A Boy with No Name, by Travis

I've been listening to Travis's latest album, A Boy with No Name, the last few weeks. Before I say anything else, I must complain about the practice of having a bonus track. In this age of digital music, it is a major pain to have a nine-, ten-minute long unit containing the last official song, several minutes of nothing, and then the bonus track. My CD player in the car isn't smart enough to jump to the bonus track, so either I have to keep one finger on the fast-forward button while driving, or I'm stuck listening to several minutes of blank. To make matters worse, a typical commercial program such as iTunes cannot easily separate the two tracks, so I end up having to use cdparanoia on Linux to rip select segments. But tracks obtained this way contain no album information. Yes, I know I'm nitpicking, however, I just don't see the point of bonus tracks. In the case of some albums, the bonus tracks are just a few simple lines that are best ignored. Travis's bonus tracks though have always been bona fide songs, often of higher quality than some of the listed tracks. What is the point of continuing this archaic practice?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... I find this album to be much better than their previous album, 12 Memories. My favourite songs are 3 Times and You Lose, Closer, My Eyes, and the bonus track. 3 Times and You Lose has the haunting style reminiscent of As You Are from their second album, The Man Who. Closer and My Eyes are more energetic and at the same time full of emotions. The bonus track is a classical Travis affair, a lovely melody supported by quick beats. A number of other songs in the album are highly likeable also. It's one of their best work to date.

IM on Linux

I've been playing with MSN Messenger clones the last little while. In the old days when I was an undergrad, the "talk" program on UNIX was popular among CS students. Since leaving university, I stopped using "talk". Sure, I know that lots of people use IM, and text-messaging is all the rage in certain parts of the world, but the phone has always been much more convenient.

Recently, after re-establishing contact with old high school friends back in China, I found out that many of them are enthusiastic IM users. All methods considered, it's a neat way of chatting with people in faraway places. I decided to join the rest of the world. First, I started with MSN Messenger on my Windows-based laptop -- no problem. Next, I downloaded Microsoft's Mac version, and installed it on the iMac -- not as good as the Windows version, but it works. Finally, Linux. I'm now using Ubuntu (it's the best Linux distribution I've ever had). A little on-line research suggested AMSN, an MSN clone. No troubles with installing it, and it appeared to work well until I tried to input Chinese characters: some characters won't show up. Turns out AMSN doesn't offer Asian languages support. All right, let's try the other MSN clone mentioned by Linux users, Pidgin. Well, this one is great, even better than MSN. It can combine several IM accounts (e.g. MSN, GoogleTalk, Yahoo), and it displays Chinese characters without a glitch. Excellent!

Another thing I did on my Linux box was to add Input Method support so I can switch easily between English and Chinese. It took some work, but I got it going. Later, I got the same working on the iMac and the laptop.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman

My mum bought me this terrific book. I could do without the few chapters on Feynman's adventures with the ladies, but the rest is fun stuff. I discovered that I share many of his views. The very last chapter of the book, which is very serious, should be a must-read for all those who aspire to become a scientist, and all who wish to understand how scientific research should be done.

Bizet's Carmen

When I was growing up, my mum listened to classical music at home all the time. By osmosis, I became familiar with the likes of Beethoven, Bach, et al. The story my mum likes to tell to this day is, once, I proclaimed Carmen to be a "bad woman." Why? Because if she's already with somebody, she shouldn't go off with someone else. Clearly, I was quite a prude even at a young age.

Since then, I've seen the Canadian Opera Company's production of Carmen, listened to the opera on my CD many times, and come to realize that Carmen isn't a "bad woman." Besides, who cares about stories in operas? They're all hokey anyway. The music is where the magic is. A few days ago when I found out that the Empire Theatres were showing the Royal Opera's production of Carmen, I convinced Jeff to go.

Well, it wasn't bad. Every song is as familiar and energetic as ever, yet when I looked around the almost packed cinema, I had to wonder about the future of opera because everywhere I turned, I saw people with grey hair, with walkers, with oxygen tanks! And I can't blame young people for not wanting to take part. At times, the music is dull, and the story silly. Even though I still love classical music, I'm not one who believes that the arts must be rescued at all costs. It's the way it is: some things survive, others fade away.

The Blue Nowhere, by Jeffery Deaver

The Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver

My mum gave me this book as a birthday present. The story is interesting but technically flawed. I hate it when people who don't really understand computers attribute human-like characteristics and god-like powers to machines. Get a theory of computation book first for crying out loud!