Knowledge/Action

Does Siri do Chinese?

2011-10-12T05:47:00.002-04:00

If Apple had neglected to review the possible meaning of "Siri" in Pinyin, then is it possible that Siri does not speak Mandarin? If that were the case, the Chinese speaking market would be sorely disappointed.

The "Jobs Touch" missing from Apple: The Chef's Dead. Long Live the Cook?

2011-10-12T03:05:00.011-04:00

On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had "learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought", and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009, to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who previously acted as CEO in Jobs's 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple,[133] with Jobs still involved with "major strategic decisions." [Wikipedia, accessed Oct. 12, 2011, 9:12 CET]

Could it be that on that day the "Jobs Touch" disappeared from the Apple menu and the great chef was replaced by a mere Cook? I offer two clues:

First, Siri in Pinyin could easily mean 'day of death' in Chinese. I wonder how Apple will deal with that marketing challenge. Would a healthy Jobs have overlooked the possible impression that the name would have on the superstitious Chinese-speakers and the predictable negative impact on the marketing in China? This is a population that would eat "facai" because it sounded like "fortuitous." It avoids "4" (si) because that sounds too much like "death" (si, different intonation). Sure, Apple could find some other Chinese characters in its Chinese marketing campaign. But, won't it have been better to check the technology's name in major languages in advance to avoid such problems?

Surely, Jobs's famous attention to details and to the non-technology aspects of products would have dealt with this. Many a post-announcement pundits have been trying to determine what Siri meant. I think that it came out of a Stanford Research Institute (SRI) effort and that would explain the S()ri. But, Apple could have renamed it easily.

Furthermore, to have introduced Siri with the death of Jobs is certainly a disaster. To many Chinese speakers, Siri may have boded the death of Jobs.

More troublesome is the focus on Siri. Is it a sign that function now is starting to trump form at Apple? The iPad 2 in 2010 and the iPhone 4s in 2011, the last two major upgrades, were both function-centric with little or no form changes to excite. In Jobs's days, we were joyously greeted with the Mac, the iPhone, the Macbook, Mac Air, the iPad, and the iPod generations. They all advanced both form and function. Where are the voices of the artistic innovators and designers at Apple? Did the new powers that be at Apple lose sight of that equally important side -- the aesthetic calligrapher in chief touch -- of the Jobs legacy over the past two years?

It is too early to tell, but two years is a long time in technology innovation. The chef is dead, long live the cook?

State of Our Union

2011-09-22T02:48:00.002-04:00

Principle that has outlived the facts that it's founded on becomes intransigence. Value that has outlived the foundation it's built on becomes immorality. Nation that has outlived the principles and values its founded on becomes irrelevant. Conserving principles and values which have outlived their relevancy is idiocy.

We need leaders who move us forward and not anthropoid political stakes-in-the-ground to prevent us from moving.

Low Cost and Quick Installation of Temporary Roof for Authur Ashe Stadium?

2011-09-07T11:32:00.007-04:00

Sitting here watching another rain delay at the US Open with TV talking heads complaining about the lack of a roof and the difficulties associated with adding a roof. I wondered why nobody had ever thought about simply putting up a tethered roof of light weight, transparent sheeting pulled up by a (or more) hot air balloon? The balloon would be tethered to the stadium itself and the tether lines could be used to hold up the sheeting.

The first company to offer this product/service could make lots of money from all those events to be held in open fields all around the world.

Radioshack USB Power Splitter: Beware

2011-09-04T12:27:00.006-04:00

This cable is too smart for its purpose. Instead of simply using 4-wire cabling to connect the single male plug to two female sockets, it uses only the red and black power cables. And, then, it adds electronics to keep the data (white and green wires) pins of the female sockets at some predetermined voltage. Thus, it uses and wastes power even when nothing is plugged into its sockets and my battery powered sources become depleted over time. Some of my devices actually stopped charging even when a 4-wire splitter would work just fine.

To make matters worse, it's way too expensive at almost $15. The hefty price is presumably due to its "smart electronics". In any case, devices that expect to use USB chargers would expect the data wires to be simply shorted together.

First Step In Deficit Cutting: No New Tax Cuts and Credits and No Renewals

2011-08-06T10:00:00.004-04:00

If we had learned anything at all from the recent deficit-cutting and depression-avoiding "debates", it would be that most people could not see what did not happen, but could have happened. They could not see what is not there but could have been there. At least, that was what many pundits have claimed, and it seemed to hold true.

Thus, most folks fail to see tax-cuts as expenditures. If we wish to encourage home ownership, then give mortgages a tax break. If we wish to encourage renewable energy development, then give hybrid and electric car buyers a tax credit.

Why not treat the incentives as expenditures? It would be more difficult for Congress to approve for precisely the right reasons, that they would be seen as spending tax money. It would be much easier to remove, for Congress would be seen as cutting deficit.

As for the depression? We did avoid it, but most folks won't know that. Although the recession is still with us, it is fairly stable. But, if we do not increase revenue soon, we could be heading into a second Great Recession and perhaps another Great Depression. Most economists could see that possibility.

The economists at the rating agencies have already indicated their concern. S&P has now reduced the US debt instruments from AAA to AA+. Those who fought against raising revenue will be spending more to do business. Whether it's to buy a house or to buy business supplies, their cost of borrowing will be higher. But, then, they won't see that happening until it has already happened to them.

Obama: Go For Entitlement Reform And Revenue Increase

2011-07-07T08:31:00.002-04:00

Peter F. Drucker has one key question for the effective executive: How may I contribute to your success? I believe that Obama has decided that an extremely successful one-term based on answering that question is better than a failed two-term. If he leads the Dems to a cut to entitlement, as is rumored, and wins GOP support for revenue increase, he will be a most successful president. He may even win re-election.

Rare earth recycling must be part of our sustainability solution

2011-05-12T10:29:00.000-04:00

In response to the recent Freakonomics article, The Rare Earth Conundrum:

Levitt missed one critical point. Even if China were to cut off our rare earth supply, the cars already on the road will still run. Old batteries — including those from all the cell phones, computers, tablets, etc. — could be still be recycled to extract rare earth. In other words, the total potential storage capacity from the rare earth that we already have will not diminish but will accumulate over time. If the recycling technology is yet not mature today, its development would be a gold mine to be explored. A complete sustainability solution should include the recycling of rare earth elements.

Do It Yourselfers, watch out for TSA (Terminally Stupid Administrators)

2011-03-29T17:21:00.006-04:00

If you are a DIY'er, you may wish to check in your items, or you risk spending more than one hour with 15 TSA employees. I don't mind it when it's done with some intelligence. But, when the EWR Elite Access TSA security staff told me that my Toyota Prius car key has to be checked in and could not be carried pass the security checkpoint, it made me feel less secure. And, it was a waste of my time and tax money.

Their rationale? It has a button that could remotely activate something. I pointed out that all new car keys do that. When security is carried too far, it's stupidity that shifts energy and attention away from the truly dangerous security threats. It also shows lack of training and poor judgement.

Less stupid, but still a waste of time is the kind of items considered to be "modified." These are not allowed through. An extension cord with a switch? Modified. Shortened USB cables? modified. Radio Shack AA battery holders? Modified. In fact, anything that has been repaired would be considered "modified".

The Cheap DIY Charger for iPod (http://knowledgeaction.blogspot.com/2006/08/tech-tip-cheap-diy-charger-for-ipod.html) was designed and built, but it was not purchased and so .... You guessed it, it's "modified."

Letter/A4 Sized iPad?

2011-03-24T07:20:00.003-04:00

I have been saying for awhile that Apple will have no choice but to come up with an A5 sized iPad/Touch. Now, with the new iPad 2 having been trimmed down in weight and thickness, it occurred to me that it portends a letter/A4 sized iPad. The current iPad users will start to find its current size to be too confining. The engineering that makes for the lighter weight and thinner iPad 2 would make the larger iPad a natural extension. The current iPad is designed to be used two-handed or to be placed on the desktop or laptop. It could be used on the go in a cradled manner. Either way, a larger sized iPad would offer more real estate without losing portability.

Concentrate sea water to brine for snow removal

2011-02-08T15:19:00.004-05:00

Why not place sea water stils near oceans to concentrate and store brine in the summer and other sunny days for snow removal in the winter, see http://knowledgeaction.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-not-remove-snow-in-nyc-and-nj-using.html. The concentrated brine could be distributed more readily via tanker trucks. The stils should be in solid black to trap sunlight energy. Using conical covers would direct the steam for water recovery. The heat and pressure would kill any microorganisms and the steam could be used to generate electricity. Finally, the recovered water could be used to maintain greener parks and lawns.

Why not remove snow in NYC and NJ using sea water?

2011-02-08T14:27:00.005-05:00

I am surprised that communities such as NYC and Summit and Millburn of NJ would consider using "brine machines" for snow removal. Whether the machines use salt from the salt mines or made from the sea, there is an environmental cost in transportation and manufacturing. They also use fresh water from the water supply or from wasting energy in melting the snow. Either way, it would be a waste. These communities are close enough to the Atlantic and its ample saline sea water. Why not simply transport sea water a short distance to use for melting snow on the roads? Sea water would flow back into the ocean via the sewers and would result in no additional environmental impact.

In the longer term, why not create a sea water piping systems to distribute sea water for snow removal purposes? It would save petroleum wasted on the snow removal machines and reduce the pollution they create.

Pocket eDGe Dualbook Update

2011-01-07T18:15:00.003-05:00

Now that I'd used the Dualbook for a few weeks, I have encountered some things that need improvement.

1) The Reader handles image-based PDF files poorly. It is practically not usable because I could not zoom to details and could not scroll by dragging with the stylus as I could do on the Tablet. It works reasonably well with flow-able text documents but user friendly it is not.
2) The Tablet handles PDF files nicely. However, I could not find a way to set the "PDF to Go" as the default when launching a PDF file. I could only press the stylus/finger for a second or so and wait for the options wheel to show and then choose "Open in Tablet." It is a tedious process.
3) When I use the Library to select and save files from a USB stick, the files appear in the Library index. However, the files are not to be found in "Storage" or in "ES File Explorer".

Android 1.6 cripples the device as a media delivery platform. YouTube did not work initially, but is now fixed. However, most Flash based browser content is out of reach. I would not recommend this device to family and friends unless Entourage upgrades the Android version.

iPad Strategy?

2010-12-12T06:21:00.002-05:00

I believe that Apple came out with the iPad as it did for two reasons. First, it sensed from the iPod Touch the emergence of a market for a tablet and wanted to be the first mover. Second, it knew that those who love all things Apple will pay the premium and will love it even if it were a bit unwieldy.

Apple's business model for the iPad is a bit like that of a pharmaceutical firm. Just as a pharmaceutical firm would charge a premium for prescription drugs and their customers must buy, Apple lovers must have the iPad. Being the first mover, it had captured the lion's share of the tablet market as anticipated. The premium cost of the iPad allows Apple to maximize profit. And, just as the pharmaceutical firm eventually would have to switch to generics with lower margins and capture additional profit, Apple would have to introduce a more generic 7" form factor iPad with camera(s) in order to compete with the Android tablets.

Pocket eDGe Dualbook

2010-12-12T06:11:00.002-05:00

After spending 5 days with the DualbookJr, I found its tablet quite usable even if it's only Android 1.6. Its reader is clunky -- a far cry from the Kindle 2 or 3 -- for paging and zooming. ePub is fine. PDF is unusable on the reader but works great on the tablet. The reader's saving grace are its tablet integration and touch screen.

I won't be disappointed if iPad 2 would have the form factor of the DualbookJr. At 7.5"x11"x.5' unfolded and 7.5"x5.5"x1" folded and 1.35lbs, the DualbookJr is quite mobile. Such an iPad 2 would be much easier to hold and type when folded. Apple could integrate the two halves even better.

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The Pocket eDGe is an interesting little device. This photo shows the bottom with the stylus on the lower left. Starting the setup is easy. WiFi selection and entering key using the soft keyboard was intuitive. Very light. It is being charged.

Flipping the folded eDGe over and we are looking at the e-reader. The hinge contains the speakers. It looks clunky but it is not. In fact so far I am delighted by its feel.

The e-reader folds over completely! The Tablet side is shown here.

On the left is the e-reader using e-ink with a camera, mic, and speakers. The Android tablet is on the right. Nice and bright screen. I think it's meant for 16x9 video form factor.

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The first thing I'd noticed after the update and set up is that the e-reader itself has a touch sensitive interface! The second thing that really impressed me is that the reader and the tablet are integrated to work together.

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Android is V 1.6. Sigh....
No Hulu on Andoid?!
No Netflix on Android?!

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Am not a very fast. thumb typist. Not too difficult. I suppose. Stylus works better for me.

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FB for Android is much easier to use than using the iPod Touch. The Dualbook works exactly like my KindleTouch, but better. An A5 notebook cover with face-to-face iPod Touch & Kindle, my wife calls it my Touchkin.

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The Pocketedge Dualbook is well integrated. I could capture Web page to either epub or image and read it on the reader. Snapshot of reader page shows on tablet.

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Perhaps foreshadowing the Android-based Kindle 4 that I'd predicted earlier?

Chinese: Pinyin Empowers the Chinese Language

2010-10-28T04:23:00.004-04:00

The most powerful feature and the biggest problem, simultaneously, for the Chinese language is the lack of association between sounds and characters. It is powerful because the Koreans, the Japanese, and the Vietnamese were, once upon a time, able to use the Chinese characters and pronounce them their own way. More importantly, people who spoke any of the hundreds of dialects, even the most radically different ones, could communicate in written form but pronouce it in their own way. The written language was what helped unite China millennia ago. Now, let us review the problem.

How do you know how to write what you say or think? There is only one way and it is pure memorization. In most Western languages one needs to memorized the alphabets, but not Chinese. Thus, if one is searching a traditional Chinese dictionary for a word/phrase one must first know how to write it and then know how to search using pen strokes. But, one searches a dictionary often because one has no idea how to write a character. Thus, it created a circular process that would drive anyone insane.

For example, we dined a few nights ago at the home of an eminent Chinese philosophy professor and scholar. Then, one of the lovely Chinese ladies around the table wondered how the Chinese word for "scoop" is written. They or their families were all from Northern China near Beijing so the word was likely a regional one. Now, a professor of Chinese philosophy, one may expect, would have many Chinese dictionaries. And, he did, but we could not find the word. So, I said I will find it once I were home. I have pinyin installed on my computer, so I typed in the sound of the word. Based on the choices offered, I found the word in a matter of minutes (擓- kuai3).

In any case, someone tried to create alphabets similar to those used in Japan. But, it proved somewhat cumbersome to use and special typewriters or typing conventions have to be used. On the other hand, in their goal to make Chinese more easy to learn and to be used by people, the PRC created the Pinyin system that maps sounds to a variation of the English alphabet. Whether it was the intention or not at the time of its creation, this act allowed for digital technology developed mainly for English to be used.

As a result, one could now type on the QWERY keyboard and use Microsoft Pinyin to write in Chinese. Pattern recognition technologies developed for voice recognition could be applied to simplify the Chinese writing process. Pinyin thusly empowers the Chinese language by allowing it to exploit the potential benefits of digital technology.

Chinese: Simplify Characters Complicate Comprehension

2010-10-28T03:45:00.002-04:00

When the PRC decided to "simplify" written Chinese, they often made it more complicated and inefficient instead. By merging many characters, each multiple character word/phrase could take on many times more unrelated meanings. Thus, the writer may have an easier task, but the reader's brain must do more work. A writer usually writes once, but for many readers.

There is information in vision, and perception differs between vision and hearing. The Chinese language is based on visual comprehension of what are essentially pictorial representations of meanings. By merging characters that sound the same in Mandarin, they have merged many meanings into each character and at the same time discarded much of the visual information.

To illustrate this point, write something lengthy in Chinese characters and the same in pīnyīn. Then, give each to a separate group of people. Test them on comprehension after a short interval. I would expect, after normalizing for other influencing factors, that the characters group would do better. While the difference between traditional and simplified Chinese may not be as great, I expect there to be a difference as well. One way to test this would be to have some highly complex in meaning but concisely written text in both traditional and simplified form and give each to separate groups. I expect to see a difference in comprehension after normalizing.

Squeezing The Last Bit of Power From Alkaline Batteries

2010-10-25T13:58:00.004-04:00

I have previously published a detailed how-to for a DIY all purpose handheld devices charger, see DIY Charger for Kindle 2 and Kindle 1, Ipods, Bla... and Tech Tip: Cheap DIY Charger for iPod + commented update.

All it takes is a bit of elbow grease, a soldering tool, and a few dollars of Radio Shack parts. The AA batteries were rechargeable and I charge them with solar energy on sunny days.

But finding out which AA battery has run low was too time consuming. So I replaced 3 of them with a Li-ion battery one would find powering most notebooks. This way, I only need to replace the AA NiMH when the unit runs low and recharge the Li-ion if the unit is still low. Then I noticed my son's spent alkaline AA batteries scattered around and decided to wring them dry first. After all, it take energy and creates pollution to manufacture and to dispose of them.

The mini-USB cable is used to charge most of our cell phones. The short white cable is used to charge my Kindle 3G and Kindle 2. The modified Apple cable is for the iPods/iPhones. I hate long cables so I chop them short and resolder them. The Apple cable broke on the USB end so I replaced it with the plug from another USB cable.

Kindle 3G Roaming and Other Matters

2010-10-22T17:38:00.002-04:00

From my Facebook ramblings to friends.

Oct. 22, 2010

One reason that I purchased a Kindle 2 and then a Kindle 3g is the A5 form factor. It's why I believe that Apple will have to come out with a 7" Touch/iPad. Now, the Palm PDA inventors carried a wooden mock-up in their pockets to determine its physical usability and were wildly successful after others had failed. So, I walked around with the Kindle 3 in my pants and shorts pocket for months. Try that with the iPad!

Oct. 21, 2010

Kindle roaming 3G access is $0. "AT&T charges $25 per month for a mere 20MB of data and $200 per month for 200MB for international roaming (even in Canada). And if you don't use that data allotment within 30 days, you lose the remaining data." [PC World] I don't stream anything to the Kindle, but I do banking, email..., Facebook, news surfing, Wikipedia searching, and Googling. All free on the Kindle!

Oct. 14, 2010

Arrived Zurich. Kindle only Web access. Bit clumsy but it`s free! 3G.

I understand what Amazon meant when classifying the Kindle Browser as "Experimental." It has a tendency to hang the Kindle. Useful and free, but not very dependable.

Aging Eyes and Wrong Lens Design

2010-10-12T08:16:00.004-04:00

For those of us who are extremely near-sighted with aging eyes, we could wear progressive lenses. But that does not solve the problem with heavy lenses with very thick edges. The main area is for myopia (thicker) and progress toward the bottom for reading (thinner). Instead, why not make the main lens area for reading and progress to the forward looking area for distance?

New Facebook security function should be added

2010-09-02T12:28:00.003-04:00

A new security function should be added by Facebook in consideration of the dangers described in my previous post:

Dangers of the pervasive use of the Facebook "Like....

Facebook should offer its users the option to remove information from friends that come from a particular Web address (URL). This function exists for messages from Facebook apps and would be useful to help users eliminate "Like" overload.

Dangers of the pervasive use of the Facebook "Like" Button

2010-08-31T17:26:00.006-04:00

A dangerous spam or viral attack can stem from using the "Like" button on Web pages. We normally would not click on just any Web site that we encounter when we browse the Internet. However, we are tempted to click on something supposedly liked by a Facebook friend. But, if we do click on such Facebook links, we may be in for a rude surprise.

This attack is predicated on two prongs. The first is ease-of-use and the second is social engineering.

Unlike updating status or sharing one's thoughts -- actions that would take time, effort, and consideration -- clicking takes no effort. Consider opening your FB news and seeing nothing but these "Like" messages. It's a new form of attack that one could not ignore or hide unless one hides one's Facebook friends. Thus, this could be considered a variation of the denial-of-services attack.

Social engineering is also used to tempt and so to entrap FB users. The site typically has a religious tone or a cheap come-on. If you love Jesus, please click on the "Like" button. Or, if you want to get a free iPad please click on the "Like" button.

The end result is that a viral payload may be on these Web pages waiting to entrap anyone who clicks on the "if you like this ... please click" links from your FB friends that show up on your Facebook news feeds page.

Kindle WiFi

2010-08-31T10:39:00.007-04:00

UPS tracking showed "Out for delivery" at 03:30 in the dark hours, but delivery was not made until 17:00. It took UPS 13.5 hours for the 16-mile delivery. But, it was well worth the wait. I took two photos with my BB Pearl despite its lousy resolution. I simply could not wait to use a better camera.

The Kindle WiFi (K3) and the Kindle 2 (K2) are shown here on my homemade cover. K3 occupies the side where I have my iPod Touch. It should come in handy for dual-column PDF reading.

Setting up the WiFi was easy. And, the new browser is so much more user friendly and the WiFi update is as fast as my netbook. Both PDF files and browser displays have the same zoom and pan functions. The difference between native PDF and Webkit browser and the K2's PDF and browser is like night and day. The b/w graphics are nice and crisp. Well enough to obviate the need for my iPod Touch.

Shown side-by side here in the lower photo. The new high contrast e-Ink display's text rivals (may even be superior to) the paperback (not shown) that I used as my benchmark. PDF handling is noticeably faster than that on the K2.

Kindle 3 displays Chinese well, something that was missing in K2 (unless I jailbreak it to work with Unicode). I set up the browser to view Google and BBC news in Chinese and the Chinese language World Journal. I believe it would only be a matter of time before Kindle books in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean would become available in order to meet consumer needs. Most likely, Baidu may start to offer *.prc or *.mobi versions of Chinese books first, because the potential Chinese market would be huge. Amazon would be well advised to start offering *.azw versions of Chinese and other character-based Asian language books.

Browsing the Web on the 6" b/w is quite nice when compared to the 3.5" Touch. Trade off is between size/cost and color/multitouch. For meeting my needs, I prefer to use the K3 to using the Touch, because I don't really lookmuch at photos or colored graphics. I could always use the Touch to view photos and graphs when needed.

China and its resurgence, 天高皇帝遠*

2010-08-26T12:56:00.006-04:00

China always had attempted to close itself from external forces, but would fail and thrive from past creative destructions, its dynastic changes. Although others tend to think of China as a powerful monolith, it is in reality a frail union of parts held together by a weak centripetal force that diminishes with distance from its center. Deng and his successors understood this and allowed the economic creative destruction to take place.

It never learned to manage the external forces without suffering violence and disruption -- until Deng. However, unlike the previous cycles of creative destruction, the post-industrial era disruption had lasted for more than a century. Now, that creative destruction pattern is once again apparent but in a fairly peaceful managed process. On the other hand, Japan, isolated physically, had not gone through much creative destruction but did manage the industrial creative destruction in an exemplary manner through the Meiji Restoration. It also benefited by its WWII defeat. Presumably, the Chinese leadership had benefited from the Japanese experience.

China should continue to keep in mind the limitations of its centripetal force if it were to continue its so far successfully creative destruction process.

* 天高皇帝遠 Heaven is high and the emperor is far away. Forces exerted by the center diminishes with distance.

Japan needs a new kind of Kamikaze

2010-08-26T12:03:00.005-04:00

For tens of centuries Japan thrived as a closed society, protected by the sea from the creative destroyers of China, who would benefit from the cultural pollination by the nomadic invaders. Now, the creative destroyers of China are not ethnic but economic. Japan's WWII destructive creation has run its course and it could benefit from the powerful new Kamikaze force of women, youth, and immigrants.

While the Sea of Japan and its Kamikaze had protected Japan from China, it lived in China's shadow. Globalization has removed the physical protection offered by the Sea of Japan, and Japan is again faced with a resurgent China. More than a century ago, when both were faced with the creative destroyers of industrialized nations, China resisted by attempting to close itself but failed and that failure resulted in more than a century of humiliation and destruction. Whereas, Japan took a wiser route of the Meiji Restoration by welcoming the destroyers and redirecting the forces in a creative way. Are the current Japanese leaders wise enough to take that plunge? Could it challenge and overcome the current self-preserving, self-serving Shogunate of the corporate bosses? If it does not, Japan will live another tens of centuries in China's shadow.

Thoughts on the recent economic eclipse, based on the Economist's article "Japan as number three: Watching China whizz by." Accessed on August 26, 2010 from The Economist at http://www.economist.com/node/16847828?story_id=16847828&fsrc=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+economist%2Ffull_print_edition+%28The+Economist%3A+Full+print+edition%29.

Chinese petroleum (中国石油) moment:, 1985, 大庆: 朱杰 Seminar on thermal recovery simulation attended by 刘文章, et al

2010-08-19T03:19:00.002-04:00

After the 1982 seminar in Beijing, Dad was invited to give another seminar. This time it would be in 大庆 and he was invited by 刘文章,

Chinese petroleum (中国石油) moment:, 1982, Beijing: 朱杰 Seminar on thermal recovery simulation attended by 秦同洛，刘文章, et al

2010-08-19T02:27:00.010-04:00

Just three short years after Premier Deng Xiaoping's historic 1979 visit to the US, American scientists and engineers were invited to visit China as part of that countries Four Modernizations effort. Among the visiting experts was my father, Chieh (Jay) Chu, 朱杰, a leading expert in thermal recovery technology. I found the seminar presentation and notes in Dad's archives. The actual presentation is much too esoteric for this blog. However, the correspondence between Dad and 秦同洛, and the roster of attendees could be of historic significance. One participant, 刘文章, later hosted Dad's visit in 1985 to 大庆油田.

Dad went on to be named a Texaco (which acquired Getty and merged with Chevron) Fellow. 秦同洛 and 刘文章 went on to lead China's petroleum industry to overcome many challenges. Dad passed away in 2003 and 秦同洛 had passed away in 2000.

Wikileaks: Asymmetric Information Leads to Unequal Justice

2010-08-15T14:06:00.007-04:00

Wikileaks states that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations."[1][15][*]

However, as Wikileaks grows it has shown one major flaw in its execution. It had apparently come into existence to meet the stated goal, exposing oppressive regimes, in the short term and within limited scope. Its builders had operated within the confined environments of such oppressive regimes, did not have the opportunity to review its information management architecture to ensure that it would achieve its goal in the longer term. As a result there exists a counterproductive flaw.

Consider the nature of oppressive regimes. In those regimes, the opportunity to have access to information would be limited and the risks of death and other great punishments for exposing information are great. In the less oppressive regimes, the opportunities are greater while the risks are lesser. As a consequence, when risks are minimal as balanced against benefits from self-interest or self-glorification, information with unforeseeable consequences could be exposed.

Thus, there is an inherent information asymmetry to Wikileaks that would enable the oppressive regimes in their struggles against the more humane, more open societies. Therefore, the help that the dissenters who created Wikileaks have been seeking to counter oppression would be severely hampered by the actions of the disgruntled in the more open societies. In fact, it is not impossible for Wikileaks to expose the dissidents in the oppressive regimes and subject them to further oppression. Wikileaks is therefore in danger of becoming a tool for administering unequal justice.

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* "Wikileaks". From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Accessed on August 15, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks
1 "Wikileaks:About". Wikileaks. Archived from the original on 14 March 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080314204422/http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:About. Retrieved 3 June 2009.
15 ^ "Cyber-dissidents launch WikiLeaks, a site for whistleblowers". South China Morning Post. 11 January 2007. Archived from the original on 12 February 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070221224039/http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-eastasia.asp?parentid=60857. Retrieved 28 February 2008.

Maestro Mel North (link to Facebook): A Short Resume

2010-08-07T19:08:00.001-04:00

Maestro Mel North

Association Mondiale des Academies d’Armes Nationale: Maitre d’Armes (AAI)
Chef de La Commission Termes d’Escrime-AAI
United States Fencing Coaches Association: Fencing Master
British Academy of Fencing: Professor
Racing Club du France, member, Master.
Fencing Master of the former National Fencing Coaches Association of America, AFLA, and the present USFA… American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Fellow Helms Athletic Association. Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame…

Mel Robert North,
Was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, He began his fencing career at the age of ten at a Community Center on the West Side in Chicago. A swimmer with the Billy Rose Aqua-Cades from the age of three, he was declared a professional athlete after winning the major Foil Open in Chicago, at the age of thirteen, and was not allowed to continue as an Amateur fencer in the AFLA.
His love for “his sport” overcame the disappointment of his broken dream to make an Olympic team. He continued to study fencing because of his love of the game. He studied voice at Kimball Hall with Alexander Nakutin. He performed in several Operas and Musicals. An Experience that served him well later in his career.

North was Captain of his High School fencing team. Coach Jack Levine. And then of the University of Chicago fencing team under Maestro Alvar Hermanson.

He went on to become the Head Fencing Coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1960-1974, and then again to complete a tenure of 22 years. His Club, Salle de Nord became one of the Country’s premiers fencing clubs, ranked alongside of Santelli, the NYAC, and NYFC. SdeN became a Sister Club of the Racing Club du France.
His UCLA teams were virtually undefeated: 19 Individual and team Championships, posting 362 wins, 18 losses, and 174 consecutive wins! His high school students won 14 High School Championships and many medals…
Head Foil Coach, U.S. Team, World Championships, Cuba, 1969
Coach, U.S. Olympic Training Center, Colorado Springs, Co, 1979, 1980, again in 2007-2008…Coach, World Championships, Montreal, Canada, 1967
Coach, U.S. Epee Team… Martini- Rossi Challenge, England, 1978
Coach Saudi Arabian World University Games Teams, 1978
United States Coach-Consultant to Japanese Olympic team, 1968
Also Coach-Consultant to the Korean Olympic team, 1968
Coach/Manager to US Professional Team, Professional World Championships, 1970, England. The United States won.
Coach, Martini-Rossi Challenge Team, 1979
Head Coach, Under 20 World Teams, Rotterdam, 1965
Coach of Junior and Senior World and Olympic, and University World games.
First professional to be appointed to the United states Commission of Fencing Rules and Officials…1972-1984 (Chaba Pallagy, Chair)
Director of the United States Olympic Fencing Camp on the West Coast, 1964
Director of the Junior Olympic Training Programs on the West Coast, 1964
Past president, Western Intercollegiate Fencing conference, Men
Past President, Western Intercollegiate Fencing Association, Women
Chairman, Western Intercollegiate Fencing Conference Rules Committee
Created The UCLA Invitational. The largest Fencing event in the Country…
Hosted the National Championships at UCLA, Southern California Division
Created the California High School Championships in Southern California
Fencing Consultant, Choreographer, UCLA Opera work shop, 10 years
Television Commercial fencing Consultant, CBS, VPS, KTTV
Fencing Master, 20th Century Fox Studios, Universal Studios, Four Star Productions.
Fencing Master, University of Denver, Master of fine Arts Program
Consultant and Lecturer, University of Colorado, Fort Collins, Co
Fencing Master, Metropolitan College, Denver, Co
Fencing Master, Lycee Francais de Los Angeles
Chair of the Nevada Division of Fencing, 1998-1999, 2007 through 2009

A BACKGROUND OF STUDY

A fencing professional for more than 50 years, In addition to training with Ralph Faulkner, Joseph Vince and Aldo Nadi in California He has studied under the watchful eyes of some of the finest Masters in Europe and the former USSR. Maitres Gourge, Nole, Genin, Donnendieu, Pardo and the great Michael Pecheux at The Racing Club of France and The INS.( National Sports Institute) Beke and Zabo of Hungary, Jean Von DerVoot, Netherlands, Chaikowiski of Poland, Laitmon, Urolov, of the Soviet Union, Aldo Nadi, and in 1990-91 and 1992 with Victor Bykov at the Olympic Camp in the Ukraine. Eight time World Teams Coach. 5 time coach for the Martini Rossi Challenges.
North had amassed a record in the 1960-1980 eras unequaled by any American born Fencing Master. He has produced many Divisional, Regional, National Champions and several International Champions. Students have been on over 60 World teams, 8 Olympic Teams, 5 Pan Am Teams, 37 World Cups, World University games. 5 Maccabiah Teams.

SOME STUDENT ACOMPLISHMENTS OF MAITRE NORTH
Aside from the many Individual and Team Divisional, and Regional Championships, Individual National Championships were won and his teams medaled 11 times in the National Championships. With more than thirty finalists…His students were Pacific Coast Champions in Foil, Epee, Sabre and women’s Foil, wining the overall hi-point trophy six years in a row! Returning to California, he trained Margo Miller, who won The Gold in Foil at the PCC’s

On the International scene, his students won individual Gold and Silver medals in the Maccabiah Games. Carl Borack, United States Senior Foil Champion, and winner of three Junior Championships in Foil, Epee and Sabre, won the Individual Sabre, fourth in Foil in the Maccabiah games. Joe Elliott, 1965 National Epee Champion received a Gold medal on the Epee Team. Carl Borack won three Individual Gold medals in Foil in the Pan Am Games, Elaine Cheris won the Silver in Women’s Foil in the Maccabiah Games Peter Schifrin, won Gold in the Junior National Championships in Epee and Silver in foil. Elly Butyl (originally from Holland, Jean Von Der Voots’ protégé) placed 4th place in women’s Foil in the World Championships, Borack, Cheris and Ken Morgariedge captured 6 Terres des Hommes, Canadian Championships. Barry Tompkins won five Gold medals in Modern Penthalon World Cups…Jim White was ninth in the Professional world Championships, Epee. Leonard Arron placed sixteenth in epee in the U-20 World Championships in Rotterdam, 1965. Donald Benge won the Mexican National Epee Championships. Abbey Silverstone won the Canadian National Epee Championships.
North suggested and formed, with Raoul Sudre, the United States Professional World Championship Team, and later was appointed Coach and Manager of that Team...The Team won the World Championships in London in 1972.
At the Nationals in New York, North was commissioned by the Japanese, to supplement the Training of Japanese fencer, Takauchi...who subsequently won that U.S. National Women's Foil Championship.

Maestro North has produced a composite of many Divisional, Regional, National, and some International Champions, and medal winners, that the Salle de Nord Alumni list reads like a Who's Who list of modern American Fencing. And, most recently in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, Barry Tompkins of Canada, won five Gold and two Silver medals in the Pentathlon World Cups. Bronze in Pan Am Games, Mexican National Pentathlon Championships, and more.

Nestor Rosario, National Foil Champion, a long time protégé, trained as a master by Mel North, formed several Clubs in Mexico…His Juniors, in 2003 won the Epee Team event and repeated in 2004. In 2005 his juniors won the Individual Foil, Individual and Epee Team Junior National Championships…
Nestor returned to competition, winning the Gold in the Mexican Veteran’s Open Championships… Foil, Epee, and Sabre.
Jo Redmon, trained with North, and fenced for Salle de Nord, was the successful Head Coach at Cal State Long Beach. Most of the Collegiate Coaches in Southern California were trained by Mel North: Jim White, Jo Redmon, Randy Mc Kenzie, Kim Ortega, Stewart Lee, Hasan Ali, J.L.Jackson, Peter Schifrin( San Jose), Eric Pommer, Ken Morgariedge( UCLA)…

In 1999, Mel North's new fencers dominated the Nevada Division's Championships: Michelle Brinlee winning the Women's Epee. In 2000, Michelle, then 14, won the Foil, Epee, and the Sabre Senior Championships. Kimberley Montoya, was another star ascending...Being a constant medalist and ranked 4th in the Country in Youth 14 Epee… Kian Ameli, ranked 2nd in the United States, in the Youth 10 epee, won the Gold in Sarasota New York in February, 2002. His sister, then eight year old Nicole Ameli was 12th in youth 10 Epee. Then won the Gold. Continuing under the guidance of North, both Kian and Nichole have medaled 19 times each, winning gold most of the time and had ranked first in the United States in their respective age groups.
Mel North has trained, from the beginning, every junior fencer in the State of Nevada that has obtained Gold in Divisional and NAC competition.

Some of his students (the former Who's Who) have been and still are Officers of The U.S.F.A, including Carl Borack, former National Foil Champion, Maccabiah Games Sabre Champion, 4 times Olympic Team Captain, and present representative to F.I.E. Peter Schifrin, National Epee Champion, Donald Alperstein, former President of U.S.F.A...Now the Legal Consul of U.S.F.A, Gerry Baumgart, U.S.F.A. Vice President and representative to F.I.E.
Sherry (Rose) Posthumous, U.S.F.A...Vice President, Sam Cheris, Former President of U.S.F.A, now Vice President... and representative to F.I.E....Robert Block who writes the Veteran’s page for USFA and there is more, too much to write here.
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Fencing Master, Mel North
AAI, NFCAA, F.I.E., USFCA, USFA, BAF
Maker of Champions, Choreographer, Director, Author

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SOME THEATRICAL CREDITS

Fencing Chorographer, UCLA opera workshop: 1964- 1974
Don Giovanni The Mask Maker, Japanese Premier.
La Forza Del Destino Infidelity Foiled
Marriage of Figaro, Director Barber of Seville, Director

STUDIOS AND PROJECTS
Fencing Consultant: CBS, VPS, KTTV, Four Star Productions, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Bros Studios, MGM, Republic Studios.
La Forza Del Destino San Francisco Opera

Marriage of Figaro: Director

Artistic fencing Consultant, Vogue Magazine, Germany.

Barber of Seville: Director

Billy Eckstein’s Revue, Moulin Rouge

Choreographer: Romeo and Juliet, Colorado Shakespeare Festival,

Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Ca.

Fencing Master and Stage movement Director: Bonfils Theatre, Denver, Co “Taming of the Shrew”

Wiltshire Ebell Theater, Romeo and Juliet

Rashomon…Bonfils Theatre, Denver, Colorado

Rashomon, Schorenberg Hall, UCLA

Ghost writer for Cyrano de Bergerac, New York stage…

Creator and Director: 1966, Riviera Fencing Classic, Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, NV

Moulin Rouge Nightclub: Billy Eckstein’s Review

Cavalcade of Blades: Tropicana and Riviera Hotels, Las Vegas

“You Asked for It” Art Baker Television Show; Fencing ballet

Guest: Lyle Alzado and Bill Thompson Sports show, KWBZ, Denver, Co

Technical consultant: Diet Rite cola TV Commercial

Fencing Master: Max Schulman’s “Zelda” (pilot film)

Fencing Master Caravel Candy, TV Commercial

Guest: “Noonday”, Channel 7, TV Denver

Associate Choreographer: “The Court Jester”, Danny Kaye, Basil Rathbone…1956

Fencing Master, Choreographer, Actor: Remake of “Mark of Zorro”, 20th Century Fox, 1974…Trained Frank Langella for the role of Zorro.

Fencing Master to Alan Alda, for “Sweet liberty.”

1966, “Spartacus” Universal Studios, 1st unit. Toni Curtis

Fencing Master, Choreographer for Arsenio Hall’s TV Special… and much more.

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COACH TO THEATRICAL PERSONALITIES

Tony Curtis Neil Diamond Frank Langella
Alan Alda Ross Martin Tim Matheson
Dean Jones Patti Page Richard Devron
Denny “ Scott” Miller Yvette Mimeu Annette Funcicello
Irish McCalla Elana Eden Jo Morrow
Danny Kaye Basil Rathbone Ricardo Montelbaum
Zaza Garbor, Cyd Charisse Laurence Olivier

Excalibur Knights and much more…

M. Robert North
P.O. Box 9148
Pahrump, Nevada
89060
775-910-3489

Next Kindle for Spring 2011

2010-07-31T18:43:00.004-04:00

A wild guess: Amazon's next Kindle for Spring 2011 will be an Android based, fully functional tablet sporting 7" multi-touch e-ink display of A5 size. Amazon already has Kindle software running on Android. It now also has an "experimental" Webkit based browser that suggests a standard-based strategy. The multi-hw/os Kindle platform suggests a highly portable architecture. Its newest Kindles approach a low price-high performance hurdle requiring migration to a broad-based device platform.

Computer Vision Syndrome

2010-05-23T20:48:00.009-04:00

While discussing the relative merits of using the iPad versus an e-ink reader for reading e-books my nephew asked me to explain why the iPad's back-lighting would be disadvantageous when compared to the reflected lighting of e-ink readers. I did not know at first. But then it occurred to me that the eyes adjust to ambient lighting. When the pupils dilate in dark surroundings, the bright image of the back lit iPad would be too brightly focused on, and so would stress, a small section of the retina. But the e-ink readers only reflect the ambient light and the brightness of its screen image on the retina would be more compatible with the pupil dilation matching the ambient light.

The iPad: The Green Machine for Browsing

2010-05-20T10:24:00.005-04:00

While I believe heavy readers, such as myself, would be better served to stay with E Ink readers like the Kindle, I believe the iPad is a green innovation for most other functions. The reason I like my Kindle for reading is that it consumes much, much less power than the iPad. The reason I believe that the iPad is a green innovation is that it consumes much, much less power than netbooks and other more powerful computers:

The iPad consumes 2.5 Watts per hour.
The Macbook we have consumes from 18 to 25 Watts per hour.
The netbook I am using right now consumes 10 Watts per hour.

I expect that other computers with larger displays than our Macbook and netbook would consume much more power.

There is one other consideration for the iPad. A nephew visited us with his iPad. That was when we found out that none of the iPod and iPhone chargers could charge it. The iPad has a non-standard USB requirement. USB 2 limits current to 1.8A at 5V while the iPad required 2A.

As a result, the iPad could not be charged by the Macbook, the netbook, or any of our computers. The existing car chargers would likely not work either, although we did not verify that. So, the iPad owner who plans to travel should always remember to bring its charger. And, care needs to be taken with extended iPad usage while the iPad is plugged into a car's lighter socket, probably with a newly purchased car charger designed for the iPad.

This I Believe

2010-05-20T10:03:00.002-04:00

I believe that: Everyone has a right to work for a living. Every parent has a duty to ensure that their children can and will work for a living. Immigration laws must respect that right and that duty. And, finally, on that day that nobody wants to come to the US to exercise that right or discharge that duty is the day that we have failed as a nation, because our economy is no longer robust and attractive.

I hope that day never comes.

The iPad: Not for 'Green' Readers

2010-04-09T18:54:00.001-04:00

All the excitement about the iPad as an e-reader misses a most important point for environmentally conscious avid readers such as myself. It's power hungry: 25 Whr for 11 hours vs. 1.53Whr for days on end.

The iPad: It's Half of the Picture

2010-04-03T07:31:00.002-04:00

The iPad is only half a platform. In 2005, I wrote a position paper for the IMF predicting the future platform: A tablet wirelessly connected to a monitorless but otherwise complete notebook plus wirelessly connected peripherals like a headset. Each with its own power. If I were Apple, I'd come out with a monitorless MacBook as soon as possible.

Reps. Jason Altmire, John Boccieri, and Dennis Kucinich Take Note

2010-03-17T11:10:00.004-04:00

If you think you will be safe by not voting for the health care reform bill, think again. Some of us, myself included, will donate to your Democratic primary opponents if you do not have the courage or conviction to reform our dead-man-walking system.

There are times when nothing but creative destruction is called for. When destruction is unavoidable, one could perform minor maintenance or wait for the perfect solution and risk losing much more than what one is trying to save. Or, one could plan for an orderly destruction and a sustained recreation.

Leadership requires the leader to act in the best interest of their followers in spite of themselves. If the founders wanted direct democracy, they would have created a referendum based system. In which case, a Facebook referendum of your district could replace you.

Vote "yes" on the reform bill.

Recent Musings On Facebook (2/27/10 - 3/10/10)

2010-03-15T21:39:00.004-04:00

David L. Chu It seems that FB is like the real world in which exists 'club houses.' It would be equally useful, as in the real world, to to post signs that demarcate club house boundaries and to delineate rules of behavior. Else some friends may stumble unwittingly into them.
March 10 at 4:18pm

David L. Chu I think there should be a Spouse Appreciation Day. We often take our spouses for granted. They are there for us in sickness (not just health), in sadness (not just happiness), and in all our times of need. They toil in what we could not, They love us despite all our flaws. MANY THANKS!
March 10 at 9:26am

David L. Chu While recycling some old cardboard boxes, noticed an unopened envelope with beautiful handwriting "Happy Anniversary to George and Elaine" and flourishes to find card inside from "Mom" dated 1970. Who were George and Elaine and how did Mom feel?
March 6 at 8:36am

David L. Chu Now I get it! Obama's healhcare summit will allow moderate GOP members cover for reconciliation. If House passes Senate bill as is, reconciliation allows REMOVAL of budget items from final bill's cost. Senate GOP's could claim that they reduced cost in a bad bill by voting for reconciliation. All Dems could claim passing the rest. Brilliant?!
March 3 at 8:00am

David L. Chu Sen. Bunning is behaving like the French. [To my French friends, sorry!] Whenever the country is at a critical juncture, there is a strike by someone to squeeze something into their own coffer. The selfish rationale is always papered over with 'public interest' facade.
March 2 at 10:22am

David L. Chu To those congressmen who think that there is too much government, resign. You and your staff are part of this big government. You do nothing but complain about the size of the government while increasing your own pay.
February 28 at 9:39am

David L. Chu The LA Times analysis of WellPoint's Congressional testimony struck a chord: "(I)nsurers can remain profitable at all is by selling healthy people on policies that don't offer much coverage at all, while squeezing older, less healthy people remorselessly so they either pay for most of their care out of pocket or get priced out of the insurance market completely (thus becoming a burden for taxpayers)."

See More: What do we need health insurers for anyway? - www.latimes.com
WellPoint Chief Executive Angela F. Braly, left, and the company's chief actuary, Cynthia Miller, wait to testify at a House subcommittee hearing on the insurer's California rate increases. (Ann Heisenfelt / Associated Press / February 24, 2010)
February 28 at 9:24am

David L. Chu Perhaps voters should give Sen. Bunning a taste of what unemployment is like?
February 27 at 11:24am

David L. Chu For some unknown reason, my thoughts were of the Sung Dynasty Chinese Poetress 李清照（1084－1156）. I fell in love, at a very early age, with her poetry of both 詞 and 詩 forms. Learned just now that my ancestor 宋代朱熹说：“本朝妇人能文只有李易安与魏夫人”. To this day, my appreciation for English language poets and poems could not match my appreciation of her oeuvre.
February 27 at 9:21pm

David L. Chu I am beginning to wonder whether global warming has anything to do with the recent high Richter scale quakes around the globe.
February 27 at 5:16pm

Box of Expert Knowledge

2010-03-15T21:17:00.002-04:00

I feel comfortable working within this box. If I ventured out of this box, would I make mistakes? Would I look stupid? But when the opportunity presented itself, I did not hesitate and I ventured outside my box of expert knowledge. I learn about and applied Fast Fourier Transform, which recently came to mind in a possible innovation. The story involved one of the earliest New Jersey's Inventor Hall of Fame laureates and resulted in a patent.

I ventured into George's office. He's in the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame. I noticed these huge speakers and a hi-fi set in his office, and I joked, are you into hard metal? No, I think one could hear a change in the sound a refinery vessel makes when it is malfunctioning. Interesting, I said, perhaps I could help? Why not? He said. So, I set out to find a way by stepping outside my box of expert knowledge.

Nowadays, acoustic imaging is commonly used in the medical field . 25 years ago, they weren't so sophisticated. And, 25 years ago when a refinery vessel malfunctioned, it had to be torn apart. Production would be impacted or shut down even. But, if one could use acoustic imaging to identify the problem and its location, one could quickly resolve the problem with significant savings. So I learned how to analyze sound with Fast Fourier Transform.

Ironically, 25 years later, my own bodily refinery vessel, the heart, had malfunctioned and the problem was found by new acoustic imaging techniques. No doubt, Fast Fourier Transform was applied somewhere in the medical instruments.

Decisions and Boxes That Constrict Them

2010-03-15T21:08:00.003-04:00

I feel the pressure of fleeting time. Knowledge I'd accumulated over my years that had helped me succeed in my own career would disappear with my passing. I hope not to pass on before I had a chance to transfer some of that knowledge to others. I sought no fortune nor fame nor grades but knowledge and I hope that I'd done some good in life. So, I started to post vignettes on Facebook to share with friends.

Life is a series of decisions waiting to be made. How we make those decisions will have everlasting impact on our lives. If we shared our life-stories, would that sharing make life richer for our friends and make their decision making easier?

Our decisions are often difficult due to the various boxes that we put ourselves in. Give this some thought: What boxes are boxing you in? How much more effective would you be if you were to break out of some of these boxes? What could you invent? What enterprises could you build? What new financial instruments could you create? Would the rewards out weigh the risks?

I will start out with the Box of Expert Knowledge.

Controlling Weather With Microwave (Dielectric Heating of Clouds)

2010-03-14T09:20:00.004-04:00

We now have and use microwave ovens to cook meals, heat up water for tea, etc. The microwave affect water by dielectric heating. Basically, substances such as water molecules have electric poles (in water the H2O form two poles - dipoles) that would rotate in order to align themselves with the oscillating electric field of the microwave. Thus these oscillating molecules convert microwave energy to heat. Of course, fat and other material also have dipoles, but I am only interested in water because clouds are made of droplets or crystals of water.

So, why not direct microwaves at clouds to directly heat the water in clouds? By selecting the frequency and power of the microwave, we could disrupt the equilibrium of the water inside the clouds. Agitated water would likely collide and form large enough drops so as to fall to earth as rain.

As for controlling the microwave, we have all seen microwave towers with dish antennas. These dishes focus microwaves in a directional manner. For higher frequencies or more accuracy, we could use masers. Nowadays we all have heard of the term, laser. Before light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation [laser] was invented there was microwave amplification with maser.

The main point is this: By directly heating the water in clouds, we could affect cloud behavior and weather patterns. I expect other behaviors than rain creation to arise and to be exploited. If we create rain at a certain position, would the rain fall create a suction to pull the neighboring water droplets into the microwave? If we have had too much rain, would we be able to vaporize parts of clouds before they would have a chance to fall to earth? Could we control the direction of the clouds by selectively heating them?

Frequency Domain Analysis and Prediction of Stock Prices

2010-03-11T21:03:00.003-05:00

It seems to me that stock prices must have cyclic elements due to possibly program based trading and cyclical influences such as those of institutional nature, e.d., Fed announcements, and naturally occurring cyclical phenomena. The statistical tools we see used today are not designed to deal with cyclical behavior. Perhaps frequency analysis tools used for signal analysis could be applied to model and predict stock behavior? It would be rather simple to hook up real time stock quotes to signal analysis tools to determine what deterministic cyclical behavior could be detected. If multiple stocks are analyzed by this method, as soon as any stock showing strong cyclic tendencies one should be able to predict its behavior.

One could also combine the frequency analysis results with statistic tools to select the most likely frequency behavior and thus improve the predictability of such cyclical stock.

Encapsulate the iceberg with plastic.

2010-03-03T20:18:00.003-05:00

A 2005 article in the Guardian (click on the title to see the linked to article) described how the Gurschen glacier was wrapped in a sheet of plastic to protect it from melting. It was controversial in terms of what it would do to the glacial flora and fauna. However, I doubt that there would be equal controversy if one would wrap an iceberg in order to prevent it from premature melting while transporting it for its fresh water. It would be an interesting experiment to wrap a small iceberg with mylar or some other lightweight but tough plastic and transport it to its nearest water deprived coastal region.

Potential Gravitational Energy of Icebergs

2010-03-03T09:24:00.002-05:00

From Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg, accessed on March 3, 2010], "Icebergs generally range from 1 to 75 metres (3–250 ft) above sea level and weigh 100,000 to 200 000 tons." Assuming a ton is defined in the North American sense of 2000 lbs. Also, "typically only one-tenth of the volume of an iceberg is above water. " If iceberg "A" has a center of mass at 100 feet, the center of mass of the iceberg below water would be at 1000 ft. Furthermore, let "A" weigh 100,000 tons, or 200,000,000 lbs.

The potential energy of "A" would then be 200,000,000 lbs x 1000 ft = 200,000,000,000 ft-lbs, or 200 billion ft-lbs. This is approximately 271 billion joules or 75 megawatt-hours. This is equivalent to 100,000 horsepower-hours. How far could iceberg "A" be pushed at a reasonably fast speed, yet slow enough to minimize water resistance, to any destination and retain half of its original mass? In other words, could an iceberg remanant the size of the Titanic, sunk by collision with an iceberg, of 52,000 tons reach any drought stricken coast?

What if the iceberg has stored wave energy in the form of ice flywheels, described in Wave energy capture and storage, and the stored energy is used for peak power water jet propulsion?

Wave energy capture and storage

2010-03-02T17:25:00.004-05:00

This is an idea for capturing and storing wave energy. While the drawing uses ice and iceberg, the idea could be used with more traditional material such as ceramic, steel, or other massive and durable substances.

The wave entrance is opened to let wave in to push the spheres and discharged back into the water. Once a desired speed for the spheres has been reached, the entrance is closed and the water would drain completely. The spheres would continue to rotate,

When energy needs to be retrieved, water may be introduced into the wave entrance to fill the circular chamber and would be pushed out te discharge port to push a generator.

I did not do any patent search or even a Google search. I believe that using ice and encasing it in an iceberg may be innovative, but who knows?

Potential Energy Sources From The Iceberg

2010-03-02T16:10:00.006-05:00

While viewing icebergs as a fresh-water source is not a new idea, the amount of power needed to move the icebergs has been a show-stopper. It is my opinion that people were thinking inside the box and were considering conventional means of propulsion. I believe that it is an innovation to try to use the iceberg's own possible green energy potential to get it to a destination and to keep it there. I could think of three energy sources extrinsic to each iceberg and two intrinsic sources.

First, we will consider the extrinsic sources of energy which are wind, solar, and wave. These would vary depending on the location and weather patterns.

The wind is too much of a variable for me to take into consideration now. One could harness wind energy by converting it with wind farms or to set sail on the icebergs.
Solar energy is less variable and would be the main energy source. Maximum solar energy could be calculated based on the time of the year, the iceberg's location, and the top surface area of the iceberg. By digging parabolic shapes into the iceberg and covering the entire iceberg with reflective surfaces --the Swiss is considering protecting the Alpine glaciers this way -- we could use various solar farming techniques. And, if the reflecting surfaces are themselves photovoltaic material we could directly generate electricity.
Finally, wave energy could be exploited by drilling holes into the iceberg and set turbines into these holes to generate electricity. Although there is a net directional force from waves, the total wave energy from opposing direction waves could be explored to generate electricity or to turn flywheels to transfer kinetic energy of the waves into potential energy. I could envision giant slabs of ice being set in motion on giant sheets of ice in circular rings. Ice-on-ice loss would be fairly small.

Secondly, we will consider the two intrinsic energy sources of gravitational and thermal differences.

The gravitational energy of each iceberg is (without careful analysis) that of the total weight of the iceberg being raised by the distance from the sea level to the center of the underwater mass. Considering the weight of each the iceberg, this energy could be enormous. The beauty of this source for propulsion is that it is proportional to the weight to be moved and hence my intuition indicated that self-propulsion may be viable.
The iceberg is at -15 to -20 degree C. The surrounding sea water is, by its nature, higher than 0-degrees C. So a thermal gradient exists. And, if there is a thermal gradient, one should be able to extract energy.

This is a very rough first order analysis of the energy dormant in the iceberg. I hope others who are experts in the various fields could help perform more detailed analysis and document these as comments at this blog.

Inhabitable, self-sustaining green iceberg agriculture

2010-03-01T10:16:00.005-05:00

One possibility to maintain and to regenerate the iceberg would be to cover its top with a layer of soil as insulation. Solar energy harvested directly by solar farms and indirectly through lakes could power homes and excess power could desalinate sea water to regenerate and replace depleted ice. Desalination would help maintain sea level since the additional ice would be made with sea water. Because the iceberg would have plenty of fresh water, one could grow produce and otherwise farm the soil. In fact, the soil would be self-watering. Thus, we would have self-sustaining green agriculture for its inhabitants.

The inhabitants on these icebergs have to be environmentally conscious if they wish to maintain ecological balance so that the icebergs would continue to exist. These icebergs could be tethered to land of the third world countries that are threatened by rising sea levels from global warming. And, additionally, being huge floating islands, these iceberg communities would suffer less from earth quake and tsunamis.

Wind Propelled Iceberg

2010-03-01T10:08:00.003-05:00

If wind farms are strategically placed on the iceberg, one could control the turbines so that a net force vector could be created to propel the ice berg in a desired direction just as one would control the sails on large sailboats. And, if some of these turbines are linked to generator/motors, the iceberg also could be propelled by fans that would add to its control capabilities.

Iceberg Water Source

2010-03-01T09:54:00.005-05:00

As the ice melts, the iceberg weighs less and floats higher. Thus one could control the height of the fresh water source through the fresh water discharge rate. Furthermore, the various methods which have been or will be described to propel the iceberg using its own fresh water discharges, wind turbine control, or conventional electrical drives that would utilize solar or hydro power from the iceberg itself could stabilize the iceberg.

With such an expanse of surface, wind farms, solar farms of mirror or photovoltaic cells, and hydroelectric generator could provide electricity as well.

Power could be diverted to cooling coils placed strategically under and around the iceberg to desalinate sea water by adding ice to the outer surfaces of the iceberg. Thus the iceberg would be self-regenerating to provide a constant supply of fresh water and energy.

Self-Propelling Icebergs

2010-03-01T09:15:00.003-05:00

Method 1, Water Jet Propulsion.

Mirrors planted on top of the iceberg reflect light to one (or more) central mirror which focuses light in a controlled manner to create a lake of fresh water. Pipe(s) leads through pumping/valve station(s) from the lake to a lower level and jets in a controlled direction to propel the iceberg in the desired direction.

Possible Solution to Rising Sea Level and Fresh Water Shortage

2010-03-01T06:12:00.009-05:00

In "Sin aqua non: Water shortages are a growing problem, but not for the reasons most people think" the Economist [April 8, 2009 issue, accessed at http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13447271&source=login_payBarrier on March 01, 2010] described the effects of global water shortage. "THE overthrow of Madagascar’s president in mid-March was partly caused by water problems—in South Korea. ... , a South Korean conglomerate, signed a deal to lease no less than half Madagascar’s arable land to grow grain for South Koreans.... One of the new leader’s first acts was to scrap the agreement."

The article goes on to describe that "Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California declared a state of emergency. Not for the first time, he threatened water rationing in the state. 'It is clear,' says a recent report by the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme, 'that urgent action is needed if we are to avoid a global water crisis.'”

Furthermore, it goes on to say that "Australia has suffered a decade-long drought. "

On the other hand, a huge chunk of antarctic glacier was broken off by collision with an iceberg and thus creating a new iceberg "approximate(ly) the size of Australian Capital Territory." [Linked to article from ABH] More sea water is displaced by the weight and volume of the iceberg and the sea level rose ever more slightly.

So, why could we not fit the icebergs with our largest engines and sails and create iceberg ships and sail them to these coastal places? By creating huge lakes on the top of icebergs through focused solar power. Essentially, by setting mirrors to focus to a central point and reflecting the focused light downward we could created a water mine on these icebergs. Water flowing down would power generators and then be piped to places where there is fresh water shortage.

In fact, if the fresh water is melted in such a manner and released in a controlled manner, in a similar manner to how some boats are pushed by water jets, the iceberg could even power its own way through solar energy to distant shores!

As the iceberg melts, its weight lowers and the sea level rises. Its fresh water flows to arid lands instead of being mixed with salty sea water. Arid lands get reclaimed. Water flow generates green energy. If severe water shortage has economic effects as in the South Korean case and possibly for California agriculture, then won't there be economic incentives? And if water shortage has political consequences globally, surely, then, this solution would be enticing and both economically and politically viable sooner or later?

Mr. President, It's Time To Lead

2010-02-27T13:11:00.002-05:00

Leadership requires the leader to act in the best interest of the followers in spite of themselves. If a person only does what followers demand, then he or she is no leader but a follower of followers. If the founders wanted direct democracy, they would have created a referendum based system, but they gave us a President to lead us.

***

"The American People" is not of one mind and rarely agrees completely on anything. I get annoyed whenever politicians, such as Coburn and Boehner, use this term as a cover to justify their own intransigence -- I am part of "the American People" and they don't speak for me!

The American People did elect Mr. Obama President. And we did not elect any individual senator or congressman to speak for all of us.

***

Mr. Obama, it is time to lead us despite our misgivings by fixing our health care system to the best of your abilities and powers. You were endowed by your parents and grandparents with abilities and you were trusted with powers by the American People. So, please act now!

A 9-year old girl died

2009-07-23T21:19:00.001-04:00

From my Facebook

David L. Chu A police officer came by just now to pick up the recorder. He asked for my ID and the circumstances of my finding the recorder. Neighbors gawked, cars slowed down. I'd surmised that the device belonged to the investigator. But, what city? Googling news for "drowning Arcadia" (Sierra Madre would be my next query) located the news. A call to the police did the rest. Just another lost/found case -- soon to be forgotten.
13 seconds ago · Comment · LikeUnlike
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David L. Chu And, I happened to have walked past the big houses with their nice pools on Michellinda Avenue this morning on my way to the Pasadena Best Buy. The recorder was stowed away in my backpack waiting to be played. The story of the little girl who had drowned as told by her friends were waiting for me to hear. As I walked by the house where she drowned. Not knowing.
17 minutes ago · Comment · LikeUnlike
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David L. Chu There were no identification marks on the recorder and no names in the recordings other than that of the drowned girl and the interviewees, the kids. The recordings did show time and date. The 911 call was made at around 1417. The interviews started at around 1450. The date was 09-07-20. The recorder laid there for three days where only a pedestrian could have found it. This being SoCal, nobody walks. But me.
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David L. Chu What I'd found was a digital recorder. I had hoped that the recordings would lead me to the owner. But what I heard, five 10 - 20 minutes clips, tore at my heart. They were the other little kids trying to describe the drowning as it was happening. A male voice was trying to be as gentle as possible in questioning them. The police radios could be heard in the background. It's CSI not like it's on TV but real....
32 minutes ago · Comment · Like

David L. Chu A 9-year old girl died this Tuesday. She survived for less than 22 hours on life support after being found by other children on Monday to have been struggling in the pool. No adults were supervising the 8 children. In a strange twist of fate, I was pulled into this sad event. I knew neither the pool owner nor any of the other parties. I was simply trying to return a lost item that I'd found during my hike.
Girl's drowning prompts warning from officials - Pasadena Star-News
Source: www.pasadenastarnews.com
Girl

35 minutes ago · Comment · LikeUnlike · Share

David L. Chu Hiked 8miles (with 500feet climb) from Las Tunas DR and Baldwin Ave in Arcadia to the start of the San Gabriel Mountains/Angeles National Forest above the City of Sierra Madre. The foothills are brown and dry, in danger of brush fires. Down to Sierra Madre Blvd and west to the Best Buy at Sierra Madre Villa Ave and Foothill Blvd in Pasadena. Still a scorching day.

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Kindle 2: $0 Case and Podcasts

2009-03-07T11:12:00.008-05:00

Before you discard the packing material for your Kindle 2, you may wish to consider using it to make your own carrying case. The images to the left are: Leftmost, the front view of the Kindle 2 in its case. Top right, the outside cover view of the opened case. This cover was made from the plastic coated sleeve. And, bottom right, the inside view of the opened case. The inside cover is made from the plastic coated instructions. The front of the case actually sandwiched a hard-cardboard cutout from the protective box. When making the outside cover, be sure to leave enough of it both for folding over the cardboard front and for folding under the Kindle 2. I chose not to use cardboard for the back of the case but to simply glue the Kindle 2 to the outside cover.

This case is surprisingly esthetically pleasing and functional. I could hold the Kindle 2 with the case open or by folding it all the way back. Except for the gluestick, everything I would need came with the Kindle 2.

By exploiting the obviously considerable effort that had gone into the packing design, everyone who's seen the end result thought that the Kindle 2 came with this case. I decided to make my own case when I realized that one was not included in the package. While I love my Kindle 1, I'd always found the carrying case much too thick and clumsy. So, in a way, I was actually glad that there was no case shipped with the Kindle. Yet, I was concerned that the eInk screen would be cracked by accident as was the fate of my first Kindle 1 during Hurricane Ike in Houston. The very hard cardboard protective box was obviously chosen carefully and it does its job well protecting the screen.

While I am writing about the Kindle 2, a few words concerning its speakers are warranted. I had previously synced podcasts to my iPod Nano using iTunes and then often plugged the Nano into powered speaks for playing back. I now simply copy the podcast folders via USB to Kindle 2's MUSIC folder. I found Kindle's MP3 playback capabilities lacking but useful for playing my podcasts contiguously. I could only find two functions: skip forward (Alt-f) and pulse/resume (Alt-space).

More thoughts about Kindle 2:
1) I found the new picture zoom (works in Kindle 1, too) useful but still lacking. By selecting the picture, it would auto-rotate/-zoom to fill the screen. However, I could not zoom further and pan.
2) The 5-way is less responsive than the scrollwheel for navigating the screen. I have not yet found a way to disable the auto-dictionary lookup. If a way exists, perhaps navigating the screen would be faster?
3) I like the granularity of highlighting with the 5-way.
4) I found using the on-screen bookmark bar in Kindle 1 much easier to use for navigating to bookmarks. Without it, I have to page through My Notes & Marks and even though I could choose to display only bookmarks the process is still not as user friendly.
5) The USB connection would often resets itself and no amount of (un)plugging the USB could restore the Kindle folders for Windows Explorer file management. I had to resort to Kindle Restart.

Wish list for Kindle 1 and Kindle 2: Better content management, picture handling, and native PDF viewing.

News Feeds for the Kindle

2009-03-01T15:56:00.003-05:00

I travel to and from Europe quite frequently and, of course, miss the Whispernet, to check news on my Kindle. However, I found that by setting up Mobipocket Reader I could keep up with news feeds. All I had to do was to copy and past the URLs of the RSS feeds of my favorite news sources to the eNews List, done once, and then refresh the list and drag the files to my USB-connected Kindle. Reading news on the Kindle on long flights is quite convenient.

DIY Charger for Kindle 2 and Kindle 1, Ipods, Blackberries, etc.

2009-03-01T09:36:00.005-05:00

Now that I have received my Kindle 2 I updated my rechargeable batteries-works based charger, see Tech Tip: Cheap DIY Charger for iPod + commented update, to work with it. I have been using the charger since 2006 for all my mobile devices. All that is required is a four AA holder (or AAA for its smaller size) @$2 from RadioShack, a USB socket (salvaged from an old USB hub, but could be cut from an USB extender that came with some USB device), and some easy soldering. NOTE: Solder only D+ and D- (the two middle pins --- or the Green and White leads, when using USB extender socket) together -- do not solder them to the negative charger output -- to make the charger comply with the new 2007 USB power mode specification.

Calling all Salle de Nord and UCLA "Mel's Kids"

2009-02-07T19:28:00.004-05:00

I received a correction from Mel himself and I stand corrected with pleasure. My last posting concerning Mel's health, in response to a comment to An Asian-American Fencer at UCLA 1969-1971, was based on erroneous information from someone who was supposedly to have been in touch with Mel. When I had tried to arrange for a reunion of Mel's students to celebrate Mel's birthday, I was given some apparently misinformation. Please leave me a comment with your email contact information or email Mel directly if you would like to thank Mel for all that he had given us.

I will post something with the UCLA Varsity Club, of which, with thanks to Mel, I am a member, to see whether they could help.

===

HELLO, to all of my "Kids" at UCLA and the Salle...Nester Rosario sent this page to me...David et all, I do not have Alzheimer's and I am not 90 year's old... I am a young 84 and still teaching Fencing and still turning out champions. Stan Lechach came to the Salle and I trained him before he won the nationals....after our first loss to Air Force,,, we beat them every time after.
I now lve in Pahrump, NV.. Came back from teaching in the Olympic camp last year,and tutoring Coaches in Colorado.I woud love to hear from more of my guys from the salle and UCLA..I HEARD A WHISPER THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO SET UP A REUNION OF BOTH GROUPS...?????
I LOVE YOU ALL.
Maitre Mel North
maestromelnorth@aol.com

In Pursuit of Knowledge: DBA at GEM

2009-01-13T18:27:00.006-05:00

As of November, 2008, I started my journey to earn a doctoral degree. Not just any degree, but a research-oriented, fully accredited degree in knowledge management. In addition, there are a number of factors of more personal nature that must be met. It has just occurred to me that there may be many other intelligent but clueless searchers similar to myself -- without any idea about how to begin to search for the right program for him/herself. Therefore, I have decided to share my experiences as I set off on my journey.

My needs, as I had finally determined them to be -- after a first attempt that landed an EMBA, made many good friends, found many great professors, and gained lots of great knowledge, but ended up without a doctor's degree -- were:

Must be from a real degree-conferring school where I would provide a rich and challenging learning environment.
The degree must be able to open doors to academia as well as to confer credibility for whatever second career that I would chose.
The program must help me leverage my executive experience and capture the knowledge I'd gained over my earlier career.
Must not tie me down to one location for any length of time. This is the one requirement that had eliminated all the Ph. D. programs that I'd examined.
Must have a multi-cultural and multi-disciplined student body with a similar level of experience to mine.
Must be conducted fully in English. Although I speak and read Mandarin fluently and French less fluently, I consider English to be my native language.
Must be affordable.

I had at first applied to and was accepted by the Weatherhead School of Case Western Reserve and its Executive Doctor of Management program. Unfortunately, I had to withdraw before start of the program because some of my immediate family members were extremely concerned about how my aging body (60yrs) would be able to handle the fairly rigorous travel schedule. And serendipity had changed the course of my life yet once more, I met someone at the exactly right moment who steered me to the Grenolbe Ecole de Management (GEM) and its Doctor of Business Administration program.

GEM offers its DBA, while retaining full academic control, with partner schools (facilities and screening) in a number of countries. Whereas I travel between Geneva and the US frequently, the Webster University of Geneva was how I entered the program and where most workshops would be held. In this manner, the GEM faculty members and not the executive students would have to travel.

The GEM DBA is a four-year program as mandated by the French system of higher learning. GEM is one of the grandes ecoles as opposed to an university. According to a good French friend, the French universities must accept students graduated from its lower level public schools but the grandes ecoles could be more selective. It was good enough for me to learn that despite its relative youth (150+ degrees conferred to date) the GEM DBA program produced professors (mostly associate level for newly minted doctors) worldwide in a number of colleges and universities. My own supervising professor, for example, teaches at the University of Athens and is a GEM (jointly with UK's Brunel) DBA holder.

The November initiation workshop was a weeklong intensive affair conducted in Grenoble. It introduced the program, the faculty, the academic process, and the research process. At the start of the day-long sesson on qualitative research, I knew immediately that the professor would be the one I would choose as my supervisor. Not only were the sample articles on knowledge management, I was fascinated by the qualitative research approach which aligned perfectly with how I felt research in this area should be conducted. Luckily for me, both the director and the professor, conferring during lunch, agreed with my request and I left Grenoble a very happy man.

I have to return to my studies now. I will try to capture in my next blogs my research activities and catch up on things I'd done to get to this point.

Clinton for State: Uniting Allies in Time of Need

2008-11-19T18:53:00.004-05:00

I am concerned that the various news analyses concerning the possible nomination of Hillary for State are focused not mainly on what she could do for the country, but on more mundane considerations as if these were not troubled times. They point out personality conflicts, future conflicts in the 2012 race, how Biden would feel, possible Bill-problems, etc. In other words, the focus has been mainly inward facing on personal considerations. I believe that Hillary, when complemented with Barack, should form a formidable team in working with our existing allies and in gaining additional allies to tackle global recession and terrorism.

It is sheer folly to consider 2012 politics when we have a potential 2009 calamity at hand. I believe that neither Biden nor anyone else in Barack's new administration is unable to appreciate the importance of teamwork in serving our troubled nation. I sincerely hope that it comes to pass for Barack to name Hillary to, and for Hillary to accept, the position of Secretary of State. Together, the combined symbolism and skill-set would create a diplomatic force that may never again be equalled.

What a Beautiful Day, Si Se Puede!

2008-11-05T12:29:00.003-05:00

To quote from Oklahoma! -- Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day. I've got a beautiful feeling. Everything's going my (our) way!

I sincerely hope that our country has matured and is ready to move on and tackle the difficult task of recreating after destruction. Obama and all of us have a very difficult road in front of us. But, I had learned, on April 10, 2006, amongst the gathered Latino and Hispanic crowd at the National Mall a phrase which symbolized the strength of unity, that as one people nothing is impossible to achieve -- si se puede!

When I attended in Geneva a Meet Samantha Power fundraiser for Obama, I wore my old, tattered UCLA letter jacket. It was a symbol of racism. I wrote an op ed to the Washington Post about the experience behind it. I wore it again when I went to an election eve gathering. A letter jacket symbolizes "All American" and yet I was told to return to where I came from while proudly wearing it almost forty years ago. After working these years as a flag in my own struggles against racism, I could finally lay it down. It's a start.

Yes, we can!

One people, not just Americans but the global village, can overcome the death and destruction in Africa, the religious pogroms everywhere, the racist acts, and the terrorist activities. An Obama White House, with a most diverse extended family with its origins in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands, symbolizes that we are one people that can unite to do great things.

What a beautiful, beautiful day!

1974 Chinese Wushu Delegation in San Francisco

2008-11-02T14:38:00.013-05:00

In 1974, two friends (Ming Fang and Joe Wong) and I, all working for the Fluor Corporation at the time, formed a Chinese American Culture Association of Southern California. Working with the owner of the Pearl River Book Store, Sam, we networked with the Chinese-American organizations of New York and San Francisco. [Ming was on the left and I was in the middle in the first photo. My youngest sister is in one of these photos as well. The US hosts are easily identifiable in the photos by the fact that each wore a name tag.]

In addition to sponsoring events such as a talk by noted author Han Suyin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Suyin), we arranged for the New York City Chinese Folk Dance Troupe to give a show at the Shrine Auditorium. As the communicator and publicist of the group, I sent an invitation to the first black mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley. Unfortunately, his office sent his regrets due to scheduling conflicts.

The Dance Troupe's performance in LA was followed by their performance in San Francisco as part of the welcoming for the Chinese Wushu Delegation. Some of the photos from June 29 and 30 are published here. Among the performers was an eleven year old boy name Li Lien-Jie, who would later become known best as the movie actor/action star, Jet Li. [Could you pick him out in these photos?]

The audience comprised of a number of leaders of the Chinese-American community of San Francisco and Los Angeles of that time and those who came from New York with the Dance Troupe. I believe that it may have been a memorable moment in the history of the Chinese-Americans that would be worthwhile capturing for posterity. That is my reason for posting these photos here.

I had unfortunately misplaced the program, which included photos of each performer and listed his or her performance. Jet Li is of course well known. Among the other performers were the following:

Lu Yan: In September of 1973 Lu Yan was selected to join the Chinese Wushu Delegation who were to go to America to promote friendship between the two great nations. She would become an ambassador for her country at the age of only 10. [http://www.luyanwushu.com/wushu/whitehouse.htm]

Wei Qihe: Master Wei Qi He has practiced martial arts for over 47 years. She has also been an international performer and judge in major martial arts competitions for decades. In 1960, she was selected by the Shanghai Institute of Sports and Athletics. She won many medals and soon became one of the top female Wushu competitors in China. [http://usksf.org/?s=federation]

Shi Meilin: A Wushu and Tai Chi champion in the 1970s and 1980s, she toured with Chinese Wushu teams internationally, including the United States in 1974 when she was part of an elite Chinese Martial Arts Delegation that also included Jet Li (Li Lianjie). She is a graduate from the Beijing Sports and Cultural University in Chinese Martial Arts and was a member of the Shanghai Wushu Team. In later years she coached Wushu in Shanghai and later the Taiwanese Wushu Team in 1994.^[2]. She is the current head Wushu Taolu coach of the New Zealand Kung Fu Wushu Federation. The NZKWF is New Zealand's representative for Chinese Martial Arts to the International Wushu Federation (IWUF). [h]ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Mei_Lin]

Cheng Aiping: A former member and later became a coach of the Zhejiang Wushu team. She attained gold medals in both double sword and Sun Style Taijiquan, and a silver medal in Yang Style Taijiquan in a National Wushu competition in China. She is the demonstrator in the official Sun Style instructional video produced by the China Sports Committee. In the 1970's, she was a member of the Wushu Delegation to the United States and performed at the White House. Since her immigration to the U.S., she has been active as a judge in U.S. national and international Wushu competitions. She currently teaches in Connecticut, U.S.A. See her photo demonstrations under Taijiquan and Mulanquan.[http://www.waydragon.com/KFElements/KE-Glossary.htm]

Palin: First Dude in the White House?!

2008-10-28T11:04:00.003-04:00

Palin seems to be thinking that she, not McCain, is running for president when she said to the enthusiastic VA crowd that "Someone I'd like you to meet, and that is my husband, Alaska's 'first dude.' ... It's about time we had a dude in the White House."As far as I know, only the president's spouse gets to be "in the White House." The vice president's spouse would live in the Naval Observatory at Number One Observatory Circle, so Todd Palin could 'visit the White House' but would not be 'in the White House.' The only way that Todd could be in the White House would be for a McCain/Palin victory and for Palin to presume McCain's early demise.

Savoring This Historic Moment

2008-10-22T18:22:00.005-04:00

It is done! I have caste my vote for Obama/Biden. Whether this ticket wins or not, this chance to caste my vote for a most qualified candidate who happens to be black is a historic moment for me.

Some forty years ago, I faced a challenge to pass the remedial "Subject A" English course which targeted those University of California entrants who did not write well. I had already failed the course once and dreaded it and I was not looking forward to taking the course a second time, but I must. This time, however, to my surprise, I enjoyed the course immensely. The teacher introduced us to the new field of black studies and books such as "Black Like Me" and "Soul On Ice." Not only did the course remedy my poor English writing skills, it also remedied my ignorance regarding the plight of blacks and other minorities in America. I appreciated that the era of white-male exclusivity must end if America is to reach its full potential.

By casting my mail-in vote for Obama/Biden, I have exercised my right to choose between two choices in the highest equal-opportunity employment process. And, although I disagree with McCain's choice of Palin, at least symbolically the process broke the gender barrier as well. Up to this point in time, the equal opportunity employment process has worked in a bottom-up fashion. Perhaps, starting in 2009, equal opportunity will now trickle down as well from the highest office in the land and permeate throughout out America?

Palin For President!

2008-09-04T15:23:00.013-04:00

In the past few days, the Republicans have made it clear that they believe that Palin, an executive, is better fit to lead than an US Senator who has directed a campaign that has more workers than the entire population of Wasilla (5,469) and may have as many activists as the entire population of Alaska (683, 478) and who has out performed McCain in the polls. And, based on last nights speech, Palin certainly has demonstrated that she is better than McCain at political speech-making and at distorting facts, see On Obama, Earmarks, Palin Less Than Honest. Furthermore, unlike McCain, her fundamental beliefs actually reflect the GOP platform and she could truly excite the GOP base.

So, why is she not the Republican nominee for President? If McCain truly believes in serving the interests of the nation, that Palin is more experienced than any US Senator, and that she is ready to lead, may I suggest that in place of giving a speech tonight McCain should simply proclaim that he supports Palin for President? He could take on the VP role himself and mentor her in that capacity. Why not? He would be enhancing his own reputation as a maverick and act as a real change-agent by practicing the Confucian ethic of rangxian (讓賢), meaning ceding leadership to another who is deemed better qualified.

Lie Detecting: "Fact of the Matter Is," Chuckle, "It's a Joke!"

2008-09-04T14:42:00.003-04:00

Whenever a politician, political hack, or pundit says "fact of the matter is," claims "it's a joke," or speaks with a fake chuckle, my skin crawls for I believe that with high probability a lie has taken or would be taking place. The use of "it's a joke" is particularly galling, because it is usually a lie disclaiming a vicious attack. Having been the butt of racially derisive "jokes," living in these United States over the past half-century, I find the term "it's a joke" especially disgusting. Nowadays, it seems to me these expressions are part of the standard toolkit taught in Politics 101. I heard all these expressions in full volume in today's Diane Rehm Show on Governor Sarah Palin. I believe Cleta Mitchell should be awarded an "A" for having mastered these expressions.

McCain's Fatal Mistake

2008-09-01T01:03:00.002-04:00

The current line of defense by McCain's team is fatally flawed. By stressing Palin's so-called executive experience and downplaying Barack's Senate experience, not only does it imply that McCain is not fit to be a candidate, it insults Hillary and therefore insults Bill as well. After all, the implications are that Hillary is not as good a VP candidate as Palin, because Hillary has not been a so-called "executive" either. One could expect that Hillary and Bill will do their best to prove McCain's camp wrong, wrong, wrong!

McCain: Palin Better Than McCain?

2008-08-31T23:35:00.004-04:00

On NBC Nightly News, McCain stated his criteria for selecting candidates. He stated that "she's had executive experience as governor, as mayor, as city council member, and PTA. ... He's not had one day of executive experience." Now, as far as I know, McCain himself has not been a governor, mayor, city council member, or PTA, so by his own logic, it would be "ludicrous [McCain's own word]" for McCain to run. In fact, any governor, mayor, city council member, or PTA member would make a better candidate than McCain. Perhaps McCain should practice what he preaches and step aside to let Palin be the presidential candidate?

Pawlenty: Palin Better Than McCain?

2008-08-31T15:16:00.006-04:00

On this morning's Meet the Press [Transcript], Governor Pawlenty stated that Palin is "also somebody who has, has a background, that's, you know, lived the life that, that we talk about. We talk about people sitting around the kitchen table and balancing a budget with a family and having to worry about meeting--making ends meet economically. She and her family have actually done that. I would say that's pretty good preparation for understanding and relating to the economic needs of average Americans." Now, if McCain doesn't even know how many houses he owns, I doubt that he has balanced his family's budget and so Palin is better prepared than McCain in that regard. In fact, I, who has balanced my family's budget for many more years than Palin would be, by inference, even a better candidate.

Pawlenty also stated that Obama "graduated from law school, went on to be a community organizer and a law professor, went to the U.S. Senate ... . So what it is in his background, Tom, that would give him that same type of requisite wisdom and judgment and insight on national security matters or foreign affairs matter or anything else? But importantly, Senator--or Governor Palin is an executive. ... she's been running a large enterprise of the state of Alaska successfully." So, if having the experience of a US Senator for three years and eight months and a state senator for seven years is less qualified than one year and eight months as a state governor, won't that moot John McCain's entire political life? Sure, McCain has been an US Senator for twenty-one years and eight months plus an US Congressman for five and, by Pawlenty's standard, McCain has never been an executive and, therefore, Palin is more qualified than McCain.

By Pawlenty's criteria for selecting presidential candidates then, Palin would make a better candidate than McCain. And, for that matter, perhaps he is thinking of himself? After all, Pawlenty has been a governor for five years and eight months. For that matter, by his criteria, most of the current and past governors who has ever balanced the family budget would be better candidates than either Obama or McCain.

McCain: Action w/o Knowledge

2008-08-31T12:03:00.005-04:00

While researching into McCain's Palin selection, I found this well researched article from the International Herald Tribune: Advisers say conservative ire pushed McCain away from picking Lieberman.

The article confirmed my suspicion that "Perhaps she was not being seriously considered until shortly before that date? McCain is well known for making impulsive last minute decisions." [Attempt to "Manage" Palin's Wikipedia Entry] IHH reported that "by the end of last weekend, the outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that McCain would fill out the Republican ticket with Lieberman, a supporter of abortion rights, had become too intense to be ignored. With time running out, and after a long meeting with his inner circle in Phoenix, McCain finally picked up the phone last Sunday and reached Palin at the Alaska State Fair. ... At 11 a.m. on Thursday, at the McCain vacation compound near Sedona, Arizona, McCain invited Palin to join him on the ticket."

Although the article also mentioned that "The finalists, including Palin, were vetted, a campaign adviser said," I believe that the Palin vetting process may not have been handled as rigorously as for the other finalists, if she was really one of the finalists at all. Again from the IHH, "McCain winnowed his list to five or six finalists. They included, a McCain adviser said, Pawlenty, Romney, Lieberman, Palin and Tom Ridge." Why "five or six" unless there was uncertainty by the writers about the actual finalist status of the sixth, Palin? Again, the timing of the attempt to manage the Palin Wikipedia entry on Thursday morning strongly suggest that she was added as a "finalist" at the last minute.

This episode raises concern that McCain makes decisions without knowledge. From the IHH, the process reflects McCain's history of making fast, instinctive and sometimes risky decisions. "I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can," McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, "Worth the Fighting For." "Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint."

As a senator, McCain could afford to make mistakes and live with the consequences. His mistakes would be mitigated by the legislative process and he would only need to live with political consequences. However, McCain does not seem to understand that he is running for president and that any mistakes he would make as president and as presidential candidate could result in irrecoverable and dire consequences for the entire nation!

Attempt to "Manage" Palin's Wikipedia Entry

2008-08-30T19:09:00.012-04:00

NPR reported that someone, whose handle is Young Trigg, made significant changes to the Wikipedia entry for Palin in an apparent attempt to "manage" information. So, I checked into this interesting fact.

The first thing that I noted was the odd timing. Most Wikipedia editing is done at all odd hours. The edits are seldom by the same person consecutively over any period of time. I copied some key links to the entries before and during Young Trigg's edits and the last Young Trigg entry. On August 28, Young Trigg started to edit, in a very systematic manner, at 08:10 and apparently took time off for lunch, finished editing at 13:30, and then returning the next day after lunch to undo edits made by others. Of particular interest, some others had edited over night the following, which Young Trigg then removed.

[But now Palin is also caught in a probe of her official conduct that likely nixes whatever chance she had to be on the McCain ticket. She's only been a governor for two years, but that's about four times as long as someone else mentioned as GOP VP pick, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

However, questions have now arisen over whether Palin used her office to try and fire her ex -brother-in-law from a state trooper's position. Palin asserts the charge is untrue, but the Alaska Senate this week approved the hiring of an independent investigator to look into the allegation. "[6]" Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin faces state probe, nixing McCain VP rumors. Retrieved on 2008-08-29.]

The office-hour like timing, the positive spins, and the systematic approach seems to suggest that Young Trigg is an employee tasked to manage the information using prepared content as reference. It may be interesting to compare the before and after contents.

Furthermore, the managing of Palin's Wikipedia entry did not start until the morning of 8/28/2008. Perhaps she was not being seriously considered until shortly before that date? McCain is well known for making impulsive last minute decisions.

Note: Clicking on the time/date of the any pasted data below would display the content as it existed at that moment. The full change log involving Young Trigg may be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarah_Palin&dir=prev&offset=20080609050050&limit=500&action=history. In addition, a comparison of changes may be viewed at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarah_Palin&diff=234982535&oldid=234718011.

01:04, 28 August 2008 Coemgenus (Talk | contribs) (32,976 bytes) (→Matanuska Maid Dairy closure: reword after readin source material -- should be less POV)
04:26, 28 August 2008 70.251.18.63 (Talk) (32,982 bytes) (→Social issues)
08:10, 28 August 2008 Young Trigg (Talk | contribs) (33,809 bytes) (→Biography)
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10:04, 28 August 2008 Young Trigg (Talk | contribs) (36,737 bytes) (→Commissioner dismissal: cite)
[LUNCH?]
12:33, 28 August 2008 Young Trigg (Talk | contribs) (36,795 bytes) (→Family and personal background: (Sarah returned to office three days after giving birth.))
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13:30, 28 August 2008 Young Trigg (Talk | contribs) (38,291 bytes) (→Energy policies: cite, eliminate gas tax)
[RESUMING 24 HRS LATER]
13:17, 29 August 2008 Young Trigg (Talk | contribs) (39,141 bytes) (→Energy policies: Restore well-sourced deleted text.)
13:23, 29 August 2008 Young Trigg (Talk | contribs) (39,141 bytes) (Undid revision 234982400 by 129.237.234.10 (talk) NPOV, redundant)

John's Choice

2008-08-30T15:27:00.014-04:00

While McCain's choice was not nearly as tormenting as Sophie's Choice and his background not as tormented as Sophie's, his choice of a running mate was between the lesser of two evils.

In my 4/9/08 blog, Some Thoughts Concerning McCain's Poll Results, I wrote that "regardless of whom McCain selects as his running mate the joint ticket would be significantly weakened. ... Because he is unique and is uniquely appealing to many Democrats and Independents, a running mate could only diminish this uniqueness. A running mate who appeals to the Republican base would be very unattractive to those Democrats and Independents who favor McCain, because he or she would not have the very qualities that make McCain attractive to them. On the other hand, a mate who appeals to the Democrats and Independents who like McCain's un-Republican characteristics and stances would not appeal to the Republican base."

By choosing Palin, most pundits were surprised. Many were struck by the superficial resemblance of Palin to McCain as a Republican Party maverick. Some view the choice as a strategy to garner disaffected Hillary supporters.

But I view McCain's choice of Palin as a tactical implementation of the first of two evils, a strategy to appeal to the Republican base. Palin has an almost identical background to that of the 2000 Bush, including being the governor of a state whose budget is supported by oil [see Palin?]. I believe that the timing of the McCain announcement was not due to any clever strategy but that he found none of the other so-called short listed possibilities to be viable.

I believe that McCain had decided at the last moment that if he could not become the next president, he would at least go down in history as the first Republican to have chosen to run with a woman. In Palin, who was apparently not properly vetted [See http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/51216.html], suggesting a last minute decision, he had chosen someone whose resume is so thin that it is almost invisible. If McCain were truly interested in demonstrating his independence from Bush and in breaking the glass ceiling for women, he could have chosen and vetted in a timely manner someone like Olympia Snowe.

Essentially, then, I believe that McCain had decided to run alone with an ephemeral facade of Bush as his running mate and that Palin is simply a token. While this tactic may have a temporary shock advantage, it would be much too feeble to withstand the trials and tribulations of the election process.

Clinton's Speech

2008-08-30T14:04:00.008-04:00

In my 6/8/08 blog, Strategy for Hillary, I wrote "that all the talk about Vice Presidency nomination is a smoke screen. If I were in her position, I would want to keep my options for 2012 open." As was reported, Hillary was not vetted for the VP slot and apparently it was at her own request. This blog is a review of Hillary's speech [Transcript: Hillary Clinton's Prime-Time Speech : NPR] with respect to the strategy I wrote, and I listed two prongs for her strategy:

1) Seek to improve her position within the Democratic Party and with its traditional base. ... She will need to go all out to get Barack elected and to ensure that the Democratic Party remains strong so that when her turn comes, and it will come, she will be on the winning side.

Hillary had acted precisely in this manner. Her speech emphasized that "it is time to take back the country we love... , the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future. And it's a fight we must win."

2) Build her base starting with the supporters that she had cultivated during the primary. ... She would need to dump or rehabilitate her so-called "supporters" who acted mainly on their own agenda. ... The next on this list is someone she could not and should not dump but must rehabilitate, Bill.

I saw a Hillary/Bill partnership that would rebuild her base while supporting Barack. I believe that Hillary's speech must be heard together with Bill's as one single speech. Hillary's half was carefully crafted to maintain her base while Bill's half was given as her alter ego, that exploited the natural gifts that only he has, to reconcile with Barack and to patch damages in their connections within the Democratic Party. We saw a rehabilitated Bill at the Denver convention. He has gotten over his bitterness and he would be a formidable campaigner for Hillary in the future primaries.

Finally, Peter F. Drucker has one key question for the effective executive: How may I contribute to your success? Hillary was asking the wrong question, repeatedly, even at the end: "What does Hillary want?"

In her speech, Hillary said "I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine ... that mom ... that boy and his mom ... all the people in this country ...?" I believe that the way she posed the questions to her supporters reflected the necessary change in focus from that of electing Hillary as the first woman president to that of contributing to the common good. In the Clinton speeches, I sense a confidence that they know that the day soon will come when we will have a Madame President and that she could very well be Hillary.

Palin?

2008-08-30T04:21:00.005-04:00

Question for those Hillary supporters who are considering voting McCain/Palin: Would you vote for Palin if she were a he?

Would you take the chance that we may have as President someone who has had less than 2 years experience as governor, favors teaching creationism in school, is anti-choice, is for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, considers global warming "not man made," wants to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has zero foreign relations and national policy experience?

And what kind of fiscal experience does Palin have? Alaska is an oil producing state whose budget is amply supported by oil production. Unfortunately, having lots of oil money is not something we enjoy at the national level.

If Palin were a Democratic male and is picked over Hillary, what would be your reaction?

If you supported Hillary because of her principles, would you not be betraying them by supporting someone who supports everything opposing? If you supported Hillary as a person, would you not be insulting her by considering Palin to be her equal?

As I was typing this blog, it occurred to me that I could have been describing another Bush, but one with even less experience than Bush. Could any of us entrust the future of our children to Palin, if she were to assume the presidency as many vice presidents did in the past? I could not, because by selecting Palin as a running partner McCain has picked a Bush-light.

Forget About McCain, Crooked Express

2008-07-31T12:46:00.003-04:00

I could no longer support McCain. When the chips are down, John McCain would lie to himself to justify his campaign's actions. When questioned concerning his campaign's attack on Obama's canceled trip to the wounded American troops in Germany, "judge by what we do and don't do" McCain said, in his own words, as broadcasted on NewsHour. Well, the ad is an out and out lie and, as verified by reporters who were on the plane and by fact checkers, Obama did not cancel the visit due to politics. McCain, what you do has been judged by me and I could no longer vote for you now or ever. All your past statements about running an honorable campaign were just words. When it really counts, you are as dirty a politican as the rest. You are the one who is using the troops for political gains with your attack ads.

My Genographic DNA Results

2008-07-31T10:25:00.003-04:00

A recent comment to an earlier blog article reminded me that I have not yet posted my Genographic DNA test results. I am correcting that oversight.

As may be expected, my paternal lineage belongs to the O3 haplogroup, which is that of a significant percentage of Han Chinese. I was intrigued by my search results that what is known an an ethnic group, the Han in this cases, comes in a number of different Y-chromosome haplogroups and that the people with the same haplogroup, O3 in my case, could come from many other ethnic groups. Based on these results, I am left with wonderment concerning the shared origins between peoples who consider themselves to be Han, Mongolian, Tibetan, Japanese, Indonesian, Filipino, Vietnamese, etc.

According to the Wikipedia article, Haplogroup O3 (Y-DNA), retrieved today, July 31, 2008, the "Haplogroup O3 is found in over 50% of all modern Han Chinese males (ranging up to over 80% in certain regional subgroups of the Han ethnicity), about 40% of Manchurian, Korean, and Vietnamese males, about 35% of Filipino and Malaysian males, about 25% of Zhuang^[2] and Indonesian^[3] males, and about 15%^[4] to 20%^[5] of Japanese males. The distribution of Haplogroup O3 stretches far into Central Asia (approx. 30% of Salar, 24% of Dongxiang^[6], 18% to 22.8% of Mongolians, 12% of Uyghurs, 9% of Kazakhs, 6.2% of Altayans^[7], and 4.1% of Uzbeks) and Oceania (approx. 25% of Polynesians, 18% of Micronesians, and 5% of Melanesians^[8]), albeit with reduced frequencies of most subclades."

In view of such commonality, why is it that we focus on the differences and fight over them rather than on the common ancestry and coexist harmoniously? Sadly, I know the answer and it is that we are all too human and all too often one sees in the news that deadly conflicts occur even within immediate families.

Of architecture and organizational development

2008-07-13T03:02:00.002-04:00

As I read the linked-to NY Times article (In Changing Face of Beijing, a Look at the New China), a wonderfully written one, describing Beijing's new buildings and how they reflect the society, I was reminded of my organizational development class trip to the Getty Museum. The professor did not explain why he organized such a trip, but I knew immediately that it was a metaphorical comparison of organizational architecture to that of physical architecture as containers for people and relating to people.

The Getty architect, Richard Meier, sat at the top of the hill and determined the two directions of the splitting ridge and designed the Getty Center to align to these two directions. He even went as far as dictating that the planted trees are to be grown to the same height and trunk size. [An answer to a fact that I noticed as odd, that one could look down a row and only see the front tree, and questioned our docent.] To me, the Getty Center is all form and no substance. It was an homage made by a huge ego to one who was a huge ego -- a tomb, a mausoleum. From the choice of the color, white, to the stone facades, the center is dead but for the living beings entombed in them, the workers whose needs were not taken into consideration.

The Getty garden architect, Robert Irwin, was another huge ego and hence one could see the conflict between him and Meier forever etched in the cirular garden laid out in defiance to Meier's linear lines. Despite the living plants, Irwin's garden is as dead as Meier's buildings.

After visiting the Beyerler and the Zentrum Paul Klee, I was reminded of the contrast between Renzo Piano's naturalistic and humanistic approach with the "I am God and control the elements" approach of Meier and Irwin. Which approach is behind the city architecture of Beijing and therefore of China? I wonder. It seems to me that the NYT article is describing a rebirthing process of sorts of the city and of the country.

GOP Swiftboating Has Started

2008-06-24T01:43:00.004-04:00

I received the following email swiftboating Barack Obama. It's so racist that I am not pasting it on my blog. I am disgusted, to say the least. I doubt the real author would use his/her real name, so "Mr. Carroll," or whatever your real name is, go back in your rabbit hole and smoke whatever you have been smoking.

==

From: Gordon & Alice

To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;

Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 11:23 PM

Subject: Fw: change

----- Original Message -----  From: 
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 8:03 PM
Subject: change

"The next ten years  will be the most difficult; they always have been."  Rabbi  ?  

The Jihad Candidate

by Rich Carroll

Conspiracy theories make for interesting novels when the storyline is not so absurd that it can grasp our attention. 'The Manchurian Candidate' and 'Seven Days in May' are examples of plausible chains of events that captures the reader's imagination at best-seller level. 'What if' has always been the solid grist of fiction.

... Is it mere coincidence this candidate wants to reduce our military at a time of global jihad from Muslim nations?

Change for America? What change? To become another nation of Islam'?

Renminbi Basket: Heavy Yen Component?

2008-06-22T00:23:00.004-04:00

I was curious about how the Renminbi basket is calculated. It seems to be designed for a S-curve landing toward a pure floating rate when I viewed it against the $. When viewed against the Euro, I could see that the Euro's rise against the $ more than outpaced the Rmb's rise against the $, so the Euro showed a steady climb against the Rmb. However, when viewing the Rmb against the Japanese Yen, I noticed that the fluctuations do not show any discernable rise or decline. The lowest Yen/Rmb points are approximately 13.75 Yen/Rmb! Was this unusual pattern due to a basket designed to peg to the Yen? Or, is it simply due to the closely tied economies of both countries? I don't know. Intriguing.

KASEI for Sustainable Human Growth

2008-06-20T16:28:00.000-04:00

"Knowledge is not impersonal, like money. Knowledge does not reside in a book, a databank, a software program; they contain only information. Knowledge is always embodied in a person; carried by a person; created, augmented, or improved by a person; applied by a person; taught and passed on by a person; used or misused by a person. The shift to the knowledge society therefore puts the person in the center." [Drucker]

This is an experiment in the efficacious management of knowledge to focus on one challenge at a time. The challenge must be difficult, a solution must be possible and must not be simplistic. As all project, each challenge must have a target date. The goal is to contribute to sustainable human growth and currently pressing. I have chosen the first challenge, the next challenge will be a problem selected collectively.

Background

Information is not knowledge but is the container, constructed from words and sights, for storing knowledge and is used for transporting knowledge. In a nutshell, knowledge lies in the "words not spoken" and is the tacit meaning that could not be made explicit and yet could be defined and contained by explicitly expressed and carefully constructed information. Knowledge is reading between the lines!

KASEI

KASEI (knowledge amplification by stimulated emission of information) is a process which is designed to mimic the behavior of the laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). The basic parts of a laser is pictured and mapped by the KASEI Diagram, http://knowledgeaction.blogspot.com/2007/04/kasei-knowledge-amplification-by.html. And, the knowledge creation, information emission process is similar to light emission, located at http://knowledgeaction.blogspot.com/2007/04/spontaneous-emission-diagrams.html.

Just as a laser needs a source of external energy to actuate the lasing process, KASEI needs actuating by knowledge leaders. Unlike traditional leaders who direct (more often then not, dictate), knowledge leaders serve as servant leaders [Robert Greenleaf]. They must be able to subjugate their own egos to contribute, they must be sensitive to the directions of inquiry of those they lead, and the leadership role is distributed and shifts with each topic. More information may be found at http://knowledgeaction.blogspot.com/search/label/KM.

The knowledge creation process has a critical actuation level, therefore please actively participate. We would need a broad spectrum of experience and knowledge. Please state how you may contribute to knowledge creation when you join. The only requirements are 1) the willingness to share knowledge, 2) a thirst for knowledge creation, 3) behavior patterns that are conducive to cognitive conflicts and to avoidance of affective conflicts, and finally, most importantly, 4) a desire to contribute to the success of humanity. The actuation causal diagram may be found at http://knowledgeaction.blogspot.com/2007/04/knowledge-organism-metabolism-model.html.

Please invite others whom you believe meet the requirements.

The first challenge: How may we create a win-win middle path of sustainable relationship between the Tibetans in an out of China, the non-Tibetan Chinese, and the other interested parties around the world?

Background of participants:
Starting with historians, strategists, socio-anthropologists, psychologists, politicians, business experts, technologists, and organizational development experts specializing in group dynamics. We will identify other holes to fill as part of the process.

Success Criterion: A single actionable recommendation to be accepted by the His Holiness Dalai Lama and the Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Target Dates:

July 31 -- Critical mass of members and experts.
August 31 -- Identify major topics and map of main knowledge contributors and knowledge leaders.
September 30 -- Identify specific action options and select a focus target.
December 31 -- Seek external validation.
March 31 -- Seek meeting with representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government.
June 30 -- Either succeed or fail. Start new challenge.

On the Election

2008-06-17T03:31:00.004-04:00

[This was prepared as a response in a global discussion thread on Xing.com about the American Election.]

Elf recommended this thread for me to join, so I am here.

I could only present my own point of view, which may or may not agree with the views of others. But, then, that is the American way.

I am proud again to be American more than ever before. That is, American in its true sense, not simply a nationality but an ideal.

For me, if we lose the ideal then the nationality would be denigrated. Our Founders paid with lives for that ideal, and our soldiers died to protect that ideal. All men (generic sense, including women and children) are created equal. All men have inalienable rights, which included the right to pursue happiness. And, if one is to trade this ideal in order to save one's own life (the security argument, a toxic exploitation of one of Maslow's hierarchy of needs) than that life may not be worthwhile saving because it no longer would have meaning.

America was, and still is, an experiment in progress. It was designed intentionally by most, not all, of the Founders. There has always been a need to perfect America. These Founders realized the imperfect nature of men and created a process of self-regulation that would protect the ideal, not necessarily lives, to promote equality and the inalienable rights.

Bush spoke of freedom and security, but he traded the ideal for lives. In this manner, America was diminished by its own hands. In my eyes, he did more damage than Bin Laden could have ever done. We fought WWI and WWII for the right reasons and many, many more lives were heroically given to protect the American ideal. Bush took us to Iraq based on a false pretext and heroic lives of thousands were squandered and the resulting carnage on innocent Iraqi people is something that our generation and the following generations would have to remedy.

From my perspective, therefore, this year's election has two primary purposes. First, it is time for remediation. Second, the nation is ready for true equality in elevating the status of up-to-now second class citizens to the same level as the mainstream. That second class includes the majority of Americans, the women, and a minority class that would soon become a majority in demographics, which includes the hispanics/latinos, blacks, Asians, native Americans.

As a "hyphenated American," I could appreciate the kind of struggle that Hillary had faced and how she may have been damaged by that process. One has to act more mainstream than the mainstream. Therefore, if the mainstream is macho and aggressive, one has to be more macho and more aggressive simply to compete with an even chance of success. Hillary had paid that price and she became a bulldozer but that bulldozer had cleared the way for other second-class citizens to get through without suffering as much damage. She was also the hammer and anvil that toughened Barack for the fight ahead. As Jesse Jackson once famously said, If the doors of equality opened for one, it is opened for all. (Not quite an exact quote, but close enough.) Although I thought of her as a damaged candidate, I think she is heroic in her own way.

McCain is also a damaged candidate, his "straight talk express" had gone off track many times but had somehow managed to get back on track. I do not agree with him on many issues, but I honor him for what he had tried to do. He was damaged by being the Don Quixote tilting at the windmills so many times. He is a hero not because he was a war hero but for his bravery in fighting for the American ideal. I do not agree with the view that he's too old. Young presidents died in office as well. JFK was only 46 when he was assassinated. Old presidents had succeeded in turning around the nation. Ronald Reagan did that. Sickly presidents had led us through wars and tribulation. Franklin Roosevelt brought us out of harms way in more ways than one.

Barack's so-called inexperience is a positive attribute. What may be a weakness for some , is a strength in his case. His willingness to learn, to adjust, to admit to mistakes, and to correct these mistakes makes him the ideal candidate for this particular primary with Hillary as his ideal opponent. The Obama who entered the race was not ready for prime time. The Obama of today still has some flaws but is, as a whole, ready. But, if one views his progress so far, one may expect that by the end of the fight with McCain he would have been ready to take on any challenge as president, unlike Bush, who was protected by daddy's legions and did not grow as either a person or a candidate.

So, yes, I am proud. So proud that I could cry, that America has finally grown up. That the experiment that had almost failed in Bush's hands will succeed in much, much more capable hands. That the door of equality has now finally opened for women, for blacks, and for all the hyphenated Americans.

She [Disillusion]

2008-06-08T20:39:00.012-04:00

Perhaps my mother, aunt, was right, she is thinking. Girls should not go to college, those were her very words. And, yet, this is so unjust, I want to fight, like I did before. And, I have always overcome every obstacle that life has tossed in my path. But, in her heart, she knows. This time, the obstacle is simply too heavy. It weighted heavily in her heart.

The government said that we, the youth, are the future of China. They paid for everything. And, although there weren't enough food and the "egg fried rice" was really rice cooked with yellow husks masquerading as eggs and Japanese air raids were part of daily life, she has endured these many years and she has triumphed. She has graduated as one of the top students in the chemical engineering class of forty and as the best of the three women. Her professor had sent a letter of recommendation for the top six students to the newly created Chinese Petroleum Company. She was among the six. But, what did the person who was responsible for hiring say? It's not a job for girls. And so they picked someone with much worse grades -- a male -- to take her place.

She is disillusioned. It's so unfair! What good is a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering if it is a profession not for girls? Am I not part of China's future? I will survive this setback, she vows. After all, tomorrow is another day!

She [Stranded]

2008-06-08T17:33:00.002-04:00

Please let me teach in exchange for rice, she asks the villagers. She had left her first year at National Zhejiang University to join the Chinese version of the USO, to entertain the troops as they marched toward battle. As the troops reached the active and shifting front line, the boys continued on. But, the commander told the two girls to stay behind. Stranded far away from home, the two of them will have to live on the small daily rice rations from now on.

She is my hero. She is my mother.

Strategy for Hillary

2008-06-08T00:52:00.012-04:00

Now that Hillary has conceded, it's time to consider her options. I believe that all the talk about Vice Presidency nomination is a smoke screen. If I were in her position, I would want to keep my options for 2012 open and I believe that was the true reason for stretching the concession to this point. She is much too ambitious and too capable -- and she has had to be in Bill's shadow for too long -- to be satisfied with a V.P. position or any cabinet position.

I also believe that Hillary would best serve by being the loyal opposition. This is because I believe that a key problem with the Bush administration has been the lack of an internal challenger. Even though I believe in Barack, I believe even more in checks and balances. But, she needs to be careful to avoid the bad habits that she has developed over the years from fighting to survive in the male-dominated world. She was much more effective during the primary when she let her feminine side shine through. In other words, she needs to avoid affective conflicts and aggressive actions. Barack won partly because he trusted his X-chromosome behavior and therefore he was a much more balanced person than Hillary and maintaining balance is critical in any fight.

So, I think Hillary should do two things:

1) Seek to improve her position within the Democratic Party and with its traditional base. She has damaged her image by the mistakes and the mis-steps of her own and those by her supporters. She has started to do this by pledging 100% support to Barack. She will need to go all out to get Barack elected and to ensure that the Democratic Party remains strong so that when her turn comes, and it will come, she will be on the winning side. And, I believe she could and should continue to act in a win-win manner for her country, her party and herself by finding opportunities, such as heading another healthcare reform initiative, but doing it right this time, without becoming an integral part of the administration.

2) Build her base starting with the supporters that she had cultivated during the primary. She needs to learn from the mistakes that had cost her supporters. And, the post-Obama candidacy Democratic Party will be quite different from the current one. She would need to dump or rehabilitate her so-called "supporters" who acted mainly on their own agenda. The top of this list should be to dump Geraldine Ferraro, an embittered politico who was still fighting her own losing V.P. battle, and her obscurity afterward, at Hillary's expense. The next on this list is someone she could not and should not dump but must rehabilitate, Bill. Bill, to his credit, was truly trying to fight for Hillary because he believes in her abilities and to repay her for her support and her forgiveness for all these years of trials and tribulations that she had to endure on his account. However, she is very much capable of fighting her own battles and he is still bitter from his impeachment battle and he needed to get over that.

Finally, Peter F. Drucker has one key question for the effective executive: How may I contribute to your success? Hillary was asking the wrong question, repeatedly, even at the end: "What does Hillary want?" Even if the answer to that question was to give her followers what they wanted, it was still from a self-centered perspective, as in "I have the power to give you...." It would be difficult to separate her own self-interest from supporter's interest and nation's interest.

Obama: I am wordless... almost.

2008-06-04T21:54:00.012-04:00

Never thought I'd see this day. I am so proud that I could cry.

I remember in the first months after arriving on American soil in Tulsa in 1961 that I had to ask my dad which water fountain to use at the department store. I remember taking remedial English at UC Berkeley five years later and being introduced to "Soul On Ice" and other eye-opening knowledge. I remember a friend, who happened to be black, telling me that I was white because I was not black. The pain in his voice was telling.

I also remember hearing from my mom how difficult it was for her to find respect and a job in her field. She and Dad both graduated with degrees in chemical engineering, in the same class, from the same university. Yet when she was recommended for a chemical engineering job at Chinese Petroleum, where Dad worked, also recommended, she was told that she was not eligible because she was not a man. Then, after we moved to the States, due to her Chinese accent and being a woman, she was treated often as inferior.

So, for all the minorities and for all the moms, daughters, and sisters, Barack, thank you for being you and, Hillary, thank you for being you. I've watched Barack deal with everything that was thrown at him and he remained standing. Hillary, without you acting as the hammer and the anvil, Barack would not have become the solid nominee that he is today. Just as the samurai sword is pounded again and again, then it is folded and the process restarts over and over. Hillary's hammering made Barack tougher and Barack's flexibility made him stronger.

I have faith in the USA. I know that I will live to see a woman as president. Hillary has proven that a woman could be just as strong, if not stronger, as any man. I may not have appreciated every tactic Hillary employed, but I know that whatever she did, she was the bulldozer that paved the way for other talented women candidates to come. And, she still has 2016 to run again. McCain has proven that age is no longer much of a constraint.

She [Love's First Glimpse]

2008-06-04T16:10:00.003-04:00

She is full of mirth and energy. She is playing basketball. She jumps. She laughs. Her voice is like that of a songbird. As he watched, he is overcome. I must win her, he thinks. But, how? I am just a bookworm, a nerd, he believes.

Leadership:Dealing With Difficult Decisions

2008-06-04T10:59:00.009-04:00

A differentiating quality between a great leader and a toxic leader is the ability and the willingness to see reality in time to make a decision. This is a rarest quality, because one must be able to divorce one's own self-interest from the decision making analysis. In McClellan's book, he revealed his view about Bush's true goal in invading Iraq as not the stated reason (and there were many as time went on) of preventing the use of WMD but the desire to spread democracy. He believed that Bush deceived himself into believing in the justness of his action and that, in other words, Bush believed that the end justified the means.

However, I think that McClellan lacked depth in his analysis. One would only need to view Bush's actions to see that he does not truly believe in democracy itself. "My way or the highway" does not reflect the behavior of a person who practices democracy but that of an autocrat. I think that Bush, after reading biographies of truly great leaders who performed heroic acts, believed in himself as a hero and therefore must act heroically. I therefore believe that the so called "spreading democracy" goal was simply a rationalization for his true goal, which is to be memorialized by future generations as a hero. He failed because true heroes do not act to be heroes but to achieve ideals and to act in manners consistent to those ideals.

To compound his error in invading Iraq, Bush refused to recognize the reality in Iraq. And, as a result, he low-balled the cost of invasion by assuming that his assumptions were facts. He refused to take corrective actions but sent sycophants, those who "drank the Kool-Aid" (as Bob Woodward wrote in his book), in critical positions. And, as a result, he caused the deaths of thousands of patriotic Americans and he ruined the lives of tens of thousands more and the deaths and misery of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Not all great leaders consistently show this decisive quality. Churchill had not always acted wisely but he made the right decision when the critical time came. Another great leader is currently facing a decision. Should she face up to reality and do the right thing for the causes that she believes in, or continue to confuse her own self-interest with the interest of the nation? Which cause is for the greater good -- is it gender equality or national healing? How should she act? We could only wait and see. Both are important goals that I share.

For myself, my decision of which candidate to support was based on a "razor" for making such difficult decisions. When I was a green project manager, I was faced with many project tasks and each one was critical to the success of the project. Which one should I choose? A seasoned project manager said to me, "One must breathe, drink, eat, and defecate if one is to live, but it's obvious which one is the most critical." In other words, there is always a difference in criticality. A good project manager must differentiate wisely and perform the right task at the right time. Thus, in a similar way, a great leader now must make her differentiation wisely and do the right thing at this time.

Entrereneur Opportunity -- Cost-efficiency Based Green GPS Option

2008-05-31T15:05:00.007-04:00

If you are an entrepreneur who is green-minded, or even if you are not, or if you work for TomTom, Garmin, or another GPS manufacturere, here is an idea that could reduce greenhouse gas and make money for you.

Many cars and many drivers have one or more GPSs today. Their choices for route selection are limited to "fastest," "shortest distance," and other minor ones. It would be fairly easy to add a "green" option that takes into consideration the car model and age, terrain, speed limit range, and local fuel cost and to calculate a route that would be the most fuel efficient. And, in addition to speed limit warnings, offer fuel waste warnings and fuel-miser encouragements, such as: "Cost per mile exceeding xx $/m (EU/km)." "New high m/$ (lowest EU/km)!"

It is now a well known fact that people's behavior pattern could be modified if appropriate feedback is given in a timely manner. This proposed simple modification to the existing GPS software could save many drivers of non-hybrids much money and mental anguish.

Sliding Morality: An epidemic of "out of context" "mis-speaking"

2008-05-31T13:59:00.005-04:00

It seems to me that people, with some notable exceptions, no longer admit to mistakes and take responsibility to do the right thing. Politicians have been mis-speaking out of context in recent weeks more times than I would care to count. Even Sharon Stone, a non-politician, has learned to claim that she mis-spoke and that her comments were taken out of context. Therefore, I was heartened that one politician actually used the word "mistake" in a recent press release, "[He] mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald." I prefer a politician who admits to making mistakes instead of one who claims to have "mis-spoke" "out of context."

Simple/Cheap High- and Low-Voltage Indicators

2008-05-31T13:17:00.009-04:00

As I wrote earlier, my computer's battery started to die quickly, so I rebuilt the original battery pack by replacing the three cells. I liked the Tenergy 2700mAH 18650 cells so much that I bought a few more to build an external battery pack. Now, my Vaio lasts more than 6 hours of continuous use and all day of intermittent use. [I will describe that project later.]

In addition to the battery pack, my Vaio itself is starting to show the ravages of time. The charging circuit's contacts have been damaged so that it will only charge when the LCD screen is half-closed. I was left with a choice: either use it on battery and charge it when not in use, or charge the batteries (battery pack and the external batteries) directly. I measured the voltage of the battery pack at full charge (12.6V) and at zero charge (10.7V) and found that I had a Sony external drive charger with a nominal 12V rating. It charges to 12.3V. A few hours of tinkering later, I had a fully working system.

But, there was one problem: By bypassing the Vaio's charging system, its battery monitor software no longer reflects the actual charge. I Googled for some circuits to use but found them to be all too complex. It seems that folks today seem to know only how to use ICs. I prefer simplicity and an analog bridge circuit was called for. Some experimentation later, I put together the circuits I'm sharing in this entry for low power LED indicators for high and low voltages. As I live within walking distance from a local RadioShack, I was able to get some exercise and build the circuits for about $10. RadioShack sells a very cheap pack of mixed LEDs and I chose to use a green LED for high voltage and a red LED for low voltage.

Sharon Stone: Mindless Rants of a Raging Racist

2008-05-28T00:28:00.016-04:00

“All these earthquakes and stuff happened and I thought, ‘Is that karma?’ When you are not nice, bad things happen to you,” Sharon told a Chinese media outlet Thursday at the Cannes Film festival when she was asked about the recent earthquake.

“I’m not happy about how the Chinese are treating the Tibetans, I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else, " she said. “They’re not being very nice to the Dali Lama, who’s a good friend of mine.”

Having dealt with racism in America, I found that a common thread among racists is their tendency to lump everyone of a race as a single mindless, soulless, lump. By treating the more than 60,000 dead and the millions homeless Chinese as "you," Sharon Stone proved more than anything that she is a racist.

She is also mindless. She professes to be a friend of the Dalai Lama. But does she not know that he is holy because he treasures each life on earth as sacred and connected and that he, perhaps, would be suffering for the victims more than anyone else at this moment?

Then, again, even if Stone's assumption is sound and that everyone of the victims is guilty and deserves to die and to suffer, does she not know that many of those very quake victims are surely Tibetans, because the region where the quakes occurred has a significant Tibetan population? So, according to her belief, do many Tibetans deserve to die and to suffer because they mistreated themselves? [See comment: 18.5% of the population at the epicenter are Tibetans.]

Finally, according to her own principles that "When you are not nice, bad things happen to you," she should also be a victim of some catastrophe. It certainly is not nice nor kind to blame the victims for being victims. There is, however, one major incongruence, those quake victims, including tens of thousands of young children, were probably very nice and yet bad things happened to them. Whereas, Stone is certainly not nice and is without compassion for wishing so much pain and suffering on such a large number of people, but I doubt that she would suffer anywhere nearly as much as even a single quake victim.

Sharon Stone, if you truly believe in the teachings of the Dalai Lama, you should be donating your fortune to the relief efforts and you should stop ranting like a raging racist.

She [Yanks]

2008-05-26T02:46:00.011-04:00

Over There, Over There. Send the word, send the word, Over There, That the Yanks are coming, The Yanks are coming, ...

She is singing and the audience is listening intensely. It is 1942 and American troops are stationed in China, commanded by General Vinegar Joe Stilwell, and some of the "Yanks" are making camp in this local school. They said, Teach us this song, please. She doesn't know that they knew the song well. She is 19 and beautiful and they are far away from home, so any excuse to share her company is more than welcomed.

I, too, share your indomitable spirit, she thinks, our just cause will prevail! I, too, share your irrepressible belief, she vows, Japan will be defeated!

She is my hero. She is my mother.

[On this Memorial Day, we thank all the "Yanks" of that day, before, and since, who fought a fight not our own. Whether living through, or dying in, our wars, you fought for the Bill of Rights, you fought for us. We may have had fights based on our own interests, but then, so did every other country. After all, we are all human beings with failings. What makes our country, and you, so special, is that no other country on this Earth has fought as many times and lost as many soldiers for causes other than in pure self-interest.]

She [A Deserter]

2008-05-26T00:27:00.003-04:00

She awoke, startled. The soldiers were lined up. But, wait, one of them was begging. I only left so I could go see my family, he pleaded. They fired. He fell. Soon, he was just another frozen log stacked on the side of the road.

She is my hero. She is my mother.

She

2008-05-25T15:57:00.003-04:00

She is a little girl. Her fingers are burning from the icy cold water, but she must wash the rice. In an empty courtyard of her family home. Her "mother," her aunt, demands it. She sobs. Cold tears drip onto a warm heart. Inside her.

She is my hero. She is my mother.

Obama: The First Female President?

2008-05-25T15:05:00.005-04:00

It has just occurred to me that if all the news stories had only referred to the two Democratic contenders as Obama and Clinton without any reference to gender, one could conceivably believe that Obama's approach and behavior is more feminine and that Clinton's demeanor is more masculine. Obama practices collecthink and listens more often to the voices of others while Clinton hears her own voices and believes these voices to be always right. Obama's campaign has been more gentle while Clinton's campaign has been more aggressive. Using a martial arts metaphor, Obama practices the yin style of Taiji that reflects soft inner strength, while Clinton practices the yang style of karate and executes hard, linear power.

Perhaps the younger generation are more drawn to the "female" Obama? And, perhaps some of Clinton's supporters appreciate Clinton's more traditional "male" attributes? So, just as Bill Clinton was appreciated as the "First Black President," perhaps Obama would be our "First Female President?"

Clinton: One Mistake Too Many

2008-05-23T18:14:00.009-04:00

Even though I would like to see Clinton complete the primaries, I believe that it is time for her to find a way to gracefully bow out before she makes another mistake and kill our chances to cleanse ourselves of Bush or her own chances for a future run. I do not believe that a simple apology would do for using the June assassination of Bobby Kennedy as a reason for her to stay in. Surely, she and Bill, the "first Black President," must know that such a reference from her would, at worst, give inspiration to the racist fanatics, or, at best, imply that she would somehow wish the fate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. onto Obama.

My confidence in Clinton has been whittled away by comments from her ardent inner circle but none had done more damage to Clinton's image than her own words. First, she mis-spoke about her Balkans visit, then she mis-spoke by the inappropriate choice of context for the phrase "hard working," and now the unacceptable reference to "assassination." These mistakes display a level of poor judgment that do not become someone who would be our future President.

80-20 Initiative LA Chapter's Early Days

2008-05-16T11:46:00.012-04:00

In May of 2000, we were already gearing up for the Presidential Election. The newly formed LA 80-20 PAC had "eight Committees now, "Operation", "Public Relation", "Information", "Membership", "Legal", "Publication", "Fundraising", and the brand new "Endorsement" Committee."

The Endorsement Committee was tasked to focus on the local elections. [There was also a national endorsement committee that would interview Gore and Bush representatives in August.]

The photos are from the October 15, 2000 Board Meeting. I was in town for my son Jamie's funeral. My smiles were therefore both tortured and yet pleased. In addition to Board members, we had with us a number of local candidates for office. I held an impromptu collaboration exercise conducted with the help of the children and young adults.

Top photo: Christin Li, John Wong, Dave Chu [me], Alfred Foung, and George Nakano.

Bottom photo: Dave Chu, Alfred Foung, George Nakano, Paul Zee, and Carol Liu.

Fire of distrust [from August 27, 2000 archive]

2008-05-16T11:44:00.005-04:00

Fire of distrust

To the Editor:
Fax: (213) 237-7679.

In response to "Asian American Group Seeks to Flex Political Muscle", K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer

Some in the Asian-American community claim that the 80-20 goal is unrealistic. They claim that the only way to achieve the 80-20 goal is to act as unthinking herds. They not only insult themselves but insult other Americans. Jewish-Americans and African-Americans have been successfully leveraging their voting power for years. In fact, Jewish-Americans comprise of only 2% of the population but 4% of the voters. There is a reason that Hispanic-Americans are starting to group together. None of these groups are any less complex and individualistic than the Asian-Americans.

The skeptics forget that thinking individuals can still have compelling common interests. Thinking individuals also know that the only way they could advance those compelling common interests is by acting together in unison. What is one compelling reason for Asian-Americans to vote together? I will draw you a picture.

There is a fire that started burning at Los Alamos not reported by the national press. It is the fire of distrust. It started with the distrust stemming from racial prejudice. The Cox report set the first spark but the root goes deeper into America's past. It goes to the forced retention of Japanese-Americans during WWII. It goes back further even to the massacres of Chinese-Americans in LA's Chinatown earlier when distrust turned to hate.

Yes, there is a reason to hope that the 80-20 Initiative will deliver. It may be best described by an analogy to what Pastor Niemller wrote: "First they came for the Jews, but I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.... Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."

When the forces of racism - came to LA's Chinatown, others did not speak out. When they came for the Japanese-Americans we remained quiet. When they went after Wen Ho Lee, we were no longer going to sit still. We know that the fire of distrust starts to burn one group but it will spread. Where it spreads, nobody can control.

As Los Alamos can bear witness, this fire of distrust has already started to consume its residents. To borrow the final quote from the Washington Post article "Los Alamos Under Siege", "(i)t ultimately comes down to a question of trust". (See http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26268-2000Aug25.html)

David L. Chu
Proud member of the 80-20
27.08.2000

Colors [from April 14, 2000 archive]

2008-05-16T11:41:00.005-04:00

Colors

I am blue. Black and blue. And yellow too.

I am yellow and I am proud of it.

I am black and blue after years of banging against an invisible barrier in my chosen profession.

I am blue because I am disheartened. Mainly by the slow progress people of color have been making toward removing such barriers. Also by the sheer disinterest our community has shown in uniting to break them down.

Rather, I was blue. I am now white!

I am white with excitement. The unprecedented progress that 80-20 has made in raising the awareness of the presidential hopefuls and of the news media to the importance of the APA community in American politics makes me positively incandescent!

Yet, I am also pale. I am apprehensive that history may yet repeat itself and this rare unity in purpose would dissolve into a pile of sand.

If you have ever been talked down to because you have a “foreign” accent. If you or your children have ever been called “Chinks”, “Gooks”, “Slant Eyes”, “Japs”, “Tojo” or “Chinaman”. If your job performance has ever been rated low due to “poor communications skills” despite solid accomplishments. If you have ever been told to “go back to where you came from.” If you have ever been mistreated in any way due to your skin color or ethnic origin, it is time for you to act. It is time to act not with malice nor toward retribution, but to unite and to work toward equality.

America has been blinded by color for much too long. People of color were invisible in American politics and in corporate America.

It is now color-blind, or tries to be so, and therefore conveniently overlooking the lack of color in American politics and corporate America.

America is a country of colors. Imagine how beautiful an American quilt we can make with the full richness of finely balanced colors!

David L. Chu
Nyon, Switzerland
April 14, 2000

2000 Presidential Election: 80-20's Use of Social Networking Software

2008-05-16T10:42:00.019-04:00

By April of 2000, as we geared up for the General Election, I had introduced the concept of using social networking to coordinate the activities for the 80-20 Initiative's founding (LA and Houston) chapters. I had the pleasure of assisting Alfred Foung, the LA Chapter's very energetic and very goal-oriented founder, and the indefatigable Christin Li.

I chose eCircles for the LA Chapter Board Room because it had the threaded discussion and email subscription capabilities we would need to reduce the technical and psychological barriers new users would be facing. Knowing that new technical tools may disappear without much notice, I archived the contents for business continuity.

To emphasize the ground-breaking, global nature of this effort, I was the Communicator for the LA Chapter but I was working in Nyon, Switzerland. The other LA Chapter Board members were all living and working in California, USA. Please note also that there was a similar group for the Houston Chapter and the two chapters coordinated through eCircles. The Steven Pei referred to by Alfred was (and still is) a member of the Houston Chapter.

The images are chosen to represent the start of the process with my first draft and the completion with Alfred's send-off of the response to an LA Times article from April 30, 2000. Please note the rapidity that we were able to respond: 4/30 (negative publicity) -> 5/1 (draft) -> 5/2 (review) -> 5/3 (issued)

The full text of the final response is listed below:

Editor
LA Times
Fax (213)237-7679
Re: “Asian Votes” Sunday, April 30, 2000, Home Edition, Opinion, Page: M-4,

Dear Editor:

Mr. Inder Singh missed the points about the 80-20 initiative that Prof. Woo was making. Unfortunately, the main point was made for us by the weekend story on the Mount Lebanon, PA, racial murders. Three of the victims were of Asian origin - Indian, Vietnamese, and Chinese. When it comes to suffering the pains of racial prejudice, we are equally vulnerable. While the extent of most forms of prejudice and discrimination are much more subtle than the cold-blooded killings, it is self-destructing madness to differentiate amongst ourselves when prejudice is dispensed without such differentiation.

Mr. Singh quite correctly pointed out in stating "that most of these Asian communities are fiercely independent." That disunity was the weakness we face together and which 80-20 hopes to ameliorate. To view any movement not at its merits but in racial terms will only prolong our common sufferings. Our only hope lies in a majority of Asian Americans including, hopefully, Mr. Singh and others from these "fiercely independent" groups - uniting under one common umbrella to push toward a common goal. While we should be proud of those differences that make us who we are, they should not set us apart. Why not join 80-20 so that we could all work together toward the removal of the hyphenated American stigmatization we face in American politics, corporate America, and in all other aspects of American life?

Best Regards,

Alfred Foung and David Chu
LA 80-20 PAC

Contact information:
[Removed for privacy reasons.]

Analysis of Marketing at the Vanguard Group (HBS 9-504-001)

2008-05-12T14:57:00.005-04:00

David L. Chu

Prof. C. A. “Kees” de Kluyver

MGT 321

December 14, 2007

Managing at the Vanguard Group

Executive Summary

The Vanguard Group described by Marketing at the Vanguard Group (HBS 9-504-001) was undergoing a business model transformation that started in 2002 and was still on-going in 2003. It was faced with diminishing prospects due to a maturing market[a], market-segment convergence[b], and shifting customer needs[c], and must choose creative-destruction based growth. Vanguard was challenged by the need to structure and execute this transformation and to manage positive brand recognition. Vanguard’s transformation included redefining its customers and the value proposition that Vanguard offers its customers. It also included changing its strategy from asset-led to market-led[d] marketing and migrating from an operations-excellence[e] model to a product- and service-excellence model with ensuing organizational[f] and pricing restructuring. This report outlines the transformation.

Brand

The Vanguard brand could be described by the following:

· Low cost[g]

· “Mutual Mutual Fund” customer-owned[h]

· Long-term investment[i]

· Redemption-averse arrogance[j]

· Image negativity[k]

Vanguard clearly had a challenge in remaking its brand. Low cost was its main brand equity. But cost could, at best, be lowered to zero. Brennan said so himself[l], “The better we perform, the lower our revenue become.” The following brand changes may be more productive:

· High returns at low cost

· Too profitable to redeem

Customer

The Vanguard retail products customer was well described by Norris as “people who are seeking value in anything they buy.”[m] This resulted from the fact that Vanguard had targeted retail customers who were “a substantial, cost-conscious investor with a long-term investment horizon” and had turned aside active traders.[n] The given reason was that “Short-term investors … muck up the game at the expense of the long-term investor.”

Vanguard also had institutional services customers for both defined-contribution and defined-benefits management.

Growth Strategy

Vanguard must keep its existing products and services in order to retain its existing customer base. And, a possible growth strategy for Vanguard was introduced in the section on branding that was based on two key elements, which were:

To offer additional products and services that had high returns and was priced to produce associated revenue growth. As indicated earlier, the existing cost-cutting, operational-excellence approach could only reach a natural dead-end because cost could not decrease to below zero. And, long before cost reached zero, Vanguard would have starved to death by the vicious cycle. Conversely, by focusing on producing higher returns for the customers and increasing revenue with new products and services, Vanguard could afford to re-invest in marketing and development. It would be able to create a virtuous cycle of growth. Some possible opportunities for Vanguard to consider could be found in the emerging markets and emerging industries.
To expand its customer base by replacing the current redemption-aversion philosophy with a investment-retention approach. Vanguard certainly could not afford and should not have “issued a stern warning” and humiliate and lose its customers. Vanguard needed to keep in mind that all investments were made to be redeemed. Redemption rate could not decrease below zero. And, long before Vanguard were to succeed in reducing its redemption rate to near zero, its customers would have stopped investing in Vanguard. Furthermore, Peter Drucker wrote that “management need to set aside time in which to discuss unexpected successes … and to think through how it could be exploited.”[o] Rather than treating the “institutional investor that had redeemed $25 million” and “turned down a similar $40 million investment,”[p] Perhaps the first investor had redeemed because Vanguard had successfully helped him/her meet the investment goals earlier than expected? And, why would the second investor wish to invest in Vanguard if Vanguard were not successful? Vanguard should view unexpected events as possible opportunities for it to understand the market better and from which it could exploit the market and enhance investment retention.

Moreover, by offering new products and services and by switching from redemption-aversion to investment-retention, Vanguard could expand its ability to “make Vanguard the preferred supplier for each and every one of our clients … 80% to 90% … had funds with other organizations.”[q] One important group of clients to target would be the existing institutional participants who may be encouraged to crossover or to rollover.

Marketing

A marketing program to consider is the “emerging mass-affluent level … households with investable assets between $50,000 and $1 million … their needs fit our product offering.”[r] Vanguard had access to a ready pool of this segment in its institutional investment participants group and could “leverage the participant relationship.”[s] There certainly would be a significant segment of its existing retail customer base who could be convinced to crossover. The best approach would be direct marketing through existing channels. For example, marketing personnel should conduct investment seminars for the institutions. Vanguards customer Web portal should be used to advertise new products and services. In addition, with the expected revenue to be generated from the new return-focused products and services, Vanguard should work with “intermediaries such as financial advisers to persuade them to use Vanguard funds in the portfolios they managed for their clients. … brokers [who] used Vanguard funds [could charge] their clients a 1% wrap fee.”[t] These intermediaries would hold local seminars to market Vanguard products and services. Additionally, Vanguard should earmark more than the “20 cents out of every $10,000”[u] to the industry norm for mass-media advertising that would support the marketers.

Core Competency

Vanguard could not be considered as a sophisticated marketer by any stretch of the imagination: “Marketing is not a discipline that is well-known or even well-regarded at Vanguard. It is still developing.” However, Vanguard operated on principles espoused by the Balanced Score Card (BSC) and “Vanguard leaders were also evaluated on how well they developed their crews.” If Vanguard were to be successful in its transformation to a market-led organization, it would be critically important for it to educate its leaders and crew on marketing. It should review and update its BSC to and dashboard to emphasize marketing efficacy at the same level as “to identify bureaucratic procedures that decreased productivity.”[v] In other words, it would be essential for Vanguard to truly balance its scorecard between growth and operations.

[a] P. 2, “maturation in the mutual fund market”

[b] P. 12, “Financial services deregulation … commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies … enter one another’s lines of business.

[c] P.9, “industry trends” and “investor-demand”

[d] P. 2, “reorganized to improve its customer management … elevating the marketing function”

[e] P, 4, VUE and dashboards to “institutionalize a drive to perfection”

[f] P. 9, “probably one of the most important reorganization in our history”

[g] P. 1, “Vanguard boasted the industry’s lowest average expense ratio”

[h] P. 2, “owned by the Vanguard Funs, which were in turn owned by their shareholders”

[i] P. 2, “When it advertised Vanguard emphasized its long-term investment philosophy”

[j] P. 6&7, “issued a stern warning … redeemed $25 million” and “turned down a similar $40 million investment”

[k] P. 19-21, Exhibit 7, “investor who lost $37,701” and “investors avoided being bitten by taxes” and Exhibit 8, the four no’s – “no sales loads, no withdrawal fees, no surrender charge, no sales commissions”

[l] P. 12

[m] P. 9

[n] P. 6

[o] Drucker, PF (1985) “Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” HarperCollins Publishers.

[p] P. 6&7

[q] P. 12, McNabb

[r] P. 13

[s] P. 8, Norris

[t] P. 13

[u] P. 2

[v] P. 3

Autumn 2003: A Historic APIA Event with Howard Dean

2008-05-09T18:29:00.012-04:00

As we are edging toward the end of the Democratic Party's 2008 Presidential nomination process, I would like to share a few photos of an historic event for the Asian Pacific-Island Americans. In the autumn of 2003, the 80-20 Initiative held a fund-raiser to gear up for the 2004 Presidential campaign at the Four Points Sheraton near the LA Airport.

Governor Howard Dean was the front-runner in the Democratic Party's race to the White House. And Governor Grey Davis was already in deep political trouble. (He was recalled weeks later in October.)

For the first time in our nation's history that I could recall, an Asian Pacific-Island American event had as its keynote speaker the leading contender from a major party in the Presidential election. It is also worthy to note that two governors, one of a major state, attended.

Although I suppose that without the efforts of the 80-20 Initiative the APIA minority eventually would reach this political turning point in American politics, but I doubt this feat would have been possible this early in the integration of a fairly new and small minority. This would not have been possible without the tireless and dedicated efforts of Lt. Governor S. B. Woo and his wife Katie, the energetic support of the two founding chapters in Houston and Los Angeles, and the many dedicated volunteers.

At this particular juncture, the 80-20 Initiative leadership included Americans of Chinese, Filipino, Mongolian, and other ethnic background and both genders. The energy level was extremely high. It is also worthwhile to note that Howard Dean was one of the very first contenders to pledge to EEO for APIAs. In this 2008 Presidential Elections, I would like to point out that the 5% APIA voting block could make a big difference and that the Democratic contenders, including both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have made the pledge but no Republican candidates, including John McCain, did.