Must have hotpot

Nothing can stop us from having hotpot, not even a power outage. Those camping lanterns did come in handy.

what the experts say

Let's see what do the experts suggest the next US president should do.

Advice from seven Nobel laureates on fixing the economy

命運是你家

This story came after the announcement of the chemistry Nobel prize winners this year. It reminds me of a Chinese proverb:

一命 二運 三風水, 四積陰德 五讀書

(1st: fate, 2nd luck, 3rd Fung Shui, 4th good deeds, 5th education)

May be the guy didn't try hard enough back then, or he wasn't desparate enough, or it's what we called destiny. It seems to me that, there is always someone fighting uphill battles all the time, no matter how much effort he puts in; while there is always someone flying with tail wind all the time when he didn't even ask for it.

The world is unfair, which gives me and my wife a topic for a continuous discussion.

Get a house for free by taking bullets...literally.

CNN reported an old woman shot herself, with an intention to commit suicide, when sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home. Fannie Mae ended up forgiving the outstanding balance on her loan and giving her the house.

CNN report here.

Will people around the country start shooting themselves in hope of saving their home from foreclosure? Now, I have no idea what this housing crisis and economy breakdown is leading us to.

Dow + n = Down

Dow Jones index lost 777 points today, setting the new record high percentage drop in a single day since 1987. What does that mean? I think it means whoever pulled their money out of the stock market 6 months ago had a hell lot of luck.

It all started with a bunch of stupid home buyers, who were super optimistic about the housing market, but didn't have enough money to pay for a conventional mortgage. Then came a bunch of stupid bank people, who were also super optimistic about the housing market, and wanted to take advantage of those stupid home buyers. The results were a collection of ridiculously conditioned mortgages. There were 1% interest rate mortgage, which was way below the banks' cost of fund. There were also mortgages with monthly payment that were less than the amount of interest owed. So, stupid home buyers took these mortgages, and prayed everyday for their home prices to up 20% in 1 year. Then they would sell their homes, realized the profit, enjoyed a year of unrealistically low interest, and admire themselves for how smart they were. On the other hand, the banks were hoping that after the first year of the mortgage, they would up the interest from 1% to more like 10% (or more). Then they would either enjoy high interest payments from these buyers, or forfeit the home if the owners couldn't pay the high interest, and the banks could profit from the increase home price. At the end of the day, bank people thought they couldn't lose either way.

To me, it all sounds a little like messing with a margin account in stock market. You are betting on some future, unrealized profits that you are hoping to get in order to pay back the debt that you take right now.

Well, all are said and done now. And who would have imagined that a bunch of stupid home buyers and people from a few US banks could drag down the whole economy around the world.

de Young Museum

Recently went to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. There is an exhibition of Dale Chihuly's glass art work going on right now. The pieces are amazing, and photos don't do them justice. The colors and the curvatures have to been in person.

Other than Chihuly's gallery, the museum has a lot of things on display. From contemporary paintings, to 18th~19th centuries costumes from New Guinea, to artifacts from the Mayan civilization dated back to 300 A.D.

Well worth the admission fee, and you can easily have 3~4 hours of enjoyment there.
More pic here.

Have been in traveling mode

Took a few days off in the past 2 weeks due to family members visiting. I drove 9 hours to take my parents to Las Vegas, then another 3 hours from Vegas to Grand Canyon West. We spent 3 days on that trip. I highly recommend the South Point Hotel in Vegas, where we stayed for 2 nights. It is new (opened in 2005), and it is cheap (I paid $50/night) because it is not on the strip. If you have a car, or if you are willing to take the shuttle, it is a very good value. Large rooms, all with flat panel TV on the wall. I drove to Vegas 8 years ago, but this time the driving seemed less tiresome and faster. Strange...

Then in the past few days my sis and her husband came and we went to several placed in the bay area. We visited the Monterey Aquarium for the first time. It's well worth the admission fee. It is amazing to see the jellyfish capable of bioluminescence.

Las Vegas...more pic









Grand Canyon West...more pic









Napa...more pic









Monterey Aquarium...more pic









Fisherman's Wharf Pier45...more pic

Taking the BUS

Many people have switched from driving to taking public transport these days. The price of gasoline is just TOO HIGH, and the oil companies' profits are just TOO HIGH, and their contribution and investment in alternative green energy are just TOO LITTLE.... Anyway, I finally found a direct bus route from home to Stanford - the Stanford Express U Line. It takes about 15 minutes longer than driving by myself, but I save on gas, bridge toll, parking, and the bus is free for all Stanford affiliates. Cool. Now even I - an enthusiastic driver - am taking public transport.

DONE!

Exam no more. Two in the book now, time to switch to the job hunting mode.

More pic here.

Let's Go Warriors.....next year.

Went to watch the Golden State Warriors home game last week. It was our first time watching NBA game in person. It was a good experience, we enjoyed it. Too bad the Warriors did not make it to playoffs. Well, we will believe again next year.
More pic here.

La fondue.....got cheese?

We went to a fondue place called La fondue for our friend's b'day, and it was the first time that I had a fondue dinner. I think it was way too expensive for what it serves. So think of it as you pay for the experience, and you will feel better (I did). It started with a salad plate for everyone that was way too much, even the big eater in our group only finished half of it. At the same time there was bread and vegetables for cheese fondue, and there were more than choices of cheese than I could manage. Then came the main course, which we grilled by ourselves. The quality of the meat was ok, not especially good, and the taste was just so so. Dessert was the highlight. Again, there were many choices of chocolate for the chocolate fondue. Dipping the marshmallow and strawberry into the pot of molten chocolate, just like it is always shown on TV. Overall it was an unique experience. Will I return for more? I doubt it.
More pic here.

Quarter ended

The winter quarter has ended, and there will be a week of time-off until the spring quarter starts. But there will not be any free time for me because I will start helping my adviser on his research. Hopefully I can demonstrate my ability and he can let me continue for PhD. I will need to read a lot of the background information about the project. This is like the only shot I have at getting into the PhD program. Apparently finding faculty support is much harder than I thought (my bad, I under estimated it). Poor economy put financial constrains on everything, including research funding. Hopefully my adviser can get more funding soon.

Besides that, I have another project on my own. I am looking into using Linux at home. I would like to replace Windows by Ubuntu. For some reasons I always think that the graphical interface of most Linux distributions look better than that of Windows. Not to mention Linux is free, together with a wealth of free applications. Now I am running Ubuntu in virtual machine (VirtualBox and VMware) inside Windows. This will let me familiarize myself with the Linux environment, and evaluate the practicality of using Linux at home. Much to learn for sure, and I will always have something to do.

The President should follow the rule

The verdict is in, a federal judge overruled Bush's "exemption" for the Navy to use sonar along California coastline. It is good to see that there is still someone on the American land who can stop this evil guy from unethically exploiting his authority. Isn't it ironic and ridiculous that, it required a federal judge to ensure the US President is abide by the law?

Report of the court decision on Reuters

Exams

It is the time of the quarter when exams are happening every week. Just got one out of the way, two more to go. I am sure I will be studying for the next few days. Isn't it the best way to spend Valentine's Day? I am sure someone will disagree... :-)

Chez Panisse in Berkeley

Finally we went to dine at the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley. It has only one fixed menu every night (i.e. you cannot choose). So we have been looking at the menu online almost every week to determine which day we should go. Last Friday's menu was quite good (seafood and steak, can't go wrong with that), so we called and were lucky that there was a table available at their first round of seating.
First thing first, the food was really good. I mean, all four courses were good. The taste was not strong, but the ingredients were fresh and chef really knows how to bring that freshness to the next level. Everything matched well. The only complaint that I had was that the NY rib eye steak had some tendons in it and the knife was not sharp enough for that. Other that that, it was perfect. Even the dessert was top notch, same as the main course.
More pic here.

Dolphins are smart

Watch this clip, which shows the dolphins create and play with "bubble rings" under water. Technically these are called vortex rings, with motion governed by non-linear second order partial differential equation. Um.... may be these marine creatures are crunching all the numbers in their head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCf7SNUb-Q

I wish I am a human scanner

Into the third week of school, so much reading to do, I wish I can read like a scanner.
Damn, I don't want to get another pair of glasses that soon.

Since when is killing wild life legal in US?.... NOW

There are times when people do things wrong, and they admit it and correct it. Then there are times when people do things wrong, and continue to do. One of the saddest thing is that, the latter kind of people are in authority.

Navy vs. Marine (I mean the natural kind of marine life here)

I don't understand why this guy keep doing evil. And, after reading some of those Bush-favored comments on that article make me even more puzzled. If you want a war, get a Playstation and play your war games all day long!! There is no war if the US didn't start one. I am ashamed that my tax dollar is in part of this mess.

Today I become jobless

Today is the day. After serious thinking, I have decided to go back to school full time. That means, I am jobless now...haha. I didn't spend much time packing my personal stuff, and I only brought home one carton box that was not full. I think I have been working too hard for the past 7.5 years that, I didn't have time to accumulate any personal stuff in my cubicle :-) The final handshake with my manager, who is a really good engineer by the way.

Need to thank my wife for allowing me to do what I want to, and for supporting me in the days to come.
More pic here

MINI is fixed.....hopefully

I was about to tow the MINI to the dealer to let them figure out whatever is wrong. The towing guy suggested to try jump start again. I didn't expect it to be any help because I jumper started it with my co-worker's car last night and it didn't work. To my surprise, with the towing guy's jump starter, the MINI started up!! But he said the battery is so dead, that if I shut off the car, it wouldn't start again. And, the dealer has to reset the computer. So, I drove to the dealer, and they quoted me $3xx for checking the charging system and replacing the battery. That's way too much for a battery replacement. Luckily there is a Kragen (auto parts store) next door. So I asked the Kragen guy to come out and test my battery. His tester showed the battery is dead, and probably has a dead cell. MINI OEM battery is $125 with 12 months warranty; Aftermarket battery is $100 with 1 year free replacement and 84 months pro-rated money back warranty. So I bought a battery from the Kragen store, installed it, and the MINI started right up.

Hopefully the dead battery was the cause and not a syndrome of something else. But I am very surprise that modern cars these day will behave so strangely when the battery is dead. My guess is, the low voltage is right at the threshold for all the computer circuit to switch between on and off. So all the logics are messed up and the computer is confused as hell.

MINI is broken.....

After almost 4 years and 53k miles of reliable and loyal partnership, the MINI has just let me down for the first time tonight. Seems like an electronics related problem, basically I can't start the car. After all the lights behaved like crazy and losing function on all electronics, the alarm kept going off. As if it is thinking that someone broke into the car and trying to drive away. Luckily it happened in the parking lot at work, so it is somewhat safe and not too far away from a MINI dealership. I will troubleshoot it one more time tomorrow before towing it to the dealer.
Do auto makers really engineer their cars to start failing right after the warranty expires?

Bay Area been stormed

We had a pretty bad rain storm today (actually yesterday Jan 4). It was the biggest in the past 5 years or so. 8 inches of rain in 24 hr, and wind speed as high as 80 mph. Luckily the area where I live in was not affected by any fallen trees or power poles, or road closure.
Here is a report on SF Gate

Defeated Rayman while being sick

Since x'mas day I have been bothered by this flu. All I have done since then was stay home, eat, sleep, and play Rayman on Wii. Finally I passed all the stages today :D This is the screen where Rayman can finally climb high enough to escape from his cell. This is one fun game. Must have.....if you have a Wii. Too bad I read that Rayman 2 is not nearly as good as the first one.