SJ

The Help

5 Needs

First day of soccer

Finally after a long winter, the weather was gorgeous yesterday, and kids' soccer program had their first day of practice. Watch these young fellows played each other in 5 to 5 settings, chasing the ball like crazy, and their never getting tired body. We parents on the sides were just shouting non-stop, trying to give them some attack or defense advice. It just all of a sudden reminded me that there is a purpose why I worked so hard in my humble position. I believed it when Congressman Paul Ryan said he doesn't want to leave the burden to his kids generation when introducing the new budgets plan. We absolutely owe it to them to get the deficits under control and to see to it that we have put together a mechanism to constrain the ever-reaching-out government once and for all.

Watched "Network" by Sidney Lumet over the weekend. Absolutely brilliant. Sorry to learn that he passed away Saturday.

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel. 
Howard Beale: Why me? 
Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday. 
Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God. 
Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale. 

The best background noise

Netflix movie. That's right. Sometimes I am bored with my music (about 20GB of music). But I really need to listen to something to shield out the noise from people next to me in a cramped up cubicle spaces (or trading desk layout if you will). I still have the unlimited data plan with AT&T. So I download the Netflix to my iPhone 4 and fire it up. In the last two days, I have listened to Bourne Identity, Hunt of Red October, and Verdict. They worked like charm. Perfect background. And I have to say that AT&T's data speed is very good. The picture is very crisp (thanks to the Retina Display). On these three movies, Netflix paused twice, each time less than 10 seconds. So I am very happy with the solution. I am not a heavy voice call user so it is cool that I have found a good way to keep AT&T a bit busier.

Care to share what you use as a background noise?

When $13 billion is not enough?

I guess when you think you didn't get enough credit for the making of it. I am not Paul Allen and I certainly don't know anything about what $13 billion would make people do or think different. But hey, F.Scott Fitzgerald told us long time ago rich people are different. You better believe it.

I actually wanted to include this blog into the previous one Why smart people did such blatant stupid things? but then I kindly like the current title so I decided to post a separate blog.

So what do you think why did Paul Allen paint Mr. Gates such an image in his latest book, and tried to take many credits for what Microsoft did long after he left the company? Can't he just happily take the $13 billion and keep the business between him and Mr. Gates to himself?
 

Why smart people did such blatant stupid things?

We are talking about David Sokol, the heir apparent to Mr. Buffet's empire Berkshire Hathaway. So he bought shares of Lubrizol and then recommended the company to Mr. Buffet for consideration. No matter how you slice and dice the issue, it is just blatant stupid in every aspect. Warren Buffet tried to save face by getting half (or maybe 90%) of facts out fast was another insult to our intelligent. I am truly disappointed this time.

Well, if you live long enough and you care too much about the legacy, you are going to end up doing stupid things that you would never do.

So why Mr. Sokol did it? Yes he profit around 3 million with his purchase. Was 3 million worth the CEO jobs he hold, the reputation he has build for his whole life so far, given that 3 million probably doesn't mount to too much for him? Are WSJ reporters and national tabloids' reporter going to dig up everything about him?

I'm not talking celebrity, vanity, CBS. I'm talking about when you're nearer the end of your life than the beginning. Now, what do you think you think about then? The future? In the future I'm going to do this? Become that? What future? No. What you think is "How will I be regarded in the end?" After I'm gone. Now, along the way I suppose I made some minor impact. I did Iran-Gate and the Ayatollah, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam, Sadat, etcetera, etcetera. I showed them thieves in suits. I've spent a lifetime building all that. But history only remembers most what you did last. And should that be fronting a segment that allowed a tobacco giant to crash this network? Does it give someone at my time of life pause? Yeah. -- Mike Wallace, from "The Insider"

Which country is more open?

Today at the sunday worship, a visit pastor Stephen Tong from Indonesia gave us a very good and inspiring sermon. At the very beginning he shared with us some photos of his church the Messiah Cathedral in Jakarta, Indonesia (which includes a 4600-capacity auditorium and it was completed in 2008, we were told), and talked a bit of details on the church interior, and how long it took to get the permit (a 16 years effort). Here is the fact: Indonesia is the country with the largest Muslim population. But their government eventually came through and approved the building permit. It is a magnificent building. The insider is even better, it even has one of the best concert hall in the world!!! You may still remember all the up-roaring and complaints that were filed against Muslim buildings near the ground zero in NYC, and in other places, (not to mention the burning just happened).  Now, let's put these into context and we should ask the question: which country is more open and tolerant? USA, or Indonesia?

As a Chinese, I also dream a day that a as wonderful Christian church building would be build somewhere in China. A building is more than a million words.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. -- Nixon

The Big Short, or big shock

I just finished the The Big Short by Michael Lewis (of the Liar's Poker  fame). He seemed to paint a picture that because the top guys at the top wall street firms didn't know what they were doing (or what their traders were doing, or what exactly were those alphabetical soups financial vehicles, or understand how to manage risk etc) that cause the subprime crisis. 

I enjoyed reading the story (or stories) told in the book and treat them as folklores. But I disagree with his conclusion. I would just give one example LTCM (When Genius Failed). LTCM people were top guys, they had Nobel prize winners, they had super models, they were partners, and they certainly have their own money in the game yet LTCM failed spectacularly. 

Financial crisises were just financial markets' own making that was inevitable, given the financial market's logic, in the sense that you could possibly create a computer program to model the financial markets and given a initial push, the model would create all these financial crisises we been through: the internet bubble, the subprime bubble, the saving and loan crisis.

Could peer pressure play a role as well, in witness of all the major wall street firms double downed on the subprime markets almost at the same time?

In hindsight everything looks so obvious, clear, and easy. Michel Burry's investors, even with his clear explanation,  all tried to get out his fund which almost killed his CDS trades.  He was lucky that he found some bylaw in his fund contract to allow him to side pocketed his trades thus prevent his investor from pulling money out. Julian Robertson wasn't so lucky with his Tiger Fund in the earlier of 2000 decade.

Anyway, Big Short was a good reading, and gave you one angle of the story that is still unfolding before us. We don't know yet when we will come out of it.

Tax not done yet, sigh!!!

As I mentioned in the previous blog, my wife is doing the tax this year with some help from me. We have spent about 5 hours -- one hour per night whenever we have time. And we just finished the Federal return part. We were checking every instruction to make sure we understand the tax code and try to get as much return back as possible. The tax code is really broken in this country. We shall see if Mr. Obama is able to do anything about it, to close all the loopholes and to close all the exemptions.

As for this year, I just hope we could get the NY and NJ state return done in another 3 to 4 hours, and then file them away.

Washable iPod Touch?

A friend of mine told me this story. His younger son left his iPod Touch inside his Jean pocket one day. Oh, you guess what happened next? Yea, that is right. The Jean went in to the wash machine for a full cycle of soaking and cleaning. And it turned deadly dark upon its exit from its water fun. So my friend took it to the Apple store to see if he could get a exchange. Lo and behold, the Genius bar people just plug it in to the "hole" to give it a final try, and the darn thing dared to come to life.

Wow. My friend himself is a Microsoft guy, but boy he is impressed with the build quality of Apple's iPod touch. He knew me is sort of a Apple fanboy and told me the story to feed my admiration for Apple and SJ.

UN's resolution on Libya

Ever late to the game, UN's resolution against Libya "shocked" me. UN security council's credibility has suffered big hit in the past decades as it failed to act on the Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan etc. I am surprised to see UN finally was able to make a move this time given China and Russia's huge interest in Libya. Is this vote signal a paradigm change in UN security council? Would Iran now stop its nuclear weapon program? I bet Gaddafi was surprised by this resolution. He probably wish that UN security council has passed this resolution a week ago so that he didn't launch his attack campaign on rebel and gave himself a safe exit strategy. We will see if he could still exit without a bruise.

Then I learned both China and  Russia abstained from the resolution vote. And on Monday they both criticized ally's missile attack on Gaddafi. Come on, really, guys, you meant you cannot foresee what is going to happen once the UN resolution passed? I think UN security council should have a rule that if a country abstains too many times from a resolution vote they should waive their voting right for a year or so.

I am wondering what concession China and Russia got from abstaining from the vote.

Tax season is upon us

Every year this time I did my best to avoid touching my computer at all even though I know I was going to get money back from the Federal and the State. I know it is stupid idea to lend your money to the government without charging them any interest. I guess it is just human nature or the human inertia.

But this year things are changing for better. Wife finally took interest in finance, and got her insurance agent license and is on the way getting other required certificate. So she offered to do the tax this year. What a relief! So she is pushing me to give her all the documentation and work with her to download the software, importing last year's data, reviewing W2 etc. It is so much better than doing tax just on your own.

If you haven't done your tax yet, and you did the tax by yourself in the past, may I suggest you to make a change to do the tax return with your significant other?

spend your return wisely.

I am reading "The Big Short" this week. I work in financial industry,  and I have discussed the financial crisis with friends many times. But the sheer stupidity -- or it could be just the greed blinded them -- of big firms and big executives of these firms still shocked me again.

Stay foolish, stay hungary.

iPad 2 line

As I mentioned in the previous email, I was in the line at a local BestBuy store for about two hours that got my iPad 2. There is one small thing I forgot to mention in the earlier blog. It may not see much to people grown up here but meant a lot to a guy like me grown up in China.

There was a young guy in his late twenty or earlier thirty that was two men before me. He talked a lot about his coming wedding and his honey moon. And he mentioned that his fiance was also in the line getting an iPad 2 as well but was way before him. I almost wanted to ask him why he didn't join his fiance and save himself some time. But something distracted and I didn't think about asking him anymore. Maybe he would be surprised by my question and would not know how to answer such a weird question at all. Maybe he would ask me back like "you mean why I didn't cut the line to join my fiance"???

In China, his not joining his fiance and cut the line would be considered to be a dumb move. No one would respect it. It is like a shocking call to me. I remembered two years ago in Sesame Street park how I cut a long line to join my friends for a raft ride (I was very reluctant but my friends insist that out family should join him). I would say his action (or inaction) allow me to shed my last culture burden once and for all. For that I thank him whole heartily.

As to the iPad 2, the first impression is kind of underwhelming but I grew to like it better and better every day.

It's moving very slow

So I left work earlier on Friday to try my luck at a local BestBuy store, for iPad 2 of course. I got to the local BestBuy around 6:10. At first glance, it seemed not many people at all to a point I was wondering that this local BestBuy may not even carry any iPad 2 at all or must have sold out it's limited stock. However after I strolled into the apple show desk, to my detriment there was quite a long line about 200 peopleish. Once I got to the end of the line, the last guy told a sales associate will be coming back to hand out more vouchers for iPad 2. After about 15 minutes the moved about 2 feet, and that last buddy decide that was it and left with a good luck to me. Of course by this time, there were about 15 people behind. I decided that I would give it another 30 minutes and if things didn't improve much I would just leave. Another 20 minutes gone and the line moved maybe another 10 feet. I was about to call it quit. Just right then a BestBuy sales guy with a sheet came to line and asked who didn't have a voucher yet. I was the first one in the line without a voucher. So I told him i need a 32G black wifi. He didn't quite get what I need while he was nervously checking the inventory. And then he asked me again what I need and I have to repeated it to him slowly. He then jogged it down on the sheet and I was able to see a number of 45 just besides the 32g black wifi model line. So it meant they have 45 32g black wifi units. I am about the last one or two counting how many fives were before me. Well, pretty lucky. Then i said to myself now I would have to be here no matter how long it would take. It was moving very slow. So I started chat with people around me. We tried to figured out what could cause it to be so slow. We sent one guy to the front to see what was going on. He reported the line was moving but people while was able to decide what iPad model to pick they really had a difficult ti me to decide which color of the smart cover would better suit them. That seems to cause a lot of delay. Who could guess that. Another hour and 15 minutes and it finally it was me. I handed over my voucher and the sales guy took it and run into a back room to fetch the iPad for me. I peek through a small opening and could see there were many big empty boxes that were host iPads and about two full cases were not opened yet. Not sure how many iPads each box could accommodate. Once I handed over my voucher it took less than 2 minutes to consummate the transaction. So I was in BestBuy slightly less than 2 hours. That's 120 minutes. BestBuy has three checkout lines for the iPads, say 2 minutes for one iPad, from 5 to 8--that was when I was done--, that local BestBuy probably sold about 270 iPads. That was a very impressive number. Say it will close on 9 on time, it would sell another 90. Wow, just from one local BestBuy. An apple retail store would at least double that number.
So when I told the BestBuy I would skip the smart cover cause only gray and beige were left, the sales guy replied, why? Pick one today and exchange it in a week or two when we would have more colors available. I thought it for about 2 seconds and decided to follow his suggestion. Nice move BestBuy. Otherwise I would certainly drove to a local apple retail store (about 30 minutes away) this weekend to pick the smart cover. I bet BestBuy had a good training on their sales people. Nice job for BestBuy. Not too bad for customer like me. And apple just made tons of money from this smart cover thing. You have to give it to SJ. No doubt that he devoted a big slice to it during his presentation.

It was frustrating waiting inline yet it was fun and interesting to chat with strangers that all share the same passion as apple does, that pay attention to details and small things. I might do it again come iPhone 5 to stand inline for the first time for the phone to get one to replace my wife's old white iPhone 3G.

So long for now, will post my review after a week of usage. But I would say that the smart cover is really smart, and I wrote this blog from the new and shiny iPad 2.

Steve Jobs's best speech

Maybe Steve Jobs's speech at Standford 2005 graduation ceremony is the most famous, but the following one that he gave at 1997 right after he came back to Apple is the best. Especially that he asked the audience to change the mentality that "For Apple to growth and prosper, the Microsoft has to lose". Very classic. And Steve Jobs laid out the Apple's came back strategy clearly. This whole video could be used in a Harvard MBA class.

Focus and Focus

I just reflect on what Steve Jobs said in the past keynotes, earning conference calls. I vividly remembered this statement from Mr. Jobs, "there were so many things we could do and we choose only a few things to focus on". (this may not exactly be Mr. Jobs's wording but it was what he meant anyway). 

It is truly remarkable if you look back at the products from Apple over the last decade. With so much talent in the company, so many ideas, so many possibilities, that Mr. Jobs has picked only a few and steered his people to focus on. 

I think Apple's people really get what it means to pay attention to details, whatever slightly those details are. I am not sure anyone at Apple except Mr. Jobs has the guts, or credibility to be able to have Apple people to focus on a few things. With so much cash, without a strong leader, it is inevitable that Apple would think it is invincible and just step into too many fields. That is my biggest worry as an Apple shareholder and as an Apple admirer.

J-20 and Liu Xiaobo

Say what? Well, China President Hu Jintao will be visiting Washington later this month. Usually the China government would release several political prisoners to show some good will towards Washington. But this time around, instead of releasing the prisoner say Liu Xiaobo, the China government decides to leak out some photos about its coming fifth generation fighter J-20.

What a change!

Well, a country that is capable of producing the fifth-generation fighter yet have to put a citizen that merely expressing his political will into a 11-year prison (and a Nobel Peace Prize winner 2010). It remains to be seen how China would turn itself into a real civil society in the coming decade.

"...and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed..."

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

Toilets

I know I know that it is not what you would expect, but yea sorry today's topic is about toilet. So my new place is a 20 year old house and I really want to replace the outdated toilets. So I got Kohler toilets from Homedepot, each costs about $190. My contractor asks for $100 per installation. And I have to say that these Kohler toilets are the best I have used. It flushes with a strong pull, and it is very quiet in both the flush and water refill. It is just amazing. It just shows if you pay attention to details, you could really get things/products done in a way that would delight your customer. Kudos to both Kohler and my contractor.

Anyway, if you live in central New Jersey and you need to replace your old toilets and you are not a DIY person, I could give you my contractor's number. You cannot beat the $100 price.

Comcast horrible service

In my recent move, I have run into Comcast's atrocious service. It is a textbook case of how not to serve your customer. First it appears straightforward that you just login to your comcast account and then find the move service web site and fill in the information. so far so good, but then you discovered it just starts. Comcast asks you to have an online chat with an agent once you fill in all the information. I was shocked when I was asked to do that. I cried it loud wtf? I mean what else is preventing Comcast from completely automating this simple process? what could be so confusing? then I basically need to repeat all my information to the online agent which I told her/him bluntly that online chat is the worst form of customer service. it is slow, and you feel lost since you don't get any immediate response, you almost want to yell it loud. Then after twenty minutes or so giving the agent the information all over again, the agent told me this, "sir, sorry, I cannot transfer your service to the new address yet since the current owner hasn't put in a disconnect service request yet.". I was like, "are you kidding me? why does it matter whether the current owner has put in a request or not? He is moving out in two weeks and I am moving in. So it makes perfect sense for me to put in a transfer request and you should find a way to get it done". and all I got back was, "sir, sorry but the computer won't allow me do it. Please call me again in a week or two. Is there anything else I can help you with"? To that, I was like, "yea, you could help me to put in the transfer request". we went back and forth for another two rounds and then I have to call it quit as I realized that I am not going to get anywhere.

So a week to two later I called Comcast (I really hate the online chat) back and ask the phone agent to put in the transfer request. and after 5 minutes I got back the same answer that the current service at the my future home hasn't received a disconnect request yet so my transfer request cannot go through.

So after I moved in, I called Comcast back and the auto phone told me that their service is from 7am to 10pm and asked me to call back again during their business hour. Here is the interesting part. All the service (internet and tv) works fine for me. To be a good citizen I don't want to use the service for free, and I need to make sure Comcast did disconnect the service at my old place. So I went online again. it is another 30 minutes torture but this time it finally went through. I told the online agent that all services are working so no need to send a cable guy to my new place to which the online agent just told me that they need to send a cable guy to make sure the service is solid. I finally gave me and pick a time slot on Saturday.

On Saturday the cable guy came. and He told me the cable that connected from outside of the house into the house is too outdated and he is going to put in a new one. I was like, "mang, it is working fine. my TV and internet are fine. but if you insist then...". and he insisted. 30 minutes later he is basically done, he also replaced my five year old cable box with a new cable box (but they look exactly the same and function almost the same.) I haven't noticed any difference yet.

And at night when I was watching a on-demand CSI, I found there was issue with the signal. the picture would twist for a second every five to 10 minutes. At that point I was beyond angry.

Whoever in Comcast that is in charge of the information service, and installation service should be fired immediately. They are beyond incompetent. They are just simply outdated.

On Sunday I received a call from my real estate agent that the new owner of my old place was not able to get a Comcast internet service since I haven't disconnect my service there yet. I am not angry anymore. I just feel lucky I am not a Comcast shareholder. And I could barely imagine what a torture NBC guys must feel now that they are part of Comcast.

I am going to call Comcast to come to fix the signal first. then I am going to call Comcast to tell them that I want to cancel my service cause I am switching to Verizon FIOS.

Nobel peace prize

I want to pay my highest respect to Xiaobo Liu, this year's Nobel peace prize winner. I have followed him for many years, reading his articles on the web wherever I could find them, mainly from cnd.org.

Now China is an all powerful country, has vast resources, being it military, economic, or propaganda etc at its disposal. It just seems ridiculous to me that the party and the government chose to put everything on the line in order to make one private citizen's life miserable. And I am really surprised that with a huge think tank base, no one could come up a wise solution to allow the party to save face and move beyond this case. Everyone that is involved in the fiasco should be fired. I mean, come on, it is 21st century, anyone that involved in the case should be put on trial. The outrage really drove me speechless.

Basement

If you are buying a house and wants a basement, make sure you do your due diligence there before making an offer.
1. Make sure the height of the basement is enough for a nice finish if the basement hasn't been finished yet.
2. Make sure there is no water leakage
3. Make sure the sum pump is working, and sum pump pit is dry. (you might want to take a flash light with you for the pit inspection. dry means your basement is in good shape)
4. Last of all, make sure it is big enough for whatever activity you plan for it
5. You might also want to take a contractor (with a good reputation) with you if you are buying a old house (more than 20 years old) so they could give you good advice and good assessment if it needs to be finished or any repair.