I was listening to the latest MacCast podcast, and normally I would skin the Podcast Safe music that Adam plays at the end, but this time I was busy with something else.
To my surprise, the song that Adam chose, "Overboard" by Shannon Hurley, from her new album "Ready to Wake Up" (to be released November 5, 2007) was amazing.
I began my search for the song on iTunes USA Store, but could not find it. So I contacted the artist on her MySpace page.
To my amazement Shannon answered me right away and told me that currently the only place to find the song is on AmieStreet.
Of course I quickly purchased it while it was still at a low price. For those who do not know about AmieStreet, it is a great place to find DRM free music at as low as USD0.00 up to USD0.98 per song.
In recent months many of the products manufactured or grown in China had found to contain poisonous materials or chemicals. This problem was reported in many countries: United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, etc. With most of the cases reported in the United States.
China's responds to these accusations have been a mix of spontaneous defense of China's manufacturing and accusations of American companies not conducting proper quality control and the media for exaggerating the serious of the problem. At one point the Chinese government released the statement, "... over 7 billion units of product was manufactured and exported by China, and only a small amount of these units has problems...". Doesn't the Chinese government realize that a small amount of 7 billion is still a very large number?
Either due to desperation to overcome the bad press, Yesterday China reported that a shipment of medicine "CMO - Cetyl Myristoleate" contains dangerous substance that is harmful to people taking the medicine.
Today the US Customs again refused entry of another shipment of toys from China, claiming that paint on the toys contains too much lead. This is the forth time in a week that US Customs has refused entry of large toy shipments from China. China now responded to this latest US Customs' action blaming these safety violation is the direct result of US government raising the safety standards without consulting Chinese manufactures.
As a by-stander, I am starting to wonder are all these accusation valid? Are they simply political gesturing for ulterior motive?
As many of you may have heard of VoIP (Voice over IP). There are some very popular service like: Skype and Gizmo Project.
Last year EQO Communications launched the EQO service, which extends these VoIP service back to the mobile phone, and in addition to offering free IM (instant messaging) service to popular services like: ICQ, MSN Messenger, Google Talk and Jabber.
You may ask, why do you want to have VoIP on a mobile phone? Why does one just use the mobile phone itself to make the call required. The answer is cost. In most cases, there is a discount of about 95%. Like other VoIP providers, EQO offer free calls to other registered EQO users.
Although it offers this service to 29 countries it does not yet offer its service to Asia and more specifically Hong Kong. I am calling everyone in Asia to help convince EQO to begin offering their service in Hong Kong and rest of Asia. Please go to EQO's country suggestion page to add your respective countries to their list of desired countries.
The British government is planning a celebration for the 150th anniversary of "Big Ben" in 2008, so they have just began (today) a scheduled 5 - 6 weeks maintenance project.
Therefore, if you are planning a visit to London and specifically "Big Ben", you may want to rethink your plans.
Fortunately, there are many other great tourist spots in London. Take a look at my Flickr photo album for London.
Show us something that makes you cross.
Submitted by Rev Stan.
It had one of the longest Nike ad on the side of a building one block long and 3 stories high that also wraps around the building on two faces.
The billboard had long been removed (over a month) and the 36 high power lights (just on one side) still come on each evening shining on an empty space until 23:00 each night.
This is an extreme waste of energy, especially in this day where Hong Kong's pollution is getting worst and worst.
How many jobs have you had in the past five years? Where and what did you do?
Submitted by M.
In reverse chronological order they are:
- "eBusiness Technology Planning Manager", Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Hong Kong
- "Manager, Advanced Technology and Media", Arthur Andersen, Hong Kong
- "Principal Consultant, Internet & Intranet Application Development", Hongkong Telecom, Hong Kong
If you knew you had one week to live, what would you do, where would you go, who would you see?
Submitted by normatheartist
I am a fairly conservative person when it comes to extravagant spending. So if I am sure that I only have one week to live. I will have an amazing party with everyone I know and then use the rest of the money to lay a down payment on a Lamborghini or Austin Martin, depending on which I money for.
"Go out with a bang" per se.
Fortunately, we were more interested in the company and conversation.
Usability is very wide spread concept that not enough designer pay attention to.
I am not only referring to software design, industrial design, or architect. Of course the concept is much more prominent in these profession now a days, but there are still life threatening design professions that still do not put enough emphasis on usability.
Case in point are the designers for the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Yesterday an Airbus 320 ran off the runway killing all 189 people on board.
This airport is the busiest airport in Brazil with international flights on jumbo jets landing every few minutes.
Now they reports there had always been complaints fro airline pilots, claiming the runway to be too short for landing. These complaints suppose to have existed for years.
What I don't understand is how an international airport can operate for so long with such alledged defect.
The most surprising part of the accident, was the fact that everyone died. As many knows there had been many incidents where airliners ran off runways for various reasons. Including the incident in Hong Kong where the Chinese airline pilot ran off the runway of the old Kai Tak International Airport and crashed into the Victoria Harbour.
so why did these passengers die? That is because the plane ran into the airport's fuel tanks when it ran off the runway and burst into flames; with temperatures of over 1000C. Who in their right minds would put suchdangerous harzards at the end of a runway? Of course we do not expect planes will run off runways, but accidents will happen, and placing dangerous flamable fuel tanks at the end of a runway definitely did not take into account of usability.
Wow.... if you have NOW TV in Hong Kong, you can watch their Panda Channel on #503.
It currently has a repeat broadcast of Ying Ying and Le Le visit to Hong Kong's Ocean Park to join Hong Kong's pandas An An and Jia Jia.
