notonlyempty's Xanga

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:15:00 GMT

A Journey of Nocturne

It's not the first night I stayed outside; but it's the first night I kept walking all night, in the city.
The planning was done within 10 minutes, one night before the actual journey. I guessed this kind of journey has been planned for a long time, only a matter of chance to trigger it.

10:50PM
Have everything checked – city map, rain proof gear, water, camera; Now I'm arriving the starting point – also the end point of my trip, Shai Kei Wan, one end of tram terminal. It was nothing special, to those who lived there, only a circle of tram track, all trams going in east direction will be terminated here, take a turn, changed the sign and ready to move west.
"Ding, Ding", time to get boarding. That sound for boarding also called as alias for tram.

12:00AM
Nothing impressed me any more on the way.
I hopped off at Sheung Wan, and have some exercises going to the western tram terminal.

01:00AM
West tram terminal much peaceful then CBD, something couldn't be observed in daytime was the strong wings blew papers away, more clear about the sound from traffic lights for disables.
Stood by the sea and felt the humid winds like tiny rain, there's someone fishing by the sea. People one the street are mostly working on night shift for those shops operating 24 hours, polices.
There's still 5 hours to the destination, so I slowed down.

01:30AM
The unexpected phone call
A young man getting emotional while talking in the mobile phone, his friend, a lady with cigarette in hand, who was in 7-11 working suit walked beside him slowly. Suddenly, young man dropped the mobile with anger; the mobile was broken into parts in front of me; young man screamed – "I didn't do that!" I walked by in constant speed to minimize the chance of any dramatic effect of interacting with him.
I pretended to take a rest on the other side of the road, of course keep seeing the young man's show in a safe distance.
The magical mobile was still alive when that lady assembled it. Seems the young man was still stimulated and in 'destructive' mode; he kept repeating 'I didn't do that!' with a series of offensive words that making his statement more strong. He then started to drop the phone again, & kick the rubbish bin like a football – the bin fell down and separated into parts, rubbish spread away.
Then both went away, into the dark street.

Take 2, Break up
Near by the place I watched the show, there were another 4 young people taking video.
Their gear looked amateur, maybe rent from school. A young lady in long, brown hair seems liked their director. Their 'movie clip' was so short – probability just a scene shot – lasted for less than a minutes. But I've been seeing them taking the same shot from Take 2, 3, till 10, and I guess they still want to have the best cut after I left there in 20 minutes.

Portraits
"Hey man, what are you taking photos?"
"Landscape." I replied
"How about you?" I asked them who got the similar photo gears
"LANDSCAPE? OF COURSE, we are doing portrait. " The well made up model was their evident.
.... to be continued

With dogs
"Wow wow wow" dogs barked at me when I entered their territory.
I stopped, and move forwarded.
.... to be continues

02:20AM
Where the Taxis aggregate
Personally, I don't like women getting drunk, pretend or real drunk, as I could tell.
A long Taxi queue told me there might be something interested ahead. So I walked away from the tram track and obviously, those Taxis brought me to Lan Kwai Fung.
Tsui Wah restaurant at Central was open 24 hours, from the brands of vehicles packed outside it, I could predict which class they came from. I sat down, had some water, and toasted to the Taxi driver in the Taxi with 'For Hire' light one, who was giving me eye contact for a few seconds. He was parked outside that restaurant and waiting for those exits the restaurant.
From observation, a certainly drunk woman was sticking to a man in formal suit, they came from the street of bars and pubs – Lan Kwai Fung. I couldn't recall that moment the woman getting on the Taxi back seat, there's no different between drunk and drug overdose.

Took a turn, Lan Kwai Fung was in front, it's a back hoe of night time.
What're there? Music of rock and roll, smoking, talking, alcohol, peanuts, Taxis.

… to be continued

06:00AM
Take the first train home
… to be continued

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:31:34 GMT

<REVIEW>

Wild Child

Enya

Ever close your eyes
Ever stop and listen
Ever feel alive
And you've nothing missing
You don't need a reason
Let the day go on and on

Let the rain fall down
Everywhere around you
Give into it now
Let the day surround you
You don't need a reason
Let the rain go on and on

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

Only take the time
From the helter skelter
Every day you find
Everything's in kilter
You don't need a reason
Let the day go on and on

Every summer sun
Every winter evening
Every spring to come
Every autumn leaving
You don't need a reason
Let it all go on and on

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

Da-da da da da da, da da da da da da
da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

What a day, what a day to take to
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to
Da-da-da
Da-da-da-da-da-da
What a way, what a way to make it through
What a day, what a day to take to
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child
What a day, what a day to take to
What a day, what a day to take to a wild child

It'd been 3 years since I heard this song. It was played during a video presentation of a project call "Raleigh", a lucky young man was picked to join some volunteering work in developing countries, on the screen, it was that young man sitting at the back of the a truck, looking at the track and dusts the truck just went through – music started, it was from Enya, singer of Only Time which fell into the same category. I was so touched, by that melody, wanted to be him, be that lucky, wild child. I was with a strong will to join that project, wished to be enrolled, wished to collect enough fund to be shortlisted, wished to be that lucky one, on the TV or not, that not important. I've even got a naive idea learn swimming to fulfill the requirement for enrollment.
Finally, my application was rejected but this song remained fresh in my ears.

The wild described in this song was not the violent type of wild, nor the revenge one; I would say it's closer to the raw type – abandon predefined rules by authority, by religions, just act like a new born baby, suddenly became a child.

It's more sentimental, rather than making real actions to prove to be a wild child; it's to show the spotless mindset of wild – "Let the rain fall down, around you, and Give into it", sort of dancing in the rain. There's not much interaction or other people, it's not telling a story of wild children, nor stories of wild child and other 'regular' child. It's just a story of a child with innocent mind, just doing something 'without a reason' in a sudden rain.

Raining, it was only an excuse; or for a wild child's mind – don't even want to think about that, it was only native reactions of getting into the rain. Indeed, every single piece of change in nature could bring the message from nature to the sensitive mind of a wild child. Every summer sun, or autumn leaving. A wild child, being able to spot the changes of season, the changes of non-artificial – there's not always air-conditioned, there's not always a road, there's not always a dress code.

I was once a wild child, wants to hunt animals, looking for exploring other countries, even Antarctica; want to say out of family for so many years; want to leave all the memories home and started a new one. I was once being sentimental, being ideal and got wild ideas just for challenging. Years after facing the real world, the portion of wild was limited to a barely acceptable boundary while the part of 'child' still remains. The more I discover the nature, the more I want to explore, but in a more practical way – rather than seeking for something big like real bloody hunting or a survival test; I would prefer 'easy' ones like seeing fireflies – of course not in TV or in a glass bottle; learn how to dance, like those leaves in the breeze; have a snow fight or even sleep outside without a roof.

Year after years, I was that grown up child - no other child called me big brother any more; but it's never for the heart of child; indeed, I don't need a reason.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:53:52 GMT

<PHILOSOPHY>

Festival

Mid-autumn is coming.
Oh, without the flood of advertisements for moon-cakes; indeed, without that, I would not notice that at all.
This year, I was told to remember mid-autumn festival is coming - which date is not important - could be any one in the lunar calendar, at the time this festival was created. Its meaning was reunion - a reunion of people with shared memories.
Indeed, overloaded work was an excuse for me to squeeze all festivals away from my life. However, it never works for memories. It's just like a soul, always there alone without a contact, hidden deep in a fresh body.

Festival, in financial world, could be a great business opportunity - of course it would be valuable to put most of its resources for such well known & popular ones - like new year, Christmas. In order to convince consumers for this seasonal - festival shopping. As you can expect, there's a check list for each person or family - Christmas tree, moon-cakes, wedding-rings - if wedding was counted as one too.
For customers, it could be a good news too, seasonal sales might associate with those festivals too. Sometimes, it's not always business related, some organizations would give out free goods for promoting their religion or believe, or purely for charity. Thought business of festival creates opportunities for design, manufacturing, transportation, retails or marketing; after all, it's all profit driven, every product or service specific for festivals might turns out to be a routine procedures of executing business model.

Actively response to festivals and turning into business value, there's business initiative; no matter being a consumer of those products or not, some will react passively, or treat it as an execuse to do something, or reminding themselves it's time to do something, like a recall to events - birthdays, anniversaries. Indeed, festival could be a good and unrejectable reason for people recording memory of someone, something or some stories on those 'festivals'. For those who are busy or pretending to be busy, festival could be an excuse to insert into these endless loops of single side - self contained & seeing only one side of the world - if there two. the power of this break introduced by 'festival' might not be able to lead someone to the other side of the world, at least there's a chance to move a little bit from its precious track of life, at least being able to spot the edge of the other side of the world. To be more generous, going to a bar on Friday night, going to church on Sunday worship, a trip, could be an excuse of having a 'festival', to be or not to be their lives.

You keep memories because they are important; it's important because it's meaningful; it's meaningful might because it's special; it's special might because it's on a special day - festival.
It's not necessary unique in the entire life - like different people putting wedding rings on your finger and saying - I do.

In my understanding, memories those associated with festivals, not necessary to be real, to be reachable. It's already transformed into a concept. Start turning into public festivals into a personal ones - being selective and creative, not just blinding following. It's not necessary to stick to festivals of a region, a culture - like Easters, National days, or even funnels - if it's counted as one. If you put an equal sign between memory and festival, it's not fair, there might be too much memory to be ignored. Such as one day, I went for an appointment too earlier, after I realized that, there's nothing pity or disappointed - time was not wasted - I had an unexpected chance to sit quietely on a roadside, trains, buses, passengers, I enjoyed that quality time of doing nothing but thinking and finished some writing.

What's my favourite festival - anyone unplanned.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:04:38 GMT

<STORY>

A tour by local guide

This is a story when I was traveling in Bangkok, Thailand. It’s also a game in a sand-box I’m not familiar again, and again, I played it with caution.

It’s the 5th day of my Thailand trip, the sun was trying to burn up everything on the earth without a mercy. I was learn that bringing a telephoto lens was useless for photos in Bangkok city, so, only camera with basic standard zoom lens on my neck, and nothing else even a water bottle.
I’d been enjoying this kind of travel, though couldn’t speak any single word except the greeting ‘sawadi-cup’; I tried to keep a low profile to blend into their local life – eat as local, dress as local and pretend to be part of them.
It’s 3PM, after leaving Wat Arun – the only temple you can climb up, I’d like to find somewhere I haven’t visited here – shopping mall is definitely not my cup of tea, Wat (temple) was everywhere but not in my list as I was full of them already in the first few days. So, it’s time to pick a spot sounds interested but not necessary famous. In addition, the traffic jam in peak hours from 5 PM would definitely an obstacle to me from going anywhere on the ground, no vehicle was able to move faster than walking on the road in that situation. So, I made a decision – going to a near by BTS station, had some visit then going back to hotel right after that. However, I went on a wrong tuk-tuk (taxi without meter) and a tour by local guide starts.

“Olympic station. How much?” I asked a tuk-tuk driver while pointing the location on a map to him – it’s proven the best way to communicate with local is to be visualized.
“Oh, Olympic, I know”, he raise his voice, nodded to acknowledge – “200 bath”
“60” there’s always a price set in my mind before asking, with virtual metering on the map.
“150, it’s far away.” He’s hopping me to accept his generous offer, like other tourist.
“It’s not far, I could take a taxi” I pointed at taxi-meter on the road.
“100” he stilled don’t want to miss the chance at a half of his purposed price.
“No, 60”, I pretend to insist, as my bottom line of 80 was quite close now. I knew he was struggling for at least a few seconds, from his worried eyes.
He then sweep away dust from the back seat of his tuk-tuk and agreed with the deal. Our journey started.

I didn’t looked at him carefully in the beginning, as it’s just another “rent” service and will be forgotten forever when the trip ends The path to the destination was shown a straight line on the map, but how come he needed to take so many turns and finally stopped at a narrow valley.
He stopped the tuk-tuk, turned off engine & pulled out the key. He looked old, with some white beard, thin , dark skin, in a short pant and with a pair of brown dusty slippers. He shown me an entrance of a temple, no guard, no admission and no other visitors. I checked my pocket, the wallet was still with me.
He had a short walk with me & tried to introduce the temple with his limited English; then he leaded me to a mid-aged man in suit –“ He’s a professor, he will show you interested places in Bangkok, please sit down, I will wait outside.”

“Hello, my friend, what’s your name?”
“John” it’s a common name and that could be my role’s name in the game.
“Hello John, I’m professor Ko, where are you come from?”
“Hong Kong” as I told the taxi-driver that I’m from Hong Kong, it’s fine not to spoff everything.
“Well, I just back from Hong Kong few days ago, I was on a conference there.” The professor of could be successfully authenticated by answering a few questions about Hong Kong correctly without any “Memory lookup” or “Answer making up” delay.
Quickly, he began to introduce me some places that I never heard of nor shown in the map – such as big shows, ruby, Thai-silk factory, then he circled one by one on my map, even draw an itinerary passing all those check points. I was keep nodding and trying to leave – the content was not fun or attractive. He noticed that and keep smiling – “The driver will driver you there, with no additional cost, is that OK for you?” How could I possibly reject such a good offer as well as a chance to say goodbye and ending such meaningless conversation to a stranger?
The driver was waiting for me outside, seems his smile looked a little bit nicer than before, as a humble welcome to me as a local tour guide. “Let’s go” I did want to go to the BTS station directly rather than visiting those places not even shown on an official tourist map. “I will take you to the place professor told you now, then I’ll drive you to the station.” “OK” “Am I have a choice” I asked myself.

The taxi was now moving north while my destination was supposed to be on the east.

A good thing of this “Sub-optimized” route was that I was able to find those landmarks on the map and take photos as documentary. He stopped at every spot I asked him to stop, really nice of him.
Taxi finally stopped at the front door of an elegant building looked like a hotel. It was indeed a hotel when I entered. “I will wait for you at the exit” I promised I didn’t know what’s going on – where’s this place and what am I suppose to do here.
Icy cool air-conditioned lobby was a great contract with the street that everything’s melting down. A gentleman in suit opened the giant door for me, a lady walked toward me with 3 glasses of drinks in a tray. “How may I help you sir?” The gentleman asked me in a quite “above average” English, “Someone suggested me to take a look here.” Gentleman suddenly seemed understood something – “Welcome sir, what would you like to drink?” He then presented me the lady with the tray: from left to right – green, orange and colourless “Tea, Orange Juice or Water?” “Water is perfect” – I copied this from a script writer I met at the first class on a flight to Los Angeles – simple and praising. He then introduced me the brief history of ruby and how famous it’s in Thailand and all over the world – Honestly, I couldn’t catch any complete sentence of him. Then he showed me the polishing and mounting factory, and finally – the shop. At the moment he guided me to the shop, he transformed from a guide to a sales – “Do you have anything in your mind, for your wife, girl friend, mother or sister?” I kept silent, just watch those products like skimming a bookshelf of kids’ reading. Obviously, jewelry was not my cup of tea – he then presented a calculator – one of the powerful weapons to break the burden of language as well as to present those magic figures to stimulate your desire of owning. “You are a special guest today, we will offer you 30% off, … this piece of ear-ring cost only 1,540 baht.”
“No, thanks, I don’t think I need anything here. Anyway, thanks for your introduction.” I found the exit was quite close to me, even in the worst case scenario; I could simply rush out and escape if he’s reacting unexpected. He was standing there, watching me walking outside, without a word or movement like being frozen.

It’s hot outside, as usual.
Taxi driver was there waiting for me, as promised, only for 5 minutes since he dropped me off.
He looked at me with a surprised and worried face.
“You are leaving too quick!” seems’ he’s complaining.
“Why? I don’t like ruby, so I just leave.” I answered him honestly.
He was hurt, truly, hurt by my words.
“We are taxi drivers controlled by the government, we can get free gasoline from government, but you need to stay longer.” He was so sad, helpless, almost tearing. He showed me his family photo, it was a black and white photo: he looked 10 years younger in the photo, between him and his wife, there were their too daughters aged 5 or 6. “I need to buy gasoline and drive taxi for my family,” he flapped his wallet to a page with a stamp, texts below it was in Thailand that I couldn’t read. He then explained “Free gasoline, if you can stay longer inside, I can get free gasoline from government, just stay, no shopping.” “No shopping?” I asked for confirmation. “Yes, no shopping, just stay, 10 minutes.” He then showed the number ten using both hands. I suddenly understood something and immediately decided something – for him and his free gasoline.
“If I stay there for 10 minutes, no shopping, and you can get free gasoline, right ?” There’s hope, there’s happiness came up to his face. “Yes, please, thank you.”
“It’s easy for me, 10 minutes, don’t worry, I will stay there for 10 minutes, I promise” To even convince him I’d keep my promise, I put my hand on his shoulder like a old friend “ No problem, I can do it.” I reiterate my determination. “Thank you, thank you very much.”
Gasoline, that could be a greatest portion of his cost of driving; 10 minutes, only a small and unexpected exciting game for me. In this zero-sum game of 10 minutes, there must be two players losing – the government providing free gasoline and whoever served me in the next stop, for 10 minutes.
“Is this the big swing?” “Yes, photo, photo.” His answer was with joy now.
He stopped me at several landmarks on the way to the next shop. I was now in a team, with a local guide, for the game at next stop.
I needed to make sure – I ‘d never exit before 10 minutes accidentally, therefore, I adjusted the shortcut at my camera to show the current time on the way to somewhere a game was waiting for us.
He stopped me at an elegant shop – as I expected. “10 minutes” I repeated this to him for the last time to show my determination of winning free gasoline for him.
Doors open, a gentleman with short, dark beard greeted me “How may I help you sir?”
“I’m looking for a good suit.” I answered with a smile, plus a little bit of uncovered evil, with a kind heart I guess. “4:10PM, let's get started.”

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:33:20 GMT

<OTHERS>

Sugar Free Journey

It has been a long time, not putting anything with sugar in his backpack.
He's now didn't even bring a backpack, a map or a camera, whenever go hiking, a journey.

When looking back his journeys, there are always unexpected stories, like different tastes. However, the tastes of sweetness from sugar always dominated those.

He's now going quietly, without an intention, without a purpose, only with the moment of passion, going for a new journey, without sugar.

He likes sugar, sometimes a little bit is enough, like that little bit of them to neutralize the bitterness of dark chocolate;
He likes sugar, sometimes as strong like wildness, like rewarding his body from drinking icy Cola or lemon tea, at the end of a long journey;
He likes sugar, sometimes as primitive as taking from flowers, but with an intention of making the journey special.

Sugar, once in the entire journey, became something he used to be addicted to.
The taste of the sweetness from sugar is fading; finally, they will become texts, photos and untold stories that never fading for him, and become eternal of joy.

In the recent journeys without sugar, not even a substituted one, he became more sentimental, more sensitive to every mementos on the way; moments, segments and stories of others getting dominating his journey and he started to taste something being ignored before from sweetness.

He's now backing to the basic type of journey, a journey without intention, without sugar; a type of journey he'd never lost, as it's never be found before.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:12:12 GMT

<REVIEW>

Authority

The number of people protested on July 01 against the HK government was claimed 76K by the organizer; however the police department claimed 25K, which was 1/3 of the total number.

The fundamental of this is authority, neither of them was the reliable source; neither of them was able to defense their claim, by giving their 'proprietary' accounting method as the answer to the public. That's why we need a standard, could be a well-know standard, being carried out by them or any 3rd party.

It's nowadays a world of well-connected and information flowing freely among countries, these figure makes the world laughing, at least one of them making a silly, naive and irresponsible evaluation for the figure to the public.
There's many ways of accounting, we can simply leave this to the authorities drafting, enforcing and auditing such account methods. However, year by year, event by event, neither party stepped forward to trust other parties figure, or willing to use independent parties' method instead of their 'indiscoverable' one, they always claim themselves the authority and blindly ignore other parties figures or the argues from the public.

Seems it's not as important, as a company's annual financial report, mostly done by an authority - accounting film, and everyone could review all items listed in the report, have fact check...
Seems it's not as important, as public exam's grading; no one would trust the grading by candidates themselves, nor one single proctor.

Accounting for the number of people in the protest should not be political; it should be purely scientific, purely statistical.

I'm hoping that one day, there's some independent authorized parties become the authority of announcing such numbers. Of course, the way how they collect samples and calculate could be accepted and audited by the public.
If that day comes, everyone would know how they will be counted, in what condition will be counted as valid. The public could accept the unbiased information from authorized source, collected from much professional way.

Stop joking the public as fool. We need an authority.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:00:20 GMT

<OTHERS>

A rejected gift

"It's for you, open it."
"Sorry, I don't want it."
"It's for you, we won't take it back, take it."
"I don't need a gift."

He don't know why, why expressing his appreciation in a such unfriendly way.
Maybe, it's the first time, the secret of date of birth being disclosed.
Maybe, it's the first time, he don't know how to handle such unexpected.
Maybe, it's the first time, someone suddenly came into his private world.

He begins diluting the importance of festivals.
He celebrated with others, reluctantly, if no excuse; while only sharing privately.
In the past years, no one, except his mother was able to share the true happiness with him, when that day came.
For many years, he never told anyone, the day when he was born.

To him, he was not prepared for the changes.
Everyone needs a change; otherwise it's just as never existed, while he believes in eternality.

A gift brings him a surprise that out of 'definition', brings him also the moment of lost.
He rejected, it hurts any body, including him.
He did something wrong, to anyone, including himself, so he was in a bad mood since rejecting.
It's not to present the identity of uniqueness. It's the moment of emptiness and weakness.
When something not supposed to be found was found, he was both found and lost.
He was so strong, always ready for the severe challenges;
He was so weak, suddenly found himself helpless for such a trivial gift of appreciation.

A gift has opened a seal of his soul.
Reseal it by accepting, without a heart, to keep the secret of weakness;
Or, let it wide open, no one cares more.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:46:03 GMT

<OTHERS>

Memory

Memory, some can't be forgotten while some can't be recalled.

Keep memory by alias – another piece of trivial memory.

Memory by recording: by photo, video or text, too intentional.
Photos can't be taken all the time.
Even you can, photos can't be keep all the time;
Even you can, photos can't be with you all the time;
Even you can, photos can't be shown all the time;
Even you can, photos can't bring you the same memory all the time;
Even you can, photos was just the dead-body of eternity.
It's a plain record of documentary.

Memory by alias: trivial but sometimes unforgotten.

Whenever drying my hair, slowly, memory of childhood flashes.
It was by mother's hands, gently and carefully.
Whenever able to spare sometime drying hair, the memory was recalled.

Whenever a certain piano was heard, I felt chilled.
It was a freezing morning, when the train door opened for hours without a reason; MP3 was playing that piano CD, again and again.
Whenever that music was played again, my feet was as in freezing air, as one trivial morning few years ago, in New York's subway.

Whenever spotting a certain city on a map, something pops up in my mind.
It was a remote city, at the corner of the world.
Whenever anyone asked which place was my favorite, I would reply instantly with its name, and short description for that island of rejuvenation.

Whenever that melody starts, I would follow until it stops.
It was any of my favorite song, sometimes not evil able to recall the names.
Whenever it starts, I was not able to get focus, until it stops, as I was singing with her.

Whenever short beep-beep-beep rings, I would get nervous.
It was a sound of pager calls for incident report, once part of my duty.
Whenever anything sounds like that, I had to tell myself: it's over; it's not your responsibility.

Whenever someone's name pops up, there's only an alias.
It's an alias that best description of that person; name was only an official record that tells nothing.
Whenever that alias exists and irreplaceable, the person was remembered.

Intention is not beautiful.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:46:52 GMT

<IT>

Network Communication in life

<Chapter 0 – Introduction>

Why writing this book
I like learning and I'm a visualization style person in learning, I strongly prefer knowledge to be expressed and learnt in a casual way of games, examples or stories. When I was in secondary school or university, I was frustrated about the way instructors spreading out knowledge – for us, they were just pieces of information – or memento, those may easily lost their value after exam of end of the course. If you are lucky, you may still recall some of those from your family background, career or friends, but not all.
This book is written for those who were afraid of computing networking, but amazed by or curious of how general network communication works – how we get connected and connected so closely. It's also suitable for those with zero knowledge background in networking. This book is not meant to go deep into the technology side, it's not an introduction to the technology, it's simply a story book telling networking concepts from our real life examples, a 'pre-school' book for the network communication.

About the author
I've graduated with a Bachelor degree in Science, major in Mathematics. Now I'm working in a network security company as Network Security Analyst, for Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) detection and prevention.
This is a wish since I stepped my foot into IT field. I'm not a purely IT person, but a document guy, enjoy being the man-in-the-middle helping delivering communications between several parties.
I'm on my track to take the most challenging exam in the industry in computer networking – CCIE R&S (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert: Routing and Switching track). This book will be completed this year (2009), as a 'supporting' document to the certificate, or to apply for a research master study in information security.

Words from the author
I was the same as many of you when I first heard of network communication – amazed. It's not an easy topic to express by IOS, TCP/IP, BGP… forget about those terms, there's no secret of getting understanding of those jargons, they are just another form of our day-to-day activates, just in another form. Within a year after graduation from university, I've forgotten almost all courses of complex number, differentiate equations… Lady for company administration asked me one day: "I don't know what your company is doing; boss told me we are doing something called DDoS, but I've no idea what is that." I explained and she nodded, I was pleased.
With only my explanation is not sufficient to understand those concepts, at least when you have read it the first time. It's something I can explain how to do that here – it's the sense to life, not just from the surface, you need a little bit more – the concept and logic behind them, keep asking if not sure. I'm not able to understand every field to become a generic 'Doctor of knowledge', learning in a interactive way is also an example of 'network communication in life', please do contact me if you have any question of this book or anything related to this book.

<Chapter 1 – concept from post-office and telecommunication – IP addressing>
FQDN, IDD, mailing address, DNS

<Chapter 2 – Communication type, the topology>
Broadcast: one to many, Uni-cast: one to one, multicast: one to a group, anycast: one to 'any' one answers the first

<Chapter 3 – How messages delivered – the transmission protocols>
Routing, switching

<Chapter 4 – Information exchange in a dynamic way – the routing protocols>
IGP
Part A: Metric/ Part B: Link state
BGP

<Chapter 5 – all about attributes – the routing protocol for internet>
BGP attributes

<Chapter 6 – someone deserved more – Quality of Service>
How we queue up, how we get serviced? Why there's VIP counter in bank & express counter in supermarket?

<Chapter 7 – Privacy and security – VPN and authentication>
Authentications, TCP/HTTP authentication, IPSec, cryptography

<Chapter 8 – Prevent single point of failure – network redundancy>
VRRP, anycast, re-routing.

<Chapter 9 – Need both quality and availability – distributing and load balancing>
Distributed computing and load balancing

<Chapter 10 – Abusing the shared resources – Denial of services>

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:25:27 GMT

<Story>

Coffee or Tea

He likes tea, she likes coffee.
He never drinks her coffee while she never drinks his tea.

He likes tea; he likes making teas rather than drinking them.
Among all teas he has, the one he like the most was green tea.
He likes those teas light in colour, pure and innocent.
He demands quality of teas, as well as the quality time of making teas.
Every time he is in a bad mood, he will start making his green tea.
He is sentimental especially when seeing tea leaves stretching, dancing and rejuvenating.
He knows she might not understand why he's doing so, but she never asked.

Tea leaves must be complete;
Water must be pure;
Glass must be spotless;
Noise must be eliminated;
That's his quality time, making his cup of tea, alone.

She likes coffee, she likes tasting fresh, little and little.
Among all coffee she tasted, the one she like the most was Cupertino.
She likes layers of premium Cupertino, tasting layer by layer like discovering.
She demands environment of having coffee, as well as every bite stimulate her joy.
Every time she is in a good mood, he will spend hours with a single cup of coffee.
She is falling in love when the each layer brings her each taste of joy.
She knows he don't want to understand why she's doing so, and he never noticed.

Coffee must be fresh;
Sweetness must be a little less;
Coffee cup must be pure white;
Seat must be conformable;
That's her quality time, drinking her cup of coffee, alone.