Inception Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page

Yet another which-reality-are-you-in movie (the best one is still Matrix). The teaser has sufficiently prepared me. The rest of this review will be spoiling. Stop reading if you care.

The key idea is that people can dream together. This technology provided the opportunity to invade someone’s dream and manipulate the victim’s conscience. The common thing to do is “extraction” which is to steal the victim’s knowledge. In the opening act, Cobb attempted to steal from Saito’s dream. But Mal, his wife, ruined it. Cobb was caught and Saito enticed him to do an “inception” job that is to embed an idea into someone’s mind: the ultimate mind manipulation. Enters the second act, and the new “dream architect” played by the delightful Ellen Page. (I have watched four of her movies so far.)

Cobb’s real pursuit is to see his kids again. Deep down, he has been tormented by being responsible for his wife’s suicide. We, the audience, were kept in suspense. Did he killed his wife? Yes, no, and really yes. So the antagonist changed from Saito, Mal, and, finally, to Cobb himself.

The ending was a bit weak. Cobb’s decision to part with his dead wife led to the second decision to save Saito (poorly set up in the opening). A logic problem further weakened the ending: to wake up, one must be kicked at a higher level, not at the dream level. Yet Ellen Page and the victim woke up by falling off to a cliff.

Of course, the story never explain how to wake up from the limbo level. One just have to “find himself.” Oh well.

I think there is a new sub-genre in SciFi called “alternative reality.” Since SciFi is already a small genre, this will be even smaller. This kind of movies have a “long tail” that people will keep on watching it for many years to come. By definition, this will be a classic then.

Do you want RMB to appreciate? Whatever Timothy Geithner said about its effects on the US economy, would that be good for you?

(One of my pet peeves is how westerners brutalized the Chinese currency. They say Yu-An, in two syllables, and that’s just wrong. There is no equivalent sound in English, let’s please just call it RMB.)

The US government owes China, in fact a huge sum. RMB appreciation erases part of the debts. That’s good, since we can use the money. Government would either spend less or more on servicing the citizens, instead of those debts.

But you want your unemployment benefits, Obama-care, social security checks, tax cuts, good schools, and also that bridge to nowhere built. Right? To pay for these, government borrows in big part from China. If China lends to the US less, you will either get even less from the government or pay more taxes (or both, but that’s too depressing).

When RMB goes up, China’s industries become weaker and the US ones stronger and more competitive. That means you make more money, or simply get to keep your job.

But your employer relies on China to hold its costs down. If RMB goes up, so would your company’s costs. It would have to make less money, or raise the prices. Either way, it becomes less competitive. You will suffer with your employer, by getting less pay or losing your job.

If your employer is 100% American, then it won’t suffer. But you shop at Walmart, Target, and Costco. Don’t you? China goods save you hundreds of dollars every month. If RMB appreciates, everything become more expensive.

Every pros meets a con. You cannot be bother with this complexity. Let’s trust the government to figure all these out. OK, you do just that. For me, I bought a hundred dollar’s worth of RMB on this trip to Beijing. It would probably make $10?

Americans call them hurricanes. I grew up knowing them as typhoons. About 10 of them come every year. Most of them just brought lots of rain. Once in a while, they wreaked havoc no less than Katrina. Fanapi is a rare. She is the only one this year and, unlikely the majority of them, aims directly at the center of this island of Taiwan.

Internet announced that I was officially stranded in Taipei. I frantically re-arranged the rest of my trip and went to bed. Rain steadily became heavier through out the night. I woke up in the morning and found Taipei eerily calm. It could be just Sunday morning, but I swear the streets were never emptier.

Now, strangely, I have a day to myself. This is unfamiliar. Of course, I could just glue to the laptop and go the gym for breaks. That seems so lame for a surprise “typhoon holiday.” Movies, museums, shopping? Or just forget about everything and curl up to a book next to a good cup of tea?

Fanapi has been gaining strength as it lands the east shore. At the moment, the maximum wind speed is about 110 miles per hour. As I, safely in the hotel room, contemplate boredom. TV is blasting news on people fighting for their very survival or the preservation of livelihood. Their war is less than 50 miles away from where I am.

Guess reading would be my choice now. I chose escapism.

Edit: the next day.

Fanapi’s max wind speed reached “level 16″; that’s about 125 miles per hour. TV showed a smallish reporter literally blown away. She managed to crawl behind a pillar and was rescued by her camera man. Another reporter was holding on to a toppled truck and clearly had trouble speaking against the wind. The heaviest rainfall was about 2 feet. The water rose to the first floor ceiling in less than an hour.

Taipei city was mostly closed or boarded up. Strong wind did the usual tree and signage damages. My hotel used wood planks to latch up all doors except for one in the front. Last time, the wind blew doors open and caused major damages.

I found a barbershop nearby and had a hair cut. Then the cinemax was open, so I watched Inception.

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting Robert Mckee November 25, 1997 978-0060391683

Remember Peter and the Wolf? I loved Sergei Prokofiev’s use of Bassoon; the enjoyment probably came from my ability to identify that unique sound.

Most people can appreciate arts without any training. But a little education goes a long way. My guitar education made Eric Clapton appreciated so much better. Whiskey has always been one of my favorite art forms. I have been enjoying them at a completely different level after a wise Scottish guy taught me the subtleties. For the same reason, I appreciate architecture much more than paintings. My many friends in architecture gave me the proper education on the craft: form, function, structure, etc.

Robert McKee’s book explains the craft of movies, particularly Hollywood ones. This book demystifies and makes you understand movies. I now think, not feel again, about movies after watching them. I also watch old movies in a completely different way. This book changed me.

Hollywood movies are done in acts, typically three; each act in scenes. A movies generally has a plot and several sub-plots. The plot usually involves a protagonist (the hero or main character) making a series of decisions that drive the progression of the movies. These decisions are progressively more difficult, since there are always something, the antagonists, against the protagonist in getting what he was pursuing. This tension between the protagonist and antagonists crescendos to the final crisis that leads to the climax. Most viewers can predict the climax long before its arrival, but it should be as satisfying. There are exceptions, but the majority of Hollywood movies follow this structure. Screenwriters should refrain from changing the structure, just like poets do not change the rules of metering. The form is how geniuses show their brilliancy.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a short story (SciFi). I wrote, edit, rewrote, sat on it, slept on it, re-edited, re-wrote again. It was not good. And I have exhausted everything I got. It was depressing to create the proof of my lack of writing talents.

No! I did not have the craft. I am definitely not a natural novelist, but says who I cannot become a good one? History shows that all fine arts require “deliberate practices.” Robert McKee’s book is the practice instructions for story tellers. And now I may start practicing.

Yes, for this story, I am my own antagonist.

HP board members should stop embarrassing themselves.

• 

  Jodie Fisher accused Mark Hurd of sexual harassment. She settled with Mark and publicly stated that they never had sexual relationship. Maybe something questionable happened, but it would have fallen into a vast gray area of “misunderstanding” and “he said, she said.” HP board investigated the matter and dismissed the case.

  Even convicted sexual harassment complaints rarely become public, let alone dismissed ones. Companies of HP’s size deal with hundreds of sexual harassment complaints. Almost all of them will be sealed, regardless of the outcome, to protect the individuals. By publicizing a double-negative non-event, HP board tried Hurd on the court of public opinion: essentially smearing Hurd and leaving him with no recourse.

• HP board fired Mark Hurd for “business misconduct,” specifically for questionable expenses in the range of $7,500 related to Ms. Fisher. This CEO received over $30 million in compensation every year. He never touched his expense reports (his admin would have taken care of it). He does not care about spending $7,500 dollars on whatever, on his own dime or not. This is like faulting Tom Wolfe for a spelling mistake. There are many ways to oust a CEO, this one sounds stupid.

• HP then entered this bidding war with Dell on 3Par. During Mark Hurd’s tenure, HP has quietly become a giant in IT space with an impressive acquisition strategy, with Mark Hurd as the architect behind it. Why would the board spend so much money on an ousted CEO’s strategy? Wouldn’t this prove that Hurd had the right strategy, vision, and plan. In that case, why fire him?

• 

  Next HP sued to keep Hurd out of Oracle. Larry Ellison already has an excellent executive team, particularly Safra Catz as the president. He was willing the disturb the existing structure for Mark: an appreciation for Mark’s skills that HP lacked. The law suit proves that HP thinks Mark matters. Why did they fire him earlier then?

There could be personal conflicts, power struggles, other behind-the-scene confrontations that we would never read about in HP’s boardroom. Public opinions are shaped by whatever revealed to the press and HP board, contrary to Oracle, handled this poorly. The public now think HP board should have never fired Mark Hurd and Larry Ellison is brilliant. No one knows which side is right. At the end, the stock prices of these company is the final judge. By that time, all of these drama would have been forgotten.

Edit on 9/11: New York Times’ Joe Nocera has a much better written piece on the same subject.

“How can you just move?” He was half unbelieving and half accusatory. I found myself searching for an answer. This is a house that I raised the family, had numerous backyard BBQs, poured in tears, sweat and blood, and spent countless hours cleaning, fixing, and repairing. It was my American dream, my land, and my home. I grew old here. How can it be possible that I would leave and sell it?

Well, it was done. Escrow closed, money changed hands, deed recorded, and addresses changed. It is no longer mine. Wife and I stared at the bank account and were amazed that our home has become a number. (That’s my agent, Jim Song.)

I cannot resist thinking it as an investment. At first glance, the sold price and the purchase price represents multiple times of increase. That seemed impressive until I checked out Dow Jones index. Both performed slightly more than 6% annually over the same period of time. (Average inflation was about 2.8%.) I guess it did OK, but not spectacularly.

And the net increase does not represent the whole truth. We remodeled about 10 years ago, changed roof twice. Re-piped. Re-landscaped. More importantly, we made mortgage payments every month. We were feeding this house all those years.

A more reasonable approach is to treat all the cash payments over the years as investments and the net gain today as the payout. I fed all those and taxes (income tax, property tax, and capital gain) into a spreadsheet and out came 3.62%. It is a lousy investment then.

Hold on. Had I not bought the house, I would have to pay rents. Over the years, the rents in our market was about the same as the mortgages. If I add back those “rent savings,” the return would have been 7.86%. It is then a significantly better investment. I feel better.

As I sit in this Seattle downtown apartment looking out to the cityscape, the thought is not whether I made a good investment decades ago. Tonight is for reminiscing all those BBQs and kids growing up and letting nostalgia fill my heart. Tomorrow is another day and I will build new memories here in Seattle.