The Incredible Human Activities
August 17, 2014, Ames, Iowa
One day, I was bored, and so I decided to read some Craglist for fun.
Here is someone who is looking for hiking buddy. He/she says:
> Now, I don’t mean to sound creepy but I also enjoy hiking trails totally nude because I enjoy feeling the sun and wind on my skin. No, I don’t do this as a sexual thing or to get attention. In fact the less attention the better because I don’t want to give nudists a bad name since I also enjoy that lifestyle.
Hello, dude, I almost cannot resist your sincerity and nudity!!
Here is a guy who seems to discriminate old people:
> I am a straight happily married 35 year old guy looking for guys and or girls preferably in their 20’s and 30’s to go out Wakeboarding. If interested send me an email with Wakeboard Group in the title, and your age and we will plan an outing.
I wish I am 100, and then I can have some fun to be admitted to your group.
Here is a practical lady who is planning to treat her friends very well.
> I am looking for an acquaintance or friend for lake access for kayaking. I like to be on the water a couple times a week. I am athletic, easy going female that enjoys being outdoors. I could watch your children, help you with your computer, cook, run errands etc. I have a background in IT.
Thank you for your post. It makes me ashamed.
Here is a guy who is really afraid of hookups:
> Looking for *people* to walk, treadmill, elliptical, lift with. I don’t belong to a gym currently. Past 8 p.m. best time for me. A coed group is fine. This ad is not for hookups. Between noon and 3:00 p.m. is also negotiable. I am 40, and male. This ad is not for hookups or romantic liaisons.
Hey, you know how to emphasize things.
Here is some romantic guy who says:
> Come this November I’m retiring and heading South for the winter in a motor home. I’m looking for a fellow traveler to head South with me. To see where this trip may take us, and help plan this trip with me, go to MapQuest.com and put in your desired Southern destinations and see how many round trip miles MapQuest calculates. I’m not looking for a perfect human being; just a cordial one with an open-mind and a sense of subdued adventure fitting an old retired person. This will not be the “Amazing Race.” Stopping and smelling the roses is my cup of tea.
Dear you, I am sending my best wishes to your head South with me plan.
George Frideric Handel
August 10, 2014, Ames IA Cloudy
It is exciting to find something you like! One day, a Handel’s piece was popped up on my Pandora. The music is so outstanding that I stopped my work and checked which piece it is. It is one of the pieces in his Concerti Grossi. If you are interested in collecting CDs, I recommend the recording from Academy of Ancient Music from London. The album contains two CDs, consisting of HWV 319-330 composed in 1740 (Note: his work is cataloged using HWV developed around 1980s).
Handel’s music is the same period as Bach’s, which we call Baroque music (the Baroque architecture is also the same period). Some of the famous music genres today such as opera,concerto and sonata are established during that period. So Handel was producing fairly modern music back then. In addition to HWV 319-330, I like his Messiah, Water Music, Theodora and Alessandro. Among these, an interesting genre is called Oratorios, which is the composition of orchestra, soloist and choir with no story lines or costumes behind it like opera. I feel his music is down to earth, progressive, and hard to get tired of. Compared to Bach’s, it contains a little more decoration; compared to Vivaldi’s four seasons, it is a little more unpredictable; and compared to Mozart’s Sonata, it is a little more muscular.
Hangzhou (1) – Longjing (Dragon Well) Tea
2014 June, Hangzhou China
Green tea is made by pan-roasting the tea leaves before the leaves dry out or oxidize. One of the important types of green tea is called Longjing (translated as Dragon Well) tea. The name is after a well located in ShiFengShan (translated as the Lion Peak Mountain) in Hangzhou China. ShiFengShan produces most authentic Longjing tea due to its special soil (full of minerals), climate (average 16.1C) precipitation (1500mm yearly) and history. In the old days, the tea produced here is sent to emperors in Beijing. I thought this well is called dragon well because people see dragons in it. Apparently, it makes sense, based on wiki: “Longjing, which literally translates as ‘dragon well,’ is said to have named after a well that contains relatively dense water, and after rain the lighter rainwater floating on its surface sometimes exhibits a sinuous and twisting boundary with the well water, which is supposed to resemble the movement of a Chinese dragon.”
Selecting Longjing Tea: every year, in the market, longjing tea is sold in a variety of packages in different prices, ranging from 1 dollar to thousands of dollars per 50 g. See below my own collections of this year’s longjing.
To select good longjing, here are a set of factors to consider:
- Time: The first year’s longjing is the best. The second year’s tea is still drinkable, but it typically turns brown and will taste a touch of sourness. Thus, the best approach is to add some fruit or flower to cover such sourness. Early spring tea is called Ming Qian Cha, meaning the tea collected before Qing Ming, which is a Chinese festival on 4/5. Ming Qian Cha is considered best because it is very tender and fresh. Due to its sparseness, every year there is a bidding event to sell the Ming Qian Cha from the Lion Peak Mountain.
- Color, Smell and Taste: The tea leaves are typically yellow-green shaped as a sword. When you smell the tea, the best tea smells a touch of sweetness like flowers. The old tea smells a bit dusty and the new but not good longjing tea smells roast from the cooking not from the tea.
- Packaging. Authentic Lion Peak Mountain tea will have a laser label marked Chinese Character of Lion to seal the boxes. All the tea produced this year will be marked with a label of new tea of the year to seal the boxes. The famous producer often marks their addresses and name somewhere on the package.
Making Longjing Tea: There are different tea pots and tools sold in the market. We can generally classify them into three categories: a teapot to make tea, a bowl to collect and distribute the tea and a set of small cups to drink the tea. There are also other tools such as water pots and stoves to keep the water hot. (See pictures below).
To make the tea, you will put the tea leaves in a tea pot and add hot water. In the first pass, you wait for 30-45 seconds and dump the tea (without leaves) into the bowl. The tea from the first pass can be a bit bitter so the tea is used to warm the cups and will be dumped before drinking it. In the second to later passes, you let hot water to stay with the leaves about 1 – 2 minutes and then dump the tea. The flavor of longjing tea is a bit sweet. Unlike black tea, which is stronger, green tea does not drink with milk because the favor of the tea is too subtle to be tasted after adding the milk.
Tea Culture: Tea and its culture often attracts like minded people. In Hangzhou China this summer, I was passing a store near LinYin Temple. The owner of the store was making longjing tea and invited me to drink a cup of tea with him and one of his friends. We talked about the Buddha paintings he made, the Qi Xian Qin, a Chinese instrument he was teaching during nights and the nightlife of the LinYin Temple area. At the end of the conversations, I happily bought some over-priced pants from him :):D
Last Thursday, I met this Chinese girl at a party. She earned the tea appreciation certification from a school in Hangzhou and taught the tea course since then in Western countries such as Germany and Canada. The second day, I invited her over to try my tea collections. Listen to the rain, talk over the tea is one of the best ways I can think of meeting friends.
Chemicals in Green Tea: Green tea contains caffeine and vitamin C as well as Theophylline and Theobromine (the two also exist in cocoa beans and are considered very good for improving heart functionality and reducing the blood pressure). In fact, one of my friends is doing research on how to use green tea extract to cure a rare genetic related heart disease. Another interesting chemistry in green tea is L-theanine, which can help relax and reduce the stresses (credited to J).
“TV Terminator”
I am looking forward to having a pair of glasses which can remove things I don’t want to see, for example, TVs !!!
Are there any other motivations to invent such glasses? Maybe, for example,
1) filter noise for doctors to better perform surgery?
2) filter noise for military soldiers for better focusing on the target?
…
Dear students, if you are looking for things to work on, here is something to consider:
1) research on accurately identifying objects of interest real-time
2) engineering in integrating algorithms into wearable glasses
(Similar stories applicable to “noise canceling” earphone, I think)
A New Feature to the Car
Considering my track records:
I’d like to suggest a new feature to the modern cars: when the gas level is low, the car should automatically update my (or my gas-filling volunteers’/employees’) TODOLIST. Even better, this car can consider self-driving to the gas station, filling the gas and then driving back 🙂
Pittsburgh – Cathedral of Learning
May 23, 2014, Pittsburgh, PA, Sunny
In addition to Carnegie, steel, dinosaur exhibits … Pittsburgh has this Cathedral of Learning, a 42-story educational building belonging to the University of Pittsburgh. It is the tallest educational building in the western hemisphere and the second tallest educational building in the world. The building contains classrooms, a theater, a food court, administrative offices, computer labs … The building is supported by a steel frame covered with the limestone (considering in 1921 when this building was planning, the University of Pittsburgh campus contains mainly wooden structures) . The building is designed by Charles Klauder, a famous Gothic architect at that time from Philadelphia.
The ground floor is this grand Gothic Commons Room for studies. At some moment, I was pulling out my computer and thought about working a bit here. Then I had this feeling that Harry Potter and Voldemort could show up any minute to cut the walls open (explosion) so it is not safe to work here after all (smile).
Interestingly, at the first and third floors, there are 29 nationality class rooms, where each room is decorated with a country, for example
These rooms are open to the public and attracted many visitors daily. When I was touring the rooms, I met a University of Pittsburgh alumni. He was telling his girlfriend that it was super exciting to take lectures in these rooms but the chairs are not as comfortable as normal classrooms.
The elevator is also open to the public so we can go up to the top of the building and have a great view of Pittsburgh.
After you visit Cathedral of Learning, remember to stop by at this Conflict Kitchen, located between CMU and Pitt campuses, to have some food from the countries that have a “conflict” with USA, guess what are they? Importantly, I heard they did update menu based on the news! 
Breakfast Boxes
The door to the garage looks like this in the early morning
The man gets up 6am every day and leaves the orange juice boxes outside this door because he thinks it is too loud to open the door and wake up the woman.
The woman sometimes is really not well behaved and especially grumpy in the morning, so she often just kicks the box around 🙂
Occasionally, the woman is in a good mood, so she decided to do this
Late in the evening, the woman came back and found the boxes are still not in the recycle, but having a conversation there #@%$^**
E-Restaurant
Feb 25, 2014, PHL airport
1: self-order and check-out (PHL, USA)
2: automatic distribution across dinner tables based on the order
3: automatic cooking?
How feasible to design a programming language to write the receipt program — procedures/instructions of cooking and a compiler and runtime executor to cook the food based on the receipt program?