Barcode - 07Oct09

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, barcodes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies. They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes or symbologies. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well.

The first use of barcodes was to label railroad cars, but they were not commercially successful until they were used to automate supermarket checkout systems, a task in which they have become almost universal. Their use has spread to many other roles as well, tasks that are generically referred to as Auto ID Data Capture (AIDC). Other systems are attempting to make inroads in the AIDC market, but the simplicity, universality and low cost of barcodes has limited the role of these other systems. It costs about half a United States cent (US$0.005) to implement a barcode compared to passive RFID which still costs about $0.07 to $0.30 per tag.
Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image by special software. Scanning software for 2D codes is built-in to or available for many mobile phones, and is especially popular in Japan, India & Europe.

條碼或條形碼（barcode）是將寬度不等的多個黑條和空白，按照一定的編碼規則排列，用以表達一組信息的圖形標識符。常見的條碼是由反射率相差很大的黑條（簡稱條）和白條（簡稱空）排成的平行線圖案。條碼可以標出物品的生產國、製造廠家、商品名稱、生產日期、圖書分類號、郵件起止地點、類別、日期等信息，因而在商品流通、圖書管理、郵政管理、銀行系統等許多領域都得到了廣泛的應用。

wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode

中文 : http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E6%9D%A1%E5%BD%A2%E7%A0%81

Mid-Autumn Festival - 03Oct09

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, or in Chinese, Zhongqiu Jie (traditional Chinese: 中秋節), is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people, Japanese people (Tsukimi festival in Japanese), Koreans (Chuseok festival in Korean), and Vietnamese people (even though they celebrate it differently), dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty. It was first called Zhongqiu Jie (literally "Mid-Autumn Festival") in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the others being Chinese New Year and Winter Solstice, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

Eating mooncakes outside under the moon

Putting pomelo rinds on one's head

Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns

Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e (simplified Chinese: 嫦娥; traditional Chinese: 嫦娥; pinyin: cháng'é)

Planting Mid-Autumn trees

Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members

Fire Dragon Dances

Shops selling mooncakes before the festival often display pictures of Chang'e floating to the moon.

中秋節起源於中國，是東亞民間的一個傳統節日，為每年農曆的八月十五。中秋節不單單是華人的節慶，受中華文化的影響，中秋節也是日本、越南、朝鮮半島等地的傳統節日。

按照中國的農曆，八月為秋季的第二個月，古時稱為仲秋，因此民間稱為中秋，又稱秋夕、八月節、八月半、月夕、月節，又因為這一天月亮滿圓，象徵團圓，又稱為團圓節。

wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

中文 : http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E4%B8%AD%E7%A7%8B%E8%8A%82

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - 02Oct09

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Gujarati: મોહનદાસ કરમચંદ ગાંધી, pronounced [moːɦənˈdaːs kəɾəmˈtʂənd ˈɡaːndʱiː] ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi (Sanskrit: महात्मा mahātmā or "Great Soul", an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore),and in India also as Bapu (Gujarati: Gujarati: બાપુ, bāpu or "Father"). He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience while an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, during the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he organized protests by peasants, farmers, and urban labourers concerning excessive land-tax and discrimination. After assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women's rights, build religious and ethnic amity, end untouchability, and increase economic self-reliance. Above all, he aimed to achieve Swaraj or the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led his followers in the Non-cooperation movement that protested the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (240 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930. Later he campaigned against the British to Quit India. Gandhi spent a number of years in jail in both South Africa and India.

As a practitioner of ahimsa, he swore to speak the truth and advocated that others do the same. Gandhi lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest.

莫罕達斯·卡拉姆昌德·甘地（英文：Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi；古吉拉特語：मोहनदास करमचंद गाँधी，1869年10月2日－1948年1月30日），尊稱聖雄甘地，是印度民族主義運動和國大黨領袖。他帶領國家邁向獨立，脫離英國的殖民統治。他的「非暴力」的哲學思想，也就是他說的「satyagraha」，影響了全世界的民族主義者和那些爭取和平變革的國際運動。

通過「非暴力」的公民不合作，甘地使印度擺脫了英國的統治。這也激發了其他殖民地的人們起來為他們的獨立而奮鬥。最終大英帝國分崩離析了，取而代之的是英聯邦，或者更準確一點是聯邦（因為「英」這個前綴於1946年沒有了，變成了Commonwealth of Nations）。 甘地的主要信念是「satyagraha」，英語譯成「truth force」，意為「精神的力量」、「真理之路」、「追求真理」等。 這鼓舞了其他的民主運動人士，如馬丁·路德·金，曼德拉等人。他經常說他的價值觀很簡單，那就是（是從傳統的印度教信仰演化來的）: 真理（satya）、非暴力（ahimsa）。

wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi

中文 : http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E5%9C%A3%E9%9B%84%E7%94%98%E5%9C%B0

National Day of the People's Republic of China - 01Oct09

The National Day of the People's Republic of China is celebrated every year on October 1. It is a public holiday in the People's Republic of China to celebrate its national day.

The PRC was founded on October 1, 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. The Central People's Government passed the Resolution on the National Day of the People's Republic of China on December 2, 1949 and declared that October 1 is the National Day.

The National Day marks the start of one of the two Golden Weeks in the PRC. However, there have been some recent controversies over whether Golden Weeks should be kept.

中華人民共和國國慶日是中華人民共和國的建立紀念日，1949年9月，中國人民政治協商會議第一屆全體會議決定每年的10月1日為中國的國慶節；1949年10月1日，在北京天安門廣場舉行了開國大典，中華人民共和國中央人民政府正式成立。中國大陸、香港及澳門地區均訂為法定假日或公眾假期。

1949年12月2日中央人民政府委員會第四次會議通過《關於中華人民共和國國慶日的決議》，宣告：「自一九五零年起，即以每年的十月一日，即中華人民共和國宣告成立的日子，為中華人民共和國的國慶日。 」

wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China

中文 : http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E4%B8%AD%E5%8D%8E%E4%BA%BA%E6%B0%91%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%9B%BD%E5%9B%BD%E5%BA%86%E8%8A%82