自行架设博客的优缺点

今天读到一篇介绍自行架设博客优缺点的文章，是这么写的：

优点
1.自己的blog不会有BSP的广告，不影响版面美观。可以放自己的广告赚钱。
2.绝对的言论自由，不违法的情形下不必害怕BSP政策打压。
3.blog版面更新、扩充自由，想改什么就改什么。
4.插件多样化，有各界网友热心提供插件增强功能。
5.能知道哪些人来看了你的网站、来源网址是什么、哪些人订阅了你的RSS。
6.后台功能多样化，管理功能强大且便利。
7.资料备份便利，随时带着走。

缺点
1.图片尽量放置于免费空间，否则大量图片传输会影响整个伺服器的速度。
2.要自行备份Blog的档案和资料库
3.风格、插件自己DIY安装需有一定知识，对于新手较难上手，需要一段时间适
应
4.访客人数一多，频宽和网站主机效能比较容易吃紧
5.虚拟空间主机商倒闭的风险

我的看法是，要选择好的BSP(是什么的简称？)，它应该具有自行架设博客所包含的一切优点，而没有一切缺点。当然，你永远不肯能找到这样的的博客提供商，但是能找到最接近的。

我最喜欢Google的blogger，它包含了绝大多数优点：

1. 没有广告，也可以放自己的广告赚钱。
2. 绝对的言论自由，即使有稍微“低俗”的内容也没有关系。
3. 可以定制版面、自由扩充.
4. 插件多样化。有现成的风格插件，也可以自己定制。
5. 资料备份便利，随时带走。
6. 有web picasa和google video存放图片和视频。
7. 即使不自行备份也没有关系，你的博客会一直在那里，如果谷歌不破产。要是谷歌破产，互联网的末日也差不多到了。
8. 访客再多也没有关系，没有虚拟空间主机上倒闭的风险。

9. 不需要自己做搜索引擎优化，而自己架设博客，

可以说blogger差不多具有了一切自行架设博客包含的优点，而没有自行加深博客所具有的缺点。唯一的也是致命的缺点，被被中国屏蔽，要是你的博客使用中文简体，读者对象应该大多数在中国。

有的时候，我怀疑屏蔽国外空间商和网站的做法是国内空间商和大型网站搞的鬼，借用政治手段，蔽国外的，没有了竞争对手。保护民族产业是中国一百多年来的苦难的病根所在。

Jacqui Smith's immigration policy change on high-skilled migrant workers

This is a comment that I posted to somebody's blog discussing Jacqui Smith's new immigration rules.

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Great post! You’ve said everything that we non-EU immigrants feel.

My husband and I are immigrant too. We were born and raised in China, and have lived in the UK since 2000. Our two children were born in UK.

We both have PhD degrees. I did my Master and PhD in UK and worked here since. We bought home here. We have paid income tax, NI contribution, council tax… but don’t have access to public funds. My children born in UK don’t get child benefits.

Yet we still haven’t got indefinite leave to remain. Every now and then we have to pay a fortune to extend our visa and be ‘humiliated’ by Home Office if we went there in person trying to get the visa on the same day.

Once I posted my application with passports to Home Office and waited for 6 months. When my passport was returned I found that I was only granted 6 months Leave to remain, which means by the time I received my passport, my visa would expire again soon and I have to post it to Home Office for another extension!

I absolutely agree your comments that we are a cash-cow for a cash-greedy government.

Under UK’s very selective immigration system, non-EU migrant workers are likely to be top-of-the-cream in other countries. As a result, UK has already taken great advantage by luring the top people to contribute in its economy.

We spent the best ten years in our life (20s-30s) in UK. Our children speak perfect English that you can’t tell from local kids. Yet, we’re still not qualified for indefinite leave to remain. UK government has changed its immigration policy too often and broken its promises to immigrants again and again.

Now again, Jacqui Smith’s change aims to hard-working highly-skilled immigrant workers who contribute to the society but not effect illegal immigrants, assylum seekers, EU Immigrants, or terrorists at all.

This country is becoming greedy and hostile to hard-working high-skilled immigrants.

When it comes ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’, we are seriously consider leaving though it might be difficult for our English-speaking children.

How to cook Globe Artichoke?

I normally don't buy exotic vegetables that I never tried. When I was shopping late the other day a strange vegetable lying on the reduced shelf was only 10 pence. It was a globe artichoke, like a torch.

I threw it into my trolley without a single idea how to cook it. The next day when I tried to cook it, I studied the label on which cooking instructions print:
Remove stem and tough outer leaves, cut off the top 3cm of leaves, and immediately rub all cut surfaces with lemon juice to prevent discolouration. Place in a pan and cover with water, add lemon uice, a pinch of salt and a bay leaf. Bring to the boil and simmer or 3 minutes, until the leaves can be easily pulled away from the globe. Remove the central core of purple leaves and the inedible hairy choke. Eat by pulling the leaves out and sucking the flesh out of the bottom of the leaves.

Usually I just ignore cooking instructions and cook all vegetables using stir-and-fry technique. I did same this time. I washed and plucked leaves for cooking. Not until I saw the delicate inside white-purplish 'leaves', I realised that so-called 'leaves' in the cooking instructions are really petals and the whole thing is a flower bud. Indeed a hairy choke was revealed after all petals were plucked. I removed the hairy choke and the stem except a small portion of inner most white part which I think edible.

When I was eating it, I felt that this is the most difficult vegetable to eat. I had to hand-hold each petal and dealt with them one at a time by drawing the base of the petal through my teeth to scrape off the soft portion, discarding the rest of it. Now I understand why the cooking instructions advise cuting off the top 3cm of leaves and boiling it. Boiling should be better than stir-and-fry to cook artichokes because they are full of fibres.

On Wikipedia, I found a description of artichokes: The edible portion of the buds consists primarily of the fleshy lower portions of the involucral bracts and the base, known as the "heart". The inner most white portion I saved is the 'heart' and indeed it was the best bit of the whole globe.

The globe artichoke I bought was produced in Spain, other main producers are Italy, France, and some states of US.

If you prefer to keep it green during cooking, follow the instructions to rub all cut surfaces with lemon juice and leave lid open when you boil it. Covered artichokes can turn brown due to the acids and chlorophyll oxidation.

Artichoke stems, which are often thrown away like I did, are actually edible and taste like the artichoke heart.

How to save YouTube, Google videos?

Found a great site savevid.com which can download Youtube and Google videos onto local disk without installing any software. I tried a couple of youtube videos and it works just fine.

accountability

今天开了一天的会，是关于 management 和 leadership 的主题。除了 在小组讨论中认识了一些其它部门的中层 和 蹭了顿免费午餐外，最大的收获便是学了一个新单词 accountability. 这个词在今天的会议上是个热门词，我当时琢磨了好一会它的意思。从词根 account 来看，它好像跟‘解释/说明’有关，但是从上下文来看又不大像。

回来一查，原来 accountability 就是 responsibility 的意思，还有 liability or answerability for something。它的同义词有 liability, answerability, culpability, responsibility，看来它的词根 account 跟 answer 还是有点关系的。

Tips: To account for something is to take responsibility or to answer for something. When you are accountable for something, you must answer for it, account for it, or take responsibility for it.

例句：
We don’t have enough accountability in the creative department; no one wants to take responsibility for unacceptable ad concepts. (answerability, responsibility)

How can we account for all the business we lost last month when we meet with the board of directors next Monday? (answer) verb

You're not my boss; I'm not accountable to you. (answerable) adjective

The consumer advocacy group demanded greater accountability from the big energy company. (liability, answerability)

The first recorded email

The first recorded message ever to be sent across the Internet transmitted at 10.30PM on October 29 1969. The message was written by Charley Kline and supervised by UCLA Professor Leonard Kleinrock and consisted of the letters 'lo'. The transmission was supposed to read 'Login' but due to a system crash only two letters made it through! The message was successfully resent an hour later.

Windows live

I have several hotmail and windows live ID, now I can link them all together. It's really cool function.

Google search experience

Same keyword, same google, but different search results every time.

Some people are continually complaining about not finding things on Google, a common one is "I searched xyz yesterday and found a cool site, searched that again today and can't find it again why?"

I would like to ask too, but why?