碧云天，黄叶地，秋色连波

Love Ever After

Gino and Angie Terranova
Angie: "You don't really think about getting older. First of all, you're aging together and when you see a person constantly you don't notice big changes. You don't notice, oh, you are getting a little wrinkle here and tomorrow you say it's a little deeper. Those are things that just happen. You don't pay attention to those things. I mean, I am not thinking everyday, oh my husband is 83 years old and my goodness I am married to an old man! And I hope he feels that way too."

I was in tears as I read this...

Powerful new technique to meausre asteroids

"Knowing the sizes and shapes of asteroids is vital for not only understanding the evolution of such bodies in the early Solar System, but for quantifying the size distribution of potentially hazardous asteroids."

It's alleged that the most famous mass extinction event was caused by an asteriod of about 10 kilometers in diameter hitting the earth, dinosaurs extinction as we know was only one part of the chain reaction...

I read somewhere that there is this asteriod belt located roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter(the planets^^) The sizes of those asteroids, also known as minor planets, range from a big of 400 km in diameter to a small of only dust particles...

Just imagine what will happen if one of those big stuff hit the Earth= =|||

N Korea claims "Space Programme"

Damn, who cares...

Australian Arson Suspect Named

Aussies always think of their beloved hometown a lucky land, when the rest of the world was brutally tortured by earthquake, hurricanes, floods, volcano explosion and avalanche, or suffered from economic recession, the island stays safe, almost like a fairyland, too good to be true.

Austrlia was immune to natural disasters, emotional scar/truama of which usually haunts the survivors for years. Apart from that, the nation seemed to have the ability to stay far away from aritifical diaster as well, like economic collapse, slowdown and recession. Japan used to be Australia's biggest trading parter, followed by USA(I guess). In 90s, Japan fell into miserable and seemingly endless recession, then at the begining of the 21st century, Chinese economy was back on track, experiencing the unprecedented/unexpected growth ever since, thanks to China's ravenous appetite for natural resources, Australia had enjoyed a flourishing economy and social stability since then...

In early 2008, a powerful storm hit China, transport across Southern China completely paralyzed, in the first quarter economic report after the snowstorm, Chinese economy, for the first time in almost a decade, showed a slight trace of slowdown.

Few month later, the deadly hurricanes attacked Berma, killed milllions and left more destitute, the worst part was that Berma government refused to accept the international humanitarian aids for some very stupid reason.

Then in May, right after Tibet riots and the following international protests over Olympic torch relay, came the earthquake, how overwhelming and devastating that was I need not to repeat= =||| 

That's when I first heard of this, that Australia is a lucky land...

But, it turns out that there is no such thing as Lucky land... First, the global financial crisis is sweeping through the Continent...one of my friend who's living in Australia now, wrote to me, that she'd been looking for a job for almost half a year, couldn't get one, as job demand spiked...then this, deadly bush fire in Melbourne is believed to be the worst one in Australia's history... killed hundreds and destroyed up to 400 homes... Firefighters are still battling nine blazes...

Therefore, it's understandable that the arsonist's life is in jeopardy, even though he is currently in protective custody... so much emotion, anger, disgust, hatred, and feelings of retaliation, which could easily bring out the worst in people... I am not surprised if he's attacked by some very angry residents... according to BBC, the arsonist is facing the charges of arson causing death and of intentionally starting a bushfire, a maximum 25-year sentence for the first charge, and 15 years for the second. Personally, I shall spare no sympathy for this bastard...such a shame that there is no death penalty in Australia...If it was in China, that would be what he'd get for what he've done...at least I am constantly reminded that existence of death penalty is for the greater common good...Just like Sanlu milk scandal= =|||The chief executive is sentenced to death...and the public feels ok about it...

Stole a pic from Sydney Morning Herald...It's heartbreaking...

You've got to read this. PM vows to rebuild fire-ravaged town, the title of which reminded me of the deadly and devastated earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people and left millions homeless last year in China...

Wish all the best to Melbourne&Australia...

BTW, the little boy is so cute, I wish I could have a boy looking exactly like him= =|||

Source: SMH

Computer Scientists Develop Program To Decipher Location Of Photograph

Technically speaking, this isn't a news, I found it more interesting than others, simply because others suck, bushfires in Melbourne are destroying lives and homes, yet firefighters couldn't do anything about it; Lantern Festival is supposed to be happy, yet this year's Lantern Festival ended up in tragedy, as reported, an unauthorized firework set a building of CCTV headquarters on fire, the building, was still under construction. A firefighter lost his life fighting the blaze; and if you read news, it appears that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, or shall I say, the uneven distribution of wealth in China is getting worse, which is sad, because I am one of the poor...I am half angry, twice as jealous knowing that somebody lives on $1 a day, while others make 10 million a year...There is this homeless guy literally living outside one branch of the bank of China, meaning he has his bed built by the door of the abandoned bank branch, while the head of the bank owns multi-Estate all over the country...Cilivians die from melamine-contaminated milk powder, or whatever-chemical-poisoned products, while the priviledged strata have their own specially-planted/made/supplied products, ranging from rice, milk, condiments to vegetables, or even drinking water.

More personally, as I've been babbling over for this past few days, I am on the verge of being broke and going nuts, if I don't get the job as promised by the end of March.

This goddamn financial crisis starting in USA, then soon eating the entire Europe alive, is sweeping through Chinese cities, from the highly developed Southern China to the less developed Northern China. How ironic, USA creates chaos, then we suffer= =|||

===============

Ok, I get it, I should confine myself to the subject, rather than wandering away from the point...

"Computer scientists designed a program that can analyze a photograph to identify where it was taken. The program scans the scene on the photo, noting colors, textures and lines, and uses these elements to compare it to more than six million images previously tagged with locations on online databases. The program has an average success rate of 16 percent, which is better than random chance or a human guess."

The first thing that crossed my mind was that this new technology, though not so reliable to forensic scientists as it's expected, still could make some contribution to pinpointing the crime scene, if necessary.

Then, I read this, "Computer scientists say the program could eventually be used in forensic investigations by detectives or in the military."

See, we think alike.

That's just....Sorry that I lost for words= =|||

So far, there are 230 dead and 750 homes destroyed... This is just huger than anything I've ever seen before= =|||

Poor, poor Victoria= =|||

Death roll rises to 84

The news is now all over the TV, newspapers and internet. I got wind of it just few hours before.

This is horrible, I did some surfing and found out that Rudd himself flew to Melbourne trying to bring some comfort and mental backup to those poor people, as well as order troops to join efforts to overcome the bushfire, while others offer their personel and other assistances to people in need.  

So far, the bush fire has killed 84, and left many trapped/homeless.  

Then, it came to me, that few days ago, Barbara wrote me a letter, in which mentioned that the temperature had reached 40 or so degree. I didn't pay much attention to it, for I know what it was like in Sydney when thermometer recorded 40, yet, it's not the worst thing, the worst thing is that the temperature hits 40C, while the humidity outside climbed up to 90%, that is when the real disaster begins and we call this in China a real boiling machine, a city-wide boiling machine.

The first time I set foot on Sydney, the driver that took me to my home kept talking about this annual bushfire in Australia. Sydney got some pretty bad ones in these years. Actually, just one year before I got to the city, there was this horrible bushfire in Blue Mountains, which was a real tragedy. I'd been there in 2008, I couldn't find a slight trace of damage caused by bush fire, maybe the locals had already taken care of that. (BTW, Blue Mountains is not half so breathtaking & splendid as I was told, yet, it's still quite a landscape, charmingly serene is a proper word for this, just like the rest of Australia. Weird enough, I never heard of anything about bushfire when I was in Perth, no idea why...could it be me keeping myself from the outside world? no news at all...work&school dominated my life, took up most of my time and attention????)

The other thing that crossed my mind as I read the news, was that I once, in my Survey Design and Management class(BTW, Peter, I do miss you>_<miss your humor, miss your gray&white hair, miss your red face and above all your wisdom&your sarcasm), learned this rule as to how to develop a well-written, beautifully planned, not too long, not to short, not too complicated, not to simple, certainly an highly professional survey in the form of design, fond, layout, colour, coversheet, choice of words, questionaire, etc, that never ever asked an interviewee, or any interviewees for that matter, any questions that could cause physical and/or emotional uneasiness, bring back unpleasant or even troubled memories from the past. The very example that Peter gave us in his utterly inspiring lecture notes was you shouldn't, as an interviewer and/or survey designer, ask people who lived/used to live in mountain areas, whether they have experience of bushfires. The reason here was, the chances that people you were asking did go through some horrible bushfires, and lose their houses and beloved ones, was pretty high, and your question could easily trigger unhappy memories and led to rude refusal of the interview, which certainly is not what you want. It's like a professionl taboo, so to speak= =|||

(BTW, Survey Design and Mangagement, that's really one of few courses that I am truly interested in and enjoying every bit of it, while I was doing my master degree, one is SDM, the other is Analysis Tools for logistics and transportation, guess I am stronger at figures and numbers. It's ture for my bachelor degree too, I hate accounting, while I found myself a real hobby learning Microeconomics, just like I am on Chemisty and pshchology when I was much younger.)

But, that's really not my point, the point is, to wish all the best for those suffered ones.

I feel for them, they are all good citizens and don't deserve this at all, but you know, life is a bitch= =|||there is nothing more we can do about the unfairness, not to mention fixing it= =|||

And I really hope that they could get over this ASAP...