The Little World of A Water Drop

The Geese Family (8) Growing Up

2009-10-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

Two weeks later. The photographer run into the geese family again in the park. Ah, the six "ugly ducklings" already became strong young adult geese. The Canadian geese' typical black and white stripe started to appear on their faces, and their bodies were covered by new grey feathers. It looks like the dream of flying will come true soon.

The Geese Family (7) Oh, The Ugly Ducklings!

2009-10-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Some more weeks passed. One day, the photographer met the geese family again in the park.

"Hi! my dear photographer, aren't they adorable beautiful creatures, those handsome little guys?" Turning his head to the photographer, the geese dad greeting the photographer happily.

Sure, the six youngsters grew bigger than adult ducks. But, are they beautiful? It is an embarrassing period that their soft hair were gone, but the feather were not come out yet...

"Hey, don't worry, we are happy and our curiosity and knowledge is growing!"

"Yes, look at our mom, sooner or later we will have her beautiful look".

Then the family walked across the trail, jumped into the pool, and continued enjoying their happy day.

The Geese Family (6) A Lunch in The Pool

2009-10-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

Though our regular food is grass, it's nice to try human being's food occasionally. Like today, racing for bread, it may like your basketball game. But our rule is simple: whoever gets the food is the winner.

Now I have to concertrate... the bread will fly to us soon! Hey, look at my brother, so devoted to the game that he forgets the manner totally! Man, the photographer is taking pictures! Hummn, I'm more proud of my sisters. They behave like elegant ladies.

I really admire my parents, they are the best parents among the geese. When it's time to eat, they would rather prefer to stay at back to protect us from those ducks and let us eat first.

"Mom, look at my new bally pose!" My sister is showing off her new skills after the happy lunch.

When everyone is done, we'll continue our training under dad's command. Look, what a great team we are! See you later.

The Geese Family (5) The Handsome Young Geese

2009-10-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

Two weeks later.

Look, is this the photographer we met last time? Hey, focus here! Handsome boys are the back!

Look, I walk like a hero, quick than the breeze.

"Left-Right-Left", It's time for swimming.

Now, a swimming game is started! Look, am I a creative diver?

Tired of playing in water, then we would enjoy the sunshine in the lawn, and day dreaming. Hope someday I could get a pair of strong wings just like dad has.

Excuse us, we have to run now: the little girl there is feeding us with delicious bread. See you later!

The Geese Family (4): Home, Sweet Home

2009-09-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

Now it's bed time. We need a safe and warm place to sleep.

Our bed is under mommy's wings.

"Mommy, good night!"

See you tomorrow.

The Geese Family (3): First Time to Swim

2009-09-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

It's a little scary to swim the first time. I feel dazed to see the moving water ...

I just closed my eyes and jumped in. Hey, I can run on surface of water!

We enjoy it!

Mommy's singing, and we follow her and dancing

The Geese Family (2): It Takes Courage to Eat

2009-09-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

"Old brother, look what I found!"

"Let me take a look. Wow, a bug! Let's see if it's edible."

"Are you sure you want to eat it?"

"How was it?"
"......"
"Are you OK?"

The Geese Family (1): The Philosophy of Eating

2009-08-31T16:58:00.001-07:00

Hello! This is my family. Daddy, mommy, me, and 5 brothers and sisters. We just came to the world this week. Everything is new and interesting to me.

We walk with mommy and daddy, learn everything

such as looking for food

"Darling, I think we'd better teach our kids looking for NATURE food, shall we?"

"I'm just a bit hungry ... And, the bread tastes not bad."

Let me take a look!

"Daddy, why do people feed us, but mommy seems not happy about it?" "Well, this is a beautiful and harsh world. You have to learn why they give you food before you accept it."

"See, honey, I'm teaching our kids philosophy."

Two Homeless Cats

2009-08-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

This morning, when pulling out my car from the garage, I saw a trail of little footprints on my windshield. I smiled and thought, perhaps my two cat-friends are doing OK.

Shortly after I moved into the apartment, I started to notice the existence of homeless cats. It was in early spring, still chilly in the morning, sometimes one could see frost on the windshield. It often went dark when I drove home. One day, while parking my car, I saw a pair of shining green eyes staring at me underneath my neighbor's car. It was a tabby cat with black and white patterns on the back. Seeing me got off the car and walked out of the garage, the cat quickly sneaked under my car... perhaps he wanted to get warmed by the engine. Thinking that life is not easy even for the little thing, I quickly walked away, pretending never noticed him, so that he could enjoy the "heater" at he liked.

As it's getting warmer, I didn't see the cat waiting for the "heater" any more. Then I almost forgot his existence.

Then my parents visited me. My mom still kept the habit of getting up early and practicing TaiChi. As a cat lover, she noticed the homeless cats in the neighborhood almost immediately.

According to her observation, there are two cats in the neighborhood, they often go together: one is the tabby cat I saw before, the other is a Siamese cat, with dirty brownish skin, much smaller in size. It seemed the Siamese cat has some skin problems, its fur looks dirty and ugly. They often jump into the garbage cans in early morning and searching for food. Since noticing their existence, my mom often saved some fish bones, meat soup in a small bowl, mixed with bread or rice, and brought to them when it's getting dark.

It's interesting to watch them eating. At the beginning we assumed that they would eat together, or first come first serve. But in fact, they always follow an interesting order. It's always the Siamese cat eats first, and the tabby cat waits and watches. After the Siamese cat finishes, the Tabby cat then moves towards the bowl and finishes the rest. What kind of relationship do they have? We never know. After a few days, we noticed that the Siamese cat has a limped leg, which limited her to move or jump swiftly. It doesn't matter what relationship they have, we were all touched by the kindness of the Tabby cat. So we always bring food enough for both them.

Later we found that we were not alone--some other neighbors also bring food for them. One can often see several containers in different shape and size were put against the garage wall, holding food and water...

About Software Keylogger

2009-08-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

You can imagine keylogger as sort of tapping device to collect your computer keystroke and other info, and secretly send it to somewhere else. It can be either hardware, or a piece of software. Installing hardware based keylogger requires physical access to the compromised machine, while a software based keylogger can be installed remotely by some trojans. Nowadays, as more and more people use internet for financial related activities, such as on-line shopping, stock trading, and bank transactions, there is a trend that malicious hackers collecting consumer personal information, such as on-line bank account credentials by using keylogging trojans. Here we focus on talking about software based keyloggers.

To understand how software keylogger works, we have to know a little about how our computer operating systems handle keystrokes. Let's take Windows OS as an example. What happens when you hit a key, say, letter "s" on your keyboard? The keystroke signal generates an interrupt, telling the OS to invoke the keyboard driver to handle the signal corresponding to "s", which we call "scan code". Then what does the driver do? It checks the language layout settings of your OS, finds out what language you are using, and translates the device-depended scan code into device-independent code that is called "virtual-key code", then creates a message including scan code, virtual-key code, and other necessary info, and puts the message into the Windows system message queue.

You have multiple applications running in your Windows--say, a browser, the Outlook, and a notepad. Which application this keystroke is related to? Well, now let's imagine that Windows OS has component works like a postman. He looks into the system queue, gets the message, checks who will be the receiver, and sends it to message queues for each application thread. When the application got the message, it does the same thing, and posts it to the corresponding procedure that displays the letter "s" in its corresponding window.

Now, let's talk about keyloggers. Based on where they hook on, keyloggers can be categorized into hook-based and kernel/driver-based. To make it convenient for application programmers to monitor message queue and diagnose problems, Micro Soft provides Windows Hooks API. Hook-based keyloggers just take advantage of such API. In general, a hook-based keylogger comes with an .exe file to initiate the hook, and a .dll file that does logging function. Such files usually hide in the system32 directory, or the keylogger installation directory. While running, the keylogger can access all windows messaging information, and even more--including some info not through keyboard input, such as IE's AutoComplete user credentials. However, since many anti-virus programs monitor Windows Hook APIs, hook-based keyloggers can be detected relatively easy.

Kernel-based keyloggers go further. They change the OS kernel files or drivers that handle the keystrokes or translating the virtual-key code to characters. For example, Windows OS has an Interrupt Dispatch Table (IDT), which tells the system which type of hardware interrupt should be handled by which driver function. Some kernel-based keylogger can modify this table, and make the os use a compromised keyboard driver to handle keystrokes. Implementing kernel-based keylogger requires more thorough knowledge of OS, so it's more difficult. But as a kernel-based keylogger is usually loaded into system earlier than other application programs, also they can be compiled into the OS seamlessly, it's very difficult, or impossible to detect some kernel-based keyloggers. Nowadays, the technology of researching, developing, and detecting programs that can hide themselves in an OS (they are called rootkits) becomes a big arm race between hackers and security professionals.

My Hummingbird Neighbor

2009-07-18T22:48:00.004-07:00

There is a big American Elm outside of my apartment window. The big green umbrella it forms covers almost half of the yard. During the summer, the big tree becomes a playground for the birds. From daybreak to dusk, birds, big or small, are chirping, jumping, and chasing among the branches and leaves.

Among them, I often see some hummingbirds. They sometimes visit the planted hanging baskets on my deck, suspend in the air like a helicopter, probe the long beak into a flower, and suck the sweet liquid. They are such fascinating little creatures, that always make me want to take some pictures.

But it's very difficult to approach such sort of alert bird. For many time, when seeing a hummingbird coming, I brought my camera out, and tried to move close to it with tipping toes... but before I focus and press the shutter, the little thing has already gone!

Once my cousin visited my home. I told her about the hummingbirds and my attempts. She said, "It looks like you have to build their trust little by little. Go and buy a hummingbird feeder". "What can I feed them?" "Simple. 20% sugar water".

OK. The next day I went to the Home Depot and bought one, filled with sugar water, and hanged it on my deck at a location easy to spot. Do the hummingbirds know it's food specially prepared for them?

One week passed, the water level in the feeder just dropped a little, perhaps due to evaporation. It seems the food was almost untouched. I was busy at work, and didn't check if there's any hummingbird came.

One day after two weeks, I saw a hummingbird circling around the feeder, and probing its long beak into the feeder. "Ha! Now he found the food finally!"

From then on, the consumption rate of sugar water increased quickly. The first bottle of sugar water was consumed in three weeks. But after a few weeks, I have to fill the feeder every three days. Also, the hummingbirds seemed get used to my existence--sometimes they just came to drink while I was watching them closely. Slowly, I could estimate the variation of hummingbird population by the amount of sugar water they consumed each week.

After a few weeks, I noticed that the food consumption rate suddenly dropped to around one bottle per week. What happened?

I started to observe the visiting hummingbirds more carefully, and study their interactions to each other. Then I found a big, red-headed hummingbird had claimed the feeder his own territory! Every morning he came early for food, then settled on a branch nearby, singing, and guarding the feeder. Once he saw other hummingbird approached, he would rush to the intruder with angry yelling "Cha!Cha!Cha!Cha!!!" Such sneak attacking and angry guarding kept happening, I often saw the red-head chasing another hummingbird, dashing into the leaves, like two F16 fighters. Soon just from the sound he made, I could distinguish whether the red-head was singing peacefully or was yelling angrily.

One hot summer afternoon, I saw three hummingbirds challenged the red-head together. At the beginning, one approached the feeder with a gesture of fetching the food. The red-head started attacking the intruder immediately, both birds rush away like two arrows. Then two other hummingbirds came to the unguarded feeder to enjoy the food. After a few seconds, red-head came back. Before he starting to sing the song of victory, he saw someone else were stealing the food again. Angry, he rushed to the new intruders. At the same time, the hummingbird who was chased away came back and joined. What a big fight! Sitting on the deck, I could only see four birds dashing up and down, and the only sound was the noise made by their wings.

After the fight, I bough another feeder and hanged it on another corner of my deck. I thought, "Red-head, if you do believe that feeder is yours, fine. Now this new one is for other hummingbirds. Please, share some food with your friends!" But a few days after, I saw that the red-head was guarding both feeders!

Oh, red-head, are you sure you want spend all your wonderful bird life to guard the sugar water, with the cost of losing friendship and the enjoyment of flying and singing together with other hummingbirds?

From then on, I stopped filling the feeders.

The Secret in the Hanging Basket

2009-07-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

I have several planted hanging baskets on my deck. For a while I didn't water them regularly because I was busy at work. Thanks to the occasional winter or spring rain, the plants didn't mind my neglect. Perhaps also because of nature selection, those that needed care had long been eliminated, what's left are thriving on their own and enjoying the California sunshine.

On the morning before my European trip, I thought I'd better to water my plants. So I got on a chair and took down the baskets one at the time, and put it in a plastic basin so it got watered thoroughly.

Wow! Look what I found in this basket! Under the dense leaves of the cascading geranium, there was a small bird nest and four delicate eggs! Lying in the cozy nest, the eggs looked like four babies sleeping soundly and dreaming sweet dreams. Excited, I brought out my camera and began taking pictures, all the while thinking, "I'd better be quick, and put the basket back before the parents come home."

Photo taken, I carefully hang up the basket and tidied up the deck. Then I sat down in a chair to read articles online. I deliberately turned my back to the basket to make it seemed that no one had noticed the secret. But in my mind, I was happy and excited: "Ah ha, I will soon find out what the parents look like. It would so much fun to watch them feeding the baby birds and teaching them how to fly."

Some time later, I heard some noise behind me. Apparently the parents had come back. From their reflections of my laptop screen, I saw one bird landed on the edge of the basket, and another perched on a rafter next to the basket.

What's the matter? The bird in the basket suddenly let out a scream. Did she notice something wrong? The wet soil? Or, did I hang the basket incorrectly?

I wouldn't know. The two birds kept tweeting. Although I don't understand their language, I could sense they were worried and alarmed. They are the kind of songbird that normally sings softly and sweetly. But now, they sounded like an angry couple quarreling.

I became afraid, and dared not to move in my chair. I silently repeated "I am sorry". After a while, the tweeting faded away. The two birds were gone. I prayed in my heart that they would come back to look after their eggs.

After the three-week vacation, the first thing I did when coming home was rushing to the deck to check the eggs in the basket. Alas! They were all gone! Only the lonely, empty nest remains.

I didn't know what happened to the eggs. Then I found a half of an egg shell in a flower pot underneath the hanging basket. It seemed the parent birds had moved house, but during the process, one unfortunate egg was dropped and broken.

Now, I still often hear the same kind of songbirds chirping in the trees outside of my window. I don't know whether the two parent birds and their children are among them. I hope the remaining three eggs all hatched, and the little birds are with their parents, flying and singing happily in the trees and under the sun.

Google Chrome OS--Will it be able to Replace Windows?

2009-07-08T18:00:00.001-07:00

Google announced yesterday that they are going to introduce an open-source, light weighted Operating System "Google Chrome OS" into the market in second half of 2010. Their first target is consumers who use netbooks.

This is an exciting news, though I'm not surprised at all. It seems a nature step of evolution of cloud computing.

Yes, when the OS was first invented, people did not know much about web, and how powerful the web could be. So the OS was designed as a set of programs that can management and support applications running on our local computer, such as text editor, calculator, spreadsheet etc. Later, the internet came into our life. A browser appeared in our PC desktop, searching and reading news from browser, writing and checking email become more and more important way for us to keep contact with the world. Now, it seems we can find the corresponding web services to provide the desktop application functionality that we use everyday. So, is it the time to move to the web, completely? Is it a time that we no longer worry about virus, malware, and security, as Google announced?

I don't think so. Yes, it is a unavoidable trend to move to web. But, moving to web will cause new security concerns. Say, do you know if your data files stored safely on the web? Who can access them? While I'm transferring my files to internet, who else can see them besides me? Will there be some new types of malware be created to infect the data center storing the data?

I believe that not everyone would feel happy and unconditionally trust the web services to take care of their data. And not everyone would be satisfy the services and functionality provided through web. Like people have different tastes on economical or luxury cars, people have different tastes and concerns when they selecting their computers. So, I think the future personal computer market may split to two levels: one is super cheap, and super simple netbook market for students and general users; the other one would be high end, powerful, cool, expensive, highly personalized personal computers for geeks.

What the silicon valley will look like after 10 years?

2009-07-01T17:49:00.000-07:00

"The world is getting more and more flat". This is something we often hear and talk about recently. What's the consequence?

We keep seeing technical job outsourcing from a couple of years ago. First in computer hardware, chips manufacture, then software, from coding to design... More and more engineering jobs are moved to China and India...

"What the silicon valley will look like after 10 years?"

This was a debate topic in a class I attended in college 10 years ago. Some students said, of course, the silicon valley would still be the center of new tech startups and creative ideas, so it would become more and more prosperous. Some other students said the house price and living cost here would go so high that few people can afford, so people and companies would start to move out--eventually, silicon valley would lost its charm.

After exactly 10 years, the interesting thing is that now it looks like both sides are right. We are now facing the challenge everyday: "The same technical position can be filled with just a quarter of your salary in India, why we would hire you here?" "What unique value you can create in silicon valley?"

Thanks for the invention of internet, nowadays people can easily communicate without being limited by the geological condition. The salary level is more determined by your true value than the geological location of your job. Having the same technical job in a high cost area means low competence. In another word, for engineers living in the silicon valley, there are only two choices: either move to a low cost area, or improve your competence.

So, what's the value of the silicon valley? What kind of people will stay here after another 10 years?

A Tired Butterfly and A Butterfly with a Broken Wing

2009-04-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when I drove to the gym, a butterfly dropped in from the opened windows, standing at the panel between the driver and the passenger seats, with her wings closed.

When I arrived, the butterfly was still resting there, motionless. I touched her wings, she just trembled slightly. Maybe she's exhausted flying in the wind, so tired that she just wanted some sleep.

I left with a window opened, hoping she could find her way out when she woke up.

The butterfly reminded me another one I saw in the Science museum in Seattle, a butterfly with a broken wing. The pattern on its back showed that quite a portion of his upper wing was missing, but he just managed to live and fly with the remained wings.

Learning GuZheng (1): History and Legend

2009-03-16T23:54:00.000-07:00

GuZheng, sometimes is translated as Chinese Zither, is a traditional Chinese string music instrument which has over 2200 years history. The earliest GuZheng was made of banboo, had only 5 silk strings. Later, GUZheng evolved to 12 strings and wood body. Now the most popular modern GuZheng has 21 strings, neatly arranged on the elegant wood body, which is often decorated with Mosaic or Woodcarving.

In some sense, GuZheng can be taken as an analogy to the personalities that the traditional Chinese literates admire. With a discreet and elegant appearance, when playing, it makes sound like a breeze blowing over the top of trees, or a clear creek flowing across the rocks.

In ancient time, playing GuZheng was taken not just as entertaintment, but also as sort of meditation, seeking and expressing spiritrual connections. To show their respect to the music and sincerity of pursuing spiritual connections, the performers take a bath and change before touching it, and burn censer while playing the music.

There is a famous story about friendships made by playing GuZheng.

About 2300 years ago, there was a man named Yu Boya in Chu country. He served as a high rank officer of the country, and was also a musician who had spent years in studying the skills of playing GuZheng. Once he took a boat sailing to his hometown on river Han. In the evening, he hit a heavy thunderstorm, so the boat had to hide under a cliff to wait for the rain stopping. At mid night, the storm was over, and a peaceful full moon appeared on the clear sky. Felt pleasant at the beautiful night after the storm, Boya started to playing GuZheng. In the quiet night, the music and its echos created a wonderful spiritual world, and the sound reached far away. Boya was completely immersed in his music world.

Shortly after he finished one episode, suddenly he heard someone saying "nice music!"

Boya was surprised, asking who was speaking. Then a man walked out of the woods at the bank, saying that he was a woodman, named Zhong Ziqi, was avoiding the rain in the woods, and was surprised to get a chance to listen to the wonderful music.

"Can you tell me what you learned from my music?" Boya asked, doubting that how much music an illiterate woodman could understand.

"Your music draw a majestic mountain in front of me: lofty, noble, and solemn".

Boya was surprised, that's exactly what in his mind while he was playing the GuZheng. "Now let me play another piece, can you tell me what's you learned?"

After the music finished, Ziqi said: "I could see and feel a stream of clear water came out of mountain, becomes a waterfall, and flowing into a big river..."

Boya was so impressed by Ziqi's understanding and interpreting to his music, they started to chat about their experiences and understanding to many things in life. They were surprised that although the difference in social rank, education, and life experiences, they were like soul mates, be able to understand each other very easily. They then made each other sworn brothers.

One year after, Boya came to visit Ziqi again. Unfortunately, he learned that Ziqi already passed away. Boya was so sad and shocked, he visited Ziqi's grave yard, and played GuZheng for his soul mate. At the end of the music, the strings suddenly broken. Boya then left the GuZheng at the grave yard of the only one who could understand his music thoroughly, and never played GuZheng again.

(The earliest version of the story was from "吕氏春秋·本味"--a history and legend collection written by Lu Buwei around BC 239)

The Little World of A Water Drop

2009-03-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

Once a friend forwarded me some pictures of water drops taken by high speed camera. One of them was a trickle of tap water, each drop has a reflection of the map of the world that was hanging on the wall behind...

So this is the little world of someone with no name, like a drop of water.

Simple as it is, a drop of water has thousands forms of existence: as a small foam on top of a wave, a piece of cloud, a flake of snow, a grain of ice under the feet of a penguin; or as the liquid inside a plant, a drop of tear of sadness or happiness.