Hôm nay không có lớp nên ở nhà chơi với vợ con. Đầu óc cũng thoải mái một tí.Ngày mai nghỉ làm ở nhà trông con. Trường cu Đạo đóng cửa ăn mừng năm mới của người Jewish. Muốn dắt hai đứa đi chơi nhưng Cu Đán vẫn còn ho. Tội nghiệp thằng bé đang ngủ mà cứ ho. Hồi nảy tắm cho nó thấy nó đã nhẹ hẳng đi còn mặt mài thì tái mét. Vậy đó mà lúc chơi vẫn quậy quá như thường.
The worse part being a parent is seeing your little angel suffer but you can’t do a damn thing. Poor little Dan has been teething, coughing and vomiting the whole week. At night he got up every half an hour because of his cough. I hardly take photos of him because his eczema around his mouth is getting worse. Being sick brings both the bad and good parts out of him. Despite all the struggles, my baby boy always manages to put a smile on his face. If he keeps this attitude, I am positive that he’ll live a much happier and healthier life. My baby Dan is a carefree spirit.
Dao, on the other hand, is much more crankier than Dan. He’s stubborn but very determine. The other day when I picked him up from daycare, I told him to go pee pee before we go home. We went into the men’s room and I told him to use the stool to pee. He said, “No, I don’t need a stool. I am a big boy.” He pulled down his pants and put his thing right on the stall because he’s a bit short. Being a clean freak, I was speechless. People pissed all over that stool. Yesterday we did the same thing, but this time, he nudged up his feet so that his penis doesn’t touch the stall. Man, I was so proud of him.
Between the sick kid and the homework, I slept less and less. Last night I had about two hours. I am on my second venti coffee frappacino with two extra shots of expressos of the day. I went to class yesterday and I got slammed on the new project. I didn’t let it get to me, but I wanted to just step up my game for the class tomorrow. When I got home late last night I found out that one of my client’s sites was compromised so I had to fix it first. I was so dead tired, but I couldn’t sleep so I worked out my homework. Man, I don’t know how long I can keep up with this crazy schedule. Now I could understand why people with young children would have a tough time getting through school.
Developed by Marco Arment, Instapaper is a simple application that allows users to save online articles and read them later at their own convenience. A year ago when I was still commuting everyday from Virginia into Washington DC using the Metro, Instapaper was my reading tool on my iPod Touch. Before heading to work or leaving work, I would save a handful of articles I want to read during the train ride.
One of the activities Instapaper deems important is downloading the main content of the articles on the web and presenting them in a way that is legible and readable on the user’s devices. Instapaper makes saving articles easy via “Read Later” bookmarklet. Once the bookmarket is on the browser’s bookmark bar, users can click on it when they are on a page or an article they want to read later.
One of Instapaper’s standout features is the capability to ignore related elements surrounding the article such as the navigations, sidebars and especially annoying ads. For example, reading an article on a web site like New York Times is quite distracting because of all the moving ads, sidebars, paginations (an article is broken down to several pages) and tiny fonts. Trying to read the New York Times on a small device like an iPod Touch is even worse. Users have to constantly zoom into the text to read. Instapaper changed all of that. By focusing on the main content and stripping away unnecessary elements, Instapaper makes reading much more pleasurable.
Instapaper defines the attributes of the information it process by saving the articles for the users. Before Instapaper, I collect my favorite online articles by printing them out and saving them. Instapaper allows me to save that paper-wasting process and have my favorite articles all in one place. Once my collected articles are saved and downloaded into Instapaper, I don’t need Internet access to read them. I can open up the app on my iPod and read the articles whenever or wherever I prefer. I can archive as many articles as I like and I can delete the ones that I don’t want to keep.
Sharing information is not important to Instapaper because its main service is to collect, but it does make sharing easy. Users can post a link to social networks including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinboard and Evernote. Instapaper requires users to create a free account to archive all the articles. Since Instapaper only asks for email address and a new password to sign up for an account, maintaining users private information is fairly minimal. All the transactions of purchasing the software are done through Apple’s app store or Android’s app store. Instapaper generates its revenue by offering the service to users. While Instapaper has several competitors such as Readability and Pocket, its elegant design and continuous refinement make Instapaper a fine tool for reading online articles offline.
(Fourth essay for Graduate Design Seminar)
I suspect Romney doesn’t really believe that 47% of the electorate are moochers; he was just dialing for dollars. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how the man who mouthed those words, whether he believes them or not, can be elected President.
John Cassidy points out, “The Romney campaign is incompetent. Romney is incompetent.” We had eight years with Bush already. We don’t want another incompetent president do we? So make sure you cast your vote.
Hôm qua bà ngoại bận nên tôi phải trông cu Đán. Chở Đán vào mall chơi thấy thiên hạ xếp hàng cả đóng chờ mua iPhone 5. Tôi cũng ghé vào ngắm nghía cho đở thèm. Thấy cũng đã thiệt nhưng đợi thêm vài tháng nửa dụ dổ bà xếp cho mình đổi cái iPhone mới để test trang web. Cái 3G S cũ quá rồi nhưng hôm nay làm liều upgrade lên iOS6 luôn nhưng thấy nó chạy cũng được lắm không bị chậm.
Mình cũng chả đua đòi gì cần gì iPhone mới nên rời bỏ tiệm Trái Táo đưa con đi chơi playground. Cu Đán thì khác hẳn với cu Đạo. Nhớ ngày xưa cu Đạo nhát và cẩn thận lắm. Không dám chơi cũng không dám trèo. Còn cu Đán thì chẵng sợ gì cả bò hết chỗ này trèo lên chổ kia. Té cũng không sợ. Thấy gì cũng liếm nên phải đi theo ổng từng bước. Thấy ai mà chào ổng là ổng cười ngay. Rồi còn bò lại làm quen. Thấy ổng vui vẻ cởi mở cũng vui.
Cu Đạo ngày xưa rất cẩn thận nên không bị ngã nhiều và cũng không bao giờ bỏ đồ vô miệng. Chỉ ngã khi ba của nó không được cẩn thận cho lắm. Cu Đạo cứng đầu lắm và chỉ làm những gì nó muốn. Như ngày xưa một ngày nó vứt hẳn không thèm vú mẹ nữa. Khi đổi từ sửa mẹ qua sửa bò, nó cũng bỏ trong một ngày. Đến lúc bỏ tả tập hoài nó cũng không chịu cho đến khi nó chịu thì trong vòng một tuần là làm được. Hồi nãy hai vợ chồng đang lằm project thì thấy thúi thúi thì ra ổng ị trông bô. Ị rồi không nói năng gì cả ở chuồng xem TV. Project của mình nhưng cần sự giúp đỡ của bà xả. Mình design thì được chứ bắt cắt, dán giấy thì chịu thua. Học graphic design mà chẳng bao giờ đụng đến những thứ này cả. Hao tổn giấy và mực. Hôm trước bị ông thầy rầy cho một mạch. Ổng nói, “Mày học lớp advanced mà còn graduate nữa mà không biết làm khuôn hình.” Thôi kệ bơi đến lúc nào hay lúc đó. Mình không được khéo nhưng vợ mình khéo. Miễn mình thiết kế đẹp là được rồi.
Added two movie posters I created for my Advanced Typography class. The assignment was to choose a horror or comedy film, design for one genre and then flip it for the opposite genre. Since this is a typography class, I can only use 10% illustration and 90% typography. I ended up redesigning Donnie Darko, which I started out with the horror version and then flipped it for comedy. Though the process was a pain, I like the way they turned out. Now I have to frame the print versions on mounting boards, something I had never done before.
Where does this disdain for workers come from? Some of it, obviously, reflects the influence of money in politics: big-money donors, like the ones Mr. Romney was speaking to when he went off on half the nation, don’t live paycheck to paycheck. But it also reflects the extent to which the G.O.P. has been taken over by an Ayn Rand-type vision of society, in which a handful of heroic businessmen are responsible for all economic good, while the rest of us are just along for the ride.
In the eyes of those who share this vision, the wealthy deserve special treatment, and not just in the form of low taxes. They must also receive respect, indeed deference, at all times. That’s why even the slightest hint from the president that the rich might not be all that — that, say, some bankers may have behaved badly, or that even “job creators” depend on government-built infrastructure — elicits frantic cries that Mr. Obama is a socialist.
These past few weeks had been crazy. I am back to 3-5 hours of sleep. The kids were sick over the weekend and throwing up all over the house. Dao got Croup and Dan got a little cold. My graduate classes are exhausting. My days had been going to work, going to class, eating dinner, putting the kids to sleep, doing homework until 1 or 2 in the morning. I feel bad that Dana had to look after both kids while I attended classes and had to do most of the work around the house while I spent time on the computer all the time.
I talked to my mom yesterday and I apologized that I haven’t called much or visited much on weekends because of my workload. Her first respond was “If you can’t handle school just quit. You have two kids and a full time job. Besides, what is that degree going to benefit your career? You’ll still do the same thing you do now.” I was like, “Thanks for the encouragement, mom.”
Workers at Sensata, which owned by Bain Capital, are fighting to save their jobs from being shipped to China by the end of this year. Romney who has a major investment in the company is the workers’ only last hope. I would love to be wrong, but it’s not going to happen. Romney simply doesn’t give a damn about these people. So there goes Romney’s job creation… in China.
