I clicked the “automatic upgrade” to WordPress, whatever. Now I am a Chinese blog. Hmm…

I decided to live with this for a while. When WordPress asks me to upgrade again, I will choose the English version and see what will happen. For now, bear with me.

Who does not want to play with a trebuchet? A massive and powerful machine that fell castles and fortresses mysteriously. It takes many people to operate. When assembled, it lobs big boulders or fireballs over long distances. The movement, observed casually, seem magical. How can it work? No one knows.

Except for this kid obsessed with trebuchets. He built numerous trebuchets and figured out pretty much every detail. Then he entered this world-class technical university and met my kid. Years later, kid got a Christmas gift in the mail.

CalTech kids are pretty much all obsessed with one thing or another. One of them held the world-record for solving Rubik’s cube, blind-folded. Yes, he can do it blind-folded in a minute while I can only work out two layers in an hour. He lubricated his cube so that it will turn precisely a quarter turn with a slight flip of his finger. You don’t get to be world-record setting without paying attention to details.

Michael Woods crowd-sourced to fund his long-time hobby. Pledges from his Kick Starter project funded a laser wood cutter to mass produce miniature trebuchets (“trebuchettes”). Kid received her very own siege weapon as a gift. “Because he promised to build me one when we first met.”

Of course, I got to test its range and accuracy. More importantly, I now know how this medieval weapon works. You can try it too!

Recently, prominent internet players coordinated a protest against the government. And they won.

Wikipeidia shut down itself for 24 hours. Google put up a censorship protest sign. Several other sites took similar action. All because the US congress was considering two bills (PIPA and SOPA) sponsored by the media industry that claimed the internet industry is killing them. They said over $500 million a year is lost due to online piracy. This has to stop!

Really? Else what? Would society lose their artists and entertainment? Would there be no programs on TV, no music on the radio, no movies in the theater, no shows on Broadway? Conversely, what if the laws pass? Would artists make more money? Would I have better music, movies, or shows?

Let’s trace money and incentives. Simply: who pays? who gets paid? who really cares?

Artists or creators do not get much of the money. Most goes to those middlemen that distribute the art. This used to be a fair deal. Creating music costs comparably little. Most of the risks in this business lie in distributing and promoting creative content. Therefore the distributors and promoters should be rewarded.

But Internet changed the dynamics. Internet distribution costs nearly zero. People purchase based on reviews and referrals, and less on promotion. An unknown artist remains unknown until he or she has acquired fame and fans. Since consumers do not take promotion seriously, the best, and probably the only, way is to distribute the works freely. For established artists, they can charge much less for the music if they cut out the middlemen.

The production costs for TV programs and movies are still prohibitively high for them to be given away free. If everyone pirates and does not pay, these industries die. Consumers understand this point and are willing to pay reasonable prices. The media industry, however, resisted this option.

Hulu, major TV network’s portal, or cable operator’s portal offer a subset of the TV programs or movies. Some programs, particularly the popular ones, are simply not offered. Others appear 48 hours later and stay for only a short period of time. For this impatient and technically savvy generation of viewers, going directly to piracy is more reliable, more available, less restriction, free of charge, and of the same quality.

I use Comcast’s “catch-up” feature quite frequently. If I missed a TV show, I will go to “catch-up” and watch the same program on-demand. I don’t mind watching the commercials, but am annoyed that they don’t show up consistently — sometime 2 days later, sometime not ever. I have already paid the cable bill. I could have DVRed the program anyway. I don’t feel guilty doing a bit of searching and downloading.

Online and on-demand viewing is the new model. Soon, only sports programs will be watched live. People are willing to pay. But media companies forced them to pirate. More laws on anti-piracy are clearly not the solution.

Embrace the new world and create a new business model. If they don’t get the “Google generation,” they will just die.

I have been avoiding this curiously titled book for a long time. When Kid produced a paperback version and asked me, “Donate or keep?” I put it on my physical reading queue (as opposed to my digital one on my Kindle, in the form of sample downloads).

It began slowly and it took a long time for the main characters to meet each other. The setting was creepy, cold, dark, and foreign. I cringed at several scenes that were quite graphic and violent. They are fully capable of giving people nightmares or keeping them awake at night. If this were a movie (and it is), it would match the horror of Se7en.

Although it gripped me all the way to the finish, I am not clicking my Amazon account to acquire the next two books from Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. I guess this one felt a bit too intense.

Herr Larsson died before publishing the trilogy and he delivered the manuscripts at the same time. All together, they sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide. But there will be no more Lisbeth Salander stories, at least not from the same author.

The original title of the book is “Men who Hate Women.” I actually think that’s a better title. I avoided the book for its feminist reputation. I was quite wrong, at least for this one. It depicted many men that hated women, but did not preach or lecture on feminist ideologies at all.

As a computer guy, I was quite amused by the technologies and the clear preference for Apple laptops. Top hackers, such as Salander, should be using a Linux box. Her magical hacking skills became too convenient a solution. Her shrewd manipulation of corporate financing and money laundering was too. For a anti-social, under-educated (albeit talented), lone hacker. That’s not quite believable. But I am being nerdy here.

I have a casual Seattle bucket list. Vancouver is on it. I wasn’t planning for a winter visit.. Oh well.

It seems like a lovely city, but more suitable for living than touring. Everywhere are interesting activities, but there are not many glorious attractions on the scale of Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. So it is a charming city to spend time with family venturing around. Perfect.

The famed superb Chinese foods was disappointing. Probably the ones in Richmond are better than those downtown ones we tried. Anyway, lives are too short to experiment average Chinese restaurants, and Vancouver’s culinary scene has a lot more to offer. A Salt Tasting Room, for example, in an intimidating place called Blood Alley, is definitely worth the venture.

Stanley Park requires good weather to enjoy. The Totem Poles area is probably the best vantage point to watch Vancouver across the water. Bring a car. It is way too big to for tourists.

Gastown reminded me of Pioneer Square, back in Seattle. Old buildings, small shops, walk-abouts, curious artifacts that build a unique character. The most famous one is the steam clock: one of the few that is powered by steam. The on-the-clock tune was the exact one that my high-school used to signal recesses. Wow, I was humming it all the way to the annoyance of the family members.

Capilano Suspension Bridge is a made-for-tourists attraction. It is pricy but still worth a couple of hours of exploration, particularly with kids with lots of energy and curiosity. An extra bonus was a bald eagle perching on a tree top, definitely earned many hundred shutter clicks.

On our adventure to Richmond, we raced to Garry Point Kite Field. The temperature plummeted quickly when we hunched against the chill sea wind watching the haunting sunset. It reminded me my college town that were on the delta of the river going into the ocean. Sunset watching was our favorite pass time. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at Granville Island, which is really not an island at all, and tried out Twisted Fork. It was a cozy and lovely French restaurant with an excellent bar tender.

Back home, I appreciated that Seattle being about 4 to 5 degrees warmer. Very nice. A friend insisted that Whistler is a destination, summer or winter. I am putting it down as a good summer weekend get-away destination.