Homeless

This post is a translation of my other post in Chinese.  I wrote that to share my personal reaction toward a recent incident in Taiwan: the municipal administration used water jets to drive away homeless people in the park in a cold evening.

Please note that since this is a direct translation from the original Chinese post, the composition flow may not be as natural to English readers. Please bear with me and hear out what I have to say, if you are interested in reading this anyway.

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When I moved from Southern California to Philadelphia for my graduate study in 1998, I was shocked to see so many homeless people. I witnessed a country in which the rich can personally own a hill, while the poor would seek food in the garbage can.  While some spend their afternoons watching seagulls with their beer on the beach, some others try to survive a cold night by staying close to the external vent of a building's heater.

街友

(English readers, you may be interested in my English translation of this post.)

記得1998年從美國西岸加州到美國東岸費城讀書時，第一次見到眾多的遊民，大為震憾。美國這個國家，有人富有到坐擁山頭，有人窮到得從垃圾筒翻出別人吃剩的便當出來填肚子；有人每天下午到海灘看沙鷗喝啤酒，有人每天晚上得縮在高樓旁的暖氣通風口取暖度冬夜。

那時候我很幸運，獎學金夠我過日子，也夠幫一兩位社區內的街友多買個便當。日子久了，和他們聊起來，才知道他們幫國家打仗受傷，戰後政府沒有好好照顧他們，他們寶貴的年輕時間都在戰場上耗掉了，退伍後年紀大要再回學校已是很困難。付擔不起房租，所以居無定所；想要好好老實找份工作，大部份的業主看到他們沒有個固定的住址，都不願意給他們機會。收容所的環境很不好，通風不良，傳染病問題嚴重，生了病很難好，再加上收容所的工作人員對待這些遊民的人態度極度不佳，讓他們寧可餐風露宿，也不願自尊被人踐踏。

Google Earth Game: Amazing Race

Penn State's Amazing Raceis a game I implemented for a university course taught by Dr. Laura Guertin.

The source code is packed into a zip file for your convenience.

About this blog 關於本網誌

The primary topics covered in this blog are listed as "labels" (Arts, Composition, Technology, etc.) so please use them if some topics are less interesting to you.

I see myself as a citizen of the globe and I believe sharing thoughts in an honest way helps make the world a little bit better. A lot of people are already doing this in a much better way, and I do my small share with this blog. I write things that I think may help somebody out there.

"Still reflection" sounds non-English and it gives away the fact that English is not my native language. I hope one day the machine translation technology will allow everyone in the world to express themselves with their most comfortable language. However, before that day comes, I still choose the most international language (at the time of writing) to write most posts because I believe linguistic origins should not impair the exchange of thoughts and ideas. Sometimes I'll write in other languages if the specific contents benefit the readers of those languages the most.

This blog contains decades of posts and earlier posts do show the immaturity and the big ego of an ignorant young man. This blog, therefore, records my growth and self-reflection.

You can read more about blog organization details here.

本網誌涵蓋的主題列在Labels之下(藝術，音樂創作，科技等等)。 您可用來篩選您有興趣的主題。

作為一個世界公民，我認為誠懇地交換思想能讓這個世界變好。很多人已做得比我更好，我希望用這個網誌來盡我一小份心力。希望我分享的東西對某些人有幫助。

「靜思語」的英文翻譯聽來很東方。所以英文讀者一看就猜得出英文不是我母語。希望自動翻譯的科技有一天能讓每個人都用自己最熟練的語言來表達思想，讓不同語族的人都能交換溝通。但在那天到來之前，我只好用目前最國際化的語言來寫。有些內容我用非英文寫，那應該是該內容對某特定語族較為相關。

這個網誌存了幾十年來的文章。從早期的文章可以看出我年輕時的自大與不成熟。所以，這個網誌其實也記錄了我的成長與自省。

我之前也寫了幾篇關於這個網誌的介紹，有興趣可以參考。

Contact 與我聯繫

If you are responding to one of my posts, please leave your comments there. If you have a reason to send me a private message, please use this form. However, please understand that I may or may not be able to reply to your message, although I will try.

Note that the old contact method no longer works.



如果您要對我某篇文章做回應，請直接在該篇文章回應。如果您仍覺得有必要寄私信給我，請填此表格。

舊的聯絡方式已失效。

Create distinguishable device IDs for two Dell Keyboards

I like the Dell keyboard SK-8115 (or L-100) because of the left Ctrl key allows my palm to hold it naturally (as opposed to moving my pinky, or worse, my thumb, toward it by twisting my wrist). When I am setting up MultiSeat under X11, I need to distinguish the two keyboards. Unfortunately, both of them come up as /dev/input/by-id/usb-Dell_Dell_USB_Keyboard-event-kbd (the latter recognized one overwriting the first one) so in my xorg.conf I can't specify either.

Fortunate for me, they have different product ID (by "cat /proc/bus/input/devices") so I can create a udev rule to produce two different device nodes. (Update: even if both devices have the same product ID, one can still distinguish them according to their USB port addresses)

/etc/udev/rules.d/60-dell-keyboards.rules

# /etc/udev/rules.d/60-dell-keyboards.rules
# udev rules for dell keyboards.
# This solves the problem of the same /dev/input/by-id/usb-Dell_Dell_USB_Keyboard-event-kbd problem while I need to distinguish the two Dell Keyboards
# ref: http://reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html
# ref: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/linuxwacom/index.php?title=Fixed_device_files_with_udev

KERNEL!="event[0-9]*", GOTO="dell_key_end"

# Port specific link for users of multiple keyboards of the same type.
# The ID_PATH variable is set by the "path_id" script in an earlier rule file.
ATTRS{idVendor}=="413c", ENV{ID_PATH}=="?*", SYMLINK="input/by-path/$env{ID_PATH}-dell"

# Type-named links for multiple keyboards
ATTRS{idVendor}=="413c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2003", SYMLINK+="input/dell_keyboard_2003"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="413c", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2105", SYMLINK+="input/dell_keyboard_2105"

LABEL="dell_key_end"

Scan old black and white books

I had to digitize an old book with yellowed pages and the following bash command helped me to do the job.

convert is part of ImageMagick package. pdftk is a utility to manipulate pdf files.

-threshold split all colors into black and white. +delete removes the extra page created from cropping.

mkdir work
for i in *[13579].png; do convert $i -crop 2544x3250 +repage -threshold 40% +delete work/$i.pdf; done
for i in *[02468].png; do convert $i -crop 2544x3250 +repage -threshold 40% +delete -flip -flop work/$i.pdf; done
cd work
pdftk *pdf output ../all.pdf