我一直认为Apple OSX（基于BSD）是最好的Java开发平台，国外几个Java牛人似乎都用Apple，这点可以从那些牛人的Blog或者写的文档中看出来。
每天下班总是从徐家汇百脑汇穿过，那里有个Apple专卖店，每次看着那里摆放的iBook、PowerBook、21的Apple宽屏LCD显示器就忍不住咽口水。可惜啊，那里的东西太贵了，一个12寸的PowerBook就要16000多RMB，自己兜里钱又少，家里的PC还壮着呢。只好安慰自己说，Apple明年换Intel芯片，现在买岂不是不好升级了？等明年再说吧，到时家里这台就服役三年了，那时再买岂不是更好？采用Intel芯片，也许还会便宜很多呢：）
Apple终于推出带“滚球”的多键鼠标 - Mighty Mouse，官方网站有介绍，非常Cool，Russell也在他的Blog上发布了关于Mighty Mouse的文章，写得非常详细，图文并茂。看来，明年一定要买Apple了。还有，Russell那家伙也真有钱，光Nokia手机就有好几十部，iPod、Mac mini、PSP刚上市他就能搞到，这次还不例外！真想去打劫他：）。
有在使用 WordPress 的朋友或許聽過/看過/用過一套叫 wpLicense 的外掛模組，這個外掛模組使用了 AJAX 的技術，讓 WordPress 的使用者可以為部落格選擇 Creative Commons 授權條款。這幾天 Creative Commons 釋出了一套 AjaxChooser ，正是上述 wpLicense 的獨立版本，祇要也支援 Javascript 以及 PHP 腳本，就能夠搭配 WordPress 以外的其他系統使用。
2. CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company Ltd.) Announces withdrawal of Unocal bid
3. Japan's white paper of national defense in 2005 exaggerates the so-called "China threat"
4. The fourth round of six-party talks on Korean Peninsula nuclear issue is close to the end
5. 51 important construction projects (include Olympic sites) to start up this year
香港Blogger们曾经发起过介绍自己最喜欢的10个Blog的活动，港台与大陆都有不少blogger响应与参与，从technorati和美味书签上都可以找到当时参与活动的那些blog内容。
现在老外也开始玩起了这个游戏，虽然好像并没有正式的发起人，但既然非常有影响力的Steve Rubel都参与进来了，逐步参加的blogger们估计也不会少，现在用technorati的tag就已经能够找出不少参与的blog了，有兴趣的读者应该能够从中挖掘出一些不错的英文blog。
上一篇文章：分析了N个网站的RSS 只是对几个网站的RSS格式进行分析，当时忽略了一个最重要的问题：RSS是否和网站内容同步！目前，很多免费Blog都是生成静态HTML的。但是，当中有的却过于“灵活”，提供生成首页和生成RSS两个功能，这样就可能造成用户更新并了blog内容，却忘了生成新的RSS，从而造成RSS和网站内容不同步。另外，如果选择FeedBurner之类服务也会造成不同步，因为为了性能考虑，FeedBurner不可能及时地抓取你的RSS，可能过几个小时才会更新。
车东的blog中这篇《不实的RSS时间好比是假的牛奶生产日期》中提到很多Blog程序或免费Blog提供的RSS时区不对，快了8小时，这样就造成这样一种后果：对使用RSS阅读器（比如周伯通，BlogLines）的用户来说，由于blog大部分都是白天写的，订阅的RSS快了8小时，他会觉得那些blog作者怎么都是夜猫子：）。对于使用Lilina和Blog联播网的用户来说，订阅的的RSS快了8小时，就会造成这个RSS的文章排在别人的前面。
We launched Virtual Earth Beta a week ago yesterday, and the response has been overwhelming to say the least. We’ve received a ton of feedback and suggestions from users via email, reviews, and blogs (Check out Jeremy Wright’s review, Austin Pauls' comments, Search Engine Watch, or this fun thread at /. for a sampling) Work is well underway on the next release of Virtual Earth and your feedback is super important to insure it rocks. Here is a quick summary of the most asked about areas of this beta release:
Driving Directions - It is clear from feedback that our temporary link over to our MSN Maps and Directions site for driving directions is less than optimal. We totally hear ya. As a matter of fact, we almost held up the beta release to get the driving directions functionality integrated into VE, but we knew the feedback from getting this beta out now would be very useful in enhancing other areas of the application. We have two updates planned that will first integrate driving directions directly in the Virtual Earth Interface, then add some features that will bring some pretty slick new functionality to web based driving directions.
Aerial Imagery – A lot of you want to see newer imagery in the system. For this beta, we took the imagery that we had in our TerraServer and used it to create our aerial layer in VE. Yeah, in a lot of areas the imagery is really old and often in B&W. (For a look at places where we have Hi Res imagery, note the dark green patches on this map at TerraServer) Of course we want to have aerial imagery of this quality and resolution for all of the geographies covered by Virtual Earth, but like all of our features this will be an evolution. We are working with our imagery providing partners to get updated imagery in the system asap. On a related note, a lot of you were alarmed to see that we had removed the Apple headquarters off our map. Our full plan is to of course remove each of our competitor’s headquarters from the map, but we just didn’t have time to get to this in the beta. By the time we get to our final release, we’ll have this feature nailed down. ;-)
Everyone digs the Scratchpad! - The feature suggestions coming in to enhance the scratchpad are really inspiring. We had a feeling this would become a popular feature, but we had no idea how passionate people would become about being able to ‘stick notes to the refrigerator door’ and share them with friends. For instance, check out my favorite lunch places near my office. The limitation of adding 5 elements to the Scratch pad is definitely a temporary limit for the beta, and there will soon be options to save the contents of your scratchpad in a more permanent manner than just cookies. We have heard your requests to make sharing your Scratchpad with friends easier. Watch for some major improvements to this area of Virtual Earth in our next major update.
International Coverage – Most functionality in this Beta release of Virtual Earth, including the map coverage, is for the United States only. Yes, we could have released the beta as “Virtual USA”, and renamed it in the near future when we begin rolling out coverage in more countries, but getting products renamed here at Microsoft once they are public is a little tricky; the ‘brand police’ would be on us like a starved pit bull and no one wants that. The other option was to not release a public beta at all while we preparing our international coverage, but as I mentioned above team here felt that getting feedback from users in a public beta was really important to insure our final V1 release has the goods that users want. The result is a beta release that only covers the US, but this will not be the case for long. Over at our MSN Maps site, we offer maps, geocoding, and driving directions in 9 languages for over 20 countries. Our plans call for getting all of these countries and more included in Virtual Earth.
Developers, developers, developers - A bunch of you asked about building applications that integrate Virtual Earth’s mapping capabilities. We have you covered! Neil Roodyn has set up a developer center and application gallery at www.viavirtualearth.com . Check it out! He has great tutorials that will have you building your first Virtual Earth enhanced app in 15 minutes, guaranteed. Currently the Virtual Earth map control is available for free for non commercial applications. If you are interested in developing commercial mapping applications with VE, we’ll have more information available real soon. The MapPoint team here at Microsoft has been supporting commercial application developers for 4 years now with our MapPoint Web Service, and we are definitely going to be offering commercial use of Virtual Earth realy soon. Stay tuned to our blog for details in the near future or email us if you just can’t wait to begin using VE in your commercial apps.
So keep the feedback coming! Enjoy using Virtual Earth, and stay tuned for some exciting enhancements and new features based on your feedback.
Thanks,
Steve Lombardi and The MSN VE team
Where is Steve? Find out at:
http://www.whatididwaswrong.com/whereissteve/
注：因为许离开经观事件，才在网络上找到我曾经批评经观的一篇文章，写于2002年7月1日，当时何力四处在宣扬他的“理性、建设性”，许知远也开始了他的美国采访旅行。七一那天的《经济观察报》，可以说是他们两人的一个大检验，让人知道，何的理性建设性可以到什么地步，以及许的知性和优雅的政治界面到底是什么。
此文3年前写就，那是我还是王小波的信徒，喜欢制造一些前后照应的段子，现在看来，未免幼稚，如果现在写，会厚道得多。那时，我刚刚进入《21世纪环球报道》，这张报纸虽然后来早夭，但她和她的集团系列报纸告诉我：个人表达欲望是多么得不重要。
看到《经济观察报》，才想起党生日
2002年07月01日
我在小学里面接受的是完全共产主义的教育，自然我党各种属性我们都弄得很清楚，从籍贯、生日到始作俑者，还知道为了生日好记，后来特别改了户口，变成了今天的7月1日。
好日子不长久，之后学校不断被那些自由派占领，我内心腐化堕落的冲动也随着我的成长逐步浮出水面，到最后，我能记住我所有女朋友的生日，但却逐步淡忘了对中国人民最为重要的我党的生日。有人说，丫你骗人，你不是天天看新闻联播吗？可是一年开一次生日派对容易记，像新闻联播那样天天庆祝我党的伟大成就，说实话，能找到真正的生日还是比较难的。
但是令我兴奋的是，我今天竟然在我党的生日前夜恢复了红色记忆。事情是这样的，我陪一个新MM看电影，到地铁报摊买报纸，正准备买《新闻周刊》显示自己关心时事，突然发现大学生最热爱的橙色《经济观察报》今天社论的标题换了红色，而且还移到了正栏，我再定睛一看，差点没把我吓死，竟然是《马克思主义在中国的新发展》。
人在遇到无法解释的事情的时候总是很窘迫。你想想，一个和其他经济类报纸你死我活的市场报纸，突然像抽筋一样和你讲马克思主义理论的新发展，就好像社长被绑架一样让人吃惊；平时鼓吹“理性、建设性”，并且处处向西方传媒学习的“大报”，突然以一种大无畏的精神去谈社会主义的优越性是什么，在一瞬间变成“橙色人民日报”，这难道不让人怀疑吗？
一不小心翻到广告页，不看不要紧，一看再吓我一跳。一个整页房地产公司的招聘广告，标题竟然用最大号黑体字写道：“紧急！诚邀中共党员”。我在论坛久了，知道“中共”两个字是论坛敏感关键字，《经济观察报》的这个广告我一开始还以为是二次组党声明，吓得我下意识去找鼠标，准备最快速把它删除。
让我佩服的不仅是《经济观察报》的胆量，更是它的花钱如流水。它花钱让它的主笔许知远和一帮哥们环游世界，竟然会问出下面的问题：（许知远在波士顿问一个国际关系教授傅士卓）“你如何看待江泽民总书记的‘七一’讲话？”当然，这个不知道是什么人的傅士卓也不会驳远道而来的中国大记者面子，说：“这是一个非常好的讲话。”问题是，这些问题让随便哪个非洲国家驻华大使说，不是更省钱，为什么要跑到波士顿去？
所以整个电影我其实没有看好，我一直在想《经济观察报》这是怎么了，为什么如此抽筋。散场之后，我坐在mm身边看了1个小时她漂亮的脸蛋，终于明白了事情的原因：明天是我党的生日，《经济观察报》正在以全部的家当加上主笔记者们所有的才华在向我党献礼，祝愿它洪福齐天。
好感动。所以，我突然对身边mm说，你做我女朋友吧，我蛮好的其实。结果只得到一句，“你丫先照照镜子再说”。
最近的天气岂一个热字了得，出趟门就像上刑场。没办法，只好老待在空调房里。估计有不少朋友已经得了cabin fever。
Cabin fever并不是真正的发烧，不过我倒觉得描述现在的情形很贴切：大热天的，难免心烦气燥，火气冲天。这个词组的定义是：Boredom, restlessness, or irritability that results from a lack of environmental stimulation, as from a prolonged stay in a remote, sparsely populated region or a confined indoor area.
很显然，我们属于后一种情况——from a confined indoor area （i.e. air-conditioned rooms）。
关于这个词组的来源，始终没有定论。比较流行的有两种说法：
1. It possibly originated from the United States at the time when settlers would be snowed in frequently, in remote unsettled lands, with no communication with the outside world.
2. A possible source for this phrase could be that during an outbreak of some disease, people who had a fever were confined to a cabin as a quarantine. Hence the phrase 'Cabin Fever'.
我觉得两种解释都说得通，后者更贴近字面意思一些。有兴趣的朋友可以去看看同名电影，或许能得到些提示。
(image via Amazon.com)
另外，stir-crazy跟cabin fever的意思差不多，但词性不同（前者形容词，后者名词）。参考定义：Distraught or restless from long confinement in or as if in prison.
定义里的prison并不完全是引申义，因为stir作为俚语就是prison的意思。有兴趣的朋友可以深究一下。我觉得用stir的本义（搅和，煽动）去理解stir-crazy也挺形象的——别惹我，烦着呢！谁跟我搅和我跟谁急！
Bonus videos: 1) Mariah Carey - It's Like That 2) Mariah Carey - We Belong Together