End of the F*****************ing World

點解我會等咗兩年先睇第二季

笑到仆街

Konqueror

It was more than 20 years ago when I first saw it.

Those were the days when Internet Explorer was at its peak glory. IE5, being (unsarcastically) the best web browser in the world at the time, killed off Netscape in a high stakes battle to become the world's de-facto interface to the Internet.

At that time, I recently switched to using Linux as my main OS, somewhat as an ideological statement against the inevitable Microsoft dominance over the tech industry. I also loved the developer-friendly environment having discovered the power of having the *nix OS at my fingertips. The only problem with Linux at that time, was that it did not have a functional web browser.

Yes, in 2000, Linux did not have a functional web browser.

Some older Linux distributions gave you Netscape 4, but Netscape 4 was well known to be buggy and by 2000 already very out of date. (Netscape 6 was utter garbage) *Everyone* was using IE5, and many web sites just flat out did not work on Netscape. Mozilla was at version "0.6". Previously it was called "Milestone 18", which did not inspire much confidence. Whatever they called this thing, the UI was slow and laggy. Memory intensive too. They invented something called XUL that allows developers to write UI for applications using XML and Javascript -- if you thought Electron is slow now with hyper-optimized JS engines, imagine that happening in 2000.

There was also w3m of course, but I never got the hang of it, even with its graphics extensions on xterm.

Anyway, shortly after KDE2 was released, I downloaded it and ran it for the first time. Imagine my shock when I saw a fully functional, mostly standards compliant, *fast* browser that incidentally showed up as one of the apps. I literally didn't believe it, I loaded a couple web sites I had in development, tried to run Javascript on it, and it just worked. I still remember how mind blown I was when "<script>alert()</script>" popped up a new window. Javascript engines are a dime a dozen these days, but in 2000 given how many man-hours were poured into developing IE and Netscape/Mozilla, I think I can be pardoned for naïvely presuming that it requires a multimillion dollar project to make one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Desktop_Environment_2#/media/File:KDE_2.2.2.png

I mostly did web development at the time, which precluded me from using Konqueror as my main browser since I couldn't use it to check HTML rendering fidelity (as in, rendering properly on IE and Mozilla), but it did imprint a lasting impression on me -- this was a small sub-project in KDE, yet it was more than competitive with the big browsers, arguably much better than Mozilla was at the time. It was such a pity that only KDE users would have the chance to use it.

After using KDE for a while, I eventually settled on GNOME2 as my main desktop environment (I hated KDE's IE/ActiveDesktop-like asthetic, and the important apps in GNOME, Evolution and Nautilus, were better), and by that time Mozilla/Firefox was improving to become a somewhat reliable web browser, so my time with Konqueror was actually quite brief. (btw, KDE and QT were both great software that didn't get as much credit as they should have.)

Fast forward 20 years. Some of Steve Job's underlings must have been similarly impressed by the project and adopted the code in Apple's new Safari web browser as part of WebKit. Google forked WebKit and created Chrome. IE died of neglect and Microsoft's new browser is also based on Chrome. Mozilla's Firefox is now on life support. Microsoft never achieved its then-seemingly inevitable world domination. Who would have thought that 90+% of web traffic these days originate from a Konqueror descendant.

Anyone who was there at the time would have thought IE's domination was unassailable and seemed capable of lasting forever. It took Konquer's descendants more than 10 years for them to do it, but looking back, it feels pretty amazing how a tiny little browser nobody had heard of eventually beat IE at its own game. 

成語 (好似係

- 削髮如泥

- 飽暖知榮辱

- 三文兩語

- 春雞一燒值千金

- 迅雷不及掩耳盜鈴

- 酒mate菜僕

- 此亂即棄

- 一年四季在於春

- 兩Bi俱雙

香港粵語考源

有人話廣東話保留咗好多古漢語嘅特質。好多字詞都係源於古代漢語，喺當今官話已經失傳。我哋不如就考究下香港流行廣東話嘅詞彙，睇下佢有幾古。

「巴士」

「巴士」本字「巴駟」。「巴」係地方名，大概係今日四川一帶，秦漢時同蜀地並稱「巴蜀」。地勢崎嶇，多為山路，迂迴曲折。康熙字典引【三巴記】：「閬苑白水東南流，曲折三迴如巴字」。所以「巴」字係描述「巴士」路線為咗接載更多乘客而成日大兜路；至於「駟」就係「四匹馬」嘅意思，借代馬車。普通馬只可以載一兩人，但馬車可以載好多人，所以載客嘅交通工具都叫「駟」 (見「的士」條)。咁啱得咁巧，一架巴士喺馬路上大約係四架房車咁大。

「的士」

「的士」本字「的駟」。「的」字，係「目的」咁解。相比起「巴士」嘅迂迴路線，「的士」係直接到達「目的地」，所以為名。「士」本字「駟」，解「四匹馬」，借代馬車。普通馬只可以載一兩人，但馬車可以載好多人，所以載客嘅交通工具都叫「駟」 (另見「巴士」條)。

「搣時」

「搣時」本字「妹士」，用嚟稱呼年輕貴族女性。「妹」當然指年輕女性，而「士」就係對貴族嘅尊稱。呢個稱謂由廣洲傳到歐洲，英語用「Miss」、「Mistress」之類嘅稱謂都係由歐洲人喺廣州經商傳過去嘅。

「波士」

「波士」本字「保士」，指上司、老闆。「保」字有「負責」、「管教」嘅意思。古代「士」可以係大戶嘅門客，今日稱為「員工」。所以「保士」就係負管理員工。

「奴才」

根據友人考證，「奴才」本字係英文「no choice」。

[得閒會再加]

「耐人尋味」

呢幾張圖係《粵典 words.hk》嘅 analytics 數據。

唔知算唔算「商業機密」，如果呢啲數字係某種「財產」，以我身份亦都冇權隨便將佢免費發佈。

不過，淨係得我知又周身唔自在，總係想同人分享。所以擺住喺度先。我只能夠講句：耐人尋味。

 

孟晚舟唔再慢慢周

得罪主權國周身蟻，無論邊個國家都係咁話。小國發窮惡直接搶，例如白俄羅斯喺領土上空「劫機」；未完成發展嘅大國，有時會喺鄰國「偷渡」犯人返國；但真正嘅世界強國，手段就真係與眾不同。大國講文明、法治架嘛，點會咁失禮呢？作個罪名叫盟友做白手套幫佢「引渡」啲欽犯，寫封信就得，啲 dirty work 唔使自己做。

美國以司法制度企圖「綁架」外國人都唔係新鮮事。比較廣為人知嘅係 Wikileaks 嘅 Julian Assange，澳洲人，佢喺英國俾人控告，一開始係話佢喺瑞典性侵要引渡，匿咗喺厄瓜多爾大使館，變相自我軟禁七年。去到 2019 年，厄瓜多爾大使館放倫敦警察入去拉人，然後美國終於出手話要引渡佢去美國受審。過咗咁多年，大家都唔記得 Wikileaks 係咩嚟，不過美國人冇忘記邊個爆料令佢哋 lose face。總統換咗三任，不過美國人個個都咁愛國，「國恥」係唔會隨著年月而忘記嘅。

另一位冇咁出名，又係同美國冇直接關係嘅「受害者」，係一位自稱 Kim Dotcom 嘅德國人。佢 ~2003 年喺香港 (係呀香港！) 開咗間科網公司，叫做「MegaUpload」，相信有返咁上下網齡嘅朋友都有啲印像。佢 2010 年投資移民去咗紐西蘭。2012 年，美國政府話佢侵犯版權，要紐西蘭政府越洋過海引渡佢去美國受審。而家 2021 年佢喺邊？據報仲喺紐西蘭，仲搞緊引渡。法治吖嘛，慢慢打官司，慢慢上訴。

呢啲就係真正嘅「慢慢周」。

孟晚舟反而好彩。美國換咗個總統，唔再計較華為 5G，又有大國撐腰，出盡傾國之力幫你講數。「只係」俾人軟禁咗三年，唔使好似上述人士俾人「慢慢周」，可謂不幸之中嘅大幸。

----

上面案例，令我最「不安」嘅係 Kim Dotcom 嗰單。Kim Dotcom 創立 MegaUpload 幾年之後，有間 startup 叫 DropBox，基本上提供同一樣嘅服務，不過就冇咁多人擺老翻上去share。DropBox 係美國公司，背後有 Y-Combinator 呢啲 VC 投資，自然唔會踩到美國政商界嘅「紅線」。不過，一個居港德國人點解要理會美國荷里活片賺唔賺到錢呢？Well，我都唔知，只知道現實就係地球好危險，火星都就嚟唔安全。想當年香港特區政府都要幫美國佬舐鞋底，特登捉人 BitTorrent 放片。某程度上，甚至陳乃明*都係美國無邊無際司法管轄範圍嘅「受害者」之一。

十幾廿年後，香港公務員全部真心誠意擁護《基本法》，效忠中華人民共和國香港特別行政區，應該唔會再有呢支歌仔唱。所以話呢，沈旭暉冇講錯，識國際關係真係好重要。唔好以為自己喺 A 國家，就唔使理 B 國家嘅政治。就算你唔係佢國國民，又未去過佢國家，佢都一樣可以越洋過海將你「緝拿歸案」。而呢啲國家之間嘅關係，邊個同邊個 friend，一定要搞清楚，否則一個唔覺意，你一係俾人綁架，一係就下半世打官司渡過。

滿月酒店 Hotel Del Luna

唔覺意喺 Netflix 睇咗半套《Hotel Del Luna》，成套劇基本上係 IU 嘅時裝 show 嚟⋯

不過真係好撚靚 :')