RMS gave a talk to the Beijing GNU/Linux User Group last night. The picture on the right is him in his “preaching” costume. Remember, when you’re talking with him, you have to speak logically and intelligently. This is one example. Ask him “Do you only use Free software?”, he will 100% answer “yes”, and then you can follow up with “Is your BIOS Free?” *grin*
I was having a strange feeling that I was suddenly swapped out from China to an English-speaking world. I seldom have this kind of feeling before since I’ve been living in Beijing for 2.5 years.
Tonight I represented my company, Sun Wah Linux, to talk about Linux in China in Beijing GNU/Linux User Group (BLUG) meeting. Frankly I was having a hard time feeding myself with how Linux is doing in China because my work does not focus on Linux specifically. Anyway, I tried my best to learn about the trends and issues as much as I could before I attended the meeting. Since I went to the meeting place (a restaurant called Steak and Eggs) from China World Hotel after the first day of JavaChina Conference and the two places are very close to each other, I arrived there at 6:30pm while the meeting was scheduled to start at 7pm. The meeting did not start at 7pm exactly because basically we all wanted to fill our stomach first :) The president of BLUG, Mike, who is a foreigner, so are most of the other members/attendants, they all came from different parts of the world. The moment we ate at Steak and Eggs reminded me of the moments when I was staying in hostels with foreigners as a backpacker in Europe. This kind of sudden cultural change is mind-boggling. I’ve met a lot of cool guys in this meeting. I have not imagined that there are so many Linux guru expats who are living and working in Beijing. It’s really a very good experience.
Thanks Mike for the BLUG T-shirt, it’s nice and I will wear it tomorrow during the 2nd day of JavaChina conference. :)
某日在王府井看到有行人拿着 UNIQLO 的袋子，猜想是不是 UNIQLO 已經涉足北京了。以前到上海的时候曾經到過那裏的 UNIQLO，東西還是可以的，加上朋友都說 UNIQLO 又便宜質量又好，於是上網找找 UNIQLO 在北京的地點。終於被我找到了，一家在王府井新東安市場的3樓，另一家在西單商場北樓4樓。昨晚吃完飯之后，懷着興奮不已的心情和同事從嘉里中心跑到王府井，打算到 UNIQLO 朝聖之餘，也勢必瘋狂掃貨一番。怎料北京店的東西怎也引不起我“買物”的興趣，可能又是日本人把最好的都留在自己國家的緣故，好東西都不出口的，又可能是剛到換季的時候，賣的衣服主要都是秋天的服裝，都不是我想買的，所以選擇就更少了。最後什麼都沒買就走了。雖然如此，還是有不少可推荐的：襯衫，有幾款顏色蠻特別、內衣，拿上手已經感覺很舒服、襪有很多款式、牛仔褲，百多元價錢實惠。還是到冬天的時候，再來找一些配搭用的就最經濟了。
中國官方網站：http://www.uniqlo.com.cn
注意：北京的 UNIQLO 已經全面撤出，殘念。
Nothing is more important than coining a sexy term like AJAX. People criticize it as being old technology and not something innovative for us to be so excited on. Although I can’t disagree more, I got a déjà vu when I stumbled upon this page again called Remote Scripting with IFRAME which I read few months ago and at the time I just didn’t have any feeling. Implementation is different, but the idea is the same, that is to achieve no-page-reload-web-application. “Remote Scripting” sounds old, AJAX sounds cool. Is it how the IT industry flourishes?
After staying in Nanjing for a month to complete a short-term project that uses XML-RPC, I finally understand and agree to my colleagues that there aren’t many good places to eat in Nanjing. I had been going to Nanjing from time to time, but every time it’s just for a few days, this is the first time I stayed in Nanjing for so long. It’s not because we didn’t try hard enough to look for good restaurants, but it’s because the standard of “taste good” in Nanjing is apparently lower than that in Beijing. Luckily during my stay there is a new Hong Kong-style restaurant (茶餐廳) opened near to our office at Zhujiang Road, and turned out that we went there for 80% of our lunches and dinners.
Several other discoveries in my stay:
1. You can go to nearly anywhere by taxi for RMB 7 (the initial charge) if you live in the city center, as you seldom need to go over 3 km, unless you go to the Time Warner cinema for the best theatre experience in Nanjing.
2. This restaurant, claiming that it’s recommended in Lonely Planet with the praise “The best pizza south of the Yangzi”, has closed… I wonder how good it is…
3. The Italian restaurant “Bella Napoli” at No. 75 Zhongshan East Road serves really nice Italian food. Their pizza tastes just as good as the ones I had when I was travelling in Napoli. Anchovies, cheese, tomato and olives, yummy.
4. “1912” is where you’d like to hang out in the weekend. A8, Scarlet and BB King are good.