歲月神偷 (Movie, 2010)

在幻變的生命裏，歲月，原是最大的小偷。

60年代的香港，風雲變幻。一面要忍受港英政府的壓制，一面又受到内地運動的波及，鞋匠羅一家四口，在街尾以做鞋為生。羅啟銳的"歲月神偷"，把偷去的歲月, 笑聲, 淚水與童年，一次還給了我們。


平淡是真，悲劇更能感動人。

Iron Man (2008, Movie)

It's an exemplary comic book fantasia. He knows about ups and downs: Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, the weapons maker who transforms himself into the Iron Man after he's injured. Towards the end, the good and bad Iron Man's full-metal body condoms look the way they do for entirely cinematic reasons. It's a fair comic book movie.

Dogs Decoded: Nova (2010, Cerebral)

It examines the natural evolution of dogs. Very informative documentary.

Temple Grandin (2010, Movie)

TEMPLE GRANDIN is an HBO FILM starring Clare Danes as an inspiring autistic woman who was able to work through her disability and achieve her dreams. It is an uphill battle for both Temple and her determined mother. Temple has a brilliant mind trapped within a body that is unable to function normally. Temple is thus able to soar new heights in the field of Animal Husbandry. Despite being Autistic she is able to create a new invention for dipping cattle and for more humane slaughter houses. This was a riveting performance by Claire Danes.

First glimpse of a planet from another galaxy

By Jean-Louis Santini

A hot, gaseous and fast-spinning planet has been found orbiting a dying star on the edge of the Milky Way, in the first such discovery of a planet from outside our galaxy, scientists said.


Slightly larger than the size of Jupiter, the largest in our solar system, the newly discovered exoplanet (extrasolar planet) is orbiting a star 2,000 light years from Earth that has found its way into the Milky Way.

The pair are believed to be part of the Helmi stream, a group of stars that remains after its mini-galaxy was devoured by the Milky Way some six to nine billion years ago, said the study in Science Express.

"This discovery is very exciting," said Rainer Klement of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

"Because of the great distances involved, there are no confirmed detections of planets in other galaxies. But this cosmic merger has brought an extragalactic planet within our reach."

Astronomers were able to locate the planet, coined HIP 13044 b, by focusing on the "tiny telltale wobbles of the star caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting companion," the study said.

They used a powerful telescope owned by the European Southern Laboratory at La Silla Observatory in Chile, located at an altitude of 2,400 meters (7,800 feet) some 600 kilometers (375 miles) north of the capital, Santiago.

The planet is quite close to the star it is orbiting, and survived a phase in which its host star went through a massive growth after it depleted its core hydrogen fuel supply, a phase known as the "red giant" stage of stellar evolution.

"This discovery is particularly intriguing when we consider the distant future of our own planetary system, as the Sun is also expected to become a red giant in about five billion years," said lead researcher Johny Setiawan of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

The exoplanet is likely to be quite hot because it is orbiting so close to its star, completing each orbit in just over 16 days, and is probably near the end of its life, astronomers said.

The star may have already swallowed other planets in its orbit, making the star spin more quickly and meaning that time is running out for the surviving exoplanet.

Astronomers were mystified as to how the planet might have formed, since the star contained few elements heavier than hydrogen and helium and planets typically form out of a complex cloud of spinning space rubble.

"It is a puzzle for the widely accepted model of planet formation to explain how such a star, which contains hardly any heavy elements at all, could have formed a planet," said Setiawan.

"Planets around stars like this must probably form in a different way."

LTC Certification Exam

Finally, Wu Liang and I both passed the ranking examinations. He was in for 24-forms and I for 48-forms first half. Mater Hsing encouraged us for participation which is a way of confirming ourselves. As Master Hsing described,  'Long-time practitioners of Lightning Tai Chi eventually achieve an internal strength that manifests itself like thunder in their voices and movements (內勁沖盈 發乎聲而顯於形).' We still have a long way to go.

Aftershock(Tangshan Dadizhen, 唐山大地震, 2010, Movie)

Great movie!  It started off during the 1976 Tangshan earthquake with unimaginable onscreen devastation and spanned an epic saga to modern day china. And all was tied together with one of the most original story about family and human emotions that spanned 30+ years. Many call it a sad story, but I think the ending is a happy one, and satisfying for the viewers.