When the first iPhone craze swept over the US, I opined on Apple’s strategic mistake treating the China market: the largest in the world. IPhones are not supported in China. If you wish to use this cool gadget there, you need to jailbreak it and void all warranties. Thousands of people did just that, paying two surcharges: the more expensive handset that did not come bundled with AT&T and the jailbreaking fees.

With its deal with China Unicom, a much smaller player in China, iPhone now has an official presence in China. But the venture faces a thriving industry of jail-broken iPhones.

A customer has choices: buy a jail-broken iPhone and stay with the their current China Mobile account or a legitimate one with a new phone number. This week, they learned that door #2 is more expensive. The 3GS version (16GB) costs $440 and without the WiFi feature, compared to the US Apple store price of $200, full featured.

Apple picked a weak partner, irked the customer with its pricing, and ignored the competing channel. Essentially, it continues to cultivate competition by marketing the touch-screen smart-phone segment and weak-playing the largest market in the world.

Let’s see how other handset vendors play this.

Bad things are good at choosing the worst timing.

We needed to be away better part of this Saturday. Everything was planned and arranged: set the timer to turn on lights, arranged a friend to feed/walk dog, programmed GPS, chose attires. Late at night, we dragged our tired bodies into the house and found the puddle in the kitchen. Accusatory eyes turned to dog, wagging excitedly that we are finally back. The friend called, “We thought of the dog too. But the puddle reappeared after we walked him.” (Do you have a friend who will clean up a puddle in your kitchen.) What? I had a refrigerator leak?
For a hardwood-floored kitchen, refrigerator leak is a big problem. Replacing the damaged planks would be costly, dusty, and time consuming.

Sunday morning, I found the water tube was jetting out from a pin hole. The tube had enough slack that made the fix simple: cut off from the leak point and re-connect the tube. Ten minutes later, I found a part with so much calcium deposits that it must be replaced.

Four trips, three stores, and 3 and half hours later. I got the damn $3 part (1/4″ to 1/4″ compression union, with inserts on both sides). Another hour after, I gave up on my wrenches and went to a neighbor to borrow his. Another 30 minutes, I fixed the leak.

Both a professional plumber and myself would have taken 15 minutes to fix the leak. What separated us are the speed of diagnosing the problem, the time to secure the right part, and the tool readiness. For those, a professional would have charged me hundreds of dollars. I got paid with a nice cold beer, a bit bragging right, and some domestic brownie points.

I think I was paid better for the job.

One week later…

Water jetted out from underneath the refrigerator again. I am calm and ready this time. Rolled out the fridge, turned off the water source, cut off the leak point, and reconnect the tube. I clamped the tube too tight and the tube was pinched crack.

And I will turn off the water tube before vacation next time.

It is not a difficult, but it demands concentration, good memory, and logic to play. It also takes practices, lots of them, to play well. Wait. These are the same requirements for pretty much everything in life. Aren’t they?

I really never played before this summer. Previously, I solved it like a programmer would, using the dependable backtracking algorithm. Even with aggressive sub-tree pruning, the simplest level still daunted this weekend programmer.

If you don’t know the game, it is deceivingly simple. There is a 9-by-9 grid divided into 9 3-by-3 sections. Each row, column, or section shall have exactly digit from 1 to 9 exactly once. Sudoku was invented in America and popularized in Japan. The name means “lonely digits (數獨),” describing the single rule of no digit will meet its same ever. Search the word and you shall find thousands of site offering you endless puzzles to solve. Almost every periodical has a puzzle or two somewhere in the pages.

Surprisingly, the best algorithms to solve Sudoku use graph theories, the same used in various networking problems. Imagine each row, column, and section are nodes attached to the root that is the whole puzzle itself. Those nodes are connected, since they share cells. Each of those nodes has sub-nodes that represent each permutation. The result is a complex graph and the solution will be a sub-graph.

To find the solution, the algorithm systematically prune the graph until the last one: the solution. The algorithm is very similar to those used to solve many networking problems. Unfortunately, it also belongs to the same class of the problem known as NP-Complete. Human kind has not found solution to any problem in this class. We have also proven that a solution to one will also solve all in the class. Whoever finds a good algorithm to solve Sudoku is likely to become a six millionaire. Since there are at least six million-dollar awards unclaimed so far. (The P=NP problem is not related to Sudoku. I think.) He or she is likely to become a multi-billionaire, since the applications of this algorithm are very profiting.

Why is Sudoku so popular? It is both simple and challenging. A child can solve one; a genius mathematician would be stumped. It has a maddening mid-game that seems impossible, followed by an exhilarating phase that everything falls into places. On my iTouch, I downloaded Enjoy Sudoku Daily, a free app on the iTunes Store. Next time you are stuck in an airplane seat, flip the magazine to the Sudoku page and give it a try.

If you get addicted to it, welcome to the club.

如果施耐庵不寫招安,水滸能流傳下來嗎?

宋江的招安心態,我看來有兩個因素:一是士大夫的愚忠,二是沒有大志. 官府功名,還是正途. 他在梁山的地位,終是草莽,當官才是他們該做的. 另外,就是沒有能得天下的信心. 覺得他不可能成為下一朝代的開國皇帝.

我還是認為施耐庵為了現實低頭了,他不寫招安,不就反了嗎.他的命都沒了,還談什麼小說?

Every year, we watched Lynbrook High School like river flowing through time. Graduation, prom night buses, marching band tournaments, various concerts, etc. all flow through our front door like leaves on the water current predictably. This year, the parking lot closed right after the last school day. Hmm, what’s going on?

Several months later, no only the parking lot re-paved. The parking spaces are now sheltered — with solar panels. How cool is that!

Clearly we passed Measure B last year that enabled schools to improve their facilities. Measure B money cannot be used for operational purposes, like staff salaries or library books. Lynbrook chose to go green with a massive solar panel installation. This was a win-win-win-win decisoin.

The parking lot has a new layer of pavement. The cars are sheltered from rain and other elements. This earth gets a bit greener. And, lastly, the school saves a million dollar in electricity every year. Now, that million dolloars are operational money and the school can use it however it sees fit.

All Fremont Union high schools are doing the same. Everyday, I walk my dog past Lynbrook parking lot and see my tax dollars doing something cool. Nice.

What’s the controversy? I bet no k-12 students are politically aware, let alone partisan. They say their pledges in the morning, salute to the flag, and sing national anthem with all their hearts. They are patriotic. They all knew that the president is the leader of the country. They are eager to follow.

The president’s addresses were rarely controversial. They were all inspirational, similar to commencement speeches, and focused on the positive attitudes toward life. President Obama was not exceptional:

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.

The controversy, it seems, is on the person himself. People objected to his speech even before they knew the contents. “Indoctrination!” they shouted.
The true reason for the objection is to weaken Mr. Obama’s public support. This is a nation run on leadership, charisma, or even charm. Mr. Obama has used his popularity as a main weapon to win battles. His opponents knew that and would do anything to abate it.

Plain old politics.

Soutwest Airline is one of the most popular Harvard MBA cases. It has a legendary founder, Herb Kelleher. It operates with a completely different model than the traditional wisdom and does not pursue customer satisfaction blindly. It created a new business model for airlines. More importantly, it has defied the general gloom of the industry and been a business success.

Southwest run airplanes like buses: no assigned seating. This is probably the most hated feature and the company has stubbornly stuck to it for years. In the old days, you need to arrive early to get a placard, first come, first serve. I used to check in an hour before flight and get #89, pretty much the last one to board. I swear someone was auctioning off his number once. Later, the company allowed electronic seating order assignment. Seasoned travelers learned to check in precisely 24 hours prior to the fly time to get a better number. A friend of mine did exactly that only to get A39 — 38 people managed to get ahead of her within minutes from the starting time.

Wherever there is a demand, there could be profit. I am amused that the company now plan to sell the boarding numbers. Note that elite members of Southwest’s frequent flyers club always got preferred boarding numbers. It is not clear if $10 can get ahead of them. But the rest of the population are now more likely to get back-row seats with no over-head compartment space. They cannot compete with their diligence or efforts anymore. They must get inline with capitalism: compete with money.

Sigh.. Just charge me more and give me a seat already.

女兒FB上貼了篇”如果回北京要去那”. 翻成中文大家共享.

1. 鹿港小鎮: 炒年糕,巧克力冰沙
2. A-Che (加勒比海拉丁风情餐厅,东直门外,澳使馆对面): 好玩的吃吃喝喝,和服務員講講爛中文
3. 大董烤鴨: 北京烤鴨第一.
4. 鼎泰豐: 麻辣乾絲,小籠湯包,芒果刨冰,綜合刨冰,也許再加個松糕.
5. 回學校: 回念一番
6. 大山子798: 太酷的地方,朋友在那打工.
7. 三里屯: 從沒玩過這街.
8. 超市: 買alaskas,太想吃了.
9. Jenny Lou: 什麼地方同時買得到cheese,美國KitKat糖,和烈酒?
10. Toni & Guy: 做個頭,和我的髪師聊聊,按按頭,香一香.