Gone Too Soon

What we are memorizing after Michael is his legacy which will never be gone.

[on my exit row seat right before the flight took off at SAN heading to DFW]

The Capitalist Manifesto

"Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity. "      - Karl Marx

"What we are experiencing is not a crisis of capitalism. It is a crisis of finance, of democracy, of globalization and ultimately of
ethics."      - Fraeed Zakaria (2009)

At this crisis of economy, government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem!

It Is Europeans Who Are Mostly In Debt

If you think it is Americans who are to blame as having borrowed too much more than they could afford, then think twice!

Take a look at the top external debt (in US dollars) per capita data by countries, these data apparently show that many European countries are in ridiculously deeper debt.

Among these 18 countries, Monaco and Ireland are more than 10 times of their GDP could produce. Only three non-European countries are on the list, those are Qatar, Australia and the USA.

People in rich country do have more purchasing  power to leverage their debt. For such fair comparison, I took their high GDP per capita to normalize their high debt. So here is the list of Debt per capita as percentage of GDP per capita (the debt-to-GDP ratio).

Again, after the normalization, these Europeans are still on the top of the list. Taking Monaco as example, people in Monaco share the average debt as high as over 18 times as their GDP contribution. As I expected, two poor countries, Zimbabwe and Liberia, are also borrowing money around as twice what they could produce.

With such per-capita GDP normalization, it is equally fair to judge the debt of each country, no matter they are poor or rich. So I plot a scatter chart of all countries in the whole world to examine their normalized per-capita debt in relate to their GDP contribution. If every country borrows money at the same level as the same ratio to their GDP contribution, the fit line should be flat.

However, the figure turns out to be upper bend to many rich countries. It is obvious that many rich countries, especially those in Europe, are responsible for their deeper debt as over borrowing money externally.

In a huge contrast, Asian countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China as well as India only show their small fraction of debt (under 30%) in comparison to their GDP.

Poor Countries, High Birth Rate

Poor countries tend to have high birth rate. I use the available data for over 225 countries around the world to plot the following scatter chart.

The correlation coefficient of –0.54 shows such an inverse relation statistically.

Why human laugh? What is laugh for?

Infants laugh, with no consciousness of showing their expression. It is then more spontaneous.

Adults laugh, though taking certain consciousness of showing their expression, sometimes so intensive often as it is getting out of control to the level of choking. It is then also quite spontaneous.

Job vs. Career

If you are looking for a job that you need, you’d rather try to create a career that needs you!

I Envy Their Smiles

Right before the door of an elevator was opening, a wave of loud laugh inside the elevator chamber approached to my ears. Then I saw two hotel janitors were walking out, carrying cleaning cart with room supplies, still with huge smiles on their faces, though they lowered their volume having realized a dressed-up solemn guest awaiting right outside of the elevator.

My first impression was in regard of the discipline of hotel staffs as I chose this inexpensive lodging place. A moment later just as I was stepping in the elevator I noticed their unrestrained smile still on their faces through the half-closed door, my second thought then came cross my mind as what the priceless smiles... ...

Traveling down to San Diego for a customer meeting, as always I prepared presentation late night and was still bearing the pressure of how to advocate my solution in the meeting. Comparing with the simple life of the two janitors, I may have a lot that they have ever dreamed of, however, what I missed is such kind of unrestrained smiles on my own face. I couldn't help envying their simple life and dropping whatever on my shoulder willingly in this plain early morning!

为政

子曰：

道之以政，齐之以刑，民免而无耻。
道之以德，齐之以礼，有耻且格。

知之，好之，乐之

知之不如好之；好之不如乐之。

Bow Down to Yourself

Practicing Yoga, we know we would surrender ourselves and let everything go. To make peace to others, one should be able to make peace to himself first without forcing himself to gain nor worrying about himself being lost. So bow down to your internal downward dog pose.

When Brand-Name Quality Meets Low Price

I did some searches on Sony LCD TV and was surprised that most it's LCD TV products appeared consistently cheaper than Samsung's. I would applaud for Samsung's recent branding achievement with its new thin LED screen which allures a colorful hummingbird in their TV commercial. However when Sony price goes under Samsung's, my decision on buying a TV becomes a no-brainer.

So I had just ordered a SONY KDL40V4100, at an absurd tag $775 (in total)!

First Golf

I did my first golf, 9-hole at Sherrill Park Golf Course, scored 64 (+28). Should reconsider choosing it to be a future hobby :-)

卖国英雄, 爱国贼

从历史的角度以及人类价值观的演进来看，卖国必有其美好的情理，爱国也有其丑陋的缘由。

2008 Layoff in Texas

We still should be feeling thankful as living in Texas. According to the Fortune Magazine, more than half of all the new jobs created in the U.S. in 2008 were in Texas! The sorry state California did just opposite with the highest income tax and the largest population loss.

Installing MAC OS X on a PC (dual boot)

Install Mac OS X to Dell M1330 (dual boot)

1. Preparation

- burn iATKOS v5i (OS X 10.5.5) ISO DVD
- Boot with Vista DVD
- Go to repair, then command console, issue DISKPART
- Delete all partitions in hard disk (WARNING: ALL DATA LOST)
- create two partitions on disk0 (149GB)
    1) for Vista: 100GB with default type
    2) for OS X: the rest (49GB) with ID=af (late, OS X installation will recognize this partition)

2. Install Windows Vista

3. Install iATKOS v5i
Refer to Installing Mac OS X on a PC (single boot).

4. After the two OS's are installed, reboot PC and Darwin Bootloader will appear. Type F8, then select the OS to boot.

Installing MAC OS X on a PC (single boot)

Install Mac OS X to Dell M1330 (clean install)

1. Preparation

- iATKOS v5i (OS X 10.5.5) ISO DVD
- Delete all partitions in hard disk

2. Install iATKOS v5i

- insert the DVD
- boot computer from DVD
- Darwin bootloader starts, hit F8 when counting, and type -v then hit enter to continue
- OS X loading from DVD. Once loaded, hit ..> button at the bottom right
- Once top manu bar appears, Utilities --> Disk Utility
- select the disk (on left side), select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and name it as "Leopard". A new partition under the disk is created
- still select the disk, click partition, resize the Leopard partition to 50GB and apply
- exit Disk Utility
- continue, will find the Leopard (50.12GB) disk appears. Select it. Continue
- Now, DO NOT just INSTALL. Click customize,
Besides the default checked options, just check these following additional options from Customize Install

Bootloader: PC EFI V9
Decrypters: AppleDecrypt
SMBIOS drivers: SMBIOS-EFI Air
ACPI: x86
Drivers: VGA drive: X3100,
Intel AHCI SATA
then done with customize
- install (skip DVD disk check). it will take about 20 minutes.
- Once complete, remove DVD. restart to boot on hard disk (it may ask for turn off PC, so do it)

3. Start Leopard

- Once booting with with hard disk (the first Leopard boot up), it takes very long time (watching the HDD LED is still flashing, though the screen may turn to black). Be patient for at least 30-40min
- Leopard is finally up and running, for the first configuration

4. Keyboard and Mouse recognization

- the m1330 keyboard and mouse pad should be recognized (with ACPI; x86). If not, plug in a USB keyboard and UBS mouse. they should be recognized.
- follow the step until "How Do You Connect?" window, answer not connect to the internet
- Fill in bogus info for registration fields
- Create account by using user (eqian) and my internet password

5. Problems remained:
- Power on booting very slow (could be 30min)

Windows vs. Mac - A Fair Perspective

I am working on getting a Leopard running in a PC. Here is what I had learned: It is easy for Apple to claim a MAC OS works perfectly for a one kind of MAC; However it is not that easy for Microsoft to claim the Windows works perfectly for all kinds of PCs.

Two full weekends have been spent for just bringing the very basic OS X functions working on my Dell. No sound, no networking, some keys on the keyboard do not even work :-)

But why I insisted on doing it? After a few difficult tries, it caused me very obsessed. I could just simply go out to grab a MAC Mini for only 600 bucks. Yes, call me crazy.

It’s just an experiment, to me. No one in world so far can claim everything on PC working under Mac OS X. The reason is so obvious. It’s very simple and easy for Apple to makes sure OS X working just for a Mac, the one kind. Microsoft, however, has to make sure Windows to be able to support millions of different PCs (even home-made ones) with so vast array of different devices (keyboards, mice, video cards, sound cards, NICs, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, …).

So such dirty adaptation work have to fall into all OS X hackers’ shoulders. It reminds me the early days when I was installing a Linux on a PC back in early 90's time.

The Leopard is Running on my Dell Laptop

Finally, the Leopard is running on my Dell laptop!

That’s so called a Hackintosh.

Success vs. Happiness

Success is to get what you wanted;
Happiness is to want what you've got.

Raise yourself up, then view the world under

"不以物喜，不以己悲。居庙堂之高则忧其民，处江湖之远则忧其君。是进亦忧，退亦忧，然则何时而乐耶？其必曰，先天下人之忧而忧，后天下人之乐而乐乎！"