The last post of 2005

This is the last post of this year. I wanna add a summary here for 2005.

In January, 2005, I began to apply PhD positions and life sucked.

In February, 2005, I found PhD positions were difficult to get and was disappointed by Manchester, all.

In March, 2005, I had just finished the MSc taught modules and started the MSc project.

In April, 2005, I was very worrying about my PhD application.

In May, 2005, I received my first PhD offer.

In June, 2005, I was full of confidence for my future, but things were getting changed.

In July, 2005, I had completed the coding of my master project.

In August, 2005, I was informed the acceptance from Institute AIFB, Karlsruhe, to start the PhD research as an assistance. That was my new start for the future.

In September, 2005, I went back to China after exactly one year of leaving.

In October, 2005, I arrived in Karlsruhe, where I would stay for four years.

In November, 2005, after I studied MSc Advanced Computer Science in University of Manchester and finally, I successfully got the degree.

In December, 2005, I got my first salary in my life, and began to realise life is difficult, but simple, and so is love.

在耶稣诞生的日子

突然直觉让我要在这里把这篇文章重新记录，那就记录吧，它写于2005年12月25日。

2005年以前的今天，耶路撒冷的某个地方诞生了一个孩子，他改变了这个世界。

2005的今天，卡尔斯鲁厄某间老式公寓里，坐着一一，他只想快乐地生活，并同时祝愿他的朋友，家人快乐健康，无论他们是在地球上的哪个角落。

也许在这些朋友家人中，有些人生活幸福美满，有些人经过或者正面临挫折，有些人春风得意，有些人郁郁不得志。但是一一喜欢永远和他们一起分享快乐，面对挫折，并希望无论如何他们能够更开心。

大概2005年前玛利亚并不知道自己的儿子会是什么样的人，可是她一定和世界上任何一个老妈一样爱着自己的孩子。老妈是活该，生下了你们，但是一一喜欢大家都能给自己老妈带点快乐――有时候这大概就是多回家蹭一顿饭吧。

不知道耶稣和他老婆关系怎么样，不过如果你们有爱的人在自己身边，请一定珍惜，以后就算分开了也不会后悔。

各位不必和耶稣一样成就大事业，不过一一喜欢大家都能做自己喜欢的事情，有成果最好，一一要是失业了还好去投靠一下。如果即使就是和另一半一起养活了自己一家，也是很了不起的事。有打算靠爸妈的，也千万不要沮丧，是他们把你生出来的，他们活该^_^

最后祝大家在下一耶诞到来之前，能够做成自己决定的事。还没有决定是否要去做的，一一有句话：做事不做而后悔，不如做了而后悔。没有想做的事情的，那就多陪家人，朋友和爱人，因为至少世界上很大一部分人是做不到这一点的，比如一一就是。

圣诞快乐。

A usable semantic web?

Bring me back to the 1990s, when the web began to to be popular, I remembered that the key points were two aspects, easy information sharing and development.

I would expect the same thing would happen if we want to deploy the Semantic Web technology, although the background technology is unseen by the users. Without easy development like network-based applications - somewhat not comparable, probably, I can't see any possibility to make it real.

The information available around the Internet is mainly generated by common computer users, not computer specialist at all! Is it possible for them to create an ontology? Obviously no, at this moment.

Frankly speaking, what I can see is to build better Semantic Web applications, which might be used to develop some usable information systems, for example, e-blabla infrastructure, but not a big, usable semantic web at all.

My new handy

It's not a common thing to synchronize my tow blog using English and Chinese, respectively.

After the mobile trap I mentioned last time, yesterday I finally got a mobile phone, SE K750i, but immediately I was shocked by its complicated functionalities.

A phone combines the mp3 player, radio player, digital camera and of course, data service and of course mobile service. I would expect most people will spend much time on configuring and customizing it - but it depends on whether you want to do so or not.

The good thing is that this phone works fine and everything fits my scope well - at least I could receive and send sms from and to China.

As a computer science researcher, my guideline is "simple is the best", I am still a little bit afraid of changing cell phones again...

China vs Western Media

This article is orginally posted on merlin's blog, please refer to the link at the left.

If you go to news.google.co.uk and put China into the searchbar, you'll get a pile of news headlines harvested by google from major western media websites:

China, again
China rebukes Iran over Holocaust remarks
China a spectator at WTO talks
Patients jump as China hospital blaze kills dozens
China plays the strong, silent type at WTO
China reports sixth human case of bird flu, new poultry outbreak
India, China to speed up talks on border dispute
Free trade deals with trading partners from next year: China
China outraged over 'Geisha'

Apparently there is hardly a single positive report, and it is always the case since I set this search page as my IE homepage. This anti-Chinese attitude seems to be an epidemic among the western media, and it has planted so much confusion and even abhorrence against China in people's minds here.

Tell me, what is china like in your mind? Is it a rapidly growing economy? A miserable place full of horrible disease like SARS and Birdflu? An aggressive country that keep poking around its neighbour country? Or a dictatorial socialistic power that have the potential of turning into Naziism?

Funny thing is, despite of the non-positive attitude held by the western media, Chinese government always makes its propaganda too much friendly. 'Just like heaven' used to be the general recognition of the western world, while 'more advanced countries with much happier citizens' is what most of the Chinese people think about the society here nowadays. With such a fantasy, I came all the way across the continent. And I'm pretty sure you all know disappointed I have been since then.

Anyway the point I want to make here is that we shouldn't get influenced by what the media says if it is not balanced. China is expanding its influence. It is a developing countury for god's sake. China has blemishes. It is still not well developed after all. China wants to have a bite of the global economy rather than begging for the help from the western world; China wants to defend itself from the western disturbance because it has its own value and its own culture; China wants to play a quiet international role, because it is not a power pursuer like US. Theories like Chinese threat are absolutely ridiculous and the biased western media should be blamed for such a huge misunderstanding.

China is not a monster. Chinese people are nice and easy and have no intention to control others. They concentrate on their own business and work hard just for a better life.

Mobile Trap

Honestly, I was totally shocked by the complexity of buying a mobile phone in Germany.

The thing in China is, if I want to buy one, just go to the shop and choose one, give them the moneym, then finish.

OK, I just need a phone, not a phone contract. Firstly I put an order on the website but at the second day I was very sensibly to make a phone call to that company and informed this product was not in stock and the date to be sent was unpredictable. OK, I couldn't do anything but canceled it. Afterwards I went to a dealer called mobilcom and successfully signed a contract, but at last their central company rejected my contract without any execuse. The sales assistant told me that I could send a letter to the company and ask why. I totally have no idea about this. So I went to O2 shop, this time they asked for my original passport to proceed.

Finally I made another order on the O2 online shop with a special offer, and it will be deliverred in 2-3 working days. I should be able to show my documents also, although anyway it is reasonable. Hopefully there won't be any news.

I really, really don't understand why things are getting so complicated?!

Lord of War

Another antiwar movie, ending with sentences below:

"This film is based on actually events.
While private gunrunners continue to thrive, the world's biggest arms suppliers are the U.S., U.K., Russia, France and China. They are also the five permanent members of the U.N. securitycouncil."

Not a bad movie, but actually it is really an old topic. The thing is what the government works for, the benefits for their people, or the power for the ruler? Well, I don't wanna put things more philosophical, because the truth is always hiden and of course, can't be seen by the folks like me.

Probably sitting in the office, reading paper, coding programs and saying, rediscover the web should be more suitable for me.

AIFB now has a blog

AIFB is the place I am currently working in. This institute affiliates to the University of Karlsruhe and has very good reputation in the Semantic Web research. Denny and Jens have created a new blog for AIFB and now it is available here, please feel free to post comments there.

If you visited there, you might find the first post is related to me and another new colleague. ^_^

Essentially, in my opinion, the blog system has a very undetermined position in today's internet technology, that is, the future is uncertain. But on the other hand, probably it's not necessary to consider this because we have had email technology there, which has been developed and used for more than 10 years.

I am going too far...

Web Fashion

Actually I've added some units in my web fashion list, which are the popular contents in the Semantic Web research for the first 4 links and afterwards something related to Google, including a link to my fav. web browser - Firefox.

And if you can also have a try of Google Desktop, you will be surprised by these handy functionalities.

There are entirely new stuffs and if you are interested, just let me know ^^ Have fun.

观 merlin's blog 感

今天要说的并不是关于杨振宁的人品问题，而是我们的价值观问题。

在我看来，杨最不能令我接受的就是他和李政道之间的纠葛。一个人和自己的学生搞成这种关系，人品问题可见一斑。拿我们组来说，要是Rudi在每个人的论文署名里面都要插上一脚，他论文每年都有几十篇了，而现在我们组里的情况就是如果能让Rudi插上一脚，署在最后，那就是挺爽的事儿了，因为绝对没人赶拒 Rudi署名的文章的。可是Rudi想要署第一作者，他自己不会，也没人会答应。这里不怕得罪老板，因为一旦在大学注册了PhD，总会有导师安排辅导你论文。

而至于他个人生活选择的问题，那就是显示出价值观的地方了。我的观点就是因为杨把好处都占了，所以使得一部分人觉得非常不爽。你看，杨一生顺利，出生名门，美国功成名就，在人生的大部分时候享受美国的生活，妻子也是家世显赫。然后在国内也是声名卓著，老了以后还能回到国内养老娶个年轻的老婆，这个人生已经爽到了不能被大家接受的程度――所以，大部分批杨的文章，都是因为恨自己根本没有可能达成这个目标，那怎么办呢？把杨名声搞臭，于是心理就平衡了。

男人最重要的一个欲望就是对女人性资源的占有，特别是还算年轻女性的占有。你一个老头子，占着茅坑不拉屎，老子自己还没老婆呢――基于这种想法，所以很多人就出离愤怒。至于其他爱国啊，人品啊，都是用来添油加醋的附属品。

我越看这种文章，越是觉得恶寒，为啥都是21世纪了，这么多人还要以忠孝礼义这种东西去衡量一个人的人品，还要如此见不得别人的好，还要写这样的文章去刻意贬低一个人，真的觉得很失望很可悲。

8 interesting English sentences

Well, xielaojiu posted one of the sentences and link on his blog, and after a look, I found it fancy so I paste them here. Have you got the meanings of these sentences?

1. Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.
2. I think that that that that that student wrote on the blackboard was wrong.
3. I know. You know. I know that you know. I know that you know that I know.
4. We must hang together, or we'll be hanged separately.
5. The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.
6. Was it a bar or a bat I saw?
7. To China for china, China with china, dinner on china.
8. 2B or not 2B, that is a ?

Here is the link as well, but it contains Chinese characters.

Three sighs - 三叹

There are three things:

1. I love University of Manchester... where my network drive P:\ will be retained even though I have graduated, and the most import thing is that this drive can be accessed via sftp.
2. I love Blogger... which is expected to be the best blog serivce provider in this planet, so that I could use sftp to publish my pages which can be seen from China. You know Chinese government has a very strict policy towards internet contents :-(
3. Microsoft can't do anything to a Linuxer... come on, man, don't be afraid of getting rid of the evil M$ world, it's much easier than you think!

There is a similiar Chinese version in my MSN space.

Master project presentation

Tomorrow will be the day to present my Master project to the AIFB people and it is expect to be the third time to present it - the first time is at Windermere with the Fresh Water Life Biological Association; the second time is the formal Master project presentation taken place in University of Manchester.

The weekly upper seminar (Oberseminar) is one of the the traditions of AIFB. In each week two or three people from AIFB or other research groups will give a presentation to show their recent work or other updated information, including fresh stuff from conference, workshop, etc. After the presentation, the attendance will start brain-storming and discuss the topic-related stuff and ask the speaker some interesting questions. This is indeed an important essence of AIFB.

There is a canned demo in the link below:
Master Project Runtime Demo

and a PPT presentation file as well:
Presentation

Have fun!

Why am I here?

Basically, I want to gradually leave the trap from Microsoft. Why gradually? That's because I found it really impossible to do this just in one step - I'll be totally lost...

But anyway I'll continue to update the MSN Space as usual until I don't want to, essentially this blog will be normally English-based because I realised that most people from China are not able to see this because of the restriction from Chinese goverment's policy towards internet contents, and I would also expect most people who are physically in China and can see this blog, are those who should understand English.

Furthermore, I also want to build this blog to a combination of working and living stuff, so that you guys will find some interesting posts. But actually I cannot promise this blog is totally English - may I post some Chinese stuff as well, sometimes, as least...

So that's it, let me start my new work.