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.