Migrationology

I've been watching a lot of YouTube lately and most of the views are related to street food. I found this one channel called Migrationology that has pretty good content. He also has a website with city guides on travel and food. The best part of the videos is his reaction when he eats something good. You have to watch to see.

He visits a lot of cities in Asia. There are series of videos for Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, etc. I recognize some of the places he visits in Taipei, especially the night markets. Very cool.


First video in the Taiwan series

AirPods

My nephew from China send a gift to our house but doesn't include a note telling us who it's for. The "it" in this case are new Apple AirPods. Since my parents don't really listed to music using earphones and most of their calls are via speakerphone, they gave the AirPod to me. I've used them for several walks and really like them, though at $160, I don't know if I would have bought them for myself.

Whoa, I just realized there is a $200 version and a $250 AirPods Pro. Apple makes great hardware but everything is more expensive than you expect.

Chinese Parents Game Trailer

Huh? What the heck is this? Doesn't look like it would be fun to play but Steam reviews are "Overwhelmingly Positive." Maybe all the reviews are from bots in China.

CABG

Sorry that I haven't posted in awhile. On November 11th, based on the recommendation of my doctor, I drove to the ER because my heart was beating fast. It turned out I had heart damage, possibly even a heart attack, and needed bypass surgery. On November 14th, I had a seven hour operation to bypass four arteries in my heart. Since then, I have been recovering at home. I also took a short-term disability leave from work.

I started another blog that chronicles my recovery and struggles with medical issues. Since surgery recovery is a huge part of my life now, all my posting has been to the other blog. Once I'm better, I will post here more.

Thanks.

Consumer Reports New Cars

I found a copy of Consumer Report's New Cars guide and they have an article on electric vehicles. The article reviews six models and makes recommendations:

• Tesla Model S (78/97)
• Hyundai Kona Electric (78/76)
• Chevrolet Bolt (71/76)
• Tesla Model 3 (65/82)
• Nissan Leaf (64/62)
• Jaguar I-Pace (58//76)

Out of the six cars, the Model S was rated the highest with an overall score of 78 and a "road-test" score of 97. However, CR did not recommend either of the two Tesla models: the check-mark went to the Kona and the Bolt. Huh...

In the vital stats section for the Model S, CR listed the following as a "Reasons to Skip":\

• Interior fit and finish doesn’t match the price
• Below-average reliability
• Distracting controls
• Autopilot may give drivers a false sense of confidence

Huh... points #1 and #3 are matters of opinion (I agree with the fit/finish but I'm fine with the car's controls). I can also see point #2 though my 2016 w/AP2 has been great. I totally disagree with point #4. Autopilot has been the most awesome feature of the Tesla and for me, the best "Reason to Buy" the car. I have a long daily commute to work and Autopilot is on for >95% of the time. It helps make the 2.5 to 3 hours in the car much more bearable. The system is not perfect nor even complete but it's light years ahead of competitors.

You know how you read articles and investment analysis on companies? It all seems legit until you have more information they the authors. This happened all the time at my previous (Fortune 300) company: the "expert" comments were typically full of nonsense. One has to assume that all their analysis is likewise crap. Same goes for the rest of CR's car guide. They have reviews for 248 car models but after reading their comments about the Model S, I'm not sure if I trust anything they write.

P.S. They do recommend my previous car, Nissan Maxima, though it only rated an overall scored 80 and a road-test score of 81. I don't understand their criteria.

P.P.S. I found the Q1 2017 version of the same guide. In it, CR gave the Model S an overall score of 88 and a road-test score of 100. It was also recommended. I feel Tesla has made a lot of improvements on their cars since 2016, especially the driving computer and software. I really don't understand how the newer models can be rated lower by 10 points. The older review also says"

The 85-kWh P85D that we tested had a 220-mile range and can be fully charged in about 5 hours on a dedicated Tesla connector.

Again, huh? What charger are they talking about? A Supercharger will charge up much faster then 5 hours and a leve-2 charger will take much longer. I don't know if this 5 hour charging option. 

Qing James

Ugh. LeBron James, possibly the greatest basketball player of all time, has sold out to the Chinese communist party. When asked about the controversy over Daryl Morey's tweet about Hong Kong, Le Bron basically put money before free speech and democracy.

NPR

He could have just said nothing but that would maybe jeopardize his merchandising revenue in China. There's been a huge backlash in the US regarding his comments, and rightly so. I think a lot of the outrage comes from his past efforts to portray himself as some kind of social justice warrior, speaking out about injustice and supporting charitable causes. Now it looks like it was all fake. LeBron should have taken a lesson from Michael Jordan: be an asshole all the time so expectations are low.

-Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere- Our Lives Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter- #ThankYouMLK50

-LeBron James (Twitter), 2018

Pathetic.

Sulli, RIP

News from Korea that Sulli, an ex-member of K-pop girl group f(x), committed suicide.

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20191014008500315

I followed Sulli on Instagram for awhile, before I unfollowed a bunch of people. It does appear that social media abuse played a large part in her suicide; she received a lot of criticism for not behaving like a regular "idol" star. The lack of attention on mental health and super toxic online community in Korea contributes to having one of the highest rates of suicide in a developed country. Sad.

I hope she finally found peace.

Apple Card and Apple Pay

Being the tech geek I am, I went out and got a Apple (credit) Card as soon as they were available. It took several tries since everyone else was trying to do the same, but I finally got an account with $20,000 credit limit. I've also been using Apple Pay for online food orders but it was linked to another credit card. Since Apple pays 2%-3% back on Apple Pay and Apple stuff, I switched to the Apple Card as the primary Apple Pay method.

Anyway, I left my wallet at home today but ended up having to pay for some prescriptions. I ended up using Apple Pay with my iPhone to pay the small amount but it was the first time I used my phone to pay. If I can somehow get a legal "digital" driver's license on my phone, then I likely wouldn't need a wallet at all.

Feeling Special

[MV] Feeling Special - TWICE

New song from TWICE. In about a week, it has 68M views on YouTube. For most K-pop songs, I don't even bother finding English translation for lyrics since most are inane anyway. For Feeling Special however, I heard it was somewhat relevant to what's happening to TWICE. Girl groups, for some reason, gets a lot of hate, probably from insecure Korean girls but whatever. Anyway, Mina (one of the Japanese members) has been out due to anxiety and they weren't sure if she was going to participate in this song. Here are the lyrics for her part:

자꾸 숨고만 싶어서
마주 하기가 싫어서
모든 게 의미를 잃은 듯이
내가 의미를 잃은 듯이
가만히 주저앉아 있을 때

I just wanted to hide
Didn't wanna face the world
As if everything has lost meaning
As if I have lost meaning
I just sat there still

If you read it with what is happening to her in mind, it's kinda sad. I can't read any Korean yet I know the idols in girl groups are under a ton of stress. I understand liking some groups and not others, but there is never any justification for hate messages against certain groups.

Zimzalabim

[MV] Zimzalabim - Red Velvet

I guess the genre for Red Velvet is not having one. Unlike some K-pop groups whose songs all sound similar (Lovelyz, GFriends, TWICE), RV songs are all over the map. This one is weird. I'm not really into the song but like the bass during the Zimzalabim sections.

(Ha, until I wrote this post, I thought the song name was Zimbalazim.)

Abercrombie & Kent

Not the clothing retailer but a luxury tour company...

I couldn't sleep last night so I was browsing the available trips from Abercrombie & Kent. They advertise themselves as a luxury tour company and they're not kidding. Their flagship trip is a round-the-world by private jet where you fly around on a Boeing 757 with 50 first class seats. The trips are listed here. The trip next year is 26 days starting at $160,000 (double occupancy). Crazy!

They also have trips where they fly you between destinations on small chartered jets for about $35,000. They also have "normal" tour groups that are cheaper but still twice as expensive as similar trips on Trafalgar. Many many years ago, I went on a tour of Europe on Trafalgar. It was pretty cheap since it was mostly free time but the side excursions were pretty expensive.

Blackpink on Late Night

[Perf] Ddu-du Ddu-du - Blackpink [20190211]