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.