2010年7月10日
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Have to share this story.
Couldn't find a Swiss army knife after returning from Mexico City last Christmas. Anna said, did you check your backpack?
“No, but it can't be there becuase if it was, the airport security at Mexico City airport would have for sure caught it. Besides, didn't I go through secondary screening for additional security at the gate?”
So the knife remained missing for 2 more months.
The same backpack flew with me from San Francisco to Taipei in February.
Four days thereafter, when I was passing the security at Kaohsiung airport (BTW it's a TINY airport compare to Mexico City or San Francisco), I was stopped.
“Do you have a Swiss army knife in your backpack?”
“What? Are you sure?” I was in a mixture of joy, disbelief, embarrassment, and amusement.
Sure enough, the Swiss army knife was sleeping soundly in one of the hidden pockets in my backpack.
Wow, in America, we pay high tax dollars to deploy maximum airport security, with supposedly the most advanced technology. We even use that money to hire people at foreign airports to ensure flights coming to the US are safe. Yet, my clearly illegal, dangerous, and probably easily visible on-screen Swiss army knife was found at the tiny Kaohsiung airport.
I am amused and worried; I am speechless.
2010年6月7日
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Just wanted to update on Lei's Adventures that I posted several months back - she's made it to the top of the world!
She has become the first Chinese woman, as well as the first Asian American woman, to climb the highest mountain on every continent and to ski to both the North and South Poles (the “7+2”).
Congratulations!
I had an interesting and annoying dream a couple of days ago, in it the Chinese national football team made it to the World Cup, and for the 3 games they played in the group matches, they did 9:1, 1:0, and 0:0, advanced to the Round of 16 as first place in the group with 7 points.
I woke up, and (painfully) realized that it was just a dream. The Chinese national football team, just like any other time, didn't make it to the World Cup this year. Then I became annoyed that even North Korea, a country where people don't even get enough to eat, was able to advance to the World Cup. On the other hand, the Chinese players are national stars, make ridiculous amount of money, and some even play in the European leagues. I came to a conclusion based on this, that football is more than just money and star players; it's about team spirit, dicipline, and determination.
My fellow Chinese football players have none of those. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make it to the World Cup in the next 20 years.
2010年3月7日
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So guys, this is what I have been busy with in the last half a year.
http://www.gotinterns.comIt's a place where employers can post their internship openings, and university students can look for internships.
The website is publicly available and almost ready. We are now recruiting local small businesses and partnering with local universities. A lot of marketing and networking to do, tiresome, but extremely interesting.
2010年1月31日
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My coworker Sergey from Russia took his American citizenship oath on Thursday in the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
He said there were total of 1,243 people that day, from 103 different countries.
That's 1,243 individual stories, stories of people immigrated and struggled and survived in this country. Fascinating to think about it.
2009年12月22日
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2009年12月21日
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I've been entertaining business ideas for some time now. To my pleasant surprise, non-profit ideas start coming to me as well, which is what I eventually want to do.
Here are a few cool ideas that I ran into lately.
Yahoo News – "Manila trash becomes hot London fashion item"
This organization employs local women, turns rubbish that can be found in trash dump into fashion items such as handbags, sells them at a high price in London, and in turn funds the organization’s operation to offer jobs and hot meals to the local slum dwellers.
Another idea is Micro Financing, the most famous being
Kiva, where you can lend small amount of money, as little as $25, to an entrepreneur in (usually) a third world country, where they have little access to traditional lending. They can use the money to buy a cow, build a fence, etc.
I think this is a great way to combine charity and making people feel like Warren Buffet on a mircofinance scale.
Sadly, I found that Kiva does not cover China, where more than 300 million people live below the poverty line. My guess is that they might not want to deal with the Chinese regulations. Fortunately, I found out today that 2 American ladies covered this market via
http://wokai.org.
Lastly – and this is not an NPI but I think is really cool. This guy did a motorcycle trip from Romania to Mongolia, and he split the trip into 500-kilometer chunks, and sold each for 50 euros, which my friend bought. The buyer gets a story, a pebble, and photos. You can see his website at:
http://www.mongolia.ro/eng
2009年11月11日
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Another year
has passed by and it’s my birthday again. It’s been a challenging year but hey,
I survived and am still going strong.
A few
highlights of the year include went to a new country (Czech Republic), learned
windsurfing and motorcycling, and started my own company. More challenges,
traveling, and more importantly, funs are waiting for me in the coming year. I
am looking forward to it!
But what I
wanted to talk about today is about potentials.
I was at
dinner table with this girl Rosie and her newlywed husband Sergio from Peru.
Rosie mentioned that her mom has her parents’ 10th baby coming. The story
started from there and I learned that Rosie has been working for this
architecture design firm for 2 years after college, and she is 20 this year.
What?
Yes she went
to college at the age of 14 and graduated from it at 18, and Sergio graduated
from college at 19. They met in Peru when she was working there and they are
now happily married.
Rosie went
on to explain that because her parents are in the military and moved a lot
(from Kansas to Texas to California to Alabama and back to California and back
to Alabama), her mom always home schooled them. This way they not only saved a
lot of money, but more importantly a lot of time. At the age of 13, Rosie was
already studying calculus, many years earlier than normal kids in the United
States would do.
I would like
to stress here that I don’t think Rosie is the smartest person in the world.
She is very smart, no doubt about that, but I’ve met smarter. We both agreed
that her story shows that we are a lot more capable than we think we are, or
than the society defines we are. Same thing goes to Rosie’s mother. She is
having her 10th child, something deems almost impossible by most in America because
of cost. Yet she managed, and she and her husband are happy, and one of her
other kid is getting his PhD at the age of 22.
Talk about
our potentials and capabilities.
I am reading
about this Chinese lady Lei Wang, trying to be the first Chinese woman to conquer
the highest mountains in each of the 7 continents, as well as the North and South
Pole. Now she only has Mount Everest to climb next year. She says on her blog
that when she was 20, the longest distance she ever ran was 1000 meters. Now in
her mid 30s, she can easily keep her training at half or full marathon
intensity.
http://thegoldenpig.org/
The list
goes on, including Team Hoyt, the 68-year old father who pushes his disabled
son to complete marathons and Ironmans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Hoyt
Talk about
our true potentials and full capabilities.
2009年10月15日
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Sometimes I wonder if I wink too much in my regular emails and text messages. 
http://noematical.blogspot.com/2009/08/winkey-face.html
That aside, my friend and I have filed an application to form my first company. We are forming an LLC (Limited Liability Company). Let's see if the application goes through. I'll then tell you guys the name of the company (or maybe after we trademark it), and what it will be doing.
That aside, the coolest thing happened to me this month, I think, is that I figured out how to tether with my cell phone. That is, I am posting this blog right now on my laptop, from a high-speed train, connected to the internet through my cell phone and Bluetooth. It looks like this:
Laptop ==(Bluetooth)==> Cell Phone ==(Modem)==> Internet
The even cooler thing is, I hacked my cell phone to do it, so I am getting the Internet at zero cost to me.
2009年9月10日
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This is what I have been busy with since January till about the middle of last month.
http://www.nasttrade.com
I am off to do another project now. Will report here once it's ready to go. 
2009年7月23日
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I am, even myself unable to believe, in the property market like all those people.
Yeah, I know some of you reading it are as well.
To figure out how much house prices usually should cost, amid this madness, I did a quick search on the internet. I found this website. Let me just post here the figure I found most fascinating from it.
As you can see, in the United States, in the past 30 years or so, if we take out the inflation, is almost flat! That means, suppose today I have $100K in cash, and I use it to buy a house; 10 years later, if I sell the house, I am going to make the same amount of money, inflation adjusted. That is, if I put the $100K in a bank, and suppose the bank's interest rate is always packed with the inflation, I will make the same amount of money, as if I invest it in a house.
In the meantime, I will be paying property taxes and home owner association (HOA) fees. Of course, I would be paying for rent otherwise anyway, if I were to invest my $100K elsewhere. But, what if I can make better use of the $100K, say invest in my own small business or my life, and generate a much bigger return? Plus obviously I wouldn't be then tied down to one place.
Something to think about.
2009年7月11日
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I just had a bizarre idea two days ago. As some of you may know, my last name is a very Chinese one - Chen. I was thinking, hey, what if I name my kids “blah-blah de Chen”? That would serve two purpose:
1. It's fun an unique; probably no one else has attempted before.
2. Due to the meaning of “de”, any name becomes “blah-blah of Chen”. So let's say it's a boy and his name is Victor, then Victor de Chen could mean “Victory of Chen”. Pretty cool, isn't it?
2009年6月30日
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I've been reading 2 famous "self-help" kinda books. Now I can testify that they are famous for a reason. They (at least seem to) hold the truth, and make me think (which is not always good
). They are:
"
Who Moved My Cheese", which talks about changes in life, that changes are part of life. Suppose the cheese is something that makes you happy. If one day, your cheese is gone, instead of crying and yelling "it's not fair", you might be better off move your butt and look for new cheese.
"
How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie - I have been running into difficult situations dealing with people. A book that has been an international bestseller since 1935, well, it better hold some truth in what it says.
And I recently picked up this book, "
The 4-Hour Workweek", whose title attracted me. Yes,
YOU, YOU CAN, a computer programmer typing in London, or a journalist scripting in Bucharest, or a pilot in between shifts in Guangzhou, or a salesperson preparing gifts for clients in Nirobi, or a HUD specialist burying yourself in paperwork in San Francisco. You know I am talking about you.
Well, you must read it yourself to see if you agree and are willing to work hard to achieve it.
Somebody sent me 2 websites on how to prepare for interviews as programmers. Both of them are great. I can't help to share.
"
How to Get Hired - What CS Students Need to Know" by Dan Kegel.
"
The Five Essential Phone-Screen Questions" by Steve Yegge.
2009年5月29日
#
I never thought I would have a connection to Hilary Clinton, or better, Barak Obama. Well, I just learned today that my coworker Matt's wife, has a best friend whose name is Richard Verma, who was picked by Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary of State, working directly under Hilary Clinton.
So that's me -> Matt -> Richard -> Hilary/Barak.
Now you are only (at most) one degree more of separation away. Pretty cool, isn't it?