In 1979, there were only 89 breweries in the United States. Beer had been in steady decline in since its heyday in the 19th century. However, beer has been making a dramatic comeback in recent years. There are now over 6,000 breweries in the United States alone. Combine that with all the breweries in the […]
Language Translation Methods
Over 16 years ago, I wrote a Chinese-English translator in PHP. I learned a lot from the project (including a lot of Chinese slang). It was frustrating getting the encoding conversions right, but the end result was an understandable translation. I stopped working on it when Google rolled out their own translator, which appeared […]
Destination: Taitung, Taiwan
I visited Taitung in the southeast part of Taiwan in 2004. There was an aboriginal culture demonstration. Up in the mountains, there were Taiwan High Mountain tea and paragliding. There was even a dairy farm which, being on a sub-tropical island in Asia was a unique experience. Evaporation mist above the river. Taiwan aborigines setting up […]
Google Life
As Google grows, the products they produce are continually changing my life by changing how I organize and gather information. The next decade should be even more exciting, as Google and its parent company Alphabet continue to push their boundaries into new fields such as home automation, artificial intelligence, and life sciences. Here is a […]
Blog Idea #23 Revisited: Add to the Domain Name
If the domain name you want is taken, sometimes you can tweak it a little to find a version that is available. You can add prefixes or suffixes like -blog or -site. Engadget.com added the en- prefix. Friendster.com added the -ster suffix. You can also add an article like the- (theoatmeal.com) or a- (alistapart.com). Sometimes, […]
Destination: The Republic of Palau
The Republic of Palau is a Pacific island nation of about 21,000 people spread over 250 islands. Palau is located in the Pacific Ocean roughly at the center of the triangle formed by the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Guam. I visited as part of a tour group out of Taiwan in 2004. The view […]