Blog of Roy Chan

這好像點在匪疑所思，不過早前美國密芝根州的一名市民就因在其坐駕上「盜」用附近一間咖啡廳的免費無線網絡而被起訴。

美國密芝根州的Sam Peterson習慣每天都駕車經過Union Street Cafe鄰近並使用其免費無線網絡收發電郵。他的「古怪」習慣行為引起了一位警員的疑心並上前查問。Peterson當時並沒有意會到其行在道德上有問題而照直說出原因。結果Peterson就因此而被捕，並以未經同意進入他人網絡罪被起訴。因為Union Stree Cafe的免費無線網絡只是提供給其客人使用，而Peterson從未光顧或進入Cafe內。

根據密州的法例，Peterson最高可以被罰一萬美元及入獄五年。不過法官考慮到Peterson一直未有意識到其行為是違法，所以只輕判四百美元和四十小時社會服務，亦不留案底。

除了Peterson外，Union Street Cafe的老板亦未有意識Peterson的行為是違法。拘捕Peterson的警員亦說當時只意識Peterson已觸犯某條法例但並不知是那條。不過事實上Peterson的案件並首宗例子，類似例子在美國而有不少個案。其中一宗，一名阿拉斯架的男子更在本年年頭在公共圖書館外使用其公開無線網絡玩遊戲而被捕。

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又是很久以前翻譯自New Hacker Dictionary的笑話:

話說有位 MIT Hacker 因交通意外中弄斷了腳，要躺在醫院好一段時間。 對於一個 hacker 來說，沒有電腦的日子當然很難過。於是他的兩位好朋友就打算帶一台電腦終端機 (Terminal) 及 Modem 給他，好讓他可以撥接回學校解悶。 然而，當他們到達醫院時就被一位護衛員欄住，問他們所帶的是什麼東西。要知那個個人電腦還未普及的時代，一般人根本不知道電腦是什麼。護衛員聽完兩位探病者的解釋後就翻查準許帶入病房物品名單：電視機、收音機、打字機……. 。噢，沒有電腦終端機，不可以帶入去，規舉就規舉。兩位探病者當然憤憤不平，既然電視機都可以帶，為什麼電腦終端機不可以？！

不過第二天，他們又回來，同樣被一位護衛員欄住，同樣被問及手持的是什麼東西。這次他們回答道：這是一台『電視打字機』(TV Typewritter) 。那護衛員開始感到困惑，兩位探病者就開啟台終端機並示範道：看到了嗎？你在鍵盤上打字， 電視螢幕就會顯示出來。那守衛正奇怪世上怎有一這樣無謂的打字機，打了字但不出紙，有啥用途呢？但無疑地這確是一台『電視打字機』。他又翻開手上的 名單：電視機可以…. 打字機亦沒有問題….好了，可以帶入去。^^;

1992 年 9 月 23 日的 L.A. Times 就曾報導過一個相反的笑話。

話說一位六歲小孩在他第一日上完學回家後，興奮地告訴其母親他曾在一台酷似電腦但沒有螢幕的機器上打字。他的母親問他那是否一台打 字機。那小孩就回答：對！

資料來源: The Jargon - The New Hacker Dictionary

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以下又是個人舊文重貼:

有否留意 foo 和 bar 這兩個經常出現的怪字？ 事實上在很多電腦網站或電腦技術文件都會看到這個兩個字的蹤影，多會在一些例子中用作檔案名稱或網站名稱等。其實這兩個字沒有特定意思，只是電腦人慣用來在例子稱呼任意幾個相同的東西，作用有點類似一般人常用的甲、乙、丙、丁等。第一個 叫 foo ，第二個叫 bar ，以此類推： baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud 。

有關這幾個字的由來已很難考究，不過 foobar 兩字連在一起可以追朔至二次大 戰美軍常用的俚語 - FUBAR (全寫我想不太方便在這裡講了 ;P) ，後來演變成 foobar 。而拆開 foo 和 bar 兩字在很早期的美國漫畫已有出現。亦有說 foo 可能和我們中國人的『福』字有關。

在稱呼人的時候，電腦人一般會用 J. Random Hacker 、 J. Random Loser 、 Dr. Fred Mbogo 等。J. Random Hacker 經常會是一個很典型的電腦人，而 Dr. Fred Mbogo 則會是個你不太想遇到的人，例如一個無能的教授。 J. Random Loser 則 ….. 我想大家應該猜到吧？！事實上，你可以用 J. Random 可以變 化成代表不同類型或職業中的典型人物，如 J. Random Lawyer 等。J. Random Hacker 又會有一個姪兒叫 Fred Foobar ，多會是 一典型的正常人。

J. Random Hacker 這個名字應該是源自 ENIAC (世界首台電字計算機) 的 開發 者之一 J. Presper Eckert 。而 Dr. Fred Mbogo 則來自 bogus 這字及 著名 電視劇『愛登氏家庭』 (Addams Family) 中的巫醫 Dr. Mbogo 。

當有多過一個人時，第一個會叫 fred ，第二個會叫 barney 。這主要來自 著 名卡通『聰明笨伯』(Fintstones) 中的兩位主角董輝 (Fred Flintstone) 和班 尼 (Barney Rubble) 。 更有趣的是當表示一個家庭時，有會有由 Fred ，Mary Bloggs 和他們子女組成的 Family Bloggs 。和上面的 J. Random Hacker 等名 字不一樣，單單 fred 這個名字是無褒或貶義。有說 fred 之所以經想被 使用 到是因為就算是不懂打字的人都可以很輕易地在標準 QWERTY 鍵盤中打出 這個 名字 (留意這幾個字母在鍵盤上的位置) 。

資料來源: The Jargon - The New Hacker Dictionary

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昨夜到了 Zunix 家把酒暢談 (我倆家相距大約半小時多點的走路路程)，問了他一些有關智識產權及專利等的法律問題。也一如以往，又從他家拿了一堆書和一些書的名單。為免忘了，所以些記下記下：

• Leading Geeks by Paul Glen, Published by Jossey Bass
• Managing the Non-Profit Oranginzation by Peter F. Drucker
• 止學 (Zhexue) - 文中子
• 1901 - 一個帝國的背影
• 中國大歷史 (China: A Macro History) - 黃仁宇
• 日本二十一世紀的國家戰略
• 韓國研究導論 (Introduction to Korean Studies), 中國文化大學出版部

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2 years ago, Mr. Takazawa (高澤真治), the president of OSDL JP, had visited Hong Kong and help us for a talk in LinuxTalk July 2002. OSDL is not yet so famous at that time and we didn’t have much experience to promote such a big event. However, we still got around 100 audiences attend that LinuxTalk. (I always think we did pretty bad on inviting guest and contacting media at that event. sigh…..) Mr. Takazawa is really nice that hired a japanese-cantonese translator for that event. We didn’t know that til that morning but help much for the event. Unfortunately, it also fail some foreigner audiences who expect he would speak in english.

I mention that coz Mr. Takazawa had talk about an interesting thing about Hacker during the talk. Sure, the hacker he mean are not computer crimials said by stupid mass media but the real meaning - real computer expert. Mr. Takazawa stated that “eight-nine” (八九) pronounced similar to “Hacker” in japanese (”eight” pronounce as “Hashi”, “nine” pronounce as “Kyu/Ku/Kono”. Indeed, I can’t remeber that clearly. Correct me if anyone can recall it). “Eight nine”, thousand milion minus one, seems indicated that you can only find one real hacker per thousand milion people. Therefore, Hacker is so precious that Japan can only got one or two (Japan got around 1200 milion people) and we might find more then 10 in China.

• 日本将挖走更多的中国IT技术人员

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「你是那個 file extension 」後，這次是到「你是那個OS」：

Which OS are You?

看看其他 OS 是怎樣?

• Amiga OS
• OS/2 Wrap
• Redhat Linux
• Debian GNU/Linux
• Slackware Linux
• PalmOS
• Windows 95

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看見 Planet Gnome 不少人做了這個小心理測試，我也試試。結果是：

Which File Extension are You?

我覺得一般，不怎準。

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Sure, many people remeber Linus Torvalds announce "Linus 2.0" release
when his first daughter born. It’s a kind of hacker humor but he didn’t
really name his daughter as Linus 2.0. However, here is a guy really named his son as foo 2.0. >_<

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好早已經諗過…. 究竟會寫 weblog 既係 d 乜野人? 係真係好開心咁想將自己日常生 活既野同人分享，或者自係一種寂寞既表現? 究竟呢類人既心目中，真正係自己身邊既人有幾 多…點解本唻只係應該講俾親人知己既說話竟然要係網上公開傾訴…. 或者如我以前所講.. 一切只係一種 yelling on the Net.

今天同某個朋友 icq 時，隨口講左一句不太想用一 d 咁間接的方式去知另一個朋友既事 。哈.. 事實上我一直都係用咁間接的方式去知佢既事.. 已經很厭倦這種袖手旁觀的感覺， 但又可以如何? 究竟我是很討厭 … 還是很怕… 我自己也不知道.. 或者其實是知道。

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Old news that big stick told me. But I really enjoy it very much. Interesting description:

A technological marvel of bionics and breeding, the Cisco 1000 is a Border Collie - Australian Shephard mix, conceived at a frisbee-dog competition, but with incredible bionic enhancements never before seen in a common housepet.

You will find thousands of uses for your Cisco 1000, including morale-boosting playtime that makes you and your dot-com co-workers feel just a little less like quitting. Our favorite game that the Cisco 1000 is programmed to play is called “butt-stick” where the operator uses a stick to try to tag the Cisco 1000 on its hind quarters, and the Cisco 1000 runs away! Much more fun than Tetris!

But the Cisco 1000 is more than just a companion. Its bionic implants are programmed to deafen any approaching stranger with its ear-piercing barks! If the stranger is perhaps already deaf, or just doesn’t know any better, the Cisco 1000 is programmed to jump and bite without warning. Now that’s what we call a guard dog! And if you want to shutdown the barking & biting program, don’t bother with the kill -9 on its terminal, just use the remote control shutdown mechanism (an empty tin of penguin mints, filled with pennies) and the program immediately ceases.

You will find thousands of uses for your Cisco 1000, including morale-boosting playtime that makes you and your dot-com co-workers feel just a little less like quitting. Our favorite game that the Cisco 1000 is programmed to play is called “butt-stick” where the operator uses a stick to try to tag the Cisco 1000 on its hind quarters, and the Cisco 1000 runs away! Much more fun than Tetris!

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I have bought Carl Sagan’s Contact today. Indeed, I never finish a serious english fiction (Except those in book list of sec. school) although I have bought some in past. Hey, it is really painful if you need to ask help from your dict several for just a paragraph. Once I was really interesting on cyberpunk culture (Umm.. about 94-95) I have bought a electronic dict in order to minimize the pain and try to read Wiliam Gibson’s Neuromancer. But, of course, I have finually withdraw it before the end of the first chapter.

You can say that Contact is one of my favourite movies. I really love the main charactor - Ellie Arroway, acted by Jodie Foster. Coz it really reflect something about me. Especially when her professor Drumlin scolded her that her stubborn on SETI would only kill her career, She responsed, “So what? It’s my life!”.

• A Review of Contact in Calendarlive
• Contact [Ellie]
• A Eulogy to Carl Sagan
• an awful waste of space - The “Contact” fanlists

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While searching back the English version of the mathematician joke, I also find another 2 interesting joke:

Q: Why is the number 10 afraid of seven?
A: because seven ate nine.

Q: Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween?
A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25

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Slashdot.org got a polls about How Long Do you Typically Sleep?. It still continue when I wrote this log. (ok, sorry for a late and old news.. but I just want to write sth about it) It’s so surpire to see that so much geek can have such a long “heath” sleep. How about me? Umm.. I suppose 5-6 hours on weekdays and 12 hours on holidays.

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某年復活節畫的 麥嘜 與 麥兜 ASCII art

 |\_----_/|    / /\ \    |\_--ww_/|   |\_--ww_/|
 |        |   |_|__|_|   |        |   |        |
  \ ^__^ /  < - ^__^ |    | @__` |     | >__< |
  ( (oo) )    ( (oo) )    ( (oo) )    M( (oo) )M
  / _M   _K   / _M   \    /      \    \        /
  |      |    |    w |    | w  w |     |      |
   \ ____K     \ __ /     \ ____ /     \ ____ /
    W           W  W       W    W       W    W

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我諗電腦對我係一種 Enjoy…. 如果唔係我好難捱到宜家。學野係因為我想知.. 否則我都幾難學得快…. Anyway… I am totally a Geek… However… I just enjoy to be Geek

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