The Car Allowance Rebate System, also known as the Cash for Clunkers Bill became effective on Monday, July 27th.
In a nutshell, you will receive up to $4,500 for your “clunker” when you buy a new car. That clunker will be taken out of the circulation and sent directly to the junk yard. The idea is to encourage people to upgrade to more fuel-efficient cars and, at the same time, stimulate the much troubled car industry.
Like all social programs, this one will work exactly as designed, but probably not how it was intended.

I always started thinking of replacing my car when it was about 7 years old. But I wouldn’t be in a hurry. I would slowly narrow, or widen, my choices and wait for the best deal to come. It would be an exciting event for the whole family to get a new car. Its arrival, however, would take me out of the market for another 7 to 10 years. I turned out to be quite typical; Americans drive their cars for about 9 years. The odds of I buying two cars in two years is the same as I winning the lottery.

A limited time incentive basically shifts future purchases to present time.
When Chrysler and GM closed hundreds of dealerships, they created a discount heaven and deal bonanza for many car buyers. The Cash for Clunker program will be the second large price reduction this year. What would have seemed like a great selling season will be followed by a long fallow. Americans are, again, borrowing from their future: just like during the sub-prime time.

One of the best deal in the car industry is 2nd or 3rd year used cars, usually %70 or even %50 of the new car price. $4,500 is enough incentive for a would-be used-car buyer to go for a new one. For the society, the economic boom at the new car segment is offset by the loss at the used-car lot.

It turns out not quite easy to get government’s money anyway. A 2002 Chevy Tahoe guzzles at 14 MPG (miles per gallon) but is worth more than $4,500. Its owner has no economic incentive to do it. An 1986 Lincoln Continental, pretty much a stereotypical clunker, is actually too fuel efficient, at 19 MPG, to qualify. Let alone those Japanese small cars.

Advised by a smart person, I wrote these dating rules for my older daughter just about time boys start noticing girls. Kid read it and made not comments. A couple of years later, she started dating and offered a revision to my rules. Since they are more agreement than regulations, we accepted them.

Parents with daughters, I recommend having a conversation with them when they are about 12 years old. You should actually write your own and put expiration time, based on age, on those rules.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson David Yates directed

This is a compulsory movie-watching. Com’on. I have read all Harry Potter books and watched all movies so far, I am not going to miss one episode. The need to have a complete collection drives many people. If you are one of us, just go. Resistance is, not necessary.

The good news is: it ain’t bad. It is, however, a bridge movie designed for the next one. (I felt the same about book #6.) I am not sure one can appreciate this movie without having watched the previous ones or read the book.

Of course, this geezer found himself confused with the plot and wrecking his brain trying to remember the book. Good thing Kid was next to me, so I extracted many of her memories. (Faster than using a pensieve.)
That is the problem with the Harry Potter series: the unbearable wait. We waited patiently for the next book and waited patiently again for the next movie. When they final come out, we have forgotten the details. Note to J.K. Rowling wannabes: learn from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Each of Sherlock Holmes’s stories is appreciable on its own.

That’s why I refreshed my Harry Potter that very night. Stop reading if you didn’t read Harry Potter #7 book.

• Voldermort was frustrated for not being able to kill Harry. He blamed his wand. First it was a twin with Harry’s. When Lucius Malfoy’s also failed. He kidnapped Ollivander the wand maker. In book #7, he found Elder’s Wand and thought it would do the job.
• Elder’s Wand, the most powerful one, choose its new master when the current one is defeated. Draco, unknowingly, became the new master when he knocked it off from the badly weakened Dumbledore. Snape killed Dumbledore, but never mastered the wand.
• But Voldermort misunderstood and killed Snape. Snape, before his death, poured out his memory. That’s how Harry knew that Snape was his protector all along.
• The last Horcrux was Harry himself. To kill Voldermort, Harry must die first. But since he self-sacrificed to save others, he, without the part of Voldermort in him, came back to life.
• Harry defeated Draco and took his wand (his own was accidentally destroyed) and, therefore, became the new master. When Voldermort attacked Harry with the wand, it backfired and killed Voldermort instead.
• There were 7 Horcruxes: Tom Riddle’s Diary, destroyed by Harry with Basilisk’s fang; Gaunt’s Ring (also the resurrection stone), destroyed by Dumbledore with Gryffindor’s Sword; Slytherin’s Locket, destroy by Ron Weasley with the same sword; Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup, destroyed by Herimone with Basilisk’s fang; Ravenclaw’s diadem, destroyed by Crabbe’s Fiendfyre; Nagani the snake, slayed by Neville Longbottom; and Harry Potter himself.

Why would any company try to create a new commercial operating system?

By the classic definition, an operating system bridges the computing machinery (hardware) and those software (applications) that interact with human beings. The modern day operating systems also serve as the stable layer that enables hardware and software to innovate relatively independently. Those innovations stimulated each others, created values, and pushed the OS itself to evolve. In time, entire ecosystems emerged, centering the operating system.

Desktop computing is just one of those ecosystems that Windows has reigned for decades. There are other large ecosystems like data centers, networking, and mobile devices. Unlike desktop, several OSes compete in those ecosystems. Today, there must be several dozen stable and mature operating systems for all possible computing needs. Probably none is perfect, but the costs to differentiate enough, yet remain compatible with the existing ones, are prohibitive. This is why no one tries to dethrone Windows.

Why would, then, Google enter this foray? I honestly don’t know the reasons, but that does not stop me from opining.

• They have many bored engineers.
  Google makes money by selling ads on their search engine. Yet most of its engineers work on something cool yet other than the famed search engine. Some of them probably felt like working on operating systems. We knew that others at Google work on email, cell phone technologies, cloud computing, routers, green technologies, or whatever sounds cool.
• They are invincible.
  Google has not failed as a company. Whatever they do, the cash kept on coming and stock kept on rising. Since they can’t fail, why take on a lesser challenge? In fact, what’s the worst possible outcome? If Chrome OS fails to topple Windows, there will be no consequence to Google’s search-based revenue what-so-ever.
• They have a new ecosystem without an OS.
  Many thought a gigantic ecosystem centered around HTTP, the technology behind browsers: the new OS, some stated. Microsoft tried to destroy this new ecosystem by dragging it into the desktop. Google saw a prize. It gets to do to Microsoft what Microsoft did to IBM (taking over the new ecosystem, the desktop, with a new OS). That is pretty cool.

What constitutes an ecosystem for an operating system? IHV (independent hardware developers), ISV (independent software developers), and, of course, users and administrators. IHVs make those thousands of devices and write drivers and administration utilities (control panel applets). ISVs write applications for all niches and business models. They hire developers who need tools and libraries. For them to monetize, there must be a distribution mechanism to reach those who pay.

Think about this. How do IHV, ISV, distribution channels, and customers connect for Windows, iPod, cell phones, PDA, and mainframe vendors? Imagine how much money we are talking about. Now compare the new ecosystem surrounding the browsers with the one for desktop. The IHV and the customers are the same. What would be different is the ISV and the distribution.

With Chrome and netbook, Google would cut Microsoft off from low-end: billions of people who never saw computer, let alone Windows, in their lives in China, India, and Africa. Of course, Google needs to do this before Microsoft cuts off its ad revenue with Bing.com.

Isn’t this fun to watch?

I came to this country in 1984 as a graduate student in engineering. I expected to meet and make-friends with many Americans. When I walked into the classroom the first time, I found, except for one, all my fellow classmates are either Chinese, Indian, or Iranian.

National Science Foundation reported that, in 2007, about 30% of all US graduate students, in science and engineering, are foreigners, and 58% for post-doctoral studies. This has been the same for decades.

Foreign students pay much higher tuition than the state residents, sometime 10 times more. Since the laws prohibit them from working, they all brought monies from home countries. They worked in the labs and classrooms to relieve professors’ burdens and helped out with the researches. US’s higher education institutes have grown to depend on them as financial and human resources.

Now many decades later, we can observe some interesting long-term effects:

• Foreign-born scientists and engineers have gradually replaced those American professors and researchers as they retire.
• Those who stayed in the US have contributed greatly to the advances of US technology leadership. Nearly a third of the silicon valley start-ups were founded by foreign-born and US-educated.
• They have been the key to their home countries’ modernization and increased competitiveness, frequently against the USA. Many top executives, professors, and researchers, in China and India were US-educated.

Paul Kedrosky, senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, wondered if the US can benefit more from these foreign-born talents. He proposed to attaching green cards to all postgraduate diplomas in this country. He said, in Marketplace, that

It certainly beats the alternative where we give them this wonderful education then send them home and say good luck starting a new companies that we’ll then worry about later on. Why don’t we try to take advantage and build upon that success rather than making it more difficult for ourselves?

Having lived here for pretty much my entire adult life, I frequently wonder why Americans are so willing to suffer, economically, for their choice ideologies. When the examiner from INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) questioned my reasons to stay in the country, I needed to be careful. Had I said, “I came. This seems like a good place. Therefore I would like to stay.” My request would have been denied. The acceptable reason must be unforeseeable when I first entered the country.

Whether this country would benefit from letting me, or other scientists and engineers, stay was never questioned.

Bernie Madoff was the highest paid professional in Wall Street in 1989. Yes, he was beyond rich 20 years ago. He could have a normal wealthy and decadent lifestyle: first class all the way, only the best foods and wines, royalty-class services, and getting whatever he desires at the moment’s notices. He could have all these 20 years ago without committing any crime.

Years ago, I watched a movie called Brewster’s Million. The plot is quite simple: Mr. Brewster (Richard Pryor), a penniless street bum, must spend a million dollar in a month, without accumulating any assets or giving the money away. He rented clothes, hired servants, tipped excessively, and lived in the most expensive hotel. Tried as Mr. Brewster did, he almost failed the task. It was much harder than one would imagine to spend money.

The conservative estimate of Madoff’s fraud is $13.2 billion. If he and family spend a million dollar each month, like Mr. Brewster, it would have taken them over a thousand years. In fact, it takes much less than a billion dollar to sustain a million-dollar-per-month life-style forever.

I once played a party mind-game just to stir up conversations. You are requested to pick a marble from a bath tub, blind-fold, filled with white marbles, except for one black. If you pick a white one, you get a million dollar. If black, you are killed on the spot. Would the amount of the money, or the number of white marbles, change your mind?

There was another mind game. A wealthy person committed a crime and must go to a club-med style prison for a year (think Martha Steward). She offers you a million dollar to do the time for her. Would the amount of the money, or the length of time, change your mind?

The point is quite simple: white-collar crimes are investment decisions. Madoff was a brilliant investor whose master plan is known only to himself. He expects high return with the investment that is the rest of his life. What’s the scheme?

From now on, I will automatically vote against the incumbent in all legislative races in California. I will continue to do so until they can have a budget by the deadline.

If you are born in the year of 2044, according to Michael Woods. (An unexpected benefit from sending Kid to a good school is to get to know/hear/read about her friends and professors.) Michael optimistically predicted that him, and others born in the same year, will live to nearly 140 years on average!

Several thoughts sprang to mind (call me pessimistic, Michael):

• My retirement fund assumed that I will die earlier. Does this mean I need to kill myself then or work longer now?
• My doctor told me that the worst thing is partial death: some organs are about done and others are still going strong. For example, I don’t want to have a good heart but bad lungs, strong legs but can’t see, perfect health except for no teeth, etc.
• According to Time Enough for Love and several similar stories. Living too long may not be a blessing. Immortality is actually a curse.

Wait a minute. I got ahead of myself. I was not born in 1986. (”Ha!” Said Kid). Sorry, I will proceed to die when I reach 78.06 years old. Whew!

The knocking on the door was unexpected and therefore not a good thing. Three people in Hazmat-like protective gears is even a worse sign. He felt perfectly healthy, only jet-lagged. But that passenger, two rows behind him and slept all the way from San Francisco to Beijing, turned out to be a confirmed infectee. They took him directly to GuoMenLu Hotel, near the airport, for a week’s quarantine. None of his 250 fellow quarantined can have any direct contact with anyone else in that hotel.

That’s a true story. My friend told me that it happened to someone who knew his friend.

2002, I needed to hire many in Beijing. We bought publicity to attract local applicants. We signed up interviewers, a dozen or so, and geared up to fly them to Beijing. Hundreds of candidates were ready. The entourage from the USA was ready. Everything was ready for my recruiting blitz. We were excited with anticipation.

SARS! State department issued a travel advisory, company banned all trips to China, the big plan fell apart. We scrambled to execute plan B and eventually hired nearly 100 people in 4 months.

Early 2006, bird flu was the new SARS and I began my 2nd year in Beijing. An employee urged me to stockpile Tamiflu and prepared for an evacuation plan. I assured him that China government will protect Beijing with all their resources. I also insisted that the company plan must work for all employees, China- or US-citizen. Most in China were not paranoid. In fact, bird flu was an oblivious shrug, a stark contrast to SARS.

Last year, when I was packing to leave China, I found the box of US-made, medical-grade masks. The whole box was completely forgotten during those 3 years. I gave the box to a friend and joked, “You may need this for the next flu pandemic.”

Wherever the origin, swine flu has sieged China. The number of new cases is growing exponentially. The government admitted that they are losing control. They expect a bad summer followed by a worse winter.

Is it a pattern that a pandemic threat comes every two to three years? SARS and bird flu both killed, but really only very few, compared to, say, normal flu, traffic accidents, diabetes, obesity, smoking, or cancer. This horribly feared swine flu has killed negligibly number of people. Statistically, it should not have attract any media attention at all.

The pattern predicts a new flu pandemic threat — not real, just a threat — in a couple of years. Since we have already dealth with birds and pigs, next time it would be an animal that’s even closer to people. Get ready. Dog flu comes winter of 2012. It won’t be curable and it won’t kill either. A good scare, it guarantees.