I paid good $10 for a flu shot this year.

Saturday morning, I woke up to the routine: fed dog, brew coffee, walked dog, came back, and turned on the computer. Hmm, was that a cold sneaking up on me? I decided to take it easy and not run my usual Saturday 5 miles.

Sunday, I woke up, thinking of the routine, then went to bed, thank you very much. Sunday night, I sent this message to work:

The throat was shearing hurt. I couldn’t talk or swallow. I did 5 to 6 times of salt water garglings Monday and drank lot of medicinal teas. Monday Night, another message went out.

Tuesday was an in-and-out day. I dozed off at the recliner 3 times and went to bed early. I bravely gave my status at FaceBook: “Sin-Yaw Wang is crawling back from a 4-day sore-throat and fever episode.”

Wednesday morning, I assessed, “Hmm, may be I am OK now.” I went to work.

Wednesday night.

Thursday afternoon, after post-lunch nap, I replied to Steven:

Then I dozed off around 4:30pm. Woke up hungry! It is so great to feel hungry. Wife made me congee, traditional Chinese comfort food. I had 3 bowls!

Thursday night’s me was a sedentary couch potato. After CSI, I went straight to bed.

Woke up Wife in the middle of the night, coughing myself to the point of choking. Felt my way to the kitchen for the cough syrup. Contemplated its taste while realizing the time was 2:30am. Waited for the cough to subside in the darkness. Felt my way back to the bed. Unconscious after.

Ran, Monday evening, 2.5 miles, slowly.

Ran again, Tuesday afternoon, 2 miles. Weighed myself in the gym. I lost 2 pounds. It was a nice, warm, bright and blue day. Wonderful.

Jared Diamond pondered on why society chose the path to demise. Biologically, all life forms exist to propagate their genes. If a society, without external interferences, enacted a deed that lead to its extinction, such decision would be highly unnatural. Sociologically, a community will be strange to choose a path that lead to poverty, slavery, irrelevancy, or other suffering for its offsprings.

Why would Japan, currently the 2nd biggest economic entity in the world, chose to do such thing?

New York Times reported that Japan is essentially evicting foreign workers. It is one of the countries least friendly to foreigner (GaiJin). You can live in Japan for decades, raising a family, speaking fluently, making good money, paying taxes, but not allowed a citizenship.

Not that this small country is teeming with youngsters. Japan suffers an aging population for years. It has an almost upside-down population pyramid: the result of having the lowest birth rate in the world, and living for a long, long time. Japanese live to the average 81.6 years, 4.5 years longer than Americans.

Let’s see. An island country that is aging, without much natural resources, used to rich life styles, and expeling immigrants. Wouldn’t this lead to the eventual collapse?

Safra Catz, Oracle’s President and right-hand person for Larry Ellison, commented on the Sun acquisition, with a slight on Sun’s current management. From New York Times.

Ms. Catz estimated that Sun’s operations would generate an additional $1.5 billion a year in operating profit, and add 15 cents a share to Oracles profit.

Sun, for the latest quarter (ending December, 2008), had 1.8 billions in gross margin and 21 millions in operating profit (if we exclude “non-recurring expenses”). What Ms. Catz said translated to 375 millions a quarter in operating profit. That’s 354 more than Sun’s current performance. What could she do?

Oracle is not experienced in selling servers and that industry is fiercely competitive. I do not believe Sun’s server sales will increase drastically. Sun probably can contribute to Oracle’s software and service sales, but I would be conservative and keep the revenue part of the equation flat. Ms. Catz will, then, basically cut 354 millions, per quarter, from Sun’s operating expenses: part from its 411 millions R&D and other part from its 916 millions SG&A (selling, general, and administration). Note that Sun’s R&D spend (13%), although high for server companies, is quite similar to Oracle’s (12%) and Microsoft’s (13%).

If you were Ms. Catz, where would you find that $354 millions?

Goddesses Linda Nagata SciFi.com

“As of Friday, June 15, 2007, SCI FICTION will no longer be availabe on SCIFI.COM.
SCIFI.COM would like to thank all those who contributed
and those who read the short stories over the past few years.”

The entire novella, a winner of 2002 Nebula Award, can be read on http://www.mythicisland.com/e-book/goddesses/, or wherever you can google. I read it on traditional book format. It is kind of sad that paper-based publishing is fading away in front of our eyes. Guess a few years from now, I will be crouched in the sofa holding a Kindle5 or flipping pages on my iPod.

This is a powerful and unusual sci-fi. The setting is pretty much today, or just a decade or so in the future. The poverty, pollution, old cultures, etc. are omnipresent and accellerating. A group of people, each scarred in the past, backed by corporations that strive to “do good while do well” are talented, skilled, and enthused to save the world.

It is not feminism, but gently and unapologetically convincing.

Linda Nagata’s use of technologies are so cool. She imagined Internet, drone airplanes, virtual reality, etc. just a bit out of reach for the currrent state of the arts. Alright, maybe a decade or two ahead. Technology geeks will be so jealous of the tools available to the heroes in her story.

Her depiction of India is horribly similar to Slumdog Millionaire and White Tiger. I reflect on the recent news on Iran’s new law on women’s rights. Maybe Linda Nagata was a bit loud, but women, particularly in India, Iran, and maybe other places, do need a voice for them.

My laptop has a 100GB disk and it is almost full.

My own data take about 45GB and Microsoft uses the rest. All my email and their attachment use about 1GB. I am very diligent in pruning email messages. In fact, I systematically delete old messages once in a while.

According to iTunes, my entire music collection takes up 17GB. That will be 3,610 songs (roughly 4MB each) playable in 10.9 days straight. Honestly, I have not heard all my music yet. I am listening to an epic audio book. There are 328 episodes, each one roughly 30 minutes, or 25MB each. This means the entire book, listenable in 164 hours, takes up 8GB of storage.

I keep all my pictures too. There are roughly 11,000 pictures of my recent life. They consume less than 9GB. I shoot pictures mostly in 2048×1536 resolution, or 700KB each. I found this resolution good enough for practically all my purposes. I print out roughly 30 of them every year to put in a traditional photo album.

Once in a while, I would download a TV episode or two. An hour of HDTV program takes about 350MB, very viewable and enjoyable on my computer or iPod Touch.

I use an ISP for my web presence, this blog part of it. They charge me $5 each month for 120GB of storage. I now have used 12GB, hosting 4 blogs, two web sites, and photo sharings. My largest blogs, this one, has 250 posts since 2005. Its entire database takes up 40MB of space.

When Wife came back home from Costco and told me the Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB home storage unit. I was flabbergasted.

1.5 Tera Bytes! That’s 32 months’ of continuously playing music, 225 thousands full-length movies, or 768 years of photos. It takes months for a decent broadband connection to download that much data. For all practical purposes, that’s infinite amount of storage for me.

Yet, I said the same thing when 640MB hard disk came to existence.

Rebecca sent me this message:

I was not on the round-table, but she was kind to publish my thoughts on this subject. If you wondered, the picture was me in Beijing imitating the posture of a lion statue (not shown).

Four years ago, almost to the date, my wait was over. Apple released an iPod Photo that satiated my infatuation. I logged nearly half a million miles in international flights over the next 4 years and would not have survived without that puny $330 investment. It brought me escapes through hours of being strapped to the airplane seat. It coaxed me to the slumberland at those long jetlegged sleepless nights. When I was stuck in impossibily jammed Beijing traffic, it entertained me with stories from far away. When I felt homesick and isolated, it gave me Charles Gibson’s ABC news from home.

I have been eyeing iPod Touch since its debut. It would have been a worthy upgrade as long as it can hold my entire music collection plus all the podcast subscriptions. When the 32GB version showed up, I grabbed one right off the shelf. My first surprise was the box, in Apple white, of course; it is about the size of 2 decks of cards. I could have put the unopened package into my back pocket.

No AC charger brick? The package includes the iPod, several thin sheets of paper, an USB cable, a pair of ear buds, a simple stand, and that’s it. The bold assumptions Apple made: you must a computer that has iTunes. Apple saved money and bolstered the claim of user friendliness by not putting the manual in the box; you shouldn’t need any instructions.

What a feeling to have my iPod connected to the Net. Safari showed me the local weather and the map knew where I was. Video displayed crisp and bright. I found myself updating all the album arts (iTunes could do this automaticaly). I now share the glee of those iPhone owners.

This one costed me $390, about 4% annual increase per year, compared to my old one. On my bus rides, this iPod in my pocket, I let it, once again, take me to a far away land. I felt indulged and pleased, having a delightful toy.

The owner named the restaurant Cecio, a nickname for his wife, the chef. He manages the cashier and the desserts. Two sons, tall and patient, wait the tables. This small restaurant was 70% full at 9:30pm. Their private-labeled house red is good after the second glass. Rombo in Crusta di Patate (Turbot fish in potato crust) was delicious and just enough for two of us. This is, I guess, part of Rome’s charm.

Romans were largely pagans until late 4th century when Emperor Constantine converted the whole country to Chistianality; Rome was the empire then, ruling pretty much the whole Europe. I expected to see Christian arts everywhere. I did, yet much more on old mythological figures; they are actually more interesting and diverse.

I found myself thinking of the fiction Dune at Piazza di St. Pietro (St. Peter’s Square). The empire enforced church’s doctrines, spread gospels, and made sure people worship properly. The church worried about spiritual matters, ruled on doctrines, and communicated with God. Emperor Constantine was brilliant. He designed a structure suitable for world domination, as long as the powerful can resist corruption. Frank Herbert’s scheme lasted thousands of years and extended beyond galaxies — he had a God Emperor that cannot corrupt.

Why do people come to Rome? Three reasons: the ruins, the Vatican, and Audrey Hepburn. All three require extensive amount of walking and smart crowd management. Absolutely try to arrive the Colosseum and Vatican Museum 10 minutes before the opening time (9am and 8:45am). Do not miss Galleria Borghese (Borghese Museum). You must reserve tickets in advanced and it is worth the trouble.