2010 Beijing Trip, Vancouver

Yawn... I got up at 3:30am this morning for my 7:00am flight at LAX. Originally I wanted to fly out of John Wayne but my parents said they could take me to LAX which had cheaper flights to Beijing. We left the house at 4:00am, got to LAX at 5:00am, and the Air Canada ticket counter wasn't even open.

Anyway, right now I'm at Vancouver Airport waiting for my flight. I've only been here a few times and never in the international terminal. There are a lot of flights leaving for China in the next few hours. The four gates right next to me has two to Beijing and two to Shanghai. The flight from YVR to PEK is only ~12 hours instead of the 15+ from LAX to Hong Kong.

I haven't flown Air Canada in a long time so I was surprised to hear all the announcements in French. On Cathay, you get to hear stuff three times: English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.


Breakfast of champions at Burger King in Terminal 2 (LAX). I got chocolate milk!


Sunrise at gate 23


Vancouver Airport from gate 54. It snowed the night before.


China Eastern to Shanghai and Air China to Beijing


There are several displays from local companies in the terminal. This is from Larrivee... I heard of them before but didn't realize they were based out of Vancouver.

I have about another 90 minutes before my flight. I'm used to boarding early for the past few years since I've been flying only Cathay Pacific and American Airlines. I have no elite status with Air Canada so I have to wait around to board like everyone else now. :(

==========

I was in a duty free store looking for stuff for my Beijing friend (found it). All the workers were Chinese and so were most of the customers. I was on the phone explaining to my friend the USD-CAD exchange rate and some guy from China was next to me making comments about how the USD was "larger" than CAD. He wasn't talking "to" me though... just standing there talking to himself, I think. At checkout, there was a different guy from China (saw his passport) buying 12 bottles of Chanel No. 5 perfume ($75 each). He was asking the saleslady whether it was a good brand. What?! He spent ~$1,200 on perfume and he's never heard of Chanel? It must be for his mistress(es). I wanted to ask which government department he worked for but that will probably get me in trouble next week in Beijing.

I'm not sure if my flight has meals; it should for a 12 hour flight. I'll go walk around some more to see if there's anything good to eat... french fries and gravy!!!

Half The Sky Orphan

I'm sponsoring a child at an orphanage in Chengdu (actually, I think I'm sponsoring the worker that takes care of the orphan). Up until a month ago, I've only received two reports from 2009. I contacted the support organization and they managed to find one more.

发扬是一个很可爱的孩子，一逗他就笑，发扬的头控能力很差，现在五个月了还不能将头抬起来，我就着重帮助他练习抬头，我把他的身体平躺在垫子上，四肢伸展开，将头偏向一侧，大约五分钟左右交换一次，我还将发扬放在靠枕上，俯卧向下趴在靠枕上，把手向前伸直，这样反复地练习他的头控和锻炼他的臂力。经过这几个月的练习，现在的发扬已能趴在靠枕上抬起头向我微笑。现在的发扬吃米糊了，他的胃口也越来越好了，哪怕是差一口没有吃饱，他都会哭闹，他的身体一天比一天壮，体重也增加了。发扬喜欢我抱着他，如果我把他放下，他就会一直哭闹，这时，我会把他抱起来亲了又亲。他的情绪才有所好转。发扬最喜欢我和他说话，有时我拿着带响铃的玩具逗他，他会发出“咯-咯-咯”的笑声。在以后的日子里，我会继续帮助他扶坐。

His name is 发扬 and he is missing his right forearm (I think).

Empty Seats

Did this happen at the Olympics in Beijing as well?

BBC News

The organisers of the Asian Games in China are facing an embarrassing problem.

The first two days of competition were witnessed by small crowds in half-empty venues, despite announcements from the organisers that events were sold out.

The problem seems to be that many tickets have been given away to corporate sponsors or community groups and then not used.

Fans who want to buy tickets to watch the sports cannot get hold of them.

This is why China is so f*cked up. Everything is about politics and sucking up to the next level of government. It's common sense that there will be empty seats in qualifying rounds of certain events... that's why we get free hockey tickets at work. Instead of letting things happen naturally, political theater demands that all events are "sold out" even if they have to give all the tickets away. All the government officials can then claim success and move up to the next rung of the CCP ladder. Of course, reality has a way of rearing its ugly head.



Sigh... judging from the amount of preparation that went into the Asian Games, it will probably be successful on its own, without all the typical CCP propaganda.

New KARA Song

Jumping (Korean Version) - KARA

There's a Japanese version too.

Park Jung Ah

Park Jung Ah (K-pop singer) was on Happy Together a few weeks ago. The English subbed episode was finally shown on KBS America. It was supposed to be shown on Thursday night but they preempted it with some live G20 reporting. Bah, forget world economy... show me more Jung Ah. :)



I'm ripping the DVD recording to upload to YouTube right now.

==========


Happy Together Season 3 Episode 167 w/Park Jung Ah (part 1/4)

Wisdom Tooth

I had my upper right wisdom tooth extracted Wednesday morning. The bottom two were removed a lot time ago so now I have one more left. I was supposed to have it extracted a long time ago but I slacked and part of it was rotten. Anyway, it only took 5 minutes to take it out and didn't hurt that much. However, to protect the empty socket, I didn't eat all day Wednesday. Yesterday, I ate some yogurt and bananas... and felt sick all day. At around 5pm, I felt really bad and ended up throwing up. It was weird throwing up on an empty stomach; it was basically all acid that came up.

Now it's Friday and I'm staying home from work. I didn't eat much when I got home from work so I'm starving. I think the empty socket stopped bleeding so I'm slowly eating a couple pieces of toast. Sigh... now I don't even have to travel to China to throw up. :(

China Praises Democracy?!

Well, sort of...

BBC News

Burma's main military-backed political party says it won about 80% of votes in the first election in 20 years.

A Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) official said the party was pleased with the result.

The main pro-democracy party, the NLD, boycotted the poll but other opposition groups have alleged widespread fraud.

China praised the ruling generals for the vote, which marked a "transition to an elected government". But the poll has been widely condemned as a sham.

"This is a critical step for Myanmar (Burma) in implementing the seven-step road map in the transition to an elected government, and thus is welcome," said foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei.

He said the vote was carried out in a "steady and smooth manner".

Wait... did I miss something? China held popular elections? Or was Mr. Hong Lei congratulating the military dictators in giving an illusion of democracy while keeping power to themselves...

Ministry of Truth

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

Tom Clancy

Again, people who insist that news censorship in China is the same as news bias in the West are liars and probably work for the CCP propaganda office. How do these people live with themselves?

I read this and I feel nothing but disgust. All this talk about hurting the feelings of the Chinese people... how can their feelings be "hurt" when they don't even know what's happening?

The Nobel Prize Awards Ceremony

November 7, 2010

The 2010 Nobel Prize Awards Ceremony will take place on December 10. All domestic media outlets are not permitted to report on this event. All websites must strengthen content surveillance and management. It is strictly forbidden to broadcast live audio or television programming, recorded broadcasts, excerpts, or related links connected to the awards ceremony.

It is forbidden to broadcast interviews from Fenghuang Satellite Television

November 4, 2010

Interviews regarding Chen Lin broadcast by Fenghuang Satellite Television are not permitted.

[News Summary: In the afternoon of November 1, Fenghuang Satellite Television anchor Zeng Zimo gave a two-hour long face-to-face interview with Chen Ling, the elder brother of Chen Xiaofeng, who was killed in reckless driving incident at Hebei University. After the interview was completed, the Propaganda Bureau censored it.

Li Gang incident

October 27, 2010

On-line media are not allowed to offer news related to Li Gang.

“Li Xiaobo: the man and what he has done”

October 27, 2010

Please prominently place the story “Liu Xiaobo: the man and what he has done” (Liu Xiaobo qi ren qi shi,” both on the front page and the headline news section. Do not open it to posted comments, and only use this original title.

Incident of a Vehicle Crashing into the Hunan Provincial Party Committee Compound

October 26, 2010

A censorship directive from the Hunan Provincial Propaganda Bureau: It is forbidden to report on the vehicle that crashed into the Hunan Provincial Party Committee compound.

[New summary: On October 26, 2010, at 6:50 am, a small black car crashed into the compound of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee compound. An armed guard was injured, and three cars were damaged. Police detained the driver who caused the disturbance, who is now recovering in the hospital. Reasons for the incident are currently under investigation. The Changsha police department has solemnly declared: “This is definitely not a purposeful attack against a government body.”]

Incident of a Forklift Disturbance at Shijiazhuang

October 25, 2010

The Hubei Provincial Propaganda Bureau has instructed: It is not permitted to report on the forklift disturbance incident at Shijiazhuang

[News summary: On October 23, 2010, in the city of Shijiazhuang, a large forklift ran into several cars, one after the other, and many policeman surrounded it. It is said that the incident occurred in the course of fleeing from a disturbance.]

Diary of a Guangzhou Mistress

October 22, 2010

It is not permitted to report on the diary of the Guangzhou mistress – Guangdong Provincial Propaganda Bureau

[News summary: The mistress of Yao Binhua, the director of the Guangzhou News and Information Bureau, has written a diary of their passion over 20,000 characters long and posted it on the Internet. The hit rate has exploded.]

And so on... no wonder when I talk to people in China, they don't know sh*t about what's happening inside and outside their country. The sad thing is that most are conditioned not to care lest they get invited to drink tea with the police.

MBC Star Audition

Wanna be a K-pop star?! Here's how... in Chinese:


Victoria (宋茜) - f(x)


Jia (孟佳) & Fei (王霏霏) - Miss A

Victoria seems a bit more eloquent than the two girls from Miss A. I thought she was older too but she's about the same age as Wang Fei Fei (one on the right).

Project Group Of 20

Let's Go - Group Of 20

A bunch of K-pop artists/groups got together to record this song for the upcoming G20 Summit in Seoul. Kind of reminds me of "We Are The World" but I like this more. It's a nice gesture but they probably should have just gathered and throw rocks at the police. After all, it's G20 + Korea.

Since there's a lot of countries attending, there must be a lot of people flying into Incheon. They better not talk about AGW and carbon footprint again. Wonder how it compares to Obama's 3,000 person, $200M per day Asia Trip.

T S Emporium

I went with my parents to Rowland Heights for lunch today. After lunch, we went to a strange Chinese market next to the restaurant to get some groceries and other stuff. The place is called T S Emporium and reminds me of a Pic 'N' Save (now Big Lots). There's a few food items but they have a lot of household stuff, some looks like it came straight from China.

Some pictures, in no particular order:


Monkey Head Mushrooms... pretty much a literal translation of the Chinese characters


Store interior. It doesn't look too bad in the picture but it was pretty ghetto in real life.


Lotus roots. I've never seen "fresh" roots before. Didn't know if the black stuff was dirt or mold.


There was a whole aisle with weird snacks. This is "Dried Fish with Peanut" from Taiwan. The black text on the lower left says it's good with alcohol. I'd have to be pretty drunk to eat that.


Little desktop fan for $24. The sticker warns the user not to stick their finger through the protective grill.


Ooh, Pocky and Hello Panda! I bought some...


Half dozen refrigerated fishies


Various kinds of Korean rice. I think I took the photo because it said "borwn" rice.


A weird green moose thing between two Hello Kitty coffee makers. Hello Kitty drinks coffee?!


Tiny Tatung rice cooker for $48.99. The cover was a bit beat up.


Shark fin! The box was ~115 grams or about 1/4 lbs. and cost $70.


Even more expensive... ginseng root in a very nice box. The one on the right (next to the foot) costs $1,181 for 1.27 oz (32 grams). That's $13,650 per lb...!

My mom spent about $80 on miscellaneous groceries. I just bought some Pocky.

Tantrum

Didn't someone say not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries?

BBC News

China has warned that there will be "consequences" if governments show support for jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo at the award ceremony.

Vice-Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said the prize was highly politicised and "a challenge to China's judicial system".

Diplomats in Oslo said China's embassy had sent letters implicitly warning them not to attend the prize-giving.

Netflix on PS3

Earlier this evening, I tried switching monitors between my Mac mini and my PS3. I have an older 22" Viewsonic on my Mac that only displays 1680 x 1050. Trying to get a little bit more desktop space, I wanted to hook up a newer Acer monitor that displays 1920 x 1080 (hmm, it's not much bigger). However, the Viewsonic does not have a HDMI port and is the wrong aspect ratio for 1080p HD. I tried setting the PS3 to output 720p while using a HDMI to DVI cable but it didn't work.

Anyway, I ended up rewiring the PS3 and to test it out again, I installed Netflix. Using cousin Albert's account, I got Netflix to work and it looked pretty good. I browsed the movie selection and was happy to find a lot of Japanese anime, though probably dubbed in English. I just finished watching Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex. It was not too bad but I still liked the original better. There seems to be a lot of sequels to the original GITS and the storylines do not follow each other so it's a bit confusing. There seems to be a remastered version of GITS on Netflix... I'm going to watch that next.

YouTube Commercials

Arg, so many commercials. Since it's a few days before the election, it all political ads:

- ad for Carly
- ad against Carly (by "friends" of Barbara Boxer)
- ad for prop 19(?) which is the pothead initiative
- ad against prop 23 by some cute doctor

I really don't like the anti-prop 23 ad, not because I voted for the measure. In the ad, the doctor says something about dirty air and it's effect on children. However, AB32 was passed due to AGW and was meant to control CO2, not air particulates. I guess freedom of speech means freedom to lie.

The pro-marijuana is lame too. I think polls are 51/39 against the proposition but the ad lies about being ahead in the polls and we should go vote yes... or something. The ad is funded by Georgo Soros, who regularly funds extreme left groups. I can't understand why he's dumping all this money to sponsor drug legalization.

Since I already voted by mail, I can't wait until after Tuesday and for all these lame political ads to end.

New SNSD Song

Hoot - SNSD

The Hangul for Hoot (훗) looks like a guy wearing a Korean hat (deep, huh).

Data Massage

Not to be confused with massage parlors in China and Thailand...

IEEE Spectrum

New Zealander Kevin E. Trenberth has been a lead author in the last three climate assessments produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and he shared in the 2007 Nobel Prize awarded to the IPCC. He is head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. IEEE Spectrum Contributing Editor William Sweet interviewed Trenberth about the impact of the theft last year of climate scientists’ e-mails from the University of East Anglia and proposals for reforming the IPCC.

IEEE Spectrum: You were a lead coauthor with Phil Jones of East Anglia of a key chapter in the latest IPCC assessment, and messages of yours were among the hacked e-mails that aroused such consternation.

Kevin E. Trenberth: One cherry-picked message saying we can’t account for current global warming and that this is a travesty went viral and got more than 100 000 hits online. But it was quite clear from the context that I was not questioning the link between anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions and warming, or even suggesting that recent temperatures are unusual in terms of short-term variability.

Spectrum: It seems to me the most damaging thing about the disclosed e-mails was not the issue of fraud or scientific misconduct but the perception of a bunker mentality among climate scientists. If they really know what they’re doing, why do they seem so defensive?

Trenberth: What looks like defensiveness to the uninitiated can just be part of the normal process of doing science and scientific interaction. Scientists almost always have to massage their data, exercising judgment about what might be defective and best disregarded. When they talk about error bars, referring to uncertainty limits, it sounds to the general public like they’re just talking about errors.

Wow, just wow! That was not what I was taught in school. I know I'm just a lowly ex-engineer but is that how science is done nowadays... or just in climate "science"? At work (the engineering groups), there are no massages. The product either works or you've just wasted a bunch of silicon wafers and $$$. Is this how AB32 was passed in California? Massaging data?!

Vote YES on Prop 23!

==========

BTW, I was a student member of IEEE way back in undergrad. Never read IEEE Spectrum then either.

Car Fire on the Way to Work

Not my car...


On my way to work this morning, I saw a dark plume of smoke ahead and traffic started slowing down. The CHP ended up shutting down all the lanes except for the carpool lane... this was right at the 55/405 junction. I was heading south on the 55 and it took me about an extra 30 minutes to get to work.


I didn't get a picture of the car but it was a white American made convertible... Chrysler something. The front was all burned up and I didn't see another car nearby so I wasn't sure if the fire was caused by a collision or if it was just a crappy car.

J-pop? K-pop?

Gee (Japanese) - SNSD (少女時代)

At least they don't have to compose new music... just translate the lyrics a bit. Since I'm used to the Korean version, the Japanese version sounds really strange, though I don't understand either. They should do a Chinese version too.

Propaganda Overdrive

Here's an article hack job on China Daily about Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner this year. In the story, they refer to the Tiananmen Massacre as the "severe political turmoil of 1989"... pathetic.

More telling, here's the list of related "articles" on the subject:

Related Reading

* Acting against the will of Alfred Nobel
* Why Ideological War holds a peculiar fascination for West ?
* Nobel Peace Prize politically distorted
* Liu Xiaobo's Nobel win criticized as harming prize's spirit
* Nobel Peace Prize goes astray politically
* The Nobel committee owes China an apology
* Liu Xiaobo's Nobel win criticized as harming prize's spirit
* Gradual political reform good for China
* Liu Xiaobo's Nobel win comes amid western countries' push for values: Chinese scholar
* Western governments have "no right to interfere" in China's affairs: FM spokesman

So from media blackout to full-court press in a week... impressive. Of course, all dissenting views are suppressed.

Chinese Twitter user seized after supporting Liu Xiaobo

I though Twitter was banned/blocked in China.

No Early Heat

I saw this at Danwei.org:

With the daily lowest temperature barely hovering above freezing point, winter seems come to Beijing earlier this year. Here at Danwei's headquarter, your correspondent has put on a feather jacket to fortify against the biting chill, huddling over the only non-human heat source in the office - a laptop.

According to Beijing Times, responsible authorities in Beijing conferred yesterday and decided that Beijing would not switch heat on before November 5th, citing that the average temperature in the next five days is unlikely to drop below 10°C. The current policy dictates that the heat will be turned on only when the average temperature in five consecutive days drops below 5°C.

I posted about this a few days ago. The policy doesn't make any sense. Instead of the average temperature, they should consider the daily low temperatures. If it was 10°C all the time, then it's bearable. However, there is a fairly large differential between the high/low temperatures and right now it's -1°C in Beijing.

I just talked to my friend in Beijing earlier and she said she is freezing her ass off at night. She said the real issue is that a lot of people, including large SOE (state owned enterprises) and companies, don't pay the central heating bill. This is mentioned in the Chinese article too (10亿供暖费收缴不上来) as ¥1 billion of uncollected fees. Since the system is centralized, there is no way to shut off heat to individual customers and lots of people just don't pay up. By turning on the heat early, all it does is increase costs... who cares about the millions of freezing people.

My friend said that she wanted to write a complaint online and pass it around to her friends. I told her to be careful that she doesn't get in trouble; the CCP don't like petitions. I'm pretty sure there's no heating in police labor camps.

CCP Whining Again

If you want to be #1, then you have to stop crying like a baby all the time.

Taipei Times

A-list movie stars about to make a grand entrance at the prestigious Tokyo International Film Festival became the latest victims of turbulent cross-strait relations on Saturday after both the Taiwanese and Chinese delegations missed the star--studded ceremony amid a spat over names.

Despite spending days preparing for the 11-day event, Taiwanese actors and actresses failed to reach the eco-friendly “green carpet” after a Chinese delegation insisted that the Taiwanese group add the word “China” to their country’s name.

“Taiwan, China” or “Chinese Taipei” were the only titles the head of the Chinese delegation, Jiang Ping (江平), said he would accept, threatening to boycott the festival if the change wasn’t made.

“Don’t you want to sell your films in the mainland? Aren’t you all Chinese?” he asked the Taiwanese performers.

Well, at least he has an attitude to go with his whining. The WSJ said that this accomplished two goals at the same time: bring up Taiwan sovereignty AND embarrass the Japanese. Now the question is whether Jiang Ping did this on his own to suck up to the Politburo or if this came from the top.

Love Monkeys

12AX7

My bass amp stopped working. I was going to bring it to CCCSB since I'm not playing anywhere but when I turned it on last night, there was no signal. I checked the amplifier section by plugging my iPod into the Effects In jack and got some sound, which means the bass preamp section is bad. Like any good engineer, I took the cover off the amp, even though I don't know how to diagnose it anyway. I just wanted to see if there was anything obvious, like remnants of an explosion or fire or something...


Internals of the SWR 350x bass amp. Most of the circuitry was for the preamp section (left). The actual amplifier section (right) was working.


The only user replaceable part is the 12AX7 vacuum tube. When I bought the amp used, the guy selling it to me said he just replaced it. The manual said it needs replacement anywhere between one to three years so I guess it's time. I went online and was surprised to find very few electronic component retailers left, and most are from the 50's and 60's. I guess nobody fixes stuff anymore. I ended up ordering two tubes from an online retailer so hopefully I can just replace the tube and get it working again.

Chinese Climate Control

Another tidbit of information that my friend in Beijing told me. Her parents live in a 13 year old apartment building. Even then they still have central heating control. "Central" doesn't only mean it's built into the buildings; it also means that the Beijing government controls when the heat is turned on and off. I think the system is still steam powered, i.e. they burn coal at a central location and send steam through tubing into each unit's radiators. I dunno, maybe this is more efficient than having individual heating units in each apartment.

The downside however, is that the system is not scheduled to begin operating until November 15th. Next week, night temperatures are forecasted to dip below freezing, and since Chinese buildings are typically constructed with concrete, there's not much insulation. It remains to be seen if they will move up the schedule. In the meantime, people either use the heater option in their A/C units or purchase portable heaters/burners.

==========

Hmm, I found an article from 2007 online and it said that Beijing turns off the heating on March 15, again regardless of the outside temperature. It also said that many people get carbon monoxide poisoning since they use coal heaters indoors without proper ventilation. Nice.

Compassion International Revisited

I was having problems balancing my checking account just now. You'd figure that someone that does finance professionally should be able to balance a few accounts... and usually I'm pretty close. Anyway, it turned out that Compassion International has not transferred the $38/month since August. I received a few letters from them lately but I haven't paid much attention. I've been sponsoring this girl through Compassion in Thailand since 1996.

I finally read a letter with a scary "Final Letter" header dated June 13. It's written in Thai but the translation said that Yupa decided to go to work in Bangkok with her mother after her father passed away. Since she moved away from the project, they dropped my sponsorship. Well, the reason I chose to sponsor a Thai girl was to keep her from being sold/forced into prostitution. Sigh... I hope she finds a good job in Bangkok and stays away from Patpong. Maybe one day I'll run into her when I visit Bangkok. :)

Compassion assigned me another Thai girl with a much longer name. She is about 5 and a half years old and not very cute (sorry). Strange... I searched for her last name in Google and there were zero hits.

SuperTyphoon Megi

It's huge! Top wind speed so far was ~170 mph. It's supposed to hit the China coast north of Hong Kong on Oct 23. Leon is flying to Hong Kong this weekend, arriving in the morning of Oct 24. Maybe the flight will have to go around the typhoon, making the flight even longer. One time Cathay Pacific warned us that we may have to stop in Incheon to refuel but we ended up flying non-stop though the extended route took us over Russia, Mongolia, and much of China.

New Home Computer

Hmm, I have the itch to buy another home computer (we already have six working systems at home) to "replace" my Sony Vaio notebook. This time I'm thinking about getting a fast gaming desktop... something like an Alienware setup. With an employee discount from work, I can get an Aurora for ~$1160 with a i7 920 CPU, 3GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, and an ATI HD5670 video card.

If I get the new system, then I'm going to try and install Mac OS X on the Sony. I saw someone install Leopard on a Dell mini 10 so it should be able to run on my Core2 Duo Sony. Or I can just go buy more PS3 games.

Heart & Mind

Yet another K-pop girl group... I think this is their third single. Their management company shortened their name and have been promoting them as... HAM! That's really unfortunate since they seem kinda cute and can sing/dance pretty well. If they left their name as Heart & Mind, no one would have thought to call them HAM so they have no one to blame but themselves.


So Sexy - HAM


T.T. Dance - HAM

Random Vehicle Photos

Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG
~$140,000
Saw this on the way to work in the morning


Can-Am Spyder
~$17,000
It was in the 405N carpool lane. I guess it's more like a motorcycle than a car.

Vibrant Software Upgrade

I got a notice on my phone for a software upgrade. It took ~5 minutes and the phone seems to work okay. While it was upgrading, I read a few posts on the T-Mobile forum and people were complaining about the phone bricking after the upgrade. There are also a lot of complaints about the battery life post upgrade. I was already getting sucky battery life so hopefully it won't make it worse.

Model number: SGH-T959
Firmware version: 2.1-update1
Baseband version: T959UVJI6
Kernel version: 2.6.29
Build number: ECLAIR.UVJI6

The fix was mainly for GPS. I read that a lot of people had issues with the GPS functionality on the Samsung. My experience was 50/50... sometimes it would take minutes to acquire the GPS signal (or not at all), but other times it seemed okay. It always performed worse than the GPS on my Blackberry Curve. Now the GPS locks on in seconds, even indoors.

The other thing that was supposed to get fixed by this update was access to Samsung's Media Hub software. It allows you to buy/rent movies and TV shows. I just ran the app and it seems to work.

Now if they will just release Android OS v2.2 (Froyo) for my phone.

Safari - YouTube Crash

Something happened to either Apple Safari or the YouTube website. Each time I try to go to YouTube, Safari crashes. Other sites work fine and YouTube opens with Firefox. Weird.

Good thing I have three browsers on my Mac (+Google Chrome).

Process: Safari [1870]
Path: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
Identifier: com.apple.Safari
Version: 5.0.2 (6533.18.5)
Build Info: WebBrowser-75331805~1
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [109]

Date/Time: 2010-10-14 19:38:59.388 -0700
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.4 (10F569)
Report Version: 6

Interval Since Last Report: 35694 sec
Crashes Since Last Report: 3
Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 64 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 3
Anonymous UUID: 8E42B595-3E0D-4F66-962A-0AD4CC434AB5

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

==========

Hmm, it's not just YouTube... I can't sign on to Facebook with Safari 5 either. I read that this may be a compatibility issue between Safari 5 and Adobe Flash 10.1 (I have 10.1.53.64) installed. Strange that Firefox 3.6.10 works perfectly fine. If this is Steve Job's way of expanding his "war" with Adobe over Flash, then I'm uninstalling Safari on my Mac. Evil bastard.

Political Junk Mail

First one today! I got a mailer from the Whitman campaign. I'm probably voting for her anyway... not that I'm a supporter but Jerry Brown is a worse option. Sigh...

"Brave" or Stupid

Or worse, negligent in their duties...

ABC News

Three weeks before his party could take a tough hit in the voting booths, President Obama said this evening that a “pleasant surprise” of his job is seeing members of Congress cast tough votes over the past 20 months even though it might lead to their congressional demise.

“There are a lot of folks who took some really tough votes over the last 20 months knowing that it was bad for them politically, who voted for health care reform even though the polls said this would cause them problems in the next election, who voted for financial regulatory reform even though they knew that by supporting it it would impact big money pouring in and directing negative ads towards them,” the president said during a webcast town hall from The George Washington University. "And they did it anyway. And that was risky for them.”

The president highlighted some of those members who cast votes that could put their congressional careers at risk.

The idea behind a democracy is for elected representatives to vote according to the wishes of their constituents, instead of pursuing their own agenda. If a majority of the voters wanted ObamaCare or wanted to pay more taxes, then there's no risk of losing the next election. The fact that Democrats are so unpopular right now should send a message to Mr. Hope'n'change but instead, we get clueless remarks like the above. I wonder if TOTUS (teleprompter) made him say it or if he was ad-libbing again.

Japanese Blog Spam

Strange... I got three spam comments on my post about Sea World, and they're all in Japanese. Even more strange, the Blogger spam filter has been catching them and putting them in the spam comments box.

モバゲーを使って恋人を探そう！大人気のモバゲーならゲームを知らなくてもすぐに恋人ができちゃうんです

玉の輿度チェッカーで簡単にお金持ちの相手をGET出来ますよ！！その理由は登録者を厳選して最低年収を1000万以上の稼ぎが無い方には、御遠慮うようにしているからです。これでアナタもこの不景気に、簡単に玉の輿に乗れちゃいますよ

やっぱり楽しい出会いならスタービーチ！探したい相手のプロフィールを検索して理想の相手を見つけよう！

I put all the comments through Google Translate and they look like spam... though you can't trust the translations too much.

Aggressive Chinese Military

New York Times

“Why do you sell arms to Taiwan? We don’t sell arms to Hawaii,” said Col. Liu Mingfu, a China National Defense University professor and author of “The China Dream,” a nationalistic call to succeed the United States as the world’s leading power.

There's more stuff in the article but this comment caught my attention. Is he serious or just being an ass? Is this how the mainland Chinese think of Taiwan, without any acknowledgment of current realities? I think he should ask why Hawaii sees no need to buy Chinese (or any other country's) arms.

$100B Wealth Redistribution

Dang, I wanted my 1500th post to be about K-pop girls. ;p

I see why there's so much interest in Global Warming Climate Change Disruption.

BBC News

But there was some progress toward the next round of climate talks in Mexico in November.

There are hopes that the meeting in Cancun could agree details of a fund to transfer $100bn (£63bn) a year from rich countries to help poor nations cope with the projected consequences of climate change.

That sum is described by developing nations as substantial but inadequate.

Of course it's inadequate. When have you seen recipients of free money say they've had enough?! A major reason why some of these countries are "poor" or "developing" is because they're run by corrupt dictators... and we want to give them more money?

And what are these "projected consequences" of climate change? If these "projections" turn out to be false, do I get my share of the $100 billion back?

New Battery

The Z wouldn't start again yesterday. When I turn the ignition key, it just sits there and clicks. I can probably jump start it but I think the battery is not holding a charge properly. I'll probably head out to Sears to pick up a replacement battery and try to install it myself later today. My only worry is messing up the stereo when the battery is disconnected. The CD changer in my 4Runner is all messed up because it thinks it was "stolen" when I changed the battery several years ago and I haven't been able to find an unlock code.

==========

I checked out prices at Sears and Auto Zone and they both wanted $100+ for a new battery. Instead, we went to Costco and found one that fit for $60 (last one). They charge a $9 battery core fee but will refund it if we bring the battery back to Costco. It took me about 20 minutes to replace the battery. To make the engine bay look fancy, Nissan added a bunch of useless plastic covers and dividers that made the job a lot harder than it had to be.


Under the hood... the battery compartment is at the upper left.


Closer look at the battery compartment. The blue cable is an extra grounding kit that I put in when I bought the car back in 2004. Unfortunately, that's the only mod I made to it. At different times I considered a cold air intake, true dual exhausts, nicer rims/larger tires, and even a turbo/supercharger... but I just got cables.


Old battery... back to Costco for $9


New battery installed. There is a metal brace that holds the battery down. It hooks to a small bracket on the firewall behind the battery. That part took 15 minutes to reinstall since there is no room to work. In comparison, the 4Runner's battery is right in the open and it only took me 5 minutes.

I started up the Z and it appears everything is fine. I do have to reset all the radio presets though. I wanted to take more pictures but I was so pissed at the stupid hook that I forgot until everything was re-installed. No way was I going to tear everything down again just to take photos.

SNSD Screensaver

In order to balance out the ratio of posts between China rants and K-pop girls, here's a screensaver video of SNSD:



In the old days of CRT monitors, screensavers were supposed to blank out your screen to prevent image burn in. I don't think this would qualify... the blue background would probably burn in to the screen pretty quickly.

==========

Yes, I downloaded it. The PC version was ~113MB.

This is the best one... Yuri!

CX Reply

Hmm, they didn't ignore me after all. I got a reply from CX saying that they will extend my "renewal" period to Dec 31, 2010. That means if I fly CX to China on my November trip, I will have enough miles to get back to Silver status. Oh well... too bad I already booked my flight on Air Canada. I checked fares for LAX-HKG-PEK on CX and it's $450 more AND I won't have lounge access. I had wanted them to extend my Silver status (marginal cost to CX = $0) but if I'm going to slum it in the normal waiting areas, I may as well save enough to pay for my hotel room for the week.

The last hotel I stayed in Beijing was a bit too small and ghetto for me. My friend managed to find me another place near the south train station for ~$40 per night that looks more upscale. It's supposed to be 4 stars but the ratings in China seem a bit inflated. Chinese 4 star hotels << US 4 star hotels.

==========

I found their website and it says they're a 3 star hotel. :( The site seems to be written in Engrish and the online reservation system quotes prices from 2007.

Beijing Foreign national Garden Hotel is situated nearby the south two ring circuit mizar bridge, east depends on the Beijing south station, west is near Prospect Garden, separates the river with the carefree pavilion park to face one another, is apart from Tiananmen 6 kilometer, the transportation is convenient, the environment is graceful, the assembly lodgings, the dining, the entertainment are a body touch on foreign affairs the star class fixed point hotel. The hotel has started doing business since November 7, 1982, passes through repairs the transformation many times. Presently has standard guest room 200, in the comfortable room is equipped with the central air conditioning, the refrigerator, the telephone, the network wide band and the independent bathroom 24 hours hot water, conference room 5, may hold 70 human of school desk type conference. The dining room by the Shandong cuisine primarily, asks the Shandong cuisine famous kitchen ingredients, the taste orthodox school tunnel, the Sichuan Cantonese cuisine, the Beijing roast duck also to be able especially to meet the more consumer's need. The hall may hold 300 people also to dine, has KTV package of 10, but the self-entertainment from happy, good dines the environment, the high quality service can let you feel urgently kindly. In the hotel each kind of facility is complete, is equipped with the singsong house, the chess sign room, the cosmetology styles hair the center, the business center, the shopping center and handles services and so on international postal service and purchasing commercial aviation airplane ticket, train ticket, traveling ticket. In the courtyard is equipped with the large-scale parking lot, berth hundred, may satisfy you to travel the board and lodging and the entertainment need.

Liu Xiaobo Wins Nobel Peace Prize

BBC News

Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has been named the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

Making the announcement in Oslo, Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland said Mr Liu was "the foremost symbol of the wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China".

Mr Liu's wife and some Western nations have called for his immediate release.
Continue reading the main story

China said the award was a violation of Nobel principles and could damage relations with Norway.

I think by threatening the Nobel Committee and Norway, the CCP pretty much guaranteed that Liu would win the prize.

What's China going to do now? Regardless what you think about the Nobel Peace Prize, it's a big international story that the CCP will find hard to censor. I'm disheartened to read some of the comments though. The legacy of Mao and his cult of personality is that the CCP = Chinese. That's total BS. How is it a "Chinese characteristic" to lock up and violently abuse those with a different political opinion? Is getting rich the so important that everything else is secondary?

==========

Yahoo! News

In China, broadcasts of the announcement by CNN were blacked out. Popular Internet sites removed coverage of the Nobel prizes, placed prominently in recent days for the science awards. Messages about "Xiaobo" to Sina Microblog, a Twitter-like service run by Internet portal Sina.com, were quickly deleted. Attempts to send mobile text messages with the Chinese characters for Liu Xiaobo failed.

Seriously, if you have nothing to hide, then don't act like a thief. If the CCP thinks they're right for sending Liu to jail for 11 years because he wrote a document, then why censor the news? This is the typical Chinese way: ignore/hide and hope it goes away.

==========

Well, if the CCP will even censor their own Premier (Wen Jiabao), then there's no chance the Nobel Prize news will be discussed officially in China. Lame... but I'm repeating myself.

WSJ Blog

An official news blackout in China surrounding Premier Wen Jiabao’s interview over the weekend with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria hasn’t kept it from becoming one of the hottest topics on the Chinese Internet. If anything, censorship has only made it hotter—possibly giving Wen additional political clout in the process.

...

Information about the interview on the Chinese Internet appears to come almost exclusively from Phoenix TV, blogs and micro-blogging services like Sina Weibo. News portals in China are running a commentary on the interview from the official Liberation Daily newspaper that manages not to quote Wen at all, focusing instead on the differences in Zakaria’s questions from 2008 and 2010.

The irony of Wen’s statements on freedom and censorship being censored in official media was not lost on Chinese observers.

Next China Trip

I just booked tickets for my next trip to China. Since Cathay Pacific has so far ignored my email regarding my Marco Polo Club account, and I found tickets that are $450 cheaper, I'm flying Air Canada (connecting in Vancouver) this time. When I went to Beijing back in 2008 with NewSong, most of the other people on the trip took this flight since it seems to be the cheapest itinerary. Total round trip cost: $800.15 through www.vayama.com.



Originally I was going to fly American Airlines which cost $940 and connects in Chicago. The only plus side was that I can leave from John Wayne Airport. The other option from SNA was to fly United and connect through San Francisco for about the same fare. However, since my parents said that they could drop me off at LAX, I went with the cheaper option... I haven't told them that my flight departs at 7am which means leaving our house ~4am!

==========

Crap! Air Canada does not allow you to choose seats online if you didn't book your flight through their website. If you call their phone line, they charge $22 to choose seats. Since I'm going cheap, I guess I'll have to check in online early and hope that I get a aisle seat. :(

One more...

New song from miss A, another JYP girl group. The two girls on the left as the video begins are Chinese.


Breathe (브리드) - miss A