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Except for some doped or abused athletes, a marathon requires at least months of preparation for anyone who intends to run it seriously. The training usually goes through ramp-up and tapering. For many, the training program is usually well structured and regimented. Marathon is so…

Boston Marathon 2003 Injury recovery Reckless training, racing and the steep down hills in the first few miles of Clarence DeMar Marathon resulted in my right hip and/or upper hamstring injury at about mile 10 of the marathon on 9/30/2001. Continued recklessness reinjured the spot…

It is not difficult to find a spot to park your car and walk to the Boston Marathon route in a few minutes. For example: Military March starts at 6:00 and Men's Wheelchair starts at 9:02. They are the first participants one sees at the…

Fanatic Chinese "patriots" have beefed up their effort to regain the control of the disputed the Diayu Islands (aka Senkaku Islands) recently. Ironically, they completely ignore Outer Manchuria that is more than 100,000 times larger than the Diayu Islands, and was taken by Russia with…

Events that are worth recording during driving happen once in a while. For example, a hiking trip to mountains often include scenic routes. Encountering deer is not uncommon in New England suburbs. One can get a decent car DVR for well under $100 now, so…

Some people think the Olympic gold medalist Ye Shiwen has been unfairly treated by the Western media with suspicions of her doping. Comparison with other athletes of exceptional performance may shed some light on whether she is treated unfairly. The previous female swimmer suffering from…

Liu Xiang Manteo Mitchell The most popular Chinese national sport hero failed to clear the first hurdle at an opening heat of the 110-meter hurdles. He immediately headed to the closest exit, but was instructed to turn back by an Olympic staff member. He went…

The recent doping suspicion raised by Ye Shiwen’s stunning swimming performance has brought doping into the spotlight again. Many people use words doping, stimulant and performance enhancing drug interchangeably. For example, in China, stimulant (兴奋剂) is almost the only word used to refer to doping…

Follow this artilce instead of Microsoft instructions for localization.

Though the Chinese regime regulates the press more heavily than any other countries, it is incompetent when it comes to things that affect lives directly – drug, environment, food, etc. There are more snake oils in China than all combined from other countries. It is…

Usually double spacing is caused by some text editor or control interpret both carriage return (0x0d or \r) and new line (0x0a, or \n) as starting a new line. This can be remedied by remvoing all carriage returns. For example, in Visual Studio, replace "\n"…

The disqualification of 8 badminton athletes for their not using their best efforts is an injustice at its worst. The whole incident started with two Chinese players intentionally losing. Under the current Chinese sport system, by no means can their athletes make such an important…

The GNU GPL may be good for software intended to be free, but it is generally detrimental to the software industry. It is a child of Free Software Foundation. If software was developed largely by people as a hobby, the GPL would make a lot of…

The media frenzy surrounding the suspicion of Olympic gold medalist Ye Shiwen doping is unprecedented in terms of scale. The suspicion is primarily due to her mind-blowing performance in her last lap of the 400 meter individual medley. It was faster than the that of…

Touching, heart wrenching, thought-provoking, exceptionally educational. That is what The Land of Sorrow impresses me. It is like a time machine bringing its readers back to the traumatic Great Cultural Revolution. It is a novel, but it is also a history book. The major events…

This is a translation of a G+ post An African lion cub looks depressed. His mom asks him what is wrong. The cub said: "I have just eaten a person, probably a Chinese". The lioness reprimands the cub "Ate a person withtout checking his passport?!…

A copper mine itself may not necessarily be a bad idea if it is transparent and well managed, but every project under the current totalitarian regime is operated in a black box in which many dirty deals can be made, numbers can be forged. The…

I have had muscle spasms during training and a marathon. All of them were most likely caused by severe loss or imbalance of electrolytes. Appropriately replenishing body with electrolytes is naturally the most effective way of preventing muscle spasm. The most important thing do do after…

My friend Frederick Flather, a lawyer, novelist, historian, and independent thinker, passed away on Monday April 16 2012, at the age of 80. I have lost a friend with whom I have enjoyed many enlightening conversations. Freddie reminds me of the official motto of New…

Upgrading Microsoft Windows usually takes a day but it does not mean one has to do a day's work to accomplish it. Installing the OS usually takes one to two hours. Installing updates which could be well over 100 takes two hours or so. Configuring firewall and installing all the…