tin_the_fatty weblog

Film and original graphic novel. Chinese version of the graphic novel was published around summer last year. Highly recommended.

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The Edge Annual Question 2008: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Lots of good stuff. It was Slashdot that bought this to my attention, and quoting Sam Harris :-
Mother Nature is not our friend.
So Sam finally agrees with Laozi. In Tao Te Ching, paragraph 5:-
天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗
(which I roughly translate to “Mother Nature is [...]

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I first got this news from the radio. It didn’t mention what the sign/wording was on the T-shirts and postcards. The online versions of most local newspapers (except Apple Daily) also didn’t give the details. After a couple of days overseas Chinese newspapers started to reveal the sign/wording.

While we have to be constantly vigilant in [...]

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Very interesting and well written. Link. Makes me want to keep bees as hobby, but even the monks in the Trappist Monastery, surrounded by forestry, said they couldn’t keep bees, what little chance do I have?
Highly recommended.

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I am still reading this great book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond. In chapter 6, Diamond argued that sexual selection of our ancestors has a very notable effect on how we look, and we “learn” our sexual preference from our young age. The male would tend to prefer someone [...]

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I was reading this review of the Fujitsu SnanSnap S500m, which brought my attention to DEVONthink Pro Office. The software stores all your PDF files (plus other file types) and indices them all. The “Office” version has a built-in OCR engine to convert images into text for indexing. I wish I knew about the Office [...]

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I borrowed a hardback copy from the local public library. Big heavy and nice to read.
There are a few main characters, in no particular order:-

A lawyer who turned into a secret agent/special force;
Another secret agent/special force/lawyer;
Old rich guy who turned into a jungle surviving expert;
Two secret agents/special forces who know it all;
A few faceless nameless [...]

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The Lingnan University is just down the road from where we live. I think this small liberal art university is excellent and very promising.
A couple of weeks back I paid the Lingnan library a visit with my JULAC card. It is spacious and very nice.
One may apply for a External Reader Card for an annual [...]

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I bought it as introductory text on modern history of Japan and Korea from the perspective of historians from these countries.
Firstly I must say, the visual presentation of this book is very good. There are lots of nice pictures and photos and the text is very easy to read.
At a time I was into [...]

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Schadenfreude: Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

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Nice light reading for a hot afternoon.

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I generally avoid going to Mongkok as much as I can. It’s just too crowded.
The Lady needed some books on Chinese language for her study. We were planning to go to the Book City in Shenzhen to look for them, but upon my old man’s recommendation we checked out Mongkok City Centre (right opposite to [...]

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I finished this book a couple of weeks ago.
Nice, short and to the point, this book is easy and fun to read. The author Choi considered the 1st of July March in 2003 the end of an era, and a good time to conclude TCH’s 7 years of rule. He wrote much about TCH and [...]

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They are doing a fund drive. Definitely a worthwhile cause.
I have just given them US$100. Yes the service is worth many times of this amount to me: quality background info on almost any topic and anything with a touch of the fingertip.
Jasper is starting to ask “WHY”, and I am now all ready for it.
Update [...]

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The Lady is part of a team responsible for implementing a Quality Education Programme for this year, on getting the kids at her school to read more. They have got the government funding, and are looking in acquiring more books for their library.
Last week Joy-Shan Lam wrote an article in the HKEJ on Tin Tin, [...]

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I was listening to To Kit last night. They were talking about the idiocy of the HKSAR Govt regarding the redevelopment of the Central Police Station and Victoria Prison, and were taking the p*ss out of the so-called 1973-vintage Chinese civil servants. To Kit said that he was having lunch with an ex-civil servant (whose [...]

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