Dates, My Eee PC, cats, eye checkup

Remembering Dates

While teaching one of my English students, I got flustered when I couldn't remember when email got started. This spurred me on to produce the table below. I suppose with everything "on the web" we really don't need to remember these things, but it's good to be reminded.

About half of these dates come from a book "1001 Inventions that changed the world" from the Taipei City Public Library, the other half comes from Wikipedia entries. I started after 1950 because I was born in 1950, many of the entries are of importance to me(and may be not so much for others.) Most of these dates are the first usage, invention, first available ...not necessarily when the invention came into wide spread use, but at least the date is a lower bound on when the technology became available.

(I remember in the first campaign against Obama, it came out that John McCain didn't know how to use email and liked casino gambling. Thank God(if there is a God) that he never became president of the most powerful country in the free world. That he has been a senator from Arizona for 26 years speaks volumes about Arizona.)

((Now that the Republican Party no longer has a black man to run against, where are all the racists in the US going to cast their votes?.))

My Eee PC

This past week, my ASUS Eee PC netbook died. It was a tough cookie for almost 4 years and made 7 trips with me across the Pacific Ocean. It was unique, in that it had no hard disk, only 8GB and 20GB internal memory drives. That amount of storage wouldn't be enough for that fat, clumsy, slow oaf called windows, but it was enough for all my C/C++/Arduino/Processing programming on Ubuntu Linux.

My eyes will probably never go back to the small screen of a net book(let alone an android phone, ... ) From now on, I'll be into desktops and big flat screen monitors.


Audio Books

This time in Taiwan, Florence and I have been listening to a lot of audio books from the Seattle Public Library. It's easy to download the books and play them when we are both working on the computers.
Recently we've listen to 2 books by Jonathan Franzen, "Freedom" and "Discomfort Zone" both were very good. Franzen is a bird watcher and is no friend of nonhouse cats.

Maybe by coincidence, this story appeared in the China Post today:


Friendly felines are really natural born killers: US study

By Laura Zuckerman, Reuters
January 31, 2013, 12:06 am TWN

Reuters--Think of cats as cute purring bundles of fur? Think again. A new study says free-roaming kitties are
serious killers. Such cats are a leading cause of deaths of birds and small mammals in the United States, with pet and ownerless cats blamed for killing up to 3.7 billion birds and as many as 20.7 billion other animals each year, government scientists said in a study released on Tuesday.

Ownerless cats, including barn cats, strays and feral colonies, are behind the vast majority of bird and mammal deaths, according to the study, “The impact of free-ranging cats on wildlife in the United States,” published Tuesday in the online journal Nature Communications.

The study is the first to compile and systematically analyze rates of cat predation. It suggests cats cause
“substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought,” and are likely the single greatest source of
mortality linked to human settlement for U.S. birds and mammals.

The findings by researchers with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service show the bulk of birds killed by cats in the United States — excluding Alaska and Hawaii — were native species such as robins, finches and chickadees.

Cats largely prey on non-native mice and rats in densely populated urban areas where native wildlife is scarce, the research shows.

By contrast, cats in suburban and rural areas kill mostly native mice, shrews, voles, squirrels and rabbits,
according to the study authored by Peter Marra and Scott Loss of the Smithsonian and Tom Will of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Division of Migratory Birds.

Domestic cats, introduced globally by humans, are considered among the 100 worst nonnative invasive species in the world yet control of the creatures has not been widely addressed by local, state and federal governments, the study shows.


My Eyes


Today I had a 1 month checkup after my last laser treatment for detached retina. The doctor said the retinas are attached and the treatment was a success. I knew that, but my eyes are still not as good as this summer. Part of the problem is that I now need cataract surgery and part of it is that the eyes still need time to recover from the laser treatment for detached retina. And my prescription glasses are way out of wack from where my eyes are now.


So on March 8th I will get cataract surgery on my left eye which is the worst of the two. Then maybe I'll get new glasses when I return to the US. And then I will have cataract surgery on the right eye when I return to Taiwan in the Fall.


I can now read a newspaper without glasses, but I need binoculars to read street signs that are maybe 30 feet away. Luckily, I know Taipei pretty well.

Zhong Shan Auditorium

In 1935, Japan had been the governing authority of Taiwan for 40 years. Japan was proud of its colonies Korea and Taiwan, which made Japan like all the European powers(England, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, .. ) that had colonies around the world. (The US had the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Liberia, ... as colonies too.)

To celebrate the the 40th year of being a colonial power, Japan built a memorial hall on the site the defeated Qing Dynasty court house. It was the Taipei City Hall. After Japan was defeated in  WWII it was renamed ZhongShan Hall, (Zhong Shan means "central mountain" which was the honorific name for Chang Kai-Sheik, the Nationalist Dictator of China,(many main roads and parks in Taiwanese cities today have the name "ZhongShan" as part of the cult of personality of Chang Kai-Sheik)).

When the Western World still saw Chang Kai-Sheik as the alternative to the communist Mao TseTung this was the place to visit "China". But now the world realizes that China is not "communist",  just another party dictatorship controlled by something called the CCP, the "Chinese Communist Party". Just another dictatorship controlled not by one man but by a "party", like Vietnam or Singapore. Capitalism is good, even by an entity called the "Communist Party", let's not get hung up on titles. As long as a dictatorship says it is capitalistic, that's enough. Money is number one, don't forget that!

Even now, 77 years later, it is still an impressive building in the middle of downtown Taipei.

 At one time,  Taiwan used receptions at ZhongShan to poke China in in the eye as an alternative. Here we have the current President Ma Ying Jiu greeting the spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama. at ZhongShan in 2009. Even now President Ma wouldn't repeat this performance for fear of upsetting Mainland China.(Money does not talk, it shouts!).

Nowadays, the auditorium addresses less controversial topics like Chinese arts and music. There are art galleries, flower arrangements, and music lessons. The classrooms for music are exceptional.

Last trip to Gu Chi Fung

I have written about the amusement park/museum/temple in HsinChu before:

http://tainanchineseclass.blogspot.tw/2010/02/hsin-chu.html

When my family spent 2 years in HsinChu from 1992-1994, we loved going to the GuChiFeng amusement park/Museum.

There was the Museum for the adults and the amusement park/mazes for the kids. It was such an eclectic place, that everyone could find something to do. Nowadays,with the internet, everyone can find something to do, but it is not as a group.

Florence and I recently went back to HsinChu to see GuChiFeng, but the park has fallen on hard times. They no longer collect an entrance fee, they just let visitors wander in and see what is left, several buildings are locked up, packing boxes are strune everywhere, what they contain we don't know. The Museum was famous for displaying items without a timeline or a space connection. Every corridor had no theme.

I heard the Museum obtained such an eclectic mix of items because the owner bought objects from the 1949 refugees from mainland China, as the communist forces pushed the nationalists to Taiwan. 

For me, the most interesting object from that time was a protoceratops skull. Here are my photos from 20 years ago.

 Where is that fossil now? I don't know. It is no longer on display at GuChiFeng. I really thought it was a unique item, even 20 years ago, but of course the provenance is nonexistent.

Still on display is the largest collection I know of the "3 inch lotus" slippers from the days of foot binding in China. The abolishing of "Foot binding" (see wikipedia) is only a 100 years old.

Everyone knows that Chinese invented gunpowder and at GuChiFeng, there is a wooden "canon" on display. It took the Europeans to make the canon into a more deadly weapon made of metal. There is a story that the Jesuits made little progress in China until they taught the Chinese to build canons of metal. for the greater good, the Jesuits taught the Chinese to make the weapons of war.

And there are strange exhibits, like the inhabitants of the Buddhist's version of Hell.

Well this was the last time we visit, the memories are better than what is still there.

Chiayi -> Alishan -> Budai -> Puzi

Last week Florence and I took a trip to Southern Taiwan. We took the Ubus down to Chiayi a town just north of Tainan and stayed in a nice hotel for 2 days.

After arriving in Chiayi, we walked around the city sampling the "southern cuisine". It seems the vegetarian movement has fertile ground for expansion in Chiayi.

I don't know if this way of trimming the trees count as topiary, but Chiayi has many of them lining the wide streets.

On the second day, we took a minibus up to the park of the top of Mount Alishan. I have written about Alishan before as part of a school field trip when I was at Cheng Kung University.

http://mikeess-trip.blogspot.tw/2011/05/ali-shan.html
http://mikeess-trip.blogspot.tw/2011/05/ali-shan-lumber.html

As we drove up the mountain, we drove though the Tea farms.

Tea plants are actually bushes and in Taiwan there are 2 crops per year with the plants getting a "haircut" so that the better young tea leaves can be picked later. The road up the mountain was an engineer feat and follows the old RR that use to haul the timber out during the Japanese time. Now it's mostly a tourist destination.

It's been warm in Taiwan, the cherry tree along the road were beginning to bloom.

Alishan is one of Taiwan's highest mountains at 2300 meters, (7546 feet). It is a huge park, I had completely missed the huge old growth Taiwan red cypress trees. Many of the old growth stumps look like those in Washington State.

But some of the uncut Taiwan Red Cypress trees are more than 2000 years old, one that was felled by lightning in the 1950s was more than 3000 years old. I think this was a young one at about 1900 years old.

We took a local bus "down the mountain" and the driver picked up a drunk who talked the whole way down. He was funny, but at times a little scary.

On the 3rd day we traveled from Chiayi to the coast and back to Chiayi before taking the Ubus back to Taipei. The fishing town on the coast is called Budai, it had a great fresh fish market and a huge mountain of salt. Here a dump truck is adding to the salt mountain.

 On the way back to Chiayi we stopped at Puzi. Puzi was a city in Taiwan as early as 1684 and this temple has been on this site since that time.

But we also got a tour of the Water Treatment Plant in Puzi which was really interesting as it had an old water tower from the Japanese time. The dome on top marks it as Japanese rather than Chinese.

Also the bracing of the structs at the base are in the shape of the Japanese Rising Sun.

Our final visit was to the Taiwanese needlepoint museum.

They were working on projects that require a 100 times the patience I have.

But a lack of patience also got me into trouble as I came back to Taipei with a terrible case of diarrhea. Which I probably got from not washing my hands enough.

Jaoixi, Taizhong, Chinese New Year is coming

Jiaoxi

This past weekend we had a Lee family gathering in Ilan, the ancestral home of the Lee family. Florence and I stayed in an apartment in Jiaoxi, a town to the North of Ilan.  Jiaoxi is famous for the natural hot springs and lots of tourist come for the both waters and the seafood. There is even a stream of hot springs water that runs through a park in the middle of the town.

 The gather was a big success, partly because we have Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy in our neighborhood.

 I recently heard a description of Chinese religious beliefs:
"When things are going good one is a Confucian (authoritarian), when things are going bad one is a Taoist (fatalist), when old and close to death, one is a Buddhist.

But maybe Guanyin's mercy was countered with the girl in this betel nut advertisement. ( I doubt that she has ever used betel nuy in her life, her teeth are too white.)

but never discount the power of religion, it is everywhere in Taiwan. Like this temple(Taoist) on the downtown street in Jiaoxi.

 Or this Camelite Catholic Church up in the mountains around Jaioxi where we went hiking.

 
TaiZhong - National Museum of Natural History

We recently took a day trip to the National Museum of Natural History in TaiZhong which is in central Taiwan.

This skeleton was actually found in Taiwan. During the last ice age there was so much water tied up in ice that the sea level dropped to a point so that there was a land bridge between Taiwan and present day China. The same there was a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska 10,000 years ago.

 There was an entire wing in the Museum of animated dinosaur models with sounds and movement to scare the pants off anyone.
Taiwan only emerged from the oceans 10 to 20 million years ago and all the dinosaurs died 65 to 70 million years ago, so no dinosaur bones will be found here.

While at the Museum we saw an IMAX movie about the translation of Mayan gylphs. They didn't really saw the world was going to end, and it didn't and it probably will not.
 
Chinese New Year

Chinese new Year is on February 10th. The stores have started displaying the decorations. Guess what the big color is.

My Eyes are slowly getting better.

Jing Mei, Xanji Hiking trailHike

JingMei, Xanji  Hike

 It's surprising to find such a nice hiking trail in the middle of Taipei.

From the JingMei stop on the Taipei MRT, their is a good map to the hiking trail.

 Taipei is located in bowl surrounded by mountains, but the Xanji hiking trail, located in the JingMei neighborhood of Taipei, is on a ridge elevated from the bottom of the bowl. To the left and right of the trail are the built up sections of Taipei.

 

Even the tallest building in Taipei can be seen from the ridge.

  The hiking trail is more than just an exercise route, it is a nature trail with educational plaques and wildlife:

a religious pilgrimage with temples:

and a literary excursion with poems along the way:

The trail is in good shape with rough granite hewed stone the whole way, is can be wet but is not slippery.

 There is plenty of beautiful nature along the way.

Although I went twice in the morning in the past 2 weeks, I was struck my the lack of bird calls. I think this because of the feral cats that I saw along the trail.

Universal Charger

At a local market in JingMei, I bought this charger. From a computer USB port you can charge up 10 different devices! It cost 80 NT that's about $2.75.

Also this year the postal rate for airmail to the US changed from 13NT to 15NT. So an airmail to the US now costs about the same as the first class letter in the US.

My eyes

My eyes are getting better, I can now almost read a newspaper without a magnifying glass.  

 

Western New Year's

Happy New Year!

The Western New Years is not as important as the Chinese New Years in Taiwan. This year is was a 4 day weekend from Saturday to Tuesday. Because Monday was not an official holiday, school children and salaried workers had to makeup that day by doing two half days on previous Saturdays.

It was a busy four days, with lots of family visits, outtings and dinners. Kind of just like Chinese New Years. This year, Chinese New Years is on February 10th and the holidays go for about 9 days from weekend to weekend.

My Arduino Project

Being close to home these past two month has been given me time to work on my linear actuator project. Most of the wiring has been done under magnifying glasses but an amazing about of wiring is actually done with the touch of the fingers without the eyes. I've written up the results on my web page.

  https://sites.google.com/site/essmike

Here are some pictures of it: 

 

I seem to be using my blog and web page to deposit the details of what I've done. (I wish I had been writing something this summer so that I might be able to narrow down when my eyes started going bad.)

I've done as much as I could here in Taiwan, most of my tools and materials are in Seattle.

Taipei Weather

 The weather this past month has been crazy. Last year when we arrived at the beginning of December it was cold and raining and we got colds. But this year the weather has been more variable with hot days up to 30 degrees C(86F) and a windy cold snap of less than 10 degrees C( < 50F). The wind chill brings it down even more, but for those on motorcycles there's another 30 mph contributing to the wind chill. Now I understand why some motorcyclists are dressed as if it's going to snow. It actually has snowed on some of the high mountains in Taiwan.

Here's part of the equipment for a prepared bicycle rider. It would be hard to bicycle with an umbrella, both hands on the handle bars is necessary. I think this bike also has the electrical assist engine.

 

While out in Ilan(the Lee family ancestral home), I ran into this cute Muslim girl.

Actually, many women from Indonesia have come to Taiwan to work as health care workers. As the Taiwan population grows older there is more need for these workers and the Indonesians have brought their religion to Taiwan.
  
My Eyes

Everything is going well, the gas bubble is no longer in my right eye. I've almost used up the eye drops. Now we just wait until January 31st when I have a meeting with the doctor.

At one of the family dinner over the New Year's, I spoke with a cousin who is studying to be a veterinary. He said that eye cells regenerate slowly so waiting a month seems reasonable.