Replay

It's so perfect that our replay work R2 finishes with an OSDI acceptance. Just got the news right before saying goodbye to my friends at MSR Asia. Awesome the past two years!

Silas's paper on multicore OS was also accepted. Congratulations!

Welly: Rethink the BBS

In the past month I have been hacking the Welly BBS term client while waiting for the visa approval. I was fortunate to work with some amazing people: aqua, gtCarrera, and KOed, who are nice, young, and smart. I envy them. :-)

The project was initially a fork of Nally, which was developed by yllan and now is maintained by jjgod. It uses Core Text for rendering, much faster than state-of-the-art (ATSUI based) BBS terms on Mac OS X. Nevertheless, we don't want a general terminal application; there are enough good ones. Welly is tailored for exploring BBS, where we can also try fancy stuff for fun, such as Cover Flow and Quick Look integration that I finished recently.




One day Geoff asked me why Chinese prefer such old-fashioned term BBS sites. Yes, this is a little bit weird. It seems that most people, particularly on-campus students, prefer telnet access and the terminal way to present and exchange ideas. Some even spend hours there every day, as I did. We are using terminal emulators that have a history of more than 20 years, though they may be implemented via modern technology. Many term BBS sites also provide Web access and may use AJAX extensively, however, the core parts are derived from aged systems, mostly either Firebird or Maple.

I can still remember the days in 2005, which consequently drove me to get down to preparing for GRE and brought me two awesome years at MSR Asia as well. It changed anything, as least to myself --- I once had a dream of having a good job and a stable life in the city but gave up after the hard time. Thanks to better who stood with me. The immediate issue of Sci-Fi World, the most popular Chinese sci-fi magazine, came up with a Ma Boyong's novel titled The City of Silence, which quoted from the famous song by Paul Simon:

People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening

I guess I might be overacted at that time, but there is no turning back.

Here is the move within a couple of weeks: Beijing => Haikou => Beijing => San Francisco => Boston.

Apologize

Apologize, a song.

I'm holding on your rope
Got me ten feet off the ground
And I'm hearing what you say
But I just can't make a sound

You tell me that you need me
Then you go and cut me down, but wait
You tell me that you're sorry
Didn't think I'd turn around, and say

That it's too late to apologize, it's too late
I said it's too late to apologize, it's too late

I'd take another chance, take a fall
Take a shot for you
And I need you like a heart needs a beat
But it's nothing new

I loved you with the fire red
Now it's turning blue, and you say
Sorry like the angel
Heaven let me think was you, but I'm afraid

Once

May 19-21 is the mourning period for quake victims, who speak the same dialect as I do. I was born there and sometimes lived in Chengdu during childhood. My cousins there have been telling me all about the horrible days. I wish them the best of luck.

Btw, got a nice birthday gift this morning, the music CD and DVD of the film Once including the song Falling Slowly. Thank you, my friend.

Falling Slowly

Falling Slowly, performed by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová in the movie Once, is the recent Oscar winner, the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You've made it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along

The second sleepless night this week, after listening to such amazing movie songs. Smile with tears, and sing with thanks and hope.

Building CIL on Leopard

Following the standard configure/make approach to build CIL on Mac OS X Leopard (10.5), one may encounter the following error:
Compiling obj/x86_DARWIN/feature_config.ml to bytecode
File "obj/x86_DARWIN/feature_config.ml", line 4, characters 1-2:
Unbound value n
make: *** [obj/x86_DARWIN/feature_config.cmo] Error 2

It is due to the echo command in the file Makefile.in (around line 230):
echo -n " (* EXTRAFEATURES: *)" >> $@
Because Leopard follows the UNIX specification more strictly, the syntax echo -n is no longer supported by /bin/sh.

To fix it, replace echo -n with printf, or use /bin/echo, or just omit the -n option.

See #1940018.

Gong Qi

Some pictures shot on Feb 10 during the Chinese new year, at Baoluo, Wenchang, Hainan. It's my friend Feng's hometown; I went there with him to see the famous "Gong Qi" ceremony.

"Gong" (literally, "lord") may refer to a chief or a leader of the early migrates to the Hainan island from the Mainland (one thousand years ago? not sure), as some people tell. If so, I guess the purpose of the ceremony may be similar to the thanksgiving. But some other people say it is related to Xian Furen (Madam Xian), a leader of the Yue peoples in southern China (in the 6th century), and the Feng family is her descendants.

Every year a lot of people come back from cities and share the time.


Fireworks after the ceremony.


Feng's little boy. Cute? :-)


The quiet village.