Gran Turismo 5 Contest

Gran Turismo is the king of racing simulations on the Sony PlayStation. I have GT3 A-spec and GT4 on my PS2 and GT5 Prologue on my PS3. The full version of GT5 for PS3 is still not released yet but Sony released the Prologue version with limited cars and tracks. Starting yesterday, they also released a demo called GT5 Time Trial Challenge.

It's really a demo and a contest rolled into one. There are only two cars (stock and tuned versions of the Nissan 370Z) and one track (Indy road course). The player with the lowest combined time trial for both cars wins a trip to the Indy 500 next May.



I downloaded the demo/contest last night and tried it out. I have a Logitech Driving Force GT wheel designed specifically for GT5 and I own a 2004 Nissan 350Z in real life. Of course, none of that really helps. I kept spinning out in the tuned version of the car and only managed ~2:00 lap time using the stock 370Z. If you go online, you can see the rankings. The current leader has a stock car lap time of 1:48.428 which is only 12 seconds faster than my time. However, my ranking is #7418 and I haven't even completed a lap in the tuned car. Last night, my rank was #3271... I guess I'd better go home and practice. The contest ends on 1/25/2010 so I still have time. :)


Interview that I ripped from the Gran Turismo site. I think everyone know who Jay Leno is. Here's more on Audrey Cleo from her blog.

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Heh. I managed to complete a lap without wiping out in the tuned 370Z. I think my time was ~1:48 something which gives me a combined ranking of... #14687. :(

Shanzai SNSD

Shanzai: refers to Chinese imitation and pirated brands and goods, particularly electronics. Literally "mountain village" or "mountain stronghold", the term refers to the mountain stockades of warlords or thieves, far away from official control. "Shanzhai" can also be stretched to refer to people who are lookalikes, low-quality or improved goods, as well as things done in parody.

Dang it, do the Chinese people have to copy everything?

A Chinese group very, maybe too similar to Korea's proud Girls' Generation is making headlines!

This Chinese group is called Idol Girls, and they are consisted of 9 girls. Okay, so the number of members can easily be the same, right? But that's not it. According to a Chinese site, the Idol Girls are an average of 18 years old, and are supposedly talented not only as singers, but as actresses, models, MCs and more.

Top: not SNSD
Bottom: SNSD

Korean BBQ in Korea

I read an article (translated) about SNSD and SuperJunior eating at a Korean BBQ restaurant in Seoul after the 2009 Golden Disk Awards. The article said that the entire dinner party was ~50 people and they ordered 80 servings of meat; the total bill came out to ~$1500. I'm not sure what they mean by "serving" in the article but here in LA, each plate of raw meat is ~$20 and can probably feed one or two people, especially when you add in all the side dishes and rice.

80 servings for 50 people sounds like a lot of food and the bill was ~$30/person. I thought Korean BBQ in Korea would be less expensive than LA... it's actually quite comparable.


Original article (Korean)

On December 10th Super Junior, who took the Best Album award, and SNSD, who took the Best Digital Single award, celebrated after the 2009 Golden Disk Awards at a local Korean BBQ restaurant in Seoul.

The two "sibling groups," who cried and comforted each other after receiving the highest distinction awards, went to a local restaurant at 11:30 PM that night. They arrived in casual clothing with no make-up on and still could not hold their emotions in.

Usually after winning a huge award, there is an "alcohol party" to celebrate, but because most members are under age and their busy schedules the next day, they celebrated with Sprite instead.

Because Super Junior had a concert in China the next day, they were unable to drink. Lee Teuk and Kim Heechul, who are old enough to drink, mixed soju (alcoholic beverage) and Sprite together and showed an example of a *love shot. There was a total number of 50 people, which included the two groups and other staff members. They ordered 80 portions of meat and the bill came out to be $1500 (USD).

SNSD wins 2009 Golden Disk Award Digital Music Daesang

Tiffany seems to speak a lot. She's a MC on MBC's Music Core program but I think her Korean is the worst out of the 9 members. I think she just likes to talk.

Bypassing YouTube

Since I have two strikes on my YouTube account for TOS violation, and one of them from Avex, I'm going to try and upload this directly to Blogger. The quality is not as good since they limit you to 100MB. It's hard to encode videos to that size without sacrificing quality. I think YouTube allows uploads up to 2GB but only 10 minutes in length.

Here is another MV from miray. I'm not sure where I got this from; there are only snippets of the full MV on YouTube. Right now my music/performance video folder is ~170GB and contain ~2000 files, some dating back to 2002.


激情 - miray

I don't know if the MV has anything to do with the song lyrics. The song title (激情) means "passion" in Japanese. Maybe the song is about these girls that break into a bar/nightclub, steal a bottle of champagne, and dance around nekked half-naked.

Kim Tae Woo

Just so it's not all Asian girl bands/female singers all the time, I do listen to male C/J/K-pop artists. Kim Tae Woo was part of g.o.d., one of the first idol groups in K-pop. He was just in the army for his mandatory military service and recently started his comeback. I saw him perform at the 2009 Korean Music Festival at the Hollywood Bowl back in May.


KTW is the tall guy on the left.

This is the song he was promoting at the time...


Words I'd Want To Say (하고싶은 말) - Kim Tae Woo (김태우)

And his latest song...


Love Rain (사랑비) -Kim Tae Woo (김태우)

More YouTube Whining

Wow, I went back to check the K-pop videos I linked to YouTube and most of them were gone... all you see is the "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation" message. I started to find new links for some of the embedded videos but I gave up after five or six of them.

That sucks. Now how am I supposed to introduce my three readers to new C/J/K-pop songs and videos?!

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OK, here's a Japanese girl group called Foxxi misQ. I posted one of their MV before. It's like having three Koda Kumis on stage. What do you think about this one, anonymous commenter? :)


Ultimate Girls - Foxxi misQ

This is not just a random post of some half-dressed J-pop singers (okay, it kinda is)... I have MP3s of almost all of their albums and singles in my iTunes library.

More Koda Kumi

Since I can't post her videos, I'll just have to link to other people's uploads and hope they don't get taken down.

I like this song... though she has a tendency to say "butterFRY" instead of butterfly.


Butterfly - Koda Kumi


Live! The announcer says "butterFRY" too. :)

You're Free To Go...

Wow, this is a stunning turn of events. Judge dismisses Henry Samueli's guilty plea and the charge of lying to the SEC... and he doesn't have to pay the $12M fine.

LA Times

Judge dismisses charge against Broadcom co-founder

Henry Samueli had pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the SEC in its stock options backdating probe. But after testifying in the trial of another Broadcom executive, the judge threw out the plea.

A federal judge this afternoon threw out the guilty plea of Broadcom Corp. co-founder and billionaire Henry Samueli and dismissed the charge against him of lying to investigators in a stock options backdating probe.

In a stunning reversal, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney said Samueli did not make a material false statement to Securities and Exchange Commission investigators.

Japanese KARA Fan

I saw this on YouTube...


At 4:56 in the video:

Even though I don't know what they're saying, I'm used to it. Because I listen to a lot of their songs, but I have almost no idea what they're saying.

Yup!

Stop Breathing...

AP Article

YouTube Account Suspension

Oh well, one of my favorite sources for K-pop music videos and performances on YouTube was just suspended. I think she created 5 (or more) accounts and almost all of them have been suspended; there's only one left and it probably won't last either. That's too bad since she just started uploading videos in 1080p. I wish the "official" accounts would put up better quality videos.

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Heh, I just checked and three videos in my YouTube account were taken down due to Avex Entertainment. I went through a lot of trouble to rip these MVs from a region 3 DVD. I'm not even sure how I did it now.

Gentle Words by Koda Kumi
COME WITH ME by Koda Kumi
Selfish by Koda Kumi


For some reason, this one is okay. Maybe they have an agreement with Avex or something.

I heard you get three strikes before your account is suspended in YouTube. My first strike was an A-mei video from a DVD I bought in Taiwan. The Koda Kumi videos were strike two. Let's hope no one finds the "illegal" Cheer Chen uploads.

AGW Scam

I will start listening to the global warming alarmists when their actions match their words.

Telegraph UK

Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges

Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough.

On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world", which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200.

"We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report."

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

...

The temptation, then, is to dismiss the whole thing as a ridiculous circus. Many of the participants do not really need to be here. And far from "saving the world," the world's leaders have already agreed that this conference will not produce any kind of binding deal, merely an interim statement of intent.

Instead of swift and modest reductions in carbon – say, two per cent a year, starting next year – for which they could possibly be held accountable, the politicians will bandy around grandiose targets of 80-per-cent-plus by 2050, by which time few of the leaders at Copenhagen will even be alive, let alone still in office.

In light of the recent email scandal from UEA, the participants in the AGW scam are:

1. "Scientists" who fudge data and analysis to scare people/governments into more funding for their "research" and boondoggles such as Copenhagen

2. Politicians who use the threat of AGW to take more control over people's lives

3. Environmentalists who use AGW to further their anti-capitalist and anti-growth goals

4. Unscrupulous businessmen (e.g., Al Gore) who are getting rich from carbon credit trading scams that don't even reduce any CO2 output

The proposals at Copenhagen will cost trillions of dollars of economic output and will make the entire world poorer. I think we deserve more transparency into the science and more scrutiny into the climate models that have been unable to predict anything during the past decade. This is from one of the leaked emails from UEA CRU:

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Doesn't that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling?

Small (Accounting) World

After this month's accounting close review meeting, I was walking around to visit people in building 2. Next to Jessica's office, there was an Internal Audit contractor. I walked by, glanced at the name, and though it was a bit familiar. I poked my head back into the office and asked whether the person used to work at Ingram Micro. It turned out that she did and quit Ingram about the same time I did. Her name is Debbie Kaucher and she was an accountant at Ingram but has been a consultant for the past 9 years. I didn't know her that well but we knew a lot of people in common. Small world.

Speaking of work, my direct supervisor is switching jobs. He's trying to keep his old responsibilities but I'm not sure if he will be successful in doing so. There 0% chance that they will let me replace him so I may get a new manager. I've known him ever since I started 10 years ago so we have a good working relationship. Hopefully this transition will work out well and I won't get stuck with a bad manager.

YouTube 1080p

Since I don't subscribe to any Asian pay channels, the only way to get TV shows from Asia is either from someone's uploads or through YouTube. For K-pop videos, I'm a bit picky so I usually only download HD files which are 720p (1280x720). These files play fine on my Mac mini (Intel GMA 950) but my Sony Vaio (Intel Mobile 965 Express) has problems with them and can only play them at ~25 fps.

Starting last month, people can upload 1080p videos to YouTube. I just downloaded a performance by Lena Park using Safari and the MP4 file was 108MB for the 4:07 video. I tried playing it with QuickTime on my Vaio and it could only manage ~9 fps. Even on my Mac, the video only plays at ~25 fps. I love the super high 1900x1080 resolution but all my computers are too slow to play the file.

Sigh... maybe the newer Macs have better video performance. I should bring the MP4 files in to an Apple Store and try it. I should also try playing the file on my Dell 17" notebook that I gave to my dad. Most of my other computers use the embedded Intel video chip but I remember upgrading the Dell to a faster ATI or Nvidia chipset. Let see if that was worth the extra money.

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Nope. The Dell 1705 has an ATI 1400 video chip and it managed only ~20 fps. The new Dell Inspiron 15 I just bought for my mom with Windows 7 played the file at ~22 fps. My old Mac mini is still the winner. Maybe I should try it on the PS3... once I get the stupid DLNA thing to work.


I wonder where the source file is from? Do TV stations in Korea broadcast in 1080p?!


Dang, another suspended account/video. It's okay, here's another 1080p video... TRON! I'm old enough to have seen the original in the theater.

Japanese Reggae

Jump Pump by miray

I've always seen this artist categorized as Reggae for some reason. Not sure why... her songs sounds like a lot of other J-pop/K-pop songs, with a bit more Latin percussion though. Oh well, at least she's a lot cuter than Bob Marley.

Here are two other music videos on YouTube. They were uploaded by her label company (Avex) so hopefully they won't be taken down like a lot of the K-pop stuff.


Proof of Love


恋しくて～You're not here～

Mac vs. PC

I haven't paid too much attention to the Apple vs. PC ads. I saw enough to recognize that the "Apple" guy is from Die Hard 4. Anyway, I've always had both systems and I use them interchangeably but if pressed, I prefer my Macs. I got a reminder today why Macs are better.

I ordered a new monitor online last week and received it at work today. It's an Acer X213H LCD monitor and I got it for a cheap $115. I tried it out at work with both my work Dell notebooks and it seemed to work fine though the older Dell D-410 couldn't drive it at the full 1920x1080. When I got home, I thought I would use it on my Mac. I removed the old monitor (ViewSonic VX2235wm) and plugged in the same cables (DVI) to the Acer. As soon as I plugged it in, my Mac mini recognized the monitor, set the resolution to 1920x1080, and everything worked perfectly. This is with the older 10.4.11 Mac OS X too.

Next, I tried to attach my ViewSonic to my Sony Vaio running Windows Vista Home Premium (or something) and it would not output at the monitor's native 1680x1050 resolution. I even went online and downloaded the right driver (.INF file)... who installs monitor drivers?! Sigh... so I decided to switch the ViewSonic back to my Mac and use the Acer on my Sony since it claimed to be Vista compatible. After 15 minutes of messing around, I finally got it to work somewhat decently. I tried installing the Acer drivers and Vista still won't recognize the model. Yup, I have a Generic PnP Monitor. Along the way, Vista couldn't load my profile on restart and I lost all my settings and desktop icons. I've learned though that when Windows goes crazy, restart a few times and maybe it will fix itself. Luckily, it did this time so I have my icons back though they're dispersed all over the screen.

I hate Vista... but I'm too cheap to buy a Windows 7 upgrade. Maybe I'll wait until SP3 comes out for it before I upgrade.

Portland Thanksgiving

Just got home from Portland with my parents; we went up to spend Thanksgiving with my sister, Rebecca, and the girls. I brought my Panasonic camera but forgot the battery so no pictures. :(

Blame Canada

10:10 p.m.: Suspicious people were reportedly doing something with flashlights by the side of North 5th Street in Custer. A deputy checked and found the people were not suspicious, but merely Canadian. The out-of-towners were enjoying an evening stroll.

Another Brown Eyed Girls Song

Hmm, they just finished promoting Abracadabra and now they have a new song out. Incidentally, I wonder what Google was thinking when they bought YouTube. The only good content was illegal (copyright) content. Who wants to watch a bunch of poorly produced amateur videos anyway. Now that Korean media companies are actively patrolling YouTube, a lot of K-pop music performance videos are disappearing daily. I've been trying to download as much stuff as possible but the video uploading feature in Blogger sucks so I still need to link to YouTube. Oh well, I shouldn't complain too much since it's all free (for now).

Back to Brown Eyed Girls, the song is called Sign. I like the costumes and choreography better than Abracadabra. What I really miss is their old style performances where the focus was mainly on singing... they have great voices.

Dang it... just as I was typing this post, one of the accounts I subscribe to got suspended. She (don't know anything about the person except that it's a she) usually uploads HD stuff the same day as the broadcasts in Korea. I'll have to search for another source until she creates a new account... :(


Sign by Brown Eyed Girls. Let see how long this video lasts on YouTube.

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OK, not very long. Oh well, there's a lot more where that came from. :)

Alternate Universe

I guess this could have been me... my family immigrated from China Taiwan when I was eight years old.

Yale Daily News

Tony Chi places his cup of green tea on the aluminum grill and sprawls on a stool in the back of the restaurant. Adjusting his chef’s hat, he ties on his hachimaki, a traditional Japanese headband worn as a symbol of perseverance and hard work. He cranes his neck to scope out the two groups that just sat down at other hibachi grills. An elderly husband and wife sit at the first. Surrounding the second is a group of 30-something couples, the women flaunting blond highlights and low-cut dresses, the men gelled hair and starched sport shirts. Each of them orders a shot of whiskey or vodka.

Tony grins. “They’re going to get wild,” he whispers. “This table, it should be exciting.”

It is a rainy Saturday night in November 2008, and Tony is teaching me the art of scouting a hibachi party. Hibachi chefs like Tony don’t put on the same act for everybody. Rather, they size up the customers who sit before them and adjust their routines accordingly: families with doe-eyed children get balloon animals, older couples are treated to “sir” and “ma’am” flattery, and college kids drown in quarts of sake. Tony, who is 30 years old and has been cooking hibachi since before his voice dropped, prefers the third category. Long after those customers leave the restaurant, Tony remembers them. More importantly, they remember Tony.

At least people remember him. I don't think there's anything memorable about my work.

JeepSpeed – Transfer Case Upgrade

It’s been over a year since we stripped down our JeepSpeed Cherokee. We got someone to build our roll cage since then so now it’s time to start building the truck. Randy purchased a whole lot of stuff for us to install and yesterday was the first build day.

We started at 8:30am at Randy’s parents’ house. I was a bit disappointed that no one else showed up. We had a lot of enthusiasm when we decided to start this project but mostly it’s been Randy and I so far, both money and labor. The first task was to get the truck off the trailer and into the work area (under a canopy in the driveway). Since the driveway was on a slope and the truck is not running, we ended up towing the trailer down the street to a flat section, unload the truck, then tow it using a rope back up to the driveway. It was weird “driving” the truck without a seat and trying to steer without power steering.


The truck sitting on the trailer. The rear end is up so high becuase the racing leafsprings have already been installed and there is no weight in the back w/o the fuel tank.

Our original goal was to do a couple of things today, including work on both the front and rear suspension. However, since the truck had so much rust (originally from Illinois), it took forever to remove the nut and bolts holding everything together. The first item on the agenda was to upgrade the 4WD transfer case with a shorter and stronger main shaft. We also ended up removing the exhaust pipe/catalytic converter/muffler to get better access to the transfer case.


Extra 4WD transfer case that Randy bought along with an upgrade kit. We ended up pulling apart the one under the truck so he will probably reselling this one.


Back of the truck after we pushed it into the workspace. The big hole is where the fuel tank used to be. We have to replace it with a fuel cell for safety reasons.

The transfer case upgrade looked simple on paper: remove from car, open it, take out old main shaft, replace with new main shaft and tail housing, reassemble the case, and reinstall. After 8 hours of work (with a lot of help from Randy’s dad), we managed to replace the shaft and reassemble the transfer case but didn’t get to reinstall it back under the truck.


Rear driveshaft. One of the retention clamps was missing where the axle joins to the rear differential. From the amount of dirt and rust, I think it's been missing for awhile. Good thing the drive shaft didn't fall off while driving on the freeway. I also noticed that all 4 tires were from different brands... I've never seen that before. We're going to replace all the wheels and tires (probably with BF Goodrich tires so we can get pit support from them).


The current transfer case under the truck. It would take forever to disconnect both driveshafts and the transmission.


We sawed through the exhaust pipe to get rid of this section. We'll probably build a new exhaust to the side... just like Jesse James on Monster Garage!


The JeepSpeed truck sitting on jackstands. It was easier to work underneath with the truck up on stands but it was also a bit nervewracking. Randy brought out a wheeled "creeper" for me so it was easier for me to move around on my back under the truck.


Open transfer case with both shafts removed.


Randy holding on to the new main shaft while his dad tried to figure out how to remove some needle bearings without a hydraulic press. We ended up just pounding them out of the drive gear with a hammer. :)


Nightfall (1 second exposure at f/3.5). After all this work, we only managed to replace the main transfer case shaft. This truck build will probably take a lot longer than we planned.

I was so tired at the end of the day even though I didn’t do much since I don’t have much experience working on cars. I can’t imagine doing this everyday as an auto mechanic.

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BTW, the original post was created in Windows Live Writer. Typical of Microsoft, the preview only works with Internet Explorer. I tweaked with the formatting until it looked right under preview but after posting, I viewed the page with Safari (Mac OS X) and it was all messed up. I had to use the basic HTML editor in Blogger to fix everything. The photo uploading tool was pretty good though so I may use Writer to upload (not sure where the photos are stored though) then edit the text online.

Back to School

I've always liked school... or rather, I enjoy learning new stuff and writing papers/taking tests never bothered me. If graduating from high school = 12 years of education, then I've spent ~21 yeas in school (4 years for BS, 1.5 years for MS, 2 years for MBA, and 1.5 years of JC classes). Dang it, I could have been a medical doctor.

I'm been really bored at work for the past 18 months. This is the 4th or 5th job rotation and there's nothing else I'm interested in, except maybe for business development. The problem is that there are lots of people interested in the same job and the current guy in the position doesn't appear to be leaving anytime soon. Additionally, all the analysts from ~10 years ago have either left the company or been promoted to a director title, except me... so maybe the company is sending me a message to move on.

One thing I've looked into is teaching. My first experience teaching (other than tutoring) were several seminars at Yenching University in Beijing. I went with PESI way back in 1998 and gave a few lectures on corporate finance. Trying to get more hands-on experience, I signed up to teach at the University of Phoenix afterwards and ended up teaching intro accounting and finance for about a year. My 10 year work anniversary next January is about the same time as the next round of promotions/raises. I guess I should wait at least that long to see what happens.

After my trips to China, I've been thinking about the future. Since I have no family, I can probably dump all my stock/options, live on savings for the next 20 years, and wait for Social Security (ha ha). Anyway, I found out that UCI Extension offers a certificate program for TEFL and they're holding an information session later this month. If I'm not feeding a mortgage or wife/kids, I can take a few years off and teach English/business somewhere. Once I get a TESL certificate, I think I could easily find a teaching position in China (with a 95% pay cut) though I'm still not sure if I can live there for more then 2 weeks at a time. Maybe Korea... then I can spend my spare time stalking K-pop stars. :)

Transpacific Cruises (sort of)

Heh, I didn't know you can travel around the world on container ships. Some of them offer passenger service and the rooms look pretty nice though three weeks at sea sounds boring.


CMA CGM Hugo
21 days from Long Beach terminal to Hong Kong


Single cabin for 85 Euros (~$125) per day. That means a trip from LAX to HKG will cost $2,625 one-way and $4,375 round-trip (35 days).

Global Warming = Religion

The end of the world is coming!

Telegraph

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that "a belief in man-made climate change ... is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations".

The ruling could open the door for employees to sue their companies for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.

So the guy refuses to travel by air. Maybe that works in small countries like the UK. I can't take a train to NY (69 hours) or a ship to Asia (3 weeks) every time I need to travel for work.

$20 Telescope

For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be an astronomer (or a spaceship pilot). While working at the Mississauga Public Library, I read every book available on astronomy. When I got to UCLA, somehow I ended up studying engineering and now I'm stuck behind a desk making financial slides.

Since I've always lived in urban areas (Taipei, Toronto, Los Angeles), I've never owned a telescope. There's usually so much light pollution that only the brightest objects can be seen. The only time I've seen the Milky Way was on a mission trip to a Navajo Indian Reservation on the border between New Mexico and Arizona. I'm actually not that good at spotting planets and stars; I was more interested in astrophysics. So far, I've only taken one astronomy class in college.


Mt. Palomar Observatory in San Diego County

Like all hobbies, you can spend a little bit of money or a lot of money. I've been checking out telescopes on and off for several years and it seems like you need to spend ~$500 for a decent beginner's scope. Some of the nicer refractors costing almost $10,000! Checking out a telescope review site, there was a review for a $20 telescope from Galileoscope. Surprisingly, it got a recommended rating. It's a project to make good quality telescopes available for everyone, kinda like the $100 laptop project. It's made of plastic and does not come with a tripod but for $20, it's supposedly pretty good.


I want to get one (or three) for Christmas but I think they're heavily backordered. :(

Testing Windows Live Writer

Windows live installed this program on my computer that allow you to edit blog posts. It has a better interface than the online Blogger editor. I’m going to do a few test posts to see if I should switch to my Sony notebook (Vista) for blog posts.

BTW, I bought another Dell computer for my mom. Her Inspiron 600m was getting pretty old and messed up. I got her an Inspiron 15 (1545) with an Intel T4300 CPU, 3GB or RAM, and 250GB HDD. It came with Windows 7 and the Windows Experience Index was 3.4. The total with tax & shipping came out to ~$600. My Sony is about a year old and only 3.1 on the index but cost me ~$1200. It’s cover is a cooler shade of blue though.

Important Changes to your California Tax Withholding

Timely. Just got this email from our payroll manager at work.

As a result of recent California legislation (CA Assembly Bill x4 17), California’s Employment Development Department has released new tax withholding tables, which are effective from November 1st through December 31st, 2009, and require employers to increase the amount of state income tax withheld from employee paychecks by 10%. For example, if you currently have CA taxes withheld at $100 per paycheck, it will be increased to $110.

The legislation also increases withholding rates for supplemental wages paid from November 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009 as follows:

- Increase from 9.3% to 10.23% for compensation related to bonuses, restricted stock units and stock options.

- Increase from 6.0% to 6.6% for other supplemental wages (such as overtime pay, commissions, sales awards, and vacation payout).

California has not yet released new tax withholding schedules for 2010.

CA vs. TX

Looks like I should pack up and find a house/job in Texas instead.

City Journal

One out of every five Americans is either a Californian or a Texan. California became the nation’s most populous state in 1962; Texas climbed into second place in 1994. They are broadly similar: populous Sunbelt states with large metropolitan areas, diverse economies, and borders with Mexico producing comparable demographic mixes. Both are “majority-minority” states, where non-Hispanic whites make up just under half of the population and Latinos just over a third.

According to the most recent data available from the Census Bureau, for the fiscal year ending in 2006, Americans paid an average of $4,001 per person in state and local taxes. But Californians paid $4,517 per person, well above that national average, while Texans paid $3,235. It’s worth noting, by the way, that while state and local governments in both California and Texas get most of their revenue from taxes, the revenue is augmented by subsidies from the federal government and by fees charged for governmental services and facilities, such as trash collection, airports, public university tuition, and mass transit. California had total revenues of $11,160 per capita, more than every state but Alaska, Wyoming, and New York, while Texas placed a distant 44th on this scale, with revenues of all governmental entities totaling $7,558 per person.

What might interest Tiebout is that while California and Texas are comparable in terms of sheer numbers, their demographic paths are diverging. Before 1990, both states grew much faster than the rest of the country. Since then, only Texas has continued to do so. While its share of the nation’s population has steadily increased, from 6.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent in 2007, California’s has barely budged, from 12 percent to 12.1 percent.

There's just no incentive for California politicians to be fiscally responsible. Due to the large number of Democratic voters in the state, there's no accountability when the legislature cannot balance the budget. Seriously, I would be out of a job if our spending budget is twice as high as our revenue/margin forecast.

If California doesn’t want to be Texas, it must find a way to be a better California. The easy thing about being Texas is that the government has a great deal of control over the part of its package deal that attracts consumer-voters—it must merely keep taxes low. California, on the other hand, must deliver on the high benefits promised in its sales pitch. It won’t be enough for its state and local governments to spend a lot of money; they have to spend it efficiently and effectively.

The optimistic assessment is that things are going to get worse in California before they get better. The pessimistic assessment is that they’re going to get worse before they get much worse. As is often the case, hanging around with the pessimists is less fun but more instructive. The current recession has driven California’s state government into what amounts to a five-month budget cycle, according to Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee. He estimates that the budget deal tortuously wrought in July should start falling apart in October, because it was predicated on pie-in-the-sky revenue estimates and because so many of its spending cuts are being challenged, often successfully, in the courts.

It has already started falling apart. California is out of cash and they're increasing our state tax withholding unilaterally starting now. It's like a family that cannot pay it's bills. Instead of controlling spending, we keep charging more on credit cards that we cannot possibly pay when the bill is due.

Interest Free Loans

Not for us but for the California state government. Starting tomorrow, all state income tax withholding will increase by 10%. The overall state tax rate hasn't changed (after the increase a few months ago) since voters shot down the tax increase propositions. Think of it as an interest free loan that we're forced to make to the state government. There's also a good chance that come April, there won't be any cash for state tax refunds (including "loan" repayments) so we'll end up with more IOU's.

What a bunch of incompetent and crooked politicians. When there's no money, cut spending! I hope all you who voted for these tax and spend, wealth redistribution, Democrat a$$holes are happy now.

Los Angeles Times

Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners -- holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.

Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives. As part of a bundle of budget patches adopted in the summer, the state is taking more money now in withholding, even though workers' annual tax bills won't change.

Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.

Doubting Reasonable Doubt

During my 3 days as a juror, we were told by the judge not to do any independent research on the case since we were supposed to decide on a verdict just by the evidence presented during trial. I think all the jurors followed the rules and we came up with not guilty verdicts on all counts. I also felt most of us thought he was probably guilty but there was ample room for reasonable doubt.

After the trial, I did some research on the Internet. The Orange County court website has a database of prior cases so I searched for the defendant's name and found the case: 09CF1973. If you pull up the record, you can see that he was Found Not Guilty by Jury on all counts on 10/28/2009. So far so good, right?

However, the name search also returned a whole page of cases related to the defendant, ranging from "Riding a bike at night without headlight" to multiple felony convictions. The jury knew from count 5 of the current case that he was a convicted felon (therefore not allowed to own a firearm) but we were not told the nature of the felony and also could not use that fact to determine guilt. Looking through the list of cases, the prior felonies include: unlawful taking of vehicle (66 days in prison), 2nd degree robbery with gang and dangerous weapon enhancement + street terrorism (3 years in prison), and possession of a firearm by a felon (32 months in prison). By my count, the current case is probably his fourth or fifth strike. Wonder what happened to three strikes and you're out?

From all this additional information, I'm now very certain that he committed the crimes in the current case. I think past history is a very good predictor of future behavior and the defendant seems well on his way to being a career criminal. It also appears that he is in one of the many Latino street gangs in Santa Ana. The part that I'm uncomfortable with is that even if we had this additional info, the jury probably would have found him not guilty since the evidence in the current case was weak. If we followed the instructions, then all his priors do not matter. We probably saved him 25 years of prison time but it also looks like he'll be back in court soon. Hopefully he doesn't kill someone next time. :(



Dang it. Now I feel really bad about my first jury duty experience. Most likely we let a guilty felon back on the street. Even worse, if you put us back in the jury room again with this additional info but the same trial evidence, the result would be the same.

Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.
-William Blackstone

China Thoughts, Part III

Part I
Part II

I saw this post on chinaSMACK which talked about how houses are more dependable than men. chinaSMACK is a site that translates posts from other Chinese websites so non-Chinese readers can get an idea what is being discusses online in China. The original post was on Sina.


I am more dependable than a man.

I experienced this firsthand in China. I've been dating a girl in Chengdu for about two years and we just broke up a few weeks ago. It came as a complete surprise to me since I had just brought my entire family to China to meet her. It was quite serious as we were talking about getting a K visa (fiancee visa) for her and her son, and emigrating them to the United States. Looking back, I think she was more focused on security rather than relationship. Over the National Day holiday, her extended family convinced her that moving to the US was harmful to her son and they lent her some money to help buy a bigger apartment in Zigong. In the end, I guess she chose the house instead of me.



Backing up a bit, we had met during one of my early trips to Chengdu back in 2007. She is ~10 years younger than me and divorced with one young son. I found her quite different from your "typical" girl from China. She was very independent and direct in conversation. We had a lot to talk about except when it came to politics (she was not interested) and her future plans in life. She married young and moved to Taiwan (ex-husband was aboriginal Taiwanese) where she lived with his family. After giving birth to her son, she was treated poorly by her husband and in-laws so she came back to China. After I met her, she ended up enrolling in college and she just graduated over the summer with a two-year degree in Logistics.

During our conversations, she would mention often that she felt insecure. There are very few safety nets in China and life is difficult for a single mom. Even with the huge male-female imbalance, there is a stigma about divorce and not many men want to marry a divorced woman, especially one that already has children. She asked me about this a lot and I said I didn't mind supporting her and raising her (our) son. She was quite envious of her friends that managed to buy an apartment, either by starting businesses or being someone's mistress (very common). I think she felt that if she had a house in her name, she would always have somewhere to live... she was scared of being poor and homeless in China.



Long story short, I had met her parents and her son last year during a trip to Chengdu (right after the earthquake) and she just my parents. I was just about to start the process of filing for an immigrant visa for her when she told me that she was buying a house. That in itself was no big deal since we also talked about helping her parents move to a better apartment once I bought a house here for us. Then she told me that she has been too selfish, always thinking about herself, ditching her son with her parents, etc. She was now going to move home (into the new house/apartment), get a job, and be there for her son. Hmm... I thought that sounded kinda odd so I prodded some more and she finally said that she didn't want to move to the US anymore and we can just be friends (我们可以做朋友). That phrase means "let's break up" in Mandarin too.

Sigh... I'm really disappointed that she didn't tell me this before our Aug/Sept trip to China. My family spent an entire week with her thinking that we were going to get engaged/married soon. They also brought gifts for her and I also gave her a new Dell netbook. We had planned to visit Hong Kong during my next trip in November (now cancelled) so I left a wad of RMB for her for travel costs (not sure now if I'll get that US$1500 back). I guess she's been having some doubts about our relationship but she never said anything to me about it until she decided to buy the new apartment in Zigong. We use to chat (Skype/MSN) almost every night but I haven't spoken to her since early October. She said to call her when I go to Chengdu next time (if nothing else she would try to return my money). I haven't decided whether I want to go back there anymore.



I think there were still a lot of cultural differences between us even though we're both Chinese. Both her parents were Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution while my dad was an army officer in Taiwan, and my grandfather was a KMT officer. To some degree, I took for granted that she would want to come to the US and it would be better for her son. Maybe I relied too much on my own experience growing up in the West, or I brushed aside her concerns about adapting to a new culture and learning a new language too quickly since it was easy for me when I moved from Taiwan to Canada. I guess one positive point is that this all came out before we got married. I don't think I could handle a 2nd divorce.

China Thoughts, Part II

Part I

I took a lot of history classes during undergrad at UCLA. Someone, probably a non-engineer, decided that engineering students can't read or write well so they required us to take several non-technical classes. For Electrical Engineering majors, the requirement was more strict; we had to take either history 1A/1B/1C or humanities. I chose the history series (Western Civilization) since there were still some facts involved. I did pretty well in those classes even though most of my papers consisted of pulling quotes from the reading material.

Anyway, after taking the 3 required history classes, I decided to continue with several upper level Chinese history classes. All together, I think I took a total of 8 history classes at UCLA and probably could have minored in history if I stayed another quarter.

The last history class I took focused on modern Chinese history from the late 1800's. I don't remember the exact topics or lecture contents but I remember I felt a great sadness for my people. The Han people were beaten by the Mongols, Manchus, a bunch of Western countries, Japanese, and finally ourselves in one tragedy after another (including communism).

With all this "history" or "baggage" depending on your POV, I really didn't like the most recent National Day celebration in China. It was pitched as the 60th anniversary of the motherland and gave the impression that China = Communism. I feel that my definition of "China" and "Chinese" is no less valid than the official CCP version on display. However, it's hard to communicate this to the people I know in China. How do you tell people living inside a box that there is a bigger world out there if they can't see out of the box?

California Politics

California is in the middle of a huge budget crisis and our legislators are acting like idiots.

First, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano yelled out "kiss my gay ass" to Arnold Schwarzenegger at a Democratic event (he was invited by Willie Brown). To return the favor, Schwarzenegger vetoed a routine bill (AB 1176) sponsored by Ammiano. I'm sure some of you have seen the letter he wrote to explain the veto. Here are the first few words of each line:

To the Members of the...

I am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature.

For some time now I have lamented the fact...
unnecessary bills come to me for consideration...
care are major issues my Administration...
kicks the can down the alley.

Yet another legislative year has come and gone...
overwhelmingly deserve. In the light of this,...
unnecessary to sign this measure at this time.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Awesome. He is the Terminator, you know. Some math professor calculated the odds of this happening randomly at ~1:2,000,000,000. Hmm, it could have happen by chance.

Reasonable Doubt

I'm done with jury duty. Since we turned in a verdict, I can talk/post about the case. The only restriction is that I can't sell any information about the case for 90 days. Since no one pays to read my random thoughts...

It was criminal case with 5 counts: two 2nd degree robbery, two assault with deadly weapon, and one illegal possession of a firearm (defendant is a convicted felon). Jury selection took until ~10:30am on Tuesday and the prosecution called three witnesses (victim plus two Santa Ana police officers). We thought there would be more witnesses but the lawyers gave their closing arguments this morning and we started deliberations at ~11am. The first poll was 10 for not guilty and 2 undecided. Yup, the prosecution's case was that weak.

Anyway, the facts of the case was pretty simple. Two guys were riding their bikes at 1am on Main Street in Santa Ana when they were approached by two other guys with guns. There was some conversation about Lopers (Santa Ana street gang) and the two guys on bikes were hit over the head with guns. One victim said he passed out for a few seconds and when he woke up, their bikes were gone. They flagged down a Santa Ana police officer and while they were telling the story, the defendant was seen riding down the same street on a bike. The police gave chase, cordoned off the neighborhood (more like one small block), and found him hiding under a SUV after 45 minutes. The case basically hinged on whether the victim's ID was credible. I thought that there was a good possibility that the defendant was the assailant but there was some doubt. I think most of the jurors felt the same so we reluctantly voted not guilty on all counts.

It was an interesting experience. As I mentioned before, both lawyers were not that great. I found out today that the defense attorney was from the Public Defender's office and she seemed very young and inexperienced. I was surprised that some stuff I see on TV shows was actually true. Both police officers came across as arrogant and it was very obvious that the 2nd officer didn't like the public defender at all. All the jurors (me included) took our task very seriously. It was mostly a white crowd (include the judge and both attorneys) with three Asians in the jury. Since both the witness/victim and defendant were Latino, as well as both officers, you would expect some racial prejudice/commentary during deliberations. In fact, there was very little discuss about that other than admitting that we didn't know much about the Latino gang culture; the focus was pretty much on the facts and the law as instructed by the judge.

We were done deliberating at around 3:30pm. After the verdict was read, both lawyers met the jury in the hallway for a quick Q&A both ways. We felt that there was a lot of evidence lacking and didn't enjoy having to make a decision based on so few facts. The prosecutor told us that one of the victim/witness was an illegal so he took off to Mexico right after the incident and could not return for trial. We then turned in our badges and I was back at work by 4:30pm. Other than the fact that I have to burn 3 vacation days (maybe I can negotiate it down to two), it was a pretty good experience...

Oh yeah, hopefully we didn't let a criminal back on the street.

Jury Duty, Day 2

8:55am

Back for more. I think they will direct some more questions to the new batch of jurors this morning including me. I think if we get rejected by either the judge or the two attorneys today, we get to go home.

==========

12:30pm

No such luck. I got selected to be on the jury for this case. I did meet an ex-coworker; she was selected as an alternate juror for the same case. Right now we're on lunch break. I drove to Mos in Santa Ana to get lunch and it took longer than I thought. Good thing we have almost two hours for lunch. Anyway, I'm stuck here for the week.

==========

3:15pm

Afternoon break. This is pretty tedious stuff. The lawyers are not as good as they're portrayed on TV.

==========

9:43pm

Like yesterday, we stopped promptly at 4:30pm today. I drove straight to work and got there at around 5:05pm and took care of some emails and report requests.

I think I'm going to stop blogging about jury duty until after the trial since I can't say anything about the case... and there's really nothing interesting about it anyway.


Superior Court of California - County of Orange


Part of the Jury Assembly Room on the 3rd floor of the court building

Ze plane! Ze plane!

I love airplanes. Not so much the 15 hour Transpacific flights but the machines themselves. During my DC/NYC trip last weekend, I visited the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum twice. Since I got to DC so early on Friday, I walked around The Mall and went to the Air & Space Museum by myself; I also went again the next day with James and Elim. They had lots of stuff on display but nothing really huge since the building was not that big. Actually, I didn't know about Udvar-Hazy Center where they keep the large planes on display, including a SR-71 Blackbird. It's right next to Dulles Airport so I could have gone there right after I arrived in DC/IAD.

I think I should have studied Aeronautical or Mechanical Engineering instead of Electrical Engineering. I probably still would be working as an engineer now instead of finance. Anyway, here are some photos, in no particuar order:


WW2 German V-2 Missile


Apollo Lunar Module


F-1 Engine (Saturn 5 Rocket)


Lockheed U-2 Spy Plane


Apollo and Soyuz


WW2 German V-1 Cruise Missile


North American X-15


Pioneer 10 Space Probe


Lockheed F-104A Starfighter


Supermarine Spitfire (with Rolls Royce Merlin V12 engine in front)


Predator UAV with 2 Hellfire missiles
(it was much bigger than I imagined)


Douglas DC-3


Sputnik 1


Bell X-1 (first plane to break the sound barrier)


Charles Lindberg's Spirit of St. Louis

Liveblogging Jury Duty

Today is my first time at jury duty. Not knowing what to expect, I came earlier so I wouldn't be late. After parking and going through security, I was directed to a huge waiting room with probably thousands of other potential jurors. We went through orientation already and now are waiting to be called for jury selection.

The first pre-screened jury duty call was for a 15-day trial. They're only qualifying those people with paid jury duty days from work. Since I get a grand total of zero days, I'm disqualified. The next case was called too and it's for 10 days. I'm surprised by the number of people standing in like to be pre-screened. They either get a lot of paid jury duty days (public employee) or are retired/unemployed. If all the cases are long, then I'm probably going to spend the entire day sitting in the jury assembly room. Maybe I can find a more comfy chair and take a nap.

==========

9:15am

Third case called was for 7 days and they're still pre-screening for financial hardship/paid jury duty days. Maybe our zero paid jury duty days policy at work was designed to keep us out of long cases.

==========

9:34am

Aaahhh! First random request and I got called.

==========

12:05pm

Lunch break. I'm stuck in jury selection hell. Looks it will take a longer than one day so I have to come back tomorrow. I can't blog on anything about the case but it is a criminal case and may take the entire week. There goes all my accrued vacation... hope I don't have to start taking unpaid leave for this. :(

==========

1:15pm

Lunch break almost over. I ended up grabbing a sandwich from the court cafe. Sigh... back to the courtroom. It's kind of surreal sitting there watching the judge talk to each potential juror and joking about stuff while the defendant is sitting right there. I wonder what he's thinking while listening to the light banter from people that will decide his fate for the next few/many years.

==========

3:35pm

Afternoon break. Jury selection is way slow. We only went through one set of lawyer dismissals so far. Maybe they can get their 14 this round and we can all go home (except the selected jurors, of course).

==========

11:30pm

I'm so tired. I got home at around 5:30pm, crashed, and just woke up. I got called up to the jury box at around 4pm and just got through introducing myself before the day ended at 4:30pm. This means I have to be back in the courtroom at 9am tomorrow for more questions from the judge and both lawyers. During my 15 second intro, the judge did ask me whether I knew Bill Ruehle, whose trial just started across the street in Federal Court.

The most frustrating thing for me is the fact that they have to end right at 4:30pm due to budget constraints on overtime. This is California state court so the cost comes out of my state taxes anyway (just raised this year). Instead of having state employees work a bit longer each day (like the rest of us in the private sector), they shift the burden to the taxpayers again by making us go back the next day.