The good news is that you can be as brilliant as Tiger Woods, Warren Buffet, or even Mozart! The bad news is that you are probably a bit too late. But don’t despair, there is still hope.

Geoff Colvin’s book, Talent is Overrated (ISBN: 978-1591842941), repeated what Malcolm Gladwell mentioned in Outliers that there is a magical 10,000 hours for geniuses. Anyone can perform as brilliantly as a genius after about 10,000 hours of practice. In fact, many studies revealed that the majority of those prodigious geniuses — Tiger Woods, Warren Buffet, Mozart — did just that. The only difference is that they started early and so appeared to be childhood prodigies. If you trace their training history, you will find that they all achieved the “greatness” level after about 10 years’ training.

I knew one such genius myself. It was first grade. He surpassed me oh so effortlessly on every subject and clinched #1 in class ranking without a hint of studying. I was so jealous of his brilliancy. He was the darling of every mother. “Why can’t you be like him?” I wanted to hate him, but he asked me to play at his house, so I did.

As we played, his mother was tutoring his elder brother right next to us (we all live in small apartments, there wasn’t much privacy then). And I found out why he invited me. I was his shield, his excuse, and his escape. Without I being there, his mother would have drilled and tutored him at the same time — one effort for the benefit of two. Ha! He was no genius. In fact, poor guy, he was trapped by his under-performing brother so that he couldn’t play everyday as I. We became best friends and, uh, his grades declined quickly.

So, if you wish to play like Tiger, invest like Warren, or compose like Mozart, all you have to do is put in about 10,000 hours of practice. On average, that would take about 10 years. That’s the good news. The bad news is by the time you finished that 10 years, others would have done their 20 years. Where is the hope? In professional fields and business, most people don’t really get better with time and 2,000 hours of practice are enough to make you shine. If you would spend half a day every week, that’s 4 hours a week, you will be quite good in a year’s time. If you keep it up, you will be super in about 3 years. It may be hard to be a brilliant golfer, but it takes surprising less to be better than everyone around you.

Are you willing to do 4 extra hours of practicing every week for a year? I have given this advice to many people, almost 100% had their lives get in the way: family, friends, kids, entertainment, social activities, etc. In the end, no one put in those hours.

Sadly, I concluded you really don’t want to be a genius. You just want an excuse of not being one.

I decided to live with this for a while. When WordPress asks me to upgrade again, I will choose the English version and see what will happen. For now, bear with me.

Who does not want to play with a trebuchet? A massive and powerful machine that fell castles and fortresses mysteriously. It takes many people to operate. When assembled, it lobs big boulders or fireballs over long distances. The movement, observed casually, seem magical. How can it work? No one knows.

Except for this kid obsessed with trebuchets. He built numerous trebuchets and figured out pretty much every detail. Then he entered this world-class technical university and met my kid. Years later, kid got a Christmas gift in the mail.

CalTech kids are pretty much all obsessed with one thing or another. One of them held the world-record for solving Rubik’s cube, blind-folded. Yes, he can do it blind-folded in a minute while I can only work out two layers in an hour. He lubricated his cube so that it will turn precisely a quarter turn with a slight flip of his finger. You don’t get to be world-record setting without paying attention to details.

Michael Woods crowd-sourced to fund his long-time hobby. Pledges from his Kick Starter project funded a laser wood cutter to mass produce miniature trebuchets (“trebuchettes”). Kid received her very own siege weapon as a gift. “Because he promised to build me one when we first met.”

Of course, I got to test its range and accuracy. More importantly, I now know how this medieval weapon works. You can try it too!

Recently, prominent internet players coordinated a protest against the government. And they won.

Wikipeidia shut down itself for 24 hours. Google put up a censorship protest sign. Several other sites took similar action. All because the US congress was considering two bills (PIPA and SOPA) sponsored by the media industry that claimed the internet industry is killing them. They said over $500 million a year is lost due to online piracy. This has to stop!

Really? Else what? Would society lose their artists and entertainment? Would there be no programs on TV, no music on the radio, no movies in the theater, no shows on Broadway? Conversely, what if the laws pass? Would artists make more money? Would I have better music, movies, or shows?

Let’s trace money and incentives. Simply: who pays? who gets paid? who really cares?

Artists or creators do not get much of the money. Most goes to those middlemen that distribute the art. This used to be a fair deal. Creating music costs comparably little. Most of the risks in this business lie in distributing and promoting creative content. Therefore the distributors and promoters should be rewarded.

But Internet changed the dynamics. Internet distribution costs nearly zero. People purchase based on reviews and referrals, and less on promotion. An unknown artist remains unknown until he or she has acquired fame and fans. Since consumers do not take promotion seriously, the best, and probably the only, way is to distribute the works freely. For established artists, they can charge much less for the music if they cut out the middlemen.

The production costs for TV programs and movies are still prohibitively high for them to be given away free. If everyone pirates and does not pay, these industries die. Consumers understand this point and are willing to pay reasonable prices. The media industry, however, resisted this option.

Hulu, major TV network’s portal, or cable operator’s portal offer a subset of the TV programs or movies. Some programs, particularly the popular ones, are simply not offered. Others appear 48 hours later and stay for only a short period of time. For this impatient and technically savvy generation of viewers, going directly to piracy is more reliable, more available, less restriction, free of charge, and of the same quality.

I use Comcast’s “catch-up” feature quite frequently. If I missed a TV show, I will go to “catch-up” and watch the same program on-demand. I don’t mind watching the commercials, but am annoyed that they don’t show up consistently — sometime 2 days later, sometime not ever. I have already paid the cable bill. I could have DVRed the program anyway. I don’t feel guilty doing a bit of searching and downloading.

Online and on-demand viewing is the new model. Soon, only sports programs will be watched live. People are willing to pay. But media companies forced them to pirate. More laws on anti-piracy are clearly not the solution.

Embrace the new world and create a new business model. If they don’t get the “Google generation,” they will just die.

It began slowly and it took a long time for the main characters to meet each other. The setting was creepy, cold, dark, and foreign. I cringed at several scenes that were quite graphic and violent. They are fully capable of giving people nightmares or keeping them awake at night. If this were a movie (and it is), it would match the horror of Se7en.

Although it gripped me all the way to the finish, I am not clicking my Amazon account to acquire the next two books from Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. I guess this one felt a bit too intense.

Herr Larsson died before publishing the trilogy and he delivered the manuscripts at the same time. All together, they sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide. But there will be no more Lisbeth Salander stories, at least not from the same author.

The original title of the book is “Men who Hate Women.” I actually think that’s a better title. I avoided the book for its feminist reputation. I was quite wrong, at least for this one. It depicted many men that hated women, but did not preach or lecture on feminist ideologies at all.

As a computer guy, I was quite amused by the technologies and the clear preference for Apple laptops. Top hackers, such as Salander, should be using a Linux box. Her magical hacking skills became too convenient a solution. Her shrewd manipulation of corporate financing and money laundering was too. For a anti-social, under-educated (albeit talented), lone hacker. That’s not quite believable. But I am being nerdy here.

It seems like a lovely city, but more suitable for living than touring. Everywhere are interesting activities, but there are not many glorious attractions on the scale of Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. So it is a charming city to spend time with family venturing around. Perfect.

The famed superb Chinese foods was disappointing. Probably the ones in Richmond are better than those downtown ones we tried. Anyway, lives are too short to experiment average Chinese restaurants, and Vancouver’s culinary scene has a lot more to offer. A Salt Tasting Room, for example, in an intimidating place called Blood Alley, is definitely worth the venture.

Stanley Park requires good weather to enjoy. The Totem Poles area is probably the best vantage point to watch Vancouver across the water. Bring a car. It is way too big to for tourists.

Gastown reminded me of Pioneer Square, back in Seattle. Old buildings, small shops, walk-abouts, curious artifacts that build a unique character. The most famous one is the steam clock: one of the few that is powered by steam. The on-the-clock tune was the exact one that my high-school used to signal recesses. Wow, I was humming it all the way to the annoyance of the family members.

Capilano Suspension Bridge is a made-for-tourists attraction. It is pricy but still worth a couple of hours of exploration, particularly with kids with lots of energy and curiosity. An extra bonus was a bald eagle perching on a tree top, definitely earned many hundred shutter clicks.

On our adventure to Richmond, we raced to Garry Point Kite Field. The temperature plummeted quickly when we hunched against the chill sea wind watching the haunting sunset. It reminded me my college town that were on the delta of the river going into the ocean. Sunset watching was our favorite pass time. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at Granville Island, which is really not an island at all, and tried out Twisted Fork. It was a cozy and lovely French restaurant with an excellent bar tender.

Back home, I appreciated that Seattle being about 4 to 5 degrees warmer. Very nice. A friend insisted that Whistler is a destination, summer or winter. I am putting it down as a good summer weekend get-away destination.

I wondered if I actually like to travel. If not, why do I travel so much? This year I left home probably once a month and sometime twice. Oversea trips were mostly to Asia, but once to Greece. Pretty much all of them were business trips. We are, however, getting better at combining business with pleasure: rendezvous and steal a day or two for tourist activities in the city that I went to for business.

Kid engaged and set the wedding date for next May. We knew this wa coming and gave them all our blessings. At the same time, the sadness of the inability to hold onto them slipped in. They are all growing up and we are both growing old. Soon, there will be this old couple on their recliners staring at the TV all by themselves. I thought of my parents more and more as I tried to see myself from kids’ eyes. I remembered how I felt when I was their ages. This is very strange: to remember through kids’ eyes as parents.

The other Kid graduated and entered grad school. Life is now building the launch pad. Decision time is sooner. But there is still precious time to goof off once in a while: it is hard to wean away from the nice college care-free lives.

Nephew got married. We all have been holding our breath for this moment and so glad that they finally overcame all barriers. Another niece is now a Mom! Man, I am now a grand-uncle. Another, slightly more distant, niece moved to the US and recently got pregnant with her second kid. This trend of grand-uncling is not slowing down, I can see. Soon, I will acquire the title of 小明叔公 (long story, inside joke, another blog).

The job is its usual high-stress, high-demand, high-tech drill. No job is perfect. This one is on the better side, on the scale of my long list of employments. I really enjoyed the direct, non-bullshit small company culture. We operate at a much faster pace. Yes, the competition is fierce and we will die easier and quicker if we screw up. Guess what, so it is for the biggest companies in the world too. This is the era where size does not really have real advantages, at least not for the industry that I am part of.

I still feel like a visitor to this city of Seattle. I am not sure if the feeling of “temporarily” will ever be gone. We moved into our own condo in the summer and let the city grow on us. After all, this is where Kid will get married, I am sure that we will remember that day for a very long time.

Theo (the name refers to the cacao tree) is a small chocolate factory in the Fremont neighborhood. The tour was educational and entertaining. The cocoa beans first go through a fermentation process, in their own pulp, after harvest. This critical process changes the color of the beans and makes them more chocolate in flavor. When sacks of beans arrive at the factory, they go through a pretty standard cleaning, sorting, and roasting process. Then the beans are smashed open to separate the husks and nibs (the inside of the cacao beans). Finally, there is the process of grinding down the nibs and mixing them with sugar and other ingredients to make chocolate.

The best part of the tour is after the ending. The retail store allows sampling and we duly tasted pretty much every flavor. I concluded that Orange Dark Chocolate is my favorite. With many repetitions and serious experiment, I also concluded that 80% chocolate is probably my upper limit and 70% is my most comfortable range. Milk chocolate (typically 25%) masks too much chocolate flavor and becomes plain candy.

Of course Theo makes ganache and of course we also sampled them (duh). I couldn’t resist the Single Malt Scotch Ganache and bought the box of with four different scotches. Theo also makes very unusual flavors like spicy chile (that I don’t like). There is Chipotle Spice sipping chocolate that needs to be mixed with warm milk that I do like. The flavor is quite “adult” in the sense of having a bit of spicy heat and a strong spice aroma. The drink, that Kids made according to the recipe, was thick, strongly chocolate, and flavorful.

Of course I ignored the calories count. Silly.

• It can’t lend or transfer books to others easily. Physical books are so easy to pass around. Other ebooks are copied as files. But Amazon makes it hard.
• No Chinese books. I would read a lot more Chinese books if they were easier to get. For now, my only way is to buy and ship them from Beijing or Taipei. Really, Amazon? There are billions of us who read.
• Can’t borrow or check-out books from the library. Honestly, the greatest thing to all readers is the library. But Amazon seemed lukewarm on supporting libraries.

For all these flaws, I loyally pack my Kindle around the world with me. I love cuddling up in bed with my Kindle in one hand. It is light, it turns easily, it remembers where I was, it looks up words for me instantaneously. So I tolerate and accept the flaws, like those regrets we reluctantly bury when we accept the facts of life.

Then Kid showed me Seattle Public Library’s Kindle collection! Really? I searched some books on my list, and wow. One of them was available. I clicked several buttons and ended up on Amazon.com that, as the last step, delivered the book to my Kindle. Magic! So delighted.

Supposedly, I have the book for 21 days. Unlike real library books, I don’t seem to have a way to return the book before the due date. I also don’t know if I can “renew” the book. Most of the Kindle books are already checked out and I need to wait for the them to be returned by others.

This is still a good step forward. Good job, Seattle Public Library and Amazon!

This is the “Immigrant Investor Visa” called EB5 that grants anyone who would create 10 new jobs in the US, with about $500,000 of investment, permanent residency. According to The Economist and Seattle Business Magazine:

95 would-be immigrants, mostly Chinese, have invested nearly $48 million in a company set up to buy bonds funding the replacement for the aging State Route 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington. If the deal receives final approval, the 95 would be eligible to apply for green cards to live and work in America. The innovative deal is believed to be one of the first times the federal government’s Immigrant Investor Program, also known as EB-5, has been used to fund a public infrastructure project using municipal bonds anywhere in the United States.

I have long lamented the idiocy of US immigration policies. They are based on an ideal of fairness and justice, instead of pragmatic thinking about what’s good for the country. There are over 10 million illegal immigrants in the country, the majority of them are from Mexico and in the low-wage service industry. Yet USCIS refuses to grant even visiting visas to senior executives, engineers, or wealthy tourists.

I once attended a conference in Europe where over half of the attendants were from Silicon Valley. I asked the organizer why she didn’t just hold the conference in San Francisco. The answer was startling: “There is no way to guarantee that critical attendants can get visas into the US.” It turned out that the US requires an in-person interview to obtain a visa and the queue can be several hours long. The official reason for such policy? Part Homeland Security and part concern that they might “jump ship” and stay in the US. Those senior executives, among the elite of their society, just wouldn’t bother. They would take their money where they are welcome, instead of being suspected as a criminal.

Honestly, which country you have visited required you to interview in person to get a visa?

Other countries, most noticeably Canada, take a very simple approach: they welcome those who can make Canada better. Anyone can get a Canadian green card by buying a house that is more than $500,000. Many believe that was a key driver to Vancouver’s and Toronto’s real estate market.

Wall Street Journal estimated that a $500,000 income would put one nearly at the top 1% of the US population. Washington state now has 95 new residents who are at the top of the US income scale. Keep them coming. Each and every one of them will spend money, lots of it, in the state. And we like that. Right?