Fake Adobe Email

Bastards. I got an email from "enews@2012-acrobat-reader-upgrade.com" that looked fake. Supposedly Adobe came out with a new version of Acrobat and they sent me a personal email to upgrade. Clicking on the link brings you to a website with a big "Download" button. The URL of the website is http://www.2012-acrobat-reader-upgrade.com/. Once I saw that the website did not end with adobe.com, I was certain it was fake. Checking with the real Adobe website confirmed that they were still on version 10.

Looking up the domain on WHOIS returned the following:

Domain name: 2012-ACROBAT-READER-UPGRADE.COM
Name Server: ns3.nic.ru
Name Server: ns4.nic.ru
Name Server: ns8.nic.ru
Creation Date: 2012.03.03

Status: DELEGATED

Registrant ID: 9MUT6ZC-RU
Registrant Name: Thomas Anderson
Registrant Organization: Thomas Anderson
Registrant Street1: 2039 Avenue Street
Registrant City: Sydney
Registrant State: NSW
Registrant Postal Code: 1002
Registrant Country: AU

Administrative, Technical Contact
Contact ID: 9MUT6ZC-RU
Contact Name: Thomas Anderson
Contact Organization: Thomas Anderson
Contact Street1: 2039 Avenue Street
Contact City: Sydney
Contact State: NSW
Contact Postal Code: 1002
Contact Country: AU
Contact Phone: +61 2 39883628
Contact E-mail:

Registrar: Regional Network Information Center, JSC dba RU-CENTER

Last updated on 2012.03.03 23:20:17 MSK/MSD

Hmm, Adobe is not headquartered in Australia... and the address doesn't exist on Google Maps. Fake email, fake domain name, fake address... the slimebag's name is probably not Thomas Anderson either. I feel like I was almost pickpocketed.

Another tip-off was the slightly awkward English used in the email. Haven't they learned anything from the Nigerian scam?

Adobe is pleased to announce new version upgrades for Adobe Acrobat Reader

http://www.2012-acrobat- reader-upgrade.com

Advanced features include:

- Collaborate across borders
- Create rich, polished PDF files from any application that prints
- Ensure visual fidelity
- Encrypt and share PDF files more securely
- Use the standard for document archival and exchange

To upgrade and enhance your work productivity today, go to:

http://www.2012-acrobat- reader-upgrade.com

Our whole team has been working hard to satisfy your product needs.

Start downloading the update right now and let us know what you think about it.

We're working on making Adobe Acrobat Reader better all the time !

Copyright 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

God is Red

I've been reading a book titled God is Red by Liao YiWu. He had written several books about China; I also bought and read The Corpse Walker several years ago. Here's the book description from Amazon:

When journalist Liao Yiwu first stumbled upon a vibrant Christian community in the officially secular China, he knew little about Christianity. In fact, he’d been taught that religion was evil, and that those who believed in it were deluded, cultists, or imperialist spies. But as a writer whose work has been banned in China and has even landed him in jail, Liao felt a kinship with Chinese Christians in their unwavering commitment to the freedom of expression and to finding meaning in a tumultuous society.

Unwilling to let his nation lose memory of its past or deny its present, Liao set out to document the untold stories of brave believers whose totalitarian government could not break their faith in God, including:

- The over-100-year-old nun who persevered in spite of beatings, famine, and decades of physical labor, and still fights for the rightful return of church land seized by the government

- The surgeon who gave up a lucrative Communist hospital administrator position to treat villagers for free in the remote, mountainous regions of southwestern China

- The Protestant minister, now memorialized in London’s Westminster Abbey, who was executed during the Cultural Revolution as “an incorrigible counterrevolutionary”

This ultimately triumphant tale of a vibrant church thriving against all odds serves as both a powerful conversation about politics and spirituality and a moving tribute to China’s valiant shepherds of faith, who prove that a totalitarian government cannot control what is in people’s hearts.

I'm only 1/3 of the way through the book (Kindle edition) but the stories are both heartwarming and troublesome. For example, chapter 8 tells the story of a doctor who had to give up his career as the deputy dean of a medical school because he was a Christian. After spending time in Thailand working with other foreign volunteer doctors, he decides to travel to poor areas of Yunnan and provide free medical care. Since he was trained as a surgeon, he would even do lifesaving surgeries in the most rural areas, where locals cannot access, much less afford, healthcare. At the end of the chapter, we read that the local officials accused him of "ulterior motives" and halted his medical mission trips. He later visited the US to talk about his mission work and was refused re-entry back to China.

This is the problem with China and the CCP. All government officials are basically in power for themselves. Without accountability, local officials can do whatever they want if it benefits them financially, or if it will help them gain a promotion. Public health should be the responsibility of government officials. However, in this case we see how small minded officials are causing additional pain and suffering to their citizens by denying them their only source of healthcare, and providing nothing in return.

People are basically selfish. If we give government power over our lives, then there needs to be careful checks and balances, something that is sorely lacking in China.

KMF 10

It's less than 2 months before the concert and there is still no information on artists performing.

$80 Refuel

Got super unleaded gas last night at $4.43/gallon. Trip computer showed 0 miles of range left but I had ~2 gallons of fuel left.



Should have bought a 4 cylinder car.

Megaupload Files

Megaupload is still down, or at least unaccessible from the US. I had dropped a few files on there, mainly some Korean TV shows that I recorded but also some files that I wanted to access from different places. I ended up having to upload a few files to Mediafire since they're still around and allow uploading/sharing.

Is this the future of the Internet with SOPA/PIPA? Whatever caused the USDOJ to go after MU, how about all the user files that are not infringing on copyrights? I know some people use it for file storage; is all that data gone? How am I to trust cloud storage services if other users abuse the service and cause it to be shut down like MU?

Dead Hard Drive

My 500GB external HDD on my Mac mini failed today suddenly. It was working intermittently and very hot so I unplugged it and open the enclosure to let it cool. Now when I turn it on, I hear the motor trying to spin up following by a faint clicking sound, but no steady whine of a spinning motor. This is the 2nd Seagate drive that failed on me; the first was a 32MB HDD I had on my Mac Plus. This one is a 500GB Barracuda 7200.10 drive that I got a few years ago.

Unfortunately, if it doesn't spin up later, I will have lost ~350GB of MP3s. Luckily I moved all my MVs to my PC a few months ago and most of my current MP3s are on my Mac mini, though only ~30GB.

Sigh... I'm never buying a Seagate drive ever again.

==========

To be fair, the Seagate drive still works. For kicks, I decided to plug the drive into my PC (power only) and it spun up. Since Windows can't read Mac formatted volumes, I had to run a long FireWire cable from my Mac to my PC and all my files are back! To be safe, I'm backing up all the file (33,000+ MP3s) to an external drive on my PC.



External drive is getting power from an internal power connector in the PC but the data connector is still plugged into the external Mac enclosure. Data is going back to the Mac mini via a long FireWire cable, and files are being copied over the network (both wired thankfully!) to the black WD external drive next to the PC. Still deciding what to do with the 500GB drive after everything is copied. :(

==========

Dang it. It take forever to copy files. I am copying 33,036 items (155 GB) at 10.4 MB/second... it that ~100 Mbits/sec? It's been copying for almost 5 hours... 10 MB/sec = 36 GB/hour so something is slowing it down; probably the 33k file count.

Time remaining: About 5 Minutes and 30 Seconds

Zzzz...

Beijing Bus Jam

Saw this article on Ministry of Tofu:

At about 5:30 p.m. on February , a No. 815 public bus arriving at a stop near Beijing’s Guomao area was packed like a sardine can. Seeing that the front and the rear bus doors were blocked by passengers, those eager to get a ride home jostled with one another to climb into the bus through the windows. Fifteen minutes later, the overloaded public bus finally set off. According to the traffic police there trying to maintain the order, this area is always congested to the extent that “even a drop of water can’t trickle through” during the evening rush hours. February 13 was a Monday, which made the matter even worse.

The photos show people climbing over each other to try and get into the bus through the windows. I've been on buses in China a few times are there is no concept of lining up. Whenever a bus/subway/taxi shows up, people would shove each other out of the way to claim a spot. In the article, it says that it took 15 minutes to load the bus. If everyone lined up, it wouldn't take more than 3 minutes to fully load a bus. Much like the traffic congestion on Chinese roads... if people were more polite and courteous, traffic would flow better and everyone would get to their destination faster.

Wishful thinking I know.

Chevy Volt Subsidies

Why is Obama taking money from me to give to rich people so they can buy another car?

The Daily Caller

The White House intends to boost government subsidies for wealthy buyers of the Chevy Volt and other new-technology vehicles — to $10,000 per buyer.

That mammoth subsidy would cost taxpayers $100 million each year if it is approved by Congress, presuming only 10,000 new-technology autos are sold each year.

But the administration wants to get 1 million new-tech autos on the road by 2015. The subsidy cost of that goal could reach $10 billion.

The planned giveaway will likely prompt populist protests from GOP legislators, but it will likely also will be welcomed by auto-industry workers in the critical swing state of Michigan.

It's an election year and Obama needs votes!

I guess Elon will be happy since the Tesla cars will probably qualify for the $10k credit.

Global Warming Fashion

I heard the most retarded comment about global warming this morning driving to work. My radio is usually tuned to KPCC which airs NPR programs. On Morning Edition, there was a brief story about fashion and how coats were making a comeback.

"Already we see a proliferation of great coats," Singer says. "That might seem like an obvious choice for fall/winter, but just a few years ago there was a trend against that, in part because of the reality of global warming — nobody needed a warm coat. It seems now designers are going back to that as a staple."

How stupid. From a citation in the Wikipedia article on Global Warming, we read:

The average temperature of the Earth’s surface increased by about 1.4 °F (0.8 °C) over the past 100 years, with about 1.0 °F (0.6 °C) of this warming occurring over just the past three decades.

I thought the fashion industry was fast moving. Trends go in/out of favor on a quarterly cycle. Did someone really think that people won't need a jacket because of a 0.02°C/year trend in temperature increases?! Ooh, it was -10°C last week... let's not buy a jacket because it will be -9.98°C next winter.

Regardless of what you believe about AGW, the fashion comment is just idiotic. If you don't know something, just say you don't know... don't make sh*t up.

Jane Zhang at 2011 MAMA in Singapore

I saw Jane in concert in Pasadena several years ago.

MAMA = Mnet Asian Music Awards. Lots of Koreans since Mnet is a Korean network. Jane won in the Best Asian Artist - China category. On her bio page, Mnet screws up twice:


- Jane was born in Chengdu, China
- Taiwan is not a province of China

Miryo Banned

Soompi

Miryo’s solo debut track, “Dirty,” has been ruled “inappropriate for broadcasting” by MBC and KBS, it was reported on February 3. According to local reports, the Brown Eyed Girls’ rapper received a notice from the two broadcasters for the lyrics of the song, containing the word, “cross-eyed.” They said the word “cross-eyed” has negative connotations and could be perceived as a derogatory term for the disabled.

“We’ve decided to accept the rulings from broadcasters and change the lyrics of the song. But it will take some time to replace the word, so Miryo will sing a different song on KBS ‘Music Bank’ on February 3,” a representative for Miryo said. Miryo gave a performance of “Leggo” instead on “Music Bank.”

The controversial verse from “Dirty” reads, “Oh my, all these young girls, pretty girls are here…I see your eyes rolling, you might become ‘cross-eyed,’ watch out boy.”

Cross-eyed?! Wow, those Koreans are sensitive... almost as sensitive as the Chinese, who are "offended" and have their "feelings hurt" all the time. Interesting that SBS wasn't mentioned in the article.

If you watch the MV, Miryo says (in English) "What the fff..." and gives everyone two middle fingers. I hear lots of English swear words on music show performances. I guess ignorance (can't understand English) is bliss.

Kindle Fire

After my ASUS Transformer fiasco, I went and bought a Kindle Fire. I guess I didn't do that much research other than the fact it cost more to make than what Amazon is selling it for... the cheap Chinese guy syndrome got me again.


Kindle Fire next to my iPad 2

I messed around with it for a few hours trying to set it up so my mom can watch K-dramas. You quickly find out that it's not a "normal" Android pad. Amazon, like Apple, has locked the system down so you have to get apps/content from Amazon. It won't let you install Android Market so I can't set up the Kindle Fire like my Samsung GalaxyS. Also, the hardware is slow. Not sure if it's the funky browser or a crappy CPU. The 7" form factor is easier to hold but small for browsing.

Well, you get what you pay for... it was sold as a Kindle (media player) instead of a full tablet. But since it was only $200, I guess I'll keep it. My powerstrip next to my bed is now full: table lamp, charger for Samsung phone, charger for iPhone 4, charger for iPad 2, and now charger for Kindle Fire. :)

==========

So you can install Android Market after all, but you have to root the Kindle Fire by installing the Android SDK, then install a whole bunch of stuff. I haven't even rooted by Samsung GalaxyS after 18 months so I'm not sure if I will do this.

Waterless Urinals

We have these at work... definitely not odorless.

Daily Mail Online

Students at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida, must step over rivers of urine and endure the stench of rancid waste after a plan to bring 'green' waterless urinals into bathrooms backfired.

School officials at Spanish River High School thought they had found an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving solution for their bathrooms when they installed Falcon Waterfree urinals in their boys bathrooms.

But with no water moving through the school's copper pipes to flush the urine into the sewer system, the waste produced noxious gases that ate through the metal, leaving leaky pipes that allowed urine to drip into walls and flow onto floors.

Our solution? We have a guy that fill plastic jugs with water and pour it in the urinal each night.

SNSD Inside!

Get into my core?! All my computers have Intel CPU's... none of that AMD stuff for me.


New desktop wallpaper! Probably not appropriate for work computer, even though it has an Intel i5 processor.

Dictator Supporters

Once again, China is on the wrong side of history, supporting dictators who murder their own citizens rather than share power.

Los Angeles Times

A United Nations resolution that Washington and its allies called the best chance to stop Syria from sliding into full-fledged civil war went down to defeat, dashing hopes for a political settlement as death tolls soar in the strategically situated Arab nation.

Security Council vetoes by superpowers Russia and China on Saturday doomed the measure, which condemned a Syrian crackdown on dissent and backed an Arab League plan calling on President Bashar Assad to cede power.

Of course, this was expected from China. After all, the CCP supported Ghaddafi and they continue to support the crazy Kim's in North Korea. Dictators have to stick together in times of crisis.

Sistar - So Cool Choreography

Oops. This has been out on Starship's YouTube channel for months. I forgot to post the link here.



Hopefully they will show up at KMF10 this April.

Miryo (BEG) Solo

Miryo is the rapper from Brown Eyed Girls. She's the last one of the four to release a solo album.


Dirty - Miryo

Girls' Generation on David Letterman

Got an email tip from Sweden(!) that SNSD will be performing on Letterman tonight. I wonder if they are going to talk to Dave... I hope the old pervert doesn't say or do anything embarrassing. I'll post (or link to) a video later.

=========

Here's a link to YouTube. Since they were at the very end and the Letterman show runs for 62 minutes, my 1 hour DVD recording cut off the last bit of their performance... :(



It was only one song and they sang in English. I guess the Letterman show is a big deal but I hope they didn't fly all the way from Korea just to do one song.

Resumes and Cover Letters

Last month I received an email from my manager that was originally addressed to our CEO and included a resume. The resume was quite good for someone two years out of undergrad but I thought the email/cover letter was a bit too much. I'm no HR person but I've read hundreds (maybe over a thousand) of cover letters. Basically he said that he was "dedicated to finding a career in manned spaceflight" and that this was his "dream company". Anyway, my manager talked to him on the phone and I think we offered him a position last week. I just saw an email reply that turned down our offer. Supposedly a friend approached him with some other opportunity recently so he's going to pass on our "budding" finance organization, whatever that means.

The only reason I posted this was his cover letter sounded like he would kill his own mother to work here. Oh well, he's only 24 so there's lots of time to explore options. Maybe his next cover letter won't be filled with so many super-duper words.

State of the Union Lies

I didn't listen to the State of the Union speech because like most political speeches, it would be full of lies and a total waste of time. However, I read some comments on the Internet and had to check for myself:

But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes.

Tax reform should follow the Buffett Rule. If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

What is fair? Taxes pay for government services. The ultimate "fairness" is to pay for what you use, i.e., usage fees instead of indiscriminate taxes. Small example: abolish taxes for national parks and increase the entrance fee to cover costs. Big example: have parents pay for the children's schooling costs instead of taxing all their childless neighbors. I'm not suggesting that these are good/bad ideas... of course, there is a role for government (national defense, public safety, etc) but there needs to be a robust discussion on how much is too much. Obama equates fairness as at least 30% if you make >$1M. Why 30%? Does 30% of everyone's life depend on the federal government? Why not make everyone pay 30%? We know half of America pays almost no federal income taxes. How is that fair?

The last part of the quote is a complete lie. Obama is confounding tax dollars paid and average tax rate on purpose, unless he is trying to tell us that the amount on line 61 of Warren Buffet's 1040 form is less than the amount found on his secretary's tax return. I read that Buffet paid ~17% on his taxes while supposedly his secretary paid ~36%. Since the median taxpayer paid only 12.8%, and the top marginal tax rate is only 35%, common sense suggests something is wrong. Buffet and his secretary should release their taxes since Obama is using them for political purposes.

More Taxes

Luckily I went through some piles of old mail at home and found a tax bill from the City of Orange. They want $58 for a business license. I made $0 from my "home business"... yet the City of Orange feels entitles to some more of my money for providing nothing whatsoever in return.

For the next local election, I'm voting against all City of Orange incumbents.

Worship Hands

Funny...

Working Late

Dang it. It's 11pm and I'm still at work. I have a forecast due at 3pm tomorrow and the new tool we got is a PITA. As part of our Microsoft Dynamics AX implementation, we got Forecaster 7.0. I've been trying to set it up all week and have spent the last few days trying to load historical data plus new data. Sigh... next to SAP, it's got to be the most user process unfriendly software I've used. :(

Making Stuff Up

As my three readers know, I don't like Obama. I like him even less (if that's possible) after receiving one of my W2's in the mail yesterday. Let's just say I could have bought a house in many parts of the US with the amount of federal taxes that was withheld, and my tax guy thinks I have to pay more on April 15th.

Anyway, no matter how much Obama acts like a wannabe socialist, he's nothing compared with Mao. Actually, no one can compare with Mao when it comes to mass murder... except maybe Stalin. Back on topic, I saw a webpage that pointed me to this at the Academy of Marxism/Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:

美国总统奥巴马对毛主席的惊人评价

什么是外交？外交就是内政，这两者绝不是两码事，不是。也就是说，一个国家，国民要使自己成为国家的主人，这种愿望是民主主义的根本。在这同时，大政方针，天下兴亡，匹夫有责。民众的政治责任感的强弱，也就在相应程度上决定了国家外交的强弱。在这个意义上，外交难道不就是内政吗？曾经有毛泽东这样的政治家，是好是坏历史会有说法。
　　作为一位没怎么出过国的政治家，他在中国获得了压倒性的支持后，在外交领域，他使中国在世界上的存在感变得非常卓着。曾经有一段时期，毛泽东毫不畏惧与我们美国对峙并一路走来。可见，执政党在自己的国内获得毫不含糊的支持，国民以天下为己任，在某些场合为了保家卫国、为了国家的未来，不惜付出些许代价，一个国家有了这样的力量，外交才会有根本的力量。国之力在民，民之力是外交之力、是外交最基本的原理。这是我对毛泽东的外交感触最深的地方。

Supposedly this is a translation of a speech by Obama where he praises Mao on foreign policy and defense. If you put the text through Google Translate, you get this gibberish:

What is diplomacy? diplomacy is domestic, both of which are not two different things, not the other words, a country nationals to make their own masters of the country, this desire is the root of democracy at the same time, major policies, rise and fall of every man's duty. the strength of people's sense of political responsibility, will determine the appropriate extent, the strength of the country's foreign in this sense, foreign affairs do not that it? there was Mao Zedong's politicians, is History will say good or bad.
　　How not been abroad as a statesman, he won a landslide in China's support in the diplomatic field, he makes the presence of China in the world with a sense of very Zhuo. There was a time, Mao Zedong without fear confrontation with the United States and along the way we are. Can be seen, the ruling party in their own country to obtain unequivocal support, national responsibility to the world, in some cases to defend the country, for the country's future, to pay a little at the price, a country with such a force, diplomacy will have a fundamental strength. State power in the people, the people's power is the power of diplomacy, is the most basic principles of diplomacy. This is my deepest thoughts and feelings of Mao Zedong's diplomatic areas.

What is the "Academy of Marxism" and why are they making up sh*t like this? This is so easy to disprove. Are Chinese netizens so lazy or brainwashed that they won't search for the original quote, if it exists? This is terribly inept propaganda... somebody needs to be fired or at least lose their ernai privileges.

Lena Park Calendar

Freebie! Even though I missed Lena Park's concert in Pasadena, her sister was kind enough to give me some free stuff. In addition to the calendar, I got 2 women's medium t-shirts. Those will probably go to Sunny and Christine, who are now huge Lena fans due to I Am A Singer.


Cover + autograph


January

Does this mean people in Korea get Monday and Tuesday off for ChineseLunar New Year? I talked to Sindy last night and they get the whole week off in China.

Missing Check

Sigh... I wrote a check today to pay the trash bill and found that there is a check missing in the sequence. I looked in Quicken and online but couldn't find/remember what happened to check #13xx. I hope I didn't write a large check to someone. :(

Mitt Romney's Tax Return

Mitt Romney's 2010 tax returns can be found at his campaign website. The important number, AGI, is $21.6M and it's all from interest/dividends/capital gains. I think I heard on the news that their effective tax rate is ~15% whereas I'm paying about 31%, same as Newt Gingrich.

This is okay with me. I think there is a good reason to have a lower capital gains tax rate since the investor already paid taxes to acquire the "capital" and the company generating "gains" on that capital is being taxed too. What I have a problem with is Obama's class-warfare crap, and the fact that Romney's tax return is 203 pages long.

Refurbished Electronics

Since you can never have enough electronics, I bought a refurbished Asus Transformer tablet running Android 3.2. My thought was that I would configure it so my mom or dad can watch videos in their bedroom. Since Android supports Adobe Flash, there won't be as many problems with missing videos.

The unit arrived in a plain box. When I say plain, I mean no instructions and no documentation. WTF? It's supposed to have a 90 day warranty but there's nothing on paper. Great. After I unpacked it and plugged it in, I find that the battery won't charge. The battery was at 0% so it shut itself off after 3 minutes. I tried different USB power adapters to verify each component and everything seems to work. Then suddenly the unit decided to charge and got to ~81% before stopping. I can transfer files to/from my PC so the cable works. The power adapter will charge my iPad so the unit itself must be busted. It has stopped charging again and the battery is now down to 15%. If I unplug it, a warning message pops up telling me to plug it back in... but when I do, the charge indicator does not change and it continues to discharge. Strange.

Sigh... it looks like I will need to call Tiger Direct to return then item. Such a hassle... I'm not buying anything from Asus ever again.

==========

Spoke with Asus Tech Support and determined that the battery was busted in the tablet. The rep wanted me to send the unit in for repair. I told him that I only had it for 3 days and I'm not sending it in for repair. Fortunately Tiger Direct agreed to refund me the purchase so I have to make a trip to UPS and send the unit back.

Now I need to decide if I still want to buy the same unit (probably not) or try something else.

Megaupload

Dang it. Now how am I supposed to retrieve files that I uploaded? If you do a WHOIS lookup on the domain name, this is what comes back:

Megaupload Limited
P.O. Box 28410
Gloucester Road Post Office
Wan Chai, Hong Kong 00000
HK

Are their servers based in the US? How can the DOJ shut down a foreign site... or it is only blocked in the US?

Phobos-Grunt

Phobos-Grunt is a Russian space probe that was supposed to return samples from Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. However, it got stuck in LEO back in November and crashed in the Pacific Ocean (off Chile) on January 15th. I think a failed rocket engine burn prevented the probe to leave Earth orbit. Our CEO sent a link to a website that tracked the mission in great detail. Reading through the article, it's pretty clear that even though Russia is no longer a communist country, the poor management practices is still very much alive.

January 9

In an interview to the Izvestiya daily published on January 9, the head of the Russian space agency, Vladimir Popovkin finally admitted a number of critical flaws in the organization and design of the Phobos-Grunt mission, about which observers had warned all along and which the agency had vehemently denied in the past and attempted to punish the few journalists who had exposed these problems. At the same time, Popovkin defended the fateful decision to launch the spacecraft, portraying the current leadership of the agency as a hostage of bad decisions in the past.

"Phobos-Grunt was developed and built under conditions of limited funding, which predetermined risky technical decisions and made the whole mission problematic," Popovkin said, "We became hostages of these decisions, since we had been bound by agreements with the European Space Agency (ESA), whose instruments were onboard, and with Chinese colleagues, whose satellite we had committed to carry to Mars. In addition, the spacecraft was under construction for a very long time and warranties and operational lifetimes of many components were approaching their limits. If we missed the 2011 launch window for the flight to Mars, we simply had to throw away the spacecraft and write off five billion rubles of investments (into the project)."

It should be noted that numerous officials involved in the Phobos-Grunt project contradict Popovkin's statements about lack of funding for the project, at least in the past several years. Also, the most problematic part of the project and a likely culprit in its ultimate demise -- the flight control system, BKU -- was a result of engineering and management incompetence rather than funding. Finally, it is unlikely that agreements with ESA would prevent the delay of the mission from 2011, if the real status of the project was honestly communicated to international partners. Numerous international participants in the project repeatedly said that Russian space officials had assured them in the readiness of the spacecraft for launch in 2011. It is also obvious that replacing some out-of-warranty components would have been a much better decision than launching a doomed mission.

Yet, Popovkin went even further and repeated a really bizarre accusation which had been previously made by at least one high-ranking Russian military officer about the possible sabotage of the Phobos-Grunt mission by foreign powers, hence by the United States. "Today there is no clarity, why the propulsion unit onboard Phobos-Grunt failed to start, Popovkin told Izvestiya, "It is also unclear, why our satellites often have failures at the time when they fly out of range (of Russian ground control) where we don't see the vehicle and do not receive telemetry from it. There is no wish to accuse anybody, but today there are very powerful means of influence on spacecraft and the possibility of their use can not be excluded."

Huh? He thinks the US sabotaged the mission? That sounds a lot like China's Foreign Ministry... any protests or other dissent in China is caused by foreigners trying to overthrow the government.

Rented Room

To save time, money, and grief, I rented a room from a church friend in Torrance. He bought a house a few months ago and decided to rent out his guest room to me. Since I'm keeping my house in Orange, I'm not bringing too much stuff here, and will probably go home mid-week to get mail and maybe food.

Coincidentally, he lives on the same street as Shirley's mom so I'm pretty familiar with the neighborhood.

Chef Hung

Andy, Connie and I went to Diamond Plaza for dinner and we ended up at Chef Hung. It is a Taiwanese beef noodle place next to 85°C Cafe/Bakery. When we walked in at 5:30pm, the place was probably 75% full but there was no host/hostess. A bunch of customers, including us, stood around for 5 minutes before anyone came to seat us (actually hand out numbers). In the meantime, there was a verbal altercation between these two older fobby Chinese guys and one younger maybe-ABC guy about who was next in line. The younger guy was actually pretty rude; he ended up sitting next to us and was moody and rude to the waiter as well.

Anyway, I got the "famous" beef noodles. It was okay... nothing spectacular. The menus and place-mats made sure you know that "Chef Hung" won many beef noodle awards but I think my mom's version is better. Another issue was the prices. Maybe the rent is expensive in Diamond Plaza because the bowls of noodle weren't cheap. My medium sized bowl was ~$10. We ordered drinks and a few side dishes in addition to a main item; the bill came out to ~$50. If I had to give it a Yelp rating (forgot to do it while I was there), I'd give it 3.5 stars. Taking prices into consideration, I would probably drop it down to 2.5 stars.


There was a motorized bowl of noodles at the entrance of the restaurant. It was pretty cool... too bad there was no employees to seat us.


My $10 bowl of noodles. In addition to the bigger chunks of beef, they also had thin strips, kind of like the meat you get in a beef bowl at Yoshinoya. I've never seen this before, even in Taiwan.


Nothing to do with Chef Hung but upstairs in the plaza, there was a photo-sticker place. Not one machine but an entire store packed with machines. I took some of these kind of photos with Shirley a long long time ago.

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In contrast, $20/person got us AYCE Korean BBQ at Gen, near Newport and Main in Tustin. Mmm... I was not hungry for 24 hours afterwards.

Battery Life

I think the new battery in the iPhone 3G is working. After charging, I left it on standby for about a day and then played a couple of videos. The old iPhone doesn't give battery remaining % but it looks like there's about 25% left. I think that's good enough for my nieces.

Do Not Remove

It was only a few years ago that I was the only Apple person in my family. Recently however, my sister has taken a bite and now has two Apple computers, two Apple TV's, two iPhone 4's and an iPhone 3G that my nieces use like an iPod Touch. Anyway, the old iPhone 3G's battery is starting to fail so I brought it back home to replace the battery. How hard can it be?

Well, if you're not a nimble 13-year old farm girl from China working at Foxconn in Shenzhen, it's pretty hard. I did manage to swap out the 3.7V Li-ion polymer battery but it took awhile. Two electrical engineering degrees were not enough to overcome old age and very small screws and connectors.

Why yes, I did take photos:


Working iPhone 3G with battery replacement kit ($6.31 from Amazon). Note the time = 9:38pm.


Remove bottom two screws and remove LCD display. The "case cracking tool" was useless. I ended up using a suction cup to lift up the cover/display. Next disconnect connectors 1, 2, and 3, which were conveniently labelled.


Remove 7 tiny tiny screws. One was under the "Do not remove" sticker. Oh well... it's out of warranty anyway.


After removing the screws, disconnect connectors 4, 5, 6, also conveniently labelled, and unnumbered connector for the camera. Remove motherboard and finally see battery.


The battery was held down by double-sided tape. Remove old battery and replace with new battery. Connect and screw everything back. Look it still works. Again, note the time = 10:30pm. Took me almost an hour to do everything.


Final test: see if Land Before Time (Sydnie's favorite movie) still plays. Check!

Couple of thoughts. I've owned many Apple products from an old Apple II+ to a Mac Plus to a Mac mini plus several iPod/iPad/iPhones, and everything has been sealed up tight at the factory. Most product needed special tools to open the case, and you can't change the battery in mobile devices. My Samsung GalaxyS has a back cover and a battery change takes only 10 seconds, not close to an hour with the iPhone. Totally lame.

I am also lucky that I wasn't born in rural China. I would totally suck working at Foxconn assembling iPod/iPad/iPhones, unlike this factory girl:


iPhone girl

Seriously, if I had to do this 12 hours a day, six days a week, for $0.50/hour, I'd probably want to jump off a building too.

Occupy Portland

Chapman Square

I took this during my Christmas trip to Portland. Like most other OWS related protests, this one came to nothing as well... other than a total waste of time and money, and a closure of public spaces.

Stupid.

Withdrawal Symptoms

I've been working crazy hours for the past few days to try and complete a new report for the CEO. The meeting was scheduled for today at 11:30am and I was still making changes at 11:20am. Another finance director and I finally walked downstairs to the CEO's office and found that the meeting was cancelled. Evidently his schedule backed up and there was no time to reschedule today. Since I've been stressed out about the report for weeks (possible strike two!), it felt like I was coming off a drug high or something.

Other than the added risk of driving home at 1am while trying to stay awake, I'm okay with it. As a mentor said to me at the beginning of my finance career, "at least you got paid for doing it." Hmm... or was that just Tim after a long night of making slides at IM.

Urban Decay

One of the issues with working so far from home is that I have to get gas all the time, or at least every 5 days. After work today, I stopped at a Shell gas station on Vermont and El Segundo. About halfway through my fill-up, I was approached by man with a bucket and squeegee who offered to wash my window. I politely declined. Interestingly, he gave me a confused look, as if everyone else accepted his offer (he was cleaning someone else's windshield previously). Was I supposed to say "okay"?

I was next approached by a anorexic woman with really bad teeth who asked if I wanted "movies"? Huh? I was unclear if she was offering to sell me DVD's (5 RMB?) or asking if I wanted a date to go to a movie theater. Obviously I was uninterested in both and just wanted to get out of there.

On my way home (70 minute commute on a Friday evening), I though about the experience. First, the gas station was pretty run down. There was an odor that's prevalent in poor neighborhoods, a combination of grease, sweat, and urine. The pumps were dirty too. There was also a lot of "extra" traffic with cars pulling in, not to buy gas but to shop(?) at the mini-mart. Strange.

At USC, I was approached all the time by homeless/poor asking for money. Since my work is basically in the same neighborhood (South Central LA), it's kind of expected. I'm just surprised that the Shell station allowed someone to basically camp out and solicit every customer. Probably the owners don't care.

Avoid Ghetto

I can see how this feature would be useful, although entire neighborhoods would be "no walk zones" around my work.

CBS Seattle

Microsoft has been granted a patent for its “avoid ghetto” feature for GPS devices.

A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft’s patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians to avoid an “unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.”

Created for mobile phones, the technology uses the latest crime statistics and weather data and includes them when calculating a route.

Price Discrimination

I saw this on my cousin's FB page so I checked online at Target's website:


White doll = $9.99


African American doll = $5.99

I don't think this is a big deal. The two dolls look identical (other than fabric color) so the manufacturing cost should be the same. There's no reason for Target to discount one over the other unless 1) there is no demand for the 2nd doll or 2) the manufacturer offered the 2nd doll at a lower price... probably reason #1. Although, the FB post was a photo taken at a retail store. Does Target have uniform pricing across all stores and online?

BTW, I checked and didn't see a yellow Asian doll. Also, notice the 1st doll just said White while the 2nd one was specifically labelled African American. Is there no politically correct term for White? Caucasian? European American? What if you're from South Africa (like Charize Theron)... what doll do you buy?


(South) African American

dontmovetochina.com

This blog only has one post. The author basically give all the reasons not to go to China. I've thought about this often and I agree. Even though I speak Mandarin pretty fluently (so does millions of Chinese people) and have a MBA degree (probably so does millions of Chinese people), I really don't have any competitive advantages (I'm not white) in looking for a job in China. Sure I can teach English but that does not pay very well, and most Western companies don't care if you speak English with an accent... money talks.

The reality is that the majority of foreigners coming to China fail – they do not get lucky and they leave with very little to show for their time. At the end of the day, foreigners in China are constantly swimming upstream, working much harder than s/he would in the west and accomplishing less. Communication will be harder, even assuming that one is fluent in Chinese. Unlike the US, where immigrants can succeed mightily, opening their own business in many cases, China is not an immigration driven society. It is not very open to foreigners and even hostile to their success. This goes for all non-Chinese people: China is equally as uninterested in a white girl or African American guy who just graduated from Harvard Business School, Yale Law, or the like. Even people with the best degrees who come here to make their fortune will often end up simply studying Chinese language at some university in Beijing.

The author does mention that his target audience is young people. If your company sends you to China with an expat package, then life is good. Otherwise you can try starting your own company in China... but unless you're well connected or willing to payoff everyone, that's not an easy option. Right, Leon?

Not Irvine

I just got home from work (1:45am); I had to stay late to work on a project... CEO wants to know what every person is doing by week. Only problem is that we have ~1600 employees. Anyway, I walked out of the building at ~1am and our parking lot is across a major street. While waiting for the signal to change, I was approached by a homeless (so they claim) couple. The woman was white and the guy was Hispanic, and he had a puppy (pit bull) inside his jacket. They wanted to sell me the dog for $300 so they can get a place to stay. Huh? Sensing my confusion and lack of interest, they asked for some change instead. To avoid potential complications, I gave them the change I had in my pocket, hoping that the iPad2 I was holding didn't attract too much attention.

Sigh... definitely not in Irvine anymore.

Tricorder

Qualcomm is funding a $10M X PRIZE for developing a medical tricorder (from Star Trek) that can diagnose a set of 15 diseases.

The Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE is a $10 million global competition to stimulate innovation and integration of precision diagnostic technologies, making reliable health diagnoses available directly to "health consumers" in their homes.

The dire need for improvements in health and healthcare in the U.S. has captured the attention of government, industry, and private citizens for years. But a viable solution has yet evaded one of the most technologically advanced, educated and prosperous nations on the globe. Integrated diagnostic technology, once available on a consumer mobile device that is easy to use, will allow individuals to incorporate health knowledge and decision-making into their daily lives.

Advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, wireless sensing, imaging diagnostics, lab-on-a-chip, and molecular biology will enable better choices in when, where, and how individuals receive care, thus making healthcare more convenient, affordable, and accessible. The winner will be the team whose technology most accurately diagnoses a set of diseases independent of a healthcare professional or facility, and that provides the best consumer user experience with their device.

I guess that's cool but why Qualcomm? They're a communications chip (and IP) company. $10M is pocket change for them but I'm sure they're banking on some sort of financial return. Does the final winner ($7M prize) get to keep their IP or does Qualcomm have a claim? Qualcomm got into a IP licensing dispute with Broadcom that took years to litigate but ended up having to pay Broadcom ~$800M.

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Another thought... what if the diagnosis is wrong and the consumer makes a medical decision based on the incorrect information? I'm assuming that the tricorder/device is not going to dispense medication and you will need to go to a real doctor for diagnosis/treatment. However, doctors/hospitals have medical malpractice insurance; will the eventual hardware/software companies willing to take the legal risks?

One of the goals of the X PRIZE is "facilitate necessary partnerships and regulatory pathways required for this major transformation." I guess that means finding people in government to change existing medical liability laws. Qualcomm better start a fund now to fight the inevitable legal battles with ATLA (American Trial Lawyers Association).