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As a busy computer scientist, I don't really get to exercise my inner Martha too much. But I did somehow manage to make my first ever attempt on sewing projects --- baby cloth shoes (as gift for my niece).

Here is the result --- I added the handmade pompom for extra cuteness …

It has been a while since Yunyao got her iPhone 4s, which is known for its "superb" camera --- "8MP camera with all-new optics also shoots 1080p HD video". 8MP on a cell phone sounds really impressive, does it? Maybe she finally can leave her big heavy Pentax for a while …

As previously mentioned, I am learning category theory, beginning with Lawvere's Conceptual Mathematics book. This is a very elementry book that assumes almost nothing as a background. However, it is still a math book, which requires doing some exercises. Since the book provides no answer to exercises, I decide …

For people that need full features of vim, the default installation of vim on Mac OS X is definitely not enough. For example, I need to use vim to post to this blog, which requires a version of vim with python support. I also prefer terminal version of vim to …

Perhaps due to my rather small brain (literally), I dislike remembering tedious details. When in elementary school, I hated reciting classic Chinese poems, but liked composing my own :-).  In high school, I hated chemistry but loved physics, because one could do everything based on a few principles in physics, whereas …

When Tom (唐唐）was adopted from the animal shelter, his papers listed him as an "American Domestic Long Hair". As new cat parents, we were eager to find out his true breed. We searched and searched online, and identified him as a Chartreux, based on his fur color and …

As mentioned previously, I swabbed my cheeks and mailed my Y-DNA test specimen to FamilyTreeDNA a few months ago. Now the first part of the results, consists of twelve markers, are known. These are standard Y-STR results. Before showing the actual numbers, let me briefly explain.

What I ordered was …

Updated on 09/10/2013: It's now only 295 USD, with 100 USD discount!

As a cat and modern design lover, I am always looking for cat items pleasant for both the cats and my aesthetic standard. I had my eye on the canine scratcher for a while, but its …

I was brought up as a Han Chinese and I myself have never doubted that identity.  However, I do know that I look slightly different from people around me when I grew up. Darker skin, slightly curly hairs, deeper set eyes and other distinctive facial features. Put it simply, my …

I recently stayed in Manhattan for a few days during a business trip. My colleague and I were looking for places to buy some special chocolate to bring back home. We asked a few locals New Yorker as well as consulted the web for recommendations. Here are the list of …

As many of friends, I recently acquired a HP Touchpad largely due to its low price. I don't really need a tablet, as I am sitting in front of computes almost all the time. My original plan was to turn it into an interactive cat toy, at least sometimes, so …

Huahai and I have just returned from our first trip together to Italy. The trip itself was wonderful and unforgeable. However, it usually took a lot of planning for such an extensive trip, unless you hire someone else to do it for you or join a tour group.

We usually …

My colleague has highly recommended to me the following CSV reader/writer: https://supercsv.sourceforge.net/

I am yet to test it out, so I will need to come back provide my review. But just put a pointer here, since this tool is not realy easy to find without the …

For some reason, my main working machine, a Windows XP desktop, recently  started to crash a lot followed by the blue screen of death. The error message output at the blue screen does not seem to be helpful.

***STOP: 0x0000008E (0xE0000001, 0xBA490925, 0xA880D820, 0x00000000)
***watchdog.sys - Address BA490925, base at …

It has turned out that Netflix has abandoned the plan, finally.

When Huahai told me the news late last night that Netflix is splitting into two, my first reaction was that he must be reading from Onion! After all, based all what have learned from the business school classes and …

I was looking for buying birthday cakes for the cats' birthday. Surprisingly, although it is very easy to find dog bakeries, there seems no existence of a single cat bakery. Luckily, a single Google search online brought up many birthday cake recipes for the cats. I picked one simple recipe …

We are getting rid of our front lawn --- to save water and money!

A landscape designer helped us did the design to convert our front yard from an old deteriorating classic English garden into a vibrant modern garden full of native plants.

Given our shoe-string budget, we plan to do …

The old master bathroom is dark and ugly, with only one sink and w/o tub.

We wanted a master bathroom that is modern and bright, and at the same time with a sense of Zen. We also wanted it to have two sink and separate shower and tub. Three …

China is a fast-changing country. Not surprisingly, the list of popular gifts for Chinese family, relatives and friends keeps on changing as well.  When I return to China, I always do some extensive research to gather an updated shopping list of gifts to buy. Here is a summary based on …

MathJax seems to be the emerging standard for displaying math on the Web at this moment. It is supported by American Mathematical Society and American Physical Society, and has already been adopted by major math related discussion venues such as Physics Forums and Stack Exchange. MathJax displays math using CSS …