Santa Claus is coming to town

Is this an ordinary crash? the picture will tell

Looking at the Dow Jones Industrial Average graph for the past 10 years, I can tell how badly the market is hit. The damage is just too fast too furious. Is this the lifetime chance for you to accumulate low priced gems? or the lifetime chance for you to commit suicide? Only the future can tell you are a moron or a hero. Of course you can also choose as a bystander. The common sense will tell it's not yet bottom, dude, not yet. But does market makes any sense at all in past?

Quote from cnn: Since peaking at an all-time closing high of 1,565.15 on Oct. 9, 2007, the S&P 500 has lost 52%. The Dow has lost nearly 47% since closing at an all-time high of 14,164.53 on the same day. Since hitting a bull market high of 2,859.12 on Oct. 31, 2007, the Nasdaq has lost 54%.

Whilst I feel sorry for my loss, at least I can console myself, at least I am still fare better than those figure. What a good way to deceive my own self :) As a friend of mine always loathe this is a way of self denial when somebody mention the term "paper loss"...

only time can tell, only time can tell...

After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box

I am intrigued by this phrase and added it to my laptop desktop screen. For me, it means believe in yourself, your life belong to yourself and not other people. This phrase will be useful every time you feel belittled by setback in the life.

Viewing in browser

One thing i do like about Firefox is the full screen viewing with the "F11" shortcut. It's really save a lot of precious screen space by removing the space-cluttering toolbar and menu.




Furthermore, coupling with the zoom in and zoom out features with Ctrl + Middle Mouse Wheel, it really makes browsing a breeze experience. For some IT folks like me spending hours in front of the monitor every day, I found these are the two techniques i use quite frequent.



Enough said, I still feel staring so long on the monitor is really spoil my eyesight. Anyone with the similar plight want to share their experience?

Cameron Highland Trip

We had traveled back to Tanah Merah, Kelantan for the long weekend. On our way home, we detour to Cemeron Highland for a day trip. It had been many years since I last visited the place. I am very in fond of this place, if not because of the bumper-to-bumper traffics due to the heavy tourists season. The Highway linking Gua Musang and Cameron Highland is quite wide, it's also a feast to the eye, for the blue sky and greenery along the way. Too bad I'm driving and do not have the chance to take the photo.

There is this farm which plant all the organics vegetables. I had taken some photo of them. I remembered a old school friend, whom was told already settled in Cameron Highland. I think it must be very nice staying there and lead a simple life.

It's also an exciting route descending the hill at night time. The route is pretty winding, and I am lucky to able to follow the back of some fast driving cars, which I feel is the easiest way to drive in dark.

Paypal is finally "work" in Malaysia

I am recently approached by a Singapore company, WuTravel.com to join their advertising affiliate program. In return, they paid me a small amount as token for the sign-up. I'm quite happy with that as this is something quite unexpected for myself. At least someone do enjoy reading my trivia blog.

Anyway, this is not the main point. The point is they are paying in Paypal. And as far as i recalled, Paypal seems not money-withdrawable for the Malaysian (how sad!). Then i do a quick Google and notice it seems no longer the way. Malaysian now has a way to withdraw money from Paypal. This link is as follows:
Paypal withdrawal for Malaysian

Just some funny additional notes, I even found someone from internet try selling the method of "How Malaysian withdraw money from Paypal" (which cost around USD18)... I really wonder how much did he make... :)

Intel SSD revolutionize storage landscape

This following post shown Intel had did a good job in launching X25-M SSD:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403

I am someone always never feel satisfied by the application performance in my laptop. After using the laptop for awhile, it always felt like took ages to load an application, especially for people like me who regularly opened multiple application at the same time. I really hope I can get hold one of those SSD a day.

I am particularly amazed by the below:

Sheer Poverty

Tonight, I follow my auntie to her tenants' flat to collect the rent. The tenant had owe her two month's of the rental, thus she was thinking to stop renting the house. It's a low cost flat unit, the rent was only RM 350+.

After we reach the place, the door gate is closed and the light is off. We thought the tenant might not be at home, anyway we knocked the door to try our luck. A woman answered our call and opened the door. The woman was carrying a baby, we found out that she is his wife. The husband had not yet come back from work. So my wife called his phone to find out when he would be back, he responded should be within 20 minutes.

So, we decided to go in the house and waits for him. Apparently the light was turned off previously to save utility bill. Inside the house, we have a casual chat with his wife, meanwhile scanning around the house. The dining room doesn't have even one single piece of furniture, this is best described by the Chinese proverb - 家徒四壁 (The house with only 4 walls). My auntie and my mother entered their bedroom too, and notice there is no bed, only a sofa, and yes, no mattress too. Only the cradle for the baby.

A short while later, the husband reached home. He gave this month rental to my auntie and ask for more grace period for the remaining debt. He said he just changed job (working as a crane operator), and can't earn more overtime because of the raining season. The couple are bumiputera came from Sabah state. He told us that his grandma is ailing sick, and only "tunggu hari saja" (waiting for the days only). He is now also fretting over how to get the money to buy the air ticket back.

As you can expect, nothing much we can do, and my auntie just urged him try his best to pay punctually next time. Well, it's not as if my auntie is so unsympathetic, but she herself was amputated because of cancer last time, not leading an abundant life too.

It's quite sad to know all this. Our country is really sick after 51 years of independence due to corruption, wastefulness and squandering. While I saw some people are being filthy rich, spending RM100K+ on a watch without blinking an eye, some are worrying their infant's next meal (As my wife told me, she didn't see any milk powder in the tenant's house). This has nothing to do with race, as I myself was once become the tuition teachers to the kids of a wealthy Malay banker. And I also know some Bumiputera Datuk, who are very well-to-do.

I urge the politician be honest to your own conscience, do something right for the people, and not only filling up your own greediness. Really, you can and you should make a difference in the history, and if you are religious, the mighty one will judge you at the other world too.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea 崖の上のポニョ

I had watched the DVD 2 days ago.



This is the Hayao Miyazaki's version of "The Little Mermaid", with a happy ending. I'm quite entertained with the simple thematic elements and its visual scheme. Something good to spend your time over the weekend afternoon.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools is a handy utility to find out how you fare in the Google ranking. However, it's not clear how to verify you are the webmaster if you are using Blogger site. Below is great link for you to verify your site and how to add your sitemap:

http://linuxlore.blogspot.com/2006/10/google-webmaster-tools-and-howto.html

Western Media are Hypocrites

Yes, that's what i meant. After I read pages of CNN, BBC reporting on China Olympic events, I start feeling so. Come on, it's just a sports event, why can't them focus on the sports, but instead the media intermingle the political injustice into the news. Yes, you have the rights to loath China communist government. You can bashing on China relentlessly as much as you like, but please do it at another special reports, or even you can specifically produce a series on this topic. You don't need to continuously demonize the Chinese government and remind the readers how evil are the Chinese leaders. This shows how hypocritical is the western media, and only one explanation for this, is that they feel sour about the rising of the nation. For me, I believe majority of the Chinese only wish to strive for a better tomorrow and integrate into the international community. Most of them never thought of dominate or conquer other people like most power fanatic politician, which the media try to portray about China.

A dancer performs during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Drummers perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

An artist in a space suit performs during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images)

Fireworks explode over the National Stadium during the Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium on August 8 in Beijing. (Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Artists perform during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games at the National Stadium, also known as the "Bird's Nest", on August 8, 2008. The three-hour show at Beijing's iconic national stadium was set to see more than 15,000 performers showcase the nation's ancient history and its rise as a modern power. (AFP PHOTO / Olivier Morin)

Percussionists take part in the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, 2008. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

Percussionists hit their Fou drums at the start of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, 2008. (AFP PHOTO / Joe Klamar )

Percussionists with their Fou drums stand prior to the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, 2008. (AFP PHOTO / Jewel Samad)

Artists perform around an illuminated Globe during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Artists perform during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony on August 8, 2008 at the National Stadium in Beijing. Over 10,000 athletes from some 200 countries are going to compete in 38 differents disciplines during the event, between August 9 to 24. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)

The Olympic rings are illuminated during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

Artists underneath movable boxes perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Martial arts dancers perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Lighted dancers perform during the opening ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Friday, Aug. 8, 2008. (AP Photo/David Phillip)

Drummers perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images)

Artists perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Performers cheer during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Fireworks light the sky over the National Aquatics Center (L) and the National Stadium during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images)

An artist performs, suspended by wires during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Drummers perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

A musician performs during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony on August 8, 2008 at the National Stadium in Beijing. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)

Performers are pictured during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

A dancer is silhouetted as she performs during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

Children of migrant workers from outlying provinces look at themselves in the mirror as they use their hands to form the Olympic Rings after watching the TV live broadcast of the Olympic Games opening ceremony at their quarters August 8, 2008 on the outskirts of Beijing. (Andrew Wong/Getty Images)

A lonely house. An image made using Blender 3D

How do you know your page rank?

This is a nice site to check out your web site popularity:

http://www.pagerank.net/pagerank-checker/

Which is the better car?

The latest fiasco about the Proton Perdana versus Mercedes Benz was really the much awaited dessert after the heavy meal of Anwar’s sodomy conspiracy.

Back to the little story about Proton Holdings Berhad’s (KLSE: PROTON, stock-code 5304) top range Perdana V6 Executives. It’s awesome just how much the cost of ownership is to maintain a V6 and taking the cue from the estimated RM132,357.36 maintenance cost for a single car from 2004 as reported, it would whack a cool RM33,089.34 a year just to ensure the national car can roll on the road. Holy cow! That’s really a good money generator for Proton and could easily put Mercedes Benz and BMW to shame. No wonder the Terengganu’s Chief Minister (Menteri Besar) was quick to conclude it would be more economical to change the fleet to 14 RM245,000 (I thought such model costs at least RM340,00 each?) Mercedes E200 Kompressors (for RM3.43 million) as it’s no brainer that in the long run the Germany car was the solution to prevent such huge “leakages”.

Of course people started to curse the Chief Minister for being lavish during such period but can you really blame him for such a shocking maintenance cost? The Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) was surprisingly fast in their action to probe into the high costs of maintenance with the Chief Minister cheekily told the ACA to be equally efficient into other high-profile projects such as the prestigious Monsoon Cup sailing event and the Islamic Civilisation Park. Obviously irregularities can be seen all over the place in this Proton Perdana V6 Executives’ maintenance cost case.

Nevertheless you do not need a rocket scientist to jack-up the repairs or services charges at other workshops since Proton said its records showed that there had been no warranty claims made on that particular vehicle (cost more than RM100,000 in repairs and maintenance) since October 2004. However Proton Holdings Bhd managing director Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir claimed the average maintenance cost for each Perdana car sent by the Terengganu Government was only RM542 per year (huh?). So some geniuses must have pocketed the differences.

The question is do you have that many foreign dignitaries or VVIPs visiting Terengganu? If not wouldn’t it be more practical to sell or auction it off? I’m sure many interested parties would snap the Mercedes Benzes even at 20 percent discount. At least by selling it off the state could cut lost and it’s better to lose RM686,000 than to spend RM3.43 million keeping the cars in the cold storage. But then how could the PM say anything else when he himself spent huge amount of money on yacht and luxury jet? Maybe the government should consider Toyota Camy or Honda Accord for reliability.

What People Search For On Internet

Millions of searches are conducted each day on popular search engines by people all around the world. What are they looking for? A number of major search engines provide a way to glimpse into the web's query stream to discover the most popular search keywords or topics. These are:

• AOL Hot Searches: Top current queries, or see those in the last hour, last day and within particular categories.
  


• Ask IQ: See top searches at Ask.
  
  
• Dogpile SearchSpy: Choose to see either a filtered or non-filtered sample of top, real-time search terms from this popular meta search service. Sister site MetaCrawler offers a similar MetaCrawler MetaSpy service.
  
  
• Google Trends: Allows you to tap into Google's database of searches, to determine what's popular. View the volume of queries over time, by city, regions, languages and so on.
  Compare multiple terms, as well. See our review:
  Google Trends: Peer Into Google's Database Of Searches.
  
  
• Google Zeitgeist:
  What people are searching for at Google and its associated specialty services in a variety of categories. There are versions for various countries, as well.
  
  
• Lycos 50: Long-standing service showing top searches at Lycos each week.
  
  
• MSN Search Insider: Top 200 queries on MSN Search (annoyingly in random order), top "movers" in TV, sports and music, and a "duels" feature pitting top queries in a race against each other.
  
  
• Yahoo Buzz Index:
  Shows you what's hot and what's not in terms of search topics at Yahoo.

Good way to be anonymous

If you need to always work from different locations, for example, work from office HQ, then travel to client side; and surfing web after coming back to home at night, this may be the right tool for you:

1. Firefox 3, plus
2. FoxyProxy

If you want to go one step further, to be able surf anonymously, also use TOR, and i found this one particularly useful which doesn't required you to install the application, look out for this app:

PortableTOR

This is a standalone application which can even be run from USB pen drive. It can be very handy if you don't like the idea to install some additional program on your PC.

Data Warehouse Landscape update

Year 2007 Gartner Report update:




















The use of SQL Server 2005 for data warehousing is accelerating... Do you think given time it will catch up with Oracle?

You will not know if you are younger than 60 years old

Yesterday having tea time with my old colleague, who is a veteran IT professional who have been in this line since 70's ... The conversation had added knowledge to me. I found that is was so interesting at one time:
- Software always came with free, and given out free by IBM to MAS. There is no SLA, it's up to the airline to change the code to cater their needs.
- There are limited software vendors at that time, airlines used to buy software from one another.
- Airlines is one of the pioneer embrace IT, at one time, the head of IT in Maybank and Southern Bank were came from MAS.
- Mainframe is so robust that it doesn't down even running for a decade.
- ...
i enjoy the conversation a lot.

Beauty of low profile

Out of curiousity, I wonder why Cisco attract less hostile public comments compare to Microsoft. Cisco dominance in networking is comparable to Microsoft's dominance in software. I did a quick yahoo search and get the following data:

DIRECT COMPETITOR COMPARISON

CSCO ALU JNPR NT Industry Market Cap: 156.78B 16.04B 13.99B 3.56B 379.45M Employ­ees: 61,535 76,410 6,111 32,550 419 Qtrly Rev Growth (yoy): 10.40% 35.20% 31.30% 11.10% 28.30% Revenue (ttm): 38.61B 28.05B 3.03B 11.22B 174.38M Gross Margin (ttm): 64.46% 33.28% 67.67% 42.40% 48.20% EBITDA (ttm): 10.98B 1.52B 694.97M 871.00M 6.30M Oper Margins (ttm): 24.07% -2.78% 16.25% 4.81% 0.36% Net Income (ttm): 7.97B -6.51B 404.54M -992.00M 2.81M EPS (ttm): 1.280 -2.459 0.712 -1.992 0.10 P/E (ttm): 20.73 N/A 37.43 N/A 20.73 PEG (5 yr expected): 1.24 2.36 1.11 2.09 1.24 P/S (ttm): 4.21 0.61 4.65 0.34 1.29

ALU = Alcatel-Lucent

JNPR = Juniper Networks, Inc.

NT = Nortel Networks Corp.

Industry = Networking & Communication Devices

As oppose to Microsoft,

DIRECT COMPETITOR COMPARISON

	MSFT	GOOG	IBM	ORCL	Industry
Market Cap:	256.02B	178.09B	171.60B	115.70B	236.31M
Employ­ees:	79,000	19,156	386,558	74,674	185
Qtrly Rev Growth (yoy):	0.40%	41.50%	11.20%	21.20%	17.00%
Revenue (ttm):	57.95B	18.12B	101.26B	21.02B	106.42M
Gross Margin (ttm):	79.35%	59.76%	42.49%	77.17%	71.24%
EBITDA (ttm):	23.10B	6.51B	20.91B	8.66B	12.75M
Oper Margins (ttm):	36.77%	29.89%	15.41%	34.58%	1.01%
Net Income (ttm):	16.42B	4.51B	10.89B	5.09B	422.82K
EPS (ttm):	1.721	14.463	7.666	0.973	N/A
P/E (ttm):	15.97	39.20	16.30	23.08	22.06
PEG (5 yr expected):	1.28	1	1.33	1.23	1.25
P/S (ttm):	4.55	10.17	1.74	5.68	2.49

GOOG = Google Inc.

IBM = International Business Machines Corp.

ORCL = Oracle Corp.

Industry = Application Software

From my humble opinion, this can be an exhibits of the beauty of being low profile. It's not as if Cisco is a company which is seldom heard of, no, Cisco is a respectable company. But they don't publicly single-handed dictates the market. Sometimes, when you are eating the bigger share of pies, it's even more important for you to stay low and collaborate with the others. No doubt Microsoft will continue to drive a lot of competitors out of business, but that's also the price they need to pay for their big bully image.

Fragile Life

Not another post to talk about Earthquake. But it reflects another evidence that human is still out of wits when come to grappling with the fate. It doesn't matter you are the smartest of the world, the wealthiest, the strongest, or the prettiest. It just doesn't matter.

But some life do shine when it reaches its end, like the shooting star streak through the night. We hear numerous respectable individual, unnamed but astonished with their noble act in sacrificing themselves for the others. They are those you won't turn back for another look when walking past on the street.

Yet there are many just live a walking zombie life. They have the power, the money, they decide others life, but they only care about themselves. It's a shame.

Dark Energy

There is a hypothetical form of physics energy call dark energy. Against belief of majority scientist in the past century, the universal does not contract, but instead expand of the Big Bang. This give births to the necessity of another energy to act against the gravitational force.

Cosmological constant was a term first proposed by Einstein for the wrong reason, to keep the universal stay intact as we do not want to see the universal collapse by itself. Einstein then admitted this is the biggest blunder in his life later on. But universal has a most unexpected way in revealing its secret. Recent years of research once again support the existence of dark energy again.

Working in IBM

Finally it had been 2 weeks since i joined IBM. It's so much different from my previous jobs. Yes, i no longer worked purely in software. On one hand, i am happy to try out something new, on other hand, I afraid i might lost touch with the software development skill. After all, i had spent so many years in coding.

There are so much more to learn beyond .NET, java. And so far the people are being nice to me (at least for now). I am also glad to work alongside people with close to 20 years experience. Although it's challenging, but this is the one small step that can make me grow.

Then, not surprisingly, i also bumped into two old friends. One is the high school friend who hadn't contacted for 10 years. We have a nice good chat back in IBM plaza in One Utama. Another old friend treated me a lunch and we exchange life experience in all these years... time really flies

Right now, i am researching Unified Communication for MAS Airlines. Technology had really change our lifestyle, no exception to the enterprise, the whole industry ecosystem is so much different these days, and only the nimble and agile can weathered through all the challenges.

Downtown

I came across this song in "Lost" tv series, and thereafter did a quick wiki and get know about this song. I personally like it very much and like to share with the readers here.

Power of Stock Market

In less than a month, my stock investment portfolio turn red by a negative return of whopping 14%. I started trading in the midst of last year and make some decent gain of 10% by Dec 2007.

Counters like TopGlove and Tenaga eroded in values up to 50% and 40% each. The two counters alone almost offset all my gain last year. Therefore, some major mistakes can really cost hefty no matter how good you performed in the past. In some respect, this is a good lesson learn for me, you never considered in-money and the market can just wipe you out anytime if you did bad.

As a greenhorn, i really have so much to learn. :)

Victory of People

We gathered in front of the TV watching the election result. Initially the results were all about BN winning the seats, at one time it even reached a 30+ to 1 (opposition). I was thought this might be another landslide victory for the BN. But slowly the news of opposition victories started flowing in. Until to an extent that the official TV channel RTM no longer kept up (purposely?) with the latest news. We then switched to internet and it confirmed the opposition had denied the BN 2/3 majority.

I hope the BN will do some self-reflection and corrected their path. The country still need their leadership for a better tomorrow. What the people looking for is to have a clean government which will service for the people and take people welfare as the priority. BN had been clinging on power for too long and forgot their mandate is given by people. And now let's lobby everyone effort (both BN and opposition) and make sure our country can advance to next level, a whole new future.

Attended political speech

Yesterday night was the first time that i attended political speech. I now understood the thrill and adrenaline rush you will get from a good political speaker. No deny that opposition party has better position to attract the speakers especially when they spoke out the discontent of the public. Nevertheless Malaysia is an unique country, the sheer quantity of throng who attend the speech does not necessary reflect the real situation.

Notwithstanding this fact, for the wellness of the country, I hope all will come out and vote, vote for ourselves and our coming generation. Please ditch all dirty politicians and send them to "Holland"... (if you know Chinese, you know what that means)

Cultural Difference between Asian and American

Recently we have an American colleague come over to our office for business assignment. She is a nice girl, friendly and outspoken. We have exchanged short conversation and learned that she is now holding U.S. green card, but her home country is Poland. She also told us that she is going to apply US citizenship and yet retain as a Polish. To my surprise, Poland allow dual nationalities. Before this, I do not aware of there is any country which allow dual nationality.

Anyway, that's not the main point of this posting. I am going to talk about some thing which myself find quite interesting for the American. For some reason, those Malaysian Chinese i knew or Singaporean like to bring their foreign visitor out for meal in the Chinese restaurant. I guess that because the Chinese are quite proud of their cuisine. Every time, when someone from us ask the guest how do they feel about the food. The typical answer is "yeah, i love it" or kind of... Nevertheless I feel this is just a answer out of politeness, I have gut feel they may not really like it that much. This time I am happy to heard our visitor say this, "... not like i'm going to offend anyone, but I prefer Indian food more..." I really like her honesty, and confirm what I suspect all the while could be true. I still remember when i was overseas posting to USA (Washington to be exact), I found many Indian restaurants around, and I think they are quite popular among the local American. Is there someone from USA can confirm that they DO really like Indian food more than Chinese food? If it really is, why they feel so, is it because the flavor more suit to their taste?

Lastly, i just attached a Poland picture to commemorate my recent friend's visit.

Interpid Young (拳怕少壯、槍怕老辣)

Wonder that do you think 30's old is young? or only 20's old is considered young?

When i was still study in high school, i felt all working class people are old. Then when i started working, most the time i'm youngest in the team. Slowly, i become the senior in the company. Without knowing it, i suddenly realize i'm one of the eldest in the working place among my peer.

After i become older (hopefully wiser), can i still behave like a kid? If i rent, say Astro boy comic, will people look at me as one kind. Then i can't simply talk stupid things, else i lose my creditability. People will think i'm immature. And even i am really immature, i should not show it, i must conceal the fact, so people will show respect to me.

This is Asia, this is no America. Society is still very much hierarchical in nature. When you not conform to mainstream, you are the eccentric. However, most man has a boy live inside him... at least i think so for myself.

Self-denial

Human is inclined to find excuse for their mistakes. This is universally applicable to many people. I found this famous case:

According to Wikipedia, Mary Mallon (a.k.a. ‘Typhoid Mary’) managed to infect 47 people during the course of her career as a cook. Three of them died of the disease. Between 1900 and 1907, she infected two dozen people with typhoid fever. She worked in Mamaroneck, New York for less than two weeks when residents began to succumb. She moved to Manhattan in 1901 and members of the family where she was employed started to develop fever and diarrhoea. The laundress died. She then went to work for a lawyer and managed to infect seven out of a household of eight. In 1906 she moved to Long Island. Within two weeks, six out of eleven household members were hospitalized. She changed employment again and managed to infect three more families. Her fame “is in part due to her vehement denial of her own role in causing the disease, together with her refusal to cease working”.

Are you a Mary Mallon?

Smurf goes to big screen

This is nice. I remembered when i was still a kid, i very much enjoyed idling at front of the TV set during afternoon watching "smurf". although i knew no single words utter by these little blue creatures (i came from non english speaking family), i did find they are hilarious.

With Hollywood running short of ideas, Paramount green lit a computer animated movie based on the classic 80's cartoon series The Smurfs (Truth is smurf are actually 50 years old, having first appeared in the comic strip). The first image from this upcoming big screen computer animated adaptation in the Happy Smurfday Euro Tour, plan to coincide with the Smurf's 50th birthday. Some sneak photos can be found in MushroomVillage.

The greater fool theory

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each h and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 ! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each."

The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

How much it cost when you send a computer to repair?

It depends. For hong kong actor Edison Chen, it creates earthquake in the Chinese community. if you happen to be a member live in this Asia region, chances are you had tried to search for the sex scandal photos before or asking your fren about it.
But it can also cost a whopping $54 millions. this is the excerpt of the news from Slashdot:

"It happens to the best of us: you drop off your laptop at the local branch of some Super Mega Electronics McStore, go to pick it up, and they can't find it. Lost, gone, kaput — probably sucked into a black hole and now breeding with lost airline luggage. It would make any of us mad, but Raelyn Campbell of Washington, D.C. isn't just mad — she's $54 million mad. That's how much she is asking from Best Buy in a lawsuit that seeks 'fair compensation for replacement of the $1,100 computer and extended warranty, plus expenses related to identity theft protection.' Best Buy claims that Ms. Campbell was offered and collected $1,110.35 as well as a $500 gift card for her inconvenience. (I guess that extra 35 cents wasn't enough to sway her.) Her blog claims that Geek Squad employees spent three months telling her different stories about where her laptop might be before finally acknowledging that it had been lost. For those who follow economic trends, this means that a laptop's worth is roughly equivalent to that of a pair of pants."

so is that fear or greed?

sometimes i dunno is the market predictable?
ppl will tell control your emotion, be fear not and greed not. however, i wonder how do you justify fear not or greed not. recently i close a position, maybulk enter 3.84 and exit 3.88, however after come back from CNY it rise above 4.00

my decision making on the exit is to avoid risk during the long holiday in CNY, as i am not sure how the external factor like US recession etc will develop, thus such decision. well, my judgment end up against my profitability, is that call fear? i know not.

A fresh start (一年之計在於春)

at last CNY is "half" over... I just come back from Kelantan two days ago. For those who are not familiar with Malaysia, Kelantan is a rural state in M'sia. That's one way you can travel to the past, 60-70 era without science fi help. To be accurate, i went to my wife's hometown, a place called Tanah Merah. The place is so idle and time appear stand still. You can see cows wandering around at the road sides. But yet, there are also some nice houses. As the local do not have much to spend, some just use their saving to build big bungalow.

I think that's a place for you to condense yourself. well, its a bit boring too because i always like hustle and bustle of CNY, and i suppose CNY should be that way. However if you want to idle around, Tanah Merah can be an ideal place. Also, one thing i do enjoy most is the chilly night. You do not need turn on air con when you sleep. And birds chirping wake you up in the morning, you just hardly find this in the metropolitan.

Chinese New Year 2008 (新年新氣象)

This year is the year of rat. Chinese new year is one of the most celebrate festival for Chinese. I like it since i was a kid, because of the atmosphere, the noise and the reunion. Hope this year will bring a prosperous new year to everyone. And pray the bull can charge again for our beloved market.

btw, i will take a good darn break from blogging for the new year celebration. Gong Xi Fa Chai 恭喜發財 to everyone.

Groundhog day

How interesting! I just learn today is groundhog day in North America, a day where so-called prognosticating rodents (a.k.a. groundhogs) emerge from their burrows. Custom has it that, if they see their shadow, winter will continue for another 6 weeks; and if they do not, there will be an early spring. This year the US and the Canadian groundhogs differ. Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil thinks winter will continue (but that with Bush soon out, there’s hope yet) whereas Wiarton Willie quickly noted that Canada’s winter will soon be over and then high-tailed it to the closest pub.

Don't want to drive the 550 miles to Punxsutawney to see the actual Phil make his forecast? This being 2008, you can do it from the comfort of your laptop, using the live Webcam at the Punxsutawney Groundhog Zoo (groundhog.visitpa.co). Your choices include a crowd shot, a glimpse inside Punxsutawney Phil's lair ("from the stump"), and an expanded view of his palatial compound.