Aspiring Artist Alert – Teresa Tseng

One day last semester, I was searching Youtube for a copy of F.I.R’s song 你的微笑. One of the renditions I stumbled upon was by a young high-school artist called Teresa Tseng (曾咏霖).

After digging further, I found the following gems:

Zhang Hui Mei (阿妹)’s 记得

Sandy Lam (林忆莲)’s 夜太黑

Liang Jin Ru (梁静茹)’s “Fly Away”

Zhang Hui Mei (阿妹)’s 灰姑娘

Now, those are some of the hardest songs in Cpop to sing. Other aspiring artists have done much worse, but Teresa managed to create even better renditions of the songs. Her voice is naturally mellow and strong but is not really that unique for female singers. No matter. I think she’ll be more successful singing love ballads than fast songs, an artist in the mold of 梁静茹.

Did I mention she’s got a pretty face and cute clothes?

Oh, as a bonus, I really like F.I.R’s 月牙弯 from their new(est?) album

Intel Atom Performance Comparison

Even since Intel released its Silverthorne project as the Atom, I have been salivating at finally picking up a small, cool, light desktop that is a cheap and versatile performer. Why do I need a power-guzzling Core 2 Duo when everyday tasks don’t need something more powerful than a Pentium III? I know because I have run XP on a 866 MHz P3 and thought the experience sufficient for the internet, music, office, and basic 4+ year old games(AOE2, Starcraft, Rise of Nations, Rome Total War). Since we passed the gigahertz threshold, I’ve been asking why the regular PC user needs anything more powerful? Sure, if you’re a gamer or a video ripping fanatic, you’ll need all the power you can get, but really for basic office tasks, is the Atom up to the task?

Since I do not own an Atom, I thought that the best way to do a comparison is to find which old CPU is the most comparable to the Atom. In terms of transistor count, the Athlon XP at 37.5 million and Willamette P4 at 42 million were good initial guesses for appropriate counterparts to the Atom, standing at 47 million. Benchmarks were few and far between, but I did dig up the following:

Tomshardware says that the Atom with HT passes PCMark05 with a score of 1478. Not bad. How does the Athlon XP compare? Well, the Athlon XP 1800+ with a score of 1497 came close. On the Intel side, the Celeron (Willamette edition) 2 GHz scoring 1449 was the closest comparison.

The verdict? Having owned an Athlon XP 1800+ and having played with a friend’s P4 @ 2 GHz, I can confidently say that all users with basic requirements (office, internet, email, music, basic video playback, and light gaming) can get by fine with an Atom CPU. Watch out, Intel. Don’t be caught cannibalizing your own products!

Now I am interested in whether the Atom is capable of playing 1080p x264 video, which is typical of most anime fansub encodes these days. If it can handle that, I’m sold on selling off my existing desktops and replacing them with Atom-based machines.

In Your Darkest Hour Comes the Sweetest Flower

Lizanne Knott is a singer-songwriter from the northeast. I originally discovered her music through a guest track song called Easier on Antje Duvekot’s CDs (another indie artist previously featured here) and have been captivated ever since. She has two main albums and a compilation one out. I encourage you to go to cdbaby and pick up your copy.

Also on cdbaby is Connie Lim’s first album. I had the pleasure of taking UGBA 107 (Ethic in Business) in Berkeley with her. Connie has dedicated herself to music from an early age and puts her heart and soul into her work. Please support her too.

While on the subject of indie musicians, I’ve been trying out both cdbaby and Magnatune. The selection is superb, and there’s always the satisfaction of giving money directly to the artist and bypassing the record companies.

Furthermore, the music on those sites are a step above and are more genuine than the sanitized sugary pop tunes that tops the charts these days. Try them out.

Yes Virginia, I do pay for good music

As proof that I don’t pirate [most some of] my songs, I opened up the wallet today and bought Antje Duvekot’s first two albums.

Little Peppermints is her debut, which I can only describe as hauntingly beautiful. Some parts may not be as professional, but that only adds to the sense of listening to a musician in a heartland bar strumming on her guitar with the audience clapping and singing along (or sitting wordlessly captivated). Highlights: Streets of Soho, Merry Go Round, Long Way

Boys, Flowers, Miles is probably her best yet. It’s not as tainted by studio production as her latest one (Big Dream Boulevard) but has some of her best songs. Again, Antje mixes good amounts of social commentary with nostalgia for a bygone age. This album cements her reputation as America’s premiere folk singer, one who can best tell the country’s story from the viewpoint of the little people. Highlights: Dublin Boys, Judas, Dandelion

Ah, there’s nothing like supporting a quality indie artist.

In other news, the Bush tax rebates are starting to arrive in the pockets of the people. My opinion? Political bullshit. If people have any brains, they’ll use it to pay down their untenable debt that’s grown as obese as they have. If they’ve got any left over, they’d better spend it on bills or food. What most people probably don’t realize is that they’re not any richer even though they’re paying less in taxes since Bush took office. Inflationary pressures have made cost of living more expensive and that’s wiped out household income gains caused by the tax cuts. The reason? The massive federal deficits coupled with an expensive war in Iraq that’s not being paid by the tax cuts. The stupid Fed’s with the moronic Bernanke are trying to inflate away savings, prolong the consumer spending bubble (fueled by easy credit and easier money), and stave off a depression until he retires. All this won’t affect me; I plan on moving to Singapore once I graduate.

Apple Songs and Pretty Girls

It’s interesting the reactions that I see from some girls. Walking around the campus on Friday with a pretty girl, I noticed many young women furtively casting sidelong glances her way in jealousy. Female competition and bullying is a rather underreported phenomenon in schools today, moreso than male competition to some extents. The following book provides a pretty good overview of this.

In other news, Apple has put out some pretty catchy ads recently regarding their latest iPod refresh. It seems that the masses have taken notice too (evidenced here and here). Apparently, the idea came from an 18 year old student. Not bad!

A Quiet Hour

This has got to be one of the best/saddest songs of last year. It’s right up there with Scarlet, Kiseki no Umi, Eternal Snow, and Koi Suru Kimochi. I guess you can tell that my type of music is a soft, melodic, yet sad tune with female vocals.

Wonderful Day

Yesterday was an absolutely wonderful day. =)

Now I’m just relaxing to Eagles – Take it Easy.

“…shed a teardrop each time a leaf falls.”

Hmm… Listening to Maaya’s older songs made me nostalgic… for a lot of things. First, when I lived in Glasgow, the flats were structured so that rows of neat houses would conceal the back yards. There, there was a huge yard separated by steel fences marking the boundaries for each property. There was one boy that I used to play soccer with every day after school.

Usually, when I walked back the three short blocks from my Catholic school to my home, I woud stop on the way at the local shop and buy a copy of a general knowledge magazine. This was back when those collect-the-whole-series weekly thing was all the rage. I still remember the name: Tree of Knowledge. Anyways, after getting home, I would run to the back yard and play soccer with this guy (forgot his name though =(). I also remember dragging my mom to the local park to play with me =).

Again, it’s kinda sad how little time I have to do everything I want. I was agonizing over how to manage my schedule so that all my courses and majors fit into an acceptable time range. *sigh* 2 or 3 majors? 3 or 4 years? What will I be doing after I graduate? I don’t even know. Let’s just see where this internship this summer takes me.

An interesting but random thought: I’ve always seemed to be drawn to European people rather than anyone else. I remember this one time in tennis class. I played against a Polish girl and after when we walked back, we laughed about how there were no Catholics in school and how everyone thought she was Russian. Ah, the things that me and my euro buddies still talk about even now.

Raison d’etre

Listening to: Qing Fei De Yi

That’s quite an interesting song. Quite indicative of what I’m at the moment.

Anyways, I have to finish grading a bundle of EE20 papers >_<. It looks like the newbies have a test next week that they need the answers for. Oh well. I’ll be the super grader and impress the TA.

I guess I have to state the reason that I started blogging again after a two-year hiatus. I am probably at a mid-life crisis. I can’t seem to do anything right or completely. I can’t put all my heart into my work; I haven’t been as productive or as dedicated as I want to be or could be. Fansubbing is no different. I can’t seem to be as passionate about it anymore. Perhaps Zyline is right and I’m just trying to be good at and do too many things at once. *sigh* Thus, I decided to start blogging. It’s a way for me to release and spill my thoughts onto paper. It’s also a good way to network with friends I have no time for (ah, that sounds so insensitive) online. A selfish reason (or two) may be that I wanted to perfect my server administration skills as a possible future career (yea right) or just useful skill in general. Finally, I want to practice writing. As a business major, I have very little time to write either creatively or just regularly. So, this blog will help keep my skills sharp.