Category: NoneTech.非技术

The none technologies related part of my blog posts. And I will share my life experience with my friends and my love.

Recommendation for my coworker Stan

I wrote a recommendation for my previous coworker Stan on Linkedin, but another coworker said it’s not proper and too funny for this serious site. So I guess I should rewrite it, but I will leave it here 😀

To be honest, Stan makes me cry, I can’t catch up with him. But it’s a honor to work with his brilliant mind. He is kind, he didn’t call us dummy. He has great abstraction ability, which IMHO is the most precious skill a software craftsman should have. He has good sense on new technology, and he build his own sharp toolsets and leverage other folks in his team. One thing I think he may improve is, he doesn’t drink beer with us, so he will always be sober when we are drunk.

Draft letter to Caltrain office

I break the law by accident. This is a big deal for me. I definitely wrong in this case, but I also found there is some issue on Caltrain system. So instead of being down forever, I will write a letter to Caltrain office. My friend tell me this is like burn a letter to immortal, no one will read or reply. But I trust in goodwill, so i will open this letter on my blog. If you read this by accident, please learn that break the law is painful, you should train yourself not making stupid mistake, this will make everyone happy, and make a better world. This letter is just a first cut draft, I will correct grammer mistake and improve weired sentence accordinly in those days.

Hello caltrain officers,

I’m a caltrain commuter live in Hillsdale, I start using caltrain from last December, and I like it. Caltrain has cleaner cabin than BART and muni, and the passenger on it is more polite. My company sponsor us commute by Caltrain through clipper direct, and most of my coworkers has Caltrian monthly pass auto loaded.

But I got a citation recently, which make me . The story happends that on Jun 3rd, it’s a Monday, the first working day of Jun. I and my coworker was discussing a working topic of our current project, and we take on Caltrain together from Hillsdale. Then 2 conductors came to us, and check our ticket. We show our clipper card as usual, but it says no. And we notice that’s first working day of a Month, so we should tag on the clipper card. And explained this to the conductors individually, they just gave both of us a citation of fare envation. I haven’t argue, because I’m a adult. The conductor refuse to read our monthy pass online order (which we showed), that means we don’t have nothing to show as prove of payment.

I said this almost ruin my life, it’s because I break the law, which make me desperate. I’m a alien worker, so I’m new here, I tried to behave as a moral citizen, be nice to everyone, and be well discipline. But when I got this citation, this dream collapse.

But I don’t want to be depressed forever, I should tell you my feeling, and let’s figure out what’s the best way to prevent this kind of situation happend in the future. Which will make the world a better place.

The monthly pass is not a way to save money, I think the ultimate goal is to make our daily commute smoothier. Because buying ticket is a pain at rushing hour, so clipper is a express way. Paying monthly save most of us tons of time. I cherrish the intention. But comes to reality, there is a gap. Other commute system like BART and MUNI has clipper gate, so when you come across it you need to swipe the card. But caltrain only has that at SF’s 4th and king station, there’s conductor standing there to check our ticket. But other stations is open, and some station only has few clipper tagging machine. So most monthly pass commuter doesn’t tag at most of days in a month, only tag it at very first day. So the gap is the habit we use the public transportation, for Caltrain we didn’t tag daily, but for MUNI and BART we tag daily even we have montly pass. That means we need to remind ourself to tag on first day, which is not work precisly as a clock.

So I hope caltrain can give us a notification on those critical day (very first working day each month). The clipper has our email, most caltrain station has message board (LED screen), both of them can work as a reminder for us. Which will help us not making this mistake. For a system need good self-discipline a reminder will reduce stupidity very much.

The clipper direct allow us setting up a recurring order of monthly pass, I don’t know why it can’t pre-load them as those montly pass we bought from walgreen? If it load automatically, we won’t make a mistake like that, this will free us from having a pressure on loading monthly pass. In our case, we acctually paid for monthly pass. But the ticket checking machine failed to load the monthly pass information, which make us be in a situation of no valid ticket, and that’s breaking the law. Break law in this way is miserable, we don’t want to be a fare invader, that’s immoral, that’s make us hateful, and it’s shame to tell our children that we are fare invader. I mean when we paid, but failed to show that we paid, because we need a process to activate this monthly pass, this is inconvinient and seems trapping us to be a outlaw. Probably there are technical reasons or other reasons to make clipper work in this way, but please make it more friendly and make good people keep being good.

Because we commute on caltrain for months, we saw lots of scenario between passenger and conductors. And almost all conductors is friendly and helpful. I saw conductor explains to those foreigners who bought wrong tickets, and ask the buy it correctly next time. I saw conductor asking people using clipper card who forgot tag on to tag it at next stop. I heared from my coworker who got educated when they forgot to tag it on first day of month. All those stories told me that conductors are helping us from making mistake, and educate us when we are wrong. But when this happend on me for the first time, I got a citation directly. I’m not asking mercy on me, everyone is equal by law, I just diserve this punishment. But consider a goodwill, we should using the punishment to prevent intentional fare envision, but educate the others. This will keep us in faith of justice. I still trust all conductors on the train is helping us from making this mistake. But on the day I got this citation, I saw 2 conductors chekcing ticket, and that’s the first working day of that month, there are 3 guys got citation in same cabin, this seems more to a punishment than education.

I won’t argu if I’m guilty here, I suppose to talk about it with judge in court. I only want to ask for some change on this system to ease our commute, make our life easier, hope no one will break the law in this way. Would like to consider those actions?

  • Give us the choice to pre-load the monthly pass
  • Give us a notifications by email (for clipper direct user), or show us notifications on station’s display on first (work) day of month
  • Give us a covinient way to tag the card, especially a way to tag on the train, alternatively should give us tagging machine on each entrance of station. So tagging daily is smooth for monthly pass commuter.
  • Give us a channel to show monthly pass proof if we got cited in this situation, when we paid for the pass.

Thank you for read, I won’t be despress forever, I trust that caltrain will be better, and we will be more happy to commute on this transportation system.

Me,
Jun 9, 2013.

品酒的好处

大约有2年品啤酒的经历，很喜欢品啤酒的过程。那么为什么要品啤酒呢？

首先要明确 饮酒 和 品酒 的区别。品酒应该是饮酒的一个子集，因为不喝下去完全闻味不是靠谱的品酒方式。品酒最大的区别在于为什么 (Why) 和如何做 (How) 不同，品酒的目的是分辨、欣赏、交流。

品酒是对模式识别的锻炼。模式识别是心智模式中的R模式，也就是一种基于图像的思维，模式识别是一种直觉。品酒必须要用语言记录，可以是和朋友在一起交流感受，或者写下来分享给更多的人。为什么品酒必须要交流呢？因为模式识别是R模式，但是人和人交流要使用语言逻辑，但是这种逻辑使用的是心智模式中的L模式。但是根据心智模型的理论L模式和R模式往往不能同步工作，如果一个人两个模式之间交流迅速和频繁，那么这个人表现出来就是 聪明。R模式和L模式交互有一种形象的表示法，我们管它叫做“比喻”。使用比喻能力强的人，我们一般说是文学能力强，但是其实更广义的说使用比喻能力强的人 聪明 。我们有一个更时髦的词叫“隐喻”，这是在各种专业能力中非常重要的一种基于直觉的技能，我们常说一个领域的大师具有的就是过人的直觉。或者说过人的 模式识别 和使用 隐喻 的能力。所以那本书说，幽默其实是一种使用 隐喻 的特殊能力，不管是使用幽默还是感受幽默都需要这种 隐喻 的能力。

如果大家读过酒评就知道为什么我说 模式识别 和 隐喻 了。这里举个例子：

花香显著，并带有新鲜果香：柑橘、杏桃、荔枝、麦香，些许糖香。深琥珀色片红，入口时的发泡感强烈，使酒体感觉轻盈。酒液有些浑浊，泡沫丰富有粘性。酒体的厚度中等，酒感稍若，具有相当的苦涩感。苦味强劲，有酸味的错觉。烧烤饼干，红色果香，榛果杏仁。回香中有花香，苦味显著。余韵甘苦带涩，有果香，麦香与啤酒花香。又有非常好的复杂度。

摘自《比利时啤酒——品饮与风味指南》

这里用到了很多的隐喻。经常交流的啤酒爱好者可以看到大家使用的不同隐喻，并把他们使用到自己的语言中。这个过程还培养了对味道细节发现的能力，因为经常品酒后对很多味道的轻微痕迹描述的能力会增强，所以就可以更好的发现原来不能描述的味道。这其实就印证了很多朋友学习中的一个感受，当你能够定义和命名一种现象以后，你在遇到问题的时候识别的能力增强了，最后解决问题的能力也增强了。在搞编程的朋友中，都知道 Martin Fowler，他就是以这种能力著称。

最后，我想强调我说的是 品酒 ，很多极端的品酒者品尝酒品后会吐掉，以防止对辨别能力的影响。我们需要强调这样的精神，不要陷入把饮酒作为简单的习惯的地步，那样很容易酗酒，结果是很严重的。要保持 Know How 的同时 Know Why，这样可以长期健康的品酒。

我目前品酒主要使用 Instagram，照下酒评和酒杯，可以观察酒体和泡沫。然后在评论里面写下对啤酒味道的品评笔记。我主要使用 #mahbeer 这个标签分享，这个标签下有很多非常棒的啤酒的分享。而查啤酒比较重要的工具是 Ratebeer ，上面有大部分你能喝到的啤酒的信息和众多酒友的评价。

附上我非常早期的一个酒评：

  • 使用的是和Duvel类似的高级蛇麻草，非陈年款，味道比较鲜明，微苦
  • 有麦香味，水果味收敛，味甘甜，回味发甜
  • 香味不太明显，不酸，也不太苦，没有特别突出的单种口感
  • 泡沫丰富，细密，泡沫很白，大约有酒体的一半高
  • 酒色金黄，略微浑浊（雾）
  • 有肉蔻的香味留下，酒通过喉咙感觉酒精刺激明显，留下微微的薄荷的味道
  • 酒后口内没有酸和苦的回味，说明酒不是很甜酒花量也不是很大

能猜到这是啥啤酒不？（是Westmalle Blone，一种修道院啤酒 Trappist beer，不过属于没啥特点的一种）

我最爱的啤酒是什么？

这是在知乎的一个回复。

在啤酒爱好者普遍认可的Ratebeer的综合排名里面，目前第一的是Westvleteren 12。它代表了Trappist修道院啤酒的最高水准，它的风格叫做Abt/Quadrupel，常见的Trappist风格是Blone/Brown (Dubble)/Trippel，Quadrupel应该翻译做四料啤酒吧，是超越Trippel的有更加丰富的酚和酯的极品啤酒。Trappist 目前比利时有6家，是Chimay、Rochefort、Achel、Westvleteren、Orval、Westmalle，还有一家在荷兰叫Koningshoeven。不过Trappist并非都是口味丰富的，比如Chimay、Achel、Westmalle都相对温和。Quadrupel则是味道层次最丰富，味道强烈的极品，据我所知只有Rochefort 10和Westvletern 12属于Trappist授权修道院生产的Quadrupel。修士在为上帝服务至于投入了毕生精力不断的优化提升啤酒酿造艺术，才有了这样的极品，所以……我就不多说了。

但是很不幸的是Westvleteren 12很难买到。能买到的Quadrupel是Rochefort 10，目前它也是我的最爱。这里和 @大Joy 不谋而合。

美国的同事比较一致的认为Russian River Pliny the elder是最好的美国啤酒，这个也供参考。因为北京是绝对买不到的。

但是我同意口味不应该排名，所以……我应该闭嘴。

我在slideshare分享过一个比利时啤酒的slides，里面有很多不准确的信息，不过还是可以参考。

孩子

Khalil Gibran 的诗，在 星野道夫 / Michio Hoshino 的 在漫长的旅途中 第一页就引用了这首诗：

你的孩子并不是你的。

他们是“生命”对它自身的渴慕所生的子女。

他们经你而生，却不是你所造生。

虽然他们与你同在，却不属于你。

你可以给他们你的爱，却非你的思想。

因为他们的灵魂居住的明日之屋，甚至在你的梦中亦无法探访。

A worth to visit list of Beijing

A worth to visit list of Beijing

I was born in Beijing, and live here till present. It’s hard to pick up some highlights from Beijing, since most of the highlights only preserved in my memory. Beijing is a changing city, as other big cities around the world, it’s a bit lost. It’s a emperor’s capital for hound of years, the residents shows open attitude, those lifelong residents in Beijing is the soul of Beijing.

I have a disease of perfectionism, I made too much fluff. Let’s go stuff.

Place to visit

Route 1

MuTianYu Great Wall (official website) is the first choice if you only have one day here. Since Great Wall is the most famous landmark of China. Badaling Great Wall is more famous than MuTianYue Great wall, but from my point of view visiting MuTianYue Great Wall is easier, and it’s has better view around the great wall. There are 2 cable car, I recommend going up from the lower one and climbing the great wall from lower part to higher part, it saves your legs. If you didn’t go gym regularly, you can take a round trip on cable car, it saves time too. Getting some cheap souvenir here, I think it gives you a better price than city area, though don’t expect good quality, souvenir just helps you remind this place. Go subway (fast food) at root of great wall is a good choice. And if you are beer lovers, don’t forget to take your favorite beers with you. Have a bottle of cool beer take you to the heaven, this great memory remains.

When you are back from MuTianYu, you still have time to visit Summer Palace. This this emperor’s royal garden, I think it’s a place you must visit when you are in Beijing. Because it shows Chinese’s sense of landscape beauty, try our taste of gardening. You will see how our emperor mashup different elements of architecture and landscape designs together. The subway line 4 has a stop near the north gate of Summer Palace, if you go to the great wall early enough, you will have enough time to go through north climbing up the mountain, watch the view of the sea (lake), going down the hill and visit the long fence (great Chinese decorated painting). The shuttle boat service is busy, don’t waste time there. Go along the bank of the lake, have a round-trip back. This long way will worth the value.

If you are a energetic person, try visit the Olympic gymnasium at night. You can take subway line 4 and line 10 to this area. Since those gymnasium has attractive looking at nights.

Route 2

This will be a challenging trip. Save the first target if you are not tough enough.

Take a taxi and arrive Temple of heaven at early morning. This is a royal temple for pray ceremony. It has a good looking temple in the middle, it stands for the most advanced Chinese wooden architectures. And the park is full of local senior people, they stands for Beijing spirit (IMHO).

Take a taxi and go to Forbidden city, you can also take subway (which is easier). At day time, you can come across TianAnMen Square (Take a picture here, it’s the core of China goverment) and arrive the south gate of Forbidden city. You can only buy tickets and enter Forbidden city from south door, don’t be here too late, the tickets is limited every day. Forbidden city is a museum, it’s where the emperor lives, and there’s tons of good looking attics, you must visit this place. I’m not sure if you can exit Forbidden city from north door, do if it’s eligible.

When you visited those 2 awesome places, it may approach sunset. The best view of Beijing is close to Forbidden city. That’s JingShan Park, it on the opposite side of Forbidden city’s north gate. Enter the south gate of JingShan Park, climb up the hill. It’s easy to be on the top. If it’s the sunset time, you will see a overwhelming awesome golden color Beijing city around you, that’s the best scene of Beijing. You will see Beijing has a symmetry layout, and it’s a master piece indeed.

It’s not too late to visit Beihai Park, it’s royal garden of emperor. Enter the south door, and exit from north door. Then you will be on lotus lane, it’s a pub street along a water system (lake). The pubs is not outstanding here, don’t waste your time here. Take a look at the lights around the water lanes, walk a way down to Drum Tower, this place has some awesome pubs provide nice drinks. Waste your nights here, you won’t regret.

Pubs

  • Sanlitun pub street. Nice pubs and restaurants which covers most styles of cuisines around the world. There’s lots of big brands. And it’s the embassy area, so you will see lots of foreign people here.
  • Nan Luo Gu Xiang. Best pub street in Beijing, it has a mashup of styles, but it has it’s own soul. A will find lots of interesting stores and pubs here.

Food

Actually there a too many choices in Beijing, but I can’t tell which is most unique and local. I just pick up some place I love and they are domestic styles.

This document will be updated when I found any interesting place to share

修复密封罐子

装咖啡的玻璃罐子由于锁扣变形把一个玻璃边硌碎了。观察了一下感觉把这个铁丝的扣具转个角度就可以避开硌到的位置了。所以一冲动就把扣具拆开了，这个结构是很简单的，拆开很容易。

转了角度以后发现装不上。因为铁丝扣具不是服贴的符合玻璃盖子和罐体的形状，因为椭圆形的扣具在两边夹住后可以提供更好的锁紧效果。不过用手的力量几乎不可能把他们保持在可以服贴的位置，也就不能用钳子把扣环夹住固定。我尝试了几次用蛮力，不过结果当然是一失败告终。

因为时间不够去上班了，路上可能潜意识就开始研究如何解决了。回来的路上我的潜意识闪过的是用铁丝当作锁紧脚手架把它组装上的图像。

回家找了铁丝，只有很细的一小段。把两个需要锁紧的地方用铁丝套住，闭合后把接头拧成麻花，不用拧很紧保证足够多的绞合圈数吃上力就可以。用尖嘴钳子夹住铁丝的圈再拧麻花，作为脚手架的这个铁丝夹具就会把想要锁紧的玻璃罐子扣具拉紧，此时就可以比较轻松的套上扣具组装罐子并恢复原样了。

收获两点：

  • 蛮力不如思考，尤其是给R模式（右脑模式）一些酝酿时间，问题解决的会更好
  • 使用夹具而不是使用在紧张时很不可靠的肌肉，工具+脚手架是组装“复杂”系统的方法

罗斯福6号

这是一款棕色啤酒，有沉淀，比较浑浊。入口比较苦，气泡没有8和10那样浓密（持久度略为差一些），但是气泡很丰富。气泡入口香气扑鼻，但是香气中的水果味要略为淡一些。酒体比较苦，有烧烤的味道，口感浓厚（粘稠的感觉），酒退去后嘴中留有微微酸涩味（干）。闻起来有明显的酵母和酒花香气，这种味道比较象深粉象的味道。罗斯福6号不是常见的Single（其实没有这种叫法）的Blonde，而是接近一般的Double的棕色烧烤麦芽的双料啤酒的味道，它混合了丁香花香（酚）和酒花的香味，水果味（酯）略为淡一些。这款酒留在口中的味道比较厚，回酸甜的感觉。因为酒精度略低，所以喉咙没有什么刺激的感觉。我感觉这个酒的酵母和罗斯福其它两款比较接近，酵母非常好。这款应该不是使用的陈年酒花，苦味浓，而且酒花香气也非常浓郁，酒花类似杜威(Duvel）那样新鲜和明亮。


喝罗斯福6号也是一种享受，不过综合来看罗斯福的6、8、10其实有接近的基底味道，8和10的味道层次更多一些。10对温度要求比较苛刻（控制香味和甜味的平衡），8则更容易在宽一点的温度释放它的魅力。6是一款缩小版的罗斯福，不过它带来的是更苦的口感，也许它更适合和甜味的食物一起配合饮用。而经典的8和10则更适合和咸味的食品配合，或者单品。罗斯福的家族可以说的啤酒中的极品，我的最爱！

Good bye, Mr. Jobs

听到他卸任的消息就知道这一天就快要来到了。没想到在另外一个发布会的第二天，这个坏消息就真的到了，他走的时候实在是太年轻了，正值他的巅峰，令人扼腕。

我希望自己不要太情绪化，所以在techmeme.com上面仔细的寻找所有的线索，希望找到我错失的任何感动。那天晚上我也去北京的第一家Apple store感受了一下崇敬Jobs的朋友对他的悼念活动。这几日的新闻里面我的感想是：

这几日沉浸在对乔帮主的追思中，读过的追忆文章里面。MG Siegler对我们这些『其它人』的损失分析的最到位，施密特博士和Isaacson对他对孩子的爱的追忆最感人，对他安排自己最后一个月的报道最发人深省。 #iSad

“That’s the part that people couldn’t possibly know — the love and the care that he put into everything he did. He just loved his family, Laurene (Powell) and the kids. He loved them more than anyone could articulate. And he loved Apple,” Brilliant said.

“The defining character of Steve Jobs isn’t his genius, it isn’t his talent, it isn’t his success. It’s his love. That’s why crowds came to see him. You could feel that. It sounds ridiculous to talk about love when you are making a gadget. But Steve loved his work, he loved the products he produced, and it was palpable. He communicated that love through bits of steel and plastic.”

我不愿意在这个时候追忆我对苹果产品的感动，因为我不可能从苹果最早的产品开始了解这个伟大的公司和Jobs本人。并且苹果只是Jobs众多贡献中的一个。

Jobs，他是一个伟大的企业家，梦想家。早期的苹果证明他是一个非常有品位的企业家，中期他在Next和Pixar所做的一切还有后来回归苹果证明他是一个有远见的企业家。不管是『品味』还是『远见』其实都是『直觉』，他是一个拥有伟大的直觉的人。直觉是比逻辑更加神奇的魔力，他需要不断的思考和体验来磨练，是我们说大工和大师的最大区别，这也是人类最宝贵的能力（机器没有直觉），这正是为什么我们觉得他是天才。直觉是『右脑思维』的结果，是艺术家所具有的特质，天才需要这种艺术家的灵感。

我的评价是没有意义的，他从来不在意我们这些『局外人』怎么想。他在意的是他所爱的人和事，能成为他所爱的是种幸福。

在读到他关于孩子的看法的时候，我非常感动。他说孩子就是你在体外跳动的心脏，他们比你一生中其它所有的最好的事物还要好上一万倍。而且他的授权传记作者也说他写这本书是为了让他的孩子们了解他。这是他离开后令我最感动的我所不知道的Jobs，他对家人的爱让我相信他的所有企业家的直觉都来自爱，来自他对自己所做的事业、产品的无限的爱。我也要把我的生命献给爱，就像他一样，在死亡来临前释放无尽的爱。

不要给死亡蒙上太多的悲伤。死亡是最好的决策工具，所以我们说『面死而生』，知道会死才真的知道为什么要生，这是Jobs所有观点中最重要的。他真的和死亡抗争了很久，是一个真正面死而生的人。希望有一天我们能够再会，May the Force be with you！

品尝马都斯10号-修道院配方三料啤酒

Maredsous 10 Abdij Tripel Ale
入口苦，酒花味不是很明显。酒比较强，口壁微麻，有水果的酯味，不过水果味不是很浓，苦味会盖过水果味。啤酒泡沫浓密，入口可以感觉到挂口，酒的口感很厚，感觉是苦味和酸味共同刺激所致。酒通过喉咙可以感觉到厚重的酸味，因为比较苦所以这种酸味很厚重。而后可以感到有一些花香的酚味道析出，不浓烈。这个酒的酒精度感觉比较高，和督威那种感觉不同，这种酒对口腔的刺激更强烈一些。总的感觉就是这酒的底下有浓烈的酸味和苦味，所以感觉在口中黏黏的，味道挥之不去，酒体的口感很丰满。整杯下去以后随着苦味退去，酸味会变得明显，然后会感觉麦香味越来越突出。麦香退去后口中就开始弥漫着Duvel的那种清新的酒花味道，我感觉可能是高酒精度和苦味很强烈让这种清新的蛇麻草香味最后散发出来，所以我对这个酒的回忆还不错。它对嘴唇的刺激还挺强烈。修士类啤酒的配方都会让酒体很厚，马都斯10号会给你这种感觉，作为加了很多冰糖的高度Tripel它不是以水果味见长的，但是感觉它的酵母和酒花和Duvel的确有些神似，留在口中的浓烈香气则像极了喝完Duvel的感觉，最后头脑晕晕的感觉在喝完这些高度啤酒后都有相似的情况。相对于它的售价我觉得它是一种不错地选择，厚重的味道单品或者配菜都可以很突出，而且它的香气绝对配得上高级啤酒的称号。但是如果浪漫一点说，它太修士了，苦味和酸味盖过了水果味道和花香，所以有些内敛了。心情美好的时候还是倾向于来个罗斯福十号或者奥威那样水果味浓烈的啤酒。