Posted by samson on Jan 10, 2008 in
Random Thoughts This is a sad week for most Canadians, especially those of Chinese ethnicity. A radio call-in show called ‘Power Politics’ is being pulled off the air waves. Reasons are yet unclear, all Simon Li, the host of Power Politics said was ‘If I am not allowed to have my freedom of expression, then this would no longer be Power Politics!’.
Power Politics is recorded in Cantonese, and its primary audience base is the Cantonese Speaking Canadians from the Greater Toronto Area. Some of its well known coverage includes the ‘Comfort women act’, where women in Asia was abducted by the Japanese Army during the second World War and forced to comfort their captors. The Canadian Government, under constant coverage from Power Politics, the audience’s plea for help to their parliament representative and the sense of right from wrong that exists in our government’s conscience have passed the Act. This Act that acknowledges the crimes the Japanese Army have committed against Women during WWII, next step is to undo the alterations the Japanese extreme conservatives have done to their history books. Another well known coverage would be the Racial discrimination based attacks against Asian fishing hobbyist. Where tires are cut, people are pushed into lakes, and other forms of expression which could be consider hate crime were conducted on those that just wanted to torture fish for sport.
One of the most attractive part of Power Politics is that in one hour and thirty Minuets, it is able to lead the politically idle Chinese community into the heat that is local politics. Chinese has never been a political active race, atleast not for the last 30 years or so. Those from Hong Kong knew only to follow or complain under the British rule, those from main-land China knew only to agree to the communistic rule, and those from Taiwan only knew that if they don’t over react, their opposition would not listen because their form of democracy is somewhat in between traditional Chinese beliefs and modern democratic believe. If a call-in show like Power Politics, local politicians can finally reach into the heart of a minority community. Then maybe, just maybe, we’ll have more Canadians of Chinese ethnic origins. These people can better the country by entering into the political race. Trust me, there are lots of people in the Chinese Canadian minority section that can be consider good leaders, it is just that their spark, the spark to better Canada, haven’t been lit yet. With this show gone for now, I fear it is difficult for these resources to be tap.
Before my introduction to Power Politics, I have absolutely no interest in Politics. Reason was simple, even with a bachelor’s degree I am but one. I can’t do much, nor would my voice ever be heard. Apparently, it isn’t. If I voice up, I might be able to make this world a better place. What else can I do then to start with the one in the mirror eh?
Good bye Power Politics, Simon Li and Dr. So. I hope to hear your voices again. Until then, the little spark that have lit up within me, the spark for love of politics and rightousness, would be allowed to grow. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll join you on a newer generation of Power Politics! Or maybe helping you distribute Podcast of your show, that’s the least I can really do :p
Tags: Act, Army, audience, Chinese ethnicity, expression, Japanese, Japanese Army, Power Politics, Simon Li
Posted by samson on Jan 10, 2008 in
Road to Pleasant future Have you ever gotten into a fight with anyone? Or are you still angry at that driver who sped up just to cut in front of you on your daily drive? What about that telemarketer who calls when you are trying to enjoy a cup of coffee while reading this blog?
If you are like me, you most likely have experienced this negative emotion toward other human beings. Sometimes it might be so bad that you just want to run your foot up their arse just to for the fun of it.
When you are filled with these type of emotions, you have to ask yourself, is it really worth it? Let’s do some simple math, assuming you can live up to be 99 years old. We already know that 1/3 of your life is spend sleeping, so you actually only have 66 years of life.
Now, if we consider education and work, that’s another 1/3 of your life lost. So you really have 33 years of actual life. Now, let’s assume you eat breakfast in 30 min, lunch in 30 min, and diner in 60 min. that’s 2 hours per day for food or 1/12 of your life. That’s 8.25 years lost, just for eating. So now you are down to roughly 25 years. In this 25 years you have to include time for holiday, time to travel, time to write, time to read, time to play, time for courtship, time to have children, time to get married…. you get my point. Do you really have the time for these negative emotions? I don’t.
So, my suggestions is that if you want to live pleasantly, try to never hold grudges, try to forgive and forget and always think in a positive terms instead of negative. Trust me, no one is out there just to pick on you.
Take the driver to sped up just to cut in line for example, it might be that they really have no idea where they are going, Are you sure that the driver intentionally picked you from the busy road that you were driving to cut in line? What if they were new to the city and simply saw a sign that informs them the lane you are in would help them reach their destination?
Thinking in a positive manner sounds unrealistic, but if you can truly accomplish this level of mental control, life would be way better.
Tags: coffee, cup, fight, min, negative emotion, negative emotions, Relax
Posted by samson on Jan 9, 2008 in
Reviews By Me Hey, I just got my first online cheque since 1996 (AllAdvantage payment, if case you are wondering). Its 50.30 USD Yippie!
Too bad my stupid bank decides that US Cheques requires an extra service charge.. so they ate the little exchange rate and debit my account further. On the bright side, 40% of this web page has now pay for itself. If only I can come up with more ideas and lots of visitors would click on those ads.
Oh, a new addition I read off of Widgetbucks, most likely old news to some of you, but it is news to me. Apparently Widgetbucks now support impression payment as well, providing your traffic is from anywhere on earth excluding North America. This means about 15% of the traffic of my site can earn me extra money just by showing up!
Yes I know there are Australian, European and Asian reader to my blog as well. But most of my traffic are still from North America, so this is a combined good news and bad news. Maybe I should start writing some attractive articles for non-North Americans :p
Still, Widgetbucks is my recommended money maker so far, simply because it is the only one that mailed me money. :p
Side note, Google Adsense is still less then $2…Maybe I should consider removing it.
Tags: AllAdvantage, Cheque Hey, exchange rate, news, North America, payment, Review, Widget, Widgetbucks
Posted by samson on Jan 3, 2008 in
Reviews By Me Recently, as I got stuck in my coding, an old game grave surfaced its ugly head. Most people nowadays are attracted to games with nice graphics, real time control or little miniature controllable characters that allow the player to control them and would have real reaction to every input by the player.
Being a long time proud computer users, I have a collection of rare and old games on my shelves. Some of these titles are award winning game software such as StarCraft or other where hardly anyone has heard of, such as Kello-Chicken’s road to success.
Starting in the final days of 2007, I’ve reinstalled a game called Star Wars Rebellion. It is a game that I once considered a waste of my money. Since it lack the action which is comparable to games of its days like Ages of empires, StarCraft or other real time strategy games. However, this revisit got me hooked. I am now proud to announce that I have consquered the known universe and defeated the empire, while capturing Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine! The entire game lasted for nearly two weeks, and in game time was close to 6000 days.
My strategy was simple, Specialization! Specialization in construction, ship creating and troops training. Have 3PO maintain all garrisons and productions for me once I have a fleet of reliable ships.
By the time I have 80% of the known Universe, I already have 4 Occupational fleet, each with 109 fighters squadron and 50 troop squadron. 1 Defender fleet, primarily used to protect Mon Martha, Skywalker(s)(Leia and Luke), Solo, and other characters. 215 fighter Squadron and 100+ troop squadron. A Penal Guard fleet, where it guards a planet I’ve utilized as a penal colony. All captured Empire subjects are placed here to rot and the fleet that guards it contains 150+ fighter squadron, with another 50 from ground support.
Speaking of which, I was on the largest universe setting, so I have more sectors and stars to play with.
Attack pattern is 4 occupation fleet, attack first planet together. Assault and control the planet. then spread to 4 of its neighbor in 4 single fleet. Once this is done, attack its neighbor and join rejoin together for the final planet in the sector. (this plan only works when there are 10 planets in each sector, where it is always the case in Rebellion). Attack only if the planet is empire side, if it is neutral, leave it for the defender fleet to come in and ‘condition’ them to alliance, if it is not occupied, do it and let 3po maintain garrison from that point on.
If you have never played the game, you might not understand what I am talking about. If you are strongly interested visit here for more information from Wikipedia.
If you want to buy this game, I am sorry. I just don’t think it possible to buy this game anymore. Unless LucasArts decided to re-release it. But from what I heard, lots of people didn’t like this game and therefore LucasArts lost some money on it.
Tags: Emperor Palpatine, empire, fighter squadron, player, real time strategy games, Specialization, squadron, Star War Games - Star Wars Rebellion, Star Wars Rebellion, strategy
Posted by samson on Jan 2, 2008 in
Random Thoughts Well, its the second day of 2008. World didn’t end (unless I slept through it…. yeah, I missed the count down. I accidentally exhausted myself on the Wii), stocks still falling, and a gloomy outlook until June 2008, simply because of the Sub Prime Mortgage problems.
Recently, it is getting more difficult to blog. It was moderately difficult to look at the world with a pleasant point of view with the stock market’s down fall. One of the stock that I have considered money maker, even if I didn’t buy any, Canadian Imperial bank, dropped a 30% just before Christmas. What a lovely gift from Santa Claus eh?
As my Site announcement said earlier, I am planning to launch a sister site. I’ll fill everyone in with more information later on.
Tags: Canadian Imperial bank, count, gloomy outlook, Happy, June, outlook, site, stock, stock market, Sub Prime Mortgage problems