How can you read all the texts on screen?

I hadn't had any opportunity to watch news channels or browse news sites over the Internet when I had been in Korea for a conference, from the 24th to 27th of August, so it was particularly touching when I saw this familiar layout of an image on a news channel this afternoon.

There are six news channels over the cable TV network in Taiwan, broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days week. As every channel would try its best to offer the general public all sorts of information as much as possible, apart from the news image or clip and the main caption or headline for it, there may also be up to three news tickers running at the same time, together with other information such as date, time and weather forecast on screen.

Sometimes I really wonder if all the audience members have a brilliant command of speed reading or can simply comprehend more than one message thread simultaneously.

Look at this screenshot I took this afternoon, if it was a running video clip rather than a still shot, how many block of texts would you be able to read at once?

I have no idea how a news channel look in Korea, but having left Taiwan for only four days, I really miss those Taiwanes text-overloading news channels.

Same places, one more member

(Mum and Dad with the wee one, southbound platform, Pitlochry Railway Station, August 2010 )


(The newlyweds, southbound platform, Pitlochry Railway Station, June 2007)

Three years after my wedding, I returned to Stirling with my wife and son, and had him baptised in Church of the Holy Rude.

A couple of days before the baptism, we managed to visit again Pitlochry, the town where we spent our honeymoon, and took several photos at the same spots where we had taken some during the honeymoon.

Do Mum and Dad look any different?


(Mum and Dad with the wee one, Moulin Inn, Pitlochry, August 2010 )


(The newlyweds, Moulin Inn, Pitlochry, June 2007)

On Polaroid: feast at the end of the semester

I should have posted this Polaroid photo earlier. Although compared with a digital photo, its resolution is definitely much lower, I just love its aged texture.

Since I started my full-time postdoctoral job in 2009, I have been inviting members in my database construction team to a feast at the end of every semester, and sometimes sort of fellowship dinner during the semester as well, in return for their hard work and to encourage teamwork cohesion. Most of the time, research assistants who share the same office with us would also join us.

After Ronne was born in early March, I have to go home on time every weekday to cook dinner and share child care responsibilities with Fanne, and spare the weekend for families, so no dinner event was held during the spring semester 2010.

However, I managed to gather my team members and some colleagues to have a good feed at a Cantonese restaurant on the 29th of July, about a week before I flew to Britain.

Pei-Hsiu, an alumna of our graduate institute, offered one of her last three Polaroid instant films, which have been discontinued, to capture the image of these well pleased folks. A nice shot, isn't it?

Three-year-old wedding cake ready to be served again

(Lovely small two-layered wedding cake, Church of the Holy Rude, 23 June 2007)

It's about the halfway point of the summer vacation and I've just finished a one-month intensive summer course on musical cultures around the globe. After working industriously on my own project and the summer course for a whole month, I am ready to take a vacation to Britain.

When Fanne and I were married in the Church of the Holy Rude, we were told that the top layer of the wedding cake had to be saved for the christening. Margaret, my former landlady, kindly kept it in her deep freezer for us and now it is going to be re-iced and decorated by Tricia, the lady who made it for us three years ago.

In the past, it was popular to have a three-layered wedding cake: the bottom layer served in the reception, the second distributed to the guests and the top saved for the christening. However, as nowadays the wedding is not necessarily associated with the first child's christening, although multi-layered wedding cakes are still in vogue, the top layer may be saved for the couple's first anniversary, or simply eaten up after the ceremony.

I am so glad that we follow the tradition. The top layer will be served after the baptism.

I also feel so privileged that we could be married in the church where Jame VI, the last King of Scots, had been crowned and that my son is going to be baptised in the same church.