dermk4 BLoG

The madman living in that big white house in Washington D.C. admitted the U.S. is "undergoing a period of economic uncertainty".

SOURCE: BBC News 29 January 2008

The truth is, every single politician and economist knows exactly what is behind this so-called "uncertainty". It may sound ridiculous to some, but in fact there is one major (if not sole) factor associated with recent skyrocketing inflation rates in the U.S and obviously, Hong Kong - OIL, take a look at the above charts you should be able to tell the logic behind.

Some of you may immediately blame our middle-east neighbours for the hardtimes and expensive meals we are suffering; however, according to my in-house economist (my dad), the U.S. government is the mastermind behind all this shit. Why? Simple enough, bump up oil prices to slow down economic growth of... (No... not the U.S!) the fastest-growing energy-dependent economy in the world - China.

We'll see how it turns out to be, trust me, my old man has pretty good insights.

托北京奧運和強大經濟的鴻福，中國近年成為灼目的全球新焦點; 建築、金融、科技、通訊各界無論找靈感，搞綽頭，都紛紛面向大中華，時裝作為最切身的創意工業，試問又哪會例外? 人稱 Karl 爺，向來走在潮流最前端的 Chanel 及 Fendi 總陀手 Karl Lagerfeld 便率先把這股中國熱在時裝界發揚光大。小弟早前抽了點時間給友人在網上找東西，搜集得來的資料中包括 Karl Lagerfeld 於 2007 年 8 月為 Fendi 秋/冬系列搞的那場舉世矚目的花生騷，不看尤可，一看眼界大開!

這位年屆 74 的潮流教父將冰冷、嚴肅的萬里長城一夜之間化身成 Fendi 五光十色的天橋，創意和觸目程度把那些在米蘭、紐約、巴黎什麼舊貨倉、農場的發佈會都立時給比下去!

Visit YouTube for video coverage of the show.

Rumoured to be named "I Wanna Live A Dream In My Record Machine", the new Oasis album has entered pre-release mixing stage, can't wait to have my ears once again filled with Oasis' tunes!

Intel has recently started to ship its lowest-end dual-core processor the Celeron E1000 series, a test by X-Bit labs reveals that this is another bargain for overclockers. The tester has managed to push a rev. M0 Celeron E1600 to 3.4GHz @ 1.5V Vcore, outperforming many Core2Duo E6000 series processors.

For less than US$50 each, it has join the Pentium E2000 series to become the best bargains around.

在 PC 上 IrfanView 是個比較常用而且功能強大的 image viewer，其支援 DICOM 醫療影像顯示更令此軟件成為非診症用途觀看 MRI, PET/CT 影像檔的不二之選。

專為 Mac 平台開發的免費軟件 OsiriX 性質和 IrfanView 完全不同，OsiriX 是個專門處理醫療影像的開放源碼 (open source) 解決方案，後者是一個純 image viewer，以外掛 plug-in 形式支援顯示 DICOM 影像。它們其中最明顯的分別是 OsiriX 除了具有 DICOM 檔案顯示能力以外，亦能夠顯示 LSM 及 BioRAD-PIC 電子顯微影像，和支援 DICOM Network Protocol 醫療影像傳輸協定。

換句話說，OsiriX 能讓你把 Mac 當成一台業餘 DICOM/PACS workstation 來使用，供有需要人士檢視各種醫療圖像 (如醫科學生, 喜歡在家 OT 的放射治療師等等，總之不涉及人命的醫療用途啦) 。當然，這種 DIY DICOM/PACS workstation 並沒有經任何衛生部門認可，亦不能作定期 DICOM display calibration，所以不能當作醫療器材使用。

OsiriX 以 Apple Universal 原碼寫成，原生支援 Intel Mac。

Jan 22, 2008 UPDATE: ** Link to OsiriX fixed **

Came across this poster AD for the new Ford Mondeo on my way to work, first thing that popped up in my mind was “hey ... this is the classic example of a BAD slogan”. Can someone please educate me what the hell do they mean by “Moving up in the world”??? What kind of English is this? Or is it in fact some other language that looks like English?

Ford makes nice cars, but their cars don’t sell (At least in Hong Kong they don’t); now they also have bad slogans coming from a bad agency, all these will only lead to one ending - Ford is dead meat.

Hilary Clinton captured New Hampshire, would she be able to give America the kind of "come back" she's been given in this Northeastern state? Come on Hilary, I am really sick of the Texas mad man, step up to give the world a break.

If you ever wonder what happens to Obama, well... let's say it this way, you are not watching "24" the TV show, and uncle Sam has always been white. You got my point?

** [UPDATED Jan 14]

Some friends have criticized me racial discriminating in this post, this is not true and I apologize to those who found my analysis offensive. Having been living in a North American country as a racial minority for so many years, there is no reason for me to discriminate anyone at all.

I was simply trying to share my observation that despite how democratic the Americans think or claim their country is, it is still an understood practice for the Americans to find themselves a white president, I would love to be proven wrong but at this point I see very little possibility for this to happen.

To me this long-awaited election by itself is already a great leap forward, for anti-war Americans it represents finally an end to the “Mad-Cowboy” regime; for the rest of the world it means an escape from the US military threat led by that stupid warlord-wannabe.

Performed by the Canadian rock band Nickelback, making fun of how people see the lives of the so-called rockstars, you gotta pay careful attention at the lyrics, they are damn funny and nicely-written.

... I want a new tour bus full of old guitars
And my own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between cher and
James Dean is fine for me

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
Live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
with her bleach blonde hair
and well..
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar ...

You may find the complete lyrics HERE and listen to the uncensored version HERE on YouTube.

同步又一年，多少歡笑多少記憶；
同渡已多年，彼此關注也有衝擊。
仍要手牽手宣講真理，仍要緊握主愛沒停，
誰會預測多變幻路程，把握此際共鳴。

磨鍊又一年，多少苦澀多少逃避；
同服侍多年，彼此苦笑也有謙卑。
仍要手牽手宣講真理，仍要緊握主愛沒停，
誰會預測多變幻路程，把握此際共鳴。

今年暫時未有機會唱這首新年必唱歌，唯有在這裡先唱一遍; 各位看著歌詞來哼的同時，有否找到一點提醒、勉勵?