7 Reasons Why iPhone Sucks 1. iTunes is terrible. It is a living proof of what bad user experience can drive users nuts. If you ever tried to put it to work, you know what I mean. 2. The default input method is purely brain-dead product. Unfortunately, it is the only one on iPhone. Craving for the fluent input methods such as Swype and TouchPal? Sorry, you are stuck with the official one. 3. Apple keeps all the useful access rights to themselves. So it is almost impossible to find apps which can help you switch on/off radio or sounds on scheduled time. 4. Apple deems jailbreak as intolerable betrayal. Once found, you are officially abandoned by Apple. While Google views root a inherent rights of users. With Android phones, you will be warned that rooting the device may cause hazards. But Google also acknowledges it is your rights to do it. You won't be banned from accessing to Google services. There are many usage models require root rights. For example, Chinese users often need to go around the great firewall. 5. Although Apple fanboys and fangirls keep saying that 3.5 inch the only right size for phone screen, I still cannot help loving bigger display. 6. iPhone is at least $150 more expensive than contemporary high-end Android phone. Is there a feature that only iPhone can offer? No. Apple charged the premium price without providing extra features. 7. So many iPhones are out there. Everybody holds an identical model. Do you want to become of them?

怎么翻译 "塞翁失马，焉知祸福"？ This is one Chinese story I love the best. It says a blessing and a curse are often interchangeable. I wonder is there any equivalent idiom in English?

Why Piracy Is a Friend To Microsoft? Microsoft definitely hates piracy. As the world largest software vendor, Microsoft rakes in billions of dollars each year by selling software licenses. Piracy circumvents software copy restrictions, thus let people get software for near-zero cost. Piracy disrupts Microsoft business model and costs the company great losses. It seems the remotest possible that piracy becomes a friend to Microsoft. However, this is true. First of all, piracy does not always mean revenue loss for Microsoft. In some low-income countries, most people cannot afford expensive software licenses. Even though there is no piracy, the poor people still won't be able to be paying customers to Microsoft. So strictly prohibiting software piracy does not necessarily add new customers to Microsoft. As for those who cannot afford expensive software, Microsoft basically has two options. Either can they proactively strengthen anti-piracy policy thus push the users over to low-cost / free-of-charge alternative software solutions. Or can they tolerate piracy to some extent in order to foster potential customers and thwart competition. The unique cost structure of software industry allows Microsoft to go for the second option without incurring additional cost. Unlike other physical goods, making a software copy almost costs nothing. More importantly, piracy generally does more harm to Microsoft competitors than Microsoft. This is because piracy takes out price from the equation during the process that consumers pick up software. For instance, consumers may choose low-cost or free-of-charge word processor over the high-price Microsoft Office Suite in piracy-free markets. In piracy prevailing markets, everything costs the same and Microsoft software becomes the easy choice. Without price as a key differentiator, Microsoft competitors are more vulnerable to piracy. In summary, piracy is paradoxically both a enemy and a friend to Microsoft. It has been well known about the enemy side. However, it is equally important to understand that piracy can be a friend to Microsoft under some circumstances.

Can Human Being Really Conquer The Universe? Whenever I hear the news about NASA's multi-billion space projects, I can not help laughing. I never got the points why human being devotes so many resources and energy to conquering the outer space while its earth living facing so many challenges. Sending men/women to the Moon may ostensibly seems a great stride for human being. But there is no direct and immediate positive impacts to our daily life. It only benefited our vanity. The Apollo project spent multi-billion dollars and only left a few footprints on the moon surface. Meanwhile, there are over 10million children in our world are still in starvation. At only a fraction of Apollo project cost, we can provide enough and healthy food to the children. Clearly, keeping our children from starvation is better use of precious resources than exploring the outer space. Human being is such a greedy and pompous creature that even invented the crazy idea of conquering the universe. Human being as to the vast universe is much like bacteria as to human body. Human being along with other living creatures are like bacteria thriving on a teeny tiny cell, ie the earth, of cosmic giant. Setting foot means we successfully infected another cell of cosmic giant. Do we understand the consequences of what we are doing? What if the cosmic giant eventually notices the ailment caused by our ambitious colonizing activities and decides to take a pill? God has given us a comfortable earth to live on. Maybe our mission is to live happy life on the home planet. Considering the massive scale of the whole universe, it is definitely impossible for human being to conquer the universe in foreseeable future. In fact, we should drop the silly idea of conquering the universe and focus on improving our own home planet. It is not worth to waste our energy on such hopeless and pointless activities to conquer the universe.

English vs Chinese: Which Is Easier? -continued This is a sequel of the previous essay about English and Chinese comparison (http://www.italki.com/notebook/entry/95755.htm) . In this part, we will talk about script and pronunciation. Unlike English word, which is made up of 26 alphabets, Chinese character is more like a block miniature. In English, you spell. In Chinese, you draw. This may leave you the impression that Chinese is more difficult than English in terms of scripting. But that's wrong conclusion. The amount of Chinese characters enough for daily use is only one-third of English words. And Chinese calligraph is not a bunch of strokes arbitrarily laid together. It has structure. The basic building block of Chinese character is radicals. There are around 200 radicals. Once you master the 200 radicals you can easily assemble them into characters. Finally, Simplified Chinese greatly reduces the number of strokes of Traditional Chinese characters. So take all these factors into account, I dare to say that scripting 3000 well-structured simple Chinese characters is actually an easier task than spelling 10000 English words. Now let turn our focus to the oral aspect of the two languages. All Chinese characters are of single syllable. Easy to pronounce. However, don't get fooled by the superficial simplicity. Different Chinese characters often share the same or similar pronunciation. Listeners must be able to distinguish the sound subtlety and put them in context in order to really understand what the speaker is talking. Another difficult part of oral Chinese is its variety of dialects. In English world, there are different flavors such as British, Australia and American English. But after all, their differences are still manageable and result in no real barrier for inter-communication. In Chinese, the dialect issue is much more severe. People living in 300km apart areas may speak totally different dialects and cannot understand each other orally. That's why the government prompts Mandarin as one official "dialect". So in oral aspect, English is much easier than Chinese.

English vs Chinese: which is an easier language? Well, I admit this is a controversial topic. Needless to say, native language is always much easier to its native speakers. However, suppose you know neither English nor Chinese, which language would be easier for you to master? Or which language is simpler in form when expressing the same meaning? Despite the mystery often associated with oriental cultures, Chinese is essentially an easier language than English. Here are some justifications for such claim. Firstly, let's examine vocabulary. Vocabulary is the first barrier for any learners who try to master a new language. In Chinese, 3000 characters are all you need to cope with daily use. While in English, you will need to imprint at least 10000 words to your mind before you can gracefully handle daily reading, writing and conversations. Vocabulary is building block for a language. Chinese only has one-third building blocks of English. Secondly, compared to Chinese, English has relatively more complex grammar. For example, in Chinese you can simply say "I go to shopping yesterday/tomorrow.". While in English, you have to say "I went to shopping yesterday." and "I am going to go to shopping tomorrow.". The distinction between past tense and future tense in English does not help convey any additional meaning. It only introduces some headaches for learners. Remembering the irregular verbs is a formidable task to many English learners. Thirdly, Chinese is more concise when express the same meaning. In most cases, when one-page Chinese article gets translated into English, it often grows to one-and-a-half page. If sheer size can be any guidance, Chinese is an easier language than English.