winterson.com

halp!

2010-02-21T14:35:00.002+08:00

google has announced that starting march 26 they won't support ftp anymore.

they're supposed to release some tools this week to help migrate folks over to blogspot, but given that i have my own domain i'd rather keep everything here if i can.

anyone have any good suggestions as to how i can continue to blog (as infrequently as i do) without migrating everything over to blogspot? different software could be ok so long as it is relatively easy to set up.

thanks!

here and there

2009-08-19T21:43:00.003+08:00

departing soon

room with a view

enjoying the ride

nelson after a run in the sea

driving around the lake district

landing at laguardia

tai kok tsui night traffic

a present after a 12hr flight...

2009-06-18T22:01:00.001+08:00

...142 new emails.

:-/

the dark side

2009-05-10T14:04:00.002+08:00

so i've finally decided to move over to the dark side and get a mac...

after using it for a few hours my initial thoughts are:
- apple makes great hardware- a quality feel and easy to set up
- fantastic display
- much less clutter than with my previous hp desktop
- moving itunes from one computer to another is a huge pain- still haven't figured out how to move the library without losing all of my album artwork and tags
- the new version of parallels is much better- easy to move files back and forth to osx

inflight crash

2009-03-22T16:22:00.002+08:00

the inflight entertainment system crashed during a flight i took a couple of months ago. as it was rebooting i couldn't help but wonder if the screens in the cockpit were rebooting too!

mined islands

2009-03-15T17:44:00.002+08:00

to the south and east of hong kong lies the wanshan archipelago. flying in and out of hong kong the one thing that is quite noticeable about the islands is how extensively they have been mined. in some cases almost all of the smaller islands is gone.

this particular island, located south of lantau, has a section in the center part of the island missing.

more than half of this island has been mined. click on the thumbnails for larger versions.

i've done a bit of searching and what i've found in english doesn't mentioned mining on these islands- it mentions fishing and tourism. mining tourists, perhaps!

descending

2009-03-15T17:02:00.001+08:00

20,000ft

2,000ft

smogurday

2009-02-22T15:00:00.003+08:00

the past few days in hong kong has been very misty and last night it was drizzling with rain. this morning when i woke up i thought it was another rainy day, but on second glance it looked a lot more like pollution...

sure enough, if i look directly up at the sky today i can see some blue but the air at the ground is hazy and cloudy. the first pic above was taken at noon today- by comparison the pic below that was taken on a sunny day about 18 months ago. those mountains are almost exactly three kilometers away.

a quick glance at the hong kong pollution index shows that the pollution du jour is 'respirable suspended particles'. yum!

on days like this i wonder if it's more healthy to stay indoors rather than go out to get some exercise.

episode iii, the backstroke of the west redux

2009-01-27T23:45:00.010+08:00

a couple of years ago when i was living in shanghai i bought a revenge of the sith dvd off the street. it came with hilariously mangled subtitles that ranged from somewhat close to what the actors were saying to far, far away....

i've been meaning to update the blog post I wrote ages ago to add in more scenes and upgrade the quality of the photos (they were digital camera pics and in some pics you can see my old tv) but of course you know how it goes- one never has the time.

so now that it's chinese new year and i have a few days off work, i finally present to you as a new year's present...

episode iii, the backstroke of the west redux

the dvd menu looks pretty normal, aside from a rather evil-looking yoda.

to experience backstroke of the west one has to go to the subtitle menu and select 'englsih'.

the beginning scroll is mistranslated, even though the words are right up there on the screen.

star war (just one).

yup.

click play to see the full intro scroll.

anakin: "this is where the fun begins"

anonymous doomed fighter pilot: "they're all over me!"

obi-wan, space battle strategist.

the battle was going well until the disgusting thing showed up.

obi-wan really hates that disgusting thing.

obi-wan teaches r2 how to beat the disgusting thing.

a quick pause in the caption commentary. for a while i couldn't figure out how the captions got so mangled- i thought maybe it was done by computer, but in some cases like this one the captions make sense but have no relation to what is going on. general grevious is actually saying, "just as count dooku predicted"...

...and here anakin says, "destroyers!" (meaning destroyer droids). after watching the movie again i figured out that a chinese pirate had originally tried to listen to the movie in english and wrote in chinese what he thought he heard- this was then translated back by machine into english. so in this case mr. pirate heard 'destroy' and thought anakin was talking about destroying the droids...

...and the best part of it all is that some stuff is completely made up, like in this case the droids in the elevator are just mumbling but mr. pirate decided to make something up about not pushing (which is extra-funny if you've ever lived in china!). so a random pirate in china decided on the fly that not only could he translate but he could improve on lucas's script. brilliant stuff, and this explains a lot of the seemingly random things.

anyway, back to the movie.

obi-wan grows impatient with r2.

the chancellor warns obi-wan and anakin that count dooku is... big.

obi-wan explains that it's no problem.

count dooku doesn't like anakin.

count dooku really doesn't like anakin.

chancellor palpatine explains something to anakin about obi-wan.

general grievous receives some bad news.

the general considers how he should punish his troops.

"anakin skywalker"

anakin taunts general grievous.

the general fires off a snappy comeback.

grievous orders his troops to turn anakin and obi-wan into filet-o-fishes.

yes, that's right, crispy golden brown batter!!!

a random hair styling tip?

the translator liked elephants.

he liked elephants a lot.

oh no, anything but that!

we gonna rock down to, lemon avenue.

anakin is fed up with politicseses.

anakin: "that's wonderful" (in reply to padme saying she is pregnant)

padme the homemaker.

hallelujah!

yoda: "premonitions? premonitions?"

that sounds like something yoda might actually say.

anakin is haunted by dreamses.

the elephant needs anakin. um, yeah.

troopseses!

obi-wan asks anakin to spy on the chancellor while he does certain activities.

the chancellor explains to anakin that darth plagueis was strong and big.

and he became even stronger and bigger.

but he wasn't big or strong enough to stop himself from being killed by... land... so he could go to bed... yep.

anakin delivers some good news to obi-wan.

but obi-wan explains that anakin is allah gold and therefore there's a problem with him being part of the presbyterian church.

"may the force be with you"

obi-wan asks for directions.

anakin starts to fall out with the presbyterian church.

how romantic.

tion medon: "what brings you to our remote sanctuary?"

tion medon: "on the tenth level, thousands of battledroids"

obi-wan: "hello there!"

grievous tells his troops to back off, he'll take care of obi wan.

... but is it big?

the chancellor delivers anakin some bad news.

who you tryin' to get crazy with esse? don't you know i'm loco?

me am a civilization person too!

"i think chancellor palpatine is a sith lord."

mace windu reads the chancellor his rights.

palpatine: "no... no... no..."

palpatine: "unlimited... power!"

anakin bargains for the life of his cuckoldry.

palpatine: "darth vader"

"rise!"

the emporer tells anakin... umm... something.

anakin: "i agree."

ok- the bottom conveniently

yoda: "goodbye chewbacca."

c3po tells the amorous couple to get a room.

padme: "no thank you, c3po."

obi-wan: "who could have done this?"

the emporer announces that he's going on workers' comp leave.

did he change it to, 'password'?

palpatine to anakin: "you have done well, my apprentice"

obi-wan tells yoda that anakin is like his brother... and an elephant too.

the dark side is gobbling.

padme: "3po will look after me."

how about a snickers?

padme confronts anakin- he has been sleeping around!

umm... uhh... what affair. that wasn't me. i barely know that girl.

anakin tells padme to forget the girl, because he is now both strong and big.

in fact anakin is positively huge and herculean.

padme doesn't want big and strong. she also doesn't want to walk on a road meant for running about.

lier!!!

padme: "no!!!"

obi-wan has heard enough.

yoda pays a not-so-friendly visit to palpatine's office.

this doesn't really have anything to do with backstroke of the west, but i love the way he walked into the room.

palpatine has a pet name for yoda.

palpatine now reveals his true ambitions- to be the biggest and strongest!

that's just too much for yoda- he's heading for tijuana.

meanwhile anakin taunts obi-wan...

...but obi-wan stands on higher ground...

...and proclaims his love.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..............!!!!!"

winter sunrise

2009-01-08T19:32:00.003+08:00

this photo was taken as we descended through the clouds towards chicago last month.

as we flew closer to the ground the sun made a brief appearance before hiding again behind the clouds.

click on the thumbnails above for larger and less pixelated versions.

world's shortest moving walkway?

2009-01-07T21:34:00.004+08:00

this is the shortest and probably least useful moving walkway i've encountered. it's located at terminal five in chicago o'hare airport and to get to it one has to leave the main walking area on the left, walk over to it, and when one gets to the other end, walk back. there's an entrance to a business lounge in the middle on the right side so one has to walk around the moving walkway to get to it.

tax dollars at work!

happy new year 2009!

2009-01-04T17:46:00.003+08:00

happy new year from bangkok!!! i was in bangkok for about a week with friends. the pic above was taken from my room on new year's eve- click to see the full size image.

now i'm back in my hong kong 'cube condo'. can you see me in the photo above?

playing with small trucks is strictly forbidden

2008-10-01T15:33:00.004+08:00

can you guess what the sign is actually saying? answer is in the comments...

the communist entertainment room

2008-09-28T13:49:00.000+08:00

unfortunately i wasn't able to go inside to find out exactly what type of entertainment goes on in there.

around the world

2008-09-28T13:04:00.003+08:00

some pics from the past few months. click on them to view in full size...

a view of chicago taken from the air after departing from o'hare.

aircraft parked at the gate in hong kong.

our temporary home for the 12-hour flight to london.

a panorama of hong kong and kowloon from the peak.

the international commerce center under construction and in the background my home.

venturing outside during typhoon nuri.

a small side street in tsim sha tsui.

at the top of the london eye.

'do not lean against the doors.' most people wouldn't go near the edge let alone lean on anything.

queen victoria's monument at buckingham palace. looks like she got rhinoplasty.

a living statue near the london eye who would scare the bejesus out of passers-by.

not sure which was older- the driver or the taxi.

the tower bridge on a cloudy day.

japanese schoolgirls scramble to photograph a buckingham palace guard.

duck and goose pooh area.

where i spent a year studying.

boarding the train to st. ives.

st. ives panorama.

fishing on the sea wall at sennen.

boooooooooooooooom....

2008-07-20T23:45:00.003+08:00

the first sample video from my new casio ex-f1 camera...

this is a slow-motion capture (600fps) of a coastal gun firing at pendennis castle in cornwall, england. the video was then slowed down further to 25% of that speed using ulead videostudio.

the movement at the end is me flinching when the shockwave hit. i knew when the gun was going to fire but it was much louder than expected!

the yangyuan huating commerce hotel no.8

2008-06-29T23:40:00.002+08:00

the week before last i flew with a couple of work colleagues to visit a factory in yangyuan, close to the border of hebei and shanxi provinces. the closest airport was at datong, about a three hour drive away. we flew into busy datong airport (click on the thumbnail above) and headed to yangyuan.

at yangyuan we checked into the 'huating commerce hotel no.8' where i was given what supposedly was the presidential suite. the picture above is the view after entering the front door. the small table in front is for playing mahjong and was plugged in and making a loud refridgerator-like humming noise when i walked in.

the presidential bathroom overlooked the factory next door and was large but missing a few things such as... a mirror. presumably mr. president would have someone preening him in the morning and wouldn't have use for a mirror.

to the left in the bathroom there was a small sauna and jacuzzi. unfortunately there was no shower-head except for a small handheld one with about a foot of slack. i suppose mr. president doesn't worry about having to wash his own hair. the toilet was missing a toilet-paper holder, but i suppose mr. president also doesn't... never mind.

the telephones in the room were a bizarre gaudy combination of what you'd perhaps find in an early 20th-century mansion except made from plastic with a digital display.

another grotesque example next to the bed. i felt like picking it up and shouting, 'mr. watson, come here, i want you!'

the view from the bedroom. you'll notice the bed doesn't have covers on it. i thought perhaps there would be a 'turn down' service later in the evening but when i returned back to the room after dinner it still didn't have any covers on it. after hunting around for a while i asked for help and learned that the covers were stored in that small chest next to the television. yes, that made perfect sense.

this was by far the most bizarre aspect of the room. the second toilet was located right in the center of the room, surrounded by a hannibal lecter style glass room. no curtains, no screen, nothing. making matters worse is the front door to the right had about a quarter inch gap between the door and doorframe, so using the throne is not only a show to whoever is in the room but also whoever is walking down the hall. i really wonder what the purpose of this room is. perhaps some things are better left unknown....

a panoramic view of yangyuan as seen from the glass toilet cage room.

mac attack

2008-06-29T20:37:00.003+08:00

in computer news i've finally made the switch over to using a mac, at least for work anyway. i'm running a program called parallels which lets me use both the mac operating system (on the laptop on the right) and windows xp (on the screen on the left) at the same time. it took me a while to get used to the mac but now that i've been using it for a while i like it a lot. the downside is there are a number of programs, like outlook, which are better in their xp version so it looks like i'll be using parallels a lot.

macs are famous for their reliability, being far more stable than your typical windows pc. unfortunately, as you can see by the above picture, i've had a few crashes lately. of course i have to give full disclosure and say that all of the crashes happened while using windows xp inside parallels so it's not entire apple's fault.

and fitting with the theme of buggy microsoft product, my xbox 360 recently died after a strenuous period of being rarely used. here it is showing the infamous three 'red rings of death' signifying terminal hardware failure.

the flying condo

2008-06-29T19:13:00.004+08:00

the other week i was working in vietnam for a few days. over the past couple of months monsoon season has hit in full force in asia and the day i was due to fly back to hong kong was no exception. my flight was delayed by a couple of hours, though fortunately they kept us out of the airplane so we could walk around. the poor guys in the photo above kept trying to find a dry place to stand- finally they made a sprint for the underside of the airplane.

when i boarded the plane i was surprised to find that i had been upgraded to first class. even better, the plane was only a couple of weeks old and was fitted with the brand new cathay first class cabins.

the seat was at least 50% wider than normal and everything else was oversized too, including a 17" lcd screen that could be swiveled around on an arm. luxury!

the audio/video system was brand new and offered the usual array of on-demand music and movies.

the six first class suites shared a bathroom that was decked out in chrome and lots of shiny black surfaces that i'm sure are a real pain to keep clean.

the video i took above shows how large the cabin is- perfect for a long-haul flight. unfortunately i have about 13 hours in an economy seat to look forward to tomorrow. here's hoping and praying for another upgrade!

the met construction

2008-06-29T18:20:00.002+08:00

of the many new condos rising up in the bangkok skyline, probably the most distinctive is the met. i checked out their showroom a couple of weeks ago and took this photo of the construction update. the lower floors have an irregular pattern to the balconies, each of which comes with its own tree. probably not a good thing for me to move in there given my (dis)ability when it comes to taking care of plants.

around chiang mai

2008-06-29T17:13:00.004+08:00

a few months back i flew over to chiang mai for a long weekend. i've always liked chiang mai as it has a very different flavor to the rest of thailand- more of a relaxed atmosphere and the locals tend to be even more laid back than their bangkok colleagues. i rented a car and drove into the mountains- above is a road very close to the highest point in thailand, doi inthanon.

back closer to chiang mai is doi suthep, a mountain that overlooks the city and has a number of interesting places to visit including the temple wat phrathat doi suthep. on the steps leading up the temple sat two young kids in akha clothing eating shrimp crackers.

to reach the temple one has to climb 309 steps or for the less agile there's now a tram ride that takes one to the top.

this scary-looking fellow is a n?ga, a multi-headed temple guardian whose body extends the length of the steps leading to the temple.

inside the temple, standing buddhas with a temple viharn in the background.

offerings of candles, incense, and flowers.

an elderly monk gives out blessings in the form of strings tied to one's wrist. it's supposed to be good luck to wear the strings but i've never been told exactly how long to keep them on- some say removal after three days is ok and others say they should be worn until they fall off (!) which, considering that it is usually fairly sturdy string, could take quite some time.

a monk helps a tourist by taking a photo of her with her camera.

some flowers in front of a flag showing the royal emblem of celebration marking the king's 80th birthday.

a very large tree in the royal garden of phuping palace (pronouced 'boo-ping', not how you'd expect).

a rose in the royal garden.

a monk taking a photo of a group of monks in the garden.

Dawn Over San Francisco

2008-04-26T16:32:00.001+08:00

30,000 feet over tibet

2008-04-19T18:23:00.007+08:00

a few hours into a recent flight to portugal the captain announced that we were flying into a high pressure area, the air was unusually clear and he recommended we take a look. i opened the window shade to find an absolutely stunning view. the next several hours were spent staring out the window, camera in hand, neck aching but eyed glued as the scenery unfolded before me.

when the captain made the announcement we were on the edge of sichuan flying into tibet. we would then pass into qinghai and finally xinjiang before nightfall. click on the pictures for a much larger and clearer view.

below the aircraft i couldn't at first see any sign of human presence. we flew over ragged mountains and frozen lakes like the one above.

the above mountains in the distance stood out as the highest peaks by far. the tallest mountain is gongga shan, the third-highest peak outside of the himalayas. a satellite view of the mountain is here. we were about 50-60 miles east when i took the photo.

these hills stood out as they were topped not by snow but by a crumbling light grey material.

hidden in a valley here was one of the few signs of civilization. you can't see anything in this photo, but...

zooming in closer you can see a village built along both banks of a small river.

zooming in even closer you can clearly see the houses and a single building with a blue roof.

mile after mile of rolling hills cut by streams.

more signs of civilization hidden between the hills.

a small village with a rather unusual landmark...

i've tried searching on the internet but can't find what this is. from a distance it looked to be a runway but looking more closely one can a multi-story tower with about a kilometer length of clearing with something laid out on the surface. as you'll see below i saw another one later on.

as we flew further north the hills were dusted with snow, blown into streaks by the wind.

for the most part the valleys were deserted but every so often there'd be a single house or small community.

the square in the center is a small house surrounded by a walled area, possibly for livestock.

what at first again looked to be a small runway is another one of those strange towers.

zoomed all the way in one can see the tower on top and a length of clearing in front.

one of the larger villages that we flew over.

as we flew further north the snow became less and less on the hills, looking here more like powdered sugar.

finally as we flew into xinjiang the snow rather quickly disappeared. in this area some of the peaks were covered by of dark material not visible on the other hills.

here are the final mountains before the taklamakan desert, one of the largest sandy deserts in the world. the name of the desert means, 'those who go in do not come out'.

it was hard to get a good photo while over the desert as the wind-blown sand gave the area a dark brown haze. looking through to the ground all one could see for mile after mile were dunes and and the flat basin.

in the middle of the desert i found what looked to be a small camp of two cars and some temporary buildings.

at the north end of the desert lies the flaming mountains, the hottest place in china. above is one of the passes through the mountains, clearly visible here from satellite.

a road climbs up from the basin to a plateau, seen here from satellite.

we continued over the tien shan mountain range and onwards into the sunset.

above is a video i made from some short clips that i took on the flight. unfortunately it doesn't show much detail due to youtube's compression routine.

sign, sign, everywhere a sign...

2008-03-09T12:05:00.003+08:00

although china has done a good job of translating signs into english in advance of the upcoming 2008 olympics, sometimes the meaning of the sign can get a bit jumbled in translation and in many cases it's obvious that no one is checking to see if the translations make any sense.

the above sign is at the entrance to the ticket counter of a ferry from shanghai to chongming island. looks like it was translated by machine, but even then it's hard to understand what it's trying to say.

and this sign is over the entrance of the ferry itself. i wonder how much danger it has warded off.

this one dates back from an older trip to ningbo. if you're going to slip, make sure you do it carefully.

mr. foam

2008-03-09T11:34:00.002+08:00

a cyclist on chongming island carrying a little bit of styrofoam. good thing it wasn't too windy that day!