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Daoyuan Li Posts

Department Picnic

Published 2012/06/08 by Daoyuan Li

We had our NomadicLab picnic day yesterday, and it was nice experience. The sky started a bit gloomy in the morning and everyone was worried it will rain during the day — which is said to be a tradition that many picnic days in previous years enjoyed raining weather. A colleague put his sunglasses on to pretend it’s sunny. And that helped. After some official workshop sessions when we walked outside, the sky was bright blue and sunny.

We brought the food and drinks to somewhere close to the sea and started the picnic under a huge cannon. People started eating and drinking and after one sandwich I went playing football. I got tired after a while and after some rest we played a Swedish game “Kubb“. It took us a long time to finnish just one round, but in the end my team won the game. After that we started volleyball. And that really hurt my arms and hands.

When we were heading back, someone was too drunk to walk already. A colleague asked me how it feels to be sober when others are drinking. “Normal”, I replied. It was an honest answer. As long as nobody is forcing me to drink, I feel completely comfortable. Besides, it feels more natural when alcohol makes Finns more talkative.

People went to a restaurant and later to a bar, but I didn’t go for no good reasons. Maybe I was just too tired. I came back with red and burning face (and probably also red neck). When bathing my nose was also bleeding — too much sunshine, I guess. After got up this morning my legs are sour,  my arms hurting. But it was nice, at least I had time to be with colleagues not just talking about work, but also personal things.

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Mi casa es su casa

Published 2012/06/05 by Daoyuan Li

Yesterday we had dinner at a colleague’s house. He has a house similar to my parents used to have: a two story building with both front yard and backyard. “Mi casa es su casa”, he says. And we acted like that. We sat in his sofa and played with his Playstation. I even played. Although I know I suck at games, but it doesn’t stop me enjoying having fun with friends. When we were playing Guitar Hero, I tried the drums, simply because I had some limited experience with them when I was in primary school 15 years ago. But it turned out too difficult for me; I was missing literally every note — either too fast or too slow. I guess previous experiences didn’t help much…

While we were playing video games, three ladies were busy preparing dinner. It might not be something to be bragged about, but it indeed felt great. It’s like staying at home and I never need to cook, someone always keep my stomach full. Same thing happened yesterday — we almost exploded… Also after dinner no one needs to wash the dishes, there’s a machine for that!

After dinner and a little bit rest we headed home, and a colleague drove us back home although he lives in the oposite direction. It’s very nice to have such awesome colleagues and friends. “We should do this often, or even everyday”, I proposed to the colleague who cooked. She looked happy and said “I’m very happy you like it; I like cooking very much!”

I know it’s impossible to do it often; but I’m still quite surprised that there is actually someone who loves cooking in this world.

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Right to vote

Published 2012/05/30 by Daoyuan Li

Today I found a mail lying in my mailbox, and it turned out that I have the right to vote! Believe it or not:

Well, I’m also from a republic country — at least that’s what they say — but I’ve never had the chance to vote. It seems that one should not believe what one government claims. And now I feel quite upside about Finland: how can you let a foreigner vote? I’m not a citizen, I don’t even have a permanent residence permit! Isn’t Finland afraid of people overthrowing one government? Well, I just think they are wild! Now what should I do? Just discard it? But this’s my first opportunity! But whom I should vote? No one never taught me how!

I didn’t realize I’ve been in Finland for almost two years now. It’s been a long time. It’s been nice to study, work and live here. But there’s still something missing, however I don’t really know what’s missing. I suppose I was born a nomad; I’m one that never wants to settle. When is the time to move on? And where I’d go? What should I go after?

I don’t have answers to any of them. But I guess it’s good this way, at least for now.

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Living in town and working in countryside

Published 2012/05/29 by Daoyuan Li

This morning I had to go to Helsinki city center to pick up some office equipment, and once I got on the bus I noticed something different from my daily routine: I couldn’t find a seat that no one was sitting beside, which is quite rare when I go to/back from work. Before this I had always thought that there isn’t enough people in Finland even to fill a bus… It became more obvious when the bus in driving away from the highway and begin entering the city center: there was roughly one km queue of traffic waiting, I thought only big cities have this kind of problems. Turned out I was wrong.

One hour later when I was going back to work from Helsinki center, I got onto a bus in which I was the only passenger — for more than 10km. After that there were three of us all the way to my workplace. And after we got off, the bus was empty again — of course the driver was still there… Living inside ring one and working outside ring three certainly has some benefits: one never needs to worry about crowded public transportation.

Things become quite different when you take them for granted, isn’t it?

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Matchstick men

Published 2012/05/28 by Daoyuan Li

Yesterday I watched the movie “Matchstick men” starring Nicolas Cage, of whom I’m a big fan. The movie was great and the ending was quite unexpected. I thought I had watched all Nicolas’ movies, but for some reason I missed this one. But it’s still nice, the movie gave me a pleasant surprise. A con artist gets conned — the plot is a bit similar to some episodes of  “Hustle”.

This noon I went to lunch in a restaurant in Kirkkonummi city center with many colleagues. The food was nice; and the salad was really great. It was probably the most delicious salad I’ve ever tried. The bread was good, too. Even I could tell the difference between the food in a proper restaurant and Amica food. We sat outside in the terrace in the sunshine. It was a bit cool, but it feels like summer is already here.

The sky went dark in the afternoon. I was planning to pick up some office gears after work. But since I was only wearing short shirts without a jacket, it’d be a good idea to go there tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll be good weather then. 🙂

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Chinese characters

Published 2012/05/27 by Daoyuan Li

When I woke up this morning I tried to remember how to write a very simple Chinese character: “本”, it’s probably one of the most commonly used characters in Chinese — yet it’s took me a while to remember how to write it. Though it’s not the first time I experienced this, it’s still a bit embarrassing. I don’t believe it’s totally because of the fact that I’m not using Chinese much in my daily life, but rather I think it’s because of the fact that I’m using computers everyday and have no chance of practice writing Chinese. I remember not being able to write some characters even back in China…

Someone says on mitbbs.com that people tend to forget how to use non-native languages when they grow old. Well, I only hope I’m still able to communicate with others in one language — whichever language it is.

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Nothing is useless

Published 2012/05/25 by Daoyuan Li

Spring is already in Helsinki; I shot these beautiful flowers on the bus when going to work:

At work Aimmy invites us to have some cake during afternoon coffee break. The cake was very delicious and she’s really good at cooking yummy food. She has already made muffins twice before this; and we are all expected to taste some original Thai food, probably next week.

Yesterday I volunteered to set up a website for the project I’m currently working on. It seems that even my PHP skills will be useful for my career. Some skills developed from hobbies come quite handy when doing serious business. Everything, any experience or lessons are likely to be used sometime later…

I moved my desk to a different position in the room and now I’m enjoying the new layout. Last night I watched Hangover from my bed instead of siting in my uncomfortable chair, thanks to the new layout. 27 inch display looks OK and wireless keyboard acts as remote — a real big remote. Now off to watch Hangover 2. 🙂

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Otaniemi from 80m above

Published 2012/05/24 by Daoyuan Li

Today I had a meeting in Otaniemi and finally managed to visit the possibly the highest building in this area: the water tower. It’s quite a nice view up there. The water tower is build on top of a small hill around 30m high; and the tower itself is about 50m — that makes it standing 80m from the sea level and on top of which it gives a perfect bird view to the whole Otaniemi area.

It’s said that with totally cloudless weather, one can even see as far as Tallinn, which sits around 80km away in the south. That’s pretty amazing!

There is one seagull nest on the roof and there are some eggs waiting to be hatched in it. We saw the seagull circling above us. Fortunately it wasn’t so aggressive to try to attack us, yet.

By the way, the water tower is designed by Alvar Aalto, after which Aalto University is named.

A look upwards to the tower:

Off back home early. It was a nice day!

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Opinions

Published 2012/05/23 by Daoyuan Li

Positive thoughts today:

  1. I made a few slides this morning and found myself to be more efficient in preparing slides that expected. Also I managed to find the company template and icons for making computer networking slides. They make life much easier. And, Ericsson icons looks nicer than Cisco ones. They give a cleaner look and are easier to change the color and to scale.
  2. During lunch we discussed about alcohol, and I was told that good Vodka does not taste anything. This relieves me since the Russian Vodka I bought last year doesn’t have any taste and someone told me it might have been made from industrial alcohol and water. Nice to know that, even though I don’t drink.
  3. I’ve been listening to Johnathan Lee’s songs during work. His songs are very toughing. The more I listen to them, the more I like them.
  4. Saw a provoking African proverb on Google+: “If  you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito.”
  5. It’s nice to have others sharing some of my feelings: guys never know what girls are thinking. (Picture link shared by Mohit and Nalin.) See picture here: http://thedoghousediaries.com/3291
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Giving name to a Finnish baby

Published 2012/05/22 by Daoyuan Li

Today was a good day, thanks to the following things:

  1. It was nice to talk with a colleague from Ericsson Beijing. I got to know what’s going on in China through someone else’s eyes. Also I know how it looks to work in Beijing and how a different job may feel like. She said working in Operations is quite stressful and may require a lot of night shifts, which is not good for anyone’s health. One of her colleagues in Japan had worked night shifts continuously for 90 days… I feel lucky to work in a job that is less likely to cause health problems, although sometimes I do want a bit more pressure.
  2. During lunch we were chatting and one topic came out when discussing giving names to babies. It turns out that Finns give names to their babies secretly for the first three month after the baby is born. That’s probably due to religious reasons, i.e., the devils can not claim the baby if it doesn’t bear a name. It’s also funny that Finns wait until the baby is born to give it a name, simply because they want to make sure the baby’s image matches the name. Hmm, how can you possibly do that? How do you know how “Jussi” should look like? Well, Finns simply do.
  3. I succeeded to revert my Galaxy Tab back to stock version, there wasn’t any noticeable damage to it. It’s nice to have a working tablet that a brick.
  4. I got a clearer view of the short-term goal of the project I’m currently working on.
  5. There are a lot of spam comments in my website, luckily the Akismet plugin successfully blocked all of them. Akismet is free of charge and it works like magic.
  6. Yesterday I managed to update my WordPress Responsive Theme to the latest version, and managed to fix the “number of comments title wrongly aligned” issue.
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GitHub couples

Published 2012/05/21 by Daoyuan Li

I’m feeling good today because of theses things:

  1. My mobile phone ran out of battery and the alarm clock didn’t ring this morning, but I still managed to get up just in time and caught the bus at the last minute — and arrived at the company at my usual time.
  2. My manager told me it looks positive to renew my contract and hopefully it will be one and half years. He also says he tries to get it done before the summer vacation, which makes my life a lot easier. Also he says it’s possible to save my holidays till winter. So I’ll be back in China for some time in winter this year.
  3. A very old lady managed to stop and got on the bus even though she waved her hand a bit late to the bus driver. The bus driver was polite and that what I like about Finland: people generally don’t get angry.
  4. Here’s one very funny and geeky picture I saw from xda-developers. In case the link gets invalidated later, the picture reads: “So, where did you two meet?” “Windows users: at the office” “Mac users: at Starbucks” “Linux users: GitHub”.

 

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Positive Thinking

Published 2012/05/20 by Daoyuan Li

I found one of the most fascinating talks in TED is given by Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work. I’ve watched it for several times and each time I see it, I find it even more inspiring. Following Shawn’s suggestion, I’m trying to list three things that make me happy everyday. Here it goes:

  1. I’m happy that I woke up late and had sufficient sleep.
  2. Immediately after I woke up I went to have lunch with my friends. The food was great and it is always nice to be with friends. And now we are going to have dinner together again. 🙂
  3. The weather is great. I’m very grateful for that.
  4. My neighbor is back from a one-month travel and gives me a pack of chocolate. It’s also nice to hear her travel experiences.
  5. See the following picture:

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Eat that frog

Published 2012/05/20 by Daoyuan Li

According to this book, the key to success is: clarify your goals and objectives; divide them into smaller tasks; prioritize the tasks; conquer them in an efficient way; take into account your talents and constraints while targeting the tasks; motivate yourself; do not multitask; set deadlines; carry the plan through.

The author is surely correct, however the book does not guarantee success. This book, like other books discussing about success, is pointless, since anyone knows what it takes to succeed — practice — while reading a book is quite a different experience from that.

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Migrating JComments to WordPress

Published 2012/04/28 by Daoyuan Li

I switched back to WordPress from Joomla! after I registered this new domain. After migrated all the posts to WordPress using FG Joomla to WordPress, I noticed the comments have not been transferred. After some digging I didn’t find satisfactory plugin to do that, so I wrote my own PHP script to fulfill this task. The code is also available from GitHub.
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Downgrade Preview in OS X Lion

Published 2012/04/23 by Daoyuan Li

I’ve had enough with the slow Preview application in Lion. After some digging I found this tutorial to downgrade the Preview in Lion to the Snow Leopard version. Basically you need to have a copy of both the Preview.app and /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MeshKit.framework from Snow Leopard. If you need to associate the default app to open pdf/png with the downgraded Preview, you have to delete the original Preview.app.

tar -pczf Preview.app.tar.gz /Applications/Preview.app
sudo rm -rf /Applications/Preview.app

Update: after installing OS X updates you need to remove the Preview.app again and put the SL Preview.app to /Applications/ directory.

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