Daily Battles: TeamSnap Delayed Calendar Updates

TeamSnap is a popular mobile (and web) app used by many community sports teams/clubs (non-professional) to manage games and practice schedules. Both my kids play competitive soccer with local clubs, and both clubs use TeamSnap heavily for all the communication needs. I, myself, also use TeamSnap with my soccer buddies for weekly pickup games.

One feature provided by TeamSnap is that all the schedules can easily be integrated into Google Calendar. All you have to do is to import the calendar in the form of a URL (ICS feed) or an ICS file. Many other popular apps also provide such Internet Calendars (iCal), such as Facebook, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Calendar, and Trello.

My family rely on Google Calendar heavily for our scheduling needs, especially when it comes to coordinating parents-sponsored chauffeur service for the kids' transportation needs for their many activities (e.g., Ping Pong, Piano, Dance, Drawing, Tutoring Classes, Parties, Summer Camps, etc.). So it is certainly a convenience to be able to import calendars from TeamSnap, and then copy events to various family member's individual calendars. Copied together with the events are also addresses, which can be easily retrieved from mobile phones by the respective parent when it comes to driving time.

Practices and games get canceled, rescheduled, moved to different locations frequently. I do get email notifications when these happen. However, when I try to copy events from these imported calendars, many times I would realize that events on these imported calendars in Google Calendar are not updated, or out of sync with the TeamSnap calendar.

To be fair, TeamSnap is not the problem, and Google is really the problem!

Many Internet Calendars show latest updates within minutes (up to one hour in TeamSnap's case). However, when importing the calendar into Google Calendar, Google Calendar uses a pull model to get the latest changes. What this means is that it is totally up to Google to decide how soon and how frequently it wants to sync up with these other calendar providers. According to Google Calendar documentation, Google says that Google Calendar can take up to 8 hours to initiate a pull (sync up) from imported calendars. Recently, Google actually updated the documentation and increased the delay time to up to 12 hours.

But don't let that fool you. The truth is that it can actually take up to 48 hours for Google Calendar to initiate the pull and get synced up with imported calendars. And that can be very inconvenient and misleading when you look at your Google Calendar in a hurry and not realizing that the event you are driving to (30+ minutes one way) has been canceled.

TeamSnap team actually acknowledged this as a problem and provided the following tutorial article on how to solve the problem:

Team Schedule is not Updating in Google Calendar

Their solution is to delete the imported calendar and then reimport the calendar with a different query parameter (e.g., add the string "?query=1") at the end of the calendar URL to force Google Calendar to reimport (thus sync up) all the events and not use the cached version (which is outdated). Definitely a hack! Although this hack works, it only works once. Next time an event gets out of sync, you have to change the parameter and delete/reimport the calendar again. Not very convenient at all!!

So why doesn't Google Calendar provide a button or something to let you manually sync an imported calendar? Sounds simple enough for a company as big as Google, right? Turned out many Google Calendar users have been requesting this feature since as early as 2010 (9 years ago):

Feature Request: Manual Refresh of external calendar URL / .ics / iCal feeds

Google Calendar not updating published calendar added by URL

And unsurprisingly, Google chooses to ignore such cry for help, just as usual.

It is typical for Google when it comes to free services they offer, such as Google Tasks, Google Keep, Google Assistant, Google Calendar, and the list goes on and on. They ignore bugs people report, features people request, and questions people ask relating to how to use Google products. The Google Help Forum (support.google.com) is just a joke. It is filled with user seeking help only responded by other users echoing same problems. But hey, aren't these free services? Then why do we puny users expect to get free support? If you don't like it, stop using it!

Ranting aside, so are there any other options we have on solving this problem?

Options 1: Write your own solution if you know how to use Google Calendar API.

In the past when I was so pissed at Google Tasks' lack of repeated tasks, I wrote my own using Google Tasks API. 8 years later, they finally implemented that feature.

Options 2: If you don't know how to code or are too lazy to code it yourself, look for programs by other people who are so pissed at Google's lack of concern/support on core features and decide to write their own hack.

I actually found such a program specifically for this Google Calendar syncing issue:

ical_to_gcal_sync by Andrew Wramsay

This is a code repo (written in python) that will go through events on your iCal and then make sure to sync all these events on your specified Google Calendar. You could then schedule this to run periodically (Such as Task Scheduler for Windows or Cron for Linux). Just make sure to pull changes from the GitHub Repo when new codes are added.

Hope you find this useful!


BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Airsense CPAP Machine Leaking Water

I just found out recently that my CPAP machine has been slowly leaking water onto my nightstand and ruining the surface of the nightstand.

For those of you who don't know, and don't suffer (good for you), a CPAP machine is a prescription machine that uses constant air pressure to help keep the breathing canal open for people who have sleep apnea, so they can get better sleep and better rest at night. According to sleepapnea.org, 22 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea (moderate to severe), which is 6.7% of the entire US population. Basically, if you snore pretty loudly at night, changes are, you have sleep apnea.

The model of my CPAP machine is AirSense 10 by ResMed.

After some research, again, turned out this leaking problem is actually quite common:
http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t107107/My-Airsense-10-Autoset-leaked-water.html

The problem resides in the water chamber for the built in humidifier. Probably due to low quality gluing work, after some usage (Your Miles Might Vary), the part where the metal is glued to the plastic would eventually start leaking. And because most likely the leak is very slow, you won't notice it, since there would still be water left in the tank in the morning, and the leakage is well hidden underneath the CPAP machine. 

Once I found out the exact problem, I gave my CPAP supplier a call to try to order a replacement. Turned out since I didn't order supplies from my supplier once a month, they deactivated my account. And in order to activate my account again, I have to schedule an appointment with my sleep doctor. I can't even just buy parts from this supplier, because it would require a doctor's prescription.

In my case, since I have already hit my high medical deductibles this year, it makes sense to get the prescription from my doctor, so my health insurance can help cover the majority of the cost on the replacement parts (which means I have to wait 5 weeks before I can see my sleep doctor and then order my parts).

If you have the same water leakage problem and just want to take care of it right away, you can visit CPAP.com to order replacement parts directly out of pocket. The web site does charge shipping if you don't order over $99 of products.

It is unfortunate that my nightstand now has visible water damage. But that's life and life has many challenges. So be strong and be ready for your next battle with technology and life in genera!

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Quicken Quickbooks Can't Download Credit Card Transactions from American Express

One of my involuntary jobs is to manage bookkeeping and accounting for my wife's small business. Not a fun job, to be honest. That's why I was willing to pay Intuit hundreds of dollars for the software tool called Quickbooks, because it allows me to download bank and credit card transactions directly, saving me all the hassles of entering everything manually myself. In fact, I was just coerced into paying Intuit another hundreds of dollars for an upgrade recently, because they decided to stop supporting transaction import with the 2016 version of Quickbooks Pro.

Then today, when I was going through receipts, I found out that I can't download credit card transactions from American Express website in the QBO format for Quickbooks Pro to import. The only download options are Adobe PDF, MS Excel, and CSV.

After digging around the web site through other means, I finally found this on AMEX website:

QBO and QFX file types are unavailable for download at the moment, but CSV and PDF are available for use.

A bit more research revealed that I am not the only one suffering. Many people actually have already talked with Intuit support and American Express support on this issue:

Suddenly unable to connect to American Express

American Express Not Downloading

Totally American Express's fault, and American Express uses the excuse of website maintenance. But come on, AMEX, given how big you are and how rich you are, why haven't you fixed the problem after at least two weeks?

Well, I guess for now I'll just have to wait for AMEX to put their acts together, because I AM NOT MANUALLY ENTERING ALL THOSE RECEIPTS MYSELF!!

If you are also suffering, I am sorry, tough luck. This is a battle that is simply out of our control. Maybe you can call or chat with AMEX to put on some pressure for the fix. But I seriously doubt how much pressure we puny consumers can give to a Giant Corp like AMEX.

Just another battle with technology. The war goes on....

[Update on August 1st]: Contacted AMEX support they said in less than 7 week, the problem should be resolved.

[Update on August 6th]: Figured out that on AMEX web site, if you switch to the Preview New Web Site, you can now download QBO transaction files. You just have to disable bank feeds for your AMEX accounts and then as you import transactions, select the right AMEX Quickbooks Accounts inside Quickbooks to re-link with AMEX, and things should be back to normal!!

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Mac Stops Playing Sound with macOS Mojave

I was just searching randomly today and then I ran into this page on reddit:

Link to article

Man, it sure feels really good that my writing on the Internet had made someone's day better. Hopefully my posts of my daily battles with technology can also benefit other people, so they have less frustration and a better day!

I use a MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave. From time to time, my audio would just stop working. This is problematic because I need to listen to my trance music to focus. Turning audio off and on doesn't fix it. Changing output to another device and then back doesn't make any difference. It seems the only way to fix it is to restart your computer. With the amount of apps I have open at any given time, this is a terrible option.

So is there an easy alternative? The answer is yes!! Turned out all your have to do is to open a terminal window, type in the following command and then hit enter.

sudo killall coreaudiod

You will need to enter your admin password if prompted. But this sure beats restarting your computer several times a day!

Another workaround found for another Mojave bug! You Win!

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Google Map Sending People To Wrong Places

I slowly drove around the neighborhood, trying to find the house where my daughter's friend lived so I can pick up my daughter. I had been wondering around in vain for 15+ minutes, also knocking on doors of multiple houses, getting suspicious looks from various home owners and greeted by loud dog barks. Google Map authoritatively told me that I have arrived at my destination, but my daughter was definitely nowhere to be seen.

I was gradually getting more and more frustrated, because now we were going to be late for our next activity. Then all of a sudden, it struck me. I could just read the street numbers of the houses and try to locate the house matching the address I have. 

Turned out Google sent me to the wrong end of the neighborhood at the lower left corner of the map below instead of the upper corner of the map where the address should be. See that the entire neighborhood all had Bear Hill as part of their addresses.

A few days later, I got a phone call from my boss, uhh, I mean my wife. She was on her way to Denver. 

"Google Map said there was a road closure, and recommended me to take an alternative route. Now I am in the middle of nowhere on a muddy road by myself. I don't think this road goes anywhere."

"If there's a road closure, you should be able to see detour signs. Just follow that." That's the only answer I could give.

Then a day later, I saw a news article titled:

Google Maps Leads About 100 Drivers Into A 'Muddy Mess' In Colorado

Start Here Podcast • ABC News

✔@StartHereABC

Dozens of drivers were directed down a muddy dirt road in Colorado this weekend, resulting in a backup nearly 100 cars deep. So why did Google Maps point them there in the first place? https://apple.co/31TXbpg 

16

6:15 AM - Jun 26, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

"Hey, you lucked out. At least you didn't get stuck in the mud with a bunch of cars behind you." That's what I told my wife later. And her reply was, "See, I wasn't making this up!"

It is really interesting to think about this from a human evolution perspective. As technology tools are becoming better and more relied on, we human kind of are losing our navigation capabilities. And then when technology makes mistakes, we found ourselves completely stuck.

Whether Google Map authoritatively told me that I have arrived at my destination (a road closure in my wife's case) or used a more suggestive tone instead, such as, "You are probably at your destination now." We users would still simply believed in Google and then get equally frustrated when we found out that Google was wrong. So would it be better for Google to just say "I don't know how to do that" at the very beginning of our requests?

This is a tough decision for any AI service designers, me included. And I don't know what's the right answer either. Would you rather hear this?

"I am sorry, (insert your name here), I am afraid I can't do that."

It's a wasted 20 minutes for me (2 hours for my wife). What's next?

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles: Chrome Resumes Video with Incoming Call to Mac

I was born into a generation without smart phones. Therefore, the preferred method for me to type has always been the full-sized keyboard. That is why I linked my phone to my Mac computer, so whenever I need to send text messages, I can type on my computer.

How to Get Text Messages on Mac

I also like using my computer for browsing much more than using smart phone. Why stare at a tiny screen that seriously strains your eyes when I can read web pages with bigger font on my three large high quality monitors? Browsing on my computer also allows me to leave many tabs open in the browser for things I have not finished with, or things I will check out later.

However, when putting these two things together these days, it becomes a disaster.

Whenever I get a phone call these days, my Mac will automatically resume YouTube videos that I have either paused in my browser window, or a video that has paused by itself with the "are you still listening" message box.

You see, I don't get a lot of phone calls except ones from my boss, uhh, I mean my wife, who calls me whenever she feels like it. I have used a fire alarm ring tone for calls from her so I know the urgency of the call. So whenever she calls me, both my phone and my Mac would play loud fire alarm ring tones. As I scramble to pick up the call on my phone, my Mac would continue playing the loud fire alarm ring tones for a good five seconds (because of the latency for my Mac to know I have already pick up the call from my phone), and then my paused YouTube video would also start playing in the background, most likely a techno music video with a strong drum roll I listen to while working. What makes the matter worse is that I have to now try to find the tab in my Chrome browser with that video from my ten open Chrome windows and dozens of browser tabs.

Now imagine this happening while I was in a meeting.

After this started to become super annoying, I did my research and found this article on Apple web site:

When receiving phone call, youtube video unpauses

Guess I am not the only one suffering from this, and the culprit is a Chrome bug. Google is aware of this and the bug is being worked on and won't be available in a release soon.

So for now, what do you do if you have this problem? Here are your options:

1. Unlink your phone from your Mac.
2. Always plug in (or BT connect) a headphone, and mute the speakers when you unplug (BT disconnect) the headphone, especially when you are in a meeting.
3. Open a separate Chrome window and put all your YouTube video tabs in that window. This way you can find the auto resumed video relatively quickly.
4. Don't use Chrome for YouTube videos. Use Safari or Firefox.

Technology is always both a bless and a curse. That's today's dose of my daily tech battles. Let's keep fighting! Now enjoy some Trance while you fight your daily battles!

[UPDATE on 9/28/19] Google finally released a feature in Chrome that allows you to pause a video/music playing no matter which tab that media is on. So at least this can be helpful in our situation. Read the article here.

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Daily Battles, a New Category For My Blog

My dear readers, if you haven't noticed, I haven't posted any blog for a long, long time. Sorry for the long wait. The good news is that I have finally overcame myself and a lot of new blogs will soon be coming.

So why haven't I been blogging? One main reason is that life is so busy, and I have to fight many battles on different fronts everyday, which just eat away all my free time. Some of the battles are about being a responsible parent (teaching/fighting the kids), some other ones are about dealing with random life issues that just come up, such as flat tires, auto accidents, fixing various things in the home, taking care of aging parents, etc., etc. However, I have noticed that a great amount of my time are spent fighting technology glitches/failures almost on a daily bases.

On one hand, as someone who "lives in the future", I do have a lot more gadgets/devices/robots than a normal family, which does increase the likelihood that things break more often at my household. But on the other hand, I consider myself a skilled fighter in the tech realm. Even I have to struggle so much with technology today, it would be much more painful for other people who don't have my background and knowledge to deal with such technology failures. That's why I have decided to blog about these daily battles I have to fight, so other people who are fighting the same battles might be able to find something useful to facilitate their daily battles with technology.

Credit: GoComics.com

When looking at social media postings today, you probably have noticed that most people post more about their fun moments/achievements/happy time. That is a very skewed view of the reality, and psychologists have concluded that viewing such posts can increase depression and loneliness. I am going to change that! That's why I'll be posting about my struggles with my daily battles with technology and life in general. So reading my posts should make you happier, knowing that other people struggle too! And most importantly, it gives me a way to vent, so I can stay mentally healthy!

Credit: comicskingdom.com

So why am I blogging again? First of all, I am on vacation! This is a long deserved vacation, the only true vacation in the last five years!! Wife and kids are out of town for a Ping Pong tournament, and after I took care of many things/repairs/battles, I still had time to sit down, relax, and enjoy peace in my own house!!! But also, as I mentioned before, I need a way to vent; people can get info on how to fight similar battles; readers can gain happiness by looking at my sufferings; and it's just a good habit to write everyday!

Medium, as a blog platform, has gained a lot of popularity with its very clean and simple look and lots of people contributing. I actually thought about moving my blog to that platform. Then I realized that:

1. All contents published on Medium now belongs to Medium, and
2. After free trial, you have to pay $5/month subscription fee in order to keep reading.

So I am staying with Google Blogger, where my writing belongs to me and you can all read for free. I do like the simple and clean view of Medium though, so I tried to clean up my blog design -- one of my daily battles with technology! Well, I tried the best I could, but since my template is a super old customized one, which required a lot of html/css tweaking/hacking, and I didn't like the new templates, so this is the best I can do and what you get. But for your best viewing experience, I suggest keeping 150% zoom in. If you are using Chrome, that's CTRL+ (Command+ for Mac).

As always, leave me comments so I know people are actually reading this, which is the best encouragement for me! Subscribe if you like, and let me know if it doesn't work, and I'll add that to my daily battles list. LOL!

Oh yeah, I am translating again! Focusing on The Outcast and Smiling Proud Wanderer.

Disclaimer: I will not post about my daily battles with all the Alpha/Beta products/services my employer is currently testing in my house.

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Rest In Peace, Mr. Jin Yong

My beloved author, Mr. Jin Yong, the author of The Smiling Proud Wanderer, just passed away today at the age of 94. It is a sad day for all his fans around the world.

Thank you Mr. Jin Yong for the wonderful Wuxia worlds you created for us that not only entertained billions but also taught many about gallantry and virtue. Wish you peace in heaven where there's probably no hatred, no revenge, and no heroes.

Pen name Jin Yong (金庸), real name Zha Liangyong (查良镛), English name Louis Cha, 1924-2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Yong

As a tribute to Mr. Jin Yong, I will be resuming my translation of The Smiling Proud Wanderer today.

http://www.lannyland.com/wanderer/wanderer.shtml

My collection of the complete works of Jin Yong and Gu Long

Heading to CES next week

Hey guys, for any of you that still reads my blog, I am heading to CES next week. If you happen to go there too and might want to chat, let me know.

I am in Vienna

I am in Vienna attending the Human-Robot Interaction conference. Just wondering if any of my readers are from Vienna or are in Vienna right now?

New year new beginning and new resolutions

Man, I can't believe it has been almost four years since I last posted any blogs. Time really flies!

First let me quickly summarize what I have been doing for the last three years and 8 months:

• The first year or so was eventful and also a year of harvest. During this year: 
• I turned 40.
• I also had two surgeries (never had surgeries before, correlation or causation?).
• I received two Black Belts, one in Taekwondo, and one in Hapkido.
• I successfully defended my thesis and officially became Permanently Head Damaged! It is worth mentioning that I actually completed and got my dissertation approved on New Years Eve inside a hotel right next to Disneyland. Then as a celebration, I took my kids to Disneyland that night and enjoyed the new year count down party and watched the new year fireworks show.
• I found a job I love after many rounds of traveling and interviews.
• I bought a bigger house and moved in.
• Then the next three years or so, I focused on building two "intelligent" entities:
• Sky, the intelligent smart home assistant for my work, and
• Philip, my dumb personal home butler. Philip is really just my house, and also has a second name Jane. The name Philip came from a great Chinese Sci-Fi/Wuxia novel by Maoni, which I am also translating from Chinese into English. The name Jane came from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game Series.

And because I was so busy with life and the above, I didn't really

• Translate, or 
• Blog, or
• Sleep much.

But since now that Sky and Philip are both in relatively better shapes, I am hoping to be able to get back to the two things I enjoy very much: translate and blog. As it is the Chinese New Year right now, I figured that I'll make a list of my new year resolutions:

• I will try to sleep more and have better sleep quality. This is my top priority.
• I'd like to get back into routine translating. After all, it is another one of my life goal: to win (kind of) the Nebula Award with my translation.
• I'd like to blog more. Blog about technology, AI, machine learning, robots, etc. In the past I tried to write too much and keep the bar high for each blog. This time I am going to just go with the flow. Hopefully a short summary of my thoughts on things I read can still be good reading resources for others and inspire them to be creative. If you haven't noticed, Lannyland is the land of imagination and creativity.
• I'd like to read more on latest advancements on AI and machine learning. Hopefully this also results in more blogging.
• I'd like to also get back into routine exercising. I am a black belt! I should stay a black belt!
• I'd like to also find some time to play the piano once a while. 

So Happy Chinese New Year to your all, wish you all a very productive new year, and wish myself good luck adhering to my new year resolutions!!

It's never too late to follow your passion and love.

10 Famous Thought Experiments That Just Boggle Your Mind Part 7

Read Part 6: Galileo's Gravity Experiment

4. Monkeys and Typewriters

You probably have heard about the thing about monkeys and typewriters, it is called the “infinite monkey theorem,” also known as the “monkeys and typewriters” experiment. the theorem states that "a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare."

Sounds absurd? Counter-intuitive? That's for sure. But this is all about probability and infinity. The key idea is that even though the probability of such a thing happening is very, very tiny, the probability still exists.

In 2003, science students at a zoo in the U.K. “tested” the infinite monkey theorem when they put a computer and a keyboard in a primate enclosure. Unfortunately, the monkeys never got around to composing any sonnets. According to researchers, all they managed to produce was five pages consisting almost entirely of the letter “s.” Then the lead male began bashing the keyboard with a stone followed by other monkeys urinating and defecating on it.

The monkeys were supposed to be "random generators". And there's the possibility that randomly generated things might turn out to be good things. In Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research, genetic algorithms and evolution algorithms are important tools/methods to try to find good solutions in vast state spaces where an exhaustive search is not possible. Such algorithms do need a little bit of "luck" and some extended time to compute, although they are not completely random, but use the help of fit functions to try to go toward the right direction of the solution. They also follow the greedy approach where any step that moves toward the direction of the goal is a good step (this is, however, not necessarily true for the optimal solution). So in a sense, we are systematically generating lots of digital "monkeys" to try to find that piece of wonderful work of Shakespeare. The idea behind this is that maybe given the limited time, we won't be able to achieve Shakespeare, but even if we can get something comparable to a 3rd-Grade level composition, it's a great success, because the creation of such work had no human involvement, it all came from AI.

Interestingly enough, some music writers and composers are prone to the idea of using computer software applications to randomly generate small pieces of music and help these random creations might give them ideas or inspirations of creating their own quality work. Of course the software-generated music were first filtered using AI to get rid of most of the obviously meaningless or bad sequences.


It is worth mentioning that one of the projects I've always want to complete is a Rap Lyric Generator. The idea is that given a music sequence (e.g., Twinkle Little Star music) and a topic (e.g., Robots are awesome), the program would automatically find words, sentences on the Internet that matches the given topic and also rhyme with each other, and then automatically generate lyrics and sing the lyrics using Rap style autonomously. Can you see that this also uses the idea of "digital monkeys" and "invisible typewriters"? However, just like many of my other great ideas, someone will probably beat me to it before I ever find time to work on it.


Read Part 8: The Chinese Room


Video of the Day:

Can monkeys make good coffee?

BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com

Joy of Life: Volume 1 Chapter 6

Volume One: The City by the Sea
-- written by Maoni

Chapter 6: The Man was a Guest

With an unconscious assassin lying on his bedroom floor, Fan Xian didn’t have any time for questions, so he said in a straight forward manner.

“Someone came to kill me. I knocked him unconscious, and he is still lying on the floor.”

The blind youngster turned his head slightly sideway. Although his heart skipped a beat, he didn’t show any expression on his face. He lowered his head in a salute.

“What is Young Master Fan joking about?”

“There’s no time for playing serenity right now. You have to take care of me.”

With a broad grin, Fan Xian grabbed hold of the blind youngster’s hand and started pulling him toward the Count’s Manor, thinking to himself, “Still pretending that you don’t know me? Whatever! Not right now. Let’s go!”

“The Young Master is still talking nonsense.”

The blind youngster knitted his brow slightly as though he was baffled by how the little kid could have known his relationship to the kid – at the time when he had delivered Fan Xian to Port Danzhou in a swaddle, Fan Xian had only been a few months old, and shouldn’t have remembered anything about it – Could the Old Madame at the Count’s Manor have told Fan Xian about him?

It was very late. The night was silent with only a few occasional shrill dog barks toward people getting into the wrong house after late bathroom runs.

The blind youngster Five-Bamboo finally moved. With the still blank and apathetic face, he shut the door of the grocery store and began walking toward the Count’s Manor. Fan Xian let out a big sigh of relief and then quickly followed behind in small steps.

When the two arrived at the Count’s Manor, they went inside through the dog hole. Once they were inside Fan Xian’s bedroom, the blind youngster “looked” at the still unconscious assassin on the floor.

Fan Xian stared at the man on the floor nervously, not knowing whether the man was dead or alive. So he turned around and asked.

“Uncle Five-Bamboo, why didn’t you come to see me in the last several years and always kept yourself inside the grocery store?”

The blind youngster named Five-Bamboo turned his head slightly sideways once again and only spoke after a long pause.

“My Young Lord, you really surprise me.”

He was indeed caught by surprise. Although he had expected the kid to be naturally out of the ordinary since he carried the bloodline of Her Ladyship, but Five-Bamboo had never imagined a four-year-old to behave with such maturity and was even capable of…successfully plotting against Mr. Fei from the Capital City.

“Let’s deal with this guy first,” Fan Xian suggested. With quite some effort he managed to flip the assassin on the floor over and removed his cloth mask, revealing the true identity of the assassin.

The assassin had a very thin face and appeared to be quite old. The beard under his chin looked like it was already turning gray, but for some unknown reason, the grayish color was mixed with some spooky green, which made the beard look somewhat disgusting.

Fan Xian was startled. He quickly hid behind Uncle Five-Bamboo and grabbed his sleeve.

“Uncle, this assassin is ugly!” he mumbled with a bitter face.

“This is Mr. Fei, the Assistant Director of the Empire Bureau of Investigation Third Division.” Five-Bamboo squatted down slowly and reached for the assassin’s lower jaw. “He was considered to be one of the top three poison masters in the entire world. He is skilled in deploying, distinguishing, and detoxifying various poisons. A formidable one he is indeed, yet you took care of him with a mere porcelain pillow. I wonder whether you were really lucky or he was really unlucky.”

“He was really unlucky,” Fan Xian thought to himself.

Although he was quite surprised by the fame and high status of the man on the floor, he had to admit that the man was truly unlucky to have met him, a monster with lives from two worlds in the disguise of a young kid.

“Don’t touch him with your hands. What if there’s poison on his body?” Fan Xian reminded the blind youngster Five-Bamboo.

Five-Bamboo did not stop his action, neither did he explain. Fan Xian somehow got the feeling that this was his way of making a statement: There is nothing in this world poisonous enough to kill him.

“Uncle, what do we do with him?” Fan Xian asked with a bitter face, knitting his brow intensely.

He was not the natural socializer type. However, in this world, the blind youngster was the first person he had ever known and the only person he could trust wholeheartedly. Besides, he knew how capable the youngster was in his Kung Fu skills, so he deliberately acted even more lovable and respectful, never sparing any opportunity to address him as uncle.

He glanced all over and finally fixed his stare on the dagger. He ground his teeth hard and the idea of stabbing this Mr. Fei to death soon occupied his entire mind.

Noticing Fan Xian’s intention, Five-Bamboo stood up and shook his head.

“Your temperament is so different from Her Ladyship. How can you be so cruel at such a young age? Who taught you?”

“I taught myself,” answered Fan Xian respectfully, having no guts to offend the Kung Fu master, the only one he could lay his trust in. “I know uncle has been staying in the grocery store all these years so he can protect me. I also know that uncle only stayed away from the Count’s Manor because he is afraid that my mother’s enemies might find me here through him. That’s why I had to learn to be cruel myself.”

Five-Bamboo shook his head again and didn’t speak.

Fan Xian could tell that his mother’s servant plus Kung Fu master had grown suspicious of him, so he asked with a cackle, “Uncle, what should we do now?”

His intention was obvious: maybe Uncle Five-Bamboo should take care of the serious business such as killing. But Five-Bamboo’s reply caught him by surprise.

“Young Master, you made a mistake. You hit the wrong man.”

“What? Wrong man?”

Fan Xian froze in great shock. He slowly turned toward the assassin lying on the floor and gazed at his blood-stained face in disbelief.

“What’s done is done. No need to worry,” Five-Bamboo declared calmly. “Mr. Fei is the Assistant Director of the Third Division in the Empire Bureau of Investigation. But he also has a secret identity… Actually he works for someone who works for your father. Therefore he didn’t come to Port Danzhou to kill you. If he had really come to kill you, I believe you would have died many times already, regardless of how skillful you are.”

Now Fan Xian remembered. The assassin lying on the floor seemed to have mentioned before that he was sent by Fan Xian’s father, but….

……

……

“Damn, he looked totally like T-Bag^[1]. Who’s gonna believe a dirty old man like him?”

For the past many years, Mr. Fei Jie^[2] had always stayed in the research institute of the Empire Bureau of Investigation at the Capital City. Although with fine titles such as Master of Poison and such, at the age over fifty, he was already kind of semi-retired. If it had not been because of the request from an influential person asking him to come to Port Danzhou to teach, and of course it was a request he did not have the courage to reject, he would never have left the Capital City and made the journey.

He had never expected to be greeted with two heavy strikes on his head, which drew half a bowl of blood and almost ended his old life, when he met his student for the first time.

He stared at the young boy in front of him only to discover that the boy’s face had innocence and loveliness written all over it. The two big eyes blinked again and again as if they carried a sense of fear and shame. Such a lovable small face, together with the young boy’s important status, successfully prevented him from blowing off his stomach full of anger onto the little kid.

When he turned his head and spotted a servant-like man, he finally found a vent for his anger.

“Hey! You! Untie me quickly! I am Mister Fei, a private tutor the Count invited himself,” he yelled.

However, the servant seemed to be even more arrogant than him. Paying no attention to his demand, the man said coldly, “I don’t recall the agreement I had with your superior included the part where you play the role of a teacher.”

“Mr. Five?” Fei Jie opened his gloomy and queer eyes wide and took a good glimpse of the servant-like man. Then he was shocked. “Mr. Five, it’s you!”

Hearing the assassin calling himself Fei Jie^[3] after he regained his consciousness, Fan Xian found the entire matter truly obscure.

---

[1] Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell, a fictional character from the American television series Prison Break.

[2] The name Fei Jie sounds like another Chinese word that means obscure or unintelligible. Picking this name shows the author’s humor.

[3] “Fei Jie” means obscure and difficult to understand in Chinese.

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10 Famous Thought Experiments That Just Boggle Your Mind Part 6

Read Part 5: The Ship of Theseus

5. Galileo's Gravity Experiment

In order to refute Aristotle’s claim that the speed of a falling object is dictated by its mass, Galileo devised a simple thought experiment:

According to Aristotelian logic, if a light object and a heavy object were tied together and dropped off a tower, then the heavier object would fall faster, and the rope between the two would become taut. This would allow the lighter object to create drag and slow the heavy one down. But Galileo reasoned that once this occurs, the weight of the two objects together should be heavier than the weight of either one by itself, therefore making the system as a whole fall faster. This contradiction proved that Aristotle’s hypothesis was wrong.

One of the most famous stories about Galileo is that he once dropped two metal balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prove that heavier objects do not fall faster than lighter ones. In actuality, this story is probably just a legend. However an astronaut did perform this famous Galileo test with a hammer and a feather in vacuum with low gravity on the surface of the moon (see video below).

So what can I learn from this thought experiment? As a Computer Science researcher, many times it is easier for me to just sit down and code up experiments. But sometimes it might be a good idea to stand up and then write down the math formulations on the whiteboard. Simplifying the math calculations or jog down some proofs can actually dramatically reduce the amount of coding I have to do and also improve the performance of my algorithms. Of course, if I could do all these in my head it would be wonderful, but I am no Galileo, and I also have severe short-term memory deficit -- a strong sign and that I am almost ready to graduate!

Read part 7: Monkeys and Typewriters



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BTW: The easiest way to remember my blog address is http://lanny.lannyland.com