Reblog: FortuneCity - 2010

Since FortuneCity is not longer available, I figure I copy the old stuff and paste it here. Luckily, Blogger supports CSS, so it is mostly copy-and-paste, then adjust some font size. :)

2010-10-19 TUE // Jury Duty

"Nobody here wants knowingly want to convict him. I want to do so only with a clear conscious." -Jury #12 This past week to today, I was at Los Angeles County Criminal Appeals serving as a juror. I was with a man that looks a bit like Hugh Grant (work for FedEx), a guy who look like an ex-Harley biker (work at an antique shop near Whittier College), a female day-time trader, a real estate agent (Los Angeles & Las Vegas), a film production crew (in Santa Monica), and more. It is possible to talk about it now, but it would be depressing to do so. Instead, I will list the food I ate during those days. Yes, it is irrelevant, but that is my exact intention. Date Food & Price Location Friday (10/8/2010) Miso Ramen & California Roll ($15.00) Mitsuru Grill Tuesday (10/12/2010) Ribeye Steak with Onion Ring ($8.66) Colburn Cafe @ The Colburn School of Performing Arts Wednesday (10/13/2010) Wonton Noodle Soup ($3.72) Yum Cha Cafe (Chinatown branch) Thursday (10/14/2010) Sweet Corn BBQ Chicken Tamale ($4.50) Corn Maiden Gourmet Tamale (Downtown City Hall's Farmer Market) Friday (10/15/2010) Miso Ramen #1 with Corn ($10) Orochon Ramen Monday (10/18/2010) Salmon & Gyoza Rice Combo ($10.53) Ichiban of Tokyo (Los Angeles Mall) Tuesday (10/19/2010) Yen Ta Fo Noodle ($7.00) Wu Ha Thai Noodle / ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือรังสิต(โกฮะ)เจ้าเก่า

2010-09-26 SUN // Zero Sum Market

Stock Market is a zero-sum game. For every dollar you gain, someone else loses. -RF If you didn't know by now, let me repeat it -- Stock market is a zero-sum game. It is a knowledge gambling. There is no guarantee of gain (excluding bond, note, treasury, etc). The economy could turn sour and the company goes out of business, which will leave you with zero cent. In fact, the company can still be in business, and the stock can worth few pennies, which still leave you nearly broke. Some may call a stock exchange an investment institution, but in the larger context it is for the most part... a casino. When you buy a stock, you are not buying a share of what the company is worth. You are buying into the potential that the company could worth in the future. In another words, you are buying into the potential. Hopefully, this explains why a company's stock price is not more static, and fluctuates along with the market. The higher the hype, the greater it can fluctuate. Let's take GOOG(Google) for an example: Quarter/Annual Statistic Number(6/30/2010) Shares Outstanding 318.71M Annual Revernue 26.21B Revernue Per Share $82.56 Gross Profit 14.81B Total Cash 30.06B Total Debt 0.00 Total Cash Per Share $94.32 Qtrly Revenue Growth (yoy) 23.50% Daily Stat Statistic Number(9/24/2010) Market Cap 168.05B Stock Price $527.29 Trailing P/E (intraday) 22.90 If you did not find these numbers to be wrong on the surface, then you have to two options -- get educated. Let's look at the two basic numbers first: revernue per share and total cash per share. When you combined these two numbers together, you have $176.88/share (82.56 + 94.32). This is to say, if Google decides to close the door tomorrow, each share of Google is worth around $176.88 (it could be more from selling asset). That is right, the true price is closer to $176 and NOT +$500 that you see. So, why would anyone pay $527 for it? If you look at Quarterly Revernue Growth, you can see that the company revernue has grown 23.50% this quarter comparing to the same quarter last year. If the trend continues, then you can see why people are pricing GOOG stock over $500 instead of $176. The temptation is too irresistable --- 176.88 * 1.23 = 217.56 * 1.23 = 276.60 * 1.23 = 329.15... Where else would you find something that return 23% on yearly basis? This is based on a faith that Google will continue to give 23% every year, which is illogical beyond any common sense. And like all good things, it will come to an end eventually, and whoever hold on to those shares at the end are the losers. The house win (government and trading firms), and plenty of... unfortunate share holders. I would talk more, but it would only depress people. Hopefully, I have given you enough of a reason to learn more about economic, business, and investment before blindly "invest" in things you don't understand. Happy educating. :)

2010-09-06 MON // POV - Identify Self

On Sunday, I flipped through the different channels on TV, and stumbled on a show about adopting Chinese kids on KCET (a PBS channel). The show was an episode of POV series. This is one is called 我愛你媽媽 // Wo Ai Ni(I Love You) Mommy. This documentary followed an eight year old girl named Fang Sui Yong from China who was adopted by a Jewish-American family, the Sadowsky family. The story started with Fang leaving her foster family in China, speaking no English, and going with her new mother that do not understand a word of Chinese. If you want to watch it, it is available online until November 30, 2010. At many points in the documentary, I was quite annoyed by Donna Sadowsky(the mom) who aggressively tried to assimilate the child to the American-Jewish culture, language, and life-style. One scene in particular upsetted me the most was when Mrs. Sadowsky delightfully talking about how Faith(Fang's American name) got angry at her younger sister in GuangZhou. She repeated Faith's words about loving her new younger sister(Sadowsky's youngest adopted daughter) more than the younger sister in China. In another scene, 14 months after the adoption, was quite dis-heartened. Faith was in front the web-cam, facing her foster family. Beside Faith was a woman who was there to translate Cantonese & Mandarin for both ends. It seems Faith has lost almost all her ability to speak and understand Cantonese and Mandarin. Needless to say, Faith struggles with own identity throughout the entire process. Although, the parents did try their best to help her, IMHO their actions fell quite short. I went to sleep with those thoughts. However, I thought about my own experience about when I moved to United States over night, and woke up with a different perspective. I, like many others who criticized them, never have or adopted a kid. I tried to shift my perspective to the point-of-view of the parents. Most parents usually realize their mistakes only after the fact. There are parents out that never able to listen and understand their own biological children. This family took a chance to help a child that won't have a bright future in China. They could have adopted a new born that would bypass most problem altogether. Parents are people that can make mistake. My criticisms were nothing but unhelpful judgements. A language can be learned. A culture can be explored. Both items do not identify a person. Children with a limited view may misunderstand the two as an identity. What may be more critical to her self-identity are acceptance from the family members, the feeling of belonging, and the love from her parents. Everything else are secondary components that add to her own identity. I believe Faith won't truly identify herself as a true Jewish, a real Chinese, nor an average American. It will be a conglomerate of the three cultures with acceptance, belonging, and love as catalysts.

2010-09-01 WED // Repeating Scenes

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" -Winston Churchill The great things about life is the unexpected. For good and for bad. For every projects there are obstacles and unpredictable factors. It can be frustrating and very tire-some. It is easy to get caught in the emotions of these bad situations: fear, panic, anger. So, what do I do when it turned out to be a bad one? I would shut up and go for a run. Take my mind off the moment. I would remind myself, nothing in life ever run its course according to the original plan; no plan and event in life is foolproof. Reading too much into failures and signs does not help.

2010-08-28 SAT // Not Nineteen Forever

Today I was going through the garage and found a stack of old newspaper. To be accurate, the was mostly comic strips section, from 1997 to 1999. This was back before any comic strip archive on internet. So, I skim through and found several interesting articles: January 1994 Norththride earthquake, Chicago Bulls won 6th NBA title over Jazz (MJ made the last shot over Stockton, 87-86), a heat wave in So.Cal, an ice-freezing East coast, etc. However, what I also found were my high school newspapers during my senior year. Each volume of these newspapers was a four page of 11x17. The pictures were mostly fuzzy beyond recognition, except for few close up pictures. I flipped through some of them, and saw an article with a cartoon drawing. The drawing show two images side-by-side: one shows an image of a student in a nice suit with a caption "how you are," and another was image of a baby with "how an adult see you" caption. (I will try to scan it next time) The article was about how most adult view them as kids that need help all the times. Adults sometimes would worry about them doing the inappropriate things, and essentially have no confidence in the ability of these high school students. It was revelational to me. Merely 11 years later, and I have already forgotten how college kids feel and think. Basically, I have become the adult in the article. I went for walk to think more about it. This resonate with me, because I do talk to 18-19 years old students in college class that I am taking. In my view, these students still haven't learn the way of people, business, and the world. They have the freedom to do anything in a semi-protected environment. For them, they are still full of pride, freedom, and a belief that they understand almost everything around them. As a friend, I tried to correct their misconception, and pointed them to the right way. Unfortunately, I over did it. If you do not allow them to make mistake, they won't understand their own flaw, and more importantly experience and learn from their own mistake. For myself, I went through colleges with few supporting people and little guidance... and yet I turned out alright. From a hindsight, I want to re-do certain things better. But from my perspective as a student, I would rather make a mistake than taking advices from others. My pride pushed me to walk five miles each way to and from college than taking a bus. My freedom allowed me to study Computer Science at Cal Poly Pomona than went to UCLA, UCI, or even better. In fact, I didn't even bother to apply to another school, in spite of ace-ing almost all my computer-related courses. These mistakes made me a better person. It changed my understanding of people, and I had to prove myself beyond the given in order to change the perspective of others on me. What I did incorrectly was trying to help when they were not looking for it -- regardless of whether they needed it or not. Trying to help is not wrong, but only when they are looking for it. I need to do that instead of blindly insisting. I have to obseve, listen, and analyze a bit more. It was a long walk today. Nine miles in total. But I feel better from understanding people a little bit more. My college class is starting Monday, and I hope to do things a bit better this time around.

2010-08-26 THU // Modern Irrationality

This month I am somewhat agitated: Lots of work until late night Waiting for an email reply that did not come. At the moment, I have given up on it The stock market keep on falling Exceedingly hot weather. Over 100 Farenheit Schools are starting to open again All these events translated to longer commute, longer work hours, and uncomfortable outdoor lunch. Also, I spent the last two weekends working on the house: painting, scrubbing, cleaning, and reorganizing. It is an exhausting month. Although, there were couple good things that happenned: went to see Inception at AMC theater, and got a chance to try black cod steak at Shiki in Studio City (it is one of the better fish place). Okay, enough with life. I thought I share an interesting TED video about a natural flaw within ourselves that lead us to continually repeating the same irrational patterns. To prove her point, Laurie Santos, had to teach monkeys how to use money. The idea of monkey using money is very fascinating(enough to get me to watch it), and IMHO her approach is quite brilliant. Anyways, enjoy this presentation by Laurie Santos Laurie Santos: A monkey economy as irrational as ours

2010-08-22 SUN // Move again!

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London (1876-1916), American writer and novelist After visiting my site on FortuneCity last week, I noticed numerious amount of advertisements: banner ads, popup ads, and the most hated embedded-link ads (when your mouse moves over certain keywords, a small video ads popup). I do not mind banner ads, but these in-your-face tactics are unacceptable. FortuneCity is acting like warez sites that have virus-infested scripts popping up. I missed the simplicity of Geocities, but nothing will bring it back from the dead now. So, I decided to move my site again after few months in FortuneCity. After some research, I found HelioHost with various praises from many reviewers. Best of all, there is a CMS (Content Management System) with plenty of plugin modules. So, I moved my site to here. Let's see how long this will last! Thanks HelioHost!! :)

2010-08-17 TUE

Beloit College Mindset List Today, I read an article on Yahoo! about Beloit College Mindset List. This list is compiled each year by the college staff containing around 50 short facts showing college freshmen's general understanding of the world. Mostly, it shows the generational-gap information between the professors and the students. Just for fun, I decided to look at my year, 2003 (even though I graduated a bit later...): Most of this year's students entering college were born in 1981.✓ They are the first generation to be born into Luvs, Huggies, and Pampers.✓ John Lennon and John Belushi have always been dead.✓ There has always been a woman on the Supreme Court, and women have always been traveling into space.✓ They have never needed a prescription to buy ibuprofen.✓ They never realized that for one brief moment, Gen. Alexander Haig was "in charge."✓ Don't know who he is... They never heard Walter Cronkite suggest that "That's the way it is." ✓ As a youngster "60 minutes" wasn't exactly exciting to watch They were born and grew up with Microsoft, IBM PCs, in-line skates, NutraSweet, fax machines, film on disks, and unregulated quantities of commercial interruptions on television.✓ Somebody named Dole has always been running for something.✗ I still remember Bob Dole's commercial even now. "He just can't win." (from President election against Bill Clinton) Cats has been on Broadway all their lives.✓ While they all know her children, they have no idea who "Ma Bell" was.✗ Found out about them from high school's typing class. I guess the typing textbook was really old. They never heard anyone say, "Book ‘em, Dano," "Good night, John-boy," or "Kiss my grits," in prime time. ✓ They never knew Madonna when she was like a virgin.✓ Mike Myers is the Spy Who Shagged Me not the first congressman expelled from that body in a century for his role in "Abscam." ✓ They have never had to worry about the packaging of Tylenol.✓ Yugoslavia has never existed.✗ They have never seen Bob Marley perform reggae live.✓ Jesse Jackson has always been getting someone out of trouble someplace.✗ In my mind, he was a trouble-maker. Always came out to talk. Strikes by highly paid athletes have been a routine part of professional athletics.✓ The moonwalk is a Michael Jackson dance step, not a Neil Armstrong giant step.✗ John Cougar has always been John Cougar Mellencamp, or vice versa.✗ Don't know either of them Travel to space has always been accomplished in reusable spacecraft.✓ The term "adult" has increasingly come to mean "dirty." ✓ The year they were born, reports condemned violence on television and in Hollywood films for producing the likes of John Hinckley.✓ They have always been able to get their news from USA Today and CNN.✓ They have spent more than half their lives with Bart Simpson.✓ Still love the show They don't understand why Solidarity is spelled with a capital "S."✓ They don't think there is anything terribly futuristic about 2001, and were never concerned about the year 1984.✓ They have no idea how big a breadbox is.✓ Camelot refers to King Arthur's seat of government, not John Kennedy's.✓ You can blame the cartoon and NBC's King Arthur mini-series for that President Kennedy's assassination is as significant to them as that of Lincoln or Garfield.✓ They have probably never dialed a phone or opened an icebox.✗ The only thing a "churchkey" has ever opened for them is a church.✓ They have never seen white smoke over the Vatican and do not know its significance.✓ They cannot identify the last United States President to throw-up on a Japanese prime minister.✓ Ketchup has always been a vegetable.✗ Susan B. Anthony has always been on the dollar but probably never bought them anything.✓ They cannot imagine waiting a generation to get the dirt on the U.S. President.✗ Bill Clinton and O.J. Simpson ruins afternoon cartoon!! They felt pretty special when their elementary school had top-of-the-line Commodore 64s.✗ We got to play Oregon's Trail on computer instead. I admit, I was impress that school has video game. ET, Gremlins, and The Hulk provided their Halloween costumes and lunch box themes.✗ They were introduced to Kramer on the TV show Friday's.✗ They remember when Saturday Night Live was still funny.✓ They have never seen a BankAmericard.✓

2010-08-16 MON

I have been writing Perl lately, and I am trying to summarize the problems with Perl on scalability: Constants cannot be easily exported. You either include it in EXPORT or use ISA Tedious constants usage. It is not a variable, but a function, thus you need to add "()" to ensure correct hash keyname No built-in hash keyname lock. You can use lock_keys() in Hash::Util, but you won't see the error until run-time Lack of compile-time checkings, or a pre-processing code examiner. You basically has to exercise ALL execution paths to determine a namespace error, a function parameters mismatch, a simple misspelling Anyways, I am looking into O'Reilly - Perl Best Practices to see if there is a better to write scale-able and flexible code in Perl. Also, looking for ways to have namespace and syntax error get caught in compile-time rather than run-time.

2010-08-01 SUN

We want to live the carefree days in the past      but we know better than to do so      that those feelings and good times can never last The weather this year has been quite odd. The rain and storm came pouring earlier in this year, as if to make up for the last few years. The summer heat along with a rare humidity came earlier than usual. Then autumn season just follow when it should have been an extreme temperature. This month should be interesting. Let's see if there will be a lunch with some friends from college.

2010-07-25 SUN

Going in Spiral This week I felt a little down, and got back to reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. At one point, I came to a section about value-based action, where you stop worrying about what others think of you, stop being a person that solely based on others' preception of you, stop letting environment dictates your action/ response/ initiative, and start taking actions that will bring values to ourselves and others. I have been quite tire and passive lately, so I planned to for a trip to Alhambra Historical Museum today, and it almost did not happened. In the last few weeks, I just felt tire. This morning is not different. It would have been easier to sit at home and watch TV. It would have been easier to read and not practice. But at 2 PM, I went. The uneasy feeling was there, but I started to feel good when I was there. Going through the antique items, and looking at pictures from the early Alhambra has lifted me up. Obviously, the final destination was Alhambra yearbooks. They have added more yearbooks in the 90s since my last visit in 2009. I got to see picutres of friends from high school. I wanted to recall all memories in those years, and wanted to know about events when I was no longer there. Looking through those times brought back the curious personality that I used to be full of. I think each one of us feel the need belong somewhere, and in order to do that we look into our own past, our own ancestrial heritage, and our hometown's heritage. We feel the need to understand ourselves better by looking at the past. It may not solve anything looking into these things, but the calm feeling and inspiration are irreplacable. I am determined to march forward again. I am not going in circle, but expanding in a spiral motion.

2010-07-22 THU

UTF-8 Editor เคยเป็นไหม ไม่รู้ว่าพรุ่งนี้ตื่นมาจะทำอะไร So I finally found an editor that supports UTF-8 display with HTML syntax color. Beside Visual Studio Express, which is an overkill app, I found EditPad Pro (a rip-off from TextPad Pro?). Anyways, I am trying out the free demo, and so far it is looking pretty good. It contains the usual functionalities: macro, syntax highlight, block selection, s, text folding, regex search & replace, etc. Couple features that I enjoy: UTF-8 display, character map, unsaved file diff, search term highlighter. Now to the bad: no keyboard shortcup mapping, no VI-style navigation (TextPad seems to be the only visual editor that does this), fewer script library. Anyways, we will see how it will work out

2010-07-18 SAT

Restoring the Old Site It is always hard to make the old code co-existing with the new one. I guess it is the cost of maintaining legacy source code. In this case, it is a mix of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Also, converting PHP to the old fashion HTTP is pretty darn tiring. Anyways, I managed to get this done for now. More to update laters. Still need to find a good editor that supports Unicode.

2010-04-08 THU

Returned To Where It Began Geocities is no longer alive, and blogspot from Google is not exactly interesting. So, here I am, back to where I first started, FortuneCity -- my second site after Geocities. Works on this site will begin slowly as I am trying to put back everything I had written.

2007-12-26 WED

Moving On Well, it has been a while since my last update. Work, school, hobby, exercise chore, and life have occupied pretty much most of my time. In order to reduce maintainence, I decided to move on to a new website, a blog webpage at http://kainr2.blogspot.com/. Hopefully, I can get more time to do the blogging there, and less on server maintainence.

2007-11-08 THU

Color Update Last week, I came to check on this site, and to my surprise, SiteBurg was down. Not a 404 Down, but a Connection-Refused Down. This gave me quite a scare, since it could have been shutdown for all I know. Just to be safe, I decided to look around the net for another free host. After few days of comparing, I signed up with www.HelioHost.org, and was ready to start again. Luckily, SiteBurg came back couple days ago, and so this site continues. And to celebrate the return of this site, I redo the coloring scheme of this site. Hopefully, you like the more brighter color of this page.