But half of these doesn't even mean anything!


胡錦濤下令加強管理互聯網

中共總書記胡錦濤主持政治局集體學習，他強調，須加強網絡文化建設和管理。

胡錦濤就加強網絡文化建設和管理提出五項要求：

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  一是要堅持社會主義先進文化的發展方向，唱響網上思想文化的主旋律，努力宣傳科學真理、傳播先進文化、倡導科學精神、塑造美好心靈、弘揚社會正氣。
  
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  二是要提高網絡文化產品和服務的供給能力，提高網絡文化產業的規模化、專業化水平，把中華文化作為網絡文化的重要源泉，努力形成一批具有中國氣派、體現時代精神、品位高雅的網絡文化品牌。
  
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  三是要加強網上思想輿論陣地建設，掌握網上輿論主導權，提高網上引導水平，講求引導藝術，積極運用新技術，加大正面宣傳力度，形成積極向上的主流輿論。
  
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  四是要倡導文明辦網、文明上網，淨化網絡環境。
  
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  五是要堅持依法管理、科學管理、有效管理，綜合運用法律、行政、經濟、技術、思想教育、行業自律等手段，加快形成依法監管、行業自律、社會監督、規範有序的互聯網信息傳播秩序，切實維護國家文化信息安全。
  

12月13日，世界自然生長第一高人喜順來到撫順皇家極地海洋世界，用他那雙世界上最長的手臂挽救了誤食膠皮球的海豚海海和樂樂。

As is any other activities in China, Xishun and the dolphin were surrounded by a thousand random but intrigued onlookers.

當日13時30分，在撫順皇家極地海洋世界，喜順來到兩隻已經被膠皮球折磨了近1個月的海豚身邊，在工作人員的指引下，試探著將左手伸進海豚海海的口中。由于喜順左手關節太大，無法伸進海海的喉嚨，後來改用右手，才從海海的胃裏取出了幾塊膠皮球殘片。直到16時，喜順才成功地將兩隻海豚胃裏的膠皮球殘片全部清理乾淨，挽救了它們的生命。

據了解，海海和樂樂因為誤食了膠皮球生命危在旦夕的消息通過遼寧電視台向全省發布之後，牽動了衆多愛心人士的心，爲了挽救兩隻海豚的生命，幾名愛心人士將手臂伸進海豚的胃裏想取出膠皮球，都因爲手臂不夠長沒有成功。在萬分危急的時刻，遼寧電視台記者李焱想到了喜順，於是他主動與北方新報聯係，邀請喜順前往撫順市挽救海豚。在兩家媒體的共同努力下，海海和樂樂終于獲救。

很感激小學的中文老師為我們打了一個良好的語文基礎。小事如「衞」（非「衛」）、麼（非「麽」）、積/績、著/着、了/暸、樹/豎、裏/裡等字地分別，從來難不到我們。可是，在後來的友儕間，我才發覺原來這種對細節的執著並不普遍。尤其是現今的傳媒知識水平低落，能駕馭文字的人不多。當大家每天讀到的文字都是鬆鬆散散，錯字別字連篇，追求準確而又優美的文筆變得奢侈。

幸好，在香港，吾道不孤：

蟬聯 ─ 「她才第一年參加比賽，便蟬聯冠軍。」蟬聯有連續之意，多指連任某職或持續保持某稱號。既是「第一年」參賽，試問何以「蟬聯」？

染指 ─ 「利華古遜在今晚的歐聯分組賽，主場出戰今季重整旗鼓、力圖染指錦標的皇家馬德里。」類似句子在新聞中屢見不鮮，可見知道「染指」真意的，其實沒幾人。這詞由《左傳》而來：春秋時，鄭靈公請各大臣吃甲魚，偏不分給子公，子公大怒，就伸指向盛甲魚的鼎裏蘸湯，嚐一下就走了。後世用「染指」比喻分取非分的利益。記住，是非分的。

粉墨登場 ─ 本解作化妝上台演戲，今多引申為登上政治舞台，含譏諷意。不過就Silver所見，許多人把這成語用作「登場」或「隆重登場」的替代詞，差矣差矣。

侃侃而談 ─ 「侃侃」有剛直之意，說話要理直氣壯才稱得上「侃侃而談」。為何人們總愛以這四字形容聊天，甚至跟「相談甚歡」對等？

風花雪月 ─ 這個誤用更叫人不解。「風花雪月」是古典文學裏常見的描寫對象，具意境美，後轉喻堆砌詞藻而內容貧乏的詩文，也指情愛之事。那些甚麼「和友人天南地北，風花雪月」、「父子久別重逢，禁不住風花雪月一番」，簡直就是垃圾！拜託，要麼玩文藝、耍浪漫，要麼形容男歡女愛，否則別隨便「風花雪月」。

良莠不齊 ─ 指好人壞人都有，側重品質，不用於水平、成績等。「中期試成績良莠不齊」、「培訓良莠不齊」一類表達，是為誤用。這些情況，該用「參差」才對。

始作俑者 ─ 孔子反對用俑殉葬，故有「始作俑者」之謂，比喻壞風氣的始創人。不少人濫用之於一切倡導者。

Taking pictures in the middle of a marathon course, obstructing athletes who have trained and paid to participate in this sport event. You'd end up being humiliated and condemned by a sea of angry fellow photographers, like she has.

I first visited Paris when I was around 9 years old, and then again when I was 18. I was too young at those times to discern the French arrogance, fortunately. As a spoiled HK-er, my sanity would probably be out the window by my second day in Paris.


When I was in NY a few weeks ago, I caught an episode of Saturday Night Live on TV. During the Weekend Update:

"The French have launched their own version of Google, called Quaero. You just type in the subject you're interested in, and Quaero refuses to look it up for you." - Amy Poehler

PARIS (Reuters) - Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
"A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses," Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors -- including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them.

Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying.

"Fragile travellers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover it can provoke a crisis," psychologist Herve Benhamou told the paper.

The phenomenon, which the newspaper dubbed "Paris Syndrome", was first detailed in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004.

Bernard Delage of Jeunes Japon, an association that helps Japanese families settle in France, said:

"In Japanese shops, the customer is king, whereas here assistants hardly look at them ... People using public transport all look stern, and handbag snatchers increase the ill feeling."

A Japanese woman, Aimi, told the paper:

"For us, Paris is a dream city. All the French are beautiful and elegant ... And then, when they arrive, the Japanese find the French character is the complete opposite of their own."

I saw the movie An Inconvenient Truth yesterday.

（《絕望真相》這個中文譯名真的不大妥帖。An Inconvenient Truth 的精髓在於指出這個真相令人覺得礙眼、麻煩，所以就被人忽略。整套電影的主題就是要人正視全球暖化的問題，從而採取急切的行動去逆轉人類對大自然的蹂躪。如果我們立即行動，人類的明天就有希望 - 所以真相絕對不令人感到絕望；相反，對未來的希望才是我們的推動力。《絕望真相》這個名稱只是香港電影發行界的反射式習作，台灣用的《不願面對的真相》就貼切得多。）

The science of global warming is fairly well-understood and undisputed all over the world, except in the United States. Growing up in Hong Kong, I have never been aware of any "controversy" over this subject until I studied in the US. There, the mass media casts a wide web of doubt and uncertainty over the scientific consensus on global warming in the name of impartiality. Political operatives manipulates this topic to their advantage without any regard to the underlying truth and implications. For decades, the people of America continue to be led to believe that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," while the rest of the world shook their collective head in disbelief. How screwed up this whole situation has become in America is not fully exposed until, I feel, some one like Al Gore comes along and makes a movie like this one.

To me, the movie is fundamentally about a man of great conviction and how he came to be this way.

Al Gore has been an early advocate on climate change. (Apparently he was also an early advocate on the technology that led to the emergence of the Internet, a claim for which he has long been ridiculed.) People who has tracked his career since decades ago are convinced that he sincerely believes that what he advocates is important for the future of human beings. He is not afraid of speaking out against powerful adversaries. He has been perennially frustrated by the same system that has enabled him to achieve so much, and yet he continues to have faith in democracy and people's ability to discern right from wrong.

In this movie, Gore gives the same presentation he has given more than 1,000 times on climate change. Interspersed through the film are snippets of reasons he became so interested in this topic. The narrative was personal, frank, and powerful. I was deeply impressed by how the "wooden soldier" has come alive in this movie. His passion and conviction really came through.

In terms of the message, partisan politics was not the focus of his attacks – the oil and gas lobby was. (See its reaction to An Inconvenient Truth here and here.) America's politics is infamously very well-known to be plagued by interested money. The oil and gas industry is particularly potent, even in Hong Kong.

For example, CLP Group, the larger electricity provider here, is the more efficient and socially responsible of the two (the other one, Hongkong Electric, is owned by the tycoon Li Ka-shing). However, contrary to what most people think, CLP's business in Hong Kong is NOT controlled by the philanthropic Kadoorie family. Instead, CLP's power generators in Hong Kong are owned by Castle Peak Power Co Ltd, which is a partnership formed in 1964 between CLP Power (40%) and ExxonMobil Energy (60%). Yes, that's right, it's ExxonMobil, the oil company that Gore singled out in the movie. CLP and Hongkong Electric are now actively campaigning against the Hong Kong government's attempt to impose stricter environmental standards on them, even though it is public knowledge that their electricity generators are the biggest local source of air pollution.

Enough said about the problems we have on hand. Go and see what Gore suggests us to do to make a difference.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, see it. It is transforming, inspiring, and, ultimately, uplifting.

These techniques to telling if someone is lying are often used by police, and security experts. This knowledge is also useful for managers, employers, and for anyone to use in everyday situations where telling the truth from a lie can help prevent you from being a victim of fraud/scams and other deceptions.

Warning: Sometimes ignorance is bliss; after gaining this knowledge, you may be hurt when it is obvious that someone is lying to you.

The consistently serious newspaper's quirky attempt at humor:

Sep 7th 2006
From The Economist print edition

In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like?

“GOOD morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.

The flight attendants are now pointing out the emergency exits. This is the part of the announcement that you might want to pay attention to. So stop your sudoku for a minute and listen: knowing in advance where the exits are makes a dramatic difference to your chances of survival if we have to evacuate the aircraft. Also, please keep your seat belt fastened when seated, even if the seat-belt light is not illuminated. This is to protect you from the risk of clear-air turbulence, a rare but extremely nasty form of disturbance that can cause severe injury. Imagine the heavy food trolleys jumping into the air and bashing into the overhead lockers, and you will have some idea of how nasty it can be. We don't want to scare you. Still, keep that seat belt fastened all the same.

Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.

Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems. At least, that's what you've always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn't sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.

On channel 11 of our in-flight entertainment system you will find a video consisting of abstract imagery and a new-age soundtrack, with a voice-over explaining some exercises you can do to reduce the risk of deep-vein thrombosis. We are aware that this video is tedious, but it is not meant to be fun. It is meant to limit our liability in the event of lawsuits.

Once we have reached cruising altitude you will be offered a light meal and a choice of beverages—a word that sounds so much better than just saying ‘drinks’, don't you think? The purpose of these refreshments is partly to keep you in your seats where you cannot do yourselves or anyone else any harm. Please consume alcohol in moderate quantities so that you become mildly sedated but not rowdy. That said, we can always turn the cabin air-quality down a notch or two to help ensure that you are sufficiently drowsy.

After take-off, the most dangerous part of the flight, the captain will say a few words that will either be so quiet that you will not be able to hear them, or so loud that they could wake the dead. So please sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. We appreciate that you have a choice of airlines and we thank you for choosing Veritas, a member of an incomprehensible alliance of obscure foreign outfits, most of which you have never heard of. Cabin crew, please make sure we have remembered to close the doors. Sorry, I mean: ‘Doors to automatic and cross-check’. Thank you for flying Veritas.”

By Melinda Liu
Newsweek International
June 4, 2006

The rainy season has come to northern China, and it’s a brave new world out there. Actually the natural rainy season doesn’t start until July. But the season of man-made rain is upon us, and Chinese rainmakers have been busy. Over the past month they've mobilized cloud-seeding aircraft, artillery and rockets to enhance rainfall. "We've ordered technicians to try to make it rain again today, but so far they haven’t reported back on the results," says Zhang Qiang, a businesslike woman who heads the Beijing Weather Modification Office (yes, that’s the official name of a real Chinese government agency). "We did it many times last week to increase the rainfall."

Not content with simply making it rain, now China's weather modifiers have taken on another meterological mission: to help guarantee perfect weather when Beijing hosts the Olympic Games in 2008.

Zhang's office, which employs 30 people, is part of the Beijing municipal government and the nationwide China Meteorological Administration. Her unit uses two aircraft and 20 artillery and rocket-launching bases to help modify weather around the city. Springtime is the busiest season for agricultural purposes. But more and more, Zhang and her colleagues are experimenting with weather modification to try to create blue skies. Toward this end, they’ve spent nearly a month and a half total researching the effects of certain chemical activators on different sizes of cloud formations and at different altitudes. Chinese meteorologists claim that similar efforts helped create good weather for a number of past VIP events in China, including the World Expo in Yunnan, the Asian Games in Shanghai and the Giant Panda Festival in Sichuan.

And why not? The central-government leadership—dominated by engineers—has been messing with Mother Nature ever since the Chinese Communist Party came to power. They’ve built the world’s biggest dam, the world’s highest railway and even the world’s biggest Ferris wheel (in Nanchang, still awaiting verification from the Guinness World Records). Why not perfect the science of climate control?

Today Chinese rainmakers are among the world’s busiest. Beijing's nationwide weather-modification budget exceeds $50 million a year. The communist regime’s 11th Five Year Plan, which kicked off this year, calls for the creation of 48 billion to 60 billion cubic meters of artificial rain annually (somewhere between 12 trillion to 16 trillion gallons of water). Beijing needs it. Right now is when fruit trees and crops need life-giving water; the parched North China plain has been stalked by drought since 1998. Normal precipitation is between 22 and 24 inches annually, says Zhang, but Beijing had only 18 inches last year.

This lady pops a baby without breaking a sweat. Goes back to looking like Miss L Croft a week after giving birth. How does she do it???

And having your picture where you looked like a mouse fetch US$4.1 million... The kid will need a shrink at age 4.

For those of you who have not been following the Uncle Bus saga, go here for a comprehensive and highly entertaining overview.

Every boy's dream! A Super Soaker Oozinator!

From the Hasbro website:

Sneak up on your opponents with a surprise bio-ooze attack! Just when they think you're coming at 'em with water, blast 'em with a shot of icky bio-ooze! Shoot out globs of gooey bio-ooze and then drench 'em with water! It's a double blast attack that'll keep your opponents on their toes and running during every water fight. With the OOZINATOR blaster you don't just get soaked, you get drenched!

See how much the boys enjoy playing with their Oozinator!

People quickly caught on to the different kinds of fun you can have with this toy and filled the product's page at Amazon with exhilarative reviews, which were soon deleted by the power that be. Fortunately the Consumerist and its readers archived some of those tales here and here, such as:

As much fun as this toy is while it lasts, it does indeed tend to shoot the ooze
much quicker than I would want. It's good for me but my partners don't enjoy it.

By Christopher Elliott
The New York Times
April 25, 2006

The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?

A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only "seats."

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.

But even short of that option, carriers have been slipping another row or two of seats into coach by exploiting stronger, lighter materials developed by seat manufacturers that allow for slimmer seatbacks. The thinner seats theoretically could be used to give passengers more legroom but, in practice, the airlines have been keeping the amount of space between rows the same, to accommodate additional rows.

The result is an additional 6 seats on a typical Boeing 737, for a total of 156, and as many as 12 new seats on a Boeing 757, for a total of 200.

That such things are even being considered is a result of several factors. High fuel costs, for example, are making it difficult for carriers to turn a profit. The new seat technology alone, when used to add more places for passengers, can add millions in additional annual revenue. The new designs also reduce a seat's weight by up to 15 pounds, helping to hold down fuel consumption. A typical seat in economy class now weighs 74 to 82 pounds.

"There is clearly pressure on carriers to make the total passenger count as efficient as possible," said Howard Guy, a director for Design Q, a seating design consultant in England. "After all, the fewer seats that are put on board, the more expensive the seat price becomes. It's basic math."

Even as the airlines are slimming the seatbacks in coach, they are installing seats as thick and heavy as ever in first and business class — and going to great lengths to promote them. That is because each passenger in such a seat can generate several times the revenue of a coach traveler.

At the front of the cabin, the emphasis is on comfort and amenities like sophisticated entertainment systems. Some of the new seats even feature in-seat electronic massagers. And, of course, the airlines have installed lie-flat seats for their premium passengers on international routes.

Seating specialists say that all the publicity airlines devote to their premium seats diverts attention from what is happening in the back of the plane. In the main cabin, they say, manufacturers are under intense pressure to create more efficient seats.

"We make the seats thinner," said Alexander Pozzi, the director for research and development at Weber Aircraft, a seat manufacturer in Gainesville, Tex. "The airlines keep pitching them closer and closer together. We just try to make them as comfortable as we can."

There is one bit of good news in the thinner seats for coach class: They offer slightly more room between the armrests because the electronics are being moved to the seatbacks.

One of the first to use the thinner seats in coach was American Airlines, which refitted its economy-class section seven years ago with an early version made by the German manufacturer Recaro.

"Those seats were indeed thinner than the ones they replaced, allowing more knee and legroom," Tim Smith, a spokesman for American, said. American actually removed two rows in coach, adding about two inches of legroom, when it installed the new seats. It promoted the change with a campaign called "More Room Throughout Coach."

But two years later, to cut costs, American slid the seats closer together and ended its "More Room" program without fanfare. When the changes were completed last year, American said its "density modification program" had added five more seats to the economy-class section of its MD-80 narrow-body aircraft and brought the total seat count to 120 in the back of the plane. A document on an internal American Airlines Web site, which was briefly accessible to the public last week, estimated that the program would generate an additional $60 million a year for its MD-80 fleet.

United Airlines has also used the earlier-generation thin seats. But it held open the possibility that once its current seat stock needs to be replaced, it might try to squeeze in more seats. "We're always looking at options," Brandon Borrman, a spokesman, said.

Airlines can only do so much with their existing fleets to save space. The real opportunities, say seat manufacturers and design experts, are with the new generation of aircraft that are coming soon.

"People hear about these new planes, and they have bowling alleys and barber shops," Michael B. Baughan, the president and chief operating officer of B/E Aerospace, a manufacturer of aircraft cabin interiors in Wellington, Fla., said with a bit of exaggeration. "But that's not how planes are delivered. On a real airline, with real routes, you have to be economically viable."

Perhaps the most extraordinary example of a new jet that could accommodate features unheard of previously is the Airbus A380. There is so much available room on the superjumbo that Virgin Atlantic Airways is even considering placing a beauty salon in its premium-class section. (No final decision has been made, according to the company.) The first A380 is scheduled to be delivered later this year.

With a typical configuration, the A380 will accommodate about 500 passengers. But with standing-room-only seats, the same plane could conceivably fit in 853 passengers, the maximum it would be permitted to carry.

"To call it a seat would be misleading," said Volker Mellert, a physics professor at Oldenburg University in Germany, who has done research on airline seat comfort and has seen the design. If such a configuration were ever installed on an aircraft, he said, it would only be used on short-haul flights like an island-hopping route in Japan.

While an Airbus spokeswoman, Mary Anne Greczyn, played down the idea that Airbus was trying to sell an aircraft that accommodated 853 passengers, the company would not specifically comment on the upright-seating proposal.

There is no legal barrier to installing standing-room seats on an American airliner. The Federal Aviation Administration does not mandate that a passenger be in a sitting position for takeoffs and landings; only that the passenger be secured. Seating must comply only with the agency's rules on the width of aisles and the ability to evacuate quickly in an emergency.

The Air Transport Association, the trade association for the airline industry in the United States, does not have any seat-comfort standards. Nor does it issue any recommendations to its members regarding seating configurations.

The two Asian airlines seen as the most likely to buy a large plane for short-haul flights, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, are lukewarm about the Airbus plan.

"Airbus had talked with us about an 800-seat configuration for domestic flights," said Rob Henderson, a spokesman for All Nippon Airways. "It does not fit with our present plans going forward."

A spokesman for Japan Airlines, Geoffrey Tudor, said Airbus had presented its ideas for using the A380 on short-haul flights, but added, "We have no interest in increasing seat capacity to this level."

Boeing is under similar pressure to squeeze more seats onto its newest aircraft, the midsize Boeing 787. Some airlines are planning to space the seats just 30 inches apart from front to back, or about one inch less than the current average.

And rather than installing eight seats across the two aisles, which would afford passengers additional elbow room, more than half of Boeing's airline customers have opted for a nine-abreast configuration in the main cabin, said Blake Emery, a marketing director at Boeing. Even so, he said, "It will still be as comfortable as any economy-class section today."

Indeed, it is possible to have it both ways: more comfortable seats that are also more compact. For example, the latest economy-class seat from B/E Aerospace, called the ICON, allows the seat bottom to move forward when the seat is reclined, so that it does not steal legroom from the passenger behind it. It also incorporates better ergonomic designs now typically found in the business-class cabin.

But the ICON and similar seats can cost up to three times more than the $1,200 that a standard coach seat costs. That may make them unaffordable to all but a few international airlines that would use the seats on long-haul routes, the experts said.

Some frequent fliers, asked about the slimmer seats, said they feared that the result would be tighter quarters. Some expressed concerns about sharing a cabin with even more passengers and increasing the risk of contracting a communicable disease.

Others were worried about even more passengers sharing the already-tight overhead bin space.

"It seems like every year there is less room for my long legs," said Bud Johnson, who is a frequent traveler for a military contractor in Scottsdale, Ariz. "I'm afraid that's going to continue."