Category Archives: General

General, Political Economy

明報
國務院辦公廳去年轉發了《建設部等九部門關於調整住房供應結構穩定住房價格的意見》，其中明確規定，「凡新審批、新開工的商品住房建設，套型建築面積90平方米以下住房(含經濟適用住房)面積所佔比重，必須達到開發建設總面積的70%以上」。

90平方米以下單位在各大城市並不受民眾歡迎，只要是有錢買樓，民眾還是選擇90平方米以上的單位，這就使得原本就顯矜貴的大單位，現在因供應減少而更加搶手，反而是90平方米以下單位滯銷。

硬要改變市場供求就是行不通嘛。

General

警員抄球星牌被降職

印度名人不可得罪，一名盡職警察向違法球星抄牌，反被降職。…省領導人表示，名人在法律面前，應該享有特權

What the??

McGriddles

General

麥記三文治
2007年1月11日
【明報專訊】日本女星磯山沙也加(左)與神田宇野周三展示日本麥當勞最新早餐McGriddles三文治。這款產品在中國及美加大受歡迎，將於下周一登陸日本。

(法新社)

When will McDonald’s introduce McGriddles in Hong Kong?
香港幾時先會有？

Apple Introduces iPhone

Tech Zone

So Apple came up with “a combination of a video iPod, a Wii controller, and [smart] phone”. Besides a touchscreen system which Steve Jobs described as “revolutionary”, iPhone runs OS X. While thats could potentially become a devastation for Windows-Mobile-based Smartphone, it remains to be seen how an–relative to desktop and laptops–underpowered mobile phone handles a desktop OS, and more crucially desktop applications. No specifications on processor type and speed have been released at this point, but I bet you will not want to install many common applications on it.

Now as for the “revolutionary” touchscreen. Despite all the hype many–maybe most even–people dislike on-screen keyboard when they actually have to use it. The reason why Blackberry etc. include thumb keyboards is not that they cannot come up with on-screen solutions but that people prefer real buttons to virtual ones. But who knows, maybe Multi-touch is revolutionary.

General

【明報專訊】…但對於有參展者不滿酒店房間無法上網，身兼亞博主席的投資推廣署長盧維思回應，指是「小事一樁」，不太重要，「要上網便應入住商務酒店」。

Michael Rowse deserves to be fired.

Teenager collapses playing video games少年網吧通宵打機昏厥

General

[SCMP] A 15-year-old boy playing video games at a cybercafe in Tin Shui Wai collapsed and lost consciousness. The incident occurred at around 5am. The teenager was admitted to Tuen Mun Hospital but was discharged later in the day. A youth group has raised concerns about such incidents, saying they are commonplace. It blames this on the lack of sufficient youth services and leisure facilities in the district.

Video games are comparable to drugs when it comes to addictiveness. Depends on which school of thoughts one is in something might or might not need to be done on this.

【明報專訊】一名15歲少年昨清晨與友人於天水圍俊宏軒一間網吧內打機消遣，怎料樂極生悲。少年懷疑因打機時間過長，以致疲憊不堪，玩樂期間突然全身抽搐，更一度昏倒。友人見狀即時報警，幸少年於救護員到場前已蘇醒，送院檢驗後並無大礙。有醫學界人士指出，每打機一小時，便應小休15分鐘。另外，有區議員歸咎天水圍區內康文設施不足及缺乏就業機會，以致青少年沉迷上網，促請政府正視問題。

【明報專訊】香港青年協會早前以問卷形式向44間中小學教師進行「青少年網絡使用」意見調查。在收回的600多份問卷中，有九成教師同意學生沉迷上網問題值得憂慮，更有兩成八教師認為情已到了嚴重地步。

打機跟唆毒其實沒兩樣，一樣要錢、會上癮及傷身，程度不同罷了。假若有一天問題嚴重，會否出現政府禁止打機的情形呢？

Samsung Q1

UMPC

Samsung Q1
I have to admit that I have a taste for portable devices: first it’s PDA, now it’s UMPC. Despite lukewarm reviews everywhere, Q1 comes quite close as my dream machine. In particular, it addressed many inadequates of PDA. Here are the pros:
1. Size: Q1 has the size of an average package book; with a weight of less than 800g its very portable.
2. Screen: At 7″ physically it is much bigger than anything one could find on a PDA.
3. Touch-Sensitivity: I really like touch-screen–mouse-pad and pointer drive me mad. Touch-screen also allows me to work one-handed, something I really need when I am standing. I actually find entering through Dialkeys, a virtual keyboard bundled with all UMPC, somewhat enjoyable…
4. Windows XP: Since Q1 runs XP Tablet, anything that works on a desktop theoretically works in it to. This is an unbeatable advantage over PDA’s, which need specialized softwares. Just yesterday I demonstrated the concurrent running of World of Warcraft and a program I wrote to a research colleague.
5. CF-slot: This is how Q1 wins my heart over Asus R2H, another UMPC. I need CF-slot to load photos from my DSLR and R2H only has a SD-slot.
6. Spec: Nothing spectacular here–actually Q1 is arguably underpowered–but as a PC it’s still way better than any PDA. I could barely open jpeg’s from my EOS-300D on my X50v, not to mention RAW.
7. Connectors: 2 USB ports and VGA out, things that are not on my PDA, is really all I need.
6. Price: I was originally look for ultra-portable laptops but those are expensive. At ~$1000 Q1 costs at most 2/3 of many popular ultra-portables.

There are quite some cons too:
1. Underpowered: Equipped only with a Celeron M 900Mhz processor, 512MB RAM and 40GB hard disk, it’s not a fast computer in any sense. Q1’s 7″ touch screen is almost triple that of my x51v in size, yet at a native resolution of 800×480 it hardly offers any advantage in resolution.
2. No microphone jack: The built-in microphone works great, but it would still be great to have the option to plug in an external one.
3. No videocam and GPS: Not something I would use often, but Asus’ R2H has both.
4. Mediocre Battery life: This is by far the biggest drawback–battery cannot hold much longer than two hours.
5. Price: I did mention it cost a thousand bucks…well.

In the end I am happy: Q1 is the solution to my need; neither PDA nor laptop could address my need as well as the Q1 does. And while many condemned Q1 to its demise, I do see there are others holding the same opinion as I do. Sometimes you just have to leave aside the zillions of reviews and make your own choice.