Quitting in the Halloween
Halloween of 2006 is so cold in Palo Alto! My parents are here to witness the American craziness and creepiness first hand, which I love! Halloween has always been my favorite. The neighbor across the street from us has been working on a big open house party for days, as it was getting dark, the haunting house shows its glamour, it's THE place to go on our one mile street.
While the tradition in our house is to keep it low, very low. We kept all lights dim where kids' screaming became even more piercing. It was good, I don't have to do anything to enjoy Holloween. I just do.
Then we started watching Chinese movie quitting. A movie with a lousy start but ended splendidly. Chinese movie from late 90s have a tendancy to be like that.
So, that is our Holloween. Low key, but fun.
Something about Baidu
Baidu.com, a number one Chinese search engine in the world, its name originates from following infamous romantic poem:
Hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood. (众里寻他千百度。蓦然回首，那人却在，灯火阑珊处。)
Inside facebook
On page 8, how you can find your startup dream:
Here are some key ideas:
1.
•Everyone at Facebook before me knew Zuck well. So, stick with your brilliant friends, and encourage them to succeed!
2.
•Since you can only attend to a finite number of brilliant friends, choose wisely. If someone you know has what looks to you like a powerful idea, figure out how you can help drive it forward, in whatever amount of time and energy you can contribute.
Breathtaking Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz has long been my favorite spot. I have not been down there for more than a year. This time I brought my parents to this favorite spot of mine in bay area. Suprisingly, it was some sorta festival going on this weekend, I have never seen so many surfers surfing at the same time. The best of all was to watch two college dudes jumpped off the cliff into the cold pacific ocean with their surf boards, my mom was like "no, no..."she can not speak English, this young dude looked at us "No?.." he was a bit hesitant for a moment, but then, tossing his board into the air, he did not have choice, as the next big wave roaring close, the cliff appeared so much shallower than it really is, within seconds, his board and his body disappeared into the 10 foot wave. Seconds later, he emerged and looked at us. The seals in the far end of the bay applauded back, obviously, that got to be the best moment of all.
You can not automate care
Over the weekend I have read that doostang.com being featured on TIME magazine as one the five hot Internet dot com to look out for. Reading doostang's blog at http://blog.doostang.com/, it's one entry written by Chelsea, their new marketing girl, that claimed "you can't automate care" as the main motive for doostang's early shift philosophy. Doo it up!
A real analytical blog
This is by Charlene Li; Here is the link: http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/
Look for the google/youtube analysis.
She is actually crunching the number on her blog, super!
Proof of Poisson process
I suprised myself of being able to prove Poisson process without looking at the answer sheet. The proof was really elegant, utilizing basic calculus theory, differential equation and a bit of creativity. After all these years I am still pretty sharp:)
Fleet weekend at San Francisco
Sunday Oct. 8, is the last day of two days annual fleet weekend at San Francisco, I took my parents to the city by car (turned out to be a painful driving due to havvy traffic) through golden gate park and aimed at crissy field/presidio park to watch blue angel's action. It was great. Sea cliff area is definetely one of richest residential area in SF and we took that rout to get to presidio park. It's fun to watch the Navvy blue angel's fighter jet flying at almost my eye level which is about 3/4 of tower height of golden gate. The only regret is we did not get to take photos of jets coming into the city while we were at crissy field, while we took a lot on the sea cliff side of it, including meeting a Persian American girl who was obviously trying to get acquitant with me. I am really happy to be able to show them the best of what SF has to offer.
Girls are just as horny
http://bloggasm.com/you-chances-of-getting-laid-through-craigslist-a-bloggasm-case-study
This is a very interesting survey done on "your chances of getting laid through craigslist". What I learnt the most is probably conclusion of "girls are just as horny as men, they’re just less likely to meet anonymously some stranger they’ve never met so they can have sex." But remember they are just as horny:)
Big word learned today
recalcitrant: stubbornly resistant to and defiant of authority or restraint.
Parents arrival and Vegas trip
My folks finally arrived on Sept. 21. Where did time go! It's 15 days later since I last updated the blog. During this period, I drove through Yosemite national park, bypass deathvalley, marched through countless mountains and high deserts between small eastern California town Bishop and mid western Neveda before highway 95. I made a few driving records for my little 2003 turbo Jetta, topped 100 miles/hr speed right before 95, gone through 2 hours driving without seeing one single soul before and behind my car. That was an amazing driving that I will remember all my life: I have never experienced so much wilderness during one day of driving, not even during the hey days of my cross america driving 1998/1999. Not even close. My folks are pretty amazed by how much mountain they can wind through in the first week of their ever first visit to America. There are lot of photos taken. This is the first time I came to Vegas without touching casino table. The Ballagio music fountain still holds to her own mysterious beauty and again, proved to be one of the most Romantic spot for the lovers.
