Contributors to Tyranny

My fellow workers in silicon valley: I guess none of us are aware that companies we work for are providing technologies to the Chinese government to censor their people's internet access. See Tech firms blamed for aiding censorship in China. Amnesty International report cites deals done by Microsoft, Nortel, Cisco, and Sun in China

Money and morality: which one is the priority in the capitalists' world? It's so obvious.

Too simple, very naive

Just read a new argument for supporting offshore outsourcing, from the CEO of Parasoft. Quoting from Are Tech Jobs Moving Overseas?: 'Some residents of nations with few economic opportunities can turn to terrorism or cause other political instability, says Adam Kolawa, chief executive officer of Parasoft, a Monrovia, California, software vendor that uses offshore outsourcing. But countries with strong economic ties to the U.S. have little reason to target the nation, Kolawa says. "Offshore development is the best way to prevent going to war," he says.'

Doesn't he know most of American's (current and former) enemies: Osama Bin Laden, Taliban, Saddam Hussein, for example, used to have very strong ties to the US government? Why did they "betray" us?

Mr. "CEO": if you say you support offshore outsourcing since it helps to cut costs and thus make more money at your company, fine. It's a capitalist world. But saying things like "Offshore development is the best way to prevent going to war" is just naive.

Well, your big mouth has at least earn Parasoft some publicity. (Hmm.... I started thinking whether your company's name is inspired by parasite...)

[Updated] Came across a counter-argument in an interesting post on Yahoo's msg board about the danger of this practice: Eye-Opening Story on Indian IT industry

How to make soccer more entertaining?

While researching rules of soccer (still haven't figured out why no OT in the Copa America Semi-Final game), I came across these 2 articles:
Improving Soccer's marketability in USA via Higher scoring
Who else wants more entertaining soccer?

I could identify with this author as (1) I'm no soccer purist, (2) I do find American sports are in general more entertaining. IMO, the author made some good points when analyzing why soccer's popularity remains low in the States. His suggestions to rule changes seem a little bit too radical to me though.

Here are my suggestions:
1) [inspired by hockey] when the goal keeper takes the ball rather than punching it out after the other team's shot-on-goal, the opponent will be rewarded with a corner kick (analogous to face-off in hockey)

2) [inspired by basketball] disallow passing the ball back to own half when the ball has been advanced to opponent's half of the field (analogous to back court violation in basketball)

So long, Ricky

Ricky Williams, RB of Miami Dolphins, former Heisman trophy winner from my alma mater, University of Texas, has announced his retirement from NFL at the age of 27. In my mind, he has been THE MAN ever since he broke the all-time NCAA rushing record. He has been and will be a hell of a football player for many years to come. His retirement is totally unthinkable to a huge football fan like me!

However, when I talk to my wife about this, she has a completely different perspective. She said, "this is his life. Who could tell him how to run his own life?" Apparently a lot of people hold the same opinion.

French invented golf? Another myth?

Just read about this from Fortune magazine. Well, it probably has more truth than the 1421 theory! At least they were able to find a medieval French illustration of playing the game.

1421: the year China discovered America?

This is the subject and title of a controversial book by retired English navy Gavin Menzie. This is also the subject of a TV program recently broadcasted by PBS.

I saw the book at Costco before the program was aired but I didn't buy it. After I watched the program, I'm glad that I didn't spend money on the book. Why? I think there are simply too many "quantum leap" of faith in Mr. Menzie's theory. For example, he claims that when Columbus explored the sea, he had a chart, so did Magellan. The chart must have been created by someone travelled the route before. That someone must be Chinese since only Chinese would have such advanced knowledge. The last statement is nothing more than an educated guess. I don't mean to downplay his effort but good science is always supported by facts and logical deductions, not educated guesses. His work simply does not meet the rigorous standard that would allow it to be accepted by the academic community.

Offshore Outsourcing

Something interesting about my call to PalmOne's customer service (for repairing my Zire 72)
Now we all know a lot of companies have outsourced customer service call center to India but I just realized how much effort these companies have put it to disguise this fact!
For example, the reps would made up American-sounding names for themselves. (Though it's common practice in HK. All of my Indian friends use their Indian names.)
Also, my wife said she talked to some customer service rep. When they are asked where they are physically located, they said they're not allowed to disclose.

We Californian or most urban people are used to deal with foreigners. But not so for the more convervative populations in other areas. Maybe that's why those companies are doing this but I don't think these efforts would be effective unless the reps could disguise their accent as well.

Regulation Time then Penalty Shootout?

[Copa America 2004] Semi-final: Brazil vs. Uruguay 1-1 at end of regulation.
Then they went straight to penalty shootout.

Anybody knows why there was no over-time period? New rule again? So we had full 30 min OT, golden goal, silver goal... now no OT? The rules change too fast!

Boycott PalmOne

Look at what my 2-month-new Zire 72 has become:


a $300 paperweight.


Saw that dark area on the screen? It suddenly appeared out of the blue after 2.5 months of usage. Now this PDA is completely unusable, which means I paid >$100 for each month of its service.

The retailer (Circuit City) is not accepting return as it has passed 14 days. Man, I wished it died within the first 14 days. Apparently PalmOne's quality dept is good enough to figure what units would last longer than that so that you're stucked with it, but not long enough so that you have to replace it soon. Anyway, Circuit City refers me to PalmOne's service.

So what does PalmOne's warranty say? "This warranty excludes (1) physical damage to the surface of the product, including cracks or scratches on the lcd touchscreen or outside casing..." Notice that it excludes all physical damage to the screen, not just the ones caused by the owner! Well, I'm still sending it to PalmOne for repair. Let's pray they don't charge me AND do a good repair job.

So long my $300. So long PalmOne, which is going to lose me as a customer for life.

From what I read and heard, PalmOne really has a serious quality control problem after Palm III. They went too far to cut cost because PDA has become a low profit margin business but this jeopardized their quality and their brandname. (Dunno how reliable his source is but I was told that Treo 600 has a return rate close to 20%! My god!)

I will only buy another Palm OS machine if IBM is back in this business, which I think unlikely. :(

[Update: I did sent it to PalmOne for repair. They didn't charge me anything and sent it back in a week. It has been working fine since. Maybe I'm not boycotting PalmOne after all]

Microsoft Portable Media Center

I suspect this would be how it works and I hope it would not be. Well, too bad I was right. See Another Dumb Idea from Microsoft

The problem with it is that the software can't switch channel thru the tuner card if you have digital cable or satellite. So you can't program it to record the TV show you want.

The Archos AV 420 has chosen a different route: the player connects to your satellite/cable box video out directly. The dock has a infrared that could remote control the satellite/cable box and thus able to change channel!

So, problem solved! (only if this thing is actually in stock...)

"Sing good" or "sing bad"?

Master So taught me one thing that I always remember: "Lie, damn lie and statistics"

Every so-called analyst are presented with all sorts of statistics. It's human nature to focus on numbers that support one's point of view while ignoring others.

So, no matter what tune an analyst "sing", it will have a lot of convincing statistics to support it.

Check out this "sing bad" article about real estate.

Good news or bad news for jazz?

As a huge jazz fan myself, this article Upbeat Jazz Sales Lift Music Business Blues really interested me.

So, has Jazz become hip again? Has it become hip enough that people would call their things jazz just to sell them?

On one hand I prefer not to see the good name of jazz get tainted by non-jazz. On the other hand it probably has no impact on the instrumental side of jazz, which is my true love. After all, my idols won't suddenly start playing non-jazz.

Copa America 2004

When I wrote about Match of the Century in 2000, I said Copa America was the only event that plays on odd years. Well, I was wrong. It had played in even years before and it is playing in an even year now. By the way, I just realized they are the oldest international tournaments. Check out their history!

Unlike Euro 2004, all Copa America matches can be seen on regular cable/satellite channels (Telefutura, Univision and Galavision) IMO, some of the games are even more entertaining than Euro 2004. Probably because South American footballers tend to have better scoring skills.

Common trends in 2004 Sports

So far I have watched the Superbowl, Stanley Cup, NBA Championship, Euro 2004. And there are a few things common among them:

- no bona-fide superstar.
Let's look at the best known stars on each team.
New England Patriots have Tom Brady, but he's not as heralded as Peyton Manning or even Michael Vick. Certainly not comparable to QB's like John Elway, Dan Marino, Steve Young or Joe Montana from the previous generations.
Tampa Bay Lightnings have Martin St. Louis and Nikolai Khabibulin. I doubt many people could pronounce their names properly.
Detroit Pistons have Ben and Rashid Wallace, no marquee name compared to Shaq and Kobe.
Greece National Team...... I am not able to name one Greek player!

- defense, defense, defense.
All 4 champions are known as great defensive team. All are capable of holding their opponents' scores to the minimum and score enough points themselves to win. All of them do not have the most powerful/beautiful offence among their peers but efficient enough to "manufacture" goals/points.

All I could say is: these trends make the games boring! The sad thing is, it will continue in the foreseeable future :(

The end of the French era

[Soccer] Now that the French no longer own the World Cup and European Cup titles, it is the right time to call this the end of the era of French domination. Looking back, France was indeed the best team in the world from 1998-2001. Most members of their national teams were often the most important players in their professional teams. At this moment the above statement is no longer true. Only Thierry Henry is still the force at Arsenal (Zinedine Zidane to a certain extent at Real Madrid)

I think it is fair to say that France had a good run. Not so sure about the future of Greece though.

This reminds me of analogus situations in US sports: Brazil is like the Yankees, the perennial favourite. On the other extreme, Greece is like the Baltimore Ravens (NFL), who overachieved and surprised everyone but went back to reality soon. Germany is like Altanta Braves, who seems to be a contender every season. What is France like? I'd say New England Patriots, which had found their own success formula to win games and championships for the past few seasons, but not yet close to the status of a dynasty.

$700 stroller

Madeline doesn't like to sit in her $40 stroller.
Maybe she will enjoy the SUV-like view on this one.

This is Cecily and Robin. Oops. This is from their wedding :P 

The Year of Greek

Earlier in the year, "Troy" was the box office blockbuster.

Later in the year, Olympic will return to its origin, Athen.

Have there been enough clues?

We should all know this is the year of Greek! Shouldn't be surprised that they won Euro 2004.

They played well and showed great composure against more highly-regarded opponents. They even beat Portugal at their own yard, twice! What more can I say? They deserved to be the champion.

July 4th weekend family trip (LA, OC, SD)

Who are cuter? The Panda family or us? 
This is taken at San Diego Zoo. For more pictures, click here.

San Diego Zoo - Disappointments

We saw the panda. Other than that, the zoo is quite disappointing:

1) Poor direction. There are not enough signs to tell where you are and where the animals are. The maps do not even have the simple "You're here" indicator!

2) Poor layout. It's definitely not easy to go from point A to point B. When we decided to leave, it took us a long time to get to the exit. Not to mention the difficulty of finding it!

Maybe these are because the zoo is in the middle of remodelling. I hope it will improve. At this moment, two thumbs down!

The World famous Little Dragon Bun

They open at 10:30am. It's full at 10:31. Fortunately we got there earlier than expected. :D