任是无情也动人

Haha, yeah, I ended up not sleeping last night in order to watch the multiple year-end galas in China where Zhou Shen was performing. I did try to get some sleep in between 10 PM and 3 AM, but couldn't really fall asleep, so ended up just getting up again.

Then it was the frantic rush to flip between screens/channels to catch the performances, several of which ended up overlapping with each other due to the scheduling (and the fact that the evening news went overtime and pushed back the start of the gala for Jiangsu TV and Beijing TV). And a couple I missed sections of due to technical issues (some sites/features being flaky or just not serviced for overseas apparently) and having to hunt and watch recaps.

After that it was flipping through weibo and bookmarking the fan recordings for Jiangsu TV (the only one that was live performed of the 4 channels in question).

And then after that... I'm working on call today. Heh. So painfully waiting for the work shift to end at 5.

*sigh* Not gonna repeat this tonight for the CCTV new years gala (it's just one channel/performance after all =P).

Anyway, I want to give props for CCTV and Beijing TV for livestreaming the gala on youtube as well (although BTV was delayed compared to China, so I ended up watch it on the BTV site).

Bilibili's pros and cons cancel each other out. Its livestream kept throwing errors at me. But it was very fast in putting out each show segment immediately after the performance was done rather than waiting for the end of the entire show. However watching these means I miss seeing the commentary (弹幕) during the broadcast, and that's half the point of Bilibili.

Jiangsu TV... ugh, for a gala that it very obviously spent the most money on among the major regional TV stations, for building a spectacular stage, employing some bleeding edge tech, and inviting all the best singers in the industry... you could spend a little more on the distribution part, yeah? Your website is a mess and I had to go to Tencent to watch your livecast, and your youtube channel seems to be for show. So it really doesn't feel like you're "livecasted globally"? =_=

Not many of the performance recordings have been transferred to youtube yet, so no video links this post.

My company is requiring a duo security software that isn't supported on the Android 5 that my old phone is still running. So I am finally pressured into actually buying a new phone.

Now, I'm not looking for a top tier phone. I don't plan on playing games on it since I prefer to play my mobile games on PC using Bluestacks. That said, I would like to have a decent camera and storage space so I don't have to worry about micromanaging junk files all the time.

A quick search on amazon and google, I came up with two models, both in the mid price range.

Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G - larger display, better CPU, microsd slot
Google Pixel 5 5G - starts with Android 11, more RAM, slightly longer battery

Hm... let me ponder this overnight.

EDIT: Decided to go with the Pixel 5. I've had Samsung for the last couple of phones now. Curious about trying out Google's phone.

Note to self: Based on my amazon purchase history of phone accessories, I got my last Samsung phone in summer of 2014, which means it's 7 years old. My tablet dates to the same year, either late Nov (black friday sale) or early Dec.

Finally got a PC refresh at work. My new laptop is running Win 10. So far the only problems I've had were some issues with sound (found the setting to fix it), and desktop icon positions resetting on restart (not sure if fixed...). The navigation for the most part are similar enough to Win 7 to be fairly painless.

We'll see how it goes.

Maybe not completely *true*. But close enough for stereotypes. ^_^



Personally, I love the "what I think I do bit". XD

Set 1 Networking Fundamentals.
Set 2 Cisco equipment/configurations
Set 3 Switching
Set 4 WAN
Set 5 IP Routing
Set 6 Security
Set 7 Wireless

News passed around work lately. City of SF got locked out of their network by a rogue employee. Since apparently Cisco devices are involved, I've heard some calls and rumors flying around recently about it. I wonder if it's not just the computers/servers that got locked out, but even the routers, etc.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/BAK111QRPB.DTL
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4350711.ece
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148563/it_administrator_pleads_not_guilty_to_network_tampering.html
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209100472

See, this is one of the problems with electronic security. Even if you make the hardware/software hard to crack, it's a double-edged sword when the security breaks down at the social side of the network that you can't design around.

The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) produces RFC's (Request For Comments) which are basically used to set the standards for pretty much all of networking. They define protocols from the physical level up, security standards, and so forth, that have become standard use by everyone.

And then they turn out stuff like this:

A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers
IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service

Geek humor. :P

(More links from the wiki page for funny RFCs)

Two of three of my Chinese BBS sites aren't working. Affects of the earthquake in Taiwan maybe? Hopefully the down time won't last for too long...

EDIT: Ah. According to Yahoo news it looks like this problem won't be fixed any time soon. Six of the trans-Pacific cables are down off the coast of Taiwan. Most likely it will take weeks to send ships out, bring up the cables, fix/replace them, and redeploy. I'm feeling the withdrawal already... T_T

EDIT2: I <3<3<3 CISCO!! I can access Chinese sites via VPN through Milan, Italy. Really slow, but it works!! ^_^

EDIT3: Someone sent me this link for proxy servers that can be used to access Chinese sites. I haven't tried them yet since that will interrupt intranet connection, but I'll probably try it at home and see how it compares to VPN.

EDIT4: Hm... by the time I got home I guess it's more or less a moot point now, as net connectivity is back up (albeit on a very very slow basis) with China. EDIT5: Spoke too soon... -_-

Not a good day today...

First had to drive to San Jose for the weekend on call thing because apparently their servicing some internal servers this weekend and I guess VPN might've been affected (of course, when I get there and open Outlook I see an email saying that everything's up and running fine).

And of course it was pouring buckets on the drive up. Which means I didn't feel like stopping somewhere to get lunch, resulting in my lunch being out of the vending machine. (Though ok, at around 2 o'clock someone sent around an email saying that some generous soul had gotten lunch for those of us in the building.)

Then I get saddled with four cases through the course of the day... which is what I get on a *busy* workday. Blah.

Then, I start my way home, and just as I'm about to get on the freeway, I start hearing this weird noise from the car. And I notice I can't accelerate. At first I thought it was the brake lever or something, so I pull over and check. Everything looks fine. I get back on the freeway and the noise becomes louder and ZOMG I hope it's not an engine problem.

So I pull off the next exit and park into the nearest corporate parking lot (with nice lights and security trolleys that run by every once in a while). I get out and check... it's a flat tire.

So much for plans to drop by Fry's on my way back.

A call home later, my dad comes and switches in the backup tire, and I'm pretty much paranoid the whole drive home.

This just ain't my day... *grumps*

One of those water cooler stories... or in this case told by our Solaris instructor from Sun Microsystems during break time...

So he was contracted in to this global insurance company... Zurich or something unpronouncable like that. And on the day he got to the place (a Canada branch office or something), there was like 50 taxi's parked out back.

As it turns out, it was a day for layoffs... and people who were laid off were first escorted by security to their desk to have their passwords and stuff reset, and then out back into a taxi where they're sent off home. Of course they're free to get out a few blocks away and walk back to get their car which they parked at the company when coming to work...

All this so as to disclaim from any possible liability, insurance-wise, on their last day.

...

Yeah.