and only Li-Ion battery I have that lasted over three years so far is the Nokia cell phone battery which I simply charge it every night without ever having it completely discharged.
The correct Li-Ion battery maintenance is as follow:-
1. Do not deep discharge Li-Ion batteries.
2. For long time storage, start with 40% charged level rather than fully charged or fully discharged, and preferably in a refrigerator but not in the freezer.
3. Keep Li-Ion batteries cool.
I think I would add a 2-times back-to-back use and charge cycles once about every six months for long time storage.
Pentax Optio X
Pentax has just announced two subcompact digital cameras, The Optio S5i and the Optio X. While the S5i seems to be very much the same as its predecessor the S4i but with a 5MPix CCD instead, the X is a very interesting model with a twisting body much like Nikon’s.
However, like similar Nikon’s, the X suffers from one major flaw - the lens in on the left side rather than the shutter button side of the body. This problem is what made the similar designed Sony Camcorders not as convenient to use as the Sharp’s where their lenses were on the different side of the body.
The problem is that when one composes a shot, like other regular bodied cameras, it is very natural for one to move the right hand and point the lens toward the subject, but not otherwise when the lens axis is twisted away from it’s normal position. Any photographing device that I have tried or owned with the twisting lens part separated from the shutter button body, be it camcorders, DV’s, PDA’s such as the Sony Clie, or any moving lens cam cell phones, were all very awkward to compose shots. Yet I love my dad’s Sharp DV and my Nikon Coolpix 5700 and the like where their lenses are on the shutter button side of the body (tilt and flip LCD panel in the case of Coolpix 5700).
That said, the 18mm thickness of the Optio X might be enough to make it a very attractive DC to carry around for daily use. Perhaps the problem isn’t so bad for some as I too was able to live with the Coolpix 995, which I still have, for quite some time.
There is a recall of batteries of Apple’s 15″ Powerbook G4. Check the model number of your batteries.
The reason we went to Dan Ryan’s two Sunday’s in a row was that they are offering set tea or coffee for a mere HKD$48 from 3:00pm to 6:00pm.
For that, you may order several of their regular appetizers such as Potato Skins or Nachos, salads, or deserts including Alec’s favorite Chocolate Ice-cream on Waffles, with either a glass of Cappuccino or unlimited supply of Ice-tea. Not sure if the Cappuccino were also unlimited or not.
One should also try their delicious $38 Molten Chocolate Cake even though it is not part of their set tea.
There seems to be much less smokers in the afternoon than at night.
Incidentally, when I received a customer opinion form from Windy City International, Dan Ryan’s mother company, last week, I told them smoking is pas se, and that they should restrict their smokers in their bar area only. I had also told them that there is a renovated re-opening of an almost heritage status Chinese restaurant in the Mongkok area with absolutely no smoking allowed in the entire restaurant. I walk pass their door about 3 times a week as it is on my way back home from work. There is always several groups of people in their lobby waiting to be seated for dinner as early as 5:45pm!
said Alec, “But I found your James Mok’s Soliloquy”.
I asked Alec to write something on Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill Restaurant this morning as we went there yesterday as well as last Sunday for a great afternoon tea. I told him he could search the Internet for more information on the restaurant and that was what he said on the phone just now.
I think he was using Hong Kong Yahoo to do the search, but looking into the search result page with the search clue I gave him, I found that wasn’t Yahoo’s problem. I think he simply missed (read skipped) all the front and correct entry hits and ended up recognizing my name and this blog instead.
Need some more work on his (or maybe kid’s in general) attention span.
WhaUSay?!