Thoughts from a spotless mind

Home networks change

2011-12-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

Since I had such a bad time with the TrendNet WiFi router, I decided to change to an older LinkSys WRT54G router till there's a suitable (price, features, form factor, etc.) new one.

First, let's count the devices.

There are four Gigabit LAN devices (Desktop, 2 HD media players + NAS), three 100MBps LAN devices (VOIP router, TV, and Wii), and 10+ WiFi devices (3 laptops, netbook, printer, iPad, iPhone, another two cell phones, another media player, and an Network Radio). In addition, both HD media players and Wii has WiFi as well. In the 10 WiFi devices, only 6 of them supports 802.11n while the rest are 802.11g. Since it's rare that I would need high bandwidth on the wireless devices (the 2 HD media player will be using wired LAN), 802.11g would be sufficient for now.

I would like to have a Gigabit LAN connection to use the extra bandwidth when transferring large amount of data (e.g. playing HD content from NAS). Luckily (up to debate), I have two 8-port Planet Gigabit switches from an auction five years ago. Although they are not worth as much they were in 2006, they are still useful. After checking with two friends in IT, the plan is to use the Linksys WRT54G router as the WiFi access point as well as the DCHP server. Most of the LAN devices (especially all the Gigabit LAN devices) will connect to the switch. This will also allow all devices within a single network so files on the NAS can be read and everybody can print to the printer over the network.

After an extra trip to get CAT-6 network cables and a 12-port power strips, I set up the fully system from scratch. This includes using a new 12-port power bar. Given so many devices with their own AC/DC power supplies, it doesn't make sense to have power outlets spaced so tightly. Even for the 12 outlets, commercial grade power bar, at least three of the outlets are now blocked. If I were to design a power bar, I'd at least put most of them sideways and space them out to accommodate most of the AC/DC adapters.

Anyway, after 2 hour, the network is functioning again. So far, the WRT54G router works fine. There's little to complain about this set up. At the same time, I still need an utility to test large data transfer performance.

WiFi router issue

2011-12-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

Spending quite some time in the morning trying to get the internet working in the Condo. The TrendNet TWE652BRP WiFi router has been misbehaving for quite some time. The main symptom is dropping wireless connections quite frequently (as bad as every 5 minutes) while the signal showing on the devices was still strong when it happened and the wired connections are unaffected. Some times, it also crushed, but this was not often. For most of the devices, it will automatically reconnect after 1-2 minutes. However, this is very annoying as my HD media player is wireless. Every time the connection was dropped, it will either just stop playing whatever online content I'm watching or drop the connection to my NAS drive where most of the HD content are saved.

I've tried updated it to the latest firmware, and tried to change various settings. Some times it gets better and most times it's not affected. I'm not even sure whether it's the setting change or just the number of time it's rebooted that helped a little. To just temporarily curtail the problem, I had an old CompUSA OEM 802.11g router connected for most of the devices that do not need access to the NAS drive.

Originally, the CompUSA router was connected to the TrendNet one through one of its LAN ports, while the TrendNet router was connected to the DSL modem. I had suspected that the load of the TrendNET router may be a contributing factor so it was changed to not running the PPPoE but just taking the connection from the modem. However, it crushed last night and I decided to switch the hierarchy of the two routers: the CompUSA connects to the modem while the TrendNET follows. This seemed to be an easy change but somehow the CompUSA router refused to run acquire neither an IP from the modem nor will a fixed IP run (the TrendNet worked fine under either, only to crush).

After an hour of changing back and forth, I gave up. I just need to get a new router. In the mean time, I just hanging there try to score a better deal on Boxing day (the Canadian Black Friday). My ideal choice would be a simultaneous dual band Wireless ABGN router with 5 Gigabit LAN ports (plus a WAN port).

Online journal and cloud

2011-12-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

Live Journal is ranked as the No 1 online journal service by topreviews.com. Penzu is a close second. Nobody mentioned Blogger but I do find out it has the same private journal option as Live Journal. At the same time, one advantages of Penzu is its "encrypted" entry feature. However, after searching some time, I still don't know what does that mean. Nonetheless, all three can claim that they are in the Cloud, which is where I started this search. Basically, here is the list that I really's wanted:

1. Web based online service;
2. Basic rich text editor with hyperlink and image functions,
3. Privacy control allowing a single user (i.e. myselfe) and potentially other (not sure why) users.

9/11 remembered

2011-09-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

If anyone can say that they live a life without any major event worth remembering, it must be a luxury. Of course, this is not about personal events.

To me, there are two dates so far and today is one of them. The first hit came in as I just got in my office when V called. Then heard about the 2nd one from the radio and TV in a co-worker's office. The initial 2 hits weren't that shocking until V called again saying the building collapsed.

WTC completely collapsed? No way!

At the time, CNN online was the main source of news and it was down most of the time. Now this is something to be serious about. I also started to worry about two friends working in the Financial Center who also use the WTC subway station to work. Obvious nobody can contact them until the next day when they walked 15 miles back home.

What happened afterwards is more devastating but not as shocking.

An attempt to explain why US debt default will cause inflation in China

2011-08-08T20:56:00.001-07:00

This came in as part of conversation trying to answer a question:
"Why the potential of American debt default may cause inflation in China?"

I'm not an economist and don't try to pretend to be one. However, my initial effort dodge the question was not successful. So here is my lay person's explanation:

Over the past three decades, the Chinese government have tried very hard to boost up their economy by encourage export, mostly to the US because they are rich. First, they invested heavily in basic infrastructure; second, manufacturing of export is heavily subsided. In order to do both, the Chinese government, through the Central Bank raised a huge amount of money domestically from selling Chinese Treasurer Bills.

So, they borrowed a lot of money domestically from a population tends to save instead of invest. This is a smart move since the investment in infrastructure also stimulated domestic economy.

As a result of the rapid growth of export, the manufacturers made a lot of money in US dollar, which can't be circulated domestically in China. In order to pay their bills in China, they exchanged the US dollar into RMB Yuan, where all the US dollar is eventually transferred to the Chinese Central Bank.

In order to make sure this huge US dollar cash reserve not to significantly loose value from global inflation, the Central Bank tried very hard to invest. However, they only have very limited options for such a huge reserve. One of these options is to buy US treasurer bills, which they did.

Now, most of China's savings are now in US Treasury with a guaranteed interest return. Since US T-Bills are pretty safe and the return is not too bad, the Chinese Central Bank can use the investment return to pay, in part, the interests they own to their own T-Bills in RMB Yuan. So far, so good. In the next 30 years, China becomes the largest US T-Bills holders while its economy is booming.

Now fast forward to 2012. There's a problem with the US economy which pays the interests to the US T-Bills. Rumor has it that it may complete default since the interests becomes too much of the GDP of US. Although the Feds and the Treasury tried to print out more money, which they legally can to a certain point, most of the interest payment was in fact supported by borrowing more money. On August 2, 2012, a predetermined debt limit is reached and the US will run out of borrowing power hence has no ability to pay off their debts. Of course, the Congress raised the limit in the last minute. But it's a painful process and there is a real danger that the Americans may default their foreign debt.

Just the threat of default through China off. If they loss essentially all their savings in US T-Bills, they won't have any real money to pay off their own RMB Yuan T-Bills.

Well, that won't be a problem since the Chinese Central Bank can also print money, i.e. RMB Yuan. Since there is no law said how much they can borrow or print, they can just print out whatever they needed. This is the source of inflation in China:

Too much money that not supported by the product produced.

Does it make sense?

The Laundry story: Day 11-13

2011-06-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

On Monday in the morning, I called the front desk asking for laundry service. They referred me to the floor maid. She’s a 40-50 year old typical Shanghai worker. Most likely she’s hired long time ago by the university as permanent (literally) employee. To my surprise, she said that there will be no receipts and need payment in cash up front. Given the price is only a fraction of the Shangri-La, I didn’t argue. By the time I came back in the afternoon on Monday, it’s all nicely done folded on the desk. This was pretty nice.

So in the evening, when BL spilled soup on his shirt, I told him about the laundry service. On Tuesday morning as we were heading out, BL asked me to bring the shirt to the maid who doesn't speak any English. So I did and paid. Since she didn’t have change, she said that it will come back with the laundry.

A few hours later when we were heading out for the afternoon tour of Yu Garden, the maid caught me and gave me the change. I was in the hallway and saw her put the finished shirt back to a room.

Unfortunately it turned out that she thought BL’s room is next to mine, while it’s not.

So BL didn’t find his shirt in the evening but he didn’t say anything until I asked him how’s the laundry service on Wednesday morning. When I learned that he didn’t have the shirt in his room, I asked the maid. She frantically told me that she left it in the room next to mine and the guest checked out at 7am that day, unlikely a plot trying to steal the shirt but to catch an early flight. Since he’s also a foreigner who doesn’t have a cell phone, it’s a lost case.

Okay, when I found out it’s not likely BL’s going to get his shirt back, I told the maid that don’t worry and BL probably won’t need it back. Even when DA heard this story, he said that BL probably would use it as a story, much better than having the shirt back.

This assumption turned out to be a mistake. BL worried about running out of shirt for the trip. And the shirt is obviously not very cheap: $30-$40, about a week of the maid’s wage (BL probably makes 100 times of that). Although BL doesn’t really need that shirt, he still thought it’s the maid’s mistake, which should be compensated if he’s in a 5-star hotel. Unfortunately this is not an any-star hotel and the maid is a permanent employee of a state-owned company’s guest house.

The situation escalated when BL and DA were waiting for me downstairs. Our host lady SJ, who heard the story as a joke from DA, believed that we should take care of BL by asking a new shirt. This started a new round of discussion between her, the maid, and the manager. They argue that since it’s not a new shirt, they should not pay for the full value, which is BS. I was so tired of this and regretted telling BL to have laundry in the first place. So I told the host to take BL out buy a new shirt and she will pay for it. Then I will reimburse her. It’s much simpler. They went out and got a 120 RMB yuan golf shirt, which is not very expensive since they thought the maid is going to pay for it.

Anyway, I gave the 120 RMB ($20) to SJ on our train ride back to Shanghai. I’m glad it’s over.

Day 11: starting day in Shanghai

2011-06-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

The team to Shanghai consists three person. DW and BL are coming over this afternoon. So I visited YF in the morning. His new job is about 30 miles away from downtown. After two exchanges on subway and two taxi rides, I got there in 90 minutes. He’s doing okay there. Of course there’s a new problems after the initial honey moon period. Would that be the case for every job?

The import thing is to stick around not giving up so easily. Again, he still thinks these are minor issues so there’s still a long way ahead before anything change.

After lunch, I got back to the hotel and found out my laundry picked up in the morning was already back in the room nicely folded. Although the maid has an altitude, it’s only 10%of what the Shangri-la charges.

Got a call around 5pm that DW and BL arrived on time. We went to dinner together with the host lady YJ. DW took a long time to place the order. Obviously he has some idea of what Chinese food should look like.

Day 10: back to Shanghai

2011-06-05T02:54:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite ShaanXi food is “Ruo Jia Mo” (Meat-in-a bun or Chinese pork burger). Although it’s quite simple to make, many places can’t get the bun right since it needs a clay oven and freshly made before serving. In my last NYC trip, I found one small restaurant in Flushing and it’s the mostly authentic in America. Now that I’m in ShaanXi, this is something I definitely need to have before leaving town. I went on the Internet found a place near the hotel so I can get in and get out within an hour. It’s the “Fan’s Ruojiamo” about. So instead of $30 breakfast at the Shangri-La, I took a 10 minutes’ walk over and ordered two. Unfortunately, it’s not as good. The bun was cooked too hard, obviously not freshly made and just reheated. If I want that, I can have it in a dozen of places in the States.

At least it’s close by and I went back to the hotel in time.

The ride to the airport was pretty quick and we arrived about 1.5hr earlier than my scheduled departure time and a good 2.5 hr before MJ. I sent him off to the international terminal and found out mine was an hour late. The VIP lounge was very hot so I waited in the general boarding area. When boarded the plane, the flight attendant knew we are Gold card holders and put in a different sets of newspapers for us. They also repeatedly coming over to apologize for the delay and gave us useless updates.

Once taking off, the flight was okay and arrived Shanghai more or less an hour late. A hotel has been reserved by the host. I plan to go meet an old neighbor’s family in Pudong, so chose to take the Maglev (magnetic levitation train) then taxi. The Maglev is amazing. It only took less than 8 minutes to cover the 30km with a top speed of 431km/h. Part of the trip is parallel to a high way and it’s like driving at 400km/h. It’s a shame that they can’t finish the original plan to connect the two airports in Shanghai by the Maglev. The LongYangLu station is kind of in the middle of nowhere in Shanghai. To build a Maglev line to Hangzhou is also a joke since the G-line will only take 45 minutes, which is not much longer over the 30 minutes Maglev. Will take the G-line to Hangzhou on Friday.

Although I waited for half an hour, finally saw XK’s family. All of us are very happy to see each other. I’ve seen XK in 2009 but not his parents for 24 years. Now he also has a son as tall as him and a business. We went to a nearby restaurant for dinner and walked around the mall afterward. The weather was around 24 degrees, quite good for Shanghai around this time.

XK dropped me off at the hotel. My room is on a newly renovated floor which is much better than before.

Day 9: Xi'An break day

2011-05-30T01:22:00.000-07:00

Break day in the hotel and two meals.

Today’s the break day. JD was scheduled to visit the Terracotta Warriors’ Museum in the morning and Shaanxi History Museum in the afternoon. I, on the other hand, will stay in the hotel and relax and work on a few items.

In the morning, when I called him for breakfast, he said he might come down with a cold. I asked him to take a walk with me to a nearby local restaurant from breakfast. Unfortunately it’s not open yet at 8am.

I called CL from XDU to see whether they can delay the tour so JD can have some rest. Unfortunately he was already on the way so we decided to go out for brunch together. Obvious they went to “Fang Shang Ren” (坊上人) which is considered to be No. 1 restaurant for lamb soup in Xi’An. The one I wanted to go is better in tastes but not suitable for guests. I didn’t insist. It turned out that it’s pretty good already. I wouldn’t tell the difference. JD also had a good meal with lamb steaks.

After brunch, JD and CL went off to the Terracotta Museum only. I stayed in the hotel. It’s a very relaxing day and I needed it.

In the evening, we went for dinner in a nearby restaurant with YQ. He really took care of us very well and I was very impressed.

Day 8: Friday in Xi'An

2011-05-29T06:49:00.001-07:00

Today’s a fully booked day at XU. The itinerary starts at 8:30am and ends around 8:30pm. JD and I arranged to have breakfast at the hotel around 7am and will be picked up around 7:50. The breakfast buffet was pretty good. They spoon for coffee is very special: it has a very long handle while a turn in the middle of the handle allows it to be hung on the side of the coffee mug. Unfortunately it didn’t work for me. The long handle sticking out became a problem while I was trying to refill the coffee. The coffee bottle hit the handle and in turn knocked out the coffee mug. Half cup of coffee spilled on the table and on the carpet.

Maybe I’m biased, it’s an example of how a designer didn’t really use it.

Our host YQ arranged JD to give two talks of 1.5hr each and mine is 1.5hr immediately following that. JD’s talks were excellent as usual. He spent quite some effort asking the initially reluctant audience to ask questions. Eventually they opened up with some quite nice questions.

One of the questions is what JD thinks of using artificial organs. Would we become just a robot? JD’s answer was perfect: “this is a question to be left for the individual to deal with at that moment. Some people would rather die than relying on a machine to keep them alive, while someone else may be perfectly fine with it. People will also change their opinions over time. Someone may have a strong feeling not using life support earlier may change their mind when they wanted to live a few more years to see their grandchildren growing up.”

Although I have high regards to JD, he never stops impressing me.

Mine was in Chinese. It didn’t go as well for a number of reasons. Most likely it’s a lack of preparation. Of course I can blame JD used up my time that I had to compress it to 1hr. I also ran out of time for questions.

The talks were in a small classroom sitting about 30-40 people.

We went out to lunch in a nearby restaurant with YQ’s group. On the way there, I saw posters of both talks on the entrance of the university.

The lunch is in fact in a Cantonese restaurant. Only thing worth mentioning is the Chinese ice wine. It is not so sweet as the Canadian ones, which works for me.

After lunch, YQ took us for a walk on campus and two of their huge clean rooms. At 30 degrees Celsius, it is pretty hot walking around with dress shirt. The cleanroom jump suit did help. I was all soaked. On the other side, the cleanrooms are very impressive. They are huge as the other ones I’ve seen in China and well organized. A lot of people are working inside, including a few faculty members.

After the tour, we had a meeting with YQ’s group to discuss their current work and potential collaboration. I realized that their RFID technology may have a simple solution to a problem JD raised in his e-health talk. We discussed that in details during this meeting. In the end, I would write a one-page proposal and YQ’s RFID group will take a look.

The next item on the itinerary is dinner with the XU’s Office of International studies. Since JD was pretty tired, it was a quick meal. One thing worth mentioning is that the director attended the same middle school as me. Of course, he was a few years ahead.

Even it’s a short dinner, we came back to the hotel around 9pm. JD originally proposed ping-pong in the gym but ended up not going. I was kind of ready so went for a 20 minutes run on the treadmill then used the hot tube. It’s a very nice big stone hot tub with clean water and powerful jets. However, it’s in the men’s changing room, which means people will use it naked. When I was using it, I wore my running shorts but while I was leaving, a complete naked guy went in.

Had a glass of wine and watched some badminton before passing out.

It’s a very full day.

Day 7: Thursday Baoji to Xi'an

2011-05-28T03:34:00.001-07:00

Did I mention the hotel I stayed in Baoji is in a very good location?

I wanted to take a train back to Xi’An this time. In the morning, while I walked to the same restaurant for breakfast, I noticed there’s a train ticket sales booth right next to the restaurant. I got my ticket there right after breakfast.

In the morning before leaving for the train, I went to my old neighborhood to see SH. Her younger brother XG was my best friend here in Baoji. He and his parents now are living in Shanghai and I will be visiting them next week. The old neighborhood was much nicer now. I even bumped into Dr. M while passing by a farmer’s market. She must be over 80 by now but still in good health.

I took a quick look of the city on my way to the train station. Then I realized that Baoji is really a small city comparing to any other Chinese cities I’ve visited recently. I hope it remains that way. Last night during dinner, it seems ZW really passionate about the city and its growth.

I was lucky that I decided to take this train with a seat reserved. The train was a little crowed and hot. 15 minutes before reaching Xi’An, the conductor even turned off the little AC, which left a 30+ degree cabin. I lashed out at them but know it wouldn’t change a thing but making them feel bad. Well, I don’t care even that didn’t make me feel any better.

The cab ride to the Xi’An Shangri-La hotel was quick. According to the cab driver, between 2:30-4:30 is their shift switching time. So a lot of them won’t take anyone to the opposite direction. I told him that if a tourist city has a lot of cab picking passengers, it won’t expect returned customers in the future.

TheXi’An Shangri-La hotel was very nice. No wonder it’s the No. 1 hotel on TripAdvisor. I had a good sized room. Even with a bottle of complimentary Australia Cabernet Merlot.

The host took us for a tour of the Stone Tablet museum, the old city wall, and the bell tower later in the afternoon. We all had a good time except JD was a bit tired.

Day 6: Wednesday Shenzhen to Baoji

2011-05-28T03:12:00.000-07:00

Today is mostly a travel day from Shenzhen to Baoji. XP picked me up from the hotel around 9:30am. I forgot my PJs hanging behind the hotel door. While checking out, the maid told the front desk and I went back got it. I had a pretty good impression about this hotel. We bid on a Chinese groupon for a low price for the one-night stay. It took them a while to figure out the transaction but there are no surprises. Although the building and hall way seem a bit dated, the room is in fact very clean, one of the cleanest I’ve seen for 3-3.5 star hotels in China. It’s also quite.
Arrived at the airport about 1.5hr before the scheduled departure time. The airport food in Shenzhen is very expensive. Ended up having a Chinese meal at the KFC. Although the flight is code shared with Air China, a Star Alliance member, my Gold status was not recognized and the miles couldn’t be counted since SZ Air has not officially been added to Start Alliances. Nor can I use Air China’s lounge even they have the same flight.
My flight at Shenzhen was late. It’s not just waiting. When arrived at XIA, I was 5 minutes late for the airport bus back to Baoji. Originally, I grabbed a cab trying to go back to Xi’An to catch a train then realized that I may be late for that due to the rush hour traffic. So decided to bite the bullet and paid 500 yuan asking the Taxi driver directly go to Baoji, which is 170km away. The freeway to Baoji is having major work done but we were lucky.
Got in Baoji about 2hr. In the end, I arrived there earlier than initially planned. I quickly checked in the hotel for a very low price (SH booked for me using her company discount) and had a shower.
I left Baoji 24 years ago. Can’t believe it took almost a quarter of a century for me to come back.
The city has much changed but I still managed to recognize a few streets, with the help of the GPS + Google Map on my iPhone.

The hotel is in a very good location. HB and ZW made reservation at a restaurant across the street. We also met with BJ. Three of us were not only classmates in middle school, but elementary school. We were all exited and HB drank a bit more and stayed with me in the hotel instead of driving back.

Day 5: Shenzhen

2011-05-28T03:09:00.001-07:00

The overnight train right was not as good as I had thought. Waking up every hour or so. In fact, my cabin-mates were pretty good. It’d be me, if anyone, who opened the door all the time.

In the last two hours, I used the iPhone’s Personal Internet Hotspot through the USB (for security and saving power). It was great till in the end when I tried to disconnect. The iPhone hung and then crashed. For about 15 minutes, I was afraid that the Gevey card would fry the iPhone for good. And it’s the time I’d expect to call XP to pick me up. After holding the Home and Power buttons simultaneously for a few seconds, it rebooted very slowly than normal. Eventually, it booked up and I was able to repeat the Gevey starting sequence to get it working again.

XP was late as usual. I had to wait at the subway station for an hour. Should have just taken a taxi to the hotel. After lunch, he went back to work and I met with ZY. She hasn’t changed much from last time, must be 3-4 years ago. The weather was pleasant and we had coffee sitting outside of a Burger King (the Starbucks across street was full).

In the evening, JH’s flight from Beijing was late. XP and I waited and met up with him close to his hotel/office. ZY and her hubby also joined us later. It’s been quite an interesting chat. Will talk about that more later.

Day 4: Monday in Changsha

2011-05-24T17:54:00.001-07:00

Jet lag at 1:50am.
Maybe I went to bed too early. I’m pretty happy with the hotel. It’s the 3^rd or 4^th time I’m staying in this hotel over the past a few years. Don’t think I’ve stayed in any other hotels that many times.

Went back to bed at 5am and waked up again at 8:30am. Got up and went out to the “no name noodle” place next to the hotel for a bowl of rice noodle. After that went around the neighborhood and got a haircut. The hair dresser was nice and I like the new short style.

Went back to the hotel room to take care a few emails. Cousin ZT made a reservation for lunch with everybody who’s available, that’ll be everybody except uncle 4 and his wife. They were at the Children’s hospital taken care of my cousin FY’s son, the only 4^th generation male bears the family name. I went to the hospital visited them last night and saw him for the first time.

The lunch was okay. The room was a bit small for 12 of us. Grandpa was better and he can now recognize I’m his son’s son. Maybe he’s playing with us yesterday?

After lunch, cousin ZT took me to the local electronics market to check out some HD media players. These are Linux based video play back devices for about RMB 500 Yuan. I believe this is the trend to replace DVD players including BlueRay. Of course, many TV manufactures have similar functionality integrated into the TV. Looking at our new 55” Sony, the media files support and network capabilities are still lacking, though.

The rest of the afternoon and early evening were spent with family. Took the 10pm over night train to Shenzhen.

Day 3: Sunday from Shanghai to Changsha

2011-05-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

Jetlag at 3:20am, or too much sleep on the plane. Guess this is a good time to keep the journal/blog writing streak going.

After checking out a few online tips, it turned out that I had to manually enter the name of the APN (Access Point Name) on the cellular network setting. After a few tries (data was slow so some time I didn’t realize it was working before switching between different APNs), the data worked. After all, the two phone cards purchased on Taobao are pretty good.

Went back to bed for another hour or so then packing up for flight to Changsha. The hotel staff was nice. They told me that it will take about the same 40 minutes to the airport either by taxi or by subway and I should take subway, which was way cheaper. I did follow their advice but the trip was almost an hour. There is no traffic at 7am on Sunday. Cab would have made it to the airport in 30 or less. I left a bag at the hotel for GD to pick up later today when he got back from Hangzhou. He did that around 9pm.

The new terminal in the old airport (SHA) was nice. Check-in the bag (had a bottle of wine in there) then went for a morning noodle soup.

The flight was okay. The seating on the 737 seemed new but very uncomfortable without lumbar supports. A blanket helped a bit. Since I was not so much in the mode of sleeping, took out the laptop started writing the entry for Barney’s Version.

Cousin Y came to pick me up. The bag came out after about five minutes waiting. Not bad. The road in front of the hotel I stay every time was finally in full gear for construction after three years (how’d that happen in China?), so it’s so messy, they couldn’t find how to drive to the front door so we went lunch with her family. After lunch, we tried to drive to the hotel (it's only 2 blocks from their home) again. This time, we got lost in a parking garage right behind the hotel. It’s the most scary parking garage I’ve seen. It’s dark with unfinished concrete flooring and many dusty cars. Almost like a scene in a horror movie. We eventually decided to park there and walk. The suitcase was heavy and it was raining, but I managed to get to the hotel. While we were circling the parking garage, cousin Y told me a good joke about OBL:

OBL was initially also trying to target China. So he sent some guys over to blow up things.

It was China new year, No. 1 saw a huge crowd at the train stations and he decided to blow up a loaded train. After a month of trying, he came back empty handed: he couldn’t manage to get a train ticket. OBL killed him and send No. 2.

No. 2 saw there are as many people in supermarkets and you don’t need a ticket. So he packed a bomb in his bag and went in. However, he came out of the supermarket frustrated: his bomb was picked up by a pick-pocket the minute he got in. There goes his head.

Then OBL sent No. 3, his best guy. He was careful. He got on a crowded bus, left his bomb in a backpack there and then got off. Minutes later, the bus blew up in the middle of the city, along with a government building. He went back to see Osama with a “mission accomplished” smile on his face and was executed.

Why?

They can’t find any news about this bombing on any news sources.

When they sent back someone to investigate the “supposed” bombing site in two weeks, there’s a huge 10-story building standing there like nothing happened. It turns out the government was good covering the news and building a new building in a week.

So China was safe.

Day 2: Saturday in Shanghai

2011-05-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

Arrived Shanghai Pudong airport (PGV) at 15:25.

I prepared the Gevey card on my iPhone 4 on the flight so followed the instruction right after landed. It worked! Ok, only for the phone part. The internet part was not working. Had to go to a store tomorrow.

With the phone, I called GD. Bad news, he thought I’d be in Shanghai till Monday and he’s still in Hangzhou. The problem was I wanted to leave some stuff there for him. Okay, let’s try the hotel first.

Instead of GD, I asked Nancy out for dinner. She happened to in Shanghai. Of course she’s disappointed V can’t make it. They can catch up in DC later, I assume.

The hotel is really small! In terms of small elevators, it sure beats the Tourism hotel in Paris. Tripadvisor’s reviewers weren’t kidding about the small elevators. The elevator door was not as wide as my shoulder.

After a quick dinner with Nancy and asked her to hold on to my passport for next week, I made a number of calls to let people know my new number as well as arrange Xi’An’s trip. Finally, my flight will be changed to Sunday.

E-mail to blogger test

2011-05-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

Since I can't access blogger from certain stops of my trip, let's start
an experiment. I'm also trying to post more regularly.

Apps for the iPad 2

2011-05-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

We bought a new 52" Sony LED-LCD tv for the bedroom. The problem is that our data server is in the living room with the rest of the network setup. Another problem is that the Dell Mini 1010 is too slow for many of the videos I have at 1080p. Luckily I also bought a new iPad 2. It can play HD video but the proprietary iTunes doesn't make accessing files not purchased through the iStore easy.

Finally today, I bought the Air Video that allows streaming all kinds videos to the iPad via my internal network. So far, it worked great.

The perils of desert democracy

2011-02-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

In the past two weeks, all eyes are shifting from Tunisia to Cairo thanks to Wikileaks. It turns out although the Mubarak seems well liked by the White House and their western allies, they dumped him much faster than road salt for the beltway. Time and time again, it's always easier to find someone else and let the sitting duck take the blame.

George Jonas articulated this point of view wonderfully in his column "The perils of desert democracy" on the National Post. Although it's true that democracy has little hope if there's few democrats, may be this time is different given the Internet/FB/Twitter ago and all. At the same time, I am not as optimistic for Egyptian's short to mid-term perspectives as many of my friends are. Maybe they'd understand my pessimistic view given that time has proven me deadly wrong on a similar point more than 20 (can't believe it's that long) years ago.

Failed solid state drive: episode 2-the looks

2011-01-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

After my first SSD failed, it turns out that I did have some important data not backed up. My friend Peter at work tried to recover it and didn't get anywhere. We called a few data recovery companies (using Google, what else?), and was told that they would all take a "look" for $5k.

Five grand to just take a look? No, thank you. Guess my data isn't that important to me.

I happened to be on a business trip to China where I thought I might had a chance for a cheaper "look". Before going, I found a company called "飞客" or "Fix"(as its web site is www.fix.com.cn) which seems legit. I called them and they said that they would "take a look, but no guarantees." There will be no charge if they can't recover the data. So, at least this is a free "look". What made me trust them is that I did talk to an engineer instead of someone who only know how to work the phone and get $5k for a "look".

Four weeks late, I was in Shanghai. After sneaking out a lunch break, I went to their Shanghai branch office with the SSD. An engineer talked to me and took the drive while asked me to wait outside.

After half an hour (whole lot more than I expected), he came back telling me the bad news: the drive is beyond their capability to restore.

Wait,

here's a slim hope: he called the headquarter in Beijing where they have better facilities and more experienced engineers. They said that I can get another "look" there. Since my last stop is Beijing after three days, I opted to bring the drive there myself instead of shipping it from the Shanghai office (for free, they said and no recovered data, no pay).

A slim hope is still hope.

First day in Beijing, I went to the headquarter near the university district. After talking to a girl at the reception, an engineer came out for another "look". I'm sure this would be the end of the "looks" for this SSD. It would straight go to the trash bin if this "look" doesn't work.

After half an hour later, he called me who's wondering around downstairs and let me know it's recoverable (while not sure how much can be recovered). I can take a look at the recovered data before deciding to pay for it.

And the cost is 1500 yuan or $220.

This sound promising! They would keep the drive for a few days and call me when it's done. Before leaving, they asked me to signed a contract as well as a confidentiality agreement which stated that they would not keep the data afterward. So far, very professional. I just hope "a few" days would not exceed my stay there.

The next day, I got a call from them and "almost all data are recovered"!

I went there in a hurry. It's right at lunch hour and the reception girl was already dressed and ready to leave for lunch with a friend. She saw me and stopped at the door. Then she went back for the engineer who then showed me the data on their computer. They wanted to make sure that I'm happy with the recovered data. Once I said yes, he went back with my portable hard drive to copy the data, while the reception girl decided to ask her friend to bring back a take out.

The copy took pretty long: more than one and half hour (the recovered data is about 40GB, may be they need a USB 2.0 port on their computers).

Anyway, after paying 1500 yuan as promised, I got my data back. All lost data (less than 0.1%) were in the Windows directory so nothing with value was lost.

It's a happy ending.

Peter said that all failed hard drives from work will be shipped to China from now on.

New iPhone 4

2010-11-21T17:45:00.000-08:00

My T-Mobile/HTC Wing is dying and I eventually bite the bullet got a new iPhone 4 with a 1.5Gb data plan. It turns out one of the best phones I've got. It almost replaced my laptop for many occasions.

While playing with it, I'm also trying to get on the bandwagon of i-age. I'll be reporting some of the tips I learned on the way.

Today's topic is how to get your own ring tones in the iPhone. This is the part I really don't like Apple. It's just too much of a control freak here. Anyway, I found a very useful web site here. Basically, you need to load the ring tones (likely in mp3) in iTunes then convert them into Apple's AAC/.m4a format. Then manually change the extension to .m4r in Explorer. Then load them again in iTunes, which automatically recognized them as ring tones and save them into the ring tone folder. Of course you need to connect to the iPhone to upload it.

Solid State drive failure

2010-11-09T03:32:00.000-08:00

The solid state drive (Intel X25-M 80G G1) in my Thinkpad X61t failed yesterday. I should have seen it coming. The computer was very slow Sunday night and I had to turn it off. It never waked up, at least not completely, from that. On Monday morning, it managed to get to the log on screen and after entering Windows password, it just hang. After restarting a few times, the laptop won't recognize it any more.

Luckily, I still kept the old 100GB drive with Vista Enterprise on it. Replacing the hard drive took about 2 minutes and it booted up slowly but without incident. Of course it immediately asked for updates but it's not a problem.

Peter, a co-worker, is trying to revive it but I won't hold my breath. When connected to his eSATA connector as an external drive

I actually ordered a new Thinkpad X201 to replace it and it's on the way over. I was going to backup all the files over the weekend but got distracted. Although almost everything work related has been backed up, I do have two folders that are not. One of them has my temporary work files and the other contains all pictures I took this year.

This is a 14 months old drive purchased in August 2009, when the original 100GB 7200rpm drive in the X61 started to have problems. I've done quite some research on the SSD technology and decided to give it a try so I can boost the lifetime of the then 3-yr old X61 for another year or two. The decision to go for the more expensive Intel X-25M, one of the more expensive SSD at the time, is mostly based on this review of SSD technology by AnandTech.

Combined with Windows 7, the X25-M did seem faster than the old 7200rpm drive but I'm not sure this is because of the SSD or the performance improvement by Windows 7 over Vista. When installing the SSD, it doesn't seem to be much lighter than the 7200rpm drive but definitely quieter. It's cooler, at least initially.

Over the course of next a few months, the X61 became more and more hot at the center of the laptop. Now when I look back, it probably have issues there since although the drive was cool, but the driver circuit was hot and the motherboard was working very hard.

Now that the drive is dead, it turns out that recovering data from a failed solid state drives are much more difficult than a conventional magnetic disk drive. There are not much options and I'm not willing to shell off 3 grands to use a data recovery service. The next step would be downloading some Intel utilities for drive management but I am not sure it will work. I also found some data recovery software online but none of them specifically say that it will work for SSD, which use a much different data mapping algorithm. I may have to format the drive just to have it recognizable by Windows before trying the software. Will wait for a few days before bite the bullet to do that. Besides, the external network at work was down after 1pm. It hasn't recovered as yet (7am the next day). Guess this is really not my day!

I do have other laptops to get by and I have a new laptop coming on Wednesday. Hopefully this would hold on a bit longer. My first X30 worked flawlessly (on XP Pro) for 4 years before I passed it on to my Dad, who's still using it (7 years now). This one had a hard drive failure in the 3rd year and another failure in the 4th year.

It's time to say good bye.

We the unwilling

2010-07-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

We the unwilling
Led by the Unknowing
Are doing the Impossible
For the Ungrateful.
We have done So Much
With So Little
For So Long

--- Anonymous

Note:
1. This is not a Mother Teresa of Calcutta quote according to this statement.
2. If "unwilling" is changed to "willing", it's used as the Engineer's Credo.

Worldcup 2010 knock out stage prediction

2010-06-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

World cup group last round prediction

2010-06-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

Already finished:
Group A: Uruguay & Mexico (France's out!)
Group B: Argentina (Yes!) & Korea

Next two days:
Group C: Slovenia & England (USA & England)
England will beat Slovenia (yes) & USA will tie Algeria (nope)
England has to be hanging there to play Argentina

Group D: Germany & Serbia (Germany and Ghana)
Germany will beat Ghana (yes); Serbia will beat Australia (nope)
German always sticks to the end

Group E: Netherlands & Denmark (Netherlands & Japan)
Denmark beats Japan (nope); Netherlands ties Cameroon (nope)
Japan and Denmark is almost 50%-50%, but Japan traditionally loses to more physical teams

Group F: Paraguay & Italy (Paraguay & Slovakia)
Italy beats Slovakia (nope but ha!); Paraguay beats New Zealand (tie)
If Slovakia could beat Italy, it won't be at the bottom of this weak group

Group G: Brazil & Portugal
Portugal ties Brazil; Cote d'Ivoire beats Korea
Even Portugal loses to Brazil, it will still advance unless... but Ronaldo?

Group H: Spain & Chile
Spain beats Chile; Switzerland beats Honduras (tie)
Who would thought that this is a tough group? Now there's a real possibility that a team with two wins wouldn't advance, unless Spain ties Chile. In that case, I wouldn't be heart broken, but it would be a real pity to not see Spain play more.

Movies I watched in 2009

2010-01-09T15:18:00.001-08:00

There's a few that I added as "seen" but not really this year, but for the most part, they are 2009 movies. 100+ is a lot.

smart fortwo

2009-12-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

Rented a Smart forTwo from ACE LAS for $11/day earlier this month. This is one of the car I seriously considered as my next commute car. Now I have a chance to a 4-day test drive.

First, it's really not that small for one driver or even with a passenger. Decent storage space in the back for something of that size. Great leg room.

Second, it is very small. I literally sit on the rear wheel. When making a turn, it's like turning around sitting on my office chair. Not so much in low speed, but I did took time to get use to it while driving at 90mph on I-105.

Yes, it's surprisingly stable even when driving at high speed. The fastest I got it to was around 95mph. I didn't know how fast I was driving (I was just following the traffic, officer) until looking at the speedometer. For a small car, the acceleration is not bad. It helped greatly that the car I had doesn't have power steering.

Being a very short car (100 in), it does offer some benefits. First, if you can see the car in the next lane from the side mirror, you can definitely change lane since there's plenty of space in-between.

Of course the greatest benefit is on street parking. Can you image that I was even looking forward to a place that I can park on street in Westwood and Beverly Hills? Since there's always a tight spot nobody else can park into, I was almost certain that I can find free on-street parking in Westwood during lunch hour.

There's one day I was running to a lunch meeting in Beverly Hills, I found a parking spot on a small street off 3rd st. Since it's a very narrow street, I initially try to let the cars behind me to pass first before trying to park into the tight (even for a smart) spot. The two ladies in the car pulled over and told me "we're not leaving, just want to see how you park that little cute thing into that spot."

The pictures below are the parking job. It took me about 3 minutes to get into.

Now here comes the not so great part. The main thing is that the automatic transmission sucks. It's like I was on a car driven by someone trying the stick-shift the first time. I eventually had to switch to the manual-automatic shift.

A minor problem is that one needs to read the manual before getting the radio to work, at least for me.

The small thing was good on gas, but not great. For the 200 miles I drove with mixed highway and local driving, I got about 40mpg, close to the EPA highway estimate, but lower than I had expected for such a small car.

The verdict, a nice alternative to Prius but not such a smart buy right now, at least not until Mercedes fixes the automatic transmission or just offers a stick-shift option.

The Times Higher Education University Ranking and it sucks

2009-10-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

At work, the new university ranking of the Times Higher Education was brought up. Since the UK schools rank very high and many US schools do not, it became the talk of the day in the office.

Before spitting out my 2cents, here's the disclosure: neither of my alma mater (college and grad school) are ranked well. Maybe that's why I don't like it.

First, let's see the methodology:
50% is in subjective surveys:
Peer review/survey: 40%; employer survey: 10%

50% is in "objective" numbers:
Faculty/student ratio: 20%; Citation/Faculty ration: 20%
International Faculty: 5%; International Student: 5%

I'd like to comment on two of the six measures.
The first is the "citation/faculty" ratio. It measures the importance of research by quantify the number of publication per faculty member being cited by other researchers. The citation is used instead of publications to eliminate junk papers nobody is reading/using.

In short, this number measures the quality of the faculty in research.

The second is the "peer review/survey", in which a certain group of people (Times does say much about what this group is) ranks a school's reputation. Since it counts 40%, this score basically determines the ranking.

Now let's see some examples.

First, if ranked only by "citation/faculty", which measures research quality:
The top 21 schools (98-100) include 16 US, 2 Canadian, 2 Switzerland, & 1 Israel schools. The US schools include Harvard, Stanford, MIT, a bunch of the rest Ivy League schools as well as Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and Minnesota.

Not bad.

The top UK schools in this category are UCL (90, 37th) and Cambridge (89, 39th), which are the 37th & 39th, respectively. Most of the UK schools are ranked lower than 100th by this measure.

Other worth mentioning schools are: Peking (35 &188th) from China and Monash (42 & 176th) from Australia.

Now let's how the peer survey says:

Harvard (100 & 1-23rd), Peking (100 & 1-23rd), JHU (98 & 28-32nd), Monash (98 & 28-32nd), Minnesota (74 & 106th).

So, the "peer" believes Peking is as good as Harvard; JHU is as good as Monash while worse than Peking; Minnesota sucks.

The final ranking is dominated by the peer survey score:
Harvard (100 & 1st), JHU (94 & 13th),

Minnesota (67 & 105th),

Peking (78 & 52nd), Monash (80 & 45th).

All I'm trying to say is that if the "peer" ranks Harvard's reputation is the same as Peking, while JHU is a little less, it's a group of idiots who knows nothing about college education.

Crazy lucky video

2009-08-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

It seems that nobody was seriously hurt in these videos.

This+is+some+crazy+shit!!!+MUST+SEE

Got it from a friend on Facebook.

Computer trouble #1: change Windows Server 2003 Volume License Key

2009-08-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

Recently, many of the computers I'm using/taking care of had problems. For starters, I'm using a Compaq Proliant server at work so I can log to it remotely doing things involving huge data transfer between a separtate data server. It's running Windows Server 2003 with a volume license. Starting early this year, the volume license provided along with the server by an outside vendor stopped working and I can't get microsoft update any more. The vendor provided another license but they told me to reinstall everything in order to update the license key.

After some searching, I found out that you do not have to reinstall Windows to change the license key. Here's an Microsoft support article:

Briefly, I need to modify the registry so the windows to deactivate Windows. Once deactivated, Windows will automatically remind you to activate windows through the Internet or phone a MS customer service representative to get a new license key.

So I pretended that I called Microsoft and get the new license key. Once entering the new key, and reactivate Windows registry, everything works.

One problem the MS support article didn't mention is that there's an activation code field which is the default of the activation process. I assume that this is the code the MS call center gives out. In my case, since I have a new volume license key, I had to specifically choose entering CD-key.

Now one problem is out of the way, I can come back to deal with the failed hard drive on my X61 tablet. The annonying part is that the new Intel X-25M 80G SSD I ordered from NewEgg failed also. I had to mail it back for replacement. Will update that later.

The 230 mpg Chevy Volt

2009-08-11T07:23:00.000-07:00

GM just said that their preliminary test on the 2011 Chevy Volt shown a health 230 mile per gallon in city driving. I assume this is great news comparing to the 14 mpg (city) on my old Explorer.

Wait a minute, this is a plug-in electric viehcle, what does the 230 mpg mean? My understanding would be if running purely on the gas generator, the car with run at 230 miles for each gallon of gas used. That will be translated into roughly 0.43 gallon or $1.3 per 100 miles based on today's gas prices of $3/gallon.

Not bad.

On the bottom of the Times' article, the author also mentioned that "GM... expected the Volt to consume as little as 25 kilowatt hours per 100 miles in city driving". Based on current California's consumer electricity price of 14.5 cents per KWH, it will cost $3.63 to drive 100 miles.

Now let's see whether I get this right:

According to this article, a completely gas powered electrical car will be about 2.8 times cheaper than the same car using electricity from the the grid.

There's something wrong with this picture or I am not capable of do 2nd grade math. If it's true, why would anyone want to plug in for 8 hours for each 40 miles single charge driving range?

Who's been acting stupidly?

2009-07-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny article about the Obama-Stupidly comments from the Examiner

My imaginary transcript of the phone conversation between Sgt. James Crowley and President Obama

Since I can't copy the whole thing, here's some funny excerpts:

"Sgt. Crowley: Hello this James.

President Obama: Hello Sgt. Crowley this is Barack Obama the President of the United States.

Sgt. Crowley: Oh that is funny. Nice one. Really who is this?

President Obama: Really Sergeant it is me you are talking to the man from the White House.

Sgt. Crowley: Hmmm. I have to be sure could you fax me over some identification please.

President Obama: NO I WILL NOT!

Sgt. Crowley: Sir how am I suppose to believe this is really you.

President Obama: Is this how a black President gets treated in America? Would you be asking President Bush for some identification?"

Racism and stupidity

2009-07-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

It's easy to say racism is stupid. Here's the argument from both sides:

"If a mild-mannered, bespectacled Ivy League professor who walks with a cane can be pulled from his own home and arrested on a minor charge (only because of he's black), the rest of us don't stand a chance. "

From the other side, the police is doing him a public service by acting on a potential break-in. He's out of line by, allegedly, yelling the following to the police:
"you don't know who you're messing with" and something regarding the officer's mum.

I can feel the entitlement he has as a University Professor at Harvard. After all that he has achieved, he is only a black man in a nice neighborhood: he has to make extra effort to explain why he's there. Well, in the case, all he needs to do is not talking trash.

To me, both sides are losers over this.

The end of late night comedy

2009-05-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night is the night. Tonight is the 2nd to last.

Billy Crystal has put on a few pounds and and he's a Twitter?

Now that I'm getting old, an hour and a half ealier may be a good thing.

The chain reaction

2009-03-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

"Hay Kevin, the economy is bad..."

Step 1: A major video game company decided that they will not spend money on new games since fewer people are buying them, they cut the contract with a small Pasadena startup that develops the new games.

Step 2: The startup subsequently laid off one of its writer.

Step 3: The writer who lost his job has to let his nanny go and starts homeschooling.

Step 4: The Nanny starts to cut his own hair and stops going to a Barber shop;

Step 5: The Barber has fewer and fewer customers and stop dinning out as he previously did.

Step 6: The restaurant has fewer patrons so the owner cut the hours of a waitress;

Step 7: The waitress brings home less money and can't afford new video games for her kids.

Step 8/1: Fewer people buying video games.

The Trillion question is where should Obama give out his money to break this cycle?

See the Los Angeles Times report: "One lay off leads to another".

Red Light Camera

2009-02-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

Here's another attack on red light cameras by Patrick Bedard at the Car and Driver:

The most significant arguments I agree with Mr. Bedard are the following:

1. You can't force the owner of the viehcle to rat out the actual driver. As long as the prosecution doesn't have sufficient evidence proven it's the driver who was driving, they can't convict the driver.

2. It's conflict of interests since the evidences are collected by a for-profit organization which makes profit from every conviction.

3. Red light camera is not about safety, it's about revenue.

4. Red light cameras may increase rear-end collisions at the intersection.

Nevertheless, I do think Mr. Bedard needs to provide more details about the studies he cited in his article. There are many uncertainties such as whether the increase of accidents associated with the installation of red light cameras are inline with accidents increase due to other factors such as traffice flow and population increase.

Robot Revenuing: Shots Were Fired - Column

When the cameras go up, the money comes in: shorten the yellow to boost the take.

BY PATRICK BEDARD
March 2008

"This just in: A red-light camera on Broadway Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, has suffered fatal gunshot wounds. Three bullets struck the device, destroying the lens and rendering it inop. Clifford E. Clark III, 47, holed up in a nearby minivan, was arrested and charged with felony vandalism."

"Let’s be clear about the tyranny here. This is not about running red lights. Camera enforcement is a revenuing scheme ... "

"Moreover, it’s a robot employed by a for-profit business that makes its profits from guilty verdicts. It makes nothing on innocent verdicts. Such an obvious conflict of interest should bring out allthe rifles."

"Students: Test your knowledge. Red-light cameras are about (a) the money, (b) the money, (c) THE MONEY."

"This tyranny will fall as research builds a slam-dunk case that it’s a safety sham. A report last year, funded by the Federal Highway Administration and the Virginia Department of Transportation, said that “cameras were associated with an increase in total crashes.” Six Virginia cities with red-light cameras were studied. Injury crashes were down five percent in one and up from six to 89 percent in the others. Rear-enders were up in all the cities, by 136 percent in Falls Church and 139 percent in Arlington."

"Crashes were up in Stockton, California, too, from an average of 14 per year before to more than 20 per year in the 2004–6 period, after red-light cameras were installed. Same story in Seattle, where crashes rose from 4.94 per intersection before to 5.25 after cameras were installed at four intersections. Untroubled by the facts, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske declared complete victory and proposed camera coverage on 14 more intersections."

"If red-light cameras don’t reduce violations, what does? The length of the yellow light is the most important factor, says the Texas Transportation Institute, which studied 181 intersection approaches over three years. Adding one second to the Institute of Transportation Engineers formula cut violations by 53 percent. Conversely, shortening the ITE time by one second hiked violations by 110 percent."

"As good as it might be for safety, lengthening the yellow is bad for (a), (b), and (c) above. San Diego saw a $2 million increase in revenues in the first year after trimming its “grace period” to 0.1 second versus 0.3 to 0.5 before. In Dallas, 7 of the 10 highest revenue-raising cameras have yellows shorter than the minimum recommendation of the Texas Department of Transportation."

"When the choice comes down to safety versus the money, safety doesn’t stand a chance."

Let me be your hero

2009-02-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

Be so busy since my December trip, it's the first time I sat down and watch a full concert.

It's the 2007 Enrique Iglesias Belfast concert on HD.

He's done a good job entertaining the audience. Especially in the legendary Hero:

Was very surprised that he really went out his way to please the crowd.

Can't image any female singer would ever allow an audiance to do the same (similar) thing.

Here's the MTV version.

Lyrics

(Whispered) Let me be your hero

Would you dance if I asked you to dance?

Would you run and never look back

Would you cry if you saw me crying

Would you save my soul tonight?

Would you tremble if I touched your lips?

Would you laugh oh please tell me these

Now would you die for the one you love?

Hold me in your arms tonight?

(Chorus)

I can be you hero baby

I can kiss away the pain

I will stand by you forever

You can take my breath away

Would you swear that you'll always be mine?

Would you lie would you run away

Am I in to deep?

Have I lost my mind?

I don't care you're here tonight

Chorus

I just want to hold you (2x)

Am I in too deep?

Have I lost my mind?

Well I don't care you're here tonight

Chorus (2x)

You can take my breath my breath away

I can be your hero

Own your friends! on My Space

2008-12-24T04:58:00.000-08:00

It's the daybefore Xmas, and I'm not happy.

It is NOT because in 2008:

my retirement plan lost over half of its value;

not even because there are six people I know died in the second half of the year (including three relatives, two very close friends, and a business partner) all out of the blue.

It is because I can not buy my friend on My Space.

Or, more precisely, buying him will not allow me to stop what he's going: Bagdad.

According to My Space:

"Using Own Your Friends you can:

Buy and sell your friends as 'pets'.
Make your 'pets' hug, punch, and poke each other.
Change your pets' status messages to whatever you want.
Find out how much your friends think you are worth!

What I want is for him to stay at home.

What would he want?

"the dumbass volunteered," another friend told me.

This is him, who always does what he believes in. From college to the Army, to Kuwait, to Bosnia, and back to teach high school, he made his own plans.

May be we should celebrate that instead of buying him.

Hopefully there will be one day that we can "Buy a soldier" and ask them to teach instead of fight, for whatever reason.

John McCain on Tonight's show

2008-11-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

Very funny opening:

Jay: how are you doing these days?

McCain: I slept like a baby. I slept for two hours, wake up and cry; slept for another two hours, woke up and cry...

Earlier in the promotional piece, Jay asked what McCain is doing.

McCain: I'm working in the transition team.

Jay: I admire you dedication to the nation for working in the Obama transition team.

McCain: No, I'm working in the Conan O'Brien transition team.

Now that the election is over. The funny, lovable McCain is back.

The Prop 8 problem: what are Californians thinking?

2008-11-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama led the rest of the Democrats to a huge win on Tuesday night. However, liberals across California suffered a major setback on Prop 8, which was surprisingly passed by a not so small margin.

On the surface, the conservative religious groups such as those from Salt Lake were to blame. But I believe that the anti-prop 8 people ignored a very important group in California: the Latinos. Although we can count on most of them to vote for Democrats, they are also very devoted Catholics that value traditional definition of marriage: a union between a man and a woman. Equality here may not worth much here.

May be next time around, we should just abandon all benefits/rights associated with the magic word "marriage". Those Constitution law scholars should think of some way that can change the legal definition as "unions", wherever financial and other benefits/rights are considered. So, the religious can have their holy "marriage" still between a man and a woman while the others can enjoy the other rights/benefits.

Isn't this what they ask for in the first place?

President Barack Obama: the new era

2008-11-04T21:23:00.001-08:00

As expected with unexpected wins in the south, Barack Obama officially won the 2008 presidential campaign. Although he's even not my favorite Democrat, I was finally converted by Barack Obama's acceptance speech tonight.

John McCain is still my hero. He has given a very touching, graceful concession speech.

Frankly, Obama's victory (along with other demarcate wins), is a very lucky one due to the perfect timing of the financial crisis. Considering 90% of the black vote went to him, I have a hard time to accept this is a race not about race, at least for the blacks.

Now that the Democrats control both the White House and the Hill, they have no excuse for the next two years.

My prediction for today

2008-11-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

Here's my prediction using CNN's prediction tool.

Basically, the election will be decicded by Florida, Ohio, and Missori. In the end, I think Obama will take Ohio and Missori and won.

Let's see.

Thank you Gov. Sarah Palin for making this election season the most entertaining and enjoyable

2008-11-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

Even since the beginning of the campaign season, I was very relaxed. For all that I care, whoever been elected, he can't be worse than W.

Now that with SNL and Gov. Sarah Palin, this election season is funnier than ever.

All I want to say, at the eve of the election, is "Thank you, Gov. Palin", for all that laught you've brought with you from the great state of Alaska, where people there are all with abundant foreign policy expertise by watching over Russia in the morning.

Don't Vote PSA

2008-11-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

After registration, you've got to vote, on election day, if you haven't vote ahead of time.

What are these people waiting for to vote on the election day?

A scando between now and Tuesday?

It's time to make up your mind, whatever it is, and vote.

No, this is not the most important election of your lifetime, but well, that depends also. Who would ever thought this nutjob did all these over the past eight years?

The line you wait in

2008-10-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

In a recent trip to Honolulu, I personally experienced the different treatment based on class,

the fare class.

As a savvy traveler, I shop for the cheapest flight and buy non-refundable tickets. I therefore do not mind to be put in the last for standby. However, this class-differentiating treatment is done by no else, but the TSA, a US Federal government agency. They clearly state, at the entrance of the HNL, if you have a first class ticket, or belong to an elite frequent flyer program, you're entitled to cut in the long security line: enjoying the same previlige as the pilots and crew members.

I admit that the world is not equal and money talks. As someone put it, we've seen it in Disney World, what's wrong with that? The problem is, this is done by our government and I wasn't taxed any less for this "special treatment". On top of that, this is something no politian would dare to vote for but instead, leaves to the secretary of DHS to decide, which says something about the problem.

Enjoy the essay "The Waiting Game" from the Time magazine by Steve Rushin:

"Depending on whom you believe, the average American will, over a lifetime, wait in lines for two years (says National Public Radio) or five years (according to customer-loyalty expert Nick Wreden, whose post-office branch you might want to avoid).

The crucial word is average, as wealthy Americans routinely avoid lines altogether. Once the most democratic of institutions, lines are rapidly becoming the exclusive province of suckers. Poor suckers, mostly."

Sarah Palin on SNL

2008-10-18T20:56:00.000-07:00

While Tina Fey was doing her, Governor Sarah Palin appeared at the beginning of tonight's SNL. I had to say, she's doing pretty well there. I had to admit that one of the best impressions John McCain has left for me is when he was hosting SNL a few years ago.

Warren Buffett: "Buy America, I am"

2008-10-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

On Page A33 of Today's (Oct. 17) Times, the Warren Buffett wrote an op-ed piece explaining why his buying US stocks now while holding almost nothing before the financial crisis started a few weeks ago. In fact, he's $80 billion richer since this summer, while everybody else has lost a big pile of cash. This makes him surpassing Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world.

Should we follow him? You bet (if you still have cash left from the market and you don't need it till next decade).

In his article, he quoted Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

PBS: P.O.V. Soldiers of Conscientious

2008-10-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Soldiers of Conscientious

Camilo Mejia was a soldier who served in the (current) Iraq war and declared himself as a conscientious objector. He was later put in military jail for his actions. In this documentary, he said:"I Have never felt freer..."

When been challenged that a so called "conscientious objector" may give up the chance to stop evil, say Hilter, he answered that "what if we have enough conscientious objectors in the German army such that the atrocities committed by the Nazis would have never happened."

"In 2004,
150,000 Germans were called for mandatory national service.
70,000 of them served in military,
80,000 of them served as conscientious objectors to serve in non-military institutions."

Clearly, ther Germans got it.

May be this is what it takes for a nation to realize what is right, and what is wrong.

The second presidential debate

2008-10-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

I'm very disappointing by the amount of personal attacks there in this round of debate. Particularly for McCain. He didn't provide any details of his own plan, if any, but attacking Obama as well as reiterate his "record".

This may be the last straw that breaks my long lasting support to McCain. If the election were held today, he won't get my vote.

Over all, neither side is doing well for my liking. As usual, when attacks been started, false facts will be cited to their advantages. Here are some examples found by the AP on "Obama, McCain Stretch facts in debate":

Examples include:

McCAIN: Said one way out of the financial crisis is to "stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us."

THE FACTS: Although he didn't spell it out, he was referring — as he has in the past — to purchases of oil from countries hostile to the U.S. The figure is inflated and misleading. The U.S. is not spending nearly that much on oil imports and roughly one-third of what it does spend goes to friendly countries such as Canada, Mexico and Britain.

OBAMA: "I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Senator McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us. It hasn't worked out that way. And so now we've got to take some decisive action."

THE FACTS: McCain has indeed favored less regulation over the years but supported tighter rules and accountability on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years before the start of a financial crisis prompted in part by those giant mortgage underwriters. Obama was not a leader in that unsuccessful effort. Some of the current problems can be traced to legislation passed in 1999 that lifted many regulations over the financial industry. That deregulation was championed by then-Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, a McCain supporter, but also by President Clinton, who signed the legislation, and by former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, now a top Obama economic adviser.

OBAMA: "Actually I'm cutting more than I'm spending so that it will be a net spending cut."

THE FACTS: Obama has many ambitious plans to spend more taxpayer dollars on a variety of federal programs, including clean energy technologies and job training. He's said he'll cut pork-barrel programs and the costs of the war in Iraq to pay for it — as well as raise taxes on the wealthy — but the specifics of his new spending plans greatly outweigh the few spending cuts he's identified.

Tina Fay as Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live!

2008-10-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

This is hilarious! Tina Fay is the one and Sarah Palin is indeed adorable.

Google's 10 years

2008-09-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

It is an iconic brand, no doubt.

Their 10 years time line is also an amazing story. Successful, and amazing.

Google's "Dream" cell phone

2008-09-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

Google is not only fighting with Microsoft, now it is taking Apple.

Rumor has it that Google will have its GPhone or sometimes called the Dream phone later this month.

With all that fuzz with the IPhone, let's see what Google can deliver.

Roundabout: the solution to gas crisis?

2008-09-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

According to this article on Time, driving in circles is the new way to fight traffic.

Really.

They are talking about roundabouts, a giant circular road intersection that may be an effective way to easy traffic problems in may urban areas. It's very popular in Europe, but Americans have rarely seen them here.

Unfortunately, I don't believe I will see any new roundabout soon here.
Why? Because they can't use red light cameras, which is the cash cow for all municipalities.

The world's largest roundabout.

The Pirates are for Real this season

2008-09-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

This is the NCAA football news of the weekend:
The Pirates have done it again!

They beat then No. 8 West Virginia by a large margin: 24-3. If anyone (including me) says that they were just lucky last week beating (then) No. 15 ranked Virginia Tech by 27-24 thanks for a last minute block conversion, now they (or we) can all shut up. You don't beat West Virginia by chance, not by that large margin.

After these two wins against ranked teams, the Pirates landed their first top 25 spots (14th in AP and 20th in USA Today) in 9 years. Last time they did that was in 1999 when they beat Miami Hurricanes (Florida) after the devastating Hurricane Fran flooded Greenville.

Lip syncing: a must for Olympics?

2008-08-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

Just as nobody had predicted the magnificent opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics Games, no one had expected that one of the low point of this Olympics is not doping but lip syncing by a 9-year old.

While most of people using this as their Olympic gossip, they didn't know the following fact:
First, it is the music director of the ceremony disclosed the lip syncing voluntarily as a "behind the scenes director's comment" as well as publicly giving credit to the girl who did the singing. What he didn't realized is that while he said "not perfect looking" was transformed by the media as "ugly". And this is the media claimed that they were worried about the psychological damage to both girls.

Secondly, it is common practice in Chinese and Hong Kong films to have a professional singer to sing for the picture perfect actors/actresses. Guess the director of "Momma Mia" didn't know this is an option. To many, this is a show that you want to be perfect for the audience to enjoy the performance. It turned out some (or most) of them may not care whose voice it is.

Thirdly, don't be surprised, this may be the Olympic tradition. In 2006 at Turin, the great Pavarotti was lip syncing to his tape; in 2002 at Salt Lake City, the televised opening ceremony was not live (except for the athletes), but a rehearsal taped earlier. What most shocking is that in 2000 at Sydney, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was string-syncing to a pre-recorded symphony and, wait for this, part of the recording was done by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The amazing part is that all these facts at other Olympics were not disclosed voluntarily. The organizers admitted the syncing facts only after been caught. However, unlike the Beijing Olympics, none of these made to main stream news. No wonder the Beijing organizers and the Chinese felt they were treated unfairly.

Here is a blog on the Times: Sydney Comes Clean on Olympic Miming. Comparing to the front page coverage of the Beijing lip syncing, this is not even on the printed edition, but only on the web site.

The original source is from the Sydney Morning Herald:

"As a result, the Sydney Symphony's confirmation that it mimed its entire performance at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics comes as something of a shock. Even worse, it admits the backing tape was recorded, in part, by its southern rival, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra."

The DNC convention and the Bill Clinton speech

2008-08-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

The biggest thing on the news after the Olympics is the DNC convention. Somehow, it all looks much like either late night infomercials and televangelicals.

The only exception to that is President Clinton's speech tonight, from Zimbio.

I am honored to be here tonight to support Barack Obama. And to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden, though as you’ll soon see, he doesn’t need any help from me. I love Joe Biden, and America will too.

What a year we Democrats have had. The primary began with an all-star line up and came down to two remarkable Americans locked in a hard fought contest to the very end. The campaign generated so much heat it increased global warming.

In the end, my candidate didn’t win. But I’m very proud of the campaign she ran: she never quit on the people she stood up for, on the changes she pushed for, on the future she wants for all our children. And I’m grateful for the chance Chelsea and I had to tell Americans about the person we know and love.

I’m not so grateful for the chance to speak in the wake of her magnificent address last night. But I’ll do my best.

Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she’ll do everything she can to elect Barack Obama.

That makes two of us.

Actually that makes 18 million of us - because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November.

Here’s why.

Our nation is in trouble on two fronts: The American Dream is under siege at home, and America’s leadership in the world has been weakened.

Middle class and low-income Americans are hurting, with incomes declining; job losses, poverty and inequality rising; mortgage foreclosures and credit card debt increasing; health care coverage disappearing; and a big spike in the cost of food, utilities, and gasoline.

Our position in the world has been weakened by too much unilateralism and too little cooperation; a perilous dependence on imported oil; a refusal to lead on global warming; a growing indebtedness and a dependence on foreign lenders; a severely burdened military; a backsliding on global non-proliferation and arms control agreements; and a failure to consistently use the power of diplomacy, from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Central and Eastern Europe.

Clearly, the job of the next President is to rebuild the American Dream and restore America’s standing in the world.

Everything I learned in my eight years as President and in the work I’ve done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job.

He has a remarkable ability to inspire people, to raise our hopes and rally us to high purpose. He has the intelligence and curiosity every successful President needs. His policies on the economy, taxes, health care and energy are far superior to the Republican alternatives. He has shown a clear grasp of our foreign policy and national security challenges, and a firm commitment to repair our badly strained military. His family heritage and life experiences have given him a unique capacity to lead our increasingly diverse nation and to restore our leadership in an ever more interdependent world. The long, hard primary tested and strengthened him. And in his first presidential decision, the selection of a running mate, he hit it out of the park.

With Joe Biden’s experience and wisdom, supporting Barack Obama’s proven understanding, insight, and good instincts, America will have the national security leadership we need.

Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world. Ready to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States.

He will work for an America with more partners and fewer adversaries. He will rebuild our frayed alliances and revitalize the international institutions which help to share the costs of the world’s problems and to leverage our power and influence. He will put us back in the forefront of the world’s fight to reduce nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and to stop global warming. He will continue and enhance our nation’s global leadership in an area in which I am deeply involved, the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria, including a renewal of the battle against HIV/AIDS here at home. He will choose diplomacy first and military force as a last resort. But in a world troubled by terror; by trafficking in weapons, drugs and people; by human rights abuses; by other threats to our security, our interests, and our values, when he cannot convert adversaries into partners, he will stand up to them.

Barack Obama also will not allow the world’s problems to obscure its opportunities. Everywhere, in rich and poor countries alike, hardworking people need good jobs; secure, affordable healthcare, food, and energy; quality education for their children; and economically beneficial ways to fight global warming. These challenges cry out for American ideas and American innovation. When Barack Obama unleashes them, America will save lives, win new allies, open new markets, and create new jobs for our people.

Most important, Barack Obama knows that America cannot be strong abroad unless we are strong at home. People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

Look at the example the Republicans have set: American workers have given us consistently rising productivity. They’ve worked harder and produced more. What did they get in return? Declining wages, less than ¼ as many new jobs as in the previous eight years, smaller health care and pension benefits, rising poverty and the biggest increase in income inequality since the 1920s. American families by the millions are struggling with soaring health care costs and declining coverage. I will never forget the parents of children with autism and other severe conditions who told me on the campaign trail that they couldn’t afford health care and couldn’t qualify their kids for Medicaid unless they quit work or got a divorce. Are these the family values the Republicans are so proud of? What about the military families pushed to the breaking point by unprecedented multiple deployments? What about the assault on science and the defense of torture? What about the war on unions and the unlimited favors for the well connected? What about Katrina and cronyism?

America can do better than that. And Barack Obama will.

But first we have to elect him.

The choice is clear. The Republicans will nominate a good man who served our country heroically and suffered terribly in Vietnam. He loves our country every bit as much as we all do. As a Senator, he has shown his independence on several issues. But on the two great questions of this election, how to rebuild the American Dream and how to restore America’s leadership in the world, he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.

They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; from over 22 million new jobs down to 5 million; from an increase in working family incomes of $7,500 to a decline of more than $2,000; from almost 8 million Americans moving out of poverty to more than 5 and a half million falling into poverty - and millions more losing their health insurance.

Now, in spite of all the evidence, their candidate is promising more of the same: More tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will swell the deficit, increase inequality, and weaken the economy. More band-aids for health care that will enrich insurance companies, impoverish families and increase the number of uninsured. More going it alone in the world, instead of building the shared responsibilities and shared opportunities necessary to advance our security and restore our influence.

They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more. Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm.

My fellow Democrats, sixteen years ago, you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.

Together, we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be Commander-in-Chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

His life is a 21st Century incarnation of the American Dream. His achievements are proof of our continuing progress toward the “more perfect union” of our founders’ dreams. The values of freedom and equal opportunity which have given him his historic chance will drive him as president to give all Americans, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability, their chance to build a decent life, and to show our humanity, as well as our strength, to the world.

We see that humanity, that strength, and our future in Barack and Michelle Obama and their beautiful children. We see them reinforced by the partnership with Joe Biden, his wife Jill, a dedicated teacher, and their family.

Barack Obama will lead us away from division and fear of the last eight years back to unity and hope. If, like me, you still believe America must always be a place called Hope, then join Hillary, Chelsea and me in making Senator Barack Obama the next President of the United States.

Michelle Obama: the next Hilary?

2008-08-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

Michelle Obama spoke tonight about her husband, her own dream, and the campaign on the opening night of the Democrat National Convention in Denver. It is the first time I watch her doing an official speech. She is confident, aspiring, and, above all, a great speaker.

Much better than her husband.

Tonight, what I saw was not Michelle, but the young Hillary when Bill was running in 92. Of course, the difference is that this time, the husband is not Bill Clinton. Let's see how the race is going in the next 72 days.

McCain is on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. All jokes aside, he does seem very old, very different from two elections ago when he's fighting Bush.

May be this is the Democrat's time?

2008 Beijing Olympics Games: The director's cut

2008-08-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Today's closing ceremony is short and sweet. Given the magnificent moments (the grand opening, Phelps, Bolt, ...) all on high definition for the first time ever, I'd wish there will be a Blue Ray DVD set with all these fantastic memories. Of course, I'd like an Opening Ceremony: Director's Cut, not the NBC version.

Here's an interesting comments about the over all experiences.

"If the Beijing Olympics has done anything, it is to push people to be more realistic, more grounded, and have a better grasp of China. If that means a good bit of their romanticism (e.g. respect) is lost with their pre-conceived notions about China, so be it. It’s a net positive because they come ever closer to experiencing China and all of its problems as Chinese themselves do."

Best moment of the 2008 Olympics

2008-08-23T20:06:00.001-07:00

It's from LA Times' online entertainment section.

The 31th is Morgan Freeman's Visa commercial:

"There are 6 billion of us. We all come from unique places with unique ways of looking at the world. We don't always agree. But for a few shining weeks we set it all aside. We come together to stand and cheer and celebrate as one. We forget all the things that make us different and remember all the things that make us the same."

The gymnasts' age problem at the Olympics

2008-08-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

In most cases, age is quite a sensitive question that one should be very careful to ask. Of course, one reason for this sensitivity is because of the "desired age" is always not what the real age: be that a teen wants to look older (to be taken seriously or ...) or I being happy whenever someone ask me which school I'm attending (trust me, this doesn't happen often, if at all).

The real reason behind this puzzle is that it is impossible to tell how old someone really is, at least not within a small margin of error, say 2 years. At the same time, unlike doping steroid, there is yet a test that you can trust. The bone age test have a fairly large margin of error (only ~80% accurate) that it can't be used with court-proof confidence, according to this study. Besides, it only tells the biological age, not chronological age.

X-ray radiography of a 9-year old girl with a bone age of 8.

Now you will understand that why everybody can speculate the chronological age of the small Chinese gymnasts: They can say whatever they want, there is just no true proof.

Disclosure: I'm not implying here that you should trust whatever government document says or everything from news media. For those in doubt, please check out what Cheney (or everybody in the Administration) said about WMD and the infamouse Jessica Lynch/Pat Tillman circus.

Here's a funny column about this by ESPN's Jim Caple.

"Hasn't the IOC been paying attention to American Olympic coverage over the decades? Our Olympians are always clean. It's the other athletes who cheat like foreign accountants in offshore tax havens."

"The Olympics aren't about which country wins the most gold medals; they're about which country wins the most medals, period. ... Besides, the "official" gold tally neglects all the multiple golds we've won on relay teams and in other team sports. This just isn't fair."

"Something, after all, must be done to prevent immature, underage girls from being thrown into an intense, pressure-packed international competition they are far too young to handle emotionally. Forcing a young girl to compete like that would be like entering a 6-year-old in a beauty contest, or a fifth grader in a national spelling bee, or expecting an 11-year-old boy to compete in a worldwide baseball tournament on national TV. Americans just don't believe in placing that kind of pressure on children."