July 29th, 2010 benwong
我們經常看到上演古代電視劇, 皇帝常常一開口就是「朕」…如何如何，也都知道「朕」說的就是皇帝自己。但是，皇帝為甚麼要自稱為「朕」？
「朕」這個字最早並非是皇帝專用，而是人人都可以使用的自稱詞，即「我」的意思。如漢朝蔡邕《獨斷．卷上》：「朕，我也。古代尊卑共之，貴賤不嫌，則可同號之義也。」又《楚辭˙屈原˙離騷》：「朕皇考曰伯庸。」另《書．堯典》：「帝曰：『咨，四岳，朕在位七十載，汝能庸命，巽朕位。』」
但到了秦始皇統一天下後便規定，只有天子才可以自稱「朕」。因此「朕」這個字自秦始皇之後，就專屬皇帝的自稱詞了，後來一直沿用至清朝。如《史記˙卷六˙秦始皇本紀》：「臣等昧死上尊號，王為『泰皇』，命為『制』，令為『詔』，天子自稱曰『朕』。」
不過，在皇太后聽政或是下詔時，皇太后也可以自稱為「朕」，這是較特殊的情況。如《漢書．郊祀志下》：「皇太后詔有司曰：『未見皇孫，食不甘味，寢不安席，朕甚悼焉。』」又《漢書．王莽傳上》：「太后以為至誠，乃下詔曰：『王氏女，朕之外家，其勿采。』」
其實早在先秦時，君王、諸侯都自稱為孤、寡、不穀。如《戰國策˙齊策四》：「是以侯王稱孤寡不穀，是其賤之本與非。」另《老子˙第三十九章》：「故貴必以賤為本，高必以下為基。是以侯王自稱孤寡不穀。」意思是說，貴必定以賤為根本，高必定以下為基礎。因此侯王們自己稱為孤、寡、不穀。由此可知，孤、寡、不穀都是王侯們的自謙詞了
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July 22nd, 2010 benwong
Cleaning up my anime backlog and come over Toaru Kagaku no Railgun / と あるかがくのレールガン. I know the review is not that good but didn’t expect it to be this bad. To be honest, it will get a passing grade if it is a stand alone anime. Animation style is good, good character design … etc. Only down side is the plot is kind of weak.
Problem is it is a spin off of Toaru Majutsu no Indekkusu / とある魔術の禁書目録. One of the best Sci-Fi fiction in the last few years. Tailgun has a lot of live up to and and honestly it fail badly. The original goal for the Railgun series is to supplement the main plot and to offer a different point of view of such a complex world. Instead it is just another so so anime.
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July 21st, 2010 benwong
The International Tokyo Toy Show just wrap up in Japan at the Big Sight. Here are a few clips from the show.
Because of the video games market, the show scope is getting smaller by the years. Only 158K attendants which include the press and general public. Not too many interesting stuff, The highlights seem to be stuff like Yummy Dough you are supposed to eat, gummy insects, and a Wii clone golf game. Look like education related game for small child still have some market.
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July 20th, 2010 benwong
Didn’t have much time for shopping on my recent trip to Hawaii. At the last day I stop by the newly opened "Kona Mountain Coffee Shop” at the hotel complex and picked up some coffee beans as gift.
To tell the truth my hope was not high – most likely another overprice tourist trap. But to my surprise their coffee is actually very good.
If you consider yourself a coffee lover and have never tried anything from the Kona Mountain family, you owe it to yourself to try and track it down. For my taste the dark roast is the best pick. It is strong enough that it has a rich flavor to it. The smell while it is brewing is simply intoxicating and it is something that will definitely put a smile on your face first thing in the morning.
You can find Kona Mountain at selected retail stores or you can shop at their website, www.konamountaincoffee.com. The price is actually not too bad, it was only a little bit more than what I would pay at the grocery store for some of the so call “Hawaii Coffee”.
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July 19th, 2010 benwong
iPhone support basic voice control for some time now but for some reason the command list is not well publish.
To start the voice control
- From iPhone – Hold the home button for 2 seconds.
- From a wire headset – Hold the middle button for 2 seconds.
- From a Bluetooth headset – Refer to your headset manual to see how to enable “Phone build in voice command”. Some older Bluetooth headset does not support this and will require you to use the home button on the iPhone.
Phone Call Commands
|
Call someone in your contact list. You can add phone number type, such as “home”, “work”, “mobile”
|
“Call <contact name>”. Example “Call John Smith Mobile”.
|
| Dial a number |
“Dial <numbers>. Example “Dial 555 1212”. |
Music Control Commands
| Play music |
“Play music” |
| Play music from a playlist |
“Play playlist <list name>” |
| Play music from album |
“Play album <album name>” |
| Play music from a artist |
“Play artist <name>” |
| Pause music |
“Pause music” |
| Play Next Song |
“Next song” |
| Play Previous song |
“Previous Song” |
| Shuffle Play |
“Shuffle” |
| Play similar song (aka Genius) |
“Play more songs like this” |
| General Song information |
“What’s playing” |
| Specific song information |
“Who sings this song”. “What song is this” |
Other Commands
| Found out the time |
“What time is it” |
| Stop a voice command |
“Cancel” or “Stop” |
| Help |
“Help” |
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July 19th, 2010 benwong
I own a few home ice cream machines before but I never really like any of them. They all require you to pre-freeze the core overnight which kind of defeating their purpose. If I need to plan ahead overnight to make ice cream I may just as well drive over to the supermarket. Back then ice cream machine with build in freezer were very expensive and you need to make a lot of ices creams to break even.
The price of self contain ice cream machine come down in price a lot in US recently. What use to be a $600-700 machine last summer is now retailing at $200-ish. I looked into 3 of the more popular models: Cuisnart. Lello and DeLonghi and finally decided to goes with DeLonghi machine. Mainly because: 1. It is on sale at William Sanoma web site. 2. Out of the 3 it is the only machine which can make both gelato and ice cream. Cuisnart machine doesn’t have a air tight cover which means it can only make ice cream and Lello is the another way around which make it a good gelato only machine.
The first 2 batches of ice cream comes out very well. Due to the mixing pad design you will not get a lot of overrun (air in the ice cream) in this machine even with the lit off. Which is actually good in my book because it is what premium ice cream is anyway.
Now what I need is to dig up my old ice cream recopies collection … 
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July 18th, 2010 benwong
Want to use video call but can’t get it to works because of iPhone WiFi limitation. You will want to give the application Fring a try. It is not as polish as Facetime but at least it works. However you can only video chat with another user. It works reasonable well on AT&T 3G networks but running it off 3G will be expensive unless you have the unlimited data plan.
Another limitation is you can’t have a video chat wi th SkyPe user right now because of a FLAME war going on between Fring and Skype. Fring also support most of the IM standard like Goole, MSN and Yahoo; which is nice.
Fring is not very well polish and one of the part I hate the most is you can’t delete any “buddy” off its address book. Hopefully it will get address in some upcoming release.
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July 17th, 2010 benwong
ORB does works well and it is nice to have your collection of TV and Movies with you on the go. But it is not a very well polish S/W for sure. One of the more annoying “features” is its build in media database.
There are no build in tools to check or to repair the database and the file does get corrupted from time to time. Newly add files won’t show up in the play list if the file is corrupted (or most likely when ORB think it is corrupted). ORB support staff will always tell you to uninstall and reinstall ORB to rebuild the database, which is a painful process.
Here is what you can do to avoid the install/uninstall route.
You will need to have at least 2 accounts for his to works.
- Open ORB’s Control panel on the PC where the ORB Server is running and log into the secondary account.
- Once you are in, delete the first account from the computer which has the corrupted database.
- Add the account back to the system and re-setup the directory mapping.
This will force ORB to re-build the media database.
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July 17th, 2010 benwong
If you use ORB to watch your home TVs like I do than most likely you have already found out it does not working after you move to iPhone 4.
In iPhone4, ORB will works fine in WiFi connection but in the 3G network the picture and audio comes on for about 20-40 seconds then Orb shuts off the stream and goes back to the channel selection screen.
Here is what you need to do to fix it.
Open the file iphone3.0_3G.xml with a regular text editor and
Change: <needLowBitrateStream>1</needLowBitrateStream> to <needLowBitrateStream>0</needLowBitrateStream>
On some Release of ORB server this value can be as high as 3, just set it to zero.
While you have the file open you may also want to change: <bitrate>200000</bitrate> to <forcebitrate>100000</forcebitrate>. This is not needed to solve the problem but will help because AT&T 3G networks speed is usually lower than what they publish.
If your ORB serve is running on XP the file is in the directory: “c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\orb networks\streamprofiles\”
For Vista or Windows 7 you can find the file at: “c:\ProgramData\OrbNetworks\StreamProfiles\”. You will need to run your editor as “administrator” in order to edit the file in Windows 7 and Vista.
Also you will need to restart ORB after the change got it to take effect.
It will also help if you open the ORB iPhone client and “Streams Optimized For” value to the lower end of the “3G” and above “EDGE”. You can find the setting under "Settings/connection” menu tab.
Yes it is kind of annoying, but ORB is more or less free and it beats downloading the movies and TV show into iPhone through iTune.
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July 15th, 2010 benwong
We are not talking about the newly released patches which use a new signal formula. A few people have reported into sites like Gizmodo iFixit and iPhoneHacks that their newer iPhone has a “matted” stainless steel band instead of a shinny one – which could be some kind of non conductive coating.
iFixit exchange their day 1 iPhone with one of the new batch and they verify the new casing is in fact non conductive.
iFixit also suggest how users can find out:
If you got an iPhone in the last few days, check the serial number. If the production week is bigger than 27, try checking the impedance of the metal frame with a multimeter. If you hold the leads about an inch apart, the resistance should be less than one ohm. If it’s substantially higher, you may have a unit with the new coating. (Accuracy of multimeters varies dramatically, but we’d expect a nonconductive coating to have a very high impedance.)
You can find out which week your iPhone was manufactured from the serial number (seen in iTunes summary page). The first two digits of the serial number tells you the factory ID of where it was manufactured and the next three digits (Digits 3-4-5) tells you when it was manufactured.
Example: xx025xxxxxx – the 0 means 2010, and the 25 is the week of 2010 that it was manufactured.
[Gizmodo, iFixit, iPhone Hacks]
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July 15th, 2010 benwong
The new Facetime feature in iPhone 4 is a good idea but Apple doing it completely wrong. Beside requiring both phones to be connected to WiFi (which reduce the usability by at least 50%). It also require a series of ports to be open at the firewall for the connections to works.
To put in simple terms, if you don’t understand what firewall or ports are (which I guess is like 50% of the user base) then you can forget about Facetime.
If you know what those terms means but you can’t change the WiFi firewall/router setting then you are also toasted. Most companies, education places and even hotels will puts their WiFi network behind a firewall and you basically have no way to changes the setting, thus can’t use Facetime. Because Facetime require so many open ports it is very unlikely that any admin will agree to open them up.
In the rare case you have control on both side of the networks you must open
TCP:53, 80, 443, 4080, 5223
UDP: 16399-16472
Good luck in using Facetime in real life.
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July 14th, 2010 benwong
Picked up a a cheap $20 WiFi router from Frys which seems to resolve the iPhone WiFi connection problem. Funny part is iPhone fail to connect to higher grade hardware and prefer the low end stuff. I think the trick is to make sure the router is lock at 2.4Ghz range. Newer higher end router which support multi-band (2.4 and 5) all seems to have some kind of problems talking with iPhone 4.
As a FYI I am posting the router info.
- TRENDnet TEW-652BRp running firmware version 2.00.32
- 2.4Ghz 802.11b/g/n mixed mode
- Channel Width 20MHz.
- Enable SSID and WMM
- WPA-Auto / PSK and auto switch between TKIP and AES
- Non Hex Passpharse
- I have DHCP disable because I have a central DHCP server.
Hope this help.
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July 14th, 2010 benwong
Sanyo has launched the world’s first cooker that can turn rice grains into bread — an innovation that it hopes will be a hit across Asia.
The machine can mill a cup of rice grains into rice flour, then mixes it with water, gluten, yeast and other ingredients to bake a loaf of bread in four hours, Sanyo Electric said.
The machine is named "GOPAN" in Japan — coined from "gohan", meaning cooked rice, and "pan", Spanish for bread. Sanyo will start exporting it to other Asian countries next year after its Japanese launch in October.
The home use bread machine market is basically dead in US but is a booming market in Asia with a 30% yearly growth. I think part of the reason it fail in US is there were too many cheap and poorly made model flooding the US market in the beginning. On top of it making bread is really an art more than science. Simply dumping all the ingredients into the machine will not make you quality bread.
Look like need to look for an importer at end of the year.
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July 14th, 2010 benwong
Playing with my iPhone 4 for the past 48 hrs. It is slightly better compare to my old 3G but it is VERY buggy. I am not talking about minor edge case issues here, some of the very BASIC phone functions are not working.
One most noticeable one is the WiFi connection. Google “iphone 4 WiFi connection” will result you with pages and pages of hits. Basically the new iPhone will only connect to a very selected set of WiFi router with a very specific setting. I have 2 WiFi network at home, one is pure 11N off a Dlink 11N access point and the other one is 11G off a Buffalo 11N router.
Although iPhone 4’s specs said it has 11n but it won’t see the 11N network at all because I have it running at 5Ghz mode. The new iPhone can only connect to a 11N Wi-Fi at the 2.4 GHz range. The only problem with 2.4GHz 802.11N is that most routers that support that band most likely support the 2.4GHz 802.11G band as well. Meaning that if a G device connects to the same network your N device does, it drops the entire 2.4GHz network to G speeds, and G ranges. So I am not going to dump down rest of the laptops connection just for iPhone.
As for the 11G network. Just like the rest of the millions of users out there I can’t get it to connect either. Well technically I can get it to connect but I need to get the router to be at 11B with no security and no MAC address filter. I am not going to open my home network just for the FaceTime calling.
The conclusion on the Internet point to a fundamental bugs in the iPhone 4 OS layer. The only way to solve it for now seems to be getting a pure 11G router. May give this a try if I can pick a cheap one at Fry’s today.
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July 13th, 2010 benwong
王母娘娘傳說中的女神. 原是掌管災疫和刑罰的怪神，後於流傳過程中逐漸女性化，而成為年老慈祥的女神。相傳王母住在崑崙山的瑤池，園裡種有蟠桃，食之可長生不老。亦稱為金母、瑤池金母、西王母。
根據古書《山海經》的描寫：「西王母其狀如人，豹尾虎齒，善嘯，蓬髮戴勝，是司天之厲及五殘。」（意思好像是說：西王母的外形『像人，長著一條像豹子那樣的尾巴，一口老虎那樣的牙齒，很會用高頻率的聲音吼叫。滿頭亂髮，還戴著一頂方形帽子。是上天派來負責傳布病毒和各種災難的神）。可見外形很恐怖，而且是位散發災疫的煞神！他住在「崑崙之丘」的絕頂之上，有三隻叫做『青鳥 的巨型猛禽，每天替他叼來食物和日用品。
但是在《穆天子傳》裡，西王母的言行卻又像是一位溫文儒雅的統治者。當周穆王乘坐由造父駕馭的八駿周遊天下，西巡到了崑崙山區，他拿出白圭玄壁等玉器去拜見西王母。第二天，穆王在瑤池宴請西王母，兩人都清唱了一些詩句相互祝福。
《漢武帝內傳》謂其為容貌絕世的女神，並賜漢武帝三千年結一次果的蟠桃。道教在每年的三月初三定為王母娘娘的誕辰，並於此日盛會，俗稱蟠桃盛會。
王母娘娘在歷史上確有其人. 事實上，被無數神話光環籠罩的西王母並非天仙，而是青海湖以西遊牧部落的女酋長.
距今3000至 5000多年前，曾經有過一個牧業國度──西王母國。其疆域包括今天青藏高原崑侖、祁連兩大山脈相夾的廣闊地帶，青海湖環湖草原、柴達木盆地是其最為富庶的中心區域。據考證，西王母古國當時的「國都」就在青海湖西畔的青海省海西蒙古族藏族自治州天峻縣一帶。
青海師範大學地理係張忠孝教授在其署名文章中指出﹕「值得說明的是，西王母既是一個古老部落國家的稱號，又是古國女王的尊號，代代相傳。」現存古籍證明，兩晉到明清乃至民國，青海草原地區、崑侖山南北有大量的女王部落存在，蘇毗部落是最有名的一個。
民間傳說中，有西方女兒國的故事，實際指的就是西王母國。所謂女兒國，並不是全部由女人組成的國家，而是祖祖輩輩由女人擔任皇帝的國家。女兒國實質上是母系社會的產物。
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July 9th, 2010 benwong
平民在電視肥皂劇中通常可以自由走動，衣服一樣，有點像現代的人. 但平民在古代中國卻沒有這樣的自由.
平民在古代可分為 2組: 賤民和良民.
所謂賤民，中國歷朝規定並不一致。嚴格說來，在法典中明確規定賤民之範圍，只有清代。賤民, 大約可分為兩大類：一是奴婢、倡優、隸卒、佃僕、樂戶等，二是墮民、丐戶、九姓漁戶、疍戶等。前者基本以職業劃分, 全國皆然, 成員有的是繼承父祖身份, 有的則是從高等級降轉, 譬如良民中的破產商戶, 或犯罪縉紳. 後者則僅存在於局部地區, 成員全部是繼承父祖身份.
良民,《大清會典》稱, “四民為良”，也即軍、民、商、灶四類. 其中的灶戶也許略需解釋, 即煎鹽之人不是廚師.
特別有意思的是, 在清代, 隸卒皆屬賤民. 所謂隸卒, 即在衙門服役的皂隸, 馬快, 步快, 門子, 仵作, 糧差等. 以現代公共管理眼光看, 他們差不多算是基層公務員. 因此，小說中“六扇門”高手都是低層賤民.電視劇中步快不可能和縣官坐在同一張桌子.
清代之賤民, 在法律地位, 婚姻關係乃至服飾上都較良民而不平等. 最關鍵的是, 賤民被剝奪了參加科舉與出仕的權利, 因此幾乎沒有向上等級流動的可能.
清廷也有註意到此點. 雍正元年開始, 山西/陝西的樂戶, 浙江的墮民, 九姓漁戶, 廣東疍戶以及常/昭的丐戶, 陸續開豁為良.但乾隆三十六年又規定，各類賤民改業後的第四代子孫才能獲得捐考資格, 且“本族親支均係清白自守者”, 依舊存在對往昔賤民的歧視與權利剝奪.而部分賤民群體, 至清末仍未能真正“改賤為良”.
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July 5th, 2010 benwong
Finally starting watching the Spring Anime season. Most of the series are kind of disappointing (Kissxsis is an good example). However “Angel Beats! / “エンジェル ビーツ” is a surprisingly well done Anime, with a great plot line and interesting characters.
The story follows the main protagonist Otonashi, a boy who lost his memories of his life after dying. Upon awakening in the afterlife, he meets a girl named Yuri who invites him to join the Shinda Sekai Sensen (SSS) / 死んだ世界戦線 / Afterlife War Front, an organization she founded and leads which fights against God for the cruel fates the SSS members experienced in life. Their only enemy in the world is the school’s student council president Angel, a being with supernatural powers who fights against the SSS. It get a good mix of everything, including some awesome songs.
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July 1st, 2010 benwong
hea是香港流行用語. 此詞語大約於二十世紀九十年代末開始流行，於二十一世紀初，果汁飲品利賓納(Ribena)在廣告中使用此詞語，相信是"hea"首次在大眾傳媒正式出現。同一時期，香港商業電台節目「芝see姑bi Family」經常使用此字，令此字更廣泛流通。
「Hea」，或者「去hea」和「響度hea」，意思是「懶散」、「無聊」、「無所事事」、「漫不經心」、「隨意閒玩蹓躂」，如用作形容詞，就是指「清閒」 。
Hea 字的由來，就是源自客家語，本意為斜行、斜倚及挑逗的意思，有關漢字寫作「迆」或「迤」.
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June 30th, 2010 benwong
Have not updating the blog for some time because I was on vacation. I switch to a topical theme today (to reflect on my vacation at Hawaii) and updated the server to Version 3.0. Will soon follow up with vacation photos.
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June 11th, 2010 benwong
Well not really a death ray but for $200 you can get yourself a 1W blue laser from Wicked Lasers. Yes I know you can go pick up the parts and build your own for less than $200 but you got to admit it their case looks good.
What can 1W laser do? well you can easily burning hole through a piece of cardboard, popping balloon and lighting a cigarette. On the other hand using it at a presentation may not be a very good idea.
[Spyder III Laser]
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June 9th, 2010 benwong
One of the hardest environmental task got to be the “Killing 2 cougar by knife” mission in the Master Hunter challenge. In this game cougar is as deadly and as stealthy as a ninja. It is easy for them to hunt you but not necessary the other way around. Here is what you can do to defeat this challenge without turning into meow-mix for the kitty.
- You don’t need to but it will be nice to load up on Bait and Medicine before you take on the challenge.
- Open the in game map and you will se a Boar icon North West of the Ranch. Go to that spot and next to the rail road is a small piece of flat grass land. It is the best place to finish this challenge.
- Clean up all the wolfs and boars will also help. Cougar does show up in this area so be careful when you are skinning the animals.
- Setup camp and save.
Easy way (but take a long time) is to wait for the “save a person from cougars” event to occur. Hang around a bit and hunt for wolf and boar and wait for the even to kick in. It is a random event so it will take some time. Save at camp and repeat as needed. Once the event kick in it is very easy. The NPC makes a perfect bait and distraction for the cougars and he will last for a very long time. So just chase after them and kill the cats with knife.
Normal way is a bit harder but you can get the challenge done in no time. Put down some bait on the ground in between the tracks and the small hill. If you are lucky (or unlucky depended on your POV) the game will swamp a cougar right after you are done. So get back to you horse right away and prepare to make a run for it.
If the game does swamp a cougar right away, you will want to pull away from it (on your horse) as quick as possible. Once you get to a distant pull out you gun and shoot the behind of the beast (the repeater works well). It will try to run away after the hit but is much slower. Chase it with your horse, jump down and finish it with your knife.
Most of the time wolf and boar will get swamp first, clean them out as needed and keep an eye out for the cougar. If you spot it first, then use the same process. The game will credit you as long as the final kill is done by the knife. Save at camp to rest the area if no cat show up.
After the successful first kill you will want to call up your horse from the inventory menu; this will force the game to do a save.
If you are unlucky enough and got kill by the cat, you will re swamp at the camp site. In the case the cat will still be in the general area so keep an eye out.
BTW this is also a nice spot for the next hunting challenge as long as you keep an eye out for the cats.
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June 8th, 2010 benwong
Alabama
It’s illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.
Alaska
Whispering in someone’s ear while he’s moose hunting is prohibited.
Arizona
Cutting down a cactus may earn you a twenty-five-year prison term.
Arkansas
It’s illegal to mispronounce the name of the state of Arkansas.
California
You may not eat an orange in your bathtub.
Colorado
It’s unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor (Denver).
Connecticut
A pickle cannot actually be a pickle unless it bounces.
Delaware
It’s illegal to get married on a dare.
Washington, D.C.
It’s against the law to post a public notice calling someone a coward for refusing to accept a challenge to duel.
Florida
If you tie an elephant to a parking meter, you must pay the same parking fee as you would for a vehicle.
Georgia
It’s illegal to change the clothes on a storefront mannequin unless you draw the shades first.
Hawaii
All residents may be fined for not owning a boat.
Idaho
A man must not give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing fewer than fifty pounds.
Illinois
It’s illegal to take a French poodle to the opera (Chicago).
Indiana
The value of pi is 4, and not 3.1415.
Iowa
One-armed piano players must perform for free.
Kansas
It’s illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits (Natoma).
Kentucky
Every citizen is required to take a shower once a year.
Louisiana
Biting someone with your natural teeth constitutes simple assault, but biting someone with your false teeth classifies as aggravated assault.
Maine
If you keep your Christmas decorations on display after January 14, you’ll be fined.
Maryland
It’s against the law to wash or scrub a sink, no matter how dirty it is (Baltimore).
Massachusetts
No gorilla is allowed in the backseat of any car.
Michigan
A woman may not cut her own hair without her husband’s permission.
Minnesota
It’s illegal to paint a sparrow with the intent of selling it as a parakeet (Harper Woods).
Mississippi
Walking a dog without dressing it in diapers is forbidden (Temperance).
Missouri
Children may buy shotguns in Kansas City, but not toy cap guns.
Montana
It’s a felony for a wife to open her husband’s mail.
Nebraska
Bar owners may not sell beer unless they brew a kettle of soup simultaneously.
Nevada
It’s illegal for men with mustaches to kiss women.
New Hampshire
It’s forbidden to sell the clothes you’re wearing to pay off a gambling debt.
New Jersey
It’s against the law for a man to knit during the fishing season.
New Mexico
Females may not appear unshaven in public.
New York
While riding in an elevator, you must talk to no one, fold your hands, and look toward the door.
North Carolina
It’s against the law to sing off-key.
North Dakota
It’s illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on.
Ohio
You must honk the horn whenever you pass another car, according to the state’s driver’s education manual.
Oklahoma
It’s forbidden to take a bite out of another person’s hamburger.
Oregon
State law requires dishes to be drip-dried.
Pennsylvania
It’s illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors.
Rhode Island
You may not bite off another person’s leg.
South Carolina
If a man promises to marry an unmarried woman, he is required by law to keep his promise.
South Dakota
It is illegal to lie down and fall asleep in a cheese factory.
Tennessee
Selling hollow logs is strictly forbidden.
Texas
You may not shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.
Utah
It is illegal not to drink milk.
Vermont
Women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth.
Virginia
Tickling a woman is unlawful.
Washington
It’s illegal to pretend that one’s parents are wealthy.
West Virginia
If you make fun of someone who does not accept a challenge, you risk a six-month prison sentence.
Wisconsin
Unless a customer specifically requests it, margarine may not be substituted for butter in a restaurant.
Wyoming
Unless you have an official permit, you may not take a picture of a rabbit from January to April.
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June 7th, 2010 benwong
AT&T’s upgrade offer for iPhone 4 is "generous," as Steve Jobs put it. Any iPhone owner eligible for an upgrade any time this year can upgrade immediately—up to six months early. But maybe you shouldn’t.
It seems clear that AT&T is desperate to hitch current iPhone owners to a new 2-year contract as soon as possible, rather than letting them linger for another six months. So the 64 millions question is "Why doesn’t AT&T want people to wait six months to upgrade?"
The official response from AT&T is:
“The reason we’re doing it is we recognize the commitment our current iPhone customers have made to us. We listened to people last year and took steps to make the process better. And we built on it this year by expanding further the approach.”
But keep in mind this is the same company who want to sue their customer of sending email to the company CEO. SO I personally don’t but the “listen to our customer part”.
It is most likely that there’s something coming in the next 6 months that’s got AT&T so worried, they’re cutting the upgrade cycle by 25 percent.
Some Possibilities are:
- Rumors from the Wall Street Journal that a CDMA iPhone is in the works.
- Because AT&T knows customer will jump ship because of the now horrible data plan.
- Sprint 4G Andorid phone will be in most major city in 6 months.
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June 7th, 2010 benwong
- Cowboys can’t swim and will die when standing in 2 feet of water.
- Chewing tobacco and 200 proof alcohol allow you to slow down time.
- Bandana works as good as Superman’s glasses. As soon as you wear it no one will recognize you.
- Cougars = ninja.
- The wild west had some of the most unattractive women.
- There were no kids in the old west.
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